USA > Maine > Biographical encyclopedia of Maine of the nineteenth century > Part 32
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For several years he was Solicitor of the city of Portland, and served for six years as a member of the Superintending School Committee, when it consisted of twenty-one members. As a lawyer, Mr. Drummond ranks with those of the first class in the State of Maine. In almost forty volumes of the Maine Reports are found cases that were argued by him, many involving questions of importance, and quite a number of them constitutional questions of very grave character. In 1859 he gained considerable reputation by the argument of a case (State v. Noyes, 46 Maine Reports, 349) in which he successfully maintained the unconstitutionality of a statute relating to the management of certain railroads. One of the questions was concerning the extent to which the State might exercise police power. He successfully sustained the proposition that the convenience of the public can be promoted by the State only in the exercise of the "right of eminent domain," which involves com- pensation to those injured by its exercise.
Mr. Drummond has been counsel for several railroad corporations during the whole of his professional life, and much of his practice has been in railroad cases. From his intimate acquaintance with the railroads of Maine, and his large experience in connection with them, he has deservedly attained high renown as a railroad lawyer. When the Eastern Railroad Company secured the exclusive control of the Portland, Saco and Piscataquis Railroad from South Berwick Junction to Portland, and undertook to run certain of its
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trains past that junction without stopping to receive passengers from the Boston and Maine Railroad, he procured an injunction, which secured to the latter company connec- tion for all its trains. This injunction was continued in force, although strenuous efforts were made to dissolve it, until the Boston and Maine Company had completed their own line into Portland.
He has had a large practice as counsel before committees of the Legislature, and among the many important causes for which he has appeared in this capacity was the Rail- road Tax Act of 1881. By his argument before the special committee, which was made up of two standing committees, he succeeded in convincing those who were originally opposed to his views, and secured a unanimous report in favor of the bill presented by him, which was passed by both branches of the Legislature, without amendment, and by over- whelming majorities. In fact, the only opposition to it was on account of certain amend- ments which had been proposed and rejected. Former laws had based taxation upon an attempted valuation of the franchises and property of railroad corporations : the Act of 1881 provided for an excise tax based upon the gross earnings. Since 1876 Mr. Drum- mond has been the General Counsel of a large Life Insurance Company, of which he is also one of the directors. He has devoted much time and labor to securing important legislation, and to perfecting the forms of the insurance contract, in order that the rights of the policy-holder, as between himself and his associates, might be justly fixed and preserved.
While extensively known as an eminent railroad lawyer, Mr. Drummond is still more widely celebrated from his intimate association with Freemasonry. The great extent of this ancient and honorable institution, and the numerous Bodies, under the authority of many Governing Bodies, have created a jurisprudence that is peculiarly its own. He early turned his attention to this subject of study, and thus acquired a reputation throughout the American continent, and not through it only, but wherever Freemasonry exists : that is to say, throughout the world. He is frequently consulted on questions of Masonic law and polity-from foreign countries as well as from all parts of the United States. He was made a Mason in Waterville Lodge, January 1, 1849, and still remains a member of it. In addi- tion to very many other offices, he has held that of Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Maine for three years-from 1860 to 1863 ; and has been for two years at the head of the Grand Chapter and Grand Commandery of Maine, and one year at the head of the Grand Council of Maine. In 1871 he was elected from the floor to the head of the General Grand Chapter of the United States, and in 1880 as Grand Master of the General Grand Council of the United States, holding each office three years. He is Deputy Grand Mas- ter of the Grand Lodge of the Royal Order of Scotland in the United States.
Mr. Drummond received the degrees of the Scottish Rite in 1861 and 1862. In the latter year the thirty-third degree was conferred upon him, whereby he became an honorary
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member of the Supreme Council of the Northern Jurisdiction of the United States. He was immediately elected Lieutenant Grand Commander, was re-elected in 1863, and again in 1866. In 1867, upon the union of the Supreme Councils previously existing, he was elected Grand Commander of the United Supreme Council, and was re-elected in 1870, 1873, and 1876, but declined further service in 1879. This office involved a large amount of correspondence with all parts of the world. But while these official labors have been extensive and important, he has rendered still greater services as a member of the com- mittees in the various Grand Bodies. As Chairman of the Committee on Masonic Juris- prudence in the various Grand Bodies of Maine, and as a member of the same Committee in the National Bodies, he has done much to shape the polity of the order in the State and nation. In his own Grand Lodge he has performed, since 1865, the duty of reviewing the proceedings of the other Grand Lodges-over fifty in number. His report thereon has often made more than one hundred and fifty printed pages. He has also performed sim- ilar labor for the Grand Chapter, Grand Council, and Grand Commandery. In these reports, questions of Masonic law, usage, polity, and duty are discussed. The reputation thus gained by Mr. Drummond in these discussions has caused his elevation to the highly honorable positions he has held, and still holds. The reviewers in the other Grand Lodges concede to him the first position as to the ability of his reports and the influence of his opinions. This is a tribute of high character, as the Grand Bodies are accustomed to assign this duty to their ablest members.
Josiah Hayden Drummond was married on the Ioth of December, 1850, to Elzada Rollins (born March 2, 1829), daughter of Benjamin Wadleigh Bean. This union was blessed with four children : 1. Myra Lucetta, born August 31, 1851 ; 2. Josiah Hayden, born March 5, 1856 ; 3. Tinnie Aubigne, born April 17, 1863 ; 4. Margelia Bean, born June 11, 1866. Josiah H. Drummond, Jr., graduated from Colby University in 1877, studied law under his father's tuition, was admitted to the bar in Cumberland County in the autumn of 1879, and is now (1881) his father's partner in business.
B ARKER, LEWIS, of Bangor, Maine. Born in Exeter, Maine, February 18, 1818. The Barkers are descended from an old English family, whose geneal- ogy has been traced backward to the twelfth century. When its first repre- sentatives reached America is not definitely known. Two hundred years ago they were the owners and occupants of farms at Exeter, New Hampshire. From thence Nathaniel Barker migrated to the township in Maine to which he was instru- mental in giving the name of his native town. His wife, née Sarah Pease of Parsonsfield,
Metropolitan Purinatung & Engraving Co. Boston
Lewis Bankers
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belonged to a family that is numbered with the earliest settlers of that part of the State. Lewis Barker is their fourth son and seventh child. His father was killed at Bangor in 1823. His mother died in the old home at Exeter, where she passed the whole of her married and widowed life, on January 6, 1880, at the age of ninety-one.
Among the brothers of Mr. Barker was David, an attorney at Exeter, and one of those natural, touching poets whose writings are eagerly read by the commonalty. William Cullen Bryant styled him "the Burns of America." Lewis Barker himself received his primary- school education in the district institutions of his neighborhood. This was supplemented by a comparatively brief course in the Foxcroft Academy, under the respective tuition of Messrs. Stevens and Ropes. Poverty was one of his sternest and best teachers. When only fourteen years of age he self-reliantly depended upon his own exertions. Boarding at a distance of two miles from the seminary, he walked to and fro every day, and maintained himself by his own labor. Such an experience makes, where it does not mar, the boy. At the age of sixteen he became a school-teacher, and for the next seven years taught in Exe- ter and other towns. Learning while teaching, he also enjoyed a wide range of reading, and prepared himself for higher duties.
Mr. Barker began the study of law about the year 1838 with A. G. Jewett, then resi- dent in Bangor, and formerly U. S. Minister to Peru ; and completed it with Kent & Cutting. Kent was then Governor of Maine. Both himself and partner subsequently occupied seats on the bench at the same time as Justices of the Supreme Judicial Court. Admitted to the bar in 1841, Mr. Barker commenced business at Stetson, and practised there for thirty years. He then removed to Bangor, and took his place in the front ranks of the county legal fraternity. In 1875 he associated Lewis A. Barker, his only son, in partnership with himself ; and in 1876 further admitted Thomas W. Vose. The style and title of the firm is Barker, Vose & Barker.
For many years Mr. Barker refrained from any prominent part in politics. He had been a steadfast adherent of Democratic principles and polity up to the outburst of Rebel- lion in 1861. That event, and the local circumstances attendant upon it, transformed him into an ardent and effective Republican, influential in the politics of both county and State. The crisis of popular self-government, and the imminent danger of the free institutions he loved so well, awoke a marvellous but hitherto unknown power of eloquence, which was displayed at Union and Republican meetings in many different States. He threw himself into the cause of the nation with the utmost energy and abandon, and won enduring fame by the brilliancy and force of his popular oratory. In the Presidential campaign of 1864, and in all that have followed it, he has stumped the State of New York with extraordinary effectiveness. He has also done admirable service to his party in New England, Pennsyl- vania, Ohio, and other portions of the country. The fame of his eloquence has been her- alded by countless newspapers and contemporaries.
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Abilities so conspicuous were soon in request for legislative and administrative posi- tions. In 1864 he was returned by the constituency of the Stetson, Plymouth, and New- port Representative District to the Lower House of the State Legislature ; to the Senate in 1865-66, and to the House again in 1867. By the latter body he was elevated to the Speakership. In 1870 he served another and last term in the House. In committee he served on the Judiciary, and was chairman when a member of the Senate. He also served in the Committee on Elections and in other important committees. In 1880 he was selected by the Legislature to occupy a place in the Governor's Council, and in this relation proved to be an invaluable adviser to Governor Davis. This gentleman had been placed in the Chief Magistracy of the State, after a contest which for a while had apparently threatened the effusion of blood. Governor Davis had been one of Mr. Barker's law-students at Stetson, and found in his old preceptor the wisdom of a Mentor and the faithfulness of a life-long friend. Mr. Barker, as chairman of the Republican Advisory Committee, was remarkably effective in achieving the eventual victory of law, order, and right. He is still a member of the Executive Council.
In National politics Mr. Barker is a factor of weight and power. He was a delegate to the National Republican Convention of 1868 which put General Grant before the public as its candidate for the Presidency. He was also a member of the committee charged with the duty of informing that gentleman of his nomination. For the next quad- rennium he was a member of the National Republican Committee of Maine. In 1880 he was once more a delegate to the National Republican Convention at Chicago, which nomi- nated the lamented James A. Garfield for the Chief Magistracy of the American people. He was also a member of the Committee on Resolutions which drafted the Republican platform for the prosecution of the following canvass.
Mr. Barker was married on the 2d of August, 1846, to Elizabeth, third daughter of Colonel Francis Hill of Exeter. Two children were the fruit of their union. Of these, the eldest, named Evvie, was born May 11, 1848, and died November 3, 1872. She was a young lady of high literary reputation and of splendid promise. The younger and surviv- ing child is Lewis A. Barker, born August 12, 1854. After a course of instruction at Union College, and of subsequent study in the Albany Law School, he entered into partnership with his revered father. He was married, October 14, 1875, to Margaret, daughter of the late Moses L. Appleton, lawyer, of Bangor, and is the father of Lewis, third living scion of the Barker stock bearing that distinction.
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S HEPARD, GEORGE, D.D., of Bangor, Professor of Sacred Rhetoric in the Bangor Theological Seminary. Born August 26, 1801, at Plainfield, Connecticut. His mother was a thoughtful, sensitive, and deeply pious woman, who imparted the best traits of her character to her susceptible son. His father, John Shepard, was the proprietor of a small farm, on which in agricultural labors the son spent most of the years of his minority. Attending the district school in the winter months, he exhibited great natural love for study, and gave promise of future eminence. Apt and proficient in every branch of knowledge taught there, he dis- tanced all competitors in the pursuit of arithmetic, and did it with such unassuming modesty as to disarm all jealousy and envy. Dr. Benedict, the minister, was accustomed to visit the school on Saturday afternoons, and to examine the pupils in the Church cate- chism. This laudable practice awoke a love for theological studies in the heart of the young schoolboy, and gave that tone and direction to his life that eventually determined its character. When about sixteen years of age, he entered the Plainfield Academy, with the intention of becoming a teacher. Leisure hours were employed in useful reading. The old English authors, of whose compositions there was a good supply in the neighbor- hood, and to which he had access, particularly interested him.
In 1819 Mr. Shepard, whose life up to that time had been a comparatively pure and exemplary one, was brought into the consciousness of salvation by faith through the minis- try of the Rev. Orin Fowler. Conviction of duty to consecrate his life to the ministry of the Gospel seized him, and was promptly obeyed. The avowed purpose to do so met with the stern opposition of his father, who had no sympathy with his religious opinions and experiences ; but his godly, gentle mother strengthened him in the resolve, and did all she could to assist in its execution. To qualify himself thoroughly for this high and honorable vocation, he devoted all his energies to a course of classical study. A definite object was in view, and no auxiliary means were spared to attain it. Eighteen hours per diem were not unfrequently devoted to his books. The marvel is that such intense appli- cation to study did not disable him for its subsequent pursuit. In 1821 he matriculated at Amherst College, and entered the Sophomore Class. His father's hostility to his plans seems to have abated by that time. After completing his studies at Amherst, he went to the Andover Theological Seminary, from which he graduated in 1827. There also the same zeal and success that had distinguished former labors were manifest. Professor Moses Stuart urged him to continue at the Seminary, in the capacity of Assistant Instructor in Hebrew; but to these solicitations he declined to listen. Work in the moral vineyard was what he desired. This was soon offered by a call from the First Congregational Church of Hallowell, Maine. The call was accepted, and Mr. Shepard was ordained on the 5th of
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February, 1828. The field was adapted to the exercise of all his powers. A large portion of the citizens were intelligent and cultivated. His reputation as a preacher of uncommon ability spread abroad. His simplicity, earnestness, devotion to pastoral duty, and stirring eloquence clothed his ministry with genuine popularity, and gave him influence with his congregation and the community that was seldom surpassed in those days of clerical power and efficiency. The affinities between himself and them were of peculiarly evangelical character, and werc possessed of extraordinary strength.
Eight years were happily spent in pastoral toil. Then an opportunity of multiplying himself, in a certain sense, indefinitely was afforded. The Trustees of the Bangor Theo- logical Seminary proffered him the Chair of Sacred Rhetoric. It was their intention to develop the highest possibilities of usefulness in that institution, and to do so it was neces- sary to secure the most eligible clergymen for the incumbency of professorships. Mr. Shepard maturely considered the invitation. It was one fraught with important conse- quences, and not to be lightly accepted or rejected. Thoroughly beloved by the congrega- tion to whom his ministry had been prolific of blessings, and deeply loving his congrega- tion, he yet concluded that the call was providential, that the teaching required of him was to be his life-work, and decided that he would not desist from it at the call of any church, unless that call should be accompanied by unmistakable indications of the Divine Master's will.
Removing to Bangor, Mr. Shepard consecrated the best years of his life to the service of the Theological Seminary. He identified himself with its interests, augmented its beneficence, obtained pecuniary aid for it, and efficiently aided in establishing it upon the firm and solid basis it has since occupied. He was more than a mere Professor. He com- bined practice with theory, illustration with precept. He was the means of erecting the Central Church in the city of Bangor. For several years he discharged the duties of preacher and pastor to its people. When instruction in his special department had been temporarily suspended, he lectured in other Theological Seminaries, and thus discharged his own peculiar duty. Professorships in other Seminaries were offered to him at different times. Amherst College twice requested his services in its presidency. He received a call to the Church of the Pilgrims in Brooklyn, New York, and also to the Mercer Strect Church in New York City. The emoluments connected with either of these pastorates would have been peculiarly acceptable to him under the circumstances. But he regarded as sacred the pledge he had given to his former parishioners at Hallowell, and conscien- tiously redeemed it. All invitations to the pulpits of churches and the chairs of other semi- naries were kindly refused, on the ground that his work at Bangor was not done. He continued to labor with unremitting assiduity, for thirty two years, up to the morning of March 23, 1868. Then came release from toil, and the welcome summons, "Enter into My joy, and sit down on My throne." The degree of D.D. was conferred upon Mr. Shepard by Bowdoin College.
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Dr. Shepard was a pulpit orator of pre-eminent power. The secret of that singular power was his great and abiding faith. This conquering grace overcame his natural timidity, and never failed him in the hour of need. His style was his own. No inter- preter was required to explain his meaning. In preparing his sermons he held his hearers in imagination before him. His sentences were evidently framed for vocal and not for written thought ; and that thought was such as could be comprehended by his audience, and borne away with them for future use. Mere critics, quick and keen to find fault, were so impressed by the solid and massive truths that fell from his lips, that they were con- vinced of his sincerity at least. Neither argumentative nor speculative, nor wont to deal with the nice distinctions of theological science, he appealed directly to the consciences of men. His imaginative faculty was usually repressed for fear that its creations might crowd out or obscure more important matters. Yet he could at pleasure paint a word-picture with a few bold strokes. The power of his unique eloquence was increased by the physical advantages of a large and admirably proportioned frame, a countenance strikingly indicative of power and gentleness, and features over which his emotions swept with the rapidity of shadows over a summer landscape, as his richly endowed and beautifully modulated voice ranged over the entire scale of enunciation, from the most soothing tones of consolation to the deep thunders of utterance on the terrors of a judgment to come.
Dr. Shepard's fame is that of a preacher rather than that of an author. Yet he wielded a trained and trenchant pen. His occasional contributions to the religious press were usually anonymous, but those who were familiar with his style readily perceived whose hand had penned the lines. He never strove after singularity of style. His theory of composi- tion, if he had any, was not based upon any system of rhetorical rules. The force of his own emotions found vent in concise, powerful, and telling language that was pregnant with thought, bristling with points, and that compelled belief in the author's sincerity. Professor Talcott, one of his colleagues in the Bangor Theological Seminary, compared him to St. Paul. "There is," said he, "something in his writings which very forcibly recalls to us the manner in which the impetuous earnestness of the apostle overrides all rules of speech. There is the like disproportion between thought and language; the thought straining the language till it cracks in the process-a shipwreck of grammar and logic as the sentences are whirled through the author's mind." " The very structure of the sentences suggests to the imagination the action of a massive engine driven by a gigantic power communicated from within by a succession of brief but constantly repeated impulses, any one of which, if protracted but a very little, would shatter and destroy the engine. At the same time, too, the measured regularity of the impulses gives us the impression of a constant and mighty self-control continually put forth to keep inside the limits of exertion, within which alone it is possible to continue to exist and act."
Had Dr. Shepard never felt the conviction of duty to dedicate life to the work of the
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Christian ministry, he would undoubtedly have been a citizen of no common stamp. With his tenderness of heart, clearness of mental vision, and sublime conscientiousness, he would have been a kind neighbor, a wise counsellor, an excellent citizen, and a man whose stand on the side of right was invariably positive and pronounced. Constitutional timidity has never been a bar to moral heroism, nor would it have been such in his case. Though shrinking from publicity, he would, when need was, have boldly stepped out into its fiercest glare as tlie valorous defendant of the oppressed-as the indignant Elijah who hesitates not to rebuke the Ahabs with weighty and withering scorn, and yet with pitying love. He would never have suppressed his intelligence nor smothered his convictions in cases where truth and righteousness were involved. Had he lived in the days of Nero, " the man of sin," he might now have been one of the canonized saints of the Roman Catholic calendar. Neither in Marian nor Episcopalian persecutions would he have blanched before their fury. He was an outspoken Abolitionist when a decayed Christianity and an enfeebled public moral sentiment cast disgrace upon the name. He was a vig- orous and uncompromising advocate of temperance when its promoters were few, feeble, and scattered. The real might is with the right. As the righteous God lives and reigns, so the right must ultimately prevail. This was his Credo, and it is historically and theolo- gically sound. Neighbors might differ from his religious tenets, but none could refuse to acknowledge the purity and beauty of his life. That he was faultless, none would have more emphatically denied than himself ; but when his character was held up in the glorious light of the Sun of righteousness, it was a difficult task to point out the exact locality or nature of his defects. Humility was one of his loveliest traits. Its essence permeated his inmost life. It was a precious possession-and in part a possible bequest from his excellent mother. A tender and affectionate husband, an indulgent and yet judicious father, he was the light and law, the joy and pride, of the domestic circle.
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