USA > Maine > Biographical encyclopedia of Maine of the nineteenth century > Part 48
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Judge Webb was married on the 17th of June, 1867, to Jane M., daughter of Ellis D. Usher of Hollis, Maine. Two daughters are the issue of their union.
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M
cCRILLIS, WILLIAM H., of Bangor. Born in Georgetown, Mainc, November 4, 1813. . His patronymic indicates a Gaelic ancestry. Dr. John McCrillis, his father, was a reputable and useful physician.
Mr. McCrillis received an ordinarily good education, chose the profes- sion of law for the future exercise of his talents, studied its principles and applications under the tuition of Allen & Appleton in Bangor, was admitted to the bar in Kennebec County, and began legal practice at Bangor in 1834. His natural powers of forensic oratory, acute intellect, and indomitable resolution speedily raised him to con- spicuity among his brethren of the long robe. His practice grew rapidly, waxed more and more lucrative, and numbered him with the leading lawyers of his county and State.
In 1838 Mr. McCrillis was appointed county attorney by Governor Kent, and re- tained that post so long as the Whigs were in the ascendancy. In 1839 he performed brief but efficient military service as the adjutant of General Isaac Hodsdon in the " Aroostook War." That excellent leader had great confidence in his active subordinatc, although he did not altogether coincide with him in political opinion. In the previous year, 1838, Mr. McCrillis had acceptably served as a Representative of Bangor in the lower House of the Maine Legislature. General Hodsdon was a Democrat. But, notwithstanding thesc differences, they seem to have agreed in opinion upon the merits of the Aroostook expedi- tion of 1839. In the early winter of that year, it was popularly believed that subjects of Great Britain were cutting and removing timber from the lands claimed by the State of Maine in Aroostook County, and that the trespassers were upheld by a British military force. Governor Fairfield therefore ordered General Hodsdon to take a thousand troops of his division, and march to Aroostook for the purpose of checking and, if need be, re- sisting the depredators. Hodson promptly obeycd. The order was dated February 16, 1839. Four days subsequently the whole force was on the way. Soldierly alacrity was obvious, and gave promise of vigorous action at the scene of presumptive hostilities. But when General Hodsdon arrived at Fort Fairfield he learned that there was no British force in that section. His next duty, under the circumstances, was, in his judgment, "so to regulate and govern the troops while they were in this more than useless expedition as would best secure their health, comfort, and character, and return them to private life with no disgrace upon themselves or the State." No further service being required, they were ordered by the Governor to return homc, and were discharged on the 25th of April follow- ing.
This military episode was not a serious interruption to the successful legal practice of Mr. McCrillis. In 1858, 1859, and 1860 he again served as the Representative of Bangor in the lower House of the Legislature. With the close of the last term came the close of
Noah Words
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his public political life. Not so with professional life. In this he has since been and still is a practitioner of eminent wisdom, eloquence, and effectiveness, whose services are in request for the most weighty and momentous causes.
Mr. McCrillis is now in the prime of life, when his faculties as an orator and legal adviser are at their best. His time is actively employed in managing his large real-estate interests in wild lands; but he is never so busy that he cannot give a spare hour to the young men of the bar, in wholesome advice and encouragement. He enjoys in a peculiar degree the regard and affection of young men.
W OODS, NOAH, of Bangor, Maine. Born in Groton, Massachusetts, Septem- ber 26, 1811. His mother died in 1816, leaving seven children. Two of these were younger than Noah. In 1817 he was taken to reside with his uncle, William Fitch, Esq., of Baldwin, Maine, who was a farmer and also a lumberman. In both these departments of industrial activity the boy at an early age was occupied, and in the details thereof soon became proficient. His uncle's mills were situated upon a tributary of Sebago Lake known as the Northwest River. The lumber manufactured there was-much of it-hauled to Sebago Lake and then rafted across the lake to Standish, whence it was drawn by ox-teams to Portland. The various operations at- tendant upon this transit became familiar to him ; and later on, when the Cumberland and Oxford Canal was opened, and the canal-boat displaced the raft on the lake, from a raftsman he became a boatman, made several trips in his uncle's boat, and afterward for several sea- sons continued in the business in the employ of Major Thomas Perley of South Bridgeton. In the fall of 1832 he entered himself as a student in the North Bridgeton Academy, was enabled to take a good stand there, was studious and industrious, and continued his con- nection with the institution at intervals until 1836; going out to teach district-schools from time to time, as opportunities offered, to replenish his treasury. He taught several terms in the district at Sebago where he had at one time lived and been a schoolboy. He was employed two terms as assistant teacher in Bethel Academy ; and during his career as teacher-in which he was always successful-taught in various other places.
In the spring of 1838 he entered the office of Charles Washburn, Esq., of Harrison, Maine, as a law-student; remained there until autumn ; taught the district school in North Bridgeton in the winter following ; and late in April, 1839, resumed legal studies at Nor- ridgewock, Maine, in the office of Hon. John S. Tenney, and remained there until his preparation for the practice of his chosen profession was completed. Admitted to the bar of Somerset County in the spring of 1841, he at once commenced practice in Gardiner,
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Maine. In the same year he accepted the position of managing agent for the proprietors of a timber township in the eastern part of the State, and also entered into partnership relations in his law business with Charles Danforth, Esq., now Justice of the Supreme Ju- dicial Court of Maine. The partnership continued until 1854, when the pressure of non- professional affairs made it necessary for Mr. Woods to withdraw from it.
The official public life of Mr. Woods began soon after his settlement at Gardiner, as a member of the superintending school committee, which office he held by successive elec- tions from 1845 to 1863. In 1846 and 1847 he represented the town of Gardiner in the lower House of the State Legislature. In 1850 Gardiner received a city charter, and in the same year he was made a member of the Common Council, President of the Board, and also City Solicitor. The latter office he held in 1852 and 1853, and also that of chair- man of the Board of Assessors, and of the Board of Overseers of the Poor. From 1854 to 1858, inclusive, he was annually elected to the Mayoralty, and served in the same position in 1861 and 1862.
During the sessions of the State Senate in 1862 and 1863 he served in that body with efficiency and success.
Although a lawyer by profession and a legislator of ability and experience, Mr. Woods is still more extensively and favorably known as a business man. For nine years-from 1854 to 1863-he was Presidentof the Oakland Bank; for some years he was Secretary and Treasurer of the Great Falls Paper Mill Company. In 1863 he removed from Gardiner to Bangor, and in 1864 received an appointment from Comptroller of the Currency Hon. Hugh McCulloch as a National-bank examiner for the States of Maine and New Hamp- shire. In 1866 an examiner for New Hampshire was appointed, but Mr. Woods retained the office in his own State, and performed the duties acceptably until 1869, when the burden of other responsibilities obliged him to resign it.
In 1865 he was appointed one of the Board of Trustees of the State Reform School, and remained such for eight years, during which he was also President of the Board. In 1864 he was chosen clerk and treasurer of the European and North American Railway Com- pany, and assumed the functions of these offices in July of that year. In April, 1868, the office of director was added to the other two ; and all were satisfactorily filled until December, 1872, when the said railway company of Maine was consolidated with the European and North American Railway Company of the Province of New Brunswick. Under the new organization Mr. Woods was elected a director, and also clerk and treasurer. These several posts he continued to fill until the failure of the Consolidated Railway Company, and the transfer of the railroad and its property to E. B. Smith, as the trustee of the consolidated boldholders. To Mr. Smith he subsequently held the relationship of cashier, and on the displacement of that gentleman twelve months afterward by the trustees of the land-grant bondholders, became cashier under the new administration, and retained the position until
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the foreclosure of the land-grant mortgage was perfected and a new corporation was formed, as by law provided. On the 13th of October, 1880, upon the organization of the new company, he was chosen a director, and subsequently was elected president and treasurer, which positions he still holds.
Mr. Woods was married in February, 1844, to Sarah W. Ballard of Gardiner. Mrs. Woods died in 1845. In October, 1846, he married Harriette E. Blish of Hallowell, Maine. In February, 1861, she died ; and in December, 1862, he was married to Frances A. Blake, widow of the late William A. Blake of Bangor.
ODFREY, JOHN E., son of John and Sophia (Dutton) Godfrey. His father was the son of John Godfrey of Taunton, Massachusetts, and was the fifth in descent from Richard Godfrey, who came to Taunton from England in 1652-5. He graduated at Brown University, and established himself as a lawyer in Hampden, Maine, in 1805; removed to Bangor in 1821 ; held important public trusts ; and died in Bangor in 1862, at the age of eighty-one.
The subject of this sketch was born in Hampden, September 6, 1809. His early education was academical. He studied law with his father, and was admitted to the bar in Bangor, in October, 1832. In 1833-4 he practised his profession in Calais. He afterward returned to Bangor, where he has since resided.
In 1842 he became the editor of a political antislavery paper called the Bangor Gazette, and continued in charge of the paper several years.
In 1856 he was elected Judge of Probate for the county of Penobscot. In 1860 he was re-elected; and was afterward re-elected every fourth year until 1880. He held the office six successive terms, his last term expiring January 1, 1881.
He has been a member of both boards of the city government of Bangor several years, and was a member of the School Committee about ten years, sometimes as chair- man.
He delivered the Centennial Address at the celebration in Bangor, September 30, 1869, which was published. He is the author of several historical articles published in the Maine Historical Collections : among them are "The Ancient Penobscot ;" " Bashaba and the Tarratines ;" a Sketch of Baron Castin, and of his son, Castin " the younger :" and " Norumbega." He is also the author of the " Bench and Bar" of Penobscot County ; of the " Annals of Bangor" from 1769 to 1837 inclusive, recently published ; and of the "Press of Penobscot County." .
He has been twice married. His first wife was Elizabeth Angela Stackpole of Port-
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land, Maine, by whom he had two sons: John Franklin Godfrey, who was captain of cavalry under General Butler, and lieutenant-colonel of the Second Maine Cavalry in Louisiana, in 1862-3, and has now a successful practice as a lawyer in Los Angeles, Cali- fornia, of which city he was attorney for several years; George Frederick, the second son, is a resident of Bangor, and is president of the Bangor and Moosehead Telegraph Co.
His present wife is Laura, daughter of the late M. Schwartz, Esq., of Bangor, and by her he has a daughter, Ethel. He is still in the practice of his profession.
EWALL, WILLIAM B., of Kennebunk, Maine. Born in York, Maine, December 18, 1782. Henry Sewall, his first American ancestor, emigrated from Coventry, England, in 1634, and settled in Newbury, Massachusetts. . From him, through his second son, John, William B. Sewall was descended. His mother, née Dorcas Bartlett, was the daughter of John H. Bartlett of Kittery. No name is more familiar to the records of bar and court in Maine and Massa- chusetts than that of Sewall. Hereditarily, the bearers of it are natural lawyers. Between the years 1692 and 1819 one member or other of the family occupied a seat on the bench of the highest judicial courts for a century. During twenty-five of these years the incum- bent was a Chief Justice. Samuel, Stephen, David, and Samuel-all descendants of the original immigrant-held this high and honorable distinction. Jonathan Sewall, the pre- Revolutionary Attorney-General, Daniel and Henry Sewall of Maine, were also eminent lawyers. If not at the bar or on the bench, other Sewalls were no less conspicuous in the pulpit, and commanded universal respect for their talents and usefulness. Few patrony- mics are more brilliant or excellent than theirs.
William B. Sewall received early instruction in the local schools, from which he passed to the grammar-school, which was maintained throughout the principal part of the year in the central district of the village of York. Here he began preparation for college by the study of the Latin Accidence, under the tuition of Nymphas Hatch, who graduated from Harvard in 1797. His preliminary studies were completed under the guidance of the Rev. Mr. Briggs, minister of the parish, in 1799. In college he prosecuted the ordinary curriculum with diligence and success. Among his classmates at Harvard were several youths of ability and zeal, who afterward rose to high social distinction. Among them were the well-known Benjamin Ames, Dr. Asa Eaton of the Salem Street Church, Boston ; Professor John Farrar of Harvard College, the Rev. Nathan Parker of Portsmouth, the Rev. Dr. Payson of Portland, James Savage of Boston, and Dr. Samuel Willard of Deer- field, In their society his intellectual faculties were quickened, and his acquisitions of
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such character that he was deemed worthy of and admitted to membership in the Phi Beta Kappa Society.
Graduating from college, Mr. Sewall determined upon the adoption of law as his pro- fession. His father was Register of Probate and clerk of the courts, and also a legal practitioner himself. Isaac Parker of Portland, the eminent jurist, was judiciously selected as his preceptor. When he entered the office of that gentleman, in December,. 1803, he found Samuel D. Freeman, John Wadsworth, and James Savage already in attendance as students. In 1804 Abraham Eustis was added to the number, and not long afterward Lemuel Bryant also. The elevation of Mr. Parker to the Supreme Court of Massachu- setts, in February, 1806, dispersed the neophytes, and obliged them to continue their studies under other auspices. Mr. Sewall spent a short time in the office of Prentiss Mellen, but completed his studies under Edward St. Loe Livermore at Newburyport.
Admitted to the bar of the Common Pleas in Essex County, Mr. Sewall returned to Portland, began practice in that city, and was admitted to the Supreme Court in Cumber- land County. Soon afterward he entered into copartnership with Mr. Mellen, and devoted himself to the business of the office, while that gentleman was engaged in the courts. The junior partner was an excellent office lawyer, possessed a keen analytic mind, enjoyed great familiarity with forms of practice, and particularly with the art of conveyancing. But his unusual diffidence prevented distinction as an advocate. His senior associate was willing to do all the necessary work in court, and Mr. Sewall was perfectly willing that he should do it. This operated to his disadvantage. "Great delicacy and sensitiveness of taste," according to the statement of one who knew him well, also conspired to make him shrink from the contests of the forum. "Nothing commonplace or inferior could ever satisfy the demand of his own criticism." This peculiarity, shared in common with distinguished members of his own family, was the result of an overfulness rather than of a deficiency of knowledge as to all the facts, principles, and relations involved.
Mr. Sewall was a cultivated, ripe, and rare scholar. The study rather than the bar attracted him. Much of his time was devoted to poetry and prose composition. He and his genial, witty associates-Savage, Payson, Lear, Davies, and others-amused Portland by their contributions to its newspapers and periodicals. The articles from their pens, published over the pseudonyms "Pilgrim," " Prowler," "Night Hawk," and "Torpedo," scintillated with genius, shook with merriment, and kept the citizens in good-humor. These lucubrations would have honored the columns of Salmagundi or of Punch.
His fondness for mathematics was remarkable, and was inherited from his father. He beguiled the leisure hours of professional life by preparing a Register for Maine, which he gave to the public several years after the separation of Maine from Massachusetts. Assisted by Judge Browne of Kennebunk, he compiled the Register of Maine for 1820. This embraced a vast amount of information in compact form ; contained a chronological
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account of the various settlements in Maine, notices of the early grants, etc .; the act of separation, the new constitution, and a list of delegates to the convention. The tariff of duties, the army and navy register, were also included. For several years he continucd the publication of the Register. Labor, care, pains, talent, characterized all its pages, and, as might perhaps have been expected, brought in very inadequate pecuniary compensa- tion. The best and most useful toilers do not always reap the richest material rewards. Sewall's works are indispensable to the historian of the State, and amply repay the closest study.
Whatever Mr. Sewall did was done thoroughly and well. No time was frittercd away. For one or two years in the earlier Statehood of the Commonwealth he was Secre- tary of the Senate. In after-times he was often employed by members and committees to draft and prepare bills and other papers for submission to the Legislature. In these his clear, concise style gave accuracy and precision to every document, and added much to the value of current legislation.
Always social, cheerful, and sometimes gay, his conversation charmed by its racy humor, and attracted by its graceful and kindly qualities.
In 1819, after the death of his first wife, Mr. Sewall returned to Kennebunk, and, in company with his father and sisters, rcoccupied the old homestead. There he gave timely assistance to the honored sire in the discharge of his duties as Clerk and Register of Probatc, so long as he held those offices. Returning to Portland in 1823, Mr. Sewall assumed the editorship of the Advertiser, and conducted it for several years. In that time the semi- weekly edition was added to its issues. In 1837 he again took up his abode in Kennebunk, espoused a lady of that town, practised professionally as opportunity afforded, and illus- trated by his life the sterling virtues of gentlencss, purity, and beneficence. Mr. Sewall was not the father of any children.
TETSON, CHARLES, of Bangor. Born at New Ipswich, New Hamp- shire, in November, 1801. Not long after his birth, his father, Simcon Stetson, removed to Hampden. There Charles studied in the academy, was fitted for college, and afterward matriculated at Yale, from which he graduated in 1823. Selecting the profession of law, he commenced thc necessary readings with Enoch Brown of Hampden, and closed them in the office of John Godfrey at Bangor.
Admitted to the bar in Bangor, as an attorney of the Court of Common Pleas, in June, 1826, he became an attorney of the Supreme Judicial Court in 1828, and a coun-
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sellor of the same branch of the judicature in 1830. The rise of Mr. Stetson as a lawyer was rapid and normal. His business in Hampden, where he established himself soon after his admission to the Court of Common Pleas, soon acquired considerable magnitude. Re- moving from thence to Bangor, prosperity continuously waited upon him, and ultimately enabled him to retire from the burdensome activities of life, and to enjoy in elegant leisure the ample competency of which he is possessed.
Bangor was incorporated as a city in 1834. Mr. Stetson was made Judge of the Municipal Court, and discharged the duties of that official until 1837, when he received the appointment of clerk of the courts. He was also a member of the Governor's Council from the Penobscot District in the years 1845, '46, '47. In 1849 and 1850 he represented the Fifth Congressional District of Maine in the Thirty-first Congress of the United States.
Judge Stetson is a worthy embodiment of what is best in the social and political life of his city, county, and State. His duty in any and every position to which he has been called has uniformly been well and worthily done.
B RADLEY, SAMUEL AYER, of Fryeburg, Maine. Born in Concord, New Hampshire, November 22, 1774. He was descended from that branch of the Bradley family which settled at Concord in 1729, when it still bore the Indian name of Penacook. Daniel Bradley, his first American ancestor, emigrated in 1635 from London, England, in the good ship Elizabeth. Settling in Haverhill, Massachusetts, he was there slain by the Indians on the 13th of August, 1689. Daniel Bradley, second, his son, together with Hannah, his wife, and Mary and Hannah, his daughters, were also killed by the ruthless aborigines on the 15th of March, 1697. Bad fortune was closely associated with the Bradley family. Joseph Bradley of Haverhill was surprised by the same foes in his fortified house on the 8th of February, 1704, and his wife captured for the second time, and carried into activity. Abraham, son of Joseph Bradley, was one of the pioneers who removed from the lower towns on the Merrimac to the rich meadow-reaches on the upper portion of that beautiful stream. Many of the best colonists of New England accompanied or followed him. He married Abigail Philbrick, was the father of ten children, and died in 1754. His seventh son, Samuel, suffered the family fate, and was relentlessly murdered by the Indians in 1746. By his wife, Mary Folsom, he left a son named John, who subsequently married Hannah Ayer, by whom he had nine children. The second of these was Samuel Ayer. John Bradley was "one of the most upright, useful, and honored citizens of the town"
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of Concord, the owner of large tracts of land at and near Fryeburg, for the cultivation of which Samuel and two of his brothers removed to that town in or about 1794. Samuel located in Cold River Valley, about fifteen miles north of the village of Fryeburg, built a log-cabin, and spent the summer in preparing for permanent settlement. But the hard- ships of that mode of life, aggravated by the torture of black-flies and mosquitoes, over- ruled his resolution, and decided him to adopt another more congenial to his tastes and aspirations. Returning to Fryeburg in the autumn, he sought instruction from Paul Langdon, a graduate of Harvard, and the first preceptor of the Fryeburg Academy. By him he was fully prepared for college. Entering Dartmouth in 1795, he graduated with his first degree in 1799. Several subsequently distinguished men were among his class- mates.
Commencing the study of law in the office of Samuel Greene of Concord, and con- tinuing it in that of John Heard of Boston, Mr. Bradley was in due time admitted to the bar of Suffolk County. He was an intimate friend of his fellow-collegian, Daniel Webster, and was the instrument that introduced the embryo statesman into the office of Christo- pher Gore, the most prominent lawyer in Boston. Their friendship was unabated after both had entered upon legal practice. Together they attended court at Sanborn, New Hamp- shire, and on their return had the opportunity of doing a good deed which thenceforward was a pleasant memory to each. Overtaking a feeble old woodman, whose broken-down horse was struggling to draw a load of wood uphill, the man turned his horse from the path to let the young travellers pass. Instantly he found his team so deeply imbedded in the snow that extrication seemed to be impossible. Touched by the sad countenance and sadder plight of the old man, Bradley and Webster unhitched their powerful horse, at- tached him to the woodman's team, and after a hard struggle got the load out of the deep snow. Webster used a rail behind the load, and Bradley led the horse. " Webster," said the latter, " lifted like a giant." After the top of the hill was reached to the great joy of the poor fellow, the young lawyers resumed their journey, happy in the consciousness of a noble exploit.
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