USA > New Hampshire > Grafton County > Hanover > A history of the town of Hanover, N.H. > Part 17
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A giant in learning, a giant in mind, A lion in temper, both savage and kind.
Solon Grout of Brattleboro, Vermont, came to Hanover and entered on the practice of law, for a time as partner of Mills Olcott, but he removed about 1835 and died at Bellows Falls, Vermont.
Daniel Blaisdell, son of Judge Elijah Blaisdell, was born at Pittsfield, New Hampshire, August 26, 1806. His father was then a shoemaker at Pittsfield, but about 1809 studied law and settled in practice at Canaan in 1812, whence he removed to Leba- non in 1833. The son was graduated from Dartmouth in 1827, read law at Haverhill with Joseph Bell and practised in that town from 1830 to 1832. He was then a year at Lebanon and finally settled in Hanover in July 1833, succeeding Mr. Perley as treas- urer of the College in 1835. During the brief period that these two gentlemen practised beside one another here there were some passages between them that created a lasting estrangement, and led, many years later, to an extraordinary exhibition of Mr. Perley's feelings from the bench.
Mr. Blaisdell administered the office of College treasurer just forty years with infinite labor and pains, and pursued at the same time the active practice of the law with industry and enthusiasm, down to the last months of his life. He represented the town in the Legislature from 1840 to 1842 and again in 1865 and 1866, and from 1863 to 1865 he was a member of the State Senate. In
2 Bell's Bench and Bar of New Hampshire, pp. 105-108.
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1860 he was chosen presidential elector on the Republican ticket. He took a leading part in the financial affairs of the town, being one of the incorporators of the Dartmouth Savings Bank in 1865 and a member of its Board until his death, which occurred August 24, 1875. He married Charlotte Osgood of Haverhill, May 30, 1832.
William H. Duncan, son of William Duncan, was born in Londonderry (now Candia), New Hampshire, September 26, 1807, and died at Hanover March 29, 1883. He was graduated from Dartmouth in 1830 with highest honors and read law with Chancellor B. F. Dunkin at Charleston, South Carolina, where he was admitted to the bar. Returning to the north he married Sarah, the youngest daughter of Mills Olcott, June 25, 1834, and entered on the practice of law at Haverhill. In 1837 or 1838 he removed to Hanover at the desire of Mr. Olcott to assist him in the care of his extensive business concerns, continuing at the same time in active practice. But the health of his wife failed and it became necessary for him to spend several winters with her at the south, where she at length died July 20, 1854, childless.
Mr. Duncan retained his residence in Hanover and continued in practise until a year or two before his death. Natural abilities of the highest order, with a grace of person and social qualities rarely equaled, under the advantage of the wide acquaintance in the high circles to which Mr. Olcott's connections introduced him, gave promise of a flattering career; but the interruptions above mentioned, joined to a disposition naturally social and easy going, prevented a devoted and successful application to business, though he was a sound and thorough lawyer and an enthusiastic lover of his profession. His office in the second story of the large wooden building, which stood where is now the Davison block, was the object of much interest. Lighted by two windows that were for years innocent of a cleaner's brush, and heated by a stove that stood in the middle of the room, it contained many valuable pieces of old furniture, besides books and other articles which came into Mr. Duncan's possession. As he never threw away anything, these accumulations gradually increased about the sides of the room until the only free space left was an aisle, that began at the door in one corner and passing on either side of the stove termi- nated at the desk on the opposite side, near a window, where a chair or two and a long sofa, lengthwise of the aisle, gave sitting place for a client or a visitor. Once, in Mr. Duncan's absence, some friends thought to do him a service by introducing a cleaning
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woman to his den, but his towering rage on his return forbade a repetition of such a move. Yet out of this place Mr. Duncan always appeared as immaculate as Beau Brummel. He always wore a gray top hat and in winter a long cloak, and his tall, spare figure and nervous manner made him noticeable. For many years, fol- lowing Colonel Brewster, he was the marshal of the procession at Commencement, to which his military bearing gave an added dignity. He could be very caustic at times, but in general he was a charming conversationalist and raconteur.
Mr. Blaisdell was at that time the only other lawyer in active practice here, and business was abundant. The College was enjoy- ing a period of unexampled prosperity, and the population of the town was greater by nearly 300 than it ever had been. It was a time of abundant litigation in the county. The common pleas docket in September, 1841, shows 737 continued actions, conducted by more than thirty attorneys, comprising a bar of eminence and ability never equaled in the county. Of these cases Mr. Blaisdell and Mr. Duncan had their fair share. The latter reported that it was no uncommon thing for his private docket at that time to carry a hundred pending cases.
Augustus O. Brewster, a son of General A. A. Brewster of Hanover and a graduate of the College in 1843, read law with Ira Perley and William H. Duncan and entered on the practice of law in 1846 at Hanover, but removed in 1850 to New York, and from there two years later to Boston. He died at Patterson, New Jersey, January 17, 1897.
Frederick Chase, son of Professor Stephen Chase, was born at Hanover September 2, 1840. Preparing for college at Phillips Andover Academy he was graduated from Dartmouth in 1860 to the degree of A. B. and in 1867 he received the degree of LL. B. at Columbia College Law School at Washington, D. C., where he was a clerk in the United States Treasury Department from 1861 to 1869. After practising law in New York City in 1869 and 1870 at the head of the firm of Chase, Hartley and Coleman, and then in Washington from 1870 to 1874, he removed to Hanover and opened an office there for the practice of law in April, 1874. On the death of Mr. Blaisdell in August, 1875, he succeeded him as treasurer of Dartmouth College, and was appointed judge of probate in July, 1876, holding both of these offices successfully until his death, January 19, 1890. He was a well read and able lawyer, of sound judgment and reliable counsel, a citizen deeply interested in the welfare of the town, and a friend beloved and
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trusted by all classes of people. He found time in the practice of his profession and his duties as College treasurer to gratify his antiquarian and historical tastes by writing a History of Dart- mouth College and the Town of Hanover, New Hampshire, which is a rich memorial to his excellence as a historian and a writer. He married Mary Fuller Pomeroy of Detroit, Michigan, November 9, 1871.
Henry A. Folsom was born in Sandwich, New Hampshire, February 14, 1846, and was graduated from Dartmouth College in 1871. After studying in the office of N. C. Berry of Boston, he practised law in that city until 1882, when he removed to Hanover, and there combined his practice with instruction in municipal law in the Chandler School of Dartmouth College until his, death, which occurred April 6, 1887.
George H. Hitchcock, son of George Hitchcock, was born at Manteville, Minnesota, September 12, 1867, and was graduated from Dartmouth in 1889. He opened an office for the practice of law at Hanover in 1899 and was making good progress, when, after a little more than a year, he was obliged by ill health to give up his office and remove to a milder climate. Regaining his health he again took up the practice of law in Ohio.
A little later, in 1905, a law office was opened by Craven Lay- cock, who added a minor practice of law to his work as professor in the College, and this he continued until he became assistant dean of the College in 1911.
Horace .G. Pender, born September 10, 1877, at Portsmouth, New Hampshire, was graduated from Dartmouth in 1897 and from the Harvard Law School in 1900. While serving as grad- uate manager of athletics in the College, he had for some years an office for the evening practice of law.
Roy Brackett, born June 26, 1886, at Limington, Maine, was graduated from Dartmouth in 1906, and from the Harvard Law School in 1912. While professor of business law in the Tuck School he opened an office for the practice of law in October, 1923.
CHAPTER XV
MILITIA AND MILITARY SERVICE
T "HE militia of Hanover in two companies stood, at the close of the Revolution, under the command of Captain Thomas Durkee and Captain Joshua Hendee. These companies formed a part of the Seventeenth Regiment, which included companies from the towns of Lebanon, Hanover, Lyme, Enfield, Grafton, Cardigan and Dorchester, and was commanded by Colonel Jonathan Chase of Cornish.1
In June, 1780, this regiment with those of Colonels Hale, Bel- lows, Ellis and Morey comprised the Third Brigade, but though the General Assembly recommended that the command of the brigade be given to one of the three colonels, Bellows, Hale or Chase, no appointment is recorded.2 In 1784, Colonel Chase having been made colonel of the Fifteenth Regiment, Ebenezer Brewster of Hanover was appointed colonel of the regiment, which was denominated the twenty-fourth and made a part of the Sixth Brigade, that a year later came under the command of General Moses Dow of Haverhill.3 Ebenezer Green of Lyme was appointed lieutenant-colonel, Edmund Freeman of Lebanon (formerly Captain Freeman of Hanover) was major, S. Jones of Canaan was second major, while Eleazar Wheelock was aide-de- camp to his Excellency, Governor Sullivan, with the rank of lieutenant-colonel.
Under the Militia Act of June 24, 1786, the distinction was kept up between the training band and the alarm list. The first comprised all ages between sixteen and forty, and the second those between forty and sixty. There were exempted, among others, students and masters of arts, the President and other officers of the College, grammar school masters, elders and deacons of churches and ministers of the gospel.
By the Act of December 27, 1792, our regiment was trans- ferred into the Second Division of the Sixth Brigade and divided into two battalions, commanded by a lieutenant-colonel and two majors. The First Battalion comprised the companies of Leba-
1 State Papers, XX, 152-154.
2 State Papers, VIII, 867.
3 State Papers, XX, 554.
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non, Enfield, Canaan and Grafton, and the second those of Han- over, Lyme, Dorchester and Orange. The regiment was thence- forth numbered the twenty-third ; Otis Freeman of Hanover was appointed lieutenant-colonel commanding, and Ebenezer Brewster was appointed general of the brigade.1 In 1793 the two companies of the town, that in the College district being the ninth, were equipped as light infantry. At the annual muster at East Han- over, October 2, 1795, Colonel Freeman's regiment consisted of a troop of horse, fifty in number, of two light infantry companies, of forty-eight and forty-three men respectively, and of two bat- talions, numbering 220 and 195, a total in the regiment of 556. At the November session of 1808 the battalions of the Twenty- third Regiment were rearranged, so that the first consisted of the south company in Hanover with the companies in Lebanon, and the second consisted of the north company in Hanover with those of Lyme, and this arrangement continued unchanged until the decay of the militia system in 1851. In December, 1816, a full regimental organization was perfected and a colonel again allowed, James Poole of Hanover becoming the first colonel of the Twen- ty-third Regiment under the new scheme.
In September, 1786, there were authorized three regiments of light horse (one of them to be raised in the Connecticut valley), and one regiment of artillery, composed of eight companies, one of which was connected with the Sixth Brigade.2 The standards bore the following devices :3 The field of the flag was a dark purple on a white ground; an oval shield in the middle, encircled with laurels, within which was a device, which was thus described : "A man armed at all points in a posture of defence, his hand on his sword, the sword half drawn-the motto-FREEDOM NOT CONQUEST-thirteen silver stars dispersed over the field of the standard, and properly arranged, so as to encircle the device and motto-The number of each regiment to be marked on its standard." The light horse and artillery had the same flag, but a different device. On that of the horse was a man on horseback, completely armed, with his hand on his pistol. The device of the artillery was a cannonier in uniform, "with a lighted match, stand- ing near a field piece, properly pointed, and the motto the same as for the horse and foot beforementioned."
Few now remember the glory and excitement of the old- fashioned muster. There were training days for company drill
1 State Papers, XXII, 742 and 738.
2 State Papers, XX, 368.
3 State Papers, XX, 659, 660.
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in May and September annually, and a regimental muster in September or October. This was held on the College Green, or on the parade ground at the Center, or on that at the brick meet- ing house, or at Lebanon, or at Lyme, and began at six or seven o'clock in the morning and continued till late in the afternoon. Dinner, more or less substantial, was originally provided at the expense of the town where the muster was held, and a hungry crowd hung about to gather what it might. A greedy camp fol- lower once was choked to death on the College Green with a morsel which he had filched from a soldier's dinner. In 1811 Hanover discontinued the free dinner by voting to pay each soldier thirty-four cents in lieu of meat and drink. Peddlers and mountebanks and adventurers of every description crowded in on these occasions, together with the country people from all the region round about, far and near. One of the chief attractions here for many years was an old negro, named Roberts, who claimed to be the son of an African king. He would appear at the upper end of the common, and shouting to attract the crowd would turn a cartwheel across the common and sing and play upon the banjo.
Hanover's contributions of men to the active service in the calls subsequent to the Revolution were rather meagre, until the Civil War. The town was decidedly out of sympathy with the War of 1812 and on September 4 of that year a town meeting was held, called on the petition of fifty-eight voters headed by Mills Olcott, "to consult upon the common good; to express their opinions upon the present state of our public affairs ; to take into consideration the expediency of adopting measures for calling a convention of the County of Grafton to concert and adopt measures necessary therefor and to elect delegates from this town to such convention."
Captain James Poole was chosen moderator and a committee, consisting of William H. Woodward, Cyrus Perkins, Benjamin J. Gilbert, Samuel Slade and Joseph Curtiss, was appointed to bring in resolutions. Their report, presented by Mr. Woodward and adopted by a large majority, declared that
In the present alarming state of our publick affairs, when our dearest rights and the best interests of the nation are placed in jeapordy, it is our indispensable duty as citizens . . . 'to consult for the common good.'
That we do most cordially and unreservedly concur with our brethren and fellow citizens of the County of Rockingham, in the sentiments and opinions expressed by them, at their meeting at Brentwood, on the 5th day of August 1812: And that we will, in concert with them, exert all the powers vested in us by the constitution to remove from the councils of the Nation
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the authors of our distresses by elevating to their stations men of intelligent patriotism, advocates of 'peace and honest friendship with all Nations, entangling alliances with none.'
After denouncing "congressional caucauses," as tending "to undermine what in a free country, is the palladium of its citizens- The Freedom of Elections"-and "the frequent attempts of the friends of the administration to overcome constitutional opposi- tion and thereby to impair or totally destroy The Liberty of Speech and of the Press," it was further
Resolved: A's the sense of this meeting, that the principle attempted to be established, by which the militia are detached from their superior Officers and placed under the command of those of the General Government, is a principle, which under the existing circumstances, is not only unconstitu- tional, but dangerous in a high degree, and in its tendency subversive of State Sovereignty,-and-that Governors Strong and Griswold, for their dignified and Constitutional vindication of the rights of their respective States, merit our unequivocal approbation.
Samuel Kendrick, William H. Woodward and Samuel Slade were chosen delegates to the county convention, which assembled at Orford on the 15th of October, with an attendance of about three thousand. An address to the "Citizens of the County" was drafted by a committee of ten, of which Benjamin J. Gilbert of Hanover was chairman and Mills Olcott a member, and resolu- tions in the same tone as those of Hanover, already quoted, were adopted upon the report of a like committee of ten, headed by Judge Woodward, and of which Amos A. Brewster was also a member. The sentiment of the town was further indicated at the presidential election in the November following, when the vote was 346 for the Federal ticket and 73 for the Democratic. In the Legislature at the November session of that year the Han- over member, Augustus Storrs, was one of seventy signers of the protest recorded against the address to Governor Plumer, in which the majority signified approval of his course in regard to the war.
Two years later, on December 6, 1814, delegates from seventeen principal towns in Grafton County and from one town in Coos County, met at the court house in Haverhill, to choose a dele- gate to the convention at Hartford, which was called at the instance of the Legislature of Massachusetts. Messrs. Gilbert and Olcott represented Hanover, although, so far as the record shows, not by any formal authority of the town. Mr. Gilbert, as usual, took a leading part and moved the resolutions which were unanimously adopted, and Mills Olcott of Hanover was chosen to represent the two counties at Hartford. The convention met on
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December 22, 1814, and finally adjourned, January 4, 1815. Mr. Olcott, one of the two delegates from New Hampshire, was present until near the close, and was one of the twenty-six who signed the resolutions, among whom were several other graduates of the College, viz., S. S. Wilde of 1789 and Zephaniah Swift of 1792. The sentiment of Hanover, still strongly Federalist, was in sympathy with the object of the convention, but the announce- ment of peace about six weeks after the adjournment of the con- vention put an end to its influence.
The detachment of portions of the militia, to which such stren- uous objection was raised, had, however, been brought about under an Act of Congress of April 10, 1812, by an order of the President to the Secretary of War, directing him to request the governors of the several states to detach companies of the militia for the service of the United States. In accordance with this request the Governor of New Hampshire, in July, 1812, detached companies of the First Brigade for the defence of Portsmouth, and later formed the detached companies of the Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Brigades, in the last of which was the Twenty-third Regiment, into the Western Brigade under the command of Brigadier General John Montgomery of Haverhill. At the same time a company, under Captain Ephraim Mahurin, was detached to defend the northern frontier, but no Hanover men appear on its roll. This company, after a six months' service, was dis- charged January 27, 1813, and was replaced by a company under Captain Edmund Freeman of Lebanon, in which were five men from Hanover, Chester Tenney, sergeant ; Wilson Hall, corporal ; and Daniel Perkins, Joseph Smith and Howard Wheeler, privates. Perkins and Wheeler served from July 1, and the others from April 26, and all were discharged October 6, 1813.1
During the spring and summer of 1814 there was great excite- ment throughout the State in view of an expected attack on Ports- mouth, and on the 9th of September Governor Gilman issued an order that the "whole of the militia, including infantry, cavalry and artillery, hold themselves in readiness to march at a moment's notice, completely armed and equipped," and that those who were exempted by law from military service be invited to organize themselves into companies. In response to this order Hanover was represented in two companies at Portsmouth, the first under command of Captain William Courson of Milton, and the second under command of Captain Reuben Hayes of New Durham. To
1 Potter's Military History of New Hampshire, Second Part, pp. 93, 94.
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the first company Hanover sent sixteen men, and to the second nine men, all for sixty days, as follows :1
Captain Courson's Company Enlisted September 28, 1814 Chester Tenney, sergeant
Captain Hayes' Company Enlisted October 3, 1814
Isaac Scales, sergeant
Alba Hall, corporal
Lemuel Stevens, Jr., corporal
Samuel Bradshaw, private
Asa Darling, private
Charles Brown, private
James Knight, private
James Chapman, private
William Tole, private
Horace Eaton, private
John Smith, Jr., private
Elijah Flanders, private
Page Gould, private
Moses Plumer, private
Lewis Gould, private
Dan Parker, private
Adolphus Hughes, private
Silas Stevens, private
Silas Tenney, private
Chandler Metcalf, private
Seth Tenney, private James Trowbridge, private Lewis Morey, private Isaac Allen, private
We have no information respecting the company of militia raised here before 1795. At that time there were attached to the Twenty-third Regiment a cavalry company, commanded by Captain John Colburn of Lebanon (?) and an artillery company, com- manded by Lieutenant Jeduthan Wilcox of Hanover, and from 1812 to 1820 there were, for some time at least, two companies of cavalry officered in part from Hanover. In 1817 they were com- manded by Major Lang and Captains Page and Hodgdon, the latter from Norwich, while the former lived on the top of the hill now known as Pinneo Hill, but the companies did not survive much longer and little can be learned of them.
The artillery company was more permanent. In 1805 Amos A. Brewster was appointed captain of the company, and as he con- tinued in command for several years he brought it to a good degree of efficiency. By the Act of June 18 of that year $50.00 was appropriated to each captain of artillery, with which to build a gun house, the balance to be used "for the purpose of instruct- ing the music in the regiment in which the company may be formed." Captain Brewster procured from the State a brass field piece, which was kept in a gun house that stood on the Rope Ferry Road just below the present Clement Road. This gun was burst about 1820, in firing on the common early in the morn-
1 Potter's Military History of New Hampshire, pp. 130, 131, 173, 174, 225, 226.
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ing of the Fourth of July, and as it was found to be of imperfect materials a new one was provided by the State.
The Militia Act of January 3, 1829, by which the companies of Hanover, Lebanon and Lyme formed the Twenty-third Regiment, gave a field piece to each company and required the captain of the company to cause a gun house to be built on ground agreed upon by the field officers of the regiment, for which a deed of land to the State had been first obtained, the whole expense not to exceed $50.00, and not be paid till the deed was filed. The company was then commanded by Captain Ebenezer Symmes, and under this act a small parcel of land was obtained on the north side of what is now South Street, where a shed recently belonging to Charles Bergeron stands, and conveyed to the State by Captain Symmes, May 22, 1830, and a gun house was erected.
The officers and most of the members of this company were residents of Hanover and drawn from various parts of the town. There grew up some local jealousies between the east and west sections, which in 1835 brought about a removal of the gun to the mill neighborhood, now known as Etna. The company con- tinued to exist for about six years, when it was disbanded and the gun was afterward removed to Haverhill. The land on which the gun house stood remained the property of the State till 1843, when a resolution of June 24 authorized its sale to Lucinda C. Givens for $15.00. The company considered itself the aristocracy of the regiment. Its members wore brilliant uniforms, consisting of blue coats with red facings, blue pantaloons corded with gold, and high crowned Bonaparte hats of stiff leather with brass shield and chains and tall red plumes, and its officers upon election treated the company with brandy and loaf sugar, instead of the usual tipple of the infantry, rum and brown sugar.
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