USA > New Hampshire > Belknap County > Biographical review : containing life sketches of leading citizens of Stafford and Belknap countries, New Hampshire > Part 34
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Mr. John Scales's mother, who was the daughter of Benjamin and Molly (Batchelder) True, was born in Deerfield, N. H., January II, 1805. She was of the seventh generation from Benjamin True, who emigrated from England and settled in Salem, Mass., in 1632. Her grandfather, Deacon Abraham True, was one of the first settlers in Deerfield, moving there from Salisbury, Mass., about 1750. Her father, Benjamin True, served in the Revolution. Her mother was a daughter of Nathaniel and Molly (Longfellow) Batchel- der. The Batchelders trace their descent from the Rev. Stephen Bachiler, who was born in England in 1561. He was the founder of Hampton, N. H., and the first pastor of the church there, taking charge in 1638, and fill- ing the pulpit until he was over eighty years of age. IIe returned to England, where he died in 1660, aged nearly one hundred years. Mrs. Scales's grandfather, Nathaniel Batchel- der, was the great-great-great-grandson of the clergyman. He was born in Hampton, June 9, 1732, and settled in Deerfield about 1752. He was in Captain Henry Dearborn's
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company, under Colonel John Stark, at the battle of Bunker Hill, and also with Stark at Bennington, and there offered up his life for his country. Two of his sons, Stephen and Nathaniel, and four sons in-law - Smith Mor- rill, Abraham, Joseph, and Benjamin True -also served in the Continental army. Smith Morrill married Mr. Batchelder's eldest daughter, Mary; and Justin S. Morrill, the distinguished United States Senator from Vermont, who has recently been elected to his sixth term, is their grandson. On the mater- nal side Mrs. Scales was of the same stock as the poet Longfellow, descended from William Longfellow, an Englishman, who settled in Newbury, Mass., where he married in 1676 Anne Sewall, sister of Samuel Sewall, the famous Colonial judge. Mrs. Scales's grand- mother was a daughter of Jonathan Longfellow and cousin to Stephen Longfellow, the grand- father of the poet; and her grandmother's sister, Sarah Longfellow, was the wife of General Joseph Cilley, of Revolutionary fame.
John Scales attended the public schools of Nottingham, a private school at Lee Hill, and the academy at Nottingham Centre. The last- named institution was in charge of Professor Bart Van Dame, a remarkable man, and one of the best educators of the day. He was also a pupil at Pembroke Gymnasium and Strafford Academy, and in 1854 attended the high school in the town hall in Barrington taught by Thomas A. Henderson, afterward lieuten- ant-colonel in the Seventh New Hampshire Volunteer Regiment, who was killed in battle at Charleston, S.C. Miss Adaline Rice Parker, daughter of Captain Robert Parker, a prominent merchant of Portsmouth, was his first and most esteemed teacher.
In the winter of 1855-56, Mr. Scales took charge of a school at Harper's Ferry, Va., and remained in that State until the summer
of 1857. There he did his first newspaper work, writing to the Boston Post accounts of the political rallies held in Maryland and Vir- ginia during the Fremont-Buchanan campaign. In March, 1857, he went to Washington and saw Buchanan inaugurated. In the summer of the same year he came North to complete his preparation to enter Dartmouth College ; and in September he entered the New London (N. H.) Academy, then under the supervision of the late George W. Gardner, D. D. By close application and hard work he completed the three years' course in two years, and grad- uated with a rank among the best of a large class. Among his classmates here were the Hon. Charles A. Pillsbury, the world-famous flour manufacturer of Minneapolis, and Pro- fessor John R. Eastman, of the United States Observatory at Washington. In the fall of 1859 Mr. Scales entered Dartmouth, and in 1863 he graduated in the Phi Beta Kappa sec- tion of his class, and had an oration at com- mencement. During the college course he taught school in winter and helped on his father's farm in summer, wielding the scythe (which had not then been superseded by the mowing machine) with a skill that put the experts on their best nerve and muscle. Among his instructors at college were the Hon. James W. Patterson, afterward United States Senator, Professor Brown, afterward President of Hamilton. College, Professor Aiken, and President Lord, his class being the last to graduate under the last-named gentleman ; and among his classmates were the Hon. Thomas Cogswell, now pension agent for New Hampshire and Vermont; the Hon. Henry M. Baker, ex-member of Congress from the Second Congressional District of New Hampshire; the Hon. Charles A. Pillsbury, of Minneapolis; the Hon. N. H. Clement, one of the judges in the Brooklyn district of New
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York; the Hon. Jesse Johnson, a leading member of the New York bar in Brooklyn; Judge W. L. Barnap, of Burlington, Vt. ; the Rev. Dr. Bernard Paine, of Saybrook, Conn. ; and the Rev. Dr. A. W. Hazen, of Middletown, Conn.
During his college life Dartmouth sent a cavalry company to the war, which did valued service in the campaign preceding the battle of Antietam; and this company's his- tory, which appears in the War Record of New Hampshire, recently published by the State, was written by Mr. Scales.
In the fall of 1863 he was installed as prin- cipal of the academy at Centre Strafford; from 1865 to 1867 he was principal of the Wolf- boro Academy; in 1867 and 1868 he was head of the Gilmanton Academy ; and from the spring of 1869 to the spring of 1883 he was principal of the Franklin Academy in Dover. As a teacher he was successful and popular. Franklin Academy attained its highest popu- larity and largest attendance under his charge, and the first woman to enter college from Dover and complete a full classical course was fitted by him. For a quarter of a century Mr. Scales has advocated the higher education of women.
August 2, 1880, the Dover Daily Republican was started by a syndicate of Republicans as a campaign paper, with George Wadleigh, Esq., the veteran newspaper man, as managing editor, and Mr. Scales then began to contrib- ute to its columns. In 1883 he purchased-a- half interest in the Daily Republican and the Dover Enquirer; and both papers have enjoyed increasing prosperity while he has been con- nected with them. The Republican is noted for its vigorous and scholarly editorials. Mr. Scales is a pronounced protectionist and has advocated woman suffrage since 1865. He is a clear thinker, and writes in terse and
forcible style, having at all times a firm grasp of his subject. In addition to his newspaper work, he has written and published the history of the class of 1863, Dartmouth College; and the History of the Dartmouth Cavalry, men- tioned above. He has been honored with the election to the examining board of Dartmouth .College, and he is a member of the Dover School Committee. He has been trustee of the State Normal School at Plymouth.
On October 20, 1865, Mr. Scales was united in marriage with Ellen, daughter of Deacon Alfred and Mary Margaret (Hill) Tasker, who has been his co-laborer in school and newspaper work as well as in the home. They have had four children, two of whom are living. Burton True, born August 10, 1873, was graduated at Dartmouth in 1895, and is now city editor of the Daily Repub- lican ; and Robert Leighton, born May 20, ISSo, is a member of the senior class in the Dover High School, expecting to enter Dart- mouth in 1897.
Mr. Scales joined the Independent Order of Odd Fellows in 1856, and has been in good and regular standing ever since. He was initiated into Virginia Lodge, No. 1, at Har- per's Ferry, and after removing to Dover be- came a member of Wecohammet Lodge, No. 3. He is also a member of the higher branches of the order Quocheco Encampment and Canton Parker, Patriarchs Militant. He is a member of Dover Commandery No. 43, U. O. G. C., Moses Paul Lodge, F. & A. M., Belknap Chapter Orphan Council, and St. Paul Commandery, and is a thirty-second degree member of the lodge of Perfection in the Valley of Dover, Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite; and he is a member of the So- ciety of the Sons of the American Revolution, and the Society of the Colonial Wars in New Hampshire. In religious belief he is a Con-
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gregationalist, belonging to the famous First Church, whose history dates back to 1638, the parish having been organized in 1633.
EORGE SCALES, brother of John, was born in Nottingham, October 20, 1840. IIe worked on the farm with his father, when not attending school, till he joined the Union army in September, 186t. He was educated in the public schools and at New London Academy, where he fitted for college and graduated in June, 1861, ranking among the highest in scholarship in his class. Quick to learn and studious in his habits, he was very popular in the school, both among the students and the teachers. He was gifted as a conversationalist and as a speaker, and had he lived to mature age would undoubtedly have taken high rank in the legal profession, for which he had planned to fit himself on completing his college edu- cation. The tocsin of war changed his plans. When President Lincoln called for volunteers he responded promptly, as responded his grand- father, Benjamin True, and great-grandfathers, Samuel Scales and Nathaniel Batchelder, in the Revolutionary War; not that he liked war per se, but that he was ready to defend his country's honor, to preserve liberty, free in- stitutions, and the Union. He was an expert marksman, hence he chose to enlist as one of Berdan's sharpshooters.
The war record of the First Regiment, United States Sharpshooters, is unsurpassed by that of any part of the grand Union army. The originator and organizer of it was a New Hampshire man, Hiram Berdan, then a resi- dent of New York. The qualifications he set for cach man were: "That no man shall be accepted who cannot, at two hundred yards, put ten consecutive shots into a ten-inch ring,
or a string measurement of fifty inches. Each man can choose his rifle and the government will allow sixty dollars for it." George Scales fulfilled the demand in every particu- lar. Amos B. Jones, who had graduated from Dartmouth in 1861, commenced to muster re- cruits from New Hampshire to make up the quota from this State. His company was numbered E, and on September 9, ISGI, it was mustered in at Concord.
The uniform of this company was dark green cap, coat and trousers, leather leggings, gray felt havelock-shaped hat, and gray overcoat, which latter was afterward changed to another color to avoid its being mistaken for Con- federates. The knapsack was of French pat- tern, made of leather with the hair on, with a tin dish for cooking on the outside. On September II they left for Weehawken, N. J., where they remained three days, from which place George wrote his first letters to friends at home, and after that he kept a regular diary of each day's doings.
Of his journey to New Jersey he wrote that the weather was disagreeable and rainy ; that they did not sleep much on the boat from Fall River to New York; that when they arrived at Weehawken they were given breakfast in a very dirty room; that it consisted of baked potatoes, dry, hard beef, and sour bread. He says: "It made me think of home, but I am not homesick. I did not enlist expecting a pleasure trip, nor do I expect honors; it was pure love of country that gave me manly courage to say good-by to the old Granite State, and the loved ones who are dearer to me than my own life. We have a smart company, all good fellows. They are not allowed to drink any spirituous liquors, but if the order had not been given I do not think any one would get drunk ; not one complains about the order. When I. left home I thought I should
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have an opportunity to visit mother again before going to the seat of war, but circum- stances have prevented; where duty calls I must go."
On September 15, 1861, they left Wechaw- ken for Washington, D.C., and joined the First Regiment of Berdan's United States Sharpshooters as Company E. September 21 they had their first reconnaissance under General Smith, in Virginia, and had their first skirmish near Lewisville, Va., September 27, and then had the first sight of the rebels and a taste of their fire. In writing home about this first experience in battle, he says : "It was something like going out hunting for game, when suddenly a thunder shower breaks forth with a terrific roar and flashing, and gives you a great surprise. Our boys did not flinch or manifest the least fear, but as soon as their first surprise was over, which was but an instant, took good aim with their rifles and set the rebels on the run for safe quar- ters. "
On the 29th they had another skirmish near Falls Church, where one man was shot in both legs; the others escaped injury. They saw no more of the rebs till the next spring. Dur- ing the rest of the fall and winter they were with the regiment in Camp Instruction at Washington. There the companies were thoroughly disciplined and drilled daily at target practice. George Scales's record at the target shooting was among the very best. One of the letters home says : "Our camp has the appearance of a small city, and is kept very neat. The streets are graded and swept every day ; they are as clean as a house floor."
One of the officers from another New Hamp- shire regiment, who visited the sharp- shooters' camp and saw the men, says that George "appeared like a man of high charac- ter, a noble-looking fellow in his uniform of
dark green." He was always a young man of the best of habits in every respect, and army life did not change him. March 20, 1862, they broke camp, and on March 21 Company E joined General Fitz-John Porter's division, Third Army Corps, near Alexandria, Va .. They embarked for Fortress Monroc, March 22, arrived there March 24, and landed at Hampton. March 27 they led the advance of a reconnoissance by Porter's Division, through and beyond Bethel, Va., toward York- town. In this move the sharpshooters won high praise for their bravery and for the work they did. They earned a reputation which they ever after maintained in the thirty-three battles in which they engaged, not counting in- numerable skirmishes, the most difficult work of all. His letters home were full of burning enthusiasm to whip the rebels and send them home satisfied to keep the peace forevermore. Of himself he wrote: "I have no fear; I think I shall come out of the war safe; but should I fall, think of me as having willingly laid down my life for my country."
From April 5 to May 4 they performed such efficient service in front of Yorktown, in the riflepits, in silencing batteries and sharp- shooters, that they were complimented in general orders by the commanding general. In his letters home he says: "I have been engaged in a lively battle and have come out of it alive and.well; of course I am exceed- ing weary, as it was no easy job to crawl along on the ground and drag my riffe with me, that we might get near to the enemy's works, and then lie cramped up, taking steady aim and making every shot count in knocking out the rebel gunners and silencing their batteries by killing or driving the men away. It was won- derful how quick our sharpshooters could scoop out a hole and throw the dirt up in front of them, on which they rested their rifles and
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picked off the rebs, while the rebs could not see us. To any one looking on, out of harm's way, it might have seemed a grand sight ; but to us fellows who were in the front of the fight, there was nothing grand about it; it seemed awful, that is the whole story. I can- not say that I have killed a man, but I took deliberate aim and saw them fall; perhaps somebody's else bullet hit at the same time. One fellow in gray was just on the point of firing when I took good aim, fired, and he dropped, not to rise again. I came here to do my duty like a brave soldier, and I have done it to the best of my ability and I did not feel afraid, but must confess I could see no fun in being a target for rebel bullets, nor in making targets of my fellow-men who are fighting for a bad cause."
The company remained encamped in front of Yorktown till May 7. On the 8th they, with the rest of the army corps, embarked for West Point, arriving on the 9th. On the 13th they took up the line of march toward Richmond. On the 27th of May they took part in the battle at Hanover Court House and Peake's Station; June 26 they were in the fight at Mechanicsville; June 27 at Gaines's Mill; July 1, 1862, at Malvern Hill, where he fell, killed by a rebel bullet. What those battles were, and the terrible scenes of the conflicts, are vividly described on the pages of many his- tories, which need not be repeated here. Suffice to say that where the hardest fighting was there was George Scales and his company of brave men.
John Longfellow Bartlett, son of Judge Bradbury Bartlett, and grandson of Colonel Thomas Bartlett, and great-grandson of Gen- eral Joseph Cilley, both of Revolutionary fame, was a member of this company of sharp- shooters, and participated in all of the thirty- three pitched battles and in the innumerable
skirmishes that fell to the lot of the company. Strange to say he was not wounded, neither was he sick to be in the hospital a single day. No braver soldier came out of the war. Mr. Bartlett says of his cousin Scales, when he was killed: "We had fought over the ground several times till it was strewn with the dead of both sides so thick that it was possible to walk on nothing but bodies, they lay so near together. We were retreating, dodging back from tree to tree, to protect ourselves, when George fell, and was never seen afterward. I was familiar with the click of his rifle, and afterward thought that a Confederate took and used his rifle, and that I narrowly escaped being hit by one of the bullets fired by a rebel hand. George was as cool and apparently undisturbed in battle as if he had been at a target practice, instead of in one of the fiercest battles of the war."
Another member of the company who saw him in that battle says : "I shall never forget George Scales as I last saw him in that terriffic clash of arms. He stood six feet tall, with a fine physique and commanding presence; black hair, black eyes, handsome face, which won the confidence and love of all who had any- thing to do with him. He stood as straight as an arrow, and in that sharpshooter's suit of green he looked superb; death hit no more shining mark on that day; the rifle which he carried was one of the best, tried and true, and very effective in the awful work to which it was devoted; a braver soldier never fought on a battlefield; had he lived to the end of the war he would have merited to have been made a Brigadier-general."
His remains were never recovered. They lie with the innumerable and unnamed dead, who had a common burial on the battlefield of Malvern Hill, where Union men and Confed- erates sleep together. Requiescat in pace.
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CON. CHARLES F. STONE. - "Gen- erous indeed has been the contribu- tion which New Hampshire has made to other States in character and intellect, in power for achievement in business, profes- sional and public life. Massachusetts in par- ticular has drawn largely from the best blood and brain of the Granite State, and the record of her noble men is in a great measure a trib- ute to New Hampshire energy, ability, and worth. Nevertheless, New Hampshire is to some extent indebted to other States for valu- able accessions to the ranks of her own best citizenship. Especially is this the case in regard to the legal profession, many of the more prominent of whose members have been natives of the Green Mountain State. Ed- mund Burke, William L. Foster, the Bing- hams, the Hibbards, Benton, Wait, Ray, and others who have attained celebrity at the New Hampshire bar, had their birth on the other side of the Connecticut. So, also, did the subject of this sketch, although his ancestors, as is the case with the Binghams, and perhaps some others mentioned, were New Hampshire people." (H. H. Metcalf, in Granite Monthly, September, 1892.)
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The Hon. Charles F. Stone was born in Cabot, Vt., May 21, 1843; and his parents, the Rev. Levi H. and Clarissa (Osgood) Stone, were also natives of that town. His great-grandfather, Deacon Matthias Stone, was one of the early settlers of Claremont, N. H. ; and his grandfather, John Stone, with three brothers went from Claremont in 1794 to the wilds of northern Vermont. Among the first settlers in Cabot, they cleared farms and all reared large families there. John Stone married Betsey Huntoon, of Unity, N. H., and reared seven sons and three daughters, who all attained mature age. Four of the sons became Congregational ministers.
The Rev. Levi H. Stone, who was John Stone's second son, was born December 10, 1806. As a minister of the gospel he had a long and successful career. Though not lib- erally educated, he was an eloquent pulpit orator and a very popular and prominent preacher. He held several pastorates, his-first - of ten years - being in Cabot, and his last in Pawlet, Vt. While in charge of the church at Northfield, he was chaplain of the Vermont Senate at two sessions of the legislature. At the outbreak of the Rebellion he made effec- tive addresses at many war meetings, and later he served as chaplain of the First Regiment of Vermont Volunteers. For several years after he closed his last pastorate, he was agent of the Vermont State Temperance Society. He died at Castleton, January 25, 1892, aged eighty-five. He was twice married, and had children by both wives. Four of his sons were in the Union service during the war, and one was confined for some time in Libby Prison, another in Andersonville. His first wife, Clar- issa Osgood, who was the mother of eight chil- dren, died at the birth of her son Charles F.
Charles F. Stone was reared in the home of his grandfather, John Stone, the grandparents taking the motherless infant as soon as Mrs. Stone was laid to rest. He grew up on the farm in Cabot, and, though the freedom of farm life developed his physical powers so that he attained a vigorous manhood, his early edu- cational opportunities were limited; but he determined on a professional career, and won his way by hard work. He studied two years in the academy at Barre, Vt., then in charge of Jacob Spaulding, and, entering Middlebury College in 1865, was graduated in the class of 1869. The funds for his tuition in the academy and the college he earned by teach- ing district school in the winter season and singing. school at different times.
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In the summer of 1869 he read law in the office of ex-Governor John W. Stewart, of Middlebury, and he was one year principal of the graded school in that town, pursuing his legal studies in the evening and at other times when not occupied with his school work. In 1870 he entered the office of the Hon. Ellery A. Hibbard, of Laconia, with whom he studied until admitted to the bar of Belknap County in the March term, 1872. Immedi- ately after he was taken into partnership by the late George W. Stevens, the association lasting only about a year, Mr. Stevens's brill- iant career being cut short by insanity. In
1880 Mr. Stone became associated with Eras- tus P. Jewell, establishing the now well-known firm of Jewell & Stone, which ranks among the first in New Hampshire. Mr. Stone and Mr. Jewell are both "all-round " lawyers, and their practice covers a wide range. It is said that they have been more extensively engaged in criminal causes for some years past than any other firm in Belknap County, and their efforts in defence are more than ordinarily successful.
Mr. Stone was reared a Republican and sympathized with that party in its anti-slavery principles ; but about fifteen years ago he be- came dissatisfied with its legislation on finan- cial and revenue matters, and joined the Dem- ocratic party. In ISSo he took the stump for Hancock and English and spoke effectively throughout the State, doing more in that line than any member of his party in the past de- cade. In 1883-84 and 1887-88, he repre- sented Laconia in the State legislature, serv- ing during his first term on the committees on national affairs and railroads, and during his second term on the judiciary and State Normal School committees. During each of these sessions there was an exciting railroad contest, and Mr. Stone was active in antago- nizing the "Colby bill," introduced by the
Hon. Ira Colby, of Claremont, chairman of the Railroad Committee, in the session of ISS3, and the "Hazen bill," the object of controversy in 1887. In the latter contest Mr. Stone's speech on the floor of the House in the final debate was an able and convincing presentation of that side of the case. In 1892 he was the choice of the Democrats for Con- gress, but was defeated by the Hon. Henry W. Blair. On July 3, 1894, he was appointed by President Cleveland naval officer of the port of Boston, and still holds that position. In Laconia, his home since 1870, he frequently served as Moderator in the town meetings be- fore the city charter was granted; and he was a member of the Board of Education seven- teen years, and for some time President of the board. He was also for two years a member of the Board of Trustees of the State Normal School.
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