USA > New Hampshire > Belknap County > Biographical review : containing life sketches of leading citizens of Stafford and Belknap countries, New Hampshire > Part 48
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church and that of the Sunday-school. Mr. Mitchell was a Director, and also officiated for four years as President of the Young Men's Christian Association. A man of strict in- tegrity. during a business career of nearly half a century he has always paid one hundred cents on the dollar.
HOMAS H. WISWELL, a retired paper manufacturer of Durham, was for many years intimately associated with the leading industrial interests of this part of Strafford County. He was born January 28, 1817, in the town of Exeter, two miles from the village, son of Thomas and Sarah (Trow- bridge) Wiswell. Thomas Wiswell was a Massachusetts man, having been born in New- ton of that State. From there he removed to Exeter, N.H., in 1814. He had previously worked at the carpenter's trade. On his re- moval to Exeter, in company with Isaac Flagg, he built a paper-mill, and engaged in the man- ufacture of paper for printers' use. He carried on a substantial business until his death in April, 1836. His wife, Sarah, who was a na- tive of Newton, Mass., bore him seven chil- dren, of whom five were sons.
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Thomas H. Wiswell was educated in the public schools of his native town, and at the Wakefield Academy, attending the latter in- stitution for two terms. When sixteen years of age he began his apprenticeship as a paper- maker in his father's mill, in which he contin- ued to work until 1846. Going then to Dover, this county, Mr. Wiswell there had charge of a paper-mill for five years. At the end of that time he returned to Exeter, and was there employed for two years in the Rus- sell paper-mills. Now, with the confidence of experience, he came to Durham, and in partnership with Isaac Flagg, Jr., the son of
his father's partner, purchased a saw-mill lo- cated on the Lamprey River, having ample' water-power, converted it into a paper-mill, furnishing it with modern machinery, and carried on the manufacture of paper for a time. In 1854 Mr. Flagg disposed of his business to Howard Moses, the firm name being changed to Wiswell & Moses. In 1857 Mr. Moses, who had previously sold his inter- est in the mill to his father, died. Then the firm name became T. H. Wiswell & Co. From that time the mill had an extensive bus- iness in the manufacture of wall paper until 1883, when it was burned. Since then Mr. Wiswell has lived retired from active occu- pation. In the thirty years of his business career, he acquired a fortune ample enough to warrant him spending the remainder of his life in leisure.
Mr. Wiswell was married June 22, 1841, to- Miss Hannah Thing, of Brentwood, N. H. Their only child, Clara, is the wife of Alanson C. Haines, Cashier of the National Bank of New Market, N. H. Politically, Mr. Wiswell has been identified with the Republican party since its formation. He is an esteemed mem- ber of the Congregational Church of New Market, of which he has been Deacon for fif- teen years. Although he has always been a man of domestic tastes, preferring the quiet of his fireside to public life, Mr. Wiswell repre- sented the town of Durham in the State legis- lature in 1872 and 1873.
RS. DOROTHY S. COFFIN, one of the best known residents of Gilmanton, Belknap County, N. H., was born here in 1823, a daughter of Abraham S. and Martha B. (Moulton) Gale. Bartholomew Gale, the earliest known ancestor of the family, a shipwright by trade, came
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MRS. DOROTHY' S. COFFIN.
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from England to Boston, Mass. (It is highly probable that he was the Bartholomew Gale mentioned in the Essex Institute Historical Collections, vol. ii., as having the following children by his second wife, Mary Bacon, the names and dates of birth being copied from an old book of records of Salem, Mass. : Abraham; Isaac; Jacob, 1671 ; Bartholomew, 1674; Daniel and Mary, twins, 1676.)
Bartholomew Gale, progenitor of the Gales of Gilmanton, N. H., was the father of several children, it is said; but only the names of Jacob and Daniel are known. The former settled in Kingston, Mass. He served as a Representative, and was otherwise active in town affairs. The name of his wife is not known; but he had a son, Captain Daniel, born September 2, 1739, who married Patience Eastman, May 29, 1760, and was the father of the following children : Susan, Jacob, Joseph, Shuah and Daniel (twins), Mary, Stephen, and Elizabeth. Captain Daniel Gale removed to Gilmanton in 1780, and died there in ISO1, his wife surviving him a little more than three years. Their son Joseph, the next in line, born October 30, 1764, married Sarah Smith, April 16, 1789, and had twelve chil- dren, named respectively : Mary; Abraham S .; John; Patience; Daniel; Sarah; Stephen; Dolly ; James and Joseph, who died away from home; Thomas; and Moses. But one of these is now living; namely, Moses, a farmer in Gilmanton.
Abraham S. Gale was born about 1794. After receiving a district -school education, he i
began learning the trade of blacksmith with an uncle in Portsmouth, N. H. While there, much of his leisure time was spent in the ship-yards; and, a friendship springing up between him and a sca captain, he shipped on the Captain's vessel, and was away on a voyage three years, during which he received
from the Captain the treatment of a son. Ar- riving in Boston in 1812, he immediately en- listed to fight the British, and did not come back to his old home until the close of the war. When he did return, his four or five years' absence had so changed him that not one of his own family at first recognized him. On his arrival in Gilmanton he went direct to his father's shop, and, there making inquiries of his father regarding a certain place, he was referred to his brothers in the field; but neither his father nor his brothers knew him as the lost Abraham until he returned to his father and repeated his inquiries. When the father realized to whom he was talking, it is said that he fainted, being overcome with see- ing his son, whom he had given up as dead. Abraham S. Gale then settled in Gilmanton, and carried on quite an extensive business in blacksmithing, in which he possessed much skill. He was ever ready to take in any of the village boys who showed an aptitude for the work, and teach them the trade. He was a man of many virtues, thoughtful for the comfort of others, charitable in word and decd, kind and generous in his family, and ex- emplary in his habits. In politics he was a Democrat. Mr. Gale died April 12, 1866. His wife, Martha B. Moulton Gale, who was born in ISOS, a daughter of Captain Daniel Moulton, survived him eleven years, dying on April 11, 1877.
Robert Moulton, her grandfather, came from Rye, N. H., to Gilmanton in 1775. He was a descendant of John Moulton, who took the freeman's oath at Hampton, N. H., in 1638. The children of Robert Moulton were: Eliza- beth, who married Samuel Thurston; Lucy, who married John Thurston; Joses, who died in the army at the age of eighteen; Robert ; Jonathan; and Captain Daniel, who married | Polly Lamprey. Captain Daniel Moulton
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died while on a visit at Winthrop, Me., in 1822. He was the father of General Daniel Moulton, and among his other children were: Joses; Polly; and Martha, called Patty, who became Mrs. Gale.
Abraham S. and Martha B. Gale had five children; namely, Abraham S., Jr., Dorothy S., Martha, Henrietta Jackson, and Franklin, the two now living being Henrietta J. and Dorothy S. (Mrs. Coffin). Abraham S. Galc, Jr., the eldest child, born in 1821, enlisted in Company B, Twelfth New Hampshire Volun - teers, and served in the Civil War from 1861 to 1864. He married Martha Nash, of New Market, N.H., and died March 17, 1890. Martha Gale, who married Dearborn Tibbetts, a storekeeper of Gilmanton, was born in 1825, and died in 1890, the same year as her brother, leaving a son and daughter - Frank- lin and Elizabeth. Henrietta J. Gale is the wife of L. W. Ham, of Gilmanton, who owns the Ham Iron Foundry on Portland Street, Boston. They have one son, Fred P. Ham. Franklin Gale served on the police force of New York City for several years. At his death he left a widow and children, who now reside in Worcester, Mass.
On March 5, 1846, Dorothy S. Gale, the special subject of this brief biography, became the wife of Joseph M. Coffin, of Alton, N. H., with whom she passed a happy married life of nearly forty-two years on a large farm given them by her father. Joseph M. Coffin, who was son of Samuel Coffin, of Alton, and was of an old New England family, died on May 18, 1887, aged about sixty-five years. A hard- working farmer, by his own industry he had acquired a competence. He is remembered as a "good man, a kind neighbor, and a most ex- cellent husband and father." His departure was felt as a great loss to his family and the neighborhood. Shortly after her husband's
death Mrs. Coffin removed, as he had advised her to do, into the Iron Works village, where she was born, and where she bought a house, in which she continues to make her home. She managed the farm for a number of years before she sold it.
Smith G. Coffin, the only child of Joseph and Dorothy S. (Gale) Coffin, born October 17, 1847, completed his education in Gilman- ton Academy. Being of an ambitious dispo- sition, when but seventeen he left home to go to Boston, where he began his career in a market, remaining four years, then accepted a position, with a salary one hundred and fifty dollars above that he had received, in Brady's Bend, Pa., from which place he went to l'e- trolia, Pa. Not long after going to Pennsyl- vania. he became interested, September 1, 1880, in the oil business in Bradford, that State, where he now owns thirty-two oil wells, three livery stables, with forty-five livery and fifty-five boarding horses, a blacksmith and carriage shop, paint shop and wood shop, as a result of his energy and enterprise. He mar- ried in June, 1874, Florence Flemming, of Armstrong County, Pennsylvania, and has two children, namely: Cloddie Dorothy, who is married, and has one child, named Ralph; and Charles. Twice each year Mrs. Gale visits her son and his family, but her love for her New Hampshire home is too strong for her to leave it for a long time. Though more than seventy years of age, she is still in good health and very active; and one of the pleas- ures in which she takes especial delight is the driving of spirited horses. Courage and a clear conscience, she says, is her medicine. Her genial disposition, and her sympathy in the joys and help in the sorrows and needs of others, whether old or young, has so en - deared her in the hearts of all that the name of Aunt Dot, as she is usually called, will
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long be a familiar one, not only to those who now know her, but to their children as well.
HOMAS M. STEELE, now retired from active business life, resides on his farm in Dover, Strafford County, where he is held in high esteem. He was born November 11, 1833, at New Durham, N.H., son of David and Lydia (Burnham) Steele, who came here from New Durham in 1850. He was reared on a farm, acquiring his carly education in the district schools. After coming to this city he pursued his stud- ies at the Franklin Academy and at the Dover Iligh School for some years. On attaining his majority he began work at the cutter's bench in a Dover shoe factory. He continued employed in this factory for twenty-eight con- secutive years, spending the last fifteen years in the capacity of foreman of the sole-leather room, a responsible position for which his ability and tact especially fitted him. After- ward he engaged in the grocery business for two years, and then purchased a farm, which he subsequently carried on for seven years. At the end of that period he returned to the grocery business for a year, and then in 1894 retired to the farm, where he now lives. He is known as a man of sagacity and fore- sight. On the breaking out of the late war, Mr. Steele enlisted for a term of three months in Company A, First New Hampshire Volun- teer Infantry, being mustered into service at Concord. Upon the expiration of his term of enlistment, he was honorably discharged with his company.
Mr. Steele was married December 9, 1885, to Miss Caroline A. Leighton, of New Dur- ham, daughter of Ephraim and Nancy (Edgerly) Leighton. He was Councilman for two years and Alderman for three years, being
elected from Ward One in each case. He also served for two terms in the State legisla - ture, first in 1889, and again in 1891. In politics he has been a stanch Republican since he became a voter. He belongs to the Grand Army of the Republic, being a member of the Charles Sawyer Post of Dover.
ILLIAM H. PEPPER, an esteemed resident of Lakeport, and the founder and President of the Pepper Manufacturing Company, was born in the year 1830 in Nottingham, Nottingham County, England, son of Daniel and Mary (Parkins) Pepper. The father was a lace-maker by trade. Of his five children, four sons and a daughter, William H. is the sole survivor. Both parents are also deceased.
Having come to this country in his early boyhood, William H. Pepper received his ed- ucation in the common and high schools of Portsmouth, N.H., where his father was en- gaged in the manufacture of hosiery. After leaving school he entered his father's shop, and operated a hand loom until he was seven- teen years old. He was next, for a short time, employed in the hosiery-mill of Warren & Sanford at Portsmouth. On leaving there he worked in a machine shop in Lowell, Mass. While at the last-named place, Hosea Crane sent him to Philadelphia, in charge of a knit- ting-machine to be placed on exhibition. After this he returned to Portsmouth, but sub- sequently went to work in the Henry Marchant mills at Pawtucket, R. I. Later he was em- ployed in Valley Falls in a rubber manufactur- ing establishment, having spent about eighteen months in this and the previous place. He next secured a position as overseer in the John Nesmith mills at Franklin, N. H., with which he had been connected for four years when
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the plant was destroyed by fire in the spring of 1857. Going then to Lake Village, he be- came superintendent in the Thomas Appleton mill, where he remained . between two and three years. On leaving that employment he formed a copartnership with his brother, and engaged in the hosiery business, which they conducted under the firm name of J. & W. H. Pepper. Later on he was associated with John S. Crane, forming the firm of Crane & Pepper, in the manufacture of knitting-machines for his brother John. John afterward joined him in the enterprise, once more forming the firm of J. & W. H. Pepper, which lasted for sev- eral years. After separating from his brother he carried on the business alone until about 1886, when he admitted two of his workmen to partnership, and the style of the firm be- came "W. H. Pepper & Co." In 1891 the Pepper Manufacturing Company was formed, with William H. Pepper as President, G. A. Sanders for Secretary, and A. T. L. Davis for Treasurer, Mr. Pepper being also a Director. He is also a Director of the Lake Village Bank, and of the Lakeport National Bank, which he has likewise served since its organi- zation as a member of its Financial Com- mittee.
Mr. Pepper has been married three times. His first marriage was contracted with Ellen A. Jackson, of Corinth, Me .; his second, with Mrs. Addie, of Lakeport; and his third, with Nellie S. Moulton, daughter of William P. Moulton, of Lake Village. His daughter, Emma M., by his first marriage, married George A. Sanders, and died at the age of twenty-four years. She left one daughter, Ethelyn M., who has since made her home with her grandparents, and is now attending Tilton Academy. Mr. Pepper is a Republi- can, and has always taken considerable inter- est in political matters. In 1890 he was
elected to the State legislature, where he served on the Manufacturing Committee, and gave his support to the passage of the bill for lighting the Weirs Channel by buoys. Pre- vious to entering the legislature, he was Chairman of the Board of Supervisors for two years. As a rule, however, he will not con- sent to his name being used as a candidate for office. He is a member of Chocorua Lodge, No. 51, I. O. O. F. ; and the Laconia En- campment, and he attends religious worship at the Baptist church.
JDWIN C. BEAN, a successful merchant of Belmont, Belknap County, and a Di- rector of the Tilton & Belmont Rail- road, is a native of Gilmanton, this county. He was born February 20, 1854, son of John C. and Climena (Chase) Bean, and a lineal descendant of John Bean, one of the early col- onists. Simeon Bean, his great-grandfather, was the first of the family to settle in Bel- knap County, coming here in 1775. He was a farmer by occupation, and lived to be about forty-five years of age. Jeremiah Bean, his grandfather, who was prominent in town affairs, and served in the Board of Selectmen and the New Hampshire legislature, by his wife, Mchitable, had five children, all of whom lived to maturity. One daughter died at twenty. His son, Joseph W., resides in Manchester, N. H. His wife was a daughter of John W. Chase, who was an officer in the War of 1812, and son of a Revolutionary patriot who fought at Bunker Hill.
John C. Bean, the eldest son of Jeremiah, was born in Gilmanton, May 18, 1818. He received a good common-school education, and became a leading citizen of the town, which he served as Selectman for three years before its division. For twenty years he was Di-
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rector of the Gilmanton Insurance Company, and for a considerable time he held the office of Justice of the Peace. His wife, Climena, was a daughter of Stephen Burleigh, one of those who fought for independence in the struggle of 1776. She was born June 20, 1815, and died in February, 1895, when nearly eighty years of age. Their children were: Emma D., Edna A., Orrin H., Alvin T., and Edwin C.
At the death of his father, Edwin C. Bean, the youngest child, was but nine years of age. The family soon after removed to Belmont, where he completed his rudimentary educa- tion. He subsequently attended Tilton Acad- emy, and then pursued private studies, both by himself and under the tutorship of others, among them Lawyer Peaslee, of Laconia. In 1872 he went into the cotton-mills at Bel- mont, and was there employed until 1877. Since then he has been in business for him- self.
On October 10, 1882, Mr. Bean was joined · in marriage with Miss Marietta, daughter of . Edwin R. Bowman, of Eastport, Me. They have had three children, namely: Helen M. and John C., who attend school; and Arthur Edward, who is four years old. In politics Mr. Bean is a Republican. He has always taken much interest in local affairs. Under the administration of President Hayes he was appointed Postmaster of Belmont, which office he very acceptably filled for seven years. In 1886 he represented this town in the Lower House of the State legislature, where he served on the Normal School and Election Committees, and spoke on the Normal School bill and that bill relating to the Tilton & Bel- mont Railroad, both of which were passed. He was a candidate for the New Hampshire Senate on two occasions, when his party was in a minority. In 1881 and 1882 he held the
office of Town Clerk. Fraternally, he is a member of Mount Lebanon Lodge, No. 32, F. & A. M .; of Union Chapter, No. 7, R. A. M .; Pythagorean Council, No. 6, R. & S. M .; of Pilgrim Commandery, K. T. He has held office in none of these on account of his inability to attend regularly by reason of distance from the place of meeting. He has also membership in Governor Busiel Lodge, No. 53, K. of P., of Belmont, in which he is a P. C. C .; and in Lawrence Grange, of which he is a Past Master. Mr. Bean is an attendant of the Free Will Baptist church.
ILLIAM H. ROBERTS, an active young attorney of Dover, Strafford County, was born in Rollinsford, April 20, 1866, only son of Moses and Lydia (Hussey) Roberts. He is of honored pioncer ancestry, being the lineal descendant of one Thomas Roberts, who emigrated from Eng- land to America in 1640, and took up his resi- dence at Dover Point. Many of his descend- ants settled in this county. Among these was the great-great-grand-uncle of William II. He took up a tract of forest-covered land in the town of Rollinsford, and there cleared and improved the homestead on which Moses Rob- erts, who belongs to the fourth generation, is still living.
William H. Roberts pursued his studies in the district schools of his native town until fifteen years old, when he was enrolled among the pupils of the Salmon Falls High School. Two years later he became a student at the Berwick Academy, from which he received his diploma in 1886. Mr. Roberts then entered the law office of the Hon. Joshua G. Hall, of Dover. After studying here for two years, he was admitted to the Boston University Law School, where he finished his legal studies
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with the class of 1890. In July of the same year he was admitted to the bar, and at once commenced the practice of his profession in Dover, where he has been quite successful. He is prominently identified with the legal fraternity of this section, and is very popular in social circles.
Mr. Roberts takes an earnest interest in local affairs. He was elected from his native town to the legislature in 1893, in which he served on the important committee of the Re- vision of Statutes. In 1894, at the carnest solicitation of his many friends, he was the Democratic candidate for Solicitor of Strafford County, although the district was a Republi- can stronghold. In the ensuing election, despite the fact that he received many Repub- lican votes and ran ahead of his ticket, he was honorably defeated. Mr. Roberts. is a mem- ber of Granite Lodge, No. 65, F. & A. M., of Salmon Falls; and of Dover Lodge of Per- fection, A. & A. Scottish Rite, in which he has taken the thirty-second degree.
HARLES ELLIOTT TILTON, an esteemed resident of Tilton, well known throughout the county, was born in Sanbornton, September 14, 1827, son of the Hon. Samuel Tilton. His education, begun in the public schools of his native town, was continued at Sanbornton Academy under the tiftorship of Professor Dyer HI. Sanborn, and at the Norwich University when General Ransom was president of that institution. I'mon the breaking out of the Mexican War, General Ransom, who induced nearly all his students to enlist in the army, offered young Mr. Tilton the command of a company. Al- though it was very flattering to his boyish ambition, the boy declined the offer by the advice of his father. He then went to New
York, and from there sailed for the West Indies and South America. Of a bold and ambitious spirit, he had determined to strike out in life and make a fortune for himself. After going up the Amazon and Orinoco Rivers to their head waters, he visited Caracas, La Guayra, Carthagena, and Chagres. Hear- ing that discoveries of gold had been made in California, he started for San Francisco, via Panama.
On arriving in San Francisco, Mr. Tilton decided, after a careful survey of the situa- tion, to engage in mercantile affairs. In 1850 he went to Oregon. Here, in the fol- lowing year, he formed a partnership with W. S. Ladd, Esq., that continued for twenty- one years. The firm engaged in banking and many other lines of business. One of their enterprises was the establishment and mainte- nance of a line of vessels between Oregon and China. Among these vessels was the "C. E. Tilton," which, after its sale to the Japanese government, was sunk by the United States ship "Powhatan " in a naval engagement. Mr. Tilton was interested in nearly all the great industrial projects started in the Pacific coast region in his time. He was a pioneer worker in opening the Columbia and Willa- mette Rivers to navigation, and he was one of the company of five persons who controlled the original Oregon Railway and Navigation Company with a capital of twenty-four million dollars. Besides his interest in the banking firm, Ladd & Tilton, of Portland, Ore., al- ready referred to, he was connected with the bank of Ladd & Bush of Salem, with the First National Bank of Walla Walla, W. T., and the First National Bank of Portland. The trans- portation of merchandise across the plains in the early fifties, before the great trans-conti- nental railroads were built and when the coun- try was infested with hostile red men and
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lawless whites, was a serious problem. Mr. Tilton studied it carefully, with the purpose of learning the safest methods of despatching trains, and at length engaged extensively in transportation through Utah, Montana, Wyo- ming, and Colorado. He gave personal super- vision to the business, providing for all sorts of danger, including that of tornadoes, with the result that his trains were successful in making safe and rapid journeys. Then, guided by his knowledge of the geographical and agricultural features of the West, hc bought tracts of land that have since become most valuable property.
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