History of Bedford, New Hampshire, from 1737 : being statistics compiled on the occasion of the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the incorporation of the town, May 15, 1900, Part 46

Author: Bedford (N.H. : Town)
Publication date: 1903
Publisher: Concord, N. H. : The Rumford Printing Co.
Number of Pages: 1202

USA > New Hampshire > Hillsborough County > Bedford > History of Bedford, New Hampshire, from 1737 : being statistics compiled on the occasion of the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the incorporation of the town, May 15, 1900 > Part 46

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He commenced practice at Skaneateles, N. Y., where he lived five years, removing to Seneca Castle, N. Y., in 1884, where he still remains.

Dr. Alice Bird (French) Mills, youngest child of Stephen and Sallie (Foster) French, entered the medical school of Boston univer- sity in 1877. She took the full course of three years, and received her degree in April, 1880. The same month she married Prof. Henry Mills of Binghamton, N. Y., and went into practice with him in that city. For twelve years they conducted a sanatorium; then Dr. Mills entered general practice.

After the death of Professor Mills in 1897 Dr. Mills broke up her home and went abroad for a year and a half, spending most of the time in Syria and Palestine.

Soon after her return, in August, 1901, she went into medical mission work under the Woman's Board of Home Missions of the Presbyterian church, and has now been two years among the moun- taineers of " Appalachian America."

Of a strongly religious nature from a child she finds great oppor- tunities and greater satisfaction in ministering to the souls and bodies of those shut-in people. Her work is on the Coal river, Dry Creek, Raleigh county, West Virginia.

Frederick Clarence Newton, M. D., was born in Milford, N. H., December 15, 1858. In 1862 his parents moved to Bedford. He attended the public schools of that town. After the death of his father, Elbridge Gould Newton, January 28, 1874, he went to Phillips academy, Andover, Mass., where he graduated in

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PHYSICIANS.

1878. After one year at Dartmouth college he began the study of medicine in the University of New York, and graduated in 1882. He began the practice of his profession that year in Chicago, and soon built up a lucrative business. He was assistant demonstrator of anatomy in the College of Physicians and Surgeons in Chicago until his death, and acquired a good reputation as a skilful surgeon. In 1884 he married Josephine H. Martin, of Manchester, N. H. In December of 1886 a neighboring physician engaged him to perform intubation on a little girl who was very sick with diphtheria. During the operation the child accidentally bit Dr. Newton in his finger. From this wound he took the disease and died January 12, 1887. He is buried in Milford, N. H.

" Life is not measured by years."

George Wentworth Newton, M. D., was born in Milford, N. H., December 11, 1860. His parents moved to Bedford in 1862. After the death of his father, Elbridge Gould Newton, in 1874, he attended school for a few months at the academy at Derry, and soon after entered Phillips academy at Andover, Mass., where he graduated in 1879. After engaging in business in Boston part of a year, he com- menced the study of medicine in the University of New York, where he remained one year, and then entered the University of Pennsyl- vania, at Philadelphia, where he graduated with honor in 1884.

After practising a few months in Hudson, Mass., he decided that a small town offered too small opportunities, so he decided to move to Chicago. In the fall of 1884 he opened an office in Chicago, Ill., and soon built up a profitable practice. Besides attending to his private practice he was connected with one of the city dispensaries, which afforded him a large field for the study of disease.

After the death of his brother, Dr. Frederick C. Newton, in 1887, he combined his brother's practice with his own. In May, 1887, he married Jennette Jackson, of Philadelphia, Pa. In their home at Chicago they have had two sons born, Harold Jackson and Frederick Albert. He has made surgery a specialty, and in 1897 was elected to the chair of professor of gynecology in the Chicago Post-Graduate school and policlinic, and visiting gynecologist at the West Side hospital. In 1901 he was elected instructor in gynecology in the medical department of the University of Illinois, and in 1902 was appointed associate professor of clinical gynecology in the same uni- versity.

He has written several articles for medical journals, which have attracted wide attention. He has a large and lucrative practice, and is recognized by his fellow practitioners as an able operator and acute diagnostician.

Lawyers.

Since Piscataquog was taken from Bedford there has been no law- yer's office in the town. The lawyers who had practised in Bedford had their offices in Piscataquog village. An attempt has been made to bring into this chapter a brief notice of all of the lawyers who have resided here or who were born here.

The first lawyer who settled in Bedford was James Underwood, son of Judge Underwood of Litchfield. He had a house a little north of Frederic Hodgman's. It is said he became deranged.

James Parker, Esq., came from Litchfield to Bedford and opened an office in Piscataquog village in the spring of 1805, and continued in the practice of law until his death, which occurred March 26, 1822. He was the son of Matthew Parker, and married Mary Parker.

Isaac McGaw, Esq., son of Jacob McGaw of Merrimack, came to Bedford, opened an office in Piscataquog village, April, 1810, and continued the practice of law until June 1, 1819. He then left Bedford, married, and settled in Windham, N. H. He now (1850) resides with a married daughter in Merrimack. He graduated from college in 1807.

Jonas B. Bowman, Esq., came to Bedford, March 26, 1818. He went into partnership with James Parker, Esq., and continued with him in the practice of law until the death of his partner, when he took the office, and has been in the practice of law to the present time (1850), having had the last few years an office in Manchester.

James McKeen Wilkins, Esq., came to Bedford, October 20, 1819, opened an office in William P. Riddle's store, and continued here in the practice of law until June 3, 1840, when he moved to Man- chester.

John Porter, Jr., came to Bedford from Londonderry, and went into J. B. Bowman's office in company, October 5, 1835. Went to Manchester in 1839.

Among the attorneys-at-law who were born, or have resided in Bedford, but who practised elsewhere, were:

Benjamin Orr, son of John and Sarah (Houston) Orr, was born December 1, 1772. He graduated from Dartmouth college in 1798, and was admitted to the bar in 1802, settling at Brunswick, Me. He had a very extensive practice in that state, and served one term in congress. He died in 1828.

Joseph Bell, son of Joseph and Mary (Houston) Bell, was born

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LAWYERS.

March 21, 1787. He graduated from Dartmouth college in 1807, was admitted to the bar, and settled at Haverhill, N. H. In 1846 he moved to Boston, and became very eminent in the profession. He was at one time president of the Massachusetts state senate.

William Gordon, son of John and Mary (Campbell) Gordon, graduated from Dartmouth college in 1811. He established a law office at Charlestown, Mass., and died in 1835 from inflammation of the lungs in consequence of an injury from a passing carriage while handing a letter to a stage-driver.

Adam Gordon, son of Josiah and Jane (Walker) Gordon, gradu- ated from Dartmouth college in 1817; he studied law at Cambridge and settled at Pensacola, Fla .; he later removed to Key West, and subsequently came to New Haven, Conn.

Robert Orr, son of John and Sarah (Houston) Orr, was born December 23, 1797, graduated from Yale college in 1820. He studied law with his brother Benjamin at Brunswick, Me., and opened an office at Topsham. He died in 1829.

John Aiken, son of Phineas and Elizabeth (Patterson) Aiken, was born January 30, 1797, in Bedford ; died February 10, 1867, in Andover, Mass. He graduated at Dartmouth in 1819, and was a classmate of Rufus Choate. He was one of the organizers and a teacher of Burr seminary, Manchester, Vt., where he entered into the practice of law, but soon removed to Lowell, Mass., where he became the agent in charge of the Lawrence, Suffolk, and Tremont mills. About 1849 he removed to Andover, Mass., having a busi- ness office in Boston as treasurer of the Cocheco Manufacturing company, Dover, N. H. He was a trustee of Dartmouth, Phillips Andover academy, Andover Theological seminary; deacon in the Congregational church, Lowell and Andover; Bible scholar and teacher, and a member of the Massachusetts state council. He married, November 14, 1826, Harriet Russell Adams, daughter of Prof. Ebenezer Adams of Dartmouth. He married, second, May 28, 1832, Mary Means Appleton, daughter of Pres. Jesse Appleton, of Bowdoin college.

Charles Aiken, son of Phineas and Elizabeth (Patterson) Aiken, was born March 2, 1802, in Bedford; died May 5, 1894, in Santa Cruz, Cal .; married May 2, 1839, Adeline Willey of Campton, N. H. He was a man of many remarkable characteristics, a lawyer and member of the bar for seventy years, practising at Chester and Mid- dlebury, Vt., Appleton, Wis., and San Francisco, Cal. He was honored with A. M. from Dartmouth in 1872.

David Aiken, son of Phineas and Elizabeth (Patterson) Aiken, was born June 7, 1804, in Bedford; died April 13, 1895, in Green- field, Mass .; graduated at Dartmouth in 1830; admitted to the bar in 1833; practised law at Greenfield, Mass. He was judge of the court of common pleas, and was a member of the Massachusetts senate in 1882. He married, October 24, 1844, Lydia A. Root, who

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HISTORY OF BEDFORD.

died November 13, 1846. He married, second, Margaret E. Adams, daughter of John S. Adams, Amherst, Mass.

Peter Trask Woodbury, son of Peter P. and Martha (Riddle) Woodbury, was born May 8, 1820. He graduated from Dartmouth college in 1839, and, upon being admitted to the bar, located at Troy, N. Y., later removing to New York city. He was made judge advocate-general of the navy in 1858, and was for many years a partner of President Chester A. Arthur. He died in March, 1862.

William Riddle Woodbury, son of Peter P. and Martha (Riddle) Woodbury, was born December 31, 1821. He graduated from Dartmouth college in 1843, and practised law at Sheboygan, Wis. He died in Bedford May 27, 1860.

James Woodruff Savage, son of Thomas and Lucy (Woodruff) Savage, was born February 2, 1826. He graduated from Harvard college in 1847, and was admitted to the bar in New York city in 1850. He practised law there until the breaking out of the Civil war, when he served on the staff of General Fremont, and after- wards was colonel of a regiment of New York cavalry. After the war he removed to Omaha, and became one of the leaders of the Nebraska bar. He was elected to a judgeship, was government director of the Union Pacific railroad, and held many other posi- tions of trust. He died November 22, 1890.

William Quincy Riddle, son of William P. and Sally (Ferguson) Riddle, was born June 8, 1828, in Bedford (Piscataquog) ; died, April 5, 1895, in New York city, and was buried in the family tomb at Bedford. He was educated in the public schools of the town, was a student at Yale but graduated at Harvard, and practised law in New York city. He volunteered in the War of the Rebellion to aid in the checking and turning back of the rebel army from the state of Pennsylvania when on its way to capture New York, Phila- delphia, and Washington. He was largely identified as an organizer and early member of the Union League club of New York.

William Stark, son of Frederick G. Stark, Esq., graduated from college in 1850. Although admitted to the bar he did not practice.1

Josiah Gordon Woodbury, son of Peter P. and Eliza B. G. Wood- bury, was born July 27, 1833. He graduated from Brown univer- sity in 1857 and the Harvard Law school. He opened an office at Indianapolis, and conducted it until the outbreak of the Civil war, when he returned to Bedford and entered the navy as paymaster. He was killed on board the monitor Catskill, in front of Battery Wagner, at Charleston, August 7, 1863.

Charles H. Woodbury, son of Peter P. and Eliza B. G. Wood- bury, was born March 10, 1840, and graduated from Harvard Law

1 Frederick G. Stark was a "side " judge, as it was called. He sold his land near where the American Locomotive company works are, on the banks of the Locks and, Canal company's land running to the river, and moved to Bedford about 1835. He was called Judge Stark because he sat on the bench beside the court during the trial of actions in the county court. His duty was to pass upon the accounts of the county as county commissioners now do.

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School. He studied law with Herman Foster in Manchester, and went to New York in 1862, on the death of his brother, Peter Trask, and assumed his business. He continued in practice there until his sud- den death at his Bedford home, September 12, 1893. He was offered the position of associate justice of the United States supreme court by President Cleveland to succeed Justice Blatchford, his knowledge of maritime law being regarded as especially qualifying him for the position.

Thomas Savage, son of Thomas and Sarah (Webster) Savage, was born January 20, 1852. He fitted for college at Pinkerton academy, and graduated from Dartmouth college in 1873. He went to Flor- ida with an engagement to teach after having been admitted to the bar, studying with Judge Cross in Manchester, and was soon made district attorney for the southern district of Florida, by President Grant. In 1876 he entered the law office of Allen & Long in Bos- ton, and later became a member of the firm whose title was Allen, Long & Savage, the Long being ex-Governor and ex-Secretary John D. Long. He was chairman of the board of aldermen of Malden, Mass., and city solicitor there. He was admitted to prac- tice in the United States supreme court in 1879. He was a Mason, and a widely-known member of the Ancient and Honorable Artil- lery company of Boston, and at the time of his death had risen therein to the rank of first lieutenant. He died January 31, 1899, the result of a serious accident in being thrown from a street car.

John Foster, son of George and Salome (Little) Foster, was born at Warner, N. H., March 5, 1852, and came to Bedford in 1868, where he resided until 1880, representing the town in the legisla- ture in 1879. He graduated from Dartmouth college in 1876. He studied law with Briggs & Huse in Manchester, and was admitted to the bar in 1878. He removed to Manchester in 1880, and con- tinued in the active practice of his profession for about twenty years, when his health broke down.

Gordon Woodbury, son of Freeman P. and Harriet (McGaw) Woodbury, was born in New York city, September 17, 1863. He graduated from Harvard college in 1886, and from the Columbia Law school. He was admitted to the bar in 1888, and practised for one year in New York city. He then came to Bedford, having an office in Manchester in company with L. B. Clough. He ceased to practice in 1896, having become treasurer of the Union Publishing company.

Wallace B. Clement, son of Nathan W. and Augusta C. Clement, was born in Manchester, January 24, 1866. He moved to Bedford with his parents in 1876, where he continued to reside until 1894. He studied law with Briggs & Huse and Henry E. Burnham of Manchester, and was admitted to the bar in 1888. His office has always been in Manchester, where he still resides.

The French War.

The history of Bedford is concerned only with the French war, which began in 1744, was temporarily interrupted by the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1748; was renewed again in 1750, and con- tinued until the fall of Montreal and the final conquest of Canada in 1760. With the old French war, as it was called on this side of the water, or what is known in England as Queen Anne's war, and which began in 1710, and terminated by the treaty of Utrecht in 1713, our town was not concerned.

The immediate and the more remote causes which led up to the War of 1744 did not have their origin on this continent, but grew out of European continental politics.

At first blush it would seem as if the interests of the settlers in this (then) remote wilderness could not be involved in a quarrel between the remote personages who occupied thrones three thou- sand miles away, but it is the testimony of the time that their eager- ness and alacrity in entering upon the war, and the immediate suc- cess which attended the first enterprise, which was distinctively their own, aroused the excited admiration of both Europe and America. Why should these early settlers of Bedford care for these quarrels of distant sovereigns ?

While our forefathers had little knowledge of European politics, long experience had taught them that no firm and lasting peace on this continent was possible with the French and their Indian allies on the north. The settlement of New France had been accom- panied by one long-continued and well-planned attempt of the French governors to stretch a chain of forts and trading posts from Quebec on the north to Louisiana on the south. These fortifications would form a dotted line along the principal waterways between the two points. Ascending the St. Lawrence from Quebec they fortified the Island of Montreal and established there a colony ; through the Thousand Islands to Niagara, and we find another fort; again at Oswego, on the shore of Lake Erie, was another fort ;

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THE FRENCH WAR.

again at Venango; then at Detroit and Mackinaw, and so on to the far West. From Venango to the junction of the Monongahela and Allegheny rivers and we come to Fort Duquesne, as they called it, or after its capture by the British, Fort Pitt, and now Pittsburg.

Between Montreal and Quebec the River Richelieu empties the water of Lake Champlain into the St. Lawrence, and gives an easy entrance to the heart of the English settlements. A canoe can readily pass through it up Lake Champlain ; from Lake Champlain a short carry around the falls of Ticonderoga brings the voyager to Lake George, and threading his way among its many islands he found at its head that he was within easy marching distance of Fort Edward and Albany.

Where Lake Champlain narrows near its head to form Crown Point extensive fortifications were begun in 1727. At the fall of the waters of Lake George into Lake Champlain at Ticonderoga, as the Indians call it (known by the French as Fort Carillon), still more complete and elaborate defences were completed about 1730, and served to hem in the English settlements on the north and west.

The nature of the country along the shores of Lake George, from Ticonderoga at its foot to Fort Edward near its head, did not fur- nish a site for fortifications which appealed to the engineers of the time. At the head of the lake, however, there was erected by the British a fort which they called Fort William Henry. This was in 1755.

There seemed to be something in the character of the French col- onists which admitted of closer assimilation with their Indian neigh- bors than was the case with the English. The French colonists frequently married Indians, and most of the western settlements of Canada at that time were peopled by a race of half-breeds who seemed to share the vices of both the races from which they sprang, but to divide none of their merits. The first Frenchman (De La Salle) to paddle up Lake Champlain had incurred for his country- men the lasting hostility of the most powerful tribe of Indians on the North American continent, the Iroquois, or Six Nations. This was a tribe, or confederation of tribes, whose headquarters were at Onondaga, in the Mohawk valley in New York, and their name be- came a terror to the settlers as far east as Quebec and as far west as Duluth, and as far south as the Ohio. It was the policy of the Eng-

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HISTORY OF BEDFORD.

lish governors to play upon the hereditary hostility to the French, which these Indians displayed, and every effort was made to buy and wheedle them into alliances with the English. On the other hand, it was the policy of the French to make difficult the settlement of the dreary wilderness which, stretching from Exeter and Portsmouth, and west to Lake George, reached north to the river St. Lawrence.

To accomplish this they therefore maintained a standing bounty for English scalps, and through their priests, promised abundant in- dulgence in this world, and a future of unmixed happiness in the next, to every war party which should return with a record of plun- dered settlements and butchered women and children from the Eng- lish frontier.

It must have been the daily anticipation of the early settlers in our town of meeting or hearing of war parties from Canada who had come up the Richelieu river, carried over into the head waters of the Connecticut, come down the Connecticut, usually as far as Charlestown, and so passed on their way southward. They knew that warfare against the Indian alone was comparatively simple, but when combined with his half-breed relative and commanded by the regular officers of the French army, the conflict was sure to be un- certain, and if decided against them, certain death or slavery, worse than death, was the result. Accordingly, we gain in this aspect of the situation an insight into the eagerness with which the colonists of the time were ready to tax themselves and to contribute men and money for the expeditions which the king would set on foot to re- duce Canada. A state of smouldering war seems to have existed from about 1690 to 1760 between the French-Indian colonists on the one hand and the English on the other, and the period was punc- tuated by seasons when well-organized effort was made by the royal authorities to cooperate with the colonists and bring about a final settlement of the situation. Accordingly, when war was declared, in 1744, the colonial governors were called on to raise men and money for an expedition against the French. Joseph Blanchard, of Dunstable, was commissioned by the governor of New Hampshire to raise a regiment. A Bedford man, John Goffe, was commis- sioned captain in it. Elsewhere we have told the story of two other men from Bedford, James McQuaid and John Burns, who went to Penacook (now Concord) to purchase corn for their families; how one of them (McQuaid) was killed and the other (Burns) escaped. This outrage and another of similar character at Great Meadows

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(now Walpole) roused the governor. Orders were issued to Colonel Blanchard to take the field, and he detached Captain Goffe to scour the woods for the enemy.

The early muster rolls give nothing as to the place of residence of the people whose names they contain. John Goffe was an officer in the militia forces almost continuously from the beginning of the trouble which the colonists had with the French and Indians until its close in 1760. The greater portion of that time he was a resi- dent of Bedford, and the remainder of it his home was just across the river at Goffe's. What other Bedford people were in the ser- vice during this period is not absolutely certain. There are sur- names upon those rolls such as were held by families then perma- nently settled, as known from lists of 1744 and 1751, printed else- where, and we also find a few names identically the same in the lat- ter and upon the rolls. On the roll of those who served under Capt. John Goffe in guarding Souhegan, Monson, and Stark garrisons in 1748, is found the name Benjamin Smith. There was in Bedford at that time not only a Benjamin Smith, but three, and as the designa- tions " 2d " and "3d " are found, it is probable that they were all of one family. Close to Smith's name on the roll is " John Lunn," and upon the list of residents of 1751 we find "Jonathan Lyon." There were also in this company "Jonathan Corlass " and "Hugh Blair." " Corliss " and " Blare " families were then living in Bedford. May not these have been boys of the families ?

The roll of another company commanded by Goffe in scouting " on the frontiers " later in the same year (1748) contains the name of John Little, and a person of that name then lived in Bedford. Other names in that company are: Thomas Chandler, Jr., Isaac Chandler, Jr., Joseph Taylor, Thomas Taylor, and Joseph Walker. Among the names of settlers residing on the Merrimack river bank in Bedford in 1744 were: Thomas Chandler, John Taylor, James, Robert, and Alexander Walker. The query naturally arises were the scouts bearing their surnames members of their families ?

The demand upon the province for men in the expeditions against Crown Point in 1756, 1757, and 1758 was largely responded to, and it seems certain that a number of Bedford men must have enlisted therein. In the regiment of 1756, in the seventh company, commanded by "Major John Goffe," a son of Colonel John, and whose son John was ensign of the same company, all of Bedford, were Thomas Mclaughlin and William and Timothy Barron.

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HISTORY OF BEDFORD.

Thomas "Meglotherin " had been a resident of Bedford, and so had " Levt Moses Barron."

In the regiment (sixth company) that went out in 1757, and a part of which were in the massacre at Fort William Henry, were men with these names : Jonathan Corliss, Jr., Asa Corliss, Thomas and Robert Kennedy, Benjamin and John Kidder, William McDu- gal, and James Patterson. Such families resided in Bedford.

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History of Bedford, New Hampshire, from 1737 : being statistics compiled on the occasion of the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the incorporation of the town, May 15, 1900, Part 46

Author: Bedford (N.H. : Town) Publication date: 1903 Publisher: Concord, N. H. : The Rumford Printing Co. Number of Pages: 1202

Author: Bedford (N.H. : Town)
Publication date: 1903
Publisher: Concord, N. H. : The Rumford Printing Co.
Number of Pages: 1202