USA > New Hampshire > Rockingham County > Hampton Falls > History of Hampton Falls, N.H., Volume II > Part 27
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Asa teacher Mr. Dickerman was very popular and much beloved by his pupils. His methods were characterized by thorough- ness, and rendered in a way calculated to be of great practical value in gaining sound principles of knowledge, not easily at that time to be acquired elsewhere. The writer has heard many of those who attended his school say that his teaching has had a great influence upon their after life. Under his charge the school numbered from sixty to seventy pupils. His removal from the town was much regretted.
He graduated from Andover Theological Seminary in 1857. He was settled as pastor over the church in Weymouth, Mass., and later in Rindge and Walpole, this state. He then spent three years in Egypt and at the German universities of Halle and Berlin. In 1873 he was pastor of a church in Quincy, Ill., and later until the autumn of 1880 in San Francisco.
Since then he has lectured on Egyptian archeology in various universities and was widely known in the lecture field in New England and other parts of the country. He was a profound scholar and regarded as an authority in matters of antiquity. He contributed many articles as a result of his research to different literary publications. During the past twenty-five years Mr.
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Dickerman had no settled pastorate. He spent much of his time in travel, supplying at times pulpits in Boston, New York and elsewhere. He resided for a number of years in New York city, but for the past few months had lived in Newton, Mass.
His funeral occurred at the chapel of Mt. Auburn cemetery on Wednesday. He is survived by a widow. He received the honorary degree of doctor of divinity from Brown University in 1893.
FRANKLIN BENJAMIN SANBORN.
By Victor Channing Sanborn of Kenilworth, Ill.
Among the natives of Hampton Falls who have performed notable service in the larger world outside its limits-and there have been several-perhaps none is so well remembered as "Frank Sanborn," for so he was widely known.
Born December 15, 1831, on the same farm which his ancestors took up in the seventeenth century, in the farmhouse which his forefather, Lieut. Joseph Sanborn, built in 1743, and descended from most of the original settlers of Hampton, Franklin Benjamin Sanborn inherited all those sturdy traditions which he has so well described in his chapter on "The New Hampshire Way of Life" in the Sanborn Genealogy.
Among the ancestors from whom he derived distinctive traits, my father always gave first place (as did his distant cousin, Daniel Webster) to Stephen Bachiler, founder of Hampton, that Ox- ford scholar of Queen Elizabeth's time, the disestablished vicar of Wherwell in Old Hampshire. The scanty records of Bachiler's life bear testimony alike to his cultivation and to his constant re- volt against the abuses of authority. Another ancestor was the able but unruly Capt. Edward Gove, who in 1685 was sentenced to the Tower for leading an uprising against the royalist governor, Cranfield.
With these traditions of independence my father inherited also a turn for scholarship. Early in his boyhood he made up his mind to attain a higher education than was then expected among the boys he knew. It was this urgent desire for a larger cultiva- tion which gave to some of the men of his epoch a determination to succeed, sometimes lacking in these later days-when educa- tion is more easy to obtain and thus less highly prized.
An important factor in these youthful aims was his early ac- quaintance with and love for Ariana Walker, daughter of James Walker of Peterborough, grandniece of Judge Jeremiah Smith of Exeter, and a cousin of James Walker, president of Harvard Uni- versity. Through her influence my father decided, at nineteen, to study for a year at Phillips Exeter Academy, and then to enroll
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himself at Harvard. Fortunate, indeed, was the young lover to find thus the stimulus which turned him more firmly than before towards scholarship.
Entering Harvard as a sophomore in 1852, my father quickly took distinguished rank in the class of 1855. He was chosen secretary and poet of the Hasty Pudding Club. Graduating seventh in his class, he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa, but de- clined the election, as did the first scholar, Francis Barlow.
In August, 1854, he married Ariana Walker at Peterborough. The marriage was peculiarly affecting, taking place as it did when her death from a lingering illness was seen to be near. The memory of this youthful love and marriage remained fragrant with my father all his life. It was truly a union of heart and spirit, untouched by the trivialities of every day, for the young wife died within a week after they were married.
Early in his college years my father had made the acquaintance of New England's most eminent thinker, Ralph Waldo Emerson, who suggested that he should come to Concord and establish a private school there. In March, 1854, the school was opened, and became one of the most popular private schools in Massa- chusetts, numbering among its pupils the children of Emerson, Hawthorne, Henry James the elder, Judge Hoar, John M. Forbes and many others.
In 1856, Massachusetts men became active in the movement to make Kansas a free state. This enlisted my father's ardent sympathy, and he became secretary of the Concord Town Com- mittee, then of. the County Committee, and later of the State Kansas Committee. During the summer vacation of 1856 he made a tour of inspection through the states of Indiana, Illinois and Iowa and the Territory of Nebraska. Early in 1857 John Brown, the liberator, came to his office in Boston, and thus began a friendship which lasted only two years, but which my father esteemed as one of the most valued friendships of his life. He was cognizant of Brown's proposed raid on Harper's Ferry, and in 1860 was arrested for complicity therein, after having ignored a summons to testify before the Senate Committee. His own account of these matters appears in his "Recollections."
In the stirring days preceding the Civil War, Boston had its scenes of mob violence, when Wendell Phillips and his associates suffered attack for their defense of the negro. In December,
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1860, the colored men of Boston arranged a meeting at the Tre- mont Temple to honor the memory of Brown, and asked my father to preside. The incapable chief of police allowed a mob to break up the meeting. Among the leaders of the mob were some of Boston's younger merchants, who saw in these anti-slavery pro- ceedings only a disturbance of the profitable commerce with the South. In all these stormy scenes my father played his part bravely and well, adhering to his course as an anti-slavery leader, though younger than most of his colleagues. In commemoration of those times a group of friends in 1915 presented him with a gold- headed cane, the shaft of which was made from the railing of the old Boston Court House. The speech of presentation was by the secretary of the Wendell Phillips Memorial Association.
The outbreak of our Civil War caused the closing of the school in Concord. My father in 1862 became the editor of the Boston Commonwealth, but remained in that position only seven months, when his friend, the Massachusetts War Governor, John A. Andrew, appointed him in 1863 secretary of the State Board of Charities. This was the first board of its kind in the United States, and its cares withdrew my father from active participation in the war. With Dr. Samuel G. Howe he organized the public charities, framed laws, and set an example for other states to follow.
These ten years, from 1855 to 1865, brought him into close relations with the brilliant circle of Concord authors, Emerson, Thoreau, Hawthorne, Alcott and Channing, who have enshrined that little town in the history of American literature. They took long walks together, and sometimes more extended excursions; and the intimacy thus engendered has made my father their ideal biographer.
In August, 1862, my father married his cousin, Louisa A. Leavitt, daughter of Joseph Melcher Leavitt (a merchant of Boston, but a native of Hampton Falls), and granddaughter of Squire Thomas Leavitt of Hampton Falls.
In 1871 his friend, Samuel Bowles, owner and editor of the Springfield Republican, appointed him one of the resident editors of that thriving newspaper to which he had contributed for several years. This appointment took him to Springfield for two years; but in 1874 his friend, Governor Talbot, appointed him chairman of the State Board of Charities, and he returned to Concord, which was his home ever after.
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During all these years my father took a prominent part in charitable and penal reform. In 1867 he obtained the charter for the Clarke Institute for the deaf, at Northampton, and continued a trustee thereof until his death. In the same year he helped to organize the Massachusetts Infant Asylum, which was the first institution in this country to prevent the extreme mortality among motherless children. He was one of the organizers of the Ameri- can Social Science Association in 1865, of the National Prison Association in 1870, and of the National Conference of Charities and Corrections in 1874. As chairman of the Massachusetts State Board of Charities he conducted a legislative inquiry into the mismanagement of the almshouse at Tewksbury; and later that which investigated the lunatic asylum at Danvers. Both resulted in economies for the state, and a better system of caring for the insane and pauper classes: In 1879 he was appointed general inspector of charities for Massachusetts, and this office he held until 1888.
With Mr. Alcott and Dr. Harris he organized, in 1879, the Summer School of Philosophy at Concord. Its sessions con- tinued for five years, were widely attended by students from all parts of the country, and contributed greatly to American philo- sophic thought.
In 1880 my father built his picturesque brick house on Elm Street in Concord. In his study, overlooking the river, among his beloved books, he wrote his weekly letters to the Republican; and here he prepared the manuscripts for his printed works. Here in 1908 and 1909 he wrote his two-volume "Recollections of Seventy Years," for which he was preparing a third volume- never finished. On his place of two acres, leisure hours were spent in gardening and orcharding, to which he was devoted.
His library was very large, numbering more than ten thousand volumes. It represented his own accumulations of sixty years, besides those of his friend, William Ellery Channing. It was rich in New England literature, but was a rather heterogeneous collection, containing inter alia thousands of the works of classical authors in the original Greek and Latin. For a litterateur it was an excellent working library; and I think that my father, whose memory was prodigious, knew where cach book was on the shelves. This was the more remarkable because the books (which were cased in every room in the house) had not been cata-
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logued for thirty years, nor were they arranged with exact system. There were, besides the books, all the manuscripts of Theodore Parker, of Channing and of my father. And there were besides thousands of letters-for my father never destroyed a letter he received and had stored them away in boxes.
In 1885 his friend, Andrew D. White, appointed him lecturer on Applied Social Science at Cornell University. This connection existed for four years, during which time he delivered many lec- tures, illustrated by visits to the New York reformatory and remedial institutions.
In 1890, and again in 1893, my father made extended visits to Europe. He spent many months in Greece, and examined hos- pitals for the insane in a dozen different countries.
Since 1893 he devoted himself entirely to literary and philan- thropic work. In these later years he was often in demand for lectures, and delivered addresses in many parts of the country. Brown University appointed him one of its examiners, and for several years he attended the meetings with regularity and with distinction.
His literary activities were tremendous. Often, after a long day spent in his official duties, he would write until past mid- night. To catalogue his printed works would require several pages. He has published definitive biographies of Thoreau, John Brown, Alcott, Dr. Howe, Channing and Pliny Earle; and lesser volumes on Emerson, Hawthorne and others. He pub- lished in 1904 an excellent "History of New Hampshire." He edited the poems of Alcott and of Channing, and two volumes of lectures delivered at the School of Philosophy. For more than forty years he was the Boston correspondent of the Springfield Republican, and furnished each week two letters on current events and literary matters.
Time touched him with a gentle hand, and though at last it bent his tall, spare form, it seemed not to diminish his physical force, nor his keen, eager mentality. He was a frequent visitor at the Boston State House, at the Public Library and at the Harvard College Library. He went often to the rooms of the Massachu- setts Historical Society, of which he was a member, and to whose . proceedings he was often a contributor. And it was always a de- light to him to show to visitors from far or near the shrine of Old Concord,-every foot of which he knew, and every field and nook and hill of which he loved.
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Unflinching in his exposure of abuse and wrong, he made both friends and enemies easily; but he usually kept the first, while those of the latter who had real insight grew to honor him.
In October, 1916, at the invitation of Mrs. Daniel Lothrop, the Hillside Chapel in Concord, where the School of Philosophy had held its meetings, was opened for a final session in my father's honor. Besides letters and telegrams from distant associates, tributes were spoken by many of his friends and neighbors. One of his granddaughters wrote: "I couldn't help thinking how dignified and worthy he was of such an honor; and I am a proud granddaughter."
During the last two winters, finding the Concord climate too severe, my father and mother spent the inclement season with my brother, Francis, at Westfield in New Jersey. Returning from a visit to New York on January 18, he was knocked down by a care- lessly driven baggage truck. His hip was broken, and though it seemed to mend he never recovered from the shock, and died at Westfield on February 24, 1917.
His funeral was held at the old Unitarian Church in Concord, where he had for years shared the Emerson pew. In spite of a typical New England day in late February-cold, icy and with a driving rain-the church was filled with friends from Concord and Boston. Two organizations of the colored race sent delegations. The flags in Concord were at half-mast; and the Massachusetts House of Representatives, in his honor, ordered its State House flag to hang at half-mast for three days. On March 20 a memorial service for him was held at the Congregational Church in Concord.
He rests in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery there, near to the graves of his friends, Emerson, Thoreau, Hawthorne, Alcott and Chan- ning; and beside that of his son, Thomas Parker Sanborn (H. U. 1886), a youth of much promise, who died in 1889 under circum- stances of great sadness.
His final "Life of Thoreau" has just been published-a volume of 540 pages, containing some of his best writing. It is worth noting that on my father's death-bed he corrected the final proofs on this work, which is perhaps his most fitting monument.
The following memorial sonnet (from the Republican) was written by a neighbor of mine, and a young friend of my father:
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FRANKLIN BENJAMIN SANBORN
IN MEMORIAM-F. B. SANBORN.
No more beside the peaceful Assabet, Nor in Old Concord's elm-arcaded street That tall, familiar figure shall we greet. Somewhere with old companions gladly met He takes up broken threads of speech-and yet Those keen, kind eyes, with vision now complete Gaze hitherward with yearning for the sweet Old faces that he never can forget.
Swung in sad pride above the golden rim Of the great dome upon the Hill, appears The flag he loved floating half-mast for him; But finer tribute is the fall of tears In black men's eyes and prisoners' grown dim At loss of their defender through the years. ANNE HIGGINSON SPICER.
Kenilworth, Ill., March 13, 1917.
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES
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1
HON. WARREN BROWN
Only son of John Berry and Sarah M. (Leavitt) Brown. He was born August 11, 1836, and was educated in the town school, Rockingham and Phillips-Andover academies. He is town historian, and a farmer. Has taken a life-long interest in agri- cultural matters; eleven years president of the New Hampshire State Agricultural Society; twenty-five years treasurer of the New England Agricultural Society; twenty-four years trustee of the New Hampshire College of Agriculture and the Mechanic Arts; four years president of the board; state senator, 1872-73; member of the Governor's Council, 1879-81; delegate to the Re- publican National Convention at Chicago, 1884; representative, 1887; presidential elector in 1908; active promoter of the electric railways in southeastern New Hampshire. He is a Knight Templar, Shriner and 32d degree Mason.
(See portrait on next page.)
HON. WARREN BROWN. (See sketch on preceding page.)
SARAH GERTRUDE (NORRIS) BROWN. 1841-1917. (See sketch on next page.)
.
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SARAH GERTRUDE (NORRIS) BROWN
Wife of Hon. Warren Brown. She was a native of Dover, N. H., and daughter of Daniel L. and Sophia (Osgood) Norris. She was educated in the public schools of Lowell, Mass .; was a member of the high school class of 1860; Governor Greenhalge was a member of this class. She was married, January 1, 1867, and lived in Hampton Falls during the remainder of her life. Her golden wedding was celebrated, January 1, 1917; she died January 24. She was a person of great executive ability and force of character.
(See portrait on preceding page.)
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CHARLES P. AKERMAN.
1842-1908. C
Son of Mechech S. and Mary A. (Dow) Akerman. He was born in Hampton Falls, on the farm now owned by George J. Curtis. The family moved to Hampton in 1847. Charles P. became station agent for the B. & M. R. R. in Hampton Falls in 1877, and continued until his death. He was a prominent Odd Fellow and had taken the higher degrees, and acted as a deputy to visit neighboring lodges. He had one daughter, Annie. He was representative in 1901 and 1902, and was selectman at the time of his death. He spent nearly all his life in the employ of the Eastern and B. & M. railroads.
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MARY DODGE AIKEN, WITH HER NIECE AND NAMESAKE, MARY DODGE WHITE.
Mary Dodge Aiken, the oldest child of John William and Harriett Perkins (Dunklee) Dodge, was born in Hampton Falls, October 24, 1841, and in this town most of her girlhood days were spent. She was married to Walter Aiken on January 1, 1867, and resided in Franklin Falls, N. H., until the death of her Husband in 1893. She then removed to Concord, but after her mother's death, in 1903, she returned to the old Dodge homestead in Hampton Falls, to spend the remainder of her life in the town she loved so well. She died June 25, 1916.
Mrs. Aiken had no children, but her house was a home where hospitable doors were ever open to a large circle of relatives and friends. She had travelled in many lands, and from all over the world she had brought inter- esting and valuable reminders of the countries she visited, till her home be- came a treasure-house of unique value. A woman of unusual energy and strength of character, no stranger came within her gates without feeling the rare charm of her personality, and her gracious hospitality, and the briefest sketch of her life would be incomplete without a reference to her keen interest in the welfare of others. Many struggling students remember her timely aid with gratitude, and her deeply religious nature found expression in benefactions to the needy in all lands, benefactions as unostentatious as they were generous. She has left a fragrant memory of loving deeds behind her.
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MOSES EMERY BATCHELDER. 1822-1911.
Son of Moses and Abigail (Drake) Batchelder. He was edu- cated in the town schools and resided in the town until 1864 when he removed to Central Illinois where he purchased a large tract of land which had never been broken. By industry, good management and the rise in value of land he became wealthy. With others from the East he organized a Congregational church, which are common in New England, but few in the West. This church has been prosperous. In his adopted home he was loved and respected. The obituary, in a local paper, speaks of him as the "Grand old man."
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HISTORY OF HAMPTON FALLS
SAMUEL BATCHELDER.
1839-1896.
Son of Simeon and Adeline (Farnham) Batchelder. He was born at Marblehead, Mass. After the death of his father he came, at an early age, to live in Hampton Falls, and was edu- cated in the town school. He and fifteen others were drafted on August 10, 1863. He was the only one of the number who served in the army, becoming a member of Company D, Fifth New Hampshire Regiment. He was wounded in the battle of Cold Harbor, June 8, 1864, and was honorably discharged on June 28, 1865.
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BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES
ARTHUR WARREN BROWN.
Son of Hon. Warren and Sarah G. (Norris) Brown. He was born in July, 1873, and was educated in the town school and Cushing Academy, Ashburnham, Mass .; he graduated in the class of 1890. His occupation is plumbing and heating. He was selectman, 1902-05; town treasurer, ten years from 1907; member of the Masonic fraternity.
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CHARLES RUFUS BROWN.
The second son of Rev. Samuel Emmons and Elvira Latham (Small) Brown. He was born in East Kingston, N. H., February 22, 1849. He studied at. Phillips Exeter Academy, 1865, and graduated at Annapolis, United States Naval Academy, in 1869; resigned from the navy in 1875 to study for the Baptist ministry. He was graduated from Harvard in 1877; graduated from Union Theological Seminary in 1879; also at Newton Theological Institution the same year. He studied at the University of Berlin, 1879-80; at Leipzig, 1880-81, and 1895-96. (Ph. D. Colby University, 1887; D. D. Colgate Uni- versity, 1892.) He married, November 27, 1884, Clarissa Locke Dodge, daughter of John William and Harriet Perkins (Dunklee) Dodge, of Hampton Falls. He was ordained Baptist minister at Franklin, N. H., December 30, 1881; he was pastor at Franklin Falls, 1881-83; professor of Old Testament Interpretation at Newton Theological Institution for over thirty years, 1883- 1914, besides being acting pastor for one year to the First Baptist Church of Salem, and one year at the Main Street Baptist Church in Worcester. He was a member of various Biblical and archaeological societies; was resident director of the American School for Oriental Research in Jerusalem, 1910-11; author of An Aramaic Method, and Life of the Prophet Jeremiah, also contrib- utor to various reviews. He died, February 1, 1914, and is buried in Hamp- ton Falls.
Through all this life of scholarly activity, Dr. Brown was more or less iden- tified with Hampton Falls, from the time when he, the son of Parson Brown, lived here as a boy, till in 1911 he settled here as his summer home. His sim- plicity and modesty, his wisdom and kindliness endeared him to all the town.
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BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES
GEORGE CYRUS BROWN.
Son of Samuel and Sarah (Lane) Brown. He was born, August 13, 1837, and was educated in the town school and Hampton and Pittsfield academies. He is a farmer; was select- man in 1877-78. He is the fourth generation to occupy the ancestral Brown farm; he has a son and a daughter.
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HISTORY OF HAMPTON FALLS
HARRY BENSON BROWN. 1870-1903.
Son of Hon. Warren and Sarah G. (Norris) Brown. He was educated in the common school and Putnam Free School of Newburyport, Mass. He was a contractor, and delivered the heavy materials (rails, etc.), for nearly all the electric railways in southeastern New Hampshire. He built the road across to Seabrook Beach; graded the railroad crossing at Hampton depot; and moved the heavy machinery to the power house in Portsmouth. He was a man of great executive ability. He died in Boston, June, 1903, from the effect of a surgical operation.
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/
MORRILL MARSTON COFFIN.
1824-1861.
Son of Aaron and Sabrina (Marston) Coffin of Hampton. He was edu- cated in the common school and Hampton Academy. He taught school al- most continuously from 1847 to 1854 in Hampton Falls. He was liked by the scholars and was acceptable to the parents. Although the wages of teachers were low at that time, he came voluntarily and held evening schools for writing, spelling matches and exercises in geography which added a great deal to the popularity of the school. In governing the school he did not find it necessary to use the "oil of birch" which was applied vigorously by many teachers in those days. Much of the popularity of the Exeter road school was due to his labors. He was a member of the choir of the Unitarian Church in Hampton Falls. He was an expert in grafting fruit trees and did a great deal of work in that line. Later he assisted in the preparation and distribution of the Rockingham County Map, published by Smith & Coffin. He died, in February, 1861, of malignant diphtheria. His funeral, from the Baptist Church in Hampton, was largely attended, the house being filled to its utmost capacity. Public funerals of victims of diphtheria would not be allowed at the present time.
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