USA > New Hampshire > Grafton County > Littleton > History of Littleton, New Hampshire, Vol. I > Part 47
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His political principles while a resident of this town were not VOL. I .- 27
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in accord with those of a majority of his fellow-citizens in the State, and he had no opportunity to win distinction in other than the local field. But it was not .in political life, where enduring fame is denied to all but the select few who tower like mountain summits above the multitude, that Mr. Bellows was destined to reap the rewards of a laborious and noble life. What he probably regarded as a perverse public opinion left him free to pursue his profession, and this he did with abundant success.
He was regarded as a model practitioner, courteous, indus- trious, persistent, courageous, and honest, - honest not alone with client, bench, and bar, but with himself. It would be diffi- cult for one acquainted with him to imagine Henry A. Bellows guilty of a trick in his practice or of a mean act under any cir- cumstances. One feature of his practice was peculiar to him, - his charges were quite below those of his brethren of equal standing at the bar, and even then he was a poor collector of his private accounts. This fact, together with his incurable habit of giving in charity, prevented him from accumulating a property that bore any just proportion to his large professional business.
Mr. Bellows prepared his cases for trial with great care, famil- iarizing himself with every detail; and he was equally painstaking in their presentation to the jury. In argument he was not what is termed an eloquent advocate ; he presented the facts and the law with simplicity and clearness, but was sometimes over-elaborate in his details, as if he feared something might be forgotten or over- looked. His personal appearance and manner, style of speaking, and logical arrangement of material were all calculated to impress the jury and gain their verdict. He was particularly happy in his methods of dealing with an unwilling or dishonest witness. He treated such a witness with unusual courtesy, taking him into his confidence, and often gained by this method the truth that could not have been extorted by severe or browbeating methods.
In 1859 he was commissioned a Justice of the Supreme Court, and in 1869 was elevated to the position of Chief Justice. Here his ability shone at its best. His knowledge of the law was large, his familiarity with the cases ample ; he listened with patience, investigated with care, and decided without bias. It has been said that of all his rulings at nisi prius not more than two were reversed by his associates. His opinions are to be found in the fourteen volumes of the reports from 39 to 52, and constitute an ample monument to his judicial acumen. He rarely departed from the pathway travelled by his predecessors; there was in fact nothing of that iconoclastic tendency in liis judicial nature which
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was so predominant a characteristic with some of his successors on the bench. He was conservative. He would be classed among judges who adhere to the doctrine of stare decisis. During his long service on the bench his relations with his associates were of the most agreeable character. One who served with him has said that " no man ever thoroughly understood him as a lawyer and judge who had not been with him in the discussions and deliberations - the anxious discussions, the protracted deliberations - of the consul- tation room. Nowhere else as there were seen and felt his accu- rate learning and his cautious judgment. He not only thoroughly examined every case pending in the law term, but also prepared a written statement of his views in each case; and these statements often proved of great service to the court." 1
In personal appearance Judge Bellows was prepossessing in fig- ure ; his countenance strikingly handsome; the face oval and the features harmonious ; the intellectual and spiritual qualities of his nature so mingled that his face shone with the light of a brave and benignant man in whose heart there could be no guile.
Mr. Bellows married, June 9, 1836, his cousin Catharine W., daughter of Josiah Bellows, of Walpole. Before his marriage he had purchased of Capt. Isaac Abbott the lot on Main Street now occupied by the residence of Charles F. Eastman, and built a fine residence that was for a long time one of the ornaments of the street. This house was torn down to make way for the present costly structure. Their children, all born in this house, were Josiah, now residing in Washington , D. C .; Stella Louise, now deceased, and Frances Ann ; Henry Adams, born September 27, 1843, died March 17, 1848 ; and John Adams, born May 27, 1848, who is now a Unitarian clergyman and teacher in Boston, Mass.
No citizen of the town has been more respected than was Henry A. Bellows. He was the soul of honor, discharging every duty as a citizen with an appreciative sense of the responsibility the relation imposed ; and in his private intercourse with his towns- men he was guided by the Biblical rule, " Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them."
The removal of Mr. Bellows left a numerous clientage to seek the advice of other attorneys. Political association has always largely influenced men in their choice of a legal adviser, and naturally a large share of this clientage fell to William J. Bel- lows, who continued in business at the old office, and to Charles W. Rand, who had been a pupil of Judge Bellows and a prosperous
1 Judge Jeremiah Smith, Proceedings Grafton and Coos Bar Association, vol. i p. 297.
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attorney for some six years. Harry Bingham, too, gathered a small share of the very considerable business abandoned by Mr. Bellows. Usually a vacancy of such importance would have attracted more than one young lawyer to such a field, but for some reason, prob- ably because of the belief that the lawyers then established here were amply able to successfully conduct the legal business of this section, no immediate additions were made to the local bar. But George A. Bingham joined it in 1852; Jolin Farr, by admission to the profession in 1854, and Edward D. Rand in 1855.
Judge Rand was a resident of the town but a few years, but in that time he acquired a reputation as an accomplished scholar and a man of many and varied accomplishments that still abides with us.
The name is of French origin, and was formerly written Rande. The first of the race in this country settled in Charlestown, Mass., in the seventeenth century, and from thence one of his sons went to Connecticut. Hamlin Rand, the father of the Judge, was a son of Robert, and was born in Middletown, Conn., in 1786. Soon after attaining his majority he came to Bath and engaged in trade and in the manufacture of lumber. As the requirements of the lumber business and opportunities for trade advanced up the valley, he removed to Lisbon, where he transacted a successful business until his death in 1836. For several years Mr. Rand operated the saw-mill at South Littleton in connection with Capt. Isaac Abbott. Hamlin Rand married, about 1816, Miss Harriet Sprague, a sister of Alden Sprague, long one of the leaders of the bar of this county. She was a direct descendant of Jolin Alden and Priscilla Mullins ; their granddaughter, Ruth Alden, having mar- ried Samuel Sprague.
Edward D. Rand was born in Bath, December 26, 1821. The family soon after moved to Lisbon. The Rand children pursued the usual elementary course in the village school, and when this was mastered, the boys, Charles W. and Edward D., attended the Academy at Meriden, where their preparatory course was finished. This institution was under the shadow of Dartmouth, and at least one of the brothers had a preference for that college ; but when a decision had to be made, in compliance with a wish expressed by the father shortly before his death, which was doubtless largely influenced by the affectionate remembrances that cluster about the scenes of childhood, they decided in favor of Wesleyan University at Middletown, Conn .. the place of the father's nativity. The broth- ers entered the University at the beginning of the collegiate year in 1837, and were graduated with the class of 1841. Their college
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course was honorable to them and to their alma mater. At grad- uation they stood at the head of the class, Edward bearing off the highest honors, won from his elder brother by a mere fraction. At the time he was less than twenty years of age, and was probably the youngest member of the class.
In the succeeding autumn, having decided to teach for a time, he went to Mississippi, where he had secured a situation, and in 1844 to New Orleans for the purpose of entering upon the study of the law in the office of the law firm of which the celebrated Judah P. Benjamin was a member. He was admitted to the bar in 1846, and continued in practice in that city, where he remained until he came to Littleton in 1855. Here he entered the office of his brother, to fit himself for the practice of his profession under new conditions and entirely different surroundings from those with which he was familiar in the South. The transition from the civil law and code of Louisiana to the common law and prac- tice of New England was not made as easily as one might lay aside an old and don a new suit of clothes, but the difficulties were finally mastered, and he entered into a partnership with his brother which continued with marked success until dissolved a few months before the death of the elder partner in 1874. In 1860 Edward D. Rand opened an office at Lisbon and resided there from that time.
This partnership was most happy in all respects. The brothers were alike in many ways, having the same intellectual tastes, the same love of work, with a fondness for occasional periods of leisure to be devoted to the enjoyment of intellectual pleasures in fields remote from their professional labors; then too their physical recreations were much the same, their sports were those of rod and gun, and many secrets of winding streams and pathless forests in this and surrounding towns were revealed to them. In the division of labor that followed the formation of this partner- ship, the elder brother assumed the duty of preparing their cases for trial both in respect to the law and the facts, while to the younger was assigned the congenial task of the advocate. In this department he excelled. He was not a mere declaimer of elegant nothings ; the dry and stubborn facts were not neglected, but were presented in their nakedness or clothed with grace and beauty as the exigencies of his case required. He was a master of irony, sarcasm, pathos, and appeal, and reached the solemn twelve through every medium known to the arts of the orator. He was an elocutionist of no mean capacity, and his manner always suited his matter. He never trifled with the jury, but proceeded to unfold
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and develop his argument in a business-like way that would, apart from his graces of diction, command their undivided attention. The argument would be enriched and strengthened with illustra- tions drawn from his knowledge of many lands and languages. With all his wealth of resources his address was never over- wrought, florid, or seemingly artificial, but his thoughts were poured forth with uniform expression of reason, fancy, and feeling, in language appropriate to the matter and weighty with the treas- ures of scholarship.
In person he was of medium height, broad and square of shoulders ; his head large, and covered with a mass of dark hair worn somewhat long, the forchead both wide and high ; the eyes large and dark. Near-sightedness compelled the habitual use of spectacles, and their large disks gave to his scholarly face an air of wisdom that comported well with his general bearing.
The death of his brother and his appointment to the bench of the Circuit Court a few days after that event, changed the current of his professional life. Heretofore he had leaned upon his brother Charles as upon a strong and unfailing staff ; from this time on his field was widened, the burden increased and had to be borne alone.
Judge Rand had been upon the bench but two years when a change in the political dynasty, with its usual flock of retired statesmen demanding vindication, forced, through the instrumen- tality of an act of the Legislature, his retirement. He was not a member of the court a sufficient length of time to develop his judicial abilities or to enable us to form an accurate idea of what they may have been. He was certainly just, impartial, urbane, patient, and laborious in the performance of his judicial functions. He presided at the trial of several important cases, and earned the approval of the bar. His industry, learning, and ability were such that it cannot be doubted that had his judicial career been pro- longed a few years he would have won an enduring position among the eminent names that have adorned the bench of the State.
Judge Rand was a Democrat, thoroughly grounded in the prin- ciples of his party and always ready, on a proper occasion, to give a reason for the faith that was in him. His services were in demand as a political speaker in this and neighboring States. While a resident of this town at the height of the anti-slavery excitement, the Rev. Mr. Carpenter preached a sermon in which he assailed the institution of slavery on scriptural grounds. Mr. Rand challenged the reverend gentleman to a public debate on this question, and they met for that purpose, and, as was to be ex- pected, the audience was divided on the merit of the respective
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arguments on the line of their political opinions. The disputants were evenly matched in respect to learning and dialectic skill, but the oratorical if not the logical honors of the occasion were won by Mr. Rand. Subsequently he met Judge Poland in a series of six discussions in Vermont, and Judge Steele for a debate at Lis- bon, and Senator Edmunds for a similar discussion at Newport, Vermont. On each of these occasions he acquitted himself to the entire satisfaction of his political associates. Judge Rand never held political office. He left this town at a time when the Demo- crats were entering upon a long period of political power in the local field, and at Lisbon the party was generally in a minority. It sent him as its delegate to a national convention, and called him to preside over its State conventions, and otherwise bestowed upon him such gifts as were within its power. During the Civil War he adopted as his motto, not the old maxim that " In the midst of war the laws are silent," but that other form, more in consonance with our institutions, "In the midst of war partisan contentions should slumber." Dissatisfied with the atti- tude of his party's action in the campaign of 1863, he was a dele- gate to the State convention called by the "war Democrats " in that year, and was the author of its declaration of principles. He had no taste for political management or the details of partisan warfare, and was not in close association with the politicians on this account.
Another 1 has tersely stated the attitude of Judge Rand to party politics. " His political principles," says Judge Batchellor, " were determined early in. life, and in respect to them his belief was sincere and his adherence constant. Pure methods in politics found in him the same persistent advocacy that he gave to his political principles. During all the period of my acquaintance, as boy or man, with his position, he was a Democrat and a leader. It may be he had political ambition. He did not parade it in the public view. It may be he would have welcomed a call to place and power which was not sounded. He raised for himself no cry of political hunger, distress, or disappointment. He despised self- seeking. It was in his creed that office was not to be sought or refused, that public place was not to be bought or begged.
' The wisest man could ask no more of fate Than to be simple, modest, manly, true; Safe from the many, honored by the few ; Nothing to court in world, or Church, or State, But inwardly, in secret, to be great.'
1 Address of Judge Batchellor, Proceedings Grafton and Coos Bar Association, vol. i. pp. 242-243.
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He gave his voice, his strength, and his time to his party's ser- vice. The people loved to hear his voice in speech and debate. His denunciation of corrupt methods of gaining votes, either by juggling with the party principles or by the grosser forms of lying in argument and debauehment of the franchise, was bold, search- ing, and unrestrained. He demanded the removal of the party collar and chain from the neck of the subordinate public servant, and the substitution of statesmen for the bosses in the superior places of the government. The enunciation of this tenet of his faith was no less positive after than before his party came into aseendeney."
When he first returned from the South and entered his brother's office, he mingled much with the people and entered into many of their social amusements and athletie sports. The town could then boast of a dramatie club that annually presented a play with more than the usual success attending amateur organizations. In this company on one occasion Mr. Rand took the part of Jesse Rural in " Old Heads and Young Hearts " with a perfection of art that ex- cited the surprise and admiration of theatre-goers who had seen William Warren in the same character. On other occasions he assumed characters more difficult, perhaps, but with equal success.
Judge Rand as a scholar was familiar with the sciences, arts, and literature of the ancient and modern world. He left college with a reputation for accurate scholarship that has been excelled by few graduates of that University, and his love of learning never abated. He read the great masterpieces of literature in the lan- guage in which they were written, and in hours of ease and free- dom they were his constant companions. It was a rare pleasure to one who had but skirted the borders of the enchanted land whose every beauty had been disclosed to him, to listen as he discoursed concerning some favorite author, Shakespeare, Dante, Cervantes, Goethe, Scott, - the long familiar list, in faet, of great names that shine resplendent in the firmament of letters, - of whom he delighted to converse and of whom he never tired. His intellectual activity is seen in the fact that in the midst of business and professional cares that would seem to demand all his time, he found, or made, an opportunity to give form to his reflections in composing addresses on various subjects, and gave wings to his imagination in poems that are beautiful in thought and form.
Some of these detached thoughts and poems have been collected and published in a small volume 1 that his friends have accepted
1 Poems and Selections by E. D. Rand. Published by the Lisbon Library Associa- tion, 1885.
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as his fitting memorial. Without claiming for these productions the highest form of poetic art (to which the author never made pretensions ), they often embody poetic thought of a high character expressed in felicitous verse. His cousin Edmund Carleton Sprague, a leader of the bar of western New York, while doing justice to this volume, as containing poems "some of them not surpassed by any of the subjective poetry of our time," regrets that Mr. Rand " devoted to them .. . powers which were capable of accomplishing great results for his family, his profession, and his country."1 Judge Rand's mental powers were indeed great and highly cultivated in several directions. Men will differ as to the use one thus endowed should make of his talent. Undoubt- edly the Judge might have filled a larger space in the public eye, have felt more the stimulating glow of public approval, and left to posterity a larger fruitage of his genius had his lot been cast in a wider sphere of activity. But even in the limited field of his choice his culture and learning were not " wasted." They had a wide and elevating power wherever he moved, and men felt a healthful mental exhilaration as they came in contact with him, and thus he scattered along his pathway a beneficent and enlight- ening influence that endures to this day. But this is not all : he was the rightful and sole judge of the use to which this ability should be devoted, and he sought a career that ministered not only to his own happiness but added to the pleasure of those friends who were his almost daily companions. It is likely the contents of this little volume of fifty-eight pages, the " regrettable " results of his hours of chosen leisure, may survive when the more profit- able professional labors of the author are buried beneath vast accumulations of legal lore.
In 1856 he married Joan Heaton, daughter of Truman and Melvina (Carleton) Stevens of this town. The union was pro- ductive of much happiness. She was accomplished, possessed a fine literary judgment, and shared her husband's aspirations, cheered him in his labors, took upon herself many of his bur- dens, and was an appreciative critic and friend in his hours of ease.
After a protracted illness of several months, Judge Rand passed away January 14, 1885, and Mrs. Rand died in August, 1889. They left one child, Katharine E., now the wife of Dr. M. M. Stevens, of Landaff. She is an accomplished woman, who has inherited much of her father's literary ability, and is the author
1 See memorial address by Judge Batchellor, Proceedings Grafton and Coos Bar Association, 1886, p. 226.
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of several works of fiction that have received the approval of the public.
Such men as Calvin Ainsworth, William Burns, Henry Adams Bellows, and Edward Dean Rand must be regarded as among the valued intellectual possessions of the town, and treasured while our annals endure.
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XXIV.
WAR ANNALS. 1860-1870.
W E pass from a period distinguished by a fierce conflict of ideas, waged by peaceful means, to one in which the parties, in an hour of madness, appealed to the arbitrament of the sword. The healthful flow of the current of events was changed in an instant to a turbid maelstrom of passion, in which peaceful think- ing and peaceful vocations were alike engulfed.
The scenes and events which marked these years were the most momentous in our history. Great events crowded the daily life of the nation as war ravaged its fairest fields, imposed immense burdens on the people, left vacant chairs in every household and enduring scars in every community.
In that hour of peril our town responded to every demand made upon her patriotism. Differences, sometimes acrimonious, often wide asunder, existed among our citizens in regard to methods, but all were united for the achievement of a common purpose, - the preservation of the union of the States and the maintenance of the supremacy of the Constitution, the shield and buckler of our national existence.
The first shot fired at Sumter on Sunday, the 12th day of April, 1861, sent its echoes to the uttermost limits of the North, and awakened the slumbering patriotism of every heart. On that sacred day, in every city and hamlet, the people, reached by the electric spark, neglected their accustomed religious services, gathered in groups to discuss the event, and ventured many a prophecy as to its possible consequences. As a rule, the view was optimistic, and the outbreak of the slave-holders was to be sub- dued within thirty days. There were others, with clearer vision, who thought many months must pass before the gathering clouds of war would roll by.
On the following day the Governor instructed the Adjutant- General of the State to issue a call for a " regiment of volunteers to be in readiness to be mustered into the service of the United
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States for the purpose of quelling an insurrection and supporting the government." President Lincoln issued a call for 75,000 vol- unteers to serve for three months. The quota of New Hampshire under this requisition was one regiment. Col. Henry W. Rowell of the Governor's staff was appointed recruiting officer for the towns in northern Grafton, and on the 20th, early in the morning, opened an office in an unoccupied and unfinished building on the site of the Bellows store. Before the office furniture was arranged, William W. Weller applied for enrolment and was at once fol- lowed by Evarts W. Farr, and " they were sworn in together ; but by an arrangement between the two gentlemen Mr. Farr's name was to appear as the first enlistment." 1 They were followed on the same day by George C. Wilkins, Daniel F. Russell, Daniel Brown, George W. Place, Daniel Aldrich, Jr., and Levi Richards. During the following sixteen days seventy men were recruited at this station, of wliom twenty-one were of Littleton.2
While these men were being transformed from plain citizens to soldiers, the entire community was under a strain of intense ex- citement. Meetings were frequently held in Rounsevel's Hall, which were addressed by citizens representing nearly every walk in life, - William J. Bellows, Charles W. Rand, and John Farr, representing the lawyers ; Rev. Charles E. Milliken and Rev. George S. Barnes,8 the clergymen ; Gen. E. O. Kenney, the man- ufacturers ; Philip C. Wilkins, the farmers ; Capt. James Dow, the mechanics, and George Farr, the students. On these occasions the hall would be filled and the several speakers received with tumultuous applause. The practised public speaker with the graces and rhetoric of the orator and the novice with his homely patriotic periods were received with equal favor.' The very air seemed filled with electricity, and the patriotic appeals of the speakers would alternately arouse the people to a state of the highest enthusiasm and lull them into one of profound silence.
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