History of Merrimack and Belknap counties, New Hampshire, Part 3

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton), ed
Publication date: 1885
Publisher: Philadelphia [Pa.] J. W. Lewis & co.
Number of Pages: 1520

USA > New Hampshire > Merrimack County > History of Merrimack and Belknap counties, New Hampshire > Part 3
USA > New Hampshire > Belknap County > History of Merrimack and Belknap counties, New Hampshire > Part 3

Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

"I have now by me two centa in lawful federal currency. Next week I shall send them, if they be all. They will buy a pipe ; with a pipe you can smoke ; smoking inspires wisdom ; wisdom ia allied to fortitude ; from fortitude it ia but one step to stoicism; and stoicism never pants for this world's gooda ;- so perhaps my two cents, by this process, may put you quite nt ease about cash. . . .

"We are all here juat in the old way, always behind and lacking. Boys digging potatoes with frozen fingers, and girls washing without wood.11

Two days later Ezekiel writes to Daniel. It is not an answer; the letters doubtless passed each other on the way. Ezekiel, after giving a just criti- cism on the writings of Horace, thus closes his epistle,-

" These cold, frosty morninga very sensibly inform me that I want a warm great-coat. I wiah, Baniel, it might be convenient to send me cloth for one ; otherwise I shall be necessitated to purchase ouo here. I do not care what color it is, or what kind of cloth it is-anything that will keep the frost out. Some kind of ahaggy cloth, I think, would bo cheapest. Deacon Pettingill has written, offering ma fourteen dollars n mouth (to keep school). I believe I shall take it.

HISTORY OF MERRIMACK COUNTY, NEW HAMPSHIRE.

"Money, Daniel, money ! As I was walking down to the office after a letter, I happened to have one cent, which is the only money I have had since the second day after I came oo. It is a fact. Dao, that I was called on for a dollar where I owed it, and borrowed it, and have hor- rowed it four times since to pay those I borrowed of."

From a paragraph in a letter written by Daniel to his classmate, Bingham, of Lempster, it would ap- pear that Ezekiel taught school in Sanbornton in December, 1803,-

" Zeke is at Sanbornton. He comes home once in a while, site down before the kitchen fire, begins to poke and rattle the andirons. I koow what is coming, and am mnte. At length he puts his feet into the oven's mouth, place his right eyebrow up on his forehead, & begins a very pathetic lecture on the evile of poverty. It is like church service. He does all the talking, and I only say ' Amen ! amen !'"

Ezekiel's funds failed in the spring of 1804, and by permission of the faculty he left Dartmouth, went to Boston, where he purchased the good-will of a pri- vate school, which he taught with great success till April, 1805. He was graduated at Dartmouth mean- while, in 1804, having spent but three years in col- lege.

While earning a livelihood by teaching, he studied law with Governor Sullivan, then Attorney-General of Massachusetts. In 1806 he studied with Parker Noyes, Esq., of Salisbury, next door to Judge Web- ster's house. Daniel having decided to leave Bosca- wen and take up his residence in Portsmouth, turned over his practice to Ezekiel, who entered upon his profession as a lawyer in Boscawen in the month of September, 1807. His legal knowledge and moral worth soon become known, and acquired for him an extensive business. He was not ambitious to excel as an orator, and it was only the urgent appeal of duty or the imperative obligation to his profession that overcame his instinctive aversion to a crowd, and called forth his highest powers of eloquence. He never encouraged litigation, but always used his personal influence to bring about a private adjustment of most of the contested matters originating in the town. He repeatedly represented the town in the Legislature. He was educated a Federalist by his father, a Whig of 1776. He was old enough to remember the administration of Washington, and be- lieved with all his heart in the political principles adhered to by the Federal party, which was in a minority in the State after he came into public life. This adherence to political principles prevented his election to Congress, and from holding other offices in the gift of the people.

Although devoted to his profession, he loved agri- culture, and retained the homestead at Salisbury after his father's death, which occurred in 1806. He was one of the projectors and an active member of the Merrimack Agricultural Society, and was active in advancing improved methods of husbandry.

He was simple in his tastes, kind, genial, polite, and a perfect gentleman. He attended to all the details of life, served as assessor in the religions so- ciety, and as committeeman for the school district.

He looked upon Dr. Wood as a loving child looks upon a devoted parent. A member of the bar spend- ing a Sabbath with Mr. Webster, and hearing Dr. Wood, took occasion to disparage the sermon. Mr. Webster replied, pointedly and with spirit, that he doubted the gentleman's ability to appreciate the performance. He was ever Dr. Wood's confidential friend and adviser. Together they planned the es- tablishing of Boscawen Academy. Mr. Webster contributed fully three hundred dollars to the insti- tution, and by his heartiness and zeal stimulated his fellow-townsmen to carry on the project, while Daniel, then almost in the zenith of his fame, con- tributed the bell.

He was an exemplary member of the church, and his influence was ever on the side of right. He was a constant attendant upon religious services, and always maintained religious devotions in his home.

On the 10th of April, 1829, he was making a plea before the Merrimack bar at Concord. He was stand- ing erect. The court-room was crowded, for when- ever the lawyer from Boscawen made a plea the people flocked to hear him. The court, jnrors, law- yers and audience were listening to his words, and noticing the play of his clear-cut features and the manly dignity of his commanding presence. He was speaking with vigor and earnestness. His periods were rounded as usual, his utterance clear, his enun- ciation perfect. He closed one hranch of his argu- ment, uttered the concluding sentence and the final word distinctly and with his accustomed cadence, his form erect as ever, his eyes clear and bright, his arms hanging naturally by his side, and then, with- out a murmur, a groan, a lisp, raising not a hand, clutching at nothing, with no bending of a joint or quivering of the eyelids, he fell backward upon the floor-dead! With the quickness of the lightning's flash, from the full vigor of a manly life, at the age of forty-nine, he died-one of the most remarkable deaths on record.

His funeral was attended on the following Sunday by a vast concourse of people, and he was mourned by the entire community.

A writer in a public journal describes his appear- ance,-

"He was nearly six feet in height, finely proportioned, with a very commanding presence. His was a magnificent form, crowned with a princely head, that in his last years was thickly covered with enowy hair. Hie complexion was just the opposite of Daniel's. His contenance was opeo as the day ; his heart was warm and affectionate ; hie manners kind and courteous."

Daniel, in a letter written in 1846, thus spoke of him,-

" He appeared to me the finest human form that ever I laid eyes on. I saw him in his coffin, a tinged cheek, a comploxion clear as the heav- enly light."

One who saw him at church, on a cold day the winter before, speaks of his appearance. It was be- fore the introduction of a stove. Mr. Webster came in, wearing a jacket, or "Spencer," as the garment

DANIEL WEBSTER.

BENCH AND BAR.

was called, over his coat, bringing a foot-stove in his hand, which, with princely politeness, he placed at the feet of Mrs. Webster, and then took his seat, and joined reverently in the worship.

He held important trusts: was trustee of Dart- mouth College from 1819 till his death, and repeat- edly represented the town in the Legislature.

DANIEL WEBSTER,1 whose fame is world wide, lived the earlier half of his life in New Hampshire. The son of a Revolutionary patriot, Capt. Ebenezer Web- ster, and of New Hampshire descent for four genera- tions, he was born in Salisbury, January 18, 1782. A feeble constitution pointed him out as fitter for edi- cation than for the sturdy labors of the farm, and with self-denial on the part of his parents, and struggle on his own part, he accomplished his wishes, and gradu- ated at Dartmouth College in 1801 with honor. His legal studies he completed under the direction of Hon. T. W. Thompson, of Salisbury, and Hon. Christopher Gore, of Boston, where he was admitted an attorney in 1805. He took up his residence at once in Boscawen, and remained two years a close student of his pro- fession and of general literature. In 1807 he made Portsmouth his place of abode, and lived there until 1816, when he removed to Boston. While a resident of New Hampshire he served two terms as representa- tive in Congress.

Mr. Webster acquired a high reputation as a lawyer and a statesman (for he never was a politician) before lie quitted his native State. When he went to Ports- mouth, at the age of only twenty-five years, he was a mature man, armed at every point for the battle of life. Mr. Mason, then in the prime of his unrivaled powers, describes his first encounter with Webster. He had heard of him as a formidable antagonist, and found on trial that he was not over-estimated. Young and inexperienced as he was, Webster entered the arena with Mason and Sullivan and Bartlett, and bore away his full share of the honors. And before he quitted his New Hampshire home his reputation as a lawyer and as an advocate of eloquence and power ranked with the very highest in the land.

Those who heard his addresses to the jury in his early prime testify that none of his later great efforts surpassed them-if, indeed, they equaled them-as examples of earnest, impassioned forensic oratory. There was a youthful brilliancy and bloom about those earlier productions that is not found in the stately works of his maturer years.

In those days, when practitioners made reputations by special pleading and sharp practice, Mr. Webster relied little upon mere technicalities or adroit man- agement. He tried his causes upon their merits, and with his logical power and eloquent tongue made short work of trumped-up claims and dishonest de- fenses. Many traditions attest his commanding in- fluence over court and jury at this period of his career.

Without being authentic in all particulars, they all concur in demonstrating that on no legal practitioner of his time was the popular confidence and admira- tion so universally bestowed as on Webster.

The events in the life of Mr. Webster from the time he re-entered Congress from Massachusetts are too familiar to require special repetition here. He con- tinued in public life, with the exception of very brief intervals, up to the time of his decease in 1852. He was a senator in Congress for seventeen years. He was twice Secretary of State, and died in possession of that office. Every public position that he held he adorned and dignified by eminent patriotic service.

Now that nearly a generation has passed since Mr. Webster's death, his character is beginning to be es- timated more justly, and the value of the work he did for the country has been tested. We see that his sa- gacity and foresight were far beyond those of his time; and his apprehensions for the safety of the Union were well founded; that his exhortations to his countrymen to stand by the flag were honest, neces- sary, and vitalizing to the patriotism of the people.

The petty assaults that seemed temporarily to ob- scure his fame have had their brief day, and poster- ity will recognize the true grandeur of the man, and value at their just worth the great deeds of his life- time. As a statesman and a diplomatist, as a vindi- cator of the Constitution, as a lawyer and an orator, and, most of all, as a patriot, the country will be for- tunate if the future shall furnish his peer.

SYLVESTER DANA graduated at Dartmouth Col- lege in 1839. He is son of the late Rev. Sylvester Dana, and is a native of Oxford. He studied law with Pierce & Fowler and at the Harvard Law School, and was admitted to the bar in 1842. He soon after opened an office in Concord, where he has since re- sided. He is the present police justice of Concord.

JOSIAH MINOT graduated at Dartmouth College in 1837. He studied law and was admitted to the bar in 1840, and opened an office in Concord. He was appointed, in 1852, judge of the Court of Common Pleas, which he resigned, in 1855, to accept the ap- pointment of commissioner of pensions. He is still in practice in Concord.

ARTHUR FLETCHER was a native of Bridgewater. He graduated at Yale College in 1836, and was ad- mitted to the bar in Concord in 1840, where he re- mained in practice until his death.

HENRY P. ROLFE is one of the older attorneys of Concord. He is a son of Benjamin Rolfe, and was born in Boscawen, February 12, 1823. He graduated at Dartmouth College in 1848, and in 1851 commenced the practice of law in Concord, where he has since re- sided.

HENRY ADAMS BELLOWS,2 chief justice of New Hampshire, was born at Walpole, N. H., October 25, 1803, and died at Concord, March 11, 1873.

1 By Hon. Charles H. Bell.

" By Daniel F. Secomb.

HISTORY OF MERRIMACK COUNTY, NEW HAMPSHIRE.

On the paternal side he was descended from Gen. Benjamin Bellows, one of the first settlers of Walpole, and on the maternal side his immediate ancestors were members of the Adams and Boylston families of Massachusetts, his grandfather, Rev. Zabdiel Adams, of Lunenberg, Mass., being a double cousin to Presi- dent John Adams.

His father dying, the care of the family devolved upon him at the age of sixteen years, and for two years he was engaged in teaching, after which he read law in the office of Hon. William C. Bradley, of West- minster, Vt., and commenced practice in Walpole shortly after, removing to Littleton in 1828 and thence to Concord in 1850, where he continued in active practice until he was appointed an associate justice, in 1859, and on the resignation of Judge Perley, in September, 1869, he succeeded him as chief justice, which office he held at the time of his death.

He represented Littleton in the legislature in 1839, and was one of the representatives of Ward 5, of Con- cord, in 1856-57. While occupying a seat on the bench he received the honorary degree of LL.D. from Dartmouth College.

Judge Bellows was a sound lawyer and an excellent judge. He was one of the purest-minded men who ever held public office in the State; a large-hearted man in thoughts and deeds, taking an active interest in benevolent enterprises. A public-spirited citizen, genial and courteous in his intercourse with men, he enjoyed the respect and esteem of his associates of the bar and bench and the community at large.

WILLIAM HENRY BARTLETT. 1-Beneath the shadow of Kearsage Mountain, in the historic town of Salisbury,-the home of the Websters and Eastmans and Bartletts and Pettingills,-William Henry Bart- lett was born, August 20, 1827. He was the youngest child of Samuel Colcord and Eleanor Pettingill Bart- lett. His father was noted for his vigorous mind, his great activity and strict integrity ; his mother for the sweetness of her character, her gentleness and dignity of manner, and strong, womanly sense ; both for their pure Christian lives and characters. He was the nephew of Ichabod Bartlett, of Portsmouth, the co- temporary at the bar of Mason and Smith and Web- ster, and the peer of either in learning and eloquence. The son of such parents could not fail to receive the impress of their virtues and characters. He was rec- ognized by all as an interesting child, and a boy of great promise, both in mind and character. Without precocity, he was singularly quick of apprehension, and equally patient and painstaking. While in the common school, and afterwards at the academy, he would come with his arithmetic or algebra, and, of his own accord, sit by the hour working at his prob- lems, till it was found necessary to send him to his sports. He never lost that habit of protracted toil to

the end of his life. Perhaps the end was hastened by the excess. Meanwhile, from his childhood, his scholarship was of the highest order. In his earlier school-days he was associated in classes with much older persons than he, and proved himself fully their equal. But neither then nor afterwards did his pro- ficiency create in him the slightest aspect of arro- gance or conceit; but he remained to the end as mod- est as he was bright and strong.

His childhood and boyhood were marked by an ex- tremely kind, obliging and winning disposition. At home he was helpful and uniformly cheerful and obliging. It was a marked and peculiar trait in his character, and steadily deepened into that thoughtful kindness which, in after years, gained him such un- broken and universal love.

Young Bartlett entered Meriden Academy at the age of thirteen, and at fifteen had completed his prep- aration for college. His friends considered him too young ; but not seeing how else to occupy him, con- sented, and in the fall of 1842 he entered the fresh- man class in this college. The modest and diffident Bartlett-the youngest member, with possibly a sin- gle exception-soon became, by universal and cheer- ful acknowledgment, the leader of his class in point of scholarship. We were classmates ; and I have no hesitation in saying, I do not know that I ever met a finer scholar, and seldom have I encountered a brighter or stronger intellect. He had a singular quickness to perceive, a powerful memory to retain, and a breadth and grasp that subordinated every de- tail to the whole, and extracted order out of compli- cation. The modesty with which he bore his academic honors was only equaled by the sincere affection with which he was regarded by his classmates.

At the request of his brother Samuel, he left college during his sophomore year, and pursued his studies with him at Monson, Mass. There he remained nearly a year, applying himself with his usual dili- gence, and endearing himself in the community, so that the pleasant memory of him there has not been lost to the present time. He entered the next college class, graduating in the first rank in 1847. The "Prophetic Power of Genius " was the subject of his oration at commencement. Those who knew him best felt that no prophet was needed to estimate his maturer character or to anticipate his eminent suc- cess in whatever calling he might pursue.

At the time of his graduation his brother Samuel filled a professor's chair in Western Reserve College ; and, as he was still quite young, it was thought best that he should spend a year of more general study before entering upon his professional career. He accordingly joined a class of graduate students in that college, and spent a highly profitable year in the study of history, the German language and the Greek dramatic poets. Here again his scholarship and personal qualities made a deep and permanent impression on his teachers and associates, so that

1 From an eulogy delivered by llon. Isaac W. Smith, before the alumni of Dartmouth College at commencement, June 23, 1880.

BENCH AND BAR.

they ever remembered him with a warm personal interest.

He entered upon the study of the law in Concord in the office of Chief Justice Perley in 1848, and re- mained with Judge Perley till he went upon the bench, in 1850, and afterwards completed his course of preparation with Chief Justice Bellows, then in practice at Concord, and was admitted to the bar in Merrimack County July 9, 1851. How he impressed those eminent jurists by his fine scholarship, studious habits, ingenuous disposition and legal attainments is best told in the language of Judge Perley, written soon after the death of Judge Bartlett : "Few men," wrote Judge Perley, " have excelled him in quick- ness of apprehension ; and this was a general trait of his mind, observable in whatever he undertook,-in his classical and mathematical studies, in the law, and even in any amusement or recreation in which he might be led to indulge. There was a playful ease in his way of doing the most difficult things, which made them look more like an amusement or a pastime than an irksome labor. With all his dis- patch, he was distinguished for accuracy and correct- ness. It was very seldom that he fell into any mis- take or blunder. His memory was also tenacious and exact. In the law he united two things which are not often found together in the same individual, -a perfect mastery of principles, with great and ready recollection of points and authorities."

His relations to Judge Perley were most intimate and delightful,-in some respects the relation of equals ; in others, almost of father and son.

His admirable collegiate training, supplemented by two years of special instruction under the immediate eye of his learned brother, and his study of the law under two such eminent legal minds as Judges Perley and Bellows, prepared him to enter upon the practice of the law with success assured. We are not therefore surprised to find him at once taking his place in the front ranks of the profession, and en- trusted with a business important not only in the amounts involved, but especially because of the legal principles to be examined and applied. From the start he gave promise of becoming eminent in the profession, and his subsequent career demonstrated how well he was appreciated and understood by those who watched his entrance upon professional life. For several years he held the office of city solicitor of Concord, and with what acceptance is best shown by repeated re-elections without substantial opposition. The rugged discipline of ten years' practice in the courts of New Hampshire afforded him an admirable school of training for the faithful and honorable dis- charge of his subsequent duties upon the bench. In 1857 his health, until then apparently perfect, be- came impaired, and thenceforward to his death, ten years afterwards, his work at the bar and upon the bench was done while struggling against the inroads of unrelenting disease. His overtasked physical

frame was shattered, but his intellect shone un- clouded to the end.

While his success in the profession was assured, it is not claimed that he did or would have taken the first rank as an advocate. As Judge Perley puts it, " It is not impossible that he might have been found wanting in a certain boldness and confidence of manner and style which would now seem to be thought requisite in those who aspire to take the lead in that turbulent and noisy department of our pro- fession."

Owing to the logical cast of his mind, he appeared to best advantage in matters of special pleading, in the preparation of briefs and in the investigation and argument of questions of law before the court in banc. The more difficult the question, the greater delight he seemed to take in its solution. He was often con- sulted by his brethren upon questions in regard to which they were in doubt, and frequently wrote opinions for their guidance.

His high sense of professional honor led him to re- gard the profession as an office, and not as a trade. Accordingly, to witnesses he was fair and respectful ; to the bench he was deferential without being obse- quious; and to his professional brethren he was dignified and courteous. As Judge Curtis said of Rufus Choate, "He showed that forensic strife is consistent with uniform personal kindness and gentleness of demeanor; that mere smartness, or ag- gressive and irritating captiousness, has nothing to do with the most effective conduct of a cause; that the business of an advocate is with the law and the evidence, and not in provoking or humbling an op- ponent ; that wrangling, and the irritations which spring from it, obstruct the course of justice, and are indeed twice cursed, for they injure him who gives and him who receives."

Judge Bartlett was a lawyer of great research. He seemed to have an instinctive clinging to authorities. He could find readily what others could not. He had a great mastery of cases, such as few ever have; but he was not a case lawyer. He had a legal instinct or genius by which he could extract, from what to others seemed a chaos of conflicting decisions, the true legal principle, and put it in the smallest possible compass. He distilled the spirit from the dilution, appropriating the gold and rejecting the dross.

It must not be inferred that he was not positive in his opinions, or was not sufficiently firm in maintain- ing opinions deliberately formed. We have on this point the testimony of Judge Perley, that "he had nothing of that facility which yields in substantial matters to importunity and over-persuasion. He was very firm in his opinions and judgments when once formed, and perfectly fearless in acting on them when duty appeared to require it."

We come now to the period when he "put off the gown of the bar to assume the more graceful and

HISTORY OF MERRIMACK COUNTY, NEW HAMPSHIRE.

reverend ermine of the bench." In 1861 a vacancy occurred upon the bench of the Supreme Court of New Hampshire. The foremost lawyers of the State refused to be candidates, because they understood that he might be persuaded to accept the appoint- ment. In obedience to the united voice of the pro- fession, he was at once (February 23, 1861) appointed associate justice. The court at that time consisted of Bell, chief justice, and Sargent, Bellows, Doe and Nesmith, associate justices. No change occurred in the composition of the court while Judge Bartlett lived, except the reappointment of Judge Perley as chief justice upon the resignation of Judge Bell in 1864. At no period in the history of the State has there been a stronger court. Five of the six judges with whom he was associated have held the office of chief justice. His selection from a bar containing so many lawyers of established reputation, to be the as- sociate of judges of such eminent ability, shows in what estimation his legal attainments and qualifica- tions were held.

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History of Merrimack and Belknap counties, New Hampshire, Part 3

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton), ed Publication date: 1885 Publisher: Philadelphia [Pa.] J. W. Lewis & co. Number of Pages: 1520

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton), ed
Publication date: 1885
Publisher: Philadelphia [Pa.] J. W. Lewis & co.
Number of Pages: 1520