USA > New Hampshire > History of New Hampshire, Volume IV > Part 17
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An author and journalist who has produced much interest- ing matter of historical value is Franklin Benjamin Sanborn, born at Hampton Falls, December 15, 1831. He fitted for col- lege at Phillips Exeter Academy and was graduated at Harvard in 1855. For the next eight years he was principal of a private school at Concord, Massachusetts, writing and speaking for the Free Soil party and acting secretary of the Massachusetts State Kansas Committee. He was brought into intimate contact with John Brown and was suspected of complicity in the raid on Harper's Ferry. For this cause an attempt was made to kidnap him, but he was rescued by citizens of Concord. Though sym- pathizing with John Brown in his efforts to make Kansas a free state, he and the society he represented had nothing to do with the attack on Harper's Ferry. Nevertheless, such was the popu- lar excitement that it was thought best for Mr. Sanborn to make his residence in Canada for a short time. In 1863 he became editor of the Commonwealth and the same year was appointed
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secretary of the board of state charities, a position which he held a long time. In 1868 he accepted a position on the editorial staff of the Springfield Republican, a newspaper that for many years was highly esteemed and widely read as a moulder of public opinion. In 1869 Mr. Sanborn, with Bronson Alcott and Wil- liam T. Harris, founded the Concord School of Philosophy. In 1865, with Dr. S. G. Howe, and others, he organized the Ameri- can Social Science Association and was its secretary thirty-two years. He helped to organize the National Prison Association in 1871 and the National Conference of Charities in 1874. His principal literary productions have been "Life and Letters of John Brown," biographies of Thoreau, Alcott and Dr. Howe, "Reminiscences of Sixty Years," a "History of New Hampshire," and frequent contributions in poetry and prose to different peri- odicals. His reports as secretary of various organizations would make forty volumes. Whatever he has written is interesting for its historic details and familiar style of expression. As a writer of sonnets and short poems he belongs to no mean rank. His History of New Hampshire is compact, clear, and entertaining. It grasps the main principles of government and states the sali- ent points of the State's history as fully as can be done within the limits of an octavo volume. Nobody surpasses Mr. Sanborn in ardent and continued interest in his native State. His resi- dence is in Concord, Massachusetts.
Charles Lafayette McArthur was born at Claremont, Janu- ary 7, 1824. He was educated principally in a printing-office. His first venture was The Carthagian, published at Carthage, New York. He went West and was a local reporter on the Detroit Free Press. After serving as secretary of the expedition to make a treaty with the Sioux Indians he became senior edi- tor of the Milwaukee Sentinel, the first daily paper published in Wisconsin. In 1846 he was city editor of the New York Sun. In 1847 he and John M. Francis purchased the Troy Budget. Spending two years in Europe he wrote a series of letters for publication. In 1865 he went to Cuba on a secret government commission. His connection with the Budget continued until 1859. Then he established the Troy Daily Arena and sold it soon to go into the Civil War as quartermaster of the Second New York Volunteers. President Lincoln appointed him cap- tain and quartermaster in the regular army. Subsequently he
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served as brigade and division quartermaster. Twice he was brevetted "for faithful and meritorious service." In 1884 he es- tablished the Troy News, the first Sunday paper in the State of New York outside of the great city. This he sold and became editor and proprietor of the Troy Daily Whig. The Budget is said to have died of too much copperheadism, and he reestab- lished it as the Troy Northern Budget. He served in the legis- lature of New York and spent much time in travel in his later years. He died at Troy, October 25, 1893.
George W. Kendall was born in Amherst, now Mont Ver- non, August 22, 1809, and died at Oak Spring, near Bowie, Texas, October 22, 1867. He learned the printer's trade at Bur- lington, Vermont, went to New Orleans in 1835, and two years later established the New Orleans Picayune, in company with Francis A. Lumsden, the first cheap daily paper in that city and one of the most influential in the South. He joined the Santa Fé trading expedition and was taken prisoner and confined in Mexico seven months. During the Mexican War he accom- panied the armies of Generals Taylor and Scott as correspond- ent. After spending two years in foreign travel he bought a large grazing farm in Texas and there he spent the most of his remaining life, raising $50,000 worth of wool in a single year, and occasionally contributing editorials for the Picayune, an in- terest in which he retained. He published "Narrative of the Texan Santa Fé Expedition," in two volumes, which had a large sale, and "The War between the United States and Mexico."
Stillson Hutchins, born at Whitefield, November 14, 1838, went to Iowa in 1856 and started a country newspaper. He be- came known as a political writer and had charge of Democratic papers, first at Des Moines and then at Dubuque, where he owned the Herald. After the Civil War he established the Times at St. Louis, which he sold at a good price. In 1877 he established the Washington Post, issued every day. His enter- prises have been attended with financial success. Having pur- chased Governor's Island in Lake Winnepiseogee he there ex- pended $100,000 in a summer resort, where his numerous friends have been entertained. His winter residence is on Massachu- setts Avenue, in Washington. He has served in the legislature of Missouri and in that of New Hampshire.
The Rev. Alonzo Hall Quint, born in Barnstead, March 22,
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1828, was graduated at Dartmouth in 1846 and at Andover Theo- logical Seminary in 1852. He attained distinction as a preacher and counselor in the Congregational churches, being from 1856 to 1882 secretary of the general association of Massachusetts churches and secretary of the national council of Congregational churches from 1871 to 1883. He was moderator of the council in 1892. In the Civil War he was chaplain of the Second Massa- chusetts Infantry. He served two years in the Massachusetts legislature. From 1859 to 1876 he was an editor and proprietor of the Congregational Quarterly. He wrote the "Burial Hill Declaration," accepted as an expression of Congregational belief by the national council of 1865. He served long pastorates at Jamaica Plains, New Bedford and Somerville, Massachusetts, and at Dover, New Hampshire. While in the last mentioned place he became greatly interested in local history, assisting Hon. John Wentworth in the preparation of the Wentworth Genealogy and publishing "The First Parish in Dover, New Hampshire." He gave the oration at the dedication of the mon- ument of Gen. John Sullivan, at Durham, and he served in the New Hampshire legislature of 1881 and 1883. Dartmouth gave him the honorary degree of Doctor of Divinity in 1866 and he was a trustee of that institution. He contributed about four hundred historical articles to the Dover Inquirer, a part of which has been republished in a book entitled "Historical Memoranda of Ancient Dover." Other published works are "The Potomac and the Rapidan, or Army Notes from the Fail- ure at Winchester to the Re-enforcement of Rosecrans," "The Records of the Second Massachusetts Infantry" and "Common Sense Christianity," a work published after his death, which oc- curred at Roxbury, Massachusetts, November 4, 1896. As an historian he was painstaking, careful and interesting; as a coun- selor in church and state his advice was valued and widely sought ; as a minister of the Gospel he was successful and hon- ored. One life like his counts for a hundred of average persons. He kept at work and honors came to him.
The Rev. John Hopkins Morrison, born in Peterborough, July 25, 1808, fitted for college at Phillips Exeter Academy and was graduated at Harvard in 1831. In eary life he worked sev- eral years on a farm at low wages, and to assist in securing an education he taught many terms of school. At Exeter he was
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befriended by the Hon. Jeremiah Smith, and afterward he repaid the debt of gratitude by writing the "Life of Jeremiah Smith." He published also "Disquisitions and Notes on the Gospel of Matthew," and was editor for some time of the Christian Regis- ter and of the Unitarian Review. He began his ministry as as- sociate pastor with Dr. Peabody at New Bedford and was pas- tor at Milton, Massachusetts, for thirty-four years. Another lit- erary production was "The Life of Robert Swain," besides many sermons and addresses. He died at Boston, April 26, 1896. His life illustrates how an American youth may struggle up from poverty to affluence, from obscurity to leadership. By losing his life for the good of others he found it.
Joseph Coggin Foster was born at Milford, April 24, 1818, and was bred as a printer in the office of the Farmer's Cabinet at Amherst. He studied at Madison University, Hamilton, New York, now Colgate University, and received his theological training at New Hampton Institution. His pastorates in the Baptist churches were at Brattleboro, Vermont and Beverly, Massachusetts. From 1881 to 1896 he was editor of The Watch- man and weekly Boston correspondent of the Watch Tower, New York. The Central University of Iowa gave him the hon- orary degree of Doctor of Divinity. He died at Augusta, Georgia, March 16, 1899.
Frank Pierce Foster, physician, was born at Concord, No- vember 21, 1841, and was graduated from the College of Physi- cians and Surgeons, New York, 1862. He was assistant surgeon in the United States army in 1865, and has since been in general practice in New York City. He has been editor of the Medical Journal and co-author of an Illustrated Encyclopædic Medical Dictionary.
David Atwood, born in Bedford, December 15, 1815, worked on a farm and went in the summer time to common schools till he was sixteen years of age. Then he went to Hamilton, New York, and served five years as an apprentice in learing the print- er's trade, in an office devoted to the printing of law books. For three years thereafter he was engaged in selling law books, traveling extensively in the middle and western states. In 1839 he made his first venture as a journalist and publisher, putting forth the Hamilton Palladium, a weekly newspaper with a soph- omoric title, devoted to the interests of the Whig party. The
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newspaper was not successful, his health broke down and he went to Illinois and took a farm. Raising sheep brought to him more health and money than a country newspaper could, but journalism kept wooing him. Going to Madison, Wisconsin, he took editorial charge of the Madison Express, which later he purchased, changing the name to The State Journal. Within five years he bought out The Daily State Journal, with which he was connected for a long time. Meanwhile he was reporter for legislative bodies. He has been a member of the legislature, as- sessor of internal revenue, Mayor of Madison and member of the United States Congress. While living in New York he rose to the rank of colonel in the militia and in Wisconsin he was quartermaster-general and major-general. His newspaper be- came the leading Republican organ in Wisconsin. He died De- cember II, 1889.
James Mills Bundy, born at Colebrook, April 15, 1835, re- moved with his father's family to Beloit, Wisconsin. He was educated at Beloit College and the Harvard Law School. He began newspaper work on the Milwaukee Daily Wisconsin. During the Civil War he was major on the staff of General John Pope. In 1866 he accepted a position on the editorial staff of the New York Evening Post, as dramatic and musical editor, doing also at times the duties of literary editor. In 1868 he be- came editor of the Evening Mail. This attained a national repu- tation. It was bought by Cyrus W. Field in 1879 and the Eve- ning Express was merged with it as the Mail and Express. Major Bundy wrote the life of President Garfield in seven weeks after having gathered his information, meanwhile doing editorial duty on his newspaper. As a journalist he attained a wide and powerful influence. He died in Paris, France, September 8, 1891.
Charles Ransom Miller was born in Hanover, January 17, 1849, and was graduated at Dartmouth in 1872. He began his journalistic career on the Springfield Republican, working with it till 1875. He then accepted a position on the New York Times, became an editorial writer in i881 and two years later was promoted to editor in chief, which position he has held a long time.
Horace White, born in Colebrook, August 10, 1834, removed with his parents to Beloit, Wisconsin, and graduated at Beloit College in 1853. The same year he became city editor of The
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Evening Journal. He accompanied Abraham Lincoln in his po- litical campaign against Stephen A. Douglass in 1858-9, as the agent of the associated press. During the Civil War he was Washington correspondent of the Chicago Tribune. Purchasing an interest in the Tribune he became its editor-in-chief from 1865 to 1874. After making an extended European tour he bought in 1884 an interest in the New York Evening Post and became one of its editors and in 1889 its chief editor. He is author of "Money and Banking." . He retired from active work as editor in 1903. Another work of his is the "Life of Lyman Trumbull." He died in New York, September 16, 1916.
Chapter XII OTHER PROMINENT MEN
Chapter XII
OTHER PROMINENT MEN
What Makes a Man Worth Mention ?- Marshall P. Wilder-Hiram Hitch- cock-Edward Tuck-George Walker-Horatio J. Perry-Amos T. Akerman-Gov. Levi K. Fuller-Henry Wells-Benjamin P. Cheney- Gen. George Stark-Joseph B. Walker-Bishop Osmon C. Baker- Bishop William B. W. Howe-Rev. Baron Stowe, D.D .- Rev. Nathaniel Bouton, D.D .- Austin Corbin-Rear Admiral Asa Walker-Gen. Leonard Wood-William Ladd, "the Apostle of Peace."
W HAT makes a man prominent in the history of his State? Is it the fact that he has succeeded in getting himself elected to high and varied offices? Is it that he has led in mili- tary campaigns? Is it that he has been a distinguished member of one of the learned professions, law, medicine, and theology? Is not the man worth remembering the one who has done some- thing to make his fellowmen wiser, happier and better? Who- ever has helped notably in the great march of human progress deserves credit therefor in the popular estimation. Abilities, character and achievement make men prominent, Learning and money may be helpful, but they are not enough; without char- acter they may the sooner sink one into oblivion.
Marshall Pinckney Wilder, born in Rindge, September 22, 1798, possessed by nature the elements of great manhood. He was brought up on a farm and had a natural love for agriculture and horticulture. When he was offered the opportunity of a col- lege course, he preferred farming and trading. After some ex- perience in both in his native town he went to Boston in 1823 and became a wholesale merchant in West India goods. Thus he became rich, and having riches with natural abilities and a benevolent spirit he accomplished his heart's desire. While in Rindge he manifested much interest in military affairs and rose to the rank of colonel in the militia. In 1857 he was elected commander of the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company of Boston. For forty years he was a director in the National Bank and the National Insurance Company, and for twenty-six years
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he was a director in the Mutual Life Insurance Company. He served in the lower house of the Massachusetts legislature in 1839 and was president of the senate in 1850. He was a promi- nent leader in the political party that nominated Bell and Everett in 1860. He helped to secure the Natural History rooms and in founding the Institute of Technology. For years he was president of the State Board of Agriculture, of which he was one of the original promoters. He was also president from 1868 to 1884 of the New England Historic Genealogical Society and from 1840 to 1848 of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society and of the American Pomological Society many years from its origin in 1848. His tastes found exercise in the scientific and practical study of agriculture and horticulture, in the cultiva- tion of his grounds at Dorchester and in the importation of trees and plants. His experiments in hybridization and fruit culture made him known and honored throughout the United States and in England. In 1867 he was one of the United States commis- sioners at the Paris Exhibition. The history of his native town quotes approvingly the following appreciation : "Mr. Wilder has excelled in all that he undertook, because he knew the measure of his own abilities. His plans and experiments appertaining to the grand object of his pursuits, the cultivation of fields, fruit and flowers, were matured with deep thought and executed with zeal, resulting from a clear, practical head. Look at the pros- pective of a long and vigorous life consecrated to the public, in which every step he advanced became a fulcrum on which to start some greater and higher movement. From the standpoint of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society he originated the American Pomological Society ; then the Norfolk Agricultural Society ; then the State Board of Agriculture, the Massachu- setts Agricultural College, and the United States Agricultural Society. As the zealous patron and promoter of the noblest of all sciences his name will fill a luminous page in the history of human progress and improvement,-a page which will suffer no deterioration by the lapse of years, and which will have its interpreter on every hillside and in every valley, where rural taste and refinement are found. Well did Governor Bullock, on a late public occasion, allude to Mr. Wilder as 'one who has ap- plied the results of a well-earned commercial fortune so liberally that in every household and at every fireside in America, where
EDWARD TUCK
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the golden fruit of summer and autumn gladdens the sideboard or hearthstone, his name, his generosity and his labors are known and honored.'" He died in Roxbury, Mass., December 16, 1886.
We turn next to a man of large business activity, Hiram Hitchcock, born in Claremont, August 27, 1832. When ten years of age he removed to Hanover with his parents. He was educated at the Black River Academy in Ludlow, Vermont. In 1859 with others he established the Fifth Avenue hotel in New York and for many years was active in its management. On returning from a tour in Europe during the year 1866 "he lectured upon his observations abroad before educational or- ganizations, and 1872 received the degree of Master of Arts from Dartmouth College. He served for several years as trustee of the New Hampshire College of Agriculture and the Mechanic Arts and was chosen a trustee of Dartmouth College in 1878. He was one of the promoters who erected Madison Square Gar- den in New York; one of the founders of the Garfield National Bank and the Garfield Safe Deposit Company, and at the time of his death was vice-president of both institutions. He was a director of the New York Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, treasurer of the Academy of Arts, a life member of the Academy of Design, a member of the American Geograph- ical Society, a member of the New England Society, of the Chamber of Commerce and the University Club. He was also president of the Nicaragua Canal Association and was largely in- strumental in securing from Nicaragua and Costa Rica large concessions relative to the canal, and was president of the Mari- time Company of Nicaragua." He died in New York, December 30, 1900.1
Edward Tuck, son of the Hon. Amos Tuck, was born in Exeter, August 25, 1842. He fitted for college at Phillips Exeter Academy and was graduated from Dartmouth in 1862, having entered college as a sophomore and ranking among the first in his class. A winter vacation he employed in studying French with a family in Canada. After graduation he studied law in his father's office in Exeter, but trouble with his eyes sent him abroad, where he continued the study of French as he was able. He took the examinations for the diplomatic service and was as-
1 Granite Monthly, XXX. 115.
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signed to the consulate in Paris. Within a year Mr. Tuck was left in charge of affairs at the embassy. Upon the appointment of Hon. John Bigelow as minister Mr. Tuck was appointed vice- consul and became acting consul at Paris. In 1866 he accepted a position in the banking house of Munroe & Company, New York and Paris, spending a part of his time in New York and a part abroad. In 1871 he was made a partner in the company and re- tired in 1881. Although he retains his house in New York his residence has been principally in Paris till the present time. His interest in his native State has been shown in varied ways. Dartmouth received a gift of $500,000 besides $135,000 for a reci- tation hall, as a memorial of his father. To the town of Strat- ham was presented Stratham Hill as a public park. The magnifi- cent building of the New Hampshire Historical Society is due to his generosity and public spirit. He has erected a hospital near Paris and is ministering to the wounded in the terrible war now raging. His interest in literature and art continues, and in finan- cial affairs is shown by occasional contributions to the London Economist and Statist and to the Nineteenth Century. His
career testifies to abilities, character, generosity, altruism and patriotism unsurpassed. The principles which he wished to have adopted in the conduct of the Amos Tuck School of Ad- ministration and Finance at Dartmouth College were thus stated by him, "Absolute devotion to the career which one selects, and to the interests of one's superior officers or employers; the de- sire and determination to do more rather than less than one's re- quired duties ; perfect accuracy and promptness in all undertak- ings, and absence from one's vocabulary of the word 'forget'; never to vary a hair's breadth from the truth nor from the path of strictest honesty and honor, with perfect confidence in the wisdom of doing right as the surest means of achieving success. To the maxim that honesty is the best policy should be added another; that altruism is the highest and best form of egoism as a principal of conduct to be followed by those who strive for success and happiness in public or business relations as well as in those of private life."
George Walker, diplomatist, was born in Peterborough, 1824, and died in Washington, D. C., January 15, 1888. He was educated at Yale and Dartmouth, where he was graduated in 1842. After studying at Harvard Law School he began practice
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at Springfield, Massachusetts, in 1847, and continued there till 1875. He represented that city in both branches of the legis- lature. Banking was his special study; he helped to introduce the national system of banking into Massachusetts and was pres- ident of the Third National Bank in Springfield. He was sent to Europe as confidential messenger of Secretary Hugh McCullock, and twice later was the agent of the United States Government abroad. He served as consul general in Paris from 1880 to 1887. After 1875 his residence was in New York City, where he was in the banking business.
Horatio Justus Perry, born in Keene, January 23, 1824, was graduated at Harvard in 1844 and pursued studies in the Law School. In the Mexican War he was aid-de-camp of General Shields. In 1849 he was appointed secretary of legation in Spain and continued in Madrid till 1855. Afterward he was interested in submarine telegraphing and projected the system of lines reaching through all the principal West India islands and con- necting North and South America. At the beginning of the Civil War he was appointed charge d'affaires in Spain, virtually minister half of the time till 1865. Through his influence that country issued a proclamation of neutrality. He was recalled in 1869 on account of a difference with Hon. John P. Hale, who had been appointed minister to Spain. He continued to reside in Madrid, but died in Lisbon, Portugal, February 21, 1891.
Amos Tappan Akerman was born in Portsmouth in 1823, and was graduated at Dartmouth in 1842. For several years he practiced law in Portsmouth and about 1850 removed to Elber- ton, Georgia. He was opposed to secession but served in the Confederate army as quartermaster, swept along by the current of public opinion. After the war he was a Republican, support- ing the reconstruction policy of the government. In 1866 he was appointed United States attorney for the district of Georgia and served till 1870. President Grant appointed him to a posi- tion in his cabinet as attorney general of the United States, which office he held till 1872, when he resigned and returned to the practice of law in Georgia. In 1873 he was the Repub- lican candidate for United States senator, but was defeated in the election. He died at Cartersville, Georgia, December 21, 1880.
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