USA > New Hampshire > History of New Hampshire, Volume IV > Part 18
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Governor Levi K. Fuller was born in Westmoreland, Feb-
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ruary 21, 1841. His parents removed to Windham county, Ver- mont, in 1845, and there he learned telegraphy and the printer's trade. At the age of sixteen he was awarded a prize for an im- provement in the steam engine. Apprenticed as a machinist in Boston he took a course of scientific study in evening schools. Returning to Brattleboro, Vermont, he was employed as a ma- chinist and mechanical engineer and later was engaged in the manufacture of machinery. He became connected as superin- tendent of the Estey Organ Company and for twenty years was vice-president of the company, making about one hundred inven- tions. Business obliged him to decline the offer of President Grant to make him a commissioner to the Vienna exposition. In- terested in scientific study he had his private observatory and telescope. He was colonel in the militia, state senator in 1880, lieutenant-governor in 1886 and governor of Vermont in 1892. He was a member of the Baptist church and generous in his gifts to religious and benevolent causes. He died at Brattleboro, Vermont, October 10, 1896.
Henry Wells, expressman, was born in New Hampshire, December 12, 1805, and died in Glasgow, Scotland, December 10, 1878. He was the first to suggest the establishment of an ex- press from Albany to Buffalo. In 1845 it was extended to Chi- cago. He and William G. Fargo established a letter express from New York to Buffalo for six cents, while the government's charge for the same distance was twenty-five cents. In 1846 he was concerned in establishing a European express with offices in London and Paris. Consolidation in 1850 resulted in the forma- tion of the American Express Company with Mr. Wells as presi- dent. In 1852 the firm of Wells, Fargo and Company was formed for conducting express business in the far west. He was president of the American Express till 1868 after it was reor- ganized with a capital of $1,000,000. Mr. Wells gave $150,000 to found and endow Wells Female College at Aurora, New York, one of the first institutions for the higher education of women in this country.
Benjamin Pierce Cheney also became well known as an ex- pressman. He was born in Hillsborough, August 12, 1815. Be- fore he was sixteen years old he was driving a stage between Nashua and Exeter and he continued in this occupation five years, most of the time driving between Nashua and Keene, fifty
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miles. Later he became general manager of the system of stage lines through New Hampshire and Vermont to Canada, with residence in Boston at a large salary. In 1852 with others he founded Cheney and Company's Express between Boston and Montreal. Consolidating several lines he founded the United States and Canada Express, with many branches in northern New England. In 1879 the business he had founded was merged in the American Express Company, of which he was director, treasurer and large stockholder. He was one of the pioneers in the Northern Pacific and other western railroads, and one of the founders of the Market National Bank and of the American Loan and Trust Company in Boston. He gave $50,000 to Dartmouth College, founded Cheney Academy in Washington Territory and erected the statue of Daniel Webster in the State House yard at Concord. He died at his home, "Elm Bank," near Wellesley, Massachusetts, July 23, 1895, having sustained through a long and useful life the reputation of a temperate, industrious, reso- lute, persevering, honest, trusted and efficient man of business.
General George Stark, great grandson of General John Stark, was born in Manchester, April 9, 1823, and died in Nashua, April 13, 1892. "He early adopted the occupation of a civil en- gineer, being employed by Manchester corporations and in vari- ous railroad surveys, including the location of the Concord and the Vermont Central roads. Subsequently he was for some time the engineer of the Old Colony Railroad, and later, suc- cessively, of the Nashua & Wilton, Stony Brook & Boston, Con- cord & Montreal roads. From 1849 till 1852 he was superin- tendedent of the Nashua & Lowell Railroad, and in the latter year accepted the office of superintendent of the Hudson River road. In 1857 he became managing agent of the Boston & Lowell, in which capacity he served for eighteen years, accom- plishing a vast amount of work, involving great improvements and many extensions of the system. He retired from the latter position in 1875 and was immediately selected by the bondhold- ers of the Northern Pacific Railroad to take charge of the work of resuscitating that enterprise, which he effectually carried out. Having accomplished this object he withdrew from railroad af- fairs, in which he had won a higher reputation than any other New Hampshire man, and was engaged for some years in the banking business in Nashua." He served as representative from
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Nashua in 1860 and the following year was the Democratic can- didate for governor of the State. Governor Haile commissioned him brigadier-general in the militia. He was colonel of the Gov- ernor's Horse Guards in 1860.2
Joseph Burbeen Walker, born in Concord, June 12, 1822, was great grandson of the Rev. Timothy Walker. On his moth- er's side he was descended from John Burbean, tailor, from Scot- land, who was admitted as an inhabitant of Charlestown, Massa- chusetts, in 1653, married Sarah Gould and lived in Woburn, Massachusetts. Mr. Walker fitted for college at Phillips Exeter Academy, was graduated at Yale in 1844 and studied law at the Harvard Law School. Although he was admitted to the bar in 1847, he found agriculture more to his taste and devoted himself to the cultivation of a large, inherited farm, as well as to banking. Agricultural experiments and researches in historical and other literature seem to have been his delight. He was for many years president of the State Board of Agriculture and gave frequent addresses at farmers' institutes on such subjects as drainage, forestry and production of hay. For several years he was a member of the forestry commission. For fifty years he served as a member of the board of trustees of the State Hospital. His interest in public education was manifested during the thir- teen years that he was a member of the school board. He was one of the most active members of the New Hampshire Histori- cal Society, serving successively as its librarian, secretary, vice- president and president, and contributing valuable articles to its proceedings. He was never a politician and served only two years as a member of the House of Representatives, when he was active in securing the establishment of the State College at Durham and delivered the address at the dedication of its main building. For twenty-one years he was a director of the Merri- mack County Savings Bank and was president of the New Hampshire Savings Bank from 1865 to 1874. Upon the organi- zation of the Mechanics National Bank in 1880 he became one of its directors and so continued thirty years. An article by him on banking appears in The New England States. He was a member of the State Senate in 1893 and was repeatedly urged to consent to be a candidate for governor, but the office had no
2 Granite Monthly, XIV., 159.
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allurement for him. He was interested in railroading and served as director and clerk for a time of the old Concord, Northern and Portsmouth railroads. The New England Historic Gene- alogical Society elected him as its president because of the inter- est shown in historical researches. As a member of the North Congregational Church, as a citizen devoted to the welfare of his city, as a man of wide range of business, he won the confidence and esteem of a large circle of acquaintances and friends. He died at Concord, January 8, 1913.
The most prominent man of the Methodist Episcopal church that New Hampshire has produced was Bishop Osmon C. Baker, born in Marlow, July 30, 1812. He was fitted for col- lege at Wilbraham Academy and entered the first class of Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut, failing to grad- uate because of ill health. For ten years he was a teacher in Newbury Academy, Vermont, half of the time as principal. Then he entered the ministry, uniting with the New Hampshire Conference and serving pastorates at Rochester and Manchester. In 1847 he was made presiding elder, the earlier name for dis- trict superintendent, and shortly after he was elected a professor in the Biblical Institute at Concord. Here he taught till his elec- tion to the office of bishop in 1852. The duties of this office necessitated a great deal of travel, and traveling by stage in the West was no pastime. His health broke down under the severe strain and he returned to his home in Concord to linger a few years as an invalid till his death, December 20, 1871. His work on the interpretation of the Methodist Discipline was for a long time the standard authority in Methodist ecclesiastical law. Whether in the class-room or in the pulpit Bishop Baker was always a teacher, displaying none of the arts of oratory but giv- ing clear expression to well considered statements of truth as he saw it. He did more than any other to remove from the minds of many Methodists a prejudice against theological schools by inaugurating one at Newbury Academy and developing it at the Concord Biblical Institute. The prejudice vanished with ignorance.
A bishop of the Episcopal church born in Claremont, March 31, 1823, was Wiliam Bell White Howe. He was graduated at the University of Vermont in 1844 and in 1871 was made bishop of the diocese of South Carolina. The University of the South
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honored him with the degree of Doctor of Divinity, and Colum- bia College made him a Doctor of Sacred Theology. He died at Charleston, South Carolina, November 25, 1894.
A man who became well known in the Baptist denomina- tion was the Rev. Baron Stowe, D.D., born in Croydon, June 16, 1801. He was educated at Newport Academy and Columbia College, Washington, D. C. He was the editor of the Columbian Star for three years. He served pastorates at Portsmouth and Boston, in the latter city twenty-five years. His principal liter- ary productions were "History of Baptist Mission in India," "Daily Manna," "The Whole Family in Heaven and Earth," "Missionary Enterprise," "Christian Brotherhood," and "Calling and Election Made Sure." He died in Boston, December 27, 1869.
One of the best known and most highly esteemed ministers of the Congregational churches in New Hampshire during the past century was the Rev. Nathaniel Bouton, D.D., who from 1825 to 1867 was pastor of the North Congregational Church in Concord. He was born in Norwalk, Connecticut, June 29, 1799, and was graduated at Yale in 1821 and at Andover Theological Seminary in 1824. His labors in the ministry were abundant and unusually successful, yet he found time to serve almost every good cause. He was a trustee of Dartmouth College thirty-seven years and secretary of the board eighteen years. For six years he was president of the New Hampshire Mission- ary Society. He was always actively interested in the history of Concord and of the State and after his retirement from the active ministry he was appointed State Historian and prepared for pub- lication ten volumes of the early province records. He also pub- lished a History of Concord and many historical papers and ad- dresses. He was a member of the Historical Societies of New Hampshire, Maine, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. He died in Concord, June 6, 1878.
Austin Corbin, born at Newport, July 11, 1827, was grad- uated at Harvard Law School in 1849. After practicing law as a partner with Governor Metcalf he removed to Davenport, Iowa, in 1851, and there organized the First National Bank, being the first one opened for business in the United States, June 29, 1863. Remaining in Davenport till 1865 he then went to New York and formed the Corbin Banking Company. Railroads claimed
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his particular attention. He unified and developed the Long Island system of railroads and built one to the western half of Coney Island, where he erected large hotels and made it a fash- ionable summer resort.
Rear Admiral Asa Walker was born in Portsmouth, No- vember 13, 1845. He graduated at the naval academy at An- napolis in 1866, after which he served more than a year on the Sacramento, from which he went to the Kittery navy yard on ordnance duty. In 1868 he went to the Pacific station and served three years, during which time he was thrice promoted, as ensign, master and lieutenant. Subsequently he served at the naval academy, in the south Atlantic station and in the Asiatic station. Most of the time until 1897 he was doing duty at the naval academy. From that date until May 1899 he had command of the Concord, in which he took part in the battle of Manila Bay, May 1, 1898. Again he returned to the naval academy and in 1899 was commissioned captain. He became a member of the navy examining board in 1900 and thereafter had command of the cruiser San Francisco and the receiving ship Wabash, at the Boston navy yard. He was commissioned Rear Admiral January 7, 1906, and a few weeks later was made superintend- ent of the Naval Observatory. In 1907 he was retired and per- mitted to go to his home in Annapolis, where he died March 7, 1916.
General Leonard Wood was born in Winchester, October 9, 1860. He was graduated at the Harvard Medical School in 1883 and for one year was house surgeon at the Boston City Hospital, after which he began general medical practice in Bos- ton. He joined the army in 1885, having been appointed a lieu- tenant and assistant surgeon. Serving under General Miles he was sent in the summer of 1886 with Lawton's expedition against the Apaches under Geronimo, in which he had command of the infantry and sometimes of the scouts. He proved himself to be a born commander and leader, enduring all the hardships of a strenuous campaign and closing with the capture of Geron- imo and his band. At the outbreak of the Spanish-American War he and Theodore Roosevelt devised the scheme for the or- ganization of the "Rough Riders," with Wood as colonel and Roosevelt as lieutenant-colonel. It was a regiment of cavalry, made up of cowboys, adventurers, scouts from the West and
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young men of wealth and position from the eastern States. In the battle of San Juan Hill they served as dismounted cavalry and won distinction, after which Wood was promoted to Briga- dier General. After the capture of Santiago he was appointed its governor, where he displayed his remarkable gifts of adminis- tration. He was commander of the department of Santiago as civil governor of the province and military governor of the city. He cleaned up the city and gained the respect and good will of the people, acting often as mediator in their disputes. He taught them to respect civil law and to govern themselves. In 1898 he was made Major General of volunteers and in 1903 he at- tained to the same rank in the regular army. He was awarded the congressional medal of honor, March 29, 1898, "for dis- tinguished conduct in campaign against Apache Indians in 1886 while serving as medical and line officer of Captain Lawton's expedition." He was military governor of Cuba from December 12, 1899, until the transfer of the government of Cuba to the Cuban Republic, May 2, 1902. Then he was sent on duty to the Philippine Islands and for three years was governor of Moro Province. Then he became commander of the Philippine Di- vision and later commander of the Department of the East. He was special ambassador to the Argentine Republic in 1901 and became Chief of Staff of the United States Army July 16, 1910, serving till April, 1914. After that he became again commander of the Department of the East. His career in the army is re- markable from the fact that he had no military training at West Point. He learned to do things by doing them, and whatever he has undertaken he has done well. Rapid promotion followed achievement.
William Ladd, "the Apostle of Peace," won a reputation as a philanthropist. He was born in Exeter, May 10, 1778, and was graduated at Harvard College in 1797. He began life as a sailor on one of his father's vessels and became a skillful navigator and a man of wealth, residing in Portsmouth in a house that has been properly marked as historic. After leaving the busi- ness of seagoing he settled in Minot, Maine. He became inter- ested in arbitration and the delivery of mankind from the curse of war, going so far as to deny the right to defensive war. He was the leading spirit in the organization of the American Peace Society, which held its first meeting May 8, 1828. The move-
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ment spread rapidly and many branch societies were formed in the northern states. The headquarters of the society were re- moved to Hartford, Connecticut, in 1835, and two years later to Boston, Massachusetts. Mr. Ladd edited the Friend of Peace as the organ of the society and also its successor The Harbinger of Peace. He was the third president of the society. His death occurred in Portsmouth, April 9, 1841. The house where he lived is often visited by those from distant parts of the country who share his views and spirit.
Chapter XIII THE CHURCHES OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY
Chapter XIII
THE CHURCHES OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY
Inertia of Religious Bodies-The "Standing Order"-Toleration Act-De- cline of Protestant Population-Need of Protestant Union-Present Number of Congregationalists-The State Conference-Standards of Doctrine-Benevolent Contributions-Unitarians-Baptists and Free Baptists Uniting-Methodists and Their Peculiarities-Universalists-The Protestant Episcopal Church-Presbyterians-The Christian Church- Adventists-Shakers-Osgoodites-Pentecostal Church-The Salvation Army-Mental Therapeutics-Christian Science-Mrs. Mary Baker G. Eddy-Changes in Religious Thought-Consequent Change in Activities -Evangelists and Revivals of a New Type Needed-Sketch of the Roman Catholic Church in New Hampshire-Nothing to Be Feared from Rome-Need of a Fuller Acquaintance between Protestants and Roman Catholics-Survival of the Fit as Tested by Character.
A FORMER chapter has told something of the state of the various religious denominations at the close of the eigh- teenth century. All the denominations that then had arisen have persisted to the present time, and several new ones have made their appearance. It is far easier to start a new church and de- velop a denomination than it is to break it up and assimilate it with other religious bodies. Churches obey the law of inertia. They get started and it is almost impossible to stop; or they cease activity and it requires a moral earthquake to set them going again. It is harder for masses than for individuals to change their minds. The denominations sprung out of mighty convictions in the souls of a few. Those convictions were not always well grounded and a long process of education through experience was necessary to separate elements of truth from ad- mixture of error. Sometimes the error received more emphasis than the truth, and an erroneous conviction may hinder for a long time the real progress of the Kingdom of God. False no- tions dig themselves in, get intrenched in human thought, where logical batteries cannot reach them. If some liquid fire reaches the emotions, the dug-ins rush forth to speedy death,-or to a new life.
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The Congregationalists were the "orthodox" or "the stand- ing order" till 1819, when the Toleration Act was passed. There- after ministers were not hired and churches were not sup- ported by towns as such. All churches depended upon volun- tary support, and since there were many zealous evangelists who were glad to talk from Sunday to Sunday wherever they could get a chance, churches rapidly multiplied beyond the ra- tional needs of the population. A rivalry of denominations appeared. Each became eager to build a church in a new and growing town. Not infrequently differences of opinion on abstruse theological questions split a local church into two op- posing rivals, who took to themselves different names and stood for different theories. The advanced thinker in the pulpit could not always lead and feed his flock. They preferred to graze in old pastures rather than follow up some rocky ravine. Conse- quently a small number seceded and contending for the old against the new had at once the sympathy and aid of the unpro- gressive. The new church thus formed flourished for a genera- tion or so, and the old church had an audience that was small but very respectable. Each one stood ready to swallow up the other.
The Protestant population ceased to increase about the year 1850 because of emigration to the West. Many country towns have now one-third of their former population and are trying to keep up as many denominational churches as in more prosperous times. Hence in many places all strength and resources are ex- pended to keep church machinery in motion, to pay expenses and appear to be alive, when the great majority of the surrounding population are indifferent to public worship and are rarely seen at church on Sunday. Thus the church is for the benefit of its few members and their children, not having learned to lose themselves for the benefit of the entire community. There is a loud call for the martyrdom of churches, laying down their lives for the welfare of the indifferent and ungodly. The law of self-sacrifice which underlies vital Christianity is applicable to organized collections of believers as much as to individuals. He that loseth his life shall save it.
In 1800 there were one hundred and thirty-eight Congrega- tional churches, and the services were well attended. Indeed the congregations on Sundays were composed principally of
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those who were not members of any church and could not be induced to join any church. An occasional "revival" swept in a few of the old procrastinators and more of the unhardened young. The majority of the town's people were outside of the covenant of grace and were thought of, if not spoken to, as sin- ners unsaved. So long as they went to meeting, and helped pay the bills, and observed fairly well the moral law, nobody felt alarmed about their prospects for eternity. They were called "first cousins to the church" in playful mode of speech. Often they behaved and could be trusted in trade as well as the average deacon. The principles of christianity were engrafted upon their lives. They were at least "babes in Christ" without knowing it themselves and without being so recognized by others.
The Congregational churches have grown to be one hun- dred and eighty-seven in 1915, eighteen of them being vacant and thirty-three supplied. The number of church members reached the maximum in 1845, when the number reported was 21,689. Since that time there has been a fluctuating decline, so that in 1915 there are 19,463 reported. That means about one in twenty of the Protestant population. The ratio of church mem- bership to the entire Protestant population is one to four, when the membership of all Protestant churches is considered.
A general association of Congregational ministers was formed as early as 1737 at Exeter, and fifty years later there were eight local associations. In those days the ministers ruled the churches. The General Association of Congregational churches had its first meeting in Boscawen, September 20, 1809, yet this was an association of ministers only, two delegates being allowed to each local association. No laymen were ad- mitted till the year 1860, when twenty-three ministers and eigh- teen laymen, all but one deacons, made up the convention. The basis of representation has been changed from time to time, the lay element gradually increasing, till now each Congregational church may send its pastor and two delegates to the State Con- ference, the name now used. The ministers no longer rule the churches ; on the contrary many of the churches rule their min- isters. Settled ministers, or pastorates of forty years in length are exceedingly rare exceptions. The average length of a pas- torate is not more than four or five years.
The standard of doctrine for many years was that contained
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in the Shorter Catechism of the Westminster Assembly. It was not till 1899 that the Association declared that "The basis of our fellowship is loyalty to Jesus Christ in an historic faith, which has found its latest expression in the Burial Hill declaration and in the creed of the Commission of the Congregational Council of 1883." Let it not be thought that any congregationalist is conscientiously bound to accept and try to believe all that those statements of doctrine contain. They are accepted simply "for substance of doctrine," with right of private interpretation and liberty to change one's mind on evidence without necessity of abandoning the church of one's choice. Every local Congrega- tional church has a perfect right to adopt a new creed as often as it wishes so to do, and many churches have recently thrown away the ancient Calvinistic formulas and adopted the briefest possible statement of general religious principles, broad enough to admit all lovers of Jesus. Emphasis is no longer laid upon doctrinal belief, but rather on Christian character and conduct. All shades of religious opinion and belief may be found in the ranks of Congregationalism. Many ministers and members are declared Universalists, and the doctrine of the Trinity is so stated that rational Unitarians have no objection to it. Even the Apostles' Creed is discarded in some churches in favor of one that can be repeated in unison without any mental reservation on the part of any worshiper. To-day no effort is made to pack into a creed all that, according to the notions of some, all Chris- tians ought to believe. Doctrinal sermons and discussions are rarely heard from the pulpit and in conventions, while social righteousness and moral reforms win a hearing, as in the times of the Hebrew prophets. Freedom in doctrinal belief and strict- ness of moral life go well together, and such liberality is grow- ing in all denominations.
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