History of Rockingham County, New Hampshire and representative citizens, Part 4

Author: Hazlett, Charles A
Publication date: 1915
Publisher: Chicago : Richmond-Arnold
Number of Pages: 1390

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The Eighteenth Regiment .- On the 19th of July, 1864, the War Depart- ment issued an order calling for 500,000 volunteers, and under this call the state authorities commenced recruiting the Eighteenth Regiment. Charles H. Bell, of Exeter, was commissioned colonel, and James W. Carr, of Manchester, lieutenant-colonel, both of whom resigned before being mustered into the United States service, and their places were filled by the appointment of Thomas L. Livermore, of Milford, and Joseph M. Clough, of New London. Company K was principally from Rockingham County. The regiment participated in the following engagements: Fort Steadman, March 25, 1865 ; attack on Petersburg, April 2, 1865 ; and capture of Peters- burg, April 3, 1865. It was mustered out in July, 1865.

The First Heavy Artillery was raised in August, 1864, and was mustered into the service with Charles H. Long, of Claremont, as colonel, and Ira McL. Barton as lieutenant-colonel. The following is a list of the officers of this company: Captain, George W. Colbath, of Dover; first lieutenant, William S. Pillsbury, of Londonderry; second lieutenant, Joseph H. Flagg, of Kingston. 2

HISTORY OF ROCKINGHAM COUNTY

On the 21st of November, 1864, Colonel Long was assigned to the com- mand of Hardin's division, Twenty-second Army Corps, and the command of the regiment devolved upon Lieutenant-Colonel Barton. On the 25th Battery A was ordered to Portsmouth Harbor, and in February, 1865, Bat- tery B was ordered for duty at the same place. During the winter and until the muster out of the regiment it garrisoned a line of works ten miles in extent and gained considerable proficiency in artillery drill.

On the 15th of June, 1865, the regiment was mustered out of service, and arrived at Concord on the 19th, where it received final pay and discharge.

Sharpshooters .- New Hampshire furnished three companies of sharp- shooters for the army. In the summer of 1861, Colonel Berdan procured permission from the war department to raise a force of sharpshooters, and a promise that 2,000 Sharpe's rifles should be manufactured for them.

The result was the First and Second Regiments of United States Sharp- shooters, commonly known as Berdan's Sharpshooters, of which the three companies from this state formed a part. Colonel Berdan asked the gov- ernor first for one, and then for two more companies. They were mustered into the United States service on the 9th of September, 1861.

These three companies of sharpshooters contained some of the best rifle shots in the state. They participated in more battles and skirmishes than the averages of regiments, and probably killed more rebels than the same number of troops in any other arm of the service; while from their having been seldom used in line of battle in dense masses, they suffered less loss in comparison than many other regiments.

Rockingham County may justly feel proud of her soldiery as no section of our country acted a more prominent or honorable rôle in the great tragedy.

Nearly a half century has now elapsed since the close of the Rebellion, and we find our country a united and prosperous people. Sectional strife is rapidly passing away, and the same hand strews flowers alike on the graves of the Blue and the Gray.

"No more shall the war-cry sever, Or the winding rivers be red; They banish our anger forever When they laurel the graves of our dead. Under the sod and the dew, Waiting the judgment-day ; Love and tears for the Blue, Tears and love for the Gray."

CHAPTER V BENCH AND BAR

Sketches of Rockingham County Lawyers and Judges -

Among the prominent agencies which give shape and order in the early development of the civl and social condition of society, the pulpit, press, and bar are perhaps the most potential in moulding the institutions of a new community ; and where these are early planted, the school, academy, and col- lege are not long in assuming their legitimate position, and the maintenance of these institutions secures at the start a social and moral foundation upon which we may safely rest the superstructure of the country, the state, and the nation.

The establishment of courts and judicial tribunals, where society is pro- tected in all its civil rights under the sanction of law, and wrong finds a ready redress in an enlightened and prompt administration of justice, is the first necessity of every civilized community, and without which the forces and press of society, in its changeable developments, even under the teach- ings of the pulpit, the directions of the press, and the culture of the schools, are exposed to peril and disaster from the turbulence of passion and conflicts of interest; and hence the best and surest security that even the press, the school, or the pulpit can find for the peaceful performance of its highest functions is when protected by and intrenched behind the bulwarks of law, administered by a pure, independent, and uncorrupted judiciary.

The Rockingham County bar has from its beginning numbered among its members able jurists, talented advocates, and safe counselors. Here many have lived, flourished, and died, while others still are upon the stage of action who have been prominent in the advancement of the interests of the county and figured conspicuously in the councils of the state.

PORTSMOUTH

for so many years the important town of the state, and noted for the extent of its commerce, wealth, and political importance, naturally maintained an able and influential bar, whose members had a large practice, and some of whom were known throughout the country from their political as well as their legal celebrity.

Matthew Livermore (son of Samuel) was born in Watertown, Mass., January 14, 1703; graduated at Harvard College, 1722, and went to Ports- mouth to keep school and study law. He was admitted to the bar in 1731, at which time there was no regularly educated lawyer in Portsmouth. He

HISTORY OF ROCKINGHAM COUNTY

practiced extensively in Maine and New Hampshire. He was attorney- general of the province and king's advocate in the Admiralty Court. He was afterwards judge of the Superior Court of New Hampshire, and died August II, 1762.

William Parker was born in Portsmouth, December 9, 1703, and, after being for a while at school, was apprenticed by his father to a tanner, but on attaining his majority became master of one of the public schools. He then studied law, and was admitted to the bar in 1732. He was clerk to the com- missioners selected to settle the boundary line between New Hampshire and Massachusetts; was register of probate, surrogate, and judge of admiralty. He was a representative in the assembly for several years from 1765 to 1774. In August, 1771, he was appointed justice of the Supreme Court, and held this office until the Revolutionary war. He was not only a well-read law- yer, but an excellent scholar. He died April 21, 1781.

Wyseman Claggett was born in Bristol, England, in 1721, and came to Portsmouth to serve as the king's attorney-general in 1758. He married in Portsmouth, 1759, Miss Warner, and died at Litchfield in 1784. As king's attorney he was faithful in the discharge of his "duties," but when the "Stamp Act" was promulgated he was one of the earliest to remonstrate. His father was Wyseman Claggett, a barrister at law in Bristol. Mr. Clag- gett was renowned as a classical scholar. In the war of the Revolution he took sides with the people at the risk of very much of his property, then within the power of the British government.

Samuel Livermore was born in Waltham, Mass., May 14, 1702 (O. S.). He taught school in Chelsea Hall College, N. J., graduating in September, 1752. After teaching for a while he studied law with Judge Trowbridge, and was admitted to the bar in June, 1756. Commencing practice at Walt- ham, he removed to Portsmouth in 1757; thence, in 1764, he removed to Londonderry, which town he represented in the Legislature in 1768. He was commissioned attorney-general in 1769, then again living at Portsmouth. In 1775 he removed to Holderness. In 1776 he was again made attorney- general. In 1779 he was a delegate to the Continental Congress, and also in 1781. June 21, 1782, he was appointed chief justice of the Supreme Court. In 1790 he resigned his judgeship. In 1789 he was representative to Con- gress. In 1793 he was chosen United States senator, and again in 1798. He resigned the latter office in 1801. He died May, 1803, aged seventy-one.

John Samuel Sherburne, the son of John and Elizabeth ( Moffat) Sher- bune, was born in Portsmouth in 1757, and died in that town August 2, 1830, aged seventy-three. After reading law he began practice in Portsmouth. He was a representative in Congress from 1793 to 1797; attorney for the United States for the district of New Hampshire from 1801 to 1804; judge of the District Court of the United States from May, 1804, to the date of his death. In the war of the Revolution he served with distinction, and lost a leg in battle. He married Submit, daughter of Hon. George Boyd, in October, 1791.

John Pickering was born in Newington in 1738; graduated at Harvard College in 1761 ; was chosen United States senator in 1789. In August of 1789 he was appointed justice of the Supreme Court, and chief justice in July following, serving until 1795. Was then appointed judge of the United

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States District Court, and served till 1804. He was noted for his strength of character, learning, and personal excellence. He died April 11, 1805.

Charles Story was appointed judge of the Court of Admiralty for New Hampshire in the fall of 1696. He sailed from England for Portsmouth late in the same season, and reached that town in January, 1697. On the 19th of January he presented his commission to the president and council, and it was read, approved, and recorded. In 1699 he was appointed register of probate, continuing in office till his death. His last record bears date December II, 1714. In 1712 he was attorney-general of the province, and was engaged in many prominent suits. His residence was at New Castle.

Jonathan Mitchell Sewall was born in Salem, Mass., in 1748, and read law with Judge John Pickering in Portsmouth. He began practice at Haver- hill, N. H., and was register of probate for Grafton County in 1773. Pre- vious to 1787 he removed to Portsmouth, where he was register of the Court of Admiralty. He was admitted to the bar of the Circuit Court of the United States, November 20, 1790, and held high rank as a counselor in the courts of the states. His poetic writings have to some extent survived him. He wrote an address presented to President Washington on his visit to Ports- mouth, and an oration delivered July 4, 1788. He was the author of the oft-quoted lines,-

"No pent-up Utica contracts your powers, But the whole boundless continent is yours."

Mr. Sewall died March 28, 1808, aged sixty years.

Daniel Humphreys was the son of Rev. David Humphreys, of Derby, Conn., and graduated at Yale College in 1757. He became a lawyer and a teacher of the Sandemanian doctrines. He came to Portsmouth in 1774, and was United States district attorney from 1804 to 1828, and was a mem- ber of the convention to frame a new constitution in 1791-92. He was in considerable practice, and was a man of unblemished character.

Joseph Bartlett was noted for his eccentricities and wit. He was born at Plymouth, Mass., June 10, 1762, and graduated at Harvard College in 1782 with a high rank in scholarship. He studied law first at Salem, Mass., then went to England. Returning, he was a captain of volunteers raised by Massachusetts to put down Shay's rebellion. After this he resumed his legal studies and was admitted to the bar. He practiced at Woburn and Cambridge. In 1803 he removed to Saco, Me., where he had a good practice. After losing his influence and a large share of his business in Saco by the prose- cution of a protracted libel suit, he for a while lived in Branch, and came to Portsmouth in 1810. He died in Berlin, Oct. 27, 1827. He published an edition of poems dedicated to John Quincy Adams, and while in Saco edited a paper called the Freeman's Friend. July 4, 1805, he delivered an oration at Biddeford. He was a fluent, and at times eloquent, speaker, abounded in wit, which was at ready command, but his habits of life and a lack of firm- ness of purpose prevented his attaining a position at the bar which he otherwise might have filled. He married Ann Witherell, of Kingston, Mass., but left no children.

HISTORY OF ROCKINGHAM COUNTY

Edward St. Loe Livermore was a son of Hon. Samuel Livermore, and born in Portsmouth in 1762. He studied law and practiced his pro- fession in Portsmouth, and was United States district attorney for the District of New Hampshire from 1789 to 1797. Mr. Livermore was a member of the convention chosen to revise the Constitution of the State of New Hampshire, which assembled at Concord on the 7th of September, 1791. His father was president of the convention. He was justice of the Superior Court of New Hampshire from 1797 to 1799, and subsequently removed to Massachusetts. He died, aged eighty years.

Jeremiah Mason, one of the ablest members of the Rockingham County bar, was born at Lebanon, Conn., April 27, 1768. He was a descendant of John Mason, captain in Oliver Cromwell's army, and who came from England in 1630, and settled at Dorchester, Mass. After graduating at Yale College, Mr. Mason studied law in Connecticut, and was admitted to the bar in New Hampshire in 1791. He began practice at Westmoreland, and removed thence to Walpole, from which place he removed to Portsmouth in 1797. He was appointed attorney-general in 1802, which office he resigned in three years. In June, 1813, he was chosen a senator of the United States, and served with distinction until his resignation in 1817. He also served in the Legislature of New Hampshire, and was president of the United States Branch Bank at Portsmouth. His law practice was extensive, and in his office were many students-at-law. Mr. Webster has said of Mr. Mason that "his great ability lay in the department of the common law. In his address to the court and jury he affected to despise all eloquence and certainly disdained all ornament, but his efforts, whether addressed to one tribunal or the other, were marked by a degree of clearness, directness, and force not easy to be equaled." He was the most adroit and successful in the cross-examination of witnesses of any lawyer ever seen at the bar of the state.

In 1832, Mr. Mason removed to Boston, in which city he died October 14, 1848. While a resident of Portsmouth, Mr. Mason's practice extended throughout the state, and he was retained in the most important cases upon the dockets of the various counties of New Hampshire, and enjoyed a reputation as one of the leading lawyers of the country.

Daniel Webster, whose fame is world-wide, lived the earlier half of his life in New Hampshire. The son of a Revolutionary patriot, Capt. Ebenezer Webster, and of New Hampshire descent for four generations, he was born in Salisbury, January 18, 1782. A feeble constitution pointed him out as fitter for education 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 graduated 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

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a resident of New Hampshire he served two terms as representative in Congress.

Mr. Webster acquired a high reputation as a lawyer and a statesman (for he never was a politician) before he quitted his native state. When he went to Portsmouth, 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 Hamp- shire 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 management. He tried his causes upon their merits, and with his logical power and eloquent tongue made short work of trumped-up claims and dishonest defenses. Many traditions attest his commanding influence 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 prac- titioner of his time was the popular confidence and admiration 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 continued 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 services.

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

The petty assaults that seemed temporarily to obscure his fame have had their brief day, and posterity 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 vindicator of the Constitution, as a lawyer and an orator, and, most of all, as a patriot, the country will be fortunate if the future shall furnish his peer.

Nathaniel A. Haven, Jr., was born in Portsmouth, N. H., January 14,

HISTORY OF ROCKINGHAM COUNTY

1790, and was a son of Hon. Nathaniel A. Haven, and a grandson of Rev. Samuel Haven, D. D. He graduated at Harvard, and studied law in the office of that eminent jurist, Hon. Jeremiah Mason. He was admitted to the bar in 1811, and commenced practice in his native town. High as was Haven in his profession, he had not given to a single science a mind that could compass the circle of them. He had a decided taste for literature, and from 1821 to 1825 was connected editorially with the Portsmouth Journal. He also contributed articles for the North American Review. He was a member of the Legislature in 1823-24. He died June 3, 1826.

Peyton Randolph Freeman was the son of Hon. Jonathan Freeman, of Hanover, and born November 14, 1775. He graduated at Dartmouth College in 1796, and began the practice of the law in Hanover in 1801. Previous to this he was principal of an academy at Amherst, N. H. He came to Portsmouth and established himself in practice in 1803. He was deputy secretary of state in 1816-17, clerk of the United States Courts from March, 1817, to May, 1820. Mr. Freeman's strong point was his familiarity with the law concerning real property. He was of the old school, and any departure by the courts from the ancient rules of law concerning real estate was a horror to him. He was severely painstaking and careful in all business he undertook, such as the investigation of titles, drafting of wills, creating trusts, life estates, etc. Indeed, he was so much absorbed in following the intricate phases of cases and titles that his clients after experience in this direction were apt to prefer a man of more practical turn of mind. He was never married. He died March 27, 1868, in the ninety-third year of his age.

Edward Cutts, son of Edward Cutts, was born in Kittery, Me., and was a descendant of Judge Edward Cutts. He graduated at Harvard College in 1801. He studied law with Jeremiah Mason, and after his admission to the bar began practice in Portsmouth in 1807. At the May term, 1809, he was admitted as an attorney and counselor of the Circuit Court of the United States, at the same time with Daniel Webster, and continued in large practice in the state and federal courts until his death, August 22, 1844, at the age of sixty years.

Mr. Cutts neither sought nor attained political honors. He was a safe counselor, and devoted himself exclusively to the practice of his profession. He was at one time president of the United States Branch Bank in Ports- mouth, and afterwards a director in the Rockingham Bank. He married Mary Huske Sheafe, daughter of Jacob Sheafe, a prominent merchant of Portsmouth, but left no children. His widow is remembered for her munif- icent legacy left to improve Richards Avenue, a fine street leading to the South Cemetery in Portsmouth.

William Claggett was the son of Hon. Clifton Claggett, and grandson of Wyseman Claggett. He was born at Litchfield, April 8, 1790; graduated at Dartmouth College in 1808; was admitted to the bar in Hillsborough County in 1811, and soon after began the practice of his profession in Portsmouth. He was representative in the State Legislature in 1814, and was several times re-elected to that office. He was clerk of the State Senate in 1820; senator from District No. 1 in 1825; clerk of the United States

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Circuit and District Courts from 1820 to his resignation March 5, 1825; and naval officer of the port of Portsmouth from 1830 to 1838. His first wife was Sarah F., daughter of George Plumer, who died in 1818. His second marriage was with Mary Thompson, daughter of Col. E. Thompson ; she died in 1863.

Mr. Claggett at one time had a large practice in Portsmouth, but when he too often became his own client his business diminished and finally dis- appeared. In 1812 he gave a Fourth of July oration in Portsmouth, Daniel Webster making one at the same time in another part of the town. He was for many years an ardent democrat, and subsequently became a free soiler, and wrote extensively for the press in Portsmouth and Concord after that party's formation. He died on the 28th of December, 1870, at Portsmouth, leaving one son, William C. Claggett, then a merchant in New York City.

Ichabod Bartlett was born in Salisbury. He graduated at Dartmouth College in 1808, and studied law in the office of Moses Eastman in his native town. He practiced law after his admission to the bar at Salisbury and at Durham, and in 1818 removed to Portsmouth. The same year he was appointed solicitor for Rockingham County.

He was chosen clerk of the Senate for 1817 and 1818. He was a representative to the General Court from Portsmouth in 1820 and 1821 (being speaker of the House of Representatives for 1821), and also served as representative in the years 1830, 1838, 1851, and 1852. He was a delegate to the Constitutional Convention in 1850, was representative in Congress in 1823, 1825, and 1827, and was for many years engaged in many of the most important lawsuits throughout the state. As a lawyer he had few equals; in ready wit and keen satire he was unsurpassed; as public speaker, as an advocate of the bar, and a legislator he maintained a prominent position for very many years. He died at Portsmouth, October 17, 1853, aged seventy-seven, and was unmarried.

Charles W. Cutter, son of Jacob Cutter, was born in Portsmouth, grad- uated at Harvard College in 1818, and studied law with Jeremiah Mason, and commenced practice in his native town. He was admitted to the bar of the Circuit Court of the United States in October, 1825, and appointed clerk of the Circuit and District Courts March 13, 1826, positions he held for fifteen years. In 1841 he was appointed naval storekeeper, and after- wards was navy agent at Portsmouth. He for several years edited the Portsmouth Journal, and was an effective public speaker in political cam- paigns, but never devoted himself with much zeal to the practice of his profession. He died August 6, 1856, aged fifty-six years, and unmarried.

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History of Rockingham County, New Hampshire and representative citizens, Part 4

Author: Hazlett, Charles A Publication date: 1915 Publisher: Chicago : Richmond-Arnold Number of Pages: 1390

Author: Hazlett, Charles A
Publication date: 1915
Publisher: Chicago : Richmond-Arnold
Number of Pages: 1390