History of Rockingham and Strafford counties, New Hampshire : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Part 139

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton)
Publication date: 1882
Publisher: Philadelphia : J. W. Lewis
Number of Pages: 1714

USA > New Hampshire > Strafford County > History of Rockingham and Strafford counties, New Hampshire : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men > Part 139
USA > New Hampshire > Rockingham County > History of Rockingham and Strafford counties, New Hampshire : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men > Part 139

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He employed his efforts and influence to raise and purify the character of the profession, to enforce jus- tiee and obedience to law, and to promote the highest interests of the community. He believed a lawyer's honor was his brightest jewel, and to be kept un- sullied, even by the breath of suspicion. He was straightforward, honorable, and sincere in all his dealings. He had no covert or indirect ways. He had no arts but manly arts, and in respect to these traits was a model fit for universal imitation.

Mr. Christie's career in other spheres of business entitled him to the honor and respect of men in quite as full measure as he won them for himself in his chosen profession. He was president and director for many years in several of our largest banking and other corporations, and discharged his responsibilities in those capacities with the same industry and fidelity to his trust which actuated him elsewhere. He was in his time the master-spirit of them all, and im- pressed upon them all the stamp of his own sturdy integrity, solidity, and soundness.

Mr. Christie was happy in his domestic life. IIe married Mrs. Dorothy Dix Woodman, a daughter of John Wheeler, Esq., and widow of Hon. Charles Woodman, of Dover, who was Speaker of the New Hampshire House of Representatives, and died Oet. 31, 1822, at the age of thirty.

Mr. Christie had six daughters and no sons, viz. : Mary Spalding, who married Col. John W. Kingman, colonel of the Fifteenth New Hampshire Volun- teers in the war of the Rebellion, and since United

States judge of the Territory of Wyoming, and died Dee. 16, 1866, leaving five children ; Sarah Jane, wife of Col. Samuel C. Fisher, of Dover, N. H .; Helen Marr, who died, unmarried, Aug. 9, 1853, at the age of twenty; Lizzie Wheeler, wife of IIon. Robert I. Burbank, of Boston; Rebecca Harris, who died, un- married, Jan. 15, 1882, at the age of forty-three ; and Emma Josephine, wife of Frank Hobbs, Esq., a very brilliant lawyer of Dover. Charles Woodman, Esq., of Dover, for many years treasurer of the Strafford County Savings-Bank, is the son of Mrs. Christie and stepson of Mr. Christie.

In the circle of home Mr. Christie was always sweet, kind, considerate, and indulgent. His family regarded him with boundless love and reverence. The private life of many a man of genius is a domain which cannot be entered with safety or prudence or delicacy. How different with Mr. Christie ! Here is no forbidden ground,-and his kinsmen and friends are full of gratitude to God that here was a great and famous man, one of the very ablest ever produced in New Hampshire, upon every hour and act of whose private life and intercourse with men and women the light of noonday might be turned, with mieroscopic power, and find no stain or impurity. That he was upright, exemplary, and decorous before the world, all knew. But he was more. He was sound and sweet to the core. He had a singular, almost infan- tile, guilelessness of mind and cleanness of specchi and imagination. The inevitable contact with vice and depravity, which came to him through the varied experiences of a long life spent in attending to the concerns of others, had left him pure and innocent and uncontaminated. IIe was like "the sun, which passeth through pollutions and itself remains as pure as before." In this respect he was fortunate above most men. Suspicion never assailed his private life, and slander fled abashed from his presence.

Mr. Christie did not retire from active practice till he was upwards of eighty years of age. His last years were happy and honorable to the last degree. The harness of his busy professional life laid off, he sat down in the evening of his days by his own fire- side, surrounded by affectionate daughters and friends, and occupied and delighted his great mind by perus- ing some of the enchanting English authors, whose enjoyments had been denied him by the cares and exactions of a busy career. Until almost the last hour of his long and useful life his intellectual strength, his interest in affairs, and his capacity for enjoyment had suffered no apparent abatement. En- dowed by nature with a vigorous constitution, capable of great and prolonged labor, and temperate, upright, and abstemious in his habits always, he had had seareely an hour of sickness during his entire life, and up to the very day of its fall there were no signs of dilapidation in that stately edifice. His noble pres- ence was in our streets, and he was the venerable ob- jeet of all men's respect and regard. And so, after a

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HISTORY OF STRAFFORD COUNTY, NEW HAMPSHIRE.

life of honor, of integrity, of strenuous exertion, all crowned by a renown sufficient to fill, and which did ; fill and satisfy a reasonable ambition, he passed away full of years and honors. In his native town and State, and especially in the city of his adoption, which was honored so much by his long residence in it, bis name and memory will always be cherished and re- vered, as one of the greatest and purest men who has ever lived among us.

THOMAS ELLWOOD SAWYER, a son of Stephen Sawyer, was a native of Dover, his birth occurring Nov. 21, 1798. He studied law in the offices of Hon. Charles Woodman and Hon. James Bartlett, and was admitted to the bar in 1825. Prior to this time, in 1822, he had been assistant clerk in the lower branch of the New Hampshire Legislature. Ilis residence continued in Dover throughout his long life. Ilis political career began in 1830, when he was elected a member of the Exective Council. Hle was again chosen in 1831, and between the years 1833 and 1850, he was elected ten times a represen- tative to the General Court. In 1850-51 he was a member of the convention to revise the Constitution of the State, and in 1851 and 1852 was the nominee of the Whig party for the office of Governor. In 1867 he was appointed a United States register ju bankruptcy.

He was also prominent in the affairs of Dover, was moderator of its town-meetings for many years, served for half a century upon its school committee, and after the adoption of a city charter, was chosen mayor in 1857, and subsequently held the office of city solici- tor for three years.

Mr. Sawyer was a man of deserved popularity. His standing was unimpeachable, and his abilities were far above the average. As an adviser in legal or political matters he stood among the wisest, but he made no display. He had a constitutional diffidence which stood in the way of his becoming an advocate or a public speaker. Ilis judgment, ability, and fairness were such, however, that he obtained a very large share of employment as auditor and referee. He lived to be one of the oldest, as he was one of the most respected, members of his profession. His death took place in Dover, Feb. 27, 1879.

JOHN HUBBARD WHITE, son of Amos and Sarah White, was born in Dover, N. H., Nov. 30, 1802. 1le received his education in the public schools there and at the Wakefield (N. H.) Academy, where he was fitted for college. Ile graduated in Bowdoin College in 1822, and among his classmates were Hawthorne, ex-President Pierce, and William Hale, of Dover. He then studied law in the offices of Charles W. Cutter and James Bartlett, of his native town, and in 1825 was admitted to the bar of Strafford County. In 1826 he opened a law-office, and continued in the practice of his profession up to the time he was stricken by his fatal illness. In September, 1828, he was ap- pointed postmaster of Dover, and served until May

19, 1829; was representative to the New Hampshire Legislature in 1833-34. He was member of the board of selectmen of the town of Dover in 1844; chosen register of probate in 1849, and remained in office eight years; was first judge of the Police Court of the city of Dover, being chosen April 8, 1853, and serving to June 26, 1857. Hle died Sept. 7, 1882.

RICHARD KIMBALL was born March 1, 1798, and was the son of Nathaniel Kimball, of North Berwick, Me. Ile was a student in the Phillips Exeter Acad- emy, and went through his preparatory professional course in the office of Hon. Asa Freeman, and it is believed at the law-school in Litchfield, Conn. He was admitted to practice at about the age of thirty years, and settled in Dover, for a short time having the editorial charge of the Strafford Advertiser. Ile removed to Somersworth in 1829, thence to Rochester in 1835, and back to Dover in 1848. In Rochester he was the agent of a manufactory of flannels for a time.

After his return to Dover in 1857 he received the commission of judge of the Police Court, and per- formed the duties of the office for about ten years. He did not desire professional business at that period, but passed much of his time on his farm outside the city of Dover.

He was regarded as a sound and well-read lawyer, and an excellent citizen. The later years of his life he passed with his relatives in or about Boston, and his death occurred at Dover. March 2, 1881.

JOHN PARKER IlALE' was born in Rochester, N. H., March 31, 1806. His father, John P. Hale, was a lawyer of much ability and influence and great personal popularity, who died in 1819, at the age of forty-two years, leaving a large family in limited circumstances, the subject of this sketch being then but thirteen years okl. As a boy he was popular among his fellows, active, loving sport, quick to learn, courageous, kind, and free from vindictive- ness, qualities which adhered to him through life, making him very popular in the community in which he lived, and in the counties where he practiced at the bar, and commanding the good will and respect of the men whom his convictions led him to oppose. After such education as was to be had in the schools of his native village he had the benefit of Phillips' Exeter Academy in his preparatory studies for col- lege, and graduated at Bowdoin in 1827.

Mr. Hale, on leaving college, entered upon the study of the law in the office of J. H. Woodman, Esq., of Rochester, and completed his studies with Daniel M. Christie, Esq., of Dover, where he had the advantage of the instruction of one of the ablest lawyers ever at the bar in the State. Ile began to practice in Dover in 1830, and for about forty years was the nearest neighbor of his old instructor, who was always one of his warmest friends, although the two were generally pitted against each other in all

1 By Hon. Jacob II. Ela, in the Granite Monthly.

Satin OFfale.

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BENCHI AND BAR.

the leading eases in court, and differed much of the time politically. They finally came together, how- ever, the one from the stand-point of an anti-slavery Whig, and the other from that of a Democrat with anti-slavery tendencies.

Mr. Hale at once took high rank at the bar, and was noted for his tact and skill in handling witnesses, and his great power with a jury. Of all the adro- cates who practiced at the bar of the old county of Strafford, Ichabod Bartlett, of Portsmouth, is the only one remembered who equaled him in skill with wit- nesses, or possessed that wit and humor, burning indignation and touching pathos which was often brought out in his appeals to the jury. His practice rapidly extended outside his own county into Belknap, Carroll, and Rockingham. In 1834, Mr. Hale was appointed United States district attorney by Gen. Jack- son, and was reappointed by President Van Buren.

In all his ideas Mr. HIale was democratie and jeal- ous of every encroachment upon popular rights. As a lawyer he contended for the right of the jury to be judges of the law to be applied to the case, as well as of the facts, and protested against their being in- structed how they must construe and apply the law by the judges, leaving them only to find a verdict on the facts. He won reputation as a lawyer outside the bar of New Hampshire in the Supreme Court at Washington, and in the celebrated fugitive slave rescue cases in Boston. When Shadrach was rescued in 1851 from the court-house in Boston by Lewis Hayden and others and sent to Canada, great excite- ment arose over the country, and especially in Wash- ington, where the President issued a proclamation commanding "all officers, civil and military, and all well-disposed citizens in the vicinity of the outrage to assist in capturing the rescuers and quelling all similar combinations." The Senate took up the matter on a resolution of Mr. Clay's calling on the President for information, and a special message was received in answer, with the facts, and assurances that the law should be executed. The debate which followed was fierce and exciting, many senators participating. Mr. Hale said he thought "the Presi- dent felt pretty sure he had made the administration ridiculous by his proclamation, and had sent a labored essay to vindicate what could not be vindicated." Hayden and Scott, the leaders in the rescue, were indicted and tried, but the jury failed to agree, not- withstanding the character of the testimony and the strong charge of the judge. Mr. Hale, who was the leading counsel for the defense, made one of the most noted efforts of the times, addressed to the jury and the country. When the case of Anthony Burns came up in Boston, three years later, there was still greater excitement. Theodore Parker, accidentally hearing of the arrest, with difficulty got access to the man, and with the aid of counsel, whom he notified, pro- cured a continuance that Burns might make defense. An immense meeting was held in Faneuil HIall to

consider what the crisis required. A party who were too impatient to wait for the slower plans of the Anti- man-hunting League with a stick of timber battered down the outer doors where Burns was confined. The garrison inside made a stand in the breach, and one of the marshal's assistants, James Batchelder, was killed. The noise drew the police to the scene, and the accident of a military company marching into the court-area, returning from target practice, being mistaken for a company of marines coming to strengthen the garrison, the attacking party did not feel strong enough to follow up their first success, and the rescue failed. The President ordered the adjutant-general of the army to Boston, and the troops in New York were kept under orders to march upon eall, in addition to other preparations to pre- vent a rescue.

Indictments were found against Theodore Parker, Wendell Phillips, Martin Stowell, Thomas Went- worth Higgins, and others, some for murder, and others for assault and riot, mainly for the speeches they made at the Fanueil Hall meeting. Mr. Hale was again secured as leading counsel for the defense, assisted by Charles M. Ellis, William L. Burt, John A. Andrew, and Henry F. Durant. The indictments broke down, aud the parties were never brought to trial. Theodore Parker afterwards published the " defense" he had prepared, and dedicated it to his lawyer, John P. Hale.

From the time of his graduating Mr. Hale took great interest in political matters, and in 1832, two years after commencing the practice of law in Dover, was elected to the Legislature, at the age of twenty- six. Having identified himself with the Democratic party, he became one of its most able and eloquent supporters, and in 1843 was elected a representative to Congress, on a general ticket with Edmund Burke, Moses Norris, Jr., James H. Johnson, and John R. Reding. On the assembling of Congress in Deceni- ber an exciting debate arose on the report made by John Quincy Adams, chairman of the committee on rules, which left out the famous twenty-first rule, known as the gag rule, that had been adopted in 1838 by a resolution introduced by Mr. Atherton, of New Hampshire, which required that "every petition, me- morial, resolution, proposition, or paper touching or relating in any way, or to any extent whatever, to slavery or the abolition thereof shall, on presentation, without any further action thereon, be laid on the table, without being debated, printed, or referred." During the debate Mr. Hale, with Hamlin, of Maine, and a few other Democrats, avowed their opposition to the longer suppression of the right of petition. The report was laid on the table, and the rule con- tinued by a small majority. It had originally been adopted by a vote of about two to one. This was the beginning of Mr. Hale's anti-slavery action in Con- gress, which was destined to bring him so conspicu- ously before the country.

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HISTORY OF STRAFFORD COUNTY, NEW HAMPSHIRE.

In the Presidential campaign of 1844, Mr. Hale took an active part. He distinguished himself as a political speaker, and contributed much to the success of his party. The question of the annexation of Texas had exercised a controlling interest in the South, from the necessity it saw of obtaining more slave territory if they would maintain their power in view of the growing anti-slavery sentiment in the North, which was beginning to affect the action of Demo- crats. Mr. Clay had lost the State of New York, and with it the election, in consequence of his hesitating position of opposition to the measure, which sent enough Whig anti-slavery votes to have elected. him to Birney. Mr. Hale was known to be opposed to annexation, as were many other New Hampshire Democrats, but no opposition was made to his re- nomination to Congress, as fealty to that measure had not yet become a shibboleth of the party, as it did soon after. On the assembling of Congress, in De- cember, 1844, the advocates of annexation at onee entered upon the work for its consummation. Presi- dent Tyler, in his message, called for immediate ac- tion, and during that month several schemes for an- nexation were submitted. In part to show the pro- slavery character of the movement, and to fix a western limit beyond which slavery should not go, Mr. Hale, on the 10th of January, moved a suspension of the rules, to enable him to introduce a proposition to divide Texas into two parts, by a line beginning at a

point on the Gulf of Mexico midway between the | issued a call for the reassembling of the Democratie

northern and southern boundaries, and running in a northwesterly direction. In the territory south and west of that line it was provided that there should be neither slavery or involuntary servitude; and that the provision was to remain forever an inviolable con- tract. The motion had a majority of eleven, but failed to receive the requisite two-thirds. The neces- sities of the South now made it necessary to suppress all opposition to the scheme of annexation. The election had put the control of the government in the hands of its friends, and all its patronage was to be wielded to secure that result. The Legislature of New Hampshire was in session, as was then the eus- tom, every winter of the presidential year, to provide electors in case of failure to elect by the people, and resolutions were at onee introduced and pushed through favoring annexation, and instructing the delegation in Congress from the State to sustain it. "Obey or resign" had long been a Democratic doctrine in the State; and while most of the members might not so have understood it, the leaders were aiming at Mr. Hale, who had favored that doctrine. He met these resolutions with defiance. He stood by the record he had made against any further strengthening of the slave power, while mortified to see so many of his associates going down before it, among them the editor of the Democratic paper in his own town, who had expressed the desire that an impassable gulf might forever exist to prevent annexation, while

another leading Democratie editor declared the whole scheme " black as ink, and bitter as hell." It was a great step to take, and a less daring spirit would not have ventured it. Poor in property, with a family to support, the most popular man in his party, with power to command and ability to adorn any position his ambition might seek on the one side, with aliena- tion of social and political friends, ostracism in busi- ness and politics, by a party which had for sixteen years had unbroken sway and remorselessly cut down every man who dared to oppose its declared will on the other, were the alternatives. Few men have shown such greatness of soul and loyalty to convic- victions under such temptations. While most men would have yielded, Mr. Hale did not falter, but at once wrote his celebrated letter to the people of New Hampshire against the action of the Legislature in its resolutions, in which, after setting forth the aims and purposes of annexation, and the reasons given by the advocates and supporters of the measure, he declared them to be " eminently calculated to provoke the scorn of earth and the judgment of heaven." He said he would never consent by any ageney of his to place the country in the attitude of annexing a for- eign nation for the avowed purpose of sustaining and perpetuating human slavery ; and if they were favor- able to such a measure, they must choose another representative to carry out their wishes.

The Democratic State Committee immediately

Convention at Concord on the 12th of February, 1845, and every Democratic paper which could be prevailed upon to do so opened its battery of de- nunciation, calling upon the convention to rebuke and silence Mr. Hale. To show what efforts were made to erush him it need only be said that such leaders of the party as Franklin Pierce, who had been his warm friend ever since they were fellow- students in college, went forth over the State to organize the opposition. At Dover be called in the leaders of the party, and the editor of the Dorer Gazette, who had taken such strong ground against annexation, and under their influence the Gazette changed sides and went over to Mr. Hale's enemies. He then went to Portsmonth and brought over the leaders there, with the exception of John L. Hayes, then clerk of the United States Court. The same result followed at Exeter, with the exception of Hon. Amos Tuek. In this way the convention was pre- pared to throw overboard Mr. Hale, and put another name on the ticket in place of his. Expecting no other fate when he wrote his letter, Mr. Hale re- mained at his post in Congress, and only assisted his friends from that point, making arrangements at the same time to enter upon the practice of law in New York City upon the close of his term. But resolute friends who believed with him rose up in all parts of the State to defeat the election of John Woodbury, who had been nominated in the place of Mr. Hale.

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BENCH AND BAR.

Prominent among these in addition to those named above were Nathaniel D. Wetmore, of Rochester ; John Dow, of Epping; George G. Fogg, then of Gilmanton; James M. Gates, of Claremont ; James Peverly, of Concord; John Brown, of Ossipee ; George W. Stevens, of Meredith ; John A. Rollins, of Moultonboro'; James W. James, of Deerfield ; N. P. Cram, of IIampton Falls ; and Samuel B. Par- sons, of Colebrook, with others of like stamp, who organized the first successful revolt against the de- mands of the slave power, which until then had been invincible. Through their efforts Woodbury, the nominee of the convention, failed to secure the majority over all others needed to elect him, and an- other election was called to fill the vacancy. Great excitement pervaded the State during the canvass, into which Mr. Hale entered with spirit, giving full play to all those characteristics which made him the foremost orator of the State before the peo- ple as he had been before juries.

The canvass opened in Concord in June, on the week for the assembling of the Legislature in the old North Church. To break the force and effect of Mr. Hale's speech there, the Democratic leaders determined that it should be answered on the spot, and selected Franklin Pierce for the work. On his way up to the church Mr. Hale saw no people in the streets, and he began to fear there might be a failure in the expected numbers in attendance, as there had been once before in the same place in 1840, when he and other leaders of the party were to ad- dress a mass-meeting, but when he reached the old church he saw why the streets were vacant,-the peo- ple had all gone early to be sure of getting in, and the house was full to overflowing. Aware that he was addressing not only the citizens of Concord and ad- joining towns and members of the Legislature, but the religious, benevolent, and other organizations which always met in Concord on election week, he spoke with more than his usual calmness and dignity. He created a profound impression, and made all feel, whether agreeing with him or not, that he had acted from a high sense of public duty and conviction.

" I expected to be called ambitious, to have my name cast out as evil, to be traduced and misrepre- sented. I have not been disappointed; but if things have come to this condition, that conscience and a sacred regard for truth and duty are to be publicly held up to ridicule, and scouted without rebuke, as has just been done liere, it matters little whether we are anuexed to Texas or Texas is annexed to us. I may

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History of Rockingham and Strafford counties, New Hampshire : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Part 139

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton) Publication date: 1882 Publisher: Philadelphia : J. W. Lewis Number of Pages: 1714

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton)
Publication date: 1882
Publisher: Philadelphia : J. W. Lewis
Number of Pages: 1714