History of Rockingham and Strafford counties, New Hampshire : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Part 203

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 203
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 203

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"It is not strange that the wise, far seeing financier, whose heart success has always opened to bestow of his abundance to relieve the suffering, should enter with deep sympathy into the plans and works of the great-hearted physician. In accordance with Dr. Foster's long-cherished plans, the Sanitarium was given in trust to a board of trustees composed of the following-named gentlemen: Right Rev. Matthew Simpson, D.D., Right Rev. Arthur Cleveland Coxe, D.D., Rev. N. G. Clark, D.D., Rev. John M. Reid, D.D., Rev. J. N. Murdoch, D.D., Rev. Frank F. Ellenwood, D.D., Rev. John M. Ferris, D.D., Rev. John Colton Smith, D.D., Rev. Martin B. Anderson, D.D., Rev. James B. Shaw, D.D., Judge James C. Smith, Andrew Peirce, Rev. George Loomis, D.D., William Foster.

" As trustee and chairman of the executive com- Mr. Peirce by his invaluable counsels and active di- rection is making large and safe investments in a business, namely, the relieving and uplifting of hu- manity, which must pay ample dividends of satisfac- tion and happiness now, and will yield rich returns of blessing to those who survive him.

" Unaccustomed to idle leisure, with returning health Mr. Peirce entered upon improving and beautifying the extensive grounds of the Sanitarium, freely giving his time and personal supervision to the work, thus adding greatly to the attractiveness of the place by filling up and grading acres of the grounds. The spacious and elegant pavilion bearing his name, which covers the mineral springs, inviting the sick and weary to a delightful resting-place, a beautiful band-stand and a tasteful summer-house in the grounds, accessible to all, educating and refining by their beauty and gladdening by their comfort the

gifts.

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HISTORY OF STRAFFORD COUNTY, NEW HAMPSHIRE.

" The following resolution, unanimously adopted at a recent meeting of the board of trustees of the Clif- ton Springs Sanitarium Company, indicates their ap- preciation of the gifts and services of Mr. Peirce, so freely and heartily rendered :

"'The trustees of the Clifton Springs Sanitarium Company desire to put on record their high apprecia- tion of the very valuable services rendered to the Sanitarium by Mr. Andrew Peirce during the last two years, by his generous donation of upwards of fifteen thousand dollars, and by his careful supervision, good taste, and strict economy in expenditures for repairs and improvements in and on the buildings and grounds of the institution.'

" When Dr. and Mrs. Foster gave the commodious building to the Young Men's Christian Association, Mr. Peirce, true to his New England instincts, caring for the education of the people through good books, endowed the library it contains so liberally that, against his protest, it bears his name.

"While tenderly and hopefully watching his wife's restoration to health,-she is the active sympathizer in all his benevolences,-he is identified with plans which embody the wisdom of two marked men, his ; for bis part in the large railroad matters of the South- own and Dr. Foster's.

" Mr. Peirce, in retiring from the business circles where he was so well known, has come into a sphere of usefulness whose extent is not easily computed, and among a people who bless the day he found a home with them.

" In these rich, ripe years of his life he has devel- oped only more fully the strength and texture of his father's character in the firm and skillful execution of wise plans, and the gentle blood of his mother in his unostentatious kindness and liberality.

" Verging on that limit of human life when the past is reviewed, Mr. Peirce has cause for gratitude that in the years of intense application to business he has so well used the influence God has given him to induce men by his example to love their race and their country and to strive to promote the welfare of the world.

" The question of business now removed, his thought and skill and time are being daily devoted to comfort, help, and relieve all who come in contact with him who from any cause suffer. As a result of such un- selfish caring for others, Mr. Peirce has been brought | and industrial interests, of which he has been a prin- into closer sympathy with the mission of the blessed Redeemer to the suffering race of man."

The record of Andrew Peirce is an honor to his native town and county, and his present happy life of good deeds a blessing to our common humanity.

THOMAS WENTWORTH PEIRCE.

Thomas Wentworth Peirce, a prominent man in the mercantile world, alike honored for his successful business enterprises and for honorable private quali- ties, was born at Dover, N. II., Aug. 16, 1818, being

the second of the notable sons of the Hon. Andrew Peirce and of his wife, Mrs. Betsey Peirce, a descendant of Governor Wentworth. Commencing his mercan- tile career when a mere youth, he displayed by bis energy and strict integrity and zealous observance of duty those high and impressive qualities which in early manhood had secured for him an enviable posi- tion in the business world, and which assured in the broader fields of activity and usefulness which were to be opened before him in later years all the success he has achieved.

In his sixteenth year Mr. Peirce became interested in his father's business, buying and loading and dispatching vessels, opening new channels of domes- tic commerce, and proving himself by his singular maturity and wisdom fully worthy of his father's unbounded confidence. It was but a year or two later that he was appointed on the staff of the Gov- ernor of New Hampshire, a fact which shows how even at that early age his force of character was pub- licly appreciated. At about the same time he formed a business connection with his brother Andrew, then president of the Dover Bank, and now well known

west. But after six years, seeing the opportunities afforded by a wider field, he established a house in Boston, under the firm-name of Peirce & Bacon, of which his brother Andrew subsequently became a member, and whose business in cotton and other Southern products grew to such an extent that it re- quired a partner in Texas, and employed a line of fifteen packet-ships.

In his earlier years Mr. Peirce's health had been delicate, and he had been sent to the Sonth by his father, and had then visited Texas. It is not to be supposed that by an eye so keen and a mind so alert the vast possibilities of that almost unexplored country should remain unobserved. It may literally be said that, beginning with a period in her history antedat- ing by a number of years the admission of Texas to the Union, Mr. Peirce grew with her growth, shaping his enterprises to meet the demands and improve the opportunities afforded by the imperial march of her progress and development. He has thus been identi- fied with almost every work of internal improvement within her borders, thereby expanding her commercial cipal factor both in Europe and America, to this end having built her first hundred miles of railroad, as he has since lived to be chiefly instrumental in the com- pletion of a great transcontinental line connecting her sea-coast with the Mexican border and the Pacific Ocean. By the line last mentioned it is expected that the cereal and other products of California, Arizona, and New Mexico, as well as of Western Texas, will find shipment upon the waters of the Gulf of Mexico, thus working a great economy of time and distance in our European exchanges, and facilitating commerce to that extent. Supplementing this enterprise, great

Al Parco

Bortor

J. J. Nullinca fora

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DOVER.

lines of steamships are in process of establishment and borne great sway in what are recognized as the more practical business pursuits. Inventors, con- structors, skilled artisans, the men who have taken the lead in developing our manufacturing interests and bringing toward perfection intricate processes, those who have increased the volume of trade at home and abroad, and have become merchant princes, have come, as a rule, from the plain farm-houses and com- mon schools of our thousand hillsides. The stern virtues, the rigid frugality, and the unflagging in- dustry always insisted on in the home-life, supple- mented by the limited but intensely practical learning gained in the district school, have furnished successive generations of young men, compact, firm, and robust in for the carriage of the freights referred to, and by which, on their return voyage to New Orleans and Galveston, the emigrating populations of the Old World are to be borne to their new homes in the fer- tile regions west of the Mississippi and upon the Pa- cific slope at almost nominal rates. Relying upon his individual efforts for the completion of his work, and that too at times of great financial depression, it is but the truth to say that so great an enterprise has rarely been undertaken by any single American citizen, and least of all carried through to a success- ful consummation. The grand results which it is to secure will be witnessed for years after he shall have ceased to participate in its administration, in that | their whole make-up, strong of body, clear and vigor- thrifty progress, the multiplication of towns and cities, and the expanding area of cultivation and education everywhere visible in the section traversed by the lines of communication established through his agency.

Mr. Peirce has not been negligent of the responsi- bilities attaching to the control of such great material interests, as his liberal donations for the establish- ment, in the new communities thus brought into ex- istence, of many institutions of education and re- ligion may testify, and he may feel himself well repaid for his years of toil and anxiety by the specta- cle daily presented to him in the scenes of individual and social happiness which he has contributed so much to create.

To nothing else more than to the influences exerted by Mr. Peirce, in the enterprises with which he has been connected, are the amicable relations now exist- ing between Mexico and the United States to be at- tributed, an international felicity which is to be fur- ther guaranteed by the projection of the railway sys- tem under his auspices and those of his associates, the work now being in progress to the capital of the Mexican republic.

Mr. Peirce makes his home in Topsfield, Mass., having his offices in Boston, New York, and San Antonio, finding in the congenial employments of agriculture, in the love of domestic life, and in the delights of hospitality all the enjoyments that are the deserts of a well-spent life. He has been twice mar- ried, his first wife having been Miss Mary Curtis, of Boston, and his second wife, Miss Catherine Cornelia Cook, of Cooperstown, N. Y. The latter wife left him a son and danghter to inherit his ample fortune and his great qualities of mind and heart.

ZIMRI S. WALLINGFORD.I

Famous as the small farming towns of New Hamp- shire have been in producing men eminent in the learned profession, they have not been less prolific in furnishing young men who have achieved distinction

ous of mind, the whole impress and mould of their moral natures in barmony with right-doing. These men have been a permeating force for good through all classes of our population, and towers of strength in our national life. The life of the subject of this sketch is a well-rounded example of such young men.

Zimri Scates Wallingford, the son of Samuel and Sallie (Wooster) Wallingford, was born in Milton, in the county of Strafford, Oct. 7, 1816.

Nicholas Wallington, who came when a boy in the ship " Confidence," of London, to Boston, in the year 1638, settled in Newbury, Mass., where he married, Aug. 30, 1654, Sarah, daughter of IIenry and Bridget Travis, who was born in 1636. He was captured on a sea voyage and never returned, and his estate was settled in 1684. With his children (of whom he had eight) the surname became Wallingford.

John Wallingford, son of the emigrant Nicholas, was born in 1659; married Mary, daughter of Judge John and Mary Tuttle, of Dover, N. H. ; but he lived in that part of Rowley, Mass., now known as Bradford. He had seven children ; one of these was llon. Thomas Wallingford, of that part of ancient Dover afterwards Somersworth, and now known as Rollinsford, who was one of the wealthiest and most eminent men of the prov- ince, associate justice of the Supreme Court from 1748 until his death, which took place at Portsmouth, Aug. 4, 1771. The eldest son of John Wallingford, and grand- son of the emigrant, was John Wallingford, born Dec. 14, 1688, settled in Rochester, N. II., and became an extensive land-owner. Ilis will, dated Oct. 7, 1761, was proved Jan. 17, 1762. His son, Peter Walling- ford, who inherited the homestead and other land in Rochester (then including Milton), made his will April 18, 1771, which was proved Aug. 24, 1773. His son, David Wallingford, settled upon the lands in Milton, then a wilderness. Ile died in 1815, being the father of Samuel Wallingford, who was father of Zimri S.

Upon his mother's side Mr. Wallingford is de- scended from Rev. William Worcester, the first min- ister of the church in Salisbury, Mass., and ancestor of the eminent New England family of that name or its equivalent, Wooster. Lydia Wooster, great-aunt

1 By Hon. Joshua G. Hall.

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HISTORY OF STRAFFORD COUNTY, NEW HAMPSHIRE.

of Mr. Wallingford, was the wife of Gen. John Sulli- van, of Durham, major-general in the army of the Revolution, and the first Governor of the State of New IIampshire. She was mother of Hon. George Sulli- van, of Exeter, who was attorney-general of this State for thirty years.

In 1825 the father of Mr. Wallingford died, leaving his widow with four children, of which this son, then nine years of age, was the eldest. At the age of twelve he commenced learning the trade of a country black- smith. When he had wrought for his master as his boyish strength would allow for two years, he deter- mined not to be content with being simply a black- smith, and entered the machine-shop of the Great Falls Manufacturing Company, at Great Falls, N. H., and served a full apprenticeship at machine-building there, in Maryland, Virginia, and in the city of Phila- delphia.

Aug. 27, 1840, Mr. Wallingford married Alta L. G. Hilliard, daughter of Rev. Joseph Hilliard, pastor of the Congregational Church in Berwick, Me., from 1796 to 1827. Their children have been (I) John O. Wallingford, who was sergeant-major, and became lieutenant in the Fifteenth New Hampshire Volun- teers in the war of the Rebellion; was severely wounded in the assault on Port Hudson, and was afterwards captain in the Eighteenth New Hamp- shire, an officer of great merit, whose death at his home in Dover, March 23, 1872, was the result of dis- ease contracted in his war service ; (2) Mary C., now wife of Sidney A. Phillips, Esq., counselor-at-law in Framingham, Mass .; (3) Julia, residing with her parents.

In 1844, Mr. Wallingford entered the employ of the Cocheco Manufacturing Company, Dover, N. H., as master machine-builder, and remained in that ea- pacity until 1849. During that period Mr. Walling- ford and a partner, by contraet, constructed new ma- chinery, cards, looms, dressing-frames, and nearly everything necessary for the re-equipment of the mills. The then new and large mill at Salmon Falls was also supplied with the new machinery necessary in the same manner.

In 1849 he became superintendent of the company's mills, under the then agent, Capt. Moses Paul, and upon the death of that gentleman was, on the Ist day of August, 1860, appointed agent of the company. He has continued to fill that office to the present time. Taking into account the great social and pub- lie influence, as well as the recognized ability with which his predecessor had for many years admin- istered the affairs of the Cocheco Company, the mag- nitude of its operations, the foree and grasp of mind necessary to carry on its affairs successfully, it was evident to all familiar with the situation upon the death of Capt. Paul that no ordinary man could oe- cupy the place with credit to himself, or to the re- spect of the public, or the satisfaction of the corpora- tion.

Fully conseious of the responsibility assumed, and full of the determination which an ardent nature is capable of, not only to maintain the reputation of his company, but to extend its operations and raise the standard of its manufactured goods, it is not over- stating the faet to say that in the last twenty years few manufacturing companies have made greater strides in the extent of their works, in the quality of their goods, or their reputation in the great markets than has the Cocheco under the management of Mr. Wallingford. Always strong financially, its wheels have never during that time been idle in any season of panie or monetary depression. Honorable and ever generous to all its employés, its machinery has never stopped for a day at the demand of any organ- ized strike. The pride as well as the main business interest of Dover, Mr. Wallingford has always made his company popular with the people; its word pro- verbially is as good as its bond. The importance of the work is seen in the fact that the mills were, when Mr. Wallingford took charge, of a so-called capacity of fifty-seven thousand spindles; it is now one hun- dred and twenty thousand; and the reputation of the goods is world-wide. Twelve hundred operatives are on the books of his charge.

To a stranger to the home-life of Dover these re- sults seem the great life-work of Mr. Wallingford ; but such an one, in making up his estimate, will fail to do justice to some of the elements of character which have, by skillful adaptation, contributed to so great success. To one so observing, the marked traits of the individual are lost sight of in the results of his career. To those only who are personally familiar with the individual are the real elements of success apparent. Of course, without the strong common sense and good judgment which we sum up as " busi- ness sagacity," Mr. Wallingford's successes would have been failures ; but to one familiar with his daily life for a score of years, it is apparent that the erowning excellence of his life, and the power which has sup- plemented his mental force and rounded out his life, have been his stern moral sense.

Perhaps the most noticeable trait in his character from childhood has been his love of justice and right, and his hatred of wrong and injustice in all its forms. Under such a man no employé, no matter how hum- ble his position, could be deprived of his just con- sideration ; no interest of his corporation could be allowed to ask from the public authorities any indul- gence or advantage not fairly to be accorded to the smallest tax-payer. Had he gone no further than to insist on this exact counterpoise of right and interest, as between employer and employé, and between the interest represented by him and the public interest, his course would have stood out in marked contrast with the conduct of too many clothed with the brief authority of corporate power. Had this strict ob- servance of the relative rights of all concerned been as nicely regarded by associated capital generally as it

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has been by the Cocheco Company under the man- , other leading anti-slavery men he was a hearty agement of Mr. Wallingford and his lamented prede- co-worker, and for years on terms of warm personal friendship. cessor, no " brotherhood" for the protection of labor, no "strikes" organized and pushed to bring too ex- acting employers to their senses and to an observance of the common rights of humanity would have had an existence, and none would have had occasion to view with jealous eye the apprehended encroachment of corporate power on private right. But while so insisting on justice in everything, no man has a kind- lier vein of character, or a warmer sympathy for de- serving objects of charity. Impulsive naturally, no distressed individual or deserving cause appeals to him in vain, or long awaits the open hand of a cheer- ful giver.

To a man so endowed by nature, so grounded in right principles, and so delighting in the exercise of | Clemens' speech were passed and a copy furnished to a warm, Christian charity, we may naturally expect the result that we see in this man's life,-success in his undertakings, the high regard of all who know him, and the kindliest relations between the com- munity at large and the important private interests represented by him in his official capacity.

Fifty years ago, when the subject of this sketch, a mere child, was leaving his widowed mother's side to learn his trade, the public mind was just beginning to be aroused from its long lethargy to a consideration of the abolition of slavery in the United States. The sleep of men over the subject had been long, and their consciences seemed hardly to have suffered a disturb- ing dream. Church as well as State was a participator in the system, and with unbecoming haste rose up to put beyond its fellowship and pale the first agitators of emancipation. Garrison had just been released. through the kindness of Arthur Tappan, from an im- prisonment of forty-nine days in Baltimore jail for saying in a newspaper that the taking of a cargo of ; negro slaves from Baltimore to New Orleans was an act of "domestic piracy," and was issuing the first number of the Liberator, taking for his motto, "My country is the world, my countrymen are all man- kind," and declaring, "I am in earnest, I will not equivocate, I will not excuse, I will not retreat a single inch, I will be heard."

During the winter of 1849-50, IIon. Jeremiah Clemens, of Alabama, made a speech in the United States Senate, in which he claimed that Northern me- chanics and laborers stood upon a level with Southern slaves, and that the lot of the latter was in fact envi- ous when compared with that of the former classes. This speech at once called out from Hon. John P. Hale, then a member of the Senate, a reply in keep- ing with the demands of the occasion and with the great powers of Mr. Hale as an orator. Soon after a meeting of the mechanics of Dover was held, at which Mr. Wallingford presided, and at which resolutions expressing the feelings of the meeting towards Mr.

that gentleman by Mr. Wallingford. Upon the re- ceipt of these resolutions Senator Clemens published in the New York Herald a letter addressed to Mr. Wallingford, propounding ten questions. These ques- tions were framed evidently with the design not so much of getting information about the actual condi- tion of the workingmen of the free States as to draw from Mr. Wallingford some material that could be turned to the disadvantage of the system of free labor. Mr. Wallingford replied through the press, Feb. 6, 1850, in a letter which at once answered the impulsive and haughty " owner of men," and triumphantly vin- dicated our system of free labor. For directness of reply, density, and clearness of style, few published letters have equaled it. It must have afforded Mr. Clemens material for reflection, and it is not known that he afterwards assailed the workingmen of the nation.

From the formation of the Republican party, Mr. Wallingford has been one of its active supporters. Though no man has been more decided in his politi- cal convictions, or more frank in giving expression to them, no one has been more tolerant of the opinions of others, or more scrupulous in his methods of po- litical warfare. Despising the tricks of the mere partisan, and abhorring politics as a trade, he has al- ways been content to rest the success of his party on an open, free discussion of the issues involved. Not deeming it consistent with his obligations to his con- pany to spend his time in the public service, he has refused to accede to the repeated propositions of his political friends to support him for important official positions, but he was a member of the Constitutional Convention of 1876, and Presidential elector for 1876, casting his vote for Hayes and Wheeler. He is, and has been for years, president of the Savings-Bank for the County of Strafford, a director of the Strafford

The agitation of the abolition of slavery, which was to end only with emancipation, had thius begun. The discussion found its way into the public prints, and among the thinking circles of all rural New Eng- land. The blacksmith's apprentice read what the newspapers had to say, and listened to the neighbor- hood discussions on the great question. His sense of justice and humanity was aroused, and he adopted the motto and declaration of purpose as announced by Garrison ; and from early youth till the time when Lincoln's proclamation assured the full success of . National Bank, president of the Dover Library As- the object aimed at, Mr. Wallingford was the earnest , sociation, and a director in the Dover and Winnipi- friend of the slave and the active promoter of all seogee Railroad. In his religious belief Mr. Wal- lingford is a Unitarian, and an active member of the Unitarian Society in Dover. schemes looking to his emancipation. With Gar- ison, Phillips, Parker, Donglas, Rogers, and the

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History of Rockingham and Strafford counties, New Hampshire : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Part 203

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