History of Rockingham and Strafford counties, New Hampshire : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Part 204

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 204
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 204


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872


HISTORY OF STRAFFORD COUNTY, NEW HAMPSHIRE.


COL. ANDREW H. YOUNG.


James Young emigrated to this country from Seot- land, and in Philadelphia married Margaret Sloan. To them was born a son, William Young, who mar- ried Charity Howe. Among their children was Aaron Young. He was a man of unusual native ability, which enabled him to take a prominent place in Bar- rington, N. II., where he passed his days, and in the. Whig party, with whose interest in the State he was


General Court and selectman for many years. He married Lydia Daniels, who was a daughter of Clem- ent and Esther ( Danielson) Daniels, Aaron Young died in 1854, leaving, with other children, Andrew H. Young, the subject of this sketch, who was born June 16, 1827. He passed his boyhood on his father's farm and in the public schools of the town, receiving from this two-fold source the thoroughly practical educa- tion which has been a grand element in our Ameri- can civilization. In 1852 he was elected superintend- ent of schools in his native town. In 1855, Mr. Young removed to Dover, N. H., and that year was elected Register of Deeds for Strafford County. He con- tinued in this position for four years. In 1860 he was appointed clerk of the Supreme Judicial Court for the county. On the breaking out of the civil war Mr. Young resigned his office and entered the Union army, Oct. 22, 1861, as lieutenant and quartermaster of the Seventh New Hampshire Volunteers. Nov. 26, 1862, Lient. Young was promoted by President


Lincoln to be captain and quartermaster of the United | his enterprise has been shown in the successful experi- States volunteers. He served as post quartermaster at Fort Jefferson and St. Augustine, Fla., both com- manded by Col. Haldimand S. Putnam. He was also commissary of subsistence at both posts. Subse- quently Capt. Young was assigned to the Army of the Potomac, and was quartermaster of the Seeond Brigade, Second Division of the Second Corps, com- manded by Col. N. J. Hall, chief quartermaster of the First Division Second Corps, commanded by Gen. Francis Barlow, chief quartermaster of the Third Division of the Second Corps, commanded by Gen. Alexander Hayes, and acting chief quartermaster of the Second Corps, commanded by Gen. Winfield S. Haneock.


Col. Young was in all the campaigns of the Army of the Potomac from December, 1862, to Jnly, 1864. He was appointed paymaster of the United States army by President Lincoln, May 24, 1864, being first assigned to the Army of the Potomac, and subse- quently to the department of the Platte, with head- quarters at Denver, Colorado Territory, and Fort Laramie, Wyoming Territory. He was brevetted, March 13, 1865, lientenant-colonel by President Johnson, for meritorious conduct during the entire war.


In May, 1866, Col. Young resigned his position in the army, and was honorably mustered out July 30th, having been in the military service four years and ten


months. April 29, 1869, he was appointed by Presi- dent Grant collector of internal revenue for the First Congressional District, New Hampshire. He held the office thirteen years, the last six years being collector for the entire State. He resigned this office April 29, 1882.


Commissioner Raum, in accepting the resignation, bore testimony in a very special way to the great effi- cieney and utmost integrity which had characterized largely identified. He was a representative in the . Col. Young's management of his office. As quarter- master and paymaster in the army, and collector of internal revenue for New Hampshire, Col. Young has received and disbursed many millions of dollars with- out the loss or waste of a single dime. He has been president of the Dover Five-Cent Savings-Bank, and is at the present time one of its directors.


He is one of the corporators of the Strafford Connty Savings-Bank. He was one of the principal projec- tors of the Portsmouth and Dover Railroad, and a director for fifteen years. He has been a member of the city government, and was associate justice of the police court of Dover in 1860 and 1861. He is a member of the New Hampshire Historical Society, of the Grand Army of the Republic, and of the mil- itary order of the Loyal Legion of the United States. Dartmouth College, in 1861, conferred upon Col. Young the degree of Master of Arts.


In the later years of Col. Young's busy public life he has gratified his natural tastes for agriculture in carry- ing on his large farm in the town of Madbury. Here ments in making his aeres produce the finest crops in all this fertile region of the State. His farming neighbors have always had the full benefits of his large experience and sound judgment in all matters pertaining to raising stock and erops.


Col. Young is endowed with great common sense, quick perceptions, fine judgment, and an unusual share of those many qualities which are gathered up in that one phrase, " mother-wit." ITis large acquaint- ance with publie events and prominent men has served to bring these qualities into the foreground of his character. His judgment as respects the liv- ing issues in politics and of those influences which shape both national measures and individual actions is remarkably clear and comprehensive.


He has always shown himself to be patriotic and public-spirited. He is wise in planning and energetic in execution. He is magnanimous towards those who differ from him, free from personal animosity in all his political conflicts. He is true to his friends, warm and steadfast in his loyalty to them, and ready to serve them every time.


The sisters and brothers of Col. Young are Esther, wife of John E. Buzzell, of Durham, N. H .; Sophia A., wife of George S. Hanson, Ashland, Mass .; Hon. Jacob D. Young, of Madbury, judge of probate for Strafford County ; Aaron Young, of Portsmouth, N. H., for many years connected with the customs and rev-


Andrew 16. Young


873


DOVER.


enue departments in that place; and George W. Young, of Clarksville, Va., who has ten years repre- sented Mecklenburg County in the Virginia House of Delegates.


Col. Young, May 12, 1853, was married to Susan Elizabeth Miles, daughter of Col. Tichenor Miles, of Madbury, N. 11. They have had four children,- Andrew Hamilton, born May 22, 1856, and died June 18, 1863; Mary Hale, born July 1, 1861, now a mem- ber of the junior class of Wellsley College, Mass .; Haklimand Putnam, born Nov. 13, 1863, now a stu- dent at the School of Technology, Boston ; and Rich- ard Batchelder, born May 17, 1869.


Col. Young's religious associations are with the Congregationalists, and he is a regular attendant upon the service of the First Parish Church at Dover.


COL. DANIEL HALL.I


what quiet, one of the most beautiful is Barrington. A small tract on its western border is level and not fertile, but most of its surface is gently rolling, two decided heights, however, affording beautiful views. The map shows it to be traversed by streams in every part, one important river being the outflow of Bow Lake; and the map shows no less than fourteen ponds, some of them nearly two miles in length, and whose shores, often abrupt, are full of beauty. Magnificent pine forests of the first growth have been carefully preserved to the present generation, and fertile farms are numerous.


Daniel Hall was born in this town, Feb. 28, 1832, and, with slight exceptions, was the descendant of generations of farmers. His first known American ancestor was John Hall, who appears to have come to Dover, N. H., in the year 1649, with his brother Ralph, from Charlestown, Mass. Of this blood was the mother of Governor John Langdon, Tobias Lear (Washington's private secretary), and others of like energy. The emigrant, John IIall, was the first re- corded deacon of the Dover First Church, was town clerk, commissioner to try small cases, and a farmer, but mainly surveyor of lands. His spring of beau- tiful water is still "Hall's Spring," on Dover Neck. His son Ralph was of Dover, a farmer; whose son Ralph, also a farmer, was one of the early settlers of Barrington ; whose son Solomon, also a farmer, was of the same town; whose son Daniel, also a farmer, was father of Gilman Hall (his ninth child), who, by his wife, Eliza Tuttle, was father of nine children, Daniel being the first-born. The picturesque old house in which he was born, built by one Hunking, is still standing near Winkley's Pond, an interesting and venerable landmark, but unoccupied and in a ruinous condition. Gilman Hall was early a trader


in Dover, but for twenty-five subsequent years was farmer and trader in Barrington, his native town, on the stage road known as the "Waldron's Hill" road. Ile was representative, and for many years selectman. Daniel's mother was a descendant of John Tuttle, who was judge of the Superior Court for many years prior to the year 1700, residing in Dover.


Daniel Hall's life as a boy was on the farm. Ile went to the district school a long distance, through snows and heats, and by and by helped in the store. When older, from fourteen years onward, he drove a team to Dover, with wood and lumber, and sold his loads, standing on Central Square. But he had a passion for books, and a burning desire for an educa- tion. lle learned all he could get in the district school, and when about sixteen years of age he secured two terms, about six months in all, in Strafford Acad- emy,-one term under Ira F. Folsom (D. C. 1848), and one under Rev. Porter S. Burbank. In 1849 he was one term at the New Hampshire Conference Semi-


Of those towns in the State whose scenery is some- I nary, in Northfield, Rev. Richard S. Rust, principal. Then, for satisfactory reasons, he gave up all acade- mies, returned bome, set himself down alone to his Greek, Latin, and mathematics, and with indomitable perseverance prepared for college. He entered Dart- mouth in 1850, probably the poorest fitted in his class; but he had the fitting of a determined will, uncon- querable industry, a keen intellect, and the fibre of six generations of open-air ancestors, and in 1854 he graduated at the very head of his class, and was vale- dictorian. It is needless to say, perhaps, that the eldest of nine children had to practice economy, and teach district schools five winters in his native town ; and that what small advances he had from his father were repaid, to the last dollar, from his first earnings.


In the fall of 1854 he was appointed a clerk in the New York custom-house, and held the place for some years. He had taken an early interest in politics, being by education a Democrat. But he had always. been positively anti-slavery in sentiment. He was dissatisfied with the Kansas-Nebraska bill, and alone of all the clerks in the custom-house, and fearless of the probable result to himself, he openly denounced the Lecompton Constitution policy of Buchanan, and supported Douglas. In consequence he was removed from office in March, 1858.


Returning to Dover, he continued the study of law -which he had commenced in New York-in the of- fice of the eminent lawyer, Daniel M. Christie, and on that gentleman's motion was admitted to the bar at the May term, 1860. He afterwards well repaid Mr. Christie's kindness by an eulogy upon his de- cease, delivered before the court and subsequently printed. It was regarded as an eloquent and appre- ciative tribute to Mr. Christie's remarkable qualities of manhood and extraordinary powers as a lawyer.


Mr. Hall, upon his admission to the bar, opened an office in Dover, and commenced practice. In the spring of 1859, just before the State election, in view


I By Rev. Alonzo Hall Quint, D.D.


874


HISTORY OF STRAFFORD COUNTY, NEW HAMPSHIRE.


of the great erisis coming upon the country, at an im- mense meeting in Dover, he (as did also Judge Charles Doe) withdrew from the Democratic party and cast in his allegiance with the Republicans. With them, where his conscience and political principles alike placed him, has his lot been cast ever since; and it is not improbable that that one addition in later and critical years turned the scale in New Hampshire's political destinies.


It was an episode in his life that in 1859 he was appointed by the Governor and Council school com- missioner for Strafford County, and reappointed in 1860. Ilis early training in the country district school, his work as master in the winters, and his hard-earned higher education qualified him emi- nently for the practical duties of this office.


In the autumn of 1861, Mr. Hall was appointed secretary of the United States Senate committee to investigate the surrender of the Norfolk navy-yard. This committee consisted of John P. Hale, Andrew Johnson, and James W. Grimes. Soon after he was appointed clerk of the senate committee on naval af- fairs at Washington, of which Mr. Hale was chairman. He served in this capacity until March, 1862; but he wished for more immediate participation in the great struggle then in progress. The conflict, which had its symptoms in the Lecompton strife, had become war, and the young man who had then sacrificed office for principle was ready for a still greater sacri- fice. In March, 1862, he was commissioned aide-de- camp and captain in the regular army of the United States. He was assigned to duty with Gen. John C. Fremont ; but before he had time to join that officer Gen. Fremont had retired from command, and Capt. Hall was transferred to the staff of Gen. A. W. Whip- ple, then in command at Arlington Heights of the troops and works in front of Washington on the south side of the Potomac. In September, 1862, a few days after the battle of Antietam, Gen. Whipple joined the Army of the Potomac, and eventually marched with it to the front of Fredericksburg. On the 13th of December, 1862, he was in the battle of Fredericksburg, crossing the river with the Third Corps, and taking part in the sanguinary assault upon the works which covered Marye's Heights.


At the battle of Chancellorsville he was in the col- umn sent out to cut Jackson's line as he moved in front of the army, and in the gallant action of the . Third Division of the Third Corps, under Gen. Whipple, of whose staff he was a member, and was with that lamented officer when he fell mortally wounded. Capt. Hall was then assigned to the staff of Gen. Oliver O. Howard, commander of the Eleventh Corps, and with him went to Gettysburg. His posi- tion in that action was important. When Gen. Rey- nolds, commanding the First Corps, had advanced through the town and encountered the enemy, Gen. Howard, then moving up and about five miles to the rear, hearing the heavy firing, ordered Capt. Hall to


ride forward as rapidly as possible, find Gen. Rey- nolds, ascertain the condition of affairs, and obtain his orders. Capt. Hall's fleet horse soon covered the distance, and he found Gen. Reynolds himself in an advanced and exposed position from the enemy's fire. He did his errand. Gen. Reynolds said he had met the enemy in force, and sent the order to Gen. Howard to bring up his eorps with all possible dis- patch. Searcely had Capt. Hall got back through the town when he was overtaken by the intelligence that Gen. Reynolds was mortally wounded, and near the cemetery he met Gen. Howard impatiently coming up in advance of his corps. Passing Cemetery Ridge, Gen. Howard said, "That is the place to fight this battle," and directed Capt. Hall to take a battery from the leading division and place it in position on the crest of the hill. This was done, and that hat- tery, the first planted on Cemetery Hill, remained on that spot through the three days of the conflict. When Gen. Howard took his own place there, Capt. Hall was of course with him, and on the second day of the engagement was slightly wounded by a shell. These details are given simply to place on record, in this permanent form, his testimony to the justice of the claim made by the friends of Gen. Howard that he was fully entitled to the thanks voted him by Con- gress for selecting Cemetery Hill and holding it as the battle-ground of the great and glorious battle of Gettysburg.


In the latter part of 1863 his health suffered, and he was forced to leave the service in December, 1863. But in June, 1864, he was appointed provost-marshal of the First New Hampshire District, being stationed at Portsmouth, and here he remained until the close of the war. The affairs of the office were in some confusion, but his methodical habits soon reduced it to order. During his term of service he enlisted or drafted and forwarded over four thousand men to the army. This service ceased in October, 1865. " He was one of the men," said a substitute broker to the writer of this sketch, "that no man dared approach with a crooked proposition, no matter how much was in it."


Mr. Hall resumed the practice of law in Dover, but in 1866 was appointed clerk of the Supreme Court for Strafford County, and in 1868 judge of the Police Court of the city of Dover. The duties of these ofhees were performed with his usual sense of justice, but in 1874 the Democratic party, being in power, "addressed" him out of both offices. In the mean time he had been judge-advocate, with the rank of major, in the military of New Hampshire, under Governor Smyth, and held a position on the staff of Governor Harriman which gave him his usual title of colonel.


Col. Hall had long taken a deep interest in political affairs. To him they represented principles. In 1873 he was president of the Republican State Convention at Concord. He had been for some years a member


875


DOVER.


of the Republican State Committee, when, in Decem- ber, 1873, his abilities as a leader and executive officer were recognized in his selection as chairman of that committee. Ile so remained until 1877, and conducted the campaigns, State and national, of 1874, 1875, and 1876. These were critical years for the Republican party. The nearly even balance of parties in New Hampshire, the vigor and intensity with which the battles are always fought, and the skill necessary in every department demand abilities and energies of the highest order. The years men- tioned surpassed ordinary years in political danger to the Republicans. It is sufficient to say that Col. Hall conducted the last three campaigns to a trium- phant issue. So decisive were the successive victories that the tide was turned, and from that time the State has not swerved from Republican allegiance.


In 1876, Col. Hall was chairman of the New Hamp- shire delegation to the Republican National Conven- tion at Cincinnati, being chosen at large, unpledged, and with scarce a dissenting vote. Seven delegates voted from first to last for James G. Blaine, but Col. Hall, with ex-Governor Straw and Hon. Charles H. Burns, voted six times for Mr. Bristow, and on the decisive ballot for Rutherford B. Hayes.


In 1876 and 1877, Mr. Hall was, by appointment of Governor Cheney, reporter of the decisions of the Supreme Court of New Hampshire, and in that hon- orable position published volumes 56 and 57, New Hampshire Reports.


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1n 1877 he succeeded Governor Harriman as naval officer at the port of Boston. This office is co-ordinate with that of collector, apon which it is a check. Mr. Hall's business habits, his keen insight, his perfect accuracy, and the ruling principle of his life to do everything well and thoroughly there came into operation. He quietly mastered the details as well as the general work of the department. Regularly at his post, his office became a model in its management, and was commended in the highest terms by the proper officers. When, therefore, his term expired he was reappointed for another four years by Presi- dent Arthur, with no serious opposition.


Mr. Hall married, Jan. 25, 1877, Sophia, daughter of Jonathan T. and Sarah ( Hanson) Dodge, of Roch- ester, and has one son, Arthur Wellesley Hall, born Aug. 30, 1878. The beautiful house erected and occupied by him in Dover, and adorned with culti- vated taste, lias not its least charm in the steadily in- creasing library of carefully-selected literature, to whose study he devotes the hours not required by official duties.


He attends the First Church of Dover, the Congre- gational Church, where his emigrant ancestors held office two centuries and a quarter ago. He is a radical teetotaler, and deeply interested in the cause of temperance. It is his personal request to have his great love for the horse, and, indeed, for all ani- mals, spoken of in this sketch.


Mr. Hall's gentle, courteous, and unassuming man- ners do not meet the common idea of the bold and sagacious politician. His modest conversation will suggest scholarly instincts, but requires time to show the breadth of his culture. Public addresses have, as occasions demanded, exhibited the thoughtful political student, a patriotic love of country, and the ripeness of the accomplished scholar. Fidelity to every engagement, good faith to every principle es- poused, firmness in determination, and usefulness in every work undertaken have insured him success. But in a life still so young it is fair to assume that recognitions of public respect will be greater than any trusts yet given, or reputation achieved in his profession, the field of long-past battles, or the offices of public honor.


COL. JOHN BRACEWELL, A.M.1


The subject of this sketch was born June 18, 1837, in Clitheroe, England. Clitheroe is a busy cotton- manufacturing town on the Ribble, and in the great- est cotton-manufacturing district of the world, Lan- cashire.


The father, Miles Bracewell, from his early boy- hood had been engaged in printing calico, having served his apprenticeship with James Thompson & Sons, who owned and managed the Primrose Print- Works. James Thompson was a famous manufac- turer, his enterprise and liberality being known throughout Europe. For many years Miles Bracc- well had charge of the "color department" in the Primrose Print-Works. He afterwards went into business for himself, and at the time of his death was the senior partner and principal owner of two print- works,-one at Oakenshaw and another at Kersal Vale.


It was while the father was in the service of James ! Thompson that John Bracewell, then a very small boy, was regularly apprenticed to this distinguished manufacturer. The institution of apprenticeship in anything like its English thoroughness is little prac- ticed in this country. For a long period in England the term apprentiee was applied equally to such as were being taught a trade or a learned profession. The term of seven years was regarded as much a ne- cessity for the learner in any craft as for the scholar seeking to attain the degree of doctor or master in the liberal arts. Although the laws which formerly made the apprenticeship compulsory have been abolished in England, yet the principle is universally recognized there in the form of a voluntary contract. Of its im- mense advantages in the way of securing the most thorough knowledge and highest skill in the learner no one can doubt. Mr. John Bracewell, who probably to-day hokls the foremost place among those engaged in his business in this country, is a living argument for the excellence of the apprentice system. He began


1 By Rev. George B. Spalding, D.D.


876


HISTORY OF STRAFFORD COUNTY, NEW HAMPSHIRE.


his tutelage as a lad. 1Ie began at the lowest round in the ladder of his advancement, and was long and rigidly held at each until he could safely mount the higher one. There was a very superior French chem- ist employed in the Primrose Works, and no little of the boy's studies were under him.


When eighteen years of age Mr. Bracewell had es- tablished such a reputation for proficiency in the mys- teries of color that he was offered a fine position in a great carpet manufactory in France, but his father ad- vised him to decline this flattering offer, feeling that the responsibility was too great for one so young. That subtle but irresistible influence which for so many years had been drawing such tides of popula- tion from Europe to America was already settling the question as to the country where this young man was to work out his great success. Only a month after he had declined to go to France he received and ac- cepted the offer of a position as assistant manager in the Merrimae Print-Works, Lowell, Mass. There he remained five years and a half, winning for him- self a distinguished reputation by the energy and skill of his management. Certainly it argues some un- usual qualities in his work while there, some ex- traordinary gifts and capacities in his nature, that could have led the Cocheco Manufacturing Com- pany to call this young man of twenty-three years of age to its most responsible position, that of su- perintendent of its print-works. There were no less than thirteen applicants for this office. The di- rectors, with entire unanimity, made choice of this youngest of them all, and gave to him the unlimited charge of the most important department of their great industry. Soon after entering upon his new




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