History of the city of Nashua, N.H., Part 84

Author: Parker, Edward Everett, 1842- ed; Reinheimer, H., & Co
Publication date: 1897
Publisher: Nashua, N.H., Telegraph Publishing Company
Number of Pages: 652

USA > New Hampshire > Hillsborough County > Nashua > History of the city of Nashua, N.H. > Part 84

Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

W. W. Bailey

484

HISTORY OF NASHUA, N. H.

ORREN CHENEY MOORE.

IIon. Orren Cheney Moore was born at New Hampton, N. H., Aug. 10, 1839. He was one of eleven children of Jonathan Holmes Moore and his wife, Hannah Van Sleep- er, a native of Bristol. His mother was of English and Knickerbocker descent and his father was a lineal de- scendant of John and Janet Moor, Scotch-Irish emigrants, who settled in Londonderry, about 1721. It is interesting to trace the ancestry of so well-known a public man. The emigrant ancestor was undoubtedly the John Muar who was one of the signers of the ad- dress to Governor Shute, in 1718, ex- pressing a desire to remove from the north of Ire- land to New Eng- land if sufficient encouragement be given, and he was also the John Moor whose name stands first on the schedule .of the proprietors of Londonderry, an- nexed to the char- ter granted by Governor Shute in June, 1722. They came from the county of Antrim. At least two of their children were born in Ire- land, Deacon Wil- liam Moor, born in 1718, who with his brother, Col. Daniel Moor, born in 1730, afterwards settled in Bed ford, and Elizabeth who married Na- thaniel Holmes. She was the great- grandmother of Francis P. Whit- temore, the late Bernard B. Whit- temore and of Judge Nathaniel Holmes of Cambridge, from whose correspondence many facts concerning his ancestry were obtained.

ORREN CHENEY MOORE.

The emigrant's wife, Janet Moor, was called "Jenny Flavel " because, as it was said, she was a great reader of the works of Flavel, a learned Puritan divine; it is quite possible, however, that her maiden name was Flavel.

Their son, Robert Moore, born in 1726, was one of Capt. John Mitchell's scouts or "Londonderry troopers " at the age of eighteen, in 1744, and on Sept. 1, 1775, was ap- pointed lieutenant-colonel of Col. Samuel Hobart's regi- ment of the New Hampshire continental line. It is

mentioned in the records of the committee of safety of the date of Aug. 3, 1778, that leave was given to Doctor Gove of New Boston (probably an army surgeon) to visit as a physician Col. Robert Moore of Londonderry, whose death occurred in the October following. His home- stead, deeded to him by his father, lately called the Jen- ness place, now owned by Cummings W. Price, is on the road from Derry Lower Village to Chester in the English Range in Londonderry, and about half a mile northwest of Beaver pond. The emigrant John Moor died Jan. 24, 1774, and Colonel Robert and his sister Elizabeth (Moor)

Holmes were co- administrators of his estate. Two of Mrs. Holmes' sons, John and Jonathan, married daughters of Col. Robert. His mother, Janet, died March 8, 1776, and Colonel Robert, who died in October, 1778, lies buried by the side of his father and mother in Londonderry. His youngest son, Robert, born in Londonderry, Sept. 20, 1769, died Aug. 16, 1803, aged 44. He married Jenny Rolfe, who was born in New- buryport, Mass., Sept. 22, 1771, and died Feb. 6, 1852, aged 81. She was a descendant of Rev. Benjamin Rolfe, who was killed by the In- dians at Haver- hill, Aug. 29, 1708. Their son, the father of the sub- ject of this sketch, was born at the family homestead on Shirley Hill in Goffstown in June, 1802, and was named Jonathan Holmes Moore after his uncle. Both parents of Orren died in Manchester, the mother, Aug. 3, 1858, and the father, Nov. 12, 1869. In 1846, when he was only seven years old, his father and mother removed to Manchester from Hebron. The father having met with financial reverses, the son entered the Manchester mills as a mule boy when only eleven years old. Later he became a student in the North Grammar school on Spring street. Here he spent four years, three of which he was under the guid- ance of Prof. Moses T. Brown, later of Tufts college. Leaving Manchester the lad went to Holderness to work

485

HISTORY OF NASHUA, N. H.

in a paper mill owned by George Mitchell, who married his oldest sister, Lucia Van Moore, working half the night and half the day and devoting his afternoons to study in the High school under Rev. D. C. Frost. Among his schoolmates here he met Nancy Webster Thompson, who six years later, Nov. 29, 1860, became his wife.

She was the daughter of John Hayes Thompson and his wife, Charlotte Baker, and sister of the late Maj. Ai Baker Thompson, for many years secretary of state of New Hampshire. The father and four of his sons were in the war for the suppression of the Rebellion. He was of the family of Ebenezer Thompson, New Hampshire's first sec- retary of state. Mrs. Moore's father died at Hilton Head of malarial fever in 1862, while acting as commissary of the Third New Hampshire regiment. Mrs. Thompson's grandfather, Samuel Baker, and his father, Joseph Baker, both served in the French and Indian Wars.

Mr. Moore's brother, Frederick A. Moore, was publish- ing the La Crosse Democrat, so Orren, leaving Holder- ness when he was sixteen, went to Wisconsin to learn the printer's trade with his brother, He remained with him about three years and subsequently was employed at Madison and in Jefferson City, Mo. The path of a jour- neyman printer is not always strewn with roses and the writer well recollects the amusing account which Mr. Moore once gave him of his experience about this time when out of work. Finding nothing to do at the case, without a particle of false pride, he bought an ax and went to chopping. But his early training had not fitted him for that exercise and he soon relinquished it for something better.

Returning to his native state, on account of the illness of his mother, he was employed as foreman on the Daily American in Manchester until that paper was united with the Mirror. While residing there he was chosen clerk of the common council and represented Ward Four in the legislature in 1863 and 1864. He assisted in raising a company for the Union army in which he would have been commissioned but for unfortunate nearsighted- ness. In April, 1864, he was employed as editor of the New Hampshire Telegraph, then a weekly paper pub- lished by the heirs of Albin Beard and he conducted that newspaper until it was sold by the proprietors.

For a short period thereafter he served as register of probate for Hillsborough county taking up his residence in Amherst for that purpose, and when the records were removed to Nashua he again resumed his residence in this city.

In 1867 he purchased the interest of C. V. Dearborn in the partnership of Dearborn & Berry, then owning the Telegraph, and Feb. 1, 1869, Mr. Berry withdrew and a partnership was formed with C. M. Langley of Lowell. A month later, March 1, 1869, through the persistent and untiring efforts of Mr. Moore, the publication of the Daily Telegraph, the first daily newspaper ever published in Nashua, was begun.

In 1878 he bought Mr. Langley's interest in the paper and remained sole proprietor until the organization of the Telegraph Publishing company in 1887. In 1870 and again in 1872 he was elected state printer. In 1871 Mr. Moore erected the Telegraph building on the corner of Main and Temple streets which has ever since been the home of the Telegraph.

For nearly a quarter of a century Mr. Moore spoke every day to the people of this city through the editorial columns of his paper. A journalist writing for the daily press must form and express his views and opinions on current events without any extended deliberation. If he is active and aggressive under such circumstances he would be more than human not to make mistakes. No doubt Mr. Moore sometimes made such mistakes. His first impressions might not always be identical with his ripe conclusions. But in the discussion of many matters he made no mistakes. His advocacy of the ten hour law, for example, was convincing and effectual. He thought ten hours a day was long enough for women and little children to be yoked up to a machine and compelled to keep time with it in our great manufactories. He knew from experience the iniquity of longer hours ; his sym- pathies were with the honest toilers and to his quick per- ception fat dividends to mill owners could never offset the dwarfed minds and enfeebled bodies that might be occa- sioned by too long hours of continuous hard labor. His editorials on the subject were clear, pointed and courage- ous. If he lost the support of wealthy corporations by his course, he retained his own self-respect and secured the gratitude of the people whom he faithfully served.

His support of temperance and his opposition to lotter- ies were alike fearless and convincing. He would rather remain a poor man than grow rich from the proceeds of advertising liquors or lotteries. In a great measure through his efforts Nashua voted for constitutional pro- hibition. If a wealthy corporation sought by the issue of watered stock to put a new and perpetual blanket mort- gage upon the homes and industries of a community and thus reduce the members of that community to a condi- tion of servitude his facile pen was quick to unmask the fraud. All the people may not have been able to rec- ognize or appreciate his efforts on their behalf, but the wrong-doers had no difficulty in seeing the error of their ways when illumined by his pen, whether they mended them or not.

He championed the cause of the people to a successful issue against the arbitrary course of the foreign insurance companies upon the valued policy question, and argued that if those companies chose to withdraw from the state, as they threatened to do, New Hampshire could provide her own insurance. This prediction was abundantly veri- fied by the event.

Mr. Moore's opposition to the consolidation of all the great railroads of the state under one management was persistent and for a while at least effectual. Through the columns of his paper and in the halls of legislation he did all in his power to prevent such an aggregation of corpo- rate capital. He realized the danger to the liberties of a small state which such a soulless and remorseless com- bination might cause. He feared it would prove a politi- cal engine before which both of the great political parties of the state would have to bow. He foresaw that such a power, enthroned under the guise of law to carry out its own mercenary ends, would dictate who should be the candidates of the party which for the time being should be in the ascendancy, not only in the state but in the towns and cities as well, and when those candidates were elected he foresaw that their master would dictate all their legislative action, and their appointments to every office. The unblushing bribery of 1887, which he un-

486

HISTORY OF NASHUA, N. H.

masked in the legislature, he knew was but the surface indication of worse to come, when jury boxes would be tampered with, legislators and city councils bribed and corrupted and the very fountains of justice poisoned at their source. He foresaw and deprecated it all and for a while was able to stay the torrent of watered stock, brib- ery and corruption, which threatened to deluge the state. Since his decease nobody, unless it be Senator Chandler in the Concord Monitor, has cared to wage the unequal warfare.

Mr. Moore made his paper wholesome and clean. It could be taken into the household without first examining its contents. He was no follower of the so-called new journalism. He had no salacious morsels to purvey to a prurient or morbid public, either in his advertisements, news items or editorials, and his pages never contained a directory to either the saloons or disorderly houses of the city. He complimented his readers by assuming that they did not want such information.

Every really good work, every deserving charity, every honest reform found in Mr. Moore and his paper a hearty and earnest advocate. Everything which he believed would be for the interest of the people of Nashua, he favored with no uncertain voice. Not every advertiser could buy a place in his columns, and his editorial opin- ions were never for sale. His readers knew he was not mercenary and therefore had confidence in him and his paper. He was a great editor and on a wider field would have achieved a national reputation.

Mr. Moore always took an interest in public affairs and was ready to perform his duty as a citizen. He served on the board of education, was four times elected to the legislature from Nashua, and in 1878 was chosen senator for two years. In 1877 he served upon the tax commission and many of his suggestions were enacted into law. In 1884 he was appointed chairman of the railroad commis- sion by Governor Hale, and for three years he served the state in that capacity.

His services were in great demand as a political speaker, and he took a part in every campaign beginning in 1872, often speaking in Maine, Massachusetts and Vermont, and in 1880 he assisted in the campaign in West Virginia. On one occasion having spoken from the same platform with James G. Blaine, that great statesman evidently surprised at his masterly presentation of the issue, sud- denly turned to him and inquired :

"From what college were you graduated, Mr. Moore?"

"I am a graduate of the printing office, sir," was his quick and characteristic reply.

Although Mr. Moore was denied the advantages of a college training, his recognized ability was of so high an order that in 1887 he received the honorary degree of A. M. from Dartmouth college.

Mr. Moore was a Republican in politics and the Tele- graph, with which his name will always be associated, was Republican from the date of the organization of that party. He was elected chairman of the Republican state committee Aug. 7, 1872. In 1888 he was elected by the Republicans to represent the Second New Hampshire district in the fifty-first congress. He served on the Pa- cific railroad committee, the District of Columbia com- mittee and the committee on the enrollment of bills. Among his public speeches were "The Revision of the Rules," "Tariff Revision," "The Anti-Lottery Bill,"

"The Competitive Principle in the Civil Service," and the "Record of the Fifty-First Congress."

Mr. Moore as a child attended the Methodist church with his parents, later the Unitarian, and on coming to Nashua attended the Olive Street (Congregationalist ) church, now the Pilgrim church, and subsequently the Episcopal church. He was an Odd Fellow, and in his address, which was delivered at the laying of the corner stone of the Odd Fellows building in Nashua, he made this public declaration of his faith. He said, "I have the profoundest faith in the brotherhood of man, in the principles of religious toleration and in the perpetuity of republican institutions on this continent. Religious toleration is the corner-stone of the American consti- tution. In the evolution of human society, no other discovery was ever made like that. It has been the trans- fusion of the blood of the cross into the creeds of man. Before it superstition has fled; wars have ceased; cruel- ties, calamities and crimes unspeakable no longer rack society or disturb the state. Under the sway of religious toleration religion is no longer a hate but a blessing, and among the civilizing agencies at work in the world it is now one of the sweetest and best. Planted on the rock of the brotherhood of man, and in obedience to law, both human and divine, we need no superabundance of faith to believe that out of a diversity of nationalities shall come one nationality, and among many creeds the future will still maintain the highest creed, which leaves to all men and women the rational and undisturbed worship of God according to the dictates of their own conscience."

Mr. Moore died of cerebro-spinal sclerosis at his home in Nashua, May 12, 1893. On his visit home over the holidays in December, 1889, he had an attack of the grip and in January, 1890, he returned to his post in Washing- ton before he had fully recovered. In fact, he was so weak that he fainted at the station when about to set out on the journey. The first indications which he noticed of the disease that was to prove fatal was a numbness of the hands in the fall of 1890. In the spring of 1891 he seemed to be improving in health and at that time he delivered three public addresses at short intervals, one at the lay- ing of the corner-stone of the Odd Fellows' building, a political speech at Lynn and an address before the New Hampshire club in Boston. These speeches on widely different topics delivered in quick succession without the use of notes proved too severe a tax upon his physical resources, and he soon began to fail in strength. During his illness up to within five days of his death he retained full charge of his business, receiving detailed reports and giving explicit directions every day, and he retained his faculties to the last. Sept. 5, 1892, he had a severe attack of lumbago and was never afterwards able to walk. Every- thing possible was done for his comfort and recovery. In Nashua he was treated by Dr. E. F. McQuesten and in Philadelphia, where he was in the hospital accompanied by Mrs. Moore from November, 1892, to Feb. 22, 1893, he was under the professional care of Dr. S. Weir Mitchell, but medical skill, the most eminent, proved of no avail to stay the progress of the fatal disease.

He left, surviving, his widow and one child, Gertrude Cornelia, born in Manchester, Sept. 24, 1861.

H.B. atherton.

487

HISTORY OF NASHUA, N. H.

CHARLES PINCKNEY DANFORTH.

Charles P. Danforth, son of Timothy and Bridget (Blanchard) Danforth, was born in Milford, Sept. 16, 1812, died in Nashua, Oct. 19, 1893. Mr. Danforth was a

CHARLES PINCKNEY DANFORTH.

descendant, both paternally and maternally, of the first settlers of southern New Hampshire. He was educated in the public schools of his native place and later acquired a wide range of practical knowledge by diligent study and intuitive observation. Early in life he settled in Nashua, and in 1838 purchased the Nashua Gazette, which he managed and edited several years. During his active career he was postmaster of Nashua four years and sheriff of Hillsborough county four years. In 1871 he repre- sented Ward One in the board of aldermen and afterwards two terms in the legislature. His business later in life was that of a manufacturer, being proprietor of the Eagle Suspender company. At the time of his death he was engaged in writing a series of papers (which were being printed in the Gazette and reprinted in pamphlet form), reviewing the political history of the country from the administration of President Jackson to the present time. Mr. Danforth was a fine specimen of the old time cour- teous gentleman in whose presence every one felt at ease. He was well informed on a large number of themes of which he had made special study, and was an easy and graceful writer who eschewed verbiage and stated his points with clearness and force. To Nashua and her best interests he was ever loyal, and in the things that per- tained to good living his influence was heartily given. He was a Universalist. Mr. Danforth was united in mar- riage Sept. 15, 1840, with Nancy Hutchins Pierce, daugh- ter of Joshua, 3d, and Dolly ( Hutchins) Pierce of Nashua. Mrs. Danforth was a grand-daughter of Col. Gordon Hutchins of Concord, who was wounded in the battle of Bunker Hill, subsequently received his commission from George Washington and was in the army until the close of the Revolutionary War. Three children were born to them: Charles Blanchard Danforth, May 29, 1841, for many years city editor of the Boston Herald, married Frances E. Adams, died in Boston Jan. 15, 1890; Frank Pierce Danforth, born March 5, 1846, died Dec. 21, 1861 ;

Abby Hutchins Danforth, born Dec. 2, 1853, died Oct. 7, 1872. Mrs. Danforth died in 1895.

CHARLES SARGENT BUSSELL.

Charles S. Bussell was born at Holliston, Mass., Nov. 19, 1840. He is a son of John S. Bussell, who was a son of Edmond Bussell, one of four brothers who were among the earliest settlers of Wilmot and other towns in New Hampshire. The Bussells were men of sturdy habits and blameless lives, frugal, industrious and wealthy farmers of their day. They tilled the soil, gave the children all the educational advantages their means afforded and sought in every way to build up and advance the interests of their town. On the maternal side Mr. Bussell is a descendant of Stephen E. and Elizabeth (Gould) Bartlett, pioneers of Plymouth and Rumney. Of their four chil- dren Ezra W. was one of the well known early merchants and real estate owners of Manchester; Stephen was at the head of a large manufactory in Bristol, Vt., and prominent in state affairs; Elizabeth G. was a resident of Manchester for many years and a woman noted for good works; Sarah G., who for many years was a prominent school teacher in different localities in the state, married John S. Bussell of Lowell. The whole family were among the early adherents of Methodism when it required cour- age and money to establish churches of that denomina- tion.

Mr. Bussell's youth was spent at Kingston and it was there he attended the public schools. When he was four-

CHARLES SARGENT BUSSELL.

teen years of age his father died in California and the family removed to Wilmot. He continued his efforts, however, to obtain an education and was graduated at the

188

HISTORY OF NASIIUA, N. H.

New England Christian institute at Andover Center, after which he sought an occupation at Manchester. He obtained employment at the Amoskeag mills, where he learned the machinists' trade, serving his time in the Amoskeag locomotive works. He remained there the greater part of his time till 1859, when he came to Nashua and became identified with the Jackson company, where he remained steadily employed for twenty-eight years, resigning his position of superintendent of the weaving department in mill No. 3, in 1887. Mr. Bussell was a member of the board of education four years and per- formed no end of hard work on the committee that had charge of the erection of the Mt. Pleasant school build- ing. He took a conspicuous part in changing the schools from the old district methods to the graded system. Mr. Bussell held ward offices from time to time and repre- sented Ward Three in the board of aldermen three years, doing efficient work in several departments and giving his time freely on the committee that built the Canal street iron bridge. He was city clerk in 1888 and 1889 He is a trustee of the Emergency Hospital association, of which he was one of the most earnest advocates and promoters, and also a charter member and official in the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

But Mr. Bussell has been an active man in other fields of endeavor. For more than twenty-five years he spent his odd hours in literary pursuits and since the expiration of his second term as city clerk he has made journalism his profession. He was one of the purchasers of the Nashua Daily and Weekly Gazette plant at the time it was first published by a stock company and for some time its editor and manager. He resigned these positions and was afterwards city editor of the same paper for a year or more. Meantime he served the Manchester Union fifteen years as Nashua correspondent and was for more than a score of years the representative of the Associated Press for southern New Hampshire. At the present time, May, 1897, he is the city editor of the Nashua Daily Press, a position he has held ever since the paper was founded. As a newspaper man Mr. Bussell is an indefatigable worker. He is a man who thoroughly understands his business and who always does good work. He has a pleasing way of stating facts, and his comments are original to the degree that they give him a popularity that few men in the profession enjoy.

Mr. Bussell is a member of Rising Sun lodge, A. F. and A. M., Meridian Sun Royal Arch chapter, Israel Hunt council and St. George commandery, K. T. He is also a Scottish Rite mason of the 32d degree, a former member of Granite lodge, I. O. O. F., and one of its past grands, a Knight of Pythias and past chancellor of Nashua lodge of that order, and in one way or another, officially and otherwise, connected with one or two local clubs, besides being a member of the Main street Methodist church- which he assisted in many ways in erecting its present edifice-and associated on its official board.

Mr. Bussell was united in marriage March 20, 1860, with Susan S. Moulton, daughter of Simeon S. Moulton, son of Henry Moulton, a prominent resident of Concord and Hooksett and later for many years a noted hotel keeper at Andover Center, where he died Dec. 13, 1846. Simeon S. was a brother of Mace Moulton, prominent in the history of Manchester and Hillsborough county. Mr. and Mrs.

Bussell have not been blessed with children of their own. During the war, however, they adopted a motherless babe whose father was in the army, gave her all the opportunities of an education and when she died, being at the time in her eighteenth year and a bright scholar in the high school, they mourned her as their own. They have resided in Nashua thirty-four years.

Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.

History of the city of Nashua, N.H., Part 84

Author: Parker, Edward Everett, 1842- ed; Reinheimer, H., & Co Publication date: 1897 Publisher: Nashua, N.H., Telegraph Publishing Company Number of Pages: 652

Author: Parker, Edward Everett, 1842- ed; Reinheimer, H., & Co
Publication date: 1897
Publisher: Nashua, N.H., Telegraph Publishing Company
Number of Pages: 652