USA > New Hampshire > Strafford County > Rochester > History of the town of Rochester, New Hampshire, from 1722 to 1890, Vol. I > Part 40
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A large number of medical students graduated from his office with honor both to themselves and to him, among whom may be mentioned his nephew, Dr. John Colby York, Dr. W. H. Page of Rochester, Dr. William Sprague, Dr. J. F. Frisbie of Rochester, Dr. S. C. Whittier, Dr. W. H. Westcott, and others.
When the civil war broke out he was intensely loyal, believing the end of slavery would result. Having offered his services to the United States government, he was stationed at Fairfax Semi- pary Hospital, Va., and Armory Square Hospital in Washington, D. C.
In 1865, following a too close application to his professional work, he was prostrated with disease of the stomach from which he never recovered. Several times he relinquished practice and partly regained his health, but his active disposition would not long allow him to rest, and a return to his work brought back the disease, and after a lingering and painful illness he died in Dover. He had removed to that city several years before, where he purchased a small farm, hoping the out-door life might prove bene- ficial. For a short time his difficulty to some extent abated, but the disease proved too deeply seated to be easily eradicated. In 1860 he married Mary Elsie Watts, daughter of Charles S. Watts, Esq., of South Boston, who, with one daughter, survives him.
FRANCIS ORR.
FRANCIS ORR was born in Topsham, Me., in 1816. At the age of fourteen he went to Boston to obtain a commercial education,
Charles Main
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and found employment in a dry goods jobbing house. He showed an aptitude for business and soon became an excellent accountant. While book-keeper at the factories in Dudley, Mass., he married the daughter of Col. John Eddy. After this he was clerk and paymaster of the mills at Barre, Mass., and came to Rochester in December, 1847, to take the position of clerk and book-keeper for the Norway Plains Company. Here he continued for just thirty years, when he was stricken with paralysis which confined him to the house. After an illness of more than six years he died Nov. 16, 1883, leaving a wife and two children.
Notwithstanding the constant pressure of his counting-room duties, he was an active man in the interests of the community. For many years he was an engineer in the fire department, and always took a deep interest in the welfare of the fire companies. He was a director in the old Mechanics' Bank, and afterwards a corporator and director in the Rochester Savings Bank. He was a member of the Legislature in 1871 and 1873. The latter term he was chairman of the committee on incorporations and one of the most valuable members, speaking rarely but always to the point. Mr. Orr was thoroughly identified with the business of Rochester for many years, and was well known as a progressive and ener- getic business man.
CHARLES MAIN.
CHARLES MAIN, son of David and Esther (Norwood) Main, and great-great-grandson of Rev. Amos Main (p. 83), was born in 1817, orphaned at an early age, and apprenticed to learn the saddlers' trade at Dover, when fifteen years old. He showed at once an ambition to master every detail of the business. With only an ordinary English education, this thoroughness in whatever he undertook was the foundation of his subsequent success. At the age of twenty-one he went to Pittsburg, Penn., and soon after to Nashua, where he worked for several years at his trade. In 1845 he formed a partnership with M. S. Mayo in the manufacture of carriages and harnesses at Boston. While in the height of busi- ness success, he was seized with the gold fever, and joined a com- pany of one hundred young men, who purchased the ship Leonora, laded her with merchandise, and started for California, Feb. 4, 1849.
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Sailing around Cape Horn they landed at San Francisco, July 5, where they made a handsome profit on the cargo. After one week he went to Benicia, where he built the steamer New Eng- land, the parts of which they had brought in their ship. This was the first side-wheel steamer on the Sacramento. After boating provisions and supplies to settlements along the river for a short time, Mr. Main sold the steamer and went to mining with fair success. He, however, preferred a business life and formed a partnership with E. H. Winchester of Fall River, Mass., which has continued from 1850 to the present time. Both were active, industrious, closely attentive, and courteous to all customers, and were soon compelled to enlarge their business. Their trade em- braces the wholesale and retail business of everything pertaining to saddlery wares, and they carry the heaviest stock of any in America. Thorough workmanship, excellence of material, prompt- itude, and absolute truthfulness have achieved success and carried their goods to every part of the known world.
Mr. Main married Feb. 8, 1847, Mary A. Norton of Providence, R. I. In 1874 he traveled in Europe. He was several years president, and always director of the Central Railroad Company of San Francisco; also president of the wire-rope Railroad Com- pany; and a founder and one of the first directors of the Cali- fornia Insurance Company. He is an attendant and supporter of the Unitarian Church, and was conspicuous for his liberality to the Christian Commission in the time of war. He is widely known as a public-spirited citizen, identified with the best interests of California, and active in all enterprises for the public good. He now stands among the very first of the manufacturers and im- porting merchants of San Francisco.
DR. ISAAC W. LOUGEE.
John Lougee, born in the island of Jersey in 1695, came to this country in 1713. He settled in that part of Exeter which is now Newmarket, where he married a Gilman. Their grandson, Joseph Lougee, with his wife and eight children lived to an average age of eighty-three years and three months. The oldest of their eight children, John F., was born at Exeter, and died in Rochester Jan.
4. W. Langer U.S.
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16, 1880, aged ninety-three years. He settled on a farm at Gil- manton, where he married a daughter of Dr. William Smith, who had settled there as the first physician in 1767. Dr. Smith was a man of sterling principle and did much for the educational, moral, and religious interests of the town in its early history. He lived to the age of ninety-three years and six months. He had ten sons and seven daughters, who, with the exception of four who died in childhood, lived to an average of eighty-four years, and were all members of the Congregational Church. John F. Lougee had four children : - Joseph, who died at twenty-five; ISAAC W .; Wil- liam S., who died at twenty-nine; and Elizabeth M., wife of L. S. Nute of Alton.
ISAAC W. LOUGEE, the second son, was born at Gilmanton Aug. 1, 1818. Having received a common school education, he attended select schools taught by Rev. C. G. Safford and Hon. George G. Fogg, and also the Gilmanton Academy. He began the study of medicine with Dr. Otis French of Gilmanton, and attended lectures at Hanover and at Woodstock, Vt. He graduated from Dartmouth Medical College in 1845, and the following November began the practice of medicine at New Durham. In 1847 he located in Alton, where he continued for twenty-one years, and then bought out Dr. James Farrington of Rochester. Subsequently they formed a partnership, and were in practice together for ten years under the firm name of Farrington & Lougee.
Dr. Lougee is a member of the Strafford District Medical So- ciety, of which he has been president, besides holding minor offices. He is also a member of the State Medical Society, in which he has held responsible positions. In 1862 he was appointed exam- ining surgeon for Belknap county. As a physician Dr. Lougee excels both in diagnosis and the selection of suitable remedies. By close observation he has been able early to learn the type, and successfully to treat epidemics of a severe character.
He is a Republican in politics. Very early in life he espoused the cause of freedom, and was always bitterly opposed to the extension of slavery. He was postmaster at Alton during the administration of Presidents Taylor and Fillmore. In 1866 and 1867 he represented Alton in the State Legislature, during which time he had the satisfaction of voting for the fourteenth amend- ment of the United States Constitution. In 1877 and 1878 he
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represented Rochester in the Legislature, the last year serving as chairman of the Committee on Asylums for the Insane. In 1885 he purchased the " Rochester Courier," which is still (1888) under his management. He is also one of the directors of the Norway Plains Savings Bank.
He has been twice married, -first to Julia A., daughter of Thomas Ross of Gilmanton. Of this union one child, Mary A., was born, who died at Rochester Jan. 8, 1883. Mrs. Lougee died Aug. 8, 1865, and he married for his second wife, Ellen, daughter of Hazen Wheeler of Barnstead. Their children are William W. and Arthur J. The elder graduated from Dartmouth College in the class of '88, and the younger graduated from the high school in Rochester, June, 1888.
ELA.
BY MRS. MARY H. ELA.
The first mention of the name of Ela in America occurs in the town records of Haverhill, Mass., under date of Oct. 19, 1658, as follows : - " It is voted and granted by the town, that Daniel Ela shall have four and one half acres of land north of Abraham Tyler's land, next to the little pond, in the way of exchange for Abra. Tyler's land, which he, Ela, hath bought by Samuel Geald at the pond meadow."
The name of Daniel Ela occurs frequently in the town records from this time, he having been elected many times to offices of trust by his fellow citizens. Daniel Ela and Elizabeth Baxter were married in Haverhill, Aug. 28, 1698.
That Daniel Ela was the father of Israel Ela, and the progenitor of the Ela family in this country, seems almost certain, as he is the only person of that name mentioned in the records until Israel is made a freeman in 1677. The descendants of Israel were for several generations in possession of lands originally granted to Daniel. From these ancestors can be traced a numerous family, reaching down to the present time, in one branch of which we find Enoch Ela of Rochester, N. H., who in 1813 married Mary Hart of Rochester. One son was born of this union whose life is the subject of the following biographical sketch, for much of which we are indebted to excellent and appreciative obituary
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notices which appeared in many of the New Hampshire weekly papers.
JACOB HART ELA was born in Rochester on the 18th of July, 1820. The house in which his parents lived during his infancy, stood on what is now known as the John Roberts place, at the south end of the town. Many of his townsmen can remember the large-hearted, good-natured boy, who was a favorite with his companions at the village school, where he made the most of the few advantages afforded for an education. One says "he was not a brilliant scholar; but all that he knew he knew thoroughly, and he wanted to argue with his teacher about everything that was debatable." His parents were poor, and he had to struggle for the little education he obtained. When only fourteen years old he was apprenticed to a woolen manufacturer, and worked in a factory until he was seventeen, when he went to Concord to learn the printers' trade with his cousin George W. Ela, who then owned and published the "Statesman." Though but a boy in years, he was then a man in stature, with a mind that was broad- ening day by day, and a heart always warm with generous im- pulses. He inherited from his mother not only his large frame and sound mind, but a love for the eternal principles of right, and the strong will which could carry these convictions into effect. He belonged to a juvenile anti-slavery society at this time, and by its earnest debates was making ready for the more serious warfare into which he entered later. The first address he ever wrote he delivered before this society at its annual meeting in the Methodist Church at Concord in the year 1839. That interest in politics
which was so strong throughout his life was shown at this early age, when in 1840, with John H. George, Lewis Downing, Jr., Daniel J. Abbott, and other young men of Concord, he was active in forming a "Young Men's Tippecanoe Club," which was of some account in its day. On attaining his majority, he became for a time one of the publishers of the "Statesman," but sold out his interest when it changed hands in 1844. In a letter to N. P. Rogers, published in the "Herald of Freedom," Dec. 6, 1844, he says : - "I have belonged to anti-slavery societies for the last nine or ten years, and have been a member of one with you, I think, for the last five years, and for six years have attended and taken part in the meetings of the State society." This shows his interest
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in anti-slavery to date back to the year 1835, a year memorable for its pro-slavery mobs and attacks upon free speech, when the young advocate for freedom, burning with sympathy for the en- slaved, must have longed to be a man that he might take an active part in the brave work of the Abolitionists. In 1844 he was chosen recording secretary of the New Hampshire Anti-Slavery Society, and was also one of the executive committee and secretary of the board of managers. In December of that year he became the pub- lishing agent of the " Herald of Freedom," and held that position until the paper suspended publication July 3, 1846, and the society ceased to exist. In later years, in speaking of his work with the Abolitionists, Mr. Ela said : - "I owe everything to it. A man never fights for great principles without gaining more good for himself than he can give to the cause."
May 10, 1845, while living in Concord, he married Mrs. Abigail M. Kelley, who had then three children, who were warmly wel- comed to his heart and home. In 1847 he returned with his family to Rochester, and here three sons were born: - Frederic Parker, May 30, 1848; Wendell Phillips, August 20, 1849; and Charles Sum- ner, May 2, 1853. Mrs. Ela was a woman of rare excellence, and of strong character and intellect. She sympathized heartily with her husband in every philanthropic work, being especially inter- ested in the cause of anti-slavery.
In the last years of his life, while living in Washington, Mr. Ela was the friend of the freedmen, as he had formerly been the friend of the slaves. They came to him for aid in every enterprise, and the assistance he freely gave was always accompanied with kind words of sympathy and encouragement. Probably no other department office could show upon its roll the names of so many colored men and women as did his; and he would point with pride and pleasure to some of them as among his best clerks.
Mr. Ela was not only interested in the moral phase of the anti- slavery movement, but he also took an active interest in its political influence. When John P. Hale was dropped by the Democratic party as a candidate for Congress because of his opposition to the annexation of Texas as a slave State, Mr. Ela was one of his most ardent supporters; and it was largely due to his efforts in printing and circulating votes throughout the State that the Democratic candidate nominated in place of Mr. Hale was thrice defeated at
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the polls, and that political revolution took place in New Hampshire which resulted in sending Mr. Hale to the United States Senate instead of to the House of Representatives. Mr. Ela visited several parts of the State in the interest of the movement, and when he reached his old home he was made glad by finding that some of his townsmen had issued the celebrated "Hale Call " for a meeting, and were already organized and aggressive. In his last visit to Roch- ester he recounted these scenes, and said it had always afforded him the greatest pleasure to remember those men of Rochester who stood up so squarely against the encroachments of the slave power. Mr. Ela had printed a prospectus for a campaign paper to be called "The Hale-Storm," in the editorials of which Moses A. Cartland and others had promised assistance; but before the new enterprise was fairly begun the "Independent Democrat" was removed from Manchester to Concord, and it was deemed wiser to abandon the project, and join in strengthening that by making it the campaign paper. Mr. Ela became a partner in its publication, and organized the combination which united with it " The Granite Freeman" and "The New Hampshire Courier." He was engaged in this work when it became necessary for him to return to Rochester in 1847. After this, while engaged to some extent in farming, he was employed as station agent on the rail- road.
In 1855 Mr. Ela was appointed State Bank Commissioner, and was one of the selectmen of Rochester in 1856. He represented the town in the Legislature of 1857-58, and was chairman of the Committee on Retrenchment and Reform, and also of the Com- mittee on Elections. One who was in the Legislature with him says: "Mr. Ela took a very advanced position on the Northern side of the great national questions which were then prominent, and was from the first a conspicuous leader in the advance guard of the Republicans. I remember well his bold and forcible speeches, which did much to form and sustain measures in opposition to the dominant National party." In common with all other Abo- litionists, Mr. Ela's indignation was greatly excited by the Dred Scott Decision, which, if enforced, would oblige every State to coun- tenance slavery by protecting the slave-holder, and the following resolutions from the Journal of the New Hampshire Legislature in 1858, introduced by him while a member of the Dred Scott com-
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mittee, are interesting, as they recall the moral warfare, now almost forgotten, which was raging thirty years ago : -
" Whereas, Every person born and living within this State and owing allegi- ance to no other government, is a citizen of the State, and by the National Constitution a citizen of the United States, therefore
" Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives in General Court con- vened, - That the action of the State Department of the United States in refusing to grant passports to persons of African descent contrary to previous practice ; and of the Treasury Department in refusing to grant them registers for their own vessels, with the right to navigate them as masters; and of the Interior Department in refusing them the right of entry upon the public domain to be- come purchasers, is an unjust and illegal denial and an invasion of the rights of citizens of New Hampshire.
" Resolved - That we are compelled to believe that these invasions of the rights of our citizens, are the result of the Dred Scott decision, coupled with a desire on the part of the National Administration to favor and strengthen the slave- holding interest, which will be continued so long as slavery remains a ruling element in the government of the country.
" Resolved, That these and other aggressions of the slave power make the prohibition of the future extension of slavery a necessity, and its abolition, where we have the power, a duty.
" Resolved, That the State Government, so far as it has the power, should secure by its own authority those rights which are denied them by the General Government.
" Resolved - That our Senators be instructed and our Representatives requested to use all proper efforts to procure such legislation by Congress as shall secure to every citizen of the State the full enjoyment of his rights."
Mr. Ela made an able speech in support of these resolutions. He also drew up the National resolutions which were adopted by the Legislature of that year.
In 1861 Mr. Ela was appointed by President Lincoln United States Marshal for New Hampshire, and held the office until he was removed by Andrew Johnson in 1866. The duty of trans- porting prisoners of war from one fortress to another was a trying one to his sympathetic nature; he saw and heard much of the suffering in both armies, and his heart was stirred with pity for the brave Confederates, as well as for our own boys in blue.
The glorious Proclamation of Emancipation, by which on the 1st of January, 1863, President Lincoln gave immediate liberty to four million slaves, was the end for which Abolitionists in the North had suffered, and hoped, and striven so long; but it came in the midst of the horrors of civil war, when their joy was tem- pered by sympathy with mourning hearts and the sight of homes made desolate; and it was not until the smoke of battle had cleared away, and they could look back with quiet hearts to the
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triumph achieved, that any real satisfaction was felt. Mr. Ela lived to hear the South rejoice in its freedom from the institution which had put chains upon the souls of the masters as heavy as those they had forged for the slave; to see good schools estab- lished for the children of freedmen, and many of them coming forward, with good education, to fill places of usefulness. He was always patient with their faults, and charitable in his judgment of even the vicious among them, remembering that the moral nature which had been so strained and dwarfed by the vice and degradation of generations of servitude must be developed slowly.
Mr. Ela was nominated for Congress in the district which then comprised the counties of Rockingham, Strafford, Belknap, and Carroll, by the Republican convention at Dover, in 1867, having a majority of but one vote. When he learned how close the vote had been, he turned with a smile to a friend and said, "It has always been so in my life; I have had just enough, and nothing to spare." He received a majority of one thousand votes over Daniel Marcy, and was re-elected in 1869 over Ellery A. Hebbard by a majority of seventeen hundred. After his first election his friends from Portsmouth and adjoining towns gave him a com- plimentary banquet at the hotel in Rochester. Addresses were made by prominent men of Rockingham county, and Mr. Ela often referred to it in later years as one of the pleasantest events of his life. While in Congress he served on several committees, and took part in some important debates. He was an economist, and his blameless life, sound judgment, and good sense made him respected by all his associates there.
In January, 1872, Mr. Ela was appointed Fifth Auditor of the Treasury at Washington, and held that position until the summer of 1881 when, during the Star-Route trial, President Garfield re- quested him to take the place of Sixth Auditor, or Auditor of the Treasury for the Post-Office Department. Although loth to exchange light duties for heavy ones, and old friends for new, Mr. Ela cheerfully accepted the burden of increased responsibility and hard work imposed upon him by this change, and here he labored faithfully during the remainder of his life, never sparing himself, and finding little time for rest or recreation.
A great sorrow came to Mr. and Mrs. Ela in the spring of 1873. Their eldest son, Frederic, a young man of great promise, - sunny-
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hearted, affectionate, and brave, - had gone to Japan on his first voyage as Lieutenant in the Navy. While there a serious illness had attacked him, caused, it was believed, by the effect of the cli- mate and the water of the country. Hoping to save his life, his physicians ordered his return, and he had sailed from Hong Kong for San Francisco ; but he was destined never to reach that harbor. The voyage for him was to the port of Heaven.
In September, 1879, Mrs. Ela, who had been an invalid for many years, entered into the rest for which she had waited long and pa- tiently.
In his religion Mr. Ela was not sectarian. Early in life, when he saw churches either upholding slavery, or keeping silence when they should have denounced it, he turned from them and espoused a better and a nobler faith than any he saw there-the religion of Humanity. That high authority which said " pure religion and un- defiled is to visit the widow and the fatherless in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world," would have found no fault with his. His sympathies were generous and world-wide; he was independent in all his views, and maintained them with the courage of clear conviction. His only creed was the simple one of "love to God and love to man," and this he lived up to in every hour of his life. His modest charities were bestowed wil- lingly and unceasingly. He was so simple and retiring that the full beauty of his character was revealed only to those who knew him most intimately. He was the children's friend; his winning smile and the kindly glance of his blue eyes from beneath the overhanging eyebrows gained their confidence at once; and no. wonder, for at heart he was always a child himself. His nature was too large to harbor any petty feelings of jealousy or revenge. If an offence or slight was intended, he never seemed to see it. And yet beneath his habitual serenity there burned a fire which could on a sudden leap to the surface and blaze hotly for a mo- ment; but these rare surprises only served to deepen one's admi- ration for his usual self-control. His conscience was quick to administer its own rebuke, and his self-judgments were searching and just. He rarely sought to defend himself if the honesty of his motives was questioned, or any slur was cast upon his char- acter, as will sometimes happen to every man in public life. " They hurt themselves more than they can hurt me," he said,
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