USA > New Hampshire > Hillsborough County > Wilton > History of the town of Wilton, Hillsborough County, New Hampshire, with a genealogical register > Part 25
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Mr. Beede's printed sermons, so far as known. are as follows :
The Duty of a Minister and People, illustrated in two discourses, March 13, 1803; Masonie Discourse at Portsmouth, New Hampshire, 1806; Ora- tion at Wilton, New Hampshire, July 4, 1809; Election Sermon, 1815 : Discourse at Dublin, at the consecration of the Altamont Lodge, Septem- ber 18, 1816; Discourse before the Pentucket Lodge, Lowell. Massachu- setts; An Allegory of the Olive Tree, Wilton, March 30, 1817: Discourse before the General Court, November 19, 1820; Four Sermons,-Patience, The Forms and Power of Godliness, Reasons for the Christian Hope (2), 1821.
REV. STEPHEN ALFRED BARNARD .- FROM THE CHRISTIAN REGISTER.
Mr. Barnard was born in Marlborough, Massachusetts, Novem- ber 26, 1803. He was the son of Stephen and Jane (Guliker) Bar- nard. At an early age he went to Mexico, Maine, and while there
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he saved Judge Hopkinson, then a boy, from death by drowning. He graduated at the Cambridge Divinity School in 1829. January 13, 1830, he was ordained as the fourth minister of the Congrega- tional Church in Wilton. He resigned his office April 25, 1833, and removed to Chesterfield, New Hampshire, where he was pastor of the church for five years, and where he met with the misfortune of having his house burned. He ministered for several years to differ- ent churches in Athol, Massachusetts, Easton and Southborough. In 1847 he went to Lancaster, New Hampshire, where he had a ministry of six years. He then preached for twelve years at Wills- borough, New York, and for two years at Ashford, Connecticut. His voice failing, he went to reside at Lansing, Michigan, with his son William Alfred, a graduate of the Chandler Scientific School at Darthmouth College, and the State Engineer of Michigan. August 29, 1831, he married, in Wilton, Persis Burton, sister of Rev. War- ren Burton, who with her five children survives him. He died at Lansing, June 24, 1882, of old age and paralysis. The latter part of his life he became an Orthodox Congregational preacher. He was an earnest and devout Christian man, and was respected for his good and upright life.
SAMUEL ABBOT .- BY CHARLES H. ATHERTON.
Samuel Abbot was born at Wilton, on the 30th of March, 1786, being the eleventh of the twelve children of Abiel Abbot, a respecta- ble farmer, and one of the early settlers of that town. Their praiseworthy and painstaking parent gave a liberal education to three of his sons ; namely, Abiel, now the Rev. Abiel Abbot, D. D., of Peterborough ; the Rev. Jacob Abbot, late of Windham, deceased, and Samuel, the subject of this memoir. Samuel pursued his pre- paratory studies in part under his brother Abiel, but was fitted for college chiefly at the publie school at Andover, Massachusetts, then much celebrated for the accuracy of its instruction and the scholars it offered for admission to the university. He was graduated in 1808, and soon after entered the office of C. Il. Atherton, Esq., of Amherst, as a student at law. He was admitted to the bar in 1812, commenced the practice of his profession at Wilton, and soon removed to Dunstable, now Nashua.
In 1817 he opened his office at Ipswich, in the county of Essex, Massachusetts. Here his professional efforts were favorably noticed by the Judges of the Supreme Judicial Court as indicating a well disci- plined and argumentative mind ; and he would undoubtedly have met
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with success at the bar if his tastes had corresponded with the duties of his profession. It much better accorded with Mr. Abbot's feelings to pay the debt of a poor man than to pocket the fee of a suit against him. His profession was no favorite with him, and he sur- rendered the prospects it offered to the natural bent of his mind in following a course of general reading, and particularly in attending to chemistry and the mechanic arts, which had long been favorite pursuits with him, with a view of applying them to the useful pur- poses of life. Prior to his going to Ipswich, Mr. Atherton availed himself of the classical knowledge of his student in preparing for college his son, C. G. Atherton, late a Senator in Congress, for which purpose, on solicitation, he resided for a time in Mr. Ather- ton's family.
Mr. Abbot was a student from his youth to the time of his death, and his literary and scientific acquirements were extensive and vari- ous. To his accurate acquaintance with classical literature, he added a respectable fund of information in most of the discoveries of modern science, so that it was difficult to tonch on any subject, however abstruse, with which he had not made himself acquainted, and on which he could not throw light and give information. The peculiar characteristics of his mind were accuracy, caution and clearness. With a quickness almost like intuition, he detected the weakness or fallacy of an argument, and no man saw more clearly its legitimate application. or the point at which its force ceased. So, in experimental philosophy, such was his caution that he was seldom, if ever, misled by his facts to form an erroneous theory. In 1828 when the "pneumatic paradox," as it was called, was attracting the attention of scholars, and no satisfactory explanation of it had been found, he first suggested its true theory. This was afterwards experimentally proved by his nephew, Joseph H. Abbot, in an article published in the American Journal of Science and Arts. In 1837-8 he detected the fallacy of the instrument called the "Geometer," to which the attention of Congress was then called as a discovery in magnetism by which the latitude, as well as the north pole, was supposed to be indicated.
Theology was a favorite pursuit with him, and without being a religious disputant, he was well versed in the history of the church and of its various sects. Very few among the clergy were better skilled in Biblical criticism, or better acquainted with the religious controversies of the day. Tolerant and kind to all Christian sects, he embraced the Unitarian, as distinguished from the Trinitarian,
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faith It was, however, as a beloved townsman, as a parishioner and church member, and as a friend of the young, that Mr. Abbot's philanthropy and usefulness particularly displayed itself. His object seemed to be to do good to the community with which he was immediately connected. Was anything projected for the good of the town? Mr. Abbot was an active and efficient promoter of it. Were there any difficulties in the church? He was the counsellor and peace-maker. Was any young man of promise struggling with poverty, to acquire an education ? Mr. Abbot's advice and purse were freely tendered to him. In establishing and sustaining a town lyceum, in creating libraries for the town, for the parish, for the Sunday school, and for the Sabbath reading room, he was a leading agent and a liberal contributor. He beneficially represented his town in the Legislature of the state four years ; and as a member of their superintending school committee, as a superintendent of the Sunday school and a lecturer before the lyceum, and by the lively interest he took in the morals and education of the young, he has conferred benefits on the rising generation, the extent and magni- tude of which cannot be calculated. If he did not create, he has at least done much to sustain and perpetuate in his native town that standard of good morals and that taste for reading and education, by which Wilton has been so honorably distinguished in the excel- lent men and accomplished scholars which liave proceeded from her loins, and who now sparkle as gems of high price,-an honor to the town and a blessing to the country.
There is in most men a lamentable mixture of good and bad quali- ties, of opposite biases ; a conflict to preserve the ascendancy of that which is good ; but occasionally, and blessed be God that it is so, we find an individual in whom the seeds of evil seem not so much to have been conquered as never to have existed in his bosom. Such a man was Samuel Abbot. . Any mean, dishonorable, unjust or vicious act or wish seems to have been as remote from him as if such acts or wishes had no existence anywhere, or were physically impossible. Is this enviable singularity of character to be attrib- uted to early parental management and education, to a constitu- tional superiority of the moral and intellectual powers over the passions, or to the happy and harmonious co-operation of both these causes? That, under the parental roof, order and the law of kind- ness prevailed is well attested. There was good sense and a fondness for reading. There were religious observances and a con- stant attendance on public worship. There were no excesses of
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severities, the eldest of the children having no recollection of seeing their parent in a passion. That Samuel was blessed with high intel- lectual powers does not admit of a question ; and that he had a deli- cate, and, when developed, a strong, moral sense is also true. His life was guided by the dictates of an enlightened conscience. Ile felt and exhibited strong and decided marks of disapprobation, but, like his father, was never known to be in a passion.
It may now very naturally be asked why a man of such uncom- mon acquirements and virtues attracted no greater general notice ; why such a flower was left to shed its fragrance in so limited a sphere. The answer is obvious and satisfactory. He was a man of uncommon meekness and modesty. No ambition for professional or political preferment beset him. Retiring in his feelings, averse to all show and forth-putting, he abandoned a profession regarded as the common highway to distinction, and took, from choice, that course of life which best agreed with his peaceful disposition and his peaceful-pursuits. The acquirement of knowledge and the con- sciousness that he was useful, satisfied all his worldly aspirations.
It is remarkable that the two brothers, Jacob and Samuel, alike distinguished for cantion and circumspection, equally free from all rashness and precipitaney,-that these careful and reflecting men should, both of them, in the providence of God, have been cut off in the midst of life, health and usefulness, by what are called acci- dents, which men of much general prudence would have avoided. The death of Jacob Abbot occurred by attempting to cross a pond in an overloaded and leaky canoe ; the death of Samuel by entering a building on fire ! So true it is-
" There's a Divinity that shapes our ends, Rough-hew them how we will."
Major Abiel Abbot, the father of Samuel, was a staunch Whig, an officer of the militia during the Revolutionary war, often the repre- sentative from Wilton to the General Court, and was much intrusted with the business of the town ; he was the guardian of orphans, the friend of the widow and the helper of the poor. He formed an excellent farm out of the wilderness, encountering, with persever- ance and fortitude, all the fatigues and inconveniences of a new set- tlement. Of twelve children, ten lived to adult age. All of them were well educated, and three of them were graduated at Harvard College. The man who, with such means and under such circum- stances, brought up such a family, and so educated them, is surely
I.K. Livennow
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entitled to honorable remembrance. He was the son of Captain John Abbot, of Andover, who was descended, in the fifth generation, from George Abbot, who emigrated from Yorkshire, England, and set- tled in Andover, Massachusetts, in 1643. Samnel, the subject of this memoir, was never married. The descendants of his American progenitors were numerous, and their branches now extend to almost every state in the Union .*
REV. AMOS ABBOTT .- BY AMOS ABBOTT.
Amos Abbott, son of Jeremiah Abbott, was born June 2, 1812, in Wilton, and was the sixth in a family of ten children. When about sixteen years of age he entered Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts, to fit for college, but ill health obliged him at the end of a year to return home. Subsequently he resolved to become a teacher, and entered the Teachers' Seminary in Andover for the purpose of qualifying himself for that office. After dne prepara- tion offers of various situations were made to him, but he concluded to accept one from the American Board of Commissioners for For- eigu Missions as superintendent of schools of the Muratta Mission in India.
He married, May 12, 1834, Anstice Wilson, the eldest daughter of Captain David Wilson of Wilton, and on the twenty-third of the same month they sailed from Boston in the bark Corvo for Bombay. After a voyage of four months they reached their destination, and pursued their journey by land to Ahmednuggur, a mission station 170 miles in the interior. Upon their arrival they found a Muratta school for boys, and also an English school. After nine months' study of the people and their language Mr. and Mrs. Abbott drew up a system for the management of the schools and the pay of the teach- ers, and started several schools in Ahmednuggur and the vicinity. In the autumn of 1835 they organized a normal boarding school, called. the Boys' Seminary, in which Mrs. Abbott had charge of the boys' clothing and the religious teaching of the mothers who brought them their food. She also superintended the girls' school. Mr. Abbott taught personally in the boys' school. Once a month all the mission schools, fifteen in number, were visited. The system was continued fourteen years with some variations. While thus
* Mr. Atherton's sketch of the life and character of Samuel Abbot was printed in the Collections of the New Hampshire Historical Society, Vol. VI., pages 205-211. Mr. Abbot lost his life, January 2, 1839, in the fire which destroyed the starch factory at Jaffrey, New Hampshire, For his connection with the manufacture of starch, see ante, page 163.
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engaged in teaching and in superintending the schools, time was. taken for studying the language and for preparing school books and religious tracts in the native language, some of which are still extant ; the arithmetic has been in use in the mission schools for more than forty years. In 1846 Mr. Abbott was licensed as a preacher, but ill health compelled him and his wife, with their five children, to return to America in 1847, and to seek release from the American Board. Contrary to expectation, Mr. Abbott's health improved, and he engaged during several years in canvassing for the Bible Society, in teaching, and in domestic missions in Ports- mouth, Manchester and elsewhere in his native state.
With reestablished health, and a yearning to return to their for- mer missionary field, came urgent invitations to them from the mis- sionaries and native Christians, and, with the approbation of the Prudential Committee, they went to'Andover, where Mr. Abbott attended the Theological Seminary one year, and was then ordained in Portsmouth as a foreign missionary. Mr. and Mrs. Abbott then returned to India, taking with them their four youngest children, and leaving three older ones in America. Their eldest daughter. E. Augusta, had married Rev. S. C. Dean, and had joined the Muratta Mission several months before. The parents on returning to India chose for the centre of their field of labor Rahoosee, a vil- lage about twenty-four miles north of Ahmednuggur. They were placed in charge of a church, and were mostly engaged in teaching and preaching there and in the surrounding district. Four more churches were soon organized, and thus they were in charge of five churches, some of which had native preachers and pastors over them. In 1867 Rev. S. C. Dean, who was in charge of the Satara fiekdl, found it necessary to come to America, and Mr. Abbott and family left Rahoosee and took charge of the Satara field and its out-stations. Here there were two churches and several schools with native assist- ants. In 1869 the ill health of both Mr. and Mrs. Abbott. again compelled them to return to America and to seek release from the American Board.
After their second return Mr. Abbott, to increase his medical knowledge, went through a course of study in the medical college in Philadelphia, received a diploma and practised medicine a few years in Nashua, but in 1874 they removed to Nebraska. Subse- quently they took up their abode with a married daughter in the Isle of Wight, England, where they now reside. Mr. and Mrs. Dean live in Plymouth, Nebraska; Miss Anstice Abbott is in
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charge of the Bennet Seminary for young ladies in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The third daughter, Chloe, labored some years in the Zenana Mission in India, was compelled to leave by failing health, and is now living in the Isle of Wight, as is also Mr. Abbott's fourth daughter, Emily, who married Major George A. Jacob of the Indian service. The oldest son, Amos W., is professor in the medical college of Minneapolis. The next son, Albert A., lives in Steele City, Nebraska, and is engaged in stock raising. The youngest son, Justin E., is a missionary of the American Board in Bombay. The three sons were all graduates of Dartmouth College.
PROF. JAMES DASCOMB .- BY GEORGE L. DASCOMBE.
James Dascomb, son of James Dascomb, Jun., and grandson of James Dascomb, who settled in Wilton in 1767, was born in Wilton, New Hampshire, February 21, 1808. Until he was seventeen years old he worked on his father's farm, attending the distriet school as he had opportunity. He then attended a few terms at an academy at Coneord, Vermont, after which he commenced the study of medi- cine with Dr. J. Seobey, a physician residing in that place. He studied one season under the instruction of the medical professors of Dartmouth College, and received the degree of M. D. from that institution in 1832. Ile commenced the practice of medicine in Boseawen, New Hampshire, but did not long remain there. He was, in 1833, appointed professor of chemistry, botany and physi- ology in Oberlin College, which was then being founded in the midst of a wilderness in northern Ohio, and this position he occupied for forty-four years.
In April, 1834, he was united in marriage with Marianne Tenney Parker of Dunbarton, New Hampshire, who was an efficient helper in the work of education, being the principal of the ladies' depart- ment in Oberlin College for nearly a score of years, and an active member of the Ladies' Board of Managers until her last sickness. The newly wedded pair started immediately for the seene of their future labors. A part of the journey was performed in a boat ou the Erie Canal, and the last few miles through mud of almost fabul- lous depth in a springless lumber wagon. They arrived at Oberlin three days after the opening of the school in connection with which the remainder of their lives was spent. The terms in the institution were so arranged as to have a long vacation in the win- ter. Some of these vacations, in the early part of his connection with the college, Dr. Dascomb spent in supplementing his limited
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preparatory education, but later they were passed in lecturing in neighboring colleges. The last outside labor which he performed was as professor of chemistry and toxicology in the medical depart- ment of the University of Wooster at Cleveland, Ohio. In 1878, at the age of seventy years, on account of failing health, he retired as professor emeritus from active service, and two years later his useful life was ended, just one year after the death of his estimable wife.
PROF. ADDISON HOWARD FOSTER .- FROM THE CLASS BOOK OF '63, DARTMOUTH COLLEGE.
Addison H. Foster, son of Benjamin Tenney and Abigail (How- ard) Foster, was born at Wilton, New Hampshire, November 13, 1838. His father was a farmer and tanner. He was fitted for college at Appleton Academy, New Ipswich, entered Dartmouth College in 1859 and continued through the course. After gradu- ating he studied medicine with Drs. William D. Buck and L. B. Ilow of Manchester, New Hampshire, attended medical lectures at the Dartmouth Medical School in the fall of 1864, and graduated at the College of Physicians and Surgeons, New York City, in March, 1866. He practised medicine in Lawrence, Massachusetts, until he removed to Chicago in March, 1868, where he has since remained in practice. He held the chair of surgical anatomy in the Women's Medical College, Chicago, from 1870 to 1873, and that of surgery from 1873 to 1875. He has been consulting physi- cian to the Women's Hospital from 1875 to the present time, 1881. and medical examiner for the New England Life Insurance Com- pany of Boston since 1866, and principal examiner for the same in Chicago since 1870. He married Miss Susan M. Houghton of New Ipswich, New Hampshire, September 18, 1866.
PROF. AMOS WILSON ABBOTT .- FROM THE CLASS BOOK OF '63, DARTMOUTH COLLEGE.
Amos Wilson Abbott, son of Amos and Anstice (Wilson) Abbott, was born January 6, 1844, in India, where his father was a missionary. Ile was fitted for college at Phillips Andover Acad- emy, entered Dartmouth College in 1859, and left before gradna- tion in the fall of 1861. He enlisted in Company C, Sixteenth Regiment, N. H. V., in August, 1862, and served until August. 1863. From 1864 to 1868 he was employed in the pay department of the United States Army. He graduated from the College of
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Physicians and Surgeons, New York, in 1869; and was resident physician in a hospital there till 1870. From 1870 to 1877 he prac- tised medicine in Delhi, New York ; then he removed to Minneapo- lis, Minnesota, where he enjoys a very successful practice and is professor of anatomy in the Medical College. Ile married, August 19, 1880, Helen G. Wright of Delhi, New York. They have one child, Harold Wilson, born August 6th, 1882.
REV. ABIEL ABBOT, D. D.
Dr. Abbot was born in Wilton, December 14, 1765, was the eldest son of Abiel Abbot and Dorcas (Abbot) Abbot, and was of the sixth generation from George Abbot, one of the first settlers of Andover, Massachusetts. After due preparation he entered Har- vard College in 1783, and graduated in 1787. After teaching in Andover Academy about two years, and pursuing a course of theo- logical study, he served as tutor in Harvard College for one year. In October, 1795, he was ordained as minister of the first church in Coventry, Connecticut. Owing to difference of opinion between him and the church, he left Coventry in June, 1811, and the Sep- tember following was chosen principal of Dummer Academy, Byfield, Massachusetts. He continued in this office until 1819, when he resigned, and removed to a farm in North Andover, on the pres- ent site of a portion of the manufacturing city of Lawrence. He next removed to Chelmsford, where he and his youngest daughter tauglit a private school. After his removal from Chelmsford, and a temporary sojourn in Wilton, he was invited to the pastorate of the Congregational Unitarian Church of Peterborough, New Hamp- shire, where he was installed in June, 1827. He continued to preach until March, 1839, when a colleague, Rev. Curtis Cutler, was settled to assist him in his labors. In 1848 he resigned his charge, and removed to West ,Cambridge, now Arlington, Massa- chusetts, to reside with his grandson, Rev. Samuel Abbot Smith, the pastor of the Unitarian Church. He received the degree of Doctor of Divinity from Harvard College in 1838. He died sud- denly December 31, 1859. Among his occasional publications were a sermon preached at North Coventry, Connecticut, July 4, 1799 ; Right Hand of Fellowship addressed to Cornelius Adams at his ordination, 1805 ; a statement of the proceedings in the First Church of Coventry, Connecticut, terminating in the removal of the pastor, with an address to his late people, 1811 ; address before the
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Essex Agricultural Society at its first exhibition in Danvers, Massa- chusetts, 1811.
Ile married, in 1796, Elizabeth Abbot, daughter of Captain John Abbot of Andover. They had three daughters : Elizabeth, who married Rev. John A. Douglas of Waterford, Maine, Abigail, and Sarah Dorcas, who married Samuel G. Smith of Peterborough.
Dr. Abbot was one of the best of men. His sermons were earnest and practical, and Judge Smith of Exeter pronounced him one of the best preachers he ever heard. He addressed the reason and judgment more than the imagination or feelings. His grandson, Rev. S. A. Smith, said that " during the last winter of his life (he was then ninety-three years old) he made it a point to read every day two chapters of the New Testament, critically, in the original Greek, and often asked me what I thought of this interpretation or that of some difficult passage. In the evenings of that winter I read to him several treatises of Cicero, among others, De Oratore and De Senectute. I continued this till the last Friday before his death, and I remember on that evening he let the usual hour of retiring go by in his interest in what was read. Thus did he keep up his interest in the studies and pursuits of his active life, and thus his mind and heart continued growing to the very end."
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