USA > New Hampshire > Sketches of successful New Hampshire men > Part 32
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7. JONATHAN SAWYER, the subject of this sketch, was the youngest child of Phineas. He was born at Marlborough, Mass., in 1817. He went with his mother and other members of the family when he was twelve years old, to Lowell, where for the next few years he attended school. He was a member of the first class that entered the high school of that city, having among his mates Hon. Benjamin F. Butler, Gov. E. A. Straw, and G. V. Fox, assistant secretary of the navy during the civil war. Bishop Thomas M. Clark was the principal of this school. On account of a severe sickness, young Sawyer at six- teen years of age left school, and while recruiting his health made a visit to his brother, Alfred Ira Sawyer, who, after some experience as a dyer at Amesbury and Great Falls, had come in 1824 to Dover, N. H., where he was operating a grist-mill, a custom carding and cloth-dressing mill, converting this last into a flannel-mill. Jonathan remained in Dover two years, going to school and work- ing for his brother. 'In the fall of 1835 he returned to Lowell. His mother, for the purpose of conferring upon her son a more complete education, sent him to the great Methodist school at Wilbraham, which at that time was a most flour- ishing preparatory school for the Wesleyan University at Middletown, Conn. Here he remained two terms, when, at nineteen years of age, returning to Lowell, he went into a woolen establishment as a dyer. Afterwards he went into this business on his own account, and continued in it until 1839.
During the latter part of this time he was not so engrossed in his business but that he found time to make frequent visits to New Ipswich, where Miss Martha Perkins, of Barnard, Vt., was attending school. In 1839 they were married, and went to Watertown, N. Y., where Mr. Sawyer became the superin-
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tendent of the Hamilton Woolen Company. After two and a half years, Mr. Sawyer went into business for the manufacture of satinets. In 1850, his brother Alfred having died at Dover, N. H., the year before, and the children being too young to carry on the business, Mr. Jonathan Sawyer assumed its control in con- nection with his brother Zenas. Two years later Zenas retired, and Francis A. Sawyer, who had been a prominent builder in Boston, became a partner with Jonathan, the object being to continue the manufacture of woolen flannels. In 1858 the property below known as the " Moses mill," another flannel manufac- tory, was purchased. This mill was enlarged in 1860 to four sets of machinery, again in 1863 to eight, and in 1880 and 1882 to sixteen sets. The old machin- ery is now completely replaced by new. The old mill, started in 1832, was in 1872 replaced by the present substantial structure, which contains fourteen sets of machinery, with preparing and finishing machinery for thirty sets in both mills.
Since 1866 the attention of these noted manufacturers has been entirely devoted to the manufacture of fine fancy cassimere cloths and suitings. Already they have established for these goods a foremost place in their class. At the Centennial Exhibition, at Philadelphia, a medal and diploma were awarded the Sawyer goods, for their " high intrinsic merit." The business has, since 1873, been carried on as a corporation, having a capital of six hundred thousand dol- lars. The corporation consists of the old firm of F. A .* and J. Sawyer, and Charles H. Sawyer, the present agent of the establishment. In 1866 this com- pany made a bold innovation on the method that was so long in vogue among manufacturers, of consigning their goods to commission houses. The under- taking upon which this company entered, of selling their own goods, was met with great opposition ; but their boldness and foresight have already been justi- fied by the success which they have made, and the adoption of their methods by other manufacturers. This establishment can now look back upon a half-century of remarkable history. The unmarred reputation for strictest integrity which these managers have won, their far-reaching enterprise, and the unsurpassed excellences of their fabrics, have enabled them to prosperously pass through all the financial depressions and panics which so many times have swept over the country during this long period.
Mr. Jonathan Sawyer, with his vigor of mind and body still unimpaired, lives in his elegant mansion, which looks out upon a magnificent picture of wood and vale and mountain range, and down upon the busy scene of his many years of tireless industry. He loves his home, in the adornment of which his fine taste finds full play. When free from business he is always there. He loves his books, and his conversation shows an unusual breadth of reading in science, history, and politics. He is possessed of a strong, clear intellect, a calm, dispas- sionate judgment, and sympathies which always bring him to the side of the wronged and the suffering. At a time when anti-slavery sentiments were unpop- ular, Mr. Sawyer was free in their utterance, and was among the first to form the Free-soil party. Since the organization of the Republican party, Mr. Sawyer has been among its strongest supporters. He has persistently declined the many offices of honor and profit which those acquainted with his large intelligence and sagacity and stainless honesty have sought to confer upon him. He is abun- dantly content to exercise his business powers in developing still more the great manufactory, and his affections upon his large household and his chosen friends, and his public spirit in helping every worthy cause and person in the community.
The children of Mr. Sawyer, all of whom have grown up to maturity, are Charles Henry, Mary Elizabeth, Francis Asbury, Roswell Douglas, Martha Frances, Alice May, Frederic Jonathan.
* Francis A. Sawyer died June 16, 1881.
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DR. ASA CROSBY AND SONS.
BY S. P. HADLEY.
IN giving a notice of Judge Crosby of Lowell, Mass., as originally contem- plated, at his request and with the consent of the publisher, I am desired to give it in the character of a family notice, or rather of the father and sons, now all deceased except the judge.
Dr. ASA CROSBY, the father, was born in Amherst (now Milford), N. H., July 15, 1765, and died at Hanover, N. H., April 12, 1836. He married Betsey Hoit, daughter of Judge Nathan Hoit, an officer in the Revolutionary war, and judge of the court of common pleas. He was in the sixth generation from Simon of Cambridge, Mass., who arrived in the "Susan and Ellyn" in 1635, the direct line being Simon, Simon, Josiah, Josiah, and Josiah his father, born in Billerica, Mass., November 24, 1730. Sarah Fitch, his mother, was born in Bedford, Mass., March 25, 1732. The Crosby families mostly inhabited Billerica, Mass., where many of the decendants still reside, although some lived in the ancient town of Braintree, Mass., and others on Cape Cod. His father settled in Amherst, N. H., where he died October 15, 1763. His mother lived until September 16, 1825. The following notice of Dr. Crosby, written by Prof. R. D. Mussey of Dartmouth College, is taken from the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, Vol. XIV. :-
" Dr. Asa Crosby was an uncommon man. At the age of twenty-one he com- menced practice in Strafford county, N. H., and continued in full practice forty- six years. He was a distinguished member of the profession, both in physic and surgery ; and in the latter branch he performed some very important and diffi- cult operations. Indeed, for many years he was the principal operator for an extensive district of country. He was one of those self-taught men, whose force of intellect breaks through the most appalling obstacles, and rises unaided to skill and reputation. Although deprived of a systematic course of professional instruction, having commenced practice before medical schools were established in New England, he provided himself with a good library, and spent his leisure hours, and even moments, among his books. He drew around him young men as pupils, between twenty and thirty of whom may be reckoned as educated by him ; and, what is much to his credit, many of them are now distinguished men.
" Dr. Crosby was for many years a member of the Church of Christ, and died in the full hope of a better life.
" The medical profession in New Hampshire is not. a little indebted to Dr. Crosby, inasmuch as he was one of the few who interested themselves in procur- ing the charter of the State Medical Society, of which he was an active and zealous member for thirty years. The honorary degree of Doctor of Medicine was conferred on him by Dartmouth College in 1811."
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JOSIAH CROSBY, M. D.
DR. JOSIAH CROSBY, third son of Dr. Asa Crosby, was born in Sandwich, N. H., February 1, 1794, and died in Manchester, N. H., January 7, 1875. He married Olive Light Avery, daughter of Daniel Avery, a merchant and manu- facturer of Gilford, N. H., February 9. 1829. He studied his profession with his father, and the distinguished Prof. Nathan Smith of Dartmouth College. His early practice was in Concord, N. H., and Lowell, Mass., but his professional life-work was in Manchester, N. H,, from 1844 to his death. The following ex- tracts are taken from an obituary notice of him read before the New Hampshire Medical Society by Dr. W. W. Wilkins, of Manchester : - -
" Here (Manchester, N. H.,) for thirty years he was the unrivaled head of the profession. Here he originated the method of making extensions of frac- tured limbs by the use of adhesive strips, which gave him a high reputation with surgeons in Europe as well as at home ; and, later, he invented the ‘invalid bed ' which has so tenderly held the patient, without a strain or jar, while the bed-clothes could be changed or wounds cared for, or, by dropping a belt or two, prevent local pressure and irritation. The skillful physician, the christian gentleman, and sympathizing friend were combinations of character in him rarely excelled.
" Those who have known Dr. Josiah Crosby, who have had the privilege of his acquaintance, been honored by his confidence, and felt the influence of his pure example, will feel more deeply than any words of mine express, the loss we have met in his death. Few men love their life-work as he did. The practice of medicine to him was no mere trade, no secondary means of obtaining some- thing else that outranked it, but the chosen calling of his life, to which in his young manhood he gave not only his rare mental endowments, but the rich treasures of his heart ; and with the weight of eighty years resting upon him, it was his greatest comfort that he could still labor in his chosen profession.
" His habits of study, that had been early formed, followed him into old age. New theories and discoveries in medical science were carefully criticised ; the medical journals, to which he was a liberal subsciber, were read ; and he was better posted in regard to the medical literature of the day than a majority of the young men in the profession.
" He exerted a strong influence on the profession itself. The quiet dignity of his character was felt by all who came in contact with him. No unguarded words passed his lips in regard to members of the profession that were absent that would not have been as freely expressed in their presence.
" The same elements of character made him a superior surgeon. His opera- tions were complete. He had abundant resources, and, if the ordinary methods of treatment failed, was ever ready to supply their place by extraordinary methods. His contributions to medical science were of a charactor that reflected the highest honor upon him as a physician and skillful surgeon, and placed him in no mean rank as a benefactor of his race.
" He never indulged in sports, or frequented watering-places. His church, his home, and his professional duties filled to the full his days and years, and too many sleepless nights. His sympathies for the sick, his great benevolence, his love of neighbor as of himself, formed the mainspring of his life labors.
" We have known him in his strength, and we shall always recollect him as the strong, self-reliant, active physician. We are more than grateful for his record. Life is the sum total of so many days and years, to which may be added
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the little real good one has been permitted to accomplish in a lifetime. Looking back over these fifty years, can we compute the worth of such a life ?"
His widow still lives, as also his son, Dr. George A. Crosby, of Manchester, an eminent physician and surgeon.
JUDGE NATHAN CROSBY.
NATHAN CROSBY, fourth son of Dr. Asa Crosby, was born in Sandwich, N. H., February 12, 1798; was graduated at Dartmouth College in 1820; read law with Stephen Moody, Esq., of Gilmanton, and Asa Freeman, of Dover, N. H., and was admitted to the bar in Strafford county in 1823. He practiced law a dozen years, mostly in Gilmanton, N. H., and Amesbury and Newburyport, Mass., until 1838, when he removed to Boston, at the call of the Massachu- setts Temperance Union, to conduct two important features of the temperance cause, - the acceptance of the teetotal pledge for the ardent-spirits pledge, and prohibition for license, and to organize societies based upon those principles throughout the commonwealth. He was also editor of the Massachusetts Tem- perance Journal, the Cold Water Army and Temperance Almanac, and various other publications.
Subsequently, in 1843, he removed to Lowell, and was employed by the manufacturing companies of that city to purchase the large lakes in New Hamp- shire whose waters supply the Merrimack river, and secured for the companies one hundred thousand acres of water. Before this service was fully accom- plished, he received the appointment of standing justice of the police court of Lowell, upon the resignation of the late Hon. Joseph Locke, who had held the office thirteen years. Judge Crosby was qualified May 19, 1846. This position he still holds. He has rarely failed of holding the civil terms of the court during his entire period of service. In the discharge of the duties of a local magistrate, - a position peculiarly trying, placed, as those duties are, so near the people in all their differences, controversies, temptations, follies, and depravi- ties, - he has been at all times humane, conscientious, incorruptible, and just, aiming to do right.
In all works of philanthropy and reform, no one has a kinder heart, or a more willing or generous hand. His frequent appeals to the public, through the press, upon the temperance issues of the day have been characterized by great power, earnestness, and practical wisdom, and have been widely read and approved. He has never held political office, but has been in the ranks of the Federal, Whig, and Republican parties. He was the first man in the country to give one hun- dred dollars for the sanitary relief of Union soldiers in the late rebellion, and to form a soldiers' relief association, of which he was president during the war. He was the first college graduate from the town of his birth, and the last of four of his class who received the degree of Doctor of Laws.
His literary productions consist of "Obituary Notices for 1857 and 1858," in two volumes, "First Half Century of Dartmouth College," eulogies upon Judge Wilde and Hon. Tappan Wentworth, " Notices of Distinguished Men of Essex County, Mass.," the last being especially illustrative of Choate, Cushing, and Rantoul, and letters and appeals to the citizens of Lowell upon the temperance issues of 1880 and 1881. He has a nervous, but animated and entertaining style. His " First Half Century of Dartmouth College " is a model in its way, while his " Crosby Family," a genealogical work, is not the dry and uninteresting reading such literature usually is, but is entertaining, even to the general reader, for its reminiscences of individuals, and its pleasant pictures of old times in New Hampshire.
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He has always cherished a deep interest in Dartmouth College, and to no slight extent has, by personal effort, brought about events which have been of substantial benefit to that ancient seat of learning.
Judge Crosby has been twice married. His first wife, Rebecca Marquand Moody, was a daughter of Stephen Moody, Esq., of Gilmanton, by whom he had nine children, of which number five are now living, namely, Frances Coffin, wife of Dr. Henry A. Martin, of Boston ; Hon. Stephen Moody Crosby, of Boston ; Maria Stocker, wife of the late Maj. Alexander McD. Lyon, of Erie, Penn. ; Ellen Grant, wife of N. G. Norcross, Esq,. of Lowell, and Susan Coffin, wife of Charles Francis, son of James B. Francis, of Lowell, the distinguished engineer. His daughter, Rebecca Marquand, widow of the late Z. B. Caverly, United States charge d'affaires at Peru, a highly accomplished and widely es- teemed lady, was, with her daughter, lost on the "Schiller," a German steamer, off the English coast, in the spring of 1875, - a disaster which, at the time, created profound sorrow throughout the country. He married, May 19, 1870, Matilda, daughter of James Pickens, of Boston, and widow of Dr. J. W. Fearing, of Providence, R. I., who still lives.
Personally, the judge is a fine exemplification of the good results of temper- ance, self-care, and habitual good humor; and one meeting him for the first time, and noting his firm step and erect carriage, would hardly think him older than a man of sixty.
DIXI CROSBY, M. D.
DR. DIXI CROSBY, fifth son of Dr. Asa Crosby, was born in Sandwich, February 8, 1800, and died at Hanover, September 26, 1873. He married Mary Jane Moody, daughter of Stephen Moody, of Gilmanton, a distinguished lawyer, July 2, 1827. His academical preparation for his profession was quite limited ; but being quick to learn, and with uncommon powers of memory, he made rapid progress in the study and practice of his profession and early became a prominent surgeon and physician, practicing in Gilmanton and Laconia till . called to fill the chair of surgery in the Dartmouth Medical College, as successor of Professor R. D. Muzzey. He was placed at the head of the Medical College, in 1838, and held the place with great ability and distinction until nearly the time of his death.
His son, Prof. Alpheus B. Crosby, a young man of remarkable distinction, who died August 9, 1877, succeeded him. Another and older son is an eminent physician in Concord, N. H.
" Dr. Crosby, though a surgeon by nature and by preference, was in no modern sense a specialist. His professional labors covered the whole range of medicine. His professorship included obstetrics as well as surgery, and his practice in this department was exceptionally large. His surgical diocese extended from Lake Champlain to Boston. Of the special operations of Dr. Crosby we do not pro- pose here to speak in detail. It is sufficient to mention that, in 1824, he devised a new and ingenious mode of reducing metacarpo-phalangeal dislocation. In 1836 he removed the arm, scapula, and three-quarters of the clavicle, at a single operation, for the first time in the history of surgery. He was the first to open abscess of the hip-joint. He performed his operations without ever having seen them performed, almost without exception. Dr. Crosby was not what may be called a rapid operator. " An operation, gentlemen," he often said to his clini- cal students, " is soon enough done when it is well enough done." And with him it was never done otherwise than well.
At the outbreak of the rebellion, Dr. Crosby served in the provost-marshal's
,
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office at a great sacrifice for many months, attending to his practice chiefly at night. As years and honors accumulated, Dr. Crosby still continued his work, though his constitutional vigor was impaired by the severity of the New Hamp- shire winters and by his unremitting labor. At length, having reached man's limit of threescore years and ten, he withdrew from active practice, and in 1870 resigned his chair in the college.
Dr. Crosby furnishes a beautiful and rare instance of a completed life. He early fixed his aim,-he reached it ; he did all he attempted, and he did it well. ' Nihil tetigit, quod non ornavit.'
To those of us who had been most intimately associated with our departed friend, who had enjoyed his teachings, his counsels, and his generous kindness, the news of his death came as a heavy shock. But he still lives in the remembrance of his distinguished services, in the unfading affection and gratitude of his pupils, and in the many hearts whose burdens he has lifted. Verily, 'Extinctus amabitur idem !'" - Obituary notice of Dr. J. W. Barstow.
PROF. ALPHEUS CROSBY.
PROF. ALPHEUS CROSBY, ninth son of Dr. Asa Crosby, was born in Sand- wich, October 13, 1810, died in Salem, Mass., April 17, 1874. He married for his first wife, Abigail Grant Jones Cutler, daughter of Joseph and Abi C. Grant (Jones) Cutler, of Newburyport, Mass., August 27, 1834, who died in Paris, France, March 25, 1837. He married, for his second wife, Martha Kingman, daughter of Joseph Kingman, Esq., of West Bridgewater, Mass., a teacher in the Normal School, Salem, Mass. He was childless.
Professor Hagar says: "When in his tenth year he was taken to Hanover, the seat of Dartmouth College, and was placed temporarily under Professor Adams in algebra and Euclid, under Professor James Marsh in Latin, and under Tutor Rufus Choate in Greek; and these gentlemen pronounced him fitted for college. He was subsequently put to the study of Hebrew, under the Rev. John L. Parkhurst, and was sent to Exeter Academy; but in 1823 he entered college, passed through the four years' course of study without a rival and far beyond rivalry. His power of acquisition and retention was marvelous.
" After his graduation, he spent four years at Hanover; the first, as the pre- ceptor of Moor's Indian Charity School, and the following three as tutor in the college. He subsequently spent nearly two years at the Theological Seminary in Andover, Mass. He was appointed to a professorship of Latin and Greek in 1833. In 1847 he was released from the Latin and became professor of Greek only, which office he held until 1849, when he resigned ; but he remained pro- fessor emeritus until his death."
Professor Crosby was one of the earliest Greek scholars of eminence that New England can boast, being precocious in his scholarship, and so a little in advance of Professor Felton, of Cambridge, who was a year or two older. Both graduated in 1827, Felton at Harvard, and Crosby at Dartmouth; and this, as it happens, was the year in which the first Greek lexicon, with definitions in English, came into the hands of pupils in any part of the world. It was the work of John Pickering, a Salem man, who for many years stood almost alone as a great Greek scholar in America, having preceded Crosby and Felton by more than thirty years. The young men took up the work where Pickering laid it down, and began not long after they became Greek professors in their respective colleges (Felton in 1832, and Crosby in 1833,) the task of preparing
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grammars, readers, and editions of authors, for the studious youth of the land. Crosby's Greek grammar and his edition of Xenophon's Anabasis soon came into common use, and have been of great service in promoting the elementary instruction of thousands of Greek scholars since ; as also have Felton's Reader and his editions of Aristophanes, etc. The learning of Hadley, Goodwin, and other recent professors has gone beyond that of these pioneers in extent and accuracy, but it is doubtful whether they have done so much for rudimentary scholarship.
Professor Crosby belonged not to us alone, but to all New England,-to the whole land. Our country is poorer by the loss of an eminent scholar, one of that small band of classical scholars in America who are known and honored at foreign seats of learning. In the latest, freshest, and most original Greek gram- mar of Professor Clyde, of Edinburgh, the author acknowledges his obligations to four distinguished scholars, three Europeans and one American; and the American is Professor Crosby.
Professor Crosby published " A Greek and General Grammar"; "Greek Tables "; "Greek Lessons"; an edition of Xenophon's Anabasis; "Eclogæ Latinæ"; "First Lessons in Geometry "; also many religious and political tracts, and elementary school-books, which have been widely useful among the freedmen and Indians.
PROF. THOMAS R. CROSBY, M. D.
PROF. THOMAS RUSSELL CROSBY, M. D., youngest son of Dr. Asa Crosby, was born in Gilmanton, N. H., October 22, 1816, and died at Hanover, March 1, 1872. He married Louisa Partridge Burton, daughter of Col. Oliver Burton, U. S. A. He graduated D. C. 1841, taking also, at the same time, his degree of Doctor of Medicine. He practiced in Meriden and Manchester, was chief sur- geon in Columbian College Hospital, in Washington, D. C., during the war, became professor in the Medical College in that city, and afterwards professor in Dartmouth College. During much of his professional life he was an invalid, but was indefatigable in habits of study, steadily advancing to posts of honor and reward, both as practitioner and teacher.
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