USA > New Hampshire > State builders; an illustrated historical and biographical record of the state of New Hampshire at the beginning of the twentieth century > Part 15
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But the people of New Hampshire irrespective of call- ing are under eternal obligation to its cotton manufactur- ing interests. It has been the strong foundation upon which the greater part of its material interests have been reared. Every avenue of its life has been quickened thereby. It has retained in the state thousands of its native born and brought still other thousands within its
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borders. It has added value to every farm by creating a market for its products and the commercial affairs of the state have found it in past and present their securest de- pendence.
The cotton manufacturing industry of the state had its beginning as early as 1803, when spinning jennys were set in operation in the town of New Ipswich. The spun yarn was carried out to neighborhood families and by them woven into cloth. After a few years a spinning mill was erected at the falls of Amoskeag, Manchester, and in 1819 was introduced the power loom, and this led directly if not immediately to the utilization of the power of the falls and the building up of Manchester.
As reference has been made to Amoskeag falls tribute should be paid, and that too without measure, to the skill, courage and discernment of that grand pioneer of New Hampshire's industrial interests, Samuel Blodgett, who before the close of the eighteenth century, began the building of a canal around Amoskeag falls. He was seventy years old when he began this then Hercu- lean undertaking, a fact that should serve as a lesson that a man is never too old to enter upon a task for the betterment of mankind. For near a decade did this brave and enterprising man labor to complete his project, and succeeded before death claimed him.
There are in New Hampshire forty-five plants for the manufacture of woollen goods, of one description or an- other. The capitalization of these. is about $11,000,000, and wool manufactures rank as the third largest industry in the state. These woollen mills are scattered over the state and are not localized as are the cotton mills. Natur- ally the woollen mill is the modern development of the hand card, the spinning wheel, and the hand loom of the older homestead.
The popular name given to New Hampshire as the "Granite State" doubtless had its origin in the fact that
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so large an area of her hills and fields consists of rocks and ledges, but these are not necessarily granite in the sense of building material. Strictly speaking, New Hampshire is less a "Granite State" than Maine, and probably Vermont. Concord is the greatest centre of the business, but Troy, Fitzwilliam and Marlborough in Cheshire county are all of great importance as re- spects this industry. The labor employed is for the most part skilled, and well paid, and the industry as a whole adds much to the general wealth and prosperity of the state.
An industry that has been of long continued benefit to the state, for reason of division of labor in particular, is that of carriage and coach building. Although confined mostly to the city of Concord, it has been a veritable trades school, and men trained therein have gone into other parts of the state, and as skilled journeymen and manufacturers have spread the benefits of the enterprise. The Concord coach carried the name and fame of the city and state around the world. In its construction were employed the most skilful of wood workers, painters and decorators, upholsterers and harness makers. The ability of these men is of world-wide knowledge, and in one generation or another they have been a source of great and staying good to the community.
It is this diversity of industry that has been, and is, the strength of industrial New Hampshire, and this diversity is really the result of the versatility of its men and women. The utilization of the faculties of head and hand began in the days of the Puritans and Scotch-Irish, and con- tinued through generations and gathering to itself strength as it passed from parent to child, has culminated in generations of men and women, native to the state, that have not only builded a rich, prosperous and strong com- monwealth at home, but have gone forth and aided in the upbuilding of other states and the nation. This drain
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from the state of her young men and women has been oftentimes at the expense of home interests, but there is reason to believe that this drain from the state of her very life blood has not only reached its height, but is re- maining on its native heath. The revelation of the last census that the value of the products of its manufactur- ing interests, annually, were in round numbers thirty- three millions greater than in the preceding decade has a mighty significance, and the best of all its meanings is that New Hampshire's sons and daughters recognize that she offers as great and varied opportunities for success right here at home as does any other state in the Union.
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COMMERCIAL NEW HAMPSHIRE BY G. A. CHENEY
Looking back to those years when New Hampshire was the new-found home of a scattered number of pioneer settlers, each with his own allotment of land, there was neither commerce nor manufactures. Each individual farm and home furnished food and raiment alike, and beneath each roof tree were fashioned the utensils and furnishings of the primitive home.
But as the settlers increased in numbers and there was a smoothing out of the roughness and primitiveness of their original natural surroundings, there came about a practice of interchange of commodities between imme- diate neighbors, and this was commerce in its crudest form, but nevertheless the genesis of trade.
The most potent fact, the great fundamental element in each and every original New England settlement, was the single, all-comprehending purpose of the settler to found for himself and children a home. The Spaniard's great purpose in the New World was the quest of silver and gold, and retrogression is the record of his life to this day.
Home, that is the family, is the unit of civilized human life, and all that it comprehends is summed up in the one word progression.
The pioneer settlers of New Hampshire, like their fel- lows in every other portion of New England, showed a resolute face to every danger, endured every hardship and
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performed every duty to the one end of securing homes that should be their own to the centre of the earth, and to the sky above.
At first the exchange of commodities was limited in every respect, yet there was a steady, gradual and fixed growth, until a system called trade and barter was de- veloped. This system pervaded every nook and corner of New England. Its very nature prompted individual effort. Hard cash, or its equivalent in paper, was not an object of daily observance to all. Indian corn was for long a legal tender, as were other farm products. The system of trade and barter made every man a trader as well as a farmer and manufacturer, and as he was all three in one, his every faculty was stimulated and de- veloped by utilization. The system continued for gen- erations, and it was the Golden Era of American individ- ual manhood, the kind of manhood that pushed further and further westward the bounds of the American re- public, that built new states and carried New England commerce across the seas.
In the growth of the state the day came when there was a surplus of products from farm and household, and the finding of an outlet for that surplus was a problem up for solution. Such a condition had wisely been an- ticipated in the construction of those highways called turnpikes by private capital and enterprise. These turn- pikes were the forerunners of the railroads. Travellers upon them paid for the privilege just as the passenger of to-day does for travelling in a railway car. While the toll paying turnpike has long since ceased as a feature in the material life of the state, the toll bridge is still a fact at least in two or three instances.
Naturally these turnpikes lead the way to the ports on the New England coast, and those seaports from Port- land to Boston were the like natural outlets for New Hampshire's surplus products. Hither the farmers went
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with their loads of cheese, pork, beef, poultry and other products and exchanged them for dried codfish, salted mackerel, loaf sugar, molasses, rum and spices. The farmer was accustomed to make at least one trip a year to "market," but often twice, in the early spring and late fall. These journeyings of the farmers gave opportunity for that ever-to-be-remembered feature of Colonial life, the wayside inn or tavern, that only disappeared with the coming of the iron horse and iron road. In these wayside inns the sturdy, self-reliant American yeomanry of the nation's formative generations exchanged the news of their respective localities and made known to each other the opportunities and possibilities of the ever broadening land. It was a great school for the development of the individual character.
As the years were numbered off and the province and in turn the state grew in wealth and population the stage coach came thicker and faster over the pike, building up and developing in its later years a class of men destined to be the forerunner of that great community of to-day,- the railroad men. With the increase of population came the village with its varying phases of life and conspicuous among these was the village merchant with his store stocked with merchandise that included everything from a shoe peg to a goose yoke, from whale oil to the finest old Medford, from the tiny pin to the heaviest crowbar. To the country store the ingenious boy brought those articles he had so dexterously wrought with his jackknife, which articles he exchanged for a slate upon which to cipher, or perhaps some future preacher took this way of becoming the owner of a copy of Jonathan Edwards' latest sermons, or some future lawyer a copy of Black- stone's commentaries. Hither the little girl brought her sampler, her older sister some skilfully wrought em- broidery and the aged madame a bed quilt of blue and white, samples of which are still to be seen to this day.
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Every one toiled, for it was a constantly taught lesson that the idle moment was a sinful moment and that the road to "forehandedness" was alone through industry and incessant toil.
The accumulation at the village store of the surplus products of the region required more frequent trips to the seacoast markets and by the close of the eighteenth century the amount of traffic over the turnpikes was simply prodigious. In the historical novel "Soltaire" which is descriptive of life in the White Mountain region the author draws a vivid word picture of that turnpike travel as it was in the very first years of the nineteenth century. He recites the testimony of men who not in- frequently saw a string of teams that would cover a mile of the road at a time all bound for the Portland market, and this, be it remembered, over that "pike" that wended its way through the Crawford Notch.
By that skilful use of mechanical tools the New Hamp- shire man of those earlier times became no less famous than his Massachusetts and Connecticut brother in the production of those articles that went by the name of Yankee notions and he became no less shrewd as a trader than skilful as a manufacturer. He became versatile and it was this versatility of talent on the part of the descen- dants of the Puritans that has proved the sheet anchor of the nation and the source of its power as a great commercial nation. Progression was the law of his be- ing. When the limits of his own state became too narrow for his operation he went forth into other states and became a mighty power in the winning of the West and the North-West. He founded mighty marts of trade in Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Chicago and San Francisco. The New Hampshire man left his seat on the stage coach to become the builder of a railroad or to found transportation companies. The keeper of the old way- side inn moved on to the centres of traffic and population
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and there built the mammoth hotel, the wonder of the world in its comprehension of comfort and elegance. Hotel management is essentially a commercial line and in this New Hampshire men, the descendants of the . keeper of the old time tavern, are prominent the country over. In the summer they are in the White Mountains, investments of millions of dollars in their charge, and in the winter they are in Florida or Southern California directing like great properties. In New York, Boston and elsewhere they have proved themselves the best of hotel managers.
These opening years of the twentieth century present the commercial life of the state in phases radically differ- ent than those of a half or even a quarter century ago. For generations its retail merchants had relied upon Bos- ton for supplies, and whereas a generation ago Manches- ter had scarcely a wholesale store it has in this year of 1903 one entire section given up to the wholesale trade. Manchester, so long famed as a manufacturing city, has become an important commercial metropolis, the chief in this respect of all Northern New England. New lines of trade and commerce are in process of development throughout the state and former ones are gaining annu- ally. All of the state's leading industries are expanding and this means an expanding commerce, for in a certain sense trade is but the handmaid of industry.
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BIOGRAPHIES
NAHUM J. BACHELDER, Governor of New Hampshire, 1903-1904
NAHUM J. BACHELDER.
Nahum J. Bachelder, governor of New Hampshire, is a descendant in the eighth generation of the Rev. Stephen Bachiler, who settled at Hampton in 1632. He was born in Andover, September 3, 1854, upon the farm where he now lives and which was cleared by his great-grand- father in 1782. He is the oldest child of William A. and Adeline (Shaw) Bachelder. His boyhood was passed upon the farm and his early education was gained in the district schools with a few terms at Franklin acad- emy and the New Hampton institute.
After a brief experience in teaching Mr. Bachelder devoted himself to practical agriculture, gaining much success as a market gardener and dairyman. In 1877 he joined Highland grange at East Andover and later became its master. In 1883 he was chosen secre- tary of the state grange and filled that position with great credit for eight years, being then promoted to the office, which he has since held, of master. Under his administration the order of Patrons of Husbandry has made wonderful progress in New Hampshire and has greatly benefited the Granite state in general and its agri- cultural interests in particular.
In the councils of the National grange ,also, Governor Bachelder has wisely exercised a great influence. He served for two terms as a member of the executive com- mittee and is now upon his second term as national lec- turer. He has also been of eminent service to his order
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and to the people through his membership on the legis- lative committee.
In 1887 Mr. Bachelder was elected as successor to the late James O. Adams as secretary of the state board of agriculture and for fifteen years has so conducted the affairs of that office as to win the admiration of all who have become acquainted with its work. Since the estab- lishment of the office of commissioner of immigration in 1889, now merged in the office of secretary of the state board of agriculture, Mr. Bachelder has discharged its duties, with a broad grasp of present conditions and future possibilities which has attracted the attention of the entire country. He has been, too, an active, vigilant and efficient official of the state cattle commission since its organization and has done great work in keeping the live stock of the state free from contagious diseases. An- other position which he has held to the great advantage of the agriculture of the state has been that of secretary of the Grange State Fair at Tilton and, more recently, of the state fair at Concord.
In the establishment of Old Home Week Governor Rollins found in Mr. Bachelder an invaluable assistant, and it is to the hearty co-operation of these gentlemen that the movement owes its unqualified and far-reaching success.
Mr. Bachelder received the honorary degree of master of arts from Dartmouth college in 1891. He is a member of the University and Wonolancet clubs of Concord, Derryfield club of Manchester and of Kearsarge lodge, A. F. and A. M. He attends the Congregational church.
June 30, 1887, he was united in marriage with Mary A. Putney of Dunbarton, and they have two children, Ruth, born May 22, 1891, and Henry, born March 17, 1895. In addition to their splendid farm estate at An- dover they have a winter home in the city of Concord.
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EDWARD NATHAN PEARSON, Secretary of State, 1903
EDWARD N. PEARSON.
Edward Nathan Pearson, secretary of state, and one of the most popular young men in New Hampshire, was born in Webster, N. H., September 7, 1859, the son of John C. and Lizzie S. (Colby) Pearson. He prepared for college in the High school at Warner and the acad- emy at Penacook and graduated from Dartmouth college in the class of 1881, ranking with the very first in schol- arship. Immediately upon graduation he entered the employ of the Republican Press Association at Concord, N. H., as city editor of the Concord Evening Monitor. With the exception of one year spent in Washington, D. C., as teacher in a public school, Mr. Pearson con- tinued his connection with the Republican Press Associa- tion and its papers, the Evening Monitor and Inde- pendent Statesman, for almost twenty years, acting during nearly half that time as managing editor of the papers and business manager of the entire plant. In this period of his life he established a reputation which he has since maintained and increased of uniting in him- self grace and style, originality of thought and thorough culture as a writer with tried and true ability, industry and integrity as a business man.
By inheritance, training, judgment and choice Mr. Pearson is a steadfast Republican. During his connec- tion with the Republican Press Association he was elected public printer; and in 1899 he was chosen secretary of state, a position which he has since filled with the greatest
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credit to himself and satisfaction to the public. The char- acteristic of Mr. Pearson's life has always been his desire to help, by word or deed or both, every one with whom he came in contact. In his official position he finds many opportunities for the gratification of this desire, which, added to his executive and administrative ability, his wide knowledge of men and affairs, his natural gift of oratory and his aptitude in the management of public functions, make him the ideal of an officer and servant of the commonwealth.
Mr. Pearson was for several years a member of the board of health of Concord and an officer of the associa- tion of boards of health of the state. These positions he resigned upon his election to the board of education of Union school district in Concord. He is a vice-president of the general alumni association of Dartmouth college and has served on the committee for the nomination of candidates for alumni trustee. He is, also, an officer of the New Hampshire Press Association and of other or- ganizations. He is a member of the Patrons of Hus- bandry and other fraternal orders and is a constant at- tendant upon the services of the South Congregational church. December 8, 1882, he was united in marriage with Miss Addie M. Sargent of Lebanon, and they have four children.
Just entering the prime of life, with opportunities for wide usefulness all about him, and with a large and ever increasing circle of warm and devoted personal friends; Secretary of State Pearson has done and will. do much for his city, his state and his fellow men.
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JACOB H. GALLINGER, United States Senator from New Hampshire, 1903
SENATOR JACOB H. GALLINGER.
United States Senator Jacob H. Gallinger has been for more than thirty years a conspicuous figure in the public life of his state. He was born March 28, 1837, at Corn- wall, Ontario, descended on the paternal side from Dutch ancestry, and his mother being of American stock. At an early age with only the limited advantages of school- ing possible to be had at his home, he was thrown upon his own resources and early displayed that unflagging industry which has been the chief instrument of his rise to favor in professional and public life.
As a youth he learned the printing trade and for a time published a newspaper. The printing-office was to him at once a source of livelihood and a school, and there he laid the foundations for that wide knowledge of men and affairs which has since been so marvellously extended in the course of his remarkable career as a public man.
While still at work at the case he began the study of medicine, and in 1855 he entered a medical school at Cin- cinnati, Ohio, whence he was graduated at the head of his class in 1858. Feeling, however, that he was not yet qualified for the active work of his profession, he devoted himself for the next three years to study and travel, finding means to defray his expenses by literary work and incidentally working at the printer's trade, and in 1861 he entered upon practice in the city of Keene, where he remained only a few months, removing to Concord in April, 1862, where for twenty-three years he was actively
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engaged in the practice of medicine and established a large and especially remunerative business.
His aptitude for public affairs became early apparent, and in 1872 he held his first public office as member of the New Hampshire legislature. He was re-elected in 1873, and in 1876 was chosen a member of the consti- tutional convention. In 1878 he was elected a member of the state senate and was chosen for a second term, serving in 1879 as president of that body. During the administration of Governor Natt Head he served upon the chief magistrate's staff as surgeon-general. In 1882 he was chosen chairman of the Republican State Com- mittee and served in that capacity until 1890, when he resigned.
In 1884 he was elected to the Forty-ninth Congress, was re-elected in 1886 by an enlarged majority, and declined a third nomination in 1888. In 1888 he was chairman of the New Hampshire delegation to the Republican National Convention at Chicago, where his political sagacity was well illustrated by the' fact that he was one of the seconders of the nomination of the successful candidate, Gen. Benjamin Harrison of In- diana. In 1890 he was again elected to the legislature, and during that session of the General Court was chosen United States senator, entering upon his duties March 4, 1891. He was re-elected after an unanimous nomi- nation in the Republican caucus in 1897, and in 1903 he received the unprecedented honor of a third consecutive election for a full term, receiving every vote that was cast in the caucus.
In the senate he ranks with the leaders of his party. He is at the head of large and important committees, and is an indefatigable worker in legislative lines. A master of parliamentary law he is frequently called upon to preside, and his voice is potent, both in speech upon the floor of the Senate and in private conference in the shap- ing of the great policies of his party and the nation.
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Senator Gallinger is a public speaker of wide repute and his services are in constant demand in many states in every campaign. The larger portion of his political activity in this line, however, he devotes to his own state, where no advocate of party policies is more eagerly heard or more enthusiastically welcomed. In 1898 Senator Gallinger was again called to the chairmanship of the Republican state committee, and was re-elected to that position in 1900 and in 1902. In 1900 he again headed his state's delegation at the Republican National Con- vention, and in 1901 he was made the New Hampshire member of the Republican National Committee.
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HON. HENRY E. BURNHAM.
Henry. E. Burnham, United States senator from New Hampshire, was born in Dunbarton Nov. 18, 1844, in the eighth generation from John Burnham, an emi- grant from Norwich, England, in 1635. His early life was passed upon his father's farm, and he prepared for college at Kimball Union academy, Meriden, entering Dartmouth in 1861, at the age of seventeen. He was graduated with honors in the class of 1865, having al- ready through the attainments of his college course given promise of the brilliant professional and public career which he has since pursued.
He entered upon the study of law with Minot & Mug- ridge at Concord, and concluded his studies under the direction of E. S. Cutter, at Nashua, and the late Judge Lewis W. Clark at Manchester. In April, 1868, he was admitted to the bar, and at once opened an office in Man- chester where his unflagging industry and his marked ability soon won for him an enviable reputation as a successful practitioner. His clientage increased yearly, requiring the admission of partners to the business, until the firm of Burnham, Brown & Warren, of which he was the active head, ranked with the leaders at the bar in all the courts of New England jurisdiction.
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