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 26
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His portraits of men of eminence and character were greatly admired, among which may be mentioned those of Judge Allen, Judge Thomas of Boston, Mass., Judge Hoar, Judge Bacon, Mr. Haven, the eminent anti- quarian, and Stephen Salisbury of Worcester, Mass.
In February, 1878, he met with a great loss, the death of his beloved wife. The following summer he spent in European travel. In May, 1880, he married again. His death occurred soon after in the prime of life, January 9th, 1881. He left no issue by either marriage. To his friends he was more than the popular and successful painter; he was a man to be esteemed, a friend to be loved.
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JOSHUA GILMAN HALL.
County Solicitor, member of the General court, State senator, U. S. District attorney and member of Congress, this was the distinguished official record of the late Hon. Joshua Gilman Hall, of Dover, who was born in Wake- field, Nov. 5th, 1828, and died Oct. 31st, 1898. Mr. Hall was a lineal descendant from John Hall, the first deacon in the first church at Dover, founded in 1638. He pre- pared for college at Gilmanton academy, and was grad- uated from Dartmouth in the class of 1851, studied law with the late Daniel M. Christie, of Dover, the preceptor of so many brilliant members of the New Hampshire bar, and was admitted to practice in 1855. He began his pro- fessional activity first in his native village, but later re- moved to Dover, where he spent the balance of his life. Mr. Hall was not long in making his way to the front rank of his profession and at the time of his death had been for many years numbered with the leading members of the bar in the state. In 1862 he was first chosen to public office as solicitor of Strafford county, which posi- tion he held until 1874. In that year he was elected to represent his ward in the General court and was one of the most influential members of that body in the practical shaping of legislation. In 1871 and 1872 he sat in the State senate and from 1874 to 1879 he was U. S. attorney for the district of New Hampshire. In 1880 he was elect- ed to represent his district in congress and served two terms with distinction for himself and satisfaction to his
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constituents. Mr. Hall was mayor of Dover in 1866 and 1867. In every position in public life and in all his private relations Mr. Hall was actuated by high ideals of honor and integrity. He was a most industrious man and despite all pressing duties of public office he never neglect- ed the needs of the clients who had intrusted their matters to his charge, but, doing double duty, discharged to the full his obligations to the public service and to his private undertakings. Nov. 16, 1861 he married Miss S. Lizzie Bigelow of Boston, and became the father of three chil- dren, two daughters, one the wife of F. D. Cook of Nashua, now living in Florida, and the other, wife of Gen. William D. Sawyer of New York City. His only son, Dwight Hall, graduated from Dartmouth in 1894, from the Boston University Law School in 1897, and was admitted to the bar in that year, practising at first as his father's partner, and now by himself. In 1898 Mr. Hall was appointed referee in bankruptcy for the Third dis- trict of New Hampshire and bids fair to add new laurels to the name made illustrious by his father.
383
WILLIAM LAWRENCE FOSTER.
One of the ablest and most learned of the justices who have adorned the New Hampshire Supreme bench was William Lawrence Foster, who was born of Revolution- ary stock at Westminster, Vermont, June Ist, 1823. His great grandfather was a soldier of the Revolution and fought at the battle of Bunker Hill. His grandfather, while a freshman at Yale, joined the minute men of Read- ing, Mass., and participated in the battle of Lexington. His father removed from Vermont to Fitzwilliam, and then to Keene, where he died in 1854, and where his son was educated in the common schools. At the age of seventeen he began the study of law in the office of Levi Chamberlain, and in 1844 and 1845 received instructions at the Harvard Law school. He was admitted to the bar of Cheshire county in 1845 and practised in Keene in partnership with John J. Baxter, and later with his pre- ceptor. He was early marked for political advancement and from 1845 to 1849 he served as postmaster at Keene. From 1849 to 1853 he was clerk of the New Hampshire senate, and during the administration of Governor Dins- more was a member of his staff. By that executive also he was, in 1850, appointed state law reporter, which posi- tion he held until 1856, and published fifteen volumes of the New Hampshire reports. In 1853 he removed to Concord and formed a partnership in the law with the late Col. John H. George. The late Hon. Charles P. Sanborn was subsequently a member of the firm, and Col. George
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WILLIAM LAWRENCE FOSTER
EDSON HILL.
A career that is replete with valued lessons to the young, with interest to the general reader, and one the story of which adds an honored page to the history of New Hampshire, is that of Edson Hill, whose busy and eventful life came to a close in 1888.
Mr. Hill was born in the town of Northwood, Sep- tember 13, 1807, being the eighth child of Samuel and Judith Hill. They were of the staunch old New England stock who believed in right and fought for it, and who imbued their descendants with the force of character that made them leaders in enterprises which command the attention of men. The grandfather of Edson Hill was a soldier of the American Revolution. At the beginning of that conflict for the independence of the American colonies he repaired to Fort Constitution at Portsmouth, with musket in hand in defence of home, state and coun- try.
Young Hill received the advantages of a common school education and then went to live with Judge Har- vey, who had conceived a great liking for the young man, and who was willing to give him the benefit of his powerful influence. Judge Harvey was one of the prominent men, not only of his own community, but of the state. The prestige of such a man went far towards establishing the young man's position in life, and hence it is not strange to find him elevated as soon as he reached his majority to positions of influence and
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responsibility in his native town. During his residence in Northwood he was elected town clerk, moderator, and town agent. In 1836 and 1837 he served as selectman, and in 1839 and 1840 represented the town in the Legis- lature. In addition to holding these positions of trust and importance he was nominated and confirmed as post- master, filling the office very satisfactorily during a term of years. In 1840 Mr. Hill removed to Newmarket, and was soon after elected treasurer of Rockingham County, holding the office for two years, 1841 and 1842. In 1843 he went to Manchester and at once engaged in the grocery business with J. Monroe Berry, their store having been located in the Tewksbury Block, the upper stories of which were then occupied by St. Paul's Metho- dist Episcopal Church. Under the firm name of Hill & Berry this business continued until 1850, when Mr. Hill removed to Concord and the firm was dissolved. During this time his fellow citizens had taken the occa- sion to honor him with an election to the state Legislat- ure, serving during the sessions of 1849 and 1850. Previously to this in 1847 he had acted as engrossing clerk of that body.
The Amoskeag bank was incorporated by the state June 24, 1848, and began business in October with a capitalization of $100,000. At the first meeting, Octo- ber 2, Mr. Hill was elected one of the directors, his associates being Richard H. Ayer, Samuel D. Berry, Mace Moulton, Stephen B. Green, John S. Kidder and Stephen Manahan. When this bank was merged into the Amoskeag National Bank, 1864, he was elected director in the new institution, a position he held to the day of his death. This fact is an excellent criterion of the financial standing and integrity of Mr. Hill.
After Mr. Hill's removal to Concord he was chosen state treasurer, an office he held during the years 1850,
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1851 and 1852. In 1853 the State Capital bank was organized and Mr. Hill was selected as its first cashier, a position he filled with eminent satisfaction to the officials for many years following. During his resi- dence at Concord he served in the board of aldermen and as a councillor, but his connection with the bank pre- cluded the active connection with political life which he had previously maintained.
In 1867 he returned to Manchester and bought the house on the corner of Walnut and Concord streets, in which he ever after lived and where he died. Here he passed his declining years in the enjoyment of a mu- nificence that careful business management, shrewd finan- cial foresight and years of industry and strictest integrity had enabled him to accumulate. Three years after the removal to Manchester he was returned to the State Legislature from his ward, and in 1876 he was one of the electors on Tilden and Hendricks' ticket from the state. This was the last political position of prominence for which Mr. Hill was nominated. His business inter- . ests monopolized his attention from this time on. Among other positions of trust which he held during his second residence in the city of Manchester may be named that of director in the Concord railroad, director in the Amoskeag bank, trustee in the Amoskeag and People's Savings banks. During his lifetime he was associated with the late Austin Corbin, the eminent banker and prominent also in his day as president of the great Read- ing railroad system. Another well-known public man with whom he maintained a lifelong acquaintance and intimacy was the late General Benjamin F. Butler, who was a native of Deerfield. During those years when Mr. Hill held the office of town agent in Northwood, Gen- eral Butler filled the same position in his native town, and in a controversy which atose over the disposition of
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certain dependent poor in which both towns were inter- ested, Mr. Hill came off victorious. General Butler always remembered the incident and frequently alluded to it.
For many years Mr. Hill was a member of the First Baptist church of Manchester and for some time was president of the society. In 1832 he married Olive Jane, daughter of Nathaniel Durgin of Northwood. She sur- vived him but a few months, dying in 1888, leaving two children, the late Charles H. Hill and Mrs. Flora Hill Barton of this city, who at this writing (1903) is the sole survivor of the family. After the close of the na- tional political campaign of 1876, Mr. Hill gradually withdrew from his old political scenes and associations, in which he for so many years had held an honored and prominent place. During the later years of life it was his custom to pass his winters in the South, living during the summers at some of the numerous Northern seaside resorts. He met his end calmly and peacefully, as was to have been expected of such a mind. Throughout his manhood life, Mr. Hill was a strong, influential and sturdy adherent of the Democratic party and those principles which were so grandly typified in the life and character of Andrew Jackson. His long, busy and useful life will be a treasured memory of those whose good fortune it was to be included among his acquaintances.
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NATHANIEL WHITE
NATHANIEL WHITE.
Nathaniel White, the subject of this sketch, typified in his long, useful and sincere life that manhood character that was the chiefest glory of New England throughout the nineteenth century. Born in the town of Lancaster on February 7, 18II, he was the eldest son of Samuel and Sarah (Freeman) White. His childhood was passed under a mother's tender care, and to her strict religious training was he primarily indebted for that nobility of character which the temptations of youth and young manhood could not taint nor lure away. His school-day life was passed in the gleaning of such knowl- edge as the schools of his native town afforded, in those earlier years of the nineteenth century. At the age of fourteen years he left his native Lancaster to enter the employ of a merchant in Lunenburg, Vermont, with whom he remained about one year, when he accepted an offer to enter the employ of General John Wilson of Lancaster, at that time just entered upon his career as landlord of the Columbian Hotel of Concord. In the employ of Mr. Wilson he began his Concord life at the first rung of the ladder, as it were, for he arrived in the capital city August 25, 1826, with but a single shilling in his pocket. For five years he continued at the Colonial Hotel, and in these remaining five years of his teens it was his custom to render a strict account of his wages to his parents, but the dimes and quarters given to him as favors by the hotel guests he saved as his own, and
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these savings had amounted to $250 upon the day of his majority. The young man exemplified those virtues of prudence, economy and temperance, and he entered manhood well equipped for that career in which he so distinguished himself. He never used intoxicating drinks as a beverage, nor tobacco in any form, nor did he gamble in any of the ways prevalent at the time. Busi- ness was his pleasure, and to his business he carried en- terprise, energy and determination. In 1832 he made his first business venture by purchasing a part interest in the stage route between Concord and Hanover, and dur- ing a part of this business venture he drove his own coach. This first business venture was a significant suc- cess, and soon after he bought an interest in the stage route between Concord and Lowell. In 1838 he joined with Captain William Walker and together they began the express business now grown to such large proportions in New England. At the beginning of this enterprise it was his custom to make three trips weekly to Boston, where he personally attended to the delivery of packages of goods and money or the transacting of other business intrusted to him. In 1842, the year of the opening of the Concord railroad, he became one of the original or- ganizers of the express company which was then estab- lished to deliver goods throughout New Hampshire and Canada. That company under various names has con- tinued in successful operation to the present day, and to Nathaniel White's business capacity has it been greatly indebted for its remarkable success. In 1846 Mr. White purchased a farm in the southwestern portion of the city of Concord and distance some two miles from the State House. All told, this farm included something like 400 acres of land.
For Concord he ever had a strong attachment. To his energy, skill and business discernment does the city
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owe much of her material prosperity and corporate de- velopment. In 1852, he took his first step in practical political life by accepting a nomination of the Whig and Free Soilers to represent his adopted city in the state Legislature. From the start he was an abolitionist and a member of the Anti-Slavery society from its inception. His home became the refuge of many an escaping slave, where welcome care, food and money were freely be- stowed and the refugees helped along on another stage of their journey to the land of freedom. In all works of charity and philanthropy, Mr. White was foremost and earnest. He was deeply interested and prominently identified with the New Hampshire Asylum for the In- sane and State Reform School; in the Orphans' Home in Franklin, which he liberally endowed, and the Home for the Aged at Concord was his special care. Besides his extensive interest in the express company, his farm, which had become one of the most highly cultivated in the state, his charming summer home on the borders of Lake Sunapee, and his real estate in Concord, he became extensively interested in Chicago realty; in hotel prop- erty in the mountain district; in banks, manufacturing and in shipping. He was director in the Manchester and Lawrence, Franconia and Profile House, and the Mt. Washington railways, and in the National State Cap- ital bank; a trustee of the Loan and Trust Savings bank, also of the Reform School, Home for the Aged and other private and public trusts. In 1875 he was the candidate for Governor of New Hampshire of the Prohibition party. In 1876 he was a delegate of the Cincin- nati convention which nominated Hayes for President and cast every ballot for the man of his choice. In the Garfield and Arthur campaign in 1880 his name was placed at the head of the list of the New Hampshire presidential electors.
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November 1, 1836, Mr. White married Armenia S., daughter of John Aldrich of Boscawen. This marriage proved most happy. Of Mr. White it has been said: "His history is not complete without a narration of the perfect union, complete confidence and mutual trust and assistance between he and his wife during a married life of nearly half a century." Mrs. White in this year of 1903 is still living, the subject of love and veneration by a wide circle of acquaintances and by the entire popula- tion of the city of Concord. Mr. White died October 2, 1880, having practically completed the Psalmist's al- lotted span of life. The Concord Daily Monitor under date of October 2, 1880, in commenting upon the death of Mr. White, said: "In the death of Nathaniel White this community sustains an irreparable loss. Large hearted, humane, liberal and progressive, he gave to every good work, local and state, his assistance and unstinted sup- port. Devoted to the welfare of Concord he employed his wealth for the enhancement of its prosperity. His public spirit extended throughout the state and the de- velopment of its resources. A good man has gone to his reward and it can be truly said that the world is better for the part he bore in it."
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JOSEPH P. CHATEL
JOSEPH P. CHATEL.
Conspicuous among the residents of New Hampshire who are of French-Canadian birth or descent is Joseph P. Chatel of Manchester. He was born in the town of Stuckley, Province of Quebec, January 14, 1854, the son of Prosper and Leibaire Chatel. When the son was eight years old the family removed to Biddeford, Maine. In 1868 the son went, alone of the family, to Manchester and obtained employment in the Manchester mills, and remained at this work for six months, subsequently returning to Biddeford, and living there until 1870. His father having died in the meantime the family decided to locate permanently in Manchester, which city since that year, 1870, has been its home.
Young Chatel upon his second arrival in Manchester re-entered one of the city's mills, remaining therein for some two years. Alert to the opportunities of life in Manchester and ambitious to better his circumstances, he left the factory and served an apprenticeship to the barber's trade, and shortly after its close established a business of his own and conducted the same for some eighteen years with a never varying success.
Having accumulated a handsome property Mr. Chatel gave up his original business and uniting with a friend embarked in the grocery business, also in Manchester. After a while financial disaster overtook this venture, ending in its complete windup. On his retirement from the grocery business he found himself encumbered with
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an indebtedness, which with its interest accumulation eventually amounted to some $3,400. He went to work as a travelling salesman for a Boston house and con- tinued as such for two years. Not the least discouraged by his ill-fated venture in the grocery trade, he lost no opportunity to enlarge his business acquaintanceship and to gain friends. At the close of his two years as a salesman he again started in business for himself, open- ing a wine store on Manchester street in 1894. This business has proved from its inception a decided success. In the years since its inception Mr. Chatel has paid every dollar with interest simple and compound, incurred while operating his grocery store. His trade relations reach into all parts of New Hampshire and each year has brought an increased list of patrons. Possessing to a marked degree business qualifications that keep him abreast of the times he is found aiding at all times enterprises designed to augment the business and mate- rial well-being of the city, and for these and other good qualities he is esteemed by all.
In 1898 Mr. Chatel was put forward as the Demo- cratic candidate for senator in the Eighteenth District, was elected by a majority of 344 over a strong opposi- tion candidate, and in January, 1899, took his seat in the Senate Chamber at Concord, being the first citizen of French Canadian birth to hold the position of senator in New Hampshire, and, it is believed, in the United States. While Mr. Chatel has always taken a deep interest in the welfare of the great body of his countrymen, who, like himself, have become American citizens, he has, in the larger and broader view, been actively interested in all that concerned the progress and prosperity of his city and state. In all his private and social relations, he is genial, generous and a firm friend. Business success has in no way changed him in his attitude toward
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others, and in return he enjoys a well-earned popularity such as is rarely attained in any condition in life.
Mr. Chatel is a member of the Foresters and at this present writing (1903) is the president of the St. John Baptist society of Manchester.
He was married in 1873 to Miss Hedwige Brien of Manchester. They have four living children, two sons and two daughters. The eldest son, Alfred V., is a graduate of a Montreal commercial college, while the second son, Louis A., is a Junior in St. Anselm college, Manchester. The elder daughter, Edwige, is a graduate of Jesus and Mary convent, Manchester, while the second daughter, Anna Josephine, is a pupil in Notre Dame academy.
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GEORGE M. CLOUGH.
George M. Clough was born in Warner, N. H., May 28, 1863. His parents were Julia A. (Edmunds) and Joseph A. Clough. One of his ancestors on the paternal side served in the Revolutionary war and another in the War of 1812.
Having been born on a farm and his father devoting much time to carpentry, gave to the young man many advantages not afforded in the busy city life. He early became acquainted with the art of training steers, caring for sheep, holding the plow and mowing, as well as making friends with the circular saw and turning lathe. He attended the "district school" in his locality, when in session, and the "village school" in winter. Soon after entering the Simonds Free High school he became inter- ested in land surveying and pursued the study and prac- tised some years. His high school training was supple- mented by private instruction.
When eighteen years old he began teaching school in his native town, continuing for two years. Webster next secured him for a term, and then he went to Canterbury, remaining two years. At this time he was offered several positions but selected the principalship of the Union school in Tilton, N. H., where he remained for two years.
Mr. Clough has always been interested in schools and is now president of the Simonds Free High School Association (incorporated), of Warner, N. H., the
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objects of which are to broaden the school's influence and aid in its development. He is president of the Somerville Sons & Daughters of New Hampshire, which has a large membership and is doing much to turn the attention of her native sons and daughters back to their early homes. He is a charter member of the New Hampshire Exchange Club, recently organized in Boston, Mass.
In 1888 Mr. Clough decided to discontinue teaching and enter the field of life insurance. After months of careful study he became connected with the Boston office of The Penn Mutual Life Insurance Company, of Philadelphia, with which company he still remains.
He married Anna G. Gale, of Canterbury, N. H., who passed away in February, 1903, being survived by three children, Gertrude G., Portia E. and Maurice.
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MRS. MARY F. BERRY.
The pages of New Hampshire history contain nothing of deeper interest, neither records more brilliantly il- lumined than those which narrate the part which the women have taken in the upbuilding of the state, from the first to the present year of its political existence. To make society and the state stronger and more progressive by means of a more highly developed humanity has ever been the especial field of effort in which these women, the devoted, loyal, God-fearing "Ruths" of New Hampshire, have gleaned and toiled for the common store.
Intellectual power and attainment, with religion as its basis and source of supply, has been the self-chosen goal for which the women of the state in all the generations have striven. There is no form or phase of intellectual activity in which they have not engaged, and that with signal success.
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