USA > New Hampshire > The bench and bar of New Hampshire : including biographical notices of deceased judges of the highest court, and lawyers of the province and state, and a list of names of those now living > Part 49
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Mr. Parker had a wide and interesting experience. He was a member of the legislature for thirteen sessions, and for eight years a trustee of the State Asylum for the Insane. Ten years
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he was moderator of Fitzwilliam, and other years he served his townsmen in various offices. In 1825 and 1826 he was a colonel on the staff of Governor David L. Morril, and as such escorted the Marquis de Lafayette, then the guest of the nation, from the line to the capital of the State. More than half a century after- wards, he published in a small volume an interesting account of his experience and conversations with the distinguished Frenchman. Mr. Parker had much literary facility, and was the author of one or two volumes of metrical compositions. He lived to be the oldest lawyer in the State, and the oldest college graduate in the country, and was highly respected for his useful and estimable character.
He was three times married ; first, in 1822, to Miranda W., daughter of Rev. Daniel C. Saunders, the first president of the University of Vermont ; second, in 1828, to Mary, daughter of General Michael McClary of Epsom ; and third, in 1879, to Julia E. Smith of Glastonbury, Connecticut, who became known some years ago, with her sisters, as women suffragists, and resisted taxation without representation. She is said to have translated the Bible from the original Greek and Hebrew.
By his first marriage he had three children ; by his second, four.
EDMUND PARKER.
Son of Hon. Abel and Edith (Jewett) Parker ; born, Jaffrey, February 7, 1783 ; Dartmouth College, 1803 ; admitted, 1807 ; practiced, Amherst ; died, Claremont, September 8, 1856.
Mr. Parker read law, first with Samuel Dakin of his native town, and finally with David Everett of Amherst, to whose busi- ness he succeeded. He was several years moderator of the town meetings, and was chosen representative to the state legislature eleven years, beginning with 1813 and ending with 1826. In 1824 he was elected Speaker, near the close of the fall session, to take the place of Andrew Pierce, who resigned.
In 1825 he was appointed solicitor of the county of Hills- borough, and continued in office till 1829, when he was given the commission of Judge of Probate, which he held till the latter part of the year 1835.
He stood high at the bar. He was not eloquent, but was a fair
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advocate before the jury, and always had his cases well prepared. His office practice was respectable; he was scrupulous in the amount of his fees ; he was not ambitious for business, but tena- cious of what he got.
In 1836 he removed from Amherst to accept the place of agent of the Jackson Manufacturing Company at Nashua. Here too he was elected representative in the legislature for four or five years between 1849 and 1854, and as a delegate to the constitu- tional convention of 1850. He was also for a time president of the Nashua and Lowell railroad corporation.
Judge Parker married, first, Susan, daughter of Joseph Cutter of Jaffrey, in 1812. By her he had three children, two of whom were living at his decease. His second wife was Mrs. Sarah (Leland) Boynton, daughter of Hon. Joseph Leland of Saco, Maine.
EDWARD PINKERTON PARKER.
Son of Rev. Edward L. and Mehitabel (Kimball) Parker ; born, London- derry, now Derry, April 18, 1816 ; Dartmouth College, 1836 ; practiced, Derry and Merrimac ; died, Concord, Massachusetts, April 8, 1878.
Mr. Parker was prepared for college at the Pinkerton Academy in Derry, and, after teaching in the same from 1836 to 1838, he pursued his legal studies two years in the office of Thornton Bet- ton in Derry and one year with Gilman Parker at Haverhill, Massachusetts. He opened an office in Derry in 1839, and prac- ticed law about four years ; then assumed the principalship of the Adams Female Academy in the same town until 1847. In the latter year he removed to Merrimac, to resume his profession in the office just vacated by his kinsman, James U. Parker. After six years of practice he entered into the business of manufacturing furniture, which he found more lucrative than the law.
In 1862 and the two following years he represented Merrimac in the state legislature. He subsequently removed to Concord in Massachusetts. Mr. Parker possessed good mental parts, but was somewhat self-distrustful, and not adapted to set on foot a law practice in a country neighborhood.
In 1851 he edited and supervised the publication of the "His- tory of Londonderry," a work of value which his father had pre- pared, but left at his death somewhat incomplete.
He married, March 13, 1850, Margaret J., daughter of Isaac McGaw of Merrimac.
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ELIJAH PARKER.
Son of Stephen and Mary (Morse) Parker ; born, New Ipswich, August 5, 1776 ; Dartmouth College, 1806 ; practiced, Keene ; died there, August 6, 1858.
Mr. Parker's father was an officer of the Revolution, and lost a great part of his property by the depreciation of the continental paper money. His large family of children were brought up to hard work upon the farm. Elijah, being ambitious to obtain an education, succeeded by his own efforts in accomplishing his col- lege course. He studied law with George B. Upham of Clare- mont and Foster Alexander of Keene, and established himself in the latter place.
His professional life of almost half a century was marked by diligent and useful service. He had a pretty large office business, and attended to collections and the settlement of estates, and sel- dom or never argued causes in the courts. He has been described as "a useful and influential citizen, deeply interested in the cause of education, one of the earliest champions of the temperance movement, first president of the Cheshire County Anti-Slavery Society, and always on the side of all that he thought would be for the benefit of others."
Mr. Parker, in 1814, took to wife Sally, daughter of Rev .. Aaron Hall of Keene. He left five children, one of whom, Horatio G. Parker of Boston, Massachusetts, follows the profes- sion of his father.
FREDERICK PARKER.
Son of Thomas and Margaret (Aiken) Parker ; born, Bedford, October 3, 1799 ; Dartmouth College, 1828 ; practiced, Londonderry ; died, Bangor, Maine, May 19, 1834.
Mr. Parker read for the bar, and was announced in 1832 and 1833 as a practitioner of the law in Londonderry. It is question- able, however, whether he actually engaged to any extent in legal business. In the " Alumni of Dartmouth College " he is de- scribed as a teacher. From Londonderry he went to Bangor, Maine, and spent the brief remainder of his life there.
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JAMES PARKER.
Son of Matthew Parker ; born, Litchfield, 1774 ; admitted, 1801 ; prac- ticed, Litchfield and Bedford ; died, Bedford, March 26, 1822.
This was a grandson of the Rev. Thomas Parker, the first minis- ter of Dracut, Massachusetts. Of his early education nothing has been learned. He studied law with Clifton Clagett in his native town, and probably remained in Litchfield until 1805, when he settled in Piscataquog Village in Bedford. There he passed the remainder of his life in the practice of his profession. He was a member of the state Senate in 1819.
His wife was Betsey, daughter of William Parker of Bedford, and he was the father of two children.
JAMES UNDERWOOD PARKER.
Son of Deacon Matthew and Sally (Underwood) Parker ; born, Litchfield, July 28, 1797 ; Dartmouth College, 1820 ; practiced, Litchfield and Merrimac ; died, Manchester, March, 1871.
Mr. Parker prosecuted his law studies with James Parker of Bedford, Artemas Rogers of Henniker, and Benjamin J. Gilbert of Hanover, and opened his office in his native town, but soon after removed to Merrimac. He represented that town in the legislatures of 1844 and 1845, and was a member and president of the state Senate in 1846. He returned to Litchfield in 1847. His law practice was very considerable, he was keen and indus- trious, and excelled as an advocate, meeting the ablest lawyers in his section on equal terms. In connection with his brother, Hon. Nathan Parker, he established the Manchester Bank, and was its president up to the time when it was organized under the national law. He was also the first president of the Manchester and Law- rence Railroad. .
He removed to New York in 1850, and from 1857 to 1859 was a resident of New Jersey. In the latter year he returned to New Hampshire and settled in Manchester, but never did much legal business afterwards. He had a good deal of aptitude for the management of affairs outside of his profession, and in company with a friend entered into some speculations while in New York, but they resulted unfortunately for him. As a lawyer he was
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bright, ready, and highly successful, and had he devoted himself to his calling alone, would have taken his place among the very best in the State.
His first wife was Mary Hawkins of Hanover, whom he mar- ried, February 25, 1829. After her decease he was united, in January, 1835, to Rebecca J., daughter of Deacon Augustus Lund of Merrimac, by whom he had several children.
JOHN PARKER.
Son of William and Nabby (Parker) Parker ; born, Bedford, May 7, 1803 ; practiced, Pembroke, Hooksett, and Bedford ; died, Bedford.
This gentleman, after having read law with Jonas B. Bowman of Bedford, opened an office in Pembroke as an attorney in 1832; removed the next year to Hooksett, and soon after returned to his native town, where he was announced as a lawyer from 1838 to 1840. In the "History of Bedford," issued in 1850, though he was then living in the town, he was not mentioned among the legal practitioners. It is presumed that he abandoned the profession.
He married, in 1832, Eliza, daughter of Theodore Goffe of Bedford.
NATHANIEL PARKER.
Son of Hon. William and Elizabeth (Fogg) Parker ; born, East Kingston, October 22, 1760 ; practiced, Exeter ; died there, April 2, 1812.
Mr. Parker's father settled in Exeter soon after the birth of this son, who was educated in the schools of that town. Young Parker studied in the office of his father, and was in practice in Exeter before 1790. He was a man of respectable talents and acquirements, but was probably employed more in the clerical duties of his profession than in the active conduct of suits. He possessed good, though probably not extraordinary talents, and was chosen clerk of the state Senate from 1803 to 1805, and rep- resentative in the legislature from 1805 to 1809 inclusive; and after having been deputy Secretary of State for some years, was elected Secretary in 1809.
He married, in November, 1793, Catharine, daughter of Dr. Joseph Tilton of Exeter, but left no descendants.
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SAMUEL HANDY PARKER.
Son of Samuel and Ruthy F. (Brewster) Parker ; born, Portsmouth, July 29, 1818 ; admitted, 1842 (?) ; practiced, Dover ; died, San Francisco, Cali- fornia, March 13, 1866.
Mr. Parker obtained his early education in the schools of South Berwick and Saco, Maine, and of Somersworth, where his mother at one time resided. His legal studies he pursued in the office of John P. Hale of Dover, and was admitted to the bar in Strafford County. He entered into practice in Dover, and re- mained there not far from ten years. His amiable disposition and genial manners rendered him popular, and he had a fair share of the business that usually falls to the junior practitioners. About the time of his stay in Dover, Odd-Fellowship was intro- duced into the State, and Mr. Parker became deeply interested in it, and served in several of the higher offices of the Grand Lodge.
In 1852 he emigrated to California. Establishing himself in San Francisco, for some years he devoted himself to the law with success. His zeal in behalf of Odd-Fellowship introduced him to a wide circle, and he speedily became a grand officer there. He was the projector and founder of the Odd Fellows' Library Association of San Francisco, which acquired one of the largest and most valuable collections of books in California, and was of extensive usefulness. After representing the county of San Fran- cisco in the Senate of California for a year, Mr. Parker was in 1861 appointed postmaster of the city, and administered the office two or three years, when he relinquished it to accept the position of president of the Fireman's Fund Insurance Company. That post he held to the day of his decease.
He was one of the most popular men there, and his obsequies were observed with every mark of sorrow and respect, such as had never been known in the State before. Business was sus- pended, and the various bodies of the order to which he was devoted attended his funeral with all their insignia and in great numbers.
He died unmarried.
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WILLIAM PARKER.
Son of Hon. William and Elizabeth (Grafton) Parker ; born, Portsmouth, 1731 ; Harvard College, 1751 ; died, Exeter, June 5, 1813.
Mr. Parker was educated in the schools of Portsmouth, and was prepared for his profession under the direction of his father, afterwards a distinguished Judge of the Superior Court ; he was admitted to practice as early as 1755, and established himself in Exeter.
In 1754 he was keeping a school in Kensington. Notwith- standing his magisterial training, he appears never to have over- come his natural reluctance to open his lips in public. It is alleged that he never argued a cause, and seldom even made a motion in court, during the whole time that he was at the bar. But he was a lawyer of excellent capacity and respectable learn- ing, with a good business as an attorney and a magistrate, and, withal, had a ready, sarcastic wit, which appears to have served him everywhere except in open court.
When the revolutionary movement in the State took shape, in January, 1776, Mr. Parker's father had held the office of register of Probate for nearly forty years. It was then conferred upon his son, the subject of this sketch, whose tenure of the office lasted until his decease in 1813, when he was in turn succeeded by his son, John J. Parker, who performed the duties through his life, which ended in October, 1831.
Mr. Parker received also the appointment of Judge of the Court of Common Pleas for Rockingham County, January 1, 1790, and held it till his resignation in 1807.
He was prompt and faithful in the discharge of all his official duties, and " upright, honest, and of unbending integrity." His judgment was sound, and he had improved his native powers by reading and study. He never became wealthy, nor did he desire to be so ; he earned much money and lived comfortably, without pressing those who were his debtors.
Judge Parker married a daughter of Rev. Jeremiah Fogg of Kensington, and had six children, four sons and two daughters. One of his sons, Nathaniel, pursued the profession of his father.
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ROBERT PARKER PARROTT.
Son of Hon. John F. Parrott ; born, Lee, October 5, 1804 ; West Point Military Academy, 1824 ; admitted, 1830 ; practiced, Portsmouth ; died, Cold Spring, New York, December 24, 1877.
Mr. Parrott, on quitting West Point, received an appointment in the artillery. After twelve years' army service, in which he reached the rank of captain, he resigned his commission and returned to civil life. For some years he was superintendent of the West Point Iron and Cannon Foundry, and became the inventor of the well-known "Parrott gun " and projectiles, the fruit of long study and patient experiment.
While in the army he acquainted himself with the principles of the law, and was admitted an attorney in New York, and was received as a member of the bar here in 1830, being then an officer of the garrison in Portsmouth. His practice in this State was probably very trifling.
He became the first Judge of the Court of Common Pleas in Putnam County, New York, 1844 to 1847.
DANIEL JACOB PARSONS.
Son of Josiah and Sarah (Badger) Parsons ; born, Gilmanton, April 15, 1821 ; admitted, 1842 ; practiced, Rochester ; died, Suncook, February 24, 1893.
Mr. Parsons, having completed his preliminary course of in- struction at the Gilmanton Academy, and his legal course with Ira A. Eastman of Gilmanton, settled in Rochester in 1843. He remained there in practice forty-four years, until he was disabled by an attack of paralysis in 1887. He was many years a member of the school board, and a representative in the General Court in 1850. A man of amiable character and respectable standing, his life presented few incidents for the biographer.
His wife was Ella Greenwood of Rochester. They were mar- ried in 1852.
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EDWARD PARSONS.
Son of Rev. Joseph Parsons ; born, Bradford, Massachusetts, 1747 ; Har- vard College, 1765 ; practiced, Newmarket ; died, while serving in the Revo- lutionary army, 1776.
Mr. Parsons was an attorney in Newmarket as early as 1773, and, it is believed, practiced also in Berwick, Maine, perhaps before that date. He was a delegate from Newmarket in the fourth provincial Congress in 1775, and had the honor of serving upon the committee who drafted the memorable letter to the Continental Congress which is declared by Richard Frothingham, in his "Rise of the Republic of the United States," to contain the earliest suggestion on the subject of independence, by an organized body, that he had met with.
Mr. Parsons was commissioned adjutant of the Continental regiment of Colonel Enoch Poor, probably in the early part of 1776, and died of smallpox in the same year, while in the service.
MOSES PARSONS.
Son of Rev. Moses Parsons ; born, Newbury, Massachusetts, May 13, 1744 ; Harvard College, 1765 ; practiced, Amherst, Newmarket, and Durham ; died, Haverhill, Massachusetts, 1801.
Mr. Parsons was a student at law in the office of John Sullivan of Durham. He is said to have settled in Newmarket for a time, and afterwards in Durham. In 1773 he went to Amherst, and stayed there two years. He was a delegate from that place to the third and fourth provincial Congresses, which assembled in 1775. He acted on various committees, some of them of much impor- tance. He is reported to have been of Kingston in 1775, and of Newmarket in 1778. In 1779 Moses Parsons, presumably the same, was a member of the Fire Society of Haverhill, Massachu- setts, and appears to have been practicing there as an attorney of the Supreme Judicial Court in 1787. He was evidently some- thing of a bird of passage.
While in New Hampshire he was apparently intrusted with no inconsiderable share of business. The files of the courts show a respectable proportion of the writs bearing his indorsement. He
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was a man of education, and certainly did not lack mother-wit. When he was once about to return to Durham from a visit to his father, the latter gave him some seasonable religious advice. " That reminds me," replied the son, rather irreverently, " of my mortality. I have one request to make: If I die at Durham, don't bury me there." His father answered that it was of little consequence where the body was deposited, if the soul was prop- erly fitted for the other world. "True," responded his son, " but the people of Durham are so uncivilized and quarrelsome that I should be ashamed to be seen rising in their company at the last day."
Mr. Parsons's wife was Sarah Davenport, and they had one child, a daughter.
WILLIAM COLCORD PATTEN.
Son of Colcord and Maria (Fletcher) Patten ; born, Kingston, c. 1820 ; practiced, Kingston ; died there, January 5, 1873.
Mr. Patten received his education at the academy in Kingston, and learned, and for fifteen years carried on, the trade of a wheel- wright. He was popular and ambitious, and, receiving the com- mission of justice of the peace, and having much facility in the drawing of deeds and contracts, he became the magistrate and practically the conveyancer of his town. The statute of the State allowed him easy access to the courts as an attorney, and he subsequently applied himself to the study of the law, so that he was admitted to the bar.
He was a representative in the legislature from 1855 to 1858, and in 1872; a state senator in 1861 and 1862, and a member of the Executive Council in 1867 and 1868. In 1871 Dartmouth College gave him the honorary degree of A. M. He was a fluent, ready man, with much executive force, and made the utmost of his powers and his position.
His first wife was Laura Prescott of Kingston ; his second was Sarah Wier of Kensington. He had no children.
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WILLIAM ROBIE PATTEN.
Son of Deacon Francis and Rebecca (Knight) Patten ; born, Candia, August 30, 1837 ; Dartmouth College, 1861 ; admitted, 1867 ; practiced, Manchester ; died, Concord, May 5, 1886.
Mr. Patten was fitted for college at the academies in Thetford, Vermont, and in Pembroke ; and, after his graduation from col- lege was employed for a year in teaching in Chester. He then entered the military service as captain of Company I in the Eleventh New Hampshire Volunteers, and served with credit, retiring in April, 1864. He studied law in the office of David Cross in Manchester, and afterwards established himself in prac- tice in that city. He was quite successful as a lawyer, and showed much readiness and power as an advocate and as a political speaker. In 1866 and 1867 he was assistant clerk, and the two following years clerk, of the New Hampshire House of Represen- tatives ; in 1870 and 1871 assistant assessor of internal revenue ; from 1879 to 1883 city solicitor, and a prominent representative in the legislature.
Captain Patten took great interest in the organization of the Grand Army of the Republic, and served for some years as one of its officers.
More than a year before his decease he was seized with symp- toms of mental aberration, having its origin, probably, in his experiences in the army, and it was found necessary to seclude him in the Asylum for the Insane at Concord. There he re- mained until his death.
ISAAC PATTERSON. .
Son of Captain Isaac and Elizabeth (Wadsworth) Patterson ; born, Pier- mont, January 28, 1792 ; Dartmouth College, 1812 ; practiced Lyme and Bath ; died, Piermont, January 14, 1882.
To Mr. Patterson the writer of these sketches is indebted for much information respecting the earlier members of the bar in the northern counties. Notwithstanding the weight of nearly ninety years, the little old gentleman was alert and lively, his memory unimpaired, and his sense of humor as keen as it was in his palmiest days. He struck off men's peculiarities in phrases
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that cling to the memory, they were so odd and so suggestive. One lawyer he described as "a feeble brother ;" another, who prided himself on the number of actions he entered in court, he said " would sue his grandmother, to add to the list ; " and of a third, whose wits were apt to go wool-gathering, he said " he would walk right over a cow, if she happened to be in his way ! "
In the little that he said about himself, it appeared that he had thought of reading law in the city of New York, and made application at the office of the celebrated Aaron Burr, whom he described as appearing like " a little old Frenchman, very polite," and at that of Thomas Addis Emmett ; but at length concluded to study with John Russell of Troy, New York, and Joseph Bell of Haverhill. Mr. Emmett's custom was to require from each student a tuition fee of two hundred and fifty dollars ; and Mr. Bell's the same.
In 1817 Mr. Patterson established himself in practice at Lyme, but removed in less than two years to Bath, where he formed a copartnership in business with Moses P. Payson, for a year. As Mr. Patterson expressed it, " Payson had got tired of practicing ; I did the work and we divided the profits." He was not distin- guished as an advocate, and made no great figure in the courts ; he was a quiet, industrious, faithful practitioner, confining his labors mostly to office business. He held many town offices ; for ten years he was a member of the board of selectmen ; in 1831, 1833, and 1834 he was a representative in the legislature; and from 1849 he was the town clerk for a continuous period of about thirty years.
This last office he was peculiarly well fitted for by his legal knowledge, his habits of accuracy, and his neat and elegant hand- writing. On one occasion, a brother lawyer, being about to be married, called on town clerk Patterson for the usual certificate of publication, which was duly furnished, executed in his custom- ary style of exactness and calligraphy. Upon the return of the newly wedded from his bridal trip, Mr. Patterson met him, and, perhaps in the expectation of receiving a compliment for his unimpeachable handiwork, inquired if the certificate of publication was found all right. "Oh, yes," replied the benedict. "Was Mr. - ," pursued Patterson (naming a well-known legal marti- net), "at the wedding?" "No, he was out of town." "That was lucky," returned the veteran; "for if he had been there he
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might have taken exceptions to the certificate, and carried it up to the Superior Court !"
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