USA > New Hampshire > Cheshire County > Fitzwilliam > The history of Fitzwilliam, New Hampshire, from 1752-1887 > Part 35
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Dr. WARREN PARTRIDGE came from Templeton, Mass., in 1828. His wife was Amoret Potter. About 1832 Dr. Part- ridge removed to Princeton, Mass., where he died many years since.
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HISTORY OF FITZWILLIAM.
Dr. THOMAS HASTINGS MARSHALL, a native of Jaffrey, com- meneed medical practice in Fitzwilliam in 1835. He had been educated in the common schools of Jaffrey, and in Appleton Academy at New Ipswich, and commenced the study of medi- eine with Dr. Luke Howe, of his native town. Later he at- tended medical lectures at Bowdoin College and at Harvard University, and graduated from the medical department of Dartmouth College in 1835.
In 1837 he removed to Mason Village, now Greenville, N. H., and was a successful practitioner there till the time of his death, December 16th, 1872, at the age of sixty-six years. Dr. Marshall was a member of both branches of the State Leg- islature. He was born December 2d, 1806, and his wife was Abigail S. Hawkes, of Templeton, Mass.
Dr. GIDEON C. NOBLE was born June 6th, 1803, and received the degree of M. D. in 1829. In 1830 he was in practice in Yarmouth, Mass. In 1831 he married Nancy S. Perkins, of Fitzwilliam, and removed to Chester, Warren County, N. Y. Coming to Fitzwilliam in 1832 he formed a partnership with Mr. Daniel Spaulding in conducting a store, and a little later, retiring from the mercantile business, he opened a druggist's store where now is the business establishment of Messrs. P. S. & S. Batcheller. For five years, from 1837, he was post- master, and at the time of his appointment removed the post- office to his drug-store, where it has been kept ever since, with the exception of about five years. In 1842 Dr. Noble re- moved to Fitchburg, Mass., where he was both druggist and physician. In 1844 he went to Harvard, Mass., and in 1868 to Hudson, Mass., and again in 1871 to Waltham in the same State. The confinement of his business and professional life affected his health so seriously that after 1844 he devoted himself chiefly to agriculture, and died September 6th, 1879.
Dr. LUKE MILLER, a native of Peterborough, and student in the office of Dr. Albert Smith of that town, was in practice for a time in Ashby, Mass., then in Troy, and later in Win- chendon, Mass., from which place he came to Fitzwilliam in 1854, when he entered into a partnership with Dr. Silas Cum-
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FITZWILLIAM PHYSICIANS.
mings. In 1857 he removed to Chatfield, Minn. Ilis wife was Abbey Ann Lovell.
Dr. JAMES BATCHELLER was a native of Royalston, and estab- lished himself as a physician in the neighboring town of Marl- borough in 1818. His practice in that place covered a period of thirty-seven years, and during those years he gained an en- viable reputation both in his profession and as a citizen of strong impulses in favor of human liberty, the temperance cause, and general good order and uprightness. As a physician he ranked high in all the region, and was for some time the President of the New Hampshire Medical Society. Dr. Batcheller was also a representative and senator in the General Court, a councillor, and a delegate to the Convention to Re- vise the State Constitution in 1850-51. In 1855 he removed to Fitzwilliam, where his abilities were well known, and though he did not seek practice in this town his business was large for a number of years, or till failing health led to his retire- ment. He died here, April 14th, 1866, aged eighty-three.
Dr. EDWARD AIKEN came to Fitzwilliam and commenced practice February 1st, 1861. He is the son of Silas Aiken, D.D., and Mary (Osgood) Aiken, and was born in Amherst, N. IL., April 10th, 1830. His father becoming pastor of Park Street Church, Boston, he was in the Adams grammar and publie Latin schools, and graduated from each with a Franklin medal. In 1851 he graduated from Dartmouth Col- lege, and from Andover Theological Seminary in 1855, having been previously appointed a missionary of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. He sailed for the East soon after and landed at Beirut. His wife, Susan Dougherty Cole, of Rutland, Vt., died, in 1856, at HIoms. Later, he married, July, 1857, Miss Sarah Cheney, formerly of Phillipston, Mass., but at that time at the head of the Mis- sion Female Seminary at Abeih, Syria. Rev. Mr. Aiken's health failing he returned to America in 1858 and commenced the study of medicine with Dr. Stephen Tracy, of Andover, Mass. He attended medical lectures at Harvard and Yale colleges, and graduated at the latter in 1861. Dr. Aiken was in Fitzwilliam during the Civil War, and returned to his native
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HISTORY OF FITZWILLIAM.
place, Amherst, in 1865. While here, at the request of the Syrian Mission, he edited the first complete Arabic atlas ever issued for the use of the large population speaking that language.
In 1864 he was appointed Professor of Materia Medica and Therapeutics in the New England Female Medical College, a position which he held for eight years, till this college was absorbed by the Boston University.
Dr. AARON R. GLEASON was born at Warren, Vt., June 1st, 1835, and is the son of Windsor and Sophia (Clark) Gleason, both born in Langdon, N. H. Dr. Gleason commenced teach- ing at the age of nineteen years, but in 1857 he engaged in the study of medicine with Dr. K. D. Webster, of Gilsom, and then was a student in the office of Dr. George B. Twitchell, of Keene, for two years. Later he attended medical lectures in Burlington, Vt., in Washington, D. C., and at the College of Physicians and Surgeons, New York City, graduating in 1864. September 9th, 1861, he enlisted in the Second Regi- ment New Hampshire Volunteers, and served with it two years as hospital attendant, was then transferred to Campbell General Hospital in Washington, D. C., as medical cadet. Receiving soon a commission as assistant surgeon he was on duty in that hospital till the close of the war. Dr. Gleason was also commissioned as assistant surgeon of the Fourteenth Regiment New Hampshire Volunteers, but did not accept that office. Was in the service four years.
He came to Fitzwilliam January 13th, 1866, and after a suc- cessful practice of over twenty years removed to Keene in the fall of 1886. He married, January 19th, 1869, Miss Etta E. Webster, only child of the Dr. Webster with whom he com- menced his medical studies. Soon after he came to Fitzwill- jam he was elected a member of the School Committee, and was either superintendent or an active member of the Superintending Board more than fifteen years. In 1881 he represented this town in the State Legislature, and since the changes which resulted in the establishment of the Fitzwilliam Free Town Library, he was one of its supervisors. Dur- ing the winter of 1885-86 Dr. Gleason attended a post-gradu- ate course of lectures in New York.
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CLASS II. - LAWYERS.
Several other physicians have practised in town for longer or shorter periods of time, among whom may be named E. C. Pomeroy, E. Proctor Pierce, E. E. Jocelyn, and Edwin G. Annable.
The clergymen belonging in this class are noticed in the ceclesiastical history of the town.
CLASS II.
WILLIAM PENNIMAN. who resided in Fitzwilliam during a part of his early life, was a native of Peterborough, N. II. Soon after attaining his majority he removed to Ontario County, N. Y., where he was a farmer. For many years he was a distinguished school-teacher, and held the offices of School Commissioner and Inspector and Superintendent of Schools where he resided. He was also Judge of the Court of Com- mon Pleas for Orleans County, N. Y., and represented that county in the Convention to Revise the State Constitution. In his official, social, and business life he was highly respected ..
GEORGE EDWIN BRYANT was a lawyer in Fitzwilliam for a lit- tle time, but removed to Wisconsin, where he became a judge. He was a native of Templeton, Mass., and had hardly entered upon the duties of his profession here before he left for the West.
WILLIAM L. FOSTER was born in Westminster, Vt., June 1st, 1823. His grandfather was Rev. Edmund Foster, a promi- nent clergyman residing in Littleton, Mass., and a State sena- tor. His grandmother was Phebe Lawrence, of the John Lawrence family, of Charlestown, Mass. John Foster, the ninth of thirteen children of this family, lived in Westminster, \'t., before removing to Fitzwilliam in 1825 or 1826. ITis wife was Sophia Willard. In 1834 John Foster removed to Keene, where he died in 1854. While residing there he was Sheriff of Cheshire County for several years. The boyhood of Judge Foster was therefore passed in Fitzwilliam, and from its com- mon schools he went to academies in Hancock, Keene, and Walpole. After a year at Cambridge Law School he entered the office of Levi Chamberlain in Keene, and was admitted to the bar in 1844. In 1847 he was appointed one of Governor
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HISTORY OF FITZWILLIAM.
Dinsmore's aides with the rank of colonel. From 1850 to 1854 he was Official Reporter of the Decisions of the State Courts.
Removing from Keene to Concord, March, 1853, he was appointed United States Commissioner, but after nine years' service he resigned to enter the State Legislature, in which he served for two years. In 1869 he was appointed one of the Judges of the Supreme Judicial Court, which office he held for five years, when he became Chief Justice of the Circuit Court. This last-mentioned court having been abolished in 1876 Judge Foster was appointed a Judge of the Supreme Court, which office he resigned in 1881 and resumed the practice of law, in which he is now engaged. In 1883 he was reappointed United States Commissioner.
January 13th, 1853, Judge Foster was married to Miss Har- riett M. Perkins, of Hopkinton, N. H. His four children living are Elizabeth B., born May 23d, 1857, Mary B., born November 27th, 1859, married in 1881 to Lieutenant William A. Marshall, U. S. N., William II., born August 27th, 1862, a teacher in St. Paul's School, Concord, N. H., and Roger E., born September 13th, 1868.
WILLIAM R. BROWN resided in Fitzwilliam a number of years, and is a son of Rev. J. S. Brown, who was the minister of the Unitarian congregation of this place from 1844 to 1854. The subject of this sketch was born in Buffalo, N. Y., July 16th, 1840, graduated at Union College, Schenectady, N. Y., in 1862, studied law and was admitted to the bar in 1864. Removing to Kansas he was elected Judge of the Ninth Judicial District of that State in 1867, and re-elected in 1872. Later he was chosen a member of the Forty-fourth Congress from Kansas, receiving nearly five thousand majority votes over his competitor.
CHARLES H. WOODS, son of Rev. John Woods, was born in Newport, N. H., October Sth, 1836, and was educated at Kimball Union Academy, Meriden, N. H., and Williams Col- lege. He studied law in Lowell, Mass., and Newport, N. H., and resided in Fitzwilliam from 1854 to 1865. Was in the army as Captain of Company F, Sixteenth Regiment New
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CLASS II. CONTINUED-CLASS III.
Hampshire Volunteers, from September, 1862, to September, 1863, and held a Government clerkship at Washington, D. C., in 1864 and 1865. In 1866 Mr. Woods removed to Minne- apolis, Minn., and has been in successful practice as a lawyer there till the present time, being a member of the law firm Woods & Hahn, the junior partner being the Attorney-Gen- eral of Minnesota.
Mr. Woods was married, September 22d, 1862, to Miss Carrie C. Rice, of Brookfield, Vt.
LEWIS M. NORTON, who passed not a little of his youth in Fitzwilliam, was born at Athol, Mass., December 26th, 1855. He is the son and only child of Rev. John F. and Ann Maria (Mann) Norton, and received his early education at home, in the public schools of Athol and Fitzwilliam, and in the High School of Keene. From the latter he entered the Massachu- setts Institute of Technology at Boston, and in 1876 and 1877 was an Assistant-Instructor in the Department of Analytical Chemistry in that institution. In 1878 and 1879 he pursued the study of chemistry in the universities of Berlin and Göttingen, Germany, and was honored by the latter with the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, obtained through examina- tions. Later he pursued his favorite studies in Paris, and after his return to America became, January 1st, 1880, the chemist of the Amoskeag Manufacturing Co., Manchester, N. H. Two years and a half later he returned to the Massa- chusetts Institute of Technology, where he holds the position of Professor of Organic and Industrial Chemistry.
June 6th, 1883, he was married to Mary Alice Peloubet, a graduate of Smith College, and daughter of Rev. F. N. Peloubet, D.D., of Natick, Mass. They have a daughter Margaret, born June 18th, 1884, and a son, John F., born June 23d, 1885. Professor Norton resides at Auburndale, Mass.
CLASS III.
AMOS ANDREW PARKER is a native of Fitzwilliam, and son of Judge Nahum Parker. Until fifteen years of age he at- tended the schools of his native town and worked upon his father's farm. Then, fitting for college, he graduated at the
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HISTORY OF FITZWILLIAM.
University of Vermont in 1813, standing No. 2 in his class. A year later we find him a tutor in the family of a planter in Fredericksburg, Va., where he remained for three years. Mr. Parker then commenced the study of law with James Wilson, Sr., Esq., of Keene, and completing his course in the office of Levi Chamberlain, Esq., then of Fitzwilliam, he was admitted to the bar in 1821. Soon after he commenced the practice of his profession in Epping, N. H., from which place, after about two years, he removed to Coneord as editor of the New Hampshire Statesman. Later he was a lawyer in Exeter and Kingston, N. H., and returned from the latter place to his native town about 1837. While residing in Concord he went to Boston as one of the aides of Governor Morrill, to in- vite Lafayette to visit New Hampshire. This was in 1825, and a year later he took the same journey to escort that distin- guished French soldier and statesman to this State.
The equipage consisted of a barouche, an elegant stage- coach, each drawn by four horses, and a two-horse carriage for baggage.
While residing in Exeter Mr. Parker made a long excursion Westward, and published on his return a valuable book (which was one of the first of its kind) entitled " A Trip to the West and Texas." Here in his native town after 1837 he held nearly every office in the gift of the people, and took a very active part in the measures adopted to suppress the Rebellion and to purchase and fit up the Town Hall, and the rooms for town purposes. He was also a member of the committee of three that funded the town debt.
After his retirement from active professional life he pub- lished a work entitled " Recollections of Lafayette," and one or more volumes of poems.
Since his third marriage he has resided in Glastenbury, and in Parkville, Hartford, Conn.
Dr. AMASA SCOTT was a native of Fitzwilliam, and practised medicine in this place for a number of years, but seems to have been more generally known as a trader, first as a partner of Dr. Benjamin Bemis, under the firm Bemis & Scott, and later as Amasa Scott & Co.
439
DR. SILAS CUMMINGS.
Dr. Scott died of consumption, May 16th, 1821, aged thirty-eight years.
Dr. SILAS CUMMINGS, of whose interest in and labor for this history a particular account is given in the preface of this volime, was born in Fitzwilliam, October 7th, 1893, and died in this place, June 30th, 1882, at the age of seventy-nine years. He was the son of Thaddeus and Anna (Collins) Cummings. and from the brief and incidental allusions to his early life, found in various notes and statements relative to other families and individuals which he put upon paper in the hurry of his profession, we infer that during his youth he cultivated the soil and performed all the other kinds of hard work incident to a farmer's business. In his early manliood he appears to have been remarkably strong and athletic, for he alhides to the fact of doing nearly two days' work in one during the haying and harvest seasons. In his childhood and youth Dr. Cum- mings thirsted for knowledge, and improved every opportu- nity that offered to fit himself for his chosen profession.
In 1827 he graduated from the medical department of Dart- mouth College, and appears to have entered at once upon the practice in his native town, which he never relinquished till his death, and which covered the long period of fifty-five years. Dr. Cummings is said to have visited, in his profes- sional duties in Fitzwilliam, not only the third and fourth generations of his patrons, but in some instances the fifth also, while at times his business in some of the adjoining towns was quite large. His health was remarkable, and for a long course of years he would read while riding, or listen to the reading of some one who accompanied him, that he might keep abreast of the times and be familiar especially with all new discoveries in the healing art.
The schools of his native town had a warm and earnest friend and advocate in Dr. Cummings, and for many years he either superintended them or was an active member of the superintending board. All the valuable public enterprises of Fitzwilliam had in him a hearty supporter, and whether he was participating in the work of the Fitzwilliam Common School Association, in movements to promote temperance and
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HISTORY OF FITZWILLIAM.
good morals, or in the debates of the Farmers' and Mechanics' Club, he was always found at the front, ready to do his part and much more if need be. For more than six years, from March 27th, 1855, he held the office of postmaster, and in 1874 represented Fitzwilliam in the State Legislature.
The funeral of Dr. Cummings took place in the Town Hall, July 2d, 1882, in the presence of one of the largest assemblies ever convened in Fitzwilliam.
CLASS IV.
LUTHER WAITE was a native of Fitzwilliam, and a brother of Asa Waite, who built the house lately owned by Deacon Dex- ter Collins. Mr. Waite graduated at the University of Ver- mont in 1811, studied law and removed to Sandy Hill, N. Y., where he was a lawyer of considerable note, and rose to the position of a judge. Mr. Waite is not living, but is repre- sented as a man of good education and of fine abilities. Rev. Mr. Sabin described him in 1842 as one that " has been or is a Judge of a Court in the State of New York, and from the same State has been a member of the House of Representa- tives in Congress of the United States."
Hon. EDWARD C. REED, a native of Fitzwilliam, was born March 8th, 1793. He was a son of Phineas Reed, and unele of our townsman, Daniel H. Reed. A graduate of Dart- mouth College in 1812, he studied law in Troy, N. Y., and later served for a few months in the army under Governor Marcy, during the War of 1812-14, and his regiment was en- camped for a time on the ground just back of the Astor House, New York, when that crowded and busy part of the city was nothing but a pasture.
Mr. Reed settled as a lawyer in the flourishing village of Homer, N. Y., where he resided for more than half a cell- tury, closely identified with all its interests. A flourishing academy (the Cortland Academy) was founded in that place in 1819, and Mr. Reed was one of its twenty-four trustees, and their secretary till 1870. In 1820 he married Miss Amanda Weller, a native of Pittsfield, Mass., and bought the place in Homer which was the homestead of the family for fifty years.
Edward Reed
441
HON. EDWARD C. REED.
His five children were born in that home. In 1830 Mr. Reed was admitted to the Court of Chancery, and during the same year was elected to the Twenty-second Congress, serving under General Jackson's administration. He also filled the office of district attorney for a number of years. As a lawyer he avoided litigation as far as possible, and in this way saved his clients often from heavy expenses.
A stanch Democrat always, he was, during the Rebellion, a War Democrat, but east his last Presidential vote for General Garfield. Courtly in his manners, patient and faithful in his profession, active from 1833 in the Christian Church, and the beloved teacher of a large class of young men in the Sabbath- school, few men in the region had more influence. The last ten years of his life were spent with his children in Ithaca, N. Y., where he died, May 1st, 1883. His remains were in- terred in Homer. For many years Mr. Reed made tri-daily observations of the weather for the Smithsonian Institution at Washington.
It should be added that the title of "Judge," by which Mr. Reed was often if not generally known, came from the fact that he was one of the associate judges of the Court of Common Pleas, of Cortland County, N. Y., from 1836 to 1840.
The Court of Chancery, to which he was admitted as a practitioner, was a court of general equity jurisdiction which ceased to exist in 1846, when the cases of which it had taken cognizanee were transferred to the Supreme Court. Solicitors in the Court of Chancery were required to pass a special ex- amination. Mr. Reed was solicitor and attorney as well as counsellor in both the Chancery and Supreme Courts. Few acquired a better reputation for fidelity and efficiency, while in the court-room, as everywhere else, he was a model of courteous deportment.
C. FREDERIC WEBSTER, a lawyer in Keene, is a native of Fitz- william, but removed from this place not far from 1840. During the Civil War he was for a time in the army and held the office of Quartermaster Fourteenth Regiment, New Hamp- shire Volunteers.
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HISTORY OF FITZWILLIAM.
CLERGYMEN.
Sketches of the pastors and ministers of the churches in this town, who were born elsewhere, will be found in the chapter entitled Ecclesiastical History.
CALVIN WAITE, a Congregationalist, and son of Asa and Zer- viah (Smith) Waite, was born January 4th, 1785. Graduated at Dartmouth College in 1811, and studied theology with Dr. Asa Burton, of Thetford, Vt. He preached for a time in Connecticut and Maine, and was ordained pastor in Auburn, N. Y. Later he preached in Sheldon, N. Y., in 1829, and two years later in Middlebury, N. Y. Ile died in Western New York. In 1816 Yale College conferred upon him the degree of A. M. He married, but nothing has been learned respecting his family.
JOHN WOODS was a Congregationalist and was born in Fitz- william, September 29th, 1785. After graduating at Williams College in 1812 he studied theology with Dr. Seth Payson, of Rindge. His first pastorate was in Warner, N. H., where he was ordained, June 22d, 1814. After nine years' service at Warner he became pastor in Newport, N. II., where he re- mained thirty years, the last two years without pastoral charge .* In 1854 he returned to his native town, Fitzwilliam, where he was acting pastor of the orthodox church for six years. He died here, March 4th, 1861, at the age of seventy- five years. He was thrice married. His widow, who survived him, was Mrs. Joanna Stevens, of Nashua, N. H., who now resides with his son, Charles H. Woods, Esq., of Minneapolis, Minn.
LUTHER TOWNSEND, a Congregationalist, was the son of Aaron and Sylvene (Davidson) Townsend, and was born in Fitzwilliam, August 12th, 1813. He graduated at Dartmouth College in 1839, and from Andover Theological Seminary in 1842. Mr. Townsend was ordained as pastor at Troy, N. H., March 5th, 1845, where he remained for fifteen years. After this he resided a little more than a year in Fitzwilliam in fee-
* A sermon preached at the organization of a Moral Society by Mr. Woods, at Warner, N. II., was published in 1815. Also a sermon preached by him at the funeral of Phineas Chapin in 1851.
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NATIVES OF FITZWILLIAM-CLERGYMEN.
ble health, and died here of consumption, February 9th, 1862, aged forty-nine years.
S. MELLEN STONE, a native of Fitzwilliam, graduated at Dartmouth in 1839, and was a pastor in Chester, Vt., in 1846.
JAMES WRIGHT STONE, A. M., was the son of James and Sally (Woods) Stone, and was born December 29th, 1815. Ile graduated at Dartmouth in 1845 and at Andover Theologi- cal Seminary in 1852. He was not ordained, but was a teacher at Nashua and Milford, N. H., and at Pepperell, Mass.
ASA PRESCOTT is a native of this town and son of Ebenezer Prescott. Fitting for college in New Ipswich Academy he entered Yale College in 1839, but his health failing he en- gaged, in 1841, in the service of the American Tract Society of New York as a colporteur, and was the first person com- missioned by that society with that title.
Mr. Prescott taught a number of schools between 1836 and 1853. His wife was Tryphena F. Collins, of Fitzwilliam. With some aid from their native town, Mr. and Mrs. Prescott opened the first Protestant schools in Davenport, Ia.
Licensed to preach as a Congregationalist, his first pastorate was in Annawan, Henry County, Ill. In 1858 he united with the Baptist denomination, and since that date has had charge of five Baptist churches. He has labored also among the Freedmen of Virginia and North Carolina. At the present time Mr. Prescott has no pastoral charge.
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