Genealogical and family history of the state of Vermont; a record of the achievements of her people in the making of a commonwealth and the founding of a nation, Vol II, Part 2

Author: Carleton, Hiram, 1838- ed
Publication date: 1903
Publisher: New York, Chicago, The Lewis Publishing Company
Number of Pages: 1044

USA > Vermont > Genealogical and family history of the state of Vermont; a record of the achievements of her people in the making of a commonwealth and the founding of a nation, Vol II > Part 2

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On the 7th of January, 1889, Mr. Fifield was appointed, by Governor E. C. Smith, United States senator, to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Senator Justin S. Morrill. It is an of- fice very rarely declined, and no one doubts that Mr. Fifield would have filled it with high ability if he had chosen to accept it; but Mrs. Fifield was at the time approaching the fatal end of a protracted illness, and on account of her critical condition, Mr. Fifield declined the appointment. She died on the following March, and he imme- diately severed his connection with the Central Vermont Railroad and relinquished all profes- sional and public engagements. His own health, much impaired at that time, has since become fully restored to its pristine vigor. For thirty years Mr. and Mrs. Fifield resided in their hand- some residence on State street, and during that period dispensed a graceful and generous hospi- tality, not merely among their neighbors, but also among their numerous friends and acquaintances from abroad. Their home life was a model of domestic felicity and elegance. Mrs. Fifield was refined and accomplished in her manners and a great favorite wherever she was known. Mr. Fifield was scholarly and fastidious in his tastes and habits, and much devoted to his family. Since he brought his professional career to a close in April, 1899, in the pleasant retirement of his home his leisure is spent with the books for which he has such an elegant taste, and with the friends who have become endeared to him through many years of genial companionship. He maintains,

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however, close touch with the affairs of the day, and exercises a quiet but potent influence in the affairs of the community and in the ranks of his profession.

It was on January 4, 1865, that Mr. Fifield was married to Lucy, daughter of Erastus Hub- bard, of Montpelier, Vermont. Three daughters were born to them. The eldest, Fanny F., was born on the 27th of November, 1865. On the 26th of October, 1889, she was married to Burn- side B. Bailey, by whom she has four children, Charles Fifield, born December 4, 1890; Marion Fifield, born May 16, 1892; Franklin Fifield, born March 6, 1897 ; and Lucy Fifield, born April 10, 1903. The second daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Fifield, Arabella B., was born February 14, 1870. She became the wife of Julius F. Workum on the 17th day of October, 1895, and they have two children, Benjamin Franklin Fifield, born Octo- ber 25, 1899, and Clara, born July 27, 1902. They reside in New York city. Ellen Lamb, the young- est daughter, was born October 20, 1875. Oc- tober 18, 1902, she married Carlisle J. Gleason, and they reside in New York city.

HON. JOHN G. MCCULLOUGH.

Hon. John Griffith McCullough, whose varied talents and accomplishments have afforded him high and equal celebrity as a lawyer, financier, man of affairs and statesman, and whose most conspicuous and useful effort has had for its field the state of Vermont, was born September 16, 1835, in the Welsh Tract, near Newark; Dela- ware, a son of Alexander and Rebecca (Grif- fith) Mccullough. His parents were of Scotch- Irish and Welsh extraction, respectively, and he inherited the best traits of both races whence he sprang.

Deprived of his father by death when he was but three years old, and of his mother when he was only seven, the lad entered upon his boy- hood with little to encourage him. But character was already forming, and he soon afforded evi- dence that he was self-confident and determined, and he found relatives and friends who, admiring his courage, industry and determination, afforded him such aid as they could bestow. He was studi- ous from his first school days, and, after exhaust- ing such opportunities as the public schools could

bring to him, he entered Delaware College, front which he was graduated with the highest honors more than a year before arriving at the age of manhood. During this period he was an indu,- trious worker, and his education was mainly acquired through the fruits of his own labors.

Predisposed to the law as a profession, short- ly after his graduation Mr. Mccullough became a student in the office of St. George Tucker Camp- bell, an eminent and perhaps the leading prac- titioner in Philadelphia, and he subsequently en- tered the law school of the University of Penn- sylvania, from which he graduated in 1859, and was admitted to the bar the same year. Well pre- pared for his profession, he had but barely en- tered upon practice (and had gained much credit in the winning of his maiden case), when he found himself apparently doomed to exclusion on acount of seriously impaired physical strength following a pulmonary attack. A change of cli- mate being an imperative necessity, he sailed for California and shortly after his arrival (in 1860) he was admitted to the bar of the state. In the same year he removed to Mariposa, where he op- ened an office, and, having somewhat recovered his health, soon drew to himself an influential and appreciative clientage. His experiences in California, however, are chiefly of interest as they relate to his political associations and activities. Almost on the instant of his coming, he found himself brought into prominence as a leader of the Unionists. Civil war was impending ; public sentiment was greatly divided, and the state seemed destined to become the scene of interne- cine strife. At an opportune moment General Edwin V. Sumner arrived, superseded Colonel Albert Sidney Johnston in command at Fort Al- catraz, and thus frustrated the schemes of the southern sympathizers to separate California from the Union. General Sumner found in young Mccullough a ready and efficient ally, whose pa- triotic spirit was thoroughly awakened, and who, taking the stump, did splendid service in unify- ing various diverse elements and bringing them to the support of the national government. He had shown qualities of leadership and displayed fine oratorical powers, and it came about that, though he was barely qualified by age limit under the state law, he was nominated for the general assembly by the united Republicans and War

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Democrats, and was triumphantly elected, in 1861, and from a district which had been hitherto steadfastly Democratic.

As a member of the legislature Mr. McCul- lough proved himself a tower of strength to the Union cause ; his patriotic sentiments found ex- pression in fervent and lofty appeals to his fel- lows and to the people of the state, and the seces- sionists writhed under his unsparing invective. In 1862 he was nominated for the state senate. The senatorial district was regarded as almost hopelessly Democratic, yet such was the admira- tion for Mr. Mccullough that it was deemed pos- sible for him to carry it. The campaign was bit- terly fought. In many election precincts the op- position to the Union was blatantly disloyal, and in one there was not a single Republican to be found. Mr. Mccullough was, however, elected. In the -senate his powers expanded, and he dis- played talent of the highest order in formulating and urging the enactment of much salutary leg- islation, while at the same time he was an ack- nowledged leader in every movement designed to aid the administration in its struggles for the preservation of the Union. His excellent service so commended him to the party, that in 1863 he was made the Republican candidate for attor- ney-general of the state, and he was elected by a splendid majority. Making his residence in the capital city, Sacramento, he was most industri- ously employed during his four years' term of office, and conducted the public business belong- ing to his department with such skill and so suc- cessfully that he was renominated in 1867. It was the day, however, of a political revolution, and his ticket was defeated, although his great ability and personal popularity enabled him to receive a larger vote than did any of his col- leagues.

In the year of his retirement from the attor- ney generalship 1867, Mr. Mccullough took up his residence in San Francisco and devoted him- self to his profession, and for five years thereafter and until his removal from the state, he was rec- ognized as one of the ablest lawyers at a bar which included men of cultured intellect and the highest ability, drawn from almost every state in the Union. From the first his practice was large and lucrative, and conducted with such scrupulous regard for ethics and honor as to com-

mand the admiration and esteem of bench, bar and client alike.

In 1871 he was married to Miss Eliza Hall Park, a lady of fine natural gifts and varied ac- complishments, a daughter of Mr. Trenor W. .Park, and a granddaughter of Hon. Hiland Hall, once governor and congressman from Vermont, and a writer and the author of the best and most accurate history of early Vermont extant. Mr. Mccullough and his bride made a tour of Eu- rope, and in 1873 removed from San Francisco to Vermont and established their home in Ben- nington, where resided Mr. Park, the father of Mrs. McCullough.

Even at that early period of his life, Mr. Mc- Cullough had acquired an ample fortune, and a person of less strength of character and less ca- pacity for work would have retired to a life of luxurious ease for its enjoyment. In the full prime of his physical powers, and with his men- tality at its best, he could not abide in idleness, nor could he suppress that laudable ambition which moves the man conscious of his powers to take part in the world's activities. And so it was that he gave himself to commercial, banking and railroad affairs, adding to his reputation, and contributing in no small degree to the prosperity of his town and state, and to the advancement of the interests of the institutions with which he has since been prominently identified. In the conduct of railroad affairs, particularly, he achieved remarkable results and won merited distinction. For eight years he was vice-presi- dent and manager of the Panama Railroad Com- pany, of which Mr. Park was president, and under their skillful management the stock of that corporation was trebled in value, rising from below par to more than three hundred dol- lars per share. After the death of Mr. Park in 1882, at the earnest desire of M. DeLesseps and the French owners, Mr. Mccullough became president, and he served in that capacity until 1888, when he resigned. In 1884 Mr. McCul- lough was made a director of the Erie Railroad, and in 1888 became chairman of the executive committee of that great corporation. In 1893 he was made one of the two receivers charged with the reorganization of the road, and their work, in principal part conducted by Mr. McCul- lough, was performed with really wonderful ce-

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legity and steve's, the property being delivered to the new company, in less than three years, in improved condition, with no floating debt, ac- companied with cash and securities in value amounting to more than eight million dollars. In 1800 Mr. Mccullough was elected to the presi- deney of the Chicago & Erie Railroad, a position which he occupied for over ten years. He was also president of the Bennington & Rutland Rail- way Company for fifteen years; is president of the North Bennington National Bank, a direc- tor in the Bank of New York, in the New York Security and Trust Company, in the Fidelity and Casualty Company, in the National Life Insur- ance Company, American Trading Company, in the New York and Jersey City Tunnel Railroad Company, in the Central Vermont Railroad Com- pany, in the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Rail- way Company, Lackawanna Steel Company, and in many other important corporations.

The enthusiasm with which Mr. Mccullough entered the field of politics as a young man, in the opening days of the slaveholders' rebellion, has characterized his public conduct to the pres- ent day. Never a professional politician, nor am- bitious of distinction, he has habitually exhib- ited the liveliest interest in all public questions as they have arisen. There has been no political campaign since that of 1860, on the shores of the Pacific, but his voice has been heard, in no un- certain tones, ringing out in assertion of the prin- ciples of true Republicanism and in advocacy of its national leaders from the days of Lincoln to those of Roosevelt. He has been a prime leader in the Republican councils of his state and an influential figure in almost every state conven- tion for more than a quarter of a century. He has also been frequently a delegate to national conventions, among them that of 1880, which nominated Garfield, and that of 1888 which nomi- nated Harrison, and that of 1900, which nomi- nated Mckinley and Roosevelt. In 1898 he was state senator. In 1902 he was elected governor after a campaign which stirred the state to its very foundations, and one that is destined to become memorable in the political history of the commonwealth. Whatever the chances of success the rival Republican faction may have had, it was doomed to certain defeat from the mo- ment its champions turned from the absorbing

state issue involved (the license system) and sought to cast aspersions upon the high personal character of General MeCollough, the nominee of the party's convention. He had a hold upon the masses and their confidence far beyond the reckoning of his opponents, and they instantly resented this attempt to tarnish his pure and spot- less name, and handsomely rebuked it at the polls.

In local affairs Governor Mccullough is a potent factor in every good work and important business enterprise, and it would be difficult to say where his life does not enter into that of the community. He was a moving spirit in the Ben- nington Battle Monument Association, and was an active member of the committee charged with the selection of a design for the fitting memorial of that historic engagement.

The marriage of Governor McCullough has been previously referred to. To him and his wife have been born four children: Hall Park, Eliza- beth Laura, Ella Sarah and Esther Morgan Mc- Cullough.

HILAND HALL.

The late Hiland Hall, ex-governor and ex- member of Congress, North Bennington, Ver- mont, was born at Bennington, July 20, 1795. His father, Nathaniel Hall, was a farmer, and his mother, Abigail (Hubbard) Hall, a worthy and efficient helpmeet. Both were of English descent. The emigrant ancestors, John Hall and George Hubbard, after being over fifteen years at Bos- ton and Hartford, became, in 1650, the first set- tlers and large landholders in Middletown, Con- necticut, where in its ancient burying-ground may now be found tombstones of some of their early descendants. Both Nathaniel Hall and his wife were exemplary members of the Baptist church of which he was a deacon, and were re- spected and esteemed members of society.

The youth of Hiland Hall was spent on his father's farm in Bennington. His early educa- tion was principally obtained in the common schools of his neighborhood. He studied law and was admitted to the bar of Bennington county in December, 1819; established himself in practice in his native town, which he rep- resented in the general assembly of the state in

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1827. In 1828 he was clerk of the supreme and county court for Bennington county, and the year following was elected state's attorney for the county, and re-elected for the three succeed- ing years.

In January, 1833, he was elected to Congress, to supply the vacancy occasioned by the death of the Hon. Johnathan Hunt, and took his seat on the 21st of that month, during the extraordi- nary excitement growing out of Mr. Calhoun's South Carolina nullification ordinance, and wit- nessed the failure of that first serious effort at disunion. At the same election Mr. Hall was elected to the following Congress, which opened the following December. He was also continued in Congress as a National Republican and Whig by four succeeding elections, when he declined being longer a candidate.

In Congress Mr. Hall was a working rather than a talking member, though he occasionally made political speeches-among them one, in 1834, against General Jackson's removal of the .government deposits from the United States Bank, and another in 1836 in favor of the dis- tribution of the proceeds of the public lands among the states, which measure was in effect consummated, at that session, in the distribution of the surplus revenue, by which nearly seven hundred thousand dollars were received by the state of Vermont, and added to the school funds of the several towns. Both these speeches were printed in pamphlets, and a large edition of the former was reprinted in New York prior to the succeeding state election, and circulated as a cam- paign document.

His work on committees, first on that of the postoffice and postroads, and afterward on that of Revolutionary claims, was onerous and se- vere, his printed reports covering several vol- umes of public documents. In 1836, while a mem- ber of the postoffice committee, he prepared an exhaustive minority report in opposition to the bill to suppress the circulation by mail in the southern states of printed matter on the subject of slavery, termed "Incendiary Publications," which was published in the National Intelligen- cer at Washington, and in many of the leading newspapers of the north, as antidote to a report made to the senate by Mr. Calhoun. Mr. Hall's services were especialy important in opposing

wasteful and extravagant expenditures. While on the postoffice committee he took a prominent part in framing and procuring the passage of the act of July 2, 1836, which made a radical change in the organization of the postoffice department, and provided an effectual system for the settle- ment of its complicated accounts, by which an alarming series of frauds was broken up, and an honest and economical administration of its af- fairs inaugurated and secured.

Mr. Hall's successful efforts in relation to one class of claims deserves a more particular notice, as well for the large amount involved in them, as for the powerful influence and bitter opposition he was obliged to overcome in expos- ing their unfounded and fraudulent character. For several years Congress had allowed numerous claims founded on alleged promises of the legis- lature of Virginia or of the continental congress to Virginia officers of the Revolutionary army. In satisfaction of these claims there had been drawn from the treasury over three million dol- lars, and there were still pending before Con- gress claims to the further amount of more than another million, and their number and amount were continually increasing. By a patinet exami- nation of the archives at Washington, and pub- lic records at Richmond, Mr. Hall became satis- fied that the great mass of the claims already paid were wholly unfounded, and that those which were still pending were, if possible, still more worthless. He obtained the appointment of a select committe, of which he was made chair- man, and he prepared a report unfavorable to the claims. The printing was vehemently opposed by the Virginia delegation, and by dilatory mo- tions and other sharp parliamentary practice the report was smothered for that Congress. At the next session Mr. Hall became a member of the committee of revolutionary claims, and soon af- terward its chairman. He made a report from that committee on the bounty land and commuta- tion claims of the Virginians, similar to the one suppressed at the close of the previous Congress, which showed by documentary evidence that ev- ery one of those modern Virginia allowances was unfounded. This effectually disposed of the claims for that Congress. Mr. Stanley of North Carolina offered a resolution directing the com- mittee of revolutionary claims to examine and

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report on their validity, which resolution he af . forward modified by substituting a select com- mittee for that on revolutionary claims. This was done on the complaint of the Virginians that Mr. Hall, the chanman of the standing conmit lee, was unreasonably and unjustly prejudiced, and would not give the claimants a fair hearing. Mr. Hall spoke in vindication of his course in regard to the claims, showing by documentary evidence that they were either wholly fraudulent or clearly unfounded on any Revolutionary serv- ice to sustain them. He closed his remarks by presenting a list of claimants, whose claims amounted in the whole to over two hundred thousand dollars, and comprised all the latest that had been recommended for payment by the executive of Virginia, and were included in the bill then pending. He said every one of them was bad, and offered to adandon his oppositions to the claims if any member from Virginia or from any other state would select from the list any single claim he pleased, and satisfy the house that it was well founded. His remarks were com- mented upon by the Virginians, and among them by Messrs. Goggin, Goode and Gilmer, in speeches of an hour each, which were all highly lauda- tory of the patriotism of Virginia and her Revo- lutionary heroism, but none of them ventured any attempt to show the validity of a single claim.

The speech of Mr. Gilmer, who had been gov- ernor of Virginia, was of an aggressive and ex- tremely personal character toward Mr. Hall, so much so that he was several times called to order for violating the rules of the house. In his re- ply Mr. Hall not only vindicated his own con- duct in regard to the claims, but treated of the peculiar relationship of his assailant to them. He showed that Mr. Gilmer, on the application of a set of speculators, when the claims were well known to be worthless and dead, had charmed them into life and to par value by inducing the legislature of the state to recommend their pay- ment by Congress ; that he also, as agent of cer- tain half-pay claimants whose claims were equal- ly unfounded, had presented them to Congress, and that by a law of the state he was entitled to one per cent of all that should be paid by the United States ; that the amount which had been paid by the United States on the two classes of claims was over $2,700,000, and that Mr. Gil-

mer had already received $12,664, as his per- centage on the half-pay claims, and was entitled to receive a hike allowance on all future payments. The vindication of Mr. Hall was full and com- plete, and overwhelming to his assailants.

Ex-President Adams was then a member of the house, and in his diary, published by his son, the debate is noticed as follows :

June 16, 1842 .- Stanley moved the appoint- ment of a select committee to investigate the expenditures on account of Virginia military bounty land warrants, from which sprung up a debate, and Hiland Hall opened a hideous sink of corruption, until he was arrested by the ex- piration of the morning hour.

June 21 .- Gilmer growled an hour against HIall for detecting and exposing a multitude of gross frauds, perpetrated in the claims relating to the Virginia military land-warrants.

June 22 .- Goggin scolded an hour against Hiland Hall, and W. O. Goode took the floor to follow him.

June 24 .-- W. O. Goode followed the Vir- ginia pack against Hall. James Cooper moved the previous question, but withdrew it at the request of Hall, to give him opportunity to reply to the Virginia vituperation.

June 25 .- Hiland Hall took the morning hour to flay Gilmer and the Virginia military land-warrants.

This thorough exposure of the rottenness of these claims and the marked rebuff and discom- fiture of the Virginians, followed, as it soon after was, by a full history and condemnation of them in detail in a report from Mr. Stanley's select committee, made by Mr. Hall, one of its mem- bers, operated as a final extinguisher of them. None of them were ever afterward allowed by Congress.

By the act of Congress, passed in 1832, on the application of the Virginia assembly, under the lead of Governor Gilmer, Congress had as- sumed the payment of certain half-pay claims, which rested on alleged promises of that state to her officers, and had provided for their ad- justment by the war department. These are the claims before mentioned, for the allowance of which by the United States Mr. Gilmer was en- titled to receive a percentage. They were purely state claims, and there was no legal or equitable

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ground for making the United States liable for them. Those intended to be provided for had not only been allowed and paid, but the act had been so loosely and inconsistently construed by former secretaries of war, that Mr. Hall, from his examination, felt able to show beyond doubt, that allowances to the amount of several hun- dred thousand dollars had been made under color of its provisions, which the act in no wise war- ranted, and which were clearly unfounded and unjust. As other claims were still pending in the department, Mr. Hall felt it his duty to call the attention of the then recently appointed sec- retary to the lax manner in which previous al- lowances had been made, and he accordingly addressed a letter to him on the subject, in which he respectfully suggested the propriety of his reconsidering the construction which should be given to the act. The secretary did not take the suggestion kindly, and rather a spicy correspon- dence ensued, the purport and spirit of which may be gathered from the two concluding let- ters, which were as follows:

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Genealogical and family history of the state of Vermont; a record of the achievements of her people in the making of a commonwealth and the founding of a nation, Vol II, Part 2

Author: Carleton, Hiram, 1838- ed Publication date: 1903 Publisher: New York, Chicago, The Lewis Publishing Company Number of Pages: 1044

Author: Carleton, Hiram, 1838- ed
Publication date: 1903
Publisher: New York, Chicago, The Lewis Publishing Company
Number of Pages: 1044