The history of Washington county, in the Vermont historical gazetteer:, Part 82

Author: Hemenway, Abby Maria, 1828-1890, [from old catalog] ed
Publication date: 1882
Publisher: Montpelier, Vt., Vermont watchman and state journal press
Number of Pages: 1066

USA > Vermont > Washington County > The history of Washington county, in the Vermont historical gazetteer: > Part 82

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MRS. JAMES R. LANGDON.

[A brief of her funeral sermon by Dr. Lord, as the sweetest description that could be given, from this the sweetest of his printed sermons. We regret we have not space for the beautiful discourse en- tire .- ED.]

" She hath done what she could."-Mark 14: 3. It is a beautiful tribute to an af- fectionate woman. It was the simple ac- ceptance by the Son of God of a humble and fragrant nature which had bloomed out in hearty love for her Divine Lord.

In this memorial service for one who has been the companion of " honorable women not a few " in this church and community, I may with propriety select these blessed words of our Saviour as most accurately descriptive of her character and work in life. I love not to lose from my sight the faces of my dear friends and parishioners. I love not to bid farewell to those endeared to me by a long and gentle ministration of kindness and help ; but if I must,

it is with delight I may think and speak of them in such words as were consecrated by our Saviour to be the perpetual memorial of those noble women who, how- ever reserved and quiet and domestic, .

have yet in their place earned for themselves, by their sweet and patient de- votion, the generous applause of the Son of God : "they have done what they could." What is the work of women in this world as servants of the blessed Jesus ? Have they influence peculiarly their own? If they are unfaithful is any one else able to take their place, and make our societies, our homes, our churches more and more like Heaven ? When I look upon such pure, gentle, unostentatious women as Mrs. Langdon was ; upon those beautiful, honorable Christian women, not a few, who have lived among us,

I cannot doubt how such questions will have their answer. Such women as have lived in this village as Christian mothers, wives and sisters, whose names are embalmed with the spices of their own modesty and purity and love, with the fra-

grance of their own faith and charities, give us some idea of the saintly work which Christ has given to women to do in this world, and of their surprising fitness to do it ; both to soften its asperities, to subdue its roughest and worst characters, and to carry the self-sacrificing ministry of the Son of Man into all of our human abodes. . . I love to think that our Saviour places the seal of his benison · on the qualities of spiritual sincerity and gentleness ; on the possible graces of a quiet Christian life; on the offerings of self-denying love. She hath done what she could. She hath adorned her station with the precious graces of tenderness and love. This is the central and most de- cisive test of the excellence of all char- acter, especially of those whose lives seem, but seem only, to be confined to a nar- rower sphere than pertains to manly life, secluded within the walls of domestic care and duty and love. We all know how great loveliness and sweetness there are in personal offices of love. We are familiar with the supremacy of personal relationship and bonds. The per- sonality of affection just suits itself to our natural wants. A religion that did not provide for the exercise of the domestic and personal offices of love would lack hold on our human sympathies, and Christ has blessed the sex with which his incar- nated human life was alone positively affil- iated and related, by bestowing a peculiar honor upon the quiet duties of personal love. The kindness which watches over our earliest steps, the voice which di- rects our first prayers and songs, ' the love which surrounds home with the charms of a regained Paradise, and fills the air of the household with the scent of violets and lilies, and with the perfume of personal service to the sick, the dying and the dead : these are the qualities and offices that meet the full benediction of Christ's word.

Our Saviour had a very blessed personal relation with many noble women when he was here. His personal influence on the womanly hearts around him can be clearly traced as His work went on. She whom all the generations will call blessed, who is the only human medium of the assumption of our nature by the Infinite God, gave Him his first caress and received his last words of human love. What a wonderful relation ! In which her heart glowed with incomparable love, adding the sacredness of a religious feeling to the wealth of a mother's affection ; in which his heart beat with an unwonted pulse, adding the ten- derness of human dependence, gratitude and trust, to the sentiments of celestial pity and love. Sacred type of all blessed

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maternal and filial love; which is ever di- vested of all the usual qualities of human passion and selfishness, and blends every- thing that is best and purest in the human with everything that is sweetest and holiest in the Divine. What her happiness must have been in the more than thirty years in which she had Him to herself as a deep wellspring of delight, watching over Him, waiting on Him, beholding His glory and believing that glad, prophetic hymn which her own lips had sung before He was born, as to " how her soul rejoiced in God her Saviour." And what a happiness there must have been in his long troubled heart for her sake, we have some glimpses in the words which broke from his dying lips to the dearest disciple and the legacy He gives to the beloved John, " Son, behold thy mother." The domestic life of Christ is veiled, but if that veil were lifted, doubt- less we should see how much his pure heart was strengthened by a ministry more sympathetic than that of the angels, how much a woman's hand soothed his spirit, and a mother's love solaced and helped his sorrows. We should see some of the blessed interchanges between the human mother and the Divine Son.

But not from her alone did He have the ministry of personal kindness. A few devoted, grateful women waited upon Him all through his journeys. They gave him their enthusiastic sympathy in his work until the close of his life, and when He finished his suffering career on the cross, " Many women were there beholding and ministering unto Him." Blessed were those daughters of Jerusalem,

who bewailed their King as he trod the wine-press alone. But did these women alone have the honor? The service of Christ was not their monopoly. They were the first fruits; they were examples not to be envied ; but to be imi- tated, by all their sisters who desire to know the unspeakable joy of Christian ser- vice, and they have been imitated. Faith works by love, and its power has not failed since "Holy women," . in all the relations of life, in the lowly offices of Christian ministration, have filled the houses which they adorned as wives, mothers and sisters, with the outpoured fragrance of the graces of Christ,

est colors. Eternity alone can measure the influence of a virtuous woman ; a true- hearted daughter ; a loving sister ; a faith- ful wife ; a devoted mother. Her price is above rubies. The heart of her husband safely trusts in her. She stretcheth her hand to the poor.

I need not say the memories I cherish of Mrs. Langdon have colored and im- pressed all these thoughts which I have spoken to-day. She was a Chris- tian wife and mother, who consecrated her life to her holy domestic mission.

· She made her home fragrant with the per- fume of piety and love. The thanks of the poor she has blessed; the tributes of the sick she has visited; the sweetness of the charities she has bestowed throng to make the fading light of her evening tranquil and beautiful.

Mrs. Langdon has resided here 38 years. She was the daughter of Mr. Charles Bowen, of Middlebury, whose life has not been unknown to us, and who, at his great age, remains to mourn over his daughter, and to look for the welcome she will give him to his long looked for home. She was married Dec. 22, 1836. Not long after, she united with the church whose welfare she has never for a moment for- gotten. To those who die in the Lord, death is only the gate ; its iron side turned toward us, its golden side turned the other way. W. H. L.

Mrs. Langdon was Lucy Pomeroy Bowen, born Sept. 29, 1814, at Northfield, Mass .. and died Aug. 1, 1873. Her children were : Lucy Robbins, born Apr. 10, 1841 ; Har- riet Frances, February 2, 1845; Elizabeth Whitcomb, Apr. 6, 1847 ; James Henry, Apr. 9, 1851.

THE GEORGE W. BAILEY FAMILY.

I think no couple have ever contributed to Montpelier more stalwart, energetic, suc- cessful and popular men than did the late Hon. Geo. W. Bailey and his wife, a sis- ter of Hon. Abel K. Warren of Berlin. They were both natives of Berlin, but spent most of their active life in Elmore, where their children were born, but, until the senior Bailey's death, resided in Mid- dlesex, on the border of Montpelier.

and refreshed the hearts that trusted in them. Many sons have crowned their heads with blessings. Their husbands GEORGE W. BAILEY, JR., was the first to depart, in early manhood. He had adopted the law as his profession, was Secretary of State for four years, which at- tested his fidelity in that office, married have praised them in the gates of the city. They have made the deserts of this rough and arid life green as the land of Elim, and woven their precious golden threads through the whole fabric of society till it has brightened with the warmest and deep- | Georgiana, daughter of the late Col. Thom-

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as Reed, but was soon stricken down by consumption, dying in Montpelier, July 13, 1864.

CHARLES W. BAILEY was one of the firm of Bailey Brothers, active and shrewd business men of Montpelier, engaged main- ly in furnishing horses, cattle and sheep to Boston markets, where his attendance was regular, and by his fine personal presence and bluff but genial manners he was a fa- vorite. While attending personally to the care of sheep on a freight train at Essex Junction, he was instantly killed, Sept. 23, 1876. More than a thousand people honored him, when his remains were brought to Montpelier to be borne to his home. Mr. Bailey left a widow, two sons and a daughter. His age was 45.

J. WARREN BAILEY, the oldest of the brothers, was also a member of the firm for several years, and was also largely em- ployed in civil offices in the town, in which, as in his own business, he was very effi- cient. He died of a brief illness, April 21, 1880, aged 56. He left a widow and two daughters.

The Boston Fournal said :

He was a brother of T. O. Bailey of the Pavilion, a member of the firm of Bailey, Bullock & Co., commission merchants, Chicago, and of V. W. Bullock & Co., Burlington, Iowa, grain dealers. Mr. Bai- ley was in the grain business at Montpelier, a Director in the savings bank, and has held several town offices. He was univer- sally liked and was very liberal in the use of his large property. He was the eldest of six brothers, three of whom now survive him, and was widely known.

The Watchman & State Fournal said :

Born in Elmore May 1, 1824, he was near the completion of his 56th year. About 25 years ago he came to Montpelier and engaged with John Peck in a general produce business in the store west of the "arch." The following year Mr. Peck withdrew, and the firm of Bailey Brothers was formed by the admission of Charles Bailey,-a partnership that was destined to achieve a widespread reputation for the extent and fearlessness of its operations and the combination of business acumen and high sense of commercial honor it displayed. In 1846, the brothers gave up the store and confined their operations to a general live-stock business. At the dis- solution of the partnership in 1872, each

continued to employ in distinct operations the comfortable fortunes their united ef- forts had secured. Five years ago Mr. Bailey engaged with V . W. Bullock, Esq., in the grain business at Burlington, Iowa, and about a year ago his operations in that direction led to the formation of the firm of Bailey, Bullock & Co., in Chicago, his brother, E. W. Bailey, Esq., of Montpe- lier, moving to Chicago to assume the act- ive management of the business of this company. In 1855, Mr. Bailey was mar- ried to Miss Harriet Guyer of Wolcott, who survives him with the daughters, Misses Ella and Clara. The funeral was largely attended on Saturday, the citizens, repre- senting every class of the community, form- ing an honorary escort to the cemetery. The funeral services were conducted by Rev. J. H. Hincks, assisted by Rev. N. Fellows of Trinity church. Among the mourning relatives was the venerable mother of the deceased, now verging on four score years, who has survived to fol- low to the grave the three eldest of her six sons, each dying under peculiarly afflicting circumstances. Mr. Bailey was distin- guished for the native keenness and pre- cision of his judgment in business trans- actions. It was eminently speculative, but tempered with an element of caution, that taught him to shun hazardous ventures. In this community and among his former associates his bluff ways and ready humor will be greatly missed ; and his name will long survive in local anecdotes, illustrating his readiness at repartee and power of pun- gent expression. In the loss of their nat- ural guardian and protector, the widow and daughters will have the unfeigned sympa- thy of this community, which will also ex- tend to the aged mother, and to the sur- viving sister and brothers the assurance of its participation in their sorrow.

A fact but little known is that Warren and Charles Bailey furnished the United States with horses for a regiment in the war for the Union. It was a gift worthy of millionaires, but they were not that, though wealthy, patriotic and generous.

Both Warren and Charles also very large- ly aided their brother,

THERON O. BAILEY, in constructing and furnishing the Pavilion, which has won rank among the very best hotels in New England, has made himself thereby widely famous.

The other brothers are Doct. James, residing in Ticonderoga, N. Y., and Ed- ward, who while retaining his business

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interests in Montpelier, is largely engaged in the western states. A sister and the aged mother still reside in Elmore. E.P.W.

CHARLES GAMAGE EASTMAN,

born at Fryeburgh, Me., was brought to Barnard, the home of his father, at an early age, where amid the rural scenes of a town beautiful in mountain scenery, his early years were mostly passed.

"His mother, Rebecca Gamage of Frye- burgh, was a woman beautiful in mind, person and affections," in all which the son strongly resembled his mother.

Born to dependence, chiefly upon his own resources, Charles Gamage worked his way through the district schools and neighboring academies up to college, com- pleting his preparation at the academy in Meriden, N. H .; he entered Burlington College, the University of Vermont, when about 18 years of age. Here he wrote for the old Burlington Sentinel first, and suc- ceeding to the admiration of his party- he was a Democrat from his earliest years ; " always a Democrat and never anything but a Democrat "-he soon was contribu- ting to the other Democratic papers of the State. His articles for the newspapers winning immediate appreciation most flat- tering to a young author, his mind was soon turned to the after profession of his life, that of an editor, which he left college before graduating to adopt.

His first enterprise in opening his pro- fession was the starting of a small journal in the interest of the Democratic party at Johnson, Lamoille Co., which obtained considerable attention, and was regarded a credit to the young editor, but not prov- ing a money success, was relinquished, and in, 1840, the no way discouraged editor established himself at Woodstock, the county town of old Windsor, and inaugu- rated " The Spirit of the Age," and his journal at once assumed a high position among the Democratic organs of the State. The earnest, skillful editor, still in flush of early manhood, confident of the strength of his principles, entered like an athlete the newspaper arena, giving battle with vigor in all the political contests on

the tapis, and consequently soon became "a leader in the councils of his party throughout the State," and duly " a prom- inent director of its policy in national affairs."

In 1846, he sold out The Spirit of the Age at Woodstock, and came to Mont- pelier and bought out the Vermont Patriot, of which he continued the editor and pub- lisher for the remainder of his life. At the same time that he established himself in Montpelier, he established for himself also, a home-how happily, he himself teaches in song. He married a daughter of Dr. John D. Powers of Woodstock, Mrs. Susan S. Havens, whose fairest praise is in that song from their domestic hearth :

I touch my harp for one to me Of all the world most dear, Whose heart is Ilke the golden sheaves That crown the ripened year; Whose cheek is fairer than the sky When't blushes into morn,

Whose voice was In the summer nlght Of silver streamlets born ;-

To one whose eye the brightest star Might for a sister own,

Upon whose lip the honey-bee Might bulld her waxen throne;

Whose breath is like the air that woos The buds in April hours,

That stirs within the dreamy heart A sense of opening flowers.

I touch my harp for one to me Of all the world most dear,

Whose heart is Ilke the clustering vine That crowns the ripened year; Whose love is Ilke the living springs The mountain travellers taste,

That stormy winter cannot chill, Nor thirsty summer waste.

They had 2 sons and one daughter, all born in Montpelier.

Eastman to liis sleeping child :

SWEETLY SHE SLEEPS.

Sweetly she sleeps! her cheek so falr Soft on the pillow pressed. Sweetly, see! while her Saxon balr Watches her heaving breast.

Hush! all low, thou moving breeze, Breathe through her curtain white;

Golden birds, on the maple trees, Let her sleep while her dreams are light.

Sweetly she sleeps, her cheek so fair Soft on her white arm pressed. Sweetly, see! and her childish care Flies from her qulet rest.

Hush! the earliest rays of light Their wings in the blue sea dip.

Let her sleep, sweet child, with her dreams so bright,

And the smlle that bewilders her lip.

Charles G. Eastman

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Mr. Eastman continued to prosper in his newspaper and political affairs. His paper was the leading Democratic organ of the State. We quote from the George R. Thompson and Gilman biography, prefac- ing the last volume of his poems (1880.)

It is as the conductor of this journal that he is the most widely remembered among politicians ; and he managed it with an ability and faithfulness that secured it a reputation and influence seldom possess- ed by a country newspaper. His writings in this paper were in accordance with the character of the man,-direct, incisive, and earnest. He never hesitated to say what- ever was true, if it were proper to be said ; and in his exposures of the errors or frauds of his opponents he employed intellectual weapons of the sharpest and most cutting kind. His arguments were convincing, his logic clear, and his convictions were stamp- ed with truth. His paper was not in any way pre-eminent as a literary one. It might be supposed, judging from his al- most idolatrous love of literary pursuits, that his journal would have been more prominent in that respect ; but he never seemed ambitious to make it so. These inclinations were gratified in another way. Though a member of a political party never in the ascendancy in Vermont, he occupied many influential official positions. He was a leading member of the Democratic Na- tional Conventions of 1848, '52, '56 and '60, and at the time of his death was a prominent member of the National Demo- cratic Committee.

In 1852, '53, he was a senator of Wash- ington County ; " a laborious and useful one," and twice candidate of his party for a member of Congress, and postmaster of Montpelier about 6 years.

In person, he was inclined to be large- not too large,-very handsomely formed, with open, magnetic, beautiful counte- nance, that drew almost at will hosts of friends to his cordial heart. The idol of his party, he had a multitude of friends, also out of it. True to a poet nature, abstract- ed, rapt, fitful, sombre at times, even ; now and then November,-probably, at a De- cember tide-the height of the weird, when he traced that " scene in a Vermont win- ter," that " fearful night in the winter time, as cold as it ever can be "-when " the moon is full but the wings of the furious blast dash out her light."

" All day had the snows come down-all day,"

. . .

· "The fence was lost and the wall of stone." " on the mountain peak How the old trees writhe and shriek ."

" Such a night as this to be found abroad." The " shivering dog " "by the road." " See him crouch and growl " "and shut his eyes with a dismal howl." " And old man from the town to-night," that " lost the travelled way." " The midnight past," " the moon looks out," the Morgan mare " that at last o'er a log had floundered down," the old traveller " in coat and buf- falo," stark and stiff in his sleigh in the snow-piled mountain hollow !

But an occasional mood ; he had the heart of June inhis nature-the spirit of spring in his spirit-whose verse oftener trailed over, one line blossoming into another, like a trailing arbutus in May woods. The old liked him. He was so genial ; young men and women liked him ; little children loved him. Long by those who were children in Montpelier in his time, will " his contagious laugh be remembered," and the charm- ing hilarity with which he would push forward their innocent sports. It is said of him that no young man ever sought en- couragement from him in vain. He had wide and generous views of life, an ample charity for thoughtlessness or " repented erring." As the head of a family, we may quote the words of Dr. Lord to his mourn- ing family at his funeral :

You will remember him first and longest for what he was to you personally,-for what he was in his domestic and social re- lations. You will not forget the kindness of his heart, the amenity and cheerfulness of his, manners, the liveliness of fancy and wit with which he cheered the household. You will not lose the recollection of his kind words, of his considerate atten- tions, of his fatherly acts and affections. You will remember the melody of his flute as it led the voices of his children in their songs and hymns; the written prayers, which I am told he composed for them, to be used morning and evening in their devo- tions. And so long as love has a place in your hearts, this household will not cease to have a shrine where his memory shall be kept green and sacred.

The favorite of his party, as a politician, a lovely family and society man, it is still

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as a poet that Eastman has been the widest known and his memory will be most peren- nial. Fluent in composing, laborious in revision-from his college days, or a little before, he wrote and pruned, and pruned and rewrought, and pruned again, refining and changing almost ad infinitum till the day of his death. The result : " As a lyri- cal poet there is no American writer who can be called his superior." He was the first American poet named with praise in the Edinburgh Review ; the old Scotchman, wary of American poets, broke through the ice and praised Eastman handsomely over 20 years since, while he yet lived to catch the beautiful over-the-ocean-glow coming from the fire he had kindled. Facile, agree- able, amusing, as a poet, but not confident. Strange ! Did he not know his own pow- ers? It seems he did not ;- " sensitive and doubtful as to their reception "-when his poems were committed to the press, when his book appeared and was winning golden laurels, " almost sorry he had pub- lished it." The writer remembers to have heard him say, he had made up his mind, he believed, to never publish any poem until it had been written seven years and he had revised it every year.

Mr. Eastman brought out his first vol- ume of poems in 1848; from which he contributed with manifold retouchings, to the poems, ten pages to Miss Hemenway's First Edition of the Poets and Poetry of Vermont in 1858, including : " A Picture."

The farmer sat in his easy chair

Smoking his pipe of clay-,

Eastman's " Dirge " : " Softly ! She is lying With her lips apart:

Softly !

She is dying Of a broken heart."

" I see her not "-" Uncle Jerry," and other pieces ; and in the same work, revised and enlarged, "A scene in the Vermont Winter," specially for the volume, and other poems ; as many pages in this sec- ond volume as in the first.

Mr. Eastman's health began steadily to fail from May, 1860. " An obstinate and painful disease burdened his spirit and wasted his frame." Never man needed

rest more ; " but his pride and sympathies were enlisted in the business of his party," and too faithful to the complicated respon- sibilities identified with and accumulated upon him, he unwisely, but most unsel- fishly, (says Mr. Thompson in his sketch), made secondary his own interest of health and life. "But he was at home in the bosom of his family when his eyes closed to the scenes he loved so well; and his last moments, painless and calm, were brightened by the love of family and friends, and cheered with the substantial hope of eternal happiness and joy." He died at his residence in Montpelier, Sept. 16, 1860.

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The history of Washington county, in the Vermont historical gazetteer:, Part 82

Author: Hemenway, Abby Maria, 1828-1890, [from old catalog] ed Publication date: 1882 Publisher: Montpelier, Vt., Vermont watchman and state journal press Number of Pages: 1066

Author: Hemenway, Abby Maria, 1828-1890, [from old catalog] ed
Publication date: 1882
Publisher: Montpelier, Vt., Vermont watchman and state journal press
Number of Pages: 1066