Suffolk County, Massachusetts - The whole text, 1894 (part 16 of 17)

Hon. George Thompson was advertised to lecture in the Methodist church I tliink no other churcli could be secured for him. A mob had just driven him from Boston, and wherever he went the hand of violence was raised against him. It was hoped he could be quietly heard in Andover. Was it not the school of the prophets and noted for its morality and for its religious spirit? So Thompson came, but, as with Paul, bonds and affliction awaited him there. A railroad was being built through the place. The contractor was a rough, pro-slavery character, and not a few roughs were in his employ. It was boldly given out that a mob would break up the meeting, and probably tar and feather Mr. Tliompson. The anti-slavery students got wind of it, and armed with heavy hickory clubs, which they used as staves, they were at the chapel as soon as the doors were opened, and took possession of a couple of tiers of front seats, which formed nearly a semicircle around the pulpit. As the house filled up, the ushers besought us to vacate them and give place to the ladies, but we knew our business and not one of us could be ousted. There were about fifty of us, nearly all over twenty, the most of us farmers' s sons, and with our long staves or clubs standing erect by our sides, I imagine the mobocratic portion of the audience studied us rather carefully. The speech was surpassingly eloquent. I remember some of its passages, one of them, his apostrophe to America, was very striking ; it began with "America, America, thou art the anointed cherub, God's darling child; apart from the nations God hath set thee." etc. It fairly raised the audience to its feet. The lecture was two hours long. When it closed in an instant every light was blown out, and the mob rushed for the pulpit. But those fifty students closed around Thompson and Wilson, the Methodist minister, in a phalanx so compact and with clubs brandished so threateningly that the mob kept at a respectful distance and finally dispersed. We saw Thoinpson and Wilson safe at home. After consultation it was agreed that six should stay down town (South Parish) and patrol the streets till morning. One should take his station half way up the hill toward the Seminary, another should take his stand at the corner leading to the dormitories of the classical school, the rest should retire to their rooms and sleep with their clothes on, ready for emergencies. I was one of the six who stayed down town. I and my companion went into a vacant lot and concealed ourselves. After an hour or so a signal whistle was blown in a distant part of the town. It was answered by another, and then by a third close by us. We went for him with all speed, but he ran like a deer and we lost him. We sounded tlie alarm. It was taken up by the man half way up the hill; he sent it to the man at the corner, and he aroused the dormitories. Our squad of six guards rushed for Wilson's house and held at bay the gathering mob. Scarcely had we got there before we heard the tramp, tramp, tramp of a hundred students dashing down Andover hill at a two-forty pace. And it sounded out in the still hour of the night like the coming of a regiment of cavalry. The mob, most of whom were Irish, listened a moment, then broke and fled in every direction. Thus was Andover saved from a crime against one of the noblest of men, which long years of penance could scarce have washed away.

"Up to this time," says Dr. Thayer, "we had not organized an antislavery society. Fearing that we should do so, the faculty of the United Seminaries passed a regulation which read like this ; ' No student shall join any society in the town of Andover without leave of the principal (if the institution with which he is connected.' Alas, 'The best laid schemes of mice and men aft gang aglee.' So it was in this case. A student whose room adjoined that in which the faculties met and discussed the matter, overheard enotigh to divine what was on the tapis. He at once informed us of what was up. In half an hour all the principal anti-slavery students were gathered in the Methodist chapel, and then and there forrned an abolition society, chose oflficers, etc., and adjourned. The following Monday morning at prayers we beheld marshaled on the platform and around the desk, our four principal professors . Usually only one was present. There was something ominous in the air. Principal Johnson's voice was more tremulous than usual. Professor McLane's face was unusually red and flushed. Professor Taylor's eyes were riveted to the floor, while Professor Sanborn sat uneasy and restless in his chair of state.

"Prayers over, Principal Johnson, in agitated tones, read the stern decree, and then looked over the field to mark the effect of the shot. The other teachers also now h:)oked up and took observations. But not a wing seemed broken, not a feather ruffled. We all took it serenely, and it was noted that the anti-slavery leaders looked crosswise at each other and smiled. What could it mean? After the students had gone to their rooms for recitations, or to the dormitories for study. Principal Johnson called up one Peter T. Woodbury, nephew of Hon. Levi Woodburv, of New Hampshire fame, and asked in a confidential tone: ' Peter, what did it mean - those complacent smiles and glances between Abolitionists when the new regulation was read?' - Why,' said Peter brusquely, 'they have stolen a march on you. They formed a society last Saturday night, and all the Abolitionists joined it.' The color left Mr. Johnson's face. Recovering himself, he said plainti\-ely : ' You have not joined, have you Peter! ' ' Yes, sir, " said Peter. This was a stunner. The next effort was to induce the signers to withdraw their names, but without an instance of success. These young Abolitionists had been converted to stay. They believed' in saint's perseverance, and I have never yet heard of the apostacy of one of them, or even of their temporary falHng from grace. Our professors, finding that neither coaxing or flattering nor threats would do, proceeded to sterner measures. I was summoned before the faculty to answer to the charge of combining with others to destroy the good name of the academy and bring it into reproach before the public, etc., etc. Instead of standing on the defensive I faced the music. I boldly charged upon them the sin of seeking to shield from exposure and condemnation the great crime of slavery, of exerting themselves to make cowards and timeservers of the yotmg men who were soon to go forth to help form and reform the opinions of mankind. I remember telling them that if we were cowards here we would be cowards in college, cowards in the seminary and cowards in the ministry. In fact, during that interview I think they were in the prisoner's box quite as much as I was. At one time they actually all laughed aloud at the ridiculous turn the trial had taken. But they had resolved to make an example of me, and so they cast me out. No specific charges were voted as sustained. I was simply voted no longer a member of Phillips Academy, and to have no further right to a room or place in the recitation rooms. One other was dismissed with me. At once a meeting of the anti-slaver}' students was called, a remonstrance was gotten up and published. It was signed by some sixty students, all of whom left the institution without diplomas or other testimonials of character or scholarship. No sooner was I turned out of the academy than Mr. McLane wrote my pastor in Cheshire. He read the letter to the church, and the}' voted not to help me any more. The letter from my pastor to me, though quite severe, was in parts very tender and parental. He regarded the anti-slavery revival as little better than a blast from the bottomless pit. I remember one sentence that he used: 'Oh, that God would hide you in his pavilion till this storm is overpast?'

"Dear man, he was sadly mistaken. That strong wind and 'the rushing mighty wind ' of the day of Pentecost came from the same quarter. Well, he sees it now, and rejoices with us in the great deliverance from America's chiefest ciirse. My reply to him was said to be rather spirited. I kept no copy of it, but one who was present when it was received, and heard it read, told me that when the gx)od pastor came to a place where I wrote, ' Money given by a church on conditi(.)n of keeping silence about slaver}' is not fit to buy a potter's field with,' he laughed heartily and said : ' He is plucky, is he not ? ' The Education Society also withdrew its aid, and I was now cast upon my own resources again.

"After the expulsion of Bristol I went home to Braintree, where I had to encounter m}' pastor, a D. D,, who blamed me very much for my anti-slavery tendencies, and told me that Garrison was an infidel and an atheist. With this man I had several interviews. He told my sisters that I ought to be made to go back to Andover and beg pardon on my knees.

" By request of a friend I carried to my pastor a notice of an antislavery meeting- to be held on a week day in a neighboring parish, and asked him to read it from the pulpit. This he declined to do, ' for the reason that slavery was a political question, and he could not carry politics into the pulpit.' I said no more, but a short time after that a Rev. Mr. Sparrow, a dissenter from the Catholic church, preached against the Pope of Rome. At the close of the service in the forenoon, he gave notice that in the afternoon he would preach on the political bearings of Catholicism. He did so, and my pastor took part in the exercises.

"The next morning I called to see him, and spoke of the aljsurd jjosition in which I found him ; that he refused to read a notice of an anti-slavery meeting to be held on a week day in a neighboring parish because of the political bearing of the question of slavery, but that he admitted a brother minister to preach a whole sermon on the political bearings of Catholicism on the holy Sabbath day, and that he took ]5art in the exercises. What did my pastor say ? Did he explain? No. But he ascended into a towering passion. With both hands raised on high, with brows knit and every feature marking the cowardly purpose of his soul, he exclaimed: ' I am not to be intimidated by any such argument. I don't care if all my parish leave me. The tyranny they are trying to exercise over me is worse than the tyranny of Nicholas of Russia,' etc., etc.

" I retired as modestly as I could, and the more I thought of it the more I determined to write to him, and to show him that I had lost my respect for him ; that I believed him to be a hypocrite, a time-server and a coward ; that the rich men of his church and society held him in the palm of their hand, that he did not dare to preach an anti-slavery sermon in his pulpit, that he did not care if the millions of poor Africans all went to hell if he could preserve the hai'mony of the church North and South ; and such a church as Jesus Christ never sanctioned. I told him that I would never hear him preach till he repented, and I demanded an honorable discharge from his church, which I never received.

"That the above character was true the following must testify: At the funeral of the son of one of his richest parishioners, who died a drunkard, he carried him on the wings of white angels and left him in the bosom of his Father in the heavenly kingdom. But at the funeral of a poi^r young man, who was a good boy at home and a good boy at school, and was the idol of his poor mf)ther - he had given his life to his country, was wounded at the battle of Williamsburg, Va. , taken prisoner and carried to Richmond, paroled and came home to die - what did this conscientious pastor say to console the grief of the sorrowing mother ? These memorable words. ' If there is any hope that he has gone to the bosom of his Savior it is a matter of rejoicing.' After this I never spoke with him. But the good piastor has gone to his rest, with the love and esteem of a large circle of friends, and a name honored and respected in all the churches. A costly granite monument, with laudatory inscription, marks the spot of his final resting place."

This course of Dr. Thayer's and his fellow students, was in the beginning of the anti-slavery movement. Though generally condemned at the time by the clergy, conservative men now say, "For once the students were right." His venerable grandfather. Deacon Eliphaz Thayer, a soldier of the Revolution, who had served under Washington at West Point at the time of the defection of Gen. Benedict Arnold, and the capture and execution of the unfortunate Major Andre, approved of his course and was proud of him. Dr. Thayer has been since that time an enemy of every kind of oppression, and his house was the asylum of fugitive slaves fur twenty years before the war that emancipated a race. And one of John Brown's men, a white man, who had escaped from Harper's Ferry, was concealed in Dr. Thayer's house on the day John Brown was executed.

Dr. Thayer was an admirer of the heroism of Garrison and Phillips ; of Francis Jackson, who said: "When I shut m 3- door against the fugitive from oppression, may the Almighty shut the door of his mercy against me," and of Governor Andrew, who said: "I know not what record of sin awaits me in the other world, but this I do know, that I never was so mean as to despise any man because he was poor, because he was ignorant, or because he was black."

If there is anything in the life of Dr. Tha3'er that indicates a hypersensitiveness and pity for the oppressed, it is due largely to influences pre-natal, and is equally true of others who were active in their sympathies with the slaves, among whom may be mentioned Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, Rev. Charles T. Torry, who died in prison for aiding slaves to escape, Rev. Amos Dresser, who served a term in the State prison of Tennessee for his sympathy for the slaves, Hon. Montgomery Blair, and many others, who were born the same year when our country was involved in a war with Great Britain, in which great and out- ra^yfeous ci'uelties were inflicted along- the northern frontier and at sea along- our coast, among which may be named as instances of special atrocity the ma&sacre of our soldiers, who surrendered on condition of protection from the Indian tomahawk at Frenchtown, at Fort Dearborn, where Chicago now stands, and at other cold-blooded massacres.

Dr. Thayer still has pleasant memories of his connection with the "underground railroad " and the vigilance committee, in which he was an active member.

For eight years Dr. Thayer was professor of practice and institutes of medicine in Boston University. Though educated in the regular ])ractice, he was induced to examine the merits of homceopathy, and (ut semper) his first experiments being successful, he continued to make further trials, and he became a thorough convert to the doctrines of Hahnei-nann. In 1854 he was called to attend a case of bilious colic which was supposed to be caused from the passage of gall-stones. At that time there was not a writer in Europe or in America who had told us the remedv for this painful disease. After numerous trials and some failures. Dr. Thayer selected cinchona (Peruvian bark), which he gave in the homteopathic way. It cured the case entirely, and it has not returned in thirty-eight years. During this long period he has treated about 2,000 cases of gall-stone colic and has cured every one of them, without a single exception. Dr. Thayer made his discovery known to liis colleagues as soon as he became convinced of its certainty.

Dr. Thayer also made the discovery of the art of curing fistute recti without the use of the knife. This he has also communicated to his associates in the profession. He has also demonstrated the truth of the statements that cases of rachitis (bow-legs), distorted spines, and other deformities of the bones can, if taken in good season - early in infancy - be radically and entirely cured with a high potency of silicea and calcarea carbonica. Through a period of more than a quarter of a century he has not known a case of failure to cure. Dr. Thayer hereby confirms the truth of the discoveries of Hahnemann and others. Early in his practice he found that stricture of the oesophagus was regarded as an incurable disease. He had a case - a Miss R., in Roxbury. He consulted his friend, Dr. Winslow Lewis, who assured him that his patient would die of starvation, which she did. Through a period of years he had several similar cases, all of which proved fatal. Once while making a proving on himself, of a certain drug i-emedy, he felt a sensation in the throat which reminded him of stricture of the oesophagus. He determined, if he should have another case, to tr}' that remedy. He has never lost a case of stricture of the (esophagus since. That remedy is podophyllin. But the doctor adds that there are some cases of stricture of the (esophagus which are not curable by podophyllin alone, but require, in addition, some treatment with kali hydriadicum. While studying natural history in Union C(jllege in 1830 his attention was called to the mystery of the flight of birds. He dissected hundreds of birds of various species, from the smallest hummingbird to the largest eagles and the migratory sea fowl that visit these shores, to discover the secret, but without solving the sublime problem. In 1889 he received letters patent for a device for navigating the air, which he calls the Aerial Railway. Every specification was granted by the governments of the United States, Canada, England, France, Germany and Belguim. Whether this enterprise be practical or not, his original and poetic maxim is still true:

Samuel Baker Rindge

Daniel Rindge, who is believed to be the ancestor of all of the name in America, came from England to Massachusetts Bay in 1638, settling first at Roxbury, but soon removing to Ipswich, where descendants of his name remained for .five generations. He appears to have owned land on Heart Break Hill (a name which is variously explained, but probably due to its difficult ascent), also one house on the Turkey Shore and another in High street, and his farm was within the present limits of the town of Hamilton.

The Portsmouth family of Rindge was an offshoot from that at Ipswich. One Daniel Rindge of that branch was a successful merchant there, and another, John Rindge, became a prominent man in the New Hampshire colony and a member of the Colonial Council, in which capacity he signed bills of credit, as appears by a specimen still preserved in the museum at Plymouth, Mass. He was chosen to represent the colony before the King in England, in relation to the disputed boundary line on the Massachusetts side, and the town of Rindge in New Hampshire was named in honor of him.

Daniel Rindge, the first settler, had a son Roger ; Roger a son Daniel ; this Daniel a son also Daniel; this last Daniel a son John; and John a son Samuel - all of these except the first being natives of Ipswich.

vSamuel Rindge, born January 30, 1791, went from Ipswich to Salem, and thence to East Cambridge, then known as Craigie's Point, where he was employed for man}' years by the New England Glass Company as overseer and purchaser of supplies. Previous to this he had been engaged in the manufacture of furniture which was shipped to the South and sold there. He married, February 17, 1830, Maria Bradlee Wait, and died February 1, 1850.

His eldest son, vSamuel Baker Rindge, was boi^n December 36, 1830; married, April 39,1845, Clarissa Harrington, of Lexington, Mass., and died May 3, 1883. Of six children only one, Frederick Hastings Rindge, survived his parents.

His eldest son, vSamuel Baker Rindge, after the brief but solid schooling of his time, began his business life with no capital except a sound body and a willing mind. At the age of sixteen (1830) he entered the employment of Parker & Blanchard, which was the first firm in Boston that engaged in and I'elied solely upon the business of selling for the manufacturers American-made textile fabrics. The manufacturing business itself was in its infancy and gave no sign of its later wonderful development. The boy's position was one that called for much hard work and yielded but small remuneration. He was expected to be the first to come and the last to go, and in the time between was expected to make himself generally useful. In such a place a shirk would have found himself unhappy, but the lad Rindge was no shirk ; his own work was always done promptly, and it was always his inclination to reach out for a share in the duties of those above him. When he was ''the boy" he was always ready to fill a gap in the bookkeeping, and when he became the bookkeeper he managed, by working out of hours, to get time to act as a salesman in the busier portions of the day. He was abstemious in his habits, and recognized alcoholic beverages and tobacco as his enemies. His powers of observation and his memory were alike remarkable; he saw everything and ftn-got nothing. As an accountant he was thorough and exact; as a salesman he was active and popular; he made himself an excellent judge of the qualities of manufactured goods, and an expert in wool and other raw materials.

Sucli a man could not but rise, and in the year 1847 he was admitted a partner in the firm, then styled Parker, Wilder & Parker, and when he died he was the senior member of the house, then Parker, Wilder &- Co.

He grew with his business, opening liis mind and enlarging his scale of action as manufacturing developed and the times changed. Los.ses never discouraged, but simply instructed him, and the end of a season of panic which swept away a large fraction of his capital found him full of confidence in himself, not bewailing the past but looking forward cheerily to the future.

It was a fault in his mercantile character that he took upon himself too much, and that as his work grew he did not depend more upon his employees. It has been said of him that he did the work of ten men; certainlj- he loved work, but it would have been wise, and it would probabh^ have prolonged his life if he had been willing to limit himself more closely to the navigation of the ship, leaving others to trim the sails and keep the watch.

He was a stalwart man to the last, and his cheeks kept a ruddy hue of health. His powerful physique was illustrated by his interference in one instance to put a stop to a brutal fight between two men in a country town, where as they were struggling on the ground he grasped one of them by the collar of his coat and raised him to his feet as if he had been a child. But even the stoutest of men may be overloaded, and Mr. Rinclge, although warned of his danger, preferred apparently to inctir the risk rather than deny himself the exhilaration of earnest occupation.

Nor was he content to confine his work to his own especial avocations. To be a director in the manufacturing concerns in which he was interested was to make but little addition to his cares, for he would have felt the same responsibility as their buying and selling agent ; but as his reputation for business sagacity increased he was induced to assume additional duties. For two years he was an alderman of Cambridge. He was a director in two banks, the president of one; trustee in the Cambridge Savings Bank, president of the Union Glass Company, director in the Cambridge Railroad Company and in other corporations. Besides all these, when consulted by friends he was not content to limit his advice to generalities, but was apt to make a study of their interests as if they were his own ; and it was said by an eminent lawyer of Boston that he had never known j\lr. Rindge's equal in ability

One can only wonder that such a man should have lived so long. His strong constitution may explain in part his ability to bear a heavy strain, and his readiness to enter into any passing recreation, to enjoy travel and to be easily diverted may explain the rest. He found but little diversion in books - men and things were more interesting to him.

Mr. Rindge was fortunate, too, in his wife, a woman of remarkable kindliness and charity, everywhere revered for her many amiable qualities, and nowhere better appreciated than in her own home. Socially she was connected with many charitable societies in Cambridge, and being a strict church-goer, she exerted a widespread influence upon the morals of the city. She died in less than two years after her widowhood, leaving by her will charitable foundations to commemorate her husband.

At a union meeting of officers of various corporations with wliich he had been connected, resolutions were passed in memory of j\Ir. Rindge, and it was said that every eye was dimmed by tears.

As a merchant, says a Boston paper, he leaves a character above reproach : as a citizen he was universally respected, and he will be greatly missed by the mercantile communities of Boston and New York, where he was widely known and where he was accorded a position second to none.

As a business man. writes a Cambridge editor, he was held in the highest esteem, as is evidenced by his associations in this city. For manj^ years he was a director in the Charles River National Bank, and later became its president. He was also a director in the Lechmere National Bank, and a trustee of the Cambridge Savings Bank. Mr. Rindge was always identified with projects for the good of the city, and was a liberal giver to worth}^ causes.

With an ambition to work and win, says another notice, he was always jealous of his character ; nothing could wean him from the path he had chosen. As he grew in years, so grow his reputation for probity and commercial ability. . . . With advancement he assumed the burdens following such promotion with a degree of modesty equaled only by the diligence and uprightness e.xercised in the execution of all trusts committed to his care. And thus half a century of years' in business life was passed, the experience of each year adding to the fullness of a mind already admired for the display of such superior qualities.

others, but finally in the beautiful home which he built at Little Top Hill, near Peach's Point. Here he threw off all business cares and immersed himself in healthy country living. His regard for the people of Marblehead was warmly returned, as is testified by the deep feeling which marked his obituary in the local press.

It was with saddened faces and heavy hearts, says the Marblcluuid Mfsscnucr, that our people heard of the death of Mr. Samuel B. Rindge last week. No person ever died in our midst who was more universally respected than he.

From the first he seemed to love our people, and they in turn had learned to love him. Unlike a good many who have sojourned in our community as summer residents, he could see nothing strange in our dialect or behavior that could excite ridicule or comment. Our crooked narrow streets and quaint old houses called forth from him no disparaging remarks, and he could see in those he met, men, women and childi-en created in the image of God like himself, and that he was commanded to love them, and this he did most earnestly, and his love was reciprocated by them.

He did not seem over an.xious to form an acquaintance with the tV//t', so called, although he treated all courteously, but rather the men of the people, the day laborer. He never passed one on the street without a kindly salutation and a friendly greeting, and if he was burdened with a bundle or had a long walk to or from his work, he was invited to a seat beside him in his carriage to enjoy a ride and also the pleasure of his entertaining and genial conversation.

But above all, he was a friend to the needy and down-trodden. No one who ever asked alms for himself or others, or a favor of any kind from him, was ever refused ; but he never published it to the world, for quietly and without display he gave generously of his ample wealth. His creed seemed to be more than an empty form, for, like the Master, he went about doing good. He was in every sense a true Christian gentleman.

The world is made better by such lives. It would be well for some of our wealthy men to stop and consider if it is not better to make friends instead of enemies of their fellow men who have less means than themselves. Let them study the life of this good man, whose deeds are so enshrined in all our hearts as never to be forgotten.

Akin to the features of character above commended is the interest Mr. Rindge took in the persons employed in mills under his direction. He remembered and recognized men and women, and enjoyed talking with them, and this not as dc Itaiit en has, but placing himself and them on the same level.

It was the desire of his family that the funeral should be private, and their wish was respected ; but most unexpectedly a great throng attended at the burial. Neighbors and business friends, official associates and employees, and many persons whom he had befriended were there, bearing witness by their attendance to their esteem and his worth.

William P. Hunt

William Prescott Hunt was born in Bath, N.H., January 14, 1827, and is a son of Caleb and Rebecca (Pool) Hunt, the latter a cousin of W. H. Prescott, the historian. His father was a woolen manufacturer at Bath, N.H., and imported the fir.st carding machine used in that State. Mr. Hunt was prepared for entrance to Dartmouth College, but choosing a business career he entered the service of the South Boston Iron Company in 1847, and has been identified with that corporation through its various changes ever since. In 1863 he was elected treasiirer of the company, and in 187G president and treasurer, holding the latter positions at the present time. He has also been largely interested in other industrial enterprises. From 1875 to 1893 he was president of the Forbes Lithographic Manufacturing Company; was president of the Boston Machine Company from 1804 to 1884; has been a director in the Boston Lead Manufacturing Company since 1880; and was a director in the Carver Cotton Gin Ctwnpany from 18(10 to 1888. For many years he has also taken a prominent part in the management of Boston financial institutions. In 187"^ he was elected a director of the Atlas National Bank, and from 1878 to 1882 served as president. For ten years he was a director in the Manufacturers' Insurance Company. In these various industrial and financial institutions ]Mr. Hunt has been a potent factor in their success, freely devoting his long business experience, his time and energies to their prosperity. Mr. Hunt was first married in 1856 to Miss Catherine Mullen, of New York city, who died in 1869. In 1871 he married Miss Helen S. Cummings, of New Bedford, Mass. He has five children: Mary E., William Prescott, Henry M., Arthur P. and John Cummings Hunt.

Michael H. Simpson

Michael H. Simpson, who brought into a high state of development the well known industries connected with the Roxbury Carpet Company and the Saxonville Mill, was born November 15, 1809, and was the son of Paul Simpson, a wealthy ship owner of Newburyport during the days when a phenomenal success .sometimes attended the sending of cargoes of merchandise to foreign ports. Deciding early upon a business career, young .Simpson entered into it with that energy and keen insight which distinguished him in after Hfe. Before they were of age, he, with Charles H. Coffin, of Newburyport, and George Otis, son of Harrison Gray Otis, of Boston (afterwards partners), made a highly successful venture by sending a ship and cargo to Calcutta, they being the sole owners. This may, . perhaps, be considered the basis of the fortune which Mr. Simpson afterwards acquired. His business career soon showed that to a fine physical constitution he iinited a keen sagacity in adopting means to ends, unusual executive ability and an indomitable will. By the connection of his firm with the wool trade of South America, his attention was drawn to the necessity of freeing Buenos Ayres wool from burrs to enhance its value. His inventive brain soon grasped the situation, and he produced a machine for this purpose, which proved of great value, the modern burring machine, now in general use, being the outgrowth of this invention. In the various industries with which his name was connected, for him to discover the need or necessity for improvement was to give himself no rest until he had devised a way for the accomplishment of the desired end. His extensive career as a manufacturer and employer of labor also gave scope for the development of those finer qualities of mind and heart which characterized the man. It was his delight to lay out parks and drives in connection with his estates, which he always opened to the public. In order to give employment he would purchase tracts of waste land and convert them into richly productive fields. As a friend and companion he was genial and charming. He possessed a mind well stored with the resources of history and philosophy. He was a man of keen business perceptions and was remarkably successful in all of his various investments and enterprises.

He ever recognized a beneficent, overruling Providence in all the ways of life, and sought by precept and example to inculcate the principles of a high morality in all those with whom he was brought in contact. His love for his native town manifested itself in his generous benefactions to the Public Library, toward town improvements, a fund for keeping the streets watered, and in various other ways.

Mr. Simpson was twice married. His first wife was Elizabeth Rilham, of Boston, by whom he had several children. His second marriage was to Evangeline E. Thurston Marrs, of Framingham, who survives him. His death occurred at his residence in Boston, Decem- 22, 1884.

Albert A. Pope

Albert Augustus Poi>r, the founder of the bicycle industries in the United States, was born in Boston, Mass., May 30, 1843. He traces his genealogy through many well-known New England families of Pope, Pierce, Cole, Stubbs, Neale, and others. His father, Charles Pope, was an active and stirring business man, and his mother, a daughter of Capt. James Bogman, of Boston, was a lady of rare discernment and quiet decision of character, who taught her son the habits of economy, order and method, to the exercise of which he attributes much of his success in life. When young Pope was only nine years of age, his father met with business reverses which placed the family in decidedly straitened circumstances. Albert began at once his life of work and business activity by riding a horse to plow for a neighboring farmer in Brookline, which was his home at that time. Three years later he commenced buying fruit and vegetables of the farmers and selling them to the neighbors, showing his innate ability as a manager by employing boys to assist him and reaping a profit from their labors. He soon had between forty and fifty customers, and in one season this business yielded him a profit of $100. During this time he received a fair public school education, which was all the training he ever had from schools, though by careful reading and persistent application he has obtained an exceptional fund of general knowledge. At the age of fifteen he left the high .school and secured employment in the Quincy Market, and later on took a position with a firm dealing in shoe findings. While there he did all the work of a porter, carrying heavy bags of pegs and 100-lb. bales of thread - work that would not be imposed on a full grown man in these days - and for this he received only four dollars a week, two of which he paid for board, and saved money out of the balance. An accurate account of his expenses shows that he exercised the strictest economy. The store was five miles from his home, yet he frequently walked to and from business in order to save the car fare of sixteen cents. When the war broke out he began the study of military tactics, joining the Salignac's Zouaves and the Home Guards of Brookline, of which company he soon became captain. So intense was his interest that he kept a musket in the store and with it drilled his fellow clerks and the " bosses " whenever business would permit. At nineteen years of age he joined the volunteer forces of the Union army and went to the front as .second lieutenant in the Thirtyfi-^S SUFFOLK COUNTY.

fifth Massachusetts Infantry August 32, 1863. His promotion to first lieutenant, March 23, 1803, and to captain, April 1, 18G4, are evidences of his ability and valor. He was employed upon important detached services, and acted as commander of his regiment on many occasions when the colonel was absent or disabled. He organized within twentyfour hours a provisional regiment of artillery from the convalescent camp at Alexandria, and with this force he advanced to the defence of Washington, assuming command of Fort Slocum and Fort Stevens with forty-seven pieces of artillery. This was a move which called for great ability in managing men, and it was accomplished with such skill that Captain Pope was highly complimented by his superior officers. He served in the principal Virginia campaigns, was with Burnside in Tennessee, with Grant at Vicksburg, and with Sherman at Jackson, Miss. He commanded Fort Hell before Petersburg, and in the last attack led his regiment into the the city, at the age of twent3'-one years. He was brevetted major "for gallant conduct at the battle of Fredericksburg, Va.," and lieutenant-colonel " for gallant conduct in the battles of Knoxville, Poplar Springs Church and front of Petersburg," March 13, 18(15. After the war Colonel Pope returned quietly to his former employers, but soon went into business for himself in slipper decorations and shoe manufacturers' supplies. In 1877 he became enthusiastic over the bicycle, and, with his rare foresight, determined to go into their manufacture. This was done under the name of the Pope Manufacturing Company, a corporation for which he furnished the capital and of which he became, and has ever since continued, the president and active manager. This company was organized for the making and selling of small patented articles; but within a year Colonel Pope had resolved to stake all its future on the bicycle, and he thus made his company the pioneer in the business. There was laot only no demand for wheels at that time, but in many places the prejudice against them was both outspoken and intolerant. This opposition had to be overcome and a market created. Colonel Pope exercised great diplomacy in treating this phase of the business. He imported the best 'cycling literature to be had, bound it up with the advertisement of rival firms and distributed it freely throughout the country. Through the influence and encouragement of the Pope Manufacturing Company home talent also was brought to bear on the question, resulting in the production of Mr. Pratt's book, "The American Bicycler," and in the founding of the illustrated magazine, The Wlictiinan, which cost up- wards of $IJO,(X»0, and which is flourishing as the Outing of to-day. The educating process was followed by the opening of the highways and parks for the use of wheelmen, the company expending thousands of dollars in settling the Central Park case in New York, the South Park matter in Chicago, and the Fairmount Park contest in Philadelphia. The successful organizing and prosperous growth of this industry bear a well deserved tribute to Colonel Pope as a promoter and manager of large business interests, and as a financier of strength and fertility. Colonel Pope is a director in many banking and bu.siness corporations, and his advice is sought after and valued.

He is the pioneer in the great movement for highway improvement, and has contributed liberally of his means and time for the advancement of this project. His speeches on this subject have been widely read and quoted. His latest move for a comprehensive road exhibit at the Columbian Exposition aroused the press and the public in general to the importance of the road question.

He married vSeptember '20, 1871, Abbie, daughter of George and Matilda (Smallwood) Linder, of Newton, Mass., and they have four sons and one daughter.

Amasa Walker, Ll.D.

x\m-Asa \V.\i.KKK, eldest son of Deacon Walter Walker, was born in Woodstock, Conn., May 4, 1709. In 1800 his parents bought the estate in the North Parish of Brookfield, Mass., on which their .son Amasa subsequently lived and died. Amasa Walker was a feeble and delicate child. Lack of physical stamina deprived him of the enjoyment of most of the athletic sports practiced by his companions. The fact, however, had its compensation in the impulse given to study and reflection.

On his father's estate in North Brookfield, Amasa Walker was reared, attending the Center District School ; and, in the intervals of study, working upon his father's farm, or sticking card-teeth for the manufacturers at Leicester. Naturally a good and even brilliant scholar, the child and youth took the utmost advantage of the limited opportunities offered by the village school, and acquired that thorough training in English which, without the advantages of a college education, enabled him to discuss abstruse questions of political science clearly, effectively and agreeably, and to address senates and universities with acceptance. In ISl-i he became a clerk in Colonel Henshaw's store. During the winter of 1815 to '16 he was laid up as the result of a physical injury; but in the spring of 1816 went to live with Dr. Crossfield, who had opened a store in South Brookfield. In June the store was burned, and he became clerk to Captain Moses Bond, then trading in North Brookfield. In 1817 he liegan to fit for Amherst College, under the tuition of the Rev. Dr. Snell. His zeal in study soon outran his strength, and his health completely broke down, compelling the abandonment of the college project. During the winter of 1817 to 1818, he taught a district school, and then went again to live with Captain Bond. For two years following he taught school in various districts of North Brookfield, or worked upon the farm at home.

In October, 1830, in company with Allen Newell, he bought the store and stock of Major Holt, of West Brookfield. The partnership continued successfully until February, 1823, when Mr. Walker sold out his interest and became agent of the Methuen Manufacturing Compan)', where he remained for two years. In 1825 he entered into business in Boston with Charles G. Carleton, under the title of Carleton & Walker, and on the 6th of July, 1826, married his partner's sister, Emeline, daughter of Deacon Jonathan Carleton, of Boston. Mrs. Walker died July 24, 1828, leaving one child, who died in infancy. In 1829 Mr. Walker went into business b}' himself, where his energy enabled him to achieve success; yet, notwithstanding the virgent demands of his business and his always delicate health, often threatening complete prostration, he took a prominent part in a great variety of political, social and intellectual elforts.

In 1829 he helped to organize the Boston Lyceum, and was its first secretary. In the same year he entered actively into the movement against Masonry, which culminated in the nomination of William Wirt for the presidency in 1832. In the latter year he became president of the Boston Lyceum and a director of the Franklin Bank. In 1833 he delivered the Fourth of July oration before the Young Men's Society of Boston. In 1834, June 23, he married Miss Hannah Ambrose, of Concord, N. H., by whom he had three children, all of whom survived him. In 1835 Mr. Walker lost both father and mother by death. In this year he wrote a series of articles in the Daily Advertiser^ calling attention to the necessity of a railroad to connect Boston with Albany and the West beyond. These articles (signed. South Market Street) gave rise to a public meeting, which resulted in securing the stock of the Western Railway. In 1837 he was appointed one of the directors, serving in that capacity four years.

In June, 1839, Mr. Walker visited vSt. Louis and Alton, and addressed meetings of the citizens, urging the importance of early and strenuous efiforts to secure a continuous all rail line of communication between Boston and the Mississippi. Newspaper reports of these addresses have been preserved and constitute a most interesting feature in our commercial history. At that time railroad engines weighed but nine tons. A train of cars carried but fifty tons of freight. A journey by rail was only less tedious than by canal. Mr. Walker assured his hearers that locomotives weighing fourteen tons would soon be built ; that trains in the future would carry as much as a hundred and fif t}' tons ; and that, incredible as it might seem, a Boston merchant would yet make the journey to St. Louis in five days, eating and sleeping on the cars. In his description of passenger cars " of two stories," the upper being for lodging, we have the germ of the Pullman car.

From the beginning of the anti-slavery movement, Mr. Walker had joined actively in that effort, speaking and writing freely; he never, however, acceded to opinions adverse to the union of the States. He insisted upon constitutional methods within the Union and subject to the laws. In 1S3'J he became president of the Boston Temperance Society, the first association of its kind in the city. Mr. Walker's published writings on total abstinence began in 18'26.

In 18-10, owing to increasing bodily infirmities, :Mr. Walker retired permanently from business. The scale of his mercantile transactions had been extensive, and he had done more to open the trade of Boston with the South and Southwest than any other merchant of the same generation ; but the large profits of his business had been impaired by the almost total wreck of trade and industry in 1837 and 183ii, so that he retired with only a moderate competence, sufficient, however, for all his needs. Not even ill health could diminish his interest in public affairs; and he took an active part in the Harrison campaign, strenuously advocating the establishment of the Sub-Treasury system. For this he was subjected to much obloquy; but the results of forty years' financial experience have completely demonstrated his sagacity.

The winter of 1810 to 1841 Mr. Walker spent in Florida on account f his health. In 181-2 he went to Oberlin, O., on account of his great interest in the organization of a college in that town, to which he had contributed of his means, and remained there ten months, giving lectures in poHtical economy, a subject to which his mind had been increasingly drawn by the financial experiences of 1837 and 1839. In May, 1843, he finally took up his residence at North Brookfield, on his father's estate; but went almost immediately to England as delegate to the First International Peace Congress, of which he became one of the vice-presidents. In 184-1 he resided mainly in North Brookfield ; but delivered a course of lectures at Oberlin College and attended peace conventions in various parts of the country.

In 1848 his anti-slavery convictions led to his taking an active part in the formation of the Free Soil Party. He was a member of the convention which placed Van Buren in nomination for the presidency. In the fall of that year he was elected to the Massachusetts House of Representatives. He took his seat January, 1849, and became the Free Soil and Democratic candidate for speaker. In the summer of this year he attended the International Peace Congress of Paris, becoming one of its vice-presidents. In the fall of the same year he was elected to the State Senate. Taking his seat in January, 1850, he brought forward his plan for a sealed ballot law, which was enacted the following year.

In 1851 and 1852 he was elected secretary of state by the united Free Soil and Democratic vote. In the latter year he received the degree of Master of Arts from Middlebury College. In 1853 he was elected a member of the convention for revi-sing the Constitution of Massachusetts, and became chairman of the committee on suffrage. From 1853 to 1859 he was one of the examiners in political economj^ at Harvard University. In 1854 he took a part in the organization of the North Brookfield Savings Bank, and became its first president. He was this year appointed lecturer on political economj' in Amherst College.

This year, 1857, was one of great import to the life of Mr. Walker. Early in that year he began the publication, in Hunt's Merchants' Magazine, of a series of articles on political economy. The series had already progressed so far as to give Mr. Walker's views on money, when the financial panic commenced. Almost by chance Mr. Walker attended, early in October, a large meeting of the merchants of Boston, intended to fortify the banks of that city in their determination to maintain specie payments. At this meeting Mr. Walker took the ground that the banks could not possibly maintain specie payments for more than two weeks, and that it was desirable they should at once suspend, instead of causing the failure of the best merchants of the city, as they must inevitably do by refusing discounts in a vain attempt to save their own so-called honor. This speech created a great sensation at the time, and gave rise to a heated discussion in the jniblic press; but the suspension, within twelve days, of every bank in Boston, after causing the failure of great numbers of the best mercantile houses, some of them worth millions of dollars, gave so striking a comfirmation to Mr. Walker's views as to bring him into great prominence as an authority on finance. This episode may be considered the turning point in his intellectual career. From this time till the day of his death, the subject of the currency absorbed all the time he had to devote to public affairs. His attention had been especially called to the defects of the American system of paper money by the financial convulsions of 1837-9; and his exile in Florida during the winter of 1840-1, whither he carried the works of Adam vSmith and Ricado, gave him opportunity for reflection, of which the results appeared in a pamphlet on the Nature of Money, published in the fall of 1857. Mr. Walker did not, like many American writers, condemn the issue of bank notes; but he recommended such restrictions upon issue as should place the paper money of the country on a sound basis.

In July of 1859 Mr. Walker visited Europe again; and in the fall of that year was elected to the Massachusetts House of Representatives, where he took an important part in the revision of the laws relating to banking and the issue of paper money. At the presidential election of 1800 Mr. Walker was chosen a member of the Electoral College of Massachusetts, casting his vote for Abraham Lincoln. The outbreak, 1859 -GO, of the cattle disease, known as pleuro-pneumonia, led to an enactment by the Legislature of Massachusetts, at a special session, of a law for its extirpation ; and a commission was appointed for this purpose, of which Mr. Walker was made chairman. The commission performed its work so vigorously and thoroughly as to secure the complete extirpation of this pest.

Beginning in 1859 Mr. Walker continued for several years to deliver an annual course of lectures in Amherst College. In the fall of 18<i-i he was elected a representative in Congress for an unexpired term. During the session of 1862-3 he made several speeches on finance. In 18(!i! he published his main woi'k in economics, entitled " The Science of Wealth." This work passed, in the following years, through not less than eight American editions, was translated into Italian, and received commendation from the economists of America and Europe. The moral enthusiasm, confidence in the right, and hope for the future, which pervaded the book, together with its wealth of examples drawn from American life, gave it a peculiar interest to writers and students of political economy in Europe. In 1807 Mr. Walker, received the degree of Doctor of Laws from Amherst College. Until his death he continued to write extensively in magazines and in the daily and weekly papers. His leisure gave frequent opportunities for travel; and he spent not a little of each year in visits to Boston, New Haven or Washington, or in trips to Florida or California.

Always cheerful and sanguine, in spite of great delicacy of health and frequent attacks of pain and sickness, the last years of his life were the happiest. He continued his physical and intellectual activity unimpaired to the very instant when, on the 29th of October, 1875, without a word or sigh, he ceased to breathe. Had the end been foreseen it would have been most welcome, for he had in July lost his wife, his companion for more than forty 5'ears. The father, Walter Walker, had in like manner closely followed his wife to the grave.

Mr. Walker was in figure slender and erect; and was very quick and graceful in his movements, producing the effects of being much taller than he was. His features were regular and clear-cut, and his whole appearance at once engaging and commanding. His voice was of unusual richness and power; and in public speaking he had a singular faculty of closely holding the attention of his audience, however large or however unfriendly. He made little use of rhetorical ornament ; but spoke with a fullness of knowledge, clearness of expression and earnestness of purpose seldom surpassed. He was fond of company ; and his delight was in the communication of his ideas and sentiments, or in learning the purposes, feelings and wishings of the young. Wlierever he traveled he easily and quickly made acquaintance, and immediately seized the occasion either to acquire or to impart information. In private charities, and in contributions to enterprises of public interest, he was lilieral and even lavish.

Henry Lee

Henry Lkk, whose portrait we present herewith, was a representative merchant and man, and he represented a notable family. In a memorial of his nephew, John Clarke Lee (one of the fonnders of the house of Lee, Higginson & Company), by the Rev. E. B. Willson, from which we shall quote more than once in this sketch, it is said : "The Lees of this line appear to have been, from the first American forefather known to us down to the subject of this notice, a people with a positive flavor, in whom was a strong individuality of character; not rounded and toned to a conventional and commonplace type, yet very genuine withal, and without affectation of eccentricity."

Henry Lee's great-grandfather was an upright business man in Boston, a much respected citizen of the town, and an honored member and office-bearer in one of the churches of the established order, for fifty or sixty years in the eighteenth century. His obituary, published July 21, 17(36, was as follows: " Yesterday morning died Mr. Thomas Lee, in the ninety-fourth year of his age, who in the early and active part of Life carried on a considerable Trade in this Town, though he deserves to be recorded, rather for the unblemished Integrity of his Dealings, and the exact Punctuality of his Payments, than for the Extent of his Trade, or the Length of his Life."

Thomas, the eldest son of Thomas Lee, was born in Boston, was educated at Harvard College, and settled in Salem, where he became a prominent merchant, and was entrusted with various important duties in the town, and served as its representative in the General Court. He died in 1747, leaving a son Joseph, then three years old, who was deprived by the circumstances of his family of the advantages of a liberal education, and was obliged to go to sea at the age of thirteen. This Joseph Lee in due time succeeded to the command of a vessel, and then became a merchant and shipowner. He married Elizabeth Cabot, who belonged to a family of merchants. George Cabot, who afterward made a distinguished name as a public man and a senator of the United States, served his brother-in-law through all grades from cabin-boy upward, and the two were partners for many years, and carried on a large and profitable trade with the West Indies, Spain and the Baltic. What the biographer of George Cabot tells us of his early experiences at sea, illustrates the nature of the training which made great merchants and great men in Massachusetts a hundred years ago: " Not yet seventeen years old, he shipped as cabin-boy in a vessel commanded by his brother-in-law, Mr. Joseph Lee. Such a change in his mode of life must have been a sharp one to a young collegian of studious habits ; nor was his lot softened by relationship with his captain ; for if family tradition may be trusted, Mr. Lee gave his young kinsman the full benefit of severe ship's discipline. "

Mr. Joseph Lee and the Messrs. Cabot moved from Salem to Beverly, which latter port was a busy one in their day; other merchants there at the same time were Moses Brown, Israel Thorndike, and John and Thomas Stephens. Mr. Lee, better known as Captain Lee, understood naval construction thoroughly; his models were a great improvement upon anything which had hitherto been in use, and were adopted by many of the merchants and mechanics in Boston, as well as on the north shore. Commodore Downes used to say that in the War of 1812 the " Lee model " was the favorite model in the navy.

Henry Lee, sixth son and ninth child of Joseph and Elizabeth (Cabot) Lee, of whom we are now to speak particularly, was born in Beverly, February 4, 1782. He was educated at Phillips (Andover) Academy, and at Billerica, where Dr. Ebenezer Pemberton, who had been principal of Phillips from 1786 to 1795, kept school for some years. Two of his brothers had been sent to Harvard College, and his father offered to send him, but there was a prejudice in those days against a college education for a youth who had a business career before him, and he decided therefore not to go. He entered the counting-room of Marston Watson, Rowe's Wharf, Boston, and, early in the present century, went into business with his brother Joseph, first having an office at No. 9 Doane street, and then in Phillips Building, Kilby and Water streets. The brothers were not successful; and, in 1811, Mr. Henry Lee went to Calcutta, by way of London, in the brig Reaper, which belonged to him or his father. Whether this was his first voyage to the East Indies we do not know. He remained in Calcutta during the War of 1812, and came into very friendly relations with the great English houses there, which were continued after his return to the United States. He brought home with him not only a large acquaintanceship, but a fund of valuable information; and he was regarded as an authority both in Calcutta and Boston on all questions affecting the trade between the two ports. His Calcutta friends reposed such trust in him that, before the Baring-s furnished American merchants with letters of credit, all the younger and some of the long established houses depended on a letter from Mr. Lee to substantiate and define their pecuniary responsibility, and thus to enable them to sell their bills to the resident merchants. His store was at No. 39 India Wharf, and he was associated with Mr. Ozias Goodwin, who had served him as clerk and supercargo, and, later, with Mr. William S. Bullard, who had been brought up by him in the business. The firm was well known and highly respected in all the commercial centers in the United States and Europe, and the goods imported by it from Calcutta, Madras and Bombay were shipped again to the West Indies, South America and various European ports, as well as coastwise to New York, Philadelphia and the Southern cities. Mr. Lee was somewhat sanguine, however, and more than once met with temporary reverses. He was better fitted for the legal profession than for active business, and had it not been for his unconqtierable shyness of manner he would have been useful and eminent in public life. He was an able statistician, and an enthusiastic student of political economy, and while the conclusions to which he came in this department were not in accord with the prevailing opinions in the community in which he lived, he was recognized in England as a high authority by statisticians like McCuUoch, economists like Tooke and Newmarch, and Anti-Corn Law Leaguers like Villiers and Thorneley.

When the question of protection began to be an issue in New England, Mr. Lee ranged himself with those who were opposed to tariff duties except for purposes of national revenue. In 1820 nearly all the leading business men of Boston were anti-protectionists, and, led by Mr. Webster, they vigorously protested against any advance upon the low rates of dut}- then in force. But, as the manufacturing industries in cotton and wool obtained a foothold in this part of the coimtry, and became organized, the demand for protection on the behalf of those who had invested capital in them divided public opinion .sharply, and the line was drawn between those who were concerned in these industries and the merchants who represented foreign commerce. During the autumn of 182G three conventions were held in Boston by the woolen manufacturers of Massachusetts and adjacent States. A protective duty on woolen goods of thirty-three and a third per cent, had been laid two or three years previously, but the same act had advanced the protection on wool from fifteen to thirty per cent., and the woolen manufacturers, thus handicapped, were now calling not only for a higher rate of duty on the manufactured article, but for a change from ad valorem to specific duties. An active campaign to this end was prosecuted through the newspapers, and b}^ circulars scattered broadcast, under the direction of a committee of correspondence consisting of Jonas B. Brown, James M, Robbins, Lewis Tappan, James Wolcott, jr., and Joshua Clapp As the discussions became intense, the motives of those who were opposed to further protection were criticised, and suspicion was thrown even upon their patriotism. The committee of correspondence, in a circular published in November, 1826, said: " It is not now a question between difTerent American interests, but one between Americans and Englishmen." ^Matthew Carey, of Philadelphia, described the merchants from Maine to Savannah as a solid phalanx, united "to oppose every attempt to afford relief to their fellow citizens, however acute their distress, however intense their sufferings." Of the Essex Junto, of which the Cabots and Lees were prominent members, Mr. Clay said on the floor of Congress that its predilection for foreign trade and for British fabrics was unconquerable.

In 1827 a meeting was held in Boston of citizens "opposed to the further increase of the existing burthensome duties on imported articles, and especially the injurious consequences to the community at large of further duties on imported woolen goods." An influential committee was appointed, consisting of Nathaniel Goddard, Lemuel Shaw, Isaac Winslow, Thomas W. Ward, Henry Lee, Samuel Swett, Daniel P. Parker and others. The duty of preparing a report was assigned by the committee to Mr. Lee, and the result of his labors was a pamphlet of nearly two hundred pages octavo, in which the whole question of the tarifi", both in its general bearings, and in connection with the particular measures then under con,sideration, is discussed in a masterly way, and which might well be made use of to-day by those who wish to study the subject from all sides. The views of Franklin, of Hamilton in his report on manufactures, and of Webster in his speeches of 1820 and later, are quoted and applied, and the action of the Harrisburg Convention of the year before is examined in detail. The report, which came to be known as the Boston Report, bears date November'30, 1827, and, in presenting it, the committee said: " Your committee are aware of the peculiarl)^ difficult position in which this cjuestion is now placed, by the accidental if not designed connexion of this subject, under the specious name of the American system | an imitation of the old Colonial system], with certain controverted political questions, between which and that system your committee believe there is no natural or necessary relation."

While conceding- the power of Consjress to impose duties for revenue, the efifect of which would be to encourage and promote manufactures, the report says: " It is the abuse of this power, when carried to such extremes as to prohibit imports and consequently lessen our exp(jrt trade, destroy revenue, burden one part of the nation with heavy taxes for the benefit of another, which constitutes the wrong, and which, we contend, is neither in accordance with the spirit or letter of a constitution which was intended to guarantee equal laws, equal rights, as well as equal burdens, to all who live under it."

" In conclusion, we say, the system we are opposing is not patriotic, is not American. Disguise it under what names you will, it is still a system founded on error and injustice. It is a system in which there are principles at work that will 'fir.st weaken, and finally break, those social, moral, and political ties which bind this Union together. We call then upon the farmer, the merchant, the mechanic, the navigator, the laborer, the citizen at large, upon every one who feels an interest in the welfare of his country, and, above all, upon the prudent, just and enlightened manufacturer, to join us in resisting it."

The memorial to Congress which accompanied this report was written by Lemuel Shaw. The Free Trade Advocate, edited by Condy Raguet, in Philadelphia, gave the following judgment on Mr. Lee's pamphlet: "Of all the publications which have appeared in this country, in favour of the principles of free trade, and in opposition to the narrow, selfish and anti-national policy miscalled the ' American system,' there is none which .stands so conspicuous as the 'report of a committee of the citizens of Boston and vicinity opposed to a further increase of duties on importations,' first published on the ;50th of November, 1827, prior to the passage of the last tariff law. This work occupies a volume of one hundred and eighty pages of clo.sely ))rintcd octavo, and has passed through four editions, respectively at Boston, New York, Philadelphia and Charleston. It is ascribed to the pen of a practical merchant, one of the members of the committee, and when we sav that it contains more substantial information, more sound doctrine, and more practical illustration connected with the great truths of political economy, than is to be found in the same space in any book in the English language, we express the opinion, we believe, of all those with whom we have conversed on the subject, whose judgment in such matters is entitled to any weight. The Boston Report is, in fine, in our humble estimation, the most triumphant vindication of the principles which it has been the design of this journal to inculcate, and the most masterly refutation of all the fallacies of the restrictive party, that has ever appeared in print; and we cannot too strongly recommend it to the perusal of all who are desirous of thoroughly understanding the true interest of the country. For our own part, we are free to confess it, and we do it without any design to flatter the respectable gentleman who is the subject of these remarks, that most of the limited knowledge which we possess of the practical operation of the restrictive system has been derived from the Boston Report, and that without the existence of that work as a pioneer to prepare the way, our labours as an humble coadjutor in the great cause of agricultural and commercial freedom would not have been as light as they have thus far proved to be.

" In our paper of to-day we pul)lish from the Report in c^uestion a section upon the causes of the fall in the prices of cotton goods, which we flatter ourselves will be read with interest and profit, not only by those who have never seen it before, but even by those who are already familiar with the contents of Mr. Lee's volume."

The CongTessional election in Boston in 1830 turned upon the issue between free ti'ade and protection. Captain William Sturgis was selected to represent the foi'mer, but he withdrew at the la.st moment, and Mr. Lee accepted the candidac}^ in his place. !Mr. Nathan Appleton Avas the candidate of the protectionists, and he was elected after a close contest. On taking his seat in Congress, Mr. Appleton was assigned by the speaker, Mr. Stevensmi, df Virginia, to a position on the Committee on Invalid Pensions; "this appointment could be considered in no other light than a spiteful revenge upon the city of Boston for having disappointed the administration in the choice of the representative."

A Free Trade Convention was held in Philadelphia in 1831, and Mr. Lee took a leading part in its proceedings. A very forcible memorial for presentation to Congress was drafted by Albert Gallatin, who presided over its deliberations ; at the request of the permanent committee Mr. Lee prepared an " Exposition of Evidence " in support of the memorial, and this was printed and wideh' circulated. It is full of statistical matter, carefully compiled and clearly presented, and it is a monument to the ability, the painstaking industry, and the public spirit of the author.

In 18:U, when General Jackson was in conflict with the Bank of the United States, the government deposits having already been withdrawn, Mr. Lee, with Mr. Nathan Appleton, Mr. Patrick T. Jackson, and others, went to Washington in behalf of the citizens of Boston, to remonstrate with the administration, and to do what could be done towards a renewal of the charter of the bank. On their way they had an interview with Mr. Biddle, the president, whose policy of violently C(jntracting the currency they disapproved and protested against. To relieve the pressure in the money market and the general distress which followed the closing of the bank, a meeting was held in Boston, January IS, 1S3G, at which Thomas B. Wales presided, and George William Gordon served as secretary. The meeting was called specifically "to consider the need of a bank with a capital sufficient to do the business which had been done by the Branch Bank of the United States," and it was resolved to ask the Legislature " to incorporate a bank with a capital of not exceeding ten millions of dollars, one-half to be subscribed and paid for by the State in four per cent, bonds." The memorial embodying this proposition was drawn up by a committee con.sisting of Henry Lee, Henry Rice, George Bond, Thomas B. Curtis, James McGregor, Ozias Goodwin, Horace Gray, and others, and it received the signature of Perkins and Company and seventeen hundred and thirty-six others. It said : "The increased and increasing business of the whole Commonw'ealth requires the aid of foreign capital, and such capital cannot be obtained without the credit of the State. Such an institution will not only relieve the wants of the community, but will give a new impulse to all the concerns of agriculture, manufactures, commerce and the fisheries." Mr. Lee wrote "an exposition of the facts and arguments in support of the memorial," which was printed with the legislative (locuments of the year. Strong ground is taken in this paper against the usury laws then on the statute book of the Commonwealth; but in this particular Mr. Lee says expressly that he does not represent the opinions of all the memorialists.

At the urgent request of his son, Mr. Lcc retired from active business in 1840, and henceforth devoted himself to the more congenial pursuits of reading and writing, and to the study of the great questions of the day. He was succeeded, in the same store on India Wharf, by the firm of Bullard, Lee and Company, which consisted of Messrs. William S. Bullard, Henry Lee, jr., and Stephen H. Bullard. After more than a quarter of a century spent in honorable and peaceful retirement, and in the exercise of a genial and healthful influence upon all who knew him, he died on the 6th of February, LSiiT. In announcing the event of his death, the Boston Daily Adi'tT/iscr said:

Mr. Henry Lee, who died at his residence in this city yesterday morning at the venerable age of eighty-five years, had been well known to our business community almost from the beginning of this century, and was highly respected for his attainments, his public spirit, and his many estimable personal qualities. In the prime of his life he was well known as a writer on financial topics, and it was his singular fortune in 1832 to receive the vote of South Carolina for vice-president of the United States on a ticket with John Floyd, for whom she voted for president. In the latter part of his life, until advanced age compelled him to withdraw his mind from the excitement of politics, we believe that Mr. Lee was a strong upholder of the ideas of Massachusetts. His death removes one of the most familiar names from the honored list of our merchants of the old school.

It sh(.)uld be said that the vote given to Mr. Lee for the vice-presidency by the vState of Sottth Carolina was mereU' an expression of its gratititde for his opposition to high tariff legislation, and not becarise he had any sympathy with its attempt at nullification. The reference of the Advertiser to his being a strong upholder of " the ideas of Massachusetts," meant, of course, that he gave his support to the principles of the Republican party, which were accepted by the majority of the people of the State during the war of the Rebellion and in the years that followed.

His simplicity, his cordiality, his eloquence in conversation (for nothing would have induced him to sj^eak in public), his general information, contribtited to place him in friendly relations with the whole community, and few men m private station have been more respected and beloved.

He married, June 1(_J, 1809, Mary, youngest daughter of the Hon. Jonathan Jackson, by whom he had six children. His wife's brothers. Judge Charles and Doctor James Jackson, were eminent in their professions, and universally respected and beloved ; her brother, Mr. Patrick Tracy Jackson, and her brother-in-law, Mr. Francis Cabot Lowell, after a brief career as East India merchants, founded at Waltham the first successful cotton cloth factory in Massachttsetts, but never advocated permanent high duties, as did the Appletons, Lawrences,

The judicious estimate of his personal character and worth, j>-iven at his funeral by the Rev. Dr. Hedjje, will help to make our sketch more complete :

Our friend, whose mortal remains we are about to .commit to their final rest, has left an image in our memory which all who knew him in the days of his strength will delight to cherish.

I feel that I should be false to the spu'itof his character, and do violence, especially to that modesty and simplicity, which seem to me its distinguishing characteristics, were I to expatiate concerning it in the way of eulogy.

Those who in years gone by were associated with him in tlie way of business will bear witness to the high principles and lofty integrity which governed his conduct in all ctmimercial relations, and impelled him after repeated misfortunes to cancel obligations which the law could no longer exact, but which his own r|uick sense of honor made none the less binding.

I, who knew him only in the latter days of his retirement, can .speak only of his qualities as they exhibited themselves in social intercourse. I esteemed it a privilege to converse with one whose pursuits and large experience of men and life had furnished his mind with such ample stores of thought and anecdote, and who had at his command such varied and exact information on topics of public and national interest. I rarely left him without feeling myself enriched by his conversation.

But what most iinpressed and charmed me in his social character, as I recall it, was his perfect naturalness, his affluent humor, and a certain gaietv of spirit, found only, as I believe, in connecticm with great purity and innocence of heart and life. 1 have seen him at the age of nearly four score engaged in sports with young children as if himself were one of them, with entire abandonment of all false ideas of dignity and reserve. He seemed to me to retain in extreme age the playfulness and gentleness of a little child.

I recall, moreover, with vivid satisfaction the high tone and generous strain of sentiments expressed by him on the great political question of the time in which I knew him, and I well remember the encouragement I derived from the patriotic zeal and prompt decision with which, at the breaking out of the war, the old man embraced the side of liberty and union.

His earthly existence was an acceptable offering, and when the sacrifice was done it was meet that the flame should go out. The incense of that sacrifice has ascended to heaven ; to us remains the odor of a useful and honorable life.

Mr. Howells has preserved for all time, in one of his volumes, the memory of the Calcutta trade, with whose great development and gradual decline Mr. Henry Lee's active life was contemporaneous. The stor}^ is told by one who is supposed to have worked his way from the forecastle to the quarter-deck, and from the cabin to the counting-room :

"The place [India Wharf J was sacred to the shipping of the grandest commerce in the world. There the)' lay, those beautiful ships, clean as silver, every one of them, manned by honest Yankee crews. Not by rufifians from every quarter of the globe. There were gentlemen's sons before the mast, with their share in the venture, going out for the excitement of the thing, hoys from Harvard, fellows of education and spirit; and the forecastle was filled with good Toms and Jims and joes from the Cape, chaps who.se aunts you knew ; good stock through and through, .sound to the core. We had on a mixed cargo, and we might he going to trade with eastern ports on the wa}' out. Nobody knew what market we should find in Calcutta. It was pure adventure, and a calculation of chances, and it was a great school of character. It was a trade tluit made men as well as fortunes; it took thought and forethought. The owners planned their ventures like generals planning a campaign. The)' were not going to see us again for a year; they were not going to hear of us till we were signalled outside on our return."

It has been well said )iy a friendly critic of Mr. Howells: "This passage deserves a place in the best histor)' of Boston that shall be written, for it perfectly pictures one of the great periods in Boston's commercial past, a period when the magnificent East India trade of the port laid the foundation for much of its present wealth and greatness. How strongly the difference between the broadening, cultivating effect upon those engaged in a trade which carried the mind out into remote parts of the world, and the restrictive effect of most of the mercantile occupations of to-da)', is brought out. To be in the East India trade was almost a liberal education in itself."

Joseph Nickerson

Joseph Nickerson was a lineal descendant of William Nickerson who came from the County of Norfolk in England in April, 1()37. He landed in Boston, 1)ut soon after purchased from the Indians a large tract of land in Yarmouth, on Cape Cod, and settled upon it. The grandfather of Joseph settled in Brewster, where the subject of this memoir was born March 3, 1804. He died in the same town Februarv 28, 1880. He was the son of David and Priscilla (Snow) Nickerson. David Nickerson was a ship master. He died at sea at a comparatively early age, leaving five sons, David, Joseph, Jonathan Snow, Frederic, and Thomas. All, except Thomas, went to sea and became ship masters. Frederic and Thomas became successful merchants and ship owners, and later in life became lai-gely interested in railroads. Frederic was a director in the Union Pacific, and Thomas was president of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe and Mexican Central Railroad Companies.

Joseph, the second son, was about twelve years old when his father died. He at once started as a cabin boy, and at the age of nineteen had won his way to the command of a full rigged ship. He soon became part owner of his ship and cargoes, and at the age of twenty-three retired with a fortune. He settled in Boston, and at some time in the thirties he with Captain (\sborn Howes traveled in the West. They foresaw that a city would be built on Lake Michigan near where Chicago now is, and bought a large tract of land where they thouglit it would be located. The city came as they predicted, but unfortunately did not cover their land.

He soon after engaged in business in Boston, and acquired very large interests in .shipping. He also became a manufacturer, and owned mills for the manufacture of cotton. He was president of the Arlington Mills in Lawrence, owning at one time a majority of the stock. As his wealth increased he became interested in railroads. He aided in the construction of the railroads in Iowa, which now form a part of the Northwestern system. He had a larger interest than any other man in the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad Company, and it was mainly due to his courage and resources that the road was carried safely through a period of financial depression. Up to the last day of his life his business operations were carried on with full vigor. He was a man of strong character and convictions, self reliant and sagacious. He was a born leader of men in large undertakings, and there were few, if any, whose judgment inspired wider or more profound confidence. His sympathies were deep, and he was most generous in aiding his friends in financial troubles. He was twice married. His first wife was Emiline Winslow, and the second, who survives him, was Louise Winslow, daughter of Abraham Winslow, of Brewster. He left by his second wife two sons and two daughters. The elder, Albert Winslow, succeeded him as president of the Arlington Mills and as director of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad Company. Albert Winslow died in 18113, and the younget son, George Augustus, a graduate of Harvard College in the class of 1876, is now president of the Arlington

Frederick Lothrop Ames

Fkkdkkick LoTHRoi' AiMKS, onc of the countr\''s great capitalists, and widely known as a man of strong and unsullied character, was born in Easton, Mass., June S, \%'^5. He was the son of Oliver and Sarah Lothrop Ames, his mother being the daughter of Hon. Howard Lothrop, of Easton, who had served in the Massachusetts Senate, and in other official positions, and sister of Hon. George Van Ness Lothrop, United States minister to Russia, during Cleveland's first administration.

At Bruton, in the shire of Somerset,, England, was the ancestral home of the Ames family, and thence, some fifteen years after the New England fathers set foot on Plymouth rock, William, the first one whose name appears in Massachusetts annals, removed to the settlement of Braintree.

The history of the Ames family forms an interesting cliapter in the industrial annals of New England, The foundations of the family fortunes were laid about 17T:i, when Capt. John Ames, great-grandfather of our subject, began the making of shovels in West Bridgewater. Captain John's son, ( )liver, learned his trade at his father's forge, went to Easton, and in 180-5 established the works, and firm, which have since attained world-wide reputation, under the name of Oliver Ames & Sons. Of Oliver's sons, the best known were Oakes, and Oliver, the latter being the father of Frederick L. Ames.

The first Oliver Ames, who gave his name to the shovel manufact(jry, never became practically interested in railroad affairs ; in fact, within the period of his active career, railroad building had reached limits of comparatively small magnitude, and his mind and abilities were fiilly occupied with the enterprises which he had in hand. It was during the gold excitement in California, and a few years after, during the .similar excitement in Australia, that Oliver Ames & Sons began to develop their great trade, which rapidly grew to large proportions. Later, the firm supplied immense cjuantities of shovels to the United States government during the civil war, and afterwards, through the sons, Oakes and Oliver, became interested in the building of the Union Pacific Railroad. The full tide of the business success of these two broth- ers fell upon the exciting times incident to the first jjfrcal railway development in this countr}'. Large minded and vigorous, and possessing excellent judgment and clear-sightedness, they foresaw the advantages that were likely to result to the country, and themselves, from just and judicious management of the rising interests, and accordinglv threw themselves into railroad development with all the ardor and ability for which their name had already become noted. Without them, and others like them, would never, in their day, have been forged the link that binds east and west in bonds that shall never more be severed.

Frederick L. Ames received his early education at C(.incord, Mass. He was prepared for college at Phillips Exeter Academy, and was graduated from Harvard University in 18o4. In recent years, and at the time of his death, he served as fellow and trustee of that institution. In his youth he had a strong fancy for the law, but, in accordance with his father's wishes, he went into business, beginning as a clerk in the (jffice of Oliver Ames & Sons at North Easton, and securing promotions from grade to grade, according to the rules which prevailed in the establishment. After several years' labor as a subordinate, he was placed in charge of the accountant's department; here he exhibited marked business ability, and solely by his industry and ajnitude won advancement. He was in his twenty-eighth year when, in 1 8f;:), by the death of his grandfather, he became a member of the firm. In 187ii, before his father's death, the firm was reorganized under the title of Oliver Ames & Sons Corporation, Frederick L. Ames, treasurer. Soon after he succeeded his father as the official, and actual head, of that great manufacturing concern.

But it was not exactly in the path that his father had marked out for him that he became most famous. When his father died he was already a rich man, by reason of the great success that had attended his individual enterprises in the business world. He had invested as liberallv as he could afford in western railroads, and while he was still comparatively a young man, he was a director in the Union Pacific, the Chicago and Northwestern, the Missouri Pacific, and Texas Pacific roads, and had gradually diverted his interests from manufacturing to railroads.

While he retained his interest in the North Easton factory of his ancestors, being treasurer of the corporation at the time of his death, it was in the larger field of railroad enterprises that he distinguished himself, and has left a name conspicuous among the foremost men of the railroad world. Being a judge of the value, quality, resources and possibilities of railway propeily, he was considered an adviser almost unequaled in such matters. Universally conceded to have been one of the best informed men in railroad business in the country, he was vicepresident of the Old Colony Railroad Company, a director in the Old Colony Steamboat Company, and held directorships in about half a hundred other railroad companies, including the following : Atchison, Colorado & Pacific ; Atchison, Jewell Company & Western ; Boulder Valley & Central City Wagon Road ; Carbon Cut-Off Company ; Central Branch Union Pacific ; Chicago & Northwestern ; Colorado Western ; Denver, Leadville & Gunnison ; Denver, Union & Terminal ; Echo & Park City ; Fall River, Warren & Providence: Fitchburg; Fort Worth & Denver City; Gray "s Peak; »Snake River & Leadville ; Golden Boulder & Caribou ; Junction Cit}' & Fort Kearney; Kansas Central ; Kansas City & Omaha; Laramie, North Park & Pacific Railroad & Telegraph Company ; Lawrence & Emporia ; Leavenworth ; Topeka & Southwestern ; Loveland Pass Mining & Railroad Tunnel ; Manhattan, Alma & Burlington ; Montana; Montana Union; North Park & Grand River \'alley Railroad & Telegraph Company; Omaha & Elkhorn Valley; Oregon Railway & Navigation Company; Oregon Railway & Extension Company; Oregon Short Line & Utah Northern; Providence, Warren & Bristol ; St. Joseph & Grand Lsle ; vSalina & South Weston ; Solomon ; Union Pacific ; Union Pacific, Lincoln & Colorado ; Union Pacific, Denver & Gulf; Washington & Idaho; Walla Walla &- Colorado River.

Besides his official connections with railroads, Mr. Ames's remarkable business energies found employment in other fields. He was president of the First National Bank of North Easton. president of the North Easton Savings Bank, and of the Hoosac Tunnel Dock and Elevator Company, and a director in the New England Trust Company, the Old Colony Trust Company, the Bay vState Trust Company, the American Loan and Trust Company, the Mercantile Trust Company of New York, General Electric Company, Western Union Telegraph Cornpan}', and others.

In the business world Mr. Ames was not regarded as a speculator, his operations being- alwaj^s undertaken from practical standpoints. His judgment was clear, cool and sound, immoved b)' mere hope, enthusiasm or excitement of any kind, leading him straight to the mark. He was neither elated by success, nor depressed by failure, but kept an even temper amid the distractions of a most active business life. Associated in the closest relations with .some of the most noted bu.siness characters in the country, his shrewdness and sound judgment enabled him to work with them as their ecjual in enterprise and abilit)' to manage, when legitimate operations were in question, while his probity, and strict integrity, rendered him proof against any doubtful enterprises or compromising combinations. He had all the Ames method in business operations, neglecting no details which ought to occupy his attention, untiring and methodical in business habits, energetic to the last degree, forgetting nothing, and forsaking nothing, on the ground of lack of necessity for personal action.

Thus far we have considered Mr, Ames only as an able and eminent business man, but he was much more than that. His was a strong and cultivated intellect, a self-poised, self-respecting, vigorous character. He was a refined gentleman, who was at once courteous and dignified, a man conversant with, and interested in, all the great questions of the day, with decided literary and intellectual tastes, a lover of the beautiful in nature and in art. Not only in business matters, but upon the many other subjects to which he turned his attention, his judgment was remarkably clear and sound, always commanding attention and respect.

For years past he had been warmly devoted to the welfare of Harvard University. Through his liberality the Arnold Arboretum and the Botanical Department of the university, in which he was especially interested, have been able to greatly extend their usefulness.