Salem City (part 5 of 5)

In May, 1819, he was among the applicants for the place of usher in the newly-established Latin Grammar School in Salem, and at the canvass was numbered third in the order of success. But it happened that the first candidate died soon after election, the second obtained a better place at Lynn, and so Mr. Oliver was appointed. He went to Salem on Thursday, June 10, 1819, making his home with "that most excellent man," Rev. Brown Emerson, minister of the South Church. " I entered upon my work as teacher on the following Monday, June 14th, with very great fear and trembling, and entire distrust in my own abilities, knowledge and ultimate success. Finding my imperfections, I commenced a course of self-education, first in the studies in which I was guiding others, then in French, then in Spanish and Italian ; adding afterwards a wide course of mathematics and philosophy, astronomy, general literature and history. I was merciless to myself, studying as many hours out of school as I taught within. What I thus acquired I have never forgotten."

On Sunday, June 20, 1819, Mr. Oliver joined the choir of Mr. Emerson's church, his voice, which had been a high and pure soprano, having matured into a deep and very firm and clear bass, with a range from low C to high E. " I also continued my practice on the flute and violoncello, adding to them the doublebass. In 1821, on suggestion of Hon. Leverett Saltonstall, - always my friend, a noble and excellent man in every respect, and then a leading member of the North Church and society, - I commenced practicing the piano-forte and the organ, and, in 1822, I was appointed organist of St. Peter's Church in Salem, removing to Barton Square Church in 1827, in each place with full charge of the choir."

In 1821 Mr. Oliver's father, mother and two sisters came to Salem for a time, and the family resided on Carpenter Street. " Among the families calling upon us was that of Capt. Samuel Cook,'^ residing on Federal Street. I had met his elder daughter, Sarah, at meetings of the choir of the South Church, of which she and many ladies of the most cultivated families of Salem were members. An intimacy springing up between Miss Cook and my sister Margarett, I saw

2 Captain Samuel Cook was a retired ship-master, the conteniporar3' of the many enterprising and famous master-mariners of Saltern, and of its numerous and successful merchants. He married Sarah, daughter of James and Sarah Chever.

her very frequently, and was gradually drawn toward her by the loveliness of her disposition, the unvarying kindness of her temper, the quiet dignity of her demeanor, the gentleness of all her ways and all her words - till I found my whole self possessed with love for her .... On Tuesday, the 30th of August, 1825, we were married, at her father's house, by the Eev. Mr. Ducachet."

On the 4th of July, 1824, Mr. Oliver delivered the oration at the celebration carried out by the young men of Salem, a production which, according to a published account of the proceedings, " was received with the most flattering testimonials of approbation by a crowded and respectable assembly." While connected with St. Peter's Church, Mr. Oliver entered upon a course of theological study, with a view of entering the pulpit of the Episcopal Church. His views, however, became Unitarian, and he relinquished the study.

In 1827 he was appointed head master of the newlyestablished English High School, but in 1830 he resigned the position and opened a private school, building on Federal Street a house planned carefully for the special purpose. " I doubled my income within a year, and during the fourteen years I afterwards continued to teach, I had no reason to complain of either patronage or want of success. During these fourteen years I taught boys six years - fitting for college and for counting-room - and girls eight years .... I opened the school in the spring of 1831 with about forty scholars."

Having in 1821 enlisted into the Salem Light Infantry, at that date and long afterwards one of the best companies of the State, Mr. Oliver obtained a great deal of military knowledge. In 1833 he was elected lieutenant-colonel of the then just organized Sixth Regiment of Light Infantry, and in 1836 he was chosen its colonel, a position he resigned in 1839.

In 1844 Colonel Oliver was made adjutant-general by Governor George N. Briggs, and gave up teaching, but he retained his residence in Salem. The military force of the State at that date consisted of about seven thousand men, all volunteers. The military property was stored in an arsenal near the foot of the Boston Common, in part, and in part in another arsenal in Cambridge. During his occupancy of this office the war with Mexico broke out, and the general government called, in May, 1846, for troops from each of the New England States. This call was subsequently revoked by the Secretary of War (General Marcy). In November of the same year, however, it was renewed, but on Massachusetts alone, one regiment only being called for, infantry. Ten companies were organized. During his term of office General Oliver was elected captain of the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company of Boston, of which organization he had been a lieutenant in 1838; and in 1847 he was appointed by President Polk a member of the Board of Visitors at the Military Academy at West Point.

He continued in the office of adjutant-general till 1848, when he was appointed resident agent of the Atlantic Cotton-Mills, a new corporation for the manufacture of coarse cotton shirtings and sheetings, at Lawrence, Mass., to which town he removed in the early summer of the year mentioned.

In 1853 he was sent from Lawrence, with Messrs. Storrow and Parsons, to the Constitutional Convention of the State, where he was chairman of the Committee on the Militia.

He left the Atlantic Mills in May, 1858, and in November following was elected mayor of Lawrence. In 1859 he was elected Representative to the General Court.

In 1860, having been nominated thereto by the Republican Convention at Worcester, General Oliver was chosen State treasurer on the ticket with John Albion Andrew, as Governor; and he was re-elected for each of the four years which made up the five to which the office is limited by law.

In 1867 he accepted a call from Governor Bullock, of Massachusetts, to look into the condition of the factory children in the various establishments of the State. This he did for about two years, finding the several laws relating to their emjiloyment under ten years of age, and their schooling when between ten and fifteen years of age, violated everywhere. He prepared two reports on the subject, which excited not a little attention and comment, and caused more stringent legislation.

The act for the establishment in Massachusetts of a Bureau of Statistics of Labor, with a chief and deputy, was passed in 1869, and General Oliver was selected by Governor Claflin as the chief of the bureau. To the duties of this office he gave his undivided attejition, having to grope his way unguided by precedent, example or expei'ience; everything connected with the investigations being new, and nearly all those investigations rendered difficult and embarrassing by the very strong and powerful influence of the employing class of the State. He left the bureau in May, 1873.

In April, 1876, he received an appointment as one of the judges at the International Centennial Exhibition at Philadelphia, and was assigned to Group XXV., in charge of all " Instruments of Precision." Under this expression were included astronomical instruments of all sorts, trigonometrical and surveying instruments, microscopes, magnetic and electric, telegraphic and telephonic instruments. There were also added musical instruments of every variety, from organs down, these being assigned to a sub-group, ot which General Oliver was chairman.

supposed to have been finished, and they had left Philadelphia, a " Group of Judges on Appeals " was summoned, of which General Oliver was one, and he again repaired to Philadelphia.

A few days prior to his leaving Philadelphia for his home he received a letter from Salem, desiring him to accept a nomination for the mayoralty of that city, to which he consented, and, at the election later, he was chosen mayor. He was re-elected in the following year, and also in the years 1878 and 1879. At the approach of the year 1881, Mayor Oliver publicly announced his decision not to be a candidate for re-election, against many requests that he would again stand. " Being eighty years of age on the 24th of November, 1880, it is quite time that I should rest," he said, " and it would not be, in my view, right to impose the natural incapacities of old age even upon a willing people."

On his eightieth birthday, with earnest expressions of gratitude for many favors shown him, during a half century of residence, by his fellow-citizens of Salem, he addressed a letter to the City Council, offering as a nucleus of a Public Library for the city, a donation of books from his own library. The city not feeling then in a position to undertake the establishment of a library, a portion of the books - about 800 volumes - was afterwards given by General Oliver to the " Salem Fraternity."

During the summer of 1882, General Oliver began to be sensible of a cardiac trouble, which, without his being aware of the fact, had been discovered several years before by his physician. The difficulty gradually increased, and his condition became very serious in the succeeding winter, but in the following spring the trouble was so far under control that he passed a very comfortable existence. But he, perforce, led a very quiet life, declining all invitations of a public nature, and passing his time in the companionship of his friends, his books and his music. His communications to the newspapers and the periodicals of the day on current subjects, and on the events of " longago," became now very numerous.

During the summer of 1885, up to Sunday, the 26th of July, General Oliver's health continued as good as in the two years before. On the Sunday mentioned he complained of his head, and after an unquiet night he awoke with evident cerebral trouble, aphasia being the chief, and, in fact, the only marked symptom. The inability to express his thoughts in words continued, physical weakness supervened, and he was not able to leave his bed on the morning of the 29th. He died in the early evening of August 12th, retaining almost to the last some consciousness of his surroundings.

General Oliver's death called forth extended manifestations of regret and sympathy, public and private, and his funeral, which took place from the North Church, on Monday, August 17th, was attended by a large concourse of citizens and of officials, both of

Salem and of other places. His body rests in the family tomb in the cemetery on Broad Street, Salem, within sight of the school-house which was the scene of his earliest labors as teacher, and in which hangs his portrait. Upon the tomb there has been placed a natural boulder, from the neighboring fields, covered with moss and gray lichens, and upon this stone is engraved his name, date of birth and of death, and a sculptured suggestion of the pipes of an organ, emblematic of sacred music, which was the grand passion of his life.

Of the character of the subject of this notice it is difficult to speak in a brief space, his talents were so various, his acquirements so extensive, and his personality so strikingly composite. His powers as student, teacher, writer, musician and executive officer were such as are rarely combined in the same person. But the strongest note in his character - the dominant chord - was the musical one. " I had," he says, " early manifested a passion for music, acquired from my mother, who had a voice of rare excellence and great skill in singing, and I learned any music I heard my brother and my sisters perform with the greatest ease and rapidity." And again, "My amusements in college were entirely innocent, and I found great comfort and pleasure in the study and practice of music, my voice and knowledge of the flute being passport to many families wherein music, especially sacred music, was practiced. An evening so passed was to me the greatest pleasure I desired." At ten years of age he was a member of the choir at Park Street Church, Boston. He was also, early, a member of the Handel and Hayden Society, of that city, and an active member of its chorus, whenever possible, even beyond the age of seventy years, at which period of his life his voice still retained great sweetness and power. He was, from his earliest residence in Salem, largely identified with music, and he was the most active member of the Mozart Association, founded in 1825, and of the Salem Glee Club, 1832. Gradually, sacred music, as has been stated, came to be his greatest love, the oratorios of Handel, of Hayden, and of Mendelssohn, his passion, and the organ his idol instrument. He was organist of churches in Salem and Lawrence for a period of forty years. As a composer of church music he held high rank, and many of his compositions have an abiding popularity. In 1849 he published with Dr. S. P. Tuckerman " The National Lyre," and in 1875, "Oliver's Collection of Sacred Music." In 1883, Dartmouth College conferred upon him the Degree of Doctor of Music, and requested his portrait to be hung upon its walls.

As an educator of youth General Oliver really loved his profession, and he combined, in a rare degree,^ firmness and thoroughness with youthful symiRev. Joseph H. Felt, in his "History of Salem," pronounces Mr. Oliver's private school to have been the most complete and successful ever carried on in that town.

pathies and feelings. His interest in education never flagged to the end of his days. He was himself always a diligent student: the classics were his delight, and he never forgot the beautiful passages from the Greek and Roman writers which he had early learned. But he was also a mathematician of unusual excellence.

His services as a member of the school committee were eagerly sought for in both Salem and Lawrence, and in parts of the years 1858, '59 and '60, he was chosen by the State Board of Education to visit the public schools in various parts of Massachusetts, and to attend teachers' institutes and conventions. He was also at various times in the Examining Board of Visitors of Harvard College, both in the classics and in mathematics.

When the high school in Lawrence was opened, he presented to it the extensive and valuable apparatus which he had collected for his private school in Salem, and he added to the gift a set of busts and statuettes, engravings and many books of reference, Latin, Greek and mathematical, for the use of teachers and pupils. As a token of gratitude the school was given his name, and his portrait was requested, which was bung upon its walls. One of the public schools in Salem also bears his name.

As a military man General Oliver showed marked ability. As colonel of the Sixth Regiment he brought it to a high degree of efficiency, and while adjutant-general, through his personal visits to the parades of the various regiments, and his encouragement of drilling, the service was greatly improved.

The role of manufacturer was ably filled by him, but it was more through his devotion to what he had in hand than through any special love for manufacturing. Nevertheless, the products of the mills over which he presided held always the highest rank in the market. The employes did their best, urged not only by the knowledge that much was expected of them, but by the personal magnetism and sympathy of their superintendent, which always so touched and quickened those under him, in every position he ever held, that they instinctively desired to do what he wished done. He thus secured from his subordinates, whether he were present or absent, their best service.

In 1851 he founded a library for the operatives of the Atlantic Mills by a present of books. He also established for them free hot and cold baths in a building near the mills.

As treasurer of the State, General Oliver directed the vast business of the ofBce without loss to the Commonwealth, while on one occasion he saved its credit in a great and sudden emergency by pledging his private means. During his term of office the Civil War broke out, and the business of the department increased to an unprecedented degree. The treasurer acted also as paymaster to the troops raised by Massachusetts, and during the continuance of the war he handled and accounted for $77,000,000 - really

As chief of the Labor Bureau General Oliver made a profound impression. His official announcement of the existence of great abuses called forth extended comment and great antagonism. Some of his work struck at the root of great evils, or of erroneous opinions in society, and so awakened deep hostilities ; but he lived to hear all his statements of these evils wholly verified, and his efforts to ameliorate them justified. During the five years of holding the office he prepared five annual reports to the Legislature upon the earnings, cost of living, and savings or indebtedness of the laboring classes of the State - their homes, education, habits of living, morals, manners, hours of labor, amusements, societies of various sorts - upon factory life, factory operatives, factory children, the schooling of the latter, half-time schools, etc., in fact, upon everything relating to the great question of labor and the laboring classes, skilled and unskilled, and of every grade and variety of them.

" I left the i9ureau in May, 1873, retiring with an entire consciousness that I had omitted no effort in endeavoring to do my whole duty, and that ''. had, regardless of personal considerations, faithfully set forth the real status of the working people, the real wealth-producers of the State."

After leaving the Bureau, and to the end of his life, he retained the deepest interest in the welfare of the working classes, and more especially in that of factory children, as the many articles written by him for the newspapers of the day testify. In April, 1885, his portrait was hung on the walls of the office of the bureau, in Boston, as its first chief.

As mayor - in two cities - his great executive ability and knowledge of men made him a valuable officer, and his retirement elicited hearty expressions of regret and good wishes from the several departments of the city government and from the citizens generally.

General Oliver's wide range of study and reading caused frequent demands for his services as lecturer before lyceums and other literary associations, and before educational, musical and agricultural societies, while his ready command of language, and his wit and humor, made him greatly sought for as presiding officer at festive occasions. Many of these occasions saw him such an officer when he was beyond eighty years of age. Of these latter characteristics, which constituted a very marked feature of his character, it has been written "His wit and humor were keen, exuberant and irrepressible, and his many tales, and his treasury of knowledge made him extremely companionable, and a delightful conversationalist on any topic." A curious feature in his character was the presence of exuberant spirits and gayety, and the passion for sacred music. But with all his gayety his feelings were deeply reverent. He loved nature ardently, and flowers were the source of the greatest delight to

Much as the subject of this notice employed his pen, he published but one little work besides his musical works mentioned. This was in 1830, " A Work on the Construction and Use of Mathematical Instruments in Portable Cases." About the same time he wrote a work on Algebra, but finding that the late Mr. Ebenezer Bailey was engaged upon a book of similar character General Oliver generously withdrew his own manuscript. But he wrote, especially in the later years of his life, a vast number of articles for the newspapers and current literature of the day on all the topics with which he was familiar, and these communications were most entertaining and instructive.

General Oliver's wife died on the 24th of January, 1866, and this was a blow which he never really recovered from. In recording the event he wrote, - "As said Carlyle of Mrs. Sterling, in his life of Edward Sterling, she was of a pious, delicate and affectionate character, exemplary as wife, mother, friend, - of timid, yet gracefully cordial ways, - with natural intelligence, instinctive sense and worth: with a soft voice, a tremulously sensitive nature, strong chiefly on the side of the affections, and the graceful insights and activities that depend on these; truly a beautiful, much enduring, much loving housemother."

Henry Kemble and Sarah (Cook) Oliver had issue, - Samuel Cook, Sarah Elizabeth, Henry Kemble, Maria Kemble, Emily Kemble, Mary Evans and Ellen Wendell.

Abiel Abbot Low

Salem has been most generous in enriching, with her worthy sons and daughters, other cities and towns of the country. Few places are more indebted to her for such noble gifts than Brooklyn, N. Y., the story of whose better history and higher prosperity could not be told without the mention of such men as Seth Low and his sons, Isaac H. and John W. Frothingham, Ripley and Reuben W. Ropes, George B. Archer, and others of most excellent repute. Hon. Ripley Ropes, after faithful and valuable service to his native city, removed many years ago to Brooklyn, where his exalted character as a man and his long and distinguished usefulness in public life have made their enduring impress upon the city of his adoption.

Abiel Abbot Low, one of the merchant princes of New York, and an eminent philanthropist and financier, was born in Salem, Essex County, Mass., February 7, 1811. He was the eldest son among twelve children of Seth Low, a native of Gloucester, West Parish, of the same State. His mother, Mary Porter, was descended from John Porter, one of the original settlers of Salem village, (now Danvers), and was a daughter of Thomas Porter, of Topsfield, the town adjacent to Danvers on the north. The Porters have been a numerous and influential race in this part of Massachusetts and elsewhere for more than two hundred years, Mary was born in Topsfield in 1786, and was a lady of superior character, illustrating all the virtues and noblene