Worcester City (part 6 of 58)

His brief term of political service happened to fall upon a period of intense and exciting feeling, when constitutional scruples were looked upon with little patience, and were indulged at much j^ersoual peril. But no man ever took the unpopular side of grave public questions under a more commanding sense of public duty than Judge Thomas took his upon the constitutional questions forced upon him by the exigency in which he was placed.

His formal addresses on anniversary and other memorial occasions, are of a very high order of excellence ; but, besides these, there are many among us who will remember the brilliant and sometimes electric eloquence with which, in his earlier days, he took part in the political and other public interests of the time. His command of language was always pure, rich and abundant ; his manner was spirited, fervent and stimulating ; and when he finished there was always, among those who listened, regret; that one endowed with such gifts was so little inclined to exercise them.

Judge Thomas received the degree of Doctor of Laws from Brown University in 1853, and from Harvard College in 1854. He was, at the time of his death, September 27, 1878, vice-president of the American Antiquarian Society, a member of the Massachusetts Historical Society and of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

(Jur county has been singularly fortunate in the character and ability of the gentlemen who have presided in its Probate Court. In 1858, the year of Judge Kinnicutt's death, the offices of judge of the Court of Probate and of the Court of Insolvency were, by act of the Legislature, united in one per.son in each county. To this double trust Hexey Chapin was appointed, and for twenty years most admirably discharged its functions. He was born in Upton in 1811, and left at fourteen to provide largely for his own support. For some months he was engaged in learning a trade. The necessity for such an occupation of course rendered it difficult for him to procure an education, but he was not driven from the undertaking, and succeeded in fitting for college, and in graduating from Brown in 1835. After gaining some experience and a small financial capital as a teacher in the common schools of Upton, he began his legal studies with Emory Washburn, and followed them at the Cambridge Law School. On admission to the bar he chose Usbridge for his opening career, and remained there till his removal to Worcester in 1846, when Rejoice Newton made him a junior partner. As an advocate he obtained a large and profitable practice. He possessed a shrewdness, a homely, kindly method of address, and an entire absence of stiffness or formality which procured him great influence with Juries. For the duties of Probate judge he was exceptionally fitted. His fund of patience seemed inexhaustible. In that court no strict rules of procedure are maintained; much of the business is trans- -acted without the aid of counsel, and by persons who come to the judge to learn what they ought to do, and how to do it. For all such he had a kindly reception, listened to their statements (generally involved, and often incoherent), and let them feel that they had found a friend as well as a help out of their difliculties. Towards members of the bar also, and especially the younger element, his manners were courteous, and commanded in turn respect. In the law governing the cases under his consideration he was thoroughly versed, and his decisions stood tlie test of appeal, with but a small proportion of adverse rulings by the higher court. Althougli for the last six months of his life he was unable to attend in the court-room, his courage did not permit him _te surrender, and up till the very day before his death, in 1878, he continued occasionally, at his house, to attend to matters of routine, hoping constantly that his usefulness was not yet to end, and determined that it should continue with his life. Mr. Cliapin was a public-spirited citizen, alive to the importance of the performance by every man of his political duties. He was an early member of the Free Soil party, and an effective speaker during the anti-slavery agitations. For one year he represented Uxbridge in the General Court, and in 1853 he was its delegate to the Constitutional Convention.

Worcester made him its mayor in 1849 and 1850, and would have had him serve again had he not declined the honor. In 1870, when, by the sudden death of Mayor Blake, a vacancy occurred during a terra, the City Council turned at once to him as the man most suitable to fill the emergency, and he consented so to do until a successor could be chosen by the usual methods of election. He was not ambitious for political office, and declined to stand as a candidate when nominated by the Republicans for Congress in 185G. As a speaker on public occasions he was frequently in demand, and his quaint humor and welltold stories interested his audiences and impressed his meaning on their minds.

With various business organizations he was actively connected, and, by the exercise of a sagacious judgment in investment, added to his accumulated property. To the religious organization with which he was connected he gave earnest support and valuable assistance in many ways. His religious convictions were deep and sincere, though rarely brought into notice, except with intimate friends ; but their fruit was shown in his discriminating and kindly benevolence and readiness to further charitable organizations which commended themselves to his judgment. An exemplary citizen, an upright judge and an honesL man.

Alexander Hamilton Bullock.' - Governor Bullock stands conspicuous in the list of Massachusetts' chief magistrates ; even in the whole list, extending through Colonial, Provincial and Constitutional times; conspicuous in respect to patriotism, ability and conscientious devotion to the public interest. And for the very reason that he occupies so prominent a position in our history, the writer is spared the attempt at any extended delineation in this place, where space is so limited. But with the portrait, in which his features are so faithfully and so artistically presented, it is necessary that something should appear respecting his various characteristics and family connections, with allusions at least to certain passages in his public career.

He was born in Royalston, Worcester County, on the 2d of March, 181G, and was the son of Rufus and Sarah (Davis) Bullock. His father, who was born on the 23d of September, 1779, was a school-teacher in his early manhood, but soon became a country merchant. Quitting that vocation in 1825, he engaged in manufacturing, and in due time amassed a handsome fortune. He was somewhat in public life ; was five years a Representative in the General Court, and two years a Senator ; was a member of the conventions of 1820 and 1853 for revising the State Constitution ; and was Presidential elector in 1852.

Alexander H. Bullock, the subject of this sketch, entered Amherst College in 1832, was a diligent student, and on his graduation, in 183G, delivered the salutatory oration at commencement. In the catalogue of his college contemporaries are found the names of Rev. Richard S. Storrs, Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, Bishop Huntington and others of wide reputation. After graduating he taught a school for a short ]ieriod, but, partly by the urgency of his father and partly from his own inclination, he applied himself to the study of law, entering Harvard Law School, then under the presidency of Judge Story. After leaving the Law School he spent a year in the lawoffice of the well-known lawyer, Emory Washburu, of Worcester, where he gained a good knowledge of the various details of legal practice. He was admitted to the bar in 1841, and soon began practice in Worcester. As a pleader he does not seem to have aimed to become conspicuous. Senator Hoar says: "He disliked personal controversy. While he possessed talents which would have rendered him a brilliant and persuasive advocate, the rough contests of the court-house could never have been congenial to him. He was associated with Judge Thomas as junior counsel in one important capital trial, in which he is said to have made an eloc|uent opening argument. He had a considerable clientage for a young man, to whom he was a safe and trustworthy adviser. But he very soon established a large business as agent of important insurance companies, and withdrew himself altogether from the practice of law.''

In 184-1 Governor Bullock married Elvira, daughter of Col. A. G. Hazard, of Enfield, Ct., founder of the Hazard Gunpowder Manufacturing Company. Their children were Augustus George; Isabel, who married Nelson S. Bartlett, of Boston ; and Fanny, who married Dr. William H. Workman, of Worcester. The widow and all the children are yet living.

From early manhood Governor Bullock took a decided interest in politics, but did not allow it to absorb an undue portion of his time till the period arrived when he could safely make it a leading object. In constitutional law he was particularly well versed, and that fact, in connection with his decided opinions on all public questions, gave him in debate and in action very great advantage. In party affiliation he was of the old Whig school.

A brief recapitulation of some of his efficient public services may here be given. He was a member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives for eight years: first in 1845, and last in 1865. In 1862, 'G3, '64 and '65 he was Speaker. And what Governor Hutchinson says, in his history of Speaker Burrill, may well be said of him, namely, that the House were as fond of him " as of their eyes;" the historian adding, in a note, " I have often heard his contemporaries applaud him for his great integrity, his acquaintance with parliamentary forms, the dignity and authority with which he filled the chair, and the order and decorum he maintained in the debates of the House."

Governor Bullock w.is also, in 1849, a State Senator. He was judge of the Worcester County Court of Insolvency for two years, 1856-58, having, under a previous jurisdiction, served as commissioner of insolvency from 1853. He was mayor of Worcester in 1859. But the most prominent event in his public life was his election to the gubernatorial chair, which he occupied three years - 18G6, '67 and '68. At the first election he received nearly fifty thousand votes more than the opposing candidate.

He undoubtedly could have held prominent positions in national affairs had he been so disposed; but his ambition seems not to have run in that direction. He never held office under the general Government, and all the incidents of his political life must be looked for in the history of his native State, where a rich store is to be found.

On the 5th of January, 1879, Hon. George F. Hoar was authorized by President Hayes to ask Governor Bullock if he would accept the then vacant English mission. In answer the following letter was received :

My Sir: I received yesterday yotir favor of the ."itli inat., in wliicli yuu kindly iiuniire, in behalf of tiie President, wliether I wonld undertulce the Mission to England. I liave felt at liberty to take to myself t«e[ity-four hours to consider this question, and I now apprise you of the conclusion to which uiy retlection has, with much reluctance brought me. I am compelled, by the situation of my family, to reply that it would be practically iini)ossible for nie to accept this appointment.

1 [larticularly desire to express to the President my profound and grateful acknowledgment of the high distinction he has offered to confer upon me, and to assure him of my purpose in every way as a private citizen to uphold him in bis wise and patriotic administration of the government.

In financial, humane, and all reformatory movements Governor Bullock was active and efficient. He was president of the State Mutual Life Assurance Company, and of the Worcester County Institution for Savings, a director in the Worcester National Bank, chairman of the Finance Committee of the Trustees of Amherst College and a life-member of the New England Historic-Genealogical Society. He was a writer of much more than ordinary ability, aud while editor of the ^E(/is newpaper, which position he held for several years, established an enviable reputation as a journalist. The degree of LL.D. was conferred on him by Harvard and by Amherst.

During the Civil War Governor Bullock was an efficient co-laborer with Governor Andrew, so appropriately called the " War Governor of Massachusetts.'' His eloquent voice was often raised to cheer the gathering crowds of patriots in various places, and Faneuil Hall, too, resounded with his stirring appeals.

He was a great friend of learning ; and all institutions of instruction, from the elementary common school to the best endowed college, had his counsel and encouragement.

And there was in him a vein of true democracy, often manifesting itself in anxiety to guard against any attempt by legislative, judicial or any other power to override the soverign right of the people ; and hence, as might naturally have been expected, he^'emained a firm friend to the principle of " Local Option," in law, so far as it could in any way be made expedient. He vetoed, to the surprise of many of his party friends, one or two enactments, considered important, for the simple reason that he viewed them as trenching on some general right of the people.

In 1869 he visited Europe with his family, and on his return the following year the civic authorities and citizens of Worcester gave testimony of their appreciation of his character and his services by a public reception. After his retirement from the Governor- ship he held no other public office, and declined to entertain any of the suggestions made to him of furtlier political service, which would involve, to some extent, the abandonment of those studies and employments which were so agreeable to him.

Governor Bullock was an orator of great power, and the volume of his addresses recently published contains many models of pure style and elegant scholarship. Speaking' of him in this connection. Senator Hoar says : " Above all, he possessed, beyond any of his living contemporaries, that rare gift of eloquence which always has been and always will be a passport to the favor of the people where speech is free."

He was a lover of scholarship, a citizen of many resources and large usefulness, whose life diffused all around it an influence and charm, which elevated the standard of the domestic and moral life of the community. In January, 1882, with startling suddenness, he died amid the scenes of his activities.

The world owes much of its brightness and beauty to the people whose cheerful disposition and faculty for cordial greetings make others ashamed of melancholy dullness and drive away worry and vexation from their presence.

In 1814 Daniel Dewey was appointed to the bench of the Supreme Judicial Court, and held the office only about one year until his death. In 1837 his son, Charles A. Dewey, received a like distinction, and for nearly thirty years discharged his duties with learning and fidelity. Francis H. Dewey, with this distinguished legal lineage, was born in Williamstown in 1821. A few years later his father removed to Northampton. In that town and in Amherst his studies preparatory to college were pursued. From Williams College, where his ancestors for three generations had held office as trustees, he graduated in 1840, and proceeded at once to fit himself for his inherited profession in the law schools of Yale and Harvard College. He also gained practical experience in the office of Charles P. Huntington, in Northampton, and of Emory Washburn, in Worcester. With the latter he formed a partnership soon after his admission to the bar, in 1843, a fact which testifies to the elder man's appreciation of Mr. Dewey's abilities even at that early stage. The manner in which he entered upon the work of this established office, and assumed its responsibilities alone upon Judge Washburn's promotion to the bench in the very next year, tested his powers and gave him a high standing at the bar in the earliest years of his practice. During this time his utmost diligence was constantly required to attend to the multitude of causes in which Mr. Washburn had been engaged. It would have been most natural if clients who had sought out so distinguished a counsellor to whom to entrust their important affiiirs should have desired to place them in other hands than those of an inex- perienced young attorney ; but Mr. Dewey gave such evidence of fitness for the task and of devotion to business, that he retained almost the whole of the clientage, and increased it as the years went by. In 1850 he associated with himself in practice Hartley Williams, then just admitted to the bar, and continued the connection for thirteen years. From 1866 till 1869 Frank P. Goulding, Esq., was his junior partner. During his whole life, and in all his varied lines of employment, Judge Dewey was incessantly active. No other adverb can describe the nature of his activity. Always brisk, apparently in a hurry, yet with his faculties alert and undisturbed, he went from one task to another, without apparent thought or need of rest. In the trial of causes before juries his manner was restless, almost nervous ; but his watchfulness of every movement, his quick seizure of every slight advantage and his thorough familiarity with the facts proved to opposing counsel that there was nothing to be hoped from the inattention of his adversary. Throughout the most heated controversies he preserved his courteous tones, his pleasant smile and his real composure. Some men are able to hide beneath immovable features and thoroughly controlled muscles disturbed feelings and discomfited plans of action. But Mr. Dewey's mental quiet was preserved under what seemed a physical necessity for movement.

His closing argument was always to be dreaded as likely to present some unexpected view of the evidence or some shrewd suggestion which his opponent had left unobserved and unanswered. He seemed to take the jury into his confidence, to talk to them in a friendly, common-sense manner, without attempt at eloquence, but with remarkably convincing effect.

In 1860 Governor Claflin appointed him an associate justice of the Superior Court, - a position which he occupied until 1881. There he became a most useful presiding officer, despatching the business of the courts with the celerity which characterized his private business, treating with courtesy and patience counsel and witnesses, and assisting the jurymen by impartial, lucid statements, summing up the evidence and explaining the legal principles which were to guide them.

Mr. Dewey's energies were by no means confined to professional employments, exacting as those were. The number of business enterprises and charitable institutions in which he was interested as an officer, and to each of which he gave faithful atteniion, would seem to have furnished sufficient occupation for the whole time of an active man. Yet he did not seem to be oppressed by the burden of responsibilities. He possessed the happy faculty of laying aside all worry over affairs, when he had done the best that his judgment dictated for their proper conduct. He was president of one railroad company and a director in another, and acquired a considerable familiarity with the methods of nanagement of these was the brightest ornament, ia not yet extinct. Though the Worcester bar cannot claim his sous as members, they still uphold the ancestral reputation in other scenes.

George F. Verry was one of the best illustrations which this bar has furnished of the value to a lawyer of the qualities of self-reliance and perfect imperturbability. His success may be as fairly traced to his possession of these traits as to any other cause. He was born in Mendon in 1826, and had the advantage of his father's care for only two or three years. His education was obtained in the common schools and during a partial course at the Andover Academy. From that preparatory school he had hoped to enter college, but his plans were interrupted, and he left his studies to engage in learning the business of a manufacturer. After a few years' trial, however, he determined to fit himself for the bar, and began his studies in the office of Henry D. Stone in the year 1849. Admitted to the bar after the usual three years of preparation, he was in a short time received as a partner by Mr. Stone, and so continued until 1857. Thus entering upon a business already well-established, he had the opportunity to learn, by actual use, the value of his acquirements. This was largely the process of his attainment to that degree of forensic skill and knowledge of the law which secured his high rank among our advocates. He was not a learned student of books or precedents, but to the questions involved in each case in which he was concerned he gave close attention and consulted the books with reference to those particular topics. With a retentive memory and a clear common-sense judgment, he thus became familiar with the current of decisions upon almost the whole of the great variety of controverted doctrines which have been debated in our courts. After the dissolution of his connection with Mr. Stone, he continued business alone with a rapidly increasing clientage until 1875, when he formed a partnership with Francis A. Gaskill, the present district attorney, and Horace B. Verry, his adopted son, which continued till his death.

A large part of Mr. Verry's reputation was won in the conduct of the defence of criminal causes. In several capital trials which attracted wide attention, his skill in the examination of witnesses, bis readiness to meet sudden emergencies, and his thorough grasp of the bearing of evidence were shown in a manner which placed him among the leaders in that department of practice. On the civil side of the court, also, the possession of the same resources brought to him, perhaps, the most lucrative clieutage of any of his contemporaries during the ten years before bis death. In the progress of the most exciting trial he preserved a most absolute control of all his faculties. Forcible in the presentation of his own views, keen, and often severe in his examination of witnesses, he never allowed any exhibition of temper to weaken his influence with the jury, or obscure his calm watchfulness of every manoeuvre. His arguments seldom appealed to the emotional nature, but were admirably lucid in their logical presentation of the facts. From the very outset of his career he boldly confronted every adversary, however more ample his experience, and learned even in defeat to reserve for his client whatever of advantage there remained to him. In social life he was a most genial comrade. Especially towards younger members of the profession were his manners and expressions of friendship cordial at all times. The writer well remembers many words of kind encouragement which helped to make his student-days and first years of practice more hopeful and less irksome. Mr. Verry did not hold many public offices. In 1872 he was mayor of the city of Worcester. The problem of the proper a.ssessment of the expense of a great system of sewers had long been deferred ; with characteristic energy he sought a .solution. Principally under his direction, a plan was adopted which was finally sustained by the courts, though opposed by leading citizens and able counsel. His acceptance of this responsibility cost him his re-election the next year, but stands as an evidence of his independence and sagacity. He served two terms in the State Senate, the second year as chairman of the Judiciary Committee. As a Democrat during the last ten years of his life, he was most frequently in the minority in the State, and though several times a candidate, held no other elective office.

The death of Judge Adis Thayer is still so deeply felt, not only in the community where he lived, but in the councils of the leaders of the State, where his presence had become well-nigh essential, that it seems unnecessary in so brief a sketch iis is here possible to rehearse the well-known story of his life. But neither the history of our bar nor that of the Commonwealth for the past forty years can properly be written without the mention of his share in the progress of each. He was the son of Caleb Thayer, a farmer of Mendon, not rich in material possessions, but with a sturdy independence and an innate love of liberty, which evinced itself in the early espousal of the anti-slavery cause when the unpopularity ol its adherents amounted to ostracism. His grandfather was a Eevolutionary soldier, and the combative tendencies of the descendants seem to have come by right inheritance. Born in 1828, his early life was spent upon the farm, with only the occasional opportunities for education afforded by the district schools. Later on he attended the Worcester Academy, and, with some thought of adopting the profession of a teacher, he took a course in the Normal School at Westfield. After short trial of school-room life, however, he made up his mind that he could not be satisfied with that career, and began the study of the law with Henry Chapin, whom he was destined to succeed upon the bench. In 1854 he entered upon his practice in the city of Worcester, and attained a good success as an adviser, especially in the management of business concerns. His judgment was clear and reliable, and marked by the plainest common sense. As an advocate he did not appear with great frequency before the courts, but his management of causes entrusted to him was careful and intelligent, tenacious of his clients' interests and mindful of details.

Though he gave diligent attention to his professional pursuits and acquired a lucrative clientage, it was in political life that he found his greatest usefulness and rose to his greatest eminence. He was an early and influential member of the Free-Soil party, eager in his opposition to the encroachments of the slave-power, and roused to indignation by the proceedings under the Fugitive Slave Law on the soil of his native State. With Charles Sumner and John A. Andrew he formed an intimate friendship, and was their active co-worker and enthusiastic supporter throughout their political contests. In his devotion to the principles which he believed should govern the State and Nation he was unselfish and consistent. Though undoubtedly he would have been gratified by the evidence of the appreciation of his services and abilities, which an election to important office would have afforded, he never faltered in his exertions for the success of his party because others were assigned to more conspicuous stations. He enjoyed the possession of influence over the minds of his fellowcitizens, and to that influence he was justly entitled, since it was always exercised in the cause of what he believed to be the truth. He was the friend and adviser of all the prominent leaders of the Republican party from its formation, and to liis powerful assistance the State owes in a large degree the fact that she has been able to retain in lier service some of her ablest representatives. In the best sense or the term he was a partisan. Thoroughly convinced of the righteousness of his cause, conscientiously believing that it was the duty of every good ciiizen to take part in the decision of public questions, he threw himself into a canvass with the spirit of a soldier, determined that failure should not result from any lukewarmness on his part. He was a great believer in the necessity for organization in political work. The campaigns which he directed were marked by the most thorough attention to details and by the seizure of every honorable method of securing victory. He did not often appear as a public speaker, but when he did his language was forcible, clear and charged with his earnest convictions. Some of his addresses upon general political topics are admirable in style and logical completeness.

His ofiices were few. For several years under Lincoln, and again under Grant, he was collector of internal revenue [^for this district. For two years lie served in the State Senate. Perhaps his most prominent political service was as chairman of the Republican State Committee in 1878, when, with all his power, he successfully combated what he believed to be a great danger to the welfare of the State.

Upon Judge Chapin's death, in 1878, he was appointed to succeed him in the Probate Court. The nomination excited some opposition among those who had become accustomed to regard Mr. Thayer as solely a [Kditician. But by his ten years of impartial, faithful disciiarge of the duties of the oflice, he approved the wisdom of the selection, and earned the approbation of the bar and the public.

His natural disposition was genial and sympathetic. A fund of quiet humor made him a most agreeable companion in hours of relaxation. Towards the latter part of his life ill-health from time to time clouded the usual brightness of his temper, and induced periods of depression, through all of which, however, he preserved his kindly interest in others and his affection for his friends. He had interested himself in several of the business enterprises of the city, where his foresight had been of great service. But these cares, added to his other activities, were too great a strain upon his physical and mental powers. He was oppressed by the thought of gradually losing his capacity for usefulness on the stage where he had filled so honorable a part. In the summer of 1888, when his friends were looking forward to his restoration to health as the result of a contemplated season of rest and travel, in a moment of aberration he died by his own hand. Massachusetts has lost no more devoted lover, no more staunch defender.

In several instances to which our attention has been attracted the honors of the profession, together with the mental traits befitting the wearers of those honors, have seemed to be transmitted from father to son as a natural inheritance. Others, from the most unpropitious antecedents, have achieved success and high position. In truth, the pathway is open to all ; to all it presents difficulties hard to overcome. Few have had to contend with greater obstacles, or have done it with so good courage, as Matthew J. McCaf- FERTY. Born in Ireland in 1829, his parents brought him to this country during his infancy. They were poor, hard-working people, and at an early age the lad must assist in his own support. In 1841 the family moved to Lowell, and Matthew began as an operative in the great mills there. Later on he learned the trade of a machinist. While so employed he was inspired with the ambition to become a lawyer, and devoted his evenings and spare moments to reading such law-books as he could obtain. In 1852, having saved some little capital from his trade, he entered the oiJice of Brown & Alger, in Lowell, and regularly devoted himself to study. After two years he found it necessary to replenish his funds, and betook himself once more to his trade in Worcester. With his determination still unchanged he spent his evenings reading in Mr. Bacon's office. A fellowstudent at that time was Hamilton B. Staples, now an associate justice of the Superior Court.

For a short time Mr. McCafferty tried the rule of an actor, but soon found it neither agreeable nor remunerative, and returned to rely upon his shop to furnish him the means of living until better times. His generous, filial di.'iposition is illustrated by the fact that, after having with some difficulty saved money enough to carry him through college, he gave it all to his mother, wlioih he visited in Lowell and found lacking some of the comforts to which her age and infirmities entitled her. Soon after this Benjamin F. Butler became interested in the young man's sturdy struggle, and assisted him through a partial course in the College of the Holy Cross at Worcester. In 1857 he was admitted to the bar in Lowell, and soon after opened his office in Worcester. He was a natural orator, warm-hearted, impulsive, sympathetic, and came to be regarded as the special champion of his race in the city of his adoption. When the call for volunteers was issued in 18(31, he enlisted as second lieutenant in the Emmet Guards, a company composed of men of Irish descent, in which he had previously served as captain. After its three months' service had expired, he received the commission of major in the Twenty -fifth Massachusetts Regiment. With this command he rendered gallant service in several battlts until March, 1862, when he resigned on account of some difference with his colonel which could not be adjusted. Returning home, he continued to support the government by his eloquent speeches on public occasions. He served four terms in the Legislature, and one as alderman of the city. In 1883 his early friend and constant political ally. Governor Butler, appointed him an associate justice of the Municipal Court of Boston. In this capacity his impartiality and his kindness of heart made him an excellent police magistrate. In the short time before his death, in 1885, he had approved himself to the jirofession in his new sphere of action, where at first there had been a disposition to cavil at the appointment of a judge from another county.

The career of Francis T. Blackmer compressed within less than twenty years an amount of professional labor which might well have formed the employment of an additional decade, and would then have left him but little of that leisure he so much neglected. He seems to have felt that his time for work was short, and that in the days allotted him he must accomplish what would suffice for the years of a longer pilgrimage. He was born in Worcester in 1844, but passed his boyhood in the towns of Prescott and Hardwick, where his father carried on the occupation of a farmer at successive periods.

In the district schools and at Wilbraham Academy he received all the instruction which he obtained be fore beginning his legal studies. In later life he keenly appreciated the advantages bestowed by a more extended course of education, and expressed his regret that he was unable to receive a college training. Yet the reflection is inevitable that it is not the schools that make the man. We cannot be sure of the effect of the same discipline upon different minds, and Mr. Blackmer certainly profited admirably by the limited facilities which he enjoyed. When twenty years of age he returned to Worcester, and entered the office of William W. Rice. During his studies, and for some years after his admission to the bar, he was employed by Mr. Rice, on terms continually more advantageous, as he demonstrated his capacity for work and his mastery of the law. Subsequently a partnership was formed under the name of Rice & Blackmer, which continued until after Mr. Rice's Congressional duties called him away from regular attention to professional employments.

Mr. Blackmer had a remarkable facility in forming acquaintances. There was not the slightest formality or diffidence about him. In the same easy, off-hand manner he met every new-comer, and inspired him with confidence in his own ability to conduct his business. His addresses to the jury were marked by the same familiar style. Brought up like many of them, in a farming region, familiar with the habits of thought of our New England country people, he talked to them as a friendly adviser, citing homely incidents of country life to illustrate his meaning, and in language and accent showing clearly that he was one of them. It was here that he achieved his principal success. Day after day during the sessions of the court he appeared on one side or the other, ot almost every case, and probably became personally known to more of the inhabitants of the county than any other of the advocates at the bar during his later years.

His arguments did not pursue a logical order; but neither did the usual train of thought of the majority of his hearers in the jury-box. He went over the story of the evidence as it arranged itself in his mind, and when he had finished, there was no point which he had forgotten, no inference which had not been suggested. In his examination of witnesses he showed a remarkable knowledge of human nature and an adroitness which was rarely matched. Never losing his temper, he was prepared to meet any surprising development of testimony with unruffled composure and the best resources at his command. His profession thoroughly interested him. He loved to talk over his cases with students or brother lawyers, and was ever ready to receive new suggestions or to state his own views when they were called for. Before the Supreme Court he argued questions of law with care and skill, thoroughly appreciating the value of the distinctions on which he relied and the effect of earlier decisions upon the point in issue.

In 1875 he was chosen city solicitor, and so continued until 1881, when he resigned, to take the place, as district attorney, of Judge Staples, then

His interests outside of his profession were few, for he gave himself little time for otlier pursuits. In local jjolitical contests he took part from time to time. The parish to which he belonged was always an object of his attention. In his brief hours of social relaxation he showed liimself an affectionate and sunnytempered friend. But his constitution was not strong enough to endure the strain to which he subjected it. In 1883 he was obliged to give U[) work, and seek in absolute rest the reinvigoration of his enfeebled energies. During the fall he returned to his office, and was so far encouraged to believe in his restoration to health as to accept a le-election to tlie district attorneyship. The apparent im|)rovement was but temporary, however. His tasks were done, as his brethren at the bar sadly noted when he appeared among them at the opening of the December term of court. Again he left his clients, and, hopeful to the last, took his way toward a Southern climate. But his disease had taken too firm a hold while he had refused to leave his post of duty, and in January of 188-1 he died in the city of Washington.

He came to the bar the latest of those whom we have mentioned. Many who saw his earliest efforts are still in the full vigor of their usefulness, but as we close these records with his name, let it be said that none among them all more diligently followed the injunction : " Work while the day is, for the night Cometh."

In these imperfect sketches an attempt has been made to preserve some memorial of a few of those who have completed their life-work and are to be remembered as representatives of that ability and integrity which has characterized the administration of justice in this county and Commonwealth. Necessarily the names of many who have largely contributed to the establishment of this reputation are omitted. The records of a lawyer's life are too often written in water. The writer has mainly selected those who have seemed to him to leave some lasting impression on their times and to furnish examples for the edification of their successors in the same field of enterprise. To learn that the qualities which secured their successes are still exhibited among us, it needs only to glance over the honored list of names which now adorns the roll of this bar. A Senator of the United States, a justice of the Supreme Court of the State, two justices of its Superior Court and one of the United States District Court, and two recent members of Congress figure in the list. In active practice are advocates as skillful and eloquent, counsel as sagacious and learned as any who have gone before.

Living Lawyers

the military and judicial history of the State of Massachusetts is the Hon. Charles Devens, one of the justices of the Supreme Judicial Court. General Devens was born in Charlestown, !Mass., April 4, 1820. He graduated at Cambridge in 1838. He studied law at the Harvard Law School, and subsequently with Messrs. Hubbard & Watts, in Boston, and was admitted to the bar in 1840. He first commenced practice at Northfield, where he remained until 1844, when he removed to Greenfield and formed a co-partnership with Hon. George T. Davis, which continued until 1849, when he was appointed by President Taylor United States marshal for the district of Massachusetts. This office he held until his resignation in 1853. While residing at Greenfield he represented Franklin County in the State Senate. Upon resigning the office of marshal, he located in Worcester and resumed the practice of his profession, forming a p.artnership with Hon. Ge(nge F. Hoar and .1. Henry Hill. Soon after Mr. Hill retired, and the firm of Devens & Hoar continued until 1861. During his residence in Worcester he served as city solicitor in 1856, 1857 and 1858.

Upon the breaking out of the Rebellion, Mr. Devens promptly responded to the President's call for troops, and entered the service as major of the Third Battalion of Infantry. He soon after became colonel of the Fifteenth Massachusetts Regiment, and from thi-i date until the close of the war he was in active service. He received his baptism of fire on the disastrous field of Ball's Bluff, and in 1862 was made a brigndiergeneral for gallantry on this memorable field of carnage. From the very beginning General Devens saw severe service. In the battle of Fair Oaks he was severely wounded, also at Chancellorsville, in 1863, and at Antietam his horse was shot under him. His distinguished bravery before Richmond was especially commended by General Grant, and he was commissioned major-general for gallantry at the capture of the city. At the close of the war he was appointed military governor of the Eastern District of South Carolina. This position General Devens held until June, 1866, when he was mustered out of the service.

Civil honors seemed to await him upon his return to his native State, and in the following year, 1867, he was appointed a judge of the Supreme Court, and in 1873 became an associate justice of the Supreme Judicial Court, and remained upon the bench until 1877, when he was appointed Attorney-General of the United States by President Hayes. At the expiration of four years he returned to Massachusetts, and in 1881 was re-appointed to the bench of the Supreme Court. Notwithstanding the exacting duties of a judicial life Judge Devens finds time to manifest his interest in military affairs, and has been president of the Society of the Array of the James ; president of the Society of the Array of the Potomac, and of the Sixth Army Corps. He has been National Commander of the Grand Army of tlie Republic, and was

Judge Devens is eminently an orator, and his public addresses and eulogies have been many and varied. He is a member of various societies and clubs, and as statesman, judge and general ranks among Massachusetts' most distinguished citizens.

George Fkisbee Hoar ' was born in Concord, Mass., August 29, 182{;. His ancestors, from the early days of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, were men of action and courage, humane, and always in advance of their times, but not so radical as to be parted in sympathy from their contemporaries, and to lose the influence which their character, talents and public spirit deserved. John Hoar, Senator Hoar's earliest ancestor in Massachusetts, was one of three brothers who came, with their widowed mother, from Gloucestershire, England, among the early colonists.

He was a friend and co-laborer of Eliot, the apostle to the Indians, and after the massacre at Lancaster, in King Philip's War, followed Philip's band into the wilderness with a single Indian guide, and ransomed Mrs. Rolandson, one of the Lancaster captives.

His brother, Leonard Hoar, was one of the early presidents of Harvard College. Senator Hoar's father, Samuel Hoar, was one of the great Massachusetts lawyers, contemporary with Mason, Webster and Choate. His aspect inspired reverence, which was increased by knowledge of his character. He was a Representative in Congre.«s, and was chosen by Massachusetts to protect in the courts of South Carolina her colored ci)izens unjustly imprisoned there. He was expelled from the State by force, and was not allowed to discharge his mission ; but his conduct throughout was marked by dignity, tirmness and courage. Senator Hoar's mother was the youngest daughter of Roger Sherman, of Connecticut.

The village of Concord, where Mr. Hoar's boyhood was passed, was full of fine influences. No place could have been better for the forming of character and preparation for a life of public or private usefulness. After his school-days there he entered Harvard College, and was graduated in 1846. Choosing the law for his profession, he studied at the Harvard Law School and in the oflice of the late Judge Thomas, in Worcester. Upon his admission to the bar in 1849, he began practice in Worcester, and this city has ever since been his home.

He was for a time associated in practice with the late Hon. Emory Washburn, and later with the Hon. Charles Devens and J. Henry HiH, Esq. Mr. Hoar rapidly rose to a very high rank in his profession. The native capacity of his mind, disciplined by education and superbly equipped by study, was supplemented by uncommon industry and assiduous devotion to the business of his clients.

after twenty years at the bar, was probably the largest and most valuable in the State, west of Jliddlesex County. Mr. Hoar married, iu 1853, Miss Mary Louisa Spurr, whe died a few years after, leaving a daughter and a son, both of whom are now living. He married, in 1862, Miss Ruth Ann Miller.

Mr. Hoar's first appearance in political life was as chairman of the committee of the Free-Soil party for Worcester County in 1849, which was more efficiently organized here than in any other county of the United States. In 1851, at the age of twenty-five, Mr. Hoar was elected a representative to the General Court. He was the youngest member in that body, but became the leader of the Coalitionists in law matters, and to him was given the task of drawing resolutions, protesting against the compromise measures of the National Government in 1850.

So manifest at this time to the people of this district was Mr. Hoar's fitness for public service that the way was open to him to succeed the late Hon. Charles Allen as the Representative of this district in Congress.

But he put aside all suggestions fending that way, because it seemed to him that to enter Congress then would be to make politics instead of the law his profession. If his decision had been otherwise, his energy, courage, eloquence and firm grasp of constitutional principles would doubtless have placed him in the very front rank of the statesmen of the civil war and reconstruction period. Although refusing Congressional service, he did not decline such duty in the State Legislature as was pressed upon him. In 1857 he was a member of the Senate, and chairman of its Judiciary Committee. In tliat capacity he drew a masterly report, defining the boundaries of the executive and legislative authority.

He made many political addresses, as varying occasions called for them, and was always ready with service in behalf of enterprises for the public welfare in his own city. He aided in the establishment of the Free Public Library and reading-room, was a member of the board of directors and one of its early presidents. His counsels and efforts were of great value in the founding of the Worcester County Free Institute of Industrial Science, now the Worcester Polytechnic Institute, whose usefulness as a pioneer in a new field and conceded eminence now are due to the wisdom with which its foundations were laid by that group of sagacious and public-spirited men of whom Mr. Hoar was one. His argument for technical education before a committee of the Legislature in 1869 was, if not the first, among the earliest adequate public statements of the claims of this branch of education. He was also an early advocate of woman suffrage, having made an address on that subject in Worcester in 1868 and before a legislative committee in 1869.

Baldwin. In this, the Forty-first Congress, he was a member of the Committee on Education and Labor, and his chief work was tlie preparation and advocacy of the bill- for national education. The bill dittered widely in its details from that now pending and known as the Blair Bill, but its purpose - to give national aid to education where illiteracy most prevails and where, through poverty or indiiference, the State and local governments inadequately provide for public schools - was the same. The bill did not pass in that Congress, and Mr. Hoar reported it with some changes in the Forty-second and again in the Fortythird Congresses, when it was passed by the House, but failed in the Senate. In his first term in Congress Mr. Hoar, by a timely and convincing speech, saved the Bureau of Education when the Committee on Appropriations had reported it ought to be abolished. f* In this Congress, too, he vindicated General Howard from the charges preferred by Fernando Wood, supported Sumner in his opposition to President Grant's scheme for the annexation of Santo Domingo, and became known as a formidable antagonist in debate by his prompt and severe treatment of Mr. D. W. Voorhees and Mr. S. S. Cox, of New York, who ventured to " draw" the new member. His retort upon Mr. Cox was much relished by his associates. Mr. Cox, then the triumphant wit of the House, had been carping at Massachusetts and daring Mr. Dawes, already a Congressional veteran, to come to her defence, assuring him that her stoutest champion was needed. " Troy," said Mr. Cox, " was defended by Hector, yet Troy fell." Mr. Hoar's reply was quick and scathing. " Troy," said he, " did not need her Hector to repel an attack led by Thersites."

In the Forty-second Congress Mr. Hoar, as a member of the Committee on Elections, drew the report in the case of Cessna against Myers. Many questions of great interest were discussed and decided in this report, which has been an authority ever since, being frequently cited in election contests both here and in England. In this case the report assigned the seat to Myers, the Democrat. Mr. Hoar's dealing with election cases in this Congress and in the next was recognized by his associates of both parties as judicial and conscientious, and when the charge of undue partisanship was afterwards brought against him, he was defended by Mr. Giddings, a Texas Democrat. In this Congress Mr. Hoar made an eloquent appeal for the rebuilding, at the national expense, of the College of William and ilary in Virginia, which was destroyed by fire while national troops were encamped in its neighborhood during the Civil War.

In the Forty-third Congress Mr. Hoar, besides obtaining the vote of the House for his Education Bill, reported and carried through the House a bill to establish a Burfau of Labor Statistics, and was chairman of a special committee to investigate the political disorders in Louisiana. The fairness of the inquiry and report of this committee was conceded even by the Democratic counsel employed jn the case. In this Congress Mr. Hoar delivered his eulogy of Senator Sumner.

By the elections of 1874 the Republicans, who had held undisputed control of the House of Kepresentatives for fifteen years, were outvoted in so many districts that in the Forty-fourth Congress the Democrats were a majority of the House. In this Congress Mr. Hoar made a number of notable speeches. At his suggestion the Eads' Jetty Bill, which was in danger of failure, was put into such form as to win favorable action from the committee and Congressi and thus, as Captain Eads himself testified, it was through Mr. Hoar's efforts that New Orleans was opened to ocean commerce. He wjs one of the managers of the impeachment of Secretary Belknap, and as such made an argument so convincing and powerful that it not only changed the opinions of several Senators on the question of jurisdiction, but it awoke the conscience of the people and gave the initial impulse to the wave of official and political reform, which has not yet spent its force. But Mr. Hoar's most distinguished service in this Congress was that with which it closed - his work for and as a member of the Electoral Commission. He was a member of the special committee which prepared the bill establishing the commi.s-sion, was its advocate in the House, and was chosen by the House a member of it, his associates being General Garfield, Judge Abbott, of Massachusetts, General Hunton, of Virginia, and Mr. Payne, of Ohio. In 1872 and again in 1874 Mr. Hoar had given notice to his constituents of his wish to retire from public life, but had yielded to the general and imperative demand for his further service.

In 1876 his resolve not to be a candidate for reelection to the House was announced as final, and the people, accepting it, elected his successor. But in the winter following the Legislature chose him as Mr. Boutwell's successor in the other branch of Congress, and he took his seat in the Senate in March, 1877, at the opening of President Hayes' administration, of which he was one of the few steadfast Senatorial supporters. In the Senate Mr. Hoar has been a member, and for some years chairman of the Committee on Privileges and Elections and a member of the Committee on Claims, on the Judiciary, on the Library, and others of less importance. Besides conducting many inquiries, preparing many reports, involving large pecuniary interests or deciding weighty questions of individual right or public polic-y, he is the author or was the leading advocate of several measures of first-rate importance. Among them are the bill for distributing the balance of the Geneva award, the Lowell Bankruptcy Bill, the bill for counting the electoral votes for President and Vice- President, the Presidential Succession Bill, the repeal of the Tenure of Office Act and the resnlution for amending the Constitution so as to make the Presi- dential term aiid the term of eacli Congress begin witli tjie liiith (lay of April instead of the 4th day of Martli. All of these measures passed the Senate, and most of them became laws.

In general Mr. Hoar has occupied himself in Congress with matters of wide scope and of fundamental importance rather than with those measures of narrower range and temporary application, upon which most of the labor of Senators and Representatives is spent. His success in gaining for so many of these larger measures the attention and favorable action of a body somewhat dilatory, apt to be engrossed with the affairs of the moment, and seldom looking farther forward than to the next Presidential campaign, is proof of his powers of convincing and persuading and of the confidence of his associates in his wisdom and the purity of his motives.

Mr. Hoar was re-elected to the Senate by the Legislature in January, 1883, and again in 1889. His election for the third time by the unanimous vote of his party in the Legislature, without a note of dissent or the public suggestion of any competitor, was a distinction not accorded to any man in Massachusetts for many years before, and proof that the people have learned to set a value upon his services not less than that which they assigned in earlier days to those of Webster and Sumner.

Mr. Hoar has four times been chosen to preside over Republican State Conventions. In 1880 he was president of the National Convention at Chicago by which General Garfield was made the Republican candidate for President of the United States. His dignity and courtesy, his prompt and impartial decisions, and the easy mastery by which he held the great convention to its work amid the enthusiasms for rival leaders and the disturbing hopes and fears and other strong excitements of the occasion, commanded general applause, and gave to the public of the United States a better knowledge of his strength and breadth of character.

Besides his political, legislative and professional activity, which has been briefly outlined above, Mr. Hoar has been and is usefully busy in other ways. He has written valuable papers for the magazines; has delivered many addresses on other than political subjects ; has been a member of the Board of Overseers of Harvard College; an active member and for some years the president of the American Antiquarian Society; a trustee of the Worcester Polytechnic Institute; a regent of the Smithsonian Institution, and was selected by Mr. Jonas G. Clark as one of the corporators of Clark University. He has received the degree of Doctor of Laws from William and Mary College, Amherst, Yale and Harvard.

P. Emory Aldrich,' of Worcester, an associate justice of the Superior Court of Massachusetts, is a native of New Salem, Bias*. His familv is of the early New England stock, he being a lineal descendant of George Aldi-ich, who emigated from England in 1G35 and settled at first in Dorchester, but afterwards became one of the original founders of the town of Mendon. Members of this family in the seventh and eighth generations from the founder are now living in nearly every State of the Union; it has had its Representatives in both Houses of Congress and in all the learned professions; several of the lineage have been judges in the courts of different States. The family, in some of its branches, has been, and is, honorably known in literature and commerce; but a great majority of the race have been farmers. As a race they are distinguished for longevity and vigor of physical constitution and an inflexible will in tlie pursuit of the objects of their choice.

The subject of this notice attended the district school in his native village until he was sixteen years old, and then became himself a teacher. He received an academical education, and thereafter taught in the schools of this State and Virginia; pursuing at the same time a course of studies, such as were at that day usually found in the curricula of New England colleges. While teaching in Virginia he began the study of law, which he continued at the Harvard Law School in 1843-14, and graduated with the degree of LL.B.

After that, returning to Virginia and resuming there for a definite period his former vocation of teaching, he was admitted to the bar upon examination by the judges of the Court of Appeals at Richmond in 1845. He did not, however, enter upon practice there, but returned the same year to his native Slate, and after six months' study in the then wellknown office of Ashman, Chapman & Norton, of Springfield, he was admitted to the bar at the spring term of the old Common Pleas Court for Hampden County in 1846.

Subsequent to his admission he passed a few months in Petersham in the ofBce of F. A. Brooks, Esq., who had been a fellow-student of his at Cambridge ; and in December, 1846, he began practice in the town of Barre, Worcester County, and continued there during the following seven years. For about three years of the seven he was editor and publisher of the Barre Patriot. He represented the town of Barre in the Constitutional Convention of 1853. In May, 1853, he was appointed by Governor Clifford district attorney for the Middle District, which office he continued to hold, with an interval of a few months in 1856, until 1865. In the spring of 1854 he removed to Worcester and opened an office in that city, and in January, 1855, he formed a law partnership with the Hon. P. C. Bacon, which partnership continued until he left the bar for the bench in October, 1873. He was mayor of Worcester for the year 1862.

Upon the organization of the Slate Board of Health, in 1870, Mr.- Aldrich was appointed a member of the board by Governor Claflin, and remained a member till his appointment to the bench of the Superior Court. While he was a member of the Board of Health he prepared an historical paper, relating to the use of and the legislative regulation of the sale of intoxicating liquor, which was published in one of the annual reports of the board. He was one of the Representatives from Worcester in the State Legislature in the years 1866 and 1867 ; he took an active part in the debates and business of the House. In 1866 he was one of the minority dissenting from the decision of the Speaker of the House upon the question of the right of an interested member to vote. Mr. Aldrich prepared at that time an elaborate report upon the subject, wliich was published under the title of "The Right of Members to Vote on all Questions of Public Policy Vindicated." The principles of parliamentary law and practice contended for in that report were, at a later date, held to be correct, both in the Federal House of Representatives and in the British House of Commons. Judge Aldrich is a member of the American Antiquarian Society and one of the council of that venerable and learned body.

As a member of the society and council he has prepared several papers on historical, legal and literary subjects, which have been published with the proceedings of the society. He has written and delivered addresses before other societies and associations upon various aspects of social science and education, and upon the right of the State to provide not only for the elementary education of its children, but also for their higher education in high schools, etc. For the last few years he has given much time and study to the cause of technical education. He has long been one of the trustees of that admirable institution - the Worcester Polytechnic Institute.

Since he left the bar he has written a work on " Equity Pleading and Practice," which was published in 1885. In 1886 he received the honorary degree of LL.D. from Amherst College. In 1850 he married Sarah, the eldest daughter of Harding P. Wood, Esq., late of Barre.

William W. Rice,' son of Rev. Benjamin Rice, a Congregational clergyman, was born in the historical old town of Deerfield, Mass., on the 7th of March, 1826. His collegiate education was acquired at Bowdoin, whence he graduated in 1846. And it may be mentioned, in passing, that his alma mater in 1886 conferred on him the degree of LL.D. After graduating he spent four years as preceptor of the far-famed Leicester Academy, and in 1851 commenced the study of law in the office of Emory Washburn, then in full practice in Worcester. After the usual course of three years' study he was admitted to the bar; and from the first year of his professional life to the present time has been a prosperous and highly-esteemed practitioner. His courtesy of man-

The career of Mr. Rice as a lawyer, successful as it has been, by no means exhibits his whole character - perhaps not the most useful or conspicuous part. He has been almost constantly called by his fellow-citizens to iill positions of honor, trust and responsibility.

In the municipal administration of Worcester he has served in various capacities, particularly in those connected with the educational interests. In 1860 he was mayor, and administered the duties of that high ofiBce with efficiency and universal satisfaction. In the capacity of special justice of the Police Court and as occiipant of the bench of the County Court of Insolvency his course met with marked approval.

The duties of the office of district attorney or public prosecutor tor the Worcester District, to which he was elected in 1868 and which he held five years, he discharged with signal ability, with fidelity to the State and a manly regard for the rights of those whom it became his duty to prosecute. Few offices are beset liy more difficulties and annoyances, the duties being always arduous, often disagreeable and sometimes of doubtful justice ; and he who successfully discharges them is worthy of the highest praise.

But perhaps it was as a member of Congress that Mr. Bice has become most widely known. He was for ten years a member of that august body, having been first elected in 1876. In the discussions there his speeches had much influence and his committee work was often of the greatest importance. There, as well as at, the bar, he was courteous and forbearing, though never shrinking from the enforcement of his convictions with ardor and eloquence. By his fellowmembers of all parties he was regarded with great respect, for every one recognized him as honest and patriotic. He was able in debate and not liable to be taken unawares on any current suliject, was intelligent, earnest and persistent as a worker in the interest of his constituents, and exhibiting the same zeal that characterized his efforts for clients at the bar. . But it would savor a little of ostentation and at the same time add nothing to the reputation of jNlr. Rice to further pursue this jdiase of his career.

Some men possess such magnetic power that they, without a particle of self-assertion, draw to themselves the sympathy and confidence of all with whom they are brought in contact. And such have a controlling influence in the common affairs of life. There are others, on the contrary, who seem always surrounded by a chilling atmosphere, impenetrable to any brotherly feeling or confidential nearness. Those who best know Mr. Rice will have no difficulty in which class to place him. Assuredly he does not belong to the latter.

the city. In the War of the Rebellion his voice gave no uncertain sound in urging upon every one the duty of doing their utmost to preserve the integrity of the Union ; and it was not by speech alone that he fortified his patriotic sentiments. In his religious sentiments he is a Unitarian.

Mr. Rice was united in marriage November 21, 1855, with Miss Cornelia A. Moen, of Stamford, Conn., by whom he had two sons, - the eldest, William W. Rice, Jr., dying in childhood, and the youngest, Charles Moen Rice, a graduate of Harvard, is now a member of Mr. Rice's law firm. His first wife died June 16, 1862. In September, 1875, he married Miss Alice M. Miller, daughter of Henry W. Miller, Esq., of Worcester.

Fraxk Palmer Goulding.' - The .subject of this sketch is descended from Peter Goulding, who lived in Boston in 1665, and afterwards in Worcester and Sudbury. Palmer Goulding, son of Peter, had a son John, who was born in Worcester, October 3, 1726, and inherited from his father the business of tanning. He removed early in life to Grafton, and died November 22, 1791. His wife, Lucy Brooks, of Concord, died at the age of thirty-eight, the mother of ten children. Ephraim Goulding, one of the children, was born September 4, 1765, and married, March 6, 1792, Susannah, daughter of William and Sarah (Prentice) Brigham. He was a prominent man in the town, serving as moderator of annual town-meetings eleven years, as selectman six, as assessor one year and as member of the School Committee six years. He died January 14, 1838. Palmer Goulding, son of Ephraim, was born October 11, 1809, and died in Grafton, March 22, 1849. He married, first, Fanny W. Maynard, who died August 9, 1839, having had three children - JohnC, who was born in 1832, and died in 1839 ; Susan E., born in 1835, and Frank P., the subiect of this sketch, who was born in Grafton, July 2, 1837. By a second wife, Ann Cutting, whom he married June 2, 1842, he had Fanny A., born May 4, 1843.

Frank Palmer Goulding while a boy lived in Grafton, Holden and Worcester, his father having at various times occupation in those places, but on the death of his father, in 1849, returned to Grafton, and at the age of twelve years was apprenticed to learn the liusiness of making shoes. From 1853 to 1857 he worked at his trade in Worcester, and at the latter date, at the age of twenty, entered the academy at Thetford, Vt., and prepared for college. He graduated at Dartmouth in 1863, and at once began the study of law in the office of Hon. George F. Hoar, in Worcester. A year at the Harvard Law School completed his preliminary law studies, and in 1866 he was admit ted to the Worcester County bar. In the same year he became a partner with Hon. Francis Hensbaw Dewey, then in full practice, and remained with him until Mr.

Dewey was appointed a justice of the Superior Court in 1869. Mr. Goulding then formed a partnership with Hon. Hamilton Barclay Staples, which continued until Mr. Staples was appointed a Superior Court justice in 1881. Since that time he has been alone, enjoying a large and increasing practice, to which has been added the performance of the duties of city solicitor, which office since 1881 he has continued to hold.

It is not difiicult to form an estimate of the character and intellectual powers of a man who, with slender educational advantages in early life, has reached the professional position enjoyed by Mr. Goulding. At a bar excelled by none in the State beyond the limits of Suffolk County, he at an early day in his career secured a rank which he has not only sustained, but steadily advanced. His appointment as one of the trustees of the new Clark University attests both the confidence of the community in which he lives in his business methods and sound judgment and their respect for his mental attainments and culture.

There are other evidences of the regard in which he is held. He was one of the Presidential electors chosen on the Republican ticket at the last election ; he is also one of the trustees of the Worcester County Institution for Savings, a director in the First National Fire Insurance Company, and either a present or retired member of the Worcester School Board. With the pressure of professional business, his political aspirations have been satisfied by two years of service in the House of Representatives.

Hon. Johx D. Washburn.'-' - John Davis Washburn is a native of Boston, where he was born March 27, 1833, being the eldest son of John Marshall Washburn, who married, in 1832, Harriet Webster, daughter of Rev. Daniel Kimball (Harvard University, 1800).

His parents removed to the grand old town of Lancaster, in Worcester County, when he was five years old, and his early youth was passed amid those beautiful surroundings.

At the age of twenty he graduated in 1853 from Harvard University, and entered the profession of law, studying first with Hon. Emory Washburn and George F. Hoar in 1854, and later receiving a diploma from the Harvard Law School in 1856.

He practiced law in Worcester, in partnership with Hon. H. C. Rice, and, by a development of his professional business and inclinations, made a prominent place, first, as an insurance attorney, and lastly, succeeding the late Hon. Alexander H. Bullock as general agent and attorney of the insurance companies, in 1866.

By his friendship with Governor Bullock he became associated witli his military family as the chief of his staff, from 18G6 to 1S69, receiving a colonel's commission.

During the period from 1871 to 1881 he was a trustee of the Worcester Lunatic Hospital, and from 1875 to 1885 filled the same relation to the Massachusetts School for the Feeble-minded. He was a member of the House of Representatives from 1876 to 1879, and a Senator from the city of Worcester in 1884, rendering the excellent public service to be expected from his knowledge of affairs and his general sympathies with all matters of care and concern in the Commonwealth.

His association has always been sought in corporate and financial affairs. From 1866 to 1880 he was a director of the Citizens' National Bank.

He has been a member of the Board of Investment of the Worcester County Institution for Savings since 1871, and a trustee and treasurer of the Memorial Hospital since 1872.

He has been a director of the Merchants' and Farmers' Insurance Company since 1862, and succeeded the Hon. Isaac Davis as president in 1883.

His large humanitarian instincts and tastes, taking hold on all matters that have to do with educational and intellectual advancement, have made for him a congenial field where associates have warmly welcomed him in the numerous relations he has sustained to our higher institutions and learned societies. Since 1871 he has been a councilor and secretary of the American Antiquarian Society, and is a councilor of the Massachusetts Historical Society.

He is also an original member of the American Historical Association, and has been, since 1884, a corresponding member of the Georgia Historical Society. It is much to say of one that he stands high with his own alma mater. Colonel Washburn is a member of the overseers' committee on the government of Harvard University, and one of the directors of the Alumni Association of the same institution. He is one of the Board of Trustees and secretary of the new Clark University of Worcester.

This is a good record for any man to have won in middle life, and opens a field of service worthy of the best ripened powers, such as promises to give the subject of this sketch many years of useful citizenship.

He married, in 1860, Mary F., daughter of Charles L. Putnam, Esq. (Dartmouth College, 1830), and has one daughter, Edith, who married, in 1884, Richard Ward Greene, Esq., of Worcester.

Edward Livingston Davis,' sou of Isaac and Mary H. E. Davis, was born in Worcester, April 22, 1834. He began his education in the public schools of his native town, completing his course at the High School in 1850 and was graduated at Brown University in 1854. Having studied law in the office of his father and at the Harvard Law School, he became a member of the Worcester County bar in 1857.

He gave up the practice of the law the following year, and associated himself with Nathan Washburn and George W. Gill in the manufacture of railway iron, locomotive tires and car-wheels, a business established in 1857 in Worcester, which soon gave profitable employment to a large capital. In 1864 a corporation was formed, under the name of the Washburn Iron Company, for carrying on the same business. Mr. Davis was the treasurer and one of the chief stockholders in this company, and continued to hold that office until 1882, when, upon the death of his associate, Mr. Gill, he sold his interest and retired from the corporation.

Since that time, as indeed before, he has been much occupied with various business engagements and public and private trusts, which the care of his own property and the confidence of others in his capacity and faithfulness imposed upon him. He has been a director of the Boston and Albany, the Norwich and Worcester, and the Vermont and Massachusetts Railroad Companies, president of the proprietors of the Rural Cemetery, president of the Worcester County Musical Association, member of the Council of the American Antiquarian Society, and director and trustee of many other institutions and companies in his native city, and actively and helpfully concerned in all enterprises designed to promote the welfare of the city and its people.

While not ambitious of official honors or political influence, Mr. Davis has not refused to bear his part when his services were required iu responsible positions in the government of the city or State. He was elected a member of the Common Council for 1865 and held the office for three years, for the last year being president of the board. He was mayor of Worcester in 1874. During his administration important public improvements were carried out, notably the construction of a portion of Park Avenue, whose value has since been recognized. While holding this office Mr. Davis saw the growing need of the city for additional parks and play-grounds, which he has since in another official capacity and privately, so efficiently helped to supply.

While he was mayor, the Soldiers' Monument on the Common was publicly accepted by him on behalf of the city, and it was formally dedicated with appropriate ceremony. It is an interesting coincidence that his father, the Hon. Isaac Davis, accepted for the city the monument erected on the Common in memory of Colonel Timothy Bigelow, Worcester's most distinguished soldier of the Revolution. This dedication took place on the 19th of April, 1861, at the moment when other Worcester soldiers, among the first to be in arms in defence of the Union against foes of its own household, were attacked in the streets of Baltimore, and the first blood was shed in the great Civil War, whose heroes are commemorated by the monument dedicated by the second Mayor Davis thirteen years later. These two monuments in memory of the soldiers of two wars - for independence and for union - are the only memorial structures on the Common.

Mr. Davis was a member of the State Senate in 1876. He has since repeatedly declined to be the candidate of his party for various positions, including that of Representative in Congress, preferring private to political life.

He has not, however, declined employments of a public nature other than political, and has been chairman of the commissioners of the city's sinking funds, an office of financial responsibility, and a member of the Parks Commission. In this latter capacity, as well as by his gift of a portion of the Lake Park and a fund for its improvement, he has contributed materially to devise the present comprehensive scheme of public parks and play-grounds, and to secure its adoption, as well as to remove obstructions from the Common and prevent encroachments upon it, and thus to preserve it for the free use of the people, as a place of recreation and an adornment of the city.

Mr. Davis is a member of the Protestant Episcopal Church and has long been senior warden of the parish of All Saints. When the present church was built, from 1874 to 1877, he was chairman of the building and fijiance committees, and contributed in time and money more than any other member of the parish. He has repeatedly represented the parish in the Diocesan Convention, has been for several years a member of the standing committee of the diocese, and twice one of the four lay deputies of the diocese to the general convention of the church.

Mr. Davis has been twice married. Hannah Gardner, daughter of Seth Adams, Esq., of Providence, Rhode Island, to wliom he was married in 1859, died in 1861, leaving a son, who survived her but a few days. He married, in 1869, Maria Louisa, youngest daughter of the Rev. Chandler Robbins, D.D., of Boston. They have two daughters, Eliza Frothingham and Theresa, and a son, Livingston.

James Edward Estabrook.' - For nearly sixty years the name and title " Colonel Estabrook," descending from father to son, has been familiarly known and respected, both within and beyond the borders of this community.

" Colonel '' James Edward Estabrook, the subject of this sketch, may be said to have inherited the title, by courtesy, from his father, Colonel James Estabrook, of the State Militia, the gallant commander of the last Worcester County Regiment of Cavalry, and who had the honor of leading the escort at the reception of Lafayette in 1824.

The American line begins with the Rev. .loseph Estabrook, born in Enfield, England, who came to Concord, Mass., in 1660, was graduated from Harvard College in 1664, and soon after was settled as a minister in Concord, Mass., where he was a colleague for many years of the famous Rev. Edward Bulkeley, remaining there during a pastorate of forty-four years until his death, in 1711. Shattuck's " History of Concord " refers to him as :

" A man of great worth, and eminently fitted for his oflice. His appearance carried with it so much patriarchal dignity, that people were induced to love him as a friend and reverence him as a father. These distinguished traits obtained for him, in the latter part of his life, the name of The Apostle."

In an obituary notice, the Boston News Letter of September 18, 1711, says: " He was eminent for his skill in the Hebrew language, a most orthodox, learned and worthy divine, of holy life and conversation."

Three of his four sons became ministers, the eldest, Joseph, settling in Lexington, Mass., and reference is made to this branch in Hudson's " History of Lexington," as "the noted ministerial family."

Ebenezer Estabrook, the father of Major James Estabrook, and grandfather of James Edward, of Worcester, removed from Lexington to the neighboring town of Holden about the time of the Revolution and founded the Worcester County branch of the family.

Colonel James Estabrook removed from Holden, his native place, to Rutland and thence to Worcester in 1828, and, with the exception of a few years spent in Bostion, his active business life was closely identified with the rapidly developing town and city of Worcester until his death, in 1874.

During the administration of Governor Boutwell he was appointed sheriff of Worcester County, from which office he was removed, for political resisons only, on the return of the Whig party to power.

Colonel Estabrook was a devoted and distinguished member of the order of Free Masonry, and as early as 1825, on the organization of the Worcester County Commandery of Knights Templar, he was elected the first Eminent Commander of that honorable body. Always a respected citizen, he was entrusted with many local interests, was an honored and influential member of the Old South, and later of the Union Church, and was among the first to take an active and leading part in the early development of the real estate and mechanical interests of the city.

As one of the well-known men whose lives form an important part of the history of their times, we quote the following extract from an extended tribute in the records of that honorable and exclusive organization known as the Worcester Fire Society, of which he was a member, being tlie only person selected for this distinction at the annual meeting in 1830 :

" Colonel James Estabrook was a man of marked intelligence, who accomplished more by knowledge later acquired than have many men, whose education, begun at college, seems to have been absolutely discontinued theu and there."

From the same authority, the Hon. John D. Washburn, we also quote the following paragraph, not only as a faithful description of the founder of the Worcester branch of the family, but also as a remarkably terse and vivid pen-picture of his son. Colonel James E. Estabrook, the present postmaster of Worcester, in whom the type and characteristics are faithfully perpetuated :

" In stature he was below middle height, but made the most of such height as he had by the erection of his figure and military bearing. His complexion was very dark, and in this, as well as his features, he resembled the great Democratic leader, Stephen A. Douglas. His manner was quick, his eye bright and intelligent. Opposed to the party usually dominant here, he held few offices, though counted a politician, but he never adopted the coarser modes of warfare in politics, was courteous to his opponents, refrained from the imputation of unworthy motives, and carried none of the bitterness of party contest into the relations of private life."

This latter trait is especially true of his son, James Edward, who has been a life-long Democrat and a recognized leader and oracle of his party, not only in Worcester County, but also prominent in the party councils of the State and nation for a quarter of a century.

He has been a delegate to every National Convention of his party since the close of the war to the time of his appointment to a Federal office in 1887. He has served as chairman of the State Executive Committee, and of the County, District, Congressional and City Committees through many years of his party's minority in the State, and has ever been held in high esteem as an honest and honorable politician even by his political opponents.

In this connection, his life-long friendship with the late lamented Judge Adin Thayer, one of the acknowledged leaders of the Republican party in the State, will be recalled by their fellow-townsmen, among whom it had been long a matter of common remark that these two natural leaders of opposing forces only suspended their intimate social relations for a few weeks, during the active hostilities of a State or national campaign.

Colonel Estabrook has served his party in every capacity that choice or party exigency imposed upon him, with or without hope or prospect of reward, and his selection by President Cleveland to fill the office of postmaster, to succeed General Josiah Pickett, was received with a very general expression of approbation from his fellow-citizens, without regard to political affiliation, as a well-deserved recognition of his long and faithful devotion to the principles of his party.

As a member of the School Board, president of the Common Council and for two years, 187-1 and 1875, as a representative of the city in the General Court of Ma.ssachusetts, Colonel Estabrook rendered able and faithful service, and discharged his duties with credit to his constituents and with honor to himself

He is now one of the directors of the Free Public Library of Worcester, an honor peculiarly in harmony with his tastes and acquirements, and his long familiarity with the good society of books.

Born in Worcester October 29, 1829, he prepared for college in the Worcester High School, and was graduated from Yale in 1851. He then studied law with Judge Benjamin F. Thomas, attended the Harvard Law School, and was admitted to the Worcester bar in the autumn of 1853, at the age of twenty-three. Later he became the law partner of Judge Dwight Foster, of the Supreme Court, and practiced his profession until the breaking out of the War of the Rebellion.

Early in that critical period of the nation's life Colonel Estabrook promptly tendered his services to the government, and was assigned to duty on the staff" of General Charles Devens, and later on the statf of General Butler, in the Department of the Gulf.

Compelled to resign from active service, by reason of sickness, in 1862, he returned to Worcester, and has since devoted his time to the care of his valuable estates, the duties of political life, the genial society of his chosen friends and the daily companionshiii of his library of classic, historical and standard authors.

Few, comparatively, of his many friends and acquaintances know or appreciate the fact that this modest, genial and unassuming gentleman is still, at three-score years, a familiar student of the classics, and is the owner of one of the largest and choicest libraries of rare editions of both ancient and modern literature in the city.

Colonel James Estabrook, the father, married Almira Read, of Rutland, Mass., and to them were born five children - ^one daughter and four sons. Two of these children are now living - the present postmaster and his brother, Arthur Edgar Estabrook, an esteemed citizen of Worcester, who shares with his brother the care of their joint interest in the family projierty. Colonel James Edward Estabrook remains a ripe and genial bachelor, having never married.

Hon. E. B. Stoddabd.' - Elijah Brigham Stoddard, the son of Col. Elijah Stoddard, a worthy and esteemed citizen of Upton, Mass., was born in that town on June 5, 1826.

For nearly forty years he has been a widelyrecognized factor in the professional, political and social life of Worcester, and has filled many public trusts with distinction.

"Colonel" Stoddard, as the subject of this sketch is familiarly known, was the first commander of the Third Battalion of Worcester County Rifles, organized in 1858, and was later a member of the military staff of Governor N. P. Banks, in 1860, and on the occasion of the reception to the Prince of Wales, during that year, Colonel Stoddard was one of the officers assigned to duty as personal escort to the prince.

On his admission to the bar in 1849 he began the practice of law in partnership with Hon. John C. B. Davis, under the firm of Davis & Stoddard, which continued until 1S52.

He then became the law-partner of his father-inlaw, Hon. Isaac Davis, a man of great prominence and large estates in the community, which association continued until 1857, when Colonel Stoddard was appointed district attorney for Worcester County, succeeding John H. Matthews, Esq., deceased in office. This position he held for about six months, until the expiration of the term. For nearly twenty years he was engaged in the regular practice of his profession, withdrawing somewhat from active practice in the courts in 1866, to accept the responsible duties of secretary and business manager of the Merchants' and Farmers' Fire Insurance Company, a position whicli he has ably and faithfully filled for the past twenty-two years and which he still holds.

Colonel Stoddard has, in fact, always been a man of affairs, prominent and helpful in the public concerns of the city, dealing with the affairs of men and property on a large and varied scale, and intrusted by his fellow-citizens with the care of large corporate and individual interests.

Beginning his public duties as the Representative of the city of Worcester in the Legislature of 1856, he has since ably served the city and State in many capacities. He was president of the Common Council in 1858; later, a member of the Board of Aldermen for two years ; twice elected to the Massachusetts Senate (1863-64), and served two terms as State Councilor of this district (1871-72).

Elected mayor of Worcester in 1882, his administration was able and dignified, and his judgment in matters of grave importance to the city has been confirmed by subsequent events as both broad and judicious.

Always actively interested in the progress of popular education, he has been a member of the School Board for nine years, and for the past ten years has been a member of the State Board of Education, where he has rendered zealous and lasting service. His native tact and business discretion has been recognized by thirty years of continuous service as a director of the Providence & Worcester Railroad, as a solicitor and trustee for many years of the State Mutual Life Insurance Company, and as the trusted counselor of various public and private enterprises.

In addition to his other duties, he is now the president of the t^uinsigamond National Bank, and also president of the Worcester Five Cent Savings Bank.

Edwin Conant. ' - One of the earliest European lodgments in Massachusetts, as distinguislied from Plymouth, was made in the year 1625, at Cape Ann. It was a little planting and fishing station, under the superintendence of the sturdy Roger Conant, who liad previously been at Plymouth and Nantasket. He was a native of Budleigh, in Devonshire, England, born in 1593, and came to America in 1623, soon becoming a prominent character among the settlers. He was a remarkable man - remarkable for firmness, for self-reliance, and, it may be added, for utter contempt of the common and smaller hardships and annoyances of life, that so distress some and trouble most of us.

The fishing and planting were not successful, and the station was broken up in the autumn of 1626, and Conant, with most of the company, removed to the territory now forming Salem, and settled on the tongue of land through which Bridge Street now runs. This settlement was permanent, and made before Endicott or Winthrop came.^

2 The severity of the winter, added to the privations they endured, so diBCoiiraged the little band that some of them proposed abandoning the enterprise. Not so with Conant. His mind was fixed, and go ho would not. He had suffered hardships in other places and surmounted many difficulties, but liere be bad set his foot, and wiis determined to make iu this vicinage a permanent stand. He says in a petition to the court, May, 1671 : " I was .... one of the first, if not the very first, that resolved and made good my settlement in matter of plantation with my family in this colony of Massachusetts Bay, and have bin instrumeutal both for the founding and carrying on of the same, and when, iu the infancy thereof, it was in great hazard of being deserted, I was a means, through grace assisting me, to stop the flight of those few that there were heire with me, and that by my utter deniall to goe away witli them who would have gon either for England or mostly for Viiginia, but thereupon staid to the hazard of our lives."' It is stated, on very good authority, that bis son Roger was the first white child born in Salem ; but an ancient record says that at a church-meeting, in 17o3, the old church Bible wiis presented to John Massey, a son of Jeffrey Massey, a companion of Conant, as the " first town-born child."

Conant was likewise among the first settlers of Beverly, which is just, on the other side of Bass River - Beverly, whose beautiful shores have now for years been the summer resort of the wealthy and refined from far and near, and which, during the last year or two, has so agitated our Legislature on the question of territorial division. Beverly was settled im a part of Salem about 1(530, and by 1649 the settlers were sufficiently numerous to ask of the Salem Church "that some course be

It is interesting to dwell upon the life of Roger Conant, so grand a type of the primitive and true New England character; to trace along the line of descent from him, the headof oneof our largest and best New England families.