the New England Historic-Genealogical Society, vacated by the death of
Gov. Andrew. He was unanimously elected, and is now serving the
fourteenth year of his presidency. At every annual meeting he has
delivered an appropriate address. In his first address he urged the
importance of procuring a suitable building for the society. In 1870, he
said: "The time has now arrived when absolute necessity, public
sentiment, and personal obligations demand that this work be done and
done quickly." Feeling himself pledged by this address, he, as chairman
of the committee then appointed, devoted three months entirely to the
object of soliciting funds, during which time more than forty thousand
dollars was generously contributed by friends of the association; and
thus the handsome edifice. No. 18 Somerset street, was procured. This
building was dedicated to the use of the society, March 18, 1871. He has
since obtained donations amounting to upwards of twelve thousand
dollars, as a fund for paying the salary of the librarian.
In 1859, he presided at the first public meeting called in Boston in
regard to the collocation of institutions on the Back Bay lands, where
the splendid edifices of the Boston Society of Natural History and the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology now stand. Of the latter
institution he has been a vice-president, and the chairman of its
Society of Arts.
He was one of the twelve representative men appointed to receive the
Prince of Wales in 1860, at the banquet given him in Boston; also one of
the commissioners in behalf of the Universal Exposition in Paris, 1867,
when he was placed at the head of the committee on horticulture and the
cultivation and products of the vine, the report of which was published
by act of congress.
In 1869, he made a trip to the South for the purpose of examining its
resources; and in 1870, with a large party, he visited California. The
result of Mr. Wilder's observations have been given to the public in a
lecture before the Massachusetts state board of agriculture, which was
repeated before the Boston Mercantile Library Association, the Amherst
and the Massachusetts Agricultural colleges, Dartmouth College, the
Horticultural Society, and the merchants of Philadelphia, and bodies in
other places.
His published speeches and writings now amount to over eighty in number.
A list to the year 1873 is printed in the "Cyclopedia of American
Literature." Dartmouth College, as a testimonial to his services in
science and literature, conferred upon him, in the year 1877, the degree
of Doctor of Philosophy.
The Hon. Paul A. Chadbourne, LL. D., late president of Williams College,
in a recent memoir of Mr. Wilder remarks: "The interest which Col.
Wilder has always manifested in the progress of education, as well as
the value and felicitous style of his numerous writings, would lead one
to infer at once that his varied knowledge and culture are the results
of college education. But he is only another illustrious example of the
men who, with only small indebtedness to schools, have proved to the
world that real men can make themselves known as such without the aid of
the college, as we have abundantly learned that the college can never
make a man of one who has not in him the elements of noble manhood
before he enters its halls."
In 1820, Mr. Wilder married Miss Tryphosa Jewett, daughter of Dr.
Stephen Jewett, of Rindge, a lady of great personal attractions. She
died on a visit to that town, July 21, 1831, leaving four children. On
the 29th of August, 1833, Mr. Wilder was united to Miss Abigail,
daughter of Capt. David Baker, of Franklin, Mass., a lady of education,
accomplishments, and piety, who died of consumption April 4, 1854,
leaving five children. He was married a third time on the 8th of
September, 1855, to her sister, Miss Julia Baker, who was admirably
qualified to console him and make his dwelling cheerful, and who has two
sons, both living. No man has been more blessed in domestic life. We
know not where there would be a more pleasing picture of peace and
contentment exhibited than is found in this happy family. In all his
pursuits and avocations, Mr. Wilder seems to have realized and practiced
that grand principle which has such a bearing and influence on the whole
course of life,--the philosophy of habit, a power almost omnipotent for
good or evil. His leisure hours he devotes to his pen, which already has
filled several large volumes with descriptions and delineations of
fruits and flowers proved under his own inspection.
The life of Col. Wilder is a striking instance of what an individual may
accomplish by industry, indomitable perseverance, and the concentration
of the intellectual powers on grand objects. Without these, no talent,
no mere good fortune could have placed him in the high position he has
attained as a public benefactor. He has been pre-eminent in the
establishment and development of institutions. Few gentlemen have been
called upon so often, and upon such various occasions, to take the chair
at public meetings or preside over constituted societies. Few have
acquitted themselves so happily, whether dignity of presence, amenity of
address, fluency of speech, or dispatch of business be taken into
consideration. As a presiding officer he seems "to the manner born." His
personal influence has been able to magnetize a half-dying body into new
and active life. This strong personal characteristic is especially
remarked among his friends. No one can approach him in doubt, in
despondency, or in embarrassment, and leave him without a higher hope, a
stronger courage and a manlier faith in himself. The energy which has
impelled him to labor still exists.
In closing this sketch, we may remark that a complimentary banquet was
given him, September 22, 1878, on the eightieth anniversary of his
birth. On this occasion the Rev. James H. Means, D. D., his pastor for
nearly thirty years, the Hon. Charles L. Flint, secretary of the board
of agriculture, the Hon. John Phelps Putnam, judge of the Massachusetts
superior court, and others paid tributes to the high moral character,
the benevolent disposition, and the eminent services of the honored
guest of the evening.
Judge Putnam closed as follows: "Our dear old friend, we greet you. On
this auspicious occasion we wish you many returns of your natal day.
_Serus in coelum redeas_,--late may you return to the heavens. And
when that day comes, on which, in the onward march of life you shall
fall by the way-side, may you fall as falls the golden fruit in this
autumn time,--
'Sustained and soothed
By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave
Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch
About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.'"
[Illustration: John M. Parker]
HON. JOHN M. PARKER.
BY WM. H. STINSON.
Among the many worthy sons of the old Granite State who by their
business enterprise, executive ability, and genial manners have won a
position on her honored roll, appears the name of JOHN MCGAW PARKER, who
was born in Goffstown, September 17, 1824, the eldest son of William
Parker by his second marriage, one of the early settlers of the town.
His mother, Hannah Adams, of Derry, was a most estimable lady, whose
christian influence over her family of three children was most enobling.
She was a descendant from that honored and illustrious family whose
representatives were called to the executive head of our nation. She
died February 26, 1869, having reached the age of four score years. We
trace the ancestry of his father to Josiah Parker, who came from England
to Cambridge, Mass., prior to 1700. His son, Rev. Thomas Parker, was the
first settled pastor at Dracut, Mass., where he died in 1765. A son of
his settled in Litchfield, this state, from whose family sprung the
father of the subject of this sketch.
During his early youth, young Parker received such training and
advantages as were offered by the district school, united with the best
of home influences. At the age of eleven years he was placed in the
academy at Hopkinton, by his father, who was desirous of giving his son
the benefit of a business education; the following year he entered old
Derry academy at Derry, where his education was completed.
Displaying much aptitude for business, his father, who was engaged in
the lumbering and the mercantile trade, as well as farming, placed him
in his store as clerk; the succeeding year he was clerk in a store at
Concord, but the next year, 1839, he returned to his home, taking charge
of the business of his father, who was in failing health, and who died
on the 9th of August following, at the age of sixty-four years.
His father's death necessitated changes in home affairs, and in March,
1840, he entered the store of William Whittle, at Goffstown, where he
remained until twenty-one years of age; he then returned once more to
his home and went into the mercantile trade at his father's old stand.
This was in 1843; he continued the same until 1847, when he formed a
partnership with his younger brother, David A., under the firm name of
J. M. & D. A. Parker, which union continues at the present time. In
addition to the mercantile and agricultural interests, they have engaged
extensively in the wood and lumber business, and as the "lumber kings"
in their section of the state their business has grown and developed
into one of no inconsiderable magnitude, requiring the investment of a
large capital which has accumulated through their indomitable energy and
business sagacity, backed by a judgment of such soundness as years of
experience can but give. The building of the N. H. Central Railroad, now
the Manchester & North Weare road, chartered in 1848, added greatly to
their business facilities for the transportation of their wood, bark,
and lumber, which enterprise received their earnest encouragement.
On the 30th of November, 1854, he married Letitia C., second daughter of
the late Capt. Charles Stinson, of Dunbarton, who was born March 9,
1835. Their married life has been a truly happy one, and such a kindly
home as all members of the household will ever revert to with the
fondest of recollections. They have three children: Charles Stinson,
born November 3, 1855; Henry Woodman, born February 26, 1859; Frank
Adams, born June 1, 1866. The two former, Charles and Henry, inheriting
their father's traits of character for business, are merchants at
Goffstown village, while Frank is pursuing his studies at Gilmanton
Academy.
Since the organization of the Republican party, Mr. Parker has ever been
a zealous advocate of its principles, and his abilities have been
recognized most honorably by his political party in their public
preferments. In 1855 he was elected a commissioner for his county, and
re-elected in 1856; and a member of the state senate in 1858 and 1859.
Among his associates in this body were Hon. Walter Harriman, Hon. John
G. Sinclair, Hon. Austin F. Pike, and Hon. John D. Lyman. He represented
his town in the legislature in 1869. In 1876, without consultation and
greatly to his surprise, he was selected as the nominee, by his party,
for councilor from his district, and owing to his popularity received a
majority of the suffrages at the election following, in the face of a
Democratic majority of six hundred in the district the year previous;
and was re-elected in 1877. At the institution of the state board of
equalization, in 1879, he was commissioned by the court as one of the
five members; re-appointed in 1881, and selected as president of the
board.
When the Guaranty Savings Bank of Manchester was organized, in 1879, he
was elected its president, a position still retained; and is also a
member of the board of directors of the Merchants National Bank of the
same city.
Mr. Parker filled the position of postmaster at the Goffstown office
during a period of four years; and he has a wide reputation in all the
surrounding towns as one of the most successful auctioneers, where his
services are ever in demand. Being possessed of a judicious and candid
mind, he is often called to act in the capacity of referee, where his
mature judgment has assisted in the friendly adjustment of disputed and
antagonistic questions which threatened the peace and harmony of
families, neighborhoods, and towns.
His business prosperity enables him to exercise a liberal spirit towards
objects and institutions that tend towards worthy ends; and he is
certainly one of the most industrious of men, whether attending to the
demands of the farm, the store, the lumber interests, selling of
estates, or to the almost countless calls from his public and minor
private duties that come crowding to his immediate notice. In all
matters of a public nature he has ever taken an active interest,
especially in the growth of enterprise in his native town.
Mr. Parker's love for social life allows the years to sit lightly. Of a
happy, open disposition, ever approachable, at his delightful residence
at Parker's station, Goffstown, presided over by his amiable and
generous-hearted wife, a cordial welcome is assured all who enter his
hospitable doors.
[Illustration: Chas. H. Bartlett.]
HON. CHARLES H. BARTLETT.
CHARLES HENRY BARTLETT was born in Sunapee, N. H., October 15, 1833. He
is the fourth son of John and Sarah J. (Sanborn) Bartlett, and is a
lineal descendant, in the eighth generation, of Richard Bartlett, who
came from England to Newbury, Mass., in the ship "Mary and John," in
1634.
The original orthography of the name was Barttelot, which is still
preserved by the family in England, whose ancestral home in Stopham,
Sussex county, has remained in possession of the family for nearly a
thousand years, and the present occupant, Hon. Walter B. Barttelot, is
the member of parliament from that county.
In the same ancestral line is found the name of Hon. Josiah Bartlett,
who, as a delegate in the continental congress from New Hampshire, was
the first man to vote "yea" on the passage of the declaration of
independence, July 4, 1776, and the second to affix his signature
thereto. All the Bartletts whose names appear in the annals of our state
trace their lineage to the same ancestry.
Mr. Bartlett has four brothers,--Joseph S., who resides in Claremont,
and Solomon, John Z. and George H., who reside in Sunapee; and two
sisters,--Mrs. Thomas P. Smith and Mrs. John Felch. His parents are
still living, at the advanced age of eighty-two years, in the enjoyment
of an ample competency, the fruits of a long life of earnest and
cheerful labor, and the practice of a stern, self-denying economy, the
characteristic of the best type of our New England husbandry.
Mr. Bartlett's early life was mainly spent upon his father's farm,
laboring through the summer season and attending school during the
winter. He early developed a decided taste for literary pursuits, and
from childhood devoted a liberal share of his leisure moments to the
perusal of such books as were accessible to him. He also contributed
liberally to the current literature of the day, and showed remarkable
facility in both prose and poetic composition. He received his academic
education at the academies at Washington and New London, after which he
commenced the study of law in the office of Metcalf & Barton at Newport.
He studied subsequently with George & Foster at Concord, and with
Morrison & Stanley at Manchester, being admitted to the bar of
Hillsborough county, from the office of the latter, in 1858. In that
year he began the practice of his profession at Wentworth, N. H., and in
1863 removed to Manchester, where he has since resided. For some two
years he was law partner with the late Hon. James U. Parker, the
partnership terminating with the retirement of the latter from active
business. In June, 1867, he was appointed, by Judge Clark, clerk of the
United States district court for the New Hampshire district, since which
time he has not actively practiced his profession, but has devoted
himself to the duties of his office, which became very onerous and
responsible upon the passage of the bankrupt law, about the time of his
appointment. The holding of this office under the government of the
United States has disqualified him from accepting any office under the
state government. He was clerk of the New Hampshire senate from 1861 to
1865, Gov. Smyth's private secretary in 1865 and 1866, treasurer of the
state reform school in 1866 and 1867. In the same year he was
unanimously chosen city solicitor, but declined a re-election, owing to
his appointment as clerk of the district court. In 1872 he was elected,
as the nominee of the Republican party, mayor of the city, and served
till February 18, 1873, when he resigned in accordance with the policy
of the national government at that time, which forbade United States
officials from holding state or municipal offices. His cheerful
co-operation with the administration in this matter, though at the
sacrifice of a most conspicuous public position, was handsomely
recognized by President Grant, through Attorney-General Williams. His
last official act as mayor was to order the city treasurer to pay the
amount due him for salary to the Firemen's Relief Association. Mr.
Bartlett has been a trustee of the Merrimack River Savings Bank from
1865 to the present time, and a trustee of the People's Savings Bank
from its organization in 1874. He is also a director in the Merchants
National Bank. He was the master of Washington Lodge of Freemasons from
April, 1872, to April, 1874, and now holds the position of United States
commissioner, to which he was appointed in 1872. The only positions of
trust he has held since his appointment as clerk of the United States
court, are as a member of the last constitutional convention, and
chairman of the commission appointed by the governor and council to
investigate the affairs of the New Hampshire Insane Asylum.
Mr. Bartlett married, December 8, 1858, at Sunapee, Miss Hannah M.
Eastman, of Croydon, N. H., by whom he had one son, Charles Leslie, who
died at the age of four years, and one daughter, Carrie Bell, a member
of the Manchester high school.
Clarke's "History of Manchester," from which the foregoing facts are
gathered, closes its biographical sketch of Mr. Bartlett as follows:
"Mr. Bartlett has a keen, well balanced mind, whose faculties are always
at his command. He thinks readily, but acts cautiously, and seldom makes
a mistake. Hence he has been financially successful in almost everything
he has undertaken. He is one of the most practical lawyers in the State,
and was for several years in charge of the law department of the
_Mirror_, giving general satisfaction, and his withdrawal, when his
business compelled it, was a source of much regret to the readers of
that paper."
In 1881, Dartmouth College conferred upon him the honorary degree of
Master of Arts.
[Illustration: Moody Currier]
HON. MOODY CURRIER, LL. D.
Forty years ago, when Manchester, now the metropolis of New Hampshire,
was little more than a wasting waterfall and an unpeopled plain, a few
young men who had the sagacity to see, the courage to grapple with, and
the strength to control the possibilities of the location, made it their
home. One of these was MOODY CURRIER, who was then seeking for a spot in
which a willing hand and a busy brain could carve out a successful
career. His boyhood had been spent upon a farm, where he supported
himself by work during the day, and gratified his desire for knowledge
by studying by the light of pitch-knots in the evening. In this manner
he fitted himself to enter Hopkinton Academy, and by similar methods
worked his way into and through Dartmouth College, where he graduated
with high honors in 1834. During his collegiate course he earned enough
by teaching and other work in the vacations to pay his expenses, but his
graduation found him without funds, and, as the readiest way to lay the
foundation of his fortune, he taught school at Concord one term and the
Hopkinton Academy one year, and then accepted an invitation to take
charge of the high school at Lowell, Mass., where he remained until
1841. Meantime he had read law, and in the spring of that year came to
Manchester, was admitted to the bar, and formed a partnership with Hon.
George W. Morrison for the practice of his profession, which continued
for two years, when it was dissolved, and he pursued his business
independently until 1848. During this time he had acquired a large and
lucrative practice, and while attending to the interests of his clients
had established a reputation as one of the safest and most sagacious
financiers in the young city, which led the founders of the Amoskeag
bank, when that institution was organized, to elect him its cashier. He
accepted the position, and from that time has been prominently
identified with many of the largest and most successful moneyed
corporations in the city and state. He was cashier of the Amoskeag bank
until it was re-organized as a national bank, when he was elected its
president, which position he still occupies. He has been treasurer of
the Amoskeag Savings Bank since its foundation, in 1852, a director of
the People's Savings Bank and of the Manchester Mills since their
organization. He was a director of the Blodget Edge Tool Company, and a
director and treasurer of the Amoskeag Axe Company, during the existence
of those corporations. He was treasurer of the Concord Railroad in 1871
and 1872; has been treasurer of the Concord & Portsmouth Railroad since
1856, president of the Eastern Railroad in New Hampshire since 1877,
treasurer of the New England Loan Company since 1874, and a director of
the Manchester Gas-Light Company since 1862; and has held many other
places of responsibility,--in all of which his prudence, foresight, and
good judgment have grasped the opportunities which have eluded so many,
avoided the whirlpools in which so many have been ingulfed, and secured
for stockholders and depositors regular and satisfactory dividends.
While thus adding to the fortunes of others, he has not been unmindful
of his own, and is one of the wealthy men of the state, able to command
whatever money will buy, and to give liberally to any cause that
commends itself to his judgment. But while it has been the business of
Mr. Currier to manage vast moneyed concerns, the demands of his calling
have not been permitted to choke out his love of books and study. The
literary tastes, and habits of close and tireless application, which
inspired the boy to struggle for and obtain a liberal education, survive
in the man, and have made him a persistent student until he is one of
the most accomplished scholars in the state.
While a teacher at Concord, he edited a literary journal in that city,
and after coming to Manchester published and edited, for several years,
a weekly newspaper. Since he became a banker he has spent much of his
leisure in his well filled library, finding his recreation in adding to
his knowledge of the classics, mastering the problems of exact science,
and exploring the fields of _belles-lettres_. He has written, for his
own amusement, many poems of much merit, a volume of which was published
for circulation among his friends in 1879, and he is a master of the art
of expression in terse and polished prose. His scholarly attainments
were recognized by Bates College in 1880, which conferred upon him the
degree of LL.D.
As a citizen, Mr. Currier occupies a high place in the city with whose
material growth he has been so largely identified. He is an earnest
advocate of whatever tends to her advancement, a judicious counselor,
and a liberal giver. He was one of the founders of her city library, to
which he has made large donations, that, with one of her public
fountains, attest alike his generosity and his judgment; and there have
been few projects for her improvement which have not found in him a
strong and ready helper.