his two children, the eldest, Mrs. Julia M., wife of William N. Johnson,
resides at West Henniker, where her husband is a paper manufacturer; his
son, Mr. Frank Pierce, is associated with him in business.
A few years since, having purchased the homestead of the late Gen. J. G.
Foster, he built a spacious and elegant residence. Situated on an
acclivity on the north side of the Nashua river, surrounded by ample
grounds and stately trees, it is a home of rare attractions. Col. Pierce
is still in the prime of active life, and his past record, as well as
his present position, is a guarantee that he will ably and faithfully
meet the responsibilities of the future.
COL. MARTIN V. B. EDGERLY.
BY H. H. METCALF.
In these days of varying fortune in business life, and in this country
especially, where property is accumulated or lost more readily and
frequently than in any other land, the beneficent nature of the
institution of life assurance has come to be very generally appreciated.
This institution, which, so far as its general establishment is
concerned, is peculiarly an American one, is indeed a natural outgrowth
of our social and business system, and is coming to be more fully
recognized, from year to year, in one form or another, as the only
medium through which men in general business, or most of the avocations
of life, may make substantially sure provision for the support of their
families or those depending upon them, in case of their own removal by
death before acquiring a competency, or after the loss of the same
through business reverses or adventitious circumstances. The man who
stands before the public as a leading representative of an institution
of such importance becomes properly a person of note in the business
community; and when he is endowed with those powers and qualities of
mind which naturally bring him into prominence in social and political
circles and the general activities of life, he may well be classed among
those who are esteemed representative men of the times in the state and
section wherein he resides, and which is the field of his active labor.
Such a man is the subject of this sketch.
MARTIN VAN BUREN EDGERLY is a native of the town of Barnstead,--a town,
by the way, which has sent out its productions into the world in the
form of able, energetic men,--men of strong minds in strong bodies, who
have made their mark in the world, and stand at the front in the various
fields of activity in which they have engaged. In the domain of law, of
theology, of politics, and of general business, the sons of Barnstead
hold high rank, as is abundantly demonstrated by reference to the names
of Lewis W. Clark, Rev. Alonzo H. Quint, John G. Sinclair, and John P.
Newell. Mr. Edgerly was the fifth of nine children--five sons and four
daughters--of Samuel J. and Eliza (Bickford) Edgerly, born September 26,
1833. Samuel J. Edgerly was a man of far more than ordinary intelligence
and mental activity, who, but for the misfortune of disease, which
impaired his physical powers in early life;, would have become
unquestionably a leading spirit in public affairs. As it was, he was
recognized by all with whom he came in contact in life as a man of
strong mind and decided character. He was a descendant, upon the
maternal side, and was named in honor of that Col. Samuel Johnson who
was one of the early settlers of the town of Northwood, and of whom it
is said, in sketching the history of that town, that upon the first
night of his abode within its limits he slept upon the ground between
two rocks, with a quilt or piece of canvas for covering.
[Illustration: M. V. B. Edgerly]
When a lad of twelve years, Col. Edgerly removed with his parents to
Manchester. He attended the public schools for a time, but at an early
age entered the service of the Amoskeag Manufacturing Company, being
engaged at first in the mills and afterwards in the machine-shop; but,
after several years, becoming dissatisfied with the dull routine of
mechanical labor, and desirous of testing his powers in the field of
business, in October, 1856, at the age of twenty-three, he embarked in
trade as a joint proprietor of a drug-store with Mr. Lewis H. Parker. He
was thus engaged but a short time, however, removing the following year
to the town of Pittsfield, where he soon established himself in the
insurance business, taking the agency of various companies, fire and
life. This, it may be truly said, was the actual starting point in his
career. He found in this business a field of labor congenial to his
tastes, and peculiarly adapted to the development and exercise of the
distinctive powers of mind and body with which he is endowed; and he
entered into his work with heart and soul. He was not long in
discovering the special line of effort to which he was best adapted, and
which gave the best promise of substantial success in response to such
effort; nor were the managers of the business in question long in
ascertaining, from the character of the work already accomplished, the
direction in which their own advantage lay; and so it came about in a
short time, that after a visit to the company's office in Springfield,
made upon the solicitation of the president, Col. Edgerly became
exclusively the agent of the Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance
Company, relinquishing all other agencies, and devoting his entire
efforts to the interests of the company.
So thorough and satisfactory was the work which he accomplished, that a
year later he was given the general agency of the company for the state
of New Hampshire, with headquarters at Manchester, to which city he
removed with his family, when, in 1863, he was given charge of the
business for Vermont and northern New York in addition to this state.
Under his efficient management and supervision the business of the
company increased to a remarkable degree in the entire territory of
which he had control, until the net annual receipts in premiums upon new
policies, in New Hampshire alone, had risen from substantially nothing
in 1859, when he first commenced work, to nearly seventy-five thousand
dollars in 1866, representing the proceeds from the issue of a thousand
policies, covering an aggregate insurance of more than a million and a
half of dollars. This remarkable success was due, not simply to the work
of personal solicitation, in which line Col. Edgerly has no superiors,
but more especially to the keen discernment and ready knowledge of men
with which he is endowed, enabling him to select proper agents and
judiciously supervise their work.
In 1868 he accepted the position of superintendent of the company's
agencies throughout the country. For two years he labored as none but a
physically robust and mentally active man can, establishing agencies and
working up the business of the company throughout the West, while
retaining and directing his own special work in the East. This double
labor was too arduous, even for a man of his powers, and in 1870 he
resigned the position of superintendent, and confined his work to his
former field in New Hampshire, Vermont, and northern New York. In
September, 1874, however, he was induced to accept charge of the
company's agency in Boston, in addition to his other duties, and since
that date he has divided his time and labor between the two positions,
efficiently directing the work of both, and largely increasing the
business at the Boston office. In January last he was made a member of
the board of directors of the company which he has so long and
faithfully served, and which owes its prosperity, in no small degree, to
his intelligent efforts.
Col. Edgerly has been a Democrat from youth, and has ever manifested a
lively interest in political affairs, although he has had neither the
time nor inclination to enter, to any extent, upon the duties of public
position, even had it been in the power of his party to confer the same.
He has, however, in such time as he was able to command, done a great
deal of party work in different campaigns; and in 1874 was elected a
member of the board of aldermen, although his ward was strongly
Republican at the time, thus demonstrating his personal popularity and
the esteem in which he is held in the community where he resides. He has
frequently served as a member of the Democratic state committee, and as
treasurer of the same, and a member of the executive committee; also, as
chairman of the Democratic city committee in Manchester. He was a
delegate from New Hampshire to the Democratic national convention at
Baltimore, in 1872, which nominated Horace Greeley for the presidency,
and was the New Hampshire member of the Democratic national committee
from 1872 to 1876. Again, in 1880, he was chosen a delegate-at-large to
the national convention of his party. In 1871 he was appointed, by Gov.
Weston, chief of staff; and in 1873 and 1874 he held the position of
commander of the Amoskeag Veterans, of which organization he has long
been an active and popular member. In 1874 he was appointed, by
President Grant, an alternate commissioner to represent New Hampshire at
the centennial exposition and celebration in Philadelphia.
Actively and closely as he has been engaged in his chosen line of
business, Col. Edgerly has lent his aid and judgment to some extent to
the encouragement and direction of other business enterprises. He has
been many years a trustee of the Merrimack River Savings Bank and a
director of the Suncook Valley Railroad, of which latter enterprise he
was among the active promoters. He was also, for a time, a director of
the City National Bank. In his religious associations he is an
Episcopalian, and is an active member and officer of Grace church in
Manchester. He is also a member of the Odd Fellows and Masonic bodies in
the city of his residence.
March 7, 1854, Col. Edgerly was united in marriage with Miss Alvina
Barney of Danbury, by whom he has had three children, two of whom are
now living, a son and daughter,--Clinton Johnson, born December 16,
1857, and Mabel Clayton, born October 18, 1859.
Col. Edgerly is a man of fine personal appearance, genial manners, and a
ready appreciation of the demands of friendship and society, as well as
those of business. There are few men of greater personal popularity in
his city or state, and none who command more fully the confidence of
those with whom they are brought into relationship, whether in business
or in social life. Yet under fifty years of age, he has, it may
naturally be assumed, many years of successful effort yet before him,
and many more in which to enjoy the substantial reward of his labor.
[Illustration: ICHABOD GOODWIN.
_GOVERNOR OF NEW HAMPSHIRE 1859-60._]
HON. ICHABOD GOODWIN.
BY FRANK GOODWIN.
Mr. Goodwin is the eldest son of Samuel Goodwin and Nancy Thompson
Gerrish, and was born in that part of Berwick which is now North
Berwick, in the state of Maine. He is descended, on both father's and
mother's side, from families of very great colonial importance. The
great-grandfather of Mr. Goodwin, Capt. Ichabod Goodwin, is said, by the
writer of the genealogy of the Berwick Goodwins, in the _Historical
Magazine_, to have been the most remarkable man who ever lived in that
town. He distinguished himself at the battle of Ticonderoga, and we
learn from the _London Magazine_ that he was especially mentioned in
Maj.-Gen. Abercrombie's report to Secretary Pitt.
On his father's side, his ancestors figured conspicuously in the wars
before the Revolution, and up to the period of the Revolution were of
the families upon whom devolved the magisterial work and honor of the
times. On his mother's side he is likewise descended from families which
for a century, and up to the time of the Revolution, performed a large
share of the duties of public office; and some of the most conspicuous
names in the colonial history of Maine and New Hampshire are to be
counted among his maternal ancestors.
To mention the names of Champernoun, Waldron, and Elliot, none more
familiar to those informed upon colonial history, is but to recall the
persons from whom, on the maternal side, he is lineally descended, or
with whom his maternal ancestors were closely allied by ties of family
connection. The ante-revolutionary importance of the people from whom he
comes is well illustrated by the fact that the name of his maternal
grandfather, Joseph Gerrish, stands first on the triennial catalogue of
Harvard College in the list of graduates of the year 1752, a class which
numbered a Quincy among its graduating members. The significance of this
fact, as bearing upon the status of his mother's family at that time,
is, that the names of the members of the classes of that day are
published in the triennial catalogue of Harvard in the order of the
social importance of the families to which the members respectively
belonged.
At the time of Mr. Goodwin's birth, which was just before the beginning
of the present century, the state of things which the Revolution had
brought about had had ample time to crystallize. Whether it was through
the great changes that under the new order of things had taken place in
the political, social, and commercial affairs of the country, or whether
from those inherent causes under the operation of which families
conspicuous and influential in one period drop out of notice and are
lost to the eye of the historian, the annalist, and perhaps even of the
town chronicler, Mr. Goodwin's family, at the time of his birth, were
simply plain farming people, highly respected within the limits of the
little country town in which they lived, but no longer among the noted,
or influential, or wealthy people of Maine. The country had, by the
close of the last century, taken a considerable stride onward in
prosperity as well as in numerical growth, and the bustle and hum of
industry, pouring itself into new channels of prosperity, had passed by
many of the families which in the earlier era had been the foremost in
developing the resources of the country, in leading the yeomanry in war,
in presiding over the tribunals, and sitting in council as civic
magistrates.
Mr. Goodwin's academic education consisted of several years of study at
the academy at South Berwick, an institution having at that time a good
deal of local importance, and then, as now, the only school in the
vicinity of his birthplace where a fitting for college could be
obtained. Shortly after leaving that academy he entered the
counting-house of Samuel Lord, Esq., then a very prominent merchant and
ship-owner of Portsmouth, N. H., and he became a member of Mr. Lord's
family. He here displayed qualities which had been quite conspicuous in
his earlier boyhood,--those of energy and assiduity and a very marked
capacity for affairs. These qualities, which at the early age of twelve
had made him quite a competent and satisfactory manager of the farm of
his widowed step-grandmother, who was the grandmother of Mr. Lord,
showed later in his conduct as a clerk in the commercial business of the
then very thriving shipping port of Portsmouth. Mr. Lord, finding that
Mr. Goodwin's business abilities were more comprehensive than the mere
duties of a clerk required, placed him as a supercargo in charge of the
business of what was then the largest ship owned in the port, the
"Elizabeth Wilson." In the present days of railroads, sea-going
steamers, oceanic cables, and the commercial complement of these foreign
correspondents or agents, it may seem a trivial sign of a young man's
capacities to name the fact of his being made the business manager of a
ship, especially as ships then went in regard to size; but it is the
introduction of these very modern appliances for conducting business
which has rendered the responsibility of the delegated management of
this species of property comparatively easy. In the days of Mr.
Goodwin's early voyaging, the whole discretion as to the conduct of the
ship's affairs was vested in the supercargo, except in the brief period
of her being in the home port, when the owner resumed his authority and
control. In foreign places, among strangers, beyond the reach of
opportunity for consultation with his owner, the young man must rely
upon himself; must decide upon what voyage his ship shall go, and must
be ready to account to his principal upon his return for the results of
a prosperous enterprise or a disastrous adventure. It was not long
before Mr. Goodwin had learned enough of seamanship to enable him to add
to the duties of the supercargo the further business of navigating his
ship, so that for several years he was both ship-master and business
manager, offices then, as now, rarely combined in one person; for the
ship-master is to-day chiefly the navigator and head seaman of his ship,
while the business, involving the chartering and the rest, is attended
to by a merchant in the port of destination, who is in ready
communication with the owner, both by the fast-going mail of the
steamship and the quicker method of the ocean cable. Mr. Goodwin's sea
life lasted for about twelve years. During that time he had been so far
successful as to become a part owner, and to be enabled to begin
business at home.
In the year 1832 he established himself as a merchant at Portsmouth.
Portsmouth has been his home ever since that time; and there he for many
years conducted an extensive mercantile business, his chief business
interests lying in the direction of the foreign carrying-trade. Upon
leaving the sea he soon became foremost in matters that were of public
concern. He was one of the early projectors of the railroad interests of
New England; and, until within a few years, he has taken a large part in
all the enterprises of public import in the vicinity of his home,
including, besides railroads, the enterprises of manufacturing and
banking; and he has been vested always with a large share of the local
trusts, both public and private, which devolve upon the public-spirited
and trusted citizen. He has of late years been inclined to withdraw from
these responsibilities; but of those which he still retains, the
presidency of the Howard Benevolent Society, a position he has held for
over thirty years, and the presidency of the Portsmouth Bridge Company
may be mentioned. He has, however, within the last two years, assumed
the presidency of the First National Bank of Portsmouth, in which he is
largely interested as a stockholder, and in which institution he had
been a director from its incorporation as a state bank. He was for many
years and at different periods a director in the Eastern Railroad
Company, and was the first president of the Eastern Railroad in New
Hampshire, which position he held for twenty-five years. He was also of
the first board of direction of the Portland, Saco, & Portsmouth
Railroad Company, and was the president of that corporation from the
year 1847 to the year 1871. But it is unnecessary to mention all the
public trusts of a corporate nature which have been confided to his
care. His chief claim to public esteem, and that which will secure to
him its most enduring recognition, is derived from his services as the
first "war governor" of New Hampshire.
Upon Mr. Goodwin's settling as a business man in Portsmouth, he did not
confine his energies to his private business and to corporate
enterprises, but soon acquired a large interest and influence as a
member of the Whig party. He served in the legislature of New Hampshire,
as a member of that party, in the years 1838, 1843, 1844, 1850, 1854,
and 1856. He was also a delegate-at-large from that state to the
conventions at which Clay, Taylor, and Scott were nominated by the Whigs
for the presidency, and was a vice-president at the first two named
conventions; and he has twice served in the constitutional conventions
of New Hampshire. He was the candidate of the Whigs for congress at
several elections before the state was divided into congressional
districts. New Hampshire was in those days one of the most powerful
strongholds of the Democratic party in the country; and a Whig
nomination for any office, determined by the suffrages of the whole
state, was merely a tribute of esteem by that party to one of its most
honored members. Upon the establishment of congressional districts, Mr.
Goodwin received a unanimous nomination of the Whig party for congress
at the first convention held in his district. This nomination bid fair
to be followed by an election, but the circumstances of his private
business prevented his acceptance of the candidateship. In the great
political convulsions which preceded the war of the rebellion, the power
of the Democratic party in New Hampshire began to decline, while the
ties which through years of almost steady defeat in the state at large
had been sufficient to hold together the Whig party, now came to be
loosened, and out of the decadence of the former and the extinction of
the latter party there was built up the Republican party, which gained
the supremacy in the state, and which has ever since, with a brief
exception, maintained that supremacy. Mr. Goodwin, while in full
sympathy with the cause of the Union, which he believed the politicians
of the South were striving to dismember, yet felt that perhaps the
impending crisis could be arrested through the means of the old
political organizations; and he remained steadfast to the organization
of the Whig party until he saw that its usefulness, both as a state and
as a national party, was gone. He was the last candidate of the Whigs
for the office of governor of New Hampshire, and received in the whole
state the meager amount of about two thousand votes. This lesson did not
require to be repeated. He immediately did all in his power to aid in
the establishment of the Republican party in this state; for, although
the old-time issues between the Democrats and Whigs had gone by, and new
questions had arisen involving the very integrity of the nation, he did
not regard the Democratic party as one capable of solving or disposed to
solve those questions in a patriotic and statesmanlike way. He was
chosen the governor of New Hampshire, as the Republican candidate, in
the year 1859, and was re-elected in the following year, his second term
of office having expired on June 5, 1861.
The military spirit of the people of New Hampshire had become dormant,
and the militia system of the state had fallen pretty much to decay long
before the election of Mr. Goodwin to the office of governor. A slight
revival of that spirit, perhaps, is marked by the organization in his
honor, in January, 1860, of the "Governor's Horse-Guards,"--a regiment
of cavalry in brilliant uniform, designed to do escort duty to the
governor,--as well as by a field muster of several voluntary
organizations of troops which went into camp at Nashua in the same year.
But when the call of President Lincoln for troops was made, in the
spring of 1861, the very foundation of a military system required to be
formed. The legislature was not in session, and would not convene,
except under a special call, until the following June. There were no
funds in the treasury which could be devoted to the expense of the
organization and equipment of troops, as all the available funds were
needed to meet the ordinary state expenditures. The great confidence of
the people of New Hampshire in the wisdom and integrity of Mr. Goodwin
found in this emergency full expression. Without requiring time to
convene the legislature so as to obtain the security of the state for
the loan, the banking institutions and citizens of the state tendered
him the sum of $680,000, for the purpose of enabling him to raise and
equip for the field New Hampshire's quota of troops. This offer he
gladly accepted; and averting delay in the proceedings by refraining
from convening the legislature, he, upon his own responsibility,
proceeded to organize and equip troops for the field; and in less than
two months he had dispatched to the army, near Washington, two well
equipped and well officered regiments. Of this sum of $680,000, only
about $100,000 was expended. On the assembling of the legislature, that
body unanimously passed the "enabling act," under which all of his
proceedings as governor were ratified, and the state made to assume the
responsibility.