went to Antrim with the intention of making farming his permanent
business. Soon after, the Antrim Shovel Company was organised, and he
was called from the farm to act as its treasurer and book-keeper. A year
later, in 1858, he was appointed general agent of the company, and
served in this capacity six years, the three last as the agent of
Treadwell & Co., of Boston, who had purchased the business of the
original company. In 1864, Oakes Ames bought the business, including the
patents covering the now famous Antrim shovel, and moved it to North
Easton, Mass., and Mr. Goodell in company with George R. Carter, one of
the firm of Treadwell & Co., began in a small way the manufacture of
apple-parers. He invented what is known as the "lightning apple-parer,"
and put it upon the market through a New York house, which sold the
first two years a few hundred dozen. This they considered a good
business; but Mr. Goodell was not satisfied, and the next year took the
road himself, and in three weeks' time he sold two thousand dozen, and
made the invention known throughout the country.
In 1867 the factory was burned, and, as the firm carried no insurance,
it lost everything; but in six weeks it had a new shop in operation, and
was able to supply the demand for the next year, which rose to five
thousand dozen. In 1870 another calamity overtook the enterprise. The
firm of Goodell & Co. owed at that time seven hundred and sixty-one
dollars, but it had indorsed, to accommodate one of the partners, the
notes of Treadwell & Co. to the amount of fifty thousand dollars, and
the failure of this firm sent both into bankruptcy. The result of this
trouble was that Mr. Goodell bought the property himself, borrowed money
and paid its debts, paid for it out of his first year's profits, and has
since been able to greatly enlarge the business without signing a note
for himself or anybody else, or accepting any of the pecuniary help
which has been freely offered him.
Up to 1872 he directed his energies mainly to the manufacture and sale
of parers; but in that year he helped organize the Wood Cutlery Company
at Bennington, and in 1875 united it with his private business and
transferred the whole to the Goodell Company, of which he owns a large
share of the stock and is the manager and controlling spirit. The
business of this company has steadily increased until it employs one
hundred and fifty hands, and pays for labor more than fifty thousand
dollars annually. It manufactures all kinds of table cutlery, Cahoon
seed-sowers, apple and potato-parers, and cherry-stoners.
While giving his closest attention to these manufacturing enterprises,
Mr. Goodell has taken a warm interest in agriculture, and for many years
has managed the large farm that formerly belonged to his father, which
came into his possession some time since, and upon which he resides.
Here he demonstrates the principles of progressive and profitable
husbandry and stock-raising, extends a hearty welcome to his friends,
and enjoys the peace and plenty which are reserved for the gentleman
farmer. He has been one of the trustees of the New England Agricultural
Society for several years, and organized and was for a time president of
the Oak Park Association, and is an active member of the New Hampshire
board of agriculture.
Mr. Goodell has always been an ardent, wide-awake, and working
Republican, and when the party, under his leadership, wrested the town
from the opposition in 1876, he became its representative in the
legislature, to which position he was re-elected in 1877-78. In the
house he established and maintained a reputation as one of the most
judicious counselors and most effective speakers in the state, and
commanded the confidence of his colleagues to such an extent that no
measure which he advocated was defeated, and none that he opposed was
successful. Among the important bills which were carried through largely
by his judicious and earnest support was that for the erection of a new
state-prison.
Mr. Goodell's wife was Hannah Jane Plumer, a daughter of Jesse T.
Plumer, of Goffstown. He has two children,--Dura Dana Goodell, born
September 6, 1858, and Richard C. Goodell, born August 10, 1868. The
family are members of the Baptist church of Antrim, as were the father
and mother of Mr. Goodell.
These facts justify the claim of a wide circle of friends and
acquaintances, who look upon him as one of the strongest men of the
state, and one for whom high honors are in reserve. Though still in his
prime, he has won a position of which any man should be proud. His large
manufacturing business, which has given the town new life and
prosperity, is of his own creation; his farm is a model which invites
healthy progress; his private character is without a blemish; his
business credit above suspicion; his reputation as a citizen, neighbor,
and friend is of the best; and his ability to fill any public position
creditably and well is universally acknowledged.
[Illustration: J. G. Graves M.D.]
JOSIAH G. GRAVES, M. D.
BY B. B. WHITTEMORE.
The subject of this sketch, JOSIAH GRISWOLD GRAVES, was born July 13,
1811, in Walpole, N. H., one of the loveliest villages in the valley of
the Connecticut. His father was a well-to-do farmer, and his mother a
woman of the olden time, who looked well to the ways of her
household,--a woman of superior mind and excellent judgment.
Not having a fancy for farming--and thus acting contrary to the wishes
of his father--he left home at the age of eighteen, with his mother's
blessing and one dollar in money, determined upon securing an education
and fitting himself for the medical profession. He defrayed the expenses
of his education by his own individual efforts and native energy of will
and industry, by teaching both day and evening, and was remarkably
successful in his labors. Being a natural penman, he also gave
instruction in the art of penmanship.
He commenced the study of his profession in 1829. He was a student in
medicine in the office of Drs. Adams and Twitchell, of Keene, and
subsequently attended medical lectures at Pittsfield, Mass., and
graduated at Williamstown Medical College in 1834. Afterwards he spent
six months in the office of Drs. Huntington and Graves in Lowell.
Dr. Graves commenced the practice of medicine in Nashua, N. H.,
September 15, 1834. At this time Nashua was a comparatively young town,
the compact part of the present city having then had but ten years'
growth. He went up the Merrimack river on the old steamboat then plying
on the Merrimack, landing a little below what was then the Taylor's
Falls bridge. His first patient was a pauper, who was badly injured
accidentally. After adequate treatment the man was placed on his feet
again, a well man. Such a patient was not very remunerative, and did not
tend to fill an empty pocket. This was evidenced by the fact that a
carpenter who was applied to for the purpose of procuring a wood-box
declined the job and refused to trust the young doctor. Necessity being
the mother of invention, the doctor was obliged to construct that useful
article himself. It was but a brief period, however, before energy,
determination, and superior medical and surgical skill carved out for
him an extensive practice. For forty years he followed his profession in
Nashua and the adjoining region with untiring assiduity, and with a
success that has but few parallels. He loved his profession and gave to
it his best powers. He was gifted in a remarkable degree with a keen
insight into the nature of disease, and of course his success was in
proportion to his fitness for his calling. He did not need to be told
symptoms; he knew, by intuition where the break in the constitution was,
and how to rebuild and give new life. He was made for his profession,
and not his profession for him, which is too often the case.
After several years' practice, desirous of further improvement, he took
a degree at Jefferson Medical College, Philadelphia. At the time of the
rebellion the governor and council of New Hampshire appointed him a
member of the Medical Board of Examiners.
For the past few years Dr. Graves has been much interested in railroads,
East and West; has been a director in the Nashua & Lowell Railroad and
other roads, and is now president of the Texas Trunk Railroad. He is a
director in the Faneuil Hall Insurance Company, and in the Metropolitan
steamship line; and is also connected with many other financial
interests of a comprehensive character.
A few years ago Dr. Graves made an extensive land purchase at Scituate,
Mass., containing two hundred acres or more, which he calls his "Mound
Farm." It lies on an elevation, bordering on the ocean, and is
considered by those familiar with the "South Shore" as the most eligible
location, and as commanding the finest prospect oceanwards, of any in
that popular and beautiful summer resort. Here the doctor has erected a
few dwelling-houses, and has sold lots to others who have erected summer
residences. These houses are elegantly and conveniently constructed, and
so located as to enable their owners to enjoy an unobstructed ocean
view, as well as the ocean breezes. In one word, it is, in and of
itself, a villa of extensive proportions, and is destined to become
still more extensive in the future. The doctor has recently made large
purchases of adjoining lands, and is already engaged in farming on a
large scale, and introducing improved modes of cultivation. Here, with
his family, he spends his summers, residing in Nashua or at the South
during the winter.
At the age of seventy, Dr. Graves is still active and remarkably well
preserved, and much more active than many younger men. He has a business
office in Boston, and manages his large estate with as much foresight
and sagacity as when in the prime of life and engaged in accumulating
his fortune.
Dr. Graves was married to Mary W. Boardman, daughter of the late Col.
William Boardman, of Nashua, in 1846.
As a man, Dr. Graves is distinguished for his firmness. His opinions he
maintains with resoluteness until good reasons induce him to change
them. He means _yes_ when he says "yes," and _no_ when he says "no." He
is a man of a positive character. It is needless to say, that, while
such a man always has enemies, (as what man of ability and energetic
character has not?) he has firm and lasting friends,--friends from the
fact that they always know where to find him. Among the many self-made
men whom New Hampshire has produced, he takes rank among the first; and
by his indomitable energy, industry, and enterprise has not only made
his mark in the world, but has achieved a reputation in his profession
and business on which himself and friends may reflect with just pride.
[Illustration: Warren Daniell]
HON. WARREN F. DANIELL.
In almost every instance, those who, during the first half of the
present century, laid about the waterfalls of New Hampshire the
foundations of our manufacturing villages, builded better than they
knew. They were generally men of limited means, moderate ambitions, and
democratic instincts; and they established their shops and factories
without expectation that they were changing worthless plains and forests
into cities, or plain mechanics into millionaires. They aimed only to
create productive industries in which they and their few employes,
meeting on equal terms, could work together and win a fair reward for
their labor. But they were skillful workmen, good managers, courageous,
persistent, and equal to all their opportunities, and under their
inspiration and direction their enterprises have grown into great
proportions, which have made the fortunes of their owners, and called
into being communities that are models of the best that skill,
intelligence, and thrift can produce.
To this class of men belonged Kendall O. and James L. Peabody and
Jeremiah F. Daniell, who, fifty years ago, built a paper-mill in the
forest that then grew about the falls upon the Winnipesaukee, where the
wealthy, wide-awake, and beautiful village of Franklin Falls now stands.
The Peabodys, who were bakers by trade, built a small mill at this point
about the year 1828. In disposing of their production as bakers they
accumulated large quantities of cotton rags, and, as there was little
demand for these, they built a miniature paper-mill to convert them into
a more salable commodity. Their knowledge of the paper business was very
limited, their machinery of the most primitive kind, and their
experiment was not at first a success; but they were men not easily
turned from their purposes, and, feeling that what they lacked was a
practical paper-maker, one of them went to Massachusetts in search of
one. He found there Jeremiah F. Daniell, who at the age of thirty-five
had seen twenty-one years of service in a paper-mill, and knew the
business thoroughly. This young man had been trained in a hard school,
and was by education as well as by natural abilities well qualified to
prove an efficient helper to men, who, like the Peabodys, were trying to
establish a new enterprise in the face of many discouragements. He began
his apprenticeship when a boy of fourteen, and from that time until he
reached his majority most of his scanty earnings went to support a
widowed mother and orphaned brothers and sisters.
When he became of age, his entire property consisted of a suit of
clothes, and a five-dollar bill which proved to be counterfeit. With
these he started, carrying his shoes in his hand (as a matter of
economy), to obtain employment at his trade, which he found at
Pepperell. Here he remained several years, and during the time married
Sarah Reed, of Harvard, Mass., by whom he had two children, Warren F.,
the subject of this sketch, who was born June 26, 1826, and Mary, who
died in infancy. Subsequently he manufactured paper for himself in
Dorchester and Methuen, Mass., and in 1833 went West. Not finding a
promising opening, he returned to Massachusetts and was met by Mr.
Peabody, who arranged for him to go to Franklin and take charge of the
mill there, in which he was given an interest. This he did, and, when a
few months later his family joined him, the Daniell homestead was
permanently established at the head of the Merrimack. The first efforts
of the young manager were directed to supplying the mill with improved
machinery, a difficult task, as the owners had little money to spare,
and the nearest machine-shop in which an order for that class of
machinery could be filled was at South Windham, Conn., but, finally, two
eight-horse teams closed a three weeks' journey by landing in Franklin a
newly invented paper-machine, and the mill was ready to run in a few
months. Meantime, Mr. Daniell had purchased the interest of J. L.
Peabody, in the firm which thus became Peabody & Daniell. The machinery
was scarcely in position when a fire destroyed the factory and its
contents, leaving the owners, in the midst of the hard times of 1837,
bankrupt in nearly everything but courage, reputation, and a
determination to succeed, which enabled them, after many struggles, to
rebuild and proceed in a small way with their business. The erection of
the cotton-mills at Manchester soon after gave them an opportunity to
purchase large amounts of paper stock at low prices, and from that time
they were moderately prosperous.
The next year after the removal of Mr. Daniell from Massachusetts his
wife died, and a year later he married Annette Eastman, of Concord. His
son Warren was at that time a wide-awake boy, ten years old. He had
picked up a little book knowledge in the Massachusetts schools, and in
order that he might be further educated without much expense he was sent
to Concord, where he worked upon a farm for his board and clothes and
privilege of attending school a short time each winter, until he was
fourteen, when he was called home and entered the paper-mill as an
apprentice, to learn the business with which his name is now so
prominently identified. It was his purpose at a later period to attend
the academy at Tilton; but on the day on which the term began his father
was severely burned by an accident, and he was obliged to take his place
in the mill. No other time appeared when he could well be spared, and he
continued working there until he was twenty-five years of age, and was a
master of the trade in all its branches.
As a journeyman, his wages were one dollar and twenty-five cents per
day, a sum which he found sufficient to provide, in those days of
frugality, for all the needs of himself and his young wife and child. He
was, however, ambitious at some future time to have a mill of his own,
and with this object in view left Franklin and contracted with parties
at Waterville, Me., to erect and run for them a paper-mill at that
place. This occupied him for one year, when he took charge of another
mill at Pepperell, Mass., where he remained until 1854. In that year his
father bought out Mr. Peabody, and offered to sell him half the
establishment if he would return to Franklin, which he did. The firm was
then J. F. Daniell & Son, and for the next ten years the business
prospered under that name. In 1864 Warren bought his father's interest,
and was sole proprietor until 1870, when the mill property, which had
grown from modest beginnings to be one of the largest and best known
private manufacturing establishments in the state, was sold to a company
of Massachusetts capitalists who had organized as the Winnipiseogee
Paper Company. Mr. Daniell then become connected with a large
paper-house in Boston and removed to that city. He soon tired of life in
that crowded metropolis, and, returning to his old home, he purchased a
large interest in the company that had succeeded him there, and became
its resident agent and manager, which position he still occupies. This
company owns and operates at Franklin large paper-mills supplied with
the best machinery, employs three hundred men and women, and produces
nearly twenty tons of paper daily, and reflects, in its abounding
success, the sagacity, energy, and enterprise of the man who plans and
directs its operations, who, without the help of a liberal education or
wealthy friends, has won his way by hard and patient work to a first
place among the business men of New Hampshire.
Few men in our state have been so uniformly successful, and none in
compassing their own success have contributed more to that of others. In
climbing up, WARREN F. DANIELL has pulled no one down. The village of
three thousand busy, prosperous, and happy people is largely the
creation of the paper-mill, in which he has made his money, and its most
creditable characteristics are in no small degree the results of his
counsel and liberality. The business world acknowledges him as a man of
undoubted integrity, thoroughly responsible, and eminently successful.
His townsmen and fellow-citizens of New Hampshire know him as a genial,
unassuming man, whose good fellowship never tires, whose generosity is
inexhaustible, and as one who is never too busy with his own affairs to
lend a helping hand to any cause or person that deserves it; as a
citizen and friend and neighbor who has shown them how to get money
rapidly, and how to spend it freely, intelligently, and helpfully.
Mr. Daniell's first wife was Elizabeth D. Rundlett, of Stratham, N. H.
The marriage occurred in 1850, and Mrs. Daniell died while he was at
Pepperell, in 1854. He married Abbie A. Sanger, of Concord, in October,
1860, who presides over his elegant home, which is located near the
confluence of the Winnipesaukee and Pemigewasset rivers, and surrounded
by a broad intervale which liberal outlays have made one of the most
fertile and beautiful spots in the Merrimack valley. He has five boys:
Harry W., by his first wife; and Eugene S., Otis, Warren F., and Jerie
R., the fruit of his second marriage.
He is an enthusiastic farmer, and owns across the river from his home a
large and productive farm. He has long been the owner of the best herd
of Jersey cattle in the state; his stables always contain some of the
finest and fleetest horses; he admires a good dog, and is a skillful
breeder of swine and poultry. He has contributed much to the
introduction of improved stock, crops, and farm machinery in his
neighborhood; has been active and liberal in sustaining the state and
local agricultural societies, and in otherwise promoting the farming
interest.
In politics, Mr. Daniell is a Democrat; and such has been his popularity
among those who have known him best, that even when Franklin gave a
Republican majority of seventy-five he was several times elected to
represent it in the house, and subsequently was chosen a state senator
two years in succession in a district which no other Democrat could have
carried. He represented his party in the national convention of 1872,
and has always been one of its trusted counselors and most efficient
workers. That he would have been its candidate for governor and congress
but for his refusal to accept the position is generally known. During
the war he gave himself unreservedly to the cause of the Union as
represented by the "boys in blue," voting steadily to raise and equip
all the men who were needed, giving liberally of his means to provide
for them and their families, and supporting, by word and deed on all
occasions and in all places, the cause for which they fought.
JONATHAN SAWYER.
BY REV. GEO. B. SPALDING, D. D.
1. John Sawyer, a farmer in Lincolnshire, England, had three sons,
William, Edward, and Thomas, who emigrated to this country in 1636,
being passengers in a ship commanded by Capt. Parker. They probably
settled in Rowley, Mass.
2. Thomas Sawyer went to Lancaster, Mass., as early as 1647, when he was
twenty-four years of age. This section of the Nashaway valley,
comprising eighty square miles in extent, had been purchased in 1643 by
Thomas King, of Watertown, Mass., of Scholan, sachem of the Nashaway
Indians. Thomas Sawyer was one of the first six settlers. His name
appears in the petition made to the general court in 1653 for the
incorporation of the town of Lancaster. In 1647, the year of his
arrival, he married Mary Prescott. She was the daughter of John
Prescott, to whom belongs the honor of being the first permanent
inhabitant of Lancaster. The eminent historian, William H. Prescott,
traces his ancestral line to this John Prescott. There were born to
Thomas Sawyer and Mary Prescott eleven children. This family figures
largely in that most tragic page of the history of Lancaster which tells
of the massacres and captivities of its inhabitants, and the entire
destruction of the town itself by the Indians. On the land of Thomas
Sawyer stood the Sawyer garrison, into which were gathered the survivors
of that most murderous attack made upon the town in the winter of
1675-76. At this time his second son, Ephraim, who was at the Prescott
garrison, was killed by the Indians. Thirty-two years later, 1708, the
oldest son, Thomas, and his son Elias were captured by the Indians and
taken to Canada. When the party reached Montreal, the father offered to
put up a mill on the river Chambly, on condition that the French
governor would obtain the release of all the captives. Thus the first
mill in Canada was built by Thomas Sawyer. He was liberated, but his son
Elias was detained for a time to teach the Canadians "the art of sawing
and keeping the mill in order, and then was dismissed with rich
presents."
3. Caleb Sawyer, the sixth child of Thomas, was born in 1659, in
Lancaster, Mass. He married Sarah Houghton, thus effecting an alliance
between two of the most prominent families who organized the town of
Lancaster. Caleb Sawyer died in 1755, leaving two sons and two
daughters.
4. Seth Sawyer, the oldest son of Caleb, was born in 1705; married Miss
Hepsabeth Whitney; died in 1768.
5. Caleb Sawyer, the second son of Seth, was born in 1737, at Harvard,
Mass., a part of Lancaster which in 1732 had been incorporated as a town
by itself. He married Miss Sarah Patch in 1766. They had two sons,
Phineas and Jonathan. Jonathan remained on the home farm at Harvard,
which is still occupied by his descendants.
[Illustration: P. Sawyer]