the new prison constructed, the militia re-organized, and judicial
appointments made. The prison was built within the appropriation. In all
his official acts Gov. Prescott was animated by a purpose single to the
welfare of the state, and upon his retirement to private life, at the
end of his term, he took with him the respect of its people,
irrespective of party or sect. Pre-eminently a man of the people,
without ostentation or pride of place beyond that which is befitting one
who has filled the office of chief magistrate, he has always been as
approachable to the humblest citizen as to the most exalted personage.
From the beginning of his public life, Gov. Prescott has taken a deep
interest in all that appertains to the welfare of his native state. For
its institutions of learning he has shown a high regard. His _alma
mater_, Dartmouth College, is an object of solicitude, and no other son
has done more for her in proportion to his means and influence. Many of
the portraits of eminent graduates, presidents, and benefactors that now
adorn the walls of the college, were procured through his thoughtful and
persistent efforts. The portraits and marble busts that grace the hall
in Phillips Academy, in Exeter, with one or two exceptions, were secured
to it through his indefatigable zeal and wise action. This declaration
will apply with equal truth to the collection of portraits by eminent
artists in the state-house, and also the Historical Society at Concord.
His interest in the history of the state is very keen, and few of New
Hampshire's sons have done more to vindicate the fame of her
Revolutionary heroes, and secure for them and their state the credit
withheld by partial or poorly informed historians.
Gov. Prescott has a fine presence. Erect of body, with broad massive
shoulders indicative of great physical strength; features regular,
strongly marked and of kindly expression; agreeable manners, genial and
open-hearted; outspoken at all times, but never censorious; hospitable,
and considerate; a strict partisan, but never intrusive or arrogant;
impatient of shams, but a firm friend of all philanthropic
undertakings,--he has filled with credit to himself and luster to his
state and country every place of honor and trust to which the favor and
good judgment of his fellow-citizens have called him.
[Illustration: H W Blair]
HON. HENRY WILLIAM BLAIR.
Among the many strong and self-reliant men and women who went out from
the old Scotch-Irish colony of Londonderry to establish homes in other
sections of the state were the Livermores, Shepherds, Coxes, and Blairs,
who were the first settlers in the Pemigewasset valley, where they and
their descendants have ever since exerted a controlling influence.
The Blairs located in Campton, where the father of New Hampshire's
senator of that name was born and grew to manhood. He was an excellent
scholar, a talented musician, an accomplished military officer, and a
man of great bodily strength and agility who was a recognized leader in
the town. His wife was Lois Baker, a descendant of the Bakers of Candia,
a family noted in colonial and revolutionary times, and for many years
one of the most respected and influential in Campton. She was a very
fine singer, and was gifted with remarkable mental endowments and rare
sweetness of disposition. Both Mr. and Mrs. Blair were teachers in their
youth, but after their marriage located themselves upon a farm in their
native town, where they lived happily until he was fatally injured by
falling timbers, while engaged upon the frame of a building. He died
December 8, 1836, leaving three children: a daughter, Hannah Palmer
Blair, aged six years; a son, Moses Baker Blair, aged four years; and a
son, HENRY WILLIAM BLAIR, aged two years. A fourth child, Lois Esther
Blair, was born soon after his death. Of these, the oldest daughter died
in 1843, and the oldest son, a young man of remarkable abilities, in
1857.
The death of Mr. Blair left his widow very poor, and finding it
impossible to support the children in her old home she was obliged to
separate them. The two eldest were "put out" to live in the families of
neighboring farmers, while she kept with her the youngest son, Henry,
and the infant daughter, until he was six years of age, when she
arranged with Samuel Keniston, a leading citizen of Campton, to take him
for one year, and, carrying the little girl with her, journeyed by stage
to Lowell in quest of work in the factories there, by which she might
obtain the means to support and educate her children. This venture was
not a pecuniary success, as her small earnings were nearly all absorbed
in necessary expenses; and in the summer of 1842 she returned to
Campton, and soon after removed with the two young children to Plymouth,
where for the next year she supported them by sewing.
At this time the boy Henry W., who was born December 6, 1834, was seven
years of age, bright, active, and able to make himself useful on a farm;
and he attracted the attention of Richard Bartlett, one of the
prosperous farmers of Campton, who offered to take him and give him a
home in his house, with what small educational advantages the district
school afforded, in return for such services as a boy of his build and
mettle could render. Thither he went in May, 1843, to begin to earn his
own living, and for several years his home was with Mr. Bartlett, who
treated him kindly and generously. In 1846 Mrs. Blair died, and from
that time on the boy fought the battle of life aided only by such
friends as he made for himself, and inspired by a purpose to show
himself a worthy son of his noble parents, whose memory he has always
reverently cherished. Writing of them many years after, when the people
of New Hampshire had conferred upon him the highest honor in their gift,
he said: "I owe very much to my parents, who, though poor, were among
the best that a child ever had; and to them I have always applied
Cowper's proud tribute to his own:--
'My boast is not that I deduce my birth
From loins enthroned, and rulers of the earth,
But higher far my proud pretensions rise,
The son of parents passed into the skies.'"
Until he was seventeen he worked hard upon a farm summers, and attended
the district school winters, and in the autumns of 1851 and 1852 the
Holmes Academy at Plymouth, of which Rev. James H. Shepard was
principal. His earnings the following winter enabled him to still
further gratify his longings for an education by going to the New
Hampshire Conference Seminary for one term in the spring of 1853. As
this exhausted his means, in the hope of obtaining more he worked for a
mechanic one year, and was expecting soon to resume his studies, when
his employer failed in business and he lost his wages. Before he could
secure another situation he was prostrated by a severe illness, which
left him broken in health, and compelled him, after a long struggle, to
abandon his purpose of obtaining a collegiate training. The next three
years he worked upon a farm, taught school in New Hampshire and
Massachusetts, tramped through this state selling books, and did
whatever honest work his health would permit, in the hope of gaining
strength and money enough to complete his academical course, studying,
in the meantime, two terms at Northfield and one at Plymouth, when it
became evident that his strength was unequal to the task he had set
himself, and he yielded to the advice of Samuel A. Burns, an eminent
scholar and teacher, who took a warm interest in him, and May 1, 1856,
entered the office of William Leverett, an able Plymouth lawyer, as a
student. Three years afterwards he was admitted to the bar, and,
associating himself with his instructor, began practice as the junior
member of the firm of Leverett & Blair; and, devoting himself to his
profession with the same industry, perseverance, and ability which
enabled him to enter it, he soon gained an enviable reputation as a
lawyer. The next year he was appointed solicitor of Grafton county,
which was his first public office.
From the first, Mr. Blair was a thorough-going Republican. An
instinctive hatred of slavery and all its attendant iniquities inspired
him as a boy to look eagerly forward to the time when he could join in
the warfare against it, and when he reached his majority he lost no
occasion to declare by voice and vote his convictions upon the subject.
When the slaveholders raised the standard of revolt against the
government, he had just begun to reap the fruits of his early struggles
and see the realization of his boyish dreams of success in his
profession; but every call for men served to render him uncomfortable at
home, and while the Twelfth Regiment was being recruited he put away his
books and briefs and tried to join it, but failed to pass the surgeon's
examination. He then enlisted as a private in the Fifteenth Regiment,
and was chosen captain of Company B. Before leaving the state he was
commissioned major by Gov. Berry, in which capacity he went to
Louisiana. Soon after his arrival there the disability of his superior
officers left him in command of the regiment, and from that time the
drill and discipline which made it one of the best in the service were
his work. In the assault upon Port Hudson, in May, 1863, he was severely
wounded by a minie-ball, in the right arm, and was carried to the
hospital to recover; but, learning a few days later that another attack
on that rebel stronghold was to be made, he insisted on disregarding the
commands of the surgeons by joining his command, and, with his arm in a
sling, led his men, who had the right of the column, in the ill-fated
charge of June 14. Here he was shot again in the same arm by a bullet,
which tore open the old wound; but he refused to leave his troops, and
remained with them until he could take them from the field. About this
time he was promoted to be lieutenant-colonel of the regiment, and, as
such, brought it home when its term of service had expired. He reached
Concord little more than a bodily wreck, and for some days his life hung
by a thread; but careful nursing by his devoted wife and friends
restored him to sufficient strength to warrant his removal to his old
home on the banks of the Pemigewasset.
A long season of suffering and disability from wounds and disease
contracted in the army followed his return; but he gradually regained
his health sufficiently to resume the practice of law at Plymouth, in
which the court records show him to have been remarkably successful. He
had a legal mind, had fitted himself for the bar with great
thoroughness, prepared his cases carefully and patiently, and managed
them skillfully, seldom failing to obtain a verdict. The Grafton-county
bar was at that time noted for the ability and learning of its members,
and he was rapidly working his way to a prominent place among them, when
he turned aside to enter political life,--a step which many of the
eminent men with whom he was associated in the trial of causes regard
even now as a great mistake, his brilliant success in the field of
politics failing, in their estimation, to compensate for what he was
capable of achieving in the law. For several years he practiced alone;
but in 1878 formed a partnership with Alvin Burleigh, which continued
until his election to the senate.
In 1866, Mr. Blair was elected a representative to the popular branch of
the state legislature, and there began the political service which has
since made him so widely known. The next year he was promoted to the
state senate by the voters of the eleventh district, and in 1868 was
re-elected. In 1872 the third district, composed of the counties of
Coos, Grafton, Sullivan, and Cheshire, elected a Democrat to congress;
and in 1874 the Republicans, looking about for a candidate under whose
lead they could redeem it, found him in Mr. Blair, whose reputation as a
soldier, clean record as a citizen, personal popularity, and
indefatigable industry and zeal dictated his enthusiastic nomination,
and after an exciting campaign secured his election to the forty-fourth
congress. In 1876 he was again elected, and in 1878 declined a
renomination. The next summer the term of United States Senator Wadleigh
expired, and Mr. Blair came forward as a candidate for the succession.
He was earnestly supported by the younger men of the party, by the
temperance and soldier elements; and, though his competitors were the
ablest men in the state, he bore away the great prize, and immediately
entered upon the discharge of his duties at Washington, to which he has
since devoted himself.
Mr. Blair's election to the national senate was largely due to the
record he had made in the house, and to his remarkable faculty of
winning and retaining the hearty friendship of nearly all with whom he
had ever been associated. From his youth up he had held radical views
upon public questions; and the persistency and zeal with which he
advanced and defended these under all circumstances convinced even his
opponents of his entire sincerity, and bound to him his coworkers with
locks of steel. Men liked him because he was cordial, frank, and
earnest, and respected him because he had ability, industry, and
courage; and so they rallied around him with a devotion and faith which
overcame all opposition.
During the four years he represented the third district in the house, he
served upon the committees on Railroads and Accounts, and several
special committees. In the senate of the forty-sixth congress, upon the
committees on Education and Labor, Agriculture, Transportation, Routes
to the Seaboard, Election Frauds, Pensions, and Exodus of the Colored
People: and in the present congress is chairman of the senate committee
on Education and Labor, and a member of those on Pensions, Public Lands,
Agriculture, and Woman Suffrage.
Soon after entering the house he introduced and advocated with great
ability a proposition to amend the national constitution so as to
prohibit the manufacture or sale of distilled spirits in the United
States after 1890, a measure which gave him a national reputation, and
caused him to be recognized by the temperance people of the country as
their leader and champion in the national capitol. The woman suffragists
have also found in him a vigorous and unwearying defender; and his
speeches in support of his bill to extend government aid to the common
schools of the South are among the most carefully prepared and
conclusive arguments on that subject. When the financial policy of the
country became a subject of discussion, and many of its strongest minds
were carried from their moorings by the Greenback cyclone, Senator Blair
stood sturdily for an honest currency and strict honesty in dealing with
the government creditors, and by his speeches in congress and on the
stump contributed in no small degree to the triumph of those principles
and the incidental success of the Republican party. The veteran soldier
has always found in him a friend who lost no opportunity to speak and
vote for the most liberal pension laws, and who never tired in
responding to individual calls for assistance at the department. His
other service as a senator has been most conspicuous in his speeches
against the Texas Pacific Railroad Subsidies, upon Foreign Markets and
Commerce, Election Frauds in the South, the Exodus of Colored People,
the Japanese Indemnity Fund, the Public Land Bill, and the Commission of
Inquiry into the Liquor Traffic; his eulogies upon Henry Wilson,
Zachariah Chandler, and Evarts W. Farr; and his reports on numerous
subjects which have claimed the attention of his committees. He is
rarely absent from his seat, and when present never declines to vote.
His first term expires March 3, 1885.
From this brief sketch it will be seen that Mr. Blair owes his
exceptional success in life to no extraneous or accidental aids. His
parents were poor, and their untimely death deprived him of their
counsel and example. His boyhood was a struggle with poverty, of which
his youth was only a continuance. All he had, he earned. What he became,
he made himself. As a man, he has shown great capacity for work and a
disposition to do his best in every position. He is always intensely in
earnest. He has indomitable perseverance and persistency, and never
allows his abilities to rust in idleness. He is an outspoken and
aggressive but practical reformer; a radical but sagacious Republican.
Though his early advantages were few, he has been a voracious reader and
a close student, and does not lack for the help which familiarity with
books gives. He is an easy writer and a fluent speaker. He is generous
to a fault; and his most prominent weakness is a disposition to magnify
his obligations to his friends.
Senator Blair married Eliza Nelson, the daughter of a Methodist
clergyman, of Groton, and has one son,--Henry Patterson Blair,--aged
fourteen years.
[Illustration: R A Maxsfield]
RUFUS A. MAXFIELD.
BY J. P.
RUFUS A. MAXFIELD was born in Nashua, N. H., on the fifth day of March,
1835. His father, Stephen C. Maxfield, was a native of Newbury, Vt., was
married to Clarissa Staples, a native of Chichester. N. H., at Nashua N.
H., when the now populous city was but a small village. There were ten
children born to them. Four died quite young; six are now living, viz.:
the subject of this sketch; James G. Maxfield, M. D., surgeon at the
National Home for disabled volunteer soldiers at Togus, Me.; J. P.
Maxfield, treasurer of the Hiscox File Manufacturing Company, at West
Chelmsford, Mass., who resides in Lowell, Mass.; Stephen W. Maxfield, a
mechanic, now living in Nashua; Susan T. and Helen A.; the former
married and resides in Wolfeborough, N. H., the latter in Lowell, Mass.,
with the widowed mother, who is still living at the ripe age of seventy
years. Stephen C, the father, was employed for seventeen years by the
Nashua Manufacturing Company, and was a faithful servant to his
employers. He early became identified with the Methodist denomination,
and was among the most zealous workers in building up the two societies
in those early days. He died in Lowell. Mass., August 10, 1862, having
lived a consistent Christian life, at the age of fifty-three years.
When Rufus was eight years old he was employed in the carding department
of the Nashua company's mills during his school vacations. It was here
that he was first taught the rudiments of cotton-manufacture. For awhile
he worked as back boy in the mule-spinning department. In 1846 the
family removed to Lowell, Mass. After attending school here for a short
time he again went into the mill in the carding department on the
Lawrence corporation. From here he was transferred to the mule-spinning
department. In 1853 he left the mill temporarily to attend school at
Northfield, N. H., where he remained two years, when he returned to the
mill and to his mule-spinning. He passed through the various grades
until he reached the position of second overseer. He was married on the
10th of May, 1856, to Mary A. Spaulding, daughter of Joshua Spaulding,
of Pepperell, Mass.
Soon after the breaking out of the war of the rebellion, the mills of
Lowell suspended operations, and thousands were thrown out of
employment, Mr. Maxfield among the rest. In 1863 he entered the employ
of the Naumkeag Mill, at Salem, Mass., as second overseer under Charles
D. McDuffie, Esq., who had charge of all the spinning in these mills.
Mr. McDuffie is now agent of the Manchester Mills, Manchester, N. H. Mr.
Maxfield remained in the employ of the Naumkeag Mill until the close of
the war, when, the corporations in Lowell resuming operations, he was
tendered the position of overseer of the mule-spinning in the
hosiery-mill of the Lawrence Manufacturing Company, who were then
starting. Here he remained until the spring of 1866, when he took charge
of the mule-spinning in number five mill, then the largest mill owned by
the Lawrence company. During the latter part of 1868 he had charge of
all the spinning in this mill.
In 1869 he was appointed superintendent of Ida Hill Mill, Troy, N. Y.
Under adverse circumstances, with a mill cramped for power, and with old
machinery very much out of repair, he was very successful, earning
satisfactory profits for the owners. In the year 1872, the management of
the Tremont and Suffolk Mills in Lowell, Mass., offered him the position
of superintendent of their large mills, where, under Thomas S. Shaw,
Esq., agent, he remained until 1875. During his connection with this
company, the quality of the Canton flannels, which are a "specialty"
with these mills, was brought up to a standard that made them rank among
the first in the market, commanding ready sales and good prices.
The directors of the Nashua Manufacturing Company, on the death of
Oliver Hussey, Esq., in January, 1875, realizing the qualifications of
Mr. Maxfield for such a position, appointed him agent of their large
mills in Nashua, N. H. During Mr. Maxfield's administration to the
present time, there have been extensive alterations and improvements in
the direction of economy of manufacture and increased production, so
that the reputation of the company that owned the model mills of New
England has been maintained. Thus we find the boy who at eight years of
age took his first lesson in cotton-manufacture, returning, after the
lapse of thirty-two years, to the same mills as agent. Little did the
youth dream what thirty-two years would bring to pass in his career.
Socially Mr. Maxfield is a very agreeable gentleman; and, while he has
devoted his energies during all these years to his chosen calling, he
has found time to connect himself by social ties to beneficiary
organizations, thus lending his influence to the great work in which
they are engaged. He was prominent for many years in the management of
the affairs of Mechanics Lodge of Odd Fellows of Lowell, Mass., passing
through the various positions until now he is one of the "Past Grands"
of this lodge. He is also a member of Pentucket Lodge of Masons, Royal
Arch Chapter, Ahasuerus Council, and Pilgrim Commandry of that city.
He is a regular attendant of the Methodist church, and is respected by
the people of Nashua for his upright and honorable course of life. He is
prompt to decide questions that come before him; but his decisions,
though firm, are tempered with that affability of manner which relieves
them of much of the harshness that many men manifest. May he be spared
many years to pursue his favorite calling; and may the day be far
distant when the Nashua Manufacturing Company shall lose his services,
or the city of Nashua lose so worthy a citizen.
[Illustration: Geo. B. Spalding]
GEORGE BURLEY SPALDING, D. D.
BY REV. A. H. QUINT. D. D.
GEORGE BURLEY SPALDING, the present pastor of the First church in Dover,
was born in Montpelier, Vt., August 11, 1835, son of Dr. James Eliza
(Reed) Spalding. The line of American descent on the paternal side as
follows: Edward, of Chelmsford, Mass., immigrant; Benjamin, whose will
was proved April 5, 1670; Edward, of Canterbury, Conn.; Ephraim, of
Connecticut; Reuben, of Connecticut; Reuben, who married Jerusha
Carpenter, and lived in Sharon, Vt.; Dr. James; and Rev. George Burley.
Deacon Reuben Spalding, grandfather of the subject of this sketch, was
one of the early settlers of Vermont, whose life was not more remarkable
for his toils, privations, and energy as a pioneer in a new country,
than for his unbending Christian integrity. He entered Sharon in 1769,
and lived on the same farm eighty years. He was a member of the church
sixty-one years, and deacon forty-two years. He was distinguished for
"the best qualities of the old New England Puritanism."
Dr. James Spalding was the third of twelve children, and for many years
a successful practitioner of medicine in Montpelier, Vt., but especially
eminent in surgery. He graduated at the Dartmouth Medical School at the
age of twenty years. He was more than forty years a member of the
Vermont Medical Society; its secretary over twenty years, its president
in 1866, 1867, and 1868. "His life," says a printed sketch, "was that of
the good Samaritan, a life of toil, prayer, and sympathy for others."
By the line of Reed, the family is of the same blood with Rev. Dr.
Gardiner Spring and Rev. Dr. Edwards A. Park. The grandmother of Dr.
George B. Spalding, and the grandfather of the late Senator Matthew H.
Carpenter, were sister and brother.