George Sewall Boutwell, LL. D., Boston and Groton, the first
commissioner of internal revenue, secretary of the treasury under
President Grant, and for many years one of the leading international
lawyers, is the son of Sewall and Rebecca (Marshall) Boutwell, and was
born in Brookline, Mass., in what is now the old part of the Country
Club house, January 28, 1818. He comes from old and respected
Massachusetts stock, being a lineal descendant of James Boutwell, who
was admitted a freeman in Lynn in 1638, and of John Marshall, who
came to Boston in the shop _Hopewell_ in 1634. The family has always
represented the sterling qualities of typical New Englanders.
Tradition asserts that one of his paternal ancestors received a grant
of land for services in King Philip's War. His maternal grandfather,
Jacob Marshall, was the inventor of the cotton press, an invention
originally made, however, for pressing hops. His father, Sewall
Boutwell, removed with his family in 1820 from Brookline to Lunenburg,
Mass., where he held several town offices; he was a member of the
Massachusetts House of Representatives in 1843 and 1844 and of the
Constitutional Convention of 1853.
Mr. Boutwell attended in his early years a public school in Lunenburg,
where he became a clerk in a general store at the age of thirteen, thus
gaining a practical as well as a theoretical knowledge of affairs.
Later he supplemented this experience by teaching school at Shirley.
He also studied the classics, and in various ways improved every
opportunity for advancement which limited circumstances afforded. In
1835 he went to Groton, Mass., as clerk in a store. But to be a
lawyer was his dream before he had ever seen a lawyer. Endowed with
unusual intellectual ability, which has been one of his chief
characteristics from boyhood, he felt himself instinctively drawn to
the legal profession, and as early as possible entered his name as
a student at law.
In 1839 he was chosen a member of the Groton School Committee, and
in 1840 he was an active Democrat, advocating the re-election of
Martin Van Buren to the Presidency. In the meantime he delivered a
number of important lectures and political speeches, his first lecture
being given before the Groton Lyceum when he was nineteen, and he was
now rapidly gaining a reputation in public affairs, in which he early
took a deep interest. In January, 1842, he became a member of the
lower House of the Massachusetts Legislature from Groton, and for ten
years thereafter his law studies were neglected. He served during the
sessions of 1842, 1843, 1844, 1847, 1848, 1849 and 1850, and was also
at different times a railroad commissioner, a bank commissioner, and a
member of various other commissions of the commonwealth.
As a member of the House he made many important arguments that were
legal in name if not in fact. One related to the Act of the
Legislature of 1843, by which the salaries of the judges were reduced,
and another upon a bill for the amendment of the charter of Harvard
College. On the latter question, which was in controversy for three
years, his opponents were Judge Benjamin R. Curtis and Hon. Samuel
Hoar.
Mr. Boutwell originated the movement for a change in the college
government, which was effected by a compromise in 1851. Chief Justice
Lemuel Shaw, a member of the corporation, wrote an answer to his
argument. This led to Mr. Boutwell's appointment in 1851 as a member
of the Harvard College Board of Overseers, which position he filled
until 1860. In January, 1851, he became Governor of Massachusetts by
a fusion of the Democratic and Free-soil members of the Legislature,
and in 1852 was re-elected by the same body. He served in that
capacity until January, 1853, a period of two years, and discharged
the duties of the office with ability, dignity, and honor. As a
member of the Massachusetts Constitutional Convention of 1853, Mr.
Boutwell had further and better opportunities to make the acquaintance
and to observe the ways of the leading lawyers of the State.
At the close of the Constitutional Convention of 1853, Governor
Boutwell entered the law office of Joel Giles, who was engaged in
practice under the patent laws, and who as a mechanic and lawyer was
a well-equipped practitioner in Boston. As a counselor in patent cases
Mr. Giles had few equals. It was then Mr. Boutwell's purpose to pursue
the study and engage in the practice of the patent laws as a specialty,
but in October, 1855, without any solicitation and indeed without the
slightest knowledge on his part, he was chosen secretary of the
Massachusetts Board of Education, of which he had been a member from
1853. With much uncertainty as to the wisdom of his action in
accepting the place, he entered upon his duties and faithfully and
efficiently discharged them until January 1, 1861, although he had
tendered his resignation in 1859. His annual reports have always been
regarded as models of preparation, and that of 1861--the twenty-fourth
--contains a notable commentary on the school laws of the commonwealth.
He continued as a member of the board until 1863.
After several years Mr. Boutwell severed his relations with Mr. Giles,
and upon his admission to the Suffolk bar in January, 1862, on motion
of the late Judge Josiah Gardner Abbott, he began active practice in
Boston. His first jury case was before the late Judge Charles Allen,
of Worcester, yet at that time he had never seen a jury trial from the
opening to the close. Mr. Boutwell had scarcely entered upon his
professional career when he was called to assume a most important place
in national affairs, and one that was destined to keep him in close
relations with the Federal Government at Washington for many years
afterward.
Among the historical events, originating in the Civil War, was the
passage of the act "to provide internal revenue to support the
government and to pay interest on the public debt," approved July 1,
1862. Mr. Boutwell organized the Office of Internal Revenue and was
the first internal revenue commissioner, receiving his appointment
while at Cairo in the service of the War Department. He arrived in
Washington July 16, and entered upon his duties the following day.
Within a few days the Secretary of the Treasury assigned him a single
clerk, then a second, and afterward a third, and the clerical force was
increased from time to time until at his resignation of the office of
commissioner on March 3, 1863, it numbered 140 persons. To him is due
its organization upon a basis which has more than fulfilled the most
cherished hopes and expectations of those who conceived the idea and
which has furnished from the first a valuable source of revenue for
the government with little hardship or unnecessary friction among the
people at large. The stamp tax took effect nominally on the 1st of
October, 1862, less than two and one-half months after Mr. Boutwell
entered upon his duties as commissioner, yet before he resigned, five
months later, he had the office so well established, and its work so
thoroughly organized throughout the United States, that its usefulness
was assured and it has continued to the present time practically the
same lines that he laid down. In July, 1863, three months after he
retired from the office, he published a volume of 500 pages, entitled
"A Manual of the Direct and Excise Tax System of the United States,"
which included the act itself, the forms and regulations established
by him, his decisions and rulings, extracts from the correspondence of
the office, and much other valuable information bearing on the subject.
This work has ever been accepted as authority, and still forms the
basis of the government of the internal revenue system.
Before Mr. Boutwell was admitted to the bar he was retained by the
county commissioners of Middlesex County to appear before a
legislative committee of the years 1854 and 1855 against the division
of that county and the erection of a new county to be called the county
of Webster with Fitchburg for the shire. Emory Washburn appeared for
Worcester County and Rufus Choate for Fitchburg and the new county.
The application failed in 1855 and again in 1856. Mr. Boutwell's
arguments on this petition, made March 25, 1855, and April 23, 1856,
were remarkable for power and eloquence, and largely influenced the
final result.
From 1862 to 1869 he was retained in many causes, the most important
of which was the controversy over the contract between the commonwealth
and Gen. Herman Haupt for the construction of the Hoosac Tunnel. The
hearing before a legislative committee occupied about twenty days and
ended in the annulment of the contract. For several years Mr. Boutwell
was associated in Boston with J. Q. A. Griffin. Afterward he was in
partnership with Henry F. French until 1869, when he became Secretary
of the Treasury in the Cabinet of President Grant. He filled this
position with great ability for four years, originating and
promulgating, among other measures, the plan of refunding the public
debt. During that period he made but one argument, when he appeared
in the Supreme Court on the appeal by his client of a patent case, of
which he had had charge from the beginning. From 1863 to 1869 he had
been a member of the 38th, 39th, 40th and 41st Congresses, serving on
the committees on the judiciary and on reconstruction, and being
chairman for a time of the latter body. While representing his
district in Congress Mr. Boutwell gained considerable experience in
the proceedings against President Andrew Johnson, who was impeached for
high crimes and misdemeanors, and he was selected as one of the
managers on the part of the House. In a remarkably brilliant speech
before the House on December 5 and 6, 1867, he maintained the doctrine
that the president and all other civil officers could be impeached for
acts that were not indictable, although the contrary was held by many
eminent lawyers, including President Dwight, of Columbia College, who
wrote a treatise in support of his theory. But the House preferred
articles that did not allege an indictable offence and the Senate
sustained them by a vote of thirty-five to eighteen, one less than the
number necessary for conviction. On April 22 and 23, 1868, Mr.
Boutwell, on behalf of the managers, addressed the Senate, delivering
one of the strongest and ablest arguments on record, and thus
completing, as a lawyer, the most exhaustive labor he ever attempted.
He was a member of the Committee of Fifteen which reported the
Fourteenth Amendment, and while serving on the committee on the
judiciary he reported and carried through the House the Fifteenth
Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.
In 1873 Mr. Boutwell was chosen United States Senator from
Massachusetts to fill the unexpired term of Hon. Henry Wilson, who had
been elected Vice-President. He continued in the Senate until 1877,
when he was appointed by President Hayes, through Gen. Charles Devens,
then Attorney-General, commissioner to revise the statutes of the
United States. That great work was completed and the volume was
published in the autumn of 1878. Some idea of the labor involved in
this undertaking may be gained from the index, which contains over
25,000 references. In 1878 Mr. Boutwell returned to Boston and resumed
the practice of law. In 1880 William M. Evarts, then Secretary of
State, and President Hayes, asked him to accept the position of counsel
and agent for the United States before a Board of International
Arbitrators created by a treaty ratified in June, 1880, between the
United States and France, for the settlement of claims against each
government by citizens of the other government. The claims of French
citizens, 726 in number, arose from the operations of the Union armies
in the South, principally in and around New Orleans, during the Civil
War, and the consideration of them occupied four years. The counsel
and the commissioners were called to the discussion of treaties, of
international law, of citizenship, of the Legislation of France, of the
rights of war, and of the conduct of military officers and military
tribunals. The claims amounted to $35,000,000, including interest; the
recoveries amount to about $625,000; the defence cost the Government
about $500,000; the record is contained in ninety printed volumes of
about one thousand pages each and the pleas and arguments of counsel
for the two governments fill eight large volumes. Mr. Boutwell's own
arguments cover more than 1,100 pages. Many of these cases rank as
_causes celebre,_ notably those of Archbishop Joseph Napoleon Perche,
No. 3; Henri Dubos, No. 26; Joseph Bauillotte, No. 130; Bleze Motte,
No. 131; Theodore Valade, No. 214; Pierre S. Wiltz, No. 313; Remy
Jardel, No. 333; Etienne Derbee, No. 339; Arthur Vallon, No. 394;
David Kuhnagel, No. 438; Dr. Denis Meng, No. 567; Azoline Gautherin,
No. 590; Oscar Chopin, No. 592; S. Aruns Sorrel, No. 594, in which he
probably made the best argument of his career; Jules Le More, No. 595;
Athenais C. Le More, No. 598; Mary Ann Texier, No. 569; and Charles
Heidsieck, No. 691. That of Theodore Valade, No. 214, was a full
account of the battle of Donaldsonville, and those of Archbishop
Perche, David Kuhnagel, and many other involved intricate and
interesting questions of citizenship as well as damages for the
destruction of property. On May 10, 1884, Mr. Boutwell made an
exhaustive and final report on all these claims to the Secretary of
State, Hon. Frederick T. Frelinghuysen.
Mr. Boutwell was one of the counsel for the government of Hayti in the
celebrated case of Antonio Pelletier against that republic in 1885, and
made a most interesting oral argument. This case was a romance of the
sea as well as of international importance, involving a claim of
$2,500,000 and questions of piracy and slave trading. In 1893-94 Mr.
Boutwell was retained as counsel on the part of Chili to defend their
government before an international commission created under a treaty
with the United States signed August 7, 1892. About forty cases were
presented, involving $26,300,000, and the final report was submitted
April 30, 1894. Among the more important were those of Gilbert B.
Borden, No. 9, and Frederick H. Lovett et al., No. 43, against the
Republic of Chili. These as well as nearly all the others were argued
by him with a brilliancy and eloquence that has marked his entire
career at the bar. Of the five courts martial that were held in
Washington between 1880 and 1892 for the trial of officers of the army
and navy Mr. Boutwell was retained for the defence in four cases, in
three of which the accused were convicted and in the other honorably
acquitted. In 1886 he was retained by the Mormon Church to appear
before the judiciary committee of the House of Representatives against
the Edmunds bill, which was modified in particulars pointed out in the
discussion. The same year he appeared before the House committee on
foreign affairs for the government of Hawaii in opposition to the
project for abrogating the treaty of 1875.
Mr. Boutwell's pleas and arguments have with few exceptions been
published in book or pamphlet form, or both, and form of themselves a
most valuable and interesting addition to legal literature. They bear
evidence of a profound knowledge of the law, of vast research and of
great literary ability. Among others may be mentioned those upon a
petition to the Massachusetts Legislature for the removal of Joseph M.
Day as judge of probate and insolvency for Barnstable County in March,
1881; in the matter of the Pacific National Bank of Boston before the
banking and currency committee of the United State House of
Representatives, March 22, 1884; and for the claimant in the case of
the Berdan Fire-Arms Manufacturing Company of New York vs. the United
States. He is the author of "Educational Topics and Institutions,"
1859; "Speeches Relating to the Rebellion and the Overthrow of
Slavery," collected and published in 1867; "Why I am a Republican," a
history of the Republican Party to 1884, republished in 1888; "The
Lawyer, Statesman and Soldier," 1887; and the "Constitution of the
United States," embracing the substance of the leading decisions of the
Supreme Court in which the several articles, sections and clauses have
been examined, explained and interpreted, 1896. In 1888 he wrote a
pamphlet on "Protection as a Public Policy," for the American
Protective Tariff League; on April 2, 1889, he read a paper on "The
Progress of American Independence," before the New York Historical
Society; and in February, 1896, he published a pamphlet on "The
Venezuelan Question and the Monroe Doctrine."
Mr. Boutwell has probably argued more cases involving international law
than any other living man, and in this department ranks among the
ablest and strongest that this country has ever produced. For more
than forty years he was a prominent figure before the bar of the United
States Courts at Washington, where he achieved eminence as an advocate
of the highest ability. He was uniformly successful, and won a
reputation which was not confined to this country. He is an authority
on international and constitutional law. His published writings stamp
him as a profound student of public questions and a man of rare
literary culture and genius. He was a strong Abolitionist, and as
lawyer, statesman and citizen he has faithfully and efficiently
performed his duties and won the confidence of both friends and
opponents. In politics he has been a leader of the Republican Party
since its organization. He was a delegate to the Chicago Conventions
of 1860 and 1880, and was chosen a delegate to the Baltimore
Convention of 1864, but declined. He was elected a member of the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1857 and of the Phi Beta Kappa
Society of Harvard College in June, 1861, at which time he delivered
the Phi Beta Kappa oration. In 1851 Harvard conferred upon him the
honorary degree of LL. D., and in 1861 he was a member of the Peace
Congress at Washington.
Mr. Boutwell was married July 8, 1841, to Sarah Adelia, daughter of
Nathan Thayer of Hollis, N. H.. Their children are Georgianna A., born
May 18, 1843, and Francis M., born February 26, 1847. Mr. Boutwell
resides in Groton, Mass.
_The eighth day of July, 1891, Mr. Boutwell's family and friends
celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of his marriage with Sarah Adelia
Thayer, daughter of Nathan and Hannah Jewett Thayer, of Hollis, N. H.;
and on the eighth day of July, 1901, the family observed the sixtieth
anniversary, but without ceremony, as Mrs. Boutwell was much impaired
in health._
[* Copyright, 1900, by the Mason Publishing and Printing Co.]
REMINISCENCES
OF
SIXTY YEARS IN PUBLIC AFFAIRS
VOLUME I
I
INCIDENTS OF MY EARLY LIFE
My birthplace was at Brookline, Mass., near Boston, upon a farm in my
father's charge, and then owned by a Dr. Spooner of Boston. The place
has had many owners and it has been used for various purposes. In 1851
and 1852 it was owned by a Dr. Trowbridge, who had a fancy for fine
horses. Upon my election to the office of Governor, and when he had
learned that I was born upon his place, he insisted that I should use a
large black stallion in the review of the troops at the annual parade.
The animal was of fine figure but not so subdued as to be manageable.
In one of those years General Wool came to Boston, upon an invitation
to review the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company on Boston Common.
I assigned the Trowbridge horse to General Wool. The General rode him
for a minute or two, when he left the saddle and the reviewing officers
went through the ceremony on foot. Since those days the Spooner place
has been converted into a trotting course known as Clyde Park, and the
house is now used as a clubhouse by an association known as the Country
Club.
When I was about twenty-five years of age I was present at a temperance
meeting at Lowell, held in an unfinished factory building called the
Prescott Mills. After some speaking, in which I had taken a part, the
Rev. Dr. Pierce, then a white-headed gentleman of seventy years, whom
I had seen as an overseer of Harvard College, came to me, introduced
himself, and after a little conversation he asked me where I was born.
When I answered Brookline, on the Dr. Spooner place, he said: "Oh,
yes, I remember when your father lived there, and I recall a
circumstance to which I think I owe my good health. Dr. Spooner," said
he, "resided in Boston in the winter and at Brookline in the summer.
When he was at Brookline he had a child to be christened, and he
preferred to have the city minister perform the ceremony. After the
service we were invited to dine at Dr. Spooner's, and that minister ate
so unmercifully of everything upon the table, that I then and there
resolved that I would eat but one kind of meat at a meal, and I think
my good health is due in a measure to that resolution." I made no
resolution, but the circumstance produced an impression upon me, and in
the main I have observed his rule. In seventy-seven years, within my
recollection, I have lain in bed but seven days.
In April, 1820, when I was hardly more than two years of age, my father
moved to Lunenburg, Worcester County, and settled upon a farm, a mile
south-west of the village, which he had bought of Phinehas Carter, then
an old man, who had been opulent as a farmer for the time and place,
but whose estates had been wasted by a moderate sort of intemperance,
by idleness, and family expenses. The house was large, well built for
the times, finished with clear, unpainted white pine, with dado work in
the front rooms below and in the chambers above. It was situated on
the southern brow of a hill, and commanded a view of the Wachusett
mountain, and the hills to the west, south and east over an expanse of
twenty miles in every direction, except the northern half of the
circle. At a distance of eighty or one hundred rods from the house lay
the Whalom pond, a body of clear, deep spring water, of more than a
hundred acres. The farm contained one hundred and thirteen acres of
land, somewhat rocky, but in quality better than the average New
England farms. At the time of the purchase one-half of the acres were
woodland with heavy timber.
My father relied upon that timber to meet the debt of one thousand
dollars which rested upon the place. In those days wood and timber
were abundant and money was scarce. If the building of railroads could
have been foreseen and the timber saved for twenty-five years it would
have risen to twice the value of the farm at the time of the purchase.
My father's anxiety to be relieved of the debt was so great that he
made sales of wood and timber as he had the opportunity, but the
proceeds, after much hard labor had been added, were very
insignificant. As a result, the most valuable part of the timber was
sold for ship-building, or to the coopers, or converted into boards
and shingles, and a remnant of the debt remained for twenty years.
The farm yielded ample supplies of meat, milk, butter, cheese, grain,
fruit, and vegetables, but groceries and clothing were difficult to
procure after such supplies were had as could be obtained by barter.
Once or twice, or possibly three times a year, my father drove an ox-
team or a team of one pair of oxen and one horse to Boston with cider,
apples, a hog or two, and poultry. The returns enabled him to pay his
taxes, the interest on the debt, and perhaps something over.
Until the introduction of the cotton and woolen manufactures, and
indeed, until the building of railways, the farmers of Massachusetts
had only limited means of comfort. Their houses were destitute of
furniture, except of the plainest sort. Of upholstered furniture they
had none. Except a few school books for the children and the family
Bible there was no reading matter, unless in favored neighborhoods, a
weekly paper carried the news to two or three families that were joint
subscribers. The mails were infrequent, and the postage on letters,
based on the pieces of paper instead of weight, varied from six and one
fourth cents for all distances within thirty miles to twenty-five cents
for distances of four hundred miles or more. Intermediate rates were
ten, twelve and a half, and eighteen and three fourths cents. These
rates existed when mechanics could command only one dollar a day, and
when ordinary laborers could earn only fifty cents or seventy-five
cents--except in the haying season, when good mowers could command one
dollar. Servant girls and nurses received from one dollar to one
dollar and fifty cents per week. At the same time every variety of
clothing was much more expensive than it now is, unless shoes and hats
are exceptions.
My father was the best farmer in the neighborhood. He had been
employed in the nursery and vegetable gardening at Newton, and for five
years he had had charge of the farm of Madam Coffin at Newton Corner,
widow of the Hon. Peleg Coffin, who had been a member of Congress from
Nantucket. In a few years we had a supply of cherries, peaches, and
choice apples. As my father understood budding and grafting tress, his
improved fruits were distributed to others. I acquired the art of
budding when I could not have been more than ten years of age, and
before I left home at the age of thirteen, I had practised the art in
the village and on the trees of the neighbors.
Previous to 1830 the era of invention had not opened, and the articles
by whose aid domestic comfort has been promoted were unknown. The only
means of cooking were the open fire and the brick oven. Meat for
roasting was suspended by a cord from a hook in the ceiling in front of
the open fire and over a dripping pan. The children found amusement
and became useful in twisting the cord and then allowing the weight of
the meat to untwist it. Even fire in the summer was obtained and kept
with difficulty. There were no friction matches and not infrequently
a child was sent on a flying visit to a neighbor's house to borrow
fire. Indeed, the habit of borrowing and lending extended to nearly
every movable thing that any one possessed. Tools, food, especially
fresh meat, the labor of men, oxen and horses were borrowed and lent.
Farming tools were few in number and rude in construction. Many of
them were made upon the farms, either by the farmers themselves, or by
the help of poorly instructed mechanics. The modern plough was
unknown. Hay and manure forks, scythes, hoes, were so rough, uncouth
and heavy that they would now be rejected by the commonest laborer. As
early as 1830 by father bought a cast-iron plough; it was the wonder of
the neighborhood and the occasion of many prophecies that were to be
falsified by events.
My father was a practical man and a gentleman by nature. With him
civility was innate. He was a close observer and something of a
philosopher. I recall his statement made in my childhood that matter
was indestructible. He was of even temper, and of an imperturbable
spirit. His paternal ancestor on this side of the Atlantic was made a
freeman at Lynn in 1638. Of his arrival in the country there is no
record. From that date there had been no marriage except into English
families. My father was purely English. My mother, whose family name
was Marshall, and who was a descendant of John Marshall who came in the
_Hopewell_, Captain Babb, in 1635, was English also through all her
ancestors from John Marshall.
My father enjoyed the respect and confidence of his fellow citizens and
he held many of the offices of the town and for many years. In 1843
and 1844 he was a member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives
and in 1853 he was a member of the Constitutional Convention. I was
also a member of the same bodies, and the association with my father
under such peculiar circumstances is one of the pleasant recollections
of my life.* My mother belonged to a family of unusual intellectual
endowment, and of great rigidity of opinion. Her father, Jacob
Marshall, was a student by tendency and habit, a stone mason and farmer
by occupation, and the inventor of the press used for pressing hops and
cotton in square bales. He lived to be more than eighty years of age,
was twice married, and had a large family of children whom he educated
and trained as well as children could be trained and educated at the
close of the last century in a country town in northern Massachusetts.
For the last fifty years of his life he devoted himself to the study of
the bible and such works of history as he could command. His knowledge
of the bible was so great that he was an oracle in the town, although
he departed from the popular faith and became a Universalist. He lived
comfortably and without hard work, and in the later years of his life
he became the owner of two farms in the northerly part of Lunenburg.
As I recollect him and his farms he could not have been a good farmer.
His crop was hops, and that crop always commanded money, at a time when
it was unusual to realize money for farm produce.
As my father's house was a mile from the District School, and as there
was a school within twenty or thirty rods of my grandfather's house, I
was sent to my grandfather's for my first winter's schooling. I think
it must have been the winter of 1823-4. The teacher was Ithamar
Butters, called Dr. Butters from the circumstance that he had studied
medicine for a time with Dr. Aaron Bard, a physician in the village.
Of Dr. Butters as a teacher I remember little. He became a disbeliever
in the Bible--an agnostic of those days. I recollect a remark of his
made many years after: That he would prefer the worst hell to
annihilation, which he believed would be his fate.
I learned to read by standing in front of my mother as she read the
Bible. Of course all the letters were inverted, and the faculty of
reading an inverted page, has remained.
I went to the District School summer and winter, until I was ten years
of age, and to the winter school until I passed my seventeenth
birthday, when my school life ended. My father and mother were
scrupulous about my attendance, and I cannot recall that I was ever
allowed to be absent during the school term either for work or pleasure.
When I reached the age of ten years I was kept on the farm during the
summer months, until I left home in December, 1830. In those days
farmers' boys did not enjoy the luxury of shoes in the summer, nor
indeed in the autumn season. More than once I picked chestnuts bare-
footed and often I have tended the oxen in the mowing field frosty
mornings and warmed my feet by standing on a stone.
Once only during my home life did I go to Boston with my father. He
carried poultry in a one-horse wagon. I accompanied him. The year may
have been 1828, or '9 or '30. On our way he stopped at one of the
Waltham cotton factories to see a niece of my father who was there at
work. We lodged that night at the house of Madam Coffin. She was then
already old in my sight. She seemed pleased with my father's visit,
and the impression left upon my mind is that we were entertained with
marked consideration. My father had managed her farm for about five
years from 1809 to 1814, when he volunteered for service in the army,
and for ninety days he was on the island then known as Fort Warren.
The next morning we reached Boston and stationed our wagon at the
northwest corner of Quincy Market, where we sold our poultry. During
the day my father had occasion to go to the store of Joseph Mead, at
the corner of Lyman Place, and I was left in charge of the wagon. I
had the fortune to sell some of the poultry. My father thought that
the proceeds in money did not equal the decrease in stock, and so it
proved--for the next Sunday morning when I dressed for meeting I found
a two dollar bill in my trousers' pocket.
That night we spent with Captain Hyde, at Newton Corner. During the
first year of my father's married life he had carried on a farm on the
opposite side of the highway, and it was from Captain Hyde that he
obtained his knowledge of budding and grafting, and some knowledge of
the art of gardening. They always continued friends; Captain Hyde came
to my father's, in after years, and supplied our farm with the best
varieties of cherry, peach and apple trees.
The day following we went to Brighton where my father purchased the
remnant of a drove of cattle that had been driven from the State of
Maine--twenty-four in number. Of these nine were oxen and the rest
were young animals between two and four years of age, and all were
bought for the sum of two hundred and fifty dollars. My father was
then the overseer of the almshouse, and the purchase was primarily for
that establishment, but some of the animals were sold to the neighbors.
The result of the purchase was to me a short experience as a drover.
As I recollect the experiences of my life on my father's farm, there
were many amusements and relaxations mingled with the hardships. In
the winter the house was cold, with only open fires for warming rooms.
We had, however, an abundance of wood, and in the evenings a supply of
cider, apples and nuts for ourselves and for the neighbors. There were
always one or two poor families in the neighborhood who enjoyed the
moderate comforts of our house. I recall one man, who after a visit
would stop at the pile of wood, near the house, and carry a backload to
his home. My father often saw the stealing, but the culprit never knew
from any word or act that he had been discovered or suspected.
The ponds and brooks in the vicinity gave us a chance for fishing, and
there was some shooting, especially of pigeons in the autumn. The oak
forests had not then fallen, and the pigeons were abundant in September
and until there were heavy night frosts, when they would leave for
milder regions. For several years my father baited pigeons, and caught
them in a net. To do this we were in the bough-house by daylight. A
wicked advantage was taken by soaking the grain in anise-seed cordial,
which made the birds noisy and active, thus attracting other pigeons
to the stand. The device of taking pigeons in a net and wringing their
necks is a brutal business, as is all slaughtering of animals.
From 1820 to 1830 religious controversies were violent and universal.
No one of the towns in Massachusetts was free from them. Under the
colonial system each town was a religious corporation as well as a
political one. There was one church and one meetinghouse in each town,
and the parochial expenses were paid from the municipal revenues. In
1780 when the constitution was adopted, some progress had been made,
but by the Third Article of the Bill of Rights, every citizen was
required to be a member of some religious society. As a result, new
societies were formed, and in many instances there were so organized
and managed as to avoid expenses. About the same time attacks were
made upon the Third Article of the Bill of Rights, and after an excited
controversy covering many years, the constitution was changed in that
respect, by an amendment in the nature of a substitute, which was
adopted by the people at an election held in the month of November,
1833. By that amendment each citizen was authorized to file a
certificate of non-membership with the clerk of the society of which he
was a member and thereafter he was free from any contract or obligation
of such society thereafter made.
The little town of Lunenburg participated actively in the contest. My
father advocated the amendment. At the ancient meetinghouse the
ancient doctrines of future punishment were preached and the literal
inspiration of the Bible from Genesis to Revelation was not questioned.
Those who denied the one or doubted the other were denounced as
infidels. Religious topics were the leading subjects of conversation,
and the fruitful source of personal and neighborhood controversies. My
father rejected the doctrine of physical punishment in another state of
existence, and he came to regard the Bible as a record of events, and
the expression of human thought and feeling, rather than as a message
of the Divine will.
Perhaps as early as 1820 the Methodists had organized a church and
secured a place of meeting in the north part of the town on a by-road.
The building was not as good in quality or style as is a modern barn.
My father separated himself from the old society and joined the
Methodist society. In that organization each one paid what he chose.
I recollect attending meetings in the old barn, but the distance was
great and the inconveniences were numerous. The converts could endure
the inconveniences, but as my father was not a convert nor a believer
his interest was slight. Afterwards, however, the Methodists built a
meetinghouse in the village, and for several years we had seats and
attended the services. Once in two or three years the denomination
held camp meetings in the autumn and the work of conversions would go
on rapidly. The scenes were such as are now reported of the negro
race in the states of the South. Young girls would shout, crying out
that they had found Jesus, fall down, and lie senseless, or at least
speechless, for many minutes. After brief periods of excitement many
of the converts returned to their old ways of life, neither better nor
worse.
During these years the Universalists held meetings at Shirley Village,
quite eight miles away. My father attended occasionally, and not
infrequently I went with him. I had therefore the opportunity to hear
the great preachers of the denomination--Russell Streeter, Sebastian
Streeter, brothers; Thomas Whittemore, the editor of the _Trumpet_, the
organ of the sect, Hosea Ballou, Walter Balfour, and others whose names
I do not recall. Balfour was a Scotchman, preaching with an accent,
and rolling his scalp, from his eyes to the nape of his neck. The
sermons had two peculiarities. First the text was examined carefully
and so construed as to show that the author, whether Jesus, Peter, or
Paul, taught the doctrine of universal salvation. Then came a process
of reasoning designed to show that God could not punish his creatures
in a lake of fire and brimstone. First, he was all-powerful; next, he
was all-wise; then he was infinitely just, and finally his mercy was
without limit. Could a being endowed with these attributes consign his
children to unending misery? From the first I saw the defect in the
process of reasoning. The premises were not faulty, but given a being
with infinite faculties, could another being, with finite faculties
only, forecast the result of the exercise or operation of the infinite?
The little town was made notorious by the career of the physician, Dr.
Aaron Bard. He was born in Jaffrey, N. H., about the year 1770. He
obtained his medical education in part at least, at Troy, N. Y., from
which place he fled to avoid arrest upon the charge of robbing graves.
His parents were rigid believers in the old faith, and in that faith
they had trained the son. Against that faith the son rebelled, dropped
the second "a" in his baptismal name, and rejected the Scriptures as
not containing divine truth. As the mass of the people believed
implicitly in the divine origin and plenary inspiration of the Bible, a
disbeliever was denounced as an infidel and punished by social outlawry.
Bard was not a quiet doubter. He attacked the Bible, ridiculed much of
the Old Testament, accepted controversies with the clergy, although he
attended their families without charge. His reputation as a physician
was considerable, and although his enemies, who were many, made
repeated efforts to secure a competitor, the wary declined their
invitations, and the credulous were soon driven away by poverty, or the
fear of it. Bard was a bachelor, lived economically, never presented a
bill, and when he died, about the year 1850, his books were free of
charges. Before the repeal of the Third Article in the Bill of Rights,
Bard organized a society which by some art of logic was so far
recognized as a religious body as to exempt its members from taxation
in the old parish. It flourished until the Third Article was annulled,
when it disappeared. Bard purchased a Hebrew bible, lexicon and
grammar, and proceed to translate parts of the Old Testament,
especially the early chapters in Genesis, and in such manner as to
throw doubt upon the received version. His Sundays were devoted to
talks in his office, where were gathered a few hearers, some because
they agreed with him, and others because they were interested in
hearing what he had to offer.
He was of small size, hardy, ingenious, and free from meanness. He
was economical and his ways of business forbade any extravagance. When
he needed hay or grain for his horses or wood for his fire he called
upon some of the farmers whose physician he was, and obtained a supply.
Beyond this he made no demand for payment, though when it was offered
he accepted it. Until he was about sixty years of age, he rode on
horseback, and always without an overcoat. From my thirteenth to my
seventeenth year I was boy and clerk in a store at a distance of less
than five rods from Bard's office. I saw him constantly. His
denunciations of Christianity were so violent and unreasonable that
many persons would revolt at the thought of accepting his theories. He
had followers, however, and the trial of Abner Kneeland for blasphemy
promoted the spread of infidel opinions. I do not now recollect that
I heard Bard express any opinion as to a future state of existence. In
that particular he was probably an agnostic. When in later years I saw
a plaster cast of the head of Voltaire at the Cambridge Museum of
Comparative Anatomy, I was impressed with the resemblance between
Bard's head and that cast.
His success as a physician was due probably to his ingenuity and keen
powers of observation rather than to his learning. All his faculties
were active, and he appreciated the importance of the laws of progress.
When homeopathy had taken some hold upon public opinion, he said:
"There is nothing in it, but then it has done a great deal of good. It
has taught us not to give so much medicine. We killed a great many
people with medicine, but it is several years now since I killed a
man." This remark was made in 1842 or 1843.
In my boyhood the Rev. David Damon was the minister. He was a graduate
of Harvard College, a man of learning, of good standing in the
profession, and a satisfactory preacher. His temper was mild, and it
was not easy for Bard to engage in bitter contests with him. Mr. Damon
left Lunenburg about 1827, and settled in West Cambridge, where he died
suddenly in the pulpit. Among the constant attendants upon Mr. Damon's
Sunday services at Lunenburg was a blacksmith named Kimball, who was
afflicted with deafness. From his trade perhaps he had come to be
called Puffer Kimball. From a front seat in the meetinghouse he had
ventured upon the pulpit stairs, and finally he had reached the
position of standing on an upper stair, resting his arms upon the desk,
and with his hand to his ear listening to the services from beginning
to end. In the east part of the town was a farmer named James
Gilchrist, a Scotch Irishman, weighing not less than two hundred and
fifty pounds, and the father of four grown sons who where his equals
in weight, and all of them of great strength. Gilchrist abandoned the
Sunday meetings and when Mr. Damon asked him for his reason he said he
wouldn't have his religion strained through old Puffer Kimball.
This same Gilchrist had had a controversy ending in a slander suit with
Mr. Damon's predecessor, the Rev. Timothy Flint. Mr. Flint was a man
of recognized ability, a good preacher, but erratic in his ways. For
some purpose not well understood, he built a furnace in the cellar of
his house. His friends maintained that he was engaged in scientific
experiments, and such was his purpose, no doubt, but his enemies and
the more ignorant of the community assumed that his plan was to coin
money. One day, in a store kept by Mr. Cunningham (the grandfather or
great-grandfather of Gen. James Cunningham,) Gilchrist exhibited a coin
and said: "Here is a dollar that Tim Flint made." Flint returned the
challenge with a suit, which I think was adjusted without a trial, but
the controversy contributed to the dissolution of the settlement.
Flint left the town to which he returned once in my boyhood and
preached a sermon in the new meetinghouse, that had been substituted
for the old one used in the days of Zabdiel Adams, of Timothy Flint,
and David Damon.
After leaving Lunenburg Flint went with his family to the valley of the
Mississippi, and led the life of a wanderer, floating down the river
with his family and making his way back as best he might. In these
expeditions children were born and children died. He wrote two
romances founded on Western primitive life, and a history of the
Mississippi Valley. Time may give to his works a value that they did
not appear to possess when they were published. Flint was recognized
in the town as a man of ability, but he failed to secure the
affections or even the confidence of the people. He was a man of
ready faculty, being able to write his sermons Saturday evening, with
his children around him.
Parson Adams, a cousin of John Adams and the predecessor of Flint, had
lived among his people as a chieftain. He was not only the spiritual
teacher, he was supreme in most other matters. Unlike the Adams family
generally, he had a rough wit and a sententious practical wisdom about
common things not unlike the kindred conspicuous qualities in Dr.
Franklin. If the traditions that existed in my boyhood were
trustworthy, he said and did things that would have ruined an ordinary
minister. Adams gave an earnest support to the Revolution, and one
of his sermons delivered at the opening of the war contained a view of
the coming greatness of the country that was truly prophetic.
Samuel Dexter studied law at Lunenburg. He was there married by the
Rev. Zabdiel Adams to a Miss Gordon, a daughter of an English lady.
The successor of Mr. Damon was the Rev. Joseph Hubbard, and during his
ministry the old society that represented the town of former days came
to an end. The first error was the scheme for erecting a new meeting-
house. The larger part of the village is on the southern side of a
hill, and the first meetinghouse was midway on the slope and facing
south. The site was a triangular piece of land, of more than one
hundred rods in extent, on which were shade trees planted in other
days. If the whole town had been at command not another equally good
site could have been selected. A spirit, called the spirit of
progress, had seized the leaders and it was resolved to build a new
meetinghouse on the top of the hill. The house was built, but in the
meantime the society lost members. Following the dedication of the new
house, there came complaints against Hubbard as a preacher. He made
enemies, and his enemies promoted disturbances. Efforts were made to
dissolve the connection. Hubbard having been settled for life, these
efforts were ineffectual. Finally his salary was withheld and the
house was closed against him. Sunday after Sunday, morning and
afternoon, Hubbard would walk from the parsonage to the meetinghouse,
try the doors and then return home. As long as the doors were open, I
attended the services--the congregation diminishing until the pews were
given up to the boys and those who attended from curiosity. One
morning the seats of the singers were vacant, and Hubbard read the hymn
commencing: "Let those refuse to sing, who never knew their God."
That was the last, or near the last of his Sunday services.
As the controversy went on, the members of the parish withdrew, until
the only one remaining who possessed any property was an uncle of mine,
Timothy Marshall. He lived in the easterly part of the town, and he
was a Universalist in opinion. He owned a small farm and a sawmill on
the Mulpus Brook. His chief delights were reading, discussing
political and religious questions, and gathering information in the
department of the natural sciences. He associated a good deal with Dr.
Bard, but he never accepted Bard's views of the Bible. He had
continued with the old society from indisposition to disturb himself
rather than from sympathy with its teachings, or regard for its
interests. At the conclusion of the active controversy between Hubbard
and the society, the unpaid salary amounted to several hundred dollars.
Hubbard threatened suit, and he may have commenced one. In that
juncture my uncle went over the town and gathered the signatures of
those nominal members who had no property, who had not paid taxes, and
whose eyes had not seen the inside of a meetinghouse. A parish meeting
was called, composed by my uncle and his new adherents. At the end
authority was given for the conveyance to Mr. Hubbard of the site of
the old meetinghouse in full satisfaction of his claim. This spot was
in the center of the village and in the view of the houses of the
principal residents. Not their curiosity merely, but their fears were
excited when they learned that their bitter enemy was to become the
owner of the common in the center of the village. To be sure the
bounds were indefinite, but there was a spot belonging to the parish,
and it included all that was not highway.
My uncle had an understanding with Hubbard that the land was to be
conveyed to Hubbard and the society released from all its liabilities
under the contract. Then the land was to be conveyed to my uncle for
the sum of six hundred dollars. This was done, and my uncle became the
owner of the common. He was not a friend of the citizens of the
village, and various uncomfortable surmises were set afloat. But my
uncle had but little malice in his nature, and moreover he was too
inert to indulge in the luxury of avenging any wrong either real or
imaginary. The common was left to the use of stray cattle, the
children of the neighborhood and of the school. After a time the
school district decided to rebuild the school-house. The old site was
small, indeed, only sufficient for the building. The citizens
divided, but the advocates of the old site prevailed, and a brick
building was erected. Still the contest went on, and after a year or
two the majority of the district voted to erect a new house, and the
upper part of the common was selected for the site where a second
house, of wood, was built. Whether any title to the land was obtained
from my uncle, I know not. The new house was used for a time, when it
was sold, moved, and converted into a dwelling.
When my uncle died at the age of about eighty-five years, the common
was unoccupied, and it had the appearance that property takes on when
the owner is intemperate or absent, or when the heirs cannot agree to
a division. The settlement of my uncle's estate was put into the hands
of Mr. Ephraim Graham, whose brother had married my uncle's eldest
daughter. My uncle's children were scattered, and apparently they
inherited their father's indifference to property. Graham was unable
to finish any business, and after ten or more years he died, leaving
the estate unsettled. Finally, the ladies of the village took
possession of the common, removed the rubbish, leveled the ground, and
made the spot an agreeable feature of the town.
Of the teachers of the village school there are several that I remember
with gratitude, and I cannot but think that some of them were very good
teachers. My first teacher was Martha Putnam, afterwards Mrs.
Nathaniel F. Cunningham. Of her as a teacher I can recall nothing.
Her father, Major Daniel Putnam, was the principal trader in the
village. For the time and place his accumulations were very large.
Nancy Stearns, afterwards Mrs. Benjamin Snow, was the teacher of the
summer school for many years. But beyond comparison Cyrus Kilburn was
the best teacher of the town, and a person who would have ranked high
among teachers at any period in the history of the State. He was not a
learned man in a large sense, but his habit was to investigate the
subjects within his scope, with great thoroughness. Grammar was his
favorite study, and he devised a system of analysis in parsing quite in
advance of the time. He had the faculty of putting questions and of
changing them to meet the capacities of the pupils. He compelled
thinking. I attended the winter school about ten terms, and of these
not less than six terms were taught by Mr. Kilburn.
In later years we had Colburn's Sequel as the arithmetic. From this I
passed to algebra and geometry, and during the last two terms I
studied Latin Grammar. My school-going days ended in February, 1835,
a month after my seventeenth birthday.
[* During the session of the Legislature of 1843 or 1844, I walked with
my father on the ice from Boston to Fort Warren, a distance of about
three miles. The authorities were then engaged in cutting a channel
for the departure of a Cunard steamer.]
II
LIFE AS A STORE-BOY AND CLERK
In the month of December, 1830, when I was about one month less than
thirteen years of age, Mr. Simeon Heywood, the postmaster at Lunenburg
and the owner of a small store, proposed to my father that I should go
into his service to remain four years. An arrangement was made by
which I was to receive my board and clothes, and the privilege of
attending school during the winter months. I commenced my service the
26th of December, 1830, and I remained until December 1, 1834.
My life with Mr. Heywood was a peculiar one. The business of the store
was largely in the sale of goods for hats made of palm leaf. The
business was comparatively new at the time. For many previous years
the women had been employed in braiding straw and making hats and
bonnets for market. Gradually, work in palm leaf had taken the place
of work in straw. The neighbor of Heywood, Major Daniel Putnam, was
doing a large business in hats. The preparation of the palm leaves was
not an easy business. The leaves were stripped on the folds by the
hand, then bleached with sulphur in large boxes. The leaves were then
split so as to produce straws from one twentieth to one eighth of an
inch in width. The first process of stripping the leaves on the folds
was paid for at the rate of ten cents per one hundred leaves. I
devoted my leisure to the work, and thus earned a small sum of money.
Heywood was a shoemaker by trade, and an end of the store was used as
a shop. There one man and sometimes two men were employed. From much
seeing I was able to make a pair of shoes for myself--rather for the
amusement of the thing than from any advantage. While at Heywood's
store, probably about 1834, I had a disagreeable experience, the
recollection of which has often returned. A blacksmith, named Choate,
died, and with another boy, whose name I do not recall, I was
summoned to watch the body during a night. We occupied an adjoining
room, and once an hour we were required to bathe the face of the corpse
in spirits of camphor. To this day I have never been able to
understand why two half-grown boys were put to such service.
Heywood was more of an inventor than a trader, and becoming interested
in the manufacture of nail kegs he made an invention in connection with
Dr. Bard for sawing staves concave on one side and convex on the other.
In the year 1834 they obtained a patent for the invention. As a
consequence the business of the store was neglected. The invention did
not yield a large return in money, as it was soon superseded by other
devices. The saw, a hoop-saw, was set up in a mill two miles away, and
from time to time I tended the saw, and thus I began a training in
mechanics which has been useful to me in my profession as a patent
lawyer. Heywood also invented a wheel for bringing staves to a bevel
and taper, for the construction of barrels systematically. Mr. Heywood
remained in town eight or ten years, when he moved to Claremont, N. H.,
where he died at the age of eighty years or more. He was thoroughly
upright, but he had too many schemes for a successful business man.
During my term with Mr. Heywood, I had charge of the post-office,
keeping the accounts, which were then cumbrous, and I made the returns
once in three months.
During a part of the time a stagecoach ran from Lowell, through
Tyngsboro, Pepperell, Townsend Harbor, Lunenburg and Fitchburg, and
thence westward through Petersham and Belchertown to Springfield. The
distance was about one hundred miles, and I was compelled to be ready
to open the mail three mornings each week, at about two o'clock. The
driver would sound his horn when he was eighty or one hundred rods
away, and it was my duty to be ready to take the mail when the coach
arrived at the door.
It was when so summoned that it was my fortune to see the shower of
falling stars in November, 1833. From the time I arose until after
daylight there was no part of the heavens that was not illuminated--not
with one meteor merely--but with many hundreds. Many of them left a
long train, extending through twenty, thirty, or even forty degrees. I
called at Bard's window and told him that the stars were falling, but
he refused to get up, thinking it a joke. The butcher of the town,
Abijah Whitney, came out to commence preparations for his morning
rounds, but conceiving that the day of judgment had come, he returned
into the house and gave up business for the day. In the year 1901, I
know of one other person only, Mrs. Mary A. Livermore, who witnessed
that exhibition, and it has not been repeated.
During my term with Mr. Heywood, and for many previous years, and for a
short period afterwards, the business of printing standard books,
Bibles, spelling-books and dictionaries had been carried on at
Lunenburg by Col. Edmund Cushing. The books were bound, and then sent
by teams to Boston. The printing was on hand-presses, and upon
stereotype plates. Deacon William Harrington carried on a small
business as a bookbinder, and Messrs. William Greenough & Sons erected
a building on the farm now owned by Mr. Brown on the Lancaster road,
and introduced the business of stereotyping--business then new, I
think. These various industries gave employment of a large number of
workmen, mostly young men. The establishment of Colonel Cushing was
near the store of Heywood, and it was at the bindery that I first saw
Alvah Crocker, afterwards known in the politics of the State, and as
the projector of the Fitchburg railroad. He was a maker of paper at
Fitchburg, and he came with a one-horse wagon to Cushing's place and
carried away the paper shavings produced in the bindery. Crocker was
a lean and awkward man, remarkable for his voice, which could be heard
over the larger part of the village. When in after years we were
associated in the Massachusetts House of Representatives, and boarded
at the same hotel, the Hanover House, I was compelled to hear the same
voice in constant advocacy of the Fitchburg railroad project.
Colonel Cushing was one of the foremost men in town, but his
aristocratic ways made him unpopular, and therefore he failed to secure
official recognition. He was the father of Luther S. Cushing, for many
years clerk of the Massachusetts House of Representatives, then
reporter of the decisions of the Supreme Court, afterwards a judge upon
the bench of the Court of Common Pleas, and then the author of
Cushing's Manual. Another of his sons, Edmund Cushing, Jr., was a
member of the Supreme Court of the State of New Hampshire. Of his two
other sons, one was a clergyman, and one a civil engineer. The sons
were all my seniors, and my acquaintance with them was limited, but
when I became a member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives,
in January, 1842, Luther S. Cushing, then the clerk, came to me, and
after some words of congratulation, gave me this advice: "Never
champion any private scheme, unless the parties are your constituents."
Good advice, which I followed in all my legislative experience.
During the four winters of my term with Mr. Heywood, I attended the
school, studying the usual branches with something of algebra,
geometry, and Latin grammar. It was during these years that the
teacher, Mr. Kilburn, created such an interest in his plans that he
obtained a contribution of twenty-four dollars with which he
purchased a twelve-inch celestial and a twelve-inch terrestrial globe.
Several pleasant evenings were devoted to a study of the heavens with
the aid of the celestial globe. I attended usually, and thus I gained
a partial knowledge of the constellations, and an acquaintance with
some of the stars by name and location. The post-office gave me
access to several publications of the day, and in one or two instances
I obtained a few subscribers to journals, and thus secured a free copy
for myself. _The Penny Magazine_ I obtained in that way for two years.
In the cholera seasons of 1832-3 and 1834, the people were so alarmed
that they hesitated to take letters and papers from the post-office.
For a time gum-camphor was thought to be a preventive against the
contagion.
Between 1830 and 1834 the ambition of the town was stimulated by the
building of a new road from Fitchburg to Shirley. It was claimed that
a shorter and more nearly level route to Boston from Fitchburg and the
country above was thus secured. For a time the travel was
considerable, but the teamsters preferred the old roads, the old
taverns, and the old acquaintances. The construction of the Fitchburg
railroad in 1844 ended the business from the country to Boston over the
old highways.
In the month of November, 1834, I had a call from Mr. Joseph Hazen, of
Shirley, who asked me to accept the post of teacher in the school at
Pound Hill, half-way between Shirley Village and Shirley Centre. The
pay was sixteen dollars per month in addition to board. After making
an arrangement with Mr. Heywood, by which I was to pay him eight
dollars for the twenty-six days in December, I accepted the invitation,
and after an examination conducted by the Rev. Seth Chandler and the
Rev. Hope Brown, I entered the school the first Monday of the month of
December.
In the preceding June I had received my freedom suit of clothes--blue
coat, bright buttons, black trousers, and buff vest. They were made by
Daniel Cross, of Fitchburg, and, when in 1884, I visited that town, and
found him still engaged in the business, I ordered a dress suit from
his hand.
III
CHANGES AND PROGRESS
As I pass in this record from my childhood and early youth to the
responsibilities of life, I am led to some reflections upon the changes
in opinions and the changes in the condition of the people in the more
than half-century from 1835 to 1899. At the first period there was not
a clergyman of any of the Protestant denominations who questioned the
plenary and verbal inspiration of the Scriptures, including the Old and
New Testaments. The suggestion could not have safely been made in any
New England pulpit that there were errors of translation, and yet the
Christian world, outside the Catholic Church, now accepts a revision
that changes the meaning of some passages and excludes others as
interpolations. The account given in the first chapter of Genesis of
the creation of the world and of man was accepted according to the
meaning of the language used. At the present moment there is not a
well-educated clergyman of any denomination who would not either treat
the account as a legend, or else explain the days as periods of
indefinite duration.
The claim of the verbal and plenary inspiration of the Old Testament is
denied by many and doubted by others, and the volume is seen and
treated by them as a compilation of works or books in which are
recorded the thoughts and doings of men and tribes and nations that
existed at different periods and flourished or suffered as is the
fortune of mankind.
The early chapters of Genesis were then a faithful history; they are
now a legend. The Book of Job was then an inspiration; it is now a
poem. The reported interviews between Abraham and Jehovah were then
thought to have been real; now they are treated as the visions of an
excited brain. The ten commandments were then believed to have been
delivered to Moses by the Supreme Being; now they are regarded as the
work of a wise law-giver. Kings and Chronicles are now authentic
histories written by honest men; then those records of events were
attributed to the Supreme Ruler of the world.
The domain of prayer has been limited. Prayers for rain, for health,
for mild winters and fruitful summers, were then made in all the
churches. Now, with many exceptions no doubt, health is sought in
obedience to the laws of our being, and the seasons find their quality
in the operation of laws whose sources are in material organizations
that cannot yield to human impulses.
The sources of knowledge have been multiplied almost indefinitely. In
1835 the daily newspaper was not often seen in country towns, and the
circulation of the weekly paper was limited to a very small portion of
the families. The postage was an important item. Relatively, the cost
of papers was enormous. The mails were infrequent, and the people
generally had not the means of paying the combined expenses. Many,
perhaps most, of the papers, were sent upon credit, and it was not
unusual to find subscribers several years in arrears. Many of the
papers contained this notice: "No paper discontinued until all
arrearages are paid," as though sending a paper to a subscriber in
debt, would compel him to make payment. New books were rare. The
farmers and laborers had no slight difficulty in meeting the demands
for schoolbooks, and these and the Bible were the total stock in a
majority of houses.
The means of domestic comfort were limited to a degree not now easily
comprehended. The brick oven and the open fire were the only means of
cooking, and the open fire was the only means of warming the houses.
Soon after 1835, and even before that year possibly, cylinder stoves
were introduced into shops and stores. Stoves of other varieties soon
followed. Upholstered furniture and carpets were not found in the
houses of well-to-do farmers even.
The construction of railways and the invention of the telegraphic
system of communication have revolutionized business and changed the
habits of the people, but only the beginnings of their power are yet
seen. They have made it possible for great free governments to exist
permanently. Except for differences of languages all Europe might
become one state, if indeed, first, the individual states could over-
throw all dynastic institutions in families, and all forms of hierarchy
in the churches. These changes to be followed by the abolition of all
forms of mortmain, by the free sale of land, by the distribution of the
estates of deceased persons by operation of law, by compulsory
education with moral training, and the exclusion of all dogmatic
teaching touching the origin or destiny of man. This freedom and the
aggregation of small states in vast governments, by the consent of all
parties, would be security for the peace of the world. With general
peace would come the abolition of great armies, freedom from public
debts, and numerous freeholders. These are the conditions of domestic
and social comfort, the chief and worthiest objects of the State
organization.
In 1830 the movement against the use of intoxicating liquors began--or
rather it was about that year that the movement was strong enough to
lead a small number of country merchants to abandon the trade. When I
went into Mr. Heywood's store, he had one hogshead of New England rum.
That was sold, and there the business ended. As a general rule, the
farmers used rum daily during the summer season, and drank freely of
cider during the winter. On my father's farm, rum toddy was drunk
three times a day during the haying season, which lasted from the 4th
of July to the 1st of August, or a little later. There was no general
use of liquors at any other season.
At old election*--the last Wednesday in May--at Thanksgiving, the 4th
of July, and when my grandfather visited us--which seems now not to
have been more than three or four times a year--a pitcher of West
India rum toddy was made, seasoned with nutmeg and toasted crackers.
The poverty of farmers with respect of tools, made it almost impossible
for farmers to prosper, except by cattle-raising and the cultivation of
small grains. Farming is now an art, and the slavery of farm labor has
in a degree disappeared. Formerly the business of farming was limited
by the home product of manure, but the manufacture of phosphates has
enabled the farmer to enlarge his operations in every direction that
promises a return.
The railway system had driven the eastern farmer from the cultivation
of wheat and corn, as it is not possible for him to compete with the
new and fertile lands of the West. In these sixty years the wheat
fields have moved from the East to the West. From 1820 to 1840 the
valleys of the Mohawk and the Genesee furnished the finer flour for the
cities of New York and New England. Pennsylvania, Maryland and
Virginia supplied Baltimore and Philadelphia. Then Ohio became the
chief source of supply. More recently the wheat region is the upper
valley of the Mississippi, and the State of California. The time is
not far distant when a return movement will begin. Domestic markets in
the vicinity of the great wheat fields will create a demand for other
products. With the exhaustion of the soil will come the necessity for
the use of artificial manures. Thus will be established a permanent
condition of comparative equality between the East and the West.
Already the process has commenced in the culture of Indian corn. For a
time the farmers of New England were unable to raise corn, even for
farm use, in competition with the West. The fodder of the corn has now
become valuable to farmers who produce milk for market, and already
they are finding it profitable to raise corn, even when the price at
the door does not exceed fifty cents per bushel. Coincident with these
changes the States of the East have increased in population, and the
proportion who live in cities is increasing at a greater ratio even.
The railway system and the system of protection to American industry
have been the chief instruments in the augmentation of population
generally, and of the gains to cities. These changes have inured to
the benefit of the Eastern farmers.
[* Old election in Massachusetts was the last Wednesday in May, when,
under the Constitution of 1780, the governor was inaugurated.]
IV
SCHOOLS AND SCHOOL-KEEPING
Of my pupils at Pound Hill an unusually large proportion were advanced
in years.* Several of the boys were my seniors, and in size they had
quite an advantage over me, although my weight was then about 165
pounds. That class gave me very little trouble. The unruly boys were
those between ten and fifteen years of age. With a few exceptions the
leading people of the town were well-to-do farmers, and nearly every
week brought an invitation to a party at the house of some one of them.
An attendance of more than fifty persons was not an uncommon occurrence.
The term of the school was limited by the money, and either from the
extra cost of firewood, or some other unusual expense, the school was
brought to a close two or three days sooner than was expected. My
father was to come for me on a day named, but when my school was over,
and I was free, I concluded to walk home, a distance of about six
miles, and return for my clothes when convenient.
Just at that time there had been a heavy, warm rain, and a melting of
snow, which had raised the streams. When I reached the bridge at the
brook on the west side of Flat Hill, the water was over the road to the
depth of twelve inches or more. I concluded to wade across, which I
did. My mother was frightened, but I escaped without any serious ill
effect. My school-keeping days were over. My old teacher, Mr. Cyrus
Kilburn, had charge of the village school and I took my seat among the
pupils. I remained in the school about two weeks, and then my school-
days were over. Altogether I had the training of six or seven summer
terms in schools kept by women, supplemented two or three times by a
private school of a few weeks by the same teacher, and ten or eleven
winter terms. In reading, spelling and grammar I had had a good
training. To those branches Mr. Kilburn devoted himself, and I recall
his teaching of grammar with great satisfaction. He had no knowledge
of object-teaching as applied to grammar, but he was skillful in
analysis, and his training was methodical and exact. In fine, he was
so much devoted to the work of teaching, that the discipline of the
school was neglected. Of this there had been complaints for years. At
that time I had a good command of arithmetic, I knew something of
algebra, and geometry seemed easy from the start. In composition, so-
called, I had had no experience. Once only during my school life was
an attempt made by a teacher to introduce the exercise of writing, and
that attempt I avoided. In Latin I had not gone beyond the study of
the grammar, and the training that I had received was from persons
poorly qualified to give instruction.
Once or twice the teacher had been a college undergraduate, and
Kilburn's knowledge of the language was measured by his acquisitions
at the Groton Academy. Of knowledge wholly useless to me I had learned
to read the Hebrew alphabet from Dr. Bard's elementary Hebrew book.
The reading-books, especially Scott's Lessons, contained extracts from
good writers and speakers, with selections from the best of English
poets, and these extracts and selections, I had read and had heard read
so often that I could repeat many of them at full length. Worcester's
Geography, and Whelpley's Compend of History were among the books used
in the schools.
[* The Pound Hill schoolhouse has been sold to the owner of the Captain
Parker place and converted into a shop and tool-house. A photograph
has been taken of the venerable relic.]
V
GROTON IN 1835
In the month of February, 1835, I read an advertisement in the Lowell
_Journal_, asking for a clerk in a store, application to be made at
the office. I at once wrote to Joseph S. Hubbard,* a former
schoolmate, asking him to call at the office and get the name of the
advertiser. This he did, and gave me the name of Benj. P. Dix of
Groton. I wrote to Mr. Dix, and upon the receipt of an answer, I went
with my father to see him. The result was an agreement to work for him
for three years. Terms, board and one hundred dollars for the first
year, one hundred and twelve dollars for the second year, one hundred
and twenty-five dollars for the third year. I commenced my clerkship
with Mr. Dix the fifth day of March, and in the month of September my
contract was ended by his failure. His business was small, his manners
were abrupt, his capital had been limited, and his family expenses, not
extravagant, had exceeded his income, and bankruptcy in the end was
inevitable. His sales were chiefly of boots, shoes, leather, and
medicines, of which he kept the only stock in the village.
Mr. Dix was a man of exact ways of life. The sales made were entered
each day at the close of business, the cash was carefully counted, and
the cash-book was balanced. But these careful and businesslike ways
did not save him, and in September he made an assignment of his
property to his father Benj. Dix, and to Caleb Butler, for the benefit
of his creditors according to the preferences specified in the
assignment. Mr. Butler was not a creditor, but Mr. Dix, senior, was
much the largest creditor. In fact he had furnished his son with the
chief part of the means of doing business. He was a tanner by trade,
and he had gradually enlarged his business by employing workmen to make
boots and shoes. A portion of his product of leather and all his
product of boots and shoes had been turned into the son's store.
The deficiency of means on the part of the son was represented at each
settlement by an addition to the debt due to the father. The debts
amounted to about five thousand dollars. Following the assignment Mr.
Dix left home, and he did not return until the spring or summer of
1836. Imprisonment for debt in a modified form then existed. He and
his family were proud, and he may have wished to avoid seeing his
neighbors and acquaintances while his misfortune was fresh upon him.
His wife was a granddaughter of General Ward, who had been the rival of
General Washington for the command of the army at the opening of the
War of the Revolution. Mrs. Dix was proud, very properly, of her
paternity, and of her grandfather's association with General
Washington, and neither from her, nor from either of two brothers whom
I subsequently met, did I ever hear a word of criticism upon the wisdom
of the selection of General Washington. Mrs. Dix had inherited many
letters written by General Washington to her grandfather, and they were
all written in a tone of sincere friendship.