Plymouth memories of an octogenarian

by William T. Davis

CHAPTER XXIX.

James Thacher Hodge, another distinguished son of Plymouth, was associated with North street, where he had his home for some years with his mother and his grandfather, Dr. James Thacher. His father, Michael Hodge of Newburyport, a graduate of Harvard in the class of 1799, married in 1814 Betsey Hayward, widow of Daniel Robert Elliott of Savannah, Georgia, and daughter of James and Susannah (Hayward) Thacher of Plymouth, and James Thacher Hodge, his only son, was born in Plymouth in 1816. Mr. Hodge graduated at Harvard in 1836, and at once applied himself to the study of chemistry, mineralogy and geology, a field of science in which he was destined to become distinguished. Among his early labors were those performed with Dr. Chas. T. Jackson, also a native of Plymouth, on the geological survey of Maine, and with Professor Henry D. Rogers on the geological survey of Pennsylvania. He was afterwards engaged in testing and utilizing the mineral wealth of Lake Superior lands, and the explorations and reports made by him largely aided in developing the mining interests of the northwest.

In later times, as one after another, new state and territory extended our limits in the west, he was among the first to discover beneath their surface the rich tribute they were ready to pay as they entered the gates of the union. I believe that science will find no step treading its paths more vigorous than his, and no keener eye exploring its mysteries. After a season’s work on the southern shore of Lake Superior he left Marquette in the steamer Colburn on the 12th of October, 1871, and on her passage to Detroit the steamer foundered in a gale and he with others was lost. He inherited from his grandfather the firmness of nerve which had distinguished, him in his surgical practice, and from his father, a fearlessness amounting at times to rashness. Mr. Hodge in preparing his reports was a careful writer, preferring a criticism for undue caution to a final discovery of extravagant statements leading unwary investors to failure and misfortune. Within the field of his literary efforts must be included some hundreds of articles on scientific subjects contributed to the American Cyclopædia.

Mr. Hodge married in 1846 Mary Spooner, daughter of John Russell of Plymouth, and had Elizabeth Thacher, who married George Gibbs of Riverside, Kentucky; John Russell, 1847, who married Harriet, daughter of Seth Evans of Cincinnati; James Michael, 1850, and Mary, 1854.

I cannot leave North street without a word in memory of the house in which I was born, March 3, 1822, now occupied as an Inn, known as the Plymouth Rock House. After my father’s death in 1824, my mother continued to occupy the house until 1845, when she moved to the house now occupied by the Misses Russell, near the head of the street. The succeeding occupants in their order were Rev. Henry Edes, who kept a young ladies’ boarding school; Mrs. Sarah Jenkins, Simon R. Burgess and Charles H. Snell. As long as it was occupied by our family it had a stable at the westerly end of the garden on Carver street, and a chaise house opening on Cole’s Hill, which long since gave way to an enlargement of the dwelling house.

There have been so many alterations and enlargements in the house since my mother left it in 1845, that there is little left as it was in my boyhood. The middle kitchen, as it was called, with its dresser containing articles in pewter, such as hot water plates, candle moulds, syphons, etc., and its sink with a pewter ewer and bowl where I washed my hands when coming from play, and the long buttery leading out of it where the flour and sugar barrels and common china and the last batch of pies were kept, is now an indistinguishable feature of the house. The large kitchen, too, with its box seat, the meal chest with compartments for Indian meal, white meal and rye meal, the coffee grinder on the wall, the mantel with its row of two wicked brass lamps always clean and bright, the fireplace with its high andirons, and a four foot stick for a forestick, a crane with pothooks and a tin kitchen before the fire, has gone with the rest. Only one room remains as it was of old, the northeast corner parlor, a room that is historic, for there the first grate in Plymouth was set in 1832 for burning anthracite coal for domestic use.

Dr. Thacher and my mother each had a grate set at the same time, but as his house was not yet finished the fire was kindled in ours first with coal bought by Capt. George Simmons in Boston, and brought to Plymouth in the packet sloop Splendid. Outside of the house the old garden is gone with its lilac tree announcing by its bloom the advancing step of summer.

How well I remember that old lilac tree,

Which stood in the garden near our back entry door;

No lily nor rose seemed ever to me

As sweet as the blossoms that lilac tree bore.

How gladly it welcomed the warm airs of spring,

As out of the west they swept down the vale;

How responsive it seemed, how eager to fling

Its banners of purple to the ravishing gale.

Like the honey bee sipping the sweets of a flower,

How oft and how richly my sense was regaled,

While sitting beneath my ivy clad bower

I drank in the perfume its blossoms exhaled.

The garden is gone, and the old lilac tree

Stands no longer by the back entry door;

But its fragrance remains, reminder to me

Of a home once beloved—but now no more.

What changes time has wrought in the scenes of my youth. One feature of these scenes is left to remind me of my Cole’s Hill home, which years have failed to erase. In my earliest youth nearly four score years ago a bed of bouncing betts bloomed on the grassy bank opposite our home, and it is blooming still as if contesting with me a race for the longest life. I visit it every year to make sure that it has not given up the contest, and when I stand by it it seems to say, “Ah, old fellow, I will beat you yet.” I hope you will, dear friend of my youth, and bloom on for generations to come, reminding others as you do me of my childhood days.

I have spoken of N. Russell & Co., and Jeremiah Farris and Bourne Spooner as connected with manufacturing interests in Plymouth. There are two others among those who have passed away, whom I ought to notice, Oliver Edes and Nathaniel Wood. Mr. Edes was the son of Oliver and Lucy (Lewis) Edes, and was born in East Needham, November 10, 1815. At the age of sixteen he began to learn the trade of nail making at works on the Boston mill dam owned by Horace Gray. He afterwards ran a tack machine in the works of Apollos Randall & Co., in South Braintree, and at the age of twenty-two invented a machine for cutting rivets from drawn wire. Before that time rivets had been made by hand, and it was difficult to make the trade believe that any but handmade rivets would meet the wants of mechanics. In 1840 he entered into a partnership with Andrew Holmes under the firm name of Holmes, Edes & Co., with a factory at North Marshfield. At the end of three years the firm was dissolved and a new one formed between Mr. Edes and Jeremiah Farris, under the firm name of Edes & Co. At the expiration of a year, in 1844, the firm moved their business to Plymouth. In 1850 Mr. Edes, having disposed of his interest, formed with Nathaniel Wood the firm of Edes & Wood, and began the manufacture of zinc shoe nails and tacks, and soon after the rolling of zinc plates at Chiltonville. In 1859 he bought out Mr. Wood, and in 1880, with his son Edwin L. Edes, the partnership of Oliver Edes and son was formed. In 1883, a partnership was formed consisting of Oliver Edes, Jason W. Mixter, Edwin L. Edes and T. E. Heald of Knoxville for the development of zinc mines in Virginia and Tennessee, and for the manufacture of zinc metal. He married October 7, 1836, Susan, daughter of Ebenezer and Lydia (Curtis) Davie, and had William Wallace, 1847, who married Ellen M., daughter of Calvin H. Eaton, Lydia Curtis 1851, who married Jason W. Mixter, and Edwin L., 1853., who married Mary E., daughter of Edgar C. Raymond. Mr. Edes died February 21, 1884.

Nathaniel Wood of Dedham married Rhoda Colburn, and came to Plymouth in the early part of the last century, and had six children, after 1810, among whom was Nathaniel, who was born November 25, 1814. The son, Nathaniel, learned the nail cutter’s trade at the works on the Mill dam in Boston, owned by Horace Gray, father of the late Horace Gray, associate justice of the United States Supreme Court. He worked for some years in the nail factory of N. Russell & Co., and for a time on his own account in cutting zinc nails and tacks, and in 1850 formed a partnership with Oliver Edes, under the firm name of Edes & Wood, in a factory which stood on Forge pond brook in Chiltonville, where the business was carried on of making zinc shoe nails and tacks and rolling zinc plates. In 1859 he sold out his interest to Mr. Edes, and with Charles O. Churchill, under the firm name of N. Wood & Co., continued the business in a factory farther down the stream on the road leading from the Sandwich road to the old Manomet road at what was called the Double Brook dam. At a later time he ran a small factory on Little Brook. He married in 1837 Angeline, daughter of Lewis and Betsey (Weston) Finney, and had Warren Colburn, 1840, and Florence A., 1847. He married second, 1854, Betsey R., daughter of Charles and Abigail (Russell) Churchill, and had Nathaniel Russell, 1856, and died April 26, 1888.

Allen Crocker Spooner, whom I knew intimately, was a brilliant man, who was cut off by death at the threshold of an especially promising career. He was the son of Capt. Nathaniel and Lucy (Willard) Spooner, and was born March 9, 1814, in the house on the southerly side of High street, next west of the house on the corner of Spring street. He graduated at Harvard in 1835, and was admitted to the Suffolk bar, September 3, 1839. He belonged to a coterie of scholarly and jovial men, who met at the eating house of General Bates once a week, and over their bitter ale were legitimate successors of the Fleet street club of Johnson and Garrick and Goldsmith. The members of this coterie were Fay Barrett of Concord, James Russell Lowell of Cambridge, George W. Minns, Nathan Hale, Allen Crocker Spooner and John C. King of Boston and Benjamin Drew of Plymouth. All of these were Harvard men except King, who was a sculptor, and Benjamin Drew, a journalist, connected with the Boston Post. Their jokes on each other, though sometimes rough, were always taken in good part. One evening Minns and Spooner were walking into town from Cambridge and feeling a little dry in the throat, Spooner said: “Minns, have you got any money about your clothes, for I spent my last cent in paying toll?” “I’ve got just twelve and a half cents,” said Minns, a sum which was the silver nine pence of that period. Peter B. Brigham kept a drinking saloon in the old concert hall building on the corner of Hanover and Court streets, and his drinks were of two prices, those like Deacon Grant and Dr. Pierpont, named after distinguished temperance men, were nine pence, and all other common drinks were six and a quarter cents or four pence half penny. They marched into Brigham’s as if they were rolling in riches, and as they came to the counter, Minns said, “Spooner what are you going to have.” Spooner answered, “I think I will have a Deacon Grant, what are you going to have?” “Well, I don’t feel very dry, I guess I won’t take anything.” Mr. Spooner was sought as a guest on many public occasions, where he was sure to entertain his audience by either a graceful speech, a bit of humor, or an appropriate poem. I remember that on one occasion he was invited to join the Boston underwriters in their annual excursion down Boston harbor. A little while before, Capt. Jas. Murdock, commanding the packet ship Ocean Monarch, had run his ship ashore at Cohasset or Scituate in a fog, though fortunate enough to get her off. At the lunch of the party on board the excursion steamer, Mr. Spooner assumed the position of toastmaster, and calling up the guests one after another, answered the toasts himself, adopting the personality of each. Among others he toasted Capt. Murdock, who was present, and kept the company in a roar by claiming a discovery in the science of navigation by which he had found that the use of the lead was an obsolete practice, only persisted in by those who had not yet learned that ships were constructed to navigate the ocean and not the land. Capt. Murdock, I believe, was a cabin window Captain, a fine looking man, jolly good fellow, popular with his passengers, but not a sailor in the truest sense of the word. Afterwards in coming down the English channel, his ship was destroyed by fire off Holy head, and a passenger whom I knew by the name of Southworth, told me that Murdock was the first of the ship’s company to reach Liverpool with news of the disaster.

About the year 1845 Mr. Spooner went to England, a passenger in the packet ship Devonshire, Capt. Luce, the same Captain Luce who commanded the Collin’s steamship Arctic, which was run into by the Brig Vesta, near Cape Race, Sept. 24, 1854, and sunk with the loss of three hundred and fifty lives. Capt. Luce, whom I afterwards met, told me that when the ship went down he stood on the paddle box holding his little boy by the hand and that he thought he would never stop going down. He had no sooner reached the surface, still holding his little boy by the hand, than a spar loosened from the wreck, came up with great force, and striking his son, killed him instantly. He succeeded in reaching a fragment of the wreck, and was picked up by one of the brig’s boats.

On his return home, Mr. Spooner told the Boston Old Colony Club, of which I was a member, that in running into the harbor of old Plymouth as he lay on deck basking in the sun, he saw a vessel coming out, which he pictured in his mind as the Mayflower starting on her voyage to the new world. His surprise was great when, as the vessel passed, he read on her stern the name of the Pilgrim ship the Mayflower. My wonder at the time whether his eyesight was not blurred by an exuberant imagination was modified at a later time by an incident within my own experience. On the 19th of August, 1895, in crossing the English channel from Queensboro to Flushing in Holland, I saw coming from a northern port a small steamer crossing our course diagonally, almost exactly the course which the Speedwell steered in August, 1620, in running from Delfthaven to Southampton, where she joined the Mayflower. As she passed our stern I was a little startled as I read the name Speedwell on her bow. I was talking at the time with two passengers, and calling their attention to the name of the vessel, I told them the Pilgrim story. Lest I might be suspected like my friend Spooner of an exuberant imagination, I examined the British marine register, after my return home, and found one of the three Speedwells whose size agreed with the vessel I saw. She belonged in Ipswich, and I wrote to the owner asking him to advise me of the whereabouts of his steamer on the 19th of August, 1895. Unable to find in Boston a Victoria stamp, I was obliged to send my letter without a return stamp enclosed, and I attribute to that circumstance my failure to receive a reply. The incident was especially interesting, as I had just visited Scrooby for the purpose of placing a bronze tablet on the site of Scrooby Manor, in which the Pilgrim church was formed, and was on my way to Leyden, the Pilgrims’ home in Holland.

I shall at this point in my narrative devote some space to notices of such Plymoutheans as have distinguished themselves in other localities without regard to the houses with which by birth or otherwise they may have been associated. To these will be added notices of a few who were residents of Plymouth, but who have been in preceding chapters only incidentally alluded to.

William G. Russell was the son of Thomas and Mary Ann (Goodwin) Russell, and was born in Plymouth, November 18, 1821. After attending the public schools he was fitted for college by Hon. John A. Shaw of Bridgewater, and graduated at Harvard in 1840. After teaching in a private school in Plymouth a short time, and in the Dracut Academy a year, he studied law in the office of his brother-in-law, Wm. Whiting, and at the Harvard Law School, receiving from the latter the degree of LL. B. in 1845, and being admitted to the Suffolk bar July 25, 1848. He was at once associated with Mr. Whiting as a partner, and while the latter was holding the position of solicitor of the War Department from 1862 to 1865, the business of the firm devolved on him. After the death of Mr. Whiting in 1873, George Putnam joined him as a partner, and at a later period, Jabez Fox was added to the firm. After the death of Sydney Bartlett he was universally recognized as the leader of the Suffolk bar, and was offered a seat on the bench of the Supreme Judicial Court, both as associate and chief justice. He was a member of the Massachusetts Historical Society, and at various times held the positions of President of the Union Club, the social library association, and the Suffolk bar association; vice president of the Pilgrim Society, director of the Mount Vernon National Bank, and the Massachusetts Hospital Life Insurance Co., and Harvard overseer from 1869 to 1881, and from 1882 to 1894. He married October 6, 1847, Mary Ellen, daughter of Thomas and Lydia Coffin Hedge of Plymouth, and died in Boston, February 6, 1896.

Thomas Russell, brother of the above, was born in Plymouth, September 26, 1825, and graduated at Harvard in 1845. He studied law with Whiting & Russell in Boston, and was admitted to the Suffolk bar November 12, 1849. He was appointed Justice of the Police Court of Boston, February 26, 1852, and in 1859 on the establishment of the Superior Court was appointed one of its associate justices. While he was on the bench a number of cases of garrotting and robbery occurred on Boston Commons, which for a time made the Common dangerous to cross in the evening. The first person charged with the offence was tried before Judge Russell, and convicted, and the severe sentence imposed by him put an end to the commission of the crime. In 1867 he resigned his seat on the Superior bench, and on the accession of General Grant to the Presidency, was appointed collector of the port of Boston. During General Grant’s second term he resigned the collectorship, and was appointed minister to the Republic of Venezuela, where he remained several years. He was a Harvard overseer from 1855 to 1867; a Trustee of the State Nautical School several years, and in 1879 was chosen President of the Pilgrim Society, holding that position until his death. The judge was an ardent republican, and being a ready speaker, was always in demand on the political stump. He was occasionally selected for the delivery of formal orations, the most notable of which occurring to me were a fourth of July oration before the Boston City Government, and a eulogy on General Grant delivered in Plymouth. He married in 1853 Mary Ellen, daughter of Rev. Edward T. Taylor of Boston, and died in Boston, February 9, 1887.

Henry Warren Torrey, born in Plymouth, was the son of John and Marcia Otis (Warren) Torrey. He graduated at Harvard in 1833, and studied law in the office of his uncle, Charles Henry Warren in New Bedford. He was at the same time co-operating with Frederick Percival Leverett in preparing what is known as Leverett’s latin lexicon, published in 1837. While engaged in that work his eyes became seriously affected, and practice in the profession of law was abandoned. I remember that at the time of the great whig celebration in Boston on the 10th of September, 1840, he was living in New Bedford, and on that occasion the New Bedford delegation carried a banner with an inscription of which he was the author. On the banner a whale ship was painted with a whale alongside in the process of stripping, and the fires under the try pots smoking on deck, and beneath was the inscription: “Martin VanBuren—we have tried him in, and now we will try him out.”

In 1844 Mr. Torrey was appointed tutor at Harvard and instructor in elocution, and served until 1848. My impression is that from 1848 to 1856 he lived in Hamilton Place, Boston, and with his sister, Elizabeth, taught a young ladies’ school. In 1856 he was appointed McLean Professor of Ancient and Modern History at Harvard, serving until 1886, when on his resignation he was appointed Professor Emeritus, serving until his death. In 1879 he received the degree of LL. D. from Harvard, and from 1888 until his death, he was a Harvard overseer. He was also a member of the Massachusetts Historical Society, and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He died in Cambridge in 1893.

Lemuel Stephens, son of Lemuel and Sally (Morton) Stephens, was born in Plymouth, February 22, 1814. He belonged to a sturdy race, and I well remember his grandfather, William, who was born in 1752. His father, Lemuel and his uncle William, occupied the two Stephens’ houses between Union street and the shore, but I am inclined to think, while Lemuel built the house he occupied, that the house William occupied was built by his father. Lemuel and William, the father and uncle of the subject of this notice were engaged many years in the grand bank fishery, and Stephens’ wharf, which since the abandonment of the fishery has gradually crumbled away, presented once a busy scene when the Jane and Constitution and the Duck and the Industry were fitting out in the spring, and washing out in the autumn. The Stephens brothers were men of brains, and consequently men of ideas, men who were called pessimists because they looked out for weak spots in government and society, and sought to correct them. The optimists on the other hand flattered themselves that everything was right when everything was wrong, and that the ship was tight, though leaking a thousand strokes an hour. They were the earliest abolitionists in the town, the earliest advocates of temperance reform, the earliest promoters of a well maintained education of the people, while the optimists as long as they were making money said, “All is well, let things be.”

Lemuel Stephens of whom I specially speak, the son of Lemuel, graduated at Harvard in 1835, and soon after graduation went to Pittsburg in Pennsylvania, where for a time he taught in a private school. After leaving Pittsburg he went to Germany for study, spending three years in Heidelberg and Gottingen. On his return he was appointed Professor of chemistry in the western University of Pennsylvania, where he remained until 1850, when he was appointed professor of chemistry and physics in Gerard College, continuing in service until 1885. He married Ann Maria Buckminster of Framingham, Mass., a relative of Rev. Dr. Joseph Stevens Buckminster, once pastor of Brattle street church in Boston, and died in Philadelphia, March 25, 1892.

Another Plymouth man, of whom I must speak, was Winslow Marston Watson, of whom few of my readers ever heard. The son of Winslow Watson he was born I think on Clark’s Island in 1812, and graduated at Harvard in 1833. His mother, Mrs. Harriet Lothrop Watson, was a close observer of persons and families, their traits of character and their relations to each other, and was the first genealogist whom I ever saw. Her son, Winslow, inherited her powers of observation, and her remarkable memory, which in a broader sphere of life made him a reconteur of wide reputation. He early entered the profession of journalism, and in 1842 I found him, while on a visit to Troy, the editor of the Troy Whig. He later removed to Washington, where for some years he rendered valuable service as correspondent of leading newspapers in New England and New York. His artistic taste and literary ability attracted the attention of Mr. Corcoran, the wealthy banker and patron of art, and in his service he performed appreciative work. I doubt whether any man ever lived in Washington who came in contact with more persons of distinction, and could portray their characters and habits more thoroughly, than Mr. Watson. For nearly forty years I never failed to see him when visiting Washington, and if he had followed my advice to publish a book of reminiscences he would have made a valuable contribution to the literature of Washington life. His personality was striking, of medium height and weight, with a fair complexion and large protuberant blue eyes, with that sad, patient, placid, yet protesting expression which Homer recognized who called the celestial queen the ox-eyed Juno. He married in 1852 Louisa Gibbons, and died in Washington in 1889. He was a cousin of the late Benjamin Marston Watson, of whom I have already spoken, and to whom it occurs to me to refer again by inserting the following lines, which I inscribed in a book presented to him on his last birthday, and which better than my earlier reference to him, illustrate the beauty of his character and life:

A placid stream, with flowers on either hand,

And meads beyond, tempting the eye of art;

With here and there a ripple as it runs

Against opposing winds, or flows triumphant

Over hidden shoals, with lips upturned

And smiling in the noonday sun.

Such, my dear friend, has been thy life.

’Twere vain to wish it ever thus to be,

For every stream must some time reach the sea.

There lived in my youth on the lower corner of Summer and Spring streets an elderly gentleman of kind words and gentle speech, who, though living a distance from my home, early attracted me and found a lasting place in my memory. From 1806 to 1819, he had been treasurer of the town, and was some years a teacher in what was later called the high school. His name was Benjamin Drew, and he was the father of my long time friend, Benjamin Drew, who died in 1903. He was something of a poet, and his son told the story that one time when asked to contribute an inscription to be placed on the gravestone of his brother-in-law, Barnabas Holmes, he composed the following:

By temperance taught, a few advancing slow,

To distant fate by easy journeys go;

Calmly they lie them down like evening sheep,—

On their own woolly fleeces softly sleep.

Objection was made to the inscription by the family of Mr. Holmes, it appearing too personal, as Mr. Holmes had been a dealer in mutton. Like most emasculated poetry the substitute adopted was tame—as follows:

By temperance governed, and by reason taught,

The paths of peace and pleasantness he sought;

With competence and length of days was blest,

And cheered with hopes of everlasting rest.

He married in 1797 Sophia, daughter of Sylvanus and Martha (Wait) Bartlett. His son, Benjamin, of whom I especially speak in this notice, was born in Plymouth, November 28, 1812. He was educated at the public schools, leaving the high school about four years before I entered it. After leaving school he entered the office of the Old Colony Memorial to learn the printer’s trade, and there laid the foundation of his reputation as an expert in typography. About the year 1835 he began his career as teacher, and during a period of twenty-five years taught in the Phillips, Otis, Mayhew and Glover schools in Boston. While living in Boston his companionship was prized by scholarly men, and he was one of a group of social fellows already referred to who met at a saloon in Cornhill square, called the Shades, kept by General Bates, a Scotchman. There the group would frequently meet in Bohemian fashion to exchange witticisms and criticisms and enjoy a mug of ale. These occasional opportunities to give vent to his sense of humor were not sufficient to exhaust his flow of wit and under the cognomen of Ensign Stebbins he often wrote for the “carpet bag,” and was always a welcome contributor to the humorous columns of the Boston Post, I remember reading a squib of his in the Post sixty years ago, representing a showman explaining and describing to his audience the various features of his exhibition, as for instance:

“This, ladies and gentlemen, is the zebra, it measures ten feet from head to tail, and eleven feet from tail to head, has twelve stripes along its back and nary one alike.”

“This is the hippopotamus, an amphibious animal, what dies in the water and can’t live on the land.”

“This, ladies and gentlemen, is the shoved over of the scalper’s art, the statute of Apollos spoken of in the acts of the Apostles, where it says that Paul doth plant and Apollos water, and to illustrate the text more fully I have appended to his left hand a large, tin watering pot, which I bought of a tin peddler for thirty-seven and a half cents.”

About 1860 Mr. Drew went to St. Paul, where he taught school a year, and then for some years he performed the duties of proof reader in the Government printing office in Washington. In 1881 he made a journey around the world, spending a short time on the way with his son Edward Bangs Drew, a Mandarin in the Chinese Imperial Customs Service, with headquarters at Tientsin, where he passed his 70th birthday. On his return he settled permanently in his native town, recalling the scenes and friends of earlier days, and roaming among the haunts of the fathers of the town. He published during his life a book entitled “Pens and Types,” a standard work on typography, and another entitled, “The North side of slavery,” and after his final return to Plymouth he published a valuable descriptive catalogue of the gravestones and inscriptions on Plymouth Burial Hill. He married Caroline Bangs of Brewster, and died in Plymouth July 19, 1903, at the age of ninety years, seven months and twenty-one days.

Zabdiel Sampson, son of George and Hannah (Cooper) Sampson, was born in Plympton in 1781, and graduated at Brown University in 1803. He studied law with Joshua Thomas, and settled in Plymouth. In 1816 he was chosen member of Congress, and in 1820 was appointed collector of the port of Plymouth to succeed Henry Warren. At that time political lines were in a comparatively subdued and inactive state. The loose constructionist or federal party was still in existence, but declining in strength and power. Monroe, a strict constructionist or Democratic Republican, was re-elected with practical unanimity, while the campaign of 1824 was rather a personal contest between John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson, than a party struggle. During the administration of Adams the name National Republican took the place of Federalist, and the Democratic Republican party assumed the name of Democrat. Thus parties remained until the campaign of 1832, when the National Republicans assumed the name of Whigs. Thus the two great parties continued until 1856, when the Republican party was born. There were splinters from these parties at various times, such as the anti-masonic party in 1830, the liberty party in 1839, the free soil party in 1848 and the American party in 1852, as there are now splinters from the Democratic and Republican parties like the temperance and labor parties.

Mr. Sampson was undoubtedly when appointed collector in 1820 a Monroe strict constructionist, or in other words a Democrat, but retained the office through the Adams administration because during that period party lines were loosely drawn. He died while in office, July 19, 1828. He was a member of the board of selectmen eight years, during five of which he was its chairman. He married in 1804, Ruth, daughter of Ebenezer Lobdell of Plympton, and had ten children, neither of whom I think has descendants living in Plymouth.

I have said that the presidential contest in 1824 was a personal one between Adams and Jackson. Then began the hostility between these two men, which was never placated. General Jackson died June 8, 1845, before the days of the telegraph, and rumors of his death drifted to the East several times before the event occurred. Rev. Dr. Wm. P. Lunt, Mr. Adams’ pastor in Quincy, told me that while in Boston one day, authentic news of Jackson’s death was received, and on his return home he thought it proper for him to call at Mr. Adams’ house and communicate to him the sad news. As he entered the library Mr. Adams was standing with his back to the door, looking over some papers on a window seat. He said, “Mr. Adams, I heard in Boston this afternoon the sad news of the death of General Jackson, your successor in the presidential chair.” Mr. Adams, without looking round or stopping in his work exclaimed, “Umph, the old rascal is dead at last, is he?”

Schuyler Sampson, brother of the above mentioned Zabdiel, was born in Plympton in March, 1787, but moved with his father to Plymouth when young. I am inclined to think that he and his brother lived for some years in the house which until recently stood on the corner of Summer street and Spring hill. All through my boyhood, however, and until his death, he owned and occupied the house on the northerly side of Summer street, next westerly of the house for many years occupied by Benjamin Hathaway. He was for several years a member of the board of selectmen, and in 1828 was appointed to succeed his brother as collector of the port. He served in the latter office during the administrations of Jackson and Van Buren, and in 1841 succeeded Ebenezer G. Parker as cashier of the Old Colony Bank. He married in 1823 Mary Ann, daughter of Amasa Bartlett, and had Mary Ann Bartlett, 1825, who married George Gustavus Dyer. He married second, 1827, Sarah Taylor (Bartlett) Bishop, sister of his first wife, and widow of Wm. Bishop. By his second wife he had Sarah Taylor Bartlett, 1829, George Schuyler, 1833 and Hannah Bartlett, 1835, who married Rev. Isaac C. White. The late Wm. Bishop of Boston was the son of the second wife by her first husband. Mr. Sampson died in Plymouth May 10, 1855.

During my boyhood Truman Bartlett lived on the northerly side of High street, west of Spring street. He was a tall, robust man, weighing I should judge about two hundred and twenty-five pounds, and I remember him well with his plaid Camlet cloak which he wore in the winter, reminding me of the outer cold weather garment worn by the watchmen in Boston before the police patrol was established in that city. He was the son of Samuel and Elizabeth (Jackson) Bartlett, and was born in Plymouth, March 10, 1776. He was a shipmaster for many years, and sailed for my grandfather, Wm. Davis and Barnabas Hedge. He married in 1798 Experience, daughter of Robert Finney, and had William, Josiah, Flavel, Charles, Stephen, Truman, Azariah, Ann, Lucia and Angeline. Of these Angeline died at the age of twenty, April 24, 1838, and Charles died in childhood in 1826; Lucia died October 3, 1841, at the age of twenty-eight, and of Ann I know nothing. The remaining six sons all became shipmasters, and formed a group of merchant captains, such as no other Plymouth family can match. Of William, who commanded the Charles Bartlett, and Truman, who commanded the Queen of the East, I have already spoken, but of the others I have no reliable record. Captain Bartlett died August 18, 1841.

Ezra Finney, called Captain, lived on the northwesterly corner of Summer and Spring streets from 1822, until his death. He was the son of Ezra and Hannah (Luce) Finney, and was born in Plymouth July 5, 1772. He may have been a shipmaster in his early days, and his connection with the Old Colony Insurance Company, of which he was at one time President, as well as his ownership and management of navigation, renders such an occupation probable. He was a member of the board of selectmen three years, and the absence of his name in connection with the whale fishery suggests a conservatism in business affairs which precluded investments over which he could have no personal supervision. In navigation he was enterprising and successful, but as far as I know never engaged in the grand bank fishery. He married in 1797 Lydia, daughter of Andrew Bartlett, and had Lydia Bartlett, 1799, who married Capt. Lemuel Clark, Ezra, 1804, who married John Bartlett. He married second 1808, Betsey, widow of John Bishop, and daughter of Eliphalet Holbrook, Eliza, and had Betsey Bishop, 1809, who married William Sampson Bartlett; Mary Coville, 1811; Caroline, 1814; Ezra, 1817; Mary Coville, 1819, who married Henry Mills; and Caroline, 1822. Abby, daughter of Captain Finney’s second wife by her first husband, John Bishop, was born in 1801, and married James E. Leonard and Henry Mills.

It was the custom under what was called the Suffolk Bank system, when banks were forbidden by law to pay out any bills but their own to send every two or three days all foreign bills received by the banks to the Suffolk bank in Boston and receive from that bank their own bills in return. As expresses were not established in Plymouth until after 1845 packages of bills to or from the Suffolk bank were entrusted to any friend of the Plymouth or Old Colony Bank, as they were to myself even when a boy. On one occasion Mr. Finney received from the Suffolk bank a package of the bills of the Old Colony Bank. Chilled by his ride from Boston in a stage sleigh, it was not until he had thawed out by the home fire that the package was brought to his mind. It was not in his pockets, nor was it to be found anywhere in the house. As a last resort he hurried to the stage stable, where his anxiety was relieved by the discovery of the package hidden by the straw with which the floor of the sleigh was covered. This incident was far from being indicative of carelessness on his part, for he was a methodical business man, and one as thoughtful of the interests of others as of his own. On another occasion he proved himself a thrifty trustee of the Savings Bank. Mr. Danforth, the treasurer, having occasion to leave town for a day or perhaps two, left Mr. Finney in charge of the bank, and among the contents of the safe was a strapped package of counterfeit bills which had been collecting for some time, and had been charged off to profit and loss. On Mr. Danforth’s return, not finding the package, he asked Mr. Finney if he had seen the bills, and Mr. Finney replied that he had, and not doubting them genuine, had paid them out. The bills were never heard from afterwards, and their amount was in due time credited back to profit and loss. Captain Finney died February 5, 1861.

Andrew Bartlett, son of Andrew and Sarah Holbrook Bartlett, was born in Plymouth, October 20, 1806, and lived in High street, near his kinsman, Truman Bartlett. He was a shipmaster, possessing those qualities which made him not only a skilful navigator, but a prudent, economical and trustworthy business man. He told me once that during his career as master, he had never lost a man or a spar. While this fact speaks well for his seamanship, it was due largely to the models of vessels in his day, and the absence of those hasty methods of doing business which characterize our times. A blunt bow and a full counter made it easy to encounter a head sea, and to leave a following one, while there was enough left of the old kettle bottom to check the shift of even a cargo of railroad iron, which, however securely braced, is always ready to start with the kick of a rolling sea. Safety to ship and cargo, not speed, was the great consideration sought. When Capt. Fox in the brig Emerald, after a thirteen days’ passage from Liverpool, rounded to off Long wharf and was hailed with the question, “When did you leave Liverpool, Capt. Fox,” his reply was, “Last week, damn you, when do you think?” He did not say how many sails he had lost, nor whether his cargo in the forehold was dry. I think Capt. Bartlett sailed for a combination of owners of whom Ezra Finney, Wm. Nelson and Benjamin Barnes were the chief.

After abandoning the sea his interests in seamen led him to devote his life to their service in connection with the sailors’ Bethel and Home in Boston. He married in 1830 Mary, daughter of William Barnes of Plymouth, and had Victor A., 1841, Mary E., 1843 and Andrew P., 1848. He married second, in 1866, Phebe J. Tenney, who had been for a number of years a school teacher in Plymouth. Captain Bartlett died February 4, 1882.

William Nelson, son of William and Bathsheba (Lothrop) Nelson, was born in Plymouth, September 29, 1796, on the old Nelson farm near Cold Spring, which had been in the Nelson family from the time of its first American ancestor, William Nelson, who married Martha, daughter of widow Ford, who came to Plymouth in the ship Fortune in 1621. I think Mr. Nelson lived on High street until 1841, when he built and occupied until his death the house on Summer street, which in 1867 was sold to Barnabas Churchill. He had a sister, Mary Lothrop Nelson, who married Jesse Harlow, and he with Mr. Harlow, under the firm name of Nelson & Harlow, was engaged some years in navigation, with a counting room on the westerly side of Water street, opposite to Nelson’s wharf. He was a director in the Old Colony Bank, and in the Old Colony Insurance Company, a prominent member of the Orthodox Congregational church, and a liberal contributor to its support. He married in 1821 Sarah, daughter of Josiah Carver, and had William Henry, 1830, who is noticed at the end of this chapter; Thomas Lothrop, 1833, who married Susan A. Warren of Exeter, N. H., and Mary Stratton of Atchison, Miss.; and Sarah Elizabeth, who married Wm. K. Churchill. Mr. Nelson died October 6, 1863.

There is one whom I omitted in my wanderings in the northerly part of Court street, of whom I shall be glad to speak. I heard much of him in my youth, though he died before my birth, and of the disappointment which his premature death caused to be felt by his friends. Isaac Eames Cobb, the son of Cornelius and Grace (Eames) Cobb, was born January 19, 1789, in the old Nehemiah Savery house, still standing south of Cherry street, a little back from Court street. He graduated at Harvard in 1814 a leading scholar in his class, and began the study of law. A disease of the lungs obliged him to abandon a profession in which there was every reason to believe that he would have a successful career. He entered into business with Messrs. Isaac L. and Thomas Hedge, but died a victim of consumption January 14, 1821. He married in 1816 Elizabeth, daughter of Thomas Bartlett, whose house occupied the site on which that of Gideon F. Holmes now stands. His daughter Elizabeth, the widow of Joseph Holmes, lives in a house standing on what was a part of her grandfather Bartlett’s estate. The following inscription is on his gravestone on Burial Hill:

Possessed he talents, ten or five or one,

The work he had to do—that work was done;

Informed his mind, in wisdom’s ways he trod,

Reluctant died, but died resigned to God.

No man was better known in Plymouth in his day than Joseph Lucas. He was a son of Joseph and Ruby Lucas of Plympton, and was born in that town in February, 1785. He learned the nail cutter’s trade, and worked at it many years in the works of N. Russell & Co. His work was something more than perfunctory, for it not only led him into a study of machinery with its needed improvements, but it gave him also an opportunity to ponder over worldly affairs beyond the horizon of his daily occupation. His ingenuity suggested useful improvements in nail cutting machines, which proved profitable to both his employers and himself. Mr. Lucas was an ardent whig, and as a manufacturer was a supporter of the tariff policy of his party, little thinking that within thirty-five years of his death the tariff policy which he advocated would by the imposition of high duties on coal and iron wipe out of existence the nail cutting business of New England.

Mr. Lucas was often sought to represent the town in the General Court, and in the house of representatives his name was as much identified with Plymouth as that of Kellogg with Pittsfield; Banning with Lee; Lawrence with Belchertown, or Lee with Templeton. In his day it was not the custom as it is now, to nominate one of two or three who set themselves up as candidates, but the voters selected the men they wanted for representatives, believing that laws to be respected must be enacted by men of good judgment and superior intelligence. Mr. Lucas married in 1823 Lydia, daughter of William and Lydia (Holmes) Keen, and had Augustus Henry, 1824; Catherine Amelia, 1825, and Frederick William, 1831. Mr. Lucas died January 13, 1871.

Before crossing Town Brook I must speak of Joseph P. Brown and Wm. H. Nelson, though they are not associated with the remote history of our town. Mr. Brown was the son of Lemuel Brown, and was born December 12, 1812. His father was a cabinet maker who came to Plymouth with a wife, Sarah Palmer of Cambridge, and established himself in business with a shop in the rear of the house next west of the present residence of the Misses Rich on Summer street. He did good work, and I know many mahogany chairs of his workmanship still doing good service in the parlors of some of my friends. His two sons, Stephen P. and Joseph P., learned the trade of their father, and in later years carried on business on the south side of High street, and in the building, a part of which is occupied by the provision market of C. B. Harlow on Market street. At a still later time Joseph P. carried on the same business in the old Plymouth bank building on Court street. Joseph was on the board of selectmen with me from 1856 to 1860, inclusive, and I am glad of the opportunity to attest his usefulness and fidelity in the management of town affairs. He was a man of dry humor, and had many a story to tell, often provoking a laugh against himself. He chewed tobacco freely, and was obliged before speaking to deliver himself of the saliva which had been accumulating. I remember that one autumn afternoon when the board had been visiting the south end of the town, we stopped at the house of David Clark, a member of the board, to leave him, and went into the house to warm ourselves. As we sat around the wood fire I noticed a couple of herrings roasting in the ashes for supper. Before Mr. Brown could answer a question I put to him he was obliged to relieve his mouth of its contents, and he discharged them squarely upon the herrings, completely covering them. Nothing was said, and I did not suppose that any one but myself noticed the catastrophe. After we had started for home, Mr. Brown turning to me said, “Good heavens, Davis, did you see me baste those herrings?”

He told me once of an expedition to Sandwich to bring home his wife’s invalid sister, who had been visiting there. He started one November morning about four o’clock, and after driving two hours he came to a cross road, and seeing a light in a house, stopped to inquire the way. On rapping at the door a man appeared with a lamp in his hand, whom he recognized as John Harlow, an old resident of Chiltonville. “What are you doing, John, down here in Sandwich,” he asked, and John replied, “I guess, mister, your morning toddy was a little strong, I am in Chiltonville, not Sandwich.” Then for the first time recognizing his visitor, he added, “Why, Mr. Brown, what are you doing here at this time in the morning?” “Why, John, I started for Sandwich, but at the rate of progress I have made I don’t think I shall get there much before night.” The trouble was that his horse, following the track which suited him best, had after leaving the Cornish tavern, borne constantly to the left and traversed the Beaver Dam road, and the road over the Pine Hills until he reached the Harlow house, four miles from his starting point two hours before. Mr. Brown married in 1837 Margaret, daughter of George Washburn, and died June 23, 1877.

William H. Nelson was the son of William and Sarah (Carver) Nelson, and was born August 13, 1830. After leaving school he was a clerk for a time in the hardware establishment of Cotton, Hill & Co., in Boston, but eventually established himself in business in his native town. As well as I can remember he first embarked in the grand bank fishery, supplemented by the mackerel fishery. Gradually enlarging his fleet, and also the size of his vessels, he extended his business operations by either chartering some of his vessels to Boston merchants engaged in the West India trade, or engaging himself in that trade. Building from time to time still larger vessels which were employed entirely under charter, his fishing interests became a secondary matter. By prudence and sagacity, his business was made successful and profitable, and as he won the confidence of his fellow citizens, he was sought for in the management of institutions and public affairs. He was a director of the Old Colony National Bank many years, and after the death of George Gustavus Dyer for a short time, until his own death, its President. His chief service, and one which made him respected, and his trustworthiness relied upon by his fellow citizens, was that rendered by him on the board of selectmen, of which he was a member for twenty years, and chairman sixteen years. As manager of town affairs he was conservative and faithful to his trust, never hasty in the support of new schemes, but sure in the end to support them when satisfied of their merit. He married Hannah Coomer, daughter of Coomer Weston, Jr., and died July 18, 1891.