XXIII. [Reflections.]
[MEMOIR.]
[CHAPTER I.]
BIRTH AND ANCESTRY.
In so young a world as America, it has been held unsuitable for persons to spend much time in the tracing of pedigree, or to found important claims on family descent; nor can it accord less with the common sense of mankind than with the republican genius of the world, to say, that every genuine claim to human esteem is founded in character. In this is rooted every quality that can, of right, command the reverence of man. But, as character is not exactly isolated and independent of ancestral fountains, from which the innate impulses, capacity, and tendency to good and evil have flown, the subject of ancestry justly belongs to the history of every man's mind and life. Our ancestors flow in our veins. We retain them more or less in our characters always, so that the great stress which different countries have put upon this theme, rests on other than artificial and ostentatious reasons. In nature, below man, the various circuits and orders of being do nothing more than to repeat ancestral forms and habits, to which the sweet rose, the eagle, and the strong-armed oak, are perpetual witnesses; and though man, by his God-like faculty of will is lifted out, in a great measure, from this necessity, he is so far a derivation from the past, that he ought to be seen in his connections with it. We therefore introduce the subject of Mr. Badger's ancestry as the chief part of the first chapter of this book.
Joseph Badger, the subject of this memoir, was a native of Gilmanton, Strafford county, New Hampshire, born August 16th, 1792. From an early manuscript of his I copy the following lines:—
"My father, Peaslee Badger, was born at Haverhill, Mass., 1756. He was the son of General Joseph Badger, who was a native of that place. When my father was nine years of age, his father removed to Gilmanton, N. H., where his family was settled, and where my grandsire, General Joseph, ended his days in peace, in the year of our Lord 1803. The good instruction I received from him, before my ninth year, will never be effaced from my memory. His name will long be held in remembrance as a peacemaker, and a great statesman. Every recollection of him is a fulfilment of the sacred passage—'The memory of the righteous is blessed.'
"In 1781, my father was married to Lydia Kelley, born in Lee, N. H., 1759. She was the daughter of Philip Kelley, who, in the triumphs of faith, departed this life the 11th of June, 1800, at New Hampton, N. H. For the space of thirty-six years my father resided at Gilmanton. In our family were nine children, five sons and four daughters. I was the fourth son, and the old general, of whom I have already spoken, selected me as the one to bear up his name. I was accordingly named for him; but alas! I fear I have fallen greatly below his excellent examples."
Among his ancestors, there can be no doubt, that he most resembled, in mind and body, the venerable man whose name he bore. The personal form of Gen. Joseph Badger, as described in history, in which he is represented as nearly six feet in stature, somewhat corpulent, light and fair in complexion, and of dignified manners, answers most aptly to the subject of this memoir; nor is the correspondence less perfect, when his mental qualities of foresight, order, firmness, tact, and generosity are considered. "As a military man," says the faithful pen of history, "General Badger was commanding in his person, well skilled in the science of military tactics, expert as an officer, and courageous and faithful in the performance of every trust. With him order was law, rights were most sacred, and the discharge of duty was never to be neglected."