AMES.
The house in which Fisher Ames was born was pulled down somewhere about 1818. It used to stand on the main street of Dedham, a little to the northeast, and over the way from where the court-house now stands. It was a roomy, two-story, peaked-roofed old building, with its end to the street; the oldest part having an addition of more modern construction on the front, or what, with reference to the street, was the end. The rooms were low, the windows small, and the lower floor was sunken a little below the ground. A large buttonwood overshadowed it in front, and from behind an elm, the latter still standing. There was no fence between the house and the street, and the intervening space was covered with grass of that thick and stubbed growth peculiar to such localities. Behind was a large barn, while on both sides, and back for fifty or sixty rods, to the Charles River, stretched a broad field of irregular surface. Just across the street was the "Front Lot," a piece of unoccupied land, including that on which the court-house now stands, and extending east nearly as far as the post-office. On the corner of this lot, directly in front of the house stood, subsequently,—that is, to the year 1776, when it was erected,—a stone pillar supporting a column, surmounted by a wooden head of Pitt, the same having been set up by the "Sons of Liberty," a brother of Fisher Ames among the number, on the repeal of the Stamp Act. This structure, after testifying to America's gratitude for a number of years, and furnishing to the corner on which it stood, the name of "Pitt's Head," was eventually overthrown. The stone pillar with its glowing inscription, after lying awhile by the roadside, and offering a seat to chatting children, and a place, in the spaces of the letters, for cracking nuts, was at length set up in its old place, on the erection of the court-house some twenty-five years since, where it still stands. But of the fate of the column and the head we have no account. This wooden head, intended by its enthusiastic raisers, without a doubt, to be "ære perennius," lay kicking about the street; and perhaps found refuge at last from the vicissitudes of the weather and the wasting jack-knife of the schoolboy, in the wood-box or the garret of some hospitable patriot.
The old house was long kept as an inn, both by Dr. Nathaniel Ames, the father of Fisher, and, after his death, by his wife. Innkeeping in those days was not so engrossing an occupation as at present, and Dr. Ames, by no means mainly a Boniface, found time for the care of his farm, for the practice of his profession, for the study of mathematics, astronomy, and kindred subjects; and for the application of the knowledge thus acquired, in the making of almanacs; a business which he carried on for forty years. In their veracious pages, besides indicating the doings and intentions of the heavenly bodies, and predicting storms with all the accuracy of which the case was susceptible, Dr. Ames used to portray the exciting events of the time in verse, more patriotic and vivid, perhaps, than poetic. He was, in truth, a man of no small consideration in Dedham, of much natural ability, of wit and spirit.
He showed these last qualities once on a time, when the colonial judges decided some law case against him. He thought they had disregarded the law, and their Reverences were soon seen, sketched on a sign-board in front of the tavern, in full bottomed wigs, tippling, with their backs to the volume labelled "The Province Law." The authorities at Boston taking umbrage at this, dispatched some officers to Dedham to remove the sign. But Dr. Ames was too quick for them; and the baffled tipstaves on reaching the house found nothing hanging but a board, on which was inscribed, "A wicked and adulterous generation seeketh for a sign, but no sign shall be given them."
Dr. Ames died in 1764, when his son Fisher, the youngest child, was six years old; having besides him, a son of his own name and profession, who was afterwards a violent democrat and opponent of Fisher Ames, two other sons and a daughter. Of these, Fisher was the only one who left descendants. Mrs. Ames continued to keep the inn, and married again. She was a very shrewd and sensible woman, of a strong and singular cast of mind. She took a hearty interest in politics, and hated the Jacobins devoutly. Innkeeping was a favorite occupation with her, and she carried matters with a high hand. We have heard her compared to Meg Dods, the landlady in St. Ronan's Well. She outlived her son Fisher some ten years or more.
Fisher Ames was a delicate child, and the pet of his mother, whose maiden name he bore. He had such an extravagant fondness for books, devouring all that fell within his reach, and showed, in other ways, to the fond perception of his parent, such unmistakable signs of genius, that she early determined to make a lawyer of him, and put him to the study of Latin at six. The little fellow worked bravely at his lessons for six years, reciting sometimes to the school-teacher, when that functionary happened to be more than usually learned, sometimes to old Mr. Haven the minister, with whom he early made friends, and to various other persons. In 1770, twelve years old, he was admitted to Harvard College. Here he spent four years with credit and success, acquiring greater distinction in the study of the languages and in oratory, than in the abstract sciences. He was conspicuous, even at this early age, as a speaker, being one of the leading members of a society for improvement in eloquence, then newly established. This society, under the style of "The Institute of 1770," is still flourishing at Cambridge, and turns out annually as many orators, perhaps, as any similar body in our country. The writer of this remembers to have heard there, in his own college days, a great deal of sublime elocution. Fisher Ames's name occurs on the records a number of times, as a speaker, and a critic, and once as follows: "June, 1, 1773.—Voted, that Ames, Clarke, and Eliot, be fined 4 pence for tardiness." Young Ames passed through college with unblemished morals. "Happily," in the elegant phrase of his biographer, "he did not need the smart of guilt to make him virtuous, nor the regret of folly to make him wise."
In the summer of 1774, he returned to his mother's house. Notwithstanding her predilection for law, he had some idea of studying medicine or divinity. But, the year of the Boston Port Bill was no good time for deciding upon a course of life, or beginning it when determined on. Besides, Fisher Ames was but sixteen, and his mother was poor. For a short time, therefore, he engaged in teaching school; and, after a few years spent in desultory but unceasing study and reading, he began law in the office of Wm. Tudor, of Boston.
During this time the contest was going on in which his country's liberties were involved, and young Ames was a watchful and anxious observer of its progress. It was at his mother's house that the good men of Dedham used to meet, to see what they and the country were to do. Only a month or two after his return from college, a convention from all the towns of Suffolk county, of which Dedham was then a part, met here to deliberate. We can imagine the heart of our boy of sixteen burning within him, and his eye flashing as he heard the outraged citizens of Boston tell their grievances, and as he longed to be a man, that he might take a part with those determined patriots in their resolution to try the issue with Great Britain, if need be, at the point of the sword. Dedham sent some brave soldiers to the service, and Fisher Ames, young as he was, went out in one or two short expeditions.
In 1781 we find him entered upon the practice of law at Dedham, where he soon became distinguished as an advocate. In those days the manners of the bench were very rough. The road to eminence in law seemed often to lie between rows of semi-barbarous judges, who hurled at aspiring barristers every missile of abuse. There is always much, it is true, in the deportment of young lawyers to vex the temper of a judge, and perhaps in those days of callow independence there may have been more than common. There appears to be something about that great science to which, in the language of Hooker, "all things in heaven and earth do homage, the least as feeling her care, and the greatest as not exempted from her bounty," that breathes unusual dignity into its servants, especially its young ones. In its various duties, the giving of counsel, the questioning of witnesses, and the frequent display of capacity before courts and juries, the seeds of vanity find propitious soil and start into rank growth. From this or whatever cause, the judges of old times were crusty and abusive; and old Judge Paine, besides being all this, was moreover deaf, and used to berate counsel roundly at times for what was no fault of theirs. "I tell you what," said Fisher Ames, as he came out of court one day, "a man, when he enters that court-room, ought to go armed with a speaking trumpet in one hand and a club in the other." At another time, Ames expressed a rather derogatory opinion of the intelligence of the court. He was arguing a case before a number of county justices, and having finished, turned to leave the room. "Ain't you going to say any thing more, Mr. Ames?" anxiously whispered his client. "No," rejoined Ames; "you might as well argue a case to a row of skim-milk cheeses!" Perhaps his dislike to these dignitaries may have been an inheritance. May not the old Doctor, in his indignation about the Province Law matter, like another Hamilcar, have made his son, a youthful Hannibal, swear eternal hatred to his foes?