As one of the supervisors of the educational interests of Concord, Mr. Pillsbury was exceptionally intelligent, conscientious, and painstaking. His views on the general subject were comprehensive, and he kept himself informed as to all real improvements in methods of instruction. He discountenanced shams, and labored faithfully to make the schools sources of knowledge, of discipline, and of virtue. To the other public trusts so honorably held by the subject of this sketch, we may add that of trustee of the State Industrial School. He has had a deep and abiding interest in this institution since its founding, and has given to it an active and efficient support.
We can only realize how pure and unselfish his labors of this character have been, when we reflect that Mr. Pillsbury has no children of his own to kindle and feed his sympathies, but that they spring from a general benevolence toward all children of whatever condition in life. His only child was a daughter of rare mental activity and attainments, and of unusual sweetness of temper. She married Mr. J. S. Eveleth, of Beverly, Mass., where, after a residence of nearly two years, she died of consumption, in the flower and promise of early womanhood, leaving two homes stricken and desolate.
In this brief sketch we have unconsciously drawn a model citizen,—a man in all the relations of life faithful to the claims of duty; in the family, society, and the state, blameless; benevolent without ostentation, patriotic without the claim of reward, and true to every trust.
"While we such precedents can boast at home,
Keep thy Fabricius and thy Cato, Rome."
C. V. Dearborn.
CORNELIUS VAN NESS DEARBORN.
Early as 1639, and only nineteen years after the landing of the Pilgrims, John Wheelwright, a dissenting minister from England, gathering a company of friends removed from Massachusetts bay to Exeter in the province of New Hampshire. Among the thirty-five persons who signed the compact to form a stable and orderly colony is found the name of Godfrey Dearborn, the patriarch of the entire Dearborn family in this country.