COL. DAVID LYMAN JEWELL.
BY J. N. McCLINTOCK.
The chief industry of the flourishing village of Suncook is the manufacture of cotton cloth. The China, the Webster, and the Pembroke mills are three great establishments under one management, built on the banks of the Suncook river, and operated principally by its power, where this class of goods is made. About these mills, which give steady employment to over fifteen hundred operatives, has grown up a substantial village, with fine public buildings, spacious stores, elegant private residences, and long blocks of neat tenement-houses, inhabited by a liberal and public-spirited class of citizens, and governed by a wise and judicious policy which renders this community comfortable, attractive, and law-abiding. The man to whose clear head and skillful hand is intrusted the management of this great corporation, of such vital importance to the village of Suncook, is a genial gentleman of forty-five, Col. David L. Jewell, a brief outline of whose life it is my purpose to sketch.
David Lyman Jewell, son of Bradbury and Lucinda (Chapman) Jewell, was born in Tamworth, N. H., January 26, 1837. In the midst of the grandest scenery of New England, under the shadows of the Ossipee mountains, and in view of bold Chocorua, our friend was ushered to this earthly pilgrimage. Colonel Jewell is a descendant of Mark Jewell, who was born in the mirth of Devonshire, England, in the year 1724, and died in Sandwich, N. H., the 19th of February, 1787. He descended from the same original stock as Bishop John Jewell of Devonshire.
Mark Jewell came to this country in 1743, married, and located in Durham this state; he was the father of three sons, Mark, Jr., Bradbury, and John. Mark. Jr., was the first white man that settled in Tamworth, in 1772, on what is now called "Stevenson's Hill," removing soon after to "Birch Intervale," as known at the present time. He married Ruth Vittum, of Sandwich, in 1776; they were the parents of sixteen children. He was prominent in all town affairs, and sometimes preached, and was familiarly called among his fellow-townsmen "Elder" or "Priest" Jewell. Bradbury, son of Elder Jewell, married Mary Chapman in 1806, by whom he had two sons, Bradbury and David.
Bradbury Jewell, a pupil of Samuel Hidden, was a teacher of considerable note, and his memory is tenderly cherished to-day by many of his pupils throughout the state. While engaged in teaching he pursued a course of medical studies, and in 1839, having completed them, collected his worldly goods and removed to Newmarket, a place presenting a larger field for practice. There he commenced in earnest his chosen profession; but, being of a delicate constitution, the exposure incident to a physician's life soon told upon his limited strength; he was taken sick, and died "ere the sun of his life had reached its meridian," leaving his widow, with two little children, in indigent circumstances, to combat with a cold and selfish world. A wealthy merchant of the place, having no children, wished to adopt young David, offering to give him a college education and leave him heir to his worldly possessions; but with a mother's love for her offspring Mrs. Jewell refused the offer, and resolved to rear and educate her children as well as her limited means would allow. Being a woman of undaunted spirit, she opened a boarding-house for factory operatives, when factory girls were the intelligent daughters of New England farmers, who regarded this new industry a most favorable opportunity for honorable employment.
Having brothers in Massachusetts, and thinking to better sustain herself and children, Mrs. Jewell removed to Newton Upper Falls, Mass., following the same occupation there. In that village young Jewell first attended school, the teacher of which was a former pupil of his father. To render his mother more substantial assistance than he could afford her by doing irksome chores, he went to work in the factory when but nine years of age, receiving for a day's work, from quarter of five in the morning until half past seven in the evening, the very munificent sum of sixteen cents a day, or one dollar a week. He worked nine months and attended school three, every year, until he was nearly thirteen years of age, when the close confinement was found detrimental to his health, and he was taken from the mill and placed on a farm. The next three years he passed in healthful, happy, out-door work. Returning home from the farm strong, robust, and vigorous, he re-entered the mill, where he was variously occupied, becoming familiar with the operations of the numerous machines in each department, but more particularly those pertaining to the carding-room, where his step-father, Thomas Truesdell, was an overseer, learning as he pursued his work, gradually and insensibly, things that to-day are of incalculable benefit for the business in which he is now engaged. He little thought, however, when moving his stool from place to place in order to facilitate his labor, he would some day be at the head of similar works many times greater in magnitude than those in which he was then employed. His inherited mechanical taste developed by his life among machinery, and when he was seventeen years of age he gladly entered a machine-shop. Here his ready perception of form rendered his work attractive and his improvement rapid.
Before completing his apprenticeship he felt keenly the want of a better education, and determined to obtain it. His exchequer was very low, but having the confidence of friends he readily obtained a loan, and in the spring of 1855 he entered the Wesleyan Academy at Wilbraham, Mass. The principal, after a casual examination, said: "Well, you don't know much, do you?" Being quick at repartee young Jewell replied: "No, sir; if I did, I would not be here." This brief sip at the fountain of knowledge only increased his thirst for more, and in September of the same year he entered the state normal school at Bridgewater, Mass., under the regime of Marshall Conant, a life-long friend and counselor. Mr. Jewell from the first was a favorite among his classmates,—courteous, genial, pleasant in disposition, something careless withal; physically vigorous, and always the first at athletic sports when relieved from study. Mathematics, of which he was very fond, and natural philosophy were his favorite branches of study, and free-hand drawing his delight, as slates, book-covers, and albums attested. While in school he made rapid advancement in knowledge, and graduated in the spring of 1857, having acquired, as his diploma reads, "a very creditable degree of knowledge of the several branches taught therein. Besides these attainments, Mr. Jewell possesses a tact and skill for rapid sketching and delineation which give life to his blackboard illustrations."
To show the forethought possessed by him in a marked degree, before graduating he had secured a school to teach in New Jersey, and the day after the closing exercises were over he started for his new field of labor. He taught with great success in New Jersey and also in New York, some three years. One school of which he was principal numbered three hundred scholars, and employed five assistant teachers, most of whom were his seniors in years. Like his father, he gained an enviable reputation as a teacher, and his credentials speak of him in the highest terms, as a competent, faithful, and pleasing instructor, and a most excellent disciplinarian. One superintendent of schools remarks: "He was the best teacher that has been employed in the town for thirty years."