He is identified with the First Unitarian church of Manchester, and has been a director and president of the society. He is a Royal Arch Mason, and member of the Altemont Lodge; also a member of Peterborough Lodge, I. O. O. F.
In 1850 he was married to Miss S. Anna Moore, who died January 8, 1858, leaving no children. He married, June 29, 1859, Mrs. Sarah White Keith, daughter of Jonathan White, formerly of Lowell, Mass., one of the earliest of Lowell's manufacturers, by whom he has one daughter, Agnes Annie Cheney, born October 22, 1869. His domestic life is singularly happy and charming. His residence, No. 136 Lowell street, is a home of modest elegance, of courtly hospitality, and the center of a refined circle. It is not too much to say that to the affectionate sympathy, the grace, and fine social tact of his accomplished wife, Gov. Cheney owes not only the enjoyments of a delightful home, but much of the success and popularity of his career.
The bare outlines of Gov. Cheney's life, as above given, convey but a faint impression of the essential quality of the man, and his importance as a factor in the social, business, and political life of his day and generation. It remains to be said that in Manchester his name is the synonym for liberality, public spirit, a generous and helpful charity, and a philanthropy, which, though unobtrusive, loses no opportunity to exert itself for the relief of distress and the elevation of society at large. Of a sympathetic nature, he cares more for others than himself, and no deserving person or worthy object ever solicits his aid in vain. He is prominent in every movement for the public good, and never spares himself, nor grudges the means which his business sagacity, energy and enterprise have gained for him, when work is to be done for a good cause, or help is needed for anybody in poverty or distress.
Mr. Cheney is still in the prime of life, and his useful service, his honorable and upright character, his high and unselfish aims, have made him a power in the state. A brave, true, and honest man, a sincere and warm-hearted friend, of positive convictions, of unflinching devotion to principle, and fitted for any station, he is obviously in the line of succession to still higher honors than have been accorded him. It goes without saying that such a man has hosts of friends; and certain it is that he is second to no man in New Hampshire in those elements of popular strength and confidence which commend men to public service.
An earlier biographer, from whose sketch most of this is derived, appropriately closes his delineation of him with the remark, that "Mr. Cheney may yet be drawn from the seclusion of private life, and the unremitting toil of active business, to lend his aid to the councils of a nation."
HON. PHINEHAS ADAMS.
BY ARTHUR P. DODGE.
Phinehas Adams was born in Medway, Mass., the twentieth day of June, 1814, and comes from the very best Revolutionary stock of New England. His grandfather and great-grandfather participated in the battle of Bunker Hill, and served through that memorable war. He had three brothers and seven sisters, of whom the former all died previous to 1831. Three sisters are now living: Sarah Ann, born in 1816, the wife of E. B. Hammond, M. D., of Nashua; Eliza P., born in 1820, widow of the late Ira Stone, formerly an overseer in the Stark Mills; and Mary Jane, born in 1822, widow of the late James Buncher, a former designer for the Merrimack Print-Works at Lowell, Mass. Mrs. Buncher is the present popular and very efficient librarian of the Manchester public library.