August 5.—The Washburn Library, erected by the surviving members of the Washburn family, was dedicated at Livermore, Maine. Among the guests present were ex-vice President Hannibal Hamlin, Senator Frye, Mr. E.B. Haskell of the Boston Herald, and Hon. E.B. Washburn, of Illinois who delivered the address. Over a thousand people attended the services.
August 6.—Death of the Hon. John Batchelder, a well known citizen of Lynn, Mass, at the age of eighty. He was a native of Topsfield, Mass., but went to Lynn when a young man. He taught school in Ward 5 for thirty years previous to 1855, and was elected to the Massachusetts senate that year. He was also in the same year elected city clerk and collector of taxes. He was re-elected to the senate in 1856 and 1857. He was the first treasurer of the Lynn Five Cents Savings Bank. He afterward taught the Ward 6 Grammar School, and held that position ten years, and then became a member of the school board. The last office held by him was that of postmaster, being appointed by President Grant in 1869.
At a meeting of the Battle Monument Association, held at Bennington, Vt., on the 12th of August, there were present Governor Pingree, who presided, Senators Evarts and Morrill, Professor Perry of Yale College, Lieutenant Governor Ormsbee of Brandon, and other gentlemen. The report of the special committee was read, and a resolution passed accepting the design of J.P. Rinn, of Boston for a Battle Monument. A committee was then appointed to report the details to the President of the United States and the governors of Massachusetts and New Hampshire, which action will entitle the Association to receive the appropriations made by Congress and the Legislatures of these states for the monument. The fund now amounts to $80,000.
On August 12th, General Henry Kemble Oliver died in Salem, Mass., at the advanced age of eighty-five years. He was born in Beverly, Mass., Nov. 24, 1800, a son of Rev. Daniel Oliver and Elizabeth Kemble; was educated in the Boston Latin School, and Harvard College (for two years) and was graduated from Dartmouth College. After his graduation, he settled in Salem, and as Principal of the High and Latin Schools, and also of a private school, he was virtually at the head of the educational interests of the town for a quarter of a century. In 1848, he moved to Lawrence, Mass., to become agent of the Atlantic Mills. While living in Lawrence, he was appointed superintendent of schools, and in recognition of his services the "Oliver Grammar School" was founded.
At an early day General Oliver became interested in military affairs as an officer of the Salem Light Infantry and in 1844 he was made Adjutant General of the Commonwealth, by Gov. Briggs, and held this office for four years. During the war he served with great satisfaction as Treasurer of the Commonwealth, and performed the most arduous duties in a very faithful and acceptable manner. From 1869 to 1873 he was chief of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and ever after that became interested in reducing the hours of labor in factories and in the limitation of factory work by children. From 1876 to 1880 he was mayor of Salem, and displayed almost the same vivacity and energy in discharging the duties of this office, as an octogenarian, that he had shown in his youth. He was master of the theory and history of music, a good bass singer, a good organist, and the author of several popular compositions. Of these "Federal Street" seems likely to become permanent in musical literature. In his youth he sang in the Park street church in Boston and for many years he led the choir of the North church in Salem. "Oliver's Collection of Church Music" is one of the results of his labors in this direction. In conjunction with Dr. Tuckerman he published the "National Lyre." He was a member of the old Handel and Hayden Society and the Salem Glee Club, both famous musical organizations of his early days. In 1825 General Oliver married Sally, daughter of Captain Samuel Cook, by whom he had two sons and five daughters, as follows: Colonel S.C. Oliver, Dr. H.K. Oliver, Jr., Sarah Elizabeth, who married Mr. Bartlett of Lawrence, and who died about four years ago, Emily Kemble, who is the wife of Colonel Andrews, U.S.A., Mary Evans Oliver, who has been the faithful attendant of the general in his declining years, and Ellen Wendell, who married Augustus Cheever of North Andover.