Chapter XVI: Part 16

Dr. Crosby furnishes a beautiful and rare instance of a
completed life. He early fixed his aim,--he reached it; he did
all he attempted, and he did it well. '_Nihil tetigit, quod non
ornavit._'

To those of us who had been most intimately associated with our
departed friend, who had enjoyed his teachings, his counsels,
and his generous kindness, the news of his death came as a heavy
shock. But he still lives in the remembrance of his
distinguished services, in the unfading affection and gratitude
of his pupils, and in the many hearts whose burdens he has
lifted. Verily, '_Extinctus amabitur idem!_'"--_Obituary notice
of Dr. J. W. Barstow._

PROF. ALPHEUS CROSBY.

PROF. ALPHEUS CROSBY, ninth son of Dr. Asa Crosby, was born in Sandwich, October 13, 1810, died in Salem, Mass., April 17, 1874. He married for his first wife, Abigail Grant Jones Cutler, daughter of Joseph and Abi C. Grant (Jones) Cutler, of Newburyport, Mass., August 27, 1834, who died in Paris, France, March 25, 1837. He married, for his second wife, Martha Kingman, daughter of Joseph Kingman, Esq., of West Bridgewater, Mass., a teacher in the Normal School, Salem, Mass. He was childless.

Professor Hagar says: "When in his tenth year he was taken to
Hanover, the seat of Dartmouth College, and was placed
temporarily under Professor Adams in algebra and Euclid, under
Professor James Marsh in Latin, and under Tutor Rufus Choate in
Greek; and these gentlemen pronounced him fitted for college. He
was subsequently put to the study of Hebrew, under the Rev. John
L. Parkhurst, and was sent to Exeter Academy; but in 1823 he
entered college, passed through the four years' course of study
without a rival and far beyond rivalry. His power of acquisition
and retention was marvelous.

"After his graduation, he spent four years at Hanover; the
first, as the preceptor of Moor's Indian Charity School, and the
following three as tutor in the college. He subsequently spent
nearly two years at the Theological Seminary in Andover, Mass.
He was appointed to a professorship of Latin and Greek in 1833.
In 1847 he was released from the Latin and became professor of
Greek only, which office he held until 1849, when he resigned;
but he remained professor _emeritus_ until his death."

Professor Crosby was one of the earnest Greek scholars of eminence that New England can boast, being precocious in his scholarship, and so a little in advance of Professor Felton, of Cambridge, who was a year or two older. Both graduated in 1827, Felton at Harvard, and Crosby at Dartmouth; and this, as it happens, was the year in which the first Greek lexicon, with definitions in English, came into the hands of pupils in any part of the world. It was the work of John Pickering, a Salem man, who for many years stood almost alone as a great Greek scholar in America, having preceded Crosby and Felton by more than thirty years. The young men took up the work where Pickering laid it down, and began not long after they became Greek professors in their respective colleges (Felton in 1832, and Crosby in 1833,) the task of preparing grammars, readers, and editions of authors, for the studious youth of the land. Crosby's Greek grammar and his edition of Xenophon's Anabasis soon came into common use, and have been of great service in promoting the elementary instruction of thousands of Greek scholars since; as also have Felton's Reader and his editions of Aristophanes, etc. The learning of Hadley, Goodwin, and other recent professors has gone beyond that of these pioneers in extent and accuracy, but it is doubtful whether they have done so much for rudimentary scholarship.

Professor Crosby belonged not to us alone, but to all New England,--to the whole land. Our country is poorer by the loss of an eminent scholar, one of that small band of classical scholars in America who are known and honored at foreign seats of learning. In the latest, freshest, and most original Greek grammar of Professor Clyde, of Edinburgh, the author acknowledges his obligations to four distinguished scholars, three Europeans and one American; and the American is Professor Crosby.

Professor Crosby published "A Greek and General Grammar"; "Greek Tables"; "Greek Lessons"; an edition of Xenophon's Anabasis; "Eclogae Latinae"; "First Lessons in Geometry"; also many religious and political tracts, and elementary school-books, which have been widely useful among the freedmen and Indians.

PROF. THOMAS R. CROSBY, M. D.

PROF. THOMAS RUSSELL CROSBY, M. D., youngest son of Dr. Asa Crosby, was born in Gilmanton, N. H., October 22, 1816, and died at Hanover, March 1, 1872. He married Louisa Partridge Burton, daughter of Col. Oliver Burton, U. S. A. He graduated D. C. 1841, taking also, at the same time, his degree of Doctor of Medicine. He practiced in Meriden and Manchester, was chief surgeon in Columbian College Hospital, in Washington, D. C., during the war, became professor in the Medical College in that city, and afterwards professor in Dartmouth College. During much of his professional life he was an invalid, but was indefatigable in habits of study, steadily advancing to posts of honor and reward, both as practitioner and teacher.

* * * * *

The faculty of Dartmouth College say: "We would record with deep sorrow the decease of Dr. Thomas R. Crosby, Professor of Animal and Vegetable Physiology in the agricultural department of the college, and Instructor in Natural History in the academical and scientific departments; and that we have a profound sense of the loss sustained by the college and the community in the departure of one who, to all the virtues that adorned his character, added such fullness, variety, and accuracy of scientific and professional attainment as fitted him for signal usefulness in the several positions he occupied."

His brother Josiah bears this testimony of him in a letter, after he had passed away: "I have always considered him equal to any of the brothers as a general scholar, and, decidedly, as the best medical scholar of us doctors; and, although he had not an opportunity of performing so much surgery outside the hospital as others of the family, yet what he did shows conclusively that he was competent to any emergency. He had all the requisite qualifications for a good operator,--a correct knowledge of anatomy and great self-possession."

COL. CHARLES H. SAWYER.

BY REV. GEO. B. SPALDING, D. D.

Charles Henry is the eldest son of Jonathan Sawyer, the sketch of whose life precedes this. He was born March 30, 1840, at Watertown. N. Y. At ten years of age, on the removal of his father to Dover, N. H., Charles, who had already become quite advanced in his studies, was sent to the district school in that place. The district school, although it has been supplanted by what is regarded as an improved system of education, had its own distinctive merits. The six years' training in it, under competent teachers, was sufficient to give young Sawyer a thoroughly practical education in those branches which are found to be essential to success in business life. Books can do little more than this. Experience must complete the training process. At sixteen years of age, it being determined that Charles was to enter into the business of his father, he was placed as an apprentice in the Sawyers' woolen-mills. The business to which a young man is to devote his life affords the very best means for his education in it. It proved to be so in this instance. The young apprentice, as he progressed from one stage to another, had the finest of opportunities for acquiring a full knowledge of all the diversified interests and sciences which belong to such a great industry. There is scarcely a branch in natural philosophy, physics, or the mechanical arts that is not intimately connected with the manufacture of woolens. But the manufacturing processes embrace only a part of the activities and requirements of such a business as the Sawyers. They are their own buyers and sellers in all the great markets of our own and other lands. Superadded to mechanical knowledge and skill, there must be the large intelligence, the clear foresight, the quick, unerring judgment, which belong to the accomplished financier. In this manufactory, based upon so varied knowledge, and calling into activity so many of the strong mental powers, Charles found a grand school, and such proficiency did he make in it, that when he came to his manhood he was abundantly qualified to take upon himself the duties and responsibilities of superintendent. He was appointed to this position in 1866. No small share of the distinguished success which has come to this establishment may be fairly attributable to the fidelity and perseverance in service, the keen sagacity and the great enterprise, which Charles H. Sawyer has brought to its every interest. In 1873, when the company became incorporated, he was admitted to the firm, and, at the same time, was appointed its agent and one of the directors. Since then he has been elected its president.

Mr. Sawyer has served in both branches of the Dover city government; was a member of the New Hampshire legislature in 1869 and 1870, and again in 1876 and 1877, serving on the committee on railroads, incorporations, judiciary, national affairs, and as chairman of the committee on manufactures. In 1881 he was appointed, by Governor Bell, a member of his military staff with rank of colonel. Mr. Sawyer is now acting as director of the Strafford National Bank and the Portsmouth & Dover Railroad, and trustee of the Strafford Savings Bank. He is a member of the Masonic order, taking a personal interest in all that concerns its prosperity. In 1867 he became a member of the Strafford Lodge, and was master in 1872 and 1873. He is a member of the St. Paul Commandry of Knights Templar, of which he has just been elected eminent commander for the fourth time.

Mr. Sawyer, in 1865, was married to Susan Ellen Cowan, daughter of Dr. James W. and Elizabeth Cowan.

Mr. Sawyer is not only a man of affairs, taking a deep personal interest in the various movements of politics, finance, and industrial life, but he is a man of large reading and is well acquainted with the best books and thoughts of the times. His judgments of men and measures are singularly free from partiality and prejudice. His conclusions are deliberately formed, and based upon a broad comprehension of all the related facts. His sense of justice is strong; his intellectual qualities are admirably balanced. He never is otherwise than perfectly poised. With all this he has the warmest heart, the quickest sympathies, great kindness of manner, and utmost geniality of spirit. In the reserve of his nature he withholds himself from all impetuous demonstrations; but, when the occasion demands, his influence, his advice, his friendship are put forth with commanding effect. Nature made him on a large scale, and books and experience and increasing converse with the best phases of social life are developing him into rare strength and symmetry of character.

GOV. ANTHONY COLBY.

ANTHONY COLBY is known in his native state as a typical "New Hampshire man." Born and bred among the granite hills, he seemed assimilated to them, and to illustrate in his noble, cheerful life the effects of their companionship. His great heart, sparkling wit, fine physical vigor, and merry laugh made his presence a joy at all times, and welcome everywhere. His ancestry, on his father's side, was of English, and on his mother's, of Scotch-Irish, origin. The first member of his father's family that removed to this country settled in the town of Salisbury, Mass., in 1740. He bore the name of Anthony Colby, and was a member of the so-called "Test Association."

Joseph Colby, the father of Anthony, was born in Hopkinton, N. H., near Beech Hill, in 1762. He died in 1843. Of his brothers, two, James and Nathaniel, settled in that town, and another, David, in Manchester, near the sea, in Massachusetts. During the last century, Joseph bought a portion of land under the "Masonian Grant" from Mr. Minot. Then the restriction of ownership in the state was that "all the white-pine trees be reserved for masting the ships of His Majesty's royal navy." Each town was required to set apart a portion of land for a meeting-house, and the support of the gospel ministry; for a school-house and the support of a school, as well as a military-parade ground.

In the organization and settlement of the town named New London, and in the needs of the settlers, both civil and religious, Joseph took an active part. He began clearing land in that part of the town now called Pleasant street, at the north end of Pleasant pond. He early established trade for himself with Newburyport and Salem. The state legislature then held its sessions in Portsmouth. Of this, he was for fourteen consecutive years a member. He was a political leader, and an uncompromising Federalist. For fifty years he was a stanch member of the Baptist church, of which Rev. Job Seamans was the first pastor, and he was for some time president of the Baptist state convention.

He married Anne Heath, a direct descendant of the Richard Kelley family, of which Judge Kelley, of Exeter, was a member. Her immediate relatives took part in the Revolutionary war. Members of the family live in Newbury, Mass. The family of Joseph Colby consisted of two sons and two daughters. The eldest daughter, Sarah, married Jonathan Herrick; the second, Judith, married Perley Burpee. Both of these daughters were settled beside him. Mrs. Burpee still survives. The two sons of Joseph Colby never left their father's household. Joseph, the eldest, spent the most of his life in the gratification of his literary tastes, and a species of journalism. Anthony, born in 1795, was of a lively disposition. A pleasant vein of humor ran through his character, making him enjoy a joke, while a native prescience led him to project himself into every kind of progress. A keen insight into the character of men gave him an almost unlimited influence over them. He never passed through college, but his faculties were broadly developed by the condition into which his genial and vivid nature led him. His father's home was so guarded and in every way provided for, that ample opportunity was afforded him to follow the pursuits and activities that were congenial to him. He married, at an early age, Mary Everett, whose modest and refined Christian character greatly influenced him. A more favored home could hardly be imagined than that in which his three children were born, and which is still held sacred by them. The steady support of a grandfather's established character, the stimulus of a popular father, joined to the affection of a devoted grandmother and the delicate influence of a lovely mother, created an atmosphere, of solid content and peace as blissful as is to be found this side of heaven. His eldest son, Daniel E. Colby, graduated from Dartmouth College in 1836. He married Martha Greenwood, and now lives in the paternal home. His daughter married, in 1851, James B. Colgate, and lives in New York, as does her brother Robert, who married Mary Colgate. Robert also graduated from Dartmouth College, and studied law with Judge Perley, at Concord, N. H.

The prominent characteristics of Anthony Colby were manly self-reliance and intrepidity, joined with quick sympathy and faithfulness in friendship, which made men trust and love him. His father's identity with the state gave him a wide knowledge of its resources, industries, and inhabitants. He was interested in the affairs of the entire state, and was always ready to sacrifice the interests of his private business for those of his townsmen. There was no neighborhood or personal difficulty in which he did not willingly take the responsibility of bringing help or reconciliation. His tender sympathy, benevolence, and personal authority were sufficient to adjust the differences and rights of all who sought his assistance. He was strictly and absolutely a temperance man, never tasting spirituous liquors, and always using his influence to save young men from the use of them. His nature was many-sided enough to find some points of agreement with men whose habits differed from his own.

He established a line of stages through his native town before any system of railroads had been extended through the state. He afterwards became president of the Concord & Claremont Railroad. He possessed, in an unusual degree, an ability to create in his own brain and carry into practice business activities. He saw and felt how labor could be well applied, and, while a young man, built himself, in a part of the town then almost a forest, a grist-mill, carding and fulling mill. In 1836 he was instrumental in establishing a scythe-factory which was carried on by the use of the same water that had been used for the mills. In this enterprise he was associated with Joseph Phillips and Richard Messer, both of whom had learned the trade of scythe-making. In the vicinity there grew up directly a flourishing village.

In politics, Mr. Colby was always conservative. He was first elected a member of the New Hampshire legislature, in 1828, and afterwards held nearly every higher office of trust in the state. Daniel Webster was his personal friend. Their fathers, who lived in the same county, only about twenty miles apart, were many years associated in the legislature, of which they were members, from Salisbury and New London. The friendship between himself, Judge Nesmith, of Franklin, and Gen. James Wilson, of Keene, was _more_ than simple friendship,--they were delightful companions; of essentially different characteristics, the combination was perfect. Daniel Webster was their political chief, and his vacation sometimes found these men together at the Franklin "farm-house," and at the chowder parties up at the "pond." The Phenix Hotel, under the charge of Col. Abel and Maj. Ephraim Hutchins, was the central rendezvous, where a great deal of projected statesmanship, a great deal of story telling and fruitless caucusing were indulged in, down to the revolution of 1846, when the Democrats lost their supremacy by the admission of Texas as a slave state, when John P. Hale went into the senate. Anthony Colby was then elected governor. Mr. Webster wrote him earliest congratulations. With the usual backsets of a radical change, the Whig party held the front until Mr. Webster made his Seventh-of-March speech in 1850, on the fugitive-slave bill. Following up that speech by another on the Revere-House steps, favoring the enforcement of that law, and addressed to New England men, in which he said, "Massachusetts takes no steps backward," he placed his friends in a most trying predicament.

Mr. Webster and his Boston body-guard made an effort to hold the Whig party solid to his position. It could not be done. The Abolitionists stood forth in full panoply, indiscriminately and precipitately aggressive, thanking God for the fugitive-slave law, and that Daniel Webster was its promoter and defender. He wrote to Gov. Colby, urging him to stand firmly by him and help bring the public mind to this new standard. The governor was perplexed. Privately he expressed himself after this fashion: "New Hampshire men vote for the fugitive-slave law! This whole business is like crowding a hot potato down a man's throat, and then asking him to sing 'Old Hundred.'" He wrote Mr. Webster that he would do all that he could for him as a friend, although the law was odious to him.

There was held, that summer, a Baptist state convention. It was a full convention, for the churches were in a ferment, and many of them disintegrating upon the slavery issue. He was sent as a delegate from the church of which he was a member. A set of resolutions was reported, of a very violent and denunciatory character, directed against the fugitive-slave law, Mr. Webster, and both political parties, threatening expulsion and disfellowship to those members of churches who did not come out with an open and square protest upon this subject. The discussion was all one side until the advocates of the resolution had aired their opinions to their own satisfaction. Then, the governor, seeing his opportunity, quietly arose and moved an amendment to the resolution inveighing against Mr. Webster personally. He felt the fight to be a single-handed one, and would go through it alone if necessary. Presently, a candid brother seconded his amendment with a few suggestions. Other brethren applauded. Then the storm set in from the other side, and the convention became disorderly. It was as if the better elements of New England life were in one grand convocation. This was the first public discussion of the situation. The contest was as brilliant a one, on a modified scale, as any intellectual and emotional contest that we read of. The governor's only hope of reconciliation was by settling down on his own popularity with the members of the convention, and, avoiding the principles involved, appealing to their generosity as a personal favor. With tears in his eyes and in faltering, grieving tones, he besought them most solemnly to spare his life-long friend the denunciation contained in that one resolution, and accept his amendment. The convention agreed to it. He sent a report of the proceedings, with an explanatory letter, to Mr. Webster: but he was not satisfied. There the matter dropped. These true-hearted friends saw, silently, the scepter of leadership declining in Mr. Webster's hand, and sadly lamented, what they could not prevent.

No Whig had held the office of governor, until the election of Anthony Colby, since the election of Gov. Bell, an interim of seventeen years. Gov. Colby being rallied upon his one-term office, said he considered his administration the most remarkable the state ever had. "Why so?" was asked; when with assumed gravity he answered: "Because _I have satisfied the people in one year_, and no other governor ever did that."

His spirit attached him to military life. He was early promoted to the rank of major-general. This experience turned to his account, when, during the trying years of our late war, in 1861 he was appointed adjutant-general, and subsequently provost-marshal, of New Hampshire. At this time his son Daniel E. Colby was appointed adjutant-general. The governor always alluded to this service as the saddest of his life,--to encourage and send forth to almost certain death the young men of the state whom he loved as a father. This was his last prominent office in state affairs; and so faithful was he in it, that, although nearly seventy years of age, he went often to the front to acquaint himself with the condition of the soldiers and share their hardships with them.

In 1850 he received from Dartmouth College the degree of A. M., and the same year was chosen one of the trustees of the college. He was interested in the best possible educational advantages of the young, and in every way promoted them. Through his energy, in a great degree, the academy in New London has arisen to its present flourishing condition. His son-in-law, James B. Colgate, of New York, has generously endowed it, and aided in placing it upon a solid basis. The trustees have conferred upon it the name of Colby Academy.

Gov. Colby's second wife, Eliza Messenger Richardson, of Boston, by her accomplishments and true Christian character embellished and enlivened his declining years, while the devotion of his children cheered the seclusion of his last days.

Said an illiterate woman, to strangers discussing his character in the cars, "Governor Colby carries the very _demon_ of honesty in his face."

It was his unfailing sense of duty and trust in God that won for him the vast respect of the public, and esteem of a large circle of private friends.

Sunday evening, July 20, 1875, he died, peacefully, in the home of his father, at the age of eighty years, and was buried in the cemetery of his native town, by the side of his parents.

Wm E. Chandler

April 1882]

SECRETARY WILLIAM E. CHANDLER.

BY HON. JACOB H. ELA.

WILLIAM E. CHANDLER, the second son of Nathan S. and Mary A. Chandler, was born in Concord, N. H., December 28, 1835, and educated in the public schools of that city and the academies of Thetford, Vt., and Pembroke, N. H. He began the study of the law in the office of George & Webster and George & Foster in 1852; graduated from the Harvard Law School as LL. B. in 1855; and in 1856, before coming of age, began practicing in Concord with Francis B. Peabody, Esq., now of Chicago.

Mr. Chandler has, from early childhood, fulfilled all the expectations of his friends. At the Harvard Law School he was librarian, and graduated with prize honors for an essay on "The Introduction of the Principles of Equity Jurisprudence into the Administration of the Common Law." He developed an early taste for policies, and a desire to aid in philanthropic movements. He delivered an address, in 1857, before the Concord Female Benevolent Association, in the Unitarian church, which at once proved him a clear and vigorous writer and thinker. The writer's first recollection of him as a lawyer was in the management of an election case before the state legislature, for the Republicans of Moultonborough, when it seemed imprudent to employ one almost a boy to manage a case such as was generally committed to lawyers of large experience; but the result justified the selection. In June, 1859, he was appointed, by Gov. Ichabod Goodwin, law reporter of the New Hampshire supreme court, and published five volumes of the reports. He entered the service of the Republican party with great earnestness at its beginning, in 1856, and gave much of his time in the office of the state committee, to assist the movement during its early campaigns, becoming secretary first, and afterwards chairman in 1864 and 1865. The election of 1863 took place during the darkest period of the war, following the battle of Fredericksburg, when gloom and almost despair overshadowed every town in the state. It was evident to all that a draft was impending, and it seemed as though the ability of the towns and the state had been exhausted, and no more money could be raised or volunteers be found to enlist. All those opposed to the war were united and active in the Democratic party, and were aided by those Republicans who were alarmed by the burden of debt, and by those who would compromise the safety of the Union sooner than expose themselves to be drafted to save it. It was the most important political campaign ever conducted in the state, and brought the executive ability of Mr. Chandler prominently into view, and led to his future advancement. It was the first campaign in which a woman took a leading part. Miss Anna Dickinson was employed as one of the speakers in the canvass, and there commenced her career on the platform. She had before often spoken in anti-slavery meetings. President Lincoln watched this campaign more closely, probably, than any other outside his own state. It was the opening election of the year following a depressing defeat, and he felt that to lose it at such a critical time would be as disastrous in its effects upon the army and the country as the loss of a great battle. It was his interest in this election which first brought Mr. Chandler to his attention, and there is no doubt that he noted when, in the New Hampshire Republican state convention, in 1864, Mr. Chandler offered the following resolution, which was unanimously and by acclamation adopted:--

"_Resolved_, That Abraham Lincoln, by the exercise, during the
severest and most dangerous crisis in the nation's history, of
unequaled sagacity and statesmanship, and that moderation and
prudence which experience has shown to be the highest wisdom; by
his spotless integrity of personal character, above reproach and
above suspicion; and by his slowly formed yet unalterable
determination that the triumph of the constitution and the Union
over secession and rebellion shall be the final triumph of
liberty throughout the nation,--has received and merited the
abiding confidence of the people to an extent never awarded any
other public man since Washington; that the best interests of
the country demand that the complete destruction of the
rebellion and the restoration of peace, prosperity, and the
Union, should be achieved under his administration of the
government; and that we therefore declare Abraham Lincoln to be
the people's choice for re-election to the presidency in 1864."

The adoption of the resolution, and the conduct of the canvass in the spring of 1864 on the basis of Mr. Lincoln's renomination, resulted in a very large Republican majority; and Mr. Chandler, who had been a member of the legislature of 1862, and, at the age of twenty-seven, had been elected speaker of the house of representatives, in 1863, was again chosen speaker; and in August, 1864, presided over the legislature in which occurred the eventful conflict and riotous disturbances over the veto by Governor Gilmore of the bill allowing soldiers in the field the right to vote. Mr. Chandler gained his earliest reputation for persistency, coolness, and moral courage in this celebrated conflict, so well remembered by the Republicans of the state.

In November, 1864, he was employed by the Navy Department as special counsel to prosecute the Philadelphia navy-yard frauds, and on March 9, 1865, was appointed, by President Lincoln, the first solicitor and judge-advocate-general of that department. On June 17, 1865, he was appointed first assistant secretary of the treasury, with Secretary Hugh McCulloch, and held the office over two years, resigning November 30, 1867. After his resignation, he practiced law in New Hampshire and in Washington, and was solicitor of the National Life Insurance Company, and counsel and one of the proprietors of the Washington-Market Company, and engaged in some mining and railroad enterprises.

It has been at various times falsely charged that Mr. Chandler received large fees for prosecuting cotton claims before the department in which he had been an officer. This charge is entirely false. He has never prosecuted, before any forum, any such claims, and the following letter to him, written at a time when Hon. George G. Fogg made such charges against him, proves the correctness of his conduct:--

WASHINGTON, D. C., January 25, 1868.

HON. HUGH MCCULLOCH, _Secretary of the Treasury_,--

MY DEAR SIR:--It has been stated in public prints and otherwise,
in a form designed to injure me, that since leaving the Treasury
Department I have taken employment against the government as
agent or attorney for cotton claims.

As you know that such statements are false, I desire that you
will be kind enough to inform me in writing of the understanding
that exists as to my relation to such cases.

Very truly yours,
WM. E. CHANDLER.

TREASURY DEPARTMENT, January 28, 1868.

DEAR SIR:--Your favor of the 25th instant is received. It was
arranged between us, before you resigned your office of
Assistant Secretary, that you were not to act as counsel or
otherwise against the government in relation to cotton claims,
either at this department or before the court of claims. The
arrangement was entirely voluntary on your part, and was
considered prudent and judicious in view of your connection with
this class of claims in the department. I regarded it as a very
honorable one as far as you were concerned, as it was
unaccompanied by any retainer or employment of yourself as
counsel for the government in such cases, and was without any
assurance on my part, or, as I supposed, any expectation on
yours, that you should be so employed.

The understanding has not been, so far as I am advised, directly
or indirectly violated by you.

Very truly yours,
HUGH McCULLOCH, _Secretary_.

HON. WM. E. CHANDLER, Washington, D. C.

Mr. Chandler did not keep out of politics, but was elected as a delegate-at-large from New Hampshire to the national convention of 1868, and subsequently was chosen secretary of the national committee. He held this position during President Grant's administrations, and devoted himself to the successful conduct of the campaigns of 1868 and 1872. In 1876 he declined to occupy the position longer, but still contributed much of his time to assist in the conduct of the canvass. He had, during this time, become the owner of the largest interest in the _New Hampshire Statesman_ and the _Monitor_, the leading weekly and daily Republican papers in the state, at Concord, and he was elected, in November, a member from Concord to the constitutional convention which amended the constitution of the state.

After voting in Concord at the presidential election in 1876, Mr. Chandler left for Washington, reaching the Fifth-Avenue Hotel, New York, in the early hours of the morning. The other managers of the national campaign had retired for the night, believing they were defeated; but, coincident with Mr. Chandler's arrival, news reached the committee-rooms that Oregon had been carried by the Republicans, which would elect Hayes and Wheeler by one vote. Mr. Chandler at once comprehended the situation and the points of danger, and, without waiting for consultation, sent dispatches warning against defeat by fraud, to Oregon, Florida, South Carolina, and Louisiana. At the urgent solicitation of prominent members of the party, he was prevailed upon to start immediately for Florida, to protect the interests of the Republican party. He there became counsel for the Hayes electors before the canvassing board of the state, and it is universally admitted, by Republicans and Democrats alike, that to him more than to any other man is due the preservation to the Republicans of the fruits of their victory in that state. When the contest was transferred from the states to congress, and, finally, before the electoral commission chosen to arbitrate and decide who had been elected president, Mr. Chandler acted as counsel, and assisted in preparing the case as presented to the commission.

In the report of the special committee sent by the senate to investigate the election in Florida, made January 29, 1877, by Senator Sargent, of California, is contained a full statement of what the committee considered to be the law with reference to the conclusiveness of the declaration by a state canvassing board of the vote of the state for presidential electors, which was the earliest formal exposition of the principles of law which were finally adopted by the commission. The authorship of this statement is freely attributed by Mr. Sargent to Mr. Chandler, and the points, briefly stated, are as follows:--

I. The canvassing board was created by competent legislative
authority, with jurisdiction to ascertain, declare, and certify,
in due form, the result of the election, and in this case it did
certify that the Hayes electors had been chosen by nine hundred
and thirty majority.

This declaration, having been made by a tribunal having
unquestioned jurisdiction over the subject-matter, is
conclusive, and it has not been and cannot be reviewed, revised,
or reversed, by any power anywhere existing.

II. It cannot be reversed by any authority proceeding from the
state Of Florida. It cannot be reversed by a recanvass of the
votes.

III. As the decision of the canvassing board, that the Hayes
electors were chosen, cannot be reversed by a recanvass, neither
can the title of the electors be impaired upon proceedings of
_quo warranto_.

IV. If the declaration of the result of the election of
presidential electors in Florida, made by the state tribunal
authorized by the legislature to make such declaration, cannot
be reversed by any authority proceeding from the state of
Florida, neither can it be reversed by congress. The
constitutional provision, section 1, article 2, is, "That each
state shall appoint, in such manner as the legislature thereof
shall direct, a number of electors equal," etc. It is not
pretended by anyone that the president of the senate, or
congress, in counting the electoral vote, can do more than
merely ascertain whether or not the electors have been appointed
within each state in the manner prescribed by the legislature
thereof; and in the present case, if congress shall find that
the result of the late election was ascertained and declared by
the proper tribunal, created for that purpose and authorized by
the legislature to make the declaration, that declaration and
decision by such tribunal having jurisdiction over the
subject-matter is final and conclusive upon congress, and cannot
be reviewed, revised, or reversed. It does appear that the
canvassing board of the state of Florida, duly authorized by the
legislature, canvassed the result of the election, and declared
and certified that the Hayes electors were chosen, which result
appearing to the governor of the state, he issued certificates
to the electors so declared chosen, and they proceeded to
perform their functions. Beyond this authorized decision and
declaration of the proper state tribunal, it is respectfully
submitted that neither the president of the senate nor congress
can go.

V. In stating this doctrine, that neither the president of the
senate nor congress has the right, in counting the electoral
vote from any state, to go beyond the decision of that tribunal
authorized by the state legislature to ascertain and declare the
result of the vote of the people of the state for electors, it
is not meant to assert that the president of the senate, or
congress, cannot go behind the mere ministerial certificate of
the governor. It is the duty of the executive to give a
certificate to the electors chosen in the manner the legislature
may have appointed, and declared to be so chosen by the tribunal
authorized by the legislature to make such declaration. But if
the governor is, by the state statute, not a member of such
tribunal, his certificate is as purely ministerial as that of
the clerk of a court certifying a copy of a judgment. It is a
valid certificate if it is in accordance with the facts
appearing upon the record. It is utterly invalid and worthless
if contrary to those facts. Therefore the president of the
senate, or congress, in canvassing the electoral votes, even
ministerially, and with no authority to go beyond the
declaration of the election made by the state tribunal
authorized to decide the result of the election, may look beyond
the mere ministerial certificate of the executive, who has been
authorized to decide nothing, and whose certificate is of no
value or binding force unless correctly and truthfully issued in
accordance with the legally declared election. This distinction,
which enables the president of the senate, or congress, to go
behind the mere ministerial certificate of the governor of the
state, but yet prohibits them from going behind the declaration
as to the result of the election duly made by the proper state
tribunal authorized to make such declaration, although
technical, is as clear and distinct, and founded upon principles
of law as sound and wise, as those which allow any tribunal to
go behind a clerk's merely ministerial certificate purporting to
verify the result of a verdict or judgment in court, without
allowing it to go beyond the true record of the verdict or
judgment itself.

After Mr. Hayes had been by the commission declared elected president, when his administration surrendered the state governments of South Carolina and Louisiana into the hands of the Democratic claimants, Mr. Chandler vigorously opposed it, and criticised the surrender and the men connected with it in most scathing terms, in letters published in the winter of 1877-78. His fidelity to his convictions of duty was conspicuous; and his courage and boldness in attacking the Hayes administration gave him a lasting hold upon the confidence of the country.

In 1880 he was elected at the head of the ticket of Blaine delegates from New Hampshire to the Chicago convention, and was especially active in the contests in the national committee prior to the convention, and as a member of the committee on credentials, of which Senator Conger was chairman, and which made the successful report in favor of district representation. The following is an extract from the report of the committee on credentials:--

This long current of precedents, and this universal custom of
the past, most conclusively establish the right of congressional
district representation. It is a question of substance and not
of form. Whether the delegates have come certified from separate
district conventions, or whether they have come from a state
convention where the district members thereof have selected
their district representatives, and formally reported them to
the state convention, and their election has been certified, for
brevity and convenience, only by the officers of the state
convention, district representation in fact has always been
allowed. The right of the congressional district to two members
residing within it and representing its sentiments, has been
treated as sacred, and your committee do not believe that it
should be now for the first time invaded with the approval of a
national convention.

Not only does the call for the convention, and the practice and
precedents of the party in one unbroken line, indicate and
secure the right of single district representation, but every
consideration of the reason of the practice tends to confirm its
wisdom. The purpose to be secured in nominating a President is
the selection of a candidate the most likely to be accepted by
the people; and the nearer we get to the popular feeling, in the
manner of selecting delegates, the wiser and safer will be our
nominations. If a state convention called to choose delegates to
a national convention can, by a bare majority, over-rule the
choices of the congressional districts and select delegates
residing within the districts who do not represent its
sentiments, they might as well he allowed to select all the
delegates from one congressional district. Residence within a
district, coupled with misrepresentation of its sentiments, is a
mockery. The delegates thus selected by a state convention will
not fairly represent the masses of the Republicans of the state,
but frequently will misrepresent them. Nominations made by
conventions of such delegates will not be so likely to be
ratified at the polls; and, in the opinion of the committee, it
is the duty of the convention emphatically to disapprove these
attempts to over-ride time-honored customs of the party, and to
vindicate the right of every congressional district to be
represented in a national convention by two delegates of its own
selection, and expressing its own sentiments.

When his favorite candidate was withdrawn in the convention, he supported General Garfield, and during the campaign which resulted in his election was a member of the national committee and served on the executive committee.

On March 23, 1881, he was nominated, by President Garfield, as solicitor-general in the Department of Justice; but his confirmation was opposed by Attorney-General MacVeagh, and also by all the Democratic senators, on account of his extreme radicalism on the southern question. The Republicans, with Vice-President Arthur's vote, would have had one majority; but the whole Democratic vote, the absence of the New York senators, the abstention of Senator Mitchell, and the adverse vote of Senator Cameron of Pennsylvania, caused his rejection, on May 20, by five majority.

Mr. Chandler had been, in November, 1880, elected a member from Concord in the state legislature, which assembled in June, 1881, and he took a leading position. He favored stringent legislation against bribery at elections, and against the issuing of free passes by railroads, and was in favor of controlling by law the regulation of freight and fares upon all railroads within the state. After the close of the session of the legislature, when consolidation was effected between certain Massachusetts and New Hampshire railroads without the consent of the proper authorities, and against the law, he contended against their action in the courts, in the press, and in all legitimate ways. Its success would have placed the whole railroad interest in the lines running through the center of the state and their branches under the control of Massachusetts capital and Massachusetts corporations. His legal positions have been sustained by the court, and the custody and control of the roads ordered to be taken and exercised by their rightful owners.

The latest honor conferred upon Mr. Chandler was his selection by President Arthur as a member of his cabinet. He was nominated, April 7, 1882, for Secretary of the Navy, and confirmed April 12, by a vote of twenty-eight to sixteen; he qualified and took possession of the office, April 17, 1882.

In closing this sketch of a busy and useful life, I must add a few words appreciative of the character of one whom as a boy and man I have known for forty years. In his personal habits Mr. Chandler is above reproach,--pure in speech as in action,--with a mind quick to perceive, prompt to execute, and comprehensive in its scope. He is a man with convictions and the courage to express and maintain them. He has never sought advancement by flattery or pandering to prejudice. Those who know him best have the most faith in his integrity. The best evidence of it is the fact that in twenty-five years of aggressive political life, while occupying positions of temptation, and criticising freely the action of men who forgot their moral obligations or were shirking their official duties to the detriment of the public good, no one of them has been able to connect him with personal dishonesty, corrupt practice in official life, or political treachery or double-dealing. His methods are direct, positive, systematic, exact, and logical. The positions he has held have all come to him in recognition of his ability and earnest efforts in serving the cause he espouses.

Mr. Chandler has been twice married,--in 1859, to a daughter of Gov. Joseph A. Gilmore, and in 1874, to a daughter of Hon. John P. Hale. He has three sons,--Joseph Gilmore, born in 1860; William Dwight, in 1863; and Lloyd Horwitz, in 1869. Mr. Chandler's father died in 1862. His mother is still living in Concord. He has two brothers,--John K. Chandler, formerly a merchant in Boston and the East Indies, now residing on a farm in Canterbury, N. H.; and George H. Chandler, who was first adjutant and afterwards major of the Ninth New Hampshire regiment, and is now a lawyer in Baltimore. Mr. Chandler's father was a Whig, a man of great intelligence and firmness of character. His mother is a woman of equally positive traits, and has contributed much to the formation of the character which has given success to her sons.

HON. WILLIAM C. CLARKE.

Among the public men of New Hampshire who have lately passed away, none was more widely known in the state, or more sincerely respected, than Hon. WILLIAM COGSWELL CLARKE, of Manchester. He was born in Atkinson, N. H., December 10, 1810, being the eldest son of Greenleaf and Julia (Cogswell) Clarke. His father was a farmer and master-mason, the constructor of many fine business buildings in the neighboring town of Haverhill, Mass., and a highly esteemed citizen of Atkinson, where he served as selectman and justice of the peace. He was descended from Nathaniel Clarke, a merchant of Newbury, Mass., who died in 1690, and from Capt. Edmund Greenleaf, of that place, an officer of repute in the wars of the early colonists with the Indians. The wife of Greenleaf Clarke was a daughter of Dr. William Cogswell, of Atkinson, who was a surgeon in the Revolutionary army, and at one time chief of the Military Hospital at West Point.

William C. Clarke pursued his early studies at Atkinson Academy, of which his maternal grandfather was one of the founders, and then entered Dartmouth College, at the age of eighteen years. He was graduated with high honors in the class of 1832, which included Professors Noyes and Sanborn, of Dartmouth, and the late Samuel H. Taylor, LL.D., the noted instructor at Andover, Mass. Immediately becoming principal of Gilmanton Academy, he held the position for one year, while beginning the study of law. He continued his legal studies in the Harvard Law School, in the office of Stephen Moody, at Gilmanton, and in that of Stephen C. Lyford, at Meredith Bridge, now Laconia, N. H. On his admission to the bar, in 1836, he began practice in the latter town, and on the creation of Belknap county, at the close of 1840, he was appointed county solicitor. He held this position until the spring of 1844, when he removed to Manchester, and continued the practice of his profession. Two years later he was one of a committee of seven chosen by the town to petition the legislature for a city charter, and at the first city election, in August, 1846, was the Democratic candidate for mayor. There being two other candidates, there was no choice, and he withdrew his name before the second ballot, in September. In the same year, however, he consented to act as chief engineer of the fire department of the young city, and he retained this position till the close of 1848, having a number of leading citizens as his assistants.

In 1849 he was elected to the office of city solicitor, which he held for two years, and in 1850 he served as a member of the state constitutional convention. Appointed the judge of probate for Hillsborough county in 1851, he obtained the judicial title which clung to him thereafter. In 1854 he was again the Democratic candidate for mayor, but the Whig ticket was successful. A year later Judge Clarke was tendered, by Governor Metcalf, an appointment to the bench of the supreme court, but declined the position. As judge of probate he discharged his duties with high public approval, but his removal from this office, in 1856, was included in the sweeping political changes which began in 1855. In 1858 he served as a member of the Manchester Board of Aldermen. Soon after the death of the Hon. John Sullivan, he was appointed, in 1863, to succeed him as attorney-general of the state; and, receiving a re-appointment in 1868, he continued to fill the office until his death in 1872.

From the time of his admission to the bar until he became the chief prosecuting officer of the state, Judge Clarke was actively engaged in private legal practice. He early acquired the reputation of a sound and able lawyer, and obtained an extensive clientage. As attorney-general he was highly successful in the performance of his duties, to which he devoted himself with conscientious faithfulness. Recognizing the semi-judicial character of his office, he did not allow the zeal of the advocate to outweigh more important considerations, and, in cases where a minor offense had been committed for the first time, he frequently caused indictments to be suspended, so as to give the culprit both a chance and a stimulus to reform. Hardened or flagrant criminals he pursued with the rigor demanded by the interests of justice, leaving no stone unturned in his efforts to secure their conviction. He drew all his indictments with the greatest care, and it is said that no one of the number was ever set aside. He took equal pains with the preparation of evidence and of his arguments in all important causes. These cases included a number of murder trials which attracted wide attention when in progress, and which afforded marked proof of his legal skill. His sense of duty being above all other considerations, he was unmoved by all attempts to affect his official course by private appeals or by any species of personal influence.

Judge Clarke had a marked distaste for ordinary politics and the arts of the politician. On the few occasions when he consented to be a candidate for an elective office, he did not seek the nomination, but accepted it at the request of his friends. Firmly believing, however, in the original principles of the Democratic party, he often gave his voice and pen to their support, and was long a prominent member of that party in New Hampshire. When the rebellion broke out he did not hesitate a moment in regard to his political course, but was among the foremost of those who urged all citizens to sink minor party differences and rally to sustain the imperiled government. During this crisis he was active in calling and addressing many public meetings, which pledged aid to the most vigorous measures for the defense of the Union. At the great war mass-meeting held in Concord, N. H., on the 17th of June. 1863,--which was attended by thirty thousand people, from all parts of the state, and was addressed by men of national eminence, including a member of President Lincoln's cabinet,--Judge Clarke called the assembly to order, and read the call, after which he was chosen the first vice-president. Being dissatisfied with the attitude toward the war assumed by many of the leaders of the Democratic party, he was largely instrumental in organizing the zealous War Democrats of the state into a third, or "Union," party, which nominated a separate ticket for state officers in 1862 and 1863. This organization was not maintained after the latter year, and Judge Clarke thenceforward voted with the Republican party; but, after the early years of the war, he refrained from any active participation in politics, which he regarded as inconsistent with the nature of his duties as attorney-general.