356 HON
During the period of his Congressional service the Washington hospitals were tilled with sick and wounded soldiers, and certainly no member from any State was any more assiduous in his efforts in their behalf than Capt. Marcy. Hun- dreds of sick and suffering soldiers from our State had their wants supplied at his hands, while no service, in his power to render, was ever withheld from a New Hampshire soldier, whether in sickness or in health. He was the candidate of his party for Congress at subsequent elections, but the Republicans were too strongly in the ascendancy to admit of his success.
In the memorable campaign of 1871, Capt. Marcy was again the Democratic candidate for State Senator in the First District, William Marden being the Re- publican candidate. There was a third ticket in the field, receiving sufficient votes to defeat a choice of Senator by the people, but the result was the election of Capt. Marcy by the Legislature. The next year, and for two or three succeed- ing years, he was elected to the House by the people of his ward, who ever found in him an honest and faithful rep- resentative. This, with three years in the city government, as a member of the Board of Aldermen^ constitutes the ex- tent of his public service, with the excep- tion of six years as a member of the Board of Trustees of the State Reform School, upon which he was appointed by Gov. Straw, and of which he was for five years president, taking great interest in the management of the institution. He was also a member of the Constitutional Convention of 1S76.
Capt. Marcy was a delegate to the Democratic National Convention at Charleston in 1860. He was in New Or- leans when chosen, and proceeded to Charleston in company with many of the delegates from the Southern States. The spirit of secession had already begun to manifest itself, and many of the party leaders at the South were outspoken in their determination to withdraw from the Convention, if they could not control its action, even as they proposed that the South should secede from the Union if the result of the election should not be
��DANIEL MARCY.
��satisfactory. With these men, both on the way to Charleston and during the ex- citing days of the session, he used all his powers of argument to induce them to stand by the party and the country and abide the result, but to no avail. Other delegates, from New England, however, including such men as Benjamin F. But- ler and Caleb dishing, then high in the councils of the Democratic party, en- couraged them in the course they had de- termined to pursue. They withdrew from the Convention. The party was broken and defeated as the result. Secession followed, with all its terrible consequen- ces to the South and to the nation. More than one of the Southern delegates whom Capt. Marcy urged to stand by their par- ty associates of the North, have since acknowledged to him the grievous error of their course.
In January, 1876, the Democratic State Convention, with great unanimity, pre- sented the name of Capt. Marcy as the candidate of the party for Governor. The nomination was entirely unsought and undesired by him, yet, upon the ur- gently expressed desire of his party friends, he accepted it, and, although there was no general expectation of a Democratic triumph, the campaign was a vigorous one at least. He was again the candidate of his party in 1877, but the result of the presidential canvass had so discouraged the Democracy that they had little heart in the contest, and the Republicans again succeeded.
During the past few years Capt. Marcy has lent his aid and example toward the revival of ship building at Portsmouth, and with his brother and others as part- ners in the enterprise, has built several of the finest ships ever launched at that port. The Wm. H. Marcy, a splendid vessel of 1700 tons, built in 1874. made its first voyage to California in the au- tumn of that year under command of his second son, Capt J. Truro Marcy, and still remains in the California trade, un- der his command. The Frank Jones, an- other fine ship of 1600 tons, was built the following year. Last year he built the ship Granite State, a vessel of 1800 tons register and the largest ever built at Portsmouth. This vessel sailed on its
�� �
