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��THE SPEAKERSHIP.
��highest rank in the legal profession in our State,and several secured a national repu- tation as orators, jurists and statesmen. The names of Bartlett,Woodbury,Pierce, Hale and Atherton, indeed form a bril- liant consellation, while those of Plumer, Bell, Harvey, Hubbard, Norris, Wells and Hibbard, not to mention many scarcely less distinguished, will be re- membered and honored for generations to come.
Of all the men who have held the Speaker's office, but seventeen are now living. Of these, the eldest, as well in years as in time of service, is Gen. James Wilson of Keene, who presided in the house forty nine years ago, being at that time thirty one years of age. Gen. Wil- son, although subsequently for a time a resident of Iowa and afterward of Cali- fornia, is now living at Keene, in the full enjoyment of his mental powers and as high a degree of bodily vigor as is usual for men of fourscore. He has held a seat in the Legislature more years than any other man now living, sixteen in all, his first year being in 1825 and his last 1870. He was elected a member of the Thirti- eth Congress, succeeding Hon. Edmund Burke of Newport, and re-elected to the Thirty-First,from which he subsequently resigned to go to California.
Second in order among the Speakers now living is the Hon. Ira A. Eastman, now resident in Manchester, formerly ot Gilmanton, who held the office forty years ago, being then about thirty years of age. He was chosen a member of Congress in 1839, serving four years in that body, and was subsequently for ten years, from 1849 to 1859, an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the State. Judge Eastman is still in excel- lent health, active and vigorous as most men of fifty, and manifests a lively inter- est in public affairs.
Dr. George W. Kittredge of Newmar- ket, the third in order of our living ex- Speakers, occupied the chair just twenty- five years ago this summer. He was then in middle life, but is now in feeble bodily health, though his mind is yet clear and active. Dr. Kittredge repre- sented the First District in the Thirty- Third Congress, being the last member
��of the medical profession to occupy a seat in the national legislature from this State, although many of our ablest rep- resentatives in former years, including Bartlett and Thornton of the Continental Congress, had been members of that pro- fession.
The immediate predecessor of Dr. Kit- tredge in the Speakership, Nathaniel B. Baker, who subsequently became Gover- nor, died last year in Iowa, where he had resided for about twenty years, and had been largely in public life, rendering im- portant services to the State as Adju- tant General during the war of the Re- bellion. His immediate successor, J. Everett Sargent, who was subsequently President of the Senate, an Associate and afterwards Chief Justice of the Su- preme Court, still remains upon the stage of active life, and is a prominent member of the present Legislature. Mr. Sar- gent's successor, Francis R. Chase, died last year.
Of the fourteen incumbents of the Speakership since 1856 all are living, with the single exception of Wm. H. Gove, all in active life, and all still resi- dents of New Hampshire, except Napo- leon P. Bryant, who is now practicing his profession of the law in the city of Boston.
Augustus A. Woolson, the present Speaker ot the House of Representatives, is a native of the town of Lisbon, which he now represents, born June 15, 1835, being now, therefore, just forty-two years of age. The Woolsous are not a numer- ous family in this country. The name, in fact, is a very rare one, having, we be- lieve, but a single representative in the Boston Directory, James A. Woolson, an active partner in the well-known firm of William Claflin & Co. All the Woolsons in America are the direct descendants of three brothers who came from Wales, and were among the early settlers of the town of Lunenburg, Mass., from whence their descendants have scattered over the country. Among the more prominent members of the family in New England are Amasa Woolson, of the enterprising and wealthy firm of Parks & Woolson, of Springfield, Vt., manufacturers of woolen machinery, and Prof. Moses
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