Page:The Granite Monthly Volume 5.djvu/418

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380
THE GRANITE MONTHLY.

was a student in Phillips Exeter Academy. The love of country proved greater than even his unusual zeal for learning, and he was so active and efficient in raising a company of soldiers in Exeter, Manchester, and Orford, that he was commissioned Captain of Co. "A," Ninth N. H. Reg't. He went to the defence of Washington about the time of Lee's attempted raid ; was in the battle of South Mountain, next in the terrible battle of Antietam, where he was wounded. He was in the conflict at Fredericksburg, where nearly one third of his company was disabled. Thence he went to Vicksburg, via Kentucky, and was engaged in the siege of Vicksburg under Grant. When the war was practically over, he resigned and returned to New Hampshire ; but soon receiving an appointment in the customs department of the government at New York city, he resided there until, health failing, he went upon a farm he owned in Kansas; subsequently he accepted the position of U. S. Commissioner and Assistant Clerk of the U. S. Circuit and District Court at Memphis, Tenn. He escaped from the horrible plague of yellow fever, so well remembered as devastating that city, and came home to Londonderry. He is now a justice of the peace, merchant and post master at Derry Depot. He is a man of marked ability, a popular public speaker and a thoroughly respected citizen.

Col. William S. Pillsbury, the chief subject of this sketch, upon his maternal side, is descended from the Hobart family of Suffolk and Norfolk, England. John Hobart, of Tye, in Suffolk, in the 13th year of Richard H (1390), had a son Walter. Walter, of Tye, in 9th year of Henry IV (1408-9), had a son John. John Hobart, of Tye, had a son Thomas. Thomas, son of John, lived at Tedford, in Suffolk; he died in 1480, leaving a son William. William Hobart, of Tedford, had a son Thomas who lived at Hingham in 1488, and left son? James and William. James was knighted and lived at Hales in Norfolk, and was attorney to Henry VII. He married a Narneson and had three sons ; Miles, the second son of Sir James Hobart, married Ellen, daughter of John Blennerhasset, Esq., of Frond, and had a son Thomas, who lived in Plumstead, and John, who married Annie, daughter of Sir Philip Tilney, of Shelly Common, Suffolk. Thomas Hobart, of Plumstead, married Audrey, daughter and heiress of William Hare, of Beeston, Norfolk, and had Miles, Henry, Mary, and Ellen. Henry became Sir Henry Hobart, baronet. He was chief justice of common pleas in Middlesex. He married Dorothy, daughter of Sir Robert Bell, Chief Baron of the Exchequer. The children of Sir Henry were — Henry, John of Norfolk (Knight), Myles, Nathaniel, James, and four other sons. Nathaniel Hobart married Anna, daughter of Sir John Leek, of Mirgall, and had children — Edmund, and two daughters. Edmund Hobart, supposed to be the son of Nathaniel, came to America, and settled at Charlestown, Mass., in 1633. Rev. Peter Hobart, son of this Edmond. was one of the founders of Hingham, Mass., in 1635, and named the town. He was the founder of the first church there, and was its pastor forty-three years.

Rev. Gershom Hobart, son of Peter, graduated at Harvard College in 1667, and was minister at Groton, Mass., where he died in 1707. His son, Gershom jr., born February 24, 1686, married Lydia Nutting, and had a son Gershom (3d), born July 13, 1717. Cicrshom (3d), settled in Hollis, N. H., and removed to Plymouth, 1765, where his son Josiah, by wife Alepheia, was born upon the 3d of September that year. Josiah, son of Gershom (3d), married Joanna Hazelton, of Hebron. Lavinia Hobart, daughter of Dea. Josiah and Joanna (Hazelton) Hobart, was born in Hebron, October 31, 1795, and married Rev. Stephen Pillsbury, father of Col. William S. Pillsbury, March 3, 18 1 6, as herein before stated.

The ancient motto of the Pillsbury family, "Labor omnia vincit" (labor conquers all things), is well exemplified in a good number of cases among