Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs/Chapter 07
VII
BEGINNINGS IN BUSINESS
IN the autumn of 1837 as my second year with Mr. Woods was approaching a close, I informed him that I proposed to go to Exeter, N. H., attend the Academy, and then either enter college or proceed with the study of the law. At about the same time I corresponded with Mr. Abbott, the principal of the Academy, in regard to terms, board, etc. Upon this notice Mr. Woods made me a proposition to continue with him and share the business. He offered to furnish the capital, to give me my board, and one fourth of the net profits. My means were very small, the business was quite sure to yield a profit, and the prospect of gaining a small amount of capital at the age of twenty-three, when the partnership was to end, controlled me and I accepted the proposition. The partnership began March 1, 1838, when I was two months over twenty years of age. I had then been in Groton three years, and I had formed the acquaintance of many young men in the debates of the Lyceum, in business and in social ways. In connection with the Lyceum I prepared papers which I read as lectures. One of these papers upon banking, signed B., appeared in the Bay State Democrat, edited by Lewis Josselyn, the publisher. Another upon Conservatism and Radicalism, was also printed in the Bay State Democrat. As I did not give my name to Mr. Josselyn, and as the letters were mailed at Groton, he came there and after inquiries, called upon me. I admitted the authorship. This acquaintance continued for many years, and for many years I was a contributor to his paper. He was elected secretary of the Senate in 1843 by the Democratic Party. A little later I wrote an article called “Gibbet Hill” in which I attempted to present the tradition concerning the hill in Groton which bears that name. That article was printed in the Yeoman’s Gazette or the Concord Freeman. For several years beginning about the year 1836, I wrote one paper each year called a lecture. Several of these papers were printed in Hunt’s Merchants’ Magazine.
From 1835 to 1841 I occupied the store night and day and it was my custom to read and write until twelve, one or two o’clock in the morning. These were my years of hard study. Not infrequently, when a tendency to sleep was too heavy for study, I bathed my face and head in cold water and thus revived my faculties—a practice, however, that I cannot commend. Early in my residence at Groton, I formed the acquaintance and friendship of Dr. Amos B. Bancroft, a friendship which continued until his death in Italy in the year 1879. It was with Dr. Bancroft that I continued my studies in Latin. In 1835, he had finished his professional studies with Dr. Shattuck, of Boston, then an eminent physician. Dr. Shattuck had studied his profession with Dr. Amos Bancroft, the father of Amos B. Dr. Amos, as he was called, was a graduate of Harvard College in the class of Wendell Phillips, and at the close of his professional studies he was spoken of as the best educated physician who had entered the profession in Boston. At the time our acquaintance began, he was entering upon the practice of medicine, at Groton, in place of his father, who was then about sixty-five years of age, deaf, and not healthy in other respects, although he lived to the age of eighty years, and then died from an accident in State Street, Boston. Dr. Bancroft, Sr., lived in a house which stood about one hundred feet north of my present residence, and the office of Dr. Amos was on the spot now occupied by the front of my house. At the close of business for the day, nine o’clock in the evening, I was in the habit of going to the office and reciting my Latin lesson, after which we discussed other matters. Upon my return to the store, I prepared myself for the next evening’s recitation. In this way I read Cæsar and Virgil. In a closet in Bancroft’s office there was a skeleton. That skeleton had a history, and possibly there may be a sequel to it. It was understood to have been the skeleton of a man named Jack Frost, who was tried, convicted and executed at Worcester for the crime of murder committed at or near Princeton. Dr. Bancroft, Sr., had been the owner of the skeleton. Oftentimes I rode Sundays with Dr. Amos. On the occasion of one of these drives, and after the death of Dr. Bancroft, Sr., we passed the house of a waggish old man named Asa Tarbell. After a little conversation Tarbell said, “I shall be over soon for Frost’s skeleton.” Dr. Amos, amazed, looked over and through his glasses, and said, at length: “Why, what do you mean?” Said Tarbell: “Some years ago, your father and I were playing, and I proposed to put up my uncle Ben against Frost. Your father agreed to the game, and I won. I told him I had no use for Frost at that time, and he might keep him.” Tarbell’s Uncle Ben was a man of inferior size, hardly more than a dwarf, who had been a drummer boy in the Revolution.
I bought the Bancroft estate in 1873, and my foreman, Mr. William A. Chase informed me that he had found a skeleton, in a barrel in a shed, and that he had buried it on the place. If again found it may lead to the suspicion that it is the skeleton of a murdered man, and not that of a murderer.
From 1835 to 1841, I read Locke, Say’s Political Economy, Smith’s Wealth of Nations, Plutarch, Josephus, Herodotus, Lingard, Hume and Smollett, Cicero, Demosthenes, Homer, Pope, Byron, Shakespeare, Boswell’s Johnson, Junius, The Tattler, The Rambler, the English Reviews, French from text-books without a teacher and Rhetoric (Blair’s full edition). Much of Blair’s Rhetoric I studied carefully and with great benefit. Some of my papers of those days were written and re-written four times. On the law side I read a few text-books: Blackstone, Story on the Constitution, The Federalist, De Lohme on the British Constitution, and some other works, probably, which I do not at once recall. If I gained some knowledge of the law as practised in the country, that knowledge was gained from an acquaintance with the lawyers of the town, with the students, and there were several usually, and from my opportunities as Clerk of the Insolvency Court.
In the year 1836, July 4, an Act was passed by Congress, granting to a class of widows of soldiers of the War of the Revolution, a pension for the term of five years. The towns of Groton, Pepperell and Shirley had supplied a large number of soldiers, and there were many widows who were entitled to the benefits of the Act. My acquaintance as clerk was already large, and my studies with Russell had given me the faculty of preparing ordinary papers, and I at once commenced canvassing for the business. I obtained in all about fifty cases under the Act of 1836. Subsequently I obtained other cases under the Act of 1838. I sent the applications forward to Washington, and in a few cases certificates were received in return. In a majority of cases there was a delay. The women became anxious and their visits and importunities were annoying. In the month of January, 1839, I joined Gen. Staples and made a visit to Washington. Staples’ object was to make mail contracts, or to arrange existing difficulties. My purpose was to obtain action on pension applications. Our journey was a slow one, if not tedious. From Groton to Boston by stage, and from Boston to Stonington, Conn., by rail; from Stonington to New York by steamboat; from New York to Perth Amboy by steamboat; from Perth Amboy by rail, I think, but possibly by stage to a town on the Delaware River, Franklin perhaps. From that point to Philadelphia, by steamboat. Our journey from Philadelphia to Washington was by rail in part and in part by stage. We passed the creeks between the Susquehanna and Baltimore upon a railroad.
We stopped overnight in New York, and went to the Park Theater. Another night we spent in Philadelphia, and went to the Chestnut Street Theater. Staples had a fondness for theaters, and on these occasions I followed his example. I had been in a theater but once, when I saw Forrest in Boston, in King Lear. At Philadelphia I bought a copy of Byron for three dollars. That volume I yet have.
The Hon. William Parmenter, a Democrat, then represented the district in Congress, and I carried one or more letters to him—one from my employer Mr. Henry Woods, who was an active Democrat. Mr. Parmenter was then about fifty years of age, of heavy frame, swarthy in complexion, and a man of good natural abilities. He took me to Mr. Van Buren. We found him alone, well dressed, polite and rather gracious than otherwise. Quite early in my visit, Mr. Parmenter took me to the Pension Office, then presided over by Mr. Edwards. Mr. Parmenter stated his business, and immediately attention was given to my applications. In the course of a few days some of the cases were disposed of, and in a few weeks my docket was clear.
Caleb Butler was then postmaster at Groton. He had had the place, probably from the days of John Quincy Adams, for as he was a violent Whig, he could not have received his appointment from General Jackson. My employer, Mr. Woods, was an applicant for the post-office, he being the only Democrat in the street who had accommodations for the office. I carried papers in support of the application. Those I gave probably to Mr. Parmenter, as I have no recollection of any interview with any post-office official. Amos Kendall was then Postmaster-General. He was a native of Dunstable, and he had been a student at the Groton Academy when Mr. Butler was the preceptor. Naturally and properly he sustained his old teacher. The change however was made, and upon the express instructions of Mr. Van Buren it was said. Mr. Woods retained the office until his death in January, 1841, when I was appointed without any agency of my own, but by the agency as I supposed of Gen. Staples. Upon the election of General Harrison I was removed in the month of April, and Mr. Butler was reappointed, an act of which I never complained, nor had I any reason to complain.
At Washington we stopped at Gadsby’s Hotel, now the National. There I met and had some acquaintance with Matthew L. Davis, “the Spy in Washington” as he called himself. He was a newspaper correspondent and the biographer of Aaron Burr. He was a great admirer of Burr. Davis wore very thin clothing, scouted overcoats, and boasted that he slept always in a room with open windows, and under very light bed clothing. He was old and conceited, and as a permanent companion, he could not have been otherwise than disagreeable.
At the Supreme Court I heard arguments by Webster and Crittenden, on opposite sides. In the Senate I heard Webster, Clay, Calhoun, and others in running debate, but not in prepared speeches. The Senate then contained many other men of note. Silas Wright, of New York; Preston, of South Carolina; Benton, of Missouri; Linn, of Missouri, more remarkable for personal beauty than for talents. In the House Mr. Adams was then a chief figure. His contest over the right of petition had commended him to one portion of the country, and made him the object of hostility to another portion. I recall one Monday, when he had the right to present petitions, and although they were laid on the table without debate he was able to consume time by presenting them singly. As the supply in his hands and on the table seemed inexhaustible, a compromise was made finally, and the petitions went in in mass. Of other speakers that I heard I recall Henry A. Wise, and Sergeant S. Prentiss. Of their style and quality I can say nothing. The reported speeches of Prentiss do not justify the reputation that he enjoyed as an orator when living.
The incident which produced the most lasting impression upon me, when in Washington, was an interview with a slave, a woman fifty years or more of age. I had then no love for the system of slavery. I had read Clarkson’s and Wilberforce’s writings, and I knew the history of the struggle in England for the abolition of the slave trade, and slavery in the British West Indies. I had also attended some anti-slavery meetings in Massachusetts, at which the leaders, Phillips, Garrison, Foster, Parker, and Pillsbury had denounced the institution. Groton was a center of anti-slavery operations in that part of the State. Several copies of the Liberator were taken in the town, and anti-slavery meetings were held not infrequently. The first speech that George Thompson made in America was made in Groton.
One Sunday morning I walked out towards what is now called the Island. The road was marked by a rail fence, but of buildings there were none. I went so far that I was near the slave pen, a building now standing and which I have visited within a few years. It was of brick, enclosed within a brick wall, and all of a dingy straw color. At a short distance from the building, I met a black woman walking slowly away from it. I said to her: “What building is that?” At once she was in tears, and she said: “That is the pen where the poor black people are kept who are going down to Louisiana.” She had then been to visit her daughter, a girl about eighteen years of age, according to the mother’s statement, who was to leave the next morning. She was the last of a family of nine as the woman said, who had been sold and taken away from her. As I was leaving I said: “Who is your master?” She answered: “Mr. Blair, of the Globe.” In the fourteen years of my manhood, that I acted with the Democratic party, I never said anything in favor of the system of slavery. If otherwise I might have done so, the interview with that old woman would have restrained me.