Sketches of Successful New Hampshire Men
ZIMRI SCATES WALLINGFORD, the son of Samuel and Sallie (Wooster)
Wallingford, was born in Milton, in the county of Strafford, October 7,
1816.
Nicholas Wallington, who came, when a boy, in the ship "Confidence," of
London, to Boston in the year 1638, settled in Newbury, Mass., where he
married, August 30, 1654, Sarah, daughter of Henry and Bridget Travis,
who was born in 1636. He was captured on a sea-voyage, and never
returned; and his estate was settled in 1684. With his children (of whom
he had eight), the surname became _Wallingford_.
John Wallingford, son of the emigrant Nicholas, born in 1659, married
Mary, daughter of Judge John and Mary Tuttle, of Dover, N. H.; but he
lived in that part of Rowley, Mass., now known as Bradford. He had seven
children; one of these was Hon. Thomas Wallingford, of that part of
ancient Dover afterwards Somersworth, and now known as Rollinsford, who
was one of the wealthiest and most eminent men of the province,
associate justice of the supreme court from 1748 until his death, which
took place at Portsmouth, August 4, 1771. The eldest son of John
Wallingford, and grandson of the emigrant, was John Wallingford, born
December 14, 1688, settled in Rochester, N. H., and became an extensive
land-owner. His will, dated October 7, 1761, was proved January 17,
1762. His son, Peter Wallingford, who inherited the homestead and other
land in Rochester (then including Milton), made his will April 18, 1771,
which was proved August 24, 1773. His son, David Wallingford, settled
upon the lands in Milton, then a wilderness. He died in 1815, being the
father of Samuel Wallingford, who was father of Zimri S.
Upon his mother's side, Mr. Wallingford is descended from Rev. William
Worcester, the first minister of the church in Salisbury, Mass., and
ancestor of the eminent New England family of that name or its
equivalent, _Wooster_. Lydia Wooster, great-aunt of Mr. Wallingford, was
the wife of Gen. John Sullivan of Durham, major-general in the army of
the Revolution, and the first governor of the state of New Hampshire;
she was mother of Hon. George Sullivan of Exeter, who was
attorney-general of this state for thirty years.
In 1825 the father of Mr. Wallingford died, leaving his widow with four
children, of which this son, then nine years of age, was the eldest. At
the age of twelve he commenced learning the trade of a country
blacksmith. When he had wrought for his master as his boyish strength
would allow for two years, he determined not to be content with being
simply a blacksmith, and entered the machine-shop of the Great Falls
Manufacturing Company at Great Falls, N. H., and served a full
apprenticeship at machine-building there, in Maryland, Virginia, and in
the city of Philadelphia.
August 27, 1840, Mr. Wallingford married Alta L. G. Hilliard, daughter
of Rev. Joseph Hilliard, pastor of the Congregational church in Berwick,
Maine, from 1796 to 1827. Their children have been (1) John O.
Wallingford, who was sergeant-major, and became lieutenant in the
Fifteenth N. H. volunteers, in the war of the rebellion; was severely
wounded in the assault on Port Hudson; and was afterwards captain in the
Eighteenth N. H., an officer of great merit, whose death at his home in
Dover, March 23, 1872, was the result of disease contracted in his war
service. (2) Mary C., now wife of Sidney A., Phillips Esq.,
counselor-at-law in Framingham, Mass.; (3) Julia, residing with her
parents.
In 1844, Mr. Wallingford entered the employ of the Cocheco Manufacturing
Company, Dover, N. H., as master machine-builder, and remained in that
capacity until 1849. During that period, Mr. Wallingford and a partner,
by contract, constructed new machinery, cards, looms, dressing-frames,
and nearly everything necessary for the re-equipment of the mills. The
then new and large mill at Salmon Falls was also supplied with the new
machinery necessary, in the same manner.
In 1849 he became superintendent of the company's mills, under the then
agent, Captain Moses Paul, and upon the death of that gentleman, was, on
the first day of August, 1860, appointed agent of the company. He has
continued to fill that office to the present time. Taking into account
the great social and public influence, as well as the recognized ability
with which his predecessor had for many years administered the affairs
of the Cocheco company, the magnitude of its operations, the force and
grasp of mind necessary to carry on its affairs successfully, it was
evident to all familiar with the situation upon the death of Captain
Paul, that no ordinary man could occupy the place with credit to
himself, or to the respect of the public, or the satisfaction of the
corporation.
Fully conscious of the responsibility assumed, and full of the
determination which an ardent nature is capable of, not only to maintain
the reputation of his company but to extend its operations and raise the
standard of its manufactured goods, it is not overstating the fact to
say that in the last twenty years few manufacturing companies have made
greater strides in the extent of their works, in the quality of their
goods, or their reputation in the great markets, than has the Cocheco
under the management of Mr. Wallingford. Always strong financially, its
wheels have never, during that time, been idle in any season of panic or
monetary depression. Honorable, and ever generous to all its employes,
its machinery has never stopped for a day at the demand of any organized
strike. The pride, as well as the main business interest of Dover, Mr.
Wallingford has always made his company popular with the people; its
word proverbially is as good as its bond. The importance of the work is
seen in the fact that the mills were, when Mr. Wallingford took charge,
of a so-called capacity of fifty-seven thousand spindles; it is now one
hundred and twenty thousand; and the reputation of the goods is
world-wide. Twelve hundred operatives are on the books of his charge.
To a stranger to the home life of Dover these results seem the great
life-work of Mr. Wallingford; but such an one, in making up his
estimate, will fail to do justice to some of the elements of character
which have, by skillful adaptation, contributed to so great success. To
one so observing, the marked traits of the individual are lost sight of
in the results of his career. To those only who are personally familiar
with the individual are the real elements of success apparent. Of
course, without the strong common sense and good judgment which we sum
up as "business sagacity," Mr. Wallingford's successes would have been
failures; but, to one familiar with his daily life for a score of years,
it is apparent that the crowning excellence of his life, and the power
which has supplemented his mental force and rounded out his life, have
been his stern moral sense.
Perhaps the most noticeable trait in his character from childhood has
been his love of justice and right, and his hatred of wrong and
injustice in all its forms. Under such a man, no employe, no matter how
humble his position, could be deprived of his just consideration; no
interest of his corporation could be allowed to ask from the public
authorities any indulgence or advantage not fairly to be accorded to the
smallest tax-payer. Had he gone no farther than to insist on this exact
counterpoise of right and interest, as between employer and employe, and
between the interest represented by him and the public interest, his
course would have stood out in marked contrast with the conduct of too
many clothed with the brief authority of corporate power. Had this
strict observance of the relative rights of all concerned been as nicely
regarded by associated capital generally as it has been by the Cocheco
company under the management of Mr. Wallingford and his lamented
predecessor, no "brotherhood" for the protection of labor, no "strikes"
organized and pushed to bring too exacting employers to their senses and
to an observance of the common rights of humanity, would have had an
existence, and none would have had occasion to view with jealous eye the
apprehended encroachment of corporate power on private right. But while
so insisting on justice in everything, no man has a kindlier vein of
character, or a warmer sympathy for deserving objects of charity.
Impulsive, naturally, no distressed individual or deserving cause
appeals to him in vain, or long awaits the open hand of a cheerful
giver.
To a man so endowed by nature, so grounded in right principles, and so
delighting in the exercise of a warm christian charity, we may naturally
expect the result that we see in this man's life,--success in his
undertakings, the high regard of all who know him, and the kindliest
relations between the community at large and the important private
interests represented by him in his official capacity.
Fifty years ago, when the subject of this sketch, a mere child, was
leaving his widowed mother's side to learn his trade, the public mind
was just beginning to be aroused from its long lethargy to a
consideration of the abolition of slavery in the United States. The
sleep of men over the subject had been long, and their consciences seem
hardly to have suffered a disturbing dream. Church as well as state was
a participator in the system, and with unbecoming haste rose up to put
beyond its fellowship and pale the first agitators of emancipation.
Garrison had just been released, through the kindness of Arthur Tappan,
from an imprisonment of forty-nine days in Baltimore jail, for saying in
a newspaper that the taking of a cargo of negro slaves from Baltimore to
New Orleans was an act of "domestic piracy," and was issuing the first
number of the _Liberator_, taking for his motto, "My country is the
world, my countrymen are all mankind;" and declaring, "I am in earnest,
I will not equivocate, I will not excuse, I will not retreat a single
inch, I will be heard."
The agitation of the abolition of slavery, which was to end only with
emancipation, had thus begun. The discussion found its way into the
public prints, and among the thinking circles of all rural New England.
The blacksmith's apprentice read what the newspapers had to say, and
listened to the neighborhood discussions on the great question. His
sense of justice and humanity was aroused, and he adopted the motto and
declaration of purpose as announced by Garrison; and from early youth
till the time when Lincoln's proclamation assured the full success of
the object aimed at, Mr. Wallingford was the earnest friend of the slave
and the active promoter of all schemes looking to his emancipation. With
Garrison, Phillips, Parker, Douglas, Rogers, and the other leading
anti-slavery men, he was a hearty co-worker, and for years on terms of
warm personal friendship.
During the winter of 1849-50, Hon. Jeremiah Clemens of Alabama made a
speech in the United States senate, in which he claimed that northern
mechanics and laborers stood upon a level with southern slaves, and that
the lot of the latter was in fact envious when compared with that of the
former classes. This speech at once called out from Hon. John P. Hale,
then a member of the senate, a reply in keeping with the demands of the
occasion and with the great powers of Mr. Hale as an orator. Soon after,
a meeting of the mechanics of Dover was held, at which Mr. Wallingford
presided, and at which resolutions expressing the feelings of the
meeting toward Mr. Clemens's speech were passed, and a copy furnished to
that gentleman by Mr. Wallingford. Upon the receipt of these
resolutions, Senator Clemens published in the _New York Herald_ a letter
addressed to Mr. Wallingford, propounding ten questions. These questions