Sketches of Successful New Hampshire Men
our New Hampshire Agricultural Society, of whose board of trustees he
was formerly a member, also one of the trustees of the New England
Agricultural Society.
He was a member of the legislature of 1879, serving as chairman of
committee on banks and taking a deep interest in the work of that
session, and especially zealous in opposition to the taxation of church
property. At the present time he is the Republican senator of the Nashua
district, and honored by the chairmanship of the leading committee of
the senate, the judiciary, no member of the legal profession holding a
seat in that body at this time. How well he discharged the duties of
this responsible position those can testify who had business with the
committee, or those who witnessed his unremitting application and
conscientious decisions.
Denominationally he is a Congregationalist, and a communicant with the
First church, that was organized in 1685. An interest in its prosperity
has induced him to serve as director of the society connected therewith
many years, and of which he is now president, and treasurer of the
Sabbath-school connected. It will thus be seen that the subject of this
sketch fills many positions of responsibility and usefulness which bring
no pecuniary reward, without ostentation, and no foul breath tarnishes
his fair record.
Our state has among its many honored sons few whose energy, integrity,
and discretion have won success in so many directions, and none who
command more universal respect among all classes. In business, politics,
and social and religious circles he has been and is a leader, whose
triumphs shed their blessings far and wide. Few have done so much for
Nashua. No one deserves better of the state.
In 1850 he married Sarah Louisa, daughter of Gideon Newcomb, Esq., of
Roxbury, by whom he had two children,--Harriet Louise, who married
Charles W. Hoitt, an attorney-at-law in Nashua, and Alfred Emerson, who
did not attain his second birthday.
WILLIAM AMORY.
WILLIAM AMORY was born in Boston, Mass., June 15, 1804, and is the son
of Thomas C. and Hannah R. (Linzee) Amory. He was one of a family of
four sons and four daughters, of whom three only--two sons and one
daughter--survive. His father, a merchant of Boston, died in 1812; and
seven years later his son, then but fifteen years of age, entered
Harvard University. He spent four years there, and soon after went to
Europe to complete his education. He pursued in Germany the study of law
and of general literature for a year and a half at the university in
Gottingen, and for nine months at the university in Berlin. He occupied
the subsequent two years and a half in travel, and returned to Boston in
July, 1830, after an absence of five years. There he pursued his legal
studies with Franklin Dexter and W. H. Gardiner, and in 1831 was
admitted to the bar of Suffolk county, without, however, any intention
of entering upon legal practice.
In that year he was chosen treasurer of the Jackson Manufacturing
Company, at Nashua, N. H., and began business as a manufacturer. Without
experience, and yet with a mind which study had disciplined and
knowledge of the world had made keen, with remarkable energy and
enterprise, he was eminently successful, and the Jackson company paid
large and sure dividends for the eleven years he continued its
treasurer. In 1837 he became the treasurer of the Amoskeag Manufacturing
Company, an office which included at that time, when the plan of
creating a city upon the Merrimack was just to be carried out, the
responsibility and wisdom of a general manager of the company's
interests, as well as the usual financial duties of a treasurer. He held
that office from then till October, 1876; was treasurer of the Stark
Mills, with the exception of four years and a half, from its
organization, in 1839, to 1876; was a director of the Manchester Mills,
and its successor, the Manchester Print-Works, from the start, in 1839,
till 1871; and has been a director of the Langdon Mills from its
beginning, in 1860, and its president from 1874 to 1876. When Mr. Amory
tendered his resignation as treasurer of the Amoskeag company, the
following complimentary resolutions were unanimously adopted by the
stockholders:--
"_Resolved_, That the stockholders of this corporation have
heard with regret of the resignation of their treasurer, William
Amory, Esq.
"That a continuous service of thirty-nine years demands from
them an expression of their appreciation of his eminent success,
not only in building up an unequaled and remunerative
manufacturing establishment, but in founding the largest and one
of the finest cities in the state.
"For both these results they tender to him their hearty thanks,
and desire to place this testimonial upon the records of the
company."
In seconding the motion to adopt the above resolutions, T. Jefferson
Coolidge, Esq., spoke as follows:--
"The best witness to the services of Mr. Amory as treasurer is
the splendid condition of the Amoskeag company. He took it in
its infancy, when it was poor. There was then but one mill of
about eight thousand spindles. He leaves it, after forty years
of success, with one hundred and thirty-seven thousand spindles,
and more than two millions of quick capital. You have received
in dividends, for forty-two years, an average of eleven per cent
a year; and, if to that is added the increase of the quick
capital, the company has earned fifteen per cent per annum,
without taking into consideration the money spent on the plant.
To put it in another light: a stockholder of one share, costing
one thousand dollars, if he allowed compound interest at the
rate he received on his dividends, would find that his share had
been worth to him eighty thousand dollars.
"The mills themselves are equal, if not superior, to any in New
England, and contain more than twenty acres of machinery floor;
and, although there are many mills in England and some here that
are running more spindles, yet I believe the Amoskeag is the
largest cotton-manufacturing establishment in either country
producing its goods from the cotton in the bale, and turning
them out actually finished for the market.
"I have said enough to show that no one can be more deserving of
a vote of thanks than the retiring treasurer. Let us hope that
he may be preserved for many years to aid in the counsels of the
company, and to assist his successor in the arduous task that
must fall to any man who takes a place which he has filled so
long, so ably, and so successfully."
Mr. Amory married, in January, 1833, Miss Anna P. G. Sears, daughter of
David Sears, an eminent merchant of Boston, by whom he has had six
children, of whom four survive.
Mr. Amory is a man with whom, more than with almost any one else,
Manchester is closely identified, and to whose accurate foresight and
comprehensive views a very large proportion of its beauty and success is
due. To him, as the manager of the company which gave it its first
impulses in life and has ever since assisted its growth, it owes in
large measure its wide streets, its pleasant squares, and its beautiful
cemetery. He has pursued a liberal policy, and deserves the city's
gratitude. As the treasurer of the company, he has met with eminent
success. A man of perfect honor and integrity, cautious and prudent, he
has looked upon the funds in his possession as his only in trust, to be
managed with the utmost care. Herein is to be found the secret of his
success. Few men stand better than he in the business world of his
native city, or elsewhere. A gentleman of culture, of the utmost polish,
with a very pleasing appearance, he enjoys the affection and respect of
many personal friends.
FOOTNOTES:
[4] History of Hingham, Mass., by Solomon Lincoln, Jr. Farmer & Brown,
1827.
[5] Arthur Gilman, A. M. Joel Munsell, Albany, 1869.
JOHN McDUFFEE.
By Rev. Alonzo H. Quint, D. D.
To men of their own energetic stock, who, refusing all political
preferment, have given comprehensive abilities, sterling integrity, and
sagacious industry to the development of business, many New Hampshire
towns owe an imperishable debt. JOHN MCDUFFEE'S record is in the
prosperity of Rochester.
The name itself suggests that strong Scotch-Irish blood which endured
the siege of Londonderry, in which were Mr. McDuffee's ancestors, John
McDuffee and his wife, Martha, honored in tradition. John and Martha
McDuffee had four sons, viz., Mansfield, Archibald, John, and Daniel.
Mansfield went to London, England; the other three came, with their
parents, to America in the emigration which gave New Hampshire the
powerful stock of Derry and Londonderry. John, the father of these sons,
settled in Rochester in 1729, on land on the east side of the Cochecho
river, adjoining Gonic lower falls,--the farm of eighty-five acres
remaining without break in the family, and now owned by the subject of
this article. The Rochester settler was, as just stated, the father of
Daniel McDuffee, and also of Col. John McDuffee,--a gallant officer in
the old French and Revolutionary wars, lieutenant-colonel in Col. Poor's
regiment,--who, never marrying, adopted his brother Daniel's son John,
and eventually made him his heir. John, the colonel's heir, was a farmer
in good circumstances, married Abigail, daughter of Simon and Sarah
(Ham) Torr, and was father of John McDuffee, the subject of this sketch,
who was born on the farm once the colonel's, about a mile and a half
from Rochester village, on the Dover road, December 6, 1803.
Of course, while working on the farm more or less, he had, for five or
more years, the advantage of a good school, kept at the village by
"Master" Henry H. Orne (D. C. 1812), of severe discipline and good
scholarship, who supplemented the public school with a private one each
autumn. Mr. Orne was a very successful teacher, and among the associates
of John McDuffee in this school were Thomas C. Upham, Nathaniel G.
Upham, John P. Hale, and Noah Tibbetts. In 1818, at the age of fifteen,
the boy entered Franklin Academy in Dover, the first day of its
existence, Thomas E. Sawyer and Richard Kimball being among his
associates, and Rev. Mr. Thayer being its principal. Here he fitted to
enter college as sophomore, but returned home, and, at the age of
eighteen, he went into the store of his uncle, John Greenfield, at
Rochester. It was a large country store, where everything was sold.
After two years' experience, being only twenty years of age, he began
the same business for himself on the same square; was successful, and,
after two years, took into partnership his uncle, Jonathan H. Torr.
During this period he was commissioned postmaster of Rochester, being
not of age when appointed, and he held this office until removed on
Jackson's accession to the presidency.
In the spring of the year 1831 he went to Dover, and began the same
business on a broader scale, first in the Perkins block, and, in the
autumn, as the first tenant of the northern store in the new Watson
block, on the Landing, Ira Christie his next southern neighbor. This
locality, now at an end for such purposes, was then the place of
business and offices. Steady success continued to reward his energy and
industry; but in February, 1833, selling to Andrew Pierce, Jr., he
returned to Rochester to settle the large estate of his wife's father,
Joseph Hanson, who, dying in December previous, had made him executor.
Mr. Hanson, whose daughter Joanna (by his marriage with Charity Dame)
Mr. McDuffee had married June 21, 1829, was one of the three old and