Sketches of Successful New Hampshire Men
competent business men in this state. I hardly think that there
is another man in the state that could fill his present position
as well as he does. I told Gov. Stearns before he made the
appointment, that, if he knew Mr. Pillsbury as well as I did, he
would not need recommendations, but would urge his acceptance of
the place."
It would be idle to add anything to such commendations.
In 1869, Mr. Pillsbury was appointed insurance commissioner, by Gov.
Stearns, for a period of three years, and has been re-appointed from
time to time to the office, which he still holds. Soon after his
appointment he drafted and secured the enactment of the present law of
the state relative to insurance companies of other states and other
countries. This law established the department of insurance, and has
given to the people a degree of protection against the frauds and
impositions of unreliable companies never before enjoyed is this state,
and has brought into its treasury, by tax on insurance premiums, over
hundred and twelve thousand dollars, in addition to the compensation of
the commissioner.
During the whole term of his office, Mr. Pillsbury has worked quietly
but assiduously to eliminate unreliable companies from our borders, and
has carefully avoided the admission of all such as are not regarded as
perfectly trustworthy. It is universally affirmed by men familiar with
the insurance business, that the commissioner of this state has
administered his office with unusual skill and success, and his reports
are much sought for and often quoted and referred to as authority in
other states. The state may well congratulate itself on having had the
continued services, for thirteen years, of one so able and experienced
in an office so intimately connected with the material interest of the
people.
In 1871, Mr. Pillsbury moved to Concord, and the estimation in which he
is held in the community is attested by the fact, that, during the
eleven years of his residence at the capital, he has twice been elected
to represent one of its wards in the legislature, and has been a member
of its board of education for seven years, and was president of the
board at the time he tendered his resignation. When a member of the
legislature, Mr. Pillsbury was eminently practical, and whenever he
spoke was listened to with marked attention; for he only addressed the
house on subjects that he had thoroughly considered, and it was
understood that his remarks were likely to aid the members in reaching a
wise and just conclusion.
As one of the supervisors of the educational interests of Concord, Mr.
Pillsbury was exceptionally intelligent, conscientious, and painstaking.
His views on the general subject were comprehensive, and he kept himself
informed as to all real improvements in methods of instruction. He
discountenanced shams, and labored faithfully to make the schools
sources of knowledge, of discipline, and of virtue. To the other public
trusts so honorably held by the subject of this sketch, we may add that
of trustee of the State Industrial School. He has had a deep and abiding
interest in this institution since its founding, and has given to it an
active and efficient support.
We can only realize how pure and unselfish his labors of this character
have been, when we reflect that Mr. Pillsbury has no children of his own
to kindle and feed his sympathies, but that they spring from a general
benevolence toward all children of whatever condition in life. His only
child was a daughter of rare mental activity and attainments, and of
unusual sweetness of temper. She married Mr. J. S. Eveleth, of Beverly,
Mass., where, after a residence of nearly two years, she died of
consumption, in the flower and promise of early womanhood, leaving two
homes stricken and desolate.
In this brief sketch we have unconsciously drawn a model citizen,--a man
in all the relations of life faithful to the claims of duty; in the
family, society, and the state, blameless; benevolent without
ostentation, patriotic without the claim of reward, and true to every
trust.
"While we such precedents can boast at home,
Keep thy Fabricius and thy Cato, Rome."
CORNELIUS VAN NESS DEARBORN.
Early as 1639, and only nineteen years after the landing of the
Pilgrims, John Wheelwright, a dissenting minister from England,
gathering a company of friends removed from Massachusetts bay to Exeter
in the province of New Hampshire. Among the thirty-five persons who
signed the compact to form a stable and orderly colony is found the name
of Godfrey Dearborn, the patriarch of the entire Dearborn family in this
country.
Forty years before, he was born in Exeter, England, and in 1637 landed
at Massachusetts bay. He lived at Exeter ten years, and in 1649 moved to
Hampton, built a framed house which is still standing, became a large
land-holder and town official, and died February 4, 1686. Few men of the
early settlers have left a family name so widely represented as Godfrey
Dearborn. His descendants are numerous in every county of New Hampshire,
and are to be found in every part of New England.
It is worthy of note, that among the descendants of Godfrey Dearborn the
practice of medicine has been a favorite occupation. Benjamin Dearborn,
of the fifth generation, graduated at Harvard in 1746, and, entering
upon a successful practice at Portsmouth, died in his thirtieth year.
Levi Dearborn had for forty years an extensive practice at North
Hampton, and died in 1792. Edward Dearborn, born in 1776, was for half a
century the medical adviser of the people of Seabrook, and acquired a
handsome estate. Gen. Henry Dearborn, who gained a national reputation
by his brilliant services in the Revolutionary war, and as the senior
major-general of the United States army in the war of 1812, was a
practicing physician in Nottingham when summoned to join the first New
Hampshire regiment raised in 1775. To-day several of the ablest
physicians of the state bear the name.
Toward the middle of the last century the Dearborn family had been quite
generally distributed through Rockingham county. Peter Dearborn, the
great-grandfather of the subject of this sketch, was born in Chester in
1710. Of his children, Josiah, born in 1751, married Susannah Emerson,
the daughter of Samuel Emerson, Esq., a substantial Chester farmer. He
learned the trade of a shoemaker, but, on the breaking out of the
Revolutionary war, entered the army as a private, and was stationed at
Portsmouth under Col. Joseph Cilley. Afterwards he did honorable
service, first as a private, and then as lieutenant in northern New
York, and finally closed his enlistment by an expedition to Newport, R.
I., in 1778.
Returning from the war, he and his family found a new home thirty miles
westward in Weare. It was not an unfitting location. With its sixty
square miles still mostly covered with a dense forest of oak, maple, and
beech, with its uneven surface nowhere rising into high hills, it had a
strong soil, which, when cultivated, yielded large crops of hay and
grain. It was already a growing township, and thirty years later became
one of the four leading farming towns of the state. Here Josiah Dearborn
passed his life, raising a family of eleven children, nine of whom were
sons. Samuel, the fifth son, and father of the subject of this sketch,
was born in 1792. The district-school system was not organized in New
Hampshire until 1806, and the children of that time had scanty
opportunities for instruction. Young Dearborn and his brothers were
reaching manhood, when farming in the eastern states was depressed by
the recent war with England and the occurrence of several cold summers.
Migration westward had commenced, and the Dearborns for a time debated
the expediency of a removal to the Western Reserve. They at length
decided to locate in Vermont, and in 1816 five of the brothers and a
sister removed to Corinth, a town in the eastern part of Orange county.
Here Samuel Dearborn settled upon a farm, soon after married Miss Fanny
Brown, of Vershire, whose parents were natives of Chester, N. H., and
here he passed a long and useful life. He died December 12, 1871, in the
eightieth year of his age. His wife had died in 1836. Of scholarly
tastes, he was for many years a teacher of winter schools. An active
member of the Freewill Baptist denomination, his religion was a life
rather than a creed.
CORNELIUS VAN NESS DEARBORN, the son of Samuel and Fanny Dearborn, was
born in Corinth, Vt., May 14, 1832. His name was in compliment to the
then ablest statesman of the state, who had filled the offices of
governor and minister to Spain. Cornelius was the youngest but one of
seven children. His childhood was passed in a strictly agricultural
community. Corinth, lying among the foothills of the Green Mountains, is
one of the best farming towns in eastern Vermont. Without railway
facilities, with scanty water power, its inhabitants depend for a
livelihood upon the products of the soil, from which by industry they
gain a substantial income. Few in Corinth have ever accumulated more
than what is now regarded as a fair competency, and very few have
encountered extreme poverty. A more industrious, law-abiding,
practically sensible people would be difficult to find.
When four years old, young Dearborn met with the saddest loss of
childhood--a mother whose intelligence, forethought, and womanly virtues
had been the life and light of the household. He early joined his older
brothers in the labors of the farm, attending the district school for a
few weeks in summer, and ten or twelve weeks each winter. When fifteen
years old, he attended the spring term of the Corinth Academy, and
continued at intervals for several terms later. In the winter of
1848-49, his seventeenth year not yet completed, he taught the school of
a neighboring district. His success warranted his continuance as teacher
in the vicinity for the five following winters. Continuing his farm
labors in summer, he in the meantime developed a mechanical capacity in
the making of farm implements and the designing of buildings,--a natural
aptitude which has been of great service in maturer years.
Soon after attaining the age of eighteen, Mr. Dearborn determined to
enter upon a course of study preparatory to a professional life. Before
leaving Corinth he commenced the reading of law with Rodney Lund, a
young man who had commenced practice in the vicinity. In March, 1854, at
the suggestion of his maternal uncle, Dr. W. W. Brown, he came to
Manchester, and renewed his law studies in the office of Hon. Isaac W.
Smith, with whom he remained till his admission to the bar in the fall
of 1855.
In December, 1855, he opened an office at Francestown. The town afforded
a safe opening for a young practitioner, but not one for large profits.
There was a time, after the close of the war of 1812, when the trade of
Francestown village exceeded that of any other locality in Hillsborough
county. But the opening of the railroad to Nashua, and soon after to
Manchester, entirely changed the centers of trade and business, and left
Francestown to become a respectable and very quiet village.
Hitherto, Mr. Dearborn, while entertaining positive views, had not
actively participated in political discussion. But the year 1856
witnessed the consolidation of the anti-slavery sentiment of the
country. It had already so far concentrated its strength in New
Hampshire as to have secured the state government and a unanimous
representation in Congress. The nomination of John C. Fremont for
president, in the summer of that year, hastened the organization of the
anti-slavery elements of the entire North under the name of the