Sketches of Successful New Hampshire Men
of the Canadian Express Company, which covers the territory and controls
the express business between Detroit, Mich., and the seaboard at
Portland, Halifax, and St. John's, and also an ocean route by the Allan
line of steamships to Europe. He is also largely interested in the
American and Wells & Fargo express companies.
The home of Mr. Cheney is in Montreal, where he extends a warm and
princely welcome to hosts of friends, and especially to those who were
fortunate enough to have known him in his boyhood days in New Hampshire.
He married Mary Ann Lincoln Riddle, daughter of James Riddle, Esq., of
Merrimack. His only child, William G. Cheney, was born October 12, 1858.
Mr. Cheney has been a very successful man. The enterprise with which his
name is identified has grown great and strong. It has made its owner
rich, it has given employment to thousands of men at remunerative wages,
and it has made it easier and more profitable for others to do their
business. He deserves all the good things he has received, for he is a
true man. In every relation of life, in boyhood and manhood, in business
and pleasure, he has challenged only the affection and admiration of
those interested in him. His integrity is inborn, his good-nature never
fails, and his energy never tires. He never disappoints his friends; and
he has no enemies.
Hon. Edward H. Rollins.
COMPILED FROM VARIOUS SOURCES, WITH SOME ADDITIONS,
BY HON. DANIEL HALL.
The Rollins family is one of the oldest and most numerous in the state.
In southeastern New Hampshire, from the seaboard to Lake Winnipesaukee,
the Rollins name is prominent in the history of almost every town. Most,
if not all, the representatives of the name in this region, and among
them the subject of this sketch, are the descendants of James Rollins
(or _Rawlins_, as the name was then and for a long time after spelled,
and is now by some branches of the family), who came to America in 1632,
with the first settlers of Ipswich, Mass., and who, ten or twelve years
afterwards, located in that portion of old Dover known as "Bloody
Point," now embraced in the town of Newington, where he died about 1690.
The representatives of the family suffered their full share in the
privations and sacrifices incident to the firm establishment of the
colony, and performed generous public service in the early Indian and
French wars, and the great Revolutionary contest. Ichabod, the eldest
son of James Rawlins, and of whom Edward H. is a lineal descendant, was
waylaid and killed by a party of Indians, while on the way from Dover to
Oyster River (now Durham), with one John Bunker, May 22, 1707. Thomas,
the second son of James, who subsequently became a resident of Exeter,
was a member of the famous "dissolved assembly" of 1683, who took up
arms under Edward Gove and endeavored to incite an insurrection against
the tyrannical royal governor, Cranfield. For this attempt, Gove and
others, including Thomas Rawlins, were presented for high treason. Gove
was tried, convicted, and sentenced to death, but was subsequently
pardoned. We do not learn, however that any of the others were tried.
Others of the family fell victims to the murderous malignity of the
Indians.
There were from twenty-five to thirty descendants of James Rawlins, of
the fourth and fifth generations, engaged in active service, and several
of them in distinguished capacities, in the patriot cause during the
Revolutionary war.
Among the first settlers of that portion of Dover which afterwards
became Somersworth, was Jeremiah Rollins, the only son of Ichabod,
heretofore mentioned as slain by the Indians. He was one of the
petitioners for the incorporation of Somersworth as a separate parish.
He died a few years previous to the Revolution, leaving several
daughters, but only one son, Ichabod Rollins, who became an active
champion of the Revolutionary cause, was a member of the conventions at
Exeter in 1775, and served as a member of the committee appointed to
prepare a plan of providing ways and means for furnishing troops, and
also as a member of the committee of supplies, the principal labor upon
which was performed by himself and Timothy Walker of Concord. He was a
member of the convention which resolved itself into an independent state
government. January 5, 1776, and served in the legislature in October
following. He was the first judge of probate under the new government,
holding the office from 1776 to 1784. He was subsequently a member of
the executive council, and died in 1800. From this eminent citizen, the
town of Rollinsford, formed from the portion of Somersworth in which he
resided, received its name. He stands midway in the direct line of
descent from James Rawlins to Edward H.,--the great-grandson of James,
and great-grandfather of Edward H. He had four sons, of whom John, the
oldest, was the grandfather of Hon. Daniel G. Rollins, who was judge of
probate for the county of Strafford, from 1857 to 1866, and whose son,
Edward Ashton Rollins, was speaker of the New Hampshire house of
representatives in 1861 and 1862, commissioner of internal revenue under
President Johnson, and is now president of the Centennial Bank at
Philadelphia; and another son, Daniel G. Rollins, was recently district
attorney, and is now surrogate of the city and county of New York. James
Rollins, the third son of Ichabod, and grandfather of Edward H., settled
upon the farm in Rollinsford which has since remained the family
homestead. He was the father of thirteen children, seven sons and six
daughters. Of these, Daniel Rollins, the eighth child, born May 30,
1797, and who married Mary, eldest daughter of Ebenezer Plumer, of
Rollinsford, was the father of Edward H. He succeeded to the homestead,
but sold out and went to Maine with a view to making his home there. He
soon returned, and repurchased that part of the homestead lying east of
the highway, and erected a dwelling opposite the old family mansion,
where he lived a life of sturdy industry, rearing a family of six
children, four sons and two daughters, and died January 7, 1864.
EDWARD HENRY ROLLINS, the oldest of the children, was born October 3,
1824. He lived at home, laboring upon the farm in the summer season,
attending the district school in winter, and getting an occasional
term's attendance at the South Berwick Academy, and Franklin Academy in
Dover, until seventeen years of age, when he went to Concord and engaged
as druggist's clerk in the well known apothecary store of John McDaniel.
He retained his situation some three or four years, industriously
applying himself to the details of the business. He then went to Boston,
where he was engaged in similar service until 1847, when, having
thoroughly mastered the business, he returned to Concord and went into
trade on his own account, soon building up a large and successful
business. Having bought and improved the land on Main street, just north
of the Eagle Hotel, the great fire of 1851 destroyed the building which
he had but recently finished. He rebuilt the stores known as "Rollins's
Block," one of which was occupied by his own business for so many years.
This property he sold a short time since to the New Hampshire Savings
Bank.
In politics, Mr. Rollins was originally a Webster Whig, but voted for
Franklin Pierce in 1852, and for Nathaniel B. Baker, the Democratic
candidate for governor, at the next March election. The aggressions of
slavery, however, culminating in the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska bill
and the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, dissolved his brief
connection with the Democratic party. Strongly opposed to the extension
of slavery, or any measures rendering its extension possible, though he
had previously taken no active part in politics, he enlisted in the
American or Know-Nothing movement, in the winter of 1854-55, with the
hope that it might, as it did, prove instrumental in the defeat of the
Democracy.
From this time Mr. Rollins was an active politician. He labored
effectively in perfecting the new party organization, taking therein the
liveliest interest. At the March election, 1855, he was chosen to the
legislature from Concord, and served efficiently in that body as a
member of the judiciary committee. The next year witnessed the merging
of the American party in the new Republican party, which object Mr.
Rollins was largely instrumental in securing. Re-elected to the
legislature in March, 1856, Mr. Rollins was chosen speaker of the house,
ably discharging the duties of the office, and was re-elected the
following year. The talent which he had already developed as a political
organizer made his services eminently desirable as a campaign manager,
and he was made chairman of the first state central committee of the
Republican party, a position which he held continuously until his
election to congress in 1861, and in which he exhibited a capacity for
thorough organization,--a mastery of campaign work, in general and in
detail,--seldom equaled and certainly never surpassed.
He was chairman of the New Hampshire delegation in the Republican
national convention at Chicago, in 1860, having been chosen a delegate
at large by the state convention, with but a single vote in opposition.
In the close contest between the friends of Lincoln and Seward in that
convention, the New Hampshire delegation, under his lead, supported
Lincoln from the first, and was strongly instrumental in securing his
nomination.
In 1861, Mr. Rollins was elected to congress from the second district,
over the Democratic candidate, the late Chief-Justice Samuel D. Bell. He
was re-elected in 1863, over Col. John H. George, and in 1865 over Hon.
Lewis W. Clark, now associate justice of the supreme court. Mr.
Rollins's congressional career covered the exciting period of the late
civil war, and subsequent reconstruction, and he was throughout a
zealous supporter of the most advanced Republican measures, such as the
abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia, and the thirteenth and
fourteenth amendments to the constitution, abolishing slavery throughout
the Union, conferring citizenship and civil rights upon colored men,
fixing the basis of representation in congress upon all citizens,
without regard to color or previous condition, imposing political
disabilities upon such civil and military officers of the government as
had violated their oaths by engaging in the rebellion, declaring the
inviolability of the public debt, and prohibiting forever the payment of
that incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United
States. To this entire policy Mr. Rollins gave a most earnest support,
and took part zealously and efficiently in all the important legislation
of those days. He was an industrious member of the committees to which
he was assigned, serving on the committee on the District of Columbia,
as chairman of the committee on Accounts, and a member of the committee
on Public Expenditures, by which latter committee, during his service, a
vast amount of labor was performed, especially in the investigation of
the management of the New York and Boston custom-houses, involving the
operations of the "blockade runners" during the war. He was also, on
account of his well known parliamentary knowledge and skill, frequently
called to the chair to preside over the house on turbulent occasions.
In view of Mr. Rollins's subsequent intimate connection with the Union
Pacific Railroad Company, it is proper to remark that in congress he was
a firm opponent of, and voted against, the measure adopted in July,
1864, doubling the land grant of this company, and making the government
security a second instead of a first mortgage upon the road. In 1869 he