Sketches of Successful New Hampshire Men
ever having seen them performed, almost without exception. Dr.
Crosby was not what may be called a _rapid_ operator. "An
operation, gentlemen," he often said to his clinical students,
"is _soon_ enough done when it is _well_ enough done." And with
him it was never done otherwise than _well_.
At the outbreak of the rebellion, Dr. Crosby served in the
provost-marshal's office at a great sacrifice for many months,
attending to his practice chiefly at night. As years and honors
accumulated, Dr. Crosby still continued his work, though his
constitutional vigor was impaired by the severity of the New
Hampshire winters and by his unremitting labor. At length,
having reached man's limit of threescore years and ten, he
withdrew from active practice, and in 1870 resigned his chair in
the college.
Dr. Crosby furnishes a beautiful and rare instance of a
completed life. He early fixed his aim,--he reached it; he did
all he attempted, and he did it well. '_Nihil tetigit, quod non
ornavit._'
To those of us who had been most intimately associated with our
departed friend, who had enjoyed his teachings, his counsels,
and his generous kindness, the news of his death came as a heavy
shock. But he still lives in the remembrance of his
distinguished services, in the unfading affection and gratitude
of his pupils, and in the many hearts whose burdens he has
lifted. Verily, '_Extinctus amabitur idem!_'"--_Obituary notice
of Dr. J. W. Barstow._
PROF. ALPHEUS CROSBY.
PROF. ALPHEUS CROSBY, ninth son of Dr. Asa Crosby, was born in Sandwich,
October 13, 1810, died in Salem, Mass., April 17, 1874. He married for
his first wife, Abigail Grant Jones Cutler, daughter of Joseph and Abi
C. Grant (Jones) Cutler, of Newburyport, Mass., August 27, 1834, who
died in Paris, France, March 25, 1837. He married, for his second wife,
Martha Kingman, daughter of Joseph Kingman, Esq., of West Bridgewater,
Mass., a teacher in the Normal School, Salem, Mass. He was childless.
Professor Hagar says: "When in his tenth year he was taken to
Hanover, the seat of Dartmouth College, and was placed
temporarily under Professor Adams in algebra and Euclid, under
Professor James Marsh in Latin, and under Tutor Rufus Choate in
Greek; and these gentlemen pronounced him fitted for college. He
was subsequently put to the study of Hebrew, under the Rev. John
L. Parkhurst, and was sent to Exeter Academy; but in 1823 he
entered college, passed through the four years' course of study
without a rival and far beyond rivalry. His power of acquisition
and retention was marvelous.
"After his graduation, he spent four years at Hanover; the
first, as the preceptor of Moor's Indian Charity School, and the
following three as tutor in the college. He subsequently spent
nearly two years at the Theological Seminary in Andover, Mass.
He was appointed to a professorship of Latin and Greek in 1833.
In 1847 he was released from the Latin and became professor of
Greek only, which office he held until 1849, when he resigned;
but he remained professor _emeritus_ until his death."
Professor Crosby was one of the earnest Greek scholars of eminence that
New England can boast, being precocious in his scholarship, and so a
little in advance of Professor Felton, of Cambridge, who was a year or
two older. Both graduated in 1827, Felton at Harvard, and Crosby at
Dartmouth; and this, as it happens, was the year in which the first
Greek lexicon, with definitions in English, came into the hands of
pupils in any part of the world. It was the work of John Pickering, a
Salem man, who for many years stood almost alone as a great Greek
scholar in America, having preceded Crosby and Felton by more than
thirty years. The young men took up the work where Pickering laid it
down, and began not long after they became Greek professors in their
respective colleges (Felton in 1832, and Crosby in 1833,) the task of
preparing grammars, readers, and editions of authors, for the studious
youth of the land. Crosby's Greek grammar and his edition of Xenophon's
Anabasis soon came into common use, and have been of great service in
promoting the elementary instruction of thousands of Greek scholars
since; as also have Felton's Reader and his editions of Aristophanes,
etc. The learning of Hadley, Goodwin, and other recent professors has
gone beyond that of these pioneers in extent and accuracy, but it is
doubtful whether they have done so much for rudimentary scholarship.
Professor Crosby belonged not to us alone, but to all New England,--to
the whole land. Our country is poorer by the loss of an eminent scholar,
one of that small band of classical scholars in America who are known
and honored at foreign seats of learning. In the latest, freshest, and
most original Greek grammar of Professor Clyde, of Edinburgh, the author
acknowledges his obligations to four distinguished scholars, three
Europeans and one American; and the American is Professor Crosby.
Professor Crosby published "A Greek and General Grammar"; "Greek
Tables"; "Greek Lessons"; an edition of Xenophon's Anabasis; "Eclogae
Latinae"; "First Lessons in Geometry"; also many religious and political
tracts, and elementary school-books, which have been widely useful among
the freedmen and Indians.
PROF. THOMAS R. CROSBY, M. D.
PROF. THOMAS RUSSELL CROSBY, M. D., youngest son of Dr. Asa Crosby, was
born in Gilmanton, N. H., October 22, 1816, and died at Hanover, March
1, 1872. He married Louisa Partridge Burton, daughter of Col. Oliver
Burton, U. S. A. He graduated D. C. 1841, taking also, at the same time,
his degree of Doctor of Medicine. He practiced in Meriden and
Manchester, was chief surgeon in Columbian College Hospital, in
Washington, D. C., during the war, became professor in the Medical
College in that city, and afterwards professor in Dartmouth College.
During much of his professional life he was an invalid, but was
indefatigable in habits of study, steadily advancing to posts of honor
and reward, both as practitioner and teacher.
* * * * *
The faculty of Dartmouth College say: "We would record with deep sorrow
the decease of Dr. Thomas R. Crosby, Professor of Animal and Vegetable
Physiology in the agricultural department of the college, and Instructor
in Natural History in the academical and scientific departments; and
that we have a profound sense of the loss sustained by the college and
the community in the departure of one who, to all the virtues that
adorned his character, added such fullness, variety, and accuracy of
scientific and professional attainment as fitted him for signal
usefulness in the several positions he occupied."
His brother Josiah bears this testimony of him in a letter, after he had
passed away: "I have always considered him equal to any of the brothers
as a general scholar, and, decidedly, as the best medical scholar of us
doctors; and, although he had not an opportunity of performing so much
surgery outside the hospital as others of the family, yet what he did
shows conclusively that he was competent to any emergency. He had all
the requisite qualifications for a good operator,--a correct knowledge
of anatomy and great self-possession."
COL. CHARLES H. SAWYER.
BY REV. GEO. B. SPALDING, D. D.
Charles Henry is the eldest son of Jonathan Sawyer, the sketch of whose
life precedes this. He was born March 30, 1840, at Watertown. N. Y. At
ten years of age, on the removal of his father to Dover, N. H., Charles,
who had already become quite advanced in his studies, was sent to the
district school in that place. The district school, although it has been
supplanted by what is regarded as an improved system of education, had
its own distinctive merits. The six years' training in it, under
competent teachers, was sufficient to give young Sawyer a thoroughly
practical education in those branches which are found to be essential to
success in business life. Books can do little more than this. Experience
must complete the training process. At sixteen years of age, it being
determined that Charles was to enter into the business of his father, he
was placed as an apprentice in the Sawyers' woolen-mills. The business
to which a young man is to devote his life affords the very best means
for his education in it. It proved to be so in this instance. The young
apprentice, as he progressed from one stage to another, had the finest
of opportunities for acquiring a full knowledge of all the diversified
interests and sciences which belong to such a great industry. There is
scarcely a branch in natural philosophy, physics, or the mechanical arts
that is not intimately connected with the manufacture of woolens. But
the manufacturing processes embrace only a part of the activities and
requirements of such a business as the Sawyers. They are their own
buyers and sellers in all the great markets of our own and other lands.
Superadded to mechanical knowledge and skill, there must be the large
intelligence, the clear foresight, the quick, unerring judgment, which
belong to the accomplished financier. In this manufactory, based upon so
varied knowledge, and calling into activity so many of the strong mental
powers, Charles found a grand school, and such proficiency did he make
in it, that when he came to his manhood he was abundantly qualified to
take upon himself the duties and responsibilities of superintendent. He
was appointed to this position in 1866. No small share of the
distinguished success which has come to this establishment may be fairly
attributable to the fidelity and perseverance in service, the keen
sagacity and the great enterprise, which Charles H. Sawyer has brought
to its every interest. In 1873, when the company became incorporated, he
was admitted to the firm, and, at the same time, was appointed its agent
and one of the directors. Since then he has been elected its president.
Mr. Sawyer has served in both branches of the Dover city government; was
a member of the New Hampshire legislature in 1869 and 1870, and again in
1876 and 1877, serving on the committee on railroads, incorporations,
judiciary, national affairs, and as chairman of the committee on
manufactures. In 1881 he was appointed, by Governor Bell, a member of
his military staff with rank of colonel. Mr. Sawyer is now acting as
director of the Strafford National Bank and the Portsmouth & Dover
Railroad, and trustee of the Strafford Savings Bank. He is a member of
the Masonic order, taking a personal interest in all that concerns its
prosperity. In 1867 he became a member of the Strafford Lodge, and was
master in 1872 and 1873. He is a member of the St. Paul Commandry of
Knights Templar, of which he has just been elected eminent commander for
the fourth time.
Mr. Sawyer, in 1865, was married to Susan Ellen Cowan, daughter of Dr.
James W. and Elizabeth Cowan.
Mr. Sawyer is not only a man of affairs, taking a deep personal interest
in the various movements of politics, finance, and industrial life, but
he is a man of large reading and is well acquainted with the best books
and thoughts of the times. His judgments of men and measures are
singularly free from partiality and prejudice. His conclusions are
deliberately formed, and based upon a broad comprehension of all the
related facts. His sense of justice is strong; his intellectual
qualities are admirably balanced. He never is otherwise than perfectly
poised. With all this he has the warmest heart, the quickest sympathies,
great kindness of manner, and utmost geniality of spirit. In the reserve