Sketches of Successful New Hampshire Men
Judge Clarke was described as "a public officer faithful and upright,
discharging his official duties with signal ability; a lawyer of large
experience in his profession, of well balanced judgment and discretion,
well read in the principles of the law, and faithful alike to the court
and his client; a citizen patriotic and public-spirited; in his private
relations, a gentleman of unblemished reputation, distinguished for his
high-toned character, affable manners, and uniform courtesy; and
illustrating in his public and private life the character of a Christian
gentleman, governed by the principles which he was not ashamed to
profess."
HON. ARCHIBALD HARRIS DUNLAP.
BY REV. W. R. COCHRANE.
Mr. Dunlap comes of strong, sturdy, Presbyterian stock and Scotch
ancestry, of which he is a characteristic and worthy representative.
Archibald Dunlap came from the Scotch settlement in Ireland and located
in Chester, N. H., in 1740, or a little earlier. He married Martha Neal,
whom he found in Chester. She was of Scotch race, and her father, Joseph
Neal, was among the Presbyterians that petitioned the legislature, in
1736, to be freed from paying a second tax to support a Congregational
minister. The third child of Archibald was Maj. John Dunlap of
Revolutionary memory. Maj. John was born in Chester in 1746; married
Martha Gilmore; settled in Bedford; was a farmer on a large scale; was a
manufacturer of furniture; and acquired a large property. He was a
famous military man in his day; and on one occasion entertained his
entire regiment at his house, at his own expense. One of the incidents
of the day was the rolling out of a barrel of _New England rum_ and
setting it on end, staving in the head, and the soldiers were allowed to
help themselves to their heart's content.
John Dunlap, son of Maj. John, went to Antrim when a young man, and
built at the North Branch village in that town. He married Jennie,
daughter of Dea. Jonathan Nesmith, of Antrim, June 26, 1807. He carried
on the cabinet-making business at the Branch village many years. About
the year 1812 he introduced the manufacture of ladies' and gentlemen's
knit underclothing, and made looms for that purpose; and it was probably
the first thing of the kind ever known in this state, and was considered
a great curiosity. In 1835, Mr. Dunlap put up a factory in South
Antrim,--now known as the "silk-factory." He died December 15, 1869, in
ripe old age.
Hon. ARCHIBALD HARRIS DUNLAP, son of John and Jennie (Nesmith) Dunlap,
was born in North Branch village, Antrim, September 2, 1817. He passed
through the usual routine of country boys in that day,--hard work the
year round, except a few weeks at school in the winter. April 8, 1831,
in company with his oldest brother, the late Robert N. Dunlap, of
Zanesville, O., he left Antrim to strike out in the world for himself.
With a small bundle of effects in one hand and a pilgrim's staff in the
other, these two boys started out in the dim light of the early morning
for a journey on foot to Nashua,--nearly thirty-five miles. "Harris," as
every one then called him, was only thirteen and one half years old when
he thus turned his back upon his pleasant cottage home and faced the
battle, come as it might. This shows the stuff he was made of. The
Scotch grit and zeal and powers of endurance were manifest in that first
journey. Painters and poets have dwelt upon subjects far less worthy of
remembrance than that boy's march of thirty-five miles, inspired only by
the determination to succeed in spite of poverty and toil.
As the weary hours of the forenoon wore away, and they began to feel the
strain upon their physical strength, the boys consulted together as they
walked, as to what refreshments they could afford. The arguments of the
occasion are not handed down; but it was decided, considering the low
state of the treasury, that a "_glass of brandy apiece would do the most
good for the money_." (The temperance reform had not reached the people
then!) So at the next tavern, just above Mont Vernon, they called for
the brandy,--which was brought out in _one glass_,--and they divided it
as fairly as they could. Then they passed on to Amherst, and taking a
little _solid_ refreshment, such as a country store ordinarily affords,
_without_ brandy, and spending an hour for rest, then they started on
the eleven dreary miles that lay between that place and Nashua. The
younger boy said he "thought the last five miles never _would_ come to
an end;" but they _did_ end, and Nashua was reached late in the
afternoon. I have heard Mr. Dunlap say, that, however many better and
wiser boys may have reached that city, certainly a more tired one never
did than he! Saturday, April 9, his first day in Nashua in which he was
to be so prominent, he spent in looking over the place. On the Sabbath,
having been brought up to go to meeting and to the Sabbath-school, he
attended Mr. Nott's church, of which he had heard in Antrim. He was
turned into a side gallery with a lot of boys; but the solemnity of
years was upon him as he looked on that large, strange audience on his
first Sabbath of absence from home. The impression made upon him will
never be forgotten. That day he cast his anchor in with that people, and
it has held ever since. The strange country boy that looked and listened
with so much feeling that day is now, after fifty years, one of the
leading spirits in that church, while nearly all the vast audience he
looked upon have passed away! The poor boy reached the highest place! He
early became a member of the church; was deacon in the Olive-street
church from 1855 till its recent union with the Pearl-street church; was
then chosen deacon in the united or Pilgrim church; and was chairman of
their building committee in the erection of the new and stately edifice
of 1881.
About that time (1831) "Nashua Village" had begun to attract attention.
The Nashua Manufacturing Company and the Indian Head Company were
completing cotton-mills. In one of those erected by the latter company,
Col. William Boardman was setting up the heavy machinery; and for him
the boy of whom we write went to work for his _board_ until he could do
better. The colonel gave him his dinner, and that was the price of his
first half-day's work in Nashua. But that afternoon (Monday, April 10,)
Ziba Gay, Esq., manufacturer of machinery, sent for him and engaged him
for the summer. The boy of thirteen years, and stranger to all, had
found a place in the great machine-shop! Here he staid till the fall of
the same year, when he left to enter Franklin Academy, under Prof.
Benjamin M. Tyler. Remaining at this institution till the spring of
1832, he returned to Nashua and entered the service of the Nashua
Manufacturing Company, where he continued till the fall of 1834. Then,
being disabled from active labor by an accident, he left, and entered
Francestown Academy, under charge of Prof. Benj. F. Wallace. At the
close of the fall term he went home to his native town and attended the
winter district school, taught by Edward L. Vose, Esq. Here, in a small
unpainted school-house on the southward slope of "Meeting-house Hill,"
he "graduated" in the early spring of 1835. Whether the "graduating
exercises" were of a "high order" the record does not say; but certainly
they were as rich with promise as some of greater sound and name. And
now, after all this varied and often rough experience, A. H. Dunlap was
only seventeen years old! Large in body, sound in mind, fearless,
independent, upright, and tested by hard discipline, he was just the man
to succeed. At once he returned to Nashua and resumed his place in the
mills of the Nashua company, where he remained three years. Then at the
age of twenty he was made an overseer in the Indian Head mills. In this
business he remained till the spring of 1847, when he was compelled to
abandon it on account of failing health. Then he was in trade two years
in Franklin, N. H. Then (1849) he returned to Nashua and commenced the
garden-seed business, in which he has been very successful, and which he
still continues under the firm name of A. H. Dunlap & Sons. "Dunlap's
Garden Seeds" are known all over the land.
Mr. Dunlap has had the confidence of the people of Nashua, as shown by
the many trusts committed to him, and the offices he has held in the
city government. He was a representative from Nashua in the legislature
of the state two years, 1869 and 1870. In 1858 he was elected railroad
commissioner for three years. In 1864 he was chosen one of the
presidential electors for New Hampshire, and had the honor of casting
one of the electoral votes for that great and good man, Abraham Lincoln,
whom all men now have learned to love and honor. He is one of the
directors of the Nashua & Rochester Railroad, and is a trustee of the
New Hampshire Banking Company.
He has always cherished a deep interest in his native town, and his
address at her centennial celebration, in 1877, was among the best of
the many able efforts on that occasion. He aided nobly, both by
investigation and by gifts of money, in preparing the recently published
History of Antrim.
Mr. Dunlap married Lucy Jane Fogg, of Exeter, August 12, 1841. She was
the daughter of Josiah Fogg, of Raymond, and grand-daughter of Maj.
Josiah Fogg, who came from Hampton and settled, in 1752, in that part of
Chester set off as the town of Raymond in 1764. Maj. Fogg was prominent
in Chester before the separation; and paid the highest "parish and state
and war tax" in Raymond in 1777. The Fogg family is traced back in
England and Wales to the year 1112 A. D. The first of the name in this
country was Samuel Fogg, who came to Hampton in 1638.
The children of Hon. A. H. and Lucy J. (Fogg) Dunlap are James H.,
Georgie A., John F., Abbie J., and Charles H.
HON. ALBERT M. SHAW.
BY A. W. BAKER.
ALBERT M. SHAW, of Lebanon, is a native of Poland, Me., born May 3,
1819. He came to, and has spent most of his active life in, New
Hampshire, where a wide field for the exercise of his energy and
abilities was open to him. His parents, Francis and Olive (Garland)
Shaw, had four children,--three sons and a daughter,--of whom Albert M.
is the oldest.
Mr. Shaw's father was a successful merchant, able and willing to give
his children the advantages of a fair education, and such special
training as would fit them for callings towards which their proclivities
and natural abilities inclined them. At the age of twenty, Albert,
having acquired such an education as could be obtained in the public
schools of his native state, went to Boston and spent nearly two years
in the study of civil engineering and practical work for building
railroads. He had made such progress that he was engaged to assist in
the construction of a branch railroad from the Boston & Providence road
to Stoughton, a distance of about six miles, and executed this
assignment so well that he was made superintendent of the work of
constructing a branch railroad from Natick to Framingham, and afterwards
was engaged in the construction of the Old Colony road, which occupied
him until 1845.
Previous to this, preparation had been made to build the Northern
Railroad from Concord to West Lebanon. He came to New Hampshire in 1845,
and engaged in the building of the road, and remained on the road until
the entire line was completed. With this road he has been closely
identified nearly ever since. For eighteen years he was its civil
engineer and road-master; and during the entire time that the late
ex-Governor Stearns was its president was his trusted and confidential
adviser and executive officer. He has also served in its board of