Sketches of Successful New Hampshire Men
daughter of Captain Benjamin and Mehitable (Hills) Richards, of
Nottingham, who was born December 21, 1811. She is a lady of fine
presence, vigorous constitution, and cultivated manners. She still
resides in Epping with her son. Her husband, Nathan Gove Prescott, died
July 7, 1866, aged nearly sixty years. They had only one child, BENJAMIN
FRANKLIN PRESCOTT, who was born on the family homestead, February 26,
1833. Thus the line of ancestry has been traced from 1665.
The families on both sides can point to a fair and honorable record. The
subject of this sketch inherited from his paternal and maternal line a
strong constitution and great power of endurance, which have aided him
much in his career. Like the rest of the boys in his neighborhood, he
attended the district school a few months in the summer and winter, and
worked upon the farm the remainder of the time. He made commendable
progress in his studies, and as soon as his age would allow, his
parents, feeling the want of a liberal education themselves, determined
to give their son the advantages of the higher seminaries of learning.
In the fall of 1847 he was sent to Blanchard Academy, in Pembroke, where
he remained a portion of the time till 1850, when he entered Phillips
Academy, in Exeter. He remained at this distinguished institution until
the summer of 1853, when he entered the sophomore class in Dartmouth
College, from which he graduated in 1856. While at Exeter he delivered
an oration before the "Golden Branch," a literary society, at its annual
anniversary, which at the time was well received. While in college, in
the winter of 1855, he taught school in Chester. At his graduation he
had an oration, and was for a time president of the United Fraternity, a
public society in the college. After his graduation, in the fall and
winter of 1856 he taught two district schools and one private school in
Epping, and in February, 1857, he entered as a student in the law firm
of Henry A. & Abel H. Bellows, in Concord, and after studying the
requisite time was admitted to the bar, in August, 1859. He began the
practice of his profession in Concord, and remained in it until May,
1861, when he became associate editor of the _Independent Democrat_,
during the absence of Hon. George G. Fogg, United States minister to
Switzerland, until the summer of 1866.
Mr. Prescott was, from his youth, strongly opposed to the institution of
slavery, and on reaching his majority allied himself with the Republican
party, and cast his first presidential vote for John C. Fremont. His
father was also a Whig and then Republican. About 1858 or 1859 he was
elected secretary of the Republican state committee, succeeding the Hon.
William E. Chandler, and filled that position for fifteen years, during
which time many of the important and successful political campaigns were
conducted.
While connected with the _Independent Democrat_, he was appointed a
special agent of the United States Treasury Department for New England,
his duty being, unless otherwise directed, to examine and report upon
the custom-houses and their business, light-houses, revenue-cutters,
sub-treasury and marine hospitals. He held this position less than three
years, and was removed early in the administration of Andrew Johnson
because he openly denounced the policy and course of the President. He
served as secretary of the colleges of electors for New Hampshire in
1860, 1864, 1868, 1872, 1876 and 1880; he was elected secretary of state
in June, 1872, 1873, 1875, and 1876. On the 10th of January, 1877, Mr.
Prescott received the nomination as the Republican candidate for
governor, and on the second Tuesday of March following was elected, by a
majority of thirty-six hundred and thirty-two over his competitor, Hon.
Daniel Marcy, of Portsmouth. On the 9th day of January, 1878, he was
unanimously renominated at the state convention in Concord, and on the
second Tuesday of March following was re-elected by a majority of nine
hundred and fifty-six over his regular competitor, Hon. Frank A. McKean,
of Nashua, and a plurality of fifteen hundred and twelve. On June 16,
1862, he was elected a resident member of the New Hampshire Historical
Society, and was for several years vice-president of the same. In 1876
he was elected Fellow of the Royal Historical Society of Great Britain,
also president of the Bennington (Vt.) Battle Monument Association, also
president of the Provident Mutual Relief Association. On May 6, 1880, he
was elected a delegate-at-large to the Republican convention in Chicago,
and while there was chosen chairman of the New Hampshire delegation. On
the 8th of December, 1881, he was elected an honorary member of the
Marshfield Club in Boston. In 1874 he was appointed a trustee of the New
Hampshire College of Agriculture and the Mechanic Arts, and in 1878 he
was elected a trustee of Dartmouth College, both of which positions he
holds at the present time.
While governor, he was frequently called upon to address public and
private gatherings, and when it did not interfere with his official
duties he seldom failed to respond. His first address was at Epping, on
the occasion of a public reception given him by the citizens of the
town, without distinction of party, on the day after his inauguration.
The occasion was brilliant and highly complimentary. He also was present
at the inauguration of Rev. Samuel C. Bartlett, D. D., LL.D., as
president of Dartmouth College, and gave an address of welcome to this
eminent scholar. The governor visited, with a large detachment of the
state militia and distinguished citizens of the state, the centennial
celebration of the battle of Bennington, Vt., and spoke there for the
state at the banquet on that memorable occasion. He was also at state
and town fairs, and meetings of various kinds held within the limits,
and without the state, on all of which occasions he acquitted himself
creditably, both in matter and manner, his style of speech being
graceful and forcible.
Gov. Prescott was married, June 10, 1869, to Mary Little Noyes, daughter
of Jefferson and Nancy (Peart) Noyes, of Concord. Mrs. Prescott was born
in Atkinson, May 6, 1839. She is a lady of refined manners and a
favorite in society. They have had only one child, who takes his
father's name. He was born June 16, 1879, upon the family homestead.
Gov. Prescott is an excellent and successful farmer, and has a large
farm under a high state of cultivation. In 1876 he erected a spacious
dwelling-house and other buildings. He has a large and well selected
library.
Under Gov. Prescott's administration the laws of the state were revised,
the new prison constructed, the militia re-organized, and judicial
appointments made. The prison was built within the appropriation. In all
his official acts Gov. Prescott was animated by a purpose single to the
welfare of the state, and upon his retirement to private life, at the
end of his term, he took with him the respect of its people,
irrespective of party or sect. Pre-eminently a man of the people,
without ostentation or pride of place beyond that which is befitting one
who has filled the office of chief magistrate, he has always been as
approachable to the humblest citizen as to the most exalted personage.
From the beginning of his public life, Gov. Prescott has taken a deep
interest in all that appertains to the welfare of his native state. For
its institutions of learning he has shown a high regard. His _alma
mater_, Dartmouth College, is an object of solicitude, and no other son
has done more for her in proportion to his means and influence. Many of
the portraits of eminent graduates, presidents, and benefactors that now
adorn the walls of the college, were procured through his thoughtful and
persistent efforts. The portraits and marble busts that grace the hall
in Phillips Academy, in Exeter, with one or two exceptions, were secured
to it through his indefatigable zeal and wise action. This declaration
will apply with equal truth to the collection of portraits by eminent
artists in the state-house, and also the Historical Society at Concord.
His interest in the history of the state is very keen, and few of New
Hampshire's sons have done more to vindicate the fame of her
Revolutionary heroes, and secure for them and their state the credit
withheld by partial or poorly informed historians.
Gov. Prescott has a fine presence. Erect of body, with broad massive
shoulders indicative of great physical strength; features regular,
strongly marked and of kindly expression; agreeable manners, genial and
open-hearted; outspoken at all times, but never censorious; hospitable,
and considerate; a strict partisan, but never intrusive or arrogant;
impatient of shams, but a firm friend of all philanthropic
undertakings,--he has filled with credit to himself and luster to his
state and country every place of honor and trust to which the favor and
good judgment of his fellow-citizens have called him.
HON. HENRY WILLIAM BLAIR.
Among the many strong and self-reliant men and women who went out from
the old Scotch-Irish colony of Londonderry to establish homes in other
sections of the state were the Livermores, Shepherds, Coxes, and Blairs,
who were the first settlers in the Pemigewasset valley, where they and
their descendants have ever since exerted a controlling influence.
The Blairs located in Campton, where the father of New Hampshire's
senator of that name was born and grew to manhood. He was an excellent
scholar, a talented musician, an accomplished military officer, and a
man of great bodily strength and agility who was a recognized leader in
the town. His wife was Lois Baker, a descendant of the Bakers of Candia,
a family noted in colonial and revolutionary times, and for many years
one of the most respected and influential in Campton. She was a very
fine singer, and was gifted with remarkable mental endowments and rare
sweetness of disposition. Both Mr. and Mrs. Blair were teachers in their
youth, but after their marriage located themselves upon a farm in their
native town, where they lived happily until he was fatally injured by
falling timbers, while engaged upon the frame of a building. He died
December 8, 1836, leaving three children: a daughter, Hannah Palmer
Blair, aged six years; a son, Moses Baker Blair, aged four years; and a
son, HENRY WILLIAM BLAIR, aged two years. A fourth child, Lois Esther
Blair, was born soon after his death. Of these, the oldest daughter died
in 1843, and the oldest son, a young man of remarkable abilities, in
1857.
The death of Mr. Blair left his widow very poor, and finding it
impossible to support the children in her old home she was obliged to
separate them. The two eldest were "put out" to live in the families of
neighboring farmers, while she kept with her the youngest son, Henry,
and the infant daughter, until he was six years of age, when she
arranged with Samuel Keniston, a leading citizen of Campton, to take him
for one year, and, carrying the little girl with her, journeyed by stage
to Lowell in quest of work in the factories there, by which she might
obtain the means to support and educate her children. This venture was
not a pecuniary success, as her small earnings were nearly all absorbed
in necessary expenses; and in the summer of 1842 she returned to
Campton, and soon after removed with the two young children to Plymouth,
where for the next year she supported them by sewing.
At this time the boy Henry W., who was born December 6, 1834, was seven
years of age, bright, active, and able to make himself useful on a farm;
and he attracted the attention of Richard Bartlett, one of the
prosperous farmers of Campton, who offered to take him and give him a