Part 49

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 directors, and superintended the construction of its principal branches, including the Sugar River and Peterborough & Hillsborough roads.

The activity of Mr. Shaw has, however, been by no means satisfied with his duties upon the Northern road. Since 1848 he has been engaged in the building of the Kennebec & Portland road in Maine, the Portsmouth road in this state, the air-line road from Rochester to Syracuse in New York, and that from Waterloo to Huntington mines in Canada, besides the building of the Granite hosiery-mills at Franklin, and the carrying to a successful conclusion many private enterprises for himself and others. In 1872 he was called to the important position of superintendent of road-way of the Central Vt., and its branches.

While building the Northern road he became acquainted with Caroline Dearborn Emery, of Andover, whom he married in 1848, and soon after located his home in the beautiful village of Lebanon, where he still resides with his wife and two sons, William F., and Albert O., who are engaged in business near by. His only daughter, Mary Estelle, died in 1870.

The same qualities which have made Mr. Shaw successful in business have given him prominence in social and political life. He has always taken great pride in Lebanon, and has been a leader in most of the projects which have added to her beauty and stability. His support has, from the first, helped establish her schools, strengthen her churches, and sustain her social and charitable associations, and his enterprise has contributed largely to her material prosperity.

In politics, Mr. Shaw is a Republican who works hard, manages shrewdly, and gives liberally, that his party may win. He doesn't like to be beaten, and seldom is. He has done much for his neighbors and friends, and they have lost no opportunity to honor him. In the stormy days of 1862 and 1863, when strong men were needed, he was sent to the popular branch of the state legislature, to which he was returned in 1881. In 1863 he was sent by the governor to look after the interests of New Hampshire soldiers on that ever memorable field of Gettysburg, a duty for which his warm sympathies and his executive ability eminently fitted him. In 1876 he represented Lebanon in the constitutional convention, and in 1878 and 1879 was the state senator from that district. He was appointed a consul to the province of Quebec by President Lincoln in 1864, was a presidential elector in 1868, and in 1877 was one of the three commissioners appointed by Gov. Prescott to build the new state-prison. In all of these positions, his extensive knowledge of public affairs, his tact in dealing with men, and his skill and courage in overcoming opposition have enabled him to acquit himself with great credit, and render those for whom he acted most valuable service. The prison, which is one of the few public buildings in this country that cost less than the estimates, is a monument to his business capacity and strict integrity.

He is a great reader on scientific matters, is interested in books of travel and adventure, especially in those relating to the arctic regions, and gratifies his taste in the collection of a library.

Mr. Shaw is a Royal Arch Mason, and takes an interest in the mystic art. He attends the Methodist church, and is a liberal contributor to all that pertains to the success of that society. The worthy poor find in him a sympathizing friend, always prepared to contribute to their necessities in a most liberal manner. He is good to himself, and true and generous to his friends. Mr. Shaw is fond of hunting and fishing, loves the woods and streams for their own sakes, as well as for the relief and rest they afford him; amid the busy employments of his life some part of the season is pretty sure to find him "camped" in the wilds of northern New Hampshire or Maine.

Mr. Shaw has many acquaintances among the prominent men of the day. As a companion he is lively, genial, fond of fun, relishes a joke at the expense of others, and can take one at his own expense with becoming meekness, if it will not be otherwise spoiled.

He is at present engaged in caring for the large property interests which have resulted from so long a term of skillful industry and sagacious calculation.

COL. BENJAMIN FRANKLIN MARTIN.

BENJAMIN F. MARTIN, who has been prominently identified with the paper-making industry of New England for many years, and is widely known as one of Manchester's wealthy and influential citizens, is the son of a Vermont farmer. His parents were Truman and Mary (Noyes) Martin, whose homestead was at Peacham, where they resided with their five sons and four daughters. Their son Benjamin Franklin was born July 21, 1813, and passed his youth at home, attending the short district schools, and filling the long vacations with farm work and the few recreations that were then open to farmers' boys. He also had the advantage of some instruction at the Peacham Academy, and when he arrived at the age of eighteen was thought to be sufficiently educated in books to begin a business career, to which he was naturally inclined. He accordingly went to Meredith Bridge, now Laconia, to learn paper-making in a mill owned by an older brother. He spent one year in this mill, and then next served as a journeyman in one at Millbury, Mass., where he acquired a thorough knowledge of the business. Mr. Martin then formed a partnership with a brother-in-law, the late Thomas Rice, for the manufacture of paper at Newton Lower Falls, Mass., where he remained until 1844, when he removed to Middleton, Mass., and purchased a mill there, which he successfully operated for nine years. In 1853 he had arranged to locate in Lawrence, Mass., but the inducements offered him to go to Manchester were sufficient to change his plans, and he at once commenced the erection of a mill at Amoskeag Falls. This was soon completed, and in it Mr. Martin carried on for twelve years an extensive and profitable business. In 1865 he sold it to Hudson Keeney, but four years later repurchased it, and continued to operate it until 1874, when he sold the establishment to John Hoyt & Co., and retired to enjoy the fruits of his well directed industry and sagacity.

The demands of his business have left Mr. Martin little time for office-holding; but in 1857 and 1858 he represented ward three in the common council, and in 1860 was a member of the board of aldermen. In 1863 and 1864 he was a member of the state legislature, and also served as a colonel on the staff of Gov. Gilmore. In 1860 he was a delegate to the national convention that nominated Abraham Lincoln.

He was elected a director of the Merrimack River Bank when it was organized, in 1854, and was chosen its president in 1859, but resigned the next year. He was one of the first trustees of the Merrimack River Five Cent Savings Bank, and its vice-president in 1860. He was a director of the Manchester Bank under its state charter, and has since held a similar position in the Manchester National Bank, and is a trustee in the Manchester Savings Bank. He has long been connected with the Portsmouth and Manchester & Lawrence railroads as a director, and since 1878 has been president of the Manchester & Lawrence. He is now president of the Manchester Gas Company.

Col. Martin married, January 3, 1836, Mary Ann Rice, of Boston, a sister of Hon. Alexander H. and Willard Rice, by whom he has had three daughters, Fanny R., the wife of Hon. George B. Chandler, being the only one now living.

Mr. Martin is, in the best sense of the term, a successful business man. He is a master of the art of paper-making, which was carried in his mill to a high degree of perfection. His standing in the commercial world is such as only a long and uninterrupted course of honorable dealing and unexceptional promptness in responding to every obligation secures. He was quick to see the possibilities of his business, always ready to improve opportunities, and judicious in the execution of all his plans.

In Manchester, he is highly honored and respected as a citizen, whose prosperity contributed to that of others, and as a man whose integrity is beyond suspicion, and whose private life is above reproach. He has been a great help to the city in which he has acquired most of his wealth, not only in building one of her great factories in which hundreds of men have found steady and profitable employment, but in giving liberally to her charities and other institutions which have depended upon the generosity of the public, and in discharging all the duties of a public-spirited citizen. He has long been one of the chief supporters of the Episcopal church, where he worships, and a willing helper of the Republican party, with which he has always acted. His home is one of the most elegant in Manchester; and it is the home of good taste, comfort, happiness, and hospitality.

HON. DEXTER RICHARDS.

BY JOSEPH W. PARMELEE.