Various - The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1
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Various >> The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1
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10 THE BAY STATE MONTHLY
A New England Magazine
OF
HISTORY, BIOGRAPHY, LITERATURE
AND
STATE PROGRESS
* * * * *
VOLUME III
* * * * *
BOSTON
BAY STATE MONTHLY COMPANY
No. 43 MILK STREET
1885
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1885, by the BAY STATE
MONTHLY COMPANY, in the office of the Librarian of Congress at
Washington. All rights reserved.
CONTENTS OF VOLUME III.
Adams, Samuel, The Patriot, Edward P. Guild 401
(4 Illustrations)
Amesbury, The Home of Whittier, Frances C. Sparhawk 418
(3 Illustrations)
Andrew, John Albion, 141
(2 Illustrations)
Among the Books 136, 218, 306,
388, 469
Assessment Insurance G.A. Litchfield 317
Assessment Life Insurance Sheppard Homans 411
Authoritative Literature of George Lowell Austin 313, 408
the Civil War
Boston Latin School, The 74
Christopher Gault.--A Story Edward P. Guild 278
City of Worcester, The Fanny Bullock Workman 147
(18 Illustrations)
Clarke, Colonel John B., 9
Sketch of the Life of
Civil War, Authoritative 313, 408
Literature of the
Clayton-Bulwer Treaty _vs._ George W. Hobbs 17
Monroe Doctrine
Coffin, Charles Carleton, 1
Sketch of the life of
Concord Men and Memories, Geo. B. Bartlett 224
(6 Illustrations)
Concord, N.H., Impression Prof. Emile Pingault 16
D'un Francais
Conspiracy of 1860-61, The Geo. Lowell Austin 233
Crapo, Hon. William Wallace, Edward P. Guild 309
Biographical sketch
David, Barnabas Brodt Rev. J.G. Davis D.D. 69
Divorce Legislation of Chester F. Sanger 27
Massachusetts
Drowne, Shem, and his Handiwork Elbridge H. Goss 33
Early English Poetry Prof. Edwin H. Sanborn LL.D. 125
Editor's Table 139, 215, 300,
384, 463
Elizabeth, A Romance of Frances C. Sparhawk 48, 107, 202,
Colonial Days 289, 384, 447
First New England Witch Willard H. Morse M.D. 270
Fort Shirley Prof. A.L. Perry 341
Grimke Sisters, The George Lowell Austin 183
Hero of Lake Erie, The Hon. William P. Sheffield 321
(1 Illustration)
Hingham, (3 Illustrations) Francis H. Lincoln 258
Historical Record 303, 386, 465
Hollis Street Church 47
Home of Whittier, Amesbury The Frances C. Sparhawk 418
(3 Illustrations)
House of Ticknor, The Barry Lyndon 266
(4 Illustrations)
Insurance, Assessment G.A. Litchfield 317
Insurance, Assessment Life Sheppard Homans 411
Jackson, Helen Hunt 256
Kate Field's New Departure Edward Increase Mather 429
(1 Illustration)
Lake Erie, The Hero of Hon. William P. Sheffield 321
(1 Illustration)
Lincoln, Abraham George Lowell Austin 165
Long, John D., A Brief Biography 221
Marblehead in 1861, The Response of Samuel Roads Jr. 378
March of the 6th Regiment, The Rev. Charles Babbidge 374
Marsh, Sylvester, Sketch of Chas. Carleton Coffin 65
the life of
Massachusetts, The Present H.K.M. 439
Resources of
Massachusetts, Divorce Legislation Chester F. Sanger 27
Massachusetts Hills, Rambles Among Atherton P. Mason M.D. 101
Memoranda for the Month 220
Model Industrial City, A Fanny M. Johnson 328
(11 Illustrations)
Mormon Church, The Victoria Reed 348
Nantasket Beach Edward P. Guild 179
Nantucket, Ten days in Elizabeth Porter Gould 190
(2 Illustrations)
National Banks--Surplus Funds George H. Wood 14
and Net Profits
Nurse, Rebecca, Homestead of Elizabeth Porter Gould 436
O'Brien Hugh Col. Chas. H. Taylor 253
Old Dorchester, Historical Charles M. Barrows 39
Paine, Hon. Henry W. Prof. William Mathews, LL.D. 391
Past and Future of Silver, The David M. Balfour 97
Patriot, Samuel Adams, Edward P. Guild 401
The (4 Illustrations)
Pickett's Charge, Portrait and Charles A. Patch 397
diagram
Precious Metals, The David M. Balfour 415
Publisher's Department 64, 308, 390, 472
Phillips, John, with Portrait 249
Rambles Among Massachusetts Hills Atherton P. Mason M.D. 101
Resources of Massachusetts, H.K.M. 439
The Present
Response of Marblehead in 1861, Samuel Roads, Jr. 378
The
Silver, Past and Future of David M. Balfour 97
Sixth Regiment, The March of The Rev. Charles Babbidge 374
Ten Days In Nantucket Elizabeth Porter Gould 190
(2 Illustrations)
Thompson, Denman, Sketch of the Life of 12
Ticknor, The House of Barry Lyndon 266
(4 Illustrations)
Tommy Taft, A Story of Boston Town A.L.G. 244
Two Days with The A.M.C. Helen M. Winslow 367
Two Reform Mayors of Boston 249
Webster, Col. Fletcher, A reminiscence of 38
Webster, Daniel, The Last Portrait of 340
Wedding in Ye Days Lang Syne Rev. Anson Titus 36
White and Franconia Mountains,
The (24 Illustrations) Fred Myron Colby 76
Witch, The first New England Willard H. Morse M.D. 270
Worcester, The City of Fanny Bullock Workman 147
(18 Illustrations)
POEMS.
By The Sea Teresa Herrick 377
Equinoctial Sidney Maxwell 383
Growing Old 299
In Ember Days Adelaide G. Waldron 277
Memory's Pictures Charles Carleton Coffin (1846) 124
The Muse of History Elizabeth Porter Gould 248
Room At The Top 366
The Old State House Sidney Maxwell 414
Idleness Sidney Harrison 183
A Birthday Sonnet George W. Bungay 201
STEEL ENGRAVINGS.
Charles Carleton Coffin Facing 1
John B. Clarke 9
Sylvester Marsh 65
John Albion Andrew 141
John D. Long 221
Hugh O'Brien 253
William Wallace Crapo 309
Henry W. Paine 391
[Illustration: Charles Carleton Coffin]
THE BAY STATE MONTHLY.
_A Massachusetts Magazine_
VOL. III. APRIL, 1885. NO. I.
* * * * *
CHARLES CARLETON COFFIN.
Among the emigrants from England to the western world in the great
Puritan exodus was Joanna Thember Coffin, widow, and her son Tristram,
and her two daughters, Mary and Eunice. Their home was in Brixton, two
miles from Plymouth, in Devonshire. Tristram was entering manhood's
prime--thirty-three years of age. He had a family of five children.
Quite likely the political troubles between the King and Parliament, the
rising war cloud, was the impelling motive that induced the family to
leave country, home, friends, and all dear old things, and become
emigrants to the New World. Quite likely Tristram, when a youth, in
1620, may have seen the Mayflower spread her white sails to the breeze
and fade away in the western horizon, for the departure of that company
of pilgrims must have been the theme of conversation in and around
Plymouth. Without doubt it set the young man to thinking of the
unexplored continent beyond the stormy Atlantic. In 1632 his neighbors
and friends began to leave, and in 1642 he, too, bade farewell to dear
old England, to become a citizen of Massachusetts Bay.
He landed at Newbury, settled first in Salisbury, and ferried people
across the Merrimack between Salisbury and Newbury. His wife, Dionis,
brewed beer for thirsty travellers. The Sheriff had her up before the
courts for charging more per mug than the price fixed by law, but she
went scot free on proving that she put in an extra amount of malt. We
may think of the grave and reverend Justices ordering the beer into
court and settling the question by personal examination of the foaming
mugs,--smacking their lips satisfactorily, quite likely testing it a
second time.
Tristram Coffin became a citizen of Newbury and built a house, which is
still standing. In 1660 he removed with a portion of his family to
Nantucket, dying there in 1681, leaving two sons, from whom have
descended all the Coffins of the country--a numerous and widespread
family.
One of Tristram's decendants, Peter, moved from Newbury to Boscawen, New
Hampshire, in 1766, building a large two-storied house. He became a
prominent citizen of the town--a Captain of the militia company, was
quick and prompt in all his actions. The news of the affair at Lexington
and Concord April 19,1775, reached Boscawen on the afternoon of the next
day. On the twenty-first Peter Coffin was in Exeter answering the roll
call in the Provincial assembly--to take measures for the public safety.
His wife, Rebecca Hazelton Coffin, was as energetic and patriotic
as he. In August, 1777, everybody, old and young, turned out to defeat
Burgoyne. One soldier could not go, because he had no shirt. It was this
energetic woman, with a babe but three weeks old, who cut a web from the
loom and sat up all night to make a shirt for the soldier. August came,
the wheat was ripe for the sickle. Her husband was gone, the neighbors
also. Six miles away was a family where she thought it possible she
might obtain a harvest hand. Mounting the mare, taking the babe in her
arms, she rode through the forest only to find that all the able-bodied
young men had gone to the war. The only help to be had was a barefoot,
hatless, coatless boy of fourteen.
"He can go but he has no coat," said the mother of the boy.
"I can make him a coat," was the reply.
The boy leaped upon the pillion, rode home with the woman--went out with
his sickle to reap the bearded grain, while the house wife, taking a
meal bag for want of other material, cutting a hole in the bottom, two
holes in the sides, sewing a pair of her own stockings on for sleeves,
fulfilled her promise of providing a coat, then laid her babe beneath
the shade of a tree and bound the sheaves.
It is a picture of the trials, hardships and patriotism of the people in
the most trying hour of the revolutionary struggle.
The babe was Thomas Coffin--father of the subject of this sketch,
Charles Carleton Coffin, who was born on the old homestead in Boscawen,
July 26, 1823,--the youngest of nine children, three of whom died in
infancy.
The boyhood of the future journalist, correspondent and author was one
of toil rather than recreation. The maxims of Benjamin Franklin in
regard to idleness, thrift and prosperity were household words.
"He who would thrive must rise at five."
In most farm-houses the fire was kindled on the old stone hearth before
that hour. The cows were to be milked and driven to the pasture to crop
the green grass before the sun dispatched the beaded drops of dew. They
must be brought home at night.
In the planting season, corn and potatoes must be put in the hill. The
youngest boy must ride the horse in furrowing, spread the new-mown
grass, stow away the hay high up under the roof of the barn, gather
stones in heaps after the wheat was reaped, or pick the apples in the
orchard. Each member of the family must commit to memory the verses of
Dr. Watts:
"Then what my hands shall find to do
Let me with all my might pursue,
For no device nor work is found
Beneath the surface of the ground."
The great end of life was to do something. There was a gospel of work,
thrift and economy continually preached. To be idle was to serve the
devil.
"The devil finds some mischief still for idle hands to do."
Such teaching had its legitimate effect, and the subject of this sketch
in common with the boys and girls of his generation made work a duty.
What was accepted as duty became pleasure.
Aside from the district school he attended Boscawen Academy a few terms.
The teaching could not be called first-class instruction. The
instructors were students just out of college, who taught for the
stipend received rather than with any high ideal of teaching as a
profession. A term at Pembroke Academy in 1843 completed his acquisition
of knowledge, so far as obtained in the schools.
The future journalist was an omnivorous reader. Everything was fish that
came to the dragnet of this New Hampshire boy--from "Sinbad" to
"Milton's Paradise Lost," which was read before he was eleven years old.
The household to which he belonged had ever a goodly supply of weekly
papers, the _New Hampshire Statesman_, the _Herald of Freedom_, the _New
Hampshire Observer_, all published at Concord; the first political, the
second devoted to anti-slavery, the third a religious weekly. In the
westerly part of the town was a circulating library of some one hundred
and fifty volumes, gathered about 1816--the books were dog-eared, soiled
and torn. Among them was the "History of the Expedition of Lewis and
Clark up the Missouri and down the Columbia to the Pacific Ocean," which
was read and re-read by the future correspondent, till every scene and
incident was impressed upon his memory as distinctly as that of the die
upon the coin. Another volume was a historical novel entitled "A Peep at
the Pilgrims," which awakened a love for historical literature. Books of
the Indian Wars, Stories of the Revolution, were read and re-read with
increasing delight. Even the _Federalist_, that series of papers
elucidating the principles of Republican government, was read before he
was fourteen. There was no pleasure to be compared with that of visiting
Concord, and looking at the books in the store of Marsh, Capen and Lyon,
who kept a bookstore in that, then, town of four thousand
inhabitants--the only one in central New Hampshire.
Without doubt the love for historical literature was quickened by the
kind patronage of John Farmer, the genial historian, who was a visitor
at the Boscawen farm-house, and who had delightful stories to tell of
the exploits of Robert Rogers and John Stark during the French and
Indian wars.
Soldiers of the Revolution were living in 1830. Eliphalet Kilburn, the
grandfather of Charles Carleton Coffin on the maternal side, was in the
thick of battle at Saratoga and Rhode Island, and there was no greater
pleasure to the old blind pensioner than to narrate the stories of the
Revolution to his listening grandchild. Near neighbors to the Coffin
homestead were Eliakim Walker, Nathaniel Atkinson and David Flanders,
all of whom were at Bunker Hill--Walker in the redoubt under Prescott;
Atkinson and Flanders in Captain Abbott's company, under Stark, by the
rail fence, confronting the Welch fusileers.
The vivid description of that battle which Mr. Coffin has given in the
"Boys of '76," is doubtless due in a great measure to the stories of
these pensioners, who often sat by the old fire-place in that farm-house
and fought their battles over again to the intense delight of their
white-haired auditor.
Ill health, inability for prolonged mental application, shut out the
future correspondent, to his great grief, from all thoughts of
attempting a collegiate course. While incapacitated from mental or
physical labor he obtained a surveyor's compass, and more for pastime
than any thought of becoming a surveyor, he studied the elements of
surveying.
There were fewer civil engineers in the country in 1845 than now. It was
a period when engineers were wanted--when the demand was greater than
the supply, and anyone who had a smattering of engineering could find
employment. Mr. Coffin accepted a position in the engineering corps of
the Northern Railroad, and was subsequently employed on the Concord and
Portsmouth, and Concord and Claremont Railroad.
In 1846 he was married to Sallie R. Farmer of Boscawen. Not wishing to
make civil engineering a profession for life he purchased a farm in his
native town; but health gave way and he was forced to seek other
pursuits.
He early began to write articles for the Concord newspapers, and some of
his fugitive political contributions were re-published in _Littell's
Living Age_.
Mr. Coffin's studies in engineering led him towards scientific culture.
In 1849 he constructed the telegraph line between Harvard Observatory
and Boston, by which uniform time was first given to the railroads
leading from Boston. He had charge of the construction of the
Telegraphic Fire Alarm in Boston, under the direction of Professor Moses
G. Farmer, his brother-in-law, and gave the first alarm ever given by
that system April 29, 1852.
Mr. Coffin's tastes led him toward journalism. From 1850 to 1854 he was
a constant contributor to the press, sending articles to the
_Transcript_, the Boston _Journal, Congregationalist_, and New
York _Tribune_. He was also a contributor to the _Student and
Schoolmate_, a small magazine then conducted by Mr. Adams (Oliver
Optic).
He was for a short time assistant editor of the _Practical Farmer_,
an agricultural and literary weekly newspaper. In 1854 he was employed
on the Boston _Journal_. Many of the editorials upon the
Kansas-Nebraska struggle were from his pen. His style of composition was
developed during these years when great events were agitating the public
mind. It was a period which demanded clear, comprehensive, concise,
statements, and words that meant something. His articles upon the
questions of the hour were able and trenchant. One of the leading
newspapers of Boston down to 1856 was the _Atlas_--the organ of the
anti-slavery wing of the Whig party, of the men who laid the foundation
of the Republican party. Its chief editorial writer was the brilliant
Charles T. Congdon, with whom Mr. Coffin was associated as assistant
editor till the paper was merged into the _Atlas and Bee_.
During the year 1858 he became again assistant on the _Journal_. He
wrote a series of letters from Canada in connection with the visit of
the Prince of Wales. He was deputed, as correspondent, to attend the
opening of several of the great western railroads, which were attended
by many men in public life. He was present at the Baltimore Convention
which nominated Bell and Everett as candidates for the Presidency and
Vice Presidency in 1860. He travelled west through Pennsylvania, Ohio,
and Indiana, before the assembling of the Republican Convention at
Chicago, conversing with public men, and in a private letter predicted
the nomination of Abraham Lincoln, who, up to the assembling of the
convention, had hardly been regarded as a possible candidate.
He accompanied the committee appointed to apprise Mr. Lincoln of his
nomination to Springfield, spent several weeks in the vicinity--making
Mr. Lincoln's acquaintance, and obtaining information in regard to him,
which was turned to proper advantage during the campaign.
In the winter of 1860-61, Mr. Coffin held the position of night editor
of the _Journal_. The Southern States were then seceding. It was
the most exciting period in the history of the republic. There was
turmoil in Congress. Public affairs were drifting with no arm at the
helm. There was no leadership in Congress or out of it. The position
occupied by Mr. Coffin was one requiring discrimination and judgment.
The Peace Congress was in session. During the long nights while waiting
for despatches, which often did not arrive till well toward morning, he
had time to study the situation of public affairs, and saw, what all men
did not see, that a conflict of arms was approaching. He was at that
time residing in Maiden, and on the morning after the surrender of
Sumter took measures for the calling of a public meeting of the citizens
of that town to sustain the government. It was one of the first--if not
the first of the many, held throughout the country.
Upon the breaking out of the war in 1861 Mr. Coffin left the editorial
department of the _Journal_ and became a correspondent in the field,
writing his first letter from Baltimore, June 15, over the signature of
"_Carleton_"--selecting his middle name for a _nom de plume_.
He accompanied the right wing under General Tyler, which had the advance
in the movement to Bull Run, and witnessed the first encounter at
Blackburn's Ford, July 18. He returned to Washington the next morning
with the account, and was back again on the succeeding morning in season
to witness the battle of Bull Run, narrowly escaping capture when the
Confederate cavalry dashed upon the panic-stricken Union troops. He
reached Washington during the night, and sent a full account of the
action the following morning.
During the autumn he made frequent trips from the army around Washington
to Eastern Maryland, and the upper Potomac, making long rides upon the
least sign of action. Becoming convinced, in December, that the Army of
the Potomac was doomed to inaction during the winter, the correspondent,
furnished with letters of introduction to Generals Grant and Buell from
the Secretary of War, proceeded west. Arriving at Louisville he found
that General Buell had expelled all correspondents from the army. The
letter from the Secretary of War vouching for the loyalty and integrity
of the correspondent was read and tossed aside with the remark that
correspondents could not be permitted in an army which he had the honor
to command.
Mr. Coffin proceeded to St. Louis, took a look at the army then at
Rolla, in Central Missouri, but discovering no signs of action in that
direction made his way to Cairo where General Grant was in command.
General Grant's headquarters were in the second story of a tumble-down
building.
No sentinel paced before the door. Ascending the stairs and knocking,
Mr. Coffin heard the answer, "Come in." Entering, he saw a man in a blue
blouse sitting upon a nail-keg at a rude desk smoking a cigar.
"Is General Grant in?" he asked.
"Yes, sir."
Supposing the man on the nail keg with no straps upon his shoulder to be
only a clerk or orderly, he presented his letter from the Secretary of
War, with the remark, "Will you please present this to General Grant?"
whereupon the supposed clerk glanced over the lines, rose, extended his
hand and said, "I am right glad to see you. Please take a nail keg!"
There were several empty nail kegs in the apartment, but not a chair.
The contrast to what he had experienced with General Buell was so great
that the correspondent could hardly realize that he was in the presence
of General Grant, who at once gave him the needed facilities for
attaining information.
The rapidity of the correspondent's movements--the quickness with which
he took in the military situation, may be inferred from the dates of his
letters. On January 6, 1862, he wrote a letter detailing affairs at St.
Louis. On the eighth, he described affairs at Rolla in Central Missouri.
On the eleventh, he was writing from Cairo. The gunboats under Commodore
Foot were at Cairo, and the correspondent was received with the utmost
hospitality, not only by the Commodore, but by all the officers.
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