Part 21

This title, "_in office_," covers nearly the whole professional life of Mr. Rollins. After six years of successful practice of the law, he was elected to the legislature of New Hampshire from Somersworth. He held this relation for three years; during the last two, 1861 and 1862, he was chosen speaker of the house. It was a period of great excitement, the very outbreak of the civil war. Though young and inexperienced, he acquitted himself with the highest credit to himself and honor to the state. At the close of this responsible and difficult work, he was appointed, by President Lincoln, cashier of the bureau of internal revenue; and the next year, deputy commissioner of the same department. In 1865 he was made commissioner of internal revenue, one of the most responsible positions that any citizen of our country has ever been called to fill. The office was new, important, and burdensome. No finite mind could comprehend and control at once its multitudinous relations. Its net-work covered the whole territory of the United States. The property of the entire country was subject to its inspection and taxation. More than a million of dollars, every day, were received into the treasury from six thousand agents, for whose official integrity the head of the department was responsible. In new cases, the commissioner was often obliged to act as law-maker, judge, and executive. The cases admitted of no delay. The safety of the state required prompt decisions. These sprung up as intuitions. In his official report, made to congress in November, 1865, the commissioner says: "When it is recollected that the present generation only know by tradition or obsolete statutes that taxes have ever been imposed in this country on articles of their own manufacture, and the objects of internal traffic, or upon the various crafts and professions in which they were employed; and when, too, it is considered that the revenue collected for a single year ending June 30, 1865, amounts to a sum nearly or quite equal to all the receipts of this government, from whatever sources, from its organization to the year 1812; and when it is further considered that this amount was contributed at a time when the commercial marine of the country had been nearly destroyed and more than a million of men had been withdrawn from the productive pursuits of life,--we may not only be justly proud that the material strength of the country has been fully equal to the burden, but that it has been borne so quietly and so willingly." This office was administered wisely and well, by Mr. Rollins, till March 8, 1869, when President Grant assumed the reins of government. Failing health then admonished him to retire from the distracting cares of the office of commissioner. At the time of its resignation, as many of his subordinate officials as could come together adopted resolutions of respect and confidence in honor of their head. The first resolution expresses the opinions of the whole country, including cabinet officers and senators, as well as their own. It is thus written:--

"_Resolved_, that the integrity, fidelity, ability, and untiring devotion to the duties of his office which Mr. Rollins has exhibited, have inspired in us feelings of profound respect for his sterling qualities as a man and an officer; and that we especially admire the genial disposition which he has uniformly manifested toward us, amid all the cares and perplexities of a difficult and a burdensome office, held, much of the time, under peculiarly trying circumstances."

The remaining resolutions are cumulative of these expressions of confidence and esteem. No testimony could be more honorable to a well spent official life.

The religious life of Mr. Rollins, from boyhood to age, has been as strongly marked as his official career. He believes in doing, not in seeming; in practice, not in profession. He can speak as well as work for the truth. When the pastor needs help, he addresses the people. When the poor of the church or congregation need aid, he heads and carries the subscription paper. He has never lived in a place where he has not taught a Bible class; and worthy young men who have learned in his classes have often received promotion in business through his influence. He is always present at the stated meetings of the church. "Punctuality," says the old maxim, "is the essence of virtue." Mr. Rollins believed in the importance of punctuality; therefore he was never missed from the place of duty. In college he was never absent or unprepared; in office, in the bank, in public assemblies, the hours of business are promptly observed. In church, too, the times and places of worship are conscientiously observed, and if a delinquent neighbor, who has failed to be present when church affairs, temporal or spiritual, were discussed, meets him on a subsequent day, he is carefully questioned with regard to his health!

The family is the unit of the state. Good families make good communities, good cities, and good nations. A single good family is a light shining in a dark place. The history of the world is the united histories of illustrious families. The history of the church is the history of holy men. The Scriptures record the deeds and words of the best men our earth has known. Eliminate from the Bible the actions and opinions of kings, prophets, and apostles, and the records of our race become unintelligible. When we find a faultless and worthy Christian household, we do well to present it to the public for contemplation and imitation. One such household we venture to describe. Mr. Rollins's house is beautiful of situation, at the corner of Spruce and Fortieth streets, in West Philadelphia. Its liberal grounds, numerous trees, shrubs, and flowers make it very attractive to the eye of the stranger. When once introduced to the interior, every guest who has any music in his soul would be delighted to sing "Home, sweet Home" from early morn to dewy eve. Every room invites you to repose; every picture that looks upon you from the walls bids you welcome. It is impossible for one who has enjoyed the hospitality of the house to describe it fully without encroaching upon the sacred privacy of domestic life. This house was long the home of the now sainted mother, who only a few months ago was bidden to go up higher, and left the husband and children desolate. The house seems like the shrine of a departed divinity. The furniture was of her selection, the walls and mantels were adorned by her handiwork; and when changes or additions are now made to the internal conveniences of the home, the first question asked is, "What would mother choose if she could speak to us?" Her spirit seems still to hover over them.

Sidney Smith said, "There can be no handsomer furniture than books." Every room, every nook and corner of the house, is furnished with new books. The room specially devoted to library uses has a selection of books in every department of reading, sufficient for the instruction and pleasure of any man of refined taste and culture. Amid the thousands of volumes gathered, the most precious of them all to the family and their friends are two volumes written by Mrs. Rollins not long before her decease, entitled "New England Bygones" and "Old-Time Child Life." To one born in New England seventy years ago, the pictures of New England scenes are inimitable; they stir the blood of age like a trumpet. These books are the creations of true genius, and will live when all the contemporaries of this gifted woman are dead.

Enough has been said to reveal the attractions of this delightful home. Every word has been dictated by a life-long friendship. The sterling qualities of the subject of this sketch constrained me to portray them, and the half has not been said. When the elders of the Jews were sent to Jesus by the Roman centurion to intercede for his sick servant, the highest commendation they could name was this: "For he loveth our nation, and hath built us a synagogue." He was patriotic and religious; he feared God and loved his neighbor. No higher test of moral worth can be named. Let all public men be judged by this standard; and among them our good friend whom we have sketched, we doubt not, will hold a high rank. And if at any time the President of the United States should be seeking for a man for financial secretary who is honest, capable, and experienced, a multitude of voters would cry out,--Edward Ashton Rollins is the man!

VIRGIL C. GILMAN.

VIRGIL CHASE GILMAN was born in Unity, Sullivan county, New Hampshire, May 5, 1827, and was the third of a family of eight children born to Emerson and Delia (Way) Gilman.

Emerson Gilman was the oldest son and the first of twelve children born to Stephen and Dorothy (Clough) Gilman, who were married September 5, 1793. This was his second marriage, he having married Anna Huntoon, by whom he had nine children, some of whom died in infancy. Stephen Gilman was a native of Kingston, and served as a cavalry officer in the war of the Revolution. He was a descendant of Moses Gilman, who was one of three brothers,--Edward, John, and Moses,--who emigrated from Hingham, England, early in the sixteenth century.

In 1827, it was said:[4] "Edward Gilman's descendants are as numerous as the sands on the seashore. There is hardly a state in the Union where they may not be found. The family have been in civil office from the time our colony became a royal province to the present time. John Gilman was one of the first counselors named in President Cutts's commission, and died in 1708. Col. Peter Gilman was one of the royal counselors in 1772. Hon. Nicholas Gilman was counselor in 1777 and 1778. Hon. John Gilman, in 1787; while the present venerable John Taylor Gilman was fourteen years, eleven in succession, our highly respected chief magistrate. His brother, Nicholas Gilman, was a member of the house of representatives in congress eight years, and in the national senate nine years. Our ecclesiastical annals have, also, Rev. Nicholas Gilman, Harvard College, 1724; and Rev. Tristram Gilman, Harvard College, 1757, both respected clergymen and useful men."

These words are quoted in substance from Mr. Lincoln's work. "If he had written forty years later" says the author of "The Gilman Family in England and America,"[5] "he would have found the family still more numerous and many additions would have been made to his list of prominent men bearing the Gilman name. The family of Gilmans is not one furnishing a few brilliant exceptions in a long list of commonplace names. Its members appear generally to have been remarkable for the quiet home virtues, and rather to have desired to be good citizens than men of great name. To an eminent degree they appear to have obtained the esteem and respect of those nearest to them, for sound judgment and sterling traits of character."

Emerson Gilman followed the trade of clothier until the introduction of machinery supplanted the hand process, when he, after pursuing the business of farmer for a few years, removed to Lowell, Mass., in 1837, relying, upon his strong and willing hands to find support for his large family and give his children the advantages of education which that city signally afforded.

The subject of this sketch was then ten years old, and made fair progress through the several grades to the high school, with which his school-days ended. He removed to Nashua in 1843, but it was not until 1851 that he entered business on his own behalf, at which time he became associated with Messrs. Gage and Murray for the manufacture of printers' cards of all the various kinds, also fancy-colored, embossed, and marble papers, a new business in this country at that time, which business he followed successfully for twenty-one years, and until his close and unremitting application made it necessary for him to relinquish it for a more active out-door employment. Following a natural love for rural affairs, he was not long in possessing himself of a hundred-acres farm in the south part of the city, upon the Lowell road, which he greatly improved, and indulged to some extent in the usually expensive luxury of breeding Jersey cattle, trotting-horses, and Plymouth Rock fowls. He claims to have bred the finest and fastest gaited horse ever raised in New Hampshire. Meantime, having realized the object sought, greatly improved health, and the office of treasurer of the Nashua Savings Bank becoming vacant by the resignation of Dr. E. Spalding, in 1876, he was elected to fill the vacancy, and still continues in this responsible position, with nearly two and a half millions of deposits committed to his watchful care and secure investment.

Never coveting office, still he has rarely refused to perform his full share of duty in the various departments of labor and responsibility incident to city affairs, from ward clerk to the mayor's chair, serving also as assessor, member of the board of education, and is now trustee of the public library, also its secretary and treasurer. To him Dartmouth College is indebted for the Gilman scholarship; and the board of trustees of the Orphans' Home at Franklin finds in him an interested member. He is identified with the mechanical industries of the city, having a large interest in the Nashua Iron and Steel Company, and its local director; also an owner and director in the Underhill Edge Tool Company, and Amoskeag Axe Company; also a director in the Indian Head National Bank.

In military affairs actively he is unknown, his service having commenced and ended with the "Governor's Horse-Guards," enlisting as private in Co. B, and ending as major of the battalion. His interest, however, is kept alive by honorary membership of "City Guards" and "Foster Rifles," of his adopted city.

His strong love for agricultural affairs led him to take an interest in our New Hampshire Agricultural Society, of whose board of trustees he was formerly a member, also one of the trustees of the New England Agricultural Society.

He was a member of the legislature of 1879, serving as chairman of committee on banks and taking a deep interest in the work of that session, and especially zealous in opposition to the taxation of church property. At the present time he is the Republican senator of the Nashua district, and honored by the chairmanship of the leading committee of the senate, the judiciary, no member of the legal profession holding a seat in that body at this time. How well he discharged the duties of this responsible position those can testify who had business with the committee, or those who witnessed his unremitting application and conscientious decisions.

Denominationally he is a Congregationalist, and a communicant with the First church, that was organized in 1685. An interest in its prosperity has induced him to serve as director of the society connected therewith many years, and of which he is now president, and treasurer of the Sabbath-school connected. It will thus be seen that the subject of this sketch fills many positions of responsibility and usefulness which bring no pecuniary reward, without ostentation, and no foul breath tarnishes his fair record.

Our state has among its many honored sons few whose energy, integrity, and discretion have won success in so many directions, and none who command more universal respect among all classes. In business, politics, and social and religious circles he has been and is a leader, whose triumphs shed their blessings far and wide. Few have done so much for Nashua. No one deserves better of the state.

In 1850 he married Sarah Louisa, daughter of Gideon Newcomb, Esq., of Roxbury, by whom he had two children,--Harriet Louise, who married Charles W. Hoitt, an attorney-at-law in Nashua, and Alfred Emerson, who did not attain his second birthday.

WILLIAM AMORY.

WILLIAM AMORY was born in Boston, Mass., June 15, 1804, and is the son of Thomas C. and Hannah R. (Linzee) Amory. He was one of a family of four sons and four daughters, of whom three only--two sons and one daughter--survive. His father, a merchant of Boston, died in 1812; and seven years later his son, then but fifteen years of age, entered Harvard University. He spent four years there, and soon after went to Europe to complete his education. He pursued in Germany the study of law and of general literature for a year and a half at the university in Gottingen, and for nine months at the university in Berlin. He occupied the subsequent two years and a half in travel, and returned to Boston in July, 1830, after an absence of five years. There he pursued his legal studies with Franklin Dexter and W. H. Gardiner, and in 1831 was admitted to the bar of Suffolk county, without, however, any intention of entering upon legal practice.

In that year he was chosen treasurer of the Jackson Manufacturing Company, at Nashua, N. H., and began business as a manufacturer. Without experience, and yet with a mind which study had disciplined and knowledge of the world had made keen, with remarkable energy and enterprise, he was eminently successful, and the Jackson company paid large and sure dividends for the eleven years he continued its treasurer. In 1837 he became the treasurer of the Amoskeag Manufacturing Company, an office which included at that time, when the plan of creating a city upon the Merrimack was just to be carried out, the responsibility and wisdom of a general manager of the company's interests, as well as the usual financial duties of a treasurer. He held that office from then till October, 1876; was treasurer of the Stark Mills, with the exception of four years and a half, from its organization, in 1839, to 1876; was a director of the Manchester Mills, and its successor, the Manchester Print-Works, from the start, in 1839, till 1871; and has been a director of the Langdon Mills from its beginning, in 1860, and its president from 1874 to 1876. When Mr. Amory tendered his resignation as treasurer of the Amoskeag company, the following complimentary resolutions were unanimously adopted by the stockholders:--

"_Resolved_, That the stockholders of this corporation have heard with regret of the resignation of their treasurer, William Amory, Esq.

"That a continuous service of thirty-nine years demands from them an expression of their appreciation of his eminent success, not only in building up an unequaled and remunerative manufacturing establishment, but in founding the largest and one of the finest cities in the state.

"For both these results they tender to him their hearty thanks, and desire to place this testimonial upon the records of the company."

In seconding the motion to adopt the above resolutions, T. Jefferson Coolidge, Esq., spoke as follows:--

"The best witness to the services of Mr. Amory as treasurer is the splendid condition of the Amoskeag company. He took it in its infancy, when it was poor. There was then but one mill of about eight thousand spindles. He leaves it, after forty years of success, with one hundred and thirty-seven thousand spindles, and more than two millions of quick capital. You have received in dividends, for forty-two years, an average of eleven per cent a year; and, if to that is added the increase of the quick capital, the company has earned fifteen per cent per annum, without taking into consideration the money spent on the plant. To put it in another light: a stockholder of one share, costing one thousand dollars, if he allowed compound interest at the rate he received on his dividends, would find that his share had been worth to him eighty thousand dollars.

"The mills themselves are equal, if not superior, to any in New England, and contain more than twenty acres of machinery floor; and, although there are many mills in England and some here that are running more spindles, yet I believe the Amoskeag is the largest cotton-manufacturing establishment in either country producing its goods from the cotton in the bale, and turning them out actually finished for the market.

"I have said enough to show that no one can be more deserving of a vote of thanks than the retiring treasurer. Let us hope that he may be preserved for many years to aid in the counsels of the company, and to assist his successor in the arduous task that must fall to any man who takes a place which he has filled so long, so ably, and so successfully."

Mr. Amory married, in January, 1833, Miss Anna P. G. Sears, daughter of David Sears, an eminent merchant of Boston, by whom he has had six children, of whom four survive.

Mr. Amory is a man with whom, more than with almost any one else, Manchester is closely identified, and to whose accurate foresight and comprehensive views a very large proportion of its beauty and success is due. To him, as the manager of the company which gave it its first impulses in life and has ever since assisted its growth, it owes in large measure its wide streets, its pleasant squares, and its beautiful cemetery. He has pursued a liberal policy, and deserves the city's gratitude. As the treasurer of the company, he has met with eminent success. A man of perfect honor and integrity, cautious and prudent, he has looked upon the funds in his possession as his only in trust, to be managed with the utmost care. Herein is to be found the secret of his success. Few men stand better than he in the business world of his native city, or elsewhere. A gentleman of culture, of the utmost polish, with a very pleasing appearance, he enjoys the affection and respect of many personal friends.

FOOTNOTES:

[4] History of Hingham, Mass., by Solomon Lincoln, Jr. Farmer & Brown, 1827.

[5] Arthur Gilman, A. M. Joel Munsell, Albany, 1869.

JOHN McDUFFEE.

By Rev. Alonzo H. Quint, D. D.

To men of their own energetic stock, who, refusing all political preferment, have given comprehensive abilities, sterling integrity, and sagacious industry to the development of business, many New Hampshire towns owe an imperishable debt. JOHN MCDUFFEE'S record is in the prosperity of Rochester.

The name itself suggests that strong Scotch-Irish blood which endured the siege of Londonderry, in which were Mr. McDuffee's ancestors, John McDuffee and his wife, Martha, honored in tradition. John and Martha McDuffee had four sons, viz., Mansfield, Archibald, John, and Daniel. Mansfield went to London, England; the other three came, with their parents, to America in the emigration which gave New Hampshire the powerful stock of Derry and Londonderry. John, the father of these sons, settled in Rochester in 1729, on land on the east side of the Cochecho river, adjoining Gonic lower falls,--the farm of eighty-five acres remaining without break in the family, and now owned by the subject of this article. The Rochester settler was, as just stated, the father of Daniel McDuffee, and also of Col. John McDuffee,--a gallant officer in the old French and Revolutionary wars, lieutenant-colonel in Col. Poor's regiment,--who, never marrying, adopted his brother Daniel's son John, and eventually made him his heir. John, the colonel's heir, was a farmer in good circumstances, married Abigail, daughter of Simon and Sarah (Ham) Torr, and was father of John McDuffee, the subject of this sketch, who was born on the farm once the colonel's, about a mile and a half from Rochester village, on the Dover road, December 6, 1803.