Part 38

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.

From the twelve immigrants of the name of Richards that originally came from England to this country, at different times, in the years from 1630 to 1728, have come, as may be seen by the records of the New England Historic-Genealogical Society, in Boston, a great number of descendants, who, from the beginning, have borne a royal part in the toils and trials and hardships of our early time, and who are to-day represented in the learned professions, the arts, commerce, and manufactures, and general business of this great country.

The sixth of these immigrants, in point of time, was Edward Richards, a passenger in the ship Lion, from London, who landed in Boston, September 16, 1632. His brother, Nathaniel, was also a passenger. Nathaniel afterward joined the party of Rev. Mr. Hooker,--a memorable expedition,--and with it traversed the then howling wilderness to the valley of the Connecticut, and was among the founders of Hartford.

Edward Richards was, for a time, resident at Cambridge, Mass., where he married, September 10, 1638, Susan Hunting. He was afterward one of the sixty-two original proprietors of the town of Dedham, near Boston, where he lived, and died in 1684, and where many of his descendants are to be found at this time. We follow the descent of the line from Edward (1), through John (2), John (3), John (4), Abiathar (5), to Sylvanus in the sixth generation, who, about the beginning of this century, moved, with his family, to Newport, N. H., where he settled on a large tract of land in the western part of the township, on what is known as the old road to Claremont. The place is now (1882) in possession of Shepard H. Cutting.

Mr. Richards was, for some years, one of the largest land-holders and tax-payers in the town. In connection with his farming business he kept a way-side inn, where rest and refreshment awaited the dusty and chilly traveler,--man and beast. This was nearly three-quarters of a century before the scream of the locomotive was ever heard in this part of New Hampshire, a time when the people were mostly dependent upon their own resources, in regard to methods of travel and transportation.

About the year 1812, Sylvanus Richards moved to Newport Village, and became the proprietor of the "Rising Sun" tavern, a house originally built and occupied as a public house by Gordon Buell, the father of the late Mrs. Sarah J. Hale, of Philadelphia, the accomplished writer and editor of the _Lady's Book_. It was in this house that DEXTER RICHARDS was born.

Of the four children, all sons, born to Sylvanus and Lucy (Richardson) his wife, was Seth Richards (7), born in Dedham, Mass., February 20, 1792, who grew up to aid him in his business, and ultimately succeeded to the proprietorship of the "Rising Sun." The writer remembers Capt. Seth Richards as a man of great personal activity and tact in business, of irreproachable integrity in all his transactions with his fellow-men through a long and busy life, genial and benevolent, a downright gentleman of the old school, and in his departure leaving a place in the social and business affairs of this community exceedingly difficult to fill. He was often called by his fellow-citizens to fill town offices and places of trust and responsibility, and was chosen as a representative to the state legislature in 1833.

After leaving the hotel he turned his attention to the mercantile business, and was for some time a clerk in the store of Erastus Baldwin, one of the earlier merchants of the town. In 1835, when the Cheneys retired from Newport, he purchased their stock and trade, and the "old stand," and continued the business successfully for many years, or until about the year 1853, when he became interested in the Sugar River flannel-mills,--of which we shall have more to say hereafter,--and finally retired from active life about the year 1867.

Captain Richards married, April 8, 1817, Fanny Richards, of Dedham, Mass., and to them were born, in the years from 1818 to 1834, two sons and six daughters. In regard to the family of Seth and Fanny Richards, we may say that no more pleasant and hospitable home ever opened its doors in Newport. They died in the faith and communion of the Congregational church. Fanny died August 11, 1854. Seth died October 30, 1871.

Of the children of Seth and Fanny Richards, was Dexter, born September 5, 1818, who is more particularly the subject of this sketch. Tracing his genealogy, we find him in the eighth generation from Edward in the line of the American Richardses. To say that Dexter Richards was born with a silver spoon in his mouth would belie the facts in the case; but to say that he comes through a worthy line of ancestors, and that he inherits their good and noble qualities and best abilities, will meet our case at the threshold. He has some time said that he never had any childhood or youth, in the common acceptation of the term; that in his early years his parents were in moderate circumstances, and, being the eldest son of a family mostly daughters, he was called to work, and think of ways and means for promoting their welfare. While other lads of his age were engaged in their sports and pastimes, or enjoying public occasions like the old-fashioned trainings and musters, Fourth-of-July celebrations, or town-meetings and court days, he early manifested a natural tact for business, by engaging in some juvenile enterprise by which to turn an honest penny with the crowd.

The public school in district number two afforded him an opportunity for learning the rudiments of knowledge, which was eagerly improved, summer and winter, as he could be spared from other duties. When about eighteen years of age he finished his education, so far as schools are concerned, with a term or two at a high school in Lebanon, under the tutelage of the late eminent Prof. Edmund R. Peaslee. Mr. Richards has, therefore, never been through with what is termed a regular course of study, and comes to us with no diploma from college or hall. The most important part of his education has been acquired outside the schools, in the great university of active life, and is of the most practical character.

Politically, he was reared in the Democratic faith; but, when the union of the states was assailed, the action of the Democratic party in regard to the great questions of that day not being in accord with his views he withdrew from it, and affiliated with the Republican party, just then commencing its career. The ranks of this great party, that has for more than twenty years dominated in this country, were greatly augmented and strengthened by such acquisitions from the Democratic party; men who arose in their might, declaring the patriotic sentiment of their old leader and hero, Andrew Jackson,--"The Union must and shall be preserved."

In regard to his public career, Mr. Richards was many times, when quite a young man, elected to serve on the board of selectmen. In the years 1865, 1866, and 1870, he represented the town in the state legislature. In 1871 and 1872 he was a member, from this district, of the executive council, and about that time a delegate to the Republican national convention at Philadelphia, that nominated General Grant for his second term of the presidency. In 1876 he was a delegate to the convention for revising the constitution of the state; and, so far as his official course is concerned, from the beginning it has been distinguished by eminent ability and the strictest integrity. The "spoils," so-called, have never been his object in accepting offices of trust at the hands of his constituents. He has found his reward more in the faithful and conscientious performance of his duty.

In regard to the business career of Mr. Richards, we may say it has been characterized by great industry and enterprise, on a basis of good judgment, and in a spirit of fair dealing throughout. We have already alluded to his early inclination to buy and sell and get gain in a small way, as a boy, and in this respect the child foreshadowed the man. During the years of his minority he was the faithful and efficient coadjutor of his father in all his plans and purposes, and particularly so when Capt. Seth Richards succeeded to the mercantile business at the old Cheney stand, about the year 1835. In the management of this business the son was a most important factor, and on coming of age became a partner with his father. The business was well managed and profitable, and with it came prosperity to the Richards family, and to Dexter Richards the foundation and assurance of future successes in life. About the year 1853, Richards & Son came to be interested in a flannel-mill in Newport, that, possibly, had not heretofore been very successfully managed. The history of this concern may be briefly stated as follows:--

The Sugar River mills were built in 1847, by Perley S. Coffin and John Puffer. About the year 1853, Richards & Son (Dexter) succeeded by purchase to the original interest of John Puffer, then owned by D. J. Goodridge. On the retirement of the senior Richards, in 1867, changes were made by which the entire establishment came into possession of Dexter Richards, Mr. Coffin retiring from the concern with a handsome fortune.

In the prosecution of the business up to this time, the parties interested had been singularly favored by circumstances that brought disaster to many other firms and business men throughout our northern towns and cities. We have reference to the great civil war that about this time (1861-65) so much disturbed the commerce of the country. Of the gray twilled flannels produced by the Sugar River mills, a large stock had accumulated at this time. The goods were well adapted to the wants of laborers, and particularly the soldiers in the Union army. The war created a demand; prices appreciated; the machinery was kept running night and day; the flannels found ready sale as fast as they could be produced; and the success of the Sugar River mills was henceforth assured. In the mean time, the establishment had been greatly enlarged and improved, and was turning out about eight hundred thousand yards of flannel yearly.

In 1872, Seth Mason Richards, the eldest son of Dexter Richards, a young man just entered upon his majority, was admitted to a partnership with his father. Enlargements and improvements have continued from time to time, and the condition of the establishment at this date (1882) may be stated as follows: Dexter Richards & Son, proprietors; capital stock, $150,000. S. M. Richards, superintendent; Arthur R. Chase, secretary. It gives steady employment to eighty-five operatives; runs eight sets of cards, forty-four narrow looms, fifteen spinning-machines; works up two hundred and eighty thousand pounds of cotton and wool, and turns out annually nearly one million yards of gray twilled flannel. The trade-mark (D. R. P.) of these goods is well known, among dealers and others, throughout the country, and the products of the factory find market and ready sale through commission merchants in Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Chicago.