Part 11

The subject of this sketch fitted for college under the direction of Rev. Ephraim Judson, the minister of Taunton, and entered the Sophomore class at Dartmouth College, in 1786, where he graduated in 1789. He read law in Taunton with David L. Barnes, Esq., who was afterwards Judge of the District Court of the United States for the state of Rhode Island. In September, 1792, he was admitted to the bar, and the same year was married to Eunice Cobb, a daughter of the late Gen. Cobb of Taunton. He immediately removed to Maine, and first commenced practice in Waldoborough in the county of Lincoln, where he remained only two years, and then removed to the adjoining town of Warren, where he resided five years, when, in 1799, he removed to Hallowell. He represented the town of Warren two years in the House of Representatives; but after his removal to Hallowell, he devoted himself wholly to his profession. He was, however, twice chosen one of the Electors of President and Vice-President of the United States, and in 1814 was elected a State Counsellor. He was also one of the Delegates to the famous Hartford Convention. In June, 1815, he was appointed Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of Massachusetts, which office he now holds. He was a member from Newburyport of the Convention for revising the Constitution of the state, having removed from Hallowell to that place in 1820. In 1831 he removed to Boston, where he still resides.

The wife of Judge Wilde deceased June 6, 1826. Their children were nine, of whom only four survive. The two eldest sons died unmarried. The eldest daughter, Eunice, married Hon. William Emmons of Augusta, Me., a son of Rev. Dr. Emmons of Franklin, Ms. She died in 1821, leaving two daughters, one of whom has since deceased, and the other is the wife of Rev. Mr. Tappan of Hampden, Me., son of Rev. Dr. Tappan of Augusta, Me. The second daughter, Eleanor Bradish, married I. W. Mellen, Esq., son of Rev. Mr. Mellen of Cambridge. They are both dead. Mrs. Mellen died in March, 1838, leaving three children. The third daughter, Caroline, married Hon. Caleb Cushing of Newburyport, and died in 1832. The eldest surviving son, George Cobb, Esq., an attorney at law, is Clerk of the Courts in Suffolk county, is married, and has two children. The second surviving son, Henry Jackson, is married, and has two children, and is now settled in Washington, D. C. The youngest son is unmarried. The only surviving daughter was first married to Frederick W. Doane of Boston, and is now the wife of Robert Farley, also, of Boston.

Judge Wilde has been in his present office nearly thirty-two years, a longer time it is believed than any individual ever held that office before,[32] and his judicial career has uniformly been characterized by legal learning and stern integrity. His personal character is marked by uncommon frankness and great simplicity of manners.

He has received the degree of Doctor of Laws from Bowdoin and Harvard Colleges, and he is also a Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and some other literary associations.

NATHANIEL WRIGHT, ESQ., OF CINCINNATI, OHIO.

NATHANIEL WRIGHT was born Jan. 28, 1789, in the east parish of Hanover, N. H. The family residence was on the highlands adjoining the western base of Moose mountain, over which his father's farm extended. From some of the fields can be seen, spread out in the distance, nearly half the state of Vermont, rising in regular gradation from the Connecticut river, with every variety of cottage, field, woodland, and hill, to the summits of the Green Mountains, Killington Peak, and Camel's Rump, in the distant horizon. His parents, Nathaniel Wright and Mary Page, were originally from Coventry in the state of Connecticut. The name of his paternal grandfather was the same with that of his father; but we are not able to trace back the genealogy further. They were all farmers by occupation. His father was one of the first settlers of Hanover, and took possession of his farm there, while it was a perfect wilderness, the occupancy of which he had to contest with wild beasts. The sylvan adventures of that period were, no doubt, the topic of many a fireside tale of his childhood. His mother was sister of the father of Harlan Page, distinguished for his active piety, and of tract-distribution memory.

Mr. Wright began fitting for college in 1806. The larger part of his preparatory studies were with the Rev. Eden Burroughs, D. D., the parish minister, long one of the Trustees of Dartmouth College, and celebrated as the father of the notorious Stephen Burroughs, who died in Canada, a Catholic priest. He entered the Freshman class of Dartmouth College at the commencement of 1807, and graduated in 1811. After graduating, he spent three years or more in teaching, being part of that time in charge of the Portland Academy, Maine, and part of the time in charge of a select class of boys in the same place; and began there the study of law. He then spent a year as private tutor in a family in Virginia, reading law in the mean time, and was admitted to the bar in that state. In July, 1817, he went to Cincinnati, where, after spending some time in an office to familiarize himself with local practice, he was admitted to the bar in November, 1817, and commenced the practice in 1818. For a few years, he practised in the Federal Courts, and in different parts of the state; but finding the city practice the most profitable, as well as most pleasant, he soon confined himself to that, and continued it with so much labor and assiduity, that, in 1839 and 1840, he found his health giving way under the effects of it, and in the latter year, withdrew from the practice. Of his success in the practice, he has had no reason to complain. And in talents and legal acquirements, he has ranked with the first in the state.

He has been solicited at different times to become a candidate for Judge of the Supreme Court of Ohio, and for Member of Congress; but has uniformly refused all nominations for political office, preferring a private life to all others.

In April, 1820, he married Caroline Augusta Thew, a niece of the Hon. Jacob Burnet of Cincinnati. Her mother was a daughter of Dr. William Burnet of Newark, N. J., a surgeon in the army in the Revolutionary war, and a man of distinction in that state. Her parents being both dead, she went from Newark to Cincinnati with Judge Burnet's family, in 1815.

The children of these parents are eight in number: Mary Thew, Caroline Augusta, Daniel Thew, Eliza Burnet, Augusta Caroline, Louisa, Nathaniel, and William Burnet. Of these, Caroline Augusta and Augusta Caroline died, the former at five, the latter at three years of age.

Mr. Wright has published nothing, that can properly be called a book; yet many of his writings have appeared in public print in various forms. His name appears at the head of some important arguments in the Law Reports of Ohio, during the period of his practice; and some of his occasional addresses have been printed. In early life he was a lover of poetry, and not unfrequently attempted to honor the Muses; and this he did always with applause.

When Mr. Wright went to Cincinnati, then having five or six thousand inhabitants, he sat down patiently with the young at the foot of the bar, went on through a generation of the profession, till he stood at its head; and saw the city grown up to a population of 80,000, himself standing among a few _old_ respectable inhabitants, easy in circumstances, with a very happy family around him, and highly respected by the community.--The late Rev. Chester Wright, a graduate at Middlebury College in 1805, and of Montpelier, Vt., was his half-brother.

HON. WILLIAM D. WILLIAMSON OF BANGOR, ME.

WILLIAM DURKEE WILLIAMSON is supposed to be a descendant, in the sixth generation, of one who was among the earliest settlers in the Plymouth Colony. For as the Annalist tells us,[33] when Gov. Winslow went to make his first treaty with Massasoit, March 22, 1621, he was preceded by "Captain Standish and _Mr. Williamson_," and attended by a file of "musketeers." Nothing farther appears, in the printed narratives of those times, concerning the man last mentioned; nor is there any positive knowledge of his immediate posterity; though it is a report of tradition, that one of his name had command of a company in King Philip's war, in 1675-6, who might have been his son. But, however this may have been, certain it is, that men of his name in succeeding generations have exhibited a predilection for military tactics; and that in Major Benjamin Church's fifth expedition eastward, 1704, Captain _Caleb Williamson_ commanded a company of volunteers from Plymouth Colony. He had one brother, whose name was _George_, and the place of their residence was Harwich, in the county of Barnstable. It is said there was another of the family, or kindred, perhaps a brother, by the name of _Samuel_, who settled at Hartford in Connecticut, but as he left no son, his name at his death sank into oblivion.

George Williamson, above named, married, at Harwich, the daughter of a Mr. Crisp; and they had two sons, George and Caleb, and five daughters. The elder son was murdered by a highwayman, and left no child; the younger, born at that place, 1716, married Sarah Ransom, and settled at Middleborough in the county of Plymouth; whose children were six sons and three daughters. Though five of the sons were married, only two of them, Caleb and George, left issue. The latter, being the fifth son, born in 1754, who was the father of the subject of this sketch, removed with his father's family at the commencement of the Revolutionary war, to Canterbury, Ct., and married Mary Foster of that place, a niece of Rev. Jacob Foster, formerly a minister of Berwick, Me. Their children were four sons and four daughters. The sons are William D., the subject of this sketch; George, a farmer at Pittston; and Joseph, a lawyer at Belfast, a graduate at Vermont University, and President of the Senate, in the Legislature of Maine. Their father was a soldier in the Revolution, and a captain of artillery, some years after the peace. In 1793, he removed from Canterbury, where his sons were born, to Amherst, Ms., and finally died at Bangor, in 1822, aged 68 years.

William D., his eldest son, entered Williams College, in 1800; but finished his studies at Brown University, R. I., where he was graduated in 1804. As his father was a farmer in moderate circumstances, and himself the eldest of eight children, he was under the necessity of teaching a school several winters, to defray his college expenses. He read law with Hon. S. F. Dickinson of Amherst, till the spring of 1807, when he took up his residence in Bangor, Me., where he completed his professional studies with J. McGaw, Esq., being admitted to the bar in November of that year. Jan. 14, 1808, he was commissioned by Gov. Sullivan Attorney for the county of Hancock, an office held by him about eight years, when the county was divided. In 1816, he was elected to the Senate of Massachusetts, Maine being then a part of the Commonwealth; and received successive elections, till the separation in 1820. Though as a political man, his sentiments were of a democratic character, adverse to the majority in each of the legislative branches, he was Chairman of the Committee of Eastern Lands, three years. He was President of the first Senate in the new state of Maine; and the appointment of Gov. King as a Commissioner on the Spanish Claims, brought him into the Executive Chair, about six months of the political year. In the meantime, he was elected a Member of Congress. After he left the field of legislation he was appointed a Judge of Probate for his county, a Justice of Peace through the state, and President of Bangor Bank.

Judge Williamson was thrice married. He was first connected in marriage with J. M. Rice, an orphan, the niece of Gen. Montague of Amherst, whose home was hers. Five children were the fruits of this marriage, one of whom, an only son, a promising youth, died in 1832, at the close of his Junior year in Bowdoin College. His second wife was the eldest daughter of Judge Phinehas White of Putney, Vt., and his third was the only surviving daughter of the late E. Emerson, Esq., York, Me.

Judge Williamson was fond of literary pursuits generally, but

## particularly of historical research. He wrote and published a number of

articles on various subjects, in different periodicals. His great work, however, which cost him many years of labor, was his History of Maine, in two large octavo volumes. He died May 27, 1846.

FOOTNOTES:

[31] His parents' residence at that time was in Boston.

[32] Judge Benjamin Lynde was on the bench about the same length of time, from 1712 to 1744.

[33] See Prince's Annals, 101.--Purchas' Pilgrims, B. X. chap. 4.--Vol VIII. Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc., 229.

THE FATHERS OF NEW ENGLAND.

"They [the Fathers of N. E.] were mostly men of good estates and families, of liberal education, and of large experience; but they chiefly excelled in piety to God, in zeal for the purity of his worship, reverence for his glorious name, and strict observance of his holy Sabbaths; in their respect and maintenance of an unblemished ministry; the spread of knowledge, learning, good order, and quiet through the land, a reign of righteousness, and the welfare of this people; and the making and executing wholesome laws for all these blessed ends."--_Rev. Thomas Prince's Election Sermon_, 1730.

GOVERNOR HINCKLEY'S VERSES ON THE DEATH OF HIS SECOND CONSORT.

[Thomas Hinckley was the last Governor of the Plymouth Colony, which office he held, except during the interruption by Andros, from 1680 to 1692, when that colony was joined to the Massachusetts colony. He was a man of worth and piety. The following lines, composed by him on the death of his second wife, are copied from one of three volumes of the manuscripts of Rev. Thomas Prince, which are now in the possession of the Rev. Chandler Robbins of this city.

It is hardly necessary to inform our readers, that Thomas Prince, colleague pastor of the Old South Church in Boston from Oct. 1, 1718, to Oct. 22, 1758, was a most diligent and careful collector of public and private papers, relating to the religious and civil history of New England, and that many of his valuable books and manuscripts have been deposited by the church to which he ministered, in the library of the Massachusetts Historical Society.

The following brief sketch of the connection between Thomas Prince and Gov. Hinckley, and of some of the descendants of the latter, may be appropriate as an introduction to this poetic effusion.

In the manuscript volume above referred to, Rev. Thomas Prince has recorded a genealogical table prepared by himself, in which he states that he was "the fourth son of Samuel Prince, Esq., of Sandwich, who was the son of Elder John Prince, who came over in 1633, and settled first at Watertown and afterwards at Hull, who was the eldest son of Rev. John Prince of East Shefford, in Berkshire, Eng., who was born of honorable parents, educated in the University of Oxford, and was one of the Puritan ministers of the Church of England who _in part conformed_."

The father of Rev. Thomas Prince, Samuel Prince, Esq., married in 1686, for his second wife, Mercy Hinckley, the eldest daughter of Governor Hinckley by his second wife.[34] They had ten children; namely, Thomas, Mary, Enoch, John, Joseph, Moses, Nathan, Mercy, Alice, Benjamin.

Thomas married Deborah Denny. One of their daughters became the wife of Lieut. Governor Gill.

Mary married the Rev. Peter Thatcher.

Moses married Jane Bethune. Their daughter, Jane Prince, was consort of the Rev. Chandler Robbins, D. D., of Plymouth, Ms., grandfather of the Rev. Chandler Robbins of Boston, of whom we have obtained this relic of antiquity.]

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