Anthony Colby
Anthony Colby is known in his native state as a typical "New Hampshire
man." Born and bred among the granite hills, he seemed assimilated to
them, and to illustrate in his noble, cheerful life the effects of their
companionship. His great heart, sparkling wit, fine physical vigor, and
merry laugh made his presence a joy at all times, and welcome
everywhere. His ancestry, on his father's side, was of English, and on
his mother's, of Scotch-Irish, origin. The first member of his father's
family that removed to this country settled in the town of Salisbury,
Mass., in 1740. He bore the name of Anthony Colby, and was a member of
the so-called "Test Association."
Joseph Colby, the father of Anthony, was born in Hopkinton, N. H., near
Beech Hill, in 1762. He died in 1843. Of his brothers, two, James and
Nathaniel, settled in that town, and another, David, in Manchester, near
the sea, in Massachusetts. During the last century, Joseph bought a
portion of land under the "Masonian Grant" from Mr. Minot. Then the
restriction of ownership in the state was that "all the white-pine trees
be reserved for masting the ships of His Majesty's royal navy." Each
town was required to set apart a portion of land for a meeting-house,
and the support of the gospel ministry; for a school-house and the
support of a school, as well as a military-parade ground.
In the organization and settlement of the town named New London, and in
the needs of the settlers, both civil and religious, Joseph took an
active part. He began clearing land in that part of the town now called
Pleasant street, at the north end of Pleasant pond. He early established
trade for himself with Newburyport and Salem. The state legislature then
held its sessions in Portsmouth. Of this, he was for fourteen
consecutive years a member. He was a political leader, and an
uncompromising Federalist. For fifty years he was a stanch member of the
Baptist church, of which Rev. Job Seamans was the first pastor, and he
was for some time president of the Baptist state convention.
He married Anne Heath, a direct descendant of the Richard Kelley family,
of which Judge Kelley, of Exeter, was a member. Her immediate relatives
took part in the Revolutionary war. Members of the family live in
Newbury, Mass. The family of Joseph Colby consisted of two sons and two
daughters. The eldest daughter, Sarah, married Jonathan Herrick; the
second, Judith, married Perley Burpee. Both of these daughters were
settled beside him. Mrs. Burpee still survives. The two sons of Joseph
Colby never left their father's household. Joseph, the eldest, spent the
most of his life in the gratification of his literary tastes, and a
species of journalism. Anthony, born in 1795, was of a lively
disposition. A pleasant vein of humor ran through his character, making
him enjoy a joke, while a native prescience led him to project himself
into every kind of progress. A keen insight into the character of men
gave him an almost unlimited influence over them. He never passed
through college, but his faculties were broadly developed by the
condition into which his genial and vivid nature led him. His father's
home was so guarded and in every way provided for, that ample
opportunity was afforded him to follow the pursuits and activities that
were congenial to him. He married, at an early age, Mary Everett, whose
modest and refined Christian character greatly influenced him. A more
favored home could hardly be imagined than that in which his three
children were born, and which is still held sacred by them. The steady
support of a grandfather's established character, the stimulus of a
popular father, joined to the affection of a devoted grandmother and the
delicate influence of a lovely mother, created an atmosphere, of solid
content and peace as blissful as is to be found this side of heaven. His
eldest son, Daniel E. Colby, graduated from Dartmouth College in 1836.
He married Martha Greenwood, and now lives in the paternal home. His
daughter married, in 1851, James B. Colgate, and lives in New York, as
does her brother Robert, who married Mary Colgate. Robert also graduated
from Dartmouth College, and studied law with Judge Perley, at Concord,
N. H.
The prominent characteristics of Anthony Colby were manly self-reliance
and intrepidity, joined with quick sympathy and faithfulness in
friendship, which made men trust and love him. His father's identity
with the state gave him a wide knowledge of its resources, industries,
and inhabitants. He was interested in the affairs of the entire state,
and was always ready to sacrifice the interests of his private business
for those of his townsmen. There was no neighborhood or personal
difficulty in which he did not willingly take the responsibility of
bringing help or reconciliation. His tender sympathy, benevolence, and
personal authority were sufficient to adjust the differences and rights
of all who sought his assistance. He was strictly and absolutely a
temperance man, never tasting spirituous liquors, and always using his
influence to save young men from the use of them. His nature was
many-sided enough to find some points of agreement with men whose habits
differed from his own.
He established a line of stages through his native town before any
system of railroads had been extended through the state. He afterwards
became president of the Concord & Claremont Railroad. He possessed, in
an unusual degree, an ability to create in his own brain and carry into
practice business activities. He saw and felt how labor could be well
applied, and, while a young man, built himself, in a part of the town
then almost a forest, a grist-mill, carding and fulling mill. In 1836 he
was instrumental in establishing a scythe-factory which was carried on
by the use of the same water that had been used for the mills. In this
enterprise he was associated with Joseph Phillips and Richard Messer,
both of whom had learned the trade of scythe-making. In the vicinity
there grew up directly a flourishing village.
In politics, Mr. Colby was always conservative. He was first elected a
member of the New Hampshire legislature, in 1828, and afterwards held
nearly every higher office of trust in the state. Daniel Webster was his
personal friend. Their fathers, who lived in the same county, only about
twenty miles apart, were many years associated in the legislature, of
which they were members, from Salisbury and New London. The friendship
between himself, Judge Nesmith, of Franklin, and Gen. James Wilson, of
Keene, was more than simple friendship,—they were delightful
companions; of essentially different characteristics, the combination
was perfect. Daniel Webster was their political chief, and his vacation
sometimes found these men together at the Franklin "farm-house," and at
the chowder parties up at the "pond." The Phenix Hotel, under the charge
of Col. Abel and Maj. Ephraim Hutchins, was the central rendezvous,
where a great deal of projected statesmanship, a great deal of story
telling and fruitless caucusing were indulged in, down to the revolution
of 1846, when the Democrats lost their supremacy by the admission of
Texas as a slave state, when John P. Hale went into the senate. Anthony
Colby was then elected governor. Mr. Webster wrote him earliest
congratulations. With the usual backsets of a radical change, the Whig
party held the front until Mr. Webster made his Seventh-of-March speech
in 1850, on the fugitive-slave bill. Following up that speech by another
on the Revere-House steps, favoring the enforcement of that law, and
addressed to New England men, in which he said, "Massachusetts takes no
steps backward," he placed his friends in a most trying predicament.
Mr. Webster and his Boston body-guard made an effort to hold the Whig
party solid to his position. It could not be done. The Abolitionists
stood forth in full panoply, indiscriminately and precipitately
aggressive, thanking God for the fugitive-slave law, and that Daniel
Webster was its promoter and defender. He wrote to Gov. Colby, urging
him to stand firmly by him and help bring the public mind to this new
standard. The governor was perplexed. Privately he expressed himself
after this fashion: "New Hampshire men vote for the fugitive-slave law!
This whole business is like crowding a hot potato down a man's throat,
and then asking him to sing 'Old Hundred.'" He wrote Mr. Webster that he
would do all that he could for him as a friend, although the law was
odious to him.
There was held, that summer, a Baptist state convention. It was a full
convention, for the churches were in a ferment, and many of them
disintegrating upon the slavery issue. He was sent as a delegate from
the church of which he was a member. A set of resolutions was reported,
of a very violent and denunciatory character, directed against the
fugitive-slave law, Mr. Webster, and both political parties, threatening
expulsion and disfellowship to those members of churches who did not
come out with an open and square protest upon this subject. The
discussion was all one side until the advocates of the resolution had
aired their opinions to their own satisfaction. Then, the governor,
seeing his opportunity, quietly arose and moved an amendment to the
resolution inveighing against Mr. Webster personally. He felt the fight
to be a single-handed one, and would go through it alone if necessary.
Presently, a candid brother seconded his amendment with a few
suggestions. Other brethren applauded. Then the storm set in from the
other side, and the convention became disorderly. It was as if the
better elements of New England life were in one grand convocation. This
was the first public discussion of the situation. The contest was as
brilliant a one, on a modified scale, as any intellectual and emotional
contest that we read of. The governor's only hope of reconciliation was
by settling down on his own popularity with the members of the
convention, and, avoiding the principles involved, appealing to their
generosity as a personal favor. With tears in his eyes and in faltering,
grieving tones, he besought them most solemnly to spare his life-long
friend the denunciation contained in that one resolution, and accept his
amendment. The convention agreed to it. He sent a report of the
proceedings, with an explanatory letter, to Mr. Webster: but he was not
satisfied. There the matter dropped. These true-hearted friends saw,
silently, the scepter of leadership declining in Mr. Webster's hand, and
sadly lamented, what they could not prevent.
No Whig had held the office of governor, until the election of Anthony
Colby, since the election of Gov. Bell, an interim of seventeen years.
Gov. Colby being rallied upon his one-term office, said he considered
his administration the most remarkable the state ever had. "Why so?" was
asked; when with assumed gravity he answered: "Because I have satisfied
the people in one year, and no other governor ever did that."
His spirit attached him to military life. He was early promoted to the
rank of major-general. This experience turned to his account, when,
during the trying years of our late war, in 1861 he was appointed
adjutant-general, and subsequently provost-marshal, of New Hampshire.
At this time his son Daniel E. Colby was appointed adjutant-general. The
governor always alluded to this service as the saddest of his life,—to
encourage and send forth to almost certain death the young men of the
state whom he loved as a father. This was his last prominent office in
state affairs; and so faithful was he in it, that, although nearly
seventy years of age, he went often to the front to acquaint himself
with the condition of the soldiers and share their hardships with them.
In 1850 he received from Dartmouth College the degree of A. M., and the
same year was chosen one of the trustees of the college. He was
interested in the best possible educational advantages of the young, and
in every way promoted them. Through his energy, in a great degree, the
academy in New London has arisen to its present flourishing condition.
His son-in-law, James B. Colgate, of New York, has generously endowed
it, and aided in placing it upon a solid basis. The trustees have
conferred upon it the name of Colby Academy.
Gov. Colby's second wife, Eliza Messenger Richardson, of Boston, by her
accomplishments and true Christian character embellished and enlivened
his declining years, while the devotion of his children cheered the
seclusion of his last days.
Said an illiterate woman, to strangers discussing his character in the
cars, "Governor Colby carries the very demon of honesty in his face."
It was his unfailing sense of duty and trust in God that won for him the
vast respect of the public, and esteem of a large circle of private
friends.
Sunday evening, July 20, 1875, he died, peacefully, in the home of his
father, at the age of eighty years, and was buried in the cemetery of
his native town, by the side of his parents. |