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Biographies
Sherman
ADAMS
(1899—1986)
ADAMS, Sherman, a Representative
from New Hampshire; born in East Dover, Windham County, Vt., January
8, 1899; as an infant moved with his parents to Providence, R.I.;
attended the public schools of Providence; served in the United
States Marine Corps during the First World War; was graduated from
Dartmouth College, Hanover, N.H., in 1920; engaged in the lumber
business in Healdville, Vt., in 1921 and 1922 and in the paper and
lumber business in Lincoln, N.H., 1923-1944; also engaged in
banking; member of the New Hampshire house of representatives
1941-1944, serving as speaker in 1943 and 1944; chairman of the
Grafton County Republican Committee 1942-1944; delegate to the
Republican National Conventions in 1944 and 1952; elected as a
Republican to the Seventy-ninth Congress (January 3, 1945-January 3,
1947); was not a candidate for renomination in 1946 but was an
unsuccessful Republican candidate for the gubernatorial nomination;
engaged as a representative of the American Pulpwood Industry in New
York City 1946-1948; Governor of New Hampshire January 1,
1949-January 1, 1953; appointed The Assistant to President
Eisenhower January 21, 1953, and served until his resignation
September 22, 1958; engaged in writing and lecturing; established a
ski resort in 1966 and was president and chairman of the board of
Loon Mountain Corporation; was a resident of Lincoln, N.H., until
his death in Hanover, N.H., October 27, 1986.
Source: Biographical
Directory of the United States Congress, 1771-Present
Contributed
by A. Newell
Laura Dewey
Bridgman
BRIDGMAN, Miss Laura Dewey, blind
deaf-mute, born in Hanover, N. H , 21st December, 1829. died in
South Boston. Mass., 24th May, 1889. Her parents were Daniel and
Harmony Bridgman. Laura was a delicate infant and subject to severe
convulsions. Her health improved until she was two years old. at
which age she was a very active and intelligent child, able to talk
and familiar with some letters of the alphabet. As she was entering
her third year, the family were smitten by the scarlet fever. Two
older daughters died of the fever, and Laura was attacked by it. For
seven weeks she could not swallow solid food, and then both eyes and
ears suppurated and her sight, hearing and sense of smell were
totally destroyed. For a year she could not walk without support,
and it was two years before she could sit up all day When she was
five years old, her health was once more perfect, and her mind,
unaffected by her distressful affliction, began to crave food. She
had forgotten the few words she knew when she was smitten. Her
remaining sense, that of touch, grew very acute. Her mother taught
her to sew, knit and braid. Communication with her was possible only
by signs that could be given by touch. She was an affectionate, but
self-willed, child. Dr. S. G. Howe, director of the Institution for
the Blind in Boston, heard of her, and she was placed in his charge
12th October, 1837. Dr. Howe, assisted by Mrs. L. H. Morton, of
Halifax, Mass., developed a special system of training that
accomplished wonders. A manual alphabet was used, and Laura learned
to read and write in sixteen months, having acquired a considerable
vocabulary. Her intellect developed rapidly, and she learned
mathematical operations to a limited extent. Her case attracted a
great deal of attention, and the system of instruction developed by
Dr. Howe in her case was applied successfully to other children
similarly deprived of their senses. Laura had no conception of
religion up to her twelfth year, as her instructors purposely
refrained from giving her any ideas of God until she was old enough
to take a correct idea. She could not, as has been asserted,
distinguish color by feeling. Laura was visited by many prominent
persons, among whom were Mrs. Lydia H. Sigourney and Charles
Dickens. The "Notes on America" mention Mr. Dickens' visit. George
Combe, of Scotland, visited Laura in 1842, and at his suggestion
arrangements were made to keep a full record of everything connected
with the remarkable girl. By dint of training she learned to speak
many words. Her imagination developed more slowly than any other
faculty, and her moral ideas were perceptibly different, in some
phases, from those of ordinary persons. Her education is fully
recorded in Mary Swift Lawson's " Life and Education of Laura Dewey
Bridgman," published in 1881.
("American Women Fifteen Hundred
Biographies", Volume 1, Publ. 1897. Transcribed by Marla
Snow)
Stephen
Burroughs
BURROUGHS, Stephen, adventurer, born in
Hanover. New Hampshire, in 1765; died in Three Rivers, Canada, 28
January, 1840. He was the son of a Congregational clergyman, and
early gained the reputation of the worst boy in town. He ran away
when fourteen years old and joined the army, but deserted and soon
afterward entered Dartmouth, where he engaged in all sorts of
mischief. He left College secretly before the end of his course,
went to sea as a privateer's man, and then figured as ship's
physician. Returning to land, he became a school-master, and then,
assuming the name of Davis, took charge of a Congregational church
at Pelham, Massachusetts. He preached there six months without
detection, but was then discovered, and shortly afterward arrested
in Springfield, Massachusetts, for passing counterfeit money. He was
convicted and imprisoned at Northampton, where, after numerous
unsuccessful attempts to escape, he set fire to the jail and was
then removed to Castle Island, Boston harbor. Even from this place
he escaped, but was recaptured and served out his term. He then went
to Canada, where he was for years the head of a gang of
counterfeiters. Later in life he reformed, united with the Roman
Catholic church, and supported himself by educating the sons of
wealthy Canadians at his home, where he had a valuable library, he
was successful as a teacher, beloved by his pupils, and respected by
all, notwithstanding his career. His charitable deeds were many,
even in the worst part of his life. He published "Memoirs of My Own
Life"
(Albany, 1811;
Philadelphia, 1848).
[Source:
http://famousamericans.net/stephenburroughs/ --- Submitted by Nancy
Piper]
News
Item (Submitted by Nancy Piper):
July 18 1810, The Centinel,
Gettysburg, PA
We understand, that the notorious Stephen
Burroughs was lately sentenced to transportation from Canada to
Botany Bay, under a late law; but was afterwards pardoned on giving
heavy bonds for his future good conduct. On the condemnation of this
ringleader of iniquity all his confederates suddenly decamped, and
it is supposed are now returned to the United States. We hope a
sharp lookout will be kept for them.
DARLING, Miss Alice O., poet, was
born near Hanover, N. H. She is the daughter of one of the
California pioneer gold-hunters of 1849. Her father was a farmer's
son, and his youth was spent on a farm in Croydon, N. H., where he
was born. His quest for gold in California was successful, and in
1855 he returned to New Hampshire and settled on a farm in the town
of Lebanon. There he was married to Mary Ann Seavey. Several
generations back his ancestry contained a drop of Indian blood, and
to that fact Miss Darling attributes many of her mental and physical
characteristics. She has an Indian's love for the fields and
forests, a deep and lasting remembrance of a kindness or an injury,
and a decided distaste for crowds and great cities. Unlike most New
Englanders, she would rather go round than through Boston, whose
architectural beauties are to her "only impressive and oppressive."
Notwithstanding the regular and arduous toil of farm life, Miss
Darling has found time to do considerable literary work of no mean
order. She published her first poems when she was seventeen years
old. When she was twenty-two years old, she wrote for the Newport,
N. H., "Argus and Spectator," and later for the Boston "Traveller,"
the Boston "Record," the Boston "Globe," the Boston "Transcript,"
the Buffalo "Express," the Hanover "Gazette," and "Good
Housekeeping."
(American Women, by Frances
Elizabeth Willard, Mary Ashton Rice Livermore, Volume 1, Publ. 1897,
Transcribed by Marla Snow.)
DURRELL, Mrs. Irene Clark, educator,
born in Plymouth, N. H., 17th May, 1852. Her father, Hiram Clark, is
a man of steadfast evangelical faith. Her mother was an exemplary
Christian. Until twelve years of age, her advantages were limited to
ungraded country schools. She was a pupil for a time in the village
grammar-school and in the Plymouth Academy. Taking private lessons
of her pastor in Latin and sciences, and studying by herself, she
prepared to enter the State Normal School in Plymouth, where she
completed the first course in 1872 and the second in 1873, teaching
during summer vacations. In 1873 and 1874 she taught the
grammar-school in West Lebanon, N. H. In the fall of 1874 she became
the teacher of the normal department in the New Hampshire Conference
Seminary, and a student in the junior year in the classical course.
She was graduated in 1876. She then taught in the State Normal
School in Castleton, Vt. On 23rd July, 1878 she became the wife of
Rev. J. M. Durrell, D.D. As a Methodist minister's wife, in New
Hampshire Conference, for thirteen years Mrs. Durrell has had marked
success in leading young ladies into an active Christian life and
interesting them in behalf of others. As an officer in the
Woman’s Foreign Missionary Society she has been an efficient
organizer. For four years she was district secretary and was a
delegate from the New England branch to the Evanston general
executive committee meeting. With her husband, in 1882, she took an
extended tour abroad. In the spring of 1891 her husband became
president of the New Hampshire Conference Seminary and Female
College, Tilton, N. H., and Mrs. Durrell became the preceptress of
that institution.
(American Women, Frances
Elizabeth Willard, Mary Ashton Rice Livermore, Volume 1 Copyright
1897. Transcribed by Marla Snow.)
FILLEY, Mrs. Mary A. Powers, woman
suffragist and stock-farmer, born in Bristol, N. H., 12th December,
1821. Her parents were Jonathan and Anne (Kendall) Powers. Left
motherless at the age of thirteen, she undertook the care of her
younger brothers and sisters. At nineteen she made her home in
Lansingburg, N. Y., and in 1851 became the wife of Edward A. Filley,
of Lansingburg, and went to St. Louis, Mo., to live. The passage of
the law legalizing prostitution in St. Louis roused all the mother
indignation in her, and she with other prominent ladies felt that
they must do what lay in their power to secure the repeal of such a
law. She worked vigorously with pen and petition, though against
great odds, sparing no effort. The effort was crowned with success,
and the law was repealed. Soon after Mrs. Filley removed to her
country home in North Haverhill, N. H. In 1880 she bought a large
stock farm, which she has since conducted. It was a dairy farm, and
though entirely new work to her, she learned the process of
butter-making, found a market in Boston for her butter and made one
year as much as 4,000 pounds. Finding the work too great a tax upon
her strength, she sold the greater portion of her stock and turned
the farm into a hay farm. In many ways she has made the moral
atmosphere of those around her better for her having lived among
them.
(American Women, Frances Elizabeth Willard,
Mary Ashton Rice Livermore, Volume 1 Copyright 1897.
Transcribed by Marla Snow.)
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