History of Hinsdale, (Cheshire County) New Hampshire United States of America

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Biographies:

Elisha Benjamin Andrews, educator, was born in Hinsdale, N.H., Jan. 10, 1844, son of Erastus and Almira (Bartlett) Andrews. In boyhood he worked on his father's farm, and his opportunities for early school training were limited. His ambition to prepare himself for college was changed into a patriotic desire to serve his country, when in 1861 President Lincoln called for seventy-five thousand volunteers. A boy of sixteen he enlisted as a soldier in the 4th Connecticut infantry, subsequently the 1st Connecticut heavy artillery. He was commissioned 2d lieutenant in 1863. In the summer of 1864, at the siege of Petersburg, Va., he received a wound that destroyed the sight of his left eye, and incapacitated him for further active service, and he received an honorable discharge in October, 1864. He resumed his studies at Power's institute and the Wesleyan academy, and matriculated at Brown university in 1866, graduating in 1870. He was appointed principal of the Connecticut literary institution, Suffield, Conn., remaining there two years. He entered Newton theological seminary in 1872, was graduated in 1874, and became pastor of the First Baptist church at Beverly, Mass., resigning in 1875 to accept the presidency of Denison university, Granville, O. His success there led to his election to the chair of homiletics in the Newton theological seminary, in 1879. This position he resigned in 1882 to accept the professorship of political economy and history in Brown university, which position he held until 1888, spending one year of the time in Germany at the universities of Berlin and Munich. In 1888 he became professor of political economy and public finance in Cornell university. His varied attainments and his fame as an educator made him a prominent candidate for the presidency of Brown university, and upon the resignation of President Robinson in 1889 he was unanimously chosen, and served in 1889-98. He was superintendent of the public schools of Chicago, Ill., 1898-1900, and on Sept. 22, 1900, accepted the chancellorship of the University of Nebraska. He was one of the commissioners sent by the United States government to the monetary conference at Brussels in 1892. He received the degree of D.D. from Colby in 1884, and that of LL.D. from the University of Nebraska in 1884, from Brown in 1900, and from the University of Chicago in 1901. Among his published works are: "Institutes of Our Constitutional History" (1887); "Institutes of General History" (1889); "Institutes of Economics" (1889); "Eternal Words," a volume of sermons (1894); "Wealth and Moral Law" (1894); "History of the United States" (2 vols., 1894); "An Honest Dollar, a Plea for Bimetallism" (1894); "History of the United States during the Last Quarter Century" (2 vols., 1896). He became a member of the Rhode Island historical society. He was married, Nov. 25, 1870, to Ella Anna Allen.

From: Twentieth Century Biographical Dictionary of Notable Americans, Johnson, Rossiter, editor

Charles Anderson Dana, journalist, was born in Hinsdale, N.H., Aug. 8, 1819; son of Anderson and Ann (Dennison) Dana; grandson of the Hon. Daniel and Dolly (Kibbe) Dana; great-grandson of Anderson and Susanna (Huntington) Dana; and second cousin of Alexander Hope Dana. At an early age he was taken to Buffalo, N.Y.; later removed to Gaines, Orleans county, N.Y., where he received his primary school training, and in 1830 returned to Buffalo, where he clerked in a store till 1837, when his uncle, by whom he was employed, failed in business. He then took up the study of Latin and in two years prepared himself for college. He entered Harvard with the class of 1843 but was compelled to leave before the beginning of his junior year on account of an affliction of the eyes. He then joined the Brock Farm community at West Roxbury, Mass., and there recovered the use of his eyes and at the same time gained an acquaintance with men and women of advanced thought. He was initiated into journalism at Brook Farm by working on the Harbinger and afterward on the Chronotype, published in Boston by Elizur Wright, which experience was his first school in the direction of reform of social inaccuracies. He was married in 1846 to Eunice, daughter of John Macdaniel of Washington, D.C. In 1847 he removed to New York city to take a position on the staff of the Tribune as city editor. He spent eight months of 1848 in Europe as a newspaper correspondent and witness of the French revolution, and on his return made an arrangement with Mr. Greeley by which he became managing editor of the Tribune, remaining in practical control of the circulation and advertising of that journal up to 1862, and making the weekly edition to reach a circulation of 280,000 copies. As his ideas of the conduct of the civil war did not agree with those of Mr. Greeley, he resigned his connection with the Tribune, April 1, 1862, and accepted from Secretary Stanton a confidential position in the war department to adjust the accounts of the quartermaster at Cairo, II1., involving disputed claims amounting to between two and three millions of dollars. In 1863 he was made assistant secretary of war, and during the remainder of the war he was constantly occupied visiting army commanders and personally witnessing the operations in the field. His reports to Secretary Stanton and to President Lincoln were impartial and comprehensive and were of great value in times when party favoritism or personal bias often disguised the conditions of affairs. Mr. Lincoln is said to have designated him "the eyes of the government at the front." He witnessed and participated in the siege of Vicksburg, in the campaigns of northern Mississippi and Tennessee, in the Wilderness and at Spotsylvania. After the close of the war he became editor of the Chicago Republican, with which journal his connection was brief, owing to financial difficulties and to reasons independent of the editorial management. In 1867-68 he organized in New York city an association which on Jan. 27, 1868, purchased the property and franchises of the New York Sun, and issued the first number under his editorship. He supported the principles of the Democratic party, but made the Sun an important factor in political journalism independent of party limitations and superior to the dictation of accidental party leaders. Outside of politics the Sun was made a model newspaper and remained true to the motto it adopted, "If you see it in the Sun it's so!" His personality was stamped on every issue of the paper and his course was sometimes erratic. He looked upon Beecher as guilty in the Beecher-Tilton trial; helped to elect General Grant President and then severely criticized his administration; denounced the election of Hayes as a fraud on the American people; refused the support of his paper to Grover Cleveland, at the same time maintaining his allegiance to the party; supported Gen. B. F. Butler for the presidency in 1884, and in 1896 supported William McKinley in preference to either wing of the Democratic party. His collection of oriental ceramics was, with the single exception of the Walters collection of Baltimore, the largest and most interesting extant, and its distribution by auction after his death brought together the prominent art collectors of the world. He was given the degree of B.A. in the class of 1843 by Harvard in 1863, and the honorary degree of A.M. in 1861. Notre Dame, Ind., gave him the honorary degree of LL.D. in 1889. His earliest contributions to periodical literature were sonnets published 1841-44 in The Dial, edited by Margaret Fuller, Ralph W. Emerson and George Ripley. His first publication was a translation of stories from the German, entitled The Black Ant (1848). He planned, and in collaboration with George Ripley, edited The New American Cyclop?dia (16vols., 1855-63), which they revised and republished under the title The American Cyclop?dia (1873-76). His Life of Ulysses S. Grant in collaboration with J. H. Wilson, appeared in 1868; his Household Book of Poetry was published in 1857, repeatedly revised, and a thorough revision made by him in 1884. With Rossiter Johnson be edited Fifty Perfect Poems (1883). He also wrote: The Art of Newspaper Making (1895); Lincoln and His Cabinet (1896); Eastern Journeys (1898); and Recollections of the Civil War (1899). On June 9, 1897, owing to failing strength he retired to his summer home on Dosoris Island, near Glen Cove, L.I., N.Y., where he died Oct. 17, 1897.

From: Twentieth Century Biographical Dictionary of Notable Americans, Johnson, Rossiter, editor