THE GRANITE MONTHLY

VOL. XIV. OCTOBER, 1892. NO. 10.

JAMES WILLIS PATTERSON, LL. D.

BY HON. HENRY P. ROLFE.

The subject of this sketch, who has recently been elected to the new Willard Professorship of Rhetoric and Oratory in Dartmouth College, was born in the rural town of Henniker, in this state, on the 2d day of July, 1823. His father was a well-to-do farmer and was a direct descendant of William Duncan and Naomi Bell. The son was inured to toil, and experienced the hardships and privations usual to the farmers' boys of that period.

When eight years of age he went with the family to Lowell, Mass., where he remained until he was thirteen. In 1836 he returned with the family to his native town, and for two years worked with his father on the farm, in winter attending the academy in Henniker village, two and a half miles distant. In 1838 he returned to Lowell and obtained employment in the counting-room of John Aiken, who was agent of the Lawrence Mills. In this position he remained two years. While attending the academy at Henniker, and while in the employ of Mr. Aiken, he was a prominent member of a debating society. In the proceedings and exercises of these societies he manifested a great deal of interest, and they were conducted with much spirit by the young men connected with them. After his attendance at Henniker Academy he felt an intense desire to obtain a liberal education, and all his plans and efforts were shaped with that purpose. He resigned his place in Mr. Aiken's counting-room to pursue his preparations for college. In the ensuing winter, at eighteen years of age, he taught a district school in his native town, and in the spring of 1842 went to Manchester, where his parents

resided, and there entered upon his preparations for college with all his energies, and commenced the study of Greek under the tutorship of Governor Moody Currier. With such limited instruction as he received, in 1844, at the age of twenty-one, he entered Dartmouth College, and graduated with his class, in 1848, with high honors. Subsequently, for two years, he was in charge of the academy in Woodstock, Conn., and at the same time was pursuing the study of the law; but, becoming acquainted with Henry Ward Beecher, he was induced by him and others to abandon the study of the law, and turned his attention to theology. In 1851 he entered the theological seminary at New Haven, of which the illustrious Dr. Taylor was the leading spirit, and in a single year completed the prescribed studies of two, at the time teaching in a ladies' seminary, to pay his expenses.

From the theological seminary Mr. Patterson was called back to his alma mater to the duties of tutor, and when the chair of Mathematics became vacant, by the resignation of Professor John S. Woodman, he was elected to that professorship. Subsequently, upon the death of Professor Young, he was assigned to the chair of Astronomy and Meteorology, which he filled with conspicuous ability.

From 1858, for four years, he was school commissioner for Grafton county, was secretary of the state board of education, and had the work to do of preparing the annual state reports of education. His duty as school commissioner required him to address the people in all the towns in the county on the subject of common-school education. The ability displayed by Mr. Patterson in these addresses attracted the attention of the people, and caused them to demand his services in the wider field of politics and statesmanship.

In 1862, when the clouds surcharged with rebellion and civil war had burst upon us, and "the affrighted air" was resounding with the thunders of death's struggle, Hanover sent Mr. Patterson to the legislature. The condition of the country demanded the services of her ablest and and most eloquent sons, and his reputation and commanding abilities at once gave him marked prominence in the house of representatives. He was appointed chairman of the committee on national resolutions, and the speech he

made on their adoption was characterized by the late lamented Attorney-General Mason W. Tappan as "the most eloquent and thrilling speech he ever heard."

After his brilliant debut in the legislature, patriotism and public desire were soon waiting impatiently to confer upon him higher and more deserved honors and more weighty responsibilities; but the waiting was brief. In March, 1863, he was elected a representative to the thirty-eighth congress, and was appointed on the committee on expenditures in the treasury department and on that for the District of Columbia. In 1864 he was appointed a regent of the Smithsonian Institute. In 1865 he was re-elected to congress, serving on the committee on foreign affairs and on a special committee on a department of education. In the house of representatives he was always listened to with most respectful attention, and in 1866 was elected United States senator for the term ending March, 1873.

In the popular branch of congress Mr. Patterson more than justified the high expectations which his entrance into that body awakened. His duties as a member of the committee on the District of Columbia immediately made him acquainted with leading public interests and the prominent business men of Washington; and it is safe to say that during the time he represented the state in both branches of the national legislature no member of either branch performed more effective and valuable service than he, and he left congress with the good-will of all classes in the district. His lively interest in free schools especially won for him the warm regards of all connected with that cause in the district. To him belongs the honor of having drafted and matured their excellent existing school laws, providing for the free education of all the children, without distinction of color, and placing the colored schools upon the same basis as the white schools. A crude bill looking to this result was presented to the senate committee on the District of Columbia, but such was the deference to Mr. Patterson in such matters, that the bill was sent to the house committee, of which he was then chairman, with the understanding that he should draft a school law covering the whole subject. From his first entrance into congress he was recognized by the people of the district as the special champion of education, and was frequently called