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ACKETT, FRANK WARREN, lawyer, assistant secretary of the navy, and author, was born in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, April 11, 1841. His father, William H. Y. Hackett, representative and senator in the New Hampshire legislature, and president of the senate, was a lawyer, whose life was marked by "frugality, industry, intellectual tastes, and interest in public affairs." His mother, Olive Pickering Hackett, "was gifted with a sense of the humorous," and "took a cheerful view of life," imparting an optimistic strain of hopefulness to her son. He was of slight build as a boy, but fond of out-of-door sports. He showed literary taste, at an early age conducting a boys' newspaper and taking part in debates. He was educated at private and public schools in Portsmouth, until he went to Phillips Exeter academy "where the discipline in regard to study was rigid, and most fruitful of good results." He entered Harvard college as a sophomore in 1858 and was graduated in 1861. During the winter of 1861-62, he taught at Barnard academy, South Hampton, New Hampshire. From 1862-64 he was an acting assistant paymaster in the United States navy. He served on board the United States Steamship Miami, of the North Atlantic squadron, and took part in the engagements with the Confederate ram, Albemarle, at Plymouth, North Carolina, and later in Albemarle Sound.

After the war, Mr. Hackett studied law, first with his father and later, with Benjamin Harris Brewster, who was afterward attorney-general of the United States. He then attended the Harvard law school. Admitted to the bar of Rockingham county, New Hampshire, in 1866, he began practice in Boston. For a time he was threatened with lung trouble. Leaving his practice, he spent two years in Minnesota and recovered. In 1872 he became private secretary to Caleb Cushing, senior counsel for the United States before the Geneva Tribunal of Arbitration. For a time (1882), he was assistant counsel in the Court of Commissioners of Alabama Claims, and he has been for many years counsel for the Smithsonian