Page:One of a thousand.djvu/325

 HOAR. HOAR. ill and international jurisprudence of Europe and America. It has fallen to few men to perform such signal service to mankind in the removal of all difficulties between the friendly intercourse and beneficent co-oper- ation of the two leading powers of the world. The American nation owes and gladly pays Judge Hoar the meed of a re- spectful and grateful acknowledgment, and the State of Massachusetts will long cher- ish the fame of the son who reflected such glory upon her training and institutions. Another and scarcely less conspicuous service, and one not so generally known, was his influential agency in arranging for the first loan made by the United States gov- ernment at another critical period of its history. He was one of a few patriotic citizens who, in connection with Secretary Chase and President Lincoln, successfully negotiated this important financial opera- tion with capitalists of Boston, New York and Philadelphia, instead of going abroad for assistance. Mr. Hoar was a presidential elector-at- large in 1872, and was elected to the 43d Congress as a Republican, receiving 11,742 votes against 5,989 cast for the Democratic nominee. Mr. Hoar was married in Concord, No- vember 20, 1840, to Caroline D., daughter of Hon. Nathan and Caroline (Downes) Brooks. Of this union were seven chil- dren : Caroline, Sarah Sherman (deceased), Samuel, Charles Emerson, Clara Downes, Elizabeth and Sherman Hoar. In a long and eventful life Mr. Hoar has belonged to many social and political clubs, but of all the organizations with which he has been connected, the Saturday Club has been to him the occasion of rarest delight and choicest companionship, meeting there in fraternal converse the artistic and liter- ary stars, himself parnobilefratrum, which have shone so brilliantly in the firmament of belles-lettres. HOAR, GEORGE FRISBIE, was born in Concord, Middlesex county, August 29, 1826. John Hoar, Senator Hoar's earliest .ancestor, in Massachusetts, was one of three brothers who came with their wid- owed mother from Gloucestershire, Eng- land, in early colonial days. One brother, Leonard Hoar, was one of the early presi- dents of Harvard College. Senator Hoar's father, Samuel Hoar, was one of Massa- chusetts' great legal lights, contemporary with Mason, Webster and Choate. His mother, Sarah Sherman, was the youngest daughter of Roger Sherman of Connecti- cut. After the school-days spent in Concord Academy, he entered Harvard College, and was graduated in the class of 1846. Choosing the law for his profession, he studied at the Harvard law school, and in the office of the late Judge Thomas in Worcester. Upon his admission to the bar, in 1849, he began practice in Worces- ter, and that city has ever since been his home. He was for a time associated in practice with the late Hon. Emory Washburn, and later with the Hon. Charles Devens and J. Henry Hill. He quickly rose to a very high rank in his profession. Mr. Hoar married, in 1853, Mary Louisa Spurr, who died a few years after, leaving a son, Rockwood, and a daughter, Mary, both of whom are living. In 1862 he mar- ried Ruth Ann Miller. Mr. Hoar's first appearance in political life was as chairman of the committee of the Free Soil party for Worcester county in 1849, which was more efficiently organ- ized there than in any other county in the United States. In 1851, at the age of twenty-five he was elected a representa- tive to the General Court. He was the youngest member of that body, and be- came the leader of the coalitionists in law matters, and to him was given the task of drawing resolutions protesting against the compromise measures of the national government in 1850. In 1847 he became a member of the state Senate and chair- man of its judiciary committee. In that capacity he drew a masterly report, de- fining the boundaries of the executive and legislative authority. While burdened with professional, state and national affairs, he was yet always ready to render service in behalf of enter- prises for the public welfare of his own city. He aided in the establishment of a free public library and reading-room, was a member of the board of directors, and one of its early presidents. He aided in founding the Worcester County Free Insti- tute of Industrial Science (now the Worces- ter Polytechnic Institute). He was also an early advocate of woman suffrage, hav- ing made an address on that subject in Worcester in 1868, and before a legislative committee in 1869. In r868 Mr. Hoar was elected a represen- tative in Congress, as the successor of the late Hon. John D. Baldwin. In this Con- gress (the 41st) he served as a member of the committee on education and labor, and his chief work was the preparation and ad- vocacy of the bill for national education.