Page:Sketches of representative women of New England.djvu/269

202 born in Reading, Mas.s., June 2, 1786, and died December 21, 1822. Her mother, Mrs. Ann Ban- croft Poole, was sister to the Rev. Dr. Aaron Bancroft, father of George Bancroft the his- torian. Deacon Caleb AVakefieUl married, sec- ondly, November 8, 1S23, Nancy Temple, who was born in Reading, October 21, 1794, and died there November 18, 1873. Caleb Wake- field was Captain of the military comi)any; Selectman, 1830-40; Representative, 1833-36; Justice of the Peace, 1845-51 and in 1865: and was chosen Deacon of the Okl South Church, Reading, August 23, 1821. A man of independent thought, persistent in his positions when once taken, he was pn^gressive, ready to receive information, and endowed with strong moral force. His firmness of attitude on most questions was due to the care with which he had formed his opinions; once convinced of their error, no man knew better how to give up or when to drop the old and take on the new. It is said that probably for fifty years no one man did more than he to shape the in- terests of the connnunity and aid and lead in the financial, educational, moral, and religious growth of the town. A good neighbor, wise in counsel, he was often called to be the adviser of orphans, young men, and widows; and as the executor of sacred trusts he often stood between the living and the dead, well earning the affectionate remembrance in which his name is held.

Horace Poole Wakefield, M.D., son of Deacon Caleb Wakefield by his first wife and father of the subject of this sketch, was ])orn in Reading, January 4, 1809. He was graduated at Am- herst College in 1832. Receiving his medical degree at Dartmouth in 1836, he first prac- tised medicine at Oakham, Mass., where he was Selectman and Town Clerk, and was twice elected to the Legislature as Representative. In 1844 he returned to Reading. He was chosen State Senator in 1862; held the offices of Cor- oner, Justice of the Peace, Inspector of Alms- houses at Tewksbury, where also he was phy- sician; was Superintendent of the State Primary School at Monson, Mass., for several years; and chairman of the Reading War Committee in the Civil War. In 1833 he was a member of the convention in Philadelphia at which the American Anti-slavery Society was formed, and he placed his name on the "Declaration of Sentiments" next to John G. Whittier. He was a tlefender of woman's rights and woman suffrage at the outset of that movement. He was a councillor of the Massachusetts Medical Society, president of the Middlesex East Dis- trict Medical Society, and ex ofjirio vice-presi- dent of the Massachusetts Medical Society, be- fore which he delivered the annual address in 1867, an honor given but once in the life of an individual.

Dr. Wakefield was also president of the East Hamptlen Agricultural Society, and a member of the State Board of Agriculture from 1873 to 1882; president of the Palmer Savings Bank and director of the Palmer First National Bank. It was said of him that he had the ability to s?rve the public, was active, energetic, positive, progressive, with great mental and physical strength, rare wisdom and foresight in planning, and persistency in carrying out whatever he undertook. The bluff manner and blunt speech which he sometimes assumed covered but never concealed his genuine kindliness of heart. In A])ril, 1879, he bought the notetl "Stonewall Farm" in Leicester, Mass., and remained there till, his death, which occurred August 23, 1883. Dr. Wakefield married, first, March 1, 1838, Abigail Pratt, of Reading, daughter of Thaddeus B. and Susan (Parker) Pratt, and, secondly, Mary B. Christy, of Johnson, 't.

Alice Wakefield (Mrs. Emerson) was educated at the Reading High School, Mount Holyoke Seminary, and Abbot Academy, Andover, Mass., from which last named institution she was graduated in 1862. On September 30, 1863, she was married to the Rev. Rufus Emerson, a Congregational clergyman of Haverhill, Mass. Their first home was in Grafton, ^'t., where their only child, Mary Alice, was born.

Mr. Emerson was educated at Bradford Academy, Bradford, Mass., and at Amherst College and Andover Theological Seminary. After leaving Vermont his pastorates were in Massachusetts, sometimes in the city and sometimes in the country. He was a practical idealist, and,