Page:The Granite Monthly Volume 1.djvu/137

 THE

��GKANITE MONTHLY.

��A MAGAZINE OF LITERATURE, HISTORY AND STATE PROGRESS.

VOL. 1 SEPTEMBER, 1877. NO. 5.

��HON. EDWABD H. ROLLINS.

��No man in New Hampshire, during the past twenty years, has been more prominently known in the politics of the State than he whose name appears above. One of the original organizers of the Re- publican party in the State, Mr. Rollins has been one of the most active, and, in fact, the leading manager of the party organization, down to the present time — commander-in-chief, as it were, of its forces in all the sharp contests with the opposing or Democratic party. A brief outline of the career of one who has been thus prominent in active politics, and who has also attained high official dis- tinction, cannot fail to be of interest to men of all parties.

The Rollins family is one of the oldest and most numerous in the State. In southeastern New Hampshire the Rol- lins name has been prominent in the his- tory of almost every town. Particularly is this the case in the region about Do- ver, from the seaboard to Lake Winni- piseogee. Most, if not all, the represen- tatives of the name in this region, and among them the subject of our sketch, are the descendants of James Rollins (or Bawlins, as the name was then and for a

��long time subsequently spelled, and is now by some branches of the family), who came to America in 1632, with the first settlers of Ipswich, Mass., and who, ten or twelve years afterward, located in that portion of old Dover known as '• Bloody Point," now embraced in the town of Newington, where he died about 1690. From a history of the Rollins fam- ily — descendants of this James Rawlins — compiled by John R. Rollins of Law- rence, we find that its representatives suffered their full share in the privations and sacrifices incident to the firm estab- lishment of the colony, and performed generous public service in the early In- dian and French wars and the great rev- olutionary contest. Ichabod, the eldest son of James Rawlins, and from whom Edward H. is a direct descendant, was waylaid and killed by a party of Indians, while on the way from Dover to Oyster River (now Durham), with one John Bunker, May 22, 1707. Thomas, the sec- ond son of James, who subsequently be- came a resident of Exeter, was a mem- ber of the famous '"dissolved Assembly" of 1683, who took up arms under Ed- ward Gove and endeavored to incite an

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