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��GRANITE MONTHLY,

A NEW HAMPSHIRE MAGAZINE

Devoted to Literature, Biography, History, and State Progress.

YoL. Y. JUNE, 1882. JSTo. 8.

HON. HARRY BINGHAM.

��BY H. H. METCALF.

IN the brief limits to which this sketch must be confined, it is impossible to give more than a mere outline of the career and characteristics of one who has occupied a distinguished position in legal and legislative circles in our state for twenty years and more.

Harry Bingham, like several other eminent lawyers and leading citizens of New Hampshire, is a native of the state of Vermont. He was born in Con- cord, Essex county, March 30, 182 1, and is the third and oldest surviving son of the late Warner and Lucy (Wheeler) Bingham. Two older brothers, John and Lorenzo Bingham, died many years ago — the first, a farmer by occupation, in Wisconsin, in 1849, and the second, a merchant, at Lower Waterford, Vt., in 1856. Lucy A., a sister next younger than Harry, is the wife of C. S. S. Hill, a merchant in California, now retired from business. Two younger brothers are Hon. George A. Bingham, of Littleton, late an Associate Justice of the Su- preme Court, and Hon. Edward F. Bingham, of Columbus, Ohio, one of the Circuit Court Judges of that state, and the candidate of the Democratic party for Supreme Judge, in the last state election. A younger sister, Edith C, is the wife of Ira H. Ballou, of the firm of Ira H. Ballon & Co., wholesale produce dealers, South Market St., Boston.

Although born in Vermont, Mr. Bingham is essentially of New Hampshire origin, as his father was a native of Cornish, and his mother of Chesterfield, in this state. His father, Warner Bingham, removed from Cornish to Concord. Vt., in childhood, his parents being among the early settlers of that town. Inured to toil in early life, he became a substantial farmer, developed ster- ling qualities of character, and occupied an influential position among his fel- low citizens. A member of the J)emocratic party, he was with the minority in both town and state ; but the people of Essex county repeatedly demonstrated their esteem for his character, and confidence in his abiUty, by making him one of the judges of the county court, and choosing him as their representa- tive in the State Senate. His wife, Lucy \\'heeler, daughter of John Wheeler, of Chesterfield, who had also removed to Concord, a woman of great strength of character and rich mental endowments, from whom her son Harry inherited many of his characteristics, died in the autumn of 1839. He subsequently married Laura Rankin, of Danville, by whom he had three more children — two sons and a daughter. He died at Bethlehem in February, 1873, to which place he had removed from Concord about six years previously.

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