Page:The Granite Monthly Volume 5.djvu/391

Rh In March, 1820, Mr. Bingham entered the law office of his brother, James Hervey Bingham, at Alstead (N. H.), as a student-at-law, and was admitted to the bar of New Hampshire in 1825. In this year, leaving Alstead October 1st, he made a trip to Cleveland, Ohio, and was in Buffalo, in October, when the waters of the Hudson river and of Lake Erie were united by the Erie canal, and ever had a vivid recollection of the joyous celebration of the event in Buffalo.

At Cleveland he visited his cousin, John W. Willey, at that time a prominent lawyer, and afterward a distinguished jurist of Ohio, and Mr. Bingham's contemplated trip further west was abandoned at the instance of Mr. Willey; and it was arranged that, after Mr. Bingham's return to New Hampshire, he would go back to Cleveland and enter upon the practice of the law with Mr. Willey. But the death of Mr. Bingham's brother Truman, a merchant at Lempster, which occurred while he (Elijah) was returning to New Hampshire, seemed to make it necessary that Elijah Bingham should go to Lempster and settle the business of his brother, which he did, and there opened a law office the same year (1825), and was appointed postmaster as successor to his deceased brother. In June, 1826, he resigned his office of postmaster, and removed to Alstead, and took the law office of his brother, James Flervey Bingham, who had moved to Claremont (N. H.). He resided in Alstead (with the year's exception alone stated) from 1820 to 1835. He removed from Alstead to Cleveland, in 1835, leaving Alstead on Tuesday, July 7th, and arriving at Cleveland on Thursday, July 16th. The mode of travel then was by private conveyance to Bellows Falls (Vt.), thence by stage-coach to Saratoga; cars to Schenectady; canal to Buffalo; and steamboat to Cleveland. An historical sketch of the town of Alstead, by the Rev. Seth S. Arnold, A.M., published in 1836, in speaking of Mr. Bingham's removal to Cleveland, says: "In July, (1835) Elijah Bingham, Esq., left town and moved to Cleveland, Ohio. In connection with this was the removal of the Hutchinson family, which effected a considerable change in the place. Mr. Bingham was a prudent, judicious and useful man in his profession, and in community."

At Cleveland, Mr. Bingham engaged in the flour milling business, and subsequently, having purchased real estate, in agriculture, horticulture, and as a vintner; in considerable of the mean time performing important duties in different public offices. To Mr. Bingham's good education, acquired in early life, he made constant and careful additions; and in sacred and secular history, biography, and standard literature, and news of the day, religious, political, and general, he was particularly well informed. Mr. Bingham was ever fond of music, of which he had scientific knowledge, and was highly skilled in its execution, on instruments of his choice. Doubtless many of the aged people of New Hampshire will remember his fine performances on the flute, as a member, with his brother, James Hervey Bingham, of the celebrated New Hampshire musical society, at the ceremonies incident to the inauguration of a governor of the state and other notable occasions of the state, some three score years ago. One of the prominent events was the production of an oratorio, at Concord, in honor of Lafayette, in 1825. On Mr. Bingham's settling in Cleveland, and until within a few years preceding his death, he was an active and valuable member of various leading musical societies of the city.

In personal appearance Mr. Bingham was nearly six feet high, and of stalwart frame; and though his acquaintances will remember him as wearing spectacles—because of near-sightedness—his reading, until he had reached four score years, was usually without glasses.

The strength of mind and fixed religious sentiment that especially characterized the early settlers of New England, was particularly noticeable in the