Page:The Granite Monthly Volume 5.djvu/87

 ■THE

��GRANITE MONTHLY,

A NEW HAMPSHIRE MAGAZINE,

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

Vol. Y. DECEMBEK, 1881. Ko. 3.

HON. EDWARD ASHTON ROLLINS.

��BY J. N. McCLINTOCK.

IN a modest, yet elegant residence in the beautiful suburb of West Philadel- phia resides a gentleman who has honored the highest official trusts, and who has retired from public life with the esteem of his fellow citizens, — Hon. E. A. Rollins. The house is in a spacious lot, and is surrounded by trees and vines artistically arranged. Within is a home where the cultured taste of the owner is everywhere apparent, from the well-appointed and richly stored library throughout every room in the well-ordered mansion.

An active life, in which so much has been accomplished, deserves an extended biography ; in preparing a short sketch of such a career, the leading facts only can be placed on record and the character outlined, leaving to the historian of the future the task of doing justice to the subject.

Edward Ashton Rollins, son of Daniel G. and Susan Binney Rollins, was born in Wakefield, New Hampshire, December 8, 1828. At the age of seven he was taken by his parents to Great Falls, and in that flourishing village he grew to manhood, receiving his early education at the excellent common schools of the town. Hfe was a studious youth and gave such promise of future prominence that it was determined in the family councils to give him the advantages of a liberal education. Into these plans he heartily entered, and commenced to fit for college at the Rochester Academy, under the tuition of Harrison C. Hobart, a graduate of Dartmouth. He afterwards attended the Gilmanton Academy and received instruction from Rev. Charles Tenney, another Dartmouth graduate. In 1847, young Rollins entered the freshman class of Dartmouth College, and for four years thereafter attended to the routine of class and chapel exercises, graduating with honor in 1851. Among his classmates were Hon. Charles Hitchcock and D. L. Shorey, of Chicago ; Hon. Charles W. Willard, Governor Redfield Proctor, and Judge Jona. Ross, of Ver- mont ; Hon. George W. Burleigh and Hon. Joshua G. Hall, of New Hamp- shire. It was considered the proper thing for young men in college to improve their vacations by teaching school \ accordingly Mr. Rollins followed the fashion, and taught for three seasons, at Rochester, at Great Falls, and at the academy at Elliot, on the eastern bank of the Piscataqua.

Immediately after graduation he entered upon the study of the law in the office of Hon. G. W. Brown and Hon. F. W. Brune, of Baltimore, and remained there one year. The second year he studied with Hon. Nathaniel Wells, and Hon. Charles H. Bell, of Great Falls, The third year he studied

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