Page:The Granite Monthly Volume 8.djvu/13

 THE

��GRANITE MONTHLY,

A NEW HAMPSHIRE MAGAZINE

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

��Vol. Yin.

��JANUARY, 1885.

��No. I

��BENJAMIN FRANKLIN BUTLER.

��There is a belt extending irregularly across the State of New Hampshire, and varying in width, from which have gone forth men who have won a national reputation. From this section went Daniel Webster, Lewis Cass, Levi Woodbury, Zachariah Chandler, Horace Greeley, Henry Wilson, William Pitt Fessenden, Salmon P. Chase, John Wentworth, Nathan Clifford, and Benjamin F. Butler.

Benjamin Franklin Butler was born in the town of Deerfield, New Hampshire, November 5, 18 18.

His father. Captain John Butler, was a commissioned officer in the War of 181 2, and served with General Andrew Jackson at New Orleans. As mer- chant, supercargo, and master of the vessel, he was engaged for some years in the West India trade, in which he was fairly successful, until his death in March, 1819, while on a foreign voyage. In politics he was an ardent Democrat, an admirer of General Jackson, and a personal friend of Isaac Hill, of New Hampshire.

Left an orphan when an infant, the child was dependent for his early training upon his mother ; and

��faithfully did she attend to her duties. Descended from the Scotch Covenant- ers and Irish patriots, Mrs. Butler pos- sessed rare qualities : she was capable, thrifty, diligent, and devoted. In 1S28, Mrs. Butler removed with her family to Lowell, where her two boys could receive better educational advantages, and where her efforts for their main- tenance would be better rewarded, than in their native village.

As a boy young Butler was small, sickly, and averse to quarrels. He was very fond of books, and eagerly read all that came in his way. From his earliest youth he possessed a remarkably retentive memory, and was such a promising scholar that his mother determined to help him obtain a liberal education, hoping that he would be called to the Baptist ministry. With this end in view, he was fitted for college at the public schools of Lowell and at Exeter Academy, and at the early age of sixteen entered Waterville College. Here for four years, the for- mative period of his life, his mind re- ceived that bent and discipline which fitted him for his future active career.

He was a student who appreciated

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