Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs, Vol. 1 | Page 2

to be important by the progress of time, but the life of an individual is
an adequate period usually for the formation of a judgment. I cannot
assume that it will be my fortune to make a wise selection in all cases.
Important events may be omitted, insignificant circumstances may be
recorded.
I assume that my family and friends will take an interest in matters that
are purely personal: therefore I shall record many incidents and events
that do not concern the public.
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH
PRELIMINARY NOTE
In the presence of some misgivings as to the propriety of my course, I
have decided to print the article on my Life as a Lawyer, as it appears
in the "Memoirs of the Judiciary and the Bar of New England" (for
January, 1901), published by the Century Memorial Publishing
Company, Boston, Mass.
Many of the facts were furnished by me. The article was written by W.
Stanley Child, Esq., but it was not seen by me, nor was its existence
known to me until it appeared in the published work. The paper in
manuscript and in proof was read and passed by the editors, Messrs.
Conrad Keno and Leonard A. Jones, Esquires. The words of
commendation are not mine, and it is manifest that any change made
by me would place the responsibility upon me for what might remain.
Hence I reprint the paper with only two or three changes where I have
observed errors in statements of facts.

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH [*]
George Sewall Boutwell, LL. D., Boston and Groton, the first
commissioner of internal revenue, secretary of the treasury under
President Grant, and for many years one of the leading international
lawyers, is the son of Sewall and Rebecca (Marshall) Boutwell, and
was born in Brookline, Mass., in what is now the old part of the
Country Club house, January 28, 1818. He comes from old and
respected Massachusetts stock, being a lineal descendant of James
Boutwell, who was admitted a freeman in Lynn in 1638, and of John
Marshall, who came to Boston in the shop Hopewell in 1634. The
family has always represented the sterling qualities of typical New
Englanders. Tradition asserts that one of his paternal ancestors received
a grant of land for services in King Philip's War. His maternal
grandfather, Jacob Marshall, was the inventor of the cotton press, an
invention originally made, however, for pressing hops. His father,
Sewall Boutwell, removed with his family in 1820 from Brookline to
Lunenburg, Mass., where he held several town offices; he was a
member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives in 1843 and
1844 and of the Constitutional Convention of 1853.
Mr. Boutwell attended in his early years a public school in Lunenburg,
where he became a clerk in a general store at the age of thirteen, thus
gaining a practical as well as a theoretical knowledge of affairs. Later
he supplemented this experience by teaching school at Shirley. He also
studied the classics, and in various ways improved every opportunity
for advancement which limited circumstances afforded. In 1835 he
went to Groton, Mass., as clerk in a store. But to be a lawyer was his
dream before he had ever seen a lawyer. Endowed with unusual
intellectual ability, which has been one of his chief characteristics from
boyhood, he felt himself instinctively drawn to the legal profession, and
as early as possible entered his name as a student at law.
In 1839 he was chosen a member of the Groton School Committee, and
in 1840 he was an active Democrat, advocating the re-election of
Martin Van Buren to the Presidency. In the meantime he delivered a
number of important lectures and political speeches, his first lecture

being given before the Groton Lyceum when he was nineteen, and he
was now rapidly gaining a reputation in public affairs, in which he
early took a deep interest. In January, 1842, he became a member of the
lower House of the Massachusetts Legislature from Groton, and for ten
years thereafter his law studies were neglected. He served during the
sessions of 1842, 1843, 1844, 1847, 1848, 1849 and 1850, and was also
at different times a railroad commissioner, a bank commissioner, and a
member of various other commissions of the commonwealth.
As a member of the House he made many important arguments that
were legal in name if not in fact. One related to the Act of the
Legislature of 1843, by which the salaries of the judges were reduced,
and another upon a bill for the amendment of the charter of Harvard
College. On the latter question, which was in controversy for three
years, his opponents were Judge Benjamin R. Curtis and Hon. Samuel
Hoar.
Mr. Boutwell originated the movement for a change in the college
government, which was effected by a