Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs, Vol. 1 | Page 6

1860
and 1880, and was chosen a delegate to the Baltimore Convention of
1864, but declined. He was elected a member of the American
Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1857 and of the Phi Beta Kappa
Society of Harvard College in June, 1861, at which time he delivered
the Phi Beta Kappa oration. In 1851 Harvard conferred upon him the
honorary degree of LL. D., and in 1861 he was a member of the Peace
Congress at Washington.
Mr. Boutwell was married July 8, 1841, to Sarah Adelia, daughter of
Nathan Thayer of Hollis, N. H.. Their children are Georgianna A., born
May 18, 1843, and Francis M., born February 26, 1847. Mr. Boutwell
resides in Groton, Mass.
The eighth day of July, 1891, Mr. Boutwell's family and friends
celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of his marriage with Sarah Adelia
Thayer, daughter of Nathan and Hannah Jewett Thayer, of Hollis, N.
H.; and on the eighth day of July, 1901, the family observed the sixtieth

anniversary, but without ceremony, as Mrs. Boutwell was much
impaired in health.
[* Copyright, 1900, by the Mason Publishing and Printing Co.]
REMINISCENCES OF SIXTY YEARS IN PUBLIC AFFAIRS
VOLUME I
I INCIDENTS OF MY EARLY LIFE
My birthplace was at Brookline, Mass., near Boston, upon a farm in my
father's charge, and then owned by a Dr. Spooner of Boston. The place
has had many owners and it has been used for various purposes. In
1851 and 1852 it was owned by a Dr. Trowbridge, who had a fancy for
fine horses. Upon my election to the office of Governor, and when he
had learned that I was born upon his place, he insisted that I should use
a large black stallion in the review of the troops at the annual parade.
The animal was of fine figure but not so subdued as to be manageable.
In one of those years General Wool came to Boston, upon an invitation
to review the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company on Boston
Common. I assigned the Trowbridge horse to General Wool. The
General rode him for a minute or two, when he left the saddle and the
reviewing officers went through the ceremony on foot. Since those days
the Spooner place has been converted into a trotting course known as
Clyde Park, and the house is now used as a clubhouse by an association
known as the Country Club.
When I was about twenty-five years of age I was present at a
temperance meeting at Lowell, held in an unfinished factory building
called the Prescott Mills. After some speaking, in which I had taken a
part, the Rev. Dr. Pierce, then a white-headed gentleman of seventy
years, whom I had seen as an overseer of Harvard College, came to me,
introduced himself, and after a little conversation he asked me where I
was born. When I answered Brookline, on the Dr. Spooner place, he
said: "Oh, yes, I remember when your father lived there, and I recall a
circumstance to which I think I owe my good health. Dr. Spooner," said
he, "resided in Boston in the winter and at Brookline in the summer.
When he was at Brookline he had a child to be christened, and he

preferred to have the city minister perform the ceremony. After the
service we were invited to dine at Dr. Spooner's, and that minister ate
so unmercifully of everything upon the table, that I then and there
resolved that I would eat but one kind of meat at a meal, and I think my
good health is due in a measure to that resolution." I made no resolution,
but the circumstance produced an impression upon me, and in the main
I have observed his rule. In seventy-seven years, within my recollection,
I have lain in bed but seven days.
In April, 1820, when I was hardly more than two years of age, my
father moved to Lunenburg, Worcester County, and settled upon a farm,
a mile south-west of the village, which he had bought of Phinehas
Carter, then an old man, who had been opulent as a farmer for the time
and place, but whose estates had been wasted by a moderate sort of
intemperance, by idleness, and family expenses. The house was large,
well built for the times, finished with clear, unpainted white pine, with
dado work in the front rooms below and in the chambers above. It was
situated on the southern brow of a hill, and commanded a view of the
Wachusett mountain, and the hills to the west, south and east over an
expanse of twenty miles in every direction, except the northern half of
the circle. At a distance of eighty or one hundred rods from the house
lay the Whalom pond, a body of clear, deep