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FRANCIS WILLIAM BIRD 
 
 A BIOORAPHICAL SKETCH 
 
 BOSTON 
 
 PRIVATELY PRINTED 
 
 1897 
 
•B6 
 
 J. S. Cushing & Co. — Berwick & Smith 
 
 Norwood Mass. U.S.A. 
 
 t i'fejfe 
 
TO OUR CHILDREN 
 
 aHe IBrttcate ti^is Book 
 
 TRUSTING THAT THEY MAY ACQUIRE FROM THIS BRIEF 
 
 SKETCH OF OUR FATHER'S LIFE AND CHARACTER AN 
 
 INCREASED SENSE OF THEIR RESPONSIBILITY TO 
 
 THE COMMUNITY, AS WELL AS A GREATER 
 
 REGARD FOR HONESTY AND CONSCIENTIOUS 
 
 INDEPENDENCE OF ACTION, 
 
 QUALITIES SO PRONOUNCED 
 
 IN THEIR GRANDFATHER'S CHARACTER 
 
FRANCIS WILLIAM BIRD: 
 
 A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 
 
 Well worthy of study and admiration is the 
 life of a man who, in spite of obstacles and dis- 
 couragements, attains success ; who, though never 
 abounding in robust health, lives with unimpaired 
 faculties and capacity for enjoyment beyond the 
 Biblical term of four-score years ; who, outgrow- 
 ing the narrow limits of a prescribed creed, comes 
 into the sweet serenity of a liberal Faith; who 
 has taken an intimate part in many national crises, 
 been the trusted friend and counsellor of the most 
 distinguished statesmen of his day, and won the 
 hearty respect of opponents with whom it was his 
 fortune to cross swords in strenuous strife. 
 
 Such a man was Francis William Bird. 
 
 He has many claims on remembrance. As a 
 manufacturer, his reputation for sterling honesty 
 was unimpeached ; he had the good will of his 
 associates, the love and veneration of his em- 
 
 B 1 
 
Z FRANCIS WILLIAM BIRD. 
 
 ployes, to whom lie stood in a peculiarly gracious 
 and winning relationship. As a politician — 
 using the word in its best significance — he pre- 
 served a sturdy independence which invariably 
 led him to prefer the paramount interests of the 
 whole country to the ephemeral considerations of 
 section or party. He stood on a height of mental 
 and moral sincerity, which enabled him to see 
 through and look beyond the mists obscuring 
 many of the questions of the day ; and though 
 he was often blamed for the attitude he took, 
 time usually proved that he was right. As a 
 man he was generous, public-spirited, optimistic. 
 Though abstemious, he was fond of good cheer ; 
 sometimes brusque in his manners, he was cordial 
 and friendly. He was one of the unique char- 
 acters of his day, an individuality of striking 
 force. It was a genuine tribute to his usefulness 
 that he was affectionately called " The Sage of 
 Walpole." 
 
 During his long life he many times received 
 assurances from notable men, of the regard in 
 which he was held. 
 
 In the early days of the war (January, 1862), 
 Governor John A. Andrew wrote him : " You are 
 as good and true a friend, patriot, and man, as 
 there is in the world." 
 
 Eight years later, Henry Wilson (October, 1870) 
 wrote from Natick, pouring out his heart's bitter- 
 ness over the unfriendly criticism that had been 
 
FRANCIS WILLIAM BIRD. 3 
 
 directed against one of his associates. He 
 began : — 
 
 "You have been my friend for many years. 
 We have not always agreed. You have sometimes 
 sharply criticised words and acts of mine, but I 
 have loved you none the less." 
 
 In 1872, Senator Anthony of Rhode Island 
 wrote him : — 
 
 " I know you too well, my ancient and much- 
 valued friend, to doubt that in politics as in 
 everything else, you are actuated by unselfish 
 and high-minded motives ;" and four years later 
 he exclaimed : " Good luck go with you wherever 
 you go ; for be you Republican or Democrat, you 
 are always right in all, and I am always faithfully 
 yours." 
 
 The same year a gentleman named his son 
 Francis Bird, and in communicating the interest- 
 ing fact, said : — 
 
 " As we have not great riches to bestow upon 
 the youngster, we will give him what is better, 
 a good name," and he added : " In all sincerity 
 I can wish nothing better for the young man, 
 than that he shall never bring any discredit upon 
 his name." 
 
 In May, 1879, Governor John D. Long sent 
 him a friendly letter, in which he said : — 
 
 " My respect for you, which has grown with 
 acquaintance, and which I share with all your 
 fellow-members, is so great, that I value your 
 
4 FEANCIS WILLIAM BIRD. 
 
 praise and am ambitious to be worthy of it. Of 
 how little worth are all these political honors and 
 activities, if they carry not with them what is 
 worth more than all the rest, the personal esteem 
 and confidence of our associates. Most sincerely 
 do I hope that you will enjoy better health, and 
 be enabled for many years to render to the State 
 the services which your long experience and your 
 abilities enable you to render." 
 
 George M. Stearns of Springfield congratulated 
 him on his "iron will, undoubting convictions, 
 and unhesitating action," and in another letter 
 remonstrated with him because he somewhere 
 called life fleeting: "Such as you are immortal. 
 You are always on the right side, and there too 
 with magnificent courage." 
 
 In 1890, on the occasion of his eighty-first birth- 
 day, Mr. S. B. Noyes of Canton wrote him: "You 
 blessed my youth, my manhood, my age, with 
 your counsels and your example." 
 
 These are only a few from many similar testi- 
 monies, bearing the names of judges, governors, 
 senators, and men in every station in life. They 
 render only the more intense the feeling of regret 
 that he did not himself find the time and meet the 
 inclination to write his reminiscences of the public 
 men and public affairs of Massachusetts. He was 
 often urged to do so. In 1881, the Honorable 
 Emory P. Aldrich wrote him: — 
 
 "Your acquaintance with men and affairs has 
 
FRANCIS WILLIAM BIRD. 6 
 
 been large, and I know of no one now living in 
 this State so competent as yourself to write such 
 a book. Why will you not undertake the work? 
 Our people, that is, the intelligent portion of 
 them, have a very fair knowledge of the outside 
 of the house of our politics and general civiliza- 
 tion, but you can reveal to them an interior view 
 which would be of great value to them." 
 
 Such an autobiography would have been an in- 
 valuable contribution to the history of Massachu- 
 setts and the nation, but unfortunately he whom 
 Charles Francis Adams happily called "the last 
 surviving grenadier of the Anti-slavery Old 
 Guard " left no account of his " life-work of honor 
 and self-sacrifice," no recollections of the exciting 
 dramatic epoch in which he bore so prominent 
 a part. Surviving his distinguished associates, 
 his life might easily shade into the penumbra of 
 legend. 
 
II. 
 
 Ancestry counts so much in the estimate of 
 any character that it is a great advantage when 
 one who tells the story of a life is able to trace the 
 various threads that come down from the past and 
 commingle. In the case of Mr. Bird, not a little 
 of his personality is explained by the fact of his 
 descent from that sturdy Scotch-Irish race which 
 has done so much for this land. Physical vigor, 
 bluff independence, capacity for practical affairs, 
 serious views of life, deep religiousness, were 
 frequently found in combination in the men and 
 women of this admirable stock. It bore trans- 
 plantation well, and, whether in Pennsylvania or 
 in Massachusetts, flourished and filled the farms 
 with a noble yeomanry. 
 
 Three generations would not suffice to eradicate 
 these qualities. Francis William was of the 
 fourth, though he cared very little for the tricker- 
 ies of pedigree and used often to refer slightingly 
 to others' claims of patrician descent. Neverthe- 
 less his ancestry was as good as any man could 
 desire. His great-grandmother was a Hawthorne, 
 of the same family as that of Nathaniel Hawthorne. 
 His father, George Bird, was born in the village 
 
 6 
 
FRANCIS WILLIAM BIRD. 7 
 
 of Union, Maine, but was early left an orphan 
 and was placed in the care of his maternal grand- 
 parents. As he was dissatisfied with their pro- 
 vision for his education, he ran away and came to 
 Massachusetts. He spent some time in Needham, 
 where he learned the trade of paper-making, and 
 married Martha C. Newell of that place, — a woman 
 of remarkable intellectual gifts and very earnest 
 piety. Her father, Josiah Newell, and her grand- 
 father were closely identified with the religious 
 and local affairs of Needham. Her father was a 
 Revolutionary soldier and served the town for 
 many years as selectman, and held various other 
 town offices. 
 
 George Bird was a man of uncommon strength 
 of character, like his wife deeply religious, fear- 
 less of public opinion whenever public opinion 
 crossed his idea of duty, which he was determined 
 to fulfil at any cost. At the same time he was 
 gentle by nature and remarkable for his good 
 humor. He was warmly beloved by his eight 
 children and was universally respected by all who 
 knew him. Soon after his marriage he removed 
 to Milton, where he became the superintendent of 
 the paper mill built by Daniel Henchman, — then 
 the leading paper mill in this country. About 
 1807 he moved to Dedham. He was prosperous 
 in his business affairs and accumulated a consider- 
 able property, so that he felt justified in retiring. 
 When he was quite aged, — he lived to be an octo- 
 
8 FRANCIS WILLIAM BIRD. 
 
 genarian, — he lost nearly the whole of his fortune. 
 Then it was that he showed an independence 
 which was truly affecting. Much to the distress 
 of his family, he insisted on going into the mill as 
 a day laborer rather than receive the least assist- 
 ance from his children, though they were able 
 and most anxious to do for him. 
 
 Francis William was born on the twenty-second 
 of October, 1809. He was a bright, capable, and 
 decidedly original child, and gave such promise 
 that his father determined to send him to college. 
 With this end in view he was placed in Day's 
 Academy, an excellent preparatory school situated 
 at Wrentham, some eight or ten miles from his 
 home. The Rev. Horace Dean Walker, who was 
 there between 1825 and 1829, writes entertainingly 
 of the old Wrentham academy in his unpublished 
 Reminiscences. "I was very young and very 
 small," he says, "but so long connected with the 
 school that my class associations were with those 
 much older than myself. I remember among them 
 the Honorable Frank Bird, Dr. Peter Parker, the 
 Honorable Milton Fisher, the Rev. Eli Thurston, 
 and many others distinguished in different walks 
 in life. The discipline of the school was exceed- 
 ingly strict and the tuition thorough, but I remem- 
 ber that in those days little or no attention was 
 paid to the pronunciation of Latin. Corporal 
 punishment was never resorted to, but other de- 
 vices were as effectual, such as holding a nail very 
 
FRANCIS WILLIAM BIRD. 9 
 
 firmly in the floor. A split quill sometimes did 
 duty on the nose. Staying after school was the 
 worst punishment, but the lesson had to be mas- 
 tered. 
 
 " We all attended church, and the old meeting- 
 house, with its high square pews, the top rail 
 supported by a row of turned pilasters some six 
 inches long, will never be forgotten. We young- 
 sters could look through these pilasters and so 
 keep the run of things, and it was more interesting 
 to turn them with the idle hands for which Satan 
 finds mischief because they would sometimes 
 squeak a little. I have a distinct remembrance 
 of Dr. Emmons, his cocked hat, breeches, and 
 silver knee and shoe buckles, and I can hear now 
 the nasal singing with which he read the hymns. 
 The sermons were beyond me. What grand times 
 we four or six boarders had at Colonel Hawes's! 
 The Honorable Frank Bird was one of them, — a 
 most timid and bashful youth, ready to blush like 
 a girl, but he wonderfully outgrew all that. In 
 his eventful public life, as he has been prominent 
 in one party and then in its opposite, I have more 
 than once thought of the time when a new frock 
 coat came to him from the tailor's (coats were rare 
 and great events in those days), and he soon found 
 that the long rather stiff nap ran down, as it 
 ought, on one sleeve, and up, as it should not, on 
 the other. This made it necessary to brush one 
 sleeve down and the other up. ... In after 
 
10 FRANCIS WILLIAM BIRD. 
 
 years he told me this good pun, told him by Dr. 
 S. G. Howe, whom he found once with his feet 
 swathed in flannels and extended on a chair. 
 Calling the next day, and finding him in the same 
 position, he said: 'Howe, what is the matter ?' 
 'I have got the gout,' said Howe. 'You have got 
 the gout, — such a temperance man as you ! ' 
 'Yes,' said the great philanthropist. 'Yes, Bird, 
 my ancestors drank wine, and I must foot the 
 bills. ' . . . One great occurrence was a series of 
 plays occupying the entire day at the close of the 
 'quarter ' of the Academy. They were both tragic 
 and comic, and were given in the old meeting- 
 house, which for the time was transformed into a 
 theatre. The two rows of windows were darkened 
 by blankets and ' comforters ' borrowed for the occa- 
 sion, so that the full scenic effect of stage lights 
 and scenery might be secured. ... In this same 
 town. Potter, the ventriloquist and 'conjurer,' as 
 he was called, who to-day would be invited to 
 perform, as Heller and the like are, before our 
 schools, was prosecuted by the leading men." 
 
 Young Bird found a congenial home in the 
 family of George Hawes. Mrs. Hawes was par- 
 ticularly kind to him ; in later years he often spoke 
 of her with great tenderness, as of a second mother. 
 The master of the school, Isaac Perkins, afterwards 
 married one of his sisters. One of his schoolmates 
 at Wrentham was Lewis Bullard, who, on the 
 occasion of his seventieth birthday, wrote him a 
 
FRANCIS WILLIAM BIRD. 11 
 
 letter which contains another interesting reminis- 
 cence of those early days. 
 
 " We have known each other from earliest child- 
 hood," he wrote, "when your father's square pew 
 was opposite to my father's square pew in Dr. 
 Bates's 'Meeting-House.' What years have 
 passed since you slammed down your seat after 
 prayer and I got my head through the palings of 
 the pew, — and how little we knew that these 
 only prefigured our future : that you would become 
 iconoclast, and that I should always be getting 
 my head into inextricable places. But I knew 
 you better at Wrentham, where we were supposed 
 to study together. It was there that I first learned 
 your marked characteristics, — in your heated de- 
 bates with J. H. Billings and others, — your 
 tenacity, Ms obstinacy, and the final determina- 
 tions. And when we were all smoking our pipes 
 before breakfast, how did the good preceptor ad- 
 monish us thus : — 
 
 "'Boys, it is a had habit to smoke before break- 
 fast ! ' — Was smoking ever so delicious as when 
 we all marched down to the Academy, headed by 
 our teacher, with our postprandial pipes ! After 
 that our lives diverged. You went to college, 
 and acquired the radicals of education; for I hold 
 that all we can get from the schools is the funda- 
 mental ability to learn. In you the roots have 
 shown a marvellous outgrowth from what I thought 
 an insignificant planting. I thought you a bright 
 
12 FRANCIS WILLIAM BIRD. 
 
 boy and a poor scholar, who would never make a 
 President." 
 
 The same friend, speaking of Mr. Bird's honesty, 
 which he had seen exemplified in many trying 
 situations, said: "Do not pride yourself on your 
 honesty ; you have had nothing to do with it. It 
 was born into both of us from our mothers. I re- 
 member your mother, and the picture of the ex- 
 pressions of her face are more strongly defined on 
 my memory than can be made by modern Photog- 
 raphy. ... I knew that you had this principle 
 of Honesty in all your doings, whether domestic, 
 political, or financial, which would lead you to 
 do whatever you considered the Right. You have 
 been flattered and abused and cajoled and calumni- 
 ated all your life, and by your own confessions have 
 had great weaknesses and made many mistakes and 
 committed many follies, but I have always said, 
 'Frank Bird is honest,' but did not add, 'because 
 he cannot help it: he was made so.' " 
 
 Wrentham was on the road to Providence ; the 
 stage coach from Boston passed through East Wal- 
 pole, and so, although the Birds were Congrega- 
 tionalists and Brown University was under the 
 control of the Baptist denomination, it was natural 
 enough that this institution was chosen for Fran- 
 cis. He was entered in 1827. 
 
 The greatest advantage of a small college is in 
 the personal attention which students receive from 
 the superior officers. The influence exerted by 
 
FRANCIS WILLIAM BIRD. 13 
 
 some of the early presidents of New England col- 
 leges cannot be estimated. Francis Wayland, 
 D.D., was at the head of Brown University. 
 " How old Wayland impressed me ! " wrote one of 
 the Rhode Island Hazards. " I haven't got over it 
 to this day and shall not till my latest hour. I 
 know he was narrow in his religious beliefs, and 
 perhaps bigoted, but there was a stern ruggedness 
 of character, a Cromwellian earnestness which 
 comported well with his commanding presence." 
 
 Moral Philosophy was his specialty, but he was 
 also the author of a popular book on Political 
 Economy. Francis W. Bird shared in the general 
 feeling of reverence which Dr. Wayland was so 
 well fitted to inspire. 
 
 During his college course he wrote much for 
 the Brunonian. He was very popular with both 
 professors and students, and went a great deal into 
 society. " He was so original, so much interested 
 in people, so sympathetic, true, and generous, that 
 he was peculiarly beloved by all who were near 
 him and made a marked impression upon all," 
 writes the grand-niece of one of the professors con- 
 nected with Brown while Mr. Bird was a student 
 there. Among his classmates and acquaintances 
 were Henry B. Anthony, who afterwards became 
 United States senator from Rhode Island, La- 
 fayette S. Foster, who became senator from Con- 
 necticut and acting Vice-President, and several 
 others who afterwards attained eminence. He 
 
14 FRANCIS WILLIAM BIRD. 
 
 always kept up his interest in Brown, and from 
 the time that he left college until his death he 
 never more than three or four times missed being 
 present on commencement day. 
 
 During his course his health was seriously im- 
 paired by dyspepsia; his eyes failed to such an 
 extent that it became doubtful if he would be 
 able to carry out his original intention of study- 
 ing for the Bar. After his graduation, and while 
 he was still undecided what direction he should 
 turn for his life work, he determined to teach 
 school. President Wayland, to whom he applied 
 for a letter of recommendation, cheerfully granted 
 him the use of his name and offered to be of any 
 possible service to him. He ended his letter with 
 a piece of characteristic advice : — 
 
 " Spare no effort to teach well, and you will be 
 abundantly rewarded. Especially, my dear sir, 
 let me advise you to seek wisdom from above to 
 direct you in the commencement and throughout 
 the prosecution of your enterprise, that you may 
 teach your pupils not only for this life but for that 
 which is to come." 
 
 He taught school first at Northboro, where by 
 firm and even discipline, though without the use 
 of corporal punishment, he succeeded in governing 
 a roomful of obstreperous youths who had turned 
 their previous master out of doors. He next kept 
 a private school in the old Masonic Hall of his 
 native town of Dedham; but here he suddenly 
 
FRANCIS WILLIAM BIRD. 15 
 
 lost his health, which he had supposed to be per- 
 fect, though he declared that he could remember 
 feelings " which ought to have been regarded as 
 premonitions of approaching retribution." 
 
 "In 1832," he says in an article contributed to 
 Crraham's Magazine^ "the retribution came sud- 
 denly and fearfully." 
 
 He dismissed his school Friday night with the 
 expectation of beginning again on Monday morn- 
 ing. But three sleepless nights so reduced his 
 strength that he was unable to continue. The 
 doctors prescribed " good beefsteak, generous wine, 
 and s^Darkling cider," but when this regime gave 
 no relief they advised him to take a journey, con- 
 tinuing the same system of diet. The plan was 
 not a success. He gives a rather grim account 
 of his return : — 
 
 " By riding in the easiest carriage, I made out 
 to drag along until within thirty miles of home, 
 when the outraged system refused to go another 
 step. After taking two meals of water gruel, I 
 succeeded in getting halfway home, and then, 
 after being treated by my kind friends to a good 
 beefsteak dinner (according to the direction of 
 their family physician), atoning for it by another 
 prostration of strength and a sleepless night, tak- 
 ing a dose of medicine, receiving from the physi- 
 cian a parting injunction to stick to the beefsteak, 
 and paying him my last dollar for his physic and 
 advice, I reached home worn out and dispirited." 
 
16 PKANCIS WILLIAM BIRD. 
 
 But Mr. Bird's will was indomitable. If 
 school-teaching was perhaps^ a too sedentary pur- 
 suit, there were other openings for a young man 
 of active temperament. In April, 1833, his health 
 being somewhat restored, he hired a mill of his 
 brother, Josiah N. Bird, and began business for 
 himself: it agreed with him. During his college 
 course he had become acquainted with Miss Re- 
 becca Hill Cooke of Providence. Their friend- 
 ship resulted in an engagement, and the wedding 
 took place in January, 1834. According to the 
 statement of Mr. Edward L. Pierce, "after the 
 marriage rites the bridal party, in one-horse 
 chaises, drove to the new home in East Walpole." 
 
 Here at East Walpole was his home for life. 
 His house was situated on rising ground amid a 
 beautiful grove of trees, cleared in front to give a 
 most delightful view up the placid waters of the 
 Neponset River, there widened like a pond by the 
 dam which gave the motive power for his mill. 
 A delightful spot for a home ; within easy reach 
 of the scene of his labors ; accessible to his opera- 
 tives, with whom he ever stood in relations of 
 friendly, almost patriarchal, oversight. 
 
 Following the advice of Dr. Wayland, he en- 
 gaged in active religious work. He had been for 
 some time a member of the Congregational Church 
 at South Dedham, now known as Norwood. It 
 is said that the first Sunday after his marriage to 
 Miss Cooke, he surprised the congregation by tak- 
 
FRANCIS WILLIAM BIRD. 17 
 
 ing to his own pew the colored servant who had 
 accompanied his bride from Providence. It was 
 in perfect accordance with his character that he 
 should have politely ushered the servant into the 
 pew before he and his wife entered. It was un- 
 doubtedly largely through the influence of Mr. 
 Bird that a few years later the voters of that vil- 
 lage, who had been sturdy Whigs, almost without 
 exception joined the newly organized Free-soil 
 party. 
 
 Mr. Bird became superintendent of the South 
 Dedham church, the minister of which was the 
 brother of Professor Edwards A. Park of the An- 
 dover Theological Seminary. Mr. Park after- 
 wards became Mr. Bird's brother-in-law. 
 
 In February, 1835, Mr. Bird's wife died, leav- 
 ing a little daughter, who survived only a few 
 months. This was a heavy blow to a man of a 
 nature so deeply affectionate. But he found 
 relief in constant occupation, especially in help- 
 ing the poor and unfortunate. He took the charge 
 of a mission school at Fort Hill, a district of Bos- 
 ton at that time sunk from its former high estate 
 and since then converted by the march of im- 
 provements into a dignified region of trade. He 
 used frequently to walk back and forth from 
 East Walpole, a distance of sixteen miles each 
 way. 
 
 Mr. Bird was still troubled with dyspepsia, 
 and in the fall after his wife's death was scarcely 
 
18 FRANCIS WILLIAM BIED. 
 
 able to attend to his business. Though he had 
 been a member of a so-called Temperance Society, 
 he had felt it right to indulge in the lighter 
 beverages, such as wine, beer, and cider. He was 
 also fond of coffee, but by the advice of Dr. Jack- 
 son of Boston he now abandoned animal food, 
 adopted the use of coarse bread, and kept up 
 a course of active exercise. He found great 
 benefit from riding horseback and from warm 
 bathing. 
 
 In January, 1837, the famous Sylvester Graham, 
 whose regimen was beginning to attract many fol- 
 lowers, gave a course of lectures in Dedham, and 
 Mr. Bird, partly through curiosity and partly 
 through the advice of friends, was induced to 
 attend. He was somewhat prejudiced against 
 Graham's theories, but nevertheless immediately 
 adopted many of his recommendations. In an 
 article which he contributed to Graham's Monthly 
 in October, 1837, he gives an interesting account 
 of his mode of life at that time. 
 
 "My diet consists," he says, "of plainly cooked 
 vegetable food, of which I am never at a loss for 
 a variety, and of different fruits in their season. 
 I use no condiment, except a very little salt, and 
 very little molasses and milk; of all, I find the 
 less the better. I take but two meals in a day: 
 breakfast at six and dinner at two ; never a lunch- 
 eon. I relinquished my supper as an experiment, 
 to see if I could not sleep better, and it succeeded 
 
FRANCIS WILLIAM BIRD. 19 
 
 SO well that I have not touched supper for nearly 
 two years. . . . My only drink is cold water, 
 as pure as I can get it. I never drink at meal- 
 times unless [I am] very thirsty, which very rarely 
 happens. I sometimes take no drink for thirty- 
 six or forty-eight hours, although I formerly used 
 to drink from three to six quarts of some liquid 
 every day in hot weather. In regard to exercise : 
 I rise between four and four-thirty o'clock, and 
 take an hour's vigorous exercise before breakfast, 
 and during the day take not less than four hours, 
 and often twelve or fourteen, in cutting wood, 
 mowing, hoeing, and fast walking, taking care 
 never to exercise violently immediately before or 
 after eating." 
 
 Mr. Bird never resumed the eating of meat as a 
 regular part of his diet. Throughout the re- 
 mainder of his long life he was to a large extent 
 a vegetarian, and although he partook of soups 
 and fish, yet it was his habit to be extremely ab- 
 stemious ; it is said that in his later years he ate 
 scarcely a pound of meat in a twelvemonth. This 
 is certainly a remarkable record for a man whose 
 fortune it was to preside frequently at public din- 
 ners, and who was remarkably fond of good cheer. 
 
 The panic of 1837 was disastrous to many busi- 
 ness enterprises in Boston and the vicinity of 
 Boston; Mr. Bird's had been prospering, and he 
 was enabled to weather the crisis of this financial 
 storm. He succeeded in raising the money needed 
 
20 PEANCIS WILLIAM BIRD. 
 
 to meet all his liabilities. His courage and fore- 
 sight were greatly praised, and his success was 
 regarded as a remarkable achievement. The fol- 
 lowing year he purchased the plant of the Neponset 
 Paper Company, next above his own mill. Shortly 
 after he formed a partnership with his father, 
 brother, and brother-in-law, but in 1842 an unex- 
 pected obligation obliged the firm to go into bank- 
 ruptcy. Though legally he might have taken 
 advantage of his suspension and escaped full pay- 
 ment of his liabilities, he regarded his debts as a 
 sacred obligation, and in order to pay them in 
 full, principal and interest, he went so far as to 
 sell all the family silver, which had come by in- 
 heritance into his possession, as well as the books 
 in his library. By such sacrifices do honorable 
 men gain more than they lose ; for high repute is 
 worth more than family plate, and credit is better 
 than classics bound in costly calf. 
 
 Mr. Bird enjoyed the mechanical more than the 
 mercantile part of his calling. He was proficient 
 in the experimental details of paper manufactur- 
 ing. It was his delight to try the result of mixing 
 various fibres. He was eminently skilful in this 
 direction, and his business prosperity is said to 
 have arisen largely from his capacity in this prac- 
 tical direction. He had no liking for "trade"; 
 bartering, the buying and selling of goods, was 
 repugnant to him. It is probable that by native 
 mental endowment he would have won eminent 
 
FRANCIS WILLIAM BIRD. 21 
 
 success in the profession of the law, which he 
 would have chosen had it not been for his failure 
 in health. 
 
 As Mr. Bird began to be known as a manufact- 
 urer whose wares commanded and retained cus- 
 tomers, so also he began to attract attention on 
 account of his public views and public spirit. 
 Horace Mann was then a resident of Dedham, and 
 was engaging in his noble crusade in favor of a 
 broader and more comprehensive scheme of educa- 
 tion; his views specially appealed to Mr. Bird. 
 He took a decided stand in regard to moral reforms 
 and was actively interested in town affairs. He 
 was constantly planning for the improvement of 
 the people of the village that had sprung up in 
 the vicinity of his mill. 
 
 In 1843 he was married to Miss Abby Frances 
 Newell, a daughter of Mr. Joseph R. Newell of 
 Boston. She also had been engaged in the Fort 
 Hill mission work, and he had there learned to 
 know and esteem her. It proved to be in every 
 respect a fortunate marriage. Mrs. Bird was a 
 woman of sweet disposition, sympathetic nature, 
 and beautiful character. She had rare common 
 sense and excellent business judgment. She 
 made her home happy, presiding over it with an 
 affable dignity which was the admiration of guests. 
 " I go nowhere with the same feeling that I have 
 at your table," wrote a gentleman fifty years later. 
 " There I feel at home . . . there is freedom . . . 
 
22 FRANCIS WILLIAM BIRD. 
 
 there is good fellowship." For more than a half- 
 century she was the light of his household. He 
 always spoke of her as a model mother to their 
 six children, using her gentle tact and serene 
 wisdom in the formation of their character. 
 
III. 
 
 In 1846 an act passed the Legislature chartering 
 the Walpole Railway Company and granting it 
 authority to build a new railway between the ter- 
 minus of the Dedham branch of the Boston and 
 Providence line and Walpole. Applications for 
 no less than two other independent routes from 
 the Blackstone valley to Boston were made, but 
 were granted leave to withdraw. Mr. Bird was 
 intensely interested in the choice of this route, 
 for he felt that the upper towns of Norfolk County 
 should be connected with the shire town and with 
 Boston. With characteristic vigor, he proceeded 
 to awaken the interest of the public, and particu- 
 larly of his townspeople. He was tireless in pre- 
 senting the advantages which he foresaw would 
 result to the town. On this subject he wrote and 
 printed for distribution a pamphlet advocating 
 this side of the question, and protesting against 
 various independent lines to New York. It was 
 the first of a long series of pamphlets treating of 
 practical subjects whereby throughout his life he 
 strove to influence public opinion. 
 
 Hitherto he had been more or less active in 
 23 
 
24 FRANCIS WILLIAM BIRD. 
 
 town affairs, but apparently without thought of 
 taking office. His business of paper-making had 
 absorbed his energies to the exclusion of political 
 ambition. He was now to be introduced to the 
 public life of the State. He had belonged to the 
 great Whig party, and he was nominated as the 
 Whig candidate to represent Walpole in the Legis- 
 lature. The expectation that he would do valiant 
 service in behalf of the railway through the town 
 largely contributed to his election ; nor did he dis- 
 appoint his constituents. After a long and often 
 heated debate, in which he took a prominent part, 
 the Walpole line at last triumphed and was granted 
 the charter. It was at first called the Norfolk 
 County Railroad; it authorized the construction 
 of a line from Walpole to Blacks tone and provided 
 for the union of this road with the Walpole branch. 
 Some of its bitterest opponents were from that 
 county. As the Boston, Hartford, and Erie, and 
 later as the New York and New England Railroad, 
 it had a checkered and generally disastrous history. 
 Many years later (in January, 1884) Mr. Bird 
 contributed to the Boston Post some interesting 
 reminiscences of the enterprise, and conclusively 
 showed that the main cause of its unfortunate his- 
 tory was the perversion of its original purpose as 
 a local road. " A road from Dedham to Black- 
 stone, possibly extended to Southbridge," he 
 wrote, " well managed for the development of its 
 local interests, would, in my opinion, have paid 
 
FRANCIS WILLIAM BIRD. 25 
 
 fair profits from its first opening until this day. 
 The dream of a great air line ruined it." By its 
 directness, when at last the organized opposition 
 of rival roads was finally overcome, Mr. Bird's 
 far-seeing judgment in regard to its necessity was 
 fully justified. In this, as in many other matters, 
 he was far in advance of his time. 
 
 Yet it was about fifty years before he himself 
 obtained the great advantages which the proximity 
 of a station to his own establishment would have 
 brought. He lived to see this realized. 
 
 With the formation of the Free-soil party in 
 1848 began Mr. Bird's interest in national poli- 
 tics. He had been a Whig mainly from tradition, 
 but he had never hesitated to be independent. 
 He felt that the Whig position in regard to the 
 great moral questions was to be preferred to that 
 adopted by the Democrats ; most of his business 
 associates were Whigs; he felt that the Whig 
 view concerning the currency was the one to be 
 preferred. But the question of slavery was be- 
 ginning to take precedence of all others. Mr. 
 Bird organized the Free-soil movement in his own 
 vicinity and went as a delegate to the first State 
 convention, and later to the famous national con- 
 vention at Buffalo. He became known as an in- 
 domitable leader. Though he was not especially 
 fluent as an orator and had none of the tricks of 
 the stump speaker, and perhaps scorned to win 
 the ephemeral popularity by interspersing his 
 
26 FRANCIS WILLIAM BIRD. 
 
 arguments with more or less irrelevant anecdotes, 
 yet he was a convincing speaker, and was able by 
 his wide reading and excellent memory to mar- 
 shal facts of history and the highest principles of 
 political economy on his side. He frequently 
 added piquancy to his climaxes by a cleverly 
 introduced quotation from some of the classic 
 English poets. 
 
 The Honorable George H. Monroe, who was 
 one of Mr. Bird's warm friends for almost fifty 
 years, related the story of the Free-soil debates at 
 South Dedham. The meetings were held in a 
 schoolhouse, and Mr. Bird challenged any Whig 
 from Dedham to meet him in debate there. Mr. 
 Monroe says in a letter; — 
 
 " I, being then a very young man who had never 
 voted, had the temerity of youth and enthusiasm, 
 and went up as a Whig to accept the challenge. 
 I have never forgotten the kindness and courtesy 
 with which he met me as a stripling opponent, 
 especially as they were in marked contrast to the 
 manner of another Free-soil leader, Edward L. 
 Keyes, whom I had to encounter in debate at the 
 same time. It was a signal proof of Mr. Bird's 
 broad and tolerant nature that he admitted me at 
 once into his friendship as the result of this dis- 
 cussion. We differed widely in politics, not only 
 then but for several years thereafter, and I have 
 little doubt that I often tired his patience by the 
 exuberance of my youthful whiggery, and yet he 
 
FRANCIS WILLIAM BIRD. 27 
 
 never ceased to be considerate and forbearing, 
 and I learned to admire and love him before 
 I had any sympathy with him in his political 
 views." 
 
 Few men ever surpassed Mr. Bird in capacity 
 for a solid argument. It is said that he was 
 hardly ever worsted in an encounter carried on by 
 means of the pen. Mr. Keyes, a brilliant man, a 
 master of finished style and capable of pouring out 
 a torrent of fiery invective, was often associated 
 with Mr. Bird in these Free-soil debates. A man 
 who took the opposite side declared that he went 
 with something like fear to the encounter with 
 Keyes but gave comparatively little thought to 
 Mr. Bird. He went away saying that he would 
 rather meet a dozen Keyes than one Bird. 
 
 At the beginning of his political career Mr. 
 Bird is remembered as being tall, spare if not 
 gaunt in form. He stooped a little as he walked, 
 but no one could doubt that he was fully six feet 
 in stature. His hair was dark but already begin- 
 ning to turn gray. His eyes were kindly ; he wore 
 heavy gold-bowed spectacles for near-sightedness, 
 but never, even to the day of his death, using 
 glasses when he read. 
 
 He was a man of superior culture, of more than 
 the average means, and yet he was affable to 
 strangers, and any thought of presumption because 
 of such superiority apparently never entered his 
 mind. He was one of the most truly democratic of 
 
28 FRANCIS WILLIAM BIRD. 
 
 men, his simplicity of habit, of behavior, of life, 
 being an example worthy of commendation in these 
 more degenerate days. Like all men of strong 
 character, he had strongly pronounced views on 
 many questions, and he never hesitated to express 
 them. Thus in regard to the tariff, his strong 
 sense of justice led him to feel that, as he himself 
 effectively quoted from Pollock's Course of Timey 
 
 protection 
 
 " With one hand puts 
 A penny in the urn of poverty, 
 And with the other takes a shilling out." 
 
 And he used to tell with great gusto how, in 1846, 
 the paper-makers sent a committee to Washington 
 to look after the interests of the craft in the tariff 
 measures then pending and to effect legislation 
 in the interests of the New England paper-makers 
 (to use his favorite term, for he exceedingly dis- 
 liked the word manufacturer)^ and how after their 
 return he received notice from Mr. Otis Daniell 
 that his share of the assessment was such and 
 such an amount. He paid his contribution, but 
 at the same time declared that it was solely from 
 a feeling of comradeship — because the other 
 paper-makers had done so. 
 
 "There, Mr. Daniell," said he, "that is the last 
 dollar I will ever pay to influence the legislation 
 of Congress to take money out of other people's 
 pockets and put it into mine. If I can't get a 
 living by paper-making without special favors 
 
FRANCIS WILLIAM BIRD. 29 
 
 from government which legalizes stealing from 
 my customers, I will do something else." 
 
 He had learned under Dr. Wayland that a high 
 protective tariff was injurious to the best interests 
 of the people, and not long before his death he 
 wrote in the Boston Post : — 
 
 "If I have studied political economy to any 
 good purpose for the last sixty years, a govern- 
 ment has the right to tax the people only to the 
 amount necessary for the economical administra- 
 tion of its affairs. For this purpose the best 
 method is by a direct tax upon property." But 
 he was clear-sighted enough to recognize that this 
 state of things would not come about until what 
 he called the "politico-economical millennium," 
 and so he argued that the tariff should be "as low 
 as possible and laid upon luxuries, and specially 
 without the slightest attempt to help or hurt any 
 industrial interests or any enterprise of capital." 
 
 His strong sense of justice, which had at first 
 inclined him to accept the narrow tenets of Cal- 
 vinistic theology, likewise caused him to recon- 
 sider his views on religion. Its more sectarian 
 form began to appeal to him less and less. He 
 was, as ever, interested in philanthropic work and 
 practical morals, and his sympathies were enlisted 
 especially in the great movement of anti-slavery. 
 But he, like Garrison, Phillips, and many others, 
 was indignant at the attitude of the Church in 
 regard to this burning question. Unfortunately 
 
30 FRANCIS WILLIAM BIRD. 
 
 there was a large number of so-called Orthodox 
 clergymen who, accepting literally the Bible as 
 the Word of God, believed that slavery was a 
 divine institution. 
 
 The Rev. Nehemiah Adams was the type of 
 such conservatism. He had visited the South, 
 and seeing slavery in its most favorable and allur- 
 ing aspect, returned to the North, and there he 
 wrote his famous book entitled The South-side 
 View of Slavery, All true abolitionists protested 
 against the insidious arguments and false views 
 of that fallacious book. One time when Mr. Bird 
 was attending service in his own church, the 
 minister announced a religious convention at 
 which the Rev. Dr. Adams was to be one of the 
 speakers. Mr. Bird instantly rose in his pew and, 
 addressing the clergyman, asked : — 
 
 "Do I understand that the Dr. Adams men- 
 tioned in this notice is the author of the South- 
 side View of Slavery f " 
 
 "No," was the reply. "The doctor who is to 
 address the convention is the Rev. William 
 Adams, of New York." 
 
 "Then I am satisfied," exclaimed Mr. Bird. 
 
 There can be no doubt what his action would 
 have been had his first surmise been correct. The 
 incident shows how deeply he felt on the subject 
 and how unconventional was often his manner of 
 expression. Theodore Parker was winning the 
 respect of high-thinking men for his fidelity to 
 
FRANCIS WILLIAM BIRD. 31 
 
 the cause of anti-slavery and by his eloquent ser- 
 mons delivered on the Music Hall platform, and 
 Mr. Bird was naturally drawn to him for this 
 reason. He was less and less frequently seen at 
 the Congregationalist Church, of which he was a 
 member, and at last wholly ceased his attendance 
 there. But his wife and daughters still continued 
 to be present at the services, and his name was 
 never withdrawn from its membership, though he 
 repeatedly requested that it should be — even to 
 within a few weeks of his death. 
 
IV. 
 
 By the close of the presidential campaign of 
 1848, which resulted in the election of General 
 Zachary Taylor, Mr. Bird had become a power in 
 Massachusetts politics. He had labored earnestly, 
 indefatigably, in behalf of the Free-soil party, and 
 had, as it were, involuntarily made himself the 
 centre in the work of organization. He was origi- 
 nator of the political club, which through good 
 fellowship united men of congenial tastes and 
 high abilities, promoted friendly discussion and 
 wholesome criticism of important measures, 
 and exercised a beneficent influence over the 
 thought of the time. It had been Mr. Bird's 
 habit at the State conventions at Worcester to 
 keep open rooms, so that there might be some 
 general resort for those who were in sympathy 
 with his views. "There," as Mr. Pierce said, 
 "platforms were conceived and the fortunes of 
 candidates determined." 
 
 There was published in Boston at this time, in 
 the interests of this party, a paper called The 
 Daily Whig, Among its frequent contributors 
 were Charles Francis Adams, Stephen C. Phillips 
 
 32 
 
FRANCIS WILLIAM BIRD. 33 
 
 of Salem, John G. Palfrey, and Mr. Bird. It was 
 in the editorial rooms of this paper that the party 
 leaders at first met for conference on important 
 questions, and it was at this time that the informal 
 dinners were first inaugurated. 
 
 It became Mr. Bird's habit to be regularly in 
 Boston on Saturday afternoons, and in order that 
 his friends from out of town might have an addi- 
 tional attraction he had the foresight to provide 
 a meeting-place and a dinner. They were first 
 held at the Cornhill Coffee House. 
 
 He himself gives an interesting account of the 
 formation of the Saturday Club, or, as it was 
 generally called, the Bird Club. Wendell Phil- 
 lips, in one of his reckless attempts to make a 
 point at the expense of accuracy, called Mr. Bird 
 the "one great commander-in-chief of the lobby 
 force." "He and his club," said Phillips, "are 
 the great lobbying nucleus of Massachusetts. 
 They meet at a grog shop just off Washington 
 Street every Saturday at two o'clock." 
 
 Mr. Bird, in a dignified, calm, and admirable 
 rejoinder, published in the Boston Journal^ gives 
 an interesting account of the Saturday Club and 
 its formation : — 
 
 "I know not why it was called the Bird Club. 
 The name was not given to it, and is never used 
 by gentlemen who attend its meetings. The only 
 precedence Mr. Bird is entitled to grows out of 
 the fact (alas !) that, with one exception, he is the 
 
34 FRANCIS WILLIAM BIRD. 
 
 oldest of the regular attendants. ... It is 
 strictly a private party of gentlemen, with which 
 neither Mr. Phillips nor the public have any more 
 right to concern themselves than with a private 
 dinner-party in any dining-room in Boston. 
 
 "As to its origin, it dates back to an obscure 
 and fabulous antiquity. In those times which 
 tried men's souls, when a little handful of Free- 
 soilers grappled with the giant Whig party of 
 Massachusetts, a half-dozen, more or less, of the 
 faithful found themselves round the same table on 
 Saturday afternoons. It was a venial offence; 
 for, Heaven knows, our legs were never under 
 genteel mahogany in Boston. I think John A. 
 Andrew, James W. Stone, Henry L. Pierce, Will- 
 iam S. Robinson, and myself were nearly or quite 
 all the original members. Gradually the numbers 
 increased, and, emerging from the narrow quar- 
 ters of No. 30 School Street, where a luncheon 
 was served from a neighboring eating-house, we 
 attained the dignity of a room at Young's, and 
 afterwards at Parker's. Then came the Know- 
 Nothing deluge, whose subsidence left in our 
 quiet retreat considerable driftwood. Some prac- 
 tices obtained which w^ere distasteful to a portion 
 of our friends and we parted by a natural cleavage, 
 we migrating to Young's Hotel. 
 
 "The club, if it be such, has no president, no 
 officers, no rules of organization, no conditions of 
 membership, no nothing to hold it together but 
 
FRANCIS WILLIAM BIRD. 35 
 
 similar political and social affinities, and a com- 
 mon need and love of good-fellowship. The latch- 
 string is always out, and ^.ny gentleman is welcome. 
 John A. Andrew, George L. Stearns, Seth Webb, 
 Jr., and James W. Stone were of our number. 
 To-day, among the habitual attendants are Mr. 
 Sumner, General Wilson, Governor Claflin, Gen- 
 eral Butler, the brace of Drs. Howe, J. S. M. 
 Williams, Mr. Jewell, Robinson, Slack, the two 
 Pierces, Gooch, Dr. Loring, Elizur Wright, 
 General Burt, and many other equally pronounced 
 radical Republicans. Among the less frequent 
 attendants are Mr. Dawes, Mr. Oakes Ames, 
 Judge Richardson, Judge Chapin, Mr. J. D. 
 Baldwin, Adin Thayer, etc., etc. Prominent 
 Republicans from abroad, when in Boston on 
 Saturday, usually find the way to this 'grog shop,' 
 — Governor Hawley, Governor Jewell, Governor 
 Anthony, and others whose names I will not stop 
 to recall. Such are the men who, as Mr. Phillips 
 charges, meet weekly to ' manipulate ' Massa- 
 chusetts and make arrangements to ' lobby respec- 
 tably.' Mr. Phillips does not believe that such 
 men meet for any such disreputable purpose. 
 He does not know and has no reason to suspect 
 that any man ever came there for an unworthy 
 object; and he knows, too, that he has often 
 recommended gentlemen who desired aid or coun- 
 sel for a laudable public object to visit this 'grog 
 shop. ' . . . I challenge any man to state truth- 
 
36 FRANCIS WILLIAM BIRD. 
 
 fully that any arrangements in regard to political 
 nominations or legislative measures were ever 
 proposed or considered at one of these meetings. 
 Of course public acts and public men are freely 
 canvassed; but the only uniform characteristic of 
 the proceedings is unsparing criticism. Woe to 
 the public man who, the first time after any ques- 
 tionable public act, exposes himself to the lashes 
 of men who are nothing if not critical. I ought 
 perhaps to add that this faithful criticism never 
 yet has disturbed the harmony of this association. 
 It is simply impossible that such gentlemen, with 
 such idiosyncrasies, could ever form combinations 
 for the base purposes imputed to them by Mr. 
 Phillips." 
 
 The freedom of the club was readily granted to 
 any friend of a regular attendant. Though it was 
 a centre for the Free-soil politicians of the fifties, 
 and anti-slavery men were particularly welcome, 
 it is said that William Lloyd Garrison and Wen- 
 dell Phillips never took part in them. The late 
 George L. Stearns, whose efforts in behalf of the 
 great cause will never be forgotten, testified before 
 the Senate committee appointed to investigate 
 John Brown's invasion of Virginia, that he had 
 once seen that grim old hero at the Bird Club, 
 whither he, though not yet a member, went to 
 meet him; but whether Brown dined with the 
 club or went in after dinner he was not able to 
 tell. 
 
FRANCIS WILLIAM BIRD. 37 
 
 Mr. Bird took the head of the table and acted 
 as master of ceremonies. Indeed, there is a legend 
 to the effect that in the old days, when they met 
 in an " upper room over the grocery store on School 
 Street," he used to bring the joint over in his own 
 hands from George Young's kitchen, not trusting 
 the mainstay of the banquet to the care of ser- 
 vants, and that he himself made the coffee ! There 
 was usually no formal speech-making. The con- 
 versation was sometimes desultory, but often of a 
 character in which all present participated, speak- 
 ing in turn. The price of the dinners when they 
 were organized at first in this loose, unconven- 
 tional manner was a dollar for each person present. 
 After the war had increased the cost of every- 
 thing, it was increased to two dollars. Wine 
 was never regularly served. In Mr. Bird's later 
 days, as his friends grew older and fewer by reason 
 of death and political divergencies, the dinners 
 were held once a month instead of weekly. 
 
V. 
 
 Most of Mr. Bird's life-long friendships were 
 formed during these early days of the anti-slavery 
 movement. To call up the memory of those great 
 names, and adequately to show Mr. Bird's deal- 
 ings with them, when they united together in 
 their splendid efforts of patriotism and unselfish- 
 ness, would be to write no small part of the his- 
 tory of the past fifty years. Charles Francis 
 Adams lived in Quincy, not so far from East 
 Walpole as to prevent pleasant personal inter- 
 course. The dignity of his character and his lofty 
 ideals of statesmanship caused him to be regarded 
 as a leader, and Mr. Bird looked up to him in his 
 younger days, and always regarded him with 
 peculiar veneration. When Mr. Adams was 
 elected as representative to Congress from the 
 Walpole district, Mr. Bird was enthusiastic in 
 his support and had high expectations of his use- 
 fulness, but he was deeply disappointed that Mr. 
 Adams favored the compromise movements that 
 were set on foot in the winter of 1860-61. Con- 
 siderable correspondence on this subject passed 
 between them, but nothing but the most friendly 
 
 38 
 
FRANCIS WILLIAM BIKD. 39 
 
 spirit was displayed on either side. At Dedham 
 lived Mr. Edward L. Keyes, the editor of an able 
 newspaper, a brilliant man, finished in speech and 
 fiery in invective. Mr. Bird was intimately asso- 
 ciated with him for many years. Mr. Edward L. 
 Pierce and Mr. Henry L. Pierce, the two sons of 
 an anti-slavery Democrat, lived in a neighboring 
 town and were his life-long friends. With Henry 
 Wilson, the shoemaker of Nonantum, whose 
 natural abilities brought him, in spite of his lack 
 of early education, to high office and the deep- 
 est respect of his country, Mr. Bird was in 
 active cooperation for several years, until they 
 began to differ in their opinions concerning the 
 " Know-Nothing " or Native American move- 
 ment, but their mutual friendliness was never 
 really impaired. 
 
 The Honorable William Claflin, who was gov- 
 ernor of Massachusetts from 1869 to 1872, was 
 one of his warm personal friends and associates. 
 The great war governor, John A. Andrew, stood 
 in the closest political and friendly relationship 
 to him. In fact, as will be seen later, it was 
 largely through Mr. Bird's instrumentality that 
 Andrew was nominated and elected to the guber- 
 natorial chair, and through his incumbency he was 
 a member of the Council. A brief extract from 
 one of Governor Andrew's letters to him will 
 perhaps best attest the intimacy which united 
 them ; — 
 
40 FRANCIS WILLIAM BIRD. 
 
 "Council Chamber, Boston, 
 
 .,,^ ^ "January 30, 1861. 
 
 " My dear Bird, — 
 
 *^ I want to suggest that, whenever you see or fore- 
 see the arising of a question touching which we have 
 decided opinions, I wish you would, in the freest and 
 fullest manner, give me the aid of your advice ; but 
 also to suggest, that it weakens me to criticise after- 
 wards in respect to things as to which I have not had 
 the aid of previous advice. I do nothing at any time 
 but under the keenest sense of responsibility and 
 with the earnest desire to do good and serve the best 
 interest and the highest idea of justice and truth, but 
 am always liable to grave error, and need the kindest 
 sympathy and support of friends — of whom I count 
 you as one of the best.'' 
 
 Samuel Bowles, who wielded such wide influ- 
 ence through the columns of the Springfield Re- 
 publican^ was among his friends, though he did 
 not hesitate to display the amenities of journal- 
 istic criticism or spare the rod when he felt com- 
 pelled to differ. Thus in a letter accompanying 
 a case of excellent Moselle, which he sent him in 
 June, 1869, Mr. Bowles wrote: — 
 
 "It did not cost me anything except a great 
 deal of self-denial, for the thing is scarce; so 
 please take it with my personal regards, but I beg 
 of you not to allow yourself to suppose that it 
 carries the slightest approval of your legislative 
 career during the year of our Lord 1869." 
 
 Again he wrote him in 1871, at the time of the 
 apparent break up of the Republican organization, 
 
FRANCIS WILLIAM BIRD. 41 
 
 when the best elements of that party, joined by 
 the best elements of the old Democracy, revolted 
 against Grantism: "Anyhow, let you and I take 
 things quietly and contentedly. Nurse your 
 health, renew your strength, and be still the 
 object of wide friendship and wider admiration." 
 
 And then nine years later, in reply to some 
 friendly protest arising from his having perhaps 
 disregarded the warning, "If you get into print 
 and give digs, you must take 'em in return," Mr. 
 Bowles said: " So you think the Republican abuses 
 you. Well, that's funny, after all the lovely 
 things we have thought and said about you, to go 
 no farther back. We do mourn for you some- 
 times, I admit; and sometimes we even scold you 
 perhaps, but it is ever like the Lord's chastening 
 of those whom He loveth most." 
 
 His association with Carl Schurz began in the 
 fifties, but a warm and sympathetic friendship 
 arose between them. Years later Mr. Schurz 
 wrote him: "It is nearly thirty years since I first 
 met you, and we have great memories in common, 
 — memories of a grand cause, for which we worked 
 and struggled together with a common devotion ; 
 memories of dear friends, to whom we were 
 attached with a common affection; memories of 
 mutual regard, confidence, and friendship lasting 
 many years under changed circumstances." 
 
 Close also was his friendship with George L. 
 Stearns, that most noble and generous-hearted, 
 
*42 FRANCIS WILLIAM BIRD. 
 
 modest gentleman, who gave of his wealth for 
 every worthy cause, the friend of John Brown and 
 freedom, the legitimate author of the first two 
 colored regiments ever raised in Massachusetts. 
 
 Charles Sumner was the great lode-star of his 
 political firmament. The magnificent courage, 
 the unimpeachable integrity, the glorious unselfish 
 patriotism, the leonine nobility of the man, ap- 
 pealed to all his own best qualities, and through- 
 out Sumner's career Mr. Bird was truly loyal to 
 him. It was on the morning of September 24, 
 1846, the day following the Whig convention in 
 Faneuil Hall, that Mr. Bird first met Sumner at 
 his law office. "From that time forth," says Mr. 
 Sumner's biographer, Edward L. Pierce, "he was 
 in close personal and political relations with Sum- 
 ner, always alert to guard the latter's position as 
 a public man against open or secret attempts to 
 weaken it." 
 
 Nothing is more remarkable in the correspond- 
 ence of Mr. Bird and these distinguished friends 
 than the grave seriousness of their communica- 
 tions: they might have been Roman senators in 
 consultation. Sumner was the most serious of all. 
 He had no patience with what he considered Lin- 
 coln's flippant treatment of desperate crises. But 
 on the occasion of one of Mr. Bird's "great even- 
 ings " at East Walpole, when friends and neigh- 
 bors came to congratulate him on the beginning 
 of a new year, Mr. Sumner unbent enough to make 
 
FRANCIS WILLIAM BIRD. 43 
 
 one of the few recorded puns ; he wrote a friend 
 that he was glad to read of the great evening at 
 East Walpole when "our Bird of Freedom had 
 such a pleasant roost! "^ 
 
 There were many others of note with whom Mr. 
 Bird was closely associated, so that when he 
 reached old age he might well have exclaimed, in 
 the words of the sweet-tongued Nestor: — 
 
 1787;, yap TTOT iyiii kol dpetoaiv, rji Trep vpHv 
 dvSpaa-Lv w/xtXr^cra, koI ovirori fx oly dOepi^ov 
 ov yap TTco tolovs lSov dvepas ovSe tSo/xat 
 olov HeLptOoov Tc, Apvavrd re, Trot/xeVa Xaiov, etc.^ 
 
 — 11. I. 260, etc. 
 
 1 As translated by Thoreau, who also was a prophet of anti- 
 slavery : " But you are younger than I. For time was when I 
 conversed with greater men than you. For not at any time 
 have I seen such men nor shall see them, as Perithoos and 
 Dryas — and . . . Probably Washington, sole ' Shepherd of 
 the People.' " 
 
VI. 
 
 Mr. Bird had a good deal of the Warwick in 
 his make-up. He enjoyed manipulating the secret 
 wires that moved the puppets of politics. But in 
 his motives he was actuated by the highest ideals 
 of patriotism. Party management, which so easily 
 degenerates into demagogism, was with him a 
 measure of public utility. It is considered that 
 his first step in this career of miniature king- 
 making was taken in the year 1852, when the coa- 
 lition between the Republicans and Democrats of 
 Massachusetts was formed in order to overthrow 
 the Whig ascendency in the State government. 
 Many of the Free-soilers, particularly Charles 
 Francis Adams and John G. Palfrey, were thor- 
 oughly averse to the coalition; but Mr. Bird, far 
 from seeing in it any dereliction from principle, 
 foresaw that it would result in putting into office 
 many of his own party, who, without such union, 
 would be left without any position of influence. 
 The chief political end to be gained by it seemed 
 to him of transcendent importance ; it would for 
 the first time give the Free-soil party a representa- 
 tion in the United States Senate. 
 
 44 
 
FBANCIS WILLIAM BIRD. 45 
 
 He himself would not have hesitated to call this 
 "a deal for the distribution of office." It was 
 regarded as worthy of note that while Adams and 
 Palfrey opposed the coalition, and Sumner and 
 Dana yielded reluctantly, the poet Whittier joined 
 heart and soul with Mr. Bird in supporting it. 
 
 The coalition proved to be successful. At one 
 time it looked as if the Democrats were not going 
 to fulfil their part of the agreement. George S. 
 Boutwell, the Democratic governor, was elected, 
 but the promise that Charles Sumner should be 
 chosen as United States senator was not fulfilled. 
 Mr. Bird was greatly annoyed at the delay. 
 
 "We have fulfilled our part of the agreement," 
 said he, "now demand that they, as men of honor, 
 shall keep their promises." 
 
 The candidate for the shorter term of senator 
 was Robert Rantoul, Jr., a Democrat. Some of 
 the Free-soilers proposed that his election should 
 be delayed until Sumner was elected. But Mr. 
 Bird urged that, on the contrary, since the term 
 was for only a few weeks, this should be done as 
 quickly as possible. His advice was followed; 
 the Democrats finally made their promise good, 
 and Sumner took the place in the Senate which he 
 filled so long and so ably. 
 
 Mr. Bird himself became a member of the Ex- 
 ecutive Council, and soon showed his independence 
 by casting his official vote in favor of the confirma- 
 tion of Caleb Cushing as judge of the Supreme 
 
46 FRANCIS WILLIAM BIRD. 
 
 Court of Massachusetts, although Mr. Gushing 
 had been one of the bitterest opponents of the 
 coalition. He declared that Gushing would make 
 a good judge, and that it would spike his gun as 
 a Hunker Democrat. His judgment as to Gush- 
 ing's able career on the Bench was entirely justi- 
 fied, but the advantage gained by "spiking his 
 guns " proved to be only transitory. The coalition 
 forces won a second victory over the Whigs in 
 1853, after one of the most exciting elections ever 
 held in Massachusetts. The election of Franklin 
 Pierce the following March put an end to the 
 coalition. It lasted only until the time of the 
 constitutional convention, to which it contributed 
 a large majority of the members. Mr. Bird repre- 
 sented the town of Walpole and was sanguine that 
 great things would be accomplished. 
 
 Unfortunately, the American, or, as it was 
 popularly known, the Know-Nothing, organiza- 
 tion, had by this time risen into extraordinary 
 power in Massachusetts. Many of the former 
 Free-soilers, seeing the end of the coalition and 
 despairing of any success as a separate party, de- 
 termined to join this new organization and use it 
 as a means of carrying out their laudable ends. 
 They were all the more influenced to take this 
 desperate and ill-advised step from the fact that 
 their attempt to engineer the adoption of a new 
 State constitution, which should give them greater 
 advantages in voting, had signally failed. 
 
FRANCIS WILLIAM BIRD. 47 
 
 Mr. Bird vehemently protested against such 
 action. He felt that a distinctively anti-slavery 
 party was as greatly needed in the land as it ever 
 had been. He loved the Free-soil party too sin- 
 cerely to see it die in such an ignominious man- 
 ner, and he was entirely without sympathy with 
 the narrow and proscriptive tone of the Know- 
 Nothing party. The more dignified and conscien- 
 tious Republican leaders were fully in sympathy 
 with him in this respect, but a sort of tidal wave 
 in Massachusetts carried into that quagmire of 
 politics all the Free-soilers, with the exception of 
 three or four thousand voters. Henry Wilson, 
 who had been apparently stranded by the popular 
 defection from the coalition schemes, was made 
 United States senator by means of this new affilia- 
 tion, but he afterwards admitted to Mr. Bird that 
 it was a blot on the fair record of his political life. 
 Mr. Bird never fully recovered his respect for 
 him, though Wilson continued true to his anti- 
 slavery ideas and took an early opportunity to 
 leave his Know-Nothing associates and engage in 
 the formation of the Republican party. Neither 
 did Mr. Bird recover from his distrust of his for- 
 mer associates, who had so chagrined and disgusted 
 him by joining the Know-Nothing movement. 
 
 The formation of the Republican party in 1856 
 seemed to him to satisfy the requirements of his 
 ideal, and he emerged from temporary retirement 
 in order to enter with enthusiasm into the cam- 
 
48 FRANCIS WILLIAM BIRD. 
 
 paign in behalf of General Fremont, but his usual 
 independence was shown by his refusal to vote for 
 Henry J. Gardner, although the Republican con- 
 vention had endorsed the nomination. Then 
 again, when in 1857 N. P. Banks, a former votary 
 of the Know-Nothing faction, became the Repub- 
 lican candidate for governor, Mr. Bird "bolted"; 
 with a few " indomitables " supporting him, he 
 held a convention in Boston, which nominated 
 Dr. Swan of Easton as a rival candidate. The 
 protest was of no avail; Dr. Swan received only a 
 few thousand votes at the polls. 
 
 He was not discouraged by this failure; but 
 while he stood aloof from active participation in 
 politics, rightly considering that the principles 
 that had animated the Know-Nothing leaders were 
 quite too much in the ascendant at the State House, 
 he was all the time on the watch, ready to seize 
 the first opportunity to institute a change for the 
 better. He had already cast about to find a suitable 
 leader to inaugurate the new and better era. 
 
 John A. Andrew had been one of Mr. Bird's 
 early Free-soil associates, and in full sympathy 
 with him in opposing the Know-Nothing compro- 
 mise. Some of his earnest speeches in the Massa- 
 chusetts House of Representatives, where he took 
 the highest grounds regarding perfect liberty of 
 person, had attracted the attention of the whole 
 State. Mr. Bird and those who still continued to 
 meet with him at the Saturday Club fixed on 
 
FBANCIS WILLIAM BIRD. 49 
 
 Andrew as the proper man to succeed Governor 
 Banks and to inaugurate a more satisfactory regime 
 at the State House. The Banks section of the 
 Republican party, supposing itself firmly in- 
 trenched in the possession of the vantage-ground, 
 had of course its own man ready to take Banks's 
 place so soon as he should retire. 
 
 During the summer of 1859 Mr. Bird, together 
 with William S. Robinson, Henry L. Pierce, and 
 Judge A din Thayer, were spending their vacation 
 at Manomet, near Plymouth. The unexpected 
 news reached them that Governor Banks had re- 
 ceived an important appointment at the West, and 
 had suddenly announced his intention of declining 
 to be a candidate for reelection. 
 
 " We must instantly go home and organize a 
 movement to nominate Andrew," was the unani- 
 mous utterance. They were too shrewd not to 
 recognize the fortuitous opportunity ; too energetic 
 not to make the most of it. A vigorous campaign 
 was instantly instituted. Letters were sent forth 
 in all directions ; trusty emissaries were despatched 
 to work up the proper feelings ; they themselves 
 were indefatigable in their efforts to set every 
 possible agency in motion. The result was that 
 within a week they had called together a conven- 
 tion that nominated Andrew. There was some 
 opposition to Andrew throughout the State, owing 
 to his identification with the radical section of his 
 party, but he was triumphantly elected. Mr. Bird 
 
50 FRANCIS WILLIAM BIRD. 
 
 became a member of his Council, and from that 
 time forth for ten years, with only one brief period 
 of intermission, was a power in the political affairs 
 of the State. 
 
 Mr. Bird himself related this incident, in a 
 letter to the Springfield Republican, 
 
 "Through the summer of '59," he said, "it was 
 understood that Governor Banks desired renomi- 
 nation. Our earnest anti-Know-Nothing Republi- 
 cans persistently urged Mr. Andrew to allow them 
 to take his name into the convention as a candi- 
 date against Governor Banks. For six years I had 
 'taken to the woods,' but at last I was induced to 
 appeal to Mr. Andrew to accede to the wishes of 
 his friends. He replied that it was the general 
 expectation that Mr. Banks was to be renominated; 
 that the introduction of his own name would dis- 
 turb the harmony of the party, and under no cir- 
 cumstances would he consent to it, so long as 
 Governor Banks was in the field. 
 
 "And here let me recur to a 'pleasing reminis- 
 cence. ' The scene was Colonel Hatch's tent on 
 the camp-meeting ground at Martha's Vineyard. 
 The colonel's Methodism did not prohibit a proper 
 degree of conviviality ; and while we were having 
 a jolly time, the news came that Governor Banks, 
 having received an appointment on a Western 
 railroad, had declined being a candidate for gov- 
 ernor. Our caps, but for the roof of the tent, 
 would have gone up to the stars, and Henry L. 
 
FRANCIS WILLIAM BIRD. 51 
 
 Pierce (now congressman) was particularly ex- 
 travagant in demonstrations of delight. 'Now, 
 Frank,' said Henry, 'we must go home and go to 
 work for Andrew. ' ' There is nothing to be done, ' 
 said I; 'Andrew will be nominated on the first 
 ballot by a two-thirds vote.' Had we known, 
 then, what afterward transpired, that Governor 
 Banks's purpose to decline had been known to his 
 friends for some weeks, and that pipe-laying had 
 been going on all over the State to secure dele- 
 gates in favor of Mr. Dawes, we should have been 
 less jubilant over Mr. Andrew's prospects. It 
 was, indeed, a formidable combination against 
 us. All the congressmen were for Mr. Dawes. 
 A portion of the delegates had then been elected, 
 and the convention was to be held so soon that 
 Andrew's friends could make no special effort in 
 his behalf. But if ever a spontaneous selection of 
 a candidate was made, it was this by the people 
 of Massachusetts of John A. Andrew. They re- 
 membered the little curly-headed ' chap, ' whose 
 magnificent burst of eloquence in reply to Caleb 
 Cushing's denunciation of the removal of Judge 
 Loring electrified the House and touched the popu- 
 lar heart from Barnstable to Berkshire; and it 
 was this uprising of the people that gave to Mas- 
 sachusetts and the country our great war governor. 
 " I remember well, and I love to remember, the 
 gathering at Worcester on the night before the 
 convention. About midnight, I sought the Hon- 
 
52 FRANCIS WILLIAM BIRD. 
 
 orable J. Z. Goodrich and said to him: 'Mr. G., 
 the nomination for governor is settled. Andrew 
 will be the candidate. Our friends would like to 
 put your name as lieutenant on the ticket with 
 him.' Mr. Goodrich thought not, he having 
 aspirations for the first place himself. In the 
 small hours of the morning, he came to my room 
 and said that, having consulted his friends, he 
 had concluded to accept the second place if offered 
 to him. 'But,' he added, 'I wish it understood 
 that this will not prevent my being candidate for 
 governor hereafter.' 'Of course,' I replied; 'no- 
 body here can control the future. ' The next day 
 Andrew and Goodrich were nominated." 
 
 An epoch of tremendous significance had now 
 dawned on our beloved country. Fortunate, in- 
 deed, for its well-being that the guidance of the 
 Ship of State had been placed in hands so able 
 and so well fitted to steer it through the stormy 
 times that were to follow. It has been truly said 
 that Andrew and his associates devoted all their 
 energies for the advantage of the public weal. 
 It may be fair here to quote a brief passage from 
 a letter which Governor Andrew wrote a year or 
 two later to Mr. Bird. It admirably shows the 
 spirit which animated the man : — 
 
 "My dear Bird, — 
 
 "You are as good and true a friend, patriot, and 
 man as there is in the world ; and I think that other 
 people, knowing yoii are sensitive, and not caring much 
 
FRANCIS WILLIAM BIRD. 53 
 
 for other people's feelings, and having private ends, 
 griefs, or views not consistent with the simplicity of 
 truth, self-denial, and patriotism, are very willing to 
 say and suggest things which they know will wound 
 your good heart. 
 
 "As to myself, much as injustice tries me, I never- 
 theless am trained in mind somewhat to respect and 
 to meet it. Of one thing I know certain ; i.e. I have 
 been and am and mean to be, with every power of 
 mind, heart, and soul, devoted, in my poor way, to the 
 most tremendous and momentous cause history has 
 yet seen. If others are jealous, I must bear it. I 
 fear God, and hope I do not too much fear men. And 
 before His awful judgment in my absolute cleanness 
 and sincerity of purpose, sinner though I am, I am 
 glad to believe all these things must appear. Fol- 
 lowing nothing but my convictions unceasingly and 
 untiringly (and I think unselfishly), never doing any- 
 thing for myself, nor for my own ulterior promotion 
 or protection, combining with no one on earth, but 
 casting everything and every care on the Providence 
 which governs all, I keep my mind free, my heart 
 light, and hope and faith undimmed. 
 
 " Ever and gratefully yours, 
 
 "John A. Andrew." 
 
 This noble letter, which stands on the highest 
 level of serene and patriotic utterances, makes it 
 evident why Governor Andrew was a governor 
 exactly to Mr. Bird's mind. It is undoubtedly 
 true that politics at this time in Massachusetts 
 were at almost an ideal state of purity. The Re- 
 publican party was in control, and the men who 
 
54 FEANCIS WILLIAM BIRD. 
 
 influenced and guided it met weekly about Mr. 
 Bird's table. The political boss, shaping legis- 
 lation for selfish ends, had no place in councils so 
 lofty and dignified. Mr. Bird may have differed 
 with the great war governor on minor points, but 
 never except with mutual respect. With the 
 general course of the administration Mr. Bird was 
 in the most cordial sympathy, and the vigorous 
 anti-slavery policy developed in the course of the 
 following years was directly in line with his 
 inmost feelings. 
 
 He earnestly resented the attempts which were 
 from time to time made to injure Andrew with 
 the people. It was charged that the governor 
 was in sympathy with John Brown in his raid 
 into Virginia; but, while both Mr. Andrew and 
 Mr. Bird were in accord with Brown's devotion 
 to the great cause of liberty, and undoubtedly 
 admired his moral fearlessness, there is no proof 
 that either of them aided, abetted, or indeed knew 
 of the Harper's Ferry expedition. Much as they 
 might appreciate his certainly unselfish efforts for 
 the liberation of the downtrodden, they would not 
 have countenanced open defiance of law. 
 
VII. 
 
 At the Republican convention of 1859 Mr. Bird 
 was at first a supporter of William H. Seward as 
 candidate for the Presidency, but when Abraham 
 Lincoln was finally chosen, he entered heart and 
 soul into the campaign. Indeed, he found him- 
 self quite out of sympathy with Mr. Seward's 
 course, not only during the following winter, but 
 also and especially in his action as Secretary of 
 State. In frequent contributions to the press he 
 severely criticised Mr. Seward, taking the ground 
 that a fatal mistake was made in hiding from the 
 knowledge of foreign powers the fact that anti- 
 slavery was at the bottom of the internecine contest. 
 
 For the present generation, educated to take the 
 course of history for granted, it is very hard to 
 realize how slow the North was in waking to a 
 realization of the magnitude of the war, and the 
 absolute necessity that the South should be con- 
 quered. In his clear foresight and his readiness 
 to anticipate, Governor Andrew displayed some of 
 the qualities of the prophet, but in this respect 
 Mr. Bird stood on the same lofty altitude. But 
 Mr. Bird was impulsive, and perhaps over-anxious 
 
 56 
 
66 FRANCIS WILLIAM BIRD. 
 
 to accelerate the slowly swelling current. He was 
 extremely anxious that Governor Andrew should 
 throw the weight of his dignity and his official 
 position into the scale when, in December, 1861, 
 Governor Boutwell was to make an address in 
 favor of emancipation. Some people had found 
 fault with Andrew on the ground of his non-action 
 in the matter of slavery discussion, and Mr. Bird 
 thought that if he would preside at this meeting, 
 it would silence their cavils. But Andrew, who 
 in spite of his willingness to accept advice had 
 nevertheless a mind of his own, declined to " in- 
 crease his personal consequence at the cost of the 
 cause which he humbly served"; and he wrote 
 Mr. Bird a long letter of eleven folio pages defend- 
 ing his independence in this regard. It contained 
 some memorable sentences. 
 
 "Working unweariedly," he wrote, "in the 
 interests of our most liberal ideas, through all 
 the channels of access both to the President and 
 the Head of the Army ... I am and always have 
 been sure that patience, prudence, and patriotic 
 devotedness to the country's cause will lead us to 
 one only issue at last in the disposition [disper- 
 sion?] of slavery." He then went on to outline a 
 course of action : to keep the country united in the 
 war and prevent the formation of peace parties ; 
 to make the Administration feel strong as to 
 money, popular support, and individual coopera- 
 tion ; to keep many of the most influential men of 
 
FRANCIS WILLIAM BIRD. 57 
 
 the country advancing all the time on that para- 
 mount issue; to win victories rather than to dis- 
 cuss what might be done and what ought to be 
 done ; to bring the slaves themselves into the field 
 as soon as possible; and, finall}'-, to bring the 
 Northern mind to a comprehension of the neces- 
 sity of a genuine conquest. " The extreme slow- 
 ness of the North to take up arms," he said, "is 
 not to be forgotten. They bore every threat and 
 indignity, every danger, even to the Union, and 
 every exhibition of rebellious purpose, but you 
 will remember how from land's end to land's end 
 I was reviled last winter for a little war prepara- 
 tion, and how nothing but an attack on Sumter 
 and the threatened march on Washington and 
 violent rebellion in Maryland even aroused gov- 
 ernment or people to their arms." 
 
 He then went on to show how the people w^ere 
 beginning to understand, twent}^ times better than 
 they did six months before, that it was not merely 
 a war to restore the Union : " In the stern neces- 
 sity of the logic of war, they will reach the 
 point of grappling with slavery and turning the 
 guns of that fortress against the power of slavery 
 itself." 
 
 "We 'black Republicans,' " he goes on to say, 
 "can retard the cause, but we can do little to 
 hasten it save by swelling the current as it moves " ; 
 and he adds, with fine eloquence: "With this 
 feeling and these views I have sought, by throw- 
 
58 FRANCIS WILLIAM BIED. 
 
 ing myself unreservedly into the cause in the 
 immediate interest of patriotic duty, to contribute 
 my humble mite at once to Patriotism, to Demo- 
 cratic Government, and to human Liberty, So 
 have the Republicans as a body. Nor is there 
 a doubt of the wisdom of the policy they have 
 pursued." 
 
 The wise leader is never too far in advance ; 
 otherwise, he loses his influence. Step by step 
 he moves forward, with his eye fixed on the goal, 
 which his followers are as yet unable to see. That 
 aphorism is proved by the recently discovered 
 unpublished speech of Lincoln, who clearly recog- 
 nized that slavery would ultimately be abolished 
 from the domain of this fair land. But most of 
 the leading anti-slavery men of the North, or at 
 least of Massachusetts, felt a degree of impatience 
 with Lincoln, because he delayed so long decree- 
 ing the emancipation of the slaves. Mr. Bird 
 wrote a series of articles on this subject for the 
 Norfolk County Journal of Roxbury, under the 
 caption, "Let My People Go." In these he ear- 
 nestly urged emancipation. They served an 
 admirable purpose in helping to educate the people 
 to appreciate the necessity of this drastic measure. 
 As soon as the people were educated, — and the 
 growth of opinion was rapid in those days, — then 
 the government felt itself strong enough to take 
 the needful step. As Sumner and Andrew and 
 Mr. Bird and others succeeded in impressing their 
 
FRANCIS WILLIAM BIRD. 59 
 
 views, the tone of legislation began to take that 
 welcome wholesomeness that betokens vigorous 
 growth. As early as 1862 the Massachusetts 
 Legislature passed a series of resolutions advocat- 
 ing immediate emancipation. Mr. Bird expressed 
 his desire of presenting a copy of the resolutions 
 to President Lincoln, and Governor Andrew was 
 glad to accept his services ; but some little delay 
 ensued, and the following letter of explanation, 
 in Andrew's quaint and hasty handwriting, was 
 despatched to East Walpole : — 
 
 '^My dear Bird, — 
 
 "A copy of the Eesolves on the Abolition of Slav- 
 ery was sent by mail to the President, with a con- 
 siderable number of similar documents directed to our 
 members of Congress. It is usual to send by mail 
 also, even when we send by s^^ecial messenger. But 
 in this instance I did not intend it should go by mail, 
 without previously mentioning it to you ; and it would 
 not have gone, had not my illness, detaining me so 
 much at home within a few days, prevented my at- 
 tending so much as usual to the details of my work. 
 However, I suppose it is of no consequence. For, 
 whenever you can leave, I desire the duplicate to go 
 by your hand, with an autograph letter, expressive 
 of my own views and feelings, to the President ; 
 which is reserved for your convenience, — I have 
 awaited your motion, — since it is a labor of love 
 on your part, not to be hurried by me to your dis- 
 comfort or inconvenience. 
 
 " I am yours faithfully, 
 
 "John A. Andrew." 
 
60 FRANCIS WILLIAM BIRD. 
 
 The Honorable Peleg W. Chandler, who was a 
 member of the Legislature at that time, and one 
 of the most conservative of Republicans, gives in 
 his brief life of Andrew an account of what took 
 place when Mr. Bird presented the resolutions to 
 the Chief Magistrate : — 
 
 "Arrived in Washington, the messenger, by 
 appointment, met the President at eleven o'clock 
 the next morning to present this Resolve of the 
 Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The Chief 
 Magistrate of the nation sat in an armchair, while 
 the emissary of Massachusetts presented the docu- 
 ment with a little speech. The President took 
 the document, slowly unrolled it, and remarked 
 in a quaint way, — 
 
 "'Well, it isn't long enough to scare a fellow.* 
 
 "It is not remarkable that the Massachusetts 
 official said as he left the room, — 
 
 " ' That is certainly an extraordinary person to 
 be President of the United States.' " 
 
 Mr. Bird was not at all a stickler for formalities 
 in either public or private life, but such a free 
 and easy treatment of the great seal of the State 
 affected him somewhat in the same manner as 
 Sumner was affected when, during the darkest 
 crisis of the war, Lincoln suddenly asked him to 
 try his favorite game of "putting up backs." 
 
 But if Mr. Bird was shocked by his first impres- 
 sion, he was keen enough to appreciate his native 
 shrewdness. He frequently remarked in later 
 
FRANCIS WILLIAM BIRD. 61 
 
 years, that Lincoln was one of the ablest politi- 
 cians the country had ever produced. The appre- 
 ciation of Lincoln as a far-seeing statesman was a 
 matter of slow growth. Nearly all the public men 
 of that day agreed in their lower estimate of the 
 man. It has been said that probably not one fairly 
 estimated Lincoln. 
 
 During this same year, 1862, there arose a strong 
 sentiment of opposition to Charles Sumner, and a 
 desperate effort was made to prevent his election 
 for the third term in the United States Senate. 
 The sympathy which had been felt for him after 
 the dastardly assault made upon him by Preston 
 S. Brooks, six years before, was in a measure for- 
 gotten. The conservative division of the Repub- 
 lican party severely criticised his action in urging 
 extreme anti-slavery measures in the prosecution 
 of the war; they asserted that he was arrayed in 
 antagonism against the President. In the so- 
 called "People's Party" then organized, were 
 Joseph Parker, Judge Thomas, Dr. Loring, Caleb 
 Cushing, and Judge Devens, as well as many 
 Republicans who thought Sumner too radical. 
 
 Mr. Bird, who always had his eyes open to 
 contingencies, conceived the idea of making a 
 coup d'etat which should completely outflank Mr. 
 Sumner's enemies. The election of the senator 
 would lie in the hands of the new Legislature ; 
 therefore elect a Legislature which should reflect 
 the opinion of the radicals I 
 
62 FRANCIS WILLIAM BIRD. 
 
 Mr. Bird, ablj seconded by William S. Robin- 
 son, whose watchword was, there are only "two 
 forces — God and the Devil," determined to com- 
 pel the Republican State convention, which met 
 at Worcester on the tenth of September, to endorse 
 Mr. Sumner and declare for his nomination. This 
 was an unprecedented innovation. Richard H. 
 Dana, Linus Child, Joel Parker, and other con- 
 servative Republicans fought against it "tooth 
 and nail." But so great was Mr. Bird's personal 
 influence and the power of his arguments, that at 
 last, in spite of all opposition, the motion was 
 carried. 
 
 The defeated minority the next day gave ex- 
 pression to their chagrin and disappointment by 
 forming a new convention, at which a schismatic 
 ticket was presented, with the view of " standing 
 by the President ! " The seceding Republicans 
 even went so far as to oppose the reelection of 
 Andrew, on the ground that he, as well as Sumner, 
 was identified with the anti-slavery section of 
 the party. The schism was a complete failure; 
 Andrew and Sumner were both triumphantly re- 
 elected, and the popular expression of sympathy 
 with their views was quickly ratified and grati- 
 fied by President Lincoln, in whose behalf the 
 opposition was ostensibly organized, signing the 
 Emancipation Proclamation, on the twenty-second 
 of the month, and thus publicly ranging himself, 
 as he had all the time been at heart, on the side 
 
FRANCIS WILLIAM BIBD. 68 
 
 of " God and the right. " In their disappointment, 
 the seceders coalesced with the Democrats, and 
 nominated General Devens as governor, and a 
 whole list of congressmen ; but not even this com- 
 bination was strong enough to defeat the regular 
 ticket. Governor Andrew was reelected by a 
 majority of 25, 000 ; Charles Francis Adams, who 
 had been nominated for senator, withdrew in favor 
 of Sumner, who then received nearly all the votes 
 in the Legislature. Mr. Bird was the leader of 
 this movement in behalf of Sumner, and his suc- 
 cess was all the more pronounced because the daily 
 press of Boston gave him only lukewarm support. 
 Most of the Republican papers were, indeed, edited 
 in the interests of the conservative wing, though 
 they did not go so far as to join the bolters of 1862. 
 It was evident that something needed to be 
 done. All was quiet on the Potomac, " One hun- 
 dred thousand unnamed demi-gods were silent in 
 the swamps of Virginia," writes one of Mr. Bird's 
 friends who was in the thick of the times. " Every 
 house in the land had its skeleton; yet nothing 
 was gained. The people were tired. The splen- 
 did enthusiasm which marked their uprising for 
 the defence of the Republic had been chilled by 
 depressing political influences, and large bounties 
 failed to fill up the ranks. England, France, stood 
 ready to acknowledge 'the Confederacy.' What 
 was to be done? Plainly, something, and that 
 speedily. Educate the public mind up to a de- 
 
64 FRANCIS WILLIAM BIRD. 
 
 mand for negro troops ! No newspaper was ready 
 to take the risks of such an enterprise. 
 
 " In a speech before the Republican State con- 
 vention at "Worcester, October 1, 1862, entitled 
 'Union and Peace: how shall they be restored?' 
 Charles Sumner eloquently advocated the Execu- 
 tive use of the war power in the enlistment of 
 negroes as troops, and the right of emancipation. 
 'It is not necessary,' said he, 'to carry the war 
 into Africa. It will be enough if we carry Africa 
 into the war, in any form, any quantity, any way. 
 The moment this is done, Rebellion will begin to 
 yield, and the Union will be secure forever. ' 
 
 "This speech was pronounced 'intolerable' by 
 the Boston newspapers, only garbled passages, 
 with unjust interpretation, appearing in any of 
 them." 
 
 It was felt that there was a need for a newspaper 
 that should fairly represent the opinions of Sum- 
 ner, Andrew, Bird, and others of their pronounced 
 and advanced standing. This thought came home 
 with especial force to Mr. George L. Stearns. 
 While he was considering the possibility of under- 
 taking such an enterprise as starting a newspaper 
 to champion the cause of colored troops, it hap- 
 pened that the Rev. Moncure D. Conway was 
 visiting him at Medford, and warmly sympathized 
 with the undertaking. It was he who suggested 
 the name. The Commonwealth^ and he was placed 
 in the editorial chair, and continued to conduct 
 
FRANCIS WILLIAM BIRD. 65 
 
 the paper till his departure for England in the 
 spring of 1863. It was first issued on the sixth 
 of September, 1862, from 22 Bromfield Street. 
 An index hand on the first page pointed to these 
 words: "We publish this week 20,000 copies of 
 The Commonwealth. Next week we shall print 
 60,000, perhaps 100,000, copies." It was sent 
 free to people all over the country. Its first issue 
 contained the whole of Mr. Sumner's Worcester 
 convention speech, and it is interesting to record 
 that this was the first date of any such recognition 
 of the great senator in his native city of Boston. 
 A month later came President Lincoln's prelimi- 
 nary proclamation. 
 
 With a view to offsetting this timid conserva- 
 tive influence, and of having an organ wherein 
 might be freely expressed the most radical views 
 in regard to public policy, Mr. Bird and Dr. S. G. 
 Howe decided to continue The Commonwealth^ 
 which for a whole year had been supported by 
 Mr. Stearns. While its main purpose was to 
 influence public thought by a bold and original 
 presentation of political matters, it also made its 
 mark by enlisting in its service many writers of 
 distinction, many young authors who afterwards 
 achieved a name in literature. Miss Louisa M. 
 Alcott contributed to its columns a series of 
 sketches, which were afterwards collected into 
 one of her best known books. Kalph Waldo 
 Emerson, who was an intimate friend of Mr. 
 
66 FEANCIS WILLIAM BIRD. 
 
 Stearns, wrote for it some of his choicest poems. 
 Alcott and Thoreau, Ellery Channing and D. A. 
 Wasson, J. J. Piatt and William D. Howells, 
 William T. Harris and F. B. Sanborn, were fre- 
 quently seen in its pages. Dr. Samuel G. Howe 
 took an interest in furthering its success, and 
 Mrs. Julia Ward Howe wrote for it. 
 
 Mr. Bird himself constantly discussed the poli- 
 tics of the day in the columns of The Common- 
 wealth. His style was clear and incisive. He 
 said things to the point — an excellent model for 
 newspaper writing. Style, as style, was of small 
 consequence to him. He had nothing of the 
 dilettante in his nature. He could say cutting 
 things, but he made little use of wit as a weapon. 
 His acquaintance with the Bible, with Shake- 
 speare and Pope and Scott, stood him in good stead 
 when he wished to fortify his arguments with a 
 touch of elegance. When he had anything to say, 
 he said it in the plain matter-of-fact manner which 
 exactly suited his character and dignity. It thus 
 bore great weight. Only rarely did he indulge 
 in shooting the perilous arrows of wit. When 
 he did, they struck the mark. Thus, during the 
 anti-Grant campaign, he wrote to the Boston Post 
 to express his surprise that any Independent could 
 vote for Garfield. "Our Independent friends," 
 he remarks trenchantly, "shouted over the defeat 
 of the Bosses at Chicago ; if they have not found 
 out that they shouted before they were out of the 
 
FBANCIS WILLIAM BIRD. 6T 
 
 woods, they are very blind. The writer of the 
 Scripture book of Job speaks of the 'folly of 
 the man who strengtheneth himself against the 
 Almighty . . . and runneth upon the thick bosses 
 of His buckler. ' They will find what egregious 
 folly they have committed in running on the 
 thick bucklers of the Bosses!" 
 
 The Emancipation Proclamation, which was 
 promulgated about the middle of July, 1862, put 
 the crown on the special work which The Common- 
 wealth was founded to perform. The 810,000 or 
 more which Mr. Stearns had spent on it had not 
 been wasted, but after a time he no longer cared 
 to be responsible for it, and it was given as a free 
 gift to Mr. Charles L. Slack, who kept it in a 
 more or less influential channel for many years. 
 Its early founders had some reason to be disap- 
 pointed at the character which it assumed. It 
 afterwards passed into the hands of the Rev. 
 Edward Everett Hale and associates, who occa- 
 sionally galvanized it into a spasmodic animation 
 which was not really life. As soon as the bor- 
 rowed capital was spent, it would decline; and 
 thus for several years it dragged along, or was 
 dragged along, moribund and comatose, till at 
 last it sank under the waves of disaster, leaving 
 behind nothing but its long record and its accu- 
 mulated debts. 
 
VIII. 
 
 The close of the war, and the retirement of 
 Governor Andrew from the Executive chair, 
 marked a temporary pause in Mr. Bird's active 
 participation in politics. He was friendly, but 
 not intimate, with the Honorable Alexander H. 
 Bullock, Governor Andrew's successor, but he 
 did not care to continue as a member of the 
 Council; he declared that he should feel sad 
 in the Council chamber without the presence 
 of his trusted chief. ^ His sense of loyalty to 
 
 1 In a letter to the Springfield Bepuhlican, written in June, 
 1887, Mr. Bird, after severely criticising the junketings of the 
 millionaire governor, thus referred to the inauguration of Bul- 
 lock and the retirement of the conscientious Andrew ; — 
 
 "It is the usage at the State House when a new governor 
 is to be inaugurated, for the old Council to attend the conven- 
 tion of the two branches with him and witness his taking of 
 the oaths. I did not care to witness the induction of Alexander 
 H. Bullock as successor of John A. Andrew, and remained 
 alone with the governor. 
 
 " Let others hail the rising sun ; 
 I bowed to him whose race was run. 
 
 His last official act was done." 
 
 Mr. Bird says he tried to persuade him to rest for six months 
 or a year, and recuperate from the effects of such constant 
 strain and overwork. *' His answer was : ' I dare say you are 
 
 68 
 
FRANCIS WILLIAM BTKD. 69 
 
 Andrew caused him to be active in organizing the 
 Andrew Council Association, which comprised all 
 the members who had served in that capacity dur- 
 ing the war governor's administration. 
 
 Among them was the Honorable Thomas Tal- 
 bot, afterwards governor of Massachusetts. With 
 him Mr. Bird formed a close friendship, which 
 lasted to the end. This association held its re- 
 unions for many years. Its last survivor was the 
 venerable John I. Baker, whose declining days 
 were not sufficiently fraught with infirmities to 
 prevent him from filling the office of mayor of 
 Beverly. 
 
 Mr. Bird was zealous to keep the conduct of 
 State legislation on the same high level to which 
 the single-minded Andrew had lifted it, and no 
 indication of deflection from this policy escaped 
 his watchful eye. After Governor Bullock had 
 served his terms of office, several scheming men 
 were announced as possible candidates. Mr. Bird 
 opposed their ambitions, and determined to place 
 the Honorable William Claflin in the State House. 
 Mr. Claflin was a man with whom he was in full 
 sympathy ; he had complete confidence in his in- 
 tegrity and political purity. Under Mr. Bird's 
 skilful management a movement was organized 
 
 right, but I must work for bread and butter for my wife and 
 children.' This he did," continues Mr. Bird, "and died in 
 seventeen months, in the forty-ninth year of his age, a martyr 
 to his services for the grand old Commonwealth he so loved 
 and honored." 
 
70 FRANCIS WILLIAM BIRD. 
 
 for Mr. Claflin's nomination, and through his 
 unwearied energy the campaign was carried to a 
 triumphal issue, greatly to his satisfaction. This 
 was in 1868. 
 
 His interest had already been somewhat diverted 
 from national politics to practical economic ques- 
 tions of vital interest to his own State. His great 
 services in behalf of emancipation were of course 
 practical, but they were on an epic and ideal plane 
 of morals. His new campaign was of course 
 moral, but it was on a different order. Great 
 corporations, with large capital and with selfish 
 ambitions, were taking advantage of their politi- 
 cal powers to involve the State treasury in vast 
 expenditures. Mr. Bird wrote a series of pam- 
 phlets, in which he argued that the Hoosac Tunnel 
 enterprise was a gigantic octopus fastening its 
 tentacles upon the State, and ruthlessly draining 
 it of millions. He spared no time or pains in his 
 efforts to master all the intricacies of this ques- 
 tion. He proved that this enterprise, which had 
 begun its operations with the assurance that it 
 would cost only a million or two, had already 
 reached the colossal extravagance of a twenty- 
 million-dollar job. He felt that the limited ad- 
 vantage accruing to a limited section of the State 
 did not justify such a lavish grant of State aid. 
 His arguments convinced many of the mistake 
 made, but the grasp of the corporation was too 
 firmly secured, — " the discipline of free passes 
 
FRANCIS WILLIAM BIRD. 71 
 
 and capital prevailed," — and the Legislature had 
 admitted too much to allow the damage to be 
 undone. 
 
 A year or two later he entered into another 
 characteristically energetic contest in behalf of the 
 State treasury. The Hartford and Erie Railway 
 Company was hopelessly bankrupt, and the State 
 was urged by interested parties to attempt its 
 rescue by granting to it additional millions of 
 credit. Against this legislated robbery he also 
 appealed to the people by means of pamphlets and 
 newspaper articles, arraying against it all the 
 arsenal of statistics and facts which he could 
 collect. He even published a newspaper, which 
 appeared day after day at his own expense. 
 
 He entered the Legislature chiefly with the end 
 in view of serving the State in behalf of its 
 threatened credit and treasury. When he an- 
 nounced himself a candidate for the State Senate 
 in 1870, he issued the following manifesto or 
 platform, which strongly expressed his actuating 
 principles : — 
 
 " I can safely pledge myself to watchfulness in 
 the appropriation of the money of the people, to 
 economy and honesty of expenditure, and purity 
 of legislation. I regard unnecessary taxation as 
 a great crime. My theory of taxation is that it 
 shall be laid only for objects in the benefits of 
 which the people of all parts of the State shall 
 share alike. I have opposed, and shall continue 
 
72 FRANCIS WILLIAM BIRD. 
 
 to oppose, any and all grants to railroad corpora- 
 tions without reasonable security for ultimate 
 reimbursement. It is impossible to distribute 
 such grants equally throughout the State, and I 
 therefore oppose taxing people of Norfolk County 
 millions of dollars for the benefit of a small 
 section of the northwestern part of the State 
 [the Hoosac Tunnel] ; and I oppose as earnestly 
 the appropriation of millions for the benefit of the 
 Hartford and Erie ring. All such appropriations, 
 and especially the corrupt means generally applied 
 to carry them, I shall do my best to defeat. Upon 
 the labor question I have to say that I have been 
 all my life a working man, — born, not 'of five 
 generations of Yankees ' [an expression of Wen- 
 dell Phillips], but of one or two, — and of working 
 men ; and I will go as far as the farthest for any 
 legislation which, in my honest judgment, will 
 improve the condition of the laborer. The diffi- 
 culty is as to methods. I will not follow the 
 vagaries of theorists and demagogues and jockeys ; 
 but I have always favored, and shall continue to 
 favor, equal legislative grants to laborers as to 
 capitalists ; and I have always said to the special 
 friends of labor in the Legislature, that whenever 
 the laboring men of the State substantially agree 
 upon the laws they wish to have passed in the 
 interests of labor, I should vote for them, — not 
 because I have the confidence they have as to 
 their answering the purpose, but because I think 
 
FRANCIS WILLIAM BIRD. 73 
 
 it desirable the experiment shall have a fair trial. 
 As an em2)loyer, I feel that my interests and those 
 of the employes are identical, and I have no fears 
 that any legislation which can help them can pos- 
 sibly hurt me." 
 
 The last sentence of his pledge was no idle 
 boast. He himself acted sincerely on those gen- 
 erous principles, and the love and respect which 
 were borne him by his workmen were a sufficient 
 proof of this friendly relationship. 
 
 Mr. Bird was elected, and as a member of the 
 Legislature he still bent all his energies to defeat- 
 ing the grant to the Boston, Hartford, and Erie 
 Railway. It was said that he spent most of his 
 time at the State House. The odds at one time 
 appeared to be greatly against him. It was 
 claimed that Governor Claflin was faltering; but 
 Mr. Bird was not discouraged. He used all his 
 powerful resources. The result was that when 
 the bill was finally passed, it was shorn of most 
 of its objectionable features. But Governor 
 Claflin vetoed even this emasculated bill. Prob- 
 ably Governor Claflin never intended to ignore 
 Mr. Bird's personal appeals to him; probably he 
 had his own ideas on the subject and acted inde- 
 pendently, though in line with the opponents of 
 the bill ; but the friends of the measure attributed 
 to Mr. Bird their defeat. He won an enviable 
 reputation as a practical financier and as a master 
 of the principles of true legislation. 
 
74 FRANCIS WILLIAM BIRD. 
 
 Unfortunately, perhaps, his influence was some- 
 what impaired in the later years of his service in 
 the Legislature by his identification with the 
 minority party of the State, and even this minor- 
 ity was not always in sympathy with his views, 
 for they, as ever, were marked by his indepen- 
 dence. But more and more he had the respect 
 and confidence of the thoughtful men of both 
 parties, and he was admired and venerated among 
 them all as he advanced in years. 
 
 As a member of the Legislature, first as a 
 Republican, and then later as a Democrat, he 
 devoted his attention exclusively to State affairs. 
 He was particularly interested in the legislation 
 relating to railways and the public lands, notably 
 the flats around Boston Harbor. He turned his 
 attention to the public charities, and was regarded 
 as singularly efficient in his grasp of such subjects. 
 It has been said of him : — 
 
 "He thought much, he reasoned well, and he 
 had an indomitable industry that made his ser- 
 vices invaluable. His second period of usefulness 
 was clearly here. He was fully as strong practi- 
 cally as he was morally; in fact, he carried his 
 morals into his practical work, and his complete 
 fearlessness led him to engage in effort from 
 which men who subordinated their convictions to 
 their ambition shrank." 
 
 In 1870 occurred Wendell Phillips's campaign 
 as labor candidate for governor, and his arraign- 
 
FRANCIS WILLIAM BIRD. 75 
 
 ment of the Republican party. In one of his 
 Parker Fraternity lectures he made a most unjust 
 attack on Mr. Bird as the "commander-in-chief 
 of the lobby forces." It was bitterly resented by 
 Mr. Bird's friends, and Mr. Bird himself replied 
 to his charges and innuendoes, and asking, as a 
 contemporary paper expressed it, " in the manliest 
 language that a man can address to one professing 
 the good of the State," that his charges should be 
 substantiated. From this controversy Mr. Bird 
 emerged with flying colors, and Wendell Phillips, 
 in spite of his eloquence, and in spite of his really 
 splendid efforts for the advantage of the working 
 man, was proved to be false, malicious, and con- 
 temptible.^ 
 
 1 After Phillips's assault on Mr. Bird, Oliver Johnson mote, 
 OctoberSl, 1870: — 
 "I cannot help writing to congratulate you upon your tri- 
 umphal vindication of yourself from the ungenerous and un- 
 scrupulous assault of Mr. Phillips. The task must have been 
 an unspeakably painful one, but it was one from which you 
 could not shrink ; and you have discharged it as a man. Your 
 words are cuttingly severe, but they are true and therefore justi- 
 fiable. . . ^ VI 
 
 " Mr. Phillips's later course is not surprising ; for, like some 
 others of his old associates in the anti-slavery cause, I years 
 a^o discovered how insolently and tyrannously unscrupulous he 
 w'ks. It was the knowledge of this that made us unwilling, after 
 slavery was fairly abolished, to be longer associated with him in 
 a society which, slavery being dead, no longer had an excuse 
 for its existence. Garrison, Quincy, May, and scores of others 
 had clearly discerned his personal ambition, his readiness m 
 playing the part of a demagogue, and, above all, his reckless 
 disre-ard of the claims of truth and his willingness to insult 
 and spit upon even the dearest friend who should dare to resist 
 
76 FRANCIS WILLIAM BIED. 
 
 But Mr. Bird himself was on the verge of sepa- 
 rating from the Republican party. He had never 
 hesitated to take issue with men of his own party. 
 He was naturally critical of those who directed 
 public affairs. He had no toleration for what he 
 considered erroneous views, even though they 
 found favor in high places. He was never in 
 favor of high protective duties. The popular 
 dogma, that "to the victors belong the spoils," 
 seemed to him unworthy of any party, and the 
 persistent slaughter of subordinates made by the 
 newly elected officials offended his sense of public 
 duty. He felt that the Republican leaders were 
 particularly relentless in this barbarous diversion. 
 He was a firm believer in Civil Service reform. 
 
 The election of General Grant to the Presidency 
 in 1868 had found him acquiescent, though not 
 exactly satisfied ; he would have preferred a man 
 more closely identified with the anti-slavery ideas 
 of the Lincoln stripe. But when General Grant 
 and Charles Sumner had their rupture over the 
 proposed acquisition of San Domingo, then Mr. 
 Bird felt that all his forebodings were justified. 
 And as Grant's administration went from bad to 
 worse, and the abuses became notorious, he did 
 not hesitate to express his views. The best men 
 
 his will. If ever the truth in regard to his treatment of Garri- 
 son, and the considerate patience with which that noble man 
 bore his abuse, gets before the public, it will create the pro- 
 foundest astonishment and indignation." 
 
FRANCIS WILLIAM BIBD. 77 
 
 among the Republicans were in agreement with 
 him, but very few were willing to follow him in 
 his radical step of entering into organized opposi- 
 tion to the party with which they had been so long 
 identified. But he felt it his duty to oppose the 
 renomination of Grant; he could not forget or 
 forgive the wrong which he felt the President had 
 done Sumner, and he deprecated the influences 
 which the reelection of Grant would continue. 
 He was a delegate to the Independent Republican 
 convention, which was called at Cincinnati in 
 1872 to present an opposition candidate. Horace 
 Greeley was the man chosen. Mr. Bird was disap- 
 pointed, having in mind another candidate; but 
 he at once prepared to act loyally with his new 
 associates. 
 
 He returned to Massachusetts, and entered with 
 old-time energy into the arduous work of a cam- 
 paign which he himself probably recognized was 
 a forlorn hope. He spent his time and money 
 ungrudgingly in the work. He was the chief 
 agent in calling the Worcester convention, which 
 nominated a State ticket in line with the reform 
 principles. 
 
 The Democrats met in convention at the same 
 time with the Independent Republicans, and 
 insisted on putting into the field as the united 
 party's candidate for governor none other than 
 Charles Sumner. Sumner was at the time in 
 Europe, and was greatly annoyed at this un- 
 
78 FRANCIS WILLIAM BIRD. 
 
 authorized action. He wrote to Mr. Bird a vig- 
 orous protest, absolutely refusing to accept the 
 nomination. Mr. Bird knew perfectly well that 
 such would be the result, and therefore opposed 
 it. Thereupon a committee of the two conven- 
 tions nominated Mr. Bird himself as their candi- 
 date. He accepted it, although he never seriously 
 thought that there was any probability of the office 
 coming to him. He regarded it simply as an act 
 of political duty.i 
 
 In connection with this campaign there were 
 several curious and interesting readjustments of 
 relationship: Governor N. P. Banks, with whom 
 Mr. Bird had so long been in active antagonism, 
 came over to the Greeley side and presided over 
 the Independent convention. Dr. Samuel G. 
 Howe came out as a personal advocate and de- 
 fender of General Grant and the San Domingo 
 annexation scheme. Charles G. Davis was the 
 
 1 When he was nominated for governor, George M. Stearns, 
 of Springfield, wrote him, October 19, 1872, rejoicing that an 
 honest, straightforward man like himself was up for of&ce : — 
 
 "That you are placed upon the ticket in Sumner's place is 
 an earnest of no ordinary importance. No matter how remote 
 the probability of an election, it is a fact that will sound in 
 history as a protest of the intelligence and integrity of the age 
 against the venality of the political leading, and the truckling, 
 cowardly subserviency of the people to these wretched pot- 
 house broilers. I never recorded a more satisfactory vote than 
 the one I shall cast for you for governor of Massachusetts. It 
 seems as though God Almighty can't afford to let you be 
 beaten, but he works in mysterious ways, and with to us 
 apparent huge delays." 
 
FRANCIS WILLIAM BIRD, 
 
 79 
 
 only member of the old Free-soil guard who joined 
 with him in the Greeley movement. His friends, 
 William S. Robinson and Dr. Estes Howe, had no 
 hesitation in expressing their objections to Gree- 
 ley. Judge Adin Thayer developed a strong 
 Republican partisanship. Some of the most valu- 
 able of the letters which passed between Mr. Bird 
 and these former associates are enlivened by the 
 arguments which such political changes induced. 
 Mr. Bird certainly retained their friendship, and 
 even their admiration, though they perhaps failed 
 to sympathize with his action. 
 
 Mr. Bird's friends were surprised at the energy 
 which he showed throughout these trying experi- 
 ences, and at the measure of health which he 
 enjoyed in spite of his arduous labors. But two 
 years later he received a severe shock in the sud- 
 den death of his eldest son, Francis William, 
 whom he had trained to be his business partner 
 and to succeed him in the important industry of 
 paper-making. It was a terrible loss to him. 
 Many of his old friends were present at the funeral 
 services, and they expressed such sympathy with 
 him as showed that political differences were, 
 after all, only superficial separations. Indeed, 
 Henry Wilson and Ex-Governor Claflin made an 
 earnest effort to win him back into union with 
 them again, but his sense of public duty was too 
 strong to permit this step. 
 
 He wrote a friend at this time: "I never touch 
 
80 FRANCIS WILLIAM BIRD. 
 
 a pen except upon the sternest necessity. Your 
 kind and sympathetic letter at the time of the 
 death of our dear Will was very grateful to us all, 
 — I cannot tell how grateful, but if you will come 
 and see us in Boston, we will try to show you 
 how precious to our stricken hearts were the 
 hearty sympathies of one who knows how dark 
 such a loss leaves one's household. But duties 
 are before us, the neglect of which, especially 
 through grief for our loss, would dishonor the 
 dead." From this time till his death he acted 
 with the Democratic party. In his speech before 
 the Reform Club, where for the first time he 
 used the unfamiliar phrase, " Brethren of the 
 Democratic persuasion," he said in justifica- 
 tion : — 
 
 "For myself my position is fixed. I am a 
 Democrat of the old school. I inherited genuine 
 Democracy from my honored father. I was a 
 Free-soiler because I was a Democrat. I acted 
 with the Republican party so long as it was faith- 
 ful to Democratic principles. I left it fourteen 
 years ago, because it had become false to those 
 principles. I can never return to it. You, gen- 
 tlemen, have left the Republican party and can 
 never return." 
 
 But Mr. Bird's Democracy was the Democracy 
 of high ideals and lofty principles. He was abso- 
 lutely independent, and never hesitated to oppose 
 Democratic action on important occasions, where 
 
FRANCIS WILLIAM BIKD. 81 
 
 he felt that these principles were not upheld. 
 Thus he urged the fitness of General Banks for the 
 position of United States Marshal. He urged the 
 retention of Mr. Endicott as Sheriff of Norfolk 
 County, though he was a Republican ; and this he 
 did on the ground that that office should be above 
 all partisan claims. He vigorously resented the 
 Democratic party selecting General Butler as its 
 candidate for governor, though afterwards he voted 
 for him and defended his action. General But- 
 ler, who always respected Mr. Bird, keenly felt 
 his refusal of support, and wrote him a friendly 
 personal letter expressing his regret. 
 
 In 1876 he had great hopes of better things ; he 
 wrote expressing his feeling that there was too 
 much talk about reform : "We must act reform," 
 he said, and he agreed with his friend, William 
 Gaylord, who wrote him: "Tilden at the head 
 of the national ticket and Adams at the head 
 of the State ticket, is acting reform, and the 
 people will believe it." And so when the great 
 conspiracy of 1876 succeeded in ruling out Mr. 
 Tilden, who he felt realized our Massachusetts 
 ideal of a Democratic ruler, he expressed his out- 
 raged feelings with great vigor. Said he : — 
 
 " If I could reach the entire Democratic party 
 of the country, I would say to them, 'To your 
 tents, O Israel, to your tents ! ' I would say to 
 every Democrat, 'Never recognize politically, offi- 
 cially, or judicially the President who comes into 
 
bZ FRANCIS WILLIAM BIRD. 
 
 power by such manifest frauds. Never accept an 
 office under the incoming administration, from 
 the Cabinet downwards. Never let a Democrat 
 darken the door of the White House. Support 
 the government de facto so far as it is necessary 
 to its successful administration, but never, directly 
 or indirectly, admit that it has legal or constitu- 
 tional right to power. ' If I could get the ear of 
 our Southern brethren, I would bid them beware 
 of the Greeks bearing presents and distrust the 
 honeyed promises of the party which for twelve 
 years has heaped upon you every indignation and 
 every outrage, and whose present professions are 
 prompted only by the purpose to divide and con- 
 quer. 'Beware,' as John Randolph once said, 
 'beware of the gilded sting that lurks beneath the 
 gaudy pinions of the butterfly.' " 
 
 Mr. Bird's legislative services ended in 1880, 
 but his influence in behalf of purity of politics 
 and a high ideal of statesmanship was still benefi- 
 cently exerted. His terse and pithy letters to 
 the various papers were always gladly welcomed, 
 but as the infirmities of age crept on him, he 
 found greater difficulty in composition. He was 
 on particularly intimate terms with Mr. George 
 H. Monroe, of the Boston Herald, and Colonel 
 William W. Clapp, of the Journal. He greatly 
 admired President Cleveland and felt full sym- 
 pathy with the tariff reform for which he stood. 
 His own ideas on that subject were concisely 
 
FRANCIS WILLIAM BIRD. 83 
 
 stated in a letter to the Boston Post in 1883, in 
 which he said: — 
 
 "A tariff for revenue only honestly means just 
 what the language means, and is founded upon 
 what I hold to be a truism under our form of gov- 
 ernment, — that the Congress of the United States 
 has no right to tax the people of these States 
 for one single dollar beyond what is necessary 
 economically and efficiently to carry on the gov- 
 ernment." 
 
 In this letter he again repeated the story of the 
 subscription to the paper-makers' association in 
 behalf of an enhanced protection tax. And he 
 ended with this bold declaration of indepen- 
 dence : — 
 
 "If I cannot get a living as a paper-maker 
 without asking Congress to authorize me to steal, 
 I will do something else. Fifty years' experience 
 as a paper-maker has convinced me that our busi- 
 ness needs no protection, and fifty years' obser- 
 vation has brought me to the same conclusion in 
 regard to other branches of manufacturing. One 
 of these days intelligent manufacturers will come 
 to this conclusion; whether they do or not, the 
 people will." 
 
 It was a source of peculiar satisfaction to him 
 when his long-time friend, Thomas Talbot, was 
 elected governor of Massachusetts. By a curious 
 reaction he now received the Republican nomina- 
 tion for the House of Representatives. Judge 
 
84 FRANCIS WILLIAM BIRD. 
 
 Adin Thayer, of the Republican State committee, 
 penned an earnest but entirely spontaneous appeal 
 to the party, in which he said : — 
 
 " He has rendered us most important and effec- 
 tive aid in the campaign against Butler this fall, 
 and many of the most able articles that have been 
 published have been written by him. His thor- 
 ough knowledge of State affairs would render him 
 a most efficient aid to Governor Talbot in carrying 
 out his ideas of State reform, and I should regard 
 it as almost a public calamity to lose his valuable 
 aid at the next session of the Legislature." 
 
 The Springfield Republican^ commenting on Mr. 
 Bird's apparent chameleon changes of political 
 complexion, remarked with wise generosity and 
 fairness : — 
 
 " How could such changes occur without cost- 
 ing an honest enthusiast his reputation for either 
 honesty or sagacity ? Yet Mr. Bird, though often 
 bitterly hated and visited with social or political 
 ostracism, has never failed to command the respect 
 of Massachusetts. He has been in the leanest of 
 minorities, — with the defeated Free-soilers in the 
 Know-Nothing freshet of 1854, with the 'straight 
 Republicans' in their apparently useless protest 
 against Banks in 1857, with the Greeley and 
 Sumner minority of 1872, and with the faithful 
 few who, with Judge Abbott and Reuben Noble, 
 upheld the standard of Jacksonian Democracy in 
 1878. But from this minority nettle he has again 
 
FRANCIS WILLIAM BIRD. 85 
 
 and again plucked the flower of political success, 
 winning what he most desired, the triumph of his 
 principles, though his candidates might be beaten 
 out of sight." 
 
 And the article ended : — 
 
 "In practical politics he has known how to 
 unite firmness of purpose with dexterity of com- 
 bination and facility in meeting each issue as it 
 arises. Nor is his eye dimmed or his natural 
 force abated in this direction by his seventy years 
 or his occasional infirmities. . . . Without Mr. 
 Bird, Massachusetts would be a very different 
 thing. He is the most skilful partisan, and at 
 the same time the most inveterate independent, 
 among our politicians, his aim being always 
 toward good government and the true interest of 
 the people themselves. To this steady aim all his 
 prejudices and caprices have to conform, and he 
 is no more free from such faults than colder and 
 more selfish men are. His crowning quality is 
 social, — his fidelity and generosity in friendship." 
 
 Mr. Bird failed of election, but Governor Talbot 
 frequently sought his advice on matters of State 
 policy, and he found himself in hearty sympathy 
 with the measures of economy in State expenditure 
 which made a marked feature of Governor Talbot's 
 administration. He did not agree with him, how- 
 ever, in his policy toward the liquor question. 
 He thought prohibition a mistake, and he objected 
 to license, unless it was open to all. The grant- 
 
86 FRANCIS WILLIAM BIRD. 
 
 ing of favors to any class of individuals was con- 
 trary to his democratic spirit. Yet he was alive 
 to the evils that attended the liquor traffic, and 
 he thought legislation on that subject had been a 
 failure. He said in 1869: — 
 
 "Read the Statute Books from the day that 
 Captain Standish seized Morton's 'strong waters ' 
 to the day when Major Jones seized Pfaff's lager, 
 and it will be found that legislative ingenuity has 
 been exhausted in expedients to remedy admitted 
 evils; and to-day the diversity of opinion as to 
 the best methods of dealing with the matter is as 
 great as ever." 
 
 His own belief inclined to that system which 
 provided against the sale of bad liquors and should 
 furnish a rigid oversight of the traffic. He him- 
 self was not until late in life a total abstainer, but 
 he made a very temperate use of liquors and drank 
 none in his own family. 
 
 Mr. Bird had little patience with the dilettante 
 administration of Governor Ames, and wrote in 
 severe criticism of his placing the public trust in 
 subordination to his own private business. But 
 after the election of Governor Russell he began 
 once more to visit the State House, where he 
 always received a reverent welcome. Even after 
 he had passed the age of eighty, he still kept up 
 his interest in public affairs, and was constantly 
 seen in the streets of Boston, — a tall, venerable, 
 slow-moving figure, notable among the indistin- 
 
FRANCIS WILLIAM BIRD. 87 
 
 guisliable throng. "Taverner," of the Boston 
 Fost^ thus records meeting him : — 
 
 " February 22, 1890. 
 "I saw 'Frank Bird' (and I hope he will pardon 
 the familiarity, of my mention of him) on the street 
 yesterday, and it did me good to observe how hale 
 and hearty he looked. With his great-coat reaching 
 below his knees, his long, thick woollen muffler, and 
 his slouched felt hat, the light color of which gave 
 it a somewhat summerish appearance, he seemed as 
 young as a good many younger men who were passing 
 at the time. The Sage of Walpole has indeed pre- 
 served his mental as well as his physical powers 
 remarkably for a man of his years, and I suppose 
 there are few shrewder observers of the signs of the 
 times than he. It is to his credit that he takes such 
 liberal views of political affairs, and that old age, 
 instead of narrowing, has broadened his outlook on 
 men and things." 
 
 That was indeed characteristic of Mr. Bird's old 
 age, that instead of looking back fondly to a van- 
 ished past of great men and great deeds, he fully 
 recognized that new times brought new duties, 
 and new men to fulfil them. He therefore sym- 
 pathized with young men ; and while himself grew 
 old and infirm, his heart was as ever young. 
 
IX. 
 
 DuEiNG all these years of political activity, of 
 hard work in the acquisition of honest dollars, 
 when, as he himself said, " his life was divided 
 between the paper mill and public and political 
 services," when for no small part of the time the 
 duties in which he was engaged were of a most 
 serious nature, there were, nevertheless, many 
 occasions which marked red-letter days in his 
 recollections. 
 
 During the summers he was always in the habit 
 of enjoying a season of recuperation from his 
 arduous labors. Once, when he was compelled to 
 respond to a personal toast, Mr. Bird remarked: — 
 
 " To work ten, twelve, or eighteen hours, as I 
 have often been compelled to do in my mill, and 
 then find time to discuss the Hoosac Tunnel or 
 some other matter, has been pretty hard work, 
 but yet I am not sure but that men who have to do 
 it are not on the whole better, and perhaps hap- 
 pier, men. Such has been my life, and with all 
 its drawbacks and failures it has been a very 
 happy life." 
 
 His conscience assured him that he had tried to 
 
 88 
 
FRANCIS WILLIAM BIRD. 89 
 
 do his duty. Friendship, honor, and duty were 
 his watchwords, —the "three things worth living 
 for in this world." And it was surely his duty 
 as well as his pleasure to gather strength for suc- 
 ceeding labors that he visited the mountains and 
 the seashore. In spite of his dyspeptic troubles 
 he was something of an athlete. He was a fine 
 swimmer, and even after he had lost the vigor of 
 his youth, he would rush into the water with 
 intense delight. He had a keen joy in the free 
 and untrammelled life of the woods, and when 
 he had temporarily cut loose from the amenities 
 of civilization, no one ever endured with greater 
 equanimity the hardships of the wilderness than he. 
 It was during his temporary retirement from 
 political activity in the early fifties that he first 
 made the acquaintance of the Adirondacks, and 
 these splendid regions of mountain and lake ap- 
 pealed to his poetic side very much as they did to 
 Emerson. For many years he made frequent ex- 
 cursions thither, and always with renewed enjoy- 
 ment and advantage. In 1870 he wrote to his 
 friend. Colonel W. W. Clapp, an enthusiastic 
 letter regarding these periodical resorts to " Mother 
 Nature": — 
 
 " For the last sixteen years I have visited the 
 New York woods once, twice, or three times a 
 year, in every month from June to January. 
 Gradually I have shortened, or given up entirely, 
 my trips to the seashore, the White Mountains, or 
 
90 FBANCIS WILLIAM BIRD. 
 
 Niagara, giving all the time I could spare to these 
 woods, for the sole reason that a week spent in 
 the profound repose of these primeval woods, 
 away from business, from politics, from every 
 excitement, — beyond the telegraph, beyond the 
 mails, — brought more rest, more recuperation, 
 than a month at fashionable watering-places, or 
 other more frequented places of resort. I have 
 shrunk from seeing the section, so precious to me 
 as offering an asylum of such repose, invaded by a 
 crowd; and I have been more than content to 
 make up a party of four or five good fellows (tak- 
 ing a portion of my own family with me in the 
 summer), selecting a time when no other visitors 
 were there, taking possession of the hotel, and, 
 with the wilderness all before us where to choose, 
 getting our selfish fill of sport and rest. ... I 
 am no sportsman, as Mr. Murray is, and of late 
 years am inclined in the summer to loaf about the 
 hotel, occasionally taking a short trip or two to 
 shoot a deer or two and catch what trout we want, 
 — perhaps spending a night out, perhaps return- 
 ing the same day. One will take probably as 
 many deer and trout within five or six miles of 
 the hotel, in the same time, as by going farther 
 into the woods. Indeed, I think I never found 
 deer so abundant (and I have tramped and boated 
 a great many hundred miles over the best portions 
 of that wilderness) as we found them last month, 
 within two or three miles of the hotel, involving 
 
FRANCIS WILLIAM BIKD. 91 
 
 a walk of eighty rods to our boat on the lake 
 (Pleasant). But doubtful things are always un- 
 certain. I have gone out in the morning, and 
 returned at night with two or three deer; and I 
 have 'shantied ' for ten days, and, without special 
 effort, killed ten or a dozen deer; while at other 
 times I have worked hard for several days without 
 a deer, living on short allowances of the provi- 
 sions we carried out, with nothing for the poor 
 dogs, when they came covered with ice to the 
 shanty, after races all day long, led by the deer 
 to water eight or ten miles away. ... In former 
 years we ' packed ' all our stuff, — and many a hot 
 and weary day have I tramped with a pack which 
 I would hardly carry a mile now for its weight in 
 gold. And yet we went through it as fresh as 
 larks ; and I doubt not Governor Boutwell [then 
 Secretary of the United States Treasury] would 
 gladly exchange a week of his treadmill for the 
 tramp we took to Raquette Lake in 1855, — fifty 
 miles, — with packs which made us stagger in the 
 morning, and seemed heavier than the burden of 
 Atlas before night; and that he would willingly 
 leave the bulls and bears of Wall Street to their 
 Kilkenny fight, if he could renew that few hours* 
 fishing in the Riffs at the South Inlet of Ra- 
 quette, or at the Eckford Lake, — although the 
 sport was followed by that terrible tramp from 
 Blue Mountain to Indian Lake." 
 
 Ex-Governor George S. Boutwell writes of him 
 
92 FRANCIS WILLIAM BIRD. 
 
 in this relation of life, when he was Mr. Bird's 
 companion, also as follows : — 
 
 "Mr. Bird enjoyed the society of friends, and 
 he contributed largely to their enjoyment. He 
 had a keen relish for outdoor pleasures and pur- 
 suits, and the Adirondack woods were his favorite 
 resort. On one of his trips, in the year 1855, I 
 was of his party, with D. W. Alvord, Henry L. 
 Pierce, and Mr. Hoyt, a civil engineer. We had 
 a fortnight of luxurious abstention from all the 
 cares of civilized life. Although Mr. Bird was 
 never a robust man, he seemed to enjoy the priva- 
 tions of forest life. During this two weeks and 
 more, we slept two nights on the floor of a log 
 house, and for the other nights on the ground, on 
 beds of boughs." 
 
 If one would know what sort of enjoyment men 
 of philosophic mind gather from such recreation, 
 one must read Emerson's Journal The Adiron- 
 dacJcs^ written after spending his summer with 
 "ten scholars " in those glorious abodes! 
 
 After the extraordinary efforts made by Mr. 
 Bird in defence of the Massachusetts treasury, he 
 started in the summer of 1870 for his favorite 
 resort. He was accompanied by Mr. Hartshorn, 
 a Walpole friend and neighbor, who stood ready 
 to aid him if in his reduced physical condition he 
 should find the privations of the wilderness too 
 great a tax on him. He had penetrated far 
 beyond the comforts of civilization, and there was 
 
FRANCIS WILLIAM BIRD. 93 
 
 suddenly prostrated by the most serious attack of 
 illness from which he had suffered since his early 
 youth. Heart failure appeared to be imminent. 
 Mr. Hartshorn decided to start immediately for 
 Walpole, though he had grave doubts whether his 
 friend would ever reach home alive. They trav- 
 elled by easy stages, constantly consulting physi- 
 cians at the places wherever they stopped to rest. 
 Mr. Bird afterwards related that everyone of them 
 declared that he had heart disease and predicted 
 his speedy demise; nowhere did he receive any 
 encouragement that he would ever recover; they 
 would even have deprived him of the hope of ever 
 reaching his home alive. 
 
 But Mr. Bird knew himself better than his 
 friends the doctors. "My heart is not affected 
 except indirectly," he insisted; "this trouble is 
 functional, not organic." 
 
 This proved to be the correct diagnosis, and it 
 was confirmed by his own physician when he 
 reached home. But he was left in a greatly pros- 
 trated state of health, from which it took him a 
 long time to rally. He never again was able to 
 perform his old feats under the sweet-scented 
 boughs of the Adirondack woods. 
 
 Few men were ever more frugal than Mr. Bird 
 as regards the pleasures of the table. While he 
 was unselfishly lavish in providing for others, 
 and enjoyed nothing better than to see his friends 
 enjoying a dinner of many courses, his share of 
 
94 FRANCIS WILLIAM BIRD. 
 
 the repast was for the most part a few Graham 
 crackers and a plate of soup, — a deliberate and 
 not a hasty plate of soup. He occasionally partook 
 of a slender glass of champagne, and he was fond 
 of the post-prandial cigar. In fact, he did not re- 
 nounce smoking till he was eighty, — and then it 
 was only because the necessity was upon him for 
 what he called "heroic treatment." Few public 
 men were in more demand at dinners. And a 
 whole book might be compiled about the dinners 
 at which he was the presiding figure. It was a 
 favorite habit of his friends to mark the anni- 
 versaries of his eventful life. 
 
 Thus, in the autumn of 1859, his fiftieth birth- 
 day was celebrated by a dinner in Boston. His 
 friends gathered in large numbers; most of the 
 prominent anti-slavery men of the State were 
 present, and John A. Andrew presided and made 
 an affecting speech, in which he dwelt on Mr. 
 Bird's unselfish devotion to the right and enlarged 
 on the personal qualities that endeared him to his 
 friends. Mr. Bird never forgot that occasion, and 
 twenty years later he publicly recalled it, saying : — 
 
 "Governor Andrew, in his remarks on that 
 occasion, said, among other things, 'There is one 
 thing for which we owe a good deal to Brother 
 Bird, and that is what he has done to promote 
 good-fellowship.' I said to my excellent friend, 
 Charles Francis Adams, who sat next to me, 
 ' That is true ; I am willing to take the credit for 
 
FRANCIS WILLIAM BIRD. 95 
 
 that. I have done something to get good fellows 
 together and have good times.' I have seen a 
 good many of those good times within the last 
 twenty years ; I am afraid I have got about through 
 with them. But the memory will never end." 
 
 In 1868 occurred the twenty-fifth anniversary of 
 Mr. Bird's second marriage. It was one of the 
 loveliest of June days when, as a newspaper 
 account happily expressed it, "earth and sky, 
 landscape and water, seemed in harmony with the 
 festive occasion." Between four and five hundred 
 of their friends from among his townspeople, and 
 even from distant parts of the State, came together. 
 The reception hour was fixed at seven o'clock; 
 the stately mansion was garlanded with flowers, 
 Chinese lanterns hung amid the trees and added 
 picturesque gayety, a full band discoursed festive 
 music, fireworks gave a patriotic glamour to the 
 beauty of the evening. 
 
 Among the most conspicuous of the sixty or 
 seventy gifts which testified to the love borne the 
 "fortunate pair" was a large black- walnut cabi- 
 net containing a service of solid silver, all the 
 pieces of which were appropriately marked with 
 monograms and dates, while on the tea-kettle 
 was engraved: — 
 
 FRANCIS WILLIAM BIRD. 
 
 From a Few of his Friends. 
 
 June 20, 1888. 
 
96 FRANCIS WILLIAM BIRD. 
 
 An address from the pen of William S. Robin- 
 son with the names of the donors, headed by- 
 William Claflin, was printed on white satin and 
 was read by Colonel Robert K. Potter of Boston. 
 It was worded as follows : — 
 
 " Dear and Honored Friend, — 
 
 " In congratulating you and Mrs. Bird upon the re- 
 turn of this anniversary of your marriage — upon your 
 silver wedding — we cannot let the opportunity pass of 
 expressing to you, personally, and by some substantial 
 token, our warm affection for you, and our profound 
 admiration for those qualities of heart and mind which 
 have made you not only the delight of your intimate 
 friends, but a most useful and, we might almost say, 
 indispensable member of our social and political body. 
 
 " Most of us have known you long ; all of us long 
 enough to appreciate those strong personal and politi- 
 cal virtues which have enabled you to wield, socially 
 and politically, a power in Massachusetts and national 
 politics superior to that held by any man among us 
 who has not been in the exercise of high public func- 
 tions. You have illustrated the fact that an earnest, 
 indefatigable, independent man, by the power of his 
 will, the vigor of his brain, and the magnetism of his 
 friendship, may influence, to a very large degree, the 
 action of men who, being more ambitious of personal 
 distinction, have attained much higher public station. 
 For twenty years past you have done more than any 
 other man to hold together, to concentrate, to inspire, 
 the reformatory public sentiment of this Common- 
 wealth, and to lead it on to victory. Your counsel 
 has been sought by governors and senators, and sel- 
 dom disregarded except to their loss; while, to the 
 
FRANCIS WILLIAM BIRD. 97 
 
 humbler members of the party of progress, you have 
 been an invaluable guide, philosopher, and friend. 
 We know perfectly well that, at least up to a very 
 recent period, you have been one of the best-abused 
 men in the community. Your habit of denying 
 theories which were supposed to be well established ; 
 of giving hospitality to unpopular doctrines; of ex- 
 posing prevailing fallacies, and of deriding the omni- 
 present and innumerable humbugs of the day, has 
 made your name a bugbear to the ignorant. But you 
 have outlived all this. You have beaten down, by 
 sheer force of character, all opposition ; and now, hard 
 upon sixty years of age, as you are, you are as young 
 as the youngest, and more useful than the most useful 
 man among us. 
 
 "We honor you for your public virtues; and for 
 your private qualities we hold you in the warmest 
 affection. Yours has not been *a fugitive and clois- 
 tered virtue ' ; nor has radicalism made you an ascetic. 
 Good-fellowship has been in you most admirably 
 joined to steadfastness of purpose and earnestness of 
 principle ; and although you have liberally scattered, 
 we rejoice to see everywhere about us, in doors and 
 out, that you have as liberally increased. We rejoice 
 in your worldly prosperity. We congratulate you on 
 all the happy circumstances of your lot, — on the love 
 of wife and children, the loyalty of friends, the re- 
 spect of all men who know you and whose respect is 
 valuable. And we ask you to accept of this gift as 
 a token of our love, to be kept as a memorial of this 
 occasion, and handed down to your posterity as an 
 heirloom, to tell your children and your children's chil- 
 dren of that high degree of appreciation and love with 
 which 'Frank Bird ' was held by all who knew him." 
 
98 FBANCIS WILLIAM BIRD. 
 
 Mr. Bird was greatly affected by such a splendid 
 testimonial. In his remarks he declared that he 
 knew the gentlemen who signed the address were 
 accustomed to mean what they said, but he could 
 not but feel that they had flattered him. " He did 
 not know what he had done more than was the 
 plain and simple duty of every American in the 
 country to do. Such words, too, he felt, were 
 almost painful to him, when he looked back over 
 his life, and saw what its failures and shortcom- 
 ings had been, and the exceedingly little accom- 
 plished, and thought of the ideal of his youth as 
 to what it should be." And he expressed his 
 deep gratitude in the heartiest terms that he 
 could employ. 
 
 Mr. Bird was even more affected by testimo- 
 nials, also in solid silver, from the workmen of 
 his mills and from the villagers. It was remarked 
 at the time that he had always been peculiarly 
 solicitous for the welfare of his employes ; if they 
 were compelled by illness to be long absent, their 
 wages were continued ; if by reason of dull times 
 other manufacturers reduced the pay, he kept his 
 at the old rate, on the ground that the laboring 
 man had always the hardest time in any financial 
 crisis. After the presentation Mrs. Julia Ward 
 Howe read the following poem : — 
 
FRANCIS WILLIAM BIRD. 99 
 
 TO MR. AND MRS. FRANCIS W. BIRD. 
 
 Silence ! says the summoned Muse ; 
 
 Song can never be commanded. 
 Gives not Phoebus as I choose, 
 
 Frowns, and leaves me empty-handed. 
 
 But, within these precincts dear, 
 None will ask a haughty measure ; 
 
 Charity keeps rhythm here, 
 
 For the cadence of our pleasure. 
 
 And the welcome that she gives 
 Shall a hopeful heart inspire ; 
 
 Wake the prophecy that lives 
 In the faint, forgotten lyre. 
 
 While I sing the wedded life 
 
 Of our friends' auspicious mating, 
 
 Greet the husband and the wife 
 Linked in comforts unabating ! 
 
 Quarters four the moon doth know ; 
 
 Three to human life are given ; 
 One our friends have travelled through 
 
 In the placid marriage heaven. 
 
 Storms they surely must have met, 
 
 If enduring human fortune ; 
 Winds that chide, and floods that wet, 
 
 Go with couples from their courting. 
 
 Each must be in fault sometimes ; 
 
 Plead by turns as saint or sinner ; 
 Each acknowledge household crimes, 
 
 Buttons lost, and waiting dinner. 
 
 Still the bow of peace for them 
 Glistens in its sapphire setting; 
 
 And they keep the pearly gem 
 Of their patience free from fretting. 
 
 ILofCi 
 
100 FRANCIS WILLIAM BIRD. 
 
 From their sacred nuptial flame 
 Other flames awake and kindle ; 
 
 Shadows of portentous frame 
 
 Show their pattern shall not dwindle. 
 
 Not with them their lives shall close, 
 Their confided gifts aspire ; 
 
 Hands shall soothe their last repose, 
 Bearing their high purpose higher. 
 
 Silvery birds have silver nests, 
 As a cloud has silver lining ; 
 
 Silver feathers bring the guests, 
 For their bridal-crest's entwining. 
 
 Silver marks the steps of age, 
 Nature to her fulness coming. 
 
 When upon the forehead's page 
 
 Thought records her careful summing ; 
 
 When the promissory notes 
 Of our youth, all enterprising. 
 
 Manhood's later market quotes. 
 With compulsive realizing, 
 
 He shall tread the civic halls. 
 Heal the troubles of the nation, 
 
 Carried hence by weightier calls 
 Than the rabble's acclamation. 
 
 Sharply shall his mordant beak 
 From our laurels pluck the vermin ; 
 
 His avenging eye shall seek 
 Stains upon the judge's ermine. 
 
 Men shall heed his silent glance. 
 Feel the sentence he is giving. 
 
 Ere his honest utterance 
 Puts to shame their worthless living. 
 
FBANCIS WILLIAM BIRD. 101 
 
 Rich are these in faith and love, 
 
 Richer still our prayer would make them ; 
 
 Keep the ranks in which they move 
 So no dear one shall forsake them. 
 
 Keep their years' appointed bound 
 
 Ever fuller in fruition ; 
 Give the bosom precept sound, 
 
 Life's accomplished recognition. 
 
 Pardon, friends, the paltry range 
 
 Of the tribute that I bring thee ; 
 'Tis the beggar Muse's change 
 
 This undowered hand doth fling thee. 
 
 Something from me thou didst crave, 
 
 Something I indeed bestow thee ; 
 What I give is what I have, 
 
 But it is not what I owe thee ! 
 
 Mr. Elizur Wright also had his poetical greet- 
 ing, which he quietly handed to the honored hosts. 
 
 TO MR. AND MRS. FRANCIS W. BIRD, 
 
 IN COMMEMORATION OF THEIR SILVER WEDDING, THESE 
 LINES — NOT SILVERY ARE AFFECTIONATELY DEDI- 
 CATED. 
 
 From shore to shore my journey lay. 
 
 Across a mighty wood ; 
 Wherein the broods of night and day 
 
 Were in a bitter feud. 
 
 They sang of love, the soul of law, 
 
 The birds that loved the light ; 
 But other birds of bloody claw 
 
 Croaked hatred in the night. 
 
102 FKANCIS WILLIAM BIRD. 
 
 The way was long, the forest dense ; 
 
 The strife grew more and more, 
 Till rapine seemed the common sense 
 
 Of birds from shore to shore. 
 
 Bewildered by the stunning fray, 
 
 The birds of gentle song 
 Confessed their morals giving way 
 
 Before the ravenous throng. 
 
 At last a fearless bird was seen 
 
 Among the ancient oaks, 
 Whose sweet and righteous voice, I ween, 
 
 Could not be drowned by croaks. 
 
 " Come lark and bluebird, every throat ! 
 
 Let's not be dumb with fright ; 
 The day is ours ; we'll strike a note 
 
 To shame the birds of night." 
 
 The shame was much, the rage was more, 
 When, by his daring mood. 
 
 Their sunlit songs the echoes bore 
 Throughout the leafy wood. 
 
 " They dare to sing ! the craven crew ! 
 
 And challenge us to sing ! 
 They dare to sing! in concert, too ! 
 
 Another glove we fling 1 
 
 " We've borne too long their crazy song 
 That ' right should govern might ' ; 
 
 We'll hush, by arms, the noisy throng 
 Beneath the rule of night. 
 
 " Aha I " I heard my plucky bird, 
 
 Full merry at the threat ; 
 The peaceful rallied at his word, 
 
 The leaves grew red and wet. 
 
FRANCIS WILLIAM BIRD. 103 
 
 The fight was long and very sad, 
 
 But when the thing was done, 
 The bh-ds of night were more than glad 
 
 To hide them from the sun. 
 
 That Bird in peace and war so true, 
 
 Must needs be doubly blest ; 
 But till this day I never knew, 
 [Though it was not the fault of his hospitahty, but of my own busy- 
 ness and sheepishness,] 
 
 The beauty of his nest ! 
 
 During the course of the evening Mr. Bird in- 
 vited his wife to go with him to the front stoop, 
 and just then, by prearrangement, there was 
 driven up an elegant family carriage with a 
 pair of handsome horses, which he asked her to 
 accept as "a silver-wedding present from him- 
 self." 
 
 A bounteous collation was served to all who 
 came, "even the poor and curious who flocked 
 around the doors." Mr. Bird sent to each of the 
 employes of the special train a handsome remem- 
 brance, and the occasion was memorable to all who 
 participated in it. 
 
 Just ten years later, on the occasion of the 
 Honorable John D. Long retiring from the speak- 
 ership of the House of Representatives, Colonel 
 John D. Washburn of Worcester, in the course 
 of his speech of " Thanks, " took occasion to de- 
 liver a eulogy on the Honorable Francis W. 
 Bird, "The Nestor of the House." It was re- 
 garded at the time as a piece of "surpassing 
 
104 FEANCIS WILLIAM BIKD. 
 
 beauty of thought and eloquence of diction." It 
 came most unexpectedly to Mr. Bird, who, says 
 a contemporary record, "was so affected that he 
 burst into tears and for the moment was unable to 
 respond, while many eyes were moist over the 
 affecting scene." The same paper, in comment- 
 ing on the pamphlet which contained Colonel 
 Washburn's eulogy and Mr. Bird's reply, went 
 on to say: — 
 
 " Mr. Bird is well known as a man of uncom- 
 promising independence, and his course as a legis- 
 lator has never been trimmed to win the favor of 
 his associates, but he has at all times spoken out 
 fearlessly his sentiments on all topics, without 
 regard to party policy or personal friendship. 
 That his associates so warmly seconded the grace- 
 ful tribute paid him by Colonel Washburn, was 
 due solely to the respect and admiration that is 
 always accorded to manly independence and thor- 
 ough honesty." 
 
 The following October the anniversary of Mr. 
 Bird's seventieth birthday was celebrated by a 
 great dinner given at the Revere House. Upwards 
 of a hundred of his friends were present, including 
 Governor Talbot, Judge Abbott, Senator Anthony, 
 and "representatives of every type of Massachu- 
 setts political thojight" for the previous thirty 
 years. As an editorial in one of the daily papers 
 said : " Free-soilers and Abolitionists, Old Whigs 
 and Conscience Whigs, Hunker and War Demo- 
 
FRANCIS WILLIAM BIRD. 105 
 
 crats, Stalwart and Liberal Republicans were all 
 present in the persons of some of their most hon- 
 ored leaders. The whole key-board of the political 
 piano was there, with not a note missing, and all 
 its harmony was poured out in an unbroken strain 
 of friendship for the veteran who had, at one time 
 or another, appeared in almost every part of the 
 changing dance of public affairs." Many letters 
 of regret from absent friends were read, — from 
 Senator Hoar, from Ex-Governor Bullock, White- 
 law Reid, John D. Long. 
 
 Estes Howe of Cambridge presided. After 
 various congratulatory speeches, Samuel B. Noyes 
 was called on and sang an original song to the 
 tune of the Ivy Crreen. 
 
 O, some birds are made for beauty and song, 
 
 And some are made for battle, 
 And some are made for swift flight strong, 
 
 And some for the scratch and cackle. 
 But our Bird was made with spur and song. 
 
 To strike and soothe, together — 
 And his plumage, unsmirched in the struggle long, 
 
 Has lost not a single feather. 
 
 Bird among birds, thro' life, I ween, 
 Rare and quaint as ever was seen, etc. 
 
 II. 
 
 A right true friend is our friend to-night, 
 
 And a friend well known to fame ; 
 Fill up to the brim, for all will delight 
 
 To honor an honored name. 
 
106 FRANCIS WILLIAM BIRD. 
 
 The tides yet run strong in his friendly heart, 
 
 And the sun is not yet low ; 
 Cheers and the laurel-wreath give ere we part ■ 
 
 He never failed friend or foe ! 
 
 Friend among friends thro' life, I ween, 
 As stanch and strong as ever was seen, etc. 
 
 A right stout man, among men, we know, 
 
 A deft man with sword and shield ; 
 Striking and struck with right stubborn blows. 
 
 Yet ever facing the field. 
 There's shame, O, my brothers, in wars men wage. 
 
 And pain when the strife is o'er. 
 But his great heart o'ermasters the foeman's rage, 
 
 This day and forever more. 
 
 Man among men thro' life, I ween. 
 
 As strong and steady as ever was seen, etc. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Then fill to the brim for one toast more. 
 
 The night gloam deepens for all, 
 Aging we look through the mists to a shore — 
 
 Winter must follow the Fall. 
 Here's peace to his age and ages of peace. 
 
 Whatever may break or may part ; 
 The lights may grow dim, the laurel song cease, 
 
 But life lives for aye in the heart. 
 
 Friendship aging is white, I ween, 
 
 The sweetest and manliest ever was seen, etc. 
 
 It was regarded as a remarkable occasion, and, 
 as several of the speakers said, notably Mr. 
 Thompson of Gloucester, such a testimony was 
 "rendered possible only because, through all the 
 
FRANCIS WILLIAM BIRD. 107 
 
 varying phases of Mr. Bird's political life, no 
 matter where his voice and his vote had been 
 found for the moment, his motives were never 
 open to doubt, or his fidelity to the right, as he 
 saw it, questioned." It was questioned at the time 
 whether so many politicians of differing views 
 were ever gathered together harmoniously at one 
 table. It was also remarked as an interesting 
 feature, that among the letters read was one from 
 a man who was the only surviving scholar whom 
 he taught in his early days of pedagogy. He was 
 unable to be present, but he referred with unction 
 to the fervency of Mr. Bird's prayers at the open- 
 ing of the school sessions. 
 
 Five years later, in 1884, Mr. Bird's seventy- 
 fifth birthday was similarly observed by a compli- 
 mentary dinner, also at the Revere House. Again 
 Dr. Estes Howe took the head of the table. Again 
 the Honorable Samuel B. Noyes sang an original 
 song, composed by Thomas Drew of West Newton, 
 and dedicated to Mr. Bird ; — 
 
 SONG. 
 
 F. W. B. 
 
 1809. October 22. 1884. 
 
 Auld Lang Syne. 
 
 Near fourscore years have passed and gone, 
 
 Since, 'mongst the Norfolk hills, 
 A lusty man-child babe was born 
 Near Dedham's famous mills. 
 
108 FRANCIS WILLIAM BIRD. 
 
 The boy grew up, as babies grow, 
 
 Good grit and strength of lung ; 
 He had no fears of high nor low, 
 
 And cut his eye-teeth young. 
 
 Chorus. 
 
 Now here's good health to " Walpole's sage," 
 Good health and " troops of friends," 
 
 The ruddiest glow of honored age, 
 Long as his life extends. 
 
 Early he walked in wisdom's ways, 
 
 Plucked knowledge from the tree, 
 And when arrived to manhood's days, 
 
 A sturdy youth was he. 
 He saw, where'er he turned his eyes. 
 
 The woes and wants of men ; 
 And often did his friends surprise 
 
 With ready speech and pen. 
 
 Chorus. 
 
 To aid the weak, to guide the strong. 
 
 His mission seemed to be ; 
 But, most of all, to right the wrong 
 
 Of chattel slavery. 
 How wise and well and hard he fought. 
 
 We old Free-soilers know. 
 Who read that product of his thought — 
 
 Oh ! " Let my people go ! " ^ 
 
 Chorus, 
 
 Yet not alone, in conflicts stern. 
 
 His noble traits appear ; 
 To festive boards our thoughts return, 
 
 Of friendship and good cheer ; 
 
 1 This was the title of one of Mr. Bird's war-time pamphlets, 
 urging emancipation as a war measure. 
 
FRANCIS WILLIAM BIRD. 109 
 
 "Where men we loved sat side by side, 
 
 With wit and wisdom primed, 
 Who erst have crossed swift Jordan's tide, 
 
 And left us here behind. 
 
 Chorus. 
 The future none of us can say, 
 
 The past is all secure ; 
 So pledge we, on this natal day, 
 
 Our friendship shall endure. 
 
 On this occasion no wine was served, Mr. Bird 
 having recently embraced the cause of Prohibition, 
 and when he rose to speak, being greeted with 
 cheers, he alluded pleasantly to his conversion 
 to "the cold-water faith " ; but his greeting was 
 none the less warm to the curiously variegated as- 
 sembly which, as the Boston Herald expressed it, 
 consisted of " Stalwart Republicans, Independents, 
 supporters of the cold-water ticket. Democrats of 
 ancient standing, and Democrats who had, like 
 Mr. Bird himself, come into the party through 
 the door which Charles Sumner threw wide open, 
 — men of every shade of view, who united in pay- 
 ing affectionate tribute to the personal worth of a 
 good and honored man." The editor of the Herald 
 was himself present, and undoubtedly felt the 
 truth of the sentence in the same account which 
 said: — 
 
 " No other man in the State could have drawn 
 about him in these days of political asperity such 
 a representative body of men." In a similar spirit 
 the Journal remarked : — 
 
110 FRANCIS WILLIAM BIRD. 
 
 " In his long and eventful career, the Honorable 
 F. W. Bird, the Sage of Walpole, has identified 
 himself with many a good and noble part in life's 
 great drama, and not one of the least of these, 
 either for pleasure or profit, has been the rSle of 
 host. The gracious rites of hospitality have been 
 understood and administered by few as they have 
 by him. He has used them not simply as the 
 corner-stone of good-fellowship, of which he has 
 been one of the most distinguished promoters in 
 his day and generation, but through them he has 
 wrought for higher aims and more far-reaching 
 purposes. It is not an extravagant estimate to 
 make of his genius for organizing friendships, 
 in defiance of those barriers which to many are 
 so formidable as to seem insuperable obstacles, to 
 hazard the opinion that not another man in the 
 State could have called about him such a large 
 company of varying tastes as assembled at the 
 Revere House on Wednesday evening." The 
 same article spoke of his genius for forming new 
 friendships while embalming the old ones in his 
 memory. 
 
 Mr. Frank Sanborn, in his Boston letter to the 
 Springfield Republican^ commented on the part 
 which he had played as "the original Indepen- 
 dent." "To him," it said, "parties have always 
 been instruments for the accomplishment of stated 
 purposes in the administration of public interests, 
 and never bound associations demanding fealty at 
 
FRANCIS WILLIAM BIRD. Ill 
 
 the expense of personal conviction or the common 
 good." 
 
 Such testimony deserves to be accented, for it 
 was perhaps the most valuable lesson of his public 
 life. It speaks, therefore, highly for his integ- 
 rity, for his everywhere recognized public spirit, 
 that even men of blinded partisan views could not 
 long cherish animosity against him, but were 
 proud to claim him as a friend. When the dust 
 of party conflict settled, it was seen that Mr. Bird 
 was standing firm on the solid rock of principle, 
 and if his party moved away from that vantage- 
 ground, he refused to desert it. It is evident 
 that such methods, though playing havoc with 
 party organizations, are calculated in the long run 
 to lead to a higher state of political morals. Men 
 before Mr. Bird's day deserted their party, but 
 few ever did so with never a reproach follow- 
 ing that it was done for personal advantage or to 
 subserve ambition. In Mr. Bird's case it was not 
 infrequently attended with the absolute foreknowl- 
 edge that such a course was political suicide. 
 And consequently he carried with him wherever 
 he went the respect of his former associates. 
 They did not hesitate to call him "cranky," 
 but they had to acknowledge in the long run 
 that he was a "crank" that turned the right 
 way.i 
 
 1 Mr. Bird himself, in a vigorous letter to the Springfield 
 Bepublican, dated September 8, 1875, explained the reasons 
 
112 FRANCIS TVILLIAJkl BIRD. 
 
 Three years later the Bird Club celebrated his 
 seventy-eighth birthday by a banquet at the Par- 
 ker House. This time Mr. Bird himself sent 
 most of the letters of invitation. The club took 
 
 of his independent action. It is well worth reproducing in 
 full : — 
 
 Mk. Bird Rises to Explain. 
 
 The Difference between Himself and a Full-blown Democrat. 
 
 To the Editor of the Bepuhlican : — 
 
 I clip the following from your "Notes and Comments": — 
 
 Puzzling conundrum from the Boston Journal: What is the 
 difference between Mr. F. W. Bird and a full-blown Democrat ? 
 
 This, although it seems to puzzle you, does not puzzle me. 
 
 A full-blown Democrat belongs to the Democratic party : I 
 do not. I act with the Democratic party whenever I believe 
 such action best enables me to do my duty ; just as we Free- 
 Soilers acted with the Democratic party in 1850, and thus 
 secured the election of Charles Sumner. There was a marked 
 difference between me and full-blown Democrats then, and yet 
 we acted together for common ends. The F. B. D. votes the 
 regular party ticket, whether or no : I don't. The F. B. D. 
 demands for victors the spoils : I don't, unless the victor pro- 
 duces a claimant for the spoils better fitted to perform the 
 duties of the office than the vanquished. In that case — and 
 that case, I agree, generally happens — I subscribe to the doc- 
 trine. The F. B. D. swallows all regular nominations, and 
 votes himself, and calls upon all the faithful to vote, for them : 
 I don't. I hold that bolting is always in order. If I were in 
 Ohio, for instance, I should probably not vote for Governor 
 Allen. (By the way, you persist in interpreting my late letter 
 to the Tribune as favoring the election of Governor Allen. If 
 you had read the letter, — as I have a right to presume you did 
 not, from the fact that you favored your readers with sundry 
 flippant and unmannerly criticisms upon it, without, by pub- 
 lishing it, giving them an opportunity of judging of the fairness 
 of your criticisms, — if j^ou had read this letter, you would have 
 seen that I expressed no wish for the success of the Democratic 
 
FRANCIS WILLIAM BIRD. 113 
 
 this occasion to present Mr. Bird with a massive 
 silver cup, which bore on one side a dedicatory 
 inscription and on the other the couplet from 
 Pope's Essay on Man: — 
 
 " A wit's a feather and a chief a rod ; 
 An honest man's the noblest work of God." 
 
 Earnest words of appreciation and reminiscence 
 followed the presentation speech, and letters were 
 read from Senators Dawes and Schurz and from 
 Ex-Governors Boutwell and Claflin. 
 
 On the same day, as he was going from his 
 house to his mill, he was met by a large delega- 
 tion of his workmen, who presented him with a 
 handsome gold-headed cane as a token of their 
 respect and gratitude. Mr. Bird responded feel- 
 ingly and thanked them for the " elegant gift, and 
 useful as it is beautiful to one who totters down 
 the hill of life." 
 
 His eightieth birthday he spent quietly at home, 
 having only at the anniversary dinner his imme- 
 diate family, without the grandchildren at table. 
 Many friends and neighbors and reporters from 
 the Boston papers went to call on him and pay 
 
 ticket in Ohio, and used no words which could be tortured into 
 such a meaning. ) 
 
 However difficult it may be for a Republican organ to see 
 the difference between F. W. B. and F. B. D., the independent 
 journal ought to see and admit that cooperation does not neces- 
 sarily imply identity. F. W. Bird. 
 
 East Walpole, September 8, 1875. 
 I 
 
114 FRANCIS WILLIAM BIRD. 
 
 their respects, and he was overwhelmed with 
 letters and telegraphic despatches congratulatory, 
 as well as beautiful floral tributes. 
 
 When he reached the age of eighty-three, he 
 announced to his friends that he should no longer 
 attend the club dinners. Years before — ^as early 
 as 1872 indeed — he, with a few friends, had 
 seceded from the association which met weekly at 
 Young's Hotel and had started a new club at the 
 Parker House. It was smaller than the other, 
 which now began to be called the Massachusetts, 
 but nevertheless had distinguished attendance. 
 Still another club, of more convivial tendencies, 
 — separating out, as a wag said, " by that process 
 which in the reproduction of species is called 
 germination," — took the name of General Banks. 
 Some politicians were welcome at all three. Mr. 
 A. W. Beard made the remark, which was fre- 
 quently quoted with approval : — • 
 
 " I go to the Massachusetts Club when I want 
 to be with my party associates, to the Banks Club 
 when I want to have a good time, and to the Bird 
 Club when I want to learn something." 
 
 In a letter dated January 24, 1892, Mr. Bird, 
 after giving a brief account of the formation of the 
 original club and the causes which led to his re- 
 tirement from it, remarked with a tone of pathos 
 that it was painful for him to bid farewell to this 
 assemblage of his friends. But the exigencies of 
 his health demanded it. 
 
X. 
 
 Mr. Bird's manifold labors in connection with 
 his successful business of paper-making had been 
 greatly lightened by his second son, Charles Sum- 
 ner Bird, who, after graduating from Harvard, 
 had renounced his intention of taking the study 
 of law and had entered his father's firm. Mr. 
 Bird himself undertook the care of the finances, 
 gradually relinquishing the detail of the busi- 
 ness to his son. The prosperity of the business 
 was not materially shattered by the unfortunate 
 destruction of the paper mills by fire on the 
 twenty-second of August, 1880. Not only were 
 four extensive buildings burned to the ground, 
 but also a large amount of new machinery and 
 great quantities of stock were destroyed. The 
 loss was about fifty thousand dollars, partially 
 covered by insurance. New mills, however, were 
 immediately erected. The last few years of Mr. 
 Bird's life were saddened by the invalidism of his 
 wife and of his beloved daughter Mary. Mrs. 
 Bird, though nine years younger than he, had 
 been gradually failing in health. As long as she 
 
 115 
 
116 FRANCIS WILLIAM BIRD. 
 
 was able to bear tlie journeys, be took her to the 
 mountains or the seashore during the summer 
 months, but at last even this was too much for 
 her. She died on the 29th of November, 1892. 
 Though he was greatly affected by her loss, he 
 found some consolation in the affection of his 
 children. Two of his daughters lived still in his 
 family, and his son was married and settled in 
 the immediate vicinity. 
 
 In the summer of 1893 Mr. Bird, while making 
 one of his visits to Boston, had an attack of some- 
 thing like vertigo, from the effects of which he 
 fell heavily on the floor of the bank. He recovered 
 from it sufficiently to write on the ninth of June 
 the following characteristic account of it to a 
 friend : — 
 
 " I called at your sanctum a week ago last Saturday, 
 I think, and found it locked, as I have too frequently 
 of late, and you reported to be at home sick. The 
 old story : I have lectured and scolded you about your 
 health, until I find that it does you no more good 
 than other people's lectures do me. . . . 
 
 "On Wednesday, May 31st, I had a malignant 
 attack of Lumbago, they call it. They don't know 
 what it is, what the cause is, or what the remedy. 
 It came upon me suddenly that morning, but I went 
 to Boston, supposing it was an ordinary strain in the 
 small of the back. I found, after making my deposit 
 at the bank, that it was something more serious ; for 
 I fell helpless upon the bank floor. I was perfectly 
 conscious all the while, and, what was remarkable, 
 
FRANCIS WILLIAM BIBD. 117 
 
 perfectly uninjured. I liave suffered frightfully since 
 then, most of the time requiring two strong persons to 
 help me move about. I am better perhaps now, and 
 can move with very little help. I called in our doc- 
 tor here, but I took no medicine. Since then he calls 
 occasionally as a friend, but I won't touch his drugs. 
 Theodore Metcalf recommends to me a doctor by 
 name of Cheever in Boston. Perhaps I may see 
 him when I am well enough to call upon him 
 there, or have him come out here; though I have 
 very little faith in any of them. . . . 
 
 " Ever faithfully yours, 
 (Signed) "F. W. Bird." 
 
 This above is typewritten. Then the following 
 is his own handwriting, as firm as ever. 
 
 " I am driven to the office twice a day, return to 
 spend an hour or so, then go home to bed. Eead a 
 little, doze a little, — such is life ! " 
 
 Mr. Bird was always very fond of reading, 
 whenever he could spare time from his active pur- 
 suits. He subscribed for many years to all the 
 English reviews, and invariably read their articles 
 on topics relating to history, political economy, 
 and the science of government. He took less 
 interest in articles on distinctively literary sub- 
 jects, but he enjoyed a good old-fashioned novel, 
 especially those of Scott. As may have been 
 seen, his mind was well stocked with choice pas- 
 sages from the earlier English poets. One of the 
 
118 FRANCIS WILLIAM BIED. 
 
 last books which interested him was the biography 
 of Abraham Lincoln, written by Colonel Nicolay 
 and Colonel Hay. He bought it in its unabbrevi- 
 ated form and read it with due deliberation. He 
 often remarked how his own estimate of the great 
 President, like that of most of his associates, had 
 been modified by the effect of historical perspec- 
 tive. He was always glad to pay his tribute of 
 admiration to Lincoln, but he still continued to 
 think that what had struck him first in the man, 
 in spite of his unconventionality, — his shrewd- 
 ness, — was perhaps his most remarkable trait. 
 
 Mr. Bird recovered from the effects of his fall, 
 but he did not venture till some time later to go 
 to Boston. Once during the following winter he 
 felt strong enough to make one more visit to the 
 Bird Club. It proved to be his last. It was 
 noticed that he was quieter than usual, and he 
 left the table to take an earlier train than was his 
 wont. He experienced no ill effects, however; 
 but not long after he met with another bad fall, 
 this time in his mill, and it admonished him that 
 it was his duty to guard against the danger that 
 threatened him. He was somewhat bruised, but 
 not seriously shaken. He spent his eighty-fourth 
 birthday quietly at home. A reporter who was 
 allowed to see him found him in bed, but able to 
 talk, interested especially in the silver agitation, 
 and declaring earnestly against the folly of a bi- 
 metallic standard. 
 
FRANCIS WILLIAM BIRD. 119 
 
 It had been nearly five months since he had 
 visited Boston, but he still hoped to make the 
 journey again. He spent a part of each day in 
 bed, but was driven to his mill, where as ever he 
 took an active part in the work going on. 
 
 It was particularly hard for him to part with his 
 daughter Mary, who, as winter approached, felt 
 again compelled to go to her home in the South. 
 Her health had grown weaker, and it was a ques- 
 tion whether she would be spared to return to her 
 home again. But when the spring came, she also 
 came. Her strength was greatly reduced, and it 
 was apparent to all that her end was near. She 
 survived only a few weeks. Few men ever had 
 among their children a more congenial companion 
 than she had been during many years. Such a shock 
 was too severe for his enfeebled constitution. He 
 grew feebler and feebler, and passed away on the 
 twenty-third of May, 1894. The funeral ser- 
 vices were held on the twenty-sixth, and were 
 attended by large numbers of his friends, his 
 townsmen, and by multitudes of his neighbors 
 at East Walpole, where he had passed so large a 
 part of his long life. 
 
 The religious services were conducted by the 
 Rev. W. F. Bickford, the Congregationalist minis- 
 ter of the village chapel. Mr. Bird had expressed 
 the desire that some one among those who had 
 known him intimately should speak on this occa- 
 sion. Mr. Frank N. Sanborn of Concord, with 
 
120 FRANCIS WILLIAM BIRD. 
 
 whom he had been for many jesivs on terms of 
 warm friendship, was therefore called upon to 
 make an address. Mr. Sanborn spoke feelingly 
 in these words : — 
 
 " The friend whom we mourn to-day has gone, 
 as the Scripture says, like a shock of grain, in its 
 full season, to that garner in which is slowly 
 gathered all that we love and revere on earth. 
 Yet in the view of the ages of the past and the 
 future, how short is even this long life of nearly 
 eighty-five years ! how brief and fading its record, 
 when we who knew him shall have found that 
 undiscovered land in which he now dwells ! Brief 
 must be its record here ; but there, as we trust, the 
 deeds and virtues that we remember are held in 
 unfading memory, and are preparing his way in 
 that other life, which is but a continuation of this, 
 only with higher powers and clearer vision. This 
 is our consolation ; this, and the hope that we shall 
 rejoin him there, and our other dear ones who 
 have gone before. Some of you have known Mr. 
 Bird longer than I have, and can speak more fully 
 of the events of his honorable career ; but it is 
 nearly forty years since I first had the good fort- 
 une to meet him, at the rooms of our noble friend. 
 Dr. Howe, and our paths since have run side by 
 side in public and in private life. I found him 
 in that company of political and social reformers 
 of whom so few remain among us. I belonged 
 also in that band, and by his kindness and that of 
 
FKANCIS WILLIAM BIRD. 121 
 
 others soon found a place there. It was not an 
 exclusive circle, but welcomed all who had their 
 faces turned toward the Zion that so few of us 
 then expected to see triumphant in our lifetime. 
 Forty years ago, who could have imagined that 
 our country would so soon cast off the heavy 
 political yoke then resting on the neck of the 
 North — the yoke of slavery and oligarchy? Fort- 
 une and a good cause favored us; and within 
 fifteen years from my first meeting with Mr. Bird 
 the victory rested with the reformers, who in 1854 
 had been so few. 
 
 "But few or many, defeated or triumphant, 
 nobody ever saw our friend cast down, or willing 
 to withdraw from the conflict ; he had enlisted for 
 the war and was ready, nay, eager, to 'fight it 
 out on that line,' no matter how long the cam- 
 paign lasted. His counsel ever was the same that 
 the English dreamer, Clough, has put in brave 
 practical verse : — 
 
 ^' ' Say not the struggle naught availeth, 
 The labor and the wounds are vain, — 
 The enemy faints not, nor f aileth. 
 
 And as things have been, they remain. 
 
 " * K hopes were dupes, fears may be liars ; 
 It may be in yon smoke concealed, 
 Your comrades chase e'en now the fliers, — 
 And — but for you — possess the field.' 
 
 " Sagacious as he proverbially was in all matters 
 political, he was the readiest to lead a forlorn hope 
 
122 FRANCIS WILLIAM BIRD. 
 
 of any politician I ever saw, well knowing that 
 courage to the point of rashness, be it only cool 
 courage, is the most effective political quality. 
 'This battle is lost,' said the French marshal at 
 Marengo. 'Yes,' replied Napoleon, pulling out 
 his watch, 'but there is time to-day to win an- 
 other ' ; and he won it. Our thoughts turn of 
 themselves to this splendid fighting and staying 
 quality in Frank Bird; but it is not as a com- 
 batant that he is best remembered, after all. 
 Good-fellowship, as has been said, was the key- 
 note of his character. If it is the aim and final 
 cause of the British constitution, as somebody 
 says, 'to get twelve good men in a jury box,' so it 
 was our friend's chief delight to get a dozen com- 
 panions around a dinner table, — or, on great occa- 
 sions, a hundred, — and there spend the hours in 
 friendly chat or contradiction. We have lived 
 long, and known many men, but did we ever see 
 one before who could hold a club together for half 
 a century, without officers, or rules, or a definite 
 purpose, by the mere sweetness and force of his 
 abounding good nature? The Bird Club dies 
 with him ; its last meeting was when he last vis- 
 ited Boston, seven months ago, — for none but 
 the hero can bend the bow of Ulysses. 
 
 "And there were deeper things than good 
 nature in this fellowship of our friend. Many 
 times have the words of Job, spoken in proud 
 humility, been applied to one good man or another; 
 
FRANCIS WILLIAM BIRD. 123 
 
 but to none have they a closer application than to 
 this man, who never boasted, nor let his left hand 
 know what his right hand was doing : — 
 
 " * When the ear heard me, then it blest me, 
 
 And when the eye saw me, it gave witness unto me ; 
 
 Because I delivered the poor that cried, — 
 
 The fatherless, also, that had none to help him : 
 
 The blessing of him that was ready to perish came upon me. 
 
 And I caused the widow's heart to sing for joy ; 
 
 I was a father to the needy. 
 
 And the cause which I knew not I searched out.' 
 
 " He was a just and merciful man ; diligent in 
 business, but never basing his prosperity on the 
 wrong of another. In the contentions of trade 
 and industry he kept his hands clean; none of the 
 violence and fraud with which our ill-governed 
 prosperity has so long been unhappily tainted, can 
 be laid at his door. This ought not to be uncom- 
 mon praise, — but I fear it is getting to be so. 
 
 "A manly independence, ever respecting the 
 rights of others, was that quality by which Mr. 
 Bird is best known; a traditional Anglo-Saxon 
 trait, which found expression, almost three hun- 
 dred years ago, in the familiar verses of Sir 
 Henry Wotton, to whom, with due allowance 
 for change of time and station, our friend may 
 be compared : — 
 
 " * How happy is he born and taught, 
 That serveth not another's will ! 
 Whose armor is his honest thought ! 
 And simple truth his utmost skill. 
 
124 FRANCIS WILLIAM BIRD. 
 
 " ' Whose passions not his masters are, 
 
 Whose soul is still prepared for death ; 
 Not tied unto the world with care 
 Of public fame or private breath ; 
 
 " ' Who hath his life from rumors freed ; 
 Whose conscience is his strong retreat : 
 Whose state can neither flatterers feed, 
 N"or ruin make accusers great ; 
 
 " ' Who God doth late and early pray, 
 
 More of his grace than gifts to lend ; 
 And entertains the harmless day 
 With a well-chosen book or friend ; 
 
 " ' This man is freed from servile bands 
 Of hope to rise, or fear to fall ; 
 Lord of himself, if not of lands, 
 
 And having nothing, yet hath all.' " 
 
XI. 
 
 Mr. Bibd's memory will not soon pass away. 
 He was of an unusual type, and his work is inex- 
 tricably mingled with the history of the most 
 important movements of the nineteenth century. 
 He was a self-made man and full of the fearless- 
 ness that is characteristic of self-made men. At 
 the same time he was free from the conceit which 
 so often haloes men who have by energy and talent 
 raised themselves to positions of influence, wealth, 
 and power. 
 
 A friend of Mr. Bird's makes the following 
 interesting comments on his personal simplicity 
 and freedom from obtrusive vanity: — 
 
 "Mr. Bird was a man of the strongest individu- 
 ality and almost absolute self-reliance. Yet he 
 was as far as possible from being an egotist, as 
 the term is generally accepted. There was not a 
 symptom of conceit of his own powers ; he never 
 made the slightest exhibition of anything like 
 personal vanity. Few men have ever lived more 
 entirely free from this quality. His positiveness 
 was in the certainty that his own views were 
 right, — not at all in the feeling that he could 
 
 126 
 
126 FRANCIS WILLIAM BIRD. 
 
 better uphold them than other men. He was ready- 
 to accept the lead of other men and to defer to it. 
 He wanted no honor or credit to himself for advo- 
 cating or enforcing them ; he only desired that the 
 truth should prevail. He was almost unique 
 among men of his ability in this respect. He 
 was deferential and considerate, not to his equals 
 or superiors alone, but to everybody about him. 
 He was the most truly democratic of men, as the 
 word is generally understood. He recognized 
 equality only on the basis of intellect and charac- 
 ter. Social distinction that grew out of wealth 
 or of claims from family inheritance he did not 
 even understand; it was a mystery to him how 
 any one could claim superiority on such grounds. 
 " A fault in his nature, it may be admitted, was 
 that he carried his personal independence to an 
 extreme. He was too apt to be unnecessarily 
 defiant here. It grew out of an intolerance of 
 wrong, but he failed to be as considerate of those 
 who had fallen into wrong as he might have been. 
 He was deficient in the capacity to see two sides 
 of questions, especially of those that had a moral 
 bearing. He formed the habits of his life in his 
 youth in discussing anti-slavery issues. His soul 
 was on fire against the wrong of slavery, and he 
 could not realize that others might with equal 
 sincerity agree with him in this feeling, and yet 
 deem it necessary to temporize in treating the 
 evil. He attacked them with a vehemence which 
 
FRANCIS WILLIAM BIRD. 127 
 
 he later evinced against some of those who were 
 of his early anti-slavery associates, and also carried 
 into the discussion of questions where difference 
 of opinion might assert its right to more tolera- 
 tion than was accorded in treating of strictly 
 moral issues. He had influence in calling men 
 to a sense of their duty from this positiveness, but 
 it came to be that his advice at times was more 
 like that of one crying in the wilderness than of 
 an organizer for the right on practical grounds. It 
 is open to question if other more compliant men 
 are not needed in the world, as well as men of the 
 iron stamp of Frank Bird. 
 
 "It was meanness in men that most aroused his 
 indignation. He could not tolerate concession to 
 wrong; he despised most of all those who put 
 their selfish aims, with a view to political prefer- 
 ment, uppermost. The trickery of the schemes of 
 the smaller politicians especially aroused his noble 
 scorn. His favorite term for them was that of 
 'the jockeys of politics.' He left the Bird Club 
 originally because he thought some of these had 
 got into it; he found them in the bargains that 
 went on in the Know-Nothing party in its deca- 
 dent days ; he saw them in the later politics of his 
 life, and he held them always in the utmost 
 abhorrence. 
 
 "Aside from the antipathy thus and otherwise 
 created, he was a respected man among his politi- 
 cal opponents to a greater extent than is always 
 
128 FRANCIS WILLIAM BIRD. 
 
 understood. They all knew that he was honest 
 and sincere, and on many points they held his 
 judgment in high estimation. He had a mind 
 that grasped practical questions with fully the 
 strength that it dealt with moral ones. Mr. Bird 
 was not only one of the leaders in the great moral 
 reform of the anti-slavery contest; his extreme 
 attitude towards questions of State policy may 
 have impaired his influence in legislation, but he 
 did the State rare service in the formation of 
 opinion as to State policy. His ideas were broad, 
 thoughtful, and sound. They were oftener fol- 
 lowed than is supposed by many, and it is gen- 
 erally believed by those who have made them a 
 study that it was a mistake that they were not 
 still more adopted. He will be remembered as one 
 of the wisest men on these points that have been 
 at the State House in the generation just passed." 
 Every one who knew Mr. Bird came to appre- 
 ciate the tenderness of his affections. His heart 
 beat warmly in sympathy for the poor and unfort- 
 unate. It was his delight to do kindnesses for 
 people. The fact that a man had been a bitter 
 enemy was no barrier to his generosity. He gave 
 away and lent without expectation of adequate 
 return literally tens of thousands of dollars. 
 Once, indeed, his friend, Samuel B. Noyes of 
 Canton, came to him to pay a small debt that had 
 been outlawed years before. In their interview 
 Mr. Noyes said to Mr. Bird: — 
 
FRANCIS WILLIAM BIRD. 129 
 
 "I remember that in 1837 you lent me ten 
 dollars. Before I paid it, you had failed, and I 
 paid that to your assignee, Nathaniel F. Safford. 
 Afterwards, as I have been told, when you had 
 received from the court a full discharge, you paid 
 all your creditors in full; and I am only now 
 doing what jou have done and would do again. 
 The statute of limitations does not remove the 
 moral obligation." 
 
 "Precisely so," replied Mr. Bird, "but this is 
 the first time in my life — and I have lost more 
 than fifty thousand dollars — that any one ever 
 offered to pay to me a debt that was outlawed." 
 
 Mr. Bird was a spontaneously generous man. 
 The tributes of his friends, neighbors, and em- 
 ployes proved how tenderly he was loved. It was 
 often remarked that "the atmosphere around his 
 residence was redolent of this affection." 
 
 He made no show of the good that he did. As 
 an example of the gratitude that his kindness 
 evoked may be quoted the simple, often ungram- 
 matical, letter of a woman who, through his gener- 
 osity, was enabled to go away from the scene of 
 her labors, where her strength had been exhausted 
 by over-exertion. It was dated Boffin's Bower, 
 February 11, 1875. 
 
 " Kind Friend to Humanity, — 
 
 " You were not at home when I left the Common- 
 wealth, so that I could not thank you for your kind- 
 ness to me. It was the best thing that could have 
 
130 FRANCIS WILLIAM BIRD. 
 
 been done for me. If a thousand dollars were given 
 to me I would not think of using it for that purpose, 
 but I see now that it would have been impossible for 
 me to have gained my health in the place, although 
 I was glad to get back well and happy, It seemed like 
 a soldier getting back to camp, and although I en- 
 joyed myself every moment of my visit it did not 
 spoil me in the least for my work. I shall long re- 
 member the kindness of Mrs. Bird and her cordial 
 reception of me with out an introduction the first 
 night of my stay at the hotel, together with Miss 
 Mary who was so kind to me when I was so sick, and 
 the other young ladies of whome I saw but little but 
 that was sufficient to show that they inherite the rere 
 goodness of their parients. I hope your children live 
 to enjoy the love and respect that has been universaly 
 accorded to their father by all friends an opponents. 
 I know they will cherish the memories of the hallowed 
 past that have been so vividly impressed on their 
 tender minds in childhood, but they can never know 
 how much their father's wisdom, patriotism, gener- 
 osity, self sacrifising devotion, unselfish aims, and 
 high above them all his loyalty to friends had to do 
 with shapeing and perfecting the glorious results the 
 Nation is so proud of today." 
 
 The same friend of Mr. Bird's who was quoted 
 above also remarks upon the cheerfulness and 
 serenity of his disposition. He says : — 
 
 "He suffered much from physical ailments 
 through all his later life, and he met with his full 
 share of personal disappointments, but they never 
 impaired the native sweetness of his disposition. 
 
FRANCIS WILLIAM BIRD. 131 
 
 He retained his interest in everything about him 
 to the last, and he was always disposed to look 
 upon the bright side of what was transpiring. 
 He did not deem the age in which he lived to be 
 degenerate, or hold up the past as superior to the 
 present; on the contrary, he had always the hope 
 and the faith that the world was improving. 
 Eventually, he would say, our politics will be 
 better and purer, and he recognized readily the 
 progress made in moral reform. He had especial 
 affection in his old age for young men. He was 
 a wise counsellor and an encouraging friend to 
 them, and they were greatly attracted to him. 
 When he was tried at times by perversity in special 
 directions, he was prompt to remember that on the 
 whole right was advancing, and to take courage 
 and comfort from the fact." 
 
 The Rev. James Freeman Clarke once referred 
 to Mr. Bird as an example of cheerful old age in 
 one of his sermons. He said: — 
 
 " I see many young people who are prematurely 
 old ; they have exhausted life and its pleasures too 
 soon. They have lived to amuse themselves and 
 enjoy themselves, and the result is that they have 
 neither amusement nor joy. But yesterday I met 
 a friend some months older than myself, who said 
 to me that he was very weak in his body and was 
 losing his energy to work, but, said he, 'The 
 world is very beautiful to me still. ' He has been 
 a hard fighter for right against wrong all his days ; 
 
132 FRANCIS WILLIAM BIRD. 
 
 one who has loved truth and justice ; one who has 
 had for his friends upright men and generous, as 
 well as our patriots and philanthropists: so, 
 while the outward man perishes, the inward man 
 is renewed day by day, fed by happy recollections 
 and undying hopes." 
 
 Such was the life of a noble, manly, fearless, 
 and conscientious man. It offers many valuable 
 lessons. It shows how a man occupied with large 
 private business concerns may yet devote time 
 and energies to public concerns. It shows how a 
 man suffering for many years from ill health may 
 sufficiently master physical infirmities to enable 
 him to accomplish far more than the average man 
 in perfect health is able to do. It shows how a 
 man may so conduct his business as to give him 
 a competency, even a fair fortune, and yet preserve 
 the confidence of his employes. Undoubtedly he 
 might easily by sacrificing some of his finer oppor- 
 tunities have left a large fortune behind him, but 
 he preferred to express his interest in great public 
 questions. To these ends he contributed many 
 thousands of dollars, and not only money but time, 
 which was more than money. 
 
 As a friend also he taught a lesson of imponder- 
 able value. It was said of him : " When one of 
 his associates had won his regard, he grappled 
 him to his heart with hooks of steel. He was en- 
 thusiastic in his love, unselfish in his devotion." 
 Lovely in his home relations, a model of business 
 
FRANCIS WILLIAM BIRD. 133 
 
 honor, individual in all his tastes and character- 
 istics, an upright citizen, an indomitable fighter 
 for the right, he was one of whom it might well be 
 said; — 
 
 " He was a good man and a just." 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 It was announced in the course of the exercises 
 at Mr. Bird's funeral that at some future day a 
 meeting would take place in Boston, to give his 
 many distant friends an opportunity to pay by 
 word and letter their tribute to his memory, and 
 to call forth and preserve reminiscences of his 
 life. A special meeting of the Bird Club was 
 therefore held on Saturday, the last day of June, 
 at which many persons were present. The Hon- 
 orable Henry L. Pieece took the chair, and 
 spoke as follows : — 
 
 " I was asked to take the chair so long occupied by 
 our much-loved friend whose private virtues and 
 public services we now commemorate, because it was 
 believed that I was the oldest member of the club 
 of which he was the founder and of which he was 
 the inspiration so long as he lived. 
 
 *^ I am sure there is no touch of sadness in our hearts, 
 but rather a feeling of gratitude that his life, which 
 covered so large a part of the present century, was 
 rounded out to completion with all his powers un- 
 
 135 
 
136 FRANCIS WILLIAM BIRD. 
 
 impaired, full of good works and of effective efforts 
 to promote the welfare of his fellow-men. 
 
 ^' Francis W. Bird was a very remarkable man ; there 
 was nothing commonplace about him. He had read 
 widely and thought deeply, and his conversation was 
 full of interest and instruction. In all my conversa- 
 tions with him, we never parted without his having 
 said something for me to think of and profit by. 
 
 " During the stormy period of our history, from 1845 
 to 1875, he exerted a great influence upon the persons 
 with whom he came into contact, and especially upon 
 the public men of that time. In the consideration of 
 the great questions which enlisted the attention of the 
 country during that period, he took a leading part, 
 and was, to my thinking, generally on the right side. 
 
 ^' He was warmly attached to his friends, and was the 
 soul of good-fellowship. Nothing delighted him so 
 much as the weekly gathering of this club, in which 
 he called around him many of the choicest spirits of 
 our community. It is more than forty years since 
 he told me that he had set apart Saturday afternoon 
 for social communion with his friends, and that he 
 would not allow any business matters to interfere 
 with the enjoyments of that day. 
 
 " Of Mr. Bird's integrity, and high sense of honor in 
 his business life, it would be impossible to speak too 
 highly. His scrupulous regard for his word, and for 
 his financial obligations, enabled him to command 
 abundant means on the most favorable terms, even in 
 times of business depression. Once, in the course of 
 his long career as a manufacturer, he was driven by 
 the stress of circumstances to seek a settlement under 
 the national bankruptcy laws ; but he no sooner re- 
 ceived a discharge in that way from his obligations 
 
APPENDIX. 137 
 
 than he went to work resolutely to pay, and did pay, 
 every creditor in full, principal and interest. 
 
 " Mr. Bird was in all respects a progressive man, and 
 did not hesitate to adopt new things when, after ex- 
 amination, they commended themselves to his mind 
 and judgment. He was often far in advance of the 
 opinion of his day, and he never shrank from carry- 
 ing out any conclusions which he had reached, no 
 matter how much they might depart from prevailing 
 practices. 
 
 "Nothing more distinguished him in his life than 
 when at the close he directed that his body should be 
 cremated, as was the ancient custom, because it was 
 more consistent with the health of the community 
 and the proprieties of the occasion than was the pre- 
 vailing practice. I know how hard it is to overcome 
 tradition and education, but I cannot but believe that 
 in this he was right, and that he set an example 
 worthy to be followed." 
 
 Mrs. Julia Wabd Howe followed, and her 
 words were received with applause : — 
 
 " You will only expect to hear from me a few words 
 of affectionate remembrance and appreciation of one 
 so justly dear to all of you, and one who deserved the 
 love and admiration of the community. 
 
 "I knew him mostly as the affectionate friend of 
 my husband, a devoted friend of his, and I remember 
 his figure coming in and out of our house quite famil- 
 iarly, sympathizing very kindly in everything that 
 was happy or unfortunate in our house. In the days 
 that I saw him most we had suffered the loss of one 
 of our children, and I remember the great sympathy 
 
138 FRAKCIS WILLIAM BIRD. 
 
 and tenderness that Mr. Bird showed to us on that 
 occasion, and the great comfort he extended to my 
 husband. 
 
 " He was a very high-toned man. Through all the 
 intricacies of political life I always felt this fine and 
 unusual quality of the man. He seemed to be a good 
 deal of an old Roman without the affectation with 
 which people put on the classic toga and walk about 
 in it. There was nothing of that in Mr. Bird. You 
 felt that he was a man with whom the public inter- 
 ests stood first. He felt as one with the community. 
 He had it at heart, and never, I believe, lost sight of 
 its greatest interests. 
 
 " Mr. Dawes's letter says that his was not the con- 
 structive mind. On the other hand, it was a very criti- 
 cal mind, and he had a very keen sense of any fallacy 
 or falsehood. I felt that very much in the intercourse 
 I had with him. His convictions were surely very 
 strong and were never carelessly arrived at. One felt 
 in him a depth of thought and a depth of character 
 and an originality. I feel quite sure if he had made 
 a million political mistakes, let us say — and perhaps 
 he never made any, I don't know that he did — at this 
 high level, this high plane of intention and feeling upon 
 which he lived and moved, he did build up something 
 in the community which will not easily be broken 
 down. That is his great legacy. 
 
 "When I heard of his death, — and I heard of it 
 with sincere sorrow, — I felt grieved that so valuable 
 a man could be taken from us, and yet I felt at the 
 same time this something which he had built up with 
 his life, and which was not to pass away with his 
 death, and I do not believe that it will. 
 
 " I should like to say a word about the sweet romance 
 
APPENDIX. 139 
 
 of Ms character. He sometimes talked to me about 
 his early days and of his first marriage, and so on ; 
 and I remember that there seemed a great poetry of 
 character in the attachments and predilections of those 
 early times. He was too much of a man of action to 
 brood over anything, and very far from being a sen- 
 timentalist, but the value of sentiment he felt and 
 embodied in his life. 
 
 " Now the memory of such a man — what he was, 
 what he did, and what he intended — is a grand centre 
 for friends to group themselves around, to keep his 
 memory fresh by taking up the causes that he loved 
 and advocated and fought for, and feeling them dear 
 as he felt them dear, with the same unselfish and sin- 
 cere devotion." 
 
 After Mrs. Howe had spoken, letters were read 
 from gentlemen with whom Mr. Bird had been 
 associated in public life, giving their estimate, 
 from different political horizons, of his services to 
 Massachusetts and the country. A few of these 
 are pleasant to preserve : — 
 
 From Ex-Senator Carl Schurz. 
 
 " I thank you and our common friends, who invite 
 me to the meeting of the Bird Club to be held next Sat- 
 urday, most cordially for having thought of me. When 
 I read your letter, I felt as if I had received a greet- 
 ing from our departed friend himself, and it did my 
 heart good. 
 
 " I am sincerely sorry to say that I cannot be with 
 you on the day appointed for the meeting. Duties I 
 
140 FRANCIS WILLIAM BIRD. 
 
 have here will not let me go. I regret this exceed- 
 ingly, because the memory of Frank Bird is pecul- 
 iarly dear to me. It was in the spring of 1859, on 
 the occasion of a dinner given in Boston to celebrate 
 the anniversary of Thomas Jefferson's birthday, that 
 I first saw him. He was one of the Massachusetts 
 men intent on delivering the political anti-slavery 
 movement from the entanglement with proscriptive 
 Know-Nothingism. I remember well the cordiality 
 with which he welcomed me, a stranger in your State. 
 Since that period we met from time to time, and occa- 
 sionally exchanged letters on matters of public inter- 
 est, and we became fast friends. 
 
 " I dare say many of you saw him much more fre- 
 quently, and sustained with him closer personal rela- 
 tions than I did ; but nobody can have been attached 
 to him by a higher appreciation of his qualities. I 
 have never in my life known a more genuine man 
 than Frank Bird. Although he possessed strong 
 common sense and a sagacious mind, it would of 
 course be too much to say that he was always right 
 in his views ; nobody is. But whether always right 
 or not, there never could be any doubt as to the purity 
 and nobility of the motives which impelled him in 
 forming his opinions, nor as to the sincerity and can- 
 dor with which he expressed them. His judgments 
 of men and things, as well as the reasons which 
 moved and guided his conduct, were so unwarped by 
 anything like selfishness that this man could be abso- 
 lutely trusted. And as the moral values of public men 
 were always uppermost in his estimation, the influences 
 radiating from him were always most healthy and ele- 
 vating. 
 
 "In Frank Bird was seen the stuff out of which true 
 
APPENDIX. 141 
 
 patriots are made ; and if we could be sure tliat the 
 republic will always have a plentiful supply of such 
 citizens, there would be no reason to fear for its 
 future. 
 
 " I repeat, I am very sorry I cannot be with you 
 next Saturday. I wish I could take you all by the 
 hand in memory of our good friend. 
 
 " Sincerely yours, 
 
 "C. SCHURZ. 
 " PocANTico Hills, Westchester Co., N.Y., 
 June 27, 1894." 
 
 Fkom Ex-Senator H. L. Dawes. 
 
 "I should be very glad to join those who will meet 
 on Saturday to speak of their regard and friendship 
 for Mr. Bird, and bear witness to his worth and ser- 
 vice to the generations among whom he lived ; but I 
 find that I must be deprived of the opportunity. I 
 can only send a few words of tribute to an uninter- 
 rupted friendship of many years, surviving constant 
 change in every other relation of life save that of per- 
 sonal attachment and mutual regard. We began to 
 know each other when I first became a member of the 
 Legislature. 
 
 " Mr. Bird was then in the full vigor of hi s early 
 political life as an Independent Whig ; and I was not 
 myself in very regular standing with the party, hav- 
 ing been elected over its nominee on a local issue to 
 which party obligations were subordinated. We first 
 met in a caucus, in which things were not going to his 
 mind ; and I was in some way put up to join him in 
 making trouble. After this I aided him as a sort of 
 lieutenant in an occasional fray. The acquaintance 
 
142 FEANCIS WILLIAM BIRD. 
 
 thus begun ripened into a friendship which none of 
 the divergences and differences of after life have for 
 a moment shaken, — a friendship I have come every 
 year more and more to value. 
 
 " We could not, as you know, draw together much of 
 the time in the public service, — and quite as often as 
 otherwise we were found pulling directly apart. But 
 the man stood out in him all the time, and somehow, 
 the more the antagonism, the stronger the personal 
 regard. He was a born fighter, and loved nothing so 
 much as a good honest fight with a friend, if only it 
 were for something that would justify hard blows. 
 If the contest were fair, no combatant ever lost favor 
 with him. 
 
 "But Mr. Bird will be remembered not alone for the 
 warm personal regard in which he was held by all 
 who enjoyed his friendship, but also for the great 
 public service to which he devoted his life, and in 
 which he accomplished such unmeasured good. His 
 mission was the correction of errors ; and he hunted 
 them right and left, regardless of the politics that 
 might be in them, or the individual — official or pri- 
 vate — who might harbor them. His was not a con- 
 structive mind, and he devoted little time to the new 
 devices of the doctrinaire, content with the govern- 
 ment as it is, provided only that it be administered 
 without friction or fraud, and for the attainment of 
 the highest results. This is why he worked himself 
 in and out of so many different political organizations, 
 for none of which did he care anything, beyond the 
 opportunity they afforded him to hit the delinquent 
 and the laggard in official station. He fell upon un- 
 faithfulness wherever and in whatever garb he found 
 it, and gave it no quarter. It mattered not to him 
 
APPENDIX. 143 
 
 under what banner tlie wrong was committed, or 
 under what lead it was to be redressed. He carried 
 on a crusade against political sin; he lowered his 
 standard at the behest of no political party, and 
 marched with none that tampered with evil. He 
 would train with no men who kept open account with 
 political iniquity, but squared all accounts with 
 political offenders as he went along. He cared not 
 for professions, but dealt with performances alone. 
 Political integrity was the only password with him, 
 and he demanded it alike of Whig, of Free-soiler, of 
 Coalitionist, of Republican, and of Democrat, with 
 each of whom in turn he acted, and with neither of 
 whom was he content, because each failed to keep 
 clean his ways and clarify the atmosphere he breathed. 
 To judge him by party creeds would be to misjudge 
 him altogether. 
 
 "Although a private citizen for many of the last 
 years of his life, he was still a living force to the end. 
 We have a better public service because he has lived 
 among us. The influence he exerted for good will long 
 be felt in the politics of Massachusetts. There is need 
 of many more such men in our political life. 
 
 " I am very truly yours, 
 
 "H. L. Dawes." 
 
 Fkom Judge E. Eockwood Hoar of Concord. 
 
 " I am very much obliged for the invitation to join 
 in the commemorative services in honor of my valued 
 friend, F. W. Bird, by the club which bears his name, 
 on Saturday next ; but am sorry to say that it will 
 not be in my power to accept it. 
 
 "We agreed on most important things, and never 
 
144 FRANCIS WILLIAM BIRD. 
 
 quarrelled about any. He was a strong and upright 
 man, a generous man, and a friendly man. He was 
 one of the few men whom I continued to like and 
 respect about the same, even when he attached himself 
 to the Democratic party, his previous opinions on 
 which I had fully concurred in and admired, but to 
 whose defects and shortcomings I suddenly found 
 that he had become totally oblivious. 
 
 " The last time I met him (at Governor BoutwelPs 
 golden wedding in Groton), we strolled off together, 
 and had a long talk of a reminiscent character, wind- 
 ing up with a statement of our respective religious 
 opinions; of which he professed to have very little 
 of a definite character, — doing himself, as I then 
 thought and still think, great injustice. His whole 
 life was intended to be the taking of God's side against 
 the devil, — though, like the rest of us, he seemed to 
 me occasionally to carry on that warfare from an un- 
 tenable position. But he was always brave and sin- 
 cere, and I was very fond of him. 
 
 " Very sincerely yours, 
 
 "E. R. Hoar. 
 " Concord, June 25, 1894." 
 
 From Ex-Governor Russell. 
 
 " It is a great disappointment to me not to be pres- 
 ent. I should love to add a few words to the many 
 that will be spoken there, testifying to the sturdy 
 character, great ability, and distinguished public ser- 
 vice of our late friend. I say our friend, because, of 
 all the older men of my day, none seemed to me more 
 kindly, sympathetic, and helpful to us younger men 
 than did Mr. Bird. I remember with the greatest 
 
APPENDIX. 145 
 
 pleasure, during my whole official term as Governor, 
 
 almost every week he would call upon me at the 
 
 Executive Chamber, and help me with his words of 
 
 wisdom and sympathy. Massachusetts will always 
 
 remember the faithful services he rendered her by 
 
 his ability and sage counsel; and even more by his 
 
 courage and independence, which feared nothing, and 
 
 which always stood for what was honorable and right. 
 
 " Very truly yours, 
 
 "Wm. E. Eussell. 
 *• Boston, June 26, 1894." 
 
 From Ex-Governor Long. 
 
 " I find at the last moment that I cannot go to the 
 dinner in memory of Mr. Bird. I have to go out of 
 town, and so lose an opportunity which I had counted 
 on with especial pleasure, of testifying by my pres- 
 ence my respect for his strong heart and mind, his 
 love of liberty, his generous interest in the public 
 welfare, and his services as a typical citizen, repre- 
 senting in his day the fibre of Massachusetts. Like 
 many another, I look back to my start in public life 
 and recall gratefully his helpfulness, his cordial sympa- 
 thy with me, and the influence he exercised, especially 
 upon young men. Though not present, I beg to join 
 you in recalling his worth and honoring his memory. 
 
 "Very truly yours, 
 
 "John D. Long. 
 " Boston, June 30, 1894." 
 
 The Honorable John I. Baker of Beverly, the 
 oldest gentleman present, and an associate of Mr. 
 
146 FKANCIS WILLIAM BIRD. 
 
 Bird in the Legislature, and in the Executive 
 Council of Governor Andrew, was called upon, 
 and spoke as follows : — 
 
 " I met Frank Bird first, when he came to the Legis- 
 lature in 1847. He and I were in earnest sympathy 
 then as anti-slavery Whigs, if you can conceive of that 
 state of things, Mr. Chairman, and the acquaintance 
 that I then formed with him I kept up to the last. 
 He was to me one of the most interesting characters I 
 ever met. He was positive in his opinions, and had 
 the courage of his convictions. But though positive, 
 he was one of the most tolerant of men. I have seen 
 him differ in opinion from Governor Andrew, and no 
 debating society was ever equal to it ; but both men, 
 though they might differ, were ready to tolerate each 
 other if either found himself mistaken. 
 
 "I could not resist the temptation to come here, 
 that I might bear my testimony to the worth and 
 value in private virtues and public services of this 
 friend of ours." 
 
 Mr. John E. Russell of Leicester added his 
 tribute to Mr. Bird in these words: — 
 
 " It is only about ten years ago that I first became 
 acquainted with Mr. Bird. Circumstances brought 
 me forward to the public life of the commonwealth, 
 and then Mr. Bird did me the honor to make my ac- 
 quaintance. His advice and wise counsel made me 
 greatly his debtor. His interest and sympathy in 
 my affairs commanded my affection, and he revealed 
 to me in the intercourse I had with him that he was 
 a man of genuine patriotic feeling, the highest type 
 
APPENDIX. 147 
 
 of American citizenship. Mr. Bird was absolutely 
 fearless, and there is the difficulty of making him an 
 example to many young men. There was no man 
 that could sway Mr. Bird; no great personality that 
 could overcome him when he felt that he was right 
 and the other was wrong. There was no party and 
 no faction of a party of which he was afraid. Conse- 
 quently, he was in absolute independence of their 
 political action. 
 
 " Now the average citizen, the average good citizen, 
 constrained by his environment, by the opinions of 
 those about him, leans decidedly to one party or to 
 another, while Mr. Bird was free to act independently 
 of party, regarding them and trying them one after 
 another merely as instruments. In this way Mr. 
 Bird was like some of the most distinguished men in 
 our history. He unconsciously followed the most 
 illustrious examples. Such was the political charac- 
 ter of George Washington and of other great men in 
 the history of our republic. 
 
 " It was the patriotism of Mr. Bird that made him 
 loving to his fellow-citizen because that citizen was 
 his fellow-countryman. It made him incapable of that 
 rancorous and bitter abuse of political opponents which 
 is the common vice of the mean, of the narrow, and of 
 the selfish. It made him considerate and thoughtful 
 always, whatever their party might do, of those who 
 were intrusted with the solemn duty of government. 
 
 " And so, sir, this good man comes to his end and 
 is followed with the love of those who are gathered 
 here to-day and with that of all his fellow-citizens, 
 because he acted through life what is expressed in 
 those words, 'Whatsoever ye would that men should 
 do unto you, do ye also unto them.' " 
 
148 FRANCIS WILLIAM BIRD. 
 
 Three intimate and long-acquainted friends 
 who could not be at the memorial meeting — 
 Judge Davis mistaking the date, and Messrs. E. 
 L. Pierce and G. H. Monroe being in England — 
 afterwards sent these letters, full of reminiscence 
 and regard. 
 
 Judge Davis, who claimed to be "the only 
 living member of the original Bird Club," after 
 giving a long account of its formation and its 
 peculiarly democratic and unconventional organ- 
 ization, proceeded as follows : — 
 
 " ^ What kept this club together ? ' may be asked. It 
 was the social quality of its head, his devotion to his 
 friends, his intellectual and moral devotion to ideas, 
 and his love of purity and independence in public 
 life. These qualities called forth the respect of other 
 men, and rendered the club an important agent in 
 elevating the standards of political action in our 
 beloved commonwealth. 
 
 " It is a noticeable fact that few men who have held 
 office in the cabinet of the Kepublican party, few 
 governors since Talbot, and no Eepublican senator 
 have been willing to risk their presence in the Bird 
 Club. A man once elected to high office by a party 
 seems to feel himself under such obligations to that 
 party that he is bound to it forever after by manacles 
 of steel. Some Eepublican congressmen from Massa- 
 chusetts have occasionally dined with Mr. Bird, but 
 no one has identified himself with him since Presi- 
 dent Grant was elected. But other gentlemen who 
 still adhere to that party have not been afraid of com- 
 promising their position by dining with their old 
 
APPENDIX. 149 
 
 friends. Whilst I do not impugn the honor, nor the 
 honesty, of the magnates who have refused us the 
 light of their countenance, such absence has been 
 the cause of sincere regret. 
 
 "Mr. Bird was a genuine Democrat to his very- 
 marrow. He had a most concise, agile, and conclusive 
 logic, which he exercised without acerbity or show of 
 malice. Indeed, it was often amazing to witness the 
 celerity with which his opponent's heels were tripped, 
 like one who fell on concealed or slippery ice, think- 
 ing he stood on solid ground; or how, in other de- 
 bates, his disputant was smitten as with a cimeter, 
 upon the premises he himself laid down : — 
 
 ** * For 'tis the sport to have the engmer 
 Hoist with his own petar.' 
 
 " Mr. Bird was a generous man, who scarcely let his 
 left hand know what his right hand did; and not 
 alone to public men who needed assistance, not alone 
 to public causes he advocated, but in private chari- 
 ties, sympathizingly, gracefully, ungrudgingly, and 
 without ostentation, he contributed of his well- 
 earned store. 
 
 ♦* ' His heart and hand both open and both free : 
 For what he has he gives, what thinks, he shows ; 
 Yet gives he not till judgment guide his bounty.' 
 
 " He was — what is so much needed under a demo- 
 cratic government — an independent and a fearless 
 man. 
 
 *' ' He would not flatter Neptune for his trident 
 Or Jove for his power to thunder.' 
 
 Though always a partisan, he looked above party. 
 He despised cunning and corruption in public as in 
 
150 FRANCIS WILLIAM BIRD. 
 
 private act, and never hesitated to denounce a sneak, 
 in whatever party he ensconced himself. 
 
 " Mr. Bird came slowly, if at all, to accept the ex- 
 pediency of the expenditure of public money for 
 technical education, for the Agricultural College, for 
 the School of Technology, for great public enterprises, 
 and for special favors to private interests. For this 
 reason he was bitterly opposed to the Massachusetts 
 Hoosac Tunnel enterprise, and to the State loan or 
 credit to the New York and New England Eailroad 
 Company. Whether right or wrong in these regards, 
 he was consistent. Though a manufacturer himself, 
 he asked no business favors of the national govern- 
 ment, and denied the special and discriminating favor 
 to others which he would not demand for himself. 
 
 " He was a just man. After Horace Greeley was 
 defeated for the Presidency, in 1872, our State Com- 
 mittee of the Liberal Eepublicans met in the long 
 parlor over the front door of the Parker House, to 
 consult upon the question. What shall we do? or, as 
 Mr. Webster phrased it in Faneuil Hall, during Presi- 
 dent Tyler's reign, 'Where shall I go? ' Mr. Bird at 
 first hesitated; there was for a while little response 
 to the question. Finally one member remarked, *I 
 know where I am. I go with the Democratic party. 
 Slavery has been abolished. In the nature of things, 
 the Democratic party is also enfranchised, and can 
 now run in the line of its original principles. It can 
 have no motive to do otherwise. It can be moulded. 
 It can be controlled to good purposes. The Eepub- 
 lican party, since the war, has been simply scheming 
 for power ; they are like pirates on the ocean, seeking 
 only booty and plunder. It has, since the war, lived 
 by patting the carpet-bagger on the back, by corrup- 
 
APPENDIX. 151 
 
 tion, and by allying itself with the capital of the 
 country. It has had no other direct policy since the 
 war, and during the war there was hardly a day when 
 any man in Congress could state what law it would 
 pass, or what its policy would be. But we were anti- 
 slavery men before the war. We professed in our 
 political action to be waging no opposition to our 
 Southern fellow-countrymen, but to the aggressions 
 of slavery and the slave power. Now there has been 
 exhibited this year the most remarkable display of 
 character and self-restraint, the greatest moral spec- 
 tacle ever seen in so few years, after a civil war. 
 Our quondam rebels have nobly come forward at Cin- 
 cinnati, enthusiastic to nominate Charles Francis 
 Adams ; and, failing in that, they procured the nomi- 
 nation of one of their most bitter opponents before 
 the war, who was also a tariff man. The Democratic 
 party also nominated Mr. Greeley. Are not we, of 
 all others, the men to meet them half way? May 
 not our action, in continued union with our Southern 
 friends, perhaps do more than anything else to " close 
 up the bloody chasm"? We were willing to join 
 with them in the chance for victory, and shall it be 
 said that we deserted them after defeat? Shall we 
 not show the magnanimity they have exhibited? ' 
 
 "This, in outline, was the view presented. Mr. 
 Bird at once said, 'That course is just; we are in 
 honor bound to adhere to them.' And I think that 
 every man but one on that committee has voted the 
 national Democratic ticket ever since. 
 
 " I well remember also an earlier conference of a 
 sub-committee of the same committee with the Demo- 
 cratic State Committee during the summer of the 
 Greeley campaign, about the nomination of Sumner 
 
152 FRANCIS WILLIAM BIRD. 
 
 for governor. Mr. Bird was a member of our com- 
 mittee. Many of the Democrats had never met him; 
 they had been taught to believe that 'Frank Bird' 
 was something monstrous, 'a mixture of hyena and 
 orang-outang/ but found him a man of like 'organs, 
 dimensions, affections ' with themselves, with a keen 
 sense of honor; and they all respected and loved him 
 afterward, and nominated and voted for him for gov- 
 ernor, after Mr. Sumner's declination. 
 
 "Take him for all in all, 'we ne'er shall see his 
 like again.' May his good spirit pardon me in this 
 humble attempt to contribute a leaf to the laurel 
 wreath that crowns his life! 
 
 Ti .on.,. "Charles G. Davis. 
 
 " Plymouth, July, 1894." 
 
 The Honorable George H. Monroe, in his 
 letter dated Boston, August 4, 1894, after relating 
 the manner of his first acquaintance with Mr. Bird, 
 proceeded to give his impressions of the man in 
 these heartfelt words : — 
 
 " I always think of Frank Bird first as a man of 
 generous, tender, and loving heart. He made many 
 political enemies, but I do not think there was one 
 among them who really knew him, who failed to pay 
 him this tribute. He was intolerant of wrong in 
 others, yet I never knew any one who could be quite 
 so easily moved to pity for a wrong-doer. He resented 
 injuries to himself, but he was more keen to resent 
 injuries done to his friends, and especially injuries 
 done to what he regarded as the right. He had two 
 almost distinct personalities. He would denounce 
 unsparingly an individual who he thought was wrong, 
 
 I 
 
APPENDIX. 153 
 
 and he did not exercise imagination so much as he 
 might have done in conceiving the excuses that could 
 possibly be for such wrong principle or action; but 
 let any one, friend or foe, approach him with a re- 
 quest for a favor, and he melted at once to kindness. 
 I remember in one instance he was especially severe 
 upon an old acquaintance who had committed what 
 perhaps came nearer being an unpardonable sin in his 
 eyes than anything else, by being untrue to Charles 
 Sumner. This man came to him in the midst of it 
 all to ask him to be his bondsman for a public office. 
 No possible wrath — and his in this instance was very 
 great — could for a moment stand in the way of his 
 conferring this favor. 
 
 " Mr. Bird realized fully the extent of some unkind- 
 nesses from which he suffered. He had tried to glory 
 in them at times. He said more than once, with some 
 egotism perhaps, but more truth, when attacked by 
 the lower class of politicians : — 
 
 " ' Yes, I am proud, I must be proud, to see 
 Men not afraid of God afraid of me.' 
 
 " But it was foreign to his nature to find happiness in 
 disputes with any one. Though often in controversy, 
 at heart his was the gentlest of spirits. He appeared 
 otherwise because he saw the right so clearly, and could 
 not readily conceive that others could be obtuse to it. 
 
 " He was not a natural follower of any leader. His 
 was the truly independent temperament. He did not 
 readily conform either in politics or religion, and he 
 had a fine scorn of those who would yield conviction 
 for the sake of conforming. Here was the key to 
 many of his controversies, as well as to the disregard 
 of party ties and party obligations in which much of 
 
154 FRANCIS WILLIAM BIRD. 
 
 his life was passed. He placed sincerity above every- 
 thing, and he could not tolerate departures from it in 
 himself or in others. 
 
 " Mr. Bird was always a great reader, and he had a 
 fine capacity to assimilate what was best in his read- 
 ing. He was a felicitous as well as a forcible writer, 
 and his quotations from the earlier poets were very 
 apt in this connection. He wrote better than he 
 spoke in his public addresses, but he was a good con- 
 versationalist, and one of the most sensible and 
 instructive in his general remarks in conversation of 
 any man I have known. 
 
 " He was a true gentleman in the best sense of that 
 word. He had an abhorrence of everything low, 
 coarse, or vulgar. This quality came out at the dinner 
 tables where he presided, around which were fre- 
 quently gathered men out of sympathy with him in 
 politics. Nothing that was otherwise than refined 
 in thought in itself, and studiously considerate of the 
 feelings of others, ever fell from his lips then, and 
 even his rebukes to others who he thought tran- 
 scended the bounds of decorum were mild and gentle. 
 
 " I have dwelt upon these traits in Mr. Bird's char- 
 acter, because he said to me in his later years, 'No 
 man living knows me so well as you do.' I take 
 peculiar pleasure with this recollection in saying 
 that this was what I knew of him. 
 
 " The last time I saw Mr. Bird was the day before 
 I left the country to be absent for several months. I 
 went out then to his home in East Walpole, where he 
 was confined by illness. At the railroad station in 
 that village, in his mills, on the way up to his resi- 
 dence, I encountered those who knew him, and had 
 been brought up as his neighbors and in his service. 
 
APPENDIX. 155 
 
 It was touching indeed to hear the tributes they paid 
 
 him. No man was ever more fervently loved by those 
 
 about his home than was he. I found Mr. Bird 
 
 stretched upon his bed by a recent attack, in a more 
 
 severe form, of the illness which had overtaken him. 
 
 He was cheerful, clear in mind, interested in all 
 
 about him. He spoke principally of his later life, 
 
 and especially of his last visit to Boston. I do not 
 
 think he anticipated that death was so near him, but 
 
 he had probably felt for many years that he mi^ht 
 
 be called at an early moment. I never at any time 
 
 heard him express fears of the future. He bade me 
 
 farewell without any apparent premonition that we 
 
 should not meet again, and there had so long been an 
 
 indomitable vitality in that frame which ill health 
 
 had done much to enfeeble, that I shared fully 
 
 with him in this feeling. Physically he died out 
 
 of the world a few weeks later. His memory will 
 
 never die out of the minds of those who knew him 
 
 best, until death claims them also. 
 
 »T5 ^^1. i -.on. M "Geo. H. Monroe. 
 
 "Boston, October 1, 1894." 
 
 In the long and interesting letter of the Honor- 
 able Edward L. Pierce, whose acquaintance 
 with Mr. Bird extended over the last half of his 
 life, occurred the following observations : — 
 
 "My acquaintance with Mr. Bird began about the 
 year 1850, and my last interview with him was at his 
 home, July 3, 1893, just before I sailed for Europe. 
 One of my earliest recollections of him is a meeting 
 with him at the Readville station as we were taking 
 the train to attend the Commencement at Brown 
 
156 FEANCIS WILLIAM BIED. 
 
 University, our common alma mater. He rarely 
 omitted, till about three years before his death, to 
 attend this anniversary; but the interest which drew 
 him to it seemed to be less in the college itself than 
 in old fellowships, and instead of being a witness of 
 the ceremonies, he kept rather with his college friends, 
 Senator Henry B. Anthony, Professor William Gam- 
 mell, and Judge Walter Burgess. He discontinued 
 his attendance when he could no longer find there 
 Judge Burgess, the survivor of the other two. His 
 sympathy with these companions was purely friendly, 
 as he was rarely in full political accord with them. 
 Another college friend, whom he held in much regard, 
 was Edward H. Hazard, and in death they were 
 divided by only a few months. When Mr. Bird was 
 present for the last time at Commencement, he was 
 recognized at the dinner as an old and distinguished 
 graduate. His seat was then with the invited guests, 
 on a raised platform, and he was called up for a 
 speech. Until quite late in life he attended the 
 annual reunions of the graduates living in or near 
 Boston. . . . 
 
 "Mr. Bird's friendliness, comprehending men of 
 various tastes and opinions, has been emphasized by 
 others, and I need not repeat what they have so well 
 said. He was never so happy as when such groups 
 were gathered about him. . . . 
 
 " The unjust treatment which Sumner received from 
 President Grant's administration on account of his 
 opposition to the measures for annexing San Domingo 
 broke Mr. Bird's connection with the Eepublican 
 party, which he had assisted so much to found and 
 which he has served so faithfully. In September, 
 1873, Mr. Sumner attended at East Walpole the 
 
APPENDIX. 157 
 
 wedding of Mr. Bird's eldest daughter. This was 
 two months before the senator left the State for the 
 last time. The last meeting of the two friends was 
 at Washington, within about a week of the senator's 
 death; and one of Sumner's last letters, perhaps the 
 last, written a few hours or moments before he was 
 smitten with his final attack of angina pectoris, was 
 addressed to Mr. Bird, who received it when the 
 writer was no more. . . . 
 
 " Mr. Bird had always great faith in a direct appeal 
 to the people, in campaign papers as well as in pam- 
 phlets. In 1850 he conducted as a coadjutor with 
 two other gentlemen, The Free-soiler, which was effec- 
 tive in the contest ending in Sumner's election as 
 senator. In 1870 he conducted 27^6 Tocsin, which he 
 issued for the purpose of defeating the proposed loan 
 to the Boston, Hartford, and Erie Eailroad. 
 
 "Mr. Bird was, as Burke said of his son, 'made a 
 public creature.' His interest in public affairs was 
 all through his life most earnest and constant, even to 
 the detriment of his private business. Probably no 
 man in our history has, without official connection or 
 personal interests, ever visited the State House so 
 often, to confer as to some measure which he deemed 
 useful or hurtful. I remember a laborious summer 
 during which he was most of the time in Boston, en- 
 gaged in investigations and a report concerning the 
 best use to be made of the flats at South Boston. He 
 was not ambitious for high office, but he enjoyed most 
 of all a seat in the Legislature, where he could affect 
 decisively the policy and well-being of the State. 
 
 " Our friend suffered during a great part of his life 
 from ill health. He often sat at tables where others 
 enjoyed a luxurious meal while he confined himself to 
 
158 FBANCIS WILLIAIVI BIRD. 
 
 a simple dish which barely sufficed for sustenance. 
 His vital force, however, enabled him to overcome 
 physical disability. He will be remembered for his 
 originality, freshness, and sincerity, his tender sym- 
 pathies in sorrow, his loyalty in friendship, and his 
 generous help to the unfortunate. Those whose 
 knowledge of men has been various, find his strong 
 personality vividly stamped on their minds, not as 
 one of a familiar type, but separate and distinct by 
 itself, adding a new experience of human character. 
 
 .,^-. ^ ■, r. .r>r.. „ " Edward L. Pierce. 
 
 "Milton, October 7, 1894." 
 
 The Honorable A. W. Beard, a leading politi- 
 cal associate of Mr. Bird for some years, and a 
 member of the club after differences of opinion 
 had led to a separation into the original club and 
 the Massachusetts Club, being called on by Mr. 
 H. L. Pierce to read the letter of Mr. Dawes, spoke 
 afterward as follows : — 
 
 "I first made Mr. Bird's acquaintance about the 
 year 1863, at the Bird Club. For nine years at least 
 I was a regular attendant at the meetings of that 
 club; while during the last four or five years of that 
 time, from 1863 to 1872, I was in close relations to 
 Mr. Bird — close political relations and still closer 
 relation on matters of State affairs in which political 
 lines were not drawn. 
 
 " It was my privilege also to serve in the Legisla- 
 ture with Mr. Bird, to know something of his way and 
 methods there, and the directness of his mind. His 
 faculty of seizing a central point, either for or against 
 a measure in debate, was remarkable, and it was effec- 
 
APPENDEX. 169 
 
 tive. It is true that he was tolerant in opinion, but 
 he was intolerant where he thought there was dis- 
 honesty or where he thought public position was used 
 to serve personal ends. 
 
 " In Mr. Bird as a public man we have had an ex- 
 ample I wish that all men, especially young men who 
 have entered public life or who are thinking of enter- 
 ing it, would profit by and follow. Wherever Mr. 
 Bird saw a man, whether a candidate for ofiice or not, 
 who was seeking to make the position he occupied 
 for the political influence he could exert subservient 
 to a base purpose, or to personal ends, he always 
 went against that course and that man. I have 
 known Mr. Bird to oppose men whom he had every 
 reason to consider personal friends, because he dis- 
 trusted the motives which governed their actions, and 
 had reason to do so. This example of Mr. Bird en- 
 joins us, both young and old, that we should demand 
 of those whose names are submitted for our suffrages 
 the most absolute honesty and integrity so far as the 
 public good is concerned. 
 
 ^' I am glad to come here and express my respect 
 and love for the memory of Mr. Bird, and I am glad 
 that it was my privilege for so many years to be asso- 
 ciated with him, and to retain his friendship and, I 
 hope, his respect so long as he lived." 
 
 Judge Robinson of Berkshire, an early and 
 warm friend, being incapacitated by illness, from 
 which he has since died, sent these remarks to be 
 read to those present: — 
 
 "Frank Bird was a remarkable man, and had a. 
 remarkable career. He was a successful paper manu- 
 
160 FRANCIS WILLIAM BIRD. 
 
 factnrer all his life, but lie was also a public character 
 and a potent influence in our politics for half a cent- 
 ury. He had rare qualities of mind and heart. He 
 stood in the front ranks for his sound judgment, 
 sagacious counsel, unfailing tact, and for his keen 
 knowledge of men and affairs. He had also winning 
 social qualities, — kindness, generosity, fidelity, and 
 unquestioned integrity. He loved many men, who 
 loved him in return, and he retained this regard 
 through all the changes of time and fate. But back 
 of all these gifts, and more commanding, was the un- 
 flinching courage and dauntless sincerity of the man. 
 He feared no majority, no party, no 'machine,' no 
 *boss.' He founded the Bird Club, which became one 
 of the powers of the State. Mr. Bird was the magnet 
 that drew together every Saturday the leading men 
 of Massachusetts. He sat at the head of the table, 
 and started the conversations that led to conclusions 
 which shaped the action of conventions and the result 
 of elections. The present generation can hardly 
 appreciate the fierceness of the conflict between the 
 Free-soil leaders and the old Whig party, intrenched 
 in the wealth and culture and the fashion of the State. 
 The traditions, the prestige and pride of the State 
 were on that side. But the Whig party was beaten. 
 Charles Sumner was elected to succeed Webster in 
 the Senate, where he defended the great cause with 
 magnificent eloquence and ability. Frank Bird was 
 his steadfast friend from start to finish, and helped 
 to secure his reelection, when mistaken friends at- 
 tempted to retire him from public life. Frank Bird's 
 chief gift and power was a genius for friendship. He 
 had a wide range of affinities, and friends in all par- 
 ties. He lived for public ends and principles. He 
 
APPENDIX. 161 
 
 labored for the freedom and welfare of all men ; he 
 was the friend of all sincere and brave men and 
 women. With only those exceptions that mark all 
 human endeavor, his life-work was noble, unselfish, 
 fearless, and faithful." 
 
 Judge Wayland of the Yale Law School, 
 eldest son of Mr. Bird's college president, Dr. 
 Wayland of Brown University, sent this letter: — 
 
 "I should certainly attend the memorial meeting in 
 honor of Mr. Bird, to which your note, just received, 
 summons me, if other engagements did not forbid. I 
 cannot remember the time when I did not know him. 
 He had been a favorite pupil of my father. President 
 Wayland, who held in high esteem his earnest, manly, 
 straightforward character. His punctual presence at 
 the annual Commencements of Brown University is 
 one of my earliest recollections. When I last met 
 him, some years ago, on Commencement day, he left 
 me to call on his old and intimate college friend 
 (though not a classmate). Honorable H. B. Anthony, 
 long United States senator from Khode Island, who 
 was then confined to the house with severe illness. 
 Their widely differing views on party questions were 
 already separating them as politicians, but could not 
 chill the warmth of their mutual regard. 
 
 "And this illustrates what I suppose to have been 
 a prominent characteristic of Mr. Bird in his inter- 
 course with his fellows. He was tolerant of honest 
 dissent from his own opinions, always expressed with 
 uncompromising frankness, as he was impatient of 
 views apparently embraced from interested motives, 
 or held in a half-hearted or hesitating fashion. He 
 
162 FRAKCIS WILLIAM BIRD. 
 
 was absolutely fearless in asserting and defending his 
 sincere convictions, and never concealed his contempt 
 for those who sought shelter behind expediency, or 
 trimmed their sails to the popular breeze. 
 
 " All his friends — and I am happy to believe that 
 I was among them — knew him to be a most lovable 
 man, thoroughly unselfish, ever eager to do a kind- 
 ness to those who trusted him; not blind to their 
 faults, but always kindly in his criticism; uncon- 
 sciously emphasizing his wise words of friendly coun- 
 sel by furnishing in his own career a shining example 
 of all that is high-minded and honorable in the con- 
 duct of a public man and a private citizen. 
 
 "Political office, which he always shunned, could 
 
 have added nothing to his fame, while it might have 
 
 robbed him of that unfettered independence which he 
 
 prized far above all human distinctions. I will only 
 
 add that I count his personal friendship among the 
 
 most gratifying incidents of my life. 
 
 "Ever sincerely yours, 
 
 ^ X «o .no. ., "Francis Wayland. 
 
 "New Haven, June 28, 1894." 
 
 The Honorable Willard P. Phillips, son of 
 the old Congressman Stephen C. Phillips of Salem, 
 one of the founders of the Free-soil party, wrote : — 
 
 " If I am permitted, I shall go to Boston on Satur- 
 day, but I shall hardly be able to say anything. I 
 will try to write you a letter, and shall be very sorry 
 if I can neither attend nor write. I find I knew 
 Bird when he was one of the young men who stood by 
 the three arch-conspirators, Charles Allen, Charles 
 Francis Adams, and my father, Stephen Clarendon 
 
APPENDIX. 163 
 
 Phillips, in their action against Texas annexation 
 in 1845; and I was with him in the Legislature of 
 1848, and that goes back, I think, to his earliest 
 political life." 
 
 D. W. Wilder of Kansas, one of those who helped 
 make that great region a free State, wrote : — 
 
 "At your memorial meeting, * courage,' * unselfish,' 
 — those were the leading words, and true; it is 
 strange that no one said, 'leader/ 'politician.' He 
 was one of the best. Here was intellectual force and 
 power. Mr. Bird was an organizer, like my towns- 
 man, Adin Thayer. He helped make men of Andrew, 
 Wilson, and Sumner, and helped to guide them after- 
 ward. I thought also that he was a witty man." 
 
 This mention of Judge Thayer of Worcester, 
 whose death preceded that of Mr. Bird by several 
 years, may serve to introduce one of the last let- 
 ters he wrote to his old comrade (March 12, 1887). 
 
 " Certainly we tried, in the stormy days of the Ee- 
 public, to do our duty, — with perhaps as little self- 
 seeking as any men of our time. Whatever I have 
 done has resulted largely from your friendship and 
 example. You have lived a brave and noble life. 
 Do not fear that any differences of opinion will pre- 
 vent the world from recognizing it." 
 
 Colonel Charles R. Codman wrote : — 
 
 "I am much honored in beiug asked to attend the 
 memorial meeting in honor of the late Francis W. 
 
164 FRANCIS WILLIAM BIED. 
 
 Bird, and I much regret that I shall not be able to 
 be present. Although I have not been so intimate 
 with Mr. Bird as have others of his friends, I can yet 
 say that I have never known a man more indepen- 
 dent, more liberal, and more sincere. His political 
 action was always the result of well-considered opin- 
 ions, and where those opinions logically led him he 
 always had the courage and honesty to go. Of no 
 man in public life within my recollection can this be 
 said more emphatically than of him.'' 
 
 The Honorable A. L. Pillsbtjry, who was one 
 of Mr. Bird's warm friends and admirers, added his 
 testimony, especially emphasizing the remarkable 
 influence which Mr. Bird had on younger men: — 
 
 "I do not feel to-day that we are in a house of 
 mourning, meeting as we do to commemorate a useful 
 and honored life, crowned with serene old age and 
 peaceful death in the midst of family and friends. 
 On such an occasion it is a pleasure to add my testi- 
 mony to the sterling qualities of Francis W. Bird, and 
 to acknowledge my own obligations to him for his 
 friendship. My acquaintance with Mr. Bird began in 
 1877, when we met in the House of Eepresentatives, 
 and I can speak of him only as one of his younger 
 friends who knew him in his later years. He was 
 always young in spirit, and encouraged, and I think 
 enjoyed, the acquaintance of young men. In the more 
 distinguished positions which he had previously held 
 I doubt if he ever did more valuable public service 
 than in the popular branch of the Legislature. He 
 was full of information on most of the subjects of 
 legislation, and he had all the qualities that go to 
 
APPENDIX. 165 
 
 make a good legislator. His independence and courage 
 are familiar, and he never left these qualities behind 
 him in office or as a candidate for office. He loved 
 the truth, insisting upon it as firmly when it was 
 against him as when it was for him. He despised 
 a rascal or a coward from the bottom of his soul. He 
 was a righteous hater of all sorts of shams and hum- 
 bugs. He had the individuality and strength of char- 
 acter which made him a natural leader of men, which 
 once would have put and kept him in high public office, 
 and which in these times go far to disqualify a man for 
 public office. Our system does not tend to bring the 
 strongest characters to the front, and perhaps it cannot 
 be expected to. It is not and is not designed to be 
 the rule of the strongest, but the rule of the people, 
 and the people's government will be in the long run 
 an average reflection of themselves. I always deeply 
 regretted that Mr. Bird found it necessary to change 
 his political relations after the war period, — though 
 he always said that it was not he but his party that 
 had changed, — as I do not think he was ever fully 
 contented in his new situation. Indeed, I cannot but 
 feel that his later years were tinged with the natural 
 resentment of a strong man who is put aside because 
 he will not ^ crook the pregnant hinges of the knee.' 
 If this is true, it only shows that he was human, and 
 he would have been the last man to claim exemption 
 from human infirmity. Like most men of strong con- 
 victions, he had strong prejudices, but he was always 
 open to reason and quick and generous to forgive and 
 forget. As he did not depend on public position for 
 his influence, he was not disarmed of it in private life. 
 He was a man of action. When anything needed to 
 be said, he did not wait to hear what others thought, 
 
166 FRANCIS WILLIAM BIRD. 
 
 but spoke out. When anything needed to be done, lie 
 did not wait for others to do it, but put his own hand 
 to it. He was full of conviction and of courageous 
 public spirit; and when he spoke he was heard, 
 not because it was public authority that spoke, but 
 because it was a man. He was a natural leader of 
 public opinion, a man whose weight of character and 
 judgment enabled him to give the law to the legis- 
 lature and the rule of action to the executive, and 
 these men, in office or out of office, are the real rulers 
 of our affairs. It will not become me to say much 
 here of his personal and private relations. His friends 
 know that with all his interest and activity in public 
 affairs, he was devoted to his family and friends. He 
 was a helpful man, privately no less than publicly. 
 He was liberal with his means, and it would not sur- 
 prise me to know that in the course of his life he gave 
 away as much to public objects or private charity 
 as he kept for himself. A loyal and affectionate 
 friend, an active, public-spirited citizen, a true man 
 in every relation of life, — all this we may say of Mr. 
 Bird with absolute truth, and better than this cannot 
 be said of any man." 
 
 Samuel Bowles of Springfield sent a hearty 
 tribute, which met with a warm response : — 
 
 "It appears to me," he said in his letter, "that the 
 conspicuous service of his career lay in the example 
 that he gave through his long life, of unselfish devo- 
 tion to public interests, — town, State, or national. 
 His participation in politics was based upon the high- 
 est motives. He did not seek to lead or influence men 
 because he loved power. He did not seek the distinc- 
 
APPENDIX. 167 
 
 tion and honors of public office for the sake of social 
 recognition or business advantage. But he interested 
 himself in public affairs and spent his time and 
 thoughts and strength in promoting the causes in 
 which he believed, because he hoped that by such in- 
 terest and effort he could in some measure improve 
 the political and social conditions of the State and 
 country that he loved. 
 
 "I am glad to acknowledge that Mr. Bird's example 
 in this regard has been a constant inspiration and 
 encouragement to me personally as a journalist, and I 
 have no doubt it has been equally so to others of my gen- 
 eration. Happily in Massachusetts it has been by no 
 means singular, but it has certainly been conspicuous. 
 
 "Mr. Bird's winning personality will be treasured 
 in the memory of his friends so long as they live. I 
 think it never shone out more charmingly and gra- 
 ciously than in his relations with men much younger 
 than himself. And the best thing about his peculiar 
 talent for friendship was that it was never exercised 
 with a view to personal advantage, or private pelf, 
 but foremost and always for the public good. Truly 
 do his character and career deserve to be studied and 
 emulated by the young men of Massachusetts, and 
 especially by the young business men. 
 
 " Sincerely yours, 
 
 "Saml. Bowles." 
 
 Archibald H. Gremke, once a fugitive slave 
 in South Carolina, now representing the United 
 States as Consul at Santo Domingo, wrote : — 
 
 " Could I be present, it would be a mournful satis- 
 faction to testify by my presence the respect and 
 
168 FRANCIS WILLIAM BIRD. 
 
 gratitude the colored people of the United States owe 
 this wise old Roman for noble services in their behalf 
 during that great period of political agitation against 
 slavery, before and during the Eebellion." 
 
 The Honorable William W. Crapo wrote 
 from New Bedford thus: — 
 
 "Francis W. Bird was the exponent of political 
 integrity; he hated shams, and his independence was 
 genuine. His treatment of public questions and his 
 judgment of public men were never marred by nar- 
 rowness nor tainted by sycophancy. He was candid, 
 sincere, and sagacious. He did not consider that his 
 duty as a citizen ended with the utterance of criticism 
 and complaints. And by vigorous and organized 
 action he sought to advance the general welfare. Few 
 men in his generation made greater contributions to 
 the elevation and reform of public opinion, and for 
 his service, during a long life, in the cause of good 
 government, we hold him in grateful remembrance." 
 
JAN 3 1905