THE

HISTORICAL AND GENEALOGICAL

REGISTER.

JULY, 1878.

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF HENRY WILSON, LATE VICE-PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES..

THIS

By the Rev. ELIAS NASON, M.A

HIS eminent statesman and author was the son of Winthrop and Abigail (Witham) Colbath, and was born in Farmington, Strafford County, N. H., on the 16th day of February, 1812.

The Colbath, Coolbroth, or Calbreath family is of respectable Scottish origin, and emigrated in or about 1719 to this country from the north of Ireland. The name appears on the records of Newington, then a part of Portsmouth, N. H., as early as 1725,† and James Colbath, with his wife Olive, removed from that place to that part of Rochester, now Farmington, N. H., in or about the year 1783. They had issue-Leighton, Independence, WINTHROP, Hunking, Benning, Keziah, Deborah and Amy.

Winthrop, the grandfather of Mr. Wilson, married Hannah Rollins, of Newington, and had, inter alios, Winthrop, born in Rochester, April 7, 1787; married Abigail Witham (born March 21, 1785) and died in Natick, Mass., Feb. 10, 1860. She died in the same town, April 8, 1866. They had issue-Jeremiah Jones (subsequently Henry Wilson), John F., Charles, Samuel, George A. and Albert Colbath.

The house in which the Colbath family dwelt stood on the right bank of the Cocheco River in Farmington, and has long since fallen into ruins. They were poor, but honest people, gaining a scanty subsistence by hard and incessant toil. Jeremiah was early sent to

The Calbreath coat-of-arms (Scotland) is a "Bendy of six argent and azure, on a chief sable three crosses pattée or."-Burke's Encyclopedia of Heraldry, in loco.

+ Mary Coolbroth "owned the covenant" and was baptized Sept. 29, 1725. Her children, James, Pitman, William, Joseph, Benjamin, Susannah and Mehitable, were also then baptized. George Coolbroth" owned the covenant" and was baptized Feb. 4, 1728. He married in 1734 Elizabeth Hoyt. Their son Samuel was baptized Oct. 19, 1735. Leighton, son of James Coolbroth, was baptized Dec. 1, 1739.-Newington (N. H.) Records.

the district school, where he very soon learned to read and write, and where he always held himself in readiness to defend the weaker party. Here is an instance. On one bitter cold winter morning, he saw the older boys huddling around the large fire-place of the school-house and crowding the younger lads away to shiver on the long oaken benches. Indignant at such selfishness, he challenged one of the larger boys to fight with him; he gained the victory, and so established the right of his party to an equal footing at the fire. For this he received his only flogging at school. In the main he was an obedient and industrious scholar, improving well such opportunities as he had of acquiring the rudiments of a common education.

When about eight years old, a little incident occurred which had some influence on his future life. While playing one day in a sandbank, a lady, passing in her carriage and observing him without either hat or shoes on, stopped and asked him if he knew how to read.

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Yes, ma'am, pretty well," he answered.

"Come, then, to my house to-morrow," said she, and drove away. It was Mrs. Anstress (Woodbury) Eastman, wife of the Hon. Nehemiah Eastman, who lived in Farmington. Early the next morning Jeremiah went to see the lady, who said to him, "I intend to give a Testament to some one that will make good use of it; now take this book and let me hear you read." He read a chapter cleverly. "Now carry the book home with you," said she, "read it through and you may have it."

At the expiration of a week he called again at Mrs. Eastman's, told her he had read the book from end to end, and found it very interesting. She examined him, and saw to her surprise that he had not only read all the Testament, but had also treasured much of it in his memory. This, he subsequently declared, was the starting point in his intellectual life. Could he have had a better one?

On the 7th of August, 1822, he went to live with Mr. William Knight, a substantial and hard-working yeoman of Farmington, to whom he was bound by indenture until the age of twenty-one. By the conditions agreed on, he was to work on the farm, to have his food and raiment, the privilege of attending school one month every winter, and to receive, at the end of his term of service, six sheep and a yoke of oxen.

Later in life he touchingly alluded to these early days of trial in the following words :

"Poverty cast her dark and chilling shadow over the home of my childhood, and want was there sometimes an unbidden guest. At the age of ten years, to aid him who gave me being in keeping the gaunt spectre from the hearth of the mother who bore me, I left the home of my boyhood and went to earn my bread by daily labor."