CYRUS WOODMAN.1

A Memoir read before the Maine Historical Society, November 21, 1889.

BY GEORGE F. EMERY.

THE subject of this sketch was born in Buxton, Maine, June 2, 1814. His genealogy, traced by his own hand from Edward who settled in Newbury, Mass., in 1635, will be found in his publication entitled "The Woodmans of Buxton, Me.," in the library of the Maine Historical Society, and among the collections of many kindred bodies. His father was Joseph Woodman, a respectable lawyer of Buxton. His mother was Susanna, a daughter of Rev. Paul Coffin, D. D., the first settled minister of that town. He was early placed at Gorham Academy where, and at Saco, he prepared to enter Bowdoin College whence he was graduated in 1836. His attachment to his classmates was unusually strong and never flagged. How well this was illustrated will never be forgotten by all the survivors, nine in number, who at the semi-centennial of their graduation assembled at their old college home at his bidding, and for several days as his guests shared his bounteous hospitality. His scholarship and attainments were more substantial than brilliant; his taste leading him in the line of the solid and practical, in distinction from the

1 This paper was prefaced by the following report.

The paper about to be read is properly presentable in the form of a report from the committee appointed at our annual meeting in June last composed of the writer and Messrs. E. H. Elwell and Lewis Pierce.

Tributes from the living to the dead involve a grateful, but delicate and somewhat difficult duty. There is always danger, on the one hand, of undue eulogium, sometimes producing a revulsion of feeling among those best acquainted with its subject, and, on the other, of failing to do justice through fear of criticism at the bar of good taste and honest judgment. This has been specially appreciated in preparing a paper suitable to to the memory of Mr. Woodman, whose distaste for notoriety was a marked feature of his character. The aim has been, therefore to present a true picture of the man, but to avoid high coloring that would shock his delicacy were he living. How far this has been accomplished is left to the judgment of others than special friends, whose attention is now respectfully addressed.

In behalf of the committee,

GEORGE F. EMERY, Chairman.

shining and theoretical. The theme of his commencement performance, among the first in rank, was "Independence of Character,” a trait for which he was eminently distinguished throughout life. In October, 1836, he commenced the study of law in Boston under the tutelage of Samuel Hubbard, next of Hubbard and Watts, and completed his preparatory course at the Harvard Law School.

While a student in Boston his intimacy with John Albion Andrew, an old schoolmate at Gorham, was renewed and increased, and a room in the attic story in Howard street, of what is now called "The Woodbine," they occupied together, their nearest neighbor being Peleg W. Chandler, whose room the latter has described as no room at all, but a mere closet lighted only by a skylight over the entry into which it opened. What these lifelong friends lacked in environment was counterbalanced by joke, merriment and song, though as to the last Andrew was chief, and always at the front.

more than

July 9, 1839, Mr. Woodman was admitted to the bar, and opened an office in Boston, being associated for a brief period with George S. Barstow as partner. His remarkable industry, accuracy and versatility had attracted the attention of holders of extensive land-interests in the West, who tendered him the subagency thereof, which he accepted, and this occasioned his removal to Winslow, Illinois, where he continued to reside for three years or thereabout, meantime having married Charlotte, a daughter of the late Deacon Ephraim Flint of Baldwin, Maine, who survives him, as do also their children, Mary, Frank, Walter and Edward.

After Mr. Woodman had become fairly established in his new field, and had exhibited his aptness for the business with which he was charged, its entire agency was conferred upon him, and was continued until the company for which he acted was dissolved in the fall of 1843. He soon after changed his residence, and at Mineral Point, Wisconsin, formed a co-partnership with the late Governor C. C. Washburne, which continued for about eleven years. They were located in the focus of an opening mining industry, and in proximity to settling and timber lands, which began to attract public attention, the value of which these gentlemen well appreciated and utilized to pecuniary advantage.

Their attention was consequently soon withdrawn from the ordinary line of the legal profession, and was devoted mainly to securing for themselves and others the best lands open to public entry, and thereby was laid the foundation for the fortunes they afterward achieved. To facilitate their business, after the state law authorizing the establishment of private banks went into effect, they established the Mineral Point Bank, which, from the esteem and confidence in which its conductors were held, at home and abroad, became an important fiscal agency in that day of "wildcat currency," and of an unsettled and uncertain condition of the public finances. Rival interests, however, sought to cripple this private banking-house, and a concerted plan was eagerly prosecuted to drive it into the general condition of suspension of specie payments. But the energy and determination displayed to protect its customers from loss, at all hazards, rendered this attempt abortive, and resulted in adding increased strength and confidence in the bank and its managers. March 1, 1855, the partnership of Washburne & Woodman dissolved, the affairs of their bank were wound up, and every dollar of its liabilities was paid in gold. Hard-earned success had been achieved by both, and the relations of the partners, who differed widely in their constitutional make-up, were characterized throughout by mutual confidence and esteem, as is evidenced by the following extract from the article of dissolution drafted by Mr. Wood

man :

"Whereas we have for upward of ten years been doing business as partners under the name of Washburne & Woodman, during which time our intercourse, interrupted by no untoward circumstances, has been marked by a constant feeling of kindness and goodwill, coupled with an unusual degree of unanimity of sentiment in relation to business transactions," etc., etc.

In this connection the following episode in Mr. Woodman's life can hardly be ignored. Mr. Washburne, after crowning his ambition by the erection at Minneapolis of the best flour mill then in the world, went to Europe for the benefit of his health, which had become impaired by a disease which afterward proved fatal. On his return in November, 1881, he made his headquarters at a hotel in Philadelphia, where he could avail himself of the

best medical skill that could be had. His malady was of such a nature, his family was so conditioned, and his estate so large and peculiarly constituted, that he deemed it suitable to make his will, the general provisions of which had been deliberately determined in his own mind, but had not been reduced to form. After providing liberally for his family and other relatives and friends, he had purposed to leave behind him in Wisconsin, where the foundation of his fortune was laid, and whose citizens had crowned him with the highest honors within their gift, a memorial worthy of him, of them and of all concerned. Under these circumstances he felt the need of a true, tried, but well-informed and disinterested friend to advise with, respecting the proper safeguards to be employed for carrying into effect his public bequests, and of a skillful draftsman to reduce his will in proper terms to writing. His eye most naturally turned toward Mr. Woodman, and for him he sent to visit him in Philadelphia. The summons was complied with, though not without some reluctance from apprehension that the occasion would be a painful one to both. During the visit of several days Mr. Woodman discharged the delicate duty assigned to him in a pious, deliberate and most painstaking manner, and to the great satisfaction of Mr. Washburne in all particulars, except consenting to act as one of his executors. More than two years after the death of Mr. Washburne, there appeared in public print an article containing an allegation that the will was hastily drawn, intimating also that his "amanuensis" had exerted undue influence upon the mind of the testator, and but for sudden death a new one would have been executed for carrying out his real purposes and intent. This touched Mr. Woodman to the quick. His nice sense of honor and devotion to his friend would not permit him to remain silent. Accordingly he prepared and widely circulated a pamphlet addressed to the legatees and devisees of Mr. Washburne, wherein he rehearsed with great minuteness all the facts and circumstances touching the condition of the testator and the discharge of his own labor of love; showing that the will in question was dictated by his friend as "calmly, deliberately, with clear thought and with entire freedom from extraneous influence" as any instrument that was ever drafted. His statement closed with the following tribute, as striking as it is pathetic: May the same