George Sewall Boutwell

“ Caleb Butler was then postmaster at Groton. He had had the place, probably from the days of John Quincy Adams, for as he was a violent Whig, he could not have received his appointment from General Jackson. My employer, Mr. Woods, was an applicant for the post-office, he being the only Democrat in the street who had accommodations for the office. I carried papers in support of the application. ”

“ I had then been in Groton three years, and I had formed the acquaintance of many young men in the debates of the Lyceum, in business and in social ways. In connection with the Lyceum I prepared papers which I read as lectures. One of these papers upon banking, signed B., appeared in the Bay State Democrat, edited by Lewis Josselyn, the publisher. Another upon Conservatism and Radicalism, was also printed in the Bay State Democrat. ”

“ Amos Bancroft, the father of Amos B. Dr. Amos, as he was called, was a graduate of Harvard College in the class of Wendell Phillips, and at the close of his professional studies he was spoken of as the best educated physician who had entered the profession in Boston. At the time our acquaintance began, he was entering upon the practice of medicine, at Groton, in place of his father, who was then about sixty-five years of age, deaf, and not healthy in other respects, although he lived to the age of eighty years, and then died from an accident in State Street, Boston. Dr. ”

“ The women became anxious and their visits and importunities were annoying. In the month of January, 1839, I joined Gen. Staples and made a visit to Washington. Staples’ object was to make mail contracts, or to arrange existing difficulties. My purpose was to obtain action on pension applications. Our journey was a slow one, if not tedious. From Groton to Boston by stage, and from Boston to Stonington, Conn., by rail ”

“ Linn, of Missouri, more remarkable for personal beauty than for talents. In the House Mr. Adams was then a chief figure. His contest over the right of petition had commended him to one portion of the country, and made him the object of hostility to another portion. ”