F 
 
 75 
 
 A 4 
 D3M4 
 
 ■ 
 
 UC-NRLF 
 
 SB 541 IDS 
 
 1 
 
 iii I 
 
 i 
 
utwi&rdttu/ yt>f v^afrftrtita/ 
 
 eft/, o 'Sfiuyri^e ^Z/f/' '" 
 
 1&7M 
 
 '{/■nivt+ViJy <S '/•.a/tj<> 
 
MEMOIR 
 
 OF 
 
 CHARLES HENRY D ALTON. 
 
 BY 
 ROGER BIGELOW MERRIMAN. 
 
 CAMBRIDGE: 
 JOHN WILSON AND SON. 
 
 SEnforattg Pros. 
 1909. 
 
F73 
 X55M4- 
 
 From the 
 
 Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society 
 
 for April, 1909. 
 
 WSMRY MORSE STBTOEH8 
 
M EM I E 
 
 Charles Henry Dalton was born at Chelmsford, Massa- 
 chusetts, September 25, 1826, the third of eight children of 
 John Call Dalton and Julia Ann Spalding. On both sides 
 he was descended from families whose history is intimately 
 connected with the early growth and development of New 
 England. 
 
 His great-grandfather, James Dalton, who was born in 
 1718, was the first of his family to settle in Boston. Whether 
 or not he was descended from the Daltons who emigrated to 
 this country in 1635, and whose principal home in the seven- 
 teenth century was at Hampton, New Hampshire, I have been 
 unable to discover: the probabilities on the whole seem to 
 point in this direction. From his early youth James Dalton 
 was engaged in seafaring pursuits. In 1740 he was com- 
 mander of the brigantine " Joshua," trading from Boston to 
 London, and later became the owner of various vessels, voy- 
 aging along the coast to the Carolinas, West Indies, and some- 
 times to Europe. In 1756 he purchased an estate in Boston 
 on the south side of Water Street, which contained a tanyard, 
 garden, dwelling-house, and other buildings. These he pulled 
 down and in 1758 built upon the property a Mansion House 1 
 which was occupied by himself and family during the remainder 
 of his life and afterwards by his son, Peter Roe Dalton. After 
 the "great fire" of 1760, when this part of the town was re- 
 built, a committee of the General Court ordered a new street, 
 running from Milk to Water Street, to be laid out through 
 
 1 A picture of this Mansion House forms the central portion of Mr. Charles 
 H. Dalton's book-plate, designed in 1903. 
 
 511228 
 

 
 the estate in such a way as to divide it very unequally and 
 render the smaller part unavailable for building purposes. A 
 memorial addressed by Captain Dalton to the General Court 
 resulted in moving the site of the proposed street further 
 west, so that it divided the estate more equally, and in con- 
 sideration of this Captain Dalton agreed not to require any 
 compensation for the portion of his land occupied by the new 
 street, which was known as " Dalton's Lane " and " Dalton's 
 Street " until the year 1800, when its name was changed to 
 Congress Street. 
 
 Captain Dalton was one of the proprietors of King's Chapel 
 at the time of its rebuilding, and owned at various times pews 
 26, 40, 53, 58, and 98. He married January 24, 1740, Abi- 
 gail, daughter of Peter Roe, a resident of Boston, and widow 
 of Judah Alden. He died April 21, 1783. He is described 
 as " prudent, but energetic and successful in business, perse- 
 vering, liberal and public-spirited, courteous to his associates, 
 and of a kindly disposition." 
 
 Of his ten children the second (and oldest son), Peter Roe 
 Dalton, was born in 1743 and died in 1811. In his youth he 
 followed his father's calling and went to sea. The similarity 
 between his character, tastes, and career and those of his 
 grandson, the subject of this memoir, is too striking to be 
 passed over without comment. During the American Revo- 
 lution he was Deputy Commissary-General of Issues in the 
 Continental service, receiving and distributing provisions of 
 all kinds to the troops stationed at Boston, to the prisoners of 
 war confined in the harbor, and to the French fleet under 
 the Count d'Estaing. In 1782 he was appointed by the Gen- 
 eral Court of Massachusetts one of a committee to settle the 
 accounts of the Board of War of that State, and to examine 
 and certify all claims against the State arising from losses in 
 the Penobscot expedition of 1779. He was connected with 
 several financial and commercial organizations in Boston, and 
 frequently acted as executor and administrator. He is de- 
 scribed as " a man of great activity and devotion to business, 
 and capable of managing large interests. He was prompt to 
 detect and thwart any attempt at gaining undue advantage 
 and decided, though polite, in his manner of doing so. He 
 was fond of generous living, and accustomed to make ample 
 provision for his bodily comfort, but was never excessive in 
 
any personal indulgence." Mutatis mutandis, this portrait, 
 both of character and occupations, will be found to fit his 
 grandson equally well. 
 
 Peter Roe Dal ton was twice married. His first wife, 
 Susannah Griggs, bore him four children, of whom one, a 
 daughter, survived ; his second, Anne Call, bore him eleven, 
 of whom the tenth was the father of the subject of this 
 memoir. John Call Dalton's distinguished career as a physi- 
 cian in Chelmsford, Lowell, and Boston, and in the Civil War 
 does not need description here. Suffice it to say that he was 
 the ideal doctor of the old school, of the days before the prac- 
 tice of medicine had become highly specialized, and one who 
 was able by his sterling character as well as his professional 
 attainments to render priceless service to the community 
 where he lived. 
 
 Mr. Dalton's maternal ancestors were a race of farmers. 
 Edward Spalding (or Spaulding, as the name was then spelt) 
 came to America in the earliest years of the Massachusetts 
 Colony, probably between 1630 and 1633. After a brief resi- 
 dence at Braintree, he went to Chelmsford at the time of the 
 first settlement of that town, and at the first town-meeting, 
 September 22, 1654, was chosen one of the selectmen. Seven 
 generations of his descendants lived at Chelmsford, cultivating 
 and increasing the land which was granted to their ancestor, 
 yeomen all, and servants of the town, colony, state, and church 
 at various occasions and in various ways. By all odds the most 
 distinguished member of the family was Simeon Spalding 
 (1713-1785), the fourth in descent from Edward, and the great- 
 grandfather of Charles H. Dalton. His most notable services 
 were rendered in connection with the American Revolution. 
 In 1770 he was chosen representative of his town " at a Great 
 and General Court and Assembly appointed to be convened, 
 held and kept for his Majesty's service at Harvard College " ; 
 and again in 1773, 1774, 1775, and 1776. In February, 1776, 
 he was commissioned colonel of the Seventh Regiment of Pro- 
 vincial Militia, and in 1779 delegate to the Convention for 
 framing a Constitution of Government for the State of Massa- 
 chusetts Bay. These and many other minor offices attest his 
 prominence in the public service in this first great crisis of our 
 national existence. 
 
 Such were the high traditions and noble inheritance of 
 
6 
 
 Charles H. Dalton. By a long and active life of service and 
 good citizenship he was to prove himself worthy of them. 
 
 The first five years of Mr. Dalton's life were spent for the 
 most part at Chelmsford, until his father's removal to Lowell 
 in 1831. The only incident of this period of which there is 
 any record is his first journey to Boston in 1827 at the age of 
 one, made by the then famous Middlesex Canal, which was first 
 open for traffic in 1803, only to be superseded, some thirty 
 years later, by the Boston and Lowell Railroad. Mr. Dalton 
 used to be fond of pointing out, as a unique illustration of the 
 radical changes in the methods of transportation that have 
 been witnessed in New England in the past seventy years, that 
 this canal trip landed him in Haymarket Square on precisely 
 the spot now occupied by one of the stations of the subway 
 to whose construction he devoted so much care and labor 
 in his later life. His boyhood and early youth were spent in 
 Chelmsford and Lowell ; he was a pupil at the common school 
 at Chelmsford, and at the Lowell High School before the. year 
 1844, after which he was sent to a boarding school at Med- 
 ford ; but of college education he had none. It was a source 
 of the deepest regret to him in later life that he never 
 went to Harvard. An honest fear that he might not be 
 able to equal the brilliant record there of his elder brother 
 John, who graduated in 1844, was perhaps the chief reason 
 why he decided not to go. Great and genuine modesty in 
 regard to his intellectual attainments was ever one of his 
 most prominent traits. 
 
 Mr. Dalton entered upon his long and successful business 
 career as a salesman in the firm of R. A. Crafts and Company 
 certainly not later than the year 1848. This firm was engaged 
 in the manufacture of ginghams and mousseline-de-laines and 
 its mills were in Taunton ; but Mr. Dalton, to judge from the 
 Boston Directory of 1848-1849, was employed in the Boston 
 office, which was located at 49 Milk Street. In the year 1849 
 he was transferred to the commission house of Sayles, Mer- 
 riam, and Brewer, selling agents for some of the largest facto- 
 ries in New England. His first important service to this firm 
 was rendered in the settlement of a strike among the operatives 
 of the Hamilton Woollen Company at Southbridge, a task 
 which he accomplished so successfully that he was soon put in 
 
charge as manager there, and continued to reside for the most 
 part at Globe Village, a part of Southbridge, during the next 
 five years. 
 
 Fragments of a correspondence between Mr. Dalton and the 
 firm that employed him at this time have been preserved, and 
 are interesting as showing that he inherited all his grandfa- 
 ther's ability " to detect and thwart any attempt at gaining un- 
 due advantage," and was " decided, though polite, in his manner 
 of doing so." In January, 1851, it was proposed that he should 
 visit England for three months in order to inform himself con- 
 cerning the factories and manufacturing methods there : his 
 firm, however, desired him before his departure to engage 
 positively to remain with them five years longer, but attempted 
 at the same time to reserve to themselves the privilege of 
 terminating the connection at any moment, and hinted that if 
 Mr. Dalton was unable to fall in with their plans, the}' should 
 be obliged to find another to fill his place. To this proposal 
 Mr. Dalton wrote a decided though courteous letter of objec- 
 tion, pointing out the unfairness of the terms and desiring a 
 more equitable arrangement. The precise nature of the settle- 
 ment of this difference of opinion is not apparent, but it is clear 
 that Mr. Dalton's views prevailed, for he sailed for Europe in 
 less than a month in the employ of the firm, but terminated 
 his connection with it, of his own volition, in the latter part 
 of 1853, before the five years had elapsed. 
 
 His first impressions of England are interestingly recounted 
 in a letter to his father, dated from Manchester, March 13, 
 1851: 
 
 I have been into various parts of the west of England, through the 
 counties of Lancashire, Yorkshire, Chester and Derbyshire. Every- 
 where the country is beautiful, highly cultivated, not an inch of ground 
 wasted, the roads fifty miles from Manchester as clear and smooth as 
 Boston streets. The only objection to them is that about every two 
 miles there is a toll bar where it is necessary to pay tribute. . . . 
 Last night I went to a dinuer party about five miles from Manchester 
 
 at Mr. H 's, the partner of Miss P 's friend. Hope Hall is the 
 
 name of the house. The style of these things here is quiet and dignified, 
 elegant in all parts. To me thus far, they have been pleasaut because 
 they are somewhat of a novelty, but I should think the gentlemen would 
 get weary of them. I arrived at about five minutes before 6.30 (the 
 dining hour stated on the card) and was relieved of my coat and hat 
 
8 
 
 by one servant in livery, straw colored small clothes, white neck 
 handkerchief, etc., and announced by another who evidently knew my 
 name beforehand. Three or four guests had arrived before me and in 
 five minutes all had come, making a party of about twenty. I being 
 
 the only stranger, Mr. H asked me to take Mrs. H to the 
 
 table when dinner was announced and to take a seat on her right ; 
 the other guests were arranged without fuss ; and down we went, about 
 six servants in livery being at the foot of the dining room, as solemn 
 and stiff and to me, a little fantastic, as a drum major. The room was 
 rather bare of furniture and ornament but the heavy drapery and large 
 dining chairs made it look comfortable enough. The courses lasted, I 
 should think, about two hours, when the ladies left and the gentlemen 
 clustered around one end of the board and talked and drank, eight or 
 nine of us, keeping about as many decanters running the gauntlet for 
 an hour louger. We then followed the ladies, had tea, and a very little 
 
 execution by the Misses H on harp and piano. At ten precisely, 
 
 " Your fly, Sir," was announced to three or four of us and as regularly 
 and quietly as clock work, we took our leave. . . . 
 
 England is a fine place to live in if one is rich, but Heaven help the 
 poor. I have got so accustomed to the beggars of all degrees and ages 
 that they make no impression at the moment. Yesterday I passed a 
 family of six or eight, mostly females, and though I was cold with a 
 thick top coat and shawl, and it was raining at the time, not more 
 than half their bodies were covered with anything. There is misery 
 and degradation in this city among the factory classes which is not 
 dreamed of in Lowell, and many a person may tour it through Eng- 
 land without seeing much which places it infinitely below America in 
 point of respectability. The hospitality and good manners and elegant, 
 stylish mode of living of the rich is pleasant to their guests, but the 
 misery, heart sickening to look upon in some of the crowded streets of 
 Manchester, is fully strong enough in contrast. On a Saturday after- 
 noon, after the hands are paid off, I have been among the gin-shops, 
 which are on every corner, with a living stream going in and out, 
 young girls and boys, men and women. England is n't all a palace, 
 nor will average so near it as America. 
 
 Within three years after his return from England Mr. Dalton 
 became a partner of the selling house of J. C. Howe and Com- 
 pany, and as such was chiefly occupied from 1854 to 1859 with 
 management and rebuilding of the Print Works at Manchester, 
 New Hampshire. He was perhaps more closely identified with 
 this business than with any other in which he was ever 
 engaged. In it he displayed to the full that remarkable ca- 
 pacity for organization and administration which characterized 
 
him to the day of his death, and his energy, integrity, and 
 skill were rewarded with marked success on every hand. The 
 time, however, was near when he was to have the opportunity 
 to employ these talents in another field. The first and per- 
 haps the most notable of the many public services which it was 
 the good fortune of Mr. Dalton to render and which later made 
 his name almost a byword for public spirit and good citizen- 
 ship in the community was in connection with the Civil War. 
 
 Like all the bravest and best of his day and generation, Mr. 
 Dalton's attention became more and more closely focussed on 
 the great national crisis, which loomed ever larger on the 
 political horizon in the autumn of 1860 and the spring of 1861. 
 An ardent Northerner, he did not underestimate (at least not 
 as gravely as did most men) the power of the southern Con- 
 federacy, and was deeply convinced from the first that it would 
 be necessary to put down any resistance by force of arms. 
 The first occasion on which he offered his services to his 
 country was in connection with the inauguration of Lincoln 
 in March, 1861. He wrote at least twice to the authorities 
 at Washington to ask if his presence on that occasion might 
 not be desirable as a means of helping quell a disturbance, 
 should such occur. Answered in the negative, he abandoned 
 his intention of immediately repairing to the capital, but the 
 news of the firing on Sumter which followed in April made 
 him resolve once more to put himself at his country's 
 service. On May 20, 1861, he accepted an appointment 
 from Governor Andrew to act as Agent of the Common- 
 wealth of Massachusetts at Washington, whither he at once 
 repaired, and remained (save for occasional visits to the 
 North at moments of comparative leisure) until January, 
 1862. On September 27, 1861, he received another mark 
 of Governor Andrew's confidence by his promotion to the 
 post of assistant quartermaster-general of the militia of 
 the Commonwealth (the appointment to date from May 23), 
 and the following day he was commissioned with the rank 
 of colonel. 
 
 The duties of his position in Washington are best described 
 by the following extracts from the letter of instructions which 
 was sent him by the Massachusetts authorities the day after 
 his first appointment : 
 
10 
 
 All supplies for our troops forwarded to Washington will be sent to your 
 care and the vessels when the supplies are sent by water will be consigned 
 to you. You will attend to the disposal and distribution, or storage of 
 the supplies, according to directions sent you, or to the best of your judg- 
 ment in the absence of specific directions. You will communicate with 
 the proper departments of the U. S. Government in relation to stores 
 sold, or troops carried, or any transport service, and see that all proper 
 allowances are made, and all bills settled either by payment, or by being 
 put in a shape, as to vouchers and allowance, to require no adjustment 
 hereafter. 
 
 You will communicate with the Colonels, Quarter Masters, and com- 
 manding officers of the Mass'tts troops, and everything wanted by them 
 will be received through you, and all requisitions and requests for sup- 
 plies must be transmitted by them through you, with proper explana- 
 tions, when you have not the means or authority to supply them. You 
 will look up as far as possible and take charge of, any Massachusetts 
 supplies, stores or equipments that have heretofore gone astray, and if 
 they have gone into possession of U. S. officers recover them or procure 
 payment or vouchers therefor. 
 
 You will also transact any business for the State with any of the 
 Departments. You will have a room where you or some clerk will 
 constantly be found, to receive messages by telegraph or otherwise, 
 and to transact any necessary business. 
 
 You will keep an account of all expenses and report as nearly daily 
 as practicable all your doings. You can employ a clerk if necessary and 
 your reasonable and proper expenses with a proper compensation for 
 your services will be paid by the State. 
 
 You will doubtless want a copying press. If you have occasion to 
 procure storage, you may be able to make arrangements with some com- 
 petent and responsible person who will deliver on your order. 
 
 The object of the whole arrangement is to have some one respon- 
 sible and competent agent, who will know all that is done and sent from 
 Massachusetts, and all that is wanted and received at Washington, or by 
 the troops wherever stationed, to take care of property, take vouchers, 
 prevent waste, and be the sole channel or communication between 
 supply and demand. This agent you are to be until some further 
 arrangement. 
 
 It was a position closely resembling that occupied by his 
 grandfather at the time of the Revolution — a position for 
 which he was pre-eminently fitted by character, ability, pre- 
 vious training, and inheritance. 
 
 To enumerate in detail the almost infinite variety of the 
 tasks that were laid upon Mr. Dal ton during the busy eight 
 
11 
 
 months of this hrst stay in Washington would be tedious and 
 unprofitable. They all required shrewd judgment, untiring 
 energy, patience, and good temper. Reconciliation of the 
 conflicting views of state and federal officials, rectification of 
 justifiable grievances and soothing the makers of groundless 
 complaints, providing for the care of the sick and wounded 
 and settling the details of soldiers' enlistment, pay and pen- 
 sions — all these formed part of his manifold duties. A few 
 examples drawn from his correspondence will perhaps serve to 
 make the picture clear. He had scarcely got established at 
 Washington when an urgent letter from the military secretary 
 of the Commonwealth arrived, directing him to represent to 
 Secretary Cameron " the miserable state of the coast defences 
 of Massachusetts, and more particularly of the Harbor and city 
 of Boston." The language of the epistle is noteworthy : 
 
 The mere statement of the fact that in all Fort Warren there is only 
 one gun, and that in Fort Independence there are only a few barbette 
 guns and no casemate-guns mounted, and that these constitute the entire 
 defence provided by the Federal Government for the second city of the 
 Union in commercial importance, ought to be sufficient, it would seem, 
 to secure immediate attention. But when to this is added the fact that 
 the less reasonable requests made from certain other sections of the 
 country seem to meet with a prompt hearing, and a ready compliance, 
 it becomes difficult to understand why the delay in attending to the de- 
 fenceless condition of Boston Harbor is not a grievous injustice to our 
 people, and we have yet to learn that Massachusetts has (either by what 
 she has done or left undone of late, or ever), afforded any pretext for 
 the Federal Government to neglect her representations and requests. 
 It does indeed, appear at times, as if we should speak to a more willing 
 ear, if we were not so unanimous in our loyalty and if the Federal ad- 
 ministration did not count so surely always upon the contribution of blood 
 and treasure we are glad to make for the common cause. 
 
 About all we ask in respect to the Forts in Boston Harbor and along 
 our coast is that guns which are now lying useless at Watertown and 
 Charlestown and Chicopee and elsewhere, shall be transferred to them 
 and mounted. They will be just as much the property and under the 
 immediate control of the United States in the Forts, as where they are 
 now lying ; more so, because if it should become absolutely necessary to 
 remove them, they would then be at spots on tidewater, where they could 
 promptly be transferred to shipboard. For instance there are, and have 
 been for many years, lying at the Foundry of Messrs. Ames at Chicopee, 
 three 12 lb. brass guns and the same number of 12 lb. brass howitzers, 
 
12 
 
 belonging to the United States, which were accepted and paid for, long 
 ago. It would be a great convenience and a great relief if these guns, 
 instead of lying useless stored away in a town a hundred miles away 
 from the sea-board, could be brought down to Salem or New Bedford or 
 Gloucester or Provincetown, all exposed points of great commercial im- 
 portance, which are lying at this moment at the mercy of any privateer 
 which may have the boldness to swoop down upon them. 
 
 But in the instance of Boston the neglect not only to do anything, but 
 even to assign reasons for withholding action in respect to the Forts, is 
 to us perfectly unaccountable upon any theory creditable to the patriot- 
 ism and energy of those officials having the matter in charge. 
 
 With considerable difficulty, and after some delay, Mr. 
 Dalton obtained access to Secretary Cameron, persuaded him 
 to move the guns as requested, and received the Secretary's 
 promise to send an armed vessel to Nantucket immediately. 
 
 A curious matter occupied his attention from the 22d to 
 the 24th of August. A company of Massachusetts troops 
 raised in Cambridge by a certain Captain Burgess, had been 
 induced, by false representations, to leave the State and to 
 attach themselves to the Fifth Regiment of the so-called Sickles 
 Brigade in New York — thereby depriving their families of 
 the monthly bounty of three to twelve dollars per man, re- 
 cently provided for in an extra session of the Massachusetts 
 Legislature. A prolonged correspondence between the gov- 
 ernors of Massachusetts and New York on the subject had not 
 availed to secure the return of these troops to a Massachusetts 
 regiment, and the matter was finally referred to Mr. Dalton at 
 Washington with orders to lay it before the Secretary of War. 
 Despite the sturdy opposition of Sickles, Mr. Dalton accom- 
 plished his task in two days, and on August 24 was able to 
 send to Governor Andrew an order for the transfer of the 
 Burgess Company to any Massachusetts regiment he might 
 select. The way in which he brought this about may. be 
 judged from the contents of the two following letters. To 
 Governor Andrew he writes : 
 
 I went out to see Burgess yesterday, found him ill, but his command 
 in good condition, so far as a company, so badly placed, could be. Was 
 satisfied it wd. be hard for it to remain in its present position. Had a 
 talk with Sickles, & believe he wd. oppose any change, therefore urged 
 the matter to a final conclusion, with Secy. War this morning, before 
 Sickles had time to make it more difficult. I did so settle it, in con- 
 
13 
 
 formity with your instructions, and therefore wd. not advise that any 
 further change be asked for, as it is by no means easy to get the Dept. 
 to take hold of such a delicate matter. 
 
 And to a private friend : 
 
 In the morning, I had a hard job at War Dept. namely, to get a 
 Mass. company now in a New York Rgt. commanded by . . . Sickles, 
 transferred to a Mass. Rgt. He was determined the transfer should 
 not be made, and I concluded to try metal with him, and succeeded in 
 getting just what I wanted, which pleased me. 
 
 Another matter in which Mr. Dalton took a vigorous part 
 was the question of the re-enlistment for three years of a large 
 number of Massachusetts troops, who, believing that the war 
 would be speedily brought to a close, had originally volun- 
 teered for but three months. Many of the authorities at 
 Washington desired to retain the three months men in the 
 three year regiments which had already been formed at the 
 capital, instead of giving them an opportunity to return home, 
 be regularly discharged, and re-enlisted as State troops. To 
 this course Mr. Dalton was strongly opposed. In a letter to 
 Governor Andrew of June 22, 1861, he wrote : 
 
 In regard to re-enlisting the 3 mos. men here, in 3-year Rgts. my 
 opinion is that there will be many difficulties, and that by so doing or 
 trying to do, we shall fail to secure many of the best. As all the world 
 knows, these Rgts. left home suddenly, their private affairs unattended 
 to, the majority imperfectly prepared for so long a stay as even 3 mos. 
 Cameron, Thomas, & Mansfield all see the importance of securing 
 these men for 3 years, or as large a proportion of them as 
 possible. . . . 
 
 It therefore seems to me most desirable that the Regt. be ordered 
 home soon after 4th July, be mustered out, and paid, then the men re- 
 enlisted so far as possible. These remarks apply, generally, to our 
 other 3 mos. men. 
 
 These views were re-echoed in Governor Andrew's reply of 
 June 29, and after prolonged interviews at the War Depart- 
 ment and at headquarters, Mr. Dalton made his point and was 
 able to telegraph home on that same day : " Scott, Cameron, 
 Thomas, Wilson all agree that 3-mos. Regts. shd. go home 
 soon and men be re-enlisted for three years there." 
 
 Of all this busy eight months in Washington, the busiest 
 
14 
 
 week of all was undoubtedly that succeeding the disaster at 
 Bull Run. Mr. Dalton's correspondence doubles in quantity 
 at this crisis, every line of it breathes cheerfulness and calm- 
 ness in defeat, but at the same time feverish energy and a 
 stern determination to make good lost ground. Some of his 
 accounts of the battle are interesting. To Governor Andrew, 
 under the date of July 24, 1861, the Wednesday after the fight, 
 he writes : 
 
 The disaster to our soldiers is less than was feared. It is that the 
 missing will amount to 6 to 800, all told. The loss of material is insig- 
 nificant in value, with the exception of am'tion wh. is large. The ac- 
 counts of Sunday's fight amount to this ; our troops were marched 3 to 
 5 hours, after a slight breakfast, and were at once fought against fresh 
 troops, protected by batteries and trenches, on a difficult ground, the 
 enemy more than double in numbers. For 3 or 4 hours our troops 
 drove back the rebels, 'till, at 4 o'ck. from a causeless, or rather utterly 
 unnecessary reason, the entire army, in a few minutes was panic- 
 stricken. The rout was described as fearful in the extreme. That the 
 enemy were equally taken by surprise by this movement appears from 
 the fact that no attempt was made to follow our flying army, otherwise 
 it wd. have been finished and Davis wd. to-day have been in the White 
 House. He is, however, the other side of the Union Entrenchments, 
 the only side he will ever see. 
 
 And to a friend : 
 
 The Govt, is exerting itself to the utmost to repair the terrible 
 blunder of Sunday morning, that beautiful day to some of us. While 
 we were so pleasantly going up the mountain side, our troops were just 
 going into a fight, after a march of 10 miles, and kept at this work, 
 without any intermission for 4, 5 and 6 hours, with nothing to eat, 
 against fresh troops, protected by their entrenchments and batteries, and 
 more than double in n os# Still inch by inch we drove them back, 
 when, by some unaccountable misfortune, an utterly unexpected and 
 incomprehensible panic ran through Regt. after Regt. so that the re- 
 treat was general, in a few minutes. The enemy was equally aston- 
 ished, for they made no attempt to follow, or Washington wd. have 
 been taken and Davis wd. have been in the White House to-day ! . . . 
 'Tis sad, oh very sad, yet no hesitation for a moment must be allowed. 
 We must and shall have an army of 100,000 men ready to attack the 
 enemy shortly, and redeem this humiliating blunder. 
 
 His words were justified by the event. The second upris- 
 ing of the North in early August swept all resistance before 
 
15 
 
 it. Even at Washington, where there were " too many play 
 people to suit him," as Mr. Dalton once complained, the activ- 
 ity was tremendous. Two weeks later he wrote to a friend at 
 home : 
 
 You should see the energy and vigor with which the work is done. 
 Our Govt, is worth fighting for, 't is it or long years of misery. Ele- 
 gance is out of the question when the solemn fact stares us in the face 
 of having our lives and homes safe, or at the mercy of a few bad, am- 
 bitious, faithless men. 'T is a fight for manhood, and if we fail, which 
 we shall not, the happiness of long years is gone, past help. 
 
 Busy and useful as he was in Washington, however, Mr. 
 Dalton was chafing at every moment to get away. He dis- 
 liked the city intensely ; the calls of his business and private 
 affairs were imperative, and twice during the summer and 
 autumn of 1861 he was obliged to ask leave of Governor 
 Andrew to come home to the North to attend to them. On 
 both of these occasions the stress of events at the capital 
 caused him to return much sooner than he had intended, but 
 with the beginning of 1862, when things had got into running 
 order, his residence at Washington was much more frequently 
 interrupted. In the early months of this year he paid many 
 visits to his brother Edward, who, having been commissioned 
 by the State of New York as surgeon to the Thirty-sixth New 
 York Volunteers in November, 1861, had at once joined his 
 command, and accompanied it in the forward movement of 
 the army in March, 1862, and through the Peninsular cam- 
 paign until June, when he was attacked by malarial fever and 
 forced to return to the North. 
 
 It was perhaps these continual visits to the front that 
 made Mr. Dalton long for a taste of real fighting and suggested 
 his application, in March, 1862, for the post of staff officer to 
 General Fre*mont. " I shall see him and try to learn his plans," 
 he wrote to a friend, "and, after frankly confessing my igno- 
 rance of military matters, ask him if such as I can be of real 
 use on his staff, and if he is going to do anything and wants 
 me, I shall want to go. . . . The more I learn of his com- 
 mand, the more I hanker for it, for then 't will be brisk cam- 
 paigning and not lying in camp, which would worry me to 
 death, it seems to me." Several unsatisfactory interviews 
 with the General convinced him, however, that he stood no 
 
16 
 
 chance of getting this appointment, and his failure here really 
 marks the end of the period of his greatest activity in con- 
 nection with the Civil War. From that time onward he was 
 often in Washington on special business connected with the 
 government, sometimes at the front, visiting his brother, and 
 once on board the "Monitor" (April 19, 1862, just six weeks 
 after its fight with the "Merrimack"), of which he wrote 
 home the following interesting description : 
 
 Yesterday morning some of us took a ship's boat with a crew and 
 went up to the " Monitor " which is stationed up above the Fortress, 
 so as to command a view of any movement of the " Merrimack " should 
 she appear around Sewell's point, about three-fourths of a mile from 
 where we lay at anchor. All the large ships, steamers, gunboats with 
 a large flotilla of transports and supply vessels lay down below the 
 Fortress, a mile and a half from the " Monitor," to be out of the way of 
 any surprise, but the armed vessels all having steam up night and day, 
 and constantly on the watch should a signal come for them to go up to 
 help the " Monitor." We went on board the " M," and all through 
 her, and I was utterly amazed to find her such a solid, strong and ap- 
 parently invulnerable machine. She was well battered in the engage- 
 ment, the two craft being only 3 yards apart during some of the time, 
 so that their guns nearly touched! But no harm came to the little ras- 
 cal which has saved this country from an awful defeat. The officers 
 seem entirely confident that the " Merrimack " can in no way injure 
 her, either by running her down or by the heaviest guns they can bring 
 at her. She is certainly a splendid success, and as I say, apparently 
 impenetrable, but I guess a pretty hot box to be in during an engage- 
 ment of four hours. . . . Later in the p. m. we went down into the fleet, 
 passing the large steamer " Vanderbilt " and others which are lying here 
 to run down the "Merrimack," and went on board the "Minnesota," a 
 noble Navy vessel, with 600 men and officers on board. She was at- 
 tacked by the " Merrimack " during the Sunday engagement, and could 
 not get away nor defend herself, having got aground, and she carried 
 the marks of the shots from the " Merrimack " in many places. Had she 
 not been saved from a second attack by the " Monitor's" most fortunate 
 arrival, she too, would have been utterly destroyed. We left the 
 " Minnesota " about 6 o'clock p. m. to go up to our " Saxon " and 
 just then, heavy firing commenced between the battery of large guns on 
 Rip Raps, opposite the Fortress, — our guns — and the Rebel battery 
 on Sewell's point, which is up towards Norfolk — 3 miles off. The 
 heavy shell would hum through the air and then burst with a low dull 
 sound among the trees on Sewell's point where the Rebel battery is 
 concealed. This firing was kept up till dark, one of our gun boats run- 
 
17 
 
 ning up and opening her guns on the Rebels also. You see from this 
 diary what interests are concentrated around this spot — the most in- 
 tense and momentous of any in the world to-day. The French War 
 steamer and two English ones lie here, also ; one of the English away 
 up above the " Monitor," where 't is not safe for a Federal vessel to be, 
 as she is in sight from the Rebel lookouts at Norfolk. All last night we 
 were unloading shells into two boats at our side, but today the wind has 
 come on to blow and the roads are so rough that nothing can lie along 
 side, so we are delayed. 
 
 After the occasion described in this letter, there is no record 
 of his being at Washington or at the front until more than a 
 year afterwards, and then only for the briefest period. His 
 appointment, 27 May, 1862, as quartermaster of the Fourth 
 Battalion of Infantry in the First Brigade, First Division of 
 the Militia of the Commonwealth, with the rank of first lieu- 
 tenant — an office the duties of which could be for the most 
 part performed at home — is additional evidence that there- 
 after he remained, for the most part, in the North. The only 
 other official position which he held in connection with the 
 Civil War, namely, membership in a Massachusetts Board of 
 Recruitment, appointed July 14, 1864, by Governor Andrew 
 under an Act of Congress of the same year to supervise the 
 recruitment of volunteers to the credit of Massachusetts from 
 the Rebel States, did not apparently involve any prolonged or 
 arduous labors. His marriage to Miss Mary McGregor of 
 Boston occurred on 25 June, 1862, directly after his permanent 
 return to the North. 
 
 The years 1862-70 were spent by Mr. and Mrs. Dalton for 
 the most part in Boston, where they resided at first at 59 Han- 
 cock Street, and later at 33 Commonwealth Avenue. Before 
 1865 they spent their summers at the old Spalding homestead 
 in Chelmsford, but in that year they established themselves 
 permanently at Beverly Farms. They were in Europe for a 
 year in 1866-67, where Mr. Dalton acted as one of the agents 
 of the Commonwealth at the Universal Exposition at Paris, 
 charged with the special function of " furnishing to Massachu- 
 setts citizens desirous of exhibiting their industrial products at 
 the said Exposition the requisite information and facilities." 
 During all this period up to 1870, Mr. Dalton remained a part- 
 ner of the firm of J. C. Howe and Company. As such he was 
 
18 
 
 employed for the most part in Boston, but he also continued 
 frequently to visit the Print Works at Manchester, where he 
 was instrumental in the prevention of a dangerous strike in 
 July, 1863. But even in this, perhaps the most retired and 
 concentrated portion of his life, his zeal for the public service 
 did not slacken. Besides continuing to lend a helping hand 
 in connection with the Civil War, the early sixties saw him 
 exceedingly active in promoting the organization of the Massa- 
 chusetts Institute of Technology, of which he was one of the 
 charter members and Treasurer for four years from May 6, 
 1862. He remained a member of the Institute Corporation till 
 1879, and was re-elected to it sixteen years later, but declined 
 to serve. A close friend and admirer of President Walker, he 
 maintained a lively interest in the Institute long after his 
 official connection with it was severed. In 1896 he established 
 " The Dalton Graduate Chemical Scholarship Fund " of $5000, 
 the income to be used "for the payment of fees of American 
 male students, graduates of the Institute, who may wish to 
 pursue advanced chemical study and research, especially ap- 
 plicable to textile industries." 
 
 The next two decades saw Mr. Dalton at the height of his 
 long and prosperous business career. Though he had termi- 
 nated his connection with J. C. Howe and Company in 1870, 
 his intimate knowledge of the Print Works at Manchester 
 resulted in his appointment as treasurer pro tern, during their 
 reorganization in 1873. In the early seventies he was for a 
 brief time president of the Consolidated Coal Company of 
 Maryland, in the interest of J. M. Forbes (with whom he had 
 had many dealings in regard to the transport of troops and 
 supplies in Civil- War days), and in January, 1876, he became 
 treasurer of the Great Falls Manufacturing Company for two 
 years. Much more intimate was his association with the 
 Merrimac Manufacturing Company, of which he was treasurer 
 for twelve years, from 1877 to 1889 ; next to the Manchester 
 Print Works, his business career was more closely identified 
 with this corporation than with any other. His ability, integ- 
 rity, and success in these different enterprises were speedily 
 recognized, and are attested by his election as director of the 
 Suffolk National Bank, January 12, 1876, and January 13, 
 1886; as trustee and vice-president of the Provident Institution 
 
19 
 
 for Savings in the Town of Boston, December 15, 1875, and 
 December 18, 1889 ; as director and vice-president of the New 
 England Trust Company, May 12, 1875, and March 31, 1879, 
 and as director of the Massachusetts Hospital Life Insurance 
 Company, January, 1879. All but the first of these offices he 
 held at the time of his death. His reputation, moreover, was 
 far from being merely local. His appointment by President 
 Harrison in June, 1889, as a special commissioner to proceed 
 to Europe to obtain the views of the principal governments of 
 that continent in regard to the re-establishment of a common 
 standard for the free coinage of silver, and his choice as judge 
 of manufacturing at the World's Fair at Chicago in 1893 
 (personal affairs obliged him to decline both these positions), 
 indicate that he was widely known outside Massachusetts and 
 New England. 
 
 Interesting and valuable as is the story of his business career 
 and preferments, one is tempted to hurry over it in order to 
 concentrate on what was even more thoroughly and particu- 
 larly characteristic of Mr. Dalton, — the wide and varied range 
 of his public services. The Union Club and Brookline Coun- 
 try Club bear eloquent testimony to his activity in furthering 
 the cause of social intercourse and good fellowship in this 
 community ; he was one of the founders of each of these or- 
 ganizations, and labored long and successfully for the pros- 
 perity of both. Together with the late Edmund Dwight, he 
 started the Wintersnight Dinner Club. Another organization 
 of which he was the founder and first president was the Ark- 
 wright Club of New England Manufacturers, whose beneficent 
 advice and efforts in regard to the tariff have, on several occa- 
 sions, prevented hasty and unwise legislation. Mr. Dalton's 
 keen interest and sympathy in the problems of the poor and 
 unemployed are attested by his chairmanship of the Citizen's 
 Relief Committee at the time of the panic of 1893, and by his 
 vice-presidency of the Legal Aid Society. But of all his many 
 public activities, the three in which his name stands out most 
 conspicuously are his services to the Massachusetts General 
 Hospital, to the Park and Subway Commissions. A brief 
 paragraph may well be devoted to each. 
 
 Born and brought up in close touch with the medical pro- 
 fession, Mr. Dalton was always deeply interested in the ques- 
 tion of caring for the sick, injured, and infirm. His brothers 
 
20 
 
 John and Edward were trained physicians, and though his 
 own calling in life was another, Mr. Dalton's knowledge of 
 and interest in the medical profession were far greater than 
 those of the ordinary man of affairs. Much of his correspond- 
 ence from Washington in Civil-War days deals with the care 
 and transportation home of the sick and wounded, to the im- 
 provement of which he contributed valuable suggestions ; and 
 on his return to the North in 1862 he became one of the most 
 zealous workers in behalf of the Sanitary Commission. His 
 connection with the Massachusetts General Hospital began in 
 1866 with his election as a trustee ; it was rendered closer on 
 February 1, 1888, by his election as president of its corpora- 
 tion, an office which he held to the day of his death. During 
 the forty-two years of his connection with this institution he 
 gave it his unwearied, loyal, and efficient service. He was a 
 prominent member of the committee for negotiating the sale 
 of the old site at Somerville, and chairman of that for the 
 building of the new McLean Hospital at Waverley in the 
 early nineties, offices which he performed with such success as 
 to cause the following minute to be adopted by the Hospital 
 trustees : 
 
 The trustees desire to bear witness to the services of the President of 
 the Corporation during the last three years. Accepting the chairman- 
 ship of the McLean Building Committee, and devoting time and skill to 
 its constant demands, he transformed his office from a merely presiding 
 to a laborious and highly efficient one. An enterprise of such magni- 
 tude, involving so much to the present and the future of the Hospital, 
 could have been neither begun nor ended without authoritative super- 
 vision, and this has been performed by Mr. Dalton in a manner to claim 
 our respect and our gratitude. 
 
 As president of the Hospital Corporation Mr. Dalton de- 
 livered an interesting address at the celebration of the fiftieth 
 anniversary of the first application of ether at the hospital in 
 September, 1816. Together with his younger brother, Henry, 
 he established in 1891 the " Dalton Scholarship " of $10,000 
 for " Investigation in the Science of Medicine " in memory of 
 the services to the hospital of his brothers John Call and Ed- 
 ward Barry ; and he left an addition of $15,000 to this sum in 
 his will. 
 
 Mr. Dalton's services as member of the Boston Park Com- 
 
21 
 
 mission began with the first appointment of that body in 1875 
 and lasted till his resignation in 1884. During eight of these 
 nine years he acted as chairman of the commission. He was 
 the author of its most important report (that of 1876), in which 
 the general scheme of the Boston parks, as at present existing, 
 was first laid out ; and the successful accomplishment of that 
 scheme in subsequent years was chiefly due to his energy and 
 executive ability. The duties of his office were by no means 
 easy, the frequent necessity of sacrificing the property of pri- 
 vate persons and corporations demanding both tact and fear- 
 lessness in high degree, but Mr. Dalton never wavered, and 
 carried through the work which had been laid upon him in a 
 manner which commanded the admiration even of those who 
 suffered on account of it. The merits of the general plan 
 which he originated are too many to be enumerated here, but 
 among them two are deserving of special mention. First, the 
 scheme, from the moment of its inception, was one susceptible 
 of elaboration and development pari passu with the growth of 
 Boston : the commissioners studied carefully the park systems 
 of the five American cities which already possessed them, and 
 also those of the chief capitals of Europe before they came to 
 any decision, and were thus enabled to devise a plan which 
 should take into account all the possibilities of municipal ex- 
 pansion. Second, the trenchant arguments with which Mr. 
 Dalton and his colleagues refuted in advance the objections 
 of those who dreaded the expense which a park system would 
 entail are beyond all praise. " We think money so expended 
 (in laying out park systems)," they wrote, " will be well in- 
 vested and quickly returned, by betterments, and by the 
 increase in taxable value of all surrounding property . . . 
 and the rate of taxation will thereby be reduced rather than 
 increased." " It is not an extravagant proposition, though 
 unsusceptible of proof, that more taxable capital has been 
 driven out of the city and invested in neighboring towns dur- 
 ing the past twenty years, for lack of a frontage for dwellings 
 similar to that around the Common and Public Garden, than 
 would pay for the lands and improvements of the parks located 
 under this Act, and that within ten years after laying out the 
 said Parks, a larger sum will be returned within the city, legiti- 
 mately belonging to it, than the cost of these lands and im- 
 provements." And again, referring to sanitary conditions 
 
22 
 
 " always paramount to such as are purely financial," quoting 
 from the report of 1874, he says, " Nothing is so costly as sick- 
 ness and disease, nothing so cheap as health. Whatever pro- 
 motes the former is the worst sort of extravagance — whatever 
 fosters the latter the truest economy." In view of municipal 
 experience in this country within the last thirty years, how 
 sane, how just, how far-sighted a statement is this ! 
 
 It was not only in beautifying Boston, but also in increasing 
 its facilities for transportation that Mr. Dalton rendered im- 
 portant services to the community. He was one of the three 
 members of the first Subway Commission, appointed by Mayor 
 Matthews January 1, 1894, and authorized to investigate the 
 advisability of constructing a subway for electric cars at a cost 
 not to exceed $2,000,000. Within a few months after its ap- 
 pointment the commission reported that a subway was im- 
 peratively necessary in order to relieve the congested condition 
 of traffic in Tremont Street and elsewhere, but that $2,000,000 
 would be a sum entirely inadequate for the satisfactory build- 
 ing of it. The ultimate result of this report was the appoint- 
 ment, in July, 1894, of a Transit Commission, consisting of the 
 three who already comprised the Subway Commission and two 
 others, appointed by Governor Greenhalge. To this body Mr. 
 Dalton gave more than twelve years of loyal and efficient ser- 
 vice. His connection with it did not finally terminate till 
 October 11, 1906. During this period the subway as it exists 
 to-day was constructed, leased to the West End Street Railway 
 Company, and connected with the Elevated. Mr. Dalton's 
 services to the commission were valuable in every department 
 of its work, but special emphasis should be laid on his general 
 business experience, his ability in valuing condemned real 
 estate, in negotiating with those from whom it was to be 
 taken, and in estimating the probable cost of extensions and 
 complicated operations. As in the days of his service on the 
 Park Commission, he was exceedingly fond of visiting in per- 
 son the scene of excavations and building, with a keen eye to 
 detect shirking and imperfect work, and an ever-ready word 
 of encouragement and praise for those who deserved it. On 
 two occasions in particular his services were indispensable, 
 first, during the negotiations with the Boston and Maine Rail- 
 road concerning the purchase of the site of the old station in 
 Haymarket Square ; second, in drafting the very complicated 
 
23 
 
 lease of the subway to the West End Street Railway. It should 
 be added that from the very first he was an ardent supporter 
 of the plan of putting the electric cars underground, and in 
 the early days of the commission labored strenuously, and in 
 the end with complete success, to bring others who favored the 
 plan of surface cars, and the appropriating of a slice of the 
 Common to give them room, to his point of view. 
 
 Of Mr. Dalton's connection with this Society, there is little 
 that remains to be said. Though in no sense a historian, his 
 election, which occurred at the stated meeting of June 9, 1904, 
 was well merited on account of his wide and intelligent read- 
 ing and his active interest and participation in public affairs; 
 and it may not be out of place to add that it would almost cer- 
 tainly have occurred earlier had he not unselfishly maintained 
 the precedence of the claims of a much younger man. The 
 President has already spoken of his two papers concerning his 
 own family's history and traditions, and of his memoir of his 
 brother John, whose death, in 1889, was perhaps the greatest 
 sorrow of Mr. Dalton's life. His rare attendance at our 
 monthly meetings is explained by his increasing deafness in 
 later years, while his lively interest in the Society's work is 
 attested by his regular reading of its publications. His sole 
 contribution to our Proceedings was a brief monograph, 
 printed in the form of an open letter to Senator Crane, and 
 presented to the Society at the stated meeting of January 11, 
 1906, on the advisability of regulating the issue of postage 
 stamps. In it Mr. Dalton recommended the adoption of the 
 Houdon head of Washington on all stamps except those of 
 the one-cent denomination, and for those the head of Franklin 
 (the first Postmaster-General of this country). This suggestion 
 he took pains to justify historically, by a number of data and 
 precedents. The very gratifying result has been the recent issue 
 (February, 1909) by former Postmaster-General George v. L. 
 Meyer of a new series of postage stamps, on a scheme almost 
 precisely identical with that suggested by Mr. Dalton, with the 
 Houdon head of Washington on all denominations except the 
 one-cent, and ten-cent special delivery stamps ; the one-cent 
 stamp has the Franklin head. An interesting letter of Mr. 
 Meyer to Mr. Adams on this subject, and a minute adopted by 
 the Society thereon, are printed in our Proceedings for March, 
 1909. 
 
24 
 
 This brief enumeration of the organizations and societies of 
 which Mr. Dalton was a member and the enterprises in which 
 he bore a part, needs to be supplemented by a few excerpts 
 from his correspondence in order to reveal the keenness and 
 range of his interest in public affairs. A friend in London 
 (a relative by marriage) writes the following description of 
 Mr. Dalton's letters to him : 
 
 They covered the period 1902-1907, and abounded in shrewd 
 inquiries and pithy comments on public affairs, British and American. 
 In a sense, no doubt, their interest was personal and ephemeral, since 
 they were composed simply for the reader to whom they were addressed, 
 without either appeal to a wider audience or straining after literary 
 effect. But of his writing it may truthfully be said that the style was 
 the man — the man as he was — plain, forcible, direct, without a super- 
 fluous word or an irrelevant idea, equally free from parenthesis, repe- 
 tition, and periphrasis. Many an accomplished man of letters has 
 laboured for years, and laboured in vain, to acquire the art which 
 seemed to have been given by Nature to Charles Dalton or uncon- 
 sciously developed along with his character. Probably he never hesi- 
 tated over a phrase or considered the turning of a sentence. He just 
 put down his thoughts as they came into his mind — confident that they 
 would present themselves on paper in due order, whether of sequence 
 or logic. Let any reader who thinks this an easy matter make the ex- 
 periment of describing some scene he has witnessed and then compare 
 his performance with the specimens given in this memoir of Charles 
 Dalton's quality of self expression. How he attained this sure literary 
 power I have no means of guessing. All his life he was a reader of 
 good books, and without purposed imitation may have formed himself 
 on some great model. But he also made his way through a huge mass 
 of contemporary stuff — newspapers, magazines, official publications, 
 and books of the current season — which from the literary point of view 
 would be mere rubbish, tolerable only for the information given, and 
 compiled without sense of form. But against the demoralizing influence 
 of all this bastard English, his style was immune. From the press, 
 and the perishable trumpery which men of affairs must deal with, he 
 took nothing but the new facts and fresh ideas for which his mind was 
 always eager. 
 
 He was never tired of learning. His alertness and receptivity were 
 still unaffected when I first came to know him, and he was then already 
 an old man; his curiosity was but less remarkable than his open- 
 mindedness. He started life, no doubt, with a fairly strong crop of 
 anti-British prejudices. But these had been toned down by travel in 
 England and close intercourse with individual Englishmen. If he liked 
 
25 
 
 us at all he would take us to his heart as frankly as though we had been 
 born in Massachusetts itself. But he was always ready for a fight, either 
 across the dinner table or by correspondence. He fairly revelled in a 
 stiff argument, and as he seldom made a statement for which he could 
 not give chapter and verse, he was a tough antagonist. Once I caught 
 him tripping. Just by way of " drawing " him I had repeated in a letter 
 the statement (casually recalled from a forgotten magazine or pamphlet) 
 that an eminent Abolitionist for whom Charles Dalton entertained a 
 special esteem had himself been a slave-holder. By return of post came 
 an indignant repudiation with the demand for my authority. The 
 prospect of research in order to make good my random assertion was 
 somewhat disconcerting. But there was no way out of it. Before I had 
 entered on my labours with the British Museum catalogue, however, 
 I received another letter from Boston — ruefully admitting the charge. 
 Charles Dalton had himself gone laboriously into the question, and 
 found the case proved against his view, though with extenuating cir- 
 cumstances. The incident seems worth recording as proof of the 
 trouble which a busy man would take in a matter which he thought 
 important and of his intellectual candour. If he had left me to myself, 
 I should probably have been obliged to withdraw my statement. 
 
 When the question of protecting British industries and foster- 
 ing Imperial trade through a revised tariff was raised by Mr. 
 Chamberlain in 1903, Charles Dalton engaged with me in a long 
 and somewhat detailed correspondence. While he did not believe that 
 the people of Great Britain would ever agree to what he called " mon- 
 keying with the food supply " by curtailment of United States imports, 
 he was quite as warm in support of defensive operations in favour of 
 British home manufactures as though the new duties would not be 
 largely directed against American competitors. The idea that such 
 a policy might generate bad blood between the two countries he 
 laughed to scorn. Moreover he was at considerable pains to show 
 that the enhanced prices in America were more than compensated 
 by the higher rate of wages and salaries. He spent quite a num- 
 ber of days in collecting and arranging statistics aimed at showing 
 that the workingmen and poorer class of clerks in England would 
 not necessarily suffer under a protective tariff. 
 
 On the fishery disputes between Great Britain and the United States 
 — or, perhaps one should say, between the London and Washington 
 governments — it was natural that a strongly American line should be 
 taken by a man associated with the Republican party in Massachusetts 
 and a cordial, if occasionally discriminating, supporter of recent admin- 
 istrations. But his chief anxiety was that all such outstanding ques- 
 tions should be brought to a satisfactory settlement. When a change 
 was made, a little time after, in the British Embassy at Washington, 
 
26 
 
 he wrote at once to make all possible inquiries about the new repre- 
 sentative of Great Britain. As a man of the world, who was acquainted 
 with some of the most influential persons in American politics, he knew 
 how important a part may be played in public affairs by the personal 
 qualities of the diplomatists employed by a Foreign Power. On 
 national enterprises in which he took pride, such as the completion of 
 the Trans- Isthmian Canal, Charles Dal ton spared no trouble in collect- 
 ing and forwarding information that might usefully be circulated in 
 England. He delighted also in giving me fresh and unconventional 
 sketches of eminent countrymen. Over and over again, when writing, 
 from the British point of view, upon some international controversy, I 
 have found my phrases mitigated, perhaps my judgment modified, by 
 recalling a sentence in one of Charles Dalton's lucid, reasoned, and 
 pointed letters. That his opinions were untinged by patriotic prepos- 
 session he would never have pretended, but his sincerity was so 
 obvious, his outlook so broad, that one felt confident, on reading what 
 he had written, that one was being brought into communion with the 
 highest individual expression of the dominant American feeling. 
 
 A few passages from his letters to another London friend 
 attest the truth of this description. " Do not destroy your 
 Lords ! " he wrote in 1885. " It is said Americans admire 
 them, and so they do, your cathedrals and castles and great 
 estates. If you want Democracy, come here or go to any of 
 your colonies, but keep Old England for what she has been 
 and is, Lords and all." And again in another letter: 
 
 You cannot approve of the Republican protective policy, nor do I 
 wonder at it from an English point of view, for I suppose such a policy 
 would be fatal to England. But our conditions permit, or rather, 
 demand, our own methods, whereby, as I suggested to you, America 
 may become, as she rapidly is doing, a self supporting nation . . . 
 Why should we follow in England's wake [in regard to foreign expan- 
 sion] . . . Our civilizing functions are exercised upon subjects coming 
 to us instead of our going to them. Do you appreciate this task ? A 
 daily stream, 1500 to 2000 strong, every day in the year, mostly igno- 
 rant, with wrong ideas, many with vicious habits to be trained to 
 become respectable, voting citizens. It is a contract which no other 
 nation would, or perhaps could, undertake. 
 
 The crowning reward of this long and active life of upright 
 character and disinterested public service was a truly beautiful 
 old age and a blessedly peaceful death. The gentlest, sunniest 
 side of his character was all to the fore in his declining years, 
 
27 
 
 And that which should accompany old age 
 As honor, love, obedience, troops of friends 
 
 he enjoyed in fullest measure. His earlier activities were of 
 course diminished, but by no means entirely cut off, and 
 further restriction, which might have been irksome, and which 
 his physician contemplated advising in his last days, were 
 spared him by the quiet sleep into which he fell, all uncon- 
 scious of his approaching end, on the morning of 23 February, 
 1908, and from which he knew no waking. 
 
 The salient feature of Mr. Dalton's character, as the fore- 
 going sketch has been primarily intended to show, was 
 helpfulness — helpfulness in the largest sense of the word, 
 helpfulness toward individuals and towards the community at 
 large. Some of his more distinguished public services have 
 been already touched upon ; those which he rendered to single 
 persons, though impossible to enumerate, formed an equally 
 important part of his life. Though a generous giver of money, 
 he preferred the more ambitious and active methods of aiding 
 by unstinted devotion of time, energy, and patience. A con- 
 temporary and friend of thirty years says of him : 
 
 He was a very rare man in his simplicity, his high standards, his 
 never failing public spirit, his generosity and his kindliness. This 
 community owes him more than many realize, not only for what he did 
 in so many ways to help his fellow-citizens, but for his example, — for 
 his life, which was a constant example. In a generation when men are 
 advertising themselves, seeking offices, honors and money, he was con- 
 spicuous for seeking none of these, and asking only for opportunities to 
 serve. We have too few such men, and the loss of such a man is a 
 public calamity. 
 
 Next to this quality of helpfulness should be placed the re- 
 markable energy, masterfulness, and virility of his character. 
 Shirking and laziness were abhorrent to him. He saw the end 
 to be gained with unvarying clearness, and was direct and 
 forcible in his methods of attaining it, and perhaps sometimes 
 a little hast}' - in his judgments of those who disagreed with 
 him. He had his full share of gaudium eertaminis, and never 
 flinched from any task which demanded a struggle or a con- 
 test. But he never suffered a temporary difference of opinion 
 
28 
 
 permanently to cloud his relations with his fellow-men: he 
 never let the sun go down upon his wrath, nor permitted any 
 vexatious incident to disturb the current of his naturally 
 cheerful and genial disposition. His was a conspicuous case 
 of the ripening and mellowing of old age. Without abating 
 one jot of the vigor and forcibleness which had characterized 
 him from the first, he grew wonderfully in the complementary 
 virtues of gentleness, patience, and serenity. 
 
 He was a most genial and charming host, and, once more 
 like his grandfather, " was fond of generous living and accus- 
 tomed to make ample provision for his bodily comfort, but 
 was never excessive in any personal indulgence." His bear- 
 ing was always distinguished by a certain gallant quality, pe- 
 culiarly his own, which marked him off as one of eminence and 
 distinction among his fellow-men. To those in his employment 
 he was unvaryingly kind, " his help to them being usually given 
 in the form of a surprise," as one of them writes. He de- 
 lighted in the society of younger men and women, and they in 
 turn esteemed it the greatest privilege to sit by his fireside or 
 at his table, and to hear and participate in the interesting con- 
 versation that was always to be found there. With every age 
 and walk of life he felt a warm bond of sympathy ; he never 
 wavered nor faltered to the very end ; and he died, as he had 
 lived, loyal and devoted to those he loved, a brave and faithful 
 servant of his country and of mankind. 
 
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 
 
;.• 
 
 
 i i 
 
 ! in i II! 
 
 ■ 
 
 I