Report Of The Board Of Commissioners, For The Survey Of One Or More Routes For A Railway From Boston To Albany...
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Report Of The Board Of Commissioners, For The Survey Of One Or More Routes For A Railway From Boston To Albany; Issue 5 Of General Court, 1828 Senate; Issue 5 Of Senate (Series) (Massachusetts. General Court. Senate)
Massachusetts. Board of Commissioners for the Survey of One or More Routes for a Railway from Boston to Albany, Nahum Mitchell, Samuel M. McKay, James Fowle Baldwin
Dutton & Wentworth, printers to the state, 1828
Transportation; Railroads; General; Railroads; Transportation / Railroads / General; Transportation / Railroads / History
History of the Early Settlement of Bridgewater in Plymouth County, Massachusetts, Including an Extensive Family Register
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Nahum Mitchell was an American jurist, author, composer, and congressman.
Background
Nahum Mitchell was born on February 12, 1769, at East Bridgewater, Massachusetts. Through his father, Cushing Mitchell, who married Jennet Orr of East Bridgewater, he was fourth in descent from Experience Mitchell, of London, who arrived at Plymouth in the Anne in 1623.
Education
Nahum prepared for college under the Hon. Beza Hayward of Bridgewater, and entered Harvard in July 1785, receiving the degree of A. B. in 1789. In the meantime, he had "kept" school at Weston, Bridgewater, and Plymouth. In the autumn of 1789, he began to read law with Judge John Davis, 1761-1847, then living at Plymouth.
Career
Admitted to the bar on November 24, 1792, Mitchell began practice at East Bridgewater. Six years later he was first elected to the state House of Representatives, of which he remained a member until 1802. He was a state senator from Plymouth County (1813 - 14), member of the governor's council (1814 - 21) and treasurer of Massachusetts (1821 - 26). From 1812 to 1821, he sat as a justice of the circuit court of common pleas, serving as chief justice during the last two years. He was on commissions to establish the boundaries with Rhode Island and Connecticut in 1801 and 1823, respectively. In 1827, he was chosen chairman of the commissioners in charge of the route for the Boston & Albany Railroad. In 1839-40, as a representative from Boston, he sat in the Massachusetts General Court for the last time. In spite of his almost constant service to the commonwealth, Mitchell found time to build up an "honorable practice" at law. In his leisure, he grew trees, studied music, and compiled facts of local history. He presided over the first temperance society of his native town, helped to found and endow there in 1799 the Plymouth County Academy, as a trustee of which he served for fifty-four years, and sponsored, as president, Bridgewater's first lyceum (1827).
Mitchell had been carefully collecting material for his History of the Early Settlement of Bridgewater, in Plymouth County, Massachusetts (1840), an excellent work of its kind, on which he was engaged at intervals for over forty years. In its first form, it was published as "A Description of Bridgewater" in the Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society, of which society, he was elected a member the same year. From 1835 to 1836, he served as its librarian and from 1839 to 1844, as treasurer. A reprint in facsimile of the History was brought out at Bridgewater in 1897 and contains as a frontispiece a reproduction of the portrait of Mitchell painted in 1837 by Bass Otis of Boston.
On August 1, 1853, already well past eighty-four, he set out for Plymouth, in the heat of midsummer, in order to join in the celebration of the embarkation of the Pilgrims from Delft Haven for America. After arriving he discovered that his pocketbook, containing one hundred and fifty dollars and some valuable papers, was missing, and stooping to look for it, fainted. He died later in the day and was buried at East Bridgewater.
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This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923....)
Politics
For one term (1803 - 05), Mitchell represented the Plymouth district in Congress as a Federalist and subsequently served again in the state House of Representatives (1809-10, 1812 - 13).
Personality
The variety and extent of Mitchell's interests and his duties make the description of him as a man "exact and methodical in his habits; of untiring industry; and of a remarkably even temper" seem eminently fitting. His interest in music led him to assist Bartholomew Brown and others in compiling The Columbian and European Harmony: or Bridgewater Collection of Sacred Music (1802). The third edition, 1810, carried the title: Templi Carmina or The Bridgewater Collection of Sacred Music, and later editions were generally known simply as "The Bridgewater Collection. " It was widely used in New England churches and had no little influence in determining the character of church music in that field. Some of the compositions were the work of Mitchell himself.
Quotes from others about the person
According to a fellow member of the Massachusetts Historical Society, Ellis Ames, "Mitchell's antiquarian and genealogical knowledge was copious and exact"
Connections
In 1794, Mitchell had married Nabby, daughter of Silvanus Lazell, by whom he had five children, three girls and two boys.