A: Alley through Atkinson

See below for annotated biographies of Free Soil Party leaders, members and supporters. Source: Scribner’s Dictionary of American Biography.


ALLEY, John B., 1817-1896, Lynn, Massachusetts, Member of the U.S. House of Representatives, 1863-1876, voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery.  Alley was an Anti-slavery member of the Liberty and Free Soil Parties. Co-Edited the “Free-Soiler Newspaper.

(Sewell, 1976 p. 219; Congressional Globe; Wilson, Henry, History of the Rise and Fall of the Slave Power in America, Vol. 2.  Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, 1872 Biographical Directory of the American Congress, 1774-1927 (1928).


ANDREW, John Albion, 1818-1867, reformer, anti-slavery advocate, lawyer, Governor of Massachusetts, member Conscience Whig, Free Soil Party, Republican Party.  Opponent of slavery.  In Boston, he took a prominent part in the defense of fugitive slaves Shadrach, Burns and Sims.  Supported John Brown in legal defense. 

(American National Biography, Vol. 1, 2002, p. 489; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 1, Pt. 1, p. 279; Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I. pp. 72-73; Sewell, 1976 p. 341)

Biography from Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography:

ANDREW, John Albion, statesman, born in Windham, Maine, 31 May, 1818; died in Boston, Massachusetts, 30 October, 1867. His father, descended from an early settler of Boxford, Massachusetts, was a prosperous merchant in Windham. John Albion was graduated at Bowdoin in 1837. He was a negligent student, though fond of reading, and in his professional life always felt the lack of training in the habit of close application. He immediately entered on the study of the law in the office of Henry H. Fuller, in Boston, where in 1840 he was admitted to the bar. Until the outbreak of the war he practised his profession in that city, attaining special distinction in the fugitive-slave cases of Shadrach Burns and Sims, which arose under the fugitive-slave law of 1850. He became interested in the slavery question in early youth, and was attracted toward many of the reform movements of the day. After his admission to the bar he took an active interest in politics and frequently spoke on the stump on behalf of the Whig Party, of which he was an enthusiastic member. From the year 1848 he was closely identified with the anti-slavery party of Massachusetts, but held no office until 1858, when he was elected a member of the state legislature from Boston, and at once took a leading position in that body. In 1860 he was a delegate to the Chicago Republican Convention, and, after voting for Mr. Seward on the early ballots, announced the change of the vote of part of the Massachusetts delegation to Mr. Lincoln. In the same year he was nominated for governor by a popular impulse. Many feared that the radicalism of his opinions would render him unsafe in action, and the political managers regarded him as an intruder and opposed his nomination; yet he was elected the twenty-first governor of Massachusetts since the adoption of the constitution of 1780 by the largest popular vote ever cast for any candidate. He was energetic in placing the militia of Massachusetts on a war footing, in anticipation of the impending conflict between the government and the seceded states. He had announced this purpose in his inaugural address in 1861, and, upon being inducted into office, he sent a confidential message to the governors of Maine and New Hampshire, inviting their cooperation in preparing the militia for service and providing supplies of war material. This course of action was not regarded with favor at the time by a majority of the legislature, although his opponents refrained from a direct collision. On receiving the president's proclamation of 15 April, 1861, he despatched five regiments of infantry, a battalion of riflemen, and a battery of artillery to the defence of the capital. Of these, the Massachusetts 6th was the first to tread southern soil, passing through New York while the regiments of that state were mustering, and shedding the first blood of the war in the streets of Baltimore, where it was assailed by the moborn Governor Andrew sent a telegram to Mayor Brown, praying him to have the bodies of the slain carefully sent forward to him at the expense of the common wealth of Massachusetts. He was equally active in raising the Massachusetts contingent of three years' volunteers, and was laborious in his efforts to aid every provision for the comfort of the sick and wounded soldiers. He was four times reëlected governor, holding that office till January, 1866, and was only then released by his positive declination of another renomination, in order to attend to his private business, as the pecuniary sacrifice involved in holding the office was more than he was able to sustain, and his health was seriously affected by his arduous labors. In 1862 he was one of the most urgent of the northern governors in impressing upon the administration at Washington the necessity of adopting the emancipation policy, and of accepting the services of colored troops. In September, 1862, he took the most prominent part in the meeting of governors of the northern states, held at Altoona, Pennsylvania, to devise ways and means to encourage and strengthen the hands of the government. The address of the governors to the people of the north was prepared by him. Governor Andrew interfered on various occasions to prevent the federal authorities from making arbitrary arrests among southern sympathizers in Massachusetts previous to the suspension of the habeas-corpus act. In January, 1863, he obtained from the Secretary of War the first authorization for raising colored troops, and the First Colored Regiment (54th Massachusetts Infantry) was despatched from Boston in May of that year. Governor Andrew was particular in selecting the best officers for the black troops and in providing them with the most complete equipment. Though famous as the war governor of Massachusetts, he also bestowed proper attention on the domestic affairs of the commonwealth. In his first message he recommended that the provision in the law preventing a person against whom a decree of divorce has been granted from marrying again, should be modified; but the proposition met with strong opposition in the legislature, especially from clergymen, and it was not till 1864 that an act was passed conferring power upon the supreme court to remove the penalty resting upon divorced persons. He also recommended a reform in the usury laws, such as was finally effected by an act passed in 1867. He was strongly opposed to capital punishment, and recommended its repeal. A law requiring representatives in Congress to be residents of the districts from which they are elected was vetoed by him on the ground that it was both unconstitutional and inexpedient, but was passed over his veto. Of the twelve veto messages sent by Governor Andrew during his incumbency, only one other, in the case of a resolve to grant additional pay to members, was followed by the passage of the act over the veto. His final term as governor expired 5 January, 1866. In a valedictory address to the legislature he advocated a generous and conciliatory policy toward the southern states, “demanding no attitude of humiliation; inflicting no acts of humiliation.” Governor Andrew was modest and simple in his habits and manner of life, emotional and quick in sympathy for the wronged or the unfortunate, exceedingly joyous and mirthful in temperament, and companionable with all classes of persons. The distinguished ability that shone out in his administration as governor of Massachusetts, the many sterling qualities that were summed up in his character, his social address, and the charm of his conversational powers, together with his clear and forcible style as an orator, combined to render him conspicuous among the state governors of the war period, and one of the most influential persons in civil life not connected with the federal administration. Soon after the expiration of his last term as governor he was tendered, but declined, the presidency of Antioch College, Ohio. He presided over the first national Unitarian Convention, held in 1865, and was a leader of the conservative wing of that denomination—those who believed with Channing and the early Unitarians in the supernaturalism of Christ's birth and mission, as opposed to Theodore Parker and his disciples. After retiring from public life Mr. Andrew entered upon a lucrative legal practice. In January, 1867, he represented before the general court about 30,000 petitioners for a license law, and delivered an argument against the principle of total prohibition. His death, which occurred suddenly from apoplexy, was noticed by public meetings in various cities. He married, 25 December, 1848, Miss Eliza Jane Hersey, of Hingham, Massachusetts, who with their four children survived him. See “Memoir of Governor Andrew, with Personal Reminiscences,” by Peleg W. Chandler (Boston, 1880), “Discourse on the Life and Character of Governor Andrew,” by Reverend E. Nason (Boston, 1868), and “Men of Our Times,” by Harriet Beecher Stowe. A life of Governor Andrew, by Edwin P. Whipple, was left unfinished at the time of Mr. Whipple’s death in 1886. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888.  pp.72-73.

Dictionary of American Biography, 1936 pp. 279-281).

ANDREW, JOHN ALBION (May 31, 1818- 0ct. 30, 1867), governor of Massachusetts, was born at Windham, Maine, of Massachusetts stock, his earliest ancestor of whom we have record, Robert Andrew, having come as it appears from England, settled in what is now Boxford, and died there a prosperous landowner in 1668. Robert's son, Joseph, moved to Salem, where the main stem of the Andrews continued to live. Jonathan Andrew, the father of the future governor, moved to Windham, Maine, in 1807, established a general store, married Nancy Green Pierce, prospered, and became the leading man of the village. On John Andrew's education unusual pains were lavished. His mother, a woman of attainments and force of character, had been a school-teacher and for a time taught the boy herself. Later, when the family was larger, finding the district school inadequate, the parents built a tiny school-house near their own door and here John, his brother, and two sisters were carefully grounded in the rudiments. The next stage, following the custom of the time, was the local academy and in due course the boy attended for a brief time the academies at Portland, North Yarmouth, and Bridgton. Late in 1831, when he was in his fourteenth year, the serious illness of his mother, to  whom he was much attached, called him home and he remained there until her death in the early spring of 1832. Soon afterward he returned to his studies, this time at Gorham Academy, where he prepared for college, entering Bowdoin in 1833. As a student he ranked among the lowest in his class. He spent more time in social fellowship than in study and graduated with more competency in argument and public speaking than in any other field. As a boy he had been stirred by the Anti-Slavery movement; he had now become a determined foe of slavery and his conviction on this issue was to shape h is political course.

He was not yet twenty when he arrived in Boston in 1837, and entered the law office of Fuller & Wash burn as a student, and he was still very youthful in appearance in 1840 when he was admitted to the bar. His progress in the profession was gradual, partly because he was of a slow-maturing type, partly because of his incurably sociable temperament which was always leading him away from the paths of legal preferment. He was active in the Unitarian Church and assistant editor of the church paper, secretary for many years of the Boston Port Society, and one of the most devoted visitors to the prisons, where he was to be found every Sunday afternoon and whence he derived more law cases than fees. It was said of him at this period, "No one who had a 'hard case,' with no money to pay for legal assistance, was ever turned away from his office for that reason; and no one however guilty was denied whatever assistance his case was fairly entitled to receive"(Chandler, p. 79). His father, with his younger son and two daughters, had removed from Maine to Massachusetts and settled at Boxford not far from Boston so as to be near the elder son. There the family hearth continued and the family life was maintained, Andrew returning constantly to recount his experiences in the city and to renew his strength in the atmosphere of love and admiration. So a decade passed while he established relations, made friends, set the foundations for the career which lay hidden before him. In 1847 he became engaged to Eliza Jones Hersey and in 1848was married.

During all this time, Andrew's interest in the Anti-Slavery movement never wavered. His association with the members of James Freeman Clarke's church and other reforming and aspiring groups had deepened the religious and humanitarian side of his nature. When the slavery question again became a burning issue he took a leading part in its discussion. Though he rejected the extreme positions of Garrison and Wendell Phillips, he maintained the firm and uncompromising opposition to slavery which represented the best spirit of Massachusetts. He took part with Bowditch, Howe, Sumner, Theodore Parker, Charles Francis Adams, and others in the fugitive slave case of the brig Ottoman in the summer of 1846 and read the resolutions at the Faneuil Hall meeting where John Quincy Adams, then in his eightieth year, presided. From this time on he was drawn into closer relations with Sumner and Howe and the Young Whigs. Politics, which had always fascinated him, now took a larger part of his thought. The campaign of 1848 stirred him deeply. He was one of the organizers of the Free-Soil party with its platform "Free Soil, Free Speech, Free Labor, and Free Men,'' and he gave himself whole-heartedly to the campaign. With the Know-Nothing movement which swept over Massachusetts four years later he had little in common, and it was not until the Republican party appeared that he was again able to engage with full conviction. In 1857 he was nominated and elected on the Banks or Republican ticket to the legislature. There in the session of 1858 he won distinction by a speech so brilliant and effective that it made him at once one of the leaders of the party. Though he declined reelection his place was established and his popularity grew.

John Brown's raid, his capture, trial, and death had an effect that could not have been predicted upon Andrew's career. When the raid failed and Brown was made prisoner, Andrew took a leading part in raising funds for his defense. When sentence had been pronounced, he took part in a public meeting to raise funds for Brown's family and on that occasion used the words, "John Brown himself is right," which aroused a storm of enthusiasm among anti-slavery men everywhere. When at the instance of the Southern senators a committee was set up to investigate the raid, Andrew was cited to appear and testify. His bearing and testimony before the committee, which had the widest publicity, gave lively satisfaction to anti-slavery men, especially to Massachusetts anti-slavery men. The episode made him more popular than before and in consequence he was almost unanimously chosen delegate to the Republican National Convention at Chicago and made chairman of the delegation. He shared in the nomination of Lincoln, went to Springfield to see him, and brought back a lofty but just opinion of the great leader. One honor led to another. It had long been growing evident that Andrew was one to whom his fellow citizens were well disposed. In the month of July, 1860, a well-informed observer described him as "the most popular man in Massachusetts." In the following month occasion offered a proof. Governor Banks, whose renomination was taken for granted, suddenly declined, five days before the nominating convention. The "machine" had settled upon Henry L. Dawes, a Conservative. But no sooner was it known that Andrew's nomination was a possibility than a legion of friends hastened to his support and he was nominated on the first ballot by a great majority. By an even greater majority-in fact the greatest popular majority in the history of the state up to that time-he was elected governor on the same ticket on which Lincoln became President.

Andrew was now at his utmost vigor of mind and body. Forty-two years of age, strong and sturdy of build, full of energy, capable of great effort and equal to unusual strains of endurance, he was ready for the great labors before him. The crisis was swift in appearance. He had not written his inaugural address before warnings reached him from Adams, and Sumner that the government at Washington was in danger. He at once took steps to put the state militia in a position of readiness. Other warnings followed and within a month he had obtained from the legislature an emergency fund of $100,000, with which to arm, equip, and transport the militia if needed for the defense of Washington. Then came the firing on Fort Sumter and Lincoln's call for troops. Andrew so labored that the Massachusetts regiments were ready and went forward before those of any other state. The 6th Massachusetts was the only armed regiment to reach Washington on that critical 19th of April before the city was cut off from the North-as it remained for nearly a week. As the war went on, the Governor came to be more and more the embodiment of the patriotic spirit of the State. His short, rotund, figure, once ridiculed, became beloved. The upper circles of society found him an agreeable guest. The chorus, still remembered in Massachusetts, made to rally the pro-slavery mobs

"Tell John Andrew
Tell John Andrew
Tell John Andrew
 John Brown's dead"

would now have brought him votes in any town in the state. There was no longer any question about his reelection. The state felt that he was enlisted for the war.

In 1862, when the first fine enthusiasm was over, when the tale of deaths and wounds, losses and defeats chilled the spirits and the delay of emancipation discouraged the most ardent, the governors of several northern states united in what has been called the Altoona Conference to urge upon the President the emancipation of the negroes and a more vigorous prosecution of the war. Andrew was a member of the Conference. By a singular coincidence President Lincoln issued his Emancipation Proclamation the day before the Conference met, but the governors went on to Washington, conferred with the President, and doubtless contributed something to that increased vigor which became apparent from then on. With emancipation secured there was one other thing that Andrew had at heart. This was to give the negro the full standing of a man by making him a soldier and admitting him to the army. He urged that the negroes be organized into separate corps and regiments. Nothing that he ever undertook appealed to him more powerfully and when he finally had the consent of the War Department and got his first negro regiment, the 54th, organized he felt it a great achievement. "I stand or fall," he declared, ~'as a man and a magistrate, with the rise and fall in history of the 54th Massachusetts Regiment." It was a great venture for, without some such test, one may doubt whether the negro would have achieved his citizenship in the United States. At the election of 1864 Andrew was reelected governor. The end of the war was now in sight. Andrew, absorbed with the problems which would come with peace, labored to establish the negro in his rights and to provide for cooperation between the North and the South. In his farewell message delivered in January 1866, he advocated a lenient and friendly policy toward the Southern states and reconstruction without retribution. When he retired from office, at the close of 1866, it became apparent that the war had worn him out. His friends had already noted that he had overdrawn his physical resources, and he had been warned to husband his strength. Through the greater part of 1867 he continued, however, to take an active interest in public affairs; he worked for reform in the usury laws and in the divorce law, and took a prominent position in opposing the principle of total prohibition. He resisted several minor attacks of ill health and worked on at his legal business, but finally, on October 29, he was stricken with apoplexy and died on the following day amid the general grief of the city.

[Henry Greenleaf Pearson, The Life of John A. Andrew (1904); Peleg W. Chandler, Memoir of Governor Andrew (1880); Albert Gallatin Browne, Sketch of the Official Life of John A. Andrew (1868); A Memorial Volume Containing the Exercises of the Dedication of the Statue of John A. Andrew (1878); Elias Nason, Discourse on the Life and Character of the Hon. John Albion Andrew (1868); Samuel Burnham, "Hon. John Albion Andrew" in New England History and Genealogical Reg., January 1869; Moorfield Storey, Life of Charles Sumner (1900), pp. 52, 192, 209, 271, 295.]

W. B. P.


ARNOLD, Isaac Newton, 1815-1884, lawyer, historian, Member of the U.S. House of Representatives 1860-1864, voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery.  Republican.  Introduced anti-slavery bill in Congress.  Served as an officer in the Union Army.  Active in Free Soil movement of 1848. Protested Fugitive Slave Law, October 1850. Outspoken opponent of slavery. 

(Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, p. 96; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 1, Pt. 1, pp. 368-369; Biographical Directory of the American Congress, 1774-1927 (1928); Congressional Globe)

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 1, Pt. 1, pp. 368-369

ARNOLD, ISAAC NEWTON (November 30, 1815- April 24, 1884), lawyer, congressman, historian, was born at Hartwick, Otsego County, New York. He was the son of Dr. George Washington Arnold and his wife, Sophia M. Arnold, both born in Rhode Island. His grandfather was Thomas Arnold, a soldier of the Revolution. Isaac was educated at local schools. Thrown on his own resources at fifteen he taught school and studied law in the offices of Richard Cooper and Judge E. B. Morehouse at Cooperstown. In 1835 he was admitted to the bar; after a year's practise he came to Chicago in 1836, the year before its incorporation as a city (Chicago Tribune, April 24, 1884). Here he formed a law partnership with Mahlon D. Ogden, also a New Yorker, which lasted till 1847 (A. T. Andreas, History of Chicago, I, 435-36). His legal practice, both criminal and civil, was large and important. In 1841 he was concerned in the case of Bronson vs. Kinzie decided by the United States Supreme Court (1 Howard, 3n) in accord with his contention that the state stay law (allowing relief from foreclosure if land did not bring two-thirds its appraised value at auction) was unconstitutional (Illinois State Historical Society Journal, vol. VII, no. 2, p. 25). As a Democratic politician he opposed repudiation of the state's indebtedness in 1842; he was one of the persons among whom is to be shared the credit for the plan that finally extricated the state from debt. He served in the General Assembly, 1842-45, where he was chairman of the house committee on finance. He was presidential elector for Polk in 1844.

Arnold took an active part in the Free-Soil movement of 1848, going as a delegate to the national and state conventions. He was one of the Chicago committee appointed to draw resolutions of protest against the Fugitive Slave Law in October, 1850. Seymour Currey, Chicago: Its History and Its Builders, 1912, I, 415). He was elected to the General Assembly in 1856 as a Republican. In 1860 he was elected to Congress and at once assumed a position of prominence. In December 1861, as chairman of the committee on defense of lakes and rivers, he pressed a measure for enlarging the Illinois and Michigan Canal to permit the passage of warships from the Mississippi to the Lakes. In this connection he was active in securing a National Canal Convention at Chicago in 1863. In January 1865 his measure finally passed the House but failed in the Senate (Arthur C. Cole, Era of the Civil War, 1919, pp, 354-56). In his second term he was chairman of the roads and canals committee (Congressional Globe, 38 Congress, 1 Session, p. 18). His record continued to be one of out-spoken hostility to slavery. On March 24, 1862, he introduced a bill to prohibit slavery in every place subject to national authority, which became a law June 19, 1862 (Ibid., 37 Congress, 2 Session, p. 1340; App., p. 364). He made an able speech in support of the second confiscation act, May 23, 1862 (Ibid., 37 Congress, 2 Session, App., p. 182). On February 15, 1864, he moved the amendment abolishing Slavery in the United States (Ibid., 38 Congress, 1 Session, p. 659). He served as auditor of the treasury for the Post Office Department, 1865-66.

As his political career ended, his literary career began. In 1866 he published The History of Abraham Lincoln and the Overthrow of Slavery. In 1880 he published a Life of Benedict Arnold. At his death in 1884 he was on the point of finishing his Life of Abraham Lincoln. This is the best known of his historical works. Although frankly eulogistic, it was for some time the best biography available, and has of course to-day the value of a source. Arnold's literary style was clear, simple, and enjoyable. Compared with the standards of his time, his historical workmanship is generally competent. Arnold was one of the founders of the Chicago Historical Society and had procured its charter when a member of the General Assembly in 1857 (Currey, III, 218). He delivered the address dedicating its building, November 19, 1868, and on December 19, 1876, he was elected its president. A series of papers given by him before the Society has been published by it. He was twice married: first, to Catherine E. Dorrance of Pittsfield, Massachusetts, who died October 30, 1839, leaving one child; and second, to her sister, Harriet Augusta Dorrance, by whom he had nine children.

[In addition to the references given above, something is to be gleaned from Arnold's reminiscent addresses: Abraham Lincoln, paper read before the Royal Historical Society, London, June 16, 1881(Chicago, 1881); Addresses before Chicago Historical Society, November 19, 1868 (1877); W. B. Ogden; and Early Days in Chicago, paper read before Chicago Historical Society, December 20, 1881 (1882); Recollections of the Early Chicago and Illinois Bar, lecture before Chicago Bar Ass., June 10, 1880; Reminiscences of Lincoln and of Congress during the Rebellion, lecture before New York Genealogy and Biography Society, April 15, 1882; The Layman's Faith, paper read before the Chicago Philosophical Society, December 10, 1883. The Memorial Address by E. B. Washburne for the Chicago Historical Society, 1889, has to be used with caution due to Washburne's consistent inaccuracy. There is a good but brief sketch by John M. Palmer, in The Bench and Bar of Illinois, 1889, vol. I.]

T. C. P.


ASHLEY, James Monroe, 1824-1896, Ohio, Underground Railroad activist. Republican Member of the U.S. House of Representatives, voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery.  Adamant opponent of slavery.  Member, Free Soil Party, 1848.  Joined Republican Party in 1854.

(Dumond, 1961, p. 339; Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, p. 110; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 1, Pt. 1, pp. 389-390; Biographical Directory of the American Congress, 1774-1927 (1928); Congressional Globe; Sewell, 1976 pp. 280, 359)

Biography from Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography:

ASHLEY, James Monroe, Congressman, born near Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, 14 November, 1824. His education was acquired while a clerk on boats on the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers. Later he worked in printing-offices, and became editor of the "Dispatch." and afterward of the "Democrat," at Portsmouth, Ohio. He then studied law, and was admitted to the bar of Ohio in 1849, but never practised. Subsequently he settled in Toledo, where he became interested in the wholesale drug business. He was elected to Congress as a Republican in 1859, and was reelected four times, serving continuously from 5 December, 1859, till 3 March, 1869. He was for four terms chairman of the Committee on Territories, and it was under his supervision that the territories of Arizona, Idaho, and Montana were organized. He was nominated for the 41st Congress, but was defeated, and in 1869 was appointed governor of Montana. In 1866 he was a delegate to the loyalist convention held in Philadelphia. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1887, Vol. I, p. 110.

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 1, Pt. 1, pp. 389-390;

ASHLEY, JAMES MITCHELL (November 14, 1824-September 16, 1896), congressman, counted ancestors among the early English settlers of Virginia- the name of Captain John Ashley appearing in the Virginia Charter of 1609. For nearly two centuries the descendants of Captain Ashley resided in and near Norfolk. One branch of the family drifted to the frontier of Pennsylvania, settling near Pittsburgh in the early years of the nineteenth century. James Mitchell, the oldest of several children of John C. and Mary Kilpatrick Ashley, was born in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania; shortly thereafter the family removed to Portsmouth, Ohio. Both his father and grandfather were itinerant ministers of the church founded by Alexander Campbell. He had no schooling, his early education being acquired at home, chiefly under the guidance of his mother. From his ninth to his fourteenth year he frequently accompanied his father, who preached in a circuit extending through the border counties of Kentucky and western Virginia. Here the boy glimpsed something of the system of slavery, and early came to detest it. At the age of sixteen, rebelling against the austere regulations established by his father for the government of his household, he ran away from home and secured employment as a cabin boy and later as a clerk upon an Ohio river steamboat. A still more deep-seated abhorrence of slavery was acquired through his experiences on the southern rivers. Time and again he saw negroes, with safe-conducts of passage, sold back into slavery; the cruel treatment of slaves on board; and the utter disregard of their persons all through the country. Abandoning his work on the river, Ashley wandered through a number of southern states, visiting, among other places, the Hermitage, an event which he subsequently asserted made a profound impression upon him. While in Virginia, his expressions in opposition to slavery were so violent that he was told to leave the state.

Shortly after his return to Ohio, Ashley entered the printing office of the Scioto Valley Republican (1841), and subsequently was employed in various printing offices until he became editor of the Democrat in Portsmouth, Ohio (1848). During his experience as an editor he studied law with Charles O. Tracy, under whom he prosecuted his studies until he was admitted to the bar (1849), shortly after which he relinquished his connection with the Democrat. The ensuing two years were passed in Ports mouth in the work of boat construction. In 1851 he was married to Emma J. Smith of Kentucky, and in the same year removed to Toledo, where he engaged for a few years in the. wholesale drug business.

He was by this time keenly interested in the political issues of the day. Hitherto a Democrat, his intense antagonism to slavery swept him into the Free-Soil party (1848) and shortly thereafter into the Republican party (1854). He assisted in the formation of the latter in the Toledo district, and was a delegate to the Republican National Convention at which John C. Fremont was nominated for the presidency (1856). Two years later he was himself nominated as the Republican candidate for Congress from his district and was elected. To this position he was consecutively reelected in 1860, 1862, 1864, and 1866. Among the more important measures introduced or advocated in the House by Ashley was that of minority representation, a bill being reported by him looking to the introduction of that principle in the territorial governments-his speech in support of his bill being the first on that subject made in Congress. During the extra session of July 1861 he prepared the first measure for the reconstruction of the southern states presented to Congress, and as chairman of the Committee on Territories, reported it to the House (March 12, 1862). The bill was tabled by a vote of 65 to 56, and the subject was not again revived at that session, but the ideas contained in the bill and the line of policy it outlined were embodied in the reconstruction measures finally adopted and carried into effect. In connection with Lot M. Morrill of Maine, Ashley drew up and had charge of the bill to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia (April 11, 1862). He introduced the first proposition to amend the Constitution of the United States, so as to abolish slavery (December 14, 1863), but the measure was at first defeated in the House. On a reconsideration Ashley succeeded in converting twenty-four border and northern Democrats and secured the passage of the measure (January 31, 1865). He considered this the greatest achievement of his life.

It was on the initiative of Ashley that the move for the impeachment of President Johnson was begun (January 7, 1867). Like many others of the extreme radicals, he dropped from political life after the trial and acquittal of the President. He was defeated in the ensuing fall election and left Congress March 3, 1869. He was appointed by President Grant territorial governor of Montana, but was removed within a year on account of his sharp criticisms of the President's policies. The final act of his political career was his active participation in the Liberal Republican convention of 1872 and his support of Greeley for the presidency in the ensuing campaign. Ashley's political principles were not formed by logical mental processes, but by sentiment aroused by personal experiences. Puritan in habit, suspicious, uncharitable of opposition and somewhat vain, he was a born radical. His personal courage, his hatred of oppression, and his love of liberty drew him into the emancipation cause-first for the negro and then, as he believed, by his warfare on Johnson, for the whole American people.

After his political career was over, he became interested in the possibility of a railroad extending from Toledo across to the Michigan Peninsula which would furnish an outlet for about 300 miles of country. He purchased valuable terminals at Toledo entirely on credit and proceeded to build the road north to Lake Michigan, which became the Toledo, Ann Arbor & Northern Michigan Railroad. He was its president from 1877 to 1893. This work illustrates perhaps better than any other the characteristic feature of his life, his pertinacity.

[Orations and Speeches by J. M. Ashley of Ohio (1894), ed. by Benjamin W. Arnett arid published by the Afro-American League of Tennessee, is the chief source of information. The Congressional Globe and the files of the Toledo Blade are indispensable sources for the period of Ashley's pol. career. His connection with reconstruction is detailed in "An Ohio Congressman in Reconstruction," a manuscript thesis prepared by his grand-daughter, Margaret Ashley Paddock, at Columbia University James G. Blaine's Twenty Years of Congress (1884) contains numerous estimates of Ashley's services from the viewpoint of a partisan Republican. Ashley's lib., containing his collection of private papers, was destroyed by fire during his lifetime; Biographical Dictionary of the U.S. Congress 1774-1927 (1928); Congressional Globe].

C. E. C.


ATKINSON, Edward, 1827-1905, industrial entrepreneur, economist, abolitionist, activist.  Opposed slavery as a supporter of the Free Soil Party.  Member, Free Soil Party, 1848.  Joined Republican Party in 1854. Atkinson also supported John Brown’s efforts by supplying him rifles and ammunition for his raid on the US arsenal at Harpers Ferry in 1859.  Opposed Presidents McKinley and Roosevelt’s imperialist ambitions in the Philippines and in Cuba.  After 1898, became a full-time supporter of the American Anti-imperialist League. 

(Pease & Pease, 1972; Appletons’ Cyclopedia of American Biography, 1900, Vol. I, p. 114; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 1, Pt. 1, p. 407)

Appletons’ Cyclopedia of American Biography, 1900, Vol. I, p. 114;

ATKINSON, Edward, economist, born in Brookline, Massachusetts, 10 February, 1827. His education was obtained principally at private schools, and his reputation has been made by the numerous pamphlets and papers that he has contributed to current literature on economic topics. The subjects treated embrace such general topics as banking, competition, cotton, free trade, mechanical arts, and protection. The most important of his addresses are “Banking,” delivered at Saratoga in 1880 before the American Bankers' Association; “Insufficiency of Economic Legislation,” delivered before the American Social Science Association; “What makes the Rate of Wages,” before the British Association for the Advancement of Science; address to the chief of the Bureau of Labor Statistics at their convention in Boston in 1885; vice-presidential address on the “Application of Science to the Production and Consumption of Food,” before the American association for the advancement of science, in 1885; and “Prevention of Loss by Fire,” before the millers of the west, in 1885. His pamphlets and books include the following: “Cheap Cotton by Free Labor” (Boston, 1861); “The Collection of Revenue” (1866); “Argument for the Conditional Reform of the Legal-Tender Act” (1874); “Our National Domain” (1879); “Labor and Capital-Allies, not Enemies” (New York, 1880); “The Fire Engineer, the Architect, and the Underwriter” (Boston, 1880); “The Railroads of the United States” (1880); “Cotton Manufacturers of the United States” (1880); “Addresses at Atlanta, Georgia, on the International Exposition” (New York, 1881); “What is a Bank” (1881); “Right Methods of Preventing Fires in Mills” (Boston, 1881); “The Railway and the Farmer” (New York, 1881); “The Influence of Boston Capital upon Manufactures,” in “Memorial History of Boston” (Boston, 1882); and “The Distribution of Products” (New York, 1885). In 1886 he began the preparation of a series of monographs on economic questions for periodical publication. Through his efforts was established the Boston manufacturers' mutual fire insurance company, an association consisting of a number of manufacturers who, for their mutual protection, adopted rules and regulations for the economical and judicious management of their plants. He has invented an improved cooking-stove, called the “Aladdin Cooker.” Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I. pp. 114.

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 1, Pt. 1, p. 407).

ATKINSON, EDWARD (February 10, 1827-December 11, 1905), industrialist, economist, was a descendant of John Atkinson who was born about 1640, whether in England or America is not known, but who, according to tradition, was a son of Henry Atkinson, barrister, who came with his brother Theodore to America and settled in Newbury, Massachusetts. A great-grandson of John, Lieut. Amos Atkinson, was one of the minutemen at Lexington and Concord. His son, Amos Atkinson, married Anna G. Sawyer, and was the father of Edward Atkinson, who was born in Brookline, Massachusetts. After attending private schools in Brookline and Boston, Edward went to work as a boy of fifteen, for a Boston textile commission house, doing chores which .ranged from the building of fires, sweeping of floors, and packing of goods, to the more responsible work of confidential clerk. He gave five years to general apprenticeship of this type, advancing in 1848 to more important clerical and financial responsibilities, until he assumed the treasurer ship of several textile-manufacturing companies. In 1855 he was married to Mary Caroline Heath.

In the eighties Atkinson turned his attention as a business man to factory mutual insurance. He helped to establish the Boston Manufacturers Mutual Insurance Company, of which he later became chief executive. Its central feature was the now well recognized one of mutual insurance in a restricted field, in which the factor of "exposure" was greatly reduced. Both hazard and loss were diminished by insisting on safeguards governing construction and use, and making precaution the corner-stone of the plan. Textile factories, cordage plants, paper-mills, machine shops, and wood-working establishments were made better risks from the standpoint of the underwriter than the average public building. The industrial architecture of the country improved appreciably as a result. In a number of articles and pamphlets, Atkinson developed the ideas underlying these innovations. In his own judgment, his greatest single contribution to future well-being was the invention of the Aladdin oven, the outgrowth of an interest revealed and expanded in The Science of Nutrition (1896), which went through ten editions. The oven was a fully insulated piece of apparatus with heat applied from a common lamp in which a little over two pints of kerosene oil would do the work of 120 pounds of coal burned in an ordinary cooking stove. In the middle nineties it was a hobby with Atkinson to entertain in his house guests who dined on sumptuous viands prepared in their presence through the use of his invention. It was characteristic of him that he did not patent it.

A diligent statistician, gifted public speaker, economist, financier, and industrious and prolific writer, Atkinson left a long list of published works, among which the following are the more important: Cheap Cotton by Free Labor (1861); Our National Domain (1879); Labor and Capital Allies not Enemies (1880); Railroads of the United States (1880); Cotton Manufacturers of the United States (1880); What is a Banker (1881); The Railway and the Farmer (1881); Distribution of Products (1885); Facts and Figures, the Basis of Economic Science (1904). He wrote many pamphlets and delivered numerous addresses on wages, fire loss, nutrition, banking, economic legislation, peace and many other questions of social concern. The Cotton Exposition at Atlanta in 1881 had its inception in an address by h im in that city a few years earlier. He advised more widely diversified agriculture for the South, and he foresaw and encouraged the development of the Southern cotton manufacturing industry. In 1887 he served, by special appointment of President Cleveland, as special commissioner to report upon the status and prospects of bi-metalism in Europe. This appointment was due to Atkinson's consistent advocacy of sound money as a basis of honest commercial practise.

Physically, Atkinson was of massive build, in appearance impressive, dignified yet benign, in manner genial yet urbane, in expression positive often to the point of obstinacy. But he was always fortified with facts which under the spur of a vigorous sense of justice in human relations, gave his opinions unusual force. He was a consistent free trader, sound-money advocate, pacifist and anti-imperialist.

[The materials for this sketch were obtained mainly from a scrutiny of Edward Atkinson's published writings, from a statement made by Henry Mandell Atkinson, of Atlanta, Ga., and from genealogical data furnished by the New York Genealogical and Biographical Society A striking obituary editorial will be found in the Commercial and Financial Chronicle, December 16, 1905; other obituaries in New York Times, New York Herald, Brooklyn Eagle, Boston Journal, Boston Daily Globe, Boston Post, and Boston Daily Advertiser, all of December 12, 1905.]

R. C. M.



Source: Dictionary of American Biography, Volumes I-X, Edited by Dumas Malone, New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1930.