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N. H. Volunteer Militia in 1868 and was Assistant Quartermaster General of the G. A. R. Dept. of N. H., in 1871. He was a member of Passaconnaway Tribe of Red Men and a member of the Derryfield Club, at one time serving as its President.

Mr. Kidder married Laura A. Montgomery, a former teacher of this city. Two daughters blessed their home, Eunice, who married Mr. Joseph H. Browr., now residing in Detroit, Michigan, and Florence, the wife of Mr. Austin M. Everett of Chelsea, Mass.

In politics he was a staunch Republican. He was elected city clerk in the year 1877 and held the office for twenty con secutive years. He was a "capable, efficient and faithful official, thoroughly familiar with every detail of the office, ever obliging and the soul of courtesy."

While at

In 1900 he was appointed Assistant Postmaster. tending his duties at the postoffice he was stricken with the brain trouble from which he never recovered. His immediate family had been conscious that his mind was weakening for some time, but had not anticipated the result. He was taken to the State Hospital at Concord, N. H., for treatment, remaining there until released through death, May 17, 1901. Mr. Kidder was genial and affable; was generous to a fault; a true friend, and he never spoke ill of another. L.A. K.

JOHN M. CHANDLER.

It often happens that the biographer, in seeking antecedents for the great or good qualities of his subject, is obliged to search far back into the family annals, even to seek collateral branches of one or the other parent. The case before us is of an entirely different character. The immediate and the remote ancestors of John M. Chandler were of a type that was conspicuous for its integrity and ability. They belonged to that class of yeomanry who conquered the wilderness, made the laws, and defended the early settlement from the prowling wolf

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and the marauding savage. Emerson has immortalized these men in his poem on Concord fight as "the embattled farmers." Born on a farm bordering on the lovely Merrimack river, at a time when the great founders of the Union were still living or only recently dead, he grew up in an atmosphere of love of country and respect for the integrity of political office, where plain ability was more esteemed than superficial brilliancy. He passed the period of his boyhood in storing the mind with that which was more likely to develop the intellect and the heart than to foster commercial or conventional ambitions. In one respect only was his nurture at all different from that which was usual in our best old families at this period. There was in all the members of his household deep love for, and ability to create music. In fact, in that quiet country home was to be heard music of a high order, produced by its own members, all entering joyously into the creation of musical entertainment. I mention this fact in particular as it had a bearing upon his subsequent career and has shown its influence upon other members of his family in other ways.

At an early age it seemed to be determined that John was to select a professional career and his early training and teaching was made to enable him to take a college course. At the age of seventeen he entered Dartmouth College with all the enthusiasm of youth and doubtless with that same capacity for excellence and mastery for which he was conspicuous in after years. The first year was successfully passed, but at the beginning of the second there developed in his system alarming symptoms of a pulmonary disorder which proved so grave that he was obliged to suspend his course and devote his energies to arrest the disease. It would be difficult to imagine the grief and disappointment caused by this great misfortune. For several years he devoted himself to the restoration of his endangered health. Yet this was not an unmitigated calamity, for during this period when prolonged labor and effort was impossible, he was enabled to undertake an extensive

course of reading in all departments of learning, permitting him to store his mind with that marvelous amount of knowledge which was apparent to those who knew him intimately. One or two things he possessed to a remarkable degree: A love of exact and critical knowledge; a memory that never misled or deceived; an infinite capacity for accurate observation, and a temperament singularly sympathetic and easily aroused, yet he was able to look critically at a subject without bias or personal feeling.

Those who knew Mr. Chandler in his later years and saw him in his remarkable physical perfection can with difficulty realize that in his youth grave fears were entertained of his ability to recover from what seemed a fatal disease. Mr. Chandler was for twenty years engaged in mercantile affairs, first serving a short clerkship at Nashua, afterwards as a partner in the business firm of Kidder & Chandler. After a successful period in that line he became successively assistant cashier and cashier, following his brother, the Hon. George B. Chandler, who succeeded to the office of president of the well known Amoskeag National Bank.

It would be almost impossible to write a sketch of John M. Chandler without some allusion to his two elder brothers, Henry and George Byron Chandler. Intimately associated in business, with a harmony as delightful as it was rare, there could scarcely be found three men of more distinctly different qualities working together in such absolute union. Mr. Chandler's ambitions were not to be rich merely, not to be famous or to seek preferment, but to do faithfully and intelligently what was set before him; to treat others justly and kindly, to improve and progress; to live well and to have the best for use and not for ornament; he was in every way a model citizen, a loyal friend, and a buttress of the city's integrity and honor.

Without being at all partisan in politics Mr. Chandler was a staunch Democrat of the conservative type; by religious preference a Unitarian, but his theology was of the kind most re

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