CHARLES HENRY BURNS was born in Milford, January 19, 1835. On his father's farm he spent his early years, improving a naturally good constitution, gaining strength of muscle and habits of industry and endurance. His desire for an education was fostered, and he took advantage of all the scholastic facilities afforded by the common schools of his native town. These were of a high order. His academic education was acquired at the Appleton Academy, in the neighboring town of New emy, in the neighboring town of New Ipswich, of which at the time Professor E. T. Quimby was principal. From this institution Mr. Burns graduated in 1854. He read law with Col. O. W. Lull, in Milford, and graduated from the Harvard Law School in 1858. In May of the same year he was admitted to the Suffolk bar, and in the following October he was admitted to the practice of law in the New Hampshire courts. In January, 1859, he commenced the practice of his chosen profession in the town of Wilton, where he has ever since resided, although his extensive and steadily increasing business has necessitated his opening an office of late years in the city of Nashua. bar, on the stump, and on all those varied occasions when a public speaker is natural talent, thus trained, has made called upon to address the people. This him a clear-cut, incisive, and polished orator, who never fails to hold and impress his audience. "It can be said of him, what can be said of very few men, he excels in advocacy and general oratory. His arguments before juries best illustrate his power as a speaker, while his public addresses exhibit his peculiar charm as an orator. As an advocate he ranks among the first in the New Hampshire bar. As an orator he compares favorably with our best public speakers. Mr. Burns has been a Republican since the formation of the party. His father was an active and prominent worker in that little band of anti-slavery agitators which existed in Milford before the great Rebellion, and as a boy young Burns was deeply impressed with the teachings of Parker Pillsbury, Wendell Phillips, William Lloyd Garrison, and Fred Douglass. When quite young his interest in the Republican cause, together with his aptitude for public speaking, led him to take the stump for his party. For years he has performed in this way the most efficient service for the Republican party, and, to-day, is "He commenced his professional one of its ablest and most eloquent stump labors, as every young man must who speakers. In 1864 and 1865 he was has no one to rely upon but himself, elected county treasurer of Hillsborough with the smaller and more ordinary kinds of legal work, but by slow degrees County. In 1873, and again in 1879, he has risen, until to-day he is one of he was a member of the New Hampthe most successful lawyers in New shire State Senate, serving during both Hampshire, and his practice includes terms as chairman of the Judiciary the highest order of cases. Mr. Burns, although a good lawyer in all the Committee, and taking a prominent branches of his profession, especially part in directing and shaping the legisexcels as an advocate. His advocacy lation of those years. is of a high order. He is what most of our lawyers, and public speakers even, are not, a natural orator. The whole bent and inclination of his mind has, from his earliest years, always been in this direction. He has given himself a thorough training and practice at the In 1876 he was appointed by Governor Cheney county solicitor for Hillsborough County, and subsequently was twice re-elected to that office by the * R. M. Wallace in History of Hillsborough County. He people, in all serving seven years. discharged the difficult and delicate duties of a prosecuting officer in an able and satisfactory manner. He was a delegate-at-large to the National Republican Convention at Cincinnati in 1876, and represented the New Hampshire delegation on the Committee on Resolutions. At the Republican State Convention in 1878, Mr. Burns presided and delivered one of his strong and characteristic speeches which created a deep impression throughout the State. It was everywhere commended as an able and forcible presentation of the issues of the hour. In 1879 he was appointed judge advocate-general, with the rank of brigadier-general, on the staff of Governor Head. In February, 1881, he was appointed United States district attorney for New Hampshire, and in February, 1885, he was reappointed, carrying to the performance of the duties of that office the same zeal and fidelity displayed in all his professional labors. In the exciting senatorial contest of 1883, Mr. Burns was the recipient of testimonials of the highest respect and confidence from party leaders throughout the State; and the enthusiasm with which his name was greeted, and the ardent support accorded by his many friends, was very flattering, especially as he had not entered the field as a candidate. Mr. Burns is a man of scholarly tastes and habits. He has a fine law library, one of the best in the State, and a choice and valuable collection of miscellaneous books. He is a member of the New Hampshire Historical Society, and the New England Historical and Genealogical Society. In 1874 he re ceived from Dartmouth College the honorary degree of A. M. In Masonic circles Mr. Burns is very prominent, having taken thirty-two degrees in that order. Mr. Burns was united in marriage, January 19, 1856, his twenty-first birthday, with Sarah N. Mills, of Milford. They have been the parents of eight children, four of whom are living. Their oldest son, Arthur H. Burns, a young man of fine character and great promise, died at the early age of twenty,—a serious loss to his parents and to the community in which he lived. He was universally loved and respected. Mr. Burns has a fine homestead in Wilton, in which and all its surroundings he very properly takes great pride and pleasure. To his wife, his family, and his home he is very loyally and devotedly attached. In Mr. Burns are developed many traits of character which have distinguished the two races from which he traces his descent. He is conscientious and firm in his allegiance to a principle. His political faith is not a garment to be donned at pleasure, but a part of his being. He is frank and hospitable. The occasion of the twenty-fifth anniversary of his marriage was celebrated at his home in Wilton by the presence of a large concourse of friends and guests, who expressed their appreciation of their host by many appropriate presents. Mr. Burns is sincere in his friendship and loyal to his friends. Their trust in him is never misplaced. As a consequence he has many warm personal friends. He is genial and affable. The portrait accompanying this sketch was engraved from a photograph taken on his fiftieth birthday, FREDERICK G. STARK AND THE MERRIMACK RIVER CA NALS. GENERAL GEORGE STARK. The canals of the Merrimack river had their day and active existence in the first half of the present century. They have been referred to as the earliest step towards asolution of the problem of cheap transportation between Boston and the northern country; but perhaps they may more properly be classed as the second step in that direction, the turnpikes having been first in the field. James Sullivan and his associates, the original projectors of this canal system, undoubtedly had in mind not only to connect Boston with the Merrimack river country, but also to extend their canals from the Merrimack to the Connecticut river, and from the Connecticut to Lake Champlain and through its outlet to the St. Lawrence, thus bringing Boston into inland water communication with Montreal and the Lower Canadas. The project was too vast and the physical obstacles too formidable to admit of full consummation, and their labors resulted only in uniting by navigable waters the capitals of Massachusetts and New Hampshire, covering a distance by river and canal of about eighty-five miles. Dame, A. M., was published in the February (1885) number of the GRANITE MONTHLY. Following the construction of the Middlesex canal came the requisite works to render the Merrimack river navigable from the head of the Middlesex to Concord, N. H., being a series of dams, locks, and short canals to overcome the natural rapids and falls of the river. The first of these works was a lock and short canal at Wicasee falls, three miles above the head of the Middlesex, at what is now known as Tyng's island. No fall is now perceptible at that point, the Lowell dam having flowed it out. The second work, fifteen miles further up the river, at Cromwell's falls, consisted of a dam and single lock. Then came dams and single locks at Moor's, Coos, Goff's, Griffin's, and Merrill's falls. About a mile above Merrill's falls were the lower locks of the Amoskeag-a canal next in importance to the Middlesex. was only about one mile in length, but surmounted by works of very considerable magnitude, the great fall of between fifty and sixty feet, that now furnishes the water power for the manufactories of Manchester. Its construction was first undertaken by Samuel Blodgett early as 1794, but it was not completed until 1807. It The Middlesex canal, twenty-seven miles in length from Boston to the Merrimack river, at what is now known as Middlesex Village, about two miles above Lowell, was the first constructed. The work on this canal was commenced in 1794, and the canal was completed and opened for public use in 1803. A very complete history of the Middlesex canal, by Lorin L. twenty-seven feet, to the level of the Eight miles above Amoskeag the locks and short canal of Hooksett overcame a fall of some seventeen feet; and six miles further on the Bow locks and canal afforded the final lift of navigable water of the Merrimack river iron, glass, grindstones, cordage, paints, at Concord. Short side canals with locks were subsequently, built at the junctions of the Nashua and Piscataquog rivers with the Merrimack to facilitate the passage of boats from the Merrimack to the storehouses in Nashua and Piscataquog villages. oils, and all that infinite variety of merchandise required by country merchants, formerly classed under the general terms of "dry and West India goods." The original bills of lading, many of which are now in the writer's possession, also show that they brought up from Boston for consumption in the The old Blodgett Mansion at Amoskeag Canal. Erected in 1795. Pulled down in 1870. For forty years this line of canals formed the principal channel of heavy transportation beween the two capitals, and, except that the canals did not effectually compete with the stages for carrying passengers, they held the same position to transportation as is now held by their successor and destroyer-the railroad. During the entire season of open river, from the time that the spring break-up of winter ice permitted navigation to commence, until the frosts of fall again closed it, this eighty-five miles of water was thronged with boats, taking the products of the country to a market at the New England metropolis, and returning loaded with salt, lime, cement, plaster, hardware, leather, liquors, country, flour, corn, butter, and cheese, which plainly indicates that the people of the Merrimack river valley gave more attention in those days to lumbering and river navigation than to agriculture. These boats, of which there are probably none now in existence, were peculiarly constructed, to answer the requirements of the river and canal navigation, and their mode of propulsion was as peculiar as their model. They were about seventy-five feet long and nine feet wide in the middle; a little narrower at the ends; flat bottomed across their full width, but the bottom sloped or rounded up from near the mid-length of the boat, both towards stem and stern, so that while the sides were level on top and about A cross yard, with a square sail atthree feet deep at mid-length, they tached, which could be hoisted or were only a foot or less in depth at lowered at pleasure by a rope working either end. A load of about twenty over a single block in the top of the tons would make the boat draw two mast, completed the sailing outfit. It feet or more, near the middle, while the was only used upon the river, the mast bottom would be out of water at each being struck and stowed in the boat end. When the river was low in midsummer, only about half a full load could be carried to Concord. The boats were built of two-inch pine plank, spiked on small oak crossjoists and side-knees, and had heavy oak horizontal timbers at either end. The sides were vertical and without cross thwarts, except what was called the mast-board; a thick oak plank, securely fastened across on top, from side to side, a little forward of the centre of the boat. The seams between planks were calked with oakum and pitched. The mast was a spar about twenty-five feet long and six inches in its largest diameter. A foothold or step was fixed in the bottom of the boat under the cross-plank to receive it, and it was further steadied by the crossplank, which was slotted to admit it when set up, and had a wedge and staple arrangement to hold it in place. when passing the larger canals. The rudder was a long steering oar, pivoted on the centre of the cross-frame of the stern, the blade, about eighteen inches wide and ten feet long, trailing in the water behind the boat, and the handle or tiller extending about the same distance over the boat, so as to afford a good leverage for guiding the unwieldy craft. Three large scull oars, about sixteen feet long with six-inch blades, and three setting poles, or pike poles as they were sometimes called, stout, straight, round poles, wrought out of tough and springy ash, about fifteen feet long, nearly two inches in diameter and shod at one end with a long iron point, completed the propelling outfit. The crew consisted of a skipper and two bowmen. In going down the river between canals the usual mode of propulsion was by use of the scull-oars. The bow |