Page:One of a thousand.djvu/24

IO ALDRICH. ALGER. of the state senate, serving on the judiciary committee. In 1883 he was a member of the House, and served on the judiciary committee. In 1880 he was the Democratic candi- date for Congress from the 7th Massa- chusetts district. In March, 1SS7, Mr. Aldrich was appointed by President Cleve- land, the assistant treasurer of the United States at Boston, which position he yet holds. Besides this, he is a member of the Suffolk bar, is in the practice of his pro- fession, and is still president of the Cen- tral Massachusetts Railroad. Mr. Aldrich married, in 1865, at Upton, Mary J., daughter of J. T and Eliza A. (Colburn) Macfarland. They have a son : Harry M. Aldrich, now in Harvard. ALDRICH, Thomas Bailey, son of Elias T. and Sara (Bailey) Aldrich, was born in Portsmouth, Rockingham county, N. H., November 11, 1836. He received his early education at the common schools in New Orleans, La., THOMAS B. ALDRICH. and at the Temple grammar school in Portsmouth. He commenced a course of study preparatory to entering college, but having the misfortune, in his fifteenth year, to lose his father, he abandoned that pur- pose, and entered the counting-room of an uncle, a merchant in Xew York. Here he remained for three years, and it was during that period that he began to con- tribute verses to the New York journals. A collection of his poems was published in 1855, the volume taking its name from the initial poem, " The Bells. " Mr. Aldrich's most successful poem, " Babie Bell," which was published in 1856, was copied and repeated all over the coun- try. His next position was that of proof- reader, and then reader for a publishing house. He became a frequent contributor to the New York "Evening Mirror," "Putnam's Magazine," "The Knicker- bocker," and the weekly newspapers, for one of which he wrote " Daisy's Necklace and What Came of It," a prose poem which was afterwards issued in a volume, and attained a wide popularity. In 1856 Mr. Aldrich joined the staff of the "Home Journal," continuing in this position for three years. He was also connected with the " Saturday Press," and a frequent contributor to "Harper's Monthly," and the "Atlantic Monthly," of which latter magazine he has for some years been the editor. Mr. Aldrich was married in New York, November 2S, 1865. In 1866 he removed to Boston, where he has since resided. The following may be mentioned among Mr. Aldrich's best-known writings: "The Story of a Bad Boy," " Marjorie Daw and Other Stories," " Prudence Palfrey," " The Queen of Sheba," "The Stillwater Trag- edy," " Poems," " From Ponkapog to Pesth," "Cloth of Cold and Other Poems," " Flower and Thorn," " Babie Bell, " "XXXVI Lyrics and XII Sonnets," " Friar Jerome's Beautiful Book and Other Poems," " Mercedes and Later Lyrics," and "The Story of a Cat," translated from the French. ALGER, ALPHEUS B., son of Edwin A. and Amanda (Buswell) Alger, was born in Lowell, Middlesex county, Octo- ber 8, 1854. His early education was accomplished at the public schools of his native place. In the Lowell high school he fitted for college, and was graduated at Harvard with the class of 1875. The same year he entered the Harvard law school, and a year later continued the study of the law in the office of the Hon. Josiah G. Abbott of Boston. He was admitted to the bar in 1877, and began the practice of law in connection with his father's firm, Brown & Alger, in the city of Boston, with his residence in Cambridge.