Page:Sketches of representative women of New England.djvu/179

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
134
REPRESENTATIVE WOMEN OF NEW ENGLAND

these cities. Colonel Wellington was popular in social and military circles throughout the State. He was Past Commander of E. W. Kinsley Post, No. 113, G. A. R., of Boston. Returning from the Civil War as Adjutant of the Thirty-eighth Massachusetts Regiment, with which he had taken part in seven battles, he was subsequently active in the State militia. The First Regiment, of which he was commissioned Colonel in February, 1882—a position that he held till his decease, September 18, 1888 — he brought to a high standard of excellence, as recognized throughout the country. He was one of the trustees of the Soldiers' Home in Chelsea. For two years in the seventies he served as Representative in the Massachusetts Legislature, and was on the Committee on Military Affairs. In 1871 he joined the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company. He was a member of various societies and clubs, literary and musical.

Mrs. Wellington has furnished a room in Colonel Wellington's honor at the Soldiers' Home, Chelsea, known as the Austin Cr Wellington Memorial Room; also one in her own home in Cambridge, containing numerous badges, flags, pictures, books, and other relics and souvenirs, many of them intrinsically valuable, all interesting and highly prized for their associations.


ARMENIA S. W^HITE, first president, now honorary president, of the New Hampshire Woman's Suffrage Association, is well known for her many years of efficient co-operation with her husband, the late Nathaniel White, of Concord, N.H., in works of philanthropy and reform. She was born in Mendon, Mass., November 1, 1817, daughter of John and Harriet (Smith) Aldrich. Her direct paternal line of ancestry in America begins with George* Aldrich, who, with his wife Catherine, came from Derbyshire, England, in 1631, and in 1663 was among the early settlers of Mendon, Mass., removing thither from Brain- tree. Jacob' Ahlrich, son of George,* married Huldah, daughter of Ferdinando Thayer, and was the father of Moses,' born in 1690. Moses' Aldrich was a celebrated preacher of the Society of Friends (or Quakers, as they were often called) in Rhode Island. He travelled as an approved minister, not only in the colonies later forming the original States of the American Union, but in the West Indies and in England. He married in 1711 Hannah White.

Judge Caleb* Aldrich, son of Moses,' is mentioned in the History of Woonsocket, R.I., as father of Naaman*^ and grandfather of John* Aldrich, all of Smithfield, R.I. Naaman was the father of John Aldrich, who was the father of Mrs. White.

As shown by the following record, Mrs. White's maternal ancestry includes three " May- flower" Pilgrims, Edward Doty, Francis Cooke, and Stephen Hopkins, also Mr. Hopkins's second wife, Elizabeth, and their daughter Damaris, who both came with him to Plymouth. Mrs. White's mother, Harriet Smith Aldrich, was born, as recorded in Smithfield, R.I., February 21, 1795. She was a daughter of Samuel Smith and his wife, Hope Doten. Her parents were married at Plymouth, Mass., May 31, 1791, and moved to Smithfield, R.I. Samuel was a Revolutionary soldier, born in Smithfield, R.I., enlisting in the American army at the age of sixteen years. The Doty-Doten Genealogy shows that Hope Doten, born in Plymouth, Mass., in 1765, was daughter of James and Elizabeth (Kempton) Doten, and was descended from Edward Doty and his wife. Faith Clark, through John' and Elizabeth (Cooke) Doty, Isaac' and Martha (Faunce) Doten, and Isaac* and Mary (Lanman) Doten, Isaac* being father of James*^ and grandfather of Hope Doten, Mrs. White's maternal grandmother. Elizabeth, wife of John' Doty (or Doten), was the daughter of Jacob' Cooke (son of Francis') and his wife Damaris, daughter of Stephen Hopkins and his wife Elizabeth.

After the marriage of John Aldrich and Harriet Smith they moved from Smithfield, R.I., to Mendon, Mass. In 1830 Mr. and Mrs. John Aldrich removed from Mendon, Mass., to Boscawen, N.H. Their daughter Armenia was educated in the public schools. On November 1, 1836, the nineteenth anniversary of her birth, she was married to Nathaniel White, then a rising young business man of Concord, N.H.