Nathaniel Peabody,

The son of Jacob Peabody, was born at Topsfield in the county of Essex in Massachusetts, the 18th day of February old style, corresponding with the first day of March 1741. His mother was Susannah Rogers, a woman of a strong cultivated mind; and his father a physician-a man of literature and science. Nathaniel received his education entirely from his father, having, it is said, never attended school a day in his life. He studied and practised physic with him, from twelve to eighteen years of age, when his father died.

At about the age of twenty, he went to that part of Plaistow in New Hampshire, which was afterwards annexed to Atkinson, and soon acquired extensive practise as a physician; and had a number of students in medicine with him. The first day of March 1763, the day he was twenty two years of age, he married Abigail, the daughter of Samuel Little Esq of Plaistow; but he had no child by her; she survived him.

The 30th of April 1771 Governor Wentworth appointed him a Justice of the Peace & Quorum. In June 1777 he was appointed by the General Court, and commissioned by President Weare a Justice of the Peace and Quorum for the County of Rockingham. In 1784 he was appointed a Justice of the Peace and Quorum throughout the State; and in 1789 he was reappointed.

The 27th of October 1774, Governor Wentworth appointed him Lieutenant Colonel of the seventh regiment of the New Hampshire militia.

He was an early decided Advocate for the American Revolution. In April 1775, he resigned the commissions, which he held from Governor Wentworth under the authority of the British King. It is said, he was the first man in New Hampshire who resigned a commission under the King on account of political opinions. He and a few others obtained possession of the King's fort near Portsmouth, and took from thence 100 barrels of gunpowder, & other munitions of war, and carried them into the interior of the country. During the whole of the war of the Revolution, he was an active efficient supporter of the rights and claims of his country. In the darkest periods of the revolutionary war, his faith was strong that the United States would eventually succeed.

The 26th of November 1776, he was a member of the Convention, from about forty towns in New Hampshire and Massachusetts, which met at Dracut in Massachusetts, and clerk of the Convention. The object of the Convention was to regulate and reduce prices, and prevent the depreciation of the paper currency. He was chairman of one of the Committees to draft their petitions, and to present one of them to the Legislature.

In December 1776, he was representative of the towns of Atkinson and Plaistow in the legislature of New Hampshire, and the three following years; in 1779 and the five following; in 1787, & the two following years; and in the years 1791, 1793, and 1795, being in all fifteen years. In 1791, soon after the house was organized, he resigned, being elected a member of the Senate. In the year 1787 he was speaker pro-tem, and in 1791, 1793, and 1795 he was Speaker of the House.

In the years 1781, 1790 and 1792 he was a member of the New Hampshire Senate; and in the years 1784, 1785 and in 1791, a member of the Council. He was an active efficient member of the legislature, and was appointed a member of a number of important committees. That of the New Hampshire Committee of Safty, of which he was a member, was of all others the most important. This Committee, during its existence, was considered as the Executive of the State, and in the recess of the Legislature, exercised legistlative authority. "His shrewdness, vigilance, and activity, qualified him in a peculiar manner for the station; and it is said, he was eminently successful in detecting and exposing the treasonable practise of the tories." (1) Richard Bartlet. July 10th 1777, he was first appointed a member of this committee, and held it till February 1779. In 1779 he served on that committee forty two days.

The 18th of July 1777 he was appointed a member of the Committee to meet at Springfield the 30th of that month Committees from Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, and New York, upon the subject of the currency, taxes, and the preventing of monopoly and oppression. They reported, That the money should be redeemed by the issue of Treasury notes on interest, that the act for regulating prices be repealed; and that provision be made for the families of those soldiers who had enlisted for three years or during the war.

The 23d of that month he, with Josiah Bartlet, was appointed to go to Bennington, and provide things necessary for the soldiers under the command of General Stark. The 25th of December following, he was appointed one of the two Commissioners to meet the Commissioners from Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Delaware, at New Haven the 15th of January 1778_ to ascertain and regulate the price of labor, manufactures, internal produce, and commodities imported from foreign countries, and charges of tavernors. The 16th of November 1779 the legislature of New Hampshire appointed him a Commissioner to meet those from other States at Philadelphia in January following to consider the expediency of limiting the prices of merchandise & the produce of this country, and to devise ways and means to prevent the depreciation of our currency. Early in the Revolution he and Jonathan Blanchard, neither of whom were lawyers, were appointed to perform the duties of Attorney General, which they did. Peabody had a taste for the science of law; and this, with his other qualifications, enabled him to appear in the legislature superior to most of the members, and gave him considerable influence. In 1789 he was chairman of the Committee to examine the laws of the State, and directed to report what laws, if any, militated against the constitution and laws of the United States. He was also appointed one of the committee to revise the militia law; and in 1790 was one of the Committee to select and revise the laws.

The 19th of July 1777 he was appointed Ajdutant General of  the New Hampshire militia, with the rank of colonel; and the year following commanded a regiment at Rhode Island under the command of General Whipple. The 25th of March 1785 he was appointed Brigadier General of the New Hampshire Cavalry. But on the 22d of June 1786, the house of Representatives appoin= =ted a Committe to prepare an address to the President, for his removal from the command as Brigadier General of the Light Horse. The next day the Committee reported an address requesting that he should be re= =moved. In their report they say his appointment to that command has given much uneasiness to the good people of the State; and that "Gentlemen of character and fortune will not serve under him." This report was accepted by the House. Yet on the 27th of March 1793, Peabody was promoted to the office of Major- General, which he held till 1795, when he resigned that command.

On the 25th of March 1779, he was elected a delegate to the Congress of the United States, and took his seat the 22d day of June following, and held it one year. He was an active, ef= =ficient member. Was appointed one of the Medical Committee, which at that period was an important trust. On the 13th of April 1780, he was appointed on the Committee to visit the Army to consult with the Commander in Chief; the Commissary, and Quarter Master General, upon the defects of the existing system relative to those departments; to consolidate the regiments; ascertain the state and condition of the army; and what measures were necessary to supply its wants.

The 2sth of June 1785, he was by the Legislature appointed a delegate to Congress for one year from the first of November following; but from some cause, tho he did not decline the appointment, he did not proceed to Congress. The 14t of June 1786, the house of representatives, Voted, "That the honorable Nathaniel Peabody Esq, who was appointed a delegate from this State to the Congress of the United States, for the current year, be recalled, and that his Excellency, the President, be desired to notify him thereof.

In 1783, he was a member of the Convention to form a constitution for the State; and in September 1791, of the Convention, appoin= =ed to revise it. The last Convention, at their first session apointed him one of the Committee to whom they referred the amendments which they proposed. As a member of that Committee he appeared more disposed to perplex and embarrass, than to aid and promote, their business.

The 14th of December 1784 he was appointed a judge of the Court of Common Pleas; but declined the office. On the 12th of November 1788, the house of Representatives, yea 40 nays 36, elected him a senator to the Congress of the United States. The same day the New Hampshire Senate non-concurred the appointment, yeas one, nays ten. He was afterwards, the same year a candi= =date for Representative to Congess; but was not elected.

In 1790, he was one of the principal founders of the New Hamp= =shire Medical Society. This year it was incorporated. He was afterwards, in the same year, the principal founder of the Atkinson Academy, which was then incorporated. He endowed the Academy with a grant of one thousand acres of uncultivated land in the northerly part of the State. From him the Preceptor received his principal support for a few of the first years. In 1791, Dart= =mouth College conferred on Peabody the degree of Master of Arts.

In 1795, he had become so unpopular as to be convinced he could not be elected to any office, and therefore made a merit of publickly declining to be a candidate. He avoided visiting the Legislature; and was seldom seen from his own house. He claimed large tracts of uncultivated wilderness land in the north= =ern parts of New Hampshire. His title to some of those lands was not good; the annual taxes on them was considerable; and these few purchases in the market. His claim to those lands, instead of increasing, diminished his property. It neither afforded the means of living, or of paying debts. For many years he refused to record his deeds and his creditors declined levying their executions on estate that he claimed. His style of living for many years exceeded his income, & the increasing interest on his debts, eventually made him a bankrupt. One of his creditors, doctor Flagg, then of Worcester, arrested his body and committed him to the gaol in Exeter, and he lived within the limits of the prison yard he occupied a houese as long as he lived. He submitted to his imprisonment, with firrmess and apparently without souring his temper.

He was a man of a strong discriminating mind, upon general =politics, and the principles and practise of medicine. In early life he was considered a well informed and skilful physician. When confined within the limits of the prison yard he resumed & continued the practise. There his wit and anecdote were amusing, and to many were pleasing." Patients came to him from distant parts, and he cured or alleviated many difficult chronic cases  beyond the skill of his younger contemporaries. His manner as well as his application was always pleasing, and his wit and humor made him popular. About a year before he died, a young girl was brot to him troubled with a humour or glandular swelling on her neck; the anxious mother dreaded the Scrofula, which she called by the ancient name of the _King's Evil_. She asked him if it was not the _King's Evil_, and feared he would answer in the affirmative. The General replied, '_King's Evil, King's Evil_! I know of none who have the _King's Evil, but Tories_' This answer excited a laugh, dispelled her fears, and produced a good effect." (2) Richard Bartlet.

He was vain and opinionative. "At middle age," says Bart= =let, "he was almost passionately fond of dress and ostentatious parade, and expended large sums for such purposes. He was a fine horseman, dressed in fine clothes, booted and spurred, and usually travelled with fine horses, attended by a servant. His percep= =tions were quick-his invention active, and his memory tenaci= =ous. On some subjects he acquired more influnce then he me= =rited. His disposition was hasty, but on many occasions could check and regulate his passion to the object he had in view." In his habits he was regular and correct; he eat and drank but little, and that of the best; seldom slept more than four or five hours often not over two, and those the latter part of the night." (3) Richard Bartlet. He was a hospitable man.

He had talents; but was more distinguished for his caustic wit and satirical ridicule, than for sound practical common sense. He had greater talents and more success in defeating, than in originating measures. In the legislature, tho often unsuccessful in prosecuting his own purposes, he seldem failed, when he attempted it, of defeat= =ing the projects of others. His success was in pulling down, not in building up. He was an unchanging Democrat, and constantly vindi= =cated and supported his partizans, and generally all popular democratic measures.

Tho vain and insolent, he was cautions and cunning. He was an artful, intriguing, unprincipled man. Practised too much deception, finess and management to be fair or ho= =norable. He was too immoral to impose upon those who tho= =roughly knew him. As to religion he had no faith in Judaism or Christianity; and often made rash, imprudent observations upon both those systems of theology.

On the 27 of June 1823, he died calmly within the limits of the prison yard of Exeter, in the 83rd year of his age.