CERF, 
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 CERF LIBRARY 
 
 PRESENTED BY 
 
 REBECCA CERF '02 
 
 IN THE NAMES OF 
 
 CHARLOTTE CERF '95 
 
 MARCEL E. CERF '97 
 
 BARRY CERF '02 
 
.u^"!! iO'J 
 
3n iflemoriam* 
 
 NATHAN CROSBY, LL.D. 
 
 
 
 25om f eBtuarp 12, 1798* 
 
 SDieti f eBruarp 10, 1885< 
 
How happy is he born and taught, 
 Who serveth not another's will; 
 
 Whose armor is his honest thought, 
 And simple truth his utmost skill. 
 

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 M570907 
 
STn iHemoriam. 
 
 Judge Nathan Crosby is dead. Full of years and 
 honors he passed serenely from this life into the life immor- 
 tal, at a few minutes after nine o'clock, Tuesday evening, 
 February lo, 1885. Had he lived thirty-six hours longer he 
 would have completed his eighty-seventh year, a remarkable 
 age in this era of short-lived men. It was not, however, the 
 mere multiplicity of years that made the man so interesting, 
 but the ease and grace with which they were carried. His 
 eye was bright, his form erect, his step elastic, his whole 
 bearing a striking illustration of the sturdy strength of mind 
 and body with which a life of mental and moral probity is 
 crowned. He died as he had lived naturally, nobly, fear- 
 less in his belief in truth, justice, and Almighty God. His 
 example to the community in which he lived is the greatest 
 monument that could be left behind the man. He was 
 loved, respected, venerated by all who knew him. His heart 
 was of a large and generous mould, full of love for all, sym- 
 pathy for their infirmities, joy for their successes, hope for 
 their future. As a Christian, he was unwavering in his belief 
 in the doctrines of the Orthodox Congregational church, and 
 looked with stern disapprobation upon any departure from 
 its tenets. He was a practical Christian. He did not believe 
 in words without works, and many of the poor and needy of 
 his city cherish his name in sacred remembrance for the acts 
 
of charity he so unostentatiously performed. He was emi- 
 nently a "Christian gentleman." In the most untoward and 
 vexatious circumstances he was distinguished by a calm and 
 dignified demeanor, which spoke more eloquently than open 
 rebuke against the sway of passion and the heat of words. 
 In his professional life, his conduct was an example of well- 
 poised forbearance toward all who came antagonistically in 
 contact with him ; and of consideration and respect for the 
 opinions of each honest man, no matter what their relations 
 might be to each other. Socially, he was genial and enter- 
 taining, and a Chesterfieldian politeness marked his inter- 
 course with all men and women. 
 
 He was blessed with an equable and uniform tempera- 
 ment. He was never passionate, irritable, or exacting. Always 
 cheerful and genial, he could not help being considerate of 
 the feelings of others. He was a very liberal man, and was 
 constantly regardful of the wants and necessities of the peo- 
 ple. His domestic relations were of the happiest description, 
 and he was almost worshiped by his children and grandchil- 
 dren, nephews, and nieces. He was extremely fond of young 
 people, and was never more happy than when he had a circle 
 of them about him. 
 
 He loved to entertain his friends, and the larger the 
 number he could gather at his dinner table the more satis- 
 faction he expressed. He loved to read and study, and spent 
 the most of his time among his books in his library. Gar- 
 dening was a favorite pastime in the summer, and his beauti- 
 ful garden, filled with rare plants and choice flowers, was 
 always the admiration of his neighbors. He possessed quiet 
 home tastes, and never joined any of the local secret socie- 
 ties. He had a very high opinion of the duties and respon- 
 
sibilities of a local magistrate, and gave deep thought and 
 consideration to all matters affecting the morals of the com- 
 munity in which he lived for so many years. At the time of 
 his appointment as police judge, the office was considered a 
 very much higher honor than it is at present. During the 
 changes that came to his observation, he ever performed his 
 duties faithfully and conscientiously, and he once declined an 
 appointment to the bench of the superior court. His love 
 for his home and his family was so great, that he could not 
 bear to absent himself from them as much as the duties 
 of a superior court judge would require. Although an advo- 
 cate of prohibition, he never made himself prominent in 
 politics. Prohibition without reference to politics was his 
 standard. 
 
 It was but a short time, a little more than four weeks, that 
 Judge Crosby's familiar form was missed from the bench of the 
 police court, where for so many years he had been honorably 
 seated. The last occasion upon which he was seen in the 
 streets, was on Monday, January 12, when he attended a 
 meeting of the Corporation of the Five Cents Savings Bank. 
 On that day he was elected president of the institution, 
 but declined the honor on account of advanced age, and the 
 indisposition to assume further responsibilities. From the day 
 referred to, he was confined to the house, but not to his bed 
 until Wednesday, February 4th. Up to the end of November 
 of last year, he had never been ill a day in his life. On the 
 evening of the last Saturday of the month named, he was 
 walking through the hallway of his residence, when he stum- 
 bled and fell over a package that he had not observed. The 
 fall caused a shock which brought on a nervous form of dys- 
 pepsia, and his appetite began to fail. He suffered consider- 
 
8 
 
 ably on the following Sunday, but recovered sufficiently to be 
 able to preside in court on Monday. He attended to his 
 judicial duties all through the month of December, and 
 evinced a strong determination to battle against his failing 
 health. He was conscious of his growing weakness, but he 
 was always hopeful that a change for the better would 
 come. At length he became so weak physically, that he was 
 unable to leave his home. His mind continued as bright 
 and clear as usual, however, and he spent his time in his 
 library reading and writing and receiving calls from his 
 friends, whom it always gave him great pleasure to entertain. 
 His immediate relatives became aware that his end was fast 
 approaching, and that his continued inability to receive 
 nourishment in any form, made his demise but a question 
 of a few days. The Judge, meanwhile, continued in the best 
 of spirits, and never expressed a thought but that each suc- 
 ceeding day would show signs of improvement in his health. 
 
 He retired to bed on Wednesday night, February 4th, 
 and was never able to leave it again. He sank rapidly, but 
 retained his consciousness and vivacity up to Monday even- 
 ing. Loving attendants were never once absent from his 
 bedside, and the fatal moment when he should pass away 
 was awaited with tearful eyes. Tuesday morning he lapsed 
 into unconsciousness, and though once or twice during the 
 day he mutely recognized the group about him with his eyes, 
 he never spoke again. At a few minutes after nine o'clock, 
 in the evening, as before related, he sank gently, peacefully, 
 into the sleep of death, having, so far as is known, suffered 
 not a pang of pain during the entire term of his illness. It 
 was a fitting close of a singularly pure and peaceful life. 
 
 Surrounding the death-bed were his wife, Mrs. Matilda 
 
Crosby ; her niece, Miss Mitchell ; his son, Hon. Stephen 
 M. Crosby, of Boston, and his four daughters, Mrs. F. C. 
 Martin, of Boston, widow of the late Dr. Martin, Mrs. M. 
 C. Lyon, Mrs. N. W. Norcross, and Mrs. Charles Francis, 
 all of Lowell. Messrs. Norcross and Francis were also 
 present. 
 
 Judge Crosby sprang from good old English stock. The 
 Crosby family took root in this country in the year 1635, 
 when Simon Crosby, the seventh in remove from the subject 
 of this memoir, arrived with his wife Ann on the " Susan and 
 Ellyn," and settled in Cambridge, Massachusetts. 
 
 Josiah Crosby, the grandfather of Nathan, was born in 
 Billerica in 1730. He was a captain in the Revolution, and 
 was present with two sons at the battle of Bunker Hill. 
 His son Asa, Nathan's father, was born in Amherst, now 
 Milford, New Hampshire, in 1765. Nathan was born in 
 Sandwich, New Hampshire, on the 12th of February, 1798. 
 His mother was Betsey Hoit, daughter of Col. Nathan Hoit, 
 of Sandwich, who was an officer in Washington's body guard. 
 Nathan was the seventh of her ten children, nine of whom 
 were living at the time of her death, April 2, 1804. 
 
 Nathan's father was married again in 1806, his second 
 wife being Abigail Russell, who had seven children, of whom 
 two only were living at the time of her death in 1856. 
 
 From this it will be seen that Judge Crosby was one of 
 a family of seventeen brothers and sisters, of whom the only 
 survivor is Mrs. Sarah Burleigh, of Dexter, Maine, ninety 
 years old, and widow of the late Dr. Oilman Burleigh. It 
 was to visit this sister that he made his last journey from 
 home in November. The last time that he left Lowell was 
 at Christmas, when he dined with his son in Boston. 
 
10 
 
 The country into which Nathan was born was in the 
 infancy of its settlement, and the stirring days of the Revo- 
 lution were fresh in the memory of its inhabitants. There 
 was a great deal of work and very little play in store for 
 the lad, as he soon found out when he reached the years 
 when his hands could be levied upon for their share of 
 assistance in the maintenance of the household. 
 
 Passing over the experience of his earlier days, it is 
 found that in 1814 the boy Nathan was sent to Jacob Tweed 
 Eastman, a member of Dartmouth College, to learn Latin, 
 but after one term with him, Eastman closed his school, and 
 Nathan was then sent to "the good old Master Leavitt, the 
 almanac maker," who gave him "more praise than knowl- 
 edge" for another term. After that he went to Salisbury, 
 where Samuel I. Wells, a graduate of Dartmouth College, 
 gave him thorough instruction for a year. In the spring of 
 1816 Nathan's father removed to Gilmanton, New Hamp- 
 shire, and after a short term at the Gilmanton Academy, 
 Nathan entered Dartmouth College, from which institution he 
 was graduated in 1820. 
 
 Of his college life Judge Crosby was wont to speak with 
 affectionate remembrance. By none of her alumni was the 
 old Granite State college more fondly remembered than by 
 him. It had been his custom often in recent years to receive 
 at his home such Dartmouth graduates as could be sum- 
 moned from this vicinity, and at such gatherings there was 
 the most affectionate homage by all at the shrine of their 
 alma mater. There were nineteen members in his class, of 
 of whom, last year, but three were living. Those beside 
 himself were Rev. David Goodwillie, Liberty, Pennsylvania, 
 and Hon. George W. Nesmith, of Franklin, New Hamp- 
 
II 
 
 shire. But three of previous classes remained : Rev. 
 Oliver Swain Taylor, of Auburn, New York, 1807 ; Martin 
 Brainard, St. Augustine, Florida, 18 17, and Gen. H. K. 
 Oliver, Boston, 18 18. His class contained many who subse- 
 quently became widely known, among them his surviving 
 classmate, Hon. George W. Nesmith, who attained distinction 
 in the law in New Hampshire. There was also Judge 
 Nathaniel G. Upham, of Concord, who lived to become one 
 of the most distinguished members of the New Hampshire 
 Bar; also Hon. George P. Marsh, LL.D., who was Minister 
 to Turkey in 1849-1856, special Minister to Greece in 1852, 
 and Minister to Italy in 1861. During his college life he 
 formed personal friendships which were cherished in after 
 life, and which were of great pleasure and value to him. 
 Among these, beside those mentioned above, were Rufus 
 Choate and John Aiken of the class of 18 19. 
 
 Returning to Gilmanton, the young man began the 
 study of law, and after two years' application to Coke and 
 Blackstone there, he went into the office of the Hon. Asa 
 Freeman at Dover, New Hampshire, and was admitted to the 
 Bar in the autumn of 1823. He then opened an office in 
 New Chester, now Hill, New Hampshire, but soon returned 
 to Gilmanton, where, on September 28, 1824, he married 
 Rebecca Marquand, daughter of Stephen Moody. She was 
 a lady of great personal beauty, of refined, dignified and 
 courteous manner, benevolent, warm-hearted, and sincere. 
 
 He was taken into law partnership with Mr. Moody, 
 and remained with him until 1826, when he removed to 
 Amesbury, Massachusetts, and from there, three years later, 
 to Newburyport. Up to this time he had pursued his pro- 
 fession with courage, diligence, and success, and with fair 
 
12 
 
 prospects of distinction, but was successfully tempted to 
 return to Amesbury and take the place of agent of the Salis- 
 bury Manufacturing Company. Manufacturing was then a 
 popular and growing interest, and offered to young men 
 great temptations as an opening field to influence and power. 
 He spent about six years in Amesbury and Newbury and 
 Newburyport in the prosecution of manufacturing business, 
 when he removed to Boston as the agent of the Massachu- 
 setts Temperance Union, to conduct the great moral warfare 
 between the friends and opposers of the historic fifteen-gallon 
 law. He traveled through the State, holding conventions, 
 making addresses, printing papers, tracts, etc., to establish, 
 as he has said, the great doctrine of the right of the people 
 to protect themselves by law against the evils of the sale of 
 intoxicating liquor. He always looked back to this work 
 with a great deal of satisfaction, and during its five years' 
 continuance he made the acquaintance and friendship of 
 many distinguished men, few of whom, however, have out- 
 lived him. 
 
 Judge Crosby was also early identified with the anti- 
 slavery and other reforms, and was one of the earliest and 
 most active advocates of railroads. During the temperance 
 movement referred to, he edited the Temperance Journal^ and 
 other interesting documents that were issued at that time. 
 
 In November, 1843, J^^ge Crosby came to Lowell and 
 took up his residence in the city which he held unbroken 
 from that day until his death. He resumed the practice of 
 law upon his removal to this city, and in 1845 and 1846 was 
 engaged in purchasing the New Hampshire lakes for reser- 
 voirs of water for the manufacturing corporations in Lowell 
 and Lawrence. On May 19, 1846, he received his commis- 
 
13 
 
 sion as standing justice of the police court of Lowell, and 
 took the oath of office on the same day. For thirty-nine 
 consecutive years he has occupied the bench of the police 
 court, a remarkable record of long tenure of office of which 
 Judge Crosby was justly proud. He was nominated for the 
 office by the late Hon. Samuel Hoar, of Concord, Massachu- 
 setts, and was commissioned by the late ex-Governor Briggs. 
 
 Some years ago, Judge Crosby wrote an admirable 
 pamphlet on the " First Half Century of Dartmouth Col- 
 lege," and later, at the request of the Alumni, a " Eulogy 
 upon the late Hon. Tappan Wentworth," of Lowell, donor 
 to the college of half a million dollars. Also, by request, a 
 eulogy on Judge Samuel S. Wilde, of the Supreme Court of 
 Massachusetts, which he delivered before the Alumni at the 
 Commencement of 1881. He also delivered before the Essex 
 County Association and the Massachusetts Historical Society 
 in 1879 ^" address, consisting of personal reminiscences of 
 Rufus Choate, Caleb Cushing, and Robert Rantoul, who were 
 his friends and contemporaries at the Essex bar. Besides 
 the works referred to. Judge Crosby has published a volumi- 
 nous amount of matter upon the temperance cause, his nu- 
 merous contributions to the local press being well known to 
 all the citizens of Lowell. He was an earnest, honest 
 writer, seeking more to impress upon the mind the truth of 
 what he had to say than to clothe his thoughts in rhetorical 
 graces and embellishments. 
 
 In 1867, on the thirtieth day of January, Judge Crosby's 
 wife died in Lowell, in the sixty-ninth year of her age. 
 They had nine children, five of whom are still living. 
 
 The loss of his daughter, Mrs. Caverly, and his grand- 
 daughter Amy, by shipwreck on the Scilly Islands in 1875, 
 
^4 
 
 was a most terrible and bitter affliction, weighing heavily 
 upon his spirits for many months. 
 
 For his second wife he married Matilda (Pickens) Fear- 
 ing, daughter of James and Charity Pickens, and widow of 
 Dr. Joseph W. Fearing, of Providence, Rhode Island. The 
 marriage took place in Boston, May 19, 1870, and Mrs. 
 Crosby survives her husband. 
 
 The death of this venerable and venerated citizen severs 
 the most prominent link that has connected the Lowell of 
 the present with the Lowell of the past. Judge Crosby was 
 a scion of one of the sturdiest of the sturdy families of New 
 England. The Crosby race has long been conspicuous in 
 New England annals; and in every epoch for the past two 
 hundred years, of the stirring life of this cold corner of the 
 country, the name of Crosby has figured with more or less 
 activity and honor. It is as a magistrate and a philanthro- 
 pist that this community has known the late Judge. For 
 thirty-nine years the standing judge of the local police court, 
 and doubtless at his decease the oldest police judge in the 
 nation, Judge Crosby has stood between more offenders 
 against the law and the public weal than any other man who 
 has ever sat upon a bench of justice. In all this long and 
 varied experience with the elements that go to make up the 
 evil that exists in society, it is literally true that the late dis- 
 penser of the penalties of the law was ever actuated by a 
 desire to protect both the interests of the accused unfortu- 
 nates, who day after day were arraigned in his court, and 
 the welfare of the people, whose servant at all times he 
 considered himself to be. 
 
 As a worker in the cause of temperance. Judge Crosby's 
 labors should not be lost sight of. For many years he has 
 
15 
 
 been a conspicuous contributor to various temperance publi- 
 cations, has spoken upon this vital subject from many plat- 
 forms, and has exemplified in his own manner of living the 
 principles which he advocated. Judge Crosby's life, precept, 
 and example, form a valuable addition to the current history 
 of the city, and can be held up to the people of the day as 
 worthy of all imitation. 
 
 One of the chief lessons of his life to the present gen- 
 eration is the value of sober living. Here was a man whose 
 birth antedates that of the present century, and yet his 
 steady form and vigorous elastic step, and clear and alert 
 mental powers, had been preserved up to within a few months, 
 if not weeks, of the final hour of dissolution. He had been 
 free from any and all of the inordinate and hurtful excesses 
 of modern life ; had made the condition of his health a study, 
 and had so favored nature by abstemious habits and methods 
 of daily routine, that the four-score and more of years were 
 less apparent upon his form and features than three-score 
 upon many who have been the contemporaries of this eminent 
 and upright citizen. It was the result of intelligence and 
 discretion in the commonest affairs of every-day life ; and its 
 effect should not be lost upon the fast and deteriorating 
 livers of the present day. 
 
i6 
 
 ||e funerals 
 
 Friday, February 13, 1885, 2.30 p.m. 
 
 I. "Asleep in Jesus" Choir. 
 
 2. Selections from the Scriptures. 
 
 3. "There is a Safe and Secret Place" .... Choir. 
 
 4. Address and Prayer. 
 
 5. "Servant of God, well done" Choir. 
 
 6. <35cnebiction. 
 
 Service of Committal, and Prayers by Rev. Alfred E. Johnson. 
 
elections from ti)e Scriptures* 
 
 After a portion of Psalms XC and XXXIX the following selec- 
 tions were read : 
 
 Thou art my hope O Lord God ! thou art my trust from my youth. 
 . . . Cast me not off in the time of old age ; forsake me not when my 
 strength faileth. 
 
 O God, thou hast taught me from my youth, and hitherto have I 
 declared thy wondrous works. Now, also, when I am old and grey- 
 headed, O God forsake me not until I have showed thy strength unto 
 this generation, and thy power unto every one that is to come. 
 
 In the time of trouble he shall hide me in his pavilion, in the 
 secret of his tabernacle shall he hide me ; he shall set me up upon a 
 rock. 
 
 Because he hath set his love upon me, therefore will I deliver him ; 
 I will set him on high, because he hath known my name. He shall call 
 upon me, and I will answer him ; I will be with him in trouble ; I will 
 deliver him and honor him. With long life will I satisfy him, and show 
 him my salvation. 
 
 If thou prepare thine heart and stretch out thine hands toward the 
 Almighty, thou shalt be steadfast and not fear because thou shalt for- 
 get thy misery as waters that pass away; and thine age shall be clearer 
 than the noon-day; thou shalt shine forth as the morning; thou shalt 
 take thy rest in safety ; none shall make thee afraid ; yea many shall 
 make suit unto thee. 
 
 Neither shalt thou be afraid of destruction when it cometh; thy 
 tabernacle shall be in peace; and thou shalt come to thy grave in full 
 age, as a shock of corn cometh in his season. 
 
 The memory of the just is blessed. The fear of the Lord pro- 
 longeth days. 
 
i8 
 
 The labor of the righteous tendeth to life. 
 
 Let thine heart keep my commandments; for length of days and 
 long life and peace shall they add to thee. 
 
 Happy is he that findeth wisdom. She is more precious than rubies ; 
 length of days is in her right hand, and in her left hand riches and 
 honor. Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace. 
 
 The righteous shall flourish like the palm-tree he shall grow like 
 the cedar in Lebanon ; those that be planted in the house of the Lord 
 shall flourish in the courts of our God : they shall still bring forth fruit 
 in old age. 
 
 And I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me : Write, Blessed 
 are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth : Yea, saith the Spirit, 
 that they may rest from their labors; and their works do follow them. 
 
atitiress. 
 
 This is the sad and solemn hour of our leave-taking of 
 all that is mortal of our honored brother and friend. At 
 such an hour, our minds naturally ask for those thoughts 
 which are consolatory and uplifting, and point us to our own 
 higher duties, and the needed preparation for the great 
 inheritance of the life to come. 
 
 We have much to console us in this hour of bereave- 
 ment. While, like every visitation of death, it impresses 
 upon us that all are mortal ; that there is no discharge in 
 this warfare ; that it knows no exempts ; that all are banded 
 together in the solemn march to the grave ; we cannot say 
 that the blow has fallen prematurely. 
 
 Life's largest promise has been well fulfilled. Our hon- 
 ored and beloved friend had filled out the three-score and 
 ten years that are said to be allotted to man ; and then he 
 had traveled on through another decade, and on still through 
 a large fraction of another. Three years more would have 
 given him a life of four-score and ten. A few hours more 
 would have brought him to the anniversary of his birthday, 
 which he had been wont to mark with some special observ- 
 ance from year to year. It pleased God that this anniver- 
 sary which was so near should find him among a larger 
 group of friends who had passed on before to that world 
 where those birthdays are celebrated in which the soul is 
 
20 
 
 born again. Let us not forget today the rejoicings and con- 
 gratulations that are resounding there. 
 
 I have said there was here no premature quenching of 
 the spark of life. This is a good old age. True, there was 
 a grand holding up and holding out of physical strength. 
 There was a wonderful reserve of vital force, that so far as 
 we could see, might have well extended his life to a century 
 of years. The divine psalm that gives us proximately the 
 natural limit of our earthly life, has added that "w^hen by 
 reason of a special endowment of strength, there are four- 
 score years, that very strength is but another name for labor 
 and sorrow." The rule is not without its exceptions. And 
 it is a grand and beautiful exception that we have before us 
 today. By reason of strength there have been the four-score 
 years the nearly four-score and ten years and yet this 
 strength has not been burdened with infirmity and suffering. 
 On the other hand, there has been a wonderful freedom 
 from bodily pain. 
 
 True, the life of our dear and honored friend has not 
 been without its sorrows ; deep heart-breaking sorrows. But 
 his Christian faith triumphed over them ; the sun broke forth 
 from behind the cloud, and his pathway became bright and 
 luminous again, and his life serene as before. 
 
 Let us devoutly recognize the goodness of God in spar- 
 ing him to us so long, and giving him this marked exemption 
 from the sufferings that so commonly attend the later years 
 of life. 
 
 Again, there is much to console us in the consideration of 
 the general tenor and drift and usefulness of his life. It has 
 not been an aimless life. It has not been an idle life. It 
 has not been an unproductive life. Tried by either of these 
 
21 
 
 Standards, it commands our respect. It has been a life of 
 high and noble aims. There has been the aim to deserve 
 well of his country ; to serve his generation ; to promote 
 intelligence and good morals; to fight the battles of truth 
 against all that is false and pernicious and hostile to the 
 general welfare ; to uphold virtue against every form of evil ; 
 to aid in every laudable enterprise ; to assist those who were 
 struggling with adversity ; and to encourage a generous ambi- 
 tion on the part of the young. Above all, he has aimed to 
 promote that which is highest in human thought and human 
 aspiration and human achievement the fear of God, and 
 the love of God, and the golden rule of love for man. It 
 was here that he saw the surest promise for the life that 
 now is, and for that which is to come. This was the stand- 
 ard to which he sought to conform his life. It has led him 
 to "cast his bread upon many waters, and certainly some- 
 thing of it has come back to him after many days." 
 
 He occupied an honorable post in a noble profession where 
 the man of generous aims has great opportunities to with- 
 stand iniquity and promote righteousness and justice among 
 his fellow-men. His brethren of the bar testify for him that 
 he has used his opportunities conscientiously and well. Their 
 testimony, freely, though as yet informally, expressed, beto- 
 kens a marked unanimity of sentiment, and is evidently the 
 utterance of sincere hearts. To have won such a testimony, 
 and to have deserved it, is to have achieved a record for 
 which surviving friends may well be grateful. 
 
 Here are all the marks of a useful life usefulness of 
 a high and noble type. Is there anything higher than this 
 outward usefulness that is possible to man ? Standing at the 
 mouth of the grave, with our outlook for the time upon the 
 
22 
 
 great unseen world, and the Great Supreme Ruler in that 
 world as well as in this, we rejoice to answer that question 
 in the affirmative. And here again, we have something, yea 
 everything, to be grateful for in the memories of the hour. 
 Judge Crosby could look back upon the morning of life as 
 the time when the deepest soul within him responded to the 
 voice that rang in his ears with the words, " Remember now 
 thy Creator in the days of thy youth ; " " they that seek me 
 early shall find me ; " and then was woven that bond that 
 held him through all these years to the Saviour of the world 
 to whom his early espousals were given. 
 
 And it was more than all the world to him some three 
 days ago, that He who has said, "He that cometh to me, I 
 will in no wise cast out," had said also "If I go and pre- 
 pare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to 
 myself, that where I am there ye may be also." 
 
 With all this to console us, we may say, not perhaps 
 " there is nothing here for tears ; " but rather let the tears of 
 affectionate remembrance be tempered with the profoundest 
 gratitude to Almighty God, that by His grace our dear and 
 honored friend has fought so good a fight, given so grand 
 an example, and gone to so glorious a reward. 
 
iHemorial Biscourfie* 
 
 DELIVERED AT THE HIGH STREET CHURCH, FEB. 15, 1885. 
 BY REV. OWEN STREET, D.D. 
 
 "With long life will i satisfy him, and show him my 
 SALVATION." Psalm xci: i6, 
 
 A sentence or two of the preceding thought 
 will indicate the type of character for which this 
 promise was written : " Because he hath set his 
 love upon me, therefore will I deliver him ; I 
 will set him on high because he hath known my 
 name. He shall call upon me, and I will an- 
 swer him; I will be with him in trouble; I will 
 deliver him and honor him. With long life will 
 I satisfy him, and show him my salvation." 
 
 This world is not our home. Yet we have 
 what we call a home here, and it is the center 
 of our brightest joys and of our purest earthly 
 affections, a type of the better home above. 
 Life is proverbially short. It is the long sigh of 
 
24 
 
 the generations that we scarcely enter the world 
 before we are admonished that the time may be 
 close at hand when we shall be called to leave 
 it. Yet there is what we call a long life in this 
 world, long as compared with the brief stay of 
 the infant of a few days, or the little child that 
 is prematurely cut off. It requires but a glance 
 at what is passing in the world, to see that the 
 promise which we are considering is not of uni- 
 versal application. It is not without exception 
 even among those whose character and manner 
 of life are described in this psalm. Rather it is 
 itself the exception. Yet it carries a meaning 
 that is a universal truth. That meaning is else- 
 where expressed in the declaration " length of 
 days is in her right hand, and in her left hand 
 are riches and honor." Or, as we should put it 
 in our more common style of thought, he who 
 sustains the character and lives in the spirit that 
 is here set forth, is in the way of fairest promise 
 for a long and happy life. There must be the 
 ordinary uncertainties that hang about life and 
 all its interests in this world. There are what 
 we call fatal accidents that may lie . in the path 
 of any one, however guarded and apparently 
 secure, and 
 
25 
 
 "Fierce diseases wait around 
 To hurry mortals home." 
 
 There are ocean storms that no ship can outride. 
 But the well-built ship in which there is no 
 unsound material, has the best promise for a 
 long succession of prosperous voyages. 
 
 There is still another universal truth con- 
 tained in the text. We find it in that word 
 "satisfy." It seems at first view as if this would 
 be a hard point to make out. It is very com- 
 monly true that there is a strong clinging to life, 
 a shrinking and drawing back from the final sur- 
 render from that giving up of the known for 
 the unknown, and from that separation from 
 those that have become dear and precious to the 
 soul. But it is not as if there were no com- 
 mingling of other and higher feelings with these ; 
 no uplifting of the heart to God ; no victories of 
 an overcoming faith ; no longings " to depart and 
 be with Christ, which is far better." No more is 
 it as if the promise must utterly fail unless it 
 have a large fulfillment in this world. There is 
 a large field for its accomplishment in the broad 
 opening future, and the unalloyed satisfactions of 
 eternity. He who has said, "I will satisfy him," 
 has all resources and a boundless future at his 
 
26 
 
 command. The man of faith may well respond, 
 " I shall be satisfied when I awake with thy like- 
 ness." 
 
 There is still another element of promise 
 here : " I will show him my salvation." This 
 means, of course, a salvation for him. And it 
 conveys the impression of a great promised boon. 
 It is not a deliverance brought about by inferior 
 agents. " I will show him my salvation." I will 
 show him what a saviour I can be. When all 
 the promises that had been made to Abraham 
 were to be gathered into one, and concentrated 
 into a single word, it was said, " I will be a God 
 to thee." 
 
 In like manner, when all the splendors of 
 the heavenly world as revealed in the visions of 
 the apocalypse, its city of the New Jerusalem, 
 with walls of sapphire and gates of pearl, and 
 streets of gold, and crowns and thrones, and 
 harps in celestial hands, were to serve as mere 
 approaches to a supreme and ineffable glory, 
 the final turning of our own thoughts is to Him 
 who is the Great All in All. 
 
 When he puts himself in the center, the 
 promise becomes supreme. Beyond that, or 
 higher than that, our thought cannot go. And 
 
27 
 
 yet that is the culmination of this very promise 
 before us; God is in the center of it. I will 
 satisfy him and show him my salvation. When 
 we look at the Promiser we know we cannot 
 measure the boon. 
 
 It may be said further, in illustration of this 
 promise, that life is not truly measured by the 
 clock, or the calendar of weeks and months, or the 
 number of years. It is written, " The child shall 
 die a hundred years old." One person may live 
 longer, as tested by the measuring-line of achieve- 
 ment and usefulness, in a single year than many 
 another in three quarters of a century. He who 
 lives as God would have him, is sure to live long 
 enough. 
 
 Not long enough it may be to satisfy his 
 friends; not long enough perhaps to accomplish 
 all his own plans ; but long enough for him to 
 be satisfied with God's decree of removal when- 
 ever it may be carried into effect. 
 
 These thoughts may fitly lead us on to the 
 contemplation of the long and useful life of him 
 whose lamented departure has been to us the 
 event of the past week. 
 
 Nathan Crosby was born in Sandwich, New 
 Hampshire, February 12, 1798; a gift of the last 
 
28 
 
 century to the present. As his father was in 
 professional life, a practicing physician for forty- 
 six years, we should naturally infer that the 
 children took their inspiration for the paths of 
 literary culture and public service directly from 
 him. But the fact seems to have been other- 
 wise. His father had not much leisure for books, 
 and still less for direct educational work in the 
 family. 
 
 We see this clearly enough in his son's 
 account of his " long cold rides in the saddle 
 over rough roads by day and by night, in storms 
 of rain and snow, and under the terrible freezing 
 temperature of the long winters of northern New 
 Hampshire. It is a mystery," he tells us, "how 
 he lived through those cold winters and heavy 
 snows, often breaking out his own road over the 
 high hills of Sandwich in a single sleigh, with 
 only a coverlet over his feet and knees ; visiting 
 the sick in their cold houses, where one room 
 only could be made comfortable." Besides what 
 he has written and published to this effect he 
 has narrated to me the circumstances that seemed 
 for a time to be clearly determining his life to 
 agricultural pursuits. 
 
 In a conversation in regard to his older 
 
29 
 
 brother, Dr. Josiah Crosby, of Manchester, while 
 he was yet living, he said, " I owe everything to 
 him. He was a very dear and kind brother to 
 me. There seemed to have been a place made 
 for me ; it did not appear to be a thing to be 
 thought of that I should do anything else than 
 take the farm ; but he had acquired other tastes ; 
 and he talked a great deal with me, and woke 
 my ambition, and persuaded my father, and 
 turned me to a life of study." And it seems he 
 did the same for the other children. I have 
 since found the following brief paragraph in the 
 memoir of the Crosby family : " First in the 
 family to break away from the general destina- 
 tion of boys in his time, his culture and in- 
 fluence turned the family into the opening ave- 
 nues of education, so that the sisters became 
 school teachers, and the brothers professional 
 men. His counsel encouraged father, and his 
 own progress stimulated us all to meet and con- 
 quer all obstacles in our upward course. He 
 was our counsellor and guide, and our brother 
 beloved to the end." 
 
 A pleasant and delightful tribute this for 
 brother to render to brother. To me it is as 
 
30 
 
 interesting for what it shows of the narrator as 
 for what it shows of his brother. 
 
 From this it is but a short story, though it 
 seemed long enough when the incidents were 
 passing, to his preparatory studies, and his col- 
 lege life. 
 
 In college he not only pursued the allotted 
 course of study with his class, but acquired a 
 strong attachment to the institution, which 
 seemed to grow with his years. He proved 
 himself especially open to the quickening and 
 molding influence of the eminent men whose 
 acquaintance he formed there the officers and 
 trustees and visiting friends of the college, and 
 the more aspiring of the students. Indeed, we 
 may well believe that the students of Dartmouth 
 College, as a body, in those days as in these, 
 were earnest and aspiring men. Their errand at 
 the institution was not to spend money or trifle 
 away their time. It is not difficult to trace in 
 all Judge Crosbys history the influence of the 
 companionships and the less intimate acquaint- 
 ances of his college life, and even the opportu- 
 nities of observing distinguished men with whom 
 he never spoke. A great and important part of 
 his effective education came through this avenue 
 
31 
 
 of his peculiarly susceptible nature. I think it is 
 Cicero who tells us that among the Romans the 
 statues and mementoes of the dead were a con- 
 tinual admonition and stimulus to thoughtful 
 minds, rousing them to nobler efforts and higher 
 achievements. Judge Crosby preferred to take 
 his inspiration from what he remembered and 
 observed among the living. He was a diligent 
 reader also of the works and biographies of the 
 eminent men of New England. He never thought 
 that his education was completed when he left 
 the college. He continued to study as long as 
 he lived. This kept his mind bright and active. 
 He was continually recurring to that thread of 
 history that held him in vital connection with 
 his alma mater. 
 
 It was only a few weeks since, after his 
 strength had begun to wane, that I found him 
 contemplating a paper of reminiscences of his 
 classmate, Hon. George P. Marsh, who was for 
 a time Minister of the United States to the Sub- 
 lime Porte. He commenced gathering the mate- 
 rial, but I think the paper was not completed. 
 
 His pamphlet, entitled The First Half Cent- 
 ury of Dartmouth College^^ is a most delightful 
 work. Like some of the pages of his family 
 
32 
 
 memoir, it has a rich flavor of the early pioneer 
 life of New England, though in a different vein, 
 and is sprightly and stirring from beginning to 
 end. I do not wonder that the students who lis- 
 tened to it were eager in their applause. 
 
 The college did itself honor in conferring 
 one of its highest honorary degrees upon him. 
 He afterwards, at the request of the alumni, 
 prepared a eulogy upon the late Hon. Tappan 
 Wentworth, of our city, who was the donor to 
 the college of half a million of dollars. Later 
 still, he wrote a pamphlet on the distinguished 
 men of Essex County with whom he had been 
 brought more or less intimately in contact. 
 Each of these works show that he had lost 
 nothing of his earlier ability to discern and strike 
 at the salient points of whatever subject he chose 
 to discuss. 
 
 In 1857 he made me acquainted with a plan 
 which he had formed, and was beginning to 
 carry into execution, of condensing and compil- 
 ing from newspapers and reviews, an annual of 
 obituary records of the men who have originated 
 and developed our institutions, or made them- 
 selves eminent in any department of life. It was 
 a herculean task that he proposed to himself ; 
 
33 
 
 that of casting his drag-net over all our wide 
 country, and sweeping together the records of 
 between one and two thousand newspapers, and 
 selecting from them those accounts that were 
 worthy to have a place in his work. But he 
 proved himself equal to the undertaking. 
 
 He produced two octavo volumes of between 
 three hundred and four hundred pages each, one 
 for the year 1857, and the other for the year 
 1858, and dedicated them to the president, Hon. 
 Robert C. Winthrop, and the members of the 
 Massachusetts Historical Society. 
 
 It was a hopeful dream of those days, as 
 he repeatedly told me, that this would meet an 
 acknowledged want of our literature, and furnish 
 him a useful employment, when, as the case 
 might be, through infirmity or otherwise, he 
 might retire from the bench. He received many 
 words of encouragement and warm appreciation 
 from such men as Edward Everett, Robert C. 
 Winthrop, Judge Bell, and Drs. Blanchard and 
 Cleveland of this city. But the work did not 
 prove remunerative, and after the issue of the 
 second volume, it was abandoned. 
 
 The idea, as he had conceived it and devel- 
 oped it, was an original one ; and if the work 
 
34 
 
 could have gone on, we should have had at this 
 time in our libraries, as Edward Everett foretold, 
 " a valuable historical compend." Some things 
 certainly would have been saved that are now 
 lost to history. 
 
 Some seven or eight years ago he printed an 
 octavo volume of one hundred and forty-three 
 pages, to which I have already alluded, of which 
 he modestly says, it was not for the public, but 
 for his relatives, a family book. 
 
 But it has fallen into other hands, and been 
 spoken of in book notices as a work of rare 
 interest. It shows us his father and mother, and 
 something of the earlier generations ; it shows us 
 his brothers and sisters and their families; and 
 it shows us something of himself and his own 
 family. 
 
 It takes us into the comparative wilderness 
 of early New England, and shows us how the 
 settlers lived, with what obstacles and enemies 
 they contended, and how they became the hardy 
 and virtuous people they so commonly were. 
 But the point of deepest interest to the thought- 
 ful reader is that array of noble men and women, 
 all from the bosom of one household, which the 
 memoir presents. In such a family he might 
 
35 
 
 well take a generous pride. His account of him- 
 self is certainly a modest one. It is rather an 
 account of his contacts and of the scenes in 
 which he lived. But these are the side-lights 
 that show us the man. Or rather, the entire 
 work shows us the man. 
 
 Besides these works, on which he bestowed 
 no inconsiderable labor, he has written from time 
 to time for the newspapers, both in Boston and 
 in our own city. Most of these communica- 
 tions have borne directly or indirectly on the 
 cause of temperance. I shall have occasion to 
 allude to them in another connection. 
 
 What I have thus far said, has been with the 
 view of presenting our honored friend in his 
 intellectual development. I could not speak of 
 him as he was, and as he has been known 
 among us, without reference to those products 
 of his pen that reveal to us the workings of his 
 mind. 
 
 You see him there as you saw him every 
 day, giving close attention to the matter in hand ; 
 determined to know well what he is expected to 
 know; making no claims to knowledge which he 
 does not possess; mindful of his points, and 
 going straight to the mark; ready to learn from 
 
36 
 
 others, and holding tenaciously what he has al- 
 ready learned ; thinking clearly and speaking for- 
 cibly ; bright and quick at repartee ; transparent 
 and kindly disposed to all ; firm yet conciliatory ; 
 self-poised, dignified yet easy ; courteous, a gentle- 
 man by nature, and still more a gentleman by 
 grace ; of fixed principles, yet always conceding 
 to others the right to differ from him. Such we 
 find him in his books, and such we found him 
 in all the walks of life. 
 
 Let us contemplate a little more distinctly 
 his aims and his influence in his daily duties 
 and in society. He was not satisfied to live on 
 the low level of selfish aims. He discharged his 
 professional duties conscientiously, seeking to get 
 at the truth, and render a fair measure of justice 
 between man and man. 
 
 His brethren of the bar give a generous tes- 
 timony for him to this effect. Of course they 
 cannot always have approved of his decisions. 
 It was their right to differ, and to carry appeal- 
 able cases to the court of appeal. But there 
 were thousands of cases tried before him for 
 which there was no appeal. And he has repeat- 
 edly expressed to me his surprise that when he 
 was obliged every day to decide adversely to one 
 
37 
 
 or the other of the opposing counsel, there was 
 left, after all, such a generous fund of good feel- 
 ing, and that he found himself treated with such 
 uniform courtesy and kindness by the bar. I am 
 glad to repeat in the presence of so many mem- 
 bers of the bar his testimony which is so hon- 
 orable to them. They have discerned his honest 
 intentions, and respected the goodness of his 
 heart, when their judgment differed from his. It 
 is said that our judges are generally incorrupti- 
 ble and honest men, seeking to swerve not so 
 much as a hand-breadth or a hair from exact 
 justice. I am glad to believe this. I am glad 
 to believe that there is something in the very 
 pressure of a weighty responsibility upon the 
 mind of man that tends to equipoise and inclines 
 to uprightness. Besides the uniform rectitude of 
 intention and purity of motive which have been 
 so freely ascribed to our honored friend, there 
 has been a very grateful and pleasing recogni- 
 tion of his marked urbanity and courtesy in all 
 the walks of life. This was inseparable from 
 him. It seemed as natural as his breath. Meet 
 him where you might, in public or alone, at 
 home or abroad, when at leisure or under the 
 pressure of business, in public vehicles or on the 
 
38 
 
 sidewalk, this calm, dignified, polished demeanor 
 seems almost never to have deserted him. 
 
 It is an honor to our city to have had so 
 long in one of its public places a man who 
 could be thus generally respected by the high 
 and the low, the rich and the poor, the learned 
 and the ignorant a man whose presence was 
 a rebuke to all that was rude or uncivil ; and 
 still more to all that was low or dishonest or 
 corrupt or vile a man whose life was an incen- 
 tive to every decency and every virtue. 
 
 He entered into the anti-slavery reform 
 before it became popular, from the force of 
 conviction, and with all the zeal of his youth- 
 ful heart. He saw many other men, for 
 whose talents and standing he had a high 
 respect, bowing with servile suppleness to that 
 barbarous sentiment that for a time controlled 
 the nation, but he, so far as I know, never 
 wavered. He did not believe our country could 
 long prosper or accomplish a high and noble 
 mission in the world, with the incubus of slavery 
 upon her. When the war broke out he was 
 quick to discover the part the people would have 
 to bear in aid of the government, in the way of 
 anticipating and providing for the wants of the 
 
39 
 
 soldiers. Indeed, the very first public sugges- 
 tion of which we have any knowledge, of the 
 practical measures that would be needful, was 
 from him. And it was accompanied by a liberal 
 donation that opened the way for all that flood 
 of beneficence that was so soon afterward poured 
 forth, both by the rich and the poor, in all our 
 loyal States. And I need not say that through 
 all that long struggle there was no heart that 
 beat with a warmer or intenser loyalty to our 
 imperiled country, or a nobler sympathy for the 
 sufferings of its defenders than his. 
 
 I can almost hear today the solemn cadences 
 of his voice as he so often led us in our prayers 
 to heaven in those years of anxious suspense 
 and gloom. 
 
 Judge Crosby deserves to be long remem- 
 bered for what he has done as the advocate of 
 good morals among us. From the bench, on 
 the platform, before legislative committees, and 
 in religious bodies, he has spoken earnestly, 
 eloquently, and with the deep conviction that 
 came from his special opportunities of seeing 
 and knowing the evils of intemperance. 
 
 He has also written much, as you know, for 
 our local press, discussing every aspect of the 
 
40 
 
 temperance reform ; and some of his articles 
 have been widely disseminated, calling upon his 
 fellow-citizens to bestir themselves to check the 
 work of destruction which is going on in the 
 midst of us. His heart has been in this labor 
 from the earliest days of the reform, and no 
 one knew it in all its stages better than he. 
 His practice has always been consistent with his 
 teachings. And his vigorous hold upon life,- and 
 his grand and noble command of his faculties 
 to the last week that he remained with us, have 
 made him a splendid example to prove that in 
 his principles and theory of temperate living he 
 was not mistaken. He saw in the prevalence 
 of intemperance and its associated evils the chief 
 hindrance to our national prosperity, the greatest 
 drawback to the civilization of the nineteenth 
 century, and the most formidable barrier in the 
 way of a true Christian faith and a pure and 
 undefiled religion. It was for such reasons as 
 these that his life-work was so largely concen- 
 trated upon the field of temperance reform. 
 
 His religious life began early. Many years 
 ago he told me of the strong hold which the 
 pastor of his youthful days, the Rev. Mr. Hid- 
 den, of Tamworth, New Hampshire, acquired 
 
41 
 
 upon his mind, and of the impressions that 
 were made and never lost. 
 
 He early made a public profession of relig- 
 ion, and bore his part in the labors and duties 
 and burdens of the church. He has been from 
 the first the honored high priest in his own 
 household, acknowledging God at his daily table, 
 and maintaining the family altar through all 
 these years. His last service in this long line 
 of faithful duty was rendered after his final 
 sickness had become far advanced, and is spoken 
 of as one of great fervency of spirit and wonder- 
 ful scope and tenderness of feeling. His spirit 
 has been uniformly cheerful and sunny and 
 inspiring. He had a strong, unwavering, con- 
 trolling faith which held fast to the word of 
 God and the early New England standards. 
 He believed with steadiness and firmness of 
 conviction in the doctrines and church polity 
 which he had inherited, and deeply lamented 
 every tendency to laxness or defection from 
 them. He has been watchful of all changes in 
 the religious or irreligious world ; rejoicing over 
 every bright and hopeful indication, and mark- 
 ing with deep regret everything that seemed to 
 be carrying the flow of events backward or 
 
42 
 
 downward, yet never letting go his strong 
 assurance that there is one at the helm of 
 affairs that will overrule all evil, bring out 
 wonderful results of progress, and give the world 
 a brighter day. This cheerful outlook gave 
 tone to his faith, and made it practical. He 
 was ready for every good word and work. He 
 was liberal in giving and earnest in advocating 
 every Christian effort. 
 
 When the first beginning was made for the 
 French Protestant Church in this city, he was 
 quickly at the front; he was made chairman of 
 the committee during the several years of doubt- 
 ful struggle ; the meetings were held at his office ; 
 and in the darkest days, he, more than any one 
 else, gave impulse to the faltering life of the 
 enterprise, and spoke the words of cheer that 
 encouraged others to carry it onward. The great 
 work of Christian missions was very near his 
 heart. He was heartily in sympathy with the 
 American Board of Foreign Missions, and kept 
 himself well informed in regard to the broad 
 fields in which they were disseminating the gos- 
 pel in so many different languages, and such 
 widely separated portions of the world. 
 
 He felt equally the importance of our great 
 
43 
 
 home missionary work, and was a generous con- 
 tributor to both. It is almost superfluous to say 
 that he had a ready sympathy and helping hand 
 for every effort to do good in our own city. He 
 had his preferences of one method above another, 
 but he rejoiced in the success of all that he 
 honestly believed were proving themselves useful. 
 Such a man as he had of right great influ- 
 ence in the church. His intelligence, his weight 
 of character, his extended intercourse with edu- 
 cated Christian men, and his sound views of relig- 
 ious truth, were recognized and appreciated. If 
 his brethren on rare occasions differed from him 
 in judgment, it was with regret. -And yet it was 
 on these occasions, very few in number, that his 
 truly Christian spirit manifested itself especially 
 to our admiration. He not only held fast to the 
 principle that the majority must rule, but he 
 schooled himself into a prompt and good-natured 
 submission to their rule. He could advocate or 
 oppose, as the case might be, a given movement 
 with great earnestness and evident conviction; 
 and yet, when he saw that the vote of his breth- 
 ren went the other way, accept the result at 
 once, not only without asperity, but with the 
 same cheerfulness as if his own view had been 
 
44 
 
 adopted. I have seen him rise on such an occa- 
 sion, and offer a motion for the necessary meas- 
 ures to carry out the will of the meeting, and 
 offer his own services in execution of the princi- 
 pal labor therein involved. In this, as in many 
 other things, he has left us an example that I 
 trust will not soon be forgotten. 
 
 I know I shall be pardoned, if I say a word 
 in this connection of what Judge Crosby has 
 been to me as a personal friend, adviser, and 
 helper in my work in this church and in the 
 city. 
 
 The first letter that invited me to Lowell 
 was from him. He was chairman of the commit- 
 tee that brought me the proposition to settle 
 here. When in the pecuniary stringency and 
 pressure that brought a gloom that year upon 
 the whole country, there was difficulty in meet- 
 ing all sorts of obligations, he, unsolicited, I 
 think, advanced money for the payment of my 
 salary. 
 
 During these almost twenty- eight years there 
 have been many times when he was to me just 
 the friend for the hour. There are others, many 
 others, God bless them, for whom I could say 
 the same. But the services rendered have been 
 
45 
 
 different. I owe him many a debt, the items of 
 which cannot here be given, and for which the 
 payment in full has waited for the settlements 
 on the other shore. 
 
 His life seems to me, as I take a general 
 review of it, to have had its course mainly in 
 the sunshine of a gracious and prosperous Prov- 
 idence, amid the smiles of friends, and with an 
 exhaustless fund of pure enjoyment in himself. 
 Indeed, it is scarcely a year since he made the 
 remark, " I cannot say of the years I have 
 reached, that ' there is no pleasure in them.' " 
 Yet he has passed through griefs and sorrows of 
 no ordinary type. In his own near and dear 
 kindred he had a wealth of social treasures not 
 often equaled. Not many men can point to so 
 many brothers who have made for themselves an 
 eminent name and a permanent record in the 
 annals of their country by their literary and pro- 
 fessional achievements. It was a generous pride 
 that he took in them, and he tenderly loved 
 them. But he was called to follow them all, one 
 by one, to the grave. His sisters too, all but one, 
 have been taken from him, all equally beloved, 
 and surrendered with the same pangs of bereave- 
 ment and of grief. But nearer to his own life 
 
46 
 
 did the destroyer come when the wife of his 
 youth, and the mother of his children, was taken 
 away. For a time, home was no longer home. 
 Dear ones were there, dear as any father's heart 
 had ever known, but the vacancy that he found 
 there had an answering chasm in his own heart, 
 which was for the time the one consciousness of 
 his life. He visited his brothers; he returned to 
 his home. He sought the consolations of relig- 
 ion. He stood in his pew some three Sabbaths 
 afterward as I came from the pulpit after having 
 discoursed upon the " willing mind that is ac- 
 cepted," defining it in one aspect as the submis- 
 sive and acquiescent mind and giving me his 
 hand, with streaming tears and breaking voice, 
 he said, " Mr. Street, I cannot get the willing 
 mind." He had not then sufficiently analyzed 
 his feelings to discover that the very struggle to 
 bring his mind to acquiesce in the ways of God, 
 was submission in the sight of heaven. Some 
 eight years afterward, he was called to suffer 
 another and a double bereavement, for which no 
 antecedent sickness had prepared him daugh- 
 ter and granddaughter buried together in the 
 waves. We were all smitten with the sudden 
 sense of bereavement then. How vividly comes 
 
47 
 
 back the remembrance of those days of unutter- 
 able suspense, between a persistent hope that 
 caught at every straw, and the dark probability 
 that we read in that ominous silence of the cable 
 advancing every day nearer to the deathly cer- 
 tainty ! What a week of horrors was that ! By 
 day and by night the little we could know 
 simply that first startling announcement reiter- 
 ated and the scene it presented was before our 
 minds. How we refused to admit the thought 
 that our loved ones, for they seemed our own, 
 dear as sister or daughter to us all, could have 
 clung through all those dismal hours to the iron 
 wreck, to be swept away by the remorseless 
 waves at last ! If such was that crisis of be- 
 reavement to us, what must it have been to him, 
 and to the stricken household, who shared with 
 him the terrible blow ! Then indeed did he 
 walk in the deep valley, and bow himself down 
 between the dark mountains. If we told him 
 what a treasure God had lent him for so long a 
 time he replied, " Ah, that is the treasure I 
 have lost ! The brighter you make it, the 
 greater . my loss." But there was no repining 
 there ! There was crushing grief. Sorrow that 
 made the world turn dark for a while. But 
 
48 
 
 rarely has a human spirit been chastened into a 
 diviner mood than came afterward upon him. I 
 shall never forget the impression that was left 
 upon my mind by his tender and moving ad- 
 dresses, from week to week, in our Friday even- 
 ing meetings. He did not on these occasions 
 rise from his seat; and he seemed like one who 
 contemplated uttering only a few words. But his 
 first thoughts drew on others, and he sometimes 
 continued on at considerable length, stirring our 
 hearts as if he had a message from heaven. 
 
 Thus did his terrible affliction work out the 
 peaceable fruits of righteousness. And thus did 
 he emerge from the shadow of his great calam- 
 ity. " Blessed are they that mourn, for they 
 shall be comforted." 
 
 "Grief may bide an evening guest, 
 
 But joy shall come with morning light." 
 
 Our honored friend passed into the evening 
 of life almost without knowing it. " If this is 
 what they call being eighty-six years old," said 
 he, at his last birthday reception, " I don't know 
 much about it." The energies of life were active 
 and strong, and the sense of vitality had suffered 
 no loss; his mental powers were bright and vig- 
 orous and clear. There were keen flashes of 
 
49 
 
 thought when he had become too weak for 
 much conversation, and ready, vivacious hits that 
 seemed like those of his best days. He seemed 
 not much concerned to know whether he was 
 Hkely to recover or not. It was indeed a won- 
 der to him that since he had neither disease nor 
 pain, he did not gain strength or recuperation 
 from the nourishment that was provided for him. 
 But the thought of what this all meant, or 
 whither it pointed, seems to have given him no 
 anxiety. He had done his forecasting in other 
 days, and preferred to go on, as in all his life, 
 not knowing what a day might bring forth. No 
 one cared to obtrude the fatal secret upon him, 
 knowing, as we all did, that with him it would 
 make no difference. He had nothing to settle 
 with the unseen powers. The accounts were 
 all made up. The eternal covenant was signed 
 and sealed with blood. And so the wheels sped 
 on to the end. As nature sank, the spirit rose; 
 and the city that hath foundations, and the 
 house not made with hands, eternal in the heav- 
 ens, we doubt not, have welcomed our dear and 
 honored friend to his long-promised inheritance. 
 
 How hard for us to take in the sad fact 
 sad for living friends who have known and loved 
 
50 
 
 him so well that the places that have known 
 him will know him no more. The earthly man- 
 sion that has so long been his home that 
 bright and hospitable home ; the court room 
 where he has for so many years rendered the 
 decisions of human justice this sanctuary in 
 which he was so constant and devout a wor- 
 shiper for so many years that seat where his 
 presence has been as a tower of strength in our 
 earthly Zion, and an encouragement and stimu- 
 lus to both pulpit and pew; his place at the 
 preparatory lecture and the communion table 
 all these places will know him no more. He is 
 not here. By the favor of a kind Providence he 
 has been with us long. He has fallen only thir- 
 teen years short of a century of life. His allot- 
 ted three-score and ten years have become nearly 
 four-score and ten ; and yet with almost no trace 
 of that gathering infirmity that is said to burden 
 these added years with distress and sorrow; he 
 came close up to the goal with such a measure 
 of strength, and with such royal command of his 
 faculties, that we may almost say, as was said of 
 Moses, his eye was not dim nor his natural force 
 abated. But his time had come to depart. The 
 Master called, and he has gone. Did he not 
 
SI 
 
 hear something like this as he neared the gates 
 on high, " Well done, good and faithful servant, 
 enter thou into the joy of thy Lord?" And 
 does not that same voice speak in the ears of 
 the stricken household and in the ears of this 
 household of faith, these words of consolation and 
 grace today : " Sorrow not as those who have 
 no hope; for if you believe that Jesus died and 
 rose again, even so them that sleep in Jesus 
 will God bring with him. Wherefore comfort 
 ye one another with these words." 
 
action of t!)e 3Sar 
 
 On occasion of the death of Judge Crosby, a meeting 
 of the Lowell Bar Association was held in the police court 
 room on the 12th of February, 1885, and was largely attended 
 by members of the Bar. 
 
 In calling the meeting to order, the President of the 
 Association [Mr. Bonney] made brief remarks, substantially 
 as follows : 
 
 Brethren of the Bar : Nathan Crosby, who for more 
 than forty-two years has been connected with this Bar, and 
 for thirty-nine years, as Standing Justice, has presided over 
 the police court of this city, having arrived at the great age 
 of eighty-seven years, and finished his work, has, in the 
 inevitable course of nature, passed from life. The news- 
 papers of today have related to the public the chief inci- 
 dents of his life, and they are too familiar to all of us to 
 require recitation now. This is not the occasion, nor is mine 
 the office, to pronounce a eulogy on his life or character 
 we are here for a different purpose but it is difficult to 
 wholly suppress the emotions with which the occasion fills 
 our hearts. 
 
 Judge Crosby sustained a closer and tenderer relation 
 to the members of this Bar than to any other portion of the 
 community, beyond the limits of his immediate family. I 
 
54 
 
 may properly say that to many of us his relations were 
 paternal ; before him, many of us tried our first cause, and 
 practically commenced our life-work; to all of us he was an 
 intimate and affectionate personal friend. This we all feel, 
 and all our memories of him are pleasant and grateful. 
 
 The duration of his judicial life is remarkable. Of all 
 the judges who were on the bench of this State or (so far 
 as I know) of this country when he commenced his judicial 
 career, not one survives him. In reviewing his long official 
 life, what reminiscences must have filled his mind and 
 what memories does this occasion bring to us of that long 
 roll of our brethren who began their professional life in 
 his court and under his administration, and (some of them 
 having arrived at eminence in the profession, many of them 
 at the average age of man) have passed from life before 
 him. 
 
 I knew Judge Crosby before his appointment to the 
 bench, and, though at the time a student, it happened that 
 the conduct of the justice court business of the office with 
 which I was connected had been committed to me, and I 
 tried causes before him, and had personal observance of him 
 during the entire period of his judicial life. There were 
 peculiar circumstances attending the commencement of his 
 judicial duties which rendered his position one of very great 
 difficulties and severe personal trials. The manner in which 
 he sustained himself in those days, and surmounted the 
 difficulties which encompassed him, won for him the respect 
 and admiration of the Bar, and, in my judgment, were the 
 greatest credit and triumph of his life. 
 
 The prominent traits of Judge Crosby were his great 
 conscientiousness, patience, urbanity, general impartiality, 
 
55 
 
 wonderful self-control, dignity, and absolute freedom from 
 malice and vindictiveness. I have observed him on many 
 occasions of great provocation, but I never saw him in 
 anger. I never saw the least indication that he harbored 
 malice or desire of revenge against any. He had a forgiving 
 spirit, and he freely forgave those that did him wrong. 
 There is a portion of the Lord's Prayer which we often 
 shudderingly hear uttered by men whose hearts we have rea- 
 son to know are filled with unforgiveness and revengeful 
 desires. I firmly believe that Judge Crosby might safely and 
 with propriety have prayed, " Lord, forgive me my trespasses 
 as I forgive those that trespass against me." 
 
 I have spoken of his affection for the members of this 
 Bar. I deem it fitting that I should relate that the last 
 time I saw Judge Crosby a few weeks ago at my own 
 house after he had finished the immediate purpose of his 
 call, he spoke of himself and his health, and expressed his 
 apprehension, in view of his advanced age, that, though him- 
 self unaware of the fact, his mental faculties might have 
 failed him to such extent that he had become a tax to 
 the patience of the Bar, and it was his duty to retire from 
 the bench. I assured him that I had observed and heard 
 nothing indicating such a state of things. He then took 
 occasion to express in warm and evidently heartfelt terms 
 his sense of obligation for the respect and great kindness 
 with which he was treated by the members of the Bar and 
 his love for them. He so expressed himself that it was 
 evident that his heart made no exception his affections 
 embraced every one of us. 
 
 Judge Crosby had passed the extreme age allotted to 
 man, and is taken from us when the purpose of his life was 
 
56 
 
 accomplished pursuant to the natural laws of transition by 
 which all mortality must pass away. To complain of this is 
 to rebel against nature and God. For his long, useful, and 
 pure life with us, we have great reason for congratulation 
 and thankfulness. 
 
 I beg you will pardon these unpremeditated remarks ; 
 we are called together at this time, not for eulogy, mourning, 
 nor mingling of tears, but for business to take such action 
 as shall seem best to enable us at a fitting time to manifest 
 our respect for the good and honored citizen and judge, our 
 beloved brother and friend, who has gone to his final rest. 
 
 Brethren of the Bar, the Chair awaits your pleasure. 
 
 The Hon. Daniel S. Richardson said he fully concurred 
 with the President in all his remarks upon the venerable 
 man who had just passed away, and moved that a committee 
 of seven be appointed by the Chair to draw up resolutions 
 to be presented at another meeting of the Bar, and after 
 receiving its approval, to be presented to the family of the 
 dead jurist. 
 
 The Chair appointed the following committee : D. S. 
 Richardson, J. N. Marshall, Jeremiah Crowley, John Davis, 
 C. S. Lilley, Jonathan Ladd, and George H. Stevens. 
 
 At a subsequent largely attended meeting of the Bar, 
 held in the court room on March 4, 1885, the following 
 resolutions were introduced by Hon. D. S. Richardson, 
 Chairman of the Committee, with a few eloquent, well- 
 chosen words of eulogy : 
 
 RESOLUTIONS. 
 
 Whereas, Nathan Crosby, the Standing Justice of the 
 Lowell Police Court, who was born February 12, 1798, died 
 
57 
 
 on Tuesday, the tenth day of February ultimo, and Whereas, 
 his long life among us, and his honorable career as a judge, 
 commencing May 19, 1846, and ending only with his life, 
 make his death the more impressive, and render it just that 
 the members of the Lowell Bar Association should in some 
 form pay an appropriate tribute to his memory, and express 
 fitting words of consolation for his family and relatives, 
 therefore : 
 
 Resolved^ That we bear testimony to the usefulness of 
 the deceased during his long judicial services, and to his 
 ability and patient industry and faithful discharge of his 
 official duties amidst all the perplexities inseparable from a 
 judicial position, and we express our acknowledgment of 
 his worth as a citizen, and of the value of the example 
 which his life furnished. 
 
 Resolved^ That his administration of justice in his court, 
 which had varied civil and criminal jurisdiction, extending 
 over a large community, gave general satisfaction, as coming 
 from a judge conscientious in the discharge of his duties, 
 and aiming to do right, and that if he made errors, they 
 were errors of judgment, to which all are liable, and which 
 he would have been glad to correct. 
 
 Resolved^ That we recognize and acknowledge his kindly 
 feelings towards the members of the Bar of this court, most 
 of whom now in the practice of the law commenced the 
 same after he took his seat on the bench, and received their 
 earliest professional experience and training in his court, and 
 whose progress and advance therein he looked upon with 
 parental regard. 
 
 Resolved^ That we tender to his family and relatives 
 our sympathies with them in their grief, and bear witness 
 
58 
 
 to the pleasant memories of his life-time, which surround 
 his name, and bring comfort to those who mourn for him. 
 
 Resolved, That these resolutions be presented to the 
 Lowell Police Court, with the request that they be entered 
 on the records thereof, at the close of the record of his 
 long judicial work, where they may remain as a grateful 
 acknowledgment on the part of the members of the Bar 
 of the value of his labors on the bench, and as the expres- 
 sion of our respect for the memory of an upright and con- 
 scientious lawyer and judge, and of a valued and honored 
 fellow-citizen. 
 
 The resolutions, before being read in open court, were 
 adopted by the Bar Association. 
 
 REMARKS BY D. HALL RICE, ESQ. 
 
 May it please the Court: Although I may fairly be 
 reckoned as among the younger members of the Bar, in com- 
 parison with those who knew Judge Crosby longest and best, 
 I feel that it is proper that I should contribute what I 
 can upon this occasion in expression of my respect and 
 regard for his character, as the presiding justice of this 
 court for many years. It is the pride and boast of our 
 legal fraternity, as well as the citizens at large of our Com- 
 monwealth, and justly too, that we have always possessed a 
 judiciary illustrious for learning and dignity, a judiciary 
 capable of tempering justice with mercy while maintaining 
 the integrity of our laws, a judiciary second to none in our 
 nation for the acumen and exhaustive comprehensiveness of 
 its decisions. Not only is this true of our higher but of our 
 lower courts, and among the names of those who have given 
 them this reputation, none has stood higher for many years, 
 
59 
 
 and none will be better remembered for many years to come 
 than that of Nathan Crosby. 
 
 I well remember, sir, the impression made upon my 
 mind, when sixteen years ago I first entered his court, and 
 commenced to practice my profession here before him. Com- 
 ing as I did from a Southern State, where I had already 
 commenced my profession, and having read law in the State 
 of New York, and being thus to some extent familiar with 
 the forms of judicial procedure in those courts, I was never- 
 theless impressed with the dignity which he maintained upon 
 the bench, with the patience with which he heard the causes 
 brought before him, and with the sterling common sense with 
 which, breaking through the maze of obscurity cast about the 
 vital points of the controversy by counsel and witnesses, he 
 so often arrived at the crucial questions which determined 
 his judgment. If we cannot say of Judge Crosby that we 
 believed him to have always decided rightly (and of what 
 judge could we truthfully say this ? ), we can at least say 
 what redounds far more to his credit, that he always decided 
 as he believed to be right, regardless of personal bias or 
 popular prejudice. Judge Crosby was first and foremost a 
 just judge. We always felt when before him that what he 
 desired most was to do that justice and fairness which is the 
 highest credit that we can give to the bench. Technical 
 pleas, unsupported by justice, stood little chance of favorable 
 consideration by him. Not that he disregarded those legal 
 maxims which have come down to us as the contribution of 
 the wisdom of successive ages in the form of established 
 law. To these he was always subservient. But there is a 
 capacity of the judicial mind to distinguish in their applica- 
 tion where the dictates of rigid legal forms end, and those 
 
6o 
 
 of equity begin, and this capacity Judge Crosby possessed 
 in an eminent degree. 
 
 When I come to his personal relations with this Bar, 
 and especially to speak of the interest he felt in the younger 
 members of it individually, how can I express the feelings of 
 gratitude which each one of us must have had towards him 
 living, and of reverence for his memory now that he is dead ? 
 He never forgot that he was once a young lawyer, and he 
 listened with all the more patience to us younger lawyers 
 when we came before him to plead a cause. He was always 
 anxious to show us that he took an active living interest in 
 the members of our profession, and I believe he always 
 rejoiced in our success. With always a kindly and genial 
 word to bestow upon us, even when he denied our request, 
 he brought home to us the truth that social and friendly 
 relations are always compatible with the earnest conflicts of 
 the legal forum, and so strengthened the bond of our associa- 
 tion when those conflicts were over. 
 
 When I am present at the opening of our courts in the 
 morning session, and hear those words that end the public 
 proclamation that justice shall be done, " God save the Com- 
 monwealth of Massachusetts," I feel that I can truly say that 
 it is by such judges as Nathan Crosby was, as the ministers 
 of that Providence which rules over all, that her laws are 
 preserved inviolate, and respected throughout her borders. 
 
 If it may not be said of him that he was among the 
 intellectual giants at the Bar or upon the bench, we can 
 still say, as we say of the oak that impresses us by its sym- 
 metry of form and vigorous growth, that he possessed a 
 sturdy symmetry of character, often wanting in more renowned 
 men. 
 
6i 
 
 Affectionate and eloquent tributes to the conscientious- 
 ness, urbanity, patience, and nice sense of judicial propriety 
 of the dead Judge were paid by the Hon. Charles Cowley, 
 Luther E. Shepherd, George H. Stevens, Martin L. Ham- 
 blett, F. W. Qua, Esquires, Hon. Jeremiah Crowley, and 
 others ; and Judge Hadley spoke as follows : 
 
 Gentlemen : The words of kindly eulogy and tender 
 remembrance which have been spoken by members of the 
 Bar in reference to the late venerable Standing Justice of 
 the court, and the resolutions presented, which embody in 
 appropriate language your estimate of his life and character, 
 meet my cordial approval. Having been for many years, as 
 you all know, intimately associated with Judge Crosby in the 
 performance of official duty in this court, I came to know 
 him well, and only to esteem and respect him. During these 
 years of official intercourse, covering more than a quarter 
 of a century, nothing ever occurred to disturb our intimate 
 relations, and not an unkind, unjust, or ungentle word was 
 ever exchanged between us. If we differed, it was with 
 the best of feeling, but with mutual respect. He was a very 
 dear and kind friend to me, and I am glad to testify to 
 his many acts of pure and disinterested friendship during 
 our long companionship. 
 
 Judge Crosby was a man of many noble and amiable 
 qualities. He was a man of high standards, and moved 
 upon an exalted plane of moral action. He was a man of 
 pure and honest instincts, and our community is better 
 today for his long life of Christian work and example 
 among us. For nearly thirty-nine years he performed judi- 
 cial service in this court, seldom absent, except for a few 
 days on account of slight illness or a brief visit. In the 
 
62 
 
 discharge of these duties, he was, I believe, so far as it 
 was possible for a man to be so, humane, conscientious, 
 incorruptible, and just. 
 
 Where his duty, as he saw it, called him, there he was 
 sure to be found. Reared in what would perhaps in these 
 days be called an austere school of morals, he was bold, 
 earnest, and aggressive in his denunciation of what he 
 deemed wrong and injurious to the welfare of his fellow- 
 men, and at the same time he was by no means narrow 
 or illiberal. A kinder hearted, a more truly sympathetic 
 man I never knew. His heart was always warm with a 
 generous philanthropy. He felt keenly for the poor unfor- 
 tunate ones who were daily brought before him the vic- 
 tims of inherited or acquired appetite, heirs of transmitted 
 sorrows, born of poverty and neglect, without kindly nurture 
 or the sweet influences of home, and he has many times 
 said to me how deeply it grieved him to do his duty by 
 them, for he felt that the blame was not theirs alone. He 
 was a good example of the well-bred Christian gentleman. 
 He had a dignity of manner, a gentlemanly bearing, a 
 kindly presence, which never deserted him, and which always 
 inspired respect. However much one might differ with him 
 in his reasoning and conclusions in cases tried before him, 
 or expressed in his published appeals on moral subjects, 
 you could not but feel that he was honest, pure, and con- 
 scientious. 
 
 I hardly think that many of us who were accustomed 
 to see him in his place on this bench, fully realized how 
 much of this world's momentous history post-dated the birth 
 of our venerable friend. Born in 1798, the middle-aged men 
 and women who were about him in his boyhood and youth, 
 
63 
 
 were active participants in the great events which gave free- 
 dom to these States, and established the republican gov- 
 ernment under which we live. To them the victories of 
 Saratoga and Yorktown were as recent events as those 
 of Antietam and Gettysburg are to the middle-aged men of 
 today. In 1798, with few exceptions, most of the great 
 statesmen and commanders of the Revolution were still liv- 
 ing. Washington was passing the last year of his grand life 
 in quiet retirement at Mt. Vernon. George III was still 
 King of England. Bonaparte had but just began his career 
 of conquest. Marengo, Jena, Austerlitz, and Hohenlinden 
 indeed most of the great Napoleonic struggles, so 
 familiar in our reading, were events of the then future. 
 The year of his birth Nelson won the battle of the Nile; 
 but the crowning glory of Trafalgar was not achieved. Our 
 venerable friend had beheld the growth and development 
 of our country from feeble, debt-burdened commonwealths, 
 just emerging from a terrible conflict for independence, and 
 entering upon national life with a population wasted by war 
 and disease, to a great, splendid, and populous empire of 
 freemen, including a magnificent domain extending from 
 ocean to ocean. 
 
 Madame de Stael has said, "It is difficult to grow old 
 gracefully." Judge Crosby did not find it so, for surely 
 nothing could exceed the charming ease and pleasant grace 
 with which he assumed the burden of an added year. He 
 always entered on a new twelvemonth with happy cheer 
 and almost youthful anticipation. He was by nature a man, 
 as Wordsworth has said, "of cheerful yesterdays and con- 
 fident tomorrows." 
 
 He was a man of a kind and forgiving spirit, bearing 
 
64 
 
 no malice, and harboring no resentments. His was also a 
 generous and hospitable nature, and no man felt a deeper 
 interest than he in plans for the alleviation of the distresses 
 of poverty and the moral improvement of mankind. Feeling 
 great interest in these subjects, he did what he could with 
 his pen for their advancement and success. That he wrote 
 truthfully, earnestly, and fearlessly this community will 
 attest. 
 
 Having reached an age exceeding by many years the 
 allotted life of man, and being prepared by the consolations 
 and assurances of a Christian faith for the great change, 
 he peacefully passed away. He will be long remembered 
 in this community as an upright magistrate and a useful 
 and patriotic citizen.