Page:The Granite Monthly Volume 9.djvu/208

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186
Hon. Thomas Cogswell.

man of integrity and business capacity, and was a devoted and efficient member of the church. He married January 31, 1740, Judith Badger, daughter of Joseph and Hannah (Peaslee) Badger. Mrs. Cogswell was the only surviving daughter of her father, who was a merchant of Haverhill. She was born February 3, 1724, and died May 7, 1810. After a successful business life, Mr. Cogswell retired in 1766, and settled upon a farm in Atkinson, New Hampshire. He at once became active in religious and educational matters in the town. During the Revolutionary War his patriotism was declared by large loans of money to provide equipments and provisions for the soldiers. These loans of money, by reason of a depreciated currency, proved almost a total loss. Besides providing money Mr. Cogswell gave eight sons to the army who served with distinction and fulfilled an aggregate term of service of more than thirty-eight years. The aggregate height of these eight brothers was about fifty feet. They all survived the war and became prominent in professional and civil life. Mr. Cogswell died March 23, 1783.

V. Dr. William Cogswell, son of Nathaniel and Judith (Badger) Cogswell, was born July 11, 1760, in Haverhill, Massachusetts. At the breaking out of the Revolution he entered the army at the age of fifteen years, enlisting in the company commanded by his older brother, Captain Thomas Cogswell, in Colonel Baldwin's regiment. He served through the year 1776. For the next year he studied medicine and surgery with Dr. Nathaniel Peabody, at Atkinson. In 1778 he served with General Sullivan in Rhode Island. Having completed his medical studies he was appointed, July 19, 1781, surgeon's mate in the Military Hospital at West Point. January 5, 1784, he was promoted to the position of surgeon-in-chief of the hospital, and chief medical officer of the United States Army, June 20, 1784. Dr. Cogswell resigned September 1, 1785, after five years' service, married, and settled in Atkinson, where he continued in the practice of his profession until his death, nearly half a century later. He was one of the original members of the New Hampshire Medical Society, which was incorporated in 1791, and was appointed one of its nineteen Fellows by the General Court. Many medical students were under his instruction. He was one of the founders of Atkinson Academy, and a member and President of its Board of Trustees for many years. He gave the land on which the Academy was erected. He married, July 22, 1786, Judith Badger, daughter of General Joseph and Hannah (Pearson) Badger, of Gilmanton. She was born May 15, 1766, and died September 30, 1859. Dr. Cogswell died January 1, 1831, leaving behind him a distinguished family of children. One of his daughters was the wife of Governor William Badger.

VI. Honorable Thomas Cogswell, son of Dr. William and Judith (Badger) Cogswell, and father of Honorable Thomas Cogswell, of Gilmanton, the subject of this sketch, was born December 7, 1798, in Atkinson. He married, February 25, 1820, Mary Noyes, daughter of James and Mary (Weston) Noyes, and settled and resided in Gilmanton until his death, nearly fifty years later. He was an extensive farmer, owning the homestead of his maternal grandfather, General Joseph Badger, which he increased to one thousand acres. He was a man of great influ-