Page:Sketches of representative women of New England.djvu/151

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REPRESENTATIVE WOMEN OF NEW ENGLAND

Mount Vernon Lodge of Masons; the Royal Arch Chapter; the Middlesex Club; the Loyal Legion of Massachusetts; the Kernwood Club, of Maiden; and of Major-general H. G. Berry Post, No. 40, G. A. R., of that city. He served as Assistant Quartermaster-general of the Department of Massachusetts, G. A. R., and often attended as a delegate the National Encampments. For many years he was a member of the Boston Chamber of Commerce, and for three terms was president of the Boston Wholesale Grocers' Association.

For two years he represented Maiden in the lower branch of the State Legislature. His last political service was as a delegate in the Republican Congressional Convention at Lynn in October, 1896.

Colonel Barker was a leading member of the Universalist Church in Maiden, and was for many years superintendent of its Sunday-school. To the interests of the Soldiers' Home he was sincerely devoted, and was treasurer of its Board of Trustees at the time of his death, December 17, 1896.

The Woman's Relief Corps lost one of its earliest and most earnest friends by the death of Colonel Barker. It was he who framed the first resolution ever presented in a department encampment of the Grand Army of the Republic, endorsing a State Relief Corps.

The death of Mrs. Barker occurred less than a year after her husband's passing. Memorial services were held by corps throughout the country, posts of the Grand Army joining in these tributes to her memory. Her portrait has been placed in department headquarters in Boston.

The home in Maiden of Colonel and Mrs. Barker welcomed prominent guests from many States. One room was devoted to relics, among them a jewelled sword, presented to the Colonel by the officers of his regiment; his commission as military governor of Danville, Va.; a bolt from Libby Prison, in which he was confined several months; and hanging on the walls of the room was the engrossed testimonial, above named, which she cherished as a valuable souvenir.

Colonel and Mrs. Barker are survived by two daughters and one son—namely, Florence, Blanche, and William E. The last named is in business in Boston, and resides at Maiden. The daughters are married, and their home is in Kentucky.


LAVINA ALLEN HATCH. — On June 19, 1819, occurred the marriage of Isaac Hatch, Jr., and Lavina Allen. During the ceremony a heavy thunder-storm prevailed, but later the moon came out. In its pleasant light the young couple rode the four miles from the home of the bride to a large house on a pleasant site in the east part of the town of Pembroke, where they were to begin their life work together. Opposite the house was the pond that furnished power for the woollen-mill where the young man, five years before, at the age of seventeen, had commenced his business career as a manufacturer of kerseymere.

Mr. Hatch, known as Isaac, Jr., was the fourth of his name in direct line, and was of the seventh generation of his family in New England. William1 Hatch, his earliest known ancestor, a native of Sandwich, England, came to this country in 1633 or a little earlier, and in March, 1635, settled in Scituate, with his wife Jane and five children. His son Walter2 was the father of Samuel,3 born in 1653, whose son Isaac4 was born in Scituate in 1687. Isaac settled in Pembroke, Mass. His son Isaac,5 born in 1717, was the father of Isaac,6 born in 1764. Isaac7 (Isaac, Jr.), son of Isaac,6 was born in 1796.

His wife Lavina came from the Allen family of Dover, Mass., but was born in Bowdoinham, Me., her father, Hezekiah Allen, having moved there and engaged in ship-building. Lavina Allen was sent to Roxbury, Mass., at the age of twelve, to continue her studies, and after leaving school she made her home in the family of an uncle, the Rev. Morrill Allen, settled over the First Parish (now Unitarian) of Pembroke. A few years of school-'teaching with the low wages of that period followed, and then, at the age of twenty-two, she became, as narrated above, the wife of a woollen manufacturer. Industry and economy were the rule of the household. The record shows the births of