HON. DANIEL MARCY.
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��inclination for a sea-faring life, always strong in the family, could not be over- come, and the following year found him engaged on board a vessel bound to Demarara, in the West Indies, under Capt. Sheafe. From this time until 1831 he followed the sea, in the coasting and West India service, the larger portion of the time, but remaining at home in Portsmouth a few months each year for several years to attend school, Mr. Wil- liam Harris, a popular and successful teacher of those days, being his instruc- tor.
In 1831, being theu twenty-one years of age, Mr. Marcy went to New Orleans, where he engaged in the service of Messrs. R. D. Shepard and Judah Truro, two wealthy residents of that city, large- ly interested in shipping and commerce. He engaged as shipmaster in the foreign trade, and remained in their employ, in continuous service as shipmaster, for a period of eleven years. In 1842 he en- tered into an arrangement with his em- ployers, Messrs. Shepard and Truro, and his brother Peter, for the building of a ship at Portsmouth, all taking an inter- est in the vessel, and he came to Ports- mouth to superintend its construction. When it was completed, he took com- mand of the ship for its first voyage.
This arrangement, by which a ship was built at Portsmouth each year under Capt. Marcy's supervision, and its first voyage made under his command, con- tinued until 1851, when Messrs. Shepard and Truro withdrew from business. Capt. Marcy, however, in company with his brother Peter, inducing citizens of Portsmouth to share in each venture, continued his 'operations in the ship- building line until the outbreak of the rebellion, the consequences of which were fatal to the ship- building interest, and almost totally destructive to Ameri- can commerce. He made his last voyage as master of a vessel in 1852, in which year he built the ship Franklin Pierce. This final voyage was from Portsmouth to New Orleans, from there to Liverpool with a cargo of cotton, and return to New York With eight hundred and fifty emigrant passengers. From that time Capt. Marcy remained mostly at home in
��Portsmouth, although frequently called to the South through his business asso- ciations with his brother at New Or- leans.
In the spring of 1854, when in New York on his return from a Southern trip, he received intelligence of his election to the Legislature of his native State, an honor which he had never sought or ex- pected, for although an ardent Demo- crat, with decided political convictions, he had taken no part in active politics. He accepted the position, however, and attended faithfully to his duties as a ser- vant of the public, acquitting himself so acceptably as to be continued in legisla- tive service for several successive years, first in the House, and then for two years in the Senate. In 1861 he received the nomination of the Democracy of the First Congressional District for Representa- tive to Congress, but was defeated by Gen. Marston of Exeter, the Republican candidate. At the next election, in March, 1863, Gen. Marston being then in service in the field, and Joel Eastman of Conway the Republican candidate, Capt. Marcy, who was again the candidate of the Democracy, was elected, and served as a member of the Thirty-Eighth Con- gress, performing honorable service for his district and State and the country at large.
The country was then in the midst of civil war, and while vast appropriations were necessary for the support of the army and the maintenance of the govern- ment in the contest with rebellion, nu- merous schemes were on foot for plun- dering the public treasury and robbing the people. All these schemes met the determined opposition of Capt. Marcy, but he never failed to give his vote for all necessary appropriations for the army and the public service. It was during his term that the measure by which the government surrendered its first mort- gage upon the Union Pacific Railroad came up in Congress. This measure, which paved the way for the " Credit Mobilier " fraud, whose exposure so startled the country a few years subse- quently, he opposed with his vote and influence at every stage, although acting with a small minority of the members.
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