Daniel Webster Peabody

(1836-1879)
New Hampshire & Tennessee

"Daniel W. Peabody was born in Gilead, March 11, 1836. His parents were John Tarbell and Mercy Ingalis (Burbank) Peabody. The family removed to Gorham, N.H., as pioneers in an almost unsettled township. The few inhabitants early sought for their children the advantages of education. The rude school-house, which served also as the place of religious worship, was to the subject of this sketch like a sacred temple. He was a precocious scholar, and while a mere boy entertained his associates with many poetical effusions. This talent was greatly stimulated by a bright school-boy friend, who often competed with him in poetic contests. He fitted for college at the Gould's and Fryeburg Academies, and graduated at Dartmouth College in the class of 1859. He was selected as the Class Poet for the class day exercises at commencement. After reading law with his uncle, Judge Robert I. Burbank, of Boston, and attending for a time the Cambridge Law School, he was admitted to the bar in Boston, Nov. 26, 1862. He was a year later appointed to a clerkship in the Department of the Interior at Washington, and subsequently promoted to be Examiner of Pensions. He removed to Nashville, Tenn., soon after the close of the Civil War, and commenced the practice of his profession. He was City Attorney for Nashville for the years 1868 and 1869. Gov. Brownlow appointed him Circuit Judge in that State, but he declined the appointment, and became Collector of U.S. Internal Revenue, May 1, 1869. This office he resigned to accept that of Assistant U.S. District Attorney. He was one of the Presidential Electors of the State of Tennessee in 1868, and aided by his vote the election of Gen. Grant for his first term as President. He married Miss Mary H. Saltmarsh, daughter of Dr. Stephen Saltmarsh, of Lexington, Mass. They had two children, Henry Ernest, and Mary Leslie. He died at Augusta, Me., April 15, 1879, from paralysis of the heart."

[George Bancroft Griffith (ed.), The Poets of Maine 549 (Portland, Maine, Elwell, Pickard & Co., 1888)]