Nathaniel B. Baker
Nathaniel Bradley Baker was an American politician and military leader who served as Governor of New Hampshire and Adjutant General of the Iowa Militia. Nathaniel B. Baker was born in Henniker, New Hampshire on September 29, 1818, raised in West Concord. Nathaniel Baker graduated from Phillips Exeter Academy in Harvard University, he studied law under Franklin Pierce, Asa Fowler and Charles H. Peaslee and passed the bar in 1842. Baker was a co-owner of the New Hampshire Patriot. A Democrat, he served as Clerk of the Merrimack County Court of Common Pleas in 1845; the following year he became Merrimack County Clerk. Baker was active in the New Hampshire Militia, serving as Quartermaster and Adjutant of the 11th Regiment, he subsequently served as Aide-de-Camp to Governor John H. Steele with the rank of Colonel. In 1851, Baker assumed the position of Chief Fire Engineer for Concord's Fire Department, he served in the New Hampshire House of Representatives in 1850 and 1851, was elected Speaker of the House.
In 1852 he was a Presidential Elector, cast his ballot for Franklin Pierce and William R. King. From 1854 to 1859 Baker was a trustee of Norwich University, he received an honorary master of arts degree from Norwich in 1855. In 1854 he was elected governor and served a single one-year term, June 6, 1854 to June 7, 1855. During his term the legislature failed to pass resolutions condemning the Missouri Compromise and the Kansas–Nebraska Act, evidence that New Hampshire was trending away from the Democratic Pierce and Baker and becoming antislavery, he was an unsuccessful candidate for reelection in 1855. After Baker's term as governor, he moved to Clinton, where he continued to practice law, he was elected to the Iowa House of Representatives in 1859 as a Democrat. His antislavery views caused him to join the Republican Party. Baker's work as chairman of the Iowa House's Military Affairs Committee at the start of the American Civil War led to his appointment as adjutant general of the Iowa Militia, he served until his death.
By now a resident of Des Moines, during the war he was praised for his efforts to recruit and train soldiers for front line regiments, to keep track of their service records, including enlistments, wounds and discharges. In addition, at the end of the war, Baker was credited with acquiring from returning Iowa units captured Confederate regimental flags and other memorabilia, arranging to have it preserved. In 1874 Baker took part in an effort to combat a massive grasshopper infestation in Northwestern Iowa, exposing himself out of doors in harsh weather including sleet and high winds, his health began to decline as a result, Baker died in Des Moines on September 11, 1876. He was buried at Woodland Cemetery in Des Moines. Colbert, Matthew M.. General Nathaniel B. Baker and the grasshopper plagues in northwest Iowa, 1873–1875. Iowa State University. Retrieved February 14, 2013. Baker at New Hampshire's Division of Historic Resources Nathaniel B. Baker at National Governors Association Nathaniel B. Baker at Find a Grave
United States
The United States of America known as the United States or America, is a country composed of 50 states, a federal district, five major self-governing territories, various possessions. At 3.8 million square miles, the United States is the world's third or fourth largest country by total area and is smaller than the entire continent of Europe's 3.9 million square miles. With a population of over 327 million people, the U. S. is the third most populous country. The capital is Washington, D. C. and the largest city by population is New York City. Forty-eight states and the capital's federal district are contiguous in North America between Canada and Mexico; the State of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east and across the Bering Strait from Russia to the west. The State of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean; the U. S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean Sea, stretching across nine official time zones. The diverse geography and wildlife of the United States make it one of the world's 17 megadiverse countries.
Paleo-Indians migrated from Siberia to the North American mainland at least 12,000 years ago. European colonization began in the 16th century; the United States emerged from the thirteen British colonies established along the East Coast. Numerous disputes between Great Britain and the colonies following the French and Indian War led to the American Revolution, which began in 1775, the subsequent Declaration of Independence in 1776; the war ended in 1783 with the United States becoming the first country to gain independence from a European power. The current constitution was adopted in 1788, with the first ten amendments, collectively named the Bill of Rights, being ratified in 1791 to guarantee many fundamental civil liberties; the United States embarked on a vigorous expansion across North America throughout the 19th century, acquiring new territories, displacing Native American tribes, admitting new states until it spanned the continent by 1848. During the second half of the 19th century, the Civil War led to the abolition of slavery.
By the end of the century, the United States had extended into the Pacific Ocean, its economy, driven in large part by the Industrial Revolution, began to soar. The Spanish–American War and World War I confirmed the country's status as a global military power; the United States emerged from World War II as a global superpower, the first country to develop nuclear weapons, the only country to use them in warfare, a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council. Sweeping civil rights legislation, notably the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the Fair Housing Act of 1968, outlawed discrimination based on race or color. During the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union competed in the Space Race, culminating with the 1969 U. S. Moon landing; the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the United States as the world's sole superpower. The United States is the world's oldest surviving federation, it is a representative democracy.
The United States is a founding member of the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization of American States, other international organizations. The United States is a developed country, with the world's largest economy by nominal GDP and second-largest economy by PPP, accounting for a quarter of global GDP; the U. S. economy is post-industrial, characterized by the dominance of services and knowledge-based activities, although the manufacturing sector remains the second-largest in the world. The United States is the world's largest importer and the second largest exporter of goods, by value. Although its population is only 4.3% of the world total, the U. S. holds 31% of the total wealth in the world, the largest share of global wealth concentrated in a single country. Despite wide income and wealth disparities, the United States continues to rank high in measures of socioeconomic performance, including average wage, human development, per capita GDP, worker productivity.
The United States is the foremost military power in the world, making up a third of global military spending, is a leading political and scientific force internationally. In 1507, the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller produced a world map on which he named the lands of the Western Hemisphere America in honor of the Italian explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci; the first documentary evidence of the phrase "United States of America" is from a letter dated January 2, 1776, written by Stephen Moylan, Esq. to George Washington's aide-de-camp and Muster-Master General of the Continental Army, Lt. Col. Joseph Reed. Moylan expressed his wish to go "with full and ample powers from the United States of America to Spain" to seek assistance in the revolutionary war effort; the first known publication of the phrase "United States of America" was in an anonymous essay in The Virginia Gazette newspaper in Williamsburg, Virginia, on April 6, 1776. The second draft of the Articles of Confederation, prepared by John Dickinson and completed by June 17, 1776, at the latest, declared "The name of this Confederation shall be the'United States of America'".
The final version of the Articles sent to the states for ratification in late 1777 contains the sentence "The Stile of this Confederacy shall be'The United States of America'". In June 1776, Thomas Jefferson wrote the phrase "UNITED STATES OF AMERICA" in all capitalized letters in the headline of his "original Rough draught" of the Declaration of Independence; this draft of the document did not surface unti
John Sullivan (general)
John Sullivan was an Irish-American General in the Revolutionary War, a delegate in the Continental Congress, Governor of New Hampshire and a United States federal judge. Sullivan, the third son of American settlers, served as a major general in the Continental Army and as Governor of New Hampshire, he commanded the Sullivan Expedition in 1779, a scorched earth campaign against the Iroquois towns that had taken up arms against the American revolutionaries. As a member of Congress, Sullivan worked with the French Ambassador to the US, the Chevalier de la Luzerne. Born in Somersworth in the Province of New Hampshire, Sullivan was the third son of Irish settlers from the Beara Peninsula in County Cork. One of his brothers, James Sullivan, became Governor of Massachusetts. Another brother, who served in the Royal Navy died before the American Revolution. A landing party from HMS Allegiance on February 14, 1781 kidnapped another brother, Captain David Sullivan, who died of disease; the father, John Owen O'Sullivan was the son of Philip O'Sullivan of Beare of Ardea, minor gentry in Penal Ireland and a scion of the O'Sullivan Beare Clan, Ardea Castle line.
The Penal Laws reduced them to the status of peasants. After emigrating to York, Maine, in 1723, the elder John became a Protestant. In 1760, Sullivan married Lydia Remick Worster of Kittery, now in Maine. John and Lydia Sullivan had six children, who died in infancy, John, James and another Margery, who lived only two years. Sullivan read law with Samuel Livermore of Portsmouth, New Hampshire between 1758 and 1760, he began the practice of law in 1763 at Berwick, now in Maine, continued in the practice when he moved to Durham, New Hampshire in 1764. He annoyed many neighbors in his early career, when he was the only lawyer in town, with numerous suits over foreclosures and was threatened with violence at least twice in 1766, but by 1772, he was established and began work to improve his relations with the community. He expanded his interests into milling from which he made a substantial income. In 1773 Alexander Scammell joined John Sullivan's law practice. Sullivan built a friendship with the royal governor of New Hampshire, John Wentworth, who had assumed the office in 1767.
In November 1772, Wentworth appointed Sullivan a major in the militia. As the American Revolution grew nearer, Sullivan turned away from Wentworth and began to side more with the radicals. On May 28, 1773, at the urging of the Virginia House of Burgesses, the New Hampshire Assembly established a Committee of Correspondence. Hoping to thwart the committee, Wentworth adjourned the Assembly the next day. On December 16, 1773, colonists in Massachusetts destroyed tea worth 15,000 pounds at the Boston Tea Party to protest taxes under the Tea Act; the British Parliament responded with the Boston Port Act, effective March 21, 1774, which closed the Port of Boston until restitution for the destroyed tea was made to the East India Company. Parliament went on to pass the Massachusetts Government Act, which removed many functions of government from local control, the Quartering Act, which permitted quartering of troops in towns where there was disorder, the Quebec Act, which established the Catholic religion and French civil law in that province.
Wentworth called a new Assembly, which began meeting on April 7, 1774. On May 13, news of the Boston Port Act reached the Assembly. On May 27, the Assembly provided for only five men and an officer to guard Fort William and Mary at Portsmouth harbor. A new committee of correspondence was selected the next day. By the time Wentworth dissolved the Assembly on June 8, 1774 in an unsuccessful effort to prevent the Assembly from sending delegates to a continental congress, Sullivan was in favor of supporting the Massachusetts radicals. In response to Wentworth's action dismissing the Assembly and the call for a continental congress to support Boston after the British sanctions against it, on July 21, 1774 the first Provincial Congress of New Hampshire met at Exeter, New Hampshire, with John Sullivan as Durham's delegate; that assembly sent Nathaniel Folsom as delegates to the First Continental Congress. The assembly adopted a Declaration of Rights and Grievances on October 14, 1774. By November 8, Sullivan and Folsom were back in New Hampshire to work for acceptance of the Declaration and the Association of the colonies to support economic measures to achieve their objectives.
On October 19, 1774, a royal order in council prohibited the export of powder and arms to America and Lord Dartmouth secretly wrote to the colonial governors to secure gunpowder and ammunition in the provinces. After Paul Revere was sent by the Massachusetts committee to warn the Portsmouth militia of a rumored British movement toward Fort William and Mary, that militia raided the fort and seized gunpowder on December 14, 1774. Sullivan, not present on this first raid, was one of the leaders of the militia force who made the second raid on the fort for its cannon and munitions on December 15. Sullivan and his men took 16 cannons, about 60 muskets and other stores but were prevented from returning for other cannon and supplies by the arrival of the man-of-war Canceaux, followed two days by the frigate Scarborough. Wentworth refrained from seeking to arrest Sullivan and others because he thought he had little popular support and the militia would not act. In January 1775, a second Provincial Congress at Exeter voted to send Sullivan and John Langdon to the Second Continental Congress.
Sullivan, supported by Folsom and Langdon, persuaded the assembly to petition Wentworth to call a New Hampshire Assembly that he would not dissolve. Wentworth responded by dis
New Hampshire Supreme Court
The New Hampshire Supreme Court is the supreme court of the U. S. state of New Hampshire and sole appellate court of the state. The Supreme Court is seated in Concord; the Court is composed of a Chief Justice and four Associate Justices appointed by the Governor and Executive Council to serve during "good behavior" until retirement or the age of seventy. The senior member of the Court is able to specially assign lower-court judges, as well as retired justices, to fill vacancies on the Court; the Supreme Court is the administrative authority over the state's judicial system. The Court has both discretionary appellate jurisdiction. In 2000, the Court created a "Three Judges Expedited" or 3JX panel to issue decisions in cases of less precedential value, with its decision only binding on the present case. In 2004, the court began accepting all appeals from the trial courts for the first time in 25 years. From 1776 to 1876, the four-member court was known as the "Superior Court of Judicature," until the name was changed by an act of the New Hampshire General Court.
In 1901, the number of justices was increased from four to five. Two Supreme Court justices have been the only two state officials to be impeached in New Hampshire: Justice Langdon resigned prior to his trial in 1790, Chief Justice David Brock was acquitted by the New Hampshire Senate in 2000. Retired Associate Justice David Souter of the Supreme Court of the United States served on the New Hampshire Supreme Court from 1983 to 1990; the Colony of New Hampshire adopted the temporary 1776 Constitution. The newly formed legislature abolished the existing executive courts made up of the governor and council, established the "Superior Court of Judicature" as the appellate court with four justices; the Court follows the common law and since Tomson v. Ward has published official law reports of its precedential opinions. In 1876, an act was passed creating the "Supreme Court" as New Hampshire’s highest court. In 1901, the legislature established two courts to take the place of the existing Supreme Court.
Jurisdiction over "law terms" during which court decisions were appealed, was given to the Supreme Court, made up of a chief justice and four associate justices. Matters handled at "trial terms" were given to the Superior Court; the advantage was a separate appeals court. In 1966, the state constitution was amended to establish the Supreme Court and Superior Court as constitutional courts, which means that they could only be changed or abolished by a constitutional amendment, not by the legislature. In 1971, the General Court established by statute a "Unified Court System," making the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court responsible for the efficient operation of all the courts in New Hampshire; the law stated the Supreme Court Chief Justice will have the advice and consent of the Chief Justice of the Superior Court. It required both to seek cooperation from others interested in the administration of justice including other justices and judges, court clerks, the court accreditation committee, the state and local bar associations, the judicial council.
The 24-member Judicial Council is an ongoing, independent forum for consideration and discussion of issues involving the administration of justice. In 1978, New Hampshire voters approved the addition of Part II, Article 73-a, a constitution amendment to the constitution making the Chief Justice the administrative head of the court and giving the Judicial Branch greater control over itself. In 1983, the General Courts consolidated funding for all the state courts into the state's biennial budget; this abolished the prior practice of the superior and probate courts funded by the counties and the district courts by the cities and towns in which they were located. The Office of Administrative Services, now known as the Administrative Office of the Courts, was established; the office consolidated functions such as personnel, accounting and budgeting into one central office for the Judicial Branch. In May 2000, the Supreme Court announced the creation of a new Judicial Conduct Commission that would be independent of the court system and have its own staff, office space, funding.
The Judicial Conduct Commission took the place of the prior Judicial Conduct Committee, which the court had created in 1977. In 2004, RSA Chapter 494-A came into effect codified the JCC as being independent of the New Hampshire court system and other branches of government; the legislature left the rules the JCC intact, except where they contradicted the RSA Chapter 494-A. The Supreme Court took an appeal, Petition of the Judicial Conduct Commission, from the JCC that RSA chapter 494-A was unconstitutional because it purported to authorize the JCC to impose disciplinary action on judges; the court ruled that the legislature had violated the separation of powers doctrine by encroaching on the power of the Supreme Court to regulate the conduct of the judiciary, by giving such power to the commission. The court hears a variety of cases, most of which are either mandatory or discretionary appeals from the lower courts. In January 2004, the court began accepting all appeals from the trial court for the first time in 25 years.
Below, fiscal year caseload statistics are shown for the Family Divisions, District Courts, Probate Courts and the Superior Courts in the 2003 and 2004 fiscal years show this change. The Supreme Court has jurisdiction to review appeals from the State trial courts and from many State administrative agencies. For many years, the Court did not accept every appeal from the lower courts. In 2003, the court only accepted 40 percent of the appeals. In January 2004, the Supreme Court institut
John Hardy Steele
John Hardy Steele served as Governor of New Hampshire from 1844 to 1846. John H. Steele was born in Salisbury, North Carolina on January 4, 1789, his mother, Elizabeth Taylor, was unmarried. His father, John Steele was married to another woman, was the father of several children with his wife; as a result of the circumstances of his parentage and the early death of his mother, John Hardy Steele was raised by his maternal grandfather, Absalom Taylor. Steele was educated in Salisbury, at age 14 was apprenticed as a cabinetmaker and chair maker. At age 22 Steele settled in Fayetteville, where he worked at his trade for Nathaniel Morrison, a native of Peterborough, New Hampshire. Morrison was impressed with Steele's mechanical aptitude, asked Steele to accompany him to New Hampshire to establish a textile manufacturing business. Steele designed and constructed the spinning mules and looms for Morrison's mills, one of, the first to weave cotton cloth by waterpower. In 1824 Steele joined several partners to establish the Union Manufacturing Company, a cloth production factory which operated with Steele as manager.
A Democrat in a town, predominantly Whig in its politics, Steele was popular enough to win election to the New Hampshire House of Representatives in 1829. He declined reelection, declined an 1831 nomination for a seat in the New Hampshire State Senate. From 1830 to 1838 Steele served as Peterborough's Town Meeting Moderator. Steele was active in the New Hampshire Militia, attained the rank of Colonel as aide-de-camp to Governor Matthew Harvey. In 1840 Steele won election to the Executive Council of New Hampshire, he was reelected in 1841. Steele was elected Governor in 1844, reelected in 1845, his term was marked by the creation of a state railroad commission. In addition, Steele provided letters of introduction to James Knox Polk and members of Polk's cabinet for his friend Jesse Carter Little, a Mormon pioneer who sought government assistance to enable the Mormons to begin settling in Utah. After leaving office Steele retired to a farm, where he conducted experiments in animal husbandry and other scientific agriculture techniques.
He was President of the Peterborough Savings Bank. He served as a Selectman in 1846, in 1850 he was a delegate to New Hampshire's constitutional convention. Steele was buried in the Village Cemetery. Biography at New Hampshire Historical Resources John Hardy Steele at Find a Grave John Hardy Steele at National Governors Association
Samuel Dinsmoor
Samuel Dinsmoor was an American teacher, lawyer and politician from New Hampshire. He served as the fourteenth Governor of New Hampshire and as a member of the United States House of Representatives. Born in 1766 in Windham in the Province of New Hampshire, Dinsmoor was the son of William and Elizabeth Dinsmoor, he graduated from Dartmouth College in 1789, worked as a teacher, studied law and was admitted to the bar. He established a law practice in Keene, New Hampshire, where he was appointed as Postmaster in 1808, he was the infantry commander. Elected as a Democratic-Republican, Dinsmoor represented New Hampshire in the United States House of Representatives during the Twelfth Congress, serving from March 4, 1811 to March 3, 1813. Dinsmoor was an 1820 presidential elector, served on New Hampshire Governor's Council in 1821, he was a commission member that negotiated and established the boundary line between Massachusetts and New Hampshire in 1825. He served as state court judge in New Hampshire from 1823 to 1831.
Securing the Democratic gubernatorial nomination, Dinsmoor was elected Governor by a popular vote in 1831. He was reelected to a second term in 1832, to a third term in 1833, serving from 1831–1834. During his tenure, new manufacturing businesses were incorporated and banks flourished, the first free public library in the United States was established in Peterborough. During his governorship, he made the first official recommendation to establish a state asylum for the insane to remove the insane from prisons and cages. In 1838, a bill for the establishment of an asylum was passed by the state, he retired from political life and entered the private sector, serving as the first president of the Ashuelot Bank in Keene. He served in that position until his death. Dinsmoor died in Keene, Cheshire County, New Hampshire, on March 15, 1835, he is interred at Washington Street Cemetery in New Hampshire. Dinsmoor was the grandson of Robert and Margaret Dinsmoor who settled in Nutfield in 1723. In 1798, he married daughter of General George Reid and Molly Reid.
His son was Jr. the 22nd Governor of New Hampshire. United States Congress. "Samuel Dinsmoor". Biographical Directory of the United States Congress. Samuel Dinsmoor at Find a Grave National Governors Association profile
