On the road with Salmon P Chase
Recently I paid a visit to the birthplace of Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court (1864-1873) Salmon P Chase in Cornish, New Hampshire, a National Historical Landmark.
Cornish at the time of Chase's birth in 1808 was already a self-contained community situated almost in the middle of New Hampshire's western border. Cornish profited as a farming community with the ability to transport its resources by route of the Connecticut River to the more settled areas of Massachusetts, Connecticut and New York.
Chase's family was a tightly knit group that counted amoung the many uncles, lawyers, clergymen and physicans. Chase owned his name(which he disliked) to one of his uncles, Salmon, who had been a lawyer in Portland, Maine1.
This fireplace is in the room where Chase was born in 1808.
Here in this small plain church, the Trinty Church in Cornish, Salmon's uncle, Philander Chase the Episcopal Bishop of Ohio preached. In the cemetery next to the church, not more then a mile from the Chase house, many members of the Chase family rest.
Sprague Mansion in Cranston, Rhode Island, was the home of Chase's son-in-law Governor William Sprague of Rhode Island. Before Sprague became know as the husband of Kate Chase.
Canonchet The Home of Kate and William Sprague, Chief Justice Chase spent summers here in this Narragansett, RI mansion. It burned to the ground in 1901.
Last summer we made a stop at the Supreme Court Building in Washington, DC. Although Chase never presided in this building he is remembered in the foyer along with the other Chief Justices with a marble bust.
The men of Abraham Lincoln's War Cabinet
To get to the Chase house on Route 12a, you have to drive over the longest covered bridge in the United States. The Cornish-Windsor Bridge
The Chase house
More of the Chase House
Inside the Chase House
Saint-Gaudens National Historic Site in Cornish
The President, Statue in Lincoln Park, Chicago By sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens. Unveiled October 22,1887.
References
Niven, John, ‘Salmon P. Chase, A Biography', Copyright 1995 Oxford University Press New York
Wade, Hugh Mason, 'A brief History of Cornish, 1763-1974," Moses Chase, Newbury, Massachusetts