tag="{http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml}a">Addresses—Sermons—Reminiscences—Views of Contemporaries.

XXIII. Reflections.

MEMOIR.

CHAPTER I.

BIRTH AND ANCESTRY.

In so young a world as America, it has been held unsuitable for persons to spend much time in the tracing of pedigree, or to found important claims on family descent; nor can it accord less with the common sense of mankind than with the republican genius of the world, to say, that every genuine claim to human esteem is founded in character. In this is rooted every quality that can, of right, command the reverence of man. But, as character is not exactly isolated and independent of ancestral fountains, from which the innate impulses, capacity, and tendency to good and evil have flown, the subject of ancestry justly belongs to the history of every man's mind and life. Our ancestors flow in our veins. We retain them more or less in our characters always, so that the great stress which different countries have put upon this theme, rests on other than artificial and ostentatious reasons. In nature, below man, the various circuits and orders of being do nothing more than to repeat ancestral forms and habits, to which the sweet rose, the eagle, and the strong-armed oak, are perpetual witnesses; and though man, by his God-like faculty of will is lifted out, in a great measure, from this necessity, he is so far a derivation from the past, that he ought to be seen in his connections with it. We therefore introduce the subject of Mr. Badger's ancestry as the chief part of the first chapter of this book.

Joseph Badger, the subject of this memoir, was a native of Gilmanton, Strafford county, New Hampshire, born August 16th, 1792. From an early manuscript of his I copy the following lines:—

Among his ancestors, there can be no doubt, that he most resembled, in mind and body, the venerable man whose name he bore. The personal form of Gen. Joseph Badger, as described in history, in which he is represented as nearly six feet in stature, somewhat corpulent, light and fair in complexion, and of dignified manners, answers most aptly to the subject of this memoir; nor is the correspondence less perfect, when his mental qualities of foresight, order, firmness, tact, and generosity are considered. "As a military man," says the faithful pen of history, "General Badger was commanding in his person, well skilled in the science of military tactics, expert as an officer, and courageous and faithful in the performance of every trust. With him order was law, rights were most sacred, and the discharge of duty was never to be neglected."

Hundreds, into whose hands this volume will fall, will never forget the promptness and the courageous efficiency with which Rev. Joseph Badger met every public duty, and every great emergency; and though his field was the ministry, and his soldierly skill that which referred to the Cross, none who ever knew him can cease to remember the ready, natural, and commanding generalship by which his entire action and influence in the world were distinguished. He did not float with the wave of circumstance, but carefully laid out his labors into system, always having a purpose and a plan; and not unfrequently did his active energy and position in life, amidst many difficulties, remind one of a campaign. No mind, acting in the same sphere, was ever more productive in ways and means. Though a clergyman, he was a general, and one, we should say, of no common tact and skill.

His father, Major Peaslee Badger, with whom the writer of this memoir was acquainted, was a man of strong mental powers, quick perceptions, and of great vivacity. The quality last named, for which the subject of these biographical sketches was so generally distinguished, is readily traceable to his father; and the same remark in regard to quickness of perception might also apply, but for the fact that the mind of the son was more intuitive, and that he possessed both the qualities spoken of in a greater degree. Joseph Badger, though at heart deeply imbued with the solemnity and importance of all that belongs to the Gospel of human salvation, was no anchorite in spirit, no desponding meditator on man or his lot; he wore no formalities of a pretending sanctity. He had the good fortune never to have lost his naturalness; and I think I never saw one in whose nature was treasured a greater fulness of social life. It was apparent that Major Badger had a memory that was strong even in advanced years; that he was a general reader, and had reflected very independently; that, though capable of tender emotions and kindness of heart, the intellect had pretty full ascendency over his sympathetic nature; and that, in social feeling, in affection, in fineness of nature, and in general sympathy, his son possessed the richer inheritance.

His mother was a Christian, and judging from her letters, was an affectionate woman, of good plain sense, and rich in sympathy and maternal care. Father, mother and son are now in the spiritual world.[1]

As there are several public men wearing the family name of Badger, and as there are different branches of the same original family that in an early day exchanged their home in England for the then comparative wilderness of New Hampshire and Massachusetts, in obedience to the spirit of adventure that drew, in those times, the most earnest and enterprising persons to the New World, I have thought it proper briefly to present the lineage of Rev. Joseph Badger from the settlement of the first family of this name in Massachusetts; in doing which I shall not rely on uncertain tradition, but on the published history of Gilmanton, N. H., and on the Memoir of Hon. Joseph Badger, both of which are now before me. From these authorities it appears that the Badger family is of English origin, that its founder was Giles Badger,