Joshua Atherton

Joshua Atherton (June 20, 1737 – April 3, 1809),[1] was a lawyer and early anti-slavery campaigner[2] in Massachusetts and New Hampshire.[3][4][5]

Early life and education

He was the son of Col. Peter Atherton[6] and Experience Wright. Atherton attended local schools in Worcester County and was tutored by the clergy. He was brought up to be farmer and was expected to follow his father’s footsteps and enter the lucrative blacksmithing trade. However Atherton was a sickly boy and was not considered suited to heavy labor. Instead he sought an education, he tutored younger children in order to pay towards college, running a local school in order to save for the tuition fees.

At the age of 21, Atherton went on to study law under James Putnam at Harvard College, graduating in 1762.[7]

Career

He opened his first law practice in Petersham, Massachusetts, in 1765. Atherton was also a teacher at the time. Atherton then decided to move to New Hampshire, moving to Litchfield, then settled in Merrimack where he established a law practice from 1765 to 1773.[7][8] He moved to Amherst, New Hampshire, became a farmer and was elected as the Register of Probate in Hillsborough County in 1773. He spent the remainder of his life in Amherst.[7]

Notable events

American Revolution

New Hampshire was one of the thirteen colonies that rebelled against British rule during the American Revolution. Atherton at first joined the opponents to British rule, but refused to join the local Sons of Liberty,[7] a secret revolutionary organization created to advance the rights of the colonists and fight taxation by the British government. Atherton then tried to remain neutral during the Revolution, believing the colonists could not win a war with England.[9] The community was offended by his stance and had him arrested in 1777, jailing him in nearby Exeter, New Hampshire.[7][lower-alpha 1] As a result, he was fired from his position as register of probate and justice of the peace, and he resumed farming.[7]

After taking an oath of allegiance to the new state of New Hampshire in 1779, Atherton started practicing law again. In 1782, he became the leader of the Amherst committee to help draft a state constitution. The next year, as a member of the New Hampshire state constitutional convention, he helped revise state laws, advocated for a bill of rights for citizens, and fought to settle former Loyalist land claims.[7]

Major speech at convention

In 1787 he was elected as a delegate to the convention in New Hampshire to ratify the federal constitution. He worked hard to defeat its ratification unless certain amendments were adopted. Atherton claimed it was poorly written; he insisted on a bill of rights[11] to protect private beliefs and actions, and also defended the rights of town and state government against a too strong centralized government.[7][10]

In February 1788, Atherton delivered a major speech in opposition to Article 1, Section 9, Clause 1, of the proposed constitution.[12] The focal point of his speech was about the evils of slavery. Atherton asserted that the southern states had made him a "partaker in the sin and guilt of this abominable" traffic in the buying and selling of slaves, and that the "clause has not secured its abolition". He argued that "we will not lend the aid of our ratification to this cruel and inhumane merchandise, not even for a day".[7] Atherton continued on with a vivid description of the conditions of slavery, proclaiming:

Parents are taken, and children left; or possibly they may be so fortunate as to have a whole family taken and carried off together by these relentless robbers. What must be their feelings in the hands of their new and arbitrary masters? Dragged at once from every thing they held dear to them—stripped of every comfort of life, like beasts of prey—they are hurried on a loathsome and distressing voyage to the coast of Africa, or some other quarter of the globe, where the greatest price may await them; and here, if any thing can be added to their miseries, comes on the heart-breaking scene! A parent is sold to one, a son to another, and a daughter to a third! Brother is cleft from brother, sister from sister, and parents from their darling offspring! Broken with every distress that human nature can feel, and bedewed with tears of anguish, they are dragged into the last stage of depression and slavery, never, never to behold the faces of one another again![13]

He voted against its adoption, on instructions from the town.[14] The state finally ratified the constitution on June 21, 1788, [7][10] with 57-47 in flavor. John Langton immediately wrote to George Washington to inform him that New Hampshire had become the ninth state which he described as the “Key Stone in the Great Arch. Atherton, who campaigned against ratification gracefully accepted the result and stated “It’s adopted. Let’s try it”.[15]

As a staunch anti-federalist he wrote to John Lamb on June 23, 1788.[16]

Public office

In 1791, Atherton was once again elected as justice of the peace, and was a member of the convention in Concord that drafted the new state constitution, revising the previous one of 1783. From 1792 to 1793, he was a member of the state senate, and after his resignation in 1793 from the senate, he was elected state attorney general that same year.[7]

In 1798, he was elected commissioner of Hillsborough County. In 1803 he retired because of a heart ailment.

Other interests

After his retirement, he helped establish the Franklin Society in Amherst, a library dedicated to historical events that changed the state.

Personal life

He married Abigail Goss, the daughter of a Congregational Minister in 1765.[7]

His son Charles Humphrey Atherton, was a lawyer, banker and politician from New Hampshire who served as a United States Representative from New Hampshire and as a member of the New Hampshire House of Representatives during the early 1800s. He published his fathers’ memoirs.

His daughter Mary Frances Atherton married William Gordon, a New Hampshire politician.

Family

His father, Col. Peter Atherton was a blacksmith by trade, a farmer, magistrate. He also served in the Massachusetts Colonial Militia, then seen as a political position, rising to the rank of Colonel. The law in Massachusetts required all able men to keep a firearm and volunteer in the citizen army known as the militia. However the militia would fight alongside the British soldiers engaging the threats resulting from the French and Indian War during the mid-1700s.[17] He went onto serve for a number of years as a member of the General Court, where he died in Jun 13th, 1764.

Atherton’s younger brother Dr. Israel Atherton[18] (b. Nov 20th, 1741, died 1822), studied Medicine in Harvard College.

Death

He died of heart disease on April 3, 1809.[7] and is buried in Amherst Cemetery.[19]

Descendants

His grandson Charles Gordon Atherton was a Democratic Representative and Senator from New Hampshire. He was responsible for composing the gag rule of December 1838, known as the “Atherton Gag”, which stifled any petitions relating to slavery. In 1844 the House rescinded this gag rule on a motion made by John Quincy Adams. Whatever his reasons, Joshua Atherton, as an early ardent anti-slavery campaigner would have objected to this rule.[20][21][22][23]

Ancestry

Atherton was named after his grandfather; Joshua Atherton (b. May 13th, 1656, d. 1721) was a soldier in King Philip's War, under Captain Daniel Henchman (1623-1685) of Boston. He returned to Lancaster in 1687, settling at Still River, Massachusetts, then part of Lancaster, where he was a farmer and tanner.

His great-grandfather James Atherton (d. 1710), arrived from England in the 1630s, and went to serve under Captain John Whiting’s Company. He went on to become one of the founders of Lancaster, MA. He died in Sherborn, Massachusetts, and is buried at the Old South Cemetery in Sherborn.[24]

He has been incorrectly attributed as a descendant of Humphrey Atherton within certain notable sources.[25]

His great-grandfather on his maternal line was Samuel Wardwell, a carpenter, was who was charged with witchcraft in 1692, and was hung at Witch Hill, in Andover, Massachusetts.[26]

Notes
  1. According to the Bar Association of the State of New Hampshire c.(1905), "a writ was issued, in 1777, for his arrest, but it appears he was not arrested."[10]

References
  1. Herringshaw, Thomas William (1909). Herringshaw's National Library of American Biography. p. 165.
  2. Patrick Hanks, ed. (8 May 2003). Dictionary of American Family Names: 3-Volume Set. ISBN 9780195081374.
  3. Means, Anne Middleton (1921). "A complete chronology of the life of Joshua Atherton". Amherst and Our Family Tree. Retrieved January 14, 2020.
  4. "Memoir of the Hon. Joshua Atherton". HathiTrust Digital Library. Retrieved January 14, 2020.
  5. Wilson, James Grant; Fiske, John (1888). "Appleton's Cyclopaedia of American Biography, Volume 1".
  6. "Atherton ONS entry for Colonel Peter Atherton". Atherton One Name Study.
  7. Wakelyn, Jon L. (2004). Birth of the Bill of Rights: Biographies. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 7. ISBN 978-0-313-33194-7.
  8. "Guide to the Atherton Family Papers, 1772-1852" (PDF). New Hampshire Historical Society.
  9. Anne M. Means (1921). "Amherst and our family tree".
  10. Bar Association of the State of New Hampshire (1905). Proceedings of the Bar Association of the State of New Hampshire at Its Annual Meeting. Rumford Printing Company. pp. 229–230.
  11. Wakelyn, Jon L (2004). Birth of the Bill of Rights: Biographies. ISBN 9780313331947.
  12. Natelson, Rob (May 6, 2018). "New information on the Constitution's ratification - Part II: New Hampshire". Independence Institute.
  13. "Article 1, Section 9, Clause 1: Joshua Atherton, New Hampshire Ratifying Convention". uchicago.edu.
  14. "Joshua Atherton campaigned against the proposed Constitution for a New Nation, June, 6". Nashua Telegraph. 1988.
  15. "A New Constitution for a New Nation, June, 6". Nashua Telegraph. 1988.
  16. "Letter to John Lamb from Joshua Atherton. Part of the John Lamb papers" (PDF).
  17. Stedman, Nourse (1889). The Military Annals of Lancaster, Massachusetts. 1740-1865: Including Lists ...
  18. "Dr Israel Atherton - History of Lancaster (fully digitized and searchable)".
  19. "Find my grave - Joshua Atherton".
  20. Atherton, Charles Humphrey; Atherton, Joshua (1852). Memoir of the Hon. Joshua Atherton. Crosby, Nichols. p. 3. ISBN 9780608434889.
  21. Atherton, Charles H. (2015). Memoir: Of the Hon. Joshua Atherton. Forgotten Books. ISBN 978-1-331-49787-5.
  22. Willard, Joseph (1826). Topographical and Historical Sketches of the Town of Lancaster, in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts: Furnished for the Worcester Magazine and Historical Journal. C. Griffin. p. 85.
  23. Bell, Charles Henry (1893). "Descendants of Joshua Atherton". The Bench and Bar of New Hampshire including biographical notices... by Charles H Bell. Retrieved January 14, 2020.
  24. "Atherton One Name Study - Entry for Joshua Atherton".
  25. Patrick Hanks, ed. (8 May 2003). Dictionary of American Family Names: 3-Volume Set. ISBN 9780195081374.
  26. "The Register of the Society of Colonial Wars in the State of California". 1906. Retrieved January 16, 2020. Refers to Experience Atherton’s blood relation Samuel Wardwell executed for witchcraft
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