Submarinus Girard Norcross (1834-1888)

From the Conway Daily Sun, August 26, 2011.

  New Year's Eve is upon us, and, as per the custom first established in 2013, the year's final posting is dedicated to an especially odd-named political figure. With six previous installments of '" Strangest Name of the Year" to reflect on, this year's honoree, with his rather nautical-sounding first name, is more than worthy of that title: Submarinus Girard Norcross of Conway, New Hampshire! A native of Maine, Norcross was a clergyman who held pastorates in several states and for the last sixteen years of his life resided in Conway, New Hampshire, where he had a considerable impact through religious work and education. Despite not being a political office seeker, Norcross earns a place here on the site due to his service as a delegate from New Hampshire to the Republican National Convention of 1880.

   The eighth of nine children born to Leonard and Deborah (Nelson) Norcross, Submarinus Girard Norcross's birth occurred in Dixfield, Maine on January 21, 1834. When compared to other unusual 19th-century names featured here, the name Submarinus rests as a true U.F.O., and this bizarre first name may leave you with several questions, including "Why a first name that sounds like submarine?", "what possessed his parents to give him this name?", and "what did Norcross himself think of it?" 

  The answer behind Norcross's unwieldy first name can be found in his 1888 Poultney, Vermont Journal obituary. The father of our subject, Leonard Norcross (1798-1864), was a church deacon and inventor who in June 1834 received a patent for what would later be acknowledged as "the first fully enclosed diving suit." This inventive diving apparatus pioneered the use of elastic Indian rubber and was successfully tested without injury or fatality on the Webb River in Maine earlier in 1834. So proud was Leonard Norcross of his invention that he bestowed the name Submarinus upon his most recent child, with the Journal later relating that:

"He received his deep sounding name from the submarine dress which his father had patented the year of his son's birth."

   History doesn't record Norcross's own feelings in regards to his name, except note of his preferring to write his name as "S. Girard". The name's spelling is recorded as ending in both "-nus" and "-nas". Of these spellings, the former looks to be the correct one, as Norcross is recorded under that name by multiple sources, including the 1850 census, the 1889 General Conference of the Congregational Churches in Maine, and his 1888 Poultney Journal obituary.

  S. Girard Norcross obtained his early education at various academies in his native Maine, studying at Farmington, Bloomfield and Lewiston Falls. He briefly followed a teaching career at the last two academies and was called to the ministry in 1854 at age 20. After a two-year period of attending lectures at Harvard, Norcross returned to Maine and was licensed to preach in July 1858. Following graduation from the Bangor Theological Seminary in 1859, Norcross was ordained as a "colleague pastor" in South Bridgeton, where he remained until May 1861. On August 25, 1861, Norcross married Turner, Maine native Clara Elizabeth Cary (1836-1889), to whom he was wed until his death. The couple would remain childless. 

  After leaving his pastorate at South Bridgeton Norcross briefly resided in Florence, Alabama, where he held a pastorate in late 1861-62, and later returned to teaching, and from 1862-63 taught in Saxonville, Massachusetts. This was followed by a five year (1863-68) stint teaching at academies in Sewickley and Wilkinsburg, Pennsylvania, and in 1869 returned to the ministry when he accepted a pastorate in Caledonia County, Vermont.

  Norcross and his wife resided and worked in McIndoes Falls, Vermont until 1872, and in June of that year removed to Conway, New Hampshire, where he accepted the pastorate of that town's Congregationalist Church. He would hold the pastorate until his death and beginning in June 1873 held an additional pastorate in North Conway. Norcross's long pastorate saw him oversee multiple additions to the church at Conway, and through his "urgent recommendation", a second church was constructed and completed for Conway in 1886, the Second Congregational Church. Norcross and his wife also proved influential in local education, and in addition to his time as supervisor of schools for Conway taught school at both the Conway Academy and a school under their own supervision.

  In 1880 Norcross made his lone foray into politics when he was elected as an alternate delegate from Conway to that year's Republican National Convention that was to be held in Chicago. One of twenty members of the New Hampshire delegation, Norcross saw congressman James Garfield and Chester A. Arthur of New York nominated as the party standard-bearers.

From the 1880 Republican Convention proceedings.

  Following his service as a delegate, Norcross returned to his pastorate in Conway and in 1886 was a delegate from New Hampshire's Stafford Conference to the National Council of the Congregational Churches of the United States held in Chicago. In 1887 he took ill and in February of that year retired from the pastorate of the Second Congregational Church in Conway. Through 1887-88 Norcross's health failed to improve and on September 16, 1888, he died of consumption in North Conway, aged 54. Clara Norcross survived her husband by less than a year, dying on June 16, 1889. Both were interred at the North Conway Cemetery under a headstone denoting both's devotion to "the cause of education in Conway."

From the Poultney, Vermont Journal, October 5, 1888.

  

Yorick Gordon Hurd (1827-1888)

From Duane Hurd's History of Essex County, Massachusetts, Vol. 1, 1888.

   "Alas, Poor Yorick! I knew him Horatio; a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy; he hath born me on his back a thousand times, and now how abhorred in my imagination it is!" 

   Those famed lines from Shakespeare's Hamlet in which the titular character expounds on the memory of the long-dead court jester have been misquoted for centuries as "Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him well." While even the most casual readers of Shakespeare know of this often misquoted phrase, you'd probably never guess that there was a man named Yorick (born two hundred years after the publishing of Shakespeare's play) who would go on to distinction as a physician, military surgeon and two-term Massachusetts state senator. That man is one Yorick Gordon Hurd of the town of Ipswich, and in addition to the aforementioned posts also gained distinction as a penologist, serving as the director of the Essex County House of Correction and Insane Asylum at Ipswich.

   One of seven children born to Col. Smith and Mehitable Emerson Hurd, Yorick Gordon Hurd was a native of New Hampshire, being born in the town of Lempster on February 17, 1827. His education occurred in "district schools" near Lempster, and during the winter months, he taught school as a means of income. Hurd would also engage in farm work during his youth, eventually enrolling at the Hancock Literary and Scientific Institute. He decided upon a career in medicine during this time and later began his study under Dr. Albert Smith, a Dartmouth medical professor and prominent physician in Peterborough, New Hampshire. Hurd would continue his studies at both the Vermont Medical College and Dartmouth College, graduating from the latter school in the class of 1854. Hurd had married a year earlier in May 1853 to Mary Twitchell, who died five years after their marriage in October 1858. He would remarry in 1861 to Ruth Brown, who predeceased him by two months. Both of these marriages were childless, but notice is given as to Yorick and Ruth's adoption of a daughter, (name given as Josephine) who later married Mr. H.K. Dodge of Ipswich.

  After receiving his medical degree Yorick G. Hurd relocated from New Hampshire to Amesbury, Massachusetts, where he established a medical practice. He continued to tend to patients in Amesbury until the second year of the Civil War, and in 1862 joined in the war effort, being dispatched to Wenham, Massachusetts, where he served as a surgeon at Camp Lander for a period of two months. In December 1862 Hurd was transferred to the 48th Regiment Massachusetts Volunteers and as surgeon went with this regiment to New Orleans, during his time here was later detached from his regiment and "placed in charge of division hospitals", on the order of Gen. Christopher Auger (then commander of the First Division of the Nineteenth Army Corps.)

   Yorick Hurd returned home to Essex County, Massachusetts after his service and soon after returned to the practice of medicine. Touted upon his return as having been "the best regimental surgeon in the division" during his service, the call of public office soon beckoned to Hurd, and in 1865 won his first term in the Massachusetts State Senate, representing the town of Amesbury. During this session of the legislature, Hurd served on the senate committees on Public and Charitable Institutions and the sub-committee on the Subject of Hospitals for Invalid Soldiers. Hurd was returned to the Senate in 1866 and his second term saw him hold a seat on the committee on the Library, Sanitary Necessities, and Public and Charitable Institutions.

   While still an incumbent senator Yorick Hurd was tapped to be the Superintendent of the Essex County House of Correction and Insane Asylum, located in Ipswich, Massachusetts. As a practicing physician, Hurd used his extensive medical knowledge in developing a manner of care for the inmates under his watch, and the History of Essex County Massachusetts devoted a substantial passage to Hurd's stewardship of the asylum, noting:

"Immediately upon the assumption of the duties of the responsible position as superintendent of the house of correction he instituted such reforms in its management as secured a state of quiet and good order among those placed in his charge as had never been known in the previous history of the institution, which by his even tempered management he was able to preserve so long as the institution was under his supervision."

   Hurd's time as superintendent also saw him gain distinction as a "consulting authority" on the management and care of the mentally disturbed, and is recorded as being "called in the courts as an expert in insane cases."
  From 1866-1887 Yorick Hurd had charge of the Essex County House of Correction, and during this lengthy period also earned distinction in several other non-medical areas, including serving as a trustee for the Ipswich Savings Bank. He was also a past director of the Ipswich Gas and Light Company. Hurd retired from the superintendency of the House of Correction in 1887 and in the year following his retirement suffered the death of his wife Ruth, who died July 26, 1888.  Yorick followed her to the grave two months later, dying at age 61 on September 24. A burial location for both Yorick Hurd and his wife is unknown at this time but is presumed to be somewhere in the Ipswich, Massachusetts area.   

Downer Tenny Bramble (1833-1888)

Portrait from Morton's Illustrated History of Nebraska, Vol. I, 1911.

    A pioneer citizen and politician in both the Nebraska and North Dakota Territories, Downer Tenny Bramble was originally born in Hartland, Vermont on February 28, 1833, the son of Charles Francis and Matilda Bramble. Downer attended school in his hometown of Hartland, Vermont, and eventually removed to Nashville, Tennessee at age 17. Shortly after he arrived in Nashville, Bramble began work in a drug store with his brothers George and Gilman, who had both migrated to Tennessee some years previously. Downer and his brothers relocated to New Orleans a short time later and there operated a general merchandise store.

  Throughout the late 1850s, Bramble continued to be on the move, settling in Iowa and finally in Nebraska in 1858. He opened a grocery store in the town of Ponca and also married his first wife here, Lucinda Brown. Their marriage lasted but a short time, with Lucinda dying of an undisclosed illness that same year. Despite the loss of his wife, Bramble ran for and was elected to the Nebraska Territorial Legislature in 1858, representing the county of Cedar. During his short tenure in the legislature, Bramble earned lasting notoriety by introducing legislation that brought about the formation of Dixon County in November 1858.

   In the following year, Bramble removed yet again, this time settling in Yankton,  Dakota Territory, and here established a general merchandise store under the title Bramble, Miner and Company, and operated this store for over 25 years. In addition to this business, Bramble received an appointment as Yankton's first postmaster and later operated a freight line that transported goods into the Montana and Idaho territories.

   While Bramble's professional and business career continued to expand, he was also an active participant in territorial political circles. He was elected to his first term in the Dakota Territorial Council in 1861 and was returned to this office in 1862 and 1873. He would also serve a one-year term in the Territorial House of Representatives in 1866, representing Yankton County. As far as political faith was concerned, the History of Dakota Territory, Volume 4 (authored by George W. Kingsbury) notes that Bramble

 "Gave unfaltering allegiance to the democratic party and always worked faithfully for the furtherance of all true democratic principles, feeling that within the party platform were found the best elements of good government."

   Several years after the death of his first wife Lucinda, Downer T. Bramble remarried to Yankton resident Virginia Van Der Hule in May 1865. Two sons were born to this couple, Harry Jesse (born 1867) and Frank Litchfield (1871-1966). Virginia Bramble is recorded as surviving her husband by nearly twenty years, dying in 1906 at age 67.

   Bramble continued in public service during his later years, receiving an appointment as Register of the Land Office in Watertown, South Dakota under President Cleveland. The earlier mentioned History of Dakota Territory also notes that Bramble was an active Mason as well as a member of the Yankton Episcopal Church. He died in Watertown on October 9, 1888, and was laid to rest in the Yankton City Cemetery in Yankton, South Dakota.