Hon. Edwin Gamage Eastman Biography from History of Rockingham County, New Hampshire
From: Betsy Webber - betsy@megalink.net

Surname: EASTMAN
Source:  History of Rockingham County, New Hampshire and Representative Citizens
          by Charles A. Hazlett, Richmond-Arnold Publishing Co., Chicago, Ill., 1915

Page 1107

     HON. EDWIN GAMAGE EASTMAN, attorney-general of New Hamp-
shire from 1892 until February, 1912, ranks high among the leaders of his
state by reason of his faithful and efficient performance of official duty, his
notable success in the practice of his profession and his prominence as a
public spirited citizen. Of New Hampshire birth, education and life-long
residence, Mr. Eastman has been closely identified with the legal and political
history of his state since early manhood and his name will meet very fre-
quently the eye of any student of Granite State annals for the past three
decades.
     
     General Eastman' s first American ancestor was Roger Eastman, born in
Wales in 1611, who came across the water in 1638 and settled in Salisbury,
Mass. Among his descendants in the seventh generation was Rev. William
Henry Eastman, for more than half a century a New Hampshire clergy-
man, who married in Grantham, Pauline Sibley Winter. Their only child,
the subject of this sketch, was born in Grantham, November 22, 1847. He
always has cherished warm affection for his native town, and there, upon one
of the state's fine farms, he spends a large part of every year.
     He was educated in the public schools, at Kimball Union Academy,
Meriden, and at Dartmouth College. "Working his way" through prepara-
tory school and college, General Eastman earned his education by hard toil
and in the face of discouraging obstacles, But, as has been the case with so
many others of our leaders, this experience was of the greatest value to him
in that it formed his character at the same time that it trained his mind and
brought him to the threshold of his life work a man of determined purpose
and well-poised judgment as well as of academic learning and culture,
     No Dartmouth class ever gave more distinguished lawyers to the world
than did the class of 1874, its roll including, besides General Eastman such
names as those of Chief Justice Frank N, Parsons of New Hampshire, Chief
Justice John A. Aiken of Massachusetts, Congressman Samuel W. McCall,
former Congressman Samuel L. Powers, General Frank S. Streeter of the
International Boundary Commission, and many others, It is needless to say
that General Eastman is proud of his class and his college and that they, in
turn, are proud of him.
     After leaving college Mr. Eastman read law at Bath with Hon. Alonzo
P. Carpenter, afterward justice and chief justice of the supreme court of the

Page 1108 

state, and was admitted to the bar in 1876. The same year witnessed the
formal opening of both his legal and political careers, for he represented his
native town of Grantham in the legislature of 1876. On September 22d of
the same centennial year he took up his residence in Exeter and there began
the practice of law in the office of the late General Gilman Marston, one of
the strongest men in New Hampshire history. General Marston was so well
pleased with his young associate that in 1878 he entered with him into a
partnership which continued until the death of the senior member of the firm
in 1890. It was recognized as one of the ablest combinations at the New
Hampshire bar and its success was immediate and continuous.
     After the death of General Marston, Mr. Eastman formed the new firm
of Eastman, Young & O'Neill, the second member being Judge John E. Young,
now of the state supreme bench. This partnership was dissolved in 1898 and
for several years General Eastman and Henry F. Hollis, Esq., of Concord,
joined in practice as Eastman & Hollis, with offices at Exeter and Concord.
In 1902 the firm of Eastman, Scammon & Gardner was formed and still
continues, the partners with General Eastman being Hon. John Scammon,
former president of the state senate, and Perley Gardner, Esq.
     From the beginning of his legal career Mr. Eastman's private practice
had been large and lucrative. His thorough knowledge of the law and native
good sense, combined with a wide and deserved reputation for ability and
integrity have made him the favored counsellor of a large circle of clients.
Always slow in advising litigation, when once a case has been entered upon
he devotes to it the careful analysis of his keen and well trained mind.
Patient and persevering in establishing the facts and the law bearing upon
the points at issue, he marshals them logically and impressively, building up
a case in which his opponent seeks in vain for flaws in method or error in
authority. From his first experience as an advocate the sincerity of his
manner has proved as great an asset for Mr. Eastman in winning cases as
the direct simplicity of his style and the convincing clearness of his language
and argument. General Eastman is never at a disadvantage before a New
Hampshire jury. Its members look upon him as a man after their own heart
and believe that he believes in his own case. At the same time Mr. Eastman
has the respect of the judges before whom he practices, having so often
thoroughly proved the soundness of his theories of the law and the breadth
and depth of its application. Nor have occasions been lacking when these
qualities of his stood the test of the appeal of cases, in which he has been
interested, to the highest tribunal, the Supreme Court of the United States
at Washington.
     Because of the demands which public service has made upon him General
Eastman bas felt constrained to refuse to extend his private practice in certain
profitable directions, a standard which has been appreciated by his fellow
members of the bar and by the public in general.
     His first period of such public service was a solicitor of Rockingham
county from 1883 to 1888, and it was so marked with successful conduct of
the office that when Attorney-General Daniel Barnard died in 1892 it was
deemed very natural that Governor Hiram A. Tuttle should place at the head
of the state's legal department Edwin G. Eastman of Exeter. That appoint-
ment, then well received, has been amply justified in the score of years that
have elapsed, during which, by successive reappointments, Mr. Eastman has
continued to hold his high office.
     The list of men who have held the high office of attorney-general of

Page 1109

New Hampshire is a notable one: Samuel Livermore, Wyseman Claggett,
John Sullivan, John Prentice, Joshua Atherton, William Gordon, Jeremiah
Mason, George Sullivan, Samuel Bell, William K. Atkinson, Daniel French,
Charles F. Gove, Lyman B. Walker, John S. Wells, the younger John Sulli-
van, William C. Clark, Lewis W. Clarke, Mason W. Tappan, Daniel Barnard
and Edwin G. Eastman, a score in all from 1778 to 1911, and the last name
upon the list fully worthy to stand with the others.
     Naturally, during his long service as attorney-general, Mr. Eastman has
conducted many famous and important cases, the mere mention of which
would overrun the limits of this article. The perpetrators of many murders
and other high crimes against the person have been punished justly through
his instrumentality; and numerous civil cases of the highest importance have
come within his jurisdiction, including those popularly known as the "oleo-
margerine" case; the Percy Summer Club case, establishing the rights of
the people in the public waters of the state; the railroad and express rate
cases; the railroad tax cases, etc.
     One thing that shows General Eastman's standing in his profession is the
fact that for twenty years he has been a member, by appointment of the
Supreme Court, of the State Board of Bar Examiners, having charge of the
examination and admission of candidates to practice law in New Hampshire.
     General Eastman has given distinguished and valuable public service,
also, in other capacities than those of an officer of the law. In young man-
hood he was elected as representative from his native town of Grantham to
the legislature of 1876. In the exceptionably able state senate of 1889 he
represented with credit the twenty-first district; and in the convention of
1902 to propose amendments to the constitution of the state he rendered
appreciated service as chairman of the committee on future mode of amend-
ing the constitution.
     As a legislator and political leader Mr. Eastman has shown himself, as in
his profession, cool, clear-headed and sagacious. There is no trait of the
demagogue in his make-up. He would no more stoop to "playing politics"
than to legal trickery. But without seeking popularity he has attained it,
throughout the state, and respect and esteem as well. His name has been
frequently mentioned in connection with the governorship of his state, and
with its representation at Washington, the national capital.
     General Eastman is a director and vice president of the Exeter Banking
Company; a trustee and vice president of the Union Five Cents Savings Bank
of Exeter; a director and president of the Exeter Manufacturing Company;
and was a trustee of Robinson Seminary, Exeter, for fourteen years.
     Mr. Eastman married in Newport, March 14, 1877, Elma E. Dodge, who
died October 19, 1880. To them was born one daughter, Helen May. At
Exeter, March 16, 1885, he married Morgieanna Follansby, and they have
two children, Ella Follansby Eastman and Edwin Winter Eastman.
     General Eastman has a beautiful and happy home at Exeter, where, with
his family and large library he would like to spend more time than his
public duties allow him for that purpose. A public-spirited citizen, he takes
much interest in the welfare of that fine old town and can be counted upon
to support heartily any forward movement there. In religious affiliations he
is a Congregationalist.
     Mr. Eastman takes much pride, also, in "Grey Ledges," his Grantham
summer home, which he has created from the farm where he was born and
which has been in the family for four generations. Located on a hill 1,200

Page 1110

feet above the sea level, fifteen towns and as many mountain peaks can be
seen from the house veranda. While the house has been gradually enlarged
from the red cottage of 1820, when it was built, until it contains twenty
rooms, it retains still many of the quaint features of its earliest days; the
"landscape" painted walls, the great fire-places, with their brick ovens, etc.
     The farm is of 750 acres and is well stocked with Ayrshire cattle and the
remarkable yield of its carefully kept apple orchards has more than local
fame. General Eastman is as successful a farmer as he is lawyer and he
takes real pleasure in not merely managing the estate, but in doing himself
much of the real work of the place. And that is the keynote of Edwin G.
Eastman's life and character. He is a worker, a successful worker, an honest
worker upon right lines for good and great ends. And today, in the full
maturity of his powers, his record of accomplishment, impressive as it is, is
far from finished.

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