Mendelssohn Darwin Lincoln
February 12, 1809
Clarence E. Carr, born in Enfield, New Hampshire, January 31, 1853. Received his early education from the common schools and academies of the State, later from Dartmouth College, from which he graduated in 1875.
Practiced law, was also a manufacturer and farmer. Was president of the New Hampshire Unitarian Conference, director and vice-president of the American Unitarian Association, bank trustee, president of the United Life and Accident Insurance Company of Concord, New Hampshire, and occasionally a wanderer in the Elysian Fields of the Muses.
The Three Birthday Anniversaries is the subject of a highly appreciative article on the subject of Mendelssohn, Darwin and Lincoln, by President Samuel A. Eliot of the American Unitarian Association, in the Christian Register of February 4, 1909. The central thought therein is thus expressed very beautifully by Mr. Carr.
Three lives this day unto the world were given
Into whose souls God breathed the air of heaven,—
The first He taught the music of the spheres,
The next, of worlds, the story of the years;
And, loving, wise, and just beyond our dream,
The third a pilot made upon the New World's stream.
Their work is done, but ere they crossed "the portal,"
One, Song; One, Truth; One, Freedom; Made Immortal!
James Phinney Baxter, born at Gorham Maine, March 23, 1831. Academic education; President of Savings Bank; Mayor of Portland, six terms, 1893-97—1904-5. Organized Associated Charities and was its first President; built and donated to the City of Portland its public library in 1888, and to Gorham in 1907; also conveyed to Gorham his family mansion for use as a Museum. President Portland Public Library, Baxter Library (Gorham), Portland Benevolent Society, Overseer of Bowdoin College, President Maine Historical Society since 1890, Northeast Historical Society since 1899. Author: The Trelawney Papers, 1884; The British Invasion From the North, 1887; Sir Ferdinando Gorges and His Province of Maine, 1890; The Pioneers of New France in New England, 1894; edited ten volumes of Documentary History of Maine, etc.