Peter Mills Converse

MAJOR PETER MILLS CONVERSE 7 (Marquis, 6 (71), Joel,5 Thomas,4 Samuel,3 Sergeant Samuel,2 Deacon Edward 1),

born in Lyme, N. H., 28 December 1820. He was given a thorough common school education, and possessed large advantages from his father, whose ardent love of knowledge and superior education, for those times, led him to make great self-denying efforts to educate his large family of ten children. Major Peter Mills Converse spent most of his life in farming, although he had learned the trade of carpenter and joiner. He owned a farm of more than 200 acres in the northwest part of the town of Lyme, on which he lived and died.

His farm was three miles southwest of the original Converse home, two miles east of the Connecticut River, and near Post Pond. Originally called the "Culver Place," it was afterwards known as "Willow Brook Farm." When quite a young man, Peter Mills Converse was made Captain of the Lyme Light Infantry and later Major of the 23d New Hampshire Regiment.

The exact dates of this service cannot be ascertained, but it was somewhat later than 1846 that he was Captain of the Lyme Light Infantry, and his service as Major of the 23rd N. H. Regiment was in the fifties. The town records of Lyme were destroyed by fire. In 1834, he was a member of the New Hampshire Legislature. The following obituary notice was published in the Christian Observer for 16 January 1901 over the signature " Committee":

Died in Lyme, N. H., April 1, 1900, Hon. Peter Mills Converse in the eightieth year of his age.

He was blessed in having a noble line of ancestry, being a son of Marquis Converse, and nephew of the Rev. Dr. A. Converse, founder of the Christian Observer, and also of Rev. J. K. Converse, former Secretary of the Colonization Society, and Principal of a Ladies' Seminary in Burlington, Vt.

Mr. Converse himself was a man of strict integrity, and great energy of character, and possessed such a large fund of inimitable humor and genial good nature that his friendship was eagerly sought by a large circle of acquaintances. His townspeople honored him by giving him all the minor offices in their power, while yet a young man; and in 1883-4 sent him to the State capital as a member of the Legislature. Somewhere in the fifties of the last century, he was constituted Major in the New Hampshire State militia, by which title he was thereafter always known.

Page 368 - The Converse Family

Major Converse was the eldest son, in a family of ten children, of Marquis and Electa White Converse. He was born December 28, 1820, and early instructed in the Presbyterian doctrine, according to the Westminster Catechism, by his devotedly pious parents, yet made no public profession of faith till his last illness, of several months' duration, when God in his faithfulness to his covenant relation with the revered parents, and his promise in regard to the children consecrated by them in baptism, lifted upon him the light of his countenance, by which light he passed through the valley of the shadow of death, without fear of evil, to the realms of eternal glory beyond. He leaves to loneliness and heart-aching grief, a widow (S. S. Converse, an occasional contributor to the columns of the Christian Observer), three sons and a daughter. All the family of ten children, except one sister, Mrs. S. S. Houghton, of Boston, Mass., have gone on before, and of most of what was mortal is resting, with a line of pious ancestors, in the village churchyard of Lyme, where

"The storm that wrecks the winter sky,

No more disturbs their deep repose,

Than summer evening's latest sigh,

That shuts the rose."

Mrs. Ruth Kimball (Eastman) Converse. Mrs. Sarah Speare (Clement) Converse.

Peter Mills Converse was married, 10 June 1846, by Rev. L. Hastings, to Ruth Kimball Eastman of Lyman, N. H. She was born, in that town, 28 November 1827, the daughter of Eber and Sally (Gibson) Eastman of Lyman. She died, in Lyme, 18 April 1857. Three children were born of this marriage. Mr. Converse was married, second, at Lynne, 19 November 1857, by Rev. Erdix Tenney to Sarah Speare Clement of Corinth, Vermont, who was born at Corinth, Vt.,

Page 369 - The Converse Family

8 June 1825, the daughter of David and Elvira (Speare) Clement of Corinth. In early life she developed a love for poetry, and her poetic compositions began to be published in 1849, in the Green Mountain Gem, edited by A. B. F. Hildreth at Bradford, Vt.; in the Dollar Newspaper of Philadelphia. and in a number of other periodicals; over the pen name of "Orianna Orville." Since her marriage, she has contributed articles to the Morning Star of Boston, the Christian Observer of Louisville, and various other publications, over her own name or the initials "S. S. C." Her name may be found in "Poets of New Hampshire" 1883, and "Poets of America" 1890.

Much interest was taken by her in the preparation of this book, and it is largely to her intelligent and efficient efforts that so complete a genealogical record of the Lyme descendants of Joel Converse is clue.

Children of Peter Mills and Ruth Kimball (Eastman) Converse:

     CHARLES HENRY CONVERSE,8 born, in Lyme, 25 Aug. 1847; married Georgianna Heath. (370)

     LUCRETIA EASTMAN CONVERSE born, in Lyme, 6 Jan. 1851; married Charles W. Bailey (371)

                              Charles Westley Bailey                          Mrs. Lucretia Eastman (Converse) Bailey

     FREDERIC WHITE CONVERSE, 8 born, in Lyme 10 Feb. 1857; married Nellie Lyon. (372)

Child of Peter Mills and Sarah Speare (Clement) Converse:

     MARQUIS MILLS CONVERSE, 8 born, in Lyme, 23 Oct. 1861; married Alice Houghton Sargent. (373)