U.S. Rep. George P. Lawrence served as a state senator and on the city's WWI exemption board. The death of his wife sent him into a depression and jumped to his death from New York hotel.

Lawrence was responsible for the building of the city's post office.

<

>

Two congressman — one born here and one only buried here — can be found in Hillside Cemetery.

NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — In spite of its suggestive title, this is the innocent story of two men who never met. The title is a reference to their field, which is said to make for strange bedfellows.

The field? Politics, but not just any politics. There are politicians of all stripes all over the place, but in Hillside Cemetery, it so happens that we have two politicians who both served in Washington, D.C.: one in the House and the other in the Senate. And just to keep things quirky, one had everything to do with North Adams and the other ... nothing.

George Pelton Lawrence was a North Adams native, son of a physician, Dr. George C. Lawrence. Educated locally, he went on to study at Amherst College and then at Columbia University Law School. He was admitted to the bar in 1883. Two years later he was appointed a judge, becoming the youngest man ever appointed to the bench in Massachusetts.

In 1889, at the tender age of 30, he married Susannah Hope Bracewell. She was the daughter of Col. John Bracewell, who had come to North Adams from New Hampshire to run the Windsor Print Works. Following the death of Dr. Lawrence, his son and daughter-in-law continued to live in his Summer Street residence, looking after his widow.

When the elder Mrs. Lawrence died, the younger Lawrences began building a home of their own. And what a home it was! Mrs. Lawrence had been given a plot of land as a wedding present from her father. Fronting on Pleasant Street, it was a corner of the colonel's large Wall Street property; his own mansion was on the opposite corner, adjacent to Holbrook Street.
 
Over a period of two years the Lawrences built a fabulous palace with broad rooms, high ceilings, fireplaces, porches, balconies and a round tower. It has a second-floor balcony that thrusts forward like a pulpit. Some neighbors insist that President McKinley once spoke from it, but this is unlikely. There is no documentary evidence of such an event, though it is entirely reasonable to expect that Mr. Lawrence himself spoke from it.

The Lawrences moved in 1894, the same year that he resigned from the bench; in its place, he was elected to the Massachusetts State Senate. He served three consecutive one-year terms and spent the last two as Senate president. Then the honorable Ashley B. Wright died. A resident (though not a native) of North Adams, Mr. Wright had been elected to the U.S. House of Representatives some years before. Lawrence was elected to complete his term, moving him up to national office. He would hold this office until 1913.

He was present in North Adams in June 1899, when President McKinley came to town to "receive the adoration of its citizens." The city put on a parade for the president, though not a parade for him to be seen in; rather, it was a parade for him to watch. When the parade was done, Mayor Cady spoke briefly and introduced the McKinely who — being of a humble nature — declined to speak.  Congressman Lawrence acted as a cheerleader to keep the crowd roaring until the president gave in and addressed them.

The congressman also spoke at the first dedication of the Mohawk Trail, but his most lasting legacy is the North Adams post office. Up until 1911, the post office occupied a modest space in the Wilson House Hotel on Main Street, but in 1910, Lawrence appropriated the money to erect a building especially for it.  The trend at the time was to build small, boxy post offices, but Lawrence made sure we got a palace. And what is more, it went from groundbreaking to grand opening in almost exactly one year.

One would think there was no stopping this man, but his end was actually tragic. In 1912, Congressman Lawrence declined to run for re-election; exactly why is not known. Then Susannah Lawrence died of apoplexy in 1914. Her death plunged Mr. Lawrence into a deep depression. Friends and family urged him to run for mayor. Not only would the job give him something to do with his time, but his popularity was so high he could have been mayor as long as he wanted to be. He declined to run.

Thomas Ward Osborn was a Union veteran who would become a congressman from Florida before returning to practice law in New York.

Then World War I came around and he was offered the position of head of the Board of Exemptions.  Again, friends and family rallied to advise him, this time to turn down the post. And again, he ignored their warnings. Figuring it was his duty to serve, he took the job. As everyone had feared, this exposed him to every sob story of why Johnny should be exempt from the draft, which exacerbated his already delicate emotional condition.

In November 1917, his in-laws, Miles and Mary Bracewell, took him to Atlantic City for some R & R. On the 21st he eluded them and went back to his hotel in New York City, where he wrote a note apologizing to his friends for any distress his death would cause them as well as to the management of the hotel for any resulting bad press. Then he jumped out his sixth floor window, a martyr to his sense of duty.
 
Our second national politician is Thomas Ward Osborn, who — as stated at the beginning — had nothing whatever to do with North Adams, except that he's buried here.

A native of Scotch Plains, N.J., he studied law and put out his shingle in New York City. Then along came the Civil War. He enlisted and became an officer in Battery D, First Regiment, New York Light Artillery. After the war, he moved to Tallahassee, Fla., where he began practicing law, though it was not long before he was being elected to various political offices, culminating in his election to the U.S. Senate.

This implies that he was a "carpetbagger." When I was studying the Civil War back at Freeman School, I recall being told that carpetbaggers were opportunistic cretins out to make their fortunes at the expense of the former rebels. But in looking over Sen. Osborn's congressional record, I have to wonder if that definition is as true as we generally think. The record indicates that he did good things for Florida, serving from 1868 to 1873. When he left the Senate, he returned to New York City, where he resumed his law practice. He spent the rest of his life there.

So how did he wind up in North Adams? By way of his brother, A.C. Osborn. The Rev. Dr. Abraham Coles Osborn was a Baptist minister and led the North Adams Baptist Church from 1877 to 1884.  While here, he bought a small lot in the southwest corner of Hillside, where he buried his infant son, his mother and his wife.

When Thomas died in 1898, the reverend no longer lived in North Adams. Yet he still brought his brother's remains here to bury him with the family. And in due time, he joined them himself.

Politics may indeed make strange bedfellows, but it also makes for fascinating history. The next time you're walking through Hillside, stop and say hello to these two singular figures. They may not appreciate it, but I think you will.

This series is an attempt to help us get to know a particular community of neighbors, without whose vision and efforts this city would not exist. These neighbors are the residents of Hillside Cemetery. As part of our effort to restore and maintain this, the city’s oldest municipal cemetery, we hope to generate interest, funding and volunteer labor in an effort to restore it.  This work is an important step in maintaining our city's heritage and civic pride. But more than this, it's a way in which we can help our neighbors; neighbors who laid the foundations of North Adams and paved the way for us.

• Most Read

• Most Comments

• All News

• Blogroll

• Photos