334 HORATIO BALCH HACKETT. 



chusetts, and discharged the duties of that office with great ability. 

 He declined a re-election, however, and again assumed the office of 

 Attorney-General, by the appointment of Governor Washburn, and 

 afterwards by the election, successively, of the Legislature and of the 

 people. In 18G2, he re-entered the Senate of ]\Iassuchusetts, and was 

 President of that body. In 1867, he accepted the position of Presi- 

 dent of the Boston and Providence Railroad Company, and devoted 

 himself mainly to business pursuits for the remainder of his life. 



In 1874, the appointment of United States Minister to Russia was 

 offered to him by President Grant, and afterwards that to Turkey ; 

 but he declined them both. He was for many years one of the Over- 

 seers of Harvard Univei'sity, and President of that Board ; and, as one 

 of the Trustees of Mr. George Peabody's great Education Fund for 

 the Southern States, he had become known far beyond the limits of 

 his own State. 



In 1875, he made a visit to Europe for the benefit of his own health 

 and that of his family ; but soon after his return home he was struck 

 down by fatal illness, and died on the 2d of January, 187G, in the sixty- 

 seventh year of his age. 



Governor Clifford was a man of marked ability, and in every station 

 which he held he exhibited peculiar capacity for public usefulness. 

 Few men of our time have left their names on the records of Mas- 

 sachusetts more distinctly or more enviably. He was genial, warm- 

 hearted, public-spirited, patriotic, and greatly endeared to his friends in 

 all i^arts of the country. His death was the occasion of widespread 

 sorrow, and his memory will long be cherished as that of a Christian 

 gentleman, whose chai-acter and whole career had reflected the highest 

 honor on New Enj^land. 



HOKATIO BALCH HACKETT. 



Horatio Balch Hackett died very suddenly in Rochester, 

 N.Y., November 2, 187.). He was born in Salisbury, Mass., in the year 

 1808. He fitted for Amherst College at Phillips Academy, in An- 

 dover, where he distinguished hiuiself as a scholar ; and his oration, on 

 leaving that institution, was of such marked merit, that it led one of 

 the Trustees to offer to defray the expenses of his college course. He 

 entered Amherst College in 1820, and was graduated with its higliest 

 honors in 1830. He completed the regular course of theological studies 

 in Andover in 1834, after which he went to Germany, and studied for 

 some time at Ilalle and Berlin. On his return, he spent one year as a 



