SKETCHES 



Deceased Officers of the College. 



HENRY FLAGG FRENCH, M. A., the first president of the Mass. 

 Agricultural College, was the son of David and Sarah Wing-ate 

 (Flagg) French, and was born 14th August, 1813, at Chester, N. 

 H. His father was Attorney General of New Hampshire. He 

 prepared for Dartmouth College at the Academies at Derry and 

 Pembroke, N. H., and Hingham, Mass. Studied law at Harvard 

 University, and was admitted to the New Hampshire bar. in 

 Rockingham County, 14th August, 1834. He removed from 

 Chester to Portsmouth in the autumn -of 1841, and from thence to 

 Exeter in 1842. Here he remained until 1860 when he settled in 

 Cambridge, Mass., and resumed the practice of law in Boston. 

 He lived one year, 1866-67, at Waltham and then removed to 

 Concord, Mass. He was admitted to practice in the Supreme 

 Court of the United States in 1869. Previous to going to Wash- 

 ington he was a law partner of Hon. George S. Boutwell. He 

 was postmaster of Chester, N. H., 1840; was County Solicitor 

 and Bank Commissioner of Rockingham for several years ; Judge 

 of the Court of Common Pleas of N. H., 1855-59; Assistant 

 District Attorney, Suffolk County, Mass., 1862-64; President of 

 the Mass. Agricultural College, 1864-66 ; Assistant Secretary of 

 the Treasury of the United States, Washington, D. C!, 1876-85. 

 Travelled in Europe, for the purpose of studying drainage, in 

 1857, and his work on that subject has had much to do with the 

 introduction of tile drainage to this country. 



He was associate editor of the New England Farmer, wrote 

 much for the Massachusetts Ploughman, the Country Gentleman, 



