The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1884-06-04
Obituary.

fECh.-Ueu6Tdl JdIueS OCbV6uS teCR Ql6u
suddenly at Loon Lake, Merrillsville, N. Y, on
Wednesday morning, May 2S. General Peck
was born in Montpelier, December 6, 1888, and
was the Oldest OF four sons Of w. N. and Julia
A. Peck. He was a graduate Of the University
of Vermont, class Of 1860. October 10, 1862
he was mustered as lieutenant of Company +,
Thirteenth Vermont Volunteers, having re-
ceived his commission He was promoted to
the adjutancy Of the regiment January %,
1868. Being mustered out with his regiment
in the summer Of 1868, he re-enlisted as a pri
vate Of Company E, Seventeenth Regiment,
December 90 of that year. He was at once
commissioned as adjutant, and came home as
major at the close of the war, having been
commissioned April H. 1864 Having studied
law previous to his enlistment and resumed his
studies at the close of the war, he was ad-
mtted to the bar Of Washington county in
1866. In 1868 he was appointed assistant adju-
tant and inspector general, and in 1871 he sue
ceeded General William Wells as adjutant and
inspector general of the state of Vermont,
which office he held with efficiency and credit
for ten years. In 1881 he resigned, having been
appointed postmaster at Montpelier by Presi-
dent Garfield. This office he held at the time
of his death. He was one OF the original men,
bers of the Reunion Society of Vermont Off
GERS, and for the last seventeen years had been
its secretary. General Peck was made Mason
in Aurora Lodge, No. %, at Montpelier, in
1868, and was master of this lodge from Deem
capitular degrees in King Solomon Royal Arch
Chapter, No. 7, in 1868, and was its high priest
for two years. He was also a member of
Montpelier Council, No. 4, Royal and Select
Masters, and Mount Zion Commandery, No.
8, Knights Templar, in both of which he had
held important offices He was married March
4, 1869, to Mary Blake, who survives him. The
Rutland Herald, whose editor was personal
friend of General Peck, contained an appre-
ciative tribute to the memory Of the deceased,
from which we make the following extracts
" 1t is as a man of unseish fibre, high souled
humanity and sensitive manliness that we
think of our dead friend-as one of those un-
pretentious, modest men, who have strain of
heroic blood beneath all their superficial shy
ness and refinement that Is ample for the
most stalwart work when stimulated into en-
ergetic motion by the nervous appeal OF large
and noble cause. There are those OF us who
remember him as generous, handsome and
high-spirited boy at college, fine scholar in
languages and English literature, a man OF
very many captivating qualities of head and
heart that made him a rare social favorite
there are others, who never knew him in days
of college companionship, who were proud to
call him comrade when he stood on the crest OF
Cemetery hill at Gettysburg, under that fire OF
death from Lees artillery that was the prelude
to Longstreet's famous charge. He
came home unscathed by wounds, although he
had been always in the front of the fight, but
ITO ulu uUt COuo uOluo uulOuCucu ny ulbcdeo,
for severe attack OF typhoid pneumonia be-
fore Petersburg had left his lungs 80 impaired
in strength that his regimental surgeon and
warm personal friend, DR.. Edison, now OF
Boston, warned him that nothing but the
most vigilant care would save him from
comparatively. early death by lung dis
ease. Originally of slender frame,
he was never entirely strong again. and some
eight years ago he broke down with terrible
attack of bleeding from the lungs. He rallied
and preserved fair show of health until about
four years ago, when he had second attack,
30 severe that his life was for many days de-
SPARED of by his friends. He rallied from this
attack, however, and during the last four years
had, by constant care and vigilance made sc
successful a fight for life that, although a
partial invalid, the news OF his death Is a shock
to his friends, as his health the past winter and
spring had been quite as good as at any time
during four years past. The death OF
General Peck will be bitter pain to all who had
intimate knowledge Of the deceased, for when
the life that Is in dangerous doubt is life thai
means light and warmth among his fellows, nc
amount of warning prepares us for the worst
80 far as to break the heaviness of the blow
when it falls, for while life fingers in such a
man we cling to the straw like hope to the
last because loving him so much we cannot
patiently abide the thought OF his leaving us
forever. He will be mourned long and ten
derly by those who are clear-eyed enough tC
see and humane enough to feel that the state
suffers when man of exceptional patriotism
and humanity dies"