EDWARD HENRY ROLLINS, the oldest of the children, was born October 3, 1824. He lived at home, laboring upon the farm in the summer season, attending the district school in winter, and getting an occasional term's attendance at the South Berwick Academy, and Franklin Academy in Dover, until seventeen years of age, when he went to Concord and engaged as druggist's clerk in the well known apothecary store of John McDaniel. He retained his situation some three or four years, industriously applying himself to the details of the business. He then went to Boston, where he was engaged in similar service until 1847, when, having thoroughly mastered the business, he returned to Concord and went into trade on his own account, soon building up a large and successful business. Having bought and improved the land on Main street, just north of the Eagle Hotel, the great fire of 1851 destroyed the building which he had but recently finished. He rebuilt the stores known as "Rollins's Block," one of which was occupied by his own business for so many years. This property he sold a short time since to the New Hampshire Savings Bank. In politics, Mr. Rollins was originally a Webster Whig, but voted for Franklin Pierce in 1852, and for Nathaniel B. Baker, the Democratic candidate for governor, at the next March election. The aggressions of slavery, however, culminating in the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska bill and the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, dissolved his brief connection with the Democratic party. Strongly opposed to the extension of slavery, or any measures rendering its extension possible, though he had previously taken no active part in politics, he enlisted in the American or Know-Nothing movement, in the winter of 1854-55, with the hope that it might, as it did, prove instrumental in the defeat of the Democracy. From this time Mr. Rollins was an active politician. He labored effectively in perfecting the new party organization, taking therein the liveliest interest. At the March election, 1855, he was chosen to the legislature from Concord, and served efficiently in that body as a member of the judiciary committee. The next year witnessed the merging of the American party in the new Republican party, which object Mr. Rollins was largely instrumental in securing. Re-elected to the legislature in March, 1856, Mr. Rollins was chosen speaker of the house, ably discharging the duties of the office, and was re-elected the following year. The talent which he had already developed as a political organizer made his services eminently desirable as a campaign manager, and he was made chairman of the first state central committee of the Republican party, a position which he held continuously until his election to congress in 1861, and in which he exhibited a capacity for thorough organization,--a mastery of campaign work, in general and in detail,--seldom equaled and certainly never surpassed.