little book can afford.

My brother Albert was graduated at Dartmouth College in 1834, and was
reputed one of the most talented, close, and thorough scholars ever
connected with that institution. For two or three years he read law at
Hillsborough, in the office of Franklin Pierce, afterwards President of the
United States; but later Albert spent a year in the office of the Hon.
Richard Fletcher of Boston. He was consequently admitted to the bar in two
States, Massachusetts and New Hampshire. In 1837 he succeeded to the
law-office which Mr. Pierce had occupied, and was soon elected to the
Legislature of his native State, where he served the public interests
faithfully for two consecutive years. Among other important bills which
were carried through the Legislature by his persistent energy was one for
the abolition of imprisonment for debt.

In 1841 he received further political preferment, by nomination to
Congress on a majority vote of seven thousand,--it was the largest vote of
the State; but he passed away at the age of thirty-one, after a short
illness, before his election. His noble political antagonist, the Hon.
Isaac Hill, of Concord, wrote of my brother as follows:--

Albert Baker was a young man of uncommon promise. Gifted with the
highest order of intellectual powers, he trained and schooled them
by intense and almost incessant study throughout his short life.
He was fond of investigating abstruse and metaphysical principles,
and he never forsook them until he had explored their every nook
and corner, however hidden and remote. Had life and health been
spared to him, he would have made himself one of the most
distinguished men in the country. As a lawyer he was able and
learned, and in the successful practice of a very large business.