The Unrepentant Partier
Alfred Martin was born in Hallowell, Maine, on August 24, 1803. He shared both this birthday and this hometown with his future classmate James Milk Ingraham. He also likely knew George Barrell Cheever, Jeremiah Dummer, and John Odlin Page from their pre-Bowdoin Hallowell days. Martin matriculated at Bowdoin at the age of 18 and began boarding with Ingraham in Brunswick. Martin got into his fair share of trouble his first year of college. He missed mandatory prayer and worship sessions on at least four occasions. But his most notable offense came in March of 1822. The Executive Government records that Martin had “invited students to his room to drink spiritous liquors” and the drunken students created “unnecessary and tumultuous noise.” As punishment for this transgression Martin was called before the government to be admonished and the college wrote to his father about his behavior. This incident occurred just two weeks after Maine Hall, where Martin, had previously roomed, burned down, displacing him and other residents.
At the end of Martin’s first year, his roommate and friend Ingraham was removed from the college for bad behavior. As such, Martin spent his sophomore year living with Cullen Sawtelle, William Aurelius Stone, Alfred Upham and Joseph Edwards Vose, first at Miss B. Toppan’s, until that house also burned to the ground on February 12, 1823, once again displacing Martin. He and the others staying at the Toppan house then roomed at the Honorable Benjamin Orr’s, where they were joined by five other members of the Class of 1825.
Martin’s troublemaking ways reached their culmination during his second year at Bowdoin. In July of 1823, a college officer found Martin at a “scene of great irregularity and disorder” and asked him to return to his room. Martin repeatedly refused to obey. Two days later, the officer’s room was vandalized when its windows were broken. Martin’s alibi at the time of the crime was contradicted by his fellow students. Suspecting he was guilty, the Executive Government suspended Martin until February of 1824 and remanded him to Winthrop, Maine, to complete his schoolwork under a reverend there. According to a letter from classmate George Cheever to his mother, Horatio Bridge was also punished as Martin’s accomplice.
It seems that Martin’s suspension was partially commuted. The College Catalogue reports him living in Maine Hall in the fall of 1823. Even Martin’s brush with suspension did not stop his disobedience, as he still racked up fines for absences and neglecting his work. His senior year Martin moved to Winthrop Hall. He also received his final citation from the government for knowledge of a torpedo exploded by a member of the Junior class. Despite, Martin’s repeated transgressions he was able to graduate in 1825 with the rest of his matriculating class and was even acknowledged for his study at the Maine Medical School. Understandably though, Martin was not a ranked member of the class nor asked to speak at Commencement.
After Bowdoin, Martin returned to Hallowell and began to study law under a man named William Clark. In 1827, he moved to Winthrop, the site of his suspension, and opened his own law practice. Martin was considered a respectable and promising lawyer, especially for his young age. However, he contracted tuberculosis a few years after arriving in Winthrop. Martin died of the disease in 1831, at the age of 28.