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TAPPING REEVE.
The Bench and Bar of Litchfield County, Connecticut 1709-1909
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES OF MEMBERS HISTORY AND CATALOGUE OF THE LITCHFIELD LAW SCHOOL HISTORICAL NOTES
BY DWIGHT C. KILBOURN
Clerk of Superior Court, Member of the Connecticut Historical Society, Member of the Kansas Historical Society, Vice- President of the Litchfield Historical Society.
PUBLISHED BY THE AUTHOR LITCHFIELD, CONN.
1909
16612
COPYRIGHT BY DWIGHT C. KILBOURN 1909
Edition Limited to 500
No.
80
THE MATTATUCK PRESS WATERBURY, CONNECTICUT
Co my Brethren of the Litchfield County Bar this honk is most Affectionately Driticateit
CONTENTS
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
JUDGE CHURCH'S CENTENNIAL, ADDRESS I.
First settlement of the towns. County organization. County Officers. Character of the people. Iron Works. Religious matters. Colonial and Revolutionary Wars. Newspapers. Merchants. Slitting Mills. Nail rods. Scythes. Iron Mines. Paper Mills. Woolen Mills. Emi- gration to Vermont and the Western Reserve. Education. Morris' Academy. Miss Pierce's School. The Law School. First Law Re- ports. Lawyers. Doctors. Authors. Foreign Missionary Society.
Mission School at Cornwall.
Temperance Movement. Infidelity. The future.
BOARDMAN'S EARLY LIGHTS 39
Partridge Thatcher. Daniel Everett. Tapping Reeve. John Allen.
Barzillai Slosson. Samuel W. Southmayd. John Cotton Smith. Nathaniel Smith. Noah B. Benedict. James Gould. Asa Bacon. Elisha Sterling. Jabez W. Huntington. Phineas Miner. Leman Church.
SEDGWICK'S FIFTY YEARS AT THE BAR 68
Correspondence. Organization of the Courts. Chief Justice Hosmer. Judge Peters. Judge Chapman. Judge Brainard. Judge Bristol. Judge Daggett. The Superior Court. The County Court. Judge Petti- bone. Judge Strong. Judge Welch. Judges Burrall, Woodruff and Boardman. Clerk Frederick Wolcott. Sheriff Seymour. Messenger John Stone. Business of the County Court. Admission to the Bar. Practice. Authorities in 1808. Judge Gould. Noah B. Benedict. Asa Bacon. General Sterling. Judge Boardman. Phineas Miner. William G. Williams. John Strong. Jr. William MI. Burrall. Col. William Cogswell. Seth P. Beers. Perry Smith. Roger Mills. Michael F. Mills. Charles B. Phelps. Matthew Minor. Holbrook Curtis. Isaac Leavenworth. Royal R. Hinman. Joseph H. Bellamy. Theodore North. Leman Church. William S. Holabird. George S. Boardman. Reflections.
JUDGE WARNER'S REMINISCENCES 100
Experiences in the General Assembly. History of the Act allowing prisoners to testify. Story about Dwight Morris. Adonijah Strong. Col. Joshua Porter. John G. Mitchell. Philander Wheeler. Aunt Polly. John H. Hubbard. Roger Averill. Norton J. Buell. John Elmore. Leman Church. Miles Toby Granger. Col. Jacob B. Har- denburg. George W. Peet. Michael F. Mills. William K. Peck, Jr. William S. Holabird. Gideon Hall. Roland Hitchcock. Roger H. Mills. Jared B. Foster. Nelson Brewster. George Wheaton. Julius B. Harrison. Solon B. Johnson. Frederick Chittenden. John G. Reed.
CONTENTS
HISTORICAL NOTES 118
The first Court Record. Early Attorneys. Present Attorneys. Gov- ernors. Judges. State Attorneys. Clerks. Sheriffs. Court Houses. Jury matters. Witnesses. 3 Stenographers. Students. Libraries. White Fund. County Centennial. Judge Daggett's Letter. Ancient
Court Expenses. County Court.
NOTED TRIALS 1.44
The Sellick-Osborne case. Blasphemy. Wrong Verdiet Stands. Funeral Order. Rabello. Robert Drakely. Bernice White. William H. Green. James LeRoy. Burglars on a hand car. Liquor Prosecu- tions. Masters vs. Warren Robbins vs. Coffin. Higgins' ( Hadley ) escape. Michael Bion. Borgesson. Tax case. Mannering. Norman Brocks' Will case. John T. Hayes. Haddock vs. Haddock.
COUNTY CORONER. HEALTIL OFFICER, ATTORNEY GENERAL 165
FIRST LAW REPORTS 168
The preface. Fac-similie. Ephraim Kirby. His law bocks.
THE COUNTY JAIL 176
THE LITCHFIELD LAW SCHOOL 178 Chas. C. Moore's article from the Law Notes. Charles G. Loring's ad- dress. A Students letter. Augustus Hand's letter. The Buildings. The Catalogue.
BIOGRAPHICAL, NOTES ALPHABETICALLY ARRANGED 215
LIGANS 307
Ex-Governor and Ex-Chief Justice Andrews address. A demurrer de Kickapoo Indians. Sound Advice of Albert Wadhams. The Annual Banquets. President Huntington's address. Rev. A. N. Lewis' letter. Hurlbutisms. Felicities. Poetry. Jokes. Judge's Evidence. Old Grimes. Complimentary dinner to Judge O. S. Seymour at Bridgeport. Watertown trial. New Milford Power Company. Sermon at the Ex- ecution of John Jacobs, 1768. Truman Smith. Jury Commissioners. County Commissioners. Court Messengers. The Judgment File.
INDEX OF NAMES
.
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Old Litchfield
II
Church, Samuel I
Tearing down King George Statue 17
Coe. William G. 78
Old Writ
48
Cogswell, Leonard W. 132
County Centennial 1851
34
Cothren, William 150
Superior Court in Session
122
Dowd. Wheaton F. 1444
Court Houses
128
Ellsworth, Wilham W.
242
Judge Preston's Tombstone
143
Etheridge. Frank W.
166
First Law Report, fac-simile
168
Fenn. Augustus .1.
154
County Jail
176
Foster. Jared B.
116
Law School Buildings
180
Gould. James 184
Reeve's Building
192
Granger. Miles T. 156
Gould's Building
194
Graves, Henry B. 152
May it please the Court
308
Guernsey. Howard M.
344
Kickapoo Indians
314
Hall. Gideon I13
Banquet
316
Harrison, George C. 342
Old Grimes
320
Ilerman. Samuel .1. 250
Judges Evidence, fac-similie
328
llickox. George A. 250
Title page of Old Sermon
340
Iliggins, Richard T.
165
Hitchcock. Roland
114
Holcomb. Marcus H.
167
Allen. Henry J.
164
Hollister. Gideon H. 253
Andrews, Charles B.
310. 220
Horne, Samuel B. 254
Bacon, Asa (Group)
63
Hubbard, John 11.
106
Francis
63
Huntington. James 256
Epaphroditus C. 63
Hurlbut. William F. 142
Baldwin, Birdseye
115
Karl. John J. 344
George H.
223
Kilbourn, Dwight C. 119
Barnes. Andrew G.
342
Kirby. Ephraim 170
Beers. Seth P.
9.3
McMahon, James H. 136
266
Ballamy, Joseph H.
78
Mills, Michael F.
78
Benedict. Noah B.
58
Mosher. Lewis W.
3,36
Botsford. Henry A.
229
Nellis, Edward .1.
162
Brinsmade. Daniel N.
231
Nickerson. Leonard J.
163
Buel. Chauncey J.
3,36
Nettleton. Charles
269
Canfield. Judson
2,32
Pierpont. John
272. 345
Col. Samuel
18
Pettibone. Augustus
78
Case. Hubert B.
344 Phelps, Charles B. 94
Catlin. Abijah
236 Porter. Charles J. 160
George
234 Platt. Orville H. 276
Beeman. Frederick D.
138
Middlebrooks. Chesterfield C.
PORTRAITS
ILLUSTRATIONS
Ransom, William L.
124
Tuttle, Byron 342
Reeve, Tapping-Frontispiece
Warner. Arthur D. 167
Roraback, Alberto T.
I33
Donald J. 100
Ryan, Thomas F.
277
Donald T. I26
Sanford. David C.
278
Welch, Gideon H. I.4I
Henry S. 280
Wessells. Col. L. W. 301
Sedgwick. Charles F. 71
Wheaton, George
115
Albert
281
Williams, Frederic MI. 300
Seymour. Edward W. I30
Hubert 298
Origen S. 210
Wolcott. Frederick 81
Ozias
287
Gen. Oliver
173
Origen S .. 2nd
287
Gov. Oliver 302
Morris W.
287
Woodruff. George C. 195
Moses. Jr.
285
George M. 200
Sherman. Roger 172
Lewis B. 206
Smith, John Cotton 28. 290
Morris. (Group) 305
Truman
96
James P. 306
Wellington B.
158
County Coroners 344
Willey T.
336
Messengers 344
Turkington, Frank H.
299
Jury Commissioners 343
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
The practice of the law in the English speaking colonies of the new world previous to the organization of Litchfield County is an interesting study of various methods of procedure all founded upon the practice of the mother country. Some were copied from the common law courts, and some from the other courts and in hardly any two colonies was there similarity of practice, while the old com- mon law of England was a general guide to the interpretation of the statttte law, with such modifications in the Puritan colonies as the mosaic law suggested to the religious teachers and pastors thereof.
About the time our county was organized. these different modes of practice began to be crystallized into a more established form. There were practically no attorneys, as we now understand the term. "men learned in the law." In many sections there was some influential man who was generally known as "the Squire." and whose opinions ruled the circle of his acquaintance. In this county there were only five or six men who pretended to be lawyers.
Directly after the formation of the county and the establishment of the county court, these men were admitted to practice as at- torneys with slight examinations, and with little knowledge of the law, but they were strong-minded and of sterling character, oracles in their own communities, and they very soon brought the decisions of the county court of this county to the front rank of judicature. It was in this opportune period that Tapping Reeve located at Litchfield and unintentionally began that process which eventually overthrew the common law of England, for a common law of our own, and changed the old forms, rules and precedents which had so long prevailed. The close of the Revolutionary War utterly de- stroved the doctrine that "the king could do no wrong" and swept away his prerogatives and common laws : and while we now quote the good contained in the "wisdom of ages." we decide questions by Reeves, Swift and Gould, and modern "wise instances."
Ten years ago the compiler of this book conceived the idea of collecting and preserving in a permanent form a mass of material which was then available relating to the legal history and tradition of his native county, and in the midst of his active duties as the Clerk of its courts, has gathered these items and now presents them for your consideration, believing his work to be a somewhat valuable contribution to our earlier history.
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
The reprint of Chief Justice Samuel Church's Address at the Centennial Celebration of the organization of the county, in 1851, gives a very concise and thorough analysis of the elements which have conduced to give our county great influence in the religious, social, political and legal affairs in both the state and nation. The address, however, was made too early to include Henry Ward Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe among the writers and speak- ers who have done so much to uplift the world's ideas, and wonder- fully advance its progress towards its present power and greatness.
The reprint of Hon. David S. Boardman's "Early Lights of the Litchfield County Bar," being the reminiscences of a man ninety years of age, of his colleagues and associates in the earlier years of our county's history, will I am sure be of great interest to every one, and it is worthy of permanent preservation. The original pamphlet containing them has long been out of print, and is very rare. I regret very much my inability to procure his portrait for insertion in this work.
In the re-publication of Sedgwick's address, "Fifty Years of the Litchfield County Bar," I am enabled to bring the biographies of most of the prominent old lawyers down to modern times, pre- pared by an associate and brother in the legal arena, while Judge Warner's "Reminiscences" completes the chain of those living and practicing at the Bar during his life. Charles B. Phelps published obituaries of a number of his attorney friends in some of the earlier volumes of Connecticut Reports, but as these are easily ac- cessible I have referred to them without republishing.
In the Biographical Notes I have endeavored to include the name of every member admitted to our Bar, or coming from elsewhere to practice, excluding however, those who have been debarred for cause. These notes are not intended to be genealogies or eulogies, but only the legal life briefly told, and they have nearly all been prepared by myself. I deeply regret that there are so many whom I have been unable to trace beyond the mere fact of their admission.
The section on the Law School contains the list of its students alphabetically arranged, with some other interesting matter relating thereto. So many references are made throughout the volume to Judges Reeve, Gould, Huntington, Bacon and others prominently connected with its instruction and management, that I did not think it wise to devote more space to the further history of the Law School.
The Historical Notes include only a few of the many trials and incidents which could be gathered from the Court Records, but in very many cases the account of trials, especially those of a criminal nature, might give pain to some friend or relative of the accused, which I have tried to avoid doing.
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Probably no county in the state furnished the Supreme Court in its earlier days, more knotty problems to solve and adjudicate. than Litchfield County, and a full history of its "Leading Cases" would make an interesting volume of itself.
I have obtained all the subjects for illustration which I could and the pictures have been made from originals, many of them from old and faded paintings, as I desired to place in everlasting re- membrance the faces of those gone before. In two or three in- stances I have duplicated, taking another and different portrait for the second picture, after the first one was already in print. If any- one thinks it is easy to collect a hundred pictures of as many per- sons who have long since deceased, a trial will dispel the illusion.
It is unavoidable that many errors will occur in such a work as this. Great care has been given to make it as nearly accurate as possible, and the compiler will be very glad to have his attention called to any such error, so that in due time proper corrections can be made.
To the very many friends who have aided me in this work. I wish to return my heart-felt thanks for their assistance. I have refrained from making any acknowledgment of quotations or ex- tracts because I have thought that the matter itself would indicate the source from which it was taken. In conclusion I wish to say that I hope the perusal of this book will afford the reader as much pleasure as it has the compiler to prepare it.
Litchfield, May 1. 1909. D. C. K.
Centennial Address 1851
LITCHFIELD COUNTY
HISTORICAL ADDRESS
DELIVERED AT LITCHFIELD, CONN.
ON THE OCCASION OF THE
CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION, 1851
BY
SAMUEL CHURCH, LL. D.
CHIEF JUSTICE OF THE STATE
HON. SAMUEL CHURCH, C. J.
Judge Church's Address
FELLOW CITIZENS :-
I have no leisure now to offer apologies for my unadvised con- sent to appear before you, in this position, on the present occasion. Declining years, and the constant pressure of other duties. should have excused me.
My residence of sixty-six years from my nativity in this County, and an acquaintance of half a century, of some intimacy, with the events which have transpired, and with the men who have acted in them here, and having been placed within traditional reach of our early history, I suppose, has induced the call upon me to address you. In doing this, I shall make no drafts upon the imagination, but speak to you in the simple idiom of truthful narrative.
Among the most ancient and pleasant of New England usages. has been the annual gathering of children and brethren around the parental board on Thanksgiving day. The scene we now witness reminds me of it. Litchfield County,-our venerable parent. now waning into the age of an hundred years, has called us here, to exchange our mutual greetings, to see that she still lives and thrives, and hopes to live another century.
A little display of vanity on the part of such a parent, thus surrounded by her children, may be expected ; but speaking by me, her representative, it shall not be excessive. She must say some- thing of herself-of her birth and parantage- of her early life and progress. and of the scenes through which she has passed. She may be indulged a little in speaking of the children she has borne or reared, and how they have got along in the world. To tell of such as she has lost, and over whose loss she has mourned ; and in the indulgence of an honest parent's pride, she may boast some- what of many who survive, and who have all through this wide country made her name and her family respected.
We meet not alone in this relation, but we come together as brethren, and many of us after long years of separation and absence, to revive the memories and associations of former years.
Some of you come to visit the graves of parents and friends- to look again into the mansions where the cradle of your infancy was rocked, or upon the old foundations where they stood-to look
4
LITCHFIELD COUNTY BENCH AND BAR
again upon the favorite tree, now full grown, which your young arms clasped so often in the climbing, or upon the great rock upon and around which many a young gambol was performed. You come to enter again, perhaps, the consecrated temples at whose altars the good man stood who sprinkled you with the waters of baptism, and from whose lips you learned the lessons which have guided your footsteps in all your after life.
These are but some of the pages in the history of early life, which it is pleasant after the lapse of years to re-peruse. And now, if the spirits of these dead can pierce the cloud which hides our view of heaven, they look down with a smile of love upon your errand here; and when you shall leave us on the morrow, many of you will feel in truth, as did the patriot Greek, "moriens rem- iniscitur Argos."
A stranger who looks upon the map of Connecticut, sees at its north-west corner a darkly shaded section, extending over almost the entire limits of the County, indicating as he believes, a region of mountains and rocks-of bleak and frozen barrens. He turns his eye from it, satisfied that this is one of the waste places of the State-affording nothing pleasant for the residence of men. He examines much more complacently the map of the coast and the navagable streams. But let the stranger leave the map, and come and see! He will find the mountains which he anticipated-bitt he will find streams also. He will find the forests too, or the ver- dant hill-sides where they have been; and he will see the cattle on a thousand hills, and hear the bleating flocks in many a dale and glen, and he will breath an atmosphere of health and bouyancy, which the dwellers in the city and on the plain know little of. Let him come, and we will show him that men live here, and women too, over whom it would be ridiculous for the city popula- tion to boast : a yoemanry well fitted to sustain the institutions of a free country. We will show him living, moving men ; but more than this, we will point out to him where, among these hills, were born or reared, or now repose in the grave, many of the men of whom he has read and heard, whose names have gone gloriously into their country's history, or who are now almost every where giving an honorable name to the County of Litchfield, and doing service to our State or nation.
The extensive and fertile plains of the Western country may yield richer harvests than we can reap: the slave population of the South may relieve the planter from the toil experienced by a Northern farmer ; and the golden regions of California may sooner fill the pockets with the precious metals :- and all this may stand in strong contrast with what has been often called the rough and barren region of Litchfield hills. But the distinguishing traits of a New England country, which we love so well, are not there to give sublimity to the landscape, fragrance and health to the mountain atmosphere, and energy and enterprise to mind and character.
5
CHURCH'S CENTENNIAL ADDRESS
Not many years ago, I was descending the last hill in Norfolk in a stage-coach, in company with a lady of the West, whose for- mer residence had been in that town. As we came down upon the valley of the Housatonic, with a full heart and suffused eves, she exclaimed, "Oh, how I love these hills and streams! How much more pleasant they are to me than the dull prairies and the sluggish and turbid waters of the Western country." It was an eulogy, which if not often expressed, the truth of it has been a thousand times felt before.
Our Indian predecessors found but few spots among the hills of this Country, which invited their fixed residence. Here was no place for the culture of maize and beans, the chief articles of the Indian's vegetable food. Their settlements were chiefly con- fined to the valley of the Housatonic, with small scattered clans at Woodbury and Sharon. The Scaticoke tribe, at Kent. was the last which remained among us. It was taken under the pro- tection of the Colony and State: its lands secured for its sup- port. These Indians have wasted down to a few individuals, who, I believe, still remain near their fathers' sepulchers, and remind us that a native tribe once existed there.
We now sce but little to prove that the original American race ever inhabited here. It left no monuments but a few arrow-heads, which are even now occasionally discovered near its former homes and upon its former hunting grounds,-and a sculptured female figure made of stone. not many years ago was found in this town, and is now deposited at Yale College.
There are other monuments, to be sure. of a later race of In- dians ; but they are of the white man's workmanship .- the quit- claim deeds of the Indians' title to their lands! These are found in several of the Towns in the County, and upon the public re- cords, signed with marks uncouth, and names unspeakable, and executed with all the solemn mockery of legal forms .- These are still referred to, as evidence of fair purchase! Our laws have sedulously protected the minor and the married woman from the consequences of their best considered acts; but a deed from an Indian, who knew neither the value of the land he was required to relinquish, nor the amount of the consideration he was to re- ceive for it, nor the import or effect of the paper upon which he scribbled his mark, has been called a fair purchase !
The hill-lands of this County were only traversed by the In- dians as the common hunting grounds of the tribes which inhab- ited the valleys of the Tunxis and Connecticut rivers on the east- ern, and the valley of the Housatonic on the western side.
The first settlers of this County did not meet the Indian here in his unspoiled native character. The race was dispirited and submissive-probably made up of fugitives from the aggressions of the early English emigrants on the coast,-the successors of more spirited tribes, which, to avoid contact with the whites, had
6
LITCHFIELD COUNTY BENCH AND BAR
migrated onward toward the setting sun. These Indians were like the ivy of the forest, which displays all its beauties in the shade, but droops and refuses to flourish in the open sunshine.
Previous to the accession of James II. to the throne of Eng- land, and before our chartered rights were threatened by the ar- rival of Sir Edmund Andros, the territory now comprising the County of Litchfield was very little known to the Colonial Gov- ernment at Hartford. The town of Woodbury, then large in ex- tent. had been occupied some years earlier than this, by Rev. Mr. Walker's congregation, from Stratford. The other parts of the County were noticed only as a wilderness, and denominated the Western Lands. Still it was supposed, that at some time they might be, to some extent. inhabited and worth something. At
any rate, they were believed to be worth the pains of keeping out of the way of the new government of Sir Edmund, which was then apprehended to be near. To avoid his authority over these lands, and to preserve them for a future and better time of dispo- sal, they were granted, by the Assembly of the Colony, to the towns of Hartford and Windsor, in 1686,-at least, so much of them as lay east of the Housatonic river. I do not stop to exam- ine the moral quality of this grant, which may be reasonably doubted ; and it was soon after followed by the usual consequences of grants, denominated by lawyers, constructively fraudulent-dis- pute and contention.
Upon the accession of William and Mary, in 1688, and after the Colony Charter had found its way back from the hollow oak to the Secretary's office, the Colonial Assembly attempted to re- sume this grant, and to reclaim the title of these lands for the Colony. This was resisted by the towns of Hartford and Wind- sor, which relied upon the inviolability of plighted faith and pub- lic grants. The towns not only denied the right, but actually resisted the power of the Assembly, in the resumption of their solemn deed. This produced riots and attempts to break the jail in Hartford, in which several of the resisting inhabitants of Hartford and Windsor were confined.
It would be found difficult for the Jurists of the present day. educated in the principles of Constitutional Law, to justify the Assembly in the recision of its own grant, and it can not but ex- cite a little surprise, that the politicians of that day, who had not vet ceased to complain of the mother country for its attempts, by writs of quo warranto, to seize our charter, should so soon be en- gaged, and without the forms of law, too, in attempts of a kindred character against their own grantees. No wonder that resistance followed, and it was more than half successful, as it resulted in a compromise, which confirmed to the claimants under the towns the lands in the town of Litchfield and a part of the town of New Milford. The other portions of the territory were intended to be equally divided between the Colony and the claiming towns.
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