History of Litchfield county, Connecticut, Part 4

Author: J.W. Lewis & Company (Philadelphia, Pa.)
Publication date: 1881
Publisher: Philadelphia : J.W. Lewis & Co.
Number of Pages: 1532

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SAMUEL W. SOUTHMAYD .- In the life, conduct, And character of Samuel W. Southmayd there were some peculiarities, such as render it a matter of diffi- culty to describe him in such a manner as to make them intelligible to one who did not personally know him.

"I never saw or heard of him until I became a member of the law-school, in the fall of the year 1793, of which he had then been a member about one year, I believe, and of which he continued a constant at- tendant during the eighteen months which I spent there. He was admitted to the bar the next term after I was,-to wit, September term, 1795,-and passed as good an examination as I ever heard there or elsewhere, he having been for the full period of three years under Judge Reeve's tuition. He was a native of Watertown, where he settled in practice, and where he spent his life. Like Mr. Slosson, he had an ex- cellent common-school education. Beyond that his acquirements did not extend far in an academic course, enough, however, I believe, to enable him to under- stand the homely law Latin used in our books. Few have entered upon the practice of law with a better store of legal learning than Mr. Southmayd, but the place in which he settled was not calculated from its location and the habits of the people, by no means litigious, to furnish much practice, and he was too honest to promote litigation ; and furthermore, he had no legal adversary there except an old gentleman who never had any more legal learning than was necessary for a church warden, and whose ignorance made him the victim of Southmayd's merry witchery

BENCH AND BAR.

and innocent cunning, of both of which he had a superabundance, though he never indulged in ma- licious or even very serious mischief, and indeed in none except such as would do to relate for the pur- pose of making fun in merry company. Anecdotes of that description used to be related in great num- bers. As a pleader Mr. Southmayd was always sure to have all in his drafts which was requisite and per- tinent to the object in view, and in all his declarations affording room for coloring circumstances to be in- serted there was pretty sure to be found, slyly slipped in, some ingenious slang whang, or Southmaydism, as we used to call it. He was not ambitious of argu- ing cases in court, but when he did he always dis- played much ingenuity, and attracted respectful at- tention from the audience as well as from the triers. And before arbitrators, referces, and committees a more formidable opponent could hardly be found. And although his practice was not large, and as was observed of Mr. Slosson he was not among the lead- ing practitioners at the Litchfield bar, he was certainly a very respectable lawyer, upon a par with the fore- most of the second class, and much beloved and re- spected by all whose good opinions are desirable.

" As was observed in the outset, there were peenli- arities in Mr. Southmayd's private character and de- portment which it is difficult to describe or reconcile. Though of a benevolent disposition and full of good nature and kind feelings, there was yet in him a vein of adventure after intellectual amusement, which, from its very nature, could not be gratified but at the ex- pense of others, and often to such an extent as to render them ridiculous in the view of third persons to whom the result of the adventure was related. I have many times joined most heartily in the laugh at the relation of the result of many such seemingly innocent pieces of roguery, though I could not help condemning the mischief while participating in its fruits. In all such indulgences Southmayd never entertained the least malice, for his heart was a stranger to it, but his in- tense love of fun and enjoyment of the ridiculous often impelled him to go beyond the line of honest propriety. I used often to reproach him with it, but my admonitions were not well calculated to take effect when given at the close of a hearty laugh.

" From what I have been saying of Mr. Southmayd you would, I presume, be ready to concludo that he was one of the most cheerly and happy of men. But the case was directly the reverse, and during a consid- crable period of his life, and that, too, the most val- uable part of it, he was a very unhappy man indeed, and I have no doubt he had recourse to much of the indulgence of that peculiar propensity I have at- tempted to describe for the purpose of dispelling a mental malady which for a long time oppressed and preyed upon his heart. He was for many years the victim of the strongest species of hypochondria that ever mortal man was. It never showed itself in long fits of settled melancholy or monomania, but in sud- !

den fits and starts. After hours of cheerful conversa- tion, and while in entire health, he would suddenly complain of great distress, and exhibit unmistakable evidence of great terror and apprehension of imme- diate dissolution. One very extraordinary instance I will relate. He and I had been alone many hours, conversing and reading together, and he not in the least complaining, when he at once sprung from his scat and with a scream as would have alarmed me had it been any other person, and pressing both hands upon his breast, he exclaimed that he was going to die immediately. I stepped to him and gently and calmly said to him, 'Don't be alarmed, you are not going to die' (for we never treated him as if we thought his distress imaginary), and put my hand gently upon him to lead him to the bed, when he raised one hand from his breast and thrusting his finger against the side of his head declared, with another outery, that something was passing through his head. I persuaded him to lie down, telling him the feeling would pass off in a few minutes, but he continued to groan for some time. I, knowing what would cure him, took up and began to read to him one of Burke's finest essays, which lay by me, and, turning to a passage of extraordinary eloquence, read it, on which he sprung up on end in the bed, and exclaimed, 'Was ever anything finer than that" I continued on reading, and in the course of half an hour he was well and cheerful as ever. This was the most extraordinary instance I ever saw in him, but those in a degree like it were frequent. Ile always went to bed an hour or two before Slosson and I did, he saying that he never was able to get asleep until he had gone through a great deal of such feelings as he never would attempt to describe.

" Mr. Southmayd was greatly esteemed in his na- tive town by, I believe, almost every one, both old and young. Ile was early in life sent to the Legislature, and that often, and was so, I know, the last year of his life. Ile died of lung fever in March, 1813, about two months after the death of his friend Slosson. At the December term, 1812, the three who had so long occupied the same room in perfect harmony were for the last time there together. At the February term of the Supreme Court, Southmayd and I occupied it, but felt that we were in solitude, and in the next term it seemed to me most emphatically a solitude, and more like a family vault than like an abode for living men, and I believe I have never been into it sinee.

" Mr. Southmayd was undoubtedly an honest and honorable man, of uncommon pleasing manners and much beloved, and I never heard that he had an enemy. Indeed, the amenity of his manners and the gentleness of his temper almost forbade it.

"The family to which Mr. Sonthmayd belonged was of the Congregational order, and two of his sis- ters married Congregational clergymen. He, how- ever, joined himself to the Episcopal Church, of which he was a member after he settled in life, and

HISTORY OF LITCHFIELD COUNTY, CONNECTICUT.

of which I believe he was a communicant, but am not sure. He died unmarried, and I believe in the thirty-ninth or fortieth year of his age.

"HON. JOHN COTTON SMITH, the most eminent citizen of the town of Sharon, was a son of Rev. Cotton Mather Smith, and was born Feb. 12, 1765. He was graduated at Yale College in 1783, ad- mitted to the bar of Litchfield County in 1786, and married to Miss Margaret Evertson, of Amcnia, N. Y., in October of the same year. Their only child, the late William M. Smith, Esq., was born in August, 1787. Mr. Smith was soon introduced into the active duties of his profession in his native town by reason of the pecuniary embarrassments of the community in consequence of the Revolutionary war, and particularly from the extensive and embarrassed affairs of his uncle, Dr. Simeon Smith, who removed to Vermont, leaving the management of his extensive and complicated concerns in the hands of his young and inexperienced nephew. Through unwearied ex- ertions he was able to extricate the affairs of his uncle from a nearly hopeless condition by the full pay- ment of all just demands against him, and leaving him at last in the enjoyment of a handsome estate. It is but justice to his uncle to say that he, having no children of his own, made ample compensation to his nephew by the bequest in his will of a large and valuable estate. He was first elected to the Legis- lature in 1793, and was very frequently a member, and twice Speaker before 1800, when he was elected a member of Congress. There he remained six years, when the declining health of his father compelled his resignation. He was immediately elected to the Leg- islature of the State, and represented the town with- out intermission till 1809, and held the place of Speaker at each session. He was then elected to the Council, and in the October session of the same year was appointed a judge of the Supreme Court. In 1811 he was elected lieutenant-governor, and in 1813 Governor, of his native State. In this office he was continued till 1817, when the public voice demanded a change in the form of the government of the State, and the substitution of a written constitution for the less stable provisions of the charter of King Charles II. Governor Smith, not sympathizing with the ma- jority on this question, retired to private life, and lived, for nearly thirty years, a private citizen of Sharon. In public life he was never appointed to a position which he was not fully competent to fill. As a presiding officer in a deliberative assembly he had no peer, and although while he was inember of Con- gress, except for one short term, he was associated in principle and feeling with the minority, he was called upon to preside in committee of the whole more fre- quently than any other member. The late Luther Holley, an eminent citizen of Salisbury, who had been a member of the Legislature when Governor Smith was Speaker, once remarked that he had never seen a man who could take a paper from the table

and lay it back again so handsomely as could John Cotton Smith.

" In private life Governor Smith was a fine speci- men of the polished Christian gentleman. He de- voted some of his time to reviewing the studies of his early life, and in the preparation of useful and entertaining articles for the more elevated literary periodicals. He was for several years president of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, and of the American Bible Society, which latter office he retained till his death, which occurred on the 7th day of December, 1845, when he had nearly reached the age of eighty-one years.

" NATHANIEL SMITII .*- I received a line from my friend, Gen. Sedgwick, stating that it was your de- sire that he would ask of me, in your behalf, to furnish you with some facts in relation to the late Nathaniel Smith, and my views of his character, which might be of use to you in the preparation of the work you have in hand.

"I am, of course, aware that this application is owing to the accidental circumstance that I am the oldest, if not the only, member of the profession now living who had much personal acquaintance with that truly able and excellent man, or saw much of him in the exercise of his forensic or judicial talents. Judge Smith was indeed one of nature's nobles, and, considering the limited range of his early education, he had few equals and perhaps no superior in the profession which he chose, and which he eminently adorned. You are doubtless aware that Judge Smith had only such an education in childhood and youth as the common schools of the country afforded at the time. It was such, however, as a boy of unusual capacity and industrious habits would acquire from such a source, and such as, under the guidance of un- common discretion through life, rarely permitted its defects to be disclosed.

"When I first went to the law-school in Litch- field, which was in the fall of 1793, Mr. Smith, though not over thirty years old, was in full practice, and engaged in almost every cause of any import- ance. Indeed, he was said to have established a high reputation for talents in the first cause he argued in the higher courts. It was upon a trial for man- slaughter, which arose in his native town, and in which he appeared as junior counsel, and astonished the court, the bar, and all who heard him. Not long afterwards, in the celebrated case of Jedediah Strong and wife, before the General Assembly (she having applied for a divorce), he greatly distinguished him- self again, and thus became known throughout the State as a young lawyer of the first promise, and the reputation thus early acquired was never suffered to falter, but, on the other hand, steadily increased in strength until his elevation to the bench.

"During my stay in Litehfield, and after my ad-

* From Hollister's " History of Connecticut."

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mission to the bar, I of course saw Mr. Smith, and heard him in almost all the important cases there; and as I was located in the southwest corner town in the county, adjoining Fairfield, I almost immediately obtained some business which, though small, was such as during nearly all my professional life caused me to attend the courts in that county, where I found Mr. Smith as fully engaged and as highly esteemed as in his own county. In New Haven I also know he had a very considerable practice.

"It is worthy also to be observed, in forming an estimate of Mr. Smith's professional talent and char- acter, that there never at any period was an abler bar in Connecticut than during his practice. In Litch- field County were Judge Reeve, Judge Adams, Gen. Tracy, John Allen, Judge Gould, N. B. Benedict, and others; at the Fairfield County bar were Pier- pont Edwards, Judge Ingersoll, and Judge Daggett, constantly from New Haven, Judge Edmunds, S. B. Sherwood, R. M. Sherman, Judge Chapman, and Governor Bissell; and in New Haven, besides the three above named, were James Hillhouse, Judge Baldwin, and others.

and yet, in ordinary cases, he was the most correct speaker of the two, though Judge Reeve was, and he was not, a scholar. Mr. Smith, though quite unas- suming, and often receding in common intercourse and conversation, was, when heated in argument, it must be confessed, often overbearing to the adverse party, and not only them, but to their counsel. Upon all other occasions he appeared to be, and I believe was, a very kind-hearted, agreeable, and pleasant man. To me he always so appeared, and I have been much in his company.

"Mr. Smith came early into public life, and was frequently elected to the General Assembly from Woodbury. In 1795 he was elected a member of the Fourth Congress, and in 1797 he was chosen to the Fifth Congress, but declined further election. In May, 1799, he was made an assistant, and was re-elected for the five following years, when he resigned his seat at that board in consequence of the passage of the act in 1803 prohibiting the members of the then Supreme Court of Errors from practicing before that court. He remained in full practice at the bar until October, 1806, when he was elected a judge of the Superior Court and continued to fill that office until May, 1819, when the judiciary establishment of that year went into operation, from which time he remained in private life until his deatlı.

"As I suppose it not probable that you ever saw Judge Smith, as he ceased to attend courts in 1819, and died when you were very young, I will observe, what you have doubtless heard, that he was a large and fine-appearing man, much of the same com- "In every publie station in which Mr. Smith was placed he distinguished himself. He did so in Con- gress, at a time when our representation was as able, perhaps, as it ever has been, and when the character of the house to which be belonged was far higher than it now is. In the Superior Court he was certainly very greatly respected and admired as an able and perfectly upright judge. plexion of the Hon. Truman Smith, his nephew, with whom you are so well acquainted ; less tall than he, but of rather fuller habit. His face was not only the index of high capacity and solid judgment, but nu- commonly handsome; his hair was dark and thin, though not to baldness, except on the fore part of his head, and was very slightly sprinkled with gray. His fine, dark eyes were remarkably pleasing and gentle " In private life his name was free from all reproch. A strictly honest and pure life, free from any of those little blemishes which often mar the fame of distin- guished men, may, I think, be fairly claimed by his biographer to be his due. As a husband, a parent, a friend, a neighbor, a moralist, and a Christian, l be- lieve few have left a more faultless name." in ordinary intercourse, but very variable; always kindling when highly excited in debate, they became almost oppressive. His voice was excellent, being both powerful and harmonious, and never broke under any exertion of its capacity. His manner was very ardent and the seeming dietate of a strong con- viction of the justice of his cause, and his gestures " JAMES GOULD, the son of Dr. William Gould, an eminent physician, was born at Brandford, in this State, in the year 1770. The goodness of his com- mon-school education is inferable from the perfect accuracy of it, which showed itself in all ho did or said in after-life. He graduated, when a little over twenty-one, at Yale College, in September, 1791, with distinguished honor in a class distinguished for talents. were the natural expression of such a conviction. Mr. Smith's style was pure and genuine Saxon, with no attempt at classic ornament or allusion. His train of reasoning was Incid and direet, and evincive of the fact that the whole of it was like a map spread out in his mind's eye from the beginning. His in- genuity was always felt and dreaded by his opponent. He spoke with much fluency, but with no unduo rapidity ; he never hesitated for or haggled at a word, " The year next following his collegiate course he spent in Baltimore as a teacher. He then returned to New Haven and commenced the study of law with Judge Chauncey ; and in September of that year he was chosen a tutor in Yale College, in which office he continued two years. He then joined the law-school of Mr. Reeve, at Litchfield, and was soon after ad- nor did he ever tire his audience with undue pro- lixity, or omit to do full justice to his case for fear of tiring them ; and indeed there was little danger of it. Though certainly a very fine speaker, he never achieved or aspired to those strains of almost super- human eloquence with which his old master Reeve sometimes electrified and astonished his nudience, mitted to the bar. Immediately after his admission

HISTORY OF LITCHFIELD COUNTY, CONNECTICUT.

to the bar he opened an office for practice in that town, where he resided during the remainder of his life.

"On his first appearance as an advocate he evinced such an apparent maturity of intellect, such a self- possession, such command of his thoughts and of the language appropriate to their expression, that he was marked ont as a successful aspirant for forensic emi- nence. His progress in the acquisition of professional business was steady and rapid.

" Fortunate circumstances concurring a few years before his choice of Litchfield as the field of his pro- fessional labors, in the removal by promotion of two very distinguished practitioners at that bar, opened the way to such a choice, and by like good fortune a similar event removed one of the two only remaining obstructions in that town to his full share in the best business as an advocate, the only business to which he aspired. As a reasoner Mr. Gould was forcible, lucid, and logical; as a speaker his voice was very pleasant and his language pure, clear, and always appropriate. He never aspired to high strains of impassioned elo- quence, and rarely, if ever, addressed himself to the passions of the court and jury, but to their under- standing only, and was a very able, pleasing, and successful advocate. His argument was a fair map of the case, and one sometimes engaged against him, but feeling his superiority, observed that he had rather have Gould against him in a case than any other of anywhere cqual powers, because he could perfectly understand his argument, and if susceptible of an answer could know how to apply it. In his practice at the bar he was always perfectly fair and honorable. Within some two or three years after Mr. Gould com- menced practice, Mr. Reeve, the founder and until that time the sole instructor of the Litchfield Law- School, accepted a seat upon the bench of the Su- perior Court. This court made it necessary for him to give up the school or to associate some one with him in its management, and to deliver lectures in his absence upon the circuits. The judge selected Mr. Gould as that associate, and for a number of years they jointly conducted and received the profits of the school ; and on the final retiring of Judge Reeve from any participation in the instruction of the school, Mr. Gould became its sole instructor and so continued until elevated to the bench of the Superior Court in the spring of 1816, when he in turn had to have recourse to temporary aid for the short time he remained on the bench. But a thorough political revolution having taken place in this State, and a new constitution formed which entirely new-modeled the courts of law, Mr. Gould took no further share in public employments; and, his health being greatly impaired, he never resumed practice at the bar, but confined himself wholly to his school during the re- mainder of his life, as far as severe infirmities would permit. He died, as appears by the college catalogue, in 1838.

" In person Mr. Gould was very handsome. Of about medium height, or perhaps a little over, but rather less in body and limhs than medium size; his complexion fair, with fine dark eyes and beautiful brown hair; all his features good, and in connection indicative of much intelligence and good nature, and his form for symmetry and gracefulness could hardly have been mended; and in all respects, in body, mind, and education, he may be fairly styled a fin- ished man. In private and social intercourse he was highly pleasing, facetious, and witty.

"Soon after his settlement in Litchfield he married the eldest daughter of the Ilon. Uriah Tracy, so well known for his long and distinguished services in the councils of the State and nation.

" Mrs. Gould in person and mind was a fit wife for such a husband, and partook with him in the happi- ness of raising a very numerous and promising family of children.

"Judge Gould wrote and published a volume of pleadings, which, together with his fame as an in- structor, gave him a distinguished name among the eminent jurists of the country."

"HON. NOAH BENNET BENEDICT was a native of Woodbury, in which he resided during his whole life. He was the son of the Rev. Noah Benedict, long the pastor of the First Congregational Church in that town. Mr. Benedict's early school education must have been correct and good, as its fruits invariably showed itself in after-life. He graduated at Yale College in September, 1788, when a little short of eighteen years of age. His legal studies commenced soon after his graduation, which were, I believe, pur- sued principally, if not wholly, in the office of his brother-in-law, Nathaniel Smith, afterwards so highly distinguished as a jurist, which was near the residence of Mr. Benedict's father. As soon as he arrived to lawful age Mr. Benedict came to the bar, and for the remainder of his life-to wit, about thirty-nine years- it is believed he never failed to attend every regular session of the courts holden at Litchfield; and, though he never habitually attended courts in other counties, he occasionally did so for the purpose of arguing a particular case. During the long course of his prac- tice Mr. Benedict had an ample share of business, and for the latter half of that period he was, especially in the Superior Court, the leading advocate on one side or the other in most of the trials either to the court or to the jury. His management of a trial was discreet, his arguments sound, sensible, and, being aided by the well-known and generally esteemed in- tegrity of his character, had their due effect. He never attempted to play the orator or to attract atten- tion by fine turned periods, but contented himself with plain reasoning, of which he was no indifferent master.

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History of Litchfield county, Connecticut, Part 4

Author: J.W. Lewis & Company (Philadelphia, Pa.) Publication date: 1881 Publisher: Philadelphia : J.W. Lewis & Co. Number of Pages: 1532

Author: J.W. Lewis & Company (Philadelphia, Pa.)
Publication date: 1881
Publisher: Philadelphia : J.W. Lewis & Co.
Number of Pages: 1532