History of Litchfield county, Connecticut, Part 7

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

USA > Connecticut > Litchfield County > History of Litchfield county, Connecticut > Part 7

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"MATTHEW MINOR, of Woodbury, was a lawyer of good classical education and respectable legal at-

tainments. He had a native diffidence which pre- vented him putting himself forward very often on the trial of cases, but when his powers were brought out he made a respectable show. He belonged to one of the eminent families of Woodbury, and for personal qualities was very much respected.

" NATHANIEL P. PERRY, of Kent, was a quiet, un- obtrusive, conscientious man. He was the only law- yer in that town during the greater part of his profes- sional life, and did a good local business. He was very diligent in the pursuit of his profession, and gen- erally argued the cases that he commenced. He was a member of the Senate for two successive years, and died at the age of about sixty years."

HOLBROOK CURTIS, lawyer, of the class of 1807, died at Watertown, Conn., Feb. 21, 1858, of apoplexy. The deceased was born at Newtown, Fairfield Co., July 14, 1787. When eleven years of age he was placed by his parents in the family of the Rev. Dr. Burhans to be prepared for college. Remaining with him two or three years, he subsequently pursued his studies with that accomplished jurist and classical scholar, Judge Chapman, from whom he imbibed a taste for the classics, which he cultivated and enjoyed through life. He entered the junior class of Yale College in 1805, and on graduating returned to his native town, studied Inw with Judge Chapman, and was admitted to the bar, at Fairfield, in 1809.

Ile pursued the practice of his profession at New- town until 1813, when upon the death of Samuel W. Southmayd, Esq., a lawyer, at Watertown, Litchfield Co., Conn., he was invited by several gentlemen of that place to remove there. The invitation was ac- cepted and he remained there until his death. During almost fifty years of professional life he received the confidence and esteem of those around him, and his good sense and kindness of heart were very frequently enlisted to make peace and heal dissensions among neighbors and friends. 1Ic pursued an honorable, highminded, liberal course in the performance of his duties as a lawyer, as n citizen, and as a man. In the various public trusts he was called upon during periods of many years to discharge, as a magistrate, member of the Legislature, judge of probate and of the county, and member of the general conventions of the Epis- copal Church, in which he was educated and through life attached, his sound judgment, strict integrity, and conservative views were pre-eminent.

Ile was a man of constant and extensive reading, had made some progress in modern languages, and of the Latin poets could repeat large portions of Horace and Virgil from memory. Ile was warm and social in his feelings and possessed an immense fund of ancedote, not only of the bench and bar of his carly days, but the traditional, extending back into the colonial tinres; and even the unpublished stanzas with which the legal wits honored the king's attorney in the days of the Stamp Act, or the ancient clergy occasionally prepared in commemoration of some

HISTORY OF LITCHFIELD COUNTY, CONNECTICUT.

ludicrous mishap of one of their number, were stored away in his retentive memory.

The men of those times have long since passed away, and he has been called to follow them, regretted by all who knew him.

"Jam te premet nox, fabulæque Manes, Et domus exilis Plutonia."

WILLIAM EDMOND CURTIS was the eldest son of Holbrook and Elizabeth (Edmond) Curtis, and was born at Watertown, in the same room in which he died, Sept. 29, 1823. A sketch of his father appears elsewhere in this work. His maternal grandfather, Judge William Edmond, of Newtown, Conn., was of Irish descent, but was born in this State, graduated at Yale College in 1773, served as a volunteer, and was wounded in the attack on Danbury in 1777; married, for his second wife, a daughter of Benjamin Payne, Esq., of Hartford ; was a member of Congress and a judge of the Supreme Court of this State.

Young Curtis had a brother Henry, near his own age, and the two boys grew up together, studying partly at the schools of the town and partly with their father until about twelve years of age, when Henry died, leaving William the only child of his parents. He had begun the study of Latin with his father at the age of eight, and pursued his classical studies under his guidance until he was fifteen, when he went for a year to the Episcopal academy at Cheshire, then under the care of the Rev. Allen C. Morgan and the Rev. Dr. Beardsley, where he finished his preparation for college, and entered Trinity College, Hartford, the ensuing year. He graduated with distinguished honor in 1843, and entered the law-office of Hon. William Curtis Noyes, then a prominent member of the New York bar.

He undertook, in addition to his legal studies, the acquisition of a more thorough knowledge of the French and Spanish languages, and with such success that by the time he was admitted to the bar he was able to speak both languages with sufficient facility for business purposes, and immediately reaped the benefit of his labors by attracting French and Span- ish clients, and thus early laying the foundation of an extensive and successful practice.

It is worth while to notice, however, for the encour- agement of younger members of the profession, this entry in his diary :

"June 26, 1846. Nothing to do; business dull. If things are not bet- ter. I shall emigrate to Texas."

This probably does not indicate any intention of going to Texas, but was a figurative expression of the time, indicating merely the intention of making some change of location for the purpose of bettering his fortunes.

Soon after his proposed emigration to Texas busi- ness prospects began to improve, and from that time forward he never lacked professional occupation. He was not only a careful student of the law, but he was a man of excellent business judgment, so that his

advice was much sought and greatly valued. Faith- fulness to duty was a marked feature of his character. . He prepared his cases with care and fidelity, giving careful thought to every consideration by which his clients' interest might be affected. As a consequence of this he won many causes without a trial. He was fair and honest by nature, and people instinctively confided in him in regard to their property interests and their personal affairs. His courtesy was remark- able, and it was only when occasion seemed to demand it that he assumed a tone of severity with the air of dis- charging a duty rather than of giving way to the in- dulgence of personal feeling. His whole demeanor was eminently dignified and judicial, and when, in 1871, he was elected on the Reform ticket one of the judges of the Superior Court of the City of New York, there was a very general feeling that he was in his right place. His career on the bench fully justi- fied this feeling, and on the death of Chief Justice Monell, in 1876, he was with great unanimity selected as presiding judge.

One of his late associates, in speaking of his char- acter at a meeting of the bar held with reference to his death, said, " He seemed to have an intuitive idea of right and justice from which he never swerved. He was a safe guardian of every interest committed to his management, and allowed no selfish purpose to swerve him from entire justice to others. This sentiment was carried in instances to self-sacrifice. He was a large-minded man, and the current of his thoughts and actions was limited by no narrow bounds; it deepened and widened according to the subjects he was called upon to consider."

Perhaps the highest praise that can be given to a judge is that he has no history but the reports.

Outside of his profession Judge Curtis' chief efforts were in the cause of education. To Trinity College, as his Alma Mater, his ties were strong and his rela- tions intimate. In 1846 he was appointed to deliver the Master's oration. In 1857 he became a Fellow of the college and a member of the corporation, and in 1862 he received the honorary degree of LL.D.

In 1857 he was elected a member of the board of education of the city of New York, and served in that capacity for nine years and, during the last four years, as president of the board. He was a vestry- man of St. George's Church, a member of the council of the New York Geographical Society, and of various other religious, literary, and social organizations. All these duties he discharged with conscientious fidelity, and especially to those connected with the board of education he devoted a large amount of time.

His personal friendships, though not demonstrative, were lasting, and an old friend or acquaintance in need never appealed to him in vain. Many could testify to this, but he was naturally secretive, and probably few comparatively of these acts of kindness were ever known beyond himself and the recipient.

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SIT &. PUNTEN

BENCH AND BAR.

His local attachments were very strong. He always retained the old place in Watertown which he had inherited from his father, where he himself was born, and which had always been his home. Here his family spent their summers, and here he came to rest when rest was permitted, thoroughly enjoying the scenes of his childhood and the familiar faces and voices that greeted each return. He was deeply at- tached to the place and greatly respected and esteemed by the people. "We have lost our great man," was the simple tribute paid to him by one of his towns- men.

The character of his mind was in all things strongly conservative, and although he kept pace with the time in knowledge and habit of life, yet to him personally change was painful, and he endured rather than en- joyed the little that circumstances compelled him to adopt of what was new in all his personal belongings.

In his youth he was tall, slender, and delicate, and although in later years he became a large man, and had the appearance of physical vigor, he was not as strong as he appeared. Nearly two years before his death he had a severe sickness which prostrated him for many weeks. The following summer he spent in Europe and partially regained his health; but the severe work of a long winter was too great a tax upon his enfeebled vitality, and on the 6th day of July, 1880, at his old home, and surrounded by his family, he suddenly sank under what appeared to be but a slight indisposition.

Judge Curtis married, Sept. 2, 1851, Mary A., daughter of William HI. Scovell, Esq., of Waterbury, and great-granddaughter of the Rev. James Scovill, a native of Watertown, and the first Episcopal min- ister of Watertown and Waterbury.

His widow, with five sons and two daughters, survive him.

" ISAAC LEAVENWORTH AND ROYAL R. HINMAN. -There were two lawyers in Roxbury fifty years ago, Isaac Leavenworth and Royal R. Hinman, who made a considerable show of business before the courts, but who retired from practice in the course of a few years. Mr. Leavenworth went into other business in New Haven, where it is said he has been very successful, and is still living at a very advanced nge. Mr. Hin- man hekl the office of Secretary of State for eight years, and published several pamphlets containing the statistics of many of the most prominent families in the State.

"JOSEPH II. BELLAMY, of Bethlehem, deserves more than a passing tribute. He was a grandson of the celebrated divine of that name, and was a man of great moral worth. He never had a very extensive practice as a lawyer, but was much employed in va- rious branches of public business. He was frequently a member of the Legislature, and once represented the Sixteenth District in the Senate. He died in middle life, and all, of all names and parties, pay him the tribute of an affectionate and respectful remembrance,

" THEODORE NORTH, of Goshen, his native town, removed to Chenango Co., N. Y., about 1823. He graduated at Williams College in 1806 with the high- est honors of his class. He was a remarkably well- read lawyer, and had a respectable standing as an advocate. He attained to eminence in his profession in the State of New York. He died some twenty years since.

" HON. WILLIAM S. HOLABIRD, a native of Canaan, Conn., studied law with Hon. W. M. Burrall, attended the law lectures of Judge Gould at Litchfield, was admitted to the bar about 1820, and soon after commeneed practice at Colebrook, Conn., whence he moved to Winsted in 1824, and soon after seenred a large practice and high standing at the bar. He held the appointment of district attorney for four years under President Jackson, and was Lieutenant- Governor of the State in 1842 and 1844; besides which, he held the offices of postmaster and assignee in bankruptcy. He was a man of commanding person and pleasing address. As a lawyer he was adroit rather than learned, thorough in preparing his eases, quick to discern the weak points of his adversary. and energetic beyond most men in carrying forward his cases to a final issue. The same qualities were prominent in his political career, but his success as a lawyer was more decided than as a politician. About 1850 he withdrew from legal practice and devoted himself to financiering with decided success. He died May 22, 1855, at the age of sixty-one.

"GEORGE S. BOARDMAN, son of the Hon. Elijah Boardman, of New Milford, was admitted to the bar in 1821. He was a young man of decided promise, and was a special favorite of his unele, Judge Boardman. His death was greatly lamented throughout the com- munity. His efforts at the bar gave proof of decided talent, and he had made himself a special favorite among the members.

" JOHN ELMORE was a native of Sharon. Hle set- tled as a lawyer in Canaan about 1793. He had no great eminence at the bar, but was a great favorite with his associates for his genial humor, pertinent anecdotes, and witty sayings. He lived to a very ad- vanced age. The last years of his life were devoted to zealous efforts in the cause of temperance. His son, of the same name, was also in the practice of the law for several years in Canaan.

" GEORGE WHEATON spent a somewhat protracted life in Cornwall in the practice of law. He was nd- mitted to the bar about 1812, and at once engaged in professional occupations. He was an ingenious, sa- gacious, and perhaps it may be said crafty, lawyer, for opposing counsel were always fearful that he would spring upon them some new points to which their attention had not been directed. He was defi- cient in early education, but even his blunders in the use of language were often witty, and he was always listened to.in his arguments with close attention. He understood well all the points in his case, and

HISTORY OF LITCHFIELD COUNTY, CONNECTICUT.

presented them with great skill to the court. He had a successful carcer, and left a good name behind him.

"SAMUEL CHURCHI was a native of Salisbury, and a graduate of Yale College of the class of 1803, and he continued his residence in Salisbury while he was a member of the bar. He held quite a respectable standing as a lawyer, and for several years was the State's attorney for the county. He had not attained to the higher ranks in his profession when, in 1832, he was appointed a judge of the Supreme Court, but to the duties of the latter office he devoted himself with great assiduity and success, and was in no degree inferior to his associates on the bench in those qual- ities which go to make a good judge of our highest court. On the expiration of the term of Chief Justice Williams, in 1847, he was appointed his successor, and held that position during the remainder of his life. After his appointment as judge he removed to Litchfield. He died a few months before he had reached the age of seventy years.

"JABEZ W. HUNTINGTON, a native of Norwich, graduated at Yale College in 1806; came to Litch- field as a teacher and student-at-law in 1807, and continued to reside here until October, 1834, when he returned to Norwich, and died there in 1847, in his sixtieth year. While a resident of Litchfield he was elected a representative member of Congress, and judge of the Superior Court. From 1840 until his death he was a member of the United States Senate.

"GIDEON HALL was a native of Winchester, and had abundant carly advantages for an education, although he did not go through a college course. His father was a man of large estate, and the son was left in easy circumstances. Ile had a fair standing at the bar and did a considerable amount of professional business. Towards the close of his life he received the appointment of judge of the Supreme Court, but after a short term of service in that office consump- tion terminated his life."

HON. TRUMAN SMITH was the oldest son of Phin- eas and Deborah Ann (Judson) Smith, and was born in Roxbury, on the 27th day of November, A.D. 1791. His father was the oldest son of a family, two of whose members, Nathaniel Smith, of Woodbury, and Nathan Smith, of New Haven, became very distinguished at the bar and in public life in Connecticut. Phineas Smith was a farmer, and was in no degree inferior in intellectual ability to either of his brothers. The sub- ject of this notice was brought up on his father's farm, and owes whatever success he achieved in after-life to habits formed and principles inculcated in the home of his childhood. He was graduated at Yale College in 1815, and soon after commenced the study of law. He was admitted to the bar of Litchfield County in March, 1818. In the fall of the same year he opened an office for the practice of the law in Litchfield, and that village was his home until 1854. The bar of Litchfield County then numbered more than forty members, and several of them were eminent in the

profession. Mr. Smith felt that at such a bar as this faithful study and indefatigable labor alone would insure success, and to such study and labor he devoted himself strictly, and he soon became known as a young lawyer of decided promise and marked ability. He soon acquired professional business, and at the end of ten or twelve years took rank among the able mem- bers of the bar in the management of the most im- portant cases before the courts in Litchfield County, and was sometimes engaged in such cases in other counties in the State. His habits and methods of practice were peculiar to himself. In the examination of witnesses and in the discussion of interlocutory questions he showed peculiar ability. The reluctance of a witness to disclose the truth and give a fair state- ment of the matters of which he was testifying, would sometimes provoke the most severe reprehension of the advocate, which he was not backward in exhibit- ing in court. He never went into the trial of an im- portant case without having made a thorough study of all questions likely to arise in the course of the proceedings, and was generally well prepared to give such questions a thorough discussion. His method of argument to the court and jury was also peculiar to himself. His style and manner showed nothing of the polished refinement which marked the perform- ances of James Gould and Roger M. Sherman, but there was a power of thought and a strength of argu- ment attending his oral deliveries which made him a popular advocate. In his arguments at the bar he discussed nothing but the merits of the question, and he was heard with strict attention by the triers whom he was addressing. Upon the whole, his career as a lawyer was eminently successful.

Mr. Smith early took a deep interest in public af- fairs, and a considerable portion of his subsequent career was devoted to public employments, to which he was appointed by the voice of his fellow-citizens, and to all matters which agitated the public mind he devoted the same assiduous attention and thorough examination which marked his professional labors. It followed, of course, that he became a prominent member of the different legislative bodies to which he was elected, and all the speeches which he de- livered in either house of Congress, to which he was clected, bore evidence of thorough labor in their preparation. He was elected to the Legislature of Connecticut, by the town of Litchfield, in 1831, 1832, and 1834, and had much to do in shaping the legisla- tion of those years. But a wider field soon opened before him, and higher posts of duty awaited him. It was not the fashion of those times for candidates to urge their own claims, or spend their money in promoting their own advancement in public life. It has been said of Mr. Smith, and probably with truth, that he never packed a convention, never solicited a nomination, never asked a man to vote for him, and never addressed a political meeting when he was a candidate for office.

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In 1839, and again in 1841, he was elected to the National House of Representatives by decided ma- jorities in the district to which he belonged, which then embraced the county of Litchfield. The census of 1840 rendered necessary a new apportionment of members of Congress in the different States, and under that arrangement the counties of Fairfield and Litchfield were embodied into a single district, and from this district, thus enlarged, he was twice elected by large majorities. He was elected to the Senate of the United States for the term commencing March 4, 1849, but he resigned his place before the expira- tion of the time to which he had been appointed. His career in both branches of Congress was honor- able and snecessful, and the speeches which he made in each were marked by the evidence that much study and reflection had been employed in their prepara- tion. In the House of Representatives his published speeches were : 1. On the New Jersey Broad Seal elec- tion case. 2. On our wool-growing and wool-manu- facturing interests. 3. On the territory to be acquired from Mexico by a treaty then pending. In the Sen- ate he delivered speeches on the following subjects : 1. On removals from office. 2. On a bill to admit California into the Union, and to establish several territorial governments. 3. On French spoliations, etc. 4. On the proposition of Mr. Douglas to levy tonnage on the States for the improvement of rivers and harbors. 5. On the construction of a railroad to the Pacific coast. 6. On the Nebraska question. Of the speech on the bill to admit California into the Union, and to establish several territorial governments, Mr. Webster, in a speech on the same question, made a few days afterwards, said, "It contained one of the clearest and strongest demonstrations that I have heard from the mouth of man." All the speeches of Mr. Smith were fraught with good sense and sound logic. The last one delivered, Feb. 10 and 11, 1854, was a discussion on the repeal of the Missouri Com- promise, and expressed his full conviction that the measure foreboded incalculable mischief to the coun- try, and he felt bound to oppose to it an uncompro- mising resistance. He undertook to demonstrate that there was, and had ever been, an entire harmony in the elements on which the prosperity of tho different sections of the Union depended; that there was an utter impossibility of maintaining an equilibrium be- tween the free and slave States, and that such equi- librium, if attainable, would bo useless to the latter; that the slavery question, which, during the few pre- ceding years, had made so much disturbance in and out of Congress, was of very little importance. Sub- sequent history has disclosed events which no one then foresaw.

Mr. Smith had a decided preference for Gen. Tay- for as a candidate for the Presidency in 1848, and was a member of the convention which gave him the nomination. He was also the chairman of the Na- tional Whig committee by which the canvass for the

general was.conducted. One of his colleagues on this committee was Abraham Lincoln, who spent a considerable time in Washington as a member of the committee during the canvass.

On the accession of Gen. Taylor to the Presidency he proposed to Mr. Smith to make him Secretary of the Interior, thus constituting him a member of his cabinet, but Mr. Smith preferred to occupy his seat in the Senate as best suited to his habits and method of life.

Soon after the accession of Mr. Lincoln to the Presidency, a treaty was entered into between the United States and Great Britain for establishing in- ternational courts, to be located, two in Africa and one in the city of New York, to adjudicate slave- trading cases, each to consist of two judges, one rep- resenting the United States and the other Great Brit- ain. Mr. Smith was appointed to the New York court, and held the situation for several years; but our coast having been blockaded during the war, and slavery in the United States being abolished, there could be no cases to be submitted to the court except in connection with Cuba or some other slave-holding country, of which there was very little probability, the two governments, by a new treaty, abrogated the courts and left the matters regarding them to the or- dinary courts. This was the last public office held by Mr. Smith.

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History of Litchfield county, Connecticut, Part 7

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