History of New London county, Connecticut : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Part 9

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton)
Publication date: 1882
Publisher: Philadelphia : J.W. Lewis & Co.
Number of Pages: 1317


USA > Connecticut > New London County > History of New London county, Connecticut : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men > Part 9


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Immediately after the battle of Lexington, at the commencement of the war of the Revolution, he re- paired to Roxbury, Mass., and joined those there assembled for the defense of the rights of liis country, and continued in such defense with scarcely any in- termission until the close of the war. He entered with zeal and energy into the expedition for the cap- ture of Ticonderoga and Crown Point before it should be there known that hostilities had commenced, and was present and engaged in the capture of those im- portant posts. He was appointed by Col. Ethan Allen to take charge of the prisoners there captured, whom he conducted to Hartford.


While absent on this expedition he was appointed and commissioned by Governor Trumbull, May 1, 1775, a lieutenant in the force raised for the defense


1 She was the mother of the late Daniel T. Coit, for forty years a prac- ticing physician in Boston, Mass. Ile died in Norwich, July 2, 1880.


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HISTORY OF NEW LONDON COUNTY, CONNECTICUT.


of the colony. With Ticonderoga and Crown Point were also captured a large number of naval craft and guns on Lakes George and Champlain. These being without a commander, Col. Benjamin Hinman, col- onel of the Fourth Regiment of Foot raised by the colony of Connecticut, and commander-in-chief at Ticonderoga, appointed Mr. Halsey captain of the armed sloop "Enterprise," of twenty-one guns, and commander of all the vessels on the lakes. This commission is dated at Ticonderoga, June 21, 1775. He was at the siege of St. John's under Gen. Mont- gomery, and continued in this service until December, 1775.


In December, 1776, he was appointed and commis- sioned a captain in a corps of troops raised for service in the Continental army, and served in that army under Gen. Spencer in Rhode Island until the month of April, 1777. In September, 1777, he was appointed by Governor Trumbull and the Council of Safety, under a resolution of Congress, a recruiting-officer, and with anthority to apprehend deserters, and continued in such duty until the close of the war. Feb. 29, 1780, he was appointed and commissioned lieutenant-colo- nel of the Twenty-seventh Regiment of Foot of the State militia, from which he derived the title of " colonel," by which he was familiarly known.


During this time he was looking forward to the practice of his profession, as appears by an invoice of English law-books which he purchased in 1778, em- bracing most of the books then in use. At the close of the war he soon entered upon a large and varied practice in the State and United States courts.


His residence was upon a farm a little south of Preston City, then a place of considerable trade, where he built a spacious brick mansion. His house, ac- cording to the custom of the times, was the abode of a generous hospitality. Among other law students he had Calvin Goddard, of Massachusetts, who was also a tutor to the children of the family. He was quick to observe the rare talents of his student, who afterwards became one of the foremost among the law- yers of the State, and between whom a warm friend- ship existed through life. He was an early advocate of emancipation, and purchased the freedom of sev- eral negro slaves.


Among other enterprises outside of his profession, he built at Poquetanuck a plank brig, the materials for which came mostly from his farm. It was re- garded as a great novelty at the time, but proved to be a serviceable vessel.


In 1792 the Legislature authorized the building of a new State-House in Hartford. After its partial completion, the funds appropriated having been ex- pended, Andrew Ward and Jeremiah Halsey pro- posed to complete it for the title of a tract of land called the "Gore," claimed by the State, and lying between New York and Pennsylvania. The proposi- tion was accepted, and the State-House was completed by them and occupied by the Legislature in 1796.


Governor Samuel Huntington conveyed to them the title of the State to said tract, July 25, 1795. The State- House was then completed. A picture of it as it then appeared is in the background of a portrait of Col. Halsey, in the rooms of the Connecticut Historical Society, at Hartford.


Col. Halsey purchased the interest of Mr. Ward in the tract, Aug. 4, 1795. Col. Halsey had great faith in the future value of this tract of land, and of the title of the State to it. In its value his judgment was correct. It would have proved a princely estate, but the title unfortunately proved defective. Sept. 17, 1795, there was organized at Hartford "The Con- necticut Gore Land Company," of which Col. Halsey was the president. The object was to survey and lay ont the tract into townships, settle boundaries, remove encroachments, etc. It was finally decided that Con- necticut had no title to convey, and the whole enter- prise proved a failure. Subsequently the General Assembly made some compensation for the failure of title.


Col. Halsey is recollected as a man of tall and com- manding figure, of sanguine temperament, persuasive address, combined with great force and energy of character. He had ten children; the eldest was Jeremiah Shipley Halsey, father of Jeremiah Halsey, lawyer of Norwich, and the youngest, Silas Plowden Halsey, who was lost in a torpedo off New London, in August, 1814, in an attempt to blow up the British ship " Ramilies," 74, then blockading the harbor of New London.


Col. Halsey died Aug. 25, 1829, and is buried in the parish burying-ground at Preston City.


MARVIN WAIT .- Among the members of the bar of this county who were admitted to the same prior to the Revolution and were in full practice through the latter part of the last and the early part of the present century was Marvin Wait. He was born at Lyme, Dec. 16, 1746. He was educated in the com- mon schools of that town, and at the proper age read law with the elder Matthew Griswold and SAMUEL HOLDEN PARSONS, residents of Lyme, and was ad- mitted to practice in 1769. He at once formed a partnership with his preceptor, Mr. Parsons, who sent him into New London with his law library to open an office, he intending to remove there himself, with his family, the following year. Mr. Parsons was at that time king's attorney for this county, and was a leading man in public affairs, and a prominent practitioner at the bar of the State. But the Revo- lution began to loom up; Parsons became involved in the movements of the Whigs of that day; he kept deferring his removal from Lyme to New London till war broke out, when he abandoned practice, entered the army, and before he retired from the same reached the rank of major-general.


The subject of this sketch rose rapidly at the bar of this county, and obtained a large practice during the Revolution, and so into the opening of the present


Tirah Isham


Eng : by Gen F Lerin" New York


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century. He had a clear and vigorous intellect, thor- oughly disciplined by early education, general reading, and professional training. He was an easy and effective speaker, and stood high in his profession as an advocate. It was said of him that he studied men as carefully as books, and that his thorough knowl- edge of human nature gave him great advantage in the trial of cases to a jury. With agreeable manners and pleasant address, he was popular among his polit- ical friends. He began his public career early in life; was nineteen times elected a representative from New London to the General Assembly ; was several years a judge of the old County Court for New Lon- don County ; and was a Presidential elector in 1793, and cast his vote for Washington. When political parties formed, at the close of Gen. Washington's administration, he united with the supporters of Mr. Jefferson; was one of the leaders of the old Republican party in this State, and several times one of the con- gressional candidates of that party. He was also one of the commissioners appointed by the General As- sembly to sell the Western lands, the property of the State, and establish the present school fund. Soon after the close of the present century he retired from practice, and died June 21, 1815, at his residence, on Main Street, in New London. Throughout his pro- fessional and public career he enjoyed the reputation of being an honorable and incorruptible man, and left an unsullied name as a rich legacy to his children.


JIRAH ISHAM was born in the town of Colchester, Conn., in May, 1778. He was educated at Yale Col- lege, where he graduated in 1797. He commenced the study of the law in the office of Hon. David Dag- gett, at New Haven, where he remained about one year. He then removed to New London, and con- tinued his studies with the late Judge Brainard, and was admitted to the bar in 1800. He commenced practice in New London, where he remained until his death.


Mr. Isham was highly respected as a man and a lawyer. With engaging manners and a warm heart, he entered into the feelings and views of his numer- ous clients with such entire devotedness that they re- garded him not merely as a safe adviser and able ad- vocate, but as a personal friend. His disposition was eminently social, but this. never interfered with the severer duties of his profession. His habits were at once active and studious. While he mingled freely and with much zest in general society, he devoted most of the hours of every day to laborious applica- tion to business. As an orator he was fluent, grace- ful, and ardent, and at times truly eloquent.


During the war of 1812 he was major-general of the State militia, and for a time commanded the troops stationed at New London and its vicinity for the defense of that part of the State, and those who served under him felt that they were serving under a commander whose talent and courage they never doubted.


Gen. Isham, as he was familiarly known, was for several years State's attorney for New London County, was also mayor of the city of New London, and judge of probate for the New London district.


He continued in the active practice of his profes- sion until his death, which occurred at New London, Oct. 6, 1842.


The military ardor of Gen. Isham seems to have descended to his grandson, William Dickinson, of New London, Conn., who at the breaking out of the Rebellion was a lieutenant in the United States army, was soon promoted to be captain, and while in command of his company at the battle of Bull Run was severely wounded, taken prisoner, and carried to Richmond, where he was confined many months, suf- fering greatly from his wound and his tedious im- prisonment. For his gallant conduct in the battle, however, he received the brevet of major.


HENRY STRONG .- Prominent in the galaxy of members of the legal profession who have adorned the bar of this commonwealth stands the name of Henry Strong, for many years previous to his death the acknowledged leader of the bar of Eastern Con- necticut, and without a superior in the State.


The youngest son of Rev. Dr. Joseph Strong and Mary Huntington, he was born in Norwich, Conn., Ang. 23, 1788. He was prepared for college by his father, and at the age of fourteen entered Yale. Governor Bissall and Senator Jabez W. Huntington were in the same class, and among his college cotem- poraries were also John C. Calhoun, Rev. Joshua Huntington, Rev. John Pierpont, Dr. Thomas H. Gallaudet, and Rev. Gardiner Spring, D.D. Not- withstanding his youth, his scholarship was of a high order, and he graduated with the honors of the insti- tution in 1806.


The two years after his graduation he devoted to the teaching of a select school in his native town, pursuing at the same time the study of the law in the office of James Steadman, Esq. During the next two years he held the position of tutor in Yale College, continuing his legal studies with Judge Chauncey, of New Haven.


He was admitted to the bar in New Haven in 1810, and immediately returned to Norwich and entered zealously upon the practice of his chosen profession. To this his mind was well adapted, being quick, logi- cal, comprehensive, and able to elicit truth from the most complicated and seemingly contradictory evi- dence. He was wont to seize upon the strong points of a case, and present them in the most convincing light. He was ever ready and able to make the best of a client's cause which the testimony would warrant, but he scorned all trickery and deception. As a public speaker he was earnest and at times even impetuous. His eloquence was like the mountain torrent, which either surmounts or demolishes whatever obstacles it meets. He possessed a wonderful power of language, which he well knew how to employ at the bar or else-


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HISTORY OF NEW LONDON COUNTY, CONNECTICUT.


where, to rebuke whatever was dishonorable or mean, as well as to vindicate the claims of justice.


As a lawyer, the members of the bar of which he had been an ornament for more than forty years de- scribed him as "one who by the ability, integrity, fidelity, and diligence with which he discharged his various duties imparted dignity and respectability to the profession, and caused his own name and memory to be held in honored remembrance."


Mr. Strong was free from all taint of personal am- bition, and though often solicited to allow himself to be put in nomination for some of the highest offices in the gift of the State, he uniformly and resolutely declined all such overtures, except in two or three in- stances when he reluctantly accepted a seat in the State Senate. He was invited to accept the professorship of law in Yale College, but he declined. In the year 1848, however, the corporation, without consulting Mr. Strong, conferred upon him the degree of LL.D., an honor which was richly deserved.


Every enterprise which promised to benefit the public found in him an advocate and patron. He was a firm friend of education, and was one of the founders and supporters of the Norwich High School.


He was a consistent Christian, and a constant at- tendant upon public worship, and a liberal contributor to all charitable objects.


Henry Strong had an integrity and uprightness of character against which envy dared not breathe a whisper. He had a love of truth and goodness which shaped all his intercourse with his fellow-men, and an unobtrusive benevolence which cheered many a desponding heart. He died in Norwich, Nov. 12, 1852.


He married July 7, 1825, Ennice Edgerton Hunt- ington, of Norwich, daughter of Joseph Huntington and Eunice Carew, and their family consisted of three children, only one of whom is living, Mary Eunice, wife of Dr. Daniel F. Gulliver.


HENRY MATSON WAITE, late chief justice of the Supreme Court of Connecticut, was born at Lyme, in this State, on the 9th day of February, 1787, and died at that place on the 14th day of December, 1869.


On his father's side he was descended from an old and highly respectable family, originally English. An ancestor moved from Sudbury, Mass., to Lyme about the commencement of the eighteenth century. Among the descendants of this ancestor who have distin- guished themselves in this State may be mentioned Marvin Waite, a prominent lawyer in his day, and John Turner Waite, his son, one of the foremost law- yers in Eastern Connecticut, and now the representa- tive in Congress from the Third District of the State. The mother of Judge Waite was a Matson, of an equally honorable race. She was a sister of the late Governor Buckingham's mother, and was in many respects a remarkable woman.


Judge Waite prepared for college at Bacon Acad- emy, Colchester, then the most flourishing institution


of the kind in the State, and had for his schoolmates the late Governor Ellsworth, his brother, Henry L. Ellsworth, Henry R. Storrs, and others who have since been men of mark in the country. In 1806 he entered the sophomore class at Yale College, and was graduated in 1809 with high honors. Soon after this he taught school in Fairfield County, and began the study of the law with Joseph Wood, Esq., of Stam- ford. For about a year he was assistant preceptor of Bacon Academy, and then recommenced his legal studies with the Hon. Matthew Griswold, at Lyme. occasionally reciting to and receiving instruction from Governor Roger Griswold, one of the ablest men the State has ever produced.


After being admitted to practice in New London County in 1812, Judge Waite opened an office for a short time in Middletown, and then returned and de- voted himself to his profession in his native town. In January, 1816, he married Maria Selden, a daugh- ter of Col. Richard Selden, of Lyme, and grand- daughter of Col. Samuel Selden, a distinguished offi. cer of the Revolution. This family has given many eminent men to the country, among whom the most conspicuous at the present day are Judges Samuel Lee Selden and Henry R. Selden, of the State of New York.


In the years 1815 and 1826 Judge Waite repre- sented the town of Lyme in the General Assembly, and in 1830 and 1831 he was a member of the Senate for the Ninth District. In both bodies his good sense, his rectitude of purpose and conceded ability gave him, even when in a minority, a full share of per- sonal influence. In politics he belonged to the old Federal party, and when that had ceased to exist and had become with many a theme of derision he ad- hered to its principles and defended its character.


In consequence of the pecuniary embarrassments and changes in the condition of property which fol- lowed the war of 1812 there was a large amount of litigation, and he went immediately into a full and profitable practice. This his character for integrity, industry, promptness, and sagacity, and especially his prestige of success, enabled him to retain and increase during the whole of his professional career. It was his habit to be thoroughly prepared in season, both on questions of law and fact, so as to be able to seize the earliest moment to pass his cases to trial, and he thereby avoided as far as lay in his power " the law's delay," which has tended so much to sully the fame of an honest and honorable profession and to bring reproach upon the administration of justice.


He never affected what is usually understood as the art of oratory, depending mainly upon voice, gesticu- lation, posture, and expression of countenance,-what the great Athenian pleader denominated "action." But his judgment in selecting the prominent points of a case and skill in applying the evidence, his perspicuity of language and earnestness of manner, and, perhaps as much as any one quality, his subtle


yours truly H. M. Waite


:


L. F. S. FOSTER.


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BENCH AND BAR.


knowledge of character, rendered him a successful advocate with the jury.


It was, however, rather in questions of law that his strength especially lay; and his legal erudition, patient research, power of discrimination, and terse- ness of argument were fully appreciated by an able and learned court.


On the retirement of Judge Daggett, in 1834, Judge Waite was elected a judge of the Superior and Supreme Courts. In 1854 he was advanced to the position of chief justice, and this high office he held until the 9th of February, 1857, when he arrived at the age of seventy, the constitutional limit of his official term. During this period of more than twenty-two years he enjoyed the perfect confidence, respect, and esteem of the bar and the entire commu- nity. To the younger members of the bar he was particularly kind, and many who now occupy the front rank in the profession remember gratefully the aid and encouragement which they received from him in their earlier efforts.


He was careful in forming, and modest in express- ing his legal opinions, but was firm, even to boldness, in adhering to them when he conscientiously believed them to be right. Hence it will be observed in ex- amining the reports that he was not unfrequently in a minority, and sometimes stood alone among his brethren; yet it is safe to say that not very often have his decisions been reversed by the ultimate judgment of the bar. In the language of another, "he contributed his full share to the character of a court whose decisions are quoted and opinions re- spected in all the courts of the United States and the highest courts of England." The degree of Doctor of Laws was conferred upon him by Yale College in 1855.


Soon after Judge Waite left the bench he became subject to a painful malady, from which he suffered greatly, but with entire patience and cheerfulness, with an unclouded mind and undiminished fondness for intellectual and social enjoyment to the close of his life. Mrs. Waite, who was in every respect worthy of him, and contributed much to his success and incalculably to his happiness, died a short time subsequently to the fiftieth anniversary of their mar- riage. This occasion had been celebrated with great satisfaction by a large circle of relatives and friends. His eldest son, Morrison R. Waite, is the present chief justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, and a younger son, Richard Waite, is now an eminent lawyer in the State of Ohio. Another son, George C. Waite, had attained a leading position at the bar of the State of New York, when he fell a victim to consumption.


LAFAYETTE S. FOSTER'S career was long and dis- tinguished. He traced his lineage from Miles Stan- dish and other Puritans, and was the son of a Revolu- tionary patriot who shared in the glory of the victory at Saratoga in 1777. Mr. Foster was born in the little 4


country town of Franklin, a few miles from Norwich, Nov. 22, 1806. He began life as a penniless, friend- less lad, but by his own energy and aptitude secured a good education. Graduating from Brown Univer- sity, and entering upon the practice of law at Nor- wich, he soon forced himself to a conspicuous place at the bar and to prominence in local affairs. He represented Norwich in the State Assembly six times between 1839 and 1854, being thrice elected Speaker. For two years he served the city as its mayor. From the 4th of March, 1855, to the 4th of March, 1867, he occupied a seat in the United States Senate, this pe- riod of his service extending over the exciting and critical interval immediately preceding the war and extending past it to the days of reconstruction. Originally a Whig, and later a Republican, Mr. Fos- ter's sympathies were naturally with the negro and with the Union cause.


He was among the first, amid the confusion and doubt that prevailed in the winter of 1860-61, to prophesy a civil war. It is narrated on good author- ity that on the 1st of January, 1861, Mr. Seward, of whom Mr. Foster was a great friend, gave a dinner- party, from which the latter was necessarily_absent, but which was attended by his wife. At dinner Mrs. Foster sat next to Preston King, of New York, and the conversation having turned upon the existing political complication, she ventured the opinion that the country was drifting into a civil war. Mr. King having piqued Mrs. Foster by a slighting reply, she went on to say that Mr. Foster thought so too. Thereupon Mr. King turned to her more attentively and inquired if Senator Foster really entertained such an idea. She having reiterated her statement, he leaned back in his chair and laughed long and heartily, if not with rudeness. The incident served to illustrate both the strange cloud which veiled the future from the eyes of many sagacious public men at that time and the characteristic foresight and pen- etration of the senator from Connecticut. Mr. Foster was among those who would have made large sacri- fices at that time for the sake of averting an open rupture, but the hand of treason having once been raised in violence against the nation, he was for pros- ccuting the war with the utmost vigor to the bitter end, lending no sanction to the peace movement of 1864, or the Greeley conference at Niagara Falls. When the war was ended, however, Mr. Foster favored the speedy restoration of the Southern States to their constitutional relations with the Federal government, and to the largest degree of self-government consist- ent with the Constitution. He was out of sympathy with the more radical leaders of the Republican party, to which fact, doubtless, is attributable his not being elected to a third term. It follows, as a matter of course, that he did not approve of the impeachment of Andrew Johnson, which, however, was not under- taken until after he left the Senate. During the last two years of his service in that body he occupied the


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HISTORY OF NEW LONDON COUNTY, CONNECTICUT.


Vice-President's chair, being chosen thereto when Andrew Johnson succeeded Lincoln, and yielding it to Ben Wade, of Ohio, in 1867.


In 1870, without previous service on the Superior Court bench, Mr. Foster was elected to the Supreme Court bench of Connecticut, where he remained until the fall of 1876, when, the constitutional limit of age having been reached, he withdrew. Mr. Foster's ju- dicial service was noticeable for his aversion to tech- nicalities or verbosity, his keen way of getting at the merits of a question, and his strong instinct of justice. This was more apparent in his performance of Supe- rior Court duty (which devolves on Superior Court judges in Connecticut), and strongly reminds one of the famous old caliph of Bagdad, Haroun al Raschid, who went about among his people in disguise the more readily to detect evils which might not other- wise come to his knowledge.




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