History of Windham County, Connecticut, Part 15

Author: Bayles, Richard M. (Richard Mather)
Publication date: 1889
Publisher: New York, Preston
Number of Pages: 1506

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and greatly appreciated. A religious service is held once in two weeks by the chaplain, Reverend E. S. Beard, and a monthly meeting is held by the Women's Christian Temperance Union. This temperance effort is especially called for as at least three- fourths of the prisoners are brought there through the use and abuse of liquor. Yet though great pains are taken to enlighten and reform, it is to be feared that the good impressions produced are seldom lasting. Much good seed falls apparently on stony ground, but it can at least be said that the influence of prison life is salutary, and that no man or woman is the worse for con- finement in Windham county jail. With regard to women the question has scarcely been tested, so few is the number that have been committed to its precincts. The whole number com- mitted to jail in the year ending June 30th, 1887, was 225; num- ber discharged, 218; average number in confinement, 34. By far the larger proportion were received during the winter when work was not attainable. Over 21 years, 190 ; under 21 years, 35 ; na- tives of Connecticut, 62; of other states, 71; other countries, 92. One man from Connecticut, four from other countries, could not read or write. Drunkenness was the direct charge against 129; 106 called themselves moderate drinkers; one, habitually in- temperate ; 18 strictly temperate; 113 had been previously in prison : 19 were committed as tramps. Receipts from earnings of prisoners, $1,857.11 ; total jail receipts, $6.426.87 ; total jail ex- penditures, $4,988.37.

CHAPTER XI.

THE BENCH AND BAR OF WINDHAM COUNTY.

Early Attorneys .- Elisha Paine .- Samuel Huntington .- Jabez Fitch .- Eliphalet Dyer .- Jedidiah Elderkin .- Zephaniah Swift .- Thomas Stedman .- David Bolles .- Sylvanus Backus .- Daniel Kies .- Other Windham County Law- yers of Former Times .- Courts Removed to Brooklyn .- The Windham Coun- ty Bar in 1820 .- Chauncey F. Cleveland .- Glimpses of Many Practicing At- torneys .- William Smith Scarborough .- Lucius H. Rickard .- Elliot B. Sum- ner .- Abiel Converse .- Earl Martin .- Edward Cundall .- John J. Penrose .- George W. Melony .- Seymour A. Tingier .- Benjamin S. Warner .- Calvin M. Brooks .- Albert McC. Mathewson .- Andrew Jackson Bowen .- John L. Hun- ter .- George A. Conant .- Arthur G. Bill .- Gilbert W. Phillips .- Randolph H. Chandler .- Eric H. Johnson .- Charles E. Searls .- Samuel H. Seward .- Edgar M. Warner .- William G. Buteau .- Ebenezer Stoddard .- Louis B. Cleveland .- Thomas E. Graves .- G. S. F. Stoddard .- John M. Hall .- James H. Potter .- George Larned .- Simon Davis.

W WITH the gradual adaptation of the new society of Wind- ham county to the forms and customs of civil order and recognition of the rights of individuals, both per- sonal and proprietary, the need of advocates before the consti- tuted tribunals of justice began to be felt. The profession of the law, distinctively regarded, does not show itself as soon as some other professions-conspicuously, the ministry, school teaching and medicine. But the county was not long organized before the field began to open for the work of the lawyer. At the time of the establishment of the courts in 1726, there was probably no professional attorney residing in the county. When cases were brought before those early courts requiring the ser- vices of an advocate they were placed in the hands of attorneys from some neighboring town, frequently from Norwich or Hart- ford. The first son of Windham to be admitted to its bar as a legal practitioner of whom we have learned, was Jedidiah Elder- kin, a young man, who was admitted in 1744. Soon after Eliph- alet Dyer, who graduated from Yale College in 1740, at the age of nineteen, studied law, and in 1746 was admitted to the bar of Windham county. These young lawyers entered with much

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zeal upon the practice of their profession, and soon ranked among the foremost public men of the day. Law business was beginning to be somewhat brisk, and a large number of cases were reported at every session of the courts. Elisha Paine, Jr., of Canterbury, was also practicing law about that time. In Plainfield, Timothy Pierce was one of its most prominent and respected citizens, a member of the governor's council and judge of the county and probate courts, all of which offices he is said to have executed with such diligence and care as to be unblamable.

Elisha Paine was a man of unusual breadth and force of char- acter, a successful practitioner in law, and universally conceded to have the "best sense of any one in those parts." Of a specu- lative and inquiring mind, he was prompted to investigate the principles and practices of the different organizations, then con- ducting public religious exercises, and was soon led to enlist his sympathies with the Separate movement which attracted so much notice during that period. He protested strongly against the practices of the established church and pronounced it sadly lacking in the true religious spirit. So offensive did his position on this subject become that in 1744 he was arrested and impris- oned for several weeks in the county jail, but was at last released on bail. He became absorbed in religious questions and finally abandoned the practice of law for the preaching of the Gospel. He received a call to a church at Bridgehampton, L. I., and in 1752 he attempted to remove his family and personal property thither but was again arrested by the collector of society rates for the support of the established church, which Paine refused to pay, and was again imprisoned in the county jail. After re- maining there several weeks he was again set at liberty.

About the middle of the last century Jabez Fitch, son of Doc- tor Jabez Fitch, was practicing as an attorney in Canterbury. He was made justice of the quorum in 1755, and judge of pro- bate in 1759. Samuel Huntington, son of Nathaniel Hunting- ton, of Scotland, was practicing law in that town at this period. Though early noted for his fondness for books and study, he was apprenticed to a cooper, but so improved his leisure moments that when he had completed his apprenticeship he had not only . acquired a competent knowledge of Latin, but had made some progress in the study of law, from books borrowed of Jedidiah Elderkin. Adopting this as his chosen profession, he pursued his studies with indefatigable zeal and perseverance, and was re-

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warded with abundant success. Nathan Frink, as king's attor- ney, was practicing law in Pomfret and adjoining towns. Thomas, son of John Grosvenor, Esq., after graduation from Yale College in 1765, and later preparatory legal studies, also opened a law office on Pomfret street. Eliphalet Dyer and Jedi- diah Elderkin, already mentioned as among the early lawyers of the county, were actively engaged for many years in the practice of law at Windham, and ranked among the prominent public men of Connecticut. Among the terrible sounds which were heard in the great frog scare the excessively wrought imagina- tions of the populace could distinguish the vengeful demands of the approaching foe for the bodies of their leaders, Elderkin and Dyer. Elisha Paine, son of the distinguished advocate of the Separate movement and sufferer for the cause, was about 1765, practicing law at Plainfield, where he was admitted to a promin- ent position in social and civil affairs.

After the close of the revolution we find among the promi- nent men of the new generation Zephaniah Swift, of Tolland, es- tablished in Windham town, and winning immediate success as a lawyer. Jabez Clark and Samuel Gray, Jr., had married daughters of Colonel Jedidiah Elderkin, and engaged in legal practice. Colonel Ebenezer Gray also resumed the practice of the legal profession, and engaged in public affairs as far as his enfeebled health would permit. Timothy Larrabee and the older lawyers still continued in practice.

Samuel Huntington, one of the most honored members of the bar of Windham county, and distinguished citizens of the colony of Connecticut, has already been mentioned. He deserves a more extended notice than the means at hand or space at our disposal will permit in this connection. He was descended from an ancient and respectable family of this county. His childhood and youth were distinguished by indications of an excellent un- derstanding and a taste for mental improvement. Without the advantage of a collegiate education or that assistance in profes- sional studies which modern times have wisely encouraged, he acquired a competent knowledge of law and was early admitted to the bar and became eminent in his profession. In 1774 he was made an assistant judge in the superior court. In 1775 he was chosen into the council, and in the same year elected a delegate to congress. In 1779 he was made president of that honorable body, and in 1780 was re-elected to the same station of promin-

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ence. In 1783 he was again made a member of congress. In 1784 he was chosen lieutenant governor and appointed chief justice of the state. In 1786 he was elected governor of Connec- ticut and was annually re-elected by the freemen with a singular unanimity until his death. He thus served in that honorable position the longest term, with but two exceptions, that has ever been held by any man during the history of the state. His term lasted nine years and eight months, closing with his death, Jan- uary 15th, 1796. The exceptions spoken of were Jonathan Trumbull, eleven years and eight months, and Oliver Wolcott, ten years.

Thomas, son of Captain James Stedman, opened a law office on Hampton Hill about the year 1790, occupying a house built for him by his uncle, just north of the meeting house. He greatly distinguished himself in his profession. He was called "one of the most urbane, genteel, intelligent and obliging men of the day." He was rapidly rising in the estimation of the public, and was even mentioned as a candidate for the office of governor of the state, when he was induced to remove to Massena, N. Y., where he quickly won public confidence and respect, and ac- quired a large landed property. About this time Colonel Thomas Grosvenor was engaged in the legal profession in Pomfret. He served for a time in the governor's council, and was held in high repute throughout the state. His office was a place of constant resort for soldiers of the revolution, Indians, and all who needed help and counsel. At this time Zephaniah Swift, of Windham, was called the ablest lawyer of eastern Connecticut. In Abing- ton John Holbrook was practicing law, occupying the homestead built many years previous by his grandfather, Ebenezer Hol- brook. Sylvanus Backus, of Plainfield, opened a law office on Pomfret street and soon took rank among the leading lawyers of the county. His wife was the only surviving daughter of Doc-

tor Waldo. In Ashford William Perkins, son of Isaac Perkins, was practicing law, and was becoming a prominent man in town affairs. David Bolles, after studying medicine for a while, turned his attention to the law and became a competitor of Mr. Perkins in the practice of law in Ashford. He acquired a considerable degree of success, and had secured the favor of the people called "Sectaries " in that and adjoining towns, by his open and uncom- promising opposition to any taxation for support of public wor- ship, and to the religious constitution of Connecticut. When a

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little boy six years old he had stood by his mother's side, when her precious pewter was taken by the collector and carried to the town post and there sold at auction to pay a "priest tax." and her tears and unavailing remonstrances had such an effect upon his childish mind that he then and there resolved that when he became a man he would fight those laws that had caused his mother such distress. The surroundings of after years strengthened his determination, and his manhood kept the boy- ish vow. With tongue and pen he fought, until he had become one of the foremost champions of the Baptist cause.

In Canterbury John Dyer was a prominent man in public af- fairs and legal matters as well. He was colonel of the Eleventh regiment, judge of the county court, deputy in the assembly at times for forty years. In all these public functions he sustained an unblemished reputation, and was called "a man of sound judgment and unbiased integrity." He died February 25th, 1799, in the eighty-seventh year of his age. Moses Cleveland opened a law office in the same town, on his paternal homestead, and engaged with much spirit in public and military affairs. Though hindered by many other engagements from devoting much time to the practice of his profession he could direct others, and many young men studied law in his office. His brother, William Pitt Cleveland, Asa Bacon, Jr., and Rufus Adams, were among those students, and all for a time practiced law in Canter- bury. Elisha Paine also opened a law office in his own house in the south part of the town. William Dixon, of Voluntown, en- gaged in the practice of law in Plainfield about the year 1790.

John Baldwin, of Windham, the son of Ebenezer Baldwin and his wife, Ruth Swift, of Mansfield, was born April 5th, 1772. He was a lawyer, judge of the county court, served one term in con- gress, and was a man of good abilities and considerably em- ployed as a counselor and in public business. He died March 27th, 1850. John McClellan, son of General Samuel Mcclellan, graduated from Yale College in 1781, studied law with Governor Huntington and his neighbor, Hon. Charles C. Chandler, was ad- mitted to the bar of Windham county in August, 1787, and re- mained for a time at the family homestead in Woodstock, suc- ceeding to the practice of his honored instructor. In 1796 he re- moved to Woodstock Hill, there to continue the practice of his profession, and a few months later married Faith Williams, the only daughter of Hon. William Williams, of Lebanon.

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In Sterling, Jeremiah Parish and Artemas Baker attempted legal practice about the close of the last century. During the early years of the present century we find Samuel Perkins, David Young, John Baldwin, John Fitch and Philip Howard actively engaged in legal practice in Windham. At Hampton, Joseph Prentice was established, perhaps as the first lawyer of that town. Other men had been and were then much consulted on legal questions, though not formally credentialled in the profes- sion. Such men were Amasa Clark and Captain Silas Cleveland. In Canterbury Andrew T. Judson, of Eastford, had already gained a flourishing legal practice. Other lawyers in that town were Rufus Adams and Daniel Frost. In Plainfield at this time Calvin Goddard was achieving an eminent degree of success as a lawyer. His ambition led him to seek a larger field, and in 1809 he removed to Norwich, leaving the field in this town to be shared by Joseph Eaton and Job Monroe. Soon after this time Calvin Hibbard, of Windham, engaged in the practice of law in Sterling. In Killingly Ebenezer Young opened a law office in the rising village of Westfield. In Pomfret Judge Thomas Grosvenor, Sylvanus Backus and Ebenezer Grosvenor were set- tled in legal practice. The latter was a son of General Lemuel Grosvenor, and graduated from Yale in 1807. Sylvanus Backus served for many years as speaker of the house of representatives in the state, and was elected as a representative to congress in 1817. To this position he was chosen by the united vote of all parties. His friends anticipated much from him in that position, but ere the time came for him to take his seat he was called away from this scene of action. He died in February, 1817. Activity of mind and brilliancy of imagination, combined with much solidity and strength, made him one of the most influen- tial men of the time, indeed, a strong pillar of society and the state. He left a widow and five children. A few months later he was followed by his brother attorney, Ebenezer Grosvenor, one of Pomfret's most promising sons. Elisha B. Perkins, who had studied with 'Squire Backus, now succeeded to his practice. John F. Williams at this time practiced law at West Woodstock.

About the time of the war of 1812 John Parish and Daniel Kies were practicing law in Brooklyn. The mother of the latter had invented an improvement in weaving straw with silk or thread, for which she received a patent in May, 1809, and he had become

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so much absorbed in attempting to utilize that invention that he suffered considerable pecuniary loss by it.

The courts of Windham county were removed from the vil- lage of Windham to Brooklyn in July, 1820. The bar of Wind- ham county at this time boasted a very creditable array of legal talent, and held a good position in the state. It was represented in the different towns as follows : Brooklyn-John Parish, Daniel Kies, Jonathan A. Welch (son of Doctor Moses C. Welch), Uriel Fuller; Ashford-David Bolles, Philip Hayward, Samuel Ash- ley ; Canterbury-Rufus Adams, Andrew T. Judson, Daniel Frost, Jr .; Hampton-Joseph Prentice, Chauncey F. Cleveland (admitted at the last court session in Windham); Killingly- Ebenezer Young ; Plainfield-Joseph Eaton, Ira Case ; Lebanon -. William T. Williams, Denison Wattles, Jr., Henry Huntington ; Pomfret-John Holbrook, Elisha B. Perkins, Jonathan Prescott Hall; Sterling-Calvin Hibbard ; Thompson-George Larned, Simon Davis; Windham-Jabez Clark, Samuel Perkins, David Young, John Baldwin, John Fitch, Thomas Gray, Edwards Clarke ; Woodstock-John McClellan, Ebenezer Stoddard, John F. Williams. Daniel P. Tyler soon after commenced the prac- tice of law, at first for a short time in Pomfret and then in Brooklyn, his native town. About the year 1830 we find Francis B. Johnson in legal practice in place of Ira Case, deceased, in Plainfield. William Dyer, of Canterbury, opened a law office in Central Village. Joseph Eaton of this town was now also chief judge of the county court. George S. Catlin, a lawyer of brilliant promise, was now located in Windham. Jabez Clark, of Windham, for a time chief justice of the county court, died in 1836. Judge Ebenezer Devotion, who had long been prominent in Scotland affairs, died in 1829 in the eighty-ninth year of his age.

Chauncey F. Cleveland, of Hampton, won immediate success at the bar, evincing remarkable skill in presenting a case to a jury, and was equally successful in winning the suffrages of his fellow citizens. In 1826 he was sent as a representative to the legislature, and thenceforward was retained in public service. He was made judge of Windham probate district, and prosecu- ting attorney for the county. In Ashford, Ichabod Bulkley, a very able young man, succeeded to the legal practice of David Bolles, who died during the year 1830. Mr. Bulkley was also made judge of probate. He won a high position at the bar, and

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was employed on the celebrated Crandall case and in many other important suits. He died in 1838, and after that Jared D. Rich- mond, of Westford, established himself in Ashford village, and practiced law for many years. John F. Williams was practicing law in West Woodstock about 1835. In Killingly a second law- yer was established in the person of Thomas Backus, of Sterling, a graduate of Brown University, who was made judge of the newly constituted probate court in 1830. John Holbrook was practicing law in Abington in 1836.

William Dyer was born at Canterbury October 25th, 1802, and was the eldest son of Elijah and Mary (Robinson) Dyer. He had two brothers, the late Elijah Dyer, M. D., of Norwich, Conn., a physician well known throughout eastern Connecticut and who died at Norwich March 10th, 1882, after a successful practice of his profession of more than half a century, and Harvey Robinson Dyer, who has retired from active business pursuits and is still a resident of Canterbury honored by all who know him, and one sister, Mary Elizabeth, who married the late Kimball Kennedy of Plainfield. His early life, like that of so many of the young men of his generation, was spent in farm life with his father, attending the common schools of the day, and afterward was a student in Plainfield Academy, which at the time was fully equal to any of the academic institutions of New England. As was the custom of the times he was engaged for several win- ters in the occupation of a school teacher, the better to enable him to obtain an education and to meet the expenses incident to preparing himself for his chosen profession, the law, which he studied with the late Honorable Calvin Goddard, afterward judge of the superior court, and the late Daniel Frost, Esq., of Canterbury, both of whom were acknowledged to be among the leaders at the bar. In the year 1831 he was admitted to the bar, and removing to Plainfield commenced the practice of law at Central Village, where he continued to reside until his death in 1875. He was pre-eminently an office lawyer, never attempting to thoroughly acquaint himself with the decisions of courts upon questions of law, but was always familiar with the statute law, and the principles of common law, which his sound judg- ment enabled him to interpret and apply with remarkable accuracy to all the varied affairs of his large constituency in the section in which he practiced. All classes of people resorted to him for advice, and such was the confidence reposed in him that

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his instructions were regarded as law. He was interested in business matters outside the sphere of his profession, being en- gaged for a term of years in cotton manufacturing and mer- cantile affairs with his brother Harvey and his brother-in-law, Kimball Kennedy: He was averse to accepting any public office and though often requested to allow his name to be used in nomination for positions within the realm of the gift of the people, he courteously but peremptorily declined all except such as were actually connected with the field which he had selected as his workshop, only once accepting the position of town representative, and was house chairman of the judiciary com- mittee.

He was thrice married, his first wife being Susan, a daughter of the late Morey Burgess, M. D., the second Olivia, the only daughter of the late Nathan P. Sessions, both of Plainfield, and the third, Sarah, daughter of the late Joseph James, of Cov- entry, R. I., who at the time of his death with two children sur- vived him, viz., William J. and Mary.

In March, 1888, the son William J. died after a short illness, in the twenty-second year of hisage. A young man of superior mind and a fine education, he was called away just as the hopes of his relatives and friends were in expectation of a long, useful and honorable life. He was universally acknowledged to be a thor- ough Christian gentleman by all who had the pleasure of an in- timate acquaintance with him.

Honorable Elisha Carpenter was born in that part of Ashford which is now the town of Eastford on the 14th day of January, 1824. His parents had seven sons and one daughter, all of whom are now living. His father died in 1872 aged eighty-one years, and his mother ten years later at the age of eighty-six. The first representatives of the Carpenter family in this country came from England in 1642 and settled at or near Attleboro, Mass. The first settlers and their descendants for many genera- tions seem to have been farmers and mechanics, as it is not known that any of them followed any of the learned professions until modern times. They belonged to the middle class, indus- trious, intelligent and respectable ; in short good citizens. The same may be said of the ancestors of Judge Carpenter's mother, whose maiden name was Scarborough.

The early life of our subject was spent upon the farm. His early educational facilities were meagre, being such as were

M W. Preston & CON.Y.

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afforded by the district school, which was more than a mile from his home and some five miles from any village or business center. There he attended school during the winter months, assisting in the labor of the farm in summer, until he was six- teen years of age. At the age of seventeen he engaged in teach- ing in Willington, Conn. He taught school for several winters, attending school and working summers. He fitted for college at the " Ellington Institute " in charge of Reverend Richard S. Rust, succeeded by Reverend Mr. Buckham. He never entered college but continued his education in the school room, the law office and in the forum.

He studied law with the late Jonathan A. Welch, Esq., of Brooklyn, Conn., and was admitted to the bar in December, 1846. He began practice in his native town January 1st, 1847, and con- tinued there until March, 1851, when he succeeded the late Honor- able Thomas Backus at Danielsonville. In the summer of 1851 he was appointed states attorney for Windham county for one year, and was reappointed in 1854 and continued to hold the office until 1861. In 1857 and 1858 he represented the then Fourteenth district in the state senate, serving in the latter year as chairman of the judiciary committee and president pro tem. of the senate. In 1861, with Edwin H. Bugbee, he represented Killingly in the lower house of the general assembly and served as chairman of the military committee. During this session he was elected a judge of the superior court, succeeding Judge Butler, who was elected to the supreme court. In 1865 he was elected a judge of the supreme court of errors to succeed Governor Dutton, who re- tired by constitutional limitation at the age of seventy. His term commenced in February, 1866, and he has held the office by successive reappointments to the present time. At the organi- zation of the state board of education in 1865 he was appointed a member of that board, which position he held for eighteen years. He is now a member of the board of pardons of the state.

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History of Windham County, Connecticut, Part 15

Author: Bayles, Richard M. (Richard Mather) Publication date: 1889 Publisher: New York, Preston Number of Pages: 1506

Author: Bayles, Richard M. (Richard Mather)
Publication date: 1889
Publisher: New York, Preston
Number of Pages: 1506