USA > Connecticut > Litchfield County > The bench and bar of Litchfield County, Connecticut, 1709-1909 : biographical sketches of members, history and catalogue of the Litchfield Law School, historical notes > Part 19
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of his life. He left an only child, Aaron Burr, who graduated at Yale in 1802. Aaron Burr Reeve married Annabelle Shedden, of Richmond, Va., in 1808. He died in 1809. He left an only child, Tapping Burr Reeve, who graduated at Yale, but died unmarried in 1829, and thus the family became extinct. Mr. Gould became a judge of the Supreme Court of Connecticut, and was the author of the celebrated work on Pleading. He died at Litchfield in 1838. The course of instruction at the school must have been incom- parably more exhaustive than would be possible at the present day, tor the obvious reason that there was so much less to learn. In 1784 there were no printed reports of decisions of any court in the United States. Substantially the entire body of the law was to be found in the English reports. It is said that Judge Gould had systematically digested for his students "every ancient and modern opinion, whether overruled, doubted, or in any way quali- fed." But vast bodies of law of which the mo lern student must learn something were unknown to the curriculum of the Litchfield Law School, and many principles latent in the common law were just beginning to be developed. Lord Mansfield resigned his office of Chief Justice in 1788, after presiding in the King's Bench over thirty years. Prior to his time the greatest uncertainty had prevailed on questions of commercial law. " Mercantile questions were so ignorantly treated when they came into Westminster Hall," says Lord Campbell in his Lives of the Chief Justices, " that they were usually settled by private arbitration among the merchants themselves." There were no treatises on the subject and few cases in the books of reports. Thus in Helyn v. Adamson, 3 Burr. 699, decided in 1758, it was first distinctly ruled that the second in- dorser of an inland bill of exchange was entitled to recover from the prior indorser upon failure of payment by the drawee, without mak- ing any demand on or inquiry after the drawer. In 1770 it was held that the indorser of a bill of exchange is discharged if he re- ceives no notice of a refusal to accept by the drawee. ( Blesard v. Hirst, 5 Burr. 2670. ) And not until 1786, in Tindal z. Brown, Term Rep. 167, was it finally determined that what is reason- able notice to an indorser of non-payment by the maker of a promissory note, or acceptor of a bill of exchange, is a question of law and not of fact. Of course there was ro American con- stitutional law when the school was founded, though some of the states had already adopted constitutions. The first book on cor- poration law was that of Kyd, published in London in 1793, but it was chiefly made up of authorities and precedents relating to municipal corporations; and Willcock on Corporations, also an English treatise was still more limited in its plan. There was no American text-book on corporations until the first edition of Angell and Ames was published in 1831. At that time the need of such a book had become very urgent, but in the early years of the Litch-
JUDGE JAMES GOULD From a Crayon now owned by Hon. A. T. Roraback.
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field Law School there must have been extremely few private business corporations in this country. Not until Louisville, etc., R Co. v. Letson, 2 How. ( U. S.) 497, decided in 1844, did cor- porations become competent to sne and be sued as "citizens" of a State, regardless of the citizenship of the corporators. A "fellow servant" was a total stranger in legal nomenclature: Priestly v. Fowler, 3 M. & W. 1. was decided in 1837: Murray v. Railroad Co., I McMull. (S. Car.) 385. in 1841; and Farwell v. Railroad Co., 4 Met. ( Mass.) 49, in 1842. The term "contributory negli- gence" had not been coined: Butterfield v. Forrester, 11 East 60, was decided in 1800: Davies v. Mann, 10 M. & W. 546, in 1842, and the phrase is not used in either case. Civil actions for dam- ages for death by wrongful act were not maintainable. The law of insurance was virtually the creation of Lord Mansfield, but the volume of insurance law was comparatively insignificant for several decades. On the other hand, there was an abundance of real estate law and of law concerning executors and administrators and trustees generally. In those days the executor de son tort was more in evidence than at present, although even now he has so much vitality in some jurisdictions that it would not be wise for the practioner to characterize him as Judge Lumpkin did in Shotwell a. Rowell, 30 Ga. 559. "de son fiddlestick !" and cry. "Away with him!" The principles of equity jurisprudence had secured a firm footing. and at this day they are administered in the Federal courts as they were expounded in the High Court of Chancery in England when the Constitution was adopted in 1789. Judge Gould was a master of the common-law system of pleading, which was extolled by some of its eulogists as the perfection of human reason. During the period of the Law School the noble science of pleading became burdened with so many refinements and fictions that it fell into disrepute : the celebrated Rules of Hilary Term were adopted in 1834, and we have since substituted very generally for the techni- calities of the common-law system what we term a plain and con- cise statement of causes of action and of defenses, administering law and equity in one suit, and sometimes peradventure evolving a judgment as incongruous as the one examined in Bennett v. But- terworth .. 11 How. ( U. S.) 669, or exhibiting the chaos of plead- ings and proceedings tabulated by the reporter in Randon v. Toby, IT How. ( U. S.) 493. Speaking of the reformed procedure, how many lawyers are aware that the chief merit of the Code system was recognized and recommended for adoption by the preceptor of Judge Reeve, founder of the Litchfield Law School? The first volume of Root's Connecticut Reports was published in 1798. The reporter was Jesse Root, afterward, as above stated, a judge of the Supreme Court, with whom Tapping Reeve had studied law in Hartford. We will close with a quotation from the introduction to that volume: "Are not the courts of chancery in this State
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borrowed from a foreign jurisdiction, which grew out of the igno- rance and barbarism of the law-judges at a certain period in that country from whence borrowed? And would it not be as safe for the people to invest the courts of law with the power of deciding all questions and of giving relief in all cases according to the rules established in chancery, as it is to trust those same judges as chan- cellors to do it? Those rules might be considered as a part of the law, and the remedy be made much more concise and effectual. Further, would not this remedy great inconveniences and save much expense to suitors, who are frequently turned round at law to seek a remedy in chancery, and as often turned round in chancery be- cause they have adequate remedy at law ? These are serious evils and ought not to be permitted to exist in the jurisprudence of a country famed for liberty and justice, and which can be remedied only by the interposition of the legislature.' "
THE LITCHFIELD LAW SCHOOL.
At the annual dinner of the Story Association, of Cambridge Law School ( Mass.) in 1851, the following reference was made to the Litchfield Law School :
Judge Kent gave the sentiment :
" The first-born of the law schools of this country-the Litch- field Law School. The Boston Bar exhibits its rich and ripened fruits. By them we may judge of the tree and declare it good."
Hon. Charles G. Loring, of the class of 1813, reponded :
" I do not remember," he said, " to have ever been more forcibly reminded of my younger days, than when looking around on my young friends in the midst of whom I stand. It recalls the time when I, too, was a student among numerous fellow students. It will, probably, be news to them and many others here, that thirty- eight years ago, which to many here seems a remote antiquity, there existed an extensive law school in the State of Connecticut, at which more than sixty students from all parts of the country were as- sembled-every State then in the Union, being there repre- sented. I joined it in 1813, when it was at its zenith, and the only prominent establishment of the kind in the land.
"The recollection is as fresh as the events of yesterday, of our passing along the broad shaded streets of one of the most beauti- ful of the villages of New England, with our inkstands in our hands, and our portfolios under our arms, to the lecture room of Judge Gould-the last of the Romans, of Common Law Lawyers ; the impersonation of its spirit and genius. It was, indeed, in his eyes, the perfection of human reason, by which he measured every principle and rule of action, and almost every sentiment.
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" Why, sirs, his highest visions of poetry seemed to be in the refinement of special pleadings ; and to him a non sequiter in logic was an offense deserving, at the least, fine and imprisonment, and a repetition of it, transportation for life. He was an admirable English scholar ; every word was pure English, undefiled and every sentence fell from his lips perfectly finished, as clear, transparent and penetrating as light, and every rule and principle as exactly defined and limited as the outline of a building against the sky. From him we obtained clear, well-defined and accurate knowledge of the Common Law, and learned that allegiance to it was the chief duty of man, and the power of enforcing it upon others, his highest attainment. From his lecture room we passed to that of the venerable Judge Reeve, shaded by an aged clm, fit embien of himself. He was, indeed, a most venerable man, in character and appearance. his thick, gray hair parted and falling in profusion upon his shoulders, his voice only a loud whisper, but distinctly heard by his earnestly, attentive pupils.
"He, too, was full of legal learning, but invested the law with all the genial enthusiasm and generous feelings and noble sentiments of a large heart at the age of eighty, and descanted to us with a glowing eloquence upon the sacredness and majesty of the law. He was distinguished, sirs, by that appreciation of the gentler sex which never fails to mark the true man, and his teachings of the law in reference to their rights and the domestic relations, had great influence in elevating and refining the sentiments of the young men who were privileged to hear him. As illustrative of his feel- ings and manner upon this subject, allow me to give a specimen. He was discussing the legal relations of married women ; he never called them, however, by so inexpressible a name, but always spoke of them as 'the better half of mankind,' or in some equally just manner. When he came to the axiom that 'a married woman has no will of her own,' this, he said was a maxim of great the- oretical importance for the preservation of the sex against the undne influence or coercion of the husband; but although it was an inflexible maxim, in theory, experience taught us that practically it was found that they sometimes had wills of their own-most happily for us.
" We left his lecture room, sirs, the very knight errants of the law burning to be the defenders of the right and the avengers of the wrong : and he is no true son of the Litchfield school who has ever forgotten that lesson.
"I propose, sirs, the memories of Judge Reeve and Judge Gould -among the first, if not the first founders of a National Law School in the United States-who have laid one of the corner stones in the foundation of true American patriotism, loyalty to the law."
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THE FOLLOWING IS A COPY OF A STUDENT'S LETTER.
Litchfield, October 28th, 1830.
DEAR FRIEND :-
Having received your letter just as I was on the wing for this place, I was unable to answer it then; but avail myself of these first moments of calm after the bustle and confusion incident to the settling down into my nest, to turn my thoughts to that brood in which I found myself when my eyes were first opened to legal light, and when I first inhaled the legal atmosphere which from its misti- ness gives to those who breath it. (at least so I presume) the well known name of petty fogs (you will perceive an analogy in the derivation of this word to that of lucus a non lucendo, or Pared a non parcendo) & from which like yourself I have absconded, being now big enough to take care of myself.
Really, Ned, since my arrival I have been as busy as a hen with one chick-I have been obliged to furnish my room, with whatever I need, from the bellows to the lamp wick. We are obliged to board here, at one house and lodge at another. They give you a room, with bed and bestead, et tout ca, at the rate of one dollar a week you furnish your wood, your servant, carpet if you don't wish to go without, lamps, oil, &c., &c.
You see & hear no more of the family than if you were the sole occupant of the premises.
Upon your return from breakfast your room is swept, bed made, things set to rights, as if done by magic, you never see how. I have a fine room at Parson Jones', who is very obliging and would be more so if able, and I board at Mrs. Reeve's, a very agreeable, pleasant, old lady. We pay her, I believe two dollars and a half a week. Our board and lodging and contingencies will run us up to about five dollars a week, which I think is pretty well on to the brogue for a country town. And this is independent of the lectures. Judge Gould is so much overcome with his late family bereave- ment that he is unable to lecture himself. Ilis son, however. delivers them in his stead. As far as I can judge they will be very valuable, independent of their intrinsic merit: I will be obliged to write up at least three reams of finely ruled foolcap. The lecture lasts for an hour and a quarter each day, examinations once a week. Litchfield appears to be a very pretty place, and I think I shall like
it well. I attended an evening or two ago an exhibition of the young ladies' seminary at this place of which you speak in your letter. There were several very handsome and interesting young demoiselles. The court room in which it was held was excessively crowded and two or three fainted, one young lady upon receiving her premium. At one end of the room men, boys and girls were all heaped up together, and ever and anon, you would hear some
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sturdy bum resounding against the floor, its luckless owner having incautiously pushed it out beyond the line of equilibrium.
I understand from Mrs. Reeve that all the marriageable young ladies have been married off, and that there is at present nothing but young fry in town, consequently that it will not be as gay as usual. The young ladies, she tells me. all marry law students, but as it will take two or three years for the young crop to become fit for the harvest, you need apprehend no danger of my throwing up my bachelorship.
The road from Poughkeepsie here is, I think, the most tedious I ever travelled, you see nothing but rocks and stones. Consider- ing the roughness of the country and the scarcity of land I am not at all surprised the yankays depend for their livlihood upon their toits. I wish I had it in my power to exercise a watchful care over B. as you have enjoined me. " Ah me! forsooth. he is a sorry weight." His pa 1 suspect is afraid of some singular maneurore on his part and dare not trust him from his paternal eve. He did not accompany me, as in all probability you know, but I do not vet despair of his coming. In such expectation I shall not write him. for I think it very possible he may arrive this evening, if so he shall write yon a P. S. Ile and his father had not fully considered the subject when I left.
It is growing dark and I must conclude before tea (for I ex- pect this evening to be very busy copying notes ) and this I cannot do, without assuring you that it will give me the greatest pleasure to see you here. I have a double bed. I will give you half, and as long as Coont. is the land of cakes you will not starve. The excursion will. no doubt, be agreeable and advantageous to your Health. You can come by the way of New Haven or Poughkeepsie. When you write to the office remember me to them and to all enquir- ing friends.
Direct, Litchfield. Count.
The following extracts from a letter written by Augustus Hand, while a student at the law school, will further illustrate the conduct of the institution :
" Litchfield. Jan. 30th, 1829.
" MY DEAR FATHER :-
Let me tell you how I spend my time. I rise between 7 and 8, make a fire and scrub for breakfast, from thence to lecture. where I remain until between 10 and IT. Thence to my room and copy lectures till 5 p. m. (Save dinner time at i p. m.) thence to O. S. Seymour's office with whom I read law until half past 9 p. m., then again to my room, write till between 12 and I o'clock, then draw on my night-cap and turn in." Exception-Monday we spend from 6 to g in the Law School Debating Society, over which
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I have the honor-I never brag). Friday at 3 p. m. attend an extra lecture on criminal law, and also hear an argument in the " Moot Court " and decision by the judge. On Saturday at 2 p. m. attend a severe three hours examination on the studies of the week by Jabez W. Huntington, Esq. Aside from these exceptions the first day is a correct specimen. As to the lectures and their utility I will refer you to the preface of the catalogue mailed with this. I can only say that their daily practical use to a lawyer can only be appreciated by those who have enjoyed them. Without any doubt, they give the same talent-a powerful superiority. The whole is comprised in between 2500 and 3000 pages. Of these I have written about 1200 and 1300 and should I remain here till May and enjoy my present excellent health there will be no difficulty in copying the whole, having access to Seymour's volumes ( for what I do not take in the office), who has attended two courses and has them complete. This is, however, business between ourselves for these lectures are secured to the Judge, being the labor of his life in the same manner as a patent right. So we talk less and write faster. This Seymour with whom I study is the son of the sheriff of the county, nephew of our State Senator, a graduate of Yaie, a bachelor of 26 or 27, of most sterling mind and manners, with a brain completely identified with the study of the law in its most theoretical and scientific part. From a natural weakness of the cyes he does not allow himself to study evenings and therefore invited me to read to him. This offer, knowing his fame, &c., I readily accepted, his office being next door but one to mine, and he being altogether such a man as "studies learning to use it." We take up the title in a lecture and progress with it till it is finished. reading (about ) between ten and twenty pages an evening, hc giving me a thorough insight into it as we proceed-allowing me without reserve, to tease him with as many questions as I please and now and then reading a report of some cases adapted to thic subject. Before the lesson he examines me in the preceding lesson from memory. The law here is a study. There are ore or two lawyers in the vicinity who make 4 or 5000 dollars a year. I pass every day by the door of one worth about $150,000.00, about one-half of which he made in law. This " Huntington " who ex- amines is a bachelor rather above forty who studies, thinks and talks law sleeping and waking. He never " pettifoggs." but pleads in the higher courts and writes opinions for other lawyers in every section of the country. He will sometimes become so animated in discussing a question which arises on the examination, that he can hardly keep his seat. Friday, the HIth inst., it came my turn for the second time to come on to the " Moot Court." A short time after my admission my name came on opposed to Mr. Halsted, of N. J. (in alphabetical order), who was an old student. I tried to cross the Rubicon but like a poor, stuck-in-the-mud I could not ford.
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Frightened out of my wits, surrounded by a literary fog in the midst of my " nothing." I quoted from an author ( Swift) with: whom the Judge had a personal quarrel, this with being on the wrong side of the question fired me. This time I resolved to re- trieve. A most intricate question on the doctrine of relation and estoppel was handed M. Brown of N. J. and myself by Sq. San- ford of this place. The next day we had a very learned decision luckily in my favor. * *
Your affectionate son,
AUGUSTUS HAND
THE LAW SCHOOL BUILDINGS.
The pictuhe of the Reeves Law School building appended here, shows it as now ( 1908) appears after the restoration as far as possible to its original condition. The Litchfield correspondent of the Waterbury American describes the situation as follows :
Litchfield, Nov. 19-Tapping Reeve, the founder of the Litchfield Law School, famous as having been the first law school in the United States, was the son of a Presbyterian minister and was born on the South side of Long Island. He was educated at Princeton, where he graduated in 1763. at the age of 17 years. For seven years he remained as a tutor at Princeton, then came to Connecticut and practiced law in the office of Judge Root of Hartford and as soon as he was admitted to the bar he settled in Litchfield about 1772. He had previously married Sally Burr, daughter of Presi- dent Burr of Princeton College, and sister of Aaron Burr, who studied in the school, and who was a frequent visitor in his family.
In 1782, the number of students who wished to study in Reeve's office had become so large, that he built the small house shown in the picture, in the corner of his yard, on South Street, the place now owned by Charles H. Woodruff of New York and Litchfield. To this school came students from all parts of the country, many of the men who gained renown in the practice of law and in other professions, being graduates of this school.
Judge Reeve continued to use this building until his death, and in 1846 the building was sold to Henry Ward, who purchased a lot of land on the brow of West Hill and placed the building there. fitting it up as a small house. In 1886 the property was bought by Mrs. Mary C. Daniels and her son, Prof. Charles F. Daniels of New York, who made it their summer home for many years. Prof. Daniels died a few years before his mother and upon Mrs. Daniel's death it became necessary to sell the property.
D. C. Kilbourn began planning to have the old building pre- served, and to that end a committee was apponted by the Litchfield County Bar, with Mr. Kilbourn as chairman. He went before the Legislature at its session of 1907 with the proposition that the state
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buy it and keep it as state property. This proposal was, however, rejected. Thereupon the executor was obliged to sell the place at auction, and Mr. Kilbourn bought it for about $2.700. Hle im- mediately began restoring the old part and to do this he had the original law school building detached from the additions which had been put on by Mr. and Mrs. Daniels.
The building was moved to the extreme west end of the lot and has been restored both inside and out as far as possible to its original appearance. At the time of the Ward purchase of the house, it was lathed and plastered. This has been taken off, leaving the original wide pine boards with which it was ceiled, which still show inkstains, and in some places penciled names. One of the original outside doors was found in a mutilated condition, and this has been framed into the wall, and forms the frame of a large crayon portrait of Judge Reeve. The old small-paned windows, which appear in the picture are the same as of old.
When taking off the plastering and lath, several old boards were found literally covered with names and inscriptions, done by jack- knife artists in those old school days, when human nature was much the same as now. Many of these names are to be found in the cata- logue of the school in Mr. Kilbourn's possession. Some of the names are W. T. Gould, 1818; N. Billings, New London : Board- man, 1820; William Petit, Marietta, Ohio: 1810; J. B. Skinner, A. Bates, Samuel W. Cheever, F. E. P., R. McE., E. P. S., Jones, (in monogram. )
An interesting question is how the building was heated. as no trace of a fireplace was found. Did they sit in the room with no fire, as the churches of those days were unheated.
It is Mr. Kilbourn's present intention to make, if possible, some arrangement by which the old building can be kept as an interesting relic, and the members of the Litchfield County Bar are getting much interested to have this done.
It should be understood, in this connection, that the picture of what has been called "The First Law School of America" which has appeared from time to time in the state papers, is not a picture of the first law school building, but of the second one, which was built by Judge Goukl later. He came to Litchfield and was as- sociated with Judge Reeve in his school, and after Judge Reeve's death he carried on the school, putting up the building sometimes called the first school in the yard of his property, now the Hoppin house, on North street. The school was carried on in that building, to be sure, but it was not the first building. It has been standing about a mile west of the village, and used as a negro tenement, but is fast falling to pieces. There is no doubt that the interest of Mr. Kilbourn in the real "first law school building" has been the means of saving this historic building, and preserving it for the benefit of future generations.
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