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 31
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34
3. Damages are assessed at $2 per plate.
The plaintiff is found to be of sufficient ability to provide for your comfort and pleasure.
Hereof fail not but due appearance make, or immediately signify cause to the contrary.
Winsted, Nov. 4, 1898.
THE COMMITTEE. By James Huntington, Chairman.
Dwight C. Kilbourn, Sec'y.
YE BANQUET
0
3
0
C
0 C
WELLER&
317
THIE BANQUET
YE SENTIMENT.
"Come back to your mother, ve children. for shame. Who have wandered like truants, for riches or fame. With a smile on her face, and a sprig in her lap.
She calls you to feast from her bountiful lap.
Come you of the law who can talk if you please Till the man in the moon will allow its a cheese.
And leave the old lady who never tells lies
Asleep with her handkerchief over her eyes."
YE MENU.
Little Waramaug Clams Celery
"We have met the Enemy and they are Ours."-Oliver H. Perry, 1813
Puree of Litchfield Mushrooms Salted Almonds Stuffed Olives "The Law : It has honored us ; may we honor it."-Daniel Webster. 1847
Steamed Twin Lake Salmon "Pinch Gut Plain" Potatoes "Dibble Hill" Sauce "We Surgeons of the Law do desperate deeds, sir."-Beaumont and Fletcher
Supremes of Sweetbreads Sturges Case style "Oh! 'tis a blessed thing to have rich clients."-Beaumont and Fletcher
Probate Punch "Protect me from the sin That dooms me to these dreadful words : 'My dear, where have you been?' "-O. W. Holmes
Mount Riga Patridges. Roasted. Stuffed with Torrington Chestnuts "'Fore God. my intelligence Costs me more than my share oft comes to."-B. Jorison
Knowles Salad. "Move to Erase" Dressing "Importance is one thing and learning's ancther : But a debate's a debate. that I asseri."-Congreve
Canaan Ice Cream, with original R. and R. flavor " 'Tis better belly burst than good food be lost."
Crackers Cheese
Coffee
"Whilst we together jovial sit. Careless, and crowned with mirth and wit, We'll think of all the friends we know And drink to all worth drinking to!"-Charles Cotton
318
LITCHFIELD COUNTY BENCH AND BAR
PRESIDENT HUNTINGTON'S ADDRESS
The after-dinner speaking was opened by the Hon. James Hunt- ington,-for many years the beloved and honored president of the Bar Association, and who has recently deceased .- and his speech shows in a measure the felicitous and happy manner of "Uncle Jim." as he was familiarly called by his brethren of the Bar during the later years of his life.
"Brethren of the Bar of Litchfield County: We have met this evening to celebrate the 100 years of the existence of the Superior Court of Litchfield County. To you younger members of the Bar it may seem a great ways back to 1798, but to me, who has practiced at the Bar two-fifths of the time ( and I don't tell you now how old I am) it seems but a step back to the beginning. I suppose that some of my brethren here tonight will give something of the history and reminiscences of the Bar either specially or in the county gen- erally, but for myself, I wish to say but a few words in regard to this celebration. I wish to direct your attention to a few of its peculiarities and characteristics, and the first characteristic that I wish to mention after the practice of two-fifths of a century at this Bar, is that it has the reputation of being a fighting Bar, that the lawyers of Litchfield County are persistent tryers and fighters, they never let the ground go un-hoed in a case. As a Judge of the Court said to me not long ago "If a Judge comes to Litchfield County and expects that it will be a sort of a vacation, after he has been to Litch- field, and from Litchfield to Winsted and from Winsted down to New Milford and back again two or three times, he will go home thoroughly convinced that it is no vacation to come to Litchfield County and hold a long term."
Another characteristic of this Bar is its good fellowship. It has been so for forty years and I presume it was for the sixty years before ; it is now and I trust it ever will be.
It is remarked by attorneys from other counties in this State and from other States, that they never came to a Bar where there is such good fellowship as there is in this Bar. They never address one another by more than half of their first name. And when one of the boys becomes a Judge of the Superior Court they with pride and pleasure address him as His Honor, it is ten chances to one that when night comes and he comes off the Bench, that they address him as Tobey or Ed or Jerry or Bert or Gid. And he feels as miich honored to come down to that fellowship off from the Bench as he is by being respectfully addressed while on it by the members of this Bar.
1 say it is peculiarly characteristic of the Bar of this County and I trust it will remain so another 100 years.
Another characteristic is their self-reliance, we have to rely on ourselves and it has made self reliant lawyers.
319
HUNTINGTON'S ADDRESS
Another thing. they are a tough lot physically as well as mentally. And they must necessarily be so. They come up to these shire towns in summer's heat and winter's cold. We start out early in the morning and go 7 or 8 miles and try a justice case all day long and come home in the rain and cold at night, together singing songs and telling stories. We are called in the night season to go miles away to make the wills of the dying, we are called upon day after day to take depositions in kitchens by the kitchen stove, and instead of sitting down to such a fine feast as this to eat we are satisfied with the smell of the onions and the turnips and cabbage that are boiling on the stove for the family to eat. Our lives are spent in that way and it has made a tough lot of us physically. We are called upon as lawyers in the country to become all-round men and to do all kinds of work. A country lawyer is called upon to do everything al- most that can be done except writing sermons and writing Doctor's prescriptions although some Cornwall gentlemen can write those, i am told.
If anyone asks what kind of lawyers does it make to practice in that manner. my answer is if you take the Connecticut Reports from Kirby to the 70 Conn .. you read the work of Litchfield County lawyers clear through the zo volumes of those reports. Yes, further. it is the same kind of men that you are, gentlemen, that 13 of them have represented the Bench of the Superior Court of this State, 10 of them the Supreme Court Bench and three of them as Chief- justices, they were men of the same experience and the same kind of practice ; and how well they have filled their places the records of the Supreme Court. the opinions, that have been written by them through all the Connecticut Reports will tell you. So we may well be proud of our County and of our County Bar, and ! ask, when my time has come to join the innumerable caravan that moves, that there can be nothing better said of me than that Jim Huntington was a respectable member of the Litchfield County Bar.
My brethren, I said to you that 40 years practice, two-fifths of a century. two-fifths of the time of this Superior Court went back to where one could almost say it was a step back to the beginning. We have with us tonight a brother whose tall form and snowy hair are known to you all and who has practiced law in the Superior Court over one half its time, who is a connecting link with the be- ginning of this court ; who practiced law with men who were mem- bers of the Bar when the Superior Court was organized, and it is with exceeding great pleasure. nothing could give me more pleasure. that I introduce to you our venerable and honored brother. Donald J. Warner.
To him it may be said, as Holmes wrote to Whittier on his 80th birthday.
320
ITCHFIELD COUNTY BENCHI AND BAR
Dear friend, whom thy fourscore winters leave more dear Than when life's roseate summer on thy cheek burned in the flush of manhood's earliest year,
Lonely, how lonely! is the snowy peak
Thy feet have reached after many a year !
Close on thy foot-steps 'mid the landscape drear I stretch my hand thine answering grasp to seek Warm with the love no rippling rhymes can speak. Look backward! from thy lofty height survey Thy years of toil, of peaceful victories won
Of dreams made real, large hopes outrun !
Look forward! brighter than earth's morning ray Streams the pure light of Heaven's unsetting sun, The unclouded dawn of Life's immortal day.
For Judge Warner's address see his reminiscences, page 101.
Many letters were received from the absent brethren regretting their inability to attend : the one from the Hon. Wm. L. Ransom, who for nearly thirty years was Clerk of the Courts enclosed as his response an excuse from the late Judge Granger for not attending a Banquet at the Island Hotel to which he had been invited, and is as follows :
Dear Ransom, were my legs as limber As they were in days of yore. When I snared the festive sucker On the Whiting River shore,- Silvery stream,-that murmers sweetly Through fair Wangum's peaceful vales. Kissed by morning's slanting sunbeams, Fanned by evenings pleasant gales.
When I chased the obese woodchuck O'er the hills and sandy knoll When I snatched the sluggish bull heads Wriggling from their muddy holes. When with dog and gun by moonlight Through the swamps and reedy fens I pursued the scented polecat Terror of the matron hens.
Gladly would I climb Mount Pisgah. Mystic mountain of the East. For the fun of being with you At your Island Hotel feast. But. Oh! Ransom, tempus edax Unremitting night and day Seventy years has gnawed our muscles Till they're in a-bad way.
321
ALONZO N. LEWIS LETTER
Youthful hose well saved of ragged
Serve but to hide our spindle shanks, And our shin bones sharp and jagged Play us now rheumatic pranks.
Accoutered thus Dear Rans, you see. The feast you spread is not for me,
Whatever things the Gods deny us,
Is for the best. Good night. Tobias.
Leonard W. Cogswell, the Official Stenographer, offered the fol- lowing original
POEM :
Oh, sacred soil of Litchfield Hills.
Where Winter's winds howl drear :
The country's best and bravest men,
Have found their birth-place here.
The plain and simple life they led Upon these rugged hills. Gave vigorous health and mental strength, Brave hearts and sturdy wills.
Senators. Governors, Judges Preachers,
Found here congenial soil, And worked their way to high renown With most incessant toil.
Then let us all fresh courage take.
And till Death our warm blood chills,
We'll bless the Fate that gave us birth On these rock-ribbed Litchfield Hills.
At one of our banquets the following interesting letter was re- ceived from Rev. A. N. Lewis :
Montpelier, Vermont, Dec. 11. 1902.
To the Members of the Litchfield County Bar, in annual reunion convened :
Gentlemen :- I regret exceedingly my inability to be present at your festive gathering. Forty-five years ago at the September term of the Superior Court. Judge Seymour presiding. I was admitted an attorney and counsellor. F. D. Beeman, Esq., was Clerk of the courts, and Hollister, Graves, Hubbard. Toby Granger, George C. Woodruff, Judge Phelps, Sedgwick, Sanford, et al., were the lead- ing barristers. "There were giants in those days." The Litch- field Bar was second to none in the state.
The condition of things was very different than the present. Litchfield was an inland town, accessable only by stage and private conveyance. The lawyers, litigants and witnesses came to stay. The Mansion House, U. S. Hotel and Wheeler House were thronged with guests. The open hotel fires in the hotel offices were scenes
322
LITCHIFIELD COUNTY BENCH AND BAR
of mirth and jollity. William Deming, Sr .. Stephen Deming. Harry Bissell and other notables were usually in attendance with stories, jokes and repartees worth recording.
"Uncle" Stephen Deming had been in his younger days a tavern keeper. A certain deacon, professedly a temperance man, but sus- pected of selling "the ardent" on the sly, took up his parable and said, "Uncle Stephen, when you reflect upon your rum-selling days, the widows and orphans you have made and the misery you have caused, how do you feel?" Uncle Stephen paused a moment and said, "Deacon- -, when I think of myself, by myself, I feel like putting my hand upon my mouth and my mouth in the dust and crying unclean, unclean, God be merciful to me a sinner. But, Dea- con, when I compare myself with my neighbors 1 thank God and take courage."
\ Plymouth farmer had a case in Graves' hands which had been running for years. Term after term Graves had charged continu- ance fee $7 ; and the farmer becoming discouraged had tried to get the case taken out of court, but all in vain. One day he was sitting on the piazza of the U. S. Hotel rehearsing his grievance to the lawyers, when Graves went past. The farmer ejaculated. "I hope to G-d Graves won't go to hell!" "Why not," asked one of the listeners. "Because," answered the farmer, "Because he'd make trouble there."
The writer of this talk was a student in Hollister & Beeman's office and was often employed in copying pleadings, etc. In one of the documents occurred the following sentence : "And whereas this case has been brought by regular continuances to this court, etc." In the copy made by the writer it read thus: "And whereas this case has been brought by regular contrivances to this court!" The blunder ( ?) caused a ripple of merriment on the bench and in the bar. It was too true.
A petition for a divorce was submitted to a referee or commis- sioner who made his report thereon to the court. It was charged by the petitioner that her husband on a certain occasion when she had returned from a drive with the co-respondent had composed and recited to her and her escort before the children the following lines :
"William Johnson went to ride, With Sarah Wilkins for his bride. Returning home I heard them say, We've had a dam good ride to-day."
Imagine Hollister reading with solemn face this poetical gem to the court !
A Litchfield lawyer, whose name I have forgotten, was pleading a case of little importance before a jury. He was very pathetic and solemn, so much so that when he concluded the opposing counsel arose and said, "May it please your Honor, hadn't we better sing a hymn ?"
323
FELICITIES
The IIon. Charles Chapman of Hartford was journeying to Litchfield to attend court, in the Hartford and Litchfield stage. It was winter. The stage was an open pung, the snow was falling and a northwest wind drove it directly into the faces of the pass- engers. Chapman and "Dick" Hubbard, a brother lawyer. were sitting on the first seat and took the full force of the storm. No one had spoken for some minutes, when Chapman broke the silence with "I say Hubbard. I had rather facit per alium than facit per se!"
Gentlemen :- Some of us have outlived our contemporaries. We are nearing the setting sun ; our places must soon be filled by an- other generation : soon we shall be summoned to the court of last resort. May we respond to the summons, bearing with us the record of a well-spent life and the hope of a blessed immortality.
Yours fraternally.
A. N. LEWIS.
Pastor of Christ's Church, Montpelier, Vermont.
HURLBUTISMS
The late William F. Hurlbut, Clerk of the Court of Common Pleas, gave me considerable assistance in the preparation of this work. The following items are some which he thought would interest members of the Bar.
One of the learned Judges of the Superior Court, after setting through a long, tedious trial of a case, to charge the jury com- menced with the following remark :
"Gentlemen of the Jury! If you know anything about this case. God knows that you know more about it than I do."
On the trial of a prisoner for shooting a man whom he thought was stealing his chickens, the judge charged the jury very forcibly against the accused, but the jury brought in a verdict of "Not Guilty." The Judge continued the laborious work of sharpening his pencil in which he was engaged when the jury gave the verdict. After a considerable length of time had elapsed he suddenly ex- claimed. "S- , you have escaped as by fire." The members of the Bar have never been able to understand the nature of that escape.
The Hon. Truman Smith closed an argument made in a little case appealed from a Justice of the Peace, in which the matter in demand was very trivial, and the action of the opposing counsel had been very erratic, with the following comments. "If your Honor please: I had prepared with considerable care a brief with the intention of filing it with the court. After I had finished it I said to myself, if I live fourteen years from the 26th day of next October I shall be one hundred years old; now is it worth while at my time of life to come into court with an enormous bomb shell just to annihilate a musquito? and I said to myself it was not- the game was not worth the powder."
324
LITCHFIELD COUNTY BENCH AND BAR
There are a multitude of odd and funny things connected with our profession. I am obliged to exclude almost everything of that sort, but will save a few. Some of them I have taken from Brother Cogswell's brief before the "Supreme Court of Eaters" and others from various sources.
SCENE, Criminal Court in Canaan. Alonzo B. Garfield, C. J. on the bench. Crime, prisoner charged with robbery of a drunken woman. Clint Roraback, acting State's attorney.
Mrs. Nora Smith ( complainant ) sworn.
Ex. by Mr. Roraback :
Q. Were you down in the defendant's house near Pine Grove ?
A. Yes.
Q. Did you have some money there ?
A. Yes.
Q. Did you lose it ?
A. Yes. It was stolen from my pocketbook which I carried in- side my corsets, as I lay on the bed drunk.
O. You think the prisoner stole it ?
A. Yes, and I come up to see Hen. Roraback the next day, and he said he'd see I had justice done. Hen. is all right since "he growed up.'
MR. RORABACK :- That is all the testimony we have, your Honor. and it is enough. Don wants him bound over.
GARFIELD, C. J .- We hain't got much evidence ag'in' the prisoner. and I don't think he is guilty : that is, not much ; but what Don says goes in this court, and so I'll bind him over.
SCENE, Superior Court at Litchfield, October Term, 1906. Hon. Ralph Wheeler, J. Prisoner, Franceski Baleyss, charged with rob- bing a Swede of $165.
DONALD T. WARNER, to complainant, Mr. Gustafson: Did you have a Hungarian at work for you? A. I did; he is what they call a Pole, and I can do a day's work, or yump over the moon quicker than I speak his name, but I have it writ down on a piece of paper. and you can tear off what you want and make a dictionary of the rest. I had a German, and an Irishman, and a nigger to work for me at the same time, and at first I thought one of them took it, but our Northfield detective says this is the man.
Don took the paper and attempted to read the following name -but he didn't-but asked Kilbourn to: Czyrkstecheltzkoxtcheld- oszleffski.
T. F. RYAN (counsel for prisoner, to prisoner on the stand) :
Q. If you had any of your countrymen in Waterbury, who were they and where are they now ?
THE PRISONER ( through a Waterbury interpreter ) :
Petrovsky, Oskaloffsky, and Nevereffski,
To Siberia were sent :
Kitoffsky, Rubonoffsky, and Wallereffsky, In a dungeon cell were pent.
325
FELICITIES
Milarodovitch and Tetrovitch. Kostolovitch and Rostomaroff They imprisoned or swung them off; But when is gone. He never is missed.
That is what it says in a Polish letter written in Russian script.
THREE OTHER INTERPRETERS EMPLOYED BY THE COURT TO WATCH THE FIRST :- That is wrong, he says what not so it.
THE COURT: Keep still.
Dox : Wait. RYAN : Sit down.
THE COURT: Mr. Stenographer, what did the witness say ?
THE STENOGRAPHER: I don't know, your Honor.
THE COURT: This is the worst Babel of a case I ever heard. Brother Ryan got the $105.
( Answer to complaint for divorce between Hungarians, received from Hungary by Kilbourn. ) DR. GROSZ DEZSO Lawyer S. A. UJHELEY Ilungary.
HIGH ESTEEMED COURT :
Janos Zsarnay, seated at Torrington. Conn., according to the writ of summon of Litchfield County, ss. dated from 1906. 12 Sep- tember, and being handed to me on the day of 2oktober, claims that the marriage, bound between me and the plaintiff in the year of 1873, should be devorced upon the ground, that I should have wilfully deserted him and totally neglected all the duties of marriage.
All this complains of the plaintiff are not true. I did not de- sert him but he left me 10 years since, flying secretly. Within this time he did not wrote a single line, nor supported me and our chil- dren. Therefore he is who neglected the duties of marriage and not 1 am who has deserted him.
I being now a 55 years old women. unable to earn, do not agree. that our marriage should be devoreed. On the contrary: 1 entreat the jury that Janos Zsarnay should be convicted to pay a 20 dollar monthly rate as to support myself and the children.
I give, further, to acknowledge to the court, that a verdic of de- vorce returned in the U. S. A. has no power ther in Hungary and even if the jury should devorce him, according to our laws, I remain in links of marriage, still he can live married in the U. S. A. That would be very unlawful.
Faithfully.
320,
LITCHFIELD COUNTY BENCH AND BAR
AN ENOCH ARDEN CASE
"All's Well that Ends Well."- On Mt. Riga as well as in Shakespeare.
The happy ending of St. Valentine's night, February 14th. 1908. of the tragical story of Lovie of Mt. Riga, deserted with her baby in her arms by her husband in 1882, who was re- ported dead a few years later, and thereafter remained unheard of until August, 1907. when, like Enech Arden, he appeared to find his wife happily married to Charlie with two stalwart children by her side, but unlike Enoch of oll did not conveniently sink into obscurity again.
Divorced February 14th, 1908, from the resurrected husband and married the night of the same day to her true husband, accord- ing to the following form :-
Both Lovie and Charlie your right hands unite Before witnesses here St. Valentine's night. You, CHARLIE. do promise to take Lovie to wife, To love her and cherish her the rest of your life. You, LOUTE, do promise Charlie as husband to take. And, cleaving only to him, each and all others forsake. Now. each having promised the cher to wed.
To Have and to Hold, till Life's journey be sped. For richer. for poorer, in sickness and health .- By force of the Law of our good Commonwealth. I PROCLAIM you to be lawful Husband and Wife.
I.' ENT'OI.
May your joys be many, and your sorrows be light, And the memories sweet of St. Valentine's night. And ever, as the circling years roll on,
Keep a kindly thought of the Justice .- Don.
THE MAKING OF A JUROR .- Judge Ralph Wheeler had had his patience sorely tried by lawyers who wished to talk, and by men who tried to evade jury service. Between hypothetical questions and excuses it seemed as if they never would get to the actual trial of the case. So when a puzzled little German, who had been ac- cepted by both sides as a juror, jumped up, the Judge was exas- perated.
"Shudge!" cried the German. "What is it?" demanded the judge. "I tink I like to go home to mein Frau." said the German. "So would I, but we can't." retorted the Judge. "Sit down." "But. Shudge," persisted the German, "I tink I not make a good shuror." "You're the best in the box." said the Judge. "Sit down." "What box?" said the German. "The jury box." said the Judge. "Ach, Himmel. I thought it was ein bad box what beoples get in somedimes. Bit. Shudge," persisted the little German, "I don't speak goot Eng- lish already yet."
327
FELICITIES
"You don't have to speak at all." said the Judge. "Sit down."
The little German pointed to the lawyers to make his last des- perate plea. "Shudge, ' said he, "I can't make noddings von what dese fellers say." It was the Judge's chance to get even with the lawyers for many annoyances. "Neither can anyone else," he said. "Sit down." With a sigh, the little German sat down.
llere is a sonnet which the Clerk received, which perhaps may be slightly sarcastic.
"For the love of God and humanity, To avoid both wrath and profanity, To enable the executor to pay legacies and debts. Send along that certificate in Selleck vs. Betts." Yours very truly.
Judge Miles T. Granger was very much addicted to poetry ; one of his specimens has been for many years a classic. More than fifty years ago when Fred D. Beeman was Clerk and Mr. Granger was simply a practicing attorney. Sheriff Sedgwick got Beeman to write an epitaph on Granger, which was as follows:
"When Toby died-dire groans were heard. His friends were in commotion. For Heaven refused to own the bird And Hell declined the portion."
Taking this epitaph into another room the Sheriff folded it up and presently returned to the court room where Mr. Granger was at the table, trying a case, and handed the note to him. Upon read- ing it, Mr. Granger turned it over and wrote upon the back the fol- lowing, upon Mr. Beeman :
"And when the Clerk of Hell rose up To publish to the legions The reason why the bird was barred .A place in those dark regions, A bright red glow about his head Revealed to all those poor damned souls The face and form of Beeman."
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.