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 5
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Dr. Seth Bird. of Litchfield, probably held the first place among the early physicians of the County. His reputation was wide-spread. For acuteness of discrimination and soundness of judgment he was not excelled.
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Dr. Joseph Perry, of Woodbury, was not only eminent in his profession, but, what was unusual in his day. he excelled as a belles-lettre scholar and was a gentleman well read in various branches of science. Later generations produced their eminent and accomplished physicians. Dr. Nathaniel Perry, son of the gentleman just named: Dr. Daniel Sheldon, of this town: Drs. Fowler of Washington. Rockwell of Sharon, Welch of Norfolk Ticknor of Salisbury.
Dr. Samuel Woodward, of Torrington, was not only a physi- cian of high repute himself, but he was almost literally a father of the faculty. Dr. Samuel B. Woodword, late of Worcester, Massachusetts. Dr. Henry Woodward, late of Middletown, and Dr. Charles Woodward, of the same place, were his sons,-born and educated in this County. Few men in any community have attained a more eminent and useful position than Dr. Samuel B. Woodward. Under his superintendance the Insane Hospital, at Worcester, was established and for many years conducted and now sustains a reputation equal with any of the noble charities of this country. The Annual Reports of Dr. Woodward and his other professional writings, and the success of his efforts in the cause of humanity, have earned for him a reputation which will long survive.
Among the Surgeons of note, in earlier times was Dr. Samuel Catlin, of Litchfield, and at a later period. Dr. Samuel R. Gager. of Sharon.
The medical profession in this County has produced some writers of respectability. Dr. Elisha North was for several years a physician of extensive practice in Goshen, and he afterwards removed to New London. He published an approved treatise on spotted fever. which extensively prevailed in Goshen and its vicin- ity, while he resided there.
Dr. Caleb Ticknor of Salisbury, was brother of the late ex- cellent Dr. Luther Ticknor, of that town, and of Dr. Benajah Ticknor, for many years a surgeon in the navy of the United States : and although a young man when he removed to New York City. about the year 1832, he rose rapidly to a high place in his profession. He published several medical works. the most popular of which was, the Philosophy of Living, which consti- tutes one of the volumes of Harpers' Family Library.
The Chipman family. a numerous brotherhood, removed from Salisbury to Vermont immediately after the Revolutionary War; it produced eminent men. Nathaniel was an officer of the Rev- olution. He became Chief Justice of Vermont, and a Senator in Congress. He published a small volume of Judicial Reports and a larger treatise upon the Principles of Government. Daniel Chipman. a younger brother of this gentleman. was a very prom- inent member of the Vermont Bar. He was the author of a very
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creditable essay "On the Law of Contracts"; and besides a vol- ume of Law Reports, he published the life of his brother Nathaniel, and also the life of Gov. Thomas Chittenden.
Hon. Ambrose Spencer, late Chief Justice of the State of New York, was born in Salisbury, the son of Philip Spencer. Esq. He was prepared for his collegiate course under the in- struction of Rev. Daniel Farrand, of Canaan ; studied the law. I believe. with Hon. John Canfield. of Sharon, whose daughter he married.
llon. Josiah S. Johnston, late an eminent member of the Sen- ate of the United States, from Louisania, was a native of the same town. He was the son of Dr. John Johnston, who removed early to Kentucky. His academical studies were pursued here.
Samuel Moore. of Salisbury, was a profound mathmatician and engaged much in the instruction of young men in what was called the surveyor's art. He published a treatise on surveying. with a table of logarithms. It was the earliest work on that branch of mathematical science published in this country. It introduced the method of computing contents by calculation en- tirely. without measuring triangles by scale and dividers. It was a valuable treatise, but was nearly superseded by a more finished one by Rev. Abel Flint, in which he borrowed much from Moore.
Ethan Allen is deserving of notice only for his revolutionary services, which are matters of public history. He published a narrative of his captivity as a prisoner of war, and a volume of Infield Theology. He was a native of this county: the town of his nativity has been a matter of dispute. but is not a question worth solving.
We have had Poets, too, besides such as I have mentioned, who deserve a remembrance on this occasion.
Hon. John Trumbull, late one of the Judges of the Superior Court of the State. was born in Watertown. in this County, in which his father was a minister. The Progress of Dulness. and McFingal. the most admired of his Poems, were written in early life. They are satyrical productions, and for genuine wit have not been excelled by any modern effort. Judge Trumbull's ac- tive life was passed chiefly in Hartford.
William Ray was a Salisbury man, born in 1771. and while a lad developed a taste for poetry but early destitution and mis- fortunes pressed upon him drove him into the Navy of the United States. He was for some time a captive in Tripoli, and in 1808 he published the Horrors of Slavery. and in 18>1 a volume of Poems.
Ebenezer P. Mason was a native of Washington. Very few men gave more early promise of literary and scientific distinc- tion than young Mason. His life and writings were published in 1842, by Professor Olmsted. of Yale College.
VIEW OF THE CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION AT LITCHFIELD-1851.
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Washington has been a nursery of eminent men, of whom I cannot now speak without violating my purpose of speaking of the dead, and not of the living.
Mrs. Laura M. Thurston. of Norfolk, permitted to be pub- lished by her friends, several poetical pieces of uncommon sweet- ness and excellence .- the Paths of Life, the Green Hills of my Father Land, and others.
There are but few occasions, and these extreme ones, which call out the qualifications for military life.
Gen. Peter B. Porter was the youngest son of Col. Joshua Porter, of Salisbury, of whom I have spoken before. He was a graduate of Yale College and pursued the study of the law where so many of the noted men of the country have-at the Litchfield Law School. He was among the early emigrants
from this County to the Gensee country. He was soon called to occupy places of trust and power in the State of his adoption. He was a member of Congress when the project of the Erie Can- al was first suggested, and was one who, with De Witt Clinton, originated that important national work, and is entitled to equal honor with him for its projection. He urged it, when in Con- gress, as a national work, in a speech of great strength, and asked for the aid of the nation. As a member of the House of Repre- sentatives, he was associated with Henry Clay on a Committee to consider the causes of complaint against Great Britain, and drew up the report of that Committee. recommending the declaration of the war of 1812. He thus early ardently espoused the cause of his country. and stood by the side of Tompkins and other patriots, in their efforts to prosecute that war to an honorable result.
He was then a civilian only: but, impatient and mortified at the ill success of our arms upon the northern frontier-his own house pieced by the enemy's shot, on the banks of the Niagara River-he threw off the civil and assumed the military attitude. He raised a regiment of ardent volunteer troops, and at their head, soon contributed to turn the tide of success. His services at Fort Erie and the battles at the Falls, have been repeatedly told by the writers of the country's history. I will not repeat them. So highly were they esteemed by the general Government and the State, that thanks and medals were presented. and before the close of the war he was offered the chief command of the army, by the President. Under the administration of the younger Adams he was offered. and accepted, the place of Secretary of War.
My time confines me to the notice of the most conspicuous of our sons, native and adopted: but there were others, in every town, perhaps of equal merit but with fewer opportunities of display. The list of our members of Assembly. and of men by whose efforts the foundations of society were laid here, and by
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whom this County has been brought from a repulsive region of mountains and rocks to its present condition of fertility and wealth, would show an aggregate of moral and intellectual worth which no region, equal in extent, has surpassed.
And by whom were all these eminent and excellent men reared and prepared for the stations which they have occupied in society ? By fathers,. whose own hands have toiled-by mothers, who were the spinsters of the days in which they lived, and who knew and practised the duties of the kitchen as well as the parlor. and to whom the music of the spinning-wheel and the loom was more necessary than that of the piano and the harpsichord.
The spirit of strict economy has marked our progress from the beginning, and by no other could our fathers have left to us this heritage of good! Removed from the profusion, and from what is esteemed the higher liberality of city habits, our County has not fallen behind other kindred communities in encouraging the benev- olent operations of these latter days.
A Missionary Society, auxiliary to the Board of Commissioners of Foreign Missions, was established in this County, in the year 1813, and has been in active operation since. This noble charity. since its organization, has received and paid over, as near as I can ascertain, the sum of about $125,000. The benevolent offerings of other denominations-the Episcopalians, Methodists, and Bap- tists, to the purposes of their respective religious operations, I have no present means of knowing ; that they have been equally liberal in proportion to their means, with their Congregational brethren, I have no reason to doubt.
In the year 1817, the Foreign Mission School was established in Cornwall, with the special object of spreading Christian truth and the means of civilization among the heathen .. The origin of this effort, if not accidental, was gradual in its conception and develop- ment. Two young natives of the Sandwich Islands were, by the directing, and almost visible hand of Providence, thrown among us and fell under the notice of Mr. Elias Cornelius, in 1815, then a student in Yale College, and since distinguished as a Divine and Philanthropist. The names of these young heathen, as known among us, were Henry Obookaih and William Tenoe. These young men were carefully instructed by Mr. Cornelius, Samuel J. Mills, and Edwin Dwight, with a chief object of preparing them to become Christian Missionaries among their countrymen. They were soon after placed under the care of Rev. Joel Harvey, then a Congrega- tional minister in Goshen ; at his suggestion, the North Consociation of Litchfield County, became their patrons. They were, not long after. joined by Thomas Hopoo, their countryman, and all were placed under proper instruction for the great object designed. But a more liberal and enlarged project was conceived : a Seminary in a Christian land, for the instruction of the heathen joined with the purpose of preparing young men here for missionary service in
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heathen lands. It was a splendid thought, and the American Board attempted its consummation.
Rev. Timothy Dwight, Hon. John Treadwell, James Morris, Esq., Rev. Drs. Beecher and Chapin, with Messrs. Harvey and Prentice, were authorized to devise and put in operation such a Seminary, and the result was, the Foreign Mission School at Corn- wall. Young natives of the Sandwich Islands, and from China, Australasia, and from the Indian nations on this Continent, as well as American youths, were instructed there. The school continued successfully until 1827. The establishment of the Sandwich Island Mission, was one of the important results of this school.
Many years before the modern movement in a temperance re- formation was suggested, such a project was conceived in this town and encouraged by the most prominent men here. A Temperance Pledge was signed in May, 1789, repudiating the use of distilled liquors, by 36 gentlemen : and among the names annexed to it, were those of Julius Deming, Benjamin Tallmadge, Uriah Tracy, Eph- raim Kirby, Moses Seymour. Daniel Sheldon, Tapping Reeve. Frederick Wolcott, and John Welch-names well known and well remembered here. I believe the first temperance association of modern date, in the County, was formed among the iron operatives at Mount Riga, in Salisbury. The results of this grand effort have been as successful here as elsewhere. If any special cause has operated to retard the final success of this charity. it has been the strangling, death-ensuing embrace of party politicians-the scathing curse of many a good thing. As long ago as 1816, there were dis- tilleries in every town in the County : and in New Milford, as many as 26, and in the whole County, 169! and, besides these, there were 188 retailers of spirits, who paid licenses under the excise laws of the United States, to the amount of $3.760. Whether there be a distillery in the County now. I am not informed ; I believe but very few.
I have not attempted to trace the modifications of society here -its progressive changes in modes of opinion and consequent action. It would lead me too far from my object, which has been only to speak of events, and the men who have been engaged in them.
Before the Revolution there was little to excite. There was a common routine of thinking, which had been followed for years- somewhat disturbed, to be sure, by what were called "new lights" in religion. But the results of our emancipation from the mother country turned everything into a different channel, opinions and all. A new impulse broke in upon the general stagnation of mind which had been, and made every body speculators in morals, religion, politics, and every thing else. My own memory runs back to a dividing point of time, when I could see something of the old world and new. Infidel opinions came in like a flood. Mr. Paine's "Age of Reason." the works of Voltaire, and other Deistical books, were broad cast, and young men suddenly became, as they thought, wiser
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than their fathers; and even men' in high places, among us here, were suspected of infidel opinions. At the same time came the ardent preachers of Mr. Wesley's divinity, who were engaged in doing battle with Infidelity on the one hand, and Calvinistic theology on the other. Here were antagonistic forces and influences, which introduced essential changes, and both have been operating ever since, And it would afford an interesting subject of investigation, to trace these influences to their results. The Methodist preachers first visited this County about the year 1787, and organized their first classes in Salisbury and Canaan. This was their first appear- ance in the State, and, I believe, in New England. In this County they were received with courtesy, and found many to encourage them among those who did not well understand the old divinity.
I might detain you in speaking of the prevalence and effects of party spirit here ; but as this, as well as denominational controversy, is unpleasant to me, I forbear. There was a time, about the year 1806, when the spirit was rife here, and led to prosecutions, fines and imprisonment, and a disturbance of social relations, which has never since re-appeared to the same extent.
I need not say any thing of the present condition of the County. This you see and know. Its Railroads, penetrating regions not long since supposed to be impenetrable; villiages rising up in the deep valleys, whose foundations have been hidden for nearly a century ; and fertility and thrift, where a few years ago were uncultivated forests and wasting water-falls.
Of what shall we complain? Is it that we do not, all of us, make haste to be rich? Ah! is it so, my brethren? Is there noth- ing but wealth which can satisfy a rational mind and an immortal spirit ?
Of the future we may indulge proud hopes, while we doubt and fear. Progress is the word of modern theorists, but of doubtful import. Innovation is not always progress towards useful results. Of this we, who are old, believe we have seen too much, within a few years, and fear much more to come. Our County is but a small part of a State and Nation, and so our fate stands not alone. We can but look to our political institutions as our ultimate pro- tectors, and I urge upon you all, my brethren, their unwavering support. Our Constitution. requires no innovating process to im- prove it. It demands of us more than a mere political respect and preference-almost a religious reverence. Love for it, in all its parts, in every word and sentence which compose it, should be interwoven into all our notions of thinking, speaking and acting. Disturb but one stone in this great arch-but one compromise in this holy covenant-and the whole must tumble into ruin !
4
Early Lights
SKETCHES
OF THE
EARLY LIGHTS
OF THE
LITCHFIELD BAR
BY
HON. DAVID S. BOARDMAN
1860
-
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BOARDMAN'S SKETCHES
PATRIDGE THATCHER.
Patridge Thatcher was the first man who practiced the legal pro- fession in New Milford. He was not educated to the profession, but took up the trade, because there were none of the craft hereabout. when this county was organized, which was after he came to middle age. He was a native. I have been told, of Lebanon in this state, and came to New Milford, I know not how long ago. He was, how- ever, a married man at the time. He had no children : but a large number of negroes, whom he treated with kindness enough to put to shame the reproaches of all the abolitionists in New England. He was a man of strong mind, of rigid morality, and religious to the letter according to the strictest seet of orthodox episcopacy. He adored Charles I. as a martyr and he hated Oliver Cromwell worse than he did the evil one. Loyalty, unconditional loyalty, was the prime element of his political ereed. Of course, his name was not found in any list of the wicked Whigs of the Revolution, and had he lived in these days, he would most thoroughly have eschewed democ- raey and abolitionism. On the breaking out of the Revolutionary war, his loyalty necessarily silenced his voice in court, and he died soon after its conclusion. Lawyer Thatcher, as he was always called, was undoubtedly, a very odd, a very honest and a very good man. I wish there were many such men now, both on account of the good example they would set, and the harmless amusement they would afford.
DANIEL EVERITT.
Daniel Everitt was a native of Bethlem and settled in New Mil- ford as a lawyer, some time during the early part of the Revolu- tionary war, probably as early as '76 or '77, possibly earlier, as from a record I have access to I see he was married to a daughter of the Rev. Nathaniel Taylor on the first of January. 1778, and I remember that he lived here some time before that event. He had not a colle- giate education, but was a man of good education and received an honorary degree. He read law with Judge Adams of Litchfield, and I remember to have heard him say, that he occasionaly officiated in Mr. Adams' place as state's attorney, when he, (Adams) was absent in Congress, which he often was, during the war of the Revolution. Mr. Everitt was a man of much wit, boundless extravagance of ex- pression, quick conception, and in command of language and fluency of utterance, unsurpassed, but not a man of much depth of mind nor had he much legal learning: his library extended little beyond Blackstone and Jacobs' Law Dietionary. He had, I believe, a very good run of practice, when the Court really opened to do eivil busi- ness, after the conclusion of the war. His success in this respect was, however, of rather short duration ; a number of younger law-
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yers having about that time commenced practice here, and other cir- cimstances conspired to carry business away from him, and he never recovered it. While studying law I heard him argue a case or two, keeping the Court house in a roar by his wit and sarcasm, but by the time I was admitted, viz. in '95, he had about given up attending Courts at Litchfield, though he was not fifty years of age-and indeed he was, I think, but fifty-seven when he died in 1805. I met him, however, a few times, before Arbitrators and Justices, and had enough to do to parry his home thrusts of good natured wit. Before him I often went, as he tried almost all the Justice cases, which he always did with entire integrity and usually came to a correct con- clusion. He represented this town, I think three times in the general assembly, and as a member of the convention which ratified the Con- stitution of the United States. He was a man of strict honesty, en- tire moral rectitude of conduct, and a professor of religion. He was, however, much given to sociality, and to that conviviality which some time borders on a kindred indulgence. Mr. Everitt succeeded the late Col. Samuel Canfield as Judge of Probate in this district in 1790, and held that office till his death at the time above mentioned.
TAPPING REEVE.
I saw much of Judge Reeve's practice at the bar for nearly five years, during which time he was engaged in almost every case of importance tried in the Superior Court at Litchfield, and never failed to argue every one in which he was engaged, if argued at all. In the County Court, after I became acquainted with him, he did not prac- tice. His school had become numerous, and he gave up his practice in that Court because (I suppose, ) it too much interrupted his course of daily lectures, and knowing as he did that he should have a part in every cause expected to be tried in the Superior Court. And, by the way, trials were then managed and got through with in a reason- able time, and not suffered to be dragged out to the abominable and shameful length which they now are, to the disgrace of the Pro- fession for indulging in it, and of the Courts for permitting it.
I joined Judge Reeve's school in the fall of 1793, and he was not placed on the bench till the spring of 1796, so that I saw him at the Bar during nine sessions of the Superior Court, and never failed to listen to him, if I could avoid it, with unqualified love and admiration through every speech he made, to its conclusion. I say with love, for no instructor was ever more generally beloved by his pupils, and in- deed entirely so except it was by those whose love would have been a reproach to the object of it. As a reasoner, he had no superior within the compass of my observation of forensic performances. I mean true, forcible and honest reasoning. In sophistry, he was too
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honest to indulge, and too discerning to suffer it to escape detection in the argument of an adversary.
As a speaker he was usually exceedingly ardent, and the ardor he displayed appeared to be prompted by a conviction of the justice of the cause he was advocating. His ideas seemed often, and indeed, usually, to flow in upon him faster than he could give utterance to them, and sometimes seemed to force him to leave a sentence unfinish- ed, to begin another,-and in his huddle of ideas, if I may so express it, he was careless of grammatical accuracy, and though a thorough scholar, often made bad grammar in public speaking. Careless as he was of his diction and thoughtless as he was of ornament in ordi- nary cases, yet some elegant expressions and fine sentences would seem, as if by accident, to escape him in almost every speech. But in such cases as afforded the proper field for the display of eloquence, such as actions of slander, malicious prosecutions, etc., and in that part of such cases as usually prompt to exertions of the kind, his hur- ried enunciation and grammatical inaccuracies, all forsook him, and then he never failed to electrify and astonish his audience. Many of these used to be recited to me by those who had often heard him and it fell to my lot to witness one such occasion. In an action for mali- cious prosecution, in closing the argument, on entering upon the sub- ject of damages, he burst forth into such a strain of dignified and soul-thrilling eloquence, as neither before nor since, has ever met my ear. The first sentence he uttered thrilled through every nerve of my entire frame to the very ends of my fingers, and every succeeding sentence seemed to increase in overwhelming effect. I was perfectly entranced during its delivery, and for an hour afterwards I trembled so that I could not speak plain. His manner was as much changed as his language, and to me he looked a foot taller than before. The next day I went to him and asked him to commit to writing the con- cluding part of his speech, to which request he said in the simplicity of his nature, "Why, if I should do that, perhaps I should make it better than it really was, and that would not be fair." We told him ( Mr. Bacon was with me, ) there was no danger of that, for we knew it could not be bettered. Well, he said he would try, but he did not know whether he could recall it to memory, for there was not a word of it written before hand. A day or two after he saw me in Court, behind his seat, and beckoned me to him and said he had tried to comply with my request, but it was so gone from him that he could make nothing of it.
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