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 8
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In person Mr. Gould was very handsome. Of about medium heighth, or perhaps a little over ; but rather less in body and limbs than medium size. His complexion fair, with fine dark eyes and beautiful brown hair : all his features good and in connection indica- tive of much intelligence and good nature, and his form for symmetry and gracefulness could hardly have been mended ; and in all respects, in body, mind and education, he may be fairly styled a finished man. In private and social intercourse he was highly pleasing, facetious and witty.
Soon after his settlement in Litchfield he married the eldest daughter of the Hon. Uriah Tracy, so well known for his long and distinguished service in the councils of the state and nation.
Mrs. Gould in person and mind was a fit wife for such a husband, and partook with him in the happiness of raising a very numerous and promising family of children.
Judge Gould wrote and published a volume of Pleadings, which together with his fame as an instructor, gave him a distinguished name among the eminent jurists of the country.
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BOARDMAN'S SKETCHES
ASA BACON
Again in compliance with your later request for further sketches of the lives and profesional standing of the former members of the Litchfield County Bar I transmit you a name which, though not dec- orated by the civic honors annexed to some of them, I think highly worthy of a place in the series.
Asa Bacon, the son of a very respectable and somewhat opulent farmer of Canterbury in this State, was born there on the 8th day of February, 1771. His early school and classical education was had in that and neighboring towns in Windham County so far as was necessary to a preparation for entering Yale College. which he did in September, 1789 : and during his collegiate course, sustained a very prominent standing in his class ; and by his instructor and class-mates was marked out as one who would make a distinguished figure in the profession in which his talents and turn of mind plainly indicated would be his choice. Immediately after his graduation in September, 1793. he entered the office of Gen. Cleaveland in his native town as a Law-student, and there remained about six months and then joined the Law school at Litchfield, at that time, and for long before. under the sole instruction of Tapping Reeve, Esq .. afterwards Judge Reeve. in which he remained until admitted to the Bar in September, 1795. Soon after which, without consulting anybody or taking a single let- ter of which he might for asking obtained any quantity of the best sort, with characteristic boldness and love of adventure in youth, he left Connecticut for Virginia with a determination of establishing himself in the practice of law in the latter state : an attempt, it is be- lieved never before made by any one from Connecticut. In order to the accomplishment of which object, he found on arrival in Virginia that he had got to obtain a license from a majority of the Judges of the Supreme Court in that state, and that too by visiting them at their respective residences : for they were not in the practice of examining and licensing candidates during the session of the court. This sub- jected him to the trouble and expense of traveling over a great part of the state : and this being accomplished. he determined to fix him- self at Leesburg. the capital of Loudon county, and he accordingly opened an office for practice there; and being aided by a fine and imposing personal appearance and promptness in manners, he suc- ceeded in obtaining a fair and encouraging portion of the business, and there remained for nearly three years, when, on returning to Connecticut to visit his relations, he found the prospects of profes- sional business in his native county to be such as, in connection with a natural preference for Connecticut society to that of Virginia. to induce him to renounce his connection with his new formed estab- lishment and open an office in his native town, and this he did not only with such success as speedily to secure him a fair professional business, but also to induce four young gentlemen to enter his office
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for legal instruction, upon a plan which he adopted ; three of whom were from Massachusetts, and one a member of Congress from the state of New York.
After a prosperous practice of over seven years in Windham County, he received an invitation from the Hon. John Allen, then at the head of practice in the larger county of Litchfield, to remove there and become his partner in business. This he accepted, and was probably in a measure induced so to do from the prospect that Mr. Allen would, on account of declining health, wholly retire from the Bar at no very distant period; and this in fact happened at a time earlier than was desirable. By means of his connection with Mr. Allen. and of a peculiar faculty of his own, Mr. Bacon soon obtained an ample and satisfactory share of the business done at the Litchfield County Bar, and by his faithfulness and zeal in the man- agement of it he retained it for many years to his great satisfaction, for he was very fond of his profession. No man more thoroughly identified himself with the interests of his client, insomuch that he could hardly bring himself to doubt of the justice of his cause, how- ever he might of the legal means of obtaining it; hence his utmost exertions were sure to be put forth for the attainment of it. In un- tiring industry in the preparation of a cause for trial no man ex- celled him. He was an able, and when the nature of the case al- lowed of it, an eloquent advocate. Until some sixty years old he was in full practice, almost never being in any degree diverted from it by political aspirations. But repeated pneumoniac attacks of a threatening nature in the autumn of the year 1832 admonished him of the danger of much public speaking, and induced him to retire from the Bar as soon as it could conveniently be done. While in practice, his untiring diligence in the preparation of his causes for trial. the learning, wit and force of reasoning was so satisfactory to his numerous clients, that it was not remembered that any one who once employed him ever forsook him when in after time he had occasion for legal advice.
After the close of his practice of law, and indeed long before that event. Mr. Bacon paid much attention to pecuniary affairs, and his skill and judgment in the management, led to his appoinment as president of the branch of the Phoenix Bank located at Litchfield, which he held for a number of years. But his cautious policy in the management of it proved unsatisfactory to some of the stockholders, but more particularly with the managers at head quarters.
As a man, a mere private individual, Mr. Bacon will be agreed by all who ever knew him to have been a very peculiar man, both in appearance and in manner. He was full six feet two inches high ; well formed for appearance; neither too fleshy nor too spare; and his inexhaustible fund of pleasant wit, judiciously used, made him an agreeable companion to both sexes and all ages: and having in himself an uncommon elasticity of spirits he was fitted to enjoy life
5
ASA BACON.
MAJ. GEN. FRANCIS BACON
EPAPHRODITUS BACON.
BAGONS
ELLER
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BOARDMAN'S SKETCHES
and to impart to others its enjoyment in an eminent degree. On many accounts, and indeed on most accounts, Mr. Bacon may be said to be a fortunate man, but on others, had it not been for his peculiar buoyancy of spirits, a very unfortunate man.
In March, 1807, he married Miss Lucretia Champion the only daughter of the Hon. Epaphroditus Champion, of East Haddam, who still survives him ; and never was a man through a long married life of half a century, more happy in the conjugal connection. This mar- riage was blessed by the birth of three sons of uncommon promise. but all of them were cut down in early manhood : not, however, until each had given decided proof of natural and acquired capacity. Three daughters were also the fruit of that mariage, but all died in early infancy.
Quite a number of years since, Mr. Bacon disposed of his proper- ty in Litchfield and removed to New Haven, where he spent the re- mainder of his long and useful life, and died in the full possession of his mental faculties when but two days short of eighty-six years of age. No one ever questioned his integrity. He was a professor of religion, and is believed to have lived in accordance with his pro- fession. He died in the possession of an ample estate, in a great degree the fruit of his discreet management, and out of which. it is but justice to his memory to state, he made a donation to Yale Col- lege of ten thousand dollars.
ELISILA STERLING.
Gen. Elisha Sterling of Salisbury, who was for a long time a very respectable member of the Litchfield County Bar, was a native of Lyme in this State, where he received his training and carly edu- cation, until he became a member of Yale College, of the class which graduated in September. 1787 : and that he sustained a good stand- ing in it is evinced by his having an honorary share in its commence- ment exercises. Immediately after his graduation he assumed the charge of an academy, then recently established in Sharon; and during the two years while it was under his management and tu- ition, it became very thoroughly established and very extensively and popularly known. While at the head of the academy he pursued the study of Law, and was admitted to the Bar in 1789 or 1790, and immediately opened an office for the practice of his profession in Salisbury, where he continued to reside during the remainder of his life. He was very fortunate in his place of settlement, and soon found himself engaged in lucrative practice, which he pursued with much industry for a long time: and it is believed that very few lawyers have by the mere practice of their profession in Connecti- cut acquired a larger property than he did. He was at an early
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period by the County Court appointed Attorney for the State in that County, and by them ( to whom alone the right of that appointment then pertained. ) annually reappointed for many years, and until a political change in a majority of that Court led to a change in the attorneyship. The propriety of his management as a public prose- cutor was never questioned even by his political opponents. As a mere advocate he did not stand at the head of such practice, but did a respectable share of it, and stood high in the secondary rank ; and in the entire amount of business, in point of profit, few equaled, and perhaps none surpassed him. In addition to the office of State's Attorney, he for a long time held the office of Judge of Probate for the district of Sharon-an office then depending upon the annual appointment of the legislature, and until, for a like cause above mentioned, he was required to give place to another, of different political principles from his own ; and the latter office he held two or three years after he ceased to be, of the then, healthy political faith. He was very often a representative to the General Assembly from Salisbury when the political standing of the town would allow of such a choice, and was a major-general of the militia. At a somewhat earlier period he married a daughter of the Hon. John Canfield, deceased, of Sharon, who for a long time was a distin- guished member of the Bar of Litchfield County in former times ; and by that marriage he became the father of a somewhat numerous family, nearly all of whom were sons. They were all young men of promise, and on entering into business were well endowed by their father, and it is believed were respectable and prosperous in their several vocations. Gen. Sterling somewhat late in life married the widow of the Rev. Dr. John Elliott, who survived him. Through life Gen. Sterling enjoyed a good state of health, and died when over seventy years of age, in the year 1836, of a sudden illness oc- casioned by a slight wound in the leg, too much neglected. He was above medium size, of a light complexion and good personal ap- pearance, and his moral and religious habits unimpeachable.
JABEZ W. HUNTINGTON.
In compliance with former requests and of a recent intimation of my own, I now transmit you a brief sketch of the life and char- acter of the Hon. Jabez W. Huntington, son of the late Gen. Zachariah Huntington of Norwich, and grandson of the Hon. Jabez Huntington of that place, the assistant and associate of the first Gov. Trumbull, who was born in Norwich in the year 1787 or 1788. He received his early training and instruction in his native town, which after times evinced to be accurate and good. He became a member of Yale College in September, 1802 and graduated in September,
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1806, with the reputation of a good scholar. Soon after his gradua- tion he became a teacher in an academic school under the govern- ment of its founder. Esquire Morris of Litchfield South Farms, as then called, now the town of Morris, named after the founder of said school. After about a year thus employed, Mr. Huntington entered Judge Reeve's Law School, in which he continued a diligent student until admitted to the Bar in Litchfield County, of which he soon showed himself to be a worthy member, and in due time a distinguished one ; he having commenced the practice of his pro- fession in Litchfield, and there continued it. until its final termina- tion by an office conferred upon him incompatible with its further pursuit. In practice, his whole aim and ambition was to become an advocate, and had no desire to obtain any share of collecting business, though in many hands not less lucrative ; and as he was always ready to aid the less ambitious of speaking, he early acquired a very considerable share of the portion of practice of which he was ambitions and which was improving to him. His forte as an advo- cate was in detecting error in declarations and other parts of plead- ings, and in a lucid manner of pointing them out. Upon the whole he was as an advocate clear and accurate, rather than peculiar for the gracefulness of manner or refinement of diction, though his manner was by no means disgusting, and his language entirely free from any approach to vulgarity. His manners were pleasing and popular. and he repeatedly represented Litchfield in the General Assembly and distinguished himself there. He was elected to the 21st Congress, and re-elected to the 22d and 23d Congress ; and near the expiration of the last of his Congressional career he was chosen a Judge of the Superior Court, and held that office until 1840, when being chosen a senator of the United States he resigned the Judgeship and accepted the latter appointment, and continued to hold it by virtue of a second appointment until his death in 1847. In all which stations he performed the duties thereof with honor to himself and to the entire satisfaction of the public. His moral char- acter was irreproachable : a professor of religion and an observer of its precepts. Late in life he was married, but it is believed left no issue. Soon after election to Congress he removed to his native town and died there.
PHINEAS MINER.
Phineas Miner, a very respectable and somewhat eminent mem- ber of the Litchfield County Bar, was a native of Winchester in that county, and there, and in that region, as far as by the writer hereof known, received his entire training and education in all respects. At an early period in life he commenced the practice of law in the place
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of his birth, in the society of Winsted, as is believed, a place of a great deal of active manufacturing business and furnishing an ample share of employment for gentlemen of the legal profession, of which Mr. Miner soon acquired an ample share, and at no distant period, an engrossing one, with which he appeared in court from term to term until he felt warranted in the expectation of drawing after him an engagement in all the disputable cases from that fruitful quarter, when he removed to Litchfield and was much employed as an advo- cate for a number of years, and until his health rather prematurely failed, and he became the victim of great mental and bodily suffer- ing. until relieved by death before reaching the ordinary period at which old age begins to make its effects much perceptible in the hu- man frame. As an advocate Mr. Miner was ardent, impassioned and fluent, but in his apparent great ambition to be eloquent he often made use of figures of speech which a more chastened and correct training in youth would have taught him to avoid, and less wounding to an car of taste, but the fault apparent to all, was the extreme prolixity of his arguments ; but these faults notwithstand- ing. Mr. Miner was a respectable and able advocate.
Before his removal to Litchfield Mr. Miner was an early and frequent member of the legislature from his native town and after his removal there, a member of the state senate for the fifteenth district, and was also elected to fill a vacancy in the second session of the twenty-third Congress.
Mr. Miner was twice married, but it is believed, left no issue, but of this the writer is uncertain. He led a strictly moral life and was justly esteemed a good man.
LEMAN CHURCH.
One more attempt to comply with your repeated requests. Le- man Church, a late member of the Litchfield County Bar, was a na- tive of Salisbury in this county, a son of an opulent farmer of that town, and in it, it is supposed, he received his education, both scholastic and professional; the latter in the office of his half- brother, Samuel Church, afterwards a Judge of the Superior Court, and finally Chief Justice of the same, and after his admission to the bar he opened an office in North Canaan, where he resided during the remainder of his life. Mr. Church was successful in acquiring at an early period a promising share of professional business, which steadily increased, until by the middle of professional life he occu- pied a stand among the leading advocates at the bar ; and towards the close of life there was scarce a cause, especially in the higher Courts, of considerable importance discussed, in which he was not engaged.
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In September, 1833, Mr. Church was appointed by the Court, State's Attorney, as successor to his brother Samuel, on the latter's elevation to the bench of the Superior Court, and held that office by annual re-appointments until September term, 1838, when by a politi- cal change in the court he was required to yield the place to another ; it is believed, however, that he afterwards for a time, re-occupied that place, but not positively recollected.
As a speaker he was cool, unimpassioned and ingenious ; he never attempted to affect the passions of those be addressed, and being destitute of passion himself. was consequently incapable of moving the passions of others ; he never attempted to be eloquent or made use of a merely ornate expression, his object in speaking was effect, and that wholly directed to his cause and not to himself ; in the man- agement of a case he was always cool and self-possessed; no sud- den and unexpected turn in the progress of a trial disconcerted him, or appeared to be unexpected by him ; no collision at the bar ever appeared to affect his temper in the least. With such a tem- perament it is obvious that the legal profession, was of all the pro- fessions, the one for him, and that in which he was calculated to excel.
Mr. Church was always entirely regardless of personal appear- ance and dress ; he was very small, meager and ill formed, his fea- tures quite ordinary, but all this very indifferent appearance was res- cued from inattention by a most remarkably attractive and intelli- gent eye.
Mr. Church was frequently a representative to the Legislature from Canaan, and never failed to make an impression upon that body : and to his sagacious management is attributable the preseva- tion of the Housatonic Railroad from ruin, as a commissioner there- on appointed by the Legislature, with power, together with his as- sociate in office, Mr. Pond, to sell and consequently to destroy the road which seemed to be a favorite object with them for a time.
Mr. Church died in the midst of life as a professional man, July 1849. I am unable to state the particulars of his family.
Sedgwick's Fifty Years
FIFTY YEARS
AT THE
LITCHFIELD COUNTY BAR
A LECTURE
DELIVERED BEFORE THE
LITCHFIELD COUNTY BAR
BY
CHARLES F. SEDGWICK, ESQ.
1870.
12
CHAS. F. SEDGWICK
SEDGWICK'S ADDRESS.
Litchfield, Feb. 9. 1870.
GEN. SEDGWICK :
My Dear Sir-At a bar meeting held this noon the following resolution was offered by E. W. Seymour and unanimously adopted :
Whereas, at the next term of this Court Gen. C. F. Sedgwick will have completed a fifty years connection with this bar as a re- spected member thereof,
Resolved, That he be invited to deliver an address in the Court Room at such time next term as may be convenient to him upon some subject connected with his long professional career.
Resolved. That a committee of three be appointed to extend this invitation to the General and to make arrangements that may be necessary in case the invitation be accepted.
O. S. Seymour, J. H. Hubbard and Abijah Catlin were appointed a committee for this purpose.
It gives the committee great pleasure to communicate the fore- going proceedings to you and we hope you will gratify us by accept- ing the invitation. We will at any time confer with you upon the subject of what arrangements should be made.
Yours truly, O. S. SEYMOUR, For the Committee.
The committee of the Litchfield County Bar have received the annexed letter from General Sedgwick and have agreed upon Wed- nesday evening, the 13th of April, for hearing the commemoration discourse at the Court Room. Members of the Bar of other Courts and the public generally are invited to attend.
J. H. HUBBARD, O. S. SEYMOUR, ABIJAH CATLIN, Committee.
Litchfield, March 14, 1870.
SHARON, March 12, 1870.
JUDGE SEYMOUR :
Dear Sir-I received, in due time, yours, written in behalf of the committee of the Bar, and owe you an apology for not giving it an earlier answer. The truth is that I have hesitated to give an affirmative response from a feeling of incompetency to get up any thing which would be of any interest to my kind friends of the Bar
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whose polite proceedings you communicate. But the respect which I feel for them combined with a feeling of gratitude for the past kindnesses as well as the urgency of many individuals of the profes- sion here as well as in other counties have persuaded me to make the attempt to comply with their wishes, and I will try to get up a commemoration discourse to be read to the Bar at the next term of the Court. As Good Friday will come during the first week of Court I will suggest Wednesday evening of that week for the hearing instead of Thursday, but in this I will conform to the wishes of the committee. If they should fix on any other evening please notify me.
Yours, respectfully. C. F. SEDGWICK.
ADDRESS.
The statement that I have been for fifty years a member of the bar of this county, admonishes me of a rapid journey across the stage of life, from its morning to its evening. Those years have sped away, and they have embraced a large portion of the time usually alloted to man as the period of his existence here.
"Large space are they
Of man's brief life. those fifty years ; they join Its ruddy morning with the paler light Of its declining hours."
They have swept off in their current nearly every one who was active in the proceedings of the courts of this county, at the con- mencement of that period. It did not then occur to me to consider the question whether I should outlive nearly all my associates at the bar. but of the forty-four members who were then in active practice here, all save three, and they are not now in practice, have preceded me on their journey to the grave. Some have laid their bones in distant parts of the country, but with the exception above named, all have gone to their last account.
I suppose it to be the wish of the bar, as it has been intimated to me, that I should say something of those who were active in con- ducting the judicial proceedings in this County, fifty years ago. This will imply a notice of the judges, clerks and officers of the court, as well as the legal profession. A wide field is open before me, and I fear the exploration which I shall give it will be of very little interest to my brethren, but such impressions of the men of those times as remain with me, I will endeavor to lay before them.
RE-ORGANIZATION OF THE COURTS.
The Courts had then just been organized under the present Con- stitution of the State. Under the old government, the Supreme
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Court consisted of nine judges, and they were elected annually by the legislature. Under the Constitution, the number was reduced to five, and they held their office during good behaviour, or until they reached the age of seventy years. In like manner, the judges of the County Courts were reduced from five to three. Formerly these judges held the Superior Courts, but under the Constitution, they were holden by one judge. The old Court has embodied as high an order of judicial talent as any other Court in any of the States, and when the appointment of the judges under the new organization was in contemplation, much anxiety was felt among the members of the legal profession lest the character of the Court should deteriorate. Chief Justice Swift was very popular with all classes, and it was thought that his high character as a jurist, and his spotless charac- ter as a man, would render it pretty certain that he be retained at the head of the new Court. But the party then in power, known in our political history as the Toleration party. determined to make an almost entire change in the material of the Court, and to man the bench with new incumbents. For the new Chief Justice, they select- ed the Hon. Stephen Titus Hosmer, of Middletown, who had been a member of the old Court some three or four years, and who, it was claimed, had voted the ticket of the party at the next preceding election. It was laid to his charge that he had done so with the intent of thereby obtaining the position which he was afterwards called to fill. The other judges were John T. Peters, Asa Chapman, Jeremiah Gates Brainard, and William Bristol. Judge Brainard was of the old Court, and it was the intention of the ruling party to put James Lanman in the place : but some of the tolerationists of New London County did not believe him qualified to fill it, and refused to vote for him. Judge Brainard was of the same county, and the federalists naturally rallied upon him in opposition to Lan- man, and with the aid of dissentient tolerationists, Brainard was elected. He was the only old federalist on the bench, till Daggett came on, in 1826.
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