USA > Connecticut > Hartford County > The memorial history of Hartford County, Connecticut, 1633-1884, Vol. I > Part 16
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Until 1719 the courts were held in the " Court Chambers," on the second floor of the " Meeting-house." Afterward, until the completion of the County building (1885), they were held in the Capitol.
Since the establishment of the United States Court for the District of Connecticut, in 1789, the Bench of that court has been occupied by seven judges in turn. None of these was a native of Hartford County, and but two, namely, William D. Shipman and Nathaniel Shipman (the latter the present incumbent ), were ever residents of Hartford County.
PROSECUTING OFFICERS. - United States Attorneys for the District of Connecticut have been thirteen in number since 1789. Of these, if we exclude those born in other counties, but three were contributed by Hartford County. These were : Hezekiah Huntington, of Suffield and Hartford, 1807-1829; Asa Child, of Hartford, 1830-1835; and Thomas Clapp Perkins, of Hartford, 1850-1853 (see p. 143). Huntington was born in Tolland when it was in Hartford County. He was a student of Gideon Granger, of Suffield, and of Judge John Trumbull, of Hartford.
Three others resided in Hartford. They were: Charles Chapman, a native of Newtown ; William D. Shipman, born in Chester ; and Lewis Elliott Stanton (the present incumbent), a native of Clinton. Mr. Chapman, son of Judge Asa Chapman, was a representative to Con- gress, 1852-1853. He was a natural orator, and his skill in eross- examining witnesses was almost matchless.
In October, 1662, the first step was taken toward establishing the office of King's Attorney ; or, as we would now say, State's Attorney. William Pitkin, 1st, of Hartford, a gentleman who proved to be well qualified for the place, was "desired and appointed" by the General court to prosecute certain delinquents, from Wethersfield, in the Par- ticular Court. Pitkin is said to have come from Norwich, England, and to have been bred a lawyer. But his first occupation here was that of a schoolmaster. In May, 1664, the General Court appointed him their Attorney, "to implead any delinquents in the Colony." In the same year he was granted "twenty nobles, for his pains in prosecuting " Cap- tain John Scott, who was charged with seditious practices. Mr. Pitkin died in 1694, aged fifty-nine years.1
1 For a notice of his eminence in his profession, see J. Hammond Trumbull's note to p. 165, vol. iii., Colonial Records of Connecticut.
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A long-continued and earnest effort, on the part of the writer, to prepare a complete list of the prosecuting officers of the colony and State has been unavailing. The public records do not, in some cases, afford the means of ascertaining their names or dates of appointment. Richard Edwards, of Hartford, mentioned elsewhere, was probably the first Queen's Attorney, for he was appointed in April, 1705. The office had been first created in May, 1704. The act provided that there should be "in every countie, a sober, discreet, and religious person, appointed by the County Courts, to be Atturney for the Queen; to prosecute and implead in the lawe all criminall offenders, and to doc all other things necessary or convenient, as an Atturney, to suppress vice and immorallitie."
Edwards seems to have held the office until 1712 or 1713, perhaps until 1717. At about the latter date, perhaps as early as 1711, John Read, of Stratford, began to hold the office, and he seems to have acted officially throughout the colony.' Since Read's term of office there have been twenty-two, at least, who succeeded him. Peter Pratt, of Hartford, but earlier of Lyme, became King's Attorney in 1719. He was a noted and successful lawyer, and remarkable for his forensic eloquence.2 John Bissell, of Windsor, succeeded him in 1727, and Pelatiah Mills, of the same place, followed in 1728. He was succeeded by Joseph Gilbert, of Hartford, in 1730 (?). Roger Wolcott, Jr., of Windsor, held the office from 1731 to 1753. Mention has been made of these last five names, and of Edwards, elsewhere. Daniel Edwards, of Hartford, son of Richard, above mentioned, held the office in 1753. Thomas Seymour, 3d, of Hartford, appears to have held the same office in 1756. Colonel Thomas Seymour, 4th, of Hartford, afterward an officer in the War of the Revolution, was the incumbent from 1767 to 1776. He was the last of the King's Attorneys. He was succeeded by Oliver Ellsworth, State's Attorney, of Windsor, of whom some account is given under the head of " Judges."
Colonel Jesse Root, of Coventry and Hartford, having honorably served in the Revolutionary War, became the prosecuting officer for this county in 1785, holding the place until 1789. He became Chief Judge of the Superior Court in 1798, and there remained until that court was constituted the Supreme Court. To him we are indebted for the two very early volumes of Reports of cases adjudicated in our Su- preme Court, bearing his name. He was born in Northampton, Mass., and had preached some three years before his admission to the Bar.
John Trumbull, Jr., a native of Watertown, and a cousin of Gov- ernor Jonathan Trumbull, Sr., was State's Attorney for this county
1 From memoranda furnished to me by the Hon. J. Hammond Trumbull, and from Todd's " History of Redding," the writer is able to give the following facts concerning this remarkable man. He was born in Connecticut in 1680; was graduated at Harvard College in 1697 ; ad- mitted an attorney in New Haven in 1708; appointed Queen's Attorney in 1711; went to New London the same year to prosecute John Rogers, the leader of the sect of "Rogerenes ;" left "Lonetown Manor" (Stratford) in 1722, removing to Boston ; became Attorney-General of Massachusetts, and the most eminent lawyer in New England; was the author of a Latin Grammar, published in Boston in 1736; died in February, 1749, leaving a large estate. His wife was Ruth, daughter of Lieutenant-Colonel John Talcott, of Hartford, where Mr. Read lived for some years, and where one or two of his first children were born.
2 His mother was the divorced wife of the John Rogers mentioned in note 1. She was a daughter of Matthew Griswold, Sr. Pratt became a Rogerene ; but, having been imprisoned for this offence, he published a recantation of the heresy.
Cher Chapman
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from 1789 to 1795. He had been graduated at Yale College, and admitted an attorney at New Haven, before his arrival in Hartford, which was in 1781. A part of his legal training was received in the law-office of President John Adams. He is well known as a judge of the Supreme Court, but most widely known as the author of " McFingal," which was completed in Hartford. He died in Detroit, Michigan, in 1831.
Thomas Young Seymour, of Hartford, succeeded Trumbull, being in office from 1796 to 1807. To him Jonathan Brace, of Hartford, suc- ceeded, 1807-1809. He was a native of Harwinton, and a law-student of Oliver Ellsworth ; he settled in Vermont, where he was a State's Attorney. He resided in Glastonbury from 1786 to 1794, when he removed to Hartford. He was Judge of the County Court, and a rep- resentative to Congress. Chauncey Goodrich succeeded, until 1811. Enoch Perkins, of Hartford, followed, from 1812 to 1818. Hezekiah Huntington, of Suffield and Hartford, filled the term from 1819 to 1822.
Isaac Toucey, a native of Newtown, was State's Attorney from 1823 to 1835, and again in 1843-1844. Making Hartford his residence, he became one of Connecticut's distinguished lawyers and statesmen. He served with credit during two terms in the Lower House of Con- gress. He was Attorney-General during part of the administration of President Polk; United States Senator, 1851-1857; and Secretary of the Navy in Buchanan's Cabinet. He was Governor of the State in 1846.
Henry A. Mitchell, of Bristol and Hartford, served two years, 1836- 1838. He was something of a politician, and for a time edited the " Hartford Times." He is still living. Isaac Perkins, of Hartford, served from 1839 to 1840.
Thomas Clapp Perkins, of Hartford, was State's Attorney in 1841- 1842, and again in 1845-1846. He was a son of Enoch Perkins, and his mother was a member of the famous Pitkin family. He had little taste for politics or for political offices. He was United States Attorney for the District of Connecticut, and might have been Chief Judge Storrs's successor on the Supreme Court Bench, having been elected to that office in 1861. He was at the time of his decease the recognized head of the Bar of the county, if not of the State.
Governor Richard Dudley Hubbard, a distinguished son of Connecti- cut, was State's Attorney during the terms 1847-1854 and 1857-1869. Of humble origin, he was born in Berlin, but passed his boyhood in East Hartford. He was less noted for scholarship in his class at Yale College than he af- terward became in R. D. Pubblico the legal profession ; but, as he himself has said, he paid particular attention to belles-lettres and oratory. He was brilliant and eloquent as an advocate, keen as a public prosecutor, learned as a lawyer, honorable and high-minded in all his official duties. A democrat in politics, he was not a partisan ; and his patriotism was conspicuous in the late Civil War. He occupied a seat in the Lower House of Congress, and was Governor of the State. In the last years of his life he was at the head of the State Bar.
Mr. Horace Cornwall succeeded Governor Hubbard as State's At- torney at the close of his first term of office, for two years. Mr. William
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THE HON. RICHARD D. HUBBARD.
Hamersley, who took the office upon Governor Hubbard's resignation in 1869, has held it ever since. He, Mr. Mitchell, and Mr. Cornwall are the only persons now living who have held the office.
LAWYERS. - There were attorneys in fact, as contradistinguished from attorneys at law, quite early in the history of the colony. Persons - usually without legal training - armed with a letter of at- torney from a suitor, appeared in court, and were, by special permission, allowed to act in behalf of their constituents. In May, 1667, Thomas Welles, son of Governor Thomas Welles, and William Pitkin, Sr., were recognized as attorneys for certain petitioners who were proprietors of lands on the east side of Connecticut River; but Welles was not a lawyer.1
In 1667 the General Court declared that a former order prohibiting " all persons from pleading in ye behalfe of any person yt is charged and prosecuted for delinquency," had been disregarded ; and it ordered that " what person or persons soever shall take that boldnes to himselfe as to plead or speake in the behalfe of any person yt is upon examination or tryal, for delinquency (except he speak directly to matter of law,
1 Such, also, was Thomas Burnham, of Hartford, who was allowed to act as attorney in some cases ; one, in the Quarter Court (as counsel for Jeremy Adamns), as early as 1659.
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and with leave from ye authority present) he shall pay ten shillings to ye Publick Treasure, as a fine ; or sit in ye stocks one hour, for every such offence." This is but one of the many indications of the hostility of the courts to those few who assumed to act as lawyers.
In May, 1708, the office of attorney at law seems to have been first authorized by law.1 But the act probably contemplated only the right to plead, after special permission from the Court, in cach particular case ; although the official oath rendered the incumbent competent to " use yourself in the office of atturney, within the court" wherein the oath was administered. In other words, a class was created, out of which practitioners were to be selected by the court, in causes, as they arose. But one grade of attorney was known, the different grades or ranks in the English courts having never existed here.
The earliest regularly admitted attorneys of Hartford County, and of the colony (if we except Clarke and Hosford, admitted by Andros), were those of 1708. Richard Edwards, of Hartford, was admitted by the County Court in September of that year, and by the Court of As- sistants in October. He was about sixty years of age at the time ; his grandson, the elder Jonathan Edwards, being then but five years old.2
When, in 1691, he had petitioned for a divorce from his wife, he had prayed that he might "have relief therein, if the law of God or man will afford it ;" and for " a committee of able divines upon his charge." Upon a report submitted by certain "divines," the General Court granted him a favorable decree. IIe was the ancestor of the two Presi- dents Jonathan Edwards, Governor Henry W. Edwards, Judge Ogden Edwards of New York, Judge Pierpont Edwards of Connecticut, Aaron Burr, and others distinguished in law and theology.
Governor Roger Wolcott, Sr., of Windsor, was admitted at the same time with Edwards. He was about twenty-eight years old. He is so well known to Connecticut in civil and military relations, that we need say no more of him at this time. His poetical effusions did not do him equal credit with his other efforts. Captain John Wadsworth, of Farmington, was admitted at this time. Captain Thomas Welles, of Wethersfield, a grandson of Governor Thomas Welles, was also ad- mitted in 1708. He was attorney for the defendants in the important suit of Nathaniel Hooker vs. Wethersfield, - a case which involved the question of the right of the plaintiff to share in an allotment of public lands made nearly forty years before, and which was sought to be car- ried to the Court of Queen's Bench. In Welles's brief in this case he quoted largely from the Sacred Scriptures. He died in 1711, at the age of forty-nine years, and before a final issue of the suit.
Edwards, Wolcott, Wadsworth, and Welles were the first regularly admitted attorneys within their respective townships.
In the following year Captain Joseph Wadsworth (famous for hav- ing secreted the Charter), Thomas Olcott (better known as a constable), and Captain Aaron Cook, Sr., all of Hartford, were admitted to the legal fraternity. So were Samuel Moore, of Windsor, and Joseph
1 Captain Daniel Clarke, of Windsor, who had been Secretary of the Colony, was allowed to take the attorney's oath, in the Andros Court of Sessions, at Hartford, in March, 1687-8. But no law of this Colony authorized the act. William Hosford, of the same town, was admitted with Clarke.
2 He had acted as an attorney as early as 1684. In 1702-3 he had argued a fugitive slave case against Saltonstall.
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Kirby, Jr., of Middletown, -the latter being the first one from his township.
Edward Bulkeley, of Wethersfield, son of the Rev. Gershom Bulkeley, heretofore mentioned, was admitted in 1711; but his grist-mill and his fulling-mill probably occupied most of his time. Thomas Kimberly, of Glastonbury, followed in 1712. He was for some years Colonial Secretary. He had been for years the schoolmaster of Wethersfield.
With him was admitted Abram Morris, of Wethersfield. Captain Thomas Stoughton, of Windsor (east side ?), dates his attorneyship from 1714. John Bissell, also of Windsor, but later of Bolton, joined in the same year. He became one of the most noted lawyers of the colony. Daniel Hooker, of Hartford, was admitted at the same time. He was probably more successful as an army surgeon than as a member of the bar.1
At this time few in America could have had the advantages of a legal training; and few desired them, excepting on the ground, as Black- stone puts it, that "a competent knowledge of that society in which we live is the proper accomplishment of every gentleman and scholar." Text-books of the law were almost unknown. There were a few copies of Fleta and of the treatises of Bracton and Glanville, all in Latin, in the colony. How many had, or understood, the law French of Brit- ton, or the Tenures of Littleton in their law French form, even with the learned explications, in Latin and English, of Sir Edward Coke ? None of Sir Matthew Hale's works were published until years later, although written years before. Besides, the common law of England was not accepted as of binding force in this colony, and so there was less reason for learning it. And the learned and bigoted fulminations of Cotton Mather were more potent to wield public opinion, especially in witchcraft, and other cases founded largely upon superstition, than the best legal arguments that could then have been made.
A new attorney, from Windsor, appears in 1719, - Pelatiah Mills, the principal taverner of that place.
In 1730 a law was enacted limiting the number of attorneys in the colony to eleven. Three were apportioned to Hartford, and two to each of the other counties ; all to be appointed by the respective county courts. The same courts were to appoint one King's Attorney in each county. The three attorneys appointed for Hartford County were : Joseph Gilbert, of Hartford (admitted in 1727) ; Roger Wolcott, Jr., of Windsor; John Curtis, of Wethersfield. Wolcott was also appointed King's Attorney. The number authorized by this act was too small, and after a year's trial the act was repealed.
Lieutenant Samuel Pettibone, Jr., of Simsbury, was admitted in 1729, the first attorney from that township. He removed to Goshen, and became King's Attorney for Litchfield County. John Curtis, of Wethersfield, was admitted the same year; but in 1732 he removed to New London, in order to assume the duties of treasurer of the "New London Society united for Trade and Commerce." And we may here remark that this was the first corporation, strictly private, ever incor- porated by our General Assembly ; its history is given more fully in Mr. Swift's paper elsewhere.2 It resulted in the financial ruin of Curtis,
1 He was graduated at Harvard College in 1700, and was the first tutor of Yale, 1702-3.
2 Commerce and Banking, p. 328.
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of John Bissell, and other lawyers and worthy citizens, who embarked therein. Its charter was repealed in the following year; and it was not until 1792 that (with the exception of Yale College) another private corporation existed with the express sanction of the legislature.
No manufacturing corporation existed prior to 1810, and but one insurance company and six banks antedate the year 1800. Thus we see that vast interests, which to-day occupy much of the attention of our courts and lawyers, were then almost wholly wanting.
Captain Thomas Seymour, 3d, of Hartford, was admitted in 1740. He died a few years later. He was the father of Colonel Thomas Sey- mour, 4th, also an attorney. Seth Wetmore, of Middletown (then in Hartford County), was admitted in 1742. The old spelling of this name was Whitmore.
In 1751 the number of members of Hartford County Bar was some- what reduced, by the detachment of a large part of Hartford County to form the new county of Litchfield. Windham had been detached in 1726.
Asa Phelps, of Hebron, was admitted in 1756. Elisha Steele was admitted from Tolland the same year; so was Colonel Thomas Sey- mour, 4th, of Hartford. The latter was afterward an active officer of the Revolution, and a member of the Council of Safety. He was a successful lawyer, having an office on the south side of the present Arch Street, opposite to his dwelling-house. He was the first Mayor of the city of Hartford.
Titus Hosmer, of Middletown, was admitted in 1760. Though he died at the early age of forty-four years, he lived long enough to be classed by Noah Webster as one of the "Three Mighties;" the other two being William Samuel Johnson, LL.D., and Chief Justice Oliver Ells- worth. He was a student in the natural sciences and the languages, possessed a poetic mind, and encouraged Joel Barlow, a brother lawyer, to write the " Vision of Columbus." In the stirring days of the Revo- lution he was an ardent patriot, and one of the most active members of the Council of Safety. He several times represented Connecticut in the Continental Congress. He belongs to Hartford County, for he died be- fore the formation of Middlesex. He was father of the distinguished jurist, Stephen Titus Hosmer.
Bildad Phelps was admitted, from Windsor, in 1760. Silas Deane, of Wethersfield, a native of Groton, was admitted in 1761. A notice of him appears in Vol. II. of this work (p. 471). Benjamin Payne, of Hartford, admitted in 1762, represented his town in the General Assembly, in the Revolutionary period, and, in addition, was one of the busiest members of the Council of Safety, and of the Committee on the issue of Colonial Paper Money. Gideon Granger, Sr., of Suffield, admitted in 1763, though less noted than his son of the same name, was distinguished in his profession. Jedediah Strong, admitted at Hartford in 1764, is sup- posed to be the same who was afterward a prominent lawyer of Salis- bury. He was several times elected to the Continental Congress, but declined to take office. With him were admitted Joseph Isham, Jr., of Colchester, and Roswell Welles, of Windsor.
General Roger Newberry, Jr., of Windsor, was admitted in 1765. His mother was a daughter of Roger Wolcott, Sr. He was Judge of the County Court, was successful as a lawyer and merchant, and served
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with distinction in the Revolutionary War. Major William Judd, of Farmington, an officer of the Revolution, and William Nichols, of Hart- ford, were also admitted in 1765. Major Judd was one of the most distinguished lawyers and patriots in the colony. He was chairman of the Convention of citizens of the State in New Haven, in 1804, which had for its object the formation of a public sentiment in favor of a State Constitution. The General Assembly was so offended by his prominent action in the matter that it revoked his commission as a justice of the peace. Nichols was the army paymaster of that name in the Revolution.
Ralph Pomeroy, of Hartford, admitted in 1768, was an army pay- master in the Revolution, but I am not informed as to his professional life. He removed to Litchfield County.
Chief Judge Stephen Mix Mitchell, of Wethersfield, having been a student of Jared Ingersoll, was admitted in Fairfield County in 1770. He began practising law in his native town in 1772. So much has been said of him elsewhere that we omit further mention of him here.
Jonathan Ingersoll was admitted from Middletown in 1770, but his professional life was spent in New Haven. Joseph Church, Jr., of Hartford, was admitted in 1771, but I know nothing more of him.
Pierpont Edwards, of New Haven, lawyer, soldier, and judge, while admitted at Hartford, was born at Northampton, Mass., and practised his profession at New Haven. He probably did not practise in Hartford.
Judge Tapping Reeve, born at Brookhaven, on Long Island, became a member of the legal profession, at Hartford, in 1771. But he opened a law office in Litchfield as early, it is said, as 1772, and, as is well known, founded the famous Law School there in 1784. Of Charles Whiting, Jr., admitted from Middletown in 1772, we know only that he removed to Great Barrington, Mass., where he was an officer of the Revolution.
Captain Daniel Humphrey, of Simsbury, joined the legal fraternity in 1774, as did Thomas Kimberley, of Glastonbury. The latter lost his life by the explosion of a powder-mill, in 1777.
Chief Justice Oliver Ellsworth became a lawyer, from Windsor, in 1777. He has been fully noticed elsewhere. Sylvester Gilbert, of Hebron, who joined in 1778, was one of the ablest lawyers in the State. He was a student of Jesse Root's law office in Hartford ; and it is said that fifty-six law-students fitted for the profession in Mr. Gilbert's office in Hebron. After the formation of Tolland County (1786) he became State's Attorney for twenty-one years, County Court Judge for eigh- teen years, and representative to Congress.
The year 1780 witnessed the admission of Benjamin Farnham, of Simsbury, Zephaniah Swift, of Lebanon, Asher Miller and Ezekiel Gil- bert, of Middletown, and Thomas Young Seymour, of Hartford. Of Farnham nothing definite is known to the writer. Miller became one of the foremost lawyers of the new county of Middlesex, formed soon thereafter. Swift, the distinguished chief judge and law-writer, cannot, we are sorry to say, be claimed for this county, for he was a native of Wareham, Mass., and a resident of Lebanon, Mansfield, and Windham. Seymour became prominent in his profession. Gilbert removed to Hudson, New York, where he became a representative to Congress.
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In 1781 there were added five bright luminaries to the fraternity. They were: Alexander Wolcott, Jr., of Windsor ; Jeremiah Gates Brainard, of East Haddam and New London ; Noah Webster, Jr., of Hartford ; John Trumbull, Jr., of Watertown ; and Samuel Whittlesey Dana, of Wallingford and Middletown.
Wolcott was a distinguished member of a distinguished family. A Republican in politics, he was, in the opinion of John M. Niles, the founder of the Jeffersonian school of politics in Connecticut. President Jefferson made him a Collector of Customs for the district of Middle- town, and President Madison nominated him a Judge of the Supreme Court of the United States. The Senate did not confirm the nomina- tion ; and Judge Story, after the same place had been offered to John Quincy Adams, was elected thereto. Wolcott was a delegate, from Middletown, to the Constitutional Convention of 1818.
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