History of Worcester County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. I, Part 6

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton)
Publication date: 1889
Publisher: Philadelphia : J.W. Lewis & Co.
Number of Pages: 1576

USA > Massachusetts > Worcester County > History of Worcester County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. I > Part 6

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A contemporary of his, both at the bar and on the bench, was NAHUM WARD, a resident of Shrewsbury, and a judge of the Common Pleas from 1745 to 1762. Not much is recorded of him, though he was in active practice for several years. His son and grandson, each bearing the name of Artemas, filled larger places in the public eye, and each became judge of the same court.

The only other lawyer on this bench until after the Revolution was TIMOTHY RUGGLES, who was born in Rochester, in the county of Plymouth, in 1711, and graduated at Harvard in 1732. He was judge from 1757 until the Revolution, and chief justice after 1762. His father, the Rev. Timothy Ruggles, endeavored to turn the future soldier's thoughts to the study of divinity, but it is probable that the combative in- stincts of the son, so strongly developed later in life, inclined him to a more stirring field of exertion. When only twenty-five he represented Rochester in the Assembly. There he was instrumental in procuring the passage of an act to prohibit sheriffs or their deputies from making writs, a useful provision of the public statutes to this day. As a lawyer he must have been successful, for while still a resident of Plym- outh County, he practiced in other courts, and was often engaged in causes in Worcester County before he removed to Hardwick, about 1753.

The fame of the soldier, however, generally obscures whatever other reputation its possessor may earn. In "Brigadier Ruggles " the judge was almost forgotten. Like Dwight, he was actively engaged in several military operations, and fairly won his distinction by hard service. In 1755 he was next in command to General Johnson in the battle in which the French, under Dieskau, were badly defeated. Illustrative of the brigadier's blunt manners, they say that when during the day something was going wrong, he con- soled his superior officer with the remark : "General, I hope the damnable blunders you have made this day may be sanctified nnto you for your spiritual and everlasting good," an expression rather of hope for future improvement than of confidence in the present abilities of his leader, which a more politic subordinate would probably have confined to his own thoughts.

It was a matter of course that he took an active part in political affairs. Hardwick sent him as its represent- ative to the Assembly for several years, during two of which he was Speaker of the House. He presided over the convention of delegates from eight Colonies, which met in New York, in 1765, to consider the grievances imposed by the home government. His attachment to the old order of things here manifested itself in his refusal to join in the protest of the convention against taxation by Parliament. As his opinions on this sub- ject had been openly expressed, it is a singular evi- dence of the great respect in which he was held that he should have been chosen as a delegate. But neither the consistency of his course nor his dignified character excused him in the eye of the Provincial

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Legislature. In accordance with their vote he was publicly censured by the Speaker, and from that time his separation from the popular cause became more and more apparent. When the discontent finally became a revolution, he abandoned his property, his dignities, and his home, and took up his part with the supporters of the Crown. At this point, of course, his conuection with our county affairs ceased. He died in Halifax, in 1798, having lived to see those whom he had called rebels firmly established as citi- zens of an independent State.

Eleven other judges of the Court of Common Pleas, previous to the Revolution, were taken from various vocations. They were men chosen for general good sense, for the respect in which they were held by their neighbors, and for their integrity of purpose --- qualities which, in the scarcity of trained lawyers, certainly entitled them to superintend the adminis- tration of justice.

JOHN CHANDLER, of Woodstock, the first chief jus- tice, was also the first judge of Probate. He was a military officer of some distinction, and represented his town in the General Court, aud was chosen after- wards a member of the Governor's Council. Hisson, bearing the same name, was born in Woodstock in 1693, but removed to Worcester in 1731. He was the first clerk of courts, register of probate and register of deeds for the county in those days when one man could discharge the duties of a multiplicity of offices. While still holding those offices he was appointed sheriff of the county, and was for several years elected selectman and a Representative to the General Court. Later on he was appointed judge of the Court of Common Pleas and judge of the Probate Court, thus succeeding to the dignities of his father. He died in 1763.

Another father and son who occupied seats on the bench of the County Court were the two JOSEPH WIL- DERS, of Lancaster. The elder was influential in se- curing to Worcester the distinction of being the county-seat, as he objected to the selection of Lan- caster, lest the morals of its people should be cor- rupted by the sessions of the courts therein. He suc- ceeded the first John Chandler as judge of Probate and held both offices till his death, in 1757.

His son succeeded the second Chandler in the Common Pleas, was Representative of Lancaster in the General Court for eleven years, and was actively engaged in business operations, in his native town, until his death, in 1773.

Of most of the other judges little is known. JONAS RICE was, in 1714, the sole inhabitant of Worcester, all others having been driven away by the depreda- tion of the Indians. His firm courage secured to him, in the rebuilt town, the respect of his neighbors and marked him as a man fit for responsibilities.

Practicing before the court thus composed, beside the three who have been mentioned as elevated to the bench, there were but fourteen lawyers from 1731

until the Revolution. JOSHUA EATON was the first of the profession who settled in Worcester. He was a native of that part of Watertown now Waltham, and was educated at Harvard, where he graduated in 1735, in his twenty-first year. He entered upon the study of the law in the office of Edmund Trowbridge, who was then just beginning his professional career, in the course of which, as leader of the bar of the Province and as judge of the Superior Court, he con- tributed, perhaps more than any one man before the Revolution, to the advancement of legal science. Trained under this excellent master, Mr. Eaton seems to have started upon a successful practice. The early desire of his parents had been that he should adopt the clerical profession, and after about six years at the bar, his own feelings turned him in the same direction. He studied for the ministry, gave up a good and increasing practice and adopted his new calling with such zeal and energy as to sub- ject him to the censure of the church, which ap- proved of more moderate ministerial devotion. He soon, however, by a more quiet walk and conversa- tion, commended himself to the church in that part of Leicester now Spencer, and ,there was settled, lived for nearly thirty years, and died, in 1772, re- spected and beloved by his people.

A fellow-townsman of Eaton, in Leicester, was CHRISTOPHER JACOB LAWTON, a lawyer who had been admitted in Hampshire County in 1726. He prac- ticed for some years in Springfield and in Suffield be- fore his removal to Leicester. Except that he had a clientage of only moderate numbers, little is known of his professional attainments.

STEPHEN FESSENDEN was another student of Judge Trowbridge, who opened his office in Worcester about 1743. But he, too, from some unknown cause, does not appear to have long clung to his professional pursuits.

Perhaps the most learned and able lawyer of this bar previous to the Revolution was JAMES PUTNAM, who came here in 1749, fresh from his studies with Judge Trowbridge, of whose encouragement and ad- vice he seems to have profited more than those we have mentioned. He was born in Danvers in 1725, and after graduating at Harvard in 1746, betook himself to the law with a zeal and industry that re- sulted in placing him with the leaders of the bar in the Province. Dwight was then the only lawyer re- siding and practicing in the county, but Putnam had to contend with the leaders from other counties, and was proved a worthy opponent. He obtained a large clientage not only at home, but in Hampshire and Middlesex, and rose, by merit, to the position of At- torney-General of the Province. This office he was holding when the Revolution called upon men to choose between King and country. Like most of the other men of prominence and wealth, Putnam stood by the old order, and like them he thereby lost his home. He was rewarded for his loyalty to the Brit-

HISTORY OF WORCESTER COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS.

ish government by an appointment to the bench of the Supreme Court of New Brunswick. There he added to his reputation as a sound lawyer, and ac- quired such a name for learning and impartial justice that when a friendly biographer described him as " the best lawyer in North America," the praise did not seem unwarrantably extravagant. He lived un- til after the inauguration of the tirst President of the United States of America.

One of the judges of the Common Pleas for ten years was Samuel Willard, of Lancaster. His son, ABEL WILLARD, born in that town in 1732, may, from his father's position, have been naturally inclined to the law. After graduating at the university, he studied in Boston, and was admitted to this bar in 1755. In his native town, then a rival of the county-seat for population and business activity, he found ample opportunity for the exercise of his tal- ents. He illustrated the truth, too often forgotten, that modesty, kindliness and aversion to strife are not inconsistent with the successful practice of the law. He performed the true function of the lawyer in allaying rather than fomenting strife, in endeav- oring to keep his client out of threatened difficulties- methods which in no degree interfered with asserting and maintaining his just rights when litigation could not properly be avoided. In 1770 he formed with John Sprague the earliest law partnership in this county. During the war he too left the country and died in England in 1781.

EZRA TAYLOR, of Southborough, is to be included in this list of lawyers, thongh whether he was regularly admitted to the bar is uncertain. He at any rate practiced law in Southborough, from about 1751 until the Revolution, and continued so to do in Maine, where he removed during the progress of the war.

A pupil of James Putnam was JOSHUA ATHERTON, who was born in Harvard in 1737, and graduated at Cambridge in 1762. He began his practice in Peters- ham, but did not long remain in this county. After several changes of domicile, he settled in Amherst, in New Hampshire. There he became a leader at the bar, and Attorney-General of the State after the Revo- lution, and died iu 1809.

friends who had honored him. After the war he was appointed a judge in New Brunswick, and fulfilled its duties with credit, as he seems to have discharged all other duties until his death, in 1806.

Contemporary with Atherton and Bliss was JOSHUA UPHAM, of Brookfield. Born in 1741 ; like nearly all the lawyers we have mentioned, he had the advantage of a college education at Harvard. His class-mate and intimate associate was Timothy Pickering, with whom he maintained a friendship that was interrupted, not broken, by the war. After his graduation, in 1765, he completed his professional studies in two years, and was admitted to the bar a few months later than Bliss. In Brookfield he built up an excellent practice, continually increasing until 1776. It then became no longer possible for one who was not heartily with the popular canse to remain, and be removed to Boston, and later to New York. Either from the failure of some business enterprises in which he was engaged, or perhaps, more probably, on account of his Tory predilections, he left the country after the peace and, like Putnam and Bliss, fonnd opportunity for the exercise of his professional acumen on the bench of New Brunswick. In the last year of his life he was occupied in England in perfecting with the home government a reorganization of the judicial system of the British American provinces. This work he lived to complete, but died in London in 1808.

Two sons of the second Judge John Chandler be- came members of this bar. Rufus was born in 1747, graduated in 1766 and admitted to the bar in 1768. He studied with James Putnam and practiced in Worcester until the laws became silent in the midst of arms. He naturally imbibed the principles of his father and his preceptor, and his name was included with theirs in an act of banishment, passed while the war was still in progress. He had already left the country, and resided till his death, in 1823, in London.

His brother, Nathaniel, born in 1750, followed closely in his footsteps. After graduating at Harvard in 1768, he took the place of Rufus in Putnam's office, where he studied during the next three years. He chose Petersham for his residence and practice, until at the beginning of the war he took service with the British in New York. Though he thus seems to have taken a much more decided stand against the colonies than his brother, or several others whom we have mentioned, he was able to return to Petersham in 1784 and engage in mercantile pursuits. He did not renew the practice of the law, nor long continue in business, but soon came back to Worcester, where he died in 1801.

In 1765, the same year with Atherton, two other young men began their professional careers in this county. DANIEL BLISS was a native of Concord, and a graduate of Harvard in 1760, in his twentieth year. Like Eaton, he was urged towards the ministry by his parents, and somewhat by his own inclination. Some influences turned him aside, and he studied law in the office of Abel Willard. He made Rutland, where he found his wife, the field of his early ventures in busi- ness. About 1772 he returned to his first home in Of the lawyers heretofore mentioned, not one remained in practice in this county after the Revolu- tion. Nearly all of them cast in their lot with the supporters of the old régime, and the new condition of affairs left them no place in their wonted sphere. Concord. He gained a good position at the bar, and an enviable reputation as a thorough gentleman, but he did not sympathize with the cause of the colonists against the Crown. Thus he, too, became an exile from the country that he evidently loved, and the Some of them, as has been shown, found room for

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increased activity and usefulness in the provinces that still remained subject to England: Some found a refuge in the mother country.

JOHN SPRAGUE forms a connecting link between the bar of the province aud that of the independent State. He was born in Rochester, Plymouth County, the birth-place of Timothy Ruggles, in 1740. In the year 1765, when Joseph Dwight, the first member of this bar, died, Sprague graduated from Harvard. His first choice was the profession of medicine, but it evidently did not suit his tastes, for after a few months' trial he abandoned it for the law, and commenced studying in James Putnam's office. Like a host of our New England professional men, he taught school while pursuing his studies, a kind of discipline whose bene- fits appear in the acquired patience and facility in imparting knowledge of those who have tried it suc- cessfully. After his admission to this bar in 1768, he removed to Newport, Rhode Island, and thence to Keene, New Hampshire. Finally he made Lancaster his home, and in a business connection with Abel Willard began a most extensive practice. Thus he continued until it became necessary for him and his partner to decide whether they would become rebels with their countrymen, or cleave to their foreign alle- giance. WVillard, as has been seen, chose for the latter. Sprague hesitated, as many a conscientious and thoughtful man must have done. He went so far as to leave Lancaster for Boston before the actual out- break of hostilities. There, however, the advice of friends at home, and his own reflection, induced him to espouse what seemed the weaker cause, and he returned to take his chance with the resisters of oppression.

The end of the June term, 1774, brought to a close the sessions of the Provincial Court of Common Pleas for this county. During the interval before the opening of the new court, in December, 1775, it may well bethat no one had time or thought for contests so comparatively trivial as those of the forum. But this state of things could not long continue. The every- day affairs of life must receive attention, though the fate of nations is in suspense. The Provincial Gov- ernment commissioned judges, and before them Sprague resumed his practice.

After the adoption of the Constitution he repre- sented the county in the State Senate for two years, and among his other public services he was one of the few early advocates of the ratification of the Constitution of the United States. Later on he be- came high sheriff of the county. Two years before his death, which occurred in 1800, he was appointed chief justice of the Court of Common Pleas, the first lawyer on that bench after the Revolution.

Sprague appears to have taken no prominent part in the stirring scenes that were. being enacted about him during the war. The name of another judge, whose career helps us to bridge this interval, is most frequently remembered in connection with his military

achievements. ARTEMAS WARD was a justice of the Common Pleas both before and after the Revolution. He was born in Shrewsbury and graduated at Harvard in 1748. His father, Nahum Ward, has already been mentioned as one of the earliest in practice in the county. This is the third instance of a son succeed- ing his father on the bench of the Common Pleas of this county before the Revolution. That judicial honors and the capacity worthily to wear them may often be transmitted to descendants seems to be a well-established fact in the history of this Common- wealth. Whether Judge Nahum Ward continued in office until the appointment of his son is not certain, but it is stated by one authority that he died in 1762, which was the year in which Artemas became a judge. The latter had not adopted the profession of his father, but soon after leaving college was actively engaged in public affairs. He represented his uative town in the Legislature, and was a member of the Governor's Council in 1774, when the home govern- ment undertook to remove from the electors of the Province the right to choose councillors and to vest their appointment in the Crown. His acceptance of such an appointment by Brigadier Ruggles had been the final act which placed him in a position entirely hostile to the popular cause. The manda- mus councilors, as they were called, were among the latest irritants of an exasperated public sentiment. Before this time, however, Ward had served his ap- prenticeship as a soldier. He was with Abercrombie in the disastrous expedition against Ticonderoga, and in the hardships and defeat of that campaign his firmness and soldierly qualities seem to have been well tested and approved. Soon afterwards we find him a colonel of militia and busily engaged in mat- ters of drill and evolution. All the while, however, he shared in the growing popular discontent and openly avowed his sentiments. So far did he go in publicly stating his opposition to the measures of Parliament that Sir Francis Barnard publicly deprived him of his commission, and when his constituents elected him a member of the Council, did him the honor promptly to veto the choice.

The first Provincial Congress, of which he was a member, elected him the first of three general officers to whom they committed the charge of the motley assemblage of volunteers which then represented the military power about to engage in strife with Great Britain. When General Ward assumed this com- mand it certainly must have seemed that the result most probable for him was defeat and a rebel's death. He continued as general-in-chief until Washington arrived and took command, when Ward for a time assumed a subordinate position. He soon retired from the service, however, on the plea of ill health. His withdrawal resulted in a breach with Washington which was never healed.

When the courts were re-opened, in 1775, he was made chief justice of the Common Pleas, and in this

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HISTORY OF WORCESTER COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS.

office he continued until two years before his death, which took place in 1800. Soon after the war the bur- den of taxes, necessitated by the great deht contracted during the conflict, the depression of business, so long impaired and interrupted, the sudden release from service of a large number of men who had become almost unfitted for peaceful vocations, combined to produce a feeling of discontent among the people, which in Massachusetts culminated in "Shays's Re- bellion." A principal ground of their complaints was the machinery of justice, which compelled the payment of debts, and courts and lawyers were the objects of the bitterest hatred. They adopted as one method of remedying their grievances the plan of preventing the sessions of the courts.

In September of 1786, Judge Ward was to preside over the regular session of his court in Worcester. Threats had been freely made that he would not be permitted so to do, and on the morning when, accord- ing to custom, the judges and officers of the court pro- ceeded in a body to the court-house, they found the hill on which it was situated filled with a mob, and the court-house itself with armed men. The judge was too old a soldier to run away from bayonets, and he stoutly pressed on through the throng, and up to face the small body of insurgents who were under the command of an officer, and maintained some ap- pearance of discipline. His entrance to the court- house was prevented, and neither by expostulation or threat was he able to convince the insurgents of the folly and danger of their course. It was impossible to accomplish any useful purpose by carrying his persistence further, and when, on the next day, it was evident that the militia sympathized rather with the insurgents than with the Government, the attempt to hold court was abandoned. Somewhat similar scenes were enacted in other counties, though we do not read of other judges who so resolutely met the law-breakers. The insurrection was rather of a nature to fall to pieces by itself than to require a great show of force, and it was not long before its inherent weakness resulted in its entire collapse.

Timothy Ruggles and Thomas Steele, the associates of Judge Ward on the bench of the Common Pleas just before the Revolution, were loyalists, and by the progress of events became expatriated. When, in 1775, the Provisional Government issued its commis- sion to General Ward as chief, Jedediah Foster, Moses Gill and Samuel Baker were named associates. Of the four, not one was a member of the legal pro- fession.

MR. FOSTER was born in Andover, and obtained at Harvard a college education. He early made Brook- field his home, and there was associated in mercantile business with Joseph Dwight, who combined with his professional occupation several other activities. Mr. Foster married the daughter of General Dwight, and three of their direct descendants will hereafter require honorable mention as members of this bar, of whom

two were promoted to the bench. Although not edu- cated for the bar, it may be supposed that his associa- tion with Judge Dwight gave him some insight into legal principles. At any rate he became sufficiently skillful as a conveyancer to command a considerable business. His judgment was greatly relied upon by neiglibors and residents of other towns. Before he was on the bench he was often appealed to to decide controversies or to give advice on perplexing ques- tions. For these services he made it a practice to take no fees, a custom by which, perhaps, many a young attorney might speedily build up a tremendous clientage. In Foster's case, however, it was not true that that which costs nothing was worth nothing. His reputation for probity, wisdom and impartiality was wide-spread, and caused his selection for numer- ous positions of trust and responsibility. He was at the same time judge of the Common Pleas and of the Probate Courts, a delegate to the Provincial Congress at Concord and a colonel of the militia. In 1776 he was promoted to the bench of the Superior Court of Judicature, the first Worcester County resident who had that honor. A funeral sermon, preached in 1779 by his pastor, Nathan Fiske, testifies to his services to the church, the town and the State.

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History of Worcester County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. I, Part 6

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton) Publication date: 1889 Publisher: Philadelphia : J.W. Lewis & Co. Number of Pages: 1576

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton)
Publication date: 1889
Publisher: Philadelphia : J.W. Lewis & Co.
Number of Pages: 1576