History of Worcester County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. I, Part 8

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 8

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One of Levi Lincoln's students who obtained a good standing at the bar was SETH HASTINGS, of Men- don. He was born in Cambridge in 1762, and gradu- ated at its university twenty years later. After com- pleting his professional studies, he opened an office in Meudon, and made that town his home till the close of a useful life of just three-score years and

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ten. He was not a graceful orator, but a well- grounded lawyer, in whom courts and juries recog- nized a man who understood his subject, and rea- soned it out in logical order. He was a member of Congress for three terms and a State Senator later. In 1819 he was made chief justice of the Court of Sessions. Two of his sons adopted his profession, and practiced in this county.

WILLIAM STEDMAN was another Cambridge man who settled in this county. He graduated from Har- vard at nineteen in 1784, and entered the office of Chief Justice Dana to fit himself for practice. Admit- ted in Essex in 1787, he immediately chose Lancaster for his field, and there obtained a considerable practice as a counsellor. He filled the offices successively of member of the Legislature, member of Congress and clerk of the courts. He was well versed in the learning of his profession, and greatly relied upon as a counsellor, but did not obtain eminence as an advocate. In Congress he was a general favorite and one of the wits of the House. His easy, affable man- ner, cheerful disposition and ready fund of humor made him popular in every circle. He was a strong supporter of Federalist doctrines. At one time, in retaliation for the imprisonment of some British-born subjects who had become naturalized as American citizens, a party of British officers were arrested in this country. Ten of them were brought by the United States marshal to Worcester for lodgment in the county jail. The affair aroused considerable ex- citement, and earnest protest was made by Francis Blake, Stedman and others against the use of the jail for such a purpose. Lincoln, on the other hand, supported the demand of the marshal, and, after some hot debate, persuaded the sheriff to permit the incarceration of the prisoners. The sympathizers of the latter endeavored to make the confinement as tolerable as possible, and on one occasion gave them an elaborate dinner-party within the jail. Shortly afterwards the prisoners overpowered their guard, and effected an escape, and suspicion was not unnat- urally directed to their late hosts as connivers at the deliverance. This charge was many years later re -. futed by one of the officers themselves, who declared that no assistance was rendered them by any Ameri- cans. Mr. Stedman removed to Newburyport in the latter part of his life, and there died in 1831.

PLINY MERRICK, the elder, was the son of a clergy- man in Wilbraham, and, after graduation from Har- vard, studied divinity, and for some years preached occasional sermons. He had not sufficient health to undertake the constant labors of a settled minister, and felt obliged to try the milder climate of Vir- ginia. There he was employed as a private tutor, and improved his leisure in the study of the law. Whether he thought the exactions of this profession less arduous does not appear ; but he returned to Massachusetts, completed his studies, was admitted to the bar in Plymouth County, and announced his

readiness to receive clients in his native town. From there he removed to Brookfield in 1788, and con- tinued in practice till his death in 1814. He gave evidence of fine talents as an advocate, and had much of that rhetorical skill for which his son, the late Judge Merrick, was distinguished. It has been remarked that an unsuccessful lawyer often made a good clergyman, but that one who left the pulpit for the forum rarely bettered his condition. Mr. Mer- rick seems to have been an exception to this general statement; for he gained a reputation as a sound lawyer, while of his clerical efforts we learn little.

A rival of Merrick for the clientage of Brookfield and its vicinity was JABEZ UPHAM. He was born in that town about the year 1764. His father was a Revolutionary officer, holding the rank of captain at the close of the war. The son more easily, if less glori- ously, earned the title of major for peaceful service on the staff of a general of militia. He showed his pluck and persistence, however, by earning his way through the collegiate course. His class graduated in 1785, but Upham disagreed with the faculty as to the just rank which should be assigned him at commence- ment, and left the college without the degree for which he had made such exertions. He had, how- ever, the more important acquisition, a mind well trained aud restored, and later received the diploma which testified to the fact. After three years of study in the office of Judge Foster he entered the ranks of the profession, and looked about him for a place in which to make essay of his powers. One or two attempts in other towns convinced him that on his native heath he was strongest, and in Brookfield he passed his life, too early closed in 1811. Some years before his death he met with an accident which necessitated the amputation of a leg, an operation from whose effects he never fully recovered. He was twice chosen to a seat in Congress, succeeding Seth Hastings as the representative of the Worcester South District. Although he died at forty-seven, when a lawyer is supposed to be at his best, he had obtained a high position, and is spoken of with great respect by contemporaries and men who knew his reputation. His strength lay in a most painstaking investigation of his case, and a persistence in bring- ing out every point of law or fact on which he relied. Nothing that he thought contributed to the strength of his argument was omitted, even though the pa- tience of his auditors was at times severely tested. Not brilliancy, but unflagging effort was the means of his success.

Not all the members of this bar have been high examples of what is best in character and attain- ments. Perhaps it is as well to remember by way of warning that in the past, as now, men who have set out with hopes as eager, with ambitions as lofty and with opportunities apparently as favorable as the most successful whom we have called to mind, have fallen in the race or lagged very far behind the

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winners of the prizes. A very eccentric character was a lawyer in Leominster. Of that town its local historian remarks that it had been most fortunate in the number of members of the bar there resident, and follows this with the inexplicable non-sequitur that for the first half-century of its existence there were no lawyers in the place.

Whatever subtle meaning may have lain in the writer's mind, one of the lawyers must have furnished some topic for tea-table gossip in the quiet village. ASA JOHNSON graduated at Harvard in 1787, at an age when most men are established in life. But his career had theretofore been an exciting one. During the Revolution he had served in the navy of the Confederation, and had come out with quite a hand- some share of prize money. With this he determined to secure an education, and fitted himself for the bar with credit. At one time he acquired a sufficient practice to lay by a competency, and was apparently on the road to a respectable position as a country connsellor. He was thoroughly honest, a good clas- sical scholar and fond of his books. He possessed an active intellect, and is described as an agreeable conversationalist, quick at repartee when he conld be drawn into any social interconrse. But he was one of those men in whom the social instinct seems either never to have existed or to gradually disap- pear. His religious views separated him widely from the sympathy of his neighbors in that God- fearing community. He was called an Atheist in the days when a man who doubted the least of the generally received dogmas was looked upon as in serious danger of eternal punishment. Becoming more and more a recluse, and permitting no one to become intimate with him, the most fanciful stories were told of liis methods of life. It is said that he cooked and ate cats, owls and reptiles in his lonely home. His only intercourse with his fellow-men, at length, was at the gaming table, and there he dissi- pated the property he had laid by. In 1820, poor, almost friendless and miserable, he died, an illustra- tion, too often repeated, that man cannot fulfill the aim of his being either to his own satisfaction or with worldly success who lives wholly in and for himself.

PRENTICE MELLEN, who practiced law in Sterling from 1789 to 1791, deserves a passing notice in these chronicles, from the fact that in later years he be- came chief justice of the highest court of the State of Maine, and in that capacity reflected credit on the State where he was educated, and the bar at which his early impulse in the path of success was received.

The professional life of BENJAMIN ADAMS, cover- ing close on to half a century, is one of those level stretches of heantiful meadow which seems to span the interval between our point of departure and our standing-ground, and to bring nearer to us the lofty hills which we have left, and enable us to compare them with the eminences close at hand. When Ad-

ams was admitted to the bar, in 1792, John Sprague held the office of high sheriff, but that same year resigned its duties to give his entire attention to his large professional business. A few years later, as chief justice of the Common Pleas, he doubtless in- spired the young advocate with admiration for his learning and dignity. Levi Lincoln was in the full tide of a large and increasing practice, and was already known as the man whose arguments had abolished slavery on Massachusetts soil. The rugged honesty of Artemas Ward secured for him the re- spect on the bench even of the counsel, who appre- ciated their superiority in knowledge of the law to the old general, whose profession was rather of arms than of briefs and writs.

Born in Mendon in 1764, Mr. Adams received a liberal education at Brown University. He studied law in Uxbridge with Colonel Tyler, who had been a Revolutionary officer and was the first lawyer practic- ing in the south part of the county. Tyler does not seem to have obtained much eminence, or to have long remained in practice. Soon after Adams was admitted to the bar he succeeded to the business of his preceptor, who then disappears from history. Possessed of fair abilities and a steady purpose to make the most of them, he acquired a substantial practice and, what was better, the confidence of his townsmen. On the death of Judge Brigham he was elected to fill the vacant seat in Congress, and by suc- cessive re-elections retained the office until 1823. In that year he was defeated as a candidate by Jonathan Russell, because of a speech made by Adams in favor of the principle of protection. At that time Daniel Webster had not seen the light which afterwards so clearly illuminated his pathway as to cause him to retrace his steps and forswear his logic. The great statesman lent his matchless powers to exposing the fallacies which Adams upheld, in so forcible a manner that neither he nor any one who has come after him has been able to answer the argument, and the result was Adams's defeat. In very truth he was before his time. An ample fortune which he had accumulated he lost by unfortunate investments in manufacturing enterprises, and it may not be an unwarrantable in- ference that his own ill success caused him to feel more deeply the need of some protection by the State, for business that in itself was profitless.

He is described as a man of peculiarly even tem- perament, who did not suffer prosperity or adversity to throw him from his balance. An upright Christian gentleman, he did the duties that lay near him, use- fully serving his community in whatever way his hand found to do. In a county whose bar boasted be- fore his death of the fame of the second Levi Lincoln, of Charles Allen and of Emory Washburn ; his attain- ments were not of an order to be loudly heralded. None the less they were a distinct contribution to the welfare of his neighborhood. His talents were hon- estly put to their best use, so that it could be said the

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world was better for his life. In 1837, a few years after the late Peter C. Bacon came to the bar, he died in Uxbridge, where his active life had been spent.

Of the fame of an orator only one who has listened to the magic of the living voice, and felt his own en- thusiasm aroused beneath the spell of the vivid elo- quence, is fitted to speak with authority. FRANCIS BLAKE was pre-eminently a master of the art of speech. His other titles to remembrance have been subordinated to this in the minds of those who have spoken and written in his praise. The late Judge Thomas, a critic qualified by his skill in the same art, has said of him : " In the Court-House . . . he won by his sweetness and commanded by his dignity ; where his learning and logic convinced, where his wit and humor convulsed Bench, Bar and Jury; where bis passion aroused to indignation or melted into tears; where now his genius, his eloquence and his name even are but a tradition; where the orb has sunk long since below the horizon; and the eye catches only the last lingering, fading hues of twilight. Such is the history and the fate of forensic eloquence."

Mr. Blake was the son of a Revolutionary officer who lived in Rutland until the boy was five years old' when he removed to Hingham. In that town the Reverend Joseph Thaxter, afterwards a distinguished clergyman, taught the pupils of a grammar-school. Under his excellent instruction Blake made such rapid progress in preparation for college that he en- tered Harvard much the youngest member of his class and graduated in 1789, when only in his six- teenth year. He was considered one of the brightest and most accomplished scholars of his class; nor do his faculties seem to have been unduly stimulated nor his brain turned by his rapid advancement. He soon began the study of the law in Mr. Sprague's office in Lancaster, and at twenty was admitted to the bar, thoroughly equipped for the race for legal distinction. For a few years he tried the quality of his metal in Rutland, his native village, where he obtained a busi- ness sufficient to warrant his entering a larger field. In 1802 he came to Worcester, and there practiced until, in the year preceding his death, his failing health compelled him to give up his severe labors and assume the less exacting duties of clerk of the courts. At the time that he came to Worcester the contest of parties which had resulted in the defeat of the Feder- alists was still exciting the public mind. Mr. Jeffer- son's policy was fiercely attacked by the opposition, and Blake's ardent temperament impelled him to eagerly support the administration whose success he had desired. The publication of a newspaper called the National Ægis was begun, principally as a result of his efforts, and he undertook the editorial duties. Through a large part of President Jefferson's first term Blake's pen and influence were constantly de- voted to the promulgation and defence of the doctrines of the Republicans, as they were then called. In 1804 he retired from the field of journalism, leaving

the paper to other hands. Under the editorial guid- ance of several different members of the bar it passed through various experiences of the uncertainties of newspaper life until its mission ended.

For two years Mr. Blake represented the county in the State Senate, but aside from this held no political office. His real triumphs were in the court-room. For his success there it is instructive to learn that he did not depend upon his abundant resources of intel- lectual gifts.

Mr. Willard says, "It is a wrong impression that Mr. Blake made but slight preparation in his causes. But few could have discovered more investigation, or have given more satisfactory proofs of diligent and thorough study in the management of his causes. . . . His briefs were remarkably full," and showed "that mental effort had been tasked in a degree to which few in full and successful practice are willing or able to submit."

With powers apparently just developed to their highest value, and the brightest prospect of an hon- orable career, his physical health gave way. In 1817, . when only forty-two, he died poor, as is the lot of most great advocates, but rich in friends and reputation.

One of Mr. Blake's law students and ardent ad- mirers was a Worcester boy, SAMUEL BRAZER, born in 1785. At the outset of his career he was placed in the employ of a mercantile house in Boston, where it was intended that he should fit himself to become one of the substantial merchants of that thriving town. He evinced, however, so decided a taste and aptitude for literary pursuits, that he was allowed to enter Leicester Academy to prepare for college. He had that treacherous facility in acquiring knowledge from books which ofteu leads its possessor to rely on hasty and superficial attention to his tasks. His ready wit and spirit of mischief led him into some pranks which resulted in his incurring the displeas- ure of his instructors and the abandonment of his plans for a college course.

Entering Blake's office, he found himself in the midst of political turmoil, rather than an atmosphere adapted to profound study, such as so volatile a char- acter most required. He entered with zeal into the exciting controversies of the day, contributed to the Egis, and evidently acquired a taste for politics, which overcame every other interest or ambition. He was by no means unfitted for public life. Numer- ous prose writings and occasional addresses show a considerable ability, and a few ventures in the realms of poetry prove his command of language and active imagination ..

After admission to the bar he began practice in New Salem, but its detail soon became distasteful. He could not reconcile himself to the quiet life of the country lawyer, waiting for clients. He moved to Baltimore, and died there in 1823, without having realized the hopes of his friends or the promise of his youth.

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HISTORY OF WORCESTER COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS.

One of the justices of the Supreme Court in the first years of the century was Simeon Strong, who had been distinguished as a lawyer before the Revo- lution, and had continued practice not only in his county of Hampshire, but in our courts after the war. His son, SOLOMON STRONG, adopted his father's profession, and was admitted to the bar in 1800, just before his father was appointed to the bench. He was born in Amherst in 1780, and received his educa- tion at Williams College. Somewhat of a rolling- stone, we find him practicing successively in Royal- ston, Athol, Westminster and Leominster. Notwith- standing his apparent instability, he had acquired a competent knowledge of the law and retained a good clientage for many years. Two terms in Congress, besides several in the State Legislature, showed that he had the confidence and esteem of his constituents, and his qualifications as a lawyer were recognized by his appointment to the bench of the Circuit Court of Common Pleas upon the death of Judge Bangs, in 1818.

By an act of the General Court, which took effect in 1821, the system of Circuit Courts was abolished, and the Court of Common Pleas for the Common- wealth established. By its provisions four justices were to be appointed, any one of whom could hold a session of the court. The terms were to be held at the same times and places as had previously been provided for the Circuit Courts, and the jurisdiction, rules, and methods of procedure of the new court were changed in no essential particular. The act provides "that the chief justice of said Court of Common Pleas shall, during his continuance in office, receive from the treasury of the Commonwealth, in full, for his services, the sum of twenty-one hundred dollars annually," and the associates in like manner the sum of eighteen hundred dollars. All fees there- tofore paid to the justices of the Circuit Courts are directed to be paid into the treasury of the Common- wealth. The change seems, on the whole, to have been principally in the interests of economy, for under the new statute four judges at fixed salaries took the place of ten under the circuit system, who received an uncertain rate of compensation, dependent largely on fees.

The first chief justice was Artemas Ward, then of Newton, son of the old general and judge. Judge Strong was appointed the senior associate, and for twenty-two years, until his resignation, continued to discharge his judicial functions with dignity and credit. He died in Leominster in 1850. During the last years of his life, after his retirement from the bench, his patience was tried by disease and suffer- ing. His cheerful courage sustained him through it all, and added another to his titles to our respect.

When in the first year of the present century Levi Lincoln assumed the duties of Attorney-General of the United States he was in command of the most extensive practice in this vicinity, often called into

adjoining counties, and in the foremost rank of advo- cates in the Commonwealth. During his four years service in Washington he could not have retained the same control of his great clientage as formerly. In 1805 he stated as one of his reasons for resisting the urgent request of President Jefferson that he would remain in the Cabinet, that his duties to his family required his presence at home, and it appears not improbable that he may have been thinking of his son just completing his studies and ready to enter upon a professional career, in the outset of which the father's experience and established business connec- tions would be of infinite value. The son taking up the name, the profession, and the position in the community of his father added, as time went on, new dignities to each.

Born in Worcester in 1782, his reputation is the peculiar pride of the city in whose growth and wel- fare he always took the profoundest interest, and where he made his home.

He graduated from Harvard in 1802, and studied law in his father's office, though without the advan- tage of the daily presence and advice of the busy Attorney-General. When he began his practice, however, the senior Lincoln had returned from Wash- ington, aud for several years thereafter continued to practice in our courts. The young counsellor needed no outside influence to recommend him to those in search of a sound legal adviser and earnest advocate. He very early made his qualifications apparent, and with such rivals as Jabez Upham, Francis Blake and John Davis, the position of leadership at the bar, to which he attained, was not won without many a hard-fought con- test. The power of incessant application and a most determined will were his, and by these he overcame obstacles that sometimes seemed too great for him to cope with. He left the practice of the law at forty- two, and survived all of his cotemporaries in the pro- fession, so that we have not the testimony of those who had heard him as an advocate. But he told friends of "the overwhelming labor which his successes cost him ; how he would watch the night out in the study of his cases, and then go in the morning into the court-room, with a throbbing brain, and speak for hours." Efforts of such a character could only be sustained by vigorous physical health, which to the last years of his life Governor Lincoln possessed. As a result of his careful preparation, he acquired a com- plete mastery of his faculties, so that in the vicissi- tudes of trials he was ready to use to the hest advan- tage all his mental resources. He had a great com- mand of language and of admirably clear statement, which entitled him to be called an eloquent speaker. Certainly he was a most convincing one. His style was not encumbered with rhetorical ornaments, but plain, substantial and direct. When, in the year of his appointment to the bench of the Supreme Court, he gave up business, he had acquired a position at the bar second to none in the Commonwealth, and a

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competent fortune, which raised him above the need | building of manufactures, reforms of the prisons and of anxiety during the years which he devoted to the of hospitals for the insane, the cstablishment of Normal Schools, all received his energetic attention. public service.

His political honors are naturally those which have most prominently been associated with the memory of his name. In 1812 he was a member of the State Senate, and was a strong supporter of the administra- tion in its measures which resulted in the war with Great Britain. The majority in this State were iu- tensely opposed to the war, and here at the outset of his career Lincoln exhibited his independence of judg- ment and courage in supporting his convictions. He was rewarded by seeing a strong sentiment built up in favor of sustaining the war after we were engaged. In 1814, as a member of the House of Representa- tives, he protested with vigor against the resolution which resulted in our participation in the famous Hartford Convention. Defeated by a large majority in the General Court, he drew up a protest which was signed by the minority, and widely circulated through the country, bringing its author into national repute. The convention was held, but its action, beyond fur- nishing a text for secessionists' arguments in later years, had no result, and aroused but short-lived interest.

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History of Worcester County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. I, Part 8

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