History of the Connecticut Valley in Massachusetts, with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of its prominent men and pioneers, Vol. I, Part 37

Author: L.H. Everts & Co
Publication date: 1879
Publisher: Philadelphia : Louis H. Everts
Number of Pages: 700

USA > Massachusetts > History of the Connecticut Valley in Massachusetts, with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of its prominent men and pioneers, Vol. I > Part 37

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1819 .- Epaphras Clark,* Erasmus Norcross, * Heman Steb- bins,* Asa Olmstead .*

1820 .- Josiah looker .*

1822 .- William Bliss,* Joel Miller, + Richard D. Morris .*

1824 .- Warham Crooks,* Norman T. Leonard.

1825 .- Reuben A. Chapman .*

1827 .- Matthew Ives, Jr .*

1828 .- William G. Bates, William M. Lathrop,; Joseph Knox,; George Ashmun .*

1829 .- Chauncey B. Rising, ; William Dwight.t

1830 .- Francis Dwight,* William Hyde.t

1831 .- Joseph Huntington .*

1832 .- William Bliss, William C. Dwight .*

1833 .- E. D. Beach .*

1834 .- Richard Bliss.t 1835 .- Henry Morris.

1836 .- H. H. Buckland,* George Baylies Upham.t

1837 .- Russell E. Dewey.t

1839 .- William W. Blair.t

1840 .- George B. Morris .*

1841 .- Henry Vose .*

1842 .- Edward Bates Gillett.

1843 .- Otis A. Seamans,* Lorenzo Norton,* William O. Gor- ham,; Lorenzo D. Brown.t

1845 .- Allen Bangs, Jr.,* Wellington Thompson,* Ephraim W. Bond, Lester E. Newell, t Albert Clarke, t Wil- liam Allen, Jr.t

1846 .- P. Emory Aldrich,; Thomas B. Munn,* George Walker, Bernard B. Whittemore,t Lester Wil- liams, Jr., ; Charles C. Hayward .;

1847 .- Samuel L. Fleming, ; Elbridge G. Bowdoin,t James II. Morton,* Samuel Fowler, Edwin M. Bigelow, t Charles K. Wetherell.+

1848 .- Fayette Smith, ; Charles R. Ladd, George L. Squier, t Reuben P. Boies, ; Charles H. Branseomb .;

1849 .- Joseph M. Cavis,; William B. C. Pearsons, Ang. L. Soule, Henry Fuller, John Munn, t Edward P. Burn- ham.t

1850 .- Timothy G. Pelton,; Charles A. Winchester,* Asahel Bush,+ Franklin Crosby .;

1851 .- Charles T. Arthur,* John M. Stebbins, William How- land,; Oramel S. Senter,; N. A. Leonard, James.C. Hinsdale.+

1852 .- George M. Stearns, Martin J. Severance,; James F. Dwight,+ William C. Greene,; George L. Frost .*

1853 .- Milton B. Whitney, William L. Smith, James G. Allen,* John H. Thompson.+

1854 .- John M. Emerson,* Henry B. Lewis, George O. Ide,t James K. Mills. t

1855 .- Norman L. Johnson, t James E. MeIntire, Samuel J. Ross,; A. M. Copeland.

1856 .- Joel T. Rice, + William S. Shurtleff, Irving Allen, t George H. Knapp.

1857 .- Ambrose N. Merrick, + S. B. Woolworth, ; E. A. War- riner, ; Edw. D. Hayden.+ 1858 .- Liberty B. Dennett,; Stephen E. Seymour, Frank E. Merriman.+

1859 .- Moses W. Chapin,* Henry E. Daniels, + Porter Under- wood, William C. Ide, + William 1I. Haile, Benton W. Cole,* E. Howard Lathrop, Ilomer B. Stevens.

1860 .- Gideon Wells.

1861 .- James A. Rumrill, John W. Moore, ; Otis P. Aber- crombie.t

1862 .- Timothy M. Brown, Marcus P. Knowlton, Joseph H. Blair.+

1863 .- Sidney Sanders,; Reuben Chapman,* Samuel G. Lor- ing.t

1864 .- William S. Green, Edward Morris.

1865 .- Charles A. Beach, ; James C. Greenough, ; J. P. Buck- land, E. W. Chapin, Joseph Morgan.

1866 .- George D. Robinson.

1867 .- George B. Morris, Jr., ; Hugh Donnelly, Charles A. Birnie, + J. Porter, Jr., + C. L. Gardner.

1868 .- Charles C. Spellman, Elisha B. Maynard, Luther White.

1869 .- William B. Rogers, John W. Burgess.t

1870 .- Elbridge W. Merrill, + Joseph W. Browne, John M. Cochran.t

1871 .- Albert A. Tyler, Edward Bellamy.

1872 .- John P. Wall, Thomas F. Riley, ; Harris L. Sherman, Jobn W. Converse, Charles L. Long, William Slat- tery, Jr., S. S. Taft.

1873 .- Robert O. Morris, Jonathan Allen, Luther Emerson Barnes,; F. E. Carpenter.

1874 .- James R. Dunbar, Loranus E. Hitchock.

The following additional names have been added since Mr. Bates' list was prepared :

1874 .- W. J. Quinn, + H. K. Hawes, Austin P. Cristy, } Daniel E. Webster.

1875 .- Joseph M. Ross, Geo. L. Pease, Elisha P. Bartholomew, Michael L. Moriarty, ; Harrison Hume, John L. King,; Wmn. G. White, Thomas B. Warren, C. A. Sherman, H. A. Bartholomew.

1876 .- Hubert M. Coney, Charles J. Bellamy, Neill Dumont,; Edmund P. Kendrick, John B. Vincent, Jr.

1877 .- Charles H. Hersey,; Geo. II. Graves,; Fred. H. Gil- lett,+ Michael T. Foley, A. L. Murray, Patrick H. Casey, Allen Webster, Wm. H. Brooks.

1878 .- Jeremiah P. Whalen,; George Kress, Willmore B. Stone, Henry M. Walradt, Charles R. Dudley, W. W. MeClench.

CHAPTER XXVI.

MOSTLY PRACTITIONERS AT THE HAMPDEN COUNTY BAR.

HON. GEORGE BLISS.

THE Bliss family have been prominent in the history of the Connecticut Valley, and especially in connection with the Bar, having furnished a half-dozen or more prominent members of the legal profession.

According to Mr. Bates, the oldest member of the Bar in 1828 was HON. GEORGE BLISS, author of the well-known ad- dress delivered to the members of the old Hampshire Bar at Northampton, in 1826, and also of an historical address de- livered in 1828.

Mr. Bliss was born in 1765, and died in 1830, at the age of sixty-five years. Ile graduated at the age of nineteen, in 1784. " Hle was called ' Master George,' because he had been accus- tomed to have a number of students, and was reported to have been more than usually attentive to their instruction."

It is said that he prepared a course of lectures upon ditfer- ent branches of the law, which he was accustomed to deliver to his students. It has been stated that when the Court of Common Pleas was organized, in 1820, he desired and expected an appointment as one of the judges, but another was chosen,

* Deceased.

+ Removed from the county

* Deceased.

+ Removed from the county.

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HISTORY OF THE CONNECTICUT VALLEY.

and Mr. Bliss was so much disappointed that he never after- ward practiced in that court.

The reason of his not being appointed was claimed by his friends to have been his religious opinions. He was a well- read and thorough lawyer, as the various papers from his pen and the reports amply testify. His address before the Bar of old Hampshire County is a most excellently written paper, and an honor alike to his head and heart. Mr. Bates pays him several merited compliments in the incidents related of his practice in Hampden County.

He was a distinguished advocate before the Supreme Court, where he was a formidable antagonist of Governor Caleb Strong ; which statement is in itself a high compliment to his scholarship and ability.

JOHN INGERSOLL* was born in Westfield, Mass., Aug. 13, 1769. His paternal and maternal ancestors, the Ingersolls and the Moseleys, were prominent in the carly history of that town. His remote paternal ancestor was John Ingersoll,-one of the "seven pillars" or "foundation-men" who united to form the church in Westfield in 1679.

His collegiate education was received at Yale College, where he was a member of the class of 1790. He began the study of the law in Westfield, and subsequently continued it in the office of Hon. Caleb Strong, of Northampton, where he was admitted to practice before the Supreme Court in 1797.

Ile commeneed practice in his native town, where, as early as the year 1800, he was successfully established. In the last- named year he married, at Northampton, Elizabeth Martin, of Antigua, West Indies. Upon the organization of the county of Hampden, in 1812, he was appointed elerk of the courts, but continued to reside at Westfield until November, 1814, when he removed his family to Springfield, where he continued to reside until his death, in 1840.

Ile held the office to which he was appointed until his decease,-a period of about twenty-nine years,-which is ample evidence that he was a faithful and an able officer.

The following extraet is from an article which appeared at the time of his death in the local paper :

"John Ingersoll, Esq., died at his residence in this town on Saturday last, in the seventy-second year of his age. Since the organization of this county-a period of twenty-eight or nine years-he has held the office of clerk of the courts for the county, the duties of which he has faithfully and promptly discharged. He was universally respected by the members of the Bar, and his absence from the post which for so many years he has honorably occupied will be by them seriously felt.

" In his social and private relations he was, we believe, what a good citizen, a friend and father, should be, and by his vir- tues endeared himself to a large circle of friends, by whom his loss will be felt, his memory cherished."

HON. SAMUEL LATHROP was the fourth son of Rev. Joseph Lathrop; born in West Springfield in 1771, and graduated at Yale College in 1792. ITe read law, but the date of his ad- mission to the Bar is not stated.

In 1797 he married Mary MeCrackan, of New Haven, Conn., by whom he had ten children,-four sons and six daughters.

He was an attorney of eminent ability, and was elected to Congress, and represented his district from 1818 to 1824.

He was also for ten years a member of the State Senate, and president of that body in 1819-20, and ran very close for Governor of the State at one gubernatorial election. Ilis services in the State Legislature and in the national Congress interfered with his practice of the law, though he continued it as late as 1825. In his later years, he devoted considerable of his time to agricultural pursuits, and paid great attention to the improvement of stock in the valley. Ile died in 1846, at the age of seventy-five.

* From memoranda furnished by his son, Maj. Edward Ingersoll, Paymaster U. S. A.

IlON. ELIJAH H. MILLS was the next in order of seniority of those who were practicing at the Hampden County Bar in 1825. He was graduated at Williams College in 1797, ad- mitted to the Bar of the Supreme Judicial Court, at North- ampton, in 1803, and was in an extensive practice.

Ilis election to the Senate of the United States interfered with his practice, but during the vacations he had abundant opportunities for the display of his powers.

"He was connected in business with Hon. John HI. Ash- mun, who was subsequently Royal professor of law in the Harvard University, and who was well able to prepare his cases or to argue them in case of the necessary absence of Mr. Mills.

" During the years 1827-28 I was in the law-school at Northampton, and was a clerk in the office of Mills & Ash- mun, and had the opportunity of observing their mode of preparing cases. This was mostly done by Mr. Ashmun during the absence of Mr. Mills. He prepared an elaborate brief, noticing the anticipated objections and citing the author- ities, and also setting down the objections to be made to the proposed evidence of the opposite counsel. This was done with a thoroughness which I have never seen equaled. The brief was submitted to Mr. Mills, who appeared to apprehend it instinetively, and, with a slight conversation, went forth equipped for the contest.

" He was a man, in person, of full size, well formed, ereet and graceful in his carriage, with an eye which, when lighted up with excitement, was as powerful as that of the Caliph Vathek upon the heart of a dishonest witness. He was con- nected with Judge Howe in the management of the law-school at Northampton, but his health was then in a decline, and he gradually withdrew from the school, and at last from the active duties of the law-office.

" At the courts in Hampshire he was the adversary of IIon. Lewis Strong and IIon. Isaac C. Bates. The contests between them used to call together large audiences. The people seemed delighted to witness the intellectual struggles of these eminent advocates."+

" HON. ISAAC C. BATES graduated at Yale College in 1802 with the highest honors of his class. He was admitted in the Supreme Court in 1807." He studied law in New Haven, and there acquired that knowledge of general principles which served him so well in after-years. His tastes naturally led him in the direction of agricultural pursuits, and for some time he gave up the care of his office to his partner, con- tenting himself with giving his time occasionally to such cases as seemed to foree themselves upon him.

" A speech of his before the Agricultural Society, in 1823, and an address before the Bible Society in New York City, about the same time, by the complimentary notices which they elicited, seemed to arouse his energies, and he afterward devoted himself to the argument of important cases in the courts." His success was brilliant. In Hampshire County he rivaled Mr. Mills as a leader, and in a certain class of eases far exceeded him. He was equally successful in Hamp- den County, where he was an acknowledged leader.

" Ifis addresses to the jury were studied and eloquent, and, when the facts and law of a cause would authorize it, his in- fluence was omnipotent. Judge Howe, on his return from a term in Hampden, in narrating a speech of Mr. Bates, spoke of it as the most effective and eloquent to which he had ever listened ; and Prof. Ashmun, in speaking of another argu- ment, when he was upon the other side, said that he was so hurried along by the power of the advocate that he for the time forgot on which side he was engaged, and that all his sympathies moved on with him in opposition to the case of his own client.

" He was elected, and served a number of terms in the

+ Bates' address.

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House of Representatives and for a period of five years in the Senate, and his eloquence in each body received high com- mendation. Those who listened to or read the glowing tribute to his memory pronounced by Mr. Webster in the United States Senate will appreciate how feelingly the words of the great Senator portrayed the eloquence of one whose lips were to be evermore silent."

HON. OLIVER B. MORRIS .- The following notice of this eminent and honored citizen of Hampden County is compiled from an article published in the Springfield Republican of April 10, 1871 :

Oliver B. Morris, who died on Sunday morning, repre- sented Springfield more fully, and for a longer period, than any man who remains among us. He was born in the village of South Wilbraham (now Hampden), Sept. 22, 1782, and was consequently in his eighty-ninth year and the oldest man in Springfield. His father, Edward Morris, had been a soldier in the Revolutionary war, serving principally in Canada, and his mother was the daughter of John Bliss, of Wilbraham, who was an officer in the Massachusetts militia which served at White Plains, and, after the war, a county judge and repre- sentative at the General Court.

Judge Morris prepared for college with Rev. Moses Warren, a South Wilbraham clergyman, and at the early age of fif- teen years entered Williams College. He graduated in 1801, and at the time of his death was the oldest living graduate of that institution.

He came from college to Springfield, and commenced the study of the law with Hon. George Bliss, then a leading at- torney in the Connecticut Valley. Mr. Bliss resided in the house next below the old Universalist church on Main Street, and his office was in the wing of the building. Judge Morris boarded with Mr. Bliss during his studies, and in 1813 mar- ried his daughter Caroline.

He was admitted to the Bar in 1804, and opened his first of- fice in a frame building on the corner of Main and State Streets, owned by Moses Bliss (on the site of the present Savings-Bank building), where he continued until he retired from practice in 1835.

He was appointed register of Probate for Hampden County in 1813, and held the office until 1829, when he was appointed judge of the same court, and continued in that position until 1858. From 1820 to 1832 he was county attorney. During the years 1809-10-11 and 1813, he represented Springfield in the General Court, and in 1820 was a member of the Consti- tutional Convention.

For at least fifty years he bore a prominent part in all the public life of Springfield. He was a man of strong feelings and positive convictions. Politically, he was originally a Federalist, subsequently a Whig, and lastly a Republican, " though he was never wholly reconciled to the decay of the Whig party, to which, through all of its career, he was ar- dently attached, and of which he was an influential local leader."

One of his best-known efforts at the Bar was his defense of the son of Francis Elliot, who had killed, accidentally or otherwise, a boy named Buckland. His address to the jury was so convincing and exhaustive that a verdict of acquit- tal was rendered and the young man discharged from cus- tody.

No man in Springfield, during the last thirty years of his lite, was so familiar as Judge Morris with its early history and with its prominent business-men and representative fami- lies. In July and August, 1847, he furnished to the Spring- field Gazette a series of papers covering two hundred years of the history of the place ; and the only regret is that he did not more fully put upon record his valuable recollections of the town and people with whom he was so familiar.

For the last fifteen or twenty years of his life Judge Morris gradually withdrew from the local life of the place, but until

within two or three years of his death he made daily, in pleas- ant weather, the round of his little circle, chatting at the " old corner store" with his friends, and " criticising with all his youthful positiveness the course of public affairs and public men."

On the two hundredth anniversary of the settlement of Springfield he delivered a most thorough and able historical address in the presence of the dignitaries of the State and a great concourse of people, who gathered from far and near to celebrate the founding of the colony.

He was stricken with paralysis while sitting at the table on Saturday, and died on Sunday morning, April 9, 1871, in the eighty-ninth year of his age.

HON. ALANSON KNOX .- Gen. Knox, as he was usually called (probably in consequence of his position in the State militia), was the son of Elijah Knox, who was a grandson of William Knox, one of the pioneers who settled in Blandford about 1737. The general was born in Blandford about 1785. He probably received a fair education, and subsequently read law, but with whom we are not informed. He was admitted to practice in 1810, and settled in his native town, where he practiced the greater part of his active life. He had at various times quite a number of students under instruction, among them his future son-in-law, Hon. Reuben Atwater Chapman, afterward Chief-Justice of the Supreme Judicial Court. In his latter years he removed to Ohio, where he died.

ASAHEL WRIGHT .- Of this gentleman we have very little information, except that he was a graduate of Williams College in 1803, and settled in Chester, Hampden Co., where he married a daughter of Rev. Aaron Bascom, of that place. It is said in the history of Chester that Mr. Wright was an early settler. He studied law and settled in Chester, where he practiced his profession until his death, which took place in 1830, at the com- paratively early age of forty-eight years. His professional business, from the necessity of the case, was small, but he was among the prominent men of the town, and his loss was seriously felt.

HON. JOHN MILLS was born in Sandisfield, about 1790. He read law in the office of John Phelps, of West Granville, and was admitted to the bar in 1815. He married a daughter of Col. Enos Foote, and probably settled in Southwick about the time of his admission to practice.

ITis business was extensive and profitable, and he amassed a considerable property. Quite early in life he gave great at- tention to politics, and became very prominent. He was elected to the State Senate, and in 1826-28 was president of that body, and had the reputation of being a most excellent and able officer.

Mr. Bates relates a very good story of him during the visit of Lafayette to this country in 1824-25. On the occasion of the marquis' visit to Boston he paid his respects to the State Senate, and the members were personally introduced to him. Mr. Mills was presented in his turn as the Hon. John Mills; the Hampden Senator.

" They shook hands with great cordiality, and as Lafayette arose from his bowing position his eye fell upon the polished head of the young Senator. Looking at him with an intense gaze, a delightful recognition stole over his joyous features, and, again taking the hand of Mr. Mills in both his own and shaking it cordially, he exclaimed, with fervid energy, 'My dear friend, I recollect you in the Revolution !' "

Mr. Mills eventually removed to Springfield, where he erected a fine residence and gave up his profession for com- mercial speculations, which eventually swept away his prop- erty, leaving him only regret that he had abandoned an honorable business for alluring but uncertain speculations which so often end in disaster.

HON. PATRICK BOISE .- The Boise, or Boies, family is said to be of French extraction, and the original name Du Boyce. It is said that an ancestor fled from his native country to

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HISTORY OF THE CONNECTICUT VALLEY.

Scotland in the days of the great Cardinal Richelieu, and from thence his descendants emigrated to America.

The first of the name who settled in the town of Blandford was David, who had four sons; but to which branch of this family Patrick belonged we have not been able to ascertain. He graduated at Williams College, and read law with his unele, John Phelps, of West Granville, and was admitted to practice in 1815.

He opened an office in Granville, where he succeeded to the legal business of Mr. Phelps, who had been elected sheriff' of Hampden County. Granville, in those days, was a pros- perous and thriving town, and his business grew to important proportions. He became one of the most prominent attorneys of the county, and attended arbitrations and references in the western part of the county and in Southern Berkshire. His competitors in that region were Sheldon, of New Marlboro'; Filley, of Otis; Twining, of Sandisfield ; Mills, of South- wick ; Cooley, of Granville; Knox, of Blandford ; and some- times the more renowned and dignified Lathrop, of West Springfield.

Mr. Bates speaks of Mr. Boise as an impulsive man, easily excited, having great command of language, and possessing a wonderful power of invective whenever sharp practice in the opposite counsel rendered its use, in his estimation, necessary. Ile was perfectly at home in country trials and arbitrations, which allowed his peculiar powers a freer scope than would lw admissible before a graver tribunal.

At the expiration of the term of Justin Wilson as sheriff of the county, in 1853, Mr. Boise was appointed to the office, which position he filled for two years with signal ability and discretion. He was a member of both the House of Repre- sentatives and the Senate in the Legislature of the State, and bore an unblemished reputation through all his public career.

In 1830, when business began to withdraw from the outlying towns toward the commercial and manufacturing centres, he removed to Westfield, where he remained until his decense, in 1859.

He had an exhaustless store of wit and could on occasion inake use of the most brilliant repartee, and his control of the risibilities of an audience was most remarkable.

WILLIAM BLAIR .- This gentleman was a native of Bland- ford and a direct descendant of David Blair, who, with his family of twelve children, emigrated to America and settled in Worcester, Mass., about the year 1720. Matthew, the eldest son of David, removed from thence, and was among the earliest settlers of Blandford. Robert, a brother of Matthew and father of William, also removed to Blandford at an early date.

William was admitted to the Bar in 1813, and soon after settled in Westfield. Ile is spoken of as a young man of ability, industrious and painstaking, thorough in all his under- takings, and a man of great promise. But he unfortunately contracted a habit which insidiously destroyed his brilliant capabilities and clouded, in the very noon of his influence and promise, the usefulness which might have placed him in the foremost position among his compeers. He had a fine sense of personal honor, and was most serupulous in the discharge of his duties toward others. At his death he was universally pitied and respected.

HON. JUSTICE WILLARD .- Justice Willard, of Springfield, was admitted to practice in 1816.

Upon the appointment of Oliver B. Morris to the office of judge of Probate, Mr. Willard succeeded him as register of Probate. He also represented his district in the State Senate. He was considered the ahlest special pleader of his time, with the exception, of Hon. George Bliss. Mr. Bates says of him : " Eloquence was not his forte. Ilis manner was dry and hesitating, and he was too much given to refining and making nice distinctions to impress his views upon the jury. But he had great fervor of character ; and when once

he had examined a subject, he adopted the results with his whole heart."

lle took an active interest in the new subject of railway in- tercommunication, and was so sanguine of the possibilities of the future that to those less demonstrative and of a soberer faith he sometimes appeared altogether too enthusiastie, though the wonderful advance in this branch of science has long since made his belief a reality. For instance, he once prophesied that during the lifetime of some in his presence a train of cars would make the trip from Springfield to Boston and return between sun and sun,-a prophecy long since fulfilled.

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History of the Connecticut Valley in Massachusetts, with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of its prominent men and pioneers, Vol. I, Part 37

Author: L.H. Everts & Co Publication date: 1879 Publisher: Philadelphia : Louis H. Everts Number of Pages: 700

Author: L.H. Everts & Co
Publication date: 1879
Publisher: Philadelphia : Louis H. Everts
Number of Pages: 700