USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Professional and industrial history of Suffolk County, Massachusetts, Volume I > Part 75
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HISTORY OF THE BENCH AND BAR.
George Lant had been made district attorney, under the Taylor administration, and he had sent to St. Domingo George D. Guild, a member of the Boston bar, to secure further evidence for the government. At the second trial, most of which came under the observation of the writer, when the testimony on both sides had been submitted, the court took a short recess before the addresses to the jury. During the recess Mr. Choate, while passing through the entry of the Court House, overheard the colored cook of the vessel say to some of his shipmates that the captain cried when he aban- coned his vessel and took his boat to go ashore. After the recess Mr. Choate rose in a solemn manner, and saying to the court that during the recess a very important piece of testimony had come to his knowlege, asked permission to introduce it. The cottrt overruled the objections of the district attorney, and permitted the introduc- tion of the evidence. The cook was called to the stand, and in reply to the question of Mr. Choate as to the behavior of the captain on his leaving his vessel, replied that he cried like a child. This was enough for Mr. Choate, and in his address he so de- scribed the scene of the wreck and the pathetic deportment of the captain in leaving his dear Sally Ann, whose loss, if he were guilty, he would have rather rejoiced at than mourned, that his client was acquitted. The oratory of Mr. Choate has been graphically described by Hon. John J. Ingalls, who happened to be in court in Salem while Mr. Choate was conducting a suit for damages against a railroad cor- poration, brought by a clergyman who was run down by a train while driving over a track at a street crossing. "Mr. Choate's purpose, when he rose to address the jury, seemed to be to dispel, by bald and colloquial simplicity, the imputation made by General Butler, the opposing counsel, that he was a magician and juggler charming juries with his legerdemain and incantations. When this purpose was accomplished he gradually and by imperceptible gyrations wheeled to higher flights, till at last he seemed almost to vanish in the empyrean of articulate splendor. No dervish in his most ecstatic fervor ever bent and whirled, and rose and fell on such genuflections and contortions. Sweat trickled from the black jungle of his disordered hair along the ravines and furrows of his haggard face. He advanced and retreated, rising upon his toes and coming down upon his heels with a dislocating jerk that made the windows rattle, pausing occasionally to inhale through his dilating nostrils tem- pestuously, and then emitting a shrieking epigram or apostrophe that thrilled the blood like a wild cry at midnight in a solitary place. With great artistic skill he de- picted the tranquil village; the clergyman on his errand of mercy in the freshness of a summer morning along the shaded street; the unsuspected approach of the train around the concealing curve; the fatal instant, when, too late to advance or retreat, the monster sprang upon him with 'the thunderous terror of its insupportable foot- steps.'" Mr. Ingalls further says, "how such a blazing meteor broke into the sedate orbit of New England life is one of the mysteries of psychology. No such phenom- enon has occurred in Massachusetts before or since. He wore the aspect of an Arab, and had the oriental imagination of a wanderer of the desert, but to these were added the sagacious shrewdness and pertinacity of a Yankee." With all his marvelous, and often pathetic eloquence, he was not devoid of humor, and in this he often indulged, more powerful in argument than invective, but while his audience laughed, his face always remained the same, serious and serene. Governor Andrew once told the writer of the return of Mr. Choate to his office one day after a trial in the Supreme Court, in which he had been much annoyed by the supercilious bearing
Geo . H. Jowls
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BIOGRAPHICAL REGISTER.
of the opposing counsel, an eminent member of the Suffolk bar. As he threw his satchel on the standing desk, at which he often stood and worked, he exclaimed, "There, I don't care if I never see Mr. - again," adding after a pause, "not that I should object to seeing him in a procession." This unworthy sketch of Mr. Choate would be less worthy still, if no mention were made of his modest and unassuming deportment, his sweet and gentle nature, his unvarying courtesy to okl and young, to those of high and low degree, his readiness at all times to aid with the wisest and most conscientious counsel the young aspirant for work and fame in the profession in which he was master. With these qualities, he died not only venerated as a great lawyer, but beloved also as a man.
ASA FRENCH, son of Jonathan and Sarah Brackett (Hayward) French, was born in Braintree, Mass., October 21, 1829. In that town his ancestors have lived from the time of its earliest settlement. He received his early education in the public schools of Braintree and at Leicester Academy, and graduated at Yale College in 1851. He studied law at the Albany Law School and at the Harvard Law School, graduating from the latter institution in 1853 with the degree of LL. B. He was admitted to the New York bar in 1853, and after further study in Boston in the offices of David A. Simmons and Harvey Jewell was admitted to the Suffolk bar April 26, 1854. He has since his admission continued to live in Braintree, and though practicing in Boston has been identified with the Norfolk county bar. In 1866 he was a member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives, and in 1870 was appointed by Governor Claflin district attorney for the Southeastern District of Massachusetts, consisting of the counties of Norfolk and Plymouth, to fill the vacancy occasioned by the resigna- tion of Edward Lillie Pierce. He held the office by successive elections until 1882, when he resigned. He had at this time shown so conspicuously his ability at the bar, and the judicial character of his mind, that in the latter year Governor Long offered him a seat on the bench of the Superior Court, which he declined. Previous to that time he had held for a number of years a position on the Board of Commis- sioners on Inland Fisheries and continued to hold it several years later. Under the act of Congress passed June 5, 1882, re-establishing the Court of Commissioners on the Alabama Claims, he was appointed one of the judges, and in 1883 was selected by President Arthur as one of the visitors at West Point for that year. In 1870 Gen- eral Sylvanus Thayer, of Braintree, endowed a free public library in that town and at his death bequeathed to trustees two hundred and eighty thousand dollars for the establishment in the town of an institution free to all the citizens of the old town for the education of their children. The library, known as the Thayer Public Library, and the institution, known as the Thayer Academy, have become important factors in promoting the welfare of the town. Mr. French is the president of the boards of trustees of both institutions. He is now actively engaged in practice in Boston, and in the enjoyment of the confidence of a large and desirable clientage. He married in October, 1858, Sophia B., daughter of Simeon Palmer, of Boston.
JOHN WELLS, son of Noah Wells, was born in Rowe, Mass., February 17, 1819. His father was a man of note in Franklin county, having been a State senator in 1842 and a representative at an earlier date. He graduated at Williams College in 1838, and .after graduating taught school for a time in Newport, R. I. He studied law in Greenfield in the office of Wells & Davis and at the Harvard Law School, and was
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HISTORY OF THE BENCH AND BAR.
admitted to the Franklin county bar in 1841. He established himself in Chicopee and in 1858 was appointed judge of probate and insolveney, the first judge under the law combining the two offices. In 1864 he resigned in consequence of the pressure on his time of his general practice. He was a member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives from Chicopee in 1849-1851-1857 and 1865. In 1866 he was ap- pointed a judge of the Supreme Judicial Court to fill the vacancy occasioned by the death of Charles Augustus Dewey, and held his seat until his death. He delivered an address before the alumni of Williams College in 1869, and was president of the Alumni Association during the last two years of his life. He married, May 15, 1850, Sophia Dwight, of Boston, and died at the house of George Wheatland in Salem, November 23, 1875. The Law Review said of him: "His reputation was steadily growing until he had made himself one of the best judges in the country and left a reputation seldom equalled and more seldom surpassed by any in the list of his dis- tinguished predecessors."
JOHN QUINCY ADAMS GRIFFIN was born in Londonderry, N. H., July 8, 1826, and was educated at the Lawrence Academy in Groton. He studied law in that town with George Frederick Farley and was admitted to the Middlesex bar in October, 1849. In 1855 he was living in Malden, in 1859 in Charlestown, and afterwards in Medford. He practiced in Charlestown and Boston and was a number of years in partnership with William St. Agnan Stearns, who is referred to in another part of this Register. He was a representative about 1860, and the writer has a distinet recollection of his deep sonorous voice, his deliberate manner, his incisive and logical speech, and the attention he always commanded when he rose to address the House. There was no abler man of his age at either the Middlesex or Suffolk bar, and in the trial of causes the difficulties and dilemmas which arise in court to the discomfiture of the counsel, only served to sharpen his intellect and to bring out that reserved force which in the end secured a victory at the very verge of failure and defeat. He died at Medford, May 22, 1866, at the age of forty years. He married Sarah, daugh- ter of James Wood, of Concord, Mass.
FREDERICK ELLSWORTHI HURD, son of George A. and Laura A. (Chapman) Hurd, was born in Wolfboro', N. H., February 25, 1861. Colonel Ellsworth, commander of the Ellsworth Zouaves, was killed in Alexandria at the beginning of the war, and the interest excited by that event induced his parents to adopt his name for their child. He was educated at the public schools of Wolfboro' and at the Boston Latin School. He studied law at the Boston University Law School and in the offices of John H. Hardy, now one of the justices of the Municipal Court of the city of Boston, and of Samuel J. Elder, and was admitted to the Suffolk bar in Octo- ber, 1884. Since his admission up to the present time he has been an assistant dis- triet attorney of Suffolk county under Oliver Stevens, who has many years occupied the position of attorney. Mr. Hurd has devoted himself most assiduously to the study of criminal law and has already won an enviable reputation for skill in the construe- tion and drawing of indictments. It is intimated that some recent indictments in cases where a failure to convict was very generally expected were largely the work of his hands. He is now in a position where he is laying a sure foundation for criminal practice which cannot fail to give him a prominent position at the bar. He is unmarried and has his residence in Boston.
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BIOGRAPHICAL REGISTER.
EDWIN C. GILMAN, son of Samuel and Jeannette (Rae) Gilman, was born in Bos- ton, August 29, 1851, and was educated in the public schools. He studied law in Boston in the offices of Moses Williams and Clement K. Fay, and was admitted to the Suffolk bar June 10, 1873. He established himself in business in Boston, where he engaged in general practice until 1885. A clear head, great perseverance and untiring industry, added to his legal attainments, soon secured for him a foothold in his profession. Like many other lawyers of ability whose services have been sought as permanent advisers of companies or corporations where business is based on patented improvements and inventions, he was selected in 1885 as the attorney of the Lamson Consolidated Store Service Company, and since that time he has devoted himself to the management of the legal business of that corporation. He married Anna B. Hunt of Salem.
EDWARD BANGS, son of Isaac Bangs, was born in Boston, July 16, 1825. Ilis mother was Alicia, daughter of John and Sarah (Province) Le Cain, of Annapolis Royal, in Nova Scotia. He is a descendant of Edward Bangs, who came to Plym- onth in the ship Ann in 1623, and married Lydia, daughter of Robert and Margaret Hicks, who came to Plymouth in the same ship. Robert Hicks was a leather dresser in London and may have been a brother of Sir Baptist Hicks, a mercer of London, who was knighted in London in 1605, and afterwards became Viscount Camden. The house which he built and occupied in Plymouth was taken down in 1826. His second wife, Rebecca, was the mother of Mrs. Bangs. Edward Bangs, the subject of this sketch, graduated at Harvard in 1846, and among his classmates were Francis J. Child, Boylston professor at Harvard, William Sohier Dexter, Dr. Calvin Ellis, Pro- fessor William T. Harris, George Frisbie Hoar, United States senator, Professor George M. Lane, and Professor Charles Eliot Norton. He studied law at the Har- vard Law School, from which he graduated with the degree of LL. B. in 1849, and was admitted to the Suffolk bar October 2, 1850. He was a representative from Watertown in 1865, and is a member of the Massachusetts Historical Society. He is associated in business with Samuel Wells son of ex-Governor Samuel Wells, of Maine, and both he and Mr. Wells have a son in the firm. He married, September 25, 1856, Anne Outram (Hinckley), daughter of David Hodgkinson, of Boston, and great-great-great-granddaughter of Governor Thomas Hinckley, of the Plymouth Colony.
JAMES BRADLEY THAVER, son of Abijah Wyman and Susan (Bradley) Thayer, was born in Haverhill, Mass., January 15, 1831. He graduated at Harvard in 1852, and at the Harvard Law School with the degree of LL.B. in 1856. He was admitted to the Suffolk bar December 3, 1856, and established himself in Boston. He was a master in chancery for Suffolk county from 1864 to 1874, and in 1873 was appointed Royall professor of law at the Harvard Law School to succeed Nathaniel Holmes. In 1883 he was appointed Weld professor of law, and still holds that position. Ile married, April 24, 1861, Sophia Bradford, daughter of Rev. Samuel and Sarah Brad- ford Ripley, of Concord, Mass., and has his residence in Cambridge.
GEORGE HENRY WOODMAN, Son of Dr. George S. and Jane (Gridley) Woodman, was born in Amherst, Mass., December 25, 1851, and was educated at the public schools and under private instruction. He studied law in Northampton in the office of Charles Delano, and in Greenfield and in New York. He was admitted to the
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Franklin county bar in Greenfield in 1876, to the New York bar in 1877, and is now practicing in Boston.
JAMES WALKER AUSTIN, son of William and Lucy (Jones) Austin, was born in Charlestown, Mass., January 8. 1829. His father, a Harvard graduate of 1798, was a member of the Suffolk bar and the author of " Peter Rugg, the Missing Man," and other New England tales, and also of " Letters from London." Colonel Thomas H. Higginson, in one of his essays, calls him " The Precursor of Hawthorne." A vol- ume containing his writings, under the title of " The Literary Papers of William Austin, with a Biographical Sketch by his son, James Walker Austin," was published by Little & Brown, of Boston, in 1890. The subject of this sketch received his early education at the Training Field School in Charlestown, and at Chauncy Hall School in Boston, under the instruction of Gideon F. Thayer and Thomas Cushing. He graduated at Harvard in 1849 in the class with Martin Brimmer, Charles F. Choate, Charles R. Codman, Horace Davis, Abbott Lawrence, Lemuel Shaw, and many others who have become conspicuous in the various walks of life. He graduated at the Harvard Law School with the degree of LL. B. in 1851, and was admitted to the Suffolk bar January 22 in that year. In February, 1851, he sailed for California, and in August visited the Hawaiian Islands, where by the advice of Chief Justice William L. Lee and the late General James F. B. Marshall, he was admitted to the Hawaiian bar in September, 1851, and in 1852 was appointed district attorney for the Second Judicial District, holding that position several years. He was twice chosen a mem- ber of the Hawaiian Parliament and was for a time the speaker of that body. By a special act of the Legislature he was appointed one of the commissioners for the codification of the laws and the civil and penal codes of the Hawaiian Islands, and the results of the labors of the commission were published in 1859 and 1869. They were modeled largely after the Massachusetts statutes. He was for several years the guardian of Luualilo, who afterwards became king, and in 1868 was appointed justice of the Supreme Court, holding that office with Elisha H. Allen, the late Hawaiian minister at Washington. In 1872 he returned to Boston for the education of his children, after a residence of twenty-one years in the Hawaiian Islands, and is now in practice at the Suffolk bar. He married, July 18, 1857, Ariana E., daughter of John S. Sleeper, late mayor of Roxbury, and has had five children, four sons born in Honolulu, and one daughter born in Boston. One of the sons, Walter Austin, graduated at Harvard in 1887 and is now a member of the Suffolk bar.
WILLIAM LE BARON PUTNAM, son of Israel and Sarah Emery Frost Putnam, was born in Bath, Me., May 26, 1835. He received his early education at the Bath High School, and graduated at Bowdoin College in 1855. He studied law in Bath in the office of Bronson & Sewall and was admitted to the bar at the December term in 1857 of the Supreme Judicial Court in Sagadahoc county. After the law was passed by Congress increasing the number of circuit judges, he was appointed judge of the First Circuit, including Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts and Rhode Island, March 17, 1892. As a judge of a court holding its sessions in Boston, he is entitled to a place in this register. He married, May 29, 1862, Octavia Bowman, daughter of Nathaniel and Sarah Dearborn (Roberts) Robinson, at Augusta, Me.
JOSEPH BENNETT, son of William and Charlotte (Bennett) Bennett, was born in Bridgeton, Me., May 26, 1840. He is descended from George Bennett, of Boston, who
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is mentioned in the book of possessions. He received his early education at the public schools, and having fitted for college at the Bridgeton Academy and at the Boston Latin School, entered Bowdoin College in 1860. He left college in his junior year, but subsequently received his degree out of course. In 1863 he came to Boston and studied law in the office of Asa Cottrell, and was admitted to the Suffolk bar March 6, 1866. After his admission to the bar he established himself in practice in Boston, and was for several years associated with Mr. Cottrell in business. In 1868 he was admitted to practice in the Circuit Court of the United States, and in 1881 was ad- mitted to the bar of the Supreme Court of the United States. Having taken up his residence in Brighton, then included within Middlesex county, he was in 1820 ap- pointed trial justice for that county, and after the annexation of Brighton to Boston and the establishment of the Municipal Court for the Brighton District in 1873, he was appointed special justice of that court. In 1879 he was chosen a member of the House of Representatives for Ward 25, and resigned his office of special justice. While a member of the House he served on the Committee on Constitutional Amend- ments, and drafted and introduced the bill since known as the bill to prevent the double taxation of mortgaged property. Notwithstanding the serious opposition to the bill, instigated by the assessors throughout the Commonwealth, he succeeded in carrying it through the House, to meet its defeat in the Senate. In 1881 and 1882 he was a member of the Senate, and as chairman of the Committee on Taxation re- ported the same bill, and its final passage by both houses was largely due to his earnest efforts. While in the Senate, in the above years, he served also as chairman of the Committee on the Election Laws, chairman of the Committee on Redistricting the Commonwealth into Congressional Districts, and as a member of the Judiciary Committee. In 1891 he was again a member of the Senate, and served as chairman of the Committee on Railroads, chairman of the Committee on Redistricting the State, and as chairman of the Committee on Reform in the Registration of Land Titles. After his service in the House of Representatives in 1879 he was reappointed special justice of the Municipal Court for the Brighton District, the position he had resigned when chosen representative, and held that office until his resignation in 1881. The service of Mr. Bennett upon two joint committees on redistricting the State, presents probably the only instance in which one man has twice been chairman of this committee. In Brighton, both before and since its annexation to Boston, he has been an active and influential citizen, seeking at all times the welfare of the community in which his lot has been cast. He was a member of the School Board of the town before its annexation, and a member of the Board of Trustees of the Public Library now merged with the Public Library of Boston. He married, May 26, 1866, Elizabeth R. Lefavor, of Boston, and has three children, one of whom, Joseph I. Bennett, is a member of the Suffolk bar.
JOHN HENRY COLBY, son of John Freeman and Ruthy (Cloutman) Colby, was born in Randolph, Mass., June 13, 1862. His father, a graduate of Dartmouth in 1855, was appointed, after leaving college in 1859, principal of the Latin School in Ran- dolph, but afterwards became a prominent member of the Suffolk bar, and died in Hillsboro', N. H., June 2, 1890. The subject of this sketch received his early edu- cation in the Boston public schools, and graduated at Dartmouth in 1885. He studied law at the Boston University Law School, from which he graduated in 1889, and in
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the office of his father in Boston, and was admitted to the Suffolk bar in June, 1889. He established himself in Boston in partnership with his father, and continued with hini until the latter's death. He is a trustee of the North End Savings Bank. He is in good practice and has already secured that confidence on the part of the business community which is so essential to a successful professional career. He married in Boston, October 8, 1891, Annie Evarts Cornelius.
SANFORD HARRISON DUDLEY, Son of Harrison and Elizabeth (Prentiss) Dudley, was born in China, Me., January 14, 1842. He is a lineal descendant of Thomas Dud- ley, governor of Massachusetts colony in 1634, 1640, 1645 and 1650. His parents moved to Fairhaven, Mass., in 1857, and afterwards to New Bedford. He graduated at Harvard in 1867 and at the Harvard Law School with the degree of LL. B. in 1871. Ifis study of law was begun in New Bedford in the office of Thomas D. Eliot and Thomas M. Stetson. After leaving the Law School he was admitted to the Suffolk bar July 21, 1871. While pursuing his studies in New Bedford he taught the New Bedford High School until he entered the Law School in 1870. After his admission to the bar he established himself in Boston and has continued in practice at the Suf- folk bar up to the present time. Having taken up his residence in Cambridge in 1870 he has continued a citizen of that city and has been in many ways identified with its interests. He has been a member of the city government, is one of the original mem- bers of the Cambridge Club, and as a member of the Universalist church at North Cam- bridge has been an active participant in the various movements and enterprises of that organization. He is and has been also the president of the Universalist Club, the representative organization of the Universalist denomination in the Commonwealth, and vice-president of the Universalist Sunday-school Union. He married, April 2, 1869, Laura Nye, daughter of John M. Howland, of Fairhaven.
GEORGE W. WILLIAMS, colored, was born in Ohio about 1838, and was in the United States service during the war. In later years he resided in Washington, D. C., in Plymouth, Mass., and Boston, a large part of the time engaged in the preparation for the press of two works afterwards published, "The History of Negro Troops in the War of the Rebellion " and " The History of the Negro Race in America." He was admitted to the Suffolk bar in 1883, and died in England in 1890 or 1891.
JOHN M. WAY was born in Rochester, Vt., May 29, 1829. He was the son of poor parents and when a boy went to New York to seek employment, arriving there with thirty-seven cents in his pocket. He obtained a position as a hotel clerk, but his em- ployer failed and he came to Boston as poor as he went to New York. He studied law and was admitted to the Norfolk county bar. He established himself in Roxbury and has always since made that place his residence. His office has been many years in Boston and in that city he has been engaged in enterprises which gave him a large fortune. He was a member of the Common Council of Roxbury before the annexation of that city to Boston, and has been twice an unsuccessful candidate of the Democratic party for senator. He had extensive land interests in Chicago, Kansas City and Boston, and also at Pigeon Cove near Gloucester, where he had his summer home. He was junior counsel with G. A. Somerby in the famous Alley murder trial in which the defendant was acquitted. He married in 1848, Sarah L. Read, who was the mother of two children, John M. Way, jr., and Clarence Way. In 1860 he married second, Fanny Damon Thomas, of Wayland, Mass., who has been the
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