USA > Maine > Biographical encyclopedia of Maine of the nineteenth century > Part 43
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From Turner Mr. Whitman removed to New Gloucester in September, 1799. Repu- tation, popularity, and business continuing to increase, he determined to transfer his ener- gies to a wider field of operation. In January, 1807, he established his residence at Portland, the largest place in the District, and the most prosperous. There he enjoyed a very exten- sive practice. The wealth and population of the locality were rapidly increasing. Lawyers shared with merchants in the growing gains. Entries for civil actions rose to large figures. In the latter part of the year numerous failures occurred in consequence of the embargo and non-intercourse measures of the General Government. Suits were multiplied.
Mr. Whitman's name appears in the first volume of Massachusetts Reports in 1805, and thereafter appears in these valuable records of jurisprudence, and in those of Maine on matters of high moment until his retirement from the judiciary in 1848. Solid and practi- cal, cool and impartial, penetrating and just, he stripped off all disguises, and held up facts to the light of simple truth. In argument he was lucid, logical, conclusive. Mere rhetoric and diffuseness he despised. In talking to the jury his manner was that of a friend anxious to show the real merits of the points in controversy. Tall and manly in person, honest and intelligent in countenance, his addresses invariably carried great weight and force. He was employed in advocating the claims of American merchants under the treaty with Spain of 1819, and attended the meetings of the commissioners at Washington in that interest. He was no less successful in pleading the cause of his clients under the convention with France of July, 1831, by which that country appropriated twenty-five million francs to pay Ameri- can claims.
Mr. Whitman was constitutionally averse to the labors of authorship. Nevertheless, in 1832 he printed for his own use and for private distribution an octavo pamphlet of forty- four pages, containing the American genealogy of the Whitman family.
Numerous students sought his instructions. Among these was Simon . Greenleaf, afterward the erudite and famous professor in the Harvard Law School at Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Political offices naturally sought his incumbency. In 1806 he was nominated for the representation in Congress of the Cumberland District, but was defeated at the polls. In
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1808 he was again pitted against the same antagonist, and was victorious by about three hundred majority. Three sessions of Congress were held during this term. In the third of these, the rupture of negotiations with Great Britain, the renewal of the non-intercourse system, and subjects germane to commercial relations with the two great belligerent nations, were the topics principally discussed. Mr. Whitman acted with the Federal Party, but was not conspicuous in debate. In the election for the Twelfth Congress in 1810 the votcs were equally divided between Ezekiel Whitman and William Widgcry. On the next trial, in April, Widgery was elected by a small majority. This result was as pleasing, and prob- ably more pleasing to Mr. Whitman than success would have been. Hc greatly preferred professional to political activity, and the quiet of private to the agitations of public life. From 1811 to 1817, inclusive, he sedulously devoted himself to business. More than half of all the causes presented to the court at the law-terms in Cumberland County were argued by him. In 1815 and 1816 he was a member of the Executive Council of Massachusetts ; and in the latter year was a member of the Brunswick Convention, held on the moot question of the separation of Maine from Massachusetts. He received eighty-five votes for the presidency of that body, against ninety-seven given to William King. The crroncous and vicious action of the convention was wholly discountenanced and repudiated by him.
In 1816 Mr. Whitman was elected to the Fifteenth Congress, and afterward to the Sixteenth and Seventeenth. His experience, integrity, and provcd judgment gave him great influence in the National councils. The nation had just emerged from a second severe conflict with the mother-country. A new course of polity, necessitated by altered circumstances, had to be initiated. Internal Improvements, a Bankrupt Law, Revolu- tionary Pensions, Renewal of the Charter of the U. S. Bank, and a Protective Tariff for our growing manufacturcs were among the prominent measures proposed. The Florida question and its complications led to long and bitter disputes. But the most exciting dis- cussions grew out of the attempts to limit the area of slavery. Maine in 1819 had applied for admission to the Union ; but her request was granted with reluctance, relieved only by the admission of Missouri without restrictions. The Southern vote was unanimous in favor of the latter. "The great slaveholders in the House gnawed their lips and clinched their fists as they heard" the eloquent opposition speeches of Rufus King of New York. Coming events already cast their shadows before. "Time only can show," said Mr. Adams, "whether the contest may ever with equal advantage be renewed." Had Northern Representatives been united in their antagonism to the extension of slavery, all subsequent calamities might, in Mr. Whitman's opinion, have been averted. He strongly advocated the reduction of the tariff and the enactment of a bankrupt law, and "literally stormed the character of Jack- son" in denouncing his invasion of Florida as an arbitrary action, and a violation of neutral and National law. His friends often urged him to prepare his speeches for the press, but this hc invariably declined to do.
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When, on the 4th of February, 1822, the new State of Maine established a Court of Common Pleas for the State, consisting of a Chief Justice and two Associate Justices, Mr. Whitman was appointed Chief Justice by Governor Parris. Accepting the appointment, he resigned his seat in Congress, retired from political life, entered upon his new duties, and discharged them with entire acceptability to the legal profession and the general public, until December, 1841, when he was appointed Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, in suc- cession to Judge Weston. The latter office he resigned in October, 1848. He was then in the seventy-third year of his age, but possessed of unimpaired intellectual strength. After an incumbency of the judiciary extending over twenty-six and a half years, his re- tirement was looked upon as a public loss and misfortune.
As a judge, Mr. Whitman was calm, self-possessed, and dignified. The fullest oppor- tunities of presenting their cases were allowed to litigants. His views of the value of evi- dence were always clearly presented to juries. Sophistry, subterfuge, and fraud were indignantly scourged under his administration. The incarnation of honesty himself, he had nothing in common with trickery and guile. His judicial opinions, embodied in the Maine Reports, from the twenty-first to the twenty-ninth volume, are devoid of verbosity and meretricious adornment. Clear as the sunlight, it is well-nigh impossible not to understand his meaning.
Judge Whitman was no less popular than respected. His was the popularity desired and admirably described by Lord Mansfield as "that which follows, not that which is run after-that popularity which, sooner or later, never fails to do justice to the pursuit of noble ends by noble means." Gentle, affectionate, and unobtrusive, he was yet fully equal to any and every emergency. After his retirement from the bench he still read much and wrote little. In March, 1852, his wife-the companion of fifty-three eventful years-was stricken by paralysis, and died in a few hours. The loss was irreparable. The desolate home no longer contented him. He longed for the region of his birth and early life; and in Octo- ber, 1852, returned to his native place at East Bridgewater, and there calmly awaited the summons to stand before the tribunal of that Judge by whom motives are sifted and actions infallibly weighed.
Ezekiel Whitman was married on the 31st of October, 1799, to Hannah, daughter of Cushing Mitchell of East Bridgewater, and sister of his legal instructor, Nathan Mitchell. She was the mother of three children-a son and two daughters. Mrs. Whitman died on the 28th of March, 1852.
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ODDARD, CHARLES W., of Portland, ex-Judge of the Superior Court, was born in Portland, December 29, 1825, in the house built by his father, where the judge now lives. The family traces its paternal ancestry to Ed- ward Goddard, a farmer in Norfolk County, England, who sided with the Parliamentary forces during the civil war. His son William, a London grocer, emigrated to Massachusetts in 1665. His son Joseph, who came over the next year, settled in Brookline, where he died in 1728, and was interred in the burying-ground adjoining Dr. Piercc's church. The farm which he acquired is still in possession of the family ; being at present the property of Abijah W. Goddard, his descendant in the fourth gener- ation.
Dr. John Goddard, the grandfather of the judge, was born in Brookline in 1756, graduated at Harvard College in 1777, and died in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, where most of his life had been passed, in 1829.
He was a physician of eminence, and later in life one of the foremost business men in the State. Although deeply interested in political affairs, and for a generation a political leader, he had a singular aversion for public life, repeatedly refusing the nomination of the dominant party for Governor, and in 1813 declining a full term in the U. S. Senate, to which he had been elected by the Legislature.
The parents of our subject were Henry and Eliza Leavitt Payson Goddard, both natives of Portsmouth. His father removed to Portland in 1820, where for several years he was engaged in business as an importer of hardware, dying in 187.1, at the age of eighty-six. His mother was a grand-niece of Timothy Pickering of Salem, Massachusetts, Secretary of State, Secretary of War, and Postmaster-General under the Administrations of Washington and Adams, and afterward Representative and Senator in Congress from Massachusetts ..
Judge Goddard's preliminary education was acquired at private schools in Portland. In 1840 he entered Bowdoin College. After his graduation in 1844 he fitted himself for professional life in the office of Howard & Shepley at Portland, and in the Dane Law School of Harvard University. Both members of that firm were afterward elevated to the bench-the senior to that of the Supreme Judicial Court of Maine, and the junior to that of the Circuit Court of the United States.
Mr. Goddard was admitted to the Cumberland bar November 10, 1846, and at once entered into practice in Portland as a partner of the late James Merrill, Esq. In 1850 Mr. Goddard removed to Lewiston Falls. In 1858 he entered into partnership with Henry C. Goodman, Esq., now of Bangor, a connection which continued for three years.
In 1866 Mr. Goddard returned to Portland, associating himself professionally with Thomas H. Haskell, Esq., now one of the Justices of the Supreme Judicial Court of Maine.
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Judge Goddard's first Presidential vote was given for General Taylor, and his political affiliations have always been with the Whig and Republican Parties.
Upon the organization of Androscoggin County in 1854, he was appointed by Gov- ernor Crosby attorney for the new county, and the same year was elected to the same office for a term of three years.
Declining a re-election, he was in 1857 chosen to represent the county of Cumberland in the State Senate, and served on its most important committees, being chairman of the Committee on the Judiciary. In 1858 he was re-elected Senator, and at the ensuing ses- sion he was chosen President of the Senate.
In 1861 Mr. Goddard was appointed by President Lincoln Consul-General of the United States at Constantinople, embarking for that port in October. In 1864 he resigned his post, returning to the United States in August. During his service at the Turkish capital, at the request of our Minister Resident, the Hon. E. J. Morris, he proposed a code for the regulation of the U. S. Consular courts of Turkey and its dependencies.
This code was approved by Congress, and was afterward substantially applied to all our Consular courts in Mohammedan and pagan countries.
In 1867 the Legislature of Maine authorized the appointment of five commissioners to devise a plan for the equalization of the municipal war debts, amounting to more than twelve million dollars, and their assumpton by the State; and Governor Chamberlain appointed Mr. Goddard chairman of the commission, his colleagues being ex-Governor Anson P. Morrill and Hons. Nathan Dane, Hiram Ruggles, and Charles R. Whidden.
The commission reported the assumption of about three million dollars by a con- stitutional amendment. The Legislature of 1868 accepted the report and passed the amendment, which was adopted by the people the same year, thereby disposing of a per- plexing and troublesome question of several years' standing, to the mutual satisfaction of all parties.
In February, 1868, the Legislature created the Superior Court for the County of Cum- berland, with common-law jurisdiction nearly equal to that of the Supreme Court, and Mr. Goddard was appointed by Governor Chamberlain the justice for the new court. In Octo- ber, 1871, after holding thirty-one jury terms, Judge Goddard was, upon the death of Judge Davis, Postmaster of Portland, appointed his successor by President Grant, which office he held for three terms, until March, 1884. In 1872 Judge Goddard succeeded Chief Justice Appleton as Professor of Medical Jurisprudence at Bowdoin College, and continued to fill that chair in the Faculty of the Medical School of Maine.
In 1881, by Legislative resolve, Judge Goddard was appointed sole commissioner to revise the public laws of the State of Maine. His revision was accepted by the succeeding Legislature, which reappointed him to complete it by the incorporation of the new laws, under the supervision of a Legislative committee.
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At an adjourned session in August, 1883, the completed work was adopted, and the thanks of the Legislature tendered to Judge Goddard by a joint resolve of the Houses.
Mr. Goddard was married to Caroline R. Little, daughter of the late Hon. Thomas B. Little of Danville, June 2, 1852 ; she died September 18, 1853, and no issue of their mar- riage survives. He was again married to Rowena C., daughter of ex-Governor Anson P. Morrill of Readfield, November 10, 1857; they have had seven children, six of whom survive.
AVEIS, CHARLES STEWART, of Portland, Maine. Born in Portland, May, 10, 1788. His father, Ebenezer Daveis, was born in Newton, New Hampshire, about the year 1753. The latter was a distinguished Revolu- tionary soldier, who flew to arms on the memorable 19th of April, 1775, shared in the battle of Bunker Hill, served in many following engagements through the whole of the desperate struggle for independence, and fought in every conflict where Washington himself was present. At the close of the war he retired to civil life with the rank of lieutenant. Governor Benjamin Pierce of New Hampshire, father of President Franklin Pierce, served in the patriot army with Lieutenant, or, as he was afterward called, Captain Daveis ; and, in a letter to Charles S. Daveis, dated July 24, 1834, gives the following interesting reminiscences of the sturdy hero :
" While I write, the recollection of your gallant father is constantly recurring to me. As he died when you were young, and few individuals now living can speak of him to you from a long and intimate acquaintance in early life, I will avail myself of this opportunity to give you some of my own recollec- tions. Our acquaintance commenced in the spring of 1777, at Bemis Heights, near the ground where the battles were afterward fought. He could not at that time, I think, have been more than twenty years of age; and his appearance is at this moment fresh in my recollection. His face was fine, indica- tive of great moral firmness; and when interested upon any subject his countenance was lit up with a high degree of animation. His hair was black, but, as was the custom of that day, always powdered when on duty; eyes dark, and full of expression. He was about six feet and one inch in height; his figure perfectly symmetrical, and his motions those of an elegant and accomplished soldier. Your father, like myself, entered the service young. In 1777 we were sergeants in the same brigade-he in Colonel Wesson's, and myself in Colonel Jackson's Regiment. The regiments encamped and served side by side, and we were intimate from that period to the close of the war. We received our promotions about the same time, and generally served in the same grade. Your father was deservedly beloved by all who were so fortunate as to make his acquaintance. In habits he was remarkably correct, and every duty devolved upon him was sure to be performed with promptness and alacrity. In a word, it was con- ceded by all that your father, in mind and in heart, as in person, combined what a gallant officer and finished gentleman should be."
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Captain Daveis was married in July, 1785, to Priscilla, daughter of Deacon Ebenezer and Priscilla Griffin of Bradford. He then removed to Falmouth, now called Portland. There his wife died, and on the 28th of July, 1787, he was married at Portland to her younger sister, Mehetabel, by whom he had one son, Charles Stewart Daveis.
Captain Daveis died on the 14th of November, 1799, just one month before his great Revolutionary chieftain. Thus, at the age of eleven years, his only son was left to the sole care of the excellent widow. After the reception of a rudimentary education in his native town, the boy was sent in June, 1802, to Phillips Academy, Andover, and was there fitted for college. In 1803 he entered Bowdoin College, and graduated in 1807, at the head of its second class.
After leaving college, in August, 1807, Mr. Daveis entered the law-office of Nicholas Emery at Portland, and after three years of diligent study was admitted to the bar, as an attorney of the Court of Common Pleas. Then, opening an office in Portland, he began his long and brilliant professional career in that beautiful city. Well versed in the princi- ples of common law, and also in the less-known branches of equity and admiralty, he took at once, a high rank among very able lawyers, and distinguished himself by the learning of his legal arguments, and the convincing power of his addresses in jury cases. Judge Story held his acquirements in the practice of equity in high estimation, and was also his warm personal friend. Mr. Daveis was also an eminent admiralty lawyer, and fearlessly espouscd, even at the risk of his personal safety, the cause of sailors, who when at sea were looked upon as little better than slaves. This condition of things he, in connection with Judge Ware of the U. S. District Court, did much .to amend.
In the dispute relative to the Northeastern Boundary of Maine, which had bcen pend- ing for many years between the United States and Great Britain, he bore an influential part. This controversy was brought to a crisis in 1827 by the arrest of John Baker, a citizen of Maine, who was seized on his own land by the Provincial authorities of New Brunswick, and carried to Fredericton for trial. Mr. Daveis was promptly despatched thither by Governor Lincoln to effect Baker's release, but although treated with marked politeness, was unsuccessful. Baker was tried and convicted in spite of all remonstrances. On the 31st of January, 1828, Mr. Daveis made his report on all the facts and circum- stances of the case to Governor Lincoln.
The controversy, in accordance with the Treaty of Ghent, by virtue of a convention between the two governments, was then submitted to the arbitration of the King of the Netherlands. Mr. Daveis, at the earnest solicitation of Judge Preble of Portland, one of the Commissioners appointed to prepare the American case, consented to accept an ap- pointment as special confidential agent of the United States, to take charge of the mate- rials of the American case, and to lay them before the arbitrator. Sailing from New York on the IIth of January, 1830, he reached the Hague on the 13th of March, and there
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satisfactorily completed his duties. Thence he made a brief trip to England and Scotland, attended the courts at Westminster Hall and the debates of Parliament, made the acquaintance of some of the most eminent men of the period, and on the 11th of July sailed from Liverpool for Boston, which he reached in safety, after a long voyage.
The award of the Netherlandish monarch proved to be wholly unsatisfactory, and was not recognized by the United States. A bill was introduced into Congress for the survey of the disputed border-line by National authority. On the 25th of April, 1838, Mr. Davies was sent as a special agent of Maine to secure its passage. Reaching Washington on the roth of May, he addressed himself vigorously to the work allotted. Mr. Webster and Mr. Buchanan, with others, were induced to espouse his cause. The question at issue was shown to be one of National importance, and that it involved considerations of peace and war. Governor Kent was delighted with his success, and "with the skill, and indefatigable and persevering and able manner," in which he presented and enforced the rights of Maine. Mr. Daveis's report of his mission was gratefully received by the Legislature as well as the Governor.
Lengthened consultations of American statesmen and equally prolonged negotiations with British diplomats followed. Mr. Daveis calmly and unflinchingly asserted the rights of his State ; was called to a private conference with Daniel Webster, the Secretary of State, on the merits, aspects, and issues of the controversy ; and although he took no part in the final adjustment of the matter with Lord Ashburton, which resulted in the Treaty of Washington, his personal influence was powerfully felt in the stipulations of that document. He could not give his cordial approval to all its terms, but wisely acquiesced in the eventual settlement.
In politics Mr. Daveis was a Federalist, and afterward an ardent Whig. He ad- mitted the justice of the war of 1812. In 1840 he was elected to the State Senate, and served as chairman of the Joint Special Committee on the Northeastern Boundary, and also as chairman of the Joint Standing Committee on the Judiciary. In 1848 he sup- ported the Presidential candidacy of General Taylor, but was unsuccessful in his efforts to induce the State to cast its vote for that political leader.
Engrossed by public and professional duties, Mr. Daveis yet found time for the literary pursuits in which he delighted and excelled. His familiarity with classical lore was remarkable, and his tenacious memory always held its treasures at command. He was a frequent contributor to the newspapers and periodicals, and occasionally to the North American Review. His public addresses were charming, no less by the grace of his man- ner than by the beauty of his language. Legal studies left less time than he desired for such recreations. "My Lord Coke," he wrote to his friend James Savage in 1809, " has proved almost too much for Dan Apollo, and the charms of belles-lettres have been
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almost lost in the shades of black-letter." His services as orator were frequently called into requisition at occasions of great public interest, and especially at those of historical character.
Mr. Daveis was an ardent student of American history, and collected materials for an important contribution to it, in the form of a biography of General Knox, the com- pletion of which was prevented by manifold duties, and more particularly by a disabling attack of paralysis.
To his Alma Mater he was a loving son and faithful servitor. In 1820 he was chosen a member of the Board of Overseers, of which for several years he held the post of vice- president. In 1836 he was elected one of the trustees, and retained that office until obliged by failing health to resign it in 1864. Of the Phi Beta Kappa Society he was a member, for many years the corresponding secretary, and subsequently vice-president and president. On the Ist of September, 1835, he was chosen the first president of the newly formed Alumni Society, and delivered an oration, which was characterized by Judge Story as "full of strong and vivid thought." In September, 1839, at the inauguration of Presi- dent Woods, he "delivered a Latin address, which was responded to by that gentleman. He also delivered an able and valuable address on the history of the college, at the dedica- tion of the new King Chapel at Brunswick, on the Ist of September, 1854.
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