History of Cumberland Co., Maine, Part 23

Author: Clayton, W. W. (W. Woodford)
Publication date: 1880
Publisher: Philadelphia, Everts & Peck
Number of Pages: 780

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Mr. Storer continued with Mr. Symmes five years, and was admitted to the bar in 1805. He commenced practice in Portland, where he had the benefit of a large circle of business connections. Ilis progress was steady, and for more than fifty years he pursued a uniform, consistent, up- right course of practice, which won for him universal con- fidence and respect. He was a judieions, honorable, and successful practitioner ; was mneh employed in the admin- istration of estates, as executor, guardian, and trustee, and in all these relations was faithful to the rights of his clients and of all concerned.

At the time of his death, which occurred June 24, 1860, at the age of seventy-seven years laeking eighteen days, Mr. Storer was the oldest member of the Cumberland bar with the single exception of Jonathan Morgan, who was then eighty-two years old. Mr. Storer took great interest in publie improvements, particularly in the railroads which have extended their advantages to various parts of the State. He married, in 1811, Mary Barrett, of Greenfield, Mass., a nicce of Judge Barrett Potter, of Portland, and granddaughter of Col. John Barrett, of Boston ; but left no children.

Elisha Pomeroy Cutler, a young lawyer of brilliant talents and fine promise, was admitted the same year with Mr. Storer. Ile was the son of Dr. Robert Cutler, a distin- guished physician of Amherst, N. H., where he was born in 1780. He graduated at Williams College in 1798, and pursued his legal studies with Judge Samuel Dana, of Gro- ton, Mass. In 1805 he opened an office at North Yar- mouth, in this county. The town being settled by people of New England stock, and being thrifty and flourishing, Mr. Cutler found it a good place for his practice, which ex- tended to the shire-town and to adjoining towns of the county. He had not been three years in the place before he was elected to represent the town in the Legislature, and was re-elected the two following years, 1809 and 1810. During this period he distinguished himself as an able debater, and would have made a figure in political life, as well as at the bar, had he not been cut down in the prime of manhood by a pulmonary disease which terminated his days in August, 1813, at the age of thirty-three.

In 1811, Mr. Cutler married Elizabeth, daughter of Capt. Judah Delano, of Portland, by whom he had one son, a merchant in Boston. His widow married Josiah W. Mitchell, of Freeport, a lawyer and friend of Mr. Cutler's.

Horatio Southgate was admitted to the Cumberland bar at the October term of Common Pleas held at New Glou- eester in 1802. He was the sou of Dr. Robert Southgate. of Scarborough, who was also one of the judges of the

Common Pleas, and who came from Leicester, Mass., on horseback, with all his worldly goods in a pair of saddle- bags. This worthy man, the father of several beautiful and accomplished daughters, died in 1833, at the age of ninety-two. His wife, the mother of Horatio and the other children, was Mary, daughter of Richard King, of Sear- borough, and sister of the eminent statesman, Rufus King.

Horatio was born in Scarborough in August, 1781, and at the age of thirteen was placed at the famous Exeter Academy, where he had for his associates Henry Wads- worth, who gallantly perished before Tripoli in 1803; Lev- erett Stonestall, of Salem, Mass. ; the accomplished Joseph S. Buckminster, afterwards pastor of Brattle Street Church, Boston; Augustine and Bushrod Washington, from Vir- ginia, and Daniel Webster. After his preparatory course at this celebrated school, he entered the law-office of Salmon Chase, of Portland, where he studied his profession, and was in regular course admitted to the bar. Ile opened his office in the Canal Bank building, or in a building which stood on its site, and practiced here (attending to business part of the time in Scarborough) till 1815, when he was appointed register of probate for Cumberland County. Ile remained in this office twenty-one years, discharging its duties with singular fidelity, exactness, and promptitude. In 1830 he prepared the " Probate Manual, containing forms adapted to the practice of probate courts in the State of Maine," also the laws relating to the subject-a valuable and much-needed hand-book.

After the death of his father, Mr. Southgate removed to Scarborough, and took possession of the old homestead, where he continued to reside till his death.

CHAPTER XVIL

BENCH AND BAR-(Continued).

Members admitted since 1808 -- Sketches of Prominent Lawyers and Judges-Doctors of Laws-Attorneys and Counselors-at-Law practicing in the County in 1879.

GENERAL SAMUEL FESSENDEN, SO long and favorably known as a leading member of the Cumberland bar, was born in Fryeburg, Me., July 16, 1784. John Fessenden, the first of the name in this country, was " admitted a free- man" of Cambridge, Mass., in 1641. The branch of the family in Maine descended from William Fessenden, born in 1693, married to Martha Wyeth in 1716, and had eleven children. His oldlest son, William, graduated at Ilar- vard ; married Mary Palmer, March 31, 1740, and had six children, one of whom, William, was the father of Samuel. Ile was born in 1747 (O.S.); graduated at Harvard in 1786, and was settled the first minister of the First Parish in Fryeburg, Oet. 11, 1775, in which office he continued about thirty years, till his death, May 6, 1805.

Samuel Fessenden, the distinguished subject of this sketch, graduated at Dartmouth College in 1806. He studied law in the office of Judge Dana, of Fryeburg; was admitted to the bar in 1809. and opened an office in New Gloucester, where Judge Weston and Daniel Howard were

HISTORY OF CUMBERLAND COUNTY, MAINE.

then in practice. This was in the central part of the county, and was then a place of considerable trade. Professor Green- leaf at that time practiced in the adjoining town of Gray, and was Gen. Fessenden's chief competitor. Their foren- sie encounters were often scenes of great interest, and lasted long after they had entered the larger arena of prac- tice at Portland. In learning and ability it was difficult to choose between them, although each had his different mode of attack and defense, and his own peculiar manner of pre- senting and arguing causes. Greenleaf was keen, ingenious, insinuating, and fluent ; Fessenden solid, moderate in wan- ner, pertinacious, and persevering. Both had about equal weight and influence with the jury.

Gen. Fessenden moved to Portland in 1822, and formed a partnership with Thomas Amory Deblois, who had studied law with Samuel A. Bradley at Fryeburg, and been admitted in 1816. He had practiced first a short time in Windham before moving to Portland. This part- nership continued till 1854, when it was dissolved, and Daniel Fessenden, son of the general, took the place of Deblois. The latter firm continued till Daniel Fessenden was elected clerk of the courts in 1861. The general then, after fifty years of laborious, active, and eminently success- ful professional service, retired to the quiet scenes of private life. In 1864 he was the oldest living member but one of the Cumberland bar. For many years he was the honored president of the Cumberland Bar Association. He was a ripe scholar, and a man of no little literary ability. He was a representative from New Gloucester to the General Court of Massachusetts in 1814-19. It was while he was a rep- resentative in 1814, discussing the proposition to send dele- gates to the Hartford Convention, that he made his famous speech against the national administration, in which he ut- tered the memorable declaration that he was " ready to take the constitution in one hand and a sword in the other, and demand at Washington the constitutional rights of the peo- ple." He was Senator in 1818, and it was during that year that he had his memorable controversy with Gen. King, a Senator from Lincoln County.

Four of Gen. Fessenden's sons were educated for the bar, three for medicine, and one for the pulpit. Three were in Congress in 1864, viz. : Samuel C., a Representa- tative from the Third Congressional District of Maine ; William Pitt, the distinguished Senator from Maine; and Thomas A. D., elected from the Oxford district, to till the unexpired term of Judge Walton.

William Pitt Fessenden, the oldest son, was born in 1806, and carly manifested remarkable mental powers. Ile entered college before he was thirteen, and graduated before he was seventeen years of age. He studied his pro- fession with Charles S. Daveis, of Portland, whose able counsel and superior line of practice cultivated and devel- oped that activity of mind, those brilliant powers which carried him with undeviating step to the head of the bar in Maine, and to the leadership in the Senate of the United States, and would have given him the highest seat on the bench of the Supreme Court of the State if he would have been willing to sacrifice the noble aspirations of political for the quiet and solid rewards of judicial office.

Mr. Fessenden was elected first to Congress in 1840 ;

he had been sent to the Legislature in 1832 and in 1840, and was four times subsequently returned to that body after his first term in Congress. In 1854 he was elected to the Senate of the United States; was re-elected in 1859. and continued in the Senate till he was appointed Secretary of the Treasury in 1864, in which office he remained till March, 1865, when he was again elected to the Senate, and remained Senator until his death in 1869.

ALBION K. PARRES, the second Governor of Maine, was born at Hebron, in this State, Jan. 19, 1788. Ile was the seventh in descent from Thomas Parris, of London, through Jolın, Thomas, Thomas (2d), Benjamin, and Samuel, his father. He graduated in 1806, at Dartmouth College, and studied law with Chief Justice Whitman, first at New Glou- cester and then at Portland, completing his preparation in the latter place, and being admitted to the Cumberland bar in 1809. He immediately established himself in Paris, Oxford Co. From that period his career in politics and in the line of his profession was one almost, if not entirely, unprecedented in the history of the county. He went on from one office to another in rapid succession, in some instances new places being found for him before he had fulfilled the time of the old. In 1811 he was appointed county attorney for Oxford County. In 1813 he was elected to the General Court of Massachusetts. In 1814 he was chosen Senator for the counties of Oxford and Somerset, and in November of the same year was elected member of Congress; he was re-elected to the Fifteenth Congress, and while discharging the duties of Representative was appointed judge of the United States District Court for Maine, as the successor of Judge Sewall. In this year (1818) he moved to Portland, and the next year (1819) was chosen a delegate to the convention to frame a consti- tution for the new State. On the admission of the State into the Union (1820 ) he was appointed judge of probate for Cumberland County (at the same time he was holding the office of United States District Judge), to succeed the veteran Samuel Freeman, who had held the office sixteen years as the successor of Judge Gorham. In 1821 he was elected Governor of Maine, and, by successive elections, con- tinued to hold the office five years. He was very popular, and his administration satisfactory. At its expiration he was elected to the United States Senate in the place of John Holmes, whose term of office expired March 3, 1827. In June, 1828, he was appointed Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the State, in the place of JJudge Preble, who resigned on account of his appointment as United States Minister to the Hague.

It is but justice to say that Judge Parris received un- qualified approval from the bar and the community for the ability, promptness, and impartiality of his decisions. But hardly had he ripened his judicial powers and prepared the way for fame on the bench when he was called by President Van Buren, in 1836, to the office of Secoud Comptroller of the Treasury of the United States,- an honorable position and one of more emolument and case than he had hitherto held. He conducted the affairs of this office with his usual promptness and fidelity for a period of fourteen years,- through the administrations of Van Buren, Harrison, Tyler, Polk, and Taylor,-retiring and returning to Portland in

CUMBERLAND BENCH AND BAR.

1850. In 1852 he was chosen mayor of the city, the dis- charge of the duties of which office was his last public service. Ile declined a second nomination, and for the remainder of his life reposed quietly on his many and well-earned laurels. He died February 11, 1857.

CHARLES STEWART DAVEIS was among the best-read and most highly cultivated lawyers of Maine. He was born in Portland, May 10, 1788. His father, Captain Ebenezer Daveis, was a native of Haverhill, Mass., and an officer in the war of the Revolution He came to Port- land at the elose of the war, where he died in 1799, leav- ing only this one son. Captain Daveis was a large, well- proportioned man, with a military air and easy, graceful manners.

Mr. Daveis, the subject of this notice, reecived the rudi- ments of his education at the common schools of Portland, then attended the famous Phillips Academy (the branch at Andover), and graduated at Bowdoin College in 1807. ITe immediately entered as student-at-law in the office of Nicho- las Emery, who had recently removed to Portland from Parsonsfield, with a high reputation as a lawyer and advo- cate. Mr. Daveis while studying law also indulged his literary taste in writing. He wrote both poetry and prose with facility and grace of style, being a frequent contributor to the old Portland Gazette, whose columns he much en- livened. The staple of his time was, however, devoted to the preparation for the bar, to which he was duly admitted in 1810.

He commenced practice in his native town, which con- tinued to be the scene of his labors, trials, and triumphs. He was among the first to engage in equity practice in the State, at a time when the system was unpopular, both with the bench and the bar. In this and the admiralty courts Mr. Daveis took a prominent and leading place, so that his reputation and business were widely extended, and his pro- fessional services eagerly sought after. He became more familiar with the science of law, especially in its relation to equity and admiralty practice, than any man in the State, until that department, chiefly through his independent labors, had become of sufficient importance to attract others to its study. He was a fine forensic orator, although, from his exhaustive habits of study and copiousness of illus- tratiou, rather disposed to overload his efforts with a superabundance of citations, and render prolix what would otherwise be clear, forcible, and beautiful.

Mr. Daveis was equally skilled in the principles of com- mon law; he kept up fully with the rapid progress of litera- ture, was a copious writer. and was often called upon for occasional addresses. Among these was an address before the Portland Benevolent Society in 1813 ; a funeral oration upon Adams and Jefferson in 1826; a Latin address at Brunswick in 1839, upon the occasion of the inauguration of Dr. Woods as president of Bowdoin College; and others. He also drew up the able and feeling series of resolutions upon the death of Chief Justice Story, which were pre- sented at a meeting of the bar of the Circuit Court of the United States, at which Mr. Longfellow presided. He early engaged with ardor in the discussion of the questions relating to the northeastern boundary, and in 1827 was ap- pointed by Governor Lincoln agent of the State to inquire

into facts relating to it. In that year he made an able re- port to the trovernor on the subject, which occupies twenty octavo pages in the documents of the Legislature. In 1838 he was appointed a special agent in the matter by the gen- eral government, in pursuance of which he repaired to Washington, and discharged the duties of his position with discretion and ability.

Mr. Daveis was Senator from Cumberland County to the State Legislature in 1841, and was appointed chairman of the joint select committee on the Northeastern Boundary. Elis report on this subject was an able document. Ile was one of the early members of the Maine Historical Society, and a member of the Phi Beta Kappa Society of Harvard College. Bowdoin College in 1844 conferred upon him the degree of Doctor of Laws. He died March 29, 1865.

WILLIAM PITT PREBLE, a distinguished member of the beneh and bar of this county, was a native of York, having been born in that part of the county called Scotland Parish, on the 27th of November, 1783. He descended from a long line of illustrious ancestors. Abraham Preble, who came from England to Scituate, Mass., in 1637. in 1642 purchased of Edward Godfrey, the agent of Sir Ferdinando Gorges, a tract of land in Agamenticus, now York, where he settled and continued to reside till his death, in 1663. In 1645 he was one of the council of the government of New Somersetshire, which was established by Gorges, and was the first eivil government in Maine. Ile continued to hold the office as long as that government was maintained. He was a member of the General Court of the province, one of the commissioners to hold county courts, treasurer, and the chief military officer of the province. His de- seendants have been distinguished in the history of Maine ever since that time. His son, Benjamin, filled many in- portant positions. His great-grandson, Brig .- Gen. Preble, of Portland, was not only conspicuous in public affairs for half a century, but was the father of the renowned Com. Edward Preble, and of Ebenezer and Henry, distinguished merchants, as well as of Enoch. an able ship-master.

Judge Preble's father was Esaias, the son of Samuel, who was second in descent from the common aneestor, Abraham.

William Pitt Preble graduated at Harvard College in 1806, taking high rank for scholarship, especially viathe- maties. He studied law in Topsham and Bruuswick, com- pleting his apprenticeship, in the latter place, under the instruction of Mr. Orr, and commenced practice in York, whenee he removed to Alfred, and in 1811 was appointed county attorney for York County. In 1813 he moved to Saco. In 1814 he received from President Madison the appointment of United States attorney for the district of Maine, as successor to Silas Lee, who died that year. In 1818 he moved to Portland, where he ever after continued to reside. Ile entered the profession with a clear, diserimi- nating mind, a high sense of honor, and a worthy ambition, and consequently made rapid progress toward the higher eminences of legal science which he ultimately attained.

In 1820, on the separation of the State from Massachu- setts, Mr. I'reble was appointed one of the three judges of the Supreme Court of Maine. The decisions of this court which emanated from him exhibit the soundness of argu- ment and perspicuity of statement for which all his written

HISTORY OF CUMBERLAND COUNTY, MAINE.

productions were remarkable. He retired from this honor- able position, in 1828, to accept an important diplomatic service, having been appointed by President Jackson Min- ister Plenipotentiary to the Hague, to represent the interests of this country in the northeastern boundary line question, which the government had submitted to the arbitration of the king of Holland. Judge Preble was associated with Mr. Gallatin, Minister to the Court of St. JJames, in the management of this famous case. The king of Holland made his award in January, 1831, not upon its merits and proofs, but recommending a compromise. Judge Preble returned home to resist its acceptance by our government. He was sustained by the government and people of Maine, and was appointed an agent to proceed to Washington for the purpose of enforcing the rights of the State. There was a disposition on the part of the government to accept the award, which made the task of Judge Preble difficult and laborious. The matter was not settled at this time, and in 1832 Judge Preble was again appointed at the head of a commission, of whom Reuel Williams and Nicholas Emery were the other members, under whom an agreement was entered into in July, 1832, by which Maine was to cede to the United States the territory in dispute in lieu of a grant of a million aeres of land in Michigan. Meantime, renewed negotiations were opened with Great Britain for the estab- lishment of the line upon the basis of the treaty of 1783. These were protracted; irritation inereased to exasperation on both sides until it broke out in what was called the Aroostook war in 1839. The difficulty was not finally settled until the English government, in 1841, sent over Lord Ashburton, with full powers to adjust by compromise or otherwise the vexed question. This resulted in the Webster-Ashburton treaty of August, 1842. Judge Preble's agency in the difficult controversy did not terminate till the question was settled, his last act in it being in the capacity of one of the commissioners chosen by the Maine Legislature, in 1842, to adjust the terms of settlement with the State.

The connection of Judge Preble with the most important improvement of his time-the opening of the Atlantic and St. Lawrence Railroad, now the Grand Trunk Railway- has been referred to in the history of railroads in a previons chapter. It should be added here that, on the 30th of November, 1845, Judge Preble sailed for England to advo- cate in that country the interests of the company. In London he met emissaries who had been sent to create a prejudice against the route to Portland, and divert the road to Boston. Incredible efforts were made for this purpose, and it was with great difficulty that Judge Preble could get a hearing. He was greatly assisted by the presence of Mr. Galt, the able representative of the Canadian road, and their exertions were partially successful. He returned in Febru- ary, 1846. The next movement was to settle the terms of union with the Canada company. This was accomplished to mutual satisfaction in April, and the road went on.

Among the papers which Judge Preble wrote in connec- tion with the inception of this grand enterprise were " An Address to the ('itizens of Montreal," in 1845, " An Address to Mr. Gladstone, the English Colonial Secretary," in 1846, and " A Memorial to the Governor-General of Canada," in 1847. All these papers bear the marks of his usual ability.

As one of the most influential politicians of the State, Judge Preble exerted his great strength in behalf of the separation of Maine from Massachusetts, which was cousum- mated in 1820. As an effective orator and speaker, he has been thus spoken of: "When all his faculties were raised into activity by the excitement of a great occasion his mind worked with the greatest case, and he was capable on such occasions of bringing out an argument that, by its strength of reasoning, force of illustration, and effective eloquenee, gave him the mastery over others."

In 1812 the number of practicing attorneys in the county was forty-three; nineteen of them were in Portland. lu 1831 the number in the county was fifty-seven, of whom thirty-three resided in Portland. In 1840 the number of lawyers in the State was four hundred and thirty-seven, of whom sixty-six belonged to the Cumberland bar. In 1850 the number practicing in the State was five hundred and twenty-nine, sixty-five of whom resided in Portland.

ETHER SHEPLEY .- Chief Justice Shepley was the second son of John Shepley, of Groton, Mass., and Mary, widow of Capt. Thurlow of the Revolutionary army, a daughter of Deaeon Gibson Stowe. He was born in Gro- ton, Nov. 2, 1789, and took his degree at Dartmouth Col- lege in 1811. He began the study of law with Dudley llubbard, of South Berwick, Me., continued with Zabdiel Adams, of Woreester County, and finished with Solomon Strong, of Hampshire, being admitted in 1814, in which year he settled in Saco and commenced practice. In 1819 he was elected to represent Saco in the General Court. In February, 1821, he was appointed United States attorney for the district of Maine, as successor to William Pitt Pre- ble, who was placed on the bench of the Supreme Court. This office he held till he was elected United States Senator from Maine in 1833. He remained in the Senate till Sep- tember, 1836, when he was appointed to the bench of the Supreme Court, to fill a vacancy caused by the resignation of Judge Parris. In 1848 he was appointed chief justice, as the successor of Judge Whitman, and discharged the duties of this high office with signal ability till 1855, when, his constitutional term of seven years having expired, he retired from the bench with an exalted and unsullied repu- tation. His opinions are among the ablest in the Maine Reports. He prepared the Revised Statutes published in 1857. A short time previous to his death, which occurred July 20, 1878, Dartmouth College conferred upon him the honorary degree of LL. D.

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History of Cumberland Co., Maine, Part 23

Author: Clayton, W. W. (W. Woodford) Publication date: 1880 Publisher: Philadelphia, Everts & Peck Number of Pages: 780

Author: Clayton, W. W. (W. Woodford)
Publication date: 1880
Publisher: Philadelphia, Everts & Peck
Number of Pages: 780