History of York County, Maine, with illustrations and biographical sketches of its prominent men and pioneers, Part 24

Author: Clayton, W. W. (W. Woodford)
Publication date: 1880
Publisher: Philadelphia, Everts & Peck
Number of Pages: 730

USA > Maine > York County > History of York County, Maine, with illustrations and biographical sketches of its prominent men and pioneers > Part 24

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BENCH AND BAR OF YORK COUNTY.

returned to Kennebunk, where he married for his second wife Mariah M. Gilpatrick, daughter of Richard Gilpatrick, of Kennebunk, Jan. 26, 1841, in whose congenial society he passed the remainder of his days, in the calmness and serenity which wait on a genial temper, and follow towards its close a life of gentleness, purity, and uniform benignity. Ile died at Kennebunk on the 4th of March, 1869, leaving no children.

Mr. Sewall was a good lawyer, had a clear and discrimi- nating mind, and had great accuracy and familiarity with the forms of practice and the art of conveyancing. But his extreme diffidence and modesty deterred him from mak- ing any exhibition in court, or taking any position as an advocate. Perhaps the circumstance of his connection with Mr. Mellen, in the early years of his practice, re-

the scholar to the wrangles of the bar, and devoted much time to poetry and prose composition, which illuminated the columns of the newspapers and periodicals. In con- nection with the wits about town,-Savage, Payson, Daveis, Deering, Carter, Wright, and others, Portland was kept in good humor ; and the Pilgrim, Prowler, Night-Hawk, and Torpedo flashed with merriment which would have done honor to the Salamagundi or to the modern Punch.

When he went to Portland, in 1803, he found his class- mates, Savage and Payson (afterwards the distinguished preacher, but at that time the preceptor of the new acad- emy), pursuing their studies there, and, to amuse them- selves, they were writing a series of articles in the Old Portland Gazette (then edited by Isaac Adams) over the signature of " Pilgrim." They immediately pressed

LITTIL

Photo. by J. T. Locke, Kennebunk, Me.

10.13. Sewall

strained him from aiming at or acquiring any experience as an advocate. Mr. Mellen argued all his own causes, as well as many of those commenced by other lawyers, with rare zeal and ability, so that a junior partner could have no opportunity to acquire facility in the art. Mr. Sewall had great delicacy and sensitiveness of taste ; nothing com- monplace or inferior could ever satisfy the demand of his own criticism. He had had also a shrinking diffidence which seemed to be natural to the family,-his father and uncles, Jotham and Henry, had it ; so had the excellent judge, David Sewall, and the wise aud modest chief jus- tice, Samuel Sewall, who died while holding court at Wis- casset in 1814.

Mr. Sewall was a scholar and a ripe one, of cultivated taste and fine thought. He preferred the quiet pursuits of

Sewall into the service, and he became a joint contributor to those agreeable literary productions, which instructed and amused the town. The Prowler followed, and these more formal essays were interspersed with many a squib and New Year's Hudibrastic verses, which lighted up the pro- saic columns of the Gazette.

Mr. Sewall had a great fondness for mathematical studies, which he pursued to a large extent in college, and was re- warded for his attainments in that branch by an assign- ment of " exercises in mathematics and astronomy" at commencement, with two others of his classmates, Nathan Parker and Daniel Swan. This taste was probably imbibed in early life from his father, who had quite a genius for mathematical calculations, which manifested itself in the preparation of almanacs, and the like labors. Both father

HISTORY OF YORK COUNTY, MAINE.

and son worked much in that line, in which they took pleasure and made great proficiency. The son, when young, assisted his father in almanac-making; and, when in the practice of his profession, beguiled the leisure time in pre- paring a "Register for Maine," which he published several years after the separation from Massachusetts. In connection with Judge Bourne, of Kennebunk, he prepared the " Reg- ister of Maine for 1820." This being the first published in the new State, was very full, and contained a vast deal of useful information, in a compact form. It contained a chronological aceount of the various settlements in Maine from the earliest time, with notice of early grants, etc. ; the act of separation, the new constitution, and the list of dele- gates to the convention, tariff of duties, army and navy reg- ister, besides the usual matter embraced in such works. He continued the publication of the " Register" several years ; for the labor, care, and investigation in which, the sales poorly compensated. These humble but very valuable sta- tistical works are not appreciated in their day so much as they ought to be; nor is the labor and skill necessary in the preparation sufficiently estimated. A full series of these works is invaluable to one who is collecting materials for a history, or who desires to see the form and pressure of the times long gone by.

In all works of this kind, and others involving statistical habits or knowledge, Mr. Sewall had few equals in his day. What he did he did thoroughly and well, and he was con- stantly busy about something useful or amusing. He was one or two years secretary of the Senate, soon after the separation, which gave him facilities in his favorite pursuit; and he was often afterwards employed by members and committees to draft and prepare bills and other papers to be laid before the Legislature, in which his clear and con- cise method rendered him a model worthy of all imitation. It would have promoted the accuracy and precision of the statutes if this practice had been continued.

Ile was always cheerful, social, and often gay ; his hu- mor was racy, and the play of mind was lambent and genial.

SAMUEL HUBBARD.

On the removal of Judge Miller to Portland in 1806, his place at Biddeford was occupied by Samuel Hubbard, who afterwards became a distinguished lawyer and judge in Massachusetts. Mr. Hubbard was born in Boston, in 1785, and graduated at Yale College in 1802, at the age of seven- teen. He studied his profession in New Haven, in the. office of Judge Chauncey, for two years, and completed his course with Charles Jackson, the eminent lawyer and judge of Boston. Immediately after his admission to the bar in Suffolk County he came to Biddeford, where Mr. Mellen had built up a large and, for that period, profitable practice, the result of fourteen years' earnest and diligent labor. It could hardly be expected that a young lawyer, only twenty years of age, and just entering upon his practice, however fine his abilities, could fill at once the wide circle made by his eminent predecessor, especially as the flourishing village on the opposite side of the river furnished older and more experienced competitors in Cyrus King, Jeremiah Brad- bury, and the eccentric Joseph Bartlett, who were in prac- tice there at that time. Still, Mr. Hubbard did a successful

business, and remained in Biddeford till 1810, when he returned to Boston and formed a partnership with his former teacher, Judge Jackson. The appointment of Mr. Jackson to the bench, in 1813, left him a large and lucrative practice. Ile was elevated to the bench of the Supreme Court to fill the place made vacant by the death of Judge Putnam, in 1842, which position he filled with great ac- ceptance till his death, Dec. 24, 1847.

WILLIAM ALLEN HAYES.

William Allen Hayes, of South Berwick, was a worthy member of the bar, and long filled places of honor and trust in York County. He was the youngest of three sons of David Hayes, of North Yarmouth, in which town he was born on the 20th of October, 1783. He was prepared for college under the tuition of Rev. Tristram Gilman, and grad- uated at Dartmouth in 1805. He studied law first with Ezekiel Whitman, at New Gloucester, then for a short time with Dudley Hubbard, at South Berwick, and finished his course with Artemas Ward, of Charlestown, a celebrated lawyer of the Middlesex bar, afterwards chief justice of the Boston Court of Common Pleas, who was a sound lawyer, with a very large practice. Mr. Hayes was admitted to the Middlesex bar in 1809, and immediately opened an office at South Berwick, which place for the remainder of his life became the field of his labor, his usefulness, and his fame.

The other lawyers at this time in that thriving village were Messrs. Hubbard, Greene, and Lambert, the two for- mer of whom were giving much of their time to politics, and the latter not pushing business with much energy. A good opening therefore existed for a young lawyer like Mr. Hayes, and he occupied it and improved it with great as- siduity, soon acquiring a large business, which, by judicious management, accumulated to a handsome competence, won him the confidence and esteem of the public, and made him a leading man in that section of the country. He suc- ceeded, not only to the business of Dudley Hubbard, who died in 1816, but to his elegant mansion and farm, and made it one of the most beautiful and highly-cultivated spots in the country. Forty years of his busy life were spent in his practice and other public and private duties. For more than twenty-five years he was president of the South Ber- wick Bank ; about the same period president of the Bar of York County ; he was many years president of the Board of Trustees of Berwick Academy, and for twenty years (1828-47) judge of probate for York County. In all these multiplied relations he maintained the character of a faithful, upright, wise, and good man.

When his cares and labors had greatly increased, he found a partner, an able coadjutor, in a young man of fine talents and business capacity whom he took into his office, -Charles N. Cogswell, of whom we give a brief sketch below.

CHARLES N. COGSWELL.

Charles Northend Cogswell was the son of Northend and Elizabeth Cogswell, and was born in Berwick, April 24, 1797. In 1814, at the age of seventeen, he graduated at Bowdoin College. He studied law with Mr. Hayes, with whom he entered into partnership on being admitted to the bar in 1817. It proved a most successful partnership,

BENCHI AND BAR OF YORK COUNTY.

both being men of high intellectual endowments and large business capacity. It is said that for many years more business was done in their office than in any other in the country.

Mr. Cogswell possessed the confidence of the community in a large degree, not merely in his professional services, but in his business relations and public duties. He was often elected to represent his town and county in the Legis- lature and Senate of the State, and was a member of the latter body in 1833-34. After an honorable and useful life he died suddenly on the 11th of October, 1843, in the forty-seventh year of his age. Judge Goodenow, in reply to the application to place upon the records of the court the resolves of sympathy adopted by the bar, observed, " In a professional career of twenty-five years, few, very few, have accomplished it so well. Ilis talents for business were indeed extraordinary, and he was most diligent in the employment of them. His memory was retentive, and he was exceedingly accurate in all his transactions in his office and in the courts. His whole demeanor was amiable and exemplary."

Mr. Cogswell was twice married. His first wife was Elizabeth Hill, of Portsmouth ; his second, Margaret E. Russell, daughter of Edward Russell, of Portland, by whom he left one son.

Judge Hayes survived his junior partner eight years, and died April 15, 1851, aged sixty-seven.

WILLIAM PITT PREBLE.

Judge William Pitt Preble commeneed practice in York, the home of his ancestors, who had been distinguished in the early history of Maine. Abraham Preble, the first an- cestor in America, came from England, and was one of the first settlers of Scituate, Mass., prior to 1637. In 1642 he purchased a tract of land at Agamenticus, now York, where he settled and continued to reside till his death, which occurred in 1663. He sustained some of the most considerable and responsible offices in the province, having been councilor for Sir Ferdinando Gorges, in 1645, and so long as the government of the Lord Proprietor was main- tained ; member of the General Provincial Court ; com- missioner, treasurer, and chief military officer of the prov- ince. His son, Benjamin, filled many important offices, and his great-grandson, Brig .- Gen. Preble, was a renowned citizen, and father of Commodore Edward Preble.

Judge Preble, the subject of this notice, was the son of Isaias Preble, and was born in that part of York ealled Scotland Parish, Nov. 27, 1783. He graduated at Har- vard in 1806, pursued the study of law, partly in the office of Benjamin Hasey, of Topsham, and partly in that of Mr. Orr, in Brunswick. Commenced practice in York, whence in a short time he removed to Alfred, and in 1811 was appointed county attorney for York County. In 1813 he removed to Saco. In 1814 he received from President Madison the appointment of United States attorney for the district, as the successor of Silas Lee, who died that year. In consequence of this appointment he removed to Port- land in 1818, which continued ever after to be the place of his residence. His great abilities as a lawyer soon placed him in the foremost rank of the bar of the State, an equal

competitor with those honored in the several counties,- Dane, Mellen, Whitman, Holmes, Longfellow, Wilde, Allen, Greenleaf, Fessenden, Crosby, McGaw, and many others. Ile resembled Mr. Orr in the clearness and force of his style in presenting a cause to a jury, being plain, solid, and matter-of-faet in his arguments.

On the organization of the State, in 1820, he was se- leeted as one of the three judges of the Supreme Judicial Court,-a position which he honored, by his weight of character and able opinions, during the eight years which he occupied the bench. He retired from the honorable position in 1828, to accept of the appointment to the di- plomatic service of minister plenipotentiary to the Hague, tendered by President Jackson. Ile received the appoint- ment to this critical and delicate service in view of the boundary-line question which had been submitted to the arbitration of the King of Holland. The award having been unfavorable, Judge Proble entered against it a severe and able protest. He returned to Maine in 1831, and was appointed the State agent to proceed to Washington for the purpose of enforcing the rights of Maine, and induced the general government not to accept the award. In 1832 he was one of the commissioners appointed to negotiate with the United States, and secured a settlement of the controversy alike honorable to his judgment and ability as a diplomatist, and to the interests of the State of Maine.

We have not space to give in detail the life of one so emi- nent in public services. His agency as a prime mover and negotiator, both in Canada and in England, in the measures whereby the connection between Portland and the Great West was secured by the Atlantic and St. Lawrence (now the Grand Trunk ) Railway are well known, and be- long to another portion of the history of the country. Judge Preble died Oct. 11, 1857, at the age of seventy-three. He was twice married, his first wife being Nancy Gale Tucker, second daughter of Joseph Tueker, of York, at one time the collector of that port, whom he married in September, 1810. His son by this marriage, William Pitt Preble, his namesake, has been for many years clerk of the District Court of the United States, residing at Portland. Judge Preble's second wife was Sarah A. Forsaith, of Portland, by whom he had one son. There were two daughters by the first marriage.

ETHER SHEPLEY.

Ether Shepley, late chief justice of Maine, was the second son of John Shepley, and Mary, widow of Captain Thur- low, of the Revolutionary army, a daughter of Deacon Gib- son, of Stowe. He was born in Groton, Mass., where the family was carly settled, on the 2d of November, 1789, and received his elementary education at the Groton Academy. In 1811 he took his degree at Dartmouth College, in class with Prof. Nathaniel H. Carter, Bezaleel Cushman, and Na- thaniel Wright. who were instructors in Portland after leaving college ; Dr. William Cogswell, Daniel Poor, the celebrated missionary ; Professor Parker, of the Harvard Law School ; Amos Kendall, postmaster-general under President Jackson, and other distinguished men.

On leaving college Mr. Shepley entered the law-office of Dudley Hubbard, in South Berwick, where he remained two years, putting into an orderly and prosperous shape the

HISTORY OF YORK COUNTY, MAINE.

large collection business of Mr. Hubbard, which had been suffering from the want of systematic attention. He con- tinued his studies with Zabdiel B. Adams, of Worcester County, and with Solomon Strong, of Hampshire, and was admitted to the bar in 1814, in July of which he commenced practice in Saco. Mr. Willis says of him, " With the ex- perience he had gathered, and the habits of business he had acquired, he was more than usually advanced over young practitioners in the knowledge of his profession, and in the use of its machinery, and early entered upon a successful and lucrative practice, which his industry, close application, and practical ability made secure, and gave to him a prom- inent place in the community in which he resided.

In 1819 he zealously entered into the measures for the separation of Maine from Massachusetts, being that year a representative from Saco in the General Court. He was also that year chosen a delegate to the constitutional con- vention, in which body he took an active part. In Feb- ruary, 1821, he was appointed United States district attorney in the place of William Pitt Preble, who was elevated to the bench of the Supreme Court. This office he held until his election as one of the United States sen- ators from Maine, in 1833, the duties of which, in connec- tion with his very extensive practice, he discharged with great promptness and fidelity, of which no better evidence can be adduced than the length of time he was permitted to retain it,-through the four closing years of Mr. Mon- roe's administration, the whole of Mr. Adams', and four years into Gen. Jackson's, and left it at last only for a more exalted station. He was elected to the Senate of the United States in 1833, as the successor of Hon. John Holmes, and in that body, by vote and voice, sustained the administration of General Jackson. In January, 1834, he made two earnest and able speeches on the exciting question respecting removing the deposits from the United States Bank. He remained a member of the Senate till Septem- ber, 1836, when he was appointed to the bench of the Su- preme Court, to fill a vacancy caused by the resignation of Judge Parris, who had been appointed by Mr. Van Buren second comptroller of the United States Treasury. " As a judge, both at nisi prius and in the law department, his ability, his industry, and his integrity fully justified the partiality and good judgment of Governor Dunlap's admin- istration, by which the appointment was made."

In 1848 he was appointed chief justice, as the successor of Judge Whitman, with the general concurrence of the bar and public sentiment. He continued in this high office till the autumn of 1855, when his constitutional term of seven years having expired. he retired from the bench with an exalted and unsullied reputation. " No judge ever more faithfully or more promptly discharged the duties of the bench than Judge Shepley; and the ability which charac- terized his judicial career is amply illustrated in the twenty- seven volumes of the " Maine Reports," from the fourteenth to the fortieth, inclusive. His opinions are drawn with clearness, directness, and force, and no one can mistake the point which he endeavors to establish."

The last public office he was called to perform was that of sole commissioner for the revision of the public laws, to which he was appointed by resolve of April 1, 1856. In

accordance with this he prepared the " Revised Statutes of Maine," published in 1857. As a proper recognition of legal learning and judicial experience, Dartmouth College conferred upon him the honorary title of' LL.D.

Judge Shepley married, in 1816, Anna Foster, by whom he had five sons. One of his sons, John R. Shepley, graduated at Bowdoin College in 1837, and became a prom- inent lawyer in St. Louis. Another, the late George Fos- ter Shepley, judge of the United States Circuit Court, born at Saco, Jan. 1, 1819, graduated at Dartmouth at the age of eighteen, 1837 ; colonel of the 12th Maine Volunteers ; promoted to brigadier-general ; commandant of New Or- leans ; military Governor of Louisiana ; chief of staff of Maj .- Gen. Weitzel ; and military Governor of Richmond at the close of the war. He resigned his commission July 1, 1865, and on his return to Portland resumed the prac- tice of his profession. Dec. 22, 1869, he received the ap- pointment of United States Circuit Judge for the First Circuit, which office he held at the time of his death, July 20, 1878. A short time previously, Dartmouth College had conferred upon him the honorary degree of LL.D., a suitable recognition of his eminence as a legal scholar and judge.

PHILIP EASTMAN.

Philip Eastman (Asa6, Jonathan5, Philip4, Capt. Eben- ezer3, Philip2, Roger1) is a lineal descendant in the seventh generation from Roger Eastman, who was born in Wales, Great Britain, in 1611. Married Sarah -; emigrated to America in 1640, and settled in Salisbury, Mass. He died Dec. 16, 1694. His wife died March 11, 1697. They had teu children. John, eldest son, represented Salisbury in the General Court of Massachusetts in 1691. Philip, third son, and in direct line of descent, born Oct. 20, 1644, married, Aug. 22, 1698, Mary Morse, and settled in Haverhill, Mass. His house was burned by the Indians March 15, 1698, some of his family taken, and others dis- persed. Ile afterwards removed to Woodstock, Conn.

"In answ" to the petition of Philip Eastman humbly desiring this Court's favour, considering his late captivity wth the Indians & losse, that he may be freed from the payment of such rates as have binn, or may he levyed this yeare for the use of the Country, the Court grants him his request."-Colony Records of Muss., vol. v. page 114. Sept. 16, 1676.

Capt. Ebenezer Eastman, born Jan. 10, 1689, married Sarah Peaslee, March 4, 1710, and settled in Haverhill, where all his children were born. He was early a pioneer among the Indians; afterwards a captain in the French war; went to the capture of Louisbourg, under Sir William Pepperell ; had a garrison on the east side of the Merrimac, now East Concord ; was one of the grantees of Penacook, now Concord, and was one of the earliest, most active, and influential settlers. He died July 28, 1748. Philip, son of Capt. Ebenezer, born Nov. 13, 1713, at Haverhill, Mass., married Abiah Bradley, March 29, 1739. She was sister of Jonathan and Samuel Bradley, who were killed by the Indians at Penacook. She often donned a man's hat, shouldered a musket, and took her stand in the sentinel's box through the night to relieve her husband. He died Sept. 1, 1804. Jonathan, son of Philip, born June 10, 1746, was a volunteer in Capt. Joshua Abbott's company

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BENCHI AND BAR OF YORK COUNTY.

that marehed to reinforce the Northern Army in September, 1777. He married Molly Chandler, Jan. 5, 1769, and died Oct. 19, 1834. ITis second wife, Esther, died the same year, aged eighty-one. Asa Eastman, son of Jonathan, born Dec. 5, 1770, married Dec. 31, 1795, Molly, daughter of Lieut. Phineas Kimball, of Concord. She was born May 15, 1775. About 1792 he and Samuel Ayer Brad- ley built a cabin and commenced clearing on the margin of Cold River, in the wilderness, four miles from the extreme frontier settlement, on a tract of land purchased by their fathers from the commonwealth of Massachusetts, kuown as the " Bradley & Eastman Grant," now a part of the town of Stow, in the State of Maine. Bradley, after two seasons, determined upon a professional life; graduated at Dart- mouth College in 1799 ; studied law, and settled at Frye- burg, where he died. Eastman continued to clear his land, and taught school winters until his marriage. He first moved into a log house on the Chatham, N. H., side, which he built the previous summer, and there lived until 1801, when he built the first framed house (two story ) in the set- tlement (still standing), where he lived until his death, Aug. 16, 1818. He was well educated, hospitable, a liberal and useful citizen, a judicious magistrate, and a legislator highly esteemed for his public and private worth. His wife died in Chatham, Dee. 4, 1859. Philip Eastman, son of Asa, born in Chatham, N. H., Feb. 5, 1799, graduated at Bow- doin College, in 1820, in the class with the late Judge Hathaway and Hon. Samuel Bradley. He read law with Stephen Chase, of Fryeburg; IIon. Nicholas Baylies. of Montpelier, Vt. ; and with Judah Dana, of Fryeburg; was admitted to the bar in September, 1823, and commenced practice at North Yarmouth, Me.

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History of York County, Maine, with illustrations and biographical sketches of its prominent men and pioneers, Part 24

Author: Clayton, W. W. (W. Woodford) Publication date: 1880 Publisher: Philadelphia, Everts & Peck Number of Pages: 730

Author: Clayton, W. W. (W. Woodford)
Publication date: 1880
Publisher: Philadelphia, Everts & Peck
Number of Pages: 730