USA > New Hampshire > Grafton County > Hanover > A history of the town of Hanover, N.H. > Part 16
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with the intent to abuse and decive said Eleazar" "For said violation of the Law to prevent disorders in the night" he was sentenced to receive eight stripes on the naked back (being unable to pay a fine), besides seven for making a false report, "which sentence was executed." The next week Colonel Wheelock was himself entrusted as constable with the execution of a sentence for ten stripes upon another transient person, who stole a bottle of rum from Colonel Brewster.
On May 25, 1787, Elizabeth Boynton, having confessed to stealing a towel, a small piece of calico and two pairs of stockings, was condemned to pay a fine of thirty shillings before eight o'clock the following Monday and in default thereof to be whipped on the naked back such number of stripes as the justice should then order, and that, in addition, her husband, Andrew Boynton, should pay forty shillings damages to the complainants and that if both fine and damages and costs were not paid before the next Monday a warrant of distress should issue against the goods and body of said Andrew.
On July 18, 1788, Elisha Tilden of Lebanon was fined six shillings, besides six shillings costs, for "one oath and one curse."
The Worcester Spy of October 5, 1793, has the following :
Hanover, Sept. 23. Last Monday Luke Patrick a lad of eleven was tried for stealing and given ten stripes "between his shirt and his jacket" amidst a large concourse of spectators. Trying to defend himself from arrest he had struck another boy with a knife and cut off the cords of his thumb and fore finger.
The docket shows that after getting his whipping he was · assigned to John Ball, the complainant, in satisfaction of the damages until he should be twenty-one years of age. The property stolen was valued at 26 /.
November 26, 1791, Cato, a negro (probably the one who for many years lived in a hut on the Vermont side of the river a third of a mile below the present railroad station), for stealing three shirts, one pair of breeches, one pair of stockings and one hand- kerchief from E. B., for which, after confession, he was adjudged to pay a fine with costs amounting to £10, was given over to E. B. for one year and six months.
The following record is of interest to students :
On April 15, 1788, Benjamin Chapman Curtis, a student in Dartmouth College, confessed "that he was guilty of uttering one or more prophane oaths at the house of Elisha Smith and also of a breach of the peace in overturning an outhouse of
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Capt. Aaron Storrs." For the oaths he was fined one shilling, and for the breach of the peace he was required to procure sure- ties for his good behavior till the next Court of General Sessions. Three others, his companions, received similar sentences. The profanity of one consisted in saying, "damn the rum."
June 21, 1798, on complaint of the selectmen that Thomas George was "an idle and disorderly person who neglects his call- ing and employment, misspends what he earns and does not provide for himself and support his family," he was "committed to the house of correction in said Hanover to be kept and governed according to the rules and orders of said house till he shall be discharged therefrom by the selectmen or otherwise by order of law," and adjudged to pay the costs of prosecution, taxed at $2.32.
Sometimes, as would appear from the following record, there appears to have been a winking on the part of the law officers :
Friday Aug. 24, 1798.
Mr. Janotte, a transient person, a strolling balance master, is brought before the subscriber in virtue of a warrant founded on a complaint of the Selectmen of Hanover wherein is set forth that said Janotte is a person using subtil crafts &c and did at said Hanover &c (as per complaint)
To all of which said Janotte pleads guilty except as to Jugling.
Court adj. till next day at 6 A. M. when the Dept. Sheriff, to whom Jan- otte had been committed, reported that said Janotte had escaped last night so that he cannot have him before said Justice.
B. W., J. P.
Criminal proceedings appear now to have become comparative- ly rare, but the civil docket is enormously enlarged. Perhaps the presence of attorneys had some effect in that direction. Except for an unnamed lawyer appearing in 1784, the first to appear was Aaron Hutchinson in 1786. Benjamin J. Gilbert came in 1792 and William Woodward in 1795, and although most of the cases were for trifling sums the volume of civil business became at once very large. Thus at the term opening September 5, 1801, twenty- eight new actions, and at that of November 28, thirty-three new actions were entered. Few, however, seem to have terminated in imprisonment, though among a few others Eliakim Gibbs, on July 28, 1798, was sent to jail on a debt of $1.80. Whipping and other severe forms of punishment for criminals seem to have fallen into disuse, though there is a record of a whipping at Lyme in 1795.
CHAPTER XIV
LAWYERS
H ANOVER was for many years destitute of professional attorneys. In the scheme of settlement arranged by Wheelock place was found for pastor, physician, innkeeper, tailor, mason, carpenter, shoemaker, hatter, barber and printer, but an attorney seems at the first not to have entered his thoughts as a desirable settler near the College.
Owing to the pressure of other duties Wheelock's own juris- diction as justice of the peace was seldom invoked, but Mr. Bezaleel Woodward, who received a similar appointment in 1771, for the purpose of relieving Wheelock of this responsibility, took active hold of the local business as trial justice and held regular and formal terms of court through a long series of years, until his death in 1804.1 During the early years he himself prepared the pleadings and made the requisite copies in cases brought before him, and acted besides as a general conveyancer. There is no record of the appearance of any regular attorney practising in Mr. Woodward's court before Mr. Hutchinson in 1786.
But the need of that sort of talent here had long before been fully recognized, even by Wheelock himself, and as early as 1774 his nephew, Ralph Pomroy, was encouraged to remove hither from Hartford, Connecticut, where he was already established with a family. Accordingly Pomroy came here and was duly admitted to the bar of the Grafton County Common Pleas in January, 1775.2 In May he went again to Connecticut for his family, but was prevented from returning by the public distresses and by the cessation of the civil tribunals in Grafton County ; and soon after he joined the army. His father was the Rev. Benjamin Pomroy of Hebron, and his mother was a sister of Dr. Wheelock. He was graduated from Princeton in 1758, and was admitted to the bar in Connecticut in 1768 and had settled at Hartford. He was a lieutenant in the Third Connecticut Regiment, 1776, and was appointed paymaster of Colonel Wylly's regiment, February 8, 1777, serving also as commissioner of accounts. Leaving the service about 1779 he removed to Litchfield County. He was
1 See Chapter XIII.
2 Records of the Court.
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honored with the degree of A. M. at Dartmouth in 1786. But Hanover was still without a lawyer, and the whole professional responsibility, administrative as well as judicial, lay upon the shoulders of Professor Woodward. Though never apprenticed to law as a student, nor regularly admitted to the bar, his pleadings and conveyances, as well as his judgments, proclaim that his capacity in this department was equal to that displayed by him in diplomacy and statesmanship. It is said that appeals from his decisions were rarely effectual.
There is reason to suppose that he was aided to some extent by intelligent laymen, who performed at times in a small way some of the attorney's functions. "Esquire Seaver" (Comfort Sever, a carpenter by trade) and Israel Curtis (a blacksmith, formerly justice of the peace in Vermont, and afterward captain and major in the Northern Army) figure to some extent in this way. A bill rendered by the latter to Mr. Justice Woodward for twelve writs, besides fees and costs, would indicate considerable business of this sort.
The first professional "appearance" by attorney regularly entered on Mr. Woodward's docket is in March, 1784, but the name of the attorney is not given. In 1786 Aaron Hutchinson of Lebanon appeared and thereafter his name finds frequent mention.
A year or two after Mr. Hutchinson's first appearance in our local court Bela Turner, Jr., son of the prominent Lebanon merchant and innkeeper of the same name, came to reside on the College Plain. He is said to have studied law in Connecticut and at Concord, New Hampshire, with E. St. Livermore. His practice in Hanover was scanty, and we know little of him. He was employed by the town of Hanover in the prosecutions connected with the small pox excitement of 1788. His compensation was three shillings each for nine writs, and he had his pay in 1796, after waiting eight years for it. In the only other important case, in which he appears, he was at the same time attorney and respondent upon a charge of assault for chasing a neighbor out of his garden with uplifted hoe. He lived at the southwest corner of what is now Main and South Streets. He acquired that property in July, 1787, and disposed of it in September, 1794, describing it as "the land I now live on." The dates probably indicate very nearly the period of his residence. His name appears now and then on dockets in 1793 and stands among the attorneys in the New Hampshire Register credited to Hanover from 1795 to 1798,
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but it is well known that very little reliance can be placed upon the accuracy of that publication at that period.
Turner is said to have removed to Landaff in 1794 and thence to Bath, where he died of intemperance in 1814, aet. forty-nine. He married in 1791 Ruth Hannaford of Concord, who survived him. He possessed good talents, was a fine penman and a popular teacher, but was not successful in his profession.1 Bela Turner, the father, also removed from Lebanon to Hanover about 1794, and dying here in 1799 was buried as a pauper.
Not until 1792-1793, at the time of unexampled prosperity to the College, was Hanover able to boast of regular legal talent corresponding with its importance. Two gentlemen came at that period upon the stage, both of whom attained eminence.
The first was Benjamin Joseph Gilbert, son of Colonel Joseph Gilbert of Bunker Hill fame, born in North Brookfield, Massa- chusetts, in 1764, a graduate of Yale College in 1786, who studied law with Honorable Dwight Foster of Brookfield. He removed to Hanover, probably in 1792, as a Lyceum at Claremont, which drew members from neighboring towns, admitted Mr. Gilbert to membership in July of that year. He was in active practice at Hanover in 1793 and took without delay a position of prominence. He was admitted to the county bar in June, 1793, succeeding Aaron Hutchinson as county solicitor in 1799, and holding that office until 1814. Hanover sent him as its representative to the Legislature in 1800-1801 (when he was chiefly instrumental in procuring the charter of the Fourth New Hampshire Turnpike), and again in 1817-1818. He was also councillor from 1809 to 1811 under Governor Smith and Governor Langdon.
He lived on the west side of Main Street in a house which he built about 1795 (afterward owned by Dr. Peaslee), and had his office north of it, both on the site now occupied by the Bridgman block.
Mr. Gilbert was a student and a scholar, a learned and able lawyer, but not distinguished as an advocate. His counsel was sought and valued by others of far more public distinction than himself, by whom he was familiarly known, honoris causa, as "the Baron." In his Bench and Bar of New Hampshire Bell says that this title was given him "on account of his legal knowledge, loud voice and pompous manner." He took a prominent part in all that concerned the welfare of the village, and was a trusted adviser of
1 Bell's Bench and Bar of New Hampshire, p. 698; Bartlett's History of Bath, p. 82.
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the party opposed to John Wheelock in the great church quarrel that led up to the controversy between the State and the College. Though never officially connected with the College he stood its firm friend when others, more nearly related to it, took an opposite course. Some of the most eminent of New Hampshire lawyers went out from his office. He was married August 2, 1796, to Miss Sally Shepard of Boston; and in 1826, on account of deafness resulting from an accident, he gave up practice and went to reside with a daughter in Boston, where he died December, 1849, aet. eighty-five. In a railroad speech at Grafton, August 28, 1847, Mr. Webster spoke of Mr. Gilbert with honor as "always a most amiable, and excellent man, and a highly valued friend of long standing." 1
The other lawyer, contemporary with Mr. Gilbert was William H. Woodward (the "H" was assumed in 1807), a son of Bezaleel Woodward and grandson of Eleazar Wheelock. He was born September 17, 1774, and was the first male child born on the College Plain. He was graduated from Dartmouth in 1792, and after studying law, probably in Mr. Gilbert's office, was admitted to the bar in September, 1795. In a eulogy of him, delivered before the University, Dr. Perkins says that he gained "an extensive and lucrative practice," and that although he was unassuming and "not distinguished for flashes of eloquent decla- mation" yet he was "a safe and judicious counsellor and an able and successful advocate." In 1813, on the establishment of the Court of Common Pleas by the State, he was made chief justice of the western circuit, and when, in 1816, the circuits were changed to districts, he was continued in that office in the second district and held it until his death, August 9, 1818.
He was the treasurer of the College from 1805 to 1816, and being removed by the Trustees in their struggle with the Uni- versity, to which he adhered, he was elected to the same office in the University and held it until his death. He was prominent in the Masonic order, being a charter member of the Franklin Lodge, established in Hanover in 1796, becoming Master in 1801, special Deputy Grand Master in 1803, and in 1815 he presided over the Grand Lodge of the State. Besides his law practice and judicial occupation he was greatly interested in scientific and practical farming, making careful experiments and keeping record of them. In 1802 he married Betsy, daughter of Dr. Benjamin Curtis of Boston, whom he brought as his bride to Hanover and for whom
1 Webster's Works, IV, 108; Morrison's Life of Jeremiah Smith, p. 301.
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he built in that same year the house on the north side of the Green, which later became the home of President Lord.
To Messrs. Gilbert and Woodward was added in a few years a third lawyer, who in some respects took a much more prominent position than either of the others, and with them for many years stood at the head of affairs in the community. Mills Olcott, christened in childhood "Pelatiah Mills," was the son of General Peter Olcott of Norwich, Vermont, and was born in that town May 21, 1774. His mother was Sarah Mills. He was graduated from Dartmouth College in 1790, read law with Stephen Jacob of Windsor, Vermont, and Benjamin West of Charlestown, New Hampshire, and, after a few years devoted to travel and to the care of certain large interests with which he was entrusted, settled in Hanover in 1800.
He was a counselor of great wisdom and sagacity (though less given to study than Mr. Gilbert), his extraordinary business capacity, with other qualities of mind, body and disposition, fitting him to lead a more active life. He was thus drawn aside, partly into enterprises in lands and to the improvement of the water power of the river, and partly into politics. Both he and Mrs. Olcott were of high, not to say aristocratic, local connections, and this, with an elegant and commanding presence, engaging manners, and after a time a measure of wealth beyond that of others about him, put him and his family very much at the head of the business and social life of the village.
Soon after his marriage in December, 1800, Mr. Olcott pur- chased the house on the north side of the Green next the meeting house (built in 1786 by Professor Ripley), where he resided until his death. His wife was Sarah, daughter of Colonel Asa Porter of Haverhill, and was in every way fitted to shine in her position. Her sister was the wife of Honorable Thomas W. Thompson of Salisbury, a Trustee of the College and at one time a United States senator, and the most intimate relations subsisted between the families. These and other relationships of blood, friendship and business brought many and distinguished guests to Mr. Olcott's house, into a family circle of unusual attractiveness.
In politics he was a Federalist of the old school, and with his former legal instructor, Benjamin West, represented New Hamp- shire in the Hartford Convention of 1814. Though prominent in politics he held no political office, save that of representative to the General Court (in 1819-1821, 1824, 1825, 1828), where his popularity and tact on several critical occasions served a valuable
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purpose for the College. To this he rendered in other ways, for a long period, the most distinguished services, as treasurer and attorney during the trying times from 1816 to 1822, and as Trustee from 1821 until his death, July 11, 1845.
It has been truthfully said of him, that by his prudence in times of trial, his liberality in seasons of pecuniary embarrassment, and the unfailing interest which he took in its welfare, he contributed greatly to the honor and prosperity of the College. He was a man of great firmness, integrity, benevolence and generosity ; a friend unchanging, faithful and affectionate; of rare modesty, delicacy of taste and quick appreciation of the beautiful and the good, and of profound and growing religious feeling. He had a large family of sons and daughters. Rufus Choate, Joseph Bell, William H. Duncan and William T. Haddock became his sons-in-law. His wife died March 18, 1848.1
Jeduthan Wilcox came to Hanover from Middletown, Connecti- cut, in 1792, or earlier, and entered into business as a saddler, hav- ing a shop on the graveyard lane west of the Green and living on the south side of the Green next the Dartmouth Hotel. He was introduced to the law through the office of deputy sheriff in 1794, and having studied law with Mr. Gilbert was admitted to the bar in 1802 and began practice here, but he removed to Orford in 1803, where he gained prominence and for several years was a member of Congress, when to be so was a mark of note. His son, Leonard Wilcox, born in Hanover, occupied a seat on the Supreme Bench from 1838 to 1840 and from 1848 to 1850.
Peyton R. Freeman, son of Jonathan Freeman, a graduate of the College in 1796, studied law with Mr. Gilbert and after prac- tising law here for a short time, until 1803, removed to Ports- mouth, where he became a consulting rather than a practising lawyer. In 1816 and 1817 he was deputy secretary of state, and from 1817 to 1821 he was clerk of the United States district court. He died March 27, 1868.
Henry Hutchinson, a son of Aaron Hutchinson of Lebanon, where he was born, was graduated from the College in 1804 and settled in Hanover in the practice of law in 1810. In the same year he married the sister of William H. Woodward, with whom in the next year he formed a partnership. On his marriage his father built for him the house near the Medical Building, which has
.
1 An account of Mr. Olcott's activities in connection with the College is given by Lord, History of Dartmouth College, II, passim (see index). An obituary of him, written by the Rev. George Bush, is quoted by Brinley, Life of William T. Porter (New York 1860), p. 27f.
.
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become 39 College Street. In the College controversy he was a partisan of the University and active in the contest. In 1825 he removed to New York City, where he died in 1838, aet. fifty-three.
James R. Wheelock, of the class of 1807, was the son of James Wheelock and the grandson of the first president. He was admitted to the Grafton county bar in September, 1813, and practised in Hanover until 1817, when he gave up the law for the ministry. He died in Boston, Massachusetts, November 24, 1841, aet. fifty-one.
George Wheeler, a classmate of the preceding, came to Han- over as a lawyer in 1815 and remained until about 1830. He was for some years nominally a partner with Mr. Olcott but practically hardly more than a clerk, and drifted out into public office as the village postmaster from 1821 to 1829. He lived in an old gambrel- roofed house that stood on the west side of Main Street just north of the present Tavern. From Hanover he returned to Troy where he died in 1870.
William Smith, born in Princeton, Massachusetts, 1790, spent his boyhood at Salisbury and Haverhill, New Hampshire, where his father was a blacksmith and tavernkeeper, and also kept the jail. The son studied law with A. G. Britton at Orford and was admitted to the bar September 17, 1813, and began practice in Lyme, whence he removed to Hanover in 1816 or 1817, remaining here until 1833 in the enjoyment of a fair amount of routine office practice. He then removed to Lowell, Massachusetts. His son, born in Hanover in the house now 24 North Main Street, and afterward known as Henry F. Durant, became a partner of Benjamin F. Butler, who gained his legal education with him in Smith's office at Lowell. Mr. Smith followed his son to Boston about 1853 and died there October 9, 1867, aet. seventy-seven. He was a man of moderate acquirements, vain and pompous, and by way of magnifying the importance of his business was accus- tomed to carry a tin trunk back and forth between his office and his house thrice daily. He was nicknamed "Puffy Smith" from a habit he had in consultation.
Ninian C. Betton of the class of 1814, a law student of Daniel and Ezekiel Webster, practised law in Hanover from 1820 to 1823. He then removed to Boston, where he enjoyed a good degree of prominence and died November 19, 1856, aet. sixty- eight.
According to Farmer and Moore's Gazeteer there were six lawyers' offices in Hanover in 1821.
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Timothy Farrar, Jr., son of Honorable Timothy Farrar of New Ipswich, removed from Portsmouth to Hanover in 1822 to accept the position of treasurer of the College, designing also to continue the practice of law. He had been a partner of Mr. Webster before the latter removed to Boston, and acquired considerable promi- nence. He was also one of the College counsel in its great litigation and edited the report of the case in the book entitled "The Dart- mouth College Case." He was appointed one of the justices of the court of common pleas December 25, 1824, and in 1826 gave up his connection with the College and returned to Portsmouth. He retired from the bench in 1833, when the court was abolished by a change in the judiciary system. In 1836 he became the cashier of the Exeter bank in Exeter, to which town he removed, and in 1844 he again removed to Boston, where he died in 1874, aet. eighty-six.
William T. Haddock (changed in later life to Heydock), of the class of 1819, a brother of Professor C. B. Haddock, son of William Haddock of Franklin and nephew of Daniel Webster, was born April 4, 1798, studied law with Webster, and practised at Hanover from 1822 to 1828. He then removed successively to Concord, Boston and Lowell. He ranked high as a scholar while in College, and was favored with an attractive person and talents of a high order, but sacrificed himself to evil habits, and died at Hanover, November 6, 1835, at the age of thirty-seven. He married Jane Elizabeth, daughter of Mills Olcott, December 21, 1823, who survived him with two children. While in Lowell he developed a good business. He published in 1829 an admirable probate directory, adapted to the New Hampshire laws on a novel and excellent plan.
Edward R. Olcott, son of Mills Olcott, was born at Hanover, August 9, 1805, was graduated from Dartmouth in 1825, read law in Lowell, Massachusetts, and practised in Hanover from 1828 to 1830; he then removed to Haverhill, and in 1834 to Louisiana, where he gained some distinction, rising to a judicial position. He died in that state in 1869, at the age of sixty-four. He was three times married and left children.
William Olcott, son of Mills Olcott, was born at Hanover, September 19, 1806, was graduated from Dartmouth in 1827, read law at Haverhill with Joseph Bell, and practised at Hanover from 1830 to 1835; afterward he removed to Rochester and Buffalo, New York, and later to Shreveport, Louisiana, where he
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died March 31, 1851, aet. forty-four, leaving a wife and one or more children. Little can be said of his career.
Ira Perley, son of Samuel Perley and Phebe (Dresser) of Box- ford, Massachusetts, was graduated from Dartmouth in 1822. He was a tutor in the College until 1825, reading law with Mr. Gilbert and succeeded him in practice in 1827, having an office in the north end of the second story of the old Tontine building. To his law practice he added the duties of college treasurer from 1830 to 1835. He removed to Concord in 1834, and his subsequent career is too well known to be here repeated.1 He was appointed to the Supreme Bench of New Hampshire in 1850. From 1855 to 1869 he was Chief Justice, retiring at the constitutional limit of seventy years. He died at Concord, February 26, 1874. His characteristics during life were well expressed by a song of the students while he was tutor :
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