USA > New Hampshire > Rockingham County > Exeter > History of the town of Exeter, New Hampshire > Part 32
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None of the above-named judges of the highest provincial court were educated as lawyers. And the custom of appointing to that responsible position men of sound sense, business knowledge and uprightness, without regard to their legal knowledge, was contin- ued for many years after this time, mainly, it is supposed, for the want of enough suitable men educated to the profession. But, for the purposes of the time, the appointments were quite satisfactory.
The first trained lawyer in Exeter was Nicholas Perryman. He was born in England December 24, 1692, but emigrated quite young, after the death of his parents, and appeared in Exeter between 1710 and 1720. Where he received his education is not known, but that it was not neglected is apparent from the fact that he was employed as master of the grammar or classical school from 1716 to 1718. With whom he pursued his legal studies does
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not appear. But as early as 1730 he seems to have been fully engaged in the practice of the law. He was repeatedly employed by the town in suits, and in contested matters in the Assembly. He was the chief conveyancer of the inhabitants, and his work was neatly executed and correctly expressed, so far as it has been ob- served. Ile married Joanna, danghter of Stephen Dudley, and granddaughter of the Rev. Samuel Dudley, by whom he had four children, all of whom he outlived except one daughter, who mar- ried Noah Emery. He died in Exeter August 9, 1757.
Noah Emery was a son of a lawyer of the same name, and was born in Kittery, Maine, December 22, 1725. He must have come to Exeter before his maturity, for he married Joanna, the daughter of Nicholas Perryman, March 20, 1745, she then being but four- teen years of age and he under twenty. He studied his profession with his father-in-law, and probably was associated with him in business during the latter part of his life. The amount of purely legal business at that time must have been small, and it is likely that they added to it trade or other sources of profit. But Mr. Emery doubtless had his fair share of such professional employ- ment as there was.
When the Revolution broke out he took sides warmly with the patriotic party, and was chosen a delegate to the Provincial Con- gress, of which he also served as clerk. He was prominent enough to be appointed upon some of the most important committees in that body and in the House of Representatives, into which it resolved itself.
In 1776 Mr. Emery was commissioned clerk of the Court of Common Pleas, and held the office until his death in 1787. He left five sons and four daughters. His son of the same name succeeded him in the clerkship.
William Parker was a son of Judge William Parker of Ports- mouth, where he was born in 1731. He was a graduate of Har- vard College in 1751, and after being employed as a teacher for a while, studied law with his father, and commenced practice in Exeter in 1765. He was able, well read and possessed of no small store of ready wit, but was afflicted with an unconquerable diffidence which prevented him from taking part in oral trials, so that his employment was chiefly confined to office work. But he stood high in the estimation of the community, who bestowed upon him a fair share of remunerative business.
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When the Revolution swept away the old regime in the State, his father was removed from the office of Register of Probate, and the son, who was identified with the popular movement, was ap- pointed in his place, and was continued in the post until his death in 1813, on which his son John J. Parker was chosen register and remained so through his life until 1831. Thus three generations of this family held the office continuously for near a century.
In 1790 Mr. Parker was commissioned judge of the Court of Common Pleas, and retained the position till 1807 when he was more than seventy-five years of age. The new constitution, adopted after his appointment, declared that the commissions of judges should be void when they reached the age of seventy, but it was an open question whether that provision applied to cases like his. The Legislature settled the question by passing an ad- dress for his removal ; not because of any dissatisfaction, however, with him or his official conduet. He died, universally esteemed and respected, at the age of eighty-one.
John Pickering, a lawyer of eminence, afterwards Chief Justice of the State, and judge of the District Court of the United States, resided in Exeter for one or two years during the Revolution. Whether he came with the intention of making the place his per- manent home, or to be in a more congenial atmosphere during the contest between the provinces and the mother country, is a matter of conjecture. Ile was taxed as a citizen in 1778, and the same year was chosen by the town a delegate to the convention to revise the constitution of the State. Though Mr. Pickering was known as a friend to the liberties of his country, he appears to have been a little timid in taking steps that might compromise him with the loyal party. In 1774 he was chosen by the Provincial Congress a delegate to the Continental Congress. Ile publicly declined the honor, upon the plea that the court was coming on, and his en- gagements to his clients would not permit him to be absent. John Sullivan was elected in his place, who, in thanking the convention, remarked, with a sly glance at Pickering, that he, too, had his court engagements, but he regarded his duties to his clients as of small moment in comparison to his higher duties to his country in that time of trial. The impression was general that Pickering's patriotism was of rather a faint-hearted kind.
Oliver Peabody was the son of a man of the same name, and was born in Andover, Massachusetts, September 2, 1753. He graduated from Harvard College in 1773 ; studied law in the office
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of the distinguished Theophilus Parsons, and began practice in Exeter about the year 1778. He was a careful and diligent student, and a faithful and punctual practitioner. His business capacity was appreciated by the community, and his personal qualities, his amiable disposition and courtesy of manner gave him much popularity. A great part of his life was passed in pub- lic stations. From 1789, for several years, he was annually chosen treasurer of the county ; and in 1790 he was elected State senator, but resigned his seat to accept the appointment of Judge of Probate. After holding that position three years, he was again elected to the State Senate two successive years, in the latter of which he presided over that body. He again resigned the senator- ship on being chosen treasurer of the State, which he continued to be for nearly ten years. The next year he was made sheriff of the county, and held that post five years. Again elected to the State Senate, he was appointed judge of the Court of Common Pleas, and remained upon the bench until the re-organization of the judiciary of the State in 1816.
In addition to all these, he held other positions of trust of com- paratively private character. Yet Judge Peabody was no office seeker. Ile had pressed upon him other and more important posi- tions, any of which, in all probability, he might have obtained had he consented to be a candidate, but declined them. He was fond of social and domestic life, and had no desire for anything that would separate him from that.
He died in Exeter August 3, 1831. He was the father of the two distinguished twin brothers, Oliver W. B. and William B. O. Peabody, and of the wife of Alexander H. Everett.
Nathaniel Parker was a son of Judge William Parker, then of East Kingston and afterwards of Exeter, and was born October 22, 1760. He obtained his education in the excellent schools of Exeter, studied law in his father's office, and began practice in the town before 1790. He, like his father, had little aptitude or inclination for the forensic side of his profession, though he prob- ably had a sufficiency of legal knowledge. He was chosen clerk of the State Senate in 1803 and the following year, and represen- tative from Exeter from 1805 to 1809 inclusive. In some of the latter years he was also Deputy Secretary of State, and in 1809 was chosen Secretary. His death occurred in Exeter April 2, 1812, and he left no descendants.
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George Sullivan was a son of General John Sullivan of the Rev- olution, and was born in Durham August 29, 1771. He obtained his education at the Phillips Exeter Academy and at Harvard College, and took his degree in 1790. He read law in his father's office, and settled in practice in Exeter in 1793 or 1794. He was a good student, well fitted for professional work, and of fine per- sonal presence, and soon secured an ample clientele. He was sent as representative to the State Legislature in 1805, and made so good an impression there that the Executive conferred upon him the appointment of Attorney General of the State, which he held for two years. In 1811 he was elected to the Congress of the United States for one term, and in 1814 and 1815 was a member of the State Senate. In the latter year he was a second time appointed Attorney General of the State and continued in the faithful and satisfactory discharge of the duties of the post for twenty years, when he resigned it upon the passage of a law which, though increasing the salary, forbade the occupant of that office to practise in civil causes. Mr. Sullivan's civil engagements were too important and lucrative to be sacrificed even for the sake of an office to which he was so peculiarly adapted.
Mr. Sullivan was an honorable, high minded lawyer, and had none of that petty sharpness which would take advantage of every trifling slip of an adversary. He was essentially an orator, and spared no pains to perfect himself in the art of eloquence. His voice was musical, and he trained it with care. His gesticulation was graceful, his language was well chosen, and his sentences were beautifully rounded. His addresses to the jury were models of argument, persuasion and appeal, and were extremely effective.
While in point of technical legal knowledge, and in the power to deal with abstract principles, Mr. Sullivan was confessedly not the equal of some of his competitors, yet in his own chosen field there was no one of them who surpassed him. He ranked among the first advocates in the State, and measured himself with the leaders of the bar, without losing by the comparison.
He belonged to a family noted in the law, and in which the attorney-generalship might almost be said to be hereditary, as his father held it before him and his son after him. The united terms of service of the three generations in the positions of public pros- ecutor, as attorney general or county solicitor, must have ex- ceeded fifty years.
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Mr. Sullivan died in Exeter April 14, 1838. He was twice married. Two of his sons followed his own profession, John, of Exeter, and James who, after practising a few years in Pembroke and Concord, removed to Michigan where he passed the residue of his life.
Moses Hodgdon, a native of Dover, who began practice there in 1801, came to Exeter and lived in the town from about 1811 to 1813, when he returned to Dover, and continued to reside there afterwards till his death. He had the reputation of being a sound and careful lawyer.
Solon Stevens was born in Charlestown October 3, 1778, the son of Samuel Stevens, and the grandson of the Phineas Stevens who defended the fort at " Number Four " from the assaults of the Indians, about the middle of the last century.
He was a graduate of Dartmouth College in 1798. After studying law with Benjamin West and John C. Chamberlain, he was admitted to the bar, and came to Exeter to settle, about the year 1801. He remained, probably, seven years, and then removed to Boston. But there his health failed him, and he went back to his early home, to die, at the age of thirty years.
Jeremiah Smith was for forty years one of the foremost citizens of Exeter. A native of Peterborough, he attended the schools of the town, and was early noted for his mental acumen and aptitude to learn. In 1777 he entered Harvard College, and at the same time enlisted in the army for two months in a company raised to oppose the advance of General Burgoyne. He fought valiantly at Bennington, and was slightly wounded, but declared afterwards that the music of bullets had no charms in his ears. After two years in Harvard he finished his collegiate course in Queen's (now Rutgers's) College in New Jersey. For three or four years after- wards he was engaged in teaching, at the same time reading law. When he presented himself before the Hillsborough bar for admis- sion, it was objected that he had no counsellor's certificate that he had spent the proper time in study. Smith rode all the succeeding night to Salem, Massachusetts, and back, and produced the proper certificate the next morning, but the president of the bar declined to call another meeting to consider his application, on the ground that there was not time during the term.
The Scotch-Irish blood of the young applicant, who now saw that he was being trifled with, was instantly up, and he applied to the court for his admission, at the same time stating the treatment
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that he had received from the bar. The judges ordered that he should be admitted, much to the disgust of the lawyers, who did their best to make it unpleasant for him. Smith wrote to a friend that " it was devilish hard to be refused admittance to bad com- pany !" However, he had his revenge. When the next court met without his name appearing on the docket, two of the lawyers, Baruch Chase and Nathaniel Green, to annoy him, asked if they should pass his list of entries to the clerk. Ile thanked them and wrote and handed them the following :
Common sense v. Baruch Chase. Common honesty v. Nathaniel Green.
They troubled him no more ; nor, to do them justice, did the rest, when they discovered how thoroughly qualified he was for his profession. Business rapidly flowed in upon him, and he was soon one of the leading lawyers of his section.
After three years' service in the State Legislature he was, in 1790, elected a member of the Congress of the United States, and afterwards was thrice re-elected. While in Congress, he made the acquaintance of many of the most eminent men of the country, with some of whom he remained on terms of intimacy ever after.
He resigned his seat in 1797 to accept the appointment of Dis- trict Attorney of the United States, and, the same year, came to Exeter to reside. He was already married. For the next three years he labored assiduously in his profession, attending the courts in at least four counties. In 1800 he received the appointment of Judge of Probate for the county of Rockingham. A treatise upon probate law which, with characteristic diligence he drew up at that time, has since been published, in great part, and shows his thoroughness, learning and judicious application of principles. In February, 1801, he was commissioned by President Adams, then just about to go out of office, a judge of the United States Circuit Court. He prepared himself for his new functions by careful study, and until the law was repealed, by which the court was cs- tablished, performed his duties with fidelity. When he was thus relieved from that office, he was at once appointed Chief Justice of the Superior Court of New Hampshire. The salary attached to the place was so inadequate that he could not, in justice to him- self and his young family, accept the appointment. But the Legis- lature twice raised the salary in order to retain his services.
He filled the office with consummate ability and learning until 1809, when he was persuaded to resign it, and to become a candi-
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date for the governorship of the State. IIe was elected, but the position was not at all to his liking, and he felt no regret when he found that he was not re-elected. In 1813 he was again commis- sioned Chief Justice of the Superior Court, and presided there until the change in the judicial system in 1816. For a few years after this he engaged in legal practice, and about 1820 retired from the profession.
He was not entirely relieved from the cares of business after- wards, as he was the president of the Exeter bank and the treas- urer of the Phillips Exeter Academy. But he gave most of his time to his family and friends, and to reading and writing. He was never idle. He enjoyed society, and was a great talker among congenial companions. Once, when he had passed an evening in the company of Judge Theophilus Parsons and others, where he had furnished the lion's share of the conversation, he was late at breakfast the next morning. One of the gentlemen inquired where he was. "Oh," said Parsons, "he is in bed, resting that - tongue of his."
Many anecdotes are told of his ready wit among his townsmen. It was once proposed in the town meeting to construct a new fence around the burying ground, which the judge considered un- necessary. "What use is there, Mr. Moderator," said he, "in going to the expense of a new fence about such a place? Those who are outside of it have no desire to go in, and those who are inside cannot get out !"
One of the most marked traits of Judge Smith was his uniform cheerfulness. He had his disappointments and trials in life, some of them of a serious character. But he bore them without repin- ing or bitterness. He was always found the same.
Ile was certainly one of the ablest men, and most learned law- yers that New Hampshire has produced. Long after his death a volume of his legal decisions was for the first time published, edited by his son, who bears his name, and has also occupied a seat upon the supreme bench of the State. Their great value was universally acknowledged by the members of the profession, and one distinguished judge expressed regret that they had not been published much earlier, as they would have saved the people of the State a great sum of money in litigating questions which had long ago been so satisfactorily decided by him.
Judge Smith died in Dover September 21, 1842.
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James Thom was a son of Dr. Isaac Thom of Londonderry, where he was born August 14, 1785. He graduated at Dartmouth College at the age of twenty, studied law under the direction of George Sullivan in Exeter, and after his admission in 1808, set up an office there. IIe was bright and popular, and had one accom- plishment better appreciated in his time than in ours - he sang a good song. In the war of 1812 he was in command of a com- pany of militia which was ordered to Portsmouth for the defence of the sea-coast for a brief tour of duty. He used to tell ludicrous stories afterwards of his military service. "There came once an alarm that the British were landing at Rye," he said, "and all my company were instantly taken sick, and I the worst of all." How- ever, there was no real occasion to try their mettle against the enemy.
After seven years' life in Exeter, Mr. Thom removed to Derry, where he passed the remainder of his days in the practice of his , profession, and a part of the time as the cashier of a bank.
Joseph Tilton came to Exeter to engage in the practice of the law in 1809. He had been admitted eight years before, which time he divided between Wakefield and Rochester. He was a native of East Kingston. He has been described as a " business lawyer," as he rarely took any prominent part in trials in court. But he was a sound and well read counsellor who acquired a respectable practice, and enjoyed the friendship and respect of his eminent contemporaries in the profession, Mason and Web- ster, Sullivan and Bartlett, and particularly of Chief Justice Richardson, who enjoyed Mr. Tilton's humorous stories and con- . versation, and admired that quality so much more appreciated by the bench than by the bar, his invariable promptness and readiness for trial when his cases came in order. "Mr. Tilton is always ready," was the judge's testimony.
The good things said that set the table in a roar, often fall flat when they come to be committed to paper. But lawyers, at least, will see the point of one of Mr. Tilton's savings. A coach full of members of the bar were on their way from Portsmouth to Exeter. One of them remarked upon the beauty of a farm by the roadside, and wished he were the owner of it. "I'll tell you how you can get half of it," said Tilton. "Bring a suit for the whole, and refer it out of court. The referees will be sure to give you half !"
Mr. Tilton was a member of the Legislature from Exeter for nine years from 1814 to 1823, and though he made little noise in
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the political world, was really a power there. He had the entire confidence of his townsmen and of those who knew him best, and administered the trusts that fell upon him with uprightness and fidelity.
He married Nancy, the daughter of Colonel Samuel Folsom, and lived in the house in which she was born. He died, without leaving descendants, March 28, 1856, at the age of eighty-two years.
Jotham Lawrence was a descendant of one of the early residents of Exeter. His father lived in Epping, where he was born Feb- ruary 7, 1777. He was educated at the Phillips Exeter Academy, and studied his profession with George Sullivan. Admitted a counsellor of the Superior Court in 1805, he had probably been in practice in the inferior courts for two years before. He began business in his native town, but in 1809 removed his residence to Exeter, which was thenceforth his home.
Mr. Lawrence was not distinguished as an advocate, but had his fair share of the business of a general character, such as fell to the lot of most country lawyers. There were a few distinguished men in his day who were leaders of the bar, and argued nearly all the causes. They rode the circuits into the different counties, with the judges. This was a survival of the English fashion, which has now entirely disappeared in New Hampshire. The other members of the profession drew writs and deeds and other instruments, and aired their eloquence only in the inferior tri- bunals.
Mr. Lawrence took no special interest in political affairs though he was a member of the Legislature from Exeter in 1831, and afterwards held the office of Bank Commissioner. In his later years, and before a regular Police Court was established in the town, he was the Justice before whom the complaints for criminal offences were usually brought.
He was twice married and had three sons and several daughters. One of his sons, Alexander H. Lawrence, was a lawyer of emi- nence in Washington, D. C.
Mr. Lawrence died in Exeter November 6, 1863.
Stephen Peabody practised law about two years in Exeter, from 1811 to 1813. He was a native of Milford, and after quitting Exeter returned there to live. He was a lawyer of excellent standing and a man highly respected.
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Jeremiah Fellowes, born in Exeter May 1, 1791, and a son of Ephraim Fellowes, was educated at the Phillips Exeter Academy and Bowdoin College, graduating at the age of nineteen. He was fonder of poetry than mathematics in college, or than Blackstone when he was a student at law afterwards. He went through the usual course of study in George Sullivan's office, and began practice in 1813. He still devoted much of his attention to liter- ature, and in 1824 published a volume of his metrical productions, entitled Reminiscences, Moral Poems and Translations. Before he reached middle life, however, his mental powers lost their balance, and it became necessary for him to enter an asylum for the insane. He never recovered, but remained there till his death in 1865.
George Lamson, who has already been referred to in the chapter on the Press, was a son of Gideon Lamson of Exeter, and was born in 1794. After a course of preparation at the academy in the town, he passed through Bowdoin College, and studied for the bar with George Sullivan. Though he opened a law office, he was apparently chiefly interested in the printing office. He became the publisher of The Exeter Watchman in 1819, and began the issue of law books. In 1823 he gave up his legal business and removed to New York city where he undertook the business of a bookseller, but with little success. He died there August 4, 1826. He has been described as "a good scholar, an insatiable reader, and a ready writer." He had many and warm friends who mourned his untimely death.
William Smith opened his law office in Exeter in 1820. A son of Ilon. Jeremiah Smith, he was born in Exeter August 31, 1799, and graduated from Harvard College in 1817. He studied his profession with his father
Ile was bright, able and popular. Brought up among the prin- cipal people in the place, and in the midst of abundance, he lacked but the spur of necessity to bring out his best powers and to enable him to take his stand among the very foremost. At the age of twenty-two his townsmen elected him to the State Legisla- ture, and returned him the two following years. He was appointed a colonel upon the staff of the governor, and received repeated invitations to deliver addresses before literary and other societies, which he accepted, and for which he received high encomiums. .
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