USA > New Hampshire > The bench and bar of New Hampshire : including biographical notices of deceased judges of the highest court, and lawyers of the province and state, and a list of names of those now living > Part 18
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By reason of the change in the political complexion of the State, he was not reelected in 1829. From that year to 1831 he had the editorial charge of the Concord "Journal." But after about a year and a half he relinquished journalism.
On various public occasions Mr. Bartlett delivered addresses of merit, but they were never printed. His best published produc- tions are said by his friend John Farmer to have appeared anony- mously in the journals of the day. He was chosen a represen- tative in the legislature from Concord in 1830 and 1831; and in the latter year was complimented with a nomination for Con- gress, but declined it.
On the formation of the New Hampshire Historical Society he was an original member, and one of its officers for several years ; and prepared a valuable article for the fifth volume of its Collec- tions, on the Care of Public Archives.
In 1832 he left the State, and became interested in the book- store of his brother, Caleb Bartlett, in New York. There he re- mained until his death.
He never married.
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GEORGE SULLIVAN BARTON.
Son of Hon. Cyrus and Hannah (Hale) Barton ; born, Concord, May 9, 1831 ; Dartmouth College, 1851 ; admitted, 1853 ; practiced, Newport ; died, Concord, July 24, 1857.
Mr. Barton graduated from college at the age of twenty, studied law, and in two years was admitted an attorney. He began practice in Burlington, Iowa, but after a year there returned to New Hampshire, and became a partner of Edmund Burke of Newport. He was ambitious, and inherited political tenden- cies, no doubt ; and in 1855 and 1856 was chosen clerk of the state Senate, a place which has often served as a stepping-stone for young men to higher party honors. But in his case it was not to be, for his life was cut short when he had reached the age of only twenty-six.
He was a man of much promise, a fine penman, a skillful draughtsman, and gifted with no mean poetic talent.
IRA MCLAUGHLIN BARTON.
Son of Hon. Levi W. and Mary A. (Pike) Barton ; born, Newport, March 11, 1840 ; practiced, Newport ; died there, January 19, 1876.
Mr. Barton was prepared for college at Meriden, and entered Dartmouth College in 1858. He remained there only a year, and left, for no fault, in 1859, and entered upon the study of the law in his father's office.'On the breaking out of the war of the Southern Rebellion, he is said to have been the first man in Sulli- van County to enlist. He was commissioned captain in the First Regiment of New Hampshire Volunteers. After three months' service he received the appointment of captain of Company E. in the Fifth New Hampshire Regiment, and was in the several battles before Richmond in 1862. From 1863 to 1865 he was lieutenant-colonel of the First Regiment of New Hampshire Heavy Artillery, and stationed in the defenses about Washington.
After the war closed he was appointed a first lieutenant in the regular army, and acted as provost-marshal at Pine Bluffs, Ar- kansas ; and afterwards received successively the appointments of district attorney and judge of a criminal court in Arkansas. Having practiced his profession there about three years, he re-
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turned to New Hampshire and entered into partnership with his father. There he continued up to the time of his decease.
Colonel Barton was a man of warm and generous feelings. His abilities were proved by the positions which he filled. In a professional life so varied and interrupted, he had scarcely the opportunity to prove what he was capable of accomplishing in the law, but his friends anticipated for him a career of marked dis- tinction had his life been spared.
Colonel Barton left no children, though he was twice married ; first to Helen M. Wilcox of Newport, and second to Addie L. Barton of Ludlow, Vermont.
ZACHARIAH BATCHELDER.
Son of Zachariah and Polly (Knowlton) Batchelder ; born, Beverly, Massa- chusetts, February 4, 1796 ; Dartmouth College, 1821 ; practiced, Chichester, and Wolfeborough ; died, Wolfeborough, May 11, 1869.
The parents of Mr. Batchelder removed shortly after his birth to Wendell, now Sunapee, in this State, where his early years were spent. At the age of twenty he became a pupil in Kimball Union Academy, whence the next year he entered college. It was his original desire to qualify himself 'for the ministry, but upon mature consideration he believed himself better adapted to some other calling. The three years after his graduation he spent in teaching at Meredith, Salisbury, Winchester, and North- field, Massachusetts ; at the same time reading law partly with Samuel I. Wells of Salisbury, and in part with Benjamin Kim- ball of Winchester. He began to practice in Chichester, where he remained during the years 1827 and 1828, and then removed to Wolfeborough, his home through life.
He was a fine scholar, especially in Greek and mathematics, holding the third or fourth place in rank in his class, and he never lost his knowledge by neglect afterwards. As might be expected, he was a well-read and accurate lawyer. He was regular in his habits and upright in his conduct, a quiet, reserved man, who made no display of his capacity. He rarely argued causes in court, though he was from 1841 to 1846 solicitor of the county.
He never married.
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GEORGE EDWIN BEACHAM.
Son of John C. and Olive (Young) Beacham ; born, Wolfeborough, May 12, 1852 ; admitted, 1876 ; practiced, Somersworth ; died there, March 30, 1892.
Mr. Beacham was educated chiefly in the public schools of Great Falls village, in Somersworth. At the age of twenty-one he entered the office of William J. Copeland, at Somersworth, as a student at law, and was admitted at the end of three years to the bar. He established himself in practice in Great Falls village, and at a later date connected himself in business with attorneys in Carroll County, and York County in Maine.
He was a good, safe lawyer, not of extraordinary power or learning, but honest and attentive to his employers' interests, and never advising unnecessary litigation. His business embraced the collection of claims, the drawing of instruments, and the like, and became quite considerable. He tried very few cases before the jury.
In 1881 and 1882 he was a representative in the legislature, and in the latter year was made associate Justice of the Police Court of Somersworth.
He was a good deal interested in Freemasonry, and had made considerable progress in the collection of materials for a history of Libanus Lodge in Somersworth, but never completed the work.
He was married, February 14, 1876, to Olive L., daughter of Henry Nunn of North Berwick, Maine, and left one son.
IRA ALLEN BEAN.
Born, Moultonborough, c. 1799 ; admitted, 1823 ; practiced, Sandwich ; died, Urbanna, Ohio, c. 1869.
After completing his law studies with Jonathan C. Everett at Meredith, Mr. Bean opened an office in Sandwich in 1823. Hav- ing resided there ten years, he was seized with an inclination to "go West," and removed to Urbanna, Ohio. He entered into trade there, it is said, took part in politics, and was elected to the Ohio Senate. About 1856 Mr. Bean returned to Sandwich, and resumed his law practice, and at the same time engaged in farm.
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ing. In 1865 and 1867 he was a member of the New Hampshire House of Representatives. In 1869 or 1870, he returned to Ohio, and there suddenly died.
He was a lawyer of respectable rank, and is said to have ex- celled as an advocate. He was a ready debater, and a clear, in- cisive speaker.
His wife was Eliza F., daughter of General Daniel Hoit of Sandwich. They were married, March 9, 1826.
ITHAMAR WARREN BEARD.
Son of Ithamar A. and Mary (Warren) Beard ; born, Littleton, Massachu- setts, September 3, 1814 ; admitted, 1839 ; practiced, Pittsfield ; died, Lowell, Massachusetts, October 31, 1862.
Mr. Beard's father was in early life a noted and successful teacher, and later was agent of the cotton mill in Pittsfield. He had a strong desire that his son should follow a mechanical pur- suit, to which the latter dutifully submitted until he was emanci- pated, when he devoted his time to the acquisition of a more complete education. He took a partial course of instruction at Bowdoin College for two years ; and then commenced the study of the law with Moses Norris at Pittsfield. By his energy, inde- pendence, and decided opinions, he attracted no little attention among the legal and political intimates of Mr. Norris. Thus his interest in law and in politics naturally kept pace with one another.
In 1839 Mr. Beard became a partner of Mr. Norris in Pitts- field. This relation continued for three years, and until Mr. Beard left the State. He practiced his profession with credit and success in Lowell, Massachusetts, for about fourteen years, and then transferred his office, in 1856, to Boston. While in Lowell he was chosen, in 1851, a member of the state Senate. In Oc- tober, 1853, he was appointed assistant Treasurer of the United States, and in 1860 cashier of the custom house in Boston. Not long after this his health gave way. He quitted Boston and returned to Lowell, where his connections resided, and made the attempt to continue his legal practice ; but his strength was unequal to the task, and his earthly career closed at the age of forty-eight.
He was an upright and downright man, gifted with a powerful
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and impressive physique, a frank, generous, and fearless dispo- sition, " superior ability, and high moral character." His pluck and tenacity, the honesty of his convictions, and his unblemished reputation gave him great moral power, and he was a most effec- tive speaker in the court-room and upon the platform.
His first wife was Mary A. Todd of Pittsfield, a sister of the wife of Moses Norris. They were married, September 7, 1836. Mrs. Beard died in 1853, and Mr. Beard married Abba W. Man- sur of Lowell, January 3, 1854. Of his three children by his former marriage, only one now survives.
JOHN BEDEL.
Son of General Moody and Mary (Hunt) Bedel ; born, Indian Stream ter- ritory, July 8, 1822 ; admitted, 1850 ; practiced, Bath ; died there, February 26, 1875.
It was in the schools of Bath, supplemented by the seminary at Newbury, Vermont, that Mr. Bedel obtained his education. In 1843 he commenced studying law with Harry Hibbard at Bath, but in 1847, before he had completed his five years' apprentice- ship, he enlisted as a private in the army, for service in the war with Mexico. In two months he rose to be sergeant, in nine months to be lieutenant, and during a great part of 1848 he was in command of a company. After the war was closed, in 1849, he resumed his place in Mr. Hibbard's office, and at the same time employed himself considerably as soldiers' claim agent. He was admitted in 1850, and became the next year a partner of Mr. Hibbard. He is described as able to "talk pretty saucy " in proper cases, but apparently had no great love for his profession.
In 1853, after a practice of three years, he obtained an appoint- ment in the United States Treasury Department, and went to Washington, which he made his home for the next eight years. His duties required him to deal with the accounts of men who had failed to meet their obligations to the government, and his accurate habits and decision made him an excellent officer.
At the first clash of arms in 1861, the warlike spirit which he had inherited from two generations of soldier ancestors impelled him to the field. His zeal and military experience procured him the appointment of major of the Third New Hampshire Regi- ment in 1861, and he was promoted to lieutenant-colonel in June, 1862, and colonel in 1864, while in the hands of the enemy.
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In July, 1863, he was taken prisoner in the assault on Fort Wagner, while far in advance of his men. He was detained five months before being enlarged on parole, and was treated with such harshness and rigor that upon his release he proceeded at once to Washington, and made to the President a full statement of the circumstances, with a view to expedite the exchange of prisoners, a purpose to which his representations are supposed to have materially contributed. He then returned to his regiment in Wil- mington, North Carolina, and continued to serve until hostilities were ended. He was brevetted brigadier-general, to rank from March, 1865.
At the close of the war he returned to Bath, and engaged in the manufacture of starch. He was chosen a member of the popular branch of the legislature in 1868-69, and was the candidate of the Democratic party for the office of governor in 1869 and 1870. His death occurred from over-exertion and exposure on the occa- sion of the burning of his starch mill, on a cold and stormy day.
In December, 1853, he was married to Mary A., daughter of Jesse Bowers of Nashua. They had seven children, three of whom were living at their father's decease.
GEORGE. BELL.
Son of Hon. Samuel and Lucy (Smith) Bell ; born, Chester, June 24, 1829 ; Dartmouth College, 1851 ; admitted, 1854 ; practiced, Manchester ; died, Cleveland, Ohio, September 2, 1864.
Prepared for college at the Pinkerton Academy in Derry, and for admission to the bar in the office of Wheeler and Faulkner in Keene, Mr. Bell made his first essay in practice in Chicago, Illi- nois. After about two years he returned to this State, and opened an office in Manchester. There he prepared for publication a Digest of the Decisions of the Superior Court, as a continuation to Gilchrist's Digest. It was issued in 1858, and met with uni- versal favor from the profession, until it, as well as Gilchrist's work, was superseded by the Digest of Morrison, ten years later, which covered the ground of both.
About 1860 Mr. Bell changed his residence to Cleveland, Ohio. While there he served a year in an Ohio regiment in the Union army. He was a man of marked ability, but diffident, and not gifted with the pushing faculty. His Digest shows him to have
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been not only thoroughly grounded in the law, but also to have formed a critical acquaintance with nice legal distinctions. It is said that he cherished the scheme of preparing something like a Universal American Digest, but his life came to an end too soon to allow him to carry out the design.
He married Emma A. Preston, of Manchester, August 2, 1859, and died childless.
JAMES BELL.
Son of Hon. Samuel and Mehitable (Dana) Bell ; born, Francestown, No- vember 13, 1804 ; Bowdoin College, 1822 ; admitted, 1825 ; practiced, Gilman- ton, Exeter, and Gilford; died, Gilford, May 26, 1857.
Mr. Bell was prepared for college at Phillips Academy, An- dover, Massachusetts. His law education he obtained in the office of his brother, Samuel D. Bell, in Chester, and at the Law School in Litchfield, Connecticut, and he commenced practice in Gilmanton. After a stay there of six years he removed in 1831 to Exeter. He devoted himself with great assiduity to his pro- fession. After a time, the extent of his practice made it necessary for him to have an associate in business, and he took as a partner Amos Tuck, who had been his student. For several years their practice in Rockingham and Strafford counties was scarcely equaled by that of any other office. A large portion of it con- sisted of litigated cases, which Mr. Bell almost invariably ar- gued to the court and jury. Upon the trial docket he was counsel for one or the other of the parties in a great majority of all the causes in his own county ; and during the sessions of the courts had scarcely a breathing spell from the opening to the " previous proclamation." As soon as the jury had gone out in one of his cases, he had usually to take out another set of papers to open the next case to another jury ; and so on, with few exceptions, for weeks together throughout the term. Nothing but the most care- ful preparation and exact method would have made such contin- ual mental labor possible. His equable temperament and regular habits enabled him to undergo the strain with the least wear and tear, it is true ; but in process of time the exhausting toil told upon his constitution, and implanted in it the seeds of a linger- ing but surely fatal malady.
In 1846 he accepted the offer of a position that promised to re- lieve him of much of the confining work of the office and court-
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room. The proprietors of the great manufacturing establishments on the Merrimac River, that had usually suffered from the low water of the summer droughts, conceived the plan of purchasing the lands and rights of flowage around Lake Winnepesaukee, so as to make it a reservoir for their use. This would involve a great variety of questions of title and of riparian rights, which could be properly dealt with only by a lawyer of competent attainments and knowledge of men. These qualities the Win- nepesaukee Land and Waterpower Company found in Mr. Bell, and made him their agent to conduct the preliminary and far the most difficult part of the business. He gave himself to it with his usual diligence, changing his residence to Gilford for the purpose, and so much to the contentment of his employers that he was retained in the agency as long as he lived.
Though Mr. Bell had no special liking for political life, he served in the legislature in 1846 from Exeter, and in the con- stitutional convention of 1850 from Gilford, and was twice made the candidate of his party for the office of governor. The party being then in a minority, he was not chosen, but in June, 1855, when a political revolution had given the power to his friends, he was elected a United States senator for a full term. He served in that capacity in the thirty-fourth Congress, and in the extra session in 1857, though so much enfeebled by disease that he was unable to do fair justice to his abilities and acquirements.
Mr. Bell's qualifications and standing as a lawyer cannot be better described than in the language of Chief Justice Perley : -
" Mr. Bell was a man of large attainments, and great variety and versatility of powers. Considered as a lawyer, it would not be easy to name one more completely furnished for all exigen- cies in the different departments of the profession. He was an advocate fully equal to the conduct of the weightiest and most difficult cases. As a legal adviser, no man gave a sounder and safer opinion on a naked question of law.1 ... There was an even balance in his mind and a just proportion in all the parts of his character. . . . There was nothing for which he was more re- markable than for the variety and amount of labor which he was
1 The point raised by Mr. Bell in the celebrated "guide-board " cases, which relieved several towns from being cast in heavy damages under a care- lessly drawn statute, is a good example of his ingenuity and acumen in dealing with legal questions. See the notice of Jonas B. Bowman.
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able to perform. Without hurry or confusion he disposed of his work with unrivaled ease and dispatch. He was entirely free from all low craft and disingenuous artifice, yet his dexterity and fine tact in the handling of a cause have not been surpassed by any contemporary in this State. . . . He was the most modest and unobtrusive of men, yet was never known to fail in self-pos- session, and in the perfect mastery and control of his faculties. With the greatest mildness and gentleness of manner, he was strenuous and unyielding in the assertion of all his client's sub- stantial rights. . .. Of professional deportment a more perfect model could hardly be proposed. The prevailing kindness of his disposition, the delightful courtesy and gentleness of his manners, his good nature and habitual disposition to oblige in all the for- mal parts of business, his perfect good faith and unsullied integ- rity, his untiring patience and freedom from that irritability which his cares and exhausting labors might well have excused, en- deared him in no common degree to his brethren of the legal pro- fession at the bar and on the bench. . . . His life was without a stain, and to the last, most diligently devoted to useful and honor- able labor in the way of his duty."
Mr. Bell, at the age of twenty-seven, married Judith A., daugh- ter of Nathaniel Upham of Rochester, and left five children. Both his sons studied law, and one practiced for a time in this State ; and one of his daughters was the wife of Nathaniel G. White, a lawyer of Lawrence, Massachusetts.
JOSEPH BELL, LL. D.
Son of Joseph and Mary (Houston) Bell ; born, Bedford, March 21, 1787 ; Dartmouth College, 1807 ; admitted, 1811 ; practiced, Haverhill ; died, Sara- toga, New York, July 25, 1851.
This able lawyer came of that Londonderry Scotch-Irish stock which has produced so many of the marked men of our State, and though born to narrow circumstances, was aspiring and resolute to obtain a liberal education. This, by his exertions and prudence, he accomplished. One year after his graduation he was employed as preceptor of the academy in Haverhill, and then began his legal studies ; first in the office of Samuel Bell, in Francestown, and subsequently with Samuel Dana of Boston, Massachusetts, and Jeremiah Smith of Exeter. He settled in Haverhill in the
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year 1811, in a very modest way, with few law-books, in a small office, where he also had his bed. His means had been exhausted in his preparation, and at first his prospects were not encouraging ; but soon after, he was appointed cashier of the Grafton Bank, and this was the stepping-stone to fortune. It afforded him a certain income, brought him in contact with business and moneyed men, and gave him a chance to show his capacity. All his leisure hours were devoted to his professional business, which soon be- came considerable. In about three years it engrossed so much of his time that he resigned the cashiership, and thenceforward he never lacked clients.
But all was not plain sailing with him yet. In 1816, when the old court house in Haverhill was burned, he met with a serious accident by stepping on a nail which protruded from a fallen shingle. Lock-jaw was threatened, and was averted only by a serious surgical operation. A fever ensued, which reduced him to the very verge of dissolution ; but by careful nursing he gradu- ally recovered, and at length resumed his business with increasing success.
In 1821, when he had acquired property and reputation, and had taken a wife, a suit was brought against him by one of the ladies who nursed him in his sickness, for breach of promise of marriage. This was a menace to his reputation and his purse, and he prepared himself resolutely to defend both. The action was twice tried, Richard Fletcher leading for the plaintiff, and assailing the defendant with all the bitterness, it is said, of an un- successful rival; but the verdict was for the defendant. It was characteristic of Mr. Bell that he taxed his costs and took out execution, and quietly put it away in a pigeon-hole. The death of the plaintiff occurred a few years later, and as she left prop- erty, he then presented his claim to her executor and it was paid.
For thirty years Mr. Bell was in practice in the county of Grafton, and the greater part of that time was facile princeps there. The courts were regularly attended by several of the ablest lawyers of the State, such as George Sullivan, Ichabod Bartlett, Joel Parker, and Jeremiah Smith, so that Mr. Bell had no easy task to hold his position ; but he did it. Until the last few years of his stay in the State, however, he did not go much out of his own county. But in those later years he was retained
13
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in the trial of a number of important causes in Rockingham, Strafford, and perhaps other counties.
From a letter of the late Chief Justice Perley the following analysis of some of the prominent characteristics of Mr. Bell as a lawyer is condensed : -
Mr. Bell was remarkably deliberate, thorough, and methodi- cal in his preparation of a cause, and never willingly trusted to the examinations of others. He was particularly attentive to the pleadings, a title of the law with which he was extremely familiar.
He was as far removed as possible from all the low arts by which clients are sometimes obtained and retained; yet no man could be more patient with clients and assistant counsel.
His business in Grafton County was very large and miscella- neous, but it was done promptly, without hurry or confusion, and with the utmost method and exactness. His numerous papers were arranged and kept in complete order, and ready to be pro- .duced at once when needed.
His analysis of facts and of the law was often remarkably acute and subtle ; but his arguments, whether addressed to the .court or jury, were seldom extended to great length. His judg- ment or the natural turn of his mind led him rather to seize on the strong and prominent points of his case, than to run it out into a sifting examination of details.
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