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 28
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In 1816 he took up his abode in Portsmouth where, though he had a fair amount of practice as a lawyer, he did not devote himself wholly to it, but was engaged in the care of estates, and in various official duties. He was overseer of the poor, town agent, assessor of taxes, and chairman of the district school committee of Portsmouth; treasurer of the county, five years ; executive councilor, two years ; and a member of Congress two terms, beginning in 1835. In addition to this he was postmaster during a part of Van Buren's administration, and navy agent through Polk's administration ; and on the adoption of a city charter by Portsmouth in 1850, was appointed the first Justice of her Police Court.
In Congress he was noted rather for his business qualities and attention to his official duties than as a speech-maker, and by his devotion to the furtherance of his party's measures, received from his opponents the sobriquet of " Previous Question " Cushman. He was honest as well as earnest in his convictions, and his pri- vate character was above reproach.
As a lawyer he required to be convinced of the justice of a cause before he would undertake it, and listened willingly to the calls of the poor and the friendless. His life was correct and without a stain, and he lived and died a consistent Christian.
He married in May, 1812, Maria J., daughter of John Salter of Portsmouth. They had twelve children of whom it is believed that only two survived their father.
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ZARA CUTLER.
Son of Captain Benoni and Laurana (Leavens) Cutler ; born, Guildhall, Vermont, December, 1786 ; practiced, Northumberland and Conway ; died, Conway, March 2, 1861.
This gentleman received his education in Vermont, and studied law with Seth Cushman of that State, John M. Tillotson of Northumberland, and Sylvanus Backus of Pomfret, Connecticut.
In 1813 he settled in Northumberland, and resided there until March 31, 1816, when he adopted Conway for his future home. He lived in that town forty-five years, leading the life of a country lawyer, doing all such business as fell in his way, a good collector, not remarkable as an advocate, but interested in the affairs of his town, and much esteemed for his social and religious character. The bar of Carroll County adopted appropriate resolutions at a special meeting held after his death, referring to him as " a man of sound judgment, discreet in practice, of strict integrity, exem- plary in his deportment, and of irreproachable reputation."
He was thrice married ; first, to Mary Waldo of Pomfret, Con- necticut, a granddaughter of General Israel Putnam. She died in 1832. His second wife was Judith, daughter of Captain Enoch Coffin of Concord. She was married, December 3, 1833, and died March 25, 1835. June 8, 1840, he married Maria Tillson of Boston, Massachusetts. By his first marriage he had six children.
CHARLES WILLIAM CUTTER.
Son of Jacob Cutter ; born, Portsmouth, June 11, 1799 ; Harvard College, 1818 ; practiced, Portsmouth ; died, Hatfield, Minnesota, August 6, 1856.
Mr. Cutter studied law in the office of Jeremiah Mason at Portsmouth. On his admission to the bar, September, 1821, he established himself as a practitioner in his native town, and for several years was a contributor to the Portsmouth "Journal," a newspaper of excellent repute. He soon embarked on the uncer- tain sea of politics. As a supporter of the Whig party he was at all times ready with his voice and pen. About 1823 he removed for a year or two to Dover, and there established a newspaper called the Dover " Republican." Returning to Portsmouth he was an associate editor of the "Journal" from July, 1825, to
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January, 1830. As a writer and speaker he was highly success- ful. He represented Portsmouth for several years in the state legislature, and held the offices of clerk of the Circuit and Dis- trict Courts of the United States from March 13, 1826, for fifteen years. In 1841 he was appointed naval storekeeper. He enjoyed that office four years, and that of navy agent from 1849 to 1851. Not long afterwards he proceeded to the West where he closed his career.
Mr. Cutter was a model son, and a noble, generous-hearted man. Well informed in the literature of the day, interested in historical research, an attractive public speaker on the platform or from the desk, he was capable of winning distinction in almost any calling. His acquaintance with Daniel Webster and other high officers of the government gave him no little political in- fluence. He may therefore be considered as fairly successful in the arena of politics. But as the result of his experience, he advised "every young man to follow any honest calling rather than rely for support upon public office."
He never married.
MOODY CUTTER.
Son of John and Rebecca (Browning) Cutter ; born, New Ipswich, Septem- ber 1, 1782 ; admitted, September, 1808 ; practiced, Stoddard ; died there, July 29, 1827.
This was a self-made man, having no advantages of instruction save what the common schools of his native town offered in his early day. He qualified himself by his assiduity to be a school- teacher, and studied law with Ebenezer Champney of New Ips- wich. Establishing himself in Stoddard, he also taught schools there and carried on a farm. He is said to have been elected to several town offices, and to have been much esteemed, though never specially prominent as a lawyer.
He married, April 10, 1805, Henrietta, daughter of Isaac Fisher, and had six children.
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CHARLES CUTTS.
Son of Samuel Cutts ; born, Portsmouth, 1769 ; Harvard College, 1789 ; practiced, Portsmouth ; died, Fairfax County, Virginia, January 25, 1846.
Mr. Cutts' father was a merchant of Portsmouth, and his mother a daughter of President Holyoke of Harvard College. He studied law in the office of John Pickering of Portsmouth, and became a counselor of the Superior Court in 1795. He is said to have been one of a party of young men of education who gave dramatic entertainments in Portsmouth about the close of the last century. His talents were evidently of a popular cast, for he was chosen representative from Portsmouth in the legisla- ture of 1803, and the seven years next following; and in 1807, 1808, and 1810 he was honored with the speakership. In the last of these years the office of United States senator had become vacant by the resignation of Nahum Parker, and the legislature filled it by the selection of Mr. Cutts.
He served out the three remaining years of the term, and then was appointed by Governor Plumer, temporarily, to the same seat for a month in a special session of Congress.
In 1814 he was made secretary of the United States Senate, and so continued till 1825. He never returned to live in New Hampshire afterwards, but made his home in Washington, and finally in Virginia. He was a man of good talents and acquire- ments, but scarcely reached the highest rank. It was said of him not unjustly that " his political career was a short and successful one ; the talents and industry which he brought into the common stock of the party were not very great, and the sacrifices which he was required to make for the common good were small." In the few years that he was in the active practice of his profession he left but few memorials of his acquirements or standing in it. One great secret of his political success is said to have been his personal popularity, based on amiable traits of character and an agreeable and impressive manner.
Mr. Cutts' wife was Lucy Henry Southall, a niece of Mrs. James Madison, and a descendant of Patrick Henry. It was at the residence of their son, in Fairfax County, Virginia, that his death occurred.
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EDWARD CUTTS.
Son of Edward Cutts ; born, Kittery, Maine, 1782 ; Harvard College, 1797 ; practiced, Portsmouth ; died there, August 22, 1844.
Mr. Cutts graduated from college with a fair reputation for scholarship, though he was not specially prominent. He entered the office of Jeremiah Mason of Portsmouth, and applied himself with diligence to the study of the law, and was admitted attorney in 1804, and counselor of the Superior Court in 1806. He set- tled, and performed his life's work, in Portsmouth.
He appears from the outset of his career to have limited his ambition to his profession, and to have given his best strength to climb to the loftiest place in it within the reach of his powers. He had no gift of eloquence, nor the demagogical arts by which second-rate men have acquired large employment in the courts. Whatever he accomplished was done by honest effort, and not by sleight of hand. He was an industrious worker, a clear thinker, and a lawyer of extensive learning. A cause which had his delib- erate opinion in its favor was already half won. In his practice he was upright and honorable. He seldom attempted to address the court or jury in a set speech ; his forte did not lie in that direction. . But the weight of his character and learning gave a force to his baldest statement, beyond the reach of rhetoric. His contemporaries at the bar regarded him as one of the most learned of their number, even when Webster, and Mason, and Bartlett, and others scarcely less eminent were members. He held no pub- lic or fiduciary position save that of president of one bank and director of another.
His history is written in the judicial records of his time. The state and federal courts were the scenes of his labors and his triumphs. His memory is that of a lawyer merely, and no mem- ory is ordinarily more transient. Those who remember him are rapidly passing away, and their recollections have already grown dim. Posterity will know him by no literary production, by no official title, by no striking act, by not even a witty saying ; but only as an embodiment and devotee of the law. Perhaps, how- ever, he would not have had it otherwise.
Mr. Cutts in 1810 married Mary Huske, daughter of Jacob Sheafe, Esq., of Portsmouth. They had no children.
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HAMPDEN CUTTS.
Son of Edward and Mary (Carter) Cutts ; born, Portsmouth, August 3, 1802 ; Harvard College, 1823 ; practiced, Portsmouth ; died, North Hartland, Vermont, April 27, 1875.
This was a nephew of Charles Cutts, and a more distant relative of Edward Cutts, lawyers of Portsmouth. He was a stu- dent of Phillips Academy in Exeter. Jeremiah Mason received him into his office as a law student, and, after his admission in 1827, he was the office-mate of Ichabod Bartlett for a year.
He was endowed with a clear, musical voice, and was distin- guished ; while an undergraduate for his elocutionary skill. In 1824 he delivered a Fourth of July oration at Portsmouth. In 1827 he edited a newspaper, established to support the claims of John Quincy Adams for the presidency, called the "Signs of the Times."
Mr. Cutts remained in the practice of his profession in this State only six years. At that point of his career he was induced to remove to the town of North Hartland, Vermont, to take charge of a valuable farm which was presented to him by his father-in-law, Consul Jarvis. It was supposed that he could use- fully divide his attention between agriculture and his law practice. But a very brief experiment satisfied him that he could not thus serve two masters, and the result was that he in a great measure abandoned his profession.
He was much engaged in public duties in Vermont. He repre- sented Hartland in the legislature in 1840, 1841, 1847, and 1858 ; was state senator in 1842 and 1843; Judge of the Windsor County Court in 1849, 1850, and 1851; was first commissioner on the insane in 1845, and many years vice-president of the Wind- sor County Agricultural Society.
In 1861 he removed to Brattleborough. From that time until his decease he was busied in literary and historical pursuits, as a public reader and lecturer. He was an active member of the Ver- mont Historical Society, and a vice-president of the N. E. His- toric Genealogical Society from 1867 to his death. He prepared many biographical sketches for publication, and was the author of a history of Hartland, which appeared in the "Vermont His- torical Magazine."
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He was united in marriage in 1829 to Mary P. S., daughter of Consul William Jarvis of Weathersfield, Vermont. They had nine children.
SAMUEL DAKIN.
Son of Deacon Amos and Sarah (Minot) Dakin ; born, Mason, November 17, 1770 ; Dartmouth College, 1797 ; practiced, Jaffrey ; died, New Hartford, New York, January 29, 1844.
In college Mr. Dakin excelled in scholarship. He was admitted an attorney in Grafton County in 1800. Commencing practice in Jaffrey in 1801, he lived in that place about fifteen years. He was a very respectable lawyer, and had a considerable practice, but wishing for a more active business he gave up the law and engaged in the manufacture of crockery. In order to produce a white ware of the proper quality, he found it necessary to send to Monkton, Vermont, to obtain a suitable clay. The ex- pense of this was so great that it swallowed up all the profits of the manufacture. Mr. Dakin became involved, and the business was abandoned.
On his first arrival in Jaffrey he received the appointment of postmaster. From 1806 to 1815 he was town clerk and select- man.
About 1816 he went for a short time to Goffstown, and then left the State, going first to Utica, and afterwards to New Hart- ford, New York.
His wife was Polly, daughter of Rev. Stephen Farrar of New Ipswich. They had a family of seven children.
SAMUEL DANA.
Son of William Dana ; born, Cambridge, now Brighton, Massachusetts, January 25, 1739 ; Harvard College, 1755 ; practiced, Amherst ; died there, April 2, 1798.
Mr. Dana, in conformity with the wishes of his parents, prepared himself for the religious ministry, and was ordained in June, 1761, over the Congregational society of Groton, Massachusetts. He preached there to the acceptance of the people fourteen years, and until the dawning of the American Revolution. Believing in his conscience that opposition to the measures of the British gov-
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ernment would result in failure and a worse condition of things for the colonies, he expressed those opinions in a discourse, on a windy Sunday in March, 1775, which was afterwards called his " wind sermon," and led to a dissolution of his official relation to the parish, without the aid of a council.
Later he heartily supported the measures of the people's gov- ernment, and prepared himself for a change of profession. After some private study of the principles of jurisprudence, he went to Amherst and read law with Joshua Atherton, and in 1781 was admitted an attorney, and settled there.
His education and experience in public speaking, with his ma- ture years, gave him a great advantage, at the start. He is said, however, never to have mastered some of the technicalities of the profession, - such as the science of special pleading, - but in that particular, to be sure, he was on an equality with most of his pro- fessional brethren. His peculiar strength lay in his methodical habits and in his power as an advocate. He addressed the jury with the gravity and almost the solemnity which belonged to the pulpit ; his language was fluent and his style perspicuous ; and he evinced an intimate acquaintance with human nature. Thus he wielded a great influence over the jury, and was very successful in causes which came before them. He possessed a self-control which was rarely disturbed, and sometimes indulged in a sly, biting humor not easy for others to bear. He must have been a formid- able adversary in those times.
In 1782 he was elected a delegate from Amherst to the conven- tion which formed the state Constitution of 1783. In 1783 he was appointed a judge of the Inferior Court of Common Pleas, but declined the office. In 1785 he was commissioned register of Probate for the county of Hillsborough, and in about four years after was promoted to the office of Judge of Probate. He filled that position till the latter part of 1792, when he resigned it, say- ing that he was obliged to practice as an attorney for the support of his family, and there was danger that he might not always be able to distinguish between a fee to the attorney and a bribe to the judge. The scruple was highly creditable to his sense of official integrity. He was a member of the state Senate in 1793.
He continued in practice throughout his life, and though he was a strict economist, and very industrious, the value of the property he left at his decease is said not to have exceeded $7,000 ;
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a proof that the fees of an able and successful lawyer during nearly twenty years of practice must have been fixed on a very low scale.
His wife was Anna, daughter of Caleb Kenrick of Newton, Massachusetts. They were married in 1762, and had three sons and six daughters. Of the sons two were lawyers. Their daugh- ter, Mehitable B., became the wife of Samuel Bell, afterwards a judge.
JOSIAH DANFORTH.
Son of Josiah and Sarah (Blodgett) Danforth ; born, Tyngsborough, Massa- chusetts, January 15, 1786 ; Dartmouth College, 1811 ; practiced, Litchfield and Weare ; died, Tyngsborough, Massachusetts, November 5, 1867.
Mr. Danforth prepared himself for his profession under Wil- liam M. and Daniel Richardson of Groton, Massachusetts, and was admitted in 1814. He came to Litchfield for about eight months, and then to Weare in 1819. From 1821 to 1827 he was annually chosen moderator of the town meetings of Weare, and in 1823 and 1824 he was a representative in the legislature of the State. He lived in the town thirty-two years. He was consid- ered a good lawyer, had a considerable practice, and was not infrequently engaged in the trial of causes in court, but did not possess the gift of eloquence. He was reputed to be strictly hon- est, and a courteous gentleman. Like many another, in and out of the profession, in his earlier days he sometimes indulged over freely in habits of conviviality, but not to such an extent as to impair his standing in the community.
In 1851 he left the State and returned to his native town of Tyngsborough in Massachusetts, and there lived to a good old age.
His wife was Mary, daughter of John Farwell of Tyngs- borough, Massachusetts ; and they had one son.
BENJAMIN DARLING.
Son of Daniel and Elizabeth (Leavitt) Darling ; born, Sanbornton, March 8, 1788 ; Dartmouth College, 1811 ; practiced, Plymouth ; died, Rumney, April 15, 1824.
Mr. Darling read law with Ezekiel Webster at Boscawen and Joseph Bell at Haverhill, and was admitted in 1815, in Grafton
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County. He entered into practice in Plymouth. He is said to have been better adapted for office work than for controversies in the courts, and also to have fallen into habits of intemperance, too prevalent at that time. He died early, being drowned in Baker's River at the age of thirty-six.
His wife was Susan Reed of Plymouth.
TIMOTHY DARLING.
Son of Hon. Joshua and Polly (Proctor) Darling ; born, Henniker, Decem- ber 24, 1798 ; Harvard College, 1822 ; practiced, Hillsborough, Henniker, Alton, and Loudon ; died, New York State, 1871.
The number of exchanges of profession from the bar to the pulpit, in New Hampshire, has been about equal to those made in the converse direction. In the former number was that of the subject of this notice, who after leaving college studied his earlier profession with Artemas Rogers of his native town and with Sam- ' uel Hubbard of Boston, Massachusetts. Admitted an attorney in April, 1826, he began his professional life in Hillsborough, but removed to Henniker in 1827 and to Alton in 1828. He then left the State, and is said to have been awhile in Richmond, Vir- ginia ; and in Ypsilanti, Michigan. Returning to New Hamp- shire about 1832 he was for a year or two in Loudon, in Warsaw, New York, in 1835, and then went again to Ypsilanti, where he was clerk of the Michigan House of Representatives for a term. He came back subsequently to this State and studied for the min- istry about 1839 in the Theological Seminary at Gilmanton. The remainder of his life he passed as a Presbyterian clergyman, set- tled in the western part of New York.
He was married.
LOAMMI DAVIDSON.
The first that we learn of Mr. Davidson is in 1810, when the bar of Rockingham County assented to his being received as a student-at-law by Daniel French of Chester. The next year he entered the Phillips Exeter Academy, being then twenty-one years of age, and claiming Dunstable as his home. He was admitted an attorney at the Court of Common Pleas for the county of Grafton at the February term, 1817, and is said to
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have taken up his residence in Wentworth in 1813. He prac- ticed in Wentworth until about 1819, and then removed to some place in New York, near Rochester, it is understood. There he died shortly afterward.
He never did much at the law, but was more of a man of busi- ness.
His wife was Mary, daughter of Colonel Amos Tarleton of Piermont.
FREDERIC HERSEY DAVIS.
Son of Hon. Daniel and Louisa (Freeman) Davis ; born, Portland, Maine, c. 1788 ; practiced, Salem and Deerfield ; died, c. 1850.
This gentleman, a son of the well-known solicitor-general of Massachusetts, is said to have been educated in a Roman Catho- lic college in Baltimore, Maryland. He received the honorary degree of A. M. from Harvard College in 1811, and came to Salem in this State about 1815, as an attorney. He was admitted to the bar in Rockingham County in October, 1816. The next year he changed his residence to Deerfield and remained there two years, and then left the State.
John Kelly, the Exeter antiquary, says : " He was not worldly wise, nor very puritanical in his notions. South Deerfield was too keen for him and he made not much tarrying there."
CORNELIUS VAN NESS DEARBORN.
Son of Samuel and Fanny (Brown) Dearborn ; born, Corinth, Vermont, May 14, 1832 ; admitted, 1855 ; practiced, Francestown, Peterborough, and Nashua ; died, Nashua, April 18, 1886.
Mr. Dearborn was brought up on a farm, attending the district school. When he was fifteen he was admitted to an academy, and at seventeen he began to teach school. At the age of eighteen he resolved to become a lawyer, and began to read in the office of Rodney Lund in his native town. In 1854 he studied with Isaac W. Smith of Manchester, until the time of his admission. He practiced in Francestown from December, 1855 to 1858, when he went to Peterborough. The next seven years he lived in that town, and then removed to Nashua. An opportunity occurring for him to purchase one half of the Nashua "Telegraph " on
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favorable terms, he accepted it and became for two years editor and financial manager of that newspaper. The failure of his health then induced him to relinquish it. While a resident of Francestown he was twice chosen treasurer of the county, and in Peterborough he represented the town in 1861 and 1862 in the legislature of the State. In 1868 he was appointed register of Probate for Hillsborough County, and served till 1874. For sev- eral years he was treasurer of the Nashua and Lowell Railroad, and subsequently one of its directors. He was also a trustee of the Mechanics' Savings Bank, president of the Indian Head Insurance Company, and president of the city Board of Education.
At the time when the state banks of discount were converted into National Banks, Mr. Dearborn was one of the bank commis- sioners of the State, and officially superintended the operation. In March, 1866, he was appointed by the President of the United States examiner of National Banks for this State, and filled that position up to the time of his decease.
He was a quiet, unobtrusive man, of much ability, universally liked, and faithful in discharging every duty that he undertook.
He married in June, 1857, Louisa F., daughter of Moses W. Eaton of Francestown, and left two sons.
JOSIAH DEARBORN.
Son of Asahel and Elizabeth (Drake) Dearborn ; born, Effingham, Septem- ber 25, 1790 ; admitted, 1818 ; practiced, Effingham and Ossipee ; died, Effingham, March 31, 1873.
This gentleman received a substantial academical education, supplemented by home study, and read law with Samuel Cush- man of Parsonsfield, Maine, and with William Sawyer of Wake- field. On being admitted, he began practice at once in Effing- ham, and with the exception of a year in Ossipee, in 1833-34, made that place his home through life. He seems to have been wedded to his profession, and was quite a model of the practi- tioner of the old school. He was a sound common-lawyer, and possessed excellent judgment. Deliberate in his methods it took him some time to master the questions that came before him, but then he was strong and hard to beat. He kept his temper under perfect control in the contests of the court-room, and never lost the cool and complete use of all his faculties whatever unex-
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pected circumstances the course of a hearing might develop. In point of temperance, forbearance, and dignity in his family rela- tions he was a man of exemplary habits and character.
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