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 4
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His social qualities rendered him a pleasant companion, and
1 A descendant of Judge Parker states his official emoluments to have been on this limited scale : as Register of Probate, £65 per year ; as Justice, £60, voted by the Assembly, and £24 in fees ; as Judge of Admiralty, eight guineas in fees.
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attracted to his society his legal brethren and the educated gentle- men in his vicinity. His conversation was instructive and en- livened with pleasantry, and he sometimes indulged in writing verses seasoned with true Attic salt. His sarcasms, however, could have contained no sting, for his disposition is described as being peculiarly sweet. He was kind and benevolent, "of inflexible rectitude and undissembled piety."
He married Elizabeth Grafton in 1728, and became the father of eleven children. His oldest son, bearing his Christian name, was a lawyer and judge. Among his grandchildren were John P. Hale of Rochester, and Nathaniel Adams of Portsmouth, long clerk of the Superior Court.
MATTHEW THORNTON.
J. 1776-1782.
Matthew Thornton, a son of James Thornton, was born in Ire- land in 1714, and came with his father to this country when only two or three years old. At first they lived in Wiscasset, Maine, then in Worcester, Massachusetts, where young Thornton had the advantage of an academical training. He pursued the study of medicine, and began practice in Londonderry among his country- men, the Scotch-Irish, there. In a few years he gained reputation and comparative wealth by his extensive employment, and became an influential citizen in the affairs of the town and vicinity. In 1745 he was made surgeon of the New Hampshire troops in the expedition against Cape Breton. From 1758 to 1760 inclusive he represented Londonderry in the House of Assembly. Governor Benning Wentworth gave him the commission of justice of the peace, and Governor John Wentworth that of colonel of a militia regiment. "But he was not the flatterer or the tool of either of them ; he was the enemy of oppression and the friend of his coun- try." He was a member of the fourth and fifth provincial Con- gresses, which shaped the destiny of New Hampshire in the Revo- lutionary movement, and so well understood were his principles, and so great confidence was reposed in his wisdom and discre- tion, that he was chosen to be the presiding officer of both those bodies. As such, it was his duty to write many official letters and documents in behalf of the Convention, which are creditable alike to his patriotism and his intelligence.
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In December, 1775, he was appointed at the head of a commit- tee to " frame and bring in a draft or plan of a new Constitution for the rule and government of this colony," upon the adoption of which, in January, 1776, he was chosen one of the twelve councilors of the State. In September, 1776, he was appointed a delegate to the Continental Congress, but did not take his seat till November. He then affixed his name to the Declaration of Inde- pendence, and thereby signified his resolution to risk his all upon the result of the contest with the mother country.
On the division of New Hampshire into counties in 1771, Dr. Thornton was awarded the appointment of Chief Justice of the Court of Common Pleas for the county of Hillsborough, having probably changed his residence to Merrimac, in that county. In 1776 he was commissioned a Judge of the Superior Court, and acted as such till 1782.
A singular incident is related of Judge Thornton, probably while he was presiding in the Common Pleas, that shows the fashion in which the business of the courts was sometimes con- ducted in his day. As a counsel was making his closing argument to the jury, in a protracted trial, on a warm afternoon, he discov- ered that the presiding judge on the bench was absorbed in read- ing a book, and his associate was soundly sleeping by his side. The advocate turned to the jury, and with indignant emphasis re- marked : "Gentlemen, my unfortunate client has no hope but in your attention, since the Court in their wisdom will not condescend to hear his case ! "
Of course there was no sleeping on the bench after that, but Judge Thornton tranquilly looked up from his book, and re- marked : "When you have anything to offer, Mr. - , which is pertinent to the case on trial, the Court will be happy to hear you. Meantime I may as well resume my reading."
It is not strange that the jury sometimes " took the bit in their teeth," when the judicial reins were held so loosely. We have no reason to think, however, that Judge Thornton's general adminis- tration of his office was other than impartial and satisfactory.
Judge Thornton removed to Exeter about 1779, and resided there for a year or two, and then purchased a farm in Merrimac, which he made his home during the residue of his life, but still occasionally accepting public office and retaining his interest in public affairs to the last. He died at the home of his daughter, in
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Newburyport, Massachusetts, June 24, 1803. On his tombstone in Merrimac are inscribed the words, " The Honest Man."
Judge Thornton possessed uncommon intellectual powers, and had a turn for metaphysical speculation. He left in manuscript a treatise entitled " Paradise Lost, or the Origin of the Evil called Sin examined." He had made good use of his powers of observa- tion and reflection through a long life, and was a most instructive and entertaining companion. He was exemplary in his conduct, and his memory was honored.
His wife was Hannah Jackson. They had two sons and two daughters. One of his sons and a son of the other followed the profession of the law.
JOHN WENTWORTH.
J. 1776-1781.
This gentleman was a son of Captain Benjamin and Elizabeth (Leighton) Wentworth, and was born March 30, 1719, in that part of Dover which afterwards became Somersworth and is now Rollinsford. He lost his father while very young, and was brought up under the charge of an uncle, Paul Wentworth, who made him his principal heir. He early manifested his capability for affairs, and was made selectman of Dover in 1747, and repre- sentative in the House of Assembly in 1749. Both these offices he filled repeatedly afterwards. After Somersworth was incor- porated, he represented that town in 1755, and annually there- after as long as the provincial government lasted, and was Speaker of the House from 1771 to and during 1775. He was honored with the commission of lieutenant-colonel of militia as early as 1767, and was colonel of the " second regiment of foot " in 1772. When Strafford County was organized in 1773, he was created Chief Justice of the Court of Common Pleas, and so con- tinued till 1775.
In 1774 the first Assembly of the people of New Hampshire was called for the election of delegates to the General Congress, and Colonel Wentworth was chosen its chairman, as he was also of the second and third provincial Congresses. On the formation of the Revolutionary government in 1776, he was chosen a councilor, and appointed a Justice of the Superior Court, both which places he occupied as long as he lived. The fact that he was Speaker of
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the provincial House of Assembly, with the approval of the royal governor, at the same time that he presided over the Revolutionary Congresses, and was upon their most important committees, indi- cates that he was no extremist, and that all parties were sensible of the honesty of his intentions. His letters show that he was a man of intelligent views and a sincere patriot. He died in Somersworth, May 17, 1781.
He was married three times : first, December 9, 1742, to Jo- anna, daughter of Judge Nicholas Gilman of Exeter; second, October 16, 1750, to Abigail, daughter of Thomas Millet of Dover ; and third, June 1, 1768, to Mrs. Elizabeth (Wallingford) Cole. His children by these marriages numbered thirteen.
WOODBURY LANGDON.
J. 1782-1783 ; 1786-1791.
Woodbury Langdon was the son of John and Mary (Hall) Langdon, and was born in Portsmouth in 1739. He received his education in the public schools of his native town, principally under the tuition of the well-known Major Samuel Hale. After spending some time in the counting-room of Henry Sherburne, an eminent merchant, and making several voyages at sea, he commenced the mercantile business, and being enterprising and industrious, had by the opening of the American Revolution accu- mulated some property, a considerable part of which was in Eng- land. To get possession of it he sailed for that country, and having accomplished his purpose, returned in a frigate in 1777 to New York, where he was imprisoned by the British general. After his release he returned to New Hampshire, and was active in promoting the designs of the Whigs.
In 1778-79 he was chosen a representative in the legislature, and while there was elected a delegate to the Continental Con- gress. He attended its sessions in 1779, 1780, and 1781, and declined two subsequent elections. In 1782 he was made a Jus- tice of the Superior Court, but after about a year resigned the office, and refused to resume it, though requested by a vote of the House so to do. Being again commissioned Judge, however, in 1786, he accepted the place, and held it about five years. This time he became less acceptable in his judicial capacity than before, not, however, for acts of commission so much as for neglect-
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ing to attend to his duties. A committee of the General Court waited on him to know why he was not more punctual in attend- ing the courts, to whom he explained that the failure to provide permanent and honorable salaries for the judges, and the frequent interference of the legislature in the granting of new trials, etc., were things not calculated to make the judiciary more efficient. Thereupon the House proceeded to impeach him, and the Senate ordered him to appear for trial. But discovering that in the recess of the House they had no power to try the impeachment, they postponed the matter to the next session. Before that oc- curred, Mr. Langdon was appointed by the President of the United States a commissioner to adjust Revolutionary claims, and resigned his judgeship.
Judge Langdon displayed much ability in his public positions. He possessed great independence and decision, and was keen and sarcastic, and thoroughly outspoken. Without any of the arts of a popularity seeker, he made friends by his frankness and direct- ness, and by sheer ability. He was unyielding and peremptory, but his sense of justice would not allow him knowingly to do a wrong thing. His failings were of a manly cast ; he abhorred everything mean and underhand. He died in Portsmouth, Janu- ary 13, 1805.
His wife was Sarah, daughter of Henry Sherburne, and they had nine children.
JOSIAH BARTLETT.
J. 1782-1790. C. J. 1790.
Josiah Bartlett was a son of Stephen and Mary (Webster) Bartlett, and was born in Amesbury, Massachusetts, November 21, 1729. He was educated in the common schools, and also ap- plied himself to Latin and Greek until he was sixteen years old, when he began the study of medicine. This he pursued under the instruction of neighboring physicians until 1750, when he re- moved to Kingston and began practice there. He gained reputa- tion by introducing Peruvian bark as a remedy for a malignant sore throat that was epidemic in his vicinity a few years later. In 1765 he was chosen a representative in the provincial legislature, and was regularly reelected until the outbreak of the Revolution. He was made a justice of the peace and colonel of the militia by
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CHRONOLOGICALLY.
the royal governor ; but when the differences began to arise which led to the separation of the colonies from the British crown, Dr. Bartlett took the side of the people. In February, 1775, Gover- nor Wentworth summarily removed him from his offices, and soon afterwards he became an active member of the several provincial Congresses, called by the authority of the people, which laid the foundations of the popular government, and also a member of the Committee of Safety, invested during the recess of the legislature with the chief powers of government.
In 1775 and 1776 Dr. Bartlett was a delegate to the Conti- nental Congress, and in the latter year was the first to deliver his vote in favor of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence, to which his name was duly affixed. In 1778 he served again in the Continental Congress, and the next year was constituted Chief Justice of the Court of Common Pleas. In 1788 he was a mem- ber and temporary chairman of the convention called to ratify the Constitution of the United States, and in 1790 and the two following years was elected President of New Hampshire. In 1794, under the newly adopted Constitution of the State, he was chosen the first governor of New Hampshire, and in the succeed- ing January resigned the office and all public employment by reason of impaired health.
Governor Bartlett's service on the bench of the Superior Court began in 1782 as associate Justice, and terminated as Chief Jus- tice in 1790. He possessed superior abilities, sound judgment, earnest patriotism, and high integrity. The several important stations to which he was elevated prove the confidence that his fel- low-citizens reposed in his honesty and ability, and he executed them with general approbation. He was a founder and the first president of the State Medical Society, and received from Dart- mouth College the honorary degree of Doctor of Medicine. His death occurred in Kingston, May 19, 1795.
His wife was Mary Bartlett of Newton. They had three sons, all physicians, and six daughters.
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SAMUEL LIVERMORE, LL. D.
C. J. 1782-1790.
Son of Samuel and - (Brown) Livermore ; born, Waltham, Massachu- setts, May 14, 1732 (O. S.) ; Nassau Hall College, 1752 ; practiced, Ports- mouth, Londonderry, and Holderness ; died, Holderness, May 18, 1803.
Mr. Livermore was a descendant in the fourth generation from John Livermore, who emigrated to this country from Exeter in England, according to tradition, and was admitted freeman in Watertown, Massachusetts, in 1635. The first that we learn of the subject of this sketch is that in 1750 and 1751 he was a teacher of a school in Chelsea, Massachusetts, and a member of the Congregational church. He entered Nassau Hall, now Prince- ton College, then at Newark, New Jersey, in 1751, in advanced standing, and took his degree the next year. After spending awhile in teaching, he studied law in the office of the distinguished Edmund Trowbridge, and was admitted at the Court of Common Pleas in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, in June, 1756. Begin- ning practice in his native town, he removed, after a year or so, to Portsmouth. He early evinced a superior capacity for legal busi- ness, and erelong established a reputation, which extended be- yond the bounds of the province, as a knowing lawyer, prompt in action and ready of speech. For several years he divided the practice of Portsmouth and the country round about in a great de- gree with Wyseman Clagett, who was like himself a man of legal education and in the prime of life, the older lawyers of the town having retired from the more arduous labors of the profession. Mr. Clagett's share, however, consisted very largely of the crimi- nal business ; a much larger proportion of the civil causes went to Mr. Livermore.
It was but a few years after his arrival in Portsmouth when indications of impending trouble between America and the mother country began to agitate society. Mr. Livermore evidently pre- ferred not to be in a position where he would have to take an active part in the contentions that afterwards arose. As early as the beginning of the year 1764 he removed to Londonderry. It was while he was residing in that place that 1 John Sullivan, the
1 This is stated on the authority of Hon. Arthur Livermore, the grandson of Samuel, and indicates that the story in Brewster's Rambles, pp. 145, 146, must be unfounded.
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future Major-General in the Revolutionary army, and President of the State, was a student in his office. During the same period Mr. Livermore was summoned to Quebec to defend Major Robert Rogers, the famous partisan in the French and Indian wars, who was accused of some malversation in office. Rogers had married a daughter of Rev. Arthur Browne, and sister of Mrs. Livermore, and was described as at this time a "large, burly figure, somewhat debased by indications of intemperate habits."
It is evident that Mr. Livermore made good his standing among the sturdy Scotch-Irish of Londonderry, though they are said to have felt little fondness for his calling. He was chosen by the electors of that town to represent them in the provincial Assembly of 1768, and held his seat there into 1770, though he had resumed his residence in Portsmouth in 1769, having been appointed advocate in the Court of Admiralty, and King's At- torney-General in New Hampshire, which offices he continued to enjoy as long as the royal government lasted.
In the spring of 1774 he returned to Londonderry. He had for several years before been employed in buying up and perfect- ing the titles to lands in the township of New Holderness, of which he became eventually the proprietor of about two thirds, and at this period he was spending a part of his time there superintend- ing his improvements. In the winter of 1775-76 he removed thither with his family.
He had the confidence of Governor Wentworth, and probably in the early stages of the Revolutionary movement lacked faith that it would prove successful, and so was unwilling to take a prominent part; though he was not suspected of toryism and was elected Attorney-General by the people's government in 1776. After the surrender of Burgoyne's army in 1777 he appears to have had no doubt of the ultimate independence of the country.
There was little law business to do, except what officially de- volved upon him while he served as Attorney-General, during the period of the Revolution. But he found no lack of occupation in his new home, probably, where there was an infinity of wants. Among other improvements that he introduced was a grist-mill, which he sometimes tended himself ; as he probably also took his share of the agricultural and mechanical labors needed in his frontier settlement.
In November, 1779, he was selected by the General Court as
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agent to the Continental Congress, " to support," in conjunction with the regular delegates, " the claim of this State to the New Hampshire Grants (so called) west of Connecticut river." At the next session he was sent as a delegate to Congress until March, 1780, "not, however, to supersede either of the existing dele- gates." He attended the Continental Congress by successive elec- tions from that time until 1782, when on June 21 he was ap- pointed Chief Justice of the Superior Court. In the autumn of 1785 he was again chosen a member of the Continental Congress for a year, and took his seat and occupied it up to September 1, 1786, while still holding the office of Chief Justice of the Superior Court.
In February, 1788, he was chosen a delegate from Holderness and adjacent places, in the convention for acting upon the pro- posed Constitution of the United States, and is said to have taken an important part in its deliberations, and to have been greatly instrumental in the adoption of the instrument by this State. He was elected by the people one of the first representatives in the new Congress in 1789, and took his seat therein. There being then no provision in the state Constitution to prevent it, he con- tinued also to occupy his judicial post. At this, dissatisfaction began to be expressed, and even an address for his removal from the bench was mooted, and in 1790 for that and other reasons he resigned the chief justiceship.
But the confidence of the people in his honesty and capacity was not shaken. He was reelected to Congress in 1791, and the same year was sent as a delegate to the convention to revise the Constitution of the State. Of that body he was made president, and over it he is said to have exercised almost absolute sway. The legislature of 1791 transferred Mr. Livermore from the House of Representatives in Congress to the United States Sen- ate, and after the expiration of his term of six years he was reelected. Owing to the impaired condition of his health, how- ever, he retained his seat only till June 12, 1801, when he resigned. This was his last public service.
Judge Livermore had an exceptionally long occupation of im- portant and honorable public stations, and gained them by no arts of the politician, but by ability, force of character, and unbending integrity.
He was the possessor in a marked degree of robust common
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sense, - the only genuine foundation of a leading character, - of keen wit, and great intellectual force. He was little of a stu- dent, but a practical man, who took accurate measure of the things about him. He had small polish and great outspokenness. For these qualities the mass of the people liked him, and because he was independent of forms, but efficient in discharging his pub- lic functions, evidently intent on doing justice, and of unques- tioned honesty. They had not yet learned respect for the legal fraternity, and it rather raised him in the popular estimation that he was no favorite of that guild. For it was the lawyers, no doubt, who complained of him for holding on to the bench while he was at the same time a member of Congress.
It is not strange that he was not much relished by the bar. The only certainty in the law is that derived from precedents. If similar questions are to be determined differently in different cases, then no counsel can advise his clients with confidence. Judge Livermore refused to be bound not only by precedents in general, but even by his own prior decisions. "Let every tub stand on its own bottom," was his reply when confronted with an adverse authority. The adjudications of the English tribunals (which were about all the reported decisions of his time) he refused to follow, though he was willing to consider for what they were worth the grounds on which those made before our national independence were based. Later ones he would not listen to for any purpose. All this, in the estimation of the lawyers, was too much like deciding cases by " the length of the chancellor's foot."
Moreover, he was accused of being peremptory and dictatorial. He ruled his court with a rod of iron, it is said. For example, the building in which he was presiding at a term of the court in Exeter, in September, 1786, was surrounded one morning by a mob of armed men, with apparently hostile intentions. They were, in fact, the " greenbackers " of their time, and assembled there for the purpose of overawing the legislature of the State, and compelling them to pass a law for the issue of a paper cur- rency. They had mistaken the building in which the legislature were sitting, and meaning to intimidate the General Court had encaged the judicial Court instead. No small excitement was caused in the court-room by the alarming demonstration outside, as may be imagined. But the judge on the bench went impertur- bably on with the business, and sternly forbade every one to do so much as to look out of a window !
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In his private life he was useful and much esteemed. Being the great landed proprietor in Holderness, he long kept a kind of feudal state there among his retainers. His habitation was a home of somewhat rude abundance and unbounded hospitality. As he was a sort of licensed autocrat there, it is not strange that his manners became arbitrary and his naturally warm temper sometimes broke from his control. " He never stooped to please a friend or avoid an enemy," it was said. But if he had a rough- and-ready manner, he had also a kind heart, and, there is no rea- son to doubt, a conscientious desire to do right. He early intro- duced to his new home the Episcopal religious worship, to which he was strongly attached.
His eccentricities appear to have been mere ripples which stirred the surface of his deeper nature. His strong and lasting hold on the popular heart, his evident adequacy to the important public trusts with which he was invested, his ready ability to deal with the new and vital questions which confronted him, all bear out the opinion of a competent and judicious writer1 that " he was without question, during his day, the great man of the State."
Dartmouth College gave him the degree of LL. D. in 1792.
He was married, September 23, 1759, to Jane, daughter of the Rev. Arthur Browne of Portsmouth. They had three sons and one daughter. Two of the sons, Arthur and Edward St. Loe, became judges of the Superior Court, and the third, George Wil- liamson, was clerk of the Court of Common Pleas in Grafton County.
WILLIAM WHIPPLE.
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