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 45
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Greenleaf C. Bartlett as a practitioner of the law. Feeling it to . be his duty to join in the defense of the Union, he volunteered, February 28, 1865, in the Eighteenth New Hampshire Regiment. On his way to the front he was attacked by disease, from which he never recovered.
He had married, October 11, 1864, Mary A. Dearborn of Gil- manton.
GILMAN MARSTON, LL. D.
Son of Jeremiah and Theda (Sawyer) Marston, born, Orford, August 20, 1811 ; Dartmouth College, 1837; admitted, 1841; practiced, Exeter ; died there, July 3, 1890.
The subject of this notice labored in his youth upon his father's farm, but his ambition induced him to obtain a collegiate and a legal education. School-teaching enabled him to gain the means to accomplish his object. His mature years and earnest purpose impelled him to seek the highest benefit from his college course. For a year and a half after his graduation he had the charge of an academy in Indianapolis, Indiana, a part of the time reading law. He finished his legal studies with Leonard Wilcox of Or- ford, in the Harvard Law School, and finally in the office of Messrs. Hubbard and Watts in Boston, Massachusetts.
He came to Exeter to commence practice, a place where he had scarcely an acquaintance, and in a county where there were already an abundance of able lawyers well established in busi- ness. But he was then thirty years old, with plenty of energy, courage, and resolution, and he speedily made his mark as an aspirant for the highest place. He was no off-hand practitioner ; what he gained he worked for; but he was willing to work, and his ambition was boundless. He became known as a lawyer who entered with his whole heart and strength into the interest of his clients. No matter what amount of labor and study were need- ful, he made himself master of every question presented to him. His practice increased apace, and in due time he was ranked among the foremost members of the bar of the county and of the State.
He was a careful counselor, but his forte was in the manage- ment of litigated actions. Once retained, the merits of his cause became with him an article of fundamental conviction. As long
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as the action was pending, it was ever in his mind. He submitted it in the form of hypothetical propositions to those about him, to learn how his views impressed other minds. He made endless inquiries to ascertain the equities that might be wrought into the substantial fabric of his evidence. If testimony of experts was to be introduced, he studied till he became half an expert himself. His desire to make perfect preparation led him, especially in his later years, to hesitate sometimes on the brink of a trial. He dreaded to lose a verdict. If the result of an action looked doubt- ful, he would strive to compromise or refer or continue it, to put off the evil day; or if it must be tried, his associate found the burden of it shifted to his shoulders. But when he was once seated before " the twelve," there was an absolute conviction in his mind that his was the right side, and that the Court and jury, not to mention the bystanders, were bound to see it so.
In forensic speech he was strong and argumentative rather than rhetorical. He rarely appealed to the feelings, except to denounce injustice and falsehood.
He merited the great success in his profession which he won. Forty-nine years he labored at the bar, and an equal number, at least, of the volumes of the state judicial reports contain the record of his service. He became by universal consent the lead- ing counsel of his county and section, and the equal, at least, of any in the State. The title of Doctor of Laws, which Dartmouth College conferred upon him in 1882, was a deserved recognition of his legal accomplishments.
He entered into political life as a representative in the state legislature in 1845, and was reelected the two following years. In 1872 and 1873 he was again a member, and was biennially elected afterwards from 1876 to 1888 inclusive, making twelve terms in all. Holding the position of chairman of the committee on the Judiciary during a majority of those terms, he possessed no small influence in shaping legislation. Being no believer in over- much intermeddling with the laws, he exerted himself more to squelch crude projects than to initiate beneficial ones. He was also a delegate to the constitutional conventions of 1850 and 1876.
In 1857 he was chosen a representative in Congress, and re- elected in 1861 and 1865. He was a working member while he was not with the army, and did little in speech-making. Indeed,
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he rarely attempted a political harangue. In 1889 he held for three months, by the governor's appointment, a seat in the United States Senate.
While he was in Congress, the Southern rebellion developed from words to deeds. He volunteered in defense of the capital, and when that was secure returned home, and was given the colonelcy of the Second Regiment of New Hampshire Volunteers. In the battle of Bull Run he was badly wounded, but by his inflexible will saved the right arm, which the surgeons would have amputated. He served in the principal actions in Virginia under McClellan, and being promoted to the rank of brigadier-general, led his command at Drewry's Bluff, Cold Harbor, and Peters- burg. His courage was conspicuous, and he was thoughtful of the wants and comfort of the men in the ranks. He was one of the three men of this State who rose from civil life to wear the stars of a general officer.
General Marston was ambitious of distinction in everything he undertook. With his strong he had also his weak points. He was open to the flattery of subservience, and had his favorites as long as they were obsequious. He had never schooled himself to a due government of his passions. Whilst everything went to his liking, he was the pleasantest of men ; but when crossed, he was capable of making himself very disagreeable, even to his best friends. Physically brave, he was morally timid, and never ventured to take the lead of opinion lest he should endanger his popularity. He was pugnacious in action ; he stood by his friends ; he was true to his party and his employers; he was never accused of political or personal dishonesty. He was kindly, sometimes chivalrous in his impulses ; he was generous of his means, and after a life of profitable labor left but a moderate estate.
With a character compounded of seemingly opposite qualities, he had warm friends and bitter enemies ; but all agreed that as a lawyer and a soldier he was worthy of his fame.
He never married.
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WINTHROP ATKINSON MARSTON.
Son of John and Nancy (Hill) Marston ; born, Nottingham, June 14, 1804 ; admitted, 1829 (?) ; practiced, Somersworth and Dover ; died, Somersworth, March 30, 1850.
The mother of Mr. Marston is said to have had in her veins the blood of Governors Winthrop and Thomas Dudley ; his father was a well-to-do farmer of very decided convictions. The son, with few early advantages of instruction, determined to enter a learned profession, and later became a pupil and teacher of schools in other places. He wished to be a lawyer; but his father, having the common prejudice against that profession, in- sisted on his studying medicine, which he did for a few months. But it was an uncongenial pursuit, and he changed it, without his father's knowledge, for the law, and entered the office of David Barker, Jr., of Rochester, as a student. His father was offended, and for a time refused to furnish him the means of support, but at length relented, on seeing that his son's happiness was involved. A part of his term of study Mr. Marston is understood to have passed in the office of Stephen Mitchell of Durham.
He settled in practice in Great Falls Village in Somersworth. In 1833 and 1834 he was chosen clerk of the New Hampshire Senate, and in the latter year was presented with the commission of solicitor for the county of Strafford. He held the office lit- tle over a year and then resigned it. In 1839 he was appointed register of Probate, and took up his residence in Dover during the five years of the office. He then returned to Great Falls, Somersworth.
Mr. Marston was gifted with superior mental powers, and had cultivated them well. He was an excellent lawyer, an easy speaker, and a strong advocate. Believing that the system of human slavery was sinful, impolitic, and degrading, he was one of the earliest in the State to range himself on the side of "free soil." His political opinions were not based upon mere expedi- ency ; they were the outgrowth of conscientious conviction. He was one of the leaders of his party, and with his talents and earnestness he must inevitably have become one of the most con- spicuous representatives of it, had his life been extended. He died in the very acme of his powers.
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He married, in February, 1834, Mary E., daughter of Colonel Job C. Waldron of Dover, and left three daughters. He was a most affectionate husband and father.
GEORGE' MEANS MASON.
Son of Hon. Jeremiah and Mary (Means) Mason ; born, Portsmouth, Octo- ber 3, 1800 ; Bowdoin College, 1819 ; admitted, 1822 ; practiced, Portsmouth ; died, Boston, Massachusetts, August 16, 1865.
This, the first-born son of " the giant of the law," after passing through the public schools of Portsmouth, was prepared for col- lege under the private tuition of Dr. Coffin of that town. He was noted at Bowdoin, and later in life, as a great reader and for his " philosophical calmness of demeanor." He read law, and continued some years after his admission in his father's office, assisting him in his practice, though he could not well have been intrusted with the more responsible duties of it. By his father's advice he removed to Boston, Massachusetts ; and later he pro- ceeded to Ohio, with the design of settling there, but in a little time returned to Boston. He found that he had not the self- assertion and push needed in a new country.
He resumed his place in his father's office, and aided him in the preparation of cases and in general legal work. His abilities and professional attainments rendered him a useful assistant, while his want of ambition and of self-confidence was an obstacle to his success as a principal. In later life he was often to be met with in the public libraries in Boston, and occasionally wrote for the press.
He was unmarried.
JEREMIAH MASON, LL. D.
Son of Colonel Jeremiah and Elizabeth (Fitch) Mason ; born, Lebanon, Connecticut, April 27, 1768 ; Yale College, 1788 ; admitted, 1791 ; practiced, Westmoreland, Walpole, and Portsmouth ; died, Boston, Massachusetts, Octo- ber 14, 1848.
Mr. Mason was descended from Captain John Mason, dis- tinguished for his successful expedition against the Pequot In- dians in 1637. His father was an officer of militia, who served in the Revolution. On the maternal side several of his ancestors were men of marked religious character. When past the age of
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fourteen, he was placed in a public school in Lebanon, under the charge of Master Tisdale, a Harvard graduate, and in less than two years prepared himself for admission to college.
Upon his graduation from Yale, at the age of twenty, he de- termined to adopt the legal profession, and entered the office of Simeon Baldwin of New Haven, Connecticut, as a student. Six months later he went to Westminster, Vermont, and continued his studies under Stephen R. Bradley, a noted practitioner. After an apprenticeship of only two years he was admitted, and bought out the practice and farm of Colonel Alpheus Moore in West- moreland.
In that place he remained three years. He had the wisdom to keep aloof from the conviviality which his predecessor had in- dulged in to his injury, and gave every spare moment to the dili- gent study of the law.
In 1794 he removed to Walpole; and in 1797 he took up his residence in Portsmouth, then the wealthiest and most important town in the State, where a professional opening had just been made by the elevation to the bench of Edward St. Loe Livermore, the leading lawyer of the place. Mr. Mason was now twenty- nine years old, with ample knowledge of his profession, six years' experience in it, and high courage and ambition. His leading position in the State began from this time.
In 1802 he received the appointment of attorney-general, but resigned it in three or four years. He probably could not afford to hold longer for an insufficient compensation an office which shut him off from a lucrative class of retainers. Moreover, he had a decided preference for the defense rather than the prosecu- tion. His name soon appeared " on the other side of the docket " in most of the important criminal cases. It was in one of these, in 1807, that he was first brought in contact with Daniel Webster, who was conducting the prosecution in the stead of the absent attorney-general. Both Mason and Webster learned to respect each other, from that day forward. For years they were the leading counsel, opposed to each other in most of the causes of magnitude in their section, and contending with their ut- most strength and ardor for the mastery; but it was so noble a strife that it engendered no personal ill-feeling between them. They remained friends and mutual admirers through life. Mr. Webster often acknowledged in later years his indebtedness to his powerful antagonist.
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Wedded though Mr. Mason was to his profession, in 1813, in the midst of the war with England, he was elected to the Senate of the United States. He continued to attend the sessions with punctuality through four years, and then resigned his seat.
On the reconstruction of the courts in 1816, Governor Plumer sounded Mr. Mason on the subject of the chief-justiceship of the Superior Court, offering to nominate him for that office, in case he would accept it. Mr. Mason signified his refusal to do so, on the ground of the utter inadequacy of the salary, and because he believed there was a radical defect in the provision which required the presence of a quorum of the judges at every jury trial.
Mr. Mason returned to a practice which taxed his time and powers to their utmost. He was early at his business each day, saw and listened to every client, drew with his own hand every paper of importance that was needed in his large practice, and allowed nothing to go out of his office without his careful inspec- tion and approval. He dined at midday, and spent the afternoon, like the morning, in his place of business. The evenings he devoted, when he could, to domestic enjoyment. His engage- ments carried him often away from his home, and he was most scrupulous in fulfilling them all, at whatever cost of comfort or exposure. His constitution was vigorous, and his sense of respon- sibility to his clients was imperative.
He removed, in 1832, from Portsmouth to Boston, Massachu- setts, where he resided ever after. There his great ability and legal erudition were at once recognized, and secured him a posi- tion among the foremost members of the bar of Massachusetts. He had, for a number of years, large employment in cases of importance. One cause célèbre, the trial of the Rev. Ephraim K. Avery for murder, in which Mr. Mason's marvelous defense alone saved the respondent from the gallows, made his name widely known throughout New England.1 As he advanced in years he withdrew from the more active duties of his profession, but never entirely put the harness off. And so he continued,
1 In the course of the trial of Avery, one of his adherents hurried into Mr. Mason's room one morning and exclaimed, " An angel from Heaven appeared to me last night and declared that brother Avery is innocent !" " Have the angel summoned into court to testify," was the lawyer's character- istic answer.
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with scarcely a diminution of his mental powers, until the final mercifully sudden call for him to change the known for the un- known world.
Mr. Mason was unequaled in cross-examination. There are many traditions of his success in unmasking false witnesses, one of which will suffice. An able lawyer of Salem had brought suit for a respectable merchant on a promissory note which, when pro- duced in court, a witness, to his surprise, swore had been already paid. The plaintiff was not at that time allowed to testify, and the jury had no alternative but to find their verdict against him. He obtained a new trial, and retained Mr. Mason simply to cross- examine the witness. When the second trial came on, Mr. Mason listened to the witness' story, that he was present when the de- fendant paid the plaintiff the amount due on the note, which for some plausible reason was not then given up to the defendant. Mr. Mason then began to put his questions to the witness in a quiet voice, at first having little relevancy to the case, but follow- ing each other in such close succession that they left no time to the witness to invent explanations. For an hour or more the examination continued, the witness answering readily, till at length he was confronted with a question which he could not answer either way without contradicting what he had already sworn. The perspi- ration gathered on his face, and he was speechless. His falsehood was obvious to all. " I believe I have taken the p'ison out of the witness," said Mr. Mason, in his peculiar intonation ; and the plaintiff was vindicated.
In this case Mr. Mason apparently based his cross-examination on the theory that no story could be fabricated so ingeniously that when pursued into remote and unlooked-for details it would not disclose inconsistencies.
The general practice of the bar in New Hampshire in Mr. Ma- son's day was to take advantage of every oversight of an opponent. It was called sharp practice, but it kept every one on the alert. Mr. Mason found the bar of Boston much more indulgent, and there- fore lax. He soon had occasion there to plead in abatement to a faulty writ. The plaintiff's counsel took a high tone, said such errors were never taken advantage of by the Suffolk bar, etc. Mr. Mason listened quietly, twirling his gold-bowed glasses, as was his wont, and then replied, " All this, if the Court please, is no answer to my plea." And the plaintiff had to pay terms for leave to amend.
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The scale of fees for conducting trials used to be so very low that Mr. Mason, while in this State, being applied to, to try a cause in Maine, thought it necessary, before engaging himself, to warn his prospective client that his charge for the business would be one hundred dollars. In Boston he rated his services higher. The treasurer of a manufacturing company once asked his oral opinion on some minor legal point, and at the same time handed him a hundred-dollar bank-bill. Mr. Mason spread it on his knee, and remarked, "Yours is a wealthy corporation, had n't you better make it tew [hundred] ?" The gentleman made it two, and the oracle spoke.
A very early anecdote, derived from unquestionable authority, gives a picture of the manners of professional men of the best standing, in their hours of relaxation, near a century ago. Mr. Mason, with Daniel Webster and Edward Cutts, drove out from Portsmouth to Weeks's tavern in Greenland one day for a dinner and a frolic. The dinner was good, as was the wine also. Some one of them spoke of the physical strength of a woman named Leathers, a servant of Weeks. Webster and Cutts laid a wager on her ability to " throw " Mason in a wrestling bout. Of course nothing would do but to settle the question by actual experiment. The woman required a good deal of urging before she would con- sent, but at last, seeing nothing else would 'suit the mischievous bettors, she seized Mason about the waist, and tried her best to lay him on his back. He laughed so much that he lost the power of resistance, and in two minutes the woman justified her backer by bringing the redoubted champion of the law fairly to the ground.
Mr. Mason's rank as a lawyer has been already fixed by the united judgment of the profession beyond reversal or appeal. Rufus Choate said of him, that " as a jurist, he would have filled the seat of Marshall as Marshall filled it." Daniel Webster de- clared, " If you were to ask me who was the greatest lawyer in the country, I should answer John Marshall; but if you took me by the throat and pinned me to the wall and demanded my real opinion, I should be compelled to say it was Jere. Mason."
Mr. Mason was in height above six feet and a half ; in his youth slender, but stouter as he advanced in life. His face was fair and handsome. His voice was small for his bulk, and was never free from the Yankee twang that he learned in childhood ;
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probably he never attempted to rid himself of it. He made no pretensions to oratory ; he addressed the jury in the plainest language and in conversational tones, sometimes standing with one foot on the floor and the other in a chair before him.
His domestic life was peculiarly happy. He married in No- vember, 1799, Mary, daughter of Robert Means of Amherst. They had several sons and a daughter. His eldest son was of the legal profession.
SAMUEL KELLEY MASON.
Son of David B. and Eunice R. (Kelley) Mason ; born, New Hampton, May 17, 1832 ; admitted, 1855 ; practiced, Bristol ; died there, June, 1882.
Mr. Mason was prepared at the New Hampshire Literary Insti- tute to enter college at one year's advanced standing, but never completed a collegiate course. He studied law at the law school in Poughkeepsie, New York, in the law department of Hamilton College, and in the office of Ellery A. Hibbard of Laconia ; and began practice in Bristol in 1855. He was postmaster of that town from 1861 to 1868, and representative in the state legisla- ture from 1868 to 1870.
In 1873 he was the candidate of the "Liberal Republicans " for the governorship of the State. By a coalition of the leading men of his views with the Democrats, in which he joined, the lat- ter were brought into power, and Mr. Mason was appointed in 1874 Judge of Probate for the county of Grafton. This office he held two years, and then, on the success of the opposite party, was removed from it by address. Subsequently he was twice appointed by the Court a commissioner for the county, for nearly four years in all.
Judge Mason's ability, professional and political, was of a marked character. He built up a successful law business, accu- mulated a handsome estate, and made himself a conspicuous figure in the politics of the State. As a member of the legis- lature he held a position of influence, and was ready and strong in debate. While genial in his manners, he was tenacious of his convictions. Many years an invalid, he courageously kept on in the performance of the duties of life until exhausted nature com- pelled him to succumb.
He married, in 1858, Helen M. Smith of Bristol, and they had one daughter.
.
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EDWIN NATHANIEL MATHES.
Son of Jeremiah M. and Ann E. (Folsom) Mathes ; born, Portsmouth, Sep- tember 4, 1834 ; Dartmouth College, 1854 ; practiced, Portsmouth ; died, Concord, September 28, 1863.
The subject of this notice received his legal training at the Harvard Law School, and with Albert R. Hatch in Portsmouth, and Washburn and Marsh in Woodstock, Vermont. He began to practice in Portsmouth about 1858. From 1857 to 1861 he was clerk and deputy collector of customs at Portsmouth. In the latter year he went to Boston, Massachusetts. Symptoms of mental disease soon after required his removal to the insane asy- lum at Concord, where his life was terminated.
He was unmarried.
WILLIAM MATTOCKS.
Son of Hon. Samuel and Sarah (Burdell) Mattocks ; born, Hartford, Con- necticut, May, 1773 ; Dartmouth College, 1793 ; practiced, Bath ; died, Dan- ville, Vermont, May 22, 1842.
This was a brother of Governor John Mattocks of Vermont. After studying his profession with his brother-in-law, Samuel Miller, of Middlebury, Vermont, he settled in Danville in the same State, and practiced there until 1817, when he removed to Bath. He remained in New Hampshire only three years, and then returned to Danville, and spent the residue of his life there. He was state's attorney for the county of Caledonia for four years, 1801-2 and 1813-14, and had the reputation of being a lawyer of respectable learning, though not of brilliant parts. He is said to have been more of a scholar than his brother the gov- ernor, but had not the liveliness and wit which distinguished the latter.
The wife of Mr. Mattocks was Prudence Deming of Connecti- cut ; they were married October 2, 1801.
LARKIN GOLDSMITH MEAD.
Son of Captain Levi and Betsey (Converse) Mead ; born, Lexington, Mas- sachusetts, October 2, 1795 ; died, Brattleborough, Vermont, July 6, 1869.
Mr. Mead acquired his literary education at the academy in Chesterfield, and his professional training under Phineas Hander-
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