USA > New Jersey > Morris County > A history of Morris County, New Jersey : embracing upwards of two centuries, 1710-1913, Volume I > Part 11
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Mr. Vanatta never sought political office, but he was frequently soli- cited by his Democratic friends to become a candidate. Without seeking it, in 1862, he was elected to the Assembly, and re-elected the following year. In 1863 he was presented as a candidate for the United States Sen- ate, in the Democratic caucus, in opposition to William Wright, but failed by two votes. In 1856 he was a delegate to the National Democratic Convention which nominated James Buchanan for the presidency. In 1860 he was chairman of the Douglas State Democratic Committee. and, re- fusing to join in the fusion movement, by that refusal gained a part of the State's electoral vote for Mr. Douglas. In the Civil War he followed his idolized chieftain Douglas and was a pronounced War Democrat. He was again made chairman of the Democratic State Committee, which posi- tion he held at the time of his death. With his commanding talents and strong hold upon his political associates, he could undoubtedly have ob- tained any office he might desire or that it was within the power of his party to give. After his failure to receive the United States senatorial nomination in 1863, he was very prominent in the minds of many influ- ential Democrats for the same position, and at other times for governor, but he would listen to no such suggestion.
Mr. Vanatta was emphatically a lawyer, enthusiastic and devoting his time and energies with untiring devotion to his practice. Almost from the beginning of his professional career, he took a foremost place at the bar and was soon engaged as counsel for many leading New Jersey corporations. These engagements led him away from his office, engross- ing his time to such a degree that he was obliged in large measure to abandon general practice and devote himself exclusively to the interests of his corporation clients. He was made Attorney-General, but soon re- signed. He was tendered positions on the Supreme Court bench, but steadily refused to accept. He died in Morristown, in 1879. His funeral
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was largely attended by many distinguished men of New York and New Jersey, and impressive addresses were delivered on the occasion.
Mr. Vanatta was a constant attendant of the First Presbyterian Church of Morristown, but was not a communicant. He married a daugh- ter of Aaron Dickerson and niece of Mahlon Dickerson; she survived him but a few years. Mr. Vanatta was of slender build, with a keen pierc- ing eye, and a countenance indicative of intense thought. He had a shoulder stoop, the consequence of close attention to prolonged study. He was kind and obliging, and when free from the exactions of his extensive practice, delighted to unbend himself with his friends. He was not a man of many friendships, but was admired and respected by all.
HENRY COOPER PITNEY
Former Vice-Chancellor Henry Cooper Pitney, whose death occurred January 10, 1911, was one of the most distinguished lawyers and jurists of New Jersey. A natural legal acumen led him to the law, and he gained a high reputation for unwavering honesty in his dealings with clients, thoroughness in the preparation of his cases, and brilliant advocacy of every cause in which he was employed. In ability to deal with the tech- nicalities of equitable principles and of equity law, he stood unequaled. These qualities fitted him as well for pleading in the higher courts as before a jury, and in both he was successful. On the bench, to his profound knowledge of the law he added a natural sense of justice and a fervent desire to carry out the principles of real equity.
Mr. Pitney came from a family seated in New Jersey for almost two centuries and having a long and honorable lineage. His immigrant an- cestor, James Pitney, had been a manufacturer in England, having his shop on London Bridge. His grandfather, Mahlon Pitney, was a soldier in the Revolutionary War. His father, Mahlon Pitney, zd, was a farmer and for some years operated one of the four active iron forges of Mendham township.
Henry Cooper Pitney, eldest child of Mahlon Pitney (2d) and Lucetta, daughter of Henry Cooper, was born January 19, 1827, in Mendham town- ship, Morris county, New Jersey, on the ancestral farm which afterward came to him by descent. He began his education under private tutors at home, and afterward attended the school of Ezra Fairchild, in Mendham (later in Plainfield), where he had for classmates the eminent Presby- terian divine, Rev. Theodore L. Cuyler, and the distinguished lawyer, Wil- liam Fullerton. At the age of fifteen he was taken from school on account of delicate health, and remained at home until his nineteenth year, study- ing at intervals. In 1846 he entered the junior class of Princeton College, from which he was graduated with the degree of Bachelor of Arts in June, 1848, the year in which he came of age; later he received the Mas- ter's degree, and in 1891, in recognition of his eminent legal and scholarly attainments, the same institution conferred upon him the degree of LL.D.
After graduation Mr. Pitney began the study of law under Theodore Little and Hon. Ira C. Whitehead, the latter a former Justice of the Supreme Court of New Jersey. In 1851 he passed a satisfactory examina- tion and was admitted to the bar as an attorney, and in 1854 as a counsellor. In the following year he opened an office in Morristown, but for some time his practice amounted to little, and he gave the major portion of his time to study, and, as he declared afterward in life, herein he laid the foundation of his later success as a jurist. In the early years of his prac-
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tice the great activity of the iron industry in Morris county gave rise to much important and difficult litigation, in which he took a very active part. His natural taste for the study of scientific questions gave him an advantage in this class of practice and he became recognized as an authority on questions of law relating to mining engineering. He was also active in the development of the Morristown Water Company, and took part in many important cases involving water rights, and soon became an authority on questions of law relating to hydraulic engineering. As the business of our equity courts increased, he became prominent in the trial of important cases in that forum. For many years before he went upon the bench his practice had principally been as counsel in important cases throughout the State, in most of which he was associated with and opposed by men who were recognized leaders of the bar.
His success was once illustrated by his able opponent Jacob Vanatta with the remark: "Pitney has a genius for the law." He was enthusiastically devoted to his profession ; thorough and untiring in the preparation of his cases ; loyal to the interests of his client-yet always fair to his opponent and frank with the court. His mind was analytical and searching, and rarely failed to discover at once the ground upon which the contest must be decided. He was indefatigable in the examination and discussion of authorities and always presented his arguments with earnestness, vigor and convincing power; he invariably commanded the attention and respect of the court, and won the victory whenever the case warranted. In 1862 he was ap- pointed Prosecutor of the Pleas for Morris County and served as such for five years with entire success and much credit to himself. He continued in practice until April, 1889, when he entered upon official position in the line of his profession. For several years he had acted as Advisory Master in Chancery, and was one of the first ten Advisory Masters appointed by Chancellor Runyon, in pursuance of a statute passed for that purpose to relieve the Chancellor in the congested work of the court. These were later superseded by the Vice-Chancellors, and he co-operated with Chan- cellor Zabriskie in the framing and enactment of the law providing for the appointment of the latter. On April 9, 1889, he was appointed Vice- Chancellor by Chancellor McGill, and he was reappointed in 1896 and again in 1903. In the absence of the Chancellor he was several times ap- pointed, under the statute, a Master to act for the Chancellor. As Vice- Chancellor, Mr. Pitney brought to his office every requisite qualification and added materially to his high prestige. Many notable cases were ad- judicated by him, among them being the famous Tobacco Merger case. The amount of judicial work accomplished by him was immense and would have overtaxed the energies of an ordinary man. His long ex- perience in the trial of cases enabled him to sift and analyze testimony and to group together the basic points in the case. His profound legal knowledge especially fitted him to apply principles, while his alertness of mind forecast the end of an argument from its very beginning; and his keen perception gave him a remarkable power of logical discriminations, which resulted in the famous equitableness of his decisions. His scorn of fraud and wrong made him sometimes appear intolerant, but he was always fair-minded and open to conviction.
Vice-Chancellor Pitney retired from the bench by resignation on April 9, 1907-the eighteenth anniversary of his appointment to the posi- tion, and soon after his eightieth birthday-on account of an increasing deafness, although his other physical faculties were unimpaired and his
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intellect was unclouded. In honor of this birthday event, on January 19, 1907, the Bench and Bar of New Jersey gave him a complimentary dinner in the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, New York City, where a distinguished as- semblage numbering more than two hundred and fifty lawyers and jurists listened to lofty encomiums upon his life and services, uttered by Chancellor William J. Magie, who presided; Supreme Court Justice John Franklin Fort (afterward Governor), Vice-Chancellor Frederic W. Stevens, former At- torney-General John W. Griggs, all of New Jersey; Judge Alton B. Parker, of New York, and Hampton L. Carson, former Attorney-General of Pennsylvania. Vice-Chancellor Pitney was greatly affected by this fine tribute and betrayed the depth of his feeling in his response to the toast of his health. The speeches and toasts were afterward printed for private circulation. Three months later, on the day when he sat as Vice-Chancellor in Jersey City for the last time, the members of the Bench and Bar pre- sented to him a handsome hall clock as a further tribute of their affection and good will.
Mr. Pitney exerted himself usefully in connection with many inter- ests of great value to the community. In 1865 he aided in organizing the National Iron Bank, of which he became a director, which office he held during the remainder of his life. In 1896 he was chosen as president of the bank, and served in that capacity until his death. He was also an organizing member and a director of the Morris County Savings Bank. In 1870 he was one of a company which purchased the Morris Aqueduct property, after purchase by the town had been rejected at the polls. He was made president of the water company and remained such until his death; and the property was so capably administered by him that it became all- efficient and highly valuable. He was one of the leading spirits in the Morris- town Library and Lyceum, and a trustee; a member of the Washington As- sociation of New Jersey and of the Sons of the Revolution, and a trustee of the First Presbyterian Church of Morristown. He was a Republican in poli- tics and for a time served on the county committee of the party. After his re-
tirement from the bench Mr. Pitney spent much of his time in his law office in the National Iron Bank Building, hearing some cases specially as Ad- visory Master. In this way he heard and concluded every cause which had been referred to him and remained undecided upon his retirement. He was also actively occupied during his last years with the affairs of the Morristown Water Company, the National Iron Bank and the other local interests just mentioned. He was also agreeably occupied with the supervision of his farm at Mendham, where he was born and which since 1760 had been owned successively by his great-grandfather, his grandfather, his father and himself.
Mr. Pitney married, April 7, 1853, in New York City, Sarah Louisa, daughter of Oliver and Sarah (Crane) Halsted, of Elizabeth, New Jersey. Children : Sarah Halsted, married Finley A. Johnson; Henry Cooper, Mah- lon and John Oliver Halsted, all lawyers, and written of elsewhere in this work; Catharine James, married to George R. Van Dusen, a lawyer of Philadelphia; Mary Brayton; Frederick V., married Elizabeth, daughter of the late Rev. George H. Chadwell, D.D., former rector of the Church of the Redeemer, Morristown.
After his death, at the opening of the February term, 1911, of the Court of Chancery, at Trenton, there were proceedings in memory of the deceased, Vice-Chancellor, consisting of addresses by Attorney-General Wilson, former Chancellor William J. Magie, R. V. Lindabury and former
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Justice Gilbert Collins, followed by a formal minute prepared on behalf of the Vice-Chancellors and read by Vice-Chancellor Emery, all of which were made records of the Court and were published in the Equity Re- ports. On this occasion his character was fittingly summarized by the speakers.
Edmund Wilson, Attorney-General, said :
At the age of eighty-four, full of years, rich in useful service, Vice-Chancellor Pitney was gathered to his fathers. His was a personality at once striking and distinguished. At the bar and on the bench he has made his impress upon two generations of men. Vigorous in mind and body, endowed with the highest qualities of courage and manhood, ripe in judgment, learned in the law, sensitive to truth, and a natural lover of justice, he has found a place of enduring eminence in the profession of his choice.
His very instincts and character fitted him for special usefulness in the arena of equity. He despised deceit and the dissembler. He hated fraud. By temperament he found keen pleasure, to use his own words, in "laying bare a fraud into which a crafty designer had lured an unwary and innocent victim." Such problems aroused his keenest activities and righteous indignation. So, too, the man who suffered by accident and mistake made high appeal, not so much to his sympathies as to his inherent love of fair play. Those who sought to evade a just and lawful under- taking outraged his ideals of morals and manliness. To such he made it clear that the remedy of specific performance could teach lessons of morals and manliness, for by it how often did he compel some men to do by force of the court's decree what all men should have done by choice. To him a duty arising from confidence or trust reposed was a solemn and sacred obligation. His whole life by precept and example proclaimed it. And so it was that the negligent or dishonest trustee learned from him new or forgotten lessons of honesty and of diligence. And through the whole gamut of activity that comes to the equity judge his very instinct helped him to enforce the lessons of honesty, of fairness, of diligence and duty, of manliness and of morals.
If his hand was sometimes heavy his heart was always tender. If his manner was sometimes brusque his motives were always true to high and righteous ideals, and those who knew him best loved him best, and loved him with tender considera- tion.
His mind was vigorous, resolute and splendidly trained, and his deliveranceg were clear, cogent and courageous. In the philosophy of the law just as in the physical universe a straight line is the shortest distance between two points. His reasoning was direct and not by devious paths. "He thought straight," as Bacon said of one of the judges in his own time. In an issue of law neither casuistry nor the complex refinement of reasoning brought confusion to his mind. The real issue was discovered and laid bare. The non-essentials were swept aside and the true principle and controlling trend of authority were speedily and appropriately applied. And so it was that the journey was short between the story of wrong, when he heard it, and the relief which was sought.
In a controversy of fact he found the truth with unerring instinct. Those who knew him at the bar said his skill in marshaling and analyzing facts was masterful, and that faculty or gift would seem never to have left him, but rather to have grown with judicial experience. His opinions, I think, were lucid and useful to an unusual degree. This was not alone because he was a learned judge, but in part at least because the controlling facts were recited with such clearness and completeness, and analyzed with such care, that the principle of equity at length invoked was obvious and convincing. Thus when the facts had been passed in complete review the legal principle in its application was both illuminated and emphasized. It is this char- acteristic which has made his opinons, to me, at least, of special value.
William J. Magie, former Chancellor, said :
Whoever met Mr. Pitney during all the time of my knowledge of him was at once impressed with his intense vitality, and was compelled to recognize that he was an independent thinker with strong convictions, expressed earnestly and vigorously. These characteristics were exhibited in his life whether as a citizen or in the business enterprises in which he has engaged or in his profession. The courts before which he practised soon discovered that back of his great energy there had been careful preparation; his client's cause had been considered in the minutest detail; the legal theory upon which he deemed it rested had been
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thought out with care. He marshaled his evidence with prudence and skill, and then presented his case to the court and jury with a force and energy that I have never known surpassed. When he went upon this bench he was well equipped for his work; he had an extensive knowledge of equity practice and pleading and a firm grasp of equitable principles. He spared no labor in the investigation of cases presented to him; he investigated every phase. If his earnestness some- times led to premature expressions, his mature conclusions were independently reached and expressed with judicial candor and honesty, a quality sometimes lacking in the opinions of even great judges. A reviewing court was never left in doubt of his conclusions, or the grounds upon which they were based. I think it would be invidious to attempt to single out any of his opinions on the many interesting questions with which he had to deal. They all exhibit the same characteristics and justify the reputation he attained as a judge.
The Minute prepared by the Vice-Chancellors and read by Vice-Chan- cellor Emery said :
A notable figure has passed from our sight-a striking, forceful, unique person- ality that for over half a century was familiar to the public view in the discharge of duties connected with the administration of justice. In these, and all other duties, Henry C. Pitney served his age and his time faithfully and well, and then full of years and honors, like the patriarch of old, "after he had served his own generation, fell on sleep."
His career on the equity bench was the longest in this court, with one exception, and embraced the greatest service and work of his widely useful life.
His acceptance of this office and splendid administration of it for eighteen years. have done much to emphasize and magnify the vital importance and influence of trial courts and courts of first instance in our system of jurisprudence.
His previous career at the bar had qualified him wonderfully well for the posi- tion. He was pre-eminent as an equity lawyer; but he was this because he was first of all thoroughly grounded in the great system of common-law rights-the funda- mental, all-pervading system which equity is designed to aid and supplement in order to secure full and complete administration-and he was familiar with the full scope of the remedies; as an attorney he was thorough, resourceful and skillful in the preparation and presentation of cases, and as an advocate, powerful alike in the trial and appellate courts. He was equipped besides with a large experience in business and affairs, with wide knowledge of human nature and a keen insight into human character and passions.
As a judge, his dominant trait was a passion for doing justice, which vibrated in every fibre of his heart and brain. And the justice, at which he aimed, and which so far as in him lay, he wrought out, was the full, completed justice, as he saw it, between the parties, on the whole dispute before him, without regard to mere forms. of procedure. He refused to perpetrate, in the name of the law, what he thought to be an injustice, and no matter how just a rule may have been at the time of its origin, he was prepared to disregard it and originate another in its place if it no longer served the end for which it was created. No judge in any of our courts ever showed a more complete self-effacement in searching for the right of a cause in order to determine what decree would stand firmly on equity and justice. Thie permanent record of his opinions in the New Jersey Equity Reports yields the finest fruits of learning and industry and splendid intellectual endowments, and his many vigorous discussions of novel, doubtful or complicated questions, both of law and fact, illustrate his powers and the dominant traits of his mind and character, and will constitute a great and lasting monument to his memory.
Many of the striking traits, so familiar to all the bench and bar, cannot be pic- tured or recalled from his formal opinions, but these will long be perpetuated by the traditions of a profession which treasures what is worth preserving in the lives of its members. Haec olim meminisse juvabit. Not soon will they forget this memorable judge as he actually administered his office; his vigorous, dominating presence and manner ; his accurate, quick-sometimes impatient-seizure of the salient points of a case; his clashes with counsel to bring out what he thought the vital questions ; his protection of the weak against the strong; his open, decided expression of views, with forceful argument to sustain them, but retaining always an openness of mind ready to be corrected. For withal and over all he had absolutely no pride of opinion, no sensitiveness nor apprehension about any charge of inconsistency; in truth, as he himself might have expressed it, he stood for no conclusion, either of himself or another, which did not fully stand the tests to which it must be properly subjected; and because he did not spare himself in these respects, he failed to under-
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stand that others could take offense if at times he refused to spare them. His per- sonal traits, his versatility, his genial friendliness, his wit and humor, and, over all, the power that emanated from a great human heart, full of love for his great pro- fession and those worthy to be its members as his brethren, and an affection that grew with his advancing years, fastened all of us to him in bonds which will not be severed by death.
ALFRED MILLS
Alfred Mills (a lawyer of Morristown, New Jersey), who was prom- inently identified with various offices of trust and responsibility in this State for many years, was a son of Lewis and Sarah Ann (Este) Mills, and a descendant through both his parents from many of the early settlers of this country who were prominent in Revolutionary and Colonial times.
Mr. Mills was born in Morristown, July 24, 1827, and obtained his preparatory education at the Morris Academy in his native town. Matricu- lating at Yale University in 1844, he was graduated with high honors three years later. While a student in that institution he was a member of the famous Skull and Bones Society. He took up the study of law in the office of Edward W. Whelpley, later Chief Justice of New Jersey, and was admitted to the bar of this State as an attorney in 1851, and in 1854 as a counsellor. Almost immediately after his admission to the bar he took a high place in his profession, and through his uncommon ability and great force of character he retained a prominent position among the lawyers of the State for over sixty years.
In 1856 he associated himself in a partnership with Jacob W. Miller, who had served for twelve years as United States Senator from New Jersey, and this connection was continued in force until the death of Mr. Miller in 1862. Until 1872 Mr. Mills then practiced independently, and in that year, with William E. Church, organized the firm of Mills & Church, which remained in existence until 1883, when Mr. Church was appointed a judge of the United States Circuit Court for the District of Dakota. Mr. Mills was elected mayor of Morristown in 1874, and served with ability in this office until 1876, when he was nominated as the Republican con- gressional candidate for his district. He fully realized, at the time of his nomination, that his election was a matter of impossibility, but his high sense of party honor would not permit him to decline the nomination. He was appointed Prosecutor of the Pleas for Morris county in 1867, and dis- played marked ability during the term he served in this office. As executor and trustee of estates and in fiduciary positions, his services were in con- stant demand for many years. He possessed the confidence of the entire community. His financial connections were as director in several of the Morristown banks at various times, and in other corporations and insti- tutions.
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