History of Burlington and Mercer counties, New Jersey : with biographical sketches of many of their pioneers and prominent men, Part 27

Author: Woodward, E. M. (Evan Morrison) cn; Hageman, John Frelinghuysen
Publication date: 1883
Publisher: Philadelphia, Pa. : Everts & Peck
Number of Pages: 1096

USA > New Jersey > Burlington County > Burlington > History of Burlington and Mercer counties, New Jersey : with biographical sketches of many of their pioneers and prominent men > Part 27
USA > New Jersey > Mercer County > History of Burlington and Mercer counties, New Jersey : with biographical sketches of many of their pioneers and prominent men > Part 27

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2 See instructions to Lord Corubury, from Article 69 to 74.

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SUNDAY-SCHOOLS.

Episcopalians finally got the exclusive possession and use of it, and the Presbyterians built a new one for their owu exclusive use where the Ewing Church now stands.

The Rev. Jacob Henderson, a missionary of the Church of England stationed at Dover Hundred, iu Pennsylvania, wrote a short statement of the Church of England in the provinces of New York and New Jersey, dated June 2, 1712. In it he complained among other things that Governor Hunter had counte-

The Roman Catholic Church did not appear in this nanced the disseuters in New York in taking forcible : county until the early part of this century. It came possession of the parsonage-house, glebe lands, and salary of Jamaica, on Long Island, which belonged to one of the six churches in that province which that denomination had established. He then refers to New Jersey and to this very church in Hopewell as follows :

"In New Jersey there are noe laws made in favour of the Church, and but four of the Church of England in that Province. The Quakers and other Dissenters are most Numerous, and do make up the greatest part of the Assembly, which is the reason why no Law has been passed in the Church's favour, but they have not been able to do any harm to it in regard of the Plurality, yt the Queen's Council are Churchmen, and have always opposed any attempts made to her Prejudice by ye Quakers or other Dissenters, who have at their head one Coll: Morris, a professd Churchman, but a man of noe manner of principles or credit, a man who Calls the service of the Church of England Pageantry, who has Joyned in Endeavors to settle a Conventicle in the city of New York, and whose practice it is to intercept letters, and let such as please him pass, and those yt does not lie destroys as can be fully proved.

" This Coll: Lewis Morris with the present Governor, Coll: Hunter, have written to the lord's commission's of trade to turn out of the Councill six Church of England men, and to put in six others in their room, some of them Dissenters, and those that are of the Church are such as will run into all the measures of the Assembly, and therefore of the worst consequences to the church in that province, for by the countenance that the Dissenters now have in that Province one Woolsey, a New England Preacher, took the Church of Hopewell, tho' it was built by the subscriptions of Church of Engid men, and for the service of the church of England. What usage then must the Church expect if both the Queen's Council and the Assembly, I mean yt Plurality of both, are inclined to serve the Dissenters' interest, which will certainly be the issue of turning out these six Gentlemen, and advancing the other six in their room."

To that statement was appended a " Scheme of the Charge in New Jersey," in which reference is made in the West Division to "John Harrison, who, as I am audibly informed, was brought up with one Kid, a pirate, to take the place of Daniel Cox, a very worthy gentleman, and a zealous Churchman, who has given 200 acres of land to the church of Hope- well." This statement of the reverend missionary is published at length in the "New Jersey Archives," vol. iv. page 155, from the "N. Y. Col. Documents."

Notwithstanding the statement of the Rev. Mr. Henderson to the contrary, the Episcopalians seem to have held the fort, and worshiped there till they built a house of worship in the city of Trenton, which is uow known as St. Michael's Church. There are now three Episcopal Churches iu Trenton, one in Princetou, and one in Hightstown. Though their growth is not rapid, they are prosperous, peaceful, and united.

here because members of that church came here and required the ministries of religion. The great and growing influx of foreigners, immigrants from Roman Catholic countries, demands the multiplication of Catholic Churches in such localities as have employ- ment to draw and retain that class. They do not usually build until they have people to fill the house. Their churches are usually large and well filled. The line is so rigidly drawn between them and the Protes- taut family of churches that there is no proselyting from one to the other. Though the old and long-nur- tured eninity between the Papists and the Protestants is slowly becoming less rancorous as they witness the sincerity and the piety of each other ; and as the in- fluence of education and political association, espec- ially upon the rising generation, tends to liberalize the mind and free it from bigotry and religious tyr- anny, there is no appearance of accession being made to either branch of the church from the other. It may truly be said that both parties are commending them- selves to each other more and more by exhibiting the legitimate fruits of genuine Christianity.

The healthful moral influence of Christianity upon the inhabitants of the county, and upon their political and social life, as exerted through their several churches and religious societies, cannot be questioned. The quiet and well-ordered homes throughout the rural districts ; the advancing civilization and intel- lectual culture throughout city and country, and the general thrift and happiness of the masses of society, ale in no small degree due to the purifying and ele- vating principles of that religion which is inculcated from the Bible through families, schools, and churches. The day of an ignorant, uneducated ministry has passed.

Sunday-Schools .- The Sunday-school organiza- tion is maintained in every township of the county, and all with few exceptions are in connection with "some denominational church. In this county the Woolsey given in the history of Dr. Hall, or of Dr. ' Sunday-school cause is in high favor with the church at large. Great interest is manifested in it in every men and women in the community. The anniver- sary union incetings held in congregations attract a full house, and are usually very interesting.

We find no account of this New England preacher Hale, though the latter traces the family of George Woolsey, who came from Jamaica, L. I., about the , school district. It engages the attention of the best year 1700, and settled in Hopewell, on the north side of the road leading from " Maidenhead to the Dela- ware River." His descendants have been numerous and warm supporters of the Presbyterian Church, There is a Mercer County Sunday-School Associa- tion, an auxiliary or branch of the State Sunday- School Association, which holds its meeting annually. and influential in the politics of the county. Presi- dent Woolsey, of Yale, belongs to the same family.

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HISTORY OF MERCER COUNTY, NEW JERSEY.

This Association has a majority of the schools in the county connected with it, and auxiliary to this there is an Association in every township, each having a secretary.

The secretary of the County Association is U. B. Titus, of Trenton. The tabular report of 1880.made the number of Sunday-schools reported in Mercer County, 100; number of officers, 402; number of teachers, 1029; average attendance of teachers, 1014; number of teachers church members, 984; number of scholars, 9908; number of scholars church mem- .

The number of Sunday-school scholars in the State is 189,718; number of schools, 1896; number of teachers, 23,437; teachers members of the church, 20,132; scholars church members, 22,681 ; conversions or confirmations, 4587 ; schools all the year, 1394; schools using international lessons, 1439; having teachers' meetings, 460; having normal or training classes, 89.

Bible Societies .- There is a Mercer County Bible Society which was organized in 1848 or thereabouts, which is well sustained, though there are several other local Bible societies whichi greatly antedate it, and which adhere to their organization, such as the Prince- ton Bible Society, tlie Nassau Hall Bible Society, the Lawrenceville High School Bible Society.

The County Society holds its annual meetings in different places in the county, and are meetings of public interest. The amount of money annually ex- pended by this society for Bibles and as a donation to the American Bible Society averages not less than one thousand dollars.

CHAPTER LVIII.

THE BENCH AND BAR.

THE bench and the bar of a county which contains the State capital, with the State and Federal courts held therein, differ somewhat from those of other counties. Judges of other than county courts, and eminent counsel, whose prominent though not exclu- ; sive services are rendered in the Supreme and higher courts, are naturally drawn to the great centre of the State, and some of them take up their residence there. Thus we find among the residents of Trenton the United States district judge, three judges of the Su- preme Court of the State, one vice-chancellor, and the attorney-general; and in former years such men as Mr. Southard, Gen. Wall, Mr. Dayton, Mr. Vroom were drawn here not because of the county courts,

but to be present at the higher courts of the State ; and yet they practiced in the county courts and helped to form the bar of the county of which they were members.

It is proper, therefore, in noticing tlie bench as well as the bar, to include all the jurists official and unof- ficial, who reside or have resided permanently within this county. By the bench we understand the judges as distinguished from the bar ; and as those who con- stitute the bench have been members of the bar, the personal sketches of one class will be similar to those bers, 7108; number of conversions or confirmations | of the other. Here it may be observed that many of for the year, 156; number of special temperance lessons given, 45; number of schools continued all the year, 78; schools using the international lessons, 84; schools having teachers' meetings, 28; schools having normal or training classes, 6.

the lawyers who lived before Mercer County was erected, but within its territory, have been briefly por- trayed in the historics of the several original counties from which Mercer was erected, and also more fully noticed by Justice Elmer, in his interesting volume of his " Reminiscences of the Bencli and Bar ;" and in otlier biographical sketches. Therefore we shall give but brief sketches of the more distinguished of the dead, and in general only a casual notice of others, and of the living, especially of the younger members of the bar.

When the county of Mercer was organized, in 1838, the Trenton bar consisted of William Halsted, Samuel R. Hamilton, Stacy G. Potts, Henry W. Green, James Ewing, James Wilson, Isaac W. Lanning, Joseph C. Potts, and Mercer Beasley. The latter was admitted in that year. All but Mr. Wilson and ,

Mr. Beasley are dead, and they are still resident in Trenton.

At that time the members of the bar at Princeton were James S. Green, Richard S. Field, William C. Alexander, and David N. Bogart, none of whom are now living.

It is instructive to pass down the roll of attorneys from colonial days to the present time. Distance in time seems to lend enchantment to the names of the early lawyers of New Jersey. We do not get very far down the roll before we begin to feel that there were giants in those days. Though there lias been but little change in the prescribed qualifications for admission to the bar, and such change has been de- signed to raise rather than to lower the standard, yet it seems as if a large proportion of the present bar can never attain to the high legal standing which characterized even the lower rank of lawyers who lived within the first half-century after the close of the Revolutionary war. Not only has the esprit de corps of the profession been diminished, but that enthusi- asm and that legal gladiatorship which the old law- yers were wont to exhibit in their practice are disap- pearing in the present multitudinous legal fraternity. The recent modification of the practice act, allowing such broad liberty to amend the pleadings when found defective, superseding the use of the special demurrer, and dispensing with that keen vigilance which was cultivated in the old school of special I pleading, may have already effected a change in the

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THE BENCH AND BAR.

legal acumen of the bar. This change in the prac- tice may further justice, but it is nevertheless a dis- advantage to the student, who is thus tempted to throw aside the study of special pleading.

There is another element in the case, found in the character of the legal business which was carried to the courts in the early and formative stages of civil society. The engrafting of the common law upon our new civilization and State legislation, the con- tests over title to lands, and the settlement of ques- tions of constitutional law, which occupied so much of the time and attention of the bench and the bar in the early years of our history, have almost dis- appeared with the generations which have passed away.

The class of business which predominates in our courts at the present time is that which relates to cor- porations, either municipal or of railroad companies, or which arises from breaches of trust, the great bulk of which lics within the jurisdiction of the Court of Chancery.

with that of the first half-century of our State organi- zation. Nearly all the influential members of the bench and of the bar in the State, and in this county, are Christian men, members of Christian churches, and many of them are officers therein. The legal pro- fession is well represented in all the Christian and benevolent associations of the day. The influence of the bar is felt everywhere. While among the very large accessions made to the roll at every term of the Supreme Court, not a few who are admitted are with- out a liberal education and without fine culture, the majority of them are graduates of college, and all of them are required to produce with their certificates of office clerkship and study a certificate of good moral character.

There is nothing in the law or in the rules of court which may be construed to favor the admission to the bar those of the gentler sex, and no application of such kind has yet been made in this State, and there is no apparent motive for making it. The bench has thus far maintained such a high character for integ- rity and impartiality that the Legislature has been disposed to deposit with the justices of the Supreme Court and the chancellor certain political powers in matters of appointment and reference in cases which are outside of their judicial dominion. While this is a confession of distrust in the character and integrity of the ordinary and legitimate fountains of political power, it is questionable how wise it is to subject the judiciary to the temptations and besetments which others have not been able to withstand. Because judges of the Supreme Court are regarded as pure and trustworthy is no reason why they should be loaded with responsibilities which do not properly belong to their official duties.

It may well be doubted whether the bar of the

present day contains as large a proportion of able and eloquent advocates as the carlier roll contained. This may be due in measure to the fact that the wide scope of the advocate in trials at the circuit, in the presence of a full court-house, is very much limited in these days. It was formerly very unusual for a court to limit the counsel as to the time of summing up his case ; he was allowed a wide range in addressing the jury. Now our judges are more economical of time, and they do not hesitate to clip the wings of the ora- tor when he is soaring aloft to the delight of his client, the jury, and the audience, and bring him down by holding him to the narrow issue of fact involved. In these days the verdicts of juries are shaped more by the charge of the court thau by the discussions and arguments of counsel.

The character of the bench is voiced in the pub- lished law and equity reports of the courts of the State. These grow more voluminous every successive year. It is quite remarkable that a large proportiou of the cases reported, too often in a long and labori- ously prepared opinion, are questions shown to be

The moral character of the bench and bar of this county and of this State loses nothing by comparison , within the scope of res judicata, and to be goverued by the doctrine of stare decisis. The citations in the brief of counsel and in the opinion of the justice, who is the mouth-piece of the court, are but an ac- cumulation of cases to show that the question of law involved has been once and again settled judicially. It would seem as if long and diffusive opinions in such case might well be supplanted by a short, terse enunciation of the settled law without much verbiage or discussion, after the manner of the old English reports.

These volumes of our reports show great industry and integrity on the part of the judges, and there are many well written, terse, and learned opinions, ex- pressed in the apt language of the legal mind, but the thousands of volumes of reports crowding our law libraries from all our States and from Great Britain are calling for a reform by which opinions should be more concise, and questions already settled should not reappear in the published reports.

Neither the bench nor bar of New Jersey have been much honored by legal authorship. While the Western bar are contributing volume after volume yearly of law treatises and commentaries and divers other legal miscellanies, many of which are of great value to the profession, our bar, as if satisfied with the reputation expressed of it by Judge Bushrod Washing- ton, has done nothing worth naming in legal author- ship. Griffith's Law Register, unfinished, was of some value as an epitome of certain statutes of the several States, with some valuable notes appended ; and his brief treatise on the Small Cause Court with forms was of some value in its day to young beginners. Pennington's Treatise on the Small Cause Act was of more value, and Ewing's New Jersey Justice has been a useful guide to justices of the peace. Elmer's and Nixon's Forms, in the hands of every

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HISTORY OF MERCER COUNTY, NEW JERSEY.

justice of the peace, have been useful helps. Honey- man's Practice and Precedents in Justices' Courts, acter of the bench. The political scales in New with his treatise, bear more marks of a studied aud Jersey are almost equally balanced at the polls. somewhat elaborate commentary and digest than As we proceed to notice the more prominent mem- any other books of the kind. Then we have Potts' . bers of the bench and of the bar whose names stand Chancery Precedents and the more enlarged and on the roll, and who were residents of this county, it might be a pertinent inquiry for the young lawyer who desires to go up high whether the most favorable place to acquire a high legal reputation is on the bench or at the bar. useful chancery precedents by Mr. Dickinson, and also Gosson's Precedents of Pleading and Corwin's Forms. These with our law and equity reports aud Stewart's digest of them constitute, with our statutes, Judge Field's Provincial Courts, and our Law Journal, the law literature of New Jersey.

The bench of New Jersey, under the Constitution, is made by the Governor's nomination, with the con- seut of the Senate, for the term of seven years. The handsome salary of at least eight thousand dollars to every associate justice, and ten thousand dollars to the chancellor, payable monthly, exceeds the strictly professional income of any lawyer in the State, ex- cept perhaps half a dozen, and a very few others who are retained by large railroad companies. All ex- perience teaches that such patronage is a strong element in the politics of the State, and that the Governor who nominates will consult the interest of his political friends in making nominatious. A non- partisan judiciary is not a well-defined terin. Does it mean that the nominees for the bench are not po- · litical partisans, and have no political affiliation with either party ? or does it mean that the political forces on the bench should be equalized, or as nearly so as possible? or what is meant by it? In Mercer County every judicial position from the city District Court through all the courts up to the highest is filled at : signed the Declaration of Independence. In August, present ,by Democrats, and because they are Demo- 1776, he was a candidate under the State Constitu- tion for Governor, and received a tie vote upon the first ballot with Gen. Livingston, but the latter was elected, aud Mr. Stockton was elected chief justice, which he declined. He resumed the practice of the law. The war broke upon the State. "Morven," his beautiful home in Princeton, was pillaged by the Hessian soldiers. He himself was betrayed in Mon- mouth County and captured by the enemy, and after a long imprisonment was released, with health de- stroyed. He died at " Morven," Feb. 28, 1781, in the fifty-first year of his age. We have no record of his : professional or judicial life,-no law reports of that day,-but Rev. Dr. S. Stanhope Smith, vice-president of the college, preached his funeral discourse, and re- ferred to his professional character in these words: crats. Every change in the political character of the Governor shows a corresponding change in the politi- eal complexion of the bench when vacancies are : filled. Both parties are subject alike to this infirmity, and the least had faith in one is sure to provoke a swing of the non-partisan pendulum far in an oppo- site direction when there is a change in the executive. It has been so in some measure cver since this eounty has been made, and there seems to be no cure for it. A few years ago, by some sort of mutual understand- ing between the leaders of the parties, it was arranged that the two parties should be equally represented in the judiciary, and when there was an odd member to be appointed the dominant party should be at lib- erty to nominate such, and obtain the majority on the bench. But such an arrangement is worth but " At the bar he practiced for many years with un- rivaled reputation and success. In eouucil he was wise and firm, but always prudent and moderate. The office of a judge of the province was never filled with more integrity and learning than it was by him for several years before the Revolution. In his private life he was easy and graceful in his manners, in his conversation affable and entertaining, and master of a smooth and elegant style even in his ordinary dis- little, and without inquiring where the departure first arosc, the present fact is that on the Supreme Court bench to-day therc arc six Democrats and three Rc- publicans. The chancellor and one vice-chancellor and the attorney-general arc Democrats, and one vice-chancellor is a Republican. It is evident that in every gubernatorial election no branch of the State government offers more tempting patronage for political services than the judiciary with its large course. As a man of letters he possessed a superior

:salaries. Time will show its bearing upon the char-

RICHARD STOCKTON was a son of John Stocktou and grandson of Richard Stockton, the first of that name, who settled at Stony Brook in 1696, and who had come from England with his father to Long Island. Richard, who is the subject of this sketch, was born at Princeton, Oet. 1, 1730. He graduated at the College of New Jersey, at Newark, in the first class, in 1748. He read law with David Ogden, in Newark. and was admitted to the bar of New Jersey in term of August, 1754, and opened his office at Princeton, and began to practice with unrivaled suc- cess. After twelve years of practice, extending throughout this province and into other eolouies, he made a visit to England, and was greatly honored there. While there he waited upon Dr. Witherspoon and persuaded him to accept the presidency of Prince- ton College. He returned to America in 1767. The next year he was made a member of Council, and in 1774 he was appointed judge of the Supreme Court. On the 21st of June, 1776, he was elected member of' the General Congress at Philadelphia. Dr. Wither- spoon was his colleague in that body. They both

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THE BENCH AND BAR.

genius, highly eultivated by long and assiduous ap- . services to his country, declining after peace to ac- plication. His researches into the principles of

cept any office after he resigned the attorney-general- morals and religion were deep and accurate, and his ' ship in 1780.

knowledge of the laws of his country extensive and profound. He was well acquainted with all the branches of polite learning, but he was particularly admired for a flowing and persuasive eloquence by which he long governed in the courts of justice. He was a member of the Presbyterian Church, and left a widow, Annis Boudinot, a very intellectual and pious woman, two sons, -- Richard and Lucius Horatio ! Stockton,-and four daughters, viz. : Mrs. Dr. Rush, Mrs. Alexander Cuthbert, Mrs. Rev. Andrew Hunter, and Mrs. Robert Field.

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History of Burlington and Mercer counties, New Jersey : with biographical sketches of many of their pioneers and prominent men, Part 27

Author: Woodward, E. M. (Evan Morrison) cn; Hageman, John Frelinghuysen Publication date: 1883 Publisher: Philadelphia, Pa. : Everts & Peck Number of Pages: 1096

Author: Woodward, E. M. (Evan Morrison) cn; Hageman, John Frelinghuysen
Publication date: 1883
Publisher: Philadelphia, Pa. : Everts & Peck
Number of Pages: 1096