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 30
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 30
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HISTORY OF MERCER COUNTY, NEW JERSEY.
pretensions to the character of a legal scholar, -a class of lawyers who are often more learned than sound, and more knowing than safe. He had a large mind and strong common sense, which always led him instinc- tively to search for and seize the leading and governing principle which underlay a book or case, studied or re- ferred to, or a cause to be argued or tried. This trait characterized his reading and studies whilst a student at law, and his practice as a lawyer after he came to the bar. In the argument of his causes he always stood upon some broad general principles or funda- mental and striking view of his case; he could not stoop to mere technicalities.
The same characteristics distinguished him as a judge. There was nothing he so much abhorred as to decide a cause on narrow precedents or minute tech- nical points. This arose from his breadth of mind and great good sense. Strong, sound sense was the basis and most marked feature of his intellectual character.
After getting his attorney's license, in May, 1830, he concluded to leave his native county and settle in Monmouth. He first located himself at Middletown Point, where he stayed about two years, and then re- moved to Freehold, the county-seat ; and about this period was married to Miss Vanderveer, a daughter of Judge Ferdinand Vanderveer, of Somerville. The Monmouth County courts, especially the circuit for the trial of Supreme Court cases, were at that period attended by Gen. Wall, George Wood, Col. Warren Scott, Chief Justice Green, the late James S. Green, and others of equal eminence in the profession, be- sides the local lawyers of the place, Mr. Ryall, Judge Randolph, and others. The forensic contests of these mnen and forensic contests with them furnished a most excellent sehool for the development of Mr. Dayton's peculiar powers. He very soon took rank as a young man of great promise.
So rapidly did Mr. Dayton rise in the public esti- mation, both in regard to talents and character, that in 1837 he was chosen to represent the Whig party on their legislative ticket as candidate for the Legis- lative Couneil. Monmouth was a strong Democratic County, having for five successive years elected the Jackson ticket by large majorities. In 1837 the rev- olution commenced in New Jersey, and Monmouth was one of the counties which completely changed its political front. The entire Whig ticket was elected, and Mr. Dayton took his seat in the Legis- lative Council. He was chairman of the Judiciary Committee of the Council, and in that capacity, as well as in his place as a member of the Council, he advocated the bill entitled " An Act to facilitate the administration of justice." The new duties required of the Supreme Court judges by this law, which went into effect on the 14th of February, 1838, ren- dered necessary an increase of judicial force, and the first section of the law added two additional judges to the Supreme Beneh. On the 28th of February the
Legislature in joint meeting elected Mr. Dayton and John Moore White. then attorney-general, to fill the new seats in the bench which the law had thus created.
On the 18th of February, 1841, after three years of honorable service on the bench of the Supreme Court, Judge Dayton resigned that position and returned to the practice of the law in the city of Trenton, where he then resided. "He will carry with him," said the ; leading journal of the State, " to the less arduous pur- suits of private life the consciousness and the credit of having discharged his public functions with honor to himself and the court."
Mr. Southard, after a lingering illness of several weeks, died at Fredericksburg on the 26th of June, 1842. He liad for the second time represented this State in the Senate of the United States since March 4, 1833. A little more than one-half of his seeond term had elapsed. Congress being in session, and the State Legislature not in session, it devolved upon Governor Pennington to appoint Mr. Southard's suc- cessor, and on the 2d of July he appointed Mr. Day- ton, who took his seat on the 6th.
Mr. Dayton's senatorial career extended over a period of nearly nine years. His appointment to the unexpired term of Mr. Southard was confirmed by the Legislature on its first session in October, 1842, and in February, 1845, he was re-elected fer the full term, commencing in March of that year, and ending March 4, 1851.
The period covered by these nine years was a very important and eventful one in our history, and the chief actors in it, with whom Mr. Dayton was brought in contact, were historieal characters, whose names will go down to the latest ages of the republic. During this period occurred the consolidation of Texas with our territory, the Mexican war, the ac- quisition of California, New Mexico, and Arizona ; the slavery agitation which ensued upon this acqui- sition ; the compromises of that subject, which were attempted, which were made, and which were broken; the settlement of our northeastern and northwestern boundaries with Great Britain ; and the discussion of the famous Wilmot proviso, which Mr. Dayton sup- ported with all his forensic eloquence.
In 1845 he was selected as one of the revisers of the State laws, in connection with Chancellor Green, Hon. P. D. Vroom, and Judge Potts. The work or this commission was issued in 1847, in the volume of revised statutes then published. In 1857 he was ap- pointed attorney-general of the State, and occupied that position until he assumed the duties of minister plenipotentiary to France.
In 1856 he received the nomination of his party for Vice-President on the same ticket with Col. Fremont, being the first presentation of a national ticket by the Republican party.
In March, 1861, he was appointed by President Lincoln minister plenipotentiary to France, at that
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time one of the most responsible positions in the gift edited the Emporium. In 1823 he began the study of law with Lucius Horatio Stockton, in Trenton. He afterwards entered the office of Garret D. Wall, and remained with him till he was licensed as an attorney, in 1827. He was elected to the Assembly in 1828, on the Jackson ticket, and was re-elected in 1829. In of the government. He arrived at his post on the 11th of May, and immediately put himself in com- munication with the French government, then repre- sented in the bureau of foreign affairs by M. Thou- venel. He applied for an early presentation to the emperor, which was granted on the 19th of the same . 1831 he was appointed clerk of chancery, and held month. He very soon acquired the entire confidence of the emperor and of his ministers in his caudor and truth, so much so that it has been known more than once to occur when our affairs were under discussion between the emperor and his minister of foreign af- fairs, and any question arose as to the exact state of facts, the minister would say, "I know it must be so, your Majesty, for Mr. Dayton told me so." This reference was always considered satisfactory. The anecdote speaks well not only for Mr. Dayton, but for the emperor's just appreciation of honorable char- acter. Personally he always received the most uni- form kindness and consideration at the hands of the eourt.
JAMES EWING was a son of Chief Justice Charles Ewing, of Trenton, and graduated at Princeton Col- lege in 1823; studied law, and was admitted to the bar in November, 1826, and opened his office in Tren- ton, where he continued to practice till shortly before his death, which occurred in 1869. His practice was chiefly office business. He was a well-read lawyer, and a man of gentle manners. He never married.
SAMUEL J. BAYARD was a son of Samuel Bayard, of Princeton, a lawyer by profession, and widely known throughout the country. Samuel J. was edu- eated at Princeton, graduated at the college in the elass of 1820, read law with Richard Stockton, and was admitted to the bar in 1823. He practiced in Princeton for a short time, and then removed from the place to Ohio, and devoted the rest of his life to journalism and literary labors in New York and New Jersey. His last residence was at Camden, where he died in 1878. He was a politician and a political editor, a gentleman of culture and industry. He wrote a biography of Commodore Stockton and also of his own son, Gen. G. Dashiel Bayard. In 1825 he was the anonymous author of " Mengwe, a Tale of the Frontier," a poem.
STACY G. POTTS was born in November, 1799, in the city of Harrisburg, Pa. His great-great-grand- father was Thomas Potts, a Quaker, who with Mahlon Stacy and others came from England in 1678, in the ship "Shield," and landed at Burlington. The two families of Stacy and Potts intermarried. Stacy Potts, the grandfather of Judge Potts, was a tanner by trade, and carried on that business in Trenton. His son removed to Harrisburg, Pa., and in 1791 mar- ried Miss Gardiner. Young Stacy came to live with his grandfather soon after 1808, who at that time was mayor of Trenton. He attended the school at the Friends' Academy, and then entered as an apprentice | DAVID NEVIUS BOGART was born in Princeton: to the printer's trade. When he became of age he : a son of Peter Bogart, who once kept store in that
the office for ten years, and published his "Prece- dents in Chancery." He next visited Europe with his brother, the Rev. William S. Potts, D.D., of St. Louis. In 1845 he served ou a commission to revise the laws of the State. In 1847 he was appointed a manager of the lunatic asylum. Iu 1852 he was nomi- nated by Governor Fort as a justice of the Supreme Court, and was confirmed by the Senate. His circuit comprised Burlington, Camden, Gloucester, and Ocean Counties. He served seven years and theu retired to private life. He was a conscientious judge, and a decidedly religious mau, serving as a ruling elder in the Presbyterian Church, aud devoted to Sunday- schools. Judge Potts lived at the time, and for many years previous to his death, in State Street, east of the State-House, where Caleb S. Green now lives. Hle died in 1865 at his home in Trenton.
WILLIAM COWPER ALEXANDER, a son of Rev. Archibald Alexander, D.D., professor in the Theo- logical Seminary at Princeton, was born in Prince Edward County, Va., May 25, 1806. His mother was Miss Waddel, a daughter of the blind preacher, Rev. James Waddel, of Virginia. He came to Princeton with his parents from Philadelphia in 1812. He graduated at Nassau Hall in 1824, and studied law with James S. Green, and was admitted to the bar in May, 1828, and opened a law-office in Princeton. He was elected a member of the Assembly from Middle- sex soon after he came to the bar. He belonged to the Jackson Democratic party, was a popular speaker, and seemed to love politics more than law. He was brilliant and captivating in addressing a jury, but never took counselor's license, and his practice was chiefly local, but he occasionally tried causes in the county circuit. Application would have secured to him eminent success.
He was elected State senator from Mercer in 1853, and continued in that office through several terms by re-election, and for four years he was president of the Senate. He was an excellent presiding officer. He was a candidate for Governor against William A. Newell, but was defeated. He was sent as a delegate to the Peace Convention at the beginning of the civil war. In 1859 he was chosen president of the New York Equitable Assurance Company, but retained his residence at Princeton. He was more distinguished in literature than in law. He was genial, and in early life convivial, a great favorite with the masses, with high order of talent and elocution. He died a Christian, Aug. 24, 1876. He was never married.
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HISTORY OF MERCER COUNTY, NEW JERSEY.
place, and was also steward of the seminary. In his old age he was notary public and teller in the Prince- ton Bank.
David graduated at Nassau Hall in 1827, read law with James S. Green, was admitted to the bar in 1832, and opened his office in Princeton, where he prac- ticed till his death. He married Sarah Disborough, a daugliter of Judge Disborough, of Millstone, Som- erset Co. He died May 5, 1844, thirty-five years of age.
JOSEPH C. POTTS, of Trenton, a brother of Stacy G. Potts, was admitted to the bar in September, 1833. While a young man he was connected with the Em- porium. He had a fondness for politics. He was clerk of the United States District Court for New Jerscy, under Judge Philemon Dickerson. In 1837 he edited the New Jersey Register for that year, a volume of three hundred pages. It was a sort of political almanac, of statistics and civil list of the State. He was a keen lawyer, and would have risen high in the profession if he had not engaged in other business and speculations. He was full of public en- terprise, and was a useful citizen, using the public newspaper in promoting the public welfare. Later in life he removed to Jersey City, and resumed the practice of the law, and was a partner with Mr. John Linn. He was an elder in the Presbyterian Church, and dicd in 1880.
JAMES WILSON was a son of Johu Wilson and a grandson of Allen Wilson. The family were of Scotch-Irish descent. James J. Wilson, United States Senator, and editor and founder of the True American, was a brother of James Wilson's father. The family formerly lived in Essex County, N. J., and James was born in Greenbrook, in that county, in 1808. John Wilson was a judge of the Essex pleas. James came with his father's family to Trenton in 1824, and was a student at the school of Jared W. Fyler, a teacher of celebrity. He began to read law with Samuel R. Hamilton, and in a short time entered the office of James Ewing, where he completed his prep- aration, and was admitted to the bar in September, 1830, and commenced practice in the city of Trenton, and was for some time a law-partner of Samuel L. Southard.
He was the first prosecutor of the pleas of this county. He was a Whig in politics, and represented the county of Mercer in the Assembly in 1841. In 1842 he was elected clerk of the Supreme Court, and held the oflice till 1852,-an office which he filled with great satisfaction to the bar. After he left the clerk's office he resumed his practice, and took a de- cided but moderate interest in politics. During the late war he was appointed United States commis- sioner of enrollment during the draft, and performed his trying duties with courage and discretion.
Mr. Wilson is an accurate and cautious practi- tioner, a sound and solid lawyer, a conscientious and safe counselor. His honor and integrity in his pro-
fessional and private life are unsurpassed by any member of the New Jersey bar. His business now is chiefly confined to his office and to practice in chancery and the Supreme Court. He is faithful to students who place themselves under his tuition, and has prepared a large number for admission to the bar. He is clear and logical in argument, always dignified and courteous in speech and manner. Ed- ueated in the old school, he adheres to the old prac- tiee of thorough preparation for trial. With his judicial mind and other qualifications, it is hard to conjecture why he has not been proffered a judicial position, unless it is because he is not self-seeking. He is the oldest living member of the Mercer bar.
WILLIAM P. SHERMAN, of Trenton, was admitted to the bar in November, 1833, but never practiced much. When the county of Mercer was formed he was appointed surrogate, and he held the office for three terms, till 1858, when he was succeeded by P .. R. Rodgers. His legal knowledge contributed greatly to his qualifications for the duties of that office.
ISAAC W. LANNING was a native of old Hopewell township (now Ewing), and belonged to a numerous family of that name. He began late in life to study law in Trenton, and was admitted to the bar in Sep- tember, 1894. He was a member of the Assembly from Mercer County when it was first formed. He was appointed prosecutor of the pleas of Mercer in 1847 as successor of Gen. Hamilton. He held that office for two terms, and was succeeded by Mr. Gran- din. He had a respectable practice, and died at an advanced age in 1880.
MERCER BEASLEY is a son of the Rev. Frederick Beasley, D.D., an Episcopal clergyman widely known throughout the country. He was born, in 1815, in Philadelphia, while his father was provost of the uni- versity there. He was in Princeton College, but did not graduate. He studied law in Trenton, and was admitted to the bar in September, 1838, and opened a law-office in that city when Mercer County was formed, where he has coutinned to reside till the present time. He soon acquired a large practice, and became a close student. He gathered around him a large law library, which stimulated him to study and to devotion in his profession. By his ready access to books and the application of his discrimi- nating and legal mind to his profession, he early ex- hibited in the management of his causes more than ordinary legal research and familiarity with legal principles and practice.
Upon the death of Chief Justice Whelpley in 1364, Governor Parker, at the recommendation, it is said, of Chancellor Green, nominated Mr. Beasley to fill the vacancy of the chief justiceship on the bench of the Supreme Court. His nomination was confirmed by the Senate, and he accepted the position, and has retained it till the present time. Though younger when he took his seat on the bench than his asso- ciates, he has sustained the character and influence
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of the court with marked success. He has applied lis talents and acquirements with zeal and industry to the heavy labors imposed upon him. The pro- found legal research and analysis displayed in his well-written opinions stamp him as a thorough lawyer, and one who is admitted by the common consent of the bar to be chief on the bench. He grapples with a knotty legal question con amore. His mind is cx- treinely subtile; his style of writing is terse and scholarly, and his judicial opinions are perhaps more entitled to be regarded as a model than those of any one of his predecessors.
Upon his appointment to the chief justiceship the College of New Jersey conferred upon him the title of Doctor of Laws. Chief Justice Beasley is reputed to be a strong Democrat in his political affinities, but he has never demonstrated this by his publie speeches or services. He has ever seemed to eschew every- thing but law, and though he has been well bred, and possesses fine culture, he mingles but little in society in the common walks of life.
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He has been twice married. His first wife was a Miss Higbee, and his second Miss Havens. He has children by both. His son, Mercer Beasley, Jr., is prosecutor of the pleas of Mercer County.
JOHN FRELINGHUYSEN HAGEMAN, of Princeton, was born in the village of Harlingen, in Somerset County, a few miles north of Princeton, N. J., Feb. 4, 1816. He is a son of Dr. Abraham P. Hageman, a physician, native of that neighborhood, and of Anne, his wife, daughter of Luke Van der Veer, a pious and respectable farmer, having a valuable plan- tation along the Millstone River, in Montgomery township. His ancestors on both sides of the family were from Holland, and were among the first settlers of that township.
The subject of this sketch, who was one of nine children, spent several of the years of his boyhood in the publie school of the village, whose teacher was Capt. Lyman Walbridge, from Massachusetts, a su- perior instructor and a generous and polite gentle- man, whose impression upon his pupils could be seen for a whole gencration in their manners and scholar- ship.
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When he was about sixteen years of age liis father placed him in the Rutgers College Grammar School, then under the reetorship of Robert O. Currie, in the eity of New Brunswick. After three years of pre- paratory study lie entered the junior class in Rutgers College and graduated in 1836 in the class with Joseph P. Bradley, Fred. T. Frelinghuysen, Cortland Parker, W. A. Newell, Prof. G. W. Coakley, and others.
After graduating he made a baptismal profession of religion in the Reformed Dutch Church, of Har- lingen, and began to study law with Richard S. Field, at Princeton. When the latter was appointed attorney-general of the State he finished his eourse in the office of Governor Vroom, at Somerville. HIe was admitted to the bar in November, 1839, as I
attorney, and as counselor in February, 1843. Upon obtaining license he opened an office in Princeton, where he still continues to practice. He entered upon the study and the practice of the law with an enthu- siasin which he has never lost, and whatever else may have occupied his spare time, he has ever regarded the legal profession as his supreme occupation. Dur- ing the first twenty-five years his practice became large. He habitually attended the Chancery and Supreme Courts and the Mercer and Somerset Cir- cuits, and oeeasionally others. He esteemed the office of advocate as the noblest department of the profession, and his friends say that he excels as a jury lawyer.
In 1847 he married Miss Sarah Sergeant, daughter of the Rev. Samuel Miller, D.D., professor in the Theological Seminary at Princeton.
In 1850 he was elected, without his suggestion or as- sistance, by the Whig party a member of the Legis- lative Assembly on the general county ticket. He was in his seat every day of the session, except two, when he was attending court, and when he was asked to sign a certificate that he had attended all the days of the term to draw his per diem he refused to include those two days, and left in the hands of the paying clerk that money, which he would not receive.
In 1851 he was ordained a ruling elder in the First Presbyterian Church of Princeton, and was also elected trustee of the Theological Seminary, both of which offices he continues to hold.
In 1862 he was nominated by Governor Olden for prosecutor of the pleas of Mercer County, and was confirmed by the Senate, which was then Democratic. The disquieted state of the country at that time gave importance to this office, especially at the capital of the State, and he aceepted it and held the office for five years, when he declined a renomination proffered by Governor Ward. The trial of Charles Lewis, in 1863, who was convicted and executed for the murder of James Rowand, of Princeton, a remarkable case of circumstantial evidence, and the several bribery indictments against members of the Legislature and of its lobby in 1866, were among the most important and exciting criminal cases which occurred during his term.
At the commencement of Rutgers College, in June, 1862, he delivered the annual address before the alumni association on "The Curriculum of the Col- lege," pleading for more attention to law, politics, and religion.
In 1870 he delivered the address at the dedication of the soldiers' monument at Lambertville, N. J.
For eight years, including the years of the late civil war, and while prosecutor of the pleas, he owned and edited the Princeton Standard, and devoted his spare hours in writing every week columns of editorial matter on general subjects, chiefly in defense of the national cause against disloyalty and secession.
After the war, as the pressure of legal business relaxed, Mr. Hageman devoted himself with industry
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HISTORY OF MERCER COUNTY, NEW JERSEY.
not only to the study of general jurisprudence but to local history and to the humanities of life. In the various religious and benevolent associations of the past forty years his voice has been often heard ; and
AUGUSTUS G. RICHEY came to Trenton from As- bury, Warren County, in 1856, to practice law. He was born Mareh 17, 1819, in Warren County, gradu- ated at Lafayette College. Pennsylvania, in 1840, read his sympathy has been enlisted in the cause of prison . law with Col. James N. Reading, at Flemington, was reform for several years past. He wrote an article in the Princeton Review, in 1868, on " Prisons and Reforma- tories." In 1872 he read a paper before the National Prison Reform Congress at Baltimore on the " Penal and Reformatory Institutions of New Jersey," which was published in the volume of the national and in- ternational proceedings of the year 1872. He has recently taken a lively interest in the New Jersey Historical Society, and is at the present time a mem- ber of the executive committee.
In January, 1877, he rcad, by request, a paper before this society at Trenton, on " Princeton in the Revolu- tion," and in 1881 before the same society, at its an- nual meeting, he read another one on " New Jersey in the History of Religious Freedom."
In 1879 he published a "History of Princeton and its Institutions," in two octavo volumes, illustrated ; a work of permanent value, and highly commended. In December, 1875, he was admitted as attorney and
ALEXANDER M. JOHNSTON studied law with Wil- counselor of the Supreme Court of the United States ! liam Halsted, in Trenton, and was admitted to the at Washington.
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