History of Hunterdon and Somerset counties, New Jersey : with illustrations and biographical sketches of its prominent men and pioneers, Part 142

Author: Snell, James P; Ellis, Franklin, 1828-1885
Publication date: 1881
Publisher: Philadelphia : Everts & Peck
Number of Pages: 1170

USA > New Jersey > Somerset County > History of Hunterdon and Somerset counties, New Jersey : with illustrations and biographical sketches of its prominent men and pioneers > Part 142
USA > New Jersey > Hunterdon County > History of Hunterdon and Somerset counties, New Jersey : with illustrations and biographical sketches of its prominent men and pioneers > Part 142

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" Theodore Frelinghuysen used to relate that when he commenced the practice of law he was employed to conduct a caso on the mountains in Warten township, where he came into contact with a shrewd pettifogger who was in good practice there. As Frelinghuysen hnd yet a reputation to catablish, ho thought it might be to his advantage to make a display of his learning, and attempted it in his argument. After closing, the mountainoor aroso, and commoncod hia aprech as follows : 'Gentlemen of the jury, the opposite counsel has been soaring aloft nbovo the clouds ns though he were in Honrch of engles ; but, gentlemen, I intend to lay low for black ducks.' Frelinghuysen said he there lenruod a useful les Bon, which was to ' Ho low' in an argument rather than soar too high."

Prefatory to the personal sketches herewith pre- sented, it may be remarked that a full list of the judges and justices of the county will be found in the chapter on the Civil List of Somerset County, making their enumeration here a needless repetition.

The honored names of the Somerset County bar down to 1860 are herewith given, together with the dates of their admission as attorneys-at-law :

1769, -* William Paterson.

1784 .- Richard Stockton.

1785,-Frederick Frelinghuysen, *Andrew Kirkpatrick.

1788, -* William Griffith. .

1791 .-* Luclus HI, Stockton.

1792 .-* George McDonald.

1797 .-* John Frolinghuysen.

1801 .- Joseph W. Scott.t

1805 .-* Jacob R. llardenbergh.

1808,-Theodore Frelinghuysen.

1810,-Frederick Frelinghuysen, "Isaac Blackford.t

1811 .-* Samuel L. Southard.

1813,-Peter D. Vroom, Jr.

1816 .- Thomas A. Hartwell.

1817 .-* William B. Griffith, James S. Greco.

1819 .- James S. Nevius.t

1821 .- John Henry.

1822 .- Andrew Miller.t

1823 -* Samuel J. Bayard.

1824 .- John M. ManD, William Thomson.

1828 .-* Abraham O. Zabriskie.t

1829, -* Joseph A. Gaston, "Peter Vredenburg.

1830 .- William H1. Leupp,t William L. Dayton.

1835 .- "George H. Brown, Theodore Frelinghuysen.

1836 .- John Van Dyke, Garret S. Cannon.t

1838 .- Dumont Frelinghuysen.

1839,-Farrington Barcalow,t Frederick T. Frelinghuysen,t John F. llageman .¿

1840,-ITugh M. Guston.

1841 .- Frederick J. Frelinghuysen, William K. McDonald.

1844 .- John V. Voorhees, "Samuel S. Ilartwell, Stephen B. Ransom,t Robert Voorhees.

1817 .-* Isalah N. bilts.

1849,-Ashbel Groen .¿

1851 .- l'eter L. Voorhees.t

1853 .- "John llartwell, Robert S. Greco.t

1854 .- Enos W. Runyon.t

1859 .- Frederick Voorhees.t

THE PRESENT BAR OF SOMERSET COUNTY.

The following is an alphabetical list of the living members of the bar of this county, with the dates of their admission to practice as attorneys :

Anderson, Willlam W. (Somerville), 1877.

Bartino, Jolin D.1 (Somerville), 1865,

Bell, George L. (Somerville), 1876.

Bergen, James J.S, (Somerville), 1868. Clark, Alvah A. (Somerville), 1803.

Davis, J. Winnardt (Somerville), 1871.

Frech, John A. (Somerville), 1880.

Frelinghuysen, Dumont (Somerville), 1838.

Frolinghuysen, Frederick J. (Somerville), 1841.

Frelinghuysen, Theodore (Raritan), 1835.

Gaston, Hugh M.' (Somerville), 1810.

Gaston, Ilugh K. (Somerville), 1880.

Griggs, Jamies L.| |Somerville), 1877.

Honeyman, A. V. D. (Somorville), 1871.

Lindabury, It. V. (Bound Brook), 1874.

Long, William H. (Somorville), 1870.

l'ace, George E. ( East Millstone), 1875.

Phillips, S. S. (Bound Brook), 1877. Sanborn, William C. (Somerville), 1870. Schomp, John (Somerville), 1866.

Steelo, William V. (Somerville), 1878.

Sutphen, David M .** (Itarlinn), 1870. Voorhece, J. Vrod. (Somorville), 1844.

. Deceased. t Itemoved from the county. $ Retired from practice.

2 Located at Princeton, not now in this county.

| Firm of Bartino & Griggs. [ Firm of Gaston & Bergen.

** Accidentally killed in February, 1881.

580

SOMERSET COUNTY, NEW JERSEY.

WILLIAM PATERSON, the eminent lawyer, jurist, and statesman, was born in Ireland about 1745. When but two years old he came, with his father and family, to America, locating first at Trenton, and finally at Raritan (Somerville), where his father died in 1781. William was graduated from the College of New Jer- sey in 1763, studied law with the elder Richard Stock- ton, and in 1769 was licensed as an attorney-at-law. He commenced practice at a place then called New Bromley, in Hunterdon County* (now Lane's Mills), but subsequently removed to Princeton and engaged in mercantile pursuits. In 1775 he was a delegate in the Provincial Congress and secretary at both its ses- sions, and of the Congress which met at Burlington in 1776. Under the State government (1776) he was the first attorney-general,-a position as difficult and dangerous as honorable; for, being obliged to attend court in the different counties, he was liable to capture at any time by the British, who had then invaded the State. He was at the same time a member of the Legis- lative Council. In 1780 he declined the nomination to the Continental Congress. In 1783, when peace was declared, he resumed his legal practice and removed to New Brunswick. A member of the convention which met in Philadelphia in 1787, he was one of those chosen to frame the Federal Constitution. Two plans were presented to that body,-by Edmund Randolph, of Virginia, and Mr. Paterson, respectively, the larger States favoring the former, the smaller States the latter. A compromise was effected by which a general government was formed, partly federal, partly national. After the Constitution was ratified, Mr. Paterson was chosen by the Legislature (with Jona- than Elmer) to the United States Senate, and that body, in 1790, made him the successor of Governor Livingston ; at the end of his term he was re-elected Governor. His administration of the affairs of the State was a most happy and successful one. After retiring from the gubernatorial chair he was for six years engaged in codifying all the statutes of Great Britain which, prior to the Revolution, were in force in the colony of New Jersey, as well as those of the State Legislature up to that present time. In 1793, President Washington nominated him an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States,- an office he held until his death. His volume of re- vised laws is "acknowledged to be the most perfect system of statute law produced in any State of the Union. He also greatly improved the practice of the Court of Chancery." While upon the Supreme bench many important trials occurred,-among them those of the persons implicated in the "Whisky Insurrec- tion" of Western Pennsylvania and of Lyon for vio- lation of the sedition law. (For his opinions as Su- preme Court judge, sce Dallas' and Cranch's Reports.) "His last official act was to preside in the Circuit Court of the United States at New York, in April,

* See sketch by Rev. Dr. Messler In Historical Magazine, 1879.

1806, on the trials of Ogden and Smith for violation of the neutrality laws in aiding Miranda to revolu- tionize some of the South American states. From this time his healthi began visibly to decline, and he withdrew from all active official duties. He was an able statesman, an upright judge, and a disinterested friend of his country." He was a Presbyterian, and was trustee of Princeton College from 1787 to 1802. He was twice married (first in 1779), and left a son and daughter, children by his first wife. Governor Throop, of Georgia, and Aaron Burr were both law students of Judge Paterson at Raritan. He died in New Brunswick, Sept. 9, 1806. "His name is per- petuated by the thriving manufacturing city near the falls of the Passaic."+

It was of Governor Paterson that Moses Guest- New Brunswick's earliest poet-wrote (July 4, 1791), on seeing the Governor in his barge, which was ele- gantly decorated with laurel and flowers and rowed by twelve men, dressed in white :

" On Raritan's smooth-gliding stream we view -- With pleasure view-the man whom we admire, Ou this auspicious day with laurel crowned. How gracefully the honored barge moves on ! See Neptune's sons, all clad in white,

Timing their oars to the molodious flutes ! . . . Not Cleopatra's barge,

When she, full-armed with each bewitching charm,

A tyrant bound in the sweet chains of love,

More elegant or pleasing could appear, Nor did contain a jewel of such worth.

Not freighted with a proud, intriguing queen,

She nobly bears New Jersey's favorite son, Our guardian chief, our friend, a PATERSON !"

Justice is only fairly beginning to be awarded Judge Paterson as a great jurist and statesman, the truest portraiture of his character having been just delivered (August, 1880) before the American Bar Association by the leader of the New Jersey bar, Hon. Cortlandt Parker.

RICHARD STOCKTON, who stood confessedly at the head of the New Jersey bar during the first quarter of the present century, was the son of Richard Stock- ton, also an accomplished and eloquent lawyer, a Supreme Court justice, and one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. After having been graduated at Princeton before he was seventeen years old, Richard, Jr., commenced the study of law with his uncle, Elisha Boudinot. He was admitted to the bar as an attorney in 1784, when only about twenty years of age, afterwards as a counselor, and in 1792 was made a sergeant-at-law, along with Richard Howell, Samuel Leake, Frederick Frelinghuysen, Aaron Ogden, and Joseph Reed. He took up his residence on the paternal estate at Princeton, in Som- erset County, where he resided during life. In 1796 he was chosen to a vacancy in the United States Sen- ate, and was a member of that body until 1799. He was again elected to Congress in 1813. But, being a decided Federalist, and that party being in the mi-

¡ Elmor's " Reminiscences of New Jersey," etc.

581

TIIE BENCH AND BAR OF SOMERSET COUNTY.

nority in this State after 1800, he shared their fate in being excluded from official position. He was one of the trustees of Princeton College from 1791. The honorary degree of LL.D. was conferred upon him by Rutgers and Union Colleges. Mr. Stockton was a man of the most imposing personal appearance and captivating address. Among the junior members of the bar he was generally spoken of as " the old duke." An examination of the Supreme Court reports will show that from the time they commence until his death no lawyer-except, perhaps, Mr. Leake-was more generally employed. His manner of speaking was usually dignified and unimpassioned, but he was capable of splendid declamation and the most crush- ing sarcasm and scorn ; and when provoked he some- times indulged in them. During his time he was almost the only lawyer of the State who argued causes before the Supreme Court at Washington, and these were cases not originating in New Jersey. When Mr. Webster took occasion to speak of lawyers of eminent talents, in answer to a fling of Mr. Binney, in his argument of the Girard will case, he enumerated among them Mr. Stockton. But he is no exception to the remark of Mr. Duponceau,-that "lawyers leave nothing behind but the echo of a name;" there are few remains of his learning or his eloquence. The argument in favor of the New Jersey claims to the waters of the Hudson is the only document in print from his pen. Of his eloquent addresses to juries, which were often considered almost unequaled, there are no reports .*

"Once, at the bar of the Supreme Court," says Judge Elmer, "I heard him address Chief Justice Kirkpatrick in language and with a manner no one else at the bar would have dared to imitate. He did not like the chief justice very much, partly be- cause he regarded him as a deserter from the Federal party,-an offense not easy for him to forgive. When, in the case of Gibbons es. Ogden, the chief justice read his opinion, in which he stated that he thought the law was with the defendant, but concluded by saying, 'Yet, from a real diffidence in my own judg- ment upon this question, especially when set in oppo- sition to that of the chancellor, and from a full per- suasion that it will be better for both parties to let the judgment be entered for the plaintiff here and the case be carried up by appeal, . . . I have thought it best, upon the whole, to say the demurrer to the plain- titl's declaration must be overruled,'-Mr. Stocktou immediately arose and asked the court, with an air not a little sarcastic, whether, as it appeared a major- ity of that court was in favor of his client, he should enter the judgment in accordance with that opinion or in accordance with the opinion of the judge of another court. To this the chief justice of course replied that he had stated very plainly what judgment was to be entered."

Since his death, in 1828, no other member of the bar has quite held the position that did Richard Stockton. The late Commodore Robert F. Stockton was his son.

PETER D. VROOM was born in Hillsborough town- ship, Somerset Co., near the junction of the two main branches of the Raritan River, Dec. 12, 1791. The old house, his birthplace, is still standing. He was the son of Col. Peter D. Vroom, of Somerville, who served throughout the Revolutionary struggle, and at its close held the rank of a lieutenant-colonel ; he also held various county offices, and was a member of the State Assembly and Council. He lived to see his son Governor of the State, and died, full of years and honor, in 1831. His son, Peter D., first attended school at the " Old Red School-house ;" after leaving the Somerville academy he became a student of Co- lumbia College, graduating therefrom in 1808. He read law with George MeDonald, of Somerville; was licensed as attorney in 1813, as counselor in 1816, and was a sergeant in 1828.t He commeneed the practice of law at Schooley's Mountain, N. J., continued it at Hackettstown, and two years later moved his office to Flemington, but in 1819 he established himself at Somerville, which was his residence for more than twenty years. lle occupied for years the house built by George McDonald, opposite the hotel of Mr. Fritts. He married a daughter of Peter B. Dumont,# May 21, 1817.

He was a member of Assembly from Somerset County 1826-29, and the latter year was elected Gov- ernor, which office he held by successive re-elections (excepting in 1832, when he was defeated by Mr. Southard) until 1836, when impaired health caused him to decline renomination. He was also er-oficio chancellor of the State of New Jersey. He then re- sumed his legal practice in Somerville. In 1838 he was elected to Congress, but failed to receive the Governor's commission. Then ensued a long and bitter contest, known as the "Broad Seal War," which ended in his installment. After his congres- sional term he made Trenton his home, and Nov. 4, 1840, married Maria Matilda, a daughter of Gen. Wall, his first wife being deceased. In 1844 he was a member of the State Constitutional Convention from Somerset County,-although not a resident of the county,-and labored conspicuously throughout the work of revision. In 1848, associated with Wil- liam L. Dayton, Stacy G. Potts, and Henry W. Green, he labored to bring the statutes into conform- ity with the new constitution. He was subsequently nominated to, but declined, the chief justiceship, but in 1853 accepted the mission to the court of Prussia, residing at Berlin until 1857. Ile was a Presidential elector upon the Demoeratie ticket in 1860, 1864, and 1868, and to the close of his life was an ardent and active partisan of that party. His religious faith was

* " The Constitution and Government of New Jersey," Elmor, pp. 109, el seg.

t Appendix to Smith's " Rules of tho Supreme Court of N. J.," 1968.

* Ilor sister was the wife of Frederick Frelinghuysen.

582

SOMERSET COUNTY, NEW JERSEY.

that of the Dutch Reformed Church, in which he was an elder, and of which he was a member over fifty years ; he was also interested in and an officer of the American Colonization and Bible Societies. The degree of LL.D. was conferred upon him by the Col- lege of New Jersey in 1850. "Possessing a vigorous constitution and iron frame, he continued to prosecute his profession with undiminished powers till within a very short period of his death, which occurred Nov. 18, 1874."* He was an able lawyer, and his decisions in the Court of Chancery stand, for the most part, unquestioned to the present day.t

SAMUEL L. SOUTHARD, a native of Basking Ridge, Somerset Co. (born June 7, 1787), was the son of Hon. Henry Southard. From the classical school of his native town he went to Princeton College, graduating in 1804. For five years he was tutor in the family of Col. John Taliaferro, of Virginia, meanwhile devoting his leisure hours to the study of the law under the pre- ceptorship of Judges Green and Brooks, of Fredericks- burg, Va. He was admitted to the bar in 1809, and in 1811 returned to his native State, settling at Flem- ington. At the May term, 1814, of the Supreme Court of the State he was admitted, along with Frederick Frelinghuysen, as a counselor. February 9th of the same year, and again Nov. 6, 1817, he was appointed law reporter, and in 1820 became a sergeant-at-law. He soon attained high rank at the bar. His first public position was that of prosecuting attorney of Hunterdon County. In 1815 he was elected to the General Assembly, but soon after was chosen an as- sociate justice of the Supreme Court (Oct. 31, 1815), to fill the vacancy occasioned by the election of Mahlon Dickerson as Governor; he then removed to Trenton. Five years were passed upon the bench, he being also engaged in reporting the decisions of the court. In 1820 he, with Charles Ewing, engaged to prepare and publish the revised statutes of the State, and as a member of the electoral college of New Jersey cast his vote for his warm personal friend, James Monroe. The following year he was elected to the United States Senate, and resigned his judgeship. Taking his seat in February, 1821,¿ during the intense political ex-

* Biog. Encyc. of New Jersey, pp. 7-9.

+ JOHN VROOM, son of the foregoing, was " perhape one of the finest- educated young lawyers at the bar of the State. After a full course at Rutgers he studied Inw in his father's office, and received license a few monthe before the elder Vroom'e appointment to the Berlin mission. He went with him there, and during the first winter attended a course of lectures on law and philosophy nt the celebrated university in that city. During the next summer he traveled extensively, and mostly on foot, through Germany, Switzerland, and Italy, then spent n winter in Paris, and made himself master of the French language. With these advan- tages he returned home to commence the practice of hie profession In Jersey City. He had already gained a prominent pince at the bar when death cut off suddenly all the brilliant promises of the future, Ile died, eltting in his father's office, in Trenton, May 27, 1865."-Memorial Ser- mon by Rev. Abr. Messter, D.D., 1874, pp. 22, 23.

# Appendix to "Rules of the Supreme Court of New Jersey," Smith, 1868, p. 43.

¿ Having been selected to fill the unexpired term of Hon. Jamee J. Wilson, resigned, whose term expired March 3, 1821.

citement over the admission of Missouri into the Union, upon the motion of Henry Clay for a joint committee of House and Senate to consider the sub- ject, Mr. Southard, of the Senate,-then at the com- mencement of his career,-met his father, of the House, at that time nearing the close of his official life. Samuel L. Southard prepared the resolutions which afterwards passed and ended the struggle, al- though Mr. Clay had the credit. || He left the Senate in 1823 to accept the Cabinet position of Secretary of the Navy, filling that high station during the admin- istrations of Presidents Monroe and John Quincy Adams, and until 1829, when he was elected to the attorney-generalship of the State, vice Theodore Fre- linghuysen, chosen to the United States Senate. Tren- ton again became his residence, and there he resumed his profession. In 1832 he was chosen Governor, and soon after a United States senator, and by re-election in 1838 held until 1844, in 1841 being president pro tem. of that body. He took an active part in its pro- ceedings, although his party was in the minority until 1841. When Tyler succeeded Harrison as President, in April, 1841, Mr. Southard became presiding officer of the Senate, and so continued during life, recognized by all parties as an impartial and able officer. In politics he was first a Democrat,-an "anti-Jackso- nian,"-and later an adherent of the Whig organi- zation. In 1838 he became president of the Morris Canal and Banking Company, and took up his resi- dence at Jersey City. He was a Presbyterian in be- lief, although not a constituent member, and an advo- cate of temperance, even to total abstinence. He married, in 1812, Rebecca Harrow, daughter of an Episcopal clergyman. His death occurred at the house of his wife's brother, in Virginia, June 26, 1842. "As a counselor and attorney he was regarded as skillful, and prepared his cases thoroughly. As a statesman, the high positions he attained are sufficient proof of his abilities."T

The most felicitous description of him is contained in a letter from Rev. J. W. Alexander, D.D. (for- merly pastor of the Presbyterian Church, Trenton), to Dr. Hall, after his death :

"Samuel L. Sonthard was alee a member of the congregation and a friend of all that promised ite good. More sprightly and versatile than Mr. Ewing, he resembled a tropical tree of rapid growth. Few men ever attained earlier celebrity in New Jersey. Thie perhape tended to pro- duce a certain character which showed itself in good-natured egotism. Hle was a man of genins and eloquence, aod made great impressione on a first interview or by a single argument. He loved society and chone in company. It is not my province to speak of hie great efforts at the har; he was always named after Steckton, Johoson, aod Ewing, and with Frelinghuyeen, Wood, Williamson, nod their ceevnle."

WILLIAM LEWIS DAYTON was a native of Somer- sct County, and was born Feb. 17, 1807. He was de- secuded from a long line of distinguished New Jersey- men. Jonathan Dayton, his great-grandfather, was an early settler of Elizabethtown, and his mother's grandfather built, early in the eighteenth century,.

| Biog. Encyc. of New Jersey, p. 15.

T Ibid., p. 16.

583

THE BENCH AND BAR OF SOMERSET COUNTY.

the first frame building erected at Basking Ridge, in this county. William's grand-uncle, Elias, was a brigadier-general during the Revolution. Jonathan Dayton, son of Elias, was a member of the conven- tion which framed the Federal Constitution, Speaker of the House in the Fourth Congress, and a member of the United States Senate. Robert Dayton, Wil- liam's grandfather, settled at Basking Ridge during the war for independence, and on his death left the farm to his son Joel, of whose several sons William L. was the eldest. He was graduated at Nassau Hall in 1825, and commenced the study of the law in Hon. Peter D. Vroom's office in Somerville. "Licensed in 1830, he began practice at Frechold, where his high abilities as a lawyer, his dignity, courtesy, and moral worth, soon established him in a fine legal and social position. From the first he was outspoken in his Whig sentiments; and when, in 1836, the Whigs de- termined to carnestly contest Monmouth County, -- a stronghold of Jacksonianism,-he was urged to lead the ticket as candidate for the Legislative Council. He consented, and the whole legislative ticket, with him at its head, was elected, and after years of defeat the Whigs, by a brilliant victory, regained control of the State. The Legislature met in October, the month of the election, and Mr. Dayton at once took rank among the leaders in a body containing many able and distinguished men. This was the commencement of a carcer which identified him with the history of the State and made his name a household word within its borders." Ile soon after removed to Trenton, which was henceforth his home. For three years he was a judge upon the bench, and subsequently and for years a member of the United States Senate. He was nominated for the Vice-Presidency by the Re- publiean National Convention in 1856, and the fol- lowing year was appointed attorney-general of New Jersey. President Lincoln in 1861 tendered him tho mission to France, which, after some hesitation, he accepted. His eminent abilities were no less marked in his diplomacy abroad than in his statesmanship at home. While performing the duties of this import- ant trust he died quite suddenly, at Paris, Dec. 1, 1864.

So much has been written and published concern- ing Senator Dayton,* that only a brief outline of his life is here given ; but the following reminiscence is appended, on account of its never having appeared in print, and because it shows the sterling patriotism of the man. It is contributed by Jacob Weart, Esq., a native of Hunterdon County, but now a prominent lawyer of Jersey City :

" At the dinner given to the llon. William L. Dayton, at Trenton, ou April 15, 1861, boforo his departure as ministor to I'manco, ex-Governor Peter D. Vroom responded to one of the toasts, and in his responso ho gave a sketch of the lives and characters of the distinguished men who

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History of Hunterdon and Somerset counties, New Jersey : with illustrations and biographical sketches of its prominent men and pioneers, Part 142

Author: Snell, James P; Ellis, Franklin, 1828-1885 Publication date: 1881 Publisher: Philadelphia : Everts & Peck Number of Pages: 1170

Author: Snell, James P; Ellis, Franklin, 1828-1885
Publication date: 1881
Publisher: Philadelphia : Everts & Peck
Number of Pages: 1170