Civil, political, professional and ecclesiastical history, and commercial and industrial record of the County of Kings and the City of Brooklyn, N. Y., Part 150

Author: Stiles, Henry Reed, 1832-1909.
Publication date: 1884
Publisher: New York : Munsell
Number of Pages: 1360

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The tariff of 1846 was passed, reducing duties about one-third. Wages began to rise everywhere, and in all departments of business. Farming wages, which had fallen to between $5 and $10 a month, under the tariff of 1842, rose to $12 and $16. Manu- facturing wages advanced even before the census of 1850; and the advance from 1850 to 1860 is a matter of record, amounting to 17 per cent. The average increase in the iron trade was even greater than this.

Thus we find that, down to 1860, the only advances in wages occurred under the reduction of the tariff, and that under high tariff's wages had remained stationary or declined.

During the late war, however, wages were largely advanced in nominal value; and this is the period to which protectionists now triumphantly refer. But, statect in gold, the average wages were, in 1850, $247; in 1860, $289; in 1870, $302; in 1880, $346. In purchasing power, the wages of 1870 were worth only $242, com- pared with $289 in 1860. But let us come down to the present time. It is universally admitted that wages have been ent down 20 to 30 per cent. since 1880. Take the average reduction at 25 per cent. as a medium rate, and wages are only $259, being less to-day than twenty years ago, under the lowest tariff known since 1812. Can any further demonstration be needed that every step towards protection depresses wages, while every step towards free trade raises them ?"

We do not undertake to decide whether the reasoning upon either of these points is correct; our purpose being simply to show Mr. Shearman's views and the effect produced by his ex- pression of them. It is certain that the analysis which he made of the relative effect of the tariff upon the savings of the few wealthy men and the vast mass of persons with small incomes, has taken hold of the public mind, and that the idea is now found in many Congressional speeches and in most of the popular arguments upon this question. So the whole tone of the advocates of free trade, upon the wages question, has changed. They have assumed an aggressive position on this point, and their argument is very different now from what it was only four or five years ago-no longer admitting that wages are in any sense raised by protection, but insisting that they are cut down by it.

Mr. Shearman's interest in these and similar questions has no element of personal ambition in it. He knows very well that his views are not in harmony with the aims of any existing political party; be does not seek to make them so; and he takes pains to emphasize the points of difference between his ideas and those of professional politicians. He knows how little can be accomplished by any one man in actnal legislation, and pre_ fers to influence it from without, rather than to conceal the least principle for the sake of trying to shape it from within.

The old-fashioned house on Columbia Heights in which Mr. Shearman lives, is one of peculiar historic interest to a lawyer, having been the residence of Judge Radcliff until his death, nearly forty years ago. It was the injury done to these premises by the opening of F'urman street, in 1838, which gave rise to the cases, famous among lawyers, Re Furman St. (17 Wend., 649), and Radcliff v. Brooklyn (4 N. Y., 195), in which the rule that no compensation can be recovered for damage incidental to a pub- lic work was first authoritatively decided in this State. The Intter is the leading ense on this point, and has been followed by the courts all over the Union. (See Important Trials. )

The case of Furman St., which was fiercely but unsuccess- fully contested by Judge Radcliff in his lifetime, shows more plainly than the other the grent injury which he suffered from the premature opening of the street, under the influence of the

speculative mania of 1836, when real estate in Brooklyn was in- flated to prices which in some instances have never since been reached. All the natural beauty of Brooklyn Heights was sacrificed to the absurd expectation of an immediate rush of commerce to Furman street, making lots on the land side very valuable; an expectation which even yet has not been realized, and probably never will be.

BENJAMIN VAUGHAN ABBOTT.

BENJAMIN VAUGHAN ABBOTT was born at Boston, Mass., June 4, 1830. His father was Jacob Abbott, distinguished as a writer of the "Young Rollo" books, "Young Christian," and other well- known valuable works. The talents of this estimable man seem to have descended as an inheritance to his son. He married Harriet Vaughan, daughter of Charles Vanghan, an eminent citi- zen of Hallowell, Mc. Both the Vanghans and Abbotts are old, prominent and highly respected New England families.

Young Abbott's boyhood was passed in Farmington, Maine; he attended the schools at that place, and gave evidence of the scholarly traits which have distinguished him in his maturer years.

Early in 1844, he lost his admirable and greatly beloved mother, and soon after that event his father removed to the city of New York, and young Abbott at an early period in his life be- came a resident of the metropolis. He became a student in the Grammar School of the New York University, where he com- pleted the under-graduate course. Thus prepared, he entered the New York University, from whence he was graduated in 1850.

As his views were early turned toward the legal profession, immediately after graduating, he entered Cambridge Law School, spending one year in that celebrated seminary in the diligent study of law. Leaving Cambridge, he became a student in the office of Richard M. Blatchford and John P. Crosby, where he completed his legal studies, and in November, 1852, took his degree as an attorney and counsellor-at-law, beginning his prac- tice in the city of New York.

In 1853, Mr. Abbott was united by marriage to Miss Elizabeth Titcomb, daughter of Hon. John Titcomb, of Farmington, Me., distinguished as a pioneer in the early Anti-Slavery and Republi- can parties of that State. Miss Titcomb, now Mrs. Abbott, is a grand-daughter of Stephen Titcomb, the first settler of the town of Farmington.

Mr. Abbott's practice in the city of New York was eminently successful, and he pursued it actively for fifteen years, as the senior member of the distinguished firm of Abbott & Brothers.

He carly evinced marked abilities as a writer, and his pen has been directed to works connected with his profession, and he has attained the reputation of being one of the ablest, most successful and useful of American legal writers. Perhaps the legal profession, and we may say the judiciary, are quite as much indebted to him for works that tend to the advancement of legal learning as to any other living author.

One of his characteristics is unwearied industry; while at the head of a prominent legal firm, his time largely ocenpied with an extensive practice, he found leisure to devote to the congenial labors of an author.

Ile had been in practice but a short time when he published his work on the Admiralty Decisions of Judge Betts, then United States District Judge of the Southern District of N. Y., includ ing what is now the Eastern District. This work was soon followed by a New York Digest, in which he devised several features, then new in such works, but widely approved and republished since. In the writing of this extensive and valnei Je work, his brother was associated with him. Abbott's Digest 18 one of the most elaborate and valuable works of that kind now extant. After the appearance of this work Mr. Abbott's talents and learning were directed almost solely to the pursuits of legal authorship.

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BENCH AND BAR OF BROOKLYN.

In recognition of his abilities, he was appointed secretary of the New York Code Commissioners, and personally drafted, under general directions of the board, the report of a Penal Code submitted to the Legislature in 1865, and which afterwards be- came the basis of the present Penal Code.

Continuing his labors, he published several other works in succession, most prominent of which were a Digest of the Laws of Corporations, and a Treatise on the United States Courts and their Practice. These works received a warm welcome from the profession throughout the republic, and gave their author a na- tional reputation. Such was the prominence they gave him that, in 1870, he was appointed by President Grant one of the com- missioners to revise the statutes of the United States. There is a circumstance connected with this appointment that happily illustrates the practical ability of Mr. Abbott. A commission had been previously appointed, composed of distinguished law- yers, but who had accomplished very little in the work commit- ted to them. Mr. Abbott entered upon the discharge of his duties with such energy, learning and success, that he soon became the chief dependence of the friends of the revision for the rapid prosecution of large, laborious and complex compilations, committed to the new commission. Their expectations were not disappointed. His great industry seemed to rejoice in the accu- mulation of toil, and he applied himself with unremitting per- severance to every minute portion of his duty with great energy and success. The entire body of the statute laws of the United States was examined, clause by clause; its unimportant parts re- written and embodied in one volume, within the three years allowed the commissioners for the completion of the work.

These statutes had been printed without regard to order, about as they were passed, chronologically, with very little system of ar- rangement. There was a great variety of subjects, and enactments on the same subject dispersed over an immense extent. Many of these statutes were temporary in their nature; many of them were partially or wholly repealed, some by express enactment, others only inferentially; so that it was a work of great difficulty to discover what provisions were in force and what had been modified or repealed.

Like Justinian, the commissioners undertook the great work of methodizing voluminous laws scattered through so many volumes, that they might well be compared to the " load of many camels."

It will thus be seen how immense was the labor performed. It facilitated many of the operations of law, and reduced the Federal statutes to a practical system.

Soon after the completion of this work, Mr. Abbott was en- gaged by Little, Brown & Co. to revise and edit a consolidated edition of the United States Digest, which task, together with annual volumes for the current years-twenty-threo in all-was completed during the four or five years following the revision of the United States statutes. The great labor and responsibility which this work demanded, and its vast importance, will be more fully understood when it is remembered that the last fifty years have added more reports of decided cases in the United States than can be found in several preceding genera- rations. The difficulty in discovering what was good law in this vast agglomeration was felt by the experienced lawyer and the judge, weighing with tenfold force upon the student. No power of assimilation could keep pace with such rapid production of precedent. The area of the law was a tangled thicket, requiring the application of unceasing energy and industry to collect cases in point, and to bring anything like order out of the confusion.

; Whatever tends to simplify the law, whatever renders it cognizable and easy of access, tends also to diminish the heavy fees, the vexatious delays and repeated miscarriages which are so often complained of. Mr. Abbott's United States Digest, and we may say his Digest of our State Reports, with their admir- able analysis, methodical arrangement, and their plenary syl-

labus, have done much to simplify both tho Federal and State laws. That which is settled and proclaimed as authority, and which had to be worked ont by turning the pages of hundreds of volumes, has, by these Digests, been worked out and system- atized so that each authority is casy of access and ready for use.

A Law Dictionary, in two volumes, on a new plan, followed this last digest ; Vol. 1 of a National Digest, to bo completed in four or five volumes, is (at the date of this writing) on the ove of publication ; it gives in one view the statutory and judicial law of the Federal Government. Mr. Abbott has also written a popular volume of explanations of legal subjects, entitled " Judge and Jury," and a school book or volume for youth, entitled " Traveling Law School," explaining the theory of American government and law to tho young. He has also written a great number of contributions, mostly on legal sub- jects, for periodicals.

From what we have seen, the question may well be asked: Can a more active, energetic, able and useful pen be found than that of Mr. Abbott's ?

No class of men more fully appreciates this langnago of the elegant Roman scholar, " Mira quedam in cognoscendo suavitas et delectatio," than lawyers; no lawyer has reason to understand this more fully than Mr. Abbott ; and no writer has rendered the task of acquiring legal knowledge, and of adapting it to practice, more easy and pleasant than he. He is plain, easy, compact, and at the same time sufficiently luminous. "The action of his mind is always to discover how much he can prune, and brush away of that which is extrinsie, and to reduce adverse matter to its least practical dimensions." Not an idea is excluded which can promote his object ; everything is there, but in the narrowest compass. As was said of another : " Hc has given us the best specimens in our language of that rich economy of expression which was so much studied by the writers of antiquity." His books are found in nearly every law library in the nation.

At the time of his marriage he became a resident of Brooklyn, and he has lived there most of the years of his married life. Absorbed in the duties of his profession, with tho subjects of his pen, in the retiracy of his study, he has taken little part in the local affairs of the city. Much of his time has been spent in other cities, to which his engagements as an author have drawn him.

His family consists of a wife, a son-Arthur Vanghan Abbott, a civil engineer, who is professionally employed in the construc- tion of the Brooklyn Bridge-and a daughter.

As we have seen, Mr. Abbott is still actively engaged in preparing works which are anxiously looked for by the profes- sion and public, and which will add new honors to the many that he so deservedly enjoys.

DANIEL P. BARNARD.

DANIEL P. BARNARD was born at Hudson, N. Y., December 23d, 1812. His parents were Timothy and Mary Barnard. His ancestors on the paternal side were the first settlers of Nan- tueket, Mass. His maternal grandfather, Daniel Paddock, was one of the first settlers of Hudson, N. Y.

Mr. Barnard was educated partly at Hudson and partly at Baltimore, under private tutors. He studied his profession in Baltimore, Md., with Judge William L. Marshall; was admitted to the Bar in July, 1836, at Baltimore, and in 1839 removed to Brooklyn and entered upon the practice of his profession, where he has continued ever since.

Mr. Barnard is regarded as one of the ablest real estate law- yers at the Kings County Bar. His knowledge of titles to the real estate of the county is very great, a id has been gained by the most intimate and thorough examination through the course of forty years. He has devoted himself entirely to his profes-

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sion, never holding any offiee except by eleetion to the City Council of Baltimore in 1838, and to the Common Council of Brooklyn in 1854-55. In the latter year he was President of the Common Council. He represented the County of Kings in the Constitutional Convention of this State in 1867, proving to be an nble, effective and influential member of that body.

ABRAHAM HI. DAILEY.

ABRAHAM H. DAILEY was born in Sheffield, Berkshire County, Mass., October 31st, 1831. His father was born in the town of Fishkill, N. Y. He is of English, Irish, Scotch and German ex- traction.

He thoroughly prepared to enter college, but a severe and protracted illness prevented this. After his recovery he decided to commence the study of law. Accordingly he entered the office of ex-Gov. George N. Briggs, of Massachusetts, where he studied law. He was admitted to practice in 1855 at Lenox, Berkshire County, Mass. After practicing for awhile in Great Barrington, Mass., he removed, in 1858, to New York, where he has continued the practice of his profession with great success down to the present time.

In 1863 he was elected Justiee of the Fourth District Court, Brooklyn, for the term of four years; but the duties of a large practice compelled him to resign.

In 1871 he was nominated by the Republicans for District Attorney of Kings County, but was declared defeated by Mr. Winchester Britton. Four years later, in the fall of 1875, he was nominated for the office of Surrogate of Kings County by the Democrats, but his opponent, Mr. Walter L. Livingston, was declared elected. Mr. Dailey brought an action to oust him, and obtained a judgment of onster May 12th, 1877, and took imme- diate possession of the office, holding it for about three years. On appeal to the General Term, this judgment was reversed and a new trial ordered. The judgment granting a new trial gave Mr. Livingston the office while it was pending. This brought the contestants to a mutual agreement, by the terms of which the action was discontinued, without costs. Mr. Dailey surren- dered all claim to the office. He is an advocate of brilliancy and distinction, controlling a large and highly respectable legal business.

WILLIAM C. DE WITT.

MIR. DE WITT occupies a very prominent position as a lawyer; eminent for his legal learning, for his endowments as an advo- cate, and for his accomplishments as a writer. His taste las been formed by a diligent study of the classies and by perusing the best English writers.

It is now understood that the education of a lawyer demands something more than a mere nominal knowledge of law, unae- companied by any other knowledge; that the cultivation of the sciences and an enlarged and refined literary taste produces the Halne effeet upon the mental structure as does that arehiteeture which at onee strengthens and embellishes an edifice; that administrative abilities and dialectic skill may ineet in one mind.

Mr. De Witt belongs to that large class of lawyers whose lives and practice render the legal really a learned profession, instead of a system of empiricism.

In the midst of his engrossing legal career he has found time to indulge his literary tastes, and by submitting to laborious all persevering study, he has not only enlarged his legal learn- ing, but has enriched his mind with many other useful acquire. ments; so that at the Bar, on the platform, as a politieal or literary speaker, he always commands the most respectful atten- tion, leaving in the minds of his hearers something to remember an l to refl et upon long after his address is ended.

We have spoken of Mr. De Witt as a writer; perhaps this is unnecessary, for his written productions speak for themselves, and are the best evidence of the ability with which he wields the pen, and because he has no aspirations as a professional writer, and never resorts to the pen except in those interims of legal labor which sometimes permit him to do so.

In 1881 he published a charming little volume, containing some of his speeches and writings, which he modestly but ap- propriately entitles " Driftwood from out the Current of a Busy Life."

There is much in this work which blends instruction with delight; the style is succinct and animated; there is a glow and force in all he says, and a reach of thought and reflection which renders it a valuable and instructive companion. The beek opens with an oration delivered by him in the Brooklyn Institule, February 22d, 1874, in which he seleeted "Madison and Burr" as his subject. This production was justly and highly com- mended for its literary beauty and for its philosophic analysis of the character of the two great men whose lives and careers he considered. If we should venture a criticism it would be, that Mr. De Witt, with all his originality, adopts the eustom of all speakers and writers, that of exalting Hamilton above a fault and lowering Burr below the virtues which were really his due. But his conception of the character and career of Madison has the undoubted merit of truth to history, and of being a faithful mental portrait of that great statesman.

Speaking of Mr. Madison and his efforts in establishing the Constitution, Mr. De Witt says: "No man equaled him in in- dustry and attention to his duties. He bore his part in every clause of the Constitution, and so minute and careful were his minntes of the proceedings, that, after his death, Congress par- ehased his records, as essential to history. He was one of the master·builders of the Constitution; and if his speeches and reports in the Convention where it was adopted stood alone, he would still be entitled to the lasting gratitude of his country- men."

In contrasting Burr with Madison, he says: "The contrast between the leading features of these two characters, that ef Burr and that of Madison, is too bold and striking to require express delineation. Burr took his inspirations from the phan- toms of chivalry; Madison drew his from the fountains of truth. Burr followed the instinets of his ambition and yielded to the seductions of his passions; Madison never betrayed the teach- ings of his eonscience, or forsook his loyalty to his soul. Burr loved the arts of war; Madison cultivated the arts of peace. Burr was an adroit politician; Madison a profound statesman. Burr practiced law by the exercise of his wits; Madison studied it from a love of seienee."

Perhaps one of the most attractive departments of the volume to which we have alluded, is Mr. De Witt's address on John Howard Payne, delivered at the unveiling of the best of that illustrious poet, in Prospect Park, Brooklyn, September 27, 1873.

A distinguished jurist of Brooklyn has said, that " some por. tions of this address rival anything found in the English language." And his remarks are just; no man is more capable of weighing in the balance the productions of genius than Joseph Neilson; for it was he who made the remark we have quoted.

Speaking of Mr. Payne's " Home, Sweet Home," the speaker said : " It is remarkable neither for elegnnee of dietion nor harmony of numbers. But it has crowded into a few lines every thought and sentiment and seeno of its blessed subject."

" ' The lowly thatched cottage,' the ' singing birds,' the ' hal lowing charms from above,' and the ' peace of mind better than all.' It is full of the fruit and essence of its theme. Yet must this poein have slept the sleep of the forgotten and the lost, had it got no better suceor than the printer's ink and the inquiring eye of the scholar. It wanted the tune which was to hum it wherever the English language was or should be spoken. Music was

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BENCH AND BAR OF BROOKLYN.

needed, and music came. As when some parent bird on lofty pinions circling above his eyrie, seeing his young prepared to fly, yet fearful of the elements, descends, and, bearing the fledg- ling forth to mid heaven, puts him on his experimental voyage through the air ; so music came to this rich germ of poetic senti- ment, and, up-bearing it upon the cloud of melody, in which it has ever since lived and moved and had its being, sent it chant- ing and singing forever and forever through the world."

" Robert Burns " was the subject of an address by Mr. De Witt, delivered at Eckford Hall, Brooklyn, January 27th, 1879. The occasion was a banquet given in celebration of the 120th anni- versary of the birth of Burns, in response to the toast " The Genius of Burns.' That Mr. De Witt has a lively appreciation of the inner life of this great poet of nature in seen from the whole of the address to which we have alluded. The following extract from it will always find a ready response not only in the hearts of his own countrymen, but in the hearts of the thousands in all countries, who love Robert Burns for what he has written.

"Scotchmen ! His genius is your living voice in the world. It has transformed your ancient dialect into music; it has given utterance to every sentiment of your heart; it has painted the peculiar scenery of your native land. Robert Burns comes to you not from out castle walls, or through long lines of lordly ancestry. He is your peasant poet; the bright consummate flower of the democracy of Scotland; he belongs only to the aristocracy of individual merits, and although the choicest marble wrought by living hands surmounts his last resting place, his only throne is in the hearts of his fellow-men. His songs are sung wherever the English language is spoken. They are sung by sailors on ships' decks, in the starlight, on every sea. They resound with the violin of the pioneer in the distant woods of the Redman, as they mingle with the nurse's lullaby in the homes of the forests of our own romantic North."

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Civil, political, professional and ecclesiastical history, and commercial and industrial record of the County of Kings and the City of Brooklyn, N. Y., Part 150

Author: Stiles, Henry Reed, 1832-1909. Publication date: 1884 Publisher: New York : Munsell Number of Pages: 1360

Author: Stiles, Henry Reed, 1832-1909.
Publication date: 1884
Publisher: New York : Munsell
Number of Pages: 1360