USA > New York > Columbia County > History of Columbia County, New York. With illustrations and biographical sketches of some of its prominent men and pioneers > Part 23
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65 | Part 66 | Part 67 | Part 68 | Part 69 | Part 70 | Part 71 | Part 72 | Part 73 | Part 74 | Part 75 | Part 76 | Part 77 | Part 78 | Part 79 | Part 80 | Part 81 | Part 82 | Part 83 | Part 84 | Part 85 | Part 86 | Part 87 | Part 88 | Part 89 | Part 90 | Part 91 | Part 92 | Part 93 | Part 94 | Part 95 | Part 96 | Part 97 | Part 98 | Part 99 | Part 100 | Part 101 | Part 102 | Part 103 | Part 104 | Part 105 | Part 106 | Part 107 | Part 108 | Part 109 | Part 110 | Part 111 | Part 112 | Part 113 | Part 114 | Part 115 | Part 116
AMBROSE SPENCER.
Chief-Justice Ambrose Spencer was the son of Philip Spencer, and was born in the State of Connecticut, Dec. 13, 1765. He entered Yale College in 1779, and remained there more than two years, but completed his college course at Harvard University, in 1783, before he had reached the age of eighteen years. He commenced the study of law in the office of John Canfield, at Sharon, Conn. ; but in 1785 he came to Claverack, where he entered the office of John Bay, Esq., who was then a leading lawyer. He was admit-
ted to the bar in 1789, aud in the same year was appointed clerk of the city of Hudson. In 1793 he was elected a member of Assembly from Columbia, and in 1795 was elected to the Senate from the eastern district of the State, making his first appearance as senator in January, 1796. He was made assistant attorney-general for the judicial district composed of Columbia and Dutchess counties, and in 1798 was re-elected to the Senate, being at the same time a member of the council of appointment. In February, 1802, he was ap- pointed attorney-general of the State, and held that office until 1804, when he resigned it to accept a seat upon the Supreme bench, to which he was at that time appointed, and on which he served for nineteen years, during the last four of which he filled the position of chief-justice, having received that appointment in 1819.
About the time of his elevation to the bench he re- moved from Hudson to Albany, and resided in that city until 1839, when he retired to the village of Lyons, in Wayne county, N. Y., where he died, March 13, 1848, in the eighty-third year of his age.
No man in the State of New York ever wielded a polit- ical power more nearly absolute than that which was pos- sessed by Judge Spencer, from the time he was first made a member of the council of appointment, in 1797, until after his appointment as chief-justice. In his profession he was solid rather than brilliant, and his gigantic mind could grasp and comprehend the most abstruse subjects. " Upon the bench he had no compeer ; and it was but com- mon praise when he was styled, by contemporary lawyers, ' the Mansfield of America.' "
PETER VAN SCHAACK*
was one of the great men and eminent lawyers of Columbia county. Hle was born at Kinderhook, in March, 1747, and was educated at King's (now Columbia) College. It was while a member of this institution that he formed those rare and interesting friendships with his fellow-students, John Jay, Egbert Benson, Gonverneur Morris, Chancellor Livingston, and others, whose names afterwards became famous in the annals of the country.
In January, 1769, he was admitted to the bar of the Supreme Court, and immediately thereafter opened a law- office in the city of New York. At the age of twenty-five he was appointed sole reviser of the laws of the colony. His revision embraced the statutes enacted during a period of eighty-two years,-1691 to 1773. The work was pub- lished in the latter year, in two large folio volumes. He had but just risen from the performance of this labor, con- templating the stability of existing institutions, when the turmoils of the Revolution commenced. He was a member of the first committee of correspondence chosen in New York, in May, 1774, and of the subsequent committee of one hundred ; and, as a further peaceful remedy, he forbore to drink tea in his family, urging a similar course upon bis friends. But, upon the initiation of warlike measures, he retired with his family to Kinderhook.
Although he disapproved of the acts of Great Britain, he did not think them of a character to justify extreme
* Furnished by H. C. Van Schaack, Esq., of Manlius, N. Y.
92
HISTORY OF COLUMBIA COUNTY, NEW YORK.
measures of resistance. Conservative in his views and principles, and sensitive by nature, he shrank from an en- counter with the acerbities and horrors of a civil war. He consequently assumed the position of neutrality, which he inviolably maintained. His political separation, at this period, from many of his most intimate friends who be- came prominent actors in the Revolution, rendered this the most trying period of his life. Severe domestic afflictions also, in the deaths, in quick succession, of three of his children, followed soon after by the death of his wife, added their pangs to those occasioned by political affairs; and physical suffering also was joined, in his person, to the un- happiness of exile. The sight of one of his eyes had become seriously impaired, probably from their too steady and severe use in his revision of the statutes, and he ob- tained Governor Clinton's written permission, in the early part of 1778, to visit England, to have an operation per- formed on it, as soon as the state of the country should admit of it. In ignorance of this permission, the commis- sioners of conspiracies ordered his banishment from the country, on the ground of his being an influential citizen observing a neutrality in the public troubles, considered by them to be of dangerous tendency. Accordingly, in October, 1778, Mr. Van Schaack took ship at New York for Eng- land, where he remained nearly seven years. Henry Cruger, whose sister Mr. Van Schaack had married in 1768, was at this time a member of Parliament, having been chosen, in 1774, a co-representative with Edmund Burke, for the city of Bristol, in the English House of Commons. Mr. Van Schaack, while in England, spent most of his time in London, frequently attending the debates in Parliament, and enjoying rare opportunities for becoming acquainted with the public characters and political affairs, a circum- stance which imparted to his subsequent history a peculiar interest. He was in London during Lord George Gordon's riots, and through the memorable changes of the ministry. He witnessed the downfall of one set of cabinet ministers for their hostility to America; the abrupt secession of an- other; the dissolution of a third ; the grand coalition which formed the fourth, and which was itself soon after dis- missed by royal interposition, making shipwreck of the political reputations of some of the greatest statesmen in the empire; and he participated in the interesting discus- sious to which these extraordinary political revolutions gave rise. Among those political papers was a caustic letter, written by him to Charles James Fox, exposing the incon- sistencies of that minister.
It is an interesting fact that, after a year's residence in England, Mr. Van Schaack's early political views under- went considerable change, and he came to the conclusion, from what he there saw, that the British government was not entitled to that credit for honesty of purpose in regard to American affairs for which he had given it credit.
In August, 1785, Mr. Van Schaack returned to the United States. On his arrival in the city of New York he was received with open arms by his countrymen, all classes vying in their attentions irrespective of former differences of political sentiment. By an act of the Legislature, passed in January, 1786, he, with a number of other individuals of high character and known integrity, who were in the
same situation, were restored to the rights of citizenship. He was soon after re-admitted to the bar, and resumed the practice of his profession in his native village. For about twenty-five years he attended the courts and was active in his profession, when, by the gradual impairment of the sight of his remaining eye, he became totally blind. He then gave his principal attention to the instruction of young gentlemen in the study of the law, a large number of whom have received more or less of their legal education at his hands. Among those students were Cadwallader D. Col- den, John Suydam, John C. Spencer, Joseph D. Monell, James I. Roosevelt, and William Kent.
Mr. Van Schaack was distinguished for classical scholar- ship, for purity and elegance of taste, and for profound knowledge of the English common law. The highest con- temporaneous authority* pronounced him " the model of a scholar, a lawyer, and a gentleman." His classical scholar- ship, in connection with his profound knowledge of law, procured for him from Columbia College, his Alma Mater, the honorary degree of Doctor of Laws.
Afflicted for the last twenty years of his life with total blindness, he lived in retirement at his seat in Kinderhook, devoting his time to classical and legal instruction, and supporting himself, under his severe privation, in unabated cheerfulness, upon the resources of a memory enriched with ancient and modern literature, and thoroughly familiar with the sublimity of Milton and the blind Mæonides. Ile died on the 17th of September, 1832, in the cighty-sixth year of his age. His life, prepared by his son, Henry C. Van Schaack, was published by D. Appleton & Co., in 1842, in an octavo volume of five hundred pages, and it has been favorably criticised in the North American Re- view by Charles Francis Adams and Lorenzo Sabine, as well as by other eminent critics.
JOHN VAN BUREN.
John, the second son of Martin Van Buren, was born at Hudson, February 18, 1810. He graduated at Yale Col- lege in the year 1828, and commenced the study of the law in the office of Benjamin F. Butler, the former law- partner of his father. His legal course was completed with Aaron Vanderpoel, at Kinderhook, and he was admitted to the bar in July, 1831. Soon after this time his father was appointed minister to England, and John accompanied him as secretary of legation. Upon his father's rejection by the Senate, both returned to the United States.
" From the date of his return with his father, Mr. Van Buren went back to his desk and his law-books, and for several years pursued the practice of his profession with assiduity and success.
"During this interval he visited England, in 1838, on professional business. His position, not more than his personal accomplishments, gave him at once the entrée into the most exclusive circle in the world. The young repub- lican was the lion of a whole London winter. The proud men and women of a proud aristocracy were disarmed in spite of themselves by a manner and breeding as perfect as their own. His success at court was regarded as a sort of
* Chancellor Kent.
93
HISTORY OF COLUMBIA COUNTY, NEW YORK.
social phenomenon, and furnished more additions to the city gossip of the papers in London and this country than an event of state importance. Democracy, his nursing mother, might have feared for her child when she saw him the object of such blandishments and graccs, the centre of the favors and honors of the first court in Europe. But he was of higher mould than that. He was reserved for greater things.
" Before his return he spent a considerable time in Ire- land. The generous hospitalities of a warm-hearted people were lavished on the son of a Democratic President of the United States, and in more than one city he was con- strained to decline the honor of a public entertainment.
"Considerations of obvious propriety connected with his father's public relations to the Democratic party, and subsequently an irreparable domestic affliction (the death of his wife), kept him in comparative retirement until about 1845."*
In that year he was nominated by the " Barnburners," and elected by the Legislature to the office of attorney- general of the State, and in that position was distinguished by a skill and ability which few, even of his friends, ex- pected to find in him, and which gave him at once a very high position at the bar of New York. One of the most noted prosecutions conducted by him was that of Smith W. Boughton, or " Big Thunder," the anti-rent chief, in 1845.
We copy from the Bench and Bar an account of a per- sonal collision which occurred during that trial, between the attorney-general and Ambrose L. Jordan, Esq., in the court-house at Hudson, as follows :
"The trial of the anti-renters forms an interesting epoch in the legal history of the State of New York Their de- fense before the courts was as determined, skillful, and bold as their revolt had been outrageous and obstinate. Every point that legal skill and learning could devise was inter- posed to save them from punishment. When defeated in one court they appealed to another, until their conviction was finally affirmed in the court of last resort.
" The leading counsel for the defense was Ambrose L. Jordan, of the Columbia bar, one of the ablest lawyers of his day. His learning and abilities are evinced by a long and brilliant professional career.
"Several of the leading anti-renters, including 'Big Thunder,' were brought to trial at the Columbia oyer and terminer, which held its sittings at Hudson, N. Y., in September, 1845. John Van Buren was then attorney- general of the State, and of course to him was committed the duty of assisting James Storm, then district attorney of Columbia county, in the prosecution of the offenders. There was much in the circumstances connected with the case to excite and exasperate counsel, and as the trial pro- ceeded their acerbity towards each other increased until a personal collision became imminent.
" John W. Edmonds, then one of the circuit judges, pre- sided. He discharged his judicial duties inflexibly and yet courteously. Perhaps a more independent and pure judge than he never sat on the bench of the Supreme Court of the State. But the position he occupied on this occasion
was trying in the extreme. Before him were two of the most renowned counselors in the State glaring at each other with the ferocity of opposing gladiators, ready to rend each other in brutal conflict. For a long time the forbearance, dignity, and firmness of the judge restrained them, keeping them within the pale of respectful deference to the place they occupied. But as the fourth day of the trial was drawing to a close, a scene occurred rarely witnessed in a court of justice. The vindictive passions of the counsel passed beyond judicial control, and a personal encounter ensued. Both lawyers had for some time indulged in personalities which the judge could not suppress. Re- tort followed retort, and denunciation was met by bitter taunts.
" At length Mr. Jordan, while addressing the court as to the admissibility of certain evidence offered by Mr. Van Buren, indulged in language the most bitter and insulting. In the course of his remarks he said, 'The attorney- general does not care for the condition of these men. He has not contended for right or justice, but to make an ex- hibition of himself,-to pander to the miserable ambition which was the curse of his father. Though his father had brains to temper his wild ambition in some degree, the son has none to temper his, and it breaks out everywhere in puerility and slush.'
" Van Buren answered the legal objections raised by Jordan with great calmness, force, and dignity. Having concluded his argument, he said, with contempt curling his lips, 'The counsel opposed has informed your honor the cause of my presence here. I shall not stoop to deny bis coarse assertions ; but allow me to add that it is quite out of place for a man who stands here in this court with the contributions of murder and arson in his pockets to criti- cise me for any cause whatever.'
" A dark, withering frown mounted the menacing fea- tures of Jordan; his nostrils expanded ; vivid gleams of anger flashed from his large, expressive eyes, and in the twinkling of an eye he planted a heavy blow upon the face of Van Buren. It was returned with the rapidity of light- ning and with staggering effect ; then, grappling with each other, a terrible struggle ensued. Rage and fury rendered these great lawyers forgetful of their positions as ministers of justice, deaf to the voice of the judge, to everything but their desire for vengeance. But Sheriff Waldo with his assistants rushed into the bar and separated the infuriated combatants before the contest proceeded to any extremity.
" As soon as order was restored Judge Edmonds ad- dressed them with great calmness, dignity, and eloquence. He alluded to the high standing of the counsel, not only before the State but before the nation ; to the baleful ex- ample they had set before the world; to their desecration of the temple of justice; to the great insult which they had given the court. 'Should I neglect,' he continued, ' to promptly punish you for the great wrong you have done I should myself be unworthy to occupy the bench. The court regrets that it did not punish your first infraction of the rules of decency ; but as that is passed, it will now, by a proper interposition of the strong arm of the law, inflict such a punishment upon you as will preserve its dignity, and, we trust, prevent a recurrence of the disgraceful scene
# From the New York Atlas of May 14, 1848.
94
HISTORY OF COLUMBIA COUNTY, NEW YORK.
we have just witnessed. The court therefore sentences both of you to solitary confinement in the county jail for twenty- four hours.'
" When the judge concluded, Mr. Van Buren arose and with impressive dignity made an apology, couched in words of touching eloquence, concluding as follows :
"' What could I do, your honor, what could I do under the coarse insults I have been subjected to during this trial ? I acknowledge I have violated the decorum of this court, and should be punished. But I pray your honor not to degrade me by punishment in the common jail, for I feel that I cannot endure that. I beg your honor to so far modify the sentence of the court as to inflict a fine upon me,-I care not how large the amount may be. The ex- ample of such a fine would be sufficient, and I am sure justice would be vindicated.'
" But the judge was firm and inexorable,-the very per- sonifieation of justice in the aet of inflicting due punishi- ment upon its ministers. 'The court,' said the judge, ' can see no reason for modifying its sentence ; the supremacy of the law must be maintained. It is no respecter of persons ; it looks only to their acts, and measures out its punishment according to those acts, without regard to the standing of the actors. Sheriff, you will now conduet these persons to the jail of the county, and keep them and each of them in solitary confinement for the term of twenty-four hours, dur- ing which time this court will adjourn.'
" Amid the profound, almost stifling silence, the sheriff obeyed, and in his custody two of the most eminent lawyers of the State of New York passed out of the court-house, and were soon incarcerated within the walls of Columbia county jail.
" Before the opening of the court on the morning of the altercation described, Judge Edmonds had received au in- vitation to spend an evening with ex-President Van Buren at Lindenwald. John was to be his companion in the visit, but before the appointed time arrived he was committed to jail.
" The term for which Van Buren and Jordan had been imprisoned having expired, they entered the court-room with a nonchalance that was really amusing, and the trial was resumed. An hour or two elapsed, when a short re- cess took place, during which Van Buren approached the beneh, laid his arm carelessly but easily upon it, and, in his peculiar manner, remarked,-
"' I hope your honor slept well last night.'
"' As there was nothing to disturb my slumbers, I most certainly did,' was the reply.
"' I thought perhaps it might be possible that your con- science, your sympathy, or the thoughts of our unenviable position, might disturb your slumbers,' said Van Buren, with a characteristic smile. 'But,' he continued, 'the law is now vindicated; my offense, at least, is atoned. I suppose, judge, our arrangement to visit the old man is still in force. He will be delighted to see me under the circumstances, and, judge, I think his respect for you, on the whole, will not be diminished on account of the lodgings you assigned me last night. I know him of old.'
" ' I think, Mr. Van Buren, the time we have lost in this
trial will render the visit to ex-President Van Buren im- possible.' And the visit to the old man did not take place.
" The trial continued several days after the release of the distinguished prisoners. It finally resulted in the convic- tion of ' Big Thunder' and several anti-rent leaders, and they were sentenced to imprisonment for life in the State-prison.
" The manner in which Van Buren conducted this pros- ecution gave him great popularity. Among other evidences of popular favor, he was, with the anti-rent leader, made the subject of the following conundrum :
"' Why is John Van Buren a greater man than Dr. Franklin ?'
"' Because Franklin bottled lightning, but Van Buren bottled thunder.' "
After the elose of his term he became a prominent mem- ber of the legal profession in the city of New York. In the presidential canvass of 1848 he greatly distinguished himself as a popular advocate of the principles of the free Democratic party, and of the exclusion of slavery from the territories. Afterwards he returned to the Democratic party.
In 1866 he made an extended tour in Europe, and died on the homeward passage.
JOHN C. SPENCER.
John C., son of Judge Ambrose Spencer, was born in the city of Hudson, Jan. 8, 1788. He entered Williams Col- lege in 1803, but graduated at Union College, Schenectady, in 1806. He studied law in Albany, and was admitted to the bar in May, 1809.
Although a native of, he was never long a resident in, Columbia county. In February, 1815, he was appointed district attorney for the five extreme western counties of the State, and held that office for about three years. In 1816 he was elected to Congress for the Twenty-first district, but declined a re-election. In 1820 he was chosen to the As- sembly, and elected speaker upon its organization. After- wards he served several terms in the Assembly. He was eleeted senator in 1824, taking his seat in 1825. In April, 1827, he was appointed, with B. F. Butler and John Duer, to revise the statutes of the State.
In February, 1839, he was appointed secretary of state of New York, and in 1840 a regent of the university. In 1841 (October) he was appointed secretary of war under President Tyler, and in Mareh, 1843, secretary of the treasury, which latter office he resigned May 1, 1844, in consequence of his disagreeing with the President on the question of the annexation of Texas.
AMBROSE L. JORDAN.#
On the 19th day of July, 1865, I united, with others, in depositing in the tomb in the cemetery of Hudson the mortal remains of Ambrose L. Jordan. He departed this life on the 16th day of July, at his residence in New York, and appropriate funeral services had been held on the 18th at the Church of the Transfiguration in that city. He died at the mature age of seventy-six years, having been born
# From the pen of Hon. Henry Hogeboom.
95
HISTORY OF COLUMBIA COUNTY, NEW YORK.
in Hillsdale, in the county of Columbia, on the 5th day of May, 1789.
As he was a native and long a resident of our county, as he reached high distinction in his profession, and as he was one of the remaining links between the present and a past generation, it seems not unbecoming that here in the connty of his birth some slight record should be preserved of the principal incidents of his career.
Mr. Jordan, it is believed, received a fair, though not a collegiate, education, and improved in the best manner the advantages which were thrown in his way. At the early age of twenty-three (in 1812) he is found in the practice of his profession at Cooperstown, in the county of Otsego, where his abilities were not unappreciated, for dur- ing his brief residenee of seven or eight years in that county, in addition to a leading praetiee at the bar, he
just named, with others of equal or nearly equal eminence, were splendid luminaries of the legal profession.
But the period which immediately followed, under the constitution of 1821, was one of no small consideration in the annals of the profession in Columbia county. Most of the names just referred to had disappeared from the publie view. The judges lost their office by the passage of the new constitution. Speneer renewed the practice of his profession, but scarcely sustained the fame which had marked his judicial career. Kent was soon appointed to be professor of law in Columbia College, and gave to the world those inestimable Commentaries which will forever honorably associate his name with the history of American law.
Thompson, having previously been appointed secretary of the navy, was transferred to the bench of the Supreme
AMBROSE L. JORDAN.
filled the responsible offices of surrogate and district at- torney.
About the year 1820 he was recalled to his native county of Columbia, and it is no small compliment to his growing reputation that, as common fame affirms, he was invited here by his friends to be the rival and antagonist of Elisha Williams, then in the full maturity of his great powers and at the very zenith of his fame.
Perhaps the Augustan age of the law in this county had already passed, an age in which, under the old consti- tution, Speneer and Kent and Thompson and Van Ness presided at the circuits, and Williams and Van Buren and Oakley and Grosvenor flourished at the bar. Those were grand old times ; and although, doubtless, distance lends a somewhat factitious magnitude and enchantment to the view, it cannot be questioned that the judges and lawyers
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.