USA > New York > Oneida County > Utica > Memorial history of Utica, N.Y. : from its settlement to the present time > Part 49
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519
JONAS PLATT.
resolution was seconded by Clinton. By the aid of their joint efforts the resolution passed both Houses and the commissioners were named alternately from the two opposing parties. "We cannot but con- sider," remarks Renwick, " that the public mind would have been more easily satisfied of the feasibility of the project had Mr. Platt permitted himself to be named on the commission. With his sound and steady judgment it would have been impossible that any plan bearing imprac- ticability on its face," as was true of the scheme entertained by one of the commissioners appointed, " should have been laid before the public. Platt, however, seems to have shrunk with innate modesty from assum- ing place on a commission established by a resolution which he himself had drawn. Here, therefore, all direct agency on his part in the canal policy of the State seems to have ceased ; yet he is well entitled to the merit of having made the first efficacious step toward the attainment of the great object of uniting the lakes with the Atlantic."
In the year 1814 a judge of the Supreme Court was to be appointed in place of Smith Thompson, appointed chief justice. Mr. Platt re- ceived the appointment. "He had at this time," says Hammond,1 "been in extensive practice, and though his talents were not brilliant they were of a character highly respectable ; his morals were perfectly pure ; though he possessed a deep and intense tone of feeling and a high sense of personal honor he had acquired, apparently, an entire control over his passions ; his quiet and calm deportment indicated a contemplative and considerate mind, not liable to be hurried into the adoption of ill . adjusted plans or to determinations which might lead to actions indis- creet or ill-advised. His address was unobtrusive, modest, and con- ciliatory. He had a high regard to courtesy and propriety, as well in respect to political conduct as in the private and social concerns of life." The opinions he delivered on the bench are represented as respectable, but never brilliant nor distinguished for any depth of learning He re- tained the seat until January 29, 1823, and was " constitutionalized out of office " by the constitution of 1821. He was a member of the con- vention that framed this constitution and had opposed some of its features, by reason of which he was obnoxious to the party then in the ascendancy, and was rejected by the Senate when nominated by Gov-
1 Political History.
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MEMORIAL HISTORY OF UTICA.
ernor Yates on the re-organization of the court. Upon his retirement from the bench he took up his residence in Utica and resumed the prac- tice of his profession in company with his son, Zephaniah; but within three or four years he removed to New York. There he prosecuted his- profession with all the industry of youth, and by his coolness and his candor was often able to bear away the palm from abler and more ardent competitors. He died at Peru, Clinton County, February 22, 1834. Judge Platt was a finished gentleman. "He carried his courtesy at times," says Judge Bacon, " almost beyond the bounds required by the conventionalities of ordinary life, and a retort or a rebuke from his lips was conveyed in terms that had the similitude of and might almost have been mistaken for a compliment."
A lawyer whose professional life was closed ere he settled in Utica was Thomas H. Hubbard, though he lived many years longer one of its most prominent and respected citizens. He was born at New Haven, Conn., December 8, 1781. Soon after receiving his degree he commenced the study of the law in the office of John Woodworth, of Troy, N. Y., afterward judge of the Supreme Court. As soon as he was admitted to the bar he settled in the practice of his profession at Hamilton in Madison County. His native talents and his thorough training won for him ere long an extensive business in that and the adjoining county of Chenango. On the organization of Madison County in 1806 he was appointed surrogate and discharged its duties for about ten years. In 1816 he was made prosecuting attorney, next after Joseph Kirkland, for a district comprising several counties, and in this capacity conducted some important criminal trials. As an accurate and intelligent business man he was unsurpassed, and as an advocate those who knew him at that period represent him as able and effective. The same year he was elected to represent the then congressional dis- trict of Madison and Herkimer in the fifteenth Congress, and at a somewhat later period he was elected to serve the same district in the session of 1821-23. Hamilton is justly proud to claim him as one of her early law-givers as well as efficient and honored pioneers. The period of Mr. Hubbard's removal to this county coincided with the or- ganization of the courts under the constitution of 1822, and he was in June, 1823, appointed the first clerk of the Court of Chancery for this-
521
THOMAS H. HUBBARD - GREENE C. BRONSON.
judicial district. This office he held but a short time and was then selected for the office of clerk of the Supreme Court, which had become vacant by the death of Arthur Breese. The duties of this office he dis- charged with faithfulness until the year 1835. After his retirement from it he did not again engage in public employment, but devoted himself to the management of his now ample fortune. "It would seem as if the rude encounters of the legal forum could have been little con- genial to the temperament of Mr. Hubbard. His gentleness of disposi- tion and his liberal and charitable habit of mind must have rendered him averse to the scenes of strife and contention inseparable from a life spent in the courts. No kinder or gentler spirit ever animated a mortal man. Governed by the most pure and virtuous intentions himself he was unwilling to believe evil of others, and always construed their mo- tives in the most charitable sense. He was greatly respected by all and those who knew him well were his warm and devoted friends. A marked feature in his character was his liberality toward religious and charitable objects. No reasonable appeal for such purposes was ever rejected by him and his contributions were constant and large. He was made a vestryman of Trinity at the first Easter after his arrival, and he continued from that day forward to be a conspicuous and shining pillar in the spiritual edifice." He was a trustee of the Utica Academy as he had been one of the founders of that of Hamilton as well as of the college of that name. While residing in the latter place he was one of the electors who cast their vote for James Madison in 1812. He was twice chosen to the same office from this county, on the occasion of the elections of Mr. Polk and General Pierce.
Judge Bronson, the distinguished jurist now to be noticed, offers a striking example of one who, without the aid of wealth or family con- nections, or even of such advantages of education as are furnished by our academies and colleges, was enabled by manly self-reliance and resolute energy to attain the highest positions and to fill them with em- inent success. Greene Carrier Bronson was born in Simsbury, Conn., in November, 1789, and was the son of Oliver Brownson, a teacher of vocal music, who published one of the earliest singing books that were used in the country. He had only a limited school education ; all that he acquired besides was the result of solitary application, and by persever-
66
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MEMORIAL HISTORY OF UTICA.
ing industry he made himself a good scholar as well as a good lawyer. After leaving school he was for a time a clerk at Simsbury, until with his father's family he removed to Peterboro, N. Y. While there he procured a Latin grammar from Rev. Calvin Bushnell, the Presbyterian minister in charge at Vernon, and used to go to Vernon to Mr. Bushnell, twelve miles through the woods, to recite his lessons. For a short time he taught school also, one of his pupils being Hon. Henry A. Foster. He afterward studied law in the same place with John P. Sherwood, maintaining himself during his pupilage by practice in the inferior courts, and when his term of study was complete he became a partner with his preceptor. He was endowed with unusually quick and clear per- ceptions and acquired knowledge with facility. And having also a keen desire to obtain it, and a noble ambition which looked for no outside support, his time as a student was well spent. He early made himself acquainted with the principles of the common law and with the system of equity jurisprudence as administered in this State and in England. Once admitted to practice his standing was assured. And though a compeer with Storrs, Talcott, Maynard, Beardsley, Spencer, and other prominent members of the bar of Oneida he was their fitting associate. In April, 1819, he was appointed surrogate of the county and filled the office two years. Then he was elected a member of Assembly from Oneida and Oswego. In the legislature he proved an able debater. He distinguished himself more especially by his opposition to a bill in- tended to deprive the inmates of the State prisons of the use of the Bible and other religious reading. The bill was defeated effectually. At this time he was a Clintonian in politics, but turned before Clinton died to the opposing side and became a Bucktail, siding ever afterward with the hard section of the Democratic party. He had agreed to join Thomas H. Hubbard, of Hamilton, and settle and practice at Utica in 1823. But when the time came for moving he was detained by his con- nection with the glass works at Vernon and unable to leave. Mr. Hub- bard came without him and Mr. Bronson followed the next year. He soon formed a partnership with Samuel Beardsley, which continued so long as he remained in Utica, and together they conducted a large share of the legal business of the neighborhood. " As a lawyer his reputation rested on a solid basis. There was nothing meretricious in
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GREENE C. BRONSON.
his mode of handling a subject. He did not strike for effect, but to do execution. His learning, comprehensive and profound, was available to sustain. If an authority was to be questioned, or a case doubted, it was not mutilated and misrepresented, but fairly and openly attacked. No timidity prevented him from meeting an objection wherever it might present itself. As a speaker he was not gifted with an impressive ad- dress. His remarks were pointed and to the purpose ; but a natural hesitancy of manner and the want of warmth of imagination deprived him of much of the power that was due to the strength of his intellect." He was apt to discourage litigation and dissuaded many who applied to him from entering on a suit. Nor would he undertake one unless he was satisfied that the right was on the side of his client.
On the 27th of February, 1829, Mr. Bronson was elected by the legis- lature attorney-general of the State in place of Samuel A. Talcott. The rival candidate of his party was Benjamin F. Butler, of New York, who was a protégé of Mr. Van Buren, and the preference given to the former was a triumph of the Utica Regency over the arbitrary rul- ers of the Democracy whose headquarters were at Albany. To Albany he now removed and continued to fill the office, by re-election in 1832 and again in 1835, until January of the ensuing year. Of the character of its administration it is enough to say that he was the successor of Talcott and the dignity of the office was never known to depreciate in his charge. In January, 1836, he was elevated to the bench of the Supreme Court, a vacancy having been occasioned by the resignation of John Savage, and was himself succeeded in the attorney-generalship by his late partner, Mr. Beardsley. On the 5th of March, 1845, he became the presiding judge of the court. Two years subsequently, at the first election of judges under the new constitution, he was made one of the judges of the Court of Appeals and continued such until his resignation in 1851. Thus for fifteen years he was a member of our highest judicial tribunals, the Supreme Court, the Court for the Correction of Errors, and the Court of Appeals, and in all of these public trusts he aquitted himself with signal ability. "In the department of judicial duty he was justly pre-eminent and his opinions are models of judicial excellence. In conciseness and perspicuity of expression, in terseness and directness of style, in compactness and force of logic, in sturdy vigor of intellect, and
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MEMORIAL HISTORY OF UTICA.
in their stern sense of right and justice " these opinions have by com- petent judges been declared to be unsurpassed, and as constituting "a valuable and enduring contribution to American jurisprudence." No man, says Judge Sutherland, ever discharged the duties of judge with stricter integrity. There never was a judge who, in construing the statutes and written constitutions of government and administering the law, was less influenced by arguments and considerations addressed to judicial discretion, or by considerations even of public policy, not de- clared by the law. His prompt answer to all such arguments and considerations was ita lex scripta.
After leaving the bench Judge Bronson removed to New York city and resumed the practice of his profession. But having become in- volved in some unfortunate enterprises he lost much of his property. In 1853 he was appointed by President Pierce as collector of the port, but held the office only a short time, his removal having been effected by Secretary Guthrie because he persisted in retaining in office men of opposite party. Declining to displace an official whose removal was desired by the secretary he accompanied the act with a published letter setting forth his reasons for the refusal. A public correspondence ensued between him and the secretary, which was marked on the part of Judge Bronson by his usual clearness and force ; but though he had the better in argument it was closed by his dismissal from the collectorship. His course on this occasion was a subject of much comment by the public and gained him greater notoriety than before and the strong approval of many. For Judge Bronson was emphatically an honest man. The popularity he acquired in the transaction above mentioned procured for him, in 1854, the nomination for governor. In the meantime, however, new issues arose that were paramount in interest with the public and he was beaten in the canvass. In December, 1859, he was elected to the office of counsel for the corporation of the city of New York and con- tinued to discharge the duties until January, 1863, the term for which he was elected. Smitten with paralysis no long time afterward he endured for several months much physical pain. But throughout his sufferings he was sustained by the consolations and the hopes of that Christian faith of which he had for many years been a consistent professor. His departure occurred, after a renewed attack at Saratoga, on the 3d of September, 1863.
525
GREENE C. BRONSON.
On the opening of the next General term of the Supreme Court in New York a request was presented that a tribute of respect to the mem- ory of Judge Bronson should be entered on the minutes, and this request was signed in behalf of themselves and their brethren of the New York bar, by James J. Roosevelt, Daniel Lord, Charles P. Kirkland, Marshall S. Bidwell, Charles O'Connor, and William Curtis Noyes. A similar tribute was in January following placed on the minutes of the Court of Appeals. Quotations from both of these records, heretofore freely made in this article, exhibit the appreciation in which he was held by his as- sociates at these courts. To these might be added the testimony of the bar of Saratoga, recorded at a meeting held shortly after his death, and especially that of Chancellor Walworth, their presiding officer, who de- clared the deceased to have been one of the ablest and most upright judges that ever occupied a seat upon the bench of this State. As an evidence of the high estimation in which he was held in this vicinity it may be mentioned that in 1845, sixteen years after his removal from Utica, when, in view of the approaching State Constitutional Conven- tion, his party determined to send thither the strongest men they could select, they nominated Judges Beardsley, Denio, and Foster and with them Judge Bronson.
Yet though a man of such singular power and strongly marked individuality Judge Bronson was at the same time genial and gentle in all the relations of friendship and private life. Bold and determined as he was in the denunciation of fraud he was notwithstanding a lover of peace and disliked contention and the acrimony of party. He was generous in disposition, kind and sympathizing, firm in his attachments, devoted as a friend, husband, and father. In his address he was cour- teous and affable ; in his manners pleasing. There was neither affecta- tion nor stiffness, but an easy dignity enlivened by an agreeable pleas- antry. For the old Court of Errors he had a very low estimate and made free to manifest it; for on one occasion when a cause came before him for adjudication on the bench, which involved a principle that had once been determined by this court, he overrode this decision by an opinion wholly adverse. Judge Bronson's father's family were Bap- tists, but when he united with the church at Vernon it was with a Pres- byterian one. After removing to Utica he took an active part in
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MEMORIAL HISTORY OF UTICA.
sustaining the infant organization that was ministered over by his brother-in-law, Rev. S. W. Brace, and was a trustee in this church.
Benjamin Franklin Cooper was the son of Apollos Cooper and was born in Utica in 1801. He entered Hamilton College in 1816, but left that institution for Union, where he graduated. He began the study of law in the office of General Kirkland and spent a year in the law school at Litchfield, Conn. Returning to Utica in the fall of 1824 he entered upon the practice of his profession in connection with Roderick N. Morrison. Subsequent to the fall of 1827, on account of delicate health, he spent a few years in southern travel, but returned to Utica in 1832, and with the exception of a year or two in Detroit, commencing in 1840, continued to reside here until his death. In 1846 he was a member of the legislature, and was one of its most active, intelligent, and laborious members.
Some of his early legal efforts were distinguished by earnest and able argument, by keen analysis and penetration, and by forcible and cour- ageous assertion of what he believed to be the right of his clients. In the suits brought with reference to the distribution of the stock of the Oneida Bank and that of the partition of the stock of the Utica and Schenectady Railroad, in both of which cases subscribers who failed of receiving stock they had subscribed for brought suits to compel a re- distribution, he took a leading part in the arguments and attracted to himself a large share of public attention. For some years before his death he had withdrawn from professional avocations. He died May 4, 1864. A son and a daughter survive him. They are non-residents.
In one respect it is an easy task to fashion a memorial of Judge Will- iam J. Bacon, for no exaggeration need restrain its language, and so numerous were the testimonials to his worth that were put on record when he died. The only embarrassment is from the profusion of topics which his life and varied qualities suggest. Of all the citizens of Utica none bore a larger and at the same time a more honored part in its his- tory. For two full generations he was a prominent actor in the affairs of city and county. With graces of mind and body possessed by few, and accomplishments due to broad and generous study, with a readiness to do for the general good all that could be prompted by a loving heart and an enlightened conscience, he won both admiration and affection by
Et Mey F G Kernon NY
527
WILLIAM }. BACON.
a character which combined spotless purity with rare attractiveness and amiability. For a life- time and more he was deemed both here and abroad as among the chief ornaments of the place.
William Johnson Bacon was born in Williamstown, Mass., February 18, 1803. He was a son of Ezekiel Bacon and grandson of John. The latter, of Stockbridge, Mass , was pastor of the Old South Church, Bos- ton, at the breaking out of the Revolutionary war ; he represented Berkshire County in the Massachusetts Senate and was president of that body in 1800. He also represented that county in Congress from 1801 to 1803, and was subsequently presiding judge of the Berkshire Com- mon Pleas. The father, Ezekiel Bacon, has been already noticed as a leading citizen of Massachusetts, who afterward did honor to Utica as the place of his later sojourn. His son enjoyed the benefit of New England training, receiving preliminary instruction in part at school, in part from private teachers, and in part at Lenox Academy. Removing with the family to Utica in 1815 he entered Hamilton College at the age of fifteen and was graduated at nineteen in the class of 1822. 'He was an earnest scholar, and his subsequent habits and acquirements proved that he carried away the full benefit of his course. He never lost his love for the ancient classics, and he kept up his study of English literature, especially its poetry. Immediately after graduation he entered on the study of law with Gen. Joseph Kirkland and his son, Charles P. Kirkland, remaining with them three years, with the exception only of the second one, which he spent in the law school of Judge Gould, of Litchfield, Conn. This he has said was a most profitable year to him, in which by hard study he mastered not merely the elementary but many of the deeper problems of the law. Admitted to practice in 1824 he offered his services to waiting clients, but was soon in part diverted from his chosen path by engaging with Samuel D. Dakin in the pro- prietorship and editing of the Sentinel and Gazette. This employment occupied his attention about two years, when he disposed of his interest and resuming his previous functions was soon able to command a fair share of practice. In the year 1832 he became a partner with his brother-in-law, Charles P. Kirkland, a partnership which proved a highly successful one, and which lasted until the removal of Mr. Kirkland to New York in 1851. Mr. Bacon continued in practice about three years,
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MEMORIAL HISTORY OF UTICA.
when in the fall of 1853 he was elected judge of the Supreme Court in the Fifth District. By re-election at the end of his term he remained on the bench sixteen years, retiring in 1870. Subsequent to that time he did not resume practice in the courts, but contented himself with giving counsel and serving as a referee.
Of the legal and judicial career of Judge Bacon I prefer to speak in the words of his colleagues who were best qualified to estimate him aright. Hon. A. M. Beardsley says of him that " while he was one of the firm of Kirkland & Bacon to him was entrusted in a great degree the first steps in legal proceedings and the drafting of pleadings, upon the accuracy, learning, and sound judgment of which depend most largely the triumphs achieved. In these departments he gained an en- viable reputation, one richly deserved and generally acknowledged." Both Mr. Kirkland and Judge Foster concurred in the remark that as a framer of pleadings he excelled any lawyer they ever knew. "His tastes," continued Mr. Beardsley, " did not lead him to the contests of jury trials, but rather to those requiring argument, exacting thought, investigation, clearness, and force in written composition. He was by nature and education more at home in the broad fields of equity than in the restricted bounds of common law. On the bench as judge dis- pensing law and equity in decisions abounding in strong thought and deep learning, and in language and forms of expression the most forci- ble and elegant, Judge Bacon deserves the high reputation he won among the members of his calling as well as from all those who were acquainted with his work. He was more interested in the principles of law and equity than in the mere recollection of cases, and hence when facts of an unusual character were laid before him his mind at once re- verted to these principles, and by their agency he rapidly worked out conclusions that were correct, logical, and conclusive." As a judge he manifested his integrity on all occasions. "If ever there was a just- minded judge," says Senator Kernan, "I think he was one. I have seen him tried where he might naturally have had a prepossession, but I have never seen him yield to it knowingly." To his patience in listening to every fact or argument presented on either side, to his encouraging kindness to the younger men who appeared before him, to his urbanity and dignity as well as to his impartiality, his intelligent and able rul-
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