USA > New York > Oneida County > Utica > Memorial history of Utica, N.Y. : from its settlement to the present time > Part 51
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position was assured ; and it aided him not a little that he had the most friendly relations with other members of his profession, for he cordially rejoiced in their successes and his dignified but ever kindly courtesy made him popular with them. In court a truthful, upright, honorable character gave weight to his statements, and his legal attainments and direct, logical clearness commanded close attention to his arguments. He never wearied court or jury by tediously saying all that could be said ; his habit was to select a few strong points of the view he took of the case he had in hand and, making them indisputably evident, to press them home with earnest and generally irresistible force. In ad- dressing a jury he was distinguished, says Hamilton Spencer, for the clearness and fairness with which he stated and commented upon the evidence, and for the simplicity yet elegance of the language he em- ployed. His gestures were few and simple, his voice was clear and powerful, and his articulation singularly distinct. His illustrations were always apt and often were beautiful, and when the subject called for passion in the denunciation of crime and falsehood, or for pathos in the description of suffering, the power of his appeals was overwhelm- ing.
He was chiefly distinguished before the public as a jury lawyer, but to those who knew him intimately and were associated with him in the intercourse of professional life his profound knowledge of law and his entire mastery of the great underlying principles of jurisprudence gave him a rarer excellence and one of greater dignity and worth. For more than twenty years he attended every term of the Supreme Court and the Court for the Correction of Errors, and listened to or took part in almost every case discussed before these tribunals.
Mr. Spencer, says one who knew him well, had a wonderful quick- ness of apprehension, and when called upon even unexpectedly to as- sume the management of a cause, he was soon able to master it in all its details, however complex or multifarious they might be. Gifted with quick perceptive faculties he was apt also in detecting the vulnerable points in the arguments of an opposing counsel. He excelled in the trial of criminal causes and his services were in demand from every part of the State. His thorough acquaintance with our penal statutes, the great facility of his mental resources, and, when re-
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quired, his marvelous eloquence placed him in the front rank as a criminal lawyer. As a cross-examiner he had no superior. A hostile or corrupt witness could not endure his terrible scrutiny. His com- manding presence, his piercing eye, his resonant voice overwhelmed a witness who was conscious of falsehood. Hamilton Spencer was once associated with the Hon. W. H. Seward in the trial of a strongly contested case at Oswego, and in a walk with him expressed his admiration of the subtle skill with which the ex governor had suc- cessfully examined an untruthful witness and spoke of the difference between his manner and that of Mr. Spencer: the one so smooth, gen- tle, friendly, and seductive, leading the witness into all manner of traps and contradictions ; the other direct, fierce, and overwhelming. " Yes," replied Mr. Seward, "your father is as tall as a giant, and has an eye like a hawk, and a voice like a lion, and he seizes hold upon a witness and tears him in pieces; but if I, with my slight frame and light hair and dim eyes, should rush upon a witness in that way prob- ably I should be the one to suffer."
Not infrequently a witness endeavoring to bolster up a bad cause by his perjuries, and showing at first a security bordering upon insolence, would gradually quail before Mr. Spencer's piercing eyes and searching questions, and fall into utter confusion and shame under the exposure which he felt powerless to escape. "Why did you not stick to your story ?" asked a discomfited and angry plaintiff of such a witness on whom he had relied. " I'd like to have you stick to your story," cried the crest- fallen man, "with Joshua Spencer's black eyes looking through and through you !"
The world-known novelist, J. Fenimore Cooper, when rising to ad- dress the jury in one of his famous libel suits in reply to Mr. Spencer, showed how his personality impressed a cultivated and observant listener. " The opposing counsel," he said, " is a man whose presence is of great dignity, whose voice is majestic, and whose very stature gives force to the words he utters." Mr. Spencer, however, did not rely too much on these natural advantages, nor upon his great fluency and the fervor of his appeals. He laid solid foundations for his work, and to this his successes were mainly due. Every cause which he undertook he prepared with conscientious and painstaking thoroughness before he
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carried it into court. He made himself familiar with the facts connected with it by frequent consultation with his client, and he carefully exam- ined the legal questions involved and was not careless in regard to seemingly unimportant details. He went into battle fully armed. Of course, though faithful in all, he was not roused to equal effort by every cause in which he was engaged ; but often, and especially in causes which involved great principles, and in which important interests were at stake, he was not only thorough in preparation, but seemed in advocat- ing them to acquire new power and inspiration as he spoke, and rose to his most commanding eloquence.
In 1841 he was appointed attorney of the United States for the Northern District of New York, then including the whole State except the city of New York and four or five counties adjacent to it. This office he held until the spring of 1845. In this latter year he was chosen senator for the Fifth Senatorial District of New York. During his official term the new constitution of the State went into effect, radi- cally changing the judicial system and relieving him of two years of service in the Senate. As a member of the judiciary committee the arduous labor of preparing the legislation to put the new courts at work devolved upon Mr. Spencer. In 1848 the favor with which he was re- garded by his fellow townsmen was manifested by his election as mayor of Utica. Notwithstanding the duties which these offices involved he enjoyed not even a temporary respite from his professional work. In this he continued actively employed until arrested by his last illness. Hamilton Spencer remembers that once on his father's return from a Circuit Court in one of the northeastern counties of New York he said " I have now tried cases in every county of the State." This could probably have been said by no other lawyer of his day or since. But it shows the versatile vigor of the man that while pressed by his many duties he accepted an invitation to deliver the oration at the great Berk- shire jubilee. Through life he cherished a warm attachment to the county of his birth-that mother of great men. "It is a part of my religion," he said with quiet enthusiasm to a friend, " to go back there once a year." And often he fondly dwelt on his many strolls in his boyish days along the beautiful banks of the Housatonic and amidst the picturesque scenery which surrounds Great Barrington. And so step-
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ping out for the time from his wonted sphere of thought and action, where President Hopkins of Williams preached the opening sermon, and Oliver Wendell Holmes read one of his wittiest poems, and men of world-wide fame were gathered, and a great multitude was assembled, he delivered an oration which Dr. Roof characterized as one " of sur- passing beauty and eloquence."
In regard to his professional work it would far exceed the limits of this sketch to even enumerate the many important causes argued by him in the Circuit Courts and before the Supreme Court and the Court of Errors. The one case in which he was prominent, and which attracted most at- tention in this country, and excited no little interest in England, was that of the People vs. Alexander McLeod, which is reported in the Twenty-fourth Volume of Wendell's Reports. In the summer and fall of 1837 a rebellion broke out in Canada, and a body of insurgents and of sympathizers from the American side of the Niagara River had en- trenched themselves upon a small island belonging to Great Britain, called Navy Island, which lies near the village of Chippewa and four or five miles above the great cataract. A small steamer known as the Caro- line had been cut out of the ice in Buffalo harbor and brought around into the Niagara River, where she was engaged in transporting sup- plies, munitions of war, and volunteers from the New York side at Fort Schlosser to the entrenched camp on Navy Island. On the night of the 30th of December, 1837, a boating expedition under the command of Lieutenant (afterward Captain) Drew R. N., conveying a body of soldiers under Colonel (afterward Sir) Allen McNab, crossed the river at mid- night and attacked the Caroline as she was moored at the dock at Fort Schlosser. Boarding her they cut her loose, set fire to her, and let her drift down the rapids and over the falls, and then returned to Chippewa. During the affray while those on board were escaping, Amos Durfree was killed by a pistol shot and his body was found on the wharf where the boat had been moored. For this violation of its territory the United · States demanded reparation. The British government, through Lord Palmerston, then Secretary of Foreign Affairs, and Henry S. Fox, British minister at Washington, avowed the attack to have been made by its authority and justified it as an act of war, apologizing afterward, however, for the invasion of the American territory. In February, 1841,
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McLeod was indicted in the Court of General Sessions of Niagara County for the murder of Durfree, arrested, and imprisoned. The British government demanded his release, on the ground that if he were one of the party which destroyed the Caroline he was acting as a British subject under the orders of the officers of his own government, and was under no individual responsibility for his acts, that government dis- tinctly assuming all responsibility for the destruction of the boat. Mr. Spencer was retained to defend McLeod, who was brought before the Supreme Court of New York on habeas corpus at the May term, 1841. His discharge was claimed on the ground above stated. After the argu- ment was closed and while Mr. Spencer yet remained in the city of New York Daniel Webster, then Secretary of State, passed through the city on his way from Marshfield to Washington. He sought an interview with Mr. Spencer and inquired with great anxiety as to the probable outcome of the argument. When told that it was doubtful whether the court would discharge the prisoner upon the writ for certain technical reasons, which were mentioned, he urged that the record should be so prepared that in case of an adverse decision a writ of error might take the case to the Court for the Correction of Errors, and from there, should need be, to the Supreme Court at Washington, saying it was of the utmost importance that McLeod's life should not be put in jeopardy by a trial. To this Mr. Spencer replied that it was McLeod's preference to be tried before a jury in order that he might avoid the long imprison- ment which he would be compelled to suffer while waiting the slow process of the case through the higher courts, and to this McLeod added that he was a resident of that part of Canada which bordered on the Niagara River and should have frequent occasion to visit the American side, and on this accountalso preferred to be tried and acquitted by a jury-for he was confident of acquittal-that he might be free from any further suspicion and annoyance.
A few days after this interview a letter was received from Mr. Web- ster asking if McLeod remained of the same mind, and Mr. Spencer requested McLeod to write him a letter stating at length his reasons for wishing to be tried by a jury. This McLeod did, and the letter was forwarded to Mr. Webster. In October following McLeod was tried at Utica, to which city the case had been transferred by the Supreme
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Court, and McLeod was acquitted. The trial excited great interest, but the public knew little of the momentous issues involved. The British Parliament had voted £20,000 to pay the expense of McLeod's defence, and when soon after a change of ministry occurred, Lord Palmerston attacked with characteristic vigor the ministry which had displaced his own, charging them with cowardice in yielding to the arrogance of the American government and suffering a loyal subject of Great Britain to be put in peril of his life for obeying her command, and saying that when he was in power he had notified the United States that if McLeod was put upon his trial it would be the occasion of war between the two countries. His successor, Lord Aberdeen, replied that they had taken the same ground and prepared to abide by it, but they had been met by McLeod's own written election to be thus tried, and could do no more than to see that he was properly defended.
For this statement of the case we are indebted to Hamilton Spencer, who adds that going immediately after this trial to the West Indies, he found there a large fleet which had been hastily completed and armed and sent out to meet the issues of this affair. The wise and successful management of the case was of national importance. Mr. Spencer's speech in defence of McLeod was one of his ablest forensic efforts, and the service which by his management of this cause he had rendered to the country, served, among things of more moment, to cement more closely the warm personal friendship which existed between him- self and Mr. Webster and which terminated only with Mr. Spencer's life. Mr. Spencer was a man to make and to hold such friendships. His genius, his generosity, and his warmth of heart won for him a host of friends. The students in his office, among whom were men who rose to national distinction, became strongly attached to him; his interest in them, his sympathy, his prompt and cordial encouragements bound them to him with bonds that never grew weak. "I cannot express my indebtedness to him," said Roscoe Conkling; " whatever success I may have had in life I owe in a great measure to Mr. Spencer." "A tide of personal recollections comes over me," said his friend and neighbor, the Hon. W. J. Bacon, at the meeting of the members of the Oneida County bar after Mr. Spencer's death, " which renders me incompetent to pay a suitable tribute to an uncommon man. He was a friend tender and
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faithful, just and kind, and magnanimous in all the relations of life." " Those who were young in his time," writes Hamilton Spencer, "and especially young men in his profession, will remember his cordial readiness by word or deed to assist them in their early professional struggles and his quickness to applaud and encourage their youthful efforts. He was eminently an unselfish man." It will illustrate this to add that when on one occasion the son was the opposing counsel to his father and secured a verdict for his client, his father instantly came up to him, his face aglow with pleasure, and congratulated him upon his management of the cause and his success.
Mr. Spencer, though crowded for time by his professional duties, was a man of great public spirit and prompt to take his part in defending or advancing public interests. The cause of education also had his advo cacy and support. For many years he was a trustee of Hamilton Col- lege, active to make it known, and to enlarge the grand work that it was doing. He was a trustee for many years also of the Utica Female Academy, and by his counsel and frequent presence largely aided its success. "He was a princely man !" said an enthusiastic woman whose spirit was akin to his own. Mr. Spencer, it need hardly be said, was not a lover of money. In the judgment of some he was too careless in regard to it. He appears to have been governed by the enthusiam of his profession and by a love of truth and justice, and to have cherished not the least desire to accumulate "a fortune " and to command the power and displays and luxuries of wealth. The Hon. Francis Kernan, his partner from 1840, publicly said of him : " He would never put forth his talents unless firmly persuaded that he was exerting them in the cause of truth and for the ends of justice."
We may find a reason for this in the fact that Mr. Spencer was a Christian. "He sincerely believed in the Christian religion," says his son, and when the occasion permitted he avowed his belief reverently, earnestly, and with impressive decision. The Rev. Dr. Fowler, then president of the Board of Trustees of Hamilton College and speaking of him as a co-trustee, said : " His distinction rose not alone from his intel- lectual energy. It was higher than that won by forensic triumphs. His unselfish spirit prompted him to act for others, while religion con- secrated all that was natural and superadded its own peculiar excel-
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lence." Mr. Spencer, often seemingly so stern, had an unusually kind and tender heart and his humane spirit pervaded his life. Many dis- putes and angry differences which might have been nursed into a remunerative ligitation were settled by him in his office, and without cost, except that of a little shame to the disputants. He gladly did much professional work for the poor gratuitously. His contributions in times of general distress were generously out of proportion to his means, and a private appeal which touched his heart, easily touched, often emptied his pocket-book when it had just been filled by his fees. After his death large numbers of people to whom he had been secretly a benefactor and who were unknown to his family came to look with tears upon his face; and some of the members of the bar of Oneida County at the meeting which has been mentioned, when they rose to speak of him, stood in painful silence for a time unable to begin.
Imperfect as this sketch of the man must be it were more imperfect if we did not speak, though but suggestively, of what Mr. Spencer was in his home. There his warm and generous heart had free sway. He was a most devoted and affectionate husband and father, and always happiest when in the midst of his family. The Hon. James Knox, of Knoxville, Ill., who was a law student with Mr. Spencer and subse- quently for a time his partner, and who was for life his admiring and grateful friend, in a letter which was written a year or two before his own death lifts for us the curtain which secluded this home. He had gone to Mr. Spencer's house upon some important business, and being ushered into the parlor entered it unperceived and stood in the door- way arrested by a scene which he was unwilling to disturb. The stately lawyer sat on the sofa covered by his children. They were crowding on his knees; two were standing on the sofa, one on each side close to him braiding his hair; his arms were around as many of them as he could clasp, and his happy heart given to them all. "It is a picture," wrote Mr. Knox, "which I have never forgotten and never shall forget."
For many years Mr. Spencer was a member of the First Presbyterian Church and then of the Reformed Church in Utica, and when dying of the disease from which he had patiently suffered much and long he was comforted and sustained by the faith which had made him the friend
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of man by making him a follower of Christ. The life-like and full length portrait of him now in the court- room at Utica, of necessity presents but one aspect of the man, showing him to us as he stood before a jury. The truthful and comprehensive epitaph composed by his son-in-law, the Rev. Duncan Kennedy, D.D., and inscribed upon the granite shaft which rises beside his grave in the cemetery at Utica, tells us more. " Joshua A. Spencer died April 25, 1857, aged 67 years. Majestic in presence, strong in intellect, simple in manners, sincere in faith, active and benevolent in life, fearless and hopeful in death." Of his large family there remain two sons and three daughters, neither of whom live in Utica.
Ward Hunt was the son of Montgomery Hunt, of Utica, and was born here June 14, 1810. His education was pursued chiefly at the Academy in Oxford, Chenango County, where he was a schoolmate of Horatio Seymour, with whom he was afterward associated in his law studies. His collegiate course he began at Hamilton, but changed it afterward to Union in order to profit by the teaching of President Nott, and was graduated in 1828. He attended the law lectures of Judge Gould at Litchfield, Conn., and continued to study with Hiram Denio, whose partner he became. His political career was begun in 1839, when he served one term in the Assembly. In 1844 he was mayor of Utica. In 1848 he cast his energy into the free-soil movement for Van Buren and Adams, risking hope of preferment for the sake of his principles. In 1853 he was nominated by the Democrats for the justiceship of the Supreme Court of this district against William J. Bacon, who was elected. With others he was an architect of the Re- publican party, was a delegate to its conventions, and was often heard as an advocate on the rostrum. So prominent was he that in 1857 he was named as a candidate for United States Senator. He was beaten by Preston King, though the caucus recognized by a resolution the fit- ness and the claims of Mr. Hunt. In the meantime he continued to carry on a large and lucrative practice. If other men excelled him in oratorical display before a jury, our bar has seldom had at its head one more esteemed by his brothers of the profession or more influential with the court. He adorned his calling by his research and his sound sense and by an integrity that all men honored. In 1865 he became a
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candidate for the Court of Appeals and was elected. Entering on duty in 1866 he was raised by the resignation of John K. Porter and the death of William B. Wright to the headship of the court. After the reconstruction of the Court of Appeals Judge Hunt was still retained as a member until his resignation January 7, 1873, preparatory to his entrance on the duties of judge of the Supreme Court of the United States. To this position he had been nominated by General Grant on the IIth of September previous. Welcomed by his associates on the bench he had now attained the fruition of his desires as a law- yer, though it exacted from him severe labor which he willingly be- stowed, for in study he was patient and zealous. His summers he spent in Utica, his winters in Washington. Failing health prevented him af- ter a time from continuing in active duty upon the bench, though he re- tained nominal connection with the court until 1883, when he resigned. Judge Hunt excelled in judgment and in solidity of acquirements rather than in brilliancy of intellect, nor were these acquirements limited to the law, but extended to the world of letters and affairs. His decisions were simple in diction, forcible in statement, and exhaustive in treat- ment. Both from Union and from Rutgers College he received the honorary degree of LL.D. His death occurred March 24, 1886. Mr. Hunt was twice married, his first wife and the mother of his children was the daughter of Judge John Savage, of Salem and later of Utica; his second, Miss Taylor, of Albany, who still survives. One son was lost in the war of the Rebellion, another son and one daughter are still living.
Alvan Stewart was born in South Granville, Washington County, N. Y., September 1, 1790. In 1795 his father, Uriel Stewart, removed to Chittenden County, Vt. There the son attended district school and at seventeen was qualified to teach. In 1808 he began teaching, de- voting his leisure to the study of anatomy and medicine. In the spring of 1809 he closed his school, determined to acquire a liberal education. He was admitted to the University of Burlington and soon became one of the most thorough and methodical students in the college, shining especially in the languages and in rhetoric and eloquence. Procuring a professorship in a school at Montreal he studied the French language and remained there until June, 1812. He became principal of the
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Academy at Cherry Valley and began studying law. In May, 1813, he returned home and in June went to Plattsburg and entered the office of Palmer & Walworth. Steady adherence to the study of law was in- terrupted by the want of funds and by two journeys he made to the South, during parts of which he was employed as a teacher. They were, however, completed in 1816 in the office of Judge James O. Morse, of Cherry Valley. Being admitted to the bar he became a part- ner of the judge and soon acquired a high reputation for his eloquence and talents and gained a prosperous practice. For sixteen years he devoted himself to it with great pecuniary success. His health becom- ing impaired he went abroad in 1831 and returned improved. Early in 1833 he disposed of his interests in Cherry Valley and removed to Utica where he resumed his practice, but confined himself wholly to business in the courts. In his capacity as counsel his business extended over a large part of Central New York and even into distant counties, meeting in antagonism the ablest lawyers of the State. Luther R. Marsh, son-in-law of Mr. Stewart, thus speaks of him : " He was one of the most formidable adversaries that ever stood before a jury. You could do nothing with him nor make any calculations upon him. It was impossible to tell where the blows would fall, or where the point of attack would be, or what scheme of defense he would adopt. His pe- culiar and overflowing humor, strange conceptions and original man- ner, united with sturdy common sense, seemed to carry the jury irre- irresistibly with him and submerge the sober arguments of his opponent in a sea of laughter." During his active practice at the bar Mr. Stew- art, though he took a deep interest in public affairs, devoted but little time to politics as a mere partisan. He had no ambition for office, but on great national questions he had pronounced convictions and expressed them wherever he felt that his influence would tend to the public good. He was a pronounced protectionist and a series of articles writ- ten by him on the tariff attracted public attention and greatly enhanced his popularity. He was chosen delegate to the National Convention at Harrisburg in September, 1827, where he took a prominent part in its proceedings.
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