USA > New York > Erie County > Buffalo > Memorial of the city and county hall opening ceremonies, Buffalo, N.Y. > Part 6
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A marked change in the constitution of this bar and in the char- acter of the business began in 1835, and here my way, on this occa- sion ends. Here began the accession to its numbers whose achieve- ments form
A NEW ERA.
H. K. Smith, Haven, Hall, E. Cook, E. Norton, Stow, Sill, Masten, B. H. Austin, Seymour, Stanley, H. S. Love, Ganson and Verplanck among the dead, and Clinton, Rogers, VanBuren, W. H. Greene, J. M. Smith, Nichols, Putnam, Spaulding and S. C. Hawley among the living, comprise a list whose various talents and acquire- ments would do honor to any bar in the land. I leave this formid- able company of new-comers to other and more competent hands than mine.
To bring this paper at all within reasonable limits, and because other pens have paid them tribute, I omit notices of Root, Tracy, Fillmore, Barker, Sherwood, Shumway and Slade. They are all so well known to the bar, and such justice has been rendered their memories by others, that this cmission will not, I trust, be deemed a defect in this paper. I have discharged the duty imposed upon me as well as the time allowed me, and the data at my command would permit, and I cast myself upon your indulgence in the hope that other hands will supplement my deficiencies, and glean a rich harvest from the unreaped fields that remain.
REMARKS OF JUDGE CLINTON.
When Mr. Babcock had finished his address, he called upon Judge Clinton to make some remarks. As the Judge rose, he was greeted with hearty applause. He spoke extempore, and said: That he very reluctantly declared that he was not going to make a speech upon this occasion, as the previous speakers had stolen all his thun- der. They had not only reaped the harvest, but actually gleaned the field. His feelings were of so deep and varied a nature, that he did not know in what order to place them, or how to express him- self. He was glad, and yet he was sorry; full of joy, and yet mournful. We stand between tears and merriment. As for this Court-house building, it belongs to the dark ages. It never looked so bare as now, and never was it better graced. It has long been a reproach to the city and county, and its appearance was that of un- mitigated ugliness. But when he thought of the memories con- nected with the old building, his heart was stirred, and he was ready to say, " Burn it to the ground, but don't allow it to be dese- crated, and put to common or vulgar uses !"
What contests of wit had enlivened this old building, and where were the men who participated in them ? Their sayings, if the . speaker should undertake to repeat them, would be as dull and vapid as some things he had seen in magazines, called " Congres- sional Humor," or something of that sort. The old building had
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served its day; it was worn out, and effete, and even like the speak- er's old hat, which he held in his hand. [Laughter.] And when the time came for him to part with his ancient friend, the old hat, he should do so joyously. Yet the memory of what it was to him would dwell in his heart. So with this building. How many sacred memories were connected with it, which could never be effaced. Here George P. Barker, and the beloved Ganson first felt the grasp of death. Here the speaker's brethren had often assembled to pay feeling tributes to those who had gone before. The memo- ries of those occasions would always be sacred.
In concluding, Judge Clinton said that he believed from his heart of hearts that the Bar of Erie county had never stood higher than now. For the good of the profession, which yielded only in im- portance to the clerical profession, he would ask, whether it would not be well to draw closer the ties which bound the Bar together socially? He believed it would be well to form an Association of members of the Bar.
Hon. James M. Smith, one of the Judges of the Superior Court, delivered the concluding address of the day, and spoke as follows:
ADDRESS OF JUDGE SMITH.
Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Bar: Your committee has done me the honor to request that I should address you on this. interesting occasion, and as I rise to comply with their request, the thronging memories of almost forty years-of all the years of my manhood-crowd my mind with the most varied emotions. As I recall the forms and faces, once so familiar to this place, of the men. who elevated the Bar of this city to an equal rank with the ablest. of the State, and who here illustrated by their genius, their learn- ing, their eloquence, the highest walks of our profession, and achieved its best rewards, I feel a thrill of pride and pleasure in the recollec- tion of my association with them, that I witnessed their labors and their triumphs, that I rejoiced in the honors which they won, and that I am permitted here to-day to recall their names and to unroll the record which they made. I am indeed sadly reminded that as: to almost all of them it must be said the places which have known them know them no more, but their names and memory are cher- ished by us who survive, and those who succeed us at the Bar and upon the bench, will long remember their achievements and emulate. their fame.
" The dead are like the stars by day, Withdrawn from mortal eye ; But not extinct, they hold their way, In glory through the sky."
I first entered these memorable walls early in the winter of 1838. This city had then a population of about seventeen thousand, and,
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though laboring under the terrible reverses in business which fol- lowed the financial crash of 1837, yet its people were full of elastic life and vigorous enterprise ; and none more truly so than the mem- bers of our profession. The very extensive modifications and changes of the law and its modes of practice which were made by the Revised Statutes, had just become fully understood, adapted to use, and brought into full working order. It may not be without interest to glance at the judicial system of that day, and consider briefly some of its peculiar features, so different from those with which we are familiar now.
THE HIGHEST COURT OF THE STATE
was the Court for the Correction of Errors, composed of the Lieu- tenant-Governor (or the President of the Senate) who was its pre- siding judge, the Chancellor, the Justices of the Supreme Court, and the members of the Senate, thirty-two in number. Its jurisdic- tion was to review the decrees of the Chancellor and the judgments of the Supreme Court. The terms of this court were usually held in the city of New York or Albany, but in the summer of 1846, a session of the court was held in this room, which was specially fitted up for the purpose. Notwithstanding the peculiar character of the court, the large number composing it, and that many of them were not lawyers, its judgments uniformly commanded the respect and confidence of the Bar and the people.
As the Senate always contained some of the most distinguished lawyers of the State, the voice of the professional members of the court had a controlling influence, and there are no more learned, well reasoned and elegantly written opinions upon the pages of our reports than some of those pronounced in that court. Among the most distinguished and most frequently quoted are those written by
THE LATE ALBERT H. TRACY,
when a member of this Bar and a Senator from this district.
The Supreme Court was composed of three justices, held four General Terms each year-two at Albany, one in New York and one in Utica-besides eight Special Terms each year at Albany. Its clerks were four, having their offices respectively at Albany, New York, Utica and Geneva, to one of which all process, pleadings and other papers in that court, requiring to be filed must be sent for that purpose, and where all judgments were docketed, and thus be- came a lien throughout the State. The State was divided into eight Judicial Districts, with a judge in each to hold Circuit Courts and Courts of Oyer and Terminer. The counties of Erie, Niagara, Or- leans, Monroe, Genesee and Chautauqua composed the eighth district, and in each county two Circuit Courts and Courts of Oyer and Ter- miner were holden each year. Addison Gardiner, who had been Cir- cuit Judge for this district for several years, having resigned in Jan- uary, 1838, John B. Skinner, an able and accomplished lawyer, a
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pure-minded and truly good man, whose name should ever be men- tioned with reverence and honor, and who was then a citizen of Genesee county, but afterward and for several years a resident and member of the Bar of this city, was appointed to succeed Judge Gardiner. But he declined the appointment by reason of impaired health, and Nathan Dayton was appointed, and honorably discharged the duties of the office until the constitution of 1846 went into opera- tion. The Court of Chancery was composed of Chancellor and Vice- Chancellor for the First Judicial District, and except in that district, each of the Circuit Judges was, ex-officio, Vice-Chancellor for his Judicial District.
In each county was a Court of Common Pleas, and a Court of General Sessions of the Peace, consisting of a first judge and four associate judges. It needs but little reflection to perceive how far the State has outgrown such a judicial system, and how wholly in- ยท adequate it would be to the exigencies of the present day.
At the time I have referred to, when I became a member of this bar, James Stryker was the first judge of this county, and Frederick P. Stevens, Jonathan Hoyt, Joseph Freeman and Isaac Humphrey were associate judges. Samuel Caldwell was surrogate, Henry W. Rogers, district attorney, Elijah Ford, Horatio Seymour, Jr., Peter M. Vosburgh and Charles H. Bramhall, Masters in Chancery, Dyre Tillinghast, Supreme Court Commissioner. There were then in active practice here, as leading members of the bar, and whose learned and eloquent efforts these venerable walls have so often wit- nessed, Millard Filmore, Heman B. Potter, Stephen G. Austin, Geo. P. Barker, Henry K. Smith, Nathan K. Hall, Horatio J. Stow, Thos. T. Sherwood, Solomon G. Haven, Benj. H. Austin, Horatio Shumway, Seth E. Sill, Eli Cook, Joseph G. Masten, and Dyre Tillinghast, aud in later years as the veterans retired from the field, or yielded to the arch enemy Death, their places were filled by such men as James Mullett, Benjamin F. Greene, Chauncey Tucker, Albert Sawin, James G. Hoyt, Isaac A. Verplanck and John Ganson. I can but recount the names upon this illustrious roll.
I cannot here speak of the individual characteristics of these men or their varied gifts and acquirements, or of the steps by which they took high rank in our profession and in the community of which they were members. These are a part of
THE HISTORY OF THIS BAR
and of this city. They elevated and made more widely and better known the character of both. Many of them were called by their fellow-citizens to fill the places of honor and trust, upon the bench in the halls of legislation, and in various departments of the gov- ernment. And they carried with them into public life the same marked integrity, energy and industry, as well as the same varied learning, and the same wide range of intellectual gifts which had distinguished them in their professional life. Thus they not only reflected credit upon this bar, and upon the city of their residence,
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but the fame of some of them has gone forth over all the land, and the nation has risen up to do them honor. But this was the special scene of their professional achievements. They, and their predecessors, the fathers of the bar, of whom honored mention has been made to-day by those who preceded me, have made this build- ing historical, and in spite of its defective architecture and primi- tive accessories, it has become in our eyes a venerable pile, and this room like holy ground.
I have purposely refrained from the mention of any whose names have not been made sacred by death. I speak not of the living, for I speak to the living. You, Mr. Chairman, and a scanty band of your compeers, alone remain of the eminent men who distinguished this bar when it was first known to me, and who in later days have added luster to its history. Your brethren of to-day, sir, recognize in you
THE LAWYERS OF THE OLD REGIME,
trained in the hardier schools of the past-worthy exemplars of an honored profession. Fortunate as you have been in the associations of the past, and as you are in the rewards of the present, I know that I express the heartfelt wish of your younger brethren, that the years of you who yet survive may be prolonged beyond the common lot, and that as the shadows lengthen with life's declining day, you may repose from care and labor in the consciousness of a well-spent life, and with the blessed assurance that when the night falls, the coming dawn shall break with the splendors of an eternal morn.
At the conclusion of Judge Smith's address, on motion of H. S. Cutting, the meeting adjourned until ten o'clock Monday A. M., the thirteenth inst., for the purpose of taking final leave of the old Court House, and proceeding in a body to the new City and County Hall.
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ADIEU TO THE OLD COURT HOUSE ..
OPENING OF THE CITY AND COUNTY HALL.
ON Monday morning, March 13, 1876, the City and County Hall was thrown open to the public. Most of the officers had taken pos- session on Saturday previous, and were ready to transact business in their new quarters. There were no formal ceremonies in con- nection with this branch of the opening of the building.
The Special Term of the Superior Court was opened by Judge G. W. Clinton, and the Civil Trial Term of the same court was held by Judge James Sheldon. The County Court, Judge Albert Haight presiding, also convened. But little business was transacted in cither court, and they soon adjourned to participate in the
FURTHER ACTION OF THE BAR.
In accordance with the further plans of the Committee of Arrange- ments, a very large number of the members of the legal profession assembled at the Old Court House, pursuant to adjournment, at ten o'clock A. M., Monday, March 13, 1876. The meeting was called to order by Hon George R. Babcock, upon whose motion Gen. Gusta- vus A. Scroggs was chosen Grand Marshal to conduct the fraternity to the City and County Hall. A procession was then formed, headed by Judges Sheldon, Smith and Haight, followed by the members of the Bar admitted previous to the year 1840, and then the balance of the fraternity in order of seniority. In this manner the procession marched to the new City and County Hall, where the Bar were received by Building Commissioners Becker, Wardwell, Laning, Bowen, Hayward, Potter, Youngs and Adams, who escorted them to the Civil Trial Term room of the Superior Court, at the north end of the third floor.
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A few minutes after eleven o'clock the meeting was called to order by Hon. Mr. Babcock, who congratulated the members of the Bar that they had come from their old temple of justice to an edifice of which the interior, so far as his observation went, was second to but one in the land; the capitol at Washington was the only build- ing which could compare with it. Mr. Babcock suggested that the proceedings should be opened with an invocation of the Divine blessing, and asked Rev. Dr. Hotchkiss to offer prayer.
Rev. Dr. Hotchkiss offered a prayer appropriate to the occasion.
On motion of Hon. H. S. Cutting, Hon. Sherman S. Rogers was elected Chairman, and Mr. James A. Allen was appointed Secretary.
Upon taking the chair Senator Rogers addressed the meeting, and said :
ADDRESS OF HON. S. S. ROGERS.
Gentlemen of the Bar: It is with but meagre ceremony that the Bench and Bar of Erie county take possession of this goodly temple, and dedicate it to Justice. Here is no imposing pageant ; no unwonted display of the glories or the terrors of Authority. No Lord Mayor in gilded coach has lent to our procession the eclat of municipal sanction. The eye searches in vain for the awful shire- reeve, with his bailiffs burly and his tip-staves tall ; and where are the judges in their robes of office, and the lawyers in wigs and gowns? And yet the Lord High Chancellor is here, in all but robe and title, and my Lord Chief Justice, too; and perhaps among these ungowned gentlemen are more than one whom future genera- tions may deem not unworthy to be named with the great bar- risters who have made the history of the English and American bars illustrious. Certainly there are many as truly self-consecrate to the higher duties and obligations of our profession, to truth, to justice, to that loyal recognition of rightful authority which is the
SUPPORT AND SAFE-GUARD OF THE STATE,
as the titled barristers whose escutcheons adorn the walls of the Inns of Court, or any of those untitled, but not less noble worthies, whose unrecorded fame is still the pride of our own bar.
To-day, gentlemen, inaugurates an era in the history, not merely of our fair city, but in some sort also of our own fraternity. I would fain believe that it will also mark the commencement of a higher and worthier professional life.
Not that I expect a material change in our mental or moral characteristics because henceforth we pursue our labors in these elegant and well-appointed rooms instead of the old ones, one of which was- always contemptible (I speak, of course, of that in the "New Court-house, so called), while the other had, indeed, become
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like Judge Clinton's old hat, useful indeed, though never elegant, and tolerable only because for so many years it had been the home of so much good thought.
No ; the man is not much changed by the doffing of an old coat or the putting on of a new one ; and yet he may be a little more courtly, nay, possibly even more manly in the new than in the old, especially if the coat be supplemented by a good new hat and by nether integuments which are irreproachable both in style and ma- terial. Therefore, let us not underrate the probable good effect of these spacious and richly-furnished apartments.
Who shall dare to dull the edge of his pen-knife on these "Cen- tennial chairs," and who among us, with the broad daylight staring at him through these beautiful windows, will not be put a little more upon his good behavior than when he trod the dusty matting and thumped the rickety rail which separated the jury from the bar, under the benign protection of the dear old shabbiness to which we have just said farewell.
But to speak more seriously. Is it too much to expect from the memories of that solemn but delightful meeting which it was our privilege to attend on Saturday last, some enduring and beneficent results ? Who among us did not feel his soul kindled and elevated as he listened to the eloquent words of the seniors, as they recited the annals of our local bar ? Who was not glad that he, too, was a lawyer ? Who of us would not be happy, to think that in some future year, when the Bar of Buffalo shall be gathered on some auspicious occasion, perhaps with a son or grandson to listen, his own name should be found worthy of special mention among the good and great lawyers who have adorned the grand profession of the law in this city of our pride ?
The present rarely seems heroic, and Poetry ever turns her beau- tiful eyes to the past, or, scorning the dull and prosaic present, strains her eager vision towards the future. The dawn and the sunset are her delight. But patience, brethren of the busy, eager, contending, ambitious bar of to-day ! We shall all be of the past be- fore long-many of us, indeed, of the forgotten past ; but we shall every one contribute something to the character and the reputation of our brotherhood. The mean and ignoble will. be more unworthy because of the unworthiness of any of his associates.
THE GOOD AND THE ILLUSTRIOUS
will shine with a purer and brighter glory by the light reflected from the purity of their less successful, though not less worthy brethren.
I congratulate you, gentlemen of the Bar, upon your presence here to-day, and I will not add a word to what I have said to lend a graver tinge to the pleasant and even joyful thoughts which are appropriate to the occasion. Let us enjoy them to the full. Let us with serious but confident anticipation dedicate this noble struct- ure, as we should be dedicate ourselves, to a pure and impartial jus-
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tice. May all the years of the future witness here the presence of judges, learned, dignified, incorruptible, who fear God alone ; of a Bar, able, eloquent, courageous and upright, who shall administer the duties and exercise the privileges of their high vocation as those who know that they stand in the presence of the Judge of all the Earth, of Him by whom princes rule and magistrates execute judg- ment, and that to Him they must render their final account.
ADDRESS OF HON. A. P. NICHOLS.
Mr. Chairman : This is, surely, an occasion of uncommon inter- est. That cannot be called common which never, or rarely, happens but once in a lifetime.
The taking down of our altars and household gods in the old temple, and removing and setting them up in the new ; this going back for that last, last look, and bidding good-bye to scenes and asso- ciations which have grown dearer and dearer, year by year, since the hour we first buckled on spurs for professional conflict, cannot but be full of sadness, even though the star of hope in the future beams ever so brightly upon the transition to our new home. As the sol- dier looks upon his trusty blade, be it ever so hacked and battered, and, remembering that it never failed him, that its haft never gave way in the supremest crisis ; as he looks at his old friend, tried and true-I say, in the presence of a weapon, may be of comelier shape, and glittering in all the glory of strength and undimmed beauty, how his heart instinctively clings to his first love, and if he at last consents to the exchange, it is with a sigh.
" Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home." Ah, those words, are but the language of the heart. There is not one among us, Mr. Chairman, I care not how scarred and callous his heart may have become in his long strifes at the Bar, whose pulses do not beat stronger and his breath come quicker as he regretfully bids good-bye to the old camp. There he felt that his foot was on his native heath-how will it be on an untried field? There he felt the first flush of triumph ; there he experienced his first defeat ; he can never forget them ! But here we come, Mr. Chairman, to our new home, to this goodly pile, with its superb architectural effects, its spacious apartments, its complete appointments, rich in all that art and taste and generous expenditure can give, which the generosity of our city and county have furnished, as a temple of Justice, and for the convenience of State, County and Municipal administration. It is, indeed, a noble bounty, worthy of the objects for which it is proposed, worthy of the civilization that prompted it.
I trust that we and all who may be called upon to do honorable service here, in any of the varied departments, may not be unmind- ful of the scope and meaning of this new phase of life, or of the obligations which grow out of it. You know, Mr. Chairman, that it was said by a Roman poet, in a time that has become immortal, that they who cross the sea change only their external surroundings, not
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themselves. In coming here, Mr. Chairman, we have changed our forum, but not ourselves. We are no better lawyers, by the simple fact of change; but we may thereby be better, if we prize the opportunity. That depends upon ourselves. We must remember that the Court House is made illustrious by the Bar, not the Bar by the Court House.
As we take possession, then, at this point of a new departure in our professional life, let us, Mr. Chairman, as the noblest recognition of our obligations as a Bar, under which this munificent liberality of our citizens has placed us, and which we so cheerfully acknowl- edge, as the highest honor we can pay to our noble profession, vow and promise to and with each other that we will not be unmindful of our obligations, for this larger theater and opportunity for use- fulness ; that, profiting by them, we will strive to be better lawyers and better men ; that nothing base or unworthy of the true lawyer shall ever through us wound or sully these noble lialls ; that, ever striving to mount higher and higher in the walks of our profession, we will insist, day by day, upon a nobler code of ethics and a higher professional tone, and leave this seat of Justice to our successors, honored, not shamed, by our presence. Beneath this dome, what noble ambitions shall have play ! How shall the eager aspirants wrestle for the mastery! What momentous issues of life and death, of fame and fortune, shall here be discussed !
And what incitements are here for these efforts! No Bar in the State has surpassed this in the past; shall any surpass it in the future ? Think of the line of illustrious names that illuminate it, from its birth to this hour! I will not-I have not the heart-try to enumerate them. We know them, and their names are dear to us all. From its ranks men have been called to spheres of wider influ- ence and usefulness, not only at the Bar and on the Bench, but in civil administration. In the discipline of these Halls, in the high debate and lofty struggles between the Bench and Bar, in our sharp, earnest, but manly, encounters with each other, as in a col- lision of flint and steel, we shall fit and equip others who may be able, worthily to keep up this line of succession in high places.
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