USA > New York > Livingston County > The annual address: The judges and lawyers of Livingston County and their relation to the history of western New York > Part 3
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JOHN BALDWIN.
John Baldwin, distinguished throughout the state for his wit and humor. as well as legal ability, began his practice at Moscow, Livingston county, in the year 1823. He was an accomplished lawyer, but his accomplishments were often lost in the buffoon. And yet, if his wit sometimes descended to coarseness, if it was at times a tarnished weapon, the public excused him for his coarseness-even bis
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Livingston County Historical Society.
vulgarity was like the offal and rubbish that sometimes surround the classic col- umn, which rises above all in grandeur and beauty. His eccentricities increased with the lapse of time, until his fine mind, like a tangled chain, with polished links, glittered in brilliant confusion. With all his faults, Mr. Baldwin's wit and humor was marked with so much good nature, that it was always admirable. He fully exemplified the description of wit and humor given by an elegant writer : " Wit laughs at things; humor laughs with them; wit lashes external appearances or cunningly exaggerates single foibles; humor glides into the heart of its object, looks lovingly on the infirmities it detects, and it represents the whole man ; wit. Is abrupt, darting, scornful, and tosses Its analogies into your face ; humor is more slow and sly, insinuating its fun into the heart." There were occasions when Baldwin's wit and humor would keep the court room in a roar of laughter, which the judges themselves could not refrain from joining. He could as-ume a solemn. Impressive manner, when the spectators were convulsed with laughter at some sally of his wit, but such laughter seemed to intensity the gravity of bis counte- nance; he would, perhaps, at such times, be the only one in the court, room who wore a serious face. Judge Robert Monell, whose long and distinguished judicial career has given him a memorable place in legal history, once said, " Baldwin, in the trial of a certain class of cases, will provoke more laughter than the best come- dian I ever saw on the stage. He is both a genteel and low legal comedian; a Chesterfield and a boor. He can be eloquent, logical and convincing, and then he can carry his point by wit, sarcasm, and, if need be, by swaggering abuse. He carries all kinds of intellectual weapons, from a cudgel to the finest and most pol- ished rapier, the Damascus bladed poniard, and the scimeter of Saladin." Bald- win's attendance upon a circuit court was always regarded as an event of great interest to' all classes. The anecdotes related of him are almost endless, and will never be forgotten. He was several years a resident of Dansville. In the year 1835 he removed to Hornellsville and became a partner of the late Judge Hawley. For some reason he never liked Hornellsville, never ceased, if occasion required, to give it a sarcastic hit. It is related of him that on one occasion he was at break - fast at a hotel In Elmira, where he was attending court. A lawyer at the table said, "Mr. Baldwin, how are matters at Hornellsville, now?" "Oh, about as usual, some improvement, I guess," was the reply. "I learn," said the gentleman, " that the village is improving in every respect, is it so?" " Oh, yes, it is improv- ing very rapidly, very, very ; it has improved so much that it has got to be almost as good as hell, which is only sixteen feet below it." Baldwin's singular and amusing escape from arrest for contempt upon an Aliegany justice of the peace, before whom he was trying a cause, exhibits one phase of his character. The jus- tice had decided to commit him to jail at Angelica, and proceeded to draw the mittimus or warrant. The offending lawyer watched him with the most intense interest, until the dreaded instrument was completed, when he suddenly seized a large inkstand standing on the table, full of ink. and turned it on the paper, oblit- erating every letter upon it. "There," said Baldwin, " give that to the Constable and see if he'll know what to do with It." It was nearly night, and Baldwin, mounting his horse, rode away. But the animal was slow, somewhat lame, and the county line was ten miles distant. The lawyer made the best speed he could to reach this goal of safety. But when he was within a mile of it he heard the Constable with the mittimus, riding rapidly toward him. Escape was now im- possible, and visions of dungeons and grated doors turning on their rusty hinges floated before him. He was not the man, however, to yield easily to his fate. He came to a sudden halt, wheeled his horse and faced his pursuer. The moon was shining brightly, and both men had a fair view of each other. " What do you want, sir ?" roared Baldwin as the officer was nearing him. "You must go to jall. Mr. Baldwin, I have the papers to take you there," said the officer. "Never! keep off, you villain, touch me and you die !" thundered Baldwin; then thrust- ing his hand into his pocket he suddenly drew one of those long, bright brass-cased inkstands used in that day. The moonbeams fell upon it, giving it the appearance of a very deadly looking pistol. As he drew it from his pocket, he gave it a quick jerk, causing it to click like the cocking of a pistol. At the sight of this the officer hatted. "Stand off, I tell you, or I'll blow a hole through you in a second." " Oh, Mr. Baldwin, don't pint your pistol this way, don't, your hand trembles and it "Go off? of course it will go may go off and kill me," cried the officer in terror.
off. It was made to go off and kill such scoundrels as you are, following honest men with your Allegany county warrants, that are not worth the paper they are written on. Leave me, I say, or by the heavens above us, you'll be a corpse in a minute," sald Baldwin. This was enough. The next instant the officer was gal- loping homeward as fast as his horse could carry him, at first expecting to hear a bullet from Baldwin's pistol whizzing after him. Baldwin rode safely home, thinking as he used to say, "that inkstands were my especial protectors that night." Mr. Baldwin died at Almond, N. Y., in 1843, at an advanced age. When John Baldwin was in the zenith of his career, the star of two other distinguished lawyers appeared in the legal horizon, and began their ascendent course. One of them was a member of our bar, the other often appeared there. One of them was Martin Grover, theother Luther C. Peck.
MARTIN GROVER.
The name of the former never appeared on the roll of our bar, though he was frequently a contestant there. Mr. Peck began his practice at the Allegany bar a short time before Grover became a member of it. No two men ever differed more widely than these really great lawyers. They appeared at the bar as rlval gladia- tors. They opposed each other in the political arena, one as the leader of the whig party, the other was considered a dictator in the democratic party. Their opposi- tion in both places was intensified by a hatred that knew no bounds. Both attain-
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Annual Address by L. B. Proctor.
ed the highest political and legal honors, both were distinguished in the national legislature. Grover won high honors as a judicial officer on the bench of the Su- preme Court and the Court of Appeats, Many of my audience have. doubtless. seen that striking picture " Fashion and Famine," where the keen exemplifica- tion of contrasts is so vividly given. But this picture is scarcely less startling than the contrast between Martin Grover's attire and his almost majestic intellect. The one was admirable, the other-what shall I say of it ?- it was nearly allied to squalor. And yet as I have said on another occasion, he was intellect in its am- plitude, eloquence almost in its perfection, talents in their affluence, mind in its triumphs. He was one of the most formidable opponents that ever stood at the bar. You could do nothing with bim,-make no calculations for him,-could never tell in what manner or where his blows would fa!i, or where his point of attack would be. As a Judge his character rested " on a granite base." An inflex . ible independence kept. guard over his intellect. He had strong partizan feeling, and bitter political prejudices. But, in the discharge of his judicial duties, party, politics and friends, were alike forgotten. His integrity was never called in ques- tion in his public or private relations. And yet, his career as a trial or nisi prius Judge was frequently criticised by counsel, who, to use his own language, when they got beat, " would either appeal, or go down to the hotel and swear at the Court." In his early years, Judge Grover was careless in his dress, as we have already stated, but after his election to Congress, and his elevation to the bench he dressed with scrupulous care and taste.
LUTHER C. PECK.
Luther C. Peck to whom I have already referred, like Martin Grover was the artificer of his own fortune and fame. The world upon which he first opened his eyes was stern and bleak to him, and no where in all his journey through it did any green and beautiful thing gladden his sight which his own hands did not plant, his own industry water, and his energy sustain. The flowers that bloomed in his pathway, and there were many, were no exotics, they were natives of his own soil, beautiful in the sanctities of his own domestic home. "Hegained success from the very jaws of adversity, and he was fitted for the work of his life just as the right arm of the artizan grows strong through the very blows it strikes." Mr. Peck pos- sessed many scholarly attainments. In his early years he was a student at the Wyoming academy, obtaining means to defray his expenses by teaching and during his whole life he submitted to the most laborious private study. In his youth, with but littie to make life genial, he drew genius from its citadels in books and libraries, and made it his playmate and companion. In this way he acquired a keen appreciation of literary beauty and finish, a command of language, the mas- ter of style so terse and vigorous that, like Swift, " he could put upon our English tongue its keenest edge." "The principles of things," says Dr. South, "lie in a very small compass if the mind can be so fortunate as to once light upon them." It was the felicity of Mr. Peck's mind that he lighted with such ease upon the principle of things, that he applied them so readily and that he conveyed them so forcibly to the minds of others. In person Mr. Peck was tall and commanding. He dressed with a taste that exhibited the true gentleman. There was a severity in his man- ner that repelled strangers and gave terrible force to his irony and invective. Among his faults was his uncompromising prejudice and the bitterness with which he exercised it. But it was relieved by an honesty almost crystalline in its nature and practice. He was no politician. He hated politicai thimble riggers, as he called the managers of caucuses and conventions, with an unmitigated hatred, and he had reason for his hatred. In the fall of 1855, at a judicial convention held at Can- andaigua, he was fairly nominated as a candidate for a Judge of the Supreme Court, but through some adroit movement of Benjamin F. Harwood, as he alleged, he was manipulated out of the nomination, and a nomination was then equivalent to an election. Mr. Peck represented the Thirtieth Congressional district, consisting of Allegany and Livingston counties, in the 25th and 26th Congress, with marked ability. His Congressional career extended from 1837 to 1841. This was the only official position he ever held. As a lawyer Mr. Peck was always at his post, always prepared. As a speaker at the bar he was animated, argumentative, often impres- sive. Force and strength were striking attributes in his character. Heknew noth- ing of the legal skirmish, nothing of the plans and plots by which one lawyer often entraps another. He moved right on in his course with resistless force. Irony, bit- ter and galling, was always ready at his command, and his sarcasm rendered him a dreaded opponent. He sometimes assumed the duties of a public prosecutor in great criminal cases. In this sphere he was often terrible; so terribile that on one occasion, the trial of Ewalt, one of the jury afterwards remarked: "If I am ever tried for a crime I should dread Luther C. Peck's denunciations, if he should be against me, more than a conviclion." His self-confidence, admirable enough when he was right, was no less unmistakable and glittering when he was wrong.
ORLANDO HASTINGS.
This distinguished lawyer, pure citizen and Christian gentlemen was for over thirty years regarded as the Nestor of the bar. His assured position and high standing during that time was woven into the very framework of the legal organ- ization of Monroe and Livingston counties. He gained this in the face of sharp rivalries, by hard mental labor and by superior talent. The secret of his success lay in his clear intellecctual perception of truth, aided, guided perhaps I should say, by an equally clear moral perception of truth. It resided in a great measure in the facility with which he could apply principles to facts as they presented them - selves. It resided in his power of conveying to the minds of others the precise idea that lay in his own mind. If eloquence is the power of transmitting our own
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Livingston County Historical Society.
thoughts to others, if It is the power to bring conviction in the minds of others, then Orlando Hastings was indeed an eloquent man, There was nothing ornate In his arguments. There was a certain lack of style in them, which was more vig- orous than style. They partook of the character of their author, characterized by modesty and simplicity, and presided over by an unconquerable honesty. He was born in Oneida county in 1793, in that decade In which Lord Mansfield died. One- third of his career ran parallel with that of Chief Justice Marshall; fully one-half of it with that of the illustrious Kent, the whole of it with that of Chief Justice Oakley. In the long period of time he was at the bar, numerous great jurists passed over the law desk, while many superior luminaries did not culminate until merid- lan age had matured his powers, which were radiating the light of his learning upon our system of jurisprudence. In 1821, when Livingston county was formed, he was a resident of Geneseo. In January. 1824, he succeeded George Hosmer as District Attorney of this County. He served until May following, when, becoming disgusted with criminal law practice, he resigned, and Mr. Hosmer was reappoint- ed. He subsequently removed to Rochester, and took a commanding position at the Monroe bar-a bar that stands unequaled in the history of the State for its dis- tinguished advocates and jurists. As has well been said by another, "the Monroe bar has been the nursery of judicial talent and learning."
CALVIN H. BRYAN.
Calvin H. Bryan was a lawyer whose life and career adorned our bar. For a truth it may be said there cannot be found upon it one unseemly actlon or trans- action, though it embraces a period of many years. He made no pretension to brilliant talents, to any oratorical powers; but he was a faithful, safe counsellor, and a firm champion of of the counsel he gave. and he was held in high esteem by the people of Livingston county. Mr. Bryan was one of those whose life reminds us of the saying of an elegant ethical writer, that the real post of honor is in private life, that official glamour obscures the man, but the duties and trials of private, every-day life presents him in his true character. Bryan never aspired to official position. If he occupied places of honor and trust, as he often did. the office sought him, not he the office. He was a native of Dutchess county, N. Y., where he was born in 1787. He studied law in the office of Knickerbacker & Davis of Hoosick, N. Y. His call to the bar took place in 1815. An elegant classical education gave strength to his mind and vitality to his legal learning. He commenced his prac- tice with Judge William G. Angel in the county of Otsego. In the spring of 1822 he married Miss Nancy Angel, a sister of Hon. B. F. Angel. He removed to Geneseo soon after his marriage, where he continued to reside the remainder of his li.e. In the autumn of 1827 Mr. Bryan was elected Member of Assembly from Livingston county. He entered upon the duties of his office January Ist, 1878. The celebrated Erastus Root, one of the most accomplished presiding officers that ever governed a parliamentary body, whose career exhibits the most beautiful and striking display of genius, and the most melancholy example of dissipation, was speaker of the House. The Legislature of 1828 was made memorable by the sudden death of the Illustrious Clinton, then Governor of the State. This melancholy event took place February 11th of that year. Between Mr. Bryan and DeWitt Clinton a long and Intimate acquaintance existed. Mr. Bryan died at Geneseo in 1873. A life of un- pretending usefulness, of a faithful discharge of the various duties, public and pri- vate, embalms his memory. It is Indeed a pleasing duty to commit the recollec- tions of such a man to the keeping of our society.
SAMUEL H. FITZHUGH.
Samuel H. Fitzhugh is another name without which much would be wanting in the history of Livingston County. His career at our bar and on our bench isfull of interest. He was a scholar of fine attainments; a lawyer deeply and thoroughly read in the learning of his profession. His manly nature, his generous, high toned impulses, anu chivalrous sense of honor rendered him what he really was-a gen- tleman by intuition and association. There were, however, dissimilar features in his character; an abruptness of manner that, to strangers, amounted to rough- ness; and there were extremes in his disposition which were sometimes difficult to reconcile. With him hypocrisy, smooth lipped deception, hon- eyed teaching and fawning deceit, all kinds of dishonesty were loathsome. Finally, at the bar, on the bench and in private life he was one of those men who, like Mark Antony, spoke "right on." He was born in Washington County, Maryland, in 1796. He graduated at Jefferson college, Pennsylvania. In 1817 he removed to Canandaigua, where he prepared for the bar in the office of N. W. Howell, whom I have already mentioned. Fitzhugh's generosity was prover- biał. It was unstudied and disinterested. But it frequently exhibited itself in a questionable, even in a ludicrous manner. The following illustrates the opposite phases which his generosity assumed. He once owned a valuable timber lot ad- joining which was another owned by Judge Carroll. One day Fitzhugh received notice that a man had been cutting timber from his lot, that he had destroyed some of his most valuable trees. Now stealing timber in those days from Judge Carroll was almost a matter of course. Fitzhugh, however, was highly indignant at the larceny committed on his timber, and he immediately caused the arrest of the offender, who in due time was brought to his office. "You scoundrel !" said he, stroking back his long black hair and fixing his piercing black eyes upou the man, " how dare you steal my timber? I'll send you where you won't see a tree again for a year!" "I-1-did-didn't mean to cut your timber Judge, I didn't surely." "Didn't mean to cut my timber! " roared the Judge, "what the devil did you mean to do? You have cut two hundred dollars worth, you rascal!" "I-I-thought-I thought-" "Well, sir, what did you think, you villain ?" said Fitzhugh, growing
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Annual Address by L. B. Proctor.
more and more wrathy. "I-I thought It was Judge Carroll's timber I was cutting," sald the man bursting into tears, and trembling with terror. Fitzhugh walked the office floor a few moments without uttering a word. Finally he halted In front of the prisoner and taking a ten dollar bill from his pocket handed it to him saying, "Here, take that, damn you, and the next time you cut timber that don't belong to you, see that you get on the right lot." He then ordered the man to be discharged, paying the costs of the proceedings himself. Judge Fitzhugh in 1820 married a Miss Addison, a daughter of Judge Addison, of Wheeling, Virginia. He practiced his profession at. Wheeling until he removed to Mt. Morris, New York, In 1831. In the year 1840 he was appointed an Associate Judge of the Court of Common Pleas of Livingston County. At this time Willard H. Smith of Caledonia was first judge. James Faulkner ot l'ansville, and Daniel H. Bissell, now the honored President of this society, constituted the judiciary of our county. Judges Smith and Fitzhugh long ago left the scenes of earth, but Judge Faulkner and Judge Bissell are still in our midst honored representatives of the Common Pleas of Livingston County.
GEORGE HASTINGS.
It would be difficult to select from the honored dead of our bench and bar a name more thoroughly associated with problty candor, unassuming dignity. and useful learning, divorced from all pedantry, all affectation, than that of this truly exemplary, upright judge and able lawyer. He possessed a strong native intellect, cultivated by an excellent education, enlivened and enriched by a thorough, pa- tient research. His legaleducation was founded on a practical familiarity with the great rudimentary legal commentators, therefore law to him was, in Its strictest sense, a science as well as a rule of action. His mind and method were logical and accurate, rather than brilliant-profound rather than ready. All his acquirements, legal and classical, were poised on strong common sense and moved by an uncor- ruptible honesty. At the outset of his life he chose for his employment the pur- suit of the arduous and toilsome practice of law. From the beginning of his career the dictates of conscience, of honor, and of duty, as a man, as a Christian, as a member of the legal profession and of society, were his guiding principles. Mitd- ness and urbanity were also prominent features in his character ; those who knew him will never forget these traits. It they were pleasing in the lawyer and citizen. may we not say they were beautiful in the judge. Judge Hastings was not an elo- quent man. He always had his mind so practically bent upon the analysis and management of his cases, and so regardful of his client's interest that he never at- tempted anything like eloquence for the purpose of displaying himself in the court, room. Besides this his voice was not toned to the fine music of oratory. He was, however, the advocate, faithful. indefatigable, who with untiring energy exhausted every, honorable means of galning his cause. If Judge Hastings was not eloquent, he could make a strong, even a powerful legal argument, and his briefs were mod- els of learning. I have spoken of Judge Hastings's candor. In proof of what I have said permit me to quote the language of Luther C. Peck, long his compeer at the bar: "The character of George Hastings," said he, "for candor and honesty isworth more to bim than all the talents of the Livingston bar put together. There Is noth- ing more to be dreaded in the trial of a cause than that honest face of his. No mat- ter what he says, the jury take it for law and gospel, and one might as well fight the ten commandments with Tom Paine's Age of Reason ; or the Bible with the Koran, as George Hastings with that, truth telling face of his. I have seen John B. Skinner keep a jury in tears through his whole powerful address when every one in the court were ready to swear that he would carry his case by sympathy, which no man could aronse like him; and then I have seen Hastings put that biblical look on his face and reply to his eloquent opponent in language so unassuming, uttered so conscientiously, that before he closed his argument every juror in the box believed that Skinner had lied from beginning to end, (and I think Skinner believed it himself), and that he had only been boring for water." The same moral qualities, the same mental acquirements that adorned his character as a lawyer, deepened respect for him as a judge. He was born at Clinton, Oneida county, March 20th, 1807. At the age of nineteen he was a graduate at Hamilton college. In the year 1829 he was called to the bar where he commenced his practice and where the sun of his life went down. He represented his district, the 28th, consisting of Liv- ingston and Steuben, in the 36th Congress. He was always firmly attached to the Democratic party, always firmly but mildly advocated Its principles, and notwith- standing at the time of his nomination for Congress the Whig party were strongly dominant, he was elected by a handsome majority, though his opponent was Hon. Willlam Irvine, then one of the most brilliant lawyers at the Steuben bar, and now the leader of the bar in the state of California. It is due Mr. Irvine to say that at the next Congressional election he was triumphantly elected, his opponent being Hon. R. B. Van Valkenburgh, now a Judge of the Supreme Court of Florida. In the autumn of 1855 Judge Hastings was elected County Judge of Livingston County. His opponent was Hon. Scott Lord, who had, by his learning and suavity, and ju- dicial accomplishments adorned the bench for six years. The political contest that resulted in the defeat of Judge Lord was closely contested and memorable. So strongly was Judge Lord intrenched In the hearts of the people, that Hastings, with all his elements of strength, was elected by a majority of less than one hun- dred. A few years ago Judge Lord removed from Geneseo to Utica, where he im- mediately took a leading position as a lawer. So rapidly did he advance in popu- Jarity that within three years after leaving Geneseo he was elected to Congress, where he greatly distinguished himself as a parliamentary debater and tactician. After he retired from Congress he removed to the city of New York where bls legal ability is recognized to an extent that places him among the leading lawyers of the metropolis. But to return lo Judge Hastings. He continued on the bench from t855 to 1863, when he was succeeded by Hon. Solomon Hubbard. After retiring from
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