The bench and bar of New-York. Containing biographical sketches of eminent judges, and lawyers of the New-York bar, incidents of the important trials in which they were engaged, and anecdotes connected with their professional, political and judicial career, Part 7

Author: Proctor, L. B. (Lucien Brock), 1830-1900. cn
Publication date: 1870
Publisher: New York, Diossy & company
Number of Pages: 812


USA > New York > The bench and bar of New-York. Containing biographical sketches of eminent judges, and lawyers of the New-York bar, incidents of the important trials in which they were engaged, and anecdotes connected with their professional, political and judicial career > Part 7


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Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59


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mers' gardens and flower plots shall broaden and beautify-and over the farmer's porch the ivy, or woodbine, or honeysuckle shall creep and twine, and fountains shall spout in the farmer's door yard.


"I am not mad, Mr. President, in venturing the prediction that in the perfection of agricultural tillage -in able and artistic management and rotation of crops, in the wealth of orchards and nurseries, and in the number and quality of live stock, 'Old Genesee' -less than a quarter of a century onward, will not be eclipsed by the landscape gardeners of Belgium, or even by the rich and indomitable farmers and cattle breeders of England herself.


"Those will be halcyon days for the true farmers of Genesee-her soil a garden-its tillers noble by nature's own heraldry-her daughters ladies even in their own might and right-and all her sons, industrial or professional, from office and shop and forge-pros- pered and blessed in the bounty and richness of her agricultural products and the success of a farmer's life.


"' In ancient times the sacred plow employed The kings and awful fathers of mankind, And some, with whom compared your insect tribes Are but the beings of a summer day, Have held the scale of empire, ruled the storm Of mighty war, then, with unwearied hand, Disdaining little delicacies, seized The plow, and greatly independent lived.'"


Perhaps the most classical as well as the most suc- cessful of Mr. Bryan's many written literary perform- ances, was the lecture which he pronounced upon Edmund Burke. From the exordium to the close, it fairly sparkled with gems. We quote a few sentences : " The reign of George III. presents some of the most striking features in English history. Stretching through a period of fifty-nine years, it gave to the world a series of public men the most brilliant and extraordinary ; and it closed, leaving the British em-


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.


pire in the full march of grandeur and prosperity. In the midst of the conquests and convulsions which desolated Europe, no invader had polluted her soil, no danger had shaken her institutions. The armies of France, led by the greatest captain of the age, had been vanquished -her colonies captured-her fleets driven from the ocean. The eyes of the intelligent and stubborn old king, darkened alike by the infirm- ities of age and the mists of disease, were closed by the fourth Guelph, in 1820, and his remains borne to the royal vaults at Windsor."


"Industrious to a proverb-frugal to a farthing- irreproachable in private life-versed in the detail of politics beyond any ruler of his day ; devoted to the wants of his people-but unflinching in his adherence to prerogative, he outlived all the greater lights which had revolved about his throne. Prominent among the illustrious men of that period stood Edmund Burke." "I have in my mind the grand form of an American statesman now deceased, whose political opinions I did not fully share, but whose great powers none could more ardently admire, who stands towards this generation like Burke and Bolingbroke towards the last-as a man of full mind whose words were thoughts-and who, with prodigious resources of idea and language, combined like them the marvel and the miracle of speaking and writing well-whose grave and pungent sentences are destined to the reverence of future ages. There are many points of resemblance between the statesman of Marshfield and the states- man of Beaconsfield. It was the friend of their latter days-the orator, the dramatist, and the minstrel Sheridan-who said of Mr. Burke, 'To whom I look up with homage, whose genius is commensurate to his philanthropy, whose memory will stretch itself beyond the bounds of any little temporary shuffling through the whole range of human knowledge and of honorable aspirations after human good, as large as the system which forms life, as lasting as those objects


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which adorn it. A gentleman, whose abilities, hap- pily for the glory of the age in which we live, are not intrusted to the perishable eloquence of the day, but will live to be the admiration of that hour when all of us shall be mute, and most of us forgotten.'"'


His appreciation of the writings and style of the illustrious literary men of our day and genera- tion, may be inferred from the following extracts from the lecture which Mr. Bryan delivered before the Batavia Lyceum, on the fourth of January, 1860.


"In the loss of statesmen and orators following each other in the dread path, in rapid succession, the country has mourned its Calhoun and Clay and Web- ster-a matchless trio-who had become as it were so many powers in the State, self-existent, self-sustaining, and independent of the caprices of political fancy. They expired when their intellects were still in full vigor and their forces still waxing stronger-they all met death with the robes of office about them, and with official duties still undischarged. On the fifth day of September, 1851, at his residence in Cooperstown, near the banks of that beautiful lake and amidst scenery which his pen has so vividly illustrated, yet in the prime of advanced manhood, with faculties unim- paired, and with the strongest assurances of comfort from faith in that religion which he had believed and practiced from infancy - died the great American novelist, James Fennimore Cooper. One of the most brilliant and original of our literary lights was ex- tinguished by the inevitable messenger, and he who had so often depicted with thrilling accuracy the last hours of the soldier and civilian -the flight of the spirit into the unknown world, from camp or wilder- ness, or war-path amid the tiger strife of battle, was himself introduced into its awful precincts.


"He founded two new schools of literature, and made them exclusively his own. He was among the first who enabled us, in reply to the question, who reads an American book, to answer - 'the world.' He has


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illustrated with matchless energy and beauty, all that is sublime and interesting in the scenery of his country. He has exalted the position of that country among reading and thinking classes of every country. On the Rhine, the Volga, the Ganges, at Ispahan, wherever a book stall can be reached, he is the com- panion of prince and of peasant, and the fire of his blazing imagery loses but little force in translation. While others imitated in tame mediocrity the leading writers of the old world, he invented a style and sub- jects of his own. While others copied, he produced originals. While others were content with an ap- proach to the European standard, like a true Amer- ican, he sought to make a higher standard for himself. Where even the name of Washington is scarcely known, the fame of the great American novelist has extended, and in climes where the speeches of our statesmen are never read, the beauties of Cooper are as household words.


"Sir :- His works will bloom in perennial beauty when the colors of the painter shall have faded and the arch of the sculptor be broken. The efforts of true genius are immortal and cannot but by annihi- lating die."


How much thought, how much grandeur of ex- pression, are contained in the above sentences ! What a pure, what an ennobling imagination was his! In a lecture upon Oliver Cromwell, Mr. Bryan dis- played extraordinary descriptive power, as is exhib- ited by the following extract :


" Wherever the English language is spoken or the English common law adopted, the name of Chief Jus- tice Hale is a synonym for whatever is sagacious in legal judgment or unpurchasable in judicial integrity. Milton was the Latin or Foreign Secretary of Crom- well, and the fast friend of his administration. That administration he defended in a series of papers of transcendant ability and elegance. He conducted several of its negotiations, and wrote some of its most


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finished correspondence. Not even in his Paradise Lost does he stand upon a pedestal of higher or more unapproachable excellence than in those voluminous essays in defense of civil and religious liberty and the freedom of the press. His stately pen, that never, never for a moment laid aside its costly lore or its aus- tere majesty, was frequently employed by the Parlia- ment to answer and to silence the attacks of its unre- lenting and accomplished opponents. The best and finest parts of each contending faction seemed to be embodied in his life and opinions. Now, and cen- turies hence, his name will never be mentioned by the scholar or the student without emotions of the most wonderful admiration and the most profound rever- ence. Before his brilliant fancy were unveiled spirits too bright for earth. Angels clad in celestial armor and the sapphire fount; the crystal walls; brooks that rolled on orient pearl ; Hesperian fruit ; flowers worthy of Paradise ; stones of costliest emblem. To his ear intent were wafted the chorus of the cherubim and the sounds of their golden harps."


Mr. Bryan was married on the 24th of February, 1848, to Miss Ruth Beardsley, daughter of Dr. Theo- dore Beardsley, of York, Livingston County. This union was of unalloyed happiness, and their home at Batavia has ever been the seat of refinement and hos- pitality. Mrs. Bryan, who survives her beloved part- ner in life, is a lady whose accomplishments and at- tainments, as illustrated for upwards of twenty years, have won for the educational institution of which she is principal, a reputation second to none in the State. One child only, a daughter of seventeen, survives her father. One brother, Mr. George J. Bryan, now and for many years editorially connected with the daily press of Buffalo, and Mr. Bryan's father, are all that the ravages of time have spared of a family of eight persons.


But this honorable and useful career was soon to close. On the 25th day of October, 1867, at Burling-


1


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ton, Iowa, near a thousand miles away from his home -far away from his devoted and sorrow-stricken wife and beloved daughter-far away from the scene of his labors and triumphs in life's battle-far away, too, from the hills and valleys of old Genesee-despite the untiring and heroic efforts to avert his inevitable fate, which were put forth by those who cared for him, and watched his last moments, William G. Bryan's spirit ascended to the God who gave it.


It appears that Mr. Bryan, then on a visit to Mr. and Mrs. Carper, at Burlington, Iowa, was taking a ride in a buggy with Mrs. Carper, and when in the vicinity of Olmstead's Mills, near that city, they halted for a passing train of cars. On starting up the horse, Mr. Bryan accidently dropped one of the lines, and was in the act of reaching over the dash to recover it, when the animal made a sudden start, throwing Mr. Bryan with great violence across the buggy, striking the back of his neck on the wheel; he still clutching the line, the horse was drawn round, upsetting the vehicle and throwing them both out. Those who wit- nessed the accident state that the first fall was the fatal one, as he was evidently insensible after that. The physicians are of the opinion that the spinal cord was so injured as to paralyze the brain, causing im- mediate insensibility, from which he never recovered.


The feeling of regret inspired by his untimely de- cease was universal. It was not confined to formal notices from courts, nor to eulogies from his profes- sional brethren, who felt that one eminent in their ranks had fallen. The merchant in his counting house, the mechanic in his shop, the laborer leaning over his hod, and the sturdy yeomanry in their quiet homes, heard the announcement with heartfelt sorrow. A committee, exceptionally large in numbers, com- posed of the representative men of Genesee County, proceeded to Buffalo, where they met the remains of their late beloved friend and escorted them to that home at Batavia, which but a few days before he had 6


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left in the full vigor of his noble faculties. Too full for utterance were the hearts of those friends of his boyhood and of his maturer years, as they marched silently and respectfully behind the now inanimate form of one, who when living, was so near and dear to them.


The honors paid to the memory of Mr. Bryan were of the most impressive character. The members of the bar of Genesee County, the citizens of Batavia, without distinction of party, and vestry of St. James' (Episcopal) Church of Batavia, in which Mr. Bryan was an honored associate met in due time, and gave expression in touching and appropriate language to their profound sense of the great and almost irrepara- ble loss, not only to Genesee County, but the State had sustained. Many daily and weekly papers in west- ern New York contained glowing and heartfelt eulo- gies of deceased. The Batavia Spirit of the Times came out with all the inside columns draped in mourning, a tribute, so far as our knowledge extends, never before paid to a private citizen.


The funeral of Mr. Bryan took place on Thursday, October 31, 1867. The services were held at St. James' (Episcopal) Church, and a very large con- course of the inhabitants of Batavia and vicinity, as well as from the neighboring cities and villages, assem- bled to pay the last tribute of respect to the honored dead. The merchants closed their stores, and business generally was suspended in town. The services were conducted by the Rev. M. Fowler, the Pastor of the Church, and were listened to with the most profound attention. The remains were then conveyed to the cemetery ; being followed to their final resting place by a long line of mourning friends. Never was more heartfelt sorrow more unaffectedly and impressively demonstrated.


Such accumulated testimonials of respect encour- age us. They assure us that the popular heart is sound to the core. They convince us that true worth


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and character and real ability are appreciated, even in days when there is so much counterfeit, so much pre- tension, so much of the unreal. We cannot but deeply deplore the loss of one who led so blameless a life, and accomplished so much in comparatively a short time. What a brilliant future was in store for him ! Verily, there is a "Divinity that shapes our ends, rough hew them as we will." In his almost tragically sudden demise, we are again impressed with the truth and sublimity of that ever memorable utterance of one of Britain's noblest orators (and one which Mr. Bryan. dearly loved to quote), "What shadows we are, and what shadows we pursue !"


JAMES MULLETT.


Birthplace .- Poverty of his Parents. - Apprenticed to a Carpenter and Wheelwright. -Anecdote .- Frames a Bulding on a New Theory .- Success .- Scene at the Rais- ing .- Becomes a Clerk in a Store .- Anecdote .- Tries a Lawsuit .- His Success .- Commences the Study of Law .- Judge Houghton .- Admission to the Bar .- His Professional Career .- Eminent for his Eloquence .- Politics .- Elected to the Assembly .- Distinguished in that Body .- Appointed District-Attorney .- De- . clines a Re-appointment .- Great Defense of Damon .- Defense of the Indian Woman .- Touching Incident .- Other Trials .- The Chautauque Bar .- His Per- sonal Appearance .- Removes to Buffalo-Professional Success .- Elected a Jus- tice of the Supreme Court .- Death .- Character as a Lawyer.


WITH the Constitution of 1846, a new judiciary system was adopted, which provided for the election of justices of the Supreme Court and judges of the Court of Appeals by the people. So far as the courts and the judiciary were concerned, old things passed away, and all things became new. Like all innovations in government, these changes were looked upon with distrust by some, and with alarm by others. But as the American people submit to the laws with a sort of instinct, all prepared to test the provisions of the new Constitution, without a murmur. Early in June, 1847, an election was held for choice of judicial officers for the eight judicial districts, into which the State had been divided.


Among the judges chosen at that election was James Mullett, then a resident of Buffalo, New York, for many years a distinguished member of the Chau- tauque bar, residing at Fredonia. There, a poor and unfriended boy, he became the artificer of his own


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fortunes, and by industry, economy, studious habits and self-cultivation, arose to eminence and distinc- tion in a profession crowded with ambitious aspirants for preferment.


Like very many who have occupied a distin- guished position at the bar of the State, Mr. Mullett was a native of Vermont. He was born at Whitting- ham, in that State, October 17th, 1784. He was the eldest of thirteen children. His father was, by occu- pation, a tailor-a man possessing a bright, active mind and considerable information, but entirely want- ing in the means to liberally educate his children ; and James, who inherited all of his father's intelli- gence, with the addition of much enterprise and great love of knowledge, was compelled to struggle with adversity for the information which he obtained. Almost with the beginning of the present century, the father of young Mullett removed from Vermont to Darien, in the County of Genesee, New York.


As soon as James was old enough to labor, he was apprenticed to a joiner and millwright. His natural ingenuity soon began to exhibit itself in his new call- ing. The progress which he made is described by one of his biographers, in the following anecdote :


"His boss, who was about constructing a saw-mill by the slow process known as the scribe rule, com- menced fitting each tenon to its appropriate mortise, and by cutting and trying after the style of those days, proposed in time to complete the mill. James saw the disadvantages and necessary delays of this style of mechanics, and proposed himself to lay out and put up the frame by a rule which he supposed more expeditious and quite as correct. He did it ; and as the day for raising was appointed, the neigh- bors came in to assist, and witness his success, or, what was more probable, his failure. But, instead of a failure, it was a perfect triumph. Not a mortise or joint was wrong-not a brace, or sill, or girt, or rafter was missing, but, fitting in every part, it stood as the


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witness of his mechanical genius ; and so great was the gratification of the people present, that they took him up and carried him about in triumph upon their shoulders."


It was this early-developed mechanical genius, which, in after life, rendered him so successful in try- ing those cases where mechanical principles were in- volved. As a proof of this, it is related that on one occasion Mr. Mullett was retained in an action brought against a millwright in Cattaraugus County, to recover heavy damages for not erecting a mill in a skillful and workmanlike manner. The defendant prepared a strong and ingenious defense, in which he attempt- ed to show that the plaintiff did not understand the operation of two large wheels which he had made. This defense was based entirely on prin- ciples of mechanics. It was devised and planned by one of the most skillful wheelwrights in the country ; and, as the errors of the theory, if any, could be de- tected only by a competent workman, the defendant was sure of success ; for, although he was well aware of Mr. Mullett's great ability as a lawyer, he did not dream that he was skilled in the art and mystery of building wheels. But when Mullett came to the cross- examination of the witnesses, all in the court-room were astonished at his knowledge and skill as a me- chanic. The master-builder, who had planned the defense, on his cross-examination, was caught in the meshes of that "thumbscrew of the law," and com- pletely failed in attempting to sustain his idea of the case. There was not a principle in quantity, measure, motion, balance, and relative position, that Mullett did not understand, so that the practiced mechanics, who came to testify against the plaintiff, found in the law- yer opposed to them a mechanic vastly superior to themselves. It is proper to add, that the plaintiff re- covered a verdict for his claim against the defendant.


Mr. Mullett continued with his employer two years, working diligently, and acquiring a knowledge of the


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business quite beyond his years. While thus engaged, he made the acquaintance of a Mr. Lovejoy, of the firm of Lovejoy & Hale, a respectable mercantile firm at Fredonia, New York. Mr. Lovejoy soon ascer- tained the many excellent qualifications of young Mullett. To his surprise, he learned that he was an excellent accountant; and, being in want of a clerk, invited the young man to enter his store in that ca- pacity. The invitation was accepted, and in Au- gust, 1810, he became a clerk for Lovejoy & Hale, and a resident of Fredonia. While thus engaged, his em- ployers brought an action against a man for necessa- ries furnished his son, an infant under the age of twenty-one years, to wit, of the age of nineteen years ; to use the language of legal forms. The claim was re- sisted, on the ground that they were delivered to an infant. On the day of trial, the plaintiffs' attorney disappointed them; and when the cause was called, the defendant appeared with a practiced and skillful lawyer; but the plaintiffs had no counsel. What was to be done? At the moment when they were on the point of withdrawing their suit, young Mullett entered the office, and, to their surprise, proposed to try the case for them. Mr. Hale took him into an unoccu- pied room ; when they were alone, he said :


" Why, James, do you know anything at all about law ?"


"Yes, something," was the reply.


" When did you have an opportunity to learn law ?"


" When other people were amusing themselves, or were in bed and asleep, I read several law books," said Mullett.


"Can you try this suit against that lawyer ? he's very abusive sometimes to the opposite lawyer," said Hale.


" I'll take care of that. Come, it's time to proceed. Shall I attempt to try the suit for you or not ?" said James.


" Go ahead and do your best," was the reply.


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Accordingly, they returned to the court room. A jury had been impanneled, and all things were ready to proceed.


" Who tries this cause for the plaintiffs ?" asked the defendant's lawyer.


"I do," said Mullett, coming forward and seating. himself at the table.


" What, are you going to try it? Where is your mallet and chisels ? or are we to be hacked with broad- axes here by this fellow ?" asked the lawyer in a sneering manner.


"No, sir; I shall hack you with something which you know less of than you do broadaxes and chisels," was the reply.


"And pray, Mr. Thingum, what is that?'' asked the lawyer.


"Good, plain, common sense," said James.


The roar of laughter which followed this keen re- ply, showed how well the cut was enjoyed by the audience ; while the lawyer bit his lips.


The trial proceeded. Mr. Mullett proved the deliv- ery of the articles-that they were delivered to the son of the defendant-their value-the condition of the defendant as to property, and that the son was under twenty-one years of age, with the precision and skill of an old lawyer. The attorney opposed, used every means in his power to embarrass the young man. Every captious objection which he could conjecture was used, but in vain ; the head that could plan with so much skill and success, a new method of erecting the frame of a building, had resources sufficient to manage this cause. When the evidence was closed, the defendant's counsel insisted upon "summing up" the case, believing of course, that he would have an immense advantage over his "green antagonist" in that part of the contest.


"Don't have it summed up if you can help it," said Hale ; "he'll beat you at that."


"Let us submit the case without summing up," said Mullett.


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"No, sir ; I shall sum it up, and you can do as you like," said the lawyer.


"Very well," said Mullett; "so I suppose you must commence."


When the counsel had concluded what he be- lieved to be an overwhelming speech, the young clerk proceeded to address the jury, and, though his argument was not entirely according to forensic rules, it was strong, able, and characterized by com- mon sense, and fortified sufficiently by law to render it conclusive. All in the room listened with astonish- ment at his ready flow of language, and if his friends were delighted with the consummate skill in which he framed the saw-mill, their delight was increased, when they listened to his first forensic effort, while the law- yer opposed, found that he had come in contact with no common mind. The jury returned a verdict for the plaintiffs.


This incident determined the future career of James Mullett, and paved the way for his entrance into that profession which he so signally adorned. He was now strongly urged by his friends to adopt the legal profession ; and he acceded to their wishes. But pre- vented by "chill penury" from availing himself of those means of obtaining a legal education, which more fortunate young men possessed, he continued his clerkship with Lovejoy & Hale, devoting every leisure moment to his legal studies. When the busi- ness of the day was over, and upon occasions when others were "seizing fancied pleasures as they flew," he wrestled with, and mastered those elemental prin- ciples, which laid the foundation of his excellent legal education. After continuing his studies in this man- ner several months, he entered the office of the late Jacob Houghton, of Fredonia, as a student at law. Mr. Houghton was one of the most respectable and able members of the Chautauque bar, a judge of un- blemished purity, and a citizen whose excellent qual- ities rendered him a valuable member of society.




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