The civil, political, professional and ecclesiastical history, and commercial and industrial record of the county of Kings and the city of Brooklyn, N. Y., from 1683 to 1884 Volume I, Part 79

Author: Stiles, Henry Reed, 1832-1909, ed. cn; Brockett, L. P. (Linus Pierpont), 1820-1893; Proctor, L. B. (Lucien Brock), 1830-1900. 1n
Publication date: 1884
Publisher: New York : W. W. Munsell & Co.
Number of Pages: 1114

USA > New York > Kings County > Brooklyn > The civil, political, professional and ecclesiastical history, and commercial and industrial record of the county of Kings and the city of Brooklyn, N. Y., from 1683 to 1884 Volume I > Part 79

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We have not the space to recount the splendid professional achievements of Mr. Wells ; suffice it to say that they led to his appropriate place among the great lights of the American bar; and that, for many years, his name was intimately asso- ciated with every volume of our judicial history. For a time he was a partner of that great and brilliant jurist, Josiah Ogden Hoffman, always his friend and admirer.

It is singular that, possessing so many rare gifts as a writer, orator, and legist, he never entered, to any extent, the polit- ical arena; but, like Nicholas Hill, Daniel Lord, Rufus Choate, and many other historic names of the bar, the solid honors and emoluments of his profession out-weighed the evanescent honors of the politician. His law books and cases had a decided preference with him, though they by no means excluded the pursuit of elegant literature.

Mr. Wells was regarded as a model of legal eloquence, at that period when the eloquence of the bar was so successfully cultivated. In those days, it was necessary for an able law- yer to be an eloquent speaker-not a gushing, pompous de- claimer, but a chaste, polished orator, possessing logical rea- soning powers. His arguments at the bar were conducted with direct and sober earnestness ; so framed as to convince rather than amuse. Sometimes they were terse and con- densed, at others full and illustrative.

In his person, Mr. Wells was slightly above the middle size. He bestowed greater attention upon its neatness, and his dress was more fashionable and better adjusted, than is generally deemed consistent with his habits of study and abstraction. His form was erect, solid, firm, well propor- portioned, and apparently fitted to endure great muscular exertion.

He loved professional labor almost to excess, and devoted himself to it with much assiduity long after he had amassed a very considerable fortune ; and so he continued to work on until summoned to join the majority in the presence of Hin at whose right hand there is rest ever more.

On the evening of September 23d, 1823, after a laborious day in court, he returned to his family complaining of extreme weakness and languor, for which it was difficult to account, as he had felt its approach but a few minutes. This debility increased until September 26th, though without any fears of a fatal termination ; but, as the day wore away, it began to increase to an alarming extent, and, like one falling asleep, he passed away.

Thus lived and thus died one of the earliest and most illus- trious members of the Kings County bar-of the bar of the State of New York.

At the time of his death, Mr. Wells was counsel for the defendant in the great case of Seymour vs. Ellinson, then pending in the court for the Correction of Errors of the State of New York, at Albany. The case was called for argument before that court, Gen. Erastus Root presiding, September 11th, 1823. Hon. Samuel R. Betts, then judge of the Second Circuit, and a member ex-officio of the court, announced the death of Mr. Wells, whereupon the court adjourned, and in due tinie appropriate and impressive honors were paid to the memory of the great departed jurist, in the Court of Errors; while large meetings of the bar assembled at many of the county seats of the State, and at other places, for the purpose of expressing sorrow at the death of a great lawyer and a good man.

GEORGE M, WOOD was one of the most eminent lawyers, not only of the Kings County Bar, but he was equally distin- guished in the State of New York. As an equity lawyer he had few equals and no superior.

He was a native of Trenton, New Jersey, born in 1788. He attained a high reputation at the New Jersey bar and was considered as one of its leaders. Hc removed to Brooklyn in the spring of 1837, and at once began the practice that led to the highest distinction and great wealth.

His practice extended not only to the highest courts in the State, but to the United States Supreme Court. Some of the cases conducted by him in the latter court are leading

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causes, and will long be remembered in legal history. Among these was that of Martin v. Waddell (16 Peter's, U. S. R., 376). "His argument in this case," says a distinguished writer, "is a beautiful, exhaustive and unanswerable exposi- tion of the law on the subject of the right of the sovereign- or the State-to lands under water." It also is a fine disser- tation on the subject of eminent domain, or the paramount right of the public to take and occupy the land of private in- dividuals for easements and for other public use. The whole case is one of great interest to the legal profession. It is said, by a distinguished member of the Brooklyn bar, who knew him well, that for over half a century Mr. Wood's opinion in regard to real-estate law was an unquestioned oracle.

He possessed some peculiarities which deserve especial no- tice. He was not possessed of an imagination remarkable for vigor, splendor or fertility; seldom attempting declama- tion or what is known as pathos. When he did so, he always failed ; but his powers of reasoning on facts and law were al- most unequalled, always commanding the closest attention of his auditors. He was especially successful before Courts in Banc ; his language was always simple, well chosen, and if not impressive, was the vehicle of the profoundest logic, and rendered affluent by learning. In this sense Mr. Wood was peculiarly eloquent. It must not be understood that his elocution was unpleasing ; on the contrary, it was attractive and free from all superfluities. Few men ever used purer English than he. The balance of his mind ; his vast re- search ; his sound, practical, good sense, with the other attri- butes we have already described, gave him supremacy as an advocate.

We have referred to him as a very able equity lawyer. Chancellor Walworth, speaking of Mr. Wood, said : "He is a walking library of law. He seems formed by nature for a chancery lawyer. His arguments flow in one stream, clear and bright, but without a ripple, and he knows all there is touching his cases."

Personal rivalry created enemies for him, and envy often rendered them aggressive and troublesome. They used to say he was heavy and quiescent at the bar, resembling a cow looking over a stream. "Musing, perhaps; or perhaps dreaming."

He was once the opponent of Daniel Webster in the argu- ment of a very important case in the Supreme Court. A few days before it came on for hearing, Webster inquired who was to conduct the case against him, and was informed that it was a lawyer by the name of Wood, a dull, drowsy · man, who seems to be always asleep.

"Is it George M. Wood?" asked Mr. Webster. "Yes, that's his name."

"Well, then, pray don't awake him, for when George M. Wood is fully awake he is one of the most troublesome oppo- nents I am in the habit of meeting," said the great constitu- tional lawyer.

One of the last cases which Mr. Wood conducted as coun- sel was that of Cleveland v. Boerum, in which there were at least five hundred defendants. The action was a bill in equity to redeem from a mortgage foreclosed by Henry Boerum, et al., against John S. Mckibben, and George D. Strong, made on eighty-eight acres of land, now in the six- teenth ward of Brooklyn, formerly the homestead farm of Jacob Boerum, deceased. Large numbers of the lots were sold by Mckibben and Strong before the eighty-eight acres had been released from the foreclosed mortgage, and three hundred and ten lots were sold and conveyed and left sub- ject to the mortgage. The bill for foreclosure was filed in February, 1842, in which Strong and Mckibben and others,

their grantees, holding portions of said premises subject to the said mortgage in the lis pendens notice of said action, which was filed in the office of the Clerk of Kings County, March 7th, 1842. On the 16th of June, 1842, Mckibben and Stone were declared bankrupts. The complaint was not amended so as to make the assignee in bankruptcy a defen- dant, but the plaintiff proceeded to judgment, which was en- tered on the 22d day of November, 1842, under which the property was sold by a Master in Chancery, and duly con- veyed to a large number of purchasers. Perhaps no case ever tried in the City of Brooklyn created greater excitement than this, for it vitally affected the right and title of a large number of lot owners to their homes.

After the sale we have referred to, the assignee in bank- ruptcy sold and conveyed the right of Mckibben to Charles Cleveland. This sale took place on the 24th day of Novem- ber, 1845, and George D. Strong's interest therein was con- veyed, by two deeds, to John D. Clute, March 4th, 1846. Clute conveyed his title to Cleveland. Here, then, were two sets of claimants to the title of the original Boerum home- stead farm ; the first claiming title by the foreclosure of the mortgage we have described, and otherwise; the other through the sale of the premises, which was subsequently made by the assignee in bankruptcy.

It was contended that the assignee in bankruptcy conveyed the property more than two years after Mckibben and Strong were declared bankrupts, and that the bankrupt law then in existence, restricted the assignee's jurisdiction to an order of court to be executed within two years from the date of the bankruptcy; hence, if the assignee was not concluded by the lis-pendens filed before the making of his deeds, his jurisdic- tion was gone, and no title passed to his grantees, Cleveland and others. Thus more than two years had passed after the foreclosure sale before Cleveland commenced his suit to have his title made paramount to that of the purchasers by the foreclosure we have described. Mr. Wood appeared for Cleveland in the case, and several other lawyers for the defendants. The only point made by Mr. Wood was that the notice of lis-pendens did not bind the trustee on whom the title to the land was cast during litigation by operation of law ; or, in other words, lis-pendens did not, in any way, stop Cleveland from enforcing his title acquired through the assignee in bankruptcy.

The answer to the complaint of Cleveland contained the averment that "The right of eminent domain in the State of New York is vested in the people of said State, and is not subject to any jurisdiction under judgment of United States Court, save such as is allowed by the State laws, and that all such decrees and judgments follow the remedies prescribed by State laws, as in respect to the State courts, or as is spe- cially set forth in State laws. with respect to the judgments of the courts of the United States ; and that the provisions for a notice of lis-pendens to be filed in any State or federal pro- ceedings with respect to land is binding on intervening incumbrances pending the litigation, whether the title be cast by deed by purchaser or a trustee ; or, what is the same thing, an assignee by operation of law."

The doubts as to the title of so many supposed owners of portions of the Boerum farm rendered a speedy trial of this case, and all dilatory pleas, such as defect of parties, were waived, and it went to immediate trial before Mr. Justice Strong, who decided the case in favor of the defendants. But the case was appealed by Cleveland to the General Term of the Supreme Court, where the case was argued for him by Mr. Wood.

It has been said that Mr. Wood, great and learned as he was as a lawyer, appeared to much disadvantage in the argu-

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ment of the case ; that his ability and power of condensa- tion, logical aptitude, quick, ready discernment and legal eloquence, had apparently deserted him, and that he had sur- vived his generation. He appeared, himself, to comprehend all this, for he never again appeared in court after the termi- nation of this great case.

By the decision of the General Term, Cleveland was again beaten ; he removed the case to the Court of Appeals, where the same fate awaited him. The case will be found fully printed in 24th New York, 613.

Mr. Wood came to Brooklyn poor ; but as we have said, through his immense practice he acquired a very large for- tune. At the time of his death he was the owner of forty- three houses and lots in Brooklyn, all of them very valuable; besides a large amount of money, stocks, bonds and mort- gages, and other securities. He died at his residence, in Brooklyn, in 1861, in the 73d year of his age.

GABRIEL FURMAN .- Among the members of the senior bar of Brooklyn whose memory comes to us from the past, asso- ciated with much that forms the history of Kings county- that relates to the triumphs and vicissitudes of professional life-much that concerns the amenities of social life, and much that awakens in our hearts sorrow and regret, is that of Gabriel Furman. He was born at Brooklyn, in 1800; his father was HON. WM. FURMAN, of whom a brief biographi- cal note will be found on page 108 of the present volume, as also on page 41 of Stiles' History of Brooklyn. He was suc- ceeded as Judge of the Court of Common Pleas of Kings county by Hon. Leffert Lefferts. It is said that Judge Fur- man was bred to law, and there is some evidence of his hav- ing been for a time actively engaged in the practice of his profession. He was a man of finished education ; strong, practical, good sense. Paramount traits in his character were love of justice, perfect integrity, impartiality and a close perception of human nature. It will therefore be seen, he possessed the qualities of a useful and upright Judge ; his popularity with the bar, and the high esteem in which he was held by the public, plainly attest his character as a Judge and as a private citizen. He represented Brooklyn on the Board of Kings County Supervisors for several successive years. In the fall of 1825 he was elected member of As- sembly from Kings county, entering upon his legislative du- ties January 3d, 1826. That illustrious statesman, Samuel Young, was speaker ; the peculiarities of Mr. Young as a legislator have become matters of history. He was in every sense unlike Judge Furman, and yet, there always existed a warm friendship between these gentlemen ; there is one fact which attests this in a strong manner ; he was appointed by Mr. Young Chairman of the Judiciary Committee, and sec- ond on the Committee of Ways and Means.

Judge Furman was President of the Brooklyn Fire Insur- ance Company, incorporated in 1824. There was scarcely any public improvement touching the welfare of the then vil- lage of Brooklyn that Judge Furman was not more or less identified with. He was a lifelong, undeviating friend of De Witt Clinton, strongly sustaining him in that great policy that inaugurated and constructed the Erie Canal.

The legislative session of 1826 was one of the most excit- ing and important in the history of the State. The four- cornered presidential conflict between General Jackson, Mr. Adams, Mr. Crawford and Mr. Clay, culminated that year. It entered largely into the Legislature of the State, leading to frequent collisions. In these Judge Furman largely par- ticipated. On the whole he was one of the most active and influential members of that session. He was tendered the

re-nomination the next year, but declined. Among his as- sociates in the Assembly, whose names have passed into the history of the State, were Ogden Hoffman, then a resident of Orange County ; Francis Granger, from Ontario; John Tracy, from Chenango, and Erastus Root, of Delaware. After retiring from the Legislature Judge Furman retired entirely to private life, a highly esteemed citizen, influential and active in all that concerned the interest and advance- ment of the society in which he moved.

Such was the father of Gabriel Furman ; such was the in- fluence which surrounded his youth and early manhood, and which gave promise of a brilliant and useful career in his life. In his boyhood he was attracted to the Court-house where his father, as presiding Judge, pronounced the law from the bench. The contests of the bar were full of inter- est to the lad. There he heard the mysteries of persuasive speech, witnessed the quick insight, the tact and ingenuity of opposing counsel, until the desire to become a lawyer took possession of his whole soul. Accordingly, as soon as he completed his classical studies, he entered the office of Elisha W. King, Esq., a leading member of the New York bar, as a law student. This was in 1823 ; he soon became a favorite of Mr. King, who took especial pains with his legal education, explaining to the young man that part of the " Black letter law" which, without explanation, is to the student a sort of legal labyrinth, which he is quite unable to explore with any profit. This enabled young Furman to go to the bar well prepared to enter successfully upon his practice.

He took his legal degree at a general term of the Supreme Court in May, 1826. "From his father's social position and large acquaintance with the bar, young Furman secured to a large extent the confidence of the Dutch families, and of the old residents of that day, and a brilliant professional fu- ture seemed opening before him."

In 1820, while yet a student, he, with several young gen- tlemen of Brooklyn, organized a debating society, which be- came a very popular institution. Often, when some espe- cially exciting subject was to be discussed, the hall in which the society held its meetings was thronged with the elite of the village, anxious to listen to the young and brilliant de- baters, foremost among whom was young Furman. It is said, that in this intellectual arena, he displayed an argu- mentative and classic mind, a prodigality of knowledge, and an attractive elocution quite beyond his years. So promi- nent did he become as a speaker, that, at the great celebra- tion which took place at Brooklyn on July 4th, 1824, he was selected as the orator of the day. His oration was pronounced at the Dutch Church, in Joralemon street, before an immense and delighted audience.

The friendship which Gov. Clinton had for the father was bestowed with equal warmth upon his son. Early in the year 1827, the Municipal Court of Brooklyn was established, and Furman, who had been at the bar but a little over a year, was appointed, by Governor Clinton, one of its judges. He discharged the duties of this office for the term of three years.

At the general election of 1838, Mr. Furman was nomi- nated and elected a State Senator from the first district ; in this body he did not disappoint the high expectation of his friends. He exhibited all the qualities of a useful, high- minded and competent legislator. Peter R. Livingston was then Lieutenant-Governor, and, of course, the presiding officer of the Senate, and an accomplished parliamen- tarian ; his appreciation of Mr. Furman's abilities is attested by many official recognitions, and by placing him upon many standing committees. The records of the Senate, for the four years in which Mr. Furman was one of its members,

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are the best evidence of the usefulness of his legislative career. Several of his speeches delivered in the Senate were warmly commended by the press in all parts of the State for their statesmanlike strength, their originality and eloquence.

In 1841, he prepared two lectures on the discoveries of the Northmen, and on Aboriginal Remains in America. These lectures were written in a happy, nervous and attractive style, and were fine specimens of condensed learning and beauty of diction. They were delivered first in Brooklyn, afterwards in New York, Albany, Utica, and several other cities.

In 1842, his prominence in the Whig party led to his nomination for Lieut .- Governor of the State ; this nomina- tion was made at a Whig State convention, held at Herki- mer, in September, 1842. Luther Bradish received the nomi- nation for Governor. But the Whig party was defeated. William C. Bouck and Daniel S. Dickinson, the Democratic nominees for Governor and Lieut .- Governor, were elected. This, we believe, was the last time that Mr. Furman was a candidate for any official position. There was nothing in his defeat, however, that was at all discouraging. He fell with his party, retaining all his personal popularity with it ; but, from the period of his defeat, there seemed to be an unfortunate change in all his prospects.

"He began," says Dr. STILES, in his admirable History of Brooklyn, "to manifest irregularities and infirmities, which pained and astonished his friends, and which, no doubt, had their source in the use of opium, which he had begun to use in very small quantities during the cholera summer of 1852. Without going into detail, we may say that all personal ambition seems to have died out ; his law business became sadly neglected. Always retiring and secluded in his habits, he gradually became unsocial, buried himself among his books and manuscripts, or hid himself in out of the way nooks and corners, where the eyes of even his one or two intimate friends could not find him. Friends and clients, of course, became estranged; business fell away; public opinion -ever uncharitable to what it cannot understand-said harsh things about the erratic scholar, whose ways were past finding out, and whose inattention to his business was not only annoying to his clients, but imperiling to their interests. Finally, his mood became more reckless, his property passed away, his family were left without the pro- tection of a roof, his sister and aged father were left help- less and dependent upon others, his much-loved books passed under the sheriff's hammer, and his own misused life went out amid clouds and darkness, November 11, 1854, in the City Hospital."

"Yet Furman was, in no sense, a vicious man. The perni- cious influence of the lethean drug, combined with an over- weening love of study for its own sake, seemed to have be- numbed his sense of duty and of responsibility to the com- munity, to his family, and to himself ; and in the grateful seclusion of his study, he became selfishly forgetful of all outside realities. What this feeling was, we may, perhaps, best learn from the following extracts from his manuscript memoranda, in early life :

'As to politics and contest for office, they are entirely dissimilar to my habits of feeling and very unpleasant, and nothing but an imperious sense of duty to my country would ever induce me to enter at all into them, or to have any sort of connection with them. My wish would be, if possible to be attained, to pass my life as a literary man, and a humble inquirer into the history of my country ; never to mingle in political hfe; never to hold an office of any kind, but quietly to while away my time among my books and papers ; and when it pleased the Almighty Disposer of all events to call

me hence, to lay my head upon the pillow of death in peace with all men. There is nothing on earth to compare, in the least degree, with the joy and comfort which attends literary research ; with the inward satisfaction which results from a day thus spent. It strikes me that a man truly literary can never be immoral.'

Again, in speaking of the love of books :

' It is a passion which gains strength by what it feeds on, and affords an unalloyed pleasure, far, very far, transcend- entally far. beyond what can be afforded by any other pur- suit in this life. It also renders a man, to a great extent, in- dependent of the world for his happiness and enjoyments. Society with its pleasures is not with him, as it is with thou- sands, everything. He has another world, unaffected by toils and troubles, in which there are no storms nor tempests, but everything is peace, calm and sunshine ; an eternal spring and summer, having at once the promise and the fruition.'

"These sentiments," continues Dr. STILES, "bespeak the enthusiastic and pure-minded scholar ; but, alas, as we have seen, the promise of his springtime and summer never reached its full fruition. Yet there remains enough of the results of his labor to make us thankful that he once lived among us. In the library of the Long Island Historical So- ciety is a little row of bound volumes of manuscript, fairly transcribed in his own clerkly chirography, and comprising almost every conceivable topic of curiosity, or inquiry, from the most scientific to the most absurd and trivial, all thrown together without order in a perfect chance-medley. Yet, amid this mighty mass of miscellaneous matter, which curi- ously illustrates the scope and composition of his mind, Furman, fortunately for us, carefully jotted down all that occurred to his observation in the elementary condition and progress of his native city. In the well-chosen words of one of his most intimate earlier friends, to whom we are indebted for most that is known about him, 'his mind early turned towards its characters, traditions, revolutionary reminis- cences, and the facts of its earlier settlement and population, agriculture and trade. He seemed to have an intuitive and prophetic sagacity as to the importance of describing, re- cording and fixing the dates of many things of his own time, which could change with progress and be forgotten. The minuteness of some of these details may look like folly and simplicity, but still the better critics will admit that they go to make up his reputation as an antiquarian of the best character, who knew that these details would be the very things that posterity would delight in. Already, in the rapid march of population for the past thirty years, since Brooklyn assumed the character of a city, the old buildings and landmarks have been swept away, and, but for Judge Furman's ' Notes,' published in 1824, it would be well-nigh impossible for us to trace the beginnings of our 'goodly heri- tage.' In person, Furman was of middle height, well formed, with fine, high forehead, and Roman features, strongly resembling the best portraits of Pascal, the eminent French philosopher and Christian. He was always neatly dressed, generally in frock-coat of dark greenish hue, with light pantaloons and vest, shoes with spatterdashes, and a black fur hat, turned up at the side and carefully brushed. His necktie, a little gay and ornamental, added grace to his otherwise somewhat quaint and trim attire ; and his tout- ensemble was that of the polished gentleman, and suggestive, also, of a scholar and antiquary.'"

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The civil, political, professional and ecclesiastical history, and commercial and industrial record of the county of Kings and the city of Brooklyn, N. Y., from 1683 to 1884 Volume I, Part 79

Author: Stiles, Henry Reed, 1832-1909, ed. cn; Brockett, L. P. (Linus Pierpont), 1820-1893; Proctor, L. B. (Lucien Brock), 1830-1900. 1n Publication date: 1884 Publisher: New York : W. W. Munsell & Co. Number of Pages: 1114

Author: Stiles, Henry Reed, 1832-1909, ed. cn; Brockett, L. P. (Linus Pierpont), 1820-1893; Proctor, L. B. (Lucien Brock), 1830-1900. 1n
Publication date: 1884
Publisher: New York : W. W. Munsell & Co.
Number of Pages: 1114