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 II, Part 162

Author: Stiles, Henry Reed, 1832-1909, ed
Publication date: 1884
Publisher: New York, W. W. Munsell & Co
Number of Pages: 1345

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 II > Part 162

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He is now in the active practice of his profession, in the plenitude of professional success. There are very few, if any, important cases in Kings County in which he is not engaged.

In the prolonged contest resulting in the defeat of the project known as the Bond Elevated Railroad, he was prominent, and it is not a little remarkable that the ultimate decision of the Supreme Court was placed upon the precise ground described in Mr. Britton's brief. His latest important argument in the Court of Appeals was made against George F. Comstock in the case of Crooke v. The County of Kings, on the part of the defendant and respondent. This case is a contest on behalf of the heirs of the wife of the late Gen. Philip S. Crooke, to establish their title to real estate of great value. Among other questions, it involves the wills of Mrs. Catin, the mother of Mrs. Crooke, and of Mrs. Crooke, and the validity and proper execution of certain powers and trusts therein contained; and requires a con- struction of the statute of the powers and trusts of this State, which had been before the Court of Appeals, and must neces- sarily become a leading case upon those subjects.

From the foregoing it will be seen that Mr. Britton is a man of untiring energy. Many of his compeers at the Bar give to their profession divided allegiance; many make it second to the sttractive but more ephemeral contest of the political arena; but Mr. Britton has an utter distaste for those practices and associations which are so necessary for a politician, and his abnegation of politics, except in the exercise of rational political convictions, is thorough and complete, and therefore his success as a lawyer is the reward of a constant and thorough mental elaboration and study. It is proverbial among his neighbors thst none of them gets home so late at night as not to see the lights burning in his well-stocked library.

He is positive in his convictions, rests confidently upon them, and is not specially reserved in expressing his opinion concern- ing them. He is always sincere and in earnest, dislikes hypoc- risy, and is destitute of those platitudes which enables one to agree with everybody.

Therefore, he is not what may be called a popular man with

the masses, nor is he convivial in his tastes. With his chosen friends he is social, genial and approachable. He is especially a domestic man, and his home to him is an empire of happiness and pleasure; and to be best appreciated he must be seen in his family, among his children, to whom he is most tenderly attached and to whose success in life his sole ambition is directed.

EDWARD H. HOBBS.

EDWARD H. HOBBS is, in every sense, a lawyer who has, with much success, subordinated all his faculties to his profession. He avoids those sporadic efforts which, while they may dazzle, weaken the intellect by undue distribution. He has sought for honorable distinction in his profession, with great directness of purpose, with a zealous, hopeful temperament; has toiled with assiduity, and has meditated upon the means by which it was to be realized unceasingly; never practicing those arts by which ephemeral and meretricious professional honors are often acquired. With the aid of an indomitable self-reliance, a reali- zation of his professional aspiration has been his reward.

Mr. Hobbs was born in Ellenburgh, Clinton County, New York, June 5, 1835. His father was Benjamin Hobbs, a farmer, one of the pioneers of the country lying between the Adirondacks, Lake Champlain, and the St. Lawrence River. He was a captain in the American army in the war of 1812, and participated in many of the stirring events which occurred along the Northern frontier during that period.

Mr. Hobbs' ancestors were among the early colonial settlers of the country; the paternal branch was English, and the mater- nal Welsh extraction.

The family must have been somewhat extensive at an early period, for we find that Mr. Hobbs had six great-uncles who served in various capacities in the American army during the Revolutionary War.

As we have said, his father was a farmer and, like most of his class, in moderate circumstances. The early years of young Hobbs were spent on his father's farm; when old enough, he attended the common or district school, where he exhibited studious habits and a scholarly mind, and where the Prome- thean spark began to burn within him. But the mediocrity of his father's means compelled him to rely principally upon him- self for his intellectual advancement; and thus we may say, that Mr. Hobbs stands among that class of legal practitioners known as self-made men, whose lives and career so signally embellish the history of the Bench and Bar of Kings County.

While yet a lad he removed to Malone, Franklin County, and was entered as a student at Franklin Academy, where he prepared for college. Like many other young men of limited means, Mr. Hobbs supported himself during his student years by teaching; he enjoyed the benefits which experience as a teacher gives to young men preparing for any profession, especially that of the law-mental discipline, self-government, and the government of others. After due preparation, in 1858, he entered Middlebury College, Vermont. In his senior year the war of the Rebellion broke out, and the enthusiastic and patriotic nature of young Hobbs caught the martial spirit that everywhere prevailed in the Northern States, and in his ardor to serve his country, he turned from classic halls, from the ambitions of the scholar, from his dreams of legal honors (for he had early determined to become a lawyer), to those fields of strife "where the death-bolt flew deadliest." He entered the army as a private soldier, serving gallantly wherever duty called through most of the war. His gallantry on the field, the facility with which he perfected him- self in military discipline, soon raised him to the rank of captain. He participated in many of the battles which will be recorded for all time in history. He served throughout the Peninsular campaign under Mcclellan, in North Carolina under Foster, and in South Carolina under Hunter. He was in all the battles of those campaigns, including Yorktown, Williamsburg, Bottom's

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Bridge, Seven Pines, all Mcclellan's seven days' memorable change of base, and in the attack of Admiral DuPont snd General Hunter on Charleston Bar.

This record needs no embellishments. It is written in living characters in the history of the nation, and the career of & gal- lant soldier is blended with the civic honors of the Bar.

In the last scenes of the war, Mr. Hobbs was compelled, by ill- health, to resign his commission, and he returned to his home, and soon began preparing for the Bar. To this end he entered the Albany Law School, where he remained until his call to the Bar. This was in the year 1866. Shortly after taking his degree as Bachelor of Law, he removed to the city of New York, and then began his practice, taking up his residence in Brooklyn. With the learning, ability, energy and ambition of Mr. Hobbs, professional success was assured. He began his practice as the law partner of F. A. Wilcox, in Wall street. Upon the election of Judge Donohue to the Bench of the Supreme Court, Mr. Hobbs entered his old firm in copartnership with Mr. Wilcox and ex-Judge Beebe, under the firm name of Beebe, Wilcox & Hobbs. This firm did the largest admiralty business, perhaps, in the country. To Mr. Hobbs, however, was committed the common law business of the firm, and he soon acquired the rep- utation of a thorough and successful commercial lawyer. With- out going into a general history of the large number of import- ant cases in the conduct of which Mr. Hobbs participated, we refer the resder to their history, found in the State and Federal Law Reports, through the last fifteen years. These demonstrate much more fully and adequately than we can the career of Mr. Hobbs at the Bar. Since 1883 he has practiced by himself, with increasing devotion to his profession.

We have spoken of the devotion of Mr. Hobbs to his pro- fession, but he has been and is an active politician, feeling that a good citizen is in duty bound to participate, more or less, in political affairs. It would be far better for the country if politics were removed from the meddlers, the party thimble- riggers, the professional place-hunters and jobbers, into the hands of the respectable and responsible class of the community. These sentiments, we believe, have actuated Mr. Hobbs in his participation in politics, for he has never been an office-seeker, nor the instrument of office seekers, being too independent for this, and never tolerated those brazen-faced ward politicians, always boasting of their influence.

He early, from principle, allied himself to the Republican party, and to that organization he has always given his undi- vided fealty. He has served at least ten years as a member of the Republican General Committee ; has frequently served as a member of the State Committee, and is now its treasurer. He has often occupied a seat in Republican State Conventions, and represented the Second Congressional District as a delegate in the Republican National Convention in 1884; and, without any undue assumption of influence, his voice has been potent in the deliberation of those bodies, and in defining their policies. Perhaps no man was more active and more influential in Kings County in organizing. successful opposition to the Third Term and to the Third Term machine.

In 1882 he was nominated by the Republicans of Kings County for Surrogate, for the duties of which office he possessed acknowledged abilities. As an evidence of this, and of his high standing as a citizen and a gentleman, we refer to the fact that he received between thirty and forty thousand more votes than the State ticket ; nevertheless, he was defeated by the whirlwind which followed the nomination of Judge Folger to the executive chair. This, we believe, is the only time which Mr. Hobbs has consented to become a candidate for office, though nominations for legislative and other offices have been tendered him, and he has never held an official position.

He is united by marriage to Julia Ellen, a daughter of the late Captain Benjamin Buxton, of Baltimore, a relation that has brought reciprocal happiness.

Without pretension or ostentation, Mr. and Mrs. Hobbs occupy an elevated and highly respected position in the society of Brooklyn ; their home is one of refinement and intelligence, presided over by those domestic amenities which so largely sdorn the American home.

TUNIS G. BERGEN.

AMONG the junior members of the Bar, few occupy & more conspicuons position than Tunis G. Bergen. He is one of those whose career evinces the enlarging and liberalizing advantages to the legal profession of accomplishments outside of mere tech- nical legal knowledge; one of those who subordinate history and elegant literature to the enlargement of his professional learning. He entered into the investigation and research of the law with avidity and delight, with a determination to make himself per- fectly familiar with the principles of legal science, mastering the scholastic refinements, subtleties and abstruse speculations of the old black-letter law writers; therefore his knowledge of legal principles, precise and accurate, is rendered practical by a strong and retentive memory.

Mr. Bergen was born at Brooklyn, May 17th, 1847. He first `saw the light in the old Bergen homestead, still standing on Third avenue, facing the bay, between Thirty-third and Thirty- fourth streets. With this old mansion there are many historic reminiscences; indeed, much of the history of the days that tried men's souls is blended with the memories it begets. During that period of the Revolution in which Long Island and New York were in possession of the enemy, this old house was occupied by British officers, and the antique walls of some of its rooms are still. embellished by several paintings which they left upon vacating the house. A hut still remains, once occupied by slaves belonging to the Bergen estate. Five gen- erations of the Bergen family have occupied the ancient man- sion. Its quaint but substantial architecture gives ample promise that generations to come will occupy it. To use the language of another, "It has been supposed that Mr. Bergen was a son of Tunis G. Bergen, member of Congress from Kings County, a man who took an active interest in Brooklyn affairs. Such, however, is not the case. Mr. Bergen's father was Garret G. Bergen, a brother of Tunis G. Bergen, and he affixes the Jr. to his name to avoid confusion from the similarity of names."

It will be seen that the Bergen family has a known genealogy extending far back into the past. The family was descended from Hans Hansen Van Bergen, called also "Hans Hansen the Norman," who married Sarah Rapalye, fsmons ss the first female child born of civilized people within the bounds of the Colony of New Netherlands or the State of New York. Of this marriage have sprung more than eight generations of the Bergen family, who have successively been born and reared on American soil, occupying lande on Manhattan Island, and originally the greater portion of the area of the city of Brooklyn extending along the water from the Wallabout and Fulton Ferry to Bay Ridge.

"Young Bergen commenced his education at public school No. 2, Brooklyn, which was sustained largely by members of the Bergen family, of which there were several in the vicinity. At first this was a private school, but afterwards was organized as the second public school in Brooklyn. Mr. Jacob Sands was then principal of that school, and is still serving in that position. Mr. Peter Rouget, Principal of No. 10, taught Mr. Bergen French when the latter was very young. Young Bergen en- tered the Polytechnic after leaving No. 2; from thence he entered Rutgers College, New Brunswick, N. J., where in 1867 he graduated."

Mr. Bergen, intent upon attaining a finished legal education, decided to pursue his legal studies under the advantages of the German Law Institution, and became a student in the Univer- sity of Berlin, and also Heidelberg, where, under the instruo- tions of the accomplished and learned legal professors, he, at

Junio& Bergen

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the latter institution, received the degree of Doctor in Public Law. This was in 1871. Leaving this famous institution, he went to Paris, and became a student in the law department of the University of that city, an institution ranking first among the collegiate institutions of Europe. He also attended lectures at Sorbonne and at Oxford. With the endowments thus ac- quired in the best legal institutions of Europe, he returned to hia native land, and entered the legal department of Columbia College. In due time he passed a creditable examination and waa called to the Bar, and at once entered upon a highly respectable and remunerative practice in the city of New York.

"While in Europe, Mr. Bergen witnessed some of the most exciting and historic scenes of the Franco-Prussian war. He was several weeks at the headquarters of the Crown Prince, where he had every advantage as a neutral observer for witness- ing the great events around him. He was at the battle of Woerth, in Alsace, where MacMahon met with such a disastrous defeat. Ha haa in his possession several French and German hattle-flags and swords, picked up after the battle. During this summer (1870) he visited Switzerland, and was about to ascend Mont Blanc with a party of thres gentlemen and several guides, hut was dissuaded by some friends, who wished him to ascend with them at a later date. The change was fortunate, as the party with whom he intended to make the ascent were all lost in the snow, and perished."

In 1879 he was chosen orator by the alumni of Rutgers Col- lege; he accepted the invitation, and his oration was highly commended for the clearness and elegance of its style, the force, strength and effect of its matter, and the attractive manner in which it was delivered.

Mr. Bergen was a member of the Board of Education in 1877, serving about one year. In July, 1880, he was reappointed. He haa served as Chairman of the Attendance Committee, and as a member of the following committees: Studies, Central Grammar School, Law, and Finance. He was a candidate for President of the Board in 1881, but was defeated by Mr. Daniel Manger. In January, 1882, he was again a candidate for the same office, and was eminently successful, receiving twenty-five votes. Since then he has been twice unanimously re-elected to the aame office.

It ia a singular fact that during the existence of the Board of Education in Brooklyn, there has never been a time when there was not a member connected with it by the name of Bergen.

Mr. Bergen has served as Chairman of Public Schools Nos. 10 and 27, and also on the committees of Nos. 2, 39 and 40; and thus it will be seen how intimately and usefully he has been, and still is, identified with the cause of education in the city of Brooklyn.

Mr. Bergen justly enjoys the reputation of a successful writer, whose style is free from all affectation and all superfluity-per- apicuous and pure-a style which pleasingly sets off thought, research, logic and argument.

While in Europe he contributed a number of articles to the journals of his native country on the Franco-Prussian war and other aubjects, which were read with great interest. Since his return home he has furnished the articles on Long Island for the Encyclopedia Britannica.

But, as we have already said, the love of the legal profession is paramount to every other branch of learning, and his devotion to it is rewarded by a position as a lawyer, not only highly respectable and successful, but one that gives indubitable evidence that he is approaching its highest rank.

HON. GEORGE THOMPSON.

THE subject of this sketch was born at Stanford, in the eastern part of Dutchess County, in the month of January, 1817. On his father's side, he was descended from Anthony Thompson, ons of the original settlers who came over from England to New

Haven with the Puritan colony in 1637; while, on the mother's side, he was descended from Peter Brown, one of the still more famous Plymouth colony, who emigrated to this country in 1620. Caleb Thompson, the fourth in descent from the original colonist, was born at New Haven, February 24, 1732, two days after General Washington's birth, and was the grandfather of the subject of this memoir. In his childhood, he removed with his father to Goshen, Conn., and about his eighteenth year, he removed with his father's family to Stanford, N. Y., where he died in 1823, having arrived at the age of ninety-one years, leaving a large number of descendants. His youngest son, Leonard, more particularly known in military circles as General Thompson, removed to Bloomfield in 1832, and died at Avon, Livingston County, in 1841.

Young Thompson spent several years at home with his father, mainly engaged in farm labor, but showing a considerable aptitude for study, was sent, in 1835, to the seminary at Lima, Livingston County, and entered Union College at Schenectady, then under the management of the celebrated Dr. Nott, in the fall of 1836, and graduated with distinction in July, 1839. Between the intervals of college life and graduation, he taught successively in a private and public school. Having concluded to enter the study of law, he entered the office of George Hosmer, of Avon, Livingston County, then a lawyer of distinction, and afterwards spent a couple of years in the office of Hastings & Husbands, in Rochester. He was admitted to practice at the May term in New York, but afterwards spent nearly two years in the office of Messrs. Cutting & Owen, then located at 72 Wall street, for the purpose of familiarizing himself with the practice in the city of New York. In 1848, he entered into business with Judge Soper, who was then practicing law in Williamsburgh, Kings County, but found time during his legal employment, among his other occupations, to edit a weekly political journal, known as the " Kings County Patriot," which did effectual ser- vice during the campaign of 1848, as a Cass and Butler organ. In the spring of 1851, the local government of Williamsburgh, then under the control of the Whig party, having become grossly corrupt and extravagant, an organization was formed for the purpose of reforming such abuses. A journal was started, under the auspices of several prominent gentlemen of that place. This paper was named the "Independent Press," and though not the nominal editor, a large part of the editorial matter was furnished by Mr. Thompson. An entire revolution having been effected in the government of the place by the reformatory movement, Mr. Thompson was elected by the unanimous vote of the Board of Trustees as Corporation Counsel and Attorney, though several of the board were politically hostile to him. In the fall of 1852, he was re-elected to the same office hy a large popular vote, and after the expiration of his term, declined to be a candidate for further re-election.

In the meantime, he was nominated and elected, against his desire, to the position of Superintendent of Common Schools in the Williamsburgh section of the city. For several years, after the expiration of his office, he ceased to engage in active po- litical life. In the fall of 1866, without any solicitation on his part, he was nominated by the Democratic convention of the city of Brooklyn as a candidate for the office of City Judge of that city. His political opponents considered the election of Judge Reynolds, the rival candidate, as certain, but at the com- ing election it was found that Mr. Thompson had been chosen to the office by several thousand majority. The method of his filling the office, and the acceptability of his administration, are best shown by the unanimous expression through the Kings County Bar at the time of his retirement from office. A com- mendatory letter, almost unanimously signed by the leading members of the Bar, expressing their " regret at the severance of the relations existing between them;" stating that "these relations had existed for six years, and that more than half that period Judge Thompson alone discharged the judicial

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HISTORY OF KINGS COUNTY.

ALITTLE

Isso. Thompson,

duties of that court, and that throughout his whole term those duties had been performed with ability and honor; that the ample legal knowledge which he brought with him to the Bench had so ripened with his judicial practice and experience as to impress them deeply with the sufficiency and clearness of his legal opinions and decisions," and that they "therefore tender to Judge Thompson a respect, esteem and regard for their past intercourse, with their best wishes for his future happiness."

At the expiration of his term of office Judge Thompson con- cluded to gratify a long-deferred wish of visiting the Old World, and spent two years and a half in absence from his native land. In this time he visited all the important cities of Europe, and considerahle portions of Asia and Africa, including the Nile and the Holy Land. The outlines of his journey were given in many letters sent to this country, and published in many of the papers at home. He has repeatedly been urged to collect and compile such letters in permanent form, but, for reasons best appreciated by himself, has declined to enter upon such a task.

Judge Thompson has been a candidate for only one political office since his residence in the city of Brooklyn, a period of more than thirty years; that office came to him by unusual una- nimity of assent, and he retired from it without soliciting its continuance.

WALTER L. LIVINGSTON.

WALTER L. LIVINGSTON, on his father's side, was a lineal de- scendant of Robert Livingston, first proprietor of the manor of Livingston, a Scotchman who came to this country in 1677. On his mother's side he is a great-grandson of Count Admiral de Grasse, who commanded the French fleet on the occasion of the surrender of Lord Cornwallis, at Yorktown. His father's mother was a granddaughter of Chief Justice Allen, of Pennsylvania, and was herself a remarkable woman, managing her large landed estate in Columbia County, where she removed at the

time of her marriage with his grandfather, and she was widely and popularly known throughout the county as the "Widow Mary."

Mr. Livingston's father was her eldest son; his name, Henry W. Livingston. He married Caroline, one of the daughters of Francis Depau, who was at that time a leading merchant of New York City. Mr. Depau was born in France, but came to South Carolina at the time of the revolt in St. Domingo, and subse- quently removed to New York City. In Charleston he met and married Silvie, youngest daughter of Admiral de Grasse, who, with her sisters, had fled to this country to escape the horrors of the French Revolution.

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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 II, Part 162

Author: Stiles, Henry Reed, 1832-1909, ed Publication date: 1884 Publisher: New York, W. W. Munsell & Co Number of Pages: 1345

Author: Stiles, Henry Reed, 1832-1909, ed
Publication date: 1884
Publisher: New York, W. W. Munsell & Co
Number of Pages: 1345