USA > New York > Orange County > The history of Orange County, New York > Part 47
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Henry W. Wiggins came to the bar two years later than Daniel Finn. The business established by him in Middletown in 1872 is now carried on by the firm of Henry W. & Russell Wiggins, father and son.
Henry W. Wiggins is especially distinguished for his knowledge of the law of real estate, but his practice has always covered a wide range. I well remember an important litigation between mill owners in which Mr. Wig- gins established the right of the upper owner to substitute a turbine for an overshot wheel and to take water at a lower depth, provided he did not use a greater quantity of water than before. His success was the more notable and gratifying because he was opposed by both Mr. Brewster and Mr. Winfield. But it has been in litigations involving the liability of the city of Middletown for damages that Mr. Wiggins has won many of his most conspicuous triumphs. He was, at intervals, its corporation counsel for many years, his son Russell now holding the position. It is safe to say that no city was ever more ably served and carefully protected than the city of Middletown was by Mr. Wiggins. No expensive con- demnation proceeding in his charge ever proved ineffective because of some flaw or oversight. No suit for damages defended by him ever ter-
Charles G. Dill.
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minated in an extreme or excessive verdict. His caution, vigilance and conscientiousness combined with his sturdy independence in always stand- ing his ground, in always adhering inflexibly to any position once, after due consideration, taken by him, have been of incalculable service to his clientage and have resulted in saving to the city of Middletown alone many thousands of dollars.
Russell Wiggins also has enjoyed marked success in defending the in- terests of the city. His recent victory in a case involving the validity of the provision in the charter of the city of Middletown making notice to the common council of snow or ice upon a sidewalk prerequisite to an action for injuries sustained in consequence of it, has attracted wide attention. Mr. Wiggins was overruled by the special term and by the ap- pellate division which hekdl that this provision exceeded the powers of the legislature and was, therefore, unconstitutional. But Mr. Wiggins suc- ceeded in convincing the Court of Appeals, which, in an opinion embody- ing the arguments advanced by him, sustained the validity of this pro- vision of the charter, with the result that all actions of this class are prac- tically done away with. It is not surprising that all the cities of the State have been so impressed with the importance of Mr. Wiggins' victory that they are now trying to secure a similar provision in their own charters. It seems, indeed, somewhat hard that a total stranger, alighting from a train on a dark night, should be compelled to proceed at his peril along a city street, under conditions which physically exclude his either having or giving notice, but Mr. Wiggins ingeniously persuaded the Court of Ap- peals to say that this is a question for the legislature and not for the courts, thus establishing a new precedent, if not a new principle, in constitutional construction, in a case sure to become a leading one : sure to be cited for many years to come, in the courts of the entire country. In this linking his name at the very outset of his career. to a leading authority, Mr. Wiggins has set for himself a hard task. He must now live up to his own reputation-which there is abundant reason to believe he is entirely able to do.
Cornelius E. Cuddeback, admitted to the bar in 1873. immediately established in Port Jervis the business now carried on under the firm name of C. E. & S. M. Cuddeback, his son Samuel M. having become associated with him.
Mr. Cuddeback early became prominent in all the interests of the
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community, social, business, legal and public-a position which he main- tains by virtue of his unquestioned integrity, great ability and enormous industry. He was largely instrumental in straightening out the affairs of the Port Jervis & Monticello Railroad Company, and he has for many years been the attorney for the town of Deer Park and the village (now the city ) of Port Jervis. He has also been the attorney for many public service corporations. His defense of the Barrett Bridge Company in a test case tried at Goshen in June, 1905, to determine the liability of the company for the deaths occasioned by the sweeping away of the bridge over the Delaware River in a freshet, furnishes a fine example of his characteristics as a lawyer. The defense was prepared with a thorough- tiess, exhaustiveness and comprehensiveness and conducted with a verve, vigor and vivacity which carried everything before it, sweeping away the case of the plaintiff as ruthlessly as the freshiet swept away the bridge; leaving little for the jury to do but to register the fact that the defence had been completely successful.
Mr. Cuddeback finds in his son a lawyer well qualified to assume the burdens of his practice when he shall be prepared to lay them down.
All the living lawyers thus far considered, except the sons and daugh- ter, will very soon be passing from the scene. The pages that bear this imprint will scarcely be flung from the press before the lawyers whose now familiar names they carry forward to a generation that knows thiem not, will drop away, one by one, from their accustomed places. So .true is this, so strong is the author's sense that only, by slight anticipation, do these pages commemorate the departed, that nothing has been set down here which could not be truthfully and becomingly said if they had gone before who yet, for a little, linger. This, indeed, suggests the chief reason why the present record, to be of any value, should include the living ; for long before this publication is superseded by a rival or a suc- cessor the figures it portrays will have passed from action to remem- brance.
In connection with this thought it is proper to point out that the sketches and estimates now published bear this further resemblance to veracious and posthumous biography-they have not been edited by the subjects. The system adopted in some modern compilations of permit- ting prominent men to write their own biographies, or of procuring from them the data for less sympathetic treatment, has not been followed
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here. Indeed, with a single accidental and insignificant exception, not che lawyer has any knowledge of the scope of purpose of this under- taking or has furnished any information available for use in it. He who carelessly takes up this volume to read about others will be covered with modest confusion to find himself included in it. This is an attempt not to let a man speak for himself, but to collect and crystallize in definite forms of expression the floating particles of contemporary judgment upon his character. It is for this reason, besides others, that so few specific dates and irrelevant facts are given. They have not been asked for. They are not needed. They do not fit with the scheme of this work, which aims, perhaps presumptuously, but still consistently, to be a gal- very of portraits, not a table of statistics. Of what possible interest 1s 11 to know the number of a lawyer's children, or the buildling in which his office is locate 1? Character and achievement are the things that count.
It will be convenient at this point to return to the consideration of the leading advocates now at the bar of the county. No one recognizes more than advocates themselves their frequent indebtedness to the great lawyers who, undisturbed by absorbing, distracting anl exhausting trials. apply to life's complex and varving conditions the immutable principles of the common law. It implies no disparagement of Winfield an I Gedney to assume that the one often leaned upon the judgment of his partner. William F. Sharpe, and that the other often sought the wise counsel of his esteemed relative. Joseph W. Gott. At the same time it cannot be doubted that public interest has always centered upon the triai lawyer. for the obvious reason that the open field. the public challenge, the com- bat of intellectual athletes, the palm of victory appeal strongly to the imagination and dramatic sense. There need, therefore, be no apology for making prominent in a popular work those who engage the larger share of merely popular interest.
There is no man at the bar of Orange County, or indeed anywhere. for whom the term colorless would be so inept as it would be for Judge Albert H. F. Seeger. He radiates color. He is the incarnation of sun- shine. He is the forerunner of gladness, sounding a proclamation of hope and good cheer wherever he goes. No one would suppose that he ever had a care or sorrow. Yet he must have had his share. He per- forms more perfectly than any man I ever knew that mission which Robert Louis Stevenson glorifies when he says :
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"There is no duty we so much underrate as the duty of being happy. A happy man or woman is a better thing to find than a five-pound note. He or she is a radiating focus of good will; and their entrance into a room is as though another candle had been lighted. We need not care whether they could prove the forty-seventh proposition; they do a better thing than that, they practically demonstrate the great theorem of the liveableness of life."
But Judge Secger can also prove the forty-seventh proposition. He can usually prove anything he sets out to prove, as lawyers opposed to him have often found to their dismay. And even when the law and the facts are all against him and you have him thoroughly beaten. according to all the rules of the game, there will still be three to six jurors who strangely refuse to believe that anything but infallible argument could emanate from a personality so radiant. Not that his propositions always need the support of his personality, upon which, indeed, he never con- sciously presumes. He always builds up a strong, solid, telling, con- vincing argument, delivered with unaffected earnestness and artless sin- cerity.
And his sincerity really is artless. While he is personally the most popular man in Orange County and while such pre-eminence can only be attained by the use of popular arts, yet in his case they are entirely legitimate and unstudied. He really does feel kindness when he seems to. He really is interested in the things which interest others. He really does love their babies, their dogs, their horses-anything, in fact, but their automobiles. His bubbling spirits and effervescent mirth, his ready wit and sparkling sally, the ring of his laughter and the spell of his bonhomie are all the genuine expression of a rich, ardent and impression- able nature.
It might be thought that such a man would be a time-server. Far from it. There is not a trace of the demagogue in his composition. Much as he would naturally desire to retain his remarkable popularity he would fling it all away, if necessary, in the performance of his duty or in the de- fense of law and order. He showed this unmistakably when as district attorney he boldly held at bay the lawless mob, at a personal risk which his official duties did not call upon him to incur. Knowing then that he would soon be a candidate for a higher office he cared not whether he made friends or enemies, whether he lost votes or gained them; he
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simply saw his duty and went straight for it. As it was, the very forces he antagonized respected him. When this genial friend, this blithe com- panion became transformed into the stern, unyielding, inexorable officer of the law the very mob he awed retired to worship him, and when the time came it voted for him.
This mingling in Judge Seeger's character of the sterner and softer elements, of courage and tenderness, manliness and simplicity, firmness and forgiveness, has inspired in the people of Orange County a respect and affection such as rarely attends upon a public man. His election to the office of county judge was inevitable whether the "organization" had been friendly or not. If it constitutes high qualifications for this responsible position to possess a character noble and sincere, a disposition just and fair, a judgment sound and true, a mind well trained and in- formed, a knowledge of the law wide and various, a knowledge of human nature keen and close, a sense of public duty deep and earnest, then is the county of Orange indeed fortunate that a judge as respected as John J. Beattie should be followed by a successor so worthy as Albert H. F. Seeger.
From painting to stenography ; from stenography to the law; from the law to the recovery of a judgment for eight hundred thousand dollars in 1000-that is the condensed history of Thomas Watts. As the painting was, not of pictures but, of houses, it will readily be seen that he is the most consummate embodiment of that familiar phrase. the self-made man, that the Orange County bar possesses. After working all day painting, often walking back several miles to his home, he spent his evenings study- ing stenography. After acquiring this art and while pursuing its prac- tice as a court stenographer he studied law assiduously, following care- fully also the course of every case that came under his notice in court and drawing out the able judges and lawyers whom he met in conversation that was not less instructive than edifying.
Born in England, about the same time that Judge Seeger was born in Germany, and brought to this country at an early age by his parents, as Judge Seeger was also, the career of both men is a striking illustration of what may be accomplished in this land of opportunity. without the social influence of generations of local ancestry, by sheer pluck, persever- ance, energy and ability.
Mr. Watts is a very nucleus of ahounding and superabounding energy.
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He generates energy by a process of spontaneous mental combustion. His mental activity is more continuons and intense than any I have ever known. His mind never goes fallow, but seems to be constantly fructified by the floating pollen in the business, legal or intellectual atmosphere sur- rounding him. It is of course inevitable that, with such a temperament. he should repeatedly cross the path of people who would like to have him keep out of their way. But Mr. Watts is so constituted that where other people are there would he be also; and he is always willing to keep out of their way by letting them step aside.
Yet, despite all his initiative, aggressiveness and combativeness with respect to those who can meet him upon equal terms, he is tenderness and generosity itself to the weak, the helpless and the dependent. He has been known to pour out his bounty for years upon those who appealed to his sympathy or invoked his aid. He has, in a marked degree, the English love of fair play and is as ready to acknowledge a mistake as he is to resent an injury. Often brusque and impulsive in his manner when no offence is intended, and quick to regret when it is, he is always surprised to find that others are not so ready to forget as he is to forgive.
The fighting qualities of Mr. Watts are never shown to hetter advan- tage than when he is asserting the rights of the poor and weak against all the resources of corporate or individual wealth. He never tires. His tenacity cannot be shaken. No reversal of the first judgment dismays him. He enters upon the second or third trial with as much vigor and vim as upon the first. In one case he more than doubled upon the second -trial the verdict obtained upon the first trial. Indeed he has led in the securing of large verdicts, having obtained the largest verdict in a death case ever rendered in the county and the largest verdict, with one excep- tion, ever rendered for personal injuries.
The judgment for eight hundred thousand dollars to which reference has been made was obtained by Mr. Watts in an action brought by him for a contractor against a railroad company for extra work in the building of a branch, disputed by the company. Mr. Watts examined and cross- examined all the witnesses and, with the aid of his office force, prepared the final argument. He was opposed by the finest legal talent in the State and the case was tried before that learned, eminent and profoundly re- spected judge, the Honorable Alton B. Parker, sitting as referee. The case involved many intricate questions of which Mr. Watts exhibited entire
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mastery. His management of this case marks the zenith of his ability and reputation as a trial lawyer. A lawyer who, before such a tribunal, wins such a case, involving such large interests and attended with results of such magnitude, for the judgment was not only obtained but settled, has established his place, beyond all question, in the very front rank of the trial lawyers of the State.
Mr. Watts excels in cross-examination. In a case brought by him for injuries resulting from the explosion of a locomotive boiler, the judge hesitated at the close of his case about letting it proceed, but finally ruled that the railroad company should go on with its proof, reserving the questions that troubled him. Mr. Watts thereupon took the defendant's witnesses in hand and on cross-examination he so completely established the liability of the company out of the mouths of its own witnesses that all thought, not merely of nonsuit, but of defense even was abandoned and the company was thrown into a panic. It made an offer in the recess and when the court convened again to resume the case it was announced as settled.
Mr. Watts' addresses to the jury are marked by pith, point and piquancy. He emphasizes the salient features of the case and lets all minor or subordinate issues take care of themselves. His sturdy defense of his client's rights, his strong individuality and his intellectual force combine to make him a formidable opponent.
Perhaps no lawyer at the bar of Orange County ever received a more emphatic, pronounced, unmistakable tribute of personal regard than John C. R. Taylor, of Middletown, received at the election of 1906, when, in a district opposed to him politically, he ran over four thousand ahead of his ticket and was elected Senator by a majority of over twelve hundred. The good opinion of him thus expressed by his fellow citizens has been confirmed by his broad, patriotic, statesmanlike course at Albany, which has attracted the attention and commended him to the approbation, of the entire State, without respect to party lines. The purity of his character, the singleness of his motives, the soundness of his judg- ment and the independence of his action carried him in a single session to a position of weight and influence usually acquired only after several terms of legislative service. Senator Taylor is one of those public servants who believe that the State is a great business corporation of which the Governor is president and each Senator a trustee. Under this
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conviction he refuses to consider either party advantage or private inter- ests but seeks to ascertain solely what is best for the welfare of the people and the cause of good government. Whether he can repeat his phenomenal success at the polls under less favorable conditions is of course uncertain. But whether he does or not he has set an example of clean, straightforward, high-minded methods in politics and legislation which will long be remembered in his district. He has set a standard of political morals which will have to be satisfied by any successor who hopes to retain the mandate of a now aroused, vigilant, exacting and independent public conscience.
Senator Taylor's success at the bar was almost as immediate as his later success in the Senate. Early in his practice he went to Kingston to try a case against one of the leaders of the famous Ulster County bar and obtained a verdict of $10,000 in an action against the town of Shaw- angunk for damages resulting from a defective bridge, a verdict which was subsequently paid after passing the ordeal of all the courts. Judge Clearwater who presided over the trial and whose qualifications as a critic will be conceded, since he has himself made both the bar and bench illustrious, told me that he had never seen a case more ably tried and presented than this case was by Mr. Taylor.
Senator Taylor has the courage of the true lawyer. When a few years ago he was engaged to defend a client accused of a shocking offense, people went to him and said, "Why, you will be ruined if you (lefend that man." He simply replied, "He is my client and I shall stand by him to the end." Senator Taylor not only was not "ruined" but he completely reversed public sentiment which had been misled from the start, and established his client's entire innocence of the charge against him in a crushing cross-examination of the first witness which demon- strated its complete falsity.
Senator Taylor's professional ideals are as high as his political ideals. He is an honorable foe, a straight lawyer, a cultured gentleman.
Michael N. Kane, of Warwick, the most beautiful village in the county. if not in the State, also received at the election of 1906 a vote for the office of supreme court judge which strikingly attested the admiration and regard in which he is held by his fellow citizens in the county and district. He ran several thousand ahead of his ticket but this was not sufficient to overcome the adverse majority caused by the creation of the new ninth
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judicial district out of the river counties. Mr. Kane has securely estab- lished his reputation as a trial lawyer of conspicuous ability and success. He is frequently employed as counsel in important cases and has never failed to satisfy the expectations of both attorney and client. His prepa- ration of cases for trial is complete and masterly.
In the appellate courts his arguments are marked by a learning. lucidity and power which always command attention and usually assent.
The breadth of character and fineness of moral fibre which have con- tributed so largely to his professional success are displayed in all his relations to his professional brethren, in which he is the pattern and exemplar of uniform courtesy, consideration and indulgence. While never imperiling the interests of a client to accommodate a professional brother he is always able to find a way to accommodate him without in- juring his client. He never takes refuge in the transparent pretext that his client will not consent, which is the customary formula used to cover. though it does not conceal, professional churlishness. In the very cases in which Mr. Kane has been most generous to his opponents he has had the most complete ultimate success; thus furnishing to his brethren of the bar an object lesson from which they may learn that courtesy to each other is entirely consistent with perfect loyalty to their client.
Mr. Kane's public spirit has always been a noticeable phase of his character. His pride in and devotion to the interests of Warwick have endeared him to his community which not only respects him as a lawyer but esteems him as a neighbor and honors him as a citizen.
Ferdinand V. Sanford is another citizen of Warwick whose abilities en- title him to rank among the trial lawyers of the county. Fluent in speech. cultivated in manner and refined in character. his personal charm impart- weight to his opinion and impulsion to his utterances. He, too, is deeply interested in his beautiful village, the citizens of which have bestowed upon him many marks of their favor and confidence. His prominence in its affairs led to a most interesting experience in the summer of 1906 when he represented his village at the brilliant and imposing pageant held by old Warwick in England at which he upheld the reputation abroad of American oratory in a most graceful, felicitous and eloquent address.
Darwin W. Esmond, of Newburgh, prepares his cases for trial more thoroughly than any lawyer I ever knew. His trial brief is comprehen- sive, elaborate and minute, even containing instructions in reference to
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the cross-examination of the witnesses expected to be called by his op- ponent. Every case likely to be cited by his opponent is discussed and distinguished. Every pitfall into which his opponent might seek to draw him is pointed out and provided against. If he should die the day before a case is set down for trial and it should be thought best, notwithstanding, to go on with the trial, any experienced trial lawyer could, on a moment's notice, take his brief and try the case without consulting an authority, seeing a witness, or even talking with the client. He would find his open- ing to the jury outlined for him, the statements of the witnesses ar- ranged in the order in which they should be adduced, the authorities bearing upon a motion for nonsuit carefully analyzed and, finally, the points to be dwelt upon in the submission to the jury clearly emphasized.
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