USA > New York > Steuben County > Bath > The official records of the centennial celebration, Bath, Steuben County, New York, June 4, 6, and 7, 1893 > Part 22
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" When the champions thus armed with batons arrive within the lists, or place of combat, the champion of the tenant, or party in possession, then takes his adversary by the hand and makes oath that the tenements in dis- pute are not the right of the demandant (plaintiff), and the champion of the demandant then taking the other by the hand, swears in the same manner that they are. Next an oath against sorcery or enchantment is to be taken by both the champions in this or similar form; 'Hear this. ye Justices, that I have this day neither eat, drank, nor have upon me neither bone, stone or grass; nor any enchantment, sorcery or witchcraft, whereby the law of God may be abased or the law of the devil exalted. So help me God and his saints.' The battle is thus begun and the combatants are bound to fight 'till the stars appear in the evening; and if the champion of the tenant can defend himself 'till the stars appear, the tenant shall prevail in his cause; for it is sufficient for him to maintain his ground and make it a drawn battle, he being already in possession; but if victory declares itself for either party, for him judgment is finally given."
We may imagine that on a certain fine June day in the year 1795, the lists having been duly set up in Pulteney Square, the boundaries thereof being duly marked by stumps and logs, at day break the parties and their champions appear to determine the issue. In lieu of Judges, Captain Will- iamson and a fair retinue of retainers attend to preside at the battle. All the settlers in the clearing turn out to witness the contest and occupy such vantage stumps as they can find for a good view of the contestants.
The necessary preliminaries having been performed, the battle begins. Instead of armor the champions are encased in stout buckskin suits. Their
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long staves swish and whack; and, with such intermissions as the Court permits, the contest lasts until the stars appear, and results in a draw, which is a victory for Mr. Spruce, the tenant, and final judgment is entered in his favor. Thus may have been determined a hundred years ago the title to the most valuable piece of property in Bath to-day.
In the year 1795, a few lawyers settled in Bath, the advance guard of a brilliant company to follow. But it was not till the year 1796 that the lists were finally broken up, the champions and their staves made their exit, and trial by wager of battle became a past procedure.
Then the Steuben County Bar was formed, judges were appointed, a Court House and jail were built, and another system of jurisprudence was established. The forensic period in the history of our Bench and Bar dawned. A period in which many able counselors and eloquent and bril- liant pleaders appeared upon the scene and played leading parts in the Courts of Western New York. The Court House became the lists, the lawyers the combatants ; the rules prescribed were rules for debate and examination, instead of the conduct of a fight in the arena. Upon these lines the affairs of justice have been administered down to our own time. During the forensic period, which extended to the adoption of the new State Constitution and the first Code, in 1847, he was the greatest Judge who could banter the lawyers with the keenest wit, who could annihilate a witness with a look, and proved himself the greatest terror to unfortu- nates, whom he sentenced, often with severity, and always with copious and eloquent instructions upon the heinousness of wrong-doing and the terrors of a future state. The most successful lawyer was the brilliant advocate who held the audience spell-bound by his lofty eloquence, made the jurors tremble at the awfulness of their responsibility, and caused the prisoner to weep like a penitent before the altar. This period, too, has passed. The adoption of the various Codes, the consolidation of the laws, the definite rules laid down by the Judges for every form of procedure, have eliminated, to a great degree, the spectacular business common to our Courts of justice during the forensic period.
The study of the codes and the rules of practice has taken the place of the study of the arts of the orator and the tragedian. The extension of the right of appeal has made the race, in almost all great legal battles of this day, to the slow and not to the swift. Few cases of importance in our day reach a settlement within ten years.
Our modern procedure is a machine, good in some parts, weak in many, slow and cumbrous. The spirit of romance and chivalry that once pervaded our halls of justice has vanished, and the atmosphere of the counting-house now prevails. Of the three methods of procedure-the
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battle, the forensic and the mechanical-the first possessed that great vir- tue in matters of justice, promptness of decision, and the twin merit that the decision was final.
In the field of the exact sciences, the artists and builders of the past century have held fast to principles known at its beginning, have amplified and developed them, until in the matter of locomotion, in the matter of heat and light, and of nearly all the material things that administer to our peace of mind and comfort of body, we enjoy blessings that our forefathers did not dream of. In legal jurisprudence, however, our legislators have well-nigh abolished the most important feature of an issue at law between parties ; viz, a final decision. They have extended the right of appeal and multiplied the rules of procedure, until, in this day, in the State of New York, it is possible for a wealthy and determined litigant to postpone settlement for a wrong for a term of years, and even beyond the natural life of the injured party.
Now, as one hundred years ago, the safeguard for litigants lies in a compromise. A trial at Circuit before Judge and jury, and an appeal to General Term, and an appeal to the Court of Appeals-the course which the Code has staked out for the parties to a civil suit in the Supreme Court to travel-has proved almost as hazardous to litigants, and far more expensive, than the old form of trial by champions in the lists " from sunrise until the stars appear in the evening."
Macaulay says, "Religion is not an exact science." When we observe, as we constantly do, our Court of the General Term laying down the law applicable to certain facts brought out in the trial of an action under the Code as thus and so, and the Judges of the Court of Appeals laying down a different rule as the law, we are forced to the conclusion that the admin- istration of the law of the land is not yet an exact science. The remedy would seem to be to shorten mightily the staked course which litigants must run.
In criminal cases a decided improvement has been made. In the con- duct of the trial, the punishment of offenders and, in capital cases, the execution, the methods of procedure are far better than ever before. The rights of the accused, no matter how poor or vile he may be, are now assured. Justice in nearly every case is tempered with mercy and, except for notorious law-breakers, the sentence is reasonable and humane.
One of the most remarkable executions of the past century, in this State, occurred at Gallows Hill, now within the corporate limits of the village, on Friday, the 29th day of April, 1825. On that day, near the hour of noon, Robert Douglass, a young man twenty-three years of age, who had been convicted of the murder of Samuel H. Ives, of Troups- burgh, was taken from the Bath jail for execution. " At the hour ap- pointed six companies of militia, armed and equipped," says a writer of
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the period, " paraded in front of the stone jail on the north-west corner of Pulteney Square." The prisoner was brought out, draped in the habili- ments of the grave, to be placed in an open wagon containing his coffin, but choosing to walk, he was placed between two officers and marched to the place of execution. Sheriff John Magee, mounted on a milk-white horse, gave the order to march and the procession, headed by a military band playing the Dead March, moved up Liberty and Geneva streets to Gallows Hill, where Douglass was hung in the presence of 10,000 eye wit- nesses-a scene worthy of the dark days of the French Revolution, a spectacle that happily is no longer possible with us.
The first term of the Court of Common Pleas, in and for the County of Steuben, convened on the 21st day of June, 1796, in the frame Court House on the east side of Pulteney Square. In 1829, a brick Court House was erected on or near the same site. In 1859, this building was de- stroyed by fire, and in the following year the present Court House was built. At the first term of Court the Honorable William Kersey was the Presiding Judge. "Judge Kersey," says the chronicler, "was a grave and dignified Friend from Philadelphia. He performed the duties of Lord High Chancellor of the county for several years, when he returned to Pennsylvania, greatly esteemed by the people whom he judged." Abraham Bradley and Eleazer Lindley, Esqs., of Painted Post, were the Associate Judges. George Hornell, Uriah Stephens and Abel White were qualified as Justices of the Peace; Stephen Ross, as Surrogate.
The following attorneys and counselors appeared in due form: Na- thaniel W. Howell, Vincent Mathews, William Stuart (who presented a commission under the Great Seal of this State to perform the duties of District Attorney in the Counties of Onondaga, Ontario, Tioga and Steu- ben), William B. Verplanck, David Jones, Peter Masterson, Thomas Mor- ris, Stephen Ross and David Powers.
The first Court of General Sessions was held in the autumn of the same year. In addition to the Judges of the Common Pleas, offenders encountered the following array of Justices of the Peace: John Knox, William Lee, Frederick Bartles, George Hornell, Eli Mead, Abel White and Uriah Stephens, Jr.
Since that year three generations of the disciples of Blackstone have come and gone in Bath. Here, as elsewhere, they have been leaders of men and their influence upon the social as well as legislative affairs of the village, the county and the State has been most potent. They have been men of superior education, of marked ability in their chosen pro- fession, and faithful to the trusts confided to them.
The first lawyer to arrive in Bath was George D. Cooper, of Rhine- beck, on the North River, who settled here in 1795. He was appointed the
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first Clerk of the county. Others who came a few years later were Samuel S. Haight, Esq., and Willian Howe Cuyler. The chronicler says: "Gen- eral Haight had an extensive practice, and a numerous and interesting family of sons and daughters." He afterward removed to Allegany county.
Mr. Cuyler came to Bath from Albany. He is described as a " fine, portly young man of very fashionable and fascinating manners of the Chesterfield order." He was killed by a cannon ball from Fort Erie while acting as Aid-de-camp to General Amos Hall in the War of 1812. Daniel Cruger, William B. Rochester, William Woods, Henry Welles and Henry W. Rogers, members of the Steuben County Bar, and, for a time at least, practitioners in Bath, studied law in Mr. Haight's office.
General Daniel Cruger was a leading member of the Bar and an influ- ential politician. He was elected a member of the Legislature in 1812, and was chosen Speaker of the Assembly. In 1813, he served with credit as Major of Infantry under General McClure on the frontiers. In 1816, he was elected a Member of Congress. In 1833, he removed to Virginia where he died in 1843.
Hon. William B. Rochester, who presided at the trial of Robert Doug- lass, for murder, practiced law for a time in partnership with Hon. Will- iam Woods. He was elected a Member of the XVIIIth Congress, in 1822, and, in 1823 was appointed Circuit Judge for the Eighth Judicial Circuit. He subsequently removed to Buffalo. His health failing, he took passage for Florida in the steamer Pulaski. The steamer was wrecked and Judge Rochester, with a large number of passengers, was drowned.
The following is an extract from his eloquent exhortation to the pris- oner when on March 22, 1825, he sentenced Douglass to be hung: "Think not, deluded man, that by paying the penalty inflicted by human laws, your sins will be thus washed away. O, no! there is something within us that intimates to the impenitent sinner a dread of eternity. Independ- ently of Revelation all Nature declares that there is another and a higher tribunal, before which we must all render a full account of the deeds done in the body. Yet it is a tribunal which tempers justice with mercy. Re- member you can hope to avert the vengeance of an offended God. Watch, then, and pray without intermission or reference to worldly objects, dur- ing the few days which remain in store for you. Lose not, for the sake of your immortal soul's salvation, a single moment in making lively prepara- tion for the hour of death and day of judgment. Avail yourself of relig- ious instruction and pious admonition which will never be withheld in this, our Christian land, from the most degraded culprit, and bear in mind, until your latest breath, that your offense is rank, and will be fatal to all your hopes of eternity unless atoned for in this life by the severest
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upbraidings of an excruciating conscience, and by repentance and faith the most sincere, devout and unceasing."
Hon. Ziba A. Leland was educated at Williams College, Mass. He came to Bath in the year 1822. He was a lawyer of much force and learning, and became eminent as a practitioner. In 1838, he was appointed Judge of the old Court of Common Pleas, as the successor of Judge Edwards, who died in office. He died at Mechanicsville, Saratoga county, about 1873.
Hon. Edward Howell came to Bath from Sidney, Delaware county, in the spring of 1811. He studied law with Daniel Cruger. In 1818 he was appointed County Clerk, and soon after was made postmaster. In 1829, he was appointed District Attorney. He was subsequently elected to the Assembly, and was a Member of Congress. "Mr. Howell," says a con- temporary, "stood for many years at the head of his profession in this section of the State." He possessed the confidence of a numerous clien- tage and the respect of the people to an unusual degree. He died in 1871, at the age of 76 years.
Schuyler Strong came to Steuben from Orange county. In 1822, he formed a partnership with William Woods. Soon after he became associ- ated in practice with Edward Howell. He took a leading part in the defence of Robert Douglass, tried for murder in 1825. His associates were Edward Howell and Ziba A. Leland. The fact that Douglass was tried twice, his conviction at the first trial having been set aside for irregularity, shows the zeal with which he was defended.
Hon. William Woods was one of the early and distinguished lawyers of Bath. He was a native of Washington county, and studied law with Hon. Samuel Nelson, late Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. He had a very large practice, and was one of the most popular men of his time. He was a Member of the Legislature in 1823 and in 1828; a Member of Congress from 1823 to 1825, and Surrogate of the county from 1827 to 1835. Mr. Woods, although only 37 years of age at the time of his death, which occurred in 1837, had been for a number of years known to his many warm personal friends by the familiar sobriquet of " Old Uncle Billy Woods."
Hon. David McMaster was born in Unadilla, Otsego county, 1804. He wasgraduated at Hamilton College in the class of 1824. He commenced the practice of the law in Bath in partnership with Hon. Henry W. Rogers in 1827, and continued in active practice in this village until 1847, part of the time as the partner of Judge Leland and of L. H. Read. Mr. McMaster was the first County Judge and Surrogate of the county elected by the people under the new Constitution. In 1856, he was re-elected. The fol- lowing story is told of him by one who witnessed the closing scene. Dur- ing Judge McMaster's last term in office, one Totten was tried before him for forgery. A. P. Ferris, the District Attorney, and Samuel H, Hammond
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prosecuted, and David Rumsey and Luther C. Peck, of Nunda, appeared for the prisoner. Hammond and Peck were both men of high temper, and through several days that the trial lasted, wrangled and abused each other without cessation. The Judge protested and expostulated without avail. Finally, says my informant, Judge McMaster lost his temper. He stopped the progress of the trial, and leaning far over the bench, shook his finger at the irate lawyers, and said in loud tones: "I have talked to you, I have remonstrated, I have addressed you as a gentleman should address gentlemen, but without effect. Now, if this conduct is repeated, I will send you both to jail." As the record does not show that the lawyers went to jail, the trial doubtless proceeded smoothly thereafter. The anecdote is interesting chiefly as showing how fractious lawyers can pester a mild- tempered Judge.
Hon. Henry Welles, one of the ablest of the early practitioners in this county, was born in Kinderhook, N. Y., Oct. 17, 1794. He enlisted in a military company recruited in Steuben county during the War of 1812. He distinguished himself as a brave and gallant soldier in the fighting about Fort Erie. In November, 1814, he returned to Bath and studied law in the office of Vincent Mathews. After his admission to the Bar, Judge Welles opened an office in this village, and practiced his profession most successfully for a number of years. In 1824, he was appointed District Attorney, and, as such, he prosecuted Douglass. In 1829, he resigned the office of District Attorney and continued in active practice at Bath until about ten years later, when he removed to Penn Yan. He was elected one of the Justices of the Supreme Court for the Seventh Judicial District under the new Constitution, in 1847.
Henry W. Rogers came to Bath from Sidney Plains about 1827. He taught school, and read law with Hon. Henry Welles. He formed a part- nership and practiced law with David McMaster, and afterwards with Hon. Joseph G. Masten. Messrs. Rogers and Masten removed to Buffalo about the year 1836. Mr. Rogers was made Collector of the Port and Prosecuting Attorney, and Mr. Masten became Mayor of the city and a Judge of the Superior Court. Mr. Rogers was a polished and courtly gentleman, a law- yer, well-read and of sound judgment. He was a capital speaker, and pos- sessed a wit as bright as a flash of sunshine ; though keen, it was not cut- ting ; it excited pleasure and not annoyance among his hearers. He died at Ann Arbor, Mich., a few years ago.
Hon. George C. Edwards was born in Stockbridge, Mass., September 28, 1787. He came to Bath and engaged in the practice of law in 1818. In 1825, he was appointed Judge of the Court of Common Pleas, which office he held until his death in 1837. He published, in 1830, " A Treatise on the Powers and Duties of Justices of the Peace," which had a large
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circulation at that time. Judge Edwards was a familiar figure in early days in Bath, and was universally esteemed.
The following is quoted from an old manuscript by General McClure, one of the first settlers in Bath : "General Vincent Mathews resided for many years in Bath. He was said to be at the head of the Bar for legal knowledge, but was not much of an advocate. Judge Edwards, Schuyler Strong, Jonas Clark, Jonathan Haight, John Cook, and Leland and Mc- Master are all that I remember of the old stock. Ah, yes ; there is one more of my old friends, Cuthbert Harrison, a Virginian-a young man of good sense, and whether drunk or sober he was a good-natured, clever fel- low." Mr. Harrison is said to have been a man of fine talents, and one of the most eloquent advocates in the western part of the State.
Robert Campbell. Jr., son of Robert Campbell. one of the first settlers in Bath, was born in 1808. The senior Campbell is described by one who knew him as "one of Nature's noblemen, kind, genial, honest and true." The son was educated at Hobart College, Geneva. He studied law with Cruger and Howell, and was admitted to practice in 1829. For a year or two he practiced his profession at Auburn, but returned to Bath within a short time. He was a partner of General Cruger and afterwards of Sam- uel H. Hammond and Guy H. McMaster. He is described by a contem- porary as a scholarly, laborious, conscientious and successful lawyer. In 1846, he was an influential member of the Constitutional Convention. He was elected to the second highest office in the gift of the people of the State in 1858, when he was chosen Lieutenant-Governor. He was re-elect- ed in 1860. Mr. Campbell, although not an eloquent speaker, was a law- yer of keen perceptions, and so steady in his application to the duties of his profession that his clients were often better served than they would have been by a more brilliant but less painstaking attorney.
Hon. L. H. Read, who practiced law in Bath for a number of years, was a descendant of one of the early settlers of Pleasant Valley, now in the town of Urbana. He studied law with Edward and William Howell. In 1839, he formed a partnership with David McMaster. In 1850, he was appointed Chief Justice of Utah. After serving on the Bench one year in Utah, he resigned his office and returned to Bath, where he died soon after.
Hon. Samuel H. Hammond formed a partnership with Robert Camp- bell and practiced law in Bath from 1836 to 1842. He is thus described by a contemporary : "Though gifted with rare powers, he disliked the routine and drudgery of a law office, and books of reference were his abhorrence. The scenes of Nature, the wild solitudes of mountain and glen, the sports of hunting and fishing, were, on the contrary, his delight, and he often found them so tempting a pastime as to seriously interfere
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with anything like a systematic attention to professional duties." He was a son of Lazarus Hammond, the founder of Hammondsport. He was ad- mitted to practice in 1831. In 1843, he removed to Albany, but returned to Bath in 1857, and became the law partner of A. P. Ferris. In 1859, he was elected to the State Senate from this district. He died, in 1878, at Watertown, where he resided after 1864. As a boy, some of the pleasant- est hours of the writer of this sketch were spent in thumbing a volume of which Mr. Hammond was the author, " Hills, Lakes and Forest Streams," a story of the woods, told in a style more charming, one cannot find, even at this day.
Hon. David Rumsey, one of the most skillful and successful prac- titioners in the history of the Bath Bar, was born in Salem, Washington county, N. Y., on December 25, 1810. He studied law with Hon. Henry Welles. He was admitted to practice in 1832, and formed a partnership with Hon. William Woods, which continued until the death of the latter. In 1842, he was associated with Robert B. Van Valkenburgh in the prac- tice of his profession. In 1846, Mr. Rumsey was elected to Congress, and was re-elected in 1848. In January, 1873, he was appointed, by Governor Dix, a Justice of the Supreme Court, and in the autumn of that year was elected to the office. He continued to perform the duties of that office until disqualified by age, in 1880. A notable feature in connection with the history of his law office is the fact that it was the training school of five Justices of the Supreme Court. Besides himself, there were R. B. Van Valkenburgh, who became Justice of the Supreme Court of Florida ; James M. Barker, Justice of the Supreme Court of Massachusetts ; Lloyd Barber, Judge of the Circuit Court of Minnesota, and William Rumsey, who succeeded his father as Supreme Court Judge of this district. With a thorough knowledge of the law, Judge David Rumsey possessed the rare faculty of grasping the thoughts of jurors and leading them along by plain methods of logic and reasoning to the conclusion he desired.
William Howell, a brother of Edward Howell, practiced law in Bath for more than fifty years. He was a man of culture, and a successful practitioner.
Hon. Washington Barnes settled at an early day in Painted Post. He was elected County Judge and Surrogate in 1860, when he removed to Bath. He afterwards practiced law, in company with Hon. Ansel J. Mc- Call, for a number of years. A friend says of him : "He was a very. earnest and conscientious man in all his dealings."
Alfred P. Ferris, Esq., was educated at Franklin Academy, Pratts- burgh. He came to Bath in 1840. He studied law with Ziba A. Leland and Samuel H. Hammond. He was admitted to the Bar in 1843, and con- tinued in the practice of his profession in Bath till his death in 1888. At
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the special election in June, 1847, he was elected District Attorney, and held the office until January 1, 1851. Mr. Ferris was well known to the present generation of lawyers, and was ever most courteous to the young men of the Bar.
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