USA > Pennsylvania > Luzerne County > Families of the Wyoming Valley: biographical, genealogical and historical. Sketches of the bench and bar of Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, vol. I > Part 37
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they get there. The others make their way by vehement, in- domitable push, avoiding incidentals as unimportant, but gallop- ing, so to speak, to and with the main issue. Of the two the former are least frequently worsted. It is of them that most of the text-book writers come. Their methods of thought de- velop system, and their manner of working begets inclination to lit- erary endeavor. Eben Greenough Scott came of good legal stock. Both his grandfathers were prominent and distinguished law- yers. Ebenezer Greenough, of Sunbury, and Judge Scott, of Wilkes-Barre, were both leading lights of the fraternity, and each left his impress upon the judicial proceedings of the communi- ty in which he lived. When yet a student the grandson was fond of committing his views to print, and many of the leading edi- torials of one of the then leading journals of Philadelphia, came from his pen and the pens of a bevy of college chums similarly inclined. When he went to the bar he quickly showed himself to be a very talented member of the first of the two classes above named, and many a vexed client has had reason to thank the conscientious deliberation and extreme care which he brought to the prosecution of their causes. In addition to his active practice he wrote and published in 1871, "Commentaries upon the Intestate System, and the Powers and Jurisdiction of the Orphans' Court of Pennsylvania," a work of great value in a professional library. Another book, " Development of Consti- tutional Liberty in the English Colonies of America," elicited warm praise, both in this country and in Europe. In recognition of these and other literary labors he was recently elected a Fellow by courtesy of the Johns Hopkins University, of Baltimore, an institution of learning bearing the highest of reputations. Mr. Scott has had some experience in politics, but was unsuccessful in securing political honors for himself, though as an active dem- ocrat he has contributed no little toward advancing the ambition of others. In 1872, as already stated, he was the democratic can- didate for judge of the Northumberland district. Although the county was at the time understood to contain a reliable democratic majority, there were internal dissensions which resulted in sacri- ficing the greater part of the ticket, Mr. Scott included. His nomination for congress had an equally disastrous ending, as
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the district was hopelessly republican, although Mr. Scott suc- ceeded in reducing the usual majority of nearly three thousand to less than twenty-four hundred. All who know him are convinced that he would have graced either position. As will be under- stood from what has been already told, Mr. Scott is a lover of books. He has done some traveling also, both at home and abroad, and from the two sources of information has acquired a wide knowledge of notable men and places and their history, which, with his remarkable powers of comparison and analysis, make him a delightful addition to any company. A store of anecdote and a ready repartee, with an equipment of facts and figures enabling him to enter into discussion upon almost any topic, make him welcome wherever those who know him meet for " feast of reason and flow of soul."
GAIUS LEONARD HALSEY.
The American Halseys are of English origin, and have been settled in America about two hundred and fifty years. The family in England is of considerable antiquity. It has been con- jectured that the Alsis mentioned in the " Domesday Book " are the originals of the family. In the Conqueror's time (1066 to 1087) the Alsis possessed land in half the counties of his realm, and had representatives in each of the three great classes into which landed proprietors were divided by the compilers of the " Domes- day Book." But it was several centuries after the Conqueror's time that the first indisputably genuine member of the family is known to have existed in England. This was John Hals, a man of considerable wealth and repute, who lived in the reign of Edward III. (1327 to 1377). He belonged, originally in Corn- wall, and built, in the adjoining county of Devon, the ancient mansion of Kenedon, mentioned by Burke in his " Landed Gen- try." Kenedon is contemporary with the great hall of William Rufus, otherwise known as Westminster Hall, of London, and with Windsor Castle. The reign of Edward is noted as having
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been a time of luxury and extravagant living. Many of the present architectural monuments of England belong to that reign. The passing of sumptuary laws became necessary. John Hals was one of the English judges of Common Pleas. His second son was Robert (or John), who added an E to his name, making it Halse. He was educated at Exeter college, Oxford, and be- came successively provost of Oriel, proctor of Oriel, prebendary of St. Paul's, and bishop of Litchfield and Coventry. He was present at the battle of Bloreheath, one of the engagements fought during the War of the Roses, and escorted from that field to Ec- cleshall, Margaret of Anjou, the queen of the imbecile Henry VI. Bishop Halse was eminent for promoting none but the best of his clergy. He died in 1490, and was buried in Lichfield cathe- dral. His consecration as bishop took place in St. Clement's church, Coventry. One of the direct descendants of John Hals returned to Cornwall in 1600, and purchased the estate of Fen- tongollon.
Hertfordshire at the present time contains, probably, the best known representatives of the family in England. Thomas Fred- erick Halsey, of Gaddesdon Place, near Hemel Hempstead, being now the member of parliament for that county. Gaddesdon Place was granted to William Halsey (or Hawse) by Henry VIII. and has ever since belonged to his descendants. William's great- grandson became Sir John Halsey. Thomas Halsey, in 1738, was high sheriff of Hertfordshire, and the same office was sub- sequently held by Charles Halsey. Frederick Halsey, who died in 1763, took part in England's continental wars in the middle of the last century. He was commissary general of the allied army in Germany, and was afterwards aide-de-camp to the hereditary Prince of Wolfenbuttle. He died at Hesse Darmstadt. His arms were : Arg. on a pile sable, three griffins' heads erased of the first. His crest was a dexter hand purp. sleeve, gr. cuff arg. holding small griffin's claw erased, or. His motto : Nescit vox missa reverti. The crest of John Hals was a griffin sejeant wings, endorsed or.
The first Halsey to arrive in this country from England, and the progenitor of Gaius Leonard Halsey, was Thomas Halsey, who settled at Lynn, Mass., as early as 1637, and who came from
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Hertfordshire. Like most other settlers of that town, he was a farmer. . Large stocks of horned cattle, sheep, and goats were raised there, and for some years the settlers lived in an almost ideal state of democracy. Small as their community was, they held town meetings every three months. Their fire wood was cut in common, and for the grass in the meadows and marshes lots were drawn. Thomas Halsey possessed one hundred acres of land at Lynn. The period of his arrival there was one of in- tense religious agitation. The incident of Endicott and the Red Cross, so vividly related by Hawthorne, occurred in 1635. Thomas Halsey's stay at Lynn, was, however, of short duration. He was one of eight young Englishmen who, in 1640, purchased a ship, and, by permission of Governor Winthrop, set sail for Long Island with a view to settling there. They landed in Cow Bay, in what is now the town of North Hempstead, and purchased from James Forrett, the agent of Lord Sterling, a tract of land eight miles square. For the English claim they paid four bush- els of Indian corn. To the Indians they gave clothing and other articles of civilized life. Soon after their arrival at Cow Bay the Dutchman of New Amsterdam laid claim to all the land in that neighborhood, and sent an armed body of men to enforce the claim. Obliged thus to depart, Thomas Halsey and his com- panions sailed for a harbor eighty miles to the east, where they planted a town, which, in memory of the English town from which they had sailed for the new world, they called Southamp- ton. From the agreement which they drew up it might be imagined that these settlers fancied they were founding an independent commonwealth.
Thomas Halsey passed the remainder of his days at South- ampton. Local historians say he had great influence among his companions and was endowed with the largest amount of worldly possessions. He was active in establishing the Connecticut system of jurisprudence, and in 1664 was chosen a representative. He built a house, which is said still to exist, on Main street. In 1874 it was owned by Thomas Nicholls White. Thomas Hal- sey's first wife was murdered by two Indians, who were promptly captured and executed. This was the only Indian murder com- mitted in the Southampton colony. Thomas Halsey was a man
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of considerable force of character, of strong will, and appears to have been seldom much influenced or controlled by others. The Southampton town meetings on more than one occasion were marked by stormy scenes. He was censured in 1646 for "hindering the quiet proceedings of the court, and causing them to lose their time by his wilful obstinacy." For "the unjust charging of the court for justifying the actions of Mr. Howe," he was condemned to make public acknowledgements, and to pay a fine of five shillings. He refused to make this acknowl- edgement, and the fine was increased to forty shillings. A year later, at the general term of court, Mr. Halsey's fine was remit- ted. His will was probated in New York city in 1679. He left three sons and one daughter. The most of the Halseys now living in this country are descended from this stock. Many of them have never left Southampton. New York city and Brook- lyn have seen a few. Others have settled in New Jersey. Tomp- kins county, in New York state, has a village called Halseyville. One of the Southampton daughters was married to a Conkling, from whom is descended Roscoe Conkling.
Gaius Leonard Halsey belongs to the ninth generation in descent from Thomas Halsey, the line being: (1) Thomas; (2) Thomas; (3) Jeremiah ; (4) Jeremiah ; (5) Matthew ; (6) Mat- thew ; (7) Gaius ; (8) Richard Church ; (9) Gaius Leonard. The two Thomases ended their days at Southampton. Jeremiah (3) removed to Bridgehampton; Matthew (6) probably settled at Easthampton. Of Matthew (2) it is recorded that, in a winter of great severity, near the end of the last century, he skated across New York Bay, the Kill von Kull, and thence up Newark Bay to Newark city, where he visited the lady who subsequently became his wife. He was a soldier in the Revolu- tionary war, and while serving in Connecticut captured thirteen Hessians. For this exploit he was rewarded by the government with a vast quantity of depreciated Continental currency, the worthlessness of which embittered his after days. After the war, and after his children had been born, he emigrated to Springfield, Otsego county, New York, and thence to Howard, Steuben county, where he lived to be over ninety years of age.
The maiden name of Matthew Halsey's wife was Leonard.
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She became the mother of three children who reached mature age. The eldest was Rufus, who had a son Thomas and a son Jefferson. Thomas was the father of Mrs. Ami Gilchrist and of Victoria Halsey, both of whom are residents of this city. Matthew's second child was Harriet, and his third was Gaius. Gaius was born May 4, 1793, and received for his middle name his mother's name, Leonard, but he did not use the name Leon- ard-at least not within the life-time of his children. He gave the name however, along with his own, to his second son. The two names exist a third time in the subject of this sketch. Gaius studied medicine, and finally drifted away from the home at How- ard and settled, first at Bainbridge, and then at Kortright Centre, Delaware county, where his children where born, where the re- mainder of his days were spent, and where he now lies buried. His second wife (Barbara Grant) to whom he was married a few years before he died, still lives at Hobart in the same county, and is the sole survivor of Gaius Halsey that now exists in Delaware. She never married again. Twenty years cover the period of Gaius Halsey's life at Kortright. They were eventful years to him and to his. But when the light of his life went out, in his forty-second year, his five children departed from the place never to return. The going of the Halseys from Kortright was as sud- den and abrupt as had been their coming. Doctor Halsey's first wife, and the mother of his four children, was Mary Church, a daughter of Richard Billings Church, of Bainbridge, Chenango county, N. Y. The Churches in those and in after days were a numerous, industrious, and valient race in this part of Chenango county. Mary Church had at least five brothers: Warren, Wilson, Billings, Ira, and Levi; and at least two sisters, Rhoda, and Pamela. Pamela became the wife of Ezra Corbin, of Bain- bridge, in the same county. Levi, Wilson, and Pamela Church lived to a ripe old age. They all died within the last five years. Richard Billings Church was born in 1768, and was the son of Timothy Church, of Brattleboro, Vt., who served in the war of Independence as a colonel, and after the war is said to have gone to Chenango county, N. Y., with his family, but to have returned subsequently to Brattleboro. His grave is at Brattleboro. He was the seventh of Nathaniel Church's thirteen children, and was born
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May 12, 1736, his mother being Rachel McCranney, of Springfield, Mass. Nathaniel's father was Samuel Church (born 1667) and Samuel's father was also Samuel Church (born 1640). The father of this Samuel was Richard Church. Samuel was Richard's fourth and last child. Richard was born about 1610. probably in England and of English parents, and was an early settler at Hartford, Conn. With his family he moved from Hartford to Hadley, Mass., in 1660, and seven years later he died. Hadley is eighteen miles distant from Springfield. This Richard Church is one of two Richard Churches who are prominent in the Church genealogy. The other Richard came to New England in 1630, when twenty- two years of age, and in 1632 moved to Plymouth, Mass., where he built a house of worship. The late Sanford E. Church, chief justice of the New York State Court of Appeals belonged to the Connecticut family ; the same family as Doctor Gaius Halsey's wife.
Of Mary Church clear and deep impressions survive with all who knew her. She was a woman of strong personality and of great personal courage. To fear she was a total stranger. Her husband's regard for her-and Doctor Gaius Halsey was not a man easily swayed in his judgment by affection-may be learned from the eloquent and reverent epitaph which still remains where he placed it on her tombstone, under a grove of trees ad- joining the house in Kortright Centre, where she lived and died :
"Beneath this stone rests all that was mortal of Mrs. Mary Halsey, wife of Dr. Gaius Halsey, who departed this life July 26, 1830, aged 35 years. May her infant children, arrived at more mature years, on visiting this spot, pledge their vows to Heaven to honor her memory by imitating her virtues."
Doctor Halsey lies at his wife's side in that isolated and solemn- ly silent burial field. Over his wife's grave he erected a stately monument of panelled brown stone, long and flat in shape, and covered by a marble flag bearing the inscription. His own grave was marked in the same manner by his children. To those who know what Kortright Centre was in those days-how it was cut off from the pulse of the world, these graves speak of Doctor Hal- sey's character. He was very much a law unto himself. Self-reliance was, perhaps, his chief quality. He was marked by nature for distinction, and yet he was content to dwell where distinction was
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forever an impossible thing to acquire. With strange self-abne- gation, in this sterile and almost unpeopled solitude, he held up during a short life the torch of humanity and civilization. But to what really adequate end? To his children he was a stern parent, but he knew his duty to them in the matter of education. He found a teacher in the pastor of the local church ; he had them taught Latin as well as the English branches, and he after- wards sent them long distances away for higher training. There is still preserved in the family a large mounted globe which he owned, as well as a complete set of Brewster's Edinburgh Cyclo- pedia-works which in those days it must have been no easy matter to procure. He had a wide local reputation for skill in surgery, and it is related of him that on one occasion when he had a particularly difficult case in hand he made a special trip to New York to purchase new instruments. On this trip he stopped at the Astor House, then just completed and the wonder of the town. The bill he paid subsequently became, at Kortright, a sub- ject for some wonder. Above his office at Kortright was a room for his students-of whom he had many-who were instructed there in the art of dissecting. This room and the whole office building, as well as the dwelling house, remains to this day, scarcely altered from the appearance they had fifty years ago, when the fires of Doctor Gaius Halsey's life went out with un- timely suddenness. In 1826, on the fiftieth anniversary of Amer- ican independence, Doctor Halsey was chosen to deliver at Kort- right Centre the oration of the day. From the surrounding country great throngs of people came to this celebration. It was probably the greatest event in the annals of the place, as it was the most memorable anniversary the nation had yet known. The `oration was printed the following week in one of the county newspapers. A copy of that issue, still preserved in the family, has the oration printed with the news of the simultaneous death, on July 4, of Jefferson and John Adams, probably the two men who were then held in the highest veneration by the whole American people. In this address Doctor Halsey said of Wash- ington, that he derived honor " less from the splendor of his ac- tions than the dignity of his own mind." John Randolph was referred to, in parenthesis, as "the beardless man of Roanoke."
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Four children were born to Doctor Halsey, three of them sons : Richard Church (born Bainbridge, N. Y. 1817), Gaius Leonard (born 1819), and Nelson Gaylord ; and one daughter, Lavantia. The sons are all now living : Richard Church, a physician at White Haven ; Gaius Leonard, also a physician at Unadilla, N. Y .; and Nelson Gaylord, a merchant at Kankakee, Ill. Lavantia became the wife of a physician (Doctor Goff) and at their home in the state of Illinois bore him several children. She died about fifteen years ago. The children are Lizzie (now the widow of John J. Russel) Halsey, William, Leonard, and Mary. Nelson Gaylord's children (he married Miss Girard) are Helen, Winfield Scott, Nel- son Gaylord, Rebecca, and one other. The children of Gaius Leonard, who married Juliet Carrington, are Francis Whiting, (born 1851, married Virginia Isabel Forbes), Frederick Arthur (born 1856), and Lavantia (born 1868). Richard Church has two children, Lavantia Harriet, and Gaius Leonard, the latter his first child, being the well-known lawyer of Wilkes-Barre, to whom is devoted this sketch. The maiden name of the mother of Mr. Halsey is Anna Sprowl, a member of the society of Friends, and a native of Kennett, Chester county, Pa. Richard Church Hal- sey studied medicine with his father, and in addition graduated at a medical college in the city of New York. His first location was at White Haven, but after a few years' residence there re- moved to Nesquehoning where the subject of this sketch was born. After a residence of four or five years at Nesquehoning, he removed again to White Haven where he has since resided.
Gaius Leonard Halsey was born July 12, 1845, at Nesquehon- ing, Carbon county, Pa. He was educated at the Wilkes-Barre academy, Liberal institute, at Clinton, N. Y., and Tuft's college, Medford, Mass., from which he graduated in 1867. During a portion of 1866 he taught school at Canton, Mass., and after graduation, one year in White Haven, Pa., where he now resides. In 1868 he went to Washington, D. C., and during the winter of 1868 and 1869 was engaged as a stenographer, and during a por- tion of the time did work for the late Oliver P. Morton, of Indi- ana, and John A. Logan, of Illinois. In 1869 and 1870 he was a stenographer for the Legislative Record at Harrisburg, Pa. In 1870 and 1871 he was assistant sergeant-at-arms in the house of
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representatives of Pennsylvania, and 1871 and 1872 was a trans- cribing clerk in the house of representatives. He studied law with Lyman Hakes and Charles E. Rice, and was admitted to the bar of Luzerne county, September 9, 1872. Mr. Halsey married April 17, 1882, Sarah Elizabeth Levan, a daughter of John W. Levan, of White Haven, Pa. They have two children, Anna Catharine Halsey and John Richard Halsey.
Mr. Halsey, as will be seen from the above, has not been long at the bar, but he has wisely utilized his time and achieved a prominent place in the profession. The young lawyer who is not inveigled into taking an active part in politics, is an exception to a very general rule. The profession is always in demand for service on the "stump" during campaigns, and for a time there is a sort of glory in that service, though it is a glory of which most men generally get a surfeit. From haranguing crowds at the cross-roads on the "great and undying fundamental doctrines of our glorious party," etc., etc., etc., to wanting an office is how- ever a material and easy transition, and that is why it comes that in almost every list of aspirants for political position there is a goodly proportion of "limbs of the law." Fortunately the appetite is one that does not usually abide with its vic- tims very long, for if it is not quenched, after a reasonable period of waiting, by the attainment of some "fat place" it is very likely to be, by the forced conviction that there are altogether too many applicants for the limited number of " fat places" to be divided, and that the time consumed in looking for comfortable provision at the public crib might be far more profitably em- ployed in building up a practice. And it may be remarked here, parenthetically, of even those who do for a time succeed in office hunting, a not insignificant proportion generally end up, to use the expression of a knowing fellow practitioner, as "politicians with- out a following, and attorneys without a clientage." We are led to these remarks by the recollection that Mr. Halsey has had many incentives to take a hand in active politics, but though an ardent republican, he has evinced little inclination to do so by wisely giving his time to his professional duties and to keeping himsel well up with the decisions so as to be enabled to perform those duties thoroughly and acceptably to his clients. He is a gentle-
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man of commanding presence and of never failing affability, ad- vantages that are always of great consequence in professional life, and, being thoroughly well read, legally and generally, and willing to work, has a manifestly bright future before him.
LYMAN HAKES BENNETT.
Lyman Hakes Bennett was born in Harpersfield, Delaware county, N. Y., February 20, 1845. He is of Quaker parentage, and a descendant of Alden Bennett, a native of Rhode Island, where he was born April 24, 1754. His occupation was that of captain of a whaling vessel. He perished at sea in 1785, "vessel, crew, and cargo lost." His wife was Elizabeth Vail, who was born March 28, 1758. They were married at Stanford, Dutchess county, N. Y., in 1776, and had five children ; four sons and a daughter. Alden Bennett, their youngest son, was a captain in the war of 1812, and was stationed at Plattsburg, N. Y., during that event. He was by occupation a manufacturer of agricultural implements. He died at New Haven, Oswego county, N. Y., September 25, 1854. He was twice married. By his first wife he had one son, D. M. Bennett, now residing at Saratoga, N. Y. He is an attorney and master in chancery. Isaac Bennett, second. son of Alden Bennett, sen., was born in Dutchess county, N. Y., June 22, 1780. He married March 6, 1803, Anna Losee, daugh- ter of Simeon and Miriam (nee Carpenter) Losee of Dutchess county, N. Y. She was born October 15, 1779. The year of their marriage they removed, by means of an ox team and sled, to Harpersfield, and. settled on a farm at Quaker Hill (they being Quakers or Friends) in Harpersfield. With the exception of one family their nearest neighbors resided ten miles distant, and their nearest mill was twenty miles from their place of settlement. Isaac Bennett died March 30, 1812, and his wife died December 13, 1858. Mrs. Bennett was a woman of great energy of char- acter, and after the death of her husband cleared and paid for the farm and educated her four sons. Alden I. Bennett, their
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