USA > Vermont > Orleans County > Biography of the bar of Orleans county, Vermont > Part 11
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In the early part of Mr. Johnson's residence here he held the office of state's attorney for one term, and later served one term in the state legislature as a member of the house of representatives, and soon after the enactment by congress of the late bankrupt law he was appointed register in bankruptcy for this congressional dis- trict, and held the office until the law was repealed. He discharged the duties of these various offices with unquestioned ability and
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faithfulness. He was law partner, first for a short time with the late Judge E. N. Powell, then with the late H. O. Merriman, then with the late George S. Blakeley, then with myself for thirteen years, ending March, 1878, then with A. C. Hewett, then with George B. Foster until within about two years of his death.
Mr. Johnson came here a stranger, in middle life, with a wife and three children, without friends and without money. Business was limited and competition strong. Purple and Manning, and Metcalf, and Knowlton and Merriman, and Peters and Powell, and Ryan and Ballance, and Sanger and Cooper, all stood in the gateways of business to intercept its streams before they should reach the new comer. But his address and abilities soon gained for him a foot- hold among them, and won their confidence and esteem.
He was a man of dignified and imposing personal appearance, with nature's emphatic stamp of superiority. He was all his life under the dominion of strong powers, both mental and physical. His intellect belonged to the type of the colossal. On account both of the largeness of his powers and of his many peculiarities, it is difficult to measure him by the standards by which we ordi- narily judge of men. Although he did not attain that distinction which his early life seemed to indicate, in the judgment of his gifted cotemporaries, yet he always had in himself all the qualities of greatness and power which justified that promise, and he needed only the occasion and sufficient force of impulse to have quite real- ized it. Owing partly to the time, the place, and the people of his location, but chiefly to himself, such distinction was but partly realized.
The truth is, Mr. Johnson was not a sufficient lover of money to ever become very rich, he was not sufficiently ambitious to ever become very distinguished, he was not sufficiently a specialist to ever become the noted man of any one thing; and he never esti- mated highly enough all that the world can give or promise to sac- rifice himself sufficiently to win the equivocal crown of its favoritism. He always had a great reserve of powers not given to any of those things. They were not the chief objects of his thought, nor the chief cravings of his nature. He could never quite help seeing the harlequin's cap through its diadems of royalty. Even his pro- fession never awakened all his interest nor commanded all his powers.
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He was the least known, by those who knew him, of any man among us. Circumstances and the peculiarities of his temperament led him to encase his real being in what he intended should be an impenetrable wall of defence against all mankind, with only such loop-holes as he intended to look out at, and intended the world to look in at. The extreme nervous sensitiveness of his nature, of which the world knew so little, led him to put on an exterior of hardness, gruffness, forbiddingness, indifference, stolidity, anything but injustice, as a panoply against the woundings, irritations, gross- ness, neglect, blunders, malice, or intrusion of the world he must encounter, but which could not, and would not understand or respect a nature which was not of it. Within he was all suscepti- bility, delicacy, tenderness, sympathy, sentiment, imagination, poetry, idealty. Without was the cold, hard, fortified wall, which was transparent only to those who had known him long and well. While in his intercourse with the world his method was frank, ready, direct, practical and politic, he shrank, almost bashfully, from any real observation of himself. He could not endure being looked at, much less being looked into. While he was strong and patient under the burden of heavy responsibilities, he was restive and easily irritated by petty annoyances.
Upright and honest, he had no patience with tricks or duplicity. His opinions upon social, moral, religious, political and personal topics were most independent. They were formed and advanced with the utmost disregard of other people's views, of popular sen- timent, and of formulated theories. I never heard him speak reverently of but one man-that was Daniel Webster. He knew no such thing as the fear or awe of public or private judgment upon his acts or his motives. In terms direct, positive, emphatic or blunt, he spoke out his convictions on such matters everywhere. Behind the shelter of an external indifference was a nature so sen- sitive and delicate that almost everything either hurt him or con- soled him. A bundle of nerves, a tissue of sensibilities, a battery of forces, pain and pleasure were the ever vibrating tides of his emotions. His mental vision, on the practical side, was rapid, keen, searching, far-reaching, and he rarely failed to discern real motives, and to measure men and things accurately. On its psychological side it was wide of range, free of restraint, true to the sentiment of beauty, open to companionship and loyal to truth.
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His learning, aside from his profession, was general rather than critical, and extended to almost every branch of science, history, invention, discovery, philosophy and speculation. His manner was cordial, his heart large and liberal, his conversation vivacious and interesting, often brilliant and witty, often sarcastic, pungent, iron- ical, full of pointed anecdote and ready, sharp retort, and pervaded with a kind of careless, impulsive light-heartedness. Yet he was essentially a thoughtful, grave-tempered and sad person. With a nature like his, the bereavements, struggles and disappointments which fell to his lot could hardly have left him otherwise. His early wife, to whom he was married at the age of twenty-one, died instantly at the end of eighteen months ; his second wife lived but five years, and a beautiful boy whom he idolized, died here in 1856. And a nature, always too painfully sensitive for the world's rough contact, became more and more chafed, irritated, worn, weary and sore. With a beautiful home, family, friends, affections and com- forts about him, he was too isolated and too sad of temperament.
His sentiment of the beautiful underwent no degeneration. He carried it, in its youthful freshness, all his life long. Flowers and poetry were his twin angels. They fanned away his cares with their peaceful wings, and softened his hardest hours with the sweet- ness of their singing. Nature was always his friend and confidant. Whatever his mood, happiness came in with the free air, with the light, the sky, the bird song and the sunshine, and with mother earth and the beautiful children upon her bosom, vegetation, fruits and flowers. He once called my attention to the petunias all along the paths of his yard, saying, "They are humble things, but they will look up to you with their faces of beauty all the season through."
From his youth he took delight in and and occasionally cultivated poetry. The lines penned by him were generally of the order of the Hudibrastic verse, made for a temporary occasion or amuse- ment ; sarcastic, rhymed and rythmical hits at some current folly or comical or ridiculous personality ; witty, apt, sharp as a dart and straight to the mark. But occasionally his pen pleaded respite from repression and flowed with a thoughtful, gentle, sombre har- mony.
I have access to only one of his poems. It was written in his later years and just come to my hand. It chances to be in accord-
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ance with what I have said of him. Especially of the thoughtful, gentle spirit behind the earthworks he had thrown up to battle off a heedless world ; and of the hunger and thirst of the soul for more than the poor abundance of all the world can give; and of that beseeching of the heart, which is more than prayer, for the boon of the weary-peace and rest.
In the poem occur these lines :
I'm floating on life's ceaseless tide, On life's flowing, rushing river ; My crazy bark as yet doth ride, But many seams are opening wide ; "Tis sinking fast, I cannot hide ; I see the hungry waves and shiver.
I feel their damp and chilly breast, I feel their rigor in my soul ; I see the foam upon their crest, And know beneath is certain rest.
I know this end of life's behest, That peace will with the waters roll. Above my head, submerge my life, Wash out the fever of the past And close the weary, constant strife, The ills that cut as with a knife, With which our pilgrimage is rife, And bring repose, perhaps, at last. Where shall we turn when age has come, When greenest paths of life are past, When to the ear the song is dumb, And films before the sight are cast,
When love's a faint remembered thing, A flickered light of former years, A sunbeam on the wild dove's wing? All things that e'er have lived have died ; Their dust lies peaceful side by side. The soothest thing for mortal woes, Is endless, undisturbed repose. Whate'er we dread, that fate is best Which brings the weary rest, sweet rest. The future yet may open wide
Its gates of light and love forever, With naught to chain the spirit's stride, With naught to grieve with hopes that lied, With naught the truth from souls to hide, Beyond death's darkly-rolling river.
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No choice ; we lived, we loved, we grieved.
We've hoped and lost and hoped again,
We've trusted oft, been oft deceived, We've doubted oft, perchance believed, Begotten offspring, been bereaved. Our web by fatal hands was weaved With threads of joy and woof of pain ;
Why wish that such a life remain? The song were best without refrain.
I know, I know whereof I write, That some true souls who grieved on earth
Are living still, all robed in white, Whose eyes now beam with angel light Reflected from their inward right.
Sweet souls who've had their second birth.
If such may live a life so bright, Why may not we who grope in night?
No picture of Mr. Johnson would be true to him which did not . show the light thrown upon his life and character by his views upon the subject of the life to come. His mind was emphatically of the type called skeptical. Belief upon any subject, human or divine, without palpable reason or tangible proof, was a thing impossible to his mind. From youth he neither could nor would adopt any opin- ion which did not come with reason that he could comprehend or proof he could perceive. As a consequence he was not only a phil- osophical skeptic, but a universal disbeliever. Yet this man, in the maturity of his intellect and in the meridian of his life came to have such a confidence, such an assurance of the future life as I have never seen in another. To him the opinion of others on the subject was nothing ; the policy of acquiescing in popular doctrines was nothing ; the power of anathema was nothing; the bias of an early education was nothing ; preaching and teaching were nothing, and revelation was nothing. Yet in a way of his own, or at least by means addressed to his own comprehension, he reached such a state of certainty that he should enter upon life after death as to doubt it no more than he doubted when the evening faded with the setting sun that the morning would brighten with his rising. The light of this conviction gave color to his whole life. Every day he strove to make his own soul more worthy to be a bright denizen of a brighter land.
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FRANKLIN JOHNSON.
F 'RANKLIN JOHNSON was the son of Ezra A. and Annie (Hunt) Johnson, and was born in Troy, Vt., May 8, 1809. He was educated at the common schools and academies and at Yale College. He studied law with E. H. Starkweather at Iras- burgh, and was admitted to the bar at the December term, 1834, and soon went West and settled at Monroe, Mich., where he engaged in the practice of his profession. He was elected prose- cuting attorney for Monroe county in 1856, and re-elected in 1858. In 1860 he was elected judge of probate for the term of four years, and in the spring of 1863 was elected judge of the judicial circuit of Michigan, a position which he held six years, making an official career covering a period of fourteen consecutive years in spite of the fact that he was a republican in politics, while the county was democratic. Upon retiring from the bench he resumed the prac- tice of his profession, and in the spring of 1870 was elected attor- ney for the city of Monroe. He died Tuesday, October II, 1870. At a meeting of the Monroe, Hillsdale and Lenawee bar, held on the 12th day of October, 1870, the following preamble and resolu- tions were adopted, which conclusively show with what esteem his associates regarded him :
"When an upright man dies the community suffers, his friends mourn, his peers and associates miss his place in their ranks, and all unite in expression of regret for the common bereavement.
Wherefore, we, the members of the bar of Monroe, Lenawee and Hillsdale counties, moved by the death of Hon. Franklin Johnson, for nearly forty years one of our fraternity, do hereby declare and resolve
FIRST. That, with no ordinary feeling do we record the decease of one in whom were most eminently combined a free love for his profession, a full sense of its dignity and worth, and a keen appreciation of the essential justice that lies at the foundation of all proper administration of law.
SECOND. That, in our relation with him as associate, opponent or adviser, he was honorable, his word was as good as his bond, his verbal as his stipulation. He despised a trick ; he abhorred a pettifogger; he loathed a legal rascal; he sought for success in the inherent justice of his case or the right of the law. He was a sound lawyer, he was an honest man, and he commanded respect from court and compeer alike. He deserved it for his integrity and ability.
THIRD. That, as a judge he was candid and impartial, and has won and estab- lished in his administration on the bench for a period of six years, a record of which any man might be proud.
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FOURTH. That, out of respect for his memory we will attend his funeral in a body, and that the clerk of this meeting be instructed to deliver to his afflicted widow a copy of these proceedings, and cause the same to be published in the county papers."
H. M. WEAD.
By HON. E. G. JOHNSON.
T 'HE subject of this biography was born June 1, 1810, at Shel- don, Franklin county, Vt. His father, Samuel Wead, was a country merchant at that place, having a large business which he conducted until his death in 1831.
H. M. Wead began the study of the law in the office of a lawyer at Richford, Vt., before he was twenty years of age, subsequently removed to Malone, N. Y., and entered the office. of Azro Hawkins, and was admitted to the Franklin county, N. Y., bar. Shortly after his admission he returned to Vermont and entered the office of a lawyer at St. Albans, where he remained in legal study nearly a year, and was admitted to practice in the state of Vermont. He left Vermont again soon after and spent some two years in the state of Ohio, and returned to Vermont on the death of his father, which occurred about that time. Soon afterwards, about 1833, Mr. Wead formed a partnership with Charles Story of Coventry, Vt., where he remained two or three years. Some of the old inhabi- tants of Orleans county will no doubt remember the celebrated case of John B. Allen vs. Parkhurst and Fuller, for false imprison- ment and forcible abduction of plaintiff from his residence in Pot- ton, Canada, to the jail of Orleans county. That action was commenced by Mr. Wead, and carried on through several exciting trials with great energy and with the indomitable perseverance which was characteristic of him during his whole life. It was on the first trial of the case at the June term of Orleans county court that the writer first made the acquaintance of Mr. Wead, which continued until his death at Peoria in 1876.
At this time he was in the full vigor of his youth, strong and powerful physically, ambitious, ardent, enthusiastic, and equally powerful of mind and will. Almost every advocate of any stand- ing in the circuit was engaged on one side or the other of this case.
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Mr. Wead opened the case for the plaintiff with an argument of some hours and with great ability. There was no dispute about the law, and really little about the facts ; no doubt of the utterly unwarranted abduction of the plaintiff, but unfortunately the char- acter of the plaintiff prevented all sympathy for him and his wrongs. The public could not approve of the legal outrage, but they could not find any great sympathy for the plaintiff. I well remember the scene, the eloquent speech of the advocate, and the apathy of the audience as to the plaintiff's fate. It is now nearly half a century since, and neither the venerable judge, nor any one of the officers of the court, or attorneys attending the court, ex- cept myself, I believe, is now living.
The celebrated case lingered along through many trials, lasted several years after Wead left Orleans county, became a mere ques- tion of costs, and finally resulted in a verdict for defendants. The plaintiff retired from the position of a martyr to the obscurity of private life on the classic shores of Potton.
Mr. Wead, after he left Orleans county, was for some time a partner with Gen. Cushman at Guildhall, Vt., afterwards located for two or three years at Lancaster, N. H., drifted from thence to New Jersey, and from there in 1840 to Lewiston, Ill., where he became a prominent citizen and lawyer, and rapidly acquired the position and distinction to which his ability and energy eminently entitled him. In 1847 he was a prominent member of the consti- tutional convention of the state of Illinois. In 1852 he was elected judge of the tenth judicial circuit of Illinois, resigned in 1854 and removed to the city of Peoria, and resided there 'until his decease in 1877.
He was liberal in his expenditures, strictly honorable in his busi- ness relations, acquired a good estate, and raised a very respectable family, to whom he was a generous father and friend.
His early life was strengthened and developed by the necessity of self-reliance and industry, which compelled him to educate and support himself, and carve his own way to success without aid. He seems never to have found his proper field of effort and action until he came to Illinois.
He always stood to his guns, never lowered his flag, never sought to win favor by the acts of the demagogue, believed in himself, never doubted he was entirely right, and never yielded a point to
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adverse clamor. What the Rev. David Sutherland said in prayer of a somewhat persistent clergyman who was in a controversy with his church on matters of discipline, could well have been said of Wead. Said he, "O, Lord, thou knowest thy servant is a true ser- vant of thine; but Lord, thou knowest he would as soon brush a fly from a brother's nose with a mallet as a feather."
CHARLES WILLIAMS PRENTISS.
C' HARLES WILLIAMS PRENTISS, the fifth son of Hon. Samuel B. Prentiss, was born at Montpelier, Vt., October 18, 1812. He received his primary education at the schools of Mont- pelier. He entered the University of Vermont and remained there one year. He then entered Dartmouth College where he gradu- ated. He then entered the office of his father for the study of the law ; subsequently he went into the office of the Hon. Isaac F. Redfield at Derby, from whose office he was admitted a mem- ber of the Orleans county bar June 24, 1835, and immediately com- menced the practice of his profession at Irasburgh, where he remained until 1843, when he removed to Montpelier. He repre- sented Irasburgh in the legislature for 1841 and 1842. He contin- ued in practice at Montpelier until 1852, when he removed to New York City, and in 1867 to Cleveland, Ohio, where he now resides. Until quite recently, at these different places, he has been actively engaged in the practice of his profession, and with the highest degree of success.
ELIJAH FARR. By HON. C. B. LESLIE.
E LIJAH FARR was born in Thetford, Vt., August 14, 1808, and died July 2, 1845, in his thirty-seventh year. He early came to Bradford, and his early days were spent there. He was a poor boy, and was bound out for a portion of his minority to a Mr. Winship of Bradford. He was ambitious to acquire an education, and for that purpose he attended the Bradford Academy, which was in those days famous for good teachers and ambitious pupils. Mr. Farr was a very good academical scholar. He studied law
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with the late Judge Isaac F. Redfield at Derby Line, and was admitted to the bar of Orleans county June 3, 1835. After he was admitted to the bar, he directly came to Wells River and formed a partnership with Peter Burbank, and after Mr. Burbank's death in the winter of 1836, he continued the practice of his profession at Wells River until he died in 1845. He was one of Mr. Burbank's executors, the other being Zebina Newell, then cashier of the bank of Newbury. Mr. Farr succeeded to, and took the law practice of the firm of Burbank & Farr. He was a very fine jury advocate, a close and logical reasoner, and fluent of speech, using good and appropriate language in his arguments. His memory was strong, and he hardly ever took minutes of all the testimony when he tried causes, only the heads and names of witnesses, and he was able to quote the testimony correctly in his arguments. He was a very tall and slim man, being six feet five inches in height, and his con- stitution was not strong, nor was his health. He was a well-read lawyer, and stood high in his profession, both as a lawyer and advocate.
He was state's attorney for Orange county in the years 1839 and 1841, and state senator for the same county for the years 1843 and 1844, and he was also postmaster at Wells River for many years. In August, 1844, he took cold while trying an important cause at Bradford before an auditor or referee, and it settled upon his lungs, and he died of consumption the next July. The writer read law in his office, and entered into copartnership with him November, 1844, which copartnership ended with the death of Mr. Farr. Mr. Farr was liberal and public-spirited, using his money freely and for wor- thy objects. His estate was not large after paying his debts. He was temperate, industrious, capable, and an honest man. In his practice, which became large, especially in contested cases, he was quite successful.
Mr. Farr was not a professor of religion, but he was a constant attendant at church, and was one of the movers and builders of the church at Wells River. He never married. The writer bought his office and library, which included the library of Peter Burbank.
Politically he was a democrat, and as such was elected to the offices which he held. He died in the prime of life, and had he lived longer I think he would have made a reputation throughout the whole state as a good and successful lawyer.
J.G . AMusty
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wood upon a sledge for the comfort of a needy widow and her fam- ily, were occupations almost equally agreeable to the active and sprightly boy. Choosing the profession of law for the future pur- suit of life, young Smalley began the requisite studies in the office of Smalley & Adams at St. Albans. There, too, he completed preparation, and at the age of twenty-two was admitted to the bar of Franklin county in April, 1831. Benjamin H. Smalley, the senior member of the firm, was his uncle. He died at an advanced age in Frelighsburg, Province of Quebec.
Henry Adams, the younger member, always enjoyed the warmest affection of his former pupil, who named his eldest born after that gentleman. Mr. Smalley settled in Jericho for professional practice soon after his admission to the bar, and also discharged the duties of postmaster, which office he held from 1832 to 1836. Ability, zeal, and success won a constantly increasing clientage and an enviable reputation. In 1836 he removed to Lowell, Orleans county, and opened an office, but remained there only a few months. Thence he repaired to Burlington, which became his permanent home. Here a wider field for ambition and energy presented itself -- a field that he wisely and diligently cultivated. Already he was known as an ardent adherent of Gen. Jackson, and as an eloquent and effective advocate of that statesman's policy. In the political discussions of debating societies, store gatherings and street corner groups, he was an influential participant. Nor was he less positive and decided in the family circle. His son Bradley-named after his grandfather, Col. Bradley Barlow of Fairfield-was thoroughly indoctrinated in childhood, has been for many years a leading dem- ocrat in Vermont, and was a member of the national democratic committee in the last two presidential campaigns. Impulsive, earnest and persistent, Mr. Smalley was as active in political as in legal affairs, and established high reputation in both departments. Gov. Van Ness, afterward United States Minister to Spain, and himself, being like-minded, contracted a faithful and life-long friend- ship soon after his arrival in Burlington. Law and politics are closely allied under any form of government, and particularly under the democratic-republican. Each supplements and aids the other. In 1842 Mr. Smalley received the compliment of election on the democratic ticket to the state senate from Chittenden county.
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