USA > Vermont > Genealogical and family history of the state of Vermont; a record of the achievements of her people in the making of a commonwealth and the founding of a nation, Vol II > Part 67
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In 1846, upon the retirment of Judge Williams from the bench, Judge Royce was unanimously elected chief justice, and was five times annually re-elected. In 1852 he positively declined a re- election, with the intention of passing the re- mainder of his days in the retirement of his farm in East Berkshire, but the same year he was ap- pointed by the governor chairman of the board of commissioners authorized by resolution of the legislature to report such provisions and amend- ments in regard to pleadings and practice in the Vermont courts as, in their judgment, might be desirable. Soon after the passage of the Kansas- Nebraska bill in Congress, the Whigs of Vermont met in convention at Rutland, to nominate state officials, and at the same time to declare their po- litical sentiments in regard to this act. Judge Royce, who had always been a consistent Whig, received the nomination for governor of the state, Oscar L. Shafter being nominated for lieutenant governor. The latter declined the nomination, owing to his contemplated removal from the state, whereupon Ryland Fletcher was made a candi- date in his place. The fact that both candidates had been in sympathy with the abolitionists, joined to the tenor of the platform, was conducive
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to the consolidation and firm union of the Whig and the anti-slavery (popularly confounded with the abolitionist) elements. The convention, in- asmuch as it marked the inception of the Repub- lican party in Vermont, has been properly called the first convention of that party in the state. From this fact it follows that Stephen Royce was the first Republican governor elected in the Uni- ted States. The state committee appointed by this convention called the next annual convention as a convention of the Republican party. Judge Royce's majority was about eleven thousand, and in 1855 he was re-elected by an equally decisive number of votes. His administration showed the same strict adherence to principle and devotion to high ideals which marked his whole career.
At the end of his second term of office Judge Royce retired to private life, passing the remain- der of his days in a serene and well earned con- tentment, in the enjoyment of literature and social amenities, and cheered by the affectionate care which he received from his kindred, for, al- though he never married, his declining years were attended by a nephew and a niece. He was possessed of fine literary tastes, and was a clear and forceful writer. He made extensive re- searches into local history, inspired thereto by his strong local attachments, and late in life wrote a history of the town of Berkshire. In 1837 the University of Vermont conferred upon him the honorary degree of Doctor of Laws. His death took place November 11, 1868.
Not long after the decease of Judge Royce, a memoir of him was written by a contemporary on the bench, which possesses a peculiar interest as showing how this distinguished man was re- garded by one who was intimately associated with him in his professional capacity, and who, as the result of long and close observation, gives the following estimate of his eminent colleague's powers and personality :
"Though shrinking modesty was one of the most noticeable of his personal qualities, early in professional life he came to be regarded as one of the most highly endowed and thoroughly accom- plished jurists of his years, and his services were enlisted in association or conflict with most of the modern and eminent lawyers of the state, as Aldis, Swift, Marsh, Edmunds, Prentiss, Ever- ett, Bradley and others. In his twenty-one years
as judge he impressed himself upon the profes- sional and public judgment of the state as one of the able and accomplished jurists who have given strength and a good name to the judiciary of Ver- mont. Though his mildness of temper and kind- ness of feeling detract somewhat from that ef- fective energy which characterized some of his eminent contemporaries and successors, still he held the wavering balance of justice with a strong hand, and permitted only law and the testimony to bear upon his judicial administration. It is true that he was affected with a delicate sensitiveness as to the feelings of others, and this rendered it painful to him to pronounce a formal opinion and judgments upon questions involving import- ant pecuniary or personal interests; yet such judgments and opinions were formed, held and pronounced by him without any mixture of misgiving or tinge of passion arising from considerations aside from the law and the testimony. The quality and extent of his learning in the law, and the exquisite refinement of his mind and taste. as a jurist are most strik- ingly evinced in enduring example and illustra- tion in the opinions drawn up by him and con- tained in the Vermont Reports from Volume I to Volume 24, which are regarded as the most per- fect specimens of judicial literature contained in the law reports, in one respect surpassing even the renowned opinions of Judge Prentiss ; name- ly: In the quality of a comprehensiveness that never transcended the scope of the case in hand, to partake of the character of essays upon the subject as well as of an opinion of the court in the case."
Elihu Marvin Royce, son of Stephen and Min- erva (Marvin) Royce, and brother of Judge Ste- phen Royce, was born July 19, 1793, in Berk- shire, being the first white child who saw the light in the new settlement. He was intrusted with the administration of many local offices, and was held in high esteem as a thoroughly competent and successful manager of town affairs. He married Sophronia, daughter of the Rev. James Parker. the first settled minister in Underhill, and subse- autently known for long years throughout a wide region as a Congregational minister in Enosburg. Vermont. The date of the marriage was Oc- tober 20, 1816, and one son and two daughters were the issue of the union. Mr. Royce fell a vic-
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tim to a destructive fever, and died on the 17th of March, 1826, before he had reached the close of his thirty-third year.
Homer E. Royce, only son of Elihu Marvin and Sophronia (Parker) Royce, was born June 14, 1819, in East Berkshire, Vermont. He at- tended the district schools of his neighborhood, and supplemented the excellent elementary educa- tion received therein by study in the St. Albans and Enosburg academies. From the age of eight years he was reared by his uncle, Judge Stephen Royce. The means to maintain him were scanty, and in his schooldays he was not unused to phys- ical toil about his uncle's home. His ambition was sufficient to carry him through his studies without weakening his determination to become a lawyer. With this end in view he began the study of the history, literature, principles and applications of the law in the office of Thomas Childs, in Berkshire, in 1842, and in 1844, after adequate examination, was admitted to the bar. Immediately thereafter he formed a partnership with his preceptor, which continued for two or three years, when Mr. Childs moved to New York, leaving all his practice to Mr. Royce. He next associated himself with a relative named Heman S. Royce, for about the same length of time. After the dissolution of the latter business relation he practiced professionally on his own ac- count. During the whole of his early practice Mr. Royce was a resident of East Berkshire.
In 1846 and 1847 he represented the town of Berkshire in the state legislature, and at the same time held the office of state's attorney for Frank- lin county. While a member of the state legis- lature he officiated as chairman of the commit- tee on railroads, and also as a member of the judiciary committee. Much of hard and anxious work was performed by the first body. The rail- roads were then in their incipiency, and several im- portant questions sprang up in connection with them, demanding knowledge, wisdom, and shrewd sagacity in their solution. His next legislative experience was in the senate of the state, to which he was elected from Franklin county in the years of 1849, 1850 and 1851. During these years he was a member of the judiciary commit- tee and in one of them served as its chairman. In 1854 he made a tour of the state, speaking in
support of Alvah Sabin, who was a candidate for the office of congressman.
In 1856 Hon. H. E. Royce was elected to suc- ceed Mr. Sabin as a member of the thirty-fifth Congress of the United States from the third dis- trict of Vermont, receiving 9,114 votes against 3,134 cast for his competitor. He returned to the thirty-sixth Congress, second term, receiving 7,418 votes against 3,280 cast for the unsuccess- ful candidate. In the national house of repre- sentatives he served in the important committee on foreign affairs, and among his fellows in this subordinate body were Messrs. Branch, of North Carolina; Barksdale, of Mississippi; Sickles, of New York, and Corwin, of Ohio, the last named being chairman of the committee. Although the youngest member of the house while serving his first congressional term, he was by no means unin- fluential or silent. As in the Vermont legislature, of which he had been the youngest member in his first period of service, it was discovered that he held clear and definite convictions on all mat- ters of import to the public, and that his opin- ions had been carefully elaborated. This was ap- parent in his speech on the Cuban question, which at that epoch profoundly agitated the whole country. He became intimate with such anti- slavery leaders as Owen Lovejoy, Galusha A. Grow, Joshua R. Giddings, Thaddeus Stevens and others, and took an active part in the ex- citing legislative proceedings which heralded the outbreak of the Civil war.
In 1861 he was returned to the state senate by the citizens of Franklin county and served therein as chairman of the judiciary commit- tee. During the eight years succeeding his con- gressional service he retired to the old home- stead, giving his time and attention to the care of the involved affairs of his venerable uncle. About this time he came into possession of the estate, whch has always remained in the family. In 1868 he was again chosen to membership in the Vermont senate and in 1870 removed to St. Albans, receiving in the same year due and hon- orable recognition of his cultured legal abilities in an election as associate justice to the bench of the Vermont supreme court, to succeed Hon. W. C. Nilson. This position he retained by vir- tue of consecutive elections until 1882, when he
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was appointed by Governor Farnham to the post of chief justice, vacated by the decease of Judge Pierpoint. He received this appointment thirty years after his distinguished uncle had relin- quished the same position. He was later elected to the same dignity by the legislature. The office of chief judge he continued to hold, by successive re-elections, until his voluntary retirement in 1890.
Among the more noteworthy decisions of Judge Royce in his long and beneficent judicial administration, is that delivered as chancellor ex- officio in 1873, in the case of the Vermont and Canada Railroad Company vs. the Vermont Cen- tral Railroad Company et al .; also that, as judge in the case of the state of Vermont vs. John P. Phair. The defendant in this instance was in- dicted for murder. The question of the disquali- fication of jurors, also what constitutes an expert, and sundry questions of evidence, received thorough discussion by Judge Royce. Other de- cisions, such as that in the case of State vs. Carlton, for manslaughter, in which on the ques- tion of the res gestae he ruled in favor of the defendant ; that of the state vs. Hopkins for for- gery, in which the admissibility of expert testi- mony as to handwriting was involved; of the State vs. Edwin C. Hayden, for the murder of his wife, in which were questions on the dis- qualification of a juror, and also on expert tes- timony concerning insanity, and in which the court sustained the conviction of the accused, who was afterward hanged; Canfield vs. An- drew, involving the rights of riparian owners, in which he decided that mill owners cannot throw refuse into streams to the prejudice of riparian owners whose lands lie below theirs-are often quoted. The most celebrated case in which Chief Judge Royce delivered the opinion of the court was that of James R. Langdon et al. vs. the Ver- mont and Canada Railroad Company et al. The is- sue between the contestants was entirely novel in the course of railroad litigation, and Judge Royce's exposition of the law as it bore on the points at issue was clear and decisive.
Judge Royce was active and successful in the attempt to secure a charter for the construction of the Missisquoi Railroad from St. Albans to Richford, and also in the work of construction it- self. In 1882 he received from the University
of Vermont and State Agricultural College the honorary degree of LL.D. The distinction was richly deserved both by his intelligent and effi- cient services as a legislator in the general as- sembly of Vermont and in the Congress of the United States, and no less by his enlightened and equitable decisions as one of the judges of the supreme court of the state. Judge Royce always enjoyed a large measure of popularity among the members of the Vermont bar, by whom his legal attainments were held in the highest esteem. His accurate judgment of human nature and ac- tions, under given circumstances, and his ability to separate the wheat from the chaff in a legal contest, combined to render him the ideal jurist, and as chancellor he had the settling of various and difficult suits arising out of the conflict be- tween the Vermont & Canada and the Vermont Central railroads, a litigation involving much labor. In these cases his decisions in all of their important aspects were indorsed by the full bench.
Judge Royce married, January 23, 1851, Mary, daughter of Charles Edmunds, of Boston. Three children were born to them: Stephen E., Homer Charles, mentioned at length hereinafter, and Mary Louise.
The death of Judge Royce, which occurred April 24, 1891, at his home in St. Albans, closed a life filled with beneficent labors and well merited honors.
Homer Charles Royce, son of the Hon. Homer E. and Mary (Edmunds) Royce and fifth in lin- eal descent from Major Stephen Royce, the founder of the family in Vermont, was born February 16, 1864, in East Berkshire, Vermont. His elementary education was received in the pri- vate schools and high school of St. Albans and the University of Vermont, from which he grad- uated in the class of 1884 with the degree of Bach- elor of Arts. Deciding to devote himself to the profession in which his father and his uncle had won distinction, he read law with S. E. Royce and later with Noble & Smith, one of the leading law firms of St. Albans, pursuing at the same time a course of study at Columbia Law school. In October, 1887, he was admitted to the bar. He remained in St. Albans until the following spring, when he removed for a time to Vergennes and later to Middlebury, where he practiced until
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September, 1801, when he returned to St. Albans, where he has since remained, his practice being largely of a civil character. From January 1. 1802, to May 1, 1900, he was associated with the Hon. C. P. Hogan, as the firm of Hogan & Kovec, at St. Albans.
Mr. Royce has never sought political prefer- ment, but has sometimes been drawn by his as- sociates into the arena of public life, and while at Middlebury was engaged to some extent in campaigning. He there filled the office of town grand juror, and after coming to St. Albans, served as president of the village before the in- corporation of the present city, having been elect- ed in the spring of 1895 and re-elected in 1896. He was for a short time a member of the pru- dential committee of the old village government and since the organization of the city, was chair- man of the board of school commissioners from 1899 to 1902. Mr. Royce's fellow-citizens showed their appreciation of his labors in their behalf and testified to the esteem in which they held him by electing him, in 1900, senator from Franklin county. While a member of the legislature he served on the judiciary committee and was chair- man of the committee on education. He is one of the committee of three, including himself, the state librarian, and Supreme Court Judge Sen- eca Hazelton, appointed to prepare a new digest of the supreme court reports. Mr. Royce is the working member of this committee, the labor of which has been for some time in progress and is not yet completed.
Mr. Royce is a member of the State Bar As- sociation, in which, for one year, he held the of- fice of vice president. While at college he be- longed to the Delta Psi, and at graduation was elected to the Phi Beta Kappa society. Mr. Royce married, October 31, 1888, Christiana M., daughter of the Rt. Rev. Alexander Burgess, bishop of the diocese of Quincy, Illinois. They have two children, Alexander Burgess and Edith Edmunds.
LEROY W. BALDWIN.
LeRoy Wilbur Baldwin, president of the :Em -. pire State Trust Company of New York city, and either president or director of a score of other financial and commercial corporations, is
a fine type of the modern master of large affairs, who has grown out of the phenomenal business evolution which has marked the past quarter of a century of American business history. He is a native of Vermont, born in Rutland, October 31, 1865, and is yet in the prime of his carly man- hood, although he has already accomplished re- sults and attained a prominence which a genera- tion or two ago would have been deemed a re- markable reward for an entire and long life of busy effort. He entered upon his business career at the boyish age of fourteen, when he left the public schools to enter the employ of the Howe Scale Company, in Rutland, in the capacity of assistant cashier. From the first he afforded every evidence of a genuine talent for financial affairs, and he was soon promoted to the cashier- ship, and he discharged the duties of that posi- tion with entire capability until January, 1883. when, in quest of a larger field, he located in New York city. There he became associated with Erastus Wiman in the organization of the Ameri- can Automatic Weighing Machine Company. Mr. Baldwin subsequently established offices in Lon- don, England, and as managing director has since conducted the business of the company in the United States.
From the time of his locating in New York, Mr. Baldwin has rapidly come to the front and to the side of many of the most masterly financiers and business men in the metropolis, and has aided in the inauguration and development of various important enterprises. One of the chief of these is the Empire State Trust Company, located at No. 88 Wall street. This institution, of which he is president, comprises in its directorate such promi- nent capitalists and business men as Clement A. Griscom, Jr., of the International Mercantile Ma- rine Company ; C. M. Higgins, of the Standard Oil Company ; Robert E. Jennings, vice president of the Crucible Steel Company of America ; Dun- can D. Parmly, president of the Phenix National Bank, of New York; John C. Kelley, and others equally prominent in large affairs. The institu- tion with which these gentlemen are thus con- nected is based upon a capital and surplus of one million dollars. Mr. Baldwin is also actively interested in numerous other corporations. He is president and director of the Tubular Dispatch Company ; director of the Phenix National Bank
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of New York city, one of the oldest banks in the city, having been established in the year 1812; treasurer and director of the National Automatic Weighing Company; treasurer and director of the Manhattan Introduction Company ; treasurer and director of the International Mercantile Agency ; a director in the United States Title Guaranty and Indemnity Company, the Oppen- heimer Institute, the Standard Wood Products Company, the New Amsterdam Casualty Com- pany, the Hall Signal Company, the Corporate Securities Company, and the New York Mail and Newspaper Transportation Company, all of New York ; president and director of the Rutland & Woodstock Railroad; a director in the Ver- mont & Whitehall Railroad; a director in the Florida Palmetto Company ; and managing direc- tor of the American Automatic Weighing Ma- chine Company, limited, of London, England.
The enumeration of the foregoing great cor- porations with which Mr. Baldwin is intimately and actively associated is complete attestation of his possession of managerial gifts of the highest order. His career may be characterized in all truthfulness as remarkable, nor can his abundant success be attributed to any fortuitious condi- tions, but solely to the self-development of his natural abilities. From his earliest years he had habituated himself to the devotion of all his ener- gies to the task in hand, and he schooled himself to that complete concentration which made him master of all conditions before him, enabling him to meet them with such preparedness as would lead one who knew not his character to deem him almost possessed of powers of foreknowl- edge. Despite the multiplicity of his business duties, he also finds opportunity for various so- cial amenities, and his fine companionable quali- ties and broad general information afford him high popularity in several prominent organiza- tions, among them the Lawyers' Club, the Turf and Field Club, the Suburban Riding and Driving Club and the Hardware Club.
Mr. Baldwin married Miss Ella Lucile, a daughter of the late Louis W. Field, a prominent broker of New York city. Of this union was born a daughter, who is named for the mother. The family make their home in an elegant resi- dence at No. 8 East. Seventeenth street, New York city.
HON. JOSEPH E. MANLEY.
Judge Joseph E. Manley, of West Rutland, Vermont, is descended from one of the oldest families of Rutland county, to which his grand- father, Eli Manley, a native of Easton, Massa- chusetts, removed at an early date, establishing his home in Chittenden. He was a farmer and brought with him his wife and the following named children: Eli, who was a farmer in the town of Chittenden; Rebecca, who married Will- iam Nutting, who died in Brandon, where they lived; Elizabeth; Fobes, mentioned hereinafter, and Annie.
Fobes Manley, son of Eli Manley, was born in Easton, Massachusetts, and came with his fa- ther to Chittenden, Rutland county, where he fol- lowed the trade of a tanner and shoemaker. Later he removed to Proctor, where he engaged in tan- ning, jobbing and the real estate business, and he owned at one time the site of the present build- ings of the Vermont Marble Company. He after- ward removed to a farm in Pittsford. The old homestead in the southern part of the town is still standing, and is the home of Mr. Manley's son, Benjamin Franklin, and two of the latter's sisters. Mr. Manley. was a prominent man in the com- munity, a Republican in politics, and a zealous member of the Congregational church. He was stern in discipline and of sterling religious char- acter, leaving the impress of his teachings upon the minds of his children. He married Wealthy, daughter of John Hill, of Hubbardton, Vermont, and they were the parents of the following named children: Rhoda married Elijah S. Mead, a farmer and quarryman of West Rutland and Pittsford ; Albert was superintendent of quarries, and lived at Proctor, and later at Sudbury and Middlebury, and who is living at eighty-six years ; he married Martha Bickley, of New Hampshire. Randall C. is still living at the age of eighty-two years. Cyrus Dana died on the old homestead about 1870, at the age of forty-five, unmarried. Martha, died at thirty years, unmarried. Almina, lives on the homestead, aged seventy-four years, unmarried. James H. removed to Illinois, mar- ried Julia Blevin, and was the father of two children, who, with their parents, are now de- ceased. William Hill died at twenty-seven years of age, unmarried. Joseph E. is mentioned at
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length hereinafter. Mary A. married William Stevens, and lived at Fort Ann, New York, and later in Nebraska, and died in Pittsford, Vermont, at the old homestead in March, 1902; her hus- band was a farmer and they were the parents of three children: Norman G., Nellie C., and Man- ley S. Benjamin Franklin is a farmer residing on the homestead and married Caroline Brown. Helen E. died unmarried. The father of this family died on the homestead, December 24, 1875, at the age of eighty-two years, and his wife sur- vived to the same age.
Joseph E. Manley, son of Fobes and Wealthy (Hill) Manley, was born February 15, 1831, at Proctor, then Sutherland Falls, in the old town of Rutland, Rutland county, Vermont, where he was educated in the common and select schools of Pittsford and Chittenden. After attaining his majority, being desirous of higher educational advantages, he entered Castleton Seminary, then a leading institution, under the charge of the Rev. E. J. Hallock. While a student at the seminary, he supported himself by teaching school in the winter, and employing his vacations in farm la- bor. In 1854 he graduated, after which he en- gaged in the marble business. He is recognized as an expert in all matters relating to the deposits and working of this stone and has accomplished much for the development of the marble industry. He is author of an article on the "Marbles of Rut- land County," embodied in the first report of Professor Collier, of the Vermont board of ag- riculture, and which is an exhaustive treatise upon the subject.
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