History of Chittenden County, Vermont, with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of its prominent men and pioneers, Part 28

Author: Rann, W. S. (William S.)
Publication date: 1886
Publisher: Syracuse, N.Y. : D. Mason & Co.
Number of Pages: 1054

USA > Vermont > Chittenden County > History of Chittenden County, Vermont, with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of its prominent men and pioneers > Part 28

Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

Timothy Follett was born at Bennington January 5, 1793. At the age of ten years he was left to the care of a widowed mother who, to educate her children, removed to Burlington. He was graduated from the University of Vermont in 1810. After a course of law lectures at the school of Judges Reeve and Gould, at Litchfield, Conn., he was admitted to the bar of the Chit- tenden County Court in February, 1814. The conventional record should be now that he plunged at once into a successful and lucrative practice. But he probably shared the common lot of young attorneys, for his son has written of him : "For two years a lean support was, with great difficulty and under a system of most rigid economy, obtained, when by a favorable change in pro- fessional business consequent upon the establishment of peace with Great Britain, a more lucrative field was opened." In 1819 he was appointed by Judges Brayton and Doolittle, of the Supreme Court, to the office of State's attorney, then vacant by the death of Sanford Gadcomb, and was elected to the same office by the Legislatures of 1820, '21, and '22. In 1823, elected judge of the County Court, his professional life continued until he was obliged to abandon it by reason of ill-health. In 1830, '31, and '32 he was town rep- resentative. From 1832 to 1841 he was engaged in the settlement of the large bankrupt estate of Horatio Gates & Co., of Montreal. In 1841 he became senior member of the firm of Follett & Bradley, who did an extensive mercan- tile business. Mr. Follett is best known and remembered as the chief projector of the Rutland and Burlington Railroad. He was elected president of the cor-

232

HISTORY OF CHITTENDEN COUNTY.

poration in 1845, and in December, 1849, a train of cars passed over the en- tire line from Boston to Burlington. He remained president and sole construct- ing agent until January, 1852, when he surrendered the trusts which the cor- poration had confided to his care. He died October 12, 1857.

Benjamin F. Bailey was born in Guildhall, Vt., in 1796. He was gradu- ated at the University of Vermont in 1818, in the class of which the late Jacob Maeck was a member. Immediately after his graduation he was appointed tutor in the university. He studied law in Burlington in the office of Griswold & Follett, and was admitted to the bar in 1821. He was appointed State's at- torney in the years 1823, '24, '25, and '26. For four years he was elected by the Legislature as one of the State commissioners of common schools. He was for some years and until his death in 1832, a partner with the late Hon. George P. Marsh under the firm name of Bailey & Marsh. At the time of his death he was the candidate of the Democratic party for Congress.

Heman Allen was the first lawyer in Milton. He came there about 1802, and pursued his profession until about 1828, when he moved to Burlington. He was a member of Congress from 1831 to 1839. He was for many years a member of the corporation of the University of Vermont. He died at Bur- lington in 1844.

Heman Allen, a son of Heber, and nephew to Ethan and Ira Allen, was distinguished from the Heman Allen last mentioned by the sobriquet of "Chili Allen." He became entitled to this mark of distinction from having been ap- pointed minister to Chili in 1823 by President Monroe. He lived with his uncle, Ira Allen, when a boy. He was town clerk of Colchester from 1807 to 1817 ; sheriff of Chittenden county in 1808 and 1809; chief judge of the County Court from 1811 to 1814 inclusive, and for some time United States marshal for Vermont. Upon his return from Chili he resided in Burlington and Highgate, and died in the latter place in 1852. His remains lie in the Al- len family lot at Green Mountain Cemetery, at Burlington.

Albert G. Whittemore settled in Milton in 1824, where he remained, enjoy- ing an extensive practice until 1852. During that year he met his death by an accident while traveling in the West. He had four children-three sons and a daughter. Of the sons there survive Don J., chief engineer of the Milwaukee and St. Paul Railroad, and Albert G., an attorney practicing in Burlington.

William Penn Briggs was born of Quaker parentage at Adams, Mass., in 1793. He removed to Richmond, Vt., in 1826, where he resided until 1841, and where he seems to have been merchant, farmer and lawyer at once. In 1829, 1832 and 1834 he was chosen judge of probate for the district of Chit- tenden. In 1841 he received from President Harrison the appointment of col- lector of customs for the district of Vermont, and removed to Burlington, where he resided until 1845, and then returned to Richmond. He died at Montpelier September 20, 1861. Judge Briggs is still remembered by the

233

BENCH AND BAR.

oldest living attorneys as a very bright man, a racy and witty speaker, well versed in literature, and having an apt memory in quotation, which he used with effect in his jury cases.

Asahel Peck was born in Royalton, Mass., in September, 1803. He entered the sophomore class of the University of Vermont in 1827, but left after a year's study from lack of means of support. After leaving college he went to Canada and studied French about a year. He first studied law with his brother Nahum at Hinesburg, but finished his studies with Bailey & Marsh at Burling- ton. He was admitted to the bar in 1832, and began practice in Burlington. He formed a partnership with Archibald W. Hyde, collector of customs for the district of Vermont. Mr. Hyde lent the prestige of his name to the firm, and the junior partner did the business. In 1837 Governor Van Ness went as min- ister to Spain and turned over some of his cases to Mr. Peck, whose business grew to be extensive, as the dockets and the Supreme Court reports show. In 1851 he was elected judge of the Circuit Court over Milo Bennett, and contin- ued to hold that office until the circuit system was abolished in 1857. When Chief Justice Redfield retired from the bench in 1860, Judge Peck came into the Supreme Court, and remained there until he was elected governor in 1874. As a judge of the Supreme Court he found his place, and there made his high- est and most enduring reputation. He was simple hearted and perfectly up- right. He was moreover a profound lawyer, and had the gift of clear expres- sion, so that his written opinions are models of judicial style. In 1874, without any solicitation on his part, he was elected governor, and, on the day before he was to be voted for, resigned his seat on the bench. As governor he executed his trust to the great satisfaction of the people, and the fear of his veto pre- vented much slip-shod and ill-advised legislation. After the expiration of his term as governor he was engaged in a few important cases, but spent most of his time in the retirement of his farm in Jericho, where he died in 1879. The judgment of the profession does not always correspond with that of the public in its estimate of a lawyer, but the following resolution, adopted at a meeting of the Chittenden County Bar, and introduced by Daniel Roberts, esq., voices the general sentiment of those who knew Judge Peck well : "Resolved, That by the recent death of Asahel Peck the bar of this county, of which he was first a member, the bar and bench of the State, and all its citizens, are called to mourn the loss of one who illustrated his life, in all its relations, by its pre- eminent excellence. As a practicing lawyer and judge, senator and governor, he was learned, painstaking, able, faithful, judicious, discreet, honest, just ; and as a citizen he supplemented these qualities by simplicity of manner, purity of morals, kindness of heart, loyalty to country, to truth and the right. As such, though dead, he will ever live in the memory of those who knew him, as a cherished ideal and exemplar of the virtues which may and should adorn the profession of the lawyer."

234

HISTORY OF CHITTENDEN COUNTY.

Milo L. Bennett .- Litchfield county, Connecticut, has furnished a large im- migration to Vermont. Mr. Bennett was born in Sharon, in that county, in 1789. He was graduated from Yale in 1811, in the same class with Judge Samuel S. Phelps, studied law in Judge Reeve's law-school in Litchfield, and began the practice of his profession in Manchester, Vt. He was for three years State's attorney for Bennington county, and for five years judge of probate. He became interested in timber lands in Maine and removed thither in 1836. Having been unsuccessful in his financial speculations, he returned to the State after an absence of two years and settled in Burlington. In 1838 he was elected to the Supreme Court, Judges Williams, Royce, Collamer and Redfield being his associates. He remained upon the bench for twenty years, retiring in 1859. In 1869 he was appointed by the Legislature as a commissioner, in association with Pierpoint, Isham and Andrew Tracy, to revise and compile the statutes of the State. In this work, which required about two years for its completion, Judge Bennett took the laboring oar. This compilation is known as the "General Statutes." In 1864 he wrote and published the book known as the Vermont Justice. Judge Bennett died in the 80th year of his age, July 7, 1868, at the. residence of his son, Edmund H. Bennett, in Taunton, Mass. At a meeting of the bar of Chittenden county in 1868, a committee consisting of Daniel Roberts, L. B. Englesby and William G. Shaw reported, among other resolutions of respect to the memory of Judge Bennett, the following : " We honor his memory as a laborious, painstaking and honest lawyer and judge, whose labors for twenty years upon the bench, as illustrated in his recorded opinions, have added largely to the reputation of Vermont jurispru- dence for learning, stability, independence and purity. We honor him for the purity of his private life and for his stern adherence to the principles of virtue and of public order." As Mr. Roberts said of Judge Bennett at this meeting, he " was not a brilliant man ; he was not an orator, nor a genius ; he lacked grace of manner and of speech ; he had no great literary accomplishments, and yet the clearness and discrimination of his thought gave him a simple, per- spicuous and accurate written style. He was an example of what industry, diligence, study, probity and a persistent will may make of a man of plain but strong native faculties."

Gamaliel B. Sawyer was the son of James Sawyer, an officer in the Revo- lutionary War, and was of a family distinguished in the military and naval ser- vice of the country. He was born March 25, 1801, was graduated at the University of Vermont in 1819, and admitted to the bar in 1822. He died July 11, 1868. Mr. Sawyer engaged but little, if any, in the active practice of his profession, but is known for his literary and scholarly ability and for his learning in the departments of history and politics. He was a writer of many fugitive articles in the press and in magazines. His style was notably spirited and strong. His historical sketches in the Vermont Gasettcer are among the

235

BENCH AND BAR.

most entertaining and valuable in that work. He was a strong anti-slavery man and a hater of wrong and oppression of every sort.

. Jacob Maeck .- The record of the life of Jacob Maeck can be made very simple and brief. He was an excellent lawyer, and made his mark as such. He was a man of pronounced character and eccentricity, about whom number- less anecdotes are told, and to whom many witty sayings are credited, which have become, in a sort, classics with the local bar. But he held no public office, and outside of his profession his life was in outward things uneventful. He was born in Shelburne February 14, 1798. His father was a physician of prominence in Shelburne, and his grandfather was a surgeon in the Hessian forces that surrendered at Saratoga. The family name has long been well known in the county.

When Mr. Maeck died he was one of the oldest of the alumni of the Uni- versity of Vermont, graduating with honors in the class of 1818. His three- companions in college were Hon. Benjamin F. Bailey, Rev. Nehemiah Dodge and Rev. Truman Foote. After graduation he studied law with Sanford Gad- comb, and was admitted to the bar of this county in 1820. He began practice in Essex, but soon went to Jericho, where he lived several years, until his re- moval in 1829 to Burlington, where he made his home ever afterwards. He was a partner with Hon. David A. Smalley from 1837 to 1841. He was the first counsel of the Vermont Central Railroad and a strong friend of Governor Paine during the construction of the road. He never was a place hunter and never held public office. He never was identified with any political party, and voted as he saw fit, independently. In later years he acted with the Demo- cratic party. He was a confirmed bachelor and avoided the society of the fair sex. He was very small, slight and frail physically. When inquired of once what was the state of his health he said, "I don't know, for I never had any." In spite of his weakness of body, his keen, strong intellect and caustic speech gave him weight before both judge and jury. His death occurred November 4, 1873.

George P. Marsh .- The name of Marsh, in Vermont, has been long associ- ated with distinguished scholarship. The most widely known of the name, as. an author as well as a public servant, is the subject of this notice. He was born in Woodstock March 15, 1801, and died suddenly at Valambrosa, Italy, July 24, 1882. He was graduated at Dartmouth College in 1820 and for a year thereafter he was a tutor in that institution. He was early distinguished for his linguistic acquirements. He came to Burlington and in 1823 formed a. law partnership with Benjamin F. Bailey under the firm name of Bailey & Marsh. In 1835 he was elected one of the Governor's Council. In 1842 he was elected to Congress, having for his colleagues in the Senate, Collamer and Foot, and in the House, Dillingham. He served in Congress for several years and in 1849 was appointed by President Tyler minister to Turkey. While in Turkey,

236

HISTORY OF CHITTENDEN COUNTY.

in 1852, he was charged with an important mission to Greece. Returning home in December, 1853, he served as railroad commissioner for Vermont. In March, 1861, he was appointed by Mr. Lincoln minister to Italy and never again returned home. He had the unusual fortune of being permitted to represent his country with distinction abroad through a long course of years. Mr. Marsh was a man of vast learning. While a lawyer in a small country town, his intellectual interests were as wide as the world. In 1838 he pub- lished A Grammar of the Old Northern or Icelandic Language. Among his other works are the following: The Camel, His Organization, Habits and Uses, with Reference to his Introduction into the United States (1856), Lectures on the English Language (1861), Origin and History of the English Lan- guage, and of the Early Literature it Embodies (1862). Some, or all of these lectures were originally delivered at the Lowell Institute, Boston. They passed through many editions and are recognized authority upon the subjects of which they treat. Man and Nature, published in 1864, was afterwards re- vised and improved, and appeared (1874) under the title, The Earth as Mod- ified by Human Action. He has also published at different times a number of lectures, speeches and addresses. In 1828 he married Harriet, a daughter of Colonel Ozias Buel, by whom he had one son, who died in early manhood. His second wife was Miss Crane, daughter of Rev. S. A. Crane, of Burlington, a lady of rare accomplishments, and who is now living.

Charles Russell .- The death of Charles Russell, which took place October 31, 1875, removed from the bar a conspicuous figure, who in his personal presence and methods of business reflected a former generation of attorneys. He was of very large and heavy mould, was smoothly shaven, wore a copious and spotless ruffled shirt front, and made his charges for legal services corre- spond to the meager tariff of the period when innumerable writs and cumula- tive fees made profitable a business of limited importance. Judge Russell was born April 17, 1800; was admitted to the bar of Franklin county in 1826, and began practice in Burlington the same year. He was town clerk from 1829 to 1846, judge of probate from 1835 to 1847, and a representative from Burling- ton for the sessions of 1846 and 1847. In later years he was court auditor for Chittenden county, and from his reputation for legal erudition and even-handed impartiality in judging between suitors he was very frequently chosen as a referee and arbitrator.

David A. Smalley was born in Middlebury, Vt., April 6th, 1809. He studied law in the office of Smalley & Adams, in St. Albans. Benjamin H. Smalley, the senior member of the firm, was his uncle. He was admitted to the bar of Franklin county in April, 1831. Mr. Smalley began his practice in Jericho, and also held the office of postmaster there from 1832 to 1836. In 1836 he removed to Lowell, but remained there only a few months, seeking a wider field for ambition in Burlington, which became his permanent home.

237

BENCH AND BAR.

He was an ardent admirer and adherent of Jackson and his policy, and was during his life an active and influential Democrat. In 1842 he received the compliment of an election, on the Democratic ticket, to the State Senate from Chittenden county, which was at that time overwhelmingly Whig in political preference. In 1847 he was elected chairman of the State Democratic Com- mittee, and in each of the ten following years was re-elected to the same posi- tion. To the National Democratic Conventions of 1844, 1848, 1852 and 1856 he was a delegate, and in the last two years was chairman of the Vermont delegation. In the National Democratic Convention at Cincinnati, in 1856, he was made a member of the national committee, and by it was chosen to the chair. He was a school-fellow of Stephen A. Douglass, and through life his personal and political friend. He was also on terms of intimacy with Franklin Pierce, who, upon his accession to the presidency, tendered to Mr. Smalley successively the appointments of minister to Russia, Spain and Austria, and to the solicitorship of the treasury. All these honors were declined. He occu- pied, however, the office of collector of customs for Vermont, a position which would not interfere with the prosecution of his regular professional business at home. He was one of the originators of the Rutland and Burlington Railroad Company and also one of its directors and legal counselors. From 1856 to 1863 he owned all its stock and controlled the corporation. Meanwhile he continued to have the most remunerative law practice in the State. In 1856 he was chairman of the Democratic National Committee, and it is admitted that the election of James Buchanan was largely due to him. In 1857 he was appointed judge of the United States District Court, and from that time for- ward abstained from political management. As a judge, he was of remarkably quick legal apprehension, and was perfectly bold and fearless. In the War of the Rebellion he was a strong supporter of the Union cause. His spirit was illustrated in a charge to the grand jury in New York on the law of treason. This was in 1861, when certain merchants in New York were shipping arms and supplies to the seceded States, after the firing upon Sumter. He said : " What amounts to adhering and giving aid and comfort to our enemies ? It is somewhat difficult in all cases to define ; but certain it is that furnishing them with arms or munitions of war, vessels, or other means of transportation, or any materials which will aid the traitors in carrying out their traitorous pur- poses with the knowledge that they are intended for such purposes, does come within the provisions of the act." Coming from a judge of his political ante- cedents, the effect of this charge was electric, and President Lincoln thanked him for it. Judge Smalley died on the 10th of March, 1877, after a judicial service of twenty years.

John Sullivan Adams was born in 1820, and died in Jacksonville, Fla., April 23, 1876. He was the son of Charles Adams, a prominent lawyer of Burlington, a sketch of whose life appears above in this chapter. John Sullivan

238

HISTORY OF CHITTENDEN COUNTY.

Adams was graduated from the University of Vermont in the class of 1838. Among his classmates were John Gregory Smith and Calvin Pease. He studied law in the office of his father, and was admitted to the Chittenden County Bar in 1843. In 1849 Mr. Adams took the western fever, which attacks all American youth, and went to California. After an absence of two years he returned to Burlington and resumed his practice. In 1854 he was appointed clerk of Chittenden county, which office he held continuously until 1867, when he removed to Jacksonville, Fla. Mr. Adams is best remembered for his en- thusiastic interest in the cause of education in Vermont. In 1856 the first State Board of Education was organized, and Mr. Adams was appointed its secretary. His labors in the position were very important, and the State owes him a lasting debt of gratitude for his unselfish services in the office which he held. He was a member of the corporation of the University of Vermont from 1861 to 1867. After his removal to Florida he held the offices of com- missioner of immigration, collector of customs for the port of St. Johns, and postmaster. He established a newspaper called The New South, which he edited and published until his death. He was a fiery and effective public speaker, and his addresses were numerous upon both political and educational questions.

Jeremiah French .- Success at the bar usually comes very slowly. This was not the case with the subject of this sketch. He was born in Williston April 10, 1835. He received an academical training in his own town, and was for a time in the University of Vermont. He began to study law at the age of eighteen, and entered Harvard Law School in February, 1855, from which, after a full course, he graduated with honor in July, 1856, receiving one of the prizes awarded for a legal essay. He immediately began practice in Burlington in partnership with Hon. Levi Underwood. He had a special apti- tude for his chosen profession, and very soon had a large county court practice. He had a constant struggle with disease, and died of consumption at the age of thirty-three, after a practice of but eleven years.

Luther L. Lawrence .- Mr. Lawrence received a common school education. He was a hard student and fitted himself for teaching. He came to Burling- ton in the year 1863, and taught for some time the Main street school. He studied law in the office of Hon. George F. Edmunds, and was admitted to the bar in 1867. He was for a time in partnership with Hon. W. L. Burnap, under the firm name of Lawrence & Burnap. He was register in bankruptcy dur- ing the existence of the United States bankrupt law. He was elected city attorney in 1876, and was re-elected in 1877. He was a member of the board of school commissioners from 1869 to 1879, and was very active and useful in the building up of our school system. He died January 8th, 1885, of con- sumption. He struggled with his disease through many weary months with characteristic grit. Having sought the climate of New Mexico the winter pre-

239

THE MEDICAL PROFESSION.

vious to his death, without relief, he spent his last days at the homestead at Westford. Mr. Lawrence was a man of great energy, an earnest student, and an excellent lawyer.

CHAPTER XII.

THE MEDICAL PROFESSION.1

The Medical Department of the University of Vermont - The Mary Fletcher Hospital - The Mary Fletcher Hospital Training School for Nurses - Lake View Retreat - Health De- partment of the City of Burlington -The Burlington Medical and Surgical Club - Surgeons- General - Commissioners and Boards of Supervisors of the Insane - Boards of United States Examining Surgeons for Pensions - Biographical Sketches of Deceased Physicians of Bur- lington.

TN 1791, when the first census of Chittenden county was taken, the popu- lation was only 3,875, and a few physicians could minister to the necessities of so small a number. These, like the other first civilized settlers, were for the most part men of sturdy common sense, and of great industry and force. They emigrated chiefly from Connecticut and Massachusetts, and were obliged to practice the economy and endure the hardships incident to new settlements in a rough territory. Students who desired to acquire a knowledge of medicine and fill the places of these in the future, when the needs of the increasing pop- ulation required their services, were accustomed to apprentice themselves to some physician of prominence in the near vicinity, and after receiving from him instruction and clinical experience in his practice for the required period of three years, were then subjected to an examination by the censors of the nearest county medical society, and if this was satisfactory were granted a diploma to practice medicine. The Legislature of the State, in their act of in- corporation of the county medical societies, gave them this authority, for at this early period there were no organized medical schools in Vermont. The following is a copy of one of these diplomas :

Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.

History of Chittenden County, Vermont, with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of its prominent men and pioneers, Part 28

Author: Rann, W. S. (William S.) Publication date: 1886 Publisher: Syracuse, N.Y. : D. Mason & Co. Number of Pages: 1054

Author: Rann, W. S. (William S.)
Publication date: 1886
Publisher: Syracuse, N.Y. : D. Mason & Co.
Number of Pages: 1054