Men of Vermont : an illustrated biographical history of Vermonters and sons of Vermont, Part 29

Author: Ullery, Jacob G., comp; Davenport, Charles H; Huse, Hiram Augustus, 1843-1902; Fuller, Levi Knight, 1841-1896
Publication date: 1894
Publisher: Brattleboro, Vt. : Transcript Pub. Co.
Number of Pages: 842

USA > Vermont > Men of Vermont : an illustrated biographical history of Vermonters and sons of Vermont > Part 29

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).

He died Jan. 2, 1894.

WILLARD, CHARLES W .- Lawyer, editor and congressman, was born at Lyndon, June 18, 1827, and son of Josiah and Abigail (Carpenter ) Willard. He graduated from Dartmouth in 1851, and came to Montpelier where he studied law in the office of Peck & Colby, was admitted to the bar in 1853, and for a time was in partnership with F. F. Merrill. He was a man of refined scholarly habit, of a breadth and candor of mind that were almost Madisonian, and of high ideals and earnest purposes in every relation of life. These qualities combined with practical good sense and ready courage in contests for what- ever he believed to be right, made him a power for good in state thought and opinion, and though he was lacking utterly in the arts of politics secured him steady advancement. In 1855 and '56 he was secretary of state, until he declined a further re-election. In 1860 and '61 he was a state senator from Washington county, and in the latter year became editor and proprietor of the Mont- pelier Freeman, which he built up to be one of the most influential papers of the state, and a fine exponent of the more temperate thought of his party. He retained the con- trol of its conduct and most of the time did its editorial work until 1873, though in 1865 he was for a time in Milwaukee in the editor- torial chair of the Sentinel, and as long as life lasted he wrote much and inspiringly on current events.

He was elected to Congress in 1868, and re-elected in 1870 and 1872. His service was both conscientious and laborious, so much so as to undermine his health. In the latter part of his service amid the revulsions of wholesale corruption, the credit Mobilier, salary grab and other scandals, the use of

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DI NISON.

force to sustain state governments in the South, and the progress of the third term movement for President Grant, he got out of sympathy with his party, and voted inde- pendently on a number of questions, while he wrote vigorously in criticism of events. The result was that he was defeated for re- nomination.

For some time afterwards his energies were given largely, with visits to Colorado and other places, in efforts to regain his health, but with only partial success. His intellectual activity, however, did not cease, and in 1879 he accepted an appointment as one of the commissioners to revise the statutes of the state, and his colleague, Col. W. G. Veazey, having gone upon the bench, the burden of the work fell on Mr. Willard, and he did it, had the copy all prepared and about three-fourths of it put to press, before death overtook him, June 7, 1880.

In the state election of 1878 he received quite a complimentary vote, without any action or approval on his part, from an inde- pendent movement in the southeast part of the state, consisting mainly of Democrats. He was a life-long member of the Congre- gational church, and a genuine Christian in his daily walk.

He married, in 1855, Emily Doane, daugh- ter of H. H. Reed, and she bore him four children : Mary, Ashton R. (a lawyer and literateur of growing reputation), Eliza May, and Charles Wesley.

DENISON, DUDLEY C .- Congressman, born in Royalton, Sept. 13, 1819, was the son of Joseph A. and Rachael (Chase) Den- ison. The Denison family is of English origin, represented now in that country by the Earl of Londesborough. The Chase family and its distinction in American life is traced in the sketch of Senator Dudley Chase, after whom our subject was named.

Dudley C. Denison was graduated from the University of Vermont in 1840, studied law in the office of John S. Marcy, was ad- mitted to the bar in 1845, and has practiced continually at Royalton, having his oldest son, J. D. Denison, for a partner after 1870. He was county senator in 1853-'54, state's attor- ney 1858 '60, and represented Royalton in the House in 1861-'62-'63, serving on the com- mittee of ways and means, and doing efficient work in securing the first appropriation for defraying the expenses of the war for the Union. In 1864 President Lincoln ap- pointed him United States District Attorney for the District of Vermont, and he held the position until 1869, having a good many dif- ficulties growing out of the war to handle, as also those connected with the Fenian raid on Canada.

BARLOW.

The political reaction of 1874, so strong throughout the country, was intensified in the old Second District of Vermont by the an- tagonism left by the animated contest for the nomination to Congress in 1872 between Judge Poland and Judge B. H. Steele. Poland won, but he had another hard fight, though against a more scattered and more poorly Jed opposition to get the nomination in 1874. The result was a bolt after the con- vention, the opposition concentrating on Denison. The result was no election in September and at the second trial in Novem- ber the Democrats generally united with the dissatisfied Republicans, and Denison was elected by a handsome majority, getting 8,295 votes to 4,079 for Poland, and 1,524 for Alex. McLane, the Democrat. Mr. Deni- son was elected for a second term in 1876, by a vote of 14,430 to 5,739 for A. M. Dickey, Democrat. Hiscongressional carcer, however, was without notable incident, ex- cept that he was one of the twelve in the House to vote against a resolution declaring that no man should be eligible to a third term for the presidency.

At the expiration of his term he returned to the practice of his profession with renewed vigor and success. He was regarded as an especially strong jury advocate, full, clear and explicit in his statement of the case, and with a rare faculty of inspiring confidence.

He was married Dec. 22, 1846, to Eunice, daughter of Joseph Dunbar, of Hartland, and seven children, of whom five survive, were the issue of this union. Besides Joseph D., his father's partner, John H., is a lawyer at Den- ver, Col., and three are daughters.

BARLOW, BRADLEY .- Congressman, banker, railroad operator, over- land stage pro- prietor and for forty years one of the most ac- tive and influen- tial men of his section, was born in Fairfield, May 12, 1814, the son of Col. Bradley and Deborah (Sherman) Bar- low. His father was one of the leading citizens and business men of Franklin county.

The son, receiving a common school edu- cation, commenced life as a clerk in a store at Philadelphia, then succeeded his father in business at Fairfield, until he moved to St. Albans, in 1857, to become cashier of the bank there. The bank management was his

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BARLOW.

primary business, first as cashier, then, after 1874, as president, until the collapse of all his interests in 1883.

In 1860 he was drawn through a loan he had made into the overland stage and ex- press business in the West. He readily saw the opportunities and future of the business, and for the next twenty years as the chief member of the firm of Barlow & Sanderson, and in other connections, he was deeply en- gaged in it, building hundreds of miles of road, employing hundreds of men, and thou- sands of horses and mules, and at one time covering an aggregate distance of seven thousand miles a day. The enterprise was very successful, and when Mr. Barlow re- tired it was with a fortune. But he was also a thorough believer in Vermont and her resources, as are all who know the West best, and he was full of projects for Vermont development, in the water power at Ver- gennes, the statuary marble quarries and mills at Brandon, in all of which he had in- terests, but misfortune prevented the fulfil- ment of his plans. He was liberal to every project of enterprise, benevolence, or public spirit at St. Albans, and especially he put some $40,000 into the Welden House at that place.

He became interested in the Southeastern Railway of Canada and Northern Vermont in 1879, after the death of Col. A. B. Foster, whose sons, one of whom had married a daughter of William Barlow, found his es- tate badly involved. Barlow stepped into the breach, purchased one interest after another until he became substantial owner of the whole property, entered upon an exten- sive scheme of equipment, improvement and development, acquiring, by lease and pur- chase of securities, control of a line 300 miles in length and connecting the Atlantic seaboard with Montreal and the Canadian Northwest. He had a contract with the syn- dicate controlling the Canadian Pacific and went ahead with his improvements in full confidence that the contract would be ful- filled, because it was a needed property for the syndicate.

But the latter preferred to get control cheaper, so at a critical time it refused to advance the expected money, and Barlow was compelled to fail, drawing his bank down

BARLOW.

with him and making the beginning of a series of crashes that wiped out every bank in St. Albans. He turned over everything for the benefit of creditors, who almost uni- versally felt only sympathy for him, regarding the failure, disastrous as it was, as a misfor- tune rather than fault. He never recovered from the blow, and his remaining years were passed in comparative retirement until his death.

Mr. Barlow represented Fairfield in the Legislature of 1845, 1850, 1851 and 1852, and St. Albans in 1864 and 1865, while he was a member of the state Senate from Franklin county in 1866 and 1868. He was a member of the Constitutional Conven- tions of 1843, 1850 and 1857 and assistant secretary of the former. In each of these bodies and wherever he was placed, his ready and resourceful mind, his faculty of making winning combinations, and his clear and businesslike way of statement whenever he spoke, made him a leader in influence. Up to the war he was a Democrat in politics but afterwards a Republican. He was the county treasurer from 1860 to 1867, and among the other positions of responsibility and trust he held were that of director and president of the Vermont & Canada R. R., and director of the Central Vermont and other companies.

In 1878 he was ambitious to go to Con- gress, but was defeated for the nomination by Gen. W. W. Grout. A bolt was soon organized, and an independent convention held to endorse the nomination which had been given him by the Greenbackers, who were quite strong in the district, and the bulk of the Democrats turned in to his sup- port. The result was to prevent Grout's election at the first trial and Barlow's easy victory at the second. Barlow had the unanimous vote of his native town of Fair- field and the largest one that was ever cast for any candidate of any party in St. Albans. But he served only one term. Before that was out he got involved in his Southeastern enterprise and before the next campaign opened withdrew his name in favor of his former competitor, Gen. W. W. Grout.

Mr. Barlow married, Jan. 17, 1837, Caro- line, daughter of Gen. James Farnsworth of Fairfax, and the issue of the union were five children, only two of whom survive.

JUDGES OF THE SUPREME COURT.

BY HIRAM A. HUSE.

The following is a complete list of the Judges of the Supreme Court of Vermont, with dates of service, from 1778 to 1894.

*Moses Robinson, Ch. J., 1778 84. 1785 89

Jonas Galusha, 1807 09

Milo 1 .. Bennett,

1838 50, 1852-59

David Fay, 1809 13

William Hebard, 1842-43, 1844 45

John Shepardson, 1778 80

Daniel Farrand, 1813-15

Daniel Kellogg,

1843-44, 1845-51

John Fassett,

1778 86

Thomas Chandler, 1778-79

Asa Aldis, Ch. J.,

1815 16

Charles Davis,

1846-48

Paul Spooner, Ch. J.,

1779 89

*Elisha Payne, Ch. J.,

1781 82

+William A. Palmer,

1816 17

John Pierpoint, Ch. J.,

1857-82

Simcon Olcott,

1781-82

*Jonas Fay,

1781-83

Peter Olcott,

1782-85

William Brayton,

1817 22

t Asahel Peck, 1860-74

Thomas Porter.

1783-86

Nathaniel Niles,

1784 88

§Nathaniel Chipman, Ch. J.,

tCharles K. Williams, Ch. J.,

John Prout, 1867-619

1786-87, 1789-91, 1796-97, 1813-15

1822-24, 1829-46

İlloyt H. Wheeler, 1869-77

*Luke Knowlton,

1786-87

Asa Aikens,

1823-25

fHomer E. Royce. Ch. J.,

1870-90

§Stephen R. Bradley, 1788-89

§Sammel Prentiss, Ch. J., 1825-30

Timothy P Redfield,

1870-84

Noah Smith, 1789-91, 1798-1801

Titus Hutchinson, Ch. J.,

1825 34

#Jonathan Ross, Ch. J.,

1870-

§ Elijah Paine, 1791-94

tIsaac Tichenor, Ch. J., 1791-96

Lott Hall,

1794-1801

Ephraim Paddock,

1828-31

Russell S. Taft,

1880~

Enoch Woodbridge, Ch. J., 1794-1801

John C. Thompson, 1830-31

John W. Rowell.

1882-

tIsrael Smith, Ch. J., 1797 98

Nicholas Baylics,

1831-34

William H Walker,

1884-87

*Jonathan Rohinson, Ch. J., 1801-07

§Samuel S. Phelps, 1831-38

James M. Tyler,

1887-

Royal Tyler, Ch. J., 1801-13

§Jacoh Collamer, 1834-42

Loveland Munson. 1889-

Stephen Jacob, 1801-03

tJohn Mattocks, 1834-35

tHenry R. Start,

1890-

Theophilus Harrington,

1803-13

Isaac F. Redfield, Ch. J., 1835-60

Laforrest H. Thompson,

1890-

* Biographical sketch will be found among " The Fathers." t Biographical sketch will be found among " The Governors." § Biographical sketch will be found among " The Senators."

# Biographical sketch will be found in Part II.

1. Biographical sketch will be found among " The Representatives."

THEIR FIELD OF LABOR.

There are (since Dec. 1, 1893) three terms (October, January and May terms) of the Supreme Court, all held in Montpelier. The seven judges of the Supreme Court (one chief judge and six assistant judges) all attend these terms, giving them from fifteen to twenty weeks' work in a year hearing cases that go up from the county courts on appeal or excep- tion. Besides this each judge presides in four terms of county court (our trial court) each year. For some years the judges have gone in rotation to their county court work, and, as there are fourteen counties in the state, it takes each judge three and one-half years to make the entire circuit of the state as presiding judge of the county court. Until about ten years ago this county court work was done in a different way, each judge having two or three counties where he regularly presided, and till Dec. 1, 1893, a term of the Supreme Court was held in each county attended by four judges, there being only one general term held in Montpelier.

So that the Supreme Court, as to its own terms, has ceased to be " on wheels," but its members still have to wheel about, or slide about the whole state to do their nisi prius work.,

The aboriginal jurisdiction of the Indians was not much interfered with till about the middle of the eighteenth century, and till that time they ran things and themselves pretty much as they liked, and indeed, for many years after that, now and then ran the whites off in a way the latter did not like.

Governor Benning (hence Bennington, and John and Molly, whose real name was Elizabeth Stark, and the battle and the monument) Wentworth of New Hampshire began

1 Jonathan H. Hubbard, 1813 15

tlliland Hall, 1846 50

John Throop, 1778-82

| Richard Skinner, Ch. J.,

§Inke P. Poland, Ch. J., 1848 59, 1857 65 Pierpoint Isham, 1851-57

§ James Fisk, 1815 17, 1823-29

1815-17

Asa O. Aldis,

1857-65

§ Dudley Chase, Ch. J., 1817-21

James Barrett, 1857-80

Joel Doolittle, 1817-23

Loyal C Kellogg, 1859-67

+Cornelius P. Van Ness, Ch. J .

1821-23

Benjamin II. Steele, 1865-70

tStephen Royce, Ch. J.,

TH. Henry Powers,

Walter C. Dunton,

1877-79

Bates Turner, 1827-29

1Wheelock G. Veazey,

1879-89

Samuel Knight, Ch. J., 1789-94

1874-90

1825-27, 1829 52

William C. Wilson, 1865 79

Increase Mosley, 1780-81

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JUDGES OF THE SUPREME COURT.

granting towns in 1749, and to 1764 had granted one hundred and thirty-eight towns, on what is now Vermont territory. At the close of the French and Indian war immigration set in, and in 1764 an order of the King in council made the west bank of the Connecticut River the boundary between New Hampshire and New York, and New York began granting not only lands not before granted by New Hampshire, but also regranting such granted lands on which settlements had been made. The King, in 1767, ordered New York to cease making these grants, but the New York authorities construed the order to apply only to lands already granted by New Hampshire.

We get to 1764 no counties, for New Hampshire itself was not divided into counties till 1769 or 1771, and as her courts between 1749 and 1764 seem to have been held at Portsmouth, the luxury of a lawsuit was rather a long-distance blessing for Vermont. From 1764, for some years, the privilege of "'tendin' court " could only be indulged in in Albany, for the whole state was then in Albany county. This " privilege " continued for the west part of the state longer than for the east, and was not highly valued by the settlers of the " grants," as is set forth in Judge Taft's excellent sketches of the Supreme Court now publish- ing in the "Green Bag." He says : "So many of the recalcitrant settlers were sum- moned to the City Hall in Albany, in which the blind goddess purported to hold sway, that a meeting of the settlers was held at Bennington to devise means to get rid of the building. Several methods of blowing it up were suggested, when Ethan Allen, to divert their minds from that manner of destruction, proposed that Sim Sears, a famous land speculator, noted for selling property that did not belong to him, 'be employed to sell the d-d thing.' "

By the way, how Ethan keeps himself to the fore ! Evidently not as much loved by his fellows as were Seth Warner and Remember Baker, his "please mention that I was there" gets obeyed by later generations, though it only drew from the parson to whom it was directly addressed, the rebuke, "Sit down, thou bold blashemer." He was bold, and strong ; not modest ; loved to do things deserving praise, and loved praise. Only the other day, going down through the State House yard, I met by the gate a man and woman with their little girl between them. It would have warmed the cockles of Ethan's heart to have heard, as I did when I passed them, the mother say to the girl, "I'll show him to you just as soon as we get there." The Bennington cannon and Mead's statue of Allen flank the State House door, and within and above are the battle-flags borne against the rebellion-all symbols of the sword that won and preserved the peace in which our courts give justice to those who seek it within their precincts.

Allen, Warner, Baker, and their fellow settlers didn't have county seats and court- houses on the " Hampshire Grants " for some time, but in the Documentary History of New York may be found some " mighty interesting reading," as to how they judged and punished those who trespassed on their lands. In fact, these plaints of those who suffered from the beech seal, and from the twigs of the wilderness, and from the free and untram- meled language of the woodland judges, are excellent specimens of reporting, and would make at least as large a volume as N. Chipman.

New York took measures for the administration of her laws in the territory declared to be hers in the order of 1764, beginning in 1766 to establish the county of Cumberland and effecting it finally by a charter of March 17 or 19, 1768-the boundaries were the west bank of the Connecticut, thence twenty-six miles to the southwest corner of Stamford, thence north fifty-six miles to the northeast corner of Socialborough (Clarendon), thence north fifty-three degrees, east thirty miles to the south corner of Tunbridge, thence by the south line of Tunbridge, Strafford and Thetford to the Connecticut. The county seat was first Ches- ter, then (1772) Westminster. A Court of Common Pleas and General Sessions of the Peace was authorized to be held twice a year. Thomas Chandler of Chester, Joseph Lord of Putney and Samuel Wells of Brattleboro were first commissioned judges of the Inferior Court of Common Pleas July 16, 1766, and their commissions were renewed in April, 1768 and 1772, and in the last named year Noah Sabin was added to their number. So the first court ever held in Vermont was at Chester, in the county of Cumberland of the state of

162

JUDGES Of THE SUPREME COURT.

New York, and the first judges were the above named. I think Charles Phelps of Marlboro, the great-grandfather of Gen. John W. Phelps, was the first Vermont lawyer, at any rate he had the first law library of any member of the profession in the state and by being a Yorker in sympathy and action, got it confiscated. Mr. Phelps got most of his books back after a time, but the revisers of the laws in 1782 made use of them in their work and they may be said to have constituted the first appearance of a Vermont State Library.

Solomon Phelps, Crean Brush, Charles Phelps and Samuel Knight were commissioned as attorneys. John Gront, of Chester, was also admitted an attorney. They were the first "block of five" of lawyers here, and in their lives pretty well exemplified the varying for- Innes of the profession. Grout had an especially rocky time in attempting to practice ; Brush was a tory, and committed suicide in 1777 ; Knight was an estimable man and highly esteemed after the unpopular stand he took with the Yorkers had grown to be an old story ; the Phelpses were men of brains but Charles was always in troubled waters, and Solomon, his son, at last killed himself.

By a New York ordinance of March 16, 1770, Gloucester county was established out of that part of Albany county lying north of Cumberland county and east of the Green Moun- tains, and May 29 of that year, at Kingsland (or Kingsborough ), now Washington, the first court for Gloucester county was held. There was not an inhabitant or a house within the limits of Kingsland when the county was established, but a log courthouse and jail were there when court was held in May, and the stream that flows near by is still called "Jail Branch." .Governor Farnham's article on the Orange County Bar in Child's Gazetter of Orange County sets forth the records of this Gloucester county " courts of quarter sessions and court of common pleas." John Taplin, Samuel Sleeper and Thomas Sumner were the "judges being appointed by the government of New York." There were also present James Pennoc, Abner Fowler and John Peters, "Justices of the Quor'm," as well as John Taplin, Jr., High Sheriff. The business recorded is: "The court adjourned to the last Tuesday of August next." The last Tuesday of August it met and "adjourned to the last Tuesday in November next." In November it had eight cases before it, called them and put them over, and adjourned to the last Tuesday in February, 1771.

The record of the next term shows that when our Supreme Court wheeled and slid about the state it was not in the lowest condition attainable, for here was its humble fore- runner fairly traveling "on its uppers." This is the record (now at Chelsea), and in read- ing it one must remember that Mooretown (Moretown) is now Bradford and not the town which now has that name, and that Kingsland is now Washington.

" FEB. 25th, Sat out from Mooretown for Kings Land travieled untill

177I. Knight there being no road and the Snow very Depe we travieled on Snow Shoes or Racatts on the 26th we travieled some ways and Held a Council when it was concluded it was Best to open the Court as we saw No Line it was not whether in Kingsland or Not But we concluded we were farr in the woods we did not expect to see any house unless we marched three miles into Kingsland and no one lived there when the Court was ordered to be opened on the spot. Present JOHN TAPLIN Fudge JOHN PETERS of the Quor'm. JOHN TAPLIN, JUN'R, Sheriff.

All cases continued or adjourned over untill next term. The Court, if one, adjourned over untill the last Tuesday in May next."

" If one " is careful and good.

In 1772 it was ordered that the February and August terms be held in Newbury, and the court ran a year or more longer.

In July, 1774, there first appeared in Vermont a Supreme Court judge doing official business. This was at Westminster, and the judge was Robert R. Livingston, one of the judges of the Supreme Court of the Province of New York, presiding in a court of Oyer and Terminer and general gaol delivery. Judge Livingston was born in New York in August, 1718, and died in Clermont, N. Y., Dec. 9, 1775. He was a man of ability and many accomplishments, and the richest landholder in New York-his country home at Clermont

163

JUDGES OF THE SUPREME COURT.

and his city residence in New York being of the best in their day. He married Margaret, daughter of Col. Henry Beekman, and his daughter Janet married Gen. Richard Montgomery. Judge Livingston was also a landholder in Vermont, as one of the grantees of Camden, (part of Jamaica and vicinity).

The Revolution was coming on apace and the next March saw the close of courts held under authority of a Province of a King, and of New York judicial rule in Vermont. This close was more than dramatic ; it was tragic ; and, while there has been much dispute as to whether the uprising was against New York or Britain, and some doubt as to William French's right to the title that has been given him, it should be remembered that Benjamin H. Hall, than whom no more painstaking, accurate and truthful historian ever wrote, claims for him in the History of Eastern Vermont, "the title of the proto-martyr to the cause of American liberty and of the Revolution." The Westminster massacre marked the last attempt to hold court in Vermont under royal authority ; and William French's epitaph on the old gravestone that first marked his resting place, is the testimony of his own day and genera- tion as to the cause in which this young man from Brattleboro died. It ran thus :

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Men of Vermont : an illustrated biographical history of Vermonters and sons of Vermont, Part 29

Author: Ullery, Jacob G., comp; Davenport, Charles H; Huse, Hiram Augustus, 1843-1902; Fuller, Levi Knight, 1841-1896 Publication date: 1894 Publisher: Brattleboro, Vt. : Transcript Pub. Co. Number of Pages: 842

Author: Ullery, Jacob G., comp; Davenport, Charles H; Huse, Hiram Augustus, 1843-1902; Fuller, Levi Knight, 1841-1896
Publication date: 1894
Publisher: Brattleboro, Vt. : Transcript Pub. Co.
Number of Pages: 842