Essex County, Massachusetts - Chapter 2: The Bench and Bar, 1888 (part 1 of 3)

Chapter 2: The Bench and Bar

The preceding chapter contains matter which might, perhaps, properly be included in this. That chapter contains, in connection with a sketch of the courts of Essex County, a list of persona admitted to the bar, chiefly copied from the records in the clerk's office in Salem. The present chapter will be devoted principally to sketches of the bench and bar, many of them necessarily short, but, perhaps, sufficient, if not to do justice to the subjects themselves, to at least demonstrate the fruitfulness of the county from its organization, in 1643, in eminent men. It is not too much to say that no county in the State can furnish so distinguished a list of men eduucated to the law among its native citizens.

Among those on the bench in the colonial and early provincial periods few of the judges were lawyers. Up to the Revolution only four judges, educated in the law, had been appointed to the bench of the Superior Court of Judicature, - Benjamin Lynde, Paul Dudley, Edmund Trowbridge and William Gushing. Few lawyers found their way across the ocean, and fewer still pursued a professional study here. A prejudice against them existed, and the inducements to enter the profession were small. The General Court of the Massachusetts Colony reflected this prejudice by ordering, on October 21, 1663, " that no usual and common attorney in any Inferior Court shall be admitted to sit as Deputy in this Court." In 1685, or immediately after that date, during the reign of James II., Edward Randolph wrote to England that there were only two attorneys in Boston, and asked to have sent " two or three honest attorneys, if any such in nature.'"'

A Bar Association was formed in 1806, and at that time there were probably only twenty-three members of the bar in Essex County, while to-day, as the list at the end of this chapter shows, there are two hundred and three. These twenty-three were John Pickering, Timothy Pickering, Benjamin Pickman, John Prince, Jr., Samuel Putnam, Leverett Saltonstall, Joseph Story, William Prescott and Samuel Swett, of Salem ; Joseph Dana, Michael Hodge, Edward Little, Edward St. Loe Livermore, Ebenezer Moseley and Daniel A. White, of Newburyport ; Stephen Minot and John Varnum, of Haverhill ; Nathan Parks, of Gloucester ; Ralph H. French, of Marblehead ; Asa Andrews, of Ipswich ; Nathan Dane, of Beverly ; and Samuel Farrar, of Andover.

This association probably dissolved about the year 1812, and in 1831 another association was formed, whose records show that at the time of its formation there were fifty-two members of the bar. Leverett Saltonstall was the first and probably its only president, as it existed only a few years. Ebenezer Shillaber was its secretary, and Ebenezer Moseley, Jacob Gerrish, John G. King, Ruins Choate and Stephen Minot composed its standing committee. The present Bar Association was formed at the court-house in Lawrence October 20, 1856, and its constitution was adopted at a meeting held at the court-house in Salem December 16, 1856. Its presidents have been Otis P. Lord, Asahel Huntington, William C. Endicott, Stephen B. Ives and the present incumbent, William D. Northend.

Samuel Appleton, born in Waldingfield, England, in 1624, came to New England with his father, Samuel, in 1635 and resided in Ipswich. He was named in the charter of 1692 as one of the Council, and was one of the first judges appointed in 1692 to the bench of the Court of Common Pleas for Essex, holding his seat until his death. May 15, 1696. He married Hannah, daughter of William Paine, of Ipswich, and for a second wife, Mary, daughter of John Oliver, of Newbury.

Daniel Pierce is believed to have been a native of Newbury. In 1698 he was appointed judge of the Essex Court of Common Pleas, and held his seat until his death, January 22, 1704.

William Browne was the son of William Browne, and was born perhaps in Salem in 1639. In 1689, after the accession of William and Mary, he was one ot the Committee of Safety. He was appointed to the bench of the Essex Court of Common Pleas in 1696, and died while in office, February 14, 1716.

John Appleton, nephew of Samuel Appleton above-mentioned, and son of John, was probably born in Ipswich in 1652. He was town clerk of that town in 1697 ; deputy to the General Court in 1697 ; a member of the Council from 1698 to 1702, from 1706 to 1715 and from 1720 to 1722. He was appointed to the Essex Common Pleas bench in 1704 and removed by Governor Belcher in 1732. He was in the same year made judge of probate for Essex, and held that office until his death, in 1739. He married, November 23, 1681, Elizabeth, daughter of John Rogers, president of Harvard College.

Thomas No yes was probably born in Newbury in 1649. He was appointed to the bench of the Essex Court of Common Pleas in 1707, and held that office until 1725. He died April 12, 1730.

John Higginson, the son of Rev. John Higginson, and grandson of Rev. Francis Higginson, ot Salem, was a merchant by profession, and appointed to the Essex Common Pleas bench in 1708, and held that office until his death, in 1720, at the age of seventy-three years.

John Burrill was born in Lynn in October, 1658. He represented that town for many years in the General Court and during ten years was Speaker of the House. He was crown counselor and appointed to the Common Pleas bench in 1720, and died December 10, 1721.

Samuel Browne, son of Judge William Browne already mentioned, was born in Salem, October 8, 1669. He succeeded his father on the Common Pleas bench in 1716, and as associate and chief justice continued on the bench until his death, June 16, 1731.

Bartholomew Gedney was a physician, and probably born in Salem in 1640. He was one of the justices of the Court of Oyer and Terminer, organized in 1692 by Governor Phipps, for the trial of the witches. He was appointed in 1692 judge of probate for Essex County, under the authority assumed by Governor Phipps to delegate probate power vested in him. In the same year he was appointed one of the judges of the Court of Common Pleas. He seems to have mingled military with judicial occupations, and commanded an expedition against the Indians in 1696. He died February 28, 1698-99.

November, 1G40. In 1692, on the resignation by Nathaniel Saltonstall of his seat on the bench of the Court of Oyer and Terminer, organized by Governor William Phipps for the trial of the witches, he was appointed in his place. After the union of the colonies he was appointed one of the judges of the Court of Common Pleas for Essex County, and in 1715 was appointed to the bench of the Superior Court of Judicature, holding the office until his death, in June, 1718.

William Hathorne came in the "Arbella " with Winthrop in 1630, and first settled in Dorchester. In 1636 he received a grant of lands from Salem, and took up his residence there. He was commissioned speaker of the House, counsel in court, judge and soldier.

Johnson, in his " Wonder- Working Providence,'' says: "Yet, through the Lord's mercy we still retaine among our Democracy the Godly Captaine William Hathorne, whom the Lord has imbued with a quick comprehension, strong memory and Rhetorick, and volubility of speech, which has caused the people to make use of him often in Public Service, especially when they have had to do with any foreign government." He was the American ancestor of Nathaniel Hawthorne.

John Hathorne, son of William Hathorne abovementioned, was born in Salem August 4, 1641. Befor the union of the Massachusetts and Plymouth Colonies he was a representative or delegate to the General Court, and one of the assistants. At the accession of William and Mary to the throne, after the deposition of Andros, he was one of the Council assuming the government of the colony. When the Court of Common Pleas for Essex County was established he was appointed one of its judges, and in 1702 was promoted to the bench of the Superior Court of Judicature. While on the bench he was a member of the Council, and, under the direction of Lieutenant- Governor Stoughton, commanded an unsuccessful expedition against the French and Indians on the Penobscot River. He continued on the bench of the Sujjerior Court until his resignation, in 1712, and died on the 10th of May, 1717.

Benjamin Lynde was born in Boston September 22, 1666, and graduated at Harvard in 1686. He studied law at the Temple in London, and was admitted as a barrister before his return to America. Washburn, in his "Judicial History of Massachusetts," says that he was the first regularly educated lawyer ever appointed to the bench of the Superior Court. In 1699, or thereabouts, he removed to Salem, and made that place his residence until his death, on the 28th of January, 1749. He was appointed one of the justices of the Superior Court of Judicature in 1712, and in 1728, on the resignation of Samuel Sewall, was appointed chief justice.

October 5, 1700. He graduated at Harvard in 1718, and, though not a lawyer, was appointed in 1734 a special justice of the Court of Common Pleas for Suffolk, and in 1739 one of the standing judges of that court for Essex. He was appointed to the bench of the Superior Court in 1745, and on the appointment of Chief Justice Thomas Hutchinson to the office of Governor, in 1771, he was commissioned in his place, resigning his seat in 1772. He was then appointed judge of probate for Essex County, which office he held until his death, October 9, 1781.

Richard Saltonstall was the son of Richard Saltonstall, of Haverhill, and was born in that town June 14, 1703. He was the grandson of Major Nathaniel Saltonstall, great-grandson of Richard Saltonstall, and great-great-grandson of Sir Richard Saltonstall, one of the original patentees of the colony of Massachusetts Bay. The subject of this sketch graduated at Harvard in 1722, and at the age of thirty-three was appointed a judge of the Superior Court of Judicature. It is not known that he Avas educated to the law, nor was it in either the days of the Massachusetts Colony or of the province the custom to confine judicial appointments to those of the legal profession. At the age of twenty-three he held a commission as colonel of the provincial troops, and in 1737, while on the bench, he was the commander of the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company. He was a man of scholarly habits, of considerable learning, of refined tastes and was conspicuous for the generous hospitality which his ample means enabled him to dispense.

Judge Saltonstall held his seat on the bench until his death, which occurred at his residence in Haverhill, October 20, 1756. He married three wives, the last of whom was a daughter of Elisha Cooke, one of the judges of the Court of Common Pleas for Suffolk County, and granddaughter of Judge Elisha Cooke, one of the judges of the Superior Court of Judicature, who married a daughter of Governor John Leverett. He left three sons - Richard Saltonstall, a graduate of Harvard in 1751, who died in England in 1785; Nathaniel, a physician, living in Haverhill, a graduate of Harvard in 1766, who died in 1815 ; and Leverett, a captain under Cornwallis, who died in New York in 1782. He left also two daughters, one of whom, Abigail, was the first wife of Colonel George Watson, of Plymouth, and the other the wife of Rev. Moses Badger, of Providence.

Caleb Cushing, of Salisbury, was made Common Pleas judge in 1759, and after the Revolution, when the Common Pleas Court was reorganized, he was appointed chief justice.

William Bourne was the son of Sylvanus Bourne, of Barnstable, and graduated at Harvard in 1743. He settled in Marblehead, and was made judge of the Court of Common Pleas in 1766, holding his office until his death in August, 1770.

Peter Frye was born in Andover in 1723, and graduated at Harvard in 1744. He was register of probate and judge of the Common Pleas Court, to which office he was appointed in 1772, and which he held until the Eevolution. He died in England in 1820.

William Browne was born in Salem February 27, 1737, and graduated at Harvard in 1755. In 1764 he was appointed collector of Salem, and in 1770 was made a judge of the Court of Common Pleas for Essex. He was confirmed as judge of the Superior Court of Judicature June 15, 1774, and in the same year was made a "Mandamus Counsellor." He was a Loyalist, and, retiring from the country in 1778, was made Governor of Bermuda in 1781, and died in England February 13, 1802.

Samuel Sewall was born in Bishop-stoke, England, March 28, 1652, and died in Boston January 1, 1730. His grandfather, Henry Sewall, born in 1576, came to New England and lived in Newbury, where he died about 1655. His father, Henry Sewall, came to New England in 1634, and after beginning a settlement in Newbury, returned to England. In 1659 he again came to New England, and after making a permanent settlement in Newbury, was followed by his wife and children in 1661. The son, Samuel, graduated at Harvard in 1671, and after studying divinity preached for a time. On the 28th of February, 1676, he married Hannah, daughter of John Hull, a goldsmith of wealth in Boston, by whom he secured ample means of support without the drudgery of a minister's life. He was made an assistant in 1684, and continued in office until the arrival of Andros. In 1688 he went to England, resuming on his return, in 1689, the office of assistant, and from 1692 to 1725 was a member of the Council. In 1692 he was made a judge of the Court of Oyer and Terminer and subsequently an associate judge of the Superior Court of Judicature, which position he held until 1718, when he was made chief justice. He was also judge of probate for Suffolk, and resigned both offices in 1728 on account of old age. He had been a firm believer in witchcraft, and was one of the judges before whom the alleged witches were tried, but on the 14th of January, 1697, Rev. Samuel Willard read a " bill," as it was called, before his congregation, in which the judge exprtssed his abhorrence of the acts in which he had been engaged, and penitently asked the forgiveness of God and man,

Stephen Sewall, son of Major Stephen Sewall, was born in Salem December 18, 1704, and graduated at Harvard in 1721. He was for a short time tutor at

Harvard, and afterwards taught school in Marblehead. He was appointed associate judge of the Superior Court of Judicature in 1739, and in 1752 was promoted to chief justice. He held his seat until his death, which occurred September 10, 1760.

Samuel Sewall was born in Boston December 11, 1757, and graduated at Harvard in 1776. In 1808 he received the degree of LL.D. from his alma maier. He studied law with Francis Dana, of Cambridge, and practiced in Marblehead, which town he represented in the Legislature. He was a member of Congress from 1797 to 1800, and in the latter year was appointed associate justice of the Supreme Judicial Court. In November, 1813, he was made chief justice, and died in Wiscasset, Me., June 8, 1814. He married, December 8, 1781, Abigail, daughter of Dr. Humphrey Devereux, of Marblehead.

JosiAH Walcott, a merchant in Salem, was appointed to the bench of the Essex Court of Common Pleas in 1722. He continued on the bench until his death, February 2, 1729.

Timothy Linall was born in Salem November 4, 1677, and graduated at Harvard in 1695. He was Speaker of the Hou.se of Representatives in 1720, and in 1729 was appointed to the Common Pleas bench. He held his seat until 1754, and died October 25, 1760.

John Wainwright was a merchant of Ipswich, and graduated at Harvard, in 1709, at the age of eighteen. He was appointed to the Common Pleas bench in 1729, and held his seat until his death, September 1, 1739.

Theophilus Burrill, of Lynn, was a nephew of Judge John Burrill, aud was appointed to the Common Pleas bench in 1733, and died in office in 1737.

Thomas Berry, a physician of Ipswich, was born in Boston and graduated at Harvard in 1712. He was judge of probate of Essex County, as well as judge of the Common Pleas Court, to which office he was appointed in 1733, and which he held until his death, in 1756,

Benjamin Marston was born in Salem, but in his later years lived in Manchester. He married Elizabeth, daughter of Isaac Winslow, of Marshfield, and great-granddaughter of Governor Isaac Winslow, of the "Mayflower." He was sheriff of Essex County, and was appointed to the bench of the Court of Common Pleas in 1737, which office he held until his death, in 1754. He graduated at Harvard in 1689.

John Choate, of Ipswich, was judge of probate for Essex County, and chief justice of the Court of Common Pleas. He died while in office, in 1766.

Henry Gibbs, a native of Watertown, w^as born in 1709, and graduated at Harvard in 1726. He settled in Salem as a merchant, and was appointed to the Common Pleas bench in 1754, aud continued on the bench until his death, in 1759.

Benjamin Pickman, of Salem, was born in 1708, and was a merchant. He was appointed to the Common Pleas bench in 1756, holding his office until 1761. He died August 20, 1774.

William Prescott was born in Pepperell August 19, 1762, and was the son of Colonel William Prescott, who distinguished himself at the battle of Bunker Hill. He graduated at Harvard in 1783, and after teaching school for a time in Brooklyn, Conn., he entered the law-office of Nathan Dane, in Beverly, where he afterwards began to practice. He subsequently removed to Salem and married a daughter of Mr. Hickling, American consul at St. Michael's, from ^^hora the late distinguished historian, William Hickling Prescott, the son of William Prescott, derived his middle name. While in Salem he was a member of both the House and Senate in the State Legislature. He removed to Boston in 1808, and before his removal, in 1806, and afterwards, in 1813, he was offered a seat on the bench of the Supreme Judicial Court, which he declined. He was a member of the Executive Council from Suffi)lk County, a delegate to the Hartford Convention in 1814, and in 1818 accepted the appointment of judge of the Court of Common Pleas for the county of Suffolk. He died in Boston December 8, 1844, and at his death a meeting of the bar was held in the Supreme Court room, at which Mr. Webster offered resolutions of respect, which were responded to by Chief Justice Shaw, at that time holding the court.

Nathaniel Saltonstall, son of Richard and grandson of Sir Richard Saltonstall, one of the six patentees of the colony of Massachusetts Bay, was born in Ipswich in 1639, and graduated at Harvard in 1659, afterwards settling in Haverhill, on an estate still known as the "Saltonstall seat." He was chosen an assistant in 1679, and on the arrival of President Dudley, in 1685, was offered a place as member of his Council, which he declined. He took an active part in deposing Andros, and under the charter of 1692 was appointed one of His Majesty's Council. At the breaking out of the witchcraft delusion. Governor William Phipps, without authority of law, established a special Court of Oyer and Terminer to try the witches, and bj' commissions dated June 2, 1692, appointed Wm. Stoughton chief justice, and Nathaniel Saltonstall, John Richards, Bartholomew Gedney, Wait Winthrop, Samuel Sewall and Peter Sergeant associate justices.

Judge Saltonstall, like many other judges of the time, was not bred to the law, but he was a man of strong mind and sound sense, and not easily imbued with the bigotry and fanaticism prevailing at the time. He left the bench evidently disgusted with the work it was called on to perform, his place being taken by Jonathan Corwin. He married a daughter of Rev. John Ward, of Haverhill, and died May 21, 1707, leaving three sons, - Gurdon, the Governor of Connecticut ; Richard, the father of Richard, whose sketch is given below ; and Nathaniel, who graduated at Harvard in 1695, and died young.

James Gushing Merrill was the son of Rev. Giles Merrill and Lucy (Gushing) Merrill, and was born in Haverhill September 27, 1784. He married Anna, daughter of Dr. Nathaniel Saltonstall, of Haverhill, and died in Boston October 4, 1853. He fitted for college at Exeter and graduated at Harvard in 1807. He studied law with John Varnum, of Haverhill, and was admitted to the bar in 1812 at the September term of the Circuit Court of Common Pleas, held at Salem. He not long after removed to Boston, where he continued to reside until his death. For many years he was a justice on the bench of the Police Court of Boston, resigning in 1852 on account of feeble health. Previous to his appointment to the bench he was a member of the Senate and House of the State Legislature. He was a scholar as well as a jurist, and his proficiency in Greek literature was recognized by his alma mater by his continuance for thirty years on its examining committee for Greek.

Joseph Gilbert Waters was born in Salem July 5, 1796, and was the son of Captain Joseph and Mary (Dean) Waters. He graduated at Harvard in 1816, and after completing his law studies in the office of John Pickering, was admitted to the bar at Salem at the October term of the Supreme Judicial Court in 1821. In 1818 he went to Mississippi, where he spent several years, and returned to Salem, where for a short time he was the editor of the Salem Observer. In 1825 he married Eliza Greenleaf, daughter of Captain Penn Townsend. He was appointed special justice of the Police Court in Salem in 1831, and afterwards held the office of standing justice of the same court from 1842 until 1874. In 1835 he was a member of the State Senate, and died in 1878.

Benjamin Merrill was born in Conway, New Hampshire, in 1784, and fitting for college at Exeter, graduated at Harvard in 1804. He studied law with Mr. Stedman, of Lancaster, and was admitted to the bar in Worcester County. Removing to Lynn in 1808 to enter into practice, he was required under the court rules to study one year within the county, and entered the office of Samuel Putnam, whose partner he afterwards became. He received the degree of LL.D. from Harvard in 1845, and died at Salem July 30, 1847, at the age of sixty-three. When he settled in Lynn he was the first lawyer who had ever opened an office in the town, and after a few months' residence there, it is said that he was told that the presence of a lawyer would be prejudicial to the interests of the community, and that he was requested to leave.

Joseph Perkins was born in Essex July 8, 1772, and graduated at Harvard in 1794, In 1801 he was appointed county attorney, and died in Salem February 28, 1803.

AsAHEL Huntington was bora in Topsfield July 23, 1798, and graduated at Yale in 1819. He was county and district attorney, clerk of the courts and twice representative from Salem to tlie General Court. In 1853 he was mayor of that city, and died September 5, 1870.

Theophilus Parsons. - Among the eminent lawyers of the last century. Chief Justice Theophilus Parsons stands pre-eminent, and to his autobiography l)y his son, Theophilus Parsons, we are indebted for this sketch of his life as a lawyer, statesman and judge. His judicial knowledge and legal acumen won for him the title of "giant of the law," and his intimate knowledge of the structure of the Greek language, and acquaintance with its literature, in which he delighted, and to which he turned for recreation from his legal duties, caused Mr. Luzac, the then Professor of Greek in the University of Leyden, to say of Mr. Parsons, that he should be called " The giant of Greek criticism."

Chief Justice Theophilus Parsons was born in Byfield, Massachusetts, 1750, and his father, Rev. Moses Parsons, was a settled minister in that place. His first youth was passed at Dunmer Academy, of Byfield, under the Rev. Mr. Moody, and he entered Harvard College in 1765. The minister's stipend was small, and his family large, so that when the young Theophilus was ready to enter college pecuniary difficulties stood in his way. So general, however, was the accepted idea, that his natural ability promised great things, great exertions were made to send him ; one of the maid servants offered to give him a year's salary, twelve pounds, to help him. This offer was of course refused, but the assistance proffered by friends and parishioners was gladly accepted. Theophilus was an insatiable student, but after his lessons were learned would turn for recreation, to a novel or self-imposed mathematical problem with equal relish, which practice he followed in after years, adding a devotion to scientific studies. He graduated in 17(59, and went to Portland, Maine, then called Falmouth, where he taught a grammar school ; when not occupied with his school duties, he studied in the office of the eminent lawyer. Judge Theophilus Bradbury. Here he applied for admission to the bar. The committee for examination to whom he referred himself, construed the rule that three years of preparatory study, meant three years of consecutive study, and that his employment of school-teaching prevented that from being so considered. However, the committee yielded to his solicitations, and his examination proved so entirely satisfactory, he was admitted to practice in Falmouth. This was in 1774.

The following year Admiral Graves, commander of the British squadron in Boston Bay, despatched some ships of war to Falmouth with orders to destroy it, and it was almost totally burned. Mr. Parsons then returned to his home, greatly disaj^pointed and cast do>yn ; but he found at his father's house, Judge

Trowbridge, and his learned help and counsel was as eagerly sought and received by Mr. Parsons as he was ready to give it. The latter remained in Byfield a considerable time, and when he found that Mr. Parsons was to be his companion and student, he ordered thither all his library, which was not only the best, but probably the only thoroughly good one, then in New England.

He found in Mr. Parsons an intelligent student, of devoted industry prepared by previous habits, as well as by previous knowledge, to profit by this golden opportunity.

Edmund Trowbridge died in Cambridge, in 1793, at the age of ninety-four, and during half of his long life, he was, by common consent, regarded as the most learned lawyer of New England. In the seventh volume of the Massachusetts Reports (page 20), Mr. Parsons speaks of his excellence as a common-law lawyer, and says : " The late Judge Trowbridge was an excellent common -law lawyer, of whose friendly assistance in my early professional studies I cherish the most grateful remembrance," and Chancellor Kent, in his commentaries calls him " the oracle of the common-law of New England."

About the time of the Declaration of Independence the formation of a Constitution became a matter of much moment to many of the colonies which had just become States. In Massachusetts the system of government went on with few alterations, although the charter had lost all force. In June, 1776, it was proposed in the general court to prepare a form of government, or constitution, - to be presented to the people. In 1778, a constitution was agreed upon by the General Court, and offered to the people, but was rejected by them by a vote of five to one. These were the reasons for its rejection :

The draft was imperfect, evidently drawn up without due care and consideration ; the people preferred that it should be made by a committee chosen for that express purpose and not by the Legislature. A Bill of Rights, clearly defining to the people what were their inalienable rights, was not prefixed, and lastly, the constitution so carefully avoided a strong government, the power of the executive was a mere cipher. It was this last objection which weighed most with many people.

The conflict for the adoption or rejection of the constitution seemed to be the early manifestation that a new question was bi'ought before the minds of men which threatened, or seemed to threaten, the disruj}- tion of civil society, and has continued to this day to divide, not politicians only, but the whole people; and will ever do so. This question is, which shall prevail of the two great parties, into one or the other of which every man is forced by nature, habit, taste, education or circumstances. These are the parties of progress and conservatism ; of those who love the " largest liberty " with more regard to its quantity than its quality, and those who dtsire only the best liberty, and dread, as the greatest of evils, its corruption into license. To all men of this last class the constitution offered to the people was wholly worthless ; and to this large party Mr. Parsons belonged. His home was in Essex County, and there he was sustained by the warm sympathy of excellent men, and perhaps, young as he was, strengthened their love of order or their fear of anarchy. A meeting of these men took place in Essex County, in 1778, in Newburyport ; a committee was appointed and then it adjourned to Ipswich ; and there it met in the last week of April of that year, when a term of the Supreme Judicial Court was held there. At this adjourned meeting a pamphlet was presented by the committee, approved and adojited by it and by its order published.

It contained eighteen distinct articles, setting forth the leading oVyections to the Constitution proposed. Its title was: "The result of the Convention of Delegates holden at Ipswich, in the County of Essex, who were deputed to take into consideration the Constitution and form of government proposed by the Convention of the State of Massachusetts Bay." It was called the " E>sex Result." It went very fully into the consideration of the objects and principles which should be regarded in the formation of a constitution ; it not only made the rejection of the proposed constitution far more decisive, but exerted an important influence on the structure of that Constitution which was soon after framed and adopted by the people.

Mr. Parsons wrote this pamphlet, which is now very rare, but is reprinted in the Appendix to his autobiography. The proof that he wrote it lies in the assertion of Chief Justice Parker, who says in his address to the grand jury after Judge Parsons' death : " The Report was undoubtedly his, though he was probably aided by others, at least, with their advice." This elaborate Report is called " The Essex Result." No doubt, he obtained all the assistance, by advice and suggestion, which could be rendered to him in a matter of this importance by the wise men with whom he acted. But he wrote every word of it, and this, perhaps, proved that the young man was already recognized by them, who were certainly among the ablest and most venerable men of the county, as one with whose work they were satisfied, and one whom they could trust to speak for them. Among the most distinguished peculiarities of the actual institutions and government of this country is the singular blending of the progressive and conservative principles in such a way that they do not so much neutralize each other as promote each other's activity, while they compensate for each other. While our fathers were making history, there were some whose love for liberty had degenerated into a love of license, and whose idea of happiness was to run riot through the fields of life ; they balanced and checked and were balanced and checked by the stern lovers of order, who appeared, in their extremity of opinion, to think that the first use of legs is to wear fetters, while walking is but a secondary and conditional purpose. Happily, there were wise men who were able to bring these extremes into compromise, and, by means of compromise, into union. The "Essex Result" was regarded as a very early encounter with the great question then dawning upon this country and upon the world. It was an earnest endeavor to discover and declare how progress and conservatism, liberty and order, might be so adjusted in human institutions, that freedom should be secure, and peace and happiness be the children of freedom.

The Old Confederation of the United States was formed November 15, 1777, in the midst of war and danger and effort; and while these lasted their pressure kept it together. But with the relaxati .n of peace its debility and insufficiency became apparent. In May, therefore, 1787, a convention of delegates from the states assembled at Philadelphia for the purpose of forming a Federal Constitution, and at once the new parties of the country - the Liberty party and the Government party - started into full life.

The two antagonistic principles entered into immediate, constant and energetic conflict ; and the good sense and caution and love of peace, and the profound conviction that union would be impossible if not then consummated, and that without union there must be destruction - all these were in perpetual requisition, and were only able to reconcile these hostile sentiments and principles so far as to produce the Constitution, which was throughout, and in almost every paragraph and every provision, a compromise. After the Constitution was framed, the man who most loved peace and union labored strenuously to procure for it the signatures of all the delegates, that it might go to the people with the advantage of their unanimous consent. And all did sign but three - Randolph and Mason, of Virginia, and Elbridge Gerry, of Massachusetts, afterwards governor of the State. The Cons-titution contained a provision that it should go into effect as soon as nine states should accept it. It was adopted by the Convention that framed it on the 17th of September, 1787; then by Delaware, December 7, 1787; by Pennsylvania, December 12, 1787 ; by New Jersey, December 18, 1787 ; by Georgia, January 2, 1788 ; and by Connecticut, January 9, 1788. Then came the question whether the Commonwealth of Massachusetts should accept it. It was feared that Massachusetts would be hostile, and that her example would operate with much power upon New York, Maryland and Virginia for good or for evil. January 9, 1788, the convention of delegates from the towns of Massachusetts assembled in Boston to determine whether the Constitution should be adopted or rejected by that State. The debates of this convention were republished by the Legislature of Mas- sachusetts in 1856. The editorial care of this volume W51S entrusted to Messrs. Bradford K. Pierce and Charles Hale. In their preface these gentlemen say : "The proceedings of the Convention were of great importance, and were so regarded throughout the country at that time. It is quite certain that, if Massachusetts had refused her assent to the Constitution of the United States, that well-devised scheme of government, the careful work of the patriots and statesmen of the last century, under which the nation has enjoyed so large a degree of prosperity, would have failed."

John Hancock and Samuel Adams were two of the most important members of the convention. Both were doubtful, but it was generally supposed that while they were not friendly to each other, they agreed in a decided leaning against the C -nstitution. General Knox, after the Constitution was adopted, writes to Washington as follows : " The opposition has not arisen from a consideration of the merits or demerits of the thing itself, as a i>o]itical machine, but from a deadly principle levelled at the existence of all government whatever. ... It is a singular circumstance that, in Massachusetts, the property, the ability and the virtue of the State are almost solely in favor of the Constitution. . . ." The Massachusetts convention was of the opinion that certain amendments and alterations in the Constitution would remove the fears and quiet the apprehensions of the people of the commonwealth and more effectually guard against an undue administration of the Federal Government. These amendments were often called in the histories of the times, the " Conciliatory Resolutions," and they were eminently so. It was their purpose to reconcile conflicting opinions and to procure the adoption of the Constitution. Samuel Adams at once arose and declared himself satisfied with the Constitution with these amendments, and seconded them, and Hancock withdrew his opposition. They were referred to a committee and reported with little change. After some discussion, in which one or two of the opponents of the Constitution spoke of the amendments as reconciling them to it, the Constitution was adopted by a vote of one hundred and eighty-seven yeas to one hundred and sixty-eight nays. Mr. Parsons wrote these amendments, and it is always said that these " Conciliatory Resokitions " saved the country.

Mr. Parsons was now living with his wife in Newburyport in Green Street. He married Elizabeth Greenlief, daughter of Judge Greenlief, and he used to say that the suit in which he won his wife was worth all the others he ever gained. In 1800 he removed to Boston. When he left Newburyport for Boston, gentlemen in the town gave him a farewell dinner, at which Eobert Treat Paine gave him an enthusiastic toast: " Theophilus Parsons, the oracle of law, the pillar of politics, the bulwark of government." To which Mr. Parsons replied: " The town of Newburyport ; may the blessing of Heaven rest upon it as long as its shores are washed by the Merrimac." I will pause here to mention a ti'ait of character in which he did not stand alone in his profession. He made it an imperative rule, from which he never swerved during his professional career, never to make any charge against or accept any fee from a widow or a minister of the goapel.

In 1806 Chief Justice Dana resigned on account of the infirmities of age, and Mr, Parsons was invited to become the Chief-Justice, which office he accepted and held until his death, which occurred in 1813.

The last words of a distinguished man are often worthy of commemoration, for they not only frequently witness that his thoughts are occupied with the duties of his profession, but sometimes seem to bear a certain relation to the life upon which he is about to enter. Judge Parsons' were: "Gentlemen of the jury, the case is closed and in your hands. You will please retire and agree upon your verdict." Judge Parsons always maintained that the authenticity of the gospels was proven by the fact of their unanimity in all essentials and disagreement in unessential details. After death his face wore an expression of triumph. It was that which he might have worn when he exhibited to a jury indisputable evidence of some great fact which he had asserted and others had denied. The expression was as if he said in words like these : " See there the proof. I have believed ; and when I could not believe I have hoped ; and through all objection, uncertainty and despondency I have kept my belief and my hope ; and now there is the proof that I was right."

Benjamin Pickman, the son of Benjamin and Mary (Tappan) Pickman, was born at Salem September 30, 1763, and married, October 20, 1789, Anstiss, daughter of Elias Hasket and Elizabeth (Crowninshield) Derby. He studied law with Theophilus Parsons at Newberyport, and settled permanently at Salem. He was at various times Representative and Senator in the State Legislature, a member of the Constitutional Convention of 1820, a member of the Executive Council, and from 1809 to 1811 a member of the national House of Representatives. He died at Salem August 16, 1843.

Timothy Pickering was born in Salem July 17, 1745, and was admitted to the bar in 1768. He was a graduate of Harvard in 1763, and received a degree from New Jersey College in 1798. He commanded a regiment in the Revolution, was adjutant-general of the army in 1777, and was quartermaster-general in 1780. After the war he settled in Pennsylvania, and between 1791 and 1800 was Postmaster-General, Secretary of War and Secretary of State. He returned to Salem in 1801, was chief justice of the Essex County Court of Common Pleas, United States Senator from 1803 to 1811, and a Representative in Congress from 1815 to 1817. He died in Salem January 29, 1829.

John Pickering was born in Salem February 17, 1777. He was a son of Colonel Timothy Pickering, and graduated at Harvard in 1796. After several years' residence in Europe, he returned to Salem in 1801, and was admitted to the Essex bar in 1806. In 1827 he removed to Boston, and in 1829 was appointed city solicitor, and held that office until his death, at Boston, May 5, 1846. He was equally distinguished as a lawyer and a scholar, achieving in the latter capacity, however, his chief fame. His Greek and English Lexicon, his studies and publications in philology, his proficiency in the languages, with more than twenty of which he was familiar, including Hebrew, Chinese and the Indian languages of America, made him an authority universally respected, and whenever appealed to, considered decisive. He received the degree of LL.D. from Bowdoiu College in 1822, and from his alma mater in 1835.

Theophilus Bradbury, a descendant from Thomas Bradbury, of Salisbury, was born in Newbury November 13, 1739. He graduated at Harvard in 1757, and for a time taught a grammar school in Falmouth (now Portland) Me., where he afterwards opened a lawoffice and practiced law from May, 1761, to 1779. He then removed to Newbury, where he resided until his death, September 6, 1803. He was at various times Senator and Representative in the State Legislature, a member of Congress from 1795 to 1797, and in the latter year was appointed associate justice of the Supreme Judicial Court.

Nathan Dane was born at Ipswich, in the parish then called the " Hamlet," now the town of Hamilton, on the 29th of December, 1752. He was descended from John Dane, of Berkhamstead, England, who came to New England before 1641, and died at Roxbury in 1658. The American ancestor, by a first wife, whose name is unknown, had John, probably bora in Berkhamstead about 1612 ; Elizabeth, who married James Howard ; Francis, born about 1616, who had three wives, Elizabeth Ingalls, Mary Thomas and Hannah Abbot. The son John had a first wife, Eleanor Clark, and a second named Alice. His children were John and Philemon, who married Mary Thompson and Ruth Converse. He died in Ipswich September 29, 1684. His son, John, married Abigail Warren and had John ; Daniel ; Susan, born March, 1685-86 ; Nathaniel, born June, 1691 ; Abigail ; Rebecca ; and Elizabeth. Daniel married (1st) Lydia Day, and (2d) Mary Annable, and had Daniel, born about 1716; John, about 1719; Mary, about 1721; Lydia, about 1725 ; and Nathan, about 1727. His son Daniel, born in Ipswich, probably in 1716, married, in 1739, Abigail Burnham, and was the father of the subject of this sketch. He worked on his father's farm until he was of age, when he prepared himself for college, and entered Harvard with the class which graduated in 1778. He then taught school at Beverly, pursuing at the same time his law studies in the office of Judge AVctmore, of Salem. In 1782 he began the practice of law in Beverly and made that town his residence until his death, February 15, 1835. He was a member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives from 1782 to 1785, of Congress from 1785 to 1787 and for five years, between 1790 and 1798, a member of the Massachusetts Senate. He was a member of the Electoral College in 1812, and a member of the State Constitutional Convention in 1820. In 1794 he was appointed justice of the Court of Common Pleas for Essex County, but resigned his place almost immediately after its acceptance. In 1814 he was a member of the Hartford Convention.

Mr. Dane was one of the founders of the Massachusetts Temperance Society, and for several years its president. He was a member of the Massachusetts and Essex Historical Societies, and of the American Antiquarian Society, and received the degree of LL.D. from Harvard in 1816. In 1829 he founded, in Harvard University, the law profe«sorship that bears his name, and at a later date was a liberal contributor for the erection of the Dane Law College. He was a diligent student and his authorship of " A General Abridgment and Digest of American Law " gave him a fame in the profession which time has not dimmed. As a statesman, the identification of his name with the ordinance of 1787 for thegove rnment of the territory northwest of the Ohio, drafted by him, will give him a place in history as long as the institution of slavery, whose spread and power that ordinance checked, has a record in the annals of the land.

So long, too, as the famous sjieech of Mr. Webster in reply to Robert Young Hayne, in the United States Senate, January 26 and 27, 1830, shall be read, Mr. Dane will be kept in memory by the eulogy which Mr, Webster uttered in his splendid effort. He said :

"In the course of my observations the other day, Mr. President, I paid a passing tribute of respect to a very worthy man, Mr. Dane, of Massachusetts. It so happens that he drew the ordinance of 1787 for the government of the northwest territory. A man of so much ability and so little pretence, of so great a capacity to do good and so unmixed a disposition to do it for its own sake, a gentleman who had acted an important part forty years ago in ameasure the influence of what is still deeply felt in the very matter which was the subject of debate, might, I thought, receive from me a commendatory recognition. But the honoralde Senator was inclined to be facetious on the suii.ject. He was rather disposed to make it matter of ridicule that I had introduced into the debate the name of one Nathan Dane, of whom he assures us he had never betore heard. Sir, if the honorable member had never before heard of Mr. Dane, I am sorry for it. It shows him less acquainted with the public men of the country than I had supposed. Let me tell him, however, that a sneer from him at the mention of the name of Mr. Dane is in bad taste. It may well be a high mark of ambition, sir, either with the honorable gentleman or myself, to accomplish as much to make our names known to advantage and remembered with gratitude as Mr. Dane has accomplished."

Those readers of this imperfect sketch of Mr. Dane who may wish to know what he said himself concerning his connection with the ordinance of 1787, are referred to an interesting letter from him to Daniel Webster dated Beverly, March 26, 1830, which may be found in the " Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society from 1867 to 1869," page 475.

1749, and graduated at Harvard in 1770. He was admitted to the bar in 1780, and began to practice in Salem. After a few years, having property in Maine, which came to him through his wife, who was a Waldo, he removed to Hancock County, where for some years he held the office of judge of probate. In 1804 he removed to Boston, where he hell a seat on the bench of the Circuit Court of Common Pleas, and died in 1830. The wife of Judge Joseph Story was a daughter of Judge Wetmore.

Daniel Farnham was born in York, Me., in 1719, and was the son of Daniel Farnham, a native of Andover, Mass. He was fitted for college by Rev. Samuel Moody, of York, and graduated at Harvard in 1739. He studied law with Edmund Trowbridge, of Cambridge, who was considered the best lawyer of his time, and who, in 1759, became chief justice of the Superior Court of Judicature. Only a year after leaving college, in July, 1740, he married Sybil Angler, daughter of Rev. Samuel Angier, of Watertown, and granddaughter of Uriah Oakes, the fourth president of Harvard College. Soon after marriage Mr. Farnham took up his permanent residence in Newburyport, and began practice. At that time there was no lawyer east of Salem in Essex County, and the field was one in which a man of less ability would have won success. But Mr. Farnham was a man not only of learning, but of indomitable energy and activity, and soon stood in the front rank at the Essex bar. In 1768 he was one of five barristers in Essex County, the others being Wm. Pynchon, John Chipman, Nathaniel Peaselee Sargent and John Lowell. The house which he built and occupied was a fine specimen of that style of domestic architecture which Harrison, the English architect, who came to this country with Bishop Berkely, inspired, and which was freely adopted in Salem, Marblehead, Portsmouth and Newburyport. The house stood where the Kelly School-house now stands, and is remembered by many of the present generation.

Mr. Farnham, or, as he is better known, Colonel Farnham, having received a commission from Governor Bernard in 1769 as lieutenant-colonel of the Essex Regiment, continued in active and successful practice until the Revolution. His attachment to the King was strong, and after all hope of a peaceable adjustment of the controversy with Great Britain was abandoned, though he had taken an active part in opposing the Stamp Act and other measures of the home gov ernment, he remained a persistent, earnest and outspoken adherent of the crown. He was the only one in Newburyport who had the courage to avow loyal sentiments, and after his death, which occurred in 1776, it was the boast of the town that it had been purified. There is some ground for the suspicion that his death was the result of abusive treatment at the hands of the patriots. Dr. Samuel Peters, in a letter dated June 19, 1783, says : " Messerve (collector of Portsmouth) and Porter, a lawyer of Salem, agree that there never was known to be in Newburyport more than four loyal subjects, one of whom went ofl to Scotland, Colonel Farnham was killed by the rebels, and Mr. Bass and Dr. Jones gave satisfaction to the rebels and remained there."

Though the patriotic citizens of Newburyport looked upon the death of Colonel Farnham as a purifying event, it is certain that during his long residence in that town, up to the Revolutionary period, he was an honored lawyer and citizen, prominent in every good work, and a means of purification to all who came within the sphere of his example and influence. In his domestic relations he was a loving husband and a tender father. After his death the copy of a prayer which was found in his pocket-book, and which he was in the daily habit of repeating, shows him to have been a devout and faithful Christian.

1725, and graduated at Harvard in 1743. In 1745 he removed to Salem, where he studied law with Stephen Sewall, one of the judges of the Superior Court of Judicature. He died in Salem in March, 1789.

John Chipman was the son of Rev. John Chipman, of Marblehead, and graduated at Harvard in 1738. He died in Falmouth (now Portland) in July, 1768.

Nathaniel Peaselee Sargent was born in Methuen November 2, 1731, and graduated at Harvard in 1750. He practiced law in Haverhill. He was the son of Rev. Christopher Sargent, of Methuen. In 1776 he was appointed judge of the Superior Court of Judicature, and in 1789 chief justice of that court, holding the place until his death, in October, 1791.

John Lowell, the last of the five Essex County barristers in 1768, was not long identified with his native county. He was born in Newbury in 1743, and graduated at Harvard in 1760, receiving the degree of LL.D. in 1792. He studied law in Boston in the office of Oxenbridge Thacher, and after a short term of practice in Newburyport removed to Boston, and finally to Roxbury, where he died in May, 1802. In 1781 he was chosen a member of Congress, and in 1782 was appointed one of the three judges of the Court of Appeals from the Court of Admiralty. In 1789 he was appointed judge of the United States District Court, and in 1801 was made chief justice of the First Circuit of the United States Court, and held the office until the law establishing the court was repealed, in 1802.

1726, and graduated at Harvard in 1745. In 1766 he was appointed judge of probate for Essex, and chief justice of the Court of Common Pleas for the same county. He lived in Salem until his death, which occurred March 19, 1774.

Harvard in 1755. He studied law in Salem and married a daughter of Robert Hooper, of Marblehead. He was a representative from Newburyport and Speaker of the Massachusetts House of Representatives, and a member of the State Senate. With Caleb Strong, he represented Massachusetts in the United States Senate from 1789 to 1791 in the first Congress after the adoption of the Constitution. He invested largely in propertj'^ at Washington, and removed to that city, but eventually sustained serious losses. He was appointed, in 1815, surveyor of the ports of Boston and Charlestown, and died in Boston May 30, 1817. The house in which he lived in Newburyi)ort is still standing on State Street, a gambrelroof house, a little above the Public Library, on the opposite side of the street.

OcTAVius Pickering, son of Colonel Timothy Pickering, was born in Wyoming, Pa., September 2, 1792, during the temporary residence of his father in that place. His father returned to Salem, his native town, in 1801, and Octavius was a Salem youth of fourteen years when he entered Harvard, in 1806. He was admitted to the bar at Salem at the October term of the Circuit Court of Common Pleas in 1818, but very soon removed to Boston, where he was admitted to the Suffolk bar March 6, 1816. From that time until his death, October 29, 1868, he was no longer identified with Essex County. He published, in 1867, the life of his father, and engaged in other literary works, but his twenty-four volumes of Massachusetts decisions, known as " Pickering's Reports," are his best title to a lasting remembrance.

John Gai>lison was born in Marblehead in October, 1788, and graduated at Harvard in 1807. He was admitted to the bar at Salem in 1810, at the September term of Court of Common Pleas. After a short practice in Marblehead he removed to Boston, where he published, in 1807, two volumes of Circuit Court reports and engaged in literary work. lie died December 25, 1820.

Hon. Daniel Appleton White, for thirty-eight years judge of probate for Essex County, was born in Methuen, on ground now at the heart of the present city of Lawrence, June 7, 1776. He was the sixth son and eleventh child of John White, a gentleman farmer of that day, and was descended in the sixth generation from William White, one of the founders of Newbury and, in 1640, one of the original grantees of Haverhill, his mother being Elizabeth, daughter of Joseph Haynes. It was a happy country home of the best class in which his early years were passed, abounding in comfort, plenty, intelligence and alfection, with high-minded parents and a large family of brothers and sisters united by ties of unusual strength, and amid surroundings of natural beauty, on a noble farm of nearly three hundred acres, bounded by the Merrimac and the Spicket Rivers. As in most New England families, the boy of less physical strength and of a studious bent was ill

1793, having completed his preparation in seven and a half months of actual study of from fourteen to sixteen hours a day. Although Cambridge has reared a host of loyal students, the college has rarely trained so devoted a son as he jifoved to be. Learning was, indeed, at a low ebb there in the last years of the eighteenth century, the apparatus of knowledge small and the opportunities were scanty, and in morals and religion the unsettling effect of the French Revolution was marked ; but it was a place to train a strong character and to knit worthy friendships. In a class of exceptional talent, young White graduated the first scholar, in 1797, and, after two years spent in teaching the public grammar-school in Medford, in August, 1799, returned to Cambridge as tutor in Latin, a position then of great responsibility and influence, in which he was enabled to be of much service to the college. Perhaps the four years thus occupied were the happiest part of his life, with his marked academic tastes and aptitudes. In September, 1803, however, resigning his tutorship, he removed to Salem to complete, in the office of Mr. (afterwards Judge) Samuel Putnam, the studies for the bar, which he had been pursuing while tutor. Here, with Mr. John Pickering, eminent later as a philological scholar, he prepared an edition of Sallust, "the first edition of an ancient classic ever published in the United States which was not a professed re-impression of some former and foreign edition," the sheets of which Avere unfortunately destroyed by fire on the eve of publication, in 1805. Having been admitted to the bar in June, 1804, Mr. White began the practice of his profession in Newburyport with success and distinction as a lawyer and citizen, residing in that town for thirteen years. Of strong political convictions as a Federalist, he became prominent in that party in Massachusetts during the administrations of Jefferson and Madison, being a member of the State Senate from 1810 to 1815, and taking a leading part in public affairs, and in November, 1814, being nominated for Congress as the Federal candidate in the Essex North District, he was elected by a nearly unanimous vote, the expression of a constituency not of his own party alone of the general respect and trust in which he was held. At this juncture, on the threshold of a conspicuous public career, the oflfer by Governor Strong of the office of judge of probate for the county of Essex altered the course of his life. He accepted this position, and resigned his commission as Representative in the spring of 1815, against the judgment of many friends, who felt that he did not estimate his qualifications for high public service at their full worth ; but he was led to this decision by considerations such as appealed with peculiar force to a lofty and unworldly character. Devoted to the principles of his party, he yet could not be its slave; his strong taste for literary studies and for a life of scholarly freedom from engrossing professional cares found an opportunity for satisfaction ; but the controlling motive with him was due to the bereavement of his home. He had married Mrs. Mary Van Schalkwyck, daughter of Dr. Josiah Wilder, of Lancaster, May 24, 1807. whose early death, June 29, 1811, had left him with two young daughters, a care and duty which the life of a public man at Washington would have compelled him to sacrifice. In giving up the opportunity of a conspicuous public career he did not, however, turn aside from a large sphere of honorable service. The office of judge of probate, when held for the length of time during which Judge White exercised its duties, brings its holder into important relations with the whole community, and enables him to stand to the widow and the orphan for the justice of the commonwealth in their hour of need. Moreover, a special reason for the appointment of a judge of such weight of character and high reputation had been the fact that the methods of several of the probate courts, and particularly that of Essex County, needed revision and reform. To this task Judge White addressed himself with results which made the court a model of administration, which was followed in the other probate courts of the State. Still, the necessary changes which he introduced led to serious misunderstandings for a time in a public accustomed to loose and easygoing methods, and the feeling culminated in 1821 in a memorial addressed to the Legislature by sundry persons in complaint against the judge and the register of probate in Essex County. His former political opponents found this a favorable occasion of attack, and the special committee appointed by the House of Representatives held an ex parte investigation, without giving the officers who were thus assailed any opportunity to vindicate their action. Yet the committee were compelled to do so in their own report, unanimously adopted by the Legislature, which stated that the changes which had been introduced were " some of them expressly required by different statutes, others by the Supreme Court adjudged to be necessary, and, as far as they could find, all of them useful." Judge White took this occasion to publish, in 1822, a careful historical account of the course of probate law and procedure from the earliest times in this commonwealth, with an account of the former practice in Essex County and the changes which had been introduced. This little work, entitled "A View of the Jurisdiction and Proceedings of the Courts of Probate in Massachusetts, with Particular Reference to the County of Essex," and which concluded with a dignified and just animadversion upon the mode in which the legislative investigation had been conducted, became an authorit}^ on the subject. The reforms which he had introduced were adopted in the courts of other counties, while fixed salaries were substituted for fees. When Judge White resigned his office, July 1, 1853, in his seventy-eighth year, but with his physical and mental powers unabated, nearly every estate in the county had passed under his care, and his fidelity and justice in the administration of his duties had been crowned with universal respect and honor. The opportunities of leisure which his judicial position affiDrded enabled him to meet the demands for those services which naturally devolve on a public-spirited citizen holding such a position in the community. He was one of the founders of the Essex County Lyceum, the pioneer in the system of public lectures which promised and, for a time, fulfilled the promise to be potent among the educational and moral influences of the time, being its president, and also the first president of the Salem Lyceum. Of the Essex Institute he was president from its formation, in 1848, until his death. Addresses on public occasions, as at the dedication of Harmony Grove Cemetery, and the eulogies on Dr. Bowditch, in Salem, and Hon. John Pickering, in Boston, were given by him. Harvard College he served with unwearied devotion for many years in the board of overseers and on various committees, receiving from the university in 1843 the honorary degree of LL.D., and in 1844 delivering the address before its Association of Alumni. But his delight was in his noble library, rich specially in the ancient classics, historical works and English belles-lettres, where his happiest hours were spent in his favorite studies. These bore fruit especially in his writings concerning theological subjects and congregational polity. His early bent had been to the profession of the Christian ministry, from which he had been deterred by the difference of his convictions from those of his honored parents, who were earnest members of the Baptist communion, while his own sympathies were with the liberal Christian movement, which took form in the Unitarian denomination, in which he became one of the most prominent laymen ; and his special interest in studies more congenial to the sacred profession than to that of the law never waned. In the earnest debate between the two branches of the Congregational body he took part with his pen, publishing in 1832 an elaborate work, marked by much learning, entitled " Correspondence Between the First Church and the Tabernacle Church, in Salem, in which the Duties of Churches are Discussed, and the Rights of Conscience Vindicated," and the studies of many years were gathered up by him in his old age in his volume on " New England Congregationalism in its Origin and Purity," published in 1861, just before his death. In these studious labors, however, he was no recluse, but his fine old mansion was the seat of a large and wide hospitality to friends and kindred and strangers. This had become his home when, after his removal to Salem, he had married, August 1, 1819, Mrs. Eliza Wetmore, daughter of William Orne, Esq., a prominent merchant, whose early death, March 27, 1821, again darkened his domestic happiness. His subsequent marriage, January 22, 1824, to Mrs. Ruth Rogers, daughter of Joseph Hurd, Esq., of Charlestown, placed once more at the head of his home a refined and charming lady, who shared and graced its hospitalities, surviving him to die November 28, 1874, at the age of more than ninety years.

In puch serene and happy occupations the closing years of Judge White's life were spent after the resignation of his judicial office, which he continued able to have filled, if he had so chosen, to his death, March 30, 1861, near the close of his eighty-fifth year, with undimmed powers of body and mind, and with a spirit ever young. His brethren of the Essex bar expressed the feeling of the community in resolutions adopted at a meeting called for the purpose after the death of Chief Justice Shaw and of Judge White, which recorded their " appreciation of " his " fine intellectual and moral traits, of that elegant and varied scholarship, and that thorough and exact learning of which a brilliant university career gave promise, and which the experience of so long a life did not disappoint; of his fidelity to his professional and judicial duties; of the services which he has rendered to the probate law by his faithful administration and his published treatise ; of the pure and simple course of his daily life ; of the unswerving integrity, the exquisite religious sensibility, the large philanthropy and the unbounded and generous sympathy for all around him, which ennobled his life, even to its extreraest close," and commemorating, " with affectionate pride," " the influence of his example." Two enduring memorials in gifts ampler than are often bestowed by men of far larger estate remain to perpetuate his memory. The first is that by which he bestowed on the Essex Institute, in Salem, the greater part of his library, amounting in all to over eight thousand books and ten thousand pamphlets. The other is the noble White Foundations in the city of Lawrence, which now covers the green fields of what was his father's farm in Methuen. In selling to the Essex Company his portion of this territory, he had reserved six acres, including a family burial lot, with the restriction that it should not be built upon without the consent of that company. With this consent, in 1852, he vested this property in three trustees, who were directed to make proper provision for the burial-place, after which the proceeds of sales of the land were to be inve-*ted and the income applied to the establishment and support of an annual course of lectures and in the purchase of books for the Public Library, any further surplus to be used " in such manner as they, in the exercise of a sound judgment and discretion, shall consider best adapted to promote the moral, intellectual and Christian advancement and instruction of the inhabitants of the town of Lawrence, earnestly requesting the said trustees constantly to bear in mind that the great object intended to be promoted and accomplished is the education and training up of the young in habits of industry, morality and piety, and in the exercise of true Christian principles, both in thought and action." From the income of this fund annual courses of lectures since 1864-65 have been given in Lawrence, free to the industrial classes, and filling the largest hall in the city to overflowing, and since 1872 a regular appropriation of one thousand dollars annually has been applied to the purchase of carefully-selected books for the Public Library, while it is estimated that the principal of the fund will eventually amount to one hundred thousand dollars, - a worthy fulfillment of a wise and comprehensive plan for enduring public benefit. The two daughters of Judge White by his first marriage were married to Hon. William Dwight, of Springfield, and Hon. Caleb Foote, of Salem, while two sons survived him, the children of his second and third marriages,- - Rev. William Orne White and Dr. Henry Orne White. All of these children have descendants.

Simon Greenleaf was born in Newburyport December 5, 1783, and educated at the Latin school in that town. While he was a boy his father removed to New Gloucester, Maine, where he received his early education at the common schools. Without the advantage of a college career, at the age of eighteen he entered the law-office of Ezekiel Whitman, of Portland, and after a five years' course of study was admitted to the bar of Cumberland County in 1806. He began to practice at Standish, Maine, removing, after a short time, to Gray, and from thence, in 1818, to Portland.

In 1820 he was appointed reporter of decisions of the Supreme Judicial Court of Maine, and held office twelve years, during which time he issued nine volumes of reports, which laid the foundation of his reputation and future distinguished legal career. He published at an early day a volume of " Overruled Ca«es," and later in life a treatise on the " Law of Evidence." This work, with his " Reports," assures him a lasting fame.

In 1817 he received from Bowdoin College the degree of Master of Arts, the degree of Doctor of Laws from Harvard in 1834, and from Amherst in 1845. In 1834 he was appointed Royal Professor of Law in Harvard University as the successor of Professor Ashmun, and after the death of Judge Story he was appointed to the Dane Professorship in 1846. He was induced by ill health to resign in 1848, when he was honored with the title of Emeritus Pi'ofessor of Law in the University. He died at Cambridge October 6. 1853.

Asa Waldo Wildes was born (1786) in Topsfield and graduated at Dartmouth in 1809. After leaving college he taught school in Newburyport and Washington, and finally returned to Newburyport and entered as a student the law-office of Stephen W. Marston. He was admitted to the bar in 1820, and began in Newburyport the practice of law, which he continued until 1826. In that year that part of the duties of the Court of Sessions which related to highways was transferred to a new board, " called commissioners of highways," consisting of five members appointed by the Governor. Mr. Wildes was appointed by Governor Lincoln a member of the board, with Robert Rantoul, of Beverly ; Stephen Barker, of Andover ; Joseph Winn, of Salem ; and William B. Breed, of Lynn, as his associates.

In 1828 the Board of Highway Commissioners was abolished, and the Board of County Commissioners established. Mr. AVildes was appointed by the Governor chairman of the new board, and held office by successive appointments until 1835, when the office was made elective ; and again by election until 1856, with tbe exception of one term of three years, from 1842 to 1845.

Mr. Wildes was peculiarly fitted for the place he so long occupied, and his prolonged incumbency was as creditable to the people of Essex County as to himself They appreciated his legal knowledge and sound judgment, and did not hesitate to call him into their service. He died in Newburyport, December 4, 1857.

Stephen W. Marston was born in Fairlee, Vt., in 1787. He graduated at Dartmouth, and after completing his law studies with Judge White, of Salem, settled in Newburyport. He was well read in the law, and at an early day took high rank at the Essex bar. He was one of the junior counsel in the celebrated Goodridge robbery case, in which Daniel Webster was senior. Had it not been for the masterly management and skill of Mr. Webster, aided by the thorough work of his assistants, the Kenistons, Jackman and Pearson, the defendants would doubtless have been convicted of a crime which had never been committed. There had been no robbery, but Goodridge had been so ingenious in the arrangement of his plot and of the evidence to sustain it, that the proof against the parties charged seemed almost conclusive. An account of this trial, perhaps the must remarkable one in the annals of the State, was published in a pamphlet, and is worthy of examination by all who are interested in the administration of criminal law.

In 1833 Mr. Marston was appointed justice of the Police Court at Newburyport, and continued in office until 1866, when the increasing feebleness of age induced him to resign. His duties on the bench were conscientiously performed, and his decisions, which were rarely reversed, were always marked by a sound judgment as well as an exact perception of legal jjrinciples. He was a member of the Legislature in early life,and the Whig candidate for Congress in opposition to Caleb Gushing in that gentleman's first great contest for the national legislature. He died at his residence August 27, 1873.

law at Newburyport with Theophilus Parsons, and became a practicing lawyer in his native town. He afterwards removed to Boston, where he edited the Boston Galaxy, and for a short time the Commercial Gazette. He again removed to Washington, where he was engaged as editor of the National Journal, and finally to New York, where he edited the Commercial Advertiser. He was one of the junior counsel with Daniel Webster in the famous Goodridge robbery case, and would have attained high rank at the bar had not a fondness for general literature enticed him away from his prnfession. He died at Hopkinton Springs in July, 1838.

Henry Alexander Scammell Dearborn, son of General Henry Dearborn, of the Revolution, was born in Exeter, N. H., March 3, 1783, and died in Portland, Me., July 29, 1851. He graduated at the College of William and Mary in 1803, and studied law with Joseph Story, in Salem, where he entered into practice, having been admitted to the bar in 1807. He was brigadier-general in command of troops in Boston harbor in the War of 1812, collector of the ports of Boston and Charlestown from 1812 to 1829, a member of the Constitutional Convention of 1820 and a member of Congress from 1831 to 1833. In 1834 he was made adjutant-general of Massachusetts by Governor John Davis, and removed, in 1843, by Governor Marcus Morton, for loaning the State arms to Rhode Island to suppress the rebellion. He was mayor of Roxbury from 1847 to 1851, the year of his death. He was the author of several works which added materially to an already well-established reputation.

Gayton Pickman Osgood was born at Salem, July 4, 1797, and was the son of Isaac and Rebecca T. (Pickman) Osgood. He graduated at Harvard in 1815, and studied law with Benjamin Merrill. He began practice in Salem, and afterwards removed to Andover, at which place his parents had, while he was young, taken up their residence. He was in the Legislature, and was a member of Congress from 1833 to 1835. He married, March 24, 1859, Mary Farnham, of North Andover, and died in that town June 26, 1861.

RuFiJS King, son of Richard and Isabella (Bragdon) King, was born in Scarboro', Me., March 24, 1755, and graduated at Harvard in 1777. His father had removed to Scarboro' from Watertown^ Mass., in 1746. He studied law with Theophilus Parsons, of Newburyport, whose office was on the corner of Green and Harris Streets, and commenced practice in that place.

From 1784 to 1786 he was a member of Congress, and it is said that in consequence of his disappointment at the selection of Tristram Dalton for United States Senator in 1788, removed to New York. His career there is well known, and forms no part of the history of Essex County. He died at Jamaica, Long Island, April 29, 1827. William King, the first Governor of Maine, was the son of Richard King, by

Nathaniel Cogswell, son of Thomas Cogswell, was born in Haverhill January 19, 1773, and graduated at Dartmouth in 1794. He studied law with Ebenezer Smith, of Durham, N. H., and began practice in 1805. In 1808 he established himself at Newburyport, and died at the Rapids of the Red River August, 1813.

IcHABOD Tucker was born at Leicester April 17, 1765, and graduated at Harvard in 1791. He received a degree from Yale in 1804, and from Bowdoin in 1806. He began the practice of law in Haverhill, having been admitted to the bar in 1795, and removed to Salem, where he held the ofl5ce of clerk of the courts for Essex County for many years. He was the son of Benjamin and Martha (Davis) Tucker, of Leicester, and wns twice married, - first, September 16, 1798, to Maria, daughter of Dr. Joseph and Mary (Leavitt) Orne, and second, October 13, 1811, to Esther Orne, widow of Joseph Cobat and daughter of Dr. William and Lois (Orne) Paine. He died at Salem October 22, 1846.

William Cranch, son of Richard Cranch, who was born in England in November, 1726, was born in Weymouth, Mass., July 17, 1769, and graduated at Harvard in 1787, receiving the degree of LL.D. from his alma mater in 1829. After his admission to the bar he practiced first in Braintree, and afterwards in Haverhill. In October, 1794, he removed to Washington, and was appointed in 1801, by President Adams, associate judge of the Circuit Court of the District of Columbia, of which he was chief justice from 1805 to his death, which occurred September 1, 1855. He published nine volumes of reports of the United States Supreme Court, and six volumes of reports of the Circuit Court of the District of Columbia.

Joseph E. Sprague was the son of William and Sarah (Sprague) Stearns, and took his mother's maiden-name. He was born at Salem September 9, 1782, and graduated at Harvard in 1804. He studied law, and was postmaster of Salem from 1815 to 1829. In September, 1880, he was appointed sheriff of Essex County, and continued in office until 1851. He was, at various times, Senator and Representative in the State Legislature, and died February 22, 1852.

Joseph Story was born in Marblehead September 18, 1779, and was the son of Dr. Elisha Story, a native of Boston and a surgeon in the Revolution. He graduated at Harvard in 1798, and received degrees of LL.D. from Brown (1815), Harvard (1821) and Dartmouth (1824). Among his classmates were Wm. Ellery Channing, John Varnum, and Sidney Willard. His education before entering college was received in Marblehead, under the direction of Rev. Dr. William Harris, afterwards president of Columbia College. He began his law studies in the office of Chief Justice Samuel Sewall, in Marblehead, but on his appointment to the bench he entered the office of Judge Samuel Putnam, and was admitted to the bar of Essex County in July, 1801. He was a Democrat in politics, and as such stood almost alone among the lawyers of the county. He was a member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives in 1805, '06, '07, a member of Congress in 1808, again a member of the Legislature from 1809 to 1812, and was chosen Speaker of the House of Representatives in January, 1811.

In 1806 he advocated in the Legislature an increase of the salaries of the Supreme Judicial Court in opposition to the prejudices of his party against high judical salaries, and more especially against Theophilus Parsons, whom it was proposed to place on the bench, but who could not afford to relinquish a practice often thousand dollars for a position having attached to it the paltry salary of twelve hundred dollars. Mr. Parsons was especially obnoxious to the Democrats, but Mr. Story, with that sturdy independence which always characterized him, advocated and carried a bill to increase the salary of the chief justice to two thousand five hundred dollars, and of the associates to two thousand four hundred dollars, and Mr. Parsons was appointed and accepted the aj>- pointment. In 1809 he advocated and was largely the means of securing a further increase of the salaries of the chief justice and the associates to three thousand five hundred dollars and three thousand dollars, respectively.

On the 18th of November, 1811, he was appointed by Madison associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, to fill the vacancy caused by the death of William Cushing, which occurred on the 13th of September, 1810. The appointment had been previously offered to John Quincy Adams, who declined it. Mr. Story was then only thirty-two years of age, and his appointment reflects credit on the sagacity of Mr. Madison, who discovered in so young a man the signs of promise which his career afterwards fully verified. In 1820, at the time of the separation of Maine from Massachusetts, he was a delegate from Salem to the Constitutional Convention. In 1828 Nathan Dane, who, in founding the Law School at Cambridge, had reserved to himself the appointments to its professorships, appointed Judge Story Dane professor of law and John Hooker Ashmun, Royal professor of law, and in the next year, 1829, he removed from Salem to Cambridge, where he continued to reside until his death, on the 10th of September, 1845.

Aside from his learning in the law and that wonderful fluency in the use of language, both spoken and written, which made his learning available, nothing distinguished him more than his industry. With the labors of the judge constantly pressing upon him and the cares of his professorship, the press was kept busy in supplying the law libraries of the land with his commentaries and treatises and miscellaneous pro- ductions. His first publication seems to have been a poem entitled the " Power of Solitude," published in Salem in 1804. In 1805 appeared "Selection of Pleadings in Civil Actions with Annotations." In 1828 he edited the Public and General Statutes passed by Congress from 1789 to 1827, and in 1836 and 1845 supplements to these dates. In 1832 appeared " Commentaries on the Law of Bailments, with Illustrations from the Civil and Foreign Law;" in 1833, "Commentaries on the Constitution;" in 1834, "Commentaries on the Conflict of Laws, Foreign and Domestic, in Regard to Contracts, Rights and Remedies, and Especially in Regard to Marriages, Divorces, Wills, Successions and Judgments." In 1835 and 1836 appeared " Commentaries on Equity Jurisprudence as Administered in England and America;" in 1838, " Commentaries on Equity Pleadings and the Incidents Thereto, according to the Practice of the Courts of Equity in England and America ; " in 1839, " Commentaries on the Law of Agency as a Branch of Commercial and Maritime Jurisjirudence, with Occasional Illustrations from the Civil and Foreign Law;" in 1841, "Commentaries on the Law of Partnership as a Branch of Commercial and Maritime Jurisprudence, with Occasional Illustrations from the Civil and Foreign Law;" in 1843, "Commentaries on the Law of Bills of Exchange, Foreign and Inland, as Administered in England and America, with Occasional Illustrations from the Commercial Law of the Nations of Continental Europe; '' in 1845, "Commentaries on the Law of Promissory Notes." His decisions in the First Circuit, from 1812 to 1815, are in " Gallison's Reports ; " from 1816 to 1830, in " Mason's Reports;" from 1830 to 1839, in "Sumner's Reports ; and from 1839 to 1845, in Story's " Reports." Among his numerous other publications were an " Eulogy on Washington at Salem," 1800 ; "An Eulogy on Captain James Lawrence and Lieutenant Ludlow," 1813; "Sketch of Samuel Dexter," 1816; " Charges to Grand Juries in Boston and Providence," 1819; "Charge to Grand Jury at Portland," 1820; " Address before the Suffolk Bar," 1821 ; " Discourse before the Phi Beta Society," 1826; "Discourse before the Essex Historical Society," 1828 ; " Address at his own Inauguration as Professor," 1829; "Address at the Dedication of Mount Auburn," 1831 ; " Address at the Funeral Services of Professor John Hooker Ashmun," 1833; "Eulogy on John Marshall," 1835; "Lectures on the Science of Law," 1838; " Address before the Harvard Alumni," 1842; and his " Charge to the Grand Jury of Rhode Island on Treason," in 1845. In addition to this long list of his works might be mentioned a large number of essays and articles in magazines and reviews, and three unprinted manuscript volumes, finished just before his death, entitled " Digest of Law Supplementary to Comyns,'' which are deposited in the Harvard College library.

graduated at Harvard in 1798. He practiced law in Haverhill, and there married, October 9, 1806, Mary Cooke, daughter of Dr. Nathaniel Saltonstall, of Haverhill. He represented Haverhill in the State Legislature, and was also a member of the Senate. He was a member of Congress from December 5, 1825, to March 3, 1831. His law studies, before admission to the bar, were pursued in the office of Judge Smith, of Exeter. He died July 23, 1836.

John Glen King, son of James and Judith (Norris) King, was born in Salem March 19, 1787, and graduated at Harvard in 1807. He studied law with William Prescott and Joseph Stoiy, and was admitted to the bar in 1812, at the November term of the Supreme Judicial Court, sitting at Salem. He was Representative and Senator and the president of the first City Council of Salem after its incorporation as a city, in 1836. Aside from legal attainments, which were universally recognized as of a high order, he was proficient in historical study, and was a member of the Massachusetts Historical Society, and one of the founders of the Essex Historical Society. He married, November 10, 1815, Susan H., daughter of Frederick Oilman, of Gloucester, and died July 26, 1857.

Mr. King's baptismal name was John King, but by an act of the Legislature passed June 21, 1811, it was changed to John Glen King. He was descended from William King, who came from England in the " Abigail " in 1635. Though he graduated in 1807, he did not receive his degree until 1818, having been one of those engaged in'the famous Commons Rebellion, which occurred in his senior year. While a member of the House of Representatives he was appointed in the Prescott impeachment case to make the impeachment at the bar of the House, in the name of the House and the people, and also one of seven members to conduct the impeachment before the Senate. He was chairman of the committee and made the opening argument.

A letter from Boston, in the Salem Gazette, at the time of his death, paid the following tribute to hia memory: "The Hon. John Glen King, whose death, at the ripe age of seventy years, has been announced, was a gentleman universally respected for his private worth and public services and example. All who have had the pleasure of an intimate acquaintance with him have been blest by his social qualities, his urbanity of manner and his kindness of heart. The odor of his virtues will long endure among his friends. Truly a good man has departed."

Nathaniel Lord, Jr., though not a member of the bar, was so long register of probate of Essex County, and came in such close contact with lawyers in the performance of their professional duties, as to deserve an honorable place in this record. He was descended from Robert Lord, who came to New England in 1636 and settled in Ipswich. Robert had five sons - Robert, Thomas, Samuel, Joseph and Nathaniel. Of these, Robert had six sons, - Robert, 1657 ; John, 1659 ; Thomas ; Joseph, 1674; Nathaniel, about 1675; and Jamen, 1676. Of these, James had James, Joseph and Nathaniel. Of these, Nathaniel married Elizabeth Day, and had Nathaniel, 1747 ; Abraham, 1751 ; Isaac, 1753. Of these, Isaac, by wife, Susanna, had Isaac, 1777 ; Joseph, 1778 ; Nathaniel, the subject of this sketch, September 25, 1780 ; and Levi. 1794. Of these Nathaniel, by his wife Eunice, had Nathaniel, James, Otis Phillips, Isaac, and George Robert. Of these, George Robert, by his wife Mary, had George Robert and four daughters, Mary L., Anna M., Ella K., and Elizabeth F.

Mr. Lord graduated at Harvard in 1798, and became first connected with the probate office as clerk of Daniel Noyes, who had been register many years. In May, 1815, he was appointed register by Governor Caleb Strong, and continued in ofiice until he was removed by Governor Boutwell, in 1851. In 1851 Edwin Lawrence succeeded him, and in the next year the registry was removed to Salem.

After leaving college and before going into the registry as clerk he taught school a few years in York, Me., and was also for a short time an assistant in the Dummer Academy. He married, in December, 1804, Eunice, daughter of Jeremiah and Lois (Choate) Kimball, of Ipswich, and sister of Colonel Charles Kimball, of that town. His three sons, Nathaniel James, Otis Phillips and George Robert, of whom only the last is living, owed many of their strong mental and physical traits to their father. Sketches of the first two may be found in another place in this record. To George Robert Lord, who, at one time, was register of probate, and is now the courteous and efficient assistant clerk of the courts at Salem, the writer of these sketches is indebted for facilities in the examination of records, which he most generously afforded.

Too much praise can scarcely be awarded to Nathaniel Lord for the fidelity, thoroughness and courtesy with which he performed the duties of register during his incumbency of thirty-six years. Very many now living have cause to remember his kindness of heart, his timely counsel and his honorable deportment, both in business and social life, and the admirable method and system of the office under its present management is largely due to the high standard which he set up, while it was occupied by him.

David Cummixs was the son of David and Mehitabel (Cave) Cummins, of Topsfield, and was born in that town August 14, 1785. He graduated at Dartmouth in 1806, and after completing his law studies in the office of Samuel Putnam, of Salem, was admitted to the Essex bar at Salem in 1809, at the September term of the Court of Common Pleas. He began practice at Salem, afterwards removing to Sj^ringfield, and finally to Dorchester, where he died March 30, 1855. He was appointed justice of the Court of Common Pleas in 1828, and remained on the bench until 1844. He was twice married, - first, August 13, 1812, to Sally, daughter of Daniel and Sarah (Peabody) Porter, of Topsfield ; and second, to Catherine, daughter of Thomas Kittridge, of Andover.

Samuel Porter, of Salem, was admitted to the bar of Essex County before the Revolution. He studied law with Daniel Farnhara, of Newburyport, and became a Loyalist refugee and ended his days in England.

Nathan W. Hazen was born in Bridgeton, Maine, July 9, 1800. He there received his education in the public schools and in the Bridgeton Academy. He studied law with Leverett Saltonstall, of Salem, and was admitted to the bar in 1828. He settled in Andover, where he secured a large practice. He was a member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives in 1834, and at a later day a member of the Senate. He died in Andover, March 19, 1887, the oldest member of the Essex bar.

Benjamin Ropes Nichols, son of Ichabod and Lydia (Ropes) Nichols, was born in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, May 18, 1786, and graduated at Harvard in 1804. He was admitted to the bar of Essex County in 1807, and for many years practiced law in Salem. He married, April 12, 1813, Mary, daughter of Colonel Timothy and Rebecca (White) Pickering, of Salem. She was born in Pliiladelphia November 21, 1793, during her father's temporary residence in that city, and outliving her husband many years, died in West Roxbury March 22, 1863. Mr. Nichols removed to Boston in 1824, where he died April 30, 1848. He was a man of culture, and as an antiquary won more than common distinction. In 1820 he was appointed by the General Court on a commission, with Rev. James Freeman, of Boston, and Samuel Davis, of Plymouth, to superintend the work of copying such a portion of the New Plymouth records as they might think desirable. Under the direction of this commission, six volumes of court proceedings, one volume of deeds, one volume of judicial acts and one volume of laws were copied, and the copies were deposited in the office of the secretary of the commonwealth, where they still are. The original records were also put in proper condition for preservation, and to the intelligent i)erformance of the duties of the commission the present state of the Old Colony records is largely due.