Worcester City (part 5 of 58)

The professional life of Benjamin Adams, covering close on to half a century, is one of those level stretches of beautiful meadow which seems to span the interval between our point of departure and our standing-ground, and to bring nearer to us the lofty hills which we have left, and enable us to compare them with the eminences close at hand. When Adams was admitted to the bar, in 1792, John Sprague held the office of high sheriff, but that same year resigned its duties to give his entire attention to his large professional business. A few years later, as chief justice of the Common Pleas, he doubtless inspired the young advocate with admiration for his learning and dignity. Levi Lincoln was in the full tide of a large and increasing practice, and was already known as the man whose arguments had abolished slavery on Massachusetts soil. The rugged honesty of Artemas Ward secured for him the respect on the bench even of the counsel, who appreciated their superiority in knowledge of the law to the old general, whose profession was rather of arms than of briefs and writs.

Born in Mendon in 1764, Mr. Adams received a liberal education at Brown University. He studied law in Uxbridge with Colonel Tyler, who had been a Revolutionary officer and was the first lawyer practicing in the south part of the county. Tyler does not seem to have obtained much eminence, or to have long remained in practice. Soon after Adams was admitted to the bar he succeeded to the business of his preceptor, who then disappears from history. Possessed of fair abilities and a steady purpose to make the most of them, he acquired a substantial practice and, what was better, the confidence of his townsmen. On the death of Judge Brigham he was elected to fill the vacant seat in Congress, and by successive re-elections retained the office until 1823. In that year he was defeated as a candidate by Jonathan Russell, because of a speech made by Adams in favor of the principle of protection. At that time Daniel Webster had not seen the light which afterwards so clearly illuminated his pathway as to cause him to retrace his steps and forswear his logic. The great statesman lent his matchless powers to exposing the fallacies which Adams upheld, in so forcible a manner that neither he nor any one who has come after him has been able to answer the argument, and the result was Adams's defeat. In very truth he was before his time. An ample fortune which he had accumulated he lost by unfortunate investments in manufacturing enterprises, and it may not be an unwarrantable inference that his own ill success caused him to feel more deeply the need of some protection by the State, for business that in itself was profitless.

He is described as a man of peculiarly even temperament, who did not suffer prosperity or adversity to throw him from his balance. An upright Christian gentleman, he did the duties that lay near him, usefully serving his community in whatever way his hand found to do. In a county whose bar boasted before his death of the fame of the second Levi Lincoln, of Charles Allen and of Emory Washburn ; his attainments were not of an order to be loudly heralded. None the less they were a distinct contribution to the welfare of his neighborhood. His talents were honestly put to their best use, so that it could be said the world was better for his life. In 1837, a few years after the late Peter C. Bacon came to the bar, he died in Uxbridge, where his active life had been spent.

Of the fame of an orator only one who has listened to the magic of the living voice, and felt his own enthusiasm aroused beneath the spell of the vivid eloquence, is fitted to speak with authority. Francis Blake was pre-eminently a master of the art of speech. His other titles to remembrance have been subordinated to this in the minds of those who have spoken and written in his praise. The late Judge Thomas, a critic qualified by his skill in the same art, has said of him: "In theCourt-House . . . he won by his sweetness and commanded by his dignity; where his learning and logic convinced, where his wit and humor convulsed Bench, Bar and Jury; where his passion aroused to indignation or melted into tears; where now his genius, his eloquence and his name even are but a tradition; where the orb has sunk long since below the horizon ; and the eye catches only the last lingering, fading hues of twilight. Such is the history and the fate of forensic eloquence."

Mr. Blake was the son of a Revolutionary oflicer who lived in Rutland until the boy was five years old when he removed to Hiugham. In that town the Reverend Joseph Thaxter, afterwards a distinguished clergyman, taught the pupils of a grammar-school. Under his excellent instruction Blake made such rapid progress in preparation for college that he entered Harvard much the youngest member of his class and graduated in 1789, when only iu his sixteenth year. He was considered one of the brightest and most accomplished scholars of his class; nor do his faculties seem to have been unduly stimulated nor his brain turned by his rapid advancement. He soon began the study of the law in Mr. Sprague's office in Lancaster, and at twenty was admitted to the bar, thoroughly equipped for the race for legal distinction. For a few years he tried the quality of his metal in Rutland, his native village, where he obtained a business sufficient to warrant his entering a larger field. In 1802 he came to Worcester, and there practiced until, in the year preceding his death, his failing health compelled him to give up his severe labors and assume the less exacting duties of clerk of the courts. At the time that he came to Worcester the contest of parties which had resulted in the defeat of the Federalists was still exciting the public mind. Mr. Jefferson's policy was fiercely attacked by the opposition, and Blake's ardent temperament impelled him to eagerly support the administration whose success he had desired. The publication of a newspaper called the National ^yis was begun, principally as a result of his efforts, and he undertook the editorial duties. Through a large part of President Jefferson's first term Blake's pen and influence were constantly devoted to the promulgation and defence of the doctrines of the Republicans, as they were then called. In 1804 he retired from the field of journalism, leaving the paper to other hands. Under the editorial guidance of several different members of the bar it passed through various experiences of the uncertainties of newspaper life until its mission ended.

For two years Mr. Blake represented the county in the State Senate, but aside from this held no political office. His real triumphs were in the court-room. For his success there it is instructive to learn that he did not depend upon his abundant resources of intellectual gifts.

Mr. Willard says, "It is a wrong impression that Mr. Blake made but slight preparation in his causes. But few could have discovered more investigation, or have given more satisfactory proofs of diligent and thorough study in the management of his causes. . . . His briefs were remarkably full," and showed "that mental effort had been tasked in a degree to which few in full and successful practice are willing or able to submit."

With powers apparently just developed to their highest value, and the brightest prospect of an honorable career, his physical health gave way. In 1817, when only forty-two, he died poor, as is the lot of most great advocates, but rich in friends and reputation.

One of Mr. Blake's law students and ardent admirers was a Worcester boy, Samuel Brazer, born in 1785. At the outset of his career he was placed in the employ of a mercantile house in Boston, where it was intended that he should fit himself to become one of the substantial merchants of that thriving town. He evinced, however, so decided a taste and aptitude for literary pursuits, that he was allowed to enter Leicester Academy to prepare fur college. He had that treacherous facility iu acquiring knowledge from books which often leads its possessor to rely on hasty and superficial attention to his tasks. His ready wit and spirit of mischief led him into seme pranks which resulted in his incurring the displeasure of his instructors and the abandonment of his plans for a college course.

Entering Blake's office, he found himself in the midst of political turmoil, rather than an atmosphere adapted to profound study, such as so volatile a character most required. He entered with zeal into the exciting controversies of the day, contributed to the jEgis, and evidently acquired a taste for politics, which overcame every other interest or ambition. He was by no means unfitted for public life. Numerous prose writings and occasional addresses show a considerable ability, and a few ventures in the realms of poetry prove his command of language and active imagination.

After admission to the bar he began practice in New Salem, but its detail soon became distasteful. He could not reconcile himself to the quiet life of the country lawyer, waiting for clients. He moved to Baltimore, and died there in 1823, without having realized the hopes of his friends or the promise of his youth.

One of the justices of the Supreme Court in the first j'ears of the century was Simeon Strong, who had been distinguished as a lawyer before the Revolution, and had continued practice not only in his county of Hampshire, but in our courts after the war. His son, Solomon Strong, adopted his father's profession, and was admitted to the bar in 1800, just before his father was appointed to the bench. He was born in Amherst in 1780, and received his education at Williams College. Somewhat of a rollingstone, we find him practicing successively in Eoyalston, Athol, Westminster and Leominster. Notwithstanding his apparent instability, he had acquired a competent knowledge of the law and retained a good clientage for many years. Two terms in Congress, besides several in the State Legislature, showed that I he had the confidence and esteem of his constituents, and his qualifications as a lawyer were recognized by his appointment to the bench of the Circuit Court of Common Pleas upon the death of Judge Bangs, in 1818.

By an act of the General Court, which took eff'ect in 1821, the system of Circuit Courts was abolished, and the Court of Common Pleas for the Commonwealth established. By its provisions four justices were to be appointed, any one of whom could hold a session of the court. The terms were to be held at the same times and places as had previously been provided for the Circuit Courts, and the jurisdiction, rules, and methods of procedure of the new court were changed in no essential particular. The act provides " that the chief justice of said Court of Common Pleas shall, during his continuance in office, receive from the treasury of the Commonwealth, in full, for his services, the sura of twenty-one hundred dollars annually," and the associates in like manner the sum of eighteen hundred dollars. All fees theretofore paid to the justices of the Circuit Courts are directed to be paid into the treasury of the Commonwealth. The change seems, on the whole, to have been principally in the interests of economy, for under the new statute four judges at fixed salaries took the place of ten under the circuit system, who received an uncertain rate of compensation, dependent largely on fees.

The first chief justice was Artemas Ward, then of Newton, son of the old general and judge. Judge Strong was appointed the senior associate, and for twenty-two years, until his resignation, continued to discharge his judicial functions with dignity and credit. He died in Leominster in 1850. During the last years of his life, after his retirement from the bench, his patience was tried by disease and suffering. His cheerful courage sustained him through it all, and added another to his titles to our respect.

When in the first year of the present century Levi Lincolu assumed the duties of Attorney-General of the United States he was in command of the most extensive practice in this vicinity, often called into adjoining counties, and in the foremost rank of advocates in the Commonwealth. During his four years service in Washington he could not have retained the same control of his great clientage as formerly. In 1805 he stated as one of his reasons for resisting the urgent request of President Jefterson that he would remain in the Cabinet, that his duties to his family required his presence at home, and it appears not improbable that he may have been thinking of his son just completing his studies and ready to enter upon a inofessional career, iu the outset of which the father's experience and established business connections would be of infinite value. The son taking up the name, the profession, and the position in the community of his father added, as time went on, new dignities to each.

Born in Worcester in 1782, his reputation is the peculiar pride of the city in whose growth and welfare he always took the profoundest interest, and where he made his home.

He graduated from Harvard in 1802, and studied law in his father's office, though without the advantage of the daily presence and advice of the busy Attorney-General. When he began his practice, however, the senior Lincoln had returned from Washington, and for several years thereafter continued to practice in our courts. The young counsellor needed no outside iuHuence to recommend him to those in search of a sound legal adviser and earnest advocate. He very early made his qual ifications apparen t,and with such rivals as Jabez Upham, Francis Blake and John Davis, the position of leadership at the bar, to which he attained, was not won without many a hard-fought contest. The power of incessant application and a most determined will were his, and by these he overcame obstacles that sometimes seemed too great for him to cope with. He left the practice of the law at fortytwo, and survived all of his cotemporaries in the profession, so that we have uot the testimony of those who had heard him as an advocate. But he told friends of " the overwhelming labor which his successes cost him ; bow he would watch the night out in the study of his cases, and then go in the morning into the court-room, with a throbbing brain, and speak for hours." Efibrts of such a character could only be sustained by vigorous physical health, which to the last years of his life Governor Lincoln possessed. As a result of his careful preparation, he acquired a complete mastery of his faculties, so that in the vicissitudes of trials he was ready to use to the best advantage all his mental resources. He had a great command of language and of admirably clear statemen', which entitled him to be called an eloquent speaker. Certainly he was a most convincing one. His style was not encumbered with rhetorical ornaments, but plain, substantial and direct. When, in the year of his appointment to the bench of the Supreme Court, he gave up business, he had acquired a position at the bar second to none in the Commonwealth, and a

His political honors are naturally those which have most prominently been associated with the memory of his name. In 1812 be was a member of the State Senate, add was a strong supporter of the administration in its measures which resulted in the war with Great Britain. The majority in this State were intensely opposed to the war, and here at the outset of his career Lincoln exhibited his independence of judgment and courage in supporting his convictions. He was rewarded by seeing a strong sentiment built up in favor of sustaining the war after we were engaged. In 1814, as a member of the House of Representatives, he protested with vigor against the resolution which resulted in our participation in the famous Hartford Convention. Defeated by a large majority in the General Court, he drew up a protest which was signed by the minority, and widely circulated through the country, bringing its author into national repute. The convention was held, but its action, beyond furnishing a text for secessionists' arguments in later years, had no result, and aroused but short-lived interest.

For several years Mr. Lincoln represented Worcester in the Legislature - -always with credit. In 1822 he was elected Speaker of the House, in which a majority were of the opposite political party. This is an evidence of that remarkable freedom from partisan bias which he displayed on all occasions. Many years afterwards, when a member of Congress, he felt it his duty to reply to an attack which a member of his own party had made upon the President, to whom he was politically opposed, and did it with so much dignity and effect that the supporters of the administration published his remarks. He would not win l>y any but the fairest means and the most direct arguments.

His promotion was rapid. He left the Legislature for the Lieutenant-Governorship, and while in that office was appointed anassociatejusticeof the Supreme Court. On that bench he remained only a year, but brought to the performance of its duties a learning and a dignified urbanity, which gave evidence that there also he would have added to his reputation, and to that of the court, already distinguished for its high character. In 1825 he received the nomination for the office of Governor of Massachusetts from both political parties. He said that, owing to his judicial position, this was the only way in which he should have considered it proper to accept the nomination. For nine years he held the office by successive reelections, most of them practically uncontested, and no more faithful or efficient officer has filled the chair. Interested in everything that could contribute to the welfare of the Commonwealth, he imparted a stimulus to internal improvements of all kinds. Canals and railroads, the improvement of agriculture, the upbuilding of manufactures, reforms of the prisons and of hospitals for the insane, the establishment of Normal Schools, all received his energetic attention.

Declining to accept a tenth term as Governor, he was persuaded to take the seat in Congress left vacant by the election of John Davis to the gubernatorial office. There he remained during four Congresses, and again sought to retire among his friends and his home enjoyments, free from the constant turmoil of public life.

During the rest of his life this retirement was broken only at intervals. In 1848 Worcester, having received a charter, organized its municipal government, and called upon him, as its first citizen, to occupy the mayoralty. This duty he cheerfully performed for one year. For twenty years thereafter he lived amid its growing population and thriving industries, always interested in every movement of progre,-s, and contributing by his management of his large landed property to rendering it a city of beautiful streets and home-like residences. Much of his time was devoted to the encouragement of agriculture. In his own fine farm and herd of cattle he took infinite delight, and the Worcester Agricultural Society, of which he was president for thirty years, owed much to his constant care. Though eminently a man of aftairs rather than of books, he took a deep and rational interest in scientific and literary investigations.

His pastor, the Rev. Alonzo Hill, speaks of him as a deeply religious man, constant in every good word and work for the church and society which his father had been largely instrumental in establishing. Regular in his attendance on public worship, his erect figure was every Sunday to be seen on his way to the church, a mile from his home, until the infirmities of age in the last year of his life prevented.

One who knew him well says that his great characteristic was faithfulness - a thoroughness in whatever matter, large or small, that he undertook. He had an ambition to possess the respect and good-will of the public, but this ambition was subordinate to the determination to deserve that esteem. No considerations of present advantage or of personal friendship were sufficient to deter him from the course which seemed to him the proper one. This was well illustrated when, as Governor, it became necessary for him to appoint a chief justice of the Supreme Court to succeed Judge Parker. Resisting the claims of an intimate friendship, the urgency of influential supporters and a natural desire to gratify long-standing expectations, he selected a man whom his judgmenc a-sured him was best qualified for the office. Long afterwards he used to say that the act of his Governorship on which he looked back with the most complete satisfaction was the giving to the judicial history of the Commonwealth the services of Lemuel Shaw, and

During the Civil War he was a most earnest supporter of tlie government by word and act. Too far advanced in years himself to take the field, his eloquent words incited others and his steady courage sustained the drooping faith of those who doubted our ultimate triumph. His last public service was to act as one of the electors-at-Iarge, and to cast a ballot for Abraham Lincoln in 1864. A patriot to the core, with a son and grandson in active service, he never felt that he had done enough for his country while there remained any service which in its hour of need he could perform.

Judge Washburn has well summed up his virtue when he says : " I have little hesitation in saying that I have never known one whose life and character had more of completeness in its composition than his. Among his characteristics were a steadiness of purpose, a quickness in e.xpedients, a judgment cool and well-balanced, discriminating nicely in the selection of agents and the application of means, and withal, a courage that shrunk from no responsibility, and an industry that was alike incessant and unwearied."

In 1868, the year of Governor Lincoln's death, there passed away a life-long friend who had arrived at an equal length of days. Rejoice Newton was a native of Greenfield, and a graduate of Dartmouth College in 1807. After studying law for three years he was admitted in Hampshire County, and was so fortunate as to form a partnership with Francis Blake, then at the height of his successful practice in Worcester. This connection continued for four years, which must have been full of instruction and inspiration to the younger man, while the latter's methodical habits and calm judgment must have been of service to the brilliant orator. After the dissolution of the partnership the friendly relations were still maintained, as is evinced by letters written by Mr. Blake in the last year of his life.

For seven years Newton discharged with efficiency the duties of prosecuting attorney for the county. At the end of that time, in 1826, he formed a partnership with Wm. Lincoln, the scholarly historian, a brother of Governor Lincoln. As a lawyer, he was respected as a safe and careful adviser. In the House and Senate of the State he served usefully several terms. In numerous business enterprises of the city he took an active interest, and his services were in request on boards of directors of financial institutions. By attention to business and judicious investments he accumulated a handsome property, and was able to retire from active pursuits and enjoy his books and his farm during the last ten or fifteen years of his life. Like Governor Lincoln, he had a great fondness for

His tastes in this respect he was able to gratify, for his broad acres were his only care for many years. One of the beautiful hills which overlooks the city of his adoption still bears his name, and now, annexed to an adjacent park, reminds us that the farms of a few years ago are becoming the city locations of today.

It was remarked of Mr. Newton that, winning or losing in the court-room, his imperturbable temper was never disturbed. Such a command over one's self is invaluable to any man, but to none more than to the advocate, when, in the sharp contests of jury trials, a keen opponent is ready to take advantage of every lapse, and the twelve men are observing as carefully the conduct of the counsel as the statements of the witnesses.

At the ripe age of eighty-five Mr. Newton completely withdrew from that world whicli had become accustomed to his absence by the strictness of his retirement from active life. The papers of the day, in alluding to his death, spoke of him as one not known to their modern generation.

This bar has contributed largely from its numbers to the ranks of historical scholars. In the case ©f Isaac Goodwin the taste for investigation of the records of the past and for literary work was so strong as to make the ordinary business of the lawyer a distasteful drudgery. Born in the town of Plymouth in 1786, and pursuing his studies there until he was admitted to the bar, in 1808, it would have been strange if he had not imbibed a love and reverence for the tradition of olden time. He did not receive a collegiate education, but, after passing through the common schools, entered the office of Joshua Thomas, a distinguished counsellor in his native town. His first office he opened in Boston, but, after a trial of less than a year, sought a less thoroughly occupied field for his unpracticed eflTorts in the town of Sterling, in this county. There he undertook such business as came to him, and found leisure for his favorite studies. His contributions to legal literature were works of considerable value. The first, a treatise on the duties of town officers, was a much-needed guide for the conduct of country selectmen through difficulties that not infrequently perplex them. In later years it was the foundation of a larger and more complete work on the same subject by Judge Thomas, which for years remained a standard reference book. Whether such compilations do not as often mislead the lay reader who relies on his own interpretation of their language as they assist him may be doubted, but in the hands of the trained student they prove most useful tools. "The New England Sheriff"" was his second venture in this field, and till this day that work is a valued part of a lawyer's library.

lyiucoln and Christopher BaldwiD, the editors of Tlie Woreeater Magazine, and other gentlemen of like tastes. For this periodical he wrote a general history of Worcester County, which continued through several numbers, and also a history of Sterling. Both these writings gave evidence of painstaking investigation, and the earnest desire of the author for impartial accuracy. His style is not enlivened by many of the graces of diction, but the plain tale is set down with admirably terse exactitude. To state the facts was the aim he set before him, and to do that well is more than ludf the power of the successful advocate.

He was often called upon to deliver addresses of an historical nature. His oration on the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the destruction of Lancaster by the Indians, was one of the most noteworthy of these. His death occurred in 1832, when in his forty-seventh year.

For more than twenty years a most prominent figure at all sessions of the higher courts in this county, adding dignity to every occasion, was that of Sherift' Willard. He was a native of Harvard, born in 1784, and entered the bar in 1809, after a course of study in the office of Richard H. Dana, in Boston. For a short time he practiced in Petersham, but soon removed to Fitchburg.

In 1824 Governor Lincoln, with his usual sagacity, selected him for the office of high sheriff of the county. His manner of discharging the duties of that position was a model for all who should come after him. Courteous and respectful to all, he insisted that the decorum which he observed on public occasions should not be infringed by others. With the instincts of the old-school gentleman, he was most careful in his regard for the etiquette to be maintained in his relations to court and bar. To a greater extent than in our modern haste we are apt to imagine, a respect for forms assists rather than retards the proper dispatch of business, and the dignified sheriff, Calvin Willaed, ever entered his earnest protest against any attempt to override the established order, on the plea of a more expeditious result. After resigning his office in 1844, he lived in Millbury and Worcester until his death, in the latter city, in 1867.

For forty years of Worcester's steady growth in all the arts of peace her prosperity was shared by Sam- UEE M. BuRNSiDE. The contrast between the surroundings of his birthplace and of his mature life is striking. He was born in 1783, in Northumberland, then a frontier town in New Hampshire. There his father, a typical frontiersman, who had fought in the French and Indian Wars, had established a home in the wilderness, and had maintained his foothold despite rude climate and desolating savage. Through the Revolution he served in military expeditions, and in the intervals cultivated the land which he bad so hardly secured. From .such environ- C ments the son went out to the life of a steady lawyer, in a community remarkable for the quiet of its every-day life, where nothing more terrible than the sham battles of training-day disturbed the serenity of the inhabitants. He brought with him to his work the same persistent energy which carried the father over difficulties, and placed the son in possession of fortune and reputation. After graduating from Dartmouth in 1805, and a year or two of pedagogic experience, he entered the office of Artemas Ward, then practicing in Charlestown. Mr. Burnside says that the practice of Judge Ward was then immense, and that he was so much of the time absent from his office that his students were left much to their own discretion in their course of study. He had, however, an opportunity to draw conveyances and pleadings under the supervision of his preceptor, which was of great value in forming habits of accuracy and conciseness of expression. In 1810 he was admitted as an attorney in the Supreme Court without having, as was the usual rule, been previously sworn at the bar of the Common Pleas. In the same year he came to Worcester, and commenced business with an excellent preparation for success.

Those who knew him speak of his great industry and his mastery of fundamental principles as the conspicuous elements of his power. Well read in the learning of his profession, he wisely diversified his pursuits by a continued attention to the classics, and in the latter years of his life, during which he gave up active labors these studies provided a constant source of enjoyment for his well-earned leisure. He died in 1850, but his name is still associated with the business interests of the city, where are the evidences of his prosperous career.

Edward D. Bangs was the son of Judge Edward Bangs, who has been mentioned. He was born in Worcester in 1790 and studied in his father's office. Admitted to the bar in 1813, he at once formed a partnership with William E. Green, who had been associated with his father previous to the latter's elevation to the bench. Though esteemed a good lawyer and careful of the interests committed to him, he never acquired a fondness for professional labors. His mind rather turned towards purely literary investigations, and in his position as Secretary of State, to which he was elected in 1824, he found duties much more fitted to his tastes. He always seemed to take pleasure in assisting the inquiries of others in his department, and spent the happiest years of his life in the Boston State-House. He was elected a member of the Constitutional Convention of 1820, and was associated in the representation of Worcester with Levi Lincoln. His youth and modesty prevented his taking an active part in the proceedings of that body or of the House of Representatives, where he sat for several years. He succeeded Rejoice Newton in the office of county attorney, but resigned in a few months to assume the Secretaryship of State. His healtli had become so impaired in 1830 as to cause his retirement from ofDce, and he lived but two years longer. He was distinguished for his gentlemanly bearing and invariable courtesy of manners - qualities which he inherited from his father. Like him, also, he was a devoted horticulturist - a taste which seems naturally associated with gentle breeding.

Massachusetts was most fortunate in having in her public service, at the same time, two such men as Levi Lincoln and Johx Davis, and that they were trained to command the applause of listening senates in the forensic contests of the Worcester Court-house will always remain the pride and the incentive of the young aspirant for legal honors at our bar. Born in Northborough in 1788, some six years later than Governor Lincoln, and finding more obstacles to his rapid progress in youth than the son of the Attorney- General. Mr. Davis, through life, pressed close upon the footsteps of his [U'edecessor, and in generous rivalry left it doubtful which should deserve best of the republic. He was descended of a line of sturdy yeomen, the first of whom in this country was Dolor Davis, whose name is found upon the Cambridge records in 1634. His father, Isaac Davis, a respected farmer of Northborough, found it a task sufficiently laborious to force from the reluctant soil a comfortable living for his large family, and he of them who would secure an education must struggle for it himself. Until he was nineteen years old John Davis, by his own account, was employed most of his time upon the farm. He, however, found sufficient time for study by himself and in the district schools to fit himself for Leicester Academy, where he made good use of the short time at his disposal, and entered Yale College in 1808. There he graduated in due course with high honors. Francis Blake was, at that time, in the very zenith of his brilliant power, and his reputation attracted to his office the youth emulous of his fame. After three years of study with Mr. Blake, Davis was admitted to the bar in 1815. For a few months he tried the worth of his acquiremenbi in Spencer, and no doubt was satisfied that he could bear his part in a more crowded forum, for he soon came back to Worcester and there set up his standard.

The next year Mr. Blake's failing health compelled him to withdraw from active practice, and Mr. Davis succeeded to his office and his business. Undertaking the task of wearing such a mantle and called upon at once to contend with antagonists so formid- :ible as Lincoln, Newton, and Burnside, his powers were put to proof and rajndly developed. In the ten years that elapsed before he entered Congress and Lincoln became a judge he had attained a commanding position, and hud increased the large clientage which he inherited from Blake. As a lawyer it was said of him that he did not possess a considerable familiarity with reported decisions, but that his welltrained judgment and clear perception of the fundamental principles of law generally brought him to a correct conclusion as to what the law ought to be, and he then proceeded to sustain his position by the arguments which had convinced his own mind, apd by precedents illustrative of the principles which he maintained. Courts learned to know that his arguments were based on careful reasoning aud might be relied on to contribute something towards the decision of the issue, even though they might fail to carry complete conviction. Before juries his evident candor, his plain statement of the facts as he viewed them, and entire comprehension of the way in which his array of evidence would impress the mind of the unprejudiced auditor, givehiiua power which pressed strongly towards a favorable verdict. Judge Paine remarked of him that he had more common sense than any three lawyers of his acquaintance, and this saving grace was conspicuous in all his actions and utterances.

For a year previous to Mr. Lincoln's promotion to the Supreme Court he joined forces with Mr. Davis in practice. Afterwards the firms of Davis & Charles Allen and Davis & Emory Washburn transacted a large share of the Inisiness of the county, and proved most formidable allies until 1834, when Governor Davis finally retired from the courts to give his attention exclusively to public duties. In the discharge of these, as was most natural, he won his most wide-spread distinction.

His political career began with his election to Congress in 1824. During his first term he was rather an observer than an active participant in debate, but in 1827 he attracted attention by his earnest advocacy of the so-called American system. From that time onward he was an able champion of the protective tariff" on every occasion, and whatever may be thought of the soundness of his deductions, it is certain that he handled his facts with skill and presented with utmost vigor the now hackneyed arguments which have prevailed with the majority of New Englanders to the present time. His speech in reply to McDuflie, of South Carolina, the leader of the free trade party in the House, was esteemed his most powerful presentation of the ease, and gave him a national reputation.

A declaration made in one of his speeches is remarkable by contrast with what any member of Congress at the present day would be able to say on the same subject. In defending his constituents from the charge of self-seeking in their demand for tariff" legislation, he says: " During the seven years I have held a seat on this floor, no one has applied to me to ask any favor of the Executive for him, nor has any one sought my assistance in procuring an appointment of any kind, unless it is to be the deputy of some little village post-office." If our representatives could obtain a like exemption from vexatious importunity, their undistracted attention to purely

In 1833 Governor Lincoln announced that he should not again be a candidate, and the Whig Convention, with practical unanimity, selected Mr. Davis as their nominee. He accepted with evident reluctance, feeling that his usefulness in Congress was assured, while the new honor brought with it untried responsibilities. His loss to the service of the whole country was deplored outside of Massachusetts, one of the influential journals declaring that he was the right arm of the Massachusetts delegation in Congress.

The Anti-Masonic party, then at the culmination of its strength in this State, had put in nomination John Quincy Adams, and Davis was made to feel it his dut}' to accept the leadership of his party in a dubious conflict, and such it proved to be. In the popular election there was no choice, but in the Legislature Davis received a majority. The difficult task of acceptably filling the chair which his friend Lincoln had so long adorned he accomplished with credit, and was elected for a second term, but resigned when chosen to fulfill the more congenial duties of United States Senator. In that august body, where he sat from 1835 to 1841, and from 1845 to 1853, he was cotemporary with the triumvirate, Webster, Calhoun and Clay, whose overshadowing greatness tradition continues to magnify. But reading the plain story of the times, it is evident that Senator Davis was a i)otent factor in moulding legislation, and that his grasp of national questions was in most cases liberal and always strong enough to make itself felt. Not only on the tariff, but ou our commercial relations, the fisheries, financial topics and our intercourse with foreign powers, he made his opinion respected by making his knowledge evident.

His two terms of service in the Senate were divided by two years in the State Governorship and two years of private life. He lived but one year after retiring from the Senate, in 1853, to enjoy that contemplation of a life well spent, which he might so deservedly anticipate.

Two years after Mr. Davis' admission to the bar there applied to the examiners for this county a tall, slender youth, whose clear-cut profile, close curling locks and keen glance gave to his countenance an almost classic beauty. As his examination proceeded, the questioners became so interested in the thoroughness of the knowledge he displayed, and the aptness of his replies, that for their own gratification they prolonged their inquiries after they were satisfied of the qualification of the candidate for entrance to the bar.

The young man was Charles Allex, then in his twenty-first year. His father, Joseph Allen, was clerk of the courts for this county for thirty-three years, succeeding the elder Levi Lincoln in that capacity. He was a fine scholar, and a gentleman of that refined and elegant school of manners often spoken of as old, but by no means obsolete at the present day. Charles Allen was born in Worcester in 1797. Three generations back he counted as his ancestor a sister of Samuel Adams, and the steadfast independence of that old patriot was clearly reflected in his kinsman of the later day. After preparing for college at Leicester Academy he entered Yale when only fourteen. There he remained only a year, severing his connection tor reasons that were said by his pastor to reveal " the delicateness of his sensibility, but reflected no dishonor upon him." Immediately he entered the office of Mr. Burnside, then in full practice, and so diligently improved his youthful powers as to meet the examination in 1817 with the result described.

For six years he practiced in New Braintree, and a discriminating eulogist says : " When, some twentyfive or thirty years later, I commenced practice in the same community, the reputation he had won there, in those early years, was still spoken at with admiration and pride by those who had beeii the clients and friends of the young lawyer, and who had followed him through all his subsequent and more conspicuous public career." In 1824 he removed to Worcester, and became associated with John Davis, who, though ten years his senior, had been but two years longer at the bar. He was not a case lawyer nor a reader of many books. Thoroughh' well grounded in leading principles, it was his habit to think out his line of reasoning while pacing his office or walking in the open air. It was said that the definitions of Blackstone were impressed upon his memory almost verbatim, and although he gave to every case most careful preparation, it was rather a process of reflection and logical deduction from established premises than a resort to the writings or decisions of jurists who had preceded him. His great power lay in cross-examination. In the use of this most dangerous weapon, more fatal to the unskillful wielder than all the armory of his opponent, he was an adept whose superior, by the testimony of living witnesses, most competent to judge, has not arisen in this Commonwealth from his time to the present. ' Terrible is the word used by one to describe his treatment of a witness whom he believed to be testifying to an untruth, and with merciless directness question would follow question till the best fabricated story was exposed. He realized, too, the danger of attempting too much with an adverse witness, and never committed the mistake of strengthening the direct testimony of his opponent by permitting its repetition in reply to cross-questioning. His general rule was never to examine an adverse witness ; the exception he chose carefully and for sufficient reasons. His intellectual processes were rapid, and all his faculties and stores of knowledge ready at any moment for their best service. With a remarkable mastery of the rules of evidence, he was able, in the course of trials, as questions arose, to take up his position and defend it by cogent argument upon the instant.

His public services included four years in the lower and three in the upper branch of the State Legislature and four years as a Representative in Congress. In 1848 he was a delegate to the Whig National Convention. The representatives of Massachusetts voted steadily for Daniel Webster, but the leading candidates were Clay and Taylor. Mr. Allen, though up to that time acting with the Whig party, was a stern Abolitionist in faith and word. Hating slavery as a sin, and convinced that the nomination of General Taylor was a truckling to the power of the slaveholders, upon the announcement of the vote, he arose in his place, denounced the act in incisive language, and left the hall and the party, to go home and earnestly engage in the formation of the Free-Soil party.

In 1853 he was a member of the convention called to revise our State Constitution, and there his counsels were sought by the leading lawyers of the State who were found in that body.

But as Judge Allen he was best known and is still remembered in this community. His first judicial appointment was to the Court of Common Pleas in 1842. Two years later he, with most of his associates, resigned, in consequence of a legislative spasm of economy, which reduced their already modest salaries. In 1858 he was appointed chief justice of the Superior Court for Suffolk County, and in the following year was fitly chosen to preside over the newlycommissioned Superior Court of the Commonwealth, which was substituted for the old Court of Common Pleas. On this bench he remained until failing powers induced his resignation in 18G7, two years before his death. Twice he was offered promotion to the Supreme Court, and again on the retirement of Chief Justice Shaw, but he preferred to remain where he was. His physical health was not robust, and he hesitated to assume duties that to him might be more laborious. He was admirably fitted to preside atnisiprius trials, where the quick grasp of the facts, as they are for the first time presented, the ability readily to conceive and apply the rules of evidence and facility in clear, impromptu statement of the law for the guidance of the jury, are essentials. He was never fond of the patient reading and writing necessary to the preparation of the elaborate opinions of the Supreme Court. One of his friends and admirers says of him that he was an indolent man, never making more than just the absolutely necessary exertion for his purpose, and ever ready to postpone, if possible, the undertaking of new eflbrt. His own explanation of this apparent sloth is found in a remark to Judge Foster: " Few know how much physical weakness I have had to contend with through life, and how much has been attributed to indolence in me, that was caused by the necessity of nursing my health." He possessed, however, an energy of will that roused his latent powers to a height commensurate with any obstacle, as opponents learned to know full well.

Judge Allen was not a scholar. His reading was confined in its scope, yet his mind seemed to broaden and deepen by its own innate law of growth. The concurrent testimony of those who knew him well, with singular unanimity, dwells upon his intellectual strength. " I think . . . for force of intellect he was above any man whom I have known in this commonweath ;" '' No one who has ever lived in this community was his equal in pure intellectual power ;" "He never called any man his intellectual master;" "Among intellectual masters ranked with the very first, not second to Daniel Webster himself," are the expressions of four lawyers, who have had opportunity to form correct opinions of the man.

Though reserved and dignified in manner and little apt to display his feelings, he showed to his chosen friends a kindly nature, ready to share in social intercourse or extend the hospitable hand. Conscientious, independent, reverent of the religious truths in which he firmly believed, fearing his own disapproval and else no mortal man, his was a proud position - as of that

Mr. Allen's most formidable antagonist before the jury for many years was Plixy Merrick, the son of the gentleman of the same name, of whom we have spoken. He was born in Brookfield in 1794, and graduated from Harvard in the class with the historian Prescott in 1814. He had the advantage of studying his profession in the office of Levi Lincoln, then just entering upon his political career in the State Legislature and in the midst of active practice. After his admission to the bar in 1817, Mr. Merrick made several attempts at settlement before adopting Worcester as his home. For four years he practiced in Taunton, and for a portion of that time was a partner of Governor Morton. In 1824 he returned to Worcester to undertake the duties of prosecuting attorney for the county. In this capacity he acted until the division of the State into districts under an act of 1832. Governor Lincoln thereupon appointed his former pupil attorney for the Middle District, which consisted of Worcester and Norfolk Counties, and he held the otlice until his promotion to the bench in 1843.

During these nearly twenty years of service in conducting cases for the government in the criminal courts his general practice was continually increasing. He was on several occasions called into the courts of Vermont, New Hampshire and Rhode Island, where his reputation had become known and valued.

rhetorical skill. His command of language was unsurpassed by any of his cotemporaries, and his eloquent perorations are still vividly impressed on the recollections of some who have listened to them. With a keen wit and great quickness of apprehension he united an impulsiveness of temperament which sometimes hurried him beyond the positions which he had intended to maintain,but his readiness and his good humor never failed him in these emergencies. Judge Washburn says of him that " it was sometimes difiicult for an antagonist to determine whether he was the most effectually subdued by his adroitness or his courtesy."

One of the most conspicuous trials in which he was engaged was that of Professor Webster for the murder of Dr. Parkman. His defence of the prisoner, though somewhat criticised at the time, is now admitted to have been well conducted and a good struggle in a hopeless cause.

In 1843 Mr. Merrick was appointed a judge of the Court of Common Pleas, and held the office until 184S, when he resigned and undertook the presidency of the Worcester and Nashua Railroad. In 1850 he returned to the bench, and after three years was promoted to the Supreme Judicial Court. It was apprehended by many of his associates that the brilliant rhetoric, keen wit and swift mental processes which had formed great part of his strength at the bar would unfit him for the duties of the judge, who must often " halt between two opinions," till he is possessed of all that can be said on either side.

But as a nisi prius judge he exibited a most accurate knowledge of the rules of practice and evidence, which facilitated the progress of trials by avoiding the nece.ssity of long arguments as objections were raised. He was quite apt to form a decided opinion on the merits of the case, and in his charge to the jury to make that opinion manifest with a distincness that the judge of to-day would consider exceptionable.

The present theory is that the presiding judge is to be absolutely without sympathies and without opinions on the right or wrong of the controversy, but to state to the jury the rules of law which shall govern them, in any conceivable aspect of the facts, which may impress them as the true one. To so austere a view of the functions of the judge Mr. Merrick was never able to conform himself. His statements of complicated series of facts were always clear and of assistance to a proper understanding of their relative value, but often of their value in the mind of the judge. In the reports of decisions of the Supreme Court, his opinions, especially upon the criminal law of Massachusetts, are held in high respect. For ten years his services became more and more valuable, and he was recognized as a worthy associate of Lemuel Shaw, our great chief justice. He was an energetic worker and ready to assume even more than his share of the labors of the benrh.

In 1856 he removed to Boston, and there resided till his death, in 1867. The last three years of his life were spent in retirement occasioned by disease. Paralysis had suspended the use of some of his limbs. But through it all he sustained his cheerful disposition and powerful will. When his right hand was disabled, he learned to write with his left. Pr6- vented from going abroad, he found in the converse of friends at home the means of keeping his mental faculties in active use.

Mr. Merrick belonged to the political party which was in the minority in this State, and held few elective offices. He served in both branches of the State Legislature at intervals ; but, aside from that, his whole attention was devoted to his profession.

Joseph Thayer was an exa;nple, of which the law does not furnish many, of a lawyer who, without inherited property or remarkable legal attainments, acquired, in the course of an honorable and useful career, a handsome competence. He was born in Douglas in 1792, graduated at Brown University in 1815, and after studying in the offices of Levi Lincoln and of Bezaleel Taft, of Uxbridge, he began practice in that town. Without great learning in the law, he possessed good practical judgment, on which he was accustomed to rely, and which others soon learned to respect. His perception of the real gist of a controversy was seldom at fault, though generally arrived at without the aid of labored reasoning. In financial matters his judgment was remarkably accurate. He became interested in a large number of business enterprises in his community. Both the Blackstone Canal and its successor, the Providence and Worcester Railroad, received, in their inception and progress, his encouragement and assistance.

His townsmen found in him one ready to use his capital in sustaining those under temporary embarrassment, and to risk something rather than see his neighbors go to the wall. He accordingly received and retained their confidence, and was honored by elections to various positions of trust. His political services outside of Uxbridge were in the Constitutional Convention of 1853, to which he was chosen a delegate by general consent, and in the Legislature of the State. He rounded out nearly four-score years of honored and useful life, and died at the residence of Judge Chapin, his son-in-law, in 1872.

It is proper to mention among the prominent men who have been members of this bar, one whose life was spent in other than professional pursuits, but who always felt a pride in his connection with the law, and who so well fulfilled the duties of his station that the bar may well be proud to number him among their honored dead.

Stephen Salisbury, the son of a Worcester merchant bearing the same name, was born in 1798. His father had been successful in establishing in the small town an extensive business and a home where a refined and generous hospitality was exercised. From the intiuence ol' the hitter the son went out to Leicester Academy and Harvard College, where he graduated in 1817, carrying with him everywhere the evidence of that home culture in his dignified courtesy and unswerving integrity. He studied law with Samuel Buruside, and was admitted to the bar, though he had no need and probably no intention of making professional labors his life-work. For several years he assisted in the care of his father's property, and in 1821), when he became its sole owner by inheritance, he assumed the duties which he felt that the possession of wealth devolved upon him, with an earnest desire to conscientiously discharge every responsibility. Absolved from the necessity of any labor if he had so chosen, he was one of the most industrious of men. A diligent student, he made himself familiar not only with classic authors, which were perhaps his favorite recreation, but with a great variety of lines of scientific and literary research. For thirty years he presided over the American Antiquarian Society, and frequently contributed from his pen to the publications of that body. His wisdom was sought for in the conduct of financial, charitable and scientific institutions, and to whatever duties he assumed he applied the same conscientious attention. His constant endeavor was to faithfully perform that which he felt it right to undertake. The Polytechnic Institute located in Worcester was a peculiar object of his bounty and his care. As president of its Board of Trustees he was unfailing in his attention to its interests. Till the latest period of his life he was constantly growing in mental breadth, and did not allow age or even later infirmity to repress his eager interest in intellectual pursuits. Elsewhere in these volumes his deeds will more fitly be described, but as he always wished to be counted with the lawyers when they gathered for any occasion of general interest, so we cannot omit to claim some share in liis good fame whose training as a law-student nuist have aided in making him what he was.

For the facts contained in most of the earlier sketches in this chapter the writer is principally indebted to the scholarly address delivered by Joseph WiLLARD before the bar of the county in 1829. He was then but a little over thirty years of age, but the address is characterized by thorough investigation, by philosophical refiection and by inspiring views of the nobility of the profession which he represented. His father was president of Harvard College, and from a line of ancestors he inherited a scholar's love for the classics and for literary and historical investigation. Born in Cambridge in 1798, he graduated in his nineteenth year, and at once began the study of law in Amherst, New Hampshire. At this time he formed the acquaintance of John Farmer, a zealous antiquarian scholar, whose friendship and advice no doubt gave a bent to the tastes of the young man towards similar studies. After completing his professional studies in the Cambridge Law-School, lie began practice first in Waltham, and in 1821 in Lancaster. There for ten years he gave attention to business with considerable success. He could not forego literary work, however, and was one of the writers for the Worcester Magazine, a periodical devoted to historical and literary topics, especially those of a local character. His most elaborate work, which appeared in those pages, was a history of the town of Lancaster, which exhibits his habits of careful and minute investigation .and his excellent taste and judgment in the selection of his material.

In 1830 he married a Boston lady, and soon afterwards removed to that city, continuing to practice until 1840. In that year he was appointed, by Governor Everett, clerk of the Court of Common Pleas for Suflblk County. This office, through the changes of the style of the court, and after the clerkship became an elective position, he held till a short time before his death. With its duties he made himself thoroughly conversant. On the great multi[)licity of questions of practice constantly arising, his opinion came to be regarded as almost equal to a Supreme Court decision. His methodical habits kept the large accumulation of papers and records in perfect order and available for instant reference, and he seems to have transmitted to his son the same capacity for the successful administration of that difficult position.

He found in retirement from practice more leisure for his favorite historical studies. The Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society and the Massachusetts Historical Society, of both of which learned bodies he was an active member, are enriched by his papers on a variety of topics. A work upon which he was engaged at the time of his death was a life of General Knox. The manuscript materials entrusted to him were in a chaotic state, and the labor of arranging the letters and documents taxed his powers for a long time. He became intensely interested in the work, and after his strength was insufficient lor any other exertion he insisted on the attempt to go on with this labor of love. But it was not permitted him to complete the task. In 1865 he died, amid the closing scenes of the conflict of arms which had aroused his fervent patriotism and in which had been sacrificed the life of his eldest son.

Mr. Willard had early connected himself with the Free-Soil party. His conscience deeply felt the sin of slave-holding, and he welcomed the war as the means of deliverance from that burden. A letter which he wrote to an English friend, in reply to some liostile criticisms of the English press, was widely circulated and largely instrumental in informing public opinion in England on the true merits of the Northern position.

Twenty-seven years after Mr. Willard's historical sketch of our bar from its beginning, the tale was taken up and carried on in graceful diction, with admirable skill, by Emoey Washburn, a cotemporary and literary associate of Mr. Willard. From this address are borrowed many of the details that have appeared in these jjages. Its author was born in Leicester in 1 800, and prepared for college in that admirable school, which has been the chief glory of the town. His father died in the lad's seventh year, leaving him to the care of his mother, to whom, through her life, he manifested a most devoted attachment, and of his pastor, Dr. Moore. This, gentleman was called to a professorship in Dartmouth College, and took with him his proUcje, then only thirteen years old. In 1815 Professor Moore became president of Williams College, and thither Mr. Washburn followed his fortunes, and there graduated in 1817. His experience in small colleges made him a firm believer in the superior advantage of the more intimate association of pupils with instructors there possible. He was always a stanch and useful friend of his alma mater. Part of his professional studies were pursued in the office of Judge Dewey in Williamstown, and for a year he attended the Harvard Law School. Soon after his admission, in 1821, he opened an office iu Leicester, where he remained for seven years. During this period he served his town as clerk and as Representative in the General Court. Becoming interested with the founders of the Worcester Magazine in preserving the memorials of the past life of this vicinity, he wrote with great fidelity I and published in various numbers of that periodical ( a history of Leicester and of its academy. In 1828 his mother died, and the chief tie which bound him to the village having thus been broken, he removed to Worcester. That town then had a population of some four thousand, but among them was Lincoln, the Governor of the State ; John Davis, dividing his time between the duties of a member of Congress and a lawyer in active practice ; Charles Allen and Samuel Burnside.

Mr. Washburn's clients followed him from Leicester and he soon attracted others. In 1831 he formed a partnership with John Davis, succeeding Mr. Allen in that relation. His faculty of making every man who came to him for advice feel that he had found a personal friend, that his cause was in the hands of one who had not only the ability but the sympathetic interest to make the most of it, secured to Mr. Washburn in a remarkable degree the affectionate adherence of hosts of clients. His industry was incessant and untiring, and his success proportionate. Governor Bullock says of him, " His leading competitors at the bar were clearer in statement, more incisive in their arguments. Governor Washburn was never a rhetorician. I perceived, however, that there was a moral power of confidence behind him which was equal to the power of eloquence." "His great source of influence over juries was the kindliness, the genuineness of his nature." Juries believed in the honesty of the man. He was able so thoroughly to identify himself with his client's view of the facts, as

In 1838 he was again a member of the House of Representatives, and presented and ably supported the first report in favor of a railroad from Boston to Albany. In 1841 and 1842 he was chairman of the Judiciary Committee of the Senate. For three years he assumed the duties of a nisi prius judge in the Court of Common Pleas, and for two years more resided in Lowell as the agent of a manufacturing corporation, but the practice of the law in the county where he was best known and best beloved was his real vocation, and to it he returned with added zeal and undiminished succes?. "^

One of the large number of tasks in which he found pleasure and recreation, in the midst of his most exacting professional cares, w.as the preparation of the " Judicial History of Massachusetts " down to Revolutionary times, a work involving a vast amount of research and containing most valuable information for the student of the growth of our modes of legal procedure.

While absent in Kurope in 1853 he was nominated by the Whigs for Governor of the State, and was elected by a narrow majority. The nest year he was defeated by the "Know-Nothings," and returned to the calling for which he was most fitted.

Whether his success was greater as an advocate or as an instructor in the law, may be open to question. In the year 1S5<; he became Bussey professor of law in the Dane Law School at Cambridge, and for twenty years lectured before successive classes of students with ever-increasing reputation, and adding to the ranks of his devoted admirers every disciple who had the opportunity to listen to the kindly counsel which he mingled with his instruction. It was said of him that " Few professors have enjoyed in so full a measure the confidence and afleetion of the students of that renowned seat of learning. None have been more fortunate in the effort to inspire the young men of the bar with lofty ideas and pure purposes, It was not his power as a lecturer upon legal topics, though respectable, by which he exerted the greatest influence on the mind and future course of the student, but his private conversations and advice based on long experience . . . and an earnest, unafl'ected interest in the welfare and prospects of every young man to whom he stood in the relation of instructor and adviser." During his professorship he published a treatise on the "American Law of Real Property,'' which has passed through several editions, and is the text-book of students and the reliable reference of the practitioner to-day. Both this work and his volume on "Easements," are marked by the most careful investigation of authorities and the presentation in the fullest manner of every phase of the subject. In the effort to cover the whole ground, the writer sometimes becomes prolix, but whatever of force is lost in repetitions is compensated by the addition of precexl dents and citations. In 1876 he resigned his professor's chair, but even then did not give up his ambition to be useful. As a Representative in the General Court during the last year of his life, he was actively at work in the chairmanship of the judiciary committee, and as senior member of the House exhibited the same fresh interest in public matters as when one of its youngest members he represented Princeton, half a century before. In 1877 he died with mental powers in full activity, and the afi'ectionate eulogies which were pronounced by his fellows in every relationship of his busy life testified to the deep impression which his genial manners and universal sympathy had made upon the hearts of all who knew him.

When Judge Nathaniel Paine retired from his long and honerable service of thirty-five years in the Probate Court he was succeeded by Ira M. Baeton", a counsellor practicing in O.Kford. In that town he was born in 179l). During a portion of his course at Brown University he was a room-mate of Horace Mann, whose friendship he enjoyed in their subsequent careers. After graduating in 1819, he studied law with Sumner Bastow, in Oxford, with Levi Lincoln, and at the Harvard Law School, then recently established. He was one of the first three to graduate from that institution. In 1822 he opened his office in his native town, and there continued practice for fourteen years. As an adviser he was careful and conscientious, desirous rather of avoiding danger for his client than of risking his interests by over-boldness. As an advocate he attained consideralile success. Not a brilliant orator, his efforts were characterized by an earnest endeavor to perform his duty to the fullest extent, and his well-known integrity secured to him always respectful consideration by courts and juries. Prom 1836 to 1844 he presided with impartiality in the Probate Court, and by his kindly sympathy maintained the traditions of that tribunal as the guardian and pi'Otector of the helpless and the afflicted. Upon his resignation he formed a partnershij) with the late Peter C. Bacon, to which Mr. Barton's son was admitted later, and for several years the business of the firm was of extensive proportions, :iiul its name familiar beyond the limits of the county. In 1849 his feeble health compelled his retirement Iruui active practice, but did not prevent his acting as counsel in chambers during many years. In this, perhaps the most agreeable branch of legal practice to one of non-combative instinct, he found his judgment sought and relied upon by a large circle of client-'. He took his fair share of the responsibility in matters of public interest. For three years he represented Oxford in the Legislature, and was Senator in 1832 and 1834. In the latter year he was appointed one of the commissioners to I'evise the .statutes of the State, and bring into shape, available for use, the mass of public legislation which had grown to be an almost chaotic tangle of repeals and amendments. The plan of this first revision has been substantially adhered to in subsequent codifications. His addresses on several occasions gave proof of tastes for historical investigation, which were not, however, developed to a considerable extent. He lived until 1867.

Alfred Dwight Foster should be included in these sketches as one of a line of lawyers who have been ornaments of this bar. His father and grandfather have received notice as judges of our courts, and his son attained the same title with even greater distinction. Mr. Foster was born in 1800, in Brookfield, the residence of his ancestors. After graduating from Harvard, in 1819, he studied with Mr. Burnside, and was admitted to the bar in 1822. After only two years attention to practice, he withdrew from business, and lived a life of quiet and useful leisure until his death, in 1852. He served in one or two public capacities after his removal to Worcester, in 1828, and acquired and retained the entire respect of the community.

One of Judge Washburn's most intimate friends through a score of years, until death severed the ties, was Thomas Kisnicutt. Born in Rhode Island in 1800, the same year with Jlr. Washburn, he graduated with high honors from Brown University in 1822. His law studies were pursued in the school at Litchfield, in the offices of Francis Baylie, of Taunton, and of Governor Davis. In 1825 he was admitted and began business in Worcester. His physical power* were never of the strongest, and his gentle nature shunned the contests of the court-room and the political arena. He did, however, serve several terms in both, branches of the State Legislature, and was twice chosen Speaker of the House. He found his true sphere on the bench of the Probate Court, where he succeeded Judge Thomas in 1848, and presided until a short time before his death, ten years later. His winning presence, gentle manners and affectionate disposition endeared him greatly to all with whom he came in contact. With several of the financial institutions of the city he was connected, and his sagacious judgment in their conduct was constantly approved. His was one of those characters which, courting no publicity, by its sweetness and purity helps to brighten the aspect of a world sometimes too busy to even notice the shadows which overspread it.

Isaac Davis ' was born in Northborough, an agricultural town in the eastern part of this county, June 2, 1799. His ancestors, for seven generations, had been inhaliitants of Massachusetts, and possessed marked faniily traits; conspicuous among them were rugged honesty, energy, independence of character, industry and public spirit.

His earliest progenitor in New England was Dolor Davis, the precise time of whose arrival on these shores is not known, but he is believed to have been one of the earlier settlers in the Plymouth colony. He is known to have dwelt in Cambridge in 1634, to have married Margery Willard, sister of Major Simon Willard, formerly of Kent, England, and a distinguished soldier in the Indian wars of this colony, and to have died in Barnstable, in the Plymouth colony, in 1G73.

Samuel, the younger of Dolor Davis' two sons, married Mary Meads. Simon, the youngest of Samuel's five sons, was born August 9, 1G83, and attained the age of eighty years. Of his sons, the oldest - bearing the same name - was born in 1713, married Hannah Grates, lived in the town of Holden and was the father of eleven children. Isaac, the ninth of these, was born February 27, 1749, married Anna Brigham and lived in Northborough. Phiueas, the eldest of his eleven children, was born September 12, 1772, married Martha Eager, October 12, 1793, and, like his father and grandfather, was blessed with a family of eleven children.

Isaac, the subject of this sketch, was the fourth of this numerous progeny. In his bdvhood the industry of the inland towns of Massachusetts was almost wholly confined to farming, with some few primitive manufactures. Even Boston, the metropolis of New England, and the seat of a large foreign commerce, had scarcely one-fourth as many inhabitants as Worcester has now. Hampshire County, with its rich farming lands, was by far the most populous county in the State, Worcester and Esse.x approaching it most iiearly. Mr. Davis' father was a tanner and currier, an upright and respected citizen. In his household the homely virtues of piety, industry and frugality were cultivated and flourished. The education of the children, begun and continued at home by the example and conversation of their parents, the reading of a few but good books, and the early study of the Bible, was pursued in the district school. The time not so employed was given to the tasks of the shop and the farm.

The district schools of those days laid a substantial foundation for the building of a serviceable and comely edifice of mental attainment and culture, but they did not carry the acquisition of knowledge very far. A boy of an inquiring and eager mind soon learned what they had to teach. The course of school studies having been early completed, Isaac Davis went to work in his father's shop, and might probably have adopted his trade, but for au injury whicli disabled him for a time from bodily labor. While recovering from this hurt, conscious of mental powers to which the mechanical occupation of his father would not give full scope, even if he should ever be sound enough in body to resume it, his ambition, stimulated, doubtless, by the example of his uncle, John Davis, then beginning the practice of law, in which, as in polities and statesmanship, he made an illustrious reputation, the young man resolved to prepare himself for professional life. The obstacles in his way would now be thought great, but they were not greater than those which the young men of that day who entered the professions were accustomed to surmount, and Mr. Davis' energy and perseverance were amply adequate to the task which he proposed for himself His parents, burdened with the support of a large family of young children, could give him little assistance, and he depended largely on his own exertions for support and the cost of his education.

He began his preparation for college at Leicester, and completed it at Lancaster Academy, and entered Brown University in 1818, where he was graduated with credit in 1822. Giving lessons in penmanship and teaching school in winter were among the means by which he paid his way through college. After his graduation he accepted the office of tutor in the university, at the salary of four hundred dollars, and at the same time began the study of law in the office of General Carpenter, then one of the leaders of the Rhode Island bar. After a few months' trial of this divided employment he resolved to give his whole time to the law, and, removing to Worcester, entered as a student theoffice of Lincoln & Davis. The business of the office was large and varied, and gave the student excellent opportunities for learning the practical details of professional work in all its branches. While pursuing his studies Mr. Davis earned something toward his support by employing the time which a young man, less patient of continuous labor and less eager for independence, might have given - and perhaps wisely - to recreation, in copying deeds in the office of the register.

Soon after he entered the oflice Mr. Lincoln, the senior partner, was chosen Lieutenant-Governor, and the year after was appointed a justice of the Supreme -Judicial Court. This appointment and the distinguished political honors, which soon followed, removed him permanently from practice, and upon Mr. Davis' admission to the bar, in 1825, he proposed to his uncle, then conducting the business alone, to become his partner, receiving as his share of the income one-third of the profits of the business in the Court of Common Pleas. This offer was declined, and the uncle advised his nephew to begin practice in one of the smaller towns of the county, where the competition would be less active, with the purpose of removing to Worcester when he had established a business and reputation. But the young lawyer had no liking for a timid policy. He preferred to face the greatest difficulties at once and had no distrust of his ability to surmount them. He therefore opened an oflice in Worcester, and it was not long before his talents were discovered and employed by clients in such numbers as amply to justify his confidence in himself

The Worcester bar at that time was very strong. It is doubtful whether in any county in the United States was there then a group of lawyers more remarkable for native ability, legal attainments and

And now, with an affectionate reverence inspired by personal association, and cultivated from boyhoood through the changing years, until the writer was himself launched upon his professional career, it becomes my delicate duty to speak of one who, for more than fifty years of progress in the science of the law, kept ever abreast of change and improvement, and whom death found still faithful to his chosen calling, as when, with youthful ardor, he first essayed its arduous pathway.

, Peter Child Bacon was born in Dudley in 1804. His father, Jeptha Bacon, though not a lawyer by profession, was, in his day, when every town had not its resident attorney, resorted to by his neighbors for advice in their affairs, wherein his judgment and experience were recognized as valuable assistance. Like many other justices of the peace, he was often called upon to draft conveyances and wills, and in the observation of his father's really considerable practice, it is probable that Mr. Bacon acquired his first inclination towards his life-work. After graduating at Brown in 1827, the latter entered the New Haven Law School, and supplemented his studies there by reading in the office of Davis & Allen, in Worcester, Judge Barton, in Oxford, and George A. Tufts, in Dudley.

During these preparatory years it was his practice to devote sixteen hours of the twenty-four to his books. Blackstone he read and re-read with earnest attention, and for years after he had entered the bar he annually reviewed the classic pages. For these commentaries he always entertained the highest opinion as a groundwork for a thorough knowledge of the law, placing it first in the hands of each of his students, commending them to learn its definitions ipsissimis verbis, and failing not to test their obedience to the injunction by his questions. For two years he kept his ofiice in his native town and for twelve years more in the adjoining town of Oxford. In 1844 he removed to Worcester and there, till within four days of his death, with an interval of only one year of rest, devoted himself exclusively to the law.

It will be noticed that he came to the bar seven years before the death of Benjamin Adams, of Uxbridge, whose professional life carried us back to the time of Judge Sprague, and thus connected the story with the earliest stages of the county's progress.

Upon coming to Worcester Mr. Bacon formed a partnership with his former instructor, Judge Barton, who had just resigned the i)robate ju<lgeship. Levi Lincoln was then occupied with the duties of the gubernatorial chair. Pliny Merrick and Emory Washburn had just taken seats on the bench of the Common Pleas. Charles Allen, from the same bench, in that year resumed his practice. Rejoice Newton and Samuel Burnside were still at the bar. Isaac Davis had begun to interest himself more extensively in other than professional employments. Alexander H. Bullock, Henry Chapin and Francis H. Dewey had recently established their offices. Of those now in active practice only Joseph Mason, Esq., was then admitted, and he was then in Templeton. Mr. Bacon preferred to associate with himself in business some brother lawyer to share the responsibilities of the trial of causes, and especially after 1865, on his return from a needed rest in Europe, he left to younger partners the transaction of the blisiness before the courts. After Judge Barton retired from the firm of Barton, Bacon & Barton, in 1849, he was for a short time connected with the late Judge Dwiglit Foster.

For eighteen years the firm of Bacon & Aldrich carried on business in the most uninterrupted harmony and friendship between the partners, until the junior member accepted his present position in the Superior Court. W. S. B. Hopkins and Mr. Bacon's son made up the firm of Bacon, Hopkins & Bacon, which existed at the time of the veteran lawyer's death.

When he came to the bar the whole number ot Massachusetts Reports was but twenty-five. Making himself familiar with these, he read with care each new volume as it was published, and his one hundred and forty volumes are filled with marginal notes and hieroglyphics, showing where his eye had marked an important decision or a questionable dictum. He made it a practice, which he recommended to his students, to read the statement of facts in cases involving vexed questions, work out his own solution by investigation of earlier authorities, and then compare his result with the reasoning of the opinion. No question of law ever was suggested to him that he did not endeavor to solve either at the time or at the next leisure hour. He loved nothing better than to sit with his students posing them with legal conundrums, or listening to the problems which perplexed them and arguing out their moot cases. His office thus became a model law-school, to whose instructions multitudes of lawyers still look back with affectionate gratitude.

During his professional life almost the whole of our system of equity jurisprudence was brought to its present advanced condition. By piecemeal equity powers were conferred by statute on the Su|)reme Court, but it was not until 1857 that full jurisdiction was granted, according to the usage and practice of Courts of Chancery, and since that time, by the slow process of judicial decisions and supplementary statutes, great advances have been made in this most interesting and valuable method of legal procedure. Mr. Bacon was an equity lawyer, and owned and read a valuable library of text-books on the subject long before there was ojiportunity in our courts to avail himself of most of its remedial processes.

Three times he saw the statutes of the State codified after growing to unwieldy proportions, and his copies of the Revised, General and Public Statutes each show his careful noting of subsequent amendments. Always consult the statutes; never give an opinion without seeing what the statutes say," was his frequent admonition to his students. His learning covered every branch and phase of the wide field of legal doctrine. Perhaps the law of real property in general, and especially the Massachusetts doctrine of the rights of mill-owners in the streams which turn their wheels, and the law of corporations, m.iy be mentioned as having attracted a large share of his attention.

During the operation of the United Stales Bankrupt Law, from 18G7 to 1878, Mr. Bacon was register in bankruptcy for this district. Its complicated duties he thoroughly mastered, and with patient fidelity discharged its functions, which were principally of a judicial character. It was the habit of his mind to cautiously weigh the arguments on each side of a question on which his opinion was sought, and so many were the possible objections which his wide knowledge suggested to either view that his final decision was long in maturing, and generally given with some reservation of a possible modification. Like Lord Eldon, ho knew so much law that he knew how little of it was absolutely uncontroverted.

His most valuable services were rendered as counsel in chambers, where the whole wealth of his learning and experience were at the service of his clients. Yet, as an advocate before juries in the first thirty years of his practice, he obtained a large influence by the thoroughness of his preparation, and by that evident sincerity which characterized his every utterance. His arguments on questions of law were sure to bring to the aid of the court all that could, by research and logic, be found to sustain his positions.

Notwithstanding his enthusiastic devotion to his profession. Dr. Bacon, as we loved to call him, - for no man more worthily bore the title of Doctor of Laws, - was interested in all that goes to make up a broad and liberal citizen. His studies in metaphysics, in history, in mathematics were the enjoyment of his leisure hours. With the latest advances in modern thought he kept himself familiar, and the writer remembere listening with some surprise to remarks which showed profound reflection on the latest developments of the theory of evolution.

For public oflice he was not at all ambitious, and one term in the State Legislature and two years as mayor of the city left him with a desire to do his duty as a private citizen, and this he conscientiously performed. During the war his patriotism was lofty and courageous. Three sons he gave to the service of his country, of whom but one returned. Deeply as his affectionate nature felt the loss, he was never heard to murmur at tlie sacrifice. His nature was singularly open and kind. It did not seem that the thought of the possibility of adopting any but the straightforward course ever occurred to his mind. Duplicity and cunning were with him simply impossible. His strong emotional tendencies he kept in check by seldom speaking of the topics that aroused them ; but when he did have occasion to allude to a friend who was no more, or any of the deep convictions of his heart, it was evident that his feelings were warm and tender as a woman's. In 1883, with only a few- hours interval, the Nestor of our law p-issed from his busy ottice to the rest that remaineth for such righteous mortals. With firm and rational faith, he had never shrunk from the last great change, and, whatever that change betokens, no man's life gave greater cause for calmness in awaiting it than his whose kindly face in portraiture now lends it8 silent inspiration among the books he loved.

Benjamin Fkanklin Thomas." - The subject of this sketch was a grandson of Isaiah Thomas, the patriot-printer of the Revolution, and was born in Boston, February 12, 1818.

He was educated at Brown University, where he graduated in 1830, at tlie early age of seventeen. He studied law in Worcester, and was admitted to the bar in 1834, acquiring, while still young, a large and excellent practice and growing influence in the county.

In 1842 he represented the town of Worcester in the State Legislature, and from 1844 to 1848 was judge of Probate for Worcester County. Next to Governor Washburn, he attained the largest practice of the Worcester bar, at the time when eminence at that bar was an exceptional distinction. Governor Lincoln and Governor Davis were still among the older members. Pliny Merrick, Charles Allen, Emory Washburn, Henry Chapin, Peter C. Bacon, Ira M. Barton were his contemporaries; while a score of younger lawyers, now achieving high distinction in professional and public life, were just entering into active practice.

Upon ihe resignation of Mr. Justice Fletcher, in 1853, Judge Thomas was appointed, when barely forty years of age, a justice of the Supreme Judicial Court, holding that position for six years, and gaining a distinguished reputation as an able and learned jurist.

In 1859 he resigned his seat on the bench on account of the great inadequacy of the salary, and removed to Boston, where he practiced and held a position in the front rank at the bar. In 1801-63 he served one term in Congress, and in 1868, upon the retirement of Chief Justice Bigelow, he was nominated, by Governor Bullock, to the Council for chief justice of the Commonwealth, but, after an unpleasant controversy, failed of confirmation.

The greater part of his active life was spent in the discharge of professional duties which have small place in history, and will pass from memory to tradi-

He was particularly skilled in the law of wills and trusts, and in this branch of the law had no rival. On tlie bench he was distinguished for the tenacity with which he defended the constitutional privileges secured by the Declaration of Rights, and especially trial by jury.

His most celebrated opinion is the powerful dissenting judgment delivered in the case of the Coramonwealth vs. Anthes, 5 Gray, in which he vindicated the right of juries to determine, under the general issue, the law as well as the facts in criminal trials. His view was subse(iuently sustained by the Legislature, which re-enacted the statute in 18(50.

His studies, both in law and government, took a wide range, and he was well read in history and in English literature. With the bar he has ever been very popular.

His associates, and especially those younger than himself, were attracted to him not more by his varied learning and talents than by his pure and amiable character. The greatest regrets were expressed when he left the bench, and no man has ever been more highly respected at the bar.

In the heat of controversy excited by his nomination as chief justice, he was opposed on grounds chiefly political, but also on the ground of a habit of dissenting, which at that time was looked upon as a serious disqualification.

But Governor Bullock, in justifying his nomination to the Council, replied that, of the nineteen hundred cases reported during the six years that Judge Thomas held a seat upon the bench, he dissented in only four, not by pride of opinion, but by the interests of truth and justice. And a member of the Suffolk bar, then and now one of its wisest and most learned members, writing upon tlie same objection, said :

" It is undoubtedly desirable that the court should stand together. Division is sometimes an indication of weakness. But it is a much greater weakness to insist upon this point to the exclusion of the qutstion of what is right ; and when a judge is held up to ridicule merely because he differs from his associates, it will be the saddest sign of all. We have yet to learn that the honest dissent of an able magistrate, although repeatedly exercised, is ever regarded with contempt by honorable associates, by the public, or by the legal profession."

This, however, was but a pretext brought up by zealous opponents to re-enforce tlie political and personal reasons on which their opposition was mainly grounded.

But it is not worth while to revive the memory of these forgotten strifes. The wounds inflicted then were long ago healed. And among those who followed Judge Thomas to the grave, there were none who did so with more sincere and unaffected sorrow than those who questioned the wisdom of his nomination, and joined in the effort to defeat it.

In politics Judge Thomas was, in early life, a Whig, and when the dissolution of that party came, and the war suddenly presented grave problems of government for immediate solution, it was harder for him, than for most men in public life, to look with patience upon the torture to which the Constitution was exposed.

He was always conservative, with a tendency to the technical side of disputed questions, always restrained and controlled by a quick moral sense and an unfailing love of justice.