populous village in the town, on the Newburgh branch of the Erie
railroad. A post-office was established here December 27, 1871.
Alfred Cooper was appointed postmaster and held the position many
years. Mr. J. M. Barnes received the appointment of postmaster in
1885 and again in 1892. Henry T. Ford, the present incumbent,
received the appointment July 15, 1899. Among the leading industries
of the village is the Bamboo fishing Rod factory of which Reuben
Leonard is superintendent. This was established by the late Hiram L.
Leonard, who came to Central Valley in 1881. The Leonard rods are
shipped to all parts of the world where fly-fishing is pursued. The
carriage factory of R. F. Weygant's Sons is another important
industry. It was established in 1867 by Robert F. Weygant, who died
September 3, 1902. He was a descendant of Michael Weigand of the
Rhine Palatinate, who settled at Newburgh in 1709. The sons, Frank E.
and Fred, conduct the Central Valley establishment, and William M.
operates the blacksmith shop and garage at Tuxedo. The flour and
grain warehouse of J. M. Barnes had an extensive trade. Mr. Barnes
located in Central Valley in 1876, engaging in the mercantile
business with Alfred Cooper. In this village is located the office of
the superintendent of the Good Roads Construction Company, Mr.
Charles T. Ford, who in his sixty-third year is one of the most
active citizens in the county. Many miles of good roads in Orange
County are evidence of the splendid work accomplished under his
direction. Here also is a branch of the Arden Farms Dairy Company.
Both these enterprises are the product of Mr. E. H. Harriman, who
owns extensive farms throughout this section. Mr. Isaac L. Noxon
erected many of the beautiful homes and other substantial structures
in and adjoining the village. He also conducted for a time a
classical boarding school. Here also was the home of the Cornell
Institute, a high-class boarding and day school of which Mr. David
Cornell was principal. In the fall of 1885 Tomas Estrada Palma
established the Palma Institute over which he presided. It was a
school for boys in which they were prepared for college, English,
French and Spanish being taught. Mr. Palma was a Cuban and in 1868
joined the Revolutionists. After fighting nine years he was captured
and taken to Spain, where he spent a year in prison. His first visit
to Central Valley was in 1879, making his home here with Mr. David
Cornell. "Falkirk," an institution designed and built for the special
care of patients suffering from nervous diseases, was founded by Dr.
James Francis Ferguson in 1889. Its elevated location, a mile and a
half from the village, and the beautiful surroundings, contribute to
make an ideal home for such patients. Following the death of Dr.
Ferguson in 1904, the sanitarium was conducted for two years by Dr.
Henry A. Ferguson and William E. Ferguson, when it was purchased by
Dr. Carlos F. MacDonald, who has associated with him Dr. Clarence J.
Slocum as resident physician. Among the New Yorkers who occupy their
homes here during the entire year may be mentioned Mr. Edward
Cornell, Mr. W. E. Ferguson, Mr. Davidson, Mr. Theboldt and Mr.
Bullwinkle.
Highland Mills is situated about a mile north of Central Valley, and
is the home of the descendants of some of the earliest settlers in
this region, notably the Cromwells, Townsends and Hallocks. The place
grew up around the mills established at this point. The Townsend
tannery and the Townsend flour mill were in operation many years ago.
The place was formerly known as Orange and a post-office was
established here under that name in 1828. Mr. Vail was the first
postmaster. He was succeeded by Peter Lent in 1844, and a few years
later Morgan Shuit received the appointment. It was about this time
that Mr. Shuit began taking an active interest in local politics in
which he soon became a leader. For thirty-one years he was
supervisor of the town, and for a like period justice of the peace.
From 1879-1880 and 1880-1881 he was a member of the State
Legislature; retiring from a mercantile career in 1864, he purchased
large tracts of farm land, and followed this vocation to the time of
his death in 1884. Among the business enterprises of the village is
the fishing line factory; the high-class livery of Tannery & Hull,
whose stables contain forty head of horses; the fish rod factory of
Edward Paine, and the firms of Jarnes & Terry and Harding & Eames,
building contractors. The leading mercantile establishments are
those of George Cromwell, B. S. Pembleton and Albert Fitch. The
present postmaster is Henry Hallock. The only hotel in the village is
conducted by George Lamoreux. Hill Crest, a fashionable summer hotel,
is a mile and a half west of the village. It has accommodations for
two hundred and fifty guests. The Cromwell Lake House, bordering on
this beautiful sheet of water, accommodates one hundred and fifty
guests, and is conducted by Oliver Cromwell. The water supply for the
villages of Highland Mills and Central Valley is obtained from
Cromwell Lake.
[Illustration: James F. Ferguson, M.D.]
Woodbury Falls is a hamlet in the north part of the town, taking its
name from the falls in Woodbury Creek. It was formerly the seat of a
furnace. A post-office was established here August 11, 1874, and
Lewis A. Van Cleft was the first postmaster. James Seaman is the
present incumbent.
The specific details of the settlement of this region are blended
with the histories of the towns of Cornwall and Monroe, to which the
reader is referred.
CHAPTER XXXII.
THE BENCH AND BAR.
By William Vanamee.
At the unveiling in Goshen, September 5th, 1907, of the monument in
memory of the gallant soldiers of the 124th Regiment, erected by that
modern exemplar of medieval knighthood, that truest of men, of
gentlemen and of heroes, Thomas W. Bradley, it was mentioned by one
of the speakers that just forty-five years before, upon that very
spot, as the regiment was about to start for the front, the stand of
colors destined to be carried by it through many a battle, was
presented to it in behalf of the Daughters of Orange by Charles H.
Winfield.
His noble, inspiring speech upon that occasion was fitly responded to
in behalf of the regiment by David F. Gedney, then Mr. Winfield's
only rival at the Goshen bar and his acknowledged equal. The highest
praise that can be bestowed upon either is that each feared for the
success of his cause when opposed by the other. Indeed they were
nearly always opposed, for what timid, anxious client, learning that
his adversary had engaged the services of one, ever failed to suggest
to his local attorney the importance of averting prospective defeat
by the employment of the other. This remark of course applies chiefly
to litigations arising in the Western end of the county, in which the
trials were usually held at Goshen, for in Newburgh, Stephen W.
Fullerton, who was admitted to the bar in 1844, just one year before
Mr. Gedney was admitted and two years before Mr. Winfield, had from
the first successfully challenged their supremacy in the county at
large. Well might he do so, for while he was not the equal of
Winfield in magnetism and force or of Gedney in scholarship and
style, yet he excelled them both in acuteness, in industry and in
mastery of the rules of evidence. This, then, was the great
triumvirate that forty years ago reigned supreme throughout the
county of Orange in the affection of their associates, in the
admiration of juries and in the plaudits of the multitude--Winfield,
Gedney, Fullerton. All three possessed genius of an uncommon order
and no court, however insensible to the graces of oratory, could
wholly restrain its flights or direct its course. When the vexatious
details of the testimony were over--for in those days the testimony
was regarded by the public as a tedious formality preparatory to the
great event of the trial, the summing up--and when it was understood
that the addresses to the jury were to begin, the courtroom was
quickly filled by people from all parts of the county, eager for the
intellectual treat that was sure to follow. Winfield was wont to
begin his closing argument somewhat slowly and even laboriously. This
was due partly to the habit of his mind, which required the stimulus
of exercise to quicken it to its highest exertions, but partly also
to rhetorical design, by which he sought to make his subsequent
outbursts of impassioned eloquence seem wholly unstudied, spontaneous
and irrepressible. Indeed, they usually were. As the thought of his
client's wrongs surged in upon him, as he dwelt upon his client's
right to protection or relief, or contemplated the disaster involved
in defeat, his words could scarcely keep pace with the torrent of
impetuous, sincere and deep emotion on which they were upborne. He
always struck the human note which the case presented. To him a trial
did not involve a mere application of legal principles to an
ascertained state of facts, but to him every case, however dry,
barren or abstract, was a human drama. He saw, with the eye of
imagination and the insight of genius, those forces of hate and
revenge, of greed and falsehood, of cunning and cruelty, of devotion
and affection, of honor and truth, which in one form or another,
surcharge every trial, and project their palpitating figures upon the
most intensely vital, vibrant stage for which the scenes were ever
set--the conscious court-room, the austere judge, the impassioned
advocates, the enthralled spectators; human life or liberty, human
happiness or despair, human rights or relations, hanging in the
balance upon a jury's nod. All this Winfield saw. In every trial the
panorama of human life unfolded itself to his inspired vision. He
took the broken, confused fragments of human testimony and subjecting
them to the kaleidoscope of his own fervent, symmetrizing, mirroring
imagination, they were transformed into pictures of beauty or shapes
of evil, as he willed.
[Illustration: William Vanamee]
It can easily be imagined that his power over juries was well nigh
irresistible. If David F. Gedney, who was so often pitted against
him, had sought to counteract his influence by the exercise of
similar gifts, he might well have despaired of success. But happily
for himself and for the delight of juries and the bar, no advocates
were ever more unlike each other in method of argument, in point of
attack, in form of expression, in appeal to the sentiments, than
Winfield and Gedney. Winfield filled the eye; Gedney charmed the ear.
Winfield visited upon wrong or duplicity the bludgeon blows of
invective. Gedney pierced it with the envenomed shaft of sarcasm.
Winfield sought to break the armor of his adversary with the broad
axe of denunciation. Gedney penetrated it with the slender arrow of
wit and the fatal spear of ridicule. To Winfield language was a
necessary vehicle of thought, a familiar medium of expression. To
Gedney language was a divine instrument, over the responsive chords
of which his master touch swept with unerring taste and classic
grace, evoking notes of exquisite harmony and images of surpassing
beauty. The words that flowed unbidden from his enchrismed lips were
music indeed. His sentences, chaste and polished as though chiseled
in the very laboratory of thought, were but the unconscious
reflection of a mind steeped in the literature of every age and
tongue. Even Winfield often found to his dismay that those weapons of
solid argument which would have defied all the onslaughts of the
gladiator, were powerless before the arts of the magician. Not indeed
that Gedney elevated style above matter or sacrificed strength to
beauty. But in him style and matter were so delicately balanced,
beauty and strength so discreetly blended, that each borrowed from
the other and none was poorer for the exchange.
The personal characteristics of the two men were also different.
Winfield loved the approbation and applause of his fellows and
aspired to political honors. Gedney looked out upon the world with
philosophic calm, undisturbed by its clamors and untempted by its
baubles. The only offices which he held were strictly in the line of
his profession--district attorney and county judge--while Winfield
acquired a conspicuous position in Congress at a time of intense
public interest and excitement. Winfield bore defeat with impatience,
Gedney with equanimity. Winfield, who especially could not endure the
thought of defeat by a younger adversary, often treated him with
unnecessary severity; always, however, taking care to express his
regret afterwards that the heat and zeal of conflict had carried him
too far. Gedney, on the other hand, never suffered to arise the
occasion for apology or regret. He disdained to use his unrivaled
powers of sarcasm and ridicule at the expense of a weaker adversary,
and throughout the entire course of a trial, he was scrupulous not to
say one word which might in any degree wound the sensibilities of a
younger member of the bar. Moreover, he always look pains to speak a
word of encouragement and praise to the younger lawyers whenever
their maiden efforts justified interest or respect.
Gedney's happiest hours were passed at his own fireside, while
Winfield loved to mingle freely with his fellow men. But Winfield's
children had died, one by one, in childhood, and it is pathetic to
recall that he sank to his long sleep while addressing little
children on a peaceful Sunday afternoon in June, just sixty-six years
after his eyes had opened not far away on a world in which he was
destined to reap many cruel sorrows, some substantial rewards, and
all the mocking, delusive delights of a transient fame.
His friend, Judge Gedney, followed him only a month later as he sat
upon the porch of his home in Goshen. As together they had journeyed
through life, sharing its burdens and its conflicts, so in death they
were not long separated, and in the manner of their summons they were
alike blessed, for to neither did it come upon a bed of lingering
illness.
Their lifelong friend, Judge Stephen W. Fullerton, was not so
fortunate. Surviving his old associates fourteen years, he lived to
see the world march past him and to realize the bitter truth that
it takes but little interest in a lawyer, however prominent, popular
or useful he may have been, after his activities and usefulness have
ceased. And yet Judge Fullerton possessed some traits of character
which should have ensured him, above all his fellows, from the sharp
tooth of either ingratitude or neglect. He actually gave away three
fortunes. His generosity knew no bounds. An appeal to his sympathies
was never made in vain. A claim put forward in the name of friendship
was to him sacred and admitted of no hesitation. Every consideration
of selfishness or even of prudence went down before the spectacle of
a friend in need. It was inevitable that a nature so generous and so
confiding should often be imposed upon by unworthy claims, but to
these he never referred with bitterness or even regret. A few dear
friends, including especially Judge Hirsch berg and Walter C. Anthony,
were true and faithful to the last, and it must be a satisfaction to
them to know that their loyal, undeviating attachment cheered and
consoled the last hours of a lawyer who once shared with Winfield and
Gedney undisputed preeminence at the bar of Orange County.
For never were tender, affectionate and generous traits of
character--often assumed to be inconsistent with the coldness and
sternness of the law--joined to a more severe, patient, thorough,
comprehensive training in the law than in the case of Judge
Fullerton. To him the law was a science and the practice of it an
art demanding the sleepless pursuit and worship of its votaries. To
the principles of such a science and the rules of such an art, having
for their object the most exalted end of all organized society, the
establishment of truth and the maintenance of justice, he was willing
to consecrate the noblest energies of his mind and heart. To him no
labor was too hard, no sacrifice too great to deter him from
mastering the minutest details of a complicated case or from
ascertaining and applying the principles by which it should be
governed. When he came to court to present it every form in which
difficulty might be apprehended or obstacles interposed had been
anticipated and provided for. He always tried the case on both sides
before he went to court, and his opponents never raised many of the
points which he, in his anxious survey, had most dreaded. His
thorough knowledge of the rules of evidence enabled him to introduce
testimony upon some minor issue in the case which was afterwards used
with telling effect upon the main issue. In his addresses to the jury
he discarded every appeal to mere sentiment and sought to impress
only their reason and their judgment. His analysis of the evidence
was so close and perfect, his presentation of it so clear and
convincing that the jury were led to think that his was the view they
had taken of it all the time it was being given. Gathering up the
different threads of narrative in the case he wove them together in a
strand of pitiless, impervious, cohesive logic that not all the
frantic efforts of his adversary could avail to unwind. Such was the
man who, like Gedney, had also been county judge and district
attorney of the county, to whom Mr. Marsh, as the spokesman of the
Orange County bar, paid fitting tribute at the Newburgh court house
in June, 1902--Luther R. Marsh who at the time of his own death in
1903, constituted the last lingering tie between the present and the
past.
No history of Orange County is complete that fails to chronicle the
twelve years' residence of Luther R. Marsh, who imparted luster to
every scene in which he mingled, dignity to every spot in which he
lingered. He spent in Middletown the closing years of a life which
had been marked by the most intense ardor and activity in his
profession, and, though he had retired from active practice when he
settled in Orange County, he was drawn into court after that upon two
occasions in litigations arising in the county. The intimate friend
all his life of Orange County's ablest sons, from the Hoffmans to the
Fullertons, he became the friend, the companion, the idol of a new
generation of its lawyers when he came to Middletown in 1889, being
then nearly eighty years of age. For though he lived to be ninety, he
never became old, worn or feeble in spirit. In a public speech
delivered a few months before his death, he declared that to be the
happiest period of his life. In his daily walk and conversation he
exemplified the philosophy of Rabbi Ben Ezra, as expressed by
Browning:
"Grow old along with me!
The best is yet to be,
The last of life, for which the first was made;
Our times are in His hand
Who saith 'A whole I planned,
Youth shows but half;' trust God; see all,
Nor be afraid!"
Nor was he afraid. His daring vision sought to pierce the secrets of
the hereafter. For a long time before his death he was deeply
interested in spiritual phenomena and in the investigation of those
manifestations of persistent personal energy after death, the
authenticity of which constitutes the only proof we can ever obtain
of the doctrine of immortality. Trained to estimate the weight and
value of evidence, engaged during his entire professional career in
convincing arguments as to its proper construction and effect, he
accepted as sufficient and satisfactory the evidence adduced to him
of communications and impressions still conveyed, as the church even
now maintains they were of old, from those who have passed on to the
spirit world.
But, though during his later years he clearly saw how trivial were
the ordinary ambitions and pursuits of men; though his thoughts
became more and more centered upon things spiritual and eternal, yet
he never lost his interest in the sterling values and, above all, in
the beautiful friendships of life. Childhood, youth and manhood held
each its claim upon his tender regard, his ready understanding, his
never-failing sympathy. To him more than to any man I ever knew do
Goldsmith's immortal lines apply:
"E'en children followed, with endearing wile,
And plucked his gown, to share the good man's smile.
His ready smile a parent's warmth exprest;
Their welfare pleased him, and their cares distrest;
To them his heart, his love, his griefs, were given,
But all his serious thoughts had rest in Heaven:
As some tall cliff that lifts its awful form,
Swells from the vale, and midway leaves the storm.
Though round its breast the rolling clouds are spread,
Eternal sunshine settles on its head."
Luther R. Marsh was unquestionably the most original, brilliant,
fascinating, prolific, versatile genius that ever dwelt in Orange
County during the years in which in him it "entertained an angel
unawares." He mingled on equal terms with the greatest men of his
generation. He was a partner of Daniel Webster. Among my most
cherished possessions is the tin sign which Mr. Marsh had framed and
hanging for many years in his study, bearing in his own handwriting
the inscription:
"Luther R. Marsh.
"In 1845, on Mr. Webster's retirement from business to return to the
Senate of the United States, I took this sign off from our office
door, 44 Wall Street, New York, where it had been during our
partnership."
When Webster was dying in 1852, Henry J. Raymond, the gifted editor
of the New York Times, wrote:
"My Dear Marsh:--We hear from Marshfield that Mr. Webster cannot live
through the day. I want from you, if it is possible, for to-morrow
morning, an article--of what kind you know a good deal better than I
can tell you. . . . No man in this city certainly can do it so well.
Nine o'clock this evening, or even ten, will be early enough to have
it here.
"Yours as ever,
H. J. Raymond."
The article, occupying over four columns, was there on time. Mr.
Marsh, that afternoon, upon a moment's notice, at a single stroke,
threw off an estimate of Webster's genius and achievements that never
was excelled later, even in the glowing, studied periods of Everett,
Winthrop, and Curtis.
When in 1869, Henry J. Raymond died, Mr. Marsh was invited to become
his successor, but he declined the honor fearing that the position,
though congenial to his tastes, would be too exacting in its demands.
When we consider that at this time Mr. Marsh was besieged by clients
and immersed in cases; when we consider, too, that a busy lawyer is
the last one to whom a publisher would naturally turn (for there is
no class of men in whom the truly literary instinct combined with the
gift of literary expression is so rare as among successful lawyers),
this recognition of the unique literary distinction which Mr. Marsh
had attained, even while engaged in the fiercest legal contests with
such hard-headed lawyers as David Dudley Field, John Van Buren,
Charles O'Conor, James T. Brady, John K. Porter and Judge Comstock is
most impressive and conclusive. But in his forensic contests the
lawyer dominated the _litterateur._ Any opponent who thought that
because of Mr. Marsh's finished, faultless, elegant literary style he
would escape hard blows and sturdy onslaughts soon learned his
mistake. He was, at about the time he received this offer from the
_Times,_ in the very zenith of his powers and his fame. Mr. Hunt, then
the superintendent of public schools in Massachusetts, thus wrote in
1873, of a trial he had just attended, in which Mr. Marsh was opposed
to Joseph H. Choate:
[Illustration: John C. R. Dayton]
"I shall never forget the spectacle of that trial; from the opening
to the close, it was the most perfect thing I ever saw. Having
entered upon the study of law in the late William Pitt Fessenden's
office; having seen many able lawyers conduct cases in court--Fessenden
and Evans in Maine, Rufus Choate and other great lawyers in Boston,
and, in the South, Yancey and others--allow me to say that I never saw
anything to be compared with the ease, dignity and power with which Mr.
Marsh managed everything."
But his splendid gifts and varied powers could not be restricted in
their exercise to the energies of the law and the graces of
literature. Equally fitted to shine in society or among scholars, in
pulpit or press, on the rostrum or in the forum; always _facile
princeps_ as poet or preacher, essayist or journalist, publicist or
philanthropist, advocate or orator, his un-approached range and
versatility mark him indisputably as the Admirable Crichton of his
land and age.
During the period covered by Mr. Marsh's impressive eulogy upon the
character and attainments of his friend Stephen W. Fullerton, the
Orange County bar was enriched by the weight, the influence and the
learning of a group of lawyers whose temperament disinclined them to
the fierce excitements, the rude conflicts, the temporary triumphs of
the forum. Foremost among them was Eugene A. Brewster, who, though he
personally argued his cases with great ability and success before the
appellate courts, where reason and reserve count for more than fervor
and fluency, was unskilled in the art of swaying a jury against its
will or snatching a verdict against the evidence. Mr. Brewster's warm
admiration for his great preceptor, Judge John W. Brown, may have
unconsciously influenced his bearing, but his moral and intellectual
equipment was entirely his own. This embraced a deep sense of the
responsibility resting upon every lawyer to sustain the honor and
dignity of an ancient and honorable profession. He scrupulously
maintained throughout a busy and active career the high ideals with
which he started out. His aim was to ascertain the truth, not to
circumvent it; to apply the law, not to evade it; to draw from the
fountains of justice, not to pollute them. He enjoyed the respect of
the courts, of his brethren and of the public because of his
character as well as his ability, his virtues as well as his talents.
His whole life was a steady influence working for honesty in the
moral fibre of the community; a persistent power making for
righteousness; a never-failing light guiding to the path of safety
and of honor. In him were incarnated those conserving principles,
those formative influences, those stimulating ideals, those ennobling
traditions which impart dignity to human life, strength to human
character, stability to human society.
David A. Scott was another eminent member of the same group. As
surrogate of the county for two terms his administration was
distinguished by an unusual display of those qualities of breadth,
wisdom, patience, knowledge of human nature and capacity for affairs
so peculiarly requisite in a probate judge exercising jurisdiction
over the saddest controversies, disclosures and scenes ever presented
for adjudication--contested wills, disputed claims, angry
accountings, recrimination between brother and sister, calumniation
of the dead, sordid passions and petty avarice disrupting old
friendships and family ties. In calming these dissensions whenever
possible and in deciding them whenever necessary Judge Scott
manifested that happy blending of tact, temper, common sense, sound
judgment, practical sagacity and professional learning so essential
in the office of surrogate. I say judge because the title surrogate
is a most unfortunate one. The office is known in other commonwealths
as that of probate judge. People are so influenced by mere names that
if such were the title here the claims of an able surrogate to public
respect would be more fully understood. When it is considered that
once in every generation the entire wealth of the county, including
vast fortunes amassed elsewhere by those who die residing in it, is
administered upon in this court and that nearly all the intricate and
perplexing questions involved in its distribution are passed upon by
the surrogate, it will readily be seen that the duties and
responsibilities of this office are among the most important,
extensive and onerous that can devolve upon judicial officers.
It is now nearly fifty years since David A. Scott entered upon the
duties of this office. There are those who still remember the dignity
and grace with which he discharged them. It is forty years since he
laid them down. One year after the close of his second official term
and one year after Judge Michael H. Hirschberg had been admitted to
the bar, they entered into a partnership under the name of Scott &
Hirschberg, which continued until Mr. Scott's death. What this long,
close association meant to the younger member of the firm he alone
fully knows. Surely he would be the last to repel the suggestion that
it doubtless profoundly influenced a character still sensitive and
impressionable when the intimacy began. Indeed he himself bore
affectionate testimony to this impress when, in the court
proceedings, held to honor his dead friend's memory, he said: "For
more than twenty-one years we have labored together side by side in
the perfect intimacy and union of the partnership relation, and
realizing how very much I am indebted to his precepts, his example
and his support; with only sweet and grateful memories of that
connection now remaining, wholly unalloyed by even the momentary
shadow of doubt or distrust, and un-vexed by even an occasional
suggestion of discord or dissension--indeed one long and unbroken
period of harmonious intercourse, of joint and cheerful endeavor, and
of undisturbed confidence and esteem, I deem it a duty no less than a
privilege to add my humble meed of praise to the chorus of eulogy
which I am sure will greet his memory to-day."
In closing his tribute Judge Hirschberg said, with the heartfelt
concurrence of the entire bar:
"And so passed away forever an honorable lawyer, a faithful friend, a
loving father, an estimable citizen, a good man. We will all miss his
familiar form, his friendly greeting, and his kindly presence. Let
his virtues be commemorated in the records of the court. Let the
sweet and wholesome fragrance of his memory remain, to inspire
lawyers, living and to come, to emulate his upright deeds, and to con
the lasting lessons of his pure and simple life."
And now as we pause in the contemplation of this fine and beautiful
character there rises before the mind another figure associated with
the days of Winfield and Gedney in Goshen; of Fullerton, Brewster and
Scott in Newburgh--the figure of James G. Graham. It is difficult to
classify him in either group to which reference has been made. A
constitution naturally delicate led him to shrink from the strife and
turmoil of sharply contested trials and to prefer the seclusion of
his office and his library. Yet no lawyer of the period under
consideration approached him in the kind of oratory adapted to
public and ceremonious occasions. Indeed James G. Graham stands in a
group or class alone. None but himself could be his counterpart, for
he was compacted of every creature's best. In serenity he was equal
to Scott, in strength to Winfield. In counsel he was as wise as
Brewster, in speech as gifted as Gedney. While in vigor of expression
he may be compared to Winfield and in felicity of style to Gedney,
yet he excelled them both in a certain tender grace, a poetic touch,
a romantic spell, an iridescent play of fancy and sentiment which
were the spontaneous reflection of an ardent, imaginative, spiritual
temperament, united to and controlled by exquisite literary taste.
He never received, either in life or in death, the public recognition
due to his splendid gifts and exalted character. He was ever generous
in his own praise of substantial worth. His tributes to his departed
brethren were marked by peculiar elevation of thought and tenderness
of sentiment. A work professing to be history, seeking to readjust
the balances in which the superficial judgment of contemporaries is
corrected by the tardy recognition of posterity, should not fail to
register the star of James G. Graham in that brilliant constellation
from which Marsh and Winfield, Gedney and Fullerton, Brewster and
Scott shed undying refulgence upon the traditions and memories of the
Orange County bar. Let a garland of affectionate, reverent homage
entwine the memory of one who never failed himself to lay a chaplet
of rosemary upon the grave of friendship.
To this period also belongs Abram S. Cassedy. Admitted to practice
just fifty years ago, his rise from the time that he settled in
Newburgh was so rapid that he came into professional relations with
the members of both groups which have been considered, though they
were all admitted to the bar several years before. Indeed he belonged
to both groups. He was emphatically what is meant by the expression
"an all-'round lawyer." He could work patiently and assiduously in
his office drawing contracts and giving counsel and then proceed to
the courtroom to try his cases. His knowledge of the law commanded
the respect of the courts, while his earnestness and sincerity
produced a favorable impression upon juries. He was essentially a
man of affairs, equally at home in the bank directors' meeting, the
common council, the mayor's office and the board of education. He was
corporation counsel of his city and district attorney of the county.
He was the executor of large estates and the trustee of great
interests, one of the most important of his transactions being his
sale of the West Shore Railroad for the sum of $22,000,000, and his
distribution of the fund. In all the positions that he occupied and
all the capacities that he filled he was animated by the very highest
ideals of professional honor and personal probity. In many ways the
influence of his life and the force of his example have been more
persistent and abiding in Newburgh than in the case of lawyers whose
fame has been exclusively in the courts. His interesting and
stainless career affords a striking illustration of the results which
may be accomplished by an acute and active mind concentrated upon one
leading object and directed in its energies by a simple, sincere,
straightforward, undeviating devotion to the noblest standards of
public duty and private honor.
Looming large and masterful in the second group of lawyers, the
friend and associate of Winfield, Gedney and Fullerton, who always
valued highly his legal opinions and who frequently were influenced
by them, though he distrusted his own ability to cope with them in
court, comes the figure of John G. Wilkin. Twice elected county
judge, the first time in 1851 and the second time in 1883, the
interval between these elections was marked by the presence and the
power of his persistent, aggressive, dominating, yet at the same time
winning, gracious, picturesque personality. Born to command, the
exciting times in which he lived, covering the most painful period of
our national history, tended to develop his natural powers of
leadership. He had a talent for friendship. His absolute devotion to
his friends in times of adversity and defeat confirmed a leadership
which, however, was constantly challenged by those who, because they
could not control him, sought to crush him. He tasted many a time the
bitter truth of Joubert's epigram that a man who by the same act
creates a friend and an enemy plays a losing game, because revenge is
a stronger principle than gratitude. But Judge Wilkin never knew
that he had lost. He never accepted defeat. Like his old friend
Halstead Sweet, who always began the day after election to prepare
for the next election, the hour of Judge Wilkin's defeat was the most
dangerous one for his enemies. In the case of such a character,
deeply implanted with the love of power for its own sake as well as
for its rewards, it was inevitable that it should pass through many
periods of storm and trial. But if Judge Wilkin perforce bent to the
storm he never quailed before it. The deepest trial of his life was
one that he never foresaw. This was the failure in 1884 of the
Middletown National Bank of which he was the attorney and nominally
the vice-president. This failure, which was precipitated by the
unsuspected acts of the president in giving up to a grain shipper who
had acquired a hypnotic control over his mind, two hundred thousand
dollars' worth of bills of lading without the payment of the drafts
to which the bills of lading were attached, came to Judge Wilkin with
all the force of a cruel and crushing accident. The spirit which no
opposition could daunt recoiled for a moment under the stab of
treachery. But only for a moment. Quickly recovering himself--though
deeply pained and humiliated that such a disaster should come to an
institution with which he was connected and especially to friends who
might have been influenced by his name--the strength, the courage,
the manliness of his royal character were never more strikingly
exemplified, were never shown to greater advantage than at this very
time. He never flinched from any obligation which this or any other
relation, business, political, social or professional entailed upon
him. His devotion to his clients, his determination to relieve them
from the consequences of their own folly or imprudence was absolute
and fearless, never taking any note of whether they could have
avoided the plight they were in. If they were in trouble through no
fault of their own, of course anybody would be glad to help them. But
if they were in trouble through their own fault the very addition to
their troubles which this reflection caused them only created a
double claim upon Judge Wilkin's sympathies and energy. This is the
spirit of the true lawyer, who, when appealed to in distress, has no
more right to arrogate to himself the functions of court and jury and
decree that his client must take his punishment than a physician has
to refuse to cure a disease which his patient has incurred through a
violation of the laws of health or morality.
[Illustration: William Fullerton]
Judge Wilkin's interest in the young men who grew up about him never
deserted him. He welcomed their advances, he reciprocated their
esteem, he enjoyed their companionship. His reminiscences of the
older bar were lively and entertaining, his sense of humor keen, his
exultation in life and all its activities throbbing and intense. He
was not ready to go when the summons came and he made no hypocritical
pretense of resignation to it. His was a life so full of promise and
performance, passion and power, persuasiveness and preeminence that
well may we exclaim with the poet:
"But what rich life--what energy and glow!
Cordial to friend and chivalrous to foe!
Concede all foibles harshness would reprove,
And what choice attributes remain to love."
If James N. Pronk had given the thought and attention to his own
interests that he gave to the interests of the public and to the
development of his city he would have died wealthy and famous. In his
early manhood when, as the only lawyer in Middletown, except Judge
Wilkin, he acquired a large practice, he quickly accumulated a
fortune sufficient to enable him to build and wholly pay for what
still remains the finest store and office block in Middletown. He had
nothing to do then, in order to a successful life, but to take his
ease and accept such work as he might enjoy. But this was not his
nature. He simply could not take his ease. He was possessed by the
desire to originate and carry forward every public enterprise that
might benefit the town. He lived plainly and simply, had no personal
indulgences, spent nothing upon himself, denied himself every
pleasure in order that he might give himself wholly to the service of
the public. Every pleasure indeed except that of friends and books.
He loved the society of congenial spirits and he dwelt much among
books. But he was not selfish even in this. Instead of putting the
books he bought into his own library he put them into a public
library. He established the Lyceum, the fine circulating library of
which gave to Middletown its first literary impetus. In connection
with this he organized debates in which the ablest men of the
community discussed every moral, social and political question of the
day. These debates brought out the native talent and debating powers
of many men who otherwise might have been silent, notable among them
Israel O. Beattie, whose wide information, keen reasoning and
sparkling wit are well remembered by those who know how naturally his
distinguished son, Judge John J. Beattie, comes by these qualities.
Moreover, Mr. Pronk brought to the platform of the Lyceum the
foremost intellects of his time--Henry Ward Beecher, Wendell
Phillips, Horace Greeley, Edward H. Chapin, Theodore L. Cuyler and
many others. I well remember when, a few years ago at Mohonk, Judge
Beattie and I introduced ourselves to Dr. Cuyler and mentioned
Middletown, he at once exclaimed: "How's my old friend Pronk?" though
they had not met for forty years and he had not heard of his death.
The great mistake of Mr. Pronk's life was when he mortgaged his fine
building, on the income of which he might easily have lived, in order
to establish what became the passion and the idol of his life,
Hillside Cemetery. But was it a mistake? Is it not success, after
all, to live in lasting institutions? This cemetery is to-day the
most beautiful resting place of the dead in Orange County. Over this
sacred spot where he himself was laid, broods ever the sentiment
inscribed over the tomb in St. Paul's Cathedral of Sir Christopher
Wren, its architect--"If you would behold his monument look about
you." (_Si monumentum quaeris circumspice._)
Younger than any of the lawyers thus far considered, but entering
upon his professional life while theirs was still active, and dying
prematurely before the close of those careers with which his own was
strictly contemporaneous, was William F. O'Neill. Perhaps no career
was ever more of a surprise to the public and to the profession than
that of Mr. O'Neill. From Winfield, Gedney and Fullerton with their
distinguished lineage, family influence, county connections, social
position, superior education, wide culture, courtly address and
imposing presence much was expected and expectation was always
satisfied. But here was a young man, who coming from Monticello to
study law in Middletown with Judge Groo and entering upon his career
without any of these advantages, boldly flung himself into the courts
to try conclusions with the ablest of Orange County's advocates and
began at once to captivate juries and to win his cases. Small in
stature, unimpressive in appearance, deficient in culture, unformed
in style, averse to application, trying his cases with very
inadequate preparation, the lawyers were puzzled at first to know the
secret of his immediate and enormous success at the bar. It lay, as
they soon learned, in his faculty of making the jury think that he
always happened to be on the right side. It was like the case of the
juror who was descanting enthusiastically upon the magnificent,
unrivaled powers of Brougham as an advocate. "But," said a bystander,
"I see that you always give the verdict to Scarlett." "Scarlett, O
yes," said the juror. "Well, you see Scarlett is always on the right
side."
Mr. O'Neill was a natural verdict getter. He never went over the
heads of the jury. He talked with them on their own plane of thought,
sentiment and experience. Juries liked him personally. They felt
interested in his success. I remember a trial in which he obtained a
verdict of $2,000 against the village of Port Jervis for a woman who
had fallen upon a defective sidewalk, but who did not appear to have
been much injured. After the verdict, one of the jurors, Coe Goble,
of Greenville, asked me what I thought of the verdict, to which I
replied that they probably gave as much as the evidence justified,
since she did not seem to be hurt much. "Well," said Goble, "it was
this way--we thought the woman ought to have $1,000 and we thought
Billy ought to have $1,000."
This familiar, affectionate reference to him as "Billy" indicates his
place as a popular idol. Indeed the boyishness of his appearance and
stature seemed to help him. People who saw him for the first time and
who had not expected much from him, went out of the courtroom saying,
"Did you see how little Billy O'Neill laid him out?"
Mr. O'Neill made negligence cases a specialty, and he became known
far and wide as a negligence lawyer. Those who deprecate the rise of
the negligence lawyer and the increase in negligence cases during the
last forty years fail to make sufficient allowance for those changed
conditions in the business of the world under which its various
currents of capital and industry converge in one swollen stream of
corporate enterprise and control. This tends, on the one hand, to
encourage professional alertness in protecting the individual from
corporate greed or neglect and, on the other hand, to create extreme
devotion to corporate interests seeking the aid of professional skill
and judgment. While the zeal of attorneys in behalf of corporations
is rarely condemned it is somewhat the fashion to deprecate the
negligence lawyer who takes the case of a client against a
corporation upon a contingent fee. As the client is usually destitute
it is difficult to see how his case is to be presented at all unless
the attorney takes his chances upon success. As courts and juries
must determine that the claim is a worthy one before it can succeed,
the whole criterion seems to resolve itself into the position that
worthy causes and clients should be deprived of a hearing. This
feeling can be well understood on the part of corporations constantly
compelled to pay damages on account of their carelessness, but the
expression of it comes with poor grace from lawyers who receive large
retainers and liberal fees from wealthy clients. It is at least as
fair to a client to wait for compensation until the work is done as
it is to insist on a retainer before any work at all is done. It is
noticeable that the criticism upon the contingent fee at the
conclusion of the case comes usually from the lawyer who expects a
large fee at the beginning of the case.
It is simple truth and justice to say that human life and limb are
safer to-day in Orange County because that sturdy fighter and
dangerous opponent, William F. O'Neill, caring not whether his
client was poor or rich, never allowed a case of negligence, once
brought to his attention, to pass unchallenged and un-presented to a
court of justice. And if his example and his influence have
encouraged others, as indeed they have, in the same path of
professional honor and public duty, then he, too, has not lived in
vain.
The advent of Mr. O'Neill was coincident with the rise of a new
generation of advocates who were confronted at first with a supremacy
in the older bar which never could have been ousted by superior
talent. It yielded at last to the only rivals it could not resist,
decay and death, even as now the lawyers I am about to name will soon
surrender to a still later generation their coveted place and
prominence in the courts. I say about to name because, notwithstanding
the considerations which suggest the omission of any reference to
the living, it seems to be inartistic and it ought to be unnecessary
to break off a narrative in the middle because some of its characters
are still living. Caution and delicacy may indeed discourage, if not
wholly forbid such un-stinted praise as may be properly bestowed upon
a finished, rounded career, far removed from possible marring by some
late and regrettable error. But, on the other hand, the opinion of
his contemporaries by one who has freely mingled with them and
frequently been pitted against them ought to be accurate, and, if
accurate, then interesting and valuable. How we would all enjoy now
Winfield's own characterization of Samuel J. Wilkin and William F.
Sharpe, his partner; of Benjamin F. Duryea and Joseph W. Gott, the
senior; of David F. Gedney and Stephen W. Fullerton. There are
histories of our own times and this is one of them. Let me proceed
then, diffidently, indeed, but still unflinchingly, to perform the
task assigned to me before the subjects and the generation chiefly
interested in them have all alike passed away; appealing to the
judgment of those still able to decide, upon the candor, fairness and
impartiality of the estimates. Indeed, if we wait until all
contemporaries have passed away, who is left to determine whether the
estimates are just?
William J. Groo is older than the lawyers who came to the bar in the
late sixties, but he falls naturally in this group, because he came
to Orange County in 1866, when he at once took a foremost place among
its trial lawyers, his reputation having preceded him. He had already
become leader of the bar of Sullivan County, where in 1856 he was
elected its district attorney. This leadership was, in itself,
evidence of great ability, for he had to win his spurs against such
intellectual giants as General Niven, Judge Bush, Senator Low and
James L. Stewart. It is not strange, then, that in him Winfield,
Gedney and Fullerton found a match for all their powers and an equal
in all the arts and accomplishment of the advocate. His perfect
self-possession, his readiness in retort, his firm grasp of the
points in controversy, his unfailing memory enabling him to marshal
the testimony with crushing effect, his severe logic, his scathing
enunciation, his intrepid spirit, and, above all, his moral
earnestness combined to make him a dreaded and formidable adversary.
Judge Groo (for he acquired the title through his election as special
county judge of Orange County in the year 1868) has carried this
quality of moral earnestness, which so largely contributed to his
success at the bar, into all the interests and relations of life. He
early espoused the cause of temperance and has long been one of the
most prominent members of the prohibition party, which at different
times has bestowed upon him its complimentary but unsubstantial
nomination for governor and judge of the Court of Appeals. He has
always insisted that the absolute prohibition of the sale of liquors
in the State of New York is not only a righteous and necessary
reform, but an entirely feasible one. The remarkable strength of this
movement in the South, followed as it has been by recent prohibitory
legislation in several of the States, is one of the cheering rewards
for unselfish, life-long devotion to principle which he is permitted
to enjoy in his declining years. There is no doubt whatever that his
sacrifices in behalf of this cause seriously interfered with his
later eminence at the bar, for such eminence, even when once
achieved, can be maintained only by sedulous, un-relaxed devotion; by
steady, unqualified, undivided allegiance to that most exacting of
all masters--the law.
This consecration to higher duties and nobler aims than those
involved in mere professional success does not, however, constitute
the sole reason why Judge Groo ceased to be a familiar and prominent
figure in the courts of Orange County. This was due primarily to the
removal of his office to New York, where he continued to win many
notable legal triumphs until failing health compelled him to retire
from active practice. His dignified and honorable repose is divided
between his home in Middletown and his summer retreat in his native
county of Sullivan at Grooville, so named in honor of one of his
Revolutionary ancestors.
Though Lewis E. Carr has transferred his professional activities to
a wider field, yet he acquired and developed in Orange County those
transcendent qualities as a trial lawyer which have since, in nearly
every county of the State, excited the astonishment of the bar and
the admiration of the courts. From the very first he produced a
profound impression upon Winfield, Gedney and Fullerton, with whom he
engaged in vigorous, courageous contest at a time when it was
difficult, indeed, to stand up against their powerful and almost
irresistible influence. But it was when he came to be associated with
them in some most important trials that they were even more impressed
with his knowledge of fundamental principles, his wisdom in
consultation, his mature and unerring judgment. Judge Gedney once
remarked in a public tribute to Mr. Carr in his early life that it
was possible to gain a far more accurate measurement of a lawyer's
real ability through association with him than in opposition to him.
He added that it was after enjoying such opportunities to become
acquainted with Mr. Carr that he was the better able to express
admiration of his surpassing talents as well as confidence in his
brilliant future. Mr. Carr has since then enjoyed many honors and
some supreme triumphs, but it is doubtful that any encomium has ever
given him deeper pleasure than this now amply verified prediction by
so competent an authority.
Nothing more surely attests the eminence which Mr. Carr has attained
in the State than the recognition of it by the Assembly of the State
of New York in inviting him to pronounce in its chamber the eulogy
upon its beloved speaker, S. Frederick Nixon, upon the memorial
occasion dignified by the attendance of the Governor, the Senate and
the judges of the Court of Appeals. In that august presence Mr. Carr,
defending the prerogatives of the State, said:
"However much we take pride in the nation's greatness and power we
cannot shut our eyes to the fact that in some way, not easy to
understand, the Federal Government of which we constitute no mean
part, has been steadily encroaching upon the province of the State,
and year by year the waves of its rising power are biting away some
part of the shore on which our feet should rest. . . . Preservation
of the rights of the State, as the framers of the Constitution
intended and provided, is as essential to the safety, security and
perpetuity of the sisterhood of States as the armies that carry and
defend the flag and the navies that patrol the sea and protect our
harbors against the dangers of attack. Our State is an empire in and
of itself. Dominion over it and control of its priceless interests
are all our own, save to the narrow extent they were expressly
yielded to give needed strength and requisite power for the
protection of the whole."
This extract gives some idea of the force and clearness which
characterize all Mr. Carr's public utterances, but no extract can
give any conception of his extraordinary powers as an advocate. The
assembly indeed had already enjoyed an unusual opportunity to
witness their display, for Mr. Carr was easily the most conspicuous
and imposing figure in a public trial of great importance conducted
before it, in which he made the principal and prevailing argument.
But it is perhaps in the appellate courts that Mr. Carr's abilities
find their most congenial field of exercise. There his ready command
of all the resources of a trained, vigorous and richly stored
intellect enables him to discuss every proposition propounded by the
court, or advanced by his opponent, with a breadth of reasoning, a
fertility of illustration, an array of authority which never fail to
arouse admiration and delight. Indeed in every argument or trial in
which he engages he organizes from the outset an intellectual duel.
One who is not prepared to cope with him on equal terms, or with a
cause so strong that it overcomes the intellectual handicap, will
find it prudent not to enter the lists with him.
When Mr. Carr resided in Port Jervis before going to Albany, where he
is the general counsel for the Delaware and Hudson Company and where
he is called as senior counsel into many important cases not at all
connected with railroad litigation, such was his devotion to his
profession that it was only in exciting political campaigns that he
could yield himself to the demands of the platform. But in Albany so
insistent and repeated have been the demands upon him that he has
been compelled to yield more frequently, until now his reputation is
firmly established as a platform speaker of rare attractiveness. A
fair example of his after-dinner oratory may be found, in fit company
and enduring form, in the book entitled "Modern Eloquence," edited by
Speaker Thomas B. Reed; it being a response, at the banquet of the
State Bar Association, in which, with a fine blending of humor and
seriousness, he commends that recent revival of an ancient custom
which has done so much already to revive and promote the dignity of
the bench--the wearing by judges of the robe of office.
The Orange County Bar has contributed to the bar of the State many
gifted sons of whom it has been, indeed, proud--Ogden Hoffman,
William H. Seward, William Fullerton and others--but it has never
contributed one of whose character, ability and fame it is more
justly and universally proud than it is of the character, ability and
fame of Lewis E. Carr.
Henry Bacon is now, indisputably, the leader of the Orange County
Bar. His career has been marked by a singleness of devotion to his
profession rarely equaled. It was interrupted at one time by his
service for five years in the House of Representatives, in the
debates of which he bore an honorable part, impressing himself most
favorably upon the leaders of his own party and those of the
opposition. But his heart was all the time in the law, which he
keenly enjoys as a science and reveres as a master. Returning to
Goshen at the expiration of his congressional service he threw
himself with renewed ardor into the practice of his profession to
which he has since applied himself with undeviating purpose,
persistence and power. The position of leadership now held by him is
the natural, inevitable and only consistent result of high endeavor
and unfaltering purpose united to intellectual gifts and legal
qualifications of a superior order. Mr. Bacon has the legal instinct.
He is not content until he has penetrated to the heart of the
mystery. He revels in a perplexing and complicated case. He loves to
unravel its intricacies and explore its mazes.
Mr. Bacon has in the past twenty years tried more cases than any
lawyer in the county. He is retained in nearly every important trial.
His manifest knowledge of every principle of the law involved in the
case always commands the respect of the court and of the bar. In
presenting his views to the jury he relies upon logic rather than
eloquence, upon consecutive force of argument rather than the arts of
persuasion. In the celebrated case of Magar vs. Hammond his opening
address to the jury upon the second trial was a masterpiece of
clear, coherent, cumulative and convincing statement.
[Illustration: A. H. L. Secor]
Mr. Bacon is never more interested than when he is confronted with
some grave question of constitutional construction. His attack upon
the constitutionality of the drainage law, which was declared
invalid by the Court of Appeals upon the arguments advanced by him,
and in which he was opposed by the eminent advocate John G. Milburn,
will be long remembered.
All lawyers are true to their clients, but Mr. Bacon's inflexibility
in the assertion or defense of his client's rights is uncompromising
to the last degree. It has even been said that, in his zeal and
ardor, he is willing to trample upon all the ties of private
friendship and all the claims of personal courtesy. But no client was
ever heard to complain of this and, after all, the fact remains that
no lawyer can serve his clients with absolute fidelity without, at
times, wounding his neighbors and his friends. An honest lawyer can
know no one but his client and him crucified. His standard of
morality and manners, of duty and decorum is expressed in the
sentiment, "Stop pursuing my client and I have no further quarrel
with you." Mr. Bacon typifies this spirit and embodies this principle
in his professional life more strikingly than any lawyer who has ever
practiced at the bar of Orange County.
On the other hand Mr. Bacon's social gifts and graces are in the
highest degree winning and attractive. One would never suspect, in
the velvet palm that greets him at his threshold, the iron hand that
crushed him but the day before in court. One would never recognize in
the beaming, graceful host the hard-headed lawyer who, with stern,
unflinching purpose, will destroy him to-morrow. United in marriage
to the brilliant and accomplished daughter of one of America's
purest and noblest statesmen, Samuel J. Randall, his home is a center
of charming, courtly and gracious hospitality dispensed with lavish,
refined and unaffected generosity. Mr. Bacon is the only lawyer in
Orange County who has ever both recognized and fulfilled his social
duty to his brethren of the bar by throwing open his home to them in
receptions intended to bring the judges and the lawyers together in
social relations. In olden days and in other counties this custom
once prevailed. Possibly it is because Orange County labors under the
misfortune of being a half-shire county--a calamity to any bar for
the reason, besides many others, that it effectually destroys the
possibility of having a suitable court house--that a spirit of
comradeship among its lawyers has never grown up. It is noticeable
that in counties where the legal interests converge in one central
county seat the brotherly spirit is more active. But, however that
may be, Mr. Bacon is entitled to the grateful acknowledgment of his
efforts to suspend the asperities of professional conflict in the
solvent of social converse. In this, as in every other respect, his
leadership of the bar is supreme.
Walter C. Anthony preceded Mr. Bacon a few months in their student
life with Judge Gedney at Goshen. No one has painted so perfect and
beautiful a picture as he of those halcyon days in that country law
office. In his memorial tribute he said:
"But of all the delightful hours spent with Judge Gedney I recall,
with most pleasure, our afternoon talks at the office. As the day was
wearing late and he began to make preparations to leave, he usually
seemed to want to draw me into conversation. Frequently it took the
form of an examination as to those branches of the law which I was
then reading upon. Occasionally he would draw me into the discussion
of some legal question, in which he would maintain an opinion opposed
to that which I expressed, and in which after combating me, with all
his ingenuity and acuteness and frequently discomfiting me, he would
in the end explain the whole question and point out the errors of
either side of the argument. At times some event of the day's work
would be used as a foundation for an explanation of the legal
questions involved. In whatever way the conversation was begun his
evident purpose was that it should be profitable to me in connection
with the studies I was pursuing; and when that end had been
accomplished our conversation would wander on 'at its own sweet
will,' touching on many and varied themes which all developed new
beauties and suggestiveness beneath the light of his varied learning
and fertile fancy. Is it to be wondered at that I recall them with a
chastened delight? Judge Gedney was then in the very prime of his
remarkable powers. His mind was a storehouse of varied and
interesting knowledge, and his conversational and descriptive skill
were not only very great, but quite unique.
"I shall always regard it as one of the most fortunate circumstances
of my life that 1 was brought into such intimate association with
David F. Gedney. And as my life passes on into the 'sere and yellow
leaf and I sit among the lengthening shadows of its afternoon looking
back upon the friends and friendships of my youth, I shall very, very
often recall Judge Gedney--the slender, erect figure; the strongly
marked face; the scant but expressive gesture; the wonderfully
melodious and well modulated voice; the words so deftly chosen from
a vocabulary surpassingly rich and full, that they always reminded me
of the sentence in holy writ: 'words fitly spoken are like apples of
gold in pictures of silver;' and above all I shall recall his kind
and generous deeds, the fit exponents of a loving, loyal heart; and,
thus recalling him, I shall often in the future exclaim--as I have
already in the past--in no empty phrase and with no exaggeration of
speech:
"'Oh for the touch of a vanished hand
And the sound of a voice that is still!'"
This extract is made not solely to embellish the portrait of Judge
Gedney, the man--though I indeed left it unfinished intending thus to
invoke Mr. Anthony's aid in completing it--but also to illustrate Mr.
Anthony's own cast of mind, character and literary style. Mr. Anthony
is by nature and inclination, a scholar and a recluse. If he were
rich he would shut up his office and browse in his library; but not
selfishly, for no one has been more generous than he in responding to
demands for public and literary addresses. I heard him once, before
the Chautauqua Assembly, give a purely extemporaneous lecture upon
wit and humor which for range of reading, wealth of information,
critical analysis and brilliant characterization has never been
surpassed by our most famous lecturers; and yet it was delivered with
a modesty, sweetness and simplicity which seemed to deprecate the
suggestion that it was anything out of the ordinary.
His memory of Judge Gedney unconsciously reveals how deep was the
impression made in youth upon a mind singularly susceptible to the
charms and graces of literature and upon a nature no less susceptible
to the beauties and joys of friendship. As in the case of all such
natures, the books must be choice and the friends fit but few. Not,
indeed, that Mr. Anthony is deficient in the elements of personal
popularity. His election twice to the office of district attorney of
the county, the duties of which he most ably discharged, attests his
popular strength. But it is undeniable that his predilection for the
society of the great and wise of every age, to be found in his
well-filled library, has tended more and more to withdraw him from
the society of the shallow, the superficial, the frivolous. He stands
to-day a lonely but alluring figure, on whose heights those who
choose to follow may find in him the charming companion, the
accomplished scholar, the earnest inquirer, the inspiring instructor.
Let no captious reader take cynical exception to the note of honest
praise sounded in these memoirs. Let it be remembered that, out of
hundreds of lawyers, only a few of those entitled to admiration and
praise have been selected for extended mention. While personal
memoirs should be accurate they need not be exhaustive. In those rare
instances in which conspicuous talent has yielded to temptation and,
in weakness or dishonor, forfeited public respect, it has seemed to
be the truest kindness to pass over it in silence. Indeed, as one
surveys the procession down half a century of those who have become
notable in the law he is profoundly impressed that not by infirm,
invertebrate character have they gained their prominence but only by
firm resolution, high endeavor, moral purpose and intellectual power.
One is led to wonder not that there should be so few entitled to
praise, but that there should be so many. Impartial criticism will
demand of the contemporary chronicler not that his praise be stinted,
but only that it be discriminating.
Indeed only the most un-stinted, unqualified praise would be either
just or appropriate in summoning from that stately procession of
great and honored lawyers the lofty, imposing figure of Judge John J.
Beattie, who for eighteen years--1889 to 1907--presided over the
County Court of Orange County, having been elected for three
successive terms. His dignity of presence, weight of character and
wealth of learning amply sustained the traditions of a bench once
occupied by Gedney and Fullerton. Many of Judge Beattie's decisions
have been in cases of far-reaching public importance--notably the
case involving the construction of the eight-hour law in which Judge
Beattie decided that the provision prohibiting a contractor from
allowing his men to work over eight hours a day on a public
improvement was unconstitutional and void. The Appellate Division
reversed but the Court of Appeals affirmed Judge Beattie in an
opinion sustaining every position which Judge Beattie had taken in
his opinion.
Judge Beattie is grounded in the principles of the law. In all that
he does he is thorough, going to the very bottom of the case whether
as to the law or the facts. This quality was strikingly brought out
in the case tried by him for eight days before Judge Maddox involving
the liability of a railroad company for the damage resulting from the
explosion of a locomotive boiler. There was absolutely nothing about
a boiler that Judge Beattie did not understand. One would have
supposed that he had been brought up in boiler works and had then run
an engine on the road. He succeeded in dividing the jury and Judge
Maddox said after the trial that he had never seen a finer display of
sheer intellectuality than Judge Beattie's management of the defense.
He is an omnivorous reader and his marvelous memory retains all that
he ever read. His conversation is an intellectual feast, for he pours
out a never-failing stream of literary anecdote, historic incident
and choice passages from the classics of every age, all ready to gush
forth from his well-stored memory as the conversation glances from
one subject to another.
Judge Beattie carries into his retirement from the County Court the
gratitude and respect of the bar and of the public for the fine
example of judicial dignity and learning which he has given for
eighteen years--an example which may well be followed not only by all
who succeed him in the County Court, but by all who administer in the
same court houses and from the same bench the wider jurisdiction of
the Supreme Court.
Having considered several leaders of the bar who came into practice
in the late sixties, but who, like their predecessors, Winfield,
Gedney and Fullerton, were never invited to the bench of the Supreme
Court, we come now naturally to that group of their early associates
who have achieved judicial honors, those honors which have always
held a glittering fascination for the bar whether in the wearing or
the recounting of them. There never have been enough judgeships to go
around and the long tenure now established wholly excludes rotation
among the leaders of the bar in respect to judicial position. Hence
the prospect that any member of the bar, however able, will ever
attain judicial honors is so remote and dependent upon so many
unforeseen conditions that when they do descend and repose upon the
modest brow of some highly favored but always unenvied brother, the
circumstances combining to produce such a fortuitous selection
possess all the charm of romance and all the fascination of a fairy
tale. While it is true that many unforeseen conditions must always
unite in determining the destination of this coveted prize, there
still seems to be one inexorable condition to which all Orange County
aspirants must conform. They must not reside in the interior of the
county. They must practice in the old, historic city of Newburgh--a
city which has always taken a deep, honorable, patriotic pride in its
Revolutionary associations and in the land they represent, but which
has no more pride in, no more sense of connection with, Orange County
as a whole than West Point has. Its bar has always been distinguished
for great ability and high character.
The Supreme Court of the State of New York, the wide jurisdiction of
which extends from Long Island to the St. Lawrence and the Lakes, was
never more fortunate than in the acquisition to its bench from the
Newburgh bar of the two Browns, father and son--John W. Brown and
Charles F. Brown--the elder having ascended the bench in 1850 and the
younger in 1883.
It is Charles F. Brown who belongs to the period we are now
considering. Graduated from Yale College in 1866, admitted to
practice in 1868, elected district attorney in 1874 and county judge
in 1877, he resigned in 1882 the position of county judge to assume
the duties of supreme court judge.
Mr. Winfield had always ardently desired a position upon the bench of
the Supreme Court. It was one of the bitterest disappointments of his
life that he so narrowly missed this object of his ambition in 1875,
when Judge Dykman was elected. In that year the widespread revolt
among the bar and public against the re-election of that most
unpopular official, Judge Tappen, who had received the regular
democratic nomination, made it evident that any independent
democratic candidate who should receive the endorsement of the
republican convention would be elected. Mr. Winfield's hopes of
receiving this endorsement rose high and were on the point of being
realized when an unexpected influence intervened to dash them.
General Benjamin F. Tracy, who had a longstanding personal feud with
William Fullerton, the brother of Stephen W. Fullerton, suddenly came
to the conclusion that he did not want upon the bench an intimate
friend of the Fullertons. He therefore threw his influence in favor
of Jackson O. Dykman, then a prominent democratic lawyer of
Westchester County, who thus received the nomination. His election by
a large democratic and republican vote confirmed the prediction that
such a coalition would easily accomplish the defeat of Judge Tappen.
Orange County, notwithstanding that it shared Mr. Winfield's
disappointment, followed his generous lead in supporting Judge
Dykman and gave him a majority of 10,000. No one labored for Mr.
Winfield's nomination at this time more earnestly than Charles F.
Brown himself.
In 1882 Mr. Winfield's hopes of obtaining a nomination revived, but
Charles F. Brown, who cherished the natural and honorable ambition to
emulate his father's noble example and distinguished career as a
jurist, felt that he ought not to stand aside again. He of course
secured the delegate from his own assembly district without
opposition. Overcoming the opposition offered by Mr. Winfield's
friends in the second assembly district, he secured its delegate
also. By thus presenting a united front Orange County was able to
successfully assert its claims in the judicial convention and to
secure for Judge Brown the nomination that was followed by his
election.
No one was more gratified by Judge Brown's election than Mr. Winfield
himself, especially as it involved the defeat of General Tracy, the
very man who, seven years before, had snatched from him the same
prize when almost within his grasp. When General Tracy, of Kings
County, was nominated by the republican convention against Judge
Brown, of Orange County, he confidently expected to defeat Judge
Brown, whose greatness was then unknown to the district at large,
through the promised support of many large Brooklyn interests. But
all his calculations were confounded by a wholly unexpected event.
This was the cataclysm in which Grover Cleveland, with whom Judge
Brown was running, carried the State by the enormous, unprecedented
majority of 200,000.
Thus was Orange County enabled to contribute to the bench of the
Supreme Court a jurist who, in the fourteen years of his incumbency,
made a profound, a lasting impression upon the jurisprudence not only
of his State but of his country.
After serving for six years with great acceptance in the trial and
special terms, he was, upon the formation of the second division of
the Court of Appeals, promoted to its bench. His services during the
four years' existence of that court were of the highest value, his
luminous opinions being still quoted and followed in every State in
the Union. Some of the litigations which came before him were in the
highest degree difficult and complicated; one of the most important
being the case involving the construction of the Tilden will, in
which the opinion of Judge Brown, declaring the trusts invalid, was
adopted by the court. His opinions rendered in this court constitute
an imperishable monument to his learning and ability.
Judge Brown's manner upon the bench, at trial and special term, was a
happy mingling of simplicity and dignity. His most noticeable
personal trait was his entire lack of self-consciousness. He never
thought about himself or about the impression which he might be
making upon the bar or the public. His mind was wholly upon the case
and upon the principles involved in it. He was considerate of the
feelings of counsel and rarely rebuked them for imperfect
presentation of their views. When they wandered from the point he
thought about the case and when they came back to the case he
followed them again. It is simply the truth of history to say that
the members of the bar, not only of Orange County but of the entire
State, do not expect to see in this generation a nearer approach to
the ideal judge than they were permitted to behold during the
fourteen years of Judge Brown's incumbency.
There was one marked characteristic of Judge Brown while upon the
bench which deserves more than a passing mention. After a case was
submitted to him and while it was still under consideration he was
never afraid to enter upon a discussion of the principles involved
in it, with either of the counsel he might happen to meet, if he felt
that such a discussion might prove profitable. In this respect he
differed from some of his colleagues who were perfectly aghast at the
thought of counsel conversing with them upon any phase of a pending
case in the absence of opposing counsel. This of course was due to
their high sense of the importance of preserving not only real
impartiality but the strictest appearance of impartiality. But there
was something in Judge Brown's character which did not need the
protection of such a rule; something in the very atmosphere which he
threw out; something in the impression which he gave of being simply
a thinking, working, impersonal, intellectual machine, which left no
room for misunderstanding on the part of any lawyer thus admitted to
a share in his deliberations and which left his judicial independence
and impartiality absolutely untouched. This capacity at once
constitutes the highest test and the consummate type of the strictly
judicial temperament. To this test Judge Brown easily responded and
of this type he was the perfect embodiment.
[Illustration: O. P. Howell]
No one can be accused of sycophancy in awarding to a judge long since
retired from the bench his merited meed of praise and gratitude for
distinguished public services. Nor even in the case of judges still
occupying the bench can such a charge fairly lie when the faithful
historian surveying and reviewing, from the serene heights of
retirement and rejection, the stirring scenes in which once he bore
an active part, is now as indifferent to, as independent of, the
opinions of judges as they are of his. It would indeed be far more
entertaining if there could be contributed to this volume the
opinions which the judges hold of each other, thrown into literary
form instead of merely being promulgated from the bench or
disseminated by the press. When, upon the occasion of Queen
Victoria's jubilee, the judges met in London to prepare an address to
Her Majesty, the proposed draught submitted to them began with the
words, "Conscious as we are of our shortcomings," whereupon Lord
Bowen gravely suggested, as an amendment, "Conscious as we are of
_each other's_ shortcomings." Human nature is very much the same
here and in England; very much the same, in its manifestations, among
judges and among lawyers.
Judge William D. Dickey ascended the bench in 1896, one year before
Judge Brown's retirement from it. The second judicial district, of
which Orange County then formed a part, was for many years democratic
and it was not unusual for the republican conventions to endorse the
democratic nominations. But in 1895 there seemed to be such a fair
prospect for success that the republicans put forward a full ticket
of judicial nominees, including Judge Dickey, who was elected, though
one of his associates upon the ticket, Hugo Hirsch, of Brooklyn, was
defeated by Judge Martin J. Keogh, whose court ought to be attended
every year by visiting delegations of judges from all parts of the
State as a training school and object lesson, illustrating how a busy
judge may at all times, in all circumstances and under all
provocations still be the model, faultless, consummate gentleman.
Although Judge Dickey removed from Newburgh to Brooklyn soon after
his election and is counted as a judge of the second judicial
district, while Orange County is now a part of the ninth judicial
district, still Orange County is where he was born; where his
professional life was passed; where he rose to prominence and power,
and where he lived when he was elevated to the bench. He exhibited
even in boyhood the qualities which have marked his public career,
his patriotic ardor inspiring him to enlist in the Union Army when
only seventeen years of age; his promotion being so rapid that before
he was twenty years old he had been brevetted colonel in recognition
of conspicuous gallantry.
Admitted to practice soon after the close of the Civil War he threw
himself with characteristic energy not merely into the legal contests
which arose in his city, but into all the public and political
controversies of the day. Ardent in his affections and implacable
in his hatreds, loyal to his friends and relentless to his enemies,
he soon acquired an extensive influence and attracted to himself a
devoted following, both personal and political.
The public spirit and civic pride shown by Judge Dickey in promoting
every enterprise tending to beautify or benefit his native city was
generally recognized and his election to the constitutional
convention of 1893 was a distinct turning point in his career. His
ability, vigilance, authority, force of character and readiness in
debate, soon gave him a dominant influence in the deliberations of
that highly intellectual body--an influence aided by his commanding
presence and resonant voice, advantages not without value in that
most difficult of all auditoriums, the assembly chamber in the
Capitol at Albany. Among the many far-reaching reforms which he
proposed or advocated in the convention he undoubtedly looks back
with special satisfaction upon the provision incorporated, with his
active support, in the new constitution prohibiting any legislative
limitation upon the amount of recovery for death occasioned by
negligence, since he has had abundant occasion in his experience upon
the bench to verify his convictions of the justice, necessity and
public policy of this amendment.
Judge Dickey displays upon the bench the same sterling qualities
which marked his active professional career. Among them none is more
pronounced than his remembrance of and kindness to old and valued
friends. The exercise by a judge of the patronage necessarily
pertaining to his office has always been a trying question for him.
But since one lawyer has no natural, superior claim over any other
lawyer upon the fruits of patronage, there seems to be no reason why
a judge should not be permitted to gratify his feelings of friendship
and esteem in the appointment of referees whom he knows to be not
only estimable but entirely capable. No one questioned this
sentiment or principle of conduct when Judge Brown appointed his old
friend and partner, Mr. Cassedy referee to sell the West Shore
railroad, or when he appointed his old friend, William Harvey Clark,
of Minisink, receiver of the Port Jervis and Monticello railroad;
Mr. Clark, by the way, proving to be so capable a receiver that he
not only paid its debts but surprised the stockholders by handing
over to them a large amount of money.
But in the distribution of patronage Judge Dickey has not only been
loyal to the claims of private friendship; he has nobly used it in
the recognition of the debt which the public owes to distinguished
public services and sacrifices. I know one able lawyer whose physical
infirmities disqualify him from active practice at the bar, but whose
eye is still as clear, whose judgment as alert as when, from the
heights of Gettysburg, he directed the Federal forces on the first
day of the battle and saved the fortunes of the day till they could
be turned and redeemed upon the morrow. In appointing this old hero
to important service in various public condemnation proceedings, in
which his sound judgment and wide experience have been utilized to
the public benefit. Judge Dickey has entitled himself to the
gratitude of all who believe that conspicuous worth and patriotic
service should not be forgotten and neglected by judges any more than
by governors or presidents. And personal gratitude is no less due to
Judge Dickey from all those whose appointment by him to positions of
trust and responsibility has enabled them to justify his own unerring
judgment as to their fitness and capacity.
It was in the autumn of 1902 that Judge Dickey was called upon to
pass through the first deep sorrow of his life in the loss of his
only son, Frank R. Dickey, cut off in his young manhood at the very
beginning of his promising career at the bar. Born and educated in
Newburgh he had followed his father to Brooklyn, where he established
himself in practice and where he soon won a large and growing
clientage. His solid abilities; his pure, lofty character; his open,
sincere nature; his refined, engaging manners; his gentle, amiable
disposition united to create a personality of singular charm and
interest. Troops of new friends, attracted to him by the graces of a
sweet and beautiful character, joined with those who had always known
and loved him in heartfelt sorrow over the untimely grave of Frank R.
Dickey.
Judge Dickey's wide experience in affairs, with his knowledge of
human nature, its secret springs and devious ways, enables him to
arrive at decisions always prompt and usually just. His influence
upon the bench has always been powerfully exerted in support of the
domestic virtues and social purity. Gambling, which is fast becoming
one of the most threatening of our national dangers, as it is already
one of the most degrading and corrupting of our social vices, whether
practiced by men in policy shops, or by women at bridge parties,
finds in him, whenever it comes within his judicial purview, neither
countenance nor toleration.
There is one trait of Judge Dickey upon the bench which calls for
special mention. When, in an action which has been tried and decided
by him, without a jury, the attorneys come before him for settlement
of the case upon appeal, he does not seek to emasculate the appeal,
as some judges in their weakness and vanity do, by striking out the
exceptions designed to bring up sharply for review the points of
difference between him and the defeated counsel. He always gives the
unsuccessful and dissatisfied litigant a fair opportunity to review
every issuable ruling and to get a reversal if he can. He is not
hyper-sensitive upon the subject of being sustained by the appellate
courts. Indeed, his mental attitude toward them is doubtless
reflected in the remark once made by the famous judge, Lord Young,
when he was told that one of his decisions had been affirmed upon
appeal by the House of Lords, "Well, I may have been right,
notwithstanding," said Lord Young.
As Judge Dickey has never been assigned to the Appellate Division and
much prefers the close contact with the bar and with vital human
interests which is enjoyed by judges constantly engaged in trial
term and special term, he has never felt called upon to accompany his
decisions with opinions of any length. When he does write, his
opinions are clear, terse and sententious. Indeed there is very
little satisfaction for a judge at special term in writing elaborate
opinions, only to find them arrested and archived in that mere
vestibule of fame, that hall of unmerited but predestined and
pathetic oblivion known as the Miscellaneous Reports.
But the waters of a cruel, though often kindly, oblivion can never
wholly submerge the fine superstructure of judicial fame reared by
Judge Michael H. Hirschberg upon a foundation of singularly
exclusive, concentrated, severe, professional, intellectual and
literary training. Born and reared in Newburgh, but coming to
practice at the bar without those intermediate college advantages
enjoyed by his life-long friend and associate, Judge Brown, whom he
succeeded upon the bench, he has, nevertheless, strikingly verified
the saying of Carlyle that, after all, books are the best university.
During all the years of his professional activity in Orange County
he sedulously, patiently wrought out, cultivated and perfected a
crisp, nervous, virile, epigrammatic, yet withal, polished,
mellifluous, ornate and opulent English style which constituted an
admirable discipline and equipment for the very field of juristic
service in which he was later destined to engage.
Elected in 1890 to a seat upon the bench, he was, after a brief
period of service at trial and special terms, assigned to the
Appellate Division, and later, upon the retirement of Judge Goodrich,
he was appointed the presiding justice of the court. This was the
opportunity for which his slumbering, but not unready, accomplishments
long had waited. Then ensued the disclosure to his judicial
associates and to the bar of the State of those attainments as a
writer and as a jurist, which had long been known to the bench and
bar of his county and his district. While comparisons are often more
dangerous than odious his career almost inevitably reminds one of
that literary lawyer, known then chiefly for his writing of "The Blue
and the Grey," who was summoned by his friend, Governor Cornell, from
his scholarly seclusion at Ithaca to take a seat upon the bench of
the Court of Appeals; and who thereupon enriched the literature of
the law with a body of opinions, unrivaled for English style and
judicial learning, which have entranced and instructed two
generations of lawyers. Equally true is it of Judge Hirschberg that
already has he permanently enriched the Reports of the Appellate
Division with a series of opinions which, for lucidity of statement,
force of reasoning, felicity of style, and perfect command of the
literary implements adapted to the expression of exact distinctions
or delicate discriminations, stand unrivaled in the pages of these
imposing volumes, which will long perpetuate his fame as a judicial
writer.
One characteristic of Judge Hirschberg during his brief service in
holding trial terms should be mentioned, because no ponderous tomes
can reveal character. Contemporary history must transfix for
posterity the personal traits and manners of a judge. When Judge
Hirschberg was elected even his intimate friends supposed, from long
familiarity with his extraordinary quickness of mental action, his
scintillations of repartee in social life and his swift rejoinder at
the bar, that he would show some impatience with the slowness,
dullness and density due to imperfect preparation or inherent
ineptitude, which every judge is called upon, more or less
frequently, to endure; that he would find it difficult to restrain
the bubbling of wit and sarcasm at the expense of ignorance or
incapacity. But on the contrary, he proved to be the most gentle,
indulgent and long-suffering of judges. The wearisome lawyers might
drone on, he made no effort to take the trial of the case out of
their hands and try it himself, he could try it better than they, but
he felt it his duty to let them try it in their own way. No one could
tell what he was thinking of them or their methods. He might be a
maelstrom of seething disgust or amusement within; but he wore the
impassive, inscrutable, uncommunicative exterior of a sphinx. Under
the responsibility of his great office he unconsciously developed and
en-grafted that quality which Judge Jenks in his impressive eulogy
upon Judge Wilmot M. Smith declared to be almost the greatest
attribute of a judge--infinite patience.
And since the entire bar of Orange County regarded with peculiar
affection the character of Judge Smith and now holds in deepest
veneration his sacred memory, it is not amiss to incorporate in this
record that expression of its feelings by Judge Hirschberg himself,
which sheds a reflected light upon his own standards of duty and with
which this attempt to limn his portrait for succeeding generations
may fitly close:
"Judge Smith was truly an ideal jurist, profound as a lawyer,
estimable as a citizen, lovable as a man. The mortal part of each
life ends necessarily in nothing but an insignificant contribution to
an immense volume of pathetic dust, but the spiritual sense is
satisfied when, as in this instance, the ashes are sanctified with
the memory of a noble life devoted to duty and glorified with the
love of God, of justice and of humanity."
And now, having sought to project upon the canvas a faithful
portraiture of the judges who were drawn into the public service from
the Orange County bar, within the period embraced in these personal
recollections, it is convenient and fitting at this time to briefly
outline the conditions of practice which prevailed in Orange County
at the time they came to the bar--Judge Dickey in 1866 and Judges
Brown and Hirschberg in 1868--when Winfield, Gedney and Fullerton
were at the zenith of their powers and their reputation. It is a
great mistake to assume that the older members of the bar were
satisfied with these conditions. On the contrary, they bitterly
chafed under them. The number of judges was wholly inadequate to the
needs of the district, as will readily be seen when it is considered
that twenty-five judges are now required to serve the same territory
then covered by only four judges upon whom devolved all the motions,
trials and appeals arising and heard within it. The ever-increasing
volume of business created by the rapid growth of Brooklyn made it
impossible for the judges to hold a trial term--then called the
"circuit term"--longer than five days. The judges were indeed upon a
circuit, for they were always under assignment to open court in some
other county on the following Monday. Every Thursday afternoon or
Friday morning the judge marked off the calendar every case which
could not be tried in time to enable him to leave on Friday afternoon
in order to hold his Saturday special term. This arbitrary,
inexorable limitation of time, which was equivalent to shutting out
many cases that had been carefully prepared, was most cruel to the
younger members of the bar whose sole chance of either emolument or
distinction lay in getting their cases tried; while to say that these
conditions were satisfactory to the older members of the bar of that
period would violate the truth of history. They always unduly and
often indecently accelerated the trial of important cases in which
advocates like Winfield and Gedney were spurred to an undignified
celerity which was not merely distasteful but detestable to them.
Both Winfield and Gedney were tenacious of dignity, deliberation and
decorum in the administration of justice. They disliked extremely to
be told. "Go on with the case, gentlemen," or to be asked, "What are
you waiting for?" They could not share the glee manifested by the
judge when he succeeded in having three juries "out" at one time, and
boasted to the justices of Sessions at his side how he was
"expediting the business." They, too, wanted the business advanced,
but they wanted it done with due regard to the traditions and the
usages of the bar. Winfield was especially the distinct
representative in this county of the old Websterian school of
advocates. He believed earnestly in the maintenance of all that form
and dignity, of all those ancient usages and proprieties which once
uniformly marked the relations to each other of the bench and bar.
When in 1874 I met him in Albany to argue my first case in the Court
of Appeals, then presided over by that most urbane jurist, Judge
Sanford E. Church, Mr. Winfield carefully attired himself on the
morning of the argument in a full-dress black suit with its broad
expanse of shirt front, now used only for evening wear, but regarded
at that time as a suitable uniform for appearance before the highest
court in the State; just as, at a slightly earlier period, Webster
and Pinckney appeared before the Supreme Court at Washington in blue
coat and brass buttons, with buff waistcoat. How different from the
present when able lawyers in short sack coats of gray, looking like
commercial travelers, hasten from the Albany station to the two
o'clock sessions of the court without stopping to even remove the
dust of travel before launching into their keen and brilliant
arguments.
When Judge Joseph F. Barnard, of Poughkeepsie, upon the transfer of
judge Lott to the Court of Appeals in 1869, became the presiding
judge of the old general term, he became also the presiding genius,
the dominating, all-pervading spirit of the second judicial district.
He was opposed to any increase in the number of judges. With his
insatiable voracity for work and his preternatural velocity of
thought, enabling him to accomplish as much alone as the other three
judges combined, he thought that four judges ought to be fully able
to keep up with all the business of the district; as indeed they were
if the administration of justice, involving the most profound issues
of human life and society, had been merely a matter of getting the
business out of the way, as on a wharf, to make room for the next
cargo.
The judges, fresh from their several circuit terms, met in the
general term and proceeded to hear appeals from the decisions made by
themselves at special and trial term. It was, indeed, an impressive,
inspiring and solemn spectacle to see Judge Tappen and Judge Gilbert
gravely considering whether they would reverse Judge Barnard; and in
the next case Judge Tappen and Judge Barnard sitting upon Judge
Gilbert. Of course the tacit challenge, "You reverse me, I'll
reverse you," pervaded all the proceedings. Nothing else could be
expected of human nature. It has never been pretended that the State
supplies lawyers with any superior, exclusive brand of human nature
when it gives them their diploma, and judges are simply lawyers upon
the bench. That an appellate system should ever have been devised so
exquisitely adapted to defeat its object and destroy respect for its
operations was not, of course, the fault of the judges of the second
district.
When the general term sat in Poughkeepsie, as it did every May, to
accommodate Judge Barnard, the business was disposed of even more
rapidly than in Brooklyn, Judge Barnard greeting with delight any
lawyers who would appear at eight o'clock in the morning, both ready
to argue their appeal in advance of the regular session. The judges
constantly interrupted the attorneys to assure them that they could
not possibly remember what they said but that they would read their
briefs. It was of course true that no human mind could retain or even
grasp the arguments discharged at the court as from a catapult by
attorneys gasping for breath in the mad race against time.
[Illustration: Wm. O. Piorshalf]
Some amelioration of the intolerable conditions under which circuit
terms were held in Newburgh and Goshen was effected through the
election in 1870 of Judge Calvin E. Pratt, whose conservatism,
affability and dignity won for him universal respect. This
improvement was extended by the election in 1880 of Judge Edgar M.
Cullen, whose high sense of absolute fairness to all suitors alike
led him to devote as much time and thought to a case involving a
trifling amount as to one involving large interests; though even he
was merciless in his infliction of night sessions upon the attorneys
during the hot June term at Goshen, a course to which he felt
impelled because of his inability to remain longer than one week and
his desire to crowd as much work as possible into that wholly
inadequate time.
The comfort and convenience of the Orange County bar and the
interests of litigants were served to a still greater degree by the
election in 1882 of Judge Charles F. Brown. Though he could not
extend the trial terms beyond two weeks, on account of his
assignments to other counties, still he held a special term every
Saturday at Newburgh where, by consent of counsel, many cases were
tried that otherwise would have been tried before a jury, thus
affording great relief to the overtaxed calendars of the trial terms.
From that time to the present there has been a steady reaction
against feverishness and ferment as a suitable atmosphere for
judicial proceedings and a gradual return to calm, neutral,
deliberate, dignified, decorous methods of judicial procedure, until
finally, for the first time in the history of the county, a
four-weeks' term of court was held in February, 1907; this being one
of the first fruits of the formation of the ninth judicial district,
consisting of the river counties alone--a change which was opposed by
some Orange County lawyers but which is now generally recognized as,
in the highest degree, conducive to the convenience and interests
of the bar and of the public, though it does involve some additional
burdens upon jurors.
Forty years ago the familiar excuse made by judges for dispatching
business with unseemly haste was their solicitude for the time and
convenience of the jurors. Indeed there never was a judge more
popular than Judge Barnard among jurors, witnesses, spectators and
the public. They admired the celerity of his movements and they were
vastly entertained by his caustic remarks to counsel. But his remarks
about counsel and witnesses during the progress of the trial were far
more entertaining and racy than any the public was permitted to hear.
The favored persons privileged to hear these were his associates upon
the bench of the old Oyer and Terminer, since abolished and now
merged in the Supreme Court. They were drawn from the justices of the
peace of the county and with the presiding judge constituted the
criminal branch of the court. Squire George A. Durland, of the town
of Greenville, who sat in this capacity next to Judge Barnard at many
terms of court, never tired of telling about the trenchant, scathing,
witty commentary kept up by the judge upon every incident of the
trial, the counsel engaged in it and the witnesses sworn upon it.
During Judge Barnard's entire tenure of office the plea of not taking
up the time of the jurors was invoked to override every other
consideration. Not even death itself was superior to it or sacred
from it. When Mr. Winfield died on the tenth of June, 1888, and court
convened at Goshen on Monday, the eighteenth of June, Judge Cullen
suspended the regular business of the court at four o'clock to allow
a suitable tribute to his memory, including several addresses in
addition to the resolutions. But when Judge Gedney died, a month
later, there was no opportunity to take formal action upon his death
at a trial term until the regular November term. Accordingly, when
court convened at Newburgh the twelfth of November an informal
request was made to Judge Barnard for an opportunity to pursue the
same course in respect to Judge Gedney's memory that had been adopted
at Goshen in respect to Mr. Winfield. Judge Barnard promptly and
firmly refused to allow the time of the jurors to be taken up in this
way, adding: "Why, he's been dead some time, hasn't he?" So it became
necessary to change the plan and to offer simply a motion "that a
committee be appointed to present at a meeting of the bar of Orange
County to be hereafter called suitable resolutions." That there
should be further delay in honoring the memory of this great lawyer
and brilliant advocate, after there had already been a necessary
delay of four months, is not a reproach that rests upon the bar of
Orange County. As the motion occupied only two minutes it was
promptly granted and the committee purposed to present the
resolutions at the following term of court to be held at Goshen in
January, 1889, which was expected to be presided over by Judge Brown.
But when Judge Brown was transferred to the Court of Appeals he
became disqualified from holding the term and Judge Barnard
unexpectedly took his place. Admonished by previous experience no
attempt was made to present the resolutions at that time or to apply
for permission to make addresses in honor of Judge John G. Wilkin,
who, also, had meantime died. So the tributes of the Orange County
bar to Judge Gedney, Judge Wilkin and Surrogate Henry A. Wadsworth,
whose death also had occurred, were massed together at a meeting of
the bar presided over by Judge Brown on Saturday, the second day of
February, 1889, seven months after the death of Judge Gedney, without
those customary adjuncts to the dignity of the occasion--the crowded
court room; the attendance of litigants, jurors and witnesses from
all parts of the county; the solemn pause in the business of the
court; the impressive silence; the strained, eager attention of old
friends in the audience to the last tributes of respect for one they
loved; all of which were not only appropriate but, indeed, imperative
in honoring one who had so often held that very court room silent,
captive, enthralled by the spell of his genius.
If Judge Gedney's brethren had felt, in the first instance, that a
tribute to his memory at a mere meeting of the bar would be
appropriate and adequate, it would not have been delayed seven
months, as such a meeting could have been called at any time after
his death. That it was not so called shows the strength of a
sentiment which was ruthlessly trampled upon by judicial contempt not
merely for all the traditions of the bar but for all the sacredness
of love and death.
At the same time the bar always recognized with gratitude the earnest
desire on the part of Judge Barnard to transact all the business that
he could and to accommodate the bar as much as possible. It was this
disposition that led to his constant signing of _ex parte_ orders
without looking at them, trusting to the honor of the bar not to
impose upon him and, also, to a motion by the other side to vacate
any improvident order. The lawyers, through long custom, so came to
prefer this system that they resented any departure from it by new
judges who could not take this view of their duties. When Judge
Brown's transfer to the second division of the Court of Appeals led
to the Newburgh special terms being taken by Judges Cullen and
Bartlett, the bar practically boycotted them in favor of Judge
Barnard's Saturday term at Poughkeepsie, merely because both Judge
Cullen and Judge Bartlett manifested a very decided preference to
know what they were signing. Gradually, however, the lawyers learned
that this course was not intended as a reflection upon the bar, but as
a help to it, in preventing any such mistake or oversight as might
lead afterwards to serious consequences. Of this I once witnessed a
striking illustration. An attorney desired an order to examine a
party before trial in a case in which the examination of his
adversary was absolutely essential to his success in the litigation.
Judge Bartlett sent the affidavit back to him three times for
correction and the order was finally sustained in the Court of
Appeals because of the sufficiency of the affidavit. All this
involved to Judge Bartlett conscientious labor and minute examination
which he might well have shirked and which judges generally consider
counsel have no right to expect of them or to impose upon them.
Judge Barnard was the most conspicuous of all the judges in his
anxiety to save the lawyers the trouble of travel in order to
transact their business. He instructed the Orange County attorneys to
mail to him an order designating a referee of their own choice, to
compute the amount due in foreclosure cases, with the report of the
referee signed by him in anticipation of his appointment, together
with the judgment of foreclosure; whereupon he signed at the same
time both the order of reference and the judgment of foreclosure,
promptly mailing them back, although it was physically impossible
that the referee should have acted in the interval between his
appointment and the judgment. This practice, which is now regarded as
irregular and which even the most accommodating judges now
discountenance, resulted in no harm, for it rested upon the most
implicit good faith on the part of the attorneys, while the
confidence of the judge was never, in a single instance, abused. An
incident strongly illustrating this trait of Judge Barnard also grew
indirectly out of Judge Brown's transfer to the Court of Appeals.
Judgments of foreclosure in cases in Sullivan County had usually been
taken before Judge Brown at Newburgh because, though in another
judicial district, Orange County is an adjoining county and this is
permitted by the code. But soon after judge Brown left Newburgh an
attorney, overlooking the fact that Dutchess County does not adjoin
Sullivan, sent the papers in a Sullivan County foreclosure case to
Judge Barnard to be signed by him on Saturday at Poughkeepsie. His
eagle eye at once noticed that the action was in Sullivan County and
that he had no jurisdiction to act in the case in Dutchess County.
Any other judge would have returned the papers, calling attention to
the difficulty. But did this satisfy Judge Barnard? Not at all. This
would not have advanced the business. This would not have "helped out
the boys." So he struck out the word "Poughkeepsie" in the order and
judgment and in his own handwriting substituted the word "Newburgh,"
thus making himself, by a legal fiction, sit in an adjoining county
for five minutes, for the purposes of that case, though he was
actually in Poughkeepsie all that day, and though he never held a
Saturday special term in Newburgh in all his life. Judge Cullen and
Judge Bartlett would have felt that they were inviting impeachment by
such an act, and yet Judge Barnard was moved solely by the desire to
facilitate the business of the attorneys in every possible way. To
him an irregularity meant nothing unless it meant also a wrong. But
those days have passed and have been succeeded by better days, in
which it is recognized by the courts and the lawyers alike that they
should co-operate in making even their routine practice so regular as
to exclude any possibility of error.
There will be no sigh in this retrospect over the better days of long
ago, no wail about the "good old times." The better days are now and
the good times have come at last. The new generation of lawyers now
entering upon their active career has reason for gratification that
the facilities for the orderly, deliberate, tranquil trial and
hearing of their causes, with the prospect that even and exact
justice will be rendered in them, are greater to-day than at any
previous period in the history of the county. There never was so good
an opportunity for a young, ambitious, able advocate to win fame at
the bar of Orange County as there is to-day. While the subjects of
litigation and the conditions of business have somewhat changed in
the last fifty years, human nature has never changed. Juries respond
to-day as readily as then to the touch of a master spirit. When
jurors ask nowadays why they do not hear such speeches at court as
their fathers have told them about the answer generally given is that
judges frown upon anything like display and hold the lawyers down to
business. The business of an advocate is to make a good speech and no
judge ever was able to stop a good speech. Let no young lawyer seek
indolent refuge in the pretext that the judges will not give him a
chance. Let him not, with difficulty, fold his restless pinions lest
they be arrested in their soaring flight by judicial insensibility.
No, the reason that forensic eloquence has so lamentably declined in
Orange County lies not in the hostility of judges, but in the
absorption of lawyers themselves in the merely material, sordid
aspects of life, to the exclusion of any interest in those liberal
arts and erudite pursuits which alone can anoint the hesitating lips
with the honey of eloquent discourse. The field is clear for another
Winfield or Gedney.
It is the fashion to say that the influence of the bar has
declined--that the legal profession, as a body, does not enjoy the
same measure of public respect which was paid to it in the early days
of the republic, or exercise now that ascendancy over public opinion
which once it exerted so powerfully and so naturally. It is true,
indeed, that coincidently with the stealthy, sinister growth in the
Northern States of the modern machine methods of party management the
lawyer has been gradually and inevitably displaced as a leader of
public opinion. It is only in the South that the influence of the
lawyer among the masses is still unshaken because there the appeal of
candidates is still made directly to the people who, through their
primaries and in other republican ways familiar to the fathers and
founders of the nation, express their preference and give effect to
their choice.
But it is significant that, even in the North, whenever the people at
large resolve to destroy long-standing abuses or odious machines, as,
at stated intervals, they always proceed to do, they turn
instinctively, as of old, to the plain, simple, honest, busy,
practicing lawyer. Among the lawyers elected to the high office of
governor of our State the three governors whose homely, direct,
straightforward methods have most captivated the imagination and
impressed the conscience of the passing generation are Tilden,
Cleveland and Hughes, who simply brought to their duties the habits,
the instincts, the training and the ideals of the old-fashioned
country lawyer, whose first aim is always to protect the interests
committed to his charge without any thought as to the effect of his
course upon his own interests, popularity or future. This training,
this tradition, this character of the true lawyer still happily
survives all changes in political methods or party management and
still constitutes the highest security the people have for the
faithful administration of their laws, wholly un-swerved by selfish,
ulterior or sinister purposes.
At the time, now forty years ago, to which my memory of the Orange
County bar runs back, these honorable traditions were wholly
maintained by a bar, the members of which still enjoyed a high place
in the public esteem and exercised a profound influence upon public
opinion, based upon the dignity and importance of their profession as
well as upon their personal talents and character. The relations
between the lawyers and the farmers were particularly close,
confidential and agreeable. The soil was still largely occupied by
men of character, education and intelligence who freely sought the
counsel and society of their friends among the lawyers at whose
offices and homes they were as cordially welcomed on a social or
political call as upon a professional visit. The reason that the sons
and successors of the lawyers of that day have, to some extent, lost
touch with the interests of the soil is that the farmers of that day
were not able to persuade their sons to become their successors. The
saddest change that has overtaken Orange County in the last forty
years is not in the character of its professional men, but in the
character of its farming population.
Identified with the period included in the personal recollections
here but partially preserved are several groups of fathers and sons
who may for convenience be considered together; especially as a
sufficiently consecutive view of the period has now been presented to
admit, henceforth, of greater latitude in respect to time and order.
Joseph W. Gott, senior, died in 1869 after twenty-seven years
continuous practice in Goshen, where he established the enviable
reputation throughout the county of being one of the most honorable
and high-minded men, as well as one of the most able and successful
lawyers, known to his generation. His premature and deeply regretted
death occurred before his only son could be admitted to practice.
Joseph W. Gott, Jr., was admitted in 1875 and since then, like his
father, has practiced continuously in Goshen. No higher praise can be
bestowed upon him than to say, that while he has, by his own vigorous
intellect and independent character, won for himself prominence at
the bar, he has never lost sight of the high ideals which animated
his father.
The general confidence in his supreme honor and integrity which he
has always enjoyed corresponds most touchingly to the confidence and
respect always inspired by his honored father. With him is now
associated in practice his own son, Percy Van Duzer Gott. These two
are mentioned first in the group of fathers and sons because they are
the only lawyers in Orange County, thus associated, who constitute
and represent four generations of Orange County lawyers. For in them
flows not only the blood of the elder Gott, but the blood of the Van
Duzers and the Gedneys.
Isaac R. Van Duzer, who married in 1826 the older sister of Judge
Gedney--their daughter, Charlotte, being married to Joseph W. Gott in
1847--was, undoubtedly, the most brilliant advocate, with the single
exception of Ogden Hoffman, who ever addressed an Orange County jury.
All the accounts of contemporaries and all the traditions of the bar
unite in this verdict. Often have I heard Judge Wilkin, who as a boy
heard him in Goshen, expatiate upon his transcendent powers. He died
prematurely in his fortieth year, but the opinion entertained by his
generation was that, had he lived, his name would have gone down to
history with the foremost orators of his age. Of their distinguished
ancestry at the bar of Orange County the Gotts may well be proud; for
the junior member in the present firm is now the fourth in a line of
lawyers whose practice and residence at Goshen have extended over a
period of eighty-five years--from 1823 to the present time.
John W. Brown was admitted to practice in 1822, just one year before
Mr. Van Duzer, to whom he was related, Judge Brown having married a
Reeve, which was the family name of Mr. Van Duzer's mother. It is
remarkable that if the practice of Judge Brown and of his own son,
Charles F. Brown, had not been interrupted by extended terms of
judicial service in the life of each--sixteen years in the life of
the elder Brown and fourteen years in the life of the younger--the
continuous practice of the two Browns would now cover a period of
eighty-six years. As it is, their contributions in two generations to
the jurisprudence of the State, at the bar and on the bench, cover a
longer period than that embraced in the careers of any father and son
associated with the legal annals of Orange County. I say still
associated because, although Judge Charles F. Brown is now one of the
two or three acknowledged leaders of the bar of the State, with his
office in New York City, where his practice is largely in the
Appellate Courts, he still retains his residence in Orange County and
a nominal connection with the firm established in Newburgh by his
former partner, Mr. Cassedy.
[Illustration: Stph. Fullerton]
His own career has already been sufficiently treated in its
appropriate place in this commentary. It only remains to add that his
life-long veneration for his father's memory and his consistent
emulation of his father's example supply an element of interest to
his career and of filial tenderness to his character not appreciated
by the thousands of his admirers, among the judges and lawyers of the
country, who know him only through the cold medium of his published
judicial opinions.
Judge John W. Brown was undoubtedly a great man. Serving two terms in
Congress from 1833 to 1837; a prominent member of the Constitutional
Convention of 1846; elected in 1849 to the Supreme Court and again in
1857, his life was one of unceasing activity, influence and power.
His greatness as a judge may be inferred from the remarkable
circumstance that no decision made by him was ever reversed by the
Court of Appeals, of which court he was himself a member, under the
system then prevailing, during the last years of his successive terms
as a judge of the Supreme Court.
It is not strange that one who was born to the heritage of such a
name should have sought to add, as indeed he has added, to its luster
in a succeeding generation.
It was while Charles F. Brown was district attorney of Orange County
that John W. Lyon became an official of the county through his
appointment to the office of assistant district attorney. The career
of the Lyons, father and son, now covers a practice of sixty-one
years in Port Jervis, the longest period of continuous practice at
the bar carried over from father to son, in Orange County.
Thomas J. Lyon, or, as his friends affectionately preferred to call
him, Tom Lyon, was a man of great native talent and marked
originality. Beginning life as a Methodist preacher, but coming to
prefer the more extended opportunities for usefulness afforded by the
law, his fame in the fifties soon spread from the Delaware to the
Hudson. Throwing himself with ardor into the exciting political
contests which marked this period, he was in constant demand as a
campaign speaker and his political services were recognized by a
lucrative appointment under the administration of President Franklin
Pierce. Twice elected to the Assembly and once a candidate of his
party for the Senate, his abilities always received the cordial
recognition of the public with whom he kept constantly on good terms.
The announcement that he was to speak at a political gathering was
always sure to attract a large attendance of adherents of the
opposite party for they knew they would be entertained by his sallies
though they might not be seduced by his arguments.
His control over juries was due to a mingling of magnetism and humor.
He could touch the chord of sentiment and the response was immediate.
He could cover his opponent with ridicule and the result was
contagious and convulsive laughter. No weapon is more powerful at any
time than gentle banter and no one knew better how to employ its
arts to the discomfiture of an adversary than Thomas J. Lyon.
His son, John W., inherits his ability and much of his originality.
He, too, has always taken a deep interest in politics and he has been
heard on the platform in every campaign since 1872.
He was the pioneer of the bar in that branch of the practice which
has since assumed such proportions, railway litigation. He was the
first to carry to the Court of Appeals many important questions,
relating to the liability of the master for injury to the employee,
which were settled by that court in favor of the positions contended
for by him.
A most interesting feature in the genealogy of the profession is the
fact that the daughter of John W. Lyon, Frances D. Lyon, is also a
lawyer duly admitted to practice, having supplemented her studies in
her father's office by a course at the Cornell Law School from which
she graduated with honor, subsequently passing her examinations
before the State Board. She is now engaged in practice with her
father, to whom her aid is invaluable in the office, while she has
also shown marked ability in her appearances at court.
Thus we have in the Lyons the only family in Orange County, except
the Gott family, in which there have been three successive
generations of lawyers bearing the same name.
Eugene A. Brewster and George R. Brewster cover a period of sixty
years' continuous practice, the elder Brewster having been admitted
in 1848. The judgment of his associates, placing Eugene A. Brewster
in the front rank of the lawyers of his time, has already been
expressed. Upon his death his son, George R., succeeded to his
practice in the same office to which for so many years the friends of
his father were accustomed to bend their steps and where they never
received any but the most wise and judicious counsel. George R.
Brewster inherits the sound judgment and conservative instincts of
his father and well maintains the dignity and responsibilities of his
honorable name and lineage. His public spirit and devotion to every
worthy cause are among the most conspicuous of his traits of
character. Possessed of ample means and under no spur of necessity he
gives freely to the public all the time he can spare from a practice
which has been attended with great success, one of the most notable
of his recent legal victories having been gained in restraining the
building of a railroad across his client's property.
His sense of civic duty has been strikingly exemplified in the
conscientious performance of his duties as supervisor, though his
acceptance of the office involved great inconvenience and sacrifice.
His labors in behalf of St. Luke's Hospital have been of inestimable
value to that noble benefaction.
In a community as conservative as Newburgh, where one minister is
still acceptably serving his congregation for the fifty-second year
and another for the thirty-fifth, it counts for something, and very
properly so, that a man should be the son and successor of an
honored, respected father. When Mr. Brewster died his son was made a
director of the Newburgh Bank in his father's place and when Abram S.
Cassedy died the same course was taken in the Quassaick Bank in
respect to his son, William F. Cassedy.
The Cassedys, father and son, cover a period of fifty-one years'
continuous practice, the elder Cassedy having been admitted in 1857.
The high place gained by him in the esteem of the bar and in the
confidence of the public has already been set forth at length. This
confidence has been transferred to his son, William F. Cassedy, to a
degree almost unprecedented in the career of a young practitioner but
in every sense justified by his high character and brilliant talents.
Mr. Cassedy has during the last few years managed and represented
estates of as great magnitude as the estates represented by all the
other lawyers of Orange County combined. He has a special talent for
this important branch of the practice, but, like his father, can drop
his papers and go to court with his case well prepared for trial. The
ability with which he uniformly presents it to a jury is well
reinforced by the same winning manner and pleasing personality which
has endeared him to so many friends.
When Judge Charles F. Brown was in 1883 elevated to the bench of the
Supreme Court, the firm of Cassedy & Brown, of which Abram S. Cassedy
was then the senior member, was, of course, dissolved. When Judge
Brown retired from the bench in 1897, Mr. Cassedy having meantime
died, the names became transposed, the firm of Brown & Cassedy then
formed, and still continuing, being composed of Judge Brown and
William F. Cassedy. That this association of his name with that of
his old partner's son should be pleasing to Judge Brown is a
distinguished mark of that great jurist's confidence, esteem and
affection which indeed, are shared by all, bar and public alike, who
come to know the pure and lofty character of William F. Cassedy.
William B. Royce who with his son, Herbert B. Royce, is engaged in
practice in Middletown, was admitted forty years ago, but being
persuaded, while in the full tide of active practice, to accept the
position of president of the First National Bank in 1875, his career
as a lawyer was interrupted for seventeen years. Resigning this
position, however, at the end of this period, he soon recovered his
scattered practice and upon the admission to the bar of his son the
firm of William B. and Herbert B. Royce was formed. This continued
until the autumn of 1906 when, John C. R. Taylor, having been elected
to the Senate, the firm of Taylor, Royce & Royce was formed.
Mr. Royce has greater capacity for public business than any lawyer
who ever practiced at the bar in Orange County. His mind grasps
readily, his tastes run naturally to, every phase and variety of
town, county and municipal relations, improvements and enterprises,
with all the important questions involved in them in respect to the
proper distribution of public burdens. He is an authority upon
corporation law in respect both to the organization and management of
corporations. His power of clear statement, in respect to any
involved or intricate situation, is very great.
There is one characteristic of Mr. Royce which is fully appreciated
only by those who have been in a position to see its frequent
effective exercise. He loves to settle disputes among neighbors and
litigants. He has genuine talent for making each party see how it
would benefit him to make some concession and even greater tact in
pointing out how certain concessions necessary to the settlement will
still leave the pride and dignity of the parties uncompromised. He
absolutely has never failed in bringing about an agreement which he
started out to compass. Sometimes, indeed, the perverseness of the
parties has seemed to make the difficulties insuperable, but this
has only spurred him on to renewed exertions. Those who know how
unprofitable and unwise for both parties is any litigation which can
possibly be avoided and, especially, any litigation representing only
an honest difference of opinion, will realize the indebtedness of the
public to Mr. Royce for those unselfish exertions and that salutary
influence which, throughout his entire professional career, have been
steadily, consistently and successfully directed to the promotion of
peace and the soothing of angry controversy.