On Dec. 20th last, following a brief illness of bronchial pneumonia,
Supreme Court Justice Bennet Van Syckel, almost ninety-two years old,
the oldest alumnus of Princeton University, died at his home in Trenton.
Judge Van Syckel was the son of Aaron Van Syckel, and Mary Van Syckel,
of Bethlehem, Hunterdon county, and was born there April 17, 1830. His
father and his grandfather were country merchants, whose ancestors came
with the old Dutch settlers to that part of New Jersey. His father was
considered wealthy in those days and was able to give his four sons an
excellent education. When Bennet was nine years old he was sent to a
boarding school at Easton. At the age of thirteen he completed his
preparatory studies and entered Princeton in the Sophomore class. Three
years later he was graduated with high honors and for one year was
resident graduate Assistant Professor to Joseph Henry, who occupied the
chair of Natural Philosophy.
Bennet next took up the study of law in the office of Alexander Wurts of
Flemington, and was prepared to take his law examination some time
before he was of age, but as he could not be admitted to the Bar while
under twenty-one was forced to wait. On the twenty-first anniversary of
his birthday, at the April Term of the Supreme Court, 1851, he was
admitted to the Bar, and became counselor at the June Term, 1854. He at
once opened office in Flemington, and practiced there with unusual
success until February, 1858, when Governor Randolph appointed him
Justice of the Supreme Court. At that time he was the youngest member of
the Court. His Circuits were in the counties of Salem, Cumberland,
Atlantic and Cape May. When the number of Supreme Court Justices was
increased from seven to nine and the districts were readjusted, Justice
Van Syckel was assigned to Union and Ocean counties, where he presided
twenty-nine years. He was five times reappointed. Only a few months
after his last appointment in 1904 he resigned because of ill health and
increasing age.
After his retirement Justice Van Syckel was made the guest of the New
Jersey Bench and Bar, at Trenton, upon which occasion a portrait of him
painted in oil was presented to the State, to be hung on the wall of the
Supreme Court room at the Capitol. A few months later another portrait
was hung in the new court house in Union County, in honor of the Justice
who had presided there for so many years.
During his term of service Justice Van Syckel delivered some of the most
important opinions of the Supreme Court and of the Court of Errors and
Appeals. In the prosecution of the Linden and Elizabeth race track
gamblers in 1893 he proved a terror to poolsellers, bookmakers and
evildoers. It was Justice Van Syckel who wrote the opinion of the
Supreme Court when an effort was made to challenge the majority cast in
favor of the anti-gambling amendment to the State Constitution, and his
opinion upholding the adoption of the amendments was sustained by the
Court of Errors and Appeals.
At the time of his death a membership in the directorate of the
Prudential Life Insurance Company was the former Justice's sole business
affiliation. His activity in connection with this post caused his
associates to marvel. He attended all the meetings and was as alert as
the youngest of his colleagues. At the Princeton alumni reunion in June,
1920, he led the Parade around the baseball field and got a big ovation
from the throng in attendance. In his automobile he arose repeatedly and
raised his hat in acknowledgment of the applause.
In 1911, Woodrow Wilson, when Governor, appointed him and former State
Attorney General Edmund Wilson, of Red Bank, as a commission to study
the proposed abandonment of the Morris Canal. The report was adverse to
the State taking over the canal. The Justice aided in the drafting of
the "Seven Sisters" Acts, passed during the Wilson administration, which
were designed to curb the activities of the trusts in New Jersey.
Justice Van Syckel was a lover of outdoor sports. In his younger days he
played town ball and football and later was a great admirer of baseball.
He rode horseback, played golf and was a fine wing shot. In politics he
was a Democrat, but politics had no place with him while he sat on the
Bench.
Mr. Van Syckel married Miss Mary Elizabeth Sloane, daughter of Mr. and
Mrs. William Hand Sloane. He is survived by two sons, Charles S. and
William S., and a daughter, Bessie.