Charles T. Ford.
VILLAGES.
Central Valley, a noted summer resort, is the most thriving and 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.
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.
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.
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 un-tempted 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 Hirschberg 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 handWho 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 thelitterateur.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 theTimes,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:
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; alwaysfacile princepsas 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.
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.