Middlesex Chapter 68

LAWYERS appeared in regular practice in the courts of this county at an earlier period than we find them in any other county of East Jersey except Bergen. The cause of this is found in the fact that Perth Amboy, being intended as the capital and the commercial rival of New York, drew thither at the time of its founding and soon after a class of men who had studied law and politics in the schools of England and Scotland. At a later period New Brunswick took the lead in professional men,— in the law, in medicine, and in divinity.

The first record we have of the names of counselors being called in the courts of this county was at the General Quarter Sessions of the Peace held at Perth Amboy in September, 1708. They may have practiced at an earlier date even than this, perhaps, beginning soon after the opening of the courts in the reign of Queen Anne, but the minutes being lacking from the close of the proprietary government till the year 1708, there is no means of ascertaining whether there were lawyers or not in the courts prior to the latter date. The record of September, 1708, mentions the calling of the names of Francis Sites, John Lofton, and Corse Froam (probably Vroom), "counselors," but none of them appearing, "the under sheriff informed the Court that Corse Froam was sick." The reason of the absence of the others is not mentioned; but they were all in court in August, 1709, and with them Andrew Gordon, a lawyer of Perth Amboy. The latter appeared in nearly all the courts, and had much business for more than a quarter of a century.

From 1741 to the commencement of the Revolution we find the following lawyers practicing in the courts of the county: Philip Kearney, 1741; John Smyth, 1741; Francis Costigin, Richard Williams, John Price, John Lawrence, and Messrs. Rosevelt and Patrick McEwers, 1741—42; Cortland Skinner, Lewis Morris, and David Ogden, 1742; Messrs. Lyne, Lurtin, and Anthony White, 1743; Barnardus Lagrange, 1745; Elisha Parker, 1746; Messrs. Lewis M. Ashfield and Coxe, 1748; Peter Kemble and Anthony Waters, 1749; Messrs. Kelly, William Pidgeon, R. Lawrence, Jacob De Hart, Abraham Cottnam, from 1750 to 1753; Thomas Kennedy, 1754; Richard Stockton, 1755; James Hude, Jr., 1760; Cornelius Low, 1760; William Thomson, Jonathan Deare, G. Ross, Elias Boudinot, Ravand Kearney, 1762—63; Jasper Smith, Ephraim Anderson, James Graham, Waddell, 1763—64; John De Hart, 1765; Henry Allen, 1766; Messrs. Cuyler, Chetwood, and De Bow, 1767; Jonathan Sergeant and Bowes Reed, 1768; Bryan and John Laferty and Abraham Ogden, 1769.

During this period the following were judges of the Common Pleas and Quarter Sessions of the Peace:

1741. Robert Hude.	1741. Jeremiah Field.
James Thompson.	Richard Cutter.
Henry Freeman.	1742. Pontius Stelle.
Ezekiel Bloomfield.	1743. Stephen Warne.
Benjamin Hull,	1746. John Nevill.
Samuel Nevil.	Nicholas Everson.
James Hude.	Runie Runyon.
John Heard.	Thomas Gach.
James Smith	William Hutchinson
1748. William Cheesman.	1754. William Heard.
Jedediah Higgins.	1760. Nehemiah Dunham.
1749. James Neilson.	William Crawford.
Josiah Davison.	1761. James Parker.
John Barclay.	Thomas Walker.
1751. Abraham Lane.	1762. Samuel Barron.
Jonathan Frazee.

The following have been chief justices and associate justices of the Supreme. Court of New Jersey:

CHIEF JUSTICES.
1709. Thomas Gordon.	1777. Robert Morris.
1728. Thomas Farmer.	1803. Andrew Kirkpatrick.
ASSOCIATE JUSTICES.
1710. Peter Sonmans.	1748. Samuel Neville.
1711. Lewis Morris.	1797. Andrew Kirkpatrick.
Thomas Farmer.	1838. James S. Nevins.
1735. John Hamilton.	1845. Joseph F. Randolph.
1739. John Allen.	1859. John Van Dyke.

THOMAS GORDON was chief justice of the province of New Jersey in the year 1709. He was from Aberdeen, Scotland, and came to Perth Amboy in 1684, with his wife, Helen, four children, and seven servants. The wife and children died soon after of fatal disease then prevalent. Mr. Gordon became very useful and prominent man in the province. In 1692 he was appointed deputy secretary and register for the proprietaries by William Dockwra, their chief secretary in London. The same year he was made clerk of the Court of Common Right, register of the Court of Chancery, and a commissioner, with David Mudie and James Dundas, for the trial of small causes at Perth Amboy. The ensuing year he was appointed judge of probate, and in 1694 an officer of the customs, Amboy being made a port of entry. He was intrusted by the proprietors in America with an important mission to England in their interest in 1695; and it 1702, on the vacation of the office by Mr. Dockwra he was appointed chief proprietary secretary and register. Besides these responsible positions he held various local and political offices of trust, being the representative of Middlesex County in the General Assembly from 1703 to 1709, and part of the time Speaker of the House. He was a member of Governor Hunter’s Council, and held the same office under the administration of Governor Burnet. From June 1710, to March, 1719, he was receiver-general and treasurer of the province.

THOMAS FARMER was one of the provincial justices of the Supreme Court, having been appointed at associate in 1711, soon after his arrival at Amboy from Staten Island, where he had previously resided. He was made chief justice in 1728, and presided over the court for that year. He represented Middlesex County in the General Assembly during the administration of Governor Morris, 1740 to 1743. Judge Farmer for some time before his death was insane. He kept a country store in Amboy. He had several sons, who were interested in military expedition against the Spaniards in the West Indies in 1740—42.

PHILIP KEARNEY was one of the first lawyers a the Middlesex bar. He was a son of Michael Kearney, of Monmouth County, a native of Ireland, who in 1716 purchased a lot of land and settled in Perth Amboy. He was soon appointed to the secretaryship of the province (Oct. 24, 1720), was made clerk of the Assembly, Dec. 16, 1720, and of the Court of Common Pleas, April 23, 1731. His mansion house at Perth Amboy became the residence of Governor Hunter upon his accession to the office, and was subsequently occupied by his son Philip, the lawyer. Philip was twice married. His first wife was Lady Barney Dexter, whose maiden name was Ravaud, and who was a client of his in Philadelphia. He became interested in the widow, as well as in the defense of her property, and married her. They had a son, Ravaud Kearney, who became a member of the bar in 1762, and practiced in the courts of this county. The children of Philip Kearney by the first marriage were Philip, Elizabeth, Susannah, and Ravaud. He married for his second wife Isabella, daughter of Robert Lettice Hooper, of Trenton, chief justice of the province, by whom he had five children, viz.: Sarah, Michael, Frances, Joanna, and Isabella. Mr. Kearney died July 25, 1775, "universally lamented," having practiced in the courts of Middlesex and other counties thirty-four years, and by his honorable character and social position exerted a wide influence. He was one of the first lawyers of this section of country, and was very able and popular.

Philip, his son, lived for a time at Amboy, in the house occupied of late years by Hon. James Parker. He was a man of wealth, and subsequently removed to the west bank of the Passaic River, above Newark, where the old mansion is still in the possession of his descendants. He was the father of the Kearney Brothers, merchants, of New York, and grandfather of Gen. Philip Kearney, of the United States army.*

Ravaud Kearney inherited his father’s law library. He lived at one time near South River, and also for a time in Monmouth County. He married Ann, daughter of James Hude, one of the judges of the county court, and died Sept. 3, 1806, in his sixty-eighth year. His widow, who was a very estimable lady and held in high esteem, survived him until April 3, 1828, when she died at the advanced age of ninety. (For further information respecting the family the reader is referred to the history of Perth Amboy in this work.)

CORTLANDT SKINNER was a lawyer in this county for thirty-four years, having made his first appearance in the courts in 1742, and practiced till he left the country at the outbreak of the war for independence. His residence was at Perth Amboy. As a lawyer and statesman he occupied a distinguished position. He was attorney-general of the province and Speaker of the last General Assembly under the crown. There is evidence that Mr. Skinner, although an uncompromising loyalist, disapproved of the arbitrary and repressive measures of the British minister towards the colonies, regarding that policy as calculated to drive them all the sooner into a fruitless attempt to secure their independence of the mother country. To Governor Boone, of South Carolina, he wrote in October, 1775,—
"Taxes and a restraint on the West India trade are most likely to force the colonists into manufactures and put independence into their hands. They are on the high road to it now, and though ‘tis true that they have not strength to effect it, but must submit, yet ‘tis laying the foundation for great trouble and expense to Britain in keeping that by force which she might easily do without, and alienating a people which she might make her greatest prop and security."

As attorney-general he continued to occupy his position during the year 1775, although the object of continued distrust and suspicion on the part of the determined Whigs; but in January, 1776, a letter of his to his brother, a lieutenant-colonel in England was discovered, which induced Continental Congress to order that it should be sent to the Committee of Safety of New Jersey, and that orders be sent to Lord Stirling to take with him a sufficient force am immediately apprehend and keep in safe custody the said Cortlandt Skinner, of Amboy, until further orders. The said Cortlandt Skinner, however, had taken pains to leave the colony and take refuge on British man-of-war, and all the Provincial Congress could do was to direct their treasurer not to make any further payment of his salary. It does not appear that he ever made any attempt to act as attorney general after this. He no doubt confidently expected to resume the position before many years, but the opportunity to do so never came.

Governor Joseph Bloomfield, of Woodbridge, and Andrew Bell, of Perth Amboy, had been students a law with Mr. Skinner. The latter, like his preceptor embraced the royal cause; the former, after receiving his license and practicing a short time in Bridgeton was, in February, 1776, commissioned a captain in the Third New Jersey Regiment, under command of Col. Elias Dayton. Bloomfield’s company of sixty five men, recruited in Salem County, started on the march to join the Northern army in Canada on the 26th of March, and on the 18^th of April arrived in Perth Amboy. Here, by a singular coincidence Capt. Bloomfield was ordered by Lord Stirling to execute the order of Continental Congress in the arrest of Mr. Skinner, it not being yet known that he had escaped and taken refuge with the enemy.

Mr. Whitehead, in his "Contributions to the Early History of Perth Amboy," remarks that the "first duty Capt. Bloomfield undertook, or upon which he was sent, is believed to have been the arrest of hi former friend and adviser, Mr. Skinner." And he adds, "It is to be hoped that the duty was delegated not assumed. We will not venture to analyze the feelings with which the house in which he had ever found a home was carefully searched in the hope of securing the convicted loyalist. Fortunately its mistress was absent; but it was under any circum stances a trial of no ordinary character to have one who had dwelt beneath their roof, and been warmly cherished, thus diligently seeking to entrap the object of her highest regard, particularly as there was no reason for presuming Mr. Skinner to be in Amboy."

There can be no doubt but Bloomfield acted under precise orders, and he may have been selected on account of his knowledge of the premises. The company remained two days at Amboy, and then proceeded to Albany, arriving there on the 3d of May. On the 5th they, were to be in readiness to march to Quebec; but the news of the retreat from that city caused a change, and on the 20th a part of the regiment was ordered to march up the Mohawk, "to subdue Johnston and his brood of Tories." On the evening of May 19th, Capt. Bloomfield returned to Albany with Lady Johnston a prisoner, bringing news that the regiment was to be stationed at or near Johnston Hall to keep back the Indians. Johnston and his Mohawks fled to Canada, where they remained permanently.

Mr. Skinner "took a commission as brigadier-general from General Howe, with authority to raise five battalions from among the disaffected of New Jersey, of which he only succeeded in obtaining five hundred and seventeen. He did all he could to aid the royal cause, and after the Revolution went to England with his family, and received from the government compensation for his forfeited estate, and half-pay for life."

Mr. Skinner was the eldest son of Rev. William Skinner, who in 1721 was sent out as a missionary to Perth Amboy by the "Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts," and became the first rector of St. Peter’s Church of that place. His mother was Elizabeth, youngest daughter of Stephen Van Cortlandt. His brothers and sisters were Stephen, William, John, and Gertrude. Cortlandt Skinner was educated for the bar, and studied the profession with David Ogden, of Newark, who preceded him and was associated with him at the bar of this county.

In 1752 he married Elizabeth, daughter of Philip Kearney, Esq., of Amboy, another distinguished legal contemporary at the Middlesex bar. As a lawyer, Mr. Skinner took first rank among those of his day. "Although not of studious habits, he became eminent in his profession, his natural abilities being good, and his oratorical powers considerably above mediocrity."

It is stated by Elmer and others that Cortlandt Skinner died at Bristol, England, in 1799, at the age of seventy-one. We think the statement with regard to his age must be a mistake. It would make his birth to have occurred in 1728, and the minutes of the courts of this county show that he was in the practice of law in 1742; hence he must have been in practice at the age of fourteen, which is improbable.

His father died at the age of seventy-one in 1758. Cortlandt Skinner had been ten years in practice before he was married, and at that time he was probably about twenty-eight.

STEPHEN SKINNER, a younger brother of Cortlandt Skinner, of Perth Amboy, was one of the judges of the Court of Common Pleas of Middlesex County. He was also treasurer of East Jersey, and claimed to have been robbed on the night of July 21, 1768, of over six thousand pounds in coin and bills. Suspicions were entertained of various individuals, and some doubted whether there had been any robbery. In 1770 the General Assembly took up the subject and referred it to a committee, who reported that the loss should be attributed to the negligence of the treasurer, and that he should be held accountable for it, and to this report the Assembly agreed. The Governor (Franklin) took part with Skinner, and a controversy arose which was ended only when the Revolution had so far progressed as to make other questions more engrossing. James (afterwards chief justice) Kinsey was put at the head of the other committee in 1773, to whom the message of the Governor on the subject was referred. His report took a different view of the subject from that advanced by the Governor. The subject was resumed in 1774, when the committee reported: "It would give us pleasure to be able to join your excellency in opinion that the robbery of the Eastern Treasury had been brought to light; but after having considered your excellency’s message, and examined the papers laid before us, we cannot but think that this affair still remains in an obscurity which we must leave for time to unravel." The popular feeling both against Skinner and the Governor became so great that the former was compelled to resign the treasuryship, and the latter, with his Council, confirmed a new nomination by the Assembly. A suit was commenced against Skinner, but it was never tried; he adhered to the royal cause, became a wanderer, and died in Nova Scotia.

GEN. JOSEPH BLOOMFIELD was born and spent the early part of his life in this county. He was the son of Dr. Moses Bloomfield, of Woodbridge, in which township he was born in 1755. While a youth he was sent to a classical school taught by Rev. Enoch Green in Deerfield, Cumberland Co., after which he became a student of law in the office of Cortlandt Skinner, attorney-general of the province, at Amboy, and was admitted to practice in 1775. He settled as a lawyer at Bridgeton, but in 1776 entered the military service of the colonies, in which he remained till 1778, when he resigned his commission. In the fall of that year he was chosen clerk of the Assembly and was for several years register of the Court of Admiralty.

In 1783, upon the resignation of William Paterson he was elected by the joint meeting attorney-general of the State; was re-elected in 1788, and resigned it 1792, being then succeeded by Aaron D. Woodruff.

He was the first Governor of the State elected on the Democratic (then called Republican) ticket. In the fall of 1801 the Legislature of New Jersey (for the first time) was Democratic, and at a joint meeting held October 31st, Joseph Woomfield received thirty votes for Governor, against twenty cast for Richard Stockton. In 1802 the parties were equally divided, so that on the first ballot Bloomfield received twenty-six votes and Stockton twenty-six, and on the second ballot there was a like result; on the third ballot Aaron Ogden was substituted for Stockton, but there was no change in the vote. An attempt was made to compromise, the Federalists offering to give the Democrats their choice of the Governor or the senator if they would give the other to them; but the Democrats, under the lead of William S. Pennington, refused the proposition, and the consequence was that the State had no Governor during that year, the duties of the office being performed by the Democratic vice-president of the Council, John Lambert. The next year Bloomfield had thirty-three votes and Richard Stockton seventeen, and in 1804 he had thirty-seven and Stockton sixteen votes. Afterwards he was re-elected up to 1812 without opposition.

It was while first presiding in the Court of Chancery that Governor Bloomfield took occasion to make a short address to those present, saying that he was a Republican, and did not desire to be addressed by the title of excellency, and was replied to as follows by Samuel Leake, an old and somewhat eccentric lawyer:

"May it please your excellency: Your excellency’s predecessors were always addressed by the title ‘your excellency,’ and if your excellency please, the proper title of the Governor of the State was and is your excellency. I humbly pray, therefore, on my own behalf, and in behalf of the bar generally, that we may be permitted by your excellency’s leave to address your excellency when sitting in the high Court of Chancery by the ancient title of your excellency."

Gen. Bloomfield, the head of the Democratic party at this period, has been compared in point of ability with Alexander Hamilton, the great leader of the Federalists, who in 1804 sacrificed his life rather than his honor as a soldier in a duel with Aaron Burr. He was a general of militia, and in 1794 took the field as a commander of a brigade called into service to quell the Whiskey Insurrection in Pennsylvania, proceeding with the troops into the immediate neighborhood of Pittsburgh, and accomplishing the object intended without bloodshed.**

In the war of 1812 he was appointed by President Madison a brigadier-general in the army designed for the invasion of Canada. His brigade marched to Sackett’s Harbor, and early in the spring of 1813 a part of the troops under the command of Gen. Pike crossed into that province and made an attack on Fort George, but were repulsed, and Gen. Pike was killed by the fall of a stone from the blown-up magazine. It does not appear that Gen. Bloomfielci gained any laurels as a military commander.

In 1816 he was elected on the Democratic ticket a member of Congress, and was re-elected in 1818, serving from March 4, 1817, to March 4, 1821. He was very appropriately placed at the head of the committee on Revolutionary pensions, and introduced and carried through the bills granting pensions to the veteran soldiers of the Revolution and, their widows. He died in 1825, in the seventieth year of his age, in Burlington, where he had resided since his entrance upon public life.

RICHARD STOCKTON, SR.— The name of this distinguished lawyer and judge appears frequently upon the minutes of the courts of this county before the Revolution. The first record of his presence appears in 1755. He married a sister of Elisha Boudinot, an accomplished woman of highly cultivated mind and literary taste, and lived upon his estate at Princeton. These were the parents of Richard Stockton, Jr., the eminent statesman and lawyer. The latter graduated at Princeton before he was seventeen years of age, studied law at Newark with his uncle, Elisha Boudinot, afterwards one of the justices of the Supreme Court, was licensed as an attorney in 1784, when only about twenty years old, was afterwards admitted as a counselor, and in 1792 made a sergeant-at-law.

The younger Richard Stockton had no superior— if indeed he had an equal— at the bar of the State during the first quarter of the present century. One of the marked traits in his character was the pleasure it evidently gave him to assist younger members of the profession. He, with Josiah Ogden Hoffman, afterwards a distinguished lawyer in New York, Gabriel H. Ford, and Alexander C. McWhorter, who were law students together in Newark, founded the "Insitutio Legalis," a sort of mock court, which was kept up for many years, and which helped to prepare them and others who succeeded them for those forensic encounters in which they became so famous. In the absence of any law-school, this institution was a great benefit to the profession for many years.

Mr. Stockton was during his time almost the only lawyer of New Jersey who argued causes before the Supreme Court at Washington. His manner in speaking was dignified and impassioned, and he held his subject with a profound and comprehensive grasp, no less than with a thorough knowledge of its details. In 1796 he was chosen a senator of the United States, and served in that body until 1799. In 1813 he was elected a member of the Thirteenth Congress. He took a leading part among the able men then in the House, including Webster, Calhoun, and Clay.

The elder Richard Stockton was an accomplished and eloquent lawyer, a judge of the Supreme Court before the Revolution, and one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. Several of the early lawyers of the State were trained to the profession by him,— Jonathan Dickerson Sergeant, William Paterson, and others. His name appears in the court records of this county in many of the most important cases from 1755 to the outbreak of the Revolution.

JAMES HUDE was one of the prominent citizens of New Brunswick. His father was a Scotch Presbyterian who had fled from religious oppression in his native country, and came early to America. Mr. Rude was judge of the Common Pleas of Middlesex County for eleven years, filled all the civil offices in the city, and spent most of his life in the service of the government. He was a member of the Assembly in 1738, was one of the council of Governor Morris, and for several terms mayor of the city. He was a man of great benevolence, and on his death, Nov. 1, 1762, the New York Mercury in an obituary notice speaks of him as "a gentleman of great probity, justice, affability, moral and political virtues." His residence was on Albany Street in the house known as the Bell Tavern. Catherine, a daughter of Mr. Hude, married Cornelius Lowe, and a daughter of theirs married Hon. J.R. Hardenbergh.***

LEWIS MORRIS, whose name appears as a lawyer at the bar of this county in 1742, was at that time Governor of New Jersey, and resided in the gubernatorial mansion at Perth Amboy. His ancestor, Col Lewis Morris, came from the island of Barbados in 1676 and located a tract of three thousand five hundred and forty acres of land in the township of Shrewsbury, Monmouth County. The grant is dated Oct. 25, 1676. Full liberty was given to him and his associates "to dig, delve, and carry away all such mines for iron as they shall find or see fit to dig and carry away to the iron-works, or that shall be found in that tract of land that lies inclosed between the southeast branch of the Raritan River and the Whale Pond on the seaside, and is bounded from thence by the sea and branch of the sea to the east ward to the Raritan River, he or they paying all such just damages to the owners of the land where they shall dig mine as is judged is done by trespass of cattle or otherwise sustained by the carting and carrying of the said mine to the work."(4*) In 1682, Col Morris had on this land "extensive iron-works, employing sixty or seventy negroes, in addition, to the white servants and dependents."

Col. Morris was one of the councilors under Rudyard in 1682. His son Lewis first appears as a member of the Council of Governor Hamilton in 1695, together with "John Inians, of Raritan River, David Mudie and James Dundas, of Perth Amboy, John Royse, of Roysefield, Samuel Dennis, of Woodbridge and John Bishop, of Rahway." Mr. Morris represented Monmouth County. He was not in the Council of Governor Basse, owing to his opposition to the Governor. The record of the first court under Governor Basse, held in May, 1798, contains the following entry:

"Lewis Morris, Esq., came In open Court and demanded by what authoritie they kept Court. The Court declared by ye Kings Authoriti. He denied it, and being asked, Who was dissatisfied besides himself, he said One and all. The Court commanding ye said Morris to be taken in custody, Col. Richard Townley, Andrew Hamilton, both of Elizabethtown, and three or four more cried one and all, and ye said Lewis Morn said he would fain see who durst lay hold on him, and when a Constable by order of ye Court laid hold on him, he, in ye face of ye Court, resisted."

A manuscript in the library of the New Jersey Historical Society gives the result:
"Att the Court of Common Right, held at Perth Amboy ye 11th day of May, 1698, the Court ordered that Lewis Morris, Beg., for denying Authoritie of this Court, And his other contempts, shall be fined fifty pounds, and be Committed to prison till paid. By order of ye Court Edward Slater, Clerke. To ye Sheriff of ye County of Mddx:
"A True Copy.

Mr. Morris was imprisoned in a log house, but his friends raised the logs sufficiently for him to escape.

Morris lived at this time in Amboy, for when the Assembly, resolving that no one who favored the proprietors should hold a seat in their body, summarily expelled George Willocks in 1699, the people of Amboy returned Morris to fill the vacancy, although he was still a firm supporter of the proprietary interests. Both Morris and Willocks were summoned to appear before the Court of Common Right at its October term, and to give security for their good behavior, but they refused so to do, and were allowed to go on their parole, and on the 16th of May they wrote a letter to the Council informing that body that they were prepared to resist any proceedings against them. They were neither of them ever tried, for every day brought greater anarchy, and hastened the downfall of the government under Basse. Under the administration of Hamilton, which succeeded, Morris was restored to the Council. In the spring of 1701 he went to England for the purpose of aiding in the establishment of a settled government. He desired to secure the confirmation of Hamilton’s authority until the proprietary right to the government could be determined or measures taken for its relinquishment to the crown. The former could not be accomplished, and in the latter Mr. Morris took a prominent and influential part.

He was very popular with the people. In the new government under Cornbury he was appointed a member of the Council, and held various other responsible offices during the rest of his life.

He was the first Governor of New Jersey appointed from among the people, a native of the province, and the first under the crown who had not also been Governor of New York. In the summer of 1738 a royal commission arrived from England to Lewis Morris as Governor of New Jersey separate from New York; he served until his death, 1746. He was followed successively by President Hamilton, 1746; John Reading, 1746; Jonathan Belcher, 1747; John Reading, 1757; Francis Bernard, 1758; Thomas Boone, 1760; Josiah Hardy, 1761; and William Franklin, son of Benjamin Franklin, in 1763, the last royal Governor, he being deposed, arrested, and sent a prisoner to Connecticut in 1776.

ROBERT MORRIS, the chief justice, resided at New Brunswick. He was a son of Robert Hunter Morris, chief justice of the province from 1738 until his death in 1764. The son Robert was the first chief justice of the State under the constitution, having been elected by joint meeting in February, 1777. His associates were Isaac Smith and John Cleves Symmes. They entered upon their respective duties, and appear afterwards to have opened a court and sworn a grand jury as was the custom then at the regular terms held in April, May, September, and November.

In May, 1777, it was the province of Chief Justice Morris to hold a term of the Oyer and Terminer in Sussex County, in obedience to an appointment made by the State Council. Many prisoners of the State charged with treason and other crimes, were lodged in the jail at Newton, and the government deemed it expedient that they should be speedily tried; and that, too, by the most competent judge of the bench. None of them except Morris had had any experience he only through what he knew by his study of the English courts, and the proceedings of his father upon the bench when he was a young man. The situation would have been trying even to the most experienced judge, for it was in that transition stat when the old colonial forms were awkward and inapplicable, and nothing had been done towards the reorganization of the courts under the constitution, Judge Morris wrote from Newton a characteristic letter to Governor Livingston, showing how the situation appeared to him, June 14, 1777:
"Sir: Inclosed your excellency has a list of the convictions and the judgments thereon at this very tedious and I would have said premature court if the Council had not thought expedient on mature deliberation to have appointed It. I had the pleasure to find Mr. Justice Symmes here at my arrival, and confess if I had supposed the Council would have spared him for the business, I would not have traveled fast over the mountains through the rain and late into the night on so very short notice."

He then goes on to describe the condition of things:
"Judges young in office, and not appointed for their legal erudition; associates but reputable farmers, doctors, or shopkeepers; young officers no counsel nor clerk, for want of timely notice, which was not ever given to the sheriff; and this in a disaffected county, both witnesses and criminals to be collected from all parts of the State, Thus circumstanced was a court of the highest expectation ever held in New Jersey; a court for the trial of a number of State criminals, some for high treason, a crime so little known in New Jersey that perhaps the first lawyer in it would not know how to enter judgment under our Constitution. It would make an excellent paragraph in Gaines’ ‘Veritable Mercury’ no other printer could venture to publish it. . . . We have sat with great patience, and have now closed the third week. Had it not been for the negligence or villany of a rascally jailor in suffering John Eddy, the only person indicted for high treason, to escape yesterday morning, I flatter myself we should have acquitted ourselves with tolerable success, and I hope have given satisfaction to the good people."

It was too bad that this traitor, Eddy, after having been suitably caged and indicted already for these raw justices to try their hands upon, should have escaped and robbed them of their anticipated glory. In this letter Mr. Morris rather curtly answers an insinuation in Governor Livingston’s letter to him that his not attending the court at Burlington had given some uneasiness:
"Whatever private individuals might have thought, I am persuaded no member of the Legislature had the least right to expect my attendance. Two hundred miles a day is rather hard travelling, and ever, that would not have done unless they supposed me possessed of a spirit of divination. I accepted my present office to manifest my resolution to serve my country. I mean to do the duty of it while I hold it according to my best judgment. Whenever the Legislature think they can fill it any more advantageously, the tenor of my commission shall no disappoint them."

In accordance with his recommendation the Legislature in September, 1777, passed an act directing that when any person should be convicted of treason the sentence therefor should be the same as in case of murder, hanging, instead of quartering, as under the English law; and that all persons who before July 2, 1776, had committed a crime not barred by the statute of limitation might be proceeded against and punished as if committed against the State; and that all indictments found in the name of the king should be prosecuted as if in the name of the State. An act was also passed by virtue of which special commissions for Courts of Oyer and Terminer continued to be issued until 1794, when an act was passed constituting these courts substantially as they now are.

Chief Justice Morris held the office only about two years, resigning in 1779. In 1790, upon the death of Judge Brearly, he was appointed by President Washington judge of the District Court of the United States for New Jersey, an office which he held until his death in 1815.

ANDREW KIRKPATRICK.— His grandfather, Alexander Kirkpatrick, was a Scotch Presbyterian, who migrated first to Belfast, Ireland, and after a few years’ residence there sailed for America with his family in 1736. He settled in Somerset County, about two miles west of Basking Ridge, and died in 1758. His second son was named David, who soon after the death of his father purchased the homestead of his brother, which, according to the law of that day, had descended to the eldest son.

David Kirkpatrick, as described in the memoir prepared by James Grant Wilson, "was a rigid Presbyterian of the John Knox school, plain and simple in his habits, of strict integrity and sterling common sense, of great energy and self-reliance. He lived to attain his ninety-first year; educated with a view to his entering the ministry one son at the College of New Jersey; know of at least six grandsons who were liberally educated, and at his death, in 1814, left a numerous posterity to bless his memory. . . . His wife was Mary McEwan, a native of Argyleshire, who with her family crossed the Atlantic in the ship in which the Kirkpatricks took passage. She died in 1795."

Andrew, the third son of David, was born in Somerset County, Feb. 17, 1756, and spent his boyhood there. He received the best education the times afforded, and graduated at Princeton College in 1775, during the presidency of Dr. Witherspoon. He was accustomed to walk to and fro between his father’s residence and Princeton, a distance of not less than thirty miles, carrying his homespun and homemade clothing in a small knapsack. His father had educated him with a special view to the ministry in the Presbyterian Church, and after his graduation he commenced a course of theological studies with the Rev. Mr. Kennedy, a celebrated Scotch divine settled at Basking Ridge. A few months’ study satisfied him that he ought not to enter the ministry, and he determined to study the law. To do this he was obliged to relinquish any pecuniary support from his father, and to rely upon his own exertions. His mother presented him with all her little hoard of ready money, consisting of a few pieces of gold, as she saw him, with many tears, her handsome son, and the pride of her heart, depart to carve out unaided his own career in the world.

Now in his twenty-first year, he resorted for a support, and to procure resources for his future studies as a lawyer, to the business of teaching. He first became a tutor in the Taliaferro family of Virginia, in which Mr. Southard afterwards filled the same place, subsequently at Esopus, Ulster Co., N.Y., and then obtained the position of classical instructor in Rutgers College Grammar School. While thus engaged in teaching he pursued with diligence in his leisure hours the study of the law. Soon he entered the office of William Paterson, then an eminent counselor, as a regular student, and was licensed as an attorney in 1785, when he had attained the age of twenty-nine. He then took up his residence in Morristown, and succeeded in obtaining a respectable practice. Having the misfortune to lose his small library by fire in 1787, he returned to New Brunswick, where he continued to reside during the remainder of his life.

His practice was soon considerable, a result which has always been attributed to. his untiring industry and to his attention to his favorite maxim, that "Whatever is worth doing at all is worth doing well." He was naturally energetic, and capable of great exertions, and his acquirements as a profound lawyer attest the high order of his intellect.

In the year 1792 he married Miss Jane Bayard, the beautiful daughter of Col. John Bayard, of Revolutionary memory, a distinguished citizen of Pennsylvania, who had removed a few years before to New Brunswick. Andrew Kirkpatrick and Jane Bayard were at the time of their marriage called the handsomest couple in New Brunswick, and this tradition exists with many still living who knew them at a later period in their lives.

In 1797 he was elected one of the members of Assembly from Middlesex County, and at the adjourned session in November of that year was appointed by the joint meeting one of the justices of the Supreme Court to fill the vacancy occasioned by the resignation of Mr. Justice Chetwood. Upon the death of Chief Justice Kinsey in 1803 he was elected by a Democratic joint meeting chief justice, and having been twice afterwards re-elected, he sat as a judge of the Supreme Court twenty-seven years, a longer term than any other judge except Isaac Smith. He was at the bar about twelve years, but spent most of his professional life on the bench. In 1820 he was elected a member of the Legislative Council, the constitution then in force admitting such a union of offices.

Mr. Elmer, in his "Reminiscences," from which most of the above has been taken, speaks thus of the appearance and character of Chief, Justice Kirkpatrick:
"When I first became acquainted with him he had attained the full maturity of his powers, and was certainly the most imposing judge I have ever seen. He was a very handsome man, with a white head of hair, still wearing a cue, but not requiring the powder with which, in accordance with the fashion, he had been accustomed to whiten it at an earlier day. He had a very fair complexion and a remarkably fine voice. He spoke and wrote correct and idiomatic English; was a learned, and in the law of real estate a profoundly learned, lawyer; a complete master of the abstruse learning of Coke and the black-letter reporters, but not well versed in modern innovations, which he regarded as blemishes and not as improvements, and did not care to study.
"His opinions, as published in Pennington and Halsted’s Reports, upon questions relating to the law of real estate deserve the most careful study of every lawyer aspiring to understand this most difficult branch of the law. They will be found to exhibit a fullness and accuracy of knowledge, a clearness of comprehension, and a justness of reasoning which secured him the confidence of the profession, and entitled him to rank among the most eminent of American jurists."

From 1809 until, his death he was one of the trustees of Princeton College, and seldom failed to attend the meetings of the board. He died in 1831.

LITTLETON KIRKPATRICK, son of Chief Justice Andrew Kirkpatrick and Jane, daughter of Col. John Bayard, of Revolutionary fame. Col. Bayard was a distinguished patriot and soldier, and held a high command during the war in the Pennsylvania line of the Continental army. After the war he was distinguished as a civilian, and held important offices in the State. He was also one of the ruling elders of the Presbyterian Church of New Brunswick, and the first president of the Humane Society of that city, which for more than half a century was a successful agency for the relief of the wants of hundreds of people.

Littleton Kirkpatrick graduated at Princeton College, and studied law in the city of Washington, D.C. He was admitted both as an attorney and counselor(5*) in May, 1821. He was during one term a member of Congress, but he was no seeker of office, nor did he court popularity by the artifices of the politician. Possessing ample means, after he left Congress he withdrew to private life, but not to inactivity. He took a lively interest in several of the institutions of the city of his nativity; was a trustee of Rutgers College at the time of his death and president of the Library Company; gave liberally and in a wholly unostentatious manner to the poor, while his contributions to particular religious societies, especially to the Domestic Missionary Society of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church, were large and constant He died at Saratoga Aug. 15, 1859, and his funeral was attended in the Presbyterian Church at New Brunswick on the 17th.

JAMES S. NEVIUS was born in Somerset County in 1786, and graduated at Princeton College in 1816. Having studied law with Frederick Frelinghuysen he was licensed as an attorney in 1819, admitted as a counselor in 1823, and called to be a sergeant-at-law in 1837, among the last upon whom that honor was conferred in the State.

In 1838, upon the death of Judge Ryerson, he was chosen by the joint meeting a justice of the Supreme Court, and was again appointed by the Governor in 1845, serving on the bench fourteen years.

He followed his profession in New Brunswick where he continued to reside until after the expiration of his second term as judge in 1852, when he removed to Jersey City, where he died in 1859.

As a judge he was considered able and well informed. His ability was especially displayed in presiding at the circuits and in charging a jury. The characteristics which most endeared him to his personal friends were those of the friend and companion. His impulses were generous, his sympathies easily excited, and he was ready in showing favors to others often to his own detriment. His unfailing humor and love of anecdote made him the life of the social circle at home and abroad.

CHARLES KINSEY, a son of Chief Justice Kinsey was associated, in practice with Col. J. Warren Scot in New Brunswick prior to 1825. He was a good lawyer, in full practice, but apt to be rather prosy in his arguments. The following anecdote is told of joke being perpetrated upon him by his partner, Col Scott. The latter having made, his argument left the court while Mr. Kinsey was speaking. It happened that at the next term when he entered the court-room Mr. Kinsey was again on his feet. Scott going near, lifted up his hands in mock astonishment and exclaimed in a whisper loud enough to be heard and enjoyed by the court and bar, "What, Charley at it yet?"

GEORGE WOOD, of New Brunswick, had a very high reputation at the bar. He was born in Burlington County, graduated at Princeton, in 1808, studied law with Richard Stockton, and was admitted to the bar in 1812. He immediately settled at New Brunswick in the practice of his profession, and it was no long before he rivaled his master, to whom in some respects he was superior. His intellect was of the highest order, entitling, him to rank with Mr. Webster. His power of analogical reasoning was very striking; the most difficult subject seemed to arrange itself in his mind in its true proportions. He had the faculty attributed to Lord Mansfield, of so stating a question as to make the mere statement a sufficient argument. He generally spoke from mere short memoranda in pencil, and was so accurate in the use of language that what he said would when written down prove entirely correct.

It has been said that Mr. Wood was probably the ablest man New Jersey has produced. His reputation, however, is mostly connected with the New York bar, for after a few years’ practice here he removed to the city of New York, where he took rank among the leaders, and was the equal, if not the superior, of the best of them. Until his death in 1860 he was engaged in the most important causes, not only in New York but in other States. He was among the few eminent lawyers of the country who held no office. Upon the death of Judge Thomson in 1845 he was strongly recommended to President Tyler to take his place on the bench of the Supreme Court of the United States, and there can be no doubt he would have adorned the station.(6*) His political education was as a Federalist; but he was not addicted to politics, and in later years was quite conservative.

JOSEPH WARREN SCOTT was a son of Dr. Moses Scott, of New Brunswick, whose memoir is given in the history of the medical profession in this work. He was the grandson of John Scott, who came to this country from Scotland at an early period, and was an elder in the old Neshaminy Presbyterian Church, in Bucks County, Pa. He removed to New Brunswick before the war of the Revolution, where his family was reared, and where he spent the remainder of his life as an eminent physician, and was prominent in ecclesiastical and civil matters in the town.

His son, Joseph Warren, was born in 1779, graduated at Princeton in 1795, before he had attained the age of seventeen, studied medicine for a short time with his father, then studied theology; but he soon abandoned, the design of being either a physician or a minister, and determined to become a lawyer. He studied law with Gen. Frelinghuysen, and was admitted as an attorney in 1801, as counselor in 1804, and was made a sergeant-at-law in 1816. He married soon after being admitted as a counselor. He attained to a large practice, was several times voted for as attorney-general and as judge of the Supreme Court, but declined every office except that of Presidential elector in 1824 (when he voted for Gen. Jackson) and prosecutor of the pleas for the county of Middlesex. He was profoundly learned in the law and apt in tracing principles to their sources; had a wonderfully retentive memory, and was often truly eloquent.

When John Van Dyke was prosecutor of the pleas for Middlesex County an indictment was found against John B. Berrian for perjury on purely technical grounds. He was convicted and fined one thousand dollars. The conviction was removed to the Supreme Court, and thence to the Court of Errors and Appeals, where the judgment of the Oyer and Terminer was reversed, through the efforts and legal acumen of Col. Scott. The case is reported in the Supreme Court in 2 Zabriskie, 9, January Term, 1849, and in the Court of Errors and Appeals, 2 Zabriskie, 679, January Term, 1850.

The last time he appeared in court was as counsel for Donnelly (2 Dutch, 463) on his trial for murder in 1857, when he was nearly eighty years old. He had practically given up his profession nearly twenty years’ before this. He died in May, 1871. Rev. Mr.. Jewett, in the address delivered at his funeral, said,— "He was an accomplished scholar, well versed in the Latin classics, and accustomed frequently to correspond with his friends in the Latin language, even to the last year of his life. . . . He was a fine belles-lettres scholar, and had the pen of a ready writer. He was well versed in English literature, and familiar with the old poets.
"We stand to-day by the side of one who looked upon and was familiar with the forms of generals, statesmen, and theologians, men whose names are sacred to America and the world. We stand by the coffin of one who served in the war of 1812; of one who stood by the bedside of the dying Hamilton (that brightest intellectual star in the galaxy of patriots); of one who heard, amongst divine men great in the history of the American church, Witherspoon, Samuel Stanhope Smith, John M. Mason, Livingston, and Bishop Hobart. Not a few of the great men of the church and in the State were his warm personal friends."

To illustrate how his life connects the past with the present it may be mentioned that he graduated at Princeton in 1795, under Dr. Witherspoon, and that in 1868 he attended the inauguration of Dr. McCosh. Thus, with his associate, Judge Herring, then the two oldest living graduates of Nassau Hall, the link was supplied between two distinguished men invited from Scotland to preside over this institution. On this occasion he received the honorary degree of LL.D.

He also remembered having seen Gen. Washington in his childhood. When he was a little boy, playing in front of his father’s house, a gentleman called and asked him,—
     "Is Dr. Scott. at home?"
     "No, sir."
     "Mrs. Scott?"
     "Yes, sir."
     "Please go in and tell your mother that Gen. Washington would like to see her."
     "The boy," as he said, "gazed at him eagerly, much impressed with the idea that he was only a man, and much like other men of imposing presence."(7*)

Joseph Warren Scott was received as a member of the New Jersey Society of the Cincinnati, as the representative of his father, Surgeon Moses Scott, in 1825. In 1832 he was chosen assistant treasurer of the general society, and in 1838 the treasurer-general. In 1840 he became the vice-president of the State society, and from 1844 until his death was president. He died at the age of nearly ninety-three years.

Important Trials.— The first trial held in the present court-house of Middlesex County was that of the State against Peter Robinson, who was indicted for the murder of Abraham Suydam, at that time president of the Farmers’ and Mechanics’ Bank of New Brunswick. The case attracted great attention on account of the standing of Mr. Suydam and the peculiar circumstances of the murder. George P. Mo1leson was at that time attorney-general, and John Van Dyke was prosecutor of the pleas for the county of Middlesex. They conducted the prosecution on the part of the State, and the prisoner was defended by David Graham, the celebrated criminal lawyer of New York, and Edward Wood, a brother of George Wood, who was then practicing law in New Brunswick. Chief Justice Hornblower presided at the trial. Robinson was convicted and executed.

Molleson was a very brilliant speaker, but not profoundly versed in the law. Van Dyke was a very strong and able advocate, especially forcible in the presentation of his facts before a jury. He was the law partner of Abraham V. Schenck, Esq., from 1847 to 1855. He removed from New Brunswick to Trenton,, and was afterwards appointed by Governor Newell associate justice of the Supreme Court. After the expiration of his term of office he removed to Minnesota and died there.

Several amusing incidents occurred during this trial, among them the following: David Graham moved to quash the indictment on the ground that it did not specify the degree of murder charged in it. He cited a large number of authorities, and many of them cases in the courts of the Southern States. His motion was overruled, and Chief Justice Hornblower remarked that he did not think it necessary to go south of Mason and Dixon’s line in order to ascertain the law to settle the degrees of murder in the State of New Jersey. The retort was a most happy one in its effect, and reassuring to the New Jersey judges and lawyers present.

While proceeding to impanel the jury in the case Graham was very zealous in challenging jurors for cause, fully realizing that there was a strong prejudice in the community against his client. The stereotyped questions, whether they had formed, or expressed an opinion upon the subject, and whether they had read the newspaper accounts of the murder, were put to juror after juror as they were successively called to the bar, until finally the chief justice, becoming impatient, asked one stolid-looking juror whether he believed everything he read in the newspaper. He replied, "Yes, pretty much everything." The chief justice then asked him if he believed in the publications respecting the "moon hoax," referring to certain alleged discoveries made in the moon by Sir William Herschel which were then current in the newspapers. The reply was, "Yes, of course." The chief justice, with an air of most profound disgust, amidst the universal laughter of bench and bar, decided that the juror must suffer the penalty of his extreme credulity by standing aside.

Another incident was this: In summing up the case to the jury Attorney-General Molleson, in quite an impassioned appeal, attempting to quote the words from Scripture, "Whoso sheddeth man’s blood by man shall his blood be shed," got lost in the passage and was compelled to refer to the Bible to find his way out. The embarrassment and perplexity of the moment was mortifying to the attorney-general, but it was amusing to the lawyers and spectators. The incident was a standing joke at the bar for many years after.

The next most celebrated trial in the county was of the case of the State v. John Fox. The latter had been indicted for the murder of John Henry, son of Alderman Henry, of the city of New York. The place where the murder was committed still bears the name of Fox’s Gully, just below the city of New Brunswick. George A. Vroom, then prosecutor of the pleas for Middlesex County, prosecuted the case, assisted by John Van Dyke. Fox was defended by Henry V. Speer and Abraham V. Schenck.

In this case the question of the right to challenge jurors for cause arose, and the case was carried by writ of error to the Supreme Court by defendant’s counsel, where the principle involved was ably and elaborately argued, and was finally settled by the decision of the Supreme Court in this case. The case is reported in 1 Dutcher, 566, June Term, 1856.

Mr. Speer had the reputation of being a very able and astute lawyer; he was engaged in many important suits in Middlesex County; was elected to the State Senate, of which body he became president, and shortly afterwards died. He was a bachelor, having never been married.

Charles M. Herbert was prosecutor in the next criminal case of importance in the county, viz.: that of the State vs.. Bridget Durgan, indicted for the murder of Mrs. Coriell, wife of Dr. Coriel, of New Market. He was assisted in the prosecution by George M. Robeson, then attorney-general. The counsel for the defense were Garnett B. Adrain and William H. Leupp, Judge Vredenburgh, of the Supreme Court, presiding. He also, presided at the trial of the Case of the State vs. Fox, above referred to, and the case of the State vs. Donnelly, a celebrated murder case in Monmouth County. It has been professionally said of Judge Vredenburgh that his charges to juries in criminal cases were more dreaded by counsel for the defense than the arguments of their opponents. Bridget Durgan was convicted and executed.

Charles Morgan Herbert, the prosecutor, was quite a brilliant young lawyer, but he died just as he was about gaining a reputation in the profession.

The next case of importance tried in this county was that of the State vs. Michael Sullivan, indicted for the murder of Daniel Talmage, a farmer of Piscataway township. The murder was committed under circumstances of great atrocity. The trial was very interesting because the evidence was purely circumstantial. Abraham V. Schenck, being prosecutor of the pleas, conducted the prosecution. Sullivan was defended by Gannett B. Adrain and Charles T. Cowenhooven, who succeeded Mr. Schenck in the office of prosecutor of the pleas. The manner in which Mr. Schenck handled the purely circumstantial details of this case and presented them in his argument to the jury gained him great credit for sagacity, good judgment, skill, and ability as a lawyer. Sullivan was convicted and executed.

Mr. Schenck was prosecutor of the pleas for Middlesex County from the December term, 1871, when he was appointed to fill a portion of the unexpired term of Mr. Herbert, till February, 1877, when his own full term expired. During that time, although he prosecuted persons charged with various degrees of crime, not one of his indictments was ever quashed nor one of his convictions reversed or carried to a higher court for review.

Abraham V. Schenck was born in New Brunswick in 1821, his ancestors having settled in that place before the Revolutionary war. He is the son of Henry H. Schenck and Eva, daughter of Martinus Voorhees and Maria Van Campen, of Newburgh, N.Y. It appears from the Schenck genealogy that this family are lineally descended, through Hendrick Schenck, of Millstone, N.J., from Peter Schenck, brother of the celebrated Sir Martin Schenck, mentioned by Motley in his "History of the Netherlands." From Hendrick Schenck, on the mother’s side, are descended the Frelinghuysens, the Van Deveres, and the Mercers. Henry H. Schenck was long a resident of New Brunswick, one of its active business men, a liberal supporter of the First Reformed Church, a member of its consistory through five different terms, and one of its elders at the time of his death, in 1851.

Abraham V. Schenck was educated at New Brunswick, studied law with Henry V. Speer, was admitted to the bar in 1843, and soon entered into active practice. For nearly forty years he has been a member of this bar, and has taken part in some of the most important causes in the county. Among these may be mentioned the case of the chosen freeholders of Middlesex County vs. the receiver of the State Bank at New Brunswick. In this case the question of the prerogative right of the State of New Jersey to priority of payment was raised and finally decided against such right of the State. It was argued by Attorney-General Stockton for the State, and by Mr. Schenck for the receiver. The case is reported in 2 Stewart, 268, February Term, 1878, in the Court of Errors and Appeals.

The next important case in the county was that of the State against Hart Moore, who was indicted for embezzlement as county collector. Charles T. Cowenhoven was then prosecutor of the pleas; he was assisted in the prosecution by Woodbridge Strong. Abraham V. Schenck was counsel for the defendant. In this case the important question arose whether the act of the Legislature which extended the time of the prosecution of public officers in the State from two to five years was an ex post facto law. Mr. Schenck took the ground in this trial that it was an ex post facto law, and that it impaired the vested rights of the defendant under the constitution. Judge E.W. Scudder, of the Supreme Court, who presided at the trial, overruled him on both points. The defendant was convicted under one indictment, but acquitted under the other. He carried the judgment of conviction by writ of error to the Supreme Court. Chief Justice Beasley rendered the opinion, affirming the judgment of the court below. He carried this judgment to the Court of Appeals, which reversed the judgments of the lower courts and fully sustained Mr. Schenck. This was one of the most important decisions in the State of New Jersey, and attracted the attention of the leading journals of the country. The case is reported in 12 Vroom, 208, June Term, 1880, of the Supreme Court, and in 14 Vroom, 202, March Term, 1881, of the Court of Errors and Appeals. It was a case of national importance, and is so reported in The Central Law Journal, vol. xiii., p. 70, July 29, 1881. Mr. Schenck’s argument on the occasion is said to have been the ablest ever made in that court.

A very important and absorbing case in this county after the Hart Moore case was that of the State vs. Robert U. Miller, collector of the city of New Brunswick, indicted for embezzlement. Prosecutor Cowenhoven, assisted by Mercer Beasley, Jr., appeared on behalf of the State, and Abraham V. Schenck, Cortland Parker, and J. Kearney Rice, the present prosecutor, were counsel for the defendant. The case excited great interest on account of the social standing of Mr. Miller, and involving the investigation of the accounts of the city finance for a long series of years, made by expert accountants by order of a justice of the Supreme Court under a recent Statute of the State. After a protracted trial, in which many interesting questions of law were raised and argued with great ability by the respective counsel, the defendant was finally acquitted.

George Richmond, of this bar, was a gentleman of wealth, and had been educated to the law. He was known as "Single-case Richmond," from the fact of his having had one suit; and in this respect he was likened to the celebrated "Single-speech Hamilton."

Littleton Kirkpatrick was a son of Chief Justice Kirkpatrick. He was educated to the bar, and was surrogate of the county of Middlesex from 1831 to 1836. For one term he represented this district in Congress. He married Miss Astley, a wealthy lady of Philadelphia, and having ample means in his possession, took the labor of his profession rather easily to attain to much prominence. He was a worthy and highly respected citizen.

HON. GARNETT B. ADRAIN.— His paternal grandfather, Robert, a native of France, with his two brothers, settled in the north of Ireland, fleeing from religious persecution following the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. They were manufacturers of mathematical instruments in their native country, but turned their attention to teaching for a time after reaching Ireland. Robert was for a time engaged in sailing a small vessel from Ireland to the neighboring islands. He was a man of fine cultivation, and remarkable for his brilliant wit and versatile powers of conversation. After reaching Ireland he married and reared a family of five children, of whom Robert was eldest, and was born at Carrickfergus, Ireland, Sept. 30, 1775. He early developed an aptitude for learning that amounted to genius, and his father determined to give him a thorough education and fit him for the ministry. When Robert was fifteen years old his father and mother both died, and with their death his experience as a pupil ended, and his life as a teacher began. He continued teaching until the breaking out of the Irish rebellion in 1798, in which he commanded an Irish company. Mr. Mortimer, an officer of the government, offered fifty pounds for his capture, and sent out emissaries after him in every direction. Mortimer was wounded the next day at the battle of Saint-field, and as far as he was concerned the pursuit was ended. Adrain being a genuine independent, opposed some measures in his division of the army, and was wounded by one of his own men, which gave rise to a rumor that he was dead, and all efforts for his capture came to an end. He recovered, and in the disguise of a weaver escaped to America. Arriving in New York he proceeded to Princeton, N.J., and at once obtained a place in the academy there, where he remained for about three years. He then became principal of the York County Academy in Pennsylvania, where his mathematical talents were brought before the public by his frequent contributions to the Mathematical Correspondent, published in New York, for which he received several prize medals, awarded for the best solutions of problems published in its columns. In 1805 he took charge of the Reading Academy in the same State, and while there declined the offer of the editorship of the Mathematical Correspondent and as principal of the mathematical school. Shortly after he commenced the publication of a mathematical periodical called the Analyst, which he continued for some three years, which made him extensively and favorably known throughout the country as an able mathematician.

In 1810 he was called to the Professorship of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy in Queen’s (Rutgers) College, at New Brunswick, N.J., and soon after the degree of Doctor of Laws was conferred upon him. In 1812 he was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society, in the following year of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and subsequently of several of the philosophical societies of Europe. Besides other duties he edited the third edition of "Hutton’s Course of Mathematics." In 1813 he was elected to the chair of natural philosophy in Columbia College. He accepted the position, and became the centre of a brilliant collection of mathematical talent and culture. All gathered around him, and all did him honor as their rightful leader. His contributions to the literature of mathematical science while in New York and subsequently were voluminous, and marked by a force and clearness, a profound and exhaustive knowledge, and an elegance of style that won the admiration and commanded the respectful attention of the scientists of the world. In 1825 he began editing the "Mathematical Diary," a work superior to anything that had been edited in this country. In 1826 he returned to Rutgers, and after three years accepted a professorship in the University of Pennsylvania, of which institution he was also vice-provost. He remained there until 1834, when he resigned his position and went to his New Brunswick home. Restive under idleness, the habit of teaching was so strong with him that although his wife’s health had compelled him to return to New Brunswick, he went to New York and taught in the grammar school connected with Columbia College until within three years of his death, when, yielding to the entreaties of his family and friends, he relinquished teaching forever. He died Aug. 10, 1843.

Garnett, son of Prof. Robert and Annie (Pollock) Adrain, for many years a lawyer of New Brunswick, was born in the city of New York, Dec. 20, 1815. His preparatory, education was received in the Rutgers College Grammar School, and in 1829 he entered Rutgers College, from which he was graduated in the class of 1833. After his graduation he entered the law-office of his brother, Robert Adrain, who was then a leading lawyer in New Brunswick; was licensed as an attorney in 1836, and as counselor in 1839. After his admission as an attorney he at once entered upon the practice of his profession in New Brunswick, where he became eminently successful both as an advocate and counselor, and where he remained in continuous practice until his death on Aug. 17, 1878.

He inherited the genius of his father and a good deal of his independence of spirit. His star gradually rose with undimmed lustre until about twenty years before his decease, when an affection of the throat led him to be more careful. He was recognized by the members of the bar of the State as a legal light of the highest order, and as a forcible, ready, witty, eloquent speaker who had few equals in the State. He was conspicuous as an advocate, never refused to lend his aid to any cause that claimed his services, and known as one of the first criminal lawyers in the State. Mr. Adrain was pleasant to everybody, rich and racy in his conversation, and his society was highly enjoyable. Upon the opening of the September term of the County Court and Court of Oyer and Terminer after his decease, Mr. A.V. Schenck, senior member of the Middlesex County bar, addressed the court, and, among other resolutions moved the following, which was passed, and the court adjourned:
"Resolved, That by the death of Garnett B. Adrain the bar of the county of Middlesex has lost one of its most distinguished member, a gentleman of high literary tastes and acquirements, an able, earnest, and eloquent advocate, a genial and warm-hearted companion and friend, and a valuable citizen."

Other addresses were delivered by Judge John F. Hageman, of Princeton, and Judge Scudder, of Trenton, then holding court in New Brunswick.

In politics Mr. Adrain was a Democrat of the old school. He was an ardent adherent of Stephen A. Douglas, and concurred with him in the position he took on the Lecompton Compromise issue. In 1856 he was nominated for Congress by the Democrats of the Third District, was elected, and served his term. In 1858 there was a " bolt" from the regular congressional convention of Democrats at Somerville, and he was put in nomination by the bolting party and elected. His career in Congress was an active one, and was characterized by great ability and earnestness. Among the more noteworthy speeches delivered by him during his terms in the House were one on the "Treasury Note Bill," one on the "Neutrality Laws," "Against the Admission of Kansas," "Impeachment of Judge Watrous," "Election of Speaker," "Organization of the House," and one on the "State of the Union." After his retirement from Congress he took no active part in politics. He died Aug. 17, 1878. His wife, whom he married Jan. 3, 1838, is a daughter of Joseph C. Griggs, who for many years was one of the leading merchants of New Brunswick. There are four children who survive him, three daughters and one son, Robert, a graduate of Rutgers College in the class of 1873. He studied law with his father, was admitted as an attorney in 1876, as counselor in 1879, and is practicing his profession in New Brunswick.

Charles T. Cowenhoven studied law with A.V. Schenck, and was the first law judge of the Common Pleas, appointed in 1871. He was prosecutor of the pleas from 1877 to 1882.

Robert Adrain was a brother of Garnett B., and son of Dr. Robert Adrain, LL.D.,(8*) Professor of Mathematics in Rutgers College. He was an able and learned lawyer, but labored under the disadvantage of being deaf in a measure. The case in which he displayed his abilities most signally was that of Rue vs. Rue (reported in 1 Zabriskie, 369, January Term, 1848), argued by Robert Adrain and Col. J.W. Scott for the plaintiff; and by R.S. Field and J.S. Green for the defendant. Of Mr. Adrain’s argument in this case that eminent jurist, Chief Justice Green, remarked that it was the only argument that had ever changed his first convictions with regard to any case argued before him, a very high and yet justly-deserved compliment to Mr. Adrain’s great powers as a lawyer.

He was a very courteous man, and exceedingly sensitive upon the subject of his deafness. If a person addressed him a question which he did not distinctly hear or understand he would simply reply, "Yes, yes." This habit at one time led to a laughable mistake while Mr. Adrain was surrogate. The administrator of an estate entered the surrogate’s office and asked Mr. Adrain, who happened to be alone and otherwise engaged, whether it would be proper for him as an administrator to proceed and sell some lands of the intestate. Mr. Adrain, not fully hearing or comprehending the question, with his accustomed suavity of manner, replied, "Yes, yes; oh, yes!" The administrator, acting upon this advice, sold the land without an order from the court for that purpose, as required by the laws of New Jersey. The public and the profession were astonished at such a result from such a source, and it ended in a general laugh, in which Mr. Adrain himself joined, when it became understood that Mr. Adrain had answered the question proposed to him without knowing what was asked.

JACOB R. HARDENBERGH was admitted to the bar of Middlesex County in February, 1805. He was a son of Rev. Jacob Rutsen Hardenbergh, D.D., the principal founder and first President of Queen’s (now Rutgers) College. Dr. Hardenbergh was president of the college before the Revolution, and aided in procuring its charter in 1770, while he was pastor of the Dutch Reformed Church at Raritan, now Somerville, Somerset Co., N.J. In 1785 the trustees of the college united with the consistories of New Brunswick and Six-Mile Run in calling Dr. Hardenbergh to be at once pastor of the two churches and permanent president of 1he college. He accepted, and continued in office, greatly beloved, until his resignation, a few months before his lamented death, in 1790.

The son, Jacob Rutsen Hardenbergh, was born in Somerville, N.J., and was educated under his father’s auspices at Queen’s College, now Rutgers. After his admission to the bar he practiced but a short time, the stronger inducements of business leading him into various active enterprises; which he followed with great ability and success. For many years he was president of the Bank of New Brunswick; founded the Bloomfield Works near Spotswood, where for many years he carried on a saw-mill, grist-mill, powder-mill, and large farm. He was an enterprising and useful citizen, filling many places of trust and responsibility, and discharging the duties of all with conscientious fidelity. He died on the 13th of February 1841, and his wife died on the 23d, ten days afterwards.

His wife was Mary, daughter of Cornelius Low, of New Brunswick. They had the following-named children, viz.: 1, Cornelius L., mentioned below; 2 James, married Miss McKnight, and died when young man at Spotswood; 3, Rutsen, married Mary daughter of John Pool, of Raritan Landing (he was at the time of his death, about 1829, cashier of the Bank of New Brunswick, of which his brother, Cornelius L., was president); 4, Lewis D., married Ellen Voorhees, of Middlebush, N.J. (he was a lawyer in New Brunswick, admitted May term, 1825, and as counselor in 1828, and in later years was secretary of the Hudson County Insurance Company, in which office he died) ; 5, Frederick, married Emeline, daughter of Gen. James Morgan, of South Amboy, who was a member of Congress about 1828; 6, John, died in infancy; 7, Theodore, studied medicine with Dr. Charles Smith, and was house physician of the New York City Dispensary for more than twenty-five years, and died in New Brunswick, April 19, 1877; 8, Catherine, died unmarried, aged seventy-nine; 9, Maria; died single at the age of twenty-five; 10, Joanna, married Rev. Ransford Walls, of Conajoharie, N.Y.

CORNELIUS Low HARDENBERGH was born in New Brunswick July 4, 1790. He was the eldest son of Jacob Rutsen and Mary (Low) Hardenbergh, and was prepared for college at the Somerville Academy, entered Princeton, and studied there about a year, when he entered Rutgers, and graduated in the class of 1810. After studying law with his father, he was admitted to the bar at the September term, 1812, and became a counselor in September, 1815. He was called to be a sergeant-at-law in 1828.

He was a lawyer of superior abilities, excelling before a jury in criminal causes, and was an ambitious and indefatigable student, so much so, indeed, that he injured his eyes, becoming partially blind in 1836; by surgical skill one of his eyes was restored, but he was again attacked in 1843, and after seeking relief in vain for three or four years his blindness became permanent. He did sometimes, afterwards plead causes when retained through the preference and urgency of personal friends. But his career as a lawyer, otherwise brilliant and promising, may be said to have ended with the loss of his sight. Besides his professional work he was engaged in business, and to some extent in politics. He followed his father as president of the Bank of New Brunswick, bought his father’s works near Spotswood in 1836, and carried them on for a number of years; he was a member of the Legislature in 1835, and mayor of the city of New Brunswick in 1837.

Mr. Hardenbergh was married four times: First, to Catharine, daughter of James Richmond, of New Brunswick, by whom he had one son, James R., now living in California.

Second, to Helen Mary, daughter of John Crook, of Poughkeepsie, N.Y. One son was born of this union: J. Rutsen Hardenbergh, of New Brunswick.

Third, to Mary Hude, daughter of John G. Warren, of New York. Seven children were the fruit of this marriage, of whom three sons are living. Warren Hardenbergh, one of the sons, is a member of the present bar of the county of Middlesex, in active and successful practice; A. Augustus Hardenbergh, another son, president of Hudson County Bank at Jersey, and a member of Congress, now in his third term in that body. Mr. Hardenbergh died July 17, 1860, in New Brunswick.

JOHN C. ELMENDORF was born on the old Elmendorf homestead, near Somerville, Somerset Co., N.J., on March 6, 1814. His father, William Crook Elmendorf, was of German extraction, and came from Esopus, now Kingston, N.Y., where his ancestors in this country first settled. His mother was Maria, daughter of Peter Du Mont, of Huguenot ancestry. Mr. Elmendorf received his preliminary education in his native county, and graduated at Rutgers College in 1834. He studied law with Judge James S. Nevius, was admitted as an attorney in November, 1837, and as a counselor in September, 1841. After his admission he commenced practice in Flemington, N.J., where he remained about two years, and in 1839 removed to New Brunswick, which has since been the place of his residence.

In 1847, Mr. Elmendorf received the appointment of prosecutor of the pleas for Middlesex County. After serving a full term of five years he was reappointed in 1852, and served another full term, being succeeded in 1857 by George A. Vroom, who served one term, up to 1862, when Mr. Elmendorf was again appointed, and finished his third term as prosecutor in 1867. On the 14th of May of the same year he was appointed a register in bankruptcy, which office he still holds.

In October, 1857, he was united in marriage to Maria Louisa Frelinghuysen, daughter of Hon. Frederick Frelinghuysen, father of the present Secretary of the United States. They have one son, John Edward Elmendorf, a graduate of Rutgers College in the class of 1878, and a member of the bar, having been admitted as an attorney in February, 1882, after having studied with his father and also in the office of Abraham V. Schenck, Esq.

WOODBRIDGE STRONG was born in Clinton, Oneida Co., N.Y., in 1827, and came to New Brunswick with his parents when quite young. He graduated at Rutgers College in 1849, studied law with John Van Dyke, and has practiced his profession in New Brunswick ever since, except during 1849 and 1850, when he was in California and Oregon, and five years during which he was law judge of the Common Pleas, 1876—81.

Judge Strong has two sons in the profession who are his law partners; their names will be found in list of members of the bar.

JAMES M. CHAPMAN, son of Rev. James Chapman, was born at Perth Amboy, N.J., Dec. 15, 1822, and was, educated at Perth Amboy and at Paterson, He read law with Judge Elias B.D. Ogden, and immediately after his admission to the bar he became the law partner of Walter Rutherford, with whom he remained for about four years, and nearly to the time of that gentleman’s death. Mr. Chapman subsequently opened a law-office in Wall Street, New York, where he has continued the practice of his profession since. He was instrumental in building the branch railroad from Rahway to Perth Amboy, and has been a director since its construction. He labored earnestly to get the connection now being made with the Camden and Amboy Road for twenty years. Mr. Chapman served as mayor of Perth Amboy from 1869—70. He married, April 23, 1851, Louisa, youngest daughter of Robert Stockton Johnson, a prominent iron merchant of Philadelphia, and granddaughter of Thomas Johnson, once a leading lawyer of Hunterdon County. He has one son and five daughters. He resided in Jersey City from the time of his marriage until 1865, when he settled on the homestead at Perth Amboy with his brother, Joseph E., who was formerly a merchant in New York.

The history of his father is in the history of St. Peter’s Church, Perth Amboy.

GEORGE CRAIG LUDLOW, Governor of New Jersey, was born at Milford, Hunterdon Co., N.J., April 6, 1830. His father was Cornelius Ludlow, and his grandfather, Gen. Benjamin Ludlow, of Long Hill, Morris Co., a leading Democrat of his time. At the age of five years his parents removed to New Brunswick, where he has since resided. He entered Rutgers College, and graduated therefrom in his twentieth year in 1850, and soon afterwards commenced the study of law in the office of W.H. Leupp, in New Brunswick. He also studied in the office of Robert Van Arsdale, of Newark. In 1853 he was admitted as an attorney, and immediately commenced the practice of his profession in New Brunswick. In due time he was called to the bar as counselor, and earned for himself the reputation of being a sound and careful lawyer. He was selected as counsel for the city of New Brunswick, and acted in the same capacity for several corporations and many of the citizens of his county. He was a member of the board of chosen freeholders of Middlesex County, and for a number of years was president of the board of education of the city of New Brunswick. In 1876 he was elected senator from Middlesex County; in the second year of his term, 1878, he was chosen president of the Senate, which office he filled with ability and impartiality, lie was nominated at the Democratic State Convention in 1880 for Governor, and after a closely-contested canvass was elected by a plurality of six hundred and fifty-one votes.(9*)

* In the "Old Merchants of New York" is a sketch of the Kearney family. The author is probably in error in supposing that the father of John W. and Philip Kearney, founders of the well-known mercantile house in New York in 1803, came from Ireland and was the ancestor of the Kearney family in America. He was of the third generation, a grandson of Michael Kearney, of Monmouth, and went from Perth Amboy to his residence on the Passaic.

** It was for the occasion of this expedition that Governor Howell (see paragraph below) composed the song entitled "Jersey Blue," to be sung by the soldiers:

"To arms, once more our hero cries,
Sedition lives and order dies;
To peace and ease then bid adieu,
And dash to the mountains, Jersey Blue.

"CHORUS.
"Dash to the mountains. Jersey Blue,
Jersey Blue, Jersey Blue,
And dash to the mountains, Jersey Blue.
"Since proud ambition rears its head,
And murders rage, and discords spread,
To save from spoil the virtuous few
Dash over the mountains, Jersey Blue.
Dash to the mountains, Jersey Blue, etc.
"Roused at the call, with magic sound
The drums and trumpets circle round,
As soon as the corps their route pursue;
So dash to the mountains, Jersey Blue.
Dash to the mountains, Jersey Blue, etc.
"Unstained with crime, unused to fear,
In deep array our youths appear,
And fly to crush the rebel crew,
Or die in the mountains, Jersey Blue.
Dash to the mountains, Jersey Blue, etc.
"The tears bedew the maiden’s cheek,
And storms hang round the mountains bleak;
‘Tis glory calls, to love adieu,
Then dash to the mountains, Jersey Blue.
Dash to the mountains, Jersey Blue, etc.
Should foul misrule and party rage
With law and liberty engage,
Push home your steel, you’ll soon review
Your native plains, brave Jersey Blue.
Dash to the mountains, Jersey Blue, etc."

Richard Howell, Governor of New Jersey from 1793 to 1801. He came from Wales in 1729; at twenty-one entered Col. Maxwell’s brigade as captain, served till nearly the close of the war, became a lawyer in Cumberland County; commanded the right wing of the army in the Whiskey riots; died at Trenton at the age of forty-tree in 1803. He was the grandfather or Mrs. Jefferson Davis, wife of the late President of the C.S.A.

(8*) Dr. Adrian was born at Carrick-Fergus, Ireland, the home of the ancestors of General Andrew Jackson, Sept. 30, 1775, and died Aug. 10,1843.