CALEDONIA COUNTY

      The following sketch is condensed from the excellent article from the pen of Rev, T. GOODWILLIE, published in Vol. I., Hemenway's Historical Gazetteer: --

      Hon. John MATTOCKS was born in Hartford, Conn., March 4, 1777. His father, who was treasurer of the state of Vermont from 1786 to 1801, came with his family about the year 1778 or 1779, and settled in Tinmouth, Rutland county, Vt. John, his youngest son, became the fourteenth governor of Vermont. Having been admitted to practice law before he was twenty- one years of age, he opened an office in Danville, and commenced the practice of his profession in 1797, but the next year removed to Peacham, where he resided till his death. In a few years he became a celebrated lawyer, and ultimately a very popular man, being elected to every office for which he was a candidate. He was one of the great men of Caledonia county; indeed, he was one of the eminent men of the state of Vermont. He practiced law about fifty years, the most of the time in the courts of four counties. He was often engaged in every jury trial at a whole session at the county court, and won every case. He represented Peacham in the legislature of Vermont in 1807, and again in 1815 and 1816, and also in 1823 and 1824; and was a member of the constitutional convention of 1835, when the measure for state Senate was adopted and which he advocated. During the last war with Great Britain he was brigadier-general of militia in this part of the state. He was judge of the supreme court of the state in 1833 and 1834, but declined a re-election. He was a representative in Congress from Vermont in 1821-1823, 1825-1827, and 1841-1843, and was governor of Vermont in 1843-44. It is said that he resembled, in many respects, the celebrated lawyer Jeremiah MASON, of New Hampshire. He did not receive a liberal education -- was a self-educated man, and possessed in an uncommon degree the "sanguine temperament," as physiologists call it, being distinctly characterized by vigor, vivacity, and activity of mind, a ready and retentive memory, lively feelings, and a humorous disposition. His wonderful talent of appropriating the contents of books enabled him to obtain a tolerable knowledge of standard English, and the current literature of the day, as well as a considerable acquaintance with history. His style, as may be seen in his reported judicial opinions, was direct and forcible. His great and universally acknowledged power as a lawyer was advocacy before a jury. His power was not owing to his eloquence as an orator. He employed no flourishing or fanciful sketches to fascinate the jury; but in a familiar and colloquial manner he talked the matter over with them, and talked his side of the case into them. When a member of Congress and governor of the state, he took an early and decided stand against human bondage. In a speech he made in Congress when he presented a petition for the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia, he said, "I present this petition because I believe in my soul that the prayer thereof ought to be granted, so as to free this land of liberty from the national and damning sin of slavery in this, our own bailiwick, the District of Columbia." He was a courteous, kind, and charitable man, beloved by all who knew him. He died August 14, 1847, aged seventy years. 

      Hon. Samuel B. MATTOCKS was born in Middlebury, December 14, 1802, and graduated at Middlebury college in 1821. He read law at Danville with William MATTOCKS and George B. SHAW, and was admitted to the Caledonia county bar in 1826. There he practiced his profession until February, 1833 when he was appointed cashier of Caledonia bank, at Danville. He held this position until 1837. He also held the position of register of probate for eight years, between 1826 and 1836. In 1835 he was appointed clerk of the county and supreme courts, and held this office until 1848, when he resigned and again assumed the duties of cashier of the bank, and held the same until 1856, when he went to Lyndon, having been appointed cashier of the bank there, which position he held until 1874, resigning then by reason of ill health. With his other duties, from 1837 to 1847, he served nine years as judge of probate. He was state senator in 1847 and 1848, and also represented Danville three years in the state legislature while residing there. Mr. Mattocks traced his lineage back to James Mattocks, one of the first settlers of Boston, coming from England in 1634. His grandfather, Samuel MATTOCKS, of Tinmouth, was Vermont's first treasurer, and one of its early judges, while his uncle, John MATTOCKS, was one of Vermont's ablest governors and judges. The life of Samuel B. MATTOCKS has been a busy one. He was an exemplary christian, a courteous gentleman in all his business relations, kind to the poor, an affectionate husband and father, and a worthy citizen. He died February 28, 1887. 

      Luke Potter POLAND, [By Hon. Jonathan Ross] of Waterville, Vt., the oldest son of Luther and Nancy (POTTER) POLAND, was born at Westford, Vt., November 1, 1815. He is descended from the best Anglo-American stock. Joseph POLAND, his grandfather, by trade, a carpenter, joiner, and cabinet-maker, in 1780 moved from Ipswich, Mass., to North Brookfield, Mass., and five years later he married Rachael HATHAWAY. Seven children were the fruit of this marriage. He died in 1845, at the age of ninety. Luther, his second son, born March, 1790, married Nancy POTTER in 1812. In 1814 he moved to Underhill, Vt., where he followed the paternal occupation, adding farming. He moved from Underhill, in 1821, to Coit's Gore, now Waterville. He was elected its first representative to the legislature in 1826. He also held many other offices of trust, and was for many years a worthy deacon in the Congregational church. He died in June, 1880, having attained the advanced age of ninety-one years. The early advantages of Luke P., like those of many of the eminent men of Vermont, were very limited. He had the advantages afforded by the district school, until he was twelve years old, when he became a clerk in a country store at Waterville for two years. Here he learned to write a good hand, to keep accounts, to cast interest, and to transact ordinary business.  He spent at home the three following years, helping his father at his trade on the farm, and in running a saw-mill. Hence the sometimes remark of the judge, "I was brought up and educated in a saw-mill." Having exchanged boards from the saw-mill for cloth to make necessary clothing, he then attended, for five months, Jericho academy. This ended his school advantages. But his active, retentive mind had received training and development from many sources; from the farm, the shop, the store, the saw-mill, the public school, the academy, and the few books to be obtained in the neighborhood, which were eagerly sought, and their contents mastered. He had now become confident of an ability to open and serve in a wider field of labor than the few paternal acres. With his father's approval, with a single change of under-clothing, his own master, he went on foot to Morrisville to teach the winter school. He proved a successful teacher, and was engaged for the second winter. Physically, as well as mentally strong and well developed, sana mens in sano carpore, he excelled in athletic sports-was an expert ball player. Of a combative, investigating turn of mind, he naturally turned his attention to the study and practice of the law as a profession. He entered upon its study at the close of his first school, in the office of Judge Samuel A. WILLARD, at Morrisville. Here he continued to exhibit the same habits of industry and perseverance. Judge WILLARD soon became aware of his sterling qualities and good judgment. To enable him to acquire means to pursue his studies before he was admitted to the bar, Judge WILLARD sent him to Greensboro to look after his business there. He opened an office and gained quite a practice. He made, meantime, such proficiency in the study of the law, that at the December term, 1836, of the Lamoille county court, the first term after the organization of the county, when only twenty-one years old, he was admitted to the bar. The faithfulness and ability already manifested induced Judge Willard to take him into his business as a partner for three years. After the dissolution of the partnership he remained at Morrisville, practicing his chosen profession until he was elected judge of the supreme court. The care, faithfulness and ability which he brought to the discharge of the duties of an attorney, attended, as they always are with success, soon gained him a large and constantly increasing practice, mostly in Lamoille, Orleans and Washington counties. Starting with no property, and with a family, he became an intense worker. Driven by necessity arising from the wants of an increasing family, as well as by a natural desire for success, he acquired a facility and rapidity in the dispatch of business, a mastery of principles and cases, a comprehension of and power to marshall facts, that is rarely equaled. The knowledge acquired by a varied experience in the common affairs of every day life greatly aided him, not only in understanding his cases, hut in presenting them so as to be readily comprehended by others. He was careful in preparing, skillful in managing and presenting his cases to the jury. He was clear, cogent and logical in the statement of the law and its application in the higher courts. He yielded gracefully to inevitable defeat, but was too combative to surrender so long as a fortress remained uncarried. In 1848, a Free Soil Democrat, he was elected judge of the supreme court over a Whig competitor, by a Whig legislature. He subsequently received seventeen successive elections by viva voce vote. He was elected chief justice in 1860, and held the office until he resigned, in 1865, to accept the appointment to the United States Senate, in the place of Judge COLLAMER, deceased. At the early age of thirty-three the discharge of his judicial duties brought him into close association with such men as Stephen ROYCE, Isaac F. REDFIELD, Milo L. BENNETT, Daniel KELLOGG, and Hiland HALL, men eminent in the judicial annals of the state. Nor did he suffer in the comparison. He was emphatically, "the right man in the right place." By intuition, apparently, but really by close and vigorous application, he mastered the broader principles of the law. He was greatly aided in applying them by the knowledge of common affairs early gained, and by his broad, strong, discriminating common sense. He was quick to discern the controlling element in the facts of a case, which made a principle applicable or inapplicable. Clear in comprehension, he stated his views forcibly and with remarkable clearness. His plain, pointed, discriminating charges were so helpful that the jury rarely disagreed. His presence was fine, his bearing courtly, his self-command great. He had, withal, enough of the natural school-master to command and maintain the best of order, even in the heat of conflict. Stenographic reporters were then unknown. Each presiding judge took full minutes of the testimony. A rapid writer, he rarely stopped, or allowed a witness to be stopped, but kept all so closely at work that order became a prime necessity. He had no superior as a nisi prius judge. 

      Hon James BARRETT, many years Judge POLAND's associate at the bar and upon the bench, writes concerning him: "In thirty years conversancy with the bench and bar of Vermont, it has not been my fortune to know any other instance in which the presiding judge in his nisi prius circuit has been so uniformly, and by the spontaneous acquiescence of the bar, so emphatically the end of the law in all things appertaining to the business of these courts. As judge in the supreme court sitting in bench, his adaptedness to the place was equally manifest. His mastery of the principles of the law, his discriminating apprehension of the principles involved in the specific case in hand, his facility in developing by logical process and practical illustrations, the proper applications and results of these principles are very strikingly carried in the judicial opinions drawn up by him, contained in the Vermont Reports. His memory of cases in which particular points have been decided, is extra-ordinary, and his memory is accompanied by a very full and accurate apprehension of the very points, and grounds, and reasons of the judgment. Some of the cases in which he drew the opinion of the court, stand forth as leading cases, and his treatment of the subject involved, ranks with the best specimens of judicial disquisition." 

      Another distinguished jurist of Vermont, upon his appointment to the Senate, remarked: "The state so far as her interests depend upon the character of her courts and their administration of the law, has suffered irrepairable injury by the transfer of Judge POLAND from the chiefship of her judiciary to a seat in Congress." 

      Among the doctrines discussed by the leading cases above referred to are, the power of eminent domain, its proper extent and limitation; the adoption of the common law of England, by the United States; the subject of casements; the constitutionality of retroactive statutes; the acquirements of title by adverse possession; what promises to pay the debt of another are within the statute of frauds. His discussion of the subject last named is exhaustive and the elucidation of the then much confused subject has made the conclusions reached elementary. His opinion upon the extent of the constitutional power of the state to authorize soldiers in camp to vote was regarded as a settlement of that vexed question and was followed by several states. Since- leaving the bench he has had a large practice, mostly in the court of chancery and in the higher state and federal courts. He has rarely engaged in the trial of jury causes. He has been chairman of the executive committee of the National Bar Association since its formation. In his early career he was somewhat active and influential in politics. He was first a Democrat; later he belonged to the Free Soil wing of that party, and was their candidate for lieutenant-governor in 1848. On being elected to the bench he withdrew from active participation in politics, yet in his principles was loyal to the principles of free soil and free men. He became identified with tile Republican party upon its formation and has ever remained devoted to the principles in support of which the party was called into existence. In the discharge of his duties as senator he displayed the eminent ability, sound judgment and fearless advocacy of what he deemed right, which had marked his earlier course and inspired the confidence of his associates. As a member of the judiciary committee the bankrupt bill which had passed the House was intrusted to his care. The committee were about equally divided upon the expediency of the measure. His skillful management and large personal influence secured its passage, But the measure for which he is entitled to the greatest credit, having been its originator, and had its supervision to completion, is the revision of the United States laws. These laws, enacted, modified, and repealed, session after session by Congress, for nearly one hundred years, had remained without revision or consolidation. On many subjects it was difficult to ascertain what the statute law was. The magnitude and importance of this work, and his connection with it, cannot better be stated than was done by the Hon, Loren BLODGETT, in an address delivered before the Social Science Association, at Philadelphia, in 1875, as follows: --

    "Early in the first session of the Thirty-ninth Congress, 1865-6, Hon. Luke P. POLAND, the senator for Vermont, and a member of the judiciary committee of that body, introduced a bill for the revision and consolidation of the statutes of the United States, which was passed by the Senate, April 9, 1866, by the House of Representatives soon after, and became a law June 27 following, substantially without amendment, in the form originally given it by Judge POLAND,  * 

    * * This singularly clear and comprehensive plan was adhered to with almost literal faithfulness to the end, -- the term of labor required proving much greater than was expected -- but in all other respects the foresight of Judge POLAND was clearly shown and abundantly vindicated. *  *  * At this time, as subsequently shown, the real work of verification of the draft as being truly the unrepealed statutes of the United States, general and permanent in their natures, began at the hands of responsible parties. The House committee on revision of the laws, of which Judge Poland was chairman, took the report up with the full determination to perfect and enact it into law. Having originated the whole work while a member of the Senate in 1866, and followed it as the chief director of all subsequent proceedings in both houses of Congress for seven years, Judge POLAND had an interest in consummating what all regarded as a great work, which no other member of either branch could claim. *  * *  In all the later work, the energy and determination of the distinguished chairman, Judge POLAND, were always conspicuous, and it must in justice be said that the final decision as to what was, and what was not law, was his own and not the commissioners, or anyone of them. His able associates of the committee shared in responsibility, but none took the leading part, and the House, to which he made report at intervals, as enough of its verification should be completed for its action, in all cases, sustained his report. 

    "The Senate, still more indisposed to review his work, enacted the revision in a body precisely as it came from the House, and the whole became law June 23, 1874, without amendment; from the report of the committee on revision." 

      With reference to the extreme difficulty of the work, the same eminent authority adds: 

    "The work of deciding was to a great extent judicial in its character, with the additional difficulty of being required to construe a statute without a case and without argument. * * * No test so severe, both as to familiarity with the ordinary construction of these statutes and as to legal discrimination in regard to the intrinsic incompatibility of acts which had successively overlapped each other for nearly a century, without codification or special report, has at any time been applied to a body acting with the necessary haste of a committee in Congress during an active session. Indeed, under no circumstances and at no time has a like effort been made.  * * * In reviewing the work of this revision or codification, it is impossible not to accord it a rank quite distinct from, if not higher, than any previous work of the kind known to history.  *  *  *  To arrange, or rather rearrange, the statutes enacted over so long a period according to the subjects treated and in all the detail which the diversity of chapter and sections in each act require in their relation to the different subjects or legislation, is alone a great task. Still more difficult is the adjustment of conflicting laws and the elimination of all that is repealed, because it is inconsistent or incompatible under the changed circumstances as well as the changed text of later legislation. What was actually done in the present case was sufficient to invoke the very highest degree of ability and discrimination in thus judging the law without a case and without argument. (Laws are easily decisive and easily construed at the time of their enactment, but the strength that remains in them after the lapse of half a century is often reduced to a very small measure in consequence of a general incompatibility extremely difficult to define.)" 

      While engaged in this very difficult and laborious task, Judge POLAND was also conducting investigations of the most voluminous and laborious character. He was chairman of the committee raised to investigate the Ku Klux Klan outrages. The evidence presented filled thirteen large printed volumes. The exposure made practically broke up the organization, and was of inestimable value to the nation. He was also chairman of the important committee appointed to investigate the transactions of the Credit Mobilier Company. This investigation occupied several months, and the unanimous report created much excitement in political and social circles. It was sustained, and in effect relegated several prominent members of Congress, of Judge POLAND's party, to private life. 

      During the reconstruction period Judge POLAND was also conspicuous. He was chairman of a special committee raised to investigate the state of affairs in Arkansas. He supported the majority report of the committee in a very able speech. After a sharp fight the report was sustained by a majority of seventy, a result which created no little surprise, as the fight had been very, vigorous, and it was known that the result would be unpalatable to the Executive. 

      He took a prominent part in the discussion of the question of the proper distribution of the funds received under the Geneva award. He maintained the right of insurance companies to the money received for vessels and cargoes destroyed by rebel cruisers, whose owners had received payment from the insurers. In these ten years of his congressional life, no other member of either branch of Congress was so intimately identified with so many important measures. His eminent intellectual ability, and particularly his innate love of justice, inhaled with the free air of his native state, which, developed and strengthened by a long judicial service, enabled him to rise above mere partisan considerations, and to decide each question upon its merits, commended him to these important positions. This quality of fairness, displayed from the commencement of his political career, made him acceptable to both Republicans and Democrats as the chairman of committees for the investigation of questions, the result of which might effect the interests of either of the two great contending parties. 

      When a member of the Senate, the right of Mr. STOCKTON, of New Jersey, to a seat in that body, came under consideration. Mr. STOCKTON was a Democrat, and was deprived of his seat by a vote cast wholly by Republican senators. Judge POLAND was a member of the committee which heard the case, and advocated and voted in favor of his right to the seat. He was a member of the committee on elections during his first term in the House of Representatives. There were many contested seats, especially from the recently reconstructed states, and the still intense feeling for the Union and against the Rebellion, made the Republican members more than usually partisan in their action. Judge POLAND endeavored always to assume a judicial attitude of fairness which, several times, brought him in conflict with his own party. In 1876 his name was suggested in many Republican papers as a suitable candidate for the Vice-Presidency. He entertained the opinion that the Vice-President should be taken from a more influential and less certain state than Vermont. He was chairman of the Vermont delegation to the Cincinnati, convention, which nominated Hayes and Wheeler. He presented the name of Mr. Wheeler to the convention, and by his efforts and influence secured his nomination as Vice-President. 

      In 1878 he represented the town of St. Johnsbury in the state legislature. He was chairman of the judiciary committee, and exerted a potent influence in all the legislative measures brought before the House. 

      In the re-appointment of the members of Congress, based upon the census of 1880, Vermont lost one representative. 

      He was again elected to Congress by the new second district, in 1882. He entered upon the discharge of its duties with his accustomed ability and perseverance. His industry, readiness in the dispatch of and elevation to business, reputation for fairness, and well-known judicial and legislative ability, at once secured him a leading position in the minority party. A Republican in a Democratic House, among other measures, he secured the passage of several important acts for the relief of the constantly accumulating business of the United States supreme court. Together with his associates he made the Vermont delegation foremost in influence at Washington. Nearing his seventieth year, at the close of the session, he declined to be a candidate for re-election, preferring the quiet and peace of a private citizen, to the strife, turmoil, and hard work of political life. 

      He moved to St. Johnsbury in 1850. He was influential in securing the removal of the county seat to that place in 1856, and was chairman of the committee for the erection of the county buildings. For twenty-two years from its organization he was president of the First National bank of St. Johnsbury. In 1885 he purchased the old homestead of his father-in-law, Dr. PAGE, at Waterville, with the intention of making that the home of his in declining years. There he now resides. He represented the town in the legislature of 1886, was chairman of the judiciary committee, and the acknowledged leader of the House of Representatives. 

      In 1858 the University of Vermont showed its appreciation of Judge POLAND by conferring upon him the honorary degree of Master of Arts, and in 1861, of Doctors of Laws. In 1878 he became trustee of the University, and in 1882 founded in the institution the Westford scholarship, in honor of his native town. 

      Judge POLAND has been all his life a constant, general reader. With those who know him intimately in private life, he is very popular. His conversation sparkles with wit and humor. He married Martha SMITH, daughter of Dr. William PAGE, of Waterville, January 12, 1838. He had three children by this marriage. Of these Martin L., the eldest, was educated at West Point Military academy, and afterwards served as captain of the ordinance corps. He died at Fort Yuma, in August 1878. Mary; the second, died in August 1865. Isabel is the wife of A. E. RANKIN, of St. Johnsbury. Mrs. POLAND died in April, 1853. In 1854 Judge POLAND married Adelia H. PAGE, sister of his deceased wife, who is now living. It is needless to add that his influence on the bench and bar of Caledonia county has been greater than that of any other living man. 

      Hon Jonathan ROSS [By Andrew E, Rankin] was born April 30, 1826, on the farm, in the town of Waterford, Vt., which had been cleared by his grandfather, to which his father, Royal Ross, had succeeded, and upon which he resided till his death, in 1856. The ROSS family is of Scotch lineage, and marked by those sturdy qualities and admirable characteristics which enabled so many of that descent to take foremost rank among the pioneers who, by their energy and sterling qualities, contributed so largely to the determining and shaping of the early history of New England. Royal ROSS, for many years one of the most influential men of his native town, was a man of marked individuality, and commanded the respect and esteem of his townsmen during his life, and their unfeigned regret at his death. His wife, the mother of the Judge ROSS, and the daughter of Rev. Reuben MASON, who was of English ancestry, is still living. She is a woman of rare worth, and richly endowed with both moral and intellectual qualities. There were born to this worthy couple twelve children, six sons and six daughters, Judge ROSS being the third child and the eldest son. Under such influences and with such surroundings, he was brought up in the admirable old-fashioned habits of industry, frugality and morality, laboring upon his father's farm until he reached his majority, attending the district school both summer and winter, until he was ten or eleven years old, after which he labored in the summer and attended school only during the winter months, until he attained the age of seventeen years. The last of these winter terms was under the admirable tuition of Hon. Harry BINGHAM, now of Littleton, N. H., then just graduated from Dartmouth college. He early evinced an aptitude for scholarship and a love for books, which has marked his maturer years. He attended a select school at Waterford a part of two autumn terms, and a portion of one fall term at the Danville academy. The autumns of 1844, '45 and '46 he attended the St. Johnsbury academy, then under the charge of that most rare man and gifted teacher, Mr. James K. COLBY, whose influence was, perhaps, more potent in determining the moral and intellectual character of the citizens of Caledonia county than that of any other man. While here, the vision of a professional life and a more liberal culture first dawned upon him. With this end in view he spent the spring and one-half of the summer of 1847 under Mr. COLBY's tuition, and was, that year, admitted to the freshman class of Dartmouth college, with a preparation not so comprehensive as that of many of his more fortunate class- mates, but with a thorough mastery of the studies he had pursued, and with a mind trained to self-reliance. 

      During his college course he held a high position for scholarship, and for the cultivation of those qualities which go to constitute true manhood. Among his classmates who, like him, have attained distinction, were Hon. Charles W. WILLARD and ex-Governor PROCTOR, of Vermont, and Hon. E. A. ROLLINS and Joshua HALL, of New Hampshire. He was graduated in 1851, and his alma mater, ever mindful of merit in her sons, in 1885, conferred upon him the distinguished and well-merited degree of LL. D. 

      When eighteen years of age Judge ROSS began teaching in the district schools, and taught seven successive winters in Vermont, New Hampshire and Massachusetts. In the autumn of his junior year he assisted Mr. COLBY in St. Johnsbury academy. He taught the first year, after being graduated, in the academy at Craftsbury, Vt., and the two succeeding years in the academy at Chelsea, Vt.  The next two years he spent in the office of Hon. William HEBARD, at Chelsea, reading law, and at the same time instructing some classes in the academy. At the December term, 1855, he was admitted to the Orange county bar, and in the spring of 1856, returned to St. Johnsbury; and assisted Mr. COLBY in the academy. In May of that year he formed a co-partnership with A. J. WILLARD, and with him practiced law at St. Johnsbury until 1858, when this partnership was dissolved, and he practiced by himself until he was elected a judge of the supreme court, in 1870. 

      He was elected state's attorney for the county of Caledonia, in December, 1862, and re-elected to the same office in 1863. He was treasurer of the Passumpsic Savings bank from 1859 to 1869. He represented the town of St. Johnsbury in the legislature during the years 1865, '66 and '67. Was elected senator for Caledonia county in 1870, and was an exceedingly industrious, useful and influential member of these legislative bodies, holding positions upon the judiciary and other important committees in both branches. He was appointed a member of the state board of education in 1866, and held this position until he was called to the bench. He has always been active in both public and private affairs at home, having been trustee of the village of St. Johnsbury, and prudential committee in the St. Johnsbury Union district for eleven years. He was regarded as one of the most valuable and influential members of the state board of education, where his thorough education and long experience as a teacher rendered him specially fitted to detect the needs of public school, and apt in discerning the best methods of remedying its defects. At home, under his care, the schools of St. Johnsbury attained a usefulness and efficiency which was readily and gratefully recognized and acknowledged by his oft repeated election to the board of its management. His work in the educational departments is, by no means, second in its importance and usefulness to any other work of his busy life. 

      Judge ROSS was married November 22, 1852, to Eliza A. CARPENTER, of Waterford, daughter of Isaiah and Caroline (BUGBEE) CARPENTER, and sister of Hon. A. P. CARPENTER, now one of the associate justices of the supreme court of New Hampshire. She was educated at Newbury, Lyndon and St. Johnsbury academies, and taught many terms in the public schools of Vermont and New Hampshire; also in the Lyndon and St. Johnsbury academies. She was a woman of exceptional intellectual, moral and personal qualities, of high culture and a most estimable wife and mother. 

      To Judge ROSS and wife were born eight children, six of whom were daughters, viz.: Caroline C., Eliza M., Helen M., Julia, Martha E. and Edith, all of whom are now living except Helen, who died some five years since. Of the sons, Edward H. was graduated at Dartmouth college with high rank, in the class of 1886, and Jonathan C. is a member of the present sophomore class at the same college. 

      The wife of Judge ROSS died January, 1886, leaving, in a large family of well endowed, well educated and well trained children, the best monument of her worth. 

      With all his outside duties, not sought, but gracefully assumed, at the call of his fellow citizens, Judge ROSS never neglected his obligations to his chosen profession. From the outset of his professional career, by means of his strong natural gifts and his thorough mental discipline, he took a commanding position as a lawyer and maintained it while he continued to practice at the bar. He always proved true to his strong moral instincts and never allowed any false notions of duty to his clients to swerve him from his higher allegiance to the great and eternal principles of right and justice; and throughout his professional career he exemplified the fact that one may be a successful lawyer and at the same time a true Christian gentleman. He has enjoyed throughout his active professional life the highest confidence and the profoundest respect of the bench, the bar, and of tile public at large. In his associations with his professional brethren he was always courteous, considerate, accommodating and reliable, and when the time came that a vacancy upon the supreme bench was to be filled from the northeast portion of the State, common consent, both of lawyers and laymen, designated him as the man best fitted by natural endowment and legal attainment to fill the responsible position of judge, and his success through a period of seventeen years has more than justified the preconceived opinion of his friends. 

      Coming to the bench in the maturity of his power, though ripe in learning for his years, he did not abate one jot of zeal or effort to keep himself abreast of the most industrious and ambitious of his associates, and to-day he holds rank second to none of his associates in point of legal erudition and thorough knowledge of the fundamental principles of law, or familiarity with the established methods of practice. 

      As a trier of causes his eminent practical sense, his strong sense of justice, joined to his varied attainments, secured him at once the respect of the bar and the confidence of litigants. Sprung from and reared among the people and in full sympathy with their mode of life, no pride of position ever removed him from touch with the every-day life of the laboring classes, who ever find him ready to sympathize and advise them in the troubles and perplexities of life. 

      Uniformly courteous and indulgent to the bar, and especially to those whose limited experience leaves them, unaided, at the mercy of more astute and more experienced practitioners; patient to hear and considerate in expression of opinions to those from whose views he is obliged to dissent, it is both pleasant and easy to practice in his courts. Diligent in the performance of the functions of his office, there is never in his courts an accumulation of business, and no one ever has occasion to complain that the cases which fall to him in supreme court are not promptly attended to, and his written opinions always able and often times exhaustive, are with dispatch placed in the hands of the reporter. The early habit, acquired upon his father's farm, of doing at once and with thoroughness the thing to be done, makes him one of the most efficient and reliable men of his day and generation; in all of the manifold departments of public and private life, where he is called to act. Fair and impartial in the trial of issues of fact, questions which would naturally have gone to a jury for determination, are frequently, by mutual consent, submitted to the court. Simple and plain in the statement of the issues of cases submitted to the jury, he is enabled easily to assist them to reach just conclusions and further the ends of justice. Few lives, so crowded with responsible duties, have been more admirably lived, and it is to be hoped that the future has for him large store both of usefulness and of honors. 

      The following sketch was taken from the Caledonian of July 30, 1859, on the death of Hon. Ephraim PADDOCK: --

      I find the above sketch of Judge PADDOCK in the Caledonian. I am inclined to believe it was written by the late Gov. Erastus FAIRBANKS, whose mother was a sister of Judge PADDOCK. I think it does not at all overstate the merits of the man. I did not know him until after he left the bench, and never saw very much of him at the bar. In comparing him with his contemporaries, I have this idea, that while many of them as jury advocates excelled him, in accurate bearing, and knowledge of the law, he was the equal, if not superior, to any of them. I think that was the general impression of the bar of that day. 

      Judge PADDOCK was a tall, slender man, grave and serious in his deportment, and with a peculiar mildness of manner and view, but he had a will of his own. He was sensitive and delicate in every way, and was a skillful and accomplished musician. The good music for which St. Johnsbury has always been noted dates back to him. 

      His portrait hanging in the court-house at St. Johnsbury is an excellent likeness, though I believe it was painted from a small photograph. [*The sketch of Judge Paddock was furnished by Hon. L. P. Poland.]

      The photograph from which the accompanying engraving is made, is in the possession of Mrs. Horace PADDOCK, who furnishes the engraving. 

      Horace PADDOCK, only son of Hon. Ephraim PADDOCK, was born in St. Johnsbury, June 16, 1809, and died March 11, 1877. He was educated in the academy of Brownington, Vt., and the Cadet academy, of Norwich, Vt. Although he had a leading inclination to agriculture, in deference to his father's desire he entered the mercantile business when he was about twenty- three years of age, at Troy, Vt., where he remained until 1845. He then returned to his native town, and in connection with his father, established a large and lucrative wholesale business in tea and tobacco, which he successfully conducted until he retired, about four years preceding his death. Mr. PADDOCK was of medium height, rather frail physical organization, and unable to bear heavy labor without great fatigue, but his close attention and great energy compensated this deficiency. 

      In early life he was an "Old Line Whig." At the organization of the Republican party he became one of its earnest supporters, and in a quiet way rendered his party efficient service. He was a member of the North Congregational church, and had a membership with that denomination just fifty years, which fact he mentioned to his wife only two or three days before he died. 

      June 5, 1834, he married Miss Mary L. PAINE, a very estimable lady, who still survives her husband, and resides at the PADDOCK homestead. Their children (all living) are, Abbie L., born April 25, 1836, married Henry BEMIS, of Brooklyn, N. Y.; Halsey R., born August 23, 1839, married Annie HALL, of North Adams, is a dealer in leather in Boston; and Emma J. (Mrs. James TAYLOR), resides in St. Johnsbury. 

      Hon. Bliss N. DAVIS, one of the oldest members of Caledonia county bar, died at his home in Danville, February 11, 1885, at the advanced age of eighty-three years. His death removed a prominent figure from legal, political and social circles. Mr. DAVIS removed to Danville about the year 1850. In the year 1858-59, Mr. DAVIS was state senator. He was a director of the Caledonia bank for about twenty-five years, and president of the same for several years. Although a man without a classical education, or the polish of many advocates, he had a large amount of common sense which he used with tact and skill, and which made him a strong antagonist to meet in debate. In 1850 he was state's attorney, and had conducted the prosecution of Bristol BILL and MEADOWS indicted for counterfeiting. The defense was managed by two lawyers from Boston, and the trial had been a vigorous and hotly contested one. The jury brought in a verdict of guilty, against both of the defendants. The court took a recess of several days. At the reassembling of the court, Bristol BILL and MEADOWS were brought in for sentence. Both had fetters on their ankles, but their hands were free. Judge POLAND had pronounced the sentence of the court, which was ten years' imprisonment in the state prison. Mr. DAVIS stooped down to speak with MEADOWS, when Bristol BILL suddenly plunged a sharp pointed case knife into Mr. DAVIS' neck, barely escaping the jugular vein. At first it was supposed Mr. DAVIS was fatally stabbed, but he recovered rapidly, and was afterwards a vigorous and useful man, during a period of thirty-five years. After the prisoner had been secured and the court adjourned, Judge POLAND went at once to Mr. DAVIS's room, and as he entered, he said, “I am not dead yet, Judge, and you and I will live to punish a great many rascals yet." 

      Hon. Isaac Fletcher REDFIELD was born in Wethersfield, Vt., April 10, 1804, the eldest of a family of twelve children. His father, Dr. Peleg REDFIELD, removed to Coventry, Orleans county, in 1808, where he spent most of his life, a prominent physician, and much respected citizen, and died in 1848, at the age of seventy two. Isaac F. graduated with high honors at Dartmouth college in 1825, entered immediately upon the study of the law, and was admitted to the bar of Orleans county in 1827. He rapidly rose in his profession and in public estimation, and held from 1832 to 1835 the office of state's attorney for that county. In February 1834, on motion of Daniel Webster, he was admitted to the bar of the supreme court of the United States, Chief Justice Marshall presiding. At the October session of the legislature of Vermont, in 1835, he was elected a justice of the supreme court. He was then only thirty-one years of age, the youngest man who has ever attained that office in the state. His election was entirely unexpected to himself, especially as his political opinions were not in accordance with those of the majority of the legislature and it afforded a very marked proof of the personal and professional reputation he had acquired. Judge REDFIELD accepted the appointment with much hesitation and distrust of his own powers; but had, very soon, the satisfaction of knowing that he was regarded by the bar as the fit associate of his distinguished compeers. For twenty-four successive years after his first election (the judges being then annually elected in Vermont) he was unanimously re-elected by the legislature, though a large majority of that body were, during all that time opposed to him in political sentiment. Judge REDFIELD succeeded Judge ROYCE as chief justice, and was eight times unanimously elected to that office. These facts are far more significant to show the estimation in which he was held by the bar and the people of Vermont, than any comment that can now be made. His term of office was longer than that of any Judge who ever sat upon the bench in the state, though exceeding by only two months that of Judge ROYCE. 

      Judge REDFIELD's opinions were perhaps more distinguished in the departments of equity, commercial and railway law. It would be interesting to advert to some of the more important of them, and to trace their influence in the deliberations and conclusions of other courts; but the limits of this brief sketch do not admit. Judge REDFIELD was a diligent student at all times, thoroughly acquainted with the course of English and American decisions, drawing largely upon their reasoning, and in no respect undervaluing their authority, established principles and a strong sense of justice and of right were, after all, the controlling element in bringing him to results. He was never brought "by learned reasons to absurd decrees." Technicalities were not allowed to subvert justice when, by any fair means, they could be surmounted or escaped. . 

      He was a man of unfailing courtesy and kindness, amiable temper, unquestioned and unquestionable purity of character, with unassuming dignity and quiet decorum, with which he invested the proceedings of his court. He retired from the bench in November, 1860, and in 1861 removed to Boston, where he lived during the remainder of his life, engaged in publishing his treaties on the Law of Railways, which has given him a national reputation, and other works of equal merit, and for more than twelve years was one of the editors of the American Law Register. At the close of the civil war he was appointed, by Secretary of State SEWARD, in conjunction with Mr. Caleb CUSHING, the special counsel of the United States for the purpose of defending the claim of this government to a considerable amount of Confederate property in Europe, principally in England. The American claims against Great Britain for the heavy losses sustained by privateers fitted out in England, were also then adjusted. Some of the claims were compromised, and all brought to a satisfactory conclusion. 

      He was twice married, first to Miss Mary SMITH, of Stanstead, Canada, and second, to Miss Catherine CLARKE, of St Johnsbury. He died in Charlestown, Mass., of pneumonia, March 23, 1876, near the completion of his seventy-second year, and was buried at Windsor, Vt. 

      Marshall MONTGOMERY was born in Walden, March 26, 1839, attended common school there, and afterwards the academy at Peacham a few terms, where he fitted for college in 1859. In May 1861, he enlisted as private in Co. G, 3d Vt. Vols. and served in that company and regiment until Nov. 11, 1863, when he received a commission as captain of Co. D, 10th U. S. Colored Troops, in which organization he served in Virginia and Texas, until May 17, 1866, when he was mustered out of service at Galveston, Texas; having served five years and three days, with no absence from his command except on one leave of absence of twenty days, and a few days while waiting in Washington to go before the examining board when he received his commission. He began the study of law before leaving the service, and continued it at Danville, Vt., in the law office of B. N. DAVIS, and was admitted to the bar at St. Johnsbury in June, 1869 and has since been in practice at that place and at Walden. He was elected state's attorney in 1884, and has been justice of peace two years. 

      Joseph Thomas GLEASON, was born in Lunenburg, Vt., June 18, 1844, and received his early education at the district school. At the age of seventeen years he left school to enlist in company K, 8th Vt. Vols., for the war, but his health being imperfect he was rejected after having drilled sometime with the company. He subsequently enlisted again in Co. A, 15th Vt. Vols., was accepted and served about one year. He studied law with J. P. LAMSON, at Cabot, and W. W. EATON, at West Concord, and was admitted to the bar at Guildhall, September, 1876, practiced two years in West Concord, and located in Lyndonville in the fall of 1878, being the first lawyer to establish an office in that place. He married, September 9, 1884, Mary S. ALDRICH, of Concord. She is a daughter of Roswell ALDRICH, who now lives in Guildhall, aged eighty-five years. 
 
 
 

Transcribed and provided by Tom Dunn, 2003.

Source: 
Gazetteer of Caledonia and Essex, Counties, VT., 1764-1887,
Compiled and Published by Hamilton Child; May 1887, Pages 5-124.