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NATHAN KELSEY HALL.
PAPER READ BEFORE THE SOCIETY MARCH 30, 1874.
BY HON. JAMES O. PUTNAM.
The early days of March, ’ 74, will long be associated with
National bereavement and sorrow. An ex-President, universally
honored, and his first friend and chosen associate in the conduct
of the Government, both brought into the most responsible of
human relations at a period in our history almost revolutionary,
both conservative by temperament, by habits of thought, and by
that awful sense of responsibility which rejects the impulses of
enthusiasm for the guidance of a passionless judgment; paying
their highest political homage to Constitutional obligation as the
basis of all faith between States, and the strongest bond of
Federal Union, were summoned from our midst in startling suc-
cession.
While we were paying the last offices to our own great dead,
fell in his high place in the National Capitol, a son of New
England* born to fortune, born to education and to the rarest
culture of the rarest gifts; endowed with genius, and courage,
and a love of his race, which inspired a long and illustrious
career that will keep his name in grateful memory so long as
freedom is precious and slavery hateful to mankind. Viewing
some of the great questions of their time from different points of
observation and responsibility, yet seeking a, common end—the
advancement of the best interests of the country and the human
race—each discharged his duty with a conscientiousness and
. «
♦Senator Charles Sumner.
285
286
NA THAN KELSE Y HALL.
patriotism worthy the Golden Age of the Republic. This sad
time is not without its lessons, and to those who deprecate the
injustice of partisan controversy, not without its consolations.
You have devolved upon me the office of preparing a sketch
of the life and character of Judge Hall. Happily he has left a
brief autobiography of his early years, designed for his family
only, but which I have been kindly permitted to consult for the
purposes of this paper.
Nathan Kelsey Hall was born in Marcellus, Onondaga
County, New York, March io, 1810. His father, Ira Hall, son
of Doctor Jonathan Hall, a practicing physician of that town,
resided with Nathan Kelsey at the time of his son’s birth. Of
Mr. Kelsey, Judge Hall speaks as “a substantial farmer in the
best sense of the term, a man of strong mind and excellent judg-
ment, unswerving integrity and wise benevolence.” In the
family of Mr. Kelsey young Nathan lived until about 16 years
of age, and was to them as .a son. The autobiography to which
I have referred, speaks of his relation to Mr. and Mrs. Kelsey in
terms of filial affection. They manifested the deepest interest
in his welfare and watched his career with satisfaction and pride.
‘ His educational advantages were such as were afforded by the
district school, in which he was thoroughly instructed in the
primary elements of our English education. His teacher for
several winters was the late Moulton Farnham, Esq., of Attica,
an excellent lawyer and estimable gentleman. When not in
school he assisted on the farm in the usual occupations of a farm-
ing lad.
In 1818 Mr. Hall’s father moved into Erie County, settling
permanently in Wales, where he followed his trade and kept up a
small farm. In 1826 young Hall took his adieu of the Kelseys
and went to live with his father. Says the sketch, narrating this
part of his history, “I parted from Mr. Kelsey, tears streaming
from the eyes of both of us, and was soon on my way to the
West.” He was for a few weeks, after rejoining his father’s
family, a clerk in the store of Alba Blodgell, in Alexander,
Genesee County. His father was a leather and shoe manufac-
turer, and Judge Hall makes a playful reference to his own
attempts in those arts. “ After my return from Alexander,” heNA THAN KELSE Y HALL.
287
writes, “I remained for a time at Wales working part of the
time in a sugar orchard and the residue in the shoe shop, where
I soon learned to tap coarse shoes and boots in a very coarse
way. I believe I even succeeded in making a pair of small and
very coarse shoes. Still I can boast of no great success as a son
of St. Crispin, and when I left the shop there was no very serious
violation of the good old adage, ‘ Let the shoemaker stick to his
last.* ”
Efforts were at this time made to secure him a situation in a
store at Aurora. They failed, and then application was made to
Millard Fillmore, at that time a practicing lawyer at Aurora, to
take him as a student in his office. Here was the turning-point
in young Hall’s life. The failure to secure a merchant’s clerk-
ship gave the nation the statesman and jurist. Mr. Hall gives
the following account of his entrance upon his new vocation,
and of his occupation and early struggles:
On the first day of May, 1826, I left the tan-yard and the shoe shop for
the law office. Mr. Fillmore had a small office, a well selected law library of
about one hundred and fifty volumes, and a village library of about one hun-
dred and fifty volumes was kept in his office, he being the librarian. Mr.
Fillmore was then 26 years old and not yet admitted to the Supreme Court.
His business was small, and when not employed in writing I spent my time
in reading very assiduously such law books as he directed and such miscella-
neous books from the village library as his or my judgment approved. In this
way I spent six months in his office, and then took a district school about three
miles from my father’s and taught it for three months at $11 per month,
probably as much as my services were worth. At the end of the school term
I returned to Mr. Fillmore’s office, a wiser, if not a better youth, and again
entered upon my legal studies. I continued my studies with great assiduity,
being sometimes employed as surveyor by private persons and by the Com-
missioners of Highways at $1.50 and $2.00 per day. Mr. Fillmore was glad
to render the same services for the Commissioners of Highways and citizens of
Aurora.
Who could cast the horoscope on that eventful first of May
and foretell the fortunes of those two, both poor, both unknown
and unpatronized, neither with any dream that the future had
anything for them beyond honorable, independent and com-
paratively obscure lives. The one but a few years out of his
apprenticeship to an honorable and useful trade, and the other
from the farm and shop, and there beginning an association288
NATHAN KELSE Y HALL.
which should stretch out through almost half a century, cul-
minating in a mutual friendship that knew no waning, and bear-
ing them together to the highest seats of power and honor.
Viewed in the light of their career and of the sad pageants of
this month of March, that morning scene is most suggestive.
I find in a memorandum book which young Hall opened on
the day he entered Mr. Fillmore’s office the following entry :
Clerk and student at law in M. Fillmore’s office, Aurora. Motto—In-
tegrity, industry and perseverance, will lead to honor, riches and universal
esteem.
July 4,1829.	N. HALL.
This motto is repeated and so emphasized on another page.
It is worthy of Franklin, and furnished the key-note of his after
life- In the sense in which he used the term “ riches”—inde-
pendence—his life was an illustration of his motto.
Mr. Hall continued with Mr. Fillmore in Aurora, teaching
school winters, surveying as opportunity offered, and so con-
tinued until July, 1831, when he entered the office of the Hol-
land Land Company as clerk under the late Col. Ira A. Blossom,
the local agent. He remained in this new relation thirteen
months, still keeping up his legal studies during leisure hours.
Of Col. Blossom he speaks in grateful terms as one of his warm-
est friends. On the 15th of November, 1832, Mr. Fillmore
invited him to a partnership, Mr. Hall having been admitted to
the bar as attorney and solicitor the July preceding.
With the formation of this partnership we find him fairly
started on his professional career, fully equipped by character,
by application to business and capacity for work, for all the suc-
cess he could fairly win. He was soon selected for various local
trusts. The list of his early official positions is a high eulogium
on his character and qualifications. From 1830 to 1840 he held
at some time the following offices :
Deputy Clerk of Erie County; Commissioner of Deeds for
Buffalo ; Clerk of Board of Supervisors ; City Attorney in 1833;
Chairman of Board of Supervisors; Master in Chancery, 1840;
Taxing Master of Eighth Council ; Alderman of Fifth Ward of
Buffalo, 1837-38; and Major and Judge Advocate of Fourth
Brigade.NA THAN KELSR Y HALL.
289
In the year 1839, Mr. Hall, having been appointed by Gover-
nor Seward, Master in Chancery, formed a partnership with O. H.
Marshall, Esq., which continued one year. In 1842 he formed
a partnership with Dennis Bowen, Esq., which was dissolved in
1850. But previously to these later relations, and on the 10th
of January, 1836, was formed that professional Triumvirate
which has become historic, and which was destined to a control-
ing interest both in the State and Nation. The law firm of
Fillmore, Hall & Haven was then organized, Mr. Fillmore
being just thirty-six years’* of age, Mr. Hall twenty-eight, and
Mr. Haven about twenty-six. I doubt if the history of the
country affords a parallel instance of three young men so
associated professionally, with none of those aids which estab-
lished family position, or wealth, or liberal education are sup-
posed to give, attaining severally such professional and political
eminence, and that without jealousy of each other, and with the
most perfect loyalty to their mutual friendship. Each brought
to the common stock talents peculiarly his own, and all were
able lawyers.
Will you permit me to linger a moment over the memory of
Mr. Haven. He was unquestionably one of the most rarely
endowed men we have ever had among us. As a nisi prius
lawyer Western New York had not his superior. He had no
eloquence, never carried juries by the storm of passion or the
magnetic power of what we call genius. But somehow he carried
them. He was simple, but clear and direct in presenting a
case, and no man found readier access to the understandings
and sympathies of the formidable twelve men. He was always
cool, never betrayed into confessed surprise, was full of
resources, and went through a trial with the tone and air of a
master. Common sense, good nature, a, ready wit, a bright
intellect, a winning address, were the great elements of his
power over a jury. In a political canvass the same characteristics
made him the most popular of men before an audience. His
pleasantry always amused, while his logic convinced, and his
unbounded good humor made him a universal favorite. During
the six years he was in Congress, he was one of the most useful
19290
NA THAN KELSE Y HALE
of its members. Mr.Washburne, our present Minister to France,*
who was in Congress with him, but not always in political
sympathy, told me that on other than purely party questions Mr.
Haven was the most influential member of the body. Every
member knew that he brought integrity and intelligence to the
study of every question of public interest before the House, and
that it was safe to follow his lead. He died in the maturity of
his powers, too early for his many friends, too early for the
country he could serve so well. Remembering the associated
and distinguished careers of those three men, there is a touching
pathos in their last repose, side by side, in our city of the dead.
Judge Hall brought to his profession perfect conscientious-
ness, great industry, dispatch of business in hand, a clear,
analytical mind, in short, every element which goes to make a
complete office lawyer and a safe counselor. He was an
admirable commercial lawyer. This was clearly revealed to the
public when in 1842 he was appointed first Judge of the old
Court of Common Pleas of Erie County. Before his advent to
the Bench of that Court it had no standing as a commercial
Court. But during Judge Hall’s term of service it was
acknowledged to rank among the foremost of the State. But it
was as an equity lawyer that he was pre-eminent. His nice
sense of justice, his patience in investigation, and his love of
those broad principles of equity which are the basis of all just
dealing between men, his ready sympathy with cestui que trusts,
who as widows, or as orphans and infants, held relations of
dependence upon trustees, all inclined him to make equity
jurisprudence his specialty as a lawyer. When he left the
profession to take a place in Mr. Fillmore’s Cabinet, his
reputation as an equity lawyer was second to that of no man in
Western New York. And there can be no doubt had he con-
tinued the practice of his profession he would have achieved
great distinction in his favorite branch of legal study, and reaped
the just reward of his diligence and learning.
The character of his mind was rather analytical than creative.
He had no warmth of imagination, no fervid fancy. He had a
thorough knowledge of legal principles, and that integrity of mind
♦Resigned in 1877, died Oct. 22, 1887.—Ed.NA THAN KELSE Y HALL.
291
which not only never imposed upon others, but did not permit him
to impose upon himself. He had a calm temperament, a habit
of patient investigation, a sound judgment, a ready application of
legal principles to the case in hand. How highly these charac-
teristics were appreciated by his professional brethren appeared
in his popularity as a referee while he was in the profession.
I think it safe to say that no Buffalo lawyer at the time I refer to
was so frequently chosen to act as referee in important cases.
In August, 1852, Judge Hall was appointed by President
Fillmore, United States District Judge of the Northern District
of New York. This office he held for nearly twenty-two years,
discharging its duties with a fidelity and ability which rank him
among the most laborious, useful and upright of the Federal
judiciary. He entered upon the office at a new era in its rela-
tions to our inland commerce. The business upon the lakes had
within a few years very largely increased, giving rise to much
litigation to be settled by the principles of marine law. It had
then recently been decided by the Supreme Court of the United
States that our inland lakes were within its admiralty jurisdiction.
This threw upon Judge Hall’s court a large amount of litigation
involving principles and practice peculiar to admiralty law.
This was an entirely new field to him, and he entered upon it as
a student with a diligence and zeal which made him master of
that branch of the law. I have been told that when first invited
to hold a term of the District Court in New York, there were
several important admiralty cases on the calendar which counsel
were disposed to put over the term, feeling that an inland judge
could know little law governing cases connected with ocean
commerce. But on the trial of one or two such cases before
him, the profession were surprised by his profound knowledge of
the principles of the admiralty law, and he was ever after one of
the most popular judges called to preside at the New York
Circuit. His selection was always hailed as a happy fortune for
the bar and for suitors. His new career as judge imposed upon
him the necessity of studying another and very difficult branch
of law—that of patents, an exclusive specialty even among
lawyers. He thoroughly mastered it and his opinion became
high authority. The complicated system of our revenue laws292
NA THAN KELSE Y HALL.
imposed upon him fresh labor, and to no judge is the country
more indebted than to him for a just interpretation and enforce-
ment of the revenue laws. After the passage of the present
bankrupt law his court was literally overwhelmed with questions
requiring discrimination, judgment and learning to solve. With
the enormous labors of this court before this fresh draft upon his
energies, it is easy to see that the settlement before him of sev-
eral thousand bankrupt cases during the last few years, some
involving millions of dollars and the rights of hundreds of
creditors, demanded a strength of body herculean and of mind
adequate to every exigency. As an interpreter of the bankrupt
law he became an authority. He placed no limit to his labors
either in mastering the law or in arriving at an equitable settle-
ment among conflicting creditors of bankrupt estates. Here was
the weight that broke him down. He undoubtedly bestowed
more labor on his cases than duty required. He did not know
how to work easily, he only knew to do the utmost that could
be done, to exhaust every subject presented to his review, to sift
to the bottom every complication of facts, and to leave a case
submitted only when he had mastered it to the last detail. He
was always in harness, and scarce knew what recreation was.
Very few of Judge Hall’s decisions were finally reversed. The
only criticism I ever heard made upon his method in the trial of
cases before him, was to the effect that in taking testimony and
weighing it he failed to duly discriminate between honest and
dishonest witnesses. It was accompanied by this explanation,
that the Judge was so honest himself that he did not readily sus-
pect dishonesty in others. However this may have been, the
fact that on review his decisions were so generally sustained, is
sufficient proof that suitors went out of his court with substantial
justice so far as he was called to administer it. I do not know
how I can better supplement what I have said than by quoting
. some of the expressions made before Judge Blatchford’s Court in
the Southern District, as I find them reported in the New York
papers. Hon. E. W. Stoughton, the eminent counselor of New
York, the day after Judge Hall’s decease, moved the adjourn-
ment of the Court out of respect to his memory, and in the
course of his address said as follows :NA THAN KELSE V HALL.
293
Judge Hall entered upon the discharge of his duties with a high sense of
sacred obligation imposed upon him. He has often presided in this District,
both in the Circuit andr District Courts. During almost his entire judicial life
it has been my good fortune to know him well and to enjoy, as I believe, his
confidence and friendship. I have been often before him in the trial and argu-
ment of cases, some of which were of great length and difficulty. His efforts
thoroughly to understand the most complicated were ever persistent and
laborious. He rarely conceived and rarely expressed at an early stage of any
cause impressions for or against either side. He was slow to arrive at con-
clusions, and seldom did so until he had most carefully investigated and delib-
erated upon the questions to be determined. His love of justice, his desire to
do justice, impelled him oftentimes to the performance of judicial labor of the
most painful and minute character, and he brought to his aid in this stores of
exact legal learning, the accumulations of many well spent years. He heard
counsel with patience, and ever treated them with courtesy and kindness.
His judicial life has been pure and spotless, and to his labors and his example
the Bar, the public and even the Bench are greatly indebted. A more satis-
factory life to him, one which could more completely gratify the pride and the
honest ambition of the widow and descendants who mourn his loss, cannot
well be imagined. He had occupied high places in the State and on the
Bench,without having sought or secured them by unworthy means, and he has
ever so discharged his high and responsible trusts as to merit the approval and
the applause of the best among his fellow-men. He was a worthy associate
upon the bench of that great judge whose los#we still sincerely mourn
(Nelson), and whom, after a few months of separation, he has gone from us to join.
If Judge Hall does not rank among the few great judges who
have established the principles of law and equity as applicable to
trade and commerce, or who have interpreted the fundamental
law and defined the limitations of State and Federal authority,
there can be no doubt of his place in our judicial history as one
of the most upright, laborious and adequate judges that have
ever honored the American Bench.
One characteristic of Judge Hall, in times of popular excite-
ment, provoked some criticism. He had as profound a rever-
ence for law and constitutional right and authority as it is possi-
ble for man to pay them. Living law to him was the highest
representative of the Divine on earth.- And whether in peace or
war, whether it involved the rights of persons or the Government,
it was to be enforced without fear or favor. Salus legis suprema
lex appeared to him the safer maxim than the salus populi. He
saw no safety for the citizen in irresponsible authority. His294
NA THAN KELSE Y HALL.
judgment might have been always right, or sometimes wrong, in
his vindication of the inviolability of the law. But one thing is
certain, that for the rights of persons as maintained today in
England and in our own country, we are indebted to judges of
the stamp of Judge Hall; men who could go to the Tower or
the block with heart and cheek unblenched, but who would not
deny the protection of the law to the poorest subject, the
humblest citizen, against Commons or Kings. Judicial inde-
pendence under the sanctions of an honest nature a democracy
can not afford to undervalue, and this element, so needful for
the protection of the citizen in times of civil commotion and
alarm, was pre-eminent in Judge .Hall. Herein was the moral
grandeur of his character. Underneath that modest mien and
unaffected simplicity was the latent element of power, which, on
occasion, could rise to the sublime of judicial assertion. With-
out this quality a man may be a learned judge, but in the high-
est sense he can not be a great one.
Judge Hall had a short legislative career, having been elected
a member of Assembly in November 1845, and a member of
Congress in 1846. jjle declined a re-election to Congress. He
took high rank in both bodies as a capable and useful legislator.
He was distinguished for his intelligent labor in committee, and for
his attention to the general business before the House. At the close
of his Congressional term he returned to his profession from
which he was called to yet more responsible relations in the
Government.
The death of General Taylor brought Mr. Fillmore to the
Presidential office, and in forming his Cabinet he called Judge
Hall to the office of Postmaster-General. He was fully in
sympathy with the President upon all the great questions and
measures of the time, but his own immediate responsibility be-
gan and ended with his own Department. He held the office of
Postmaster-General from July 3, 1850, to September 13, 1852,
and in September, 1851, was for a short time acting Secretary of
the Interior. To his Cabinet office he brought the same zeal,
energy, judgment and fidelity which had distinguished his pro-
fessional and official life. As a Cabinet officer he took high rank
and was especially valued by his colleague, Mr. Webster. ThereNATHAN KELSE V HALL.
295
are two classes of statesmen: The one represents the doctrinaire
and innovator, who is sometimes Utopian and sometimes wisely
in advance of his time. Another class has little sympathy with
experiments, and prefers to stand by the established order so
long as it seems to work substantial justice. Judge Hall was a
representative of the latter class. He was no doctrinaire, and he
was slow to accept new theories until his judgment told him it
was time for the old to die; he was a conservative statesman, and
gave to that school his cordial, because his honest, co-operation.*
The bare enumeration of his official trusts shows how abso-
lutely he was the servant of the public. Many of them in the
earlier part of his career were humble offices, sought undoubtedly,
for the aid they would give him in his struggles, but the duties
of each and all were as faithfully discharged as were those of the
highest dignity and responsibility. It was this proved adequacy
and tried fidelity that secured him the most absolute public con-
fidence, and made easy and natural his advancement to the high-
ests trusts under the Government. And it was well said at the
meeting of the Bar, that this was the crucial test and that his
character had come out of it as solid gold. His integrity was
almost of a romantic type—no importunity of friendship, no
precedents of favoritism could ever bend him from the most
inflexible observance of his rule of duty. This was illustrated
when he was Postmaster-General in his award of contracts for
printing and mail services, when he never knew any difference
between friends and foes and had no eyes for anything but the
most advantageous offers for the Government.
The many offices held by Judge Hall, having more or less
emolument, never enriched him, while the greater portion of his
official life, and from which the public reaped the largest advan-
tage was, measured by the value and amount of services rendered,
pecuniarily unrecompensed. His judgeship did not yield a sup-
port, to say nothing of its dignity, which is something so long as
a worthy man holds the office.
But Judge Hall did his full share of service in founding and
maintaining those institutions of education and charity, which
are the best exponents of our social spirit. As early as 1837,
*See “ The Postal Service of the United States,” by Mr. Hall, this vol., p. 299.—Ed.296
NA THAN KELSE Y HALL.
when in the City Common Council, he was Chairman of the
School Committee, and in connection with O. G. Steele, Esq.,
then Superintendent of Schools, prepared the bill which revolu-
tionized the former system and prepared the way for the present
systems of our public schools.* He was for many years Presi-
dent of the Buffalo Female Academy, and was at the time of his
death one of the trustees of the Wells Seminary at Aurora,
Cayuga County. He was also President of the Board of Trus-
tees of the State Normal School in Buffalo. He was one of the
trustees of the Ketchum Memorial Fund. He was one of the
founders and Presidents of this Society, in which he always took
a deep interest. In short, he lived and died in the public ser-
vice, shrinking from no labor imposed, discharging every duty as
a citizen with scrupulous fidelity and honor.
In every private and domestic relation his life was beautiful.
His autobiography has an almost religious tone of gratitude to
his father’s house, and to the early home that gave his childhood
protection and love. He was a fond kinsman, and a wide circle
dwelt in the sunshine of his considerate and sacrificing nature.
He practiced a liberal and unostentatious charity. He realized
the ideal man of the Arabian poet:	“ He delivered the poor
that cried, and the fatherless and him that had none to help him.
He put on righteousness and it clothed him, and his judgment
was a robe and a diadem.”
He reverentially recognized the moral Providence of the world.
He had a pure heart, which is the vision of God. His worship
was neither a ceremony nor an asceticism. His organization
required other methods of expression than these. In this con-
nection I shall take the liberty to quote a single paragraph from
his autobiography, sacredly personal as is its character:	“ That
much of my success has been due to my own efforts, I feel
bound to say in encouragement of those who shall come after me,
while I admit with thankfulness and gratitude that much more
has been due to the kindness of the Universal Father who cast
my lines in pleasant places, and in the course of His benignant
providence afforded me abundant and yet repeated opportunities
*See “ The Buffalo Common Schools,” by Oliver G. Steele, Pub. Buf. Hist. Soc.,
Vol. I., page 405.—Ed.NA THAN KELSE Y HALL.
297
to put to profitable and yet honorable use the talents he had given
me. ’ ’ But what can I say of Judge Hall as a man which has not
already been expressed in every form of tribute which a public
can pay to one it honors and reveres. Words almost fail us when
we enter the domain of his private life and contemplate his
character as it unfolded in the relations of friendship and home.
He might have appeared stern and severe to those who knew him
not, but to those who sought him he was sweet as summer. Who
ever saw him ruffled, except in presence of some cruelty or
wrong ? What a benediction was in that friendly, beaming face !
Living without ostentation or display, yet with tasteful comfort,
he was a princely host. 44 This house is yours,” says the courteous
Castilian ; 44 This house is yours,” you read in our friend’s
greeting and hospitality. He was born for friendship and he
abounded in those little offices of kindness which are among the
sweetest'solaces of life. He made our burthens lighter by his
love, and we went from his presence with fresh courage and
renewed strength for life’s weary march.
He had a large nature, full of truth, loyalty and honor.
His word had the sanctity of religion, it was a pillar of constancy.
His public career was pure as his private life. All the elective
offices he ever held were bestowed, not purchased. If modern
politics are in the least degenerated, he did nothing to degrade
them. He never offered bribes, he never debauched a constit-
uency. He never solicited offices with votes in one hand and
money in the other. He was fond of place, but no ambition ever
led him to sacrifice his manhood. He never dragged his robes
in the mire or sullied those of other men. He was ever pure,
self-respecting. He was no.flatterer of the people—he had no
arts, no strategy—his capital was his character. He was a
gentleman of the old-time school, a type of a class rapidly passing
away. Science teaches us that the different geological periods
have furnished each distinct formation and species of vegetable
and animal life, the new ever superseding the old. Our modern
society seems to have a somewhat analogous experience. This
period of unrest, of concentration of capital and energy in
great centers of population, of material devlopment and the new
paths it opens for personal distinction, will give us types of298
NA THAN KELSE V HALL.
commanding energy and force, but without the calm, the dignity
and silent power of the old school.
Judge Hall married on the 16th day of November, 1832,
Miss Emily Paine, of Aurora. Five children were born to him,
of whom but one survives—Mrs. Josiah Jewett of this city.
For several years previous to his death his constitution gave
repeated signs of giving way before the severe labors of his office.
On the week previous to his death he had been in daily attendance
upon his official duties. On Sunday, March 1st, he did not feel
as well as usual and kept in bed. I saw him at seven o’clock in
the evening, when he was cheerful and hopeful, with no appear-
ance of extreme illness. He fell asleep at the usual hour and
about four o’clock in the morning, after a slight spasm, he died.
And so he passed forever from the scenes of time.