MHBUJ^MBBH .FHH-I le, and the eagerness to witness it, .that the Court- house did not suffice, and the trial was transferred to the Meeting- house, whose wide floor and deep galleries held a vast multitude, who looked with awe and wonder on the scene. Judge Trumbull, the author of McFingal, presided. The office of judge was then elective in Connecticut, the judges being chosen by the Legislature. But such was the respect for this excellent man, that the election was a mere form, he being chosen, without opposition, for about twenty years. He was a fine specimen of the gentleman of the old school. He sat in front of the pulpit, in his ruffled shirt sleeves and bosom, arid his 22 short-clothes. The trial was with due deliberation, but the case was clear, and could have but one issue. When the jury came in with their verdict, and the prisoner was told to stand up and look upon the jury, and the jury to look upon the prisoner, all were hushed in the stillness of death as the terrible word "Guilty" was pronounced. The prisoner was taken back to his place of confinement, and during the weeks and months that intervened before his execution, he was visited by Mr. Field as the minister of the parish, under whose faithful and kind admonitions he professed to be truly penitent, and ready to die, asking forgiveness of God and of men. He became much attached to one who had proved such a friend, and desired him to be with him on his last day, to strengthen him for the moment that he was to suffer. As it was the custom that a sermon should be preached, he wished that it should be by the same pastor whose voice had become familiar to him in the solitude of his cell. The execution took place in Middletown, and drew an immense concourse of people from all the surrounding country. The church was crowded to overflowing. The prisoner was brought in by the soldiers. "I can see them now," says one who was then eleven years old, and who looked on with a boy's eager eyes, "and hear the clang as they grounded their arms." The sermon, as was fitting in view of the cause of the crime, was A WARNING AGAINST DRUNKENNESS, from the text Luke xxi. 34: "And take heed to yourselves, lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting and drunkenness, and cares of this life, and so that day come upon you unawares. " Not often has the pulpit of New Eng- land rung with a more powerful denunciation of that which is the cause of so much crime; of so many acts of violence and blood. As he drew near the close, the preacher turned to the unhappy man before him, who rose and stood (as he had done when receiving sentence from the judge), to hear these last words before he was launched into eternity. The preacher then addressed him as follows : "PETER LUNG: By your confessions, which have been given to the world, it appears that intemperate drinking has been the procuring cause of the calamities which have come upon you. Had it not been for this, you might now have been a reputable, useful citizen ; your wife would perhaps have still been your comfort, as she was for years after your marriage, and your children as olive-plants around your table. But this inflamed your passions, naturally violent and impetu- ous ; filled your tongue with profaneness and threatening, and your hands with frequent acts of violence, even upon her who was your companion, and the wife of your covenant. In a fit of intoxication you inflicted upon her wounds, marks of which she carried to the grave These, in your opinion, were the means of her death, though you offer in eicuse that you ' did not intend it ' ; that ' it was not done through malice prepense, or any preconcerted plan of murder.' But the Scrip- tures pronounce those to be murderers who designedly smite their fellow-creatures with any deadly weapon or instrument ; who ' thrust them of hatred or hurl at them by lying in wait, or in enmity smite them with the hand, that they die,' whether death was intended or not; and such are declared to be worthy of death. (Num. xxxv.) What you have done, as it has been judged by the proper tribunals, subjects you to an ignominious execution. From this there is no escape. But men who forfeit their lives to the laws of their country, may upon repentance receive a pardon from God ; and though such as abandon themselves to intemperance put their salvation to an awful hazard, ' there is still forgiveness with Him that He may be feared.' During your long con- finement the means of intoxication have been withheld, the Book con- taining the words of Eternal Life has been opened before you, and ministers of the Gospel have instructed you in the way of salvation. Let me ask, then, as your soul has been full of troubles, and your life has drawn nigh unto the grave ; as you have been counted with them that go down into the pit ; as your acquaintance have been put away from you, and you have been shut up, and could not go forth ; have you cried day and night before God ? Have you been led to know the plague of your heart, and to loathe yourself in your own sight, for your iniquities and your abominations ? Have you seen the excellence and all-sufficiency of Him who came to save sinners, even the chief? And have you cast yourself entirely upon His merits for pardon, and do you heartily desire the present and eternal welfare of your fellow-creatures ? The recent change you suppose you have experienced, is matter of joy and praise. Still as the heart is deceitful above all things, and des- perately wicked, pray God to search your heart, and try your reins, to see if there be any wicked way in you still unrepented of, and to lead you in the way everlasting. Whatever you do, you must do speedily : for this day thou shalt die. Before yonder sun shall set in the west, your probationary state will be closed forever. This day you will either lift up your eyes in hell, being in torments ; or through the rich, overflowing, and sovereign grace of God, be carried by the angels to Abraham's bosom. If in any doubt about your preparation, you may yet find mercy. He who pardoned the penitent thief on the cross, may pardon you in the place of execution. Pray God, then, if perhaps your sins may be forgiven you. Cry to him, God be merciful to me, a sinner! and continue those cries till death shall remove you hence. May the Lord Almighty support you in the trying scene before you, and through infinite grace have mercy on your soul ! " From the condemned man the preacher turned to the great assem- bly, warning them by his terrible doom to shun the temptations which had brought him to such an end. When this solemn service was over, the mournful procession took up its line of march, the soldiers leading the way to the place of execution. Our informant, who followed in the 24 throng, remembers how the wretched man, dressed in a long white robe, which was to be his winding-sheet, stood upon the scaffold, which was guarded by a body of troopers, who closed up around it, and it was said cut the fatal cord with their swords. When this last act was over, all turned away, and as the people from the country round rode back over the hills, they talked together of the scene of that day a scene the like of which, at least in the feature here described, has perhaps not since been witnessed in New England. While these years passed on, the parsonage was being filled with a little group of children. Seven were born in Haddam,* of whom one died in infancy, and six were living, with ages from two to fifteen years. There were so many little mouths to be fed, little bodies to be clothed, and the older ones to be sent to school. How this problem was solved, is a mystery that can only be explained by recognizing the almost omnipotent power in a woman's heart and hand. No picture of the family life would be complete which overlooked the good angel of the household. With a salary of five hundred dol- lars, and six children, there was no time for idleness or luxury, for playing the fine lady, sitting on a sofa, and doing fancy work, or reading novels. In those days there were no Irish servants, and indeed hardly servants of any kind, except a few colored people kept in old families. Almost every woman in the country did her own work with such " help " as she could now and then find from the assistance of a farmer's daughter. Yet such tasks did not daunt even this mother with her delicate and slender frame. She was up early and late. She put her hands to the wheel, and her hands handled the distaff. Yet she did not count this hardship or self-denial, for the passion of her life was devotion to her husband and her children, and love made all duties easy, all burdens light. Never was a home blessed with a more cheerful industry. She moved about the house with a light step, sing- ing as she went, and made every service beautiful by her joyous spirit. All day long was the parsonage kept alive by her busy hands and feet. She prepared the table for her husband, and provided for the house- hold. Once she was left alone for five months together, when her husband went off to Western New York as a missionary. Then how * These were David Dudley, born Feb. 13th, 1805 ; Emilia Ann, born Feb. 22d, 1807; Timothy Beals, born May 21st, 1809; Matthew Dickinson, born June 23th, 1811 ; Jonathan Edwards, born July llth, 1813 ; Stephen Johnson (first), born July llth, 1815, died Dec. 25th of the same year; and Stephen Johnson (second), born Nov. 4th, 1816. Three others were born in Stockbridge, viz : Cyrus West, born Nov. 30th, 1819 ; Henry Martyn, born April 3d, 1822 ; and Mary Elizabeth, born Sept. 7th, i823. 25 genl ly and sweetly and safely she kept her little flock within the fold ! At night, as she often told me, when they were in their nests, she went around the house, to see that all was quiet, and then lay down and slept beside her children, feeling that they were safe under the eye of God. To her husband she was not only the truest friend but the wisest counsellor. His heart safely trusted in her, while to her children tier devotion was such that after the lapse of half a century, those of them who survive call her blessed. Mr. Field's first settlement at Haddam lasted just fourteen years, when he resigned his charge, and terminated his connection with the church on the llth day of April, 1818, the anniversary of his ordination. Upon his dismission he had but little rest, for almost immediately he started off under an appointment of the old Missionary Society of Connecticut, to the new settlements on the southern shore of Lake Ontario and on the banks of the Oswego Elver. The country was then a wilderness, through which he rode on horseback, preaching in log- houses and under the shade of trees. This frontier had been the scene of constant fighting during the then recent war, and as he rode along he visited several of the fields of battle. He travelled as far west as Buffalo. This town had been burnt by the British during the war, and had not recovered from the blow. It was a small strag- gling village, running up some distance from the lake. But there was not a church in the place, and he preached in the court-house. About thirty years after he again passed through Buffalo, on his way to St. Louis, and found that the frontier settlement had grown to be a great city. On asking how many churches there were, he was told that they were " innumerable." This missionary tour lasted five months. On his return he passed through Stockbridge, Mass. As he arrived on a Saturday night, he was requested by the people to remain and preach the next day ; as their pastor, the venerable Dr. Stephen West, worn out with age and feebleness, had -been obliged to retire from further active labor. He accordingly preached, and then they invited him to stay another Sabbath, and then another, until he felt obliged to break away and return to his family. The following Spring (1819) he spent a few weeks in North Haven, where trie venerable Dr. Benjamin Trumbull, the historian of Connecticut, was about to give up his labors, and had fixed his eye upon Mr. Field as his successor. He found in this younger minister much that was congenial. He spoke highly of his public services, and at the same time thought he had a taste for American history, and thus would continue the work which he had 26 begun. But this kind and friendly wish of the good old man was not to be realized. Before his church had time to act, an invitation from Stockbridge was received, so pressing that Mr. Field decided to accept it. He accordingly returned, and after preaching three months, was settled as pastor, August 25, 1819, then beginning a ministry that was to continue nearly eighteen years. The removal to Stockbridge was of course a great event in the fam- ily history. The moving itself was no small affair. Teams were sent to Connecticut a journey of several days to bring the household furniture. There were beds and bureaus, tables and chairs, and most weighty of all, boxes piled with books, for my father had accumulated a large library. Thus laden, the heavy wagons took their long, toilsome jour- ney over the mountains. Several years ago, as my eldest brother and myself took our morning ride on horseback over the hills at Stock- bridge, we passed a farmer's door, who told us that he had still one of the old wagons that had taken part in this memorable exodus, and we rode into his yard to see it. It was a broad frame, which showed of what tough timber it was made by holding together for more than fifty years. As we looked at the old "hulk," imagination pictured the scene so long before. We saw it tilled up with bales and bundles like an army wagon, while on the top, riding high in air, were perched half a dozen children, and thus bearing "Caesar and his fortunes," it rumbled over the mountains to our new home among the Berkshire Hills. Stockbridge is one of the oldest towns in Western Massachusetts. It had acquired a certain consideration even in colonial days. Indeed before its settlement sixty years before there was a white man in the valley of the Housatonic, as far back as the time of King Philip's war which was more than two hundred years ago it had been the scene of a battle between the w r hites and the Indians. It was scarcely half a century after the settlement at Plymouth, when that wily chief stirred up his powerful tribe, the Narragansetts, and endeavored to form a league of Indian tribes, to exterminate the whites, who were then few and weak, but might soon grow many and strong. In their wanderings from the sea-board in search of better lands, they had penetrated the wilderness, and finally reached the Connecticut river, whose wide, sloping vales and meadows seemed to them like the gar- den of the Lord, and settlements were formed up and down, from Say- brook on the Sound, to Hartford, Windsor, Northampton, and Deer- field. In his large scheme to exterminate the whites, the Indian chief feared to attack them where they were strongest, but struck at them in 27 these remote border settlements, and for several years a reign of terror existed up and down the valley. They burned Springfield and Deer- field. But the colonists rallied for defence, and after many terrible scenes, like those at Bloody Brook and Turner's Falls, the power of the savages was finally broken, and -they began to disperse. One com- pany of about two hundred turned westward, and fled over the moun- tains, intending to reach the Hudson, and find safety among the powerful tribes there. But such bands it was not safe to leave at large, for they might at any time return, and crossing the mountains again, make a descent upon the settlements in the valley of the Connecticut. Accordingly, Major Talcott, who had had much experience in Indian warfare, as soon as he struck their trail, began a vigorous pursuit. With his hardy men, he pushed across the mountains, and at length discovered them encamped on a rising ground a little out of the present village of Stockbridge. They had chosen their camp apparently from its being near a spring, and the tradition is that they were discovered by two squaws going to the spring for water. He attacked them and killed a large number. Twenty-five were counted dead, while from the stains of blood in every direction, it was evident that many more had been wounded and dragged themselves into the forest to die. Sixty in all were killed or taken prisoners, and the rest fled in dismay. This effectually broke the power* of "this fragment of a warlike tribe, and relieved the settlements on the Connecticut from the terror of their coming over the mountains, and repeating these scenes of burning and massacre. The scene of this Indian battle was marked, in 1782, by a meeting- house erected near the spot, in which Dr. Stephen West preached during the greater part of his long ministry. When they came to dig for the foundations, the earth was found to be filled with the bones of those who had fallen in the battle more than a hundred years before. Only very recently my brother Cyrus, wishing to preserve the mem- ory of the old church, purchased about six acres of ground, which, with four acres adjoining, that belonged to the town, and which it voted for the purpose, he has made into a Park of ten acres, laying it out with walks and roads, and planting it with trees ; so that it is an orna- ment to the town, while it preserves the record of spots sacred to patri- otism and to religion. Stockbridge was first settled by the whites as a missionary station among the Housatonic Indians. Four families removed from other parts of Massachusetts to form the nucleus of a settlement. In 1737 came Colonel Ephraim Williams from Newton, and Josiah Jones from 28 Western ; followed a little later by Ephraim Brown of Watertown, and Joseph Woodbridge of West Springfield. All four chose sites and built houses, not on "The Plain," but on ''The Hill" overlooking the valley, while the wigwams of the Indians were scattered in the meadows along the river, where little patches of corn were cultivated by the women, while the men were hunting or fishing. In the woods there were deer and some bears. The Mission House on the hill, built by the General Court of Massachusetts for the missionary to the Indians, is still standing. To the West, on the shoulder of the hill, commanding a view to the North as well as the South, Col. Williams erected a stately mansion, of two stories with a gambrel roof, with Bides of oak, thick enough to withstand a rifle ball, to serve as a kind of fortress in case of alarm from the Indians, who might come down from the North. It was garrisoned whenever danger was apprehended. Around it was a line of entrenchment, which could be distinctly traced thirty years ago. On this spot of so much historical interest the com- piler of this Memorial of his Family has his Summer home. In the cellar may still be seen the well of the old " Fort." * This Col. Williams had a son of the same name, Col. Ephraim Williams, 2d a gallant soldier, who fell in the French and Indian War, and whose gift for a Free School at Williamstown, near Fort- Massachusetts, where he had been in command, was the foundation of Williams College.t * Mr. Stephen W. Jones, a native of Stockbridge, and who resided there the greater part of his life, and is well known to all the people of the town, in answer to a letter of inquiry, says : " The first Col. Ephraim Williams did build that house, but in what year I cannot say, but I think about 1750 near that certainly. It was built for a fort or castle, and was enclosed in a ditch, and the ditch was open enough on the north and eastern sides to show very plainly, till the house was taken down, about 1850. It was planked all around up to the eaves with three and a half inch plank, framed into the posts by cutting a gain up and down the posts, and making a tenon to fit it on the end of the planks. Of course they were horizontal, and were fastened together by inch dowels. They were of black oak. The clapboards were split and shaved like shingles, were three and a half feet long and five inches wide, and it is said that they were brought from New Jersey ; but I always doubted that. Certain it is that they lasted one hundred years. But some of them were worn very thin. My father's house in which I was born was in two parts or buildings, one of which was planked on the sides, just like the Williams house, except that the planks were chestnut instead of oak." t Johnson's Cyclopaedia gives the following dates of his life : " Born at Newton, Mass., Feb. 24th, 1715 ; was bred to the sea and made several voyages to Europe ; served in Canada against the French in the war of 1740-48, attaining the rank of cap- tain; received from the Massachusetts Legislature a grant of 200 acres of land in the present townships of Adams and Williamstown, upon which he erected Fort Massachusetts in 1751, and was made commander of the whole line of frontier posts west of the Connecticut river ; and on the renewal of war with the French in 1755 led 29 A daughter, Abigail Williams, was married to the missionary John Sergeant, and after his death to General Joseph Dwight, a man of dis- tinction in his day, as she was orie of the most noted of the ante-Revolu- tionary women.* They are the ancestors of the Dwights of Western Massachusetts. The youngest daughter was married some years later to Dr. Stephen West.f a regiment of Massachusetts troops to join Sir William Johnson in his projected invasion of Canada. While at Albany, on his way to the field of battle, he made his will, leaving his property to found a Free School at Williamstown [which in 1793 was chartered as Williams College] ; fell into an ambuscade of French and Indians near the head of Fort George, and was killed at the first fire, Sept. 8th, 1755.. He was never married. On the spot where he fell a monument was erected in 1854 by the alumni of Williams College." Dean Stanley, when in this country 'in the Autumn of 1878, paid a visit to Williams College, and the next day preached a sermon at Stockbridge, in which he thus alluded to the young hero who had fallen in battle a hundred and twenty- three years before : " Had the forefathers of this great nation not struggled to- reclaim the wilderness, and convert the savage, and build up the Church of God by river and by forest; had there not been men like the gallant soldiers who- guarded these frontiers, to catch, in the intervals of war and bloodshed, visions of a happy and peaceful future, and lay the foundations on which learning and religion might freely flourish and abound -this nation would never have been born,, this empire would never have arisen." General Garfleld, the President of the United States, is a graduate of Williams,, and at a recent meeting of Western Alumni at Cleveland, Ohio, he spoke of tha College as his mother " a mother more beautiful than all her children," saying " I owe her a debt which I never expect to be able to discharge " ; and thus alluded to the brave soldier of a former century who had founded this institution among the hills : " I have thought sometimes that that sturdy old warrior had more power of imagination than we, his intellectual children, away back in that grim century when the chief business of brave men was to fight Indians the man who defended old Fort Massachusetts in the gap through which all the Indian wars were carried in the East, and that gave Deerfleld so bloody a baptism. When Williams was. going out on his final trip to battle and to death, he stood on the heights of Grey- lock, and looked out through this gap, through which so many tribes had come ; and feeling that perhaps it was the last time he might look upon it, he thought of planting something better than a watch-fire to signal the coming of savages. H& thought it better to kindle a watch-fire that should be a light for all generations, from which the light of knowledge, blending with religion, should shine far out into the wilderness; and so he founded Williams College just before he fell at the hands of the savages in battle ; and that seems to me the reason that we, in this great West, which is a part of the wilderness that then was, look back to tha watch-tower of Greylock with a reverence and pride that very few children feel as, they look up to their intellectual fathers." But the most beautiful tribute ever paid to the Founder of Williams College was. by Edward Everett, in his Address at the Commencement in 1837. The passage is much too long to be quoted here. *A charming picture of the life of that day is given in a passage from the Diary of Mrs. Josiah Quincy, wife of the President of Harvard College, describing a visit to Madam Dwight in the year 1786. It is printed in the Appendix. fThe letter of Mr. Jones gives the following details of the Williams family: " The first Col. Ephraim Williams had two wives. 'The first had two sons the 30 In the War of the Eevolution Stockbridge bore its part. Remote from the scene of action, nestled among the Berkshire Hills, still it felt every impulse of the great struggle. The Battle of Lexington was fought on a Wednesday, April 19th, 1775. Friday noon a messenger mounted on a white horse rode at full speed into the street of Stock- bridge with the tidings. In a few hours the minute-men were mustered with knapsack and gun, and started for Lenox to join those from other towns of the county, and the next morning a regiment, representing the patriotism of Berkshire, took up its march for Boston. Two years later (1777) came another great alarm. Burgoyne had landed in Canada, and begun an invasion from the North, with a force which nothing seemed able to resist. A detachment was sent to Ben- nington for supplies. This brought the enemy to the very doors of Berkshire, and urgent messages were sent into all the towns to rally for defence. The men of Pittsfield started with the famous ''fight- ing parson" Allen, in time to take part in the battle. A messenger reached Stockbridge Sunday morning, and went straight to the house of Timothy Edwards, a son of Jonathan Edwards, who was the chief man of the town (he lived in the house occupied for many years by the late Major Owen), who answered by taking his gun, and going out into the street, and firing it off three times. The village was startled to hear such a sound on the still Sabbath morning, and that from a deacon ! But as soon as the danger was known, it was quite sufficient to explain the mysterious apparition, and soon the people flocked from all parts of the town, and before night a number of Williams College Ephraim, and Thomas, who owned the house where Mr. Ivison has built. The house stood close on the southwest side of that big willow-tree. After he (Thomas) died his widow married Gen. Ashley, who came to live with her ; hence the place was called ' The Ashley Place.' I was quite a large boy when she died . The second wife was Abigail Jones, the sister of my great-grandfather [Josiah Jones, one of the original settlers of Stockbridge]. Her children were, first, Abigail, wife of Missionary Sergeant; second, Josiah (named from her father and brother); third, Judith Mrs. Thayer; and fourth, Elizabeth, wife of Dr. West. So you see that this answers another of your questions. Mrs. Sergeant and Mrs. West were sisters and the Col. Williams of College fame was their half- brother. When the first Col. Williams died the farm was divided up, and Dr. West bought a part of it, being what you own above the road [with several additional plots designated]. He probably went to live there as soon as he was married. If he had ever lived anywhere else my mother would some time have spoken of it. " Had I time and you wished it, I could tell you many more things pertain- ing to the early times of Stockbridge. I think that I could describe about every house that was in our part of the town seventy or seventy-five years ago correctly, for I seem to see them in my mind just as plainly as I did when I was a boy. I remember three of the Indian houses Capt. Konkopot's, Capt. Yokes', and King Solomon's. Konkopot's house was burned down one Sabbath noon the first build- ing I ever saw burn." 31 armed men were on their way to the North. They arrived too late to take part in the battle, but in time to help gather the fruits of victory. Dr. Partridge, who accompanied them as surgeon, found abundant need for his skill among friends and foes. He attended Col. Baum, the commander of 'the Hessians, who had been shot through the body, and who died in his arms. This victory of Bennington was perhaps the turning-point of the Kev- olution. The Berkshire men took part in it, and it was a great pride when a few weeks afterwards a portion of that brilliant army, which had started from Canada in all the confidence of victory, defeated and disarmed, were marched through Stockbridge on the way to Boston, as prisoners of war. The late Col. Prentice Williams, who died in 1869, at the age of ninety-six, remembered when a boy seeing the Hessians smoking their pipes under the trees on Laurel Hill. He remembered also a wild scene on the return of the Indians from the war : for Stockbridge had furnished two companies of red men, who rendered important service as scouts. They had a great "powwow" on Laurel Hill, where they hung Benedict Arnold in effigy to the limb of an oak, and then skulking round behind the trees, after the mode of savage warfare, shot their arrows at it, and finally cut it down, and scalped it and burned it, and then had a barbecue, at which they roasted an ox given them by General Washington, and ended by burying the hatchet, in token that the war was over. While these great events in the history of the country were going on, the growth of the church kept pace with that of the town. In January, 1737, the Legislature ordered that a meeting-house, forty feet by thirty, should be erected for the mission, at the expense of the province. It was dedicated on Thanksgiving Day, Nov. 29th, 1739. It stood a few rods northeast of the site of the present Congregational church. No sound of the church-going bell then broke the solitudes of the wilderness, but a huge conch-shell, blown by a strong-lunged Indian, summoned the dusky worshippers from their wigwams and the dark shadows of the forest. In the early times of New England the meeting-house and the school-house always went together, and so the Legislature also provided for the erection of a school-house, which was built near the site of the house in the village in which my father lived. Here was kept up a flourishing school until the second French war in 1763, which nearly destroyed it. During those twenty-five years a number of Indians obtained in it a good education. On the spot where stood the old Indian church now stands a beauti- ful Tower of blue stone, erected by my brother Dudley, bearing this 32 inscription: " This Memorial Tower marks the Spot where stood the little Church in the Wilderness, in which John Sergeant preached to the Stockbridge Indians, in 1739." And in place of the conch-shell there is a full chime of bells, which every evening at sunset sends the sweetest music over the valley. In this humble place of worship first stood one who was a scholar as well as a missionary. John Sergeant, a graduate of Yale, where he was a tutor four years, left the delights of classical study, to preach to the children of the forest. He was of a kindred spirit with his friend David Brainerd, who came to Stockbridge to study the Indian lan- guage with him. Here Sergeant ministered fourteen years, and died in the prime of his manhood, not yet forty years of age, so beloved by his rude hearers, that it is a tradition that they desired to be buried near his grave, that they might rise with him at the Kesurrection.* After him came the great Jonathan Edwards, who lived here seven years. This was the happiest period of his life. He had escaped a scene of controversy at Northampton, and found in the shades of the forest that perfect rest so needful for the tranquil mind of the phi- losopher, and here pored over the great problems of man's moral state and destiny, and wrote his works on "The Freedom of the Will," and "Original Sin." He came in 1751, and resigned in 1758 to accept the Presidency of Nassau Hall, New Jersey. He died at Princeton very soon after, and his sepulchre is with them until this day. Then followed Dr. Stephen West, who, coming in 1759, remained till the close of his life in 1819 a ministrv of sixty years. Though less distinguished than his illustrious predecessor, Dr. West was a man of note and influence in his day. The peculiarities of his manners are among the traditions of the town. Of small stature, with his three- cornered hat and short-clothes, and gold-headed cane, he presented a striking figure. Slight in person as he was, he had a dignity with which no one presumed to trifle, and his influence over his people was unbounded. A generation ago old men still remembered how he came down the hill on the Sunday morning when news came of the * The following quaint lines, which one may still read upon his tombstone, are said to have been written by an Indian : Where is that pleasing form ? I ask. Thou canst not show. He's not within, false stone;- there's naught but dust below. And where's that pious soul that thinking, conscious mind ? Wilt thou pretend, vain cypher, that's with thee enshrined ? Alas, my friends ! not here with thee that I can find ; Here's not a Sergeant's body or a Sergeant's mind. I'll seek him hence, for all's alike deception here ; I'll go to heaven, and I shall find my Sergeant there. 33 British advance on Bennington, and standing in front of Timothy Edwards's house, with the soldiers gathered around him, commended them in prayer to God, as they were going forth to fight the battles of their country. He was also a man of learning, and much given to those theological studies which engaged the attention of Edwards and other Puritan divines, and for many years received students in divinity; so that he had much to do in shaping the theology of New England. In his creed he was a Calvinist of the strictest type, and yet it was said that such was the extreme gentleness of his heart, that never did a poor wretch "die in the town that he did not cherish the hope that there had been some special interposition of Divine mercy by which, like the prodigal son or the penitent thief, he had been saved. The meeting-house in which the people then worshipped, was not the same in which John Sergeant had preached to the Indians. About the close of the Revolutionary War, in 1782, the people built a new meeting-house three-quar,ters of a mile north of the old one, for the convenience of those who lived in that part of the town. It was of a primeval order of architecture, standing four square to all the winds of heaven, with tall pulpit and high-backed pews; while up aloft, perched in a kind of sentry-box, sat old Dr. Partridge, the "tithing man," who looked down upon the assembly below, keeping a sharp eye for the small boys who might wriggle about in their seats during the long sermon, and disturb the rigid decorum of the holy place. But quaint and strange as all this seemed, (or as it would seem to us now with our modern ideas,) there was something very picturesque in the place and mode of worship. The site was a beautiful one, on a sufficient elevation to command a view North, South, and West, across the valley to the mountains in the background. It was a pretty sight on a Sabbath morning to see the people trooping along the roads, on foot and in wagons, to the place of worship. When the sermon was ended, those who lived near by returned home for the short and cold Sunday dinner ; while those from the more distant parts of the town retired into a pine grove which then stood on the hill-side, (as the scene has been described to me by my dear and honored friend and teacher, the late Professor Albert Hopkins,) and seating them- selves on the rocks or the grass at the foot of the trees, partook of a frugal repast, and then returned to hear the second blowing of the Gospel trumpet. Such was the tabernacle in which my father preached when he came to Stockbridge, and such the line of worthies to which he succeeded. Nor was he unworthy to be their successor. He was now thirty- - 34 eight years old, and in the full vigor of his powers. His capacity for work was something wonderful. He generally preached three times on the Sabbath, arid often during the week, besides innumera- ble sermons and addresses at funerals and on various public occasions. Though the seasons were often rugged, he rarely suffered any sever- ity of weather to cause him to intermit his duties. He soon became known in his parish, and in all the country round, as a man who "always kept his appointments." No matter what might be the weather, rain or shine, he was sure to be there. If he gave notice that on such an evening in the week "there would be preaching at the Ked Schoolhouse at early candle-lighting," the darkest night and the most driving snow-storm could hardly keep him by his own snug fireside when duty called him abroad. Stockbridge, like Haddam, was a large parish, covering the whole township, (for in those days there was but one church, where now there are two Congregational, besides an Episcopal, a Methodist, and a Roman Catholic,) with districts separated by miles from each other. To go from one to the other, at all seasons and in all weathers, was no light task. Besides these "neighborhoods," there was an outlying population, which was the most difficult to reach poor families, living here and there, in lonely, out-of-the-way places, on by-roads or in the woods. It required some perseverance to search out these " lost sheep." Yet it was done with such thoroughness that hardly a family in the town remained un visited ; and it is not overstating the matter to say that never did this pastor fail to respond to the call to minister to those in need, however poor and wretched, or however degraded and forsaken : In his duty prompt at every call, He watched and wept, he prayed and felt for all. In " The Lights and Shadows of Scottish Life " Christopher North draws the picture of the Highland pastor riding over mountain and moor, to some lonely cabin on the hillside, or in the deep glen, to give the consolations of religion to the sick or the dying. This picture has been reproduced in many a New England parish, where the people lived at great distances, in little clusters among the hills, and the shepherd of the scattered flock was sometimes called out of his bed at night, to ride miles over roads filled with drifted snow, to kneel beside the bed of one who may have been a hard man in his life, but who now wished to hear the voice of "the minister" to comfort his departing soul. In these trying scenes and painful duties never was a pastor more faithful. It was natural to him to use the tone 35 of pity and of tenderness, as he bent over the pale face of the dying. And yet he knew also how to use a tone of warning to one who was going out of the world unrepentant in his sins. He always seemed to me to speak with the greatest solemnity in the house of death. I can hear him now, saying "It is better to go to the house of mourning than to the house of feasting, for that is the end of all men, and the liv- ing will lay it to heart." " We are strangers and sojourners, as all our fathers were." I can see him walking in the slow 'funeral procession, while the tolling bell struck mournfully on the air ; or standing at the open grave, while all around, with uncovered heads, listened to his voice, that had a solemn tenderness, as (according to the New England custom) he " thanked " them, in the name of the afflicted family, for their kindness and sympathy, in coming with them to the narrow house, and helping them to bury their dead out of their sight. But it was not only in these sad scenes that he entered into the spirit of his sacred office. As a sympathizing pastor he was ready to bear all the burdens of his people, and to share in all their happiness ; to rejoice with them that rejoice, and to weep with them that weep. In sickness and in health, at bridal or at burial, he was their trusted counsellor and friend. And so by every experience of life which touched men's hearts and awoke an unaccustomed tenderness ; through those domes- tic influences which soften men and make them more sensitive to good ; he sought an avenue for Christian truth. Thus He tried each art, reproved each dull delay, Allured to brighter worlds, and led the way. But though thus diligent and unwearied as a pastor, his chief labor was in preparing for the pulpit. This was the one thing never out of his thoughts. Even when riding about his parish, he was revolving the subject for the sermon of the following Sabbath, and when he came home he shut himself up for its preparation. The larger portion of every week he gave to his pulpit, and to this bent all the powers of his vigorous mind. Though he had had fifteen years' experience in the ministry, and accumulated hundreds of sermons, he did not on that account spare himself in the least, but studied as hard as ever, and re-wrote nearly every one that he preached. He was accustomed to write standing at his desk, and here, as behind a breastwork in the fortress of Divine truth, he fought over the arguments by which he established the faith and confounded the adversary. To one occupied with the themes of eternity, there was an infinite advantage in the possession of a strong faith. He held to the doc- trines of his fathers with an acceptance which did not abate one jot or 36 tittle from their sternness and severity, and the effect upon him was to give a stamp to the whole man. If the creed of the Puritans was an iron creed, it formed an iron character, a firmness and intrepidity which have produced the greatest effects in the history of both Old and New England. His faith was one in which there was no enfeebling doubt none of that subtle poison diffused by much of the scientific teaching of our day, which penetrates so many intellects, and emascu- lates their strength. To him the Bible was the Word of God the one absolute and infallible test of truth, from which there was no appeal. Like his great predecessor, Edwards, he believed that the " Scheme of Kedemption" was the key which unlocked all the mysteries of Provi- dence and of history, from the beginning of the ages to the end of the world. With that one central light to illumine unfathomed depths, there was no impenetrable darkness in the heights above or in the abysses beneath. He saw in all the universe " One God, one law, one element, And one far off Divine event, To which the whole creation moves." What was the effect of such a ministry might be told by many wit- nesses. President Hopkins of Williams College was a native of Stock- bridge, and a young man at the time Mr. Field became the pastor ; and nearly fifty years later, when standing over his bier, thus de- scribed the character of his preaching, and the impression it made on his own mind and its influence on his life : It was under the ministry of Dr. Field that I first united with the Christian Church. By him I was baptized in this place. For a long period my mind was in a state of solicitude and careful inquiry on the subject of religion, and during much of that time I sat under his min- istry. Well do I remember his sermons and his prayers. We wor- shipped in the old church then, and the whole town came together. His sermons were lucid, logical, effective, and his prayers were remark- ably appropriate and comprehensive. One of his texts I remember particularly ; it was this" Lord, to whom shall we go ? thou hast the words of eternal life, and we believe and are sure that thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God." From these words he preached several discourses of great power, showing that Jesus was the Christ, and that there was no one else to whom we could go. I regarded them then, and still do, as among the ablest discourses I ever heard. They had a powerful effect upon my mind. In respect to feeling he was not demonstrative, and some thought him cold. No mistake could have been greater. On sitting near him I remember to have been struck by noticing the big tears rolling down his cheeks when he came to the more touching parts of his discourse, while there was scarcely a sign of emotion in his voice or in the lines 37 of his face. Perhaps intellect predominated. Probably it did ; but he was a man of deep feeling, and under the impulse of it, as well as of principle, he was a faithful, earnest, laborious pastor. It was in that relation that I feel that his character and life and preaching and prayers were an important formative influence with me for good, and I have never ceased to regard him with affectionate veneration, and never shall. And what he did for me he doubtless did for multitudes of others. There is no higher educating power than that of a pastor thoroughly educated, well balanced, earnest, proclaiming God's truth from Sabbath to Sabbath, and dealing fairly with the minds of men. This he did, and in doing it was eminent among a body of men who have done more to make New England what it is than any other. In clear thinking, in able sermons, and in earnest labors, he was altogether a worthy suc- cessor of the eminent men who had preceded him. Such labor made its impression outside the bounds of his parish, and the minister of Stockbridge became one of the leading men of Western Massachusetts. When the General Association met at the other end of the State, this young pastor from Berkshire was chosen its Moderator a high testimony to his ability. Dr. Todd thus recalls his early and later impressions : When a young man, in the family of a relative, Jeremiah Evarts, I heard much about his classmate, " Field," and I had a great desire to see him. But no such opportunity occurred. The first time that I ever did see him I had just entered the ministry, when the General Association of Massachusetts met in my church, in Groton. As the delegates came together at the appointed hour, there walked in a man in the prime of life, strong, vigorous, elastic in step, and evidently a marked man. On inquiry, I was told it was " Mr. Field, the minister of old Stockbridge." This was nearly forty years ago. "This, then, is that Mr. Field," I said to myself; and he was among the few men concerning whom one's expectations are not disappointed. He was at once elected the Moderator of the Association, and presided with a dignity, energy, and appropriateness seldom surpassed. That was the beginning of my acquaintance with Dr. Field. Some fourteen years afterwards, on coming to this county, my acquaintance with him was renewed. And those who have known him only during the last fifteen years of his life, have no conception of the labor he could perform, or the results that he could achieve. The planting of his foot showed that he was an uncommon man. His high intellectual forehead, and his pleasant face, revealed a mind and a heart of high order. My father was always a man of peace, and could not easily be drawn into controversy. But twice, while in Stockbridge, he was forced into a public discussion. Once he came out in defence of the Sabbath, in the county paper, "The Pittsfield Sun," against the noted Elder Leland of Cheshire, who was famous both as an eccentric Baptist preacher 38 and as a Democratic politician. He also published, at the request of the ministers of the county, in "The New York Observer " and "The Boston Recorder," an article on " The Evils of Hasty and Extravagant Accounts of the Results of Protracted Meetings." This was aimed at a class of itinerants who were then traversing the country, and com- mitting every species of folly and fanaticism. Of course it provoked a great outcry on the part of those whose extravagances it held up to merited rebuke. But it was generally approved by wise and good men in all parts of the country, and did much to abate the evil which it so clearly exposed. Besides these professional duties, he found time to pursue those historical researches in which he took such delight, and while in the active work of a preacher and pastor, prepared, with the assistance of several clergymen, and especially of Prof. Dewey of Williams College, a History of the County of Berkshire, a volume of nearly 500 pages, which was published in 1829. But I cannot do justice to the years we spent in Stockbridge, without some touches of a more familiar character, which may show the manners of the time, as well as reveal a little of our home life. The change from Connecticut to Massachusetts, though it was little more than one degree to the North, involved a considerable change of climate. The Winters were long and severe. The country lay for months buried in snow, which often drifted over the fences, and made the roads almost impassable. But this stern season was not without its delights. The landscape had a beauty all its own, as hill and valley were covered with this white mantle. The merry sleigh-bells were heard along the roads, while within doors great fires, piled with hick- ory logs, went roaring up the chimney. In Stockbridge my parents did not at first live in the village, on what was called " The Plain," but a mile or so out of it, on the other side of the Housatonic a river which looked very small compared with the Connecticut, but which was a beautiful stream, as it flowed between banks fringed with willows, ami wound around the base of the hill on which the old house stood.* Here they lived some three years, and here my brother Cyrus and I were born. In 1822 or 1823 my father was able to purchase a small house in the village, to .which he removed, where was born my sister Mary, the youngest of our family. My ear- liest recollection is of this old house. It was a low building with a gambrel roof a modest manse indeed, but blest with that contentment which is better than great riches. * The site is now occupied by the residence of Mr. Charles E. Butler of New York. 39 One day, as we were coming out of school the old Academy just as we turned the corner, we saw a cloud of smoke rising at the other end of the street, and soon heard a cry that " Mr. Field's house was on fire ! " Down the street we flew as fast as our little feet could carry us, only to find it too true. Our house was in flames. I remember seeing the men trying to save my father's library, by getting it out of the upper story window. On the other side of the street was my mother in tears, at seeing her dwelling in ashes, and her children houseless and homeless ! To add to our desolateness, the next day my brother Timothy, who was in the Navy and had been absent three years in the Mediterranean, came home, and found not a roof to cover him. But our neighbors were very kind, and soon made us feel that if we had lost one home, we had others open to us. Nothing could shake my father's trust. The next Sunday he preached from Lamentations iii. 22 "It is of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed." At the close a leading man in the parish gave notice of a meeting to help us to rebuild, and in a few months rose a plain brick house, with its end to the street, which is still standing. It is with this second (and present) house that are con- nected most of the memories of my childhood. There were then but three children under the paternal roof. The older ones those born in Haddam were all away : Dudley practising law in New York, Emilia a missionary in Smyrna, Timothy a midshipman in the Navy, Matthew a paper manufacturer in Lee, Jonathan in college, and Stephen with his sister in the East. Only the three youngest of us Cyrus, Mary, and myself were at home. But what a dear home it was, and how lovingly and happily did we nestle in it ! At first we slept under the eaves, where we often heard the rain patter on the roof that deli- cious sound that lulls to slumber with the sweet sense of security. Afterwards my brother and I had a small room at the head of the stairs, where he slept in a bed a few inches higher than mine, and I in a " trundle-bed," which was shoved under it. It was a bird's nest indeed, in which we put our little heads to sleep ; but never did a bird on any swinging bough sleep more tranquilly under the protection of Him without whom not a spa'rrow falls to the ground. Never did we close our eyes that mother did not come to fold us up tenderly, and give us her last kiss, and hear us repeat Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep 1 If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take ! Such was the spirit which ruled that household, where Love and 40 Peace walked hand in hand through all the happy hours. What tender memories are those which rise out of the mist of vanished years ! A happy childhood is a blessing for which we cannot be too grateful, and I have never ceased to thank the Author of my being for that sunlight of a mother's love that shone on my childhood, and illumined for me the pathway of existence. Our whole domestic life received its tone from this unaffected piety of our parents, who taught their children to lie down and rise up in that fear of the Lord, which is the beginning of wisdom. The sweetest and tenderest moments of the day were at morning and evening prayers. We read the Bible "in course," beginning at Genesis and going straight through to Revelation. All sat round the fire-place in a circle. Father began, reading three verses, and we fol- lowed, from the oldest to the youngest. Sometimes my sister Mary, who had a sweet voice, sang a hymn. At morning prayer it was more commonly the hymn beginning Early, my God, without delay, I haste to seek Thy face ; to which at night there was a sweet response in the lines : Thus far the Lord hath led me on, Thus far His power prolongs my days, And every evening shall make known Some fresh memorial of His grace ; or the tender feeling of the hour found utterance in Tallis's Evening Hymn. That dear sister has long since passed away, her voice has sunk into silence, and yet sometimes at the evening hour I seem to hear her still singing Glory to Thee, my God, this night, For all the blessings of the light ;. Keep me, oh keep me, King of kings, Beneath the shadow of Thy wings. Then the picture in Burns's "Cotter's Saturday Night " was fulfilled to the letter, except in one point the "kneeling down." The stern old Puritans had such rigid notions that they would not kneel even to God, as if it were a sign of formality. But rising, our reverend sire took his stand behind a tall chair, as in a pulpit, and then, when all was hushed in silence, " The saint, the husband and the father prayed." But it was not all sunshine within the parsonage. We had our sorrows. My mother, who was of a slight figure and apparently feeble 41 frame, had frequent sicknesses, which brought her near to the grave. She has told me how, when she was lying on a bed from which it was feared she would never rise, I was taken from her side, and carried in the arms of " Mumbet "* to the old church on the hillside, to be bap- tized. Yet she rose up from these periods of illness with an elasticity that I have never seen in any other person, man or woman. That ever buoyant and hopeful spirit has been my chief inheritance. It has kept me up in many a dark hour of loneliness and sorrow, when sail- ing over far-off seas or dimming distant mountains. It has been the chief inheritance of all her children. In their lives it has sometimes happened that there have been great tasks to be performed, struggles to be undergone, and in the resolution with which they have borne up against discouragement and adversity, I have recognized the uncon- querable spirit of their mother. Of the religious customs of the time, there were some which would strike us strangely at the present day. One was that of keeping Sat- urday evening. My father, as a loyal son of the Puritans, held fast alike to their sternness of faith and their strictness of life. The Sabbath was observed with almost a Jewish strictness, and according to the Jewish law, began and ended with the going down of the sun. On Saturday afternoon, as it declined in the West, his voice might be heard restraining the impetuosity of his sons, with the admonition "My sons, we are on the borders of holy time." At sunset the gates were shut down rigidly on the labor of the week, and for twenty-four hours it was as if the current of life had ceased to flow. The next day, as the afternoon wore on, and the Sabbath "began to abate," there was a painful time of waiting for the last moment to expire. How many, many times did my brother and I go out in front of our door, to watch for the sun's going down! Why did it linger so long? At length it touched the rim of the hills, and slowly sunk behind the ridge of pines that stood up against the Western sky. Lower and lower it fell, till the orb was below the horizon. We did * This was a noted character in the town. She was originally a slave, but after the Revolution, feeling that the principles of liberty, for which the colonies had been fighting, might be applied to her people as well as to " white folks," she claimed her freedom, and by the efforts of Judge Sedgwick obtained it a case which decided the abolition of slavery in Massachusetts. Though she could nei- ther read nor write, her natural intelligence, her quickness of mind, her ready wit, and devotion to duty, won for her universal respect. She took care of all the children of Judge Sedgwick, to whom she was almost a second mother, and by their express wish is buried in the plot of ground set apart for their family, and by the side of one who loved her and honored her memory the authoress, Miss Catherine M. Sedgwick. 42 not wait for the glow of sunset to fade into twilight, and the shades of evening to gather ; but , instantly, with a sense of joyous freedom, bounded away to play. It was as if a heavy weight had been lifted off our young breasts, and the blood began to flow again in our veins. My mother took her knitting ; the usual topics of conversation, from which we had religiously abstained through the day, were resumed ; and life went on as before. So each year brought, with the return of the months, as regularly as seed-time and harvest came, the annual Fast- and Thanksgiving, which were duly observed ; though I am obliged to confess, there was rather more of warmth in keeping the latter than the former. A great event in our family life was the sending of four sons to col- lege. This was not accomplished without difficulty. With a salary of but six hundred dollars and nine children, there was little to spare for education beyond that which could be obtained in the schools of the town. But here the impossible was accomplished by no end of sacrifices, and with the advantage of two good academies close at hand, at Stock- bridge and Lenox. From the Academy to the College was but a step. The sons of Stockbridge had a right of inheritance in Williams College, for although it was in the northern part of the county, thirty miles distant, it was founded by a son of that Ephraim Williams who was one of the four original settlers of Stockbridge ; and the son himself, who was a sailor in his youth, and a soldier in his manhood, when he returned from the sea or the camp, came to the paternal mansion here. Of the first class of graduates, which numbered but four, three were from Stockbridge, and the fourth from Lenox. When my eldest brother had gone through College he made the way easier for those of us that were to come after ; and so, with an interval of several years, followed Jonathan ; and then Stephen and myself. My father's ministry at Stockbridge continued nearly eighteen years, when by a singular turn of events he was called back to his old parish in Haddam, Conn., where the church had become divided, and it seemed probable that he alone could unite them. Accordingly he asked a dismission, and was reinstalled in his former charge April llth, 1837, just thirty-three years from his first ordination in that town, and in the same church. That year he received the degree of Doctor of Divinity from Williams College. At Haddam he remained seven years, when the parish, which covered a large town- ship, was divided into two, and he took charge of the new church at Higganum, two miles north of the old church, and here remained about seven years more. 43 This return to his old home naturally renewed his interest in the history of Middlesex County, which he had made a special study twenty years before. When two hundred years were completed from the settlement of the neighboring town of Middletown, he was invited to deliver an Historical Address on that anniversary. Its preparation cost him a good deal of labor, and with the additions made from after researches, finally grew into a volume of three hundred pagqs. In 1848 he went abroad with his son Stephen, and spent several months in London and Paris. This foreign tour, though a brief one, was a great event in his life. He had not been much of a traveller, even in his own country; his life had been passed, chiefly within easy distance of his New England home. But now he crossed the sea. I had gone to Europe the year before, and was in Paris when I heard that my father and brother had arrived in London, whither I went to meet them, and came with them through Belgium to Paris. The weeks we spent there were very happy, especially from having with us this dear old patriarch, who looked with the wonder of a child on all the splendor of the French capital. At first we did not like him to go alone in the streets : for he might lose his way, and (as he did not know a word of French) could not ask his direction. But we soon found that his white hairs commanded such respect that he could go safely anywhere. We usually dined at the Palais Koyal, and as our lodgings were on the other side of the Seine, it was necessary to cross the gardens of the Tuileries and the Pont, and make several turns to reach them. If we had to separate, he took the direction on a card, which he had but to show to any passer-by, to secure instant attention. He found that a Frenchman, thus addressed, did not give a hasty answer and pass on, but stopped and took pains to point out the way, and then often stood and looked after him as he disappeared down the street, and if he paused as if in doubt, fol- lowed after to direct him aright. This respect for age, which is such a beautiful trait of the French, struck him very much, and gave him a most pleasant impression of the French people. It was a perpetual delight to go about with him, and to see how,' amid all these gay and glittering scenes, his heart turned to his home beyond the sea. One day we went up the Avenue of the Champs Elysees to the Arch of Triumph, where we ascended to the top; and as we stood on that height, looking down upon Paris, he told me the story of his life of all the way in which God had led him. After this visit to Paris, he returned to London, where he spent a few weeks, and then sailed for America. 44 In May, 1851, Dr. Field completed his seventy years, for nearly fifty of which he had been a pastor. He had led a very active and laborious life, and his children thought that he had earned a right to a discharge from the war to be honorably retired. And as Stockbridge was the home of the family, where two sons had been married and one still lived, they desired him to return there to spend the evening of life. At their request, therefore, he gave up his pastoral charge, and our parents returned to Stockbridge, to the old homestead, which was to be theirs for the rest of their days. Never did tired voyagers cast anchor in a more tranquil haven. This perhaps was the happiest portion of their lives. At evening time it was light. Here the years glided peacefully away. While they are enjoying this well-earned repose, we may turn to see how it fared with the sons and daughters who had gone forth into the world. 45 DAVID DUDLEY FIELD. i The eldest of our family received his father's name, DAVID DUDLEY. He was born February 13, 1805, at Haddam, in a house which is still standing. The germ of his character showed itself when a child. An old dame who was employed in the family, and who in after years used to boast that she had more than once administered to him neces- sary domestic discipline, gave as a reason for it that " he was a most determined little fellow." She found it hard to break his will; indeed it may be doubted whether it has ever been broken. As soon as he was old enough, he was sent to the village school. When he was nine years old, his father took him into his own study, and taught him Latin, Greek, and Mathematics. Taken at fourteen from Haddam to Stockbridge, he found there an excellent Academy, under the instruc- tion of a famous teacher, Mr. Jared Curtis. Here were three young men of about his own age, with whom he soon formed a great inti- macy. These were Mark and Albert Hopkins, and John Morgan, of whom the first afterwards became President, and the second Professor of Astronomy, in Williams College; and the third a Professor at Oberlin, Ohio. These four young men went to Williams College about the same time, and ever after cherished the warmest friendship. Field entered in 1821, and distinguished himself as a, scholar. Leaving in 1825, he went to Albany to study law. It was a hard trial to his parents when the time came for him to go from under their roof. His father took him into his study, and gave him a Bible to be his guide through life a book which he has kept sacredly to this day and kneeling down (he seldom knelt, but the unaccustomed feeling caused him to sink upon his knees), he commended his first-born son, who was then going out into the world, to the care and protection of Almighty God. He began the study of law in the office of Harmanus Bleecker in Albany, but remained there only a few months, when he removed to New York, and completed his studies in the office of Henry and Eobert Sedgwick, who were from Stockbridge, which led them to take a kindly interest in him. They were lawyers of distinc- tion, and of a large practice. When the elder brother, Henry, was obliged by ill health to retire from active business, the younger, Kobert,, took Mr. Field into partnership, and thus he began his legal career. 45 He was admitted an attorney and solicitor in 1828, and counsellor in 1830, and immediately, on the first admission, entered upon practice in New York, which he has continued for more than fifty years. Entering an established law firm, he had not to go through the long and painful stage of "waiting for clients," but found himself at once engaged in the work of his profession, in which he met with such success that when a few years later the firm was dissolved, and he opened an office for himself, he had already a respectable clientage, and was recognized as one of the rising young men at the bar. From that time his life has been a busy one. The first interruption to it was in 1836, when, after the death of his wife, he went abroad, and spent a year in travel, many lively pictures of which afterwards appeared in "Sketches over the Sea," published in The Democratic Keview. Returning to New York, he entered again on the practice of his profession, which soon became one of the largest in the city. It would be impossible to give a list of the cases of importance in which he was engaged, both in the State and the Federal Courts. Some of them involved large interests of property; others difficult constitutional questions ; and in some the litigation was kept up for years, being finally decided only in the tribunal of last resort. To these professional labors was now to be added a work apart from practice in the courts one that in the course of years grew to such proportions, and involved such an amount of labor, that it is justly considered the great work of his life viz : that of THE REFORM OF THE LAW. A work of such magnitude and such results deserves a some- what detailed and authentic history. When Mr. Field began the study of the law, the first thing which he attempted was to make himself master of the practice, and so hard did he work that he had reason to say that " if ever there was anything which he understood, it was the practice at common law and in equity as then established in the Courts of New York." The extremely tech- nical character of the whole system impressed him from the beginning. He could not see that it was necessary, and thought he saw that it was injurious. This disposition of mind was strengthened by the opinion of Mr. Henry D. Sedgwick, who, having first practised law in Massa- chusetts, looked upon the system of New York as absurdly technical and embarrassing. Two works of very different character, which fell into his hands about this time, tended to the same result. One was Livingston's Report of a Code for Louisiana ; the other a Discourse on the History and Nature of the Common Law, delivered before the New 47 York Historical Society by William Sampson, in December, 1823, and republished with other papers under the title " On Codes and Common Law." But neither his student life, nor the first years of practice in his pro- fession, afforded him an opportunity for the exercise of his disposition to improve the law itself. Whilst abroad in 1836 he went through Great Britain and a large part of the Continent. This visit, and what he then saw of the English Courts, the civil law, and the French Codes, did not tend to increase, but very much to lessen, his respect for that technical system of our own which he already disliked. On his return to this country in the Summer of 1837, and resuming the practice of the law, he began to consider more carefully what he could do for the improvement of the system of procedure in the Courts. His first public effort was a Letter to Gulian C. Verplanck, published in 1839, on the Eeform of our Judicial System. After this he went to Albany, and addressed a Committee of the Legislature on the subject. Two years later, at the general election in November, 1841, he sought and obtained a nomination from the Democratic party for the Assem- bly of New York, with the view of introducing law reform meas- ures into the Legislature. Being defeated through the interference of Bishop Hughes in his opposition to the Public School system, then pre- vailing in New York, he contented himself with preparing the draft of three Bills to be introduced by Mr. O 'Sullivan, his colleague in the can- didacy, accompanied by a long Letter in explanation of their provisions. These Bills were introduced ; but the Judiciary Committee to which they were referred, did not adopjt or recommend them. They were printed, however, with the Letter, in the Journal of the Assembly. The calling of, the Constitutional Convention, pursuant to an act of the Legislature of 1845, gave him a new opportunity. Before the dele- gates were elected, and in January, 1846, he wrote and published in the Evening Post, a series of articles on " The ^Reorganization of the Judi- ciary," which were collected in a pamphlet and largely circulated. He wished to obtain a seat in the Convention, with a view to promoting law reform : but the unpopularity to which he had subjected himself by his hostility to the annexation of Texas, and the extension of slavery, made it impossible for him to obtain a nomination from the Democratic party, then the only one from which he could expect an election. But if he was not permitted to influence the Convention by his voice within its walls, he could influence it from without, and he did so to the utmost of his power, by conversation and correspondence with the members, and by articles in the newspapers. The Convention met on the 1st of 48 June, and during the whole Summer he kept at work. The Evening Post alone had nine or ten articles from him relating to different parts of the Constitution. The instrument which the Convention offered to the people, was adopted at the general .election in November. It con- tained two law reforming provisions, one in the first article, aiming at a general Code, and the other in the sixth article aiming at the Reform of the Practice, both to be set in motion by appointments of the Legis- lature. Both of these provisions owed their existence very much to his voice and pen. In anticipation of the action of the Legislature, he published on the first of January, 1847, a little treatise of thirty-five pages, entitled "What shall be done with the Practice of the Courts? Shall it be wholly reformed ? Questions addressed to lawyers." This treatise he followed up by a Memorial to the Legislature before the passage of any act by that body. This Memorial, drawn up on the fourth of February, to which he procured the signatures of Vice Chancellor McCoun, Charles O'Conor, E. P. Hurlbut, F. B. Cutting, Theodore Sedgwick, James J. Eoosevelt, Joseph S. Bosworth, Erastus C. Benedict, and forty-three other lawyers of New York, was in these words ; " To the Senate and Assembly of the State of New York : " The memorial of the undersigned members of the Bar in the City of New York, respectfully represents, that they look with great solici- tude for the action of your honorable bodies in respect to the revision, reform, simplification, and abridgment of the rules and practice, plead- ings, forms, and proceedings of the courts of record. They are per- suaded that a radical reform of legal procedure in all its departments, is demanded by the interests of justice, and by the voice of the people ; that a uniform course of proceeding in all cases legal and equitable is entirely practicable, and no less expedient ; and that a radical reform should aim at such uniformity, and at the abolition of all useless forms and proceedings. " Your memorialists, therefore, pray your honorable bodies to declare by the Act appointing Commissioners, that it shall be their duty to pro- vide for the abolition of the present forms of action and pleadings in cases at common law, for a uniform course of proceeding in all cases, whether of legal or equitable cognizance, and for the abandonment of every form or proceeding not necessary to ascertain or preserve the rights of the parties." This was presented to the Legislature, and a section was introduced into the pending Bill in accordance with the Memorial, except that the word which Mr. Field wrote "every "was by mistake made to read "any." Compare the provision, as he drew it, and as it now appears in the Statute, as follows : "And it shall be the duty of the said Commissioners to provide for 49 the abolition of the present forms of actions and pleadings in cases at common law, for a uniform course of proceeding in all cases whether of legal or equitable cognizance, and for the abandonment of all Latin and other foreign tongues so far as the same shall, by them, be deemed practicable, and of any form and proceeding not necessary to ascertain or preserve the rights of the parties." Mr. Field's name was naturally brought forward in connection with the appointment of Commissioners ; but the conservative feeling was too strong, he was too radical, and Mr. Nicholas Hill was appointed instead of him. The Commission, consisting of Mr. Loomis, Mr. Graham, and Mr. Hill, was formally established by a law passed on the 8th of April, 1847. The Commissioners could not agree, however, in carrying out this provision, and Mr. Hill resigned in September. By that time the feeling in favor of radical reform had gained strength, and Mr. Field was appointed in Mr. Hill's place by a resolution of the two Houses, passed on the 29th of September, 1847. Meantime he had pub- lished "Some suggestions respecting the rules to be established by the Supreme Court," designed to effect a considerable reform in the plead- ings and practice. Upon the reorganization of the Commission, it went to work in earnest, and on the 29th of February, 1848, reported to the Legislature the first instalment of the Code of Civil Procedure. This was enacted on the 12th of April, 1848, with very little change, and went into effect on the first of July. It was, however, but an instalment of the whole work contemplated, and the residue was reported from time to time in four different Reports, until the first of January, 1850, when completed Codes of Civil and Criminal Procedure were submitted to the Legislature. These two works covered the whole ground of remedial law. Meantime the other Commission, called the Code Commission, which had the whole body of substantive law in charge, broke down, and the law appointing it was repealed on the 10th of April, 1850. In August of that year Mr. Field went abroad with his family, and left them in Eome, returning to New York in December. While in England, he had an interview with Lord Brougham, and was warmly received by* the Law Amendment Society. The former commended the efforts the Commis- sion had made for the fusion of law and equity, but doubted if it could ever be effected in England. He soon changed his mind, however ; for in the following Spring he wrote a letter to London from Cannes, in which he said that sooner or later fusion was sure to be adopted in England. In the same month of his return to New York, December, 1850, Mr. Field published in the Evening Post five articles on " The Completion 50 of the Code," designed to promote the immediate consideration by the Legislature of the two Codes of Procedure which had been reported complete. His efforts, however, were unsuccessful. In May, 1851, he rejoined his family in Europe, and travelled with them over a great portion of the Continent, and into Egypt and Palestine. While in Eng- land, on his return home, a dinner was given to him in London by the members of the Law Amendment Society, an account of which was published in the Morning Chronicle of the next day, Dec. 22d, 1851. Robert Lowe, now Lord Sherbrooke (who has so distinguished himself in Parliament, and as Chancellor of the Exchequer under Mr. Glad- stone\ was one of the speakers. He had resided some years in Australia, and knew how wise laws, whether framed in England or America, affected legislation at the very extremities of the British empire. In his speech he paid a tribute to Mr. Field, such as has seldom been paid to any legislator, living or dead. Among other things he said : "He trusted that his honorable friend, Mr. Eield, would go down to posterity with this glory that he had not only essentially served one of the greatest countries in the States of America, but that he had also provided a cheap and satisfactory code of law for every colony that bore ' the English name. Mr. Field, indeed, had not squared the circle ; he had not found out any solid which answered to more than three denom- inations ; he had not discovered any power more subtle than electricity, nor one that would bow with more docility to the service of man than steam. But he had done greater things : he had laid the foundations of peace, happiness, and tranquillity, in the establishment of a system which would make law a blessing instead of a scourge to mankind. He believed that no acquisition of modern times if he rightly understood what had been done in the State of New York he believed that no achievement of the intellect was to be compared to that by which Mr. Field had removed the absurdities and the technicalities under which New York, in common with this country and the colonies, had so long groaned." And again : "As to the colonies, he could only repeat that he trusted the example of New York would not be lost upon them. While England was debating upon the propriety of some small and paltry re- forms in the administration of law, a great master in the art of adminis- trative reform had risen there in the person of his distinguished friend, Mr. Field, and had solved the problem which they in England were timidly debating. America had a great future before her, in the estab- lishment and diffusion of the arts of peace. Let them leave to others to absolute governments to have their subjects shot down in the street, rather than wait even for the headlong injustice of a court- martial ; but let it be the lot of England, hand in hand with America, to lead the way in the arts of Jurisprudence, as well as in other arts- let them aim at being the legislators and the pacificators of the world." 51 Mr. Field returned to New York in January, 1852, to encounter con- tinued hostility to the Code, and to any attempt at its completion ; but he abated neither his efforts nor his hope. In July of that year, he published a pamphlet entitled "The Administration of the Code,'* the first of a series of Law-Eeform Tracts, to which he gave the following introduction : "'What need is there of more efforts bylaw reformers? Has not law reform got so firm a foothold as riot to need further aid ? ' were the questions of a friend to whom the plan of publishing a series of Law- Eeform Tracts was mentioned. The answer was : ' It is very true that the reforms we have already obtained cannot be undone, nor can the further progress of reform be finally stopped, but it may be injuri- ously delayed. We may help to give it a true and proper direction, and push it on to its just results. There remains a great deal yet to be done. That portion of the Code of Procedure which has not been considered by the Legislature, must be speedily acted upon. Certain reforms in the law of rights must be effected, and we must have a complete code of the whole body of our law.' To promote these objects is the pur- pose of these Tracts." This Tract was followed in the same year by two others one enti- tled " Evidence on the Operation of the Code." and the other " Codifi- cation of the Common Law." From this time to 1855 he was constantly watching and urging forward the completion of the Code in this State, and its adoption' in other States. In the Session of 1853 he procured the whole Code of Civil Procedure, with slight changes, to be reported for passage by a Committee of the Assembly, and in like manner, during the Session of 1855, the whole Code of Criminal Procedure. In January, 1854, he drew a Memorial to the Legislature in favor of the passage of a law to admit the testimony of parties to actions. In March, 1855, he delivered an Address to the graduating class of the law school in the University of Albany, in which he endeavored to enforce the necessity of reforms in the law. Soon after this address a bill was introduced into the Leg- islature to reorganize the Code Commission, making him one of the Code Commissioners. This bill was sharply opposed, and finally defeated. During the same year he published Law-Eeform Tract No. 4, on " The Competency of Parties as Witnesses for Themselves " ; and at the beginning of the following year, in January, 1856, Law- Eeform Tract No. 5, being "A Short Manual of Pleading under the Code." On the 6th of April, 1857, his efforts to resuscitate the Code Commis- sion were for the first time successful. An act, the whole of which was prepared by him, was then passed, appointing him with Mr. Noyes and 52 Mr. Bradford Commissioners " to reduce into a written and systematic Code the whole body of the law of this State, or so much and such parts thereof as shall seem to them practicable and expedient, excepting always such portions of the law as have been already reported upon by the Commissioners of Practice and Pleadings, or are embraced within the scope of their reports." They were required to report at the next session of the Legislature a general Analysis of the projected Codes, and at each succeeding annual session, the progress made to that time. As fast as any part of the Draft was prepared it was to be distributed among the Judges, and others, for examination, and after- wards to be reexamined, with the suggestions made, and finally sub- mitted to the Legislature. No compensation whatever was to be allowed to the Commissioners. The first thing they did, after their appointment, was to prepare the Analysis prescribed by the law. Mr. Noyes undertook to prepare that for the Penal Code ; Mr. Field undertook the rest, that is to say, the Analysis of the Political and Civil Codes. After this they went to work on the Codes themselves. The Political Code was the first finished. That was prepared by Mr. Field alone, Mr. Austin Abbott assisting him. The first Draft was sent out on the 10th of March, 1859, and, after a reexamination, the revised and completed work was submitted to the Legislature on the 10th of April, 1860. On the 16th of that month a provision was, at his suggestion, introduced into an Act amending the Code of Civil Procedure, authorizing the Com- missioners of the Code to prepare an appropriate Book of Forms. This was prepared in the same manner as the three Codes ; first a Draft, or, as in this case, two successive Drafts were circulated, and then the revised work was reported to the Legislature on the 30th of March, 1871. This was done entirely under his supervision, Mr. T. G. Shearman assisting him. The first Draft of a portion of the Civil Code was sent out on the llth of March, 1861. Then a Draft of the whole was distributed on the 5th of April, 1862, and that of the Penal Code on the 2d of April, 1864. The full Draft of the Civil Code was pre- pared by Mr. Field alone, with the assistance of Mr. W. J. A. Fuller, Mr. Austin Abbott, Mr, B. V. Abbott, Mr. Charles F. Stone, and Mr. T. G. Shearman. The Draft of the Penal Code was prepared under the supervision of Mr. Noyes, with the assistance of Mr. B. V. Abbott, and then it was read over section by section at meetings of all the Commis- sioners, and amended by them. The Political and Civil Codes were left entirely to Mr. Field, except that Mr. Bradford prepared a first Draft of that portion of the latter which relates to the estates of deceased 53 persons. After eight successive Eeports to the Legislature, the Com- mission submitted their Ninth and final Eeport on the 13th of Febru- ary, 1865, laying then the Penal Code complete upon the tables of the members of the Senate and Assembly, and referring them to the Civil Code complete in the hands of the printer. The printing of the latter was not actually completed until the autumn of that year. These law-reform labors of Mr. Field occupied his thoughts and a large portion of his time for eighteen years. During all these years, except the first two, he not only received no compensation, but had to pay the expense of his assistants, amounting to over $6,000. The Codes for New York were written and rewritten several times ; parts of the Civil Code eighteen times. These Codes, as completed, are contained in five volumes. Three of them the Civil Code, the Penal Code, and the Political Code give the substantive law. Two of them the Code of Civil Procedure and the Code of Criminal Procedure prescribe the practice of the courts, and define their juris- diction. In their preparation, Mr. Field was associated,, as stated above, with Arphaxad Loomis, David Graham, William Curtis Noyes, and Alexander W. Bradford, who were able and distinguished men in the profession ; but they gave to it far less time than he did, and wrought upon it with far less intensity. With him it was the passion of his life the work which he w r as the first to propose, and was the most determined to carry through, and he wrought upon it with all the ardor of personal ambition. He gave to it more time than the others combined, indeed all the time which he could spare from the labors of an engrossing profession. His habits were to rise early, and take a ride on horseback before breakfast; and then, retiring to his library, give hours to this work before he went to his office, and resume it in the evening, often continuing it past midnight. In this way he worked upon it from 1847 to 1865 ; so that he is universally recognized, at home and abroad, as the chief author of the Codes. In a letter to his brother Stephen, reviewing these long labors, he thus speaks of the difficulties he had to encounter : Now that my work is finished, as I look back upon it, I am amazed at the difficulties I had to overcome, and the little encouragement and assistance I received. It seemed as if every step I took was to be impeded by something laid across my path. I was opposed in every- thing. My life was a continual warfare. Not only was every obstacle thrown in the way of my work, but I was attacked personally as an agitator and a visionary, in seeking to disturb long settled usage, and thinking to reform tjie law, in which was embodied the wisdom of ages. This was perhaps to be expected when I undertook such radical changes 54 in the face of the most conservative of professions. But he has little reason to complain of the number or violence of his adversaries who finds himself victorious in the end. As to any real service which I may have rendered to American law, and so to the cause of universal justice, of human progress and civilization, in short, as to any claim I may have to the title of lawgiver and reformer, I am willing to be judged by the wise and good after I have passed away. One lesson, which I might perhaps have learned by reading, has been taught me by experience, and that is, that he who attempts reform must rely upon himself, and that all such enterprises have received their start and impetus from one, or at most a very few persons. Though this work of reform had been begun for the State of New York, it did not end here. Other States soon perceived its immense advantages, and were ready to follow the example. In spite of the natural conservatism of the legal profession, and opposition from other quarters, it steadily made its way. In the course of a few years the Code of Civil Procedure was adopted, with greater or less com- pleteness, in Missouri, Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana, Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota, Kansas, Nebraska, Nevada, California, Oregon, Missis- sippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Arkansas, Connecticut, Wash- ington, Arizona, Utah, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, and Dakota ; the Code of Criminal Procedure by Indiana, Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota, Kansas, Nebraska, Nevada, California, Oregon, Kentucky, Arkansas, Washington, Arizona, Utah, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, and Dakota ; while in the year 1872 California adopted the whole five Codes, in which she was followed by Dakota. The introduction of these Codes attracted great attention in Eng- land, where there had long been felt a pressing necessity of Law Ke- form. Lord Brougham watched with great interest the progress of the movement here, and when Mr. Field went to England, sought from him the full details of this new legislation. There was a Law Amend- ment Society in London, with which he was in constant communica- tion. The interest thus excited led to the appointment of a Parlia- mentary Committee, and of a Crown Commission, to consider the whole subject of Law Keform; and twice when in England in 1851, and again in 1867 Mr. Field was invited to meet with them, and explain the methods and extent of codification in New York. On the latter occasion there were present the most eminent legal authorities of the Kingdom, including five Lord Chancellors Lord Westbury and Lord Cranworth ; Sir Page Wood, afterwards Lord Hatherly ; Sir Hugh Cairns, now Lord Cairns; Sir Boundell Palmer, now Lord Selborne. 55 . . The last of these is the present Lord Chancellor a position which he holds for the second time in the Administration of Mr. Gladstone. As a result of the movement for Eeform, Mr. Field's Code of Pro- cedure has been adopted in substance in Great Britain and her Colo- nies. When going round the world, he found his System of Practice in use in the courts in India, and at Singapore and Hong Kong. The rules which he had framed for an American State in the very words which he had written in his library were in force on the other side of the globe. Having thus finished his work for the State, or, as it may be termed, the Code of National Law T , he turned his thoughts towards a Code of International Law. The mode adopted for initiating it was this: Attending the meeting of the British Association for the Promo- tion of Social Science, held at Manchester in September, 1866, he brought the subject before that body by an address, in which he sug- gested the appointment of a Committee to prepare and report the out- lines of an International Code. The suggestion was cordially received, and a committee was appointed consisting of the following gentlemen : For England George Denman, now Judge of the Common Pleas, chairman; Lord Hobart, T. E. Headlam, Sir Travers Twiss, George Shaw Lefevre, W. T, S. Daniel, T. Chisholm Anstey, George W. Hastings, W. S. Cookson, John Westlake, secretary ; for the United States David Dudley Field, William Beach Lawrence ; for France M. Berryer and M. Desmarest ; for Germany Baron Von Mittermeier, Baron Franz Yon Holzendorf, Dr. E. Yon Mohl; for Italy Count Sclopis and Sign or Ambrosoli; for Kussia Professor Katchenowsky ; for Belgium Professor Hans. Mr. Field then prepared an Analysis, which he had laid before the English members of the Committee at a meeting in London. This Analysis was approved and accepted, and the first draft of the work divided among the members, with the understanding that they should interchange their respective portions, and then meet for the revision of the whole. It was so difficult for him to do this to advantage so long as he w f as separated from his colleagues by the Atlantic Ocean, that he determined to prepare and submit to them a draft of the whole work, hoping that they would do the same. The result was the " Draft Out- lines of an International Code," which he published. This was en- tirely his own work, with the assistance of Mr. A. Abbott, Mr. C. F. Stone, and Mr. H. P. Wilds, except that President Barnard prepared the Titles on Money, Weights, and Measures, Longitude and Time and Sea Signals. During its progress Mr. Field visited Europe once, for 56 two or three months, to attend another meeting of the British Asso- ciation, which was held at Belfast in September, 1867, where he deliv- ered an address on " The Community of Nations." In October, 1869, he made an address on an International Code- before the American Social Science Association at New York ; and in 1870 an address at Albany before the Joint Committees of the two Houses, on Judicial Abuses and Legal Eeforms ; and an address in New York on the probable changes in International Law consequent upon the Franco-Prussian War. This International Code, though an ideal Code, states nevertheless the law of nations as it now exists. It is framed upon the idea that some time or other the different nations will agree upon a general treaty concerning the subjects discussed in it. Such a treaty has already been made upon International Postage and upon Sea Signals. Mr. Field's work has attracted great attention abroad among the statesmen of Europe, has passed through two editions, and been trans- lated into French and Italian ; and Prince Kung has recently ordered it to be translated into Chinese. While thus absorbed in the work of law reform, in the prepara- tion of the Codes, and in the practice of his profession, Mr. Field took a deep interest in political affairs. Although but once in his life has he held an office (except as a Commissioner of the Code ; he was once offered the appointment of Judge of the Supreme Court of New York, which he declined) that of Member of Congress, for a brief period, yet in the discussion of principles, and in the forma- tion of parties, he has exerted an important influence ; few public men of the day have exerted more. There is a chapter in the political his- tory of New York, and of the country, which is yet to be written. A few references to dates will show the abundant materials to be found in the journals of thirty years ago, when old parties were breaking up, and new ones being formed. In his political faith Mr. Field was always a Democrat. He believed the principles of the Democratic party, as elaborated by Jefferson, to contain the true principles of our govern- ment. The first political speech he ever made was in Tammany Hall in 1842, on the nomination of Kobert H. Morris for Mayor. But he was not under bondage to a name, and the moment he saw that the Democratic party was to be used as the instrument and supporter of Slavery, he revolted. The first thing which excited the alarm of the more inde- pendent men in that party was the project for the annexation of Texas. In 1844 Mr. Field made a speech at the Broadway Tabernacle against it as being merely a scheme for the extension of Slavery. 57 But in spite of all warnings, it seemed that the Democratic Party was to be committed to this fatal policy. At the Baltimore Convention of 1844 Mr. Van Buren was thrown overboard, simply because he had written a letter against the annexation of Texas, and James K. Polk was. nominated on a platform committing the party to that project. This led to the war with Mexico. Texas was brought into the Union. But this only inflamed still more the Anti-Slavery feeling of the North. In 1846 Mr. Wilmot, a Democrat in Congress from Pennsylvania, intro- duced as an amendment to a bill for purchasing Mexican territory, his famous Proviso: "That as an express and fundamental condition to the acquisition of any territory from the Republic of Mexico, neither Slavery nor involuntary servitude shall ever exist in any x part of the said territory." The Proviso was adopted in the House, but rejected in the Senate. But it became a battle-cry for the North. At the same time Mr. Field here in New York wrote the famous " Secret Circular '* and "Joint Letter," designed to rally the Anti-Slavery portion of the Democratic party. In 1847 he attended the River and Harbor Conven- tion at Chicago, and made a speech in favor of a strict construction of the Constitution in respect to public works. The same year he was a delegate to the Syracuse Convention, where the Democratic party was split in two over the question of Slavery Extension, and on that occa- sion he introduced the famous resolution, long afterward known as "The Corner-Stone," which was for years displayed at the head of the leading column of the Albany Atlas, as the rallying cry of the Free Democracy. It was in these words : " Eesolved, That while the Democracy of New York, represented in this convention, will faithfully adhere to all the compromises of the Constitution, and maintain all the reserved rights of the States, they declare, since the crisis has arrived when that question must be met, their uncompromising hostility to the extension of Slavery into terri- tory now free, or which may be hereafter acquired by any action of the Government of the United States." Matters came to a head in 1848 with the nomination of Gen. Cass. When the Democrats of New York assembled in mass meeting to hear the report of their delegates to Baltimore, they were very much excited. Mr. Field wrote the address, which declared their strong disapproval. Carrying their feeling into action, a portion of the Party refused to support General Cass, and nominated Mr. Van Buren for President, and Charles Francis Adams for Vice-President, on a platform of no more extension of Slavery. In support of these prin- ciples and candidates, Mr. Field spoke at the Park meeting in New York ; in Faneuil Hall, Boston, and elsewhere in New England ; and 58 -wrote the address of the Democratic-Eepublican Committee to the electors of the State. The " irrepressible conflict " was renewed several years later, in the attempt to force the admission of California into the Union as a slave State ; in the repeal of the Missouri Compromise ; and the struggle for the mastery of Kansas ; in all which he took his stand on the side of Freedom, and against the extension of Slavery. In 1856 he supported Fremont, making speeches in New York, Pennsylvania, and elsewhere. When charged with being false to his Democratic prin- ciples, he thus denned his position in a letter to the Albany Atlas and Argus, dated May 22, 1856 : " Though I have not hitherto acted with the Eepublican party, my sympathies are of course with the friends of freedom wherever they may be found. I despise equally the fraud which uses the name of Democ- racy to cheat men of their rights ; the cowardice which retracts this year what it professed and advocated the last ; and the falsehood which affects to teach the right of the people of the Territories to govern them- selves, while it imposes on them Federal governors and judges and indicts them for treason against the Union, because they make a con- stitution and laws which they prefer, and collects forces from the neigh- boring States and the Federal army to compel them to submission." By these successive strokes, the wedge was driven deeper and deeper, by which the old Democratic Party, which had so long ruled the country, was cleft in sunder. Thus arose the Free Soil Party, which a few years after united with the Anti-Slavery portion of the Whigs, and formed the ^Republican Party. In all these movements Mr. Field took a part, and none were more active, and few were more influential, in. the counsels and deliberations of the leaders. He attended the Kepublican Convention at Chicago in 1860 ; and Mr. Henry J. Eaymond, the late editor of The New York Times, in a letter to that paper, ascribed largely to his influence, with that of Horace Greeley, the defeat of Mr. Seward, and the nomination of Mr. Lincoln.* Thus he * Mr. Eaymond is confirmed by James A. Briggs, Esq., of this city, who was also present at the Convention, " all of which he saw," even if he cannot add " a part of which I was." Mr. Briggs is a nephew of the late Governor Briggs qf Massachusetts, a lawyer by profession, and lived for twenty years in Cleveland, during which time he became an intimate personal and political friend of Mr. hase. In 1857 he removed to New York, and went from this city to Chicago, in hope to promote the nomination 6f his political chief. From his party associations, he was in a position to have a full " inside view " of the movements of the several divisions of the party that were struggling for the ascendency. He says : " I have always thought that Mr. Lincoln was more indebted to Mr. David Dudley Field for his nomination for the Presidency at Chicago in 1860, than to any other one man. I was present at that Convention as the friend of Mr. Chase, but soon found that the nomination was to go either to Mr. Seward or to Mr. Lincoln, and then I was for Mr. Lincoln. 59 did as much as any man towards the organization of that great Party of Liberty, which finally triumphed in Mr. Lincoln's election, and has now for these twenty years had possession of the national government. The election of Mr. Lincoln stirred up all the hostility of the South- ern States, and there were threats of secession and dismemberment of the Union. To allay the Southern discontent, if it could be done by any honorable concession and adjustment, a Peace Congress was held in Washington, during the last months of Mr. Buchanan's administra- tion, composed of delegates from a large number of States, North and South. It sat for weeks, deliberating and negotiating. In this Con- gress Mr. Field was at the head of the delegation from the State of New York, and did all he could to preserve peace. He foresaw the horrors of civil war, and was as anxious as any man could be to avert the im- pending danger ; and yet he saw that it would be false policy to pur- chase peace by weakness or a sacrifice of principle, which could only postpone a conflict which was inevitable. His speech on the subject is reported in Chittenden's Proceedings of the Congress. This was the ground which he took in a correspondence with Professor Morse and Reverdy Johnson. If the war must come, he thought it might as w r ell come then, and be fought out by this generation, as be postponed to be the curse of millions yet unborn. "With the firing on Fort Sumter, all further negotiations were thrown to the winds. The time for discussion was ended ; the time for action had come. From that moment Mr. Field threw himself into every patriotic movement. He was often called to Washington to advise with members of the administration. He was an active member of the Na- tional War Committee raised in New York ; spoke in Union Square on " I was at the Tremont House, with Mr. Field, Mr. Greeley, Mr. George Opdyke, .and Mr. Hiram Barney. The night before the nomination, about midnight, Mr. Greeley came into Mr. Field's room, and threw himself down with a feeling of despair, and said 'All is lost; we are beaten.' Mr. Field replied ' No, all is not lost. Let us up and go to work.' His energetic voice and manner seemed to inspire Mr. Greeley with new life, and both immediately went out to renew the struggle. Mr. Field particularly worked with a determined will and resolute purpose that seemed to know no such word as fail. He went from delegation to delegation, and as he was from New York, Mr. Seward's own State, and yet was opposed to his nomina- tion, he had great influence in turning the tide of feeling in favor of Mr. Lincoln. Before morning they returned in high spirits, when Mr. Field said : ' The work is done. Mr. Lincoln will be nominated.' Mr. Greeley seemed equally confident a confidence which was justified by the event. But it was in those midnight hours that the work was done. That was the turning-point in that memorable Convention, and therefore a turning-point in the political history of our country. For the issue then reached, I have always been convinced, from what passed under my own eyes, that more was due to Mr. Field than to any other man." 60 the great uprising of the people ; and made a stirring address to the Twentieth Massachusetts regiment marching through to the front. In 1862, he wrote the address of the loyal citizens of New York at the Union Square meeting ; a report to the National War Committee, on the neces- sity of increased exertions for the war ; and made speeches at the rati- fication meetings in the city and throughout the State, in support of General Wadsworth's nomination for Governor. In 1863, he spoke at the mass meeting in the Cooper Institute ; at the complimentary din- ner to Governor Morton of Indiana ; at the meeting on the anniversary of the fall of Sumter ; at the mass meeting in Madison Square ; &c., &c. He was in the country at the critical moment of the riots in 1863, but was immediately summoned to the city by the Mayor, and by his reso- lute spirit did much to reanimate the people, who were taken by surprise, and for a moment almost paralyzed. Mr. Opdyke, in the history of his Mayoralty, speaking of the three terrible days of the riots, says : "To many eminent private citizens my acknowledgments are due for most valuable services, and to none more than to David Dudley Field, Esq., whose courage, energy-, and vigilance were unsur- passed, and without abatement from the beginning to the end." When the war was over, new questions arose respecting' the recon- struction of the States lately in rebellion. There was a disposition to carry the rule of war into the time of peace ; if not to declare martial law, at least to use military methods in place of civil government. Mil- itary leaders were put in charge of large districts in the South, who of course, if they were to rule at all, were likely to rule in military fashion. Mr. Field's strong repugnance to this kind of military domination led him to draw apart from same of the men with whom he had lately act- ed, especially from the more extreme and partisan. His objections to military rule were expressed in his arguments in a series of celebrated cases before the Supreme Court of the United States : in the Milligan case in 1867, respecting the constitutionality of military commis- sions for the trial of civilians in loyal States, where the courts were open, and in the undisturbed exercise of their jurisdiction; in the McArdle case in 1868, respecting the constitutionality of the recon- struction acts ; and in the Cruikshank case in 1875. The late Chief Justice Chase spoke of his arguments in the Milligan and McArdle cases as among the ablest on the subject of military rule and recon- struction to which he had listened. He also argued against the constitutionality of the test oath in the Cummings case and in the Garland case. His arguments in all these cases attracted general attention, and added much to his reputation. 61 In the years 1870-72 there was a series of litigations in New York which attracted great public attention, and for his course in which Mr. Field was criticised by a portion of the city press. These unprofessional critics seemed to have strange ideas of a lawyer's duty, when they thought he might abandon his clients in the midst of a litigation. Mr. Field's firm had been retained by the Erie Railroad as its legal adviser, and his idea of professional honor did not permit him to refuse his counsel in its important cases coming before the courts. He held that a lawyer had a duty to his clients, which he was not at liberty to throw off, because a case was unpopular. To desert a client because he had incurred public odium, justly or unjustly, would have been an act of cowardice, and a professional disgrace. He believed that every man was to be regarded as innocent until he was proved guilty ; and that even if guilty, it was for the law, and not for public clamor, to fix the measure of his punishment. The trial by newspaper was, in his view, a very poor substitute for the trial by jury. Even though a man had com- mitted a crime, he was not to be taken out and hanged by a mob ; but to be tried according to law, to be condemned according to law, and pun- ished according to law. An excess of punishment, an infliction of pen- alty not prescribed by the law, was in his belief a violation of justice, which savored more of the wild decrees of a Vigilance Committee, than of the sober judgment of a Court, sitting deliberately to hear evidence, and sworn to give its solemn verdict according to law. Thus in the case of Tweed, who was tried and convicted of malfeasance in office, and justly punished, Judge Noah Davis, influenced perhaps unconsciously by the popular indignation, not content with a single punishment, chose to consider the several counts of the indictment as so many separate crimes, and proceeded to impose punishment as for so many distinct offences. This " cumulative sentence," as it was called, Mr. Field believed to be wholly without warrant of law, and he carried the case to the Court of Appeals, where it was unanimously reversed. In short, he insisted that it was not lawful to commit a second crime, for the sake of punishing a first. He maintained his position with such spirit, and gave such a clear exposition of the rights and duties of lawyers, that the warmest acknowledgments came to him from many quarters. It is not too much to say that his courage in standing up for the rights of lawyers, as well as clients, has made it easier for very lawyer to do his duty, with a sense of professional independence. The best proof that he was right in the stand he took, was that, after all this censure and denunciation, his views of the law were uniformly sustained by the Courts of last resort. G2 In 1876 the country was in a position without precedent in its history, and for which there was no provision in the Constitution that of a disputed Presidential election. The candidates were Samuel J. Tilden of New York, Democratic, and Rutherford B. Hayes of Ohio, Eepublican. The election took place on the 7th of November, and the next morning it was announced all over the country that Mr. Tilden had been elected. The result was accepted even by his opponents. He had received a majority of a quarter of a million of the votes of the people, and it was conceded a handsome majority also of the Electoral College. But this included the votes of South Carolina, Florida, and Louisiana, the returns of which were in the hands of a set of officers known as Returning Boards, who had power to throw out any votes that in their judgment had been cast under the pressure of intimidation. This was an exercise of discretion that could only be entrusted to men of the greatest purity and patriotism ; whereas it was notorious that nearly all the persons composing these Boards were political adventur- ers, wholly without character. This created a suspicion that the returns might be tampered with a suspicion that was not lessened by the course of events the visit of active partisans from the North, who held secret conclaves with members of the Boards. The slow making- up of the returns, and the mystery in which it was involved, gave rise to a general fear that a great fraud was likely to be committed. Mr. Field, though dissatisfied with the course of the Republican party in the matter of Reconstruction, still followed his recent political ties so far as to vote for Mr. Hayes. And yet, when the election was over, he had no doubt that Mr. Tilden had been fairly chosen. Nor did he hesitate to express his opinion with his usual frankness and inde- pendence. It was the knowledge of this fact that led the Democratic party, on the retirement from Congress of Mr. Smith Ely, who had been chosen Mayor of the City of New York, to offer him the nomina- tion, which he accepted, and was elected. It was early in January when he took his seat, so that he was a Member of the House of Representatives but about eight weeks. Few men have entered either House of Congress who in so brief a time took so high a position. He was received with the consideration due to his great abilities, and at once placed on important committees. He took the lead in the examination of the members of the Returning Board of Louisiana, proving out of their own mouths that they were base and corrupt men, engaged in a plot to falsify the returns of their State. In Louisiana Mr. Tilden had 8,000 majority on the popular vote, yet these men had the power to throw out any number of votes, 63 and had shown themselves determined to exercise their power to throw- out enough to give the vote to their own party, no matter what might be the rightful majority against them. The case was further complicated by the fact that the two Houses of Congress were divided the Senate being Eepublican, and the House Democratic, which might bring th3m into direct antagonism. The case was a very serious one, and required all the wisdom of patriotic, men, to guide the country through this perilous crisis in the nation's, history. In this perplexity, with neither law nor precedent to guide them, a bill was brought forward in the Senate, to create an "Electoral Com- mission," of fifteen members five judges of the Supreme Court, five members of the Senate, and five of the House to sit in judgment on the case. This Commission Mr. Field favored, and although the result was not \vhat he had hoped and expected, yet, in spite of all objec- tions, made before or after, he still holds that it was a wise measure,, to meet a state of affairs which had no precedent, and which might have involved the country in bitter strifes, arid possibly in civil war. When the Commission was created, Mr. Field was one of the advo- cates before it on the Democratic side, and argued the case with his usual ability. But it was in vain all the members of the Commis- sion voted according to their party ties, and the result was, that by a vote of eight to seven, it decided that there was no power to go behind the returns, so that no matter how fraudulent those returns might be, there was no appeal. No matter what crime had been committed, the crime must stand. And thus the votes of Florida and Louisiana were taken from Mr. Tilden and given to Mr. Hayes, who on the night of the 2d of March, 1877, long after midnight, was declared President by a majority in the Electoral College of one vote ! This course of things Mr. Field resisted at every step; and while he submitted loyally to the decision of a Commission which he had helped to create, he never hid from himself or from others his conviction that a great fraud had been committed, and that for the first time in our history a man was seated in the Presidential chair who had not been elected. This view he expressed not only on the floor of Congress, but in a pamphlet pub- lished shortly after he left Congress, entitled "The Vote that made the President." Since that time he has taken little part in politics, but has been wholly engrossed by his profession. In the intervals of his multiplied avocations, he has found time not only for frequent visits to Europe, but in 1874 he made a voyage 64 around the world, including the circumnavigation of Australia. He has visited every quarter of the globe except South America. Such is the brief outline of a life prolonged beyond the allotted term of man, and filled with an activity which has shown itself in many forms, and produced manifold and memorable results. As a lawyer, Mr. Field has long stood in the front rank of his pro- fession. In political affairs he has had a very important influence in the formation of parties and in the legislation of the country. But the great work of his life, and that on which his fame will rest, is the series of Codes with which his name will be forever connected. Such a work is infinitely greater, as it is more far-reaching in its extent, and more enduring in its influence, than that of the ordinary legislator, since it is making laws for millions, and not only for the present, but for future generations. The greatness of this work is recognized quite as much abroad as at home. Mr. Lowe is not the only British statesman who has per- ceived what must be the influence 01 these reformed Codes on the legislation of all English-speaking countries. A late Lord Chancellor of England said recently that " Mr. Dudley Field of New York had done more for the reform of the law than any other man living." A man who has thus left the impress of his mind on the laws which rule great nations, may well leave his claim to the title of law-giver and reformer " to be judged by the wise and good after he has passed away." Mr. Field has been three times married. His first wife was Jane Lucinda Hopkins, daughter of John Hopkins of Stockbridge, to whom he was married Oct. 26, 1829. They had three children : Dudley Field, born Nov. 28, 1830 ; Jeanie Lucinda, born Oct. 9, 1833 ; Isabella, born April 3, 1835. Mrs. Field died of consumption in Stockbridge, Jan. 21, 1836 ; her youngest child died in March following. The mother and the daughter are buried in the same grave. Mr. Field married his second wife Sept. 2, 1841, Mrs. Harriet David- son, the widow of James Davidson, Esq. She died April 22, 1864. Mr. Field married his third wife June 9, 1866, Mrs. Mary Elizabeth Carr, the widow of Dr. Samuel J. Carr. She died April 19, 1876. Dudley Field was graduated at Williams College in 1850 ; travelled abroad for a year and a half ; afterwards studied law in New York ; was admitted to the bar in 1854, and became a partner with his father. He was married January 29, 1861, to Miss Laura Belden, and had two children, both of whom died in infancy. He died August 10, 1880. Mr. Field's only surviving child, Jeanie L. Field, was married June 65 20, 1870, to Sir Anthony Musgrave, Governor of British Columbia ; who had been previously Governor of Newfoundland ; and has been since Governor of Natal in Africa, and of South Australia; and is now Governor of the Island, of Jamaica. They have had four children a daughter, Joyce, who died in Australia ; and three sons Dudley Field, Arthur David, and Herbert fine manly little fellows, who are the joy and pride of their grandfather's heart. Mr. Field is now (1881) seventy-six years old, and yet he still carries on an immense professional practice a burden which it seems almost impossible for him to throw off. To this burden of care was added in the Summer of last year the burden of a terrible sorrow in the sudden death of his only son, who had long been associated with him in busi- ness, and to whose ability he greatly trusted in the management of the most difficult cases. On November 25th, Thanksgiving Day, (three weeks after his brother Cyrus had left on a journey around the world,) he sailed for the island of Jamaica, on a visit to his daughter, the wife of Governor Musgrave, to spend with her the closing weeks of the year. This visit was returned in the Summer following, and the presence of his daughter, with her husband and their children, gave new life to the home in Stockbridge, which had become so dear to their father and grandfather, and which it was his wish to keep among his descend- ants. Scarcely had they returned to Jamaica before he sailed for Europe to be present at a meeting of the Association for the Reform and Codification of the Law of Nations, which was to be held at Cologne. EMILIA ANN FIELD. The second of our family was a daughter (born Feb. 22d, 1807), and it was a happy time in the parsonage when there was the pattering of the little feet of a boy and girl. Still more dear did the latter become, as after her there were six little brothers, to whom she was the only sister, and to whom in their childhood she had to be a kind of second mother. How well she performed her gentle task, and how much these boys owed to her watchful care, they always remembered, but their love and gratitude could never repay. She inherited much of her mother's beauty, as well as industry, and attention to all the frugali- ties of the household. With these domestic virtues, she had an intel- ligence that needed larger means of education than the village schools could supply, and from these she passed to seminaries in Westfield, Mass., and Wethersfleld and Litchfleld, Conn. At the age of twenty-two, December 1, 1829, she was married to Eev. Josiah Brewer, a native of Tyringham, a neighboring town to Stockbridge. He had pursued his studies at Yale College, where he ranked very high as a scholar. He was graduated in 1821, and was for two years a tutor in that institution. He studied theology at Andover, and went out, under an appointment of the American Board, and of a Society of Ladies formed in Boston for the pro- motion of Christianity among the Jews, to inquire into the condi- tion of that people in Turkey. From Smyrna and Constantinople he went to Greece during the war of its revolution. It was about the time of the battle of Navarino. As the war was then raging with such fury as to interfere with immediate missionary labor, he returned to the United States after an absence of two years. The fruit of his observation was given to the public in a volume on Turkey. His con- nection with the Board was soon terminated, owing to some difference of opinion as to the missionary policy to be pursued. But he was immediately engaged by a Ladies' Greek Association formed in New Haven, Conn., to undertake a separate work, which was to be chiefly that of Female Education among the Greeks a thing till then almost unknown among a people so gifted with natural intelligence. Accord- ingly, as soon as he was married, he returned to the East, and took up his residence in Smyrna, where he remained nine years. Here he established schools both for Greek girls and for the children of 67 Pranks resident in Smyrna. Of these schools, and of the family to which he was introduced, the late Dr. E. C. Wines, who was then a chaplain in the Navy, and paid a visit to Smyrna on board a ship of war, draws this pleasant picture in a volume entitled " Two Years and a Half in the Navy "pp. 132-4 : Having letters of introduction to Mr. Brewer, immediately on land- ing I called on him at his residence, which was between Frank street and the Marina. His house was the first I had seen, since entering the Mediterranean, with wooden stairs and floors, and it had the oddest appearance that can be imagined. I received a hearty welcome from Mr. Brewer and his family, and soon found myself at home there. Mr. Brewer is employed as a mis- sionary by a society of ladies in New Haven, and the primary object of his mission is the education of the Greek females. He is known to the world as the author of an interesting work on Turkey, the result of his observations while employed as a travelling missionary by the Ameri- can Board. His character is marked by mildness, modesty, good sense, and an unaffected piety. His wife is uncommonly beautiful, and a woman of the finest intelligence and most fascinating manners. Asso- ciated with Mr. Brewer in his enterprise, and a member of his family, is a Miss Eeynolds, a young lady possessing high qualifications for her station in point of talent, cultivation, and piety. [She was afterwards married to Eev. Dr. Schauffler, of Constantinople.] A brother of Mrs. Brewer, a lad of spirit and promise, and two or three charming little children, completed the family circle ; and it was one of the happiest and most agreeable I have ever known. Mr. J. of the "Boston," my friend and companion, knew them intimately before he left the United States ; and while we remained in Smyrna we used to spend almost all our evenings under their hospitable roof. We were often gratified at seeing the little groups of black-eyed, dark-complexioned, intelligent- looking Greek girls, who would enter the house with trifling presents of fruits or flowers, and who seemed to cherish towards their benefactors the affection of daughters. There was one who spent nearly all her days in the family for the purpose of learning embroidery and English, and whose truly classic face, whose modest and sprightly manners, and lisping English, pronounced with a voice of uncommon richness, and in tones of faltering distrust, could not have failed to awaken an interest even in one who had never heard of her progenitors. Mr. Brewer and Miss Reynolds have generously given up the whole of their salaries to the support of the Greek schools, and gain a liveli- hood for themselves by keeping a Frank school, for which they have been guaranteed two hundred pounds a year for five years. This school is made up of the children of European and American merchants, and is the first of the kind ever known in Smyrna. The pupils of different sexes have separate apartments, and form interesting groups. They dress in the costumes of their different countries, and the conversation of those who belong to each nation is usually carried on in their own language ; but the common medium of communication is the modern 68 Greek. One of Mr. Brewer's pupils was an Armenian by the name of Tacfcvor, who was learning English, and who interested greatly all our officers. He was a young man of about twenty, with dark eyes and intelligent features, of mild and engaging manners, and a disposition full of kindness and sincerity. We were greatly indebted to him for the services' he rendered as interpreter in our intercourse with the Turks, and as a guide in showing us the curiosities of the place. During our stay in Smyrna, I often visited the Greek female schools under Mr. Brewer's charge, and was not more delighted than surprised at the order with which they were conducted, the eager desire of know- ledge which the pupils appeared to feel, and the rapid progress they made in their studies. They were conducted on the Lancasterian plan by native teachers, and the children were instructed not only in the branches taught in our own common schools, but in knitting, needle- work, embroidery, &c. I saw little girls, who had been attached to the schools only a few months, who could write a fair hand, and read with tolerable facility in the Testament. The needlework of some of the older girls would scarcely have discredited any lady in the United States. The whole number of children in all the schools was some- what rising of 200. Mr. Brewer's schools were the first ever established in Smyrna at least in modern times for the cultivation of the female mind. They threw the whole Smyrniote population into amazement. Females by the servile Greek, as well as by the haughty, self-complacent Ottoman, regarded as the mere slaves and playthings of man females capable of intellectual culture and refinement ! The thing was unheard of, and produced a dreadful whirling in men's ideas of truth and propriety. But the experiment was confidently made, and has succeeded even beyond the anticipation of its authors. Its effects are not limited to the schools which Mr. Brewer has established, but are seen also in the revolution they have effected in public sentiment, and the consequent exertions made on the part of many of the more wealthy and respect- able Greeks to educate their daughters. To the same effect is the testimony of Commodore X E. De Kay in a work entitled " Turkey in 1831 and 1832." In his description of Smyrna, he says, pp. 500-1 : Another pleasing sight was a school established by Mrs. Brewer, and under her superintendence, for the education of Greek girls. Mrs. Brewer has another school under her own roof, to which she devotes her more immediate care. The pupils pay for their instruction, and the money thus derived is expended upon the large school above men- tioned. In addition to this, Mr. Brewer directs an excellent school, composed of the sons and daughters of -Frank merchants. The in- struction is in English, and it was curious to see the children of even English parents speaking their own language with a foreign accent. As I entered the school, one of the boys was reciting the well known effusion of Marco Bozzaris; and various associations of a personal nature were produced on hearing this spirited lay delivered on the spot 69 where the Greek formerly displayed his ancient heroism, and where now he was called upon in foreign accents to " Strike for his altars and his fires, God and his native land." Mr. Brewer also conducts a paper in modern Greek, entitled O (piA.o$ T&r ve'cav, or The Friend of Youth. It is filled with various moral and instructive essays, and has been the instrument of effecting much good. I regretted to learn that it would soon pass into other hands ; for the owner of the press entertains the erroneous idea that money is made by it, and proposes to conduct it himself. The good already effected will not, however, be lost ; a spirit of inquiry has been excited, and no one can venture to say where it will end. Under the auspices of Mr. Brewer, it was ever foremost in pointing out errors in conduct, and in stirring up its readers to every benevolent or public- spirited undertaking, and much of this spirit, we may hope, will descend to his successor. Like other cities of the East, Smyrna was subject to frequent visita- tions of pestilence the cholera or the plague. In these times of terror and dismay, when all who could fled from the city, Mr. Brewer showed himself a true soldier, who did not desert his post at the moment of danger. Eather did he consider that such public calamities gave the wider opportunity for relieving distress and doing good. Filling his pockets with medicines, and taking with him his young brother-in- law, whom we shall have occasion to mention hereafter, who carried with him also medicine and food, day after day he explored the almost deserted' streets, seeking those who had been suddenly smitten with cholera, and had lain down to suffer and perhaps to die. Thousands perished, but of those who were saved there were many who owed their lives to the courage of that Christian missionary. In the work of Com- modore De Kay, to which we have referred, he speaks thus of the heroic devotion shown in these terrible scenes : The efforts of the physicians at Smyrna during the fearful season of cholera, :syere nobly seconded by many of the foreign missionaries. Among these I heard the labors of Mr. Brewer everywhere spoken of in term^ of admiration. Furnished with all the requisite remedies, he scoured every lane and alley, proclaiming his benevolent intentions, and distributing even food to the needy. Let history, when it repeats the story of the good Bishop of Marseilles who, after all, was merely a soldier at his post also record the benevolence and the proud con- tempt of danger and of death evinced by an American stranger within the pestilential walls of Smyrna. But these acts of courage and devotion were not to be long contin- ued, and these schools so full of promise were to come to an end. Owing to some difficulty in securing adequate support for a mission which was independent of all the regular Boards, Mr. Brewer was 70 finally obliged to relinquish the field, though to this day his memory is gratefully cherished in the city which was the scene of his former labors. He returned to America in 1838, and spent the remainder of his life in this country. For three years he was Chaplain of the State Prison at Wethersfield, Conn. In 1844 he removed to New Haven, and established a school for young ladies, known as the Elm- street Female Seminary, which he conducted successfully for six years. In 1850 he removed to Middletown, where he had a similar school for seven years. During all these years he was active with his pen. In 1851 he published a volume on THE SEVEN CHURCHES OF ASIA, the fruit chiefly of his personal observations, as he had visited the sites of all of them, except Thyatira, during his residence in the East. He was always a strong Anti-Slavery man, and edited one or two local Anti-Slavery papers. He was one of the founders of the American Missionary Association in 1846, and was a member of its Executive Committee for seventeen years. He attended two political Conventions at Pittsburg one which nominated John P. Hale for the Presidency, and the other John C. Fremont. In 1857 he returned to Stockbridge, near the place of his birth, to spend the rest of his days. For nine years till 1866 he was the acting pastor of the church at Housatonic. He died Nov. 19, 1872. His wife had died nearly eleven years before Dec. 16, 1861. Mr. and Mrs. Brewer had seven children : Henrietta Whitney, born Jan. 20, 1831 ; Fisk Parsons, born Oct. 19, 1832 ; Emilia Field, born Sept. 29, 1834 ; David Josiah, born June 20, 1837 ; Marshall Bidwell, born Jan. 28, 1840; Mary Adele,born Nov. 21, 1842 ; Elizabeth Hale, born Dec. 1, 1847. Henrietta W. Brewer was married to Lawson Bennet Bidwell of Stockbridge, Nov. 18, 1857. He is an engineer, and has been engaged for many years in the construction of railroads. He is now Engineer- in-Chief of the New York & New England Eailroad. They have three children: Lawson Brewer Bidwell, born Nov. 19, 1858, graduated at Trinity College in 1880 ; Walter Davidson Bidwell, born Aug. 13, 1860, graduated at Williams College in 1881 ; and Alice, born March 8, 1877. Fisk P. Brewer was graduated at Yale College in 1852, and has been chiefly engaged in teaching. He was a tutor at Beloit College one year, and at Yale three years, and then spent a year abroad, most of it in the East, studying Greek at Athens, visiting also Jerusalem, Alexandria, and Constantinople, and returning through France and Germany. After his return to America in 1859, he taught in New Haven, assisting for over a year in the Sheffield Scientific School. For twelve years from 1865 to 1877 he lived at the South, engaged 71 in the work of education ; four years of which were spent in Raleigh, N. C. ; four years at Chapel Hill, as Professor of Greek in the State University; and four years at Columbia, S. C., as Professor in the University of that State. Since 1877 he has been Professor of Greek in Iowa College at Grinnell, Iowa. His chief studies have been in Greek, ancient and modern, and on ancient coins. He has preached occasionally, having been licensed in 1859. From 1871 to 1873 he was United States Consul at the Piraeus, Greece. He married, at New Haven, Aug. 24th, 1859, Miss Julia M. Richards, daughter of a missionary at the Sandwich Islands. They have had eight children, of whom six are living: Edwin Marshall, born April 12th, 1861 died Dec. 2d, 1862 ; Helen Richards, born Aug. 14th, 1862 ; Mary Emilia, born Dec. 3d, 1863 ; Grace Lyman, born Oct. 7th, 1865 ; Lily Field, born March 19th, 1868 ; William Fisk, born Aug. 26th, 1870 ; Albert David, born May 10th, 1874 ; and Charles, born April 27th, 1877 died July 29th, 1878. David J. Brewer was graduated at Yale College in 1856 ; studied law with his uncle, David Dudley Field, in New York ; and upon his admis- sion to the bar removed to Kansas, and has since resided at Leaven- worth in that State. In November, 1862, he was elected Judge of the Probate and Criminal Court of Leavenworth county ; two years later (November, 1864,) of the District Court, First District ; four years after that (November, 1870,) the Attorney of Leavenworth county. In No- vember, 1870, he was elected Judge of the Supreme Court of the State, and in 1876 he was reflected for a second term, a position which he now holds. Besides his judicial duties he has taken great interest in the cause of Education, having been President of the Board of Education of Leavenworth City, and three years Superintendent of its public schools, and also President of the Educational Association of the State. He was married Oct. 3d, 1861, to Miss Louise R. Landon of Burlington, Vt. They have four children : Harriet Emilia, born July 21st, 1862 ; Etta Louise, born Dec. 2d, 1864; Fanny Adele, born Aug. 26th, 1870; Jeanie Elizabeth, born Feb. 16th, 1875. Marshall B. Brewer was for some years a clerk in New York, in the store of his uncle Cyrus. During the war, in the Spring of 1862, when it was feared that Washington was in danger, and there was a call for fresh troops, he enlisted in the Thirty-seventh Regiment of New York Volunteers, and was soon appointed a Lieutenant. He was stationed at Baltimore, and was often placed on guard at the Hospital, where he took the typhoid fever, and returned home only to die. He died in Stockbridge on the 24th of September, aged twenty-two years. Though 72 he did not fall on the field of battle, his life was not less offered up as a sacrifice for his country. The daughters Emilia, Adele, and Elizabeth, have all devoted them- selves to teaching. Emilia, after some years in schools at home, in 1876 went out to South Africa to teach in the Huguenot Seminary at Wellington, near the Cape of Good Hope, where she still remains, greatly interested in her work ; Adele, since 1875, has had a private school in Stockbridge ; and Elizabeth, who graduated at Vassar College in 1873, is in the High School at North Adams. 73 TIMOTHY B. FIELD. The second son born May 21st, 1809 was named, from two of his uncles, TIMOTHY BEALS. He was a bright, active boy, always about the wharves, and on the sloops and schooners that lay in the Connecti- cut river, with dreams in his childish imagination of the time when he should be a man, and might go off roving on the deep. It was doubt- less from this contact with seafaring men that he caught a passion for the sea, that would not be satisfied till at the age of fifteen, after the removal to Stockbridge, a commission as midshipman in the Navy was obtained for him through the influence of Henry W. Dwight, a distin- guished Member of Congress. This was in 1824, and in the Winter following he was ordered to the Navy Yard at Charlestown, where he spent a year, learning the duties of his profession. He then sailed for the Mediterranean in the United States ship Warren, Captain Kearney. The East was then the scene of stirring events occasioned by the Greek Revolution. The Warren visited Scio soon after the massacre, which almost depopulated the island. Commodore Glasson, who was then a brother officer on board, says that at the time of the battle of Navarino they were so near the scene of action as to hear the firing of the guns. But the work which chiefly enlisted the ardor of the young officers and crew, was the pursuit of Greek pirates in the Archipelago. The Mediterranean had been, to the shame of Europe, infested for centuries with pirates, whose stronghold was on the Barbary coast. So secure had they become that they were not only defiant of the navies of Europe, but even strong powers stooped so low as to pay them tribute, that their commerce might be spared from depredation. This shame- ful state of things was not checked till 1816, when an English fleet, under Lord'Exmouth, bombarded Algiers, and laid a large part of the city in ruins. The work was completed by the French in 1830, when the city was captured, and the country made a province of France. Further up the Mediterranean there was a portion of the sea which lay in the track of ships going to 'and fro, which was infested with Greek pirates. The Greeks are natural sailors, skimming the sea, which almost surrounds their country, with their boats and small ves- sels. And as in times of war and revolution there is a spirit of law- lessness abroad, the sea-rovers easily turned into corsairs, and from 74 being privateers sent to fight against the Turks, they fell to preying on the commerce of all nations. It was no easy matter to ferret them out, for they were easily concealed among the numerous islands. The Warren, which was a sloop of war, being light and swift, was detailed for that purpose. I remember, when a boy, hearing my brother, who had lately returned from the East, relate one of his adventures. The freebooters had soon discovered the presence of an armed ship, which it might not be so easy to scuttle and sink, and kept out of her way. Weary of waiting for them to come out of their hiding-places, the Warren withdrew to a port where she was completely disguised. Her sides were painted over to conceal her port-holes, and every means known to seamen used to disguise her true character. Thus com- pletely masked, she took her course once more among the islands, having all the appearance of a heavy-laden merchantman bound for Smyrna. Scarcely had she passed a certain point when a suspicious vessel put out in her wake, and commenced pursuit. As if fearing cap- ture, the Warren crowded all sail to make her escape, but at the same time heavy weights were hung over the bow to check her progress. The pirate gained rapidly, till she came so near as to be almost ready to board, when in an instant the port-holes flew open, the guns were run out, and the innocent merchantman poured in such a deadly broadside that in a few minutes the pirate, with all on board, went to the bottom.* * Commodore Glasson says that his shipmate Field was often picked out for adventurous expeditions in hunting the pirates out of their hiding places along the coast. A recent note from him gives some details which are interesting. He says : " Midshipman Timothy B. Field was ordered, in 1826, to the U. S. sloop-of-war Warren, Commander Lawrence Kearney, on a cruise of three years to the Med- iterranean. On his arrival at Port Mahon, Majorca, she was despatched to the Archipelago to give protection to our commerce, as a war was raging in Greece, to free itself from the Ottoman yoke. The Island of Scio had recently been invaded by a large Turkish force, and 49,000 of its inhabitants men, women, and chil- dren massacred. The Greek cause produced a great excitement in the United States. The most prominent of its advocates was Mr. Webster. On the part of Eng- land Lord Byron went himself to Greece, where he died in 1824, in the fortified town of Missolonghi. But the Greeks, like all other people engaged in civil war, became lamentably demoralized. For while in the United States we were pleading their cause, and giving succor, our commerce in that part of the world was suffer- ing from their piratical attacks. They openly, at midday, in sight of their towns, plundered our vessels on their way from Smyrna to the United States. " Commander Kearney had had command of the brig Enterprise and ship Decoy in the West Indies, and been famous for his efficiency in the suppression of piracy. He had in the Warren first-class officer's and men ; and among the young officers Field was always noted for his conspicuous activity and gallantry in all the boat expeditions when an assault or seizure of stolen property was to be made. " Tim, as he was always called by his brother officers, was very amiable, and had sterling qualities of head and heart. JOHN J. GLASSON, Commodore U. S. Navy." 75 From the Warren the young midshipman was transferred to the frigate Java. After four years he returned to the United States ; and in July, 1831, resigned his commission, though he was recognized by all who knew him as a brilliant and promising young officer. Captain William L. Hudson of the Navy, in a letter to the writer of .this brief memorial, says, " It affords me very great pleasure to say that your brother Timothy was a midshipman and shipmate of mine some three years in the Med- iterranean, in the United States ship Warren, then under command of the present Commodores Kearney and Skinner. I have unfortunately lost my journals of that interesting cruise by shipwreck, or I could have furnished you with many recorded anecdotes of your brother (Tim Field, as he was familiarly called by his messmates). Suffice it to say that he was exceedingly 'clever,' in the English acceptation of that term, and the very life and soul of the ship. He was brave to a fault, and always ready to do ' with a will ' any duty assigned him. I looked upon him at that time as an officer of great promise, and well calcu- lated to earn a name and reputation that would have been no less grati- fying to the Navy than to his family and friends." After leaving the Navy, he made a voyage around the world in a merchant ship. He returned in 1836, and soon embarked again for South America, and is supposed to have been lost in the Gulf of Mexico. A monument was erected to his memory by his brothers, in the village cemetery at Stockbridge. 76 MATTHEW D. FIELD. The third son born J-une 26th, 1811 was named from his uncle, MATTHEW DICKINSON that young man of such promise, who, after grad- uating at Yale, died at the beginning of his career. As he grew up he was quite unlike his next older brother. In the family we were accustomed to speak of Timothy and Matthew together, as they were of nearly the same age ; but no two brothers could be more unlike in physical appear- ance. Timothy was slight in figure, but wiry and active, while Matthew was six feet high and of stalwart proportions. Having this splendid physique, his father thought it might be turned to good account in the labors of the field. With his Scriptural ideas of the patriarchs, who were husbandmen, with flocks and herds, and remembering that Adam and Eve were placed in the Garden of Eden to till it, there was nothing at once more honorable arid more independent than an agricultural life, and so his first thought was that this son should devote himself to these pursuits. But his spirit was too active and enterprising, and after a few months he left these occupations, however attractive they might be, and found other employment in Lee, where from being at first a clerk in a store, he soon learned the ways of business, and in a few years was one of the largest paper manufacturers in the county. Having to do with machinery, he developed a remarkable mechanical genius, which we have always thought, if it had been properly trained, w.ould have made him one of the first engineers in the country. In 1843 he removed to St. Louis, Mo., and for eleven years after resided at the West and South, where he was a contractor upon railroads, and constructed several large suspension bridges. At the time he undertook these he had never even seen a suspension bridge, but he trusted to his own mechanical and engineering skill, and he did not trust in vain. With no one to instruct him, he simply took the measurements, and ascertaining the distance to be spanned, he calculated the weight of the bridge, the tension upon the wires, the strength necessary to resist it, and worked exit a}l the details, and made the drawings for construction. Thus in 1849 and '50 he built a suspension bridge at Nashville, Tenn., where it spanned the Cumberland river, stretching from a high cliff on one side to an almost equally solid mass of masonry on the other. Its elevation was 110 feet above the water, and it -leaped the chasm in a single span of 656 feet. 77 The whole length of the bridge, including embankments, was 1,956 feet. Being suspended in the air, it had an appearance of extreme lightness, but it was at the same time built of great strength, being calculated to bear the enormous weight of 2,400 tons. This bridge was destroyed by the Confederate army on its retreat from Nashville in 1862. At the same time that he was engaged in the construction of this bridge at Nashville, he was building another at Clarksville, in the same State. This he did under peculiar difficulties, owing to the stage of the river for a large part of the time, and the prevalence of the cholera dur- ing the two seasons in which it was in progress. But in spite of all obstacles it was carried forward to completion to the entire satisfaction of the directors, who, in a series of resolutions, returned him their thanks for the " faithful and prompt execution " of the work under circumstances of so much difficulty, adding that " he had not only complied with the contract in all its material features and require- ments, but in many respects, and at a heavy expense to himself and partner, had exceeded it, and furnished abridge of much greater strength and of better structure than required." Of its beauty a local paper, The Jeffersonian, of Feb. 5, 1850, says : " The work was executed under the immediate supervision of Capt. Field, and he has erected for himself a monument more durable than brass. ... This new bridge is by far the finest architectural ornament about Clarksville, and is an enduring monument, which will remind succeeding generations at once vof the skill of the architect and the public spirit of the citizens of Clarks- ville. A limestone hill forms one abutment, and a limestone wall, ren- dered nearly as substantial by the skill of the mason, forms the other. In the centre a handsome stone pillar supports the beautiful lattice work of iron which constitutes the bridge. When viewed at a short dis- tance, it resembles an ornamental structure, such is the lightness and beauty of its mechanism. But when one goes upon it its firmness pro- duces a sense of security, and he is forced to admire the skill of the artist who has succeeded in blending so happily the ornamental and the useful. It appears to great advantage from Cumberland river, and passengers on steamboats, by casting their eyes to the shore, may be gladdened with a sight of the most beautiful bridge in the State of Tennessee." In the following year, 1)351, Mr. Field constructed another suspension bridge at Frankfort, Kentucky, which was made of such strength and solidity as to bear the passage of railroad trains. After that he returned North, and settled his family in Southwick, Mass., which had been his wife's early home. While in New York, in 78 January, 1854, he was the means of bringing to the attention of his bro- ther Cyrus the project of a telegraph across Newfoundland, as a long stride towards Europe, a suggestion which was to be the germ and the seed of results of which he little dreamed. Thus he had an important connection with the very beginning of the enterprise of an Atlantic Tel- egraph. For the greater part of the two years following he was in New- foundland engaged in the construction of the line across that island. He was afterwards interested in silver mines in Nova Scotia. In 1856 he was elected a member of the Senate of Massachusetts for Hampden County. During the war he was active in furnishing supplies to the army, and accompanied Burnside's expeditions to Eoanoke Island and Newbern,, North Carolina. Of late years he resided more and more at his home in the^country, where he died March 22d, 1870. His wife died June 7th, 1879. He was married to Clarissa Laflin of Southwick, Oct. 6th, 1836. They had seven children : Heman Laflin, born Sept. llth, 1837 ; Catherine, born Sept. 13th, 1840 ; Henry Martyn, born Sept. 1st, 1842 ; Wells Laflin, born Jan. 31st, 1846 ; a son, who died soon, April 24th, 1848 ; Clara, born March 15th, 1851 ; Matthew Dickinson, born July 19th, 1853. The eldest son Heman Laflin Field spent much of his boyhood at Stockbridge, in the family of his grandfather, where he was under the special charge of his aunt Mary. At the age of fifteen he went to New York, and took his first lesson in business in the store of his uncle Cyrus, with whom he finally became a partner. After some years his uncle retired from business, to devote himself to the enterprise of the Atlantic Telegraph. Since then his nephew has been connected with the Canal Kailroad which runs from New Haven to Northampton. He lives at Northampton. He was married to Martha Rockwell of Southwick. They have two children Theron Eockwell Field and Clara Mabel Field. Catherine Submit Field was married to William B. Herbert. They have two children Henry Arthur Herbert and Clara Wells Herbert. Henry Martyn Field, so named from his uncle, entered the army during the war, and was an officer in a colored regiment, which was the first to enter Richmond after its surrender. He has since lived in Texas, where he has been engaged in the construction of railroads. Wells Laflin Field, obtaining a commission as midshipman in the navy, studied several years at the Naval Academy at Newport, and at Annapolis, from which he was ordered to sea. During his many years in the navy he has visited all parts of the world, and been twice around the globe. For three years he was attached to the Light House Board, 79 having his quarters on Staten Island. While detailed for this duty he took a vessel constructed for this service on the Pacific Coast to Cali- fornia, passing through the Straits of Magellan, for which he received the thanks of the Navy Department. He is now in the China Sea, on board the Eichmond, as Flag-lieutenant to Admiral Glitz, who is in command of the Asiatic squadron. Matthew D. Field was graduated at Williams College in 1875, and studied medicine in the city of New York, being for the last year and a half of his course attached to Bellevue Hospital. He is now practising medicine in this city. Clara Field, since she was three years old, has lived in the family of her uncle Henry, the compiler of this memorial, where she has become to him as his own child. So near and dear had she grown in the lapse of years, that in a time of great sorrow, after the death of his wife, he took her with him, as his companion and comforter, in his long journey round the world. 80 JONATHAN E. FIELD. The fourth son in our home was baptized with the name of the great New England divine, JONATHAN EDWARDS. Born July llth, 1813, he was six years old when the family removed to Stockbridge,where he was fitted for college. He entered Williams in 1828, and graduated in 1832 with the second honor of his class, and studied law in the office of his brother, David Dudley Field, in New York. Seized with the ambition of young men in those days to strike out into new paths, and make a career in some new part of the country, he removed at the age of twenty to Mich- igan, which was then very far West, and the next year (1834) was admit- ted to the bar at Monroe, and commenced practice at Ann Arbor, which was then quite a new settlement, but is now one of the most beautiful towns in the West, the seat of the University of Michigan. In 1836 he was elected clerk of the courts of Washtenaw county. He was one of the Secretaries of the Convention which framed the Constitution of the State preparatory to its admission into the Union. But his ambitious career was checked by that which was the scourge of all the new settle- ments, chills and fever, from which he suffered so much that, after five years, he was obliged to abandon his Western home. He returned to New England, and settled in Stockbridge, where for nearly thirty years he continued the practice of his profession, holding a very honorable place at the Berkshire bar. In the town he was invaluable as a citizen for his enterprise in projecting improvements for the general good. It was to his public spirit and energy that the village is indebted for the introduction of an abundant supply of pure water from the springs on the side of one of the neighboring hills, which conduced not only to the comfort, but to the health of the town. Till then the people had been dependent upon wells, and there had been almost every year a number of cases of a fever, which was sometimes called in the neigh- boring towns the Stockbridge fever. But scarcely had this abundant supply of pure water been introduced when it entirely disappeared. In 1854 he was elected a member of the State Senate for Berkshire county. The same year he was appointed by Gov. Washburn one of a Commission to prepare and report a plan for the revision and consoli- dation of the statutes of Massachusetts. His associates in that Com- mission were Chief Justice Williams and Judge Aiken. Originally a 81 Democrat in politics, yet when the war broke out he forgot every- thing in his devotion to the Union ; and in 1863 he was elected by the Republicans to the State Senate, and was chosen its President a position in which, by his dignity, his impartiality, and his courteous manners, he rendered himself so popular with men of all parties that he was three times elected to that office or as long as he continued in the Senate an honor never before conferred on a member of that body. Such was the personal regard for him, that on one occa- sion, in the beautiful Summer time, the members of the Senate came to Stockbridge to pay him a visit, and were received with true New England hospitality. Nor did ttiis continuance of honors excite surprise, for never had the Senate, or indeed any public body, a more admirable presiding officer, or one who commanded a more thorough and universal respect ; so that when he died, April 23d, 1868, there was an universal feeling of regret among those with whom he had been associated. The Springfield Eepublican, in announcing his death, gave a brief sketch of his public career, and, alluding to the sin- gular distinction which had been conferred upon him, of being three times elected President of the Senate, added: "The same general esteem, he enjoyed among the brethren of his profession, and in the community. Active and public-spirited 'as a citizen, he will be greatly missed in the affairs of the town and county, as well as of the State ; while as a kind friend and courteous gentleman, he will be truly mourned by all who knew him." Mr. Field was married to Mary Ann Stuart of Stockbridge, May 18, 1835. They had five children: Emilia Brewer, born June 19, 1836; Jonathan Edwards jr., born Sept. 15, 1838; Mary Stuart, born July 18, 1841; Stephen Dudley, born Jan. 31, 1846; Sara Adele, born Oct. 8, 1849, died Aug. 6, 1850. Mrs. Field died Oct. 14, 1849, aged thirty-four; and Mr. Field was married to Mrs. Huldah Fellowes Pomeroy, widow of Theodore S. Pomeroy, Esq., Oct. 17, 1850. The eldest daughter, Emilia, was married Oct. 4, 1856, to William Ashburner of Stockbridge, a chemist and engineer, who was educated at the Ecole des Mines, in Paris, and has been for the last twenty years in California, where he has a high reputation as a mining engi- neer, and holds the position of Professor of Mines in the State Univer- sity. They had one son, Burnet Ashburner, who was born at Stock- bridge March 22, 1858, and died March 24, 1862. The eldest son, Jonathan, was married to Henrietta Goodrich of Stockbridge, Oct. 31, 1859, and has two children : Sara Adele, born Feb. 82 23d, 1862 ; and Mary Stuart, born May 2d, 1873. Sara Adele was married in the Spring of 1881, to Samuel Benedict Christy, Assistant Professor in the University of California. Mary Stuart Field was married Oct. 3d, 1872, to Chester Averill of Stockbridge. They have three children : Chester, born Aug. llth, 1873 ; Julia Pomeroy, born July 2d, 1875 ; Alice Byington, born Feb. 21st, 1878. Stephen D. Field is an electrical engineer. At the age of sixteen he went to California, and there remained seventeen years. Having always a fondness for whatever had to do with electricity, he became- connected with an Electrical Construction company, and invented a new system of District Telegraphs, which was introduced with great sue- cess in the city of San Francisco. He was the first to apply Dynamo- Electric machines to the generation of electricity for the working of telegraph lines. Removing to the East in 1879, he introduced the same into the building of the Western Union, the largest telegraphic com- pany in the world, thereby displacing sixty tons of batteries. He is the inventor of numerous devices for the application of electricity, the most important of which are two : 1. A Quadruplex, which differs entirely from that now in use, both in principle and in construction, and which he thinks has superior advantages as being more simple v and therefore less likely to get out of order, and more easy to operate. Further, the instrument is elastic, and can be extended so that the quadruplex can be made into a sextuplex, and even, with an enlarged conducting medium, into an octoplex, were such a multiplex of any practical utility. 2. An Electric Motor, which antedates both that of Edison in America, and of Siemens in Germany. The Patent Office at Washington, after careful investigation of all conflicting claims^ awarded him the patent, as having been the first to apply Dynamo- Electric mechanism to the propulsion of cars. His place of business is New York, while' his family reside in Stockbridge, Mass. He was married in San Francisco, Sept. 30th, 1871, to Celestine Butters. They have had three childen: Burnet Ashburner Field, born July 6th, 1873,. died May 27th, 1880; David Dudley Field, born April 12th, 1875; and Sara Virginia Field, born Feb. 3d, 1879. 83 STEPHEN J. FIELD. Now, for the first time in the history of our family, death came into the household. In the midsummer of 1815 (July llth) was born a fifth son, to whom, in honor of a venerable minister of Connecticut, was given the name of STEPHEN JOHNSON. He lived but a little over five months, dying on Christmas day of the same year. It was a bitter sorrow to the bereaved parents ; and so deeply did they feel it, that when they removed to Stockbridge, the sharpest pang was the thought that they should leave that babe behind. More than thirty years afterward, my father made a journey to Connecticut, to take up that little form, and bear it tenderly over the mountains, and lay it down again beside its kindred dust. This early grief consecrated the mem- ory of that child, so that when a sixth son was born, Nov. 4, 1816, his parents gave him the same name. He too was of a mould so delicate and fragile as gave little promise that he could ever reach manhood. For a time it seemed doubtful if he could live. The old dames who came around his cradle shook their heads, and told his mother that "she could never raise that child ! " But her love watched him night and day no hired attendant ever took her place and carried him through the perils of infancy. Nothing but that incessant care saved him ; so that he has always had reason to feel that, in a double sense, he owed his life to his mother. He was not three years old when the family removed to Stockbridge, in August, 1819, and here he spent the ten years following the period of boyhood. In 1829 (Dec. 2d) his sister Emilia was married to Rev. Josiah Brewer, who was immediately to embark for the East, as a missionary, to promote female education among the Greeks. Her brother Dudley (who, as the eldest of the family, was always looking out for the education and advancement of his brothers) thought it would be a good opportunity for Stephen, now a boy of thirteen, to accompany his sister, to study the Oriental languages, and thus qualify himself to be a professor of Oriental Literature in some College on his return. His sister was delighted at the suggestion, and as our parents gave their consent, it was decided upon. The family party sailed from New York on the 10th of December, bound for Smyrna. It had been Mr. Brewer's intention to go from there to Greece, but when he reached Smyrna, he was persuaded to remain in that city as a place where he could labor 84 for Greek education quite as effectively as in Greece itself. There were in Asia Minor at that time more Greeks than of any other nation. Accordingly he settled in Smyrna, where he remained nine years. For two and a half Stephen was in his family. During that time he visited Ephesus, Scio, Patmos, Tenos, and ^Egina. He accompanied Mrs. Hill (the wife of Rev. John Hill, D.D., the well known Episcopal missionary in Greece) from Smyrna to Athens, and there spent the Winter of 1831-32. The place was then in ruins, and unable to find a house, they lived in an old Venetian tower. So Dr. Hill himself informed me on a visit to Athens in November, 1875, when the place once destroyed had risen from its ashes, and grown to be a large and beautiful city. While in the East, young Field learned modern Greek so that he could speak it fluently, and for a time kept his journal in it. He also acquired some knowledge of Italian, French, and Turkish. Of these years spent in the East, he has always retained very vivid impressions. Living in a foreign country, and mingling with people of another race, language, and religion, enlarged his ideas. He formed a better opinion of the Turks. In travelling with them, he found that -they were very attentive to their devotions, saying their prayers in the morning, at noon, and at sunset. Often he was awakened at midnight by their rising to say their prayers. He had been educated in the strictest school of the Puritans, who, with all their good qualities, were not the most tolerant of religious opinions which differed from their own. Of course this child of a strict New England pastor was taught to look with horror upon the followers of the False Prophet ; but for all this, he was profoundly impressed with what he saw, and could not but conclude that there must be something good in a religion which inspired such devotion. He found that the Turks were proverbially honest in their dealings. If he went into a bazaar to inquire if a piece of coin was good, he would be asked "Did you get it from a Turk?" If he said "Yes," that settled the point that it was good; if he said "No," they would ring it to test its genuineness. One day some gentlemen of his ac- quaintance were looking for a place in the country for the Summer, and one was recommended to them as a quiet, orderly place, where the people were very moral" for there was not a Christian within ten miles ! " This was his first lesson in religious tolerance. Another lesson of the same kind he learned in regard to the mem- bers of the Greek Church, with whom he often came in contact, and found that they were most exemplary in their religious duties. So with the Roman Catholics, of whom there were many in Smyrna; 85 he saw in them a degree of devotion which was an example to Protestants. These things gradually opened his young 'eyes, and satisfied him, at least, that not all the religion in the world is to be found in Protestant Christendom. An experience of a very different kind was the visitations of the plague and the cholera, by which Smyrna, like so many other cities of the East, was often scourged. In the terrible plague of 1831, every one avoided his neighbor, as if the slightest touch carried contagion. If two men met in the street, each drew away from the other, as if contact were death. Sometimes they hugged the walls of the houses, with canes in their hands ready to strike down any one who should approach. All papers and letters coming through the mails were smoked and dipped in vinegar before they were delivered, lest they might communicate infection. Even vegetables were passed through water before they were taken from the hands of the seller. Terrible tales were told of scenes where guests were carried away dead from the table, and servants dropped down while waiting upon it. On every countenance was depicted an expression of terror. When the plague appeared in a house, it was instantly deserted, the occupants running from it without stopping to look at anything, or to take anything with them, as if pursued by an avenging angel. Of those who were attacked nearly one-half were swept away. Few, except those who had recov- ered from the plague, ventured to go about the city. And it was not till the pestilence had spent its force, and their houses had been thor- oughly cleansed and purified, that the affrighted inhabitants returned to their homes. Such was the memorable plague of 1831, of which this missionary family were witnesses. Mr. Brewer remained in the city for two or three weeks after it broke out, when, for the safety of his family, he took them on board a vessel and sailed for Malta. But no sooner had they arrived than they were ordered into quarantine. So without remaining more than two or three days, not being permitted to land, they returned to Smyrna, after an absence of a little over six weeks, when the plague had passed. On the return voyage they visited Patmos, Scio, and other islands of the Grecian Archipelago. In the Autumn of the same year Smyrna was visited with the Asiatic cholera, when there were three hundred deaths a day. Thirty thou- sand people left the city and camped in the fields. During that period Mr. Brewer filled his pockets with medicines, and went around in the lanes and alleys, and ministered to the sick and dying. His young brother-in-law, with his pockets filled in the same way, accompanied 86 him in all his rounds. An extract which we have copied on page%9, speaks of Mr. Brewer's intrepid devotion amid these terrible scenes. Young Field remained in the East two years and a half, when Mr. Brewer thought it was time for him to return to America to enter college. Accordingly he sailed for home in the latter part of 1832, and entered Williams College in the Fall of 1833. He graduated in 1837, with the valedictory oration the highest honor of his class. The next Spring he went to New York, and began the study of law in his brother Dudley's office. His studies were interrupted by a long illness. When he was sufficiently recovered he removed to Albany for change of scene and occupation, and for some months taught in the Female Academy, spending his leisure time in the office of John Van Buren, the Attorney-General of the State. After a year and a half he returned to New York city, and reentered his brother's office, and in 1841 became his partner, and so remained for seven years. In the Spring of 1848 he was seized with a desire to visit Europe, and terminating his partnership that he might be free, he went abroad, and spent the following Winter in Paris. That was the year of the Eevolution, when Louis Philippe was overthrown, and the government of France was passing through the stage of a Republic back to the Second Empire. While he was in the city, it was visited with the cholera, whose terrible ravages recalled the cholera of Smyrna. His sister Mary joined him in Paris, and in the following Spring came out his brother Cyrus and his wife, and all together travelled exten- sively in Europe. The Continent was still in great agitation. They were in Vienna while the war was raging in Hungary. They returned home in the Autumn of that year. The Fall of 1849 was a stirring moment in the history of the country. The Mexican War had been brought to a close by a treaty in which California was ceded to the United States, and soon afterwards this new acquisition was discovered to be a land of gold. Nothing could be conceived more fitted to excite the imagination of Young America. The picture of an empire on the Pacific, rising as it were out of the sea, presented itself as a boundless field for enterprise and ambition. No one was more prepared to catch the excitement than the young lawyer just returned from Europe. Years before his attention had been drawn to the country bordering on the Pacific, and particularly to the bay and town of San Francisco. In 1845, the year before the Mexican War, his brother Dudley had written two articles for the Democratic Review a political magazine of the day upon the Oregon Question, which was that of the Northwestern boundary between the 87 British possessions and the territory of the United States. In prepar- ing them, he had examined several works on Oregon and California, .and among others that of Greenhow, then recently published, and thus became familiar with the geography of the Pacific Coast. Afterwards, when the war broke out, in speaking of its. probable issue, he remark- ed that "if he were a young man he would go to San Francisco"; for he was satisfied peace would never be concluded with Mexico with- out our acquiring that harbor (as there was no other good harbor on the coast), and that, in his opinion, at no distant day it would be the seat of a great city. He offered to furnish his younger brother the means to go, and also for investment in the new city which was to be. Some months afterwards, while Col. Stevenson's regiment was prepar- ing to start from New York for California, his brother again referred to the subject, and suggested the idea of his going out with the regi- ment. But he wished to go to Europe, and so the project was deferred. But the idea thus suggested had taken possession of his mind. He was attracted by the prospect of adventure in a new country, besides the ambition of being one of the founders of a new commonwealth. In December, 1848, whilst in Paris, he read in the New York Herald the message of President Polk confirming the reports of the discovery of gold in California. This recalled the suggestion of his brother, and made him almost jegret that he had not acted upon it. But as he was now in Europe, he concluded to carry out his original plan of complet- ing his tour before returning to America. But the fire was only smoth- ered, not extinguished, and it burst out anew when he found himself once more in his own country, being kindled afresh by the general excitement. Crowds were leaving by every steamer to the Isthmus, and by every ship around Cape Horn. Thousands had crossed the plains the previous Summer, or were on their way. He was not long in making up his mind. He landed in New York on the 1st of October, and on the 13th of November he left on the steamer Crescent City for Chagres, an old Spanish-American town on a river of that name, on the Isthmus of Panama, where he arrived in about a week. In company with others, he took a boat and was pushed up the river by Indians to Cruces, where they engaged mules and rode over the mountain to the city of Panama. Here they found a crowd of emigrants and adventur- ers bound for the land of gold . They took passage for San Francisco on the old steamer California, which was crowded to the utmost, passengers being stowed in every nook and corner, and some without even a berth lying on the deck. It was said there were over twelve hundred persons on board. Many carried with them the seeds of disease, contracted 88 under a tropical sun, which, being aggravated by hardships, insuffi- cient food, and the crowded condition of the steamer, developed as the voyage proceeded. Panama fever in its worst form broke out, and soon the main deck was covered with the sick. There was a physician attached to the ship, but he.too was prostrated. In this extremity the young lawyer, just from New York and. from Paris, turned himself into a nurse, and went from one sufferer to another, bending over the sick, and watching them as carefully as if he had been trained in a hos- pital. One gentleman, afterwards a lawyer of high standing in Califor- nia, Mr. Gregory Yale, thought that he owed his life to this attention of his fellow-passenger, and ever after felt towards him as a brother. At last, after twenty-two days, this voyage of misery ended ; they reached San Francisco on almost the last day of the year, Dec. 28, 1849, and went on shore between eight and nine o'clock at night. Mr. Field landed in California with ten dollars in his pocket. He had two trunks : one he might perhaps have carried, but could not manage both ; so he was compelled to pay seven out of his ten dollars to have them taken to an old adobe building, where a room was to be had, ten feet long by eight wide, for thirty-five dollars a week. Two of his fellow-passengers shared it with him. They took the bed, and he took the floor. The next morning he started out early with three dollars in his pocket, and hunted up a restaurant and ordered the cheapest breakfast to be had; it cost two dollars; so that when he began his career in California, he had, as a capital to start on, exactly one dollar! But he did not abate a jot of heart or hope. In after years, when he could smile at his early fortunes, he loved to recount these first experiences.* He said : "I was in no respect despondent over my financial condition. It was a beautiful day, much like an Indian Summer day in the East, but finer. There was, something exhilarating and exciting in the atmos- * His friends in California, many of whom had been, like himself, among the pioneers of '49, were as fond of hearing as he could be of relating his adventures, and often urged him to put them on record before he and they should pass away. This he long refused. But once when in San Francisco he was persuaded to dic- tate some of them to a reporter, who took them down in short-hand, and afterwards wrote them out. In the course of successive conversations, they grew into a vol- ume, which was printed privately for his friends under the title " Personal Reminis- cences of Early Days in California." It reads more like a tale of fiction than of sober reality. Though related in familiar style, as one tells a story to a group of friends, it is a thrilling narrative, full of excitement and adventure, and full also of dangers, from coming in conflict with desperate men, that could only be met with the greatest personal courage. To some of these incidents we may refer here- after, though it can only be a passing allusion, as we must reserve what space we have to speak of his work as a legislator and a judge. 89 phere which made everybody cheerful and buoyant. As I walked along the streets, I met a great many persons I had known in New York, and they all seemed to be in the highest spirits. Every one in greeting me, said ' It is a glorious country,' or 'Isn't it a glorious coun- try ? ' or ' Did you ever see a more glorious country ? ' or something to that effect. In every case the word ' glorious ' was sure to come out. There was something infectious in the use of the word, or rather in the feeling, which made its use natural. I had not been out many hours that morning before I caught the infection : and though I had but a single dollar in my pocket and no business whatever, and did not know where I was to get the next meal, I found myself saying to everybody I met, ' It is a glorious country.' " The city presented an appearance which, to me, who had witness- ed some curious scenes in the course of my travels, was singularly strange and wild. The Bay then washed a portion of the east side of what is now Montgomery street, one of the principal streets of the city ; and the sides of the hills sloping back from the water were covered with buildings of various kinds, some just begun, a few completed all, however, of the rudest sort, the greater number being merely canvas sheds. The streets were filled with people, it seemed to me, from every nation under heaven, all wearing their peculiar costumes. The majority of them were from the States ; and each State had furnished specimens of every type within its. borders. Every country of Europe had its representatives ; and wanderers without a country were there in great numbers. There were also Chilians, Sonorians, Kanakas from the Sandwich Islands, and Chinese from Canton and Hong Kong. All seemed, in hurrying to and fro, to be busily occupied and in a state of pleasurable excitement. Everything needed for their wants, food, clothing, and lodging-quarters, and everything required for transporta- tion and mining, were in urgent demand and obtained extravagant prices. Yet no one seemed to complain of the charges made. There was an apparent disdain of all attempts to cheapen articles and reduce prices. News from the East was eagerly sought from all new comers. Newspapers from New York were sold at a dollar apiece. I had a bundle of them, and seeing the price paid .for such papers, I gave them to a fellow-passenger, telling him he might have half he could get for them. There were sixty-four numbers, if I recollect aright, and the third day after our arrival, to my astonishment he handed me thirty- two dollars, stating that he had sold them all at a dollar apiece. Nearly everything else brought a similarly extravagant price." His fortunes were further recruited by the proceeds of a note of over $400, which his brother Dudley had given him against a man who, having prospered in his new home, paid it promptly. As the new- comer handled the money in Spanish doubloons, he felt rich. With this start he opened an office in San Francisco, but had only received his first fee when the excitement about gold in the interior led him to abandon the city, and take a steamer up the Sacramento river, then in its annual flood, to a point which, being at the junction of two rivers, 90 the Feather and the Yuba, seemed a natural site for a town, and where already some hundreds of people had pitched their tents upon the bank. Two of the proprietors were French gentlemen, who were delighted when they found he could speak French, and insisted on showing him the town site. It was a beautiful spot, covered with live- oak trees that reminded him of the oak parks in England. He saw at once that the place, from its position at the head of river navigation, was destined to become an important depot for the neighboring mines, and that its beauty and healthfulness would render it a pleasant place for residence. Here accordingly he pitched his tent, and was to spend the next seven years. As may well be supposed, life in this new settlement was very prim- itive. Besides the old adobe of the original settler, there was only one house. The new-comers slept in tents or under the open sky. But this was the least of their anxieties. Society was in a state of chaos. There was no law, no government, no official authority, no protection for life or property, except the instinct of self-preserva- tion which leads men to combine to protect each other. To create something like civil order, the first thing was to organize a tempo- rary local government. So the settlers got together, and christening the place with a name that of Marysville, in honor of the only woman in the place, the wife of one of the proprietors of the town they agreed to elect a Town Council and a chief magistrate, or in Spanish phrase an Alcalde. To this position Mr. Field was chosen . Under the Mexican law an Alcalde was an officer of very limited juris- diction ; but in the anomalous condition of affairs in California at this time, he was called upon to exercise, and did exercise, very great powers. Mr. Field therefore became at once the centre of authority, around whom the elements of society could crystallize. He was the chief official in the newly-formed community, and had use for all his powers, since along with the respectable, the orderly, and the law- abiding class of people, there was a great number of disreputable characters gamblers and thieves and desperadoes, the scum and refuse of older communities, who had to be held in check with a firm hand. They soon found that there was an authority with which they could not trifle. Thus a man had committed a robbery. He had stolen gold dust out of the tent of a miner. It was found upon him, and he was at once convicted. What should be done with him? There was no jail to hold prisoners, and the sheriff could not be kept standing guard over him. Nor could he be sent to San Francisco but at great expense. If he had been turned over to the mob, they would 91 have hung him to the nearest tree. The judgment of the Alcalde was more merciful, though not less swift and effective. It was, as all pun- ishment of crime ought to be, sharp and stinging. The thief was sen- tenced to be stripped, and to receive fifty lashes on his bare back a sentence that was promptly inflicted ; and he was then turned adrift with the warning that he would be flogged again if he was caught in the town within two years. The warning did not need to be repeated. The wretch slunk away like a hunted wolf, and never troubled them more. Thus the Alcalde did not bear the sword in vain. A few instances of such wholesome severity quelled the spirit of lawlessness, and estab- lished order in the community. A good many bad characters hung about the place, and gambling-shops were open ; but deeds of violence were effectually repressed, and during the whole time that he bore rule, this settlement on the border was as peaceful as a New Eng- land village. Sometimes he had more pleasing duties than that of punishment. In one case a husband and wife came to him bitterly complaining of each other, and demanding an immediate divorce. Then the good Alcalde forgot his office as a magistrate, and tried to interpose as a pacificator and friend, which he did with such good effect that they promised to kiss and forgive each other, and departed arm in arm, to live in peace and lo,ve forever after. As chief magistrate, he had the general superintendence over mat- ters affecting the public interests of the town. He had the banks of the Yuba river graded so as to facilitate the landing from steamers and other vessels. He established a night police, and kept the record of deeds of real property. This efficient rule of the Alcalde was of course but temporary. It ceased as the new State Government went into operation, and its officers appeared and took the place of officials with Spanish titles and unlimited powers. The change was no doubt, on the whole, a benefit ; although in some cases it was quite the contrary, as in the haste of organization some very unfit men were appointed to positions in which their power for mischief was great. Thus in the District Court of Yuba County a lawyer from Texas, who was of a low type of des- perado, was appointed Judge. A drunkard, he often appeared in court in a state of intoxication, and by his vulgar and brutal manners cre- ated universal disgust. He took a hatred to Mr. Field, and even threatened personal violence, so that the latter always went armed ; but as bullies are generally cowards, he prudently confined himself to swaggering and bluster. But the nuisance did not continue long. The 92 following Winter Mr. Field was a Member of the Legislature, and secured a reorganization of judicial districts, by which this model judge was sent off to the extreme Northern part of the State, where at the time there were few inhabitants and little litigation. For some years he continued on the bench, but his ungovernable passions and habits of intoxication finally led to a movement for his impeachment, when he resigned, and soon afterwards died in utter disgrace. The nomination to the Legislature introduced Mr. Field to a new experience. Every candidate had to make the canvass for himself, It did not do to stand upon his dignity. The people did not know him, and an Eastern reputation counted for little in the mining gulches of California. He had to mount his horse like a Methodist circuit- rider, and ride from camp to camp, speaking to the people wherever he could find them in the oak grove, under the shade of trees, or by the river-side where they washed for gold. In this way he saw a great deal of the rough life of the border, and had many a novel, and sometimes a touching, experience. A single incident, which is related in the " Per- sonal Eeminiscences," is given in the note below.* * I witnessed some strange scenes during the campaign, which well illustrated the anomalous condition of society in the country. I will mention one of them. As I approached Grass Valley, then a beautiful spot among the hills, occupied princi- pally by Mr. Walsh, a name since become familiar to Calif ornians, I came to a build- ing by the wayside, a small lodging-house and drinking-saloon, opposite to which a Lynch jury were sitting, trying a man upon a charge of stealing gold dust. I stop- ped and watched for awhile the progress of the trial. On an occasion of some little delay in the proceedings, I mentioned to those present, the jury included, that I was a candidate for the legislature, and that I would be glad if they would join me in a glass in the saloon, an invitation which was seldom declined in those days. It was at once accepted, and leaving the accused in the hands of an improvised constable, the jury entered the house and partook of the drinks which its bar afforded. I had discovered, or imagined from the appearance of the prisoner, that he had been familiar in other days with a very different life from that of California, and my sympathies were moved towards him. So, after the jurors had taken their drinks and were talking pleasantly together, I slipped out of the building and approaching the man, said to him, " What is the case against you ? Can I help you ? " The poor fellow looked up to me and his eyes filled with great globules of tears as he replied, " I am innocent of all I am charged with. I have never stolen any tiling nor cheated any one ; but I have no one here to befriend me." That was enough for me. Those eyes, filled as they were, touched my heart. I hurried back to the saloon ; and as the jurors were standing about chatting with each other I exclaimed " How is this ? you have not had your cigars ? Mr. bar-keeper, please give the gentlemen the best you have ; and, besides. I added, let us have another ' smile 'it is not often you have a candidate for the Legislature among you." A laugh follow- ed, and a ready acceptance was given to the invitation. In the meantime my eyes rested upon a benevolent-looking man among the jury, and I singled him out for conversation. I managed to draw him aside and inquired what State he came from. He replied, from Connecticut. I then asked if his parents lived there. He answered, with a faltering voice, " My father is dead ; my mother and sister are there." I then 93 The experience of this campaign was useful in other ways. In the mining camps he learned the rules by which the miners regulated their claims, and their relations with each other rules which he was soon to lift into dignity by giving them the force of positive law. The Legislature met in San Jose, then the capital of the State, on the first Monday of January, 1851. It had an immense work on its hands in framing the laws for a State just coming into existence, but destined to a magnificent future. Here Mr. Field found himself at home. As a diligent student of law for many years, he had become familiar with the Civil and Criminal Codes and the Codes of Procedure at the East, and now had opportunity to turn to account the results of long study, aided by experience and observation. He at once took a leading position in the Legislature, and it is said by those familiar with the history of that body, did more towards framing the laws of California than any other individual. He at once directed special attention to legislation for the pro- tection of miners. California was a mining State. The vast immi- gration from the East had come in search of gold. This was for the moment the great interest of the State, and the miners the said, " Your thoughts, I dare say, go out constantly to them ; and you often write to them, of course." His eyes glistened, and I saw pearl-like dew-drops gathering in them ; his thoughts were carried over the mountains to his old home. "Ah, my good friend," I added, " how their hearts must rejoice to hear from you." Then, after a short pause, I remarked, " What is the case against your prisoner ? He, too, perhaps, may have a mother and sister in the East, thinking of him as your mother and sister do of you, and wondering when he will come back. For God's sake remember this." The heart of the good man responded in a voice which, even to this day now nearly thirty years past sounds like a delicious melody in my ears : " I will do so." Passing from him I went to the other jurors, and find- ing they were about to go back to the trial, I exclaimed, "Don't be in a hurry, gentlemen, let us take another glass." They again acceded to my request, and seeing that they were a little mellowed by their indulgence, I ventured to speak about the trial. I told them that the courts of the State were organized, and there was no necessity or justification now for Lynch juries ; that the prisoner appeared to.be without friends, and I appealed to them, as men of large hearts, to think how they would feel if they were accused of crime where they had no counsel and no friends. " Better send him, gentlemen, to Marysville for trial, and keep your own hands free from stain." A pause ensued ; their hearts were softened ; and, fortu- nately, a man going to Marysville with a wagon coming up at this moment, I pre- vailed upon them to put the prisoner in his charge to be taken there. The owner of the wagon consenting, they swore him to take the prisoner to that place and deliver him over to the sheriff ; and to make sure that he would keep the oath, I handed him a " slug," a local coin of octagonal form of the value of fifty dollars, issued at that time by assayers in San Francisco. We soon afterwards separated. As I moved away on my horse my head swam a little, but my heart was joyous. Of all things which I can recall of the past, this is one of the most pleasant. I believe I saved the prisoner's life; for in those days there was seldom any escape for a person tried by a Lynch jury. 94 most important class of the population. Here Mr. Field turned to account his recent experience. He had been among the miners. He had slept in their tents and their cabins, and sat by their camp- fires, listening to the tales of their adventures. He had learned the rules by which they were governed rules by which he perceived that justice was practically administered. He saw that it would never do to undertake to override these regulations by a set of arbitrary laws, framed at a distance, by men ignorant of their peculiar condi- tions. The attempt to impose such an authority would be extremely impolitic ; it would provoke resistance ; a conflict would be inevitable ; and what was far more important in his view, it would be cruelly unjust. The miners, who at great hardship and peril had sought out the places where gold was hidden in the beds of rivers and in the rocks of the mountains, had rights which could not be ignored. The wise course was to give the sanction of law to the rules which they had made for themselves. Then they could not complain of injustice when bound by the laws which they had framed for their own protec- tion. Accordingly at an early stage of the session he introduced the following provision, which through his advocacy was adopted and incorporated into a general statute regulating proceedings in civil cases in the courts of the State : "In actions respecting ' Mining Claims ' proof shall be admitted of the customs, usages, or regulations established and in force at the bar, or diggings embracing such claims; and such customs, usages, or reg- ulations, when not in conflict with the Constitution and Laws of this State, shall govern the decision of the action." These five lines contain, as the acorn contains the oak, the germinal principle of a whole code of wise and beneficent legislation. The great principles of law, being founded in natural justice, are always simple, and yet simple as this was, no one had had the sagacity to per- ceive or the courage to propose it ; but once proposed and adopted, it solved all difficulties, and smoothed the way to peace in all the borders of the Golden State. It was afterwards adopted by other mining regions, and finally by the Congress of the United States. Its wisdom has been proved by thirty years of experience. For this single act> says a California writer, "the people of this State and of Nevada, should ever hold the author in grateful remembrance. When they think of him only as a judge deciding upon the administration of laws framed by others, let them be reminded that in a single sentence he laid the foundation of our mining system so firmly that it has not been, and cannot be, disturbed." 95 Next to the miners, and forming a large part of them, was another class requiring protection that of poor debtors. Of the thousands who rushed to California in the early days, a large proportion were men who had met with reverses of fortune in the older States. Many were utterly broken down ; and sick at heart, and often sick in body, they had sought a new field in hope to begin life anew. It was all-important that they should not have their hands tied at the very beginning; that they should not find, on landing in their new home, that they were pursued by prosecutions, and their little means taken from them. In the older States there were laws exempting certain effects of a debtor. But these exemptions were very small. The work- ers who had come to build up an empire on the Pacific Coast needed something more. Strong-limbed mechanics might as well be bound in hands and feet as deprived of tools to work with. The farmer needed his plow and his oxen, the surgeon his instruments, and the lawyer his library. To meet all these cases, Mr. Field drew a provision more comprehensive than had ever been framed before, exempting from forced sale under execution the following property of judgment debt- ors, except where the judgment was recovered for the purchase-money of the articles, viz : " 1. Chairs, tables, desks, and books, to the value of one hundred dollars. "2. Necessary household, table, and kitchen furniture, including stove, stove-pipe, and stove furniture, wearing apparel, beds, bedding, and bedsteads, and provisions actually provided for individuals or family use sufficient for one month. "3. Farming utensils, or implements of husbandry; also two oxen, or two horses, or two mules, and their harness, and one cart or wagon, and food for such oxen, horses, or mules for one month. " 4. The tools and implements of a mechanic necessary to carry on his trade, the instruments and chests of a surgeon, physician, surveyor, and dentist, necessary to the exercise of their professions, with their professional library, and the law libraries of an attorney or counsellor. "5. The tent and furniture, including a table, camp stools, bed and bedding, of a miner; also his rocker, shovels, wheelbarrow, spade, pumps, and other instruments used in mining, with provisions neces- sary for his support for one month. " 6. Two oxen, or two horses, or two mules, and their harness, and one cart or wagon, by the use of which a cartman, teamster, or other laborer habitually earns his living; and food for such oxen, horses, or mules for one month ; and a horse, harness, and vehicle used by a physician or surgeon in making his professional visits. " 7. All arms and accoutrements required by law to be kept by any person." This comprehensive provision spread a broad shield of protection over every honest man who was willing to work. 96 Mr. Field was a member of the Judiciary Committee, and his work naturally related mainly to the administration of justice. "Among the most important of the measures drawn up by him," says Prof. Pomeroy,* "was a bill concerning the Judiciary of the State. This act was general, dealing with the whole judicial system, and requiring great labor in its preparation. It completely reorganized the judiciary, and defined and allotted the jurisdiction, powers and duties, of all the grades of courts and judicial officers. An act passed in the subsequent session of 1853, revising and amending in its details the original statute of 1851, was also drawn up by him, although he was not then a member of the Legisla- ture. The system then planned and established in 1851, and improved in 1853, and again in 1862, to conform to the constitutional amend- ments of the previous year, was substantially adopted in the codes of 1872, and continued in operation until it was displaced by the revolu- tionary changes made in the new constitution of 1879-80. In connection with this legislation affecting the judiciary, he also drafted and pro- cured the passage of an act concerning county sheriffs, denning all their official functions and duties ; an act concerning county recorders, creating the entire system of registry which has since remained sub- stantially unaltered ; and an act concerning attorneys and counsellors at law, by which their duties were declared and their rights were pro- tected against arbitrary proceedings by hostile judges." " He also prepared and introduced two separate bills to regulate the civil and criminal practice. These acts were based upon the Code of Civil Procedure, and the Code of Criminal Procedure proposed by the New York commissioners, but they contained a great number of changes and additions made necessary by the provisions of the Cali- fornia constitution, and by the peculiar social condition and habits of the people. They were by no means bare copies taken from the New York Codes, since Mr. Field altered and reconstructed more than three hundred sections, and added over one hundred new sections. The two measures were generally designated as the Civil and the Criminal Prac- tice Acts. They were subsequently adopted by the other States and Territories west of the Eocky Mountains. They continued, with occa- sional amendments, in force in California until the present system of more elaborate codes was substituted for them in 1872 ; and even this change was more in name than in substance, since all their provisions substantially reappear in some one of these codes." In the Civil Practice Act he incorporated the provisions above men- tioned respecting mining claims, and exempting certain articles of property of judgment debtors from forced sale under execution, both of which have become permanent features of the legislative policy of California. * John Norton Pomeroy, LL.D., Professor of Law in the University of California, has written a somewhat elaborate review of the career of Judge Field, as a legislator, State Judge, and Judge of the Supreme Court of the United States, from which the above is taken. 97 But to enumerate all the acts framed by this indefatigable legislator would require us to write the history of the Legislature itself during that memorable session. Says one who was familiar with all the steps taken in that founding of a commonwealth : " The session of 1851 was the most important in the history of the State. It was the first one held after the admission of California into the Union ; and some of the best timbers of the new governmental structure are the handiwork of Mr. Field. His labors exhibited great devotion to the public service, untiring industry, and a high sense of the responsibility of a public officer. Many bad bills were defeated through his influence and many defective ones amended by his sugges- tions. He was seldom absent from his seat ; he carefully watched all measures ; and there were few debates in which he did not participate. Such is the universal testimony of all the survivors of the legislative body of 1851, and its truth is established by the Journal of the Assem- bly and the papers of the time." At the close of the Legislature, Mr. Field returned to Marysville. He had added to his reputation, but in other respects his fortunes were at a low ebb. His legal practice had been broken up by a ruffian on the bench, and he was as poor as when he landed in San Francisco with but ten dollars in his pocket, and he had to ask credit for a week's board. But this judicial ruffian was now gone, and he had at last a clear field before him ; and soon the same ability which he had shown in the Legislative Assembly gave him a conspicuous place at the bar. The next six years, which were devoted to his profession, were years of success in every respect. His practice became very large. Indeed one who watched his progress during those years said " His practice was as extensive, and probably as remunerative, as that of any lawyer in the State." The same careful observer thus analyzed the secret of his success : " He was distinguished at the bar for his fidelity to his clients, for untiring industry, great care and accuracy in the preparation of his cases, uncommon legal acumen, and extraordinary solidity of judg- ment. As an adviser, no man had more the confidence of his clients : for he trusted nothing to chance or accident when certainty could be attained, and felt his way cautiously to his conclusions, which, once reached, rested upon sure foundations, and to which he clung with remarkable pertinacity. Judges soon learned to repose confidence in his opinions, and he always gave them the strongest proofs of the weight justly due to his conclusions." Thus established in the high esteem of the profession and the pub- lic, he had an assured future before him. He was universally recog- nized as among the leaders of the bar. Had he chosen thus to con- tinue in the courts, there 'seemed to be nothing of success or of fortune 98 which was not within his reach. It was at this moment, when his prospects were at the brightest, that his legal career was interrupted by his elevation to the bench. In 1857 he was elected Judge of the Supreme Court of the State for the term of six years, commencing Jan. 1st, 1858. There were two can- didates besides himself before the people, and 93,000 votes were polled. He received a majority of 36,000 over each of his opponents, and 17,000 over them both together. His duties began even before his regular term of office. In September of that year the Chief Justice of the Court, Hugh L. Murray, died, and one of the associate judges was appointed to fill the vacancy. This left the remainder of the associate judge's term of service, which extended to the following January, unoccupied, and Mr. Field was appointed by the Governor of the State a political opponent to fill it. He accepted the appointment, and took his seat on the bench Oct. 13th, 1857. He held the office of Asso- ciate Judge until the resignation of Chief Justice Terry in September, 1859, when he became Chief Justice, and so continued as long as he remained on the bench of California. In the exchange of positions from the bar to the bench, Mr. Field left the sphere in which he was at home, and which might have seemed most attractive to his ambition. To an aspiring lawyer there is no fame so dear as that of a great advocate. One who has already gained success in this arena, who has proved his power over courts and juries, is very reluctant to turn aside from this brilliant career. He felt a natural regret that he could no more take part in these exciting con- tests, even though it were to exchange his place for the more calm and dignified position of a Judge. But in the condition of California at that time there was perhaps no officer of the State so much needed to strengthen law and order the foundations of the commonwealth -as an upright, able, and courageous judge. The bar of California con- tained a number of men of eloquence and ability, fluent speakers and debaters, ready in wit as in argument, who would run over a weak judge or a timid one. They now found in the seat of authority one whose clearness of mind and understanding of the great principles of law could not be confused or deceived, and who, with the utmost cour- tesy of manner, united a firmness and courage nowhere more needed than on the bench. This combination of qualities inspired respect for the judicial office, and for the law which it represented. Besides this, in California the laws themselves were unsettled. Successive legisla- tures had indeed passed volumes of enactments, but the force of these could only be determined by actual decisions in the courts. It is well understood in law that the work of the legislator is incomplete until the judge conies to apply the acts which have been passed, and in Scripture phrase, "to give the meaning and the interpretation thereof." The novelty of some of the cases presented for decision, and their extreme difficulty, are such as only a lawyer can understand. I do not feel competent to give an opinion on the numerous complexi- ties which he was to disentangle, but will quote what was written of him afterward, when he was about to retire from that court, by one who was for. three years his associate in this work Judge Joseph G. Baldwin : " When he came to the bench, the calendar was crowded with cases involving immense interests, the most important questions, and various and peculiar litigation. California was then, as now, in the develop- ment of her multiform material resources. The judges were as much pioneers of law as the people of settlement. To be sure something had been done, but much had yet to be accomplished ; and something, too, had to be undone of that which had been done in the feverish and anomalous period that had preceded. It is safe to say that, eveu in the experience of new countries hastily settled by heterogeneous crowds of strangers from all countries, no such example of legal or judicial diffi- culties was ever before presented as has been illustrated in the history of California. There was no general or common source of jurispru- dence. Law was to be administered almost without a standard. There was the civil law, as adulterated or modified by Mexican provincialisms, usages, and habitudes, for a great part of the litigation ; and there was the common law for another part, but -what that was was to be decided from the conflicting decisions of any number of courts in America and England, and the various and diverse considerations of policy arising from local and other facts. And then, contracts made elsewhere, and some of them in semi-civilized countries, had to be interpreted here. Besides all which may be added that large and important interests peculiar to this State existed mines, ditches, etc. for which the courts were compelled to frame the law, and make a system out of what was little better than chaos. " When, in addition,, it is considered that an unprecedented number of contracts, and an amount of business without parallel, had been made and done in hot haste, with the utmost carelessness ; that legis- lation was accomplished in the same way, and presented the crudest and most incongruous materials for construction ; thatthe whole scheme and organization of the government, and the relation of the depart- ments to each other, had to be adjusted by judicial construction it may well be conceived what task even the ablest jurist would take upon himself when he assumed this office. It is no small compliment to say that Judge Field entered upon the duties of this great trust with his usual zeal and energy, and that he leaves the office not only with greatly increased reputation, but that he has raised the character of the juris- prudence of the State. He has, more than any other man, given tone, 100 consistency, and system to our judicature, and laid broad and deep the foundation of our civil and criminal law. The land titles of the State the most important and permanent of the interests of a great common- wealth have received from his hand their permanent protection, and this alone should entitle him to the lasting gratitude of the bar and the people." As might be supposed, the fame of such judicial decisions could not be hid in a corner. It was spread abroad, especially in the Pacific States, where there were many similar cases to be decided, and he came to be recognized as the first judicial authority on that coast. So universally was this conceded that when in 1863 the rising impor- tance of those States led Congress to pass a law creating a new district on that coast, and a tenth judge on the Supreme bench of the United States, the whole delegation from the Pacific Senators and Eepre- sentatives, Democrats and Eepublicans went in a body to President Lincoln and urged the appointment of Judge Field. No other name was pressed by the bar of California for the position, for no other man was thought so eminently fitted for it. He was accordingly nominated by the President, and confirmed unanimously by the Senate. His removal was a great loss to the bench of California. " By this event," said Judge Baldwin, "the State has been deprived of the ablest jurist who ever presided over her courts." Judge Field's commission was dated on the 10th of March, 1863, but he did not take the oath of office till the 20th of May. For this there was a reason of convenience and a reason of sentiment. A great num- ber of cases were pending in the Supreme Court of California, in which he had heard the arguments, and he desired to have them decided before he left the bench. But there was also another reason. The 20th of May was his father's birthday, and he thought that the dear old patriarch, then living in New England, who on that day would com- plete his eighty-second year, would be gratified to learn that on the same day his son had become a Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. The new appointment obliged the removal of Judge Field from San Francisco to Washington, which now became his residence for the greater part of the year ; bat as he was assigned to the new Circuit, consisting of the Pacific States, it was a part of his duty to return each Summer to hold a term of the Circuit Court in California, Nevada, or Oregon, and sometimes in all of them. When he ascended the bench of the Supreme Court of the United States, he took his seat in a company of illustrious men. Taney was then Chief Justice, and though he had long passed his fourscore years, 101 his mind did not fail with age, and he still continued to preside with the serenity of wisdom. He died the following year, and was suc- ceeded by Chief Justice Chase. There sat, as associate judges, Wayne, Catron, Nelson, Grier, Clifford, Swayne, Miller, and Davis. The ques- tions which came before this Court were worthy of the dignity of such a tribunal. As observed by a legal writer : Legal questions of a countless number and variety, affecting private rights, and involving every department of jurisprudence common law and equity, admiralty, maritime and prize law, patent law and copy- right, the civil law as embodied in Louisiana and Mexican codes, statutes of Congress and of State Legislatures, everything except pure , matters of probate may come before that Court for adjudication. Probably no other single tribunal in the world is called upon to exer- cise a jurisdiction extending over so many different subjects, and de- manding from its judges such a variety of legal knowledge. But the highest power of the Court, that incident of transcendent importance which elevates it far above any other judicial tribunal, is its authority as a final arbiter in all controversies depending upon a construction of the United States Constitution, in the exercise of which exalted func- tion, as the final interpreter of the organic law, it determines the bounds beyond which neither the national nor the State governments may rightfully pass. It is the unique feature of our civil polity, the element which distinguishes our political institutions from all others, the crown- ing conception of our system, the very keystone of the vast arch, upon which depend the safety and permanence of the whole fabric, that the extent and limits of the legislative and executive powers, under the Constitution, both of the nation and of the individual States, are judi- cially determined by a body completely independent of all other de- partments, conservative in its essential nature and tendencies, and inferior to no authority except the deliberate organic will of the people expressed through the. elective franchise. The vast conservative power of this department of our Government, as well as the magnitude of the questions submitted to its decision, was never more fully illustrated than in the cases which grew out of the civil war and the legislation to which it gave rise. One or two examples will illustrate the nature of these cases, and of the questions involved. One of the first of these was the famous Milligan Case. In October, 1864 six months before the close of the war a man by the name of Milligan, a resident of Indiana, was arrested by order of the military commander of the district, and thrown into prison. In the excitement of war the authorities were disposed to make quick work of treason, proved or suspected. He was almost immediately brought before a military commission charged with conspiring against the Government, affording aid and support to Kebels, inciting to insurrection, disloyal practices, &c., and was found guilty and sentenced to death by hang- 102 ing. The proof may have been ample. No doubt he was a "Rebel sympathizer," and may have been very open and bold in expressing his sympathy. But he was not a soldier, and under military author- ity ; there was no rebellion in Indiana, no state of siege, and no excuse for martial law. The courts were open, and of whatever offence he had been guilty, he could be tried and punished according to law. But this did not satisfy the eager spirit of those who would trample down opposition as they would trample down an army in the field. Even the good President Lincoln was so far governed by these considerations, that he approved the sentence, and ordered it to be carried into imme- diate execution, and the man would have been hung had not the Supreme Court stretched forth its powerful hand to save him from the scaffold. When the question was brought by appeal before that tribu- nal, the judges were unanimous in decreeing that the man who had been so accused and condemned should be set at liberty. But five of the nine judges (of whom Judge Field was one) went still farther, and in rendering their decision entered a solemn declaration in support of civil authority as against military tribunals, which is one of the most memorable decisions in the annals of the country. Eeferring to this decision, in which he took part, Judge Field pays a high tribute to one of his associates : " The opinion was written by Mr. Justice Davis, and it will be a per- petual monument to his honor. It laid down in clear and unmistak- able terms the doctrine that military commissions organized during the war, in a State not invaded nor engaged in rebellion, in which the Federal courts were open and in the undisturbed exercise of their judi- cial functions, had no jurisdiction to try a citizen who was not a resi- dent of a State in rebellion, nor a prisoner of war, nor a person in the military or naval service; and that Congress could not invest them with any such power ; and that in States where the courts were thus open and undisturbed, the guaranty of trial by jury contained in the Constitution was intended for a state of war as well as a state of peace, and is equally binding upon rulers and people at all times and under all circumstances." Hardly had the excitement of this case subsided when the Court was called upon to consider the famous Test Oath Case. In the Con- stitution of Missouri just passed had been inserted a provision requir- ing, as a condition of holding any office of honor, trust, or profit under the State, or of filling any one of numerous positions pre- viously open to all, that the party should take what was called the Ironclad Oath that is, swear that he had never had anything to do with the Rebellion, and had never favored it openly or secretly. Not only did the oath extend to his acts, but to his secret motives and 103 feelings. It contained more than thirty distinct affirmations, and seemed like a series of tests framed by the Inquisition to search out a man's very soul, and to convict him in spite of himself. If a man could not swear to each of these, the Constitution did not permit him to hold any of the offices, trusts, or positions mentioned. He could not teach school ; he could not practise law ; he could not be a trustee of a church or an officer of a corporation ; he could not preach the Gospel ; he could not administer the Sacraments. It is hard to believe in this time of the world that such provisions could be found in the Constitution or laws of any civilized country. They belong to the Dark Ages rather than to the Nineteenth Century, to Spain and Russia rather than to free America. Yet there they were, broadly laid down in the Constitution of Missouri a Constitution just made, and it was to be supposed, " with all the modern improvements." Nor was this a dead letter. A Roman Catholic priest in that State, Father Cummings, was indicted for the horrible crime of teaching and preaching the Gospel without taking this oath, and convicted, and sentenced to pay a fine of five hundred dollars, and to be committed to jail until it was paid. The case was appealed to the Supreme Court of Missouri, which affirmed the judgment, and then as the last resort it was carried to the Supreme Court of the United States. Of the nine judges sitting on that tribunal, in that sanctuary of justice, four voted to sustain that legislation. Judge Field gave the casting vote against it, and wrote the opinion in burning words by which that infamy and shame were swept away forever from an American State. But we have no space to follow the cases growing out of the war which sprung up in great number and variety : such as cases of pardon and amnesty ; cases of the confiscation of property ; cases involving the question of the legislative power ot the insurgent States during the war, and the extent to which the Confederate Government should be regarded as a de facto government. Then came up for review the Reconstruction Acts of Congress, by which the South was divided into military districts, and placed under the government of military offi- cers. To Judge Field all this policy was odious in the extreme. His whole nature revolted against it. It served only to prolong the irrita- tions of the war, and to give up a whole section of the country, which had already been swept with destruction, to the anarchy of misrule. In all these cases he was animated by one controlling desire to bring back the Government to the rules and methods of peace. In his view it was time that the reign of arms should cease, and that the reign of law and order should begin. 104 In the famous Legal-tender Cases he stood with Chief Justice Chase against the constitutionality of the act of Congress making the prom- ises of the government a legal tender for the payment of debts. Had that decision, which prevailed in the Court by a majority of one, been sustained, it was his opinion that the people would have been Spared the financial uncertainty which followed the war, ending in a revul- sion which for a long period depressed the whole industry of the coun- try. But shortly after the decision two new judges were placed on the bench, and the question was reopened, and the former decision re- versed by a majority of one. This he thought a fatal step backward, and he has always believed that it was owing in great measure to this reversal of the former policy, that the country, which had begun to emerge from financial chaos, and had made some progress towards resumption, was thrown back where it was before, and had to " wander in the wilderness " seven years more. In the Slaughter-house Cases of New Orleans he went beyond the majority of the Court, and gave a wider application to the Four- teenth Amendment of the Constitution, arguing that it was designed to prevent hostile and discriminating legislation against any class of citizens whites as well as blacks. In another instance, in refer- ring to the Amendment abolishing Slavery, and the provisions of the first section of the Fourteenth Amendment, he said that they consti- tuted the crowning glory of the Government : for they made freedom, when not forfeited by crime, the normal condition of every human being within the United States, and equality before the law his consti- tutional right. In the case of protection of sealed matter in the mails, he held that letters and sealed packages subject to letter postage in the mail, can be opened and examined only under warrant issued upon oath or affirmation, particularly describing the thing to be seized, the same as is required when papers are subjected to search in one's own house- hold ; that the constitutional guaranty of the right of the people to be secure in their papers against unreasonable searches and seizures, extends to their papers thus closed against inspection wherever they may be. But the law which thus sacredly guards private correspond- ence, is abused and perverted, when made a shelter and screen for vice and crime ; and he points out in what way, consistently with the Con- stitutional guarantee, the senders through the mails of obscene books and prints may be reached and punished. In his dissenting opinion on the constitutionality of the Thurman Act in regard to the Pacific Eailroads, he argued for the inviolability 105 'of contracts-; that an engagement once made by a State or by an indi- vidual, is sacred, even though it be difficult of fulfilment ; that it is the mark of a just government, as of a just man, that it "sweareth to its own hurt, and changeth not." As stated by the legal writer from whom we have already quoted : The principles which underlie all Judge Field's work in interpret- ing the Constitution, and to which he has constantly adhered, whether acting with the Court or dissenting from it, "are summed up in two ideas : First, the preservation from every interference or invasion by each other of all the powers and functions allotted to the national gov- ernment and the State governments ; and Second, the perfect security and protection of private rights from all encroachments, either by the United States or by the individual States. These two ideas he has steadily kept in view, and has made the basis of his decisions. He- has demonstrated that a constant and firm maintenance of the powers justly belonging to the federal government, is not incompatible with an equally firm upholding of the powers entrusted to the States, with an undeviating adherence to the sacred doctrine of local self-government, and with zealous protection of private rights, because all, in fact, rest upon the same foundation." Judge Field has now [1883] been twenty years on the bench of the Supreme Court of the United States, and in length of service is the senior Judge, with the single exception of Judge Miller, who took his seat ten months earlier. In the decision of the multitude of cases which have come up from year to year, he has taken his full share of labor and responsibility, sometimes writing the opinion of the Court, and sometimes dissenting from its views. It would require a volume to give even a condensed history of these cases. In the Summer of 1873 Judge Field was appointed by the Gov- ernor of California, in connection with two other persons, to examine the Codes of the State, and prepare such amendments as seemed necessary for the consideration of the Legislature. The Codes had bedn reported by a Commission in the previous year, which had adopted them principally from the reports of the New York Commis- sion. There was some conflict in the provisions of the different Codes which prevented their harmonious working. It was thought by the bar and profession in the State that if Judge Field would undertake it, the conflicting provisions could be, by proper amendment, removed. At their suggestion, the Governor appointed him and Mr. John W. Dwinelle and Mr. Jackson Temple commissioners. They entered upon the labor with great cheerfulness, and prosecuted it during the Summer of 1873, and made a report to the Legislature, with the drafts of several bills. The amendments proposed were adopted by the Leg- 106 islature, with few alterations, and since then the Codes have worked well in the State. In the beginning of the year 1877 the Supreme Court of the United States, then sitting in Washington, arrested its session for a case which had no precedent in the history of the Government. There was a dis- puted Presidential election [see pages 62 and 63]. The country was greatly excited, Congress was divided, the Senate being Republican and the House Democratic. To meet a crisis for which the Consti- tution made no provision, a law was passed creating an Electoral Commission, composed of five Judges of the Supreme Court, five Sen- ators, and five Representatives. In the Act of Congress Judge Field was designated one of the Commissioners, and sat in the deliber- ations upon the question whether Mr. Tilden or Mr. Hayes was entitled to the electoral votes of certain States. On their decision it was to depend who was to be President for the next four years. The history of that Commission is well known. They refused to go behind the certificates forwarded from the different States, which declared certain persons to have been appointed electors, and consid- ered that their duty was simply to announce the result of those certificates ; when by the very terms of the act creating the Commis- sion, they were required to determine not merely who had certificates of election but who had been duly chosen. The position taken by some of the Commissioners appeared to him to be monstrous, and he expressed his opinion without qualification. In the year 1880 the name of Judge Field was prominently before the country as a candidate for the Presidency. He had always been a Democrat, and except during the civil war uniformly acted with the Democratic Party. When the war broke out, he ranged himself on the side of the Government, and gave the heartiest support to the Administration of Mr. Lincoln. Some of his friends think he contrib- uted as much as anyone to keep California in the Union; certainly he was one of a few persons who accomplished this. But when the war was ended, he was for peace actual peace not one in name only. All the oppressive measures taken by the Republican Party towards the South, known as Reconstruction Acts, under which carpet-bag- rule was inaugurated and sustained, with all its attendant and subse- quent corruption and plunder, were to him the subject of utter detesta- tion. The stand he took on the Supreme Bench against these meas- ures, drew upon him the eyes of the whole country; and before the meeting of the Convention at Cincinnati, no name was more conspicu- ous than his. On the first ballot he received sixty-five votes. He had 107 assurances from various portions of the country, and from men who were members of the Convention, that he would receive, at a very early stage of the proceedings, over two hundred and fifty votes. It is quite probable that such would have been the case, had he been ear- nestly supported by his own State. This might have been expected by one who had received such proofs of his popularity, not only in the State, but everywhere on the Pacific Coast, as were given in his immense majority of the popular vote when a candidate for the Supreme bench in California, and in the unanimous recommendation of the Pacific delegation for his appointment to the bench of the Supreme Court of the United States. But the Convention in California, which chose delegates to the National Convention, met at the time when Communism, under the name of Kearneyism, held sway in the State, and the Convention there was affected by its influence. Judge Field despised Kearney as a pestilent agitator. He detested every form of Communism and agrarianism, that would tend to upset the foundations of law and order and security in society, and as usual in such cases, did not conceal his sentiments. Nor would he try to con- ciliate this worthless crowd, even to change the vote of the State. Another cause which affected his popularity was his decision in the famous Queue case. An ordinance had been passed by the city of San Francisco declaring that every male person imprisoned in the county jail, under the judgment of any court having jurisdiction in criminal cases in the city and county, should immediately upon his arrival at the jail, have the hair of his head " cut or clipped to an uniform length of one inch from the scalp thereof ," and made it the duty of the Sheriff to have this provision enforced. This ordinance, though general in its terms, was intended to apply only to the Chinese, and was enforced only against them, although the imprisonment might be for the most petty offence, and only for one day. This seemed a small matter, but it involved a great principle. Among the Chinese the queue is a badge of respectability, and to cut it off involves a personal degrada- tion. The ordinance imposed upon them a degrading and cruel pun- ishment, and so far was contrary to the spirit of our laws. Judge Field decided that the ordinance was unconstitutional, in that it was hostile and discriminating legislation against a class, forbidden by that clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution which declares that no State " shall deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." He held that this inhibition upon the State applies to all the instrumentalities and agencies employed in the administration of its government; to its executive, legislative, and 108 judicial departments ; and to the subordinate legislative bodies of its counties and cities. All this seems plainly and obviously just ; and yet such was the feeling against the Chinese, that the decision created great bitterness, and probably lost Judge Field the vote of California in the National Convention. But little did that disturb him. He fol- lowed his own sense of right, and left consequences to take care of themselves. Could he have foreseen the result of his decision in its effect upon his political fortunes, he would not have decided other- wise, nor delayed the decision a single hour. This political campaign was a novel experience, which probably he would not wish to repeat. His candidacy was not a matter of his own seeking ; it was urged upon him by friends who thought that if elected he might do something to bring the two sections of the country into more amicable relations than had for a long time existed. The whole canvass was a mere episode in his career, and the result was accepted without regret. In the Summer of 1881 Judge Field went to Europe, and remained abroad several months, extending his journey to the East, and revisit- ing Athens and Smyrna, where he had spent several happy years of his boyhood half a century before. 109 CYEUS W. FIELD. A few months after the removal to Stockbridge, another little face- appeared in the parsonage. Our parents then lived out of the village, on what was called the Morgan Place. The house stood on a hill, which sloped down to the river that wound around its base. In the rear, then as now, a fine grove of trees served as a background to the dwelling, while all around the mountains seemed to stand as guardians of the peaceful valley. It was a pretty landscape, even in the late Autumn ; for though the rich colors that had so long hung upon the mountain sides were all gone, and " The melancholy days were come, the saddest of the year " ; yet for all its sadness, there was a tender beauty in the Autumn land- scape that touched one of my father's temperament; there was some- thing in harmony with his pensive and thoughtful moods, in the sigh- ing of the Autumn wind, and in the rustling of the leaves under his feet. It was on one of those " melancholy days " the last day of Autumn, Nov. 30th, 1819 that this child was born. What should they call him? The three elder brothers had been given family names David Dudley, Timothy Beals, and Matthew Dickinson. Jonathan Edwards bore the name of the great divine of New England, and Stephen Johnson that of a clergyman well known in Connecticut. There was in Stockbridge an old gentleman, who as a merchant and President of the Bank was a man of note and consideration, by the name of Cyrus Williams, whose first name was taken as a suitable prefix, to which was added that of West, out of respect to the memory of my father's predecessor, the venerable Dr. Stephen West, who after sixty years of service in the same parish had died a few months before ; and so the little stranger was baptized CYBUS WEST. Thus equipped with a name, he had gained the first point in life he could not die without a name; but for a time it seemed doubtful if he would gain any other. Like his next older bro- ther, he was of a very delicate organization, that seemed little fitted to bear the burdens and meet the struggles of life. Whoever had looked upon him as he lay in his cradle, would have prophesied for him death rather than distinction. So weak and frail was he that his little body had to be supported by a frame, in which he could roll around .the room 1JO till his limbs could get strength enough to bear him. But with all this there was a nervous energy and elasticity derived from his mother, which brought him up, as it were, from the gates of the grave. It was only by unceasing care that he " weathered " the dangers of infancy; but that point past, and once set upon his little feet, he developed by incessant motion. As a boy, he was distinguished by his restless activity. No boy in the village was more " wide awake " in all the outdoor sports of the country, more active on the ball- ground, or ran more swiftly in the foot-races around the square on which the old Academy stood. No one felt a keener zest in sliding down hill or skating on the river. By such outdoor exercise he gained in strength ; and, though his frame was always slight, it became tough and wiry, capable of great effort and great endurance. He did not go to College. His bent was toward a business life. And so in 1835, when he was fifteen years old, his eldest brother Dudley procured, a place for him in New York, in the store of the late Mr. A. T. Stewart. It was very hard for him to go away from home. He was " his mother's boy "more dear to her because of the anxiety with which she had watched over his childhood and the parting was painful.. The country boy did not easily take to the city. It was very grand, but it did not take the place of his native hills. Often he would go down to the river, and watch with eager eyes the boats as they sailed up the Hudson toward his home, but not carrying him! I remember well hearing my brother Matthew tell mother how Cyrus had come down to the boat on which he left the city, and wept bitterly as he came away; and mother telling him, the next time he went to New York, if his little brother felt so still, to bring him home.. But at length he became more reconciled to the city, and began to take root in his new surroundings, where he has since lived forty-six years. But he was not content to be a clerk. His mind was too restless and ambitious to be willing to follow in this dull routine, though it seemed the path of safety. Jle had a spirit of enterprise which was already projecting schemes in which he could have a larger field for his activ- ity. After six years spent in learning the methods of business, when he had hardly reached the age of twenty-one, he cut loose from his safe and sheltered position, and launched out for himself, engaging in the manufacture and sale of paper. But the prospect was not flattering. He did not succeed to a business already established, and he had no one to furnish him capital. He had cone of those ad- ventitious aids by which so many young men are started in a business career. But this very absence of help from without showed the re- m sources in himself. He had a capital in his brain, which was worth more than money. He soon showed a natural aptitude for business great quickness of perception and power of organization, with inde- fatigable perseverance. Thus armed, though he started with neither business nor capital nor credit, he soon created them all. For the next twelve years he devoted himself to business with scarcely an intermis- sion, and in this time achieved a splendid success. He was at the head of a large house, firmly established, and yielding a generous income. Indeed he had acquired what was then considered a handsome fortune, and although but thirty-three years old, he already meditated retir- ing. But it was more easy to get into business than to get out of it. For such a man to retire, he has to change his habits, and almost change his nature. He has to " ease off" gently ; to wean himself from the counting-room and the excitement of commercial pursuits, and to get accustomed gradually to the still air of retirement and repose. To divert his mind from business, he left New York for a six months' tour in South America. Landing at Savanilla in New Granada, he ascended the Magdalena river and climbed the Andes to Bogota, and crossed the mountains to Quito, from which he descended to Guayaquil in Ecuador, and returned by the Western coast. In this journey he was accompanied by his friend, Mr. Frederic E. Church, the distinguished artist, who has preserved on canvas, in his Cotopaxi a,nd Falls of Tequandama, painted for Mr. Field, and in the Heart of the Andes, and other well known paintings, the impressions of those awful mountains, whose heads are covered with perpetual snow, while their sides are mantled with the richest tropical vegetation. He returned from South America at the end of October, 1853, just in time to attend the Golden Wedding of his parents ; and after a few days of social enjoyment with his friends, he tried to settle down to the business of being a retired merchant. But it was the hardest task he had ever undertaken. I never saw him so uneasy as when he was trying to keep still. What would have been the conse- quences it is hard to say, if just at this moment there had not pre- sented itself an enterprise which was to engage his interest, and to furnish full scope for his activity, and to prove in its issue the greatest achievement of his life. It is not my purpose in this Family Kecord, where each sketch must be brief, to give a History of the Atlantic Telegraph, to which I have devoted a volume of over four hundred pages, which was published by the Scribners in 1866, immediately after the final successful laying of the Atlantic Cable. It would be impossible to compress that 112 History into this narrow space. I can only give an outline of what I have there described In full, referring the reader who seeks for the details to the published volume. Mr. Field's connection with that great work came in the most inci- dental way. My brother Matthew, who had been for some years in the Southwest engaged as an engineer in building railroads and suspension bridges, had returned North, and when in New Ycrk, met at the Astor House a Mr. F. N. Gisborne of Nova Scotia, who had undertaken to build a telegraph line in Newfoundland, designing to carry it across- the island to St. John's, the farthest point on the American coast, and there connect with a line of fast steamers, which, it was thought, could reach the nearest point in Ireland in five days, and thus bring America easily within a week of Europe. The work had been begun, but had not advanced far when the men who had engaged to furnish the means to the engineer failed him, and he was in despair. His. only hope was to enlist some one of more energy or larger means to carry through what he had attempted. Talking with my brother Matthew, he so far interested him that he engaged to introduce him to his brother Cyrus ; and accordingly, one evening, he brought him up to the latter's house in Gramercy Park. The scheme did not look very attractive. So far it had proved a dead failure. But while, in its then shape, it presented nothing to tempt a man, who had already all he needed, to embark in what seemed a mere wild venture, yet to a mind as active as Mr. Field's it suggested much more than it proposed. After Mr. Gisborne had left, as he sat alone in his library, and turned over his globe, the idea flashed upon him : Why not carry a telegraph line across the ocean ? In that sudden inspiration was the germ of the- enterprise which at last stretched the cable across the Atlantic, and ''moored the New World alongside the Old." But though inspiration may be sudden, execution is slow. Had Mi\ Field at that moment had any conception of the labor which the car- rying out of his idea would involve, he would have shrunk from the attempt. More than twelve years were to pass before he saw the end, and these not years in which he was buoyed up by the feeling that he was advancing step by step to an assured success, but years of almost con- stant disappointments, the foresight of which would have made him abandon the project in despair. But the Divine Providence which prepares the course of human progress, and chooses the instruments, wisely conceals the difficulties of the way, and so leads men on over heights and depths till the end is achieved. Before embarking in such a doubtful enterprise, Mr. Field looked 113 around to see if he could find anybody to share with him at least the expense of the undertaking. His next-door neighbor was Mr. Peter Cooper, whose wealth used for benevolence had made him an object of universal veneration, and Mr. Field called to talk over the matter with him. Mr. Cooper had always had a fondness for mechanical inventions, and was ready to listen to a scheme which to more practi- cal men might seem chimerical. He agreed to enter into it if others could be found to unite with them. Mr. Field went next to Mr. Moses Taylor, a man of large wealth, and noted for his business sagacity, who received him politely, and listened for an hour to his story, hardly interrupting him by a single word, and thus, hearing patiently, caught a little of his enthusiasm, so far as to agree to be one of the support- ers of the enterprise. This brought in Mr. Marshall O. Roberts, Mr. Taylor's neighbor and most intimate friend, who was engaged with him in many commercial transactions. Mr. Field's brother Dudley was summoned as counsel. One other name only was added, that of Mr. Chandler White.* These six gentlemen met at Mr. Field's, and around the table in his dining-room, over maps, discussed night after night the possibilities of a telegraph line to Newfoundland, and ulti- mately beyond it. How far their plans reached was indicated in the very name they took, that of the New York, Newfoundland, and London Telegraph Company. To start the enterprise Messrs. Field, Cooper, Taylor, and Eoberts put in $20,000 each, and Mr. White a less amount ; and Messrs. Field and White, accompanied by Mr. David Dudley Field as legal adviser, were to go down to Newfoundland to see what charter could be obtained, and what aid would be given. I remember well the night in March, 1854, in which they passed through Springfield, Mass., on their way. I was then settled in West Springfield, and crossed the river and met them at the Massasoit House. They were full of gaiety, and said laughingly that they were going down to Newfoundland on k( a fishing excursion." But the merriment was a little subdued on this first voyage. They were on a small steamer, and encountered a terrific storm, when they all felt as if they might go to the bottom. At last they sighted the rugged coast, and ran into the land-locked harbor of St. John's, and landed in a driving snow storm. This was their wel- come to Newfoundland. The first man to take them by the hand was Mr. (now Sir) Edward M. Archibald, the Attorney-General, who was afterwards for twenty-five years the British Consul in New York. The * Mr. White died the following year, and his place was taken by Mr. Wilson G. Hunt, who remained a steadfast friend of the enterprise through all the years of disaster, till success was finally accomplished. 114 negotiations occupied six weeks, as the issue of which the Colonial Government engaged, besides a grant of fifty square miles of land as material aid to the enterprise, to give the Company an exclusive right to land cables on its shores for fifty years, and other privileges. So far, so good. The plans were well laid, but now the work was to begin. In an enterprise of such magnitude, it was easier to con- ceive than to execute. To build the line across Newfoundland was no small undertaking. It was a distance of four hundred miles, through a wilderness, over land that was wild and waste, marsh and moor, or rocks and hills, and often through dense forests, where every step in advance had to be cleared by the woodman's axe. Slowly and toil- somely the constructors made their way. As the obstacles multiplied, the expense increased. The money went fast, if the work moved slow. Again and again the little company was called upon for fresh -outlays, till each one who had subscribed $20,000 had put in $200,000, and Mr. Field himself a much larger sum ; and the work was but just begun, for all this overland construction was only preliminary. This./irs step took nearly three years. To connect the island with the mainland, a cable had to be laid across the Gulf of St. Lawrence. One was sent out from England in 1855, but the first attempt to lay it was a failure. The next year a second attempt was made with success. But this Gulf cable was a mere bridge, as it were, from island to island a link in the over- land chain which extended to the limit of the Newfoundland coast. When Mr. Field had reached this point, he must have been re- minded of his experience in South America, when after a long and toilsome ascent to the table-lands which are the steps of the Andes, he saw in the distance the eternal snows. What he had already gained was nothing to the seemingly inaccessible heights yet to be reached. So with the telegraph, which had been creeping over the land, and now was to plunge into the ocean. All that had yet been done had been merely to prepare the way for what was to come. Now for the first time he was to attempt the impossible, or what at least was gen- erally regarded as such. Was the thing one to be compassed by the utmost stretch of human power ? That was yet to be demonstrated, for all that had been done up to this time was mere child's play to what was now to be undertaken. Submarine telegraphy was in its in- fancy. It had indeed been proved possible to send messages under water for short distances, as across rivers or a narrow arm of the sea. A link to connect land lines might even be carried across the Gulf of St. Lawrence or the British Channel. But that was nothing, for one standing on the cliffs of Dover could see the coast of France, while 115 between Newfoundland and Ireland rolled nearly two thousand miles of stormy ocean. Nor was the distance the only obstacle. Who could tell what was the bed of the ocean in which the cable was to be laid? Whether it was a vast, level plain, or a surface broken by hills and valleys, over which the cable might have to be stretched, hanging per- haps, here and there, on an Alpine ridge, from which it would swing over an abyss below ? All these terrors are now removed, but then they were vividly present to the imagination, and caused many to shrink back from an enterprise so daring, and as it seemed so hopeless. Foreseeing all this, Mr. Field had at the very outset satisfied himself that the work, difficult as it was, was yet not absolutely beyond human power. The very morning after his first interview with Gisborne, he had written to Prof. Morse, to inquire if it would be possible to com- municate by electricity over so great a distance ; and to Lieut. Maury of the Observatory at Washington, to ask if there was any insurmount- able difficulty in the ocean itself which rendered it impossible to <; stretch a line upon it." Both answers were assuring. Prof. Morse ten years before had given an opinion that the distance was not too great for the swift course of the lightning, if only the conducting wire could be laid, and his belief that at some future period, in some way, that great task would be achieved. Lieut. Maury gave also an assur- ance which, while positive as to one point, was yet carefully qualified and guarded, by setting forth the immense difficulties in the way of suc- cess. As it happened, the year before (1853) a survey had been made of the North Atlantic, which determined the existence of a vast pla- teau between Newfoundland and Ireland an ocean bed which, if not a level plain, had at least only gentle undulations, like a rolling prai- rie, that seemed made for the resting-place of the telegraphic cable. But the Lieutenant prudently added that " he did not pretend to con- sider the question as to the possibility of finding a time calm enough, the sea smooth enough, a wire long enough, and a ship big enough," to lay this tremendous coil across the ocean. In these ansv/ers there was just enough of mingled caution and encouragement to arouse a man of Mr. Field's temperament, as showing the enormous difficulties of the enterprise, and yet holding out a possibility of success. In this state of doubt and uncertainty, and yet of hope, having fin- ished his work on this side of the Atlantic, he went abroad to see if it were possible to inspire faith enough in England to enlist English cap- ital and English pride in the work of spanning the ocean. When Mr. Field went to England in 1856, he was almost a stranger. He was kindly received, the more so perhaps because he was an Amer- 116 ican. People soon recognized in him a type of American faith and American energy, and admired his pluck even while they distrusted his judgment. But at the outset he had to encounter an almost univer- sal incredulity. In spite of all that had been said by Prof. Morse and Lieut. Maury, the practicability of a transatlantic telegraph was doubted by many of the first authorities in England. Eminent engi- neers declared that it was beyond the resources of human skill to stretch a cable two thousand miles long aeross the deep. Even the great Bobert Stephenson shook his head, and anticipated only failure. Electricians added that, even if it were laid, the electric current could not be sent that distance. To be sure, there were eminent authorities on the other side. The great Faraday encouraged the American pro- jector. When the latter asked him how long it would take for the electric current to pass from London to New York, he answered "Pos- sibly one second"! But still both scientific men and practical men were so divided that it was difficult to inspire the degree of confidence necessary to success. In face of all these obstacles, Mr. Field set him- self down in London, and went to work. Uniting with himself three gentlemen who had had some experience in submarine telegraphy, to the limited extent involved in crossing the Channel, he drew up the arti- cles of the Atlantic Telegraph Company. Then, knowing the confidence inspired by Government support, he sought public aid. Asking Prof. Morse to accompany him, he paid a visit to Lord Clarendon at the For- eign Office, who, if he did not have full faith in Mr. Field's project, was delighted with his enthusiasm. He afterwards spent some days in the country, at the residence of Mr. James Wilson, Secretary of the Treas- ury, to discuss the matter in detail. As the result, the Government guaranteed a sum of 14,000 a year, in payment for messages sent, which would be interest at four per cent, on the estimated capital, and engaged to furnish ships to aid in laying the cable. But of course this subsidy depended on the success of the enterprise, and the capi- tal had first to be raised without Government aid. To secure this, Mr. Field addressed the Chambers of Commerce of Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool, and Glasgow. By such persistence he suc- ceeded in inspiring a sufficient degree of interest to furnish the needed amount, of which he took one-fourth himself, thinking his American friends would be eager to share in it. But when some weeks later he returned to this country, he found so little interest that the bulk of it was left upon his hands, and he paid into the treasury of the Company eighty-eight thousand pounds sterling in gold, or nearly half a million of dollars. 117 It were long to recount all the preparations that had to be made for this memorable expedition. A work so great involved innumerable details. There were electricians and engineers to make experiments, and hold long " councils of war," in order to decide the best form of cable, and the best way of paying it out into the sea; there were contracts to be made ; and negotiations to be kept up with two Gov- ernmentsthe United States and England to secure ships, and the appointment of officers fit to be entrusted with a task so difficult. But at length all was completed. Both Governments responded promptly, the United States designating the Niagara and the Susquehanna, and England the Agamemnon and the Leopard, to take part in the expedi- tion. Thus, after infinite toil, the cable was complete, and coiled on board the Niagara and the Agamemnon, and these ships, with their consorts, assembled in the harbor of Valentia, on the west coast of Ireland. The Earl of Carlisle, then Lord Lieutenant, came down from Dublin, to give his presence and parting cheer to the daring enterprise, reminding those who were to embark in it that it was just 365 years ."what in Hebrew writ would have been called a year of years" since Columbus sailed from the shores of Spain on his voyage of discovery. Never did a statesman speak in a tone more worthy of a great occasion. His closing words, which rose to a strain of lofty eloquence, should be preserved in the hope that they may prove pro- phetic of that office of " a messenger of peace " which this new in- strument of human intercourse was to bear. " Gentlemen of Ireland, of England, and of America," he said, "we may take our stand here upon the extreme rocky edge of our beloved Ireland ; we may leave behind us the wars, the strifes, and the bloodshed of the elder Europe and of the elder Asia ; and we may pledge ourselves in the face of the unparalleled circumstances of the place and the hour ; in the immedi- ate neighborhood of the mighty ships which are beautiful upon the waters, even as are the feet upon the mountains of those who preach the Gospel of peace in the face and the strength of such circumstan- ces, let us pledge ourselves to eternal peace between the Old World and the New." The landing of the cable took place on Wednesday, the 5th of August, 1857, near the hour of sunset. The ships got under way early the next morning. On that Summer's morning heaven seemed to smile on the attempt. The sea was smooth, the sky was fair, and those who looked off from the cliffs of Valentia saw a gallant sight as those great ships-of-war of two nations, bound on an errand of peace, bore away into the deep. At first they moved very slowly, 118 keeping near each other so near that they could hear each other's bells. The Niagara began first paying out, and on board the feeling was almost painful in its anxiety. Men spoke in low voices, and moved about softly, as in a sick room, as if they felt that they were dragging behind them the chord which was to unite two living bodies, and which might be broken by a rash act or a loud word. But all went well that day. Friday, Saturday, Sunday, they had the same good fortune. By Monday night they were three hundred and fifty miles from the Irish coast, and getting into the great depths of the Atlantic. But as the cable was running out too rapidly, the engineer put on the brakes to check it ; the ship was then in the trough of the sea, and as she rose on the swell of the waves, the strain was too great, and the cable parted. So the vital chord was broken. Instantly ran through the ship a cry of pain, for it was a disaster which touched everyone on board. It was as If some great Admiral, over whose life they had been watch- ing, had ceased to breathe. The flags were hung at half-mast. Sig- nals were made to the fleet, and with drooping pennants and drooping hearts, the expedition returned to England. The first attempt to lay the Atlantic cable had failed. It could not be renewed that year. The cable was taken out of the ships which bore it, and the Niagara and the Susquehanna returned to America, and Mr. Field to look after his private fortune, which had suffered sadly from his absence in the great financial revulsion of that year. But he did not give it up. The next year saw him again in England, urging a renewal of the attempt. The Niagara crossed the Atlantic to take her mighty burden. That Summer the writer visited England r and saw N the telegraph fleet assembled in the harbor of Plymouth, and held divine service on board the Niagara the Sunday before she sailed. At this moment the hopes of success were high. A new method of laying the cable had been adopted. Instead of starting from Ireland, the ships were to proceed to the middle of the Atlantic, and there, joining the two ends of the cable, to sail in opposite direc- tions till they reached the opposite shores. With this plan of opera- tions, the fleet put to sea ; but only to be overtaken by storms, in which the Agamemnon came near foundering. Arrived at last in mid- ocean, the ships spliced their separate portions of the cable, and the- Agamemnon swung her head towards Ireland, and the Niagara to- wards Newfoundland. But scarcely were the cables joined before they were parted. The attempt was made several times with the same ill success, and both ships returned to England. Then came the sever- 119 est trial, for even the Directors lost faith. When it was proposed to renew the attempt, the Vice-President left the room in disgust, and refused to take part in an undertaking so hopeless. But the rest stood by manfully, and resolved to try again. The ships returned to mid- ocean, and to the amazement of the world, this time the experiment proved a success. The cable was laid, and messages were sent from shore to shore. The first one was "England and America are united by telegraph. Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace and good will towards men." The Queen and the President of the United States exchanged congratulations. The country went wild with enthusiasm. Familiar as we now are with this hourly communi- cation with another hemisphere, it is hardly possible to conceive the impression it produced. It was the greater because success was wholly unexpected. Disappointed twice already, the people had ceased to look for it, when suddenly they awoke to find that their continent had been " annexed," as it were in the night, to Europe. The sea had been abolished, so far as it was a barrier to intercourse. For the purpose of intelligence, New York was as near to London as to Philadelphia. Startled by its suddenness, a kind of frenzy took possession of the public mind, and those who before had never spoken of the Atlantic Telegraph but with derision, and with pity for its projector, went into the wildest extravagance, lauding him as a second Columbus, and the achievement as the greatest of modern times. But this enthusiasm was short-lived. For it was hardly three weeks before the cable began to mutter fitfully, and at last lay silent in the depths of the sea. Then ensued one of those revulsions of feeling so common in the history of all great enterprises, where at first success alternates with defeat. The public became almost ashamed of its late, enthusiasm. Many doubted whether there had ever been a message across the ocean, and the whole subject became one for incredulity and ridicule. Three years later our country was involved in the most terrible of civil wars, and while the eyes and the hearts of the nation were intent on moving armies and bloody fields, on bat- tles and sieges, there was no time to think of a telegraphic cable across the ocean. But Mr. Field was not idle; he was constantly cross- ing and recrossing the Atlantic, addressing Chambers of Commerce and public meetings in England and the United States, and in 1864 the necessary capital to renew the enterprise was raised. Mean- while submarine telegraphy had made great progress. Cables had been laid in the Mediterranean, in the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf. Thus telegraphers and engineers were gaining experience, and with 120 experience courage, to attempt to span the ocean itself. With these lights of experience to guide them, a new eable was constructed with all the improvements, and coiled on board the Great Eastern, which was placed under the command of Captain (now Sir James) Anderson. She sailed in 1865 with every prospect of success, paying out steadily about 150 miles a day. All went well till over 1,200 miles had been laid, when in a sudden lurch the cable was broken, and all were again in despair. For some days the gallant crew made attempts to pick it up from the bottom, but the sea was two miles deep, and with the re- sources at hand it was impossible, and the great ship took her way back to England. The attempt was abandoned for that year. But in the Summer of 1866 it was renewed, and this time the cable did not break. All the way across the ocean it held fast, and communication was kept up with Ireland, by which the news of Europe was received on board. It was the very moment of the crisis of the war between Austria and Prussia ; the battle of Sadowa had just been fought, and the Prussian army was marching on Vienna ; and bulletins of its progress were posted twice a day in the cabins of the fleet, as in the clubs of London. These martial excitements mingled with antici- pations of their own triumph, which was approaching every hour. The Great Eastern, as if conscious of the mighty treasure she carried in her bosom, kept her head steadily to the West, till she cast anchor in the little bay on the Newfoundland coast. Then the joy overflowed as the gallant tars of England, from all the ships of the fleet, lifted the bulky " shore end " into boats, and carried it to the beach, drag- ging it up to the cable h6use, thus casting grappling irons on the solid land, uniting the opposite shores of the Atlantic, joining England and America, thenceforth to be nevermore divided. But their triumph was not quite without alloy. They had indeed gained one victory, but they were not satisfied till they gained another. One cable was landed, but there was another lying broken in the midst of the sea, and their joy could not be complete till this too was recov- ered. In a few days after the cable was landed the Great Eastern lifted her anchors and returned to mid-ocean to seek for " the pearl that was lost " a pearl beyond any diver's reach. This last attempt seems even more daring, and its success more wonderful, than that of laying the cable, since it is easier to cast a line into the sea than to recover it when it is sunk in the ocean's bed. The story shall be told by Mr. Field himself* : * Speech at the dinner given by the New York Chamber of Commerce, Nov. 15, 1866. 121 After landing the cable safely at Newfoundland, we had another task to return to mid-ocean and recover that lost in the expedition of last year. This achievement has perhaps excited more surprise than the other. It was the triumph of the highest nautical and engineering skill. We had four ships, and on board of them some of the best sea- men in England men who knew the ocean as a hunter knows every trail in the forest. There was Captain Moriarty, who was in the Aga- memnon in 1857-8. He was in the Great Eastern last year, and saw the cable when it broke ; and he and Captain Anderson at once took their observations so exact that they could go right to the spot. After finding it, they marked the line of the cable by a row of buoys ; for fogs would come down, and shut out sun and stars, so that no man could take an observation. These buoys were anchored a few miles apart. They were numbered, and each had a flag-staff on it, so that it could be seen by day ; and a lantern by night. Thus having taken our bearings, we stood off three or four miles, so as to come broadside on ; and then casting over the grapnel, drifted slowly down upon it, dragging the bottom of the ocean as we went. At first it was a little awkward to fish in such deep water, but our men got used to it, and soon could cast a grapnel almost as straight as an old whaler throws a harpoon. Our fishing-line was of formidable size. It was made of rope, twisted with wires of steel, so as to bear a strain of thirty tons. It took about two hours for the grapnel to reach bottom, but we could tell when it struck. I often went to the bow and sat on the rope, and could feel by the quiver that the grapnel was dragging on the bottom two miles under us. But it was a very slow business. We had storms and calms, and fogs and squalls. Still we worked on day after day. Once, on the 17th of August, we got the cable up, and had it in full sight for five minutes a long, slimy monster, fresh from the ooze of the ocean's bed ; but our men began to cheer so wildly, that it seemed to be frightened, and suddenly broke away and went down into the sea. This accident kept us at work two weeks longer ; but finally, on the last night of August, we caught it. We had cast the grapnel thirty times. It was a little before midnight on Friday night that we hooked the cable, and it was a little after midnight, Sunday morning, when we got it on board. What was the anxiety of those twenty-six hours ! The strain on every man's life was like the strain on the cable itself. When finally it appeared, it was midnight ; the lights of the ship, and in the boats around our bows, as they flashed in the faces of the men, showed them eagerly watching for the cable to appear on the water. At length it was brought to the surface. All who were allowed to approach crowded forward to see it. Yet not a word was spoken ; only the voices of the officers in command were heard giving orders. All felt as if life and death hung on the issue. It was only when it was brought over the bow and on the deck that men dared to breathe. Even then they hardly believed their eyes. Some crept toward it to feel of it, to be sure it was there. Then we carried it along to the electricians' room, to see if our long-sought treasure was alive or dead. A few minutes of suspense, and a flash told of the lightning current 122 again set free. Then did the feeling long pent up burst forth. Some turned away their heads and wept ; others broke into cheers, and the cry ran from man to man, and was heard down in the engine-rooms, deck below deck, and from the boats on the water, and the other ships, while rockets lighted up the darkness of the sea. Then with thankful hearts we turned our faces again to the west. But soon the wind rose, and for thirty-six hours we were exposed to all the dangers of a storm on the Atlantic. Yet in the very height and fury of the gale, as I sat in the electricians' room, a flash of light came up from the deep, which having crossed to Ireland, came back to me in mid-ocean, telling that those so dear to me, whom I had left on the banks of the Hudson, were well, and following us with their wishes and their prayers. This was like a whisper of God from the sea, bidding me keep heart and hope. The Great Eastern bore herself proudly through the storm, as if she knew that the vital chord, which was to join two hemispheres, hung at her stern ; and so, on Saturday, the 7th of September, we brought our second cable safely to the shore. Thus two cables were laid the same year, both without a flaw, and from that time to the present telegraphic communication between the Old World and the New has not been interrupted for a single day. The feeling of Mr. Field, when he was at last relieved from the suspense and the strain of these long and weary years, may be better imagined than described. Telling "the story of the telegraph " very modestly, he said : " It has been a long, hard struggle nearly thirteen years of anxious watching and ceaseless toil. Often my heart has been ready to sink. Many times, when wandering in the forests of New- foundland, in the pelting rain, or on the decks of ships, on dark nights alone, far from home I have almost accused myself of madness and folly, to sacrifice the peace of my family, and all the hopes of life, for what might prove, after all, but a dream. I have seen my compan- ions, one and another, falling by my side, and feared that I too might not live to see the end. And yet one hopa has led me on, and I have prayed that I might not taste of death till this work was accomplished. That prayer is answered, and now, beyond all acknowledgments to men, is the feeling of gratitude to Almighty God." The success was complete, and in both countries honors were show- ered upon the leaders of the expedition. In England several were knighted, and others made baronets ; and the Prime Minister, in con- ferring these rewards, said that the only reason why Mr. Field was not included in them was that it was felt that any title or dignity might not be acceptable to an American citizen. But he had honors enough at home. Besides innumerable congratulations, he received the unan- imous thanks of Congress, with a gold medal, and other testimonials for what was recognized as one of the most remarkable achievements 123 of the century. The French Exposition of 1867 awarded him the Grand Medal, its highest award, given only to those who were recognized as great public benefactors. Perhaps the most grateful words that came to him in this hour of triumph, were those of his associates, who had been with him from the beginning of the enterprise, and who knew how he had labored for twelve long years without any remuneration whatever, and at the utter sacrifice of his own interests, for the end that was now accomplished. At a meeting of the stockholders of the New York, Newfoundland, and London Telegraph Company, the following resolution was, on motion of Mr. Moses Taylor, seconded by Mr. Wilson G. Hunt, unanimously adopted : Whereas, This Company was the first ever formed for the establishment of an Atlantic Telegraph an enterprise upon which it started in the beginning of 1854, at the instance of Mr. Cyrus W. Field, and which, through his wise and unwearied energy, acting upon this Company, and others afterward formed in connection with it, has been successfully accomplished ; therefore the stockholders of this Company, at this their first meeting since the completion of the enterprise, desiring to testify their sense of Mr. Field's services, Resolve, first, That to him more than any other man, the world is indebted for this magnificent instrument of good ; and but for him it would not, in all probabil- ity, be now in existence. Second, That the thanks of the stockholders of this Company are hereby given to Mr. Field for these services, which, though so great in themselves and so valu- able to this Company, were rendered without any remuneration ; and Third, That a copy of this resolution, certified by the Chairman and Secretary of this meeting, be delivered to Mr/Field as a recognition, by those who best know, of his just right to be always regarded as the first projector, and most persistent and efficient promoter, of the Atlantic Telegraph. PETER COOPEB, Chairman. WILSON G. HUNT, Secretary. The resolutions of Congress also deserve to be put on record, from the fact that, being passed unanimously by both Houses, they furnish the most decisive expression of the feeling of the whole country : Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America, in Congress assembled, That the thanks of Congress be, and they hereby are, presented to Cyrus W. Field of New York, for his foresight, courage, and deter- mination in establishing telegraphic communication by means of the Atlantic Cable, traversing mid-ocean and connecting the Old World with the New ; and that the President of the United States be requested to cause a gold medal to be struck, with suitable emblems, devices, and inscriptions, to be presented to Mr. Field. SEC. 2. And be it further resolved, That when the medal shall have been struck, the President shall cause a copy of this joint resolution to be engrossed on parch- ment, and shall transmit the same, together with the medal, to Mr. Field, to be pre- sented to him in the name of the people of the United States. Receiving thus the recognition of different nations for his great achievement, Mr. Field was chiefly anxious that others who had borne an honorable part in it should not be forgotten. In such a work there 124 is no need of jealousy ; there is glory enough for all. History will rec- ognize the part borne by every officer of the expedition, from the high- est to the lowest, and of all who contributed to its success, whether on land or sea. The work at last was done in England. There chiefly the money was raised; there the cable was constructed. It was finally laid in English ships, by English engineers. But those who were nearest the centre of operations in London, and saw the compli- cated machinery involved in organizing and carrying out so great an enterprise, knew that in that active American brain lay the secret spring which set the whole in motion. Sir James Anderson has told me repeatedly that in all his connection with the enterprise, he found that the presence of Mr. Field at once changed the outlook. If he went away, it drooped, and the interest in it was languid ; but the moment he reappeared on the scene, his zeal and energy inspired con- fidence in others, and instantly the wheels began to revolve. He had a way of doing things that was a little startling at first to his English associates. Quick in forming his opinion, and prompt in action, he could not bear to be hindered by routine and red tape, and in his impatience he sometimes broke over all rules. A single instance will illustrate this. The expedition of 1858 was to be accompanied by two English and two American ships. Our Navy had designated the Niagara and Susquehanna, the same ships which had taken part in the expedition of the year before. The latter was then in the West Indies, and while waiting for her to join them in England, word came that cholera had broken out on board. What should they do ? It was suggested that they should ask the British Government for an- other ship. It was a delicate matter, but there seemed no other way. So important a step could not be taken without due deliberation, and it was accordingly proposed to write to the Admiralty and request an audience, and to appoint a committee to lay the matter before them. While thus deliberating, Mr. Field went into the street and called a cab, and drove to the Admiralty, and sent in his card to Sir John Pakington, who was then the First Lord of the Admiralty. He was received immediately, and began at once in his eager way: "I am ashamed to come to you, after the generous treatment we have received from the Government. But the Susquehanna is in the West Indies, with cholera on board. Can you help us? " Sir John answered that they had not a ship to spare ; that the Government was at that moment chartering ships to take troops to Malta. "But," he added, "I will see what I can do." In an hour or two he sent word that Her Majes- ty's ship Valorous had been ordered to take the place of the Susque- 125 hanna. This abrupt and energetic manner almost shocked the English ideas of propriety. But they pardoned it as an explosion of American energy, and when they saw that such prompt action often insured suc- cess which would have been lost by delay, they began to admire it. In this he carried out his American principle, learned early in life, that the way to do a thing is to do it, and not to stand hesitating and debat- ing till the moment of action is past. If he had something important to be done, he did not delegate it to another, but did it himself. If money was to be raised, instead of sending circulars or agents, he went in person from city to city. If negotiations were to be carried on, he went straight to headquarters. This promptness and vigor took the British heart, which is never so completely won as by what shows extraordinary force of will ; and it is not too much to say that it was in great part owing to the personal interest thus created, that he secured the sympathy and support of the English government and the English people. Without that support he could not have succeeded, and hence he has been forward on all occasions to acknowledge it in the most gen- erous terms^ The address already referred to closed with this tribute to England, which he trusted, by the cable he had laid, was to be joined more closely to America. He said : > Of the results of this enterprise commercially and politically it is for others to speak. To one effect only do I refer as the wish of my heart that, as it brings us into closer relations with England, it may produce a better understanding between the two countries. Let who will speak against England ; words of censure must come from other lips than mine. I have received too much kindness from Englishmen to join in this language. I have eaten of their bread and drunk of their cup, and I have received from them, in the darkest hours of this enterprise, words of cheer which I shall never forget ; and if any words of mine can tend to peace and good will, they shall not be wanting. I beg my countrymen to remember the ties of kindred. Blood is thicker than water. America with all her greatness has come out of the loins of England ; and though there have been sometimes family quarrels bitter as family quarrels are apt to be still in our hearts there is a yearning for the old home, the land of our fathers ; and he is an enemy of his country, and of the human race, who would stir up strife between two nations that are one in race, in language, and in religion. I close with this sentiment : England and America, clasping hands across the sea : may this firm grasp be a pledge of friendship to all generations ! BftfCTOft L&raT$ A man who had carried through such an enterprise as this, might well feel that his work in life was done ; and yet Mr. Field was now not quite forty-seven years old, and a large part of his life was yet 126 before him. But the period of struggle was over; henceforth he was to enjoy the fruits of his labor. His life has since been one of compar- ative rest, and of unbroken prosperity. He has made repeated visits to England, and has been received with the distinction due to his great achievement. In 1864 he went to Egypt, as the delegate of the New York Chamber of Commerce, to be present at a preliminary or experi- mental opening of 'the Suez Canal. In 1874 he made a voyage to Ice- land. His enthusiasm for ocean telegraphy has led him to take an interest in the different submarine cables in the Mediterranean and in the East. Within the last few years he has devoted much of his thought and of his capital to the establishment in New York of the system of Elevated Kailroads, which have supplied a want long felt, and proved an inestimable blessing to the city. In November, 1880, he left New York with his wife for San Francisco, from which they sailed for Japan and China, and thence to India, so making the grand tour around the world. He has still one more dream of his life to lay a telegraphic cable across the Pacific, and thus complete the circuit of the globe. Mr. Field was married to Mary Bryan Stone of Guilford, Ct,, Dec. 2, 1840. They have had seven children : Mary Grace, born Get 10, 1841 ; Alice Durand, born Nov. 7, 1843 ; Isabella, born Jan. 27, 1846 ; Fanny Griswold, born Nov. 20, 1848 ; Arthur Stone, born Jan. 24, 1850, and died Aug. 20, 1854 ; Edward Morse, born July 4, 1855 ; Cyrus William-, born March 15, 1857. Mary Grace Field was married March 5, 1874, to Daniel Allen Lindley. They have had five children : Mary Grace Field, born Aug. 28, 1875 ; Alice Field, born April 24, 1877 ; Arthur Field, born Dec. 22, 1878 ; Allen Ledyard, born Sept. 14, 1880 ; and - - , born April 14, 1883. Isabella Field was married Oct. 10, 1865, to William Francis Judson, who died in Philadelphia March 4, 1870. They have had two children : Cyrus Field, born Feb. 19, 1867 ; William Francis, born Dec. 12, 1868. Fanny Griswold Field was married March 16, 1869, to James Bruyn Andrews at Pau, France, and on the following day at the United States Legation, Paris. They have one daughter : Fanny Field, born Jan. 12, 1870. Edward Morse Field was married June 4, 1877, to Miss Clara Louise Lindley. They have four children : Cyrus West (2d), born April 27, 1878 ; Edward Morse, born January 31, 1880 ; David Dudley (2d), July 9, 1881 ; and Woolsey Hopkins, born August 23, 1882. Cyrus William Field was married June 14, 1879, to Miss Susan Moore Andrews. They have one child, Mary Stone Field, born Feb. 10, 1882. 12 HENKY M. FIELD. To this point the task I have set to myself in this Family Record has been a pleasure. I have been walking slowly through a portrait gallery, looking up into the faces of my kindred faces so much, be- loved. It has been to me a sweet and pleasant office to write of those so dear to me, to trace the course of their eventful lives, and to pay the tribute of affection to their worth. And though sometimes the pleasure has been mingled with sadness, as I have had to write not only of the living, but of the dead, yet I have felt quickened by this kind of spiritual intercourse with those who have passed out of this world into the realm of the invisible. But all this inspiration is taken away when one comes to speak of himself. The extreme delicacy of such a thing would lead me to pass over my name entirely, were it not that the omission would leave a gap in this Record ; and so I must needs say somewhat, though I trust it may be in all modesty. Indeed I have not much to say. My life has not been an eventful one ; the quiet life of the student and the man of letters furnishes few incidents worthy of the notice of the world. But as this is not written for the public, but for our own little circle, per- haps in that narrow sphere this small history may preserve the mem- ory of some things on which it will be pleasant for those who survive me to linger when I am gone. My brother Cyrus was born in the late Autumn ; I in the early Spring. It was in April month of cloudy skies and frequent showers, when in New England the chill of Winter is not yet gone, and there is as yet little promise of the Spring that I came into the world April 3, 1822. Hardly had I begun to breathe when a missionary to the East, Rev. Mr. Bird of Syria, came to the house with his wife, and fifty years, after- wards she wrote to me that "an hour from my birth they knelt with my honored father a my bedside, and gave thanks for my safe arrival, and prayed that I might live to do good." Soon after my birth, my mother had one of her terrible sicknesses, and I had to be taken from her to the care of another. My brother Dudley, who was then at College, when he came home from his vaca- tion, wished to see his new brother, and found the stranger a mile 128 away, near the Hopkins Place, in the cabin of " Mumbet," the old col- ored nurse of whom I have spoken (p. 41). Nearly sixty years after he remembered distinctly how the little creature looked up and smiled in his face, already taking a cheerful view of life. Perhaps it was because I was watched over by this faithful black woman, that I have always felt such a tenderness for her race. She carried me to the old church on the hillside, and held me in her arms for baptism. My parents found a name for me in one of the spiritual heroes of the day. It was soon af- ter the beginning of modern Missions, and among the first to sacrifice his life in* this Christian heroism was one whose name awakened a pecu- liar enthusiasm. A graduate of the University of Cambridge, with the highest honors of scholarship, and the brightest prospects of prefer- ment in the Church of England, he had left all to devote himself to car- rying the Gospel into Asia, and embarked for India, and died a few years after in Persia, while yet in the prime of manhood. His genius, united with his devotion, invested him with a tender and admiring interest, which was heightened by his early death. He was regarded as the saint and martyr of the Church of England. The story of his life awakened a similar enthusiasm in America. And so, w r hen I was brought to be baptized, my father gave me the name of HENEY MAKTYN. Soon after my mother so far recovered that I could be taken back to her, and then my conscious life began. But who can undertake to tell at what moment and in what way he first became conscious of exist- ence ? We cannot see much further into the past than into the future. Looking back only a few years, all grows misty before our eyes, until they rest on a kind of nebulae, in which it is only by long gazing that we discover the first twinkle of life and of intelligence. I suppose we all feel before we think, and that my first consciousness came to me, as to others, as I lay in my mother's arms and looked up into her face* "Heaven lies about us in our infancy," and something better than the heaven of dreams, the heaven of love. Next to my father and mother, my earliest recollection is of my brother Cyrus. As he was the nearest to me in age, we grew up togeth- er ; and from childhood until I was twelve years old, when I went to College (he, a few months later, went to New York), we were insepara- ble. And yet never were two brothers more unlike. He was, as I have said, distinguished by a nervous restlessness and incessant activity ; while I was more quiet and slower in my movements. He was very fond of the out-door sports of the country, while I would rather be curled up in the chimney-corner with a book. My mother was fond of telling a story to illustrate the different temperaments 129 of her two youngest boys. We had our "stent" on Saturday after- noon to get in the wood for Sunday. Cyrus went to work with his usual energy, while I sat on the fence composedly looking on. He grew impatient, and called to me to jump down and hurry up with our task, which must be finished before we could go to play. "Why, Cyrus," said I demurely, "I am meditating." In this the child was father of the man. I have been " meditating" all my life, while my brother has bestirred himself to such good purpose that he has filled the world with the fame of his activity. But in our childhood's days there was hardly anything in which we were not together. Together we trotted off to school every morning ; together we went berrying or chestnuting in the woods. On the hill- side back of the village there, stood then a grove of hickory trees, where we gathered walnuts and set traps for squirrels. It was two lives in one, till years brought the inevitable moment of separation. Of our home life, of our family prayers token of that domestic piety which our parents made the law of the household and the strict Puritanism shown in the custom of observing Saturday night as a part of the Sabbath, I have spoken elsewhere (pp. 38-42). I have always counted it a favor of Providence that I was born in the country. To be brought up amid country scenes, to breathe the pure country air, to live a simple country life, is for the health of body and mind. Thus even a child may grow into a love of nature. The objects that the eye first rests upon are reflected in the mind, almost before consciousness begins. I found a pleasure which I could not explain in brooks and trees, in the stately elms that arched the village street, in the stream that murmured over its pebbled bed a few rods from my father's door ; and though my little life never went beyond the range of the encircling hills, yet it had in it the germs of what- ever has come from it since. From a child I was sent to school. The place of study was chiefly the " Old Academy " building. One term I spent at the Academy in Lenox, under the tuition of Mr. Hotchkin, a teacher who was noted all th3 country round for the thoroughness with which he drilled his pupils. So closely was I kept at study that at twelve years of age I was ready to go to College. That was much too early ; but as Stephen, who had come back from the East, had entered Williams the year before, my parents thought -it would be well to have me under his care, and so permitted me to go ; and accordingly I entered in the Fall of 1834. Williamstown was thirty-two miles from Stockbridge, which was a 130 pretty good day's journey in the old stage-coach, which lumbered up and down the long hills, or for my father, who often drove us up in his waggon. But if our progress was slow, what charming scenes did we have along the way ! Many years after I travelled over the road again, and wrote in a letter : " There is hardly to be found anywhere a more beautiful drive than that which I used to take in my young days from Stockbridge to Wil- liamstown. The road is continually winding among hills, climbing over gentle summits, and descending into soft green valleys, 'wan- dering by the brookside,' and by the river. How familiar seem all its winding ways ! Every turn recalls the time when it was trodden by my boyish feet. Yonder old, brown, weather-beaten house, mod- estly hiding its hospitable virtues under its low-stooping, gambrel roof, which shuts down like a broad-brimmed hat over an old man's honest face, seems to give me a knowing look out of its little win- dows under the eaves. As I see the long well-sweep swinging up and down, I long to alight and put the moss-covered bucket to my lips. How softly murmur the rills by the roadside, how mournfully wave the pines over my head ! It seems but yesterday since I came up that valley for the first time, to stand before the awful Professors and pass an examination." When I entered College I was so very young, and so small even for my age, that I went by the name o'f " Little Field. " The students gave me the diminutive title of " Parvus Ager," to distinguish me from my brother, who was " Magnus Ager." While I was but a boy, some of my classmates were men in age and in stature, and petted me for my extreme youth, often taking me under their cloaks to protect me from the rain or snow, as we went to morning prayers in the old Chapel. My first "public appearance " was in the Winter of 1835-6, when I was at home in vacation, and the minister of Tyringham invited me to give a Temperance address in his church. I had then risen to the dignity of a sophomore, and was almost fourteen years old ! The peo- ple smiled as they saw a boy, with cloth cap and roundabout, go up into the pulpit ; but as I had written out what I was to say, I read it off smoothly, and received a vote of thanks for the performance ! While in College I was very regular in attendance on all the required exercises. In not more than two or three instances was I absent from prayers or recitation throughout the whole course. I was graduated August 15, 1838, and had an oration at Commencement. Among my classmates were William Bross, afterwards Lieutenant-Governor of Illinois, and John Wells and James D. Colt, who became Judges of the Supreme Court of Massachusetts, and both of whom died while holding that high office. 131 During the last two years I had come under the instruction of Prof. Albert Hopkins, who, with Tutor Simeon H. Calhoun, afterwards a mis- sionary in Syria, took a kind interest in me. They became my religious teachers and guides. It was owing very much to their influence that I joined the College church in my senior year, and when I gradu- ated turned my attention to the profession of the ministry. It would perhaps have been better if I had stopped at this point for a year or two, to gather up the fruits of my College course, and fix them in my memory by teaching before passing on to other studies. But my father had removed the year before (1837) from Stockbridge to his second set- tlement in Haddam, Conn., which was not very far from East Windsor, where a new Theological Seminary had been recently established. Thus its doors were open to receive me, and so a month or two after leaving College I entered on the study of divinity. The Seminary course was three years, which were devoted to the Hebrew and Greek of the Old and New Testaments ; to Ecclesiastical History ; Natural and Eevealed Theology, which included the Eviden- ces of Christianity ; and to exercises in the writing of sermons, and to learning the practical duties of a pastor's life. Outside of my studies, I read a good deal ; and my favorite authors, strange as it may appear in a student of a Seminary which was ultra orthodox, were Dr. Channing, Edward Irving, and Orestes A. Brownson. I then began to read also Carlyle and Macaulay. In the Autumn of 1839, while at home in vacation, I was attacked with typhus fever, which proved the severest sickness I ever had. My brother Stephen was taken down at the same time, and mother went from one room to the other watching over us both. But his case was less dangerous than mine. For weeks my life hung by a thread, and a council of physicians thought I could not recover. But at length the crisis was passed, and I began to gain very slowly. It was not till January that I was able to return to the Seminary. It was the custom then for theological students to be licensed to preach at the end of their second year. I was licensed by the Asso- ciation of Middlesex County at a meeting in the old church in East Haddam, October 6, 1840, when I read a sermon from Acts xvii. 23: "As I passed .by and beheld your devQtions, I found an altar with this inscription, To the Unknown God. Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, Him declare I unto you." I was now a regularly licensed preacher at the age of eighteen, and during senior year " exercised my gifts " in the villages about East Windsor; and when I went home in vacation, father set me at work in the scattered districts of his large 132 parish. I graduated at the Seminary August 11, 1841, with an oration on "The Ministry favorable to the Highest Development of Mind," which had at least the advantage of a large subject, and so was after- wards expanded into an essay for The New Englander, where it was published in January, 1845. And now "the world was all before me where to choose." My brother Dudley advised my going to Germany to study a year or two longer, and offered to advance the money for it ; but father was fearful of the nationalism at German Universities, and thought I had better pursue my theological studies at home. For the benefit of further study, I went to ' New Haven to spend a fourth year, where I had the double advantage of attending scientific lestures in the College of Prof. Silliman on Geology, and Prof. Olmsted on Astronomy ; and at the same time the lectures of Drs. Taylor, Fitch, and Goodrich, in the School of Divinity. I boarded in Crown street, at the house of Dr. Murdock (so well known by his translation of Mosheim's Ecclesiasti- cal History), with three of the College tutors Powers, Strong, and Stoddard. They too were studying theology, and almost every evening we met at one or another's room to discuss some subject in divinity. How soon was that little group scattered ! In a year I was settled at St. Louis, and Strong in New Haven ; Powers had gone to Mobile for his health he died soon after ; and Stoddard had sailed for the East, as a missionary to the Nestorians. My going to St. Louis was a turning-point in my life, and I have always regarded it as a special Providence, for I barely escaped being settled in New England. I had been invited to preach at Fairhaven, opposite New Bedford, and did so for two or three Sundays to the acceptance of the people, so that they were about to hold a meeting to give me a call. The notice was to be read on a Sunday morning, when on Saturday afternoon the last mail brought a letter inviting me to St. Louis. A few hours later and my lot would have been cast in Eastern Massachusetts, on the sea coast instead of in the heart of the Great Valley. ^ HW'i 3