Page:Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography (1889, volume 6).djvu/375

Rh WALWORTH, Reuben Hyde, jurist and the last of the chancellors of New York state, b. in Bozrah, Conn., 26 Oct., 1788 ; d. in Saratoga Springs, N. Y., 27 Nov., 1867. He was the third son of Benjamin Walworth, who in the early part of the Revolutionary war was quartermas- ter of Col. Nicholl's New York regiment, and acted as adju- tant at the battle of White Plains. The family was original- ly of London, Eng- land, the American branch descending from William Wal- worth, who emigrat- ed from that city in 1671 and settled on Fisher's island, and afterward in New London, Conn. His father removed to Hoosick, N. Y., during the son's early childhood, where the latter acquired the mere rudiments of an educa- tion by great industry, and at the age of sixteen taught in a school. At seventeen he began the study of law at Troy, N. Y., and in 1809 he was admitted to the bar. In January, 1810, he settled at Plattsburg, N. Y., where he speedily rose to eminence in his profession, and in 1811 he was appointed a master in chancery, and one of the county judges. At the invasion of Plattsburg by the British army in September, 1814, Mr. Wal- worth, who since 1812 had held the post of adju- tant-general of the New York militia, was aide to Gen. Benjamin Mooers, and witnessed Com. Mc- Donough's battle and victory on the lake, having been deputed to watch the contest from the shore and report the result to his chief. He was a mem- ber of congress in 1821-'3, and in April of the latter year was appointed judge of the 4th judicial district of New York state, which office he held for five years. In October of the same year he re- moved to Saratoga Springs. He presided in his circuit until 1828, when he was appointed chan- cellor of the state of New York. This office he held for twenty years, when the new constitution of 1848 abolished the court of chancery. In 1828 he removed to Albany, but in the spring of 1833 he returned to Saratoga Springs and to his resi- dence at Pine Grove, where he remained until his death. Pine Grove (seen in the accompanying illustration) was for many years a much-fre- quented place, few residences in the land seeing more of the great celebrities of the country, es- pecially jurists and statesmen, among them De Witt Clinton, Martin Van Buren, Silas Wright, Daniel D. Tompkins, William L. Marcy, Francis Granger, William H. Seward, Stephen A. Douglas, Millard Fillmore, James Buchanan, Chancellor Kent, Judge Story, Washington Irving, Fenimore Cooper, and Gen. Winfield Scott. Chancellor Walworth may justly be regarded as the great artisan of our equity laws. In some sense he was the Bentham of America, without the bold specu- lations and fantastical theories which, to a certain extent, characterized the great British jurist. What Bentham did in removing defects in English jurisprudence Walworth did in renovating and simplifying the equity laws of the United States. Justice Story pronounced him " the greatest equity jurist living." Before his day the court of chan- cery in New York state was a tribunal of ill-de- fined powers and uncertain jurisdiction, in a meas- ure subservient to the English court of chancery in its procedure. Chancellor Walworth abolished much of that subtlety, many of those prolix and bewildering formalities which had their origin in the middle ages. He reduced the practice of his court to standard rules, which he prepared with great industry. These rules greatly improved the old system of equity practice, and though he has been charged with thus complicating the court of chancery with expensive machinery, it cannot be gainsaid that with Chancellor Walworth equity was the soul and spirit of law, " creating positive and defining rational law, flexible in its nature, and suited to the fortunes, cases, and reciprocal obligations of men." The contents of fourteen volumes of Paige and Barbour's " Chancery Re- ports," containing the adjudications in his own court, and a large part of the matter of the thirty- eight volumes of Wendell, Hill, and Denio's "Re- ports," consisting of the opinions he pronounced in the court of errors, attest his vast judicial la- bors. All widows and orphans in the state were wards of the court of chancery. The chancellor construed this tutelage in the most simple sense and acted accordingly. His wards had easy ac- cess to him without any formalities of red tape. He listened to their stories patiently, instituted inquiries after his own fashion, and often made some prompt order in their favor upon such in- formal appli- cation. Chan- cellor Wal- worth was of such a genial, winning man- ner that who- ever came in contact with him was at once placed at ease. He was also very be- nevolent, and was constant- ly looking about him for some deserving object upon whom to exercise his kindness. He was for many years an elder in the Presbyterian church, and took it upon himself to care especially for the poor of the congregation. He was an early and stanch friend of temperance, and for a long period was president of the American temperance union. He was also vice-president of the Bible society and the Tract society. Princeton gave him the degree of LL. D. in 1835. He was the author of " Rules and Orders of the New York Court of Chancery " (Albany, 1829 ; several revised eds.), and " Hyde Genealogy " (2 vols., 1864). — His son, Clarence Alphonsus, author, b. in Plattsburg. N. Y., 30 May, 1820, was graduated at Union college in 1838, and studied law, first at Canandaigua, N. Y., and afterward at Albany. He was admitted to the bar in July, 1841, and practised one year at Rochester. Afterward he was a student at the General theological seminary of the Protestant Episcopal church. New York city, for three years, and then, uniting with the Roman Catholic church, went to Belgium, spending three years with the Redemptionists, and at the College of Wittemberg, where he was ordained priest. He was then sent to England, taking charge, while there, of a new church at Upton on Severn, and acting as a missionary in London, Liverpool, and Manchester. He returned in March, 1850, and