Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 02.pdf/475

432 prescribing for members of the bar in the intervals of judicial business, giving them recipes for the cure of corns, for making liquid blacking, and the like.

Judge Peters remained a member of the court until after the retirement of Judge Hosmer. As he was a strong Episcopalian and Tolerationist, it was feared that his prejudices might lead him to sustain certain attacks made in the courts upon funds established for the support of some of the old Congregational societies. His decisions were favorable to the societies. He used to say that the Congregational pastor in one of the towns where he held court, who usually made the opening prayer, never invoked the Divinity for blessings on the judge until after his favor able decision of one of these church cases, after which the pastor regularly and most fervently prayed for "thy sarvant the Judge."

JOHN D. PARK

Strange to say, when the first vacancy occurred in the Supreme Court after the ouster of the Federalists, one of the best known and most faithful of them, David Daggett, of New Haven, received the election. This was in 1826. He was first named by the House, and elected only after a strong effort by the Senate to substitute the name of Samuel Church, an Episcopalian and conspicuous Constitution-maker. In 1833 Judge Daggett was appointed Chief-Justice, although Judge Peters was the senior, but retained his position less than two years, reaching the constitutional limit of age in 1834. He was a graduate of Yale in the class of 1783, and until the overthrow of his party in 1819 was in active public service. He served in the Council eight years while that body was the Supreme Court, and was a Senator at Washington from 1813 to 1819. His distinguished bearing, the warmth and energy of his feelings, his keenness of mind and readiness of speech, and his thorough understanding of men and their impulses, made him one of the most successful advocates of his day, and caused him to be almost constantly employed before the courts when not engaged in public duties. His persistency even to the time of his death, in 1851, in retaining not only the ideas but also the dress of the old-school Federalists, helped to make him a conspicuous man in the popular eye. The white top-boots were an important part of the dress; and for many years Judge Daggett's boots were in great demand among his younger acquaintances on occasions of public display, appearing frequently in the military parades. He was a professor in the Yale Law School, in which connection a brief sketch and portrait of him have already appeared in the columns of the "Green Bag."

Thomas Scott Williams, Judge Daggett's successor as Chief-Justice, had already been a member of the court for five years, and remained at its head thirteen years, until disqualified by age in 1847. After his graduation at Yale he studied at the Litchfield Law School, and afterwards with Judge Swift,