Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 08.pdf/80

 The Supreme Court of Maine.

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THE SUPREME COURT OF MAINE. V. By Charles Hamlin.

THE original design of these articles has now been accomplished. It consisted in a sketch of the early courts of Maine, extending down to the present system, with brief memoirs of the Chief Justices who have presided in the Supreme Judicial Court, and its associate justices who now occupy that bench. As references have been made to other associate justices who, during the past forty years, were on the same bench, and by their exalted character and abilities have helped to make a large part of the judicial history of the State, their reputation and influence extending beyond its limits, I am impressed with the belief that their memoirs will prove interest ing and agreeable reading. For this pur pose I have selected five judges before whom I have practiced, and with a part of whom I was associated as Reporter of De cisions. They are Jonas Cutting, Edward Kent, William Wirt Virgin, Charles Danforth and Artemas Libbey. Jonas Cutting, son of Jonas and Betsey (Eames) Cutting, was born in Croydon, N. H., November 3, 1800, and died in Bangor, Maine, August 19, 1876, being nearly seventy-six years old. His father, son of Francis Cutting, came from Worcester, Mass., and settled early in Croydon, on the banks of Sugar River, near the Newport line. Two brothers, Benjamin and Jonathan, came to Croydon at the same time. The descen dants of the three brothers are still residents of Sullivan County. Some of them retain the family trait of wit and humor. One of them, Jonathan, son of Jonathan, an active and worthy deacon in the Baptist church, in the adjoining town of Newport, labored for a man whose love of gain required his hands to be up, eat breakfast, and be miles

away to the woods with an ox-team before light. Wishing to give his employer a gentle hint that he was asking too much of his workman, he did so, when asked to pray one morning, in this wise : " We thank thee, O Lord, that thou hast brought us in safety thus far through the night; and if in thy providence we are permitted to see the light of another day, may we go forth to its duties with a cheerful heart and in thy fear," etc. The next morning he was permitted to eat his breakfast by daylight. Jonas Cutting was prepared for college mostly under the tuition of Otis Hutchins, principal of Kimball Union Academy in Plainfield, and entered Dartmouth College in 18 19. When he left home to enter col lege his father was unable to spare his horse from work longer than would take him half the way, and the latter portion of the dis tance between his home and Hanover he traveled on foot, with his feather-bed and other outfittings in a pack upon his back. In this act of self-reliance and determination may be seen upon what foundation rested his success both in college and in after-life. He was graduated with first honors, and excelled his class-mates in Greek. His college-life and experiences were often a theme of pleasant recollections and talk; and he used to recur to them in the presence of those with whom he was familiar. As he recalled those times, I think his most precious reminiscence was that Rufus Choate was his tutor, and that he gained his respect and esteem, which lasted as long as that world-renowned advocate lived. He de lighted too in praising his tutor's wonderful scholarship and the ease with which he im parted to all the class an ambition to be come fine scholars. That his sway and