Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 08.pdf/81

 62

influence in these respects were potent, no one doubts; but besides, he was gentle as a woman in his manners, — a mild admoni tion, if needed, taking the place of rebuke. One of the duties of tutor Choate was that of church monitor. One Monday morning all the absentees from church gave the equivocal excuse of " indisposed," adopting the word used by the first student called up and required to explain the cause of his non-attendance at church. At the end of the roll-call there was a profound silence; but after some pause the tutor said : " Young men, I never knew of so great an epidemic as this accompanied with so little mortality! Do not let it occur again! " As the class had just before this made their tutor the present of a beautiful rocking-chair, I doubt whether Longfellow or Carroll Everett could have turned the situation more neatly. In due time he was graduated with the class of 1823, and Dartmouth, chary of her honors, gave him in 1858 the honorary de gree of Doctor of Laws. His high standing and scholarship at his graduation so great ly impressed a leading member of the New York Bar, Mr. Daniel Lord, that he invited him to enter his office as a student, offer ing to lend him at the same time all the money needed to discharge the debts in curred in obtaining his college education; but the independent spirit of the young man compelled him to decline this generous offer; and he began teaching school, and later spent a year at Portsmouth as a jour nalist with Judge Levi Woodbury, who be came much attached to him, and would have gladly retained him as his partner. His strong desire to enter upon the pro fession of law outweighed all other induce ments held out to him, and he began its study first with Henry Hubbard, of Charlestown, N. H., and afterwards with Reuel Williams, of Augusta, Maine, where he was admitted to the Bar in 1826. Mr. Williams was one of the ablest real estate lawyers in his day and noted for his sound judgment.

This is the advice he gave the young lawyer, who had become a favorite by his close attention to study : — "Stick closely to your office, so that clients may always find you in, and make them pay even if obliged at times to sue for it; they may get mad, but will come back to you again; whereas, otherwise, they will not return, but employ another. When acting as referee, make up your award, and after notifying the party entitled to it, never deliver it, however wealthy he may be, until your fees as referee are paid." He began the practice, in 1826, at Orono, Penobscot County, then the center of exten sive lumber-manufacturing, and remained there until 1831, when he removed to Ban gor, where he ever after resided until he died. He at once formed a law partnership with the late Governor and Judge Kent, which, under the style of Kent and Cutting, continued seventeen years, and maintained a standing at the very head of the profession in Maine. Of this firm Chief-Justice Peters has recently said: "A very strong and en during mutual attachment existed between these two eminent and estimable men. They were very able lawyers, in somewhat differ ent ways. As a firm, the combination of character and ability was complete. They were afterwards, for fourteen years, asso ciated together upon the bench of the Supreme Judicial Court of Maine. Their judicial terms expired at nearly the same time; they were of about the same age, and died within a few months of each other. Both grew old gracefully, with but few wrinkles upon the face, and none upon the mind, consoled by those enjoyments that should accompany old age, ' as honor, love, obe dience, troops of friends.'" He was in active practice at the bar nearly thirty years, and soon came to the front rank among the very able lawyers in eastern Maine. Among his contemporaries then in full practice were, William Pitt Fessenden, who resided in Bangor a while; ex-