Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 11.pdf/545

 5o8 conscientious in the discharge of every duty, during several terms in the State senate, and and a man whose heart was open to every was, in 1833, elected to the circuit bench. sympathy for the wants and sufferings of his In 1838, he was elected to the United States Senate to succeed Judge Black, who had re fellow-men." signed. Before taking his seat, Judge Trotter Daniel W. Wright was a native of Tennes see, was reared and educated in Alabama. resigned his place in the United States Sen ate, and was appointed to the Supreme He was an able advocate and possessed pow ers of oratory, but never wrote an opinion bench of his State, to fill the vacancy caused during his service of five years on the bench. by the resignation of Justice Wright. He He resigned in 1838, and retired also from the was in 1839 elected by the people to the

bar, and died a few same position -for the term of six years later. years, but resigned Publius Rutilius in 1842 and re Rufus Pray, a native sumed the practice of the Stateof Maine, of law in Holly and a ripe scholar, Springs. In 1S6o began the practice he was elected to of law in Hancock the chair of law in county. He was the University of president of the con Mississippi and stitutional conven served there for two tion of 1832. He years. On the re was elected to the organization of the bench in 1837 and courts in 1866 he held the position was elected to the until his demise in 1839. "Mr. Pray circuit bench and resided at Pearlingdied a few months ton, near the sea later. He was a law coast, where lands yer of marked abilwere held mainly ityand much culture, under old French and was devoted to and Spanish grants. his profession. He attended the Joseph S. B. H. H. CHALMERS. courts in New Or Thacher was a na leans and thus ac tive of Massachu quired a taste for the civil law." He was setts and was reared and educated in Boston. empowered by the legislature in 1833 to Mr. Lynch says: "He was a descendant of revise the statutes of the State. In doing Oxenbridge Thacher, who was employed in the work he was "ambitious of originality" connection with James Otis, by merchants of and caused the code "to smack too strongly Boston, in 1761, to defend them against the of the Roman law." This displeased the Writs of Assistance, and whom John Adams disciples of Coke and the proposed code was says the advocates of the Crown hated more rejected. than they did Otis or Samuel Adams." In James F. Trotter, a Virginian by birth, 1833, Mr. Thacher, attracted by the fame of removed first to Tennessee, and thence to Prentiss and others, settled in Natchez, and Monroe county, Mississippi. He served soon acquired a lucrative practice.