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 The Green Bag VOL. XVJII.

No. 2

BOSTON

FEBRUARY, 1906

WHEELER H. PECKHAM BY J. NOBLE HAYES ANOTHER great legal light, which had was habitually stern and wore a mark of burned steadily and brightly for half austerity, it was susceptible of instanta a century at the New York Bar, went out, neous illumination and the glow of kindly when Wheeler H. Peckham, the " Old feeling and humor. He gave at once the Roman of the Bar," as he was called, died, impression of being a mettlesome creature, in harness, on the 27th of October last at highly and delicately organized, with all his the desk where he had labored during so rugged strength. The color never forgot its many years of his useful and noble life. way to his cheeks. He looked, as he was, Mr. Carter, his life-long friend, full of a true American gentleman of the old honor and years, had preceded him but a school, and every inch 'the thoroughbred — few months, and Mr. Peckham's memorable a personality never to be forgotten. eulogy delivered at the Appellate Division He was born in Albany, January i, 1833; of the Supreme Court upon his dead friend his father being Rufus Wheeler Peckham, was still fresh in the memory of those who one of the foremost jurists of his day, a heard it, when the announcement of Mr. member of the Court of Appeals of the State Peckham's death bereft the legal profession of New York, justly honored for the probity of the country of another of its great leaders, and independence of his character and his not less beloved and honored. devotion to the duties of his high office. To attempt to give any adequate account Mr. Peckham's mother, Caroline A. Peckof the Jong and active life of such a man, ham, was a daughter of Dr. William B. devoted as it was to the absorbing duties Lacey, former rector of Saint Peter's Par of his profession and to the public service, ish in the City of Albany. Judge and Mrs. or to record its achievements, or to measure Peckham perished on the steamer Ville de its great influence, in the brief limits of a Havre, which sank in mid-ocean in Novem magazine sketch, would be presumptuous in ber, 1873. But the story of the heroism of deed. The most that will be attempted here Judge Peckham and his wife in their last will be to sketch briefly its merest outlines, moments upon the sinking deck of the illreferring to some of his great cases, and to fated ship, survived the wreck. His memo recall for the moment the marked character rial will be found at the end of the 53d New istics of Mr. Peckham as a lawyer, a citizen, York Reports. In the Resolution presented by the Bar and a man. In writing of Mr. Peckham, one recalls, of the State upon Judge Peckham's death first of all, his striking and distinguished and adopted by the Court, we find this personality. He was above the medium encomium upon the father of Wheeler H. height, gracefully and compactly built, erect, Peckham : "We find some consolation in the belief broad of shoulder, with a massive and welldeveloped head of great power. His strong that during the short interval between aristocratic face possessed beauty of feature apparent security and certain death, he and nobility of expression, and although it viewed the frightful situation with character