Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 04.pdf/267

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244
The Green Bag.

1819. He received his early education at a classical school, of which David MacNeice, an Irish scholar and patriot, was president, at Lansingburgh Academy, Waterford Academy, and grad uated from Union College at the age of eighteen. He was admitted to the bar, and soon obtained a prominent place in the front rank of the younger members of the profession. In 1848 Mr. Porter removed to Albany, and associated himself with Nicholas Hill, Jr., and Peter Cagger in the prac tice of the law. He was counsel during his life in many important cases, the most noteworthy being the trial of Guiteau, the assassin of President Gar field, in which he appeared for the people, and the Beecher trial, in which he was counsel for the defendant. In 1864 Mr. Porter was appointed a judge of the Court of Appeals, on the resignation of Judge Selden. At the next election he was re turned by the people. In 1868 he resigned from the Court of Appeals and resumed the practice of law. (We hope shortly to publish an extended sketch of Mr. Porter, with an excellent portrait. — Ed.) In the death of Hon. Willard Saulsbury, Chan cellor of the State of Delaware since 1873, and United States Senator from 1859 to 1871, the State of Delaware and whole country sustain a great loss. Chancellor Saulsbury was born in Mispillion-hundred, Kent County, Delaware, June 2, 1820. His early years were spent on his father's farm, and the rudiments of his education acquired at the schools in the vicinity of his home, near Burrsville. At thirteen years he was sent to an academy at Denton, remaining two years. He then spent one year as a student in Delaware Col lege, at Newark, and one year at Dickenson Col lege, Carlisle, Pa. At the age of about twenty years he became a student at law under the direc tion of James M. Bartol, late chief-justice of the courts of Maryland, and completed his legal studies in the office of Hon. Martin W. Bates, being admitted to the bar at Dover, Delaware, in April, 1845.

but his more advanced early studies were pursued at Charlotte Hall Academy, St. Mary's County, Maryland. Leaving the academy in his nineteenth year, he read law under the Hon. John Truman Stoddard, of Charles County, and afterwards at tended law lectures given by Henry St. George Tucker, chancellor of Winchester, who had a large class of students, among them Gov. Henry A. Wise, of Virginia, the Hon. Charles James Proctor, afterwards minister to France, and other promi nent men. Mr. Crain graduated in 1827, and began the practice of law in Port Tobacco, Charles County. His reputation as a lawyer was quickly established. In 1841 he was nominated, without his knowledge and consent, to the Legislature, and his election followed. Mr. Crain was appointed to his first judgeship in 1846, and served under the Governor's appointment until 1851. when, a new State constitution making the judiciary elective, he was elected, irrespective of party, to serve for ten years as judge for the First Judicial Circuit, com prising Charles, St. Mary's, and Prince George's counties. After the death of Judge Cochrane, of the Court of Appeals, Judge Crain was appointed his successor. Judge Crain afterwards, in 1867, retired from the bench, and resumed his law prac tice until 1878, when he retired.

Hon. Charles D. Drake, late Chief-Justice of the Court of Claims, died in Washington, April 1. He was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, April 11, 1811. His education was received in the ordinary schools of Ohio and Kentucky, except a period of fourteen months, in 1823-24, spent in St. Joseph's College, Bardstown, Ky., and eight months in a military academy of Middletown, Conn. In May, 1833, he was admitted to the bar in Cincinnati. In 1834 he moved to St. Louis, but in June, 1847, he returned to Cincinnati. July, 1849. he was ap pointed treasurer of the board of foreign missions of the Presbyterian Church, which position he held till October, 1850, when he returned to St. Louis and resumed the practice of law. In 1859 he was elected a member of the Missouri House of Representatives, and in 1863 a member of the Hon. Peter Wood Crain, ex-judge of the Cir Missouri State convention A year later he was cuit Court of the First Judicial District, Maryland, j elected a member of the new convention to revise and ex-member of the Maryland Court of Appeals, the Constitution of Missouri, of which body he was died in Baltimore on March 30. He was born vice-president. In January, 1867, he was elected Jan. 9, 1806. He received his elementary edu United States Senator from Missouri for six years; cation in the common schools of the county; j but in December, 1S70. he resigned this position