colleagues, Samuel E. Smith and Ebenezcr Everett, submitted a report to the legislature January I, 1840. The work embraced one hundred and seventy-eight chapters arranged under twelve titles, and constitutes the Re vised Statutes of 1841, being the first revision. He died December 31, 1840, at Portland, his burial place being marked by a marble monument with suitable inscriptions, erected by the Cumberland Bar. His portrait adorns the Supreme Judicial Court room at Port land. And now after the lapse of half a cen tury, the perusal of his record, like a sweet strain of some half-forgotten song, revives the memory of his beautiful and exalted char acter, and reminds us how well he served the state which he loved and honored.
ing, active man of varied experience through a long life. After a campaign or two in the old French war, prior to the capture of Quebec, he removed to Maine which then contained a small and scattered population. Before the Revolution, he was the owner of Abicadassit Point on the Kennebec River, where he resided, engaging principally in commerce, and sometimes furnishing masts for the king's ships from the fine timber of that region. Having removed to Augusta he became a public man, and served as a member of the House, Senate and Council of Massachusetts. Judge Weston's mother was Elizabeth Bancroft. She was a sister of the Rev. Aaron Bancroft, of Worcester, Mass., the father of the historian Bancroft. He often ascribed his thirst for knowledge and his as pirations in his literary and professional Nathan Weston, the second chief-jus tice, like Lord Tenterden and other eminent career to the influence of his mother, who jurists, is better known as a judge than as a had a strong and cultivated mind, imbued practicing lawyer. He was raised to the with piety. She impressed upon the minds bench before he had acquired a high repu of her children lessons of morality, truth, tation as a jury lawyer; but his eminent patriotism, devotion to the country, a strict Puritanical observance of the Sabbath and career of thirty years upon the bench evi dently demonstrates that his was the judicial inculcated the truth of God's word. temperament from birth, while he brought He fitted for college under the instruction to the discharge of his duties as judge, a of the learned and talented preceptor, high degree of scholarship and ample prep Samuel Moody, at the Hallowell Academy. Being industrious and quick to apprehend, aration. In passing, we may say that the believer he made great progress and was easily pro in heredity hardly needs to be reminded ficient both there and at Dartmouth College, that his grandson Melville Weston Fuller, where he maintained a high rank through Chief-Justice of the U. S. Supreme Court is out the course, and graduated with distin guished honors, in 1803, with a class of "to the manner born." Nathan Weston was born in that part of forty-four members. Hallowell which now constitutes the city of After spending a few months in the study Augusta, July 27, 1782. He was the of the law with Benj. Whitwell in Augusta, fourth in descent from John Weston, who he entered the office of George Blake, U. S. emigrated from Buckinghamshire in England District Attorney, in Boston, where he com twenty years after the landing of the Pilgrim pleted his studies, and was admitted to the Fathers at Plymouth, and finally settled at Suffolk Bar, July, 1806. In the office of Reading, Massachusetts, about twelve miles Mr. Blake, a learned lawyer, an able advo from Boston. The family was distinguished cate and a leader of the democracy, he had for their piety, and somewhat remarkable ample opportunity for instruction and im for longevity. His father was an enterpris provement.
