Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 07.pdf/602

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.

The Supreme Court of Maine. present, the Judge began to ask about the club, its efforts to re-stock the pond with fish, and finally asked, " Are they having a good time? " Said honest Sam, " Yes, they be." Then said Judge Walton, " I'll excuse you till the next term. I wish I could be there myself." The following pen-portrait is appended for the reader's benefit, sketched during the Judge's late session in York County : — "A man tall and spare, five feet and eleven inches perhaps, erect and dignified carriage, high, bold frontal development, thin gray locks, carefully combed, a long, narrow, iron-gray whisker and moustache, dark blue eyes, rather small, sallow complexion, and large, knotty hands. Dressed in' priestly black with coat of the regulation Prince Al bert pattern, his costume is complete with a high standing collar and four-in-hand black tie. In the examination of books, docu ments, etc., a pair of spectacles lend added dignity to his rather pleasant features, and when upon the street a high silk hat of extreme glossiness adds not a little to the judicial whole of the man." In 1885 he was honored with a degree of LL.D., by Bowdoin College. LUCILIUS ALONZO E.MERY, the second as sociate justice, was born at Carmel, Penob scot County, Maine, July 27, 1840. He is the only son and first-born of James and Eliza (Wing) Emery. His father removed to Hampden in 1850 and was prominent as a merchant, ship-builder and town officer. On his mother's side the family is noted for their love of intellectual pursuits and for longevity. Having fitted for college at Hampden Academy, he entered Bowdoin College, where he was graduated in 1861, with a class distinguished for its members becoming eminent as college presidents, professors, soldiers and lawyers. He began reading law with Hon. A. W. Paine, Bangor, an old, distinguished practitioner, and was admitted to the Penobscot Bar in August,

559

1863. In the following October he opened an office in Ellsworth, Hancock County, where he has ever since resided. His sound legal attainments and ability in the trial of cases were soon recognized, for he was elected county attorney in 1866, and before the expiration of his term, in 1868, he was invited by Hon. Eugene Hale, then entered upon a Congressional career, to become his partner. This partnership lasted fifteen years and was dissolved only by the pro motion of Judge Emery to the bench of the Supreme Judicial Court. Besides a fine practice, in the meantime he was a member of the Maine Senate in 1874—75, and in 1876 was elected attorney-general of the State by the Legislature, and serving the State as such the next succeeding three years. He was again eleeted, in 1880, to the State Senate, and during the session of 1881-82 served as chairman of the joint committee on the judiciary, the leading committee in the Legislature. In the fall of 1883, he was so generally recommended by the Bar of the State, that Governor Robie appointed him an associate justice. His appointment bears date October 5, 1883, thus succeeding Judge Peters, who had be come the Chief-Justice. In 1889 he was elected professor of medical jurisprudence in the Maine Medical School at Bowdoin College, a chair formerly filled by ChiefJustice Tenney and the late Judge Charles W. Goddard. His legislative labors and experience are notable for his efforts to ameliorate and simplify the law and to extend the equity powers of the court. His extensive practice had well fitted him, and he had the rare courage, for a lawyer, to attempt and carry through the changes which seemed to him to be required. During his first year in the Senate, he procured the enactment of a bill permitting the amendment of writs to cure the misjoinder or nonjoinder of plaintiffs. It remains a part of the permanent legisla tion of the State, and is embodied in R. S.,