The Green Bag ’ January, 1911
Volume XXI I I
Number 1
Judge Robert Roberts Bishop BY JOSEPH T. BISHOP, or THE MASSACHUSETTS BAR UDGE BISHOP’S long life afiorded
breadth of view and faith in his fellows
many more than the ordinary num ber of noteworthy experiences, yet while
kept Judge Bishop intensely human and his close friendships and wide acquain tance made him in the best sense a practical man. The Judge’s life began during an important period of transition in our
his colleague, Judge Sherman, in his "Recollections of a Long Life," has
placed on record reminiscences of much interest to the public, Judge Bishop did
not leave even a. brief autobiographical sketch. His traits, however, will long be recalled, and his memory cherished by friends who once knew and loved him. Born in 1834, in the town of Medfield, Massachusetts, his father was a. lawyer and skillful practitioner, who, coming from Connecticut, married in 1817, Eliza,
the only child of Moses Bullen Harding. l-le successfully practised in Maine and
country's history; a time of rapid development. Whole groups of states
were then unknown and their resources unappreciated, but others were swiftly turning from rugged, often violent fron
tier settlements into bustling yet stable sections of country. The population, numbering between twelve and fifteen millions, was becoming less shifting and more steady of purpose, and as a result
the elder Bishop sitting as a justice of
there arose a desire which speedily led to open agitation in behalf of better political and economic conditions. On
the peace.‘ The legal atmosphere of the retired country home early had its
the one hand was the new Whig party, bitterly opposed to the financial views
eflect upon the boy, and after obtain
of Jackson and to his methods of political
ing a preliminary education be deter mined to read law; even at the immature
preferment; on the other hand, agitation against slavery began, and this move
Illinois, and there are those still living
who recall pleading in Medfield, before
age of sixteen years he argued cases in ment later crystallized into the Free Soil behalf of clients. To the study of the or Republican party. George Thompson, law and to its sound application he the English agitator, was beginning his gladly gave his mature years. Indeed lectures in New York, and friends of so constant were his efforts that if less internal improvements argued the rela broadminded he might have become too
tive merits of canals, railroads, and the
technical
turnpike system, their views Sounding
to be highly efiicient; but
‘judge E1)’ of 396m Municipal Court.
strangely primitive today.
