probably none who—each at his prime—could have laid him on his back in a wrestle. The body matched the mind, and shared its strength and sturdiness.
"The leader of the New York Bar for twenty-five years. Bora in New York City, January 22, 1804; died at Nantucket, Massachusetts, May 12, 1884, aged eighty. He was the son of a shiftless Irish immigrant.
He had two months' schooling. Admitted at
twenty, he started for
himself with but twenty-five dollars,
having devoured every obtainable law-book. By his indefatigable industry, he was soon pitted against the leaders of the New York Bar. Some of his noted cases are: that of the slave Jack, in 1835; the will cases of Lispenard, in 1843; of Parrish, in 1862; and of Jumel (involving six million dollars), in 1872; the Lemmon slave case, in 1856; the defence of young Walworth for fratricide; Armstrong vs. United States; the great Forrest divorce suit, being opposed by John Van Buren and other eminent counsel, in which he won for the plaintiff-wife,
and acquired a national reputation; the Almaden Mining Company's case,
in which his argument was one of the greatest ever made in the United States Supreme Court; and the Goodyear rubber case. In 1848 he sympathized with the Irish uprising, and ran for Lieutenant-Governor of New York. He leaned greatly to the Southern cause during the war, acting as counsel for Jefferson Davis, and signing his bail-bond. Prosecuted,
without compensation, Tweed and his associates, 1871–75,
which eventually destroyed the ring in New York. He was nominated for President, 1872, against his will, by the anti-Greeley Democrats. Appeared, in 1877, for Samuel J. Tilden before the Electoral Commission.
"As a lawyer, he stood in the foremost place. His devotion to the law and his clients amounted to an overmastering passion. Although not a general reader, he was deeply read in law, but held that an hour's thinking is worth many hours of reading. His life was pure and spotless, his manner quiet, almost icy at times. He was a master special pleader, wonderfully self-possessed, a dogged worker, and understood every detail of his case. 'Possessed,' said Samuel J. Tilden, 'a more perfect knowledge of law than any lawyer in this country or abroad.'"—Life Sketches, Thoughts, Etc., of Eminent Lawyers, by Gilbert J. Clark, Vol. II.
