The Supreme Court of New Jersey. In this way Mr. Elmer was enabled to secure a large part of his clientage, after he was licensed. He finished his studies in 1805, after a course of five years, then required by the rules of the Supreme Court. In 1808 he received his counsellor's license, and in 1828 was made a sergeant-at-law. The removal of John Moore White to Woodbury was of mate rial service to Mr. Elmer in his practice. He himself, at one time, contemplated a removal to another field; but, fortunately for his future, he relinquished the idea and remained at Bridgeton, where he lived all his life. He very soon obtained a large practice, but it was not of a character greatly 'to extend his knowledge of the abstruser principles of the law. His business was largely that of a collec tion lawyer, and his studies were necessarily confined to such cases as he was compelled to try, arising from that character of business. He was not a well-read lawyer, in the accepta tion of that phrase as applied to the knowl edge of legal principles gained from general study. He examined all the cases within his reach, which were applicable to any suit he might have in hand. This, of course, did not fit him to grapple with every ques tion which might meet a judge, in the dis charge of the varied duties of his office, but it did prepare him admirably for any case in which the principles of mercantile law were involved. In 1841 he was made an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, in the place of Judge Dayton. He was not a candidate for the position; but he was a Whig in poli tics, and that party was in power. Daniel Elmer was a man of influence and power, a respectable lawyer; and it was shrewdly sur mised, at the time, that political reasons en tered into the action of the Legislature which elevated him to the bench. It ought, I
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however, to be said that he was not a poli tician scheming for office, although decided in his views. He took the office rather re luctantly, for more reasons than one; one of which, perhaps, was the consciousness that his training at the bar had not fitted him for the full performance of the duties of judge. He certainly did not come up to the full re quirements of the position, but he made a very respectable officer. His opinions, while not evincing any great learning, are marked by good sense and sound reasoning. His ability as a lawyer and a judge was fully tested in the trial of Singleton Mercer, who was indicted for slaying Hutchinson Heberton. The offence was committed on the ferry-boat plying between Philadelphia and Camden. Heberton was charged by Mercer with having seduced his sister, and was murdered in revenge for the wrong. The trial created intense excitement; Mer cer was defended by the ablest counsel, and the public sentiment was strongly in favor of the defendant. Judge Elmer presided in the Oyer and Terminer, assisted by lay judges. He soon ascertained that the feeling which so generally pervaded the community had reached his Associates on the bench. The defendant was acquitted, notwithstanding a strong though impartial charge from the head of the court. In 1844 the Constitutional Convention was convened, and Judge Elmer was honored by being sent as a delegate from Cumber land County. After the convention had finished its labors, he was obliged, in con sequence of failing health, to resign his office as judge. His great activity of life induced an attack of apoplexy from which he never recovered. He died in 1848, universally respected.
