THE SUPREME COURT OF VERMONT.
IV.
By Russell S. Taft.
Titus Hutchinson with his father's family, on the memorable 4th of July, 1776, began his journey to Pomfret, Vt. The opportunities for schools at that time were limited; he labored upon the farm until past his nineteenth birthday, when he began his preparations for college, and in the second summer thereafter was prepared to enter Dartmouth two years in advance; but as the rules of the college exacted tuition for the full course, which his family deemed unjust, he went to Princeton College, N.J., where he graduated with honor in two years, delivering the English salutatory oration, placed as second among the honorary appointments. He was admitted to the Bar at Chelsea in this State. He soon after appeared at Woodstock, and "professing him skilled and learned in the law, publicly erected on the corner of the street a sign with the words, Law Office, by T. Hutchinson, inscribed thereon." His only competitor at Woodstock was Charles Marsh, cousin of the celebrated Jeremiah Mason, a most excellent and ready lawyer, an accurate classical scholar withal, with wit and sarcasm, wielding weapons of the keenest edge and finest finish, and the leader of the Vermont Bar; practicing with such a man as a competitor made Mr. Hutchinson an excellent lawyer.
In 1813 he was appointed by President Madison, United States Attorney for the Vermont District, and retained the office about ten years. Upon the reorganization of the Supreme Court in 1825, he was elected second assistant. In 1830 he was elected Chief Judge, and served until 1833.
During the session of the Legislature of this year, there was considerable opposition to his re-election. In April, 1830, he presided at the murder trial of one Cleveland, at Irasburgh, Judge Paddock of the Supreme Court sitting with him, as the statute then required two judges of the Supreme Court present at every capital trial. Cleveland was convicted, and although there were many exceptions taken upon the trial and allowed by the Court, he was sentenced to be executed on the last Friday of the next October, some five months before the session of the Supreme Court at which his exceptions could be heard. The error was corrected at the next session of the Legislature, which met the first part of October, and Cleveland's sentence was commuted to imprisonment in the State prison, but the blunder made by the Chief Judge was urged with great effect against his re-election. There were other matters which affected the election. One of the assistants, Charles K. Williams, had served as judge of the Supreme Court prior to the election of Mr. Hutchinson, and had he been in service when the court was reorganized, would undoubtedly have been continued as judge, when he would have outranked Mr. Hutchinson; Williams's name was earnestly pressed for the Chief Judgeship, and he was elected by three majority in a total vote of 233.
After this election, Mr. Hutchinson lived in retirement till the close of his life, occasionally engaging in the duties of his profession and laboring upon his farm. In the earlier part of his life he was eminently a popular man, and might easily have secured any preferment within the gift of the people.
He was often solicited to become a candidate for Congress, but steadily refused. He early became an abolitionist, and was a
