Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 06.pdf/52

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The Supreme Court of Vermont. in connection with its admission as agent and delegate to Congress, and was one of the commissioners to settle the controversy with New York. For thirty years he was constantly engaged in the service of the public; as described by Hiland Hall, " He was a man of good private character and highly respectable talents, of accomplished manners and insinuating address; his fasci nating personal qualities acquired for him, at an early day, the sobriquet of ' Jersey Slick,' by which he was long designated in familiar conversation. He was a Federal in politics, and his popularity was such that he was elected Governor several successive years, when his party had become the mi nority one. He left no descendants. It was inconvenient for the Court to have but one clerk, rendering it necessary for him to attend every session of the court in every county; an act was passed in November, 1792, making it the duty of the Court to ap point one clerk of the court in each of the counties. In 1794 it was found that the time lim ited for the sitting of the court, of but one week in each county, was insufficient for completing the business, and the times and places for the annual sessions were changed, so as to allow a longer time in most instances. ENOCH WOODBRIDGE, a native of Berk shire Co., Mass., graduated at Yale in 1774. He served in the commissary department of the Continental service during the Revolu tion. At the close of the war he became a resident at Vergennes, of which city he was the first mayor, and represented it in the Assembly from 1791 until his election as judge in 1794, and was again chosen repre sentative at the first election after his judi cial services ended. He was a delegate in the Constitutional Convention of 1793. He accepted the election as judge in 1794 in a letter in which he writes to the. Speaker of the Assembly, " I feel, sir, as if the lives, liberties, and properties of my fellow citizens were in some degree committed to

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my charge; I feel it, sir, as a heavy charge, but hope, by the aid of Divine Providence and good counsel of my fellow citizens, I may be enabled to discharge the duties of the office to general satisfaction." He continued judge until 1801, serving the last three years as Chief. Lot Hall. — Of the early days of this judge but little is known; he was appar ently a good scholar and one who made good use of the opportunities offered him. He was born in the Cape Cod country, and was an earnest and' enthusiastic patriot at the very beginning of the struggle of the colonies with the mother country. South Carolina, attempting to make her maritime position secure, early endeavored to protect herself by armed vessels: in May, 1776, young Hall, with enlistment orders from Lieutenant Payne, who was in command of a gun-ship lying at Charleston in that state, enlisted twenty-nine men and a boy, in Barnstable County, Mass., to take to Charles ton. At Stonington, Conn., he purchased six small cannon, and at Providence obtained a schooner of about fifty tons and sailed for his cannon, but his vessel proving unservice able, he procured another called the Eagle, and immediately fitted her out with provi sions and stores, and with Lieutenant Payne in command, Hall acting as lieutenant, put to sea in June, intending to go to Charles ton and join the Randolph, commanded by Captain Cochrane. At the beginning of the expedition, three prizes were taken, the Venus, Caledonia and another, name unknown; these were taken to Boston, and as the Eagle was convoying her prizes, she captured the ship Spears, from the Bay of Honduras bound for Glas gow. The Spears was short of provisions and they transferred to her all the provisions on board both the Eagle and the vessels in convoy, and Lieutenant Hall, as prize mas ter, took command of the Spears, with orders to keep company with the Eagle; the latter reached Boston, but the vessels were sepa