retained the facts developed in the testi mony; with unusual quickness of percep tion, he rapidly seized upon the salient points at issue, and then, disentangling the mass of facts which encumber a case and distract attention, selecting those upon which a right decision of the case depends, applying to them with clearness and precision the prin ciples of law applicable thereto, without in terfering with their province, he aided the jury in aiming at the great end for which alone they exist — a just determination of controverted facts. He was a learned man. Of studious habits, he early made himself master of the law. The quaint and rugged style and the vast and antiquated learning of Coke, the clas sical pages of Blackstone, the dark mysteries of special pleading, almost forgotten or dimly remembered by the bar in these days of innovation, and the principles of com mercial law, the grand product of modern civilization, were alike at his command" . . . Of his opinions says the same writer, " he discussed the questions involved with abun dant research and ample learning, stating the questions for determination with preci sion, laying down the legal principles upon which the case must rest with a purity and elegance of diction which Addison might almost have envied, and with a strength of argument which carried conviction." His opinions extending through the first twenty volumes of the Maine Reports, ex hibiting a comprehensive knowledge of the law, are always clear to the point. They are the daily resort of the profession, and, while like Lord Eldon's, not adding much to the law, they are lucid expositions. A good example may be seen in Cram v. Ban gor House Prop'rs, 12 Maine, 354, in which a corporation was held bound by the acts of its agent, acting within the scope of his em ployment, but with a seemingly deficient execution of his power. Many of them are not less distinguished for their elevated moral tone than for their sound legal logic.
In social life, the charm of his conversa tion and the amiability of his disposition he retained to the day of his death, which took place in 1872 at the extreme age of ninety years. While he was not much given to a display of wit, he exhibited flashes of shrewd humor, the want of which, as Prof. Irving Browne well says, " is a serious defect in the human character." The tender of quite a large sum of money was once made to him to redeem a mortgage which he held in trust for another party, and for whom he was surety upon a note. The gentleman making the tender offered to carry the money for the judge and deliver it to the benefi ciary, if he so desired — saying the burden of so much money might be irksome, etc. With a twinkle in his eye, the judge replied : "Whenever I have put my name for this party to a piece of commercial paper, whether as maker, payee, indorser, drawer, surety, joint-promisor, guarantor, or other wise, I have not failed to observe that I had to pay it. This is the first time I ever knew the money to come the other way. No, sir, thank you! I will keep it myself."
Ezek1el Whitman, the third chief-jus tice, was born in East Bridgewater, Mass., March 9, 1776, and died there August 1, 1866. His first American forefather, John Whitman, came to this country about the year 1635, and settled at Weymouth. His descendants were remarkable for their lon gevity. John, a great-grandson of the founder, died in 1842, at the extreme age of one hundred and seven years. The tenac ity of life of others was equally notable. Twelve great-grandchildren of Thomas, John's eldest son, lived to the average age of eighty-eight and two-thirds years. Josiah Whitman, second, the father of Ezekiel, married Sarah, daughter of Caleb Sturtevant, of Halifax, Mass., a lineal descendant of El der Robert Cushman of Plymouth. Both parents died during the early childhood of
