XI.
FABENS PROMOTED TO HONOR.
In four years more, the Waldron Settlement had grown to quite a colony; for the area of civilization extended from the Cayuga to the Owasco, and ten miles north and south; and though the population numbered several hundred families, and the inroads of fashion and pride began to be perceptible there, still it remained a neighborhood; and with few exceptions, the people exchanged neighborly offices and loves throughout the settlement.
The inhabitants now felt the importance of their flourishing community, and made a movement to be organized into a township, and have town officers, and better regulations. That movement was successful, and the town took the name of Summerfield, and a warm and summer-green town it was as the Lake Country had to show.
Walter Mowry was elected the first Supervisor, and Matthew Fabens, the first Justice of the Peace.
At this late period, public offices are so plenty, and so often held by persons whose devotion to party, or whose failure in other pursuits is their only recommendation, that the plain and humble office of Justice of the Peace receives little respect, and would find few candidates, but for the lucrative interests which induce many to ask it. It was not so, forty years ago in the Lake Country. At that primitive period, that responsible office was given to no one who had not moral qualifications to recommend him; and the person who held it was honored as possessing capabilities equal to his duties, and holding along with these the affection and faith of the town.
When the organization was first proposed, and the several offices were named, the eyes of the settlement, with two or three exceptions, were turned to Fabens, as the man best qualified to administer justice and peace among them; and to elect him to that station was simply to say 'thus shall it be with the man whom we delight to honor.'
Of written laws, and their points and subtleties, Fabens confessed himself ignorant. Coke and Blackstone were never on his shelves. He had read a stray leaf from Hooker, and these words were incorporated as so many notes of divine music in his soul—"No less can be said of Law, than that her seat is the bosom of God, her voice is the harmony of the world. All things in heaven and earth do her homage; the very least, as feeling her care; the greatest, as not exempted from her power. Both angels and men, and creatures of whatsoever condition, though each in different sort and manner; yet each and all with uniform consent admiring her as the mother of their peace and joy;"—and this was his idea of law, and about all he had gathered on law from books.
And as for the responsibilities committed to his trust, he fain would have refused them, and proposed another candidate for the office; but knowing the simple principles of justice; having a heart attuned to the harmony of earth and heaven; having Peace as an angel dwelling in his soul; knowing and loving what was right and lovely between man and man, he discharged his duties with distinguished success, and his influence went far to lift up his people to the light and sphere of spiritual peace.
He still carried on the labors of his fine farm, with the duties of his office, and made his own private house the seat of that justice which once in a long while he was compelled to search out and sustain.
The manner and spirit of his administration were therefore patriarchal, as those which the poet describes of the venerable Albert, of Wyoming; and to the present day, traditions are preserved, and incidents related in that peaceful town, which prove the practical wisdom and eminent justice of "Old Squire Fabens."
Those early and eager pioneers of new countries, the lawyers, found their way to Summerfield; that is, two or three unruly members of the profession, while yet Squire Fabens held the wand of peace. They had not been long there, however, before they joined Troffater, Adonijah Nixon, and Simon Bogle, to oppose his administration; and made very desperate efforts to elect another in his stead.
As for the lawyers, we are not at all surprised by their opposition. He destroyed their business, and they played as checks and interruptions of that harmony to which his life was tuned. And as for the troublesome little bandy Troffater, his ill-will was expected, as a real compliment to the wisdom and justice of the magistrate. We have heard of an Irishman at Donnybrook Fair, who was likely to be disappointed of his addicted battle, finding no one to answer his challenge; and who cried to the crowd, "I'll thank any gentleman, just once to tread on the tail o' my coat, that my sport may begin!" A similar character was Tilly Troffater, and never more thankful was he than when opportunity encouraged his quarrelsome mood; and never more amazed or provoked at the manner in which the laws were administered, than when his broils were suppressed while rising, and his litigations closed as soon as he began them.
The hardest thing, under heaven, did it seem for a lawsuit to make any progress, while Matthew Fabens was Justice of the Peace, in Summerfield. Pestilent Tilly was always scheming to provoke such evils, and was always threatening his neighbors with a lawsuit. Sometimes he would come post-haste for a warrant, or summons, or attachment; again, he would be in hot distress to swear his life was in danger, or his squalid character was at stake; or his neighbor's pigs had rooted up a few weeds in his garden, or some mischievous boy had thrown a stone through a paper pane of his window; or mounted his most personable scare-crow on his chimney-top, arrayed in a potato necklace, and holding a dead snake in hand; or he had secrets to disclose which would reveal astounding villanies, that threatened the peace of the town.
But it had always been his misfortune to fail of his designs. Not a scrap of a warrant or other process could he obtain. Not the lisp of a word or oath would the good Squire take from his lying lips. "Get rid of your passion; go home, and work, and help me keep the peace," was Fabens' reply to all quarrelsome fellow-citizens.
And yet, the happy fortune to sustain his long administration, without having to confess a case of law had been brought to trial before him, was not reserved for Squire Fabens. Numberless little difficulties had been dragged into notice by three or four uncomfortable bodies, who sought the excitement of a quarrel to rally the lagging pleasures of indolence; and a few of these demanded his attention. But he had ever found it for the good of the parties in trouble, as for the general welfare, and his own satisfaction, to calm the raging waters of passion, by counsel, kind and wise; reconcile the antagonists, and bring them to an amicable peace, without the sifting of testimony, and the labors of litigation.