Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made

by James Dabney McCabe

CHAPTER XXVI.

JAMES T. BRADY.

The father of James T. Brady was born in Ireland, and came to this country during the second war with England, and just after his marriage. Mr. Brady opened a school for boys, in New York, soon after his arrival, and it was in that city, on the 9th of April, 1815, that his eldest son, JAMES TOPHAM BRADY, was born. Other children followed, there being seven in all, two boys (James T., and Judge John R. Brady) and five girls. Mr. Brady, senior, was a man of rare abilities, and his wife was a woman of great personal beauty and high character, "one of those mothers," says a distinguished gentleman, who knew her, "whose quiet virtues shed their blessed influence over families, and are felt so long in their durable effect upon children."

James T. Brady grew up with a sound, vigorous constitution, and at an early age was put at his studies in his father's school. He was only seven years old when he began, and though so young, he worked hard, storing his "big head"—which seemed too big for the little feet below it—with knowledge. He endeared himself very greatly to his school-fellows, and formed with several of them friendships which continued through life. "He was so noted," says one of his former school-fellows, "for his loving kindliness as a boy, that it almost obliterates every other recollection." His amiable traits developed with his years. He always delighted in acts of kindness, and could never bear to give pain, even to the most insignificant animal or insect. He detested hunting and fishing, which he regarded as a needless sacrifice of life. Yet while so tender and gentle in his disposition, he was brave and fearless, unusually independent, and, above all, as mirthful and fond of a jest at fifty as at sixteen.

Before he had completed his education, his father abandoned the profession of teaching for that of a lawyer, and young Brady entered his office as office-boy and student, it being his desire to become an advocate. He was bright, quick-witted, and remarkably apt in his studies. His buoyant spirits and ready repartee often led him into encounters with his elders, who were generally forced to confess that his tongue was too much for them. His father encouraged him to form his own opinions, and to hold them tenaciously until convinced of his error. He made rapid progress in his legal studies, and soon acquired such proficiency in the management of the details of the office business that every thing which did not absolutely need his father's personal attention was left to him.

Although fond of social enjoyment, and full of the fire and joyfulness of youth, he knew how to seclude himself from the pleasures he relished so much. He was a hard and faithful student, allowing nothing to draw him from his books when he meant to devote himself to them. He read not only law, but history, poetry, biography, romance, in short, every thing that could store his mind with useful knowledge or add to its natural graces. He slept at the office, and often sat up the entire night engaged in study. Abbott speaks as follows of the early studies of Napoleon II., and it requires no straining of language or ideas to apply his remarks to this portion of the life of James T. Brady: "So great was his ardor for intellectual improvement that he considered every day as lost in which he had not made perceptible progress in knowledge. By this rigid mental discipline he acquired that wonderful power of concentration by which he was ever enabled to simplify subjects the most difficult and complicated." Mr. Brady, senior, was very proud of the energy and talent displayed by his son, and when the latter was nineteen years old the father said to a friend who had been speaking to him of the promise of the boy: "Yes, sir; he is a boy of great promise, a boy of splendid intellect and noble character. Young as he is, I regard him as a walking encyclopoedia; his mind seems to gild every subject it touches."

In the year 1835, when but twenty years old, Mr. Brady was admitted to the bar. "There were giants in those days" at the New York bar, and the young man was now entering an arena in which his powers were to be tested to the utmost. His native eloquence was well known to his friends, and naturally he was not ignorant of it; but he did not, like so many young men in his calling, trust entirely to his powers of pleading. He had long since recognized the truth of Lord Erskine's declaration that "no man can be a great advocate who is no lawyer," and had stored his mind with a knowledge of the theories of his profession which few men in coming to the bar have ever equaled.

In his first important case he was opposed to Charles O'Conor, and was unsuccessful. He was engaged in a suit to recover a certain sum of money from an insurance company, which his client claimed was due him for certain goods which had been destroyed by fire. As Brady himself saw, he had a very weak case, and Mr. O'Conor had no trouble in demolishing it; yet the young counsel conducted it with a skill and an eloquence which made him from that hour a marked man in his profession. Yet he had to contend against that obstacle which meets most public men at the outset of their careers—the feeling which actors call "stage fright." He said that on this occasion every thing around him grew suddenly black, and he could not even see the jury. By steadying himself against his table, and keeping his eyes in the direction of the jury, he continued to speak until he had recovered his self-control.

The case which brought him most prominently before the public, and which may be said to have established his fame as a lawyer, was a peculiar one. Some newsboys had been arrested for selling the "Sunday Morning News" on the morning of the Sabbath day. It was claimed that the selling of the paper on the streets on Sunday was contrary to law, and that the boys disturbed the congregations in the churches by their cries. One of these boys had been arrested at the instance of Mr. Gerard, and this brought on a suit to determine the rights of the lads, in which Mr. Brady appeared for the newsboys. Considerable feeling was manifested on the subject, and when the trial came on the court-room was crowded. The verdict of the jury was against him, but Mr. Brady won a remarkable triumph by his management of the case, and the whole city rang with his eloquence. So great was the effect of his speech upon the audience, that many of them who were total strangers to him crowded around him as he left the court-house to congratulate him. Though defeated in the verdict of the jury, this case was a great triumph for Mr. Brady. It established his fame as an advocate, and advanced him at once to a foremost place at the bar. Business flowed in upon him more rapidly than he could attend to it, and from this time to the close of his labors he was always in the possession of a large and lucrative practice.

Mr. McKeon has said of him: "We may refer to the period of his introduction to the bar of this city as an epoch in its history. In looking back at the past, we see rising before us George Wood, treading with no uncertain step through the labyrinth of the law of real property; Daniel Lord, following, with his legal eye, commerce over the long and dreary waste of waters; David Graham, the younger, and Ogden Hoffman, standing in full panoply of intellectual power before our criminal tribunals. Into the lists where stood these proud knights young Brady sprang, ready to contend with the mightiest of them. How well he contended many of you well remember, and the honors paid to his memory are justified by the triumphs he has won."