The History of Orange County New York

by Unknown

But it is significant that, even in the North, whenever the people at large resolve to destroy long-standing abuses or odious machines, as, at stated intervals, they always proceed to do, they turn instinctively, as of old, to the plain, simple, honest, busy, practicing lawyer. Among the lawyers elected to the high office of governor of our State the three governors whose homely, direct, straightforward methods have most captivated the imagination and impressed the conscience of the passing generation are Tilden, Cleveland and Hughes, who simply brought to their duties the habits, the instincts, the training and the ideals of the old-fashioned country lawyer, whose first aim is always to protect the interests committed to his charge without any thought as to the effect of his course upon his own interests, popularity or future. This training, this tradition, this character of the true lawyer still happily survives all changes in political methods or party management and still constitutes the highest security the people have for the faithful administration of their laws, wholly un-swerved by selfish, ulterior or sinister purposes.

At the time, now forty years ago, to which my memory of the Orange County bar runs back, these honorable traditions were wholly maintained by a bar, the members of which still enjoyed a high place in the public esteem and exercised a profound influence upon public opinion, based upon the dignity and importance of their profession as well as upon their personal talents and character. The relations between the lawyers and the farmers were particularly close, confidential and agreeable. The soil was still largely occupied by men of character, education and intelligence who freely sought the counsel and society of their friends among the lawyers at whose offices and homes they were as cordially welcomed on a social or political call as upon a professional visit. The reason that the sons and successors of the lawyers of that day have, to some extent, lost touch with the interests of the soil is that the farmers of that day were not able to persuade their sons to become their successors. The saddest change that has overtaken Orange County in the last forty years is not in the character of its professional men, but in the character of its farming population.

Identified with the period included in the personal recollections here but partially preserved are several groups of fathers and sons who may for convenience be considered together; especially as a sufficiently consecutive view of the period has now been presented to admit, henceforth, of greater latitude in respect to time and order.

Joseph W. Gott, senior, died in 1869 after twenty-seven years continuous practice in Goshen, where he established the enviable reputation throughout the county of being one of the most honorable and high-minded men, as well as one of the most able and successful lawyers, known to his generation. His premature and deeply regretted death occurred before his only son could be admitted to practice.

Joseph W. Gott, Jr., was admitted in 1875 and since then, like his father, has practiced continuously in Goshen. No higher praise can be bestowed upon him than to say, that while he has, by his own vigorous intellect and independent character, won for himself prominence at the bar, he has never lost sight of the high ideals which animated his father.

The general confidence in his supreme honor and integrity which he has always enjoyed corresponds most touchingly to the confidence and respect always inspired by his honored father. With him is now associated in practice his own son, Percy Van Duzer Gott. These two are mentioned first in the group of fathers and sons because they are the only lawyers in Orange County, thus associated, who constitute and represent four generations of Orange County lawyers. For in them flows not only the blood of the elder Gott, but the blood of the Van Duzers and the Gedneys.

Isaac R. Van Duzer, who married in 1826 the older sister of Judge Gedney—their daughter, Charlotte, being married to Joseph W. Gott in 1847—was, undoubtedly, the most brilliant advocate, with the single exception of Ogden Hoffman, who ever addressed an Orange County jury. All the accounts of contemporaries and all the traditions of the bar unite in this verdict. Often have I heard Judge Wilkin, who as a boy heard him in Goshen, expatiate upon his transcendent powers. He died prematurely in his fortieth year, but the opinion entertained by his generation was that, had he lived, his name would have gone down to history with the foremost orators of his age. Of their distinguished ancestry at the bar of Orange County the Gotts may well be proud; for the junior member in the present firm is now the fourth in a line of lawyers whose practice and residence at Goshen have extended over a period of eighty-five years—from 1823 to the present time.

John W. Brown was admitted to practice in 1822, just one year before Mr. Van Duzer, to whom he was related, Judge Brown having married a Reeve, which was the family name of Mr. Van Duzer's mother. It is remarkable that if the practice of Judge Brown and of his own son, Charles F. Brown, had not been interrupted by extended terms of judicial service in the life of each—sixteen years in the life of the elder Brown and fourteen years in the life of the younger—the continuous practice of the two Browns would now cover a period of eighty-six years. As it is, their contributions in two generations to the jurisprudence of the State, at the bar and on the bench, cover a longer period than that embraced in the careers of any father and son associated with the legal annals of Orange County. I say still associated because, although Judge Charles F. Brown is now one of the two or three acknowledged leaders of the bar of the State, with his office in New York City, where his practice is largely in the Appellate Courts, he still retains his residence in Orange County and a nominal connection with the firm established in Newburgh by his former partner, Mr. Cassedy.

His own career has already been sufficiently treated in its appropriate place in this commentary. It only remains to add that his life-long veneration for his father's memory and his consistent emulation of his father's example supply an element of interest to his career and of filial tenderness to his character not appreciated by the thousands of his admirers, among the judges and lawyers of the country, who know him only through the cold medium of his published judicial opinions.