Thomas Burnside, one of the justices of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, died in Germantown on the twenty-fifth of March. He was born in the county of Tyrone, Ireland, July 28th, 1782, and came to this country, with his father's family, in 1792. In November, 1800, he commenced the study of the law, with Mr. Robert Porter, in Philadelphia, and in the early part of 1804 was admitted to the bar, and removed to Bellefonte. In 1811 he was elected to the state Senate, and was an active supporter of the administration of Governor Snyder in all its war measures. In 1815 he was elected to Congress, and served during the memorable session of 1816. In the summer of the same year he was appointed by Governor Snyder President Judge of the Luzerne district. He resigned this post in 1818, and resumed the practice of his profession at Bellefonte. In 1823 he was again elected to the State Senate, of which body he was made speaker. In 1826 he was appointed President Judge of the Seventh Judicial District, which office he held until 1841. He was then appointed President Judge of the Fourth Judicial District, comprising the counties of Bucks and Montgomery. On the first of January, 1845, he was commissioned one of the Judges of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, an office which he filled at the time of his death. Judge Burnside was a man of fine social qualities, and few persons have had more friends.
Isaac Hill, Governor of New Hampshire, United States senator, &c., was born at Cambridge, the part now called Somerville, Mass., April 6th, 1788. He was a descendant of Abraham Hill of Charlestown, who was admitted freeman 1640, and died at Malden, February 13, 1670, leaving two sons, Isaac and Abraham. From the latter of these, and fifth in descent, was Isaac, the father of Governor Hill. His mother was Hannah Russell, a descendant of the Cambridge family of that name, "ever distinguished in the annals of Massachusetts."[M] His ancestors were stanch patriots, on both sides, and served with credit in the old French and Indian wars, and his immediate predecessors were among the earliest and the most efficient of the "Sons of Liberty," well known for their undaunted spirit in encouraging resistance to the arbitrary and oppressive acts which occasioned the Revolution.
The circumstances in which the war and other calamities had placed his family were extremely unfavorable to the enjoyment of any educational privileges, and he was debarred from most opportunities of acquiring even the rudiments of that culture now common and free to all. But he struggled manfully with these difficulties, the sharp discipline of Necessity giving to him an early training well calculated to impress his character with the seal of manliness and self-reliance. His intellectual constitution was early accustomed to the keen atmosphere of wholesome severity; and it nerved and braced him for the warfare of his subsequent career. In it, too, we may find the origin of his peculiar traits as a writer and a politician. He wrote in a vigorous but not polished style, and all his productions were more forcible than elegant. But their very bareness and sinewy proportions opened their way to the hearts of the people whom he addressed. His prejudices were their prejudices, and in the most earnest expression of his own strongest feeling and passion he found the echo from the multitude of the democracy of his adopted state.
His childhood and early youth thus formed, his next step was in the learning his trade, or acquiring his profession: for if any occupation in life combines more elements of professional knowledge than another, it is that of a printer-editor.
Though not an indented apprentice, he served his seven years' time with faithfulness, and acquired those habits of patient, persevering industry which characterized his whole subsequent career. The printing-office has been the college and university to many of the most distinguished of our citizens: and that which he founded at Concord has been the Alma Mater of a series of graduates, of whom old Dartmouth might justly be proud, could she enroll them among her Alumni. Although the paper published by Mr. Cushing, with whom young Hill learned his profession, was strongly federal, he retained the strong democratic prejudices of his father's house, which he afterwards so zealously advocated in more responsible positions.
He went to Concord, N. H, on the 5th April 1809, the day before he attained his majority. He bought an establishment of six months' standing, from which had been issued the American Patriot, a democratic paper, but not conducted with any great efficiency, and therefore not considered as yet "a useful auxiliary in the cause of republicanism." On the 18th of April, 1809, was issued the first number of the New Hampshire Patriot, a paper destined to exert an immense influence in that state from that time to the present. The press on which it was printed was the identical old Ramage press on which had been struck off the first numbers of the old Connecticut Courant, forty-five years before, that is, in 1764. The first number of the paper is before us. It bears for its motto the following sentiment of Madison, "Indulging no passions which trespass on the rights of others, it shall be our true glory to cultivate peace by observing justice." Among the selections is a portion of the famous speech of William B. Giles, in the Senate, February 13th, 1809, in support of the resolution for a repeal of the Embargo, and substituting non-intercourse with the aggressing belligerents, offered by him on the 8th of the same month. In the next number of the paper the editor expresses the opinion that "the man, who, after reading this lucid exposition of British aggressions, can blame his own government—can accuse the administration of a want of forbearance, and a wish to provoke a war with England without cause, must be wilfully blind or perversely foolish." This recalls at once the circumstances of the time, shortly after the beginning of Madison's administration, and during the Embargo. Democracy was odious in New England, where the prostration of her commercial interests, the ruin of many and serious injury of all her citizens, had rendered the administration exceedingly unpopular. The Patriot, however, steadily defended the administration and the war which followed. Probably there will always exist a difference of opinion with respect to the necessity or expediency of the war of 1812; but public opinion has given its sanction to what is now known as the "Second War of Independence." Since that time its advocates have been steadily supported by the country, and among them the subject of this sketch, who always referred with peculiar pride to that portion of his career—"the dark and portentous period which preceded the war."
Mr. Hill continued to edit the Patriot until 1829, a period of twenty years; during which time he was twice chosen clerk of the State Senate, once Representative from the town of Concord, and State Senator four times. In 1828, he was the Democratic candidate for U.S. Senator, but was not elected. In 1829, he received the appointment of Second Comptroller of the Treasury Department from General Jackson, and discharged the duties of that office until April, 1830, when his nomination was rejected by the Senate of the United States. The light in which his rejection was regarded in New Hampshire, may be inferred from the fact that its result was his triumphant election to represent that State in the body which had rejected him. He continued in the Senate until 1836, when he was elected Governor of the State of New Hampshire by a very large majority. He was twice reëlected, in 1837 and 1838.
In 1840, he was appointed Sub Treasurer at Boston, which he held until removed, in March, 1841, by the Harrison administration.
About this time the policy of the radical party in New Hampshire, to which Mr. Hill had always adhered, became tainted with an ultraism, which he could not approve. He opposed their hostility to railroad and other corporations, with the same vigor which had always characterized his career. He was subjected to the proscription of the party, and formally "read out" of the church of the New Hampshire Democracy. He established a new paper, "Hill's New Hampshire Patriot," in which he revived his old reputation as an editor and political writer. The importance of the great internal improvements which he advocated, to the prosperity of the State, brought back the party from their wanderings into abstractions, and with this return to the old ways, came also the acknowledgment of the political orthodoxy of Mr. Hill. The new paper was united with the old Patriot—and one of his sons associated in the establishment.