From among the hills of Vermont and New Hampshire have sprung many renowned citizens, whose talents, industry, moral worth, and practical wisdom have been by no means unimportant factors in the prosperity and progress of the nation, and in the due discharge of its legislative, administrative, and judicial functions. The subject of this brief sketch, Hon. Edmund Hatch Bennett, was born in Manchester, Vt., April 6, 1824. He was educated in his native State,—first in the Manchester and Burlington academies, and then in the University of Vermont, at Burlington, where he graduated in the class of 1843. In 1873 his alma mater bestowed upon him the well-merited degree of Doctor of Laws. The profession of the law, in which, by his industry, capacity, and character, he has been so successful, was not adopted without mature consideration. For some short time after graduation he taught a private school in Virginia; but, probably finding, subsequently, that his tastes, quite as much as his talents, might have fuller and fitter scope for their gratification and development in legal than in academical pursuits, he ultimately decided to enter upon a course of legal studies with a view to preparing himself for the discharge of forensic and judicial duties. His first practical knowledge of the law was acquired in the office of his father at Burlington, Vt., his father being at the time, and for many years previous, an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of Vermont. He became a member of the Vermont bar in 1847; but early in 1848 he removed to Taunton, where he resided until 1884; and to whose social, educational, and religious advancement he has contributed in no small degree. In June, 1853, he married Sally, the second daughter of Hon. Samuel Crocker, of Taunton.
When the city was incorporated, in 1865, his fellow-citizens showed their high appreciation of his personal character and public spirit in a very pronounced manner by unanimously electing him the first chief magistrate of the newly incorporated community. To this honorable and influential post he was twice elected subsequently, viz., in 1866 and 1867.
Judge Bennett has put much hard and honest work into his profession; in this he is an example to younger men, which it would not be amiss for them to imitate. His first law connection in Taunton was with the late Nathaniel Morton, a brother of the present Chief-Justice of Massachusetts. Subsequently he formed a partnership with Hon. Henry Williams, and afterwards with Henry J. Fuller, Esq., of Taunton.
At the bar of his own county he took almost from the first a prominent place, and he has been able to turn the accumulated and well-digested results of his study and practice to good account in the instruction of others. During the years of 1870, 1871, and 1872 he occupied the position of lecturer at the Dane Law School of Harvard University, Cambridge. With the Law School of Boston University he has stood connected from its commencement in 1872, receiving at that time the honor of being selected as its Dean. He was not at the time able to serve in that capacity, but was a regular lecturer, and in 1876, on being again elected to the position, he accepted it. This relation to the school he sustains at present, having, during the decade which has passed since his assumption of the office, contributed in no small measure to the present efficient organization and very gratifying prosperity of the school. In May, 1858, he was appointed Judge of Probate and Insolvency for Bristol county, holding the office twenty-five years, and resigning in 1883.
In other directions, and by other methods than that of communicating oral instruction, Judge Bennett has exerted himself to develop the science and advance the practice of his profession. His legal works—written and edited alone, or in company with others—number more than a hundred volumes, the chief of which are: "English Law and Equity Reports;" an edition of Mr. Justice Story's works; "Leading Criminal Cases;" "Fire Insurance Cases;" "Digest of Massachusetts Reports;" American editions of the recent English works of "Goddard on Easements;" "Benjamin on Sales;" "Indermann on the Common Law;" and many others. For some considerable time he has been editorially connected with the American Law Register of Philadelphia. His lecture on "Farm Law," delivered at Hingham in December, 1878, before the State Board of Agriculture, attracted very general attention at the time, and was republished in agricultural journals all over New England, as well as in the West.
In religious sympathy and work Judge Bennett is allied with the Protestant Episcopal Church. For some years he acted either in the capacity of warden or vestry-man of St. Thomas parish, Taunton, and several times as delegate represented the parish in the Diocesan Convention. In 1874, 1877, 1880, and 1883 he was appointed delegate from his diocese to the General Triennial Convention of the Protestant Episcopal Church in this country. He is now senior warden of St. Paul's Episcopal Church, of Boston.
THE LIFE AND CHARACTER OF DANIEL WEBSTER.
BY HON. EDWARD S. TOBEY.
I might well shrink from writing on a topic which has already engaged the pen and thought of the most able of Mr. Webster's contemporaries and biographers, were it not that, by opportunities wholly unsought, so much of reliable testimony, not previously published, has come to me tending to correct false opinions and impressions as to his private character, that a sense of justice which I could not conscientiously resist, led me on the occasion of the centennial anniversary of Mr. Webster's birthday, which was observed in this city (Boston) in 1882, under the auspices of the Alumni of Dartmouth College, to present, substantially, the facts and views which are now by request repeated. I may add, that I realized more fully an obligation and an interest to give currency to them from the fact of my former connection with Mr. Webster's Alma Mater, as one of its Board of Trustees, and also from having made the first contribution to the Webster professorship in that institution, which, through the liberality of others, has since been fully endowed.