OBITUARIES.
Ex-Justice Bennet Van Syckel.
On Dec. 20th last, following a brief illness of bronchial pneumonia, Supreme Court Justice Bennet Van Syckel, almost ninety-two years old, the oldest alumnus of Princeton University, died at his home in Trenton.
Judge Van Syckel was the son of Aaron Van Syckel, and Mary Van Syckel, of Bethlehem, Hunterdon county, and was born there April 17, 1830. His father and his grandfather were country merchants, whose ancestors came with the old Dutch settlers to that part of New Jersey. His father was considered wealthy in those days and was able to give his four sons an excellent education. When Bennet was nine years old he was sent to a boarding school at Easton. At the age of thirteen he completed his preparatory studies and entered Princeton in the Sophomore class. Three years later he was graduated with high honors and for one year was resident graduate Assistant Professor to Joseph Henry, who occupied the chair of Natural Philosophy.
Bennet next took up the study of law in the office of Alexander Wurts of Flemington, and was prepared to take his law examination some time before he was of age, but as he could not be admitted to the Bar while under twenty-one was forced to wait. On the twenty-first anniversary of his birthday, at the April Term of the Supreme Court, 1851, he was admitted to the Bar, and became counselor at the June Term, 1854. He at once opened office in Flemington, and practiced there with unusual success until February, 1858, when Governor Randolph appointed him Justice of the Supreme Court. At that time he was the youngest member of the Court. His Circuits were in the counties of Salem, Cumberland, Atlantic and Cape May. When the number of Supreme Court Justices was increased from seven to nine and the districts were readjusted, Justice Van Syckel was assigned to Union and Ocean counties, where he presided twenty-nine years. He was five times reappointed. Only a few months after his last appointment in 1904 he resigned because of ill health and increasing age.
After his retirement Justice Van Syckel was made the guest of the New Jersey Bench and Bar, at Trenton, upon which occasion a portrait of him painted in oil was presented to the State, to be hung on the wall of the Supreme Court room at the Capitol. A few months later another portrait was hung in the new court house in Union County, in honor of the Justice who had presided there for so many years.
During his term of service Justice Van Syckel delivered some of the most important opinions of the Supreme Court and of the Court of Errors and Appeals. In the prosecution of the Linden and Elizabeth race track gamblers in 1893 he proved a terror to poolsellers, bookmakers and evildoers. It was Justice Van Syckel who wrote the opinion of the Supreme Court when an effort was made to challenge the majority cast in favor of the anti-gambling amendment to the State Constitution, and his opinion upholding the adoption of the amendments was sustained by the Court of Errors and Appeals.
At the time of his death a membership in the directorate of the Prudential Life Insurance Company was the former Justices sole business affiliation. His activity in connection with this post caused his associates to marvel. He attended all the meetings and was as alert as the youngest of his colleagues. At the Princeton alumni reunion in June, 1920, he led the Parade around the baseball field and got a big ovation from the throng in attendance. In his automobile he arose repeatedly and raised his hat in acknowledgment of the applause.