Page:History of Delaware County (1856).djvu/244

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220 HISTORY OF ware county for the third time. Under my first appointment I served until I was sixty years of age — a term beyond which I could not constitutionally hold the office. I was then appointed judge, and served in that capacity until the new constitution was adopted, when I was again appointed first judge, and having served five years, was again appointed as above stated; and what is rather unusual, my three last appointments have been made by men of diff'erent political sentiments from myself." In 1798, the new town was erected which contained the county seat. There was some dispute as to what should be the name of the new township : Greneral Root and others pro- posed calling it Mapleton, while Judge Foote and his asso- ciates wished to call it Delhi, which name finally prevailed. An anecdote is told of General Root, who was at that time young, but possessing the same impulsive, ardent, fearless dis- position, which so conspicuously marked his after life, that when the decision was announced of calling it Delhi, he expressed himself in the following words to Mr. Foote, or some of his associates ; Delhi, hell-high — ^better call it Foote-high !" It is hardly necessary, and perhaps out of place, to predict, that were the choice now to be made, Mapleton would be the deci- sion — Delhi being rejected, from its known Hindoo origin. We are indebted to a highly respectable correspondent for the following biographical sketch of the life of the late Judge Foote — a life covering more than half a century of the most interesting period of our county — full of incident and useful- ness, which afibrds abundant matter, would our limits permit, for a more enlarged notice. " Honorable Ebenezer Foote died at his residence in Delhi, on the 28th, (1818,) at the advanced age of seventy-four. Few men have been called to act as many parts in the drama of human life as the subject of this notice, or have sustained themselves as well. Judge JFoote became a volunteer in the