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judges were selected from military life. Questions of law and fact came to be sepa rated, and in 1797 an act required that each judge of the Supreme Court should make his opinion in writing and the clerk should record it. THE JUDGES. MOSES Robinson.—One of thefirst immi grants to Bennington was Samuel Robinson, who came from Hardwick, Mass., in 1761, and with him came his two sons, Moses and Jonathan, who both became Chief Judges of the Supreme Court; the former also became governor and represented the State in the Senate. At the time of the organization of the Superior Court, in 1778, Moses, then in his thirty-eighth year, was selected as its Chief Judge; he acted as such until the organization of the Supreme Court, when he was elected Chief Judge of that court. He was elected town clerk of Bennington at the first meeting in 1762, and continued as such for twenty years; he commanded a regiment of militia, was with it at Mt. Inde pendence, opposite Ticonderoga, on its evac uation by Gen. St. Clair; was early a mem ber of the Council of Safety; and served as Chief Judge of the Supreme Court until Octo ber, 1784. The docket of the court shows that he was absent from midwinter, 1783-4, until the following October, for what reason I am unable to learn. He was not elected in October, 1784, and Paul Spooner, who presided during his absence the preceding year, was elected Chief, and Nathaniel Niles added to the bench. Why Judge Robinson retired, for it was no doubt volun tary, it is difficult at this day to determine. He was re-elected in October, 1785, and continued in service as chief of the court until 1789, when he was elected governor, by the Legislature, there having been no choice at the polls. In 1790 Dartmouth College conferred upon him the honorary degree of A.M. He served as one of the agents of Ver
mont in the adjustment of the controversy with New York, and in 1791 was elected one of the first senators in Congress. He was a warm political friend of Jefferson and Madison, and united with them in their favorable views of the French revolution; was opposed to Jay's treaty with England, voting against its ratification, and was in strumental in procuring its condemnation by a Bennington town and county meeting, in connection with similar demonstrations in other parts of the country, to induce Con gress to withhold the necessary appropria tions for carrying the treaty into effect. He was visited by Mr. Jefferson and Mr. Madison in June, 179 1, they spending the Sabbath with him at his home in Benning ton; he induced them to attend church, being a religious man and scrupulously exact in the performance of his sacred duties; and proud of the singing of the choir, after the services were over he insisted upon having their opinion upon its merits and especially how it compared with church music in larger places; both were obliged to confess that they were not competent judges of the matter, neither of tnem having attended church before in several years. Finding himself in the minority in respect to his political views, he resigned the senatorship in October, 1796; he represented Bennington in the General Assembly in 1802, and was not afterwards in public life. Paul Spooner came to Vermont in 1768, when twenty- two years of age, and purchased a farm in Hartland; he was a physician, having obtained his education before he came, and it is written of him, " He is be lieved to have been well educated and to have had a good professional reputation." He first appeared in Vermont history as a delegate from Hertford (now Hartland) in a convention at Westminster, in October, 1774, called to condemn the obnoxious measures of Great Britain; was one of the committee upon resolutions passed by the
