in the following November. This he ac complished, and it was embodied in the Re vised Statutes of 1857. .. . John Searle Tenney, the fifth ChiefJustice, was born in Rowley, now Byfield, Massachusetts, January 21, 1793. His pre liminary studies were pursued at the cele brated Dummer Academy in Byfield. He graduated at Bowdoin College with the highest honors in 18 16, being distinguished in the Greek classics. After graduation he had charge of the Academy in Warren about nine months, and he then entered upon the study of the law in the office of Thomas Bond at Hallowell. Upon being admitted to the bar he settled in 1820 at Norridgevvock, the shire-town of Somerset County, where he ever after lived. For twenty years he pursued a successful prac tice and established a high reputation for his sound knowledge and skill. It was not until he had practised some ten or twelve years that he acquired reputation as an advocate; and according to tradition was forced into making an argument by the stratagem of a friend, the late Timothy Boutelle of Waterville, who knowing him well and having confidence in his ability, arranged to have him manage a case in 1832, in which Hon. Peleg Sprague, then a Senator in Congress and one of the most eloquent men in the country, was oppos ing counsel. The case was closely con tested, as might well be supposed; but Judge Tenney was successful. He at once took a high stand as an advocate as well as a sound lawyer. As a speaker he was not distinguished for the graces of oratory either in manner or matter. Still, he was ready and fluent, with a good command of lan guage. His arguments were specimens of close, compact logic, as well as clear and forcible statements of his cause, and he never failed to secure the attention of the court and jury. His standard of profession al honor and integrity was so high that it
admitted of no dereliction whatever from perfect rectitude. His clients were sure, not only of his entire fidelity, but that his best ability would be exerted in their behalf. But his zeal for them, great as it was, did not for a moment lead him to forget the respect due to himself or the fidelity due to the court. A contemporary and fellowtownsman says of him that he possessed one characteristic in a pre-eminent degree, that is, the extreme carefulness with which he examined a client's case before advising him to run the hazard of a lawsuit; every source of information he caused to be explored, and every point thoroughly investigated, and so he came to the trial of a case fully prepared for every contingency. He devel oped his cases admirably to the jury in ex amining his witnesses, and in his arguments would gather his facts together and rolling them into a ball hurl them at his adversary with resistless and crushing force. " He was a four-masted schooner among the com mon coasters," says another leader of the bar, well known for his felicitous power of description. He never lost his self-posses sion through excitement, nor suffered his reason to become obscured by passion. Judge Danforth, an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court and a student in his office says : " During a close observation of his practice for many years, I never, to my recollection, saw him in anger but once. That was caused by an opposing counselor repudiating an agreement he had fairly made. The scene which followed I shall never for get . . . He certainly learned to his cost, that however courteous Judge Tenney might be, he had in store weapons ofkeener edge and sharper point to be used when occasion demanded." He acted with the Whig party and was once its nominee for Congress, when that party was in the minority, but was defeated, although running largely ahead of his ticket. He was elected to the Legislature in 1837, and gained a wide reputation for a speech
