Harvard Law School and thus came to the bar, being admitted in August, 1844, at Ells worth, fully prepared and equipped for an active and highly successful practice which soon followed upon his removal to Bangor the same year. To his chosen profession, which he loved, possessing a keen, critical and judicial judg ment, and a wide and accurate knowledge of the law, he added the habit of industry. He was thus able, with a good legal mind and an instinctive knowledge of men, to command the confidence of courts and cli ents from the beginning. He was quickly recognized as a very able lawyer and duly appreciated for those qualities by which he has become conspicuous. Judged by the results accomplished, the verdicts won and judgments in law cases rendered in his favor, I should say, after an active practice of near ly thirty years, that he was facile princeps. At the beginning of his practice he was a partner for a short time with the late Judge Hathaway; and for the five years before going upon the bench himself, his partner was Franklin A. Wilson, Esq. His management of the trial of a case was natural, simple and easily understood by the jury. He always brought out the facts in their historical and logical order; rarely ever calling witnesses in rebuttal, he grouped his evidence with a master's hand and passed from point to point with the unbroken pha lanx of a well-ordered battle. It was a pleas ure to witness him trying a case. There was nothing dull or commonplace in it. He led the column, and the spectator soon be came aware that, although like Phillips he possessed the " ars celare artem" yet he was the principal actor. I have seen him in a ten days' trial, opposed by numerous coun sel, single-handed holding his sway over the jury almost without intermission, their eyes bent on him with only an occasional glance upon the witnesses. Perhaps this is only saying that, according to an admitted test of ability, he is the best examiner of wit
nesses that I have ever seen; but there was no weariness or loss of interest in it. His cross-examination was the perfection of skill and legal ability. If his opponent's case had a weak spot he was sure to find it when he came to cross-examine, — sometimes to the merriment of the court and jury. Cases were thus sometimes turned into victory or defeat. I recall an instance. In Prentiss v. Shaw, an action of trespass for an assault and battery, the plaintiff,- who had been rid den on a rail, claimed large damages for a dislocated hip. An eminent surgeon testi fied in his favor, sustaining the claim of dis location, after a post injuriam examination of the leg. The defense seemed hopeless; but a few questions adroitly put to the hon est doctor by Mr. Peters, soon elicited the fact from the witness that he had treated dislocations caused by rheumatism and the opinion that this case might possibly have occurred from the same cause. It was a famous case in its day. The jury gave the plaintiff a verdict amounting to a sum equal to only a trifle more than the value of a single day's work. His arguments were always strong, logi cal, clear, forcible, and replete with incidents and illustrations appealing to the good sense of the jury. He has a fund of maxims and anecdotes from Shakespeare to Poor Rich ard's Almanac, to which references serve to lighten the task of listening; and draws ex planations from all sources. Distinguishing the testimony of one brother from that of another, one being fat the other lean, he concluded with the quaint remark, " One is the son of the father, the other is son of the mother." As the parents were known to the jury, the remark was significant. He did not seek criminal defenses, but would never permit a person to go undefended when he believed him to be innocent. An old client of his was indicted in the United States District Court, sitting at Bangor, for selling liquor without a license. It was in the early days of enforcement of the internal revenue
