The Late Justice Davy of Rochester JOHN M. DAVY of Rochester, N. Y., for merly Justice of the Supreme Court of New York and a prominent member of the New York State Bar Association, died at Atlantic City April 21, at the age of seventythree, after a brief illness. Justice Davy was of English-Irish extrac tion, and was born in Ottawa June 29, 1835. When he was six months old his parents moved to Rochester. He studied law in the office of the late L. H. Hovey of Rochester, and enlisted in the Civil War, being appointed captain of a company he had helped to raise. After an honorable discharge he resumed the study of law, in the office of Strong, Palmer & Mumford, and was admitted to the bar. In side of five years he had placed himself in the front rank of the younger practitioners, and in 1868 he was nominated and elected on the Republican ticket to the office of District Attorney. His administration was marked by an able prosecution of several notable criminal cases. He declined the office in 1871 and was appointed by President Grant Collector of Customs. In 1874 his sterling worth was again recognized and he was elected a mem ber of the Forty-fourth Congress, taking his seat in 1875. A year later he was re-elected, but suffered defeat in the Democratic land slide. For twelve years he scored success after success by his astuteness in legal prac tice. In 1885 he formed with one of his three sons the legal firm of Davy & Davy. In 1888 he was accorded the signal honor of a unanimous nomination for Justice of the Supreme Court, a distinction that was re peated on October 1, 1902. During his six teen years' service on the bench Justice Davy presided over many important trials. It is the consensus of opinion of the lawyers who had occasion to practise before him that Justice Davy was possessed in a rare degree of "the judicial mind and temperament." He was frequently drafted for service in New York and other districts. Several times Jus tice Davy was asked to take a place in the Appellate Division, but declined. He retired from the Supreme Court bench Dec. 31, 1905, because of the age limit. While in office in his last term. Justice Davy was honored by the Governor by desig nation to the Appellate Division bench, where
he served with distinction, and in conferences with the associate justices his knowledge of the law earned him admiration and respect. In New York City he was known almost as well as in Monroe County. He tried the
JUSTICE JOHN M. DAVY A jurist of ability and worth who had held several dis tinguished offices in New York State famous Sharkey case in New York, in which a Tammany politician was accused of a brutal assault on a man named Fish, who died from the effects of the blow. Tremendous pressure was brought to bear on Justice Davy to inflict a light sentence, but he imposed the full penalty of the law and the Court of Appeals sustained the decision. Most of the distinguished counsel of the metropolitan bar had appeared at one time or another before Justice Davy in his career as judge and most of them he knew person ally and well. Besides a personal and intimate acquaint ance with Joseph H. Choate and Elihu Root and others of the New York bar, Justice Davy was a personal friend of President Chester A. Arthur, with whom he was in the New York
