The Green Bag Volume XXIII
December, 1911
Number 12
Samuel Williston, Professor of Law BY BRUCE WYMAN
AMUEL WILLISTON was born in Cambridge, September 24, 1861, the son of Lyman Richards Williston and
From September 1884, to June 1885, he
was an instructor in a boarding-school near Philadelphia- S. C. Shortlidge’s Media Academy —- teaching chiefly
Annie E. (Gale) Williston. He lived in Cambridge continuously until he left college; and private schools in Cam
French and German.
bridge and the Cambridge High School
Harvard Law School, and spent three
gave him his preliminary education. entered Harvard College in 1878, of the four years passed in college history need not go into detail.
He and this His
busy years there. He was almost from the first recognized by his professors as
name appears on the prize lists,
and
he was felt to be a youth of high prom ise by all with whom he came in con tact. He was an athlete of sorts also,
with enough of a record to have ’Varsity standing.
In the middle of his Senior year at Harvard he had an opportunity to be come secretary of Raphael Pumpelly, then at the head of a large survey estab lished by Henry Villard on behalf of the Northern Pacific Railroad and allied corporations. He obtained leave of absence from college and accepted the appointment, returning in June to pass
his examinations and take his degree. Mr. Pumpelly’s headquarters were at Newport, R. I., and he lived there until 1884, when the financial downfall of Mr. Villard caused the discontinuance of the Northern Transcontinental Survey.
In the autumn of 1885 he entered the
one of the ablest men in his class; and
his grades in his courses were extraordi narily high. Among his fellow students there never was any doubt of his capa bilities,ashis election to the board of the
Harvard Law Review showed. He won the Harvard Law School Association prize by an essay on the “History of
Corporations,” and he represented his law
class
upon
the
Commencement
stage. The next fall he went to Wash ington as secretary to Mr. Justice Gray of the United States Supreme Court, and had a hand in writing many of his opin ions in that year. On September 12, 1889, he married
Mary Fairlie Wellman and moved to Brookline. In 1891 the Nstons moved
to Cambridge, and about ten years ate‘r they settled themselves on Behnont lr overlooking Cambridge, where the)’ now reside. They have two daughters, Doro thea Lewis and Margaret Fairlie. Pro
