Chenango & Unadilla Valley 50 years ago

Chenango and Unadilla Valley Fifty Years Ago

by S.S. Randall

Chenango Telegraph, April 3, 1872

Early Courts

 

Continued from posting of October 22, 2017

The next trial which excited an over powering interest in the community from its appeal to the higher and nobler tendencies of our natures, was some ten or twelve years later, tried before the same eminent Judge Van Ness.  It was an action of slander, involving a breach of promise of marriage, brought by Damres Morgan, a resident in the family of Judge Isaac Sherwood, of Oxford [Chenango Co., NY], against Nathaniel Hughston, then or soon afterwards a resident of Norwich [Chenango Co., NY].  The contract of marriage was clearly proved, and the slanderous imputations upon the character of the plaintiff attempted to be justified by the defendant.  This part of the case having however completely failed, Judge Van Ness indignantly summed up strongly in the plaintiff's favor; and the jury sympathizing with the distinguished judge, in the views taken by him, and perhaps not wholly unaffected by the beauty and desolate condition of the plaintiff, who sat by her counsel during the trial, rendered a verdict of heavy damages against the defendant.  The latter, however, being a gentleman at heart, and having himself been innocently misled as to the character of his intended, spared no time in making the amend honorable, and renewing his suit; which, after an appropriate period of penitence, on the one hand, and "coy and soft and amorous delay," on the other, was crowned with success, and no more pleasant or agreeable household was to be found in our cozy little village. 

 

The first Common Pleas Bench, in 1798, consisted of Isaac Foote, Joel Enos, and Joshua Leland, with Assistant Justices Oliver Morton and Elisha Payne.  In the ensuing year, John Lincklaen of Cazenovia and Benjamin Hovey of Oxford were added to the Bench, and Erastus Root, of Delaware, admitted as counsellor.  In July 1799, Joel Thompson and Gershom Hyde took their seats as Assistant justices.  One year later, Johnathan Foreman was appointed as Associate judge, and Isaac Foote became first or presiding judge.  In 1804, Gen. Obadiah German and Jeremiah Whipple were promoted to the bench, and Casper M. Rouse and Abner Purdy appointed Assistant justices.  in 1805, Thomas Lyon, Jr., was appointed judge, and Samuel Payne, and Nathaniel Medbury, Assistant Justices.  In 1807, Peter Betts of Bainbridge, took his seat, and in the ensuing year Joel Thompson was made first judge. At the first session of the Court in Norwich, in 1800, Anson Cary and Casper M. Rouse took their seats as Associate justices.  In 1810, William McCalpin, Tracy Robinson, Nathaniel Waldron, and Elisha Smith, were appointed Associate judge's.  In 1811 Ebenezer Wakely, and in 1812, John Gray, Jr., and Asa Morton, with John S. Flagler and Joel Hatch as Assistant Justices.  In 1814, Gen. Obadiah German presided as first Judge and Obadiah Sands, Samuel Campbell and John S. Flagler took their seats as Associate judges, and John Twichell and Chester T. Hammond as Assistant justices.