until shortly before the war, when he came back to his native place. He was provided for a while by a brother, but finally, being unwilling to make any exertion for his own comfort or benefit, was turned upon the town, and boarded at the public expense at the Woodbury almshouse. He retained his faculties to a remarkable degree until the end of his life.

HON. SETH P. BEERS.

A sketch of Mr. Beers appears on page 426. An error occurs in the date in the 11th line. It should be, November, 1812.

He was born at Woodbury, July 1st, 1781, but passed his whole business life at Litchfield, Conn. He attended the "Bi-Centennial" of the town, July 4th and 5th, 1859, and made a most feeling, appropriate, and eloquent address, which included a sketch of his own career. One remark made on that occasion proved prophetic in his own case. It is recorded on page 974. "My coming hither to day seems a completion of the circle of my life. It brings me round to the point whence I started, and connects the termination of the line with the beginning." He was at this time one of the best preserved old men with whom the writer has ever been acquainted, but he died a little more than a year later. All his children are gone, too, except Julia. And thus passed away a Christian gentleman of the "old school," one of the most honored and useful citizens of our county and State.

HON. CHARLES CHAPMAN.

Charles Chapman,' the most brilliant advocate of the Connecticut bar, was a "grandson of Woodbury" by two lines of descent. He died at Hartford, where he resided, on the 7th day of August, 1869, in the 71st year of his age. He was born in Newtown, Conn., June 21st, 1799. His father was Asa Chapman, a Judge of the Supreme Court of the State. He commenced his law studies with his father, pursued them for a time at the Litchfield Law School, and completed them with the late Chief Jus

'The larger portion of this account of Mr. Chapman is taken from the 35th Vol. of Connecticut Reports.

tice Williams, then in practice in Hartford. He commenced the practice of law in New Haven, and in 1832 removed to Hartford, where he spent the remainder of his life. He six times repre. sented the town of Hartford in the State Legislature, and was elected to Congress in 1851 by the Whig party, to which he was then attached. He was also United States District Attorney for the District of Connecticut, from the spring of 1841 to the close of 1844.

Mr. Chapman had a very large professional practice, especially in criminal cases. There was hardly a criminal trial in the State of special importance in which he was not employed for the defence, and he often went into neighboring States upon such cases. Over-work in the trial of a protracted case in Northampton, Mass., a few months before his death, undoubtedly hastened that event. Mr. Chapman seemed to be in his natural element in the trial of causes before a jury. The more desperate his case, the more he seemed to be inspirited by it. His resources were inexhaustible. His power in addressing a jury was very remarkable. In the examination of witnesses, and the sifting of evidence, he had no su perior; it seemed impossible for a falsehood to elude him. His sarcasm, when he thought the occasion demanded it, was terrible. He had command of a masterly English, which he compacted into sentences, generally, of finished elegance, often of dramatic power. His wit was always keen, and ever in hand; nobody approached him in readiness of retort. He did not move his hearers as the greatest orators do, by being profoundly impressed himself and carrying them along by sympathy. The process with him was wholly intellectual-cool himself and with a perfect comprehension of the suttlest springs of human feeling and action, he played with his audience like a magician. Wit, pathos, humor, invective, fancy, logic, all seemed to combine, or take their turn in sweeping everything before them. In his delivery he was entirely natural, and his manner unstudied. He was very social in his nature, a remarkably good talker, and incomparable and inexhaustible as a sto y teller. Many of his felicities of speech and story will long survive among the festive traditions of the bar.

Hon. Richard D. Hubbard says of him :-" In the delicate duty of examining witnesses-above all, in that most important and most difficult of all professional functions, a cross-examinationhe was not only distinguished, he was consummate. A crossexamination with him was a hot and running fire of scathing

inquisitions. He searched the very veins of a witness. A perjurer in his hands was not merely unmasked, he suffered on the spot a part, at least, of the punishment due to his crime."

Judge Wm. D. Shipman, of the United States District Court, says of Mr. Chapman :-"No greater mistake could be made than to suppose that mere ingenuity and adroitness were the main weapons which made Charles Chapman, for nearly forty years, a singular power at the Bar of this State. His capacity to maintain a high position in a large class of cases, with the able leaders of the profession, was due to quite other and higher qualities than mental dexterity.

"In this field (criminal defence) he is admitted on all hands to have been without a superior,-I may say without an equal, at the Bar of this State. In the performance of this duty, he was faithful in all things. I say duty, for the defence of persons accused of crime is a duty, which the public cannot afford to see neglected or under.ated. So tender and mindful is our law on the subject, that it not only discards the barbarous usage once prevailing in England, by which alleged criminals were denied counsel, but, if the accused is destitute, it is the duty of the Court to assign him counsel. Whether originally employed by the defendent, or assigned by the Court, the path of the lawyer is plain. He is bound by the law itself to use, with honor and recti.ude, every intellectual and professional weapon to the utmost of the ability which God and the law have given him, in the defence of his client. This Charles Chapman did, and the faithful manner in which he performed this duty, constitutes one of his highest titles to honor. He defended men only by the open use of the legitimate weapons of professional warfare. Some may have been acquitted who really deserved conviction. But it is idle to charge the lawyer who honorably and successfully defends an accused man with wrongfully shielding the guilty. He interposes no shield but that which the law puts into his hands, and is necessary for the proper defence of every defendent, whether innocent or guilty. The question before the triers is never that of absolute guilt, but whether, upon the evidence presented in the Court, all reasonable doubt is excluded. No higher duty can devolve on the lawyer, than to see to it that no man is convicted upon unworthy, or insufficient evidence; for in doing so he preserves the only safeguard which innocence has against popular rage, or official tyranny. Our deceased brother well understood this duty, and performed it with

fearlessness and ability; often in behalf of the poor and friendless, without hope of reward.

"In private life, Mr. Chapman was an interesting and entertaining companion. With his never failing fund of anecdote and humor, his quaint, epigrammatic, incisive comments upon phases of character, and the incidents of daily life, and the usual gaity of his temper, he threw a charm over the hours of relaxation. Though living to the age of seventy, his youthful tastes and feelings never forsook him. He loved the applause which success in that profession brought him. The love of distinction may be pronounced by the moralist an infirmity, but an austere genius has declared it to be

"The last infirmity of a noble mind."

It undoubtedly is a powerful incentive to excellence, and when seeking its triumphs in the fields of intellectual renown, it is, next to the spirit inculcated by Christianity, the most mighty agent in developing and nourishing those virtues which give dignity and ornament to human character."

WILLIAM COTHREN,

Son of William and Hannah Cothren, was born at Farmington, Maine, November 28th, 1819. He fitted for College at the Farmington Academy; graduated at Bowdoin College, Maine, in 1843; received his second degree in course, at the same institution in 1846, and the degree of Master of Arts, ad eundem, from Yale College, in 1847. He studied law under the direction of Hon. Robert Goodenough, of Farmington, Me, late a member of Congress from his district, and with the late Hon. Charles B. Phelps, of Woodbury. He came to Woodbury in 1844, taught school for a while, and was admitted to the Litchfield County Bar, Oct., 1845. He commenced the practice of his profession in Woodbury immediately after, and has continued there in the performance of his duties as a counselor to the present time. He was elected a county commissioner for Litchfield County, at the May session of the General Assembly, in 1851. In April, 1856, he was admitted as an Attorney and Counselor of the United States Circuit Court, and on the 8th of March, 1865, he was admitted as an Attorney and Counselor of the Supreme Court of the United States. He

was elected Corresponding member of the New England Historic Genealogical Society, at Boston, Mass., May 5th, 1847; a member of the Connecticut Historical Society, Nov. 23d, 1852, of which, for many years, he has been a Vice-President; an Honorary member of Old Colony Historical Society, at Plymouth, Mass., April 24th, 1854; a Corresponding member of the Wisconsin Historical Society, Jan. 17th, 1855; a Corresponding member of the Vermont Historical Society,' Feb. 3d, 1860; a Corresponding member of the Maine Historical Society, Sept. 18th, 1861; and an Honorary member of the Rutland County Historical Society, Oct. 8th, 1868.

HON. SAMUEL G. GOODRICH.

Mr. Goodrich was even better known by his nom de plume of "Peter Parley," under which he achieved his world-wide distinction as an author, than by his real name. He was the son of the late Rev. Samuel Goodrich, pastor of the Congregational church in Ridgefield, Conn., where the subject of this notice was born. He was a member of a highly cultivated and intellectual family, and spent a life of industry and usefulness, and earned an enviable fame. It is not the design of this notice to write an obituary of him, or an estimate of his life and his works. They are engraved on the hearts of the intelligent and thoughtful in all the world. It is simply to say a word of the closing years of his life, and to mention the fact that "his bones remain with us" in this beautiful valley. Two or three years before his death, he bought a country house in Southbury, on "Maple Hill," on the beautifully shaded street, just below the Woodbury line, for the purpose of spending, in the serenity of a country repose, the evening of his days, and to identify himself with the people of his chosen home, and thus renew the thoughts and associations of his early years. But he was not long to enjoy his desired rest. went to New York on business one day in good health, the next day he was stricken down, and on the next brought home. The dream of life was over, and they laid him to rest in the "ancient cemetery" of Southbury, where lie the generations who have gone before him. Thus passed away one of the most distinguished men of our times.

He