THE CHICAGO LAW TIMES.

VOL. III.]

OCTOBER, 1889.

[No. 4.

JAMES KENT.

James Kent* was born July 31, 1763, in that part of Dutchess County then called the precinct of Fredericksburgh, now in the County of Putnam, in the State of New York. His grandfather, the Rev. Elisha Kent, a native of Suffield, in the State of Connecticut, married the daughter of Rev. Joseph Moss, of Derby, and was for some time a minister of the Presbyterian Church at Newtown, in that State. He removed, as early as 1740, to the southeast part of Dutchess County, then wild and uncultivated, but which gradually increased in population, and became known as Kent's Parish. He continued to reside there until his death, in July, 1776, at the age of seventy-two..

His eldest son, Moss Kent, who, as well as his father, was a graduate of Yale College, commenced the study of the law under Lieutenant-Governor Fitch, at Norwalk, Connecticut, and was admitted to the bar, in Dutchess County, in 1756. In 1760 he married the eldest daughter of Dr. Uriah Rogers, a physician at Norwalk, by whom he had three children: James, the subject of this memoir, Moss, who was a member of the Senate of New York for four years, afterward a member of Congress, and first judge of the Court of Common Pleas of Jefferson County, and Hannah, who married William Pitt Platt, of Plattsburgh. They lost their mother in 1770, and

*In preparing this article, we have drawn largely from a sketch of Chancellor Kent, in the second volume of the National Portrait Gallery, by Longacre and Herring, N. Y. and Phil., 1835.

their father died in 1794, at the age of sixty-one.

When five years old, James, the eldest son, was placed at an English school, at Norwalk, and lived in the family of his maternal grandfather, until 1772, when he went to reside with an uncle, at Pawlings, in Dutchess County. Here he acquired the first rudiments of Latin.

In May, 1773, he was sent to a Latin school, at Danbury, Connecticut, under the charge of the Rev. Ebenezer Baldwin. After the death of Mr. Baldwin, in October, 1776, he was under different instructors, at Danbury, Stratford and Newtown, until he entered Yale College, in September, 1777. At these different schools he was remarked as possessing a lively disposition, great quickness of parts, a spirit of emulation and love of learning. The pious puritans among whom he lived, were sober, frugal and industrious, and the strict and orderly habits of those around him had their influence in forming his own. From their example and the impressions received at that early age, he acquired that simplicity of character and purity of morals which he ever afterward preserved, without losing his natural vivacity and playfulness of temper. He has often mentioned the delight he experienced on his periodical returns from school to his home, in rambling with his brother among the wild scenery of his native hills and valleys. The associations then formed rendered him an enthusiastic admirer of the beauties of nature, and in after life, during the intervals of business, he made excursions into every part of his native State, through New England, and along the borders of Canada, visiting each mountain, lake and cascade; and while gratifying his taste for simple pleasures, preserving and invigorating his health.

In July, 1779, in consequence of the invasion of New Haven by the British troops, the college was broken up, and the students for a time dispersed. During his exile, having met with a copy of Blackstone's Commentaries, he read the work of that elegant writer, with great eagerness and pleasure, and it so excited his admiration, that at the age of sixteen, he determined to become a lawyer.

He left college, after taking the degree of bachelor, in Sep

tember, 1781, with high reputation. After passing a few weeks at Fairfield, to which place his father had removed on his second marriage, he went to Poughkeepsie, and commenced the study of the law, under the direction of Egbert Benson, then attorney-general of the State of New York, and afterward one of the judges of the Supreme Court.

His strong and decided attachment to jurisprudence could not fail to insure his success. Besides the books of English common law, he read the large works of Grotius and Puffendorf, making copious extracts from them, and as a relaxation, perusing the best writers in English literature, of which his favorite portions were history, poetry, geography, voyages and travels. He was temperate in all his habits, was a waterdrinker, and engaged in no dissipation, not even joining in the ordinary fashionable amusements of others of the same age. He was very far, however, from being grave, reserved or austere; but was uniformly cheerful, lively, and communicative. The love of reading had become his ruling passion, and when he felt the want of amusement, "he better knew great Nature's charms to prize," and sought it in rural walks, amidst objects that purify and elevate the imagination.

In September, 1784, he took the degree of Master of Arts at Yale College, and in January, 1785, was admitted an attorney of the Supreme Court. He went to Fredericksburgh, with the intention of commencing the practice of his profession there; but the solitude of that retired place soon became insupportable, and in less than two months he returned to Poughkeepsie. There, in April, 1785, he married a Miss Bailey, a lady a few years younger than himself, with whom he lived in the uninterrupted enjoyment of domestic felicity.

He possessed, at this time, little or no property, but living with great simplicity in a country village, his wants were few, and were supplied with little expense. Young, ardent and active, he felt no anxiety for the future, but engaged with increased alacrity in professional business and literary pursuits, so as to leave no portion of his time unemployed.

In 1787, he resolved to renew and extend his acquaintance with the Greek and Roman classics, which he had entirely neg