St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1876-04-28
General John Mattocks.
MRS. MIRA BKADwELL. EDITOR OF CHI
CAGO LEGAL NEWS:

MRS. MlRA BRADwELL, EDITOR OF CHI
CAGO LEGAL NEWS:
Ny Dear Madam The inclosed
sketch was written 10y the late Judge
Redtield just previous to his last illness.
for publication in Il family memorial
of Governor Mattocks of Vermont, who
died i'll lS47. As Nermonter Won feel
interested in all that Iclatcs to your
native state. as well as in the profession
which mourns the loss of So eminent a
member as the late Judge RedteId. |
therefore take pleasure i'll presenting
this sketch to the bar, through the col
umns of yeur widely extended paper.
am very truly yours.
JoHN MATToCKs.
Uicogo, 4prH 5th, 1876.
My first recollection of Governor Mat
tockS. of Peacham, Vermont, dates from
the year lsl6, when at the age oftwelve
Years WAS II pupil at the academy in
that town. and in the town and gown
contests. i'll ball playing. or other
games, General Mattocks. as he was
then called, was the champion of the
academy boys. | trust it will not he
considered Scandalous to name here,
that the prize in one of these contests.
WAS II gallon of pure whiskey. That
was before the DAYS of modern scientific
discovery that all stimulus in health is
either useless or hurttul. OF that the
Bible is a myth.
| cannot say that my personal knowl-
edge of Governor Mattocks was of much
account from that time until my ad-
mission to the bar, iH Orleans county.
Vermont, i'll lS21. AT that time he
stood decidedly at the head of the bar.
III that section of the state. and had
done 50 for nearly forty years. He read
law, think, at Middlebury. VT. with
his brother-inlaw. Miller. who WAS Il
very distinguished member of the ban
of that day. when it embraced as much
talent, to say the least. as it has ever
done since. IIesubscquemtly removed
to Peacham, where he spent the re-
malsder of his life, mainly i'll the prac-
tice of his profession.
Those who think of Peacham as it
has been for the last thirty years, iSolat-
ell from public travel, and equally from
that great source of assumed modern
enlightenment, the conversion by means
of rapid revolution and more rapid pro-
gress; perched upon hills il thousand
feet above tide water. more completely
shutting it out from the sunshine of
modern progress. that Il Thousand miles
of distance, have no adequate compre-
hension of what it was in the early wears
of the present century; when Johu
MattockS, the young giant. in his pro-
fesslon, and the young leader in the
politics of the state, (fOr that was still
ia the hands of the old Federalists, the
most national. and the most upright and
talented party the country has ever pro-
duced); the champion of every field and
always facile princeps inter pdres, might
not uniustly be said to WELD il wider
and more controlling influence than any
man of his years had ever done before
or has ever done since in the state.
know this will seem like exaggera-
tion to those in the cities and large
towns of the state, and who have not
the slightest comprehension how any
man, not in contact with the railway
and the telegraph can possibly acquire
any influence upon anybody or anything.
But such men have vet much to learn
OF the real elements of greatness, wheth-
er III individual character or in that of
states and empires. When the state
was controlled by such men as Isaac
Ilchenor, Nathaniel and Daniel Chip
man, Chauncey Langdon, Charles II.
Williams, David Edmonds, Samuel
Swift and his brother Benjamin., Samu-
el Miller, Daniel Farrand, Daniel Buck,
Elijah Paine, John Mattocks, Samuel
Prentiss and others of like character
and calibre Peacham was in fact the
headquarters of the council chambers
of the party for all the most essential
practical ends, and Peacham was then
under the leadership of such head mas
ters as Ezra Carter and David Chassell
whose equals could not now be found
IN any similar positions in all New Eng
land, and sent forth such pupils as
lhaddeus Stevens, the great American
commander, and Samuel Merrill, the
early political leader in Indiana, and
Wilbur Fisk, the almost inspired disci-
pie and preacher of MethOdism through
out America, and an army of others of
like eminent character and gifts. At
such time we need not wonder that