Essex County herald. [volume] (Guildhall, Vt.) 1873-1964, 1888-01-27
POLAND AND RANKIN.
for the HERALD:

to attend the exercises of the bar in
memory Of the late Judge Poland
and A. Z. Rankin, at st. Johnsbury,
January 90, 1888, too late to go, the
occasion suggests train of rehec
tions. The past comes back to me,
and in memory live over again the
warm social life of thirty years and
more agone, made more enthusiastic
and zestful by the bounding pulses
of the last days of boyhood, and the
first of manhood, just beginning the
realities of life.
We look in vain for many and
many of the men who were full of
life then and filled large space i'll
the social and legal atmosphere of
the times. We ask in vain where is
the elder Redfeld, and how has his
genius to elegantly express the
philosophy and ethics, so deity
woven into his opinions, faded and
gone. We look in vain for Judge
Peck, whose reasoning powers seem
ed too strong to even die, and
Judge Steele, the brilliant light of
whose life went so suddenly out, and
all the long line of men Of that
class. They pass through our
minds like the swift winged visions
of the past. They have all passed
like tie long lines of skaters carry
ing their long streaming torches
down the snowy mountains of the
east. Where, too, are our associates,
so full of life and so empty of any
expectancy of death ''just thirty
years ago." Bartlett, Dickerman,
Stoddard, Slade, the Davises, Brown,
the Cahoons, Rogers, Burke, Potts,
Sartle, Allen, Robinson-But why
extend the line? 1t simply shows
that the men Of only three decades
back are nearly all gone. So many
- l~~ptng allte III our
hearts the warm associations and
the lively interest in one and an
other, engendered and cultivated
for years, and feeling (perhaps
blindly) that they still reciprocally
exist, it makes the few left more
reconciled to go. / almost said din
clined to CO." and, indeed, in the
more active moments of orr memory
as the shadow of that school Of men
pass before our eyes our emotions
almost amount to an inclination to
rise mp and follow them.
When one goes we sink soon into
feeling of security. We think
not of the next. If we do it is but
thin Imagination and not a reality.
Such was the mental condition of
Judge Poland's friends and acquain-
tances on that morning in which he
donned a new rustic hat and went
with the haymakers on his farm
with all the ardor and enthusiasm of
boy. We all know that death
comes to all, yet we cannot make it
seem so, especially as applied to
ones self. Yet it is so. The last
words l ever heard Judge Poland
utter were in reply to his opponent
at Lancaster, "What seems to be,
as" AS applied to his subject it
was true; but it is not in the line of
our impressions on the subject. 1t
did not seem that that great intellect
could die. But see start, moan,
and in an instant it has fed "like the
bright dew upon the grass" Where?
Into the great unknown.
The shock somewhat subsidized. The
first pang intensified by surprise had
passed into deep grief, born of calm
reason, which in few short days
was suddenly aroused by the an
nouncement "Rankin is dead!"
Surely now the voice of sorrow, "llke
the voice of many waters" comes
unto us from within and without
the borders of our State; Vermont
weeping for her honored sons.
They were very unlike in their
natures. Judge Poland possessed a
grand imposing figure physically,
with strong robust mind, and a
llon-like courage mentally, to which
was added a strong common sense
which did not accompany his efforts
and opinions, but which permeated
them. Nay, more, it was part Of
them. He was man whose pres
ence was felt, and whose absence
makes us lonely.
Mr.. Rankin was of more deli
cate and a finer mould. He was of