The Irish standard., 1892-05-28
THE DELAWARE sAULsBuRYs.

THE DELAWARE SAuLSBuRYS.
Three Brothers Candidates for United
States Senator In One Legislature.
The recent death of Willard Sauls-
bury, chancellor Of Delaware and Tor
two terms a United States senator, re-
calls some remarkable incidents in the
history Of his little state, says the Buff
falo Courier. 1t seems to be the rule
that small states should be ruled by
families. For many years the Spragues
contested the control of Rhode Island
with Brown, Ives & Co., and in the same
way for long the Saulsburys disputed
with the house of Bayard the leader
ship in Delaware. Although the Sauls-
burys did not hand down political hon
ors from father to son, as the Bayards
did, they too were an old family, and
the late chancellor had in his possession
title deeds to the ancestral farm, which
went back two hundred years. His
father, farmer, was a prominent man
in Kent county and had been it's sheriff.
Willard was educated in Delaware and
Dickinson colleges, began practlclng
law in Georgetown. Sussex county, and
soon obtained such a hold upon the peo-
pie through his good looks, remarkable
learning, brilliant oratley and popular
manners that at twenty-nine he became
attorney general OF the state. Nine
years later in 1858, he was elected to
.he United States senate, and when his
aerm expired he was reelected He bore
a prominent part in the senate and was
stanch union man, but he drank so
lard that he became national scandal;
the exhibitions of the late Ell. Ell. Riddle
berger never attracted one-tenth as
much attention as did those of the bril-
liant Delawarean.
In the meantime one of his brothers,
Cove Salisbury, a physician, had be-
come speaker of the Delaware senate OF
nine members, and by the death of the
republican war governor, William Cam
non had succeeded in 1863 to the chief
1nagistracy, the office of lieutenant gov
ernor not existing in Delaware. In
1865 he had been elected governor. The
Delaware legislature consists of three
senators and seven representatives from
each of the three counties, and when
the time came in 1870 for the election of
a United States senator at the expira-
tion Of Wizards second term, fourteen
were for his reelection. fifteen were for
Cove, and one for the third brother of
the family, Eli, q Dover lawyer whose
public services had been confined to
single term in the Legislature, Nobody
=
toned. Finally Eli got another vote.
A delegation went across Dover green
70 his Office to see il he would accept.
At first he would not hear of it, but at
length he was persuaded, and in ten
minutes had been elected by IL combina~
ton of New Castle and Kent counties,
Sussex standing stanchly by Willard.
Willard warmly welcomed Eli as his
successor, and the latter served three
terms, and when he finally retired in
1889 pulled down the democratic con-
troll Of the legis1a ture with him, making
way for Anthony Higgins, a republican.
Cove returned to the practice Of medi
cine in Dover, where he died in 1861.
In 1878 Willard was appointed cllancel-
lor Of the state by his brother-in-law,
Gov. Ponder. a promise to abstain en-
tirely from drink was first obtained
from him. and this was kept except for
one or two lapses of which people gen.
orally did not hear. He worked hard
and is said to have made an excellent
chancellor, though very infrm physi-
cally during the last portion of his life,
his legs having been paralyzed for
many years. He was the seventh
chancellor which the state had in one
hundred years. Ex-senator Eli Sauls~
bury is still living in Dover near his
brothers house, but is in poor health
When he passes away the power of the
Saulsburys will probably be as extinct
in Delaware as that of the Claytons,
although there is a second generation
which has cut some figure at the bar
and in politics, OF the three brothers
Willard was the youngest, having been
born in 1890; Cove was born in 1915, and