The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1895-08-16
4 CELEBRATED CASE
How Vice Chancellor Bird Won
Fame in a Swine Case
A Farmers Sharp
Nosed Cow.

EF
The Hackettstown "Gazette' prints the
following story of how Vice Chancellor
Bird was started IN the road to fame:-
Probably nc man in the State has at
tanned the eminence that Vice Chancei-
lor John T. Bird enjoys, who began his
professional career under more diseour-
aging circumstances. He was born in
Bethlehem township, Hupterden county,
in 1925, Of poor but honest parents, who
dug a precarious living out Of a rented
farm. They had the natural parental
pride In and ambition for the strong
limbed but mot over shapely boy who
helped ON the farm in summer and at
tended the district. school in winter.
Probably the butts and bounds of their
ambition vas that John would some day
" a farm Of his very own, something
all their own toll and self-denial had
failed to accomplish. He TOOK more in
terest in those winter months al school,
worked harder n accomplished more
h the average farm boy, with less
ambition for the future, did and when
summer came he spent what time he
could from the grinding work of the
farm over mis- books. Probably the hap
plest hour of his life up to that time
was when ne was given permission to
attend the classical school at Hacketts-
town, taught by the late John S. La
barre, a school that then enjoyed a great
reputation in all Northern New Jersey.
STUDYING AND MARRYING.
For three years he remained under Mr..
Labarre. and then went back to Blooms
bury to teach school. While teaching
school he was married and registered as
a student at law in the Office of
Hon. A. G.. Riehey, at Asbury. He was
ADMITTED to the bar in 1855, gave up his
school and opened an Office in Blooms
bury. The Office was there, the young
lawyer was there and there was a
home to maintain, but clients came not.
Ihe awkward but breathless young bar
rister had perseverance, energy, prepara-
ton, studious habits, a retentive and
analytical mind. in short, all those quail
tiles necessary to a great lawyer or a
great jurist, but he hadn't any clients,
and the butcher, the baker and the
grocer had those necessaries of life which
he must have, and so Bird went back to
the farm. The devoted parents were get
ting old and needed help, and the young
lawyer was out on the farm at s'sun up
and worked away till high noon, when
he hurried off to his office in the village
to wait for clients. A few petty cases
TO replenish the farmerlawyer's purse
or feed the ambition that was ever urg-
ing him forward. He closed up the
Clinton. That was the stitch in time
that saved nine" He got there a few
months before the famoqs hog DISPUTE
mer Samuel Lee. that stirred that rural
community from centre to circumfer-
ence.
MEN OF AGE AND DISCRETION.
Both Race and Lee were men of age
and discretion, the very salt of that
farming community. rich, respected and
had in his pig sly a sharp snooted sow
could not be found. Some days after
to swap opinions with him on the mys-
FERROUS disappearance of that hog. He
found Neighbor Lee feeding his pigs, and
10. in the very midst, of them was that
said n%eighbor Race with much gtadness
but little consultation in his tones, that
trembling with rage and no Cancellation
in his tone, that amt your SOW, and
it i'll beeomes you to come here and &C.
euge me Of stealing a q a ba hog' and forth
a dozen times. and then the two ola
friends of a lifetime parted, yoWfng ven
geance. naon1a
up to look at the hog and every one came
back and repeated: Nathan, that IS
your sharp snooted sow" and at once
his hog took its place in the Judiciary
history of old Hupterdon and became the
first rung in the ladder upon which q
future Chancellor climbed to afme and
bring suit for the value of the SHARP
snooted SOW" which was placed at less
thar $40. Race was not possessed %
not have suit brought for more than
family relationship, succeeded in get
ting Bennett Van SICKLE, then the leader
OF the Hunterdon bar, to. come up TO
Clinton n try the case for him. Ev-
erybody was interested in the case Ior
believed the hog belonged to Race, but
they knew that Lee was honestly mis-
Mr., BIRDS SKILL AND JUDGMENT.
The case would probably have. won 1T
self, but Bird handled It with skill q
10 the echo when the case was won.
But it wasn't won in the Justices court;
for Lee appealed, and in the wider Held
of the county court house at demlng
ton, after a hard fight, Bird had the
Judgment below affirmed FITTED agalnsl
cream of the Hunterdon bar. Bennett
Van SICKLE. George A. Allen, as able a
LAWYER as New Jersey has KNOWN. and
Abraam Van Fleet, the late Vice Cham
cellor, for long years an, associate OF
Birds L, the Court of Equity. Mr. Bird
CONGRESSMAN, Vice Chancellor, and while
the old farmers of Hunterdon appreciate
the honor John I. Bird has done him.
self and them in hiss after life. they
never fail to refer to Farmer Races
sharp snooted SOW as his stepping-stone