The Morris County chronicle. [volume] (Morristown, N.J.) 1877-1915, 1900-02-23

at the same time, the most illustrious
of all the Vice Presidents of the
! United States since John Adams
He was born in period OF our
country's history that Just antedates
the beginning of those vast movements
in our national life and progress
which have made the last half of the
nineteenth century so marvellous.
"The stock from which he sprang
was on his fathers side. the same,
vigorous, self-reliant strain that gave
to England its Hampton and Crom-
well-men in whom the predominant
moral quality supplied tone and
strength to every enterprise in which
they engaged; the same stock that
colonized New England and later sent
tide of God fearing, liberty loving
pioneers flowing westward across the
Alleghanies, over the prairies, down
the valleys of the great ssrivers, carry
ing with them those conceptions of
law and justice, of self government
and of personal righteousness.
g Mr.. Hobart's father was New
Hampshire man, who, leaving the
rugged hills of that state, carried
with him to New Jersey all the adj
mirable characteristics of his ancestry.
He settled in Monmouth County and
there took as his wife typical repre-
sentative of that other strain which
has equally contributed to the enrich
ment and invigoration of the Ameri-
can race-the Hugenots.
1.-THE circumstances of his parents
were not aff1uent neither were they
the reverse. They had a respectable
position among the solid, reliable and
most respected citizens OF that most
worthy community, differing very
little, if at all, in material circum-
stances from the average of their
neighbors, and, indeed, resembling in
character, circumstances and mode of
living the geniality of the farming
and mercantile communities through
out New England and the Middle
States at that period.
"The conditions of his early life
called for the exercise of the homely,
old fashioned virtues of prudence,
thrift, economy and self-denial but
they did not devolve unusual hard
ships or privation, and were not in
consistent with the maintenance of
standing in the community which
accorded to his parents and himself
the very highest repute for personal
and social qualities
He was easily the foremost stu
dent in his classes and was graduated
from Rutgers College when he had
just attained the age at which, in our
day, the majority of college students
are only ready for matriculation.
Teaching school was the most
common resource and the one which
many of our most distinguished men
employed to help themselves along in
their preparation for profession.
The young graduate spent short
period in excepting " district school,
and then in December, 1863 he went
to Paterson and became law student
in the office of Socrates Tuttle. No
young man was ever favored more in
the choice of preceptor.
He had, even while law student,
taken an active interest in local poll
tics, assisting in the political work of
the committees and the candidate of
his party His popularity was first
put to an actual test in 1872 when he
was unanimously nominated by the
convention for member of the General
Assembly for the old Third District
of Passaic County, and was elected
by the largest majority ever given.
Il remember being present on the
floor of the Assembly at the moment
of final adjournment III 1878 and
the very marked enthusiasm
with which his associates greeted