JOHN M. SHIRLEY.

JOHN MAJOR SHIRLEY was born in that part of Sanborntown now East Tilton, N. H., November 16, 1831, and died at his home in Andover, N. H., May 21, 1887. He came of the rugged Scotch-Irish stock which left its characteristics strongly impressed upon many New Hampshire towns. He was the youngest of four children, and his early years were passed in the school of adversity. Of other schooling he had little enough. In early boyhood he attended the brief terms at the district school, and after enjoying the advantages of three terms at the Sanborntown High School, was obliged at fourteen years of age to abandon his studies for work to aid the family.

He afterward was able to attend a few terms more at Northfield Academy. It was his purpose to prepare for college, but his eyesight nearly failing him, the project was abandoned. He taught school and worked upon a farm until May 30, 1850, when he entered the law office of Asa P. Cate and Benjamin A. Rogers, at what is now Tilton, and was admitted to the Bar in Belknap County, September 13, 1854.

For the next seven months he was employed in the office where he had studied, receiving forty dollars as compensation for his services.

October 1, 1855, he entered into a partnership with Samuel Butterfield of Andover, and removing to that town, made it his home, remaining in the constant practice of his profession to the time of his death.

The partnership with Butterfield was terminated in 1860. Subsequently partnerships were formed for brief periods with John P. Carr, Jr., Clarence E. Carr, and George F. Stone, but the work of the firm always bore the strong mind of its leading member.

It was in an individual capacity that he stood for many

years as a leading lawyer of Merrimack and Grafton Counties. His personal characteristics made him a man of mark in his profession. Honest, resolute, uncompromising, and without fear, he knew nothing of policy, and had little tact in smoothing the rougher side of human nature, but as a practitioner he was noted for stanch fidelity to the interests of his clients, never yielding one jot or tittle of what he considered the latter's rights. Tenacious to a fault, he could not brook the thought of compromise. As an investigator in difficult and intricate cases, in the work of hewing, as it were, a road through a new country, he had few peers and no superiors. Persistent and laborious, he worked up his case with unceasing care, and always came into court fully prepared, with a thorough knowledge of the law and a keen appreciation of the weight of evidence. He possessed a powerful memory, and his fund of information was inexhaustible. He was a deep and vigorous writer on legal subjects, and was well and favorably known to members of his profession far beyond the limits of his native state.

He was one of the earliest members of the American Bar Association, and was member for New Hampshire of its General Council until last year, when he resigned because of ill health.

His address, delivered before the Association at Saratoga, on the general practice of law attracted wide attention, and was printed as a separate paper for distribution among the members of the profession as a valuable addition to the literature of the law. In addition to many valuable contributions to the law journals of his time, he was author of the history of the Dartmouth College Causes, a work characterized by elaborate research and profound legal knowledge of the subject, and which was recognized as a classic in legal litera

ture.

Mr. Shirley took a deep interest in the affairs of his adopted town, and was held in high esteem by his fellow-citizens. He was made Postmaster in the first year of his residence in

Andover, represented the town in the Legislature several terms, and was a delegate to the Constitutional Convention of 1876, and was at the head of the School Committee many years, besides taking a deep interest in the Unitarian School, known as Proctor Academy, as he did in everything else pertaining to the prosperity of the town.

He was admitted an Attorney and Counselor of the Circuit Court of the United States in 1865, received the degree of Master of Arts from Dartmouth College in the same year, and in 1871 was appointed Reporter of the decisions of the Supreme Court of New Hampshire, holding the position until removed for his political opinions in 1876.

He was also an active member of the New Hampshire Historical Society, and prepared many papers in its interest, that on "The Early Jurisprudence of New Hampshire" being regarded as one of the most valuable ever read before that organization.

As a Free Mason Mr. Shirley manifested the same capacity for work that he displayed in all other lines of his active life.

He was a charter member of Kearsarge Lodge of Andover, and also a member of Horace Chase Chapter, and Mt. Horeb Commandery of Concord. He was a Scottish Rite member 32°, and a thorough student in the history of the Order. He was for many years Chairman of the Committee on Trials and Appeals in the Grand Lodge of New Hampshire, where his keen perception of facts and his innate love of justice made him conspicuous and valuable among the fraternity.

Beginning with no other advantages than an indomitable will and broad mental capacity, under the discipline of adversity, Mr. Shirley developed and made a proud record for himself, stood high among his fellow-men, and left his mark upon the times. As a lawyer he had the respect of the members of his profession; his townsmen esteemed him as an honest, active, and whole-hearted citizen, while in his home life he was a faithful and devoted husband and father. He

was an ardent friend and a rugged hater. He was an able lawyer, a broad-minded citizen, a successful, self-made man.

The New Hampshire Bar has lost within a few years several very prominent and able members. Probably no state in the Union has suffered heavier loss than this state, and among the gifted men who have thus fallen, while leading in the van of professional and public life, no one is remembered by the profession and the people with higher respect or warmer attachment than Mr. Shirley.

NEW YORK.

AARON J. VANDERPOEL.

The life of A. J. Vanderpoel during the entire period from his admission to the Bar in October, 1846, at the age of twenty-one years, to the time of his sudden death, August 22, 1887, was mainly spent in the active practice of the law in New York. A professional career was marked out for him, not less by his own early choice than by inheritance, his father, an eminent physician in Columbia County, being one of three brothers of whom the other two held high judicial stations, one as Circuit Judge of the Third Circuit of this State from 1830 to 1838, and the other as a Judge of the Superior Court of New York city from 1846 to 1850. After graduating at the University of the City of New York in the class of 1843, he began at once the study of the law, and soon after his entrance on active practice came, by dint of untiring perseverance and industry and the apt use of opportunity, to be identified in an exceptional degree with contested cases at Nisi Prius. His experience and skill as counsel in the litigations in which during many years he represented the Sheriff of the city and county, made him thoroughly versed, both as respects the common law and the statutory law, in the wide

range of principles and practice which those cases necessarily involved, and brought him into close contact with the whole body of the Bar. As his general clientage rapidly increased, bringing weightier responsibilities and a wider sphere of activity, he kept pace with their requirements, aiding largely in the appellate courts and in the court of last resort in the solution and settlement of many of the new and intricate questions to which the commercial enterprise of recent years has given rise, and attaining a leadership which was the recognized reward of his individual talents and of his singleness of purpose in the discharge of his professional duties.

The secret of his success lay in his vigorous intellect and clear mental perception, his firm grasp of legal principles, his thorough familiarity with the technical side of the law, his straightforward dealing with facts, his discriminating knowledge of adjudged cases, and his capacity for continuous application, only too freely used in the service of his clients, and pushed to the extreme of physical endurance. The labor in which he delighted was pursued without haste, without rest and apparently without fatigue. His even and genial temperament, his freedom from artifice and all doubtful or unworthy expedients, the frankness and fairness of his methods, his self-reliance, and his unselfishness, won for him in a peculiar degree the respect and confidence alike of his associates at the Bar and of the Courts, and strengthened the ties of personal friendship by which so many of his professional brethren were bound to him. To the younger members of the Bar he was always ready to give the benefit of his manysided experience and learning, and for several years next preceding his death he had been the head of the Law School of his Alma Mater.

He was versed in the literature of the law, and fond of whatever in art or personal reminiscence illustrated its annals or perpetuated the memories of its jurists or the progress of its jurisprudence. As Librarian of the Law Institute for many years, he was most assiduous in the care and promotion