Obituary Sketch of Edward I. Sanford.

In 1867 he was appointed Judge of the Superior Court for the term of eight years beginning on the 27th of July in that year. By successive reappointments in 1875 and 1883 he was continued in office until July 27, 1891. By that time his health had become seriously impaired ; and it continued to grow worse until his death.

His work upon the bench of the Superior Court for that long period of twenty-four years was substantially the work of his life, and to it he devoted, with conscientious and laborious care, all his energies. He was not ambitious for the glitter of public office, and never sought it, but he learned to like his duties as a Judge of the Superior Court and he was content to limit his career to the faithful performance of them.

His personal character was blameless. Everybody who knew him liked him. His friends stood fast to him and he stood fast to them. His hand was open and generous. His tastes were eminently domestic; his heart was always in his home.

On the 4th day of March 1870, he formally joined the Centre Church of New Haven with his wife and daughter. On the 13th day of July 1893, he died in the faith.

Two days after his death, at a meeting of the bar of New Haven County, appropriate resolutions, prepared by Hon. Henry Stoddard and offered by Hon. Charles R. Ingersoll, were unanimously passed. The graceful and discriminating tribute to Judge Sanford which they contain justifies the introduction here of the few sentences now to be quoted from them as follows:

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To perpetuate our high appreciation of the character and qualities of the late Judge Edward I. Sanford, and of the loss to us and to the community at large involved in his death, the bar of New Haven County now resolve:

"That as a man, his friendships were many, broad, catholic and affectionate.

"That as a Judge, his courtesy was unfailing, his patience unwearied, his learning and diligence always mastering the complicated questions arising in the discharge for many years of his duties as a Judge of the Superior Court.

"That in Judge Sanford there was the true friend and the upright and capable judge, and we mourn his death as the loss of a personal friend, and we deplore his illness and consequent death as a public misfortune."

These words may fitly finish this imperfect sketch of a high-minded gentleman, a good citizen, a faithful friend, a loving husband and father, and a just Judge.

Obituary Sketch of Valentine B. Chamberlain.

OBITUARY SKETCH OF VALENTINE B. CHAMBERLAIN.*

VALENTINE BURT CHAMBERLAIN, whose long career as a judge, as well as prominence as a legal adviser and practitioner, well entitles his name to remembrance here, was born in Colebrook, Litchfield County, on the 13th day of April, 1833, being descended on both sides from sturdy colonial stock. His preparatory studies were pursued at the Connecticut Literary Institution in Suffield, and he was graduated from Williams College in 1857. Studying law with Seth E. Case, Esq., of New Britain, he was admitted to the bar in 1859, and began the practice of the law in that town. In 1861 he was elected clerk of the House of Representatives, Hon. Augustus Brandegee being speaker.

The war of the rebellion breaking out in 1861, he enlisted in the 7th regiment under Gen. Hawley. He was with his regiment at the brilliant siege of Fort Pulaski, and in September, 1862, was promoted to the captaincy of his company in which he had enlisted as second lieutenant. He was selected to command the right of the picked battalion of the 7th regiment which made the brave but deadly assault at Fort Wagner in July, 1863, and was one of the handful of men who scaled the rebel parapet and were captured within the fort. From the time of his capture until March 1, 1865, he was in rebel prisons in South Carolina. It was during that time that he made the thrilling escape from Columbia prison in the fall of 1863 with Maj. Henry W. Camp, of which so graphic an account is given in Trumbull's "Knightly Soldier." Paroled at last, after nearly two years of loathsome captivity in rebel prisons, he rejoined his regiment just in time to witness the closing scenes of the war.

Few soldiers of Connecticut left a more brilliant, and none a more patriotic record; but there was a cruel irony in the fate which consigned the splendid soldier to long captivity, and prevented him from fully displaying the qualifications for command and achievement, which all who knew him recognized, and which he signally manifested as long as he was in the field.

Taking up his residence again in New Britain, after a short sojourn in Florida, from which state he was a delegate to the convention which first nominated Gen. Grant, he devoted himself to his profession, and was soon after elected judge of the city and criminal courts, to both of which he was almost continuously re-elected from 1868 to the time of his death on the 25th day of June, 1893. He was also elected Judge of Probate for the Berlin District, which included New Britain, in 1880, and was re-elected for several terms.

*Prepared at the request of the reporter by Hon. Charles E. Mitchell, of the Hartford County bar.

Obituary Sketch of Valentine B. Chamberlain.

As would naturally be expected, his judicial functions largely absorbed the legal activities of Judge Chamberlain, but, at the same time, they afforded him opportunity for the discharge of other duties calling for the sound judgment of the trained lawyer, and the strict integrity and decision of character which were his natural endowment. Accordingly, he was elected state treasurer in 1884, when Henry B. Harrison was elected governor. He was assistant pension agent until the Connecticut District was merged in that of Massachusetts; and at his death he was president of the Mechanics National Bank, treasurer of the Burritt Savings Bank, and director in several of those great manufacturing corporations of New Britain, which, by reason of the control of such men as he, have always and everywhere been celebrated for intelligence and integrity of management.

As a lawyer, Judge Chamberlain's qualities were sound judgment, firm grasp of leading principles and an all dominating common sense. These qualities were especially noticeable in the skill and tact with which he administered the criminal law. Mercy with him was a part of justice, when mercy would have an educational and reformatory effect, but the right of society to be rid of old offenders was always vindicated. The enthusiastic admirer who declared that he made of his court a pulpit, did not intend to imply that there was anything weak in his administration of law and justice, and there was not.

As a practitioner, his mind had in it no tendency to circumlocutory approach. He achieved his victories by direct attack. Such a thing as a vicious blow was absolutely foreign to his nature. He would win fairly or fail in the fight. As a speaker, he was both intellectual and emotional. He always impressed the hearer as having something to say, of the right and justice of which he was profoundly convinced, and he therefore succeeded in convincing others. He had the soul of an orator; he felt that first which he would have his hearer feel. There was a rich vein, too, of imagination in his mental equipment, and, though he worked it seldom, it yielded then rich treasures of true oratory. He was always in demand as a speaker at the meetings of the Army and Navy Club, and wherever patriotic soldiers and citizens were drawn together by memories of the war or devotion to its principles. Nothing stirred him like his country's flag. To him it was more than an emblem. It was instinct with life; it was his country itself,--the country for which he fought and to which, in the principles underlying its prosperity and guaranteeing its perpetuity, he could no more be recreant in maturer years than in his youth he could have faltered on the field of battle.

Indeed, every good cause found Judge Chamberlain ready with weapons in hand for battle. If his warm championship sometimes made enemies for the time, they did not remain enemies. There was no malice in his strong and even rugged nature, and all who dealt with him came to admire him first and to love him afterwards.

Obituary Sketch of Valentine B. Chamberlain.

In politics, Judge Chamberlain was a strong and prominent Republican. Twice he was a member of conventions for the nomination of candidates for the presidency; of the first we have already spoken; the second was the convention in Chicago in 1884. In a commendable sense, he was a partisan, and yet it was a political opponent who penned the following tribute, with which this sketch must close:-" We knew him as an adviser, we knew him on the streets, we knew him on the bench, we knew him in town meeting and in places of public trust, and we always had confidence in him as a man whose acts were actuated by principle and who believed what he said. Tender hearted as a woman, full of human compassion, he combined a strong will with a gentle, poetic nature, and he was in truth a manly man. Tears came to many eyes to-day when the sad news of his death went from mouth to mouth. They are the best and truest In Memoriam' inasmuch as they were heartfelt evidences of the affection and respect in which he was held. Visibly he has gone, but the flavor of his life and the moral of his existence will live long as a text and inspiration for all of us.”

To what has been so well said about him here and elsewhere, I wish to add the tribute of a comrade, to the memory of comrade Valentine B. Chamberlain. I was not in the same regiment or command with him, nor did I know him during the war. That made no difference. Every Connecticut soldier in the great struggle for the Union was his comrade and his friend. He loved them all; and surely they all loved him. May I not say they love him still?

He delighted in the gatherings of veterans. He was there in his element, and at his best, if there be indeed a best to one who was always good, and kind, and pure, and noble. But he had won his spurs and been knighted, upon the field of battle, and he remembered the obligations of his nobility. If clouds ever came into the atmosphere in which he lived, he never brought them upon his face to the company of his fellows. It was eternal sunshine where he stood, and his cordial hand grasp, as Shakespeare said of Mercy, was twice blessed;-to him who gave, and him who took.

Then, too, how eloquent he was, with that sweetness of speech which flows through the lips, but springs from the heart. He was unrivaled in this state as a Memorial Day speaker, as many a great audience, elevated to the loftiest heights of patriotism by his glowing utterance, will hear witness. And he was especially happy in that typical union of the soldiers and sailors of this state, The Army and Navy Club, to whose meetings he was life, and inspiration, and cheer. "Comrades," he said, "we want a good time, and we must have it. We wish to get in all that we can in the little time which is given to us." And we did, when he was present, all the more truly because nothing in that presence might be done, or said, or thought, that could bring a blush to the face of a woman, or a pang to the heart of a saint.

Obituary Sketch of Alvan P. Hyde.

On the Friday evening next before the Sunday on which he died, at the annual banquet of the association to which I have just referred, I sat at table four precious hours by his side. It was indeed a feast of reason and of the soul. His hand clasped mine in parting, just as our watches told the hour of midnight, and he turned away to live his last full day on earth. I did not then imagine that parting was forever. Nor do I think so now. The midnight ushers in the morn, and it is darkest just before the dawn begins. It must be daylight soon. Until that time shall come, his own words uttered two years ago, when, as toast master of our club, he set a star at the name of each deceased comrade, shall be our word to him, and them: " Comrades here, greetings to comrades there. If it be so that the veil, so dark to us, is luminous to you, then see us as we pledge anew our fraternal love, and hear us as we say, until the morning breaks, Good Night."

OBITUARY SKETCH OF ALVAN P. HYDE.*

ALVAN PINNEY HYDE came of good old Puritan stock. He was the lineal descendant, in the seventh generation, of William Hyde, who came from England in 1633 with the Rev. Thomas Hooker, and who, three years later, was one of the company that followed Hooker to the Connecticut valley and settled the town of Hartford. The name of William Hyde is on the monument in the old Hartford burying ground, as one of the original settlers. He was an original proprietor of the town of Norwich, which was settled in 1660, as was also his son, Samuel, who married a daughter of Thomas Lee. Their eldest daughter was the first white child born in Norwich. The fourth son of Samuel Hyde was Thomas, who married Mary Backus of Norwich. The second son of Thomas was Jacob, who married Hannah Kingsbury, and, like his father, was a farmer in Franklin. The second son of Jacob was Ephraim, who married Martha Giddings, and settled in Stafford. The eldest son of Ephraim was Nathaniel, who married Sarah Strong, and their eldest son was Alvan, who married Sarah Pinney. The second son of Alvan and Sarah (Pinney) Hyde was Alvan Pinney, the subject of this sketch.

He was born March 10, 1825, at Stafford, Tolland County, Conn.

His father, an iron manufacturer, was a prominent citizen of Stafford, one of the selectmen of the town, and a frequent representative of it in the state legislature. He died prematurely, as it would seem, leaving the legacy of an excellent reputation both for his business abilities and for personal integrity.

Prepared by the Rev. Dr. Edwin P. Parker of Hartford.