Husband Hon. Nathaniel Bailey Eldred 1
Born: 12 Jan 1795 - Dolsontown, Orange Co, NY 1
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Died: 27 Jan 1867 2
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Marriage:
Other Spouse: [Unk] Dimmick ( - )
Wife [Unk] Dimmick
Born:
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Died: 1824 2
Buried:
Father: Dan Dimmick ( - ) 2
Mother:
Children
1 F Caroline E. Eldred 3
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Christened:
Died:
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Spouse: Lewis Findlay Watson (1819- ) 4 5 6
2 M Charles F. Eldred 2
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General Notes: Husband - Hon. Nathaniel Bailey Eldred
His early education was such as the local schools afforded, supplemented by a diligent reading of all books that fell into his hands. While yet a boy he formed the purpose of becoming a lawyer, and about the year 1811 he went to Milford, Pennsylvania, then the county seat of Wayne County, to begin the work of preparation.
He first entered the office of Dan Dimmick, one of the leading lawyers of the county, and subsequently completed his studies under the direction of Edward Mott, deputy attorney-general for the county. Before his course of legal study was finished the county was divided, and Milford became the county seat of Pike.
January 27, 1817, he was admitted to the bar of Wayne. He continued, however, to reside at Milford until after the death of Andrew M. Dorrance, the senior of the two lawyers then practicing at the county seat of Wayne, in April, 1818. Thereupon he took up his residence and commenced practice in Bethany, which remained his home for the greater part of the next half century.
In thus commencing life, Mr. Eldred was favored with no advantages except those bestowed by nature. Those however were sufficient to win rapid advancement, especially in a community which recognized no conventional standards or artificial distinctions. His mental constitution was a rare combination of sturdy personal qualities, quick intelligence, keen powers of observation, generous impulses, rigid integrity, and a ready adaptability to surrounding conditions. He rapidly gained the appreciation and confidence of the people of the county, both as a lawyer and a man, and in 1822, four years after he had come among them, a stranger, he was elected to the Legislature. In the following year he was re-elected.
Under the system of rotation in the district that prevailed, the nominees were selected from Pike county for the next two years. When it again fell to Wayne to secure the candidate, Mr. Eldred was re-elected for two terms more. His fourth year's service completed, he declined a subsequent nomination. Later when the system of public improvements constructed by the State was put in operation, he accepted the position of canal commissioner, but declined a second term. He was also a member of the board of commissioners appointed by the State-Hon. John Ross and Hon. David Scott being his associates-to treat with a like board appointed by the State of New Jersey in relation to the navigation and control of the Delaware River, and aided materially in the adjustment of all questions connected with this subject. In 1844 he was chosen a presidential elector and cast his vote for James K. Polk. In the spring of 1853 he received from President Pierce the appointment of naval officer at the Philadelphia custom-house, a position which he held for four years.
But it was in the field of his profession rather than in politics that his chief distinction was won. During a practice of nearly twenty years, in competition with such men as Amzi and Thomas Fuller, George Wolf, Dan Dimmick, Edward Mott, Garrick Mallery, Oristus Collins, John N. Conyngham, and other noted practitioners of that day, he rose to a high position at the bar, and for nearly twenty years more he held a seat on the bench. By an act passed April 8, 1833, the counties of Potter, McKean, Warren, and Jefferson were erected into the Eighteenth Judicial District, from and after September 1, 1835, and the governor was required to appoint a president judge for the district. When the time for making the appointment arrived Governor Wolf, who had often met Mr. Eldred at the bar, and recognized his fitness for the position, commissioned him president judge of the new district. In 1839 the death of Judge Slupper made a vacancy on the bench of the Sixth District, composed of Erie, Crawford, and Venango counties, and Governor Porter commissioned Judge Eldred as president judge of that district.
In 1843 Judge Blythe, of the Twelfth District, composed of Dauphin, Lebanon, and Schuylkill counties, resigned to accept the office of collector of customs of Philadelphia, and Governor Porter thereupon commissioned Judge Eldred as his successor.
In 1849 the counties of Wayne, Pike, Monroe and Carbon were erected into the Twenty-second District, and Judge Eldred, desiring a return to his old home in Bethany, Governor Johnson commissioned him president judge of the district. In 1851, the judiciary having been made elective by the constitutional amendment adopted the preceding year, many of Judge Eldred's friends throughout the State proposed his nomination for judge of the Supreme Court. He declined however to become a candidate, preferring to remain on the bench where his home was situated; and the desire to retain him was so general in the district that he received the support of both parties, and was elected without opposition. In April, 1853, the position of naval officer at Philadelphia being tendered him by President Pierce, he decided to accept it and resigned the judgeship. This closed his judicial labors, and, substantially, his professional career.
On quitting the position of naval officer Judge Eldred returned to his home in Bethany. The remainder of his life was passed in comparative retirement. The advancing years were beginning to make their approach felt; he had begun to suffer in health; and though frequently consulted in important cases, he declined to resume active professional employment. The decade following was spent mainly amid the tranquil pursuits and interests of rural life, and he passed the limit of three score and ten, loved and honored by all. He died January 27, 1867, just half a century from the day of his admission to the Wayne county bar, at the place which had witnessed the beginning of his career, and had for more than a generation been his home.
In casting his lot among the people of Wayne county, Judge Eldred identified himself with them in purpose and action. He made their general interests his own and strove by every means in his power to promote them. In private and public life he was active in aiding the progress and development of the county, both as to material interests and educational advancement. By nature and by habit of thought and life he was essentially a man of the people, and no man in Wayne county ever had a stronger hold on the popular heart. The people of the county appreciated his services, and at all times gave him an unwavering support. During the first decade of his residence among them, the only office in their gift which he would consent to accept was bestowed upon him again and again. They viewed his elevation to the bench with a feeling akin to personal satisfaction and pride. When his life closed, most of the generation which had witnessed his success and usefulness had preceded him to the grave; yet his fame, though it had become largely a tradition, was so enduring that his death was felt and mourned as a loss of no common magnitude.
As an advocate Judge Eldred was clear in argument, earnest and persuasive, resting on the broad basis of equity, appealing largely to the natural perception of right, and arousing an aversion to every form of meanness, oppression, and wrong. He was a jurist of more than ordinary rank. On the bench, however, he was little given to legal subtleties and refinements, or to the habit of measuring questions of right by narrow technical rules. He regarded the judicial function as designed for practical administration of justice, and his decisions aimed at a fair and equitable adjustment of the difficulties between the parties. He was well read in his profession, and possessed a legal mind of high order; but a controlling sense of justice that responded instinctively to all questions respecting rights as between man and man, predominated over the strictly professional view of a case, and his conclusions, even when not in strict conformity with technical rules and precedents, rested on a firm and obvious basis of equity.
The essential justice of his purpose was so apparent as to command the respect of the bar, even when error was alleged in his rulings on questions of law. The people, without measuring his judicial action by professional tests, accepted its results as in the main just and equitable; they recognized his strong common sense, and clear judgment, and had abiding faith in his judicial integrity. They gave him their confidence because they knew him to be up-right, impartial, and devoted to the administration of justice in its broadest and noblest sense.
It will not be out of place to preserve anecdotes illustrating some of Judge Eldred's characteristics. While he was on the Dauphin county bench a case of assault and battery was tried. The evidence showed that while the defendant and his wife were walking on the streets of Harrisburg, a rowdy used some grossly insulting language toward the wife, whereupon the husband knocked him down. Judge Eldred's charge to the jury was substantially in the following terms: "Gentlemen of the jury, the defendant is indicted for an assault and battery on the prosecutor. You have learned from the evidence the character of the offense. In law, any rude, angry or violent touching of the person of another is an assault and battery, and is not justified by any provocation in words only. But if I was walking with my wife, and a rowdy insulted her, I'd knock him down if I was big enough. Swear a constable." The verdict may readily be conjectured.
Another instance is related showing his readiness and fertility in resources. On reaching the county seat at which the first term of court was to be held, on his appointment to one of the western districts, his commission was not to be found, having been forgotten on leaving home, or lost on the way. It happened that the sheriff of the county had just been commissioned, and was to begin his official duties at that term of court. Judge Eldred at once decided on a line of action. Sending for the new sheriff, he told him that the practice of reading commissions in court on assuming office was a relic of the ceremonial established under a monarchy, and unsuited to the simplicity of republican institutions, and that he should dispense with it in the courts of his district; that the sheriff and himself having been duly sworn, nothing further was required of them, and they should enter on their duties in a quiet, unostentatious manner. Accordingly the new judge and sheriff went into court together the next morning, took their respective places, and proceeded to the discharge of their duties without further ceremony, no question being raised as to their authority in the premises.