CHASE, SALMON P. 



93 



He had come to a bar nnnsnally strong in tal- 

 ent, with caste prejudices of an aristocratic 

 tinge hard to realize in these days, while he 

 was without the advantages of a liberal edu- 

 cation, and without money or special reputa- 

 tion. Another young lawyer had also come 

 in under similar circumstances the late George 

 Ashmun and it was natural that the two 

 should join forces, although they were as in- 

 herently unlike as two men could well be. 

 But their united abilities, zeal, and devotion 

 to the interests of their clients, soon made the 

 firm of Chapman & Ashmun well known to 

 tlio whole region, and, in spite of professional 

 opposition, brought it to the front during its 

 twenty years' continuance. Mr. Chapman's 

 reputation by this time had become so well es- 

 tablished throughout the State, that in Septem- 

 ber 28, 1860, he was appointed an associate jus- 

 tice of the Supreme Judicial Court ; in which 

 position his merits were so conspicuous that, on 

 the resignation of Chief-Justice Bigelow, Gov- 

 ernor Bullock, February 7, 1868, advanced him 

 to the vacancy, amid the general approval of 

 the bar and the people. Among all who have 

 filled that high place none did so more accept- 

 ably, with more evidences of public respect 

 and confidence, than Chief-Justice Chapman. 

 He had all the requisite professional acquire- 

 in juts, and he had the transcendent qualifica- 

 tion of a stainless, lofty Christian character. 

 Tie received the honorary degree of LL. D. 

 from Amherst College in 1861, and from Har- 

 vard University in 1864. 



CHASE, SA.LMOX POBTLAND, LL. D., an 

 American statesman, Chief-Justice of the Su- 

 preme Court of the United States, and previ- 

 ously Governor of Ohio, Senator, and Secre- 

 tary of the Treasury, born in Cornish, N. H., 

 January 13, 1808; died in Now York City, 

 May 7, 1873. He was descended from Aquila 

 Chase, a native of Cornwall, England, who 

 emigrated to the American colonies in 1636, 

 or thereabouts, and settled in Newbnryport, 

 Mass. His great - grandson, Dudley Chase, 

 with several of his sons, founded and settled at 

 Cornish, New Hampshire, and these sons all 

 became notable men. One of them, Philander, 

 was the Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of 

 Ohio; and another, D. P. Chase, was made 

 Chief-Justice of the Supreme Court of Ver- 

 mont. Ithamar, the father of Salmon P. 

 Chase, was a fine specimen of the old-fashioned 

 New England gentleman, a man of imposing 

 stature, great natural dignity, and at the same 

 time a genial and affable manner which at- 

 tracted all hearts to him. He was at the be- 

 ginning of the present century a man of sub- 

 stance, a magistrate, and a member of the 

 Executive Council of the State of New Hamp- 

 shire. But the close of the War of 1812 

 brought disastrous reverses, and necessitated 

 his removal in 1815 to Keene, N. H., where 

 he died in 1817, leaving to his widow and 

 children little more than the heritage of an 

 honorable name. His widow had, whoever, 



a little property in her own right which had 

 survived the wreck, and with this and her in- 

 domitable energy she managed to keep her 

 children in comparative comfort, and give 

 them the rudiments of an education. Salmon, 

 at his father's death, was a little more than 

 nine years of age. He was fond of books and 

 had made good progress for his age in English 

 studies, and had by his twelfth year made 

 considerable progress in the classics and Eu- 

 clid, under the careful tuition of Rev. Zedekiah 

 S. Barstow, who had been settled in 1818 at 

 Keene. In 1820 Mrs. Chase received from 

 her brother-in-law, Right Rev. Philander 

 Chase, then Bishop of the Diocese of Ohio, the 

 offer to take charge of Salmon and educate 

 him. The offer was gladly accepted, and the 

 long journey to Worthington, Ohio, made with 

 his elder brother and the late Henry R. 

 Schoolcraft. There were delays at different 

 points on the route, and it was late in the 

 season when the boy reached his uncle'shouse. 

 The bishop gave him a place in his school, 

 but made him his " chore-boy " in the intervals 

 of study. Notwithstanding the interruption to 

 his studies, however, he excelled as a scholar. 

 In 1822, the bishop removed to Cincinnati, 

 and became President of the Episcopal College 

 there, to which his nephew was at once ad- 

 mitted as freshman. In August, 1823, Bishop 

 Chase resigned the presidency of the college, 

 to go to England and endeavor to obtain funds 

 for the endowment of a Protestant Episcopal 

 Theological Seminary in the West, and his 

 nephew returned to his home in New Hamp- 

 shire, traveling much of the way on foot, and, 

 after a short period of school-teaching, and a 

 few months of close and rapid preparation at 

 the Royalton Academy, Vt., he entered Dart- 

 mouth College as a junior, and graduated with 

 high honors in 1826, being but little more 

 than eighteen years of age. He went from 

 Hanover directly to Washington, D. 0., and 

 opened a classical school for boys, which, 

 though small at first, gradually became popular, 

 and received the patronage of Henry Clay, 

 William Wirt, Samuel L. Southard, and other 

 eminent men. While teaching thus success- 

 fully for nearly fonr years, he was also diligently 

 studying law, with William Wirt for his pre- 

 ceptor, and, having previously closed his school, 

 he was admitted to the Washington bar in 

 February, 1830. A month later he was on his 

 way to Cincinnati, to establish himself there in 

 his profession. He associated himself first 

 with Mr. E. King, and afterward with a Mr. 

 Caswell, and, while neglecting no opportunity 

 of securing practice, devoted his leisure time 

 to a compilation of the Statutes of Ohio, with 

 copions annotations and an historical sketch of 

 the State, the whole occupying three large 

 octavo volumes. This compilation was an ad- 

 mirable piece of work, and, while it made him 

 very thoroughly familiar with the laws of Ohio, 

 it gave him the respect and confidence of the 

 older members of the profession. He soon 



