OBITUARY NOTICES. 
ASA OWEN ALDIS. 
[Read before the Society, May 26, 1894.] 
Asa Owen Aldis was born at St. Albans, Vermont, in 
1808, being the son of the principal lawyer of that town, 
who settled there, having removed from Franklin, Massa¬ 
chusetts, a few years before his son’s birth. 
Judge Aldis used to relate how his father’s selection of 
St. Albans was made on a comparison of the trial lists of 
the courts of that county with those of Pittsburg, Pennsyl¬ 
vania, the other place which he thought of selecting for res¬ 
idence. Finding that the average number of cases on trial 
at St. Albans was greater than that at Pittsburg, his father 
selected the former place. His father had been left an or¬ 
phan at tender years, in charge of an English officer, at the 
outbreak of the Revolution. When the war began the 
officer went back to England, and during the whole of the 
Revolution the young lad was ignorant of the condition of 
his property; but at the close of the war the officer showed 
that he was absolutely faithful to his trust, and turned over 
the property not only intact but increased. It thus resulted 
that both the father and the son were in possession of suffi¬ 
cient means for the maintenance of life according to the 
standard of gentlemen of their day. 
The first fact which Judge Aldis remembered with dis¬ 
tinctness was the sound of the firing of cannon at the battle 
of Plattsburg, on the 11th of September, 1814. He was 
graduated at the University of Vermont, at Burlington, 
and afterwards studied law at Harvard *College, where he 
was a friend of Professor Greenleaf, and also of Judge Story. 
57-Bull. Phil. Soc., Wash., Vol. 12. (433) 
