tables and fruit, pumpkins, corn-stalk and fall apples, which brought him, previously, a very small sum, as the only market was in the small villages where there was little demand for them."

The history of plank roads is very brief. The first road of this kind built on this continent was in Canada in 1835-36. It ran east from Toronto. The first plank road in the United States was the "Salina and Central Square" road, which was built in 1847. Within the four years since that time, there have been constructed, or are now in course of construction, 2,106 miles of plank road in the State of New York, at an average cost of $1,833 a mile. The cost of 1,201 miles of railroad in that State, as reported in 1850, was $46,604,921 the cost of 2,106 miles of plank road is $3,860,296; and we are strongly impressed with the belief that the latter has been expended as profitably for the State as the former. The earnings of these roads have been literally enormous. Mr. Kingsford says that the stock of no one of them is under par, but most of them at a great advance-some cannot be bought at all.

We have not designed to treat this subject at length, but we think it has an importance which has not as yet been conceded to it in New England. We hope it may be more thoroughly discussed in journals, where perhaps the discussion will be more appropriate.

ART. IX.-SKETCH OF THE LIFE AND CHARACTER OF THE HON. DAVID DAGGETT.

THE eminent public services of the Hon. David Daggett, lately deceased, and his wide reputation, especially as Professor in the Law Department of Yale College, and as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Connecticut, have induced the Editors of the New Englander to request for publication the following address, sketching his life and character, which was given on the occasion of his burial by the Rev. S. W. S. Dutton.

There lies before us, in death, no more henceforth to be seen among the living, robed for the grave, the form of one whom we have long looked upon with admiration, affection and reverence; one, who, through a long life, has been eminent in the public service; one whom this town, and city, and College, and State, have willingly trusted and delighted to honor.

This mournful event has not come upon us suddenly. We have long felt that it must come soon. We have seen our friend, once vigorous and active," the observed of all observers" in our streets and public resorts, gradually withdrawn by the growing infirmities of age to complete seclusion in his own dwelling. That voice, which once rung like a clarion in the halls of justice and of legislation, and in the clear music of social converse, has been losing its fullness and power. We have seen a falling away in that bold and strong Roman face, and dimness stealing the fire of that eagle eye. That brisk step, which was once seen in our streets before the sun of each morning, we have observed to grow more and more feeble and tottering. And that noble form, with its antique and peculiar but comely dress, which was once seen every day by our citizens, and in the sanctuary as regularly as the gates of Zion were opened on the Sabbath, has been gradually, and at length wholly, withdrawn from public view. We have known that the days of man's years are threescore years and ten; that if they are fourscore years, it is by reason of strength; and that when they are near to fourscore and ten, they must soon be cut off. And when it was learned that disease had come upon our friend in his extreme age, we all felt that but one event could be reasonably expected.

But our expectation of this event, our certainty that it could not be long deferred, does not divest it of sorrow. Our sorrow is indeed calm and tranquil. It is not the sorrow of those who mourn over one cut down in the prime, or the midst, of his days and his usefulness for our friend is borne, a patriarch, to his grave, "as a shock of corn cometh in its season. "" It is not the sorrow of disappointed expectations, broken plans and blighted hopes. It is not the sorrow of that overwhelming shock, which bears away the trusted, the honored and the loved in the full exercise of their activities; which rends away the pillar, when sustaining the weightiest responsibilities of the state, the church and the family: for, as often happens in the divine kindness, the gentle ministries of advancing age had removed, one by one, the ties which bound our friend to a life of activity and duty, and had transferred slowly, safely and completely to other hands the offices and labors which once were his. His public burdens had all been borne and laid aside. His trusts had all been discharged, both without and within his home. His work had all been done. Nor yet is our sorrow that bitterest of all -the sorrow of those who have no hope in respect to the future life of a friend departed.

Nevertheless, our sorrow is sorrow indeed-the sorrow of those who see worth and nobleness passing away from among us; and especially the sorrow which must flow from the tender ties of nature and affection, when sundered and bleeding. We are never ready—

nature never can be ready-to have those ties severed; though faith and piety can submit to the event, reverently and cheerfully, when it comes.

It is well, then, for sorrowing friends, a sorrowing church, a sorrowing community, and more deeply sorrowing kindred, to mingle, in this hour, their griefs and sympathies. And especially is it wellit is due before we consign to the house of the grave one who has performed so many public services, to review his life and character, that we may be grateful for what God has done for our fathers and for us through him, and that we may gather wisdom from the survey of his virtues.

DAVID DAGGETT was born in Attleborough, in the county of Bristol, in the commonwealth of Massachusetts, on the 31st of December, 1764; and, of course, at the day of his decease, April 12, 1851, had passed through three months and twelve days of his eighty-seventh year. He was of that stock, which we have so much reason to honor and reverence, the Puritan stock of the New England Pilgrims; being the fifth in the direct line of descent from John Daggett, who came over from England with Winthrop's company in 1630, and settled in Watertown, in the Colony of Massachusetts. His son, Thomas Daggett, Esq., resided in Edgartown, on Martha's Vineyard. He removed thither, it is supposed, with the first Governor Mayhew, when he settled that island in 1644. He married Hannah, the oldest daughter of Governor Mayhew, was a magistrate of the island, and died about the year 1690. His son, Deacon John Daggett, the second in the line from the original settler, removed, with four sons, about the year 1707, from Martha's Vineyard to Attleborough, Bristol county, Massachusetts, where he built, for protection against the Indians, what was called a garrison house," in which he lived. It is quite remarkable that of the four sons of this Deacon John Daggett, three have, for many generations, been represented by their descendants, in New Haven; viz., Mayhew Daggett, the grandfather of the late Henry Daggett, Esq., whose residence was on the corner of Chapel and High streets; Ebenezer Daggett, the father of Rev. Dr. Daggett, Professor of Divinity and President in Yale College, and grandfather of the late Captain Henry Daggett, whose residence was in George street; and Thomas Daggett, the grandfather of David Daggett, whose death we now mourn. The fourth son, Naphthali Daggett, met an untimely death by the falling of a tree in Attleborough. The fourth in this line of descent, also named Thomas Daggett, the father of our lamented friend, was a man of vigorous intellect, strong common sense, and decided and earnest religious character. I have often heard our venerable friend speak of his father's strong sympathy

with the friends of the "Great Awakening," which occurred in the earlier part of his manhood, under the preaching of Whitfield, Edwards, Bellamy and the Tennents. In the controversy, which in subsequent years grew out of that Awakening, he was earnestly on the side of its friends; so much so that he had a partiality for the "Separates" of that day, though he never united himself with them. He was a Baptist in sentiment; and his influence as such had a modifying, though not a decisive, effect on the opinions of his son through life. Under the nurture and admonition of such a father, the son received thorough and judicious religious instruction, commended by a corresponding example; and was well trained in the principles of virtue and piety.

At the age of sixteen he came to Yale College, and entered the Junior Class, two years in advance; induced to choose this rather than the nearer College at Harvard, probably by the fact that Rev. Dr. Daggett, the first cousin of his father, who deceased the year before, had been an officer in Yale. He graduated in due course, and with high honor, in the year 1783, in the same class with Samuel Austin, Abiel Holmes, and John Cotton Smith. Of this class, numbering forty-two at the time of graduation, he is the last survivor but one. * His college life, it will be observed, was during the latter part of the stormy and trying period of the American Revolution. His class entered during the year in which the British troops, under General Tryon, invaded New Haven; and graduated in the very month in which the treaty of peace with Great Britain was signed. When he took his second, or Master's degree, he spoke an oration of such marked excellence that it received the honor, quite unusual in that day, of publication. Having a strong preference for the profession of the law, he commenced, soon after leaving College, the study preparatory to that profession, with Charles Chauncey, Esq., of New Haven, afterwards a Judge of the Superior Court; and continued therein till January, 1786, a little more than two years; when he was admitted to the bar of New Haven county, at the age of twenty-one, and immediately entered upon practice in this town. While pursuing his legal studies under Judge Chauncey, he supported himself by performing the duties of Butler in college, and of Preceptor in the Hopkins Grammar School. A few months after he was admitted to the Bar, he was chosen to the office of Tutor in Yale College: which he declined, being eager to pursue the practice of the profession which he had chosen.

Mr. Daggett was early called into political service. In 1791, he

* Rev. Payson Williston, father of Hon. Samuel Williston, of Easthampton, Massachusetts.

was chosen to represent the town of New Haven in the General Assembly and was annually re-elected for six years, till 1797, when he was chosen a member of the Council or Upper House. Though one of the youngest members of the House of Representatives, he soon became one of the most influential; and in 1794, three years after he entered the House, he was chosen to preside over it as its Speaker, at the early age of twenty-nine. To this office he was elected, year after year, till he was chosen to the Council or Upper House. This body was then constituted in a manner, very different from that in which our present Senate or Upper House is chosen. At the election in the autumn, twenty persons were chosen, not from particular districts, but from wherever in the whole State the ablest men could be found; and out of these twenty, twelve were chosen at the election in the spring-the twelve who had the highest number of votes-to constitute the Senate. The members of that body, thus chosen, were rarely changed. They were usually re-elected, until they forfeited public confidence by mal-conduct, or were promoted to some higher office, or voluntarily resigned. It was thus an unusually permanent body for an elective one, and embraced much of the political wisdom, ability and experience of the State. To this body, Mr. Daggett was transferred from the chair of the House of Representatives, in 1797; and he retained his seat there, for seven years, until he resigned it in 1804. In 1805, he was again a member of the House of Representatives. In 1809, he was again chosen a member of the Upper House of the General Assembly; and he continued to hold a place in that body, for four years, till May, 1813, when he was chosen a Senator in the Congress of the United States, for six years from the preceding fourth of March. In June, 1811, he was appointed State's Attorney for the county of New Haven, and continued in that office till he resigned it, when chosen Senator in 1813. At the close of his Senatorial term, in 1819, he returned to his extensive practice of law, which conduced much more to his private interest than had the public service of the State, in which he had been engaged as her representative in the Senate of the United States. In November, 1824, he became an associate instructor of the Law School in this city with the late Judge Hitchcock; and in 1826, he was appointed Kent Professor of Law in Yale College. In these positions he continued, until, at a very advanced age, his infirmities induced him to resign them. In the autumn of 1826, he received from the corporation of Yale College the honorary degree of LL.D. In May, 1826, when he was sixty-two years of age, he was chosen an Associate Judge of the Superior Court of this State. To this office he was appointed by a legislature, in which a decided majority were opposed to him in political principles and preferences. This fact is