Section 4:  Reading the Law in Lewistown

Well, my College course was finished and I was again at home with my father and mother feeling comfortable; thought I ought to be of more importance than I had been six years before. Still I had an uneasy feeling -- I did not known [sic] what I was to do with my learning or how I was going to make it pay. The only thing that was clear to me was that I could make a living farming, that at anything else I was by no means certain that I could succeed. If I had not been ashamed to acknowledge myself a failure, I would have preferred to go back to work on the farm. I was at a turning point of my life. Of the professions, I preferred the law, but I had been in a court house but a few times in my life and knew nothing about it. My father had expressed doubts whether I would ever be a success in that trade and I had serious misgivings on the subject myself, though I was loath to admit it. My brothers at home could buy and sell and do business intelligently enough, while I felt with mortification that I did not know how to write a receipt. In this hesitating way I doted along through the fall of 1837 and winter of 1838 till one day in March my brother Robert took me to Lewistown and turned me in to board with an old Mrs. Elliott with half a dozen other bachelor boarders and to study law with E. S. Benedict, Esq., then a successful lawyer in that place. At this time my fellow boarders were David Cander, a lawyer; Dr. McConnell, a Physician; Peter Kestler, a clerk in Millikens store; Thomas Stewart, a clerk for L. F. Matson _____ Hicks, a partner in a store. They were a clever social set of fellows and I was soon at home with them. My previous acquaintance in Lewistown was slight, but in a short time I was acquainted and had the run of most of the young people of the place. There were a good many bright, pleasant young ladies there and for the first time in my life I became somewhat of a ladies man and was at many social parties of refined and intelligent young people. But the great matter to me was I was again at work and had a definite object before me.

I read Blackstone with care and I soon found that the distinctions and principles of the old masters had something attractive, and I became interested as the new field of study began to open and I began to feel that I might, by industry, fathom most of the abstruse subjects discussed in the textbooks, and the more I worked at them the more confident I became.

My preceptor had a large practice and sometimes was pretty busy. Sometimes he would come into the office and tell me he wanted a certain principle of law, that it was in the books but he did not know where to find it. Of course I readily undertook to find it, but at first I did not know where to look and it was like hunting a needle in a haystack, but I soon became familiar with the books and it was rare that I failed to find what he wanted. Gradually I became familiar with the run of his business and did some of his office writing.

Mr. Benedict was a distant, reserved and silent man, fond of making money, and perhaps selfish and penurious. The first year I was in the office he rarely entered into conversation with me, but at last the crust seemed gradually to be broken and he became quite friendly, and in the winter evenings we had many long talks for he rarely left the office before 10 P.M., though he had an excellent wife and two small children; but he was naturally a solitary and reserved man. I got to have a friendly feeling for him and his wife and liked to call and see them at any time in passing through Lewistown. He lived to be quite old, but they and their children are all dead.

Thad Banks, William H. Irwin and Witherspoon Woods were all studying law at the same time I was. Banks settled in Hollidaysburg, raised a family, had a good practice and standing at the bar and died only a few years ago. Irwin settled in Lewistown, went to the Mexican wars as captain of a company of volunteers, was afterwards in the war of the Rebellion, and I have since lost trace of him. Woods died of consumption before he was admitted to the bar and I was one of the pallbearers at his funeral.

At that time the old Court House stood in the center of the diamond, looked and I suppose was old. Our boarding house stood on the corner of the street leading down to the stone bridge.

Old Mr. Horell lived in a little frame house to the west of us -- on the corner leading up towards the jail; David Halings lived in it a short time. Across the street on the north side was Reuben C. Hales' law office, and on the inside corner was a brick occupied then as the residence of Wm. Hale, afterwards occupied by Jos. Alexander, Esq. On the east side of the street up toward Ard's hill was the big Reynolds house, afterwards occupied as a hotel. East of that was the residence of James Milliken. On the east side of the diamond, extending out to Main Street, was a brick, the back end occupied by James A. Stewart and the front a store, and adjoining it on the east was the store of J. and J. Milliken, at that time the leading business house in Lewistown. On the southeast corner of the diamond stood the brick residence of Jos. Milliken, afterwards Blymire's store. On the inner corner Judge McCoy carried on a store and merchant tailoring establishment. Next to that lived Mrs. Marks, a widow lady, at whose house I spent many pleasant evenings. Next west of her Montgomery had a shoe store and on the corner opposite our boarding house a man had a bakery and confectionary. Benedict's office was the next building down the street towards the stone bridge

Lewistown was then a lively place. The warehouses down along the Kishacoquillas were the depots of nearly all the wheat raised in the valleys north of there as far as Penns-vally. In the winter when there was snow on the ground the streets were crowded with sleds, and some days several thousand bushels were brought in in a day. In the spring of the year when the river was up, the produce was floated to Baltimore in boats, or as they called them, arabs. The men who were reputed wealthy at that day were Dr. Ard, E. L. Benedict, Esq., my preceptor, Alexander Wilson and J. and J. Milliken, but the latter firm failed soon after I left Lewistown, but a great many goods were sold and much business done, probably more than at the present time.

At the west end of Main Street, Wm. Brothers kept a frame Hotel, at the end of which was usually fenced up for goble ball, and I used to go up in the evening and exercise myself at a game of ball. It was the best ball alley I was ever in, and I think the game was generally played for the drinks, but I don't mind of ever taking a drink in the House. Brothers was a clever, sociable and entirely sober man himself, and I never saw drunkenness about his house.

Pretty well up town on Main Street lived an old widow lady named Reynolds with her daughter Ellen. The old lady's husband had for many years been one of the associate judges of Mifflin County with Grandfather Oliver and they had been intimate friends. Judge Reynolds had died before I went to Lewistown leaving a good estate, and the old lady who was somewhat eccentric and lived a very retired life with her daughter. Ellen on the contrary was a sensible, social young lady, fond of company and was a favorite among the young people. On account of the long friendship between Grandfather and her husband, the old lady always treated me very kindly and I spent many pleasant evenings at their house. Miss Ellen was engaged to be married to her cousin, Dr. Reynolds, and it was no secret. It was understood that our relation was that of friends and it relieved us of all embarrassment about being anything more. She was a good talker, candid and sincere and I have always regarded her as one of the truest friends I had. She married before I left Lewistown and I was at her wedding. I think her husband was killed in the Mexican War. I have never seen her since, but heard of her traveling in Europe.

I also visited a good deal at the house of D. W. Haling, Esq. He was a lawyer of ability, but eccentric and peculiar. His oldest daughter, Ellen, was a dashing young lady, as smart as a whip. At one time she and I had a little flirtation. She generally had a flirtation or two on hands and after I left she married a man from up about Wilkes-Barre. She too became a widow and died a good many years ago.

Of my associates in Lewistown, nearly all are gone away or dead, and when I walk the street I don't meet a face I know and I am a stranger where I knew nearly everybody forty-eight years ago.

In the spring of 1838 a great waterspout fell out on the Allegheny Mountains. The Pennsylvania Canal had only recently been finished, and in the night the water rose to a raging torrent. On the flat above Hollidaysburg a woman and two or three of her children were drowned in trying to escape from her house. The canal was badly torn up all the way down to Huntington. We had no unusual rain at Lewistown, but the next day the river rose very high covered with drift. The State put a large force on and repaired it during that summer and fall.