380 HISTORY OF degree of Bachelor of Arts ; and afterwards in due course received the degree of Master of Arts. After graduating, he resumed his duty at the academy; and during the latter portion of his career here, he entered the office of the present Judge John W. Edmonds, then of Hud- son, to prosecute the study of the law. In the spring of 1827 he resigned his trust as principal of the Hudson Academy, and at the age of twenty, removed to Delhi, where his uncle Col. Amasa Parker, a lawyer of dis- tinction, was practising his profession. He entered the office of his uncle, finished his studies, and in 1828, at the age of twenty-one, was admitted to the bar. He then became a partner of his uncle, and for fifteen years a very large practice enG:ao;ed the attention of the firm. The professional business of these two gentlemen is said to have been the most extensive country practice in the State, and the most systematically conducted. Col. Amasa Parker was a lawyer of thorough reading, long experience, and pro- verbial integrity. He preferred however, to leave his part- ner to discharge the duty of trying and arguing causes. This division of labor could not fail to give to the subject of this memoir great experience in the various courts. It is said that he had tried more causes at the circuits than any young man of his age in the State at the time of his elevation to the bench. We recollect seeing him in attendance at one of the Ulster circuits, where he was engaged as counsel in every cause tried, the court lasting two weeks. His opponent throughout, was that veteran of the bar from Poughkeepsie, Gleneral Swift. Tbe circuits in Ulster were then held by Judge Ruggles, late a member of the Court of Appeals : and for years it seemed a matter of course, if one of the parties employed as counsel at that circuit either Mr. Parker or Greneral Swift, the other of the two was immediately engaged on the opposite side.
