1863, and was a prisoner of war in Texas until July, 1864, when he was exchanged. On February 22, 1865, President Lincoln appointed him a justice of the Federal Court of Claims and on November 23, 1896, President Cleveland appointed him chief justice of the court. He retired from the bench December 31, 1905. He married, October 22, 1867, Alice Effingham, daughter of the Reverend Doctor Mark Hopkins, president of Williams college, Williamstown, Massachusetts. He received the honorary degree of LL.D. from Williams college in 1874 and was a trustee of Union college, 1868-82. In collaboration with Cephas Brainerd he annotated the "Cooper Institute Address" of Abraham Lincoln (1860). He is the author of "Mechanics' Lien Laws" (1856); "Sketches of the War" (1863); "Sketches of Prison Camps" (1865); compiled and edited "The Seven Great Hymns of the Medieval Church" (1866, 8th ed., 1902); and the Court of Claims reports (40 vols. 1867-1905). His sketches of army life were translated and published in Germany in 1884. Judge Nott is now connected with the Washington Philosophical Society and the Loyal Legion. He was brought up in the Presbyterian church. He never engaged in indoor athletics, and thinks them injurious to a brain worker.
To American youth he says: "As to principles, choose the highest; as to methods, the simplest; as to habits, those which best conduce to health and hard work." Of himself, he said; "I came to New York poorly equipped for the law, never having been in a law school and having been for little more than a single year in a law office. My examination for the bar had been little more than a jest; I did not expect to pass, and went into the examination partly because of the persuasion of a college classmate who was nervous and wanted a friend beside him, and partly because I wanted to find out what my future examination for the bar would be like. By ill-deserved good luck I chanced to answer the questions that were put to me, and found myself an attorney and counseller-at-law, knowing Blackstone fairly well and little more. If I were asked, ' What was the first formative influence of your legal and literary life?' I should answer 'Blackstone.' If I were asked, 'What were the second and the third?' I should answer, ' Blackstone.' He taught me to analyze and to state the results of analysis clearly and fairly. In my judicial life the only jurists who have really influenced me were Marshall and Sir William Scott.
