Arthur Prentice Rugg was born on a farm in Sterling, Worcester County, Massachussets, the third son and fourth of five children of Prentice Mason and Cynthia (Ross) Rugg. Five generations of the family had been farmers in Sterling; like his close friend of later years, Calvin Coolidge, Rugg was in every sense a product of the New England countryside.
After an early education in the local district schools he graduated (A. B. ) from Amherst College in 1883 and from the Boston University Law School (LL. B. ).
Admitted to the bar in 1886, Rugg at once took up his profession in the growing industrial city of Worcester, entering the office of John R. Thayer and becoming his partner in 1891, a partnership maintained until Rugg's elevation to the bench in 1906. His notable success as a trial lawyer brought Rugg a large practice.
From 1895 to 1897 he was assistant district attorney of the district in which he lived and from 1897 to 1906 city solicitor of Worcester, to both of which positions he was appointed solely by reason of professional ability. In 1906, at the early age of forty-four, Rugg was appointed by Republican Governor Curtis Guild an associate justice of the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts. Five years later, although still the junior justice and younger by many years than any other member of the court, he was appointed by Democratic Governor Eugene N. Foss as chief justice, a position he retained for nearly twenty-seven years until his death.
In personal appearance and bearing Rugg was every inch a chief justice. In the courtroom he never failed in courtesy to the lawyers who appeared before him. Outside the court his relations with the bar were friendly and affable, though he never forgot his judicial position, and his innate dignity of manner never left him. Despite his heavy load of judicial work, he found time to serve as president for many years of the American Antiquarian Society in Worcester, as a vice-president of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and as a trustee of Amherst College, Boston University, Clark University, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He died in Sterling as a result of a heart attack and was buried in the family plot in the town cemetery.
During his service on the court, Rugg wrote a total of 2, 945 opinions, and in addition he is said to have written all of the advisory opinions of the court to legislative and executive departments of the state, nearly ninety in number. No other justice has approached him in this volume of work. Even with his facility in writing, his learning and experience, he could not have accomplished so much if he had not devoted himself ceaselessly to the task; his industry became proverbial. Some of his opinions have been characterized as "of lasting significance to the common law, " and all attained a high and strikingly uniform standard of excellence; Rugg never allowed himself to risk clarity or accuracy for epigram or ornament.
Quotes from others about the person
In the words of Rugg's successor, Chief Justice Fred Tarbell Field: "It is . .. not an exaggeration to say that very nearly the entire body of the law of the commonwealth as declared by the court can be found stated--in many aspects first stated--in opinions written by him. "
In 1889 Rugg married Florence May Belcher, by whom he had four children, Charles Belcher, Arthur Prentice, Esther Cynthia, and Donald Sterling.
