Frank Hackett

April 11, 1841 (age 85)

Portsmouth, New Hampshire, United States

During the Civil War Frank Hackett held a commission as assistant paymaster in the navy and was assigned to the Miami, on which ship he took part in two naval engagements in North Carolina waters, one of them a desperate fight at close quarters with the Confederate ironclad Albemarle. Admitted to the bar in 1866, he practised law in Massachusetts and New Hampshire until 1871 when he became private secretary to Caleb Cushing, United States counsel in the Geneva arbitration of the Alabama claims, assisting the other American representatives throughout the arbitration. On the conclusion of this duty, he returned to the United States and, becoming a resident of Washington, successfully practised law before the court of Alabama claims, the United States Supreme Court, and other tribunals. During the eighties and nineties, Hackett was one of an interesting group, including Henry Adams, John Hay, Henry Cabot Lodge, and Theodore Roosevelt, who met frequently at Henry Adams’ Washington house. In 1900 President McKinley appointed Hackett assistant secretary of the navy. While in office he chose the personnel of the Schley court of inquiry and was in charge of the department during the crisis growing out of the Boxer Rebellion in China. Concurrently with his other work, Hackett wrote a number of memoirs and historical studies. His most interesting books for the general reader are The Gavel and the Mace (1900), which is an accurate and highly amusing account of the course and conduct of the business of Congress, as of the period of Speaker Thomas B. Reed, and his Reminiscences of the Geneva Tribunal of Arbitration (1911), which is the authoritative “inside” story of the arbitration of the Alabama claims. Abstemious himself, Hackett regarded the Eighteenth Amendment as contrary to American principles, and one of his last professional acts was the writing of a portion of a brief in a case which tested the validity of that amendment in the Supreme Court. He suffered a stroke in 1921 which obliged him to retire from all professional activities, but this did not prevent his enjoying a quiet family life until the time of his death.

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Reminiscences of the Geneva Tribunal of Arbitration, 1872: The Alabama Claims 1911

(Originally published in 1911. This volume from the Cornel...)

The Geneva Award Acts: With Notes, and References to Decisions of the Court of Commissioners

(This is a pre-1923 historical reproduction that was curat...)

Memoir of William H. Y. Hackett

(This book was originally published prior to 1923, and rep...)

1645-1656. Portsmouth records

(Leopold Classic Library is delighted to publish this clas...)

A sketch of the life and public services of William Adams Richardson Volume 1

(This book was originally published prior to 1923, and rep...)

Torpedo Boats: Statement Before the Committee on Claims of the House of Representatives on House Bills 6041 and 15101, Sixtieth Congress, First ... Others, January 19, 1909 (Classic Reprint)

(Excerpt from Torpedo Boats: Statement Before the Committe...)

The Gavel and the Mace; Or, Parliamentary Law in Easy Chapters

( About the Book Legal history is the study of how law ha...)

Frank Warren Hackett Edit Profile

lawyer writer

Background

Frank Hackett was born on April 11, 1841, in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, United States. He was the youngest son of W. H. Y. Hackett, attorney and banker, and Olive (Pickering) Hackett. As a boy in Portsmouth he was an intimate friend of Thomas Bailey Aldrich, who modeled on him the character of Pepper Whitcomb in his famous Story of a Bad Boy.

Education

Young Hackett was educated at Phillips Exeter Academy, at Harvard College, and at the Harvard Law School.

Career

During the Civil War Frank Hackett held a commission as assistant paymaster in the navy and was assigned to the Miami, on which ship he took part in two naval engagements in North Carolina waters, one of them a desperate fight at close quarters with the Confederate ironclad Albemarle. Admitted to the bar in 1866, he practised law in Massachusetts and New Hampshire until 1871 when he became private secretary to Caleb Cushing, United States counsel in the Geneva arbitration of the Alabama claims, assisting the other American representatives throughout the arbitration. On the conclusion of this duty, he returned to the United States and, becoming a resident of Washington, successfully practised law before the court of Alabama claims, the United States Supreme Court, and other tribunals.

During the eighties and nineties, Hackett was one of an interesting group, including Henry Adams, John Hay, Henry Cabot Lodge, and Theodore Roosevelt, who met frequently at Henry Adams’ Washington house. In 1900 President McKinley appointed Hackett assistant secretary of the navy. While in office he chose the personnel of the Schley court of inquiry and was in charge of the department during the crisis growing out of the Boxer Rebellion in China.

Concurrently with his other work, Hackett wrote a number of memoirs and historical studies. His most interesting books for the general reader are The Gavel and the Mace (1900), which is an accurate and highly amusing account of the course and conduct of the business of Congress, as of the period of Speaker Thomas B. Reed, and his Reminiscences of the Geneva Tribunal of Arbitration (1911), which is the authoritative “inside” story of the arbitration of the Alabama claims.

Abstemious himself, Hackett regarded the Eighteenth Amendment as contrary to American principles, and one of his last professional acts was the writing of a portion of a brief in a case which tested the validity of that amendment in the Supreme Court. He suffered a stroke in 1921 which obliged him to retire from all professional activities, but this did not prevent his enjoying a quiet family life until the time of his death.

Achievements

Frank Hackett is famous as one of the founders of St. John’s Orphanage in Washington and its secretary for thirty-four years. During his life he also wrote a number of memoirs and historical studies, most famous of which include The Gavel and the Mace and his Reminiscences of the Geneva Tribunal of Arbitration.