Memoir of John Whitman and His Descendants - Primary Source Edition
(This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. T...)
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Memoir of John Whitman and His Descendants (Classic Reprint)
(Excerpt from Memoir of John Whitman and His Descendants
...)
Excerpt from Memoir of John Whitman and His Descendants
He must have lived to a very advanced age, probably but little, if any, short of ninety years. This supposition is strengthened by the fact, that the youngest of his four sons.
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Ezekiel Whitman was a Representative from Maine as a both a District of Massachusetts and an independent state.
Background
Ezekiel Whitman, the son of Josiah and Sarah (Sturtevant) Whitman, and descendant of John Whitman who settled in Weymouth, Massachussets, about 1638, was born on March 9, 1776 in Bridgewater (later East Bridgewater), Massachussets. His father died when he was two years old. In 1783 his mother married again, and young Ezekiel went to live with his uncle, the Rev. Levi Whitman of Wellfleet.
Education
His uncle gave him a rudimentary education. At the age of fourteen he prepared for college under the Rev. Kilborn Whitman of Pembroke, and after fifteen months' study he entered Rhode Island College (later Brown University) in 1791. Desperately poor, he was compelled to leave college in his senior year through lack of funds. He returned just before commencement and, on passing his examinations, received the degree of A. B. in 1795. He disliked Latin and Greek but excelled in other studies.
Career
When graduated, Whitman was without funds and considered joining a company of players then performing in Providence, but his friend Peleg Chandler dissuaded him from this as well as from going to sea. He then studied law, first with Benjamin Whitman of Hanover and then with Nahum Mitchell in his native town. In 1796 he spent a year in Kentucky, where he had gone to settle the estate of a deceased Bridgewater citizen. In the spring of 1799, having been admitted to the bar of Plymouth County, he decided to begin the practice of law in Maine, and set out alone on horseback for Turner. In September he removed to New Gloucester, where he remained until January 1807 with steadily increasing success. He then removed to Portland. He was an able jury lawyer, using simple and direct methods, eloquent by reason of clarity and force, and not through rhetorical display. He was a successful advocate for merchants presenting claims under the treaty with Spain in 1819 and later in similar cases under the convention with France of July 1831. Many students studied in his office, among them Simon Greenleaf and Albion K. Parris. Though he preferred the law to politics, he served as representative in Congress from Cumberland County, March 1809 to March 1811. In 1815 and 1816 he was a member of the executive council of Massachusetts. In 1816 he was a member of the Brunswick Convention, which met to consider the separation of Maine from Massachusetts. When members tried by misinterpreting the law to make it seem that the necessary five-ninths of the voters had voted for separation, he vigorously repudiated the action. Again elected to Congress in 1816, he served three continuous terms (March 1817 - June 1822). He defended the bill authorizing the apprehension of foreign seamen deserting from merchant ships in the ports of the United States. He favored restrictions on slavery in Missouri but opposed the same restrictions in Arkansas. He opposed Henry Clay's successful attempts to unite the admission of Missouri with that of Maine and voted against the bill admitting the two states together. He addressed Congress frequently on the Florida question, strongly condemning Jackson for his action there. In 1819 he was a member of the convention which formed a constitution for Maine. He resigned from Congress, June 1, 1822, in order to take up his duties as judge of the court of common pleas, a position to which Governor Parris had appointed him on Feburary 4, On December 10, 1841, he succeeded Judge Nathan Weston as chief justice of the supreme court of Maine, an office which he filled until October 23, 1848, when, under the provisions of the state constitution, he was compelled to resign. The honesty and integrity for which he was noted in his youth, and later in Congress, enhanced his reputation as a judge. Though ordinarily he was quiet and deliberate, he could act quickly and vigorously in an emergency. His judicial opinions are to be found in Maine Reports. In 1832 he published Memoir of John Whitman and His Descendants. Left lonely and desolate by his wife's death, in October 1852 he returned to East Bridgewater, where like many of his family he died at an advanced age. He was buried in Portland.
(This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. T...)
Personality
Slow of speech and of motion, he pursued an independent way, and, though he was eccentric and obstinate at times, his honesty and integrity brought him respect.
Connections
He married Hannah Mitchell, the sister of his legal instructor, on October 31, 1799. They had a son and two daughters.