“ Let no young lawyer seek indolent refuge in the pretext that the judges will not give him a chance. Let him not, with difficulty, fold his restless pinions lest they be arrested in their soaring flight by judicial insensibility. No, the reason that forensic eloquence has so lamentably declined in Orange County lies not in the hostility of judges, but in the absorption of lawyers themselves in the merely material, sordid aspects of life, to the exclusion of any interest in those liberal arts and erudite pursuits which alone can anoint the hesitating lips with the honey of eloquent discourse. ”

“ Now are the days when the farmers sell their milk and buy their butter; when they sell little else than milk and have become a great generation of buyers; when social visits are about unknown; when the old time good-natured sports and merriment are frowned upon; when men no longer meet on the streets and argue politics, but bury themselves in a newspaper on the trains or in any resting place and read, read, read; when women no longer knit and spin; when the girls no longer will do outdoor work and dreadfully dislike to do indoor work ”

“ Howard Thornton, of Newburgh, bel-esprit, bon-vivant and raconteur, the favorite of society and the delight of dinner tables, is not one whit less a good lawyer because he can smooth away the difficulties of a hostess in entertaining her guests as easily as he can glide over the difficulties of his client's case in court. The best lawyers have always shone in society, from Hamilton to Choate, and Mr. Thornton's social gifts have never interfered with his devotion to his profession. ”

“ These noble foundations—the library and the hospital—constitute an enduring monument to the generosity of S. Maretta Thrall but are no less a monument to the learning, skill and prescience of Daniel Finn. The people of Middletown, though they have always recognized his virtues and his abilities, but imperfectly understand the full measure and extent of their indebtedness to his guiding hand and public spirit. It is simple justice to his memory that the incidents of his professional career bearing upon the public welfare should be embraced in any work professing to be history. ”

“ The time will come, when these elevated heights of dreary aspect, these hills overhung and darkened with vines and forest trees, and these lakes of picturesque beauty, unknown to the common mind, decorated with the wildest garniture of nature, and visited by the wing of the wild bird, shall be associated in the minds of our children's children with all that is pastoral, pleasing and heroic. ”

“ A work professing to be history, seeking to readjust the balances in which the superficial judgment of contemporaries is corrected by the tardy recognition of posterity, should not fail to register the star of James G. Graham in that brilliant constellation from which Marsh and Winfield, Gedney and Fullerton, Brewster and Scott shed undying refulgence upon the traditions and memories of the Orange County bar. Let a garland of affectionate, reverent homage entwine the memory of one who never failed himself to lay a chaplet of rosemary upon the grave of friendship. ”

“ Bradford R. Champion, of the Goshen bar, was a contemporary of Winfield and Gedney. While his talents were not brilliant or showy he still possessed those solid, sterling qualities of mind and heart which impart strength and vigor to individual character; which inspire confidence in the community at large; which uphold the very structure of society; which confer blessings upon every relation in life and which bring peace and honor, repose and happiness to their possessor. ”

“ Here and there are old homesteads where son has succeeded father for generations, yet the old homes look well and becoming in their new and airy clothes. The advent of broad avenues and flag walks have forever effaced the winding trails, and with them much of the sweet Indian legendary has been obliterated. For all these rolling hills were once covered with chestnut, birch, maple and pine trees. There is something pathetic in the passing of the red man, the type of years gone by, as the impress of civilization unrelentingly, step by step, has crowded upon his tepee and forced him westward. ”

“ He scrupulously maintained throughout a busy and active career the high ideals with which he started out. His aim was to ascertain the truth, not to circumvent it; to apply the law, not to evade it; to draw from the fountains of justice, not to pollute them. He enjoyed the respect of the courts, of his brethren and of the public because of his character as well as his ability, his virtues as well as his talents. His whole life was a steady influence working for honesty in the moral fibre of the community; a persistent power making for righteousness ”

“ Orange County's pioneer journalists have been gathered to their fathers. Of the second generation there remains one—as if to link the memories of the first with the fast-reclining activities of the third generation of newspaper workers. And that one relic of the dead past is a woman, now in the sunset of life. Dr. Lydia Saver Hasbrouck is with us yet; a landmark in Orange County journalism—honored by those who know her best, beloved by kindred, respected by all. ”

“ To sum up the history of the town of Wallkill were an easy task, and so saying is to speak in the highest praise of the town. Its course has been peaceful, quiet, serene; its politics have never been infected by scandal and corruption; the red glare of warfare—aboriginal or otherwise—has not shone athwart its pages; it has been a history in which the husbandman has dominated the scene and has been the central actor. ”

“ Agriculture has been the mainstay of a people pious and God-fearing, the descendants of those sturdy New England and Long Island ancestors, who built the meeting-house and the school as soon as ever the settlement was made.
We dwellers in the Wallkill of to-day have every reason to be thankful that our history has been what it has; if it has lacked romance or excitement, it has likewise abounded in a peace that has meant prosperity. ”

“ The patriotic services of the people of Orange County in the four-years' Civil War of 1861-5 were as praiseworthy as those of their ancestors in the two wars with Great Britain, which founded the Republic upon a lasting basis of unparalleled prosperity and progress. It was as necessary for the continuance of that prosperity, and as a lesson of our republican experiment to the world, to defeat the efforts of the slave-holding States to rend the Union in twain, as it had been to compel the kingly power across the ocean to let us establish it. ”

“ All lawyers are true to their clients, but Mr. Bacon's inflexibility in the assertion or defense of his client's rights is uncompromising to the last degree. It has even been said that, in his zeal and ardor, he is willing to trample upon all the ties of private friendship and all the claims of personal courtesy. But no client was ever heard to complain of this and, after all, the fact remains that no lawyer can serve his clients with absolute fidelity without, at times, wounding his neighbors and his friends. An honest lawyer can know no one but his client and him crucified. ”

“ Two rugged hills rise before us, their sides not even clothed with virgin soil, for the loose soil sends down sand and boulders to the street below. They are separated by a rocky ravine, at the bottom of which runs a brook, scarcely visible in summer's drought, but fed in the spring by the melting snow from the hills, becomes a torrent that sweeps away bridges and roads that form its banks. ”

“ The black rocks loom up from the mountain-top, and from their summit a wonderful scene presents itself. The eye sweeps the entire horizon, taking in the Catskills, Butter Hill, the Fishkill Hills, Bull and Pine Hills, Mount Bashan, Sugar Loaf, Bellvale and Goose Pond Mountains, with lakes, farms, mines, mills and villages galore. The Devil's Racecourse lies on the northern slope of old Schunnemunk, but the visitor needs none of his counsel or company, for he who climbs these steeps can find sweeter communion nearer to the heart of nature. ”

“ Immortality is a word that Hope through all the ages has been whispering to Love. The miracle of thought we cannot comprehend. The mystery of life and death we cannot comprehend. This chaos called the world has never been explained. The golden bridge of life from gloom emerges and on shadow rests. ”

“ The filial reverence shown by Frank H. Finn for his father's memory, his unwillingness to let his father's name disappear at once beneath the cold waters of swift forgetfulness, illuminates his own strong and sterling character. Called upon suddenly to assume charge of many intricate and involved cases pending in the office at the time of his father's death he accepted and discharged the painful responsibility with a dignity, firmness, manliness, courage and ability which commanded the admiration and won the affection of the community. ”

“ This is one of the younger towns of Orange County, only those of Tuxedo and Woodbury having been born later. It is, in fact, only about thirty-five years old. But for scenic beauty and native charm it easily outranks every other town in this county, if not all others on the Hudson River. The fame of the Hudson River Highlands is worldwide, and it is in this little town that the culmination of this native grandeur and picturesque beauty is reached. No one who has ever sailed up or down the Hudson, and who has not, will spend a moment wondering why this township was thus named. ”

“ But the waters of a cruel, though often kindly, oblivion can never wholly submerge the fine superstructure of judicial fame reared by Judge Michael H. Hirschberg upon a foundation of singularly exclusive, concentrated, severe, professional, intellectual and literary training. Born and reared in Newburgh, but coming to practice at the bar without those intermediate college advantages enjoyed by his life-long friend and associate, Judge Brown, whom he succeeded upon the bench, he has, nevertheless, strikingly verified the saying of Carlyle that, after all, books are the best university. ”

“ The narratives of the lives of men and their acts constitute all there is of history. If it be true that all that our county shows in the way of growth and development, is entirely due to the men and women who originally peopled this region, and worthily performed those parts allotted to them in the general scheme of life, during their existence here, it is equally true that their successors who still abide with us, took up the burden where it fell from the hands of the fathers, and most signally continued the work, and carried it forward to success. ”