clusion of this address Judge Nelson drew out his spectacles
and read his reply, in a voice that trembled with emotion. Then he rose
slowly and received the personal congratulations of the delegation and
of the village friends assembled.

When, a few months later, Samuel Nelson was dead, and the press of the
nation was printing lengthy eulogies of his career as a jurist, a few
lines in the little weekly newspaper of his own home town gave the
highest estimate of his life that can be accorded to any man:

"In his home Judge Nelson was a great man. The almost extreme modesty
which characterized his public life had its counterpart in thoroughly
developed domestic virtues, which not only made him beloved to devotion
by all the members of his family, but endeared him to all with whom he
was brought into contact. There was in his disposition a placidness of
temper which made him always easy of approach, and rendered intercourse
with him a permanent spring of pure enjoyment."

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 115: From the beginning justices of the Supreme Court of the
United States sat, from time to time, as circuit judges. (Stuart v.
Laird, 1 Cranch, p. 308.) Justice Nelson was assigned to the Second
Circuit, which includes New York.]

[Footnote 116: Perry P. Rogers.]

CHAPTER XVI

CHRIST CHURCHYARD

When in 1856 Frederick A. Lee and Dorr Russell formed the Lakewood
Cemetery Association, and purchased the beautiful tract that lies along
the hill on the east side of the lake, a half-mile from the village, the
older burying-grounds within the town began gradually to be disused.
Christ churchyard, which contains the oldest graves of the original
settlement, has long since ceased to be used for burials, beyond those
occasionally permitted, for special reasons, by act of the Vestry of the
parish. This disuse has secured to the churchyard the right to grow old
gracefully, without the too frequent intrusion of recent death, and to
acquire the picturesque charm of antiquity which in cemeteries seems to
dispel all the terrors of mortality.

The love of old burial-grounds belongs to a distinct type of mind and
temperament. To some minds all cemeteries are equally devoid of
interest. Among visitors in Christ churchyard, of whom there are
thousands during every summer, the classification of sightseers is
automatic. Some glance at Cooper's grave, peep into the church to
glimpse the memorials of the novelist, and hurry away with