816. In the summer of the same year he was
appointed by Governor Snyder President Judge of the Luzerne district. He
resigned this post in 1818, and resumed the practice of his profession
at Bellefonte. In 1823 he was again elected to the State Senate, of
which body he was made speaker. In 1826 he was appointed President Judge
of the Seventh Judicial District, which office he held until 1841. He
was then appointed President Judge of the Fourth Judicial District,
comprising the counties of Bucks and Montgomery. On the first of
January, 1845, he was commissioned one of the Judges of the Supreme
Court of Pennsylvania, an office which he filled at the time of his
death. Judge Burnside was a man of fine social qualities, and few
persons have had more friends.

* * * * *

ISAAC HILL, Governor of New Hampshire, United States senator, &c., was
born at Cambridge, the part now called Somerville, Mass., April 6th,
1788. He was a descendant of Abraham Hill of Charlestown, who was
admitted _freeman_ 1640, and died at Malden, February 13, 1670, leaving
two sons, Isaac and Abraham. From the latter of these, and fifth in
descent, was Isaac, the father of Governor Hill. His mother was Hannah
Russell, a descendant of the Cambridge family of that name, "ever
distinguished in the annals of Massachusetts."[M] His ancestors were
stanch patriots, on both sides, and served with credit in the old French
and Indian wars, and his immediate predecessors were among the earliest
and the most efficient of the "Sons of Liberty," well known for their
undaunted spirit in encouraging resistance to the arbitrary and
oppressive acts which occasioned the Revolution.

The circumstances in which the war and other calamities had placed his
family were extremely unfavorable to the enjoyment of any educational
privileges, and he was debarred from most opportunities of acquiring
even the rudiments of that culture now common and free to all. But he
struggled manfully with these difficulties, the sharp discipline of
Necessity giving to him an early training well calculated to impress his
character with the seal of manliness and self-reliance. His intellectual
constitution was early accustomed to the keen atmosphere of wholesome
severity; and it nerved and braced him for the warfare of his subsequent
career. In it, too, we may find the origin of his peculiar traits as a
writer and a politician. He wrote in a vigorous but not polished