Draft:Andrew Salter Woods

Andrew Salter Woods (June 2, 1803 – June 20, 1863) was a justice of the New Hampshire Supreme Court from 1840 to 1855, serving as chief justice in 1855.

Born in Bath, New Hampshire, Woods was of Scotch-Irish descent.

He graduated at Dartmouth, in 1835; was admitted to the Bar and practiced in the firm of Goodell & Woods, at Bath, N. H.

In 1840, he was made an Associate Judge of the Superior Court.

On the resignation of Judge John Gilchrist, in 1855, to join the United States Court of Claims, Woods was promoted to the position of chief justice.

He was legislated out of office by the political change in the State, which was not at all aimed at him.

Dartmouth gave him the degree of LL. D., in 1852; resumed the practice of the law at Bath, and died there.

Son of Andrew and Isabella (Jameson) Woods; born, Bath, June 2, 1803; Dartmouth College, 1825; admitted, 1828; practiced, Bath; died there, June 20, 1863.

Judge Woods was of North-of-Ireland stock, his father having emigrated from the County of Antrim to this country; and the son exhibited many of the traits of character which distinguish the Scotch-Irish. He was the first native of Bath to enter the legal profession. After graduating from college, he read law in the office of Ira Goodall of Bath, and when admitted, became his partner in practice. They remained in that connection twelve years, and acquired a business that in extent and emoluments could hardly have been exceeded in the State. The habit of doing business on credit that then prevailed, and the importance of prior attachments of property, led to a multitude of failures, and an infinity of suits. The office of Goodall and Woods was known far and wide, and was resorted to from a large circle of country. It is said that a light used to be kept in it through the night, that men in haste to secure their demands might be accommodated at all hours; and that two thousand court writs were made in the office in a single year.

The junior partner became noted as not only a first-rate man of business, but as a careful, knowing lawyer, whose matured opinions it was safe to rely upon. It is not supposed that he was a great student; certainly he had little time for that after his admission. But he was well grounded in the elements of the law; he had the faculty of accurate discrimination and of careful deliberation; and he was rarely mistaken in his judgment. As a practitioner in court, he was thoroughly well prepared in the law and the facts. He made no show, but the balance of judgments was always in his favor. He was little pretentious as an advocate, but he knew exactly the strength of his case, and he put it in its most effective logical form. He had none of the little arts of coaxing verdicts out of the prejudices or ignorance of jurors. He treated “the twelve" like men of reason and sense, and no doubt found bis account in it.

After twelve years of practice at the bar, he was in 1840 made an associate Justice of the Superior Court, with the general approbation of the profession. His conduct as a judge was in all particulars worthy of the position. He was even-tempered, patient, impartial, upright. It is within the knowledge of the writer that his bearing in a hearing at chambers impressed several gentlemen of high position from another State with singular admiration. Few of our judges have given more general satisfaction than he. He was strict in the execution of his duties, and he expected like fidelity from all others. Though he undoubtedly made pretty broad distinctions in his private estimates of men, he treated them all with strict fairness in his official dealings. When a new point was presented to him, his habit was to hear attentively the discussion of counsel upon it before making his decision, and his power of nice discrimination and of sound judgment usually enabled him to decide it aright. It was rare that verdicts found in his court were disturbed for faulty rulings or instructions of the judge.

When the office of Chief Justice was vacated in 1855 by the resignation of Judge Gilchrist to enter the Court of Claims, Judge Woods was advanced to the position, and filled it with ability and to the general acceptance. But with the change of political preponderance in the State, which took place later the same year, came the inevitable alteration of the courts, which legislated the new Chief Justice out of office. It is said to have been a blow to him, a sensitive and high-spirited man; but there is no reason to believe that it was aimed especially at him. The change would have been made, whoever of his party had been at the head of the court.

He returned to the bar and resumed his practice in Bath with success up to the time when the insidious disease which terminated his life incapacitated him for further labor.

Judge Woods valued property, and held firmly to the doctrine that the laborer is worthy of his hire; but he was a man of the strictest integrity and trustworthiness, and all knew and felt it. Others of our judges have had greater literary qualifications and more extensive acquaintance with the study of jurisprudence than he, but perhaps few, if any, of them understood better the spirit of the common law, or could make a truer application of its principles to the facts before him.

His college, in recognition of his eminence as a jurist, bestowed upon him the degree of Doctor of Laws in 1852.

Judge Woods was married, January 7, 1830, to Eliza, daughter of Hon. James Hutchins of Bath. They had three daughters and two sons, one of whom, Edward Woods, studied the profession of his father.

References

Category:1803 births Category:1863 deaths Category:Justices of the New Hampshire Supreme Court

This open draft remains in progress as of August 8, 2024.