EMERY ALEXANDER STORRS.

THE

IE celebrated Storrs family is of English origin, the first member of which emigrated to this country in 1683. He was named Samuel, settled in Connecticut, where, with twenty-two others, he received a charter for the organization of the town of Mansfield, ten years after his arrival. Samuel Storrs was one of the most conspicuous figures of pre-colonial days, an Indian fighter distinguished for his bravery in the constant battles with the Aborigines of New England. He was also a famous leader in the deliberations of local government, his name appearing very often in the yellow, musty documents of State during the period of settlement on the bleak Atlantic coast.

On these ancient archives appears frequently the Coat-of-Arms of the Storrs family, who were originally from Sutton, Nottinghamshire, England. The crest is an ermined banner bearing a lion with raised fore-leg, above which a mailed hand rests, grasping a mitered cross.

Both before and after Revolutionary times the name of Storrs is met in the annals of those days, always in a prominent manner. Since then the family, both in its direct and collateral branches, is noted for a long line of distinguished divines and orators.

One of the ancestors of the great lawyer, whose brief biography is here presented, fought at Bunker Hill with the rank of Colonel, and followed Washington thereafter through all the vicissitudes of the terrible struggle for American Independence.

On his father's side, Emery A. Storrs is descended from sturdy Pilgrim stock. His great-grandmother was a Denny, whose ancestors of that name were conspicuous in the history of the Puritans. Her son, Thomas D. Storrs, was the grandfather of Emery A., whose father, Alexander Storrs, at the age of nineteen, in 1827, removed with his parents from Worcester, New York, to Cattaraugus county in the same State. In 1831 he built a quiet, modest little house, the first one erected in the village of Hinsdale, which nestles so beautifully under the gentle hills in that portion of New York. The same year Mr. Storrs brought to the home he had prepared for her reception, his young wife, Miss Platt, for whose ancestors the town of Plattsburg is named. She was a remarkable woman; delicate in physique, but possessed of a brilliant mind. She loved the companionship of books, kept herself thoroughly conversant with the events of the time, was a remarkably fine singer, a fine conversationalist, possessing many attributes which appeared in the characteristics of her distinguished son. He often referred to the magnificence of his mother's voice whose lullaby in infancy made the first impression on his undeveloped mind. He said: "It is the first good thing of earth I recollect. It has reverberated in the air of thought many a time in the nights of my absence from her, and if ever I hear angels' voices I know whose shall be the leading contralto."

In 1833, on the 12th of August, her son, Emery A. Storrs was born. In the same room of that unpretentious little cottage his father had built two years before his birth, exactly fifty-two years and one month after his advent into its sacred premises, he died in the very prime of his popularity and fame.

His boyhood was not distinguished for its variation from the monotony which falls to the average American

whose parents are comfortably well off. They were not rich, neither was their son ground down by that poverty which has been the common lot of so many distinguished men. He had, probably, everything in reason that would conduce to his health and comfort, but he gave no evidence of a greater youthful brilliancy than thousands of others similarly situated at his age. His latent power was only developed by years of toil and hard study. The brilliancy of his life still further confirms the fact which the experience of every distinguished man's career has established without an instance of contradiction, that only through the persistency of serious intent, the surmounting of apparently insurmountable obstacles can the goal of ambition be reached. Inherently endowed with certain and prominent tastes, by the persistence of his nature he developed them into the great characteristics which made him famous, made him a passionate orator and an eminent lawyer.

He possessed a remarkable love for literature and letters, which was early developed. He was an editor at the youthful age of nine, and at twelve a splendid historian and apt scholar. A school newspaper which he conducted, called The Casket, foreshadows the brilliant thoughts of his maturer years. This amateur periodical also shows the versatility of his genius, crude though its composition was. It contained essays on various subjects, and he really attempted a love story full of fire and romance.

Mr. Storrs' education was begun and ended, so far as schools are concerned, at the Academy of his native village. He left the Academy at the age of thirteen, having mastered, apparently, the curriculum of the institution, to study law in his father's office. Here he was as devoted to reading everything that would promote his practical knowledge, as he was to that which would advance him in the profession. The number and character

of the works he studiously devoured were surprising, and no wonder he became such a scholar. He had a fashion of placing on the final leaf of everything he read a note stating the date upon which he had completed it. In the autumn of 1848 he entered the law office of Mr. B. Champlin in Cuba, New York, where he continued his marvelous system of reading, copied briefs and did the work which the care of the office demanded. This was the custom in those early times, from which now in the era of office-buildings, elevators and janitors, the modern embryo lawyer is hapily exempt. Two years later young Storrs was observed by General Scroggs, of the firm of Austin & Scroggs, who was struck with the manner in which he was conducting the duties of the office. He entered into conversation with him and found the young man a remarkably intelligent youth. So pleased was the General with his aptitude, that after talking with Mr. Champlin upon the subject, asked him how he would like to go to Buffalo, where the firm of which the General was a member, was established. Mr. Storrs replied: "The country mouse envied the city mouse, and I want to go, if only for a time."

It resulted that Mr. Storrs was at once transferred from Cuba to Buffalo, where he soon made his industrious habits and talents felt. General Scroggs states that his ability was so great that to him was assigned the duty of looking up every new legal question, and outlining the briefs of the firm. Only a few months elapsed before he was promoted to the position. of managing clerk, in which capacity he prepared all of the cases presented to the firm.

In the law school, at this time, he was the youngest of the class, but was regarded as a most remarkably talented man, the acknowledged social leader of them all. One of his fellow students, in speaking of him as he was at that time, says: "His determination was not to be