Family-histories and genealogies : containing a series of ...

33ftWn=2molcott
were often required of him, either in company with his father away from
home, or at home in his father's absence. These had an important " influ-
ence in forming and ripening his character." Leaving Litchfield in 1781,
to establish himself as a lawyer in Hartford, he was so slenderly provided
with means of living that he "accepted a clerkship in the office of the
Committee of Pay-Table." This seems to have been his first initiation into
public financial business, an augury of what was to be the great work of
his life. He rapidly rose to higher stations in the same field, until in 1788
he was made Comptroller of the State of Connecticut, and the next year
Auditor of the National Treasury under Hamilton. In 1791 he became
Comptroller of the Treasury of the United States, and in 1 795 Secretary
in place of Hamilton, which office he held for about six years, until the
approach of the great change made in the Administration by the accession
of Jefferson to the Presidency. Thereupon he received from President
John Adams the appointment of Circuit Judge of the United States, and
was confirmed ; but he never discharged the duties of that office, owing to
an extraordinary triumph of poHtical sophistry which made Judges chosen
for life removable by the abolishment of their offices. It was against this
measure that Oliver Wolcott's cousin Roger Griswold delivered the great
speech of his public life (see above). Thus cut off from preferment, and
retiring from official station in honorable poverty, he turned to mercantile
business for the support of his family. But in 181 7 he was recalled to
public service as Chief Magistrate of Connecticut ; and in that office his
next ten years were passed. In 18 19 he received the honorary degree of
LL. D. from Yale College ; the same doctorate had been already given to
him, in 1799, by Brown University and the College of New Jersey. He
died in New York in 1833.
The " Memorial " before us is enriched with many pages of Oliver
Wolcott's correspondence, extracts from his official papers and tributes to
his memory. Our purpose will be best served by quoting some words of
his own, interspersed with a few from thoroughly congenial correspondents,
the pointedness and force of which entitle them to be specially remembered
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