of Miss Frances Eliza Hubbell, daughter of the late Philo P. Hubbell, then residing in Corning-a most excellent woman, whose constant affection and devotion sustained and encouraged her husband in his various labors and activities, and cheered and comforted him when his end drew near. One child only blessed the union-a daughter. The young couple took a prominent place among the pioneers in the early days of Winona, and as time went on gathered about them a large circle of friends, to whom their hospitable home was always open.

On reaching Winona, General Berry resumed the practice of his profession, and pursued it with unflagging zeal and a large measure of success, until his ability was recognized by President Cleveland during the latter's first term, by an appointment to a territorial judgeship in Idaho. The lamented Judge Waterman was formerly associated with him in professional work, the partnership continuing until Waterman ascended the bench of the Third Judicial District in January, 1872. Later he formed a copartnership with C. A. Morey, his son-in-law, under the firm name of Berry & Morey, and this connection was dissolved only by his death, though in the later years of his life, the General, by reason of his failing health, participated in the practice of the firm less actively than he previously had done.

From the outset of his career in Minnesota he took a prominent part in political and public affairs. At the election of October 13, 1857, at which the constitution of the state was adopted, and the first state officers chosen, he was a candidate for the office of attorney general and was elected. Taking the oath of office on May 24, 1858, thirteen days after the passage of the act of congress formally admitting the new commonwealth into the union, he held the posi tion until the first Monday in January, 1860, at which time, agreeably to the provision of the constitution touching the tenure of the first state officers, his term expired. During his incumbency many important and difficult questions, incident to the transformation of the territory into a state, and to the rush of new public or semipublic enterprises demanded his attention, and were met and decided with promptness, and with ready grasp of the merits. In some of the opinions there is noticeable a vigor of expression which

was not only characteristic of the man, but indicative of intense interest in the points at issue. The longest and perhaps most interesting of these was given in answer to an inquiry from Governor Sibley relative to the issue of first mortgage bonds by the land grant railroad companies. Later he served the state in other capacities. He was for several terms a senator from Winona county; at one time a member of the board of directors of Normal Schools, and finally a member of the State Board of Corrections and Charities.

To his judicial duties and responsibilities in Idaho General Berry brought the same energy and industry that had characterized him as a practitioner, and exerted a great and far-reaching influence in moulding the jurisprudence of the territory during the period immediately preceding its admission to statehood. Especially notable among his decisions was one sustaining the validity of the Edmunds law, which was affirmed by the supreme court of the United States and aided largely in the suppression of polygamy among the Mormons. But the labors and exposures to the inclemencies of weather incident to the discharge of his judicial duties in a sparsely settled country affected his health injuriously; so that upon his return to Winona, at the expiration of his term of office, he found it necessary to lead a more retired life. Nevertheless he was a familiar figure upon the streets until his increasing physical infirmities forbade him, during the final few months, to leave his home. He approached the grave without fear, and yielded to the inevitable without murmuring, expiring on August 21, 1900.

Such are the outlines of the life of our late associate and friend. But how inadequate is a mere sketch like this. How far short it falls of showing all there was in the man and in his life. The salient points here jotted down are but the setting of stakes, so to speak, marking the general course of his earthly pilgrimage. To complete and round out the record of all he was and did, the intervening spaces must be filled with the thousand and one little incidents in his career, the graces and peculiarities in his character which distinguished him from the general mass of men, the various and numerous slight indications which, grouped together, would index the whole man. No two human beings, no

two human lives, are precisely alike; and a full description and record of each life that, like General Berry's is worth the trouble, would make a book. We must, then, be content with a cursory view. Certain it is that our deceased friend was a man of far more than ordinary mark. He made, and he has left, an impress not only upon the particular community in which he lived and wrought, but upon the great state whose history he helped to make. He was indeed a notable personage. His innate dignity and self-respect found expression in stately demeanor and grave courtesy, fitly matched by an imposing form and carriage. He was one, especially in his later years, at whom the passer-by must turn to look with respect and a feeling akin to reverence.

Until impaired health in a measure crippled his energies, his was a strenuous life. The spirit within him was too active, too eager, to permit of an even and quiet tenor of way. In whichever of the world's activities he took part it was his disposition to be at the fore. When interested in any pursuit or enterprise all his powers, mental and physical, were brought into play. While not offensively self-assertive, he never lagged timidly at the rear. He had moral courage. His opinions were not hidden. He never shrank from opposition. In his profession he was a vigorous and indefatigable advocate; in public affairs he was combative and insistent in urging whatever he believed to be for the public weal. Yet he was a kindly soul. Beneath a sometimes bristling exterior beat a good heart. Though in life's battles he met antagonists bravely, though he brushed obstacles from his path with unyielding determination and force, he never resorted to unfair or ignoble expedients, nor did aught through malice, and he died at peace with all men.

Hon. William H. Yale then addressed the court as follows:

"The state of Minnesota as a commonwealth is the outgrowth and the production of the last half of the nineteenth century. The brains and the energies which laid the foundations of this state, so broad and so sure, came from the young men who in the early fifties left their eastern homes in the towns and cities a thousand

miles away, and came to a portion of the country which was at that time an almost unbroken wilderness.

"Migration has been part of the history of the nations of the world from time immemorial. Centuries before the commencement of the Christian era the young men of ancient classic Greece went out from the cities and towns of that then scholarly country to colonize the islands of the Egean Sea and the north coast of the great unknown continent of Africa. Five hundred years later Rome, the eternal city, sent out her armed hosts to colonize France, Great Britain and Northern Europe. Coming down to more modern times one's mind reverts to that period in the history of our own country, not quite three hundred years ago, when a band of exiles left their homes in England, bid good bye to their native shores and starting out on that long and perilous voyage to cross the almost unknown ocean of which they knew little, to try and reach a country of which they knew less, finally, at midwinter, landed at Plymouth Rock. So, too, the young men who left their homes in New England and the other eastern states in the early fifties, and came to this great undeveloped region embraced in the territory now called Minnesota, like our Pilgrim fathers were blessed with but little of this world's goods; but like our Pilgrim fathers were endowed with high hopes, honorable ambitions, and guided by a realizing sense of their duties to their fellow men, and those who were to follow them, laid the foundations of Minnesota in a broad, solid and substantial manner. They shaped the course of the future state in a fashion to which all of us can point with exultant pride and complacent satisfaction.

"Charles H. Berry was one of the young men who came to Minnesota at an early day, and selected the then little village of Winona to commence the laborious work of his chosen profession. It is claimed by some that environment does more for men than heredity. About the same time that General Berry started in his practice, four other young men, who had left their distant homes, located in the same little town, laborers in the same calling: Hon. William Mitchell, who for nineteen years was an honored member of this bench, whose death we so recently mourned; Hon. Thomas Wilson, who for a series of years was chief justice of this court,

who having passed the three score and ten years of life, is still with us, honored and respected throughout the state for his great ability and his sterling integrity; Hon. Daniel S. Norton, who for five years, and until his death, occupied a seat in the senate of the United States; and the remaining one of the four, Hon. William Windom, for many years a member of the United States Senate, died while occupying the high position of secretary of the treasury in President Harrison's cabinet.

"These were some of the young men who were the neighbors and contemporaries of General Berry, in his and their younger days; they were among his opponents in the litigation of territorial times. Each listened to the other in expounding the various questions of law arising in those early days, many of which were new to all of them. With Berry on one side and any of the other four on the other side, you could certainly count on its being a right royal contest. If then environment contributes to the making of the man, General Berry was indeed fortunate in having four such men for his daily companions, four such men to meet so often in forensic debate, and to contend with before courts and juries. As the contact of flint and steel produces fire, so does the association of brilliant intellects evolve the spark which otherwise might have remained dormant, undeveloped and undiscovered. With what abler quartet of men in the state could General Berry have been surrounded, and who can to-day estimate the influence of these five men in the early history of the territory and of the state? What town, village or city of Minnesota that was not benefited by that aggregation of five scholarly and energetic citizens, who were among the leaders at the bar, leaders in the councils of our state, and among the leaders in the councils of our nation?

"When Minnesota dropped the swaddling clothes of her territorial days to put on her more mature and more majestic robes of statehood, Charles H. Berry was called on to be Minnesota's first attorney general. It was a responsible position, which required on his part legal acumen, unfaltering courage, and judicial discretion to guide our infant state through the first years of its existence. General Berry performed the duties of that office with.