Preparatory to writing this chapter we have carefully examined the court records, in the county clerk's office at White Plains, from the earliest times . perused the fragments of history, here and there extant, bearing upon the subject, and such biographical sketches of judges and lawyers as can be found : and also received from the lips of some of the veteran members of the bar and old residents of the county a mass of traditionary information, giving the names, characteristics and relative standing of the leading members of the bar for nearly a century past, and abounding in interesting reminiscences and anecdotes, the publication of which the limits of this chapter do not permit.

Westchester County has had an established bench for about two hundred years, and an established bar for nearly, if not quite, that length of time. A period 80 long could not fail to prove a rich field for historical investigation. While, in the main, the materials in hand are abundant, still, in some cases, it has seemed impossible to recover from oblivion the biography of one who, from the frequent appearance of his name upon the records of the court, we should judge to have been in his time a leading counselor and advocate.

With this mass of materials before us, it is no easy task to write a chapter upon the bench and bar of Westchester County ; it would be much easier to write a volume.

Under the scheme of this work, however, many of the leading judges and lawyers are treated of at length elsewhere, in separate biographies, or in connection with the history of the several towns where they resided and whose names they have honored by their lives and work.