He practiced his profession assiduously and successfully in the city of New York until the year 1831, when he largely retired from practice, and established himself at New Rochelle, where he continued to act as counselor and adviser until the time of his death, in November, 1854. He was really more of a New York City than a Westchester County attorney, and his principal achievements at the bar were in that city. He was a member of the Episcopal Church, and tol-

THE BENCH AND BAR.

erant of all religious belief- In 1831 he married Frances 15. Vickcrs, at New York City, and reared a family of five children, one of whom, Pelham L., was for a time district attorney of this county and still resides in the village of Mount Vernon, and is an attorney and counselor in active practice.

Hon. William Nelson, late of Peekskill, was in the first half of this century prominent in this county, both as a lawyer and a business man.

His paternal ancestors were of linglish origin and Puritans. The first one of them who came to this country settled upon a farm in Mamaroneck, in this county, about the middle of the seventeenth century. The Nelsons were leading men in the county during the colonial times. One of them, Polycarpua Nelson, was a signer of the famous declaration by the chief citizens of this country, in supi)ort of William and Mary, and in opposition to the House of Stuart.

A branch of the Nelson family settled in Dutchess County, where, at Crum Elbow Creek, on June 29, 1784, William Nelson was born. His father, Thomas Nelson, was a farmer, and William was reared as a farmer's son, working upon the farm in summer and attending district school in winter. He did not have the advantages of a collegiate education.