Ellsworth’s Lucilius Alonzo Emery Attorney rose to become Maine’s chief justice

by Brian Swartz

took an Ellsworth attorney to the top of Maine’s legal system in the early 1900s.

The son of James and Eliza (Wing) Emery, Lucilius Alonzo Emery was born in Carmel on July 27, 1840. The family moved to Hampden in 1850, and James Emery became a well-known merchant and shipbuilder. Lucilius Emery attended Hampden Academy and pursued a law degree at Bowdoin College, from which he graduated in 1861. He then studied law with Bangor attorney A. Willis Paine and gained admittance to the Penobscot County bar in August 1863.

That October, Emery moved to Ellsworth and partnered with attorney Samuel Waterhouse to practice law. The men continued their partnership for four years. Elected the Hancock County attorney in 1866, Emery replaced outgoing county attorney Eugene Hale, who was just launching his political career.

Emery married Anne E. Crosby, a Hampden native whose brother, Henry, had gone to war as the captain of Co. A, 22nd Maine Infantry Regiment. He immortalized the Crosby name in Hampden after being mortally wounded at Port Hudson in Louisiana in mid-June 1863. Lucilius and Anne Crosby would have two children: a daughter, Anne Crosby Emery, and a son, Henry Crosby Emery, named after his late uncle.

Emery and Hale opened a joint law practice in 1868. Elected to the Maine Senate in 1874 and 1875, Emery succeeded Harris Plaisted as Maine attorney general in 1876. Serving in that position until 1879, Emery won election to the state senate in 1880.

Governor Frederick Robie appointed him to the Maine Supreme Judicial Court as an associate justice on October 5, 1883. Governor William T. Cobb named him the chief justice on December 14, 1906.

Throughout his judicial career, many people appearing before Emery regarded him as “a stern man,” but “nothing was ever farther from the truth,” a Maine newspaper claimed. “He has a splendid appreciation of humor” not evident in the courtroom, where Emery strove “by example and other means to maintain that dignity, which he felt the law and the court should have, to be effective.

“It is this dignity in Justice Emery which many mistake for sternness,” the newspaper explained. Friends often saw the other side of Emery, who could “relax, putting dignity aside, stick his feet up on a chair or veranda rail, while telling stories and having a jolly good time.”

When in court, Emery was not above reprimanding “an attorney for a breach of etiquette in the courtroom,” and he concealed his opinion no matter the case being heard. He presided over a particularly egregious trial in Bangor during the 1900s, but no one present could tell from his demeanor or expression how he felt as the day-long trial unfolded.

The state had charged a 38-year-old man for criminally assaulting a fouryear-old girl. The state’s attorney laid out the ample evidence, and onlookers thought the defendant’s “guilt was conclusive.”

Jury members watched as Emery “carefully guarded” the defendant’s interests; onlookers later agreed that as the judge delivered his charge to the jury, he “leaned, if at all,” toward the defendant, perhaps suggesting that Emery thought the man was innocent.

The jury found him guilty. Afterwards in his chambers, Emery told an (cont. on page 10)

(cont. from page 9) attorney that “I feared it would be otherwise,” with the defendant going free. “I never saw a clearer case of guilt or heard of a more brutal crime than this. Hanging is too easy a punishment for that brute.”

When not in court, Emery had an established routine. Getting up early every morning and drinking coffee, he voraciously read about specific topics, enjoyed his breakfast, and then went into his chambers to research legal precedence and write opinions on current cases. After lunch and a short rest period, he resumed work until mid- to late afternoon, when he would go for a long walk. Until a few years prior to retiring as chief justice, Emery was often seen riding a bicycle around Ellsworth.

Writing Governor Harris Plaisted on Monday, June 26, 1911, Emery indicated he would resign effective Wednesday, July 26 (the day before his 75th birthday). “He has earned a long vaca- tion. He has been a tremendous worker,” a local newspaper praised Emery. “No judge on the bench has ever given more time and energy to the duties than he. This is saying much, for the court of this State is not made up of drones.”

The Emerys traveled to Brunswick in spring 1911 to attend the festivities surrounding the 50th anniversary of the Class of ’61. Bowdoin conferred honorary degrees on Anne Crosby Emery (who had married Francis G. Allinson) and Henry Crosby Emery, an 1892 Bowdoin grad. A political economy professor at Yale University from 1901 to 1909, he had become the U.S. Tariff Board’s chairman.

The Maine State Bar Association honored Emery with a banquet held at the Bangor House in Bangor on July 27. The judge enjoyed his retirement until dying at his Hancock Point cottage on August 26, 1920.