Ballston Spa's law school attracted luminaries

BALLSTON SPA — For a few years in the 19th century, one of the state’s largest public buildings, Ballston Spa’s Sans Souci Hotel, housed the New York State and National Law School (often shortened to “State and National Law School”). In various ways, the school attracted contemporary and future luminaries — including several former and one future U.S. president.

John W. Fowler, a native of Connecticut, started the school in Cherry Valley in Otsego County in 1847. Formal legal instruction was rare in those days, and many who sought law careers studied privately with established attorneys. Fowler’s school focused not merely on scholarship, but on the practical aspects of the job. Believing that there was an “art as well as a science” to the practice of law, Fowler emphasized oratorical training.

A writer for the Cherry Valley Gazette, having observed students at the school, noted that “the novice ... [was] transformed into a good legal scholar, and powerful advocate and speaker,” and expressed “the highest confidence in [the school’s] utility and success.”

In the spring of 1849, Fowler (in those days called by some “the most eloquent speaker in America”) purchased the Sans Souci and relocated his school to Ballston Spa, with promised “new and superior advantages.” Advertisements announcing the move listed methods of instruction employed: daily recitations, preparation of causes for trial, question exercises, philosophical essays, drill exercises, weekly debates and parliamentary discussions. These served to make the pupil a “thorough legal scholar, an experienced, familiar practitioner, and an easy, correct, effective extemporaneous speaker.”  An entire judicial system was simulated, with professors acting as judges, and students playing the parts of jurors, witnesses, sheriffs and clerks.  All presentations by students were observed and critiqued by faculty in order to hone their skills. Regular instructors included Fowler, former New York City Corporation Counsel Willis Hall, Judge Hay, and attorney D. S. Manly. It was claimed they devoted “all their time and energies to the students.”

Pupils also heard lectures by well-known attorneys and jurists. Among them were Chancellor Reuben Hyde Walworth from Saratoga, judges Willard and Parker, lawyer and politician Samuel Stevens and prominent attorney William A. Beach.

Another instructor (who was also a student) was Sullivan Ballou, who taught elocution and rhetoric. Ballou later married Fowler’s niece, Sara Shumway, and Ballou’s touching letter to his wife, written a week before his death at the First Battle of Bull Run, was featured in the Ken Burns “Civil War” series.

Opportunities to attend law school were very limited, so it is not surprising that Fowler’s institution gave many students an advantage in gaining judgeships or elective offices in Congress and various states.

There are too many to list here, but the one that attained the highest position was Chester Arthur, who became president of the United States upon James Garfield’s death. Arthur, at the time, was short on funds, and could not afford to complete the entire three-year program (according to ads, students were charged $3 per week, which covered tuition and room and board). After leaving Ballston Spa, he taught school in Pownal, Vermont (where President Garfield later taught), and went on to become an attorney and prominent politician. One notable who wanted to attend the school — but did not — was John Mercer Langston, who was only the second black man in America accepted to the bar.

At the suggestion of an acquaintance who was a student at the school, Langston wrote to Fowler, and was told that, though the faculty had declined to accept him, it perhaps might help if he appeared in person. Langston did so, and although he was offered an opportunity to enroll, he rejected it due to the stipulation that he deny his ethnicity and pretend to be a Frenchman or Spaniard from the West Indies.

Langston later became an attorney after individual study with an Ohio lawyer. He served as a diplomat in Haiti, as an educator, and as a Congressman. Before graduating, students were required to endure lengthy examinations, which were followed by commencement exercises for those making the grade.

Eminent speakers were tapped to address the graduates as well as the public, and the ceremonies were quite well attended.

Among the luminaries who spoke at the school were: Horace Greeley, Gov. Hamilton Fish, Henry Clay (who was cheered), former-President John Tyler (who was hissed), John C. Calhoun, renowned Philadelphia lawyer David Paul Brown and Schenectady orator Alonzo C. Paige.

Ex-President Martin Van Buren attended the ceremony in 1850.

The old Sans Souci housed the school for just a few years. For the spring term in 1853, Fowler relocated it again, this time to Poughkeepsie. The stated reasons were that the old hotel’s rooms were too cold, and that Poughkeepsie, being a larger and more pleasant community (and having several libraries available to students), was a more suitable home.

Possibly the school enjoyed only limited success in Ballston Spa. An article in the New York Times said Fowler was a better lawyer than a financier, and The Bench and Bar of Saratoga County referred to Fowler as being “improvident” and said the school went into bankruptcy before moving.

Though it had been incorporated by New York, no reports were ever filed with the Regents, so the only indication of the size of the student body are in newspaper items, which state it had 50 students during its first year in Ballston, but only 36 graduates in 1852.

It is unclear how long the school remained in operation in Poughkeepsie.

By 1865, newspaper ads promoting Burnham’s American Business College in Springfield, Mass., touted Professor John W. Fowler, LL. D. (“for eighteen years President of the New York State and National Law School”) as head of the college’s law and lecture departments.

He would “devote his entire time to the interest of the College,” which suggests that the law school was no longer in existence.

Fowler died in Poughkeepsie in 1873.

An obituary in the New York Evening Telegram commended his generosity and his oratorical skills, but called him a “brilliant but erratic genius.”

David Fiske is a librarian with the New York State Library, a genealogist and historical researcher who has presented at the Researching New York Conference and at the Chapman Historical Museum. Fiske has also conducted historical programs for local libraries.

Source Link http://www.saratogian.com/articles/2011/05/22/bspalife/doc4dd57a9becc21909140671.prt