Н. С.]
FEBRUARY TERM,
1903
Resolutions.
(1152)
Report of the committee appointed to prepare resolutions in relation to
the death of the late Joseph Branch Batchelor, LL.D., submitted by
Richard H. Battle, Esq., to the Supreme Court.
In the Supreme Court,
Tuesday, 10 March, 1903.
Joseph Branch Batchelor, LL.D., the son of James W. Batchelor,
of Halifax County, 1ST. C., was born in that county 5 October, 1825,
and died in Raleigh, 11 January, 1903, in the seventy-eighth year
of his age.
Educated in the schools of his native county until his matriculation
at our State University in the summer of 1841, he graduated from
that institution in 1845 with its highest honors, his friend, the late
George V. Strong, sharing those honors with him. Some two score
years thereafter his alma mater conferred upon him the honorary
degree of LL.D. .
Choosing the law as his profession, he studied it diligently, under
the direction of his neighbor, Joseph J. Daniel, then a distinguished
member of our Supreme Court bench, and was admitted to the bar soon
after he attained his majority. Thence on, to within a month of his
death, he recognized the law as a jealoue mistress, and nothing ever
diverted him from her sendee, unless service for a single term, that
of 1860 and 1861, in our State Legislature was a brief diversion. He
began the practice in his native county, but having married, in 1850,
Miss Mary C. Plummer, daughter of William Plummer, Esq., of War-
renton, he removed to that town, which was his home until 1866, when
he removed to Raleigh. He was early elected county solicitor of
Warren and prosecuted its criminal docket. Such was hie recognized
ability and learning as a young lawyer, that in 1855 he was appointed
by Governor Thomas Bragg Attorney-General of the State, as succes¬
sor of Matt. W. Ransom, resigned, the duties of the office then requir¬
ing the incumbent to serve as solicitor of the Raleigh circuit.
During his term of service the Supreme Court requested his (1153)
opinion on the liability of its members to pay taxes on their
salaries, and that opinion, published at the end of 48 H. C., both for
ite style and logical ability, was commended by the bar of the State.
Mr. Batchelor became the partner of the late Sion H. Rogers, on
his removal to Raleigh, and after Colonel Rogers’ death practiced
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