Cumberland County, Maine - Hon. Nathan Cleaves
**********************************************************************
USGENWEB ARCHIVES NOTICE: These electronic pages may NOT be reproduced in any
format for profit or presentation by any other organization or persons. Persons
or organizations desiring to use this material, must obtain the written consent
of the contributor, or the legal representative of the submitter, and contact
the listed USGenWeb archivist with proof of this consent. The submitter has
given permission to the USGenWeb Archives to store the file permanently for free
access. http://www.rootsweb.com/~usgenweb

This copy contributed for use in the USGenWeb Archives by:
C. Wendland SilverDrusilla@aol.com
Copyright (c) 2005 by C. Wendland
Caitlin's Gold Award Project, Girl Scouts USA, Rio Grande Girl Scout Council,
El Paso, Texas
**********************************************************************

Biography
Hon. Nathan Cleaves
Biographical Review
Cumberland County, Maine
Boston
Biographical Review Publishing Company
1896
Page 168-170


Hon. Nathan Cleaves was born in Bridgton, Me., January 9, 1835, son of Thomas
and Sophia (Bradstreet) Cleaves. His boyhood days were spent at Bridgton and in
Portland. He fitted for college at the Portland Academy, and entered Bowdoin in
1854, graduating in 1858. Among his classmates were General Francis Fessenden,
of Portland; General J. P. Cilley, of Rockland; the Hon. E. B. Nealley, of
Bangor; General Ellis Spear, of Washington, D.C.; and the Rev. Frank Sewall.

Selecting the law as his profession, Mr. Cleaves studied with the Hon. Joseph
Howard and the Hon. Sewall C. Strout, and was admitted to the bar in Cumberland
County at the April term, 1861, of the Supreme Judicial Court. He opened an
office in Bowdoinham, Me., and subsequently removed to Portland, forming a law
partnership with the Hon. L. D. M. Sweat, then a member of Congress from the
Portland district. This relation continued until July, 1864, when he formed a
partnership with the late Hon. Joseph Howard, under the firm name of Howard &
Cleaves.  This partnership continued until the decease of judge Howard, when the
law firm of Nathan and Henry B. Cleaves was formed, to which firm subsequently
Stephen C. Perry was admitted as a member.

In politics Nathan Cleaves was a Democrat, loyal to his party, but "he
subordinated his political conduct to his manhood." He was a man of very great
personal popularity, and was many times honored with public office, being City
Solicitor of Portland in 1869, Representative to the State legislature in 1871
and in 1875, Judge of the Probate Court from 1876 to 1880, surveyor of the port
of Portland for four years; and he was frequently a delegate to conventions,
both State and national. At the State convention of the Democratic party in 1892
he was unanimously selected as a delegate at large to the Chicago convention
that nominated Cleveland and Stephenson, being Chairman of the Maine delegation.
Judge Cleaves was connected with very many business enterprises and
corporations. He was President of the Ellsworth Water Company, a Director in the
Cumberland National Bank of Portland, in the First National Bank of Bar Harbor,
the Westbrook Trust Company, and other leading business and financial
corporations of the State. He was a prominent member of the Masonic fraternity
and of the Odd Fellows, President of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty
to Animals, and a member and officer of many charitable organizations, the
treasuries of which have many times felt the benefit of his quiet but effective
generosity. He was a faithful and devoted member of St. Luke's Parish, and for
many years one of its Vestrymen. Judge Cleaves was in active practice for a
period of more than thirty years. He attained great prominence in the profession
he loved so much, and always enjoyed the confidence, respect, and esteem of the
bench and bar, and of the entire community.

Nathan Cleaves married in May, 1865, Caroline, the accomplished daughter of
Judge Howard. Mrs. Cleaves died at Augusta in February, 1875, while her husband
was there as a Representative to the legislature from Portland.

Judge Cleaves died at his residence in this city on September 5, 1892. Memorial
exercises were held by the Cumberland Bar Association before the Supreme
Judicial Court, and the following appropriate resolution was adopted and placed
on the records of the court: -

"Resolved, That the members of the Cumberland bar have heard with a deep sense
of personal grief and loss the news of the sudden illness and death of their
distinguished associate member, the Hon. Nathan Cleaves, at the very summit of
his professional career; that his contemporaries at the bar during their lives
will cherish the memory of his unvarying courtesy, his dignity of professional
bearing and demeanor, his pure life and character, his eminent legal
attainments, his fine training and capacity in all matters pertaining to his
profession, his exceptionally good forensic judgment, tact, and skill, and the
rare and excellent traits and qualities of his mind and heart; and, cherishing
this memory of him ourselves, we write also this brief memorial of him, that
they who come after us in the profession, to a late posterity, may remember him
as one of the models and ornaments of his own times."

In speaking of judge Cleaves a distinguished member of the bar says: "It is
seldom that the bar has been so affected as by the death of Nathan Cleaves. For
a long time he had been one with us, one of us. He was standing by our side, in
our very midst: we looked up, and he was gone. The good man, whose life had
become knit with ours by long memories and all fond associations, at the
meridian of his intellectual faculties, in the robes of his profession, and in
the midst of its heaviest responsibilities and obligations, lay dead at his
post. He who labored without rest to bring the best fruitage of life to its
harvest had- fallen in his place when the boughs hung heaviest, when his work
needed him most-had paused, and was still amid the ripe wealth of autumn. The
sickle still gleamed in the harvest field, fallen from the reaper's hand. In the
sunlight rustled still the ripened and ripening grain, which no hand now shall
ever gather into sheaves. All was as it had been, but his work was done. All was
as before, but another companionship, prized and held dear, the charm of one
friendship more, had disappeared from our lives."

The words of eulogy bestowed upon the life and character of the Hon. Nathan
Cleaves by the court and his brethren at the bar were a.just and merited tribute
to an honorable and noble life. The funeral services were held at St. Luke's
Cathedral, where Judge Cleaves had been a constant attendant for many years, and
were most impressive.