The Earle family : Ralph Earle and his descendants

272 THE EARLE FAMILY [Seventh I
taught a select school at Salisbury Centre. In the following spring
he entered the law office of the late Judge Charles Gray, of Herki-
mer, where he continued until the spring of 1846, with the exception
of teaching school in the winter months, and served as assistant
teacher in the Herkimer Academy, of which his brother Robert was
Principal. He then entered the law office of Peckham and Colt, the
late Rufus W. Peckham, of the Court of Appeals, being the senior
partner of the firm. In January, 1847, ne was admitted to practice,
and immediately opened an office in Herkimer.
His brother Robert studied law in his office, was admitted to the
Bar a year later, and then taken into copartnership with him under
the firm name of S. & R. Earl, which was so continued until Robert
was elected Judge of the Court of Appeals. For six years afterward
G. W. Smith, formerly Judge of Oneida County, was associated
with him, under the firm name of Earl & Smith, and he then took
William C. Prescott as his junior partner, reserving to himself the
general direction of the business, and this copartnership still con-
tinues.
His first wife was the youngest daughter of Alfred Putnam, for
many years a prominent citizen of Herkimer. His second wife is a
granddaughter of the late Judge Saunders Lansing, who was a
brother of the late Chancellor Lansing, of the State of New York.
In politics Mr. Earl has always been a democrat, active and efficient
in all political campaigns, and increasing his influence by forcible,
pungent and able contributions to the columns of the democratic
press. He has been a member of the Democratic County Committee
for ten years, and has repeatedly represented the party in State conventions.
He has also twice received the nomination for County
Judge, but the republican majority in the county has been too large
to overcome, even with his conceded ability and personal popularity.
For many years he has taken a deep interest in the local and tra-
ditional history of the Mohawk Valley, and his researches in that
direction have been so thorough that perhaps no other living man is
a better authority upon that subject. In 1876 he delivered the Cen-
tennial address at the celebration at Herkimer, which was extensively
published and favorably received. Since that time he has delivered
other historical addresses relating to the Valley of the upper Mohawk,
and also to the Palatines who were the first settlers in that region.
At several times he has been called upon to address the Oneida