Denver-Gilpin-Clear Creek County CO Archives Biographies.....Hallett, Moses 1834 - 1913
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Author: Wilbur Fiske Stone (1918)

HON. MOSES HALLETT. LL. D.

    Judge Moses Hallett was one of the foremost and most honored jurists
Colorado ever had. He was the father of Lucius F. Hallett, president of the
Denver board of education, who has also largely given his life to service for
his city and who is a representative of one of the prominent pioneer families of
Denver. Lucius F. Hallett was born in this city, November 12, 1884, a son of the
Hon. Moses and Katherine (Felt) Hallett, both of whom were natives of Illinois.

    Moses Hallett was born in Galena, Jo Daviess county, Illinois, July 16,
1834, his parents being Moses and Eunice (Crowell) Hallett, the former a native
of Massachusetts, whence in 1820 he removed to Missouri and there engaged in
farming. He became a resident of Jo Daviess county, Illinois, in 1826 and passed
away in 1859. The Hallett family is of English lineage. The mother of Judge
Hallett was a native of Massachusetts and died at the old family home in 1864.
His father had been a member of the state militia and participated in the Black
Hawk war of 1832.

    Judge Hallett was a pupil in the Rock River Seminary of Illinois and later
in the Beloit (Wis.) College. When twenty-one years of age he became a law
student in the office of E. S. Williams, of Chicago, and was admitted to the bar
in 1858, after which he entered upon the practice of law in that city. In 1860
he arrived in Colorado and took up mining in Gilpin and Clear Creek counties,
but preferred professional activity and resumed the practice of law in
partnership with H. P. Bennet, the firm of Bennet & Hallett existing until the
former went to congress in 1863. On the 10th of April, 1866, Judge Hallett was
appointed chief justice of the territory of Colorado and entered upon a long and
honorable career as a territorial jurist and remained upon the bench for many
years after Colorado had become a state. He was also a member of the senate in
territorial days, from 1863 until 1865. In 1870 President Grant reappointed him
to the territorial supreme court and again in 1874, and in 1877 he received from
President Grant appointment as judge of the United States district court for
Colorado, remaining upon the bench until May 1, 1906. The life record of few men
in public service extended over so long a period and none has been more
faultless in honor, fearless in conduct or stainless in reputation. He was
called upon to settle many intricate and involved legal problems concerning
mining laws and their interpretation and exerted a most widely felt influence on
mining jurisprudence. In this connection a contemporary biographer has written:
"Leadville. Aspen, Creede, Cripple Creek, in the character of their veins and
deposits, with new features of metalliferous mining, presented intricate
problems for both the bench and the bar, and precedents had to be set along new
lines of interpretation, to meet the conditions peculiar to the geological
formation in these new mining camps. Probably no western jurist has exerted a
greater influence in mining jurisprudence than Judge Hallett. During his term on
the United States district bench the Denver & Rio Grande and the Colorado &
Southern came directly under his supervision in the appointment of receivers,
and matters were further complicated by labor troubles and strikes that followed
in connection therewith. With firmness and tact and judicial acumen, he handled
these difficult problems. Out of labor difficulties he brought peace and quiet,
and from a chaotic financial condition, the railroads were established on a
paying basis."

    Judge Hallett belonged to the University Club and the Masonic fraternity. In
1892 he became professor of American constitutional law and federal
jurisprudence in the University of Colorado, which in 1893 conferred upon him
the LL. D. degree. He was executor and trustee of the estate of George W.
Clayton, who left a large fortune for the establishment of the George W. Clayton
College for orphan boys.

    On the 9th of February, 1882, Judge Hallett was married to Miss Katherine
Felt, a daughter of Lucius S. Felt, a merchant of Galena, Illinois. For many
years Mrs. Hallett was prominent in the social and church circles of Denver and
the state, doing particularly active work in the Episcopal church and in
connection with St. Luke's Hospital. She died September 19, 1902, and in her
honor Judge Hallett built the Katherine Hallett Home for Nurses at St. Luke's
Hospital. Judge Hallett survived until 1913 and in that year Colorado was called
upon to mourn the loss of one of its most honored and distinguished jurists, one
who had left a deep impress upon the judicial history of the state and upon
Colorado's development in many other connections.

    Lucius F. Hallett was the elder of the two children born to Judge and Mrs.
Hallett and after acquiring his early education in the elementary schools of
Denver went to the Pomfret School in Connecticut and afterward became a student
in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology at Boston. He was graduated on the
completion of the scientific course in 1908 and then returned to Denver, where
for three years he was connected with the construction of Clayton College of
Denver, one of the leading educational institutions of the state. He afterward
returned to the east for a year to engage in engineering work, but on receiving
news of his father's death he immediately went home and engaged in settling up
his father's estate, which required his attention for two years. He next devoted
a year and a half to the affairs of St. Luke's Hospital, of which he has since
been treasurer. In 1917 he was elected president of the Denver board of
education. He is a trustee of Clayton College and of St. Luke's Hospital and of
the Museum of Natural History at City Park.

    Mr. Hallett was married on the 14th of June, 1909, to Miss Genevieve
Pfeiffer, of Rye, New Hampshire, a daughter of Mr. and Mrs. O. J. Pfeiffer,
residents of Denver. They have become parents of five children: Lucius F., born
in Denver in 1910; John Folsom, in 1912; Robert Corbin, in 1913; James Brewster,
in 1915; and Moses Deering in November, 1917. The elder children are in school.

    Mr. Hallett is a member of the Denver Club, the University Club, the Country
Club and the Mile High Club.


Additional Comments:

Extracted from:

HISTORY OF COLORADO

ILLUSTRATED

VOLUME III

CHICAGO
THE S. J. CLARKE PUBLISHING COMPANY
1918



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