Eri Cogswell Oakes (1883-1931)

Portrait from the Granite State Monthly, 1913.

  A leading lawyer in Lancaster, New Hampshire during his brief life, Eri Cogswell Oakes was a delegate to the New Hampshire Constitutional Convention of 1912, and four years prior to his death was appointed as an associate judge of the Superior Court of New Hampshire. Sadly Oakes would take his own life via gunshot in 1931, a few days following his arrest for drunken driving and less than a day after his resignation from the bench. Born in Lisbon, New Hampshire on July 12, 1883, Eri Cogswell Oakes was the son of Eri and Ellen Sarah (Cogswell) Oakes.

  A student in the public schools of Lisbon, Oakes decided upon a career in law and in the early 1900s enrolled at the New York University Law School. Graduating in the class of 1904, Oakes would practice in both Lisbon and Littleton, New Hampshire prior to his permanent removal to Lancaster in Coos County in 1912. In short order, Oakes would join Lancaster's leading law firm of Shurtliff and Morris and later was admitted as a partner.

  In the year of his resettlement in Lancaster Oakes was elected as a delegate to the New Hampshire Constitutional Convention, which was to convene in Concord in June 1912. Oakes' time at the convention saw him named to the committees of the Whole, as well as the Judicial Department, and at the completion of the proceedings returned to his law practice in Lancaster.

  Eri C. Oakes married in Somerville, Massachusetts in 1916 to Katherine Florence Sawin (1887-1926), and the couple would have one daughter, Mabel (1919-1998). In March 1927 Oakes was appointed by then-Governor John Winant as an associate justice of the Superior Court of New Hampshire, a court tenure that would have extended until Oakes reached seventy years of age in 1953. 

  Oakes would serve on the bench until September 1931, and on September 13th of that year was involved in a one-vehicle car accident in Milton, New Hampshire. On that night the car Oakes had been driving lost control and careened into a telephone pole. Following police arrival on the scene, Oakes was found to be intoxicated and was soon after taken to the local police station. Here Oakes' identity was confirmed and he was remarked in the Nashua Telegraph as having struggled with police following his arrest, even striking a member of the Rochester police force. Despite his tussling with law enforcement, Oakes' status as a superior court judge worked out in his favor, as he was released soon afterward, "no charges preferred." After his release, the particulars of Oakes' accident hit the headlines of several New Hampshire newspapers, and by September 17th state motor vehicle commissioner John Griffin had contacted Oakes to inform him that his driver's license had been revoked, "for reasons deemed good and sufficient."

  In the days following the accident Oakes briefly returned to his judicial duties and on September 18th sent his letter of resignation to Governor Winant. Just a few hours after sending this letter, Oakes placed an emotional telephone call to Dr. William Leith, a physician, and longtime friend, and following the phone call shot himself in the head with a pistol, his body being discovered by Dr. Leith in the bedroom of Oakes' home. In addition to a pistol found near the body, Leith also found two letters, one addressed to Oakes' daughter Mabel and the other addressed to Leith himself. 

   The news of Judge Oakes' suicide spread quickly through Lancaster and in the days following was headline news in the Nashua Telegraph, amongst other newspapers. His death also complicated a case in which he had been presiding over, involving a $70,000 suit against the city of Nashua by the Cunningham Burdwood Company for breach of contract. While he may have ended his life in such bleak circumstances Oakes was memorialized as a dedicated attorney and leading state jurist, his funeral being attended by members of the state supreme court, superior court, and many other prominent public figures. He was later interred alongside his wife Katherine at the Summer Street Cemetery in Lancaster.

From the Nashua Telegraph, September 18, 1931.

Nashua Telegraph, September 21, 1931.