Guardians of the Record: The Origins of Official Court Reporting and the Shorthand Writers Who Made It Possible

Introduction

In American courtrooms

prior to April 16, 1860, about a year before the outbreak of the Civil War, life, liberty, and property hung in the balance of the ability of judges and attorneys to capture the testimony in longhand. There were no state or federal laws requiring, or even authorizing, courts to hire official court stenographers to make verbatim records of words spoken during trials in any of the nation’s courtrooms.

As a result, according to the New York Herald, the following scene from a lengthy and controversial murder trial was repeated over and over again. Mr. Doolittle, for instance asks a question. ‘What’s that?’ says Mr. Jones. Mr. Doolittle repeats it. ‘Hold on,’ says Mr. Jones as he writes it down. The witness answers. ‘Wait a minute,’ and he waits while the judge and the learned brethren commit it to paper. They do it again.¹ Another observer described a typical court proceeding this way, Court and counsel were alike busy with antiquated goose quills in their effort to write down the testimony of witnesses, or counsel in convulsive frenzy was trying to write an occasional sentence of the charge of the judge; while as for the unfortunate witnesses—they waited in mournful resignation, and on their woeful visages could be plainly read, ‘How long? Oh, Lord how long?’²

The length of time it took for attorneys and judges to write down testimony in longhand was only one complaint reformers had about the way court proceedings were conducted. The other objections were more serious. Differing longhand versions of testimony meant that it was easier for recalcitrant witnesses to be evasive, and that disputes about what a witness or a judge had said could go unresolved and befog potential appellate proceedings.³

To some judicial reformers, the solution to making the wheels of justice move faster and stay on course was to grease them with stenographic oil—the courts should hire official stenographers to make verbatim records of trials.⁴

On April 16, 1860, the New York legislature did just that. It passed the first statute in the United States authorizing a court to appoint a court stenographer, and thereby gave birth to a new profession—official court reporting.⁵ A year later, California passed a similar statute, followed by Maryland in 1864; Pennsylvania in 1866; Maine, Wisconsin and Kansas in 1867; New Jersey in 1868; and Maryland and Vermont in 1869. By the mid-1880’s, some thirty states had followed New York’s lead and authorized official verbatim reporting in their courts.⁶ Congress did not pass a law providing for official court reporters in federal courts until 1944.⁷

The following pages begin with a description of the conception and birth of official court reporting, and then, starting with the man who was the father of the new profession, Edward F. Underhill, go on to profile the most significant pioneer shorthand writers who made official court reporting a success. They were a multi-talented and intellectually gifted group of men and women who led remarkably interesting lives that were dedicated to a wide range of endeavors, which extended well beyond their profession. Their interests included: seaside resort development, biblical studies, the advancement of women, astronomy and mathematics, sexual reform, spelling reform, literary detective work, and portrait painting. Some of the early official court reporters were lawyers and others were inventers. One became a nationally known best selling author and another became a typewriter tycoon worth millions of dollars.

Cartoon by Thomas Nast. Harper’s Weekly, February 17, 1872. Library of Congress.

The story about the origins of official court reporting opens in New York City in what was popularly known as the Free Love Club.

1

Free Love and the Origins of Official Court Reporting

It is difficult to

imagine what a so-called Free Love Club in New York City in 1855 would have to do with the origins of official court reporting in New York State and the nation. But that was where a young reformer and pioneer shorthand writer, Edward F. Underhill, was inspired to father official court reporting—the process of making verbatim records of words spoken during trials, depositions, administrative hearings and other legal proceedings.

The Free Love Club had been organized by Stephen Pearl Andrews, a controversial reformer and the man historians credit for introducing a new shorthand system called phonography to Americans in 1843. Developed in England by Isaac Pitman in 1840, the system was based on phonetics.⁸

The use of shorthand in the Western world can be traced back to the late 5th and early 4th centuries B.C. when the Greek historian Xenophon used an ancient Greek system to write about the words and deeds of Socrates. By the dawn of the Roman Empire, stenography was in more general use thanks to Marcus Tullius Tiro, a former slave and member of Cicero’s household, who invented a Latin shorthand system in 63 B.C. Known today as Tironian notes, the system was used to record Cicero’s speeches in the Roman Senate. Tironian notes continued to be used by European shorthand writers through the Middle Ages.⁹

Modern English shorthand dates from the revival of learning during the Elizabethan age when Dr. Timothy Bright wrote a shorthand textbook in 1588 dedicated to Queen Elizabeth. Hundreds of other English shorthand systems subsequently came into existence but none of them altered shorthand as dramatically as Isaac Pitman’s did after he published Phonography or Writing by Sound in 1840.¹⁰ Pitman revolutionized shorthand by inventing a phonetic alphabet that used short lines, triangles, and curves. In order to differentiate meanings, some lines were written lightly, others were heavily shaded. Skeletons of words were formed by linking the signs of consonants together and indicating vowels by dots marked next to the skeletons.¹¹

Isaac Pitman and an example of his shorthand. Browne’s Phonographic Monthly, March 1877.

Driven by a compelling desire to reform Britain’s rigid class system, Pitman was convinced that his shorthand system would simplify the art of writing and open the doors of education to members of the lower classes.¹²

It was in this same spirit of reform that Stephen Pearl Andrews, referred to by friends as Pearl, became an enthusiastic convert to Pitman’s phonography. Born in Templeton, Worcester County, Massachusetts on March 22, 1812, Andrews grew up in Hinsdale, New Hampshire where his father was a Baptist clergyman. Pearl graduated from Amherst College and moved to Louisiana to study law with a wealthy and influential older brother. Andrews soon became an abolitionist and in 1839 moved to the newly established Republic of Texas where he stepped up his work to bring an end to slavery. Texans reacted violently and drove Pearl from his home in Houston with loud threats of vengeance if he ever returned. Andrews sold his business interests and hatched a plan to go to London and raise money from British abolitionists that would be used to purchase slaves in Texas from their owners and thereby hasten the end of slavery in the Republic.¹³

Andrews traveled to London in 1840 and met many sympathetic businessmen at the World Anti-Slavery Convention where he gave a speech that was well received. However, he failed to attract the financing he needed and sailed home—but he did not leave Britain empty handed. As he exited the stage after his speech to the anti-slavery convention, a stranger handed him a package of books and pamphlets and urged him to introduce their contents to the American public. When Pearl returned to his lodgings, he saw that the material he had been given contained Pitman’s Phonography or Writing by Sound. Andrews studied Pitman’s writings on the boat back to the U.S. and by the time it docked in Boston in 1843, Pearl decided to become a propagandist of the Pitmanian project.¹⁴

Title page to Isaac Pitman’s revolutionary shorthand manual. Americana Collection, University of California Libraries.

In Pitman’s phonography, Pearl saw a new and easy way to teach illiterate blacks and whites to read and write and it would only take a few months. Nations would be drawn together, a universal language could evolve, and slavery would be destroyed!¹⁵

Recognizing that he could not return to Texas safely, Andrews remained in Boston where, in the fall of 1843, he opened the Phonographic Institute and began to vigorously promote Pitman’s shorthand system. Throughout the Northeast, from Boston to Philadelphia, he held public meetings, gave lectures, wrote and sold textbooks and manuals, and published phonographic newspapers and magazines.¹⁶

Stephen Pearl Andrews. Courtesy Massachusetts Historical Society. Wikimedia Commons.

Despite all his hard work, the 37-year-old Andrews was unable to make enough money in Boston to support his wife and three small sons. In 1849, he moved to New York City, bowed out of the phonography business, and went to work as a newspaperman for Horace Greeley’s New York Tribune.¹⁷

Andrews also turned his attention to abolishing another form of slavery in America—the enslavement of women in marriage. Marriage laws, according to Andrews, forced wives to become little less than prostitutes for their husbands. Pearl wrote that the government should get out of the business of defining morality. He argued that there should be  freedom of affection and freedom in love, just as much as there should be freedom of speech, freedom of press, free trade, and free thought.¹⁸

Andrews’s Free Lovite movement attracted followers from all corners of New York City. One of the movement’s most ardent supporters was Edward F. Underhill. A fellow Pitman shorthand writer who also worked as a newspaper reporter for Greeley’s Tribune, Underhill had moved to New York in 1853 from St. Louis.¹⁹

As a vehicle for bringing other like-minded free spirits together, Andrews and Underhill organized a social club. It met several times a week from 8 pm to 11 pm in rooms the club rented in Taylor’s Hotel at 555 Broadway, the middle of the theater and entertainment district. Club activities included lessons in phonographic shorthand and French grammar, as well as lectures on agrarian reform, card games, waltzing and comic songs. The general public called the club the Free Love Club, but according to Andrews’s biographer, it was no more than a chat shop that became controversial because it was a place where men and women talked publicly about sex.²⁰

David Dudley Field. Brady-Handy Collection, Library of Congress.

As one of the Love Club’s organizers, Underhill was a regular at the club, which is where it is likely he first met one of Andrews’s financial supporters, the prominent New York City attorney, David Dudley Field. Since 1837, Field had been championing reform of New York’s judicial system. In 1848, he had been appointed to a state commission to codify New York laws governing court practice and procedure.²¹

Field was appalled by the state’s antiquated legal system and hoped to streamline it by writing a new code of civil procedure that would help make court proceedings more efficient. Underhill knew what the legal reformer was up against because as a newspaper reporter, he had often watched the snail-like progress of trials.

In 1860, Field approached Underhill and discussed with him the idea of having a state law written to provide for stenographers to be used in New York City courts. Field told Underhill if he wrote the law, Field would include it in the amendments to the Code of Procedure that he was working on. Underhill agreed and Field added it to his proposed amendments. Underhill remained in Albany to lobby for its passage.²²

On April 16, 1860, New York lawmakers passed Underhill’s amendment, which gave the courts in New York City permission to employ court stenographers.²³ It was the first statute enacted in the U.S. authorizing a court to appoint a court stenographer. One by one, other states also passed laws authorizing the appointment of official court reporters. The federal government waited until 1944 to follow suit.

Underhill’s work to bring official court reporting to New York courts did not stop with the courts in New York City. He continued to successfully lobby the state legislature to pass laws first authorizing, and then requiring, courts throughout New York State to hire court reporters, and make them sworn officers of the court.²⁴ By 1873, official court reporting was a legal fixture in nearly every principal court in New York State.²⁵ A group of New York City stenographers was so pleased with Underhill’s legislative triumphs, they presented him with a gold watch and chain.²⁶

The father of official court reporting had come a long way since his modest beginnings in upstate New York, and was destined to go even further.

2

Edward F. Underhill, Part 1

Passionate Reformer and Confederate Prisoner of War

By blending Pitman

shorthand skills with humor and a self-described addiction to politics, Edward Fitch Underhill propelled himself into the pantheon of all-time great American court reporters. Born in Wolcott, Wayne County, New York on April 20, 1830, he was a lineal descendant of the controversial 17th century Indian fighter, Captain John Underhill.²⁷

Called Ned by his friends, Underhill was the oldest of five children. When Ned was 11, he and his family moved to Utica where his father practiced Thomsonian medicine and worked in a mercantile business with his brother.²⁸

Underhill’s father also had an interesting sideline—he was manager of a minstrel show, which operated out of New Hartford, near Utica. This was probably where Ned learned how to entertain people by playing the piano, harp and banjo, singing, doing impersonations, whistling and telling stories.²⁹

When Ned turned 16, his father apprenticed him out to learn the woolen factory business from his uncle’s brother-in-law, Richard P. Hunt, in Waterloo, New York. The apprenticeship was seriously interrupted in its first week when Ned accidentally got his hand caught in a machine that cut off the fingers of his left hand. In later years, Underhill would jokingly say that the accident paved the way for him to become a successful shorthand reporter.³⁰

The author points to Edward F. Underhill’s name on a plaque at the Women’s Rights National Historical Park in Seneca Falls, NY. The plaque lists the names of the 32 men who added their signatures to the Declaration of Sentiments, which was signed by 68 women on July 20, 1848.

After Ned recovered from the accident, he made one of the most important decisions of his life. He decided to learn the Pitman system of shorthand. Thomas C. Leland, a traveling teacher in central New York, introduced Pitman shorthand to Underhill in February, 1848. Ned took six lessons from Leland who subsequently praised him as one of his best pupils. After Leland moved on, Underhill zealously continued his shorthand studies on his own by using Isaac Pitman’s texts and magazines.³¹

During the summer of 1848, Ned briefly interrupted his studies to participate in the first women’s rights convention. His experiences there shaped his thinking about the status of women for the rest of his life. On a weekend in early July, 1848, Jane Hunt, the wife of the owner of the woolen mill where Underhill was working, hosted a meeting at her home in Waterloo where Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucretia Mott, and others wrote the call for a convention to meet in the neighboring town of Seneca Falls on July 19 and 20. They also drafted a manifesto entitled a Declaration of Sentiments, which called for equal political, social and economic rights for women.³²

With his aunt, Martha Barker Underhill of