Hobbs

Safety, and in May 1777 was appointed justice
of the supreme court, an office which he held for
nearly twenty-one years.

His experience with the peculiarly difficult
conditions in Revolutionary New York, together
with his unquestioned devotion to the patriot
cause, his absolute integrity, and a reputation for
sound common sense, made a combination of pub-
lic qualities which caused his services to be much
in demand. He was a delegate to the interstate
convention at Hartford, Conn., in 1780, called
"to give Vigour to the governing Powers, equal
to the present Crisis," and to the Poughkeepsie
convention in 1788, called to act on the draft of
the new Constitution for the United States. These
same traits of public character, considered in con-
nection with the fact that under the new con-
stitution of the state of New York the judiciary
had great political power, may help to account
for the apparent anomaly of a justice of the su-
preme court who, according to his own state-
ment, had not been bred to the profession of law.
The age-limit set by this constitution would have
compelled his retirement shortly, when, on Jan.
n, 1798, he was elected United States senator.
This office he held only until Apr. 12 of that year,
when he was appointed United States district
judge for the district of New York, in which
capacity he served until his death in 1805.
Though not a lawyer, he is said to have been
partly responsible, during twenty years, for giv-
ing the decisions of the New York supreme court
such strength and character as they had before
the days of Chancellor Kent (D. D. Barnard,
quoted by Charles Warren, post, p. 293), and
Kent himself said of Hobart that he was a "faith-
ful, diligent and discerning judge."

[F. B. Dexter, Biog. Sketches Grads. Yale Coll, vol.
II (1896) ; E. H. Schenck, The Hist, of F airfield, Fair-
field County, Conn., vol. II (1905)\ J- D- Hammond,
The Hist, of Pol. Parties in the State of N. Y. (1842),
vol. I; Charles Warren, A Hist, of the Am. Bar (1911) 5
F. G. Mather, Refugees of 1776 from L. I. to Conn.
(1913); L. S. Hobart, IVm. Hobartt His Ancestors and
Descendants (1886); New-Eng. Hist, and Geneal. Reg.,
Apr. 1856; Peter Force, Am. Archives, 5 ser. I and II
(1848-51); Journals of the N. Y. Assembly; E. A.
Werner, Civil List . . . of N. Y. (1889); Am. Citizen
and Morning Chronicle, both of N. Y., Feb. 6,1805.]

C.W.S.

HOBBS, ALFRED CHARLES (Oct.;, 1812-
Nov. 5, 1891), lock expert, manufacturer, and
mechanical engineer, was born at Boston, Mass.
When he was but three years old his father died
and Alfred grew up with opportunity to attend
school only between attempts to earn small sums
toward the support of the family. At the age of
ten he entered the home of a fanner in Westfield,
Mass., remaining there until he was fourteen,
when he returned to Boston to be a clerk in a

Hobbs

dry-goods store. Connected with this occupation
for but a short time, he tried in quick succession
the trades of wood-carving, carriage-body build-
ing, harness making, tinsmithing, and coach-
trimming. Finally he drifted into an apprentice-
ship in the glass-cutting works of the Boston &
Sandwich Glass Company, at Sandwich, Mass.
Completing this apprenticeship in 1836, he es-
tablished himself in Boston as a glass-cutter.
Glass doorknobs were a staple product of his
trade, and in connection with the cutting of these
he invented and patented a method of fastening
them into the sockets by which they were at-
tached to the door locks. This invention brought
him into contact with lock makers and led him
to enter the business of manufacturing locks as
junior partner in the firm of Jones & Hobbs.
The enterprise was not a success, the partnership
was dissolved, and Hobbs went to New York to
sell locks and fireproof safes for Edwards & Hoi-
man. This company he left to become salesman
for Day & Newell, bank-lock makers of New
York. Finding it necessary to prove to bankers
that their locks were insecure before they would
buy new ones from him, he would pick the locks
of his competitors as often as opportunity afford-
ed and soon became known as the most accom-
plished lock expert in the country. In 1851 he
accompanied the Day & Newell exhibit to the
international industrial exhibition in London,
where he immediately attracted attention by open-
ing the best locks of Chubb, the leading English
maker of the period. When he followed this feat
with a successful attack upon the famous Bramah
lock, which had defied picking for forty years, he
not only won a prize of two hundred guineas but
became conspicuous in the press of the day. The
wide publicity given to his achievements created
doubt as to the security of the best British locks
and brought the American products into favor.
Taking advantage of this condition, Hobbs
formed a partnership known as Hobbs, Ashley,
& Company, for the manufacture of locks at
Cheapside, London. The firm introduced machine
methods and enjoyed a prosperous business. In
1860 Ashley died and Hobbs welcomed the op-
portunity to withdraw and return to the United
States, although the firm continued under the
name of Hobbs, Hart & Company. While in Eng-
land he became a member of the Society of Arts,
and was elected an associate member of the In-
stitution of Civil Engineers, which awarded him
its highest honor, the Telford Medal, for his pa-
per "On the Principles and Construction of
Locks." In 1860 he engineered the building and
equipping of a factory for Elias Howe, Jr., manu-
facturer of sewing machines, and superintended

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