DALY, CHARLES P.:

By: Cyrus Adler, Max J. Kohler

Historian and jurist; born in New York city 1816; died in 1899. Daly was of Roman Catholic parentage. He was admitted to the bar at the age of twenty-three, and, after serving for a year in the state legislature, was elected judge of the court of commons pleas of New York in 1844, and filled the judicial office for forty-two years, for twenty-seven years as chief justice, retiring in 1886.

Judge Daly's profound scholarship, unquestioned integrity, brilliant conversational gifts, and commanding dignity combined to give him for many years a unique position in American life. He was deeply interested in Jewish affairs and Jewish history, and lost no opportunity to express disapproval of anti-Semitism. He was often chosen to be the orator at important Jewish functions, as, for instance, on the occasion of the celebration in 1872 of the fiftieth anniversary of the Hebrew Orphan Asylum in New York city; and again in 1883 on the laying of the corner-stone of the new building erected by that society, both of these addresses being published at the time. The former, as expanded by him in 1893, was reprinted in book form, with annotations by Max J. Kohler, under the title "Settlement of the Jews in North America,"New York, 1893. It was one of the earliest works on the subject of American-Jewish history, and is still authoritative. Judge Daly was an honorary member of the American Jewish Historical Society, and several times presided over sessions of its annual meetings.

A. M. J. K.