admin MAURICE C. SPRATT, of the firm of Hoyt & Spratt, is one of the ablest lawyers of the New York bar. Mr. Spratt has attained special distinction in the field of corporation law, being counsel for several of the most important railroad, telegraph and other corporations of the country.
The public records of Somerset and Devonshire Counties, England, show that the Spratt family were active in political and ecclesiastical affairs as early as 1500. The branch from which Maurice C. Spratt descends was established in Southern Ireland, 1640, by the Rev. Devereux Spratt, who was a graduate of Magdalen College, Oxford University and a clergyman of the Church of England. In 1641 he was obliged to leave Ireland because of the Rebellion which broke out in that year, and on his return passage to England, while in the Irish Channel, this ship that bore him was captured by an Algerian Corsair and he was taken to the City of Algiers and sold as a slave. During his captivity he ministered to the English prisoners at Algiers, and although ransomed at the end of one year, he preferred to remain in bondage and continued for two years his ministrations to the captives of his own nationality and faith. He was then appointed Chaplain of the Channel Squadron and after serving one year with the fleet he returned to Ireland, having received grants of land in Mitchelstown, County of Cork. Many of his descendants have served with conspicuous bravery both in the British Army and Navy, and have held and now hold high rank in both branches of the service.
Maurice Charles Spratt was born April 4, 1865, at Rossie, St. Lawrence County, N. Y., his father being Patrick Spratt and his mother Margaret Vaughan Spratt. He was educated in the public schools of his native town, graduated from Ogdensburg Academy in 1884: and from Georgetown University, D. C, in 1888, with the degree of Bachelor of Arts. He then became a student in the law office of his brother, Hon. Thomas Spratt, and Hon. Daniel Magone, in Ogdensburg, and in 1890 was admitted to the bar. He remained with that firm till 1893, when he came to Buffalo, and entered the office of Messrs. McMillan, Gluck, Pooley & Depew, a leading law firm at that time. Later Mr. Spratt was admitted a partner of the firm which became known as McMillan, Pooley, Depew & Spratt, later Pooley, Depew & Spratt, and afterwards Pooley & Spratt, an association which continued up to 1907, when Mr. Spratt became associated with W. B. Hoyt, in the present firm of Hoyt & Spratt.
Messrs. Hoyt & Spratt are now counsel in this territory for the New York Central Lines, including the Lake Shore, the New York Central, the New York, Chicago & St. Louis, the West Shore, the Michigan Central, the Rome, Watertown & Ogdensburg, the Terminal Railway and other Vanderbilt properties. Among the firm’s clients are also included the Western Union Telegraph Company, the Aetna Life Insurance Company, the Western Transit Company and the New York State Realty & Terminal Company, with such extensive Buffalo concerns as the George N. Pierce Automobile Company, the Buffalo Dredging Company, the German Rock Asphalt Co., the M. H. Birge & Sons Company, and the Buffalo Sanitary Company.
Mr. Spratt is, in the best sense of the phrase, an all-around lawyer. His experience is wide, his capacity for research marked, and his instincts practical. He is an effective and successful court advocate, a safe and sound counselor, and strong in the presentation of arguments before appellate tribunals.
Mr. Spratt is independent in politics. For several years he has been a prominent member of the Civil Service Reform Association, and in 1906 was chosen a member of its Executive Committee.
He is a member of the Buffalo Historical Society, the Buffalo, Saturn, University and Country Clubs and the Transportation Club of New York City.
SOURCE: Memorial and Family History of Erie County New York; Volume I