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\J \
^J
/'
\J.
JOHN McNULTA,
/ypt-u//li, lrii,^'^''-i^^
I HE
BENCH AND BM<
or
ILLINOIS.
HISTORICAL AND REWINlSCFiNl
KM I f.I) HV
JOHN M. PALMER,
' «• •' !► Ill II'' sN KUOM V^NrMm.K OF \H^ FORI- MOST ML.'i.vS '»: .-'It
LI'IAL I i<(>»K<^' 'N IN UiK « I \ IK.
VOLUME I.
CHKWCjO:
illK LKVVIS PUliLlSJilXt; COMI'ANV
.:/.-.,,
"" THE
BENCH AND BAR
OF
ILLINOIS.
HISTORICAL AND REMINISCENT.
EDITED BY
JOHN M. PALMER,
WITH CONTRIBUTIONS FROM A NUMBER OF THE FOREMOST MEMBERS OF THE
LEGAL PROFESSION IN THE STATE.
VOLUME I.
CHICAGO:
THE LEWIS PUBLISHING COMPAN'Y,
1899.
Copyright, 1899,
THE LEWIS PUBLISHING COMPANY,
Chicago.
PREFACE.
It may be recalled that in the prospectus of this work there appeared the
following words, which, per se, stand in justification of the history of the Bench
and Bar of Illinois :
"The memory of the life of even a lawyer is fleeting — a name written upon
the sandy shore of time, effaced by the oncoming wave of the next generation ;
his work is for the present, and unless some effort is made to preserve in perma-
nent form a record of that work it will be lost to the future. Even the great
judges are forgotten; they live only in the pages of dry and musty reports,
and then the' recollection is only a shadow. In no better way can some of the
most valued items in the history of the lives of such men be preserved than
through the medium of such a work. Thus may the merits and virtues of those
eminent in the profession be recorded for the emulation and guidance of the
younger generation."
In the compilation of the work the editor and the publishers have fully
recognized the magnitude of the task set them, and in the collation of material
for the same there has been a constant aim to use a wise discrimination in regard
to the selection of subjects and the methods of treatment. The province of the
work is entirely aside from technical lines, and the subject-matter is presented
in a style which is mainly reminiscent, though due recognition is accorded the
contemporaries of the bench and bar of this end-of-the-century period.
In the compilation recourse has been had to divers authorities, including
various histories and historical collections, and implying an almost endless array
of papers and documents, both public and private. That so much matter could be
gathered from so many original sources and then sifted and assimilated for the
production of a single work without incurring a modicum of errors and in-
accuracies-, would be too much to expect of any corps of writers, no matter how
able they might be as statisticians or skilled as compilers of such works. It is,
nevertheless, believed that no inaccuracies of a serious nature can be found to
impair the historical value of the volumes, and it is further believed that the
111
iv PREFACE.
results will supply the demands which called forth the efforts of the editor, his
assistants and the publishers.
Names worthy of perpetuation here have in several instances been omitted,
either on account of the apathetic interest of those concerned, or the inability
to secure the information demanded. Earnest co-operation has been accorded
by leading members of the bar in various sections of the state, and the editor
and publishers, as well as the patrons, can not but feel grateful to those who have
thus contributed. In other quarters it has been impossible to awaken the
requisite interest, and in such cases it has been necessary to fill in the gap as
best possible. However, the incidental references made to those who have been
important actors in the public and civic history of the state will serve to indicate
the generic phases and will shadow forth much to those who can *'read between
the lines." As issued under the editorial supervision of one who has honored
and been honored by the great state of Illinois, — "a state that has been en-
riched by his character, his example and his labor," — ^we can not but feel that
the edition will meet with hearty reception as a work of distinct and intrinsic
historical value.
THE PUBLISHERS.
TABLE OF CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
Introductory i
CHAPTER n.
The Formative Period — ^Territorial and State 6
CHAPTER HI.
The Supreme Court — Territorial and Supreme Court Judges lo
CHAPTER IV.
The Supreme Court — 1825 — Notable Cases : 21
CHAPTER V.
The Supreme Court — 1841 32
CHAPTER VI.
Reporters of the Supreme Court .... 73
CHAPTER VII.
Lawyers of Chicago 79
CHAPTER VIII.
Bench and Bar of Crawford County 125
CHAPTER IX.
The Courts and the Law Practice in Chicago : A Sketch 141
CHAPTER X.
The Bench and Bar of Sangamon County 152
CHAPTER XI.
Compilations and Revisions of the Laws of Illinois 230
CHAPTER XII.
The Macoupin County Bar — Lake County Lawyers 237
CHAPTER XIII.
Lawyers in Chicago 25 1
CHAPTER XIV.
Reforms in Abatements, Amendments and Practice at Law — Imprisonment
for Debt 285
V
vi TABLE OF CONTENTS.
CHAPTER XV.
The Bench and Bar of Peoria County 290
CHAPTER XVI.
Lawyers of Peoria County 310
CHAPTER XVII.
Reforms in the Criminal Law 327
CHAPTER XVIII.
The Bench and Bar of Morgan County — Notable Cases 335
CHAPTER XIX.
Representatives of the Chicago Bar 359
CHAPTER XX.
The Jersey County Bar 396
CHAPTER XXI.
The Bench and Bar of Effingham County 405
CHAPTER XXII.
The Bench and Bar of Cumberland County 419
CHAPTER XXIII.
Autobiography of John M. Palmer — Sketch of the Life of William H. Bissell 429
CHAPTER XXIV.
The Courts of Knox County — Early Members of the Bar — Lawyers of
Present Bar 447
CHAPTER XXV.
The Bar of Shelby County — ^Anecdotes 457
CHAPTER XXVI.
Contemporaries of the Chicago Bar 471
CHAPTER XXVII.
The Early Bench and Bar of Jo Daviess County 510
CHAPTER XXVIII.
History of the Bond County Bar 526
CHAPTER XXIX.
Abraham Lincoln — David Davis — Shelby M. Cullom — George Manierre —
Isaac N. Arnold — ^Thomas Hoyne — Melville W. Fuller — Leonard
Swett 536
TABLE OF CONTENTS. vii
Fag«
CHAPTER XXX.
Representative Lawyers of Rock Island, Christian, Clay, Franklin and
Macon Counties 563
CHAPTER XXXI.
The Bar of Jefferson County 595
CHAPTER XXXII.
Reminiscences of the Bench and Bar of Chicago 602
CHAPTER XXXIII.
Representatives of the Madison County Bar 672
CHAPTER XXXIV.
Representative Lawyers of St. Clair, McLean, McDonough, Massac and
Clark Counties 705
CHAPTER XXXV.
Lincoln and Douglas — ^A Comparative Estimate of Their Characters,
Drawn from the Great Debate of 1858 750
CHAPTER XXXVI.
Members of the Chicago Bar 760
CHAPTER XXXVII. ,
The Bench and Bar of Grundy County 774
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
The Bar of Clinton and Boone Counties 780
CHAPTER XXXIX. •
The Bar of Livingston County 794
CHAPTER XL.
A Short History of the Bench and Bar of Hardin County 801
CHAPTER XLI.
The Bar of Henry County .• 805
CHAPTER XLII.
The Bar of LaSalle County 816
CHAPTER XLIII.
Representatives of the Chicago Bar 831
CHAPTER XLIV.
Reminiscences of the Early Bar 848
CHAPTER XLV.
The Bar of Gallatin County 851
viii TABLE OF CONTENTS.
CHAPTER XLVI.
The Bar of Schuyler and Fayette Counties 858
CHAPTER XLVn.
A Sketch of the Bench and Bar of Johnson County 872
CHAPTER XLVni.
The Bench and Bar of Hancock County 875
CHAPTER XLIX.
Representative Lawyers of \'ermilion and DeWitt Counties 889
CHAPTER L.
The Bench and Bar of Kane County 901
CHAPTER LI.
Leading Lawyers of Alexander, Cass, Coles, DeKalb, Macoupin and
Sangamon Counties 925
CHAPTER LH.
Representative Lawyers in Champaign, Jackson, Kankakee, Monroe, Mont-
gomery, Moultrie, Ogle. Perry, Wabash, Warren, Will and Winnebago
Counties 949
CHAPTER LIII.
The Bar of Bureau Countv looi
m
CHAPTER LIV.
The Bar of Logan County 1006
CHAPTER LV.
Chicago Lawyers 101°
CHAPTER LVL
The Bar of Fulton Countv 1037
CHAPTER LVn.
The Bar of Pike County 1047
CHAPTER LVHL
Prominent Members of the Bar in the Counties of Lawrence. Marion,
Marshall, Menard, Randolph, Richland, Tazewell, Whiteside and
Woodford io54
CHAPTER LIX.
Representatives of the Chicago Bar 1078
CHAPTER LX.
The Courts and Bar of Greene Countv lOQ^
TABLE OF CONTENTS. ix
CHAPTER LXI.
Leaders of the Bar in Edgar, Douglas, Henderson, Iroquois, Jasper, Lee,
McHenry, Mercer, Piatt and Pulaski Counties 1115
CHAPTER LXn.
Walter Q. Gresham — Ninian Edwards — ^John A. Logan — Richard J.
Oglesby 1 139
CHAPTER LXHL
Representatives of the Chicago Bar 1 156
CHAPTER LXIV.
The Stephenson County Bar 1 188
CHAPTER LXV.
Members of the Present Bar of Stephenson County 1 198
CHAPTER LXVL
The Bench and Bar of Pope County. 1210
INDEX.
Adair, John D., 1083.
Adams, George £., 103 1.
Adams, James, 158.
Ahrens, John P., 1161.
Akin, Edward C, 982.
Aldrich, Charles H., 834.
Aldrich, N. J., 920.
Alexander, Guy S,, 129.
Alexander, J, F., 527.
Allen, James C, 126.
Allen, Oscar, 1008.
Allen, William J., 211.
Allen, Willis. 856.
Alschuler, Samuel, 922.
Ament, William T., 794.
Ames, Truman £., 464.
Anderson, William £. P., 242.
Andrews, Francis E., 1070- 1.
Anthony, Elliott, 79.
Armstrong, John F., 223.
Armstrong, P, A.» 778.
Arnold, Isaac N., 555.
Arrington, A. W., 662.
Asay, E. G., 638.
Ashcraft, Edwin M., 480. •
Atherton, Boaz M., 776.
Avery, Julius, 818.
Ayer, Benj. F., 83, 649.
B
Babcock, A. S., 912.
Bacon, Francis, 996.
Bailey, Joseph M., 1196.
Bailey, Oliver J., 320.
Bainbridge, John W., 238.
Baird, Frederick S., 1160.
Baker, Alfred L., 118.
Baker, Edward D., 177, 880. 1048, 1103.
Baker, Edward S., 137.
Baker, Frank, 1179-80.
Baker, Henry S., 689.
Baldwin, Adolphus M., 803.
Baldwin, Charles, 1002.
Ballingall, Patrick, 634.
Ballou, Horace H., 1008.
Bancroft, Edgar A., 508.
Banning, Ephraim, 115.
Barbee, Milton, 467.
Barge, William, 1127.
Barger, Richard W., 1165.
Barker, Joseph N., 64&
Barnes, Charles A., 356.
Bamum, Henry M.,. 1202.
Barnum, William H., 471.
Barr, James G., 91 7-
Barr, William W., 953-
Barrett, Elmer E., 1029.
Barricklow, Joseph P., 11 18.
Barry, Alonzo H., 912.
Barry, William D., 907.
Barton, E. P., 1195.
Bates, George C, 625.
Baugh, Downing, 595.
Baugher, Oscar, 776.
Baum, William, 466.
Beach, Myron H., 499.
Beach, Timothy T., 1007.
Beason, Silas, 1007.
Beck, William E., 829.
Becker, John H., 913.
Beckwith, Corydon, 645.
Bekemeyer, Carl, 1016-17.
Bell, Alexander H., 243.
Bell, Henry C, 219.
Bell, Robert, 974.
Benjamin, Reuben M., 727.
Bennett, Albon, 776.
Bentley, Cyrus, 652.
Berdan, James, 338.
Berry, Orville F., 885.
Betts, Charles, 1200.
Bigelow, Lewis, 293.
Bingham. John A., 868-9.
Bissell, William H.. 441.
Black, John C, 94.
Black, William P., 375-
XI
-XIl
INDEX.
I
Blackburn, Joseph, 604.
Blackwell, Robert S., 881.
Blaisdell, Elijah W., 957.
Blanchard, Charles, 822.
Bledsoe, Albert* T., 174.
Blinn, Edward D., 1007.
Blodgett, Henry W., 245, 617.
Bogard, Hampton S., 137.
Boggs, Carroll C, 71.
Boice, John P., 1038.
Bond, Benjamin, 3.
Bond, Lester L., 107.
Bonney, Charles C, 305.
Bo6th, William, 898.
Bowen, Thomas S., 820.
Boyer, Oscar J., 1046.
Boyle, Henry K., 820.
Bradbury, Presley G., 135.
Bradley, Isaac K., 199.
Bradley, Lewis M., 1136,
Bradshaw, William P., 690.
Bradwell, James B., 630, 831.
Bradwell, Mrs. Myra C, 235, 277.
Brady, Peter A., 426.
Brainard, Henry, 805.
Brainard, Samuel P., 805.
Brawley, Francis W. S., 88.
Brayman, Mason, 231, 628.
Breese, Sidney, 16, 33.
Brewer, Levi N., 425.
Brewer, Thomas, 422.
Brewer, Thomas C, 426.
Brice, James G., 1009.
Briggs, J. Albert, 1076.
Bright, Hiram, 1195.
Broadwell, Norman M., 193.
Brock, James M., 1130-1.
Brower, Franklin F., 819.
B rower, H. H., 826.
Brown, Christopher C, 195.
Brown, Edward O., 281-2.
Brown, Floyd, 1039.
Brown, Frederick, 922.
Brown, Henry, 617.
Brown, Irving J., 426.
Brown, John A., 585.
Brown, John B., 986.
Brown, John J., 656.
Brown, Paul, 1026.
Brown, Porter W., 787.
Brown, William, 338.
Brown, William H., 621.
Browne, Thomas C, 14, 855.
Browning. Daniel M., 589.
Browning, Granville W., 1156.
Browning, Orvillc H., 183.
Bruner, Thomas H., 1044.
Brush, Charles H., 820.
Bryan, W. F., 311.
Buckingham, Caleb A., 906.
Buckingham, Isaac A., 580.
Bulklcy, Almon W., 498.
Bull, E. F., 828.
Bunn, David L., 583.
Burchard, Horatio C, 1198.
Burford, Kendall H., 406.
Burgess, William T., 651.
Burgett, John M. H., 1172.
Burns, John, 308,
Burr, Albert G., 1099.
Burroughs, Benjamin J., 695.
Burton, Charles H., 702.
Burton, Frank W., 243.
Bush, D. B., 1048.
Bush, J. M., 1049.
Bushnell, Nehemiah, 881.
Bushnell, Washington, 818.
Bussard, Albert F., 426.
Butler, William N., 935.
Butterfield, Justin, 2, 181, 613.
Butterfield, Justin, Jr., 181.
Buxton, Harvey P., 785*
Caldwell, Albert G., 855.
Caldwell, Henry D., 406, 415.
Calhoun, John, 30.
Callahan, Ethelbert, 130.
Cameron, Alexander T., 820.
Cameron, Dwight F., 819.
Campbell, Antrim, 174.
Campbell, David B., 174.
Campbell, George C, 8it^
Campbell, Thompson, 518, 522.
Campbell, William, i8j.
Canby, Benjamin H., 716.
Canfield, Eugene, 918.
Cannon, Joseph G., 458.
Cannon, Nelson C, 828.
Carnes, Duane J., 945.
Carr, Joseph S., 400.
Carter, Henry G., 1135.
Carter, Joseph N., 69.
Carter, Orrin N., 779, 1018.
Cartwright, James H., 71.
Case, Theodore G., 504.
Casey, Edward W., 625.
INDEX.
Xlll
Casey, Lewis F., sg6, 1055.
Casey, Samuel K., 596.
Casey. Thomas S., 596, 705.
Caton. John D., 39, 604.
Cavarly, Alfred W., 160, iioi.
Chadwick, John H., 11 19-20.
Chafee, George D., 460.
Champlin, John C, 817.
Chancellor, Justus, 1 174-5.
Chapman, H. N., 906.
Chapman, Theodore S., 401.
Chesnut. John A.. 209.
Chetlain, Arthur H., 362.
Chew, Morris R., 457.
Chew, William, 457.
Chew, William H., 467.
Chubbuck, Orlando, S22.
Chumasero, William, 827.
Church, L. S., 1129.
Church. William T., 1x31,
Churchill, Joseph W., 907.
Chytraus, Axel, 490.
Gapsaddle, D. M., 921.
Clark, Charles A., 1194.
Clark, John A., 1194.
Clarke, Francis E., 250.
Clarke, Isaac L., 250.
Clement, Daniel E., 595.
Clendennin, John S., 1044
Clifford, Eugene, 913.
Coates, John, 1203.
Cobum, George F., 893.
Cobum, Lewis L., 83d.
Cochran, James S., 1202.
Cochran, Joseph W., 308.
Cochran, William G., 970.
Cody, Hope R., 1027.
Coffcen, M. Lester, 503,
Colby. William H., 207.
Collins, James H., 608.
Collins, Winfield S., 210.
Condee, Leander D., 479.
Conkling, Clinton L., 200
Conkling, James C, 190.
Connell, James H., 1130.
Connolly, James A., 223.
Connor, Charles M., 426.
Constable. Charles H., 5.
Cook. C .E.. 528.
Cooper, Job A., 528.
Cooper, Jonathan K., 303.
Cooper. Rauseldon, 11 26.
Cooper. William B., 406.
Corbin, Lewis, 1044.
Cornell, Paul, 617.
Corrington, Stephen F., 1108.
Cotton, Henry G., 818.
Coulter, Hugh R., 1038.
Cox, Jesse, 365.
Craddock, William W., 421.
Craig, Alfred M., 60.
Craig, Isaac B., 942.
Craig, James A., 804.
Craig, James W.. 940.
Craig, William H., 468.
Cratty, Thomas, 112.
Crawford. Charles H., 829.
Crawford, Frank J., 819.
Creighton, James A.. 207.
Cronkrite, William N., 1205
Crook, A. N. J., 202.
Crooker, Lucien B., 829.
Crooker, J. C, 828.
Crow, George A., 720.
Crowley, Joseph B., 136.
Cullom, Shelby M., 549.
Culver, Morton T, 841.
Cummins, Stephen H., 215.
Curtis, James, 626.
Cussins, William T, 584.
Custer, Jacob R., 259.
Cutting, Charles S., 102 1.
D
Dale, Michael G., 2, 526, 697.
Daud, A. L.. 77S.
Davidson, Asa L., 1039.
Davis, David, 154, 541.
Davis, James M., 526, 967.
Davis, Levi, 181, 682.
Davis, Thomas G. C, 857, 121 1.
Dawdy, William H., 52a
Day, Orsamus D., 907.
Dean, C. B., 793.
Decius, Hiram B., 126, 423.
Defrees, Joseph H., 1085
Delano, Sterling P., 882-3.
Dent, Thomas, 106.
Devine, Miles J., 387.
Dewey, William S., 931.
De Wolf, Calvin, 618.
De Wolf, William C, Jr., 792.
Dexter, Wirt, 659, 660.
Dickey, T. Lyle, 61.
Dicks, William E., 1009.
Dixon, George C, 881.
Doak, John W., 11 17.
Dodge, A. R., 906.
XI v
INDEX.
Dolan, Martin J.. 404.
Dominy, C, 826.
Donnelly, C. H., 1185.
Doolittle, James R., 618.
Doremus, John C, 180.
Douglas, Leander, 451.
Douglas, Stephen A., y;, 175. 750, 875-
Douglas, Stephen A. (Jr.), 1028.
Douglass, John M., 513, 523, 648.
Dove, Theodore F., 466.
Dow, S. K., 647.
Dowling, James E., 206.
Drennan, James L., 577.
Drummond, Thomas, 360, 361, 512, 521, 642.
Duff, Jonathan, 794.
Dummer, Henry E., 3, 166, 338.
Duncan, James W., 281, 828.
Duncan, Warren W., 983.
Dunham, Charles, 813.
Dunn, Charles, 1210.
Dunn, Frank K., 941.
D wight, Samuel L., 1056.
Eagleton, John C, 132.
Early, William P., 701.
Eastman, Albert N., 102.
Eastman, David L., 911.
Eckert, Robert P., 1208.
Eckles, James H., 112.
Eckles, James S., looi.
Eddy, Alfred D., I035-
Eddy, Henry, 853.
Eden, John R., 972.
Edwards, Benjamin S., 190.
Edwards, Cyrus, 4.
Edwards, F. M., 404.
Edwards, Ninian, 1143.
Edwards, Ninian W., 174-5.
Ela, John W., 386.
Eldridge, G. S., 828.
Elliott, William, 881, 103a
English, James W., iioi.
Epler, Cyrus, 355-6-
Estabrook, George H., 1009.
Estabrook, Henry D., y(f;.
Evans, Winslow, 325.
Everhart, Winfield S., 426.
Ewing, Adlai T., 1034.
Ewing, Charles A., 581.
Farnsworth, John F., 908.
Farwell, Robert, lOOi.
Ferguson, William I., 182.
Ferns, Thomas F., 403.
Ferrell, John H., Jr.. 803.
Ferry, Elisha P., 249.
Fetzer, Henry, 827.
Field, Alexander P., 29.
Field, Elisha C, 1078.
Fitzsimons, John J., 1102.
Fleming, Robert L., 725.
Fletcher, Charles C, 129.
Fletcher, Mark W., 910.
Fletcher, William M.. 1169.
Foley, Stephen A., 1012.
Ford, Thomas, 32, 879.
Ford, Thomas E,, 787.
Forquer, George, 162.
Fort, James M., 1074-5.
Fortney, Samuel, 409.
Foster, William H., 814.
Foster, William P., 20.
Fowler, H. R., 802.
France, J., 186.
Eraser, William, 1002.
Frazer, James S., 250.
Freels, Jesse M., 707.
Freeman, Norman L., 77.
Freer, Lemuel C. P., 1183.
French, Augustus C, 127.
Fridley, Benjamin F., 909.
Frisby, William, 293.
Fritz, Fred W., 528, 534-
Frost, Thomas G., 448.
Fry, George C, 274.
Fryer, Andrew J., 943.
Fuller, Allen C, 787.
Fuller, Charles E., 791.
Fuller, Melville W.. 561, 646.
Fullerton, A. N., 626.
Falvey, Charles, 1003.
Farmer, William M., 861.
Gale, Jacob, 306.
Garbutt, Zachariah N., 1049.
Gardner, Corbus P., 829.
Gardner, J. C. F., 1103.
Garfield, F. G., 916.
Garnsey, Charles B., 998.
Gartside, John M., 1022.
Gary, Elbert H., 381.
Gary, Joseph E., 650.
Gatewood, William J., 852, 857.
Gemmill, W. N., 1168.
INDEX.
XV
Gibons, G. Gilbert, 1002.
Gibson, Alexander C, 917.
Gibson. James W., 1126.
Gifford, Edmund, 907.
Gilbert, Hiram T., 365.
Gilbert, Miles R, 929.
Gilbert, Samuel S., 238.
Gilman, Charles, 76, 880.
Gil man, Charles H., 820, 828.
Gillespie, David, 695.
Gillespie. Joseph. 684.
Gilson. Edward P., 1103.
Glass, Elliott B., 699.
Glenn. John J.. 984.
Glenn on, Edward T., 762.
Goddard. Lester O., 1159.
Goodhue, Thomas F., 1194.
Goodman, Amos N., 1054.
Goodrich, Adams A., 265, 402.
Goodrich. C. H.. 396.
Goodrich, Grant. 610.
Goodwin, Russell P., 921.
Gordon, Abram G., 1064.
Gordon, Newton F., 1 176-7.
Goudy, William C, 647, 1039.
Graham, James M., 226.
Grant, Alexander F., 854.
Grant, Frederick M., 1044.
Grant, James, 625.
Gray, O. C, 818.
Greathouse, John S., 237.
Green, David B., 425.
Green, Nathaniel W., 309
Green, William H., 927.
Greene, Henry S., 201.
Gregory, Daniel, 457.
Gregory, Stephen S., 1089.
Gresham, Otto, 93.
Gresham, Walter Q., 1139.
Gridcr, J. K. P., 4/66.
Grimes, John W., 1002.
Grimshaw, Jackson, 882.
Grinnell, Julius S., 103, 637.
Gross, Eugene L., 196, 205.
Gross, William L., 205.
Grosscup, Peter S., no.
Grout, Joseph M., 207.
Grove, Henry, 301.
Grubb, Alfred, 1049.
Gw^in, Horace, 238.
H
Hadley, William F. L., 693.
Hagle. Dios C, 572.
Haines, Elijah M., 249, 630.
Hale, Eugene, 404.
Hall, Anthony T., 460.
Hallam, Samuel S.^981.
Halligan, Thomas, 828.
Hamilton, Frank Y., 725.
Hamilton, Lloyd F,, 200.
Hamilton, Oscar B., 402.
Hamilton, Paul M., 404.
Hamilton, Richard J., 602.
Hamilton, William S., 159.
Hamlin, Howland J., 465.
Hamline, John H., 393.
Hanchett, Frank G.. 920.
Hand, John P., 810.
Hanecy, Elbridge, 263.
Hanly, Joseph H., 946.
Hardin, Fisher A., 604.
Hardin. Jeptha, 852.
Harding, Abner C, 5.
Harding, Alfred E., 794.
Harlan, Justin, 3, 126, 420.
Harrah, Rufus C, 417.
Harris, Sidney W., 777.
Hart, William H., 591, 592.
Hartzell, William, 1061.
Harvey, Curtis K., 450.
Harvey, Edward E., 907.
Harvey. Joel D., 907.
Hatch, Azel F., 262.
Hawes, Kirk, 649.
Hay, John B., 709.
Hay, Milton, 196.
Hayes, Frederick W. C, 382.
Hayes, Samuel S., 5, 647.
Haynie, Edwin C, 211.
Hazlitt, Robert H., 205.
Heacock, Russell E., 602, 872.
Headen, W. C, 464.
Heard, Oscar E., 1206.
Helm, Henry T., 650.
Hempstead, Charles S., 512, 521.
Henderson, John G., 1107.
Henry, A. G., 527.
Henry, Beverly W., 864-5.
Henry, Edward D., 227.
Henry, William J., 460.
Henshaw, Thomas, 11 12.
Herbert, John M., 961.
Herdman, George W., 401.
Herndon, Elliott B., 184.
Herndon, William F., 2091
Herndon, William H., 192.
Herrick, John J., 1162.
XVI
INDEX.
Herrington, Augustus. 908.
Hess, William W., 461.
Hewitt, Josephus, 173.
Hicks. Stephen G., S95»
Higbee, Chauncey L., 876, 1051.
Higgins. Van H., 514. 524. 648.
Hill, Lysander, 85.
Hilscher, R. W., 1124.
Hitchcock, Charles, 649.
Hoblit, James T.^ 1010.
Hodges, Charles D., 1096.
Hodnett, Joseph. 1008.
Hoes, Abraham, 818.
Hoes, John V. A., 817.
Hood, Alexander, 1062.
Hogan. John E., 580.
Hoge, Joseph P., 513, 521.
Holcomb, Osbo^n A., 921.
Holdom, Jesse. 644-$'
Hollenbeck, William T., 747-8-
Holloway, Edward M., 276.
Hooker, William C. 876-7.
Hopkins, Albert J., 920.
Hopkins, Henry B., 308.
Hopkins, William T., 775,
Hopkinson, Isaac, 245.
Horn, Joseph A., 1014-5.
Horton, Oliver H., 494.
Hough, David L.. 828.
Hoff, Gershom A., 570.
Houston, William T., 210.
Howard, H. H., 396.
Howe, John H., 809.
Howett, William A., 839.
Hoyne, Thomas, 558, 615.
Hoyles, Clarence E., 529.
Hoyt, E. Winchester, 245.
Hubbard, Adolphus F., 25.
Huddle, F. E., 1103.
Hughes, James F., 938.
Hughes, J. J., 404.
Hull, Charles J., 668.
Humphrey, J. Otis, 216.
Hunter, Joseph H., 829.
Huntington, Alonzo, 633.
Hurd, Harvey B., 618, 769. 770.
Hyde, Henry C, 1204.
Ingham, George K., 899.
Irwin, Clinton F.. 913.
Ireland, Robert M., 913.
Irwin, John G., 672.
Irwin, William T., 322.
I sham, Edward S., 389.
Ide, George O., 1002.
Ingersoll, Ebon C, 304.
Ingersoll, Robert G.. 304.
Ingham, George C, 635.
Jack, William, 320.
James, L. W.. 1043.
Janney, Eldredge S., 127.
January, Joseph H., 1009.
Jenkins, David P., 828.
Jenkins. James G., 838-9.
Jenks, Chancellor L., 648.
Jewett, John N., 843.
Johnson, C. Porter, 371.
Johnson, Elbridge G., 294.
Johnson, James, 1043.
Johnson, Madison Y.. 514, 525.
Johnson, N., 882.
Johnson, William H.. 1079-80.
Jones, Alfred H., 134.
Jones, Edward, 165, 852.
Jones, Frank H., 209, 488
Jones, George W., 137.
Jones, Michael, 852.
Jones, Oscar, 914.
Jones, S. S., 906.
Jones, William C, 131.
Jordan, Alvah R., 778.
Joslyn, Edward S., 914.
Joslyn, Frank W., 914.
Jouett, Charles, 602.
Joy, James F., 640.
Judd, S. Corning, 1043.
K
Kagay, Benjamin F., 406, 413.
Kane, Charles P., 203.
Kane, Henry B., 209.
Kay, Wilson S., 11 22.
Kean, John C, 1194.
Kehoe, John E., 258.
Keller, C W., 826.
Kelley, William C, 464.
Kellogg, William, 295, 1039.
Kellogg, William P., 1040.
Kellum, Charles, 944.
Kendall, Milo, 1002.
Kenna, Edward D., 382.
Kennedy, Henry H., 38Z
Kennedy. James A., 203.
INDEX,
xvti
Kennedy, W. H. H., 916.
Ken worthy, John T., 566.
Kepley, Henry B., 406.
Kerrick. Thomas C, 735.
Keyes, Charles A., 195.
Kimbrough, E. R. E., 889.
King, David F., 11 12.
King, John C, 265.
King. Robert A., 399.
Kingsbury, A. N., 527.
Kingsbury, Darius, 527, 785.
Kingsbury, Dennis H., 527.
Kingsbury, John, 527.
Kinne, La Vega G., 829.
Kirby, Edward P., 354.
Kitchell, Alfred, 126.
Kitchen, Wickliflfe, 127.
Knapp, Anthony L., 397.
Knapp, Robert M., 399.
Knight, Qarence A., 372.
Knotts, Edward C, 244.
Knowlton, Lincoln 6., 293.
Knox, Joseph, 635.
Kocrner, Gustavus, 47, 405.
Koerner, Gustavus A., 717.
Kraus, Adolph, 1186.
Kretzinger, George W.. 1187.
Krome, William H., 691.
Lacey, Lionel P., 1006.
Lacey, Lyman, 989.
La Dow, James, 420.
Lamb, Robert C, 787.
Lamborn, Josiah, 181, 337, 1102.
Landes. Silas Z., 976.
Lane, George P., 403.
Laning, Edward, 1060- 1.
Lanphier, John C, 204.
Lansden, John M., 925.
Latham, James, 156.
Lauderdale, John S., 238.
Lawrence, S. S., 795.
Layman, Charles H., 586.
Layman, Thomas J., 587.
Leach, O. D., 403.
Leaming, Jeremiah, 119.
Lcdbetter, John Q. A., 802.
Lee, Charles M., 775.
Leland, Cyrus, 820.
Leland. Lorenzo, 816.
Leland, P. K., 818.
Lewis, F. W., 138.
Lewis, S. G., 1103.
Lewis, Thomas, 186.
Lincoln, Abraham, 38, 175. 53^, 642, 750.
Lincoln, Robert T., 1187.
Linder, Usher F., 181, 656.
Lindley, Cicero J., 528.
Lindley, Frank, 893-4.
Lindsay, John T., 305.
Little, Alexander C, 918.
Little, Sidney H., 879.
Little, Thomas J., 1043.
Littlefield, M. S., 397.
Lloyd, J. William, 464.
Lockwood, Samuel D., 22, 1094.
Lodge, William E., 1 133-4
Logan, David, 182.
Logan, John A., 1148.
Logan, Leonidas L., 425, 428.
Logan, Stephen T., 166, 10Q4.
Lott, Peter, 875.
Louden, Walter S., 787.
Love joy, Owen, 608.
Lovell, Edward C, 915.
Lowden, Frank O., iii.
Lowe, Ausby L., 136.
Loy, Ferdinand W.. 412.
Lyford, Will H., 394.
Lyle, David A., 427.
Lyman, David B., 768.
Lynch, Edmund, 1006.
Lynch, John, Jr., 1067.
M
Mabin, George G., 894-5.
MacHatton, Joseph A., 138.
Magruder, Benjamin D., 65, 649.
Manier, Wesley H., 884.
Manierre, George, 553.
Manning, Julius, 297.
Marshall, Samuel D.,851.
Marshall, Thomas A., 3.
Marshall, Thomas F., 604.
Martin, James H., 960.
Martin, Robert D., 762.
Marvin, Matthew, 1207.
Mason, Benjamin, 1102.
Masquerier, Louis, 879.
Masters, Edgar L., 1090.
Matheny, Charles R., 157.
Matheny, James H., 158, 191.
Matheny, James H., Jr., 206.
Mather, Robert, 489-
Mather, Thomas C, 200.
Mathes, George C, 4^7-
XVlll
INDEX,
Matthews, Asa C, 1052.
Maxwell, John C, 137.
Maxwell, Robert W., 206.
May, William L., 173, 293.
Mayo, Henry, 824.
McAllister, William K., 60.
• McAvoy, Felix D., 353.
McBride. James C, 576.
McCagg, Ezra B., 619.
McCallon, Andrew, 857.
McCartney, James. 1030.
McCartney. John F., 745.
McCartney, Robert W.. 742.
McCauley, Richard N., 1066.
McClellan, Robert H., 515.
McClernand, John A., 29, 194.
McClure, Henry B., 339.
McConnel, Edward, 355.
M(fConnel, John L., 339.
McConnel, Murray, 337.
McConnell, Richard H., 804.
McConnell, Samuel P., 1166.
McCoy, Alexander, 302.
McCrillis, L. F., 186.
McCulloch, David, 310.
McCune, George C, 424.
McDole, Asa G., 922.
McDonald, Edmund S., 583.
McDonald, William H., 425-
McDougall, James A., 627.
McDowell, H. H., 795.
McElroy, Daniel, 634.
•
McElvain, Robert J., 952
McEniry, William. 567.
McGaffigan, John J., 787
McGalliard, William, 1006.
McGregor, Malcolm. 882.
McGrew, Enoch, 461.
McGuire, Robert L., 199.
McHale, James, 787.
Mcllduff, R. S., 795.
Mclver, Duncan C, 11 10,
McKenzie, James A., 454.
McLaughlin. Charles A., 977.
McLean, John, 855.
McNett, Charles L. 922.
McNulta, John. 846.
McNulty, George F. W.. 718.
McPherran, J. E., 1073-4.
McQueen, George E., 138.
McQuigg, James C, 575.
McRoberts, Samuel, 160.
McWilliams, A., 186.
Meacham, U. D., 1195.
Meeker, George W., 628.
Meeker, J., 1000.
Mendel. William, 160.
Merrick, Richard, 645.
Merriman, Amos L., 307.
Merriman, Halsey O., 294.
Messick, Joseph B., 714.
Metzner, Charles J., 917.
Meyerstein, Mark, mo.
Miller, Charles S., 828.
Miller, George W., 121.
Miller, Harry, 1002.
Miller, H. G., 646.
Miller, John S., 1082-3.
Mills, Benjamin, 160, 511, 520.
Mills. Luther Laflin. 832.
Mills, Richard W., 937-
Miner, Martin B., 396.
Minshall. William A.. 183, 876.
Misner, Smith. 426.
Moffett, Thomas. 159.
Moloney, Maurice T.. 823.
Monroe, Henry S., 482, 648.
Monson, William, 899-900.
Montgomery, H. H., 1109.
Montony, Richard G., 919.
Moore, Clifton, H., 896.
Moore, Henry, 617.
Moore, Henry W., 853.
Moore, Stephen R., 978.
Moore, Thomas C, 916.
Moran. Thomas A., 764.
Morris, Edward H.. 117.
Morris, Freeman P.. 11 25.
Morris, Isaac N., 879.-
Morrison, C. M.. 186.
Morrison, Isaac L., 350.
Morrison, Thomas, 882.
Morrison, William R., 964
Moses. Adolph. 95.
Mott, Robins S.. 1086.
Moulton, Samuel W., 459
Mouser, H. S., 461.
Mudgett. E. S.. 828.
Mulkey. John H.. 63.
Mulligan, James A.. 661.
Murdock, J. D., 826.
Murray, Hugh. 787.
Murray, George W.. 206.
Murray, M. P., 786.
N
Neal, Henry A., 939.
Neale, Thomas M., i59-
INDEX.
XIX
Neff, James I., 1197.
Nelson, Richard S., 595.
Ncwcomb, George W., 97.
Newlin, Enoch E., 133.
Newlin, Thomas J., 138.
Newport, John W., 777.
Nichols, N. F., 921.
Noble, Charles N., 404.
Noble, H. P., 404.
Northcott, William A., 528, 532.
Norton, A. C, 795.
O
O'Brien, William, 638.
O'Bryan, Edward, 1185.
O'Donnell, Joseph A., 86
Oglesby, Richard J., 1150.
O'Harra, Apollos W., 887.
Olin, Benjamin,. 778.
Olson, Jonas W., 805.
Olwin, Jacob C, 129.
O'Neil, Barney, 787.
Orendorff, Alfred, 201.
Osgood, Stacy W., 276,
Oxford, John C, 803.
Packard, Major W., 726.
Packard, Samuel W., 1024.
Page, Samuel S., 309.
Palmer, John M., 429.
Palmer, John Mayo, 1186.
Park, H. W., sap.
Parker, George N., 136.
Parker, Valmore, 138.
Parkinson, Robert H., 479.
Parks, Benjamin F., 917.
Parks, Samuel C, 1006.
Parks, Samuel S., 384-5.
Patterson, James L., 11 11.
Pattison, Douglas, 1206.
Patton, Charles H., 599.
Patton, George W., 798.
Patton, James W., 201, 228.
Payne, Carroll C M. Van B.. 590.
Pay son, Lewis E., 794.
Pease, Arthur B., 1174.
Peck, Ebenezer, 76, 627.
Peck, George R., 506.
Peck, George W., 128.
Peebles, Lewis P., 24a
Perce, Le Grand W., 1182.
Pcrley, Peleg S.. 1058.
Perry, John R., 794.
Peter, Zachariah, 157.
Peters, Milton T., looi.
Peters, Onslow, 306.
Phelps, Salmon A., 527, 531.
Philbrook, Eli, 406.
Philips, Joseph, 13.
Phillips, Edward J., 165.
Phillips, Isaac N., 78.
Phillips, Jesse J., 156.
Phillips, L. M., 186.
Pierce, William L., 793.
Pillsbury, Nathaniel J., 795-
Pinckney, Merritt W., 119.
Pinero, E. A., 397.
Pitman, Samuel, 240.
Plato, William B., 907, 916.
Pogue, H. W., 403-
Pogue, W. H., 399.
Pollock, James M., 595.
Pope, Nathaniel, 641.
Porter, John, 1002.
Potter, Asa, 1102.
Potts, Rufus M., 575.
Powell, Elihu N., 307.
Power, William D., 157.
Prater, Samuel A., 863.
Prather, William C, 426.
Pratt, O. C, 514* 524.
Prendegast, Michael D., 775.
Prentiss, Alexander S., 646.
Prentiss, William, 274.
Prescott, William, 186.
Prettyman, W. L., 1069.
Prickett, David, 172.
Primm & Gibson, 187.
Pringle, Frederick W., 1170.
Pugh, Jonathan H., 159.
Purinton, George, 1194.
Purple, Norman H., 45, 299, 876.
Pursley, James, iioi.
Puterbaugh, Sabin D., 307.
Putnam, Alfred, 828.
Q
Quigg, David, 1157-8.
R
Rae, Robert, 651, 1163.
Ragan, William H., 468.
Rainey, Henry T., 11 13.
Ralston, James H., 875.
XX
INDEX.
Randle, Frederick A., 995.
Ranstead, John W., 914.
Raum, Green B., 121 1.
Rawlins, John A., 515.
Rea, John J., 954.
Reading, James N., 776.
Rearick, George F., 895.
Reed, Charles H., 637.
Reed, Samuel R., 1134.
Reed, William R., 460.
Reeves, Owen T., 723.
Reeves, Walter, 825.
Reynolds, H. G., 186.
Reynolds, John, 15, 18, 161, 1094.
Reynolds, Thomas, 13, 1094.
Rhoads, George B., 467.
Rice, Edward Y., 155, 987.
Rice, Thomas P., 777,
Richardson, Eben A., 467.
Richardson, Hiram L., 994.
Richardson, John T., 879.
' Richardson, William A., 458, 880.
Richmond, Elijah D., 1059
Rickert, Joseph W., 955.
Righter, Thomas, 466.
Rinaker, John I., 238.
Ritter, Henry A., 283.
Rives, John C, 854.
Robarts, Joseph P., 933.
Robb, Franklin, 129.
Robbins, Silas W., 180.
Robertson, Alexander H., 210.
Robinson, James C, 202, 421.
Robinson, James P., 421.
Robinson, John M., 43.
Robinson, Nathaniel P., 421.
Rogers, William P., 776,
Roosevelt, William H., 882.
Root, H. T., 1 103.
Rose, Albert M., 574.
Rose, John A., 112.
Rosette, John E., 193.
Ross, John W., 1044.
Ross, Leonard F., 1042.
Ross, Lewis W., 1038.
Ross, Mahlon, 947.
Rountree, Hiram, 965.
Rowell, Jonathan H., 734.
Rue, Ezra, 914.
Runnells, John S., 1180.
Runyan, Eben F., 91.
Rush, G. Fred, 1020.
Rushton, Thomas J., 914.
Russell, John A., 915.
Ryan, Edward G., 604.
Ryan, James L., 436.
Ryan, William L., 426.
Ryon, Hiram N., 821.
Salzen stein, Albert, 210.
Sanders, George A., 206.
Sanford, Edward, 776,
Sanford, Patrick H., 448.
Sanger, Ezra G., 294.
Sankey, Samuel, 1195.
Sawyer, John Y., 152, 1094.
Scammon, Jonathan Y., 73, 616.
Scanlan, Kickham, 480.
Scates, Walter B., 35.
Schaefer, Martin W., 711.
Schnepp, John S., 214.
Scholes, Samuel D., 201.
Scholfield, John, 139, 422.
Schuyler, Daniel J., 1032.
Schwartz, William A., 962.
Scott, Guy C, 1 132.
Scott, John M., 55.
Scranton, Norman L., 426.
Seago, George M., 403.
Searles, A. E., 921.
Searles, William S., 249.
Seeley, Ezra P., 775.
Seelye, Henry E., 651.
Selby, Charles E., 220.
Selby, T. J., 397.
Semple, James, 41.
Seyster, John C, 996.
Shaw, Thomas M., 308.
Sheean, David, 516.
Sheean, James M., 516.
Sheean, J. L., 516.
Sheean, Thomas J., 516.
Sheldon, Benjamin R., 969.
Shepard, H. M., 650.
Shepherd, John H., 820.
Sherman, Elijah B., 485.
Sherman, Lawrence Y., 739, 740.
Sherman, Penoyer L., 646.
Sherwin, John C, 917.
Shields, James, 44, 405.
Shirley, Robert B., 240.
Shirley, Thomas, 628.
Shope, Simeon P., J[i8i
Shortall, John G., 501.
Showalter, John W., 1179.
Shriner, Harvey W., 573.
INDEX,
XXI
Shutt. William E., 199.
Sibley, Joseph, 876.
Silver, Herman, 820.
Singleton, James W., 2.
Skinner, Mark, 613.
Skinner, Onias C, 54, 876.
Skinner, Richard M., 1004.
Slaten, A. M., 401.
Slaten, Benjamin F., 399.
Sloan, Wesley, 1210, 1212.
Smede, A. K., 182.
Smeidel, Charles L., 427.
Smith, Abner, 366-7.
Smith, Arthur A., 451.
Smith, C. D. F., 923.
Smith, David A., 339, 347.
Smith, Frederick A.. 11 72-3.
Smith, J. Bright, 1195.
Smith, Samuel L., 654.
Smith, Theophilus W.. 23.
Smith, Thomas H., 121 1.
Snedeker, Orville A., 400.
Snigg, John C, 204.
South worth, John P., yyj.
South worth, M. O., 923.
Sparks, William A. J., 780.
Sparling, George, 1002.
Spiller, William F., 593.
Sprigg, William, 12.
Spring, Giles, 603, 612.
Springer, William M., 199.
Starbuck, Charles L., 775.
Starkweather, Elijah H., 419.
Starr, Charles R.. 775.
Starr, Henry, 162, 775.
Starr, Mcrritt, 100.
Stearns, James H., 1202.
Steel, James H., 128.
Sterling, Thomas, 207.
Sterrett, William H.. 12a
Stephens, Henry, 882.
Stephens. Henry A., 206.
Stephens, John S., 324,
Stephenson, Lloyd B., 461.
Stevens. Joel W., 478.
Stewart, William K., 999
Stickney,* William H., 631.
Stiles, Israel N., 662.
Stillman, Henry B., 1043.
Stipp, George W., looi, 1043.
Stone, Daniel, 173.
Storrs, Emery A., 663.
Story, Joseph H., 529.
Stoskopf, Michael, 1205.
Stough. Samuel C, 778.
Stout, James. 818.
Strain, James. 828;
Strawn, C. C, 795.
Strode, James M., 159. 620.
Strong, Schuyler. 174.
Stuart, John T., 187, 188.
Stubbs, Thomas H.. 803.
Swan, Thomas B., 921.
Sweeney, Edward D., 569,
Sweet, Martin P., 1193.
Swett, Leonard, 562.
Tanner, Tazewell B.. 595, 597.
Taylor, John W., I57-
Taylor, Joseph D., looi.
Taylor, Richard F., 802.
Taylor, Washington J., 1043.
Templeton, L. W., 420.
Terry, James T., 795.
Thatcher, Frank H.. 920.
Thoman, Leroy D., 1080.
Thomas, Jesse B.. 11. 875.
Thomas, Jesse B.. Jr., 44, 177, 1094.
Thomas, William, 337, 1095.
Thompson, Morton W., 892.
Thompson, Thomas J., 20^
Thornton, Anthony, 458.
Thornton, Charles S., 359.
Ticknor. Harry M., 357.
Tipton. Thomas F., 721.
Torrence. C. R., 468.
Tossey, Flavins, 426.
Towle, Henry S., 373.
Townsend, William, 465.
Tracey, E. W., 658.
Trainor, John C, 1085.
Travous, Charles N,, 701.
Treat, Samuel H., 34.
Tree, Lambert, 492.
Trimble, Cairo A., 1003.
Trimble, H. M., 1003.
Truitt, James M., 993.
Trogdon, Andrew Y., 11 15.
Trumbull, Lyman, 51, 6A
Trusdell, Abram K., 1128.
Tuley, Murray F., 256.
Tunnicliff, John J., 455.
Turner, Chester M., 810.
Turner, George T., 870.
Turner, Giles H., 1102.
Turner, John L., 250.
XXll
INDEX.
Turner, Noah H., 211.
Turner, Thomas J., 1192.
Turney, James, 162.
U
Upton, Clark W., 249.
Urion, Alfred R., 1168. \
Urquhart, John D., 180.
V
Van Arnam, John, 637.
Vandevecr, Horatio M.. 156. 577.
Van Dorston, John P., 859.
Van Hoorebeke, Gustave, 785.
Vaughn, Edward J., 402.
Vincent, William A., 210.
Vocke, William, 11 77.
Voris, Alvin C, 426.
Vrcdenburg, Larue, 210.
W
Wagner, Leander R., 916.
Waite, George E., 81 1-2.
Waite, Horace F., 645.
Walker, Charles A., 241.
Walker, Cyrus, 175. 72^*^, 881.
Walker, Edwin, 267.
Walker, Henry, 1044.
Walker, Pinckney H., 54, 876,
Wall, E. J., 826.
Wall, George W., 992.
Wallace, Edgar A., 990.
Wallace, R. R., 795.
Wallace, Samuel L., 1015-6.
Wallace, William H. L., 818.
Wallace, W. O., 466.
Ward, James R., 1107.
Ward, W. M., iiii.
Warren, E. T., 1037.
. Warren, George E., 399.
Warvelle, George W., 1158.
Washburne, Elihu B., 512, 522.
Watson, James A., 803.
Watson, Wesley, 406.
Wattles, James O., 126.
Wead, Hezekiah M., 4, 301, 315, 1039.
Webber, William B., 950.
Webster, Fletcher, 604.
Wegg, David S., 1086-7.
Weighley, Wellington, 514, 524.
Weir, Marshall W., 712.
Welch, William R., 156.
Weldon, Lawrence, 186.
Welles', Charles R., 174.
Wells, Charles B.. 907.
Wells, Henry W.. 305.
Wendling, Greorge R., 461.
West, Benjamin, 184.
West, Roy O., 1171-2.
Wheat, Almeron, 882.
Wheaton, Charles, 918.
Wheeler, Alpheus, 1049.
Wheeler, Hamilton K., 985.
White, Charles S., 403.
White, John C, 410.
White, Marcus, 923.
White, Spencer M., 954.
White, William, 7^7-
Whitehead, Silas S., 425.
Whitehurst, S. S., 186.
Whittaker, Nathaniel M., 1008.
Wiemers, William F., 385.
Wilcox, John S., 915.
Wilcox, Sylvanus, 904.
Wilcox, William H., 914.
Wilkin, Jacob W., 68.
Wilkinson, Ira O., 563.
Willis, Henry B., 915.
Willitts, George S., 766.
Williams, Archibald, 2, 182, 880.
Williams, Edward P., 452.
Williams, Frank R., 210.
Williams, John H., 914.
Williams, Joseph L., 250.
Williams, Robert R., 878.
Williamson, Marion, 307.
Wilson, B. F., 466.
Wilson, Bluford, 221.
Wilson, H. Clay, 218.
Wilson, Isaac G., 904, 913.
Wilson, John, 238.
Wilson, John M., 612.
Wilson, John P., 491.
Wilson, Peter, 826.
Wilson, Robert S., 634,
Wilson, Samuel M., 522.
Wilson, Seymer G., 891.
Wilson, William, 21, 125.
Winchester, Palemon H., 237.
Winders, Henry M., 803.
Windes, Thomas G., 90.
Windett, Arthur W., 651.
Wines, Walter B., 211.
Wing, Russell M., 779.
Wing, William H., 914.
Wingate, Robert F., 595.
Win slow, Fayette D., 920.
INDEX OF PORTRAITS.
XX111
Winston, Frederick H., 261, 652.
Winston, Frederick S., 760.
Wise, Charles P., 710.
Witchcr, Robert B., 1065.
Withers, Henry C, 1104.
Wolcott, Alexander, 625.
VVolcott, Richmond, 200.
Wood, George A., 207.
Wood, Wales W., 792.
Woodbury, James C., 895.
Woods, James W., 879.
Woods, William A., 251.
Woodson, David M., 4, 1095.
Woodson, J. M., iiox.
Woolfolk, A. C, 1044.
Worthington, Charles, 1009.
Worthington, Nicholas £., 309.
Wright, Paul R., 907.
Wright, Robert W., 792.
Yates, Richard, 352.
Young, Frederick R., 744.
Young, Jackson G., 803.
Young, Richard M., 42, 875.
Young, William H., 1006.
Youngblood, Edmund D., 596.
Youngblood, Francis M., 949.
Youstlcr, John K., 424.
Zane, Charles S., 193.
INDEX OF PORTRAITS.
Ahrens, John P., 1161.
Aldrich, Charles H., 834.
Allen, William J.. 212.
Ayer, Benjamin F., 83.
Baker, Alfred L., 118.
Baker, Edward D., 28.
Baker, Henry S., 689.
Barger, Richard W., 1165.
Barnum, William H., 471.
Barrett, Elmer E., 1029.
Beach, Myron H., 500.
Benjamin, Reuben M., 727.
Bissell, William H., 50.
Black, John C, 94-
Black, William P.. 375-
Blaisdell, Elijah W., 957-
Blodgett, Henry W., 245.
Bond, Lester L., 108.
Bradwell, James B., 831.
Bradwell, Myra C, 278.
Breesc, Sidney, 16.
Brown, Paul, 1026.
Browning, Granville W., 1156.
Buckingham, Isaac A., 580.
Callahan, Ethelbert, 130.
Carter, Henry G., 1136.
Carter, Orrin N., 1018.
Casey, Thomas S., 705.
Caton, John D., 40.
Chancellor, Justus, 1175.
Chetlain, Arthur H., 362.
Chytraus, Axel, 490.
Connolly, James A., 224
Cook, Daniel P., 50.
Dale, Michael G, 697.
Davis, David, 542.
Douglas, Stephen A., 23a
Drummond, Thomas, 50.
Eddy, Alfred D., 1035.
Edwards, Ninian, 50.
Eplcr, Cyrus, 356.
Field, Elisha C, 1078.
Ford, Thomas, 28.
Freer, Lemuel C. P., 1184.
Fuller, Melville W., 230.
Gartside, John M., 1022.
Gemmill, W. N., 1168.
Gillespie, Joseph, 28.
Goodrich, Adams A., 265.
Hayes, Frederick W. C, 382.
Henry, Beverly W., 866.
XXIV
INDEX OF PORTRAITS.
Higbee, Chauncey L., 1051.
Hoblit, James T., loio.
Hodges, Charles D., 1096.
Holdom, Jesse, 844.
Horton, Oliver H., 494.
Irwin, John G., 672.
Ishani, Edward S., 389.
Jack. William, 320.
Jenkins, James G.. 838.
Jones, William C, 132.
Kellum, Charles. 944.
Kimbrough, E. R. E.. 889.
Koerner, Gustavus, 16.
Knapp. Anthony L., 398.
Lacey, Lyman. 989.
Lansden, John M., 925. ,
Layman, Charles H., 586.
Lincoln, Abraham, Frontispiece Vol. 2,
Lock wood, Samuel D., 16.
Logan, John A., 230.
Logan, Stephen T., 166.
Lyman, David B., 768.
Masters, Edgar L., 1090.
McCartney, Robert W.. 742.
McCulloch, David, 31a
Miller, John S., 1082.
Monroe, Henry S., 482.
Moore, Clifton H.. 896.
Moore, Stephen R., 978.
Moran, Thomas A., 764.
Morrison, Isaac L., 350.
Northcott. William A.. 532.
Oglesby. Richard J.. 230.
Olson, Jonas W., 805.
Palmer, John M., Frontispiece Vol. i.
Palmer, John Mayo, 1186.
Patton, Charles H., 599.
Peck. George R., 506.
Potts. Riifus M., 575.
Pringle, Frederick W., 1170.
Reynolds, John, 28.
Rinaker, John I., 238.
Robarts, Joseph P., 934.
Runnells, John S., 1180.
Scanlan, Kickham, 480.
Schuyler, Daniel J., 1032.
Scott, John M., 55.
Semple, James, 16.
Sheldon, Benjamin R., 969.
Shields, James, 16.
Showalter, John W., 230.
Smith, Abner, 368.
Smith, Arthur A., 451.
Smith, Frederick A., 11 73.
Sparks, William A. J., 780.
Stevens, John S., 324.
Sweeney, Edward D., 569.
Thoman. Leroy D.. 1080.
Thornton, Charles S., 359.
Tipton, Thomas F., 721.
Treat, Samuel H., 34.
Trainor, John C, 1085.
Trumbull, Lyman, 50.
Tunnicliff, John J.. 455.
Van Dorston, John P., 859.
Vocke, William, 1178.
Waite, George E., 812.
Warvelle, George W., 1158.
Wegg, David S., 1088.
White, John C, 410.
Wilkinson, Ira O., 563.
Winston, Frederick S., 760.
Woods, William A., 251.
Youngblood, Edmund D.. 596.
THE
Bench and Bar of Illinois
CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTORY.
WHEN I accepted the position of editor of the history of the Bench and Bar
of Illinois I supposed from my early acquaintance with the judges and the
lawyers of the state, aided by contemporary publications and by the vol-
untary contributions of those who would, from consanguinity or affinity to the
judges and the lawyers of the *'old time," feel interested in their fame, I could
prepare sketches of their professional and judicial history. I am under great
obligations to some of these sources of information.
I was admitted to the bar of Illinois on the i8th of December, 1839. '^^^
judges of the supreme court, with the governor, constituted a "council of re-
vision." They convened at the capitol of the state, and held their judicial terms
there. When I "came to the bar" William Wilson was the chief justice and
Thomas C. Browne, Samuel D. Lockwood and Theophilus W. Smith were as-
sociate justices of the supreme court.
The whole population of the state of Illinois, as was shown by the census of
1840, was 476,183, and even as late as 1850 the population of the state was 851,-
470, and the county of Cook, including Chicago, only contained 43,385 inhab-
itants. The whole of the state of Illinois then constituted one federal judicial
district, and Judge Nathaniel Pope was then the district judge. The Hon. John
McLean was one of the justices of the supreme court of the United States, and
occasionally presided in the circuit court. I remember to have met him but
once; he came to Springfield "by the stage-coach," which was then the most
convenient mode of travel. John McLean was an amiable man and a most ex-
cellent judge. He reported the decisions of the court over which he presided,
and they are entitled McLean's Reports, and extend over a number of volumes.
While attending the sessions of the supreme court of Illinois and the district
and circuit courts of the United States for the district, I became acquainted with
Justin Butterfield, Giles Spring, James H. Collins, George Manierre and other
lawyers from Cook county, who traveled in the stage-coaches of the period and
attended the supreme and federal courts at Springfield.
2 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS,
Mr. Biitterfield was admitted to the bar of Illinois in 1837. He came to
Chicago from some point in the state of New York. His logic was exact and
ponderous and his sarcasm -was terrific. In his native state he was a Federalist,
and he opposed the war with Great Britain in 1812. In 1845 ^^ was consulted
with regard to the policy of the war with Mexico, to which he replied : **I op-
posed one war, and have never got over it; I am now for war, pestilence and
famine." In 1847, while the constitutional convention was in session, he said to
some one : "The only thing necessary to perfect the constitution proposed by
the convention is that an appeal shall lie from the decisions of the supreme court
to three sensible justices of the peace." He was appointed commissioner of the
general land office, a place to which Mr. Lincoln aspired. Mr. Lincoln was ten-
dered the office of governor of Oregon territory, by way of a solatium. I met
Lincoln at Jerseyville soon afterward, and said to him : "I supposed you were
going to Oregon as governor." He said in reply: "Two men were playing
cards, and one said to the other, *Go to hell !' The one addressed said: 'I will go
to hell when I am obliged to, and not one minute before !' " Lincoln did not go
to Oregon! Giles Spring was an exceedingly bright, active and intelligent
lawyer. He died in Chicago many years ago, too early for his merits to be
understood. James H. Collins was a good lawyer; he was even at that early
day opposed to slavery. Mr. Butterfield was arrogant, while Mr. Collins was
imbued with the profoundest sympathy for humanity. They were partners.
Butterfield had nothing like enthusiasm in his nature ; Collins loved mankind.
In June, 1847, ^^^ constitutional convention of that year assembled, and I
became acquainted with its members and studied their characteristics. Archi-
bald Williams was a member of the convention from Adams and Highland
counties. (Highland county has long since ceased to be one of the counties of
the state of Illinois. It was taken from Adams county and was reannexed by the
third section of the seventh article of the constitution of 1847.) He was a very
able man, was a Whig, and made an efficient member of the convention. Mr.
Williams was a native of the state of Kentucky. He had not then attained the
distinction he afterward secured as a lawyer. He became known as profoundly
skilled in the peculiar litigation of what was then known as the "Military Tract,"
and died, as a district judge, in Kansas.
Michael G. Dale, who was born in Pennsylvania in 1814, was a delegate to
the convention, from Bond county. He was modest, and was afterward ap-
pointed to be receiver of public moneys at Edwardsville, of which place he be-
came a resident. He held the office of county judge of Madison county from a
time when the memory of man "runneth not to the contrary." He was a party
to a contested election case (reported in Eighty-eighth Illinois Reports, — Dale
versus Irwin) in which he was successful. He died in 1897.
General James W. Singleton was a delegate from Brown county. He
afterward removed to Quincy, and was a member of congress from that district
for several terms, having once defeated Mr. Archibald Williams. He ran for
congress as an old-line Whig. While the canvass was progressing, Mr. Williams
was asked: "What is an old-line Whig?" Mr. Williams answered: "An old-line
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS. 3
Whig is a gentleman who takes his toddy regularly, and votes the Democratic
ticket occasionally." General Singleton died in Baltimore in 1895.
Henry E. Dummer was an excellent lawyer; his papers were neatly pre-
pared. He represented Cass county in the convention of 1847; ^^ ^i^^ ^^
Morgan county many years ago.
Clark county was represented in the convention by William Tutt and Justin
Harlan. Judge Harlan was county judge, and afterward circuit judge. He was
eccentric, and possessed a marvelous fund of common sense. He was a little
profane, even on the bench. One of the suitors of his court sued another on a
contract for the sale and delivery of a lot of hogs. The evidence showed that the
contract was that the hogs should be delivered if they could be driven. Judge
Harlan said that while he was compelled to render a judgment for the defend-
ant, **it was d d singular that hogs grew wild when pork rose."
From the county of Coles, one of the delegates was Thomas A. Marshall.
He was a lawyer of some distinction. He was afterward elected colonel of the
First Illinois Cavalry.
Jo Daviess county was represented by Thompson Campbell, W. E. Green
and O. C. Pratt. A sketch of Mr. Campbell's life appears elsewhere in this work.
During the session of the convention an incident occurred — to which Mr. Camp-
bell and Mr. Pratt were parties — which afforded to members, not connected witli
the affair, great amusement. This incident was nothing less than a proposed
duel between the two delegates from Jo Daviess county, Mr. Campbell and
Mr. Pratt., It is not important which was the challenger, but it led to the
stringent clause in the constitution which provides that **From and after the
adoption of the constitution, every person who shall be elected or appointed to
any office of profit, trust or emolument, civil or military, legislative, executive or
judicial, under the government of this state, shall, before he enters upon the
duties, in addition to the oath prescribed in this constitution take the following
oath : *I do most solemnly swear (or affirm, as the case may be,) that I have not
sent or accepted a challenge to fight a duel, the probable issue of which might
have been the death of either party, nor have been a second to either party, nor
in any manner aided or assisted in such duel, nor been knowingly the bearer of
such challenge or acceptance since the adoption of this constitution, and I will
not be so engaged or concerned directly or indirectly in or about such duel during
my continuance, so help me God !' " and it led to the sarcastic remark of Colonel
Servant, delegate from Randolph county : **I hope Charlie Constable will be put
in jail for twenty-four hours, and kept without a looking-glass, a hair-brush, or
tooth-brush !" To those who knew Judge Constable, such a wish was a cruel
one. Both of these gentlemen (Mr. Campbell and Mr. Pratt) afterward went to
California, and died there.
Benjamin Bond was a delegate to the convention from Clinton county. He
was a lawyer. He became notorious afterward as the author of the separate
article in the constitution "prohibiting free negroes from hereafter emigrating to
this state and settling within the bounds of this state, and to prevent the owners
of slaves in other states from bringing them into and setting them free in this
4 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
state," with such penalties annexed as would be calculated to effect the object
in view. I spoke and voted against this resolution, on account of which I was,
at the election which occurred in the month of August, defeated for re-election
to the office of probate justice of the peace.
Hezekiah M. Wead was a delegate from Fulton county. He was born in
Vermont and died in Peoria. Mr. Wead was a lawyer, and was afterward cir-
cuit judge: I refer to a sketch of his professional and judicial life furnished
by his son, Hon. S. P. Wead. Albert Gallatin Caldwell, delegate to the con-
vention from Gallatin county, was a lawyer of great promise. He died soon
afterward, in Spring^eld, while attending a term of the court held in this city.
David Mead Woodson was a delegate to the convention from Greene
county. Judge Woodson, as he was afterward known, was born near Ver-
sailles, Woodford county, Kentucky. He afterward was elected judge of the
circuit court, and held that place for three terms. He was state's attorney for
his judicial district in 1840, and prosecuted Aaron and William Todd. I speak
elsewhere of the murder of their cousin, Larkin Scott. Judge Woodson was a
gentleman of the old school, and maintained the dignity of his court under all
circumstances.
Iroquois and W^ill counties were represented by Jesse O. Norton, who was
afterward a member of congress and a circuit judge. Jefferson, Marion and
Franklin counties were represented by Zadok Casey and W^alter B. Scates.
Judge Scates had been attorney general of the state of Illinois and a justice of the
supreme court. A sketch of his life will appear elsewhere. The delegates from
Knox county were Curtiss K. Harvey and James Knox.
Judge Davis, who represented McLean county, is noticed on succeeding
pages. He was elected circuit judge, and discharged the duties of that office
for many years. He was then appointed associate justice of the supreme court
of the United States, and was afterward elected a senator in the congress of the
United States. He was of doubtful politics, and consented to supersede Mr.
Bayard in the presidency of the senate pro tem.
Cyrus Edwards, who represented Madison county, with Edward M. West,
Benaiah Robinson, and George T. Brown, was a lawyer of great eminence.
He desired more than anything else to preserve the credit of the state of Illinois,
and was the author of the two-mill tax, which established the credit of the state.
Thomas G. C. Davis represented Massac county in the convention. He was a
native of Virginia, afterward removed to St. Louis and thence to Texas, where
he died. He was a man of great capacity and of remarkable eloquence.
Hiram Rountree represented Montgomery county in the convention. We
furnish elsewhere a sketch of his life. Montgomery and Bond counties and
Moultrie and Shelby counties were represented by James M. Davis and Anthony
Thornton, sketches of whom will be found elsewhere. Judges William Thomas
and Samuel D. Lockwood, who represented Morgan county in the convention,
were eminent jurists. Lincoln B. Knowlton, who represented Peoria county,
and Onslow Peters, who represented Peoria and Fulton counties, were success-
ful lawyers. William R. Archer and William A. Grimshaw, who represented
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS. 5
Pike county, were lawyers. Mr. Archer was afterward county judge. Alfred
Kitchell, a delegate from Richland county, was circuit judge, and after the ex-
piration of his term of office removed to Galesburg, where he died. Colonel
Sen^arit, of whom I have before spoken, was a lawyer from Randolph county,
Sangamon county was represented by John Dawson, James H. Matheny,
Ninian W. Edwards and Stephen T. Logan, all of whom have since died. James
H. Matheny was once clerk of the circuit court and afterward was county judge.
Ninian W. Edwards had been attorney general, member of the legislature from
Sangamon county and was afterward superintendent of public instruction, having
been appointed by Governor Matteson. Mr. Edwards was the brother-in-law of
President Lincoln, who appointed him commissary of subsistence during the
late civil war. Stephen T. Logan, whose sketch will appear elsewhere, was an
oracle in the law. He was remarkable for his extensive knowledge of the law,
and the moderation of his charges for his services. The county court of
Macoupin county (under my advice) procured his written opinion upon a consti-
tutional question, for which service he charged ten dollars. Notwithstanding
the moderation of his charges, he left an immense estate, having used his money
in the entry of real estate, at one dollar and a quarter per acre.
Charles H. Constable was a delegate from Wabash county. He was after-
ward circuit judge, was a good lawyer and was remarkable for his personal
neatness. Abner C. Harding was. from Warren county ; he was a lawyer of some
distinction, was afterward appointed colonel of one of the Illinois infantry regi-
ments, and won some reputation by the repulse inflicted upon Forrest at Fort
Donelson.
Samuel Snowden Hayes, a delegate from White county, was the youngest
man in the convention. He afterward married the daughter of Colonel E. D.
Taylor, of Springfield, removed to Chicago, and was appointed city comptroller.
He died in Chicago many years ago. Willis Allen, father of the present judge,
W. J. Allen, represented several of the southern counties. He was state's attor-
ney, member of congress, and circuit judge.
CHAPTER II.
THE FORMATIVE PERIOD— TERRITORIAL AND STATE.
THE territory of Illinois was organized into a county of Virginia on the 12th
day of December, 1778, and John Todd was appointed lieutenant com-
mandant of the county of Illinois, by Patrick Henry, at that time the
governor of the state of Virginia.
Governor Henry's letter of instructions to the commandant contained direc-
tions relating to the defense of the county ; but it is noticeable that the liberties
of the people were also the subject of the care of that patriotic statesman. He
said : ** You are on all occasions to inculcate on the people the value of liberty,
and the difference between the state of free citizens of this commonwealth and
that slavery to which Illinois was destined ; a free and equal representation
may be expected by them in a little time, together with all the improvements in
jurisprudence and police which other parts of the state enjoy."
Illinois continued to form a part of the state of Virginia, and subject to its
laws, until 1784, when the ^'County of Illinois,'' being a part of the territory
northwest of the river Ohio, was ceded by the state of Virginia to the United
States.
The congress of the confederation adopted certain resolutions for the gov-
ernment of the Northwestern territory in 1784, but they were repealed by the
ordinance of 1787, which laid the foundations of liberty and law for all the states
of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan and Wisconsin, — a territory whose resources
were then unknown, it being inhabited by but a few white persons, who were
engaged then, and for many years thereafter, in a struggle with the red men for
its possession ; a territory which is now the home of millions of happy and
prosperous people.
The ordinance, which passed the congress, assembled under the articles of
confederation, on the 13th day of July, 1787, not only provided the framework
for a temporary government of the territory of the United States northwest of the
river Ohio, (which has been in essentials followed by subsequent congressional
legislation in the creation of territories formed from the national domain), but
it secured perpetually to inhabitants of the territory their most valuable and
precious rights.
The ordinance provided a rule for the descent of the property of intestate
proprietors, for the making of wills and conveyances, and for the transfer of per-
sonal property by delivery, saving to the French inhabitants their own customs.
It anticipated what is called the "bill of rights/' the ten first amendments of the
federal constitution. It secured to the present and future inhabitants of the
territory freedom of worship and the benefits of the writ of habeas corpus. It
gave assurance of a proportionate representation of the people in the legislature,
and of judicial proceedings, according to the course of the common law. It
secured to all persons accused of crime, where the proof was not evident or the
6
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS. 7
presumption great, the privilege of bail and moderate fine, and protection
against cruel, or unusual punishments in case of conviction for misdemeanors or
crimes, and insured to the citizen that protection for his person and property
conceded bv the "Great Charter."
"Xo man shall be deprived of his liberty, or property, but by the judgment
of his peers or the law of the land, and should public exigencies make it
necessary for the common preservation to take any person's property or to
demand his particular service, full compensation shall be made for the same;"
and then, as if in anticipation of the efforts of demagogues to pervert the public
conscience, it was declared, as the sense of congress, "and in the just preserva-
tion of rights and property it is understood and declared that no law ought ever
be made, or have force in the said territory that shall in any manner whatever
interfere with or affect private contracts or engagements, bona-fide and without
fraud, previously formed," and the ordinance further provides that "there shall
be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in the said territory, otherwise than
in the punishment of crimes, whereof the party shall have been duly convicted."
These provisions were preserved in the constitutions of the states formed
from the Northwestern territory, and under them the liberties of the people
have found protection and security.
It has been said by an eminent statesman and jurist that "Two of the pro-
visions of the ordinance of 1787 were sufficient for the protection of popular
rights : First, that which provides for a proportionate representation of the
people in the legislature; second, that of judicial proceeding according to the
course of the common law." By the fifth section of the ordinance the governor
and judges were clothed with qualified powers of legislation, that is to say, the
governor and judges, or a majority of them, were "authorized to adopt and
publish in the district such laws of the original states, criminal and civil, as may
be necessary and best suited to the circumstances of the district, and report them
to congress, from time to time ; which laws shall be in force in the district until
the organization of the general assembly therein, unless disapproved of by the
congress; but afterwards the legislature shall have authority to act as they
see fit."
In 1798 it was ascertained that the Northwestern territory contained five
thousand white male inhabitants and was therefore entitled as a matter of right
to enter on the second grade of territorial government provided for in the
ordinance of 1787. (Burnett*s Notes, 288.) The fact was made known by the
proclamation of Governor St. Clair, calling upon the people to elect represent-
atives to meet at Cincinnati, in convention, for the purpose of nominating ten
persons to be returned to the president of the United States, five of whom it
was his duty to select, and, upon confirmation by the senate, commission as a
legislative council.
The representatives elected assembled at Cincinnati on the 4th day of
February, 1799, as required by the proclamation. They made the nomination
and adjourned to meet at Cincinnati on the i6th day of September ensuing.
The governor transmitted the names of the nominees to the secretary of state.
8 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
and the president, by and with the consent of the senate, appointed Jacob Bur-
nett and four others to be the legislative council. The house of representatives
consisted of twenty-two members, amongst whom it is noticeable that Shadrach
Bond and John Edgar represented the counties of St. Clair and Randolph,
respectively.
The governor and judges had power under the ordinance to legislate to
the extent of adopting the statutes of any of the original states of the Union,
and the legislature elected by the people, which assembled at Cincinnati on the
i6th of September, 1799, was clbthed with complete powers of legislation, sub-
ject only to the ordinance of 1787 and to the superior supervising power of
congress.
Burnett says : "The statutes which had been adopted from time to time by
the governor and judges formed a miserable apology for a code of statute law :
many subjects of interest were not embraced in them, and most of them were
in a crude and imperfect state. The nrost useful of them were taken from the
Pennsylvania code, with the exception of one from the code of Virginia, which
adopted the common law, and such of the English statutes made in aid of it prior
to the *4th,' of James I, as was of a general nature, and applicable to the
country.
"Although this law was important in the administration of justice, as with-
out it the courts must have legislated in many of the cases which came before
them ; yet it was so general and indefinite in its terms, that questions were
perpetually arising at the bar and on the bench as to which of the statutes of
the English code were adopted, and whether such parts of statutes as were
applicable to the state of the country might be taken, and others rejected, — as,
for example, in a case in which the defense rested on a plea of usury, there
being no statute of the territory on that subject, the defendant reUed on the
statute of 13th Elizabeth, which comes clearly within the terms of the adopting
law, both as to time and subject matter ; yet, as it authorized an interest of ten
per cent., and the interest in the territory, established by general consent, was
only six per cent., it became a question whether it did or did not justify that
rate of interest, and, if not, whether the penalty of the act could be enforced
in that case."
Burnett, from whom I quote, was a lawyer and he says "On many inter-
esting subjects, particularly that relating to remedies and the mode of enforcing
them, there had been no legislation. The course of the common law was relied
on, which was tedious and in most cases difficult and expensive, and the more
so as there was not any tribunal in the territory vested with chancery powers.
The courts of common law, as far as their forms and modes of administering
justice would permit, assumed those powers from necessity, by which partial
relief was obtained. On the subject of the partition of real estate, assignment
of dower, relief of insolvent debtors, settlement of disputes by arbitration,
divorces, and alimony, equitable set-oflF, and the specific execution of real con-
tracts, the territorial code was entirely silent."
In most of the cases mentioned the legislature at its first session "passed
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS. 9
laws providing simple and easy modes of proceeding." Laws which were made
by the governor and judges, and by the general assembly of the Northwestern
territory, until passage of the act of congress of May 7, 1800, which created
Indiana territory, were in force in Illinois.
On the 3d day of February, 1809, congress passed an act dividing the
Indiana territory into two separate governments, and the laws borrowed by the
governor and judges from other states of the Union, — which had been done
wuth such liberality that only the titles were retained, — the laws enacted by the
house of representatives of the Northwestern territory, and also enactments of
the representatives of the people of the territory of Illinois were, except so far
as they were repealed, in full force w^hen the territory of Illinois was created
(February 3, 1809).
It must be observed that the congress of the United States, which had full
authority to legislate for the people of the Illinois territory, on the 3d day of
March, 1815, passed an act regulating and defining the duties of the United
States judges for the territory of Illinois. The act divided the territory into
three circuits, that is to say, the counties of Madison and St. Clair were to
constitute the first circuit; the counties of Randolph and Johnson the second;
and the counties of Gallatin and Edwards the third circuit. These were at the
time all the counties of the territory, and the places of holding the circuit courts
was fixed by the same law.
The judges w^ere given by the act jurisdiction "over all causes, matters or
things at common law or in chancery," arising in each of said counties, "except
in cases where the debt or demand shall be under twenty dollars, in which cases
they shall have no jurisdiction."
The act further provided that "the said judges shall be conservators of the
peace, and the said circuit courts in term time, or the judges thereof in vacation,
shall have power to award injunction writs of ne exeat, habeas corpus and all
other writs and process that may be necessary to the execution of the powers
with which they are, or may be, vested." It was further provided by the act
that "the said circuit courts respectively shall have power to hear and determine
all treasons, felonies and all other crimes or misdemeanors that may be com-
mitted within the respective counties aforesaid, and that may be brought before
them respectively by any rules or regulations- prescribed by law."
The effect of this act was to create a court of appeals for the territory of
Illinois.
The fifteenth section of the act provides: "That the said judges, or a
majority of them, shall constitute a court to be styled the court of appeals of
Illinois territory, and shall hold two sessions annually, at the town of Kaskaskia,
* * * which court shall have appellate jurisdiction and to w^hich appeals
shall be allowed, and from which writs of error, according to the principles of
the common law and conformably to the laws and usages of the said territory,
may be prosecuted for the reversal of the judgments and decrees of the said
circuit court, as of any inferior courts which now are or may hereafter be
established by the law of said territory."
CHAPTER III.
THE SUPREME COURT— TERRITORIAL AND SUPREME COURT JUDGES.
ON the 3d day of February, 1809, congress passed an act creating the
territory of lUinois, and on the 7th day of March, in the same year, the
president appointed Alexander Stuart, Obadiah Jones and Jesse Burgess
Thomas to be territorial judges.
The territorial legislature, at its session in 1814, passed an act to establish
a supreme court for Illinois territory, which in many material points changed
the judicial system adopted by the authority of congress upon the organization
of the territory.
The judges of the territory took emphatic ground against the law : they
were requested by the legislature to state their objections in writing, which they
did. They held among other grounds for their opposition, "That as the United
States government, in pursuance of the ordinance, had established a court of
general jurisdiction, and had reserved the right of appointing judges to con-
duct it, the territorial legislature, which is an inferior authority, had no power
to change or modify it."
They said "It would have been futile in congress to establish a court,
leaving the power in other hands to establish a tribunal superior to it, which
would be to annul it." The judges proceeded to argue at length in opposition
to the bill ; and the opinion was signed by Judges Jesse B. Thomas and William
Sprigg. Judge Griswold, though absent, is understood to have concurred with
the other judges. The governor (Edwards) favored the act, and he was re-
quested by the legislature to prepare an answer to the objections of the judges,
which he did, and his answer was spread at large upon the legislative journals.
The reasoning of the judges seems to be soHd and conclusive. "In view
of the whole matter the legislature adopted resolutions for transmitting the
contemplated act, together with the letter of the judges, and answer thereto of
Governor Edwards, to congress, accompanied by an address "requesting the
passage of a law declaring the aforesaid enactment valid, or pass some law
more explanatory of the relative duties and powers of the judges aforesaid and
of this legislature, in order to remove any future or existing difficulties that
may arise between the judges and the legislature."
Congress accordingly, on the 3d of March, 1815, passed "An act regulating
and defining the duties of the United States judges for the territory of Illinois,"
of which we have heretofore spoken.
The territorial judges wxre appointed by the president, and confirmed by
the senate. On the occasion referred to they exhibited commendable firmness,
and their arguments were unanswerable; still but little is known of the terri-
10
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS. ii
torial judges, unless Jesse Burgess Thomas, one of their number, is an exception.^
Governor Reynolds says, speaking of Judge Stuart (Pioneer History, 365) :
"Stuart soon resigned, and Stanley Griswold was appointed. Judge Stuart
remained on the bench but for a short time in Illinois and was appointed judge,
of the territory of Missouri" (Pioneer History, 371). He says of Stanley Gris-
wold, the successor of Judge Stuart, "He w^as a correct, honest man, a good
law^yer, paid his debts and sung David's psalms. He was transferred to Michi-
gan territory, and in his place Thomas Towles was appointed, who presided on
the east of the territory" (Pioneer History, 402). There are in the annals of
Illinois territory no account of Obadiah Jones, one of the judges appointed
by the president on the 7th day of March, 1809; it is doubtful if he accepted
the place, or performed any of its duties, and Stanley Griswold, his successor,
was commissioned March 16, 1810.
Jesse Burgess Thomas has a history. He was born in Hagerstown, Mary-
land, in the year 1777, and was reputed to be a lineal descendant of Lord Balti-
more. He removed with his parents to Kentucky in 1779, and after having
received something more than a common-school education studied law with his
brother, Richard S. Thomas, in Bracken county, Kentucky. On the organiza-
tion of Dearborn county, Indiana territory, March 7, 1803, he removed to
Lawrenceburg, and commenced the practice of law.
On January 3, 1805, he was elected to represent that county in the legis-
lature, which convened in Vincennes, February i, 1805, to choose members
of the legislative council, and on the proclamation of the governor, William H.
Harrison, the legislature assembled on the 29th of July, 1805, and at this its
first session he was elected speaker of the house of representatives. He presided
as speaker of the first and second sessions, at Vincennes, from September 26,
1805, to October 24, 1808, when he was elected by the assembly as delegate to
the tenth congress, to succeed Benjamin Park, resigned. He served as delegate
from December 8, 1808, to March 3, 1809. He was appointed and commissioned
August 24,. 1 805, by Governor Harrison, a captain of militia of Dearborn county.
Within his legislative term he married the widow of Major John Francis
Hamtramck, and then moved to Vincennes, where he resided a short time. On
the organization of Illinois territory, March 7, 1809, President Madison
appointed him one of the territorial judges. He then moved to Kaskaskia,
thence to Cahokia and later to Edwardsville.
In July, 1818, he was elected a delegate from St. Clair county to the
constitutional convention, and was elected president of the convention that
formed the constitution of Illinois. He was elected by the first general assembly
of Illinois one of its first two United States senators, serving from December 4,
1818, to March 3, 1828. As senator he proposed the Missouri Compromise
and was chairman of the committee of conference on that measure, and it, as
adopted, was his work. This he regarded as the most important act of his
life.
In 1829 he removed to Mount Vernon, Ohio, where he assisted at the
organization of St. Paul's Episcopal church, of which he was a consistent
12 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
member. He owned a large property in Mount Vernon and was one of the
town proprietors of Brookville, Indiana.
In stature he was full six feet, w^ith florid, brown complexion, dark hazel
eyes, dark brown (nearly black) hair. With a well developed muscular system,
he weighed over two hundred pounds, was very particular in his personal
appearance, and had the mode (manners) of a refined gentleman of the last
century.. He died, childless, at Mount \'emon, Ohio, leaving a large estate,
May 4, 1853, aged seventy-five years. We have followed the sketch of Judge
Thomas, contributed to the Pioneer History by Samuel Morrison, of Indian-
apolis, Indiana, in 1884. But Governor Reynolds' Pioneer History (page 401)
says of Judge Thomas that "He was a man of talents, but did not particularly
employ his mind on the dry subtleties of the law. He was born a politician,
and never ceased the avocation until death closed the scene with him a few
years since in the state of Ohio. In 1818 he was elected a member, from St.
Clair county, of the convention that formed the state constitution ; was elected
the president of that body, and gave general satisfaction in the performance of
his duty. He was also elected to the United States senate, the same year, made
a good business member, was a great friend of Crawford for the presidency,
and did much in the compromise of the Missouri question. He was a gentleman
of fine appearance and address."
Governor Reynolds quotes a significant saying of Judge Thomas, on which
he acted "considerably," and which proves that he was bom a politician, "that
you could not talk a man down but you could w^hisper him to death." It is
added, "on the bench or in the senate he possessed a dignified and respectful
bearing."
Judge John M. Scott (Illinois History, page 270) says of Judge Thomas:
"The services rendered by him in the senate of the United States not only
affected the welfare of the state of Illinois, but in a degree the nation at large.
One measure with which his name is connected has become famous in the
history of this country. It is said that he- was the author of that measure
known as the Missouri Compromise of 1820. In that way he connected his
name wdth an act predestined from the beginning to be one of the most mo-
mentous events in American history."
Governor Reynolds properly understood the character of Judge Thomas,
I have no doubt. He was a politician and his successes were in the field of
politics.
"William Sprigg possessed a strong, discriminating mind, and made an
excellent judge, w^as a fine classical scholar, and a well read and profound
lawyer. He was born in Maryland and was of excellent family. His brother
was the governor of Maryland, and other relatives occupied important stations
in that state. He had an utter contempt for street politics. A purer heart, or
one with more integrity, never found its way to the bench. He was a spectator
in the campaign of 1812, under Governor Edwards, to Peoria lake, as he had
no gun or other weapon that denoted belligerency. His pacific and sickly
appearance, together with his perfect philosophic indifference as to war or
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS. 13
peace, life or death, made him the subject of much discussion among the troops."
(Pioneer History, page 402.)
We have related all that is known to the public concerning the territorial
judges. After the passage of the act of March 3, 1815, which took effect from
and after the ist day of April next, the judges were required to perform circuit
duties, and they, or a majority of them, were constituted a court, to be styled
the court of appeals for Illinois territory. The records of the court of appeals
have not been examined, but it is understood that in no case heard by the
judges was a written opinion filed. The constitution of 1818 made the judges
of the supreme court elective by the joint ballot of the two houses of the legis-
lature and the constitution required that "the supreme court shall be holden at
the seat of government, and shall have an appellate jurisdiction only, except in
cases relating to the revenue, in cases of mandamus, and in such cases of im-
peachment as may be required to be tried before it." It was made to consist of
a chief justice, and three associates "any two of whom shall form a quorum. The
number of justices, may, however, be increased by the general assembly after
the year 1824."
"The judges were directed to be commissioned by the governor and to
hold their offices during good behavior until the end of the first session of the
general assembly, which shall be begun and held after the ist day of January
in the year of our Lord 1824, at which time their commissions shall expire.
* * * But ever after the aforesaid period the justices of the supreme court
shall be commissioned during good behavior, and the justices thereof shall not
hold circuit courts unless required by law."
The first session of the general assembly of the state of Illinois met on the
5th day (first Monday) of October, 1818, in Kaskaskia, in pursuance of the
constitution, and on the 8th of that month proceeded to choose a chief justice
and three associate justices.
The legislature had but little difficulty in selecting a chief justice, for on
the first ballot Joseph Philips received thirty-four of the forty ballots cast; for
associate justices William P. Foster and Thomas C. Browne were chosen, and
finally John Reynolds was elected, having received twenty-two votes of the
whole number (forty) cast.
All waiters agree that Chief Justice Joseph Philips was an admirable selec-
tion. As one writer says : "He was a lawyer of fine intellectual endowments."
He held the office but a short time, as he resigned his place upon becoming a
candidate for governor, in 1822. His resignation bears date July 4, 1822, and
Thomas Reynolds became chief justice on the 31st of August, 1822. Breese
reports but fifteen cases, which fill only fourteen pages of his reports, decided
by the supreme court while Chief Justice Philips was on the bench, so there are
but scant materials for determining his merits as a judge.
Thomas Reynolds, his successor, was born in Bracken county, Kentucky,
March 12, 1796, and was admitted to the bar about the time he reached his
majority. He came to Illinois while it was a territory, and filled the office of
clerk and speaker of the house of representatives. He was appointed chief
14 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS,
justice of the supreme court of Illinois on the 31st of August, 1822. He removed
to Missouri in 1829, locating himself at Fayette, Howard county, in that state.
He was elected a member of the house of representatives of the state
legislature from Howard county, and was chosen to be speaker of that body.
He filled the office of circuit judge for a short time, and was afterward, in 1840,
elected to be governor of Missouri, and died while in office, February 9, 1844.
He was a profound lawyer, and as an orator was forcible and captivating, both
in the legislature and in the courts. At the time of his death he was a candidate
for a seat in the United States senate, with almost a certainty of being elected.
Breese reports a number of the opinions of the supreme court delivered by
Chief Justice Reynolds, which exhibit much more finish than those reported
before '*he came to the bench."
Thomas C. Browne was elected one of the associate justices of the supreme
court, and his commission is dated October 9, 181 8. He was re-elected one
of the associate justices at the reorganization of the supreme court in 1825 ; was
again commissioned on the 19th day of January, 1825, and held his office until
after the adoption of the constitution of 1848.
There is much difference of opinion in the legal profession as to the
judicial merits of Judge Thomas C. Browne. He was born in Kentucky, came
to Illinois territory in 1812, and settled himself in Shawneetown; he had
studied law in Kentucky and at once commenced the practice of his profession.
Judge Scott says (Illinois History, page 77) in speaking of him : "All lawyers
at that early day seem to have had quite as much, if not more, fondness for
politics than the law: Judge Browne was no exception to that general rule.
Within two years after his coming to Illinois territory he entered upon the
work of office-seeking, and office-getting, — ^a work in which he was quite
successful. He did not practice his profession for any great length of time.
Office-seeking seems to have been a mania of that period, and became a mad
passion with all professional men, — lawyers, doctors, and even ministers, became
attracted within the maelstrom of politics. * * * in 1814, Judge Browne
was elected a member of the house of the territorial legislature, as a represent-
ative from Gallatin county. In 1816 he was a member of the legislative council
of the territorial legislature. * * * He was appointed attorney for the dis-
trict in which Gallatin is situated, in 1816, and probably continued in that
office, whatever it was, until the state government was organized.
"On the organization of the state government, in 181 8, he was, on joint
ballot of both houses of the legislature, chosen one of the associate justices of
the supreme court of the new state, shortly to be admitted into the Union. He
was re-elected in the same way and commissioned a member of the same court
on the 19th of January, 1825, and thereafter held the office until the first Monday
of December, 1848, when the old constitution was superseded by the new. He
then retired to private life, and nothing more was heard of him. Later, there
was a brief announcement of his death. That was the end of one whose life
had been a benediction to the state."
Judge Scott's observations are true, but in making them he overlooked
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS. 15
the fact that before the introduction of railroads, telegraphs, telephones, and
the "daily newspaper," which collects the history of events in all parts of the
civilized world and, by means of the railroads, is delivered on the day of its
publication at nearly every postoffice in the state, — the lawyers were the
instructors of the people on every political topic.
The terms of the courts usually lasted three or four days and rarely more
than a week. On the Monday beginning the term, at noon or in the evening
after court adjourned, some recognized member of the bar would "make a
speech," defending his own party or assailing the other party. If the first
"speech" was made at noon or at night, some lawyer would answer the first
speaker at night or at noon, and so the party orators would alternate to the
end of the term of the court.
Under such circumstances, it was natural that lawyers should be politicians
and office-seekers, — most of them were so, and for their reputation at the bar
some of them were more indebted to their political dexterity than to their
knowledge of the law. Without capacity for "stump oratory" the lawyer of
early times rarely succeeded in winning reputation.
Following Judge Scott (Illinois History, page 79) : "Writers concerning
the period in which Judge Browne lived speak very favorably of him as a
man of the highest personal integrity and as a worthy judge for the time in
which he served in that capacity. On the circuit he was a most valuable judge
and administered the law as he understood it, with the strictest impartiality to
all alike that had business in the court where he presided. In that respect his
character is without the slightest smirch or reproach." Governor Reynolds, who
knew him well, says: "Honor, integrity and fidelity are prominent traits in his
character." It was never claimed for Judge Browne that he was a man of any
very great literary attainments, or that he was a profound lawyer, still, following
Judge Scott, "but it is due to his memory to say, as the truth is, he was a good
judge on account of his integrity of character and his valuable practical sense
in all matters of business."
An attempt was made, in 1843, to impeach Judge Browne "for want of
capacity to discharge the duties of his office of judge of the supreme court." It
is to be regretted that, though Judge Browne was continuously one of the
associate justices of the supreme court from 181 9 until 1848, he delivered no
opinion upon any important subject and did no act worthy of being remembered,
— unlike Lockwood and Smith and some others of his associates. Though a
member of the council of revision, he did nothing for the reform of the law or
the improvement of the statutes.
Justice John Reynolds was appointed one of the associate justices and was
commissioned on the 9th of October, 1818. Judge Reynolds, who was better
known to the public of his day as Governor Reynolds, or the "Old Ranger," has
written the story of his "Own Times." He was born in Montgomery county,
Pennsylvania, on the 26th of February, 1788. When he was about six months
old his parents removed to Tennessee and settled near Knoxville, in that state,
and, according to the governor's account: "We left Tennessee in February,
i6 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
1800, with eight horses and two wagons, for New Spain. Our company con-
sisted of my parents, six children, — I, the oldest, — three hired men and a colored
woman/' In "My Own Times" he describes the journey of the family from
Tennessee to Kaskaskia, and gives the reason why his father did not settle under
the jurisdiction of the Spanish government.
Judge Reynolds was liberally though not classically educated, and says
("My Own Times," page 91) : "In the fall of 1812 I was examined, at Kaskaskia,
before Judges Thomas and Sprigg, two of the United States judges for the
territory, and admitted to practice law. I attended a county court this fall,
which was held in an old house of Thomas Kirkpatrick, near the high bank of
Cahokia creek, embraced in the present Edwardsville ; but I had no business
in court, and, being so diffident and so much out of gear for the practice of law,
I was truly glad that I had nothing to do."
The writer is reminded by this story told by Governor Reynolds of an
incident which he copies from "Recollections of an Earnest Life," a book which
he hopes to publish at an early day.
He lived at Carlinville, and like Governor Reynolds attended his first court
at Edwardsville : "It is thirty-five miles from Carlinville to Edwardsville, and I
walked the first day from Carlinville to the home of my father, who lived near
the road, eight miles from Edwardsville. I spent a day at father's, and the
following morning went into Edwardsville, stopped at a public house kept by a
man named Wilson, with whom I had a friendly acquaintance; I explained to
Mr. Wilson that I had no money to pay bills, when, without waiting to hear
more, he told me — with a rough generosity I can never forget — that I could
stay with him as long as I pleased, pay him when I could, and if I never could
*it didn't make a d — d bit of difference!' It can well be imagined that after this
reception I felt at home.
"I had known Judge Breese when I was a boy, and the first law speech I
ever heard was made by him. He met, and remembered me kindly, and soon
after assigned me to the defense of a poor fellow who was indicted for larceny.
I have often repeated the incidents of this trial and the conduct of Judge Breese
toward me, to illustrate the wisdom of judges who treat young members of the
bar with kindness.
"Any lawyer may easily guess the character of the defense I made for
this, my first client. I had never before appeared in the circuit court; my
client was unquestionably guilty, and the jury so found after very brief hesita-
tion. After the jury had found him guilty, I remembered that according to
*the books,' after a verdict against a client it was the duty of a lawyer to make
a motion for a new trial, and if that motion failed to then move in arrest of
judgment. Accordingly I made a motion for a new trial for the usual formal
reasons : I know I attempted to argue the motion, and although at the time
I was so embarrassed by the surroundings that I then scarcely understood what
I said, I was satisfied soon afterward, when I heard the judge, that I had made
a most learned and forcible argument.
"When I concluded my speech, whatever it was, I was confused enough,
gostavub kobinbr.
Jamks Sbmplk.
[, D. LOCKWOOD,
SlDHBV BrEBSS.
Jamks Shields.
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS, 17
but when Mr. Kitchell, the then attorney-general, finished his caustic and almost
contemptuous reply, I was overwhelmed with confusion. The judge however
rescued me ; he noticed in succession the reasons I had assigned in writing for
a new trial, and said that 'the learned counsel had supported these reasons with
great force of argument/ He stated what he said were the arguments I had
used, confessed he was impressed with their force, and then proceeded to
answer them with great deliberation, and concluded by saying that 'the defendant
had been ably defended by learned counsel, and tried by an intelligent and
impartial jur>', and that he therefore felt constrained to overrule the motion for
a new trial, and render a judgment on the verdict/
"I did not make a motion in arrest of judgment, but I will confess that for
a w^hile after the judge concluded I believed I had really used the arguments
that he attributed to me and then repeated, and answered, and though I after-
ward realized that both the arguments and the answers to them were the work
of the judge, he made an impression upon me that still remains, and secured
for himself my best personal services as long as he had occasion for them ; and
he left upon my mind an impression which I still retain, — that Sidney Breese
was in all respects an ideal judge, and, in view of his inaptness as a politician, I
have been inclined to repeat what Dryden says of Shaftesbury :
In Israel's courts ne'er sat an Abeth-din •
With more discerning eyes or hands more clean —
Unbribed, unsought, the wretched to redress,
Swift of dispatch, and easy of access!
O, had he been content to serve the crown
With virtues only proper to the gown;
Or had the rankncss of the soil been freed
From cockle that oppressed the noble seed, —
David, for him, his tuneful harp had strung
And Heaven had wanted one immortal song."
The judge was for some reasons a failure as a politician, but his pre-
eminence as a judge has never been disputed.
Governor Reynolds describes the" condition of the country from the time
of his father's migration to Illinois territory, and says C'My Own Times," page
95): "Many of my comrades at the organization of the army were appointed
to small offices, but diffidence and a savage independence never permitted me
to approach officers' tents or solicit anyone for an office. I declined becoming
acquainted with any of the higher officers."
In the estimation of his cotemporaries the afterward judge of the supreme
court, governor and member of congress got bravely over his "diffidence," for
there never existed in the state a more inveterate office-seeker than he was.
Governor Reynolds, in his "My Own Times/' page 135, gives the following
account of his election as one of the associate justices of the supreme court : "At
the time of the session of the first legislature I resided in Cahokia, and had not
the least intention of visiting the legislature at all. I cared very little who was
elected to any office ; one thing was, I coveted nothing for myself. My friends
i8 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
urged me to visit with them the general assembly in session at Kaskaskia, and
I did so. When we reached the legislature there was great excitement in
relation to the election of officers by the general assembly. I had been in
Kaskaskia only a few days when it was urged on me to know if I would accept
a judgeship if I was elected. This broke on me like a clap of thunder! I was
in truth persuaded to become a candidate for the office. I had a great many
personal friends, both in and out of the legislature, who urged me much to
consent to oflFer. The material for the bench was not as good as it might be."
It is probable, that Governor Reynolds believed at the time that he was
forced by his *'friends'* to become a candidate for the office of associate justice
of the supreme court of Illinois, but his **diffidence*' was easily overcome. He
became a candidate, and was elected, as before stated, by a vote of twenty-two
to eighteen.
Judge Reynolds was not re-elected in 1825. The judiciary of the state was
reorganized by that legislature, as was required by the constitution. "Although
candidates before the general assembly for re-election to the same positions
they had held. Chief Justice Thomas Reynolds and Associate Justice John Rey-
nolds were defeated ; it was a sore disappointment to them."
Of Chief Justice Reynolds persons who knew him all bear the same testi-
mony. He was a very able and learned lawyer and made a good judge. Many
modern writers speak of him as a younger brother, and others as nephew of
Judge John Reynolds, but neither statement is correct. The fact is, Chief
Justice Reynolds was in no way related to Justice John Reynolds.
In 1829, some years after his defeat, Chief Justice Thomas Reynolds went
to Missouri, and perhaps remained there until his death. In the sketch of
Chief Justice Thomas Reynolds we have given an account of his subsequent
career in Missouri. Judge Scott says (Illinois History, page 141): '*A sum-
mary of Judge John Reynolds' judicial career is : While he was not a great
judge, he was a good judge ; not learned in the law as written in the books, yet
he was a fair lawyer; undignified in his presiding on the bench, and always
saying foolish things, yet his purpose — an honest one — was to mete out equal
and impartial justice to all persons — without distinction as to station in life;
whether high or low, white or black, bond or free — litigating in the courts held
by him. That was the crowning excellence in his judicial character."
Still following Judge Scott (Illinois History, page 142) : "After Judge
Reynolds left the bench, early in 1825, he pretended to enter upon the practice
of law. He attended courts in his own and adjoining counties, with very great
regularity. In some of the counties he picked up a few cases, but none of
considerable importance. His ambition was now turned into another channel,
— his purpose was to enter upon a political life, one for which, it will be seen
later, he was eminently fitted. I have no doubt that it was for that reason he
attended the courts, — more to become acquainted with the people, that he might
in that way advance his political ambition, rather than in any hope or even
desire to obtain law business. * * * Qf his practice in later life he says:
*I practiced law in some peculiar cases, for my amusement and recreation.'
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS. 19
These peculiar cases were cases that no one else wanted or would have, — mostly
they were for old friends who had really no cause of action, but wanted a *law-
suit,* and he was willing to oblige them." Judge Scott says further, of Judge
Reynolds (Illinois History, page 150) : "The judge's later practice brought him
neither money nor reputation. It would have been better for his legal repu-
tation had he never undertaken to resume the practice of the law. It made
known his unfitness for the profession, either on account of a want of natural
ability for forensic wrangling or the necessary legal learning," and Judge Scott
adds: "But, after all, traveling with the courts was not unprofitable to Judge
Reynolds. It was the beginning of a successful political life, and one that was
crowned with many splendid triumphs: It was the school in which he was
educated for his later life work."
Judge Reynolds was, after his retirement from the bench, elected to the
house of representatives of the general assembly. Governor Reynolds ("My
Own Times," page 184), says: "I decided, in the legislature of 1828-9, that I
would present myself for something higher than an office in the general
assembly, or quit public employment altogether," and at the August election
in 1830 he was elected governor of Illinois, defeating Rev. William Kinney, who
was a candidate for the same office.
He was afterwards elected a member of the house of representatives in
congress, and was, after the end of his two or three terms in congress, elected
to the house of representatives of the general assembly of the state, and was
chosen speaker of the house.
One characteristic anecdote is told of the governor, while speaker. The
•house was proceeding under the "previous question" on some measure, and
there was a dispute as to the right of members to the floor. A member arose,
and said, "Mr. Speaker, am I entitled to the floor?" the speaker answered:
"Yes, but you can't say a d — d word."
The writer first saw Governor Reynolds in 1832. The criminal code in
force at that time provided whipping as a punishment for larceny ; the maximum
number of stripes to be inflicted was one hundred. A person named D
P was convicted of larceny by the circuit court of Madison county, and
was sentenced to be whipped thirty-nine lashes. I witnessed the punishment,
and the governor did also, and said he "had come over to see the whipping."
He stood by, and witnessed the whipping, and after thirty-eight lashes had been
administered said, "I forgive him one: that's enough." I have been told that
the person I have alluded to was the last one "whipped for stealing" in the
state.
In 1827, by an act of the legislature, commissioners were appointed to
construct a penitentiary at Alton, and in 1833, the penitentiary being ready
for the reception of convicts, a criminal code was adopted, subjecting persons
convicted of larceny committed after the ist of July, 1833, to confinement in
the penitentiary for not less than one year, nor more than ten.
Governor Reynolds was suspected in the last years of his life of favoring
the southern Confederacy. It is reported that among the papers of Jefferson
20 THE BENCH AND BAR OF H^LINOIS.
Davis was found a letter from him, advising armed resistance to the authority
of the United States. During his whole life he was intensely pro-slavery in his
opinions. He died May 8, 1865.
William P. Foster also was elected one of the associate justices of the
supreme court by the legislature. His commission bears date October 9, 1818.
Ford says (History of Illinois, page 29) : "Foster, who was elected one of the
judges, was almost a total stranger in the country. He was a great rascal, but
no one knew it then, he having been a citizen of the state only for about three
weeks before he was elected. He was no lawyer, never having either studied
or practiced law.'' He resigned within a year, **but took care to pocket his
salary."
The late John Moses, in speaking of Foster, says (Illinois — Historical and
Statistical, page 293) : "The career of Foster affords a striking illustration of the
possible success of a polished but unscrupulous adventurer, in a new country.
An entire stranger in the territory, a lawyer by neither profession nor practice,
in a few weeks, through his plausible address and skillful manipulation 0$
credulous members, he succeeded in capturing one of the highest judicial offices
in the gift of the legislature. He never took his seat upon the bench, and after
drawing a year's salary for services not rendered, he left the state. His
subsequent career was that of an accomplished swindler who traveled from city
to city, numbering his victims by the score."
The successor of Foster on the supreme bench was William Wilson, who
will have a place in the next chapter, which will be devoted to the courts as
reorganized in 1825.
CHAPTER IV.
THE SUPREME COURT— 1825- NOTABLE CASES.
THE term of office for the chief justice and associate justices of* the supreme
court, as fixed by the constitution of 1818, was limited **until the end of
the first session of the general assembly which shall be begun and held
after the 1st day of January, 1824."
At that session the following named judges were elected, the tenure of
whose office is "during good behavior," and whose commissions bear date
"January 19, 1825": William Wilson, chief justice; Thomas C. Browne, Samuel
D. Lockwood and Theophilus W. Smith, associate justices.
We have before mentioned Thomas C. Browne, who was re-elected one
of the associate justices, but have not described William Wilson, who was
appointed to succeed William P. Foster (of whom something has been said),
resigned. Judge Wilson was elected chief justice of the supreme court when
less than twenty-nine years of age, and held that office until December 4, 1848.
Both Chief Justice Thomas Reynolds and Associate Justice John Reynolds were
candidates for re-election to the positions they had before held, but were
defeated, much to their disappointment. On the first ballot Judge Wilson
received thirty-five votes in the joint session, and Chief Justice Thomas Reynolds
nineteen votes. Undoubtedly the defeat of Chief Justice Thomas Reynolds
was the result of his support of "the convention." He was a good lawyer, and
his subsequent history is detailed in a former chapter.
"William Wilson, at the time of his elevation to the high and honorable
position of chief justice of Illinois, w^as but twenty-nine years old, and had been
already on the supreme bench as associate justice. He was born in Loudon
county, Virginia, in 1795. When quite young his father died, leaving his
widow with two sons and an embarrassed estate. At an early age his mother
obtained for him a situation in a store, but the young man discovered no aptitude
for the business of merchandising, and, young as he was, developed an unusual
greed for books, reading every one attainable, to the almost total neglect of his
duties in the store. At the age of eighteen he was placed in a law office, under
the tuition of the Hon. John Cook, who ranked high as a lawyer at the bar of
Virginia and' who also served his country with honor and distinction abroad, as
minister to the court of France.
"In 1817 young Wilson came to Illinois to look for a home, and such was
his personal bearing and prepossessing appearance that one year later, at the
inauguration of the state government, his name was brought before the legisla-
ture for associate supreme judge, and he came within six votes of an election.
Within a year, as we have seen, he was chosen in the place of Foster.
21
22 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
"For five years he served the people so acceptably upon the bench as to
be at this time chosen to the first position by a large majority over the former
chief justice, Reynolds. This was the more a mark of approbation in view of
the fact that Judge Wilson was totally devoid of, and never in his life could
wield, any of the arts of the politician or party schemer; as regards political
intrigue he was as innocent as a child. He was singularly pure in all of his
convictions of duty, and in his long public career of nearly thirty years as a
supreme judge of Illinois he commanded the full respect, confidence and esteem
of the people by reason of the probity of his official acts, and his uprightness as
a citizen and a man.
**His education was such as he had acquired by diligent reading and self-
culture. As a writer his diction was pure, clear and elegant, as may be seen by
reference to his published opinions in the supreme court. * * * His
official career was terminated with the going into effect of the new constitution,
December 4, 1848, when he retired to private Hfe. He died at his home in the
ripeness of age and the consciousness of a life well spent, April 29, 1857." ^^
have followed Davidson and Stuve, the latter being a relative of Judge Wilson
(History of Illinois, pages 329-330).
Judge Scott speaks quite as kindly and respectfully of Chief Justice Wilson
(Illinois History, page 39) : "He was a judge, and nothing else : in no sense was
he a politician. During his incumbency of his high office of chief justice he
seems to have discharged his duties with such faithfulness and ability as to
secure public approval. It is evident he must have been a man of learning and
ability, and of the highest personal character, otherwise he could not have had
and retained through his entire term of service as chief justice the confidence
of his associates."
Chief Justice Wilson was held in high regard by his cotemporaries, and
even now his opinions are admired for their clearness and precision of expres-
si<5n. His opinions are to be found in Illinois Reports.
We have noticed whatever is remembered of the life and services of
Associate Justice Thomas C. Browne, and we now turn to a much more
agreeable subject.
Samuel Drake Lockwood, one of the associate justices of the supreme court
of Illinois, was born in Poundridge, W^estchester county. New York, on the
2d day of August, 1789, and was the son of Joseph Lock\\'bod and Mary Drake,
who were married October 9, 1788. He spent a few months at a private school
in New Jersey, where he acquired some knowledge of arithmetic and a little
of Latin. In August, 1803, he entered the office of his mother's brother, Francis
Drake, a lawyer of Waterford, New York, and remained there until February,
181 1, when he was admitted to the bar and opened an office in Batavia, New
York. In January, 1812, he removed to Sempronius, where he was appointed
justice of the peace and master in chancery, and in November, 181 3, again
removed to Auburn, New York, where he was in May, 181 5.
After providing himself with letters from E. T. Throop, then a member of
congress, and afterward governor of New York, and others, addressed to General
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS. 23
William H. Harrison and Colonel Benjamin Stevenson, then in Illinois, he
came to Illinois by way of Shawneetown, reaching Kaskaskia on the 26th day
of December, 1818. He remained in Kaskaskia about one year and then
removed to Carmi, in White county. In January, 1821, he visited Vandalia,
which in the meantime had become the seat of the state government, and was
elected attorney general by the legislature, being commissioned on the 6th day
of February, 1821.
He resigned the office of attorney general on the 22d day of December, 1822,
and by Governor Coles was appointed secretary of state. Later, in 1823, he
was appointed "Receiver of Public Money" in the land-office at Edwardsville,
and on the 19th day of January, 1825, he received his commission as associate
justice of the supreme court, having been previously elected to that office by
the legislature in joint session.
Judge Lockwood held the position of associate justice of the supreme court
from the 19th day of January, 1825, until the 4th day of December, 1848, hav-
ing in the meantime represented Morgan county in the constitutional conven-
tion of 1847.
■
The legislature of Illinois, at the session of 1824-5, instructed the justices
of the supreme court to prepare a revision of the state laws, to be reported to
the next session of the general assembly. The statutes at that time were not
quite as much confused as Governor Ford represents them to have been. He
says, speaking of the code of laws : "It was so crude and contradictory that
no one could tell what it did, or did not mean, but all agreed that a revision of
the statutes was a necessity." The judges undertook the work, and most of
the labor was done by Judge Lockwood. Lockwood prepared the criminal
code, and, though whipping and other cruel punishments were retained, it is
apt in its definitions of crimes and misdemeanors, and is still in a large measure
the law of the state.
It is a model of clearness and precision, and fully justifies all that is claimed
for it. Judge Craig said, in his oration on the occasion of laying the corner-
stone of the court-house of Knox county: *'Our criminal code, with but few
amendments, has been in existence since the revision of our laws in 1827. It
was drafted, as I have been informed, by Judge Lockwood, one of the ablest
judges our state has ever produced. We had a constitutional convention in
1847, ^^^ again in 1870, to form an organic law for the state; each of these
bodies prepared a constitution which was adopted by the people. Again since
1870 the legislature has revised our statutes, but while the statutes on various
subjects were changed the criminal code was found to need but few amendments,
and hence was left substantially as originally prepared."
The alteration in the criminal code prepared by Judge Lockwood has
relation to the methods of punishment rather than to the definitions of crime,
which are still retained in the subsequent revisions of the statutes.
Theophilus W. Smith, the third of the associate justices elected at the
session of the legislature 1824-5, was born in the city of New York on the 28th
day of September, 1784, and came to Illinois in 1816. His name appears on
24 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS,
the rolls of the attorneys in 1817. Judge Smith was a man of talent, a good
lawyer, and exceedingly ambitious of political preferment. He was arbitrary
and exacting; he was impeached in 1833 and escaped conviction by a very narrow
margin.
Governor Ford says of him, (History of Illinois, page 220) : "J^^ge Smith
(I regret to say it of a man who is no more) was an active, bustling, ambitious
and turbulent member of the Democratic party. He had for a long time aimed
to be elected to the United States senate ; his devices and intrigue to this end
had been innumerable. In fact he never lacked a plot to advance himself or to
blow up others. He was a laborious and ingenious schemer in politics."
The impeachment of Judge Smith commenced on the 9th day of January and
continued from day to day until February 7, 1833. Perhaps nothing is more
significant of the character of the accused than the fact, stated by Davidson
and Stuve, (History of Illinois, page 368) that 'Tending the trial, the de-
fendant after each adjournment had the desks of senators carefully searched for
scraps of paper containing scribblings concerning their status upon the respective
charges. Being thus advised, the counsel enjoyed peculiar advantages in the
management of the defense."
A proposition was then made to remove the Judge by an address to the
governor. It passed the house, but failed in the senate, the constitution re-
quiring two-thirds of each house. The fifth article charged him with arbitrarily
suspending John S. Greathouse, a lawyer, from practice, for advising his client
to take a change of venue to a county where his Honor did not preside, and the
sixth article was for tyrannically commanding to jail, in Montgomery county, a
Quaker who entertained conscientious scruples about removing his hat "in
court."
He resigned his seat December 26, 1842, and died May 6, 1846. Judge
Theophilus W. Smith lived a turbulent life; he resided for many years in
Edwardsville. Judge Smith was succeeded by Judge Richard M. Young.
Having given sketches of the chief justice and the associate justices of the
supreme court as reorganized in 1824-5, it but remains that we tell what that
court did to reform and give construction to the obscure statutes in force during
the existence of the court.
The chief and associate justices, William Wilson, Thomas C. Bro\^'ne,
Samuel D. Lockwood, and Theophilus W. Smith, held the June term, 1825. But
five cases were decided at that time, and none were of importance. Justice
Smith delivered the opinion of the court in three of the cases, and Justice Lock-
wood in two. At the December term, 1825, the first case decided was that of
Joseph Cornelius versus Robert Wash ; appeal from St. Clair. This case is of no
other interest to the legal profession, than that it decides where an attorney at
law is employed under a contract like this :
,,__„ _ , , , T^ "Belleville, Nov. 19, 1819.
whereas, I have employed R. Wash in the suit instituted by George, a black man,
aj^ainst Robert Whiteside and F. Bradshaw. for the recovery of his freedom, I hereby
oblige myself to pay to said R. Wash or order the further sum of fifty dollars.
"As witness my hand and seal
"JOSEPH CORNELIUS. [Seal.]"
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS. 25
"He cannot delegate the duty of representing his client to another. The
court held that the contract was intended to secure the personal services of
the lawyer." (Breese's Reports, 63.)
The second case decided at the December term of the supreme court was
that of The People, on the relation of William L. D. Ewing, against George
Forquer, secretary of state, which is reported in Breese's Reports, 68.
The facts in this case involve one of the most important questions which can
arise under a constitutional government. Edward Coles and Adolphus F. Hub-
bard were severally elected to the office of governor and lieutenant governor at
the state election of 1822. The constitution of 181 8, which was still in force,
provided that "the executive power of this state shall be vested in a governor."
The constitution then provided for the election of a governor. It further pro-
vides for the election of a lieutenant governor, and the eighteenth section, third
article, of the constitution provides that "In case of an impeachment of the
governor, his removal from office, death, refusal to qualify, resignation, or
absence from the state, the lieutenant governor shall exercise all the powers and
authority appertaining to the office of governor, until the time pointed out by
the constitution for the election of a governor to fill such vacancy."
Governor Coles, on the 22d day of June, 1825, addressed a note to Lieutenant
Governor Hubbard, in which he said : "You will recollect that I made known to
you last winter, and again repeated the subject when I saw you in May, that I
should have occasion to go to the eastward about the middle of July; the obje.ct
of this letter is to notify you that after the i8th of July I shall be absent, and that
the duties of the executive will devolve, in pursuance of the constitution, on
you, as the lieutenant governor of the state, during my absence, which I expect
wall not be longer than about three months." Upon the notice, and the actual
absence of the governor from the state. Lieutenant Governor Hubbard entered
upon the discharge of the duties of the office of governor.
Lieutenant Governor Hubbard, on the 2d day of November, 1825, claim-
ing that he continued to be the governor, notwithstanding the return of Governor
Coles into the state, appointed and commissioned the relator, Ewing, as pay-
master general, which commission was presented to the secretary of state, with a
request that he countersign it, and affix the seal of the state to the commission,
which he refused to do.
The secretary of state showed for cause why the writ of mandamus should
not issue : "First. — Because Edward Coles was, on the day of presenting the
commission to the secretary, and had been from the 3d day of October, 1825,
and has ever since remained, in the administration of the office of governor of the
state of Illinois. Second. — ^That it does not appear from the records of his office,
that said office of paymaster has ever been filled by any previous appointment."
Justice Lockwood delivered the opinions of the court. The judge said : "It
was contended on the argument that Governor Coles by absenting himself from
this state had abdicated and forfeited the office of governor, and could not, on his
return into the state, resume its functions.
"But before the court can enter into this question it will be necessary for
26 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
them to enquire : First — Whether the relator has a right to have the commission
countersigned and sealed? and, second — If he has such a right, do the laws of
this state afford him the relief that he asks ? It appears from the answer filed by
the secretary of state, that the office of paymaster general had never been filled.
*The court concludes that the lieutenant governor, admitting him to be fully
clothed with all the functions of governor, had not the constitutional power to
fill the vacancy in the office of paymaster general."
In answer to the contention that it was the dutv of the secretarv of state to
countersign and to affix the seal to all commissions issued by the governor, the
court said : "By Section 4 of the act defining the duties of the secretary of state it
is enacted That all commissions required by law to be issued by the governor
shall be countersigned by the secretary of state.' In this section are to be found
the duties of the secretary. Had the legislature intended to require the secre-
tary to countersign every commission that the governor should present to him,
whether authorized by the law or the constitution, its phraseology would have
been that the secretary should countersign every commission presented to him by
the governor. The secretary is however only required to countersign those com-
missions required to be issued by law — must he not then look into the law to see
if the commission is required by law?"
The court said in the opinion : "A question of much importance here arises,
whether the incumbent of the office of governor can make an appointment in the
recess of the general assembly, when the vacancy did not occur since the ad-
journment of that body."
The answer to this question is only to be found in the true construction of
the eighth section of the fourth article of our constitution, which reads as follows :
"When any office, the right of whose appointment is by the constitution vested in
the general assembly or the goyernor and senate, shall during the recess die, or
his office by any means become vacant, the governor shall have power to fill such
vacancy by granting a commission, which shall expire at the end of the next
session of the general assembly." If any doubts existed as to the meaning of this
section, references might be had to the practice of the government, "had such
practice been acquired in, etc., the vacancy must have happened during the
recess." This view has been accepted as the proper construction of a nearly
corresponding section of the constitution of the United States.
The court did decide that the governor had no authority to issue the com-
mission to Ewing, appointed paymaster general, for the reason stated. That
the secretary of state might look into the constitution and the law, in order to
determine whether the commission was lawfully issued or not, and that the
commission in this instance was not lawfully issued, but did not decide the main
question, "whether Edward Coles or Adolphus F. Hubbard was the de facto
governor of Illinois."
It may be added that nearly all the governors of Illinois have absented them-
selves from the state at their pleasure, and while the lieutenant governor has
sometimes exercised the functions of the office of governor, he has ever since
the adoption of the constitution, with the exception mentioned, yielded to the re-
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS. 27
turning governor without objection. Judge Smith, associate justice, delivered a
separate opinion but concurred with the court in refusing to award the man-
damus.
It will be readily concluded by the professional reader that the status of the
negroes and mulattoes, who came or were brought into Illinois and held as
slaves, or indentured servants, which was a qualified servitude, excited much of
the attention of the people, the legislature of the territories, the constitutional
convention, and the courts.
There was much opposition to the ordinance of 1787, which prohibited the
introduction of slavery into the territory northwest of the river Ohio, and
efforts were made in influential quarters to repeal, or evade the operation of,
the ordinance. On the 17th of September, 1807, the territorial legislature of
Indiana, which then included Illinois, passed "an act concerning the introduc-
tion of negroes and mulattoes into this territory."
The first section of the act authorized the owners or possessors of slaves to
bring them into the territory. The second section authorizes the master to go
with the slave before the clerk, and agree with the slave for the term of years the
slave shall serve, and the clerk shall make a record of the contract.
It was a part of the same act, section thirteen, *That children bom in this
territory of a parent of color, owing service, or labor by indenture, according
to law, shall serve the master or mistress of such parent, the male until the age
of thirty, and the female until twenty-eight years of age." The territorial con-
vention of 1818 had, by the sixth article of the constitution, also confirmed in-
denture, except upon the impossible condition that such indenture shall be
executed by the servant while in a state of perfect freedom, on a bona fide con-
sideration. The whole article (sixth) looks to the support of a qualified system of
slavery, called by the name of "apprenticeship."
The case of Cornelius versus Cohen (Breese, 92) "was an action of replevin
brought in the circuit court of St. Clair county for the recovery of the possession
of Betsey, a negro girl. Justice Lockwood delivered the opinion of the court.
The facts of the case are that on the 6th day of October, 1804, a free negro woman
named Rachel, aged twenty-three, entered into a writing by which she bound
herself to serve the plaintiff fifteen years. It was admitted on the trial that
Rachel was the mother of Betsey, who was born in 1805. The court held that
Betsey could not be held to service under the act of 1807, because Rachel,
the mother, was at the date of the contract, October 6, 1804, free. Still the sub-
ject of the status of negroes and mulattoes returned in various forrns to plague
the courts.
In the case of Nance, a girl of color, versus Howard, the supreme court,
per Lockwood, justice, (Breese, 182), held that "registered servants are goods and
chattels and can be sold on execution."
The court referred to the territorial statute of 1807, section seven of which
recites: "And whereas doubts have arisen whether the term of service of
negroes and mulattoes bound in this territory may be sold on execution, on
this same day an act was passed subjecting 'bound servants,' with a variety of
28 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS,
personal property, to taxation, and by another act *the benefit of the contract of
service may be assigned by the master with the consent of the servant/ The
case was decided at the December term, 1828, and the court did not see the
obvious distinction between an assignment of the contract of service with the con-
sent of the servant, and a sale of the time of a servant under an execution open
to all bidders."
In the case of Fanny, a woman of color, versus Montgomery et al. (opinion
of the court by Justice Lockwood), which was an action of trespass to try the
plaintiff's right to freedom (Breese, 188), it was held that **when the defendant
in an action of trespass, assault and battery and false imprisonment, justifies,
under a certificate granted by a justice of the peace in pursuance of an act of con-
gress respecting fugitive slaves from labor, the plea must show that all the facts
existed at the time of granting the certificate contemplated by the act. The plea
should also state affirmatively to whom the certificate was given, whether to the
person claiming the fugitive, or his agent, and if the agent, his name."
In the case of Phoebe, a woman of color, versus Jay (Breese, 206), it was held
(opinion by Lockwood, justice), *The act of 1807, respecting the introduction of
negroes and mulattoes into the territory, is void, as being infringement to the
sixth article of the ordinance of 1787, but indentures executed under that law are
made valid by the third section of the sixth article of the constitution of this
state. A constitution can do what a legislature cannot, as it is the supreme, fixed
and permanent will of the people in their original, sovereign and unlimited
capacity, and in it are determined the condition, rights, and duties of every
individual of the community; from its decrees there can be no appeal, for it
emanates from the highest source of power. An act of the legislature is different,
and if it contravenes the constitution, no repetition of it can render it valid."
The court after some sophistical reasoning as to the effect of a repeal of the
ordinance of 1787, by common consent, and as to the effect of the statute of limi-
tation as it affects the burden of proof, concludes that the plea of the defendants
who claimed the services of the plaintiff was faulty and the judgment was
reversed, for defect in the plea. "It did not show whether the defendant claims
the plaintiff in his character as heir, or administrator. On the ground that the
plea is too uncertain as to the character in which the defendant claims the
service of plaintiffs, and upon the further ground that in neither capacity can
the defendant claim her services, the judgment should be reversed."
The court seems to have held : First, that if the defendant claimed that the
plaintiff owed him service as administrator, one had no right to insist that the
plaintiff "should attend to the ordinary business of him, the defendant, as his
authority was only to keep the custody of plaintiff until her time of service could
be sold."
It was a refinement which could only be justified by an anxiety to give effect
to the constitution, which forbids involuntary servitude in this state. It is w^ell
settled that an administrator may plead in replevin "property in himself"
generally.
The case of Edward Coles versus the county of Madison (Breese, 115), pre-
Ed WARDED. Bakbk,
Thomas Ford.
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS, 29
sents another illustration of the deep-seated prejudice against negroes which
existed in the popular mind in early times. Governor Coles, who took such a
conspicuous part in opposition to the introduction of slavery into Illinois, brought
into Madison county from Virginia a number of slaves, and after providing them
with homes, "set them at liberty," as was charged in the declaration, without giv-
ing bond, as was required by an act of the legislature of 1819.
A verdict was found against Coles at the September term (1824) of the
Madison circuit court, but no judgment was rendered upon the verdict until
September, 1825, the case having been continued until that time, pending a
motion for a new trial which was taken under advisement.
In January, 1825, the legislature passed an act releasing all penalty incurred
under the act of 1819, under which Coles was prosecuted. Coles pleaded this
act puis darrein continuance and renewed his motion for a new trial, but the
court (McRoberts, judge,) overruled the motion and rejected the plea. Chief
Justice Wilson delivered the opinion of the court, and the court held that *'the
legislature was competent to release the penalty provided by the act of 1819, after
suit brought and before judgment rendered." It held that the act releasing the
penalty was not an ex post facto law, or a law impairing the obligation of con-
tracts, and further held, that the act of the legislature might be pleaded puis
darrein continuance, in bar of the suit.
Another case of great interest-, one giving construction to the constitu-
tion of the state, was decided by the supreme court at the December term, 1839.
It was the case of Alexander P. Field versus the People, on the relation of John
A. McClemand (reported Second Scammon, 79). The case was argued by
eminent counsel for both parties. Cyrus Walker, Justin Butterfield, Levi Davis
and Mr. Field for himself, for the appellant; and J. B. Thomas, Jr., Stephen A.
Douglas, James Shields and John A. McClernand for himself, and Attorney
General Kitchell, for the appellees. It was an information in the nature of a quo
warranto filed by John A. McClernand against Alexander P. Field "to know by
what authority he holds and exercises the office of secretary of state of the state
of Illinois." The facts of the case in brief are that Field was legally appointed
secretary of state in 1829, and had continued to exercise the duties of said office
ever since. On the first Monday of August, 1838, Thomas Carlin was elected
governor of the state of Illinois, and on the ist day of April, 1839, by virtue of
his authority as governor, he appointed John A. McClernand secretary of state.
Wilson, chief justice, delivered the opinion of the court, and stated the
question to be : Whether Field or McClernand was entitled to the office of secre-
tary of state. The court held in substance: First, that under the constitution
of the state of Illinois the appointing power has not the power of removal from
office. Second, the governor has not the power at his will and pleasure to re-
move the secretary of state when he is once appointed ; the power of appointment
is suspended until a vacancy occurs. Third, when the constitution creates an
office, and leaves the tenure undefined and unlimited, the officer holds during
good behavior, and until the legislature by law limits the tenure to a term of years
or authorizes and confers upon some functionary of the government the power
30 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
to remove the officer at will or for good cause. This power the legislature has
an undoubted right to confer. Fourth, the office of secretary of state is created
by the constitution of the state of Illinois, without any limit to its duration; it
consequently remains so until the legislature provides one.
This was regarded at the time as a political decision, and Judge Smith de-
livered a dissenting opinion, which sustained the view of the governor. Field
and McClernand were active politicians, and the case produced great excite-
ment in political circles.
The writer of this came to Springfield in December, 1839, ^^on after the
opinions were delivered, and states the impression made upon his mind at the
time.
The legislature was then in session in Springfield, and the city was filled
with strangers, including most of the leading public men of the state. I here
saw, for the first time, Lincoln, Baker, Calhoun, Field, Browning and others
W'ho were the leaders of that day.
In the evening after my arrival in Springfield, I attended the public meeting
held in the Second Presbyterian meeting-house, which was then used by the
house of representatives, and listened to speeches from Alexander P. Field, John
Calhoun (then of Springfield), O. H. Browning and Stephen A. Douglas.
Field's speech was an eloquent and most bitter arraignment of Tneophilus W.
Smith, one of the judges of the supreme court. Judge Smith had held, in opposi-
tion to the other members of the court, that the secretary of state was subject to
removal by the governor. Field was secretary of state, and possessed a re-
markable capacity for invective, which he used unsparingly.
Calhoun defended the judge with great dignity and force. Browning took
sides with Field and delivered a most eloquent and attractive argument, and he
was followed by Douglas, with characteristic ability. Discussions of this char-
acter were kept up night after night, by Lincoln, McClernand and Isaac P.
Walker, then a member of the legislature from Vermillion county and afterward
a senator from Wisconsin.
**There were giants in those days." None of these great leaders, except
McClernand, are now living. Field died in New Orleans, Walker in Wisconsin,
Calhoun in Kansas, Brow^ning and Douglas are dead, and the circumstances of
Lincoln's tragic death are well known.
Governor Ford, in commenting upon this decision, says : "Alexander P.
Field was the old secretary ; he had been appointed by Governor Edwards ten
years before, and had been continued in office by both Reynolds and Duncan,
without any new appointment. He was a Whig, and Governor Carlin was a
Democrat ; and as the secretary of state is not only a public officer, but a sort of
confidential helper and adviser of the governor, Governor Carlin claimed the
right of selecting this officer himself, and from his own party. The governor
nominated to the senate, i\Ir. McClernand, of Gallatin county. The Whigs of the
senate, and some Democrats — enough to constitute a majority — decided that the
tenure of the office ought to be defined and limited by the legislature, but that
until they did so the secretary could not be removed and a new one appointed.
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS. 31
The governor and his friends contended that he had the power of removal
and appointment at all times, to be exercised at his discretion. The governor
made five or six nominations, all of which were rejected by the senate. After
the legislature adjourned the governor again appointed Mr. McClemand, who
demanded the office of Mr. Field and was refused. Mr. McClernand then sued
out his writ, to try his right to the office. The question was taken to the supreme
court, and was decided against him by Wilson and Lockwood, Judge Smith
dissenting. Judge Browne gave no opinion, on account of his relationship to Mr.
McClemand.
This, at the time, was supposed to be a great question ; the ablest counsel
of the state were employed and the decision of the judges is elaborated to such
a degree as to show their opinion of its consequence. The decision raised a great
flame, and the Democrats contended that the odious doctrine of life offices had
been established by it.
The case of Spraggins versus Houghton, which was before the court at the
June term, 1840, in which the right of aliens to vote after six months' residence
in the state was involved, produced still greater excitement than did the con-
troversy between Field and McClernand.
The constitution provided "that all free white male inhabitants over the age
of twenty-one years, who have resided in the state for six months shall be
entitled to vote at all general and special elections." The alien vote at the time
was estimated at ten thousand, "nine-tenths of which was Democratic." It was
believed that the Whig judges would decide with their party, and that belief led
to a reorganization of the supreme court. It is apparent from the opinion of the
court, delivered by Justice Smith, that the court believed it to be a fictitious case.
Judge Smith was, as said by Governor Ford, "an active, bustling, ambitious,
and turbulent member of the Democratic party."
The act of February 10, 1841, by which the judiciary was reorganized,
the circuit judges legislated out of office, and the number of the judges of the
supreme court increased to nine, was the direct result of the anticipated decision
in Spraggins versus Houghton.
It is too late now to speak in condemnation of the act of February 10, 1841,
for it brought into the public service such eminent judges as Thomas Ford,
Sidney Breese, Walter B. Scates, Samuel H. Treat and Stephen A. Douglas, who
were elected associate justices by the legislature on the 15th day of February,
1841.
In 1846, the writer attended the election in Macoupin county, where the
judges of election took a much more liberal view of the constitution, which re-
quired six months' residence in the state as a condition of the right of suffrage.
A voter, when the elections were held in August, had come into the state some
time in the month of April. The judges of election decided that as he had not
been in the state six months he could not vote, but one of the judges bethought
himself of an inquiry, "Whether he had had the chills or not?" He said he had,
"and would have another in the afternoon, and wanted to get home." The judge
said : "Let him vote ; having the chills is equal to six months' residence."
CHAPTER V.
THE SUPREME COURT— 1841.
IT MONG those added to the supreme court by the reorganizing act of
lY February lo, 1841, was Thomas Ford, who was afterward the governor
-* ^ of the state.
He was born in, or near. Uniontown, Pennsylvania, in 1800, and was brought
into Illinois about the year 1804, by his mother, who settled in Monroe county.
Governor Reynolds says (Pioneer History, p. 375): "Ford, being younger, had
a better opportunity than his half-brother, P'orquer, to obtain an education. He
might be considered as having received a good common-school education, for
the wilderness state of the country, forty years since, in Illinois. In his youth
his mind was developing itself so that he gave great promise of his future success ;
at school he was ardently attached to the science of mathematics. Daniel P.
Cook became acquainted with Ford, saw that he possessed a vigorous and
strong mind, and was his sincere and efficient patron ever after. Cook pro-
vided and made the arrangements for Ford to study law. Forquer, his half-
brother, considered Ford's education defective, and sent him to Lexington,
Kentucky, to improve it. He was compelled on many occasions while reading
law to stop and teach school for support.
"In 1829 Governor Edwards appointed him the prosecuting attorney for a
judicial district. In 1831 Governor Reynolds reappointed him prosecuting at-
torney. In 183s he was elected by the legislature a circuit judge, and in 1841 he
was elected an associate justice of the supreme court. In 1842 he was elected
by the people to be the governor of the state of Illinois."
Still following Governor Reynolds (Pioneer History, page 376) : "Governor
Ford possessed many of the high and noble traits of character that constitute an
eminent man. * * * The mind and character of Governor Ford qualified
him for a judge better than for any other station. He was frank, open and
firm on the bench, and at the same time learned and competent in the expo-
sition of the law. He was a good and sound lawyer, but not the advocate some
others were at the bar. His honesty and warm, friendly attachment to friends
when he was governor enabled the cunning and shrewd hangers-on at the seat of
government to mislead him at times. * * * With these talents he made a
good writer, and has written the History of Illinois, which is not yet published.
Those having the manuscript say the history will be valuable for its information
and add credit to its author."
After the close of his gubernatorial office he resided in Peoria and practiced
his profession. He died there November 2, 1850, sincerely regretted by the
public. There is no doubt but that the friends of Governor Ford made a mistake
32
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS. 33
in advising him to leave the bench and accept the office of governor. He was
eminently fitted for the judicial place, but totally unfit for the political office.
There.is not much in his history which enables one to determine his merits as a
judge. His History of Illinois, to which Governor Reynolds makes an allusion,
was written with the greatest frankness, and is no doubt accurate in its facts, but
bitter in its criticisms of public men.
Sidney Breese, the first reporter of the decisions of the supreme court of
Illinois, was born (so it is said) in Oneida county. New York, on the 15th day
of July, 1800. At eighteen years of age he was graduated at Union College,
in a class of sixty-four, among whom were Bishops Alonzo Potter and George W.
Doane, and United States Senators A. S. Porter and James A. Bayard.
He came to Illinois, and in December, 1818, reached Kaskaskia, where he
remained, on the invitation of Elias Kent Kane, in whose office he studied law.
He was admitted to the bar in 1820. He married Eliza, daughter of William
^lorrison, a merchant of Kaskaskia.
His volume of reports was published in November, 1831, and he was elected
by the legislature to be a circuit judge on the 19th day of January, 1835. He
remained upon the circuit bench until after his election to be one of the associate
justices of the supreme court, w^hich occurred on the 15th day of February, 1841,
under the act reorganizing the supreme court, which was finally passed over
the bill of the council of revision on the loth of February, 1841.
Judge John M. Scott, who writes appreciatively of Judge Breese (Illinois
History, page 329), tells the story of his life: "He was admitted to the bar
when he was only twenty years of age, and from that time, for a period of nearly
three score years, he w-as prominent in both the legal and political history of the
state. Writing his biography would be the history of the state during his
active life. * * * A few- of his cotemporaries are still living, and they
most like to remember him as be appeared to them when he w'as at his greatest
strength, after the full development of his physical and mental powers."
The writer remembers Sidney Breese as he appeared in 1834 addressing a
jury in Madison county, and was impressed by the clearness and precision of his
statement of the facts of the case on trial, and with the force of his argument
based upon the facts. He again met Judge Breese in January, 1840, when he
(the writer) appeared in the circuit court of Madison county and was assigned
by the court to the defense of one of the parties indicted, of which he has given
an account in the sketch of Governor John Reynolds.
He again met Judge Breese in Greenville, in Bond county, and at Vandalia,
in Fayette county, when the court assigned U. F. Linder and the writer to
defend a poor fellow who was indicted for chicken-stealing. Linder, on a motion
to quash the indictment which charged the value of the chickens to be fifty cents,
gave his free rendering to the maxim, De minimis non curat lex, as *The law
don't care for a few chickens." The judge held that the translation of the maxim
was a forced one, but, after all, Linder acquitted our client by a speech which
combined wit and fun and raillery of the prosecution and the prosecuting wit-
nesses. Usher F. Linder was the most remarkable man I have ever met.
3
34 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
He combined all the qualities of a great man and great lawyer, except plain,
common "horse sense." He lived, as he died, without any real friends, and
without any property. He was the author of the definition of a bigoted man, as
"one man having more sense than one man ought to have, and not enough for
two/'
Judge Scott says (Illinois History, page 337) : "Judge Breese was eminent
in the political as well as the judicial history of the state. It is not generally
understood, but it is a fact, that he had much more liking for politics than for
the law ; his political career was short, but it was brilliant, and abounded in re-
sults that come only from the highest statesmanship. It is more than probable
that if opportunity had offered itself to gratify his political aspirations he would
at any time have given up his judicial office for that to him more agreeable, —
the field of politics. His ambition led him to hope for high positions, even in
national politics, and nothing gave him more pleasure than to see his name
mentioned in the public press for a high office." "Know thyself" is one of the
wisest of all the proverbial maxims.
Judge Breese looked the judge while on the bench. He was industrious,
prompt, energetic, and patient; he knew the law, and applied it to the cases
before him. He was a profound judge, but lacked the elements of a successful
politician. His diction was stately and accurate, and his opinions, when read,
will be found to be energetic, forceful and expressed in the best words of the
English language.
He remained upon the bench of the supreme court until his election to
the senate, on the 19th day of December, 1842, when he resigned. He was de-
feated for re-election as senator by General James Shields, at the session of the
legislature held in 1848, and was returned to the bench at the election held in the
third grand division, on the 3d day of November, 1857, and remained upon the
bench until his death, which occurred June 27, 1878.
Judge Scott says : "No one did more to perfect our judicial system. He
came into the court when our jurisprudence was not yet matured into a perfect
system. It is difficult to estimate the character of Judge Sidney Breese. He
had the reputation of possessing extensive material relating to the history of
the state of Illinois and the Northwestern territory. The committee on the ju-
diciary in the constitutional convention of 1870 submitted to the then governor a
plan for the reorganization of the supreme court. It was that six judges should
be elected by the people in districts, and the chief justice be appointed by the
governor and confirmed by the senate. The committee submitted the scheme
to the governor ; he told them at once that if it was adopted Breese would be the
chief justice. The governor called upon Breese a few days afterward and told
him of the plan for the reorganization of the court, and also remarked 'My object
is to afford you leisure to use the materials you have toward the history of
Illinois and the Northwest.' Breese replied, 'While I am a judge, I will be
every inch a judge.' The scheme was abandoned at once."
Samuel Hubbel Treat was born in Otsego county. New York, on the 21st
day of June, 181 1. He was admitted to the bar of his native state, and came to
SAMUEL H. TREAT.
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS. 35
Illinois in 1834, settling in Springfield, where he resided until his death, which
occurred on the 27th day of March, 1887.
He was appointed to be a circuit judge (to fill a vacancy), on the 27th day of
May, 1839. by the governor, and was elected by the legislature January 31, 1840.
On the 13th day of February, 1841, he was elected by the legislature to be one
of the associate justices of the supreme court, which office he held until the 23d
of March, 1855, when he resigned, in order to accept the position of judge of the
district court of the United States for the southern district of Illinois, which last
mentioned place he held until his death, as before stated, March 27 , 1887.
The writer and Judge Allen, his successor, appeared before Judge Treat in
the last case he heard. Before the case was concluded his countenance indicated
that he was seriously ill. It was proposed by one of the counsel that, as the
Judge was manifestly suffering, the further hearing of the case be postponed.
He acceded to the proposition with manifest reluctance. He never appeared in
court again. He died a few days afterward. Judge Treat was an able lawyer,
and excelled in his appreciation of facts. It was said of him that he could be
depended upon to try issues of fact better than the most intelligent jury. He de-
voted himself exclusively to his judicial duties, neglected his private business,
which was found, after his death, to be in great confusion. He was a most rigid
Episcopalian, and it was said of him that he had never entered a church of any
other denomination, except upon public occasions when his presence was
necessary.
In i860, after the nomination of Mr. Lincoln for the presidency, a suit was
instituted by Hon. David J. Baker, the elder, against the faculty of Shurtleff
College. Mr. Lincoln appeared for the plaintiff, and the writer for the de-
fendants. A demurrer was interposed to the declaration. Judge Treat pro-
posed to Mr. Lincoln to take care of his side of the case ; the writer argued for
the defendants. Judge Treat sustained it, and the declaration was never
amended. This was the last case in which Mr. Lincoln ever appeared in court.
Judge Treat was honest, and prompt in his decisions, and gave general satis-
faction to the bar and to the public. His opinions were brief and clear. He
was one of the co-editors of Treat, Scates and Blackwell's Statutes, which work,
however, never attained much popularity.
Walter Bennett Scates, formerly chief justice of the state of Illinois, de-
parted this life at his home in Evanston, on the 26th of October, 1886, at the age
of seventy-nine years. Being admitted to the bar of the state in 1833, he became
attorney general on the i8th of January, 1836, and was circuit judge of the third
circuit on the 26th of December of that year, being at the time of his death the
oldest judge by date of commission. In February, 1841, he became one of the
supreme judges, which position he occupied until January 11, 1847, when he
resigned. He was a leading member of the constitutional convention of 1848,
and was again a supreme judge from July 4, 1853, until 1857, when he again
resigned. He was made chief justice in 1855, and continued to fill that most
high and responsible office until his retirement from the bench.
From a strict sense of duty and responsibility to his country, he served dur-
36 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
ing the war for the Union. In 1862 Judge Scates was commissioned major on
the staff of General John A. McClemand, and before the close of the war became
assistant adjutant general. When he was mustered out of the service, in 1866,
he was brevetted brigadier general of volunteers. He was tendered but declined
the position of governor of New Mexico to which President Lincoln would have
appointed him, and was collector of the port and depositary of moneys for
\^hicago from 1866 to 1869.
In 1857 Judge Scates was one of the three compilers of our statutes. In a
succeeding chapter, pertaining to compilation and revisions of the laws of the
state, certain reference is made to Judge Scates' efforts in the connection.
During the time when he was not engaged in the public service he was an active
practitioner at the bar. Few men of our state have been more intimately con-
nected with our politics and jurisprudence. No worker in those fields was more
laborious, faithful or painstaking ; nor did any of his honored colleagues achieve
greater respect among his fellows or more public appreciation than Judge
Scates.
Always honored by the people when he appealed to their suffrages, he filled
all public stations to which the popular vote called him with ability, credit and a
deep sense of responsibility, and in the ordinary criticism of his public acts, which
an aggressive and uncompromising nature naturally invoked, his ability, purity
of character and integrity of purpose were conceded as a matter of course. His
contemporary, Judge Treat, said : '*Judge Scates was as honest and con-
scientious a man as I have ever known." His decisions always have been and
still are extolled by good lawyers. They are entitled to greater than per-
functory praise: they are direct and trenchant, never attempting to evade the
responsibility of manfully meeting and deciding the matter at issue, however
disagreeable or difficult, and when authorities existed, sustained copiously there-
by. In laborious research, while on the bench, Judge Scates was excelled by no
judge in Illinois, as his decisions abundantly show ; while in the masterly vigor
of thought, and a broad comprehension of the entire case in hand and its neces-
sities, he had no superior among his contemporaries.
He was as plain and unassuming in the later and more polished era as in the
primitive days, and he was altogether unassimilated to the superficial methods of
modern times. He had no vulgar ambition for distinction, much less for display,
and no envy or jealousy of his fellows ; he had no craft, sagacity or policy in his
politics, and his achievements and posts of honor were the rewards of merit and
not of importunity. Judge Scates was a faithful type of the class of judges who
sat in the highest courts of New York, Georgia, Kentucky and other leading
states in the early days, and applied and adapted the common law of England to
our new political conditions. In his day there were not so many cases or au-
thorities as now, but the labors of the consultation-room, from a dearth of author-
ities, were more onerous, and logic was the main reliance of the review judge
then, as precedent is now.
After a laborious life of half a century, largely spent in the public service,
during which Illinois expanded from a feeble, indigent and sparsely settled com-
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS. 37
munity, to a populous, rich and powerful state, this honored servant of the
people laid down his burden as poor in worldly wealth as when he commenced
his career, but honored by the record and faithful performance of high public
trust. He was a grand old man, firm as a rock. He served his country in the
forum, as a judge, as a legislator, as a private soldier and as an officer in two
wars, commencing his military career as a musician. He performed every
duty firmly, ably and with an honest purpose. No power could drive him from
what he thought was right. Had he been influenced by wealth and power he
might have died worth millions instead of a few thousand dollars. The state
should not forget the services of such a man.
Stephen Arnold Douglas was elected associate justice of the supreme court
of Illinois on the ist day of March, 1841, and resigned on the 28th of June, 1843.
Mr. Douglas remained upon the bench of the supreme court so short a time that
he had no opportunity to win judicial distinction, but his opinions were expressed
in good language, and gave promise of future success as a judge.
He was born April 23, 181 3, at Brandon, Vermont. His father, who died
when Stephen was an infant of three months, was a physician. In youth
Stephen A. Douglas received the ordinary school education of his native state,
and was an apt and diHgent pupil. At fifteen, unable to gratify an ardent desire
to prepare for college, he apprenticed himself to a cabinet-maker. He after-
ward entered an academy at Brandon, and having in the meantime removed to
Canandaigua, New York, he resumed his academical course and commenced
the study of law\
At the age of twenty he started w^est to seek for a location, and came to the
village of Winchester, in Scott county, Illinois, in the fall of 1833, and was ad-
mitted to the bar by the supreme court, which sat at Vandalia. Within a year
after his admission to the bar he was elected, by the legislature, state's attorney
for the judicial district in which he resided and he removed to Jacksonville. In
1836 he w^as elected to the legislature from Morgan county. In 1837 he was
appointed by Mr. Van Buren register of the land office at Springfield. In 1838
he was nominated as a candidate for congress, the district then extending across
the state and including Sangamon, Cook, Adams and Jo Daviess counties, and
indeed the whole northern part of the state. It was during this canvass that the
writer became acquainted with Stephen A. Douglas and John T. Stuart, opposing
candidates for congress, under the following circumstances. I copy from my
memoirs :
"In Hancock county I met, for the first time, Stephen A. Douglas. One
night after Mr. Sands N. Breed (who w^as employed with me) and I had retired
(we occupied separate beds in the same room), the landlord, Mr. Swope, came
to our room, accompanied by two gentlemen, who were introduced to us as Mr.
Stuart and Mr. Douglas, opposing candidates for congress. The landlord
called us by name, and informed us that we would have to occupy the same bed.
Douglas then asked our politics, and Mr. Breed told him that he was a Whig,
and that I was a Democrat. Douglas replied, 'I will sleep with the Democrat,
and Stuart may sleep with the Whig.' The arrangement suited all parties. I
38 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
heard Douglas speak the next day and, though. not quite twenty-one years old,
voted for him on the first Monday in the August following. He had no more
devoted adherent than myself until we separated, in 1854, over the Nebraska bill."
The writer kept up his acquaintance with Mr. Douglas until December, 1839,
when he came to Springfield to obtain admission to the bar. I again copy from
my memoirs : **I met Mr. Douglas soon after reaching the city and told him
my business w^as to obtain a license to practice law. He, with that cheerful
kindness which always characterized him and made him so popular — particularly
with young men — made my application for admission, had himself and the late
J. Young Scammon appointed a committee to examine me touching my qualifica-
tions to practice law. He invited me to his room for examination, where I met
Mr. Scammon. The committee treated me with great kindness, and made a
favorable report. Mr. Douglas drew the license, made the motion for my ad-
mission, and the license was signed by two justices of the supreme court, Lock-
wood and Browne. I took the prescribed oath and signed the roll, and was
then a lawyer, lacking nothing but learning, experience, and clients. I had
money enough to pay my hotel bills before leaving Springfield, and I *took no
thought for the morrow.' "
I have said before, that Judge Douglas, both by his conduct on the circuit
and through the opinions of the supreme court written by him, evinced great
capacity, and he would, had he not devoted himself to politics, have made an
eminent judge. He was elected senator, on the 14th of December, 1846, on the
first ballot. He had already served parts of three terms in the house of repre-
sentatives.
Stuve and Davidson's History of Illinois, page 685, says of him : "With the
advent of this remarkable man, whom we do not hesitate to call great, into the
United States senate, Illinois took at once high rank in that august body, re-
dounding not only to her glory, but solid advantages such as no state received
before, or has since, at the hands of congress. We allude to the procuring of the
Illinois Central Railroad land grant, a herculean task, in which he received the
support of his colleague and the entire delegation in the lower house."
Douglas, though young in years, was directly acknowledged the peer of the
great statesmen, Webster, Clay and Calhoun, with whom he served in his first
term. It is exceedingly difficult for one who took part in the great contest be-
tween Douglas and Lincoln in 1858 to avoid giving his impressions of that great
struggle which took place between two members of the Illinois bar. They wxre
natural rivals, socially and politically, and it may be added professionally.
Abraham Lincoln was born in Hardin county, Kentucky, on the 12th of
February, i8og. In 181 6 the family settled in Spencer county, Indiana. Two
years later the mother died, and the father married a second time, and the son
worked in the neighborhood on farms, and in clearing away the dense forests.
He received the meagre education which the new country afforded, and his
boyhood had few advantages of culture. He said in one of his speeches, "I have
not a fine education ; I am not capable of entering into a disquisition on 'dia-
lectics / I believe you can."
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS, 39
Davidson and Stuve (History of Illinois, page 702) say: "His broad execu-
tive capacity, so suddenly developed under great trials constituting the sub-
limest events in our history, his fidelity to the right, and his courage and firmness
which grew out of that, it may here be said, were not without astonishment to
those who knew him best in Illinois and who imagined that they constituted all
that was to be learned of his character. Possibly it was so to himself. The
great lesson of man, 'Know thyself,' is ever least understood."
John Dean Caton was born in Monroe, Orange county. New York, March
19, 1812. His father was three times married and he was one of the four chil-
dren of the third marriage. Shortly after the birth of Judge Caton his mother
removed to Oneida county. New York, and there, at the age of nine years, he
began work as a farm hand, continuing his labors through the summer months,
while in the winter season he attended the district school of the neighborhood.
At the age of sixteen he became a student in the academy at Utica, and upon his
return home a year later began teaching school. He possessed a laudable ambi-
tion to improve his condition and make the most of his opportunities in life,
and during the era of school-teaching also took up the study of law and of. civil
engineering. The former, however, proved more attractive, and he later read
under the instruction of Beardsley & Matterson, prominent attorneys of Utica.
He afterward continued his studies in the office of Wheeler & Barnes, of Rome,
and with James H. Collins, of Vernon. In 1883, attracted by the almost limit-
less opportunities of the west. Judge Caton started for Michigan, but while travel-
ing he learned of the little town of Chicago, which as yet had no member of the
bar. He at length arrived at White Pigeon, Michigan, but he had determined to
go to the future metropolis of the west, and, on a raft, made his way to St.
Joseph, whence he came on the vessel, Ariadne, to Chicago, then a town of only
three hundred inhabitants. On the second day he secured a boarding place in a
log house just north of Lake street and east of Dearborn street, where he found
and shook hands with Giles Spring, a lawyer who had reached Chicago just
five days previously. The two became fast friends, though afterward pitted
against each other in many cases.
Mr. Caton looked over the field and at length concluded that perhaps busi-
ness might be better on the north side of the river. Accordingly he moved to
the office of Colonel R. I. Hamilton, a log building, partly occupied by the latter's
family. Both the young lawyers were looking for a good place in which to
begin business, but neither opened an office until the following December, when
Dr. John T. Temple erected a small balloon building on South Water street,
near Franklin. The two young lawyers opened an office together with the agree-
ment that when one had a client the other should leave the room. Thus was
established the first law office in Chicago. Mr. Caton prosecuted on the first
criminal case ever tried in Cook county. The justice of the peace wrote out the
warrant for arrest on his carpenter bench and then Mr. Caton proceeded to the
log cabinet-shop of James W. Reed, who was both the only cabinet-maker and
the only constable in the town. Then began the search for the accused man, who
had stolen forty-six dollars. He was at length found, taken before the justice,
40 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
and Mr. Caton, who acted also in the capacity of detective, discovered the money
in the man's stocking. The culprit was defended by Mr. Spring, the only other
lawyer in Chicago, but Mr. Caton secured a conviction and received ten dollars
of the recovered money as his fee, which was just sufficient to pay his board
bill. He, however, spoke of it as the greatest fee he ever received.
On the 1 2th of July, 1834, when twenty-two years of age, he was elected a
justice of the peace, the precinct taking in the whole of Cook county, and out of
two hundred and twenty-nine votes he received one hundred and eighty-two.
He was connected with the first murder case ever tried in Cook county, but just
before the trial came off he was taken ill, and his partner, Mr. Collins, who had
come to the city six months after Mr. Caton, followed out the plan which he had
mapped out and won the case, acquitting the client. In the spring of 1835 the
Judge determined to extend his practice to Putnam county, the oldest settled
in the northeastern part of the state, and started on horseback. There he soon
succeeded in establishing a liberal clientage and from that time on his success
w^as assured. He applied himself untiringly to any work that he began, and this
application, combined with his superior legal knowledge, won him a position as
one of the most eminent members of the bar of Cook county — a reputation which
he maintained for many years thereafter.
Judge Caton was married in July, 1835, to Miss Laura Adelaide, daughter
of Jacob Sherill, of New Hartford, Oneida county. New York. She was his
faithful companion and helpmeet for more than half a century, sharing with him
in the hopes and disappointments in his earlier years, the prosperity and successes
of his later life. She passed away in 1892, and was laid to rest in the cemetery at
Ottawa, Illinois. In the family were three children, but Mrs. Charles E. Towne
died in 1891. The son, Arthur Caton, is a leading citizen of Chicago, and the
daughter is Mrs. Norman Williams.
Judge Caton had been in the west but a short time before he had left an
impress of his energetic, sturdy young character on this section of the country.
He was a member of the first political convention ever held in Illinois. It met
on the 4th of March, 1834, at Ottawa, Dr. David Walker serving as president,
while Mr. Caton acted as secretary. In 1836 he formed a law^ partnership with
N. B. Judd, and the same year built the first dwelling within the school section
on the west side of the southeast corner of Harrison and Clinton streets. About
this time there was an endeavor made to secure a charter for the thriving little
western city, and the Judge was active in the movement. The following year,
when the country became involved in a financial panic, he, too, lost much of his
real estate, and becoming broken down in health he removed, in 1838, to a farm
near Plainfield that he had purchased some years before, and to which he took
his family in 1 849.
Judicial honors were early in life conferred upon Mr. Caton. When not yet
thirty years of age Governor Carlin appointed him judge of the supreme court,
and not long afterward he was appointed by Governor Ford to fill another
vacancy. When the supreme court was reorganized under the new constitu-
tion he was chosen as one of the three judges of that court, his associates being
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS, 41
Judges Treat and Trumbull. For twenty-one years he filled that responsible
position, and during six months of the time presided as chief justice. On the
bench his decisions were ever fair and just. He possessed a judicial tempera-
ment of peculiar adaptability and acquired a broad and comprehensive grasp of
law. Though devoted to his chosen profession he by no means confined his en-
ergies to that one calling. He was the first citizen of Illinois to cross the state
with a telegraph line. With a sagacity seldom equaled, he seemed to realize the
importance of Professor Morse's invention, and organized and became chief
proprietor of the Illinois & Mississippi Telegraph Company. The success of the
telegraph made him extremely wealthy. At one time he controlled all the tele-
graph lines in Illinois, but he leased them to the Western Union Telegraph Com-
pany, and thereafter enjoyed an enormous income from these leased lines. Judge
Caton also became interested in granite street-paving, was a stockholder in a
glass factory in Ottawa, and was equally successful as a farmer and author.
On his retirement from the bench Judge Caton went to his beautiful farm
at Ottawa, Illinois, and devoted much of his time to agricultural pursuits, in the
midst of a fine park, where deer and wild fawn roam at will under magnificent
forest trees. He also had a substantial and tasteful residence in Chicago, located
at 1900 Calumet avenue. He was a deep student of natural history and a lover
of nature. A man of broad general information and ripe scholarship, he was
a fluent and forcible speaker and writer. He traveled extensively in Europe and
was familiar with every part of America. He made a close and comparative
study of the social and economic conditions of the country, and published the
results of his careful investigation in a peculiarly lucid and graceful style. He has
been the author of many able, entertaining and instructive articles, and among
his better known works are "The Unsetting Sun — A Summer in Norway," "The
Antelope and Deer of America" and "Early Bench and Bar of Illinois."
He held membership with the Second Presbyterian church of the city and
gave his support to all interests that were calculated to uplift humanity. He was
especially charitable and benevolent, and the needy never applied to him for aid
in vain. In social life he was a true friend, and it is said that no man ever prac-
ticed before the bar of Illinois or sat upon its bench that was more highly
respected or admired as a lawyer or citizen. He died July 30, 1895, at the age
of eighty-three years.
James Semple was born in Green county, Kentucky, January 5, 1798, his
parents being John W. and Lucy Semple, who were natives of Virginia. He
was the eldest of nine children. He received a fair education in the schools of
Greensburg, Kentucky, which was supplemented by a legal course in Louisville.
Before this, however, he had learned the business of tanner and currier,
a business which proved unsuited to his taste. He came to this state in 18 18
and first settled in Edwardsville, where he remained for a short time and then
returned to Kentucky. In the year 1820 he moved to Chariton, Missouri, and,
having military tastes, was elected colonel of the Missouri militia.
In December, 1824, he was licensed to practice law in the state of Missouri,
and in 1828 he returned to Edwardsville, where he continued the practice of his
42 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
profession with success. He was diligent and careful, and, being a man of mag-
nificent j)resence and fine manners, he rose rapidly to distinction. Upon the
breaking out of the Black Hawk war he was commissioned, and held a position
on the staff of General Whiteside.
He represented Madison county in the state legislature and w^as twice
elected speaker of the house. On the 30th of January, 1833, he w^as elected at-
torney general of the state, and continued to hold that office until he was suc-
ceeded by the Hon. Ninian W. Edwards, on September 30, 1834. In 1837 he
was appointed, by President Van Buren, minister to Bogota. The mission was
accepted, and General Semple took passage for New Granada in January, 1838.
He held that position until 1842, w^hen he was recalled. He returned to Ed-
wardsville and the following year w^as appointed judge of the supreme court of the
state, which position he resigned after a few months' occupancy, to accept a seat
in the United States senate, as successor to Hon. Samuel McRoberts, under an
appointment by Governor Ford, and was afterward elected by the legislature to
fill the unexpired term of his predecessor. After the expiration of his term in the
senate he returned to his home in Edwardsville.
The writer became acquainted with General Semple in the spring of 1832.
In this connection I copy an extract from my own memoirs :
"Before I came to Illinois my father had made the acquaintance of General
James Semple, \Vho was a leading lawyer and politician, and of magnificent pres-
ence and proportions. He was amiable and kind to me, and in the spring of 1832,
when about to start north to join the command to which he was attached, he
oflFered to furnish me a horse and such equipments as I would need and to
take me with him on the campaign.
"I was then fifteen years of age, and was delighted with the offer, which I
accepted, subject to the approval of my father. I did not doubt that he would
consent, and hastened home to report to him my opportunity, but he refused to
allow me to go. It was my first great disappointment, but I bore it in silence
when in my father's presence, for he held with Solomon on the use of the rod in
family government. I did not go to the Black Hawk war, but I cherished very
kind and respectful feelings for General Semple as long as he lived."
General Semple died on December 20, 1866. It is difficult to predicate as to
the judicial merits of Judge Semple, as he remained upon the bench but for a
short time. He was bold, outspoken and frank ; as a politician he was fearless,
never hesitating to commit himself to any line of policy which his judgment ap-
proved. He was prompt in his decisions, assumed all the responsibilities of his
place, and was popular with the bar and the public.
Richard M. Young was a Kentuckian by birth, but came to Illinois at a very
early period and took up his abode in Jonesboro, Union county. He was ad-
mitted to the bar September 28, 181 7. He represented Union county in the
legislature in 1820-1. He was elected a judge of the third circuit, but on the
formation of the fifth circuit, which comprised all of the state north of the Illinois
river, he was assigned to that circuit. After he was elected by the legislature
judge of the fifth circuit he removed from Jonesboro to Quincy, so as to be within
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS. 43
his circuit. The amount of law business in the various counties was not great,
but the distance between the county-seats and the want of modern conveniences
of travel were such that at certain seasons of the year it was arduous business,
although the tedium of the journey w^as often relieved by jovial companions,
and during a portion of the year must, in the heyday of youth, have been rather
a delightful exercise than otherwise.
Judge Young held the earliest terms of the circuit court in Chicago and in
all of the northern counties of the state. He had the reputation of being a
shrewd and judicious counselor and was associated with Judges Breese and Ford
in the defense of Theophilus W. Smith, upon his impeachment before the senate
in 1832-3. While a member of the United States senate Judge Young became
greatly interested in upholding the credit of the state, which was at that time
seriously threatened, and in a speech in that body, on February i, 1841, he said:
"The march of Illinois is forward, and if her legislative guardians at home shall
promptly discharge their duty in the preservation of her credit at home and
abroad, who can not foretell that her destiny is no less than that of the Empire
state r
In 1839, in company with ex-Governor Reynolds, he made a visit to Europe
in order to effect the sale of bonds to carry on the public improvements of the
state, but was not successful, and failing of a re-election to the senate, he was
chosen an associate justice of the supreme court January 14, 1843, which office
he held until January 25, 1847, when he resigned and was appointed commis-
sioner of the general land office at Washington, to succeed General Shields. In
1850-1 h€ was clerk of the house of representatives at Washington. His clos-
ing years were spent in an asylum for maniacs in Washington, and he died
universally pitied and regretted.
He was a tall, fine-looking man, and was one of those persons who would
attract the attention of the stranger at once by his gentle and courteous man-
ners ^and dignified bearing. He did not possess great executive pow-er and
did not dispatch business rapidly, but everything which he did he did well and
was very careful to avoid mistakes.
John M. Robinson, who became an associate justice of the supreme court
on the 14th of January, 1843, did not long survive to exercise the duties of
his important office, his death occurring at Ottawa, the seat of the court over
which he presided, on the 27th of the April following. He was born in Scott
county, Kentucky, in 1794, and emigrated to Illinois about 1818, taking up his
residence in Carmi, White county, where he entered upon the practice of the
law. Being well known as a thorough lawyer, he was appointed by the gov-
ernor as prosecuting attorney for his district. It may be stated in passing that
another record is to the effect that Mr. Robinson came to IlHnois as a child,
being reared and educated here. He was a brother of James F. Robinson, at
one time governor of Kentucky. In 1831 he was elected by the state legis-
lature as United States senator, to fill the unexpired term of John McLean,
deceased, his opponent being D. J. Baker, the governor's choice. In 1834
Judge Robinson was re-elected for a full term, which expired March 3, 1841.
44 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
After his death his remains were taken to Carmi for interment. He was
a man of ability and left his impress upon the history of the state. In 1829
he married Mary P. D. RatcliflF, daughter of James Ratcliff, a pioneer and
eminent citizen of White county, and they became the parents of two children.
His son, James S., became a lawyer and was at one time prosecuting attorney
of White county, his death occurring in 1859.
Jesse B. Thomas, Jr., was the second son of Richard Symmes Thomas and
Frances (Pattie) Thomas, and was born at Lebanon, Ohio, July 31, 1806. He
was educated at Transylvania University and practiced law for a number of years
at Springfield, Illinois, removing in 1845 to Chicago, where he afterward re-
sided. He was judge of the supreme court and did circuit court duty, and pre-
sided at the trial of Joseph Smith, the founder of Mormonism, at the time of
Smith's assassination. He was married February 18, 1830, at Edwardsville.
Illinois, to Adeline Clarissa, daughter of Theophilus W. Smith, and a native
of New York city. She was bom May 13, 181 2, and died in Chicago, Decem-
ber 14, 1866.
Jesse B. Thomas, Jr., remained in Illinois and worked his way up to prom-
inence by degrees, for the first notice that we have of him is his election as
secretary of the senate of the seventh general assembly, which met December
6, 1830. He was also elected secretary of the senate of the eighth general
assembly, which convened December 3, 1832. He was a member of the house
of the ninth general assembly, which convened December i. 1834. He must
have become prominent as a lawyer at an early period, for we find that he was
selected as one of the new judges which were provided for by the act of
January 7, 1835, when five new judges were added to the supreme court, mak-
ing that court consist of nine judges, and compelling them to do circuit duty.
Jesse Burgess Thomas, Jr., as the record reads, was commissioned July 30.
1837, and resigned in 1839, but it appears that his services as a judge were
in demand and that he was appointed a justice of the supreme court by the
governor, August 6, 1843, to fill the vacancy occasioned by the resignation
of Stephen A. Douglas. His term expired December 4, 1848. He was then
elected by the general assembly, and on the 27th of January, 1847, w^as elected
in place of Richard M. Young. He held the terms of the circuit court in Cook
county in 1848-9, but resigned to go into business wnth Patrick Ballingall, a
criminal lawyer of considerable local repute, practicing until his death, which
occurred February 2, 1850.
James Shields became a justice of the Illinois supreme court on the i6th of
August, 1843. He was born in Dungannon, county Tyrone, Ireland, in 1810.
and his death occurred in Ottumwa, Iowa, June i, 1879. He emigrated to the
United States in 1826. studied law and began the practice of his profession at
Kaskaskia, Illinois, in 1832. While he attained higher distinction in connection
with his valiant military service in the war with Mexico and that of the Re-
bellion, he gained for himself a prominent place in connection with the bar
of Illinios and in public life. He was sent to the legislature in 1836, was elected
state auditor in 1839, ^^^ ^^'^s appointed a judge of the supreme court in 1843,
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS, 45
as has already been stated. In 1845 he was made commissioner of the general
land office.
When the war with Mexico was instituted Judge Shields was appointed
a brigadier-general, his commission dating July i, 1846, and was assigned to
the command of the Illinois contingent. He served under General Zachary
Taylor on the Rio Grande, under General John E. Wool in Chihuahua, and
through General Winfield Scott's campaign. At Cerro Gordo he gained the
brevet of major-general and was shot through the lung. After his recovery
he took part in the operations in the valley of Mexico, commanding a brigade
composed of marines and of New York and South Carolina volunteers, and at
Chapultepec he was again severely wounded. He was mustered out on the
20th of July, 1848, and in the same year received the appointment of governor
of Oregon territory. This office he resigned on being elected United States
senator from Illinois, as a Democrat, and he served in the senate from Decem-
ber 3, 1849, "^til March 3, 1855.
After the expiration of his term he removed to Minnesota, and when the
state government was organized he returned to the United States senate as
one of the representatives of the new commonwealth, taking his seat May 12,
1858, and serving until March 3, 1859. At the end of his term he settled in
California, and at the beginning of hostilities in 1861 was in Mexico, where he
was engaged in superintending a mine. Hastening to Washington, he was
appointed a brigadier-general of volunteers on the 19th of August. He was
assigned to the command of General Frederick W. Lander's brigade after the
latter's death, and on March 23, 1862, at the head of a division of General
Nathaniel P. Banks' army, in the Shenandoah valley, he opened the second
campaign with the victory at Winchester, Virginia, after receiving a severe
wound in the preparatory movements on the preceding day. He was in com-
mand at Port Republic on the 9th of June, and was defeated by General Thomas
J. Jackson.
Resigning his commission on March 28, 1863, he settled in California, but
soon removed to CarroUton, Missouri, where he resumed the practice of law.
He served as a railroad commissioner, and was a member of the legislature in
1874 and 1879, ^" which latter year his death occurred.
Norman H. Purple was born in Otsego county. New York, on the 29th
day of March, 1803. He commenced the study of the law with Judge N. B.
Eldred, in Wayne county, Pennsylvania, but completed his reading, was ad-
mitted to the bar, and commenced practice in Tioga county, in the same state,
in the autumn of 1830, where on the 3d day of January, 1831, he was married
to Ann Eliza, daughter of the Hon. Ira Kilburn of that county.
In July, 1837, he removed to Illinois and settled at Peoria, where he at
once entered into an extensive and successful practice of his profession. From
1840 to 1842 he held the office of state's attorney of the ninth judicial district,
composed of the counties of Peoria, Kendall, Kane, De Kalb, Ogle, Bureau,
Stark, Marshall, Putnam and La Salle.
On the 8th day of August, 1845, he was appointed by Governor Ford one
46 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
of the judges of the supreme court. On December 19, 1846, he was elected
to the same office by the general assembly and commissioned on the 21st day
of the same month. The fifth circuit, to which he was assigned, was com-
posed of the counties of Fulton, Schuyler, Brown, Hancock, McDonough, Hen-
derson, Warren, Knox and Adams, to which the county of Pike was added by
the act of February 5, 1847. Upon his elevation to the bench, Judge Purple
removed to Quincy, where he resided, discharging the duties of his judicial
position, until the office was changed by the new constitution, which went
into effect on the first Monday in December, 1848. His associates upon the
supreme bench were William Wilson, Samuel D. Lockwood, Thomas C. Browne,
Walter B. Scates, Samuel H. Treat, John Dean Caton, Richard M. Young,
Gustavus P. Koerner, William A. Denning and Jesse B. Thomas. Others of
his contemporaries at the bar were Lyman Trumbull, Ebenezer Peck, Orville
H. Browning, Thomas Ford, Julius Manning, Archibald Williams, David Davis,
Stephen A. Douglas, John T. Stuart, Benjamin S. Edwards and Abraham Lin-
coln.
During his residence in Peoria he had as copartners in the practice of the
law, at different times, Halsey O. Merriman, George T. Metcalf, Ezra G. Sanger,
Lorin G. Pratt and Alexander McCoy ; the last named being his partner at the
time of his death.
In 1849, Judge Purple edited and published a compilation of the Real
Estate Statutes of Illinois, embracing all the real-estate statutes from the time
of the organization of the Northwestern territory to the time of its publica-
tion,— a work of inestimable value to the profession in those days. In 1856
he published a compilation of all tlie acts of the legislature of a general nature
in force at that time, with references to decisions of the supreme court and to
former statutes upon the same subject. This work is known as Purple's Statutes
and continues to be recognized as standard authority until the present time.
Judge Purple died at the Sherman House, in the city of Chicago, on the 9th
day of August, 1863. On the nth day of the same month, a meeting of the
members of the bar was held in the United States courtroom to pay a tribute
of respect to his memory. At that meeting Hon. Lyman Trumbull presided,
and William H. Bradley, clerk of the United States courts, acted as secretary.
A committee consisting of Messrs. Emery A. Storrs, H. F. Waite, E. W. Evans
and Henry G. Miller reported a series of resolutions, from which the following
extracts are made :
Resolved, That as a citizen he was everywhere known and respected as possessing the
highest integrity and patriotism; as a judge he added honor to the ermine and dignity
to the bench; as a lawyer we can pay him no higher tribute than to say he was by all
regarded as the leader of the bar of this state.
Resolved, That he leaves behind him a judicial and professional character which
must ever remain a more lasting and eloquent tribute to his memory than any other and
which will ever stimulate the bench and the bar to emulate the virtues which so eminently
distinguished him.
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS. 47
Gustavus Koerner. — No compendium such as the province of this work
defines in its essential limitations will serve to oflfer fit memorial to the life and
accomplishments of the honored subject of this sketch,— a man remarkable in
the breadth of his wisdom, in his indomitable perseverance, his strong individu-
ality; and yet one whose entire life has not one esoteric phase, being as an
open scroll, inviting the closest scrutiny. True, his were "massive deeds and
great" in one sense, and yet his entire accomplishment but represented the
result of the fit utilization of the innate talent which was his, and the directing
of his efforts along those lines where mature judgment and rare discrimination
lead the way. There was in Judge Koerner a weight of character, a native
sagacity, a far-seeing judgment and a fidelity of purpose that commanded the
respect of all. A man of indefatigable enterprise and fertility of resource, he
carved his name deeply on the records of Illinois jurisprudence and on the
roll of the nation's able legists. When the chief justices of the state assembled
in Mount Vernon for the May term of court in 1896, the chief justice announced,
"Court is convened for the purpose of receiving resolutions and hearing such
remarks as may be made by the bar upon the death of Judge Koerner, formerly
one of the justices of this court;" and the publishers of this volume feel that
they can best present an account of his life work by quoting freely from the
speeches made on that occasion by men who were associated with him in pro-
fessional and public life, who were familiar with his splendid accomplishments,
who admired him for his ability and his virtues, and who now cherish his mem-
ory as one who made the world better by his having lived.
"Gustavus Koerner, our departed professional brother, was born November
20, 1809, at Frankfort-on-the-Main, a free city of Germany, and died at Belle-
ville, Illinois, April 9, 1896." Thus began Judge James M. Dill, who continued
as follows : "His father, Bernard Koerner, was a public-spirited citizen, a mem-
ber of the legislative council of that city, and by occupation a publisher. Young
Koerner was a student at Heidelberg in 1832, when the public mind of Ger-
many was stirred and agitated by sympathy with the revolution of 1830, which
dethroned Charles X, and made Louis Philippe his successor as king of France
— ^just as Germany, eighteen years afterward, in 1848, was again stimulated to
political reform by a revolution which paved the way to the present French
republic. The former revolution made Judge Koerner, with many of his as-
sociates, an exile from his native land and a citizen of America. While a
student, and but little past his twenty-first year, he became a member of a
secret political society called the 'Burschenschaft,' composed largely of uni-
versity students, and in the outbreak of this society on the 3d of April, 1833, in
Frankfort, he was wounded. This attempt at revolution was vigorously sup-
pressed by overwhelming military power, and our hero sought, and after many
vicissitudes found, safety in the land whereof Byron writes, 'One freeman more,
America, to thee.' In the same year he settled in St. Clair county, where he
lived for -a period of sixty-three years, — ^nearly all the time in Belleville."
Speaking of his emigration to America, Frank A. McConaughy said : "Of
all those who have sought our shores since the foundation of our republic,
48 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
Koerner belonged to a class who have contributed most toward the advance-
ment and perpetuation of our free institutions. Thrown off their own shores
by revolutionary upheaval brought on by their struggles for liberty, they came
unimpelled by a single sordid hope or desire for pecuniary betterment of their
fortune's estate, but a genuine love of freedom. They gathered the scattered
remnants of their fortunes — their cherished Penates — and came to us, sacrificing
friends, family, .home, their social positions and the yearnings of their ambition.
Like the patriot and poet who bore Koerner's name a score of years before, his
restless sword ever irresistibly left its scabbard at freedom's every call, — there,
in the land of his nativity, and here in the land of his adoption."
Judge Koerner's business relations connected him prominently with the
bar of the state. He had won the degree of LL. D. from the historic University
of Heidelberg, and after taking a diploma from the Lexington Law School,
he entered upon the practice of his profession, — first in partnership with the
late Adam \V. Snyder, and afterward with the late James Shields, and con-
tinued this practice in conjunction with his son, Gustavus A. Koerner, almost
down to his very last day. Said Marshall W. Weir : "He brought to the prac-
tice of his profession a mind thoroughly trained in the broad, underlying prin-
ciples of law. He was more than a lawyer. He had attained the lofty con-
ceptions of law had by the old Roman lawyers. They looked upon law as a
branch of ethics whose foundations lay in ripe reason and the unalterable feel-
ings of human nature. They believed it was as Cicero had portrayed it, — not
a thing thought out by the ingenuity of man. not a decree of the people, but an
eternal entity, coeval in its origin and harmonizing in its operations with the
divine mind ; that it was the recorded morality of a nation, — a rule of social
duty not less than that of civil conduct ; that it was the sacred embodiment of the
public will and understanding; the unanimous assent of a great people to the
principles of a refined equity and enlarged benevolence, reduced to practice in
the daily concerns of life with the precision, consistency and uniformity of an
exact science. He did not relax his studies on being admitted to the bar.
He was eminently conspicuous for his legal ability, and for sixty-three years
was an active practitioner in the courts of Illinois, being at the time of his
death the oldest practicing lawyer of the state. His legal lore covered every
department of the science of jurisprudence, and he won distinction at the bar
among men of national reputation, including Lincoln, Douglas, Trumbull,
Shields, Breese and Palmer. Those who practiced with him w^ell knew and
appreciated the subtlety and profundity of his intellect, its logical compactness
and the learning which illustrated his discourses. Ten years after the admis-
sion of Gustavus Koerner to the bar. on April 2, 1845, ^^ was appointed bv the
governor of the state a justice of the supreme court, in place of Justice Shields,
who had resigned, and on December 19, 1845, ^e was elected by the general
assembly to fill the same office. He retired from the bench in September, 1848.
upon the reorganization of the judiciary of the state under the new constitu-
tion that was adopted by the people in that year. Thus he was a justice 'of this
court for a period of about three years and a half. The opinions that he wrote in-
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS. 49
dicate that he was an educated lawyer and an able and just judge. The state was
then in its infancy; the courts had established but few precedents; the ques-
tions that arose were largely questions of first impression, and the labors of the
justices were both difficult and responsible; and it may be said of Justice
Koemer that he well performed the work of establishing precedents for his suc-
cessors."
Mr. Dill, in speaking of this period of his life, said : "Few persons outside
of the legal profession have any adequate conception of the labors imposed upon
a minister of justice. So vast, so varied, so complex are the affairs of a civil-
ized community, that he who sits as a final arbiter of the law must necessarily
assume responsibilities of the greatest character. Uprightness of character,
purity of motive, breadth and depth of culture, a complete comprehension of
underlying principles, and, withal, a patient, painstaking industry and a thor-
ough mastery of details, are essential requisites and qualities which must be
possessed by the judge of the court of last resort. The sources of the law
are numerous, — civil, common, ecclesiastical and statutory, — forming, when
properly understood, a harmonious whole. Legislators, composed mainly of
raw recruits from the people who have devoted comparatively little time to the
study of statecraft, find it an easy matter to make and unmake the law. Abstract
theories and propositions are easily stated. It is much easier to prescribe than
to take, easier to cut out than to fit, easier to hew the timber than to frame
it together. The temple of justice is a structure of manifold proportions and
apartments, but of exquisite beauty and symmetry, — the growth and produc-
tion of ages, — built upon the solid masonry of wisdom and experience. New
material cannot be put as patchwork into the edifice. It must be labored into
proper shape, so as not to mar the beauty of the structure. This labor must
be performed by courts of last resort. It is, indeed, a herculean task. He
who devotes his life to this great labor and does his work with the skill and
ability of a master has won his claim to the gratitude of men. Other callings
may present greater attractions and open broader avenues of fame. The leaders
of armies, the possessors of the divine gift of eloquence, politicians and men of
genius in literature may attract a larger share of popular applause, but cer-
tainly none do more for the real cause of humanity than the hard-working, pure-
minded jud^e."
While a justice of the Illinois supreme court, then composed of nine jus-
tices, who held, by assignment, the circuit courts after the old English system of
nisi prius. Judge Koerner held the circuit court at Belleville. Before him came
the slave case of Harry Beard against Vital Jarrot, which involved the question
whether Illinois was a slave state. The jury decided by their verdict that the
plaintiff was a slave, as did two subsequent juries, — verdicts inspired by the
same pro-slavery prejudices which ten years afterward dictated at Washington
the Dred Scott decision. The first of these iniquitous verdicts Judge Koerner
promptly set aside, and in doing so he displayed, in spite of popular prejudice,
a manly independence and fearlessness rising to heroism. He broke with his
party on the question of slavery, and became a most efficient supporter of Lin-
so THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
coin and the war. He may be called the creator of the gallant Forty-third
Regiment, which did such splendid service in the field. He served for a time
on the staff of General Fremont and did a work there the importance of which
was known and recognized only by his immediate associates. In 1842 he was
elected to the legislature of Illinois, where he first attracted the attention of
Abraham Lincoln. When the latter became president of the United States he
paid tribute to the ability of Judge Koerner by appointing him minister to
Spain, a position which he filled with marked ability and to the full satisfaction
of both Seward and the president. As lieutenant governor from 1852 to 1856,
he presided over the deliberations of the state senate. July i, 1871, he was
appointed, by Governor Palmer, a member of the railway and warehouse com-
mission, and he was chosen its chairman, resigning at the expiration of two
years. He interested himself in the Soldiers' Orphans* Home, at Normal,
IlHnois, just after the war of the Rebellion, becoming president of the board of
trustees and taking a very active interest in the institution.
Judge Koerner was one of the most scholarly men ever connected with the
judicial history of Illinois. He was familiar with the literature of Europe and
America. He was a master of at least four great languages — the Latin,
the German, the French and the English — and, like Gladstone, one
of his favorite pastimes was the reading of the Iliad in the language
of Homer. He could repeat from memory, in the Greek tongue, perhaps more
than half of the great poem, and while at Madrid held consultations with the
Spanish minister of justice in the Latin language, for the reason that the Spanish
minister could speak neither French, German nor English, and our minister
could not speak Spanish or Italian. He was more than a mere student of
languages. On the contrary, he used them as a skilled mechanic uses his
implements. They were to him a means, not an end. He was not only famiUar
with the thoughts and inspirations of Europe and America, but he was, to a
perceptible extent, an inspirer, a creator and a framer of them. The pro-
ductions of his laborious pen were read and studied in both Europe and America.
His reading embraced every branch of learning, — law, history, poHtics, bi-
ography, science, and belles-lettres. In the Open Court of Chicago there latterly
appeared from his pen the most discriminating criticism that the public has
seen of the celebrated novel Trilby. Only a few months ago he gave to the
world the very best exposition and explanation of the Monroe doctrine as it
was understood by its authors, James Monroe and John Quincy Adams. He
was deeply interested in the cause of education and the uplifting of the people.
Some who did not know him well, thought him, perhaps, exclusive and aris-
tocratic in his ways, but he was not. That thought was but the tribute in-
stinctively paid by less favored minds to his superior endowments. He was
especially interested in the Belleville public library, was one of its founders
and from its establishment to the day of his death served constantly as president
of the board of directors. It is not known even to those who knew Judge
Koerner best and most intimately what hopes, if any, he may have entertained
concerning the mysterious realm beyond the grave. If such there were they were
LvMAH Trumbull.' DAiiiRt
Thomas Druhhond. Nincan Edwards. William
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS. 5'
never intruded on others, nor did he intrude upon or question such hopes or
beliefs in others. That liberty, in this as in all things, which he demanded for
himself he fully accorded to others. He was a kind and courteous gentleman
in his intercourse with both the bench and bar. He was thoroughly honest,
conscientious and reliable, and known to be so by the courts, by his brother
lawyers, by his clients and by his fellow citizens. He well and nobly performed
all the duties that devolved upon him as a lawyer, as a judge, as a citizen and
as a man. His qualities of heart and head made him great. No one who
ever knew him can fail to revere his memor>^ Thus, full of years, of honor and
usefulness, his life is finished. Like Newcome, the most superb character in the
greatest English fiction, to the last call he has made the last response, "Adsum."
Lyman Trumbull was born October 12, 1813, in Colchester, Connecticut.
After receiving his education he went to Georgia, where he spent some time as
the principal of a school. He came to Illinois in 1837, was admitted to the
bar, and commenced the practice of the law at Belleville. The writer formed the
acquaintance of Mr. Trumbull in 1839.
Mr. Trumbull was active in politics, and was appointed secretary of state
by Governor Carlin. He was a candidate for congress, but was defeated. In
1855 he was elected to the United States senate, and was re-elected in 1861 and
1867. Mr. Trumbull was elected an associate justice of the supreme court
on the 4th day of December, 1848, and held that office until July 4, 1853, when
he resigned. He was elected to congress in 1854, but had not taken his seat
when elected to the senate.
Davidson and Stuve say: "When Douglas was elected a supreme judge,
in 1841, Governor Carlin, resisting legislative dictation, appointed Trumbull
to the vacant office of secretary of state, over McClernand, but he came near
being defeated in the senate by the latter and his friends, out of which grew
some ill feeling.
"At the opening of Governor Ford's administration he incurred the dis-
pleasure of that functionary by opposing his policy towards the state banks,
causing his dismissal from office. The same year, and the following one, he
sought the congressional nomination in the Belleville district, but failing, upon
the meeting of the legislature he aspired to the senatorial nomination, against
James Semple, the governor's appointee, and failed again. In 1846 his name
appears among the candidates for governor, but he failed, through the influence
of Governor Ford and on account of his opposition to the canal. He immedi-
ately sought and obtained the candidacy for congress in the Belleville district,
but was defeated by over two thousand majority, though the district was largely
Democratic.
'*As a politician Trumbull lacked that hearty and cordial geniality of manner
which wins popularity among the masses. His intercourse with the people,
if not formal, left the impression of reserve, and his nature was rather repellant
than magnetic.
**But no such advantage obtained with him in regard to politicians. Over
such as might be reached by the force of intellect he ever exercised a large in-
52 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
fluence. However, after these repeated trials for place, in 1848 he was elected one
of the supreme judges under the new constitution, which office he resigned
July 4, 1853, on account of insufficient salary.
"By nature, study and habit he was admirably fitted for the bench. With a
mind strong, clear and penetrating, — a mind w^hich, while it inclined to detail,
never lost its broad grasp of principle, — he was capacitated for great eminence.
He was an able, searching and comprehensive constitutional pleader. He was
ever a strenuous and ultra Democrat, but in 1854, unable to brook the repeal
of the Missouri Compromise, he opposed his party upon that question and was,
in November, elected to congress as an 'anti-Nebraska Democrat,' which place
he resigned to accept the senatorship."
Governor Ford, in speaking of his act for putting the state bank into liqui-
dation, and in stating that it passed the house of representatives, says that "In
the senate the whole out-door opposition was let loose upon the bill. Trum-
bull took his stand in the lobbv and sent in amendments of everv sort to be
proposed by Grain of Washington. Gatlin of St. Glair and others. The mode
of attack was to load it down with obnoxious amendments, so as to make it
odious to its authors, and Trumbull openly boasted that the bill would be so
altered and amended in the senate that its framers in the house w^ould not know
their own bantling when it came back to them. From this moment I deter-
mined to remove Trumbull from the office of secretary of state. From the
nature of his office he ought to have been my confidential helper and adviser,
and when he found that my course was against his principles (if really it was
against them), he ought to have resigned. * * * Judge Douglas, notwith-
standing he had advised the measure before the finance committee, voted against
it in the council." We do not recount these facts for the sake of reviving old
controversies, for the parties to them have all passed away, except General Mc-
Glernand.
Mr. Trumbull was afterward elected to congress upon the issue of the
Nebraska bill, and was elected to the senate on the 8th of February, 1855, the
writer, being a member of the state senate, having placed him in nomination
as an anti-Nebraska Democrat.
Davidson and Stuve say (Illinois History, page 689) : "James Shields, the
regular Democratic caucus nominee, was placed in nomination by Mr. Graham ;
Abraham Lincoln, the idol of the old Whigs, and strongly anti-Nebraska, by
Stephen T.v Logan; and Lyman Trumbull, the nomination of less than half a
dozen anti-Nebraska Democrats, by John M. Palmer. * * * Fifty-one votes
were necessary to a choice on joint ballot. On the seventh ballot Shields was
out of the field, and Governor Matteson. being substituted, received on the eighth
ballot forty-six votes,— the utmost strength of the Nebraska Democracy. On the
tenth ballot Mr. Lincoln's name was withdrawn, and the Whig vote being con-
centrated on Mr. Trumbull he received fifty votes direct, and before the result
was announced Mr. W^aters changed from Williams to Trumbull-, electing- him
by just the requisite number. Neither persuasion nor menace could intimi-
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS. S3
date the Trumbull phalanx of five. Such was the manner of the first election
of Mr. Trumbull to the senate of the United States."
Davidson and Stuve add in regard to Mr. Trumbull: "His record in con-
gress, which is national and not our province to give, stands very high. He was
for many years the able chairman of the judiciary committee, and there are few
congressional acts of importance but what bear the impress of his far-reaching
mind. As an orator he is devoid of imagery and ornateness of diction, but as
a close, clear, compact and systematic thinker, with an excellent memory, a
wide acquaintance of public affairs and an extensive knowledge of the law, he
was the most formidable debater of the august senate. As a practical expounder
of the principles of his party he eclipsed Mr. Seward. He ever has been a
hard student."
In 1865-6 it became an interesting question to determine the status of the
freedmen, — the negroes. Attempts were made in congress and in several
state legislatures to define their rights specifically. The writer, who was then
commander of the Department of Kentucky, being much interested in the sub-
ject, prepared a bill enumerating the rights to be conferred by law upon the
freed people, and also a petition to the Kentucky legislature. While preparing
the petition and bill it occurred to him that the whole effect could be accom-
plished by an act of congress, and he addressed to Mr. Trumbull the following
letter :
Headquarters Department Kentucky,
Louisville. Ky., Jan. 4, 1866.
Hon L. Trumbull,
My Dear Sir:
I enclose you a copy o\ a petition which is being extensively circulated for the
signatures of the colored people of this city, and will be presented to the Kentucky legis-
lature.
I prepared the paper for them as a quiet, modest demand for the recognition of
the essential rights of the freed people, seeking to avoid language which could be tortured
to the purposes of prejudices and at the same time escape the disgraceful imputation of
servility.
Still, I have such moderate hope that it will be favorably received by the legis-
lature, that I have advised them to look to congress, and have prepared a petition for its
consideration. You will perceive that the first point presented by the petition is that of
residence in the state, or citizenship, if that form of expression is preferred.
Chapter XV, Revised Statutes of Kentucky, in all its provisions limits citizenship
to free, white persons. The law passed in pursuance of a requirement of the constitution
compels, or is intended to compel, all emancipated persons to leave the state, and Article
II, Chapter XCIII, Volume II, pages s^-7y declares that any free negro or mulatto who
has since the nth day of June, 1850, migrated, or who shall hereafter migrate, to this state
v;ith the intention of remaining there, shall be guilty of felony, and upon conviction shall
be confined in the penitentiary for any period of time, not exceeding five years.
The whole article is like this in barbarity and injustice, and will, in some parts of
the state, be rigorously enforced. I trust your bill, to which I have seen telegraphic ref-
erences, in terms or in legal effect repeals these and similar laws. I suggest that they may
be defeated by an act of congress declaring all persons of African descent born in any of
the United States or any of the territories or in any place subject to the jurisdiction of the
I'nited States, to be citizens.
By the constitution of the United States congress has power to establish an uniform
54 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
rule of naturalization, and this power is exclusive of that of the individual states (Kent's
Commentaries, Volume I, page 424; Second Wheaton's Report, page 269), and it is also true
that congress has by law naturalized or citizenized certain peoples in g^ross (see act of
congress of March 3, 1843, with respect to the Stockbridge Indians. Statutes at large,
Volume V, pag^e 647), and instances of collective naturalization by the treaty-making power
are numerous, — in the case of the acquisition of Louisiana, April 3, 1800; the purchase
of Florida, in 1819; treaty with Mexico, 1848; and by joint resolution of congress, as in
the case of the annexation of Texas, March i, 1845. If the freedmen are declared by law
to be citizens the legal consequences of citizenship follow and defeat the injurious opera-
tions of the laws already referred to.
I am aware that there are many jurists and publicists who entertain the opinion
that the freed people of African descent are now, in point of law, citizens of the United
States. This may be the correct view of the subject, but there is a formidable array of
authorities on the other side, and it is certain that the courts, if the question is left in its
present state of doubt, will hesitate, falter, and decide both ways for years to come. A few
words of legislation will remove all doubts, and, what is more, will place the colored
race in the class of free men whose political and legal rights are so carefully secured and
guarded by many provisions of the federal and state constitutions.
I attach great consequence to this idea, for most of the oppressive legislation of
the states proceeds upon the theory that negroes are not members of the political so-
ciety and are not referred to or protected by constitutional provisions. They are elabora-
tions of the amiably expressed, but damnably conceived, doctrine that we find so often in
the resolutions adopted by meetings of those political bastards who call themselves Demo-
crats, that 'this is a white man's government.' which means that a thief may be a Chris-
tian if he only steals from a negro. ♦ * *
At the opening of congress in December Mr. Trumbull himself had intro-
duced a bill in which he attempted to enumerate the rights to be conferred upon
the negro, but accepted the suggestion of citizenship and introduced the civil-
rights bill by an amendment to his own.
The relations between the writer and Mr. Trumbull continued to be friendly,
and even intimate, until the closing years of his life. He voted against the im-
peachment of Andrew Johnson, and in that way separated himself from the
Republican party. He was the Democratic candidate for governor in 1880,
and was defeated by Governor Cullom.
Mr. Trumbull's last appearance in the supreme court of the United States
was in defense of persons who were found guilty of contempt by Judge Woods.
Mr. Justice Harlan said of the argument of Judge Trumbull "that if the prem-
ises had been conceded the argument would have been irresistible.'* He died
at his home in Chicago on the loth day of July, 1896.
Onias C. Skinner was elected a judge of the supreme court June 4, 1855,
vice Samuel H. Treat, and served until April 19, 1858, when he resigned—
shortly before the expiration of his term. He was a sound, able lawyer, and
popular as a judge, gaining eminence by his excellent service on the supreme
bench.
Pinckney H. Walker had served on the circuit bench in Pike county prior
to 1858, in April of which year he was appointed to succeed Skinner as a justice
of the supreme court. In the succeeding year he was elected for the full term,
and was re-elected, dying February 18, 1885, only four months prior to the
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THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS. 55
expiration of his second term. Judge Walker was a native of Kentucky, whence
he came with his father to Illinois, among the first settlers, locating in Mc-
Donough county. His early educational advantages were necessarily limited by
the environments of the time and place, but a strong determination, added to
pronounced intellectual powers and good health, carried him over all the edu-
cational wants of the times and gave him a fair position as a scholar. He was a
thorough student of the law and a safe counselor. His home was at Rushville.
Judge John M. Scott, the subject of this memoir, was born in August,
1824, in the county of St. Clair, Illinois, and had the distinction of being the
first native citizen to become a member of the supreme court of Illinois. His
ancestors in the paternal line were Scotch-Irish, in which fact he took great
pride, being a Qonstant attendant of the Scotch-Irish congress and one of the
vice-presidents of the society. He had many of the characteristics of that
sturdy, fearless and talented race of men. His mother, whose maiden name was
Nancy Biggs, emigrated from Virginia to Illinois at a very early day, and was
identified with the first settlement of the state. His mother, as a child, passed
through that fearful ordeal incident to the struggle between civilization and
barbarism as manifested in the massacres and wars between the Indian and
white man. Educated in that school of suflFering and danger, in common with
her many other good qualities of head and heart, she became a woman of heroic
mold and well worthy to perform the delicate trust of training children to a
courageous discharge of duty. His father was in comfortable circumstances
and afforded his son all the facilities which a new country offered for procuring
an education.
Having, in connection with his attendance at school, availed himself of
the advantages of private tuition, he acquired an accurate knowledge of the
English branches, besides a fair knowledge of Latin and the higher mathematics.
The bar at Belleville in the early history of the country was the ablest in the
state, and well calculated to fascinate the mind of a young man with the pro-
fession of the law; and that, in connection with a natural taste for the bar,
induced him to read law, in the office of Messrs. Kinney & Bissell, then among
the most accomplished lawyers in the west. Like many others who have ac-
quired distinction at the bar and on the bench, as preliminary to his career
as a lawyer he devoted some time to the profession of school-teaching. He
studied the elementary books of the law with industry and diligence, and thereby
acquired a knowledge of legal philosophy which, through his life both as a
lawyer and judge, fitted him to deal with the law as a science and not as a mere
aggregation of arbitrary rules. Upon his admission to the bar, in 1848, he
removed to McLean county, where' for a half century he resided, discharging
during that time some of the highest functions of a citizen of the state. At the
time he became identified with the McLean county bar, lawyers of distinction
were among its members. Judge Davis and General Gridley were of the local
bar, and Abraham Lincoln and John T. Stuart were among the non-resident
attorneys who attended the courts. While Judge Scott had every qualification
for a successful trial lawyer, like his illustrious predecessor on the bench of the
56 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
circuit court, Judge Davis, he had a peculiar aptitude for the higher function
of judge and from his admission to the profession the taste of his ambition in-
clined to the bench. He had but little trouble in securing his share of business,
and was not subject to that anxious solicitude which often intervenes between
coming to the bar and coming to a practice.
In 1849 he was elected school commissioner, and served in that office until
1852, superintending the educational interests of the county and distributing the
money of the school fund. In the winter of 1852 he was elected to the respon-
sible position of judge of the county court, which at that time not only had
within its jurisdiction probate matters, but also all the public business of the
county. In addition to his official duties and general practice he was the at-
torney of Bloomington, then recently organized as a city. FrQm boyhood the
Judge was a great admirer of Daniel Webster, and, as a result of that predilection,
when he came to the years of manhood he was a Whig, and continued an ardent
supporter of that party until its dissolution, 1852. Upon the formation of the
Republican party he identified himself with that party, when it was struggling
for an existence as a political organization. In 1856 he was nominated on the
Republican ticket for the state senate, and made a most vigorous and able can-
vass for the defense of Republican principles, in a district largely Democratic
in sentiment ; and, although defeated, he reduced the majority to a point highly
complimentary to himself. In this campaign he and Mr. Lincoln often ad-
dressed the same audiences, and between them there was the most cordial per-
sonal and political relations.
In the first years of the Judge's practice his clearness of thought, accurate
knowledge of the law, services as county judge and his dignity of character
directed the attention of the people and the bar to him as having the qualifica-
tions for higher judicial duty; so that in the year 1862, when Judge Davis be-
came a member of the supreme court of the United States, Judge Scott was
selected as his successor by a unanimity of sentiment on the part of both the
bar and the people. He did not, in the administration of his office as judge
of the circuit court, disappoint the expectations of his most sanguine friends,
and at the end of the unexpired term of Judge Davis he was re-elected without
opposition. He held the circuit court in the eighth district, during the most
troublous times of the civil war, and was called upon, in the discharge of his
duties, to repress the violence of both sides, which he did with a fearlessness
and courage worthy of the best age of the judiciary.
In the year 1870 a constitutional convention was held, and on the 2d of
July, that year, the constitution formed by that body was adopted, which made
it necessary to elect additional members of the supreme court. This district of
which McLean county formed a part was entitled to one of the new judges
and embraced within its limits the central portion of the state, commencing at
Tazewell county on the northwest and running to Edgar on the southeast.
Embracing as it did Sangamon and other large and populous counties of the
state, it necessarily had some of the leading members of the profession. When
it was known that there would be an increase in the membership of the supreme
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS. 57
court, the public mind was directed to Judge Scott as well worthy of the ex-
alted position. This was especially so among the lawyers of the district ; and in
June, 1870, a convention of the bar was held, and although some of the leading
jurists of the district and state. were candidates, Judge Scott was chosen by
the convention, and in July, 1870, he was elected a judge of the supreme court
for the term of nine years.
At the time he became a member of that court many questions of importance
to the prosperity of the state and the people were pending in the supreme and
circuit courts, incident to the extraordinary development of the railroad interests
of the northwest ; and Chicago, with its complex and diversified characteristics,
its extraordinary and sudden growth, and its many schemes of speculation and
trade, made the supreme court of Illinois one of the most important courts of the
United States. Outside of the state of New York it may be safely assumed
that for importance of litigation and for questions of difficult solution, no other
in the Union presented a field more fruitful in legal contention than the state
of Illinois. At the time Judge Scott became a member of the court he was
in the prime and vigor of his life, and had acquired at the bar and on the bench
a capacity for legal information which fitted him to deal intelligently and ably
with all the questions which came before the court. He was identified
with the judicial history of the state for a period of nearly fifty years, — ^as a
lawyer and as a county, circuit and supreme judge. His name first appears in
the third volume of Oilman's Reports as a practicing attorney, and his opinions
extend from the fifty-fourth to the one hundred and twenty-sixth volume of re-
ports as a judge of the supreme court. .At the end of his first term as a justice of
the supreme court he was elected, in June, 1879, ^y ^ very large majority over
one of the most accomplished lawyers of the state. His second term expired in
June, 1888, when he declined a re-election, having served for a period of
eighteen years, with marked ability and to the entire satisfaction of the people
and the bar of the whole state.
During those eig*hteen years he served as chief justice three terms, and
was the first native-born citizen of Illinois who held that responsible and digni-
fied position. During the eighteen years which he held the office of a justice of
the supreme court the litigation was larger, more complicated and important
than in the fifty-two years which intervened from the admission of the state
to the year 1870. The legal controversies of the citizens had changed from
the simple questions of law, which were the subjects of judicial discussion and
determination in the early history of the state, to questions more abstruse and
difficult, depending upon more enlarged, involved and complex conditions of
fact. The law-suit of 1870 and that of 1820 in the supreme court of the state
were very different as legal controversies. In later years immense records had
to be examined and digested in order to present the whole case and fully de-
velop the real issue to be determined.
In the power to master a voluminous record, and to eliminate the imma-
terial matter of a legal proceeding, Judge Scott had great ability, as shown
in his numerous opinions upon almost every conceivable subject of human con-
58 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
tention. A supreme court of the state is much more diversified in its juris-
diction than the supreme court of the United States for the reason that it is the
court of final jurisdiction for almost every wrong which can be committed and
for every right that can be protected. Subject to the limited jurisdiction of the
supreme court of the United States, it is the court of final resort which settles,
by the authority of law, the many contentions and disputes incident to men as
they form human society. During his term of service the labors of the court
extended through seventy-three volumes of reports, so that it may be safely as-
sumed that his contribution to the body of judicial law of Illinois is as large
and important as any member of the supreme court at any period in the history
of the state. His services in the supreme court covered a period which may
be called formative as to some of the material interests of the state, and from
which important litigation originated, as the park systems of Chicago, the rail-
road and warehouse commission, the modified special assessment methods, and
the many questions of corporation law growing out of, and dependent upon,
the adoption of the new constitution.
The protection of the life and liberty of the citizen is the most important
and delicate trust committed to the jurisdiction of a court; and one of the lead-
ing opinions of the court on that subject was written by Judge Scott in the case
of Ker versus the People of the State of Illinois, reported in the one hundred
and tenth volume. The question presented by the record was one new and
novel, and called for the highest and best resources of judicial reasoning in the
determination of legal questions made by the facts. The defendant, Ker, com-
mitted the crime of embezzlement and larceny in Chicago, as the cashier of a
bank, and fled to Peru. At the time that country was in military possession
of the Chileans, arid it was practically impossible to proceed under the treaty
for his return. Owing to the condition of the country, the defendant was taken
by force, placed on board a United States ship-of-war and brought back to the
United States. When he was arraigned in the criminal court of Chicago he
pleaded in defense the illegality of his arrest and extradition. The court below
sustained a demurrer to the plea, and the case, upon the correctness of that de-
cision, was appealed to the supreme court. The court, in a very able opinion
delivered by Judge Scott, sustained the decision of the criminal court, and from
that decision an appeal was taken to the supreme court of the United States.
The state court said, "A fugitive from justice has no asylum in a foreign country
when he is guilty of an offense for which he is liable or subject to extradition
by treaty between this and the foreign country. If he is illegally and forcibly
removed from such country, that country alone has the cause of complaint, and
he cannot complain for it." In the decision of the supreme court of the United
States it is said : "The treaties of extradition to which the United States are
parties do not guarantee a fugitive from justice from one of the countries
an asylum in the other. They do not give such person any greater or more
sacred right of asylum than he had before.*' It will be seen that the line of argu-
ment pursued by Judge Scott in the supreme court of Illinois was, in sub-
stance, followed by the supreme court of the United States; and by a series of.
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS. 59
uniform judicial determinations the law upon an important question of in-
dividual liberty and international right was settled, as far as it can be settled
by the decisions of the highest courts of one nation.
In the case of Lenfers versus Henkle (Seventy-third Illinois Reports) the
supreme court of Illinois was called upon to decide a question which, up to the
time of the decision, had never been passed upon by any court, either in England
or the United States. The controversy relates to the dower interest of a widow
in the mineral or mining lands of the husband. Judge Scott delivered the
opinion of the court on the question involved in a remarkably clear, original and
well reasoned argument, showing his ability to deal with questions upon the
broad ground of original thought, unaided by express authority. During his
term of service in the supreme court he wrote many opinions upon the subject
of municipal taxation and the law of real-estate property growing out of the great
value of land in Chicago ; but the compass of this article will not permit special
reference to them. They will stand as limitations to and qualifications upon
municipal authority and the law of realty throughout the entire history of that
state which has to deal with the most remarkable municipal corporation that has
ever appeared in the history of time.
The Judge had great respect for the dignity of judicial place and power,
and no man ever presided in a court with more respect for his environments than
did Judge Scott. As the result of that personal characteristic the proceedings
were always orderly upon the part of every one — audience, bar and the officers,
from the highest to the lowest. His opinions are fine specimens of judicial
thought, — always clear, logical and as brief as the character of the case will per-
mit. He never enlarged beyond the necessities of the legal thought in order to
indulge in the drapery of literature.
His mind during the entire period of his course at the bar and on the bench
had been directed in the line of his profession and his duty, and as a result he did
not give much time to speculation and money-making; but by the judicious in-
vestments of the reward of his toil he was eventually placed in independent
and prosperous circumstances.
He was the owner of many fine farms in the vicinity of Bloomington, and to
the care of these he devoted considerable attention, renting them to good tenants
at no more than one-half the ordinary rent of other farms of like improvements
and situation. He took great delight in the success and welfare of his tenants,
and as an inducement to them for their toil he gave them the lowest rent he
could afford.
During his term of service as county judge, in the year 1853, he was married
to Miss Charlotte A. Perry, daughter of Rev. David J. Perry, of Bloomington.
His marriage was most happy. Mrs. Scott is a lady of culture and refinement,
and enjoys with grace and without ostentation the assured place given her by
the public service and life of her husband. They had two children, who died
in infancy, but to an adopted daughter they ever devoted the most fervent at-
tachment.
The Judge was a man of fine literary taste, and as a result of that incHnation
6o THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS,
he accumulated one of the choicest libraries in central Illinois, abounding in
books of standard quality and highest excellence of authorship. His tastes were
simple, but refined and delicate, and whatever he had was of the best quality.
After his retirement from the bench his time was devoted to looking after his
private interests and to the enjoyment of his home and library. Conspicuous
among the many good traits of his character was his fearless devotion to what-
ever came within the pale of public or private duty. He had moral courage fit
for any emergency, and although he was always a pronounced Republican,
he was without partisan prejudice, and in his candidacy he was supported with
enthusiasm by many leaders of the opposition. He had been for many years a
devoted member of the Presbyterian church, and a constant attendant upon its
ministrations. His judicial term, extending through twenty-six years of unin-
terrupted success, w^as an honor to the state, and his character as a man is well
worthy the admiration of the whole people.
In the fullness of years and honors Judge Scott entered into eternal rest,
January 21, 1898, at his home in Bloomington, leaving a name that will be
revered for all time in the great state which he dignified and honored by his
noble character and high accomplishments.
William K. McAllister was an incorruptible jurist, an excellent lawyer and a
citizen of high standing. He was born in the state of New York in the year
1 81 8, and was reared on a farm. He received a collegiate education, read law
and practiced that profession for ten years in Albion, New York. In 1854 he
removed to Chicago and was but a short time in securing a large clientele. In
1868 he was elected judge of the recorder's court of the city, in which capacity
he displayed such ability that he was elected a justice of the state supreme court
in 1870 — a position of honor more than of pecuniary reward. He resigned to
accept the office of circuit court judge of Cook county and by repeated re-election
was continued on that bench until his death, which occurred October 29, 1888.
In 1879 ^^ w^s appointed by the supreme court as one of the circuit judges to
hold the appellate court for the first district, a position he filled for the re-
mainder of his life. As a lawyer he possessed a logical, common-sense eloquence
which, in his practice before juries, proved more successful than all the tricks
of the insincere and more pretentious orator.
Alfred M. Craig. — On this gentleman the highest elective judicial honors
within the gift of the people of Illinois have been conferred. For a quarter of a
century he has been a member of the supreme court, and his present term will
extend to the close of the century. His name is therefore inseparably associated
with the history of jurisprudence in the state, and his career has conferred
honor upon the commonw^ealth that has so honored him.
Judge Craig was born January 15, 1831, in Paris, Edgar county, Illinois,
his parents being David and Minty Craig, the former a millwright and farmer.
He completed his literary education by a course in Knox College, of Galesburg,
Illinois, in which institution he was graduated in June, 1853. Immediately
afterward he began the study of law in the office of Hon. William C. Goudy, of
Lewistown, IlHnois, and in 1854, after his admission to the bar, began practice in
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS, 6i
^'no:>cville, Illinois, where he soon acquired a large and lucrative clientage, which
^ho ejxtended into adjoining counties. When elected to the bench he had the
Arg-est: practice of any lawyer in that section of the state, and every important
Ktig-ated interest found him as counsel for the defense or the prosecution. He
stood Iiigh at the bar, and his opinion, even in the early days of his professional
career, was esteemed equal to that of the old savants in the law; and his great
earnestness and force of manner gave him an almost irresistible influence over a
)^0'- He has a mind of peculiar analytical power which enables him to separate
ti^e non-essential from the essential in the evidence produced, and to apply to
the latter the principles of law which bear on the case. His legal knowledge
IS profound, and the intricate problems of the court of last resort are mastered by
nim with a readiness that shows exceptional wisdom.
Judge Craig's first official service began in 1862, when he was elected to the
^'^^Vk of Knox county, whereon he served four years. In 1870 he was elected
^ <ielegate from that county to the state constitutional convention, and his
.'^^'^vledge of constitutional law and his understanding of the needs and condi-
^^s of the commonw^ealth made him an important factor in framing the or-
^. ^i^ law of the state. Each public service, so well and ably performed, brought
, ^^ greater respect, admiration and public confidence, and he was still more
^^^Ted in 1873, when elected to the supreme court, of which he has since been
, . ^^^mber. Twice re-elected, — in 1882 and 1891, — he is still a member of that
f^^^ tribunal. Upon the just execution of our laws depends the weal or woe
.. ^^"i^ state, and those who are called to high judicial service are men in whom
• I>eople have great confidence, w^hile re-election always indicates faithful ser-
T^» unwavering integrity and a fairness which is above question. The fact that
Ti|, ^^ Craig has for twenty-five years been a member of the supreme court of
. 5^^^is is a circumstance which needs no favorable comment from the his-
^^^ ; it speaks for itself.
1^ In Knoxville, Illinois, Judge Craig married Miss Elizabeth P. Harvey,
u^ ^^'liter of C. K. Harvey, a lawyer of eminent ability in his profession. They
^ two children, Dr. H. A., who was born in i860: and Charles C, who was
Xil^rti in 1865, and is now practicing law.
In addition to his professional duties Judge Craig has been interested to
$ome extent in banking, and also has extensive agricultural interests. In his
private life he is distinguished by all that marks the true gentleman. He is one
who subordinates personal ambition to public good and seeks rather the benefit
of others than the aggrandizement of self. Well versed in the learning of his
profession, and with a deep know-ledge of human conduct, with great sagacity
and tact, he stands to-day with few equals at the bar of Illinois.
T. Lyle Dickey, whose name is prominently connected with the history of
Illinois — as a lawyer, a jurist and a soldier — ^was born October 2, 181 1, in Paris,
Bourbon county, Kentucky. In 1826, at the age of fifteen years, he entered the
Ohio University, where he continued his studies four years, after which he en-
tered the senior class of Miami University, where he graduated with honor, in
62 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
1 83 1. December 6, 1831, he married Miss Juliet Evans, and after his marriage
taught school, with great success, in Ohio and Kentucky.
In the winter of 1834 he removed to McDonough county, Illinois, where he
made the acquaintance of Hon. Cyrus H. Walker, who induced him to begin
the study of law. His progress in this line was so marked that he practiced
law at Macomb before he was regularly admitted to the bar, and attained con-
siderable renown. In 1835, at the age of twenty-four years, he was duly ad-
mitted to practice in the Illinois courts. After this he removed to Rushville,
where, in addition to legal business, he edited a thriving Whig paper. Here he
became largely interested in real-estate speculations, which proved disastrous,
owing to the panic of 1837, and many years elapsed ere he was able to entirely
free himself from the large indebtedness forced upon him at this time. The
intrinsic honor of his character is shown in the fact that he labored without ceas-
ing until every creditor was paid in full. In 1836 Judge Dickey removed to
Ottawa, Illinois, where he soon built up a large and lucrative practice as an
attorney. He there remained until 1846, when he raised a fine company for
service in the Mexican war. Of this organization he was chosen captain, but
after the company had been attached to the First Regiment of Illinois Volunteers,
he was compelled to resign his commission on account of ill health, and returned
hom« and resumed the practice of his profession. He was elected a judge of the
circuit court, the district comprising twelve counties, but after four years of
judicial service he resigned, and again returned to private practice. In 1854 he
opened a law office in Chicago, but continued his residence at Ottawa, and on
the last day of the succeeding year he lost his wife, who died after a brief illness.
In the year 1858 he resumed practice in Ottawa, and although heretofore an
ardent Whig, ardently espoused the cause of Stephen A. Douglas in his famous
contest with Lincoln, delivering a number of eloquent and forceful addresses
in various parts of the state.
He became connected in business with W. H. L. Wallace, of Ottawa, and his
son Cyrus E. Dickey, and the firm transacted a large legal business until i86r,
when the Rebellion broke out. Judge Dickey immediately set about forming a
regiment of volunteers, which was mustered into the service as the Fourth
Illinois Cavalry, and the Judge was commissioned its colonel. For two years
Colonel Dickey was an active and intrepid soldier. He took part in the capture
of Fort Henry, and led the brilliant advance at Fort Donelson. At the battle
of Shiloh he took an active part. Both of his sons and General W. H. L. Wallace
were with him during this desperate struggle, and General Wallace was killed
during the engagement. In 1862 he was appointed to the position of chief of
cavalry on the staff of General Grant, and was placed in command of Memphis,
Tennessee. He also participated in the battle of luka. After this he assumed
command of the four brigades of cavalry in General Grant's army. He was en-
gaged in a desperate encounter with General Pemberton, far in advance of his
supports, for four days, on the retreat from Tallahassee. At one time he selected
six hundred men and engaged in an extensive and successful raid through a
region of country swarming with Confederate soldiers, and returned safely and
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS. 63
without losing a man. The celebrated raid of Grierson in 1863, during which
the railroads around Jackson, Mississippi, were completely destroyed, was sug-
gested and organized by General Dickey.
In the latter part of 1863 he resigned his commission and returned home,
where he formed a law partnership with John B. Rice. In 1866 Judge Dickey
was the Democratic candidate for congressman at large. In 1868 he was ap-
pointed as assistant attorney general of the United States, and had full charge
of the government suits of the court of claims. His labors in that branch of liti-
gation in the United States supreme court were performed with great ability and
with undiminishing fidelity. He was frequently complimented by the judges
of the supreme court for the thorough and able manner in which he performed
his arduous duties.
He held this position about two years, when his health failed him and he
resigned. In 1870 he married Mrs. Hurst, of Maryland, after w^hich he returned
to Ottawa and again began the practice of law. In December, 1873, he removed
to Chicago and in December, 1875, was elected a judge of the supreme court
of the state, to fill a vacancy. In 1879 '^^ was nominated as an independent can-
didate, was elected and remained upon the supreme bench, his incumbency of
this high office covering nearly a decade. He gained a distinct popularity and
uniform respect. Possessed of wonderful memory, and with a remarkable
power of analysis, his judgments were always received with profound consider-
ation, and his opinions on important cases have generally been sustained. As a
lawyer he was a most brilliant advocate. His arguments were lucid, logical
and marked by an aptness of illustration that carried all the elements of convic-
tion. In social circles Judge Dickey was a universal favorite, being genial,
whole-souled and intellectual.
Judge Dickey died July 22, 1885, at Atlantic City, New Jersey, and the
state lost an able jurist and eminent citizen. He left surviving him his widow
and four children.
John H. Mulkey, formerly a justice of the supreme court of Illinois, was
born in Monroe county, Kentucky, May 24, 1824. Family tradition says that
the ancestry of the Mulkeys is Scotch-Irish and that the family was founded in
America by a young Irish apprentice who ran away from his English master
and came to this country about the middle of the eighteenth century. He
located in the Carolinas and married a lady, of Scotch birth, whose acquaintance
he had formed on the voyage to the New World. Some of the descendants of
this couple established homes in Kentucky, others in Tennessee, and still others
iarther south. From the Kentucky branch of the family Judge Mulkey is
descended. His grandfather, John Mulkey, was born January 14, 1773, and
died December 13, 1844. He was a Baptist minister of some prominence in
Kentucky, and, in connection with Barton Stone and others, was a forerunner
^^ Alexander Campbell in the work of founding the Campbellite church. The
Judge's father, Dr. Isaac Mulkey, was a physician by profession, and was mar-
"^<i to Abigail Ragin, December 18, 1821, he being at the time less than
^*&hteen years of age. They reared a family of nine children, of whom Judge
64 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
Miilkey was the second in order of birth. During his infancy the family re-
moved from Monroe to Christian county, Kentucky, locating in Lafayette, where
the father reared his family and practiced his profession until about 1848, when
he was induced by his son, John H., to come to southern Illinois. He first made
his home in Marion, but afterward removed to Ashley, where he made his home
until his death, which occurred in 1884. He was a man of strong intellectual
endowment, of rugged eloquence and some hterary attainment, and ranked high
as a country physician. He was the physician for the Stephenson family, to
which Adlai Stephenson, the former vice-president of the United States, belongs.
Judge Mulkey spent his early boyhood days in Christian county, Kentucky,
and when quite young went to Hopkinsville, the county-seat, where he learned
the tailor's trade, of which acquisition he speaks with much pride. He then at-
tended Bacon College, at Hopkinsville, for several years, acquiring a fair col-
legiate education, including some knowledge of the dead languages, particularly
Latin. On leaving college he started for southern Illinois on horseback, in
August, 1845, i" search of employment as a school-teacher. Failing to secure
a position, first at Vienna and then at Marion, he continued on his way to
Benton, where he was employed to teach during the winter and spring terms.
He was married in Benton, March 23. 1846, to Margaret, daughter of Larkin
Cantrell, and for a year thereafter he continued to teach school. In the mean-
time the Mexican war broke out, and at the second call for troops he enlisted
as a volunteer, entering the service in July, 1847, «^"^ being mustered out in
July, 1848.
From 1848 until 1853, when he was admitted to the bar. Judge Mulkey's
attention appears to have been engaged with a multiplicity of aflFairs. During
that period he lived first at P>enton, then at Blairsville, in Williamson county,
and later at Marion. He farmed for a time near Benton, having entered one
hundred and sixty acres of land from the government, on his return from
Mexico. He also traded in stock to some extent, and locally acquired consid-
erable reputation as an excellent judge of horses. He also engaged in mer-
chandising in Benton and later in Blairsville, and also taught school for a time.
During the two years immediately preceding his admission to the bar he read
law during his leisure hours, from books loaned to him by Judge W. J. Allen,
who w^as then a young practicing lawyer at Marion. Judge Mulkey w^as ad-
mitted to the bar at Marion, having been examined by Willis Allen, father of
Judge Allen, his Hfe-long friend and for many years his partner in the practice.
Judge Mulkey remained at Marion only a short time and then removed to
Desoto, in Jackson county, w^here, as he expresses it, he "pettifogged" for two
years. In 1857 he went to Cairo, where he remained until the flood of 1858,
at w^hich time he took up his residence in Duquoin. A year or two later he was
elected circuit judge, whereupon he removed to Jonesboro, on account of its
central location in the circuit. After serving on the bench for less than a year
he returned to Cairo, and continued in the active practice in the courts of
southern Illinois until June, 1879, with the exception of a short period when he
served as judge of the court of common pleas at Cairo. During that time he
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS. 65
was associated as a partner with Judge Allen ; with Samuel P. Wheeler, now of
Springfield; with David T. Linegar and John M. Lansden, of Cairo. Judge
Barr, of Carbondale, said of him : "I regard Judge Mulkey as the best all-around
lawyer I ever knew, — ^that is, greater before both court and jury. Greater with
the court for the reason that his knowledge of the law was greater than that
of any nisi prius court in which he practiced, and the court and bar knew that it
was the point of strictest honor with him never to knowingly misstate the law.
When he attempted to state the law, if there was a doubt in his mind he in-
variably expressed that doubt to the court. He was greater with the jury be-
cause he knew better the turning point of his case than any other I knew, and
came before it with a better preparation of the evidence, and had the strong,
rugged, logical speech that was most convincing."
On the 2d of June, 1879, M^- Mulkey was elected an associate justice of the
supreme court of Illinois, and Judge A. K. Vickers, of Harrisburg, spoke of his
judicial service as follows: "To my mind the quality which enabled Justice
Mulkey to succeed both at the bar and on the bench to a degree rarely ever
attained by lawyers or judges was his power to see further and deeper into
abstract and close legal questions than others who may justly be called eminent
jurists. He saw everything as it actually was. This quality might be properly
called his mental reach or power of penetration, and was combined with a care-
ful and painstaking mastery of every detail of fact connected with the case in
hand ; a power of analysis and a force of reasoning that was irresistible and con-
vincing. These characteristics made him one of the greatest judges who ever
sat on the supreme bench of Illinois. His opinion in the case of the Fort
Dearborn Lodge versus Klein, et al., filed in Ottawa at the November term of
court of 1885 ^"d reported in 115 Illinois Reports, page 177, is in my opinion
one of the ablest legal opinions to be found in the history of our jurisprudence."
Since his retirement from the bench, though frequently urged to do so.
Judge Mulkey has never re-entered practice, except to a very limited extent. He
wrote a brief in the famous Crerar will case, of Chicago, and another in a
mandamus case for the Illinois Central Railroad Company. His time is now
largely given to literary pursuits and the supervision of his farm. In 1884
he removed from Cairo to MetropoUs, where he still resides. His first wife died
June 2, 1871. By that marriage there were eight children. On the 25th of
September, 1873, he was again married, his second union being with Kate
House, who was born and reared in Metropolis. They have two children. In
early life the Judge was a member of the Campbellite church, but after reaching
manhood he held agnostic views for some years. In 1883, however, he became
a communicant of the Roman Catholic church, and finds the greatest comfort
and solace in the practice of its precepts.
Benjamin Drake Magruder. — It is the mission of law to formulate, to har-
monize, to regulate, and to adjust and administer those rules and principles which
underlie and permeate all government and society and control the varied rela-
tions of men. The judge is the minister of the law, and there attaches to the
true jurist a nobility which can scarcely characterize any other public servant.
5
66 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
The judge who, as does Judge Magruder, reveres the law and holds it above
every device of criminal or counsel, is more truly a benefactor to his race than
can be any philanthropist, however wealthy and however generous; for in the
simple performance of his duty he blesses mankind.
Benjamin Drake Magruder is a southerner by birth. His father, W. H. N.
Magruder, was a graduate of Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut,
and a college professor. The future jurist was born September 27, 1838, in
Jefferson county, Mississippi, and from an early age was a most apt and devoted
student. Under his father's care he was prepared for college, and at fourteen
entered as freshman at Yale, where, at eighteen (class of 1856), he was gradu-
ated fourth in his class.
After leaving college Judge Magruder taught school at Baton Rouge,
Louisiana, and while so employed took up a course of reading in law, under the
direction of Judge Elam, in that city. In due time he entered the law depart-
ment of the University of Louisiana, at New Orleans, — then in charge of men
of deep learning in the law, the broadest capacity and great eminence as lawyers,
jurists and instructors, — from which institution he was graduated as valedic-
torian in 1858.
Judge Magruder began his professional career at Memphis, in September,
1859, and there held during the succeeding two years a responsible position,
affording him much valuable experience, in the office of the master in chancery.
He came to Chicago in 1861, fortified by a classical scholarship, generous read-
ing and a practical knowledge of the practice of law, and formed a partnership
with George F. Bailey, under the firm name of Bailey & Magruder, in which
he attained much success and prominence. Later he was partner in the firms
of Magruder & Norton, Magruder & Kerr, and Hervey, Gait & Magruder. In
1868 he was appointed master in chancery of the superior court of Cook county
and achieved much distinction in that position, which he filled with the com-
mendation of the bar and the public until 1885, meantime attending to a select
general practice. In the year last mentioned he was ekcted one of the judges
of the supreme court of Illinois, and during the year beginning June, 1891,
served as chief justice of that court.
In this high position Judge Magruder was the successor of Judge T. Lyle
Dickey, a man of unusual prominence and a lawyer and jurist of national repu-
tation, a fact which, of itself, might have rendered his position embarrassing,
and its difficulties were augmented by the equal division of the court on several
important cases pending. The judges had arrayed themselves three against
three, and Judge Magruder was required to decide these cases for the court.
He assumed the responsibility with a calmness born of a conscious integrity,
after having fully informed himself as to the law and the evidence in each case
involved. Two opinions written by him, touching the validity of the election law,
were handed down by the court during the April term following his election,
and in these he sustained the constitutionality of the law in a course of
reasoning which was accepted by the bar as sound, logical and convincing.
An opinion of unusual interest handed down by Judge Magruder was that
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS. 67
in the case of Cook county versus the Industrial School for Girls, to whose sup-
port a portion of the county funds had been diverted, in which he held that an in-
stitution under sectarian control had no right under the industrial act to draw
from the county funds any portion of the sum necessary for its maintenance.
The effect of this decision was to quiet agitation of the "school question," so far
as it related to a diversion of the public money from the public schools solely
under state supervision.
Judge Magruder's decision in the case against the Chicago Gas Trust
Company, in which he laid down the principles that "whatever tends to prevent
competition between those engaged in a public employment, or business im-
pressed with a public character, is opposed to public policy, and therefore un-
lawful,'' and that "whatever tends to create a monopoly is unlawful, as being
contrary to public policy," was of vast interest to the people, as opposed to trusts.
Four companies in Chicago were engaged in the manufacture of illuminating
gas, distributing it through the streets under chartered rights. The Chicago
Gas Trust Company was organized with a nominal capital of $20,000,000 and
bought a sufficient amount of stock in each of these companies to control them
all and destroy competition. In an opinion disposing of the case, brought to
the supreme court on appeal. Judge Magruder denied the right of the trust to
purchase and hold the stock of other gas companies as incidental to the main
purpose of operating works for the manufacture and sale of gas to consumers.
The case of the appeal of Spies, Parsons and other anarchists, convicted of
murder at Chicago, involved the foundations of government, the supremacy of
law and the authority of the officials appointed to execute and administer the
law ; and the whole country, long stirred by the lawless acts of anarchists, cul-
minating in riot and murder, awaited with intensest anxiety a decision by the
supreme tribunal of the state. Judge Magruder wrote the decision of the court,
in which he dispassionately reviewed the proceedings of the trial, affirmed their
regularity and sustained the majesty of the law, and this decision allayed public
passion and brought about an abatement of the excitement incident to the trial,
without further menacing manifestations. No other case of so great popular in-
terest has come before the court since Judge Magruder's accession to the
bench.
His mental equipoise and judicial temperament qualify Judge Magruder for
the calm and unprejudiced consideration of all questions, and he has too much
respect for the principles and purposes of jurisprudence to decide important
questions on mere technicalities and hypercritical issues. All such considera-
tions he puts ruthlessly aside and rests his opinion on the substantial principles
of law and equity involved. During his practice of nearly thirty years he ac-
quired a broad and varied knowledge of the law as laid down in the books and
construed by the judiciary, and while this is apparent in his every opinion, his
judicial work is even more distinctly characterized by the incorruptible honesty
which animates and illuminates it.
Judge Magruder was married in June, 1864, to Miss Julia M. Latham, of
68 THE BEXCH AXD BAR OF ILUXOIS.
Springfield, who has Ivome him a son and datigr.ter. The family residence is
at No. 7 Washincton Place. Chicago.
Jacob \V. Wilkin- — Among the able and prominent members of the legal
profession who constitute the present supreme court of Illinois is Judge J. W.
V. :!k:n. of Danv:''e. He was b<3m near Ne'.\-ark. Ohio, on the 7th of June, 1837,
ar.'^ Is a 5-:^n of Isaac and Sarah W ilkin. In his early life the fatlier was a car-
penter ar.d contractor. He resitied on a small ^rm in Licking count}', Ohio,
until 184^. when he removed to Crawford cotintv. Illinois, where he carried on
agricultural pursuits for many years. At the tiir.e of the removal the Judge
%vas but eight years of age. and in the schools of Cra\%iord county he acquired
his prelin::nar}- educati^«n. which \\as supplen:ented by work in the classical
course in McKendree College. His b-oyhc-od cays were spent on his fathers
farm, and he was the fifth in a family of nine children, having two brothers and
two sisters older and three brothers and one sister younger than himself. His
parents were thriftA* people, but their family was large and the children were
therefore denied some of the advantages that might have fallen to them had
there not been so many to share the patrimony.
Nevertheless the ludsre s;»ent a hai^:>v bovhoc'd, althoi:2:h it was attended by
some privations and hardships. His first step after leaving school was to enter
the arm v. for the counirv was callir^e: for aid to crush out the rebellion which
threatened the destniction of the Union. He enlisted as a private and served for
over three years, within which time he was promoted to the rank of captain,
and he was nuisierod out in August. iS'»5, with a nia;or's commission. He par-
ticipated in a number of important engagements, and on the field of battle, on
picket duty and in the camp manifested his loyalty to the old tlag and the cause
it represented.
After the close of hostilities, in accordance with the advice of his father, our
subject entered upon the study of law in the othce of the late Judge John
Scholfield, of Marsliall, Clark county, Illinois, and after his admission to the
bar. in March, iStjj, formed a pannersliip with his former preceptor, a relation
that was maintained until Judge Scholneld's election to the supreme bench of the
state in 1873. ^^^- ^Vilkin continued an active member of the bar of Marshall
until 1S79. ^"^ ^" ^^^^ earlier years of his professional career enjoyed a general
country practice, trying all kinds of law-suits, most of the trials being by jury,
and full of excitement and interest to both clients and lawyers. He practiced
in several counties adiacent to Clark and met manv able men in the Wabash
valley. — representatives of both the Illinois and Indiana bar. His clear reason-
ing, logical deductions, familiarity with the law and precedents, his effective
oratorv, all enabled him to win manv forensic victories, and it was his marked
ability as a lawyer that led to his selection for judicial honors in 1879, when he
was elected to the circuit bench. In 188^ he was re-elected to that office and was
on the appellate bench of the fourth district from 1885 until 1888, in which latter
year he w as elected a member of tlie supreme court and re-elected in 1897.
His entire life has been devoted to his chosen profession, in which he has
attained marked eminence. The only public offices he has held have been in
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS. 69
this connection. In politics, however, he has always taken a deep interest, and
was an active worker in the ranks of the Republican party until his elevation to
the bench, since which time he has withheld himself from active work, that no
shadow of partisanship or prejudice may be cast by opponents upon his impartial
discharge of duty.
In September, 1865, Judge Wilkin was united in marriage to Miss Alice E.
Constable, daughter of Judge Charles H. Constable. She died in March, 1883,
leaving three children : Harry O., who has business interests both in Portland,
Oregon, and at Lake Lindman, Alaska; John Scholfield, who is engaged in
gold-seeking in the Klondyke; and Jessie Bell, at home. Judge Wilkin after-
ward married Mrs. Sarah E. Archer, a daughter of Judge William Whitlock,
who resided in Marshall. By her first marriage she had one son, W. W. Archer,
who is now practicing law in Tacoma, Washington. He is married and has one
child. Since 1885 Judge Wilkin has resided in Danville, coming to this city
because it offered a broader field for his professional achievements. He is one
of its most prominent and honored residents, and with his family enjoys the
hospitality of the best homes in this part of the state.
For about thirty years Judge Wilkin has been a member of the Masonic
fraternity and has taken the Knight Templar degree and the thirty-second degree
of the Scottish Rite. He is also a member of the Knights of Pythias lodge, but
while exemplifying the principles of these orders he has never been very active
in the work of the lodge room. He belongs to the Methodist Episcopal church,
of which his parents also were members, while two of his brothers were ministers
of that denomination, Rev. E. D. Wilkin having been chaplain of the Twenty-
first Illinois Infantry — Grant's first command — during the civil war. He died in
Lincoln, Illinois, in 1885. The other brother. Rev. M. P. Wilkin, is now in the
active work of the church in Havana.
A man of unimpeachable character, of unusual intellectual endowments, with
a thorough understanding of the law, patience, urbanity and industry. Judge
Wilkin took to the bench the very highest qualifications for this most respon-
sible office in the system of the state government; and his record as a judge has
been in harmony with his record as a man and lawyer, — distinguished by un-
swerving integrity and a masterful grasp of every problem that has presented
itself for solution.
Judge Joseph N. Carter. — ^The position which Joseph Newton Carter is
now occupying — that of chief justice of the supreme court of Illinois — stands
in evidence of his rank at the bar of the state. Holding the highest judicial office
in the commonwealth, his ability is such as to rank him among the most dis-
tinguished lawyers and jurists that Illinois has produced, and his name is in-
delibly engraved in honor upon the pages of her legal history. He is a native
son of a state that has brought forth many eminent members of the profession —
Kentucky — and is the adopted son of a state no less renowned for the brilliant
qualities of its bench and bar.
Judge Carter was born in Hardin county, Kentucky, March 12, 1843, ^"^ is
descended from Virginian ancestors of English descent. His paternal grand-
70 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
father was a Virginian planter in good circumstances, who operated his planta-
tion with the aid of slaves, as was common in those days. The parents of the
Judge, William Price and Martha (Mays) Carter, removed from Bedford
county, Virginia, to Hardin county, Kentucky, in 1840, and the father pur-
chased a farm of four hundred acres. There he extensively engaged in raising
tobacco with the aid of his sons and a few slaves that he had inherited from his
father. In the fall of 1856 he removed with his family to Coles county, Illinois.
The Judge was then a lad of thirteen years. His birth occurred on the family
homestead in Hardin county, and when old enough he had begun work on the
farm. During the winter months he attended the subscription school of the
neighborhood, which was supported by the parents whose children were in
attendance there. Early in the year 1857 he was a student in the common
schools of Charleston, Illinois, and later he attended the district schools of Coles
county. In 1858 his father purchased wild prairie land in the northern part of
that county — in the section which afterward became Douglas county — ^and
there a farm was improved, upon which the family resided for a few years, when
it was sold, the family removing to Tuscola. Judge Carter then attended the
public schools of that city through the winter, and in the summer months
engaged in teaching in the district schools near by. In 1862 he enlisted as a
private in Company A of the Seventieth Illinois Infantry, for three months'
service. When his term had expired he returned home and in the fall of 1863
entered the freshman class of Illinois College, at Jacksonville, where he was
graduated in 1866.
When only thirteen years of age Judge Carter resolved to make the practice
of law his life work, and the autumn of 1866 saw the consummation of his boyish
plan, as he then martriculated as a student in the law department of the Michi-
gan University, at Ann Arbor, where he was graduated in 1868, with the degree
of LL. R. By means of teaching and various kinds of labor he paid his own way
through college and law school, and after his graduation in the latter he went
south with the intention of locating, but, changing his mind, he returned to
Illinois in 1869 and took up his abode in Quincy. In the fall of that year he was
admitted to the bar, on examination by a committee appointed by the supreme
^ourt, and in the spring of 1870 formed a law partnership with William H.
Govert, also a graduate of Illinois College and the law department of Michigan
University. Under the firm name of Carter & Govert they practiced until the
election of the Judge to the supreme bench in June, 1894. For a few years they
struggled along, but their clientage constantly grew in volume and importance
and for nearly twenty years before Judge Carter's elevation to the bench they
enjoyed a large share of the business in the supreme court and in the federal
and state courts. Their business was often of a very important character, and in
its conduct Judge Carter displayed exceptional ability, resourcefulness, compre-
hensive knowledge of the law and a masterful grasp of the situation, which en-
abled him to keep in mind every detail, giving to each its relative prominence
and at the same time never losing sight of the important point upon which the
decision of a case finally turned.
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS, 71
In June, 1894, he was elected to the supreme bench, over Judge Oscar P.
Bonney, the Democratic candidate, and became chief justice, under the rules of
the court, at the June term of 1894. He took to the bench a mind well stored
with legal lore, a large experience gathered from years of extensive and im-
portant practice, a character that was an assurance that the duties of the high
office would be faithfully administered, and a general natural fitness for the posi-
tion that few men possess ; and when it is admitted that as a lawyer and a judge
he is ranked with the foremost, nothing more is necessary to show the high
position, intellectually, professionally and otherwise, that he occupies.
Judge Carter cast his first presidential vote for Abraham Lincoln, in 1864,
and has since been an ardent Republican in politics. His thorough under-
standing of the political problems of the day, combined with his strong per-
sonality and ability for leadership, has made him one of the prominent repre-
sentatives of the party in his district, and in the fall of 1878 he was elected on
the Republican ticket to the lower house of the general assembly, and re-elected
in 1880, serving in the sessions of 1879 and 1881, also in the special session of
1882. He was the minority member from his district, Adams county being
Democratic. In 1882 he was the candidate of his party for state senator and
succeeded in greatly reducing the Democratic majority.
On the 3d of December, 1879, ^he Judge married Miss Ellen Douglas Bar-
rell, youngest daughter of the late Captain George and Ann Barrell, of Spring-
field, Illinois. They have three children : Henry B., born September 19, 1880,
now a freshman in Princeton University; William Douglas, born August i,
1882; and Josephine, born March 12, 1886. The Judge and his family attend
the Congregational church, of which he has long been a member. He has made
his home in Quincy continuously since 1869, and is one of its most popular
and honored residents.
James Henry Cartwright, who was elected a justice of the supreme court in
December, 1895, was born at Maquoketa, Iowa, on the 1st of December, 1842.
His father, Barton Hall Cartwright, was a well known frontier clergyman of
the Methodist Episcopal church, and the maiden name of his mother was Chloe
Jane Benedict. Judge Cartwright completed a course of study in Rock River
Seminary, at Mount Morris, IlHnois, and thereafter became a student in the
law department of the University of Michigan, at Ann Arbor, where he was
graduated in 1867. In 1870 he engaged in the practice of his profession at Ore-
gon, Illinois, which place is still his home. He was elected judge of the circuit
court in 1888 and was assigned to the appellate court of the second district, in
June, 1891, and in December, 1895, as already noted, was elected to the supreme
bench of the state. He was re-elected in June, 1897, and has proved eminently
qualified for the duties of his important office.
On the 26th of November, 1873, Judge Cartwright was united in marriage
to Hattie L. Holmes, and they are the parents of three daughters and two sons.
Carroll C. Boggs is one of the more recent accessions \o the supreme bench
and is qualified both by natural endowment and ample experience for the high
office which he holds. Judge Boggs is a native of Illinois, having been born
^2 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
in Fairfield, Wayne county, on the 19th of October, 1844. He still maintains his
home in the city where he was born. Prior to his elevation to the supreme
bench he had held the offices of state's attorney, county judge of Wayne county,
judge of the second judicial circuit and judge of the third district appellate court.
Elsewhere in this work may be found individual sketches of others of the
supreme-court justices.
CHAPTER VI.
REPORTERS OF THE SUPREME COURT.
THE reporter of the decisions of the supreme court is appointed by the
court, and there have thus far been six incumbents of this important
position.
Sidney Breese, to whom specific reference has been already made in the
chapter pertaining to the supreme court, which he so dignified by his services
as justice, was the first person authorized by the court to report and publish its
decisions. He published the first volume of supreme-court reports, which
includi^s all the decisions of the court from its first organization, in 1819, to the
close of the December term, 1831, — ^this being the only volume published by him.
Jonathan Young Scammon, of Chicago, was appointed by the court, July,
1839, to succeed Judge Breese, and published four volumes, known as Scam-
mon's Reports. The name of Jonathan Young Scammon is of necessity per-
petuated in that of the history of Chicago, with which he was identified from
1835 ^^ti\ his death, which occurred March 17, 1890, a long period of fifty-five
years. His life was a useful one, and whether as lawyer, man of affairs, journal-
ist or philanthropist, he always exerted an influence upon the public of Chicago
and the west that was both helpful and ennobling, and has left an imperishable
memory as the conservator of every interest contributing to the growth and de-
velopment of the city of his adoption.
Jonathan Young Scammon was born July 27, 1812, in the town of Whitfield,
in that part of Massachusetts which, after the admission of Maine, in 1820, and
the organization of Lincoln county, was within the borders of that county, that
state. His father was Hon. Eliakim Scammon, a man of ability, who for many
years represented the town of Pittston in the house of representatives and Ken-
nebec county in the senate of Maine. His mother was Joanna Young, daughter
of David Young, a pioneer, who represented his district in the general court of
Massachusetts and performed gallant service as a soldier during the Revolution-
ary war.
Mr. Scammon received his early education at the Maine Wesleyan Seminary
and the Lincoln Academy. He then entered Waterville College, now known
as Colby University, from which he received the baccalaureate degree and at a
later date the honorary degree of LL. D. He read law at Hallowell, and in 1835
was admitted to the bar in Kennebec county. After a somewhat protracted
tour of the west, he reached Chicago in the fall of that same year, and to oblige
a friend, who was deputy clerk of the courts of Cook county, and who desired to
be absent for a time, he consented temporarily to discharge the duties of that
73
74 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
position in his friend's stead. That was the beginning of his active career in
Chicago.
No eastern visitor could at that time see much to favorably impress him
with Chicago. But Mr. Scammon's stay here was prolonged until he became
familiar with the town and its advantages, and he conceived a conviction as to
the great destiny of the place which never left him afterward, even when Chi-
cago's future appeared darkened. He soon began the practice of his profession
and was early recognized as a lawyer of great ability. In 1837 he was made
attorney for the State Bank of Illinois, at that time one of the leading financial
institutions of the west. In 1839 he was appointed reporter of the supreme
court of Illinois, and published the first volume of the court reports issued in
Chicago. .This position he held until compelled by pressure of other business
to relinquish it, in 1845, and the reports published under his supervision have
been looked upon by the bar of the state as the most valuable of the series.
After practicing his profession for a time, in partnership with Hon. B. S.
Morris, one of the distinguished pioneer lawyers of the state, he became .asso-
ciated professionally with Hon. Norman B. Judd, whose reputation as a lawyer
and politician was national, and the firm thus constituted was regarded as one
of the ablest in the northwest. In 1847 ^he first railroad enterprise set on foot
west of Lake Michigan was projected and Mr. Scammon became actively inter-
ested in its advancement. The proposed line was known as the Galena & Chi-
cago Union Railway, and to secure its completion Mr. Scammon not only
brought to bear all the influences which he could command, but taxed his
private resources to the utmost limit to contribute to its financial assistance.
The amount of time which he found it necessary to devote to the railway and
other business enterprises caused him to withdraw in a measure from the active
practice of law in 1847, when his partnership with Mr. Judd was terminated.
Notwithstanding this withdrawal from regular practice, Mr. Scammon
retained a prominent position at the bar and it was in his office that Hon. Robert
T. Lincoln pursued his law studies at a later date. Even more widely than as a
lawyer, he was known as a prominent citizen of Chicago and as a man of affairs.
Early in the history of the city he engaged in banking, and built up various
important financial institutions, besides investing large sums of money in mak-
ing substantial and permanent investments on the realty which he acquired. He
lent his every energy to all movements calculated to promote the growth and
prosperity of the city. While not entirely successful in all his earlier financial
ventures, he nevertheless built up a large fortune prior to 1870 and was ac-
counted one of Chicago's wealthiest citizens, when the fire of 1871 blighted for a
time the common prosperity and the major part of his own accumulations were
entirely swept away.
But his faith in Chicago did not flag, even in those hours of somber despair
which drove some men mad and others to premature graves. He was one of the
pioneers in the herculean task of building the city anew. He was one of the
earliest to contract for building material, and new buildings to replace those of
his which had been destroyed were among the earliest of those which sprang- up.
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS. 75
almost like magic, immediately after the great conflagration. It is said that he
entered into one such contract within twenty-four hours after the fire had been
gotten under control and while some portions of the city were still burning. He
thus exerted an influence upon others which gave an impetus to the rebuilding
movement which was of incalculable benefit and which was not the least notable
of the distinguished services rendered by him to Chicago.
The financial panic of 1873, following close upon the unexpected and
extraordinary reverses w^hich had fallen upon him in 1871, prevented him from
reaping the fruition of his labor and enterprise and resulted finally in the dissipa-
tion of his entire fortune. He was a most liberal contributor during all the
years of his financial prosperity to charitable and benevolent institutions, and no
one ever appealed to him in vain in behalf of any movement having for its object
the alleviation of human suffering or the improvement of the condition of any
considerable number of his fellow-citizens. What has since become one of the
noted hospitals of the city was originally built by Mr. Scammon at his own
expense and was turned over to the Hahnemann Medical College as a gift, while
the Hospital for Women and Children received from him liberal contributions
and material assistance in conduct and management during the early years of
its existence. ' He was equally generous in dealing with worthy persons in need
with whom he came in contact professionally or otherwise.
Mr. Scammon's friendship to young men just starting in life was exceed-
ingly valuable. For all such he had a kindly word of advice under any circum-
stances and he was generous with substantial encouragement when the occasion
seemed to demand such aid. A distinguished jurist and a late member of the
federal judiciary relates that when he had completed his course of study in Mr.
Scammon's law office, and was ready to enter professional life on his own ac-
count, the latter, entirely unsolicited, placed in his hands a considerable amount
of business to be looked after in the new county seat in which he was to locate
and left an order with a Chicago book-seller to supply him any books that he
might need. His friendships were always generous and his manner of manifest-
ing his regard or expressing his sympathies was eminently practical. To no
one of Chicago's pioneers is the city vmder a greater obligation for the advance-
ment of its educational interests than to Mr. Scammon. It was through his
instrumentality that a free-school clause was inserted in the first charter granted
to the city of Chicago, and it was to him that Chicago was mainly indebted for a
free-school system some time before the free school became a state institution.
Mr. Scammon was not only a promoter^ of but a devotee to science, to vari-
ous branches of which, notwithstanding the multiplicity of his business and pro-
fessional engagements, he gave much of his time and means. For many years
he was specially interested in the study of astronomy. While connected with
the University of Chicago as one of its trustees, he erected for the use of that
institution an observatory, in which w-as placed one of the largest refracting
telescopes ever brought to the west, and, in addition, he bore the expense of the
maintenance of a professorship in connection therewith. He was one of the
founders of the Chicago Astronomical Society, of the Chicago Historical Society
ye THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
and of the Chicago Academy of Sciences. As a religionist he was a follower of
Swedenborg, and founded the Church of the New Jerusalem, of the Sweden-
borgian faith, in Chicago. While he was devotedly attached to that church and
made it the recipient of his most considerable gifts and donations, he took the
broad view that all organizations of religious men and women were agencies for
good, and the appeals which came to him to aid churches of all denominations
seldom failed to meet with a helpful response.
Nearly all his active life Mr. Scammon was a contributor to the press, and
at different times he was prominent in the editorial and business management of
leading Chicago newspapers. He had a more or less intimate connection with
the founding of both the Tribune and the Journal, and in 1872 established the
Inter-Ocean, of which he was for a time sole proprietor and editor-in-chief. This
great journal was first issued March 25, that year, from a plant at the rear of
Mr. Scammon's residence, where he erected a building and supplied it with the
necessary printing material and installed a competent and sufficient corps of
editors and reporters.
Politically Mr. Scammon was, early in life, a Whig. From the time of the
organization of the Republican party he was an ardent supporter of its prin-
ciples. In i860 he was one of the most enthusiastic supporters of Lincoln, and at
his own expense published and distributed much of the literature of that cam-
paign. He was never, however, an office-seeker, and the most important elective
office he ever held was that of member of the Illinois legislature. He was twice
married, first to Mary Ann Haven Dearborn of Bath, Maine, who died in 1857.
His widow was Mrs. Gardner Wright. His one son, who grew to manhood, was
Charles Trufant Scammon, who, at the time of his death, in 1876, was a partner
of Hon. Robert T. Lincoln.
Upon the resignation of Mr. Scammon as reporter of the supreme court his
successor was appointed, in the person of Charles Oilman, of Quincy, Illinois,
his appointment bearing date of January 30, 1845. His death occurred July 24,
1849, when the fifth volume of his reports was about four-fifths completed. At
the request of the administrators of the estate of the deceased reporter, the
court authorized Charles B. Lawrence to complete the volume and superintend
its publication. Mr. Oilman published five volumes, which are known as
Oilman's Reports.
After the death of Mr. Oilman, Ebenezer Peck, of Chicago, was appointed
to fill the vacancy. He gave a new title to the volumes published by him, and
his wisdom in so doing has been recognized, since the name which he gave,
"Illinois Reports," has been ever since retained. His first volume was num-
bered eleven and his last, thirty. He resigned in April, 1863.
Ebenezer Peck located as a lawyer in Chicago during the summer of 1835.
He was born in Portland, Maine, but his parents removed to Canada while he
was but a lad, and he received his education and was admitted to the bar at
the city of Quebec, where he began the practice of his profession, and soon rose
to the rank of king's counsel, and was elected to the provincial parliament,
where he acted with the Liberal party and acquired an influential position. After
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS, 77
locating in Chicago he devoted himself earnestly to the work of his profession,
secured a large and profitable practice, and was looked up to as one of the able
lawyers of the city. He, however, had a great fondness for politics, which in
a few years distracted his attention from his law practice, and finally, for a
time, he engaged in mercantile pursuits. He was then for a time clerk of the
supreme court, with hisoffice in Springfield, but resigned that place in 1846 and
returned to Chicago, where he formed a law partnership with James A. Mc-
Dougal, who was afterward United States senator from California. The firm
soon secured a large practice, as both were able men and sound lawyers ; but in
1849 ^^^' Peck accepted the office of reporter of the supreme court of our state to
succeed Mr. Charles Oilman, who had died. He held the place of reporter until
after the inauguration of Mr. Lincoln as president, when he was appointed one
of the judges of the United States court of claims, which place he filled until
1875, when he resigned, at the age of seventy years, and died at his home in Chi-
cago two years later. As a lawyer he was able and industrious, well versed in
the common law, and an eloquent and effective advocate, courteous and gentle-
manly toward the court and his brother lawyers, and thoroughly honest. He
was a natural leader of men, and his influence was always thrown in favor of a
high standard of professional conduct. He was an early admirer and friend of
Mr. Lincoln, who had great confidence in his judgment, and often consulted him
in the trying emergencies of the civil war.
Norman Leslie Freeman, the fifth reporter of the supreme court, was born
in the state of New York, on the 9th day of May, 1823. His ancestors were
among the best of the old New England families. He lost his father when he
was but a few years of age, and was taken by his mother to Ann Arbor, Michigan.
He was employed for a short time in a store in Detroit, and then removed to
Cleveland, Ohio, where he was engaged in a like employment. He completed
his education at the Ohio University, Athens, Ohio. Shortly after leaving
school he went to Kentucky, and was a teacher in that state. While teaching he
entered upon the study of the law, eventually returning to New York, where
he entered a law office for the purpose of completing his legal education. In
1846 he again visited Kentucky, and was there admitted to the bar and entered
upon the practice of his profession.
In 1 85 1 he removed from Kentucky to Shawneetown, and being admitted to
the bar of Illinois he continued his practice. In the meantime he removed to
the state of Missouri, and for a while lived on a farm, but returned to this state
in 1862 and resumed his legal practice. In April, 1863, he was appointed by the
supreme court the reporter of its decisions, which position he held until his death,
which occurred on the 23d day of August, 1894. He reached and afterward
held a high position at the bar of the circuit and supreme courts until he
abandoned it to enter upon a new field of labor, the preparation of a digest of the
Illinois reports. It is a work in two volumes and is now nearly obsolete, being
superseded by other later and more extensive digests of Illinois decisions. It
was the pioneer work of its kind, and shows the careful, accurate discrimination
of a clear, well trained legal mind. It was published in 1856 and afforded great
78 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
assistance to the practicing lawyers of that day ; it includes only fifteen volumes
of Illinois reports.
Judge John M. Scott, who was one of the justices of the supreme court
for many years, says of Mr. Freeman: "It was his eminent fitness for that class
of work, as manifested in the preparation of his digest, no doubt, that attracted the
attention of the court when casting about for a suitable person to fill the office
of reporter, upon the happening of a vacancy. Prior to that time there had been
but four reporters of the decisions of the supreme court, — Breese, Scammon,
Gilman and Peck, — all men of learning and abiUty. Selecting a successor to
such eminent men and most successful reporters was a delicate task ; the selec-
tion would imply a high compliment to one upon whom it might fall."
Judge John D. Caton, who was one of the three judges which composed
the court when Mr. Freeman was appointed, says of him : "Mr. Freeman had
practiced before the court for a number of years before he was appointed its
reporter, and we were all familiar with his eminent fitness, as a lawyer, for the
place, but his other qualifications remained to be proved, and in these he has
surpassed the most sanguine expectations of the court, of the profession and of
his personal friends."
Hon. Wm. E. Shutt, in his remarks in the circuit court of the United States
for the southern district, January 25, 1895, condensed the personal character of
Mr. Freeman in a few words : "Mr. Freeman was fearless, generous and honest.
He lived an honorable, and an eminently useful life, 'And thus he bore without
abuse the grand old name of gentleman.' "
Isaac N. Phillips, the present reporter, was bom October 24, 1845, in Taze-
well county, Illinois, to which county his parents came from Wayne county,
Kentucky, as "early settlers," in 1830.
He was educated at the Illinois Wesleyan University, attended the old
Chicago Law School, of which Judge Henry Booth was the dean, and gradu-
ated in June, 1871. He was admitted to the bar that same summer and has
practiced since at Bloomington, Illinois, except the four years diving which he
was chairman of the Illinois railroad and warehouse commission, under Gov-
ernor Fifer.
He was appointed reporter of the supreme court October 24, 1894. The
first volume he reported was 152, and volume 173 has now been issued, and he is
"up with the court."
CHAPTER VII.
LAWYERS OF CHICAGO.
ELLIOTT ANTHONY.— On a certain occasion, in speaking of the virtues
of a prominent jurist, Judge Elliott Anthony said : "May our successors
in the profession look back upon our times not without some kind regrets
and some tender recollections ; may they cherish our memories with that gentle
reverence which belongs to those who have labored earnestly, though it may
be humbly, for the advancement of the law ; may they catch a holy enthusiasm
from the review of our attainments, however limited they may be, which shall
make them aspire after the loftiest possessions of human learning ; and thus may
they be enabled to advance our jurisprudence to that degree of perfection
which shall make it a blessing and protection to our country and excite the just
admiration of mankind." The hope that Judge Anthony uttered in those words
is surely realized in regard to the influence he had upon the jurisprudence of the
state and the impress he made upon the bar. He was one of the great lawyers
of. the Illinois bar who lives in the memories of his contemporaries encircled with
the halo of a gracious presence, charming personality, profound legal wisdom,
purity of public and private life, and the quiet dignity of an ideal follower of his
calling. He was for many years in active practice in Chicago, and comparatively
few men endear themselves to so g^eat an extent to their professional asso-
ciates and to those with whom they come in contact in the discharge of public
duties. In his lifetime the people of the state, recognizing his merit, rejoiced in
his advancement and in the honors to which he attained, and since his death they
have cherished his memory, which remains as a gracious benediction to all who
knew him.
Judge Elliott Anthony was born in the town of Spaflford, Onondaga county,
New York, June lo, 1827, and is descended from Quaker ancestry, who sought
religious freedom in New England, and were even then fqrced to take up their
residence in Rhode Island on account of the persecution of the people of that
sect in other colonies of the New World. Among the number was the grand-
father of the Judge, who lived in that section of the colony which was occupied
by the British and their Hessian troops in the war of the Revolution. Captured
by the enemy he was forced to do menial service in the British headquarters,
and the wrongs he thus suffered awakened a resentment against the English
which is still manifest in his descendants. Other members of the family, how-
ever, found opportunity to join the American army and did valiant service for
their country. Isaac Anthony, father of the Judge, was born in Rhode Island,
and the stories of the Revolution became very familiar to him, awakening a deep
interest in the affairs of his country, so that at a later day he became an able
79
8o THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
historian. In the early part of the nineteenth century he went with his father's
family to New York, a settlement being made at Cambridge, a Uttle village
about twenty miles from Albany. It was also the home of the Phelps family,—
emigrants from Vermont,— and Isaac Anthony married Parmelia Phelps. When
their family numbered four sons and a daughter they removed to the town of
Spafford, Onondaga county. Once before, the father had made a settlement
in that county and had resided for a time in Cattaraugus county, but had re-
turned east at the request of his friends, and Elliott and one sister and three
brothers had been born in Onondaga county before the final exodus. At the
time of the second removal the county was still a frontier district, a picturesque
region of hill, valley and lake, and the farm upon which the family located was
merely a clearing in the midst of the primeval forest. Three sisters were born in
this home, and the whole family were engaged in the duties peculiar to a frontier
settlement ; but these were done with such intelligence and vigor that Mr. An-
thony became the most prominent farmer in that region, and in addition to the
advantages of local primary instruction he gave each of his children an academic
education in Cortlandt Academy, at Homer, which was the leading institution
in that reg:ion.
Elliott Anthony, the fourth son, manifested special aptitude in his educational
labors and made rapid advancement, so that on leaving Cortlandt Academy he
was permitted to enter Hamilton College, of Clinton, New York, as a sopho-
more, in the autumn of 1847. He was graduated with honors at that institution
in the class of 1850, and during the succeeding year he and a classmate, Joseph
D. Hubbard, had charge of the Clinton Academy, in which Grover Cleveland
was then a pupil. At the same time Judge Anthony pursued a course of law
study under the direction of the renowned Professor Theodore W. Dwight,
who then occupied the chair of law and political economy in Hamilton. In
May, 185 1, when twenty-four years of age, he was admitted to the bar, at
Oswego, New York, and determined to enter upon his professional career in
Illinois, where his brother had previously located.
Accordingly he took up his residence in Sterling, this state, where he tried
his first case in a court of record. After about a year he returned to the east and
was married, July 14, 1852, to Miss Mary Dwight, a sister of his law preceptor
and a granddaughter of President Dwight of Yale College. With his bride he
then came to Chicago, where, with the aid of his accomplished wife, he cele-
brated his first year of residence by compiling **A Digest of the Illinois Re-
ports," which was received with great favor. He had been in Chicago but six
years, when, in 1858, he was elected city attorney and distinguished his adminis-
tration of the duties of that office in many notable cases where new points of law
were established ; as, for instance, that special assessments cannot be enjoined
by a court of chancery ; that the city of Chicago cannot be garnished to collect
salaries or wages of those employed by it ; that no execution can issue against
the city to collect a judgment, and that the city cannot make contracts with eas
companies which interfere with the prerogatives of legislation. These are trite
points now, but they were made against great opposition in eminent quarters. A
THE BENCH AND BAR. OF U^LINOIS. 8i
more striking case still was that regarding the liability of a property owner for
damages due to injuries received from an excavation left open in front of his prem-
ises. This was in the well known Robbins case, twice tried before the United States
supreme court, in which the position laid down in Mr. Anthony's brief, that the
owner was liable to the city where the city is sued and pays the damages, was
sustained, and the case became the leading authority in the country. Five years
after his election he was chosen general solicitor for the greatest railway corpor-
ation then in the northwest, the Galena & Chicago Union Railroad Company.
He was with it when the great fight over its consolidation with the Chicago &
Northwestern was on, and led the minority stockholders in one of the most stub-
bornly contested cases in railway law, and enlisted some of the most eminent
capitalists in the country, among them Samuel J. Tilden. All the positions of
^Ir. Anthony's brief were sustained and the parties patched up their differences.
This brief grew into a treatise on "The Law Pertaining to the Consolidation of
Railroads," which not only elicited personal congratulations from such men as
Josiah Quincy, Sidney Bartlett, Justice Swayne, and the late Thomas A. Ewing,
but has remained the best work on that subject and has attracted much atten-
tion in Europe.
The organic law of the state of Illinois, as framed in the constitutions of
1862 and 1870, bore the impress of the talent and ability of Judge Anthony, who
^vas a prominent and leading member of both conventions. In the first he was
associated with such eminent statesmen as Henry Muhlke, Chief Justice Fuller
and Hon. John Wentworth. In the second were as notable a collection of men as
ever assembled for Illinois, and Judge Anthony was regarded as the expert on
constitutional methods and procedure. He was chairman of the executive com-
mittee and drafted the article relating to that department. He also served upon
the committees on judiciary and railroads and drafted many of the articles of the
former and most of the latter. To his foresight is due the provision for the
appellate courts and additional judges of the circuit and superior courts of Cook
county to follow the needs of population. In connection with this he was
always one of the commanding speakers on the floor.
For the long period of twelve years Judge Anthony sat upon the bench of
the superior court of Chicago, beginning in the autumn of 1880, and during his
term he compelled a return to a more strict and correct construction of the law
m certain features, notably that of self-defense, in which he was the first prom-
inent jurist to take a bold stand against its abuses. This he did in a work
entitled "Law of Self-Defense, Trial by Jury in Criminal Cases, and New Trials
in Criminal Cases," which attracted widespread attention and influenced prac-
tice to a great degree. His sketches of the courts of England, published in the
Legal Adviser, attracted much attention about this time, and probably no work
surpasses his treatise on "The Law of Arrest in Civil Cases." He was twice ap-
pointed corporation counsel of the city of Chicago. He was always popular with
the bar, and as founder and president of the Chicago Law Institute, whose
charter he drafted and whose incorporation he secured, we owe to Judge
Anthony a debt that can never be paid. In 1859 he was president of the Ex-
82 THE BENCH AND BAR OF U.LINOIS.
celsior Society ; was one of the two honorary members of the Chicago Law In-
stitute; and was president of the Illinois State Bar Association in 1895. The
last named frequently called upon him for addresses, and that delivered by him
in 1 89 1 on the Constitutional History of Illinois, as well as that of the following
year on ^'Remember the Pioneers," were memorable in the annals of the asso-
ciation. Judge Anthony was a ready and entertaining writer and his historical
articles have been many and have been widely read. He was the author of the
Constitutional History of Illinois, The Story of the Empire, Sanitation and Navi-
gation, which foreshadowed the famous drainage canal of these days, and many
articles which have been published in the Magazine of Western History. He
was a man of very scholarly attainments, and was honored in 1889 with the de-
gree of LL. D., conferred upon him by his alma mater, Hamilton College. His
extensive and much read library indicates his familiarity with the master minds
of all ages, and his collection of historical works is very valuable. The cause
I
of education and mental culture was always one dear to his heart and for many
years he was a member of the board of directors of the Chicago public library,
and did much to promote its interests. Travel also broadened his mind and en-
riched his writings, and his several trips through Europe resulted in the pro-
duction of a number of interesting articles from his pen, including a very notable
one on Russia.
In politics, Judge Anthony was a conspicuous figure. He was one of the
founders of the Republican party in Illinois and was a delegate to the first Re-
publican convention in Cook county. His fitness for leadership called him at
once to a place among the most eminent men of the party, and in 1880, when
the conflict over the third-term idea came up he was elected chairman of the
Cook county convention and delegate to the state convention, whereupon he
became contesting delegate to the .national convention, where in a stormy debate
he answered Green B. Raum, General Logan and Emery A. Storrs, and was
finally admitted to the convention which nominated General Garfield for presi-
dent. As a citizen he supported every measure for the general good with a
public-spirited loyalty that was above question. At the bar he was ever
courteous and fair to his opponents and won their high respect. On the bench
he fully sustained the majesty of the law ; he was ever dignified, and his opinions
were models of judicial soundness, based upon a comprehensive understanding
of the principles of jurisprudence and a masterful skill in applying them to the
points in litigation. He was never oflfensively aggressive, either in the political
or legal field, but maintained his stand for the right, as he saw it, with a fixed
purpose that commanded public confidence, and at the same time was courteous
to all who differed from him.
He passed away February 24, 1898, and his death brought regret to the
entire community in which his engaging personality, his lofty character and ex-
ceptional attainments made him observed of all men. Like all who walk through
life on a higher plane than the great majority of his fellows, his companionship
was select, rather than large, but the many who looked up to him and respected
him realized as fully as did the few who were near him that a true man had fallen.
f
V '
c
*
V '
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THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS. 83
Benjamin F. Ayer, for more than forty years a member of the bar of Chi-
cago, was bom in Kingston, Rockingham county, New Hampshire, April 22,
1825, and is a son of Robert and Louisa (Sanborn) Ayer. His father
was bom in Haverhill, Massachusetts, August 14, 1791, and traced his ancestry
back to John Ayer, who emigrated to America from Norfolk county, England, in
1637, and took up his residence in Haverhill, Massachusetts, in 1645. The
mother was a daughter of Benjamin Sanborn, of Kingston, New Hampshire, a
descendant of Rev. Stephen Batchelder, who came from Hampshire, England, in
1632, and on the settlement of Hampton, New Hampshire, took charge of the
first church in that town. Among his descendants were Lewis Cass and Daniel
Webster.
Liberal educational advantages fitted Benjamin Ayer for life's duties, and his
rapid advancement indicated an alert and well-trained mind. His preparatory
training was received at the Albany Academy, of Albany, New York, after which
he entered Dartmouth College, where he graduated in 1846. Choosing the law
as a profession, he prepared himself for its practice by a course of study extend-
ing over a period of three years, including attendance upon the regular courses
of lectures at the Dane Law School, — the law department of Harvard Univer-
sity. Admitted to the bar, he began practice in Manchester, New Hampshire, in
July, 1849.
A solid professional reputation can be attained at the bar only by settled
habits of labor and research, to which must be added the analytic power and
trained judgment which can clearly and quickly discern the essential points in a
complicated case and apply to them the precise legal rule. These qualifications
are among the marked characteristics of Mr. Ayer and early brought him success
. in his professional career, so that before leaving the east he had a large and
important clientage. He was honored by his fellow citizens with an election to
the state legislature in 1853, and the following year was appointed prosecuting
attorney for Hillsborough county, in which capacity he rendered efficient ser-
vice to the public until 1857, when he resigned, preparatory to his removal to the
west.
Thinking to find a broader and more important field for his labors, Mr.
Ayer came to Chicago in 1857, and on the 15th of May was admitted to the
Illinois bar. In 1861 he was appointed corporation counsel for the city of
Chicago, and during four years' service in that capacity drafted the revised city
charter of 1863. Soon after his retirement from office he became a member
of the firm of Beckwith, Ayer & Kales, a connection which was continued until
1873, when the senior partner withdrew, Mr. Ayer and Mr. Kales, however, con-
tinuing their association until 1876.
While not restricting his practice to any single department of the law, Mr.
Ayer from an early period in his professional career made a close study of corpor-
ation and railroad law, and was therefore eminently fitted to accept the position
of general solicitor for the Illinois Central Railroad Company, which was ten-
dered him in 1876. The following year he was elected a director of that com-
pany, and on the 1st of January, 1890, became its general counsel. Of late
84 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
years his attention has necessarily been confined to the legal business of the
Illinois Central Company, and he has conducted, as its counsel, some of the
most important litigation in the courts of the country relating to railroad
interests. Among these cases was the famous one involving the title to the lake
front and reclaimed ground occupied by the Illinois Central Company in Chicago.
Another was that involving the right of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad to re-
tain station grounds in the yards of the Illinois Central ; and still another, de-
termining the right of the Chicago, Burlington & Xorthern Railroad to condemn
ten rniles or more of Illinois Central right of way between Galena and East
Dubuque.
A just estimate of Mr. Ayer's professional attainments and achievements
cannot be better given, perhaps, than in the words of the late William C. Goudy,
who knew him well and who said : "Benjamin F, Ayer has stood in the first
rank of lawyers in Chicago for more than thirty years. Nothing has been
allowed to divert him from his profession. He never relies on others to do his
work. Every question is investigated until the subject is exhausted. While
not controlled by precedents, he personally examines every case where the sub-
ject has been involved, in order to extract the principles applicable to <he matter
in hand. The most remarkable is the ability to make a connected and logical
statement of his case to the court. This is done in language which cannot be
misunderstood, and when presented orally it is with a clear voice and appropriate
emphasis, giving the greatest pleasure to the listener. The manner is one of
honesty and candor, which leaves no room for doubt as to his own convictions.
He has always had the credit of sincerity with the court, stating facts in a
conservative way and suppressing nothing, regardless of the effect on his case.
He has always endeavored to aid the court in arriving at correct conclusions,
both as to fact and law, believing that the highest duty of a lawyer is to see
that justice is done. In short, he commands the confidence and respect of
judges and lawyers, and as a citizen is without reproach.**
Mr. Ayer was married in 1868 to Miss Janet, daughter of Hon. James C.
Hopkins, of Madison, Wisconsin, and they have four children : Walter, Mary
Louisa, Janet, and Margaret Helen. Mr. Ayer is a valued member of various
social organizations. He was one of the founders of the Sons of New Hamp-
shire, organized in 1889, ^"d ^or ^^o years filled the office of president. He
is a member of the Chicago Historical Society, the Chicago Law Institute, the
Chicago Literary Club, the Chicago Club, the American Bar Association and
the Chicago Bar Association: in 1875 he was president of the latter. In 1878,
the honorary degree of LL. D. was conferred upon him by his alma mater.
He is a man of scholarly tastes and his mind has been cultivated bv ex-
tensive reading and research carried into various fields of literature and science.
His manner is one of modesty and reserve, yet he is ever most courteous and
kindly to those with whom he is brought in contact; and those who are ad-
mitted to his friendship find him a most entertaining, social man, quick to
recognize commendable traits in others, and always worthy of the highest re-
gard and esteem.
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS, 85
Lysander Hill.— In a classification of the lawyers of Chicago the name of
this gentleman will occupy a notable place among the distinguished members
of the profession who have devoted their energies to patent law. This branch
of jurisprudence, developed within a comparatively short period, is one of
the most important in its relations to the trade interests of all departments of
the law. By the protection which it furnishes to inventors, it stimulates all
inventive genius, and, when superior ability has produced mechanical devices
whose utility promotes the business interests of the land, patent law protects
the rights of the inventor from the attacks of the unscrupulous, who would
take advantage of his genius for their own profit and to the detriment of the
producer. No more intricate or delicate problems come before the courts than
those concerning patent litigation, and the man who can successfully handle
these must not only be well versed in the principles of jurisprudence, but
must also have a definite knowledge of mechanics that he may prove the orig-
inality of the invention. In both respects Mr. Hill is well quahfied to handle
the important interests which are entrusted to his care, and has attained hon-
orable distinction as one of the ablest patent lawyers of the land. Even be-
fore he had completed his literary education Mr. Hill had determined to devote
his life to the practice of law, and the careful pursuit of a well defined purpose
has gained him prestige in professional circles and also a handsome competence
which is a well-merited reward of his labors.
He was born in Union, Lincoln county, Maine, on the 4th of July, 1834,
a son of Isaac and Eliza M. (Hall) Hill. Among the Puritans who settled
Massachusetts in the beginning of American colonization were the paternal and
maternal ancestors of our subject, and thus from a sturdy stock is he descended.
Having attended the common schools of his native town, he entered Warren
Academy, where he prepared for college, and in 1854 he matriculated in
Bowdoin College, in which institution he was graduated in 1858 with the highest
honors of his class. Soon afterward he carried into execution his plan of pre-
paring for the bar, and after a comprehensive course of reading in the office
of A. P. Gould, a prominent attorney of Thomaston, Maine, he was admitted
to practice in 1859.
Mr. Hill opened an office there and was intent on building up a good busi-
ness, when the events which preceded the civil war claimed his attention.
He watched with growing interest and anxiety the hostile attitude of the people
of the south, and when war seemed imminent he took an active part in rais-
ing troops for the government. In April, 1861, he enlisted with an artillery
company, but this was not accepted for active service, because, as General
Scott expressed it, "the government already had more artillery than it knew
what to do with." After the battle of Bull Run Mr. Hill prevailed upon
Governor Washburn, of Maine, to organize a regiment of cavalry and took
an active part in raising it, although business duties obliged him to decline a
commission in it. In the early summer of 1862, however, Mr. Hill entered
the service as captain of an infantry company belonging to the Twentieth
Regiment of Maine Volunteers. Colonel Bacheldor, the historian of Gettys-
86 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
burg, credits this regiment with turning the tide of battle in that decisive en-
gagement. In 1863 Captain Hill was honorably discharged on account of dis-
ability and his health was so greatly impaired that his physician forbade a return
to the north. He therefore located in Alexandria, Virginia, where he resumed
the practice of law, also conducting a law office in Washington, D. C, at the
same time. In the former city he was associated with George Tucker, under
the style of Hill & Tucker. With the close of the war there came an important
service to perform, — the reconstruction of the south, and in the work of har-
monizing that division of the country to the new order of things Mr. Hill
bore an important part and one which redounds to his credit as a citizen, a
patriot and a friend to humanity. He not only had the confidence of the
government at Washington but also won the warm regard of his fellow citizens
of the Old Dominion, who afterward showed their appreciation of his services
by making a strong effort to confer upon him high judicial honors. In 1866
he was made a delegate to the Southern Loyalist Convention, which met in
Philadelphia, and was also a delegate to the Republican national convention,
at Chicago, in May, 1868. In 1867 he was appointed register in bank-
ruptcy, and in 1869 resigned in order to accept the appointment of judge of
the eighth judicial district of Virginia. In that office he discharged his duties
with such impartiality and marked fairness that an attempt was made, ir-
respective of party, to place him on the supreme bench of the state.
Until 1 871 Mr. Hill's law practice was of a general nature, but from that
time he has devoted his attention almost exclusively to patent and corporation
cases. In 1874 he left \'irginia, removing to Washington, where he formed
a partnership with E. A. Ellsworth, under the firm name of Hill & Ellsworth.
This connection was maintained until 1878, and Judge Hill was then alone in
business in Washington until 1881, when in the month of May he came to
Chicago. He formed a partnership with T. S. E. Dixon, which continued for
nine years, and since that time has been alone in business, enjoying a most
extended clientage, which comes from all parts of the country, and includes
many of the most important patent cases that have been heard in the history
of American jurisprudence.
In February, 1864, Mr. Hill was united in marriage to Miss Adelaide R.
Cole, of Roxbury, Massachusetts, and in the company of his wife and three
children the Judge finds his chief pleasure. His political support is still given
the Republican party and he is as ardently devoted to the cause as in earlier
years, notwithstanding the duties of an extensive law practice make it im-
possible for him to engage in active political work. Of Mr. Hill it has been
written: "Upright, reliable and honorable, his strict adherence to principle
commands the respect of all. The place he has won in the legal profession
is accorded him in recognition of his skill and ability, and the place which
he occupies in the social world is a tribute to that genuine worth and true
nobleness of character which are universally recognized and honored."
Joseph A. O'Donnell. — Among the representatives of the Illinois bar that
come from the Emerald Isle is Joseph A. O'Donnell, who was bom in the
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS. 87
town of Ballina, county Mayo, December 23, 1859, his parents being Patrick
and Catherine (Nellis) O'Donnell, members of the famous O'Donnell family
of Ireland. In 1866 they brought their children to the New World, locating in
Chicago, and Joseph pursued his education in St. Patrick's Academy of this
city and in the public schools. His school life then ended for a time ; the family
was in limited circumstances and he was obliged to find employment that he
might aid in the support of the other children. He entered upon his business
career as an office boy and later was apprenticed to a mechanical engineer.
He applied himself with great diligence to the thorough mastery of the work,
and when only twenty-two years of age was appointed to the important position
of foreman. During most of this time he attended a night school and studied
mechanical drawing, engineering and other kindred subjects, eagerly embrac-
ing every opportunity for gaining a comprehensive knowledge of his trade.
The arduous labors which he performed, however, undermined his health
and led to his determination to make the practice of law his life work. He had
previously read Blackstone's Commentaries on English law and Kent's Com-
mentaries on American law, and had also studied Latin during his leisure hours
in morning and evening. He was graduated in the Union Law College of Chi-
cago, in 1887, with the degree of LL. B., won a senior diploma, and later took
a post-graduate course, winning the degree of Master of Law. From the be-
ginning he has been very successful in his practice and has always enjoyed
an extensive and lucrative clientage. He is of a studious disposition, possesses
a keen, analytical mind and is very thorough and exact in the preparation and
conduct of the litigated interests entrusted to his care.
While Mr. O'Donnell has won a creditable position at the Chicago bar,
he has also become prominent in political circles and his influence is strongly
marked in the counsels of the Democratic party, with which he has been as-
sociated since attaining his majority. In 1889, 1891 and 1893 he was elected
from the ninth district to the general assembly, and was also in attendance
at the special session called to consider the World's Fair bill. During the
last two sessions he was a member of the steering committee of the house, and
his able management led to not a few successes for his party. He was instru-
mental in securing the passage of a number of irnportant bills, and it was through
his efforts that the Australian ballot law was placed on the statute books of this
commonwealth. The bill was introduced by him and engineered by him through
the house. He was well known as one of the leading orators of the assembly,
and while he did not resort to the use of flowery phrases to any extent his sound
logic and evident belief in all he advocated produced great effect upon his
auditors. He was also associated with the '*one hundred and one" who secured
the election of General Palmer as United States senator.
In 1886 Mr. O'Donnell married Miss Rose E. Dugan, whose father,
Thomas Dugan, was one of the pioneers of the city, of 1833! He belongs to a
number of distinctly Irish societies and in addition holds membership in the
Royal League, Ancient Order of United Workmen, National Union and the
Knights of the Maccabees. For five years he was a member of the Second
88 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
Re^nient, Illinois State Militia, in which he held the rank of first lieutenant.
In his religious associations he is a Roman Catholic. In 1894 he revisited the
land of his birth, and also viewed many of the places of historic and modern
interest in England and Scotland. His courteous, affable manner renders him
a general favorite and his friends are many.
Francis W. S. Brawley. — In the death of the honored subject of this
memoir there passed away another member of that little group of distinctively
representative lawyers who were the pioneers at a bar now famous for the
brilliant achievements and deep learning of its members. His name is familiar
not alone to the residents of northern Illinois, but to all who have been in the
least intimately informed as to the history of jurisprudence in this state. For
a half century he practiced in the courts of this commonwealth, winning a name
and fame that have left their impress upon our judicial history and that ever
reserved for him a place among the most prominent representatives of the bar.
He never confined his attention exclusively to one line of the law, but had
a comprehensive knowledge of its various departments and had the abiUty
which enabled him to master the intricacies of each branch. There is in his
history a mastering of expedients and a utilization of opportunities that fur-
nish an example well worth emulation, as it illustrates what can be accom-
plished through determined purpose and well directed energy.
Mr. Brawley was born at North East, Erie county, Pennsylvania, his par-
ents being John and Mary (Saltsman) Brawley. His ancestors were among
the Pennsylvania colonists and w^ere of Scotch lineage. His early childhood
was spent on his father's farm, but while he was still young the family re-
moved to a village in western Pennsylvania and later to the city of Erie. In
the latter place he acquired an academic education, and resolving to find in
the legal profession his life work, began the study of law, in the office of Hon.
John Galbraith, a distinguished jurist, who carefully directed his reading. He
applied himself with such diligence that he was ready for admission to the bar
at the age of twenty, but the laws of his state prevented the practice of any
lawyer under the age of twenty-one, and until time should qualify hijn for his
chosen calling he resolved to emigrate westward and seek a location in the
Mississippi valley, whose rapid development promised a good field for the young
and ambitious.
In 1845, therefore, Mr. Brawley arrived in Chicago. His financial resources
were limited and in order to gain a living he accepted a position as compositor
on a Chicago newspaper, having acquired some knowledge of the printer's
art while in the east. While thus employed he spent more or less time in the
courts and learned something of western methods of practice, and was much
interested in watching the work of the old-time leaders of the Chicago bar.
The termination of one of the cases that came under the jurisdiction of the
court of this city was rather amusing as showing new methods of administering
justice. A fugitive slave had been apprehended in Chicago by his pursuers
from a southern state and was taken before a justice of the peace. A great
crowd gathered around the magistrate's office, and when the negro was brought
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS, 89
out they closed around him and by some peaceable means separated him from
those who had him in charge. They then started him running down the street
and fell in behind him and before his captors, ostensibly as active and zealous
pursuers. In this way, without any violence to the slave hunters, they kept the
latter in the rear until the negro was lost to sight, and ultimately, by means
of the historic underground railroad, he found his way into Canada !
Thus working at the printer's trade and attending court as opportunity
offered Mr. Brawley passed a few months, but tiring of the life he determined to
go further west and started for Iowa by stage. He first stopped at Freeport,
Illinois, and then went on horseback to southern Wisconsin. On his return
he met a minister who induced him to accept a school in Freeport until such
time as he might be ready to enter upon the practice of his profession.
It was thus that Mr. Brawley became a resident of Freeport, where he made
his home for twenty-three years, becoming the foremost member of the bar
of that place. He was married there in 1850, to Miss Mary Reitzell, a daughter
of one of the pioneers of Stephenson county, and establishing a home there
was long identified with its interests. After teaching school for a year he was
examined for admission to the bar by Madison Y. Johnson, Colonel Jason
Marsh and Thomas Goodhue, and being licensed to practice entered upon his
professional career in association with Hon. Martin P. Sweet, an able advocate
and counselor, who greatly assisted his young partner in the active workings
of the law. On the termination of their partnership Mr. Brawley became a
partner of Hon. J. M. Bailey, subsequently one of the judges of the supreme
court of Illinois, and the firm at once took a leading rank at the bar of Free-
port, where they continued practice until 1869, when seeking a broader field
they came to Chicago. They were retained as counsel on one side or the other
of every important litigated interest of Stephenson county, and in matters of
public importance outside the line of his profession Mr. Brawley was also a
recognized leader. He served for two terms as county superintendent of schools
and was long a member of the board of education of Freeport. He prepared
the special charter under which the schools of Freeport have since been con-
ducted, and which is recognized as formulating one of the best educational
systems of the state. As a Douglas Democrat he interested himself in politics,
and during one of the stirring campaigns early in the '50s he purchased and for
a time edited the Freeport Bulletin, which was one of the most ardent champions
of Democratic principles as represented by the distinguished Illinois senator.
In 1852 a long and bitter contest for the postmastership of Freeport was waged
between rival aspirants for the position, and it was suddenly terminated by the
appointment of Mr. Brawley, who had been neither an applicant nor an aspirant
for the position, and who, until he received his commission, had no knowledge
that his name had been considered in connection with the office. He served in
that capacity for six years, and during that period was several times elected
city attorney of Freeport.
In 1869 Mr. Brawley returned to Chicago and from that time until his
death, which occurred August 19, 1898, was a conspicuous figure at the bar
90 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
of the metropolis by reason of his versatility, his wide learning and his ability
to determine with accuracy the special point in law that applied to the litigated
interest. He had previously given his attention largely to railroad and in-
surance litigation, but on locating in Chicago did not confine himself to any one
branch of the law and won splendid success in various branches of jurisprudence.
His partnership with Judge Bailey continued until the latter's elevation to the
bench, when he became a partner of Hon. Thomas J. Turner. His practice
constantly grew in volume and importance, and from the beginning of his
career as a legal practitioner his efforts have been attended with success. He
mastered the science of jurisprudence, and his deep research and thorough
preparation of every case committed to his care enabled him at once to meet
any contingency that arose. His cause was fenced about with strong logic and
his arguments were cogent, concise and followed each other in natural sequence,
forming a chain of reasoning that his opponents found difficult to overthrow.
Probably sixty cases with which he was identified were carried to the supreme
court of the state, and in a considerable number of them important principles
of law were for the first time clearly enunciated and important precedents
established. A large and distinctively representative clientage attested his abil-
ity and he long ranked very high at the Chicago bar.
Previous to the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893 he was chairman
of the society of Pennsylvania residents in Chicago, who enthusiastically and
assiduously labored to have that fair held in Chicago, as it eventually was,
the Keystone state, in congress, with almost entire unanimity voting for Chicago
as the locality for the fair. Of the Knight Templar Commandery he was a
valued and prominent member, and in the Protestant Episcopal church he
also held membership. A man of scholarly tastes and studious habits, he spent
many pleasant hours with his favorite authors, and his kindly impulses and
charming cordiality of manner rendered him exceedingly popular among his
many friends.
Judge Thomas Guilford Windes, of the appellate court of the first district,
has been a member of the Chicago bar for almost a quarter of a century. He
was born in Morgan county, Alabama, January 19, 1848, and is of Scotch
descent, the original American ancestors of the family having come to the New
World prior to the Revolutionary war. His father, Rev. Enoch Windes, was
a minister of the Baptist church, and wedded Mary Ann Ryan, a lady of Irish
lineage, whose people were among the pioneers of Kentucky.
Jud<:i:e A\' indes was educated in an academy at Huntsville, Alabama, and was
engaged in farming until sixteen years of age. He then entered the Con-
federate service as a cavalryman under General Forrest, and was at the front
until the close of hostilities. He read law under the direction of the firm of
Beirne & Gordon, of Huntsville, and in 1867-8 was a law student in the Uni-
versity of Virginia, after which he engaged in teaching school until admitted
to the bar at Jasper, Tennessee, in 1870. Through the succeeding two years he
engaged in merchandising and in farming, but, meeting with an accident, he
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS. 91
resolved to come to Chicago, and has since been identified with the interests
of this city.
Judge Windes was employed in various ways until September, 1873, when
he secured a situation as a law clerk. In the summer of 1875 he was admitted
to the Illinois bar and has since engaged in practice. For some years he was
associated in a partnership with Alexander Sullivan, and much important liti-
gation fell to their share. In November, 1880, our subject was appointed master
in chancery of the circuit court of Cook county and served for twelve years,
when, in 1892, he was elected judge of the circuit court. In June, 1897, he
was appointed to the appellate bench, and has long since demonstrated his right
to be classed among the ablest jurists of the state. His decisions indicate strong
mentality, careful analysis, a thorough knowledge of law and an unbiased judg-
ment. He is also possessed of that self-control which enables him to lose his
individuality and put aside all personal feelings and prejudices, in order that
he may impartially and righteously dispense justice.
In 1868 Judge Windes was united in marriage to Miss Sallie C. Humphrey,
daughter of Boyle P. Humphrey, a prominent planter of Madison county,
Alabama. They have four children and reside in a pleasant home in Winnetka.
The Judge is a Baptist in his religious views, and a Democrat in his political
faith.
Eben Fitch Runyan.— ^Only five members of the Chicago bar in the present
year, 1898, were practicing here at the time of Mr. Runyan's arrival in 1855.
He may therefore be said to be one of the pioneer lawyers of the city, and
through the four decades that have since come and gone he has ever occupied
a prominent position in the foremost rank of the legal practitioners of the
western metropolis. His life has been one of untiring activity and has been
crowned with a high degree of success, yet he is not less esteemed as a citizen
than as a lawyer, and his kindly impulses and charming cordiality of manner
have rendered him exceedingly popular among all classes. The favorable judg-
ment which the world passed upon him in his early years has never been set
aside nor in any degree modified. It has, on the contrary, been emphasized
by his careful conduct of important litigation, his candor and fairness in the
presentation of cases, his zeal and earnestness as an advocate, and the generous
commendation he has received from his contemporaries, who unite in bearing
testimony as to his high character and superior mind.
Eben F. Runyan was born in Victory, Cayuga county, New York, December
3, 1 83 1, and remained in his native town until the spring of 1838, when his father
died and he was compelled to care for himself. His educational privileges
were somewhat limited. He attended the common schools and later pursued his
studies in the Waukegan Academy, of Waukegan, lUinois, when Hon. Francis
E. Clark was principal, and his wife, then Miss Hannah Scott, was one of the
teachers. Of a studious nature, Mr. Runyan, through his childhood and youth,
spent much of his leisure time in the perusal of books and thus gained a broad
knowledge which largely assisted him in the acquisition of legal lore. In the
spring of 1849 he entered the store of Captain T. F. Comstock, at Wilton,
92 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
Saratoj^a county, New York, and remained in that employ until the spring
of 1850, but he did not find that occupation congenial, although he gave entire
satisfaction to his employer, and resolved to seek a home in the west. In April
of that year he started for Illinois, making the journey almost entirely on foot,
and from the nth of June until March, 1853, was engaged during the summer
months in farming in McHenry county, Illinois, while during the winter season
he taught school. In the spring of 1853 he continued his own education in
Waukegan Academy, and on leaving that institution entered upon the study
of law in the office of W. S. Searls, being admitted to the bar in ,the spring of
1855. Then, as now, he believed that whatever is worth doing is worth doing
well, and was so strict in his adherence to the rules, forms and principles of the
text-books that for years after he commenced the practice of law he would not
himself use, nor would he permit a student in his office to use, a blank in the
preparation of a case for court.
In June, 1855, ^*r. Runyan opened a law office in Chicago and from the be-
ginning met with excellent success in his practice, which has always been of
a general character, embracing many departments of the law, in all of which
his knowledge is comprehensive and accurate. On the ist of January, 1856,
he formed a partnership with T. B. Brown, of Chicago, under the firm name
of Brown & Runyan, an association that was maintained until 1859. His
next partner was Daniel J. Avery, who had formerly been a student in his
office, and under the style of Runyan & Avery they conducted a successful
practice until 1870, when E. F. Comstock was admitted into the firm, and its
style became Runyan & Comstock. Later, by the admission of other partners,
it became Runyan, Avery, Loomis & Comstock. Mr. Loomis was admitted
in 1872 and this relation was maintained until November, 1876. Since 1888
the present firm of Runyan & Runyan-7-father and son — has occupied a prom-
inent pogition at the Chicago bar.
A contemporary biographer has said of the senior partner: **During the
forty years Eben F. Runyan has been at the Chicago bar he has tried more
cases than any other lawyer. He has attended strictly to business and has
been at his office early and late. As a trial lawyer he is possessed of ability of a
high order. He is devoted to the interests of his client and makes his cause
his own. Whenever he sees defeat is certain, he never hesitates to advise a
settlement. He has the happy faculty of sifting the evidence and presenting
clearly and concisely to a court or jury the strong points in a case, and is a
convincing speaker and successful lawyer." From another publication we
quote the following: "Thoroughly skilled in the science which he practices,
of great discernment, with a sharp faculty for analyzing evidence and a readiness
of resource in argument, he has attained great prominence as a pleader at the
bar; and his success is attested by numerous clients. He has won his way
to the position of a leading lawyer of Chicago by the exercise of a well culti-
vated mind and a ceaseless energy. These qualifications, added to a fair-mind-
edness which enables him to see both sides of the question, perfect self-control
THE BENCH AND BAR OF HJJNOIS. 93
and a pleasing courtesy of manner, have won for him the respect and good will
of his fellow members at the bar and will make him an ideal judge."
In the spring of 1898 he was nominated for judge of the circuit court on the
united silver ticket.
The subject of this review is a member of the Law Institute ; in politics he
has always been a stanch Democrat; and from 1864 until 1874 he was a member
of the board of education of Chicago, and has always been deeply interested in the
welfare of the city schools. He served as vice-president of the board and was
twice elected its president. Upon the organization of the board of park com-
missioners of West Chicago, he was appointed by the governor one of its
members and was connected with the board for about seven years, his efforts
being largely instrumental in the establishment of the three splendid west side
parks and the boulevards connecting them. He has been a man of great activity
and enterprise and has done much to develop the resources of Chicago. In
religion he adheres to the Baptist faith, and is a member and trustee of the
Fourth Haptist church. He resides at No. 804 Walnut street and has many
warm friends in the city, some of forty-three years' standing, the whole period of
his residence in Chicago.
On the 2d of January, i860. Mr. Runyan was married to Miss Flora R.
Avery, of Waukegan, Illinois, and to them have been born six children, one
of whom is Mr. Runyan's law partner.
Otto (Jresham, who for five years has engaged in the practice of law at
the Chicago bar. was born on the 30th of January, 1859, in Corydon, the old
capital of Indiana, and is the only son of Judge Walter Q. and Matilda (Mc-
Grain) Gresham. His preliminary educational training was supplemented by
study in Santa Clara College, of Santa Clara, CaHfornia, and in Wabash College,
of Crawfordsville, Indiana, and he graduated in the latter institution with the
class of 1881. With the example of his illustrious father to serve as inspira-
tion and encouragement, and prompted by his own tastes and incHnations, he
took up the study of law in the office of Haker, Hord & Hendricks, of Indianap-
olis, and the following year was admitted to the bar; but though his progress
was rapid and his efficiency satisfactory for his admission, he was not content
with his preparation and entered the Columbian Law School, of Washington,
D. C, in which institution he was graduated in the class of 1884.
Mr. Gresham then returned to Indianapolis and began the practice of law.
His was the usual experience of the members of the profession to whom success
comes only as they demonstrate their ability. Weahh and influence cannot gain
advancement in the law and realizing this Mr. Gresham applied himself earnestly
to his work, and won advancement through his ability to handle successfully
the intricate problems of jurisprudence. In 1889 (Governor Hovey offered him
the appointment to a place on the circuit bench to fill a vacancy, but he declined
the honor and continued in the private practice of law in Indianapolis until
i^J3. when he came to Chicago. He is now enjoying a Hberal clientage and is
recognized by the profession as a lawyer whose talents and energies will win him
still greater success. He is a member of the Indianapolis Bar Association, the
94 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
Chicago Law School, the University Club, the Chicago Athletic Club, the Calu-
met Club and the Beta Phi Pi, a college fraternity.
John C. Black. — As a distinguished member of the bar, as a statesman of
prominence, on the lecture platform and in Grand Army circles. General John
Charles Black is so well known that he needs no introduction to the readers of
this volume. His career has conferred honor and dignity upon the profession
and civic organizations with w^hich he is associated, and there is in him a weight
of character, a native sagacity, a far-seeing judgment and a fidelity of purpose
that commands the respect of all.
General Black was born in Lexington. Mississippi, on the 27th of January,
1839. His parents were Pennsylvania people, and his father died in 1847. I^
March of the same year the son came to Illinois, — being then only eight years
of age, — and has since been a resident of this state, living at different times in
Danville, Champaign, Urbana and Chicago. For four years he was in the
military service of his country.
Prompted by a spirit of patriotism he volunteered on the iSth of April, 1861,
and as a private soldier and non-commissioned officer served with the Eleventh
Indiana Infantry. He afterward became colonel of the Thirty-seventh Regiment
of Illinois Volunteers, and brevet brigadier general. Until the 15th of August,
1865, he remained in the army that fought for the perpetuation of the Union,
and was absent from the front for only one month, during which time he was
recruiting a company for the field and while suffering from wounds. He was
twice wounded and his injuries resulted in the incapacitating of both arms for
many years.
At the time he joined the army General Black was pursuing the work of
the junior year in college, and by his own labor was meeting the expenses of the
course. Upon his return from the south he took up the study of law, and is now
a practitioner at the bar of the various state and federal courts, including the
United States supreme court. He first opened a law office in Danville and sub-
sequently engaged in practice in Champaign, where he soon secured a lucrative
and extensive patronage, being for some time in command of one of the largest
law practices in central Illinois. During this time his fitness for leadership
and his comprehensive understanding of the political problems of the day gained
him prominence in the Democratic party, of which he has long been a stanch
adherent, and he was frequently engaged in labors for the advancement of the
party's interests. On the 7th of March, 1885, he was appointed by President
Cleveland to the position of commissioner of pensions and continued in that
office until March 27, 1889, when he tendered to President Harrison his resigna-
tion.
On the 29th of May, 1889, General Black took up his abode in Chicago
and resumed the practice of law, his marked ability, wude legal lore and accuracy
in the application of judicial principles to the points in litigation securing to him
a distinctively representative clientele. His party, however, was not content
that he should devote his talents entirely to the law, and in 1892 he was nom-
inated a candidate for congressman at large. Elected in the fall of that year.
f/'^i-L. l^f^:C't-oK-
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THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS. 95
he served from the 4th of March, 1893, until December, 1894, when he resigned
in order to accept the position of United States district attorney for the northern
district of Illinois, to which he was appointed by President Cleveland, and to
which he qualified January 12, 1895. He, until January, 1899, occupied that
office, and he has maintained a general practice, in both the state and federal
courts. He has successfully conducted some of the most important cases ever
heard in those courts. The essential qualifications of the truly great lawyer are
his, — comprehensive knowledge of the principles of jurisprudence and familiarity
with the long line of decisions, careful preparation of cases and the logical
assembling of the points in evidence, combined with a clear, cogent and forceful
presentation of the case to judge or jury. He has, too, a full appreciation of
the allegiance which he owes to the majesty of the law, and realizes that the
duty of the lawyer is to aid the court to arrive at just conclusions, and no mem-
ber of the profession is more careful to conform his practice to a high standard
of professional ethics.
General Black is also an orator of ability, and under the adornments of
rhetoric is the substratum of deep thought and earnest purpose which never fails
to hold the attention of his auditors. Three of the speeches which he delivered
while in congress attracted general attention, one on the Hawaiian question,
another on the subject of pensions, and a third delivered on the occasion of the
presentation of the bronze statue of General Shields by the state of Illinois to
the United States. The General is frequently called upon to address public
assemblages on matters of importance and general interest. At different times
he has delivered addresses on John Marshall, on U. S. Grant, and on Abraham
Lincoln, and on the 23d of April, 1888, he addressed the Iroquois Club in a most
pleasing manner on the subject of Triumphant Democracy. His prominence
in Grand Army circles is shown by his election, in the spring of 1898, to the
position of department commander of the Illinois G. A. R. He has also been
elected commander of the Illinois Commandery of the military order of the
Loyal Legion of the United States.
In 1867 General Black was united in marriage to Miss Adeline L. Griggs,
who has ever since been to him a wise and encouraging companion and help-
mate. To them have been born four children : Grace, now the wife of F. B.
Vrooman; John, a promising attorney; Josephine L., who died at the age of
six years ; and Helene, who completes the family.
Such in brief is the history of one of Chicago's representative citizens.
Popular among his army comrades, accorded recognition for his high legal
talents, admired for his splendid oratorical ability, and esteemed for his genuine
worth,— this is the summary of the life and character of General John C. Black.
Adolph Moses is a prominent member of the Chicago bar, where he has
practiced for almost thirty years. The bent of his mind is analytical and crit-
ical, a characteristic which not only ably fits him for his chosen calling but also
enables him to gain the essence of all literary productions, to determine with
accuracy the underlying principles of all measures of state, and to catch with
special quickness the permeating truth of any argument or line of thought that
96 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
may be presented t)y a speaker. His criticisms therefore are the logical de-
ductions of his analysis, and are ever comprehensive in their understanding and
correct in conclusions.
A native of (iermany. Mr. Moses was born in Speyer, the capital of the
Palatinate, February 27, 1837, ^"^^ *" ^^^^ public and Latin schools of that coun-
try prepared for the study of law, beinj^^ destined for that profession by his par-
ents as well as by his ow^n taste and inclinations. Race prejudice, however,
made it difficult for him to gain advancement in Germany, and accordingly he
came to the "land of the free/' arriving at New^ Orleans on the 22d of December,
1852. r^or some years he was a law student in the Louisiana University under
the preceptorage of Randall Hunt, Christian Roselius, Alfred Hennen and Judge
Thomas M. McCaleb. Graduated in March. 1861, he was then admitted to
practice at the bar of Louisiana and entered upon his professional career. How-
ever, the events in that period of our national history caused him to put aside
all personal considerations for the time being. Having spent nine years in the
south, and naturallv imbued with the sentiments common to all classes in that
state, his sympathies went out to the Confederacy, and as one of the officers
of the Twenty-first Louisiana Regiment he served for nearly two years.
On the expiration of that period Mr. Moses came north and took up his
residence in Quincy, Illinois, W'here he remained until 1869, and since that time
he has been a member of the Chicago bar. To occupy a foremost place in the
legal profession in this city with its hundreds of lawyers demands a superior
skill, a comprehensive knowledge of the science of jurisprudence and extreme
accuracy in the application of its principles to the points in litigation, and such
elements are characteristics of Mr. Moses' law practice. The extent and variety
of his legal business can be seen by reference to the reports of the supreme and
appellate courts, where the briefs and arguments of his firm are of frequent
occurrence. As a lawTer he is exceedingly painstaking, of good judgment as to
the merits of a controversy, and especially devoted to the interests of his clients.
His manner in court is one of eminent courtesy and fairness to judge, counsel
and jury, but he is also very independent and firm in his relations to bench
and bar. As a speaker he is clear in his statements and forcible in delivery.
The judge gives him undivided attention, and the jury follows his compact sen-
tences with unflagging interest to the end.
Mr. Moses is also a writer of force and merit and has now in process of
compilation a work entitled "Rambles through the Illinois Reports," which
commenced with the first volume of the Breese Reports and has already reached
volume 19. It is intended by the editor to illustrate the judicial, political and
social history of the state and its people through the adjudicated cases, and to
accompany them with all sorts of biographical data. Mr. Moses is a valued
member of the American, Chicago and State Bar Associations, and of the last
named has served twice as vice-president.
In 1890 he founded the National Corporation Reporter, a journal devoted
to the interests of business corporations, and whose sole editor he is. He has
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS. 97
also established the United States Corporation Bureau, which has for its object
the collection of information in regard to corporations.
At the opening of the consolidated supreme court in October, 1897, Mr.
Moses was selected by the bar of Illinois to deliver the address of welcome to
the court, which is published in extenso in the annual report of the State As-
sociation^ of 1898.
In 1869 Mr. Moses was married, and his two sons are members of the law
firm of Moses, Rosenthal & Kennedy, of which their father is the head. In
politics he is a conservative Democrat, and in 1879 received the nomination
of his party for judge of the superior court, but failed of election. He has never
been ambitious for political preferment, but consented to act as one of the di-
rectors of the Chicago Public Library, filling that responsible position for a term
of six years, and as chairman of the library committee he gave the library special
attention which advanced the institution in no small degree. He is a member
of various social, benevolent and poHtical organizations, including the Masonic
fraternity, the Standard, Lakeside and Iroquois Clubs, and the Independent
Order of B'nai B'rith, of the national convention of whose lodges he was the
first president in 1869. He is also a member of the Sinai Congregation, pre-
sided over by Dr. Emil G. Hirsch. He resides at 4139 Drexel boulevard.
George W. Newcomb. — A lawyer in whom is placed implicit reliance and
whose practice has been to a very large degree in that department of the law
which demands of its representatives the utmost reliability and most unswerving
fidelity to the interests entrusted to his care, is George W. Newcomb, who as a
law clerk became identified with the legal business of the city in 1852 and who
for forty-five years has been a licensed member of the Chicago bar. Although
his practice has been of such character as not to bring him conspicuously be-
fore the attention of the public, as does that of the criminal lawyer, nevertheless
he holds an enviable position in the ranks of his professional brethren and stands
as a worthy exponent of those principles of jurisprudence which, having for
their foundation true justice, are as eternal and unalterable as the everlasting
hills.
George Whitfield Newcomb was born in the little village of Putney, Wind-
ham county, Vermont, on the 12th of April, 1825, and is descended from some of
the most notable families of America. His ancestry can be traced in direct line to
Governor William Bradford, the first governor of Plymouth colony, who with the
historic band of Pilgrims on the Mayflower made the first settlement on the bleak
New England coast. His ancestors also include several Revolutionary heroes *
who valiantly fought for the independence of the nation. His grandfather,
William Newcomb, was a private in the colonial army and was with Washing-
ton's command in Pennsylvania when several times it waded the Schuylkill
river during a winter's night. He was with the party that rowed General Wash-
ington's boat through the icy water of the Delaware river on the terrible night
preceding the battle of Trenton. Another of the early ancestors, Lieutenant
Andrew Newcomb, was in command of the fortifications for a period during
Kingr William's war in the latter part of the seventeenth century; and others
98 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS,
gallantly served their country in the Revolution, including Governor Brad-
ford's son, Major William Bradford, whose service has become a part of the
history of that period.
The parents of Mr. Newcomb were Asahel and Lucinda (Sykes) Newcomb,
and when the son was three years of age they removed to Whitestown, New
York, where he acquired his preliminary education. At the age of fourteen he
entered Whitestown Academy, and while a student there had awakened within
him a desire to attend college. He pursued a preparatory course in Whitestown
Seminary, and became a sophomore in Hamilton College in 1846. He had
scarcely matriculated when he accepted an offer of twenty dollars per month
and board to teach school at Sherburne, Chenango county, New York, as he was
entirely dependent upon his own resources for the means of carrying him
through college. He devoted his leisure time to the study of the branches taught
in the regular college course, kept abreast of the class and in the third term of
the sophomore year was again enrolled as a student in Hamilton College, where
he won the degree of Bachelor of Arts, in 1849. Accepting the principalship
of Ames Academy, of Montgomery county, New York, he continued in that
position imtil chosen principal of the Utica Academy, of Utica, New York, but
after a few weeks' service in the latter capacity ill health forced him to resig^.
After some months, having somewhat regained his strength, he determined
to seek health and a business opening in the west, which offered an attractive
field to the ambitious young man who was determined to work his way upward
by his own efforts, conquering an adverse fate by determined purpose and un-
abating energy. Accordingly in July, 1852, Mr. Newcomb arrived in Chicago,
but afterward spent a few weeks in visiting relatives in Kane county, Illinois,
and friends in Waukesha, Wisconsin. He then returned to Chicago and with a
cash capital of twenty dollars and a half began life in the western metropolis,
which, however, at that time gave little indication or promise of its present pros-
perity and greatness. He saw^ a sign in an employment office saying that a
clerk who could speak German was wanted in a law office; but on entering he
was told that the information as to the position would cost him fifty cents. At
that time fifty cents seemed to him a large capital, but he finally paid it and was
told that the law office was just across the street, and though a German-speaking
clerk was preferred one who could not speak that language would not be de-
clined. Thus he became an employe in the office of Skinner & Hoyne, at a
salary of two dollars per week. It would have been impossible for him to meet
"his expenses had not Mr. Hoyne gone on a vacation about that time and asked
the young clerk to room at his residence and protect his family.
While pursuing his clerical duties Mr. Newcomb devoted all his leisure
time to the study of law, and in February, 1853, was admitted to the bar ; but
after practicing for a short time he was offered and accepted the position of
cashier in a private bank, where he remained for two years, when he entered
upon an independent business career. He has g^ven his time and attention
mostly to probate-court work and to the real-estate branch of the law, such as
examining titles, conveyancing, settlement of estates, etc. ; while the business of
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS. 99
loaning money on real-estate security gradually increased until it claimed much
of his time. The acquaintances which he made while in the bank placed money
in his hands to loan after he had severed his connection with the bank, and
friends of theirs in the east also trusted Mr. Newcomb with large amounts of
money to invest in mortgages. In the line of his profession he has been very
successful and as a probate and realty lawyer has had charge of some very
important litigated interests.
On the 1st of February, i860, Mr. NeWcomb was united in marriage to Miss
Mary Eliza Eddy, daughter of Azariah and Harriet M. (Hooker) Eddy. Mrs.
Newcomb was a lady of marked culture and refinement, of brilliant intellectual
endowments and most kindly and generous disposition. She found her greatest
pleasure and happiness in ministering to those of her own household and in
relieving the needs of the poor or suffering. Through the last years of her life
she was in ill health, but she bore her sufferings uncomplainingly and by her
cheery and helpful disposition made sunshine in the home. Her death occurred
September 11, 1892, and six children were left to share with the husband in
his great loss. Since i860 Mr. Newcomb has occupied his comfortable residence
at No. 236 Warren avenue, and there his children have all been born, namely :
Mary Harriette, wife of Edward J. Vaughan, of Chicago ; George Eddy, a well
known lawyer of Chicago ; William Henderson, who is also a member of the
legal fraternity; Helen Maria, now Mrs. U. G. Couffer; Bessie Jeanette, and
Francis Herbert.
Mr. Newcomb has membership connection with, and is a valued representa-
tive of, the old Tippecanoe Club, the Sons of Vermont, the Illinois Sons of the
American Revolution and the Society of the Colonial Wars. In ante-bellum
days he was strongly opposed to slavery, and when the Republican party was
formed of those who shared his views he became one of its loyal and earnest
advocates. He served as supervisor of Cook county under the early township
organization, and in 1876 led the Republican ticket as the candidate for Cook
county commissioner. He has always been zealous in his advocacy of any
movement or measure for the public good, and stands among those representative
Americans who place the national welfare before partisanship, and the public
prosperity before self-aggrandizement. This review would be incomplete with-
out mention of what is perhaps Mr. Newcomb's strongest characteristic, — his
fidelity to every trust reposed in him; and to do this we probably can not do
better than to quote from a contemporary biography which said : "While Mr.
Newcomb was engaged in loaning money and making investments, he formed the
acquaintance of Dr. Swayne Wickersham and there sprang up between them a
friendship ideal in character and terminated only by death. No one was better
able to judge of the character and life of Mr. Newcomb than the Doctor, who
knew him so long and intimately. He left a characteristically short and concise
will, consisting of seventy-four words, divided into four clauses, the fourth
clause reading as follows: T appoint my old friend, George W. Newcomb,
of Chicago, my executor, and I direct that no bond be required of him ; he is
an honest man.' Much that is laudatory might be written of Mr. Newcomb,
u
loo THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS, i
but what is more eloquent than this simple tribute of one who knew almost |
his every thought and action? It expresses the general opinion, for all who
know him have for him the utmost confidence and highest regard."
Merritt Starr* is one of the sons of the Empire state who has achieved emi-
nence in this great commonwealth. A native of Ellington, Chautauqua county,
New York, he is a descendant in the ninth generation of Dr. Comfort Starr,
of Ashford, Kent, England, who in 1635 crossed the Atlantic in the sailing
vessel Hercules and took up his residence in Boston, and whose second son.
Comfort Starr, A. M., of Emmanuel's College, Cambridge University, was one
of the founders and a member of the charter board of Fellows of Harvard College.
■
On the maternal side, Mr. Starr is descended from John Williams, who was
a member of the Rhode Island senate during the Revolutionary war, and a
grandson of Roger Williams, the founder of the colony of Rhode Island. Both
of the families were represented in the American army during the struggle for
independence.
In his early boyhood Mr. Starr's parents removed to Rock Island, Illinois, \
where he attended school preparatory to entering Griswold College at Daven- I
port, Iowa. Later, he was a student in Oberlin College, from which he received »
the degree of A. B. in 1875. Having become imbued with the desire to enter the '
legal profession, he read law for three years in the office of the attorneys for the i
Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad Company, and in 1878 entered the col-
lege and law departments of Harvard University, at which he was graduated in
1881, and received the degrees of Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Laws. The
degree of Master of Arts was subsequently conferred upon" him by Oberlin
College.
L^pon graduation at Harvard, ^Ir. Starr came at once to Chicago, was ad-
mitted to the bar and entered upon a successful professional career. His first
professional work was the preparation of briefs for some of the prominent attor-
neys of Chicago. While he was thus engaged, he prepared and published some
valuable contributions to legal literature. Among these are Starr*s Reference
Digest of Wisconsin Reports, the practice chapters in the treatise known as
Gould on the Law of Waters, and, in connection with the late R. H. Curtis, Starr
and Curtis's Annotated Statutes of Illinois. He was the first editor of the de-
cisions of the supreme court of Illinois for the Northeastern Reporter, and held
that position two years, at the end of which time he was forced by the demands
of growing private business to resign it. He has been a frequent contributor to
legal publications, is an orator of recognized ability, and is listened to often
and with pleasure by local clubs, law societies and popular audiences. On the
suspension of the Indiana banks in 1883, he conducted the litigation carried
on in Chicago on behalf of their creditors and established in the supreme court
of Illinois the then novel doctrine that banks must hold the entire funds of the
garnished depositor for the benefit of all the creditors who may thereafter per-
fect claims under the statute. In these important and warmly contested cases
♦Sketch prepared by E. B. Sherman.
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS. loi
he met the late W. C. Goudy, the firm of Jewett, Norton & Larned. and other
leaders of the Chicago bar. Mr. Starr was honored with the friendship of the
late Corydon Beckwith, ex-judge of the supreme court of Illinois, and assisted
him in important matters.
In 1890 he formed a partnership with Hon. John S. Miller, ex-corporation
counsel of Chicago, and ex-Senator Henry W. Leman, under the firm name of
^liller, Starr & Leman. Two years later the junior member of the firm re-
tired, but Messrs. Miller and Starr continued their business relations, and in
the autumn of 1893 became associated with Colonel George R. Peck, then gen-
eral solicitor of the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway Company, and more
recently general counsel for the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railway Com-
pany. The firm of Peck, Miller & Starr occupies a prominent position at the
Chicago bar. It has for years represented the Railway Conductors' Association,
and the Chicago Live Stock Exchange, the latter being charged with the duty of
protecting the rights of stock shippers and commission men of Chicago against
a combination of large ranch owners and other corporate interests, the firm
thus representing both corporations and laboring men. The firm has also
acted as the legal counsel for the Chicago Public Library Board, Chicago Gen-
eral Railway Company, the Mercantile Trust Company of New York, the Boston
Safe Deposit & Trust Company, and other large corporations.
Mr. Starr possesses marked individuality and originality. His opinions are
neither inherited nor acquired from others, but are the result of his own careful
and conscientious investigation and dehberation. As a lawyer, he is distin-
guished for clearness of perception, tireless industry and keen discrimination.
In an important case his brief gives indubitable evidence of exhaustive research,
legal acumen, forcible statement and faultless logic. But he is not content with
being a lawyer. He is a man of wide and generous culture. An omnivorous
reader, he is familiar with the best books, classic and modern, and being blessed
with a memory loyal to its trust he can, when occasion demands, bring forth
from the rich storehouse of the world's wisdom treasures new and old. Not
unfamiliar with art, science and philosophy, his greatest delight is in the domain
of literature, wherein he finds rest from professional toil.
He is a true and steadfast friend, a genial companion, prizing all the ameni-
ties and courtesies that make life pleasant and friendship valuable.
Recognizing his obligation as a citizen, Mr. Starr has taken an active part in
evei%' effort to improve municipal government, and labored earnestly in securing
the passage of the law by which the merit system has become operative in
Chicago.
He adheres to the principles of the RepubHcan party, believing them best
to conserve the public good. He is connected with various societies and organi-
zations for the promotion of social, literary and philanthropic aims and purposes,
and is a member of the L'nion League Club, the Chicago Literary Club, the
Congregational Club, the Chicago Bar Association, the Illinois State Bar Asso-
ciation, the American Bar Association, and the Chicago Law Institute, of which
I02 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
latter he was president for two terms. He is also a trustee of Oberlin College,
and keeps in close touch with Harvard University, his cherished alma mater.
Mr. Starr was married September 8. 1885, to Miss Lelia Wheelock, of Cleve-
land, who was a fellow student in Oberlin College. Mrs. Starr is a member of
the Chicago Woman's Club, and takes an active interest in literary and philan-
thropic w^ork.
Albert N. Eastman. — For eleven vears Albert N. Eastman has been a mem-
ber of the Chicago bar, and in that time has gained a good clientage. His law
studies were pursued in this city, although his literary education was acquired
in Ohio, his native state. He was born in Kingsville, Ashtabula county, October
17, 1864, and is a representative of a pioneer family of that state. The first
representative of the Eastman family in America came to this country in 1630.
Our subject's grandparents were Porter and Phoebe Eastman, early settlers in
the Western Reserve, and the former became a prominent and influential citizen
of northern Ohio. He not only gave his support and influence to all educational
and moral interests, but also became one of the conductors on the "underground
railroad." and through his agency many a slave was assisted on his way to
Canada and freedom. The parents of our subject were Henry A. and Sarah F.
(Parrish) Eastman, who in 1872 removed to Chicago, but in 1876 returned to
their old Ohio home. The father went to California in 1852 and was one of the
first prospectors in the Virginia district, in which Mackey, Fair, Flood and other
millionaires were subsequently interested. Early in the '60s, in connection with
two of his cousins, he founded a branch of Eastman's Business College in Chi-
cago, and in 1872 he was connected with the Chicago board of trade.
Our subject was educated in the common school and the academy of King-s-
ville, Ohio, and later was graduated in the high school of Ashtabula, that state,
and completed a collegiate course under the direction of Rev. Joseph N. Mc-
Giffert, a prominent Presbyterian minister of Ashtabula. Thus with a broad
general knowledge he came to Chicago, where he began preparation for the
bar as a law student in the oflfice of Smith & Helmer, being admitted to the bar
in May, 1887, having successfully passed an examination before the supreme
court of Ottawa, Illinois. In September, following, he entered the office of
Weigley, Bulkley & Gray, of which firm he subsequently became a partner, and
on the 1st of May, 1895, this firm dissolved and the senior member and Mr.
Eastman formed the firm of Weigley & Eastman. This firm was dissolved
in June, 1896, since which time Mr. Eastman has been alone in the practice, hav-
ing with him clients of many years of standing and constantly building a large
business. He is a close and careful student of the law and faithful to the interests
entrusted to his care.
In his political adherency Mr. Eastman is a Republican, and in his religious
belief is a Congregationalist. He is a member of the Congregational and Lincoln
Clubs, and was formerly a director and president of the latter. In July, 1889,
he married Miss Myrta E. Hopkins, a native of Ashtabula county, Ohio, a
daughter of William L. Hopkins and a granddaughter of Alden W. Walker, one
of the pioneer Methodist ministers of that state.
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS. 103
Judge Julius S. Grinnell.— No compendium such as the province of this
work defines in its essential limitations will serv^e to offer fit memorial to the
life and accomplishments of the honored subject of this review,— a man re-
markable in the breadth of his wisdom, in his indomitable perseverance, his
strong individuality ; and yet one whose entire life had not one esoteric phase,
being an open scroll inviting the closest scrutiny. True, his were ''massive deeds
and great" in one sense, and yet his entire accomplishment but represented the
result of the fit utilization of the innate talent which was his, and the directing
of his efforts along those lines where mature judgment and rare discrimination
led the way. There was in Judge Grinnell a weight of character, a native
sagacity, a far-seeing judgment and a fidelity of purpose that commanded the
respect of all. A man of indefatigable enterprise and fertility of resource, he
carved his name deeply on the civil and political history of Illinois.
Julius Sprague Grinnell was born in Massena, St. Lawrence county. New
York, in 1842, and is of French-Welsh ancestry, although his more immediate
progenitors for several generations were natives of New England. The town of
Grinnelle, France, now an important manufacturing center near Paris, was
named in honor of the family. Representatives of the name emigrated from
France to Wales and thence to this country, one branch of the family being
founded in New^ York, a* second in Connecticut and a third in Vermont. It is
from the last that our subject was descended. His parents were Dr. A. H.
and Alvira (Williamson) Grinnell, both natives of the Green Mountain state.
In the common schools of Massena, Judge Grinnell acquired his preliminary
education and prepared for college in Potsdam Academy, of St. Lawrence county.
New York, after which he matriculated in Middlebury College, of Middlebury,
Vermont, in 1862. On the completion of the regular four-years course he was
graduated, in 1866, ranking high in his classes, and during his young manhood
foreshadowed future success in whatever profession he might engage, by his
earnestness of purpose, close application and ready use of his strong mental
endowments. With a view of entering the legal profession he entered upon
the study of law in the office of Hon. William C. Brown, of Ogdensburg, and
was admitted to practice by the supreme court of New York in 1868. He im-
mediately afterward began practice in that city, where he remained for two years,
and during that time was also a teacher in the Ogdensburg Academy for a year.
In December, 1870, Judge Grinnell arrived in Chicago and entered upon
what proved to be a most brilliant and successful career at a bar that numbers
among its members some of the most distinguished lawyers and jurists of the
nation. He was almost an entire stranger here, having but two acquaint-
ances in the city, but with a hopeful and resolute disposition he resolved to win
a name and place for himself. One of the decided characteristics of his nature
was self-reliance, backed by decision of character, and the public accorded him
the credit of possessing integrity and sincerity. With these qualities he was not
long^ in taking his place among the rising lawyers of the city, and ere he had
reached the close of his labors he had attained distinguished preferment as one
of the leaders of the Chicago bar. When the great fire of 1871 came and swept
I04 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
the main business portion of Chicago out of existence, he had scarcely gained
a foothold in his practice; but in the reorganization and re-establishment of
business he was one of the number who had the force, courage and confidence
in the rebuilding of the city to assert himself and resume practice with renewed
energy. In 1879 he was elected city attorney on the Democratic ticket, when
that party was largely in the minority, and easily earned re-election in 1881
and 1883. In 1884 he was called by the vote of the people to the position of state's
attorney, l>eing the only one elected on his ticket, a fact which indicates the
personal popularity he enjoyed and the high confidence reposed in him. In that
capacity he carried forward more important, distinguished and successful prose-
cutions of public offenders than stand to the credit of any other man in the
history of Chicago. — perhaps in any city of the country or the world. In 1884
arose the famous election conspiracy case against Joseph C. Mackin, secretary of
the Democratic state central committee, William J. Gallagher, and others. The
crime, if successfully carried through, would have changed the political majority
in the state legislature and caused the election to the federal senate of a Demo-
crat in the place of General Logan, the Republican candidate. Although Judge
Grinncll was an earnest advocate of the Democracy, he w'as most vigorous and
diligent in the prosecution of the case, for personal interest, fear or favor could
not deter him from a course which he believed to be right and just. The trial for
tampering w^ith the ballots and returns was, in the United States district court,
conducted by General Tuthill, district attorney. General Stiles, General Havvley
and Judge Doolittle. Mackin was also indicted in the state court for perjury,
and the case was prosecuted by Mr. Grinnell, General Stiles and Mr. Longe-
necker. Mackin was found guilty in both courts and sent to the penitentiary.
The next great trial that was carried to a successful issue by Mr. Grinnell was
that of the "boodler" county commissioners in 1885, when William J. McGarigle,
Edward S. McDonald and several others were convicted. Next it fell to Judge
Grinnell's lot to manage the indictment, arrest, trial and conviction of the
anarchists, Spies, Parsons, Schwab, Lingg. Fielden, Engel and Fischer, that very-
remarkable prosecution which resulted in vindicating law and order by the signal
discomfiture and condign punishment of their assailants. In speaking of Judge
Grinnell in connection with the last two mentioned cases, Luther Laflin Mills
said : "His labors in these two trials were long continued and would have
broken down an ordinary man. He was the master spirit in the prosecution,
although, in addition to his regular assistants. General Stiles in the boodle case
and George C. Ingham in the anarchists' trial also appeared for the state. In
the former case no appeal or any kind of persuasive influences could swerve hini
from his duty ; and in the latter no threats of personal violence could deter him.
In both he was successful. Although a man successful in politics, he was in his
office absolutely independent of the politicians. He regarded his high office
as a public trust, and showed neither fear nor favor where the people's interests
weie involved. He was a man of remarkable abilities ; he was a man of dutv."
In addition to the cases previously mentioned Judge Grinnell secured four
convictions in the Italian trunk murder case, conviction in the Mulkowski
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS. 105
murder case and in others of considerable importance. His readiness, his ability
his resolution, his kgal acumen and his eloquence drew to him the attention of
the entire public and resulted in his election to the circuit bench, in 1887, where
he served with a degree of acceptation which only added judicial distinction to
the fame he had won as an advocate; but in 1890 he resigned his judgeship to
accept the position of counsel for the Chicago City Railway Company, which
incumbency he retained until his death.
Judge Grinnell was married on the 5th of October, 1869, to Miss Augusta
Hitchcock, a daughter of Dr. William Hitchcock, of Shoreham, Addison county,
Vermont. Their home life was ideal. They had two children: Robert, a
student in the Michigan State University, at Ann Arbor; and Bertha. It
seemed that Judge Grinnell could not do too much for his family and he counted
no personal sacrifice too great if it would enhance the welfare and happiness
of his wife and children. He was also a popular and valued member of several
clubs and civic organizations, including the Masonic fraternity, the Chicago
Club, the Union League and Iroquois Clubs and the Chicago Bar Association.
Judge Han^cy said of him : "He was the most genial man I ever met ;" and it
was this quality as well as his superior ability and sterling rectitude of character
that so endeared him to those he met and made his circle of friends coextensive
with the circk of his acquaintances.
At his death, which occurred June 8, 1898, the highest tributes of respect
and honor were paid to him by his fellow members of the bar. Judge Kohlsaat
said : "I had known Mr. Grinnell for twenty years,— when he was city attorney,
state's .attorney and judge. As state's attorney he was simply magnificent. I
always considered him as one of the strongest men ever elected by the vote of the
people of Cook county. His conduct in the boodle and anarchist cases was that
of a fearless, earnest and most efficient public officer. Personally he was a lovable
man. He had hosts of friends, and few of us will be missed as will Julius S.
Grinnell." Another said : "He was a man of remarkable abilities and force of
character, and a lawyer of the front rank. In high places of official life he was a
devoted and brave servant of the people. His memory will abide in our com-
munity as that of a man who in private walk and public station unfailingly did
his duty and did it well."
The funeral of Judge Grinnell was attended by committees representing the
Iroquois Club, the Chicago Bar Association and the Union League Club, and
the last named passed the following resolution, which is certainly a fitting tribute
to one of Chicago's most distinguished citizens :
"Whereas, Julius S. Grinnell has suddenly passed from earth, it is but fitting
that we, his friends and associates in the Union League Club, testify to our
affection for him and speak our deep appreciation of his noble, manly life.
"We recall the splendid courage of his attack on corrupt misgovernment.
We know how he jeopardized his life in defense of organized society under the
law. We know how his clear appreciation of justice was tempered always by
human kindliness, so that those whom he was forced to punish afterward became
his friends.
io6 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
"With all his great name he remained the simple, most democratic of men,
freely giving the best of his ability to the humblest who came in trouble. Nor
did he ever turn a fellow man away in distress. A more open-hearted friend
we cannot conceive ; a truer American we cannot name. It is the pride of our
nation that for such character, such power and such indomitable will there lie
open the highest places, and that simple manliness goes step by step with great
achievement.
"Resolved, That we tender to the bereaved family of our friend our deepest
sympathy, feeling that, in that they have known one of the truest and most
lovable of men in the dearest relation of life their sorrow will be harder to bear,
but their pain will be mitigated by the assurance that our departed friend has
left a heritage of priceless worth, — the memory of a life well lived, an example
worthy of emulation by all."
Thomas Dent, a veteran member of the Chicago bar, entered into practice
in his twenty-third year, while residing at Hennepin, in Putnam county, Illinois,
in which county he was born November 14, 1831. His parents^ were among the
early residents of that county, having settled there in that year, upon their re-
moval from Muskingum county, Ohio, where the father, George Dent, was
chiefly reared, his father having been a pioneer settler there before coming to
Putnam county, as he did at an early day. In Mr. Dent's ancestry, traced
back to Maryland and Virginia, sturdy pioneers for a few generations back,
pursuing creditable careers, and holding positions of public honor and trust,
corresponding with educational and other advantages, would be numbered.
While residing in Putnam county, George Dent, father of the subject of this
sketch, held sundry public offices j including those of clerk of the county com-
missioners' court, county recorder, clerk of the county court, master in chancery,
county judge, and member of the general assembly; and later in life, removing
to Minonk in Woodford county, he was honored with offices there. The scho-
lastic training of Thomas Dent was mostly in the district schools near his home
in Illinois, though he attended school for a short time in Ohio during a tempo-
rary residence there. He endeavored when drawn into work and away from
the schools at an early age to supplement the foundation which faithful and
efficient teachers had helped him to lay. His taste for legal work was much pro-
moted by environment and by his business training, which began in his thir-
teenth year, at first with attendance at times in the clerk's offices and recorder's
office in Putnam county, under the late Oaks Turner, a careful and capable
official. When Mr. Dent was nearing the age of sixteen his father began to fill
those offices, and the son became more continuously connected with the work.
While thus engaged he prosecuted legal studies, and was benefited by the
examples, and in the direction of such studies, by the practical aid of able mem-
bers of the bar with whom he was thrown into contact. Soon after his entrance
into the profession he was entrusted with the management of a variety of im-
portant causes at his home and elsewhere in the state, in the courts of the state
and also in the federal courts. He received much encouragement in the character
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS, 107
of business committed to his care in early professional life. While residing in
Putnam county he compiled tract and other indices to the land records.
He has been a member of the Chicago bar almost continuously since early
in 1856, when he entered into partnership with Hon. Martin R. M. Wallace,
whom he had known at Ottawa, Illinois. The following year inducements to
remove to Peoria led him to open an office there; but his connection with cases
of much importance required his attendance in Chicago, and after a short time
he resumed his residence there. In i860 he formed a partnership with Hon.
Alfred W. Arrington. This association, under the name of Arrington & Dent,
came into marked prominence, and was terminated only by Judge Arrington's
death, in December, 1867. A few months later the firm of Dent & Black was
organized, the junior member, William P. Black, having been a student with
Arrington & Dent for a time prior to entering into practice at Danville, Illinois.
The association of Dent & Black was continued with much satisfaction for many
years. They were for a time the senior members of the firm of Dent, Black &
Cratty Brothers. Mr. Dent has since had with him for a time Edwin Burritt
Smith of the Chicago bar, and later Russell Whitman of the same bar, under
the firm names of Dent & Smith and Dent & Whitman, respectively.
He has had a large and varied experience in legal work in many lines,
involving the trial of causes in different parts of Illinois, and in other states and
localities, as w^ell as in the supreme court of the United States. His practice
has required an extensive knowledge of legal principles, keen and careful
analysis, and earnest preparation.
He has served as president of the Chicago Law Institute, of the Illinois
State Bar Association, and of the Chicago Bar Association, respectively, and
takes a lively interest in the profession and in matters pertaining to the welfare
of his adopted city. In contributions to the press and in addresses on various
occasions at intervals Mr. Dent has not been inactive, although his regular
professional work has chiefly occupied him.
Lester L. Bond. — The name of this gentleman is inseparably connected
with the history of the legal profession of Chicago. Yet not alone on account
of his association with this calling is he numbered among the truly representa-
tive men of "the city marvelous ;" he has been also prominent in municipal affairs
that have led to the best development of the city, to its improvement, its progress,
and to the adoption of important reform measures. He has been the champion
of those movements which support the moral, the educational and the aesthetic ;
and has been a valued member of the law-making bodies of city and state.
To-day as a patent lawyer he stands on an eminence occupied by few, and his
name is inscribed high on the roll of Chicago's most able legists. But back of
all this, and the causation of it all, is the character of the man, — a character that
is based upon the noblest and most honorable principles.
Historians and biographers in their analyzation of the lives of those who
have attained success and honor in various high callings, attribute the result to
the possession of energy, of- industry, of enterprise, of strong mentality, of perse-
verance, or other qualities, and while some and ofttimes all of these contribute to
io8 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
it, yet the foundation upon which they in turn rest is character. On this depends
the esteem in which man is held, his popularity, his position in social circles.
Prosperity in business may be secured; but if the means are unworthy there
comes with his success the condemnation of the public; when high principles
actuate his labor, his work is followed by commendation and high respect.
This truth finds exemplification in the life of Mr. Bond, who, though unpretentious
arid entirely free from ostentation, occupies a place among the most honored
and successful residents of Chicago.
Mr. Bond represents one of America's oldest families, tracing his ancestry
back to John Bond, who located in Massachusetts about the time the Pilgrim
forefathers established their colony in the Bay state. Members of the family
have made the name famous in connection with scientific research. William
Cranch Bond, who was born at Portland, Maine, in 1789, and died at Cam-
bridge, Massachusetts, in 1859, became noted for his observations on Saturn and
the fixed stars, as well -as for his operations in celestial photography, and, after
superintending the erection of Harvard Observatory in 1839, he became its di-
rector. His work was carried forward by his son, George Phillips Bond, also
director of Harvard University, w^ho wrote **On the Construction of the Rings
of Saturn" and other astronomical papers. He was born at Dorchester, Massa-
chusetts, in 1825, and died at Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1865. The old
Bond homestead, CvStablished at Ipswich, Massachusetts, only about ten years
after the settlement at Plymouth, is one of New England's most revered historic
landmarks. As the years passed representatives of the family removed w'est-
ward and at the time of the birth of our subject, October 2y, 1829, his parents,
Jonas and Elizabeth (Story) Bond, were residents of Ravenna. Ohio. The Story
family, from which he is descended on the maternal side, is no less prominent
in the history of the country than the Bonds, for among its members were
Joseph Story, the eminent jurist, and William Wetmore Story, renowned as a
sculptor and poet.
L. L. Bond began his education in his native town of Ravenna and after-
ward pursued his studies in several excellent academies. He was dependent upon
his own exertions for the means which would enable him to pursue his more
advanced studies, and mechanical labors largely engaged his attention during
vacations and other periods affording him leisure from school duties. This gave
him considerable familiarity with inventions and machinery and has been one
of the elements that has contributed to his success at the bar, for the ^patent
lawyer must have a practical knowledge of the mechanical appliances concerned
in his suits. Determining to enter the legal profession he became a student
in the law office of F. W. Tappan and afterward continued his reading under the
direction of the law firm of Bierce & Jeffries, the latter the comptroller of
currency under President Johnson.
Mr. Bond was admitted to the bar October 15, 1853, and on the 28th of
May, 1854, cast in his lot with the residents of the young but rapidly-growing
Chicago. Opening an office he entered upon his professional career as a general
practitioner and so continued for eight years, when his liking for mechanics and
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS. 109
the fortune of the courts threw some important cases into his hands. His ability
to handle such soon made itself manifest, and a patent-law practice rapidly
superseded the general until he is now known almost entirely as a specialist in
that line. So large is his clientage in patent-law cases that it leaves him no time
for labors in other departments of jurisprudence. He has made a close and com-
prehensive study of the law of patents, copyrights and trademarks, and in this
branch of practice is the acknowledged leader at the Chicago bar, and ranks as
number two in arguing reported cases in all the United States courts.
Mr. Bond has ever manifested a deep interest in political affairs as the
voice of the people concerning government. A firm belief in Republican prin-
ciples led him to ally himself with that party on its organization and a loyal
devotion to the cause of the Union prompted his enlistment in the army, but
being in ill health at the time he was rejected by the examining physicians and
had to content himself with laboring for the cause of liberty at home. The
questions of municipal policy claimed his attention and his advanced and practical
views on this subject led to his election to the city council, where he served from
1862 until 1866, and during two years he held the responsible position of chair-
man of the finance committee. In 1868 he was chosen one of the presidential
electors of Illinois and thus cast a direct ballot for General Grant. In 1871 he
was again elected to the city council and during a portion of his two years'
service was acting mayor of Chicago. For two successive terms, from 1868
until 1870, he represented his district in the state legislature and during the
second term championed a measure which has been of lasting benefit to the
city. He was elected on what was known as an anti-park ticket, in opposition
to the establishment of the south-side park system of Chicago. It will be readily
seen that the establishment of such a system on the south side would be detri-
mental to the west division of the city, which was without such privileges, and
hence the three west-side members strove to defeat the measure. After a time,
however, seeing that it would be impossible to do this, he called a meeting of his
west-side colleagues and unfolded to them his plan of securing to the west side
as nearly equal advantages of the same kind as possible. The three west-side
members then agreeing on their course of action, had a conference with
the men whom they had been opposing and a compromise was made which
resulted in legislation by authority of which not only the south-side park system
but also the beautiful west-side park system was established, and now no city
in the entire country can claim a park system to rival that of Chicago. In this
movement Mr. Bond went directly against the anti-park ticket on which he had
been elected, but with wonderful foresight he saw the advantages which would
result to his district from this course and carried out the plan which he believed
to be the right one. Time and the public have sanctioned his work and his
labors at that time are deserving of the gratitude of all of Chicago's vast popu-
lation.
The cause of education has ever found in Mr. Bond a warm friend, and as
a member of the school board he was instrumental in bringing about some needed
changes in school organizations and the educational system of the city. Since
no THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
his retirement from the city council on the close of his third term he has
steadily refused public office, but his interest in the welfare and progress for
the city has never abated. His time has largely been given to his law practice,
in which he has gained an enviable prestige. His logical grasp of facts and
principles and of the law applicable to them has been a potent element in his
success, and a remarkable clearness of expression, an adequate and precise
diction w^hich enables him to make others understand not only the salient points
of his cause, but every fine gradation of meaning manifest in his speech, may be
accounted among his most conspicuous gifts and accomplishments.
The home relations of Mr. Bond are particularly pleasant. He was mar-
ried October 12, 1856, to Miss Amy S. Aspinwall, a daughter of Rev. N. W.
Aspinwall, of Peacham, Vermont, and a lineal descendant of Peregrine White,
the first white child born after the embarkation of the Pilgrims for their far
western home. They have one. daughter, the w4fe of John L. Jackson, of the
law firm of Bond, Adams, Pickard & Jackson, of which Mr. Bond is senior
member. Mr. Bond has long been active in church and fraternity circles. For
many years he has been a member of the Methodist Episcopal church, a worker
in its Sundav-school and a contributor to its work and benevolences. In Ma-
sonic circles he has attained the position of eminent commander in the York Rite
and the thirty-second degree of the Scottish Rite. Fond of travel, he finds his
chief rest and recreation in visiting the many points of interest in this country
and abroad, thereby gaining a knowledge and culture which only travel can
bring. He is a man of broad humanitarian principles, deep thought, earnest
purpose, conscientious action and strong intellectuality, and in all the relations
of life he commands that true homage and respect which is ever rendered real
worth.
Judge Peter S. Grosscup, of Chicago, was bom February 15, 1852, in Ash-
land, Ohio. On his father's side his lineage can be traced back to Holland, on
his mother's to Germany, but both families were established on American soil
prior to the war of the Revolution. The great-grandfather, Paul Grosscup, was
for many years a member of the Pennsylvania colonial assembly, and afterward
of the Pennsylvania state assembly, also of the convention which met in Phila-
delphia, in 1 791, and framed the first constitution. On his father's side the
Judge is also connected by ties of blood with the Stenger family, well known in
political circles in Pennsylvania and at the bar. His mother's family name was
Bowermaster, and her father was a soldier of the war of 1812, while his father
held a commission as an officer in the American army during the Revolutionary
war. On the maternal side Judge Grosscup is connected with the Studebakcrs,
well known in the business world, as also with the Mohlers, some of whom
are well known in railway circles.
Peter Stenger Grosscup was educated in the schools of Ashland, and in
Wittenberg College, one of the educational institutions of the Lutheran church,
from which he was graduated in 1872, at the head of his class. He obtained
his degree of Bachelor of Laws from the Boston Law School. From 1874 until
1883 he engaged in the practice of his profession in Ashland, Ohio, and durinjr
THE BENCH AND BAR OF H.LINOIS. in
six years of that time was city solicitor. In 1876 he became the candidate of the
Republican party for congress, but was defeated. In 1883 he took up his resi-
dence in Chicago and became associated with the law firm headed by Leonard
Swett, a former law partner of Abraham Lincoln, and the best known attorney,
at that time, of the west. From that time forward Judge Grosscup participated
in some of the most important trials occurring in the west, and built up a reputa-
tion as a lawyer that ranked him among the ablest practitioners of the Chi-
cago bar.
On the 12th of December, 1892, he was appointed to the United States
district bench by President Harrison, and soon after assuming the duties of that
office he attracted the attention of the entire country by his decisions upon the
applicMion of the government to close the World's Columbian Exposition on
Sunday. He dissented from the two circuit judges on that occasion, but on an
appeal to the circuit court of appeals, presided over by Chief Justice Fuller, this
dissent was sustained. His most widely-known service, however, was in con-
nection with the Debs riots of 1894. In connection with the circuit judge,
William A. Woods, he issued the injunction in favor of the government and
against the rioters. When this injunction was spurned by the rioters he called
upon the president for the federal troops, — ^a call that unquestionably saved the
city from mob violence. Summoning the grand jury at the earliest day per-
missible by law, he delivered to them, on their assembling in the midst of the
riots, a charge that instantly gave him a national reputation. The indictments
and arrests that followed were the beginning of the end of the mob violence.
In the meantime he has handed down many decisions of interest to large por-
tions of the public and to the profession generally. On January 23, 1899, Judge
Grosscup's appointment to the United States circuit bench was unanimously con-
firmed by the senate.
Judge Grosscup married Miss Virginia Taylor, daughter of A. A. Taylor,
an extensive manufacturer of flour of Loudonville, Ohio. They have one daugh-
ter. The Judge is a member of the Chicago, University, Union and Athletic
Clubs, and is esteemed by his professional associates as well as an extensive
circle of friends outside of legal lines.
Frank Orren Lowden was born in Sunrise City, Minnesota, January 26,
1861, his parents being Lorenzo Orren and Nancy Elizabeth (Breg) Lowden.
In the fall of 1868 the father of the subject of this sketch removed with his
family to Point Pleasant, Hardin county, Iowa. At the time of this removal
to Iowa, Frank Orren Lowden was a lad of seven years. During his early youth
he attended the common schools in winter, and in the summer montHs assisted
in the cultivation and development of the home farm. At fifteen he began teach-
ing in Hardin county, and while teaching he prepared himself for college. In
September, 1 881, he entered the freshman class of the Iowa State University, and
was graduated in June, 1885, as valedictorian of his class.
His college course completed, Mr. Lowden secured a position as teacher of
Latin and mathematics in the high school of Burlington, Iowa. Here, during
his leisure hours, he engaged in the study of law. In July, 1886, he came to
112 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
Chicago and entered the law office of Messrs. Dexter, Herrick & Allen. Simul-
taneously he became a student in the Union College of Law, at which he gradu-
ated in July, 1887. He was valedictorian of his law class and received the first
prize for his oration and the first prize for scholarship. He remained with Dexter,
Herrick & Allen three years after his graduation at the Law School. In July,
1890, Mr. Lowden entered into partnership with Emery S. Walker. In May,
1892, he became a partner of William B. Keep, and was associated with him
until September i, 1893. From this time he practiced his profession alone until
March i, 1898, when he became a member of the firm of Lowden, Estabrook
& Davis.
Mr. Lowden is a member of the Calumet Club, the Chicago, Union League*
Washington Park, Marquette, the Chicago Literary, the Sunset, Saddle and
Cycle, Chicago Golf, and the Thousand Islands Yacht Clubs. He is a member
of Phi Beta Kappa and belongs to two college fraternities, the Beta Theta Pi
and Phi Delta Phi. lie is a member and president of the Law Club, and holds
membership in the Chicago, Illinois State and American Bar Associations. He
is a trustee of Central church and in politics is a Republican.
Mr. Lowden was married on the 29th of April, 1896, to Miss Florence Pull-
man. Thev have two children.
James Herron Eckles was born in Princeton, Illinois, November 22, 1858,
and is a son of James H. Eckles, an attorney. He attended the public schools
of his native town, and is a graduate of the Princeton high school, of the class
of 1876. Determining to enter the legal profession, he attended the Albany (New
York) Law School, in 1879 ^"^ 1880, and received therefrom the degree oi
LL. B. In 1881 he entered the law office of Leland & Gilbert, of Ottawa, Illinois,
and afterward formed a partnership with Hiram T. Gilbert. Later he was
associated in partnership with James W. Duncan, Hiram T.Gilbert, A. J. O'Conor
and W J. Duncan, and upon the removal of Messrs. Duncan and Gilbert to
Chicago, in 1888, a partnership was formed with Senator O'Conor and V. J.
Duncan, which continued until 1893.
On the 3d of April of that year Mr. Eckles was appointed comptroller of the
currency by President Cleveland, and held that position until December 31 j
1897, when he resigned to accept the presidency of the Commercial National
Bank of Chicago.
John A. Rose, the general attorney for the North Chicago and West
Chicago Street Railway Companies, was born in Will county, Illinois, in 1853,
and in the common schools acquired his preliminary education. He pre-
pared for college under private teachers, and was graduated in the Northwestern
University, at Evanston, with the class of 1882. The same year he was admitted
to the bar, and since that time has been engaged in practice. For about ten
years he was a member of the well known firm of Condee & Rose, and since
1895 he has held his present prominent position as already named,
Thomas Cratty. — It has been said that Philip D. Armour is the hardest-
working man in commercial circles in Chicago, and in professional lines the
same remark may well be applied to Thomas Cratty, whose time is fully occupied
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS. 113
with a very extensive law practice, the important nature of which indicates his
superior ability in handling the intricate and involved principles of jurisprudence.
He is indefatigable and persistent, and his labors are so systematized as to pro-
duce the greatest possible results at a minimum expense of effort. This enables
him to attend to a business the volume of which would appall and overwhelm an
ordinary man. He stands to-day at the head of the well known firtn of Cratty,
Jarvis & Cleveland, one of tlie leading law partnerships of the city.
Mr. Cratty is a native of Champaign county, Ohio, and is of Irish lineage,
his great-great-grandfather having emigrated from the north of Ireland to Penn-
sylvania in the year 1760. Representatives of the family were prominent factors
in the public life of the Keystone state, and the grandfather of our subject, a
native of Franklin county, Pennsylvania, born in 1763, was one of the patriots
who fought for the independence of the nation in the war of the Revolution.
William Cratty, the father of our subject, was born in Butler county, Pennsyl-
vania, June 20, 1805, but in 1814 removed to Ohio, and in April, 1826, was united
in marriage to Miss Candis Bennett, a native of Rhode Island, born December
^Sf 1805. He was a man of strong anti-slavery principles and his home was
supposed by the friends of slavery to be a station on the famous underground
railroad. In consequence a reward of three thousand dollars was offered for his
body, dead or alive, if delivered south of the Allegheny river. For many years
he was an industrious, energetic farmer, but spent his last years in a well earned
retirement from labor, his death occurring in 1897. His wife passed away Janu-
ary 27, 1875. Her noble life, kindly manner and exemplary Christian character
endeared her to all who knew her, and of the Presbyterian church she was a
most faithful member, as was her husband. Their family numbered twelve chil-
dren, four sons and eight daughters.
On the home farm in Ohio Thomas Cratty spent the days of his boyhood
and youth. Hard work occupied the greater part of his time, for the fields had
to be cleared and cultivated and the sons of the family shared in this work.
His education was acquired in the winter season when he found opportunity to
attend the district school. Endowed by nature with strong mentality he made
the most of his educational advantages and at an early age was qualified to teach.
He accordingly took up that work after the manner of the frontier teacher,
"boarding round" among the pupils and holding spelling schools on Friday
nights, these schools being an important factor in the social life of the country
districts. He was thus engaged until the fall of 1854, when he went south with
ih^ dual purpose of seeking recreation and to study the institution of slavery as
it then existed south of Mason and Dixon's line. His opposition to the institu-
tion grew even more pronounced as with his own eyes he witnessed the wrongs
and outrages committed by the slaveholders and slave dealers of the south.
In 1856 Mr. Cratty resumed farming, but in i860 financial reverses overtook
him and he lost his property. What then seemed a hardship was really the open
door to greater opportunities. Leaving his old home he resolved to gratify a
long cherished desire of studying law and entered the Chicago Law School, in
which he was graduated with honor in 1861. During this time he lived in a
8
114 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
little rented room, did his own housework and cooked his own meals. Neither
had he the money to pay his tuition, and to the professor in charge he gave his
note, which was to be paid out of his first lawyer's fees. That he ranked very
high as a student is shown by the fact that he was one of four graduates chosen
to participate in a moot trial at a public exhibition in Metropolitan hall, by way
of graduation exercises.
Mr. Cratty opened his first law office in Elmwood, Peoria county, Illinois,
his law library consisting of a single volume. Success in the law is proverbially
slow, but gradually he built up a good and constantly increasing practice, gain-
ing valuable experience and some substantial fees. Recognizing the fact that
labor, earnest, persistent labor, is the key to success in the law as in every other
department of life, he spared no pains in the preparation of his cases and in con-
sequence was ready to meet any contingency that might arise. The strong
analytical cast of his mind, combined with keen perceptive faculties, peculiarly
fits him for his chosen vocation, and his presentation of a cause before jury or
judge is at once forceful, logical and convincing.
In the fall of 1863 Mr. Cratty removed to Peoria, where he entered into
partnership with Hon. W. W. O'Brien, with whom he was associated for three
years. In January, 1872, the firm of Cratty Brothers, of Peoria, was organized,
the junior partner being Josiah Cratty, who was admitted to the bar in that year.
They built up a very large and lucrative business and the collection department
became so extensive that they were obliged to employ several clerks. On the
1st of May, 1880, seeking broader field for his labor, Mr. Cratty came to Chicago,
where he entered into partnership with his former business associate, W. W.
O'Brien, under the firm name of OTirien & Cratty, which connection was con-
tinued five months, when he became a member of the firm of Tenney, Flower
& Cratty. On the ist of May, 1882, that firm was dissolved and for a time the
junior member was alone in business. Subsequently he was a member
of the firm of Cratty Brothers, Jarvis & Cleveland, and is now the senior member
of the firm of Cratty, Jarvis & Cleveland. They are located in the New York
Life building, where they have one of the finest law offices in the entire city.
While he was well grounded in the principles of common law when ad-
mitted to the bar, he has continued through the whole of his professional life a
diligent student of those elementary principles which constitute the basis of all
legal science, and this knowledge serves him well in many a legal battle. He
always prepares his cases with great care. If there is a close legal point involved
in the issue, it is his habit to examine thoroughly every authority within his
reach bearing upon the question, and this makes him a most dangerous adver-
sary. When he comes to the discussions of such intricate problems before the
courts, it is then perhaps that his great powers as a lawyer are shown to the best
advantage. With a thorough knowledge of the subjects to be discussed, and
of the legal principles applicable to them, his addresses before the courts are
models of clearness and logic. Quick to perceive and guard the dangerous phases
of his case, he never fails to assault his adversary at the point where his armor
is weakest.
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS, 115
Mr. Cratty has at times been connected with some important commercial
interests. From 1871 until 1873 he was connected with Leslie Robison in the
publication of the Peoria Review, a daily, weekly and tri-weekly Republican
newspaper, which in the campaign of 1872 supported Horace Greeley for the
presidency. They also had an extensive steam job office and blank-book manu-
factory and bindery; but this enterprise made too heavy demands upon his
time, so Mr. Cratty disposed of it. He has been financially interested in the
Elmwood Paper Manufacturing Company, the Chamber of Commerce Associa-
tion of that city, the Merchants' Exchange, and was an active factor in promoting
the interests of the public library of Peoria. He has always been deeply inter-
ested in everything pertaining to education and the intellectual advancement of
the race, and in an early day assisted in organizing the teachers' institute of Knox
county. He also occupied the position of law lecturer in Cole's Commercial
College, of Peoria, delivering his lectures weekly for several years, both to citi-
zens and to students of the college. He possesses considerable oratorical ability
and never fails to hold the attention of his auditors by the sound sense which
underlies the adornment of well chosen words and neatly turned phrases.
Mr. Cratty is a Republican ; was one of the organizers of the Washington
Park Club in 1883, a member of the Union League, Marquette, Irish- American,
and Veteran Union Clubs. He is also a member of the Chicago Bar Associa-
tion, the State Bar Association, Chicago Law Institute, the Peoria Law Library
Association, and of the Chicago Real Estate Board.
Ephraim Banning. — One of the most interesting indications of the progress
of the world is the development of its jurisprudence. The law, which is the
safeguard of life, liberty and property, has expanded with the manifold growing
interests of business and society until it touches all departments of trade, of
commerce, of industry, of invention and mental production, as well as controls
the individual in his relations to humanity. Ever broadening in its scope, it
would be impossible for any one representative of the bar to be sufficiently
familiar with all departments of the law to handle all kinds of legal business with
equal success, and as a result have come our specialists, who, having mastered
the fundamental principles of justice and right, have turned their energies into
only a few channels and possibly but one, thus augmenting the strength with
which they care for the interests entrusted to them along their special lines. It is
this that Mr. Banning has done, and in the line of patent, trade-mark and copy-
right litigation he has achieved a reputation hardly second to any member of the
bar in the country.
He was born near Bushnell, McDonough county, Illinois, July 21, 1849,
and when less than six years of age accompanied his parents on their removal
to Kansas. It is a matter of history that the committee of the convention which
made Kansas a free state held its meeting in the home of the Bannings. When
our subject was about ten years of age the family removed to Missouri, and two
years later, when his brothers went to the war as defenders of the Union, he was
left as his father's principal assistant in the care of the home farm. Meager were
the school privileges afforded in that locality, but he made the most of his oppor-
ii6 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
tunity and was usually found at the head of his classes. Having mastered the
branches taught in the common schools when about sixteen years of age he be-
came a student in the academy of Brookfield, Missouri, where he gained a
knowledge of the languages and the higher branches. Subsequently he taught
school for a short time and then took up the study of law. For three generations
on the maternal side his ancestors were members of the legal profession, and
his predilection for the law seemed most natural. At all events, if success is
any criterion by which to judge, nature undoubtedly intended Mr. Banning
for the bar. After studying in the office of Hon. Samuel P. P. Houston, of
Brookfield, Missouri, until the spring of 1871, he came to Chicago and as clerk
and student entered the office of Rosenthal & Pence, then a well known law
firm. In June, 1872, he was admitted to practice at the bar of the supreme
court of Illinois, and in October following opened an office and entered upon
his professional career.
Competition for leadership at the bar was even then great, but Mr. Banning
possessed youth, ambition, courage and determination, combined with an ex-
cellent theoretical knowledge gained from textbooks as well as some practical
knowledge of the workings of the courts. He resolved that if untiring effort
and devotion to the interests entrusted to him could win success it should be
his, and acting on this plan it was not long before he had gained a good practice
in commercial, real estate, corporation and criminal law. In the course of his
practice several cases came to him involving questions of patent law, and he
speedily acquired a decided preference for the scientific and intricate points of
this peculiar branch of jurisprudence. It was in 1877 that he made his first
argument in a patent case. About the same time he formed a partnership with
his brother, Thomas A. Banning, and in a few years the firm of Banning &
Banning became widely known as successful patent attorneys, Mr. Banning
gradually relinquishing his general practice as this branch grew more and more
prominent. Making a specialty of patent and trade-mark law, he has, during
the last fifteen years, argued many important cases in the United Stales
supreme court and in the federal courts at Chicago, New York, Boston, Phila-
delphia, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Kansas City, St. Paul, Des Moines and in other
places. Possessed of a mind strong, logical and comprehensive, he is excep-
tionally well equipped for this kind of practice. In 1888 he made an extensive
tour of Europe, and by observation and special investigation greatly extended
his already thorough knowledge in his chosen field of study and practice.
Mr. Banning is a member of the American, State and Chicago Bar As-
sociations and of other legal organizations. He has always taken an active
interest in all matters connected with the profession, and was a member of the
committee appointed by the Chicago Bar Association to secure legislation by
congress to give Chicago additional United States judges. He was also chair-
man of the committee on organization of the patent and trade-mark congress
held in Chicago under the auspices of the World's Congress Auxiliary, in 1893.
At the closing session of that congress he was appointed one of a committee
to present to the congress of the United States various matters connected with
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS. 1 17
industrial property, particularly in its international aspects, the other members
of the committee being from New York, New Jersey, Washington and California.
In 1896 he was elected a McKinley presidential elector, and in 1897 he was
appointed a member of the State Board of Charities, which office he still holds.
For a man in private life he has had an unusually large experience in public
affairs.
Mr. Banning was married in October, 1878, to Miss Lucretia T. Lindsley,
who died in February, 1887, leaving three sons. In September, 1889, he married
Miss Emilie B. Jenne, daughter of the late O. B. Jenne, of Elgin, Illinois. He
and his family attend the Presbyterian church, in which he holds the office of
elder. He belongs to the Union League and Illinois Clubs, and is deeply inter-
ested in the moral and material, as well as social, progress of Chicago.
Hon. Edward H. Morris. — ^The life record of this member of the Chicago
bar is another proof of the statement that merit is the only indispensable quali-
fication at the bar. Mr. Morris was born a slave upon one of the plantations
of Kentucky, in 1859. To-day he stands among the successful legal practitioners
of the western metropolis, enjoying a very handsome income which results from
a large and important law practice. The greater part of his youth was passed
in Ohio and Illinois, where he attended the common schools. For twenty-eight
years he has been a resident of Chicago. Under great pecuniary difficulties
he acquired his professional education, and on the 12th of June, 1879, he was
admitted to the Illinois bar, having passed an examination before the appellate
court. His exchequer was then in such a state of depletion and his wardrobe
so in need of repair that when taking the examination he wore a long overcoat,
closely buttoned, in order to hide the ravages of time and wear upon his trousers.
In the years which have since passed, however, he has won financial success.
With strong determination and invincible courage he entered upon his pro-
fessional career and has steadily gained a large clientage, largely among the
white race. His practice brings him in a number of thousands every year,
and his surplus earnings he has invested in real estate until his property inter-
ests are now quite large. In September, 1881, he was admitted to the bar of
Wisconsin, and has had considerable practice in that state. On the 15th of
October, 1885, he was admitted to the bar of the supreme court of the United
States. In 1892 he served as attorney for the town of South Chicago. In 1895
was assistant attorney for Cook county, and in 1896 was again attorney for the
town of South Chicago.
Mr. Morris has been especially helpful to young law students of his own
race, and among those whose studies he has directed in his own office are Fred
L. McGhee, of St. Paul ; his brother, William R. Morris, of Minneapolis ; F. A.
Denison, of Chicago; and Paul Jones, of Kansas City, all now successful
lawyers. He has a wide, thorough and comprehensive understanding of the
law, yet his reading has never been confined to that department of learning
alone. In addition to a large law library, he has a well selected miscellaneous
library, containing the works of Shakespeare, Carlyle, Dickens, the poets and
many other standard works, with which he is very familiar, thus finding pleasure
ii8 THE BENCH AND B.
in the master minds of various ages. In
and in 1 89 1 was elected to the Illinois gene-
district.
In 1896 he was united in marriage to M
Alfred L. Baker. — At the bar and in
has won an enviable reputation and has re
Chicago Stock Exchange. To gain a positi
sentatives of commercial interests in this me
and splendid executive force, and it is throi
that Mr. Baker occupies a successful position
Born in Massachusetts, on the 30th of ^
and Maria A. (Mudge) Baker, natives of B«
completed by his graduation in the high sch(
the age of nineteen he entered upon the stud
Smith, of Boston, who directed his reading
Essex county, Massachusetts, in January, 188
a member of the law firm of Baldwin & Bal
during that period was connected with the a
ment as a member of the citv council. He w.
education and did effective service for the scho«
At length Mr. Baker determined to seek
and in 1886 located in Chicago, where he pra-
member of the firm of Baker & Grcelev for si:
won a distinctively representative clientele and
branch of jurisprudence known as realty law.
the management of property interests and he
of large estates, including that of Joel C. Waltt
of Chicago and left extensive holdings in real ej
In 1896 Mr. Baker abandoned the active pr.
in the banking and brokerage business, and in
the Chicago Stock Exchange. He is also a mt
Exchange and the Chicago Board of Trade, and
have brought to him profitable financial returns,
of strong purpose and of active enterprise, and
strict conformity to the highest standard of eth:
uniform respect of his business associates.
In 1894 Mr. Baker was united in marriage to
of the late Henry Corwith, of Chicago. He is a 1
and Chicago Clubs. In politics he is an independ
opposed to the free coinage of silver, yet on all s«
he has, from his wide sympathies, always fav(
point of view which gives larger opportunities fc
social and industrial conditions. Mr. Baker beloi
who came from the east to become an integral p£
k^
\ ^ f
' . . s
' " - ♦
: •
« :>'
« ■ » • 1 , >
to ^
'^SL^
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS. 119
I
I
has placed Chicago among the leading cities of the world and made her the
great rival of the eastern metropolis.
Merritt W. Pinckney. — For fifteen years a member of the bar of Chicago,
Merritt Willis Pinckney was born in Mount Morris, Ogle county, Illinois, De-
cember 12, 1859. His father, Daniel J. Pinckney, was a man of strong mentality
and for many years was prominently connected with the educational interests of
Illinois. He was bom in Ithaca, New York, educated in the Wesleyan University,
of Connecticut, and for a number of years thereafter was principal of the Rock
River Seminary, of Illinois. He was also a leading factor in political circles,
was a member of the constitutional convention of the Prairie state, later repre-
sented Ogle county in the state legislature for several terms, and subsequently
was elected state senator. His public career was an honorable one, and in the
discharge of his official duties he showed a knowledge of affairs only to be at-
tained by deep and extensive reading. He married Margaret C. Hitt, daughter
of Samuel M. Hitt, one of the pioneers of Illinois.
In the public schools Merritt W. Pinckney acquired his preliminary educa-
tion, which was supplemented by a course in Rock River Seminary and by
study in Knox College, of Galesburg, Illinois. His professional course was
pursued in the Union College of Law, a department of the Northwestern Uni-
versity, in which institution he was graduated in 1883, with the valedictorian
honors of his class. Beginning practice in this city, he was alone in business
until November, 1884, when he entered into partnership with William H. Tatgc,
with whom he was associated until March, 1893, when the latter 's* brother,
Gustavus J. Tatge, became his partner. He devotes his attention entirely to
civil law and has a large clientage.
He has never sought political distinction, preferring to give his attention
entirely to his profession. He is now a familiar figure in the various courts of
the city, owing to his extensive business and his ability in the handling of the
intricate problems of civil law, and his uniform courtesy at all times commands
the respect of his fellow practitioners at the bar. Pie is a man of sound judg-
ment, keen discernment and ability, which, united to an untiring energy and
devotion to his clients' interests, makes him a valuable attorney and counselor.
On the 24th of June, 1885, ^^r. Pinckney was united in marriage to Miss
Mary Van \'echten, of Cedar Rapids, Iowa.
Jeremiah Leaming. — For forty-two years an active practitioner of law in
Illinois, the friend and associate of Abraham Lincoln, Stephen A. Douglas and
John T. Stuart, an honored and prominent jurist long after that eminent trio
had suspended their labors in the Prairie state, and to-day a leading member
of the Chicago bar, Mr. Leaming now stands among those with whom age has
dealt kindly as the result of a careful guarding of the citadel of his powers, of
a splendid development of his mental forces, and a life spent in conformity with
those g^eat laws which underlie the universe. In the years of his early man-
hood he won a foremost position among the most prominent lawyers of the
state and has ever maintained his place in the ranks of the successful and brilliant
I20 THE BENCH AND BAR OF HJJNOIS.
men whose talents have made the bar of Illinois unexcelled in the history of the
nation's jurisprudence.
A native of New Jersey, Mr. Leamingf was born in the town of Dennisville,
January 20, 1831, and is a son of Jeremiah and Abigail (Falkenburg) Learning.
His father was born in New Jersey in 1793 and died in that state in 1839. He
was a merchant and shipowner and a man of influence and high position in the
community in which he made his home. His political support was given the
Whig party, and for many years he was a member of the general assembly of
New Jersey, serving in both the house and senate. His wife, who was bom in
New Jersey in 1796, departed this life in Philadelphia in 1863. Her father,
Joseph Falkenburg, was bom in Pennsylvania and was a man of much prom-
inence in Cape May county, New Jersey, where official honors were bestowed
upon him in his election to both branches of the state legislature.
Jeremiah Leaming pursued his initiatory educational training in the schools
of Westchester, Pennsylania. was afterward a student in Mount Holly and in
Rordentown, New Jersey, and p'ursued his collegiate course in Princeton College,
wherein he was graduated with the class of 1853. Having made a choice of the
legal profession as a life-work, he began preparation for his labors at the bar
by becoming a student in the law office of Garrett S. Cannon, of Bordentown.
and in June, 1856, was admitted to the bar of his native state.
The rapidly growing west, however, seemed to him a more attractive and
promising field for one who would gain advancement, and in August, 1856, he
came to Illinois, taking up his residence in Bloomington, where he began the
practice of his profession. It was here he formed the acquaintance of those
men of national reputation before mentioned, — Lincoln, Douglas and Stuart. —
and was associated in the trial of the last important case with which the afterward
martyred president was connected in this section of the country. It was a case
of malpractice, where Leonard Swett and William W. Orme were the counsel
for the prosecution, and Abraham Lincoln, John T. Stuart and Jeremiah
Leaming were the counsel for the defense. The latter gentlemen won the suit
for their client, thereby saving to him the sum of five thousand dollars. When
his lawyers met to confer concerning the fee which should be charged, Mr.
Lincoln said that he thought one hundred dollars would be about right.
Throughout the state he had the reputation of making exceptionally low charges.
He had passes on all the railroads, was entertained gratis at most of the hotels
and could therefore aflFord to take much smaller fees than could the other
lawyers, w^ho had to meet all traveling and other expenses, and his low charges
proved detrimental to his fellow members of the profession who desired to make
a comfortable living off their labors. Therefore, when Mr. Lincoln suggested
that only one hundred dollars be asked of their client, both Mr. Stuart and
Mr. Leaming protested, for the latter had spent six weeks in preparation of the
case. Explaining then to the future president how he ruined the chances of
the other lawyers by his course, they finally induced him to charge the by no
means exorbitant fee of three hundred dollars.
In January, 1867, Mr. Leaming removed from Bloomington to Chicago,
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS, 121
and the already high reputation which he had gained enabled him soon to win a
large clientage here. From the year of his arrival until 1886 he was in partner-
ship with R. S. Thompson, but since that time has been alone in the practice.
While he is known as a general practitioner, he has devoted his attention largely
to civil law, and has left the impress of his individuality upon the law history
of the state. He became connected with the Illinois bar at a time when there
were few if any specialists, and all lawyers must be able to handle any kind of a
cause that might- be entrusted to them. This necessitated a comprehensive and
thorough knowledge of the law in its various departments, and Mr. Leaming
became renowned for his legal lore as well as for his successful handling of a
cause in the courts.
One of the most important cases with which he was connected in an early
day was argued before the United States supreme court about i860, which
settled the question regarding the right to pre-empt lands within six miles of
the Illinois Central Railroad, and he won a reversal of the decision of the supreme
court of Illinois. This was a test case, which settled some one hundred other
suits then pending, and was very far-reaching in its effects, for it involved the
actions of the general land offices respecting lands withdrawn from market
from the time of the establishment of the office until the time of the trial of the
case.
In politics Mr. Leaming has always been a Democrat, and was a warm sup-
porter of Stephen A. Douglas. While residing in Bloomington he took a very
active part in the political campaigns, but since coming to Chicago has been
content to express his opinions by his ballot and in other quiet ways. At one
time he was a candidate on the Democratic ticket for judge of the superior
court of Cook county, and in 1893 he was appointed a master in chancery of the
circuit court of Cook county. For several years he was, chairman of the bar
committee of Chicago, was president of the Chicago Law Institute in 1895, and
is a member of the Iroquois Club.
In 1856 Mr. Leaming was united in marriage to Miss Harriet Scovel, of
New Jersey, a daughter of Rev. Alden Scovel, a Presbyterian minister. They
now have five living children. The parents are members of the Reformed
Episcopal church.
This in brief is the history of one whose connection with the bar of Illinois
has not only brought him renown, but has reflected honor upon the profession
in the state. A diligent student from the beginning of his career, he has ac-
quired an unusually profound knowledge of the law, which a well disciplined
memory places absolutely at his command. He is an original thinker as well,
and has a generous share of that very necessary quality which we term common
sense. Thus he is never led away by impractical theories, and his judgment
is reliable and accurate.
Hon. George W. Miller has in his brief life-span of thirty years at-
tained a distinction equaled by few whose career covers so short a period. As
a lawyer, statesman and orator he bears a high reputation that is by no means
confined to the locality in which he lives. Illinois claims him among her native
122 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS,
sons and is proud of his brilliant achievements, for he has indelibly impressed
his individuality upon the statutes of the state, and in the realm of legal prac-
tice is already gaining a place among those whose seniority in business and in
years has given them great advantage over those of the younger generation.
He has stood as the defender of the rights and liberties of his fellow men both in
the assemblages where the law is formulated and where it is executed, and his
ability to interpret the principles of justice has been indicated in many a master-
ful argument showing deep thought, comprehensive legal learning and the keen-
est discrimination between truth and falsity. Such is the work to which Mr.
Miller is now devoting his energies, — labors that necessitate the possession of
strong mentality, exceptionally keen analytical power, extended research and
' close application ; for in the law, perhaps more than in any other calling, suc-
cess must depend upon individual effort and personal merit.
Mr. Miller was born on a farm near Gilman, Illinois, January 12, 1869, a
son of Rufus H. and Ellen M. (Hale) Miller, the former a native of Ohio and
the latter of Massachusetts. Both came to Illinois in early childhood, and the
father of our subject, after attaining to man's estate, turned his attention to
agricultural pursuits. Later, however, he engaged in the nursery business for
a number of years, but has now for a few years past been connected with the
insurance business. He has always been a pronounced Democrat, voting always
for the candidates of that party with the exception of the years i860 and 1864,
when he supported Abraham Lincoln for the presidency. His father was also
an advocate of Democratic principles until i860, at which time he allied his
strength with that of the Republican party and continued to follow its banner
until his death.
Upon the home farm George W. Miller spent his early years and in the
scli6ols of Gihnan acquired his literary education, being graduated at the Gil-
man high school in the class of 1887, when eighteen years of age. He chose as
the field of his future labor the greatest of all the learned professions and in
1889 entered the Union College of Law, of Chicago, where he remained as a
student for one year. He then went to Washington, D. C., where from 1890
until September, 1891, he was one of the chief clerks in the census bureau, en-
gaged in computing the eleventh census of the United States. In September,
1890, he joined the senior class of the law department of the Columbian Uni-
versity, and completed the regular two-years course in one year, graduating^ at
that institution in June, 1891. Resigning his position on the census bureau
in September of the same year, he came to Chicago and accepted a clerkship in
the law office of James R. Mann, with whom he continued in that capacity until
January i, 1894, when he became the junior member of the law firm of Mann,
Hayes & Miller, a connection that has since been maintained. The firm occu-
pies a leading position in professional circles.
For four years Mr. Miller has now been an active member of the Chicago
bar and has gained an enviable distinction by the able manner in which he has
handled the legal interests entrusted to his care. He devotes his best thoug-ht
and energies to his practice, and the assiduous and earnest attention which he
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS. 123
4
gives to his clients' affairs has earned for him the reputation of a careful, trust-
worthy and reliable guardian of the interests of others. He is a clear and
logical speaker, a close reasoner and a convincing advocate before court or
jury. He is always courteous and self-possessed, with a poise not easily dis-
turbed, is generous to his opponents, fair to his witnesses and has the respect
of the bar and the general public as well. In October, 1897, he was appointed
a master in chancery of the superior court of Cook county, which is an unprece-
dented honor, for few men of his years have ever held that position.
In his political affiliations Mr. Miller is diametrically opposed to his father,
being widely recognized as an unswerving Republican. He is a most effective
campaign speaker, instructive, entertaining, logical and convincing, and his
ser\aces in that particular are greatly in demand. His powers of oratory make
him a fluent, graceful, easy speaker, and while thus entertaining his hearers, he
at the same time appeals to their reason in a manner that makes his words not
easily forgotten. His legislative service has been most brilliant and honorable.
In the fall of 1894 he was elected a member of the house of representatives from
the third senatorial district, and in January, 1895, took his seat as a member
of the thirty-ninth general assembly of the state of Illinois. He had some im-
portant committee appointments, serving as a member of the committee on
statutory revision, the judiciary and on state and municipal civil-service reform.
During the special session of the thirty-ninth assembly he was a member of the
''steering committee." He introduced into the house and had charge of the
Torrens bill while it was pending, also the county civil-service bill and a bill to
revise the pharmacy laws. All of these bills were passed and became laws.
From the commencement of the senatorial contest he was an earnest and out-
spoken supporter of Shelby M. Cullom for re-election.
So capably did Mr. Miller represent his district and labor for the interest
of his constituents that in 1896 he was re-elected, and in January, 1897, became
a member of the fortieth general assembly. In that session he was appointed
chairman of the committee on the judicial department and practice and is a
member of the committees on civil service, finance, live stock and dairying,
elections and statutory revisions. He introduced and was instrumental in se-
curing the passage of the bill to consolidate the supreme court at Springfield.
For twenty-five years similar bills had been introduced at almost every session,
only to meet defeat, and many of Mr. Miller's friends regard his successful
conduct of this bill through the house as the most important work he has per-
formed during his two terms of service. He received congratulations upon
this work from all parts of the state and won high encomiums from the bar.
When the supreme court declared the Torrens law unconstitutional he again
introduced and had charge in the house of a second Torrens bill, so amended
as to comply with the supreme-court decision. This became a law. He also
introduced a bill to establish branch appellate courts in Illinois, and in the
house had charge and secured the passage of a bill providing for an increase
in the salaries of the supreme-court judges from five to seven thousand dollars.
Mr. Miller is recognized as one of the strongest debaters in the legislature. His
124 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
argument is ever clear, forcible, exact and to the point, and at the same time
lacks not the oratorical adornments which not only please the aesthetic sense
but also serve to heighten by contrast the strong points in his appeal.
On the 4th of August, 1892, Mr. Miller was united in marriage to Miss
Carrie E. Sproule, of Chicago, and in social circles they occupy an enviable
position. Mr. Miller is a member of the Knights of Pythias fraternity and ^f the
Royal League, and the social qualities of his nature have endeared him to many
friends, while his pleasing conversational powers make him a favorite in business,
legislative and home circles.
CHAPTER VIII.
BENCH AND BAR OF CRAWFORD COUNTY.
CRAWFORD COUNTY was created by "an act of the Legislative Council
and House of Representatives of the Illinois Territory," approved on
• the 31st of December, 18 16. Its boundaries, as fixed by the act creating
the territory, were as follows: "Beginning at the mouth of the Embarrass river
and running with said river to the line between townships three and four north
of range eleven west of the second principal meridian, and thence due north until
it strikes the line of Upper Canada, thence to the line that separates the terri-
tory of Illinois from the state of Indiana, and thence south with said line to
the place of beginning." The same act fixed "the seat of justice at the house of
Edward N. Cullom," which was on the present site of the village of Palestine.
The first term of court held in the county convened at the house of Edward
X. Cullom on the 15th of September, 1817. Hon. Thomas Towles was the
presiding judge. There were four cases on the docket for trial, — one action for
debt, one for assault and battery, and two actions on the case. Four indictments
were returned by the grand jury, two of which were for assault and battery, one
for selling whiskey to Indians, and one for "bringing home a hog w^ithout ears."
The court adjourned until court in course on the 17th of September, 181 7.
The first term of the circuit court held after the state was ^admitted into the
Union was a special term which convened on July i, 1819, for the trial of Will-
iam Kilbuck, Captain Thomas and Big Panther, three Delaw^are Indians, for the
murder of Thomas McCall. McCall was engaged in surveying the public lands,
and these Indians asked for an order to the man in charge of his camp to give
them whiskey. He pretended to comply with their request, but sent the order
by them that they should be g^iven no whiskey, and for the deception they killed
him. Kilbuck was convicted and sentenced to be hanged the next Wednesday,
but escaped before the day set for his execution, and there lingers m the county
a tradition that there were boodlers even in that early day. This court was
held by Judge Thomas C. Browne, who continued to be the presiding judge
until the April term, 1820.
Judges Towles and Browne appear to have done nothing to impress their
names or character upon the public mind. Among the pioneers of the county
there can be found no recollections or traditions of them as judges or as men.
Nothing can be learned outside of the brief judicial records to which they affixed
their names.
Judge William Wilson held the October term, 1824. He was a very prom-
inent man during his judicial career, and very highly esteemed as a judge of
both circuit and supreme courts. His written opinions are usually short, clear,
125
126 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
satisfactory and sound law. In his time the court and bar **rode the circuit"
together. Story-telling was a high art among them, and he was of the best.
One of his stories was of a grape vine which follcAved a rail fence around three
sides of a ten-acre field, three-quarters around the fourth side, then to the top
of a very tall maple tree, from which its tendrils reached toward the clouds, but
>for want of support fell to the earth. This vine produced **tons and tons of
grapes, which were hauled away in wagon loads by people who came from
far and near to see the wonder and to gather its rich clusters of grapes, from
which were manufactured many thousand barrels of excellent wine." Judge
Wilson was a resident of White countv and died, at Carmi, manv vears since.
When the state was divided into circuits, in 1824, James O. Wattles was
elected judge of the fifth circuit, which included the county of Crawford. Judge
Wattles was commissioned January iq, 1825, and was legislated out of office
by an act of the legislature approved January 12, 1827. He held the February
term, 1825, and a special term in May afterward. Judge James Hall held the
November term of the same year, and Judge Wattles held the terms for May
and November, 1826. Judge Wilson then held the courts from the April term,
1827, to the April term, 1834, and was succeeded by Judge Justin Harlan, who
held all the courts in the county until the September term, 1840. Judge Wilson
then held the courts from the April term, 1841, to the April term, 1849, when
he was again succeeded by Judge Harlan, who held the courts until the October
term, 1858.
Judge Harlan justly ranks with the best judges and lawyers of his time.
Like Judge Wilson, his profound knowledge of the law did not detract from
his high character as a teller of stories. He loved the music of the chase, and
many of his storit's were the embellished productions of the pioneer settlers. One
tale that is still remembered, was of a fox that, while the hunters were taking
refreshments, died so suddenly that on their return they found it standing on
its legs stiff and cold in death. Judge Harlan was a resident of Marshall, in
Clark county, and his history as a lawyer is properly written in the history of
the bench and bar of that countv.
Hon. Alfred Kitchell, of Richland county, was elected judge in the twenty-
fifth circuit and held the courts from the May term, 1859, until he was suc-
ceeded, in 1861, by Hon. James C. Allen, who was at that time a resident of
Crawford county. Judge Allen resigned in 1862, having been elected to con-,
grcss, Hon. Aaron Shaw being elected to fill the vacancy.
In 1865 Crawford county was again placed in the fourth circuit and Hiram
B. Decius of Cumberland county was, on the ist of December, commissioned
as judge of the circuit court. He was re-elected in June, 1869, and continued
to hold the courts of the county until after the constitution of 1870. In 1873
Judge Decius was succeeded by Judge Allen, wlio continued to hold the circuit
courts of the county until 1877, when the judicial system was changed into its
present form, and John II alley, of Jasper county, was elected as third judge in
the second circuit.
On the 1 6th of June, 1879, Chaunccy S. Conger, of White, Thomas S.
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS. 127
Casey, of Jefferson, and William C. Jones, of Crawford, were elected judges of
the circuit court in the second circuit, and these interchangeably held the courts
of Crawford county for six years. In June, 1885, William C. Jones, Carroll C.
Boggs and E. D. Youngblood, of Gallatin, were elected and held the courts for
six years, when Judges Boggs and Youngblood were re-elected and Silas Z.
Landes. of Wabash, was elected as third judge in the circuit. In June, 1897,
Judge Youngblood was re-elected and Prince Albert Pearce, of • White, and
Enoch E. Newlin, of Crawford, were elected judges and now hold the courts
of the county.
The bar of Crawford county during its early and later history has contained
men of learning, ability and character, — men whose names deserve, and will
receive an honorable place in the history of the state of Illinois. Among these
are Eldredge S. Janney, born July 12, 1801, in Alexandria, Virginia. He was
a graduate of Nassau Hall College, of Princeton, New Jersey. He came to
Crawford county in 1827 and, following the custom of his Virginia ancestors,
established his home in the country and managed a plantation, while he prac-
ticed law in the county-seat. The papers remaining on file and of record pre-
pared by him show him to have been a careful, painstaking, well educated
lawyer. He was scholarly in his tastes, and continued to read the classic authors
in the original until blindness hid them forever from him. He removed to
Marshall, Clark county, in 1853, where he died December 17, 1875.
Wickliffe Kitchell was born in New Jersey, May 21, 1789, and died at Pana,
Illinois, February 2, 1869. About 181 4 he came to southern Indiana and began
the improvement of a tract of heavily timbered land. While engaged in clearing
he so cut his foot as to lame him for life and partially incapacitate him for
physical labor. He was elected sheriff, and his association with the courts
revived an earlier ambition to become a lawyer. He bought a few text-books
atid read them by firelight, on rainy days and when others were idle. He was
eventually admitted to the bar, and began the practice of law at Palestine in
1817, and continued until 1838, when he removed to Hillsboro, Illinois. He was
a member of the house of representatives from Crawford in 1820-21, and from
Montgomery in 1841. He held the office of state's attorney for several years,
and in 1839 was appointed attorney general of the state, which office he held
for one year. He was the father of Alfred Kitchell, one of the judges of the
circuit court of this county; of General Edward Kitchell, late of Richland county,
and John W. Kitchell of the Christian county bar.
Augustus C. French was born and educated in New England and possessed
in a large degree the solid qualities of the granite hills from which he came. He
first located in Edgar county, and represented that county in the legislature in
1836. In 1839 he was appointed receiver of public moneys at the land office in
Palestine, and removed to Crawford county where, besides his duties as a public
officer, he entered actively upon the practice of law. In 1846 he was elected
governor of the state and re-elected in 1849, holding the office until 1853. Gov-
ernor French was misunderstood and misrepresented by many people. His
rigid economy was called stinginess, and many stories are still current in regard
128 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
to his habit of feathering- and saving; small thing^s. When it is known that
all his care and savinjr was for the purpose of maintaining and educating younger
brothers and sisters that were dependent upon him, it presents his character in
a fairer light and invokes a more charitable judgment than has usually been
accorded to him. His administration of public affairs as governor was eminently
successful. After his term of office had expired he did not actively engage in
legal practice, but after a few years of comparative leisure removed to Lebanon
and took charge of the law school of McKendree College. He was a scholarly
gentleman and his life is an example of labor, of sacrifice and success, well
worthy the consideration of those who follow him.
William H. Sterrett was born in Nova Scotia, in 1810. He was educated in
Kings College, Windsor. After leaving college he came to the United States
and read law with Hon. Lucius Case, of Newark, Ohio. He was admitted to the
bar in that state in 1840. He came to Crawford county in 1845 ^^^ continued
in active practice until 1858, when he was elected county judge and discon-
tinued general practice. His health had been declining for several years, and at
the end of his term of office he returned to Nova Scotia on a visit, and died. He
was a member of the eighteenth general assembly. As a lawyer he devoted
himself assiduously to his business, and possessed ability both as a special pleader
and as an advocate. As a judge he was arbitrary and took little counsel save his
own will. On the 29th of August, 1848, he was married to Elizabeth Barlow,
who still survives.
George W. Peck was born at Salem, Indiana, and educated at Asbury
University, in Greencastle, that state. He was twenty-one years old when he
located in Crawford county, in 1853. He soon obtained a practice which con-
stantly increased until he entered tlie army, in 186 1. He was a good special
pleader, and his address to court or jury was always clear in statement and
logical and eloquent in argument. His mental and physical organization was
of very fine texture and eminently fitted him for a high rank in the legal pro-
fession. He became captain of Company I, Twenty-first Illinois Volunteers, and
afterward lieutenant-colonel of the regiment. His health failed until he was
unfit for service in the field and he was detailed for duty as a provost marshal
at Louisville, Kentucky, whence he returned to his old home in Salem, where
he died.
James H. Steel was born in Philadelphia and came to Crawford county in
his boyhood. His early life was spent on a farm. He was for many years clerk
of the county court of the county. He was admitted to the bar in 1857 and
commenced practice. His extensive acquaintance in the county, and the con-
fidence of the people in his integrity and business ability, brought him a large
and profitable clientage. His mind was of that peculiar cast which reasons
about everything and doubts everything until it is demonstrated. He was also
a successful business man and acquired a large amount of property. His health
failing, he retired from active practice, and died at his home in Robinson on
the 2d of December, 1872. Air. Steel was a Whig until the organization of
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS. 129
t
the Republican party, when he became a member of that party and participated
zealously in every political campaign that occurred during his life.
Jacob C. Olwin was born in Montgomery county, Ohio, December 6, 1838,
and died in Robinson, June 22, 1887. He graduated from the Union Law School,
at Cleveland, Ohio, in 1863. In 1864 he opened a law office in Robinson, Illinois,
and entered upon his career as a lawyer. He was a member of the thirty-second
general assembly of Illinois, was elected county judge in 1882, and was four
years master in chancery for the county. Judge Olwin left a reputation for
honor and fair dealing that will long be cherished by all who knew him.
Franklin Robb was a man whose name and memory will linger long and
lovingly with the older citizens of the county, and members of the bar who were
associated w^th him in his practice will ever remember and honor him. Mr.
Robb was born in Gibson county, Indiana, February 15, 18 17. He graduated
a* Wabash College, Crawfordsville, Indiana, was admitted to the bar in 1840
and for a time practiced law at Princeton, Indiana. He then spent three years
studying medicine, and practiced that profession several years, when he returned
to the law, to the practice of which he devoted his entire time and energy to the
end of his life. His knowledge of the law was profound. Every question that
came to him was thoroughly investigated and he seemed never to weary until
he w*as satisfied that he had the correct solution. He was fearless and unshrink-
ing in his defense of the conclusions to which his research led him. His char-
acter was above suspicion and his statements of facts were always accepted with
absolute confidence. He was county judge for a term of foUr years and his
opinions from the county bench would have done honor to the supreme bench.
He was an elder in the Presbyterian church, and a Republican from the organi-
zation of the party until his death, which occurred in Robinson, February 10,
1890.
Major Guy S. Alexander was born in Crawford county, Illinois, December
4, 1847, ^"^ <^i^^ ^^ Robinson, May 28, 1876. He was a son of Dr. John Alex-
ander, one of the pioneer settlers of the county. He began and pursued his law
studies w'hile teaching country schools, and was admitted to the bar in 1866. On
the 15th of January, 1862, he was mustered into the service of the United States
as second lieutenant of Company F, Sixty-second Illinois Infantry, and was
mustered out as major of the regiment, on March 6, 1866.
He was married on the 3d of September, 1867, to Miss Rhoda Becker and
in the same year opened a law office in Robinson. His mind was active and
ready for whatever might arise in the trial of a cause, skillfully arraying his
authorities to maintain his positions. He was county attorney from 1872 to i876»
filling* that position to the general satisfaction of the people.
The history of the lawyers of Crawford county who have died would be
incomplete without some mention of Charles C. Fletcher, who came to the county
in 1863 and died in Robinson September 20, 1873. Whence he came seems to
have been unknown. His brilliant and somewhat erratic career, ending under
shadows that were akin to insanity, will not soon be forgotten. He was well
educated both in law and literature. His presence was commanding. Curled
9
I30 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
locks, black as the raven's wing, hung over his broad intellectuar forehead, and
when excited his eyes flashed with a brilliancy that was startling. His speeches
both at the bar and on the stump were smooth and eloquent. But "melancholy
claimed him for its own," and ere he died, reason too had fled.
Of the lawyers who constitute the present Bar of Crawford county Ethelbert
Callahan is the oldest. He was born in Licking county, Ohio, December 17,
1829. His father was of Irish and his mother of English descent. His grand-
father, Rev. George Callahan, was a soldier of the Revolution and a pioneer
Methodist preacher in Ohio. In 1849 ^^ came to Crawford county, and that winter
he taught a three-months school, at fifteen dollars a month, and when paid felt
richer than at any time since. He edited the Wabash Sentinel in 1853-4. after
which time he went to Marshall and edited the Telegraph during the Know-
Nothing campaign of that year.
C)n the 27th of June, 1854, he married Mrs. Mary Barlow Jones and has
since resided in Crawford county. In bovhood he had heard Thomas Ewing
make a great legal argument and had decided, in boyish fashion, that he too
would be a lawyer, but years had passed, leaving the ambition still ungratified. In
1857 he was elected justice of the peace, began to read law, and in 1859 was
admitted to the bar. In 1861 he opened an office at the county-seat and com-
menced an active practice, v/hich he still continues.
His career as a lawyer has been sufficiently successful to gratify any reason-
able ambition. This has been achieved by an untiring devotion to his profes-
sion, a profound knowledge of the law, the patient study that gave him complete
mastery of his cases and a rare faculty for seizing opportunities in their trial, a
genius for examining witnesses and an unfailing judgment of men, strong earn-
est argument, and the high standard of honor and courtesy to friend and foe that
entitles a man to call himself in the true sense a lawyer.
The general practice of a country lawyer necessarily includes every branch
of the law and all classes of cases, from the most trivial to those of the most
serious character, involving life, liberty, reputation and the numerous rights of
property arising out of the diversified pursuits and commerce of the country.
This kind of a practice enlarges the knowledge and broadens the mind of a
lawyer who keeps up with its demands. It is enough to say of Mr. Callahan
that he has not lagged behind his professional brethren, but has won his full
share of important legal battles. As recognition of his character, ability and
standing as a lawyer the honorable degree of Doctor of Laws was, in June,
1898, conferred upon him by McKendree College.
Mr. Callahan claims the distinction of having made the first speech in the
county in behalf of the Republican party. As a Republican he has been a mem-
ber of the twenty-ninth, thirty-seventh, thirty-eighth and thirty-ninth g^eneral
assemblies of the state. As presidential elector he voted for Garfield and Harri-
son. He was a member of the first state board of equalization. He is a member
of the Methodist church and was, in 1874, a delegate from the southern Illinois
conference of that church to the general conference held in Brooklyn. Mr.
Callahan was one of the organizers of the Illinois State Bar Association, was
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS. 131
its president in 1889, and has contributed several valuable papers, among which
was "The Lawyers of the Bible," which has been extensively copied.
He is one of the largest farmers in the county and his farm on the banks
of the Wabash is an exponent of the best scientific methods of cultivation. His
great success proves that brains are better, even in the growing of corn and
systems of drainage.
William C. Jones, who for twelve years occupied the bench of the
second judicial circuit, w^as at the time of his election the youngest
circuit judge in the state, a distinction of which he has every reason to be
proud, for the public is a discriminating factor and does not lightly place the
scales of justice in unworthy hands. It was therefore a tribute to his ability
and an unmistakable evidence of the confidence reposed in him by the voters of
his circuit. On the expiration of his second term he retired to private life and
is now successfully engaged in the practice of lav/ in Robinson as a member
of the firm of Jones, Eagleton & Newlin.
Judge Jones w^as born in Hutsonville, Crawford county, Illinois, July 15,
1848, and w-as a son of Casw^ell Jones, a successful merchant, who died in March,
1853. I^ June, 1855, his mother married again, becoming the wife of Ethelbert
Callahan, who, in 1861, removed to Robinson and opened a law office. While
a youth William C. Jones, following his own wishes, entered the office of the
Monitor, a local newspaper, where he served as the youngest apprentice for a
year. In 1863 he became a student in the Ohio Wesleyan University, w^here he
remained three years, following his literary course by study in the office of
Callahan & Steel, in which he began his reading in 1867. Later he attended a
course of law lectures in the Michigan State University, at Ann Arbor, and
on the 9th of May, 1868, was admitted to the bar. In June of the same year he
entered into partnership with his step-father, Mr. Callahan, this connection con-
tinuing for ten years, during which he gained wide experience in the work of
the courts and won a liberal clientage. He has always made a close study of
the p>olitical problems of the day, and in November, 1870, was elected a member
of the twenty-seventh general assembly of Illinois. In November, 1877, he was
elected judge of the county court, which position he filled, to the entire satis-
faction of all concerned, until June, 1879, w^hen he was elected to the circuit
bench for a term of six years. On the expiration of that period he was re-
elected, filling the office until June, 1891. As a judge he was careful, pains-
taking", energetic and industrious. He was ever kind and courteous to the bar
and to the public, and seemed to possess a strong realization of the importance
of the profession to which he devoted his energies and the fact that justice and
the higher attribute of mercy he often held in his hands. His opinions were
entirely unbiased by fear or favor and showed a comprehensive and accurate
knowledge of the law.
Upon his retirement from the bench, in 1891, Judge Jones formed a part-
nership w-ith E. E. Newlin, w'ho was then state's attorney, and the relation was
maintained until the election of Mr. Newlin to the bench of the second judicial
circuit, in June, 1897. In that year Judge Jones formed a partnership with
132 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
Judge J. C. Eagleton and Thomas J. Newlin, under the firm name of Jones,
Eagleton & Newlin, and is now in active practice. He was appointed a min-
ority member of the court of claims by Governor John R. Tanner, in 1897. He
has always been a very close student, and his legal learning has gone beyond
and encompassed not only the leading principles but the minutiae of jurispru-
dence in a manner equaled by few. In 1880, in connection with Judge Cunning-
ham, of Urbana, he published "A Treatise on the Jurisdiction and Practice in
County and Probate Courts," which they revised in 1892, and which is still
accepted as standard authority.
Judge Jones is not only a prominent lawyer and jurist but is also a success-
ful financier and business man, and is now serving as vice-president of the First
National Bank, of Robinson. Socially he is connected with the Knights Temp-
lars of the Masonic fraternity; politically is a Democrat; and religiously a
Presbyterian. His home life is very pleasant. He was married, November 25,
1869, to Mary H., daughter of James H. Steel, then a member of the Crawford
county bar. and thev have three children, Caswell, William and Dorothy M.
Judge Jones has never confined his reading solely to the law and kindred sub-
jects. He is a man of scholarly attainments and broad general culture, familiar
with the leading works of the master minds of all ages. He, too, possesses con-
siderable literary ability, and in 1892 published a volume entitled "Birch-rod
Days and Other Poems,*' which was followed, in 1896, by "Elements and Science
of English Versification.'* These, taken in connection with his law volumes,
show the wide range of a versatile mind, and indicate an interest in the various
problems of life which shovys a well rounded and symmetrical character.
Hon. John C. Eagleton is a native of Crawford county, Illinois, and vvas
born April 10, 1866. He graduated in the public high school of Robinson,
Illinois, with honor, June 3, 1885, and afterward read law in the office of Olwin
& Newlin, being admitted to the practice of his profession in 1889. In Sep-
tember, 1891, he opened a law office in Robinson and began active practice.
He was married to Miss Lola M. Ritchie April 6, 1892. Shortly after his
admission to the practice he was elected and served one year as city clerk of
Robinson, and was then elected city attorney of Robinson for two successive
terms, resigning within his second term, to accept the office of county judge
of Crawford county, to which he was elected in 1894. On May i, 1896. he formed
a partnership with Judge W. C. Jones and E. E. Newlin, which continued until
the election of Mr. Newlin as circuit judge, in June, 1897. After Judge Newlin's
retirement from the firm Tliomas T. Newlin became a member of the firm under
the firm name of Jones, Eagleton & Newlin, which firm is still in existence and
in the active practice of law.
Judge Eagleton is a versatile speaker, an active, industrious young- man
and well versed in the law, being a close student of the same. As a county judge
he has given universal satisfaction, and presides with becoming dignity, and
the easy grace that readily fits him for the duties of that profession.
Socially he is a Knight of Pythias and a Mason; religiously he is a member
of the Christian church; politically he is an ardent RepubHcan, and is frequently
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THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS, 133
called upon to address public gatherings and always responds in an easy and
fluent manner.
Judge Enoch E. Newlin was born on a farm in Crawford county, Illinois,
February 22^ 1858. He was four years old when his father died, in the army,
in 1862, leaving his mother a widow with three small boys. His mother had but
little means, and at that time, with one horse and one cow, was living on a rented
farm in said county. By her good management and hard labor she kept her
little family together, and when her boys were old enough to attend school she
kept them in the district school during the winter, and in the summer time they
were employed at such work as they could find, to help make a living. Enoch,
being the oldest, was hired out to work on a farm by the month when he was
thirteen vears old. He continued thus to work in summer and attend school in
winter until he was seventeen, when he began to teach school. He taught eight
successive terms of winter school in said county, using the money derived there-
by in assisting his mother and younger brothers in maintaining the family at
home. In 1879, ^y ^^is economy, he had a little money saved up, and with that
to pay his expenses, he attended the State Normal School at Terre Haute,
Indiana, one year. In 1880 he entered the law office of Callahan & Jones, in
Robinson, Illinois, as a law student, and pursued his law studies for two years,
teaching school in the winter time to obtain money with which to pay his board
during the summer. In 1882 he was admitted to the bar. Without money and
without clients, but with an ambition and determination to become a lawyer, he
at once opened a law office at Robinson, and as a young lawyer began the strife
to succeed in his profession. His many friends and acquaintances, made while
working on the farm and teaching school, were an advantage to him, and he
soon began to pick up a good law practice. His whole energy and desires were
directed to the practice of his profession, and since he began practicing he has
applied himself constantly to his law business. His success from the start as a
trial lawyer, and his careful preparation and management of his cases in court
were so noticeable that his business increased rapidly.
In 1883 he was appointed city attorney for the city of Robinson, and dis-
charged his official duties in a manner creditable to himself and to the entire
satisfaction of the city. In 1884 he was elected state's attorney for Crawford
county, and re-elected without opposition in 1888. In 1892 he declined to
become a candidate for re-election. As state's attorney he was vigilant and care-
ful, and his honest and persistent efforts in the trial of offenders, and his ability
to take a broad view of the facts in controversy and the law applicable to the
case, won for him the confidence of jurors, and the guilty were made to pay the
penalty for violating the law. During his eight years' service as state's attorney
he collected each year from fines and forfeitures enough money to pay his fees
and had a balance left that he turned over annually to the county. His integrity
and ability have been recognized and admired by the judges on the bench and by
the lawyers, not only in his own county but in other counties where his law-
business called him. In 1897 he was elected to the office of Judge of the circuit
court in the second judicial circuit of Illinois, and his knowledge of the law.
134 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
even temper, and care in weighing controverted questions arising before him,
have demonstrated that he is capable and well fitted to fill the office of judge.
He has while on the bench jE^iven general satisfaction to lawyers and litigants,
and made a record of which any judge might well feel proud.
In politics Judge Xewlin has always been a Democrat, and has been an
enthusiastic factor in his own county in the cause of free silver. His party has
felt and appreciated his assistance, both on the stump and as an organizer.
While he has labored for the success of his own party, he has always been
courteous to his political opponents, and accorded to them the same honest
purpose possessed by himself.
By his economy and industry he has accumulated some property, and has
a beautiful home in Robinson, where he resides with his family. In 1885 he
married Miss Clara Coulter, a niece of Judge J. W. Wilkin, of the supreme
court of Illinois, and they have a family of three interesting children. He is
sober, moral and religious in his habits, a hard worker, industrious and well
informed, and does not devote much time to recreation. When not engaged
in his business he can usually be found at home with his wife and children, where
he takes great delight in enjoying the comforts of a happy home. Judge Xewlin
i.-> young in years, with much of life and bright prospects before him. In his
manly struggle from his humble beginning, and his success achieved he demon-
strates what a plucky, honest and energetic American boy can do when depend-
ing entirely upon his own resources.
Alfred H. Jones is numbered among both the lawyers and law-makers of
Illinois. He has practiced for twenty-three years at the bar of Robinson, and
has also been instrumental in framing the laws of the state through service in
the general assembly. He is numbered among Illinois' native sons, his birth
having occurred in Crawford county, at Flat Rock, on the 4th of July, 1850-
His paternal grandparents were Aaron and Mary (Shepard) Jones, the former
a native of Wales, the latter of Scotland. Their son, John M. Jones, father of
our subject, was born in Virginia and married Elizabeth Ford, a native of Ken-
tucky, and a daughter of John and Hopy (Highsmith) Ford, the former a native
of England, the latter of Holland. All were farming people and the parents of
our subject, coming to Illinois at an early day, cast in their lot with the pioneer
farmers of Crawford county.
Alfred Hanley Jones was reared on his father's farm, and amid fields of
grain and verdant meadows spent his childhood days. For two years he >yas a
student in Westfield College, of Clark county, Illinois, and completed his literary
education in the National Normal School, of Lebanon, Ohio, where he was
graduated in 1870. The following year he went to Kansas, where he remained
for a year, and upon his return began the study of law^ being admitted to the
bar on the 14th of June, 1875. In the same year he was elected city attorney
of Robinson and in 1876 was appointed state's attorney to fill out the unexpired
term of G. S. Alexander. In the practice of law he has succeeded in gaining
a good clientage and is well versed in the various departments of jurisprudence,
with keen perceptive power and analytical ability, sound judgment in deter-
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS. 135
mining the law applicable to the facts under consideration and effective manner
in presenting his arguments to judge or jury.
Mr. Jones had long been a prominent factor in Republican circles in south-
ern Illinois. He served for ten years as a member of the town council and gave
a public-spirited support to every progressive measure for the general good. For
fifteen years he was a member of the board of education and the cause of the
schools found in him a warm and practical friend. In 1886 he was elected and
served in the thirty-fifth general assembly, proving an able representative of his
district, but on his retirement from that office he resolved to never again become
a candidate for an elective office. He has, however, served in several appointive
positions, being at the present time chairman of the board of trustees of the
Eastern Illinois State Normal School, at Charleston, Illinois. His interest in
politics has never abated. He is well informed on the issues of the day, and his
powers of organization and splendid executive ability have contributed not a
little to Republican successes. For six years he was a member of the state
central committee of his party, and for twenty years has been a member of the
county central committee. Each year he enters actively into campaign work
and his organizing power is well supplemented by his strength on the platform,
his oratory, sound logic and readiness in argument proving both entertaining
and convincing.
Mr. Jones has been twice married. On the i8th of June, 1872, he married
Ellen M. Thompson, of Poolsville, Indiana, who died in 1874, leaving one son,
Gustavus Adolphus. His present wife bore the maiden name of Catherine A.
Beals, and they were married November 26, 1878. They had one child, Roscoe,
who was born October 3, 1880, and died October 4, 1883. With his wife and
son Gustavus, Mr. Jones resides in Robinson and their high position in social
circles is assured by their sterling worth. For over twenty years Mr. Jones has
been a valued member of the Masonic fraternity and Odd Fellows society, and
for five years has been connected with the Modern Woodmen of America, the
Court of Honor and the Royal Neighbors. He also belongs to the Methodist
Episcopal church.
Presley G. Bradbury was born on a farm in Crawford county October 6,
T^47. At the age of fifteen he conceived the thought of leading a professional
life and shaped his studies along the line of his ambition. He attended the state
normal schools at Carbondale and Bloomington. He v/as county superintendent
of schools from 1873 to 1877. In 1874 he began to read law in the office of
Judge Robb, and in 1876 was admitted to the bar and formed the partnership of
Robb & Bradbury, which was dissolved by the death of Judge Robb. From
1876 to 1884 he was state's attorney. He was married December 31, 1879, to
Miss Jennie Kelley, of Sullivan, Indiana.
Mr. Bradbury has a strong physical organization which endures protracted
labor without weariness, and since his advent into professional life has brought
all of his physical and mental powers into requisition in order to win success.
Honest and candid in his deaHngs with private individuals, and with all public
business entrusted to him, he commands the respect and confidence of his fellow
136 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
citizens. He is in the prime of life and his history can not be truly written until
after years have covered him with the full honors of a useful career* Mr.
Bradbury is an elder in the Presbyterian church and an ardent temperance man
who illustrates his profession by his own daily life. He is politically a Dem-
ocrat and marches under the Hag of his party in all political campaigns. He is
also a successful farmer and stockman, and to these interests he gives his personal
supervision.
Aus])y L. Lowe was born at Hutsonville, November i8, 1857. His family
is one of the oldest and best of those pioneers who came from Virginia to find
homes in the new west. He is a graduate of Earlham College, Richmond,
Indiana. Upon leaving school he entered the office of the circuit clerk and ex-
officio recorder of the county. In this office he disclosed an ability to discover
and secure the correction of mistakes, which attracted the attention of lawyers
and suitors. When his term as deputy clerk ended he was invited to take a
place in the office of Callahan & Jones, with a view to his admission to the bar
and to a permanent place in the firm, and he was duly admitted and at once the
firm of Callahan, Jones & Lowe was formed. Mr. Lowe is justly regarded as
one of the safest legal advisers in all matters of business and upon all questions
of real-estate titles. His deliberately formed opinions are of the highest
authority. His mind is of a distinctly judicial cast, and its operations tend more
strongly to securing the right of the matter under consideration than the advo-
cacy of a selected side of a controversy. He possesses in a high degree the sense
of honor, integrity and honest devotion to duty, which are the secure foundation
■for success in the life and business of the lawyer.
Mr. Lowe is not devoid of judicial ambition. He has already filled the
office of county judge with abihty, and higher judicial honors may safely be
predicted for him. His politics begin and end in the "traditions and doctrines"
of the Democratic party, of which he is an active partisan. Mr. Lowe was mar-
ried to Miss Alice Hodge, on the 27th of November, 1879, ^^^^ ^*s sons are
worthy successors to the name.
George N. Parker was born in Crawford county, April g, 1843. ^^ married
Miss Julia Crowley May 5, 1870. He was educated at Union Christian College,
Meroni, Indiana. He taught school for several years and was elected superin-
tendent of schools for one term, during which he read law^ in the office of C. C.
Fletcher, then attended the law department of Michigan University and was
admitted to the bar in 1870. He located at the county-seat, wh<ire he still re-
sides, and has a large practice. His industry is proverbial. His office hours
begin early and end late. His manner is always that of one in a hurry. His
devotion to the interest of his clients passes without question, and by his per-
sistent zeal he often wins where others would fail. His manner of address to
court and jury is fervent and confident, whether right or wrong. Mr. Parker
has given much time and study to horticulture, and is an authority on apples
as well as law.
Hon. Joseph ?>. Crowley was born at Coshocton, Ohio, in 1858, moved to
Jasper county with his parents while very young, and there he resided until 1872,
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS. 137
when he accompanied them to Robinson. His boyhood days were spent on a
farm. Mr. Crowley is a self-made man in the fullest acceptation of the term.
His earliest education was received in the common schools and in actual experi-
ence in the business world. At the age when most boys nowadays wear Fauntle-
roy curls and clothes he was put astride a horse to carry the mail from this city
to Lancaster, in Wabash county — a distance of forty miles. He prosecuted the
study of law under difficulties, was admitted to the bar in 1883, formed a part-
nership with Hon. G. N. Parker and began the active practice of his profession.
In 1886 Mr. Crowley was elected county judge by a large majority, and was re-
elected in 1890. In 1893 ^^ was appointed special treasury agent in charge of
the seal fisheries of Alaska. He has served as master in chancery, was twice
elected president of the school board, was twice a member of the congressional
committee of his district, and is at present serving his twelfth year as treasurer
of the county Democratic central committee. He is a wide-awake, energetic
young man and always identified with all progressive measures.
George W. Jones was born in Crawford county October 28, 1858. He grew
up on a farm and was educated in the public scliools. He was married first to
Miss Euphemia Bales, November 3, 1878, and his second union was with Miss
Christine Kern, on July 12, 1895. From 1886 to 1890 he was sheriff, and on the
expiration of his term of office entered the office of Jones & Newlin as a law
student. He was admitted to the bar in 1892, since which time he has been
engaged in the law practice in Robinson. He is quick to see the vital point
in a legal controversy, is a very magnetic speaker and there is predicted for
him a very prosperous and successful career. He is a member of the Methodist
church and one of the most efficient of the organizers of the present Democratic
party in Crawford county.
John C. Maxwell was born in Blount county, Tennessee, September 26,
1847, and came to Crawford county in 1848. He graduated at the National
Normal School, Lebanon, Ohio, in 1872, read law in the office of Callahan &
Jones, was admitted to the bar in 1875 and has since that time practiced his
profession in Robinson. He was married, in 1881, to Miss Gertrude Jackson,
of New Albany, Indiana. He is a Methodist and a Republican.
Edward S. Baker was born in Fountain county, Indiana, December 25,
1872. He is a graduate of the Robinson high school and was a very successful
teacher. He read law in the office of Callahan, Jones & Lowe and v.^as admitted
to practice August 25, 1897. In September of the same year he married Miss Ida
Evcringham. He is a member of the Baptist church and of the Republican
party, is well educated in literature as well as law, has an enviable reputation as
a political speaker and there is predicted for him an unusually bright and suc-
cessful future.
Hampton S. Bogard was boril in Sainte Marie, Illinois, August 22, 1863.
His father was a farmer, and the son remained on the farm until he was twentv
years of age, during which time he attended the common schools. In 1883-4 he
attended Union Christian College, at Merom, Indiana. For some years he
taught school and in vacation read law in the office of Parker & Crowlev, in
138 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
Robinson. In 1887 he graduated in the law department of the Northern
Indiana Normal School, at \'alparaiso. He was admitted to the bar in May,
1896. and immediately began the practice of his chosen profession m Robinson.
He was elected state's attorney in November, 1896, and is at this time discharg-
ing the duties of that office.
George E. McQueen was born in Bartholemew county, Indiana, March 19,
1858, was married to Miss Emma J. Gordon November 18, 1881, and was
admitted to the bar in 1886, since which time he has been engaged in the practice
of law in Robinson.
V^almore Parker was born in Crawford county, on the 29th of December,
1861. He is a graduate of the normal school at Danville, Iridiana, and a very
successful teacher. He was county superintendent of schools from 1890 to 1896.
He was married in 1886 to Miss Ella Barrett. He read law in the office of
George N. Parker, in Robinson, was admitted to the bar in 1887, and has since
been engaged in the practice of law in the county. He is a Democrat, with
unblemished reputation.
F. W. Lewis w-as born at Lewiston, Ohio, April 8, 1864. Mr. Lewis is a
graduate of the Robinson high school. He was a law student with Robb & Brad-
bury, was admitted to the bar in 1886, and located in Robinson. He was state's
attorney from 1892 to 1896. Mr. Lewis is a rising lawyer and a prominent
Democratic politician.
Joseph A. MacHatton was born at Marion, Indiana, May 27, i860, and
came to Crawford county when he was one year old. He remained on the
farm until he was nineteen, during which time he received a common-school
education. He taught school until 1892, when he was admitted to the bar, and
in 1893 he formed the partnership of Bradbury & MacHatton. He is energetic
in business, eloquent in argument and a good trial lawyer. He is a Republican
in politics and an earnest advocate of the principles and policies of the party.
He was married in 1884.
Thomas J. Newlin was born in Crawford county, Illinois, April 2, 1863,
studied law with his brother. Judge E. E. Newlin, and was admitted to the bar
August 28, 1891. On August 28, 1892, he was married to Miss Sarah E. Kirtz.
Mr. Newlin was elected circuit clerk of Crawford county on the 4th day of
November, 1892, and after serving four years with entire satisfaction he refused
to become a candidate for re-election and opened an office for the practice of
law. After a short but very successful practice by himself he became a member
of the law firm of Jones, Eagleton & Newlin, composed of Judge W. C. Jones,
J. C. Eagleton and Thomas J. Newlin, succeeding Judge E. E. Newlin, as a
member of said firm.
In September, 1897, Mr. Newlin was appointed master in chancery for
Crawford county, by the presiding circuit judge, which office he still holds. Mr.
Newlin is a Knight of Pythias, a Mason and a Modern Woodman. He is a fluent
speaker, a careful law-yer and, politically, a stanch Democrat.
Politically, socially and as a business man, he is upright, honest and care
ful, and with the success that has attended him has a splendid career before him.
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS. 139
REMINISCENCES.
The following paragraphs are from an article contributed to the local press
by Judge William C. Jones, and are most apropos in this connection :
Speaking of old-time lawyers, few people remember the fact that the late
Judge Scholheld was once prosecuting attorney on this circuit. After his grad-
uation from the Louisville Law School he became state's attorney, in 1856, and
traveled with Judge Harlan and Judge Alfred Kitchell. He was an ambitious
man and it almost killed him to lose a case.
At one time he was prosecuting a case in Crawford county and had made
a very forcible argument. He was deliberate and calm, and yet had put all his
energy and soul into the case. Every one complimented him on his effort, for
he was from the first a favorite. The jury was against him and the verdict
was for the defendant. He immediately left the court house and began tearing
his hair and using expletives. Old Uncle Newman Parker was near by, and,
hearing him, stepped up and remarked, **John, what's the matter? You made
the best speech I ever heard. You'll be all right, young man. I think the peo-
ple were all with you." *'Yes," remarked the young prosecutor, *'bui the d — d
jury were not!" \
There were none his superior in addressing the court. He would sit up all
night running down a question cf law. He was logical and concise in his
arguments and always fortified with authorities. He was not so eloquent
as he was forceful. The energy of the whole man was bent on his effort to
succeed. He was tireless in his efforts and convincing in his logic.
He had no patience with a judge who was not a lawyer. At one time he
was trying a case in the county court before a judge of the early days, who was
not a lawyer by profession, but who assumed a great knowledge of the law.
Judge S. and Judge Wilkin were defending. A motion had been made before
his honor to dismiss the case, but his honor was prejudiced and learnedly deliv-
ered an opinion about which he knew nothing, overruHng it. .When he had
concluded Judge S. remarked: **Call a jury, Jake; let us take the case from one
d — d fool to twelve!"
Judge Scholfield was one of the kindest men I ever knew in private or public
life. He would always stop and write a letter of recommendation for a young
man and say all the good things possible. He was always for his old friends
and whenever and wherever he cduld he would inquire after the old lawyers with
whom he used to be associated. Governor Robinson was a favorite with him.
Ficklin was a man he alwavs wanted to know about.
One time at the Clark circuit court an important case was being tried and
Robinson, Ficklin, Scholfield and Wilkin were all defending. Silas Whitehead,
with able assistants, was prosecuting. Judge Decius was never averse to taking
a small drink, and the attorneys sometimes would come to his room for an
appetizer. On this occasion each had taken a small drink, when Judge Fickhn
took the jug and filled a large glass. Drinking it down he remarked: "That's
fine, Hiram, where did you get it? I'll just take another." Judge S. stood
by watching when he remarked, "We will just take the jug in to dinner for
brother Ficklin to drink instead of water." "It would just suit me, John. It
reaches further than water," replied Ficklin.
Senator Thomas Brewer was a great favorite of Scholfield. He was a
brilliant talker, with a voice as mellifluous as a flute. Although an uneducated
man few men were his equal as a talker. I have heard Judge Scholfield remark he
would rather hear Tom Brewer talk than any man he ever heard except Gov-
ernor Robinson. He always inquired after Senator Brewer and Judge Decius so
I40 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
long as they lived. He often remarked he had seen more happy hours at Cum-
berland than anv court in the circuit. After the death of Decius and Brewer he
never inquired more. They had gone, a<id with them his old-time memories.
Along in the latter part of the *5os, Newton. Jasper county, was quite a
place to congregate for the attorneys of the old fourth judicial circuit. Judge
Scholfield was then prosecuting attorney, (leorge W. Peck, afterwards colonel
of the Twenty-first Illinois, a friend and favorite of Judge Scholfield, together
with Judge Franklin Robb and Judge James C. Allen, of Crawford county, and
many others from adjoining counties, would meet together at the old Litzleman
hotel at Xewton, and Mother Litzleman told the wTiter many good stories con-
cerning them. All of them, save Judge Robb, were full of fun, and he never
would tell anything, and they caused Mother Litzleman no little annoyance. On
one occasion they procured a considerable quantity of drinkables, and then made
a night raid on her pantry, capturing all the old lady's pies, cakes, pickles and
considerable of her canned fruit. She describes them as having a glorious time
in a large room jointly occupied by Robb, Peck, Scholfield and others, for rooms
were scarce in those days. Along about morning a man by the name of Mc-
Ginley became sick from the effect of his gormandizing. The party resolved to
walk him. They took him out to an old sawmill near town, and there, placing
him face downward on the smooth surface of a sycamore log. Peck holding
liim by one leg and Scholfield by the other leg, proceeded to chum him over
its smooth surface, telling him to "Heave it up. brother McGinley, heave it up!
If vou'Il do so vou*lI not die this time." McGinlev recovered, but was not in
court next day. Mother Litzleman demanded of them who had taken her pies
and cakes. All claimed it was the Robb-man from Craw-ford. She told them
that she found a lot of their empty bottles. They denied knowing anything
about them, and told her they did not belong to them and if she found anything
of that kind in their room she was perfectly welcome to them. Mother L. said
Scholfield and Peck were the most thorough gentlemen who ever stopped with
her. Very polite, very affable, and to see them neatly attired going to court
one would never have thought they were guilty of jostling McGinley across a
sycamore log.
Judge Scholfield w^as a very plain and practical man. At one time he was
asked if he intended to make professional men of all his boys. He replied, "All
men cannot be lawyers and doctors. If my boys make an honest and respectable
living I shall be satisfied.'* He alwavs had a kind word and genial smile. Before
his death he loved to talk about his friends on the old circuit that he left. He
was a devoted man to his tow-n, county and state. Few^ men could resist the
temptation of being judge of the supreme court of the LTnited States as he did.
President Cleveland tendered him the place, but he declined it. Speaking of it
one day he said: *T like the quiet of my home best. I think I am acquainted
reasonably w-ell with the statutes of Illinois and the decisions. I would be com-
pelled to study anew the statutes and decisions of the United States. I couldn't
afford to do so at my time of life. Aside from this Washington is not a g^^od
place to raise mv boys." At the bar he w^as the leading lawyer of eastern Illinois.
On the bench he had no superior in the state.
CHAPTER IX.
THE COURTS AND THE LAW PRACTICE IN CHICAGO: A SKETCH.
BY THOMAS DENT.
THE county of Cook was created by an act of the general assembly ap-
proved January 15, 183 1. Its boundaries embraced a considerable part
of the present county of Will and all the territory since organized into
the counties of Du Page and Lake. Its considerable territory was but sparsely
settled, and only at a few points. As the country became more fully settled the
others of said counties embracing a part of what was originally Cook county
were organized. The organization of Will county occurred in 1836; that of Mc-
Henry county, the eastern part of which afterward became Lake county, also
occurred in 1836; that of Du Page county occurred in 1839.
The same act which declared the boundaries of Cook county made provision
for the organization of two other counties, to-wit: La Salle county, the northeast
corner of which was to be the southwest corner of Cook county, and Putnam
county, still farther southwest, and cornering upon La Salle county. The three
counties had large proportions, but did not have extensive or large settlements ;
but the region was attractive in its woods, waters and fertile soil. La Salle is
still a large county, the next to the largest in the state, but by the organization
of intervening counties it has become more segregated from its former neighbor,
Cook county.
The prospect of a canal to connect the waters of Lake Michigan with those
of the Illinois river, a project which was delayed many years, though kept in
mind, is reflected in the act organizing these counties, especially in the location
of the county seats of Cook and La Salle counties at Chicago and Ottawa, at
sites laid out by the canal commissioners.
Notwithstanding the same act declared that the western boundary of the
county of Cook should extend from the southwest corner of township 34 north,
range 9 east, due north to the northern boundary line of the state, a distance
of not less than seventy-eight miles, and that the boundaries of the county were
so designated as to embrace all the northeastern part of the state eastward of the
line drawn for the western boundary, and northward of the present counties of
Cook and Du Page, yet a clause in the last section of the act provided that **A11
country north of Cook county and parallel with the lines of the same as far
northward as Rock River is hereby attached to Cook county.'' There seems to
have been some territory that might be called terra incognita ; but doubtless the
legislators anticipated the organization of other counties in a part of the
territory more or less permanently assigned to constitute a part of Cook county.
or fio attached thereto.
141
142 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
In the year 1831, also, a redistricting^ of the state for judicial purposes was
made by the legislature. In doing this, the legislative act of February 16, 1831,
required that the chief justice of the supreme court and the associate judges
thereof, and the circuit judge of the fifth judicial circuit, the latter being the Hon.
Richard M. Young, should hold the circuit court at times therein designated.
The act provided that the counties of Cook, La Salle, Putnam, Peoria, Fulton,
Schuyler, Adams, Hancock, McDonough, Knox, Warren, Ju Daviess, Mercer,
Rock Island, and Henry (fifteen counties then, but more than twice that num-
ber now), a principality in dimensions, should constitute the fifth judicial circuit.
Judge Young had presided in the third judicial circuit from Januar\' 19,
1825, until the circuit judges were legislated out of office in 1827, when he was
succeeded by Judge Thomas C. Browne, one of the judges of the supreme court.
Judge Young had, however, when Cook county was organized, again been
selected to preside in the fifth judicial circuit, and was therefore designated as
above to hold the courts in that circuit. Two terms in each year were provided
for as to the county of Cook ; one to be held on the fourth Monday in April, and
the other to be held on the second Monday in September. As the court in
La Salle county, to be held at Ottawa, was to begin on Friday after each of the
Mondays so designated, only about two days at each regular term were actually
allowed for the holding of the court in Cook county; for the judge, being required
to go from Chicago to Ottawa, must necessarily have taken about two days' time
for the journey.
The time thus allotted would seem to have been sufficient for at least the first
year or two after the organization of the county of Cook, as to which time there
is meagre information as to the business in the court, the records having been
destroyed in the great fire of October 8 and 9, 1871. A newspaper was published
in Galena as early as 1829, but none made its advent in Chicago until November,
1833. Undoubtedly Judge Young, who was an able and experienced official, a
fine-looking man, and having a good horse to carry him from county to county,
discharged his duty by attending to open the court as required by law. There
is information, more or less distinct, of the holding of the court in Fort Dear-
born in 1831. It is said to have been held in the house of James Kinzie in 1832.
Judge Young's diligence in holding his court in other counties, as their records
show, indicates that he attended regularly in Cook county, and we may suppose
that where the gospel was preached the law was not voiceless.
As illustrating the need of a horse to carry the judge from court to court,
reference may be made to a passage in Rallance's History of Peoria, showing
that the author, a highly worthy citizen and lawyer of Peoria, met Judge Young
in that city in the spring of 1833 and arranged to accompany him in a journey
by horseback to Chicago, where the judge was to hold court, he having already
journeyed in that way from Quincy. The distance to be traveled in such a trip
from Quincy to Chicago would be about three hundred miles.
In the order of time as to the coming of lawyers, Russell E. Heacock pre-
ceded both Giles Spring and John Dean Caton in settling in Chicago, but tliev
became much more especially prominent in the profession.
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS, 143
Judge Caton, in his Reminiscences, speaks of a jury case in a civil action in
which he participated at a term of the circuit court in the spring of 1834 as being
the first jury case, meaning, perhaps, that such cases, on the civil side of the
court, had up to that time been infrequent, if, indeed, any had actually come to
so full a trial. The statement almost necessarily implies that the character of
the inhabitants, and the nature of the business transactions carried on in Cook
county up to that time, had not required much attention from the courts of rec-
ord, whatever may have been done in the justices' and probate courts.
By act of January 17, 1835, the sixth judicial circuit was created. It em-
braced the counties of Jo Daviess, Rock Island, Mercer, Henry, Peoria, Putnam,
La Salle, Cook, and Iroquois, then something like one-third of the state. The
salary of a circuit judge at that time was seven hundred and fifty dollars per
annum. The times of holding the circuit court in Cook county were by that act
fixed for the fourth Mondays in May and first Mondays in October. The terms
in the other counties of the circuit were earlier in the year, and it w^as not, there-
fore, incumbent on the judge to hurry from the court in Chicago to open court in
the other counties of his circuit, but provision was made for holding special terms
for the hearing and deciding of chancery causes, and also special terms for the
trial of civil and criminal causes.
At that session of the legislature there was passed an act to change the
corporate powers of the town of Chicago, and sections 9 and 16 and north and
south fractional sections 10 and fractional section 15 in township 39 north, range
14 east, were declared to be within the boundaries of the town.
The term of the circuit court in 1835 seems to have been held May 25, 1835,
to June 9, 1835, by the Hon. Sidney Breese, of Carlyle, Illinois. The next term
appears to have been held by the Hon. Stephen T. Logan, of Springfield, by in-
terchange with the Hon. Thomas Ford, and seems to have begun the first Mon-
day of October, and to have closed for the term October nth. These terms are
said to have been held in the First Presbyterian church. At the next term the
second murder trial held in the county seems to have occurred. Judge Ford
presided at the spring term, 1836, and again at the fall term, 1836, at which latter
term the Beaubien land case, involving a claim to the government reservation at
Fort Dearborn, was tried.
By act of March 4, 1837, there was appropriated two hundred and fifty
dollars per year to be paid to the judges of the circuit courts in addition to their
salary at the time, except as to the judge in the sixth circuit, his salary not being
increased apparently. At that session of the legislature, also, the city of Chicago
was incorporated. Its bounds were extended somewhat beyond those of the prior
town of Chicago, and a municipal court to be held therein was established, such
court to have concurrent jurisdiction with the circuit court in all matters arising
in Cook county. The judge of the court was to be elected by the general assembly
on joint ballot, and seven terms per year of the court were provided for, with
power in the common council to increase the number of terms. By act of July
21, 1837, a judge of the municipal court was empowered to perform all the
judicial duties appertaining to the office of a judge of the circuit court.
T44 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
The May term, 1836, of the circuit court and the October term in that year
were presided over by the Hon. Thomas Iu)rd. Judge Ford had in earlier times
been elected by the general assembly twice to hold the office of state's attorney.
He was on four different occasions elected by the general assembly to the office
of judge, and on one of these occasions became judge of said municipal court.
He afterward, as is well known, served one term as governor of the state, and
subsequently pursued the practice of his profession in the city of Peoria until his
final illness and death. He was in all positions an excellent officer, and was
admirably well qualified to sit as judge. A writer has spoken of him as having
been a pupil of Daniel P. Cook. Our county was named in honor of Mr. Cook,
a representative in conirress of this part of Illinois, and the county of Ford was
named in honor of Thomas Ford. Judge Ford resigned his position as judge
of the supreme court of the state in August, 1842, upon consenting to become a
candidate for governor.
'By act of February 4, 1837, the counties of Cook, Will, McHenry, Kane,
La Salle and Iroquois were formed into an additional circuit to be called the
seventh judicial circuit. l»y act of March 4, 1837, the times of holding courts m
said circuit were fixed, and three terms per year were provided for as to Cook
county.
It is very evident that at that time a considerable increase in the business of
the courts in Chicago had occurred. The Black Hawk war of 1832, the Indian
treaties, freeing a large body of lands for settlement by immigrants, the opening
of the United States land offices in Chicago, and great activity in business* affairs
and in speculation, had helped to increase the importance of the young city; and
we may feci sure the work for lawyers and judicial functionaries kept pace with
the times.
Upon creating this seventh circuit, which was to date from the 1st of June,
1837, John Pearson of Iro(juois county was elected by the general assembly to
preside therein.
The aforesaid act of T'ebruary 4, 1837, seems to have been construed as re-
lieving Judge Ford from the position of circuit judge, so far as concerned the
seventh circuit, and Judge Pearson appears to have presided in Chicago a part
of the time in that year and at the March term, 1838, though the Hon. Jesse B.
Thomas seems to have presided in the court at the August term, 1837.
Unpleasant relations between the bar of Chicago and Judge Pearson were
brought to tlie attention of the supreme court of the state in different instances.
Scenes which were almost dramatic are re])resented, for example, in The People,
etc., ex rel. Teale vs. John Pearson, i Scam., 458, and The People, etc., ex rel.
Bristol vs. John Pearson. 2 Scam., 189. In looking into the report of those
cases we find Messrs. Justin Butterfield and James H. Collins, eminent in their
time, acting for the relator in the earlier of the cases which came up for hearing
in the circuit court before Judge Pearson at the March term thereof, 1837, and
the hearing of which was renewed before the same judge at the May term of the
court, 1838. We also find James (irant and Francis Peyton opposing in the
supreme court a motion for a mandamus against the judge. In the latter of said
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS. 145
cases we find Messrs. J. Young Scammon and Isaac N. Arnold to have been the
opposing counsel in the case before Judge Pearson at the May special term of
the circuit court in 1839. In this case, also, the late Thomas Hoyne, who had
just prominence as a citizen and lawyer for many years before his death, made
an affidavit showing the proceedings in the court when Mr. Butterfield asked to
Iktvc a bill of exceptions signed by Judge Pearson, the result of which application
seems to have been that the court assessed a fine against Mr. Butterfield for what
the court deemed an interruption of the proceedings of the court. On this oc-
casion Mr. Hoyne seems to have been taking care of the minutes of the court
for the clerk of the court.
It may be said of the lawyers in practice in Chicago at that time that they
had come mainly from Nqw York, Kentucky, Virginia and North Carolina, and
were of an order of men whose relations toward the judge presiding would be of
great consequence to that official in respect to the harmonious working of the
court. The one of them of most advanced age was Justin Butterfield, who had
been in practice in the state of New York for some time before coming to
Chicago, and whose eminence as a lawyer was w^ell recognized. Mr. Butterfield
was for a time United States attorney, and during the administration of President
Zachary Taylor was appointed commissioner of the general land office at Wash-
ington, a position for which Abraham Lincoln was a candidate at the time, one,
too, which seems to have been recognized as a political plum in some sense be-
longing to Illinois. Mr. Butterfield w^as leading counsel in a variety of important
cases, such as Field vs. The People, 2 Scam., 79, involving a contest between
A. P. Field and John A. McClernand in respect to the office of secretary of
state, and Spragin vs. Houghton, 2 Scam., 377, involving a question as to the
right of suffrage under the constitution of 1818. It has been said of Mr. But-
terfield that in personal appearance he resembled Daniel Webster, of whom he
was an admirer.
Without entering into long episodes, it will not be practicable to speak at any
considerable length of individual members of the Chicago bar, either of the time
already touched upon or in later times. It may, however, be said generally that
it should be reckoned fortunate in the matter of jurisprudence and in the history
of Chicago, that so worthy and able a body of lawyers entered into practice here
in the early times of which we have been speaking. Foundations in character and
attainments were well laid.
The term of office of Judge Pearson, as presiding judge in the seventh cir-
cuit, continued from February 4, 1837, to November 20, 1840. It is in a measure
to be conjectured that in having the municipal court, above mentioned, wath
Judge Ford to preside therein, the bar of Chicago managed to get along pretty
well during the incumbency in office of Judge Pearson. Personal relations do
not seem to have been so strained that Mr. Scammon, Mr. Spring, afterward
Judge Spring, and Mr. Butterfield, would refrain from practicing in Judge Pear-
son's court. They, for example, may be supposed to have appeared before him
at the March term, 1839, of the court. That, however, was held by the supreme
court to have been an irregular term, as having been held under a misinterpreta-
10
146 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
tion of the statute, or from not observing the repeal of the statute which had
formerly fixed a term for that time. This appears from Goodsel vs. Boynton, i
Scam,, 555.
Prior to 1841 the lawyers who appeared in the supreme court in cases
taken from Cook county were Thomas Ford, John Dean Caton, Buckner S.
Morris, James (irant, Giles Spring, Justin Butterfield, Ebenezer Peck, William
H. Brown, Norman B. Judd, James H. Collins, Francis Peyton, Isaac N. Arnold,
J. Young Scammon, Mahlon D. Ogden, Mark Skinner, George A. O. Beau-
mont, Jesse B. Thomas, Grant Goodrich, Alonzo Huntington, S. Lisle Smith,
Jesse B. Thomas, A. G. Leary, E. G. Ryan. These are worthy and prominent
names. The gentleman last named removed to Milwaukee and was there eminent
as a lawyer and chief justice of Wisconsin. The list would be considerably ex-
tended if made to embrace the names of gentlemen who have at some time
since become residents of Chicago, in which category would be placed the names
of Hon. Lyman Trumbull and other lawyers of deservedly high distinction.
Judge Ford is named along with lawyers residing in Chicago because of his hold-
ing the offices of state's attorney and judge respectively.
Some of the gentlemen above named argued many cases in the supreme
court in the terms thereof held at \'andalia, and after June, 1839, at Springfield.
These may be taken as representatives, worthy representatives, of the bar of Chi-
cago during the period of ten to fifteen years from the organization of Cook
county; or perhaps for a period somewhat more prolonged. Besides various
minor positions, the gentlemen named held prominent public office. A few words
the better to illustrate this fact, are added as to some of these pioneer lawyers.
John Dean Caton served with great honor and distinction as circuit judge
and as a judge of the supreme court of the state, once by the appointment of
Governor Ford, again upon election upon joint ballot of the general assembly,
and upon election by the people again and again after the adoption of the con-
stitution of 1848, until he resigned in 1863, to be succeeded in the office of judge
of the supreme court by the Hon. Corydon Beckwith, since deceased.
Buckner S. Morris was a circuit judge. He was the second mayor of Chi-
cago. James Grant was state's attorney for a time while residing in Chicago, and
after his removal to Iowa became a judge of the supreme court of that state. Giles
Spring was judge of the Cook county court at ihe time of his death. Ebenezer
Peck was for a long time reporter of the supreme court of the state, and became
judge of the court of claims at Washington. Norman B. Judd was for a long
time in the state senate of Illinois, was a member of congress from the Chicago
district, and rejMcsented our government in one of the chief European capitals
during the administration of President Lincoln. J. Young Scammon was a
member of the state legislature. He is to be mentioned below as reporter of the
supreme court. James H. Collins, William H. Brown, and George A. O. Beau-
mont were also prominent as to official positions incidental to legal attainments,
and were in every way worthy of special mention if space permitted. Mr. Scammon
was reporter of the decisions of the supreme court of the state, accepting that
office in July, 1839. The Hon. Sidney Brecse had previously edited the volume
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS, 147
known as Breese's Reports. Mr. Scammon published four volumes of the re-
ports, including the decisions rendered at the December term, 1843, of the su-
preme court. The preface to his first volume shows that it was difficult to make
up the reports on account of lack of a library, and that for various other reasons
book-making in Illinois was attended with not a little trouble. Isaac N. Arnold
filled with high distinction such offices as member of the state legislature and
member of congress. Mahlon D. Ogden w^as probate justice of the peace. Mark
Skinner, whose residence in Chicago began in July, 1836, was at one time United
States district attorney, succeeding Justin Butterfield on Mr. Butterfield's resig-
nation of that office. He also succeeded Judge Spring as judge of the Cook
county court, and declined re-election when his term expired in 1853. Jesse B.
Thomas was for a time a judge of the supreme court. Alonzo Huntington filled
the office of staters attorney for four years, — 1837-41. Grant Goodrich was a
judge of the superior court of Chicago, now the superior court of Cook county.
In running through the reports for a long period, the names of lawyers
already mentioned as having appeared in cases in the supreme court would still
remain prominent, either as practitioners at the bar "or as presiding in the courts.
Some additional names, w^ell worthy of more especial notice, not including the
names of gentlemen who afterwards came to Chicago, would appear; among
which names occurring soon are those, for example, of Henry Brown, author
of a histor\' of Illinois: S. Lisle Smith, formerly of Philadelphia, and distinguished
for eloquence; John J. Brown, of distinction as an advocate and a leader in es-
tablishing the earliest law sdiool in Chicago; James A. McDougall, subsequently
United States senator from California; Patrick Ballingall, a member of the con-
stitutional convention of 1847, ^"^ state's attorney, and prominent and distin-
guished in practice in criminal cases. The reports also show that the Chicago
law^yers of the period of which we have treated participated largely in the re-
ported cases tried elsewhere than in Chicago, including the circuit court of
the United States, which was held at Springfield until the northern district of
Illinois was established by act of congress, after which Judge Thomas Drum-
mond held the United States circuit and district courts until he became United
States circuit judge, in 1869, after which time he and the Hon. Henry W." Blod-
gett held those courts, with occasional assistance from other judges.
The municipal court of Chicago was abolished by act of February 15, 1839,
and its records were transferred to the circuit court. By act of February 21, 1845,
there was organized a court which was called the Cook county court, four terms
of which were to be held in the city of Chicago in each year. By act of November
5, 1849, the title of said court was changed so that it was to be thereafter called
the Cook county court of common pleas. Again, in 1859, it was enacted that
the court should be called the superior court of Chicago. It is now, under the
constitution of 1870, called the superior court of Cook county. At the time of
the change made in 1859 a single judge, who at that time was the Hon. John M.
Wilson, held the court. There are at the present time (December, 1898) fourteen
judg^es of the circuit court and tw-elve judges of the superior court. The number
of masters in chancery has been increased from one in the county in early times
148 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
to twenty-six acting as masters in chancery of the circuit and superior courts
respectively.
For a period of years, beginning with 1853 ^^^ continuing until the adoption
of the constitution of 1870, the recorder's court of Chicago, a court having
criminal jurisdiction, was in existence. It was presided over in turn, during
their respective terms of office, by the Hon. Robert S. Wilson, the Hon. Evert
Van Buren and the Hon. William K. McAllister.
At the time of the adoption of the constitution of 1870 the judicial business
in Chicago was transacted in:
1. The circuit court, over which one judge presided, that judge at the time
of such adoption being the Hon. Erastus S. Williams.
2. The superior court of Chicago, over which three judges presided from
1859, each of the judges usually holding a branch of the court.
3. The recorder's court, above mentioned.
4. The county court of Cook county, which then had probate jurisdiction.
Judge Drummond was at the time presiding as United States circuit judge,
and Judge Blodgett was presiding as United States district judge. Or»ce a
year the Hon. David Davis of the supreme court of the United States, sat here
a short time. Judge Blodgett, of course, presided in the circuit court at times,
and generally, as well as in the district court.
The constitution of 1870 made provision for .adding to the bench of the
circuit court three judges in addition to the then sitting judge of the circuit
court and the judge of the recorder's court of Chicago, both of whom were
continued in office as judges of the circuit court, and the county was not con-
nected with any other in dividing the state into circuits. Provision was also
made for adding to the number of judges in the circuit court and the superior
court of Cook county. The addition which has occurred to the number of judges
in the two courts just named has been made by virtue of acts of the general
assembly recognizing the increase of population in Cook county, one judge being
authorized for everv additional fiftv thousand inhabitants of the countv over and
above four hundred thousand. Now (December, 1898) there are fourteen judges
of the circuit court and twelve judges of the superior court of Cook county. By
the constitution of 1870, also, the recorder's court of the city of Chicago is called
the criminal court of Cook county. In that court but one judge presided in 1870,
but the services of from three to five judges holding separate courts have been
found to be necessarv, on account of the increase of business.
In 1877 provision was made for an appellate court, in which three judges
were to preside, and the county of Cook was made the first district, there being
three other districts in the state. The dockets in the appellate court of the first
district are so large that a branch of that court has been organized. The three
judges of that court and the three judges of such branch are selected from the
circuit court and superior court judges. The number of cases going to the
supreme court of the state from Cook county is also very considerable as com-
pared with the number going from any of the other counties of the state.
The supreme court has, under the constitution of 1870, been held by seven
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS. 149
judges, one of whom is elected from the seventh district, comprising the coun-
ties of Lake, Cook, Will, Kankakee and Du Page.
The business to be transacted in the county court reached such volume
that in 1877 ^ probate court was provided for, having in some respects the
former jurisdiction of the county court. This probate court was intended to be
presided over by a single judge. The business in the county court has, notwith-
standing such division of it, since increased to such an extent that it is neces-
sary to have the services in the holding of that court of one or more additional
judges called from other counties in the state.
The common-law system prevails in the main, though somewhat modified
by statute, the changes provided for giving more flexibility or choice as to forms
of action and facilitating amendm.ent. Since 1827 the law of the state has limited
the right of the judges to instruct juries, except as to the law, and since 1845
it has been requisite to give the instructions in writing.
In primitive times the lawyers were men of all work, usually knowing how-
to prepare their pleadings and try cases upon short notice, and having but limited
libraries. The private libraries began to grow very much in the decade following
1850. In a few years some of them became considerable. The library of the
Chicago Law Institute was collected after 1859, and has been renewed and
greatly enlarged since the great fire, and other of the law libraries in Chicago,
including a considerable library collected by the Chicago Bar Association, are
worthv of note.
Especially after the year 1850 a great influx of lawyers into Chicago began
to occur. Prominent lawyers who had made their mark in other parts of the
state, or in other states, east, south, west, and north, began to come, and large
numbers have continually come to Chicago, as to a great center presenting flat-
tering, if not boundless, opportunities. Among these have been many persons
of great professional eminence and ability. Younger men, also, including some
trained abroad or in the British dominions, have come to try their fortune with
those to the manor born. An excellent law school was established in 1859.
Now there are four or five law schools in Chicago. The law school connected
with the University of Michigan, and the law school of the University of Wiscon-
sin, and various other law schools, east, south and west, have contributed to the
education of the lawyers at the bar in Chicago, and have hundreds of repre-
sentatives here. The old-fashioned methods of studying with the older lawyers,
ivhile assisting in the work of the law offices, have given place in g^eat measure to
attendance in law schools.
By act of February 12, 1853, "To regulate the practice in the circuit court
of Cook coimty and the Cook county court of common pleas,'' five terms of
the former court in each year and eight terms of the latter court in each year were
provided for, some of them, however, being called vacation terms, and sundry
points of practice not previously called for by the statutes were established, these
including the requirement of an affidavit of merits to be filed with the plea in
certain cases, and the giving of authority to the court to assess damages without
the intervention of a jury in cases of default. There were other provisions, also,
I50 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
having reference to the dispatch and systematic conduct of the business of the
courts. More recently an affidavit showing the plaintiff's claim, and upon which
an assessment of damages may sometimes be had, has been provided for.
Monthly terms of the various state courts are provided for, and they are open the
year round, except that for about two months only emergency business is tran-
sacted, save in the criminal court.
Provision has been made for the distribution of causes upon separate dock-
ets, so that there may be and are in the state courts as many tiial dockets or
calendars as there are judges. In the distribution allowed the causes pending
upon notes and other instruments in writing for the payment of money only, and
upon accounts, may be on one docket in each court, and appeals from justices oi
the peace on another. The power of distribution is, indeed, quite general, leav-
ing the matter to the discretion of the respective courts. A short cause calendar
is also provided for to include cases which are expected to occupy not more than
one hour's time each. One dav in each week mav be devoted to this calendar.
Provision has also been made for submitting cases orally without formal plead-
ings, though this method of proceeding has not come into very general use.
Provision is also made for submitting in WTiting propositions of law w^hen cases
are tried without the intervention of a jury, and for the entry of judgment by
confession in vacation.
Much has been done to regulate the practice and to enable the courts to man-
age their business. It was not until the year 1858 that stenography began to
figure in the courts. In that year Robert R. Hitt, since well and favorably known
to the country at large in the diplomatic service and as member of congress from
one of the districts of Illinois, occasionally used his skill as a stenographer in
court reporting. At the present day (December, 1898) the stenographic and type-
writing work in the law offices and in the courts is a very great factor, giving
employment to an army of experts in such w'ork, not only in the courts and in
such offices, but also in offices of the masters in chancery, of whom there are
twenty-six in state courts.
An account of the practice of law in Chicago would, of course, embrace at
least some general mention of the United States circuit and district courts and
also the United States circuit court of appeals. In the work of those courts
three circuit judges and the resident district judge, and district judges called in
from the southern districts of Illinois and other districts of the circuit embracing
Indiana, Illinois and Wisconsin, participate. A justice of the supreme court of
the United States also attends at times, sitting in the circuit court or in the cir-
cuit court of appeals as occasion requires.
Indication of the fact that the volume of business has increased very j:rreatly
appears from what has been said as to the increase in the number of judges.
Take, for example, the year 1855, and it is easy to enumerate the judges then
presiding in Chicago. In the United States courts there would be expected to
sit Mr. Justice McLean, of the supreme court of Illinois, when on circuit visiting
Illinois for a short time in each year, but more constantly, Hon. Thomas Dnim-
mond, then district judge, residing here. In the circuit court of Cook county
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS. 151
presided the Hon. George Manierre, who became circuit judge in June, 1855,
and did circuit duty in holding the court in Lake county, as well as in Cook
county. The Hon. John M. Wilson then presided in the Cook county court of
common pleas, the Hon. Robert S. Wilson presided in the recorder's court of
Chicago, and the Hon. Henry L. Rucker presided in the county court.
Ten years later, namely, in 1865, the Hon. David Davis had succeeded
Judge McLean; the Hon. Erastus S. Williams was presiding in the circuit court
of Cook county and also in Lake county, as successor of Judge Manierre, and
the superior court of Chicago had been reinforced by the addition of two judges,
as above stated.
Also, as indicating the increase in the volume of business, it may be added
that since the great fire of October 8 and 9, 1871, and prior to September 20,
1898, there were docketed in the circuit court of Cook county one hundred and
ninety-three thousand, three hundred and eighty-six cases and in the superior
court of Cook county one hundred and eighty-eight thousand three hundred
and twelve cases. This does not include any enumeration of the cases in the
criminal court of Cook county, nor any mention of those in the present county
court, nor of probate matters in the probate court.
Specialties have, of course, become necessities in the conduct of the work of
the bar in the vast range of cases. Accordingly, out of more than forty-two hun-
dred lawyers catalogued in a legal directory in the spring of 1898, upwards of
seventy-five are supposed to be exclusively engaged in patent-law business. A
number have made a specialty of admiralty matters, a large number pay chief,
if not sole, attention to practice in criminal cases. Others are engaged more or
less exclusively in railroad cases, others in insurance cases, and others in copy-
right matters and cases, or in representing private corporations or mercantile
establishments.
The conduct of the business of large railroad and other corporations has
required the employment of general counsel, general solicitors and attorneys to
a large number, some of these having supervision over the cases concerning their
respective corporations in widely extended areas of our country, and in many
jurisdictions.
CHAPTER X.
THE BENCH AND BAR OF SANGAMON COUNTY.
THE first constitution of the state declared that the judicial powers of the
state should be vested in one supreme court, and such inferior courts as
the general assembly should from time to time ordain and establish. This
supreme court consisted of a chief justice and three associates. They were ap-
pointed by joint ballot in both branches of the general assembly, and commis-
sioned by the governor, and held their offices during good behavior, until the
first session of the legislature in 1824. They were required to hold the circuit
courts in the several counties in each month, and at such times as the general
assembly should by law prescribe. The state was accordingly divided into four
districts, and by an act approved February 11, 1821, Sangamon county, together
with St. Clair, Madison, Greene, Pike and Montgomery were constituted the first
judicial circuit, and John Reynolds, associate justice, assigned to it.
The first term of the Sangamon county circuit court was held at the house
of John Kelly, on Monday, May 7, 182 1. There were present John Reynolds,
judge; Charles R. Matheny, clerk; John Taylor, sheriff; Henry Starr, prosecut-
in2^ attorney, pro tem.
Suit was commenced by Samuel L. Irwin against Roland Shepherd, for tres-
pass, and dismissed at plaintiff's cost. Three indictments were found by the
grand jury, two for assault and battery and one for riot, trials of which were de-
ferred until' the next term of court. This completed the business of this term
of court, and judge, lawyers and spectators all adjourned.
An act of the legislature was passed and approved by the governor February
17, 1823, by which Montgomery was detached from, and Morgan and Fulton
added to, the first judicial circuit, and this was further changed December 29,
1824, by which the district was formed of Sangamon, Pike, Fulton, Morgan,
Greene and Montgomery counties. At this time the state was divided into
five circuits. John York Sawyer was appointed to the first circuit composed of
the counties named. John York Sawyer was a remarkable man, remarkable at
least for weight, David Davis being a common-sized man by his side. He v/as
an ill-tempered man, too, notwithstanding his size. While he was on the circuit
the law provided for whipping men for petit larceny. Sawyer, says Linder, was a
terror to all such offenders, and was fond of snapping up the lawyers who de-
fended them. A fellow was once tried before him for petit larceny and convicted.
He was defended by Alfred W. Cavarly, who moved an arrest of judgment and
a new trial, and begged his honor to allow him to go over to his office and get
some authorities which he wished to read in support of his motion.
"Oh, certainly, certainly," said Sawyer to him, assuming one of the blandest
152
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS. ' 153
looks possible, **the court will wait with the greatest pleasure on you, Z\lr.
Cavarly." Cavarly made one of his profoundest bows and retired. Scarcely had
he left the court house when Sawyer said to the sheriflF: '*Mr. Sheriff, take the
prisoner out to yonder white oak tree (pointing to one through a window which
was back of him, and about fifty yards off), strip him to the skin, and give him
thirty-nine lashes on his back, well laid on."
The sheriff executed the sentence of the court with great speed. Sawyer
turned around and looked out of the window while it was being executed, and in
a loud voice, while the blood was streaming down the culprit's back, counted the
number of strokes on his fingers — one, two, three, and so on up to thirty-nine.
The sheriff washed the back of the prisoner, reclothed him, and broug'ht him into
court. He was scarcely seated when Cavarly made his appearance with his
arm full of law books, and with great confidence said to the court: "May it
plj?ase your Honor, I am now prepared to show beyond a doubt that my client
has been wrongfully convicted, and is entitled to a new trial." *'Very well, Mr.
Cavarly, go on; the court will hear you with great pleasure." Sawyer had the
malice to let Cavarly proceed and read authorities for some time, but at last in-
terposed and said: *'Mr. Cavarly, you have satisfied the court, and if you desire
it I shall grant you a new trial." But at this point his client whispered in his
ear: "Don't take it, Mr. Cavarly, or they will whip me again." The court went
on to finish his remarks: "But I will inform you that your client has been
whipped, and received thirty-nine lashes on his bare back, well laid on, for I saw
and counted them." Cavarly exclaimed with great indignation:
*'This is an outrage, and I protest against such conduct on the part of a
court." "Oh, Mr. Cavarly, you have a right to protest. Clerk, enter Mr. Cav-
arly's protest on the record;" and turning to Mr. Cavarly, said: "Now% Mr.
Cavarly, bring on your corn merchant (meaning a client of Cavarly 's, who was
charged with stealing corn), and we will dispose of him as we have with your hog
merchant" — ^the man w'ho had been whipped. Judge Sawyer has long since been
dead.
A change was again made in the circuit by an act approved January 12, 1827,
it now embracing Peoria, Fulton, Schuyler, Adams, Pike, Calhoun, Greene,
Morgan and Sangamon; Samuel D. Lockwood being judge of the circuit.
In January, 1829, Sangamon county still formed part of the first circuit, to-
gether with the counties of Pike, Calhoun, Greene, Macoupin, Morgan, Macon
and Tazewell. Two years later McLean was added to the circuit. No further
chang-e was then made until 1835, when there was a general reorganization, this
district remaining the same, with the exception that Pike county w-as taken
from it. Stephen T. Logan was elected this year, and served with great credit
to himself and the district for two years. On the 20th day of March, 1837, Will-
iam Brown was commissioned, and served four months, when Jesse B. Thomas,
Jr., was duly commissioned. Judge Thomas, of whom mention is made in the
histor\' of the supreme court, resigned in 1839.
In 1839, a new judicial circuit, numbered the eighth, was formed, compris-
ing the counties of Sangamon, McLean, Macon, Tazewell, Menard, Logan, Dane
154 * THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
(now Christian) and Livingston. This circuit was formed by act of the legislature
approved February 23, 1839. Stephen T. Logan, a few days subsequently, re-
ceived a commission as judge of the circuit, but resigned the office in about three
months, and Samuel H. Treat was commissioned to fill the vacancy. Judge Treat
was elected and recommissioned January 30, 1840, and held the office up to the
time of the adoption of the new constitution in 1848. A sketch of Judge Treat
will be found in connection with the supreme court chapter.
By the constitution of 1848 the state was divided into nine judicial circuits,
in each of which a judge was elected September, 1848. The legislature was
authorized to increase the number of circuits as might be required. No change
was made in the eighth circuit, of which Sangamon county was a part. David
Davis was the first judge elected in this circuit under the new constitution, lii
his Reminiscences of the Bar, General Linder had this to say of Judge Davis:
**For his promotion to the circuit judgeship, Mr. Davis was largely indebted
to his old and tried friend, Abraham Lincoln, and to the eternal credit of Judge
Davis, be it said, he never forgot it. When a member of the convention in 1S60,
that nominated the Republican candidate for president, Judge Davis had as large,
if not a larger share in bringing about the nomination of Mr. Lincoln than any
other member of that convention, and when Mr. Lincoln was elected, Davis was
invited to accompany him to Washington as one of his suite. Mr. Davis is a
large man — about six feet high, very corpulent, and weighing some three hun-
dred and fifty pounds. He accepted Mr. Lincoln's invitation, and being some-
what conspicuous for his size, and for wearing a white silk hat, the aspirants for
office perceived by the attentions paid him by Mr. Lincoln that he had no small
influence with the president-elect, and they paid about as much court to the man
with the white hat as to Mr. Lincoln himself.
"But I wish to go back to the time when he was circuit judge of the state of
Illinois, and Mr. Lincoln and myself both practiced in his circuit — Mr. Lincoln
in the whole of it, and I in the counties of Vermilion, Edgar and Shelby, and
occasionally in Champaign. Judge Davis was a very impartial judge, and though
not intending to show a preference for one of his lawyers over another, such
was the marked difference he showed to Mr. Lincoln that Lincoln threw the
rest of us in the shade. But as Mr. Lincoln could not take both sides of a case,
Anthony Thornton, myself and other prominent lawyers, were employed on the
opposite side of cases in which Mr. Lincoln was engaged on one side or the
other. Judge Davis always treated me with great kindness and consideration,
and I wish to state here, before going further, lest the reader should think that
my practice was confined to cases in which I was opposed to Mr. Lincoln, that
in weighty and hotly contested cases we were often associated together, so that
T cannot say that I was at all damaged by the friendship shown for him by his
honor. Judge Davis. I think it quite likely that had I been placed in the same
relation to Mr. Lincoln that Judge Davis was, I should have shown to him the
same consideration as was shown him by Judge Davis.
"Lincoln and myself generally put up at the same hotel, and frequently
slept in the same room, and not unfrequently Lincoln and I occupied the same
bed. Judge Davis was too large to take either of us for a bed-fellow. Among
the most pleasant days of my life T recall those when we three traveled together
from Danville to Paris, and from there to Shelbyville. The courts of those three
places lasted on an average from two to three weeks each. Ah! what gloriaus
fun we had sometimes!
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS. 155
"I will give a little incident here to show tlie eccentricity of Judge Davis,
which occurred at the Paris circuit court. Judge Harlan, who was then judge on
the circuit south of here, came up to Paris on some special business of his, and
Judge Davis, observing him in the court house, invited him to come up and take
a seat on the bench beside him, which Judge Harlan did ; and while there a little
appeal came up, in which there was only about three dollars in controversy, in
which I was engaged. I read a decision of the supreme court which I thought,
and which was decisive of the case. Judge Davis turned to Harlan and whispered
in his ear, as I afterwards learned from Judge Harlan, *Great God!' said he, 'for a
lawyer of Linder*s age and standing to read a decision of the supreme court in a
little appeal case where there are only three dollars in dispute!' He nevertheless
j^ave a decision in favor of my client.
*'Another little circumstance I will relate, going further to show his eccen-
tricity and his friendship for me. Some time in the year, I think of 1850, 1 went
up to Springfield, either on a visit or on some business or other, when Judge
Davis was holding his court there; and I had landed but about an hour when
the prosecuting attorney, hearing that I was in town, came and employed me to
assist him in the prosecution of a woman and her paramour for the murder of
her husband by the administration of poison. As I entered the court room, Judge
Davis being on the bench, and perceiving me to enter the room with my pipe in
my mouth, said in an audible voice: 'Mr. Sheriff, you will permit no one to
smoke in this room while court is in session except General Linder.' It created
quite a laugh over the house, and you may rest assured I was not so modest or
self-denying as to refuse to take advantage of the permission thus given me to
smoke my pipe during the progress of the trial.
'*I have already stated that Davis, by invitation of Mr. Lincoln, went with
him to Washington, and was present at his inauguration, and I was informed
remained there for some considerable time. And although he held no cabinet
office under Mr. Lincoln, yet it was pretty well known that Mr. Lincoln had great
confidence in Judge Davis, and consulted him on public affairs frequently during
those dark and perilous days just before and after the war commenced. I am
inclined to think that Mr. Lincoln tendered him a place in his cabinet, but Judge
Davis waited for a safer and more permanent place. His ambition was to reach
the supreme bench of the United States, and after a while, a vacancy occurring,
Judge Davis w^as appointed to fill the place, over the heads of such men as
Salmon P. Chase and other formidable aspirants. His nomination was confirmed
by the senate of the United States. He has made a most excellent judge, and
has delivered some opinions on constitutional questions which have given him
a national reputation."
By an act approved February 3, 1853, the eighth circuit was composed of
the following counties: Sangamon, Logan, McLean, Woodford, Tazewell, De-
Witt, Champaign and Vermilion. As thus constituted it remained unchanged
until 1857. By an act approved February 11, 1857, Sangamon county was made
part of the eighteenth circuit, together w^ith the counties of Macoupin, Mont-
gomery and Christian. On the organization of this new circuit, Edward Y. Rice
was elected and served as judge of the circuit until 1870. Judge Rice was elected
to this office from Montgomery county, and served acceptably during the con-
tinuance of the circuit. He was a man of clear mind, a good judge of law, his
judgment rarely being reversed. He was appreciated by the entire bar, not only
of Sangamon county, but of the circuit.
156 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
In 1869, Sangamon county, together with Macoupin, embraced the thirtieth
judicial circuit. Benjamin S. Edwards was commissioned judge of the circuit,
and held the office about fifteen months and then resigned. While on the bench
he was quite popular with bar and people.
John A. McClernand was elected to fill the vacancy, and was commissioned
July 12, 1870. He remained in the office until the expiration of the term. A
sketch of Judge McClernand appears in connection with the bar history.
The general assembly, by an act approved March 28, 1873, divided the
state into twenty-six judicial circuits, Sangamon county, together with the coun-
ties of Macoupin, Shelby, Christian, Fayette and Montgomery, comprising the
nineteenth. Charles S. Zane, of Springfield, was the first elected judge of this
new circuit.
In 1877 the state was divided into thirteen judicial circuits, with three
judges in each circuit. Horatio M. \'andevecr. of Taylorville, Charles S. Zane,
of Springfield, and William R. Welch, of Carlinville, were the three elected for
the fifth judicial circuit, embracing the counties of Sangamon, Christian,
Macoupin, Shelby, Montgomery.
Horatio M. Vandeveer was raised in Sangamon county, but removed to
Christian county when a young man, and there studied law and was admitted
to the bar. He was elected judge of the twentieth judicial circuit in 1873, and
retained as one of the three judges of the newly organized fifth circuit. Judge
Vandeveer was highly esteemed by the bar, and made an excellent judge. Before
being elected to this office he served a term in the legislature very acceptably.
He declined a re-election on the expiration of his term, and later engaged in
banking and in the practice of law in Taylorville. He died in 1895.
William R. Welch was from Carlinville, and was recognized by the bar and
people as above the average ability as a judge. He died many years ago.
Jesse J. Phillips was elected, in 1879, and was a citizen of Hillsboro. He
had but a short experience as judge, but served very acceptably. During the
war he was recognized as a brave and gallant officer, — the colonel in command
of one of our Illinois regiments, and was wounded two or three times during the
service.
Agreeable to an act of the legislature, approved February 10, 1821, a court
of probate was established in this county and James Latham was duly com-
missioned probate judge, and held the first term of court June 4, 1821. The
only business transacted this day was to issue letters of administration to
Randolph Wills on the estate of Daniel Martin, deceased. Court met and
adjourned three times, after its first meeting, without transacting any business,
until August 26, 1821, when the filing and recording the will of Peter Lanterman
occupied the attention of the court one entire day.
James Latham, the first probate judge of Sangamon county, was born in
Loudoun county, Virginia, October 25, 1768. He emigrated when a young* man
to Kentucky, and was there married to Mary Briggs in 1792. In 1819, with his
family, he removed to Illinois, and settled at Elkhart Grove, then a part of
Sanjramon, but now of Logan county. As already intimated, on the organization
THE BENCH AND BAR OF H^LINOIS, 157
of the county he was appointed probate judge. He held the office but a few
months and then resigned, having received the appointment of superintendent
of the Indians around Fort Clark. Soon after receiving this appointment he
removed his family to that place, and died there December 4, 1826.
Zachariah Peter was appointed to fill the vacancy occasioned by Judge
Latham's resignation, and served about one year. Zachariah Peter was a Vir-
ginian by birth, but was raised in Kentucky, where he was married to Nancy
Spaulding. In September, 1818, Mr. Peter arrived in Sangamon county, and
finding an empty cabin in what is now Ball township, he moved his family into
it, remaining there until the following spring, v^hen he erected a cabin for himself
about three miles north. Mr. Peter was one of the three commissioners appointed
to locate the temporary seat of justice for Sangamon county, and filled several
important county offices, serving for several years as one of the board of county
commissioners. He died in Springfield, August 5, 1864.
Charles R. Matheny succeeded to the office of probate judge in 1822, and
held the office for three years. He was born in Loudoun county, Virginia, March
6, 1786. When a young man he went on a visit to a brother in Kentucky, and
was there licensed to preach by the proper authorities in the Methodist Episcopal
church. In 1805 he was appointed by that body as missionary to. a portion of the
Illinois, but then known as the Indiana territory. He settled in what is now St.
Clair county, and continued for some years to preach the gospel. While engaged
in ministerial duties, he read law and was admitted to the bar. In 1817 he was
appointed prosecuting attorney for the territory. In 1821 he was induced, by
the tender of the office of countv clerk, countv auditor and circuit clerk, and
other prospective advantages, to come to Sangamon county, arriving at Spring-
field in the spring of 182 1. In Springfield and throughout the county he was
very popular, and received many favors from the people. He was for several
years president of the board of trustees of the village of Springfield, and held
the office of county clerk until his death, which occurred October 10, 1839.
James Adams was the next to fill the office of probate judge, his commission
bearing date August, 1825. Judge Adams held the office until 1843. Thomas
MofTett was elected in 1843, and served until 1849.
By the constitution of 1848, counties not organized under the township
org'anization law were governed by a board of justices, consisting of a county
judg^e and two associates. The county judge performed under this law all the
duties formerly devolving upon the probate judge. Under this act Thomas
Aloffett was elected to the office of county judge, and served four years.
John WicklifTe Taylor was elected to succeed Judge Moffett, and com-
menced his official life in December, 1853. Judge Taylor was a native of Ken-
tucky, and after his marriage, in 1833, he moved to Springfield, Illinois, where
he remained one year, and then settled on a farm in Cartwright township, where
he \%^as living at the time of his election.
William D. Power was elected as the successor of Judge Taylor, in 1857.
Judgfe Power-was born in Bath county, Kentucky, May 2, 182 1, and was brought
by his parents to Sangamon county the same year. Here he grew to manhood,
158 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
and so lived as to merit the esteem of all who knew him. In 1861 he was re-
elected county judge, and died in office March 2, 1863. Xorman M. BroadweW
was elected to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Judge Power. He sened
out the term. WiUiam Prescott was the successor of Judge Broadwcll, and
served from 1865 to 1869. A. X. J. Crook was the next to fill the office of county
judge. He was elected in 1869. and served four years.
James H. Matheny was first elected county judge in 1873, and re-elected in
1877. He made an extremely popular judge. When the county adopted the
township organization law the office of associate justice was abolished, and the
legislative duties performed by the county judge and associates were vested in a
board of supervisors. The county judge was still retained in office as judge oi
probate.
By the constitution of 1870 county courts were created having original
jurisdiction in all matters of probate, and made a court of record. By an act
of the legislature it has been given common-law jurisdiction to the amount of
one thousand dollars. A. X.J. Crook was the first county judge under the new-
law.
The bar of Sangamon county has ever been a subject of pride among her
citizens. Some, of the best legal minds, fairest logicians and finest orators of
the age have practiced before her courts, many of whom have claimed a residence
in the county.
In compiling a history of the bar one is astonished at the small amount of
material for memoirs of those who have been so intimately connected with and
exerted such influence upon the country's welfare and progi'ess. Aside from
the few who have become great, whose names are emblazoned on historj's page,
but little is known of many who at one time were very prominent in the legal
profession in the county. But the names of Lincoln, Douglas, Shields, Baker,
Logan, Trumbull, Hardin, Breese, Lockwood, Linder and scores of others men-
tioned in these pages will always find a place in their country's history, and
Sangamon county has reason to be proud, not only of so many distinguished
sons, but of the many others who have practiced in her courts.
Sangamon county was organized in 182 1, and in the decade following, the
names of Henry Starr, John Reynolds, Samuel McRoberts, Alfred W. Cavarly,
William Thomas, Benjamin Mills, William A. Hamilton, WilHam Mendel, James
Adams, Thomas M. Xeale, James M. Strode, Jonathan H. Pugh, Thomas Moffett,
John T. Stuart, S. D. Lockwood, Judge Smith, Alfred Coles, Mr. Rogers, James
Turney, John L. Bogardus, David Prickett and George Forquer appeared upon
the dockets of the court — an array of distinguished names which would be an
honor even to the bar of to-day, many of whom have since become distinguished,
and few of whom are now living.
James Adams is the pioneer attorney of Sangamon county, having settk^d
in Springfield in 1S21, shortly after the county was organized. Mr. Adams ^vas
born in Hartford, Connecticut, January 26, 1803, from which place he removed
to Oswego county, New York, in 1809, and thence to Sangamon county as
already stated. For several years he had quite an extensive practice, being care-
THE BENCH AND PAR OF ILLINOIS. 159
ful and painstaking in working up his cases and in his dients' interests. In
1823 he was appointed justice of the peace, and was elected successively for many
years. He took part in the Winnebago and Black Hawk wars. After an exciting
personal canvass, he was elected probate judge in 1841, and died in office on
August II, 1843.
Jonathan H. Pugh was the second attorney to make Sangamon county his
home. He arrived in Springfield early in the year 1823, and at once secured
a good practice for that day. In the first decade of the bar of this county his name
probably appears oftener on the docket than any other attorney. Mr. Pugh was
from Bath county, Kentucky, and was a man of brilliant talents, a good lawyer
for that time, and one whose wit never failed him on any occasion. Before a
jury he was almost invincible. In society he was a prime favorite, having
remarkably fine conversational powers. Before coming to Sangamon he located
for a time in Bond county, and was there elected to the legislature. He also
served Sangamon county in the assembly after his removal here. In 183 1 he was
nominated for congress, and made the race in opposition to ex-Governor Duncan.
At this time the question of internal improvements was being agitated, especially
the building of a canal from Lake Michigan to the Illinois river. Governor
Duncan was a strong advocate of the canal, while Mr. Pugh advocated the
building of a railroad, and was probably the first man in the state to advocate
this measure. His views upon this question were doubtless one cause of his
defeat. In 1833, while in the prime of life, Mr. Pugh "laid down life's burden
and passed over to the other side."
Thomas M. Neale was born in Fauquier county, Virginia, in 1796. When
a mere child, he was taken by his parents to Bowling Green, Kentucky. On the
breaking out of the war of 1812, he enlisted and served his country faithfully as
a common soldier. He studied law and was admitted to the bar in Bowling
Green. In the fall of 1824 Mr. Neale arrived, in Springfield, and at once com-
menced the practice of law. For some three or four years his practice was good.
In the campaign against the Winnebago Indians in 1827, he was the colonel in
command of all the infantry companies. After the Black Hawk war. Colonel
Neale was elected surveyor of the county, and one of his first acts was ihe
appointment of Abraham Lincoln his deputy. He was also a justice of the peace
for many years, and as such united many couples in marriage, sometimes receiv-
ing as his fee only a saddle of venison. Mr. Neale died August 7, 1840.
James M. Strode was from Kentucky, and made his first appearance before
the Sangamon county courts in 1823. • He was then a young man of fair talents,
rather showy in dress and manners, a good story-teller, and for many years was
quite prominent in the courts of the state. Leaving Springfield he settled in
Galena, where he died.
William S. Hamilton was a son of the noted Alexander Hamilton, of New
York. He first figured in the courts of this county in 1825, though he was prob-
ably here the previous year. He was a man of great intellectual powers, but was
unsteady in his habits. He served the county one year in the legislature.
Thomas Moffett was from Bath county, Kentucky, and came to Springfield
i6o THE BENCH AND, BAR OF ILLINOIS.
in 1826, where he engaj^^ed in teaching school and devoting his leisure hours to
the study of law. He was admitted to the bar in 1828, and was the first in the
county to receive a license to practice. Mr. Moffett was orderly sergeant of a
company in the Winnebago war, and also captain of a company in the Black
Hawk war. He served two years as county commissioner, and from 1843
served as judge of the probate court. Under the constitution of 1848
he was elected county judge for four years. While not taking high rank as
a lawyer, Mr. Moffett was a man of excellent judgment, and made an excellent
justice of the peace, probate judge and county judge. He died in 1877, at a very
advanced age. He was many years a ruling elder in the Second Presbyterian
church.
William Mendel was a queer genius, not much of a lawyer, and good for
little else, unless it should be for being very witty. He occasionally failed to
behave himself in court with that decorum demanded of the profession, and con-
sequently was punished therefor by the presiding judge. He once appeared
before Judge Sawyer and behaved himself in an unbecoming manner. The judge
sentenced him to jail for the night. The next morning on going to the court-
house a calf was discovered in the judge's stand and a lot of geese in the jury-
box, with Mendel addressing them in an impassioned manner. The judge took
no notice of the indignity.
Samuel McRoberts was one of the best lawyers that followed the circuit,
making Springfield a point. He was afterward circuit judge, and also
United States senator from this state. He died before the expiration of his term.
He was an excellent man to be with on the circuit, serving to beguile the weary
hours in travelino: from place to place. U. F. Linder, whose reminiscences are
often quoted in this work, says he could give the heartiest laugh when amused
of any man he ever saw.
Alfred W. Cavarly was a man well known by the elder members of the bar.
He lived in Greene county and rode the circuit of which Sangamon formed a part
for many years. He was considered a good lawyer, though a little egotistic. He
always rode a good horse in his travels. On one occasion he interposed a general
demurrer to one of Mills' pleadings, and sought thus to take advantage of some
matter w'hich could only be reached by special demurrer. When Cavarly dis-
covered that he could only reach the defect by special demurrer, he insisted that
his was a special demurrer because he had underscored part of it. Judge Lock-
w^ood decided against him. At dinner the same day, at which the judge and
members of the bar were present, Cavarly sent his plate to Mills to be furnished
with what he thought was a cut of venison. Mills sent him a piece which Cavarly
discovered was beef, and he remarked, ^'Brother Mills, I wanted venison, and you
sent me beef." "Oh," said Mills, ''underscore it, Brother Cavarly, and that will
make it venison." Mr. Cavarly was a member of the state legislature of 1836,
and died a few years ago in Ottawa, Illinois.
Benjamin Mills was one of the ablest, most learned and accomplished law-
yers of the early bar of this state. He was from Massachusetts, highly educated,
and a man of a rare style of oratory, through which there ran a rich vein of
THE BENCH AND BAR OF H.LINOIS. i6i
wit and irony. It was a talent he often indulged in in conversation. He rode the
circuit in company with several others who later became prominent, and had
few equals to contend with. As illustrative o£ his wit it is related that one day
when he was in his cups, at his hotel, he was sitting about half asleep, when
Cavarly stepped up to where he was sitting and laid his hand on Mills' bald head
and remarked: "Friend Mills, you have quite a prairie on your head." '*Yes,
Cavarly," he said, "and do you know the difference between you and me?" "By
no means, Brother Mills," said he, in quite a patronizing manner. "Well, FU
tell you," said Mills, "my prairie is on my head, but yours is inside your head."
Mills was the son of a New England Presbyterian minister, and came to
Illinois at an early day, when there was a law authorizing a justice of the peace,
if he heard a man swear, even upon the streets, to go to his office and enter up
a fine of one dollar against him. Ben was a justice of the peace, and was one
day taking his glass with another justice of the peace at his hotel in Greenville,
Illinois, when he happened to let slip about a half dozen oaths. His brother
justice said nothing about it at the time. This was in the morning. They met
again at the same place in the evening and were taking another social glass to-
gether, when his friend remarked: "Brother Mills, you swore several oaths this
morning, and you know the law makes it my duty to enter a fine against you of
a dollar for each oath." "I know it, my brother," said Mills, "and thought of it
as I went to my office, and being a justice of the peace myself, I entered upon
my docket a fine of one dollar for each oath I swore." "Oh, well," said his
friend, "that will do. Come, Brother Mills, let us have another glass." And
when they were about to drink it, Mills remarked: "But you know, my brother,
that the policy of the law is reformation and not vengeance, and feeling that
object has been thoroughly accomplished in my case, by the fine, I am now
considering the question of remitting it." After their glass and a hearty laugh
they parted.
Mr. !Mills was a powerful prosecutor. At Edwardsville, a lawyer named
Winchester, killed a man named Smith, or at least was charged with the crime.
Mills was his prosecutor. Felix Grundy, of Tennessee, then one of the greatest
criminal lawyers in the southwest, was sent for to defend Winchester. The
prosecution is said to have been one of the ablest, most fearful and terrible ever
heard, and it required all the talent and oratory of Grundy, assisted by the pres-
ence and countenance of many of the leading attorneys and men of the place
lo prevent a conviction. Mr. Mills died about 1850.
John Reynolds is well known to every student of the history of Illinois,
having been governor of the state, member of congress, and judge of the supreme
court of Illinois. An amusing story is told of the governor which occurred while
he was holdmg a term of the circuit court at Edwardsville. At that term a man
named Green was tried before him on the charge of murder, and was convicted.
Reynolds, who was always seeking popularity, desired the ill-will of no one, even
f>f a murderer, and after the verdict of guilty had been read by the clerk in open
court, turned to Green, his face all beaming with sympathy, said: "Mr. Green,
I am truly sorry for you; the jury have found you guilty of murder, and I sup-
u
i62 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
pose you know you have got to be hung?" "Yes, your Honor," said Green. "Mr.
Green, 1 want you to understand that this is none of my work, but of a jury of
your own selection. I would take it as a favor of you if you would communicate
this fact to your friends and relatives. The law makes it my duty to pass sen-
tence upon you and carry out the verdict of the jury. It is a mere matter of form,
Mr. Green, so far as I am concerned, and your death can in no way be imputed
to me. Mr. Green, when would you like to be hung?" "Your Honor," said
Green, "if I had any choice in the matter, I «jhould not like to be hung at all; but
as it seems I have not, I have no preference of one time over another." Rey-
nolds then turned to the clerk and said: "Mr. Conway, look at the almanac and
see if the fourth Friday in December comes on Sunday." Conway, being a man
of considerable humor, gravely turned to the almanac, and then looking up.
said: "I find, your Honor, to my utter astonishment, that that day comes upon
Friday!" "So it does, so it does," said Reynolds. Turning to Green, he said:
**Mr. (jreen, the sentence of the court is that on the fourth Friday in December,
between the hours of ten o'clock in the forenoon and four o'clock in the after-
noon, the sheriff of Madison county will take you from the jail to the place of
execution, and there, Mr. Green, I am sorry to say, he will hang you till you are
dead, dead, dead, and may the Lord have mercy upon your soul. And don't
you forget it, Air. Green, that it is not my work^ but that of the jury which tried
vou."
James Turney's name appears upon the records of the Sangamon circuit
court for several years, beginning in 1824. He was a Tennessean by birth, but
at this time lived in CarroUton. He was a man of fine personal appearance, of
great natural, with but little acquired ability. When attorney general of the
state, it is said that such was the reputation which had preceded him when travel-
ing the circuits that many men indicted came into court and confessed guilty
rather than stand a trial with him as prosecutor. He was a natural orator, and
always commanded the most profound attention. No one could fail to recognize
in a moment, when hearing him speak, that he was a man of. considerable genius
and talent. He served the state as attorney general and as commissioner of the
Illinois and Michigan canal. He was also state senator from Greene county.
Henry Starr, at a very early day, left his native state of New Hampshire and
settled in Kentucky, where he taught school and studied law. After being
admitted to the bar, he removed to Edwardsville, Illinois, from which place he
made his semi-annual trips around the circuit, his name appearing on the docket
of Sangamon circuit court in 1822. He remained in the state but a few years,
when he removed to Cincinnati, and soon w^as recognized as a leading lawyer
of that metropolis. ^
George Forquer, a half-brotlier of ex-Governor Ford, was born in Union-
town, Pennsylvania, in 1794. With his mother and half-brother he moved to
Monroe county, Illinois, at an early day, from which place he was elected a mem-
ber of a legislature. In 1825 he was appointed by Governor Coles, secretarj- of
state, and went to Vandalia in the discharge of the duties of that office. In
December, 1828, he resigned the position, and in January following w^as
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS. 163
appointed attorney general by Governor Edwards. Resigning this latter office
the same year, he removed to Springfield. He afterwards represented Sangamon
county in the state senate, and was at one time register of the land office in
Springfield. He was considered by his contemporaries a fair lawyer and had a
good business. He died September 12, 1838.
In the decade from 1831 to 1841 an array of names appear, some of whom
have made a reputation that is world-wide. For character, learning and ability
the bar during this decade has never been surpassed either in Sangamon county
or in any county in the state, and perhaps hot in the Union. At what bar will
be found the superioi^, or even the equal of Abraham Lincoln, Stephen A.
Douglas, James Shields, Stephen T. Logan, John T. Stuart, Edward Jones, Dan
Stone, Samuel H. Treat, Ninian W. Edwards, E. D. Baker, Cyrus Walker, Jesse
B. Thomas and A. T. Bledsoe, all of wdiom engaged in practice and often
appeared before the courts of Sangamon county during this time? Not alone
as attorneys, but as statesmen, the greater number of the foregoing were prom-
inent in after years. James C. Conkling, who was cotemporar}' with those named
says this of law and lawyers at that time:
*Torty years ago business was not so great in extent as to occupy the full
time of the lawyer. Suits were not so numerous or so important as to afford a
support for himself and family. He engaged in political life as an employment,
and solicited office to improve his slender income. A much larger number of the
prominent members of the legal profession then became members of the state
legislature or of congress than at present. The people demanded their political
services, and they were happy and anxious to accommodate the people. A
political contest gave them notoriety among the masses, and afforded them an
opportunity to display their abilities. A reputation for eloquence and skill in*
debate was a recommendation as lawyers in the practice of their profession.
Hence we find the names of Reynolds, Edwards, Cook, Casey, Breese, Browning,
Hardin, Baker, Williams, Shields, Douglas, Trumbull, Lincoln, McClernand and
numerous others almost as frequently, in the political annals of our state, as upon
the records of our courts. As lawyers they were eminent; as statesmen many of
them became illustrious."
In addition to those named, the records of the courts show the following
named as practicing here between the years 1831 and 1841: Edward J. PhiUips,
Henr\' E. Dummer, William L. May, Josephus Hewitt, Charles Emerson, David
Prickett, Jesse B. Thomas, D. B. Campbell, Justin Butterfield, Antrim Campbell,
John D. Urquhart, John C. Doremus, James C. Conkling, Charles R. Wells,
Schuyler Strong, B. S. Edwards and W. J. Gatewood, — a list of which the bar
of any county might be proud.
During the latter part of this decade, the United States circuit court and the
supreme court of Illinois were removed from Vandalia to Springfield. Isaac N.
Arnold, in an address delivered before the Illinois State Bar Association, at
Springfield, January 7, 1881, says:
I wish, with the graphic power of Sir Walter Scott, I could call up a picture of
the United States circuit court and the supreme court of Illinois, and the lawyers dien
i64 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
practicing before them, as they were in 1839, and on during the following years. If we
could, in fancy, enter the United States circuit-court room in this city, in June. 1839, we
should be impressed with the majestic figure, imposing presence and dignified bearing
of the presiding judge, John McLean, a justice of the supreme court of the United States.
His person and face were often compared to Washington's — whom he is said to have
strikingly resembled. Nathaniel Pope, the district judge, was shorter and stouter in per-
son, more blunt and sturdy in manner, and not so familiar with the law books, the cases.
and literature of the law, but of a most clear, vigorous and logical mind. If we enter
their court, then held, if I am not mistaken, in one of the churches in this city, we should
find Ferris Foreman, then United States district attorney, prosecuting the case of "The
United States versus Gratiot," then a historic name in Missouri and the northwest, in a
case arising under a lease, by the government, of a portion of the lead mines of Galena.
We should hear the late Judge Breese making a very learned argument for the defense.
If we lingered until the next case was called, we should hear the sharp, clear, ringing
voice of Stephen T. Logan opening his case. If we remained until the trial ended, we
should concur in the remark that this small, red-haired man, inferior in person, but with
an eye whose keenness indicated his sharp and incisive intellect; this little man, take him
all in all, was then the best nisi-prius lawyer in the state, and it would be difficult to find
his superior anywhere. Among the leading practitioners in the court in Springfield in
1839 were Logan, Lincoln, Baker, Trumbull, Butterfield & Collins, Spring & Goodrich,
Cowles & Krum, Davis, Hardin, Browning, and Archy Williams.
In those early days it was my habit, and that, also, of those practicing in the
United States court, to come to Springfield twice each year, to attend the semi-annual
terms of court held in June and December. We made our trips in Frink & Walkers
coaches, and I have known the December trip to take five days and nights, dragging
drearily through the mud and sleet, and there was an amount of discomfort, vexation
and annoyance about it sufficient to exhaust the patience of the most amiable. I think
I have noticed that some of my impulsive brethren of the Chicago bar have become less
profane since the rail-cars have been substituted for the stage-coaches. But the June
journey was as agreeable as the December trip was repulsive. A four-in-hand with
•splendid horses, the best of Troy coaches, good company, the exhilaration of great speed
over an elastic road, much of it a turf of grass, often crushing under our wheels the most
beautiful wild flowers, every prove fragrant with blossoms, framed in the richest green,
our roads not fenced in by narrow lanch. but with freedom to choose our route; here and
there a picturesque log-cabin, covered with vines; the boys and girls on their way to the
log-schools, and the lusty farmer digging his fortune out of the rich earth. Everything
fresh and new. full of young life and enthusiasm, these June trips to Springfield would,
I think, compare favorably even with those we made to-day in a luxurious Pullman
car. But there were exceptions to these enjoyments; sometimes a torrent of rain would
in a few hours so swell the streams that the log bridges and banks would be entirely
submerged, and a stream which a few hours before was nearly dry became a foaming
torrent. Fording, at such times, was never agreeable, and sometimes a little dangerous.
I must not omit to mention the old-fashioned, generous hospitality of Springfield-
hospitality proverbial to this day throughout the state. Among others. I recall, with a
^ad pleasure, the dinners and evening parties given by Mrs. Lincoln. In her modest
and simple home, everything orderly and refined, there was always, on the part of both
host and hostess, a cordial and hearty western welcome, w^hich put every guest per-
fectly at ease. Mrs. Lincoln's table was famed for the excellence of many rare Ken-
tucky dishes, and in season it was loaded with venison, wild turkeys, prairie chickens,
quail and other game, which was then abundant. Yet it was her genial manners and ever
kind welcome, and Mr. Lincoln's wit and humor, anecdote and unrivaled conversation,
which formed the chief attraction. We read much of "merrie England," but I doubt if
there was ever anything more "merrie" than Springfield in those days. As, to-day, I
walk your streets, and visit the capitol, and your court rooms, as I enter the old home
THE BENCH AND BAR OF H.LINOIS, 165
of Lincoln, for the first time since i860, memories of the past come thronging back;
I see his tall form, his merry laugh breaks upon my ear; I seem to hear the voice of
Douglas, of Baker, of Hardin, and of Logan!
Edward J. Phillips, one of the first to commence here the practice of law in
the second decade, was a man of fine personal appearance, above the average in
sicholarship, and a fine business man. He continued the practice of his profes-
sion but a short time, and then secured a position in the state bank, and as an
officer of that institution was exceedingly popular as he was also in social life.
Edward Jones commenced the practice of law in Springfield as a partner of
George Forquer. Edward Jones was born at Georgetown, D. C, May 8, 181 1.
He commenced his education at a classical academv in his native town, and made
good progress in his studies, but having a strong predilection for military life, he
entered a select military school at the seat of the national government. After
completing his academic studies, he commenced reading law in the office of John
Marbury, and afterwards attended the Virginia Law School, at Winchester. He
was admitted to practice at the bar in March, 1830, just two months before he
was nineteen years of age. Being of an active and energetic temperament, he
turned his face to the great west and, in the following May, settled in Illinois,
fixing his residence at Springfield.
During the troubles of tlie frontier growing out of the Black Hawk war, he
exhibited his natural fondness for military life by serving in the campaigns of
1831 and 1832. In the spring of 1834 Judge Lockwood tendered him the
appointment of clerk of the circuit court of Tazewell county, and he removed to
Pekin, the county-sedt of that county. After holding the office about three years
and a half he resigned and resumed the practice of law. This he continued to
do honorably and successfully until the call for volunteers in the Mexican war
in June, 1846, aroused his patriotic feelings. He at once raised a company, which
became Company F, of Colonel Baker's regiment. He first served with his regi-
ment under General Taylor and then under General Scott. He was engaged in
the storming of Vera Cruz and the memorable battle of Cerro Gordo. The term
of service of his regiment having expired, he was reluctantly compelled to return
borne.
For some years after his return from Mexico, and until his health failed
him, he was a successful practitioner. Mr. Jones had the reputation, which he
richly deserved, as one of the finest men in his profession. He had a purely
legal mind, and this natural aptitude he had diligently improved by his profes-
sional studies. His fame as a special pleader was wide-spread. He was con-
sidered a Fabius in defense — ^being remarkably successful in delaying the con-
test till the most propitious moment.
Edward Jones was eminently social in his nature, and was surrounded by
hosts of friends who prized his society to the last.
Edward Jones died December 20, 1857, and was buried in Pekin, Tazewell
county. The estimation in which he was held by the bar in that place was
embodied in a series of resolutions, one of which said: "We have found him a
noble and powerful advocate, scorning to do anything unprofessional — eloquent.
i66 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
profound in argument, unanswerable in reasoning, and ever successful in the
fierce conflict of intellect with intellect."
Henry E. Dummer was a man of superior talents, a fine lawyer and scholar,
and exceedingly refined in manner. He was a native of Maine, and had drifted
west in 1832. In the spring of this year he was in Cincinnati, and noticing the
advertisement of a boat going up the Sangamon river, determined to take
passage to the new country. Arriving here in due time, he soon formed a part-
nership with John T. Stuart, this relation continuing but a short time. After
dissolution of the co-partnership, Mr. Dummer went to Jacksonville, where he
remained a short time, and then drifted on to Beardstown. In this latter city
he married, settled down and became eminently successful in the practice of his
profession. From Beardstown he returned to Jacksonville and became a mem-
ber of the firm of Dummer, Brown & Kirby. He died about 1877.
Judge Stephen Trigg Logan was born in Franklin county, Kentucky, on
the 24th of February, 1800. His paternal ancestry were of Scotch-Irish extrac-
tion; on the maternal side he was of English descent. His great-grandfather
rmigrated from Ireland and settled in Augusta county, X'irginia, about the year
[750. His father, David Logan, died in Kentucky in the prime of his manhood
about 1821. His mother was the daughter of Colonel Stephen Trigg, a native of
the Old Dominion, who moved to Kentucky in 1779 and lost his Ufe in the
disastrous battle with the Indians at the Blue Licks, in August, 1782. His
grandfather. Colonel John Logan, was one of the early pioneers of Kentucky
and was a representative in the Virginia legislature from one of the counties of
Kentucky before the admission of Kentucky into the Union as a state. Subse-
quently he was a member of the convention which formed the Kentucky con-
stitution of 1799, and he held for several years the office of treasurer of that
commonwealth.
General Ben Logan, his brother, was the first of the family to remove from
Virginia to Kentucky and figured conspicuously with Boone and other famous
pioneers in the Indian wars of the period. Stephen received his early education
in Frankfort, the capital of the commonwealth, and was employed as a clerk in
the office of the secretary of state, under Martin D. Hardin, son-in-law of General
Ben Logan and father of Colonel John J. Hardin, of Illinois. While in the dis-
charge of his duties here, when only thirteen years of age, he made out the com-
missions for the officers of General Shelby's command, in their expedition to our
northern frontier during the war of 181 2. As a boy young Logan was remark-
able for his quickness, sound understanding and aptitude for both study and busi-
ness. In 1817 he went to Glasgow. Barren county, and studied law under his
uncle. Judge Tompkins. He was admitted to the bar at Glasgow before attaining
his majority, but did not at once engage in practice. He supported himself in
the meantime by teaching school and serving as a deputy in the circuit clerk's
office of Barren county. In this position he made himself familiar with the
various forms of legal procedure, and acquired much of that skill and facility in
the drafting of legal documents for w^hich he was noted throughout his profes-
sional life. Shortly after entering on the practice of law he w'as appointed
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS. 167
commonwealth attorney for the Glasgow circuit. His accurate knowledge of the
principles of law, his command over complicated facts, his analytical power in
dealing with evidence and, above all, his incisive and animated style as a speaker
won for him in a few years an established reputation and a lucrative clientage.
On the 2Sth of June, 1823, he married Miss America T. Bush, eldest daughter
of William T. Bush, Esq., of Glasgow. They had eight children, — four sons and
four daughters, — of whom only the two youngest, Mrs. Ward H. Lamon and
Mrs. L. H. Coleman, survived their father. Mrs. Logan was a lady of refined
manners, of unaffected piety and unpretentious benevolence. She died in 1868,
in her sixty-second year. In the spring of 1832 Mr. Logan removed with his
family to Illinois. The journey was made with carriage and wagons, and was
long and tedious. They arrived at Springfield about the middle of May, and
settled on a farm near the Sangamon river, about six miles northwest of the
city. For a time he contemplated devoting himself entirely to agricultural pur-
suits, but at the instance of William L. May, with whom he formed a partnership,
he returned to Springfield in the spring of 1833 and resumed his practice. Mr.
May represented the Springfield district, then embracing the entire northern
half of the state, in congress from 1834 to 1838. Judge Logan speedily acquired
a leading position, not only at the Sangamon bar, but in the state at large, his
reputation continuing to increase until his final relinquishment of his profession.
In January, 1835, he was elected by the legislature as judge of the first judicial
circuit of Illinois, embracing Sangamon county. He held this office until the
March term, 1837, when he resigned, on account of the inadequacy of the salary;
and in 1839, being again chosen circuit judge, he declined to serve.
On retiring from the bench, in 1837, he formed a partnership with Colonel
E. D. Baker. He was afterward associated from 1841 to 1844 with Abraham
Lincoln, and at a later period with his son-in-law, Hon. Milton Hay. Short as
was the time he remained on the bench, he attracted at that time the attention
and admiration of many of his most eminent cotemporaries, — among them such
men as the late Judge David Davis, Judge Caton and Judge Drummond. Speak-
ing of him in the United States court after his death, Senator Davis recalled
some interesting memoirs of this period of Judge Logan's career:
The first time I saw him was in Springfield, in the autumn* of 1835, when he was
holding a term of the Sangamon circuit court. I had just come to the state, and was
naturally desirous of observing the proceedings in the courts. Having pursued my legal
studies in Massachusetts and Connecticut, I was impressed with the idea that justice was
administered in those states by magistrates who were superior to any I should meet in
Illinois, and was, therefore, not prepared at the outset to have this opinion changed. I
was a diligent observer of the manner in which the business of the court was conducted,
and recollect that Judge Logan disposed of some intricate points of evidence with a
clearness of statement and power of reasoning that not only carried conviction to my
mind, but satisfied me of the largeness of his capacity and of his ability to discharge
the duties of any judicial tribunal in the country. The admiration which I conceived
for him then, instead of being diminished by the lapse of time, as often happens, was
increased as I knew him better and observed the development of his marvelous powers.
i68 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
Speaking of him as an advocate, Senator Davis said:
In all the elements that constitute a great nisi-prius lawyer, I have never known his
equal. I loved to hear him try an important jury cause, and have quite often been sur-
prised by the remarkable powers displayed by him when he was hard pressed for vic-
tory. I will mention one instance. In the winter of 1844-5 one Chapman was indicted
for perjury under the bankrupt law of 1841. The case excited a great deal of interest, for
the reason that the party charged with the crime had previously borne a good character,
and because many persons believed a beneficent law had been repealed on account of
perjuries and frauds committed under it. Justin Butterfield was the prosecutor, and
Logan and Lincoln defended. Butterfield exerted all his intellectual power to procure
a conviction. As usual when Logan was engaged in a case, no matter who was as«io-
ciated with him. the chief management of it was conceded to him. He never appeared
to better advantage than in this defense. The trial lasted several days, and the lawyers
from abroad, as well as those living here, were attracted to the court-room. The legisla-
ture was in session, and though a member of it I was so fascinated by the intellectual
struggle that I heard the trial through, to the neglect of my official duties. Chapman
was convicted, but I thought at the time the result would have been different had not the
judge charged so strongly against the prisoner.
"When I first met him," said the Hon. Tliomas Drummond on the same
occasion, "forty-five years ago he was a judge in the circuit court of this state.
He had exchanged with Judge Ford, and went into the latter 's circuit, in the
northern part of the state, in the summer and fall of 1835. He was the first judge
before whom I appeared, and his was the first court in w'hich I tried a case in
the state of Illinois. I was engaged in several cases during the term and was an
attentive observer of the manner in which he administered the law during the
whole sitting of the court. The qualities, in my opinion, most conspicuous in
him were great clearness of statement, a preternatural quickness of apprehension,
extraordinary fertility of resources and a glowing, ardent nature, which almost
compelled the tribunal he addressed to share in his own conviction. To these
were added in exceptional fullness the power of nice discrimination and cogent
analysis, a true sense of the justice of the cause and the capacity to reject all
extraneous matter and confine himself to the essential points in the controversy.
He was, besides, a broad, comprehensive reasoner, never diffuse. These qualities
fitted him peculiarly for the trial of nisi-prius cases, in which he was considered
unrivaled. I do not think that in general he made great preparation far his
cases, or studied them verv elaboratelv. He often trusted with confidence to his
resources at the time of trial, and these rarely failed him. Above all, though
faithful in the utmost to the cause of his cheiit, he was an honest law'ver and true
to the court to which he left, after urging every argument which a fertile imagin-
ation and a full knowledge could suggest, the decision of the cause, relying upon
its real merits for success. The impression he made upon me, as a young lawyer
having his first experience in the state of his profession, has never been effaced."
His relations with Mr. Lincoln in these days have been graphically
described by Hon. Orville H. drowning, of Quincy, who said: "Younger men
who afterward attained great distinction at the bar, and have done honor to the
state, had their training in his office and under his instruction. Among others
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS. 169
who had the benefit of his association, example and instruction, was the lamented
Lincoln, who afterwards became so illustrious in the history of our country and
before the world, and whose memory is enshrined in all our hearts. As his law
partner Mr. Lincoln was long and intimately associated with Judge Logan, and
no doubt during that period received much of the preparation which fitted him
for the brilliant and useful career which awaited him, and which enabled him
to achieve immortal renown as- a patriot and statesman. Mr. Lincoln at one
time exerted all his influence, which was not then so great as it afterward became,
to have his friend and former partner placed upon the bench of a federal court.
For such a station he was most eminently qualified, and had he held the position
he could not have failed to add to the exalted reputation of the American
judiciary. I know that Mr. Lincoln then regarded Judge Logan as the most
thorough and accomplished lawyer he had ever known, and through his whole
life he cherished for him an affection, admiration and respect which approached
to reverence and adoration."
Judge Caton also tells an anecdote which is interesting as showing one
quality which Judge Logan eminently possessed: **He had to be convinced of
the justice of his cause," says Judge Caton, "at least he had to be persuaded that
he was not advocating injustice, before he raised his voice in support of a cause;
but that cause, when once espoused, he pursued with relentless energy. I recol-
lect once when he was engaged with his partner, Mr. Lincoln, at the time when
they were partners, in the argument of a cause before this court (the Illinois
supreme court). I happened to meet him, and inquired, while Mr. Lincoln was
making his address, if he proposed to argue the case. *I don't think
I shall trouble you,' he said; 'I don't see it as clear as Mr. Lin-
coln does; I prefer to leave it with him.' I confess I appreciated the
compliment that he thought an intimation from me that he did not believe his
associate was right would not affect my judgment; I say I appreciated it as a
very high compliment. But it happened that the cause was decided as Mr.
Lincoln had argued it."
Sometimes it happened that Mr. Lincoln and Judge Logan were retained
on opposite sides. When this was the case the struggle was certain to be a sharp
one, and it never failed to interest the whole community, though it never dis-
turbed the harmonious personal relations which continued to exist between
these two distinguished men throughout their lives. In 1842 Judge Logan was
elected a representative in the legislature from the county of Sangamon, and was
re-elected in 1844 and 1846, serving throughout with great ability and credit.
In 1847 he was chosen a delegate to the convention which formed the state
constitution of Illinois and took a leading and influential part in the deliberations
of that body. His efforts, both in the legislature and in the convention, were
especially directed to securing economy in the public expenditures and making
adequate provision for the payment of the state's indebtedness, in each of which
he was measurably successful. One incident of his career as a legislator will be
remembered to his lasting honor. It cannot be better told than in the words of
I70 THE BEXCII AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
the Hon. Mason Rrayman, in his address to the Sangamon county circuit court
on the announcement of Judge Logan's death :
One occasion I recollect well, when as a member of the house of representatives
here, he rose to the dignity of statesmanship, and at a most critical moment saved Illinois
from the danger of repudiation, and aided in laying the foundation on which was built a
restored credit and after which in natural sequence came an era of financial greatness
and prosperity scarcely matched in the history of states. It was when the bill for re-
funding our old state debt was brought into the house. Our internal improvement system
had been a disastrous and disgraceful failure. We owed fourteen millions, mostly in
bonds not worth fourteen cents to the dollar. The interest was unpaid. The shadow
of repudiation had fallen on the public mind and infected members of the general assembly.
At the bottom the people of Illinois were honest. While confessing that they could not
pay, they stoutly resolved t^at they would pay — some time. A night session was held for
the final struggle upon the momentous measure. Judge Logan held himself in reserve
until this hour. All were eager to know his position, for it was felt that the fate of the
bill was in his hands. The old hall was packed to the utmost. He took the floor — ^thc
venerable and honored Ninian W. Edwards being in the chair — and, in one of the most
brilliant efforts of his life, supported the bill. I recall one of his thrilling sentiments: "I
know my constituents of Sangamon county and they know me. I know that they did not
send me here to make repudiators of them, and they know that no constituency can
make a repudiator of me!" The bill was safe. When he closed it was passed under the
previous question. From that hour Illinois went forward. Her three or four hundred
thousand, then, go beyond three millions now (1881). Her overshadowing debt has
disappeared. To him whose memory you have commemorated, and to those who stood
with him in those trying hours. Illinois is indebted for a credit restored and an
honor untarnished.
In 1848 he was Whig candidate for congress in the Springfield district.
Lincoln, Baker and Logan then constituted a triumvirate and were the diree
political leaders in the congressional district. Each was ambitious to serve his
country at Washington, and it was understood that they would be candidates in
rotation. Baker had been elected, and was occupying the seat wdien the war
with Mexico commenced. Lincoln succeeded him. Logan in time became a
candidate, but his party was then under a cloud in consequence of its opposition
to the war, while the Democratic candidate, Major Thomas L. Harris, had just
returned with military laurels won on the fields of Mexico. The dashing soldier
of course carried the day, and Judge Logan was signally defeated. He now
withdrew from all active participation in politics and for a number of years
applied himself sedulously to the practice of his profession. He had at this time
a large, diversified and lucrative business both in the state and federal courts.
In 1854 he w^as elected, for the fourth time, to the state legislature. During this
session he served as chairman of the judiciary and other committees, and was
the author of several useful measures of legislation. In 1855 he was nominated
without his consent as a candidate for judge of the supreme court for the second
grand division of Illinois, in opposition to Judge Onias C. Skinner, of Quincy.
In May, i860, he was a delegate from the state at large to the Republican
national convention at Chicago, and with David Davis, Leonard Swett, Norman
B. Judd and other friends of Mr. Lincoln, secured his nomination to the
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS, 171
presidency. The election of Mr. Lincoln brought to a crisis the differences
which had so \or\g agitated the people of the north and south and threatened
a disruption of the Union. At the instance of the ' legislature of Vir-
ginia a national peace conference assembled in the dity of Washington on
the 4th of February, 1861, to devise certain amendments to the federal
constitution, which, it was hoped, if adopted by congress and the several
states, would restore peace to the country, preserve the Union and avert the
calamities of the impending civil war. Thirteen free and several border states
sent delegates to this congress. The five commissioners appointed by Governor
Yates to represent the state of Illinois were Judge Logan, General John M.
Palmer, Thomas J. Turner, John Wood and Burton C. Cook. The peace con-
gress included among its members many of the most eminent jurists and states-
men of the L^nited States. Judge Logan took with him into that body the same
noble characteristic which marked him in the law office, — that of peacemaker.
As he had striven in the legislature to save his state from public dishonor, so he
now sought to save his country from threatened dismemberment. He took an
active part in the deliberations of this historic assembly favoring an honorable
compromise between the northern and southern sections of the Union. "As the
friend of President Lincoln,'* said the Hon. W. S. Groesbeck, of Ohio, a mem-
ber of the conference, **Judge Logan was often heard and always with profound
interest. I recall one of his speeches made toward the close of our conference,
when we were feeling very much discouraged. It was a grand, patriotic appeal. It
touched every heart; it moistened nearly every eye. I have not met Judge
Logan since that day, but if I were to live a hundred years I would not forget
him." It was probably this speech to which reference was made by Hon. John
T Stuart in his remarks at the memorial meeting of the Sangamon county bar,
and from which the following extract was given by Hon. James C. Conkling in
a lecture on the *'Early Bench and Bar,*' delivered on the T2th of January, 1881,
before the Bar Association of Chicago:
Instead of dreaming of news from the seat of war and of marching armies, I have
thought of a country through which armies have marched, leaving in their track the
desolation of a desert. I have thought of harvests trampled down; of towns and villages,
once the seat of happiness and prosperity, reduced to heaps of smoking ruins, and battle-
fields red with blood which has been shed by those who ought to have been brothers;
of families broken up or reduced to poverty; of widowed wives, of orphaned children,
and the other misfortunes which are inseparably connected with war. This is the picture
which presents itself to my mind every day and every hour. It is a picture which' we
are doomed soon to witness in our country unless we place a restraint upon our pas-
sions, forget our selfish interests, and do something to save our country.
Sectional animosity and party feeling were too strong for the friends of
peace. Judge Logan's stirring appeals, which electrified the conference, had no
effect upon the fomenters of strife outside. He succeeded in the object for which
he went into the conference. That body adopted and reported to congress a
number of resolutions embodying various concessions to southern demands;
but congress threw all these aside and passed as a substitute an amendment to
172 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS,
the constitution proposed by Senator Douglas, which forbade congress ever to
interfere with slavery. I»efore the necessary number of states could vote on the
adoption of this amendment the civil war had begun. Speaking before the
Illinois supreme court, in memory of Judge Logan, the Hon. Orville H. Brown-
ing, of Quincy, referred to this speech of Judge Logan at the peace conference,
and said: "I was not present and had not the pleasure and benefit of hearing
Judge Logan on that occasion ; but after the lapse of many years and after the
southern states had been devastated by a war which that congress strove in vain
to avert, in conversation with learned and able men who were present as members
of the congress, I have been assured that the speech he then delivered was remark-
able for its wisdom, its patriotism, its conciliatory tone and temper, its forecast
of the future, and its eloquence and power; and that had the counsels of our
deceased brother been followed all convicting opinions and interests would have
been reconciled, and tlie country have escaped the calamities which ensued."
His service in the peace conference was the last of his public and official
employments. He had not only retired from political life, but gradually withdrew
from the practice of his profession. His last public appearance was in 1872, when
he was unanimously chosen to preside over the Republican state convention of
that year. The evening of his days was passed in dignified retirement, sur-
rounded by his family, and in the enjoyment of the ample estate which he had
accumulated by his industry, economy and foresight. He died, after a brief ill-
ness, at his residence in Springfield, on the 17th of July, 1880. His funeral was
attended by distinguished judges and members of the bar from all parts of the
state; the members of the Sangamon county bar and of the city council attended
in a body. His remains were interred in Oak Ridge cemetery. Special tributes
of respect were paid to his memory by the Sangamon county bar, whose memorial
resolutions were presented to the United States court, the Sangamon county
circuit court, and the supreme court of the state; and also by tne city council of
Springfield. The bar expressed their regret for the loss, **not only of a dis-
tinguished lawyer, but an illustrious citizen of the state, who by his energy and
ability contributed much to its material prosperity, and by his wisdom as a
legislator and inflexible integrity as a judge w^as instrumental in giving to person
' and property the protection of wise laws, wisely and honestly administered."
Judge Logan's life began with the century, when Xapolcon was first consul
in France and John Adams was president of the United States. In his four
score years he lived to see the nation grow from six millions to fifty millions of
people; to see slavery abolished and the republic, tried by the greatest civil war
that history records, emerge from it stronger and more firmly rooted in the
hearts of the people than ever before.
Hon. David Prickett, prominently identified with the early history of lUinois
and Sangamon county, was born in Franklin county, Georgia, September 21,
1800. In early childhood he went with his parents to Kentucky, and a few years
later to.Edwardsville, Illinois, then a prominent town of this state. He graduated
from the law department of Transylvania University, in Lexington. Kentucky,
and was admitted to practice at Edv/ardsville, Illinois, November 15, 1821. Mr.
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS. 173
Prickett served as the first supreme-court reporter of Illinois, was for a time
judge of probate court of Madison county: was elected a member of the state
legislature in 1826, when the capital was at Vandalia. He served as aide-de-camp
to General John D. Whiteside in the Black Hawk war in 1831; was elected
state's attorney in 1837 for the first judicial circuit of Illinois, composed of Pike,
Calhoun, Greene, Morgan, Sangamon, Tazewell, McLean, Macon and Macoupin
counties. He served as treasurer of the board of canal commissioners during the
construction of the Michigan and LaSalle canal, in 1840; in 1842 was appointed
director, in behalf of the state, of the State Bank of Illinois; was clerk of the
house of representatives ten sessions; and was serving as assistant clerk of the
house of representatives at the time of his death, March i, 1847. He dealt con-
siderably in real estate, and was joint proprietor in laying out additions to several
cities in Illinois. Mr. Prickett married Charlotte, daughter of Thomas and Chris-
tiana Griffith, of Tazewell county, on January 24, 1834. She was born March 9,
1806. Their marital union resulted in five children.
William L. May was a Kentuckian by birth, removing from that state to
Edwardsville, Illinois, thence to Jacksonville, and from there to Springfield, in
1829, having received the appointment of receiver of the land office in the latter
place. Here in 1833 he formed a partnership with Stephen T. Logan. Mr. May
was much more of a politician than a lawyer, and was a man of good address
and a capital stump-speaker. In 1834 he was elected to congress, and again in
1836. In 1838 he failed of receiving the nomination, which went tc Stephen A.
Douglas. In the course of time Mr. May removed to Peoria, and thence to Cali-
fornia, where he died.
Dan. Stone became a member of the bar of Sangamon county in 1833. He
was a native of Vermont and a graduate of Middlebury College, in his native
state. He afterwards went to Cincinnati, studied law with his uncle, Ethan
Stone, and practiced in that city for several years, and during that time was a
member of the legislature, and also a member of the city council. On his removal
to Springfield he at once took rank with the best lawyers. He was elected a
member of the legislature in 1836, and was one of the famous "long-nine" mem-
bers of that body from this county. While a member of the legislature he
received the appointment of judge of the circuit court, and was assigned to duty
in the northern part of the state and moved to Galena. In 1838 he rendered a
decision with reference to the vote of an alien, which so displeased the party in
power that the courts were reorganized by the legislature, and Judge Stone was
legislated out of office. He soon after left the state, and a few years later died in
Essex county, New Jersey.
Josephus Hewitt came to Springfield about 1830, at which time he was a
Christian preacher, an eloquent "defender of the faith once delivered to the
Saints." He read law with Judge Logan, and was admitted to the bar about
1834. In 1835 he formed a partnership with Cyrus Walker, of Macomb, Mr.
Hewitt remaining in Springfield and Mr. Walker in Macomb, but practicing to-
gether in the various courts of the state. Mr. Hewitt became one of the most
noted lawyers of that day, and is spoken of by the older members of the pro-
174 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
fession as a man of strong mind and very eloquent in his pleadings. He re-
moved from Springfield to Mississippi, where he died.
David B. Campbell came to Springfield in 1838, from New Jersey, his native
state. He was a fair lawyer and a good prosecutor, serving as prosecuting at-
torney from 1848 to 1856, dying in office in the latter year. He was a fair-minded
man. and while prosecuting attorney would never prosecute one charged with
crime unless thoroughly convinced of his guilt.
Antrim Campbell, a brother of David, was born in New Jersey in 1814. He
came to Springfield in 1838, and entered upon the. practice of his profession. In
1849 ^c was appointed master in chancery for the' circuit court of Sangamon
county, and resigned the same in 1861, when he received the appointment of
master in chancery for the United States circuit court for the southern district
of Illinois. While never taking high rank as an attorney, he was recognized as
a good master in chancery and an excellent business man. He died August ii,
1868.
Albert T. Bledsoe was a worthy member of the Sangamon county bar during
the last year of its second decade and extending nearly through the third. He
came to Springfield from Greene county in 1840. While a young man he grad-
uated at West Point, and shortly after resigned his position in the army, studied
for the ministry, and was ordained a minister in the Episcopalian church. Be-
coming dissatisfied, he resigned his charge, studied law and was admitted to the
bar before coming to Springfield. On his arrival here he formed a partnership
with Jesse B. Thomas, which continued about a year, when he became a partner
of E. D. Baker. Major Stuart says that for real logic he was the strongest man
at this bar at that time. But contentment was not with him a cardinal virtue.
He could remain in one position but a short time. He was an author of sev-
eral scientific works, which were well received by the learned. Mr. Bledsoe
about 1850 drifted south, was president of a college in Mississippi for a time, and
at the breaking out of the war was professor of mathematics in a college at Char-
lotteville, Virginia. Espousing the southern side, he was made assistant secretary
of war, but becoming convinced that the southern confederacy was about to col-
lapse, shortly before the close of the war, it is said that he applied to his old
friend Abraham Lincoln, president of the United States, for a pass through the
lines, receiving which he came within the Union lines and soon embarked for
Europe, where he remained until the close of the war. Returning, he visited his
old friends in Springfield, then again went south, and has since died.
Charles R. Welles was from Connecticut, was well educated, but did little
business in law. Soon after coming to Springfield he engaged in the real-estate
business, in which he accumulated a large fortune. He died many years ago.
Schuyler Strong was from New York, and well advanced in years before
coming to Springfield. In his native state he was regarded as no ordinary
lawyer, and was recognized as the peer of any when he arrived here. If it had
not been for one grievous fault, so common, success would have crowned his
every effort. He died about 1845.
Ninian W\ Edwards, the son of Ninian Edwards, the first and only terri-
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS. 175
torial governor of Illinois, was born April 15, 1809, near Frankfort, Kentucky.
His father at that time was chief justice of the court of appeals of Kentucky, but,
receiving the appointment of governor of the territory of Illinois, he removed
with his family in June following, to Kaskaskia, its capital. When of the proper
age, Ninian W. was sent to Transylvania University, and graduated in the law
department of that institution in 1833. In 1832 he was married to Mis^Eliza-
beth P. Todd, in Lexington, Kentucky. Returning home after his graduation,
he commenced the practice of law. In 1834, he was appointed by Governor
Reynolds, attorney general of the state, and was shortly afterwards elected by
the legislature. The law requiring the attorney general to reside at the capital,
and Mr. Edwards not liking a residence in Vandalia, he resigned the office in
Febniary, 1835, and shortly afterward removed to Springfield. In 1836 Mr.
Edwards, was elected one of the representatives in the legislature. From 1836 to
1852 Mr. Edwards served in the legislature, either in the senate or house of
representatives, being a very efficient member. He was also a member of the
constitutional convention which formed the constitution of 1848. In 1852 he
was appointed attorney before the board of commissioners to investigate the
claims of canal contractors against the state, amounting to over one million five
hundred thousand dollars. In 1854 he received the appointment of state super-
intendent of public instruction and was the first incumbent of that office. He
was retained in this office by the legislature until 1857. Mr. Edwards was
always a champion of free schools, and drafted the law in regard to them which
was first adopted in the state. In 1862, he was appointed by President Lin-
coln United States commissary. Mr. Edwards found time to prepare a his-
tory of the state of Illinois, including the "Life and Times of Governor Ed-
wards," written on the invitation of the Illinois State Historical Society. It is
a valuable work, and is regarded as a standard on the. subject on which it treats.
As a lawyer, Mr. Edwards ranked high while an active member of the bar.
C3rrus Walker was a Kentuckian by birth; studied law and was admitted
to the bar in his native state, where he became very prominent, especially as a
criminal lawyer. On account of his defense of a murderer, who was acquitted,
and whom the people generally thought should have been hung, Kentucky be-
came uncomfortably warm for him, so that he came to Illinois and settled in
Maconib, in 1833. He was a man of strong mind, an excellent lawyer, and withal
very conscientious. In 1835 he was a partner of Josephus Hewitt, and in 1839
with James C. Conkling. His business was very extensive for many years in
the various courts of Illinois. He died near Macomb, in 1876.
In 1837 Abraham Lincoln was admitted to the bar. While living in Salem
he had borrowed books from the law library of John T. Stuart, which he read
and returned as the opportunity occurred. When convinced that he could
stand an examination, he presented himself for that purpose, and was duly
licensed to practice his profession. He immediately formed a partnership with
Mr. Stuart, which relation continued about two years. During this same year,
Stephen A. Douglas became a citizen of Springfield, having received the appoint-
ment of register in the land office. He soon aften\^ard formed a partnership
176 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
with John D. Urquhart for the practice of law, and here commenced the rivalry
of these two great men — Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas — men whom
the world delights to honor. In the address already quoted, by Isaac N. Arnold,
he says:
When, forty years ago, the bar used to meet here at the capitol, in the supreme and
United %tates courts, and ride the circuit in our different sections of the state, Lincoln
and Douglas did not occupy a position of such overshadowing importance as they do to-
day. They did not beat us in our cases when law and justice were with us, and we did
not realize that they were so greatly our superiors. But these two men have passed into
history, and justly, as our great representative men. These are the two most promi-
nent figures, not only in the history of Illinois, but of the Mississippi valley, and their prom-
inence, certainly that of Mr. Lincoln, will be increased as time passes on. I will, therefore,
endeavor to give such rough and imperfect outlines of them as lawyers, and advocates, and
public speakers, as I can. We, who knew them personally, who tried causes with them
and against them, ought, I think, to aid those who shall come after us, to understand
them, and to determine what manner of men they were. In the first place, no two men
could be found more unlike, physically and intellectually, in manners and in appearance,
than they.
Lincoln was a very tall, spare man, six feet four inches in height, and would be
instantly recognized as belonging to that type of tall, large-boned men produced in the
northern part of the Mississippi valley, and exhibiting its peculiar characteristics in the
most marked degree in Tennessee, Kentucky and Illinois. In any court-room in the
United States he would have been instantly picked out as a western man. His stature,
figure, dress, manner, voice and accent indicated that he was of the northwest. In man-
ner he was always cordial and frank, and although not without dignity, he made every
person feci quite at his ease. I think the first impression a stranger would get of him.
whether in conversation or by hearing him speak, was, that this is a kind, frank, sincere,
genuine man, of transparent truthfulness and integrity; and before Lincoln had uttered
many words, he would be impressed with his clear good sense, his remarkably simple,
liomely, but expressive Saxon language, and next his wonderful wit and humor. Lincoln
was more familiar with the Bible than with any other book in the language, and this
was apparent, both from his style and illustrations, so often taken from that book. He
verified the maxim, that it is better to know thoroughly a few good books than to read
many.
Douglas was little more than five feet high, with a strong, broad chest, and strongly
marked features: his manners, also, were cordial, frank and hearty. The poorest and
humblest found him friendly. He was, in his earlier years, hale fellow well met with the
rudest and poorest man in the court room. Those of you who practiced lav»r with him,
or tried causes before him when on the bench, will remember that it was not unusual
to see him come off the bench, or leave his chair at the bar, and take a seat on the knee
of a friend, and with one arm thrown familiarly around his friend's neck, have a friendly
talk, or a legal or political consultation. Such familiarity would have shocked our Eng-
lish cousins, and disgusted our Boston brothers, and it has, I think, disappeared.
Lincoln and Douglas were, as we know, both self-educated, and each the builder
of his own fortune. Each became, very early, the recognized leader of the political party
to which he belonged. Douglas was bold, unflinching, impetuous, denunciatory and de-
termined. He possessed, in an eminent degree, the qualities which create personal pop-
ularity, and he was the idol of his friends. Both Lincoln and Douglas were strong jury
lawyers. Lincoln, on the whole, was the strongest jury lawyer we ever had in Illinois.
Both were distinguished for their ability in seizing and bringing out, distinctly and clearly,
the real points in a case. Both were very happy in the examination of witnesses; I think
Lincoln the stronger of the two in cross-examination. He could compel a witness to tell
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS. 177
the truth when he meant to lie. He could make a jury laugh, and, generally, weep, at his
pleasure. Lincoln on the right side, and especially when injustice or fraud were to be
exposed, was the strongest advocate. On the wrong side, or on the defense, wfiere the
accused was really guilty, the client with Douglas for his advocate would be more fortunate
than with Lincoln. Lincoln studied his cases thoroughly and exhaustively. Douglas had
a wonderful faculty of extracting from his associates, from experts and others, by con-
versation, all they knew of a subject he was to discuss, and then making it so thoroughly
his that all seemed to have originated with himself. He so perfectly assimilated the ideas
and knowledge of others that all seemed to be his own, and all that went into his mind
c.;me out improved.
Mr. Lincoln remained in active practice at the bar until his nomination for
the presidency in i860. His reputation as a lawyer and advocate was rising
higher and higher. He had a large practice on the circuit all over the central
part of this state, and he was employed in most of the important cases in the
federal and supreme courts. He went on special retainers all over Illinois, and
occasionally to St. Louis, Cincinnati, and Indiana. His law arguments addressed
to the judges were always clear, vigorous and logical, seeking to convince rather
by the application of principle than by the citation of authorities and cases. On
the whole, I always thought him relatively stronger before a jury than with the
court. He was a quick and accurate reader of character, and understood, almost
mtuitively, the jury, witnesses, parties, and judges, and how best to address,
convince and influence them. He had a power of conciliating and impressing
everyone in his favor. His manner was so candid, so direct, the spectator was
impressed that he was seeking only truth and justice. He excelled all I ever
heard in the statement of his case. However complicated, he would disentangle
it, and present the turning point in a way so sim.ple and clear that all could
understand. He had in the highest possible degree the art of persuasion and the
power of conviction. His illustrations were often quaint and homely, but always
clear and apt, and generally conclusive. He never misstated evidence, but stated
clearly, and met fairly and squarely his opponent's case. His wit and humor
and inexhaustible stores of anecdote, always to the point, added immensely to
his power as a jury advocate.
Jesse B. Thomas, Jr., was a nephew of the eminent statesman of that name,
a former United States senator, and well known in the early dav. He was
an attorney of more than ordinary ability, and succeeded Ninian W. Edwards as
attorney general of the state in 1835. In 1837 he was appointed ^circuit judge,
but resigned after the expiration of two years. He was at one time a partner of
David Prickett, in Springfield, and afterwards of William L. May. He finally
went to Chicago and died there.
E. D. Baker came to Springfield in 1835, from Greene county, Illinois. He
was born in London, England, February 24, 181 1, and emigrated with his parents
to America shortly after the close of our late war with England, and after re-
maining^ for a time in Philadelphia he came west and settled in Indiana, and
thence came to Illinois. He early manifested a strong passion for books. Pos-
sessing a rare aptitude for acquiring information, a ready and highly retentive
memory, his mind soon became stored with the rich treasures of literary lore,
12
178 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
from which, in after years, he drew copiously as from a perennial fount. At
Carrollton, Greene county, Mr. Baker studied law in the office of A. W. Cavarly,
serving at the same time as deputy in the office of the county clerk. As soon
as he gained a superficial knowledge of the science of law, spurred on by neces-
sity, he procured a license and commenced practice. Owing, however, to his
youth, limited legal attainments and the absence of influential friends, during
the first years of his professional life, he met with indiflPerent success.
While in Carrollton, Mr. Baker was married to Mrs. Marv A. Lee. Soon
after marriage he united with the Christian church, and being naturally of an
impulsive and enthusiastic temperament, he was very zealous in the discharge
of his religious duties, became an able exhorter, and began to entertain serious
thoughts of engaging in regular ministerial work. As time passed, his mind
becoming occupied with politics, he finally ceased his connection with the
religious body. While an active member of the church, he first discovered that
boldness of thought, that opulence of expression, that graceful and persuasive
manner of speaking, for which he became so justly celebrated in after life.
Shortly after coming to Springfield, Mr. Baker associated himself in the
practice of law with Josephus Hewitt. Subsequently, he entered into partnership
with Stephen T. Logan, and for a short time with Albert T. Bledsoe. It was
here that Baker first applied himsdf seriously to the duties of his profession,
and here he won his first laurels as an advocate. Surrounded by the great men
already mentioned as comprising the Sangamon county bar during this decade,
Baker was compelled to struggle for that eminence in his profession which he
rapidly attained. Although disinclined to close, continuous study, and oftea
negligent in the preparation of his cases, he had so sufficiently mastered the prin-
ciples and intricacies of the law as to meet the ordinary requirements of prac-
tice, and his native genius supplied any deficiency. His confident, self-possessed
air amidst the bustle of a court of law, his quickness of perception, ready wit,
fertility in resources and ardent eloquence, enabled him to achieve the victory
in spite of the most determined opposition from older or more experienced an-
tagonists. In jury cases he was especially successful, for in these he was less
fettered by the legal forms and technicalities which ordinarily curb the reins
of youthful imagination. Indeed, a jury to him was but a miniature popular
assembly, before which he could pour out his argument and invective at wulU or
indulge in those exquisite touches of pathos, which failed not to awaken the sym-
pathy and move the hearts of his auditors. Enterprising and ambitious, Mr.
Baker early directed his attention to politics as opening the shortest road to
preferment. In 1837 he was elected to the general assembly from Sangamon
county to fill the vacancy occasioned by the resignation of Dan Stone. In the
following year he was re-elected. In the campaign of 1840 he took an active
part in the support of General Harrison. In 1844 he was elected to congress,
and was a member of that body when the war with Mexico broke out. Return-
ing home from Washington, he raised a regiment and was commissioned col-
onel. In this war he earned a reputation as a brave and gallant commander.
On his return from Mexico he removed to Galena and was there re-elected
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS. 179
to congress. He took his seat the second time in December, 1849. He bore
an active if not a conspicuous part in the debate upon those grave national
issues, which formed so prominent a feature in the first session of the thirty-
first congress. He favored some, but not all the compromise measures passed at
that session.
In 1852 Colonel Baker emigrated with his family to California. Establish-
ing himself in San Francisco, he once more commenced the practice of law.
His fame as an advocate and orator had preceded him, so that he soon found
himself in the midst of an extensive business. Here it was that he achieved his
highest reputation as a lawyer, and perhaps his most brilliant renown as an orator.
While living in California he early identified himself with the Free Soil move-
ment. When Senator Broderick, the chief of the Douglas Democracy in that
state, was killed in a duel with Judge Terry, it was Colonel Baker that was called
upon to deliver the funeral oration, and right royally did he perform that sad
duty. The oration has seldom, if ever, b^en surpassed.
Shortly after the unhappy death of Broderick, Colonel Baker removed to
Oregon. Here he was soon after elected to the United States senate. Returning
to San Francisco, on his way to the east, he was the recipient of a public ovation.
In his speech upon the occasion, he said: "As for me, I dare not, will not, be
false to freedom. Where the feet of my youth were planted, there by freedom
my feet shall ever stand. I will walk beneath her banner. I will glory in her
strength. I have seen her in history struck down on a hundred fields of
hartle. I have seen her friends fly from her, her foes gather around her. I have
seen her bound to a stake. I have seen them give her ashes to the winds. But
when they turned to exult, I have seen her again meet them face to face, re-
splendent in complete steel, brandishing in her strong right hand a flaming
sword, red with insufferable light. I take courage. The people gather round
her. The genius of America will yet lead her sons to freedom."
On taking his seat in the senate, Colonel Baker entered industriously upon
the discharge of the duties of his station, and ranked from the outset among
the foremost orators and debaters in that dignified body. His address on the
2d and 3d days of January, 1861, in reply to Judah P. Benjamin, of Louisiana,
was one of the most eloquent delivered during that stormy period.
On the 20th day of April, a few days after the fall of Fort Sumter, Colonel
Baker spoke in New York city to one of the largest assemblages ever en-
chained by the eloquence of a single man. In closing his address, he d^-dicatcd
himself anew to the service of his country in these grandly eloquent words, which
were greeted with tremendous applause : "And if, from the far Pacific, a voice
feebler than the feeblest murmur on its shores, may be heard to give, you cour-
age and hope in this contest, that voice is yours to-day. And if a man whose
hair is gray, who is well nigh worn out in the battle and toil of life, may pledge
himself on such an occasion, and to such an audience, let me say, as my last
word, that as when amid' sheeted fire and flame, I saw and led the hosts of New
York, as they charged in contest upon a foreign soil for the honor of your flag,
so, again, if Providence shall will it, this feeble hand shall draw a sword never
i8o THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS,
yet dislionored — not to fight for distant honor in a foreign land — but to fight
for country, for government, for constitution, for law, for right, for freedom, for
humanity ; and in the hope that the banner of our country may advance, and
wheresoever that banner waves, there may glory pursue and freedom be estab-
lished."
Colonel Baker at once raised a regiment, known as the California regiment,
and entered the service. At Ball's Bluff, on the 20th day of October, 1861, he
fell in battle, pierced by eight leaden messengers freighted with death, from the
guns of the advancing foe. Thus heroically the grand and gifted Baker fell.
John D. Urquhart was from X'irginia, and came to Springfield about 1832.
He was -veil read in the law and in the general literature of the day. He was a
gentleman of the old school, with too much refinement to adapt himself to west-
ern metliods, and therefore achieved no success as a lawyer at the bar of Sanga-
mon county.
John C. Doremus was from New Jersey, and first practiced in the courts of
this county in 1838. In 1840 he formed a partnership with Schuyler Stn ng,
which continued but a few months. He never attained any distinction as a
lawyer, and early in 1840 went south, studied theology, and became minister in
the I'rci-hyUTian church and received the degree of D. D. He died a number of
years ago.
The third decade shows in addition to the greater number of those of the
second, the names of Silas W. Robbins, Charles R. Welles, Benjamin West,
James Shields, William A. Minshall, Justin Butterfield, Justin ButierfieUl, Jr.,
Levi Davis, A. K. Smede, James H. Matheny, David Logan. E. B. Herndon,
A. Parker, William L Ferguson, William Walker, William H. Herndon, Vincent
Ridgely, U. F. Linder, Josiah Lamborn, Archibald Williams, O. H. Browning,
Israel Crqsbv, Lvman Trumbull.
What bar in all the Union can show a greater array of distinguished names
than the foregoing, in addition to the best of the second decade who still con-
tinued to practice before the courts of the county. For great learning, for orator-
ical ability, and for unsurpassed statesmanship, the bar during this decade has
never been surpassed. From its ranks were furnished a president of the United
States, a distinguished candidate for the presidency whose memory will always be
kept green by lovers of the Union, several L^nited States senators, one cabinet
officer, several members of congress, several distinguished officers in the United
States army — all of whom were honorable men reflecting great credit upon the
profession of law and upon the bar of Sangamon county.
A large and interesting volume could be written of the bar of this decade,
but in this volume space forbids more than such individual mention as will show
the character of those composing it.
A sketch of the life of General James Shields appears elsewhere in this work,
Silas W. Robbins immigrated from Massachusetts to Kentucky as early
as 1825, and succeeded admirably as an attorney in that commonwealth, serving
some years as a judge of one of the courts. There being a strong prejudice in
that state against Yankees, he left about 1841 and came to IlHnois and settled in
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS. i8i
Springfield, forming one of that strong force of attorneys composing the bar of
ihat period. He was an excellent lawyer, and soon succeeded in obtaining a
lucrative practice, which continued until his retirement in 1852. Judge Robbins
was a man of high temper and of a very belligerent disposition, never seeming
happy or contented without a '*wee bit of a row" on his hands. He could brook
no restraints, and would be imposed on by no one. large or small. In 1855 ^^
removed to a farm a short distance from Springfield, and there died about 1870.
Justin Butterfield was a citizen of Chicago, and often appeared in the Spring-
licld courts. He was one of the most learned, talented and distingui^^hed mem-
bers of the bar during this decade.
Of Justin Butterfield, Jr., but little can be said. He came to Springfield
in 1842, a young man of great promise, formed a partnership with B. S. Edwards,
which continued about one year. He returned to Chicago on the dissolution of
the co-partnership, and soon afterwards died.
U. F. Linder was a native of Kentuckv, and born within ten miles of the
place where Abraham Lincoln first saw the light of day. He came to Illinois
in 1835, and settled in Coles county, but like all other lawyers of that day trav-
eled the circuit. He was one of the most eminent lawyers of this decade, and
the party securing his legal services was fortunate indeed. As an orator he had
few equals. He was quick in repartee, and few cared to encounter him in debate.
He was withal a trifle vain, but just enough to spur him on to action.
Josiah Lamborn was one of the best lawyers that figured in the courts of
Sangamon county. Linder says of him: "Intellectually, I know^ no man of his
day who was his superior. He was considered by all the lawyers who knew him
as a man of the tersest logic. He could see the point in a case as clear as any
man I ever knew, and could elucidate it as ably, never using a word too much or
one too few. He w-as exceedingly happy in his conceptions, and always traveled
the shortest route to reach his conclusions. He was a terror to his legal op-
ponents, especially to those diffusive, wordy lawyers who had more words than
arguments. I heard Judge Smith, of the supreme court, say that he knew of
no lawyer who was his equal in strength and force of argument." Lamborn
was a native of Kentucky, and received a liberal education. He possessed high
social qualities, and his conversational powers were of the very highest order.
As a prosecutor he was a terror to criminals. He was inclined to be vindictive,
and very resentful of any slight offered him by an opposing attorney.
Lamborn was once prosecuting an old and gray-haired man for stealing
hogs. Stephen T. Logan was defending him, and made a powerful plea in his
behalf, describing the accused as a man with hair blossoming for the eternal
world, with one foot in the grave and the other tottering upon the brink. The
illustration was so apt that it had a w'onderful effect upon the jury which was
quickly dispelled when Lamborn rose to reply. **Yes, gentlemen of the jury,"
said he, "his hair is whitening for that place which burns with liquid fire; one
foot is in the grave, and the other is in his neighbor's hog pen."
Levi Davis came to Springfield in 1839 as auditor of the state and served
until 1841, when he commenced the practice of law, having been admitted to
i82 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
the bar before his appointment as auditor. He was a good lawyer, a fine business
man, courteous and affable to all whom he met. He removed from here to Alton,
where he has since died.
A. K. Smede was a young but highly educated man from Mississippi who
practiced law here between 1843 ^^^ 1845. He never met with much success
and returned to his native state.
David Logan, while a youth, came with his father to Springfield, here stud-
ied law and was admitted to the bar in 1843. He was the son of Judge Logan
and inherited many of the brilliant qualities of his father. He was a man of very
superior talents. He practiced law in this circuit until 1847, when he went to
Oregon, where he took high rank as a criminal lawyer, obtaining a large and
lucrative practice. It is related that after he had become well established in
Oregon his father was desirous of his returning home, and as an inducement
wrote him that if he would come he would take him into partnership. The young
man answered the letter, thanking his father very kindly for his generous offer,
and closed by inviting him to Oregon, and as an inducement offered to take him
into partnership. In i860 on the election of United States senator, he secured
the majority of the Republican members of the legislature in his interest, but the
party not having a majority, the Republicans united with the Douglas Demo-
crats and elected E. D. Baker, the Democrats of that wing feeling favorably dis-
posed to Colonel Baker for his gallant defense of Broderick. Mr. Logan died
in Oregon in 1874.
William I. Ferguson was a Pennsylvanian by birth, and came to Springfield
when a mere child, afterwards studied law and was admitted to the bar in 1843.
He was a very brilliant young man, and a first-class forensic lawyer. After his
admission to the bar, he soon secured a good practice, and for some time held
the office of attorney for the city of Springfield. About the year 1850 he went
to Memphis, Tennessee, where he remained one year, and then returned to
Springfield and resumed the practice of law. Becoming dissatisfied he emigrated
to Texas in 1853, from which place he drifted on to California. In politics Mr.
Ferguson was originally a Whig, and afterwards became a Democrat. In Cal-
ifornia he took an active part in politics and was elected to the state senate, and
was a candidate for the United States senate in 1855, but failed of an election.
In the exciting canvass growing out of the differences between the administra-
tion and Stephen A. Douglas in 1858, Senator Broderick was the leader of the
Douglas faction, and Mr. Ferguson was a staunch adherent and defender of
Broderick and Douglas. In his defense of the latter he incurred the displeasure
of a man named Johnson, who challenged him to fight a duel. The challenge
was accepted and Ferguson was slain. Colonel Baker delivered a funeral ora-
tion over his dead body, which was only equaled, a few months later, by hi^
delivering the oration on the death of Senator Broderick, who fell in the same
cowardly and disgraceful manner.
Archibald Williams, of Quincy, was frequently in attendance on the Spring-
field courts at this time, and his honest, homely features once seen were never
forgotten. He was one of the most profound lawyers that ever practiced in the
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS. 183
courts of the state. Linder, in his "Reminiscences of the Bar," has this to say
of Williams: "He was a member of the Illinois legislature in 1836 and 1837,
and of the same house with Lincoln, Douglas and myself. He was over six
feet high, and as angular and ungainly in his form as Mr. Lincoln himself; and
for homeliness of face and feature surpassed Mr. Lincoln. I think I never saw
but one man uglier than Archie, and that was Patrick H. Darbey, of Kentucky,
also a very great lawyer, who once had a brace of pistols presented to him by a
traveler he met upon the road, both being on horseback, who suddenly stopped,
and asked Darbey to stop also, and said to the latter gentleman: 'Here is a
brace of pistols which belong to you.' *How do you make that out?' said Dar-
bey. 'They were given to me a long time ago by a stranger, who requested me
to keep them until I met an uglier man than myself, and I have carried them for
over twent> years; and I had begun to think they would go to my heirs when
I died, Dut you are the rightful owner of the pistols. I give them to you as tliey
were given to me. to be kept until you meet an uglier man than you arc, and
then you will present them to him; but you will die the owner of the property,
for I am confident there is not an uglier man than you in the world, and the Lord
did his everlasting best when he created you.' Darbey accepted the pistols, and
I never heard of them passing out of his hands. I know not what might have
occurred had he and Archie Williams ever met. If there had been a jury trial of
the right of property between them, I think it altogether likely it might have
resulted in a *hung jury.'
"Archie Williams sat near Mr. Lincoln in the southeast corner of the old
State House in Vandalia, on his left, and I remember one day of a friend of mine
asking me *who in the world those two ugly men were.' Archie and Mr. Lincoln
were great friends. I recollect Mr. Lincoln asking me on one occasion if I
didn't think Archie Williams was one of the strongest-minded, clearest-headed
men in Illinois. I don't know what reply I made at the time, but I know Mr.
Lincoln said that he thought him the strongest-minded and clearest-headed man
he ever saw."
Archie W^illiams has long since passed to his reward, but he has left a noble
record, and one of which his descendants will always be proud. He made the
race for congress in 1854 as a Free Soil candidate, but failed of election. When
Lincoln was elected, he appointed him one of the federal judges of Kansas.
O. H. Browning is another Quincy lawyer that was often seen before the
courts of Sangamon county. He came to this state from Kentucky. As a lawyer
and a statesman he obtained a high and enviable distinction. He was often em-
ployed in the largest cases before the supreme court of the state and the United
States courts. He was appointed to fill the vacancy in the United States senate,
caused by the death of Senator Douglas, and served as secretary of the interior
under President Johnson.
William A. Minshall, of Schuyler county, first figures in this bar in 1841.
He was a very able lawyer and at one time was judge of the circuit of which
Schuyler county formed a part. Linder says of him :
** Minshall, I believe, was a native of Ohio, and studied law with Judge
i84 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
McLean. In his early days he was given to dissipation. He courted a most
beautiful woman, and on proposing marriage to her she promptly rejected him,
on the strength of which he got most gloriously drunk, and in his crazy mood
put on seven clean shirts, and in that condition went over to see her again, let-
ting her know that it was impossible for him to live without her. The young lady,
being far from indiflfereiit to the suit of Minshall. finally concluded that she would
try and make a man of him, so she said to him: *Mr. Minshall, I will never marry
a drunkard, and if I had a husband and he should become one, I would leave
him on the instant, if I loved him as I loved my life, but I have come to the
conclusion I will marry you on one condition: If you will reform your habits,
and give me satisfactory proof of the same, and make a solemn vow^ that you
will never drink again. So, now, you go home and divest yourself of all those
shirts but one, and come back in a month from now, and we will consummate
this agreement.' Minshall gladly took her at her word, and after a month's pro-
bation he returned, took the vow, and they were married, and he religiously
lived up to his pledge to the day of his death ; and I know of no happier couple
than they were in the whole circle of my acquaintance. He had a reputation of
being one of the kindest."
Benjamin West came to Sangamon county in 1841, and settled in the
village of Rochester. He was a man of fair talents, and was a good lawyer. In
1846 he was elected to the legislature, and died before the expiration of his term.
Israel Crosby figured here during this decade, but did more in the real-estate
business than in law. William Walker studied law, and was here admitted to
the bar. He soon afterwards went to Camden, and from thence to Havana,
Mason county. From the latter place he emigrated to Missouri, where he was
afterwards elected circuit judge. He was regarded as above the average in
ability.
Elliott B. Herndon was born on Silver creek, Madison county, Illinois, in
1820. In company with his parents, he came to Sangamon county in the spring
of 182 1. Elliott B. read law in Springfield, and was admitted to the bar in the
winter of 1842-43, and was one of the three first young men admitted in the
county. He at once commenced an active practice, which continued until 1868,
when he retired, but resumed practice in 1873, continuing until 1878, when he
permanently retired. Joseph Wallace, in a local paper issued February, 1880,
thus speaks of Mr. Herndon:
"At present he belongs to the retired list of our barristers, and enjoys his
otium cum dignitate; but still appears in court in special cases, and his opinion
is often sought upon difficult and abstruse questions of law. He has always been
recognized as the possessor of one of the soundest legal minds at our bar, and if
he had been prompted more by the spur of necessity would have risen to yet
higher rank as a lawyer."
Politically, Mr. Herndon was for many years engaged in the promulgation
of Democratic doctrines, both from the stump and through the press. From 1857
to i860 he edited the Illinois State Democrat, J. J. Clarkson, proprietor, a paper
II 1'
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS. 185
started to contend for Democratic doctrine, "pure and undefiled," in opposition
to what he regarded as heresies in the Douglas wing of that party.
Mr. Herndon held several very important offices, both elective and ap-
pointive. He served as city and county attorney. United States attorney for the
southern district of Illinois. In 1858 he was appointed disbursing agent by the
general government for Illinois.
In 1876 Mr. Herndon was married to Jerusha Palmer, in Springfield, Illinois.
In the same article already quoted Mr. Wallace further speaks of Mr. Herndon:
''Physically and intellectually he is quite unlike his brother, William H. —
the one inheriting the characteristics of the mother, while the other more
nearly resembles the father. In person, Elliott B. is of medium height, broad-
shouldered and heavy set, with a tendency, of late years, to obesity. His cranium
is massive and finely developed, and his face square rather than oval. His style
of speaking is deliberate and sententious, his gestures few, and his voice keen
and penetrating."
As Springfield and Sangamon county increased in population, and as the
business before the supreme court of the state and the United States district
courts increased, the resident members of the bar became more numerous. It
will therefore be seen that between the years of 1851 and 1861, the distinctive
local bar was quite large. Many who had been following the circuit had ceased
their attendance, and only appeared before the courts here on special occasions.
The greater number of those heretofore mentioned as making a residence in
Springfield, yet remained at the beginning of this decade, and few left during the
time. The bar was therefore a strong one. Among those who figured during
this time whose names have not already been given are John A. McClernand,
L. B. Adams, N. M. Broadwell, D. A. Brown, W. J. Black, W. J. Conkling,
Primm & Gibson, J. E. Rosette, J. B. White, G. W. Shutt, Thomas Lewis, J.
France, D. McWilliams, Charles W. Keyes, Shelby M. CuUom, L. Rosette, A.
McWilliams, J. R. Thompson, Charles S. Zane, William Campbell, J. D. Bail,
G. W. Besore, Christopher C. Brown, John E. Denny, Milton Hay, L. F. Mc-
Crillis, J. W. Moflett, Charles B. Brown, S. C. Gibson, T. S. Mather, J. R.
Mather, H. G. Reynolds, E, L. Gross, L. C. Boynton, A. B. Ives, C. M. Morrison,
Joseph Wallace, Speed Butler, E. F. Leonard, William Prescott.
Among the number comprising the bar of this decade will be noticed the
names of some who have since become distinguished as statesmen and others
whose names have become so familiar to every reader of history as among the
brave men who responded to their country's call when traitors sought to destroy
the Union, and who became as adept in the art of war as in the intricacies of the
law. Sangamon county furnished the commander-in-chief of all the armies, one
of whom the bar of the county may well be proud, one of its brightest ornaments,
the great and noble Abraham Lincoln. From the bar of Sangamon county went
General John A. McClernand, a brave and skillful general who rose to the rank
of a division and corps commander; Colonel James H. Matheny, Colonel L. F.
McCrillis and others. Of the bar of this period much can be said and only that
which is good.
i86 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
Thomas Lewis was a character in his way. Originally a shoemaker by trade,
he accummiilated some money, engaged in banking, and then studied law; was
admitted to the bar, and practiced for a time, though he secured but little busi-
ness. To crown all he became a newspaper man and was editor and publisher
of the Illinois Atlas until its incorporation with the Political Crisis, in 1871. He
resided in Cairo, and thence removed to Kansas City.
J. France was a man well advanced in years when he came to Spnngfidd.
He was a fair lawyer and had a good practice for a time. D. McWilliams was
a voung man and- had been admitted to the bar but a short time when he came
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THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS. 187
a good bankrupt lawyer, and had a good practice in the bankrupt courts. He
only remained a short time, when he removed to California.
• Primm & Gibson were young and vigorous men, who turned their attention
principally to the land business. They are both now dead. William Campbell
was Irish by birth, inheriting the social qualities of that fun-loving race. He
was strong before a jury, having the natural eloquence of the Irish. He died
some years ago. J. D. Bail was more of a poet than a lawyer, and in the pro-
fession was scarcely known.
Whatever may be said of the bar of Sangamon county, it cannot be said that
it has ever deteriorated. It has always maintained a high standard of excellence.
While it may be true that through political influence some of those of one dec-
ade may have become more noted, yet as regards standing before the courts,
it will be seen no comparison can be made that would detract from the good
name of either. The fifth decade, embracing the years 1861 to 1871, shows a list
of names alike creditable to the period and to the excellent standing of the
Sangamon county bar.
Some of the famiHar names of the previous decade have disappeared, of
which it might be said that some bearing them have removed to other points,
some have retired from active practice, while others still are now practicing
before a higher court and before the bar of Almighty God. Among the new
members of the bar of Sangamon county during this decade were William M.
Springer, J. K. W. Bradley, W. P. Olden, A. N. J. Crook, James E. Downing,
A. W. Hayes, Richmond Wolcott, L. H. Bradley, J. A. Chesnut, J. C. Crowley,
William Fowler, James M. Mason, James \^'^ Patton, Lawrence Weldon, L. M.
Phillips, George C. Marcy, William E. Shutt, A. Orendorflf.
During the sixth decade the bar of Sangamon county was increased in
number by the following named: D. T. Littler, J. A. Kennedy, L. F. Hamilton,
James C. Robinson, A. L. Knapp, Bernard Stuve, Bluford Wilson, Loren Has-
son, Robert Allen, Thomas C. Austin, John F. Barrow, S. D. Scholes, W. P.
Emery, Charles H. Rice, Charles P. Harvey, Robert H. Hazlitt, Robert L.
McGuire, John M. Palmer, John Mayo Palmer, Alonzo W. Wood, Charles W.
Brown, Clinton L. Conkling, Enoch Harpole, W. L. Gross, E. D. Matheny, J.
C. Lanphier, Henry H. Rogers, George A. Sanders, J. C. Snigg, Ezra W. White,
Charles P. Kane, Henry Kane.
Further record in regard to those mentioned in the foregoing list is as
follows : J. K. W. Bradley died in Clark county ; W. P. Olden is retired from
practice; L. H. Bradley removed to Omaha; J. A. Chesnut died in January,
1898; William Fowler died several years ago; James C. Robinson died in 1886;
Anthony L. Knapp is mentioned elsewhere ; Robert Allen is deceased ; John F.
Barron is now a resident of Chicago, as is also John Mayo Palmer ; Charles H.
Rice died at Brighton, Illinois ; Charles D. Harvey resides in California ; Robert
H. Hazlitt lives in Kansas, as docs also Enoch Harpole; E. D. Matheny is now
circuit clerk ; Ezra W. White died many years ago ; Henry Kane is a resident of
Dallas, Texas.
John T. Stuart was the senior member of the firm of Stuart, Edwards &
1 88 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
Brown. He was born November lo, 1807, in Fayette county, Kentucky. Dur-
ing the earlier years of his life John T. Stuart remained with his parents upon
a farm. While yet young he entered Centre College, at Danville, Kentucky, ind
graduated in that institution when but nineteen years of age. Immediately upon
graduating, Mr. Stuart entered the law office of Judge Breck, in Richmond,
Kentucky, and for two years pursued his studies under that eminent barrister.
Having heard much of the "beautiful country of the Sangamo," and having rela-
tives living in that favored region, he determined to emigrate there. Starting on
horseback, he first made his way to Frankfort, Kentucky, and by the supreme
court of that state was licensed as an attorney and counselor at law. In ten days
he arrived in Springfield, weary and worn.
The attorneys Mr. Stuart found at the bar on his arrival, were James Adams,
Thomas M. Xeale, James Strode, Thomas Moffett and Jonathan H. Pugh.
Hon. Joseph Gillespie, now deceased, was asked to give his opinion of Mr.
Stuart as an attorney. The following was his reply:
''Colonel John T. Stuart may be emphatically denominated the Nestor of the
bar of Spring^eld, Illinois, a body of men without superiors, if equals, in any state
in the Union. We believe there is but one man now living in Illinois who ante-
dates him as a practitioner, and that man is William Thomas, of Jacksonville.
John T. Stuart is a native of Kentucky, from whence he emigrated to Illinois in
1828, and located in the future capital. After the manner of the Kentucky school,
he was thoroughly grounded in the history and elementary principles of the
law, whereby he was enabled to elucidate and apply it to the cases which might
arise on the circuit, with the aid of such authorities as one could carry in his head
and saddle-bags. John T. Stuart is pre-eminently a man of reason, and if he be
tried by the maxim, *By their works shall ye know them/ he will come out all
right. He was the tutor of one of the greatest men who ever lived, Abraham
Lincoln, who imbibed his precepts, principles and methods. An important part
of Lincoln's great character was the work of John T, Stuart. The leading traits
of the subject may be summed up in the attributes of sterling integrity, great
forecast, and strong will. In the management of professional business, he seeks
first to understand his ow^n side of the case, and next to penetrate the designs
of his adversary, in which he never fails. He keeps his own batteries effectually
masked, while those of the opposite side are closely scrutinized. He knows their
caHbre and position completely. It was this quality which made him so em-
inently successful as a politician. He was fastidiously sincere in all his pro-
fessions and engagements. There was no trouble in discerning the attitude of
John T. Stuart ; but in regard to his plans, either political or professional, he was
perfectly inscrutable. Whatever you had a right to know he would communicate
Vv'ith the greatest cheerfulness : but whatever he had a right to conceal, no man
could find out. Stuart ahvays believed in the efficacy of labor, and worked his
cases wtII. He was eminently conscientious with his clients, and never allowed
them, if he could prevent it, to go to law for a profitable wrong or an unprofitable
right. He has done more than any other man in the state to discourage frivolous
litigation. He has always taken a great interest in assisting young men, aiding
THE BENCH AND BAR' OF ILLINOIS, 189
them by his counsel in the management of their cases, and inspiring them with
confidence and laudable ambition. His veneration for the profession of the law
is very great, and anything like unworthy conduct, tending to lower it in the esti-
mation of honorable men, calls out his prompt and decided animadversion. It
would, perhaps, be enough to establish the fame of John T. Stuart upon a solid
and enduring basis, to say, as can be truthfully said of him, that throughout all
those long years he practiced here he was the recognized peer of such men as
Stephen T. Logan, Abraham Lincoln, Milton Hay, John M. Palmer, and a host
of others whose lives will adorn the pages of our judicial history so long as talent
and worth shall be appreciated."
In politics Mr. Stuart was originally a Whig, of the old school. In 1832 he
was elected a member of the legislature, and re-elected in 1834. In the house he
made a useful member, ever at his post, and ever looking forward to advance the
interests of his constituents. In those days the question of internal improve-
ments was the leading issue before the people, and Mr. Stuart strongly advo-
cated every measure that, in his opinion, would tend to develop the industries of
the country. In 1836 Mr. Stuart was nominated by his party for representative
in congress, and made the race against William L. May, of Springfield. In this
race Mr. Stuart was beaten, as he really expected to be. In 1838, he was again
nominated, in opposition to Stephen A. Douglas. In this campaign Mr. Stuart
was successful, and therefore became a member of the twenty-fifth congress. In
1840 he was again a candidate, and again elected. In congress, Mr. Stuart made
no special effort to become prominent, being content to be recognized as one of
the working members of that body, but that he was not without influence is illus-
trated in the fact that he secured the passage of an appropriation for a harbor at
Chicago, the first appropriation, it is thought, ever passed for that purpose.
In 1842 Mr. Stuart declined a re-election to congress and again resumed the
active practice of law; but in 1848, he was prevailed upon to accept the nomina-
tion for state senator, in the district composed of the counties of Sangamon,
Mason and Menard. He served the term of four years, for which he was elected,
but from that time until 1862 he was virtually out of politics, though a firm sup-
porter of Millard Fillmore, in 1856, and John Bell, in i860, for the presidency.
During the dark days of the war it was always his earnest hope that President
Lincoln would pursue a conservative course. He believed in subduing the re-
bellion, and in a vigorous prosecution of the war, but desired nothing should be
done by the Union authorities that would disarrange the existing order of things
— the war must be carried on in a constitutional way ; that institution must be
kept inviolate by all who had sworn to protect it.
Mr. Stuart was triumphantly elected a member of congress in 1862, receiving
the entire Democratic vote and that of hundreds of Republicans. In Sangamon
county, where he was personally known by every voter, he ran far ahead of his
ticket. In congress he endeavored to act faithfully to his convictions. The
emancipation proclamation of President Lincoln he opposed, for the reason he
believed it unnecessary, and the objects for which it was issued could more readily
be attained in other ways. It is due to him to say that he later believed that "all
I90 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
was for the best." In 1864 Mr. Stuart received the Democratic nomination for
congress, but was defeated by Shelby M. CuUom. From that time he ceased to
take an active part in political life.
Mr. Stuart always took an active part in all matters of public interest. No
man in Sangamon county is entitled to more credit for the excellent railroad
system of this county. He was one of the three commissioners for building
the new state house. As chairman of the executive committee of the National
Lincoln Monument Association, it devolved upon him to do more than any
other one man in superintending the erection of that monument to the memory
of his life-long friend, Abraham Lincoln.
John T. Stuart and Mary V. Nash, a daughter of General Frank Nash, and
niece of Judge Lockwood, were united in marriage at Jacksonville, Illinois, Oc-
tober 25, 1837. Six children were born unto them. Mr. Stuart died November
28, 1885.
Benjamin S. Edwards, for more than forty years an honored member of the
Sangamon county bar, was the youngest son of Hon. Ninian Edwards, the first
governor of the territory of Illinois, afterward United States senator and gov-
ernor of the state. He was born June 3, 1818, in Edwardsville, Illinois. He
graduated at Yale College in 1838, studied law at the law school connected with
that college, in 1839, completed his preparator\' studies for the profession with
Hon. Stephen T. Logan, deceased, of Springfield, and began practicing in March,
1840, with such competitors as Abraham Lincoln, Stephen A. Douglas, S. T.
Logan, E. D. Baker, Jesse B. Thomas, Mr. McDougal, Mr. Lamborn, and other
legal lights. In 1843 Mr. Edwards entered into partnership with Hon. John T.
Stuart, in Springfield, and they were associated in practice for more than forty
years. He studiously and zealously applied himself to the profession, paying
little attention to politics. He was chosen a member of the constitutional con-
vention in 1862, representing Sangamon county. He was nominated for con-
gress on the Democratic ticket, in 1868, and greatly reduced the ordinary Repub-
lican majority, though opposed to Governor Cullom in the contest. Mr. Ed-
wards became a candidate for judge of the circuit court in 1869, was elected, and
discharged the judicial duties with satisfaction to lawyers and litigants. When
the circuit was enlarged, Judge Edwards retired from the bench, and afterward
devoted himself entirely to legal labors. Judge Edwards honored the profes-
sion and won an enviable reputation, both as a superior lawyer and a thorough
gentleman. His death occurred several years ago.
James C. Conkling was born in New York city, October 13, 1816. At the
age of thirteen, he entered the academy at Morristown, New Jersey, and pre-
pared for college. He entered Princeton and graduated in 1835. He then
read law for three years. In the fall of 1838 he came to Spring^eld, was licensed
by the supreme court of the state the following winter, and at once commenced
the practice of law. Soon thereafter he formed a partnership with Cyrus Walker,
who, though living at Macomb, practiced in the courts of Springfield. This
arrangement continued for about two years, when he formed a partnership with
General James Shields.
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS, 191
In 1845 ^^r. Conkling was elected mayor of Springfield and served one
term. In 185 1 he was elected a member of the house of representatives of the
legislature of the state, and again in 1866. His object in accepting the nomina-
tion was for the purpose of securing an appropriation for the building of a new
state house, and by that means forever to secure Springfield as the permanent
seat of government of the state. At the session of the legislature in the winter
of 1866-7 Mr. Conkling was made a member of the committee on public build-
ings, and also chairman of the judiciary committee. As a member of the
former he drew a bill for an appropriation, which after considerable delay was
reported to the house. Here the fight raged furiously between friends and
opponents of the measure. Several days were spent in discussion, and while one
of the opponents of the measure, who had been selected to close the debate, was
making his speech, Mr. Conkling learned the bill had no enacting clause, the
engrossing clerk having left it off the bill as presented. Calling Isaac Keys,
since deceased, Mr. Conkling proceeded to the office of the engrossing clerk and
compelled him to restore the enacting clause, and supply words that had been
omitted or changed from the original bill. Returning to the house with the
true copy, it was given to the clerk and the vote taken. A majority of two
votes was obtained for the bill. Mr. Conkling deserves great credit for bis efforts
in this connection. He had to fight against great odds. Leading men in
Springfield, who had been working for months to the same end, before the bill
was put upon its passage, became discouraged and abkndoned the field.
In 1863 Mr. Conkling was appointed, by Governor Yates, state agent to
settle the claims against the general government for equipments furnished vol-
unteers. The duty was performed to the satisfaction of the state.
James C. Conkling and Mercy A. Levering were united in marriage Septem-
ber 21, 1841, in Baltimore, Maryland. Five children were born to them. Mr.
Conkling has been a man of great enterprise and business activity. He has
used much of his wealth in building enterprises and for the encouragement of
manufactures. He is a member of the Second Presbyterian church of Spring-
field, and for many years has been a ruling elder in that body.
James H. Matheny was bom in St. Clair county, Illinois, October 30, 181 8.
In the spring of 1821 he was brought by his parents to Springfield, where he
has since continued to reside. He now lays claim to be the oldest living resident
of the city. Judge Matheny's life has been an active one. In 1839 he was
appointed deputy clerk of the supreme court and served for a time. In 1841
he entered the office of Baker & Bledsoe as a law student, and for two vears
pursued his studies, being admitted to the bar in 1843. He "hung out his
shing-le" in Springfield and soon secured a good practice, and thereafter never
lacked for clients. As a jury lawyer he ranks high, and has been retained in many
of the most prominent cases before the courts of Sangamon and adjoining
counties. He is an effective speaker, his perceptive faculties are large, and he
can quickly grasp a point or penetrate the aims of an adversary.
In 1845 he was united in marriage with Maria L. Lee, and by her had seven
children.
192 THE BIIXCII AXD BAR OF ILLINOIS.
Judge Matheny has held many important public positions, and has always
discharged his trusts in a faithful manner. In addition to those already men-
tioned, he was a member of the constitutional convention of 1848. and was
elected clerk of the circuit court in 1852, and served one term of four years.
During the war he was commissioned lieutenant colonel of the One Hundred
and Thirtieth Illinois Infantry. After the capture of Vicksburg he was on de-
tached duty, holding military courts until 1864, when his regiment was con-
solidated with another, and he resigned. In November, 1873, ^^ ^'^^s elected
judge of the county court of Sangamon county, and re-elected in 1877, without
opposition.
In the **good old days of the Whig party" Judge Matheny was an earnest
defender of its principles, his first presidential vote being given for William
Henry Harrison, in the campaign of 1840. On the dissolution of the Whig
party, Judge Matheny acted for a short time with the American and Republican
parties, but on account of the conservative tendency of his mind he finally
drifted into the Democratic ranks. He is not a modem politician by any
means, and never has antagonized the better element of opposing parties.
When running for office, he invariably led his ticket, in consequence of per-
sonal popularity.
William H. Herndon was born in Greensburg, Kentucky, December 25,
1818, and came to Illinois in 1820, and to Sangamon county in 1821, in company
with his parents. The schools of Springfield he attended, as opportunity offered,
until 1836, when he entered Illinois College, at Jacksonville, but only attended
one year, being removed by his father in consequence of the abolition excitement
then pending. The elder Herndon was inclined to be pro-slavery in his views,
and did not care to have his son have aboHtion sentiments instilled in his mind
by the professors in the Jacksonville institution. After his removal from the
college, he clerked in a store for several years, and in 1842 entered the law
office of Lincoln & Logan, where he read two years and was admitted to the
bar in 1844. The partnership of Lincoln & Logan now being dissolved, Mr.
Lincoln and Mr. Herndon became partners, a relation which w^as never formally
dissolved, and which existed until the death of Mr. Lincoln, though other tem-
porary arrangements were effected by Mr. Herndon after Mr. Lincoln entered
upon the duties of the presidency.
In the days of the old Whig party, Mr. Herndon was an advocate of its
principles, and the "hard-cider campaign" of 1840 was the first in which he par-
ticipated. He was always an opponent of slavery, and on the organization of the
Republican party he became one of its strongest advocates. Mr. Herndon was
never an office-seeker, and the public positions that he held came to him un-
sought. He held the offices of city attorney, mayor of Springfield, bank com-
missioner for the state, under Governors Bissell, Yates and Oglesby, besides
other minor offices.
. William H. Herndon and Mary J. Maxcy were married in Sangamon county,
March 26, 1840. They had six children. Mrs. Herndon died August 18, i860.
THE BENCH AND BAR OF H.LINOIS. 193
and Mr. Herndon was married July 31, 186 1, to Anna Miles, by whom he had
tvvo children. He died several years ago.
Norman M. Broadwell was born in Morgan county, Illinois, in 1825. He
received his chief literary education in his native county ; came to Springfield
and commenced reading law with Abraham Lincoln and William H. Herndon,
in 1851, and was admitted near the close of the same year. Upon being ad-
mitted to the bar Mr. Broadwell at once entered upon practice, which he zealously
and successfully prosecuted, with but slight interruptions, for a third of a cen-
tury. He had several law partners during these years, among them such
eminent attorneys as Governor S. M. CuUom, General John A. McClemand
and Hon. William M. Springer. The first cause he ever tried in a court of
record, Abraham Lincoln was opposed to him as counsel, and the last cause
Mr. Lincoln ever tried in the Springfield courts Mr. Broadwell was his associate
counsel. Judge Broadwell was an ardent devotee of his profession, and paid
Wtile attention to politics. He was, however, elected to the state legislature
in the fall of i860, from the Sangamon county district, on the Democratic ticket,
being the only successful candidate of his party in the county that year. In
1862 he was elected county judge, served three years, and was chosen mayor
of Springfield in 1867, and re-elected in 1869. Judge Broadwell was united in
marriage to Virginia lies, in Springfield, in 1856, and they had four daughters
and one son. Judge Broadwell died several years since.
John E. Rosette was a native of Delaware, Ohio, born in 1823. He was
educated in that city, and read law there with Hon. Charles Sweetzer, an ex-
member of the United States congress ; was admitted to the bar in Columbus,
Ohio, in 1850, and located in practice in Findlay, Hancock county, Ohio. Dur-
ing the several years of professional life in that place he was twice elected
prosecuting attorney of the county. From thence he returned to Delaware;
lived there nearly three years, and was appointed probate judge of the county.
In 1855, upon the invitation of Abraham Lincoln, Mr. Rosette removed to
Springfield, Illinois, and was an active and prominent member of Sangamon
county bar for thirty years. He was originally a Democrat in politics, but after
1856 was identified with the Republican party.
Mr. Rosette was united in marriage with Miss Mary Taylor, in Findlay.
Ohio. They had four daughters. Mr. Rosette died many years ago.
Charles S. Zane is a native of New Jersey, born March 2, 1831. In April,
1850, he came to Sangamon county, and in the autumn of 1852 he entered Mc-
Kendree College and pursued a course of study for three years, passing the
vacations in teaching, which he continued after leaving college, while reading
law. Mr. Zane entered the law office of Hon. J. C. Conkling in 1856; com-
pleted the course and was admitted to the bar in the spring of 1857, and opened
an office. He was elected city attorney in the spring of 1858, and re-elected in
i860 and 1865. In the spring of 1861 Mr. Zane formed a partnership with
William H. Herndon, former law partner of Abraham Lincoln, and did a success-
ful business until 1869, when the firm was dissolved and he associated himself
with Hon. Shelby M. Cullom and George O. Marcy. This relation was con-
is
194 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS,
tinned until Mr. Zane was elected circuit judge in 1873. He removed to Utah,
where he has. been chief justice for many years.
Judge Zane married Miss Margaret Maxcy in 1859, and they became the
parents of eight children.
General John Alexander McClernand is the only child of Dr. John and
Fatima McClernand, and was born in Breckenridge county, Kentucky, in 1812.
Four years later his father died, and young McClernand, being made of that
stern stuff that overcomes difficulties and surmounts obstacles, had succeeded
in placing himself in a respectable position and practice in the legal profession
at the early age of twenty. Meantime, in 1830, he had moved with the family
to Shawneetown. Illinois. In 1832, before attaining his majority, he volun-
teered as a private in the Black Hawk war, and served honorably to its close.
In 1835 General McClernand established the first Democratic journal ever
published in Shawneetown; and the same year re-commenced the practice of
law, w^hich continued with success until he was elected to United States con-
gress in 1843. ^^ ^836 he was elected to the Illinois legislature, from Gallatin
county. During this session he advocated that mode of constructing the Illinois
and Michigan canal known as the "deep-cut" plan, which was finally adopted.
General McClernand was chosen by the legislature as commissioner and treas-
urer, which duties he so faithfully discharged that complimentary resolutions
respecting his services were passed in a number of public meetings held at
different points. In 1838 he was urged to become a nominee for lieutenant
governor, but declined, because under the constitutional age — thirty years.
In 1840 General McClernand was again returned to the legislature from
Gallatin county; was re-elected in 1842; and as chairman of the committee
on finance introduced several measures to alleviate the existing financial troubles
of the state, which he attributed to the defective banking system. These meas-
ures were all adopted. In 1843, while still a member of the legislature, he was
chosen representative to the twenty-eighth congress. The first speech he made
in that body was on the bill to refund the fine imposed upon General Jackson
by Judge Hall. During the same session he dehvered a speech on the Rock
Island controversy, which was extensively published. In the second session of
the same congress, as a member of the committee on public lands, he brought
forward a comprehensive report, accompanied with a bill for a grant of land
to aid in the completion of the Illinois and Michigan canal. By an act of the
legislature, the time for holding elections had been changed, and General Mc-
Clernand was re-elected to congress in 1844. ^^ the first session of the twenty-
ninth congress he prepared and introduced a bill to reduce and regulate the
price of public lands. In the ensuing session, as chairman of the same com-
mittee, he introduced a bill, which became a law, to bring into market the min-
eral lands lying around Lake Superior. In 1848 General McClernand v^'as again
elected to congress, but not without opposition. He drafted the bill granting
a quantity of land in aid of the construction of the Illinois Central Railroad and
its Chicago branch. His colleague, Senator Douglas, being furnished a copy,
introduced it in the senate, and, with amendments, it passed both houses and
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS. 195
became a law. During the same session he, as chairman of the committee on
foreign affairs, introduced a paper for the regulation of the state department.
In 1851, declining re-election, he retired from congress, after a flattering career
of eight years, and moved to Jacksonville, Illinois. The following year he was
chosen presidential elector for the second time in his life, and supported Pierce
and King. In 1856 he made a powerful speech at Alton, deprecating the repeal
of the Missouri Compromise, and predicting danger to the country as a conse-
quence. In 1856 he removed to Springfield, Illinois, where he bOon gained a
prominent position as a lawyer in the state and federal courts. In 1859 ^^ was
elected representative to congress, to fill the vacancy caused by the death of
Major T. L. Harris. In i860 he introduced a bill repealing the law organizing
the territory of Utah and merging that territory into others, this being his plan
for overcoming the ascendancy of the Mormons, and the evils of polygamy.
In 1843, after his first election to congress, and before taking his seat. Gen-
eral McClernand married Miss Sarah, daughter of Colonel Dunlap, of Jackson-
ville, Illinois.
The eminent services of General McClernand during the war of the Rebellion
are too well known to require recapitulation here. Venerable in years, he still
maintains his home in Springfield.
Christopher C. Brown, senior member of the law firm of Brown, Wheeler,
Brown & Hay, was born in what is now a part of Menard county, IlHnois, on the
2ist of October, 1834. He attended the Springfield schools and the Lutheran
College at Hillsboro. He read law in Springfield, then attended the Transyl-
vania Law School, in Lexington, Kentucky, was admitted to the bar in 1858,
and in January, i860, commenced practice in Springfield. He has been an
earnest worker in the Democratic party. Mr. Brown was united in marriage
with Miss Bettie, daughter of Major J. T. Stuart, of Springfield, in October,
1859, She died in March, 1869. Mr. Brown married Carrie, daughter of John
E. Owsley, of Chicago, in 1872.
Hon. Charles A. Keyes. — Springfield is fortunate in possessing as resident
citizens quite a large percentage of the distinguished members of the bench
and bar of central Illinois. Among those who may lay claim to being one
of the native sons of this city is the subject of this notice, he having been born
here December 4, 1831. His parents, James W. and Lydia (Spickerd) Keyes,
were from the south, both being natives of Virginia. They removed to Illinois
soon after their marriage, and in the private schools of this city Charles A. re-
ceived his preliminary education. Subsequently, he entered Illinois College and
was graduated there in 1854.
Soon after completing his literary and scientific education Mr. Keyes took
up the study of law under the supervision of Elliott B. Herndon, and was ad-
mitted to the bar in 1856. For the following eight years he and Mr. Herndon
were in partnership together, but the succeeding decade Mr. Keyes practiced
alone. In 1867 he was appointed master in chancery, serving as such until
1874. In the year last mentioned he and John A. McClernand associated them-
selves in partnership, and for eleven years, or up to the time that the latter was
190 THE BUNCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
appointed to serve on the Utah commission, they did business together. Since
1885 Mr. Keyes has conducted his practice alone, and has succeeded in building
up a large and remunerative clientage.
In the autumn of 1862 our subject was elected to the lower house of the
Illinois legislature, and served for two years as a member of that honorable
body. Again, in the fall of 1884, he was elected to the general assembly and
filled out his full term. During the years 1857 and 1858 he was the attorney
of Springfield, and during the Lincoln-Douglas controversy he was chairman
of the Democratic committee of this county. In 1876 he was one of the Tilden
electors, and at all times since he became a voter he has been a zealous cham-
pion of the Democratic principles and nominees. In May, 1869, Mr. Keyes
married Miss Elizabeth Lauman, of Xenia, Ohio, and their family consists of a
son and two daughters.
Eugene L. Gross was bom December 25, 1836, in Starkville, Herkimer
county, New York, and came to Illinois with his parents in 1844. He received
an academical education, and subsequently read law in Knoxville, Illinois, and
was admitted to the bar in 1857. In 1858 he came to Springfield and opened
an office, and here practiced his profession until his death. As a lawyer, he was
regarded by both the members of the bar and the public as one of more than
ordinary ability.
In 1865 he revised the city ordinances of the city of Springfield, by direc-
tion of the common council. In 1868, in connection with his brother, Colonel
William L. Gross, with whom he had formed a law partnership, he compiled and
published the General Statutes of the state then in force. In January, 1868, they
compiled and published a Digest of the Criminal Laws of the State. In 1869 a
new edition of the General Statutes, including the laws of 1869, were published.
During this year they also compiled and published an index to the private and
special laws of Illinois. In 1872 they compiled and published the second volume
of Gross' Statutes.
Eugene L. Gross and Susan L. Zimmerman were united in marriage April
17, i860. Four children were born to them.
Mr. Gross was never an aspirant to public office, being contented to follow
the profession he had selected for a life work. In politics he was always a thor-
ough-going Republican, and an earnest advocate of the principles of that party.
He died of consumption, June 4, 1874.
Milton Hay was born in Fayette county, Kentucky, July 3, 181 7. His
boyhood was passed in his native state, and there he acquired his rudimentar>^
education. In the fall of 1832 he removed with his father's family to Spring-
field, and six years later, in 1838. he became a student in the law office of Stuart
& Lincoln, composed of John T. Stuart and Abraham Lincoln, two of Illinois'
most illustrious citizens. In 1840 he was admitted to the bar, and at once re-
moved to Pittsfield, Pike county, where he engaged in the practice of his pro-
fession. Hon. Edward D. Baker, afterward United States senator from Oregon,
resided in Springfield, but, like other lawyers of his standing, traveled on circuit,
visiting many county seats during term time, and he and Mr. Hay formed a co-
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS. 197
partnership in Pittsfield, Mr. Hay remaining at that point, and Mr. Baker at-
tending at each term of court. Being young, industrious and full of ambition,
Mr. Hay gradually built up an extensive practice, and ere long became recog-
nized as a young man of more than ordinary attainments, and the peer of his
brethren at the bar.
At the outset of his legal career, the demands of his practice were naturally
not extreme, and for a year or two he entered into the service of the press.
During the first session of the legislature, after the removal of the capital to
Springfield, he became a reporter for the Sangamo Journal, the leading Whig
paper of that day, and reported the proceedings of the general assembly. As
soon as the session of that body 'ended, he returned to Pittsfield and resumed
his practice. After building up as large a practice as a small town like Pitts-
field could furnish, he removed to Springfield, in 1858. At that time Stephen
T. Logan was recognized as one of the first lawyers of Illinois. In quickness of
perception and fertility of resource he was perhaps unequaled. A copartnership
was formed between Judge Logan and Mr. Hay, from which the former with-
drew in 1861, owing to advancing age.
Mr. Hay then became associated with Hon. Shelby M. Cullom, now United
States senator from Illinois, and the late Antrim Campbell. Mr. Campbell
retired in a year or two, but Mr. Hay and Mr. Cullom continued in practice
together until 1866, when Mr. Cullom w^ithdrew and Mr. Hay formed a new
partnership with Hon. John M. Palmer. This connection continued until the
election of General Palmer as governor of the state, in 1868, and during that
year Mr. Hay became senior member of the firm of Hay, Greene & Littler.
This partnership lasted until December 31, 1879, ^^ which date Mr. Hay re-
tired from practice.
In 1870, Mr. Hay, yielding to the solicitation of his friends and those high in
the councils of the state, allowed himself to be named as a member of the con-
stitutional convention held that year, and here he was a leading figure, by virtue
of his excellent judgment and judicial acumen. Many of the wisest provisions
of the constitution were shaped by him, as first minority member of the judiciary
committee, and as chairman of the committee on revenue. He was elected a
member of the second legislature after the adoption of the constitution, and
being a man of affairs, one of those clear-headed, constructive and able men
whose persistent industry, comprehensive grasp of details, and power to marshal
them for practical results, he was invaluable in committee, where legislation is
perfected, and all important measures are prepared. With an incisive clearness
as a debater, with a cool judgment that did not allow his feelings to carry him
away, wath a keenness of vision that led him to lay his plans well in advance, and
with a persistency that kept at work until the point was reached, he made one of
the strongest members of a body in which more is accomplished by personal in-
fluence than by forensic display.
During his legislative career he served as chairman of the revenue com-
mittee, and was a member of the commission by whom the last revision of the
statutes was made. In 1885 he was selected a member of the commission ap-
198 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS,
pointed to revise the revenue laws of the state, and acted as chairman of that
body. The deliberations of this committee, however, were nullified by the fail-
ure of the legislature to adopt the proposed law.
From the time of his retirement from the practice of his profession until
the close of his life, September 15, 1893, Mr. Hay lived quietly at his home,
looking after and caring for his large property interests and enjoying a well
earned rest after an active professional life extending over a period of forty
years.
Mr. Hay was twice married. His first wife was Catharine, daughter of
James Forbes, of Pittsfield. She died in 1857. In 1861 he married Mary,
eldest daughter of Judge Stephen T. Logan. Mrs. Hay died in 1874, leaving two
children, Mrs. Stuart Brown and Logan Hay, both residents of Springfield,
where the latter is engaged in the practice of law.
Had any evidence been needed to show the high estimation in which Mr.
Hay was held, it would have been supplied by the many expressions of grief
and of respect with which the news of his death was received. The people,
the press, the bar association, and the federal and state courts gave formal ex-
pression to the feeling of general loss. A just tribute to his memory is the
following estimate, published editorially in the Chicago Tribune:
Milton Hay was one of those few men who, while acknowledged by all to be well
qualified to occupy any oftice, care for none. Those positions which he did consent to
fill were accepted by him from a sense of duty and not from love for oflftce. He became a
member of the constitutional convention of 1870 because Sangamon county wished to send
its best and strongest man there. And there was no member of that body who rendered
more valuable service than he did. He was not one of the talkative members of the con-
vention. His work was done in committee and not on the floor, and to his legal ability and
ripe judgment arc due many of the most excellent features of the organic law of the
state. He had lived in Illinois for nearly forty years. He knew thoroughly its people and
their needs. He was familiar with the blunders, financial and otherwise, that Illinoisans
liad committed in the constitution of 1849. He knew the defects of that constitution, for
he had seen its bad workings for over twenty years, and he used all his energies success-
fully to eliminate them.
He went to the legislature from Sangamon county in 1874, for his services were
there needed. When his term expired his public life ended, though he remained what
he had been for years, the cautious and wise adviser of the Republican party, which w^ould
have fared better on some occasions had it heeded his suggestions. For, while averse to
office, he took a keen interest in politics, as was inevitable with a man whose active Uie
began in 1840, and that interest he never lost.
The caution, deliberation and well balanced judgment which made Mr. Hay so safe
an adviser in political matters contributed to make him one of the very ablest le^al coun-
selors in the state. He was a "sound" man, one whose conclusions regarding leg^al ques-
tions were accepted almost without demur. He was not a splendidly oratorical law^'cr,
like his first law partner, the brilliant Senator Baker. He could not have shone at the
bar or in the senate, like the latter, but every word which he spoke had weight with judges
and juries. He had studied law under Abraham Lincoln and John T. Stuart, and such
schooling made good lawyers. Milton Hay would have made a great supreme judge.
It would be well for Illinois if the state had more men of the same type as Milton
Hay, who, while neglecting neither national, state, nor local politics, and not thinking it
THE BENCH AND BAR OF H.LINOIS. 199
beneath them to take active part in primaries and elections, are not eaten up by the itch
for office and neglect and sacrifice all else to gain it.
Hon. William M. Springer was born in Sullivan county, Indiana, May
30, 1836. When twelve years old he moved with his parents to Jacksonville,
Illinois. He entered Illinois College, but, owing to some difficulty with the
faculty, was dismissed from the institution, and went thence to the State Uni-
versity of Indiana. In 1858 Mr. Springer returned to Illinois, and after study-
ing law nearly three years, in Lincoln, was admitted to the bar in i860. The
same year he was a candidate on the Democratic ticket for representative in the
state legislature, for the district composed of Logan and Mason counties, but was
defeated by Colonel Robert B. Latham. In 1861 he settled in Springfield, and
?oon formed a law partnership with Hon. N. M. Broadwell and General John
A. McCIernand, the latter of whom retiring some years afterward, the firm con-
tinued as Broadwell & Springer. Returning home in 1870, at the close of a two-
years tour in Europe, Mr. Springer was elected to represent Sangamon county
in the legislature. Several sessions were held and a complete revision of the
statutes of Illinois was made while he served in that body.
In 1874 Mr. Springer was elected representative to congress for the twelfth
district, composed of the counties of Cass, Christian, Menard, Morgan, Sanga-
mon and Scott, Sind re-elected in 1876, 1878 and 1880, being nominated the first
time on the first ballot, and each subsequent time by acclamation. He is now
the incumbent as tribal judge at Muscogee, Indian territory.
Mr. Springer married the daughter of Rev. Calvin W. Ruter, of Indiana.
They have but one child, William Ruter Springer.
William E. Shutt was born in Waterford, Loudoun county, Virginia, May 5,
1840. His parents, Jacob and Caroline (Leslie) Shutt, moved to the city of
Spring^eld in November, 1842. They were natives of Loudoun county, Vir-
ginia. Mr. Shutt was educated in the city schools, and read law with Judge
James H. Matheny, and was admitted to the bar in 1862, commencing practice
immediately. In 1864 he was elected city attorney on the Democratic ticket;
was chosen mayor of the city in 1868, by the same party. In 1874 he was elected
to the state senate, for four years; and was re-elected in 1878, his official term
expiring in 1882. The law firm of Robinson, Knapp & Shutt was formed July
I, 1869, composed of Hon. James C. Robinson, Anthony L. Knapp and Mr.
Shutt; and existed until the death of Mr. Knapp, in May, 1881, after which
Robinson & Shutt formed a partnership with J. M. and J. Mayo Palmer, under
the firm name of Palmers, Robinson & Shutt. John Mayo Palmer withdrew
from the firm and is now practicing in Chicago.
Robert L. McGuire is a native of Missouri, and was born in 1833. He
graduated at the Missouri University, at Columbia, in 1857. In 1861 he came
to Springfield, read law, and was admitted to the bar in 1862.
Isaac K. Bradley was born in Gallia county, Ohio. He attended school
at Marsttall and at Lebanon, Illinois, completing the classical course in 1869;
read law with Messrs. Bradley & Olden, in Springfield ; was admitted in May,
200 THE BENCH AND BAR OF H^UNOIS,
1870; began practice as a member of the law firm of Bradley, Olden & Bradley,
in 1 87 1. He is now deceased.
Richmond VVolcott was born in Morgan county, Illinois, January 10, 1840,
was educated at Jacksonville, and graduated in Illinois College in 1859. In 1861
he enlisted as a private in the Tenth Illinois Infantry; was promoted to first
lieutenant and then captain. He served until September, 1864, when he re-
signed and returned to Jacksonville, and resumed the study of law, which
he commenced before he entered the army. In June, 1865, he was admitted
to practice, and at once located in Springfield and actively engaged in the prac-
tice of his profession. In pofitics Mr. Wolcott is a Republican.
Thomas C. Mather, of Scholes & Mather, has been practicing law in Spring-
field since the spring of 1865, and has been a member of the present firm since
1871. He first read law with Hay, Culloni & Campbell, and then attended the
law department of Michigan State University, where he completed the course
of studies in the spring of 1864. He then entered the office of a law firm in
Chicago, where he remained until the spring of 1865, when he was admitted to
practice in the courts of this state, and at cnce returned to Springfield.
Clinton L. Conkling was born in Springfield, October 16, 1843. ^^ ^^'^^
educated in Yale College, graduating in 1864. He studied law in the office of
his father, Hon. James C. Conkling, of Springfield, and was licensed to practice
in the courts of Illinois November 23, 1866, and the United States in January,
1867. After practicing a few years he turned his attention to the manufacturing
business, but in 1877 resumed the duties of his profession, to which he now gives
his whole time, devoting special attention to chancery and real-estate law, and
to the settlement of estates. For some years Mr. Conkling was secretary of
the Lincoln Monument Association, and has been an active member of the
fraternity of Odd Felloavs in central Illinois, besides being identified with other
and similar benevolent societies. He has also been a member of the board of
supervisors of the county two terms. In his real-estate practice he represents
large land interests in this and other states. In 1867 Mr. Conkling married Miss
Georgie Barrell.
Lloyd F. Hamilton, who has been engaged in active practice at the bar of
Springfield since 1866, was born in Meade county, Kentucky, April 25, 1844, ^^^
is a son of Felix and Jane E. (Wathen) Hamilton, who also were natives of the
same state. The father died when Lloyd was only six months old, and the
mother afterward removed to Tazewell county, Illinois, where he resided until
coming to Springfield, in August, 1866. He acquired his elementary education
in the common schools, was for two years and one additional term a student in
Eureka College, and then entered the law department of Michigan University,
at Ann Arbor, where he spent six months. He was graduated in the Union
College of Law, Chicago, in July, 1866, and in April of the same year was admit-
ted to the bar.
On his removal to Springfield Mr. Hamilton formed a partnership \w\\h
Peran England, with whom he was associated one year, and then practiced in
connection with Thomas G. Prickett three or four years. He was afterward alone
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS, 201
in business for a time, but later entered into partnership relations with Charles L.
Rice, the firm of Hamilton & Rice practicing successfully for seven years. On
the expiration of that period he became a partner of R. L. McGuire, with whom
he practiced for three years, and in 1882 he became associated with James W.
Patton, which connection is still continued, the firm ranking among the most
popular and proficient law firms in Springfield. Mr. Hamilton has served as city
attorney for two terms, was state's attorney from 1872 until 1876, and was state
senator from 1883 until 1887. His political support was given the Democratic
party until the adoption of the Chicago platform of 1896. He was married in
May, 1886, to Miss Lucy Fletcher.
James W. Patton was bom February 15, 1840, near Auburn, Sangamon
county, Illinois. When but eight years old his father died, leaving his mother
with three children.
In i860 he entered the law firm of Messrs. Hay & Cullom, of Springfield,
with whom he studied until admitted to the bar. At the presidential election of
1864 he was elected to the legislature. In April, 1866, he located in Springfield,
and commenced the practice of his profession. December 9, 1869, he married
Francine E. Lanphier, of Springfield.
Samuel' D. Scholes was bom in Peoria county, Illinois, in 1841. He was
educated in Antioch College, Ohio, and began reading law with Johnson & Hop-
kins, of Peoria. He served eflFectively in the war of the Rebellion, at the close of
which he returned to his law books, and in January, 1866, was admitted to the
bar, and commenced practice in Springfield. In 1875 he received the appoint-
ment of master in chancery. Politically Mr. Scholes is a Republican.
Alfred Orendorflf was born in Logan county, Illinois, July 29, 1845. ^^
enjoyed the common schools, and subsequently attended the Wesleyan Uni-
versity, and later the military school at Fulton, Illinois. In the spring of 1866
he graduated in the Albany Law School, and spent the succeeding winter
in Texas. Returning to Springfield in the autumn of 1867, he engaged in the
practice of law in the office of Herndon & Zane; and upon the retirement of
Judge Zane from the firm the law partnership of Herndon & OrendorflF was
formed, and continued for a number of years. June 22, 1870, Mr. Orendorff was
united in marriage with Miss Julia Williams, of Springfield. In 1872 Mr. Oren-
dorflf was a delegate to the national Democratic convention, and supported Hon.
Lyman Trumbull for the presidency. In 1873 ^^ ^^s chosen by the Liberals
as candidate for representative to the general assembly of Illinois. The choice
being- ratified by the Democrats, he was elected, and was made a member of the
judiciary committee in that body, and took an active part in framing the revised
statutes made necessary by the adoption of the new constitution.
Henry S. Greene was born in Ireland in 1833. At six years of age he
crossed the Atlantic, and grew to manhood on the shore of Lake Ontario, in
the Dominion of Canada. In 1857 he came to Illinois, read law in the office
of Lawrence Weldon, at Clinton, and was admitted to the bar in January, i860.
Having" previously arranged to become a law partner with Hon. C. H. Moore,
of Clinton, Mr. Greene entered into and remained in that relation six years. In
202 riili BE\Xll AS'D BAR OF ILLINOIS.
i860 Mr. Greene associated himself with Mr. D, T. Littler in the practice of
law. and upon the dissolution of the firm of Hay & Palmer by the election of the
latter to be governor. Hon. Milton Hay became a partner, the firm title changing
to Hay, Greene & Littler. This partnership ceased by dissolution January i,
1881. For a number of years this firm had charge of the legal business of the
Wabash Railway Company in this part of the state.
During the last two years of its existence he was retained as counsel for
the American Union Telegraph Company in its extensive litigation with the
Western Union Company, previous to their consolidation. In view of the great
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS. 203
Robinson died in 1886. He was recognized as an excellent jury lawyer, and
as a stump speaker had few equals.
James A. Kennedy was born in Pennsylvania in 1833. Soon after his
father's death the family moved to St. Louis, Missouri, and he was there reared
and educated, completing a course in the St. Louis University in 1852. He read
law and was admitted to practice in 1859. He moved to Sangamon county in
1870, and taught the first year as assistant in the city high school, at the close
of which he opened a law office ; was elected city attorney on the Democratic
ticket in 1874; the following year was chosen justice of the peace, was re-elected
in 1877, and served till May, 1881. Upon retiring he resumed the practice of
law. In 1858 he married Miss Clara Vanderburgt.
Charles Philo Kane has for twenty-seven years practiced his profession in
the capital city, with marked success. Here he has spent his entire life, his
birth occurring on the 25th of December, 1850. His parents were Andrew J.
and Caroline M. (Beers) Kane. For fifty years the father engaged in preaching
in central Illinois, as a member of the Christian church, and after a long and use-
ful life passed aw-ay November 14, 1896. He was a native of North Carolina,
and his wife was born in Sangamon county, Illinois. Her parents, Philo and
Martha Beers, were the first white couple married within the present limits of
Sangamon county, the date being November 2, 1820. On both sides Mr. Kane
is descended from Revolutionary ancestry. His great-grandfather, Zachariah
Beers, enlisted three times in Connecticut commands during the war for inde-
pendence, the first time when only sixteen years of age. The boy soldier attained
the rank of orderly sergeant. He afterw^ard became the leading poet of his time
in the Connecticut valley and w-as the author of a number of patriotic songs which
were popular during the presidency of Thomas Jefferson. Zachariah Beers
was a lineal descendant of Captain Richard Beers, a selectman of Watertown,
Massachusetts, who was killed near Northfield> in King Philip's war (Cothren's
History of Ancient Woodbury, Connecticut). The grandfather, Philo Beers,
was a member of the New York militia at the time of the war of 1812, and took
part in the movement to defend Fort Ticonderoga, then threatened by the
British, and was a member of the Illinois general assembly during the time
Vandalia was the capital of the state.
Charles P. Kane, having spent his fentire life in Springfield, was
educated in its public schools, and on the completion of the classical course
in the high school was graduated in 1868. He entered upon the study of law
with Messrs. Hay, Greene & Littler, one of the most distinguished law firms
of central Illinois. The senior member of the firm, Milton Hay, was a member
of the constitutional convention of 1870, and David T. Littler is the present
state senator from Sangamon county. For four years Mr. Kane pursued a
thorough course of reading under the guidance of those gentlemen, and in 1871
was admitted to the bar, after which he at once began practice in Springfield,
where he has since maintained his residence and office. He was three times
elected city attorney at the annual municipal election, filling that office from
1877 until 1880. In 1894 he was elected county judge and filled that office
204 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS,
with marked ability. He has a mind of judicial cast, analytical, logical and un-
biased, and these qualities insure faithfulness to the trust reposed in him.
Other public offices he has filled at the will of the people, and in such in-
cumbencies has labored earnestly and effectively for the interests of his con-
stituents. The cause of education in Springfield was advanced during his five
years' service on the school board, his progressive spirit supporting all improved
and practical methods of mental culture and discipline. He has always been
a stanch Republican since casting his first presidential vote, for General Grant,
in 1872, and in 1892 was the Republican candidate for congress in the old thir-
teenth congressional district, making a thorough canvass in all the counties of
Sangamon, Christian, Morgan. Menard, Mason and Tazewell. The district,
however, has a Democratic majority of over five thousand, and he was defeated
by William M. Springer, who represented the thirteenth district for twenty con-
secutive vears.
On the 2d of November, i88r, Mr. Kane was united in marriage, in Spring-
field, to Miss Flora Britton, a native of Logan county, Illinois, and they have
three children, Caroline M., Flora Elizabeth and Philo Beers. Mr. Kane is a
member of the Christian church. He belongs to the Chicago Society of the Sons
of the American Revolution, and is very prominent in civic societies. He is a
Mason, an Odd Fellow and a member of the Order of Red Men, also a charter
member of Percival Lodge, No. 262, Knights of Pythias. He was master of
St. Paul's Lodge, A. F. & A. M., in 1880; eminent commander of Elwood Com-
mandery, No. 6, K. T., in 1885 and 1886; first chancellor commander of Percival
Lodge, No. 262, K. P. ; sachem of Inini Council of Red Men in 1897; and grand
generalissimo of the grand commandery of Knight Templars of Illinois in 1898.
Judge Kane finds his chief pleasure and recreation in books and travel, which are
the two main sources of knowledge and culture, neither complete without the
other. He has traversed the American continent from Boston to Vancouver's
island and visited many of the chief cities of the Union and various points of
interest. He is a polished, genial gentleman, who, in the community in which he
has always made his home, commands the highest respect and regard of many
friends.
John C. Lanphier, second son of Hon. Charles H. Lanphier, was bom
October 19, 1850, in Springfield; graduate of Springfield high school in 1866.
Studied law with Robinson, Knapp & Shutt and with Morrison & Patton. Ad-
mitted to the bar July 4, 1871. Practiced in Chicago three years, then returned
to Springfield and went into partnership with James W. Patton in January,
J875. Married April 11, 1877, to Miss Susie C. Young, at St. Louis, Missouri.
John C. Snigg was born in New Hampshire in November, 1849; came to
Springfield, Illinois, in the fall of 1856. He began reading law in 1871, in the office
of Robinson, Knapp & Shutt. and carried newspapers meantime to defray current
expenses. Passed his first examination in Michigan, in 1873, ^"^ received
license to practice law; passed another examination before the supreme court
of Illinois in June of the same year, and commenced practice in Springfield. He
was elected city attorney in 1875, and re-elected in 1876 and 1877. During the
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS. 205
last term he revised the city ordinances, after thirteen years without revision.
In the fall of 1878, Mr. Snigg was elected representative to the legislature on the
Democratic ticket, for its thirty-first session.
Robert H. Hazlitt was born in Christian county, Illinois. He had the
educational advantages of the Springfield schools and two years' attendance
at the State Industrial University, at Champaign, Illinois. He read law in
Springfield, and was admitted to the bar March 6, 1873. He served as deputy
clerk in the office of the supreme court for a time and in May, 1874, he formed
a law partnership with Charles P. Kane, and opened an office for practice. In
1876 Mr. Hazlitt was elected state's" attorney for Sangamon county, and re-
elected in 1880. He now resides in Kansas.
William L. Gross was bom in Fairfield, New York, on the 21st of February,
1839. The family came to Illinois in 1844, and first settled in Canton, Fulton
county, and afterward, in 1848, moved upon a farm in Knox county.
At the age of seventeen years, William L. Gross engaged in teaching, and
while so employed he prosecuted his law studies. He was admitted to the bar in
Springfield on June 27, 1862, and at once entered into practice in that city in
copartnership with his brother, Eugene L. Gross. In August, 1862, Mr. Gross
entered the service of the government, and in September, 1863, was appointed
superintendent of military telegraphs in the department of the Ohio. Im-
mediately following this appointment he was appointed* by President Lincoln
a captain and assistant quartermaster of volunteers, and was assigned to duty in
the department of the Ohio, as military superintendent of telegraphs. In the
discharge of this duty he was engaged till Johnston's surrender, when he was
transferred to the department of the Gulf, and took control of military tele-
graphs in that entire department. He was twice brevetted, once as major and
afterward as lieutenant colonel, and was honorably discharged in August,
1866.
From that time he was engaged in the civil telegraphic service till Febru-
ary, 1868, when he returned to Springfield and, resuming his business relations
with his brother, E. L. Gross, became an active member of the law and law pub-
lishing firm of E. L. & W. L. Gross, so well known throughout this state. In
1868 the firm issued the first volume of Gross' Statutes of Illinois, a work ac-
cepted by the courts and bar as authority, and specially legalized by an act of the
legislature. The following year a second edition was issued, including the laws
of 1869 ; and the firm also issued an index to all the laws of Illinois, a work of
great research, minute detail and merit. In 1872 the second volume of Gross'
Statutes appeared, and the following year the firm was dissolved, by the retire-
ment of the elder brother on account of ill health. The publications of the firm
were continued by the subject of this sketch, and in 1874 appeared the third
volume of Gross' Statutes. Of these publications it is not too much to say
that they were acceptable alike to the courts, the bar and the people, and will
long remain models of their kind.
Mr. Gross was elected representative from Sangamon county to the thirty-
first general assembly, upon the RepubUcan ticket, and served during that ses-
%
2o6 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
sion. In 1864 Mr. Gross was married to Miss Aithea Livingstone, of Pough-
keepsie, New York.
An autobiography of Hon. John M. Palmer, contributed at our request, ap-
pears elsewhere in this work and serves to show his identification with the
Sangamon county bar. — The Publishers.
George W. Murray was born at Covington. Ohio, July 7, 1839. He was
educated in Dayton and taught school four years before beginning the pursuit of
law. He read law in the oflfice of General Moses B. Walker, in Dayton, Ohio,
and was admitted in June, 1861, and commenced practice in that city. In 1874
Mr. Murray moved to Springfield, Illinois, and has since been an active member
of the Sangamon county bar. In October, i860, he married Miss Emma Neis-
bert, of Dayton, Ohio.
Robert \V. Maxwell was born in Springfield, December 13, 1845. He read
law and graduated in the law department of Michigan University, in March,
1874. In June following he was licensed to practice in the courts of Illinois. In
1875 he went to Decatur and remained over three years in the practice of his pro-
fession. Returning to Springfield, he opened an office, and in June, 1879, formed
a partnership with Judge Robertson.
George A. Sanders was born in Berkshire county, Massachusetts. July 4*
1836; graduated at Witliams College in 1861 ; came to IlHnois; read law in
Bloomington, and was admitted to the bar in 1864. He practiced his profession
five vears in Centralia, Illinois. In 1868 he was chosen one of the electors for
General Grant for the presidency. In the winter of 1869-70 Mr. Sanders became
assistant state treasurer, which position he filled six years, and then resumed the
active law practice, in Springfield. Mr. Sanders is a Republican.
James H. Matheny, Jr., was born in Springfield in 1856, and is the third son
of James H. Matheny. He was educated in the city ; read law from 1874 to 1876,
and was then admitted to the bar. In 1877 he opened an office in Springfield,
and has since devoted himself closely to his profession.
Henry A. Stevens was born in Shefford county, Dominion of Canada, July
17, 1847. He 'was educated in Canada and Vermont. He came to the United
States in 1865, to Logansport, Indiana, in 1868, and to Spring^eld in 1869. The
next four years he spent in teaching school and reading law. From 1873 ^^^^ ^^77
he practiced law in Monona county, Iowa, and since that time has been an active
member of the Springfield bar. He married Miss Laura Southwick, in Spring-
field, in 1873.
James E. Dowling was born in Pine Grove, Pennsylvania, in April, 1844.
When James w^as thirteen years old, the family moved to Freeport, Illinois, where
he w-as chiefly educated. After reading law in Freeport, two years, he attended
the Albany Law School, New York, where he w^as graduated May 20, 1864. He
located in practice in Petersburg, Illinois, was chosen secretary of the state
senate for the session of 1865-6, at the close of which he moved to Athens. Men-
ard county, and there practiced law eleven years. In 1877 he removed to Spring-
field, where he has been active in the profession since. In politics Mr. Dowling
^
THE BENCH AND BAR OF H^LINOIS, 207
is Republican. He married Miss Savilia Davis, of Menard county, in October,
1865.
James A. Creighton was born in White county, Illinois. He was graduated
from Southern Illinois College, at Salem, in June, 1868; read law with C. A.
Beecher, in Fairfield, Illinois, and was admitted to the bar in March, 1870.
After practicing law in Fairfield until April, 1877, he located in Springfield, form-
ing a co-partnership with Mr. A. Orendorff. The firm continued until Mr.
Creighton was made circuit judge, to which office he has been elected twice since.
George A. Wood was born in January, 1858, in Springfield. Having com-
pleted a course in the city schools, he attended the law department of Michigan
State University, where he graduated in 1877, and was admitted to practice in that
state the same year. He was admitted to the bar of Illinois in 1878, and at once
opened a law office in Springfield, where he has since been actively engaged in his
profession.
Thomas SterHng was bom in Lancaster, Ohio, February 21, 1851. He was
graduated in Wesleyan University, in Bloomington, Illinois, in June, 1875. He
came to Springfield, June i, 1877, 21"^ entered the law office of Hay, Greene &
Littler; was admitted June 11, 1878, and commenced practice of his profession.
In April, 1881, Mr. Sterling was elected city attorney on the Republican and
Citizens' tickets. He married Miss Anna Dunn, of Bement, Illinois, in October,
1877.
Joseph M. Grout was born near Mechanicsburg, Sangamon county, in 1855.
Joseph M. Grout, Sr., was one of the pioneer Presbyterian clergymen in Sanga-
mon county, and died of the cholera in 1855, before the subject of this sketch
was born, and his mother died when he was but ten weeks old. He was taken by
an uncle to Massachusetts, where the first eight years of his life were passed.
Returning to Illinois, he was graduated from Illinois College, in Jacksonville,
in the class of 1876; came immediately to Springfield and commenced the study
of law in the office of Hay, Greene & Littler ; was admitted to the bar in 1878.
and in the fall of that year entered into co-partnership with Thomas Sterling.
Mr. Grout is Republican in politics. He was united in matrimony with Miss
Flora Grubb, of Springfield, in 1879.
William H. Colby.— Almost from the organization of the state, the Illinois
bar has taken rank among the most able of the land. Hardly a town of any
importance does not boast of at least one lawyer capable of crossing swords in
forensic combat with distinguished lawyers of other commonwealths, and the
capital city has her share of these eminent followers of the legal profession.
Among this number is William Henry Colby, who was born in Orange county*
New York, September 14, 1849, but for many years has been a resident of Spring-
field. His parents, James S. and Anna (Abbott) Colby, were natives of the
Empire state, and have long since passed away, the father's death having oc-
curred in 1858, while the mother was called to the home beyond in 1863.
Thus William H. Colby was early left an orphan, dependent upon his own
resources. He came to Springfield in the year of his mother's death, and
throughout his business career "onward and upward" seems to have been ^he
2o8 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS,
motto of his life. Unflagging industry and resolute determination have ever been
numbered among his salient characteristics and have led to his success. So
desirous of obtaining an education was he that for nine years he worked upon a
farm through the summer months in order to gain sufficient money to enable him
to pursue his studies in school through the winter season. Within this period
of his life he became imbued with a desire to enter the leg^l profession, and bor-
rowing law books from his friends in the city he pored over them late into the
night, and gained considerable knowledge of the fundamental principles of juris-
prudence. In 1876 he entered upon a regular course of law study, and though
he was not admitted to the bar until January 2, 1878, he practiced in the justice
courts in Edinburg, Illinois, and in this unique way, to the surprise of his
friends and the public in general, managed to acquire a fair livelihood.
In 1879 Mr. Colby formed a partnership with William F. Herndon, which
continued for a year. In 1882 he was elected city attorney, serving in that ca-
pacity for one term, and in 1884 he formed a partnership with Hon. Robert L.
McGuire, a distinguished member of the Springfield bar, with whom he was
associated in practice until 1889, when he was appointed master in chancery by
the circuit court. In that capacity he served most acceptably and faithfully for
three terms, when, in 1895, he retired and formed a partnership with J. C.
Lanphier, which still continues. As city attorney he drew the ordinances and
contracts for the first paving laid in Springfield. In the famous Mingle murder
case he was assig^ned by the court as counsel for the defense, and his earnest
work and ardent, picas in behalf of his client will ever form a part of the history
of the bar at which he practices. His practice, however, is usually in the line
of commercial law, and his ability to untangle the intricate problems of civil law
gives him precedence of many members of the Springfield bar.
In politics Mr. C olby is a Democrat, fearlessly advocating his political views,
and laborini^ for the interests of his party in every campaign. He began his
canipaij2:n work (lurin|T^ the candidacy of General W. S. Hancock, in 1880, and has
>incc hccii most active, conducting the canvass in all parts of Illinois and win-
ning many adherents to the cause by his intelligent, logical, earnest and enter-
taining utterances.
In 1S74, two years before he began preparation for the bar, Mr. Colby mar-
ried Miss Henrietta Cantrill, of Sangamon. Both are members of the Presby-
terian church, and Mr. Colby is an exemplary representative of the Masonic
fraternity. Such in brief is the history of William Plenry Colby, whose career
is alike creditable to himself and the bar of which he is a representative. By
a continuous devotion to the highest demands of his profession, by an ability
equal to the most severe requirements and by an integrity that has never been
deflected from the true line of duty, he has won his way to the front rank of
Springfield's bar. With some men the law is a trade, but with Mr. Colby it
has been a science. Endowed by nature with a sound judgment and an accurate,
discriminating mind, he has not feared the laborious attention necessary to
equip himself for the various cases that have been entrusted to his care," and at
the same time he has ever been guided by a sense of moral right that would never
THE BENCH AND BAR OE ILLINOIS. 209
tolerate the employment of those means which would not bear the most rigid
examination and the closest scrutiny. Popular passion has never swayed his
judgment ; neither personal ambition nor the applause of the hour have ever
swerved him from the path of duty, and he has guarded his clients' interests as
zealously as his own.
William F. Herndon was born in DeWitt county, Illinois, in 1848; was edu-
cated chiefly in Springfield ; taught school about ten years ; read law in the office
of Cullom, Scholes & Mather in 1875 and 1876; was admitted to the bar in
January, 1878, and has been in practice in Springfield. In September, 1871, he
married Mary H. Bryant, of Sangamon county.
Henry B. Kane was born in Springfield, January 17, 1855. He read law,
and in January, 1878, was admitted to the bar. He was elected justice of the
peace in 1881. He now resides at Dallas, Texas.
Frank H. Jones was born in Pike county, Illinois, in 1854. He entered
Yale College in 1871 and graduated in the class of 1875. Returning to Pike
county, he read law one year in Pittsfield, then spent a year in the law department
of Columbia College, and a year in the Chicago Law School. He was admitted
to the bar in the spring of 1878, and immediately opened an office in Pittsfield,
where he remained one year, and then came to Springfield.
John A. Chesnut was born in Kentucky, in January, 181 6. He was prin-
cipally educated in the common schools of Kentucky ; read law in the office of
P. H. Winchester, Carlinville, Illinois, and was admitted in December, 1837, to
practice in the Illinois supreme court, and in 1841 to the United States courts.
He practiced in Carlinville from 1837 till 1855, Governor John M. Palmer being
his chief competitor. He then abandoned the law, and engaged in the real-estate
and banking business in that place, which proved so successful that he retired in
a few years with a comfortable competence, and came to Springfield. In 1867 he
was made cashier of the Springfield Savings Bank, holding the position till May,
1872. After spending a year in the office of Stuart, Edwards & Brown, he
opened a law office and resumed practice in 1879. In the spring of 1881 he
was elected justice of the peace. From 1838 to 1850 he filled the office of county
clerk in Macoupin county ; was three times nominated on the old Whig ticket
for the legislature, but the party being in the minority, failed to elect their can-
didate. He declined the nomination for congress in i860. Mr. Chesnut was
twice married, first to Sarah A. Blair, of Greene county, who died; and in 1854
he married Kate N. Corbett, of Jersey county. Mr. Chesnut died early in Jan-
uary, 1898.
Thomas J. Thompson was born in Philadelphia in 1853. During his child-
hood his parents moved to Dayton, Ohio, where he attended the public school,
after which he took a course in Williams College, Massachusetts, graduating in
the class of 1874. He read law in the office of Samuel A. Brown, of Spring-
field, Ohio. He came to Springfield, Illinois, in December, 1878, and was ad-
mitted to the bar in the spring of 1879. He was elected justice in the spring of
1881. ;Mr. Thompson served as secretary of the Democratic state central com-
mittee during- the political campaign of 1880.
14
210 THE BEh'CH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
Winfield S. Collins was born in Chatnpai^ county, Ohio, March 30, 1848.
In 1855 his parents moved to Johnson county, Iowa, where he labored on the
farm till twenty-one years of age. then set about earning means with which to
obtain a more complete education. He took a course in Iowa Agricultural Col-
lege, from which he was graduated in civil engineering in 1876. In the springof
1877 Mr. Collins came to Springfield, read law with Robert L. McGuire and was
admitted to practice in May, 1879. He immediately opened an office in the city,
and began the business of his profession.
William A. Vincent is a native of West Virginia, and came to Sangamon
connty in i8<)8. He received a literary education in the Ohio Wesleyan Univer-
sity, and graduated from the law department of Columbia College, in May, 1879.
Returning to Springfield the same month, he passed an examination before tlie
supreme court of this state, and at once commenced the practice of his profession
in Springfield.
Larue Vredenbnrgh was born in Springfield in 1855. graduated from Rut-
gers College, New Jersey, in 1877; read law in Chicago, and was admitted to
the bar in the fall of 1879, and entered active practice in Springfield.
Alexander H. Robertson is a native of Kentucky and a graduate in both the
literary and law departments of Transylvania University, in that state. His
father was George Robertson, for many years chief justice of the supreme court
of Kentucky, and professor in the law department of Transylvania University,
and acknowledged as one of the ablest lawyers of his time in that state. In 1853
Alexander H. Robertson came to Illinois and located in Jacksonville, in the
practice of his profession. Subsequently he returned to Kentucky, where he re-
mained until 1862, during that time serving as judge of the court of common
pleas, of Lexington, to which office he was elected shortly after his return. Com-
ing back to Illinois, he remained for a time and again returned to Kentucky to
look alter his interests in that state. In 1879 he came to Springfield, and at once
became an active member of the SanEramon countv bar. Tudce Robertson, dur-
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS, 213
ing the office of judge of the circuit court, he was elected without opposition to
succeed him on the bench. He held that position for two years, but not finding
its duties congenial, he refused to become a candidate for re-election, and once
more returned to the practice of his profession. In the same year he was
elected a member of the constitutional convention, which met in Springfield in
January, 1862, and became one of its leaders, serving on the judiciary committee
and as chairman on the bill of rights committee. This convention numbered
among its members many prominent men, including Purple, Manning, Thornton,
Edwards, Duff, Omelveny, Wentworth and the present chief justice of the United
States supreme court, Melville W. Fuller. It may here be noted that in 1870
Judge jMlen was a member of the convention that drafted the present admirable
constitution of Illinois, and took a leading part in the deliberations of that body.
He was again on the judiciary committee, and again chairman of the bill of
rights, reporting the article giving compensation for property damaged as well
as for property taken.
Judge Allen has ever been an ardent Democrat, and during the war of the
RebelHon, though always irreconcilably opposed to secession, was persecuted for
his political opinions. He spent much time in defending Democratic principles
and was a delegate to every Democratic national convention from 1864 until 1888,
inclusive. At the Charleston-Baltimore convention of i860, he was again an
ardent supporter of Douglas. He served on the committee on credentials, and
took a leading part in settling the Dean Richmond and Fernando Wood contests
and others w'hich involved the differences between the Buchanan and Douglas
wings of the Democracy in those conventions. In 1876 he was chairman of the
Illinois delegation at the St. Louis convention, and it was mainly through his
efforts that the Illinois vote w'ent for Mr. Tilden. He has four times been a
candidate for congress, on two of which occasions he was elected, and in all of
which he outran the usual party vote. With Morrison, Trumbull and Palmer,
he has divided the honors of party leadership. No man has been nearer to the
people. He believes in and trusts them, and has always been noted for his
independence of shifts, shams and affectation.
After the close of the stormy period of the Rebellion Judge Allen resumed the
active practice of law, and his practice soon became very large in both the state
and federal courts. Corporation, real-estate and criminal law received his atten-
tion, and he met with remarkable success. As a criminal lawyer, whether in
tlie prosecution or the defense, he has no equal in his section and never had a
superior in the state. In 1874-5, after he had located at Carbondale for the pur-
pose of affording his children the advantages provided by the Southern Normal
University, a deadly feud broke out in Williamson county, popularly known as
the "vendetta," which for a time paralyzed the law. Murders and assassinations
were of weekly and almost daily occurrence. The courage of the friends of law
and order seemed to have deserted them. The courts appeared to be powerless.
At this critical juncture. Governor Beveridge employed Judge Allen to prosecute
the guilty parties, which he did with an ability and fearlessness that carried dis-
may to criminals. Those who fled the state were pursued and captured ; such as
214 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
procured change of venue to foreign counties were followed up and convictions
secured in every instance. One of the indicted men was hung, about twenty
were sentenced to the penitentiary for long terms, and law and order completely
restored, and ever since it has been less difficult, perhaps, to convict for crime in
Williamson county than in any other county in the stale. It was a serious and
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS, 215
number of cases of an important character, most notably the damage suits of the
boy John Welsch against the Street Car Company, in which his firm secured a
handsome verdict for their client, and when the case was carried to the higher
courts the verdict was affirmed. Another important case in which his firm
won their client's suit was that of Sudduth versus Calhoun. In the case of Lewis
Bender versus the Supreme Court of Honor, his firm again obtained a judgment
in full for their client, and many other instances might be cited in which he has
successfully solved the intricate problems of jurisprudence. He is the local rep-
resentative of the Union Pacific Railroad Company, which fact alone stands in
evidence of his ability. It is a well known fact among the judges that he has
more probate and chancery business than any other member of the Springfield
bar. On the ist of July, 1892, he formed a partnership with C. E. Barnes, under
the firm name of Schnepp & Barnes, which relationship was terminated in April,
1898, because of Mr. Schnepp*s continued ill health.
On the 31st of December, 1890, Mr. Schnepp was united in marriage to Miss
Hattie B. Calloway, and they have three children, — ^two sons and a daughter.
Their high social standing is indicated by their large circle of friends, who en-
tertain for them the warmest regard.
Stephen H. Cummins, a member of the Springfield bar, is a native of San-
gamon county, Illinois, born March 24, 1862, and is a son of Benjamin and
Elizabeth Cummins. He completed his literary education in the high school,
and in his school work was always most thorough and proficient. He then
determined to engage in teaching, and followed that profession with excellent
success from 1880 until 1888, his last position being that of principal of the lies
school, of Springfield. During this period, and especially through the months
of vacation, he read law under the direction of General John M. Palmer and of
the firm of McGuire & Colby, and as the result of this excellent tuition an^ his
close application was enabled, in 1887, to pass a most creditable examination
for admission to the bar.
Mr. Cummins at once opened an office in Springfield, and has since prac-
ticed here with splendid success. He has been retained in a number of im-
portant cases, most notably the famous Doc. Lawrence case, successfully de-
fending^ his client against two different charges for murder, in the years 1893 ^"^
1894. This case assumed local prominence, being carefully watched by prac-
titioners throughout the county. He has gained quite a large practice, and in
1897 he was the candidate of his party for the position of state's attorney.
While never an office-seeker, he has served as a member of the village board
of South Springfield, and discharged his duties in a most faithful and acceptable
manner.
On the I2th of November, 1895, Mr. Cummins was united in marriage to
Miss Ettie M. Shoop, daughter of Colonel Shoop, who is the only man ever
elected to a second term as sherifJ of Sangamon county. Mr. Cummins is a
man of domestic tastes, and his home is noted for its hospitality. Through his
own well directed efforts he has gained success in the business world, and now
occupies a very creditable position at the Springfield bar.
2i6 THE BEXCM AXD BAR OF ILLINOIS.
J. Otis Humphrey.— Citizenship and its kindred duties should be regarded
among the most sacred trusts which come to the American. Each man is re-
sponsible in a measure for the weal or woe of the nation, and the greater his
influence the more important and binding is the duty which rests upon him.
Not our officers or our governmental institutions determine the destiny of the
nation, but the ballot, and it is therefore every man's sacred duty to endeavor to
secure good government through this power which he holds. For twenty years
J. Otis Humphrey has labored as few men have done for the best interests of
state and nation. Close study of the issues of the day has made him particularly
well informed on political questions, and with a firm belief in the righteousness
of Republican principles, — of a sound money, of tariff for the protection of home
industries, of reciprocity, of territorial expansion in the interests of liberty and
humanity, — he has labored most earnestly and effectually for the adoption of
the Republican policy and for the support of the men who stand as the exponents
of the Republican platform.
* Mr. Humphrey was bom in Morgan county, Illinois, December 30, 1850, and
is a son of William and Sarah (Stocker) Humphrey, natives of Ohio, whence
they removed to Illinois shortly before the birth of our subject. The Humphrey
family is of English origin, and at an early period in American history representa-
tives of the name resided in Massachusetts and Rhode Island. The great-grand-
father of our subject, Major William Humphrey, won his title while in com-
mand of a division of the Fourth Rhode Island Regiment in the war of the Revo-
lution. Reared on a farm until twenty years of age, Mr. Humphrey spent the
greater part of that time in Auburn township, Sangamon county, Illinois. Having
attended the district schools, he spent two years as a student in the high school in
Virden, Macoupin county, and then pursued a five-years academic and col-
legiate course in Shurtleff College, at Alton, Illinois. Subsequently he engaged
in teaching school for two years and then began the study of law in Springfield,
under the direction of the firm of Robinson, Knapp & Shutt. In June, 1880,
he was admitted to the bar, and in that year served as clerk in the office of John
A. Chesnut, supervisor of census for the eighth district of Illinois. Afterward,
on the recommendation of Senator CuUom, then governor of Illinois, he entered
the office of the railroad and warehouse commissioners as legal clerk, in which
capacity he served until January. 1883, when he formed a partnership with Hon.
H. S. Greene, one of the most distinguished lawyers of the west. This associa-
tion has since been maintained, and the firm, throughout its entire existence,
has represented the largest and most important interests in the state and
federal courts.
In his political affiliations Mr. Humphrey has always been a Republican,
and he has taken an active part in campaign work since 1872, at which time he
w^as a student in college. He is a most logical and convincing speaker, and his
addresses have been effective in securing many adherents to the party. For
more than twenty years the influence which he has exerted has been widely felt,
and he is a recognized leader in political circles in Illinois. In 1884 he was a
presidential elector, and in 1896 he was a delegate to the national convention
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
at St. Louis, where he exercised much influence in controlling the vote
Illinois delegation for sound money. For many years he had made
study of the money question and was well prepared to meet all argum
favor of a compromise platform. In March, 1895, in an address befc
Illinois Republican Press Association, he accurately predicted the issue
coming national campaign. This was more than a year before the issi
formed arid many months before the silver conventions of Illinois. O
occasion he said :
*'On the question of national finance you represent a party whose rec
all bright, all wise, conservative and honest; for if you ask me the name
greatest work of the Republican party I would say that, in my judgment,
not the suppression of the Rebellion ; it was not the emancipation of the s
not the reconstruction of the rebel states ; not the establishment and mainte
of a protective tariff, but above and beyond all these, as its crowning gk
place the financial record of the Republican party. In every vicissitude a
all emergencies it has stood with its face to the front and its finger pointi
the changeless star of duty. The Democratic party would return us t
devious paths of wandering in national finance. Not content with a reducti
the tariff and the imposition of an odious income tax, they wish to return to
old system of state banks and Democratic money. There are a few men ii
country who know what that means from actual experience, but most o
voters of to-day have attained their majority since the time of Buchanan, ai
them this lesson must be taught as a matter of history. Here is the impoi
work for Republican papers, describing how this system worked in 1857;
the Democratic money cheated the people, the laborer, the mechanic, the w
ing^an who took his pay in the worthless stuff; how there was constant
preciation from day to day ; how this resulted in the publication of books gi\
daily quotations ; how impossible it was to keep up with the rapid fluctuati
and how the holder of the note always suffered.
"Over and over again must these facts be presented to the citizen. Th
is no mystery in this argument. It is simple. It is truthful. It will tell in
end. National finances and the tariff, — the great source of national revenue
are the questions on which the next contest will be waged, and upon your effc
will largely depend the success of the Republican party. Get hold of the you
voters of the country. Repeat the stories of 'wild-cat' money as only you c
do. Make it plain to those who can only know it as a. matter of history. A
peal to them as living in the presence of the God that gave this country to 1
as living in the presence of the flag for which our fathers and our brothers die
and as they sit about their firesides in the quiet of the home circle, make the
understand that the Democratic party has been eternally wrong on these que
tions in the past ; that it is eternally wrong to-day, and conjure them in the grea
svsreet name of common honesty to get right on these important questions whic
make for the life and prosperity of the nation."
Thus it was that Mr. Humphrey foresaw and foretold the struggle of 1891
and be it said to his credit that he exerted a wide influence in securing the larg
2i8 THE BENCH AND BAR OF H^LINOIS.
Republican victories in this state. In the national convention in St. Louis he
was also largely instrumental in securing the nomination of Mr. Hobart for
vice-president, and his work in this direction was recognized by the delegation
in selecting him to speak for Illinois in seconding the nomination of the vice-
president. Long a trusted leader of his party in central Illinois, Mr. Humphrey
is ever active and alert in construing events, is unswerving in his loyalty to
friends, wise in counsel and accurate in judgment. For four years he has been
chairman of the Republican county central committee and has developed an
absolute genius as an organizer. His organization was the central one of the
seventeenth congressional district, which has always been Democratic. Neither
Lincoln, Grant, Yates or Cullom were ever able to carry these counties, but
through the marvelous organization of Mr. Humphrey and those associated
w^ith him the district was redeemed in 1894 and again carried in 1896 for presi-
dent, congressmen and most of the county officers.
As a citizen Mr. Humphrey belongs to that representative class who are
active, enterprising and energetic in support of all measures or movements
calculated to benefit the community, and in Springfield he is very popular, owing
to his courteous manner, his genial disposition and his genuine worth. On the
1st of July. 1897, he was appointed United States district attorney for the south-
ern district of Illinois, by President McKinley, and in the discharge of his official
duties manifests his marked ability as a lawyer, his comprehensive understanding
of the principles of jurisprudence, his keen power of analysis, his careful prepara-
tion of cases and his forceful presentation of his cause.
H. Clay Wilson, of Springfield, comes from a state that has long been
renowned for the high standing of its bar, and has gained a commendable position
at a bar that has also furnished some of the nation's most distinguished repre-
sentatives of jurisprudence. He is a native of Kentucky, his birth having oc-
curred on a farm in Daviess county, July 2, 1856. His parents, John J. and Sarah
(]\Ieeks) Wilson, were also natives of that state, but removed to Indiana in 1858,
and in their home H. Clay Wilson spent the days of his minority, attending the
district schools in Spencer county, Indiana, where he laid a substantial founda-
tion for a more advanced education. At the age of twenty he entered the
Central Normal College, of Danville, Indiana, and was graduated in that institu-
tion on the completion of the teacher's and commercial courses.
In August, 1882, Mr. Wilson came to Sangamon county, Illinois, and for
seven years thereafter engaged in teaching school. In 1886 he began reading law
in the office of Clinton L. Conkling. He devoted his vacations and leisure hours
to this pursuit, and in the fall of 1888 was admitted to the bar. Through the
succeeding year he continued teaching, and then opened an office for the prac-
tice of law in 1890, soon demonstrating his power to handle with skill the intri-
cate problems of civil law. He is inclined to corporation law, yet has a fair
practice in civil, probate and chancery business. He is well versed in these
different departments, and is continually adding to his knowledge by extensive
research into principle and precedent.
On the 7th of August, 1888, Mr. Wilson married Miss Theresa Tyson, and
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS. 219
they have four children, three sons and one daughter. In his social relations
he is a Mason, an Odd Fellow, a Knight of Pythias, and a member of the Hamil-
ton Club of Chicago. He is a member of the board of education of Springfield,
and has served as its president, his labors in behalf of the schools being most
beneficial and progressive. He exercises his right of franchise in support of the
men and measures of the Republican party, does all in his power to promote its
growth and insure its success, and on that ticket was elected to the thirty-ninth
general assembly of Illinois. He is a man of strong mentality, of sound judg-
ment, and in political and professional works shows a thorough mastery of the
subject under consideration.
Henry C. Bell, of Springfield, is a native of Clark county, Illinois, born
January 5, 1849. His father, Wiley Bell, was a native of North Carolina, and his
mother was Sarah E. (Buckner) Bell. The foundation of his education was laid
in the district schools of Clark county, whence he went to Westfield, Illinois,
spending four years in the college of that place. Later he continued his educa-
tion in the Normal College at Carbondale, Illinois.
His school life, however, was interrupted by his service in the Union Army,
for when only fifteen years of age he responded to his country's call for troops,
in October, 1864, enlisting in Company K, Twenty-ninth Indiana Volunteer
Infantry, at Terre Haute. He served until December, 1865, when he was hon-
orably discharged at Marietta, Georgia. It is said that he was the youngest
soldier of his regiment, and his army record, owing to his extreme youth, is cer-
tainly one of which he may be justly proud. He was with Sherman's command
until they reached Atlanta, when his regiment was sent back, under General
Thomas, to take part in the campaign against General Hood. After receiv-
ing an honorable discharge he returned home and resumed his studies, thus
preparing for the practical and responsible duties of life. Having determined
to adopt the law as his profession, in 1872 he entered the office of John Schol-
field and Jacob W. Wilkin, under whose direction he began preparation for the
bar. His preceptors were men of marked ability. Both were afterward judges
on the supreme bench of Illinois, where they served with honor and credit, both
to themselves and their constituents. Judge Scholfield died in April, 1893, but
Judge Wilkin is still on the bench.
Mr. Bell was admitted to the bar June 15, 1875, in Mount Vernon, Illinois,
and at once opened an office in Marshall, Illinois, where he continued in prac-
tice for ten years. Within this time he also served as superintendent of the
schools of Clark county, and was city attorney of Marshall. In July, 1885, he
was appointed chief of the finance and statistical division of the pension bureau
at Washington, D. C, and served in that capacity for four years. From 1889
until 1893, through President Harrison's administration, he was in the criminal
section of the law division, and was on the board of review at the pension bureau.
So well and ably did he discharge the duties of those positions that in 1893 be
was retained in the public service by being appointed deputy commissioner of
pensions, by President Cleveland. This office he retained for four years, resign-
ing April 5, 1897, at which time he came to Springfield, where he resumed the
Tuc acKjru j\:n rjp nn it I IMDT^
THE BENCH AND BAR OF H.LIN O IS. 221
has since been maintained. They have won a good cHentage, and through their
earnest labors, close application and diligence they are meeting with that suc-
cess which is ever the reward of industry.
In his political affiliations Mr. Selby is a stalwart Republican, unfaltering in
support of his party, and since 1880 he has been an active worker in its behalf.
In 1892 he received the nomination for state's attorney; in 1894 he was elected
to the legislature, and in 1896 was re-elected, — the first time in the history of the
county that a Republican has served for two successive terms. He has been one
of the most prominent and influential members of the house, both in committee
work and on the floor. He was chairman of the committee on judicial depart-
ment and practice during the first term, and his recognized ability as a lawyer
enabled him to handle in a most capable manner the important questions which
came up for settlement. On other very important committees he served in a
most creditable manner, was active in securing the location of the supreme court
at Springfield, and lent his aid and co-operation to every effort put forth for
the general good. His popularity is shown by the fact that in the second term he
was a very close candidate for speaker, receiving a large support. He was
chosen chairman of the steering and revenue committees, and upon the legisla-
tion of those tw-o sessions he left the impress of his strong individuality. He
was very active in support of Senators Cullom and Mason, and nominated the
former for the United States senate in the following words :
"Mr. Speaker: A few months ago the great common people of our state
knocked at the door of the Republican party and demanded that we should return
to the United States senate a man who stood for protection, prosperity and
patriotism; a man who believed, taught and upheld such national principles as
would develop American interests, feed and clothe American workmen, give us
a sound and safe American dollar, and last, but not least, protect and defend
American defenders. The battle has been fought, the storm has ceased and we
are now bathing in the sunlight of exalted success. We are now ready to deliver.
Therefore, in the name of the silent wheels and spindles, the smokeless chimneys
and deserted w'orkshops, w^aiting to be touched by the magic wand of pros-
perity ; in the name of the state of Illinois, with her mighty commercial and in-
dustrial interests ; in the name of that party which has achieved so much for the
advancement of human liberty and civil equality, I now here, and once and for
all, cast the senatorial mantle upon the shoulders of Shelby M. Cullom."
In 1881 Mr. Selby married Miss Annie Miller, of Sangamon county, and
they have a son and two daughters. Socially he is connected with the Masonic
fraternity, the Knights of Pythias and the Independent Order of Odd Fellows.
Widely known and honored in professional, political and social circles, he well
deserves mention in the historv of the bench and bar of Illinois.
Major Bluford Wilson, an honored citizen of Springfield, needs no intro-
duction to the general pubHc, for his distinguished services in behalf of the pres-
ervation of the Union during the civil war, and his no less meritorious services
as an employe of the government in Washington a score or more years ago,
brought his name into prominence. From both sides of his family he derived
222 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
stanch principles of patriotism, honor and justice, and has worthily carried
them into his every-day life.
In tracing the history of the Major it is found that he is a native of Illinois,
his birth having occurred in Shawneetown, November 30, 1841. His parents were
Harrison and Catherine Wilson, the latter a native of Alsace, France, from wliich
country she came to America, in the early part of this century, with her father,
Harrison Wilson was an ensign in the service of the United States during the war
of 1812 and was captain of One Spy llattalion in the Black Hawk war.
Major Wilson, after finishing his public school education, entered McKendre«
College and later was a student in the University of Michigan until 1862. when
his youthful patriotism could no longer be kept in check, and he enlisted in the
One Hundred and Twentieth Illinois \'olunteer Infantry. He was placed in
the company commanded by Captain P. B. Pillow, and was made an adjutant.
In May, 1863, he became assistant adjutant general on the staff of Brij;;adier
General Michael X. Lawler, and served also on the staffs of Generals Dana and
Eugene A. Carr, He was brevetted major, for gallant conduct, and continued
to serve until the close of the war. His brother, General James H. Wilson, a
graduate of West Point, was one of the celebrated officers of the war and was
a distinguished member of General Grant's staff. .Another brother. Major Henry
S. Wilson, distinguished himself as an officer in the Eighteenth Illinois Volun-
teer Infantry.
Having seen the triumph of the stars and stripes under which banner he
had nobly fought, Major Wilson returned to the peaceful vocations of life. He
resumed his legal studies, and was admitted to the bar, in Shawneetown, in 1867.
Always active in the Republican party, he was appointed district attorney by
President Grant in 1869, and held the office until after the re-election of the
great general, who then gave the young man the position of solicitor ot the
treasury. There the Major made a splendid record, being the main support of
General B. H. Bristow, secretary of the treasury, in the famous war against the
"Whisky Ring." In this connection it may be of interest to introduce a copy
of a letter which was written to the Major at the time ot his resignation of his
position as solicitor.
Washington, D. C, June 20. 1876.
My Dear Wilson:
I cannoi lake leave of (he treasury department without expressing to you my great
graliiiide for the earnest and able support you have given me throughout my term of
service. Whatever has been accomplished in the direction of enforcing law and bringing
to merited puni.shmeiit those who for a considerable time had plundered the public revenue
and debauched the public service, is due more to your courageous, able and efficient con-
duct than 10 any effort of my own. The governtnent owes you more than it is likely
to pay.
I beg you to he aiisured that I carry with me into private life the most grateful re-
membrance of Ihc fidelity, zeal and capacity with which you have met all your official
duties and obligations, as well as the uniform kindness and friendship extended to me
during our official relations. May heaven bless and prosper you in all your undertakings.
Sincerely and gratefully your friend,
Hon. Bluford Wilson, B. H. BRISTOW.
Solicitor of the Treasury.
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS. 223
From Washington the Major returned to Springfield, where he has since
been actively engaged in the general practice of law, chiefly before the United
States courts. He is now a member of the firm of Wilson & Warren, the
junior partner being his son-in-law, Philip Barton Warren, a promising young
lawyer. July 3, 1865, the Major married Miss AHce Warren Mather, in Louis-
ville, Kentucky, and four children came to grace their union.
John F. Armstrong, of Springfield, was born in Christian county, Illinois,
November 13, 1861, and is a son of Thomas D. and Rebecca (Woosley) Arm-
strong. His literary education was completed by study in the high schools of
Bloomington and Taylorville, and thus with a good general knowledge to serve
as the foundation for professional learning he began preparation for the bar.
With a keen appreciation of the science of law and the lofty purpose which it
should serve in the protection of right, life, liberty and property, in 1886 he
began a course of reading in the office of Conkling & Grout, two distinguished
attorneys of Springfield, who directed his studies until 1888, when he was ad-
mitted to the bar, passing a most creditable examination.
Mr. Armstrong at once began practice in the city of his adoption, where he
has since remained, winning a large clientage as the years have passed, and he
has demonstrated his ability by the successful conduct of some very important
cases. He was appointed assistant to Major James A. Connolly, United States
district attorney, and served from 1891 until 1893 under a Republican administra-
tion, but has since allied himself with the Democratic party and gave Wm. J.
Bryan his hearty support in 1896, and is still strongly allied with that party. He
has served on municipal and county committees on numerous occasions, and has
labored earnestly while on such committees to advance the interests of his party.
No outside interest, however, is allowed to take needed time from his pro-
fessional duties. His fidelity to his clients' interests is most marked, and in the
trial of important cases he has shown ability of high order, keen analytical power
and skillful presentation of his cause. He has been associated to a considerable
extent with General John M. Palmer, who regards him as one of the rising mem-
bers of the Springfield bar.
James A. Connolly. — While "the race is not always to the swift nor the
battle to the strong," the invariable law of destiny accords to tireless energy,
industry and ability a successful career. The truth of this assertion is abun-
dantly verified in the life of Major Connolly.
James Austin Connolly was born in Newark, New Jersey, March 8, 1842.
His parents, William and Margaret (Maguire) Connolly, both natives of Ire-
land, emigrated to Canada, with their parents, in childhood, and later drifted
to Newark, New Jersey, where they formed each other's acquaintance and were
married.
James attended a private school in Newark until he was eight years of age,
when he accompanied his parents to Morrow county, in central Ohio, where his
father purchased a farm. Four years later William Connolly moved to the
neighboring town of Chesterville, and resumed the occupation of tanner and
currier, a pursuit which he had previously followed in Newark. During the
224 '^'^-^^^' BIiXCH AXD BAR OF ILLINOIS.
four years in which his father operated the farm, James, during the first half of
that time, aided him in such work as his aj^e and strength would permit, and
durinjr the latter two years he was employed as a clerk in a store at Chesterville.
He thereafter attended the Chesterville union school, then the high school,
and later the Sclby Academy, at Chesterville, where he was graduated in the
classical course, in 1858. During the last two years which he attended the
academy he kept books in the store where he had previously been employed as
clerk, and thus partially paid his tuition.
He decided to make the study and practice of law his life work and began
to read law under the direction of Judge A. K. Dunn, of Mount Gilead, Ohio.
In the meantime, 1858-9, he taught school. In the fall of the latter year he
w^as admitted to the bar, and after retiring from the position of second assistant
clerk of the Ohio senate, which he filled in the winter of 1859-60, he entered
upon the practice of his profession as a partner of his preceptor. Judge Dunn,
at Mount Gilead, Ohio.
Being young and ambitious and, after investigation, concluding that in the
newer state of Illinois he could find better opportunities to advance, he, in the
fall of i860, located in that state, at Charleston, where he began to practice law.
In June, 1862, he enlisted in the ranks, and upon the organization of Com-
pany C, One Hundred and Twenty-third Regiment of Illinois Volunteer In-
fantry, he was elected captain, and upon the organization of that regiment
was elected its major. The regiment joined the Army of the Cumberland
and was active in all its campaigns till after the fall of Atlanta, when he
w^as transferred to Sherman's armv and marched with him to the sea, and thence
to Washington and took part in the grand review.
Major Connolly's career as a soldier was full of adventures, and a full
description thereof would of itself fill a large volume. He entered a daily record
of all important events in a journal or diary which he still has in his possession.
A perusal of this diary would doubtless be of deep interest to all, and it is hoped
that the Major will be persuaded to assent to the publication thereof, although
he has repeatedly been requested to do so and has thus far failed to give the re-
quired consent. His military record is very creditable, proving him to be
a brave and fearless soldier, and the following incidents wall illustrate his bravery:
At the battle of Milton, Tennessee, while leading his regiment in the heat
of the fight, the collar of his overcoat, coat and shirt and the pommel of his
saddle were shot away by minie balls. He was knocked to the ground apparently
senseless, but conscious of the fact that the remark "The Major's killed" was
passed along the line. He remembers that the sole thought in his mind then
w^as : "The boys are fooled." At Bentonville, North Carolina, he was struck by a
bullet on the plate of his sword-belt, right over his stomach. At Missionary
Ridge a shell exploded directly over his head and frightened his horse, which gave
a leap, and burst the saddle girth, and threw him to the ground. He was as-
sisted to his horse and without a saddle girth rode to the top of the ridge.
Immediately after the battle of Chickamauga Major Connolly was detailed
by General Thomas as inspector of General Baird's division of the Fourteenth
■ y''//i-y r^
^•r
I >
M . . I
^^^^-^^^
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS. ' 225
Army Corps, and continued to serve in that capacity until the close of the war,
and was with it at the grand review.
When the fourteenth Army Corps was approaching Savannah it was neces-
sary to march over a causeway through the Ebenezer swamps. Major Con-
nolly was with the rear guard of the corps, which was hard pressed by Wheeler's
cavalry. Near midnight the Major and his followers arrived at a bridge which
spanned the Ebenezer creek, and there found the provost marshal of the Four-
teenth Army Corps, which was then commanded by General Jeff. C. Davis,
guarding the bridge and preventing negroes, thousands of whom were hid in the
swamp, from crossing the bridge and following the troops. Replying to Major
Connolly's inquiry, the provost marshal informed him that he was obeying his
superior's orders. Major Connolly then told him that as it was then late he
and his company could then retire to headquarters, and that he would relieve
him. After the provost marshal retired the Major permitted the negroes to flock
over the bridge, and thus saved them from capture and severe punishment and
perhaps death by Wheeler's cavalry. The acftion of Major Connolly was com-
mended, and the incident nearly cost General Davis his promotion. Major Con-
nolly was brevetted lieutenant colonel of volunteers for gallantry on the field at
Bentonville, North Carolina.
After the close of the war Major Connolly returned to Charleston and re-
engaged in practice, continuing there until 1876, when President Grant appointed
him United States attorney for the southern district of Illinois. In 1880 he was
reappointed by President Hayes, and in 1884 was again appointed, by President
Arthur. In 1885 he was removed by President Cleveland **for offensive parti-
sanship," but in 1889 was again appointed to the position by President Harrison,
and served until April, 1894, when he resigned.
Politically Major Connolly has always been a steadfast adherent to the prin-
ciples of the Republican party, and from 1876 to the present time has always
taken an active part in the campaigns of that party, canvassing every section of
the state and visiting nearly every county. He has vigorously advocated the
cause of Republicanism. In 1872 he was elected to the legislature from Coles
county, and was re-elected in 1874. In 1886, while mayor of the city of Charles-
ton, he was the opponent of ex-Congressman W^illiam Springer, and carried Mor-
gan and Sangamon counties, but was defeated by a majority of nine hundred,
his popularity having reduced to that amount the usual Democratic majority of
lour thousand. He was again nominated for congress in 1888, but declined to
hecome a candidate. In 1894 he accepted the nomination, and defeated
Springer by a majority of two thousand nine hundred and forty. In 1896 he
was ag^ain elected to congress from the same district, but declined a nomination
in 1898.
In 1888 he was a candidate for the nomination of governor, and received
one hundred votes in the convention. While serving as United States attorney
in 1884 he was appointed solicitor of the treasury by President Arthur, and con-
firmed by the senate, but he declined the appointment, preferring to devote
himself to his profession.
16
^
226 ' THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
In 1886 Major Connolly moved to Spring^eld, where he has since made his
home. He formed a partnership with Mr. Mather, and, in addition to his official
duties practices his profession. He has been engaged in much of the more im-
portant class of litigation in this section of the state, and as United States at-
torney participated in many actions that attracted a large amount of attention.
He prosecuted the "whisky ring" without any special assistance, and was one
of the very few United States attorneys who did not call for special assistants in
similar cases of litigation.
Major Connolly has become interested financially in several profitable cor-
porations. He assisted in the organization of the Illinois National Bank, and has
been a member of its board of directors since its organization. He is also inter-
ested in the Bain Manufacturing Company, of Charleston, Illinois. He is a
member of the Grand Army of the Republic, and for eight years previous to 1895
acted as judge advocate of the department of Illinois. He is also a member of the
Loyal Legion, and is a Mason and Knight Templar.
Major Connolly's life has been a success. His entire career is illustrative of
the fact that certain actions are followed by certain results. As a lawyer he has
few peers in this section of the state ; as a soldier he displayed bravery, sagacity
and true patriotism; as a public official his actions have been above reproach
or criticism ; and as a citizen he is an illustration of a high type of our Ameri-
can manhood.
He was married in 1863 to Miss Mary Dunn, sister of Judge Dunn, of
Mount Gilead, Ohio, with whom Major Connolly studied law. Major and Mrs.
Connolly are attendants of the Presbyterian church.
James M. Graham, a well known citizen and member of the bar of Spring-
field, has led a very busy, enterprising life, and, being very popular with his
acquaintances and friends, has been called upon several times to occupy positions
of responsibility and public trust. From a political standpoint he has been
especially active and zealous, working earnestly for the success of the Democratic
party in every campaign, often going to distant parts of the state, when necessary,
in order that the cause should not suffer for want of an earnest advocate.
Mr. Graham is a native of Ireland, his birth having occurred April 14, 1853.
His parents, Hugh and Sarah (McMahon) Graham, were likewise born and
brought up in the Emerald Isle. He came to the United States in 1867. James
M. was given good educational advantages, having studied in the common
schools, the Northern Indiana Normal School, at Valparaiso, Indiana, and in
the Illinois State University, at Champaign. Having thus fitted himself as a
teacher, he engaged in that line of work, and for some seven years he successfully
taught in the schools of Champaign county.
While giving his chief attention to teaching, Mr. Graham spent some of his
leisure in the study of law, and was finally admitted to the bar upon his applica-
tion for an examination, in 1885. Three years before that time he had removed
to Macon county, and in 1884 was elected to the legislature from the twenty-
ninth district, including Macon and Logan counties, and served efficiently for one
term. Concluding to remain in Springfield, Mr. Graham opened an office on the
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS. 227
south side of the square, and in 1886 he became a partner of S. D. Scholes, the
firm style being Scholes & Graham. He soon won an enviable reputation as a
lawyer and his patronage has steadily increased in the importance as well as in
the number of the cases placed in his hands. In 1892 he was elected state's
attorney for Sangamon county, the majority of votes cast for him being about
eighteen hundred. He served most acceptably for the term of four years, at
the end of which period he settled down to practice again as an attorney, as senior
member of the firm of Graham & Miller.
He served for several years as a member of the school board of Spring-
field and always favored a policy of liberal treatment for teachers and the widest
and best possible advantages for the children.
In August, 1876, Mr. Graham married Miss Kate Wallace, a resident of
Champaign county. Seven children have been born to them, all of whom are
now living. Hugh, the eldest, is a member of the class of 1900 in the Illinois
University. They are adherents of the Catholic church.
Edward Delavan Henry is numbered among the rising young members of
the Springfield bar. He comes from New England ancestry and has inherited,
from a long line of honorable, upright sires, not only high moral principles but
the qualities which insure success in business, as well. He possesses genius and
native talent, and to his chosen field of labor brings a love for the work and a
thorough knowledge of its principles. For the past seven years he has had an
office in Springfield, and during this time has won the regard of his professional
brethren and all with whom he has come into business relations.
Our subject's father, Levi H. Henry, was a native of Littleton, New Hamp-
shire, and passed his early manhood there. In 1852 he started westward, driving
a team all the distance to Illinois, and bringing with him an invalid brother, who,
though he knew he had not long to live, strongly desired to die on Illinois soil.
Levi H. Henry became one of the wealthy and influential citizens of Talkington
township, Sangamon county, Illinois, owning a large farm there and having ex-
tensive banking interests in the town of Waverly. Loved and respected by all
who knew him, his death, in 1897, was felt to be a public loss.
Edward D. Henry is proud of the fact that he is one of Illinois' own sons,
he having been born in Auburn, January 17, 1864. He attended the country
schools in his home neighborhood and later was a student in the high school at
Waverly. Subsequently, he was enrolled as a pupil in the Wesleyan University,
at Bloomington, and was graduated in the Latin-scientific course in 1889. Soon
afterward he began teaching school, in which line of endeavor he met with the
success which he deserved, as he was faithful and earnest in the least as well as
the greatest of his duties. In the evenings, and whenever else he had leisure,
he studied law, and he was aided in his work along this line by the firm of Oren-
dorff & Patton. Admitted to the bar in 1891, he at once engaged in practice,
establishing himself in business in Springfield. His assiduous labors and earn-
estness of purpose have wrought out for him the success which he merits, and his
practice is constantly growing in importance and extent.
Mr. Henry is identified with the First Congregational church of Spring-
228 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS
field, and gives it his moral and financial support. He is a Master Mason, be-
longing to St. Paul's Lodge No. 500, A. F. & A. M., of this city. A firm believer
in the temperance cause, he feels it the duty of the state and goveniment to lefps-
late UDon the Question, and therefore irives his political alleeiance to the Prohibi-
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS,
229
has had charge of, and participated in, many of the most important cases that
have been litigated in the courts of this state since his admission to the bar. He
has devoted his time and energies to his profession, and while his views upon
political questions are pronounced, he has of late taken no active part in politics.
In 1868 he was elected to the Illinois legislature to represent Sangamon and
Logan counties and served for one term very acceptably. He has always been
interested in the prosperity of the Democratic party, and in 1892 he was a
delegate to the national convention which nominated Cleveland.
The marriage of James William Patton and Miss Francine Elizabeth
Lanphier of Springfield, was solemnized in this city December 8, 1869. Her
father, Charles H. Lanphier, was for many years editor and proprietor of the
Illinois State Register.
1
CHAPTER XI.
COMPILATIONS AND REVISIONS OF THE LAWS OF ILLINOIS.
PRIOR to the organization of Illinois territory, and while it formed part
of Indiana, John Rice Jones and John Johnson had attempted a revision
of the laws in force at that time in the territory. The volume was pub-
lished by Stout & Smoot, printers to the territory of Indiana.
It comprised the laws in force in the territory of Indiana and the acts passed
at the first session of the second general assembly of the territory, i6th of
August, 1807. "Very many sections of this old book will be instantly recog-
nized as a part of the law as it is in force to-day, and sometimes whole passages
appear, almost word for word as we have them now. This revision was made
in pursuance of a resolution passed at a former session of the territorial legisla-
ture, and the volume closes with an act which declares all former acts repealed,
except as therein revised and re-enacted." (Gross' Index to Laws, page 8.)
The second revision of the laws was by Nathaniel Pope. He was secretary
of the territory and for some time exercised the powers of governor. Mr. Pope's
commission as secretary of the territory bears date of the 7th of March, 1809,
and that of Mr. Edwards, the governor, of the 24th of April, 1809. The terri-
tory was duly organized by Nathaniel Pope, acting as governor, on the 28th of
April, 1809.
One peculiarity in the acts creating Indiana and Illinois territories was that
they made it the right of tlie people to enter into the organization of a territory
of the second class, without regard to the number of the inhabitants. The
provision of the statute is : ^'Whenever satisfactory evidence shall be given to the
governor thereof, that such is the wish of the majority of the free-holders, not-
withstanding there may not be therein five tliousand free male inhabitants of the
age of twenty-one years or upwards."
The governor of Illinois territory, preferring the evidence of the popular
will be afforded by an election, issued a proclamation for an election to be held
in the different settlements to ascertain whether a majority were in favor of a
legislative government, and such being the decision of the people, as expressed at
the polls, he issued another proclamation, dated September 14, 1812, ordering an
election to be held on the 8th, 9th and loth days of October, 1812, to choose
one delegate to congress and members of the two houses of the legislature.
"The laws which were passed at that and the succeeding sessions were not
collected until 181 5: * * * On the 4th of July, of that year, Matthew
Duncan, printer to the territory, issued from his office in Kaskaskia the revision
of Nathaniel Pope in two volumes; it contained a copious and careful index.
* * * The similarity of this book to the present statutes is much more
230
MlLVILLB W. FULLBR. BlCBAHl) J. OgLBBBV
John W. SHOwtLTBR, Stiphbn A. Douglas. Joh« A. Locan.
THE BENCH AND BAR OF HJJNOIS. 231
striking than in Jones' revision. The entire plan and arrangement of the
statutes of Illinois, taken as a whole, remain at this moment in the shape Judge
Pope impressed upon them."
An attempt was made in 1819 to revise the laws of the state, and in 1827,
certain chapters, relating to some important subjects, were rewritten and im-
proved. In 1829 a volume of statutes was published by Alexander F. Grant &
Company, of Shawneetown, Illinois. It was entitled "The Revised Code of Laws
of Illinois," containing those of a general and permanent nature, passed by the
sixth general assembly at their session, held at Vandalia, commencing on the
first Monday of December, 1828, and those enacted previous thereto, and ordered
by the said general assembly to be republished. This volume contains many
titles and gives the date of the approval of the laws therein published. Like
the volumes, entitled "Revised Statutes," published in 1827 and 1833, it has but
little claim to be regarded as a revision of the statutes. The so-called revision of
1833 adopted the arrangement of its predecessors.
In 1844 Mason Brayman, Esq., a scholarly lawyer from Buffalo, New York,
undertook a revision of the statutes of Illinois. Mr. Brayman commenced his
work, as a private enterprise, in April, 1844. On the meeting of the legislature
the subject of a careful revision of the statutes was brought to the attention of
the legislature, by Governor Ford, and certain resolutions were passed by the
house of representatives and concurred in by the senate, on the i8th day of
January, 1845.
Mr. Brayman's preface to the volume of the revision of 1845 ^s specially
interesting in its description of the origin of the statutes, and the confused state of
the law. He said : *Tt was to be expected that the early enactments which pro-
ceeded first from the territories, then from the state governments, would be crude,
imperfect and inharmonious. They were not adopted together, as a distinct body
of statute law, nor with any view to their connection or consistency with each
other; but hastily produced at different times and places, in obedience to the
ever varying wants and circumstances of an unsettled, scattered, and hetero-
geneous population. * * * We may readily conclude that they found but
little leisure for the business of legislation and they made their laws as they made
their log cabins, their roads and bridges, as they needed them for their shelter
and protection."
He paid a tribute to the sagacity, legal ability and just views of the "Fathers,"
by saying: "Many of those laws, enacted under circumstances so disadvan-
tageous, during the early history of our legislation, particularly those concern-
ing rights to real estate and the administration of the penal code, stand almost
untouched by the hand of innovation. * * * Amidst the vicious super-
abundance of legislation in more recent times some respect has been paid to the
stern wisdom of the past, and it may be said, without offense, that greater
progress has been made in manufacturing than in perfecting laws for the gov-
ernment of the state. * * * The same habit of passing laws to meet special
cases and to obviate present inconveniences, which obtained through necessity,
has never been wholly shaken off, and one cannot but feel surprise at the great
232 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
number of acts which are forced at every session, at the suggestion of individual
interests or to serve purposes of temporary expediency, without reference to, and
often at the sacrifice of, the public good.
"Laws which when adopted were complete and covered the entire subject
to which they related, have become buried under an accumulated mass of
distinct, amendatory acts by which they have been partially repealed, some of
their provisions superseded, changed, and are subject to new constructions. The
«
same identical matters have been passed upon in laws enacted at different times,
until, comparing one with another, sections have become interwoven, involved
and contradictory, rendering it impossible to ascertain without judicial construc-
tion the real intention of the legislature. Scarcely a single act as originally
passed remained untouched, and to ascertain what was really the law upon any
particular point it became indispensable for the legal enquirer to travel over the
whole labyrinth of past legislation, without even the aid, in most cases, of in-
telligible indexes to the volumes in which the laws were to be found.
"Such a state of things could not but be productive of serious confusion.
Magistrates and others charged with the administration of justice found it diffi-
cult to extract the existing law from the mass of rubbish with which it was encum-
bered, and were often led into erroneous judgments and vexatious delays,
and a round of expensive litigation for their correction. Each succeeding legis-
lature seems to have proceeded to the enactment of the assigned number and
quality of acts upon the topics usually presented for its action, without reference
to what its predecessors had done upon the same subject, until at the present time
the laws by which we are governed lie in broken and unseemly fragments along
the course of our legislative history, no more resembling that uniform, har-
monious, energetic system of statute law which should stand prominent among
the institutions of a civilized state, than do the collections of fugitive shells which
the successive waves of the ocean have cast upon its shore, the most perfect
specimens of architectural symmetry and strength."
The legislature of the state recognized the effort of Mr. Brayman to revise
file laws of the state, and passed a concurrent resolution authorizing him to pro-
ceed and to complete his said revision and compilation of the laws of this state as
speedily as possible, upon the plan adopted, as specified in his communication to
the governor, and it was further resolved that "the said work be done under the
joint direction and supervision of the judiciary committees of the senate and
house of representatives, to whom it shall be submitted as rapidly as the chap-
ters thereof are in readiness."
It was further resolved that said "joint committee, or a sub-committee
which such joint committee may appoint from their own number, shall diligently
examine and compare the same and cause to be made such corrections and altera-
tions as they shall deem necessary to render such laws full, perfect and consistent,
and so to reduce the statute laws of the state of a general nature to a compact
code, conveniently divided into chapters and sections, and arranged in alpha-
betical order ; and it shall be the duty of the reviser to insert appropriately in
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS. 233
the work such alterations and amendments as such committee shall suggest, not
inconsistent with the spirit and meaning of the law."
It was also resolved that "all acts of a general nature passed, or to be passed,
at the present session of the general assembly shall be incorporated in such re-
vision, to be inserted in the several chapters thereof to which such acts or their
several parts belong."
The judiciary committee of the senate was composed of Alfred W. Cavarly, of
Greene ; John Dougherty, of Union ; Jacob Davis, of Hancock ; Ferris Forman,
of Fayette; Edward B. Webb, of White; Willis Allen, of Williamson, and
Charles H. Constable, of Clark counties. The committee of the house comprised
Julius Manning, of Peoria ; Kirby Benedict, of Macon ; Stephen T. Logan, of
Sangamon ; Eldridge S. Janney, of Crawford ; Newton D. Strong, of Madison ;
Richard Yates, of Morgan ; W. P. Boyakin, of Marion ; Peter Lott, of Adams,
and William D. Ewing, of Fayette counties.
The committee appointed a sub-committee of their own number, but their
work did not fully realize the expectations of the legislature. The revision did
make the law "plain and intelligible, * * * and did prune away ex-
crescences, reconcile contradictions, and arrange in convenient order all the
statutes as were in force at the time."
The older lawyers will remember with satisfaction the publication of the
"Braminical Code," which afforded them reliable and convenient access to the
statutes of the state.
The revision of 1845, and the laws passed at subsequent sessions of the legis-
lature, were everywhere consulted. The state published, and distributed among
the public officers who were required to know and enforce the laws, an edition of
ten thousand copies. Judge Norman H. Purple, at one time justice of the
supreme court, published a compilation of the statutes in force in 1856. Two
years later, D. B. Cooke & Company published a compilation of the statutes.
It appeared in the names of Samuel H. Treat, Walter B. Scates, and Robert S.
Blackwell, as the compilers. Judge Scates did the principal part of the work.
In 1868 the first edition of Gross' Statutes appeared. It was a compilation
of the statutes preserving the titles and chapters as in the revision of 1845, with
the amendments made to the several chapters. Judge Purple in 1849 ^^^ P^'^"
lished a volume entitled "The Real Estate Statutes of Illinois." It contained a
compilation of all the laws which related to titles to real estate, and of those by
which titles to land could be afifected.
The twenty-sixth general assembly, by an act approved March 8, 1869, pro-
vided for the appointment of three commissioners, one from each grand division
of the state, to revise and rewrite the general statutes of the state. To this com-
mission Governor Palmer, who regarded such revision as eminently necessary,
appointed Michael Schaefifer, of Marion county; William E. Nelson, of Macon
county; and Harvey B. Hurd, of Evanston, Cook county, commissioners under
the act.
The act under which the commission was raised required the commissioners
to observe, as nearly as might be, the alphabetical order of the Revised Statutes
234 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
of 1845, to make only such changes in, and additions to, the statutes then in
force as might be necessary to render them harmonious and complete, and to
present a printed report of their revision to the succeeding general assembly.
The commissioners entered upon the discharge of their duties immediately after
their appointment, and had made considerable progress in the preparation of their
revision upon the plan thus indicated, intending to have presented it as a whole,
to be enacted into a law in one act, when, on the 13th of May, 1870, the consti-
tutional convention adopted and, on the 2d of July following, the people ratified
the present constitution. The new constitution requires that "no bill shall con-
tain more than one subject, and that shall be expressed in its title."
Whether, under this provision, the legislature could enact in one bill a re-
vision of the entire body of the statutes, differing so essentially from the existing
laws, as they must, to meet the requirements of the new constitution, and con-
taining entire new chapters, was a matter of doubt even if under the circumstances
it were desirable to undertake to do so.
Mr. Nelson, having been elected a member of the house of representatives
of the twenty-seventh general assembly, ceased to act with the commission, deem-
ing his duties as representative inconsistent with those of reviser. The work
therefore devolved upon Messrs. Schaeffer and Hurd, who continued it together
until the adjournment of the twenty-seventh general assembly.
It being considered doubtful whether the law under which the commissioners
were appointed authorized them to proceed further with the work, and the
twenty-seventh general assembly failing to give any expression upon the sub-
ject or to make any provision for the continuance of the commission, Mr.
Schaeffer withdrew therefrom, leaving it wholly to Mr. Hurd, who continued it,
that he might be able to meet either view that might be taken of his duty in the
premises. At the opening of the twenty-eighth general assembly he com-
municated his action to that body and, at the request of the two houses, reported
the chapters prepared by him, — part to the committee of revision of the senate,
and part to the judiciary committee of the house.
Mr. Hurd, continuing his own account of his connection with the revision
of 1874, says : "In consequence of the large amount of other business before the
legislature, it became apparent that an adjourned session would be necessary to
complete the revision, and only a few of the revised bills were passed at that
session. A joint committee, consisting of Messrs. Clark W. Upton, Charles B.
Steele, on the part of the senate, and Messrs. Milton Hay, John M. Rountree,
and Charles Dunham, on the part of the house, was appointed, to which all re-
vision bills that had not been acted upon by either house was referred. They
were authorized to continue in session during recess, and, in conjunction with
the acting commissioner of revision, to prepare all bills that should be found
necessary to complete the revision, and make a printed report to the general
assembly at its adjourned session. * * * Xhe report of the committee was
printed, and presented to the adjourned session, at its opening January 8, 1874,
and the bills thus presented were considered by the respective houses, receiving
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS. 235
such amendments as the legislature saw fit to make, and with a few exceptions
were finally passed."
By an act approved March 30, 1874, Mr. Hurd was appointed to compile,
annotate, edit, and superintend the publication of all the general statutes of the
state in force on the ist day of July, 1874, in a volume to be entitled, "The
Revised Statutes of the State of Illinois, A. D. 1874."
Mr. Hurd and his assistant, Harvey W. Booth, Esq., who acted as clerk of
the joint committee and as assistant to Mr. Hurd, deserve great credit for the care
as well as for the industry and fidelity with which they prosecuted their labor.
Mrs. Myra Bradwell, who was the editor of the Legal News, and whose
death was so great a loss to the profession, in a note prefixed to an edition of the
Revised Statutes published in 1887, says: "The acts passed by the general
assembly in 1887 made so many changes in the general laws of the state as to
make indispensable another revision, that should contain all the laws of a general
nature in force at the time of going to press, November i, 1887." Mrs. Brad-
well secured the services of Mr. Hurd, the official reviser of the edition of 1874,
to prepare the edition of 1887. ^^' Hurd edited the session laws from 1877 to
1885, inclusive, and had large experience as a reviser who was not only familiar
with every section of the written law, but knew its private history and how and
why it. became a part of the revision. Mr. Hurd has continued to revise the
statutes. His method is to state the time of the approval of the act by the
governor, and when it took eflfect, referring to the Legal News edition of the
session laws, and when the act was a part of the Revised Statutes of 1845 ^^ ^«^s
referred to the page and section. Mrs. Bradwell continued the publication of the
session laws until her death, and since that time Hon. James B. Bradwell, still
retaining the services of Mr. Hurd, has published another revision, noting the
changes in the law and giving to the profession the statutory law as it existed at
the time of the several revisions.
A most useful publication is that of "Annotated Statutes of the State of
Illinois, in force May i, 1896," which will be, as I am informed, continued from
year to year, embracing the revision of 1874 and all general statutes enacted since
such revision, so far as in force, with digested notes of decisions, construing or
illustrating their provisions by the courts of Illinois and of the United States,
and historical notes, comparing the present statutes with previous legislation.
The work is edited by Merritt Starr and Russell H. Curtiss, of the Chicago bar,
and published by Callaghan & Company, of Chicago.
In the preface to the work it is said by the editors that the distinctive features
of this book are: "First, it contains the general statutes of the state now in
force. It preserves the arrangement of the statutes adopted in the revision of
1874 and the first edition and supplement of the present book. It contains a
number of United States statutes, including those printed as preliminary matter
in the revision of 1874, so far as now in force, — these have been printed with the
related state statutes. It contains also a number of English statutes expressly
held by our supreme court to be in force in this state and not easily accessible
elsewhere. These are printed among the notes with the chapters to which they
236 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS,
relate. It does not contain purely appropriation acts, local acts, acts of a private
nature, repealed acts, and some general acts which have been declared uncon-
stitutional by the supreme court of the state. Second, this book contains a
digest of the decisions of the courts of Illinois and of the federal courts, constru-
ing or throwing light on the statutes of the state. Third, * * *' This book
contains historical notes upon the sections of the statutes in detail, tracing the
principal provisions through the previous legislation of the state to their present
form. As a part of this historical matter there is added to the notes on each of
the principal chapters a list of former general statutes on the subject-matter of the
chapter, intended to cover the legislation of the state from its formation, in
1818. to the present time."
The statutes of the state of Illinois have been, by the various means to which
we have referred, thoroughly revised, and are made accessible to the legal
profession.
CHAPTER XII.
THE MACOUPIN COUNTY BAR— LAKE COUNTY LAWYERS.
IlK ACOUPIN county was organized under an act of the legislature ap-
lYl proved January 17, 1829. Thomas Carlin was then a state senator from
^ ^ Greene county, and was active in procuring the passage of the act, and
the county-seat of the new county was named in his honor, Carlinville.
Senator Carlin afterward became governor of the state, elected in 1838. It
is not certain whether Palemon H. Winchester or John S. Greathouse were the
first lawyers to settle in Carlinville ; they were both residents of that town in 183 1.
Judge Scott, in his volume, ^'Supreme Court of Illinois, 181 8," refers to him as
"Winchester, named as counsel for appellee in same case (Coleen and Claypole
versus Figgins), was evidently P. H. Winchester, a territorial lawyer (page 285)."
He further says (page 286) : *'It has not been practicable to find any account
of him other than the mention of his name as one of the lawyers of that time."
Palemon H. Winchester, who was referred to by Judge Scott, was a native of
Tennessee and was reputed to have been a nephew of General James W^inchester,
who commanded the American forces at Frenchtown, or Raisin river, and sur-
rendered them to the British commander, Procter. Major Winchester, as he
was called, came into Illinois in 1817, and settled in Edwardsville, where later he
married a daughter of Colonel Ben. Stevenson, who was then one of the leading
citizens of Madison county. Colonel Stevenson w^as so intimate with Governor
Edwards that the late Judge Benjamin Stevenson Edwards was named for him.
In 1822 Winchester was indicted for the murder of one Smith, and Felix
Grundy defended him. Judge Scott speaks of him as ''Solomon" H. Winchester,
and says "The trial created a good deal of local excitement ; defendant belonged
to a highly respectable family and had many influential friends." Winchester
was acquitted, and after Macoupin county was established he removed to
Carlinville, where he died. He was regarded by the people of the county as a
good lawyer, but later he became intemperate and unreasonable. He died many
years ago.
John S. Greathouse also came to Carlinville before 1831. He was born in
Shelby county, Kentucky. It has been impossible to obtain the date of his birth.
He lived and practiced law a short time in Anderson county, Kentucky, at
Lawrenceburg, and then removed to Illinois, and settled at Carlinville, or near
the town, upon a tract of sixty acres of land. He built a good house, and kept
an office in town.
The editor of this work entered the law office of Mr. Greathouse in March,
1839, and found what was then regarded as an excellent "law library," — Breese's
Reports, published in 1831 (the ist of Scammon was not issued until December,
237
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THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS. 239
a part of each winter ; for a time he was a student at Illinois College, at Jackson-
ville, and in 1850 he began a scientific course at McKendree College, at Lebanon,
this state, where he was graduated in 185 1. In order to defray his expenses in
obtaining this higher education he earned the means by his work on the farm,
and by teaching school at intervals.
In the winter of 1852 he became a resident of Carlinville and a student of
law in the office of John M. Palmer. In 1854 he was admitted to the bar, and at
once entered upon the practice of his profession, in which he continued till the
breaking out of the war. In 1862 he raised a regiment, which was organized in
August, at Camp Palmer, at Carhnville, being the One Hundred and Twenty-
second Regiment of the Illinois Infantry Volunteers. He was elected and com-
missioned colonel, was mustered into the service September 4th, and served
till the close of the war. He was wounded in the battle of Parker's Cross Roads,
December 31, 1862. Was appointed brigadier general, by brevet, for gallant and
meritorious service in the field, to take rank from the 13th of March, 1865.
After the close of the war he resumed the practice of law. He early rose to
prominence in his profession, which he has ever since maintained, is an effective
speaker both before court and jury, and is recognized as one of the best political
speakers in the state.
In politics he was a Democrat till the year 1858, when he united with the
Republican party, although the latter was in the minority in the state, and con-
stituting less than one third of the voters of Macoupin county, in which he re-
sided, and in fact it was in the minority in all the counties south of Springfield.
At that time it seemed evident to his mind that the Democratic party was being
used simply as a bulwark of slavery ; that the principles of Jefferson and Jackson
were no longer respected by the party leaders, and that the party organization was
controlled by the advocates of nullification and secession. Therefore he did not
hesitate to abandon the dominant party.
He has been honored with offices of trust and responsibility in his locality
and also in the service of the state, and has declined others that have been ten-
dered him, among which was that of United States district attorney for the
southern district of Illinois. In 1872 he was a presidential elector on the Repub-
lican ticket for the district in which he lives, and in 1876 he was elector for the
state at large. In 1874 he accepted the Republican nomination for congress,
in a district hopelessly Democratic, and was defeated. It may be mentioned in
this connection, as an evidence of his popularity where he is best known, that,
in opposition to the candidacy of William R. Morrison he has run several hun-
dred votes ahead of his ticket in Macoupin county. In 1880 he was the choice
of a very large following in the Republican party, for the office of governor of
the state of Illinois, and in the nominating convention, after a prolonged contest,
was defeated for the nomination, by the thoroughly organized forces of Governor
Cullom, then the chief executive. In 1885 he accepted from Governor Oglesby
the position of railroad and warehouse commissioner, and served as such during
the following four years nearly.
In 1894 General Rinaker was elected representative from the sixteenth
240 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS,
district of Illinois in the fifty-fourth congress as a Republican. General Rinaker
is now in the full practice of his profession.
October i6, 1855, General Rinaker was united in marriage with Miss Clar-
issa Keplinger, of Franklin, Morgan county, Illinois, and they have four sons
living, — Thomas, Samuel, John I., Jr., and Lewis. These sons are all graduates
of Blackburn University. Thomas and Lewis are graduates of the law de-
partment of the Michigan State University ; Samuel attended the law depart-
ment of Yale University, and John I. graduated in the architectural department
of the University of Ilhnois. Thomas is associated with his father in practice;
Samuel is a successful lawyer at Beatrice, Nebraska ; John resides in Springfield,
and Lewis in Chicago.
Samuel Pitman, who came to Carlinville, in 1855, studied law with the
writer and was his partner for many years. The firm of Palmer & Pitman did
an immense business until May, 1861, when the senior member of the firm was
elected to the command of the ninth congressional district regiment, which was
afterward numbered as the Fourteenth Illinois Infantry. Mr. Pitman is a good
lawyer, has remained in Carlinville and is still living. He came from Jersey
county, is a member of a most respectable family and is a bachelor.
Robert B. Shirley was born on a farm in Madison county, on the 9th day of
October, 1850. He studied law with Judge William R. Welch, and was ad-
mitted to the bar in 1876. He is a Democrat, and his first presidential vote was
given for Horace Greeley. He is now a circuit judge, by a second election.
He is an excellent, painstaking judge.
Lewis P. Peebles, who for seventeen years occupied the bench of the county
court of Macoupin county, and is now practicing at the bar of Carlinville, w-as
born July 13, 1836, in Chesterfield, this county, and is the youngest of five broth-
ers, whose parents were Jesse and Margaret (Reeder) Peebles. The paternal
grandfather of our subject was one of the Revolutionary soldiers and serv^ed with
General I'Vancis Clarion in South Carolina. His father was a farmer bv occu-
pation and also a local minister in the Methodist Episcopal church. His mother
was a direct descendant of William Henry Harrison.
Lewis P. Peebles spent his boyhood days on his father's farm, assisting in
the work of plowing, planting and harvesting, and through the winter months
attended the district schools of the neighborhood until attaining his majority.
W'hen twenty-three years of age he left home, and going to Pittsfield, Illinois,
began reading law in the office of Hon. W^illiam A. Grimshaw, a distinguished
lawyer and a leader in political affairs. Thus Mr. Peebles occupied his time until
August, 1862, when feeling that the country needed his services he *'donned the
blue" and went to the front as a member of the One Hundred and Twenty-second
Illinois Infantry. He was chosen captain of Company D, and with that rank
served in the western department from Cairo to Mobile. Much of the time he
was opposing Forrest in western Tennessee. He was mustered out July 15, 1865,
at Mobile, and honorably discharged on the 4th of August, at Springfield.
Mr. Peebles then resumed the study of law with W. R. Welch, and was ad-
mitted to the bar at Carlinville in 1867. Owing to poor health, however, he
THE BENCH AND BAR OF HJJNOIS. 241
did not begin practice until 1870. He served as deputy sheriff for two years,
and then formed a partnership with R. C. Smalley, now deceased. In 1873 he
was elected county judge of Macoupin county and was re-elected for four con-
secutive terms, while he held over for another year owing to a change in the law.
His term on the bench, therefore, covered a period of seventeen consecutive
years, and won him the highest commendation of the bar, while no better
testimonial of the confidence reposed in him by the public can be given than
the fact that he was so often called to the office by popular vote. His rulings were
just, his decisions strictly impartial, and his opinions displayed a comprehensive
knowledge of the law. On his retirement from the bench, he resumed the
private practice of law and was alone in business until 1891, when his son Jesse
was admitted to the bar and became his partner. In January, 1897, the present
law firm of Peebles, Keefe & Peebles was formed, the second member being D. E.
Keefe.
The Judge was married on the i8th of March, 1869, to Miss Sarah E. Odell,
of Carlinville, and they now have two children.
Hon. Charles Augustus Walker, one of the oldest members of the Illinois
bar, in years of actual practice, is a citizen of Carlinville, Macoupin county.
Forty years ago he passed the required examinations and was duly admitted to
the bar, since which time he has been an active worker in his profession. While
the civil war was in progress he was elected to the lower house of the Illinois
legislature, on the Democratic ticket. To that party he has always given his
allegiance, and has been recognized as an influential factor in local state cam-
paigns. When he was a member of the state assembly he took an active part
in opposing the building of the new court-house in this county and was prom-
inently connected with many important measures which received the considera-
tion of our statesmen of the early war period.
Mr. Walker is a native of Tennessee, his birth having occurred in the city
of Nashville, August 21, 1826. He is a son of Abram S. and Rosina (Phelps)
Walker, who were natives of Kentucky and North Carolina, respectively. The
father was a man of prominence in his community, and was respected and ad-
mired by all who knew him. In 1844, at a special election, he ran, as a Whig
candidate, against John M. Palmer, Democrat, for the county judgeship of
Macoupin county.
When he was two years old Charles A. Walker became a resident of Illinois,
and in this state he received his education. Having finished the curriculum of
the common schools he entered ShurtlefT College and was still a student there
at the time that the gold fever of 1849 swept the country. Like thousands of
others, he decided to try his fortunes in the far west, and before the summer of
1849 was ushered in he was starting on the long journey, accompanied by
Charles Palmer (brother of John M.) and John F. Kellar, son of Samuel Kellar,
an old citizen of Macoupin county. Mr. Walker remained on the Pacific
coast about two years, and then returned to Illinois, settling in Carlinville. In
185:2 C. A. Walker and Miss Permelia A. Dick, the daughter of Daniel and
Susan Dick, respected citizens of Sangamon county, Illinois, were married.
16
242 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
In 1856 Mr. Walker took up the study of law under the direction of Messrs.
Gilhert & Rinaker, of Carlinville, and two years later, having been admitted
to the bar, he opened an office and began a lucrative practice, which has ex-
tended over two score years. In 1863 he became associated in partnership with
John M. Woodson, son of Judge D. M. Woodson, of Carrollton. When Mr.
Woo<ison removed to St. Louis, six years later, their business connection was dis-
solved by mutual consent. Early in his professional life Mr. Walker gained an
enviable position as a trial lawyer and in the esteem of his legal brethren, and
by strict application and energy became thoroughly posted in the intricacies
of the law. For years his practice has been extensive and remunerative, and
his standing as a lawyer is above question.
In 1871 Mr. Walker was honored by his fellow citizens, in being elected
to the mayoralty of Carlinville. Seven years later he was elected to the state
senate. During his senatorial career he succeeded in introducing and getting
passed the first compulsory educational bill enacted in this state. From his
early manhood he has taken gfreat interest in the cause of education, and for
a number of years served as president of the Carlinville school board.
William E. P. Anderson was bom May 31, 1850, in Shaw's Point township,
Macoupin county, Illinois. He was the only child of Erasmus S. and Mary E.
(Hogan) Anderson, who died of cholera, in 1851. He was then reared by his
uncle, C. H. C. Anderson, now deceased, and in his early youth assisted in the
labors of the farm, finding little opportunity to attend school. He was after-
ward a student in the city free schools, then spent two years in Blackburn Uni-
versity, and two years in the Illinois Wesleyan University. Thus, with a broad
general knowledge to serve as a foundation for professional learning, he began
to study law in the office and under the direction of John Mayo Palmer, in 1869.
Subsequently he spent one year in a private school in Philadelphia, and in the
spring of 1871 he read law in the office of the late Judge W. R. Welch. He was
admitted to the bar August 31, 1871, and opened an office in Carlinville on the
1st of June. 1872. He has since engaged in general practice and has secured
a large clientage.
In politics he has always been a stanch Democrat and has been an active
worker in the party since 1872. In 1874 he was elected city attorney of Car-
linville, and discharged his duties with such ability that he was re-elected in
1875. In the spring of 1877 ^^ '^vas elected assistant supervisor of Carlin\dUe
township, and was serving in that capacity when the court-house debt was funded.
In 1887 lie was appointed master in chancery for Macoupin county, by Judge
\\'. R. Welch, and has since held that office, by appointment, every two years.
He also attends to the duties of a large general practice and occupies a leading
place at the Macoupin county bar. In the fall of 1877 ^^ became a member
of the firm of Anderson & Bell, which connection was continued until April,
1896, since which time Mr. Anderson has been alone in business. He served
for ten years as a member of the board of education, and for one year was its
president.
On the 23d of October, 1873, Mr. Anderson was united in marriage, in
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS, 243
Bloomington, Illinois, to Miss Nellie D. Hamilton, of that city, and they now
have three sons, William H., aged twenty-four years, a graduate of Ann Arbor
and now associated with his father in the practice of law ; Crittenden H. C, twenty
years of age; and Walter Stratten, aged seventeen.
Alexander H. Bell, of Carlinville, w^as born on the 29th of October, 1853,
in Troy, Madison county, Illinois, and is the eldest of the three children of
Thomas H. and Julia A. Bell, the former a wagon-maker by trade. One of
their children died in infancy, and the sister is now the wife of T. K. Gore.
Alexander H. Bell remained in the town of his nativity until nine years of age,
and then accompanied his parents to Jerseyville, Illinois, where he remained
five years. From that time until the fall of 1870 he was again a resident of
Troy, and then came to Carlinville, in order to enter Blackburn University, where
he pursued his education for three years. In the winter of 1873-4 he engaged
in teaching school in Greene county, after which he returned to Blackburn
University, where he was graduated in June, 1874. On the ist of September
of that year he went to Medora, Macoupin county, to take charge of the schools
of that place, where he remained as principal nine months.
Mr. Bell began reading law in the office of C. A. Walker, of Carlinville,
was admitted to the bar in June, 1877, and at once began practice, being asso-
ciated for three months with his former preceptor. He then formed a partner-
ship w^th W. E. R. Anderson, which connection was continued for over eighteen
years. Since April, 1896, he has been in partnership with F. W. Burton. He
is one of the best known and most popular and able lawyers of this section of the
state. He served as city attorney from the spring of 1877 until the spring of
1879, was state's attorney from 1880 until 1884, was mayor of Carlinville from
1893 until 1895, and has been president of the board of education. He was
also delegate to the Democratic national convention, in Chicago, in 1896, and the
same year was chairman of the state convention, which met in Peoria.
On the 20th of December, 1877, Mr. Bell was united in marriage to Miss
Flora G. Mounts, of Carlinville, and they have two children. His life has been
one of great activity and industry, and through industry and merit he has at-
tained his prominent position in professional and political circles.
Frank W. Burton, of Carlinville, was born on the 8th of October, 1857,
in Bunker Hill, Macoupin county, Illinois, and is a son of Henry W. and
Cornelia (Rider) Burton, whose family numbered but two children, the sister
of our subject being the wife of Judge Shirley. The father served as circuit
clerk of Macoupin county from 1868 until 1876, and was a man of considerable
prominence in the community.
Frank W. Burton spent his early boyhood days in Bunker Hill, and in 1869
removed to Carlinville and entered Blackburn University, where he pursued
a seven-years course of study and was graduated in 1876. He then began
reading law, under the direction of Hon. C. A. Walker, and was admitted to the
bar in February, 1879. The following summer he began practice in Carlin-
ville, where he has since made his home. He was alone in business for a number
of years, and therefore his advancement cannot be attributed to the aid of a
244 THE BENCH AND BAR OF U^LINOIS,
partner long and successfully established in business ; but, on the contrary, it
is the outcome of his earnest application and thorough knowledge. It was
not until April, 1896, that he formed a partnership, at which time he became
associated with A. H. Bell, and together they have since engaged in general
practice.
Since 1880 Mr. Burton has been an active factor in politics in Macoupin
county. In that year, and again in 1882, he was secretary of the county com-
mittee of the Democratic party, and in 1890, 1892, 1896 and 1898 was its chair-
man. In 1 88 1 he served as city attorney of Carlinville, and from 1884 until
1892 was state's attorney of Macoupin county. He is now a trustee of Black-
burn University, and is deeply interested in everything pertaining to the edu-
cational, moral, social and material advancement of the community. He was
married in 1880 to Miss Anna Robertson, daughter of Dr. W. A. Robertson,
of Carlinville, and they now have two children, Cornelia and Robert.
Edward C. Knotts, senior member of the law firm of Knotts & Terry, of
Girard, Macoupin county, was born in Sangamon county, Illinois, on the 24th
day of March, 1863, on a farm ten miles south of Springfield. His parents were
Albion and Mary J. (Peddicord) Knotts, the former a native of Virginia, the
latter of Kentucky. The father was one of the pioneers of Sangamon county,
and there made his home until his death, in 1884.
In the district school near his home the subject of this sketch began his
education. By working as a farm hand during the summer seasons for several
years he accumulated a few hundred dollars to be used in obtaining a collegiate
education. At eighteen he entered Blackburn University, and later went to
Knox College, in which institution he graduated in 1884, having completed, by
rigid application and extraordinary industry, a six-years course of study in
four years. Indeed, he really completed the course in less than four years, for
he was so advanced and thorough in his studies that he was granted a diploma
by the faculty of Knox College at the end of the winter term of his senior year, —
three months before the fixed time for graduation, — which act on the part of the
faculty was unprecedented in the history of the college.
During the summer and fall of 1884 Mr. Knotts edited the Galva Standard,
which supported General B. F. Butler for the presidency in the campaign of that
year, and then did reportorial work for several of the leading newspapers of the
south until the autumn of 1885, when he returned to Illinois and taught a dis-
trict school in Macoupin county during the following winter and spring months.
In the fall of 1886 he accepted the position of principal of the public school at
Shipman, Illinois, where he taught during the two ensuing school years.
While teaching school Mr. Knotts took up the study of the law, under the
direction and supervision of the well known law firm of Anderson & Bell, of
Carlinville, Illinois, and in the spring of 1888 opened a law office at Girard,
Illinois, in the name of and in partnership with Hon. A. H. Bell, and in the year
1889 he was admitted to the bar. After his admission to the bar Mr. Knotts
succeeded to the business he had theretofore assisted in establishing, and con-
tinued the same alone until 1894, when he formed a partnership with Charles C.
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS, 245
Terry, under the firm name of Knotts & Terry, which firm now occupies a prom-
inent position at the bar of Macoupin and adjoining counties. The junior part-
ner had previously been a student in the office with Mr. Knotts. so that their
business relations have extended over a considerable period.
In 1892 Mr. Knotts was elected to the office of state's attorney for Macoupin
county, and during the four years he held such office he distinguished himself
as a fearless, vigorous and successful prosecutor. He was also mayor of Girard
from 1893 to 1895, in which position he displayed strong executive talents and
succeeded in establishing many wholesome r;fforms in the municipal govern-
ment.
In 1893 Mr. Knotts was united in marriage with Miss Elizabeth A.
Routzahn, of Girard, in which little city they reside and are widely and favorably
known.
LAKE COUNTY LAWYERS.
CONTRIBUTED BY HON. HENRY W. BLODGETT.
E. Winchester Hoyt located in Waukegan in the fall of 1844. He was
born in Batavia, New York, in 181 8, was educated at Lima Academy, New York,
and studied law with his brother, James G. Hoyt, who was afterward one of the
judges of the New York court of appeals. Mr. Hoyt was a studious, hard-work-
ing lawyer and gave promise of achieving abundant success in his profession,
but he died in February, 1850.
Isaac Hopkinson was born in Orange county, Vermont, in 1819, studied
law and was admitted to the bar in his native state and settled in Waukegan
in 1843. He had a fair measure of success in his profession, but died in 1850.
Henry W. Blodgett* is one of the illustrious characters of the history of the
bar of Illinois. Some other may have been more conspicuous for certain
talents which go to make the popular lawyer, but in patient industry, sound
judgment, clear conception of the spirit and scope of jurisprudence and in that
intuitive perception of right which is almost an inspiration, Judge Blodgett has
had no superior. He began practice during the formative period of the sub-
stantial jurisprudence of the west. Throughout the period while the great out-
lines of this jurisprudence were being estabHshed upon an enduring basis, one
may trace the impress of his mind upon every important advance step, and he
has been one of its important factors from that time to the present.
Judge Blodgett is a native of Massachusetts, and was bom at Amherst,
July 21, 1 82 1. His parents, Israel Porter and Avis (Dodge) Blodgett, were
of old and good New England stock. His father was a blacksmith, as sturdy of
character as of arm, and his mother was a woman of exceptional talent and educa-
tional attainments; and both were sincerely and zealously devoted to the cor-
* This review of the life of Judge Blodgett is supplied by the publishers of this work,
and is not an integral portion of his own contribution. It is most consistently incorporated
in this connection.
246 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS,
rect development and training of their children. When the future jurist was
about ten years old his family removed to Illinois. Under his mother's instruc-
tion he was fitted to enter the Amherst Academy, and at seventeen he went back
to Massachusetts and became a student in that institution. He made the most of
his opportunities there for a year and then came back to Illinois and engaged
in teaching school and in land surveying, and was thus employed for several
years.
In 1842, at the age of twenty-one, Judge Blodgett began the study of law
in the office of J. Y. Scammon and Norman B. Judd, of Chicago, and after three
years' preparation was admitted to the bar, in 1845. Immediately thereafter
he entered upon the practice of his profession at Waukegan, then known as
Little Fort, and had the encouraging and discouraging experiences common
to young lawyers. He was a hard worker, however, and soon demonstrated
that his talent and learning were more than equal to his pretensions, and his
industry and appreciation brought him not only success as a lawyer, but the
acquaintance and confidence of leading citizens. In 1852 he was elected to the
general assembly of Illinois, and was distinguished as being the first avowed anti-
slavery man who ever occupied a seat in that body. In 1844, at twenty-three
years of age, he had voted the anti-slavery ticket, and he was an outspoken
abolitionist so long as there was work to be done for human freedom, and has
been an unswerving Republican since the organization of that party. In 1858
he was elected to the state senate. As a legislator he was one of the ablest and
most useful in Illinois, and was largely instrumental in shaping the legislation
of the state and in promoting the development of its internal resources by public
improvements and otherwise.
In 1851 he secured a special charter for a railroad along the lake shore
from Chicago to Milwaukee, and was one of the active promoters of that enter-
prise, being its attorney from the organization of the company and until it was
absorbed into the Northwestern system, and he was for many years the prin-
cipal attorney of the Chicago & Northwestern Railway Company. He also,
in association with F. H. Winston, acted as local attorney for the Pittsburg.
Fort Wayne & Chicago, the Michigan Southern, and the Rock Island & Chicago
Railroad Companies. He has, perhaps, more knowledge in regard to these
roads than any other one man. As a solicitor he was regarded as the equal of
anyone in the northwest, and he became noted as one of the best railroad lawyers
in the country.
Nature seems to have designed Mr. Blodgett for a judge; his mind is one
of the distinctively judicial order. He has been so important and beneficent
a factor in formulating the laws of the state that his appointment by President
Grant, in 1870, to administer them as judge of the United States district court
for the northern district of Illinois met with the approval of the bench, bar and
general public of Chicago and the state at large, and, indeed, of the entire north-
west. His varied legal learning and wide experience in the courts and in great
business affairs, the patient care with which he ascertained all the facts bearing
upon every case which came before him, gave his decisions a solidity and ex-
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS. 247
haustiveness which usually made them final. They were impartial, simple m
style, exact in diction, always lucid and forcible and never sensational, florid or
highly ornate.
To mention only a few of the eminent lawyers who pleaded their cases be-
fore Judge Blodgett is sufficient to carry the mind back to days and events
that have now become historical, and to a generation that has almost passed
away. Roscoe Conkling came here from New York to argue several important
cases; Robert G. Ingersoll was many times an advocate in Judge Blodgett's
court, both before and after his removal to New York ; in a long list of important
controversies Chief Justice Fuller was a familiar figure in the same forum ; Lyman
Trumbull and James R. Doolittle were frequent pleaders before him; Matt H.
Carpenter, from Wisconsin, and many others from other states, who were prom-
inent actors in the history of' the country during and since the civil war, in con-
gress and in the field, have appeared as advocates and conducted trials before
Judge Blodgett. Every Chicago lawyer of high standing and the leading law-
yers from the interior of the state practiced in his court. It would be surprising
if in such a long experience on the bench there were not some who, whether as
suitors or advocates before him, were dissatisfied with his rulings ; but the gen-
eral sentiment of the bar toward him is that of unqualified respect as an upright*
painstaking and conscientious judge.
Considering the variety of the issues tried before him — for he sat as a crim-
inal, as well as a common-law, admiralty and chancery judge, and was for several
years a judge in bankruptcy — Judge Blodgett was long one of the hardest work-
ing jurists in America. After the panic of 1873 an enormous amount of business
was thrown into the federal court of Chicago, in consequence of the embarrass-
ment of railroads and other corporations that were obliged to take advantage
of the existing bankruptcy law, and with all these cases Judge Blodgett had to
deal in his official capacity. The prosecution of the distillers and government
officers charged with conspiracy to defraud the revenue, in 1876, still further
increased the pressure of the work that was* imposed on him during the first
decade of his services. In the disposition of these litigations, many of which were
protracted and voluminous and keenly contested by the ablest lawyers of the
day, Judge Blodgett won the admiration as well as the respect of the bar, all
members of which were struck by the laborious industry with which he strove to
master every detail of every case, the acuteness and penetration with which
he grasped their essential points, the aptness of his logic in applying the law,
and the uniform firmness of his decisions. He has a liking for mechanics and
a faculty for understanding mechanical inventions which, had he not become a
lawyer, would probably have caused him to become an inventor, and he early
familiarized himself with the law of patents, copyrights and trademarks. So
satisfactory was his disposition of numerous patent cases that patent lawyers
who practiced in his court expressed their regret at his approaching retirement,
and urged upon the president and senate of the United States the desirableness
of appointing as his successor a judge, well informed as to patent laws.
On the organization of the United States circuit court of appeals for the
248 rilE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
seventh circuit, in June, 1891, Judge Blodgeft was designated by Justice Har-
lan and Justice Gresham to act as the third judge in that court. Following his
appointment, in 1892, as one of the counsel for the United States before the
Behring Sea tribunal of arbitration, with Hon. Edward J. Phelps of Vermont,
ex-minister to Great Britain, as a colleague, he resigned his judicial office, and
was succeeded by Judge Peter S. Grosscup. The ability with which he per-
formed the duties of that appointment, which terminated with the announce-
ment of the decision at Paris, August 15, 1893, was apparent from the beginning
to the end of the settlement of that historic controversy relative to the seal fish-
eries between the United States and Great Britain.
An estimate of Judge Blodgett's standing in professional circles and in
private life is probably best given in the words of a prominent lawyer who has
known him long and well, and who says :
I have tried important cases before eminent judges in New York, Massachusetts,
New Hampshire, Ohio, Indiana. Michigan, Illinois. Wisconsin, Iowa, Kentucky, Missouri,
Tennessee, Colorado, Utah and California, and never yet have appeared before one whom
I consider the superior of Judge Blodgett. His greatness and usefulness as a judge con-
sisted in his ability to do a vast amount of business and do it well. He has an acute and
analytical mrnd, a marvelous memory, a wonderful knowledge and judgment of men and
business affairs, a clear and quick insight, which enables him to look behind the scenes
and comprehend the motives which influence and control men in the affairs of life. His
knowledge of the law in all its branches is profound. He is equally at home in common,
chancery, patent, admiralty, criminal, corporation and real-estate law, and few judges ever
sat upon the bench whose decisions in cases governed by the constitution as statute have
commanded more unusual approval or been more uniformly sustained.
Although not physically strong, his powers of endurance were amazing. From 1873
imtil 1883 an immense amount of judicial labor was forced upon the district and circuit
judges of the northern district of Illinois. During those years Judge Drummond*s eyes
were bad and he was in poor health generally, and most of the real work devolved upon
Judge Blodgett. The bankrupt law of 1867 was then in full force and caused business
enough for any ordinary judge. The failure of the Cook County, and the Second, Third
and Fourth National Banks caused a large amount of important litigation which required
decisions upon the then unconstrued and unsettled provisions of the banking law. The
prosecutions under the revenue law were numerous, and many of the questions arising in
them were difficult and often embarrassing. The common-law, chancery, admiralty and
criminal dockets were crowded. During those years almost the entire business of the
federal courts here was performed by Judge Blodgett. The bankrupt and national bank
business was done generally between nine and ten o'clock in the morning. The
chancery cases were generally submitted on printed and short oral arguments, and con-
sidered nights and Sundays. The common-law and criminal dockets were cleared at almost
every time.
I have thought and have heard eminent practitioners of the Chicago bar, including
Leonard Swett and William C. Goudy, say that in their opinion no other man could have
been found who could, in those years, have done the amount of work that Henry W.
Blodgett did and have done it so well. Between three and four hundred of his decisions,
rendered between 1869 and 1892. are reported in ten federal reports. I think it is safe to
say that a smaller proportion of his judgments were reversed than those of any other judge
in the nation. In the trial of a case nothing escaped his attention, and often by a single
question to a witness would throw a flood of light upon the point being investigated. His
charges to the jury were models of clearness and brevity. His aim was always to secure
right and justice, and his great mind, large heart and unflinching courage enabled him so
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS. 249
to do. Had he occupied the bench during the formative period of our jurisprudence, he
would have ranked with Mansfield and Marshall.
Judge Blodgett was married in 1850 to Miss Althea Crocker, of Hamilton,
New York, and has had five children, three of whom are living. In his private
life he is a model of benevolence and generosity, giving largely to charitable pur-
poses, and many have grateful knowledge of his bounty. His deportment is
characterized by courtesy and impartiality. He is a tireless reader, an inde-
fatigable student, and has great power of concentration and a memory of such
remarkable quality that he is able, wnth a moment's thought, to give exact
details of any trial or case in which he participated, either as counsel or judge,
at any time during his active career. In his religious views he is orthodox, but
liberal. His deeds are indelibly written in the history of his time, so plainly
that all may read. He is an old representative Chicagoan, and his public and
personal history is inseparably connected with the jurisprudence of Illinois.
Judge Blodgett still maintains his home in Waukegan.
Elisha P. Ferry was born in Monroe, Michigan, in 1822, studied law with
an elder brother, at Fort Wayne, Indiana, and in 1846 removed to Waukegan,
where he enjoyed a large and lucrative practice. He was a member of the
state constitutional convention of 1862, and served as a member of Governor
Yates' staff, with the rank of colonel, during the governor's term. In the spring
of 1869 he was appointed governor of Washington territory, and held that posi-
tion for twelve years. On the admission of Washington territory as a state he
was elected the first governor, and after serving one term very acceptably he
declined re-election, on account of his precarious health, and soon afterward
died,
William S. Searles was born in Michigan, in 1821, and studied law at Ann
Arbor. He located in Waukegan in 1848. He was an industrious and energetic
lawyer, had a large and profitable practice, achieved a good standing in his pro-
fession, and died in 1884.
Clark W. Upton was born in Barrie, Vermont, in 1823, studied law in Mont-
pelier, that state, and began the practice of his profession in Barrie, where he
remained until the spring of 1850, when he removed to Waukegan. In 1874
he was elected to the state senate, where he served one term, and was a member
of the commission appointed to revise the statutes of the state. In 1877 ^^
was elected one of the circuit judges of the twelfth circuit of this state, and was
three times re-elected, but declined a further re-election. He was one of the
judgfes of the appellate court for the northern district of Illinois for four years,
where he made an enviable record as a jurist.
Elijah M. Haines was bom in Herkimer county. New York, in 1822. When
he was about fourteen years old his family removed to Illinois, and located on a
farm in the central part of Lake county, where he grew to manhood. He
studied law in his leisure moments from farm work, and in 1852 was admitted
to the bar and began practice in Waukegan. He was a tireless worker and, in
addition to the labor incidental to his law cases, wrote and published books on
250 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS. '
Township Organization, a Manual of Probate Law, and a treatise on the Powers
and Jurisdiction of Justices of the Peace, and on The American Indian. In 1862
he was elected to the state house of representatives, to which place he was after-
ward three times re-elected, and was twice speaker of the house. He died in
1887.
Joseph L. Williams was bom in Orleans county, New York, in 1816, studied
law with Hon. Noah Davis of that county, and was admitted to the bar in 1846.
After practicing a few years in his native state, he removed to Waukegan, in the
spring of 1851, where he practiced successfully until about 1876, when he re-
moved to Colorado Springs, Colorado, where he practiced his profession until
his death, in the fall of 1896.
John L. Turner was born in Mahoning county, Ohio, studied law in Chau-
tauqua county, New York, and in 1848 located for the practice of his profession
in Waukegan. In 1858 he was elected county judge, and held the office until
his death, in January, 1875. He was a faithful, conscientious lawyer and judge.
Isaac L. Clarke was born in W^illiamstown, Vermont, on the 29th day of
February, 1824. He graduated at Dartmouth College in 1848, and then re-
moved to Waukegan, where he was principal of the academy for about three
years, during which time he studied law, and was admitted to the bar. He
was successful in his practice until he entered the army, in the fall of 1862,
as lieutenant colonel of the Ninety-sixth Illinois Regiment, where he did good
service until he was killed, in the battle of Chickamauga, in September, 1863.
Francis E. Clarke was born in Williamstown, Vermont, March 4, 1829. He
graduate'd in Dartmouth College in 1851, and directly after his graduation came
to Waukegan, where he was principal of the academy a couple of years, during
which time he studied law, and in 1854 was admitted to the bar and became a
partner with his brother, I. L. Clarke, in the practice of his profession. In 1875
he was elected county judge, to succeed Judge Turner, and held the office until
1894. He is still living, and in the enjoyment of a profitable practice in his
profession.
James S. Frazer was born in northern Indiana, where he received his
education, studied law and was admitted to the bar. In 1856 he came to Wau-
kegan, where he formed a copartnership with Isaac L. and F. E. Clarke, and
enjoyed a profitable practice until 1862, when he returned to Indiana and located
at Warsaw. He was soon afterward elected one of the judges of the supreme
court of that state, where he established a fine reputation as a jurist. After
the expiration of his term as judge he resumed the practice of his profession,
and in 1876 he was appointed by President Grant as a member of the com-
mission for the distribution of the proceeds of the Alabama claims award, -where
he did able service. He died, much loved and respected, about ten years ago.
There are several members of the present bar who are making splendid
records.
' ' 'i T"
CHAPTER XIII.
LAWYERS IN CHICAGO.
WILLIAM A. WOODS.— Absolute capability often (m>-
stances, but is never brought into the clear lip-In of c • ■ .
practical life. Hope is of the valley, wliiir ^i'^' -\ '. ••
mountain top; so that personal advancement c •■■ - t- \ •
who hopes alone, but to the one ^vh()se lu'i»r
of action. Thus is determined the full mea.sur<' •■
who has had the prescience and power to dir- '
'/^finite ends, and well may we hold in hitjh rc^:«r«l t ..
«ndeavor and personal accomplishment; for cause iiv'. <
:hcir functions in full force. A\'hile huiulreds in or.i l'* • • . •
from ])overty to affluence, there are comparatively ft v -
"f admiration and honor by reason of the splcnditl iii.rr ••
which have gained them precedence in the world of mental a
rtot force is held to be the dominating intlucn^H^ in the atTaii> •' ' • •.
t uitnry. and the greatest honor is due liim who has made ^ .• ■■
umities for mental development and has attaint d thereby the :.\ .• '»..t.u-- in
*!ie realm of thought and intellectual potentiality Such is thr i.i > :'•.[! Iml-c
U. oods has accomplished, and to-day he holds di^iiu.'Mve preceden* * .tii..T.i^ Uw
'i'»!e jurists and legists of the nation. He is now the iiunnnbenl as nr.-iiit jn :;.;c
• : the United States for the seventh di>trict, — to \\ir«h important cin.i rr-]>oji-
^!i)lc office he was appointed by President Ilarristm. .>n the 17th <n Aiar^'h.
Si;2. He is widely known in law circles throughoiu Mu- \ u'um, and liie d:>-
• ngiiibhed appointment mentioned came to him as futiiit: ' ro^niition of talents
•iiat have been developed through laborious and untiring t .^ .t
A native of the state of Tennessee, William Allen \\<;. ..!n vxas born near
i nrniing"ton, ^Marshall county, on the 16th of May, nS^j, bru!; the last born,
\r.d the only son of Allen Xewton Wocjds and Martha lihukburn (^Ewing)
\ uckIs. When he was but a month old his father, who was pursuing a theo-
.'ical course, died, and the subject of this review became an inmate of the
. nie of his maternal grandfather, William D. Ewing, who was a pro!?perous
•j.tr. but who retained, contrary to the usual custom of the place and period,
' . two slaves, — an aged couple who had been long in the family. The paternal
• -p.jfatlier, whose holding of slaves was larger, was a man of prominence and
'■:<-f!re in that section of Tennessee. When the Judge was seven years of
his mother married Captain John J. Miller, who, being opposed to slavery.
. ,\ til. in 1847, '^^'ith his family to Iowa, where he died soon afterward, i'luis
. . . liiat William A. Woods passed his days upon the farm in the Hav.K« ye
251
,n/i /r I./ /)
I
CHAPTER Xlll.
LAWYERS IN CHICAGO.
WILLIAM A. WOODS. — ^Absolute capability often exists in specific in-
stances, but is never brought into the clear light of the utilitarian and
practical life. Hope is of the valley, while effort stands upon the
mountain top; so that personal advancement comes not to the one
who hopes alone, but to the one whose hope and faith are those
of action. Thus is determined the full measure of success to one
who has had the prescience and power to direct his efforts toward
definite ends, and well may we hold in high regard the results of individual
endeavor and personal accomplishment; for cause and effect here maintain
their functions in full force. While hundreds in our great republic have risen
from poverty to affluence, there are comparatively few who have won tributes
of admiration and honor by reason of the splendid intellectual achievements
which have gained them precedence in the world of mental activity. Mind and
not force is held to be the dominating influence in the affairs of this enlightened
century, and the greatest honor is due him who has made for himself oppor-
tunities for mental development and has attained thereby the higher planes in
the realm of thought and intellectual potentiality. Such is the task that Judge
\\'oods has accomplished, and to-day he holds distinctive precedence among the
able jurists and legists of the nation. He is now the incumbent as circuit judge
of the United States for the seventh district, — to which important and respon-
sible office he was appointed by President Harrison, on the 17th of March,
1892. He is widely known in law circles throughout the Union, and the dis-
tinguished appointment mentioned came to him as fitting recognition of talents
that have been developed through laborious and untiring effort.
A native of the state of Tennessee, William Allen Woods was born near
Farming^on, Marshall county, on the i6th of May, 1837, being the last born,
and the only son of Allen Newton Woods and Martha Blackburn (Ewing)
Woods. When he was but a month old his father, who was pursuing a theo-
logical course, died, and the subject of this review became an inmate of the
home of his maternal grandfather, William D. Ewing, who was a prosperous
farmer, but who retained, contrary to the usual custom of the place and period,
only two slaves, — an aged couple who had been long in the family. The paternal
grandfather, whose holding of slaves was larger, was a man* of prominence and
influence in that section of Tennessee. When the Judge was seven years of
age his mother married Captain John J. Miller, who, being opposed to slavery,
removed, in 1847, with his family to Iowa, where he died soon afterward. Thus
it was that William A. Woods passed his days upon the farm in the Hawkeye
2SI
252 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
state until he had attained the age of fourteen years, incidentally profiting by
such limited educational advantages as the locality afforded. He aften^ard
found employment in a saw mill and in the village store. His alert mentality
and intuitive appreciation quickened his ambition for securing wider educational
facilities. By carrying a hod for the plasterers he worked out a subscription
he had made to the building of an academy at Troy, Iowa, and in that institution
he completed his preparation for college, serving meanwhile as assistant in-
structor. He was an earnest student of not only the text books, but also of
the problems that were calling forth the attention of the public, and thus he
was led to take an advanced stand upon the temperance question and to be-
come a prominent member of the Order of Good Templars. He was made
chief of his home lodge and an officer in the grand lodge of the state, which he
assisted in organizing when less than eighteen years of age.
In 1855 the embryonic judge realized the long cherished desire of enter-
ing upon a college course, and he matriculated in Wabash College, at Crawfords-
ville, Indiana, where he pursued the classical course to its completion, grad-
uating as a member of the class of 1859. He was a thorough, systematic and
earnest student, displaying a special aptitude in mathematics, and for a year
after his graduation he remained in his alma mater as an instructor in that
particular branch of learning. It was within his collegiate experience that
Judge Woods gave distinctive evidence, in another direction, of the breadth of
his nature and of the humanitarian standpoint from which he viewed the prob-
lems which were then agitating the public mind. Although his grandsires
were both slaveholders, his father, as well as his stepfather, had been opposed
to the institution, and even in his immature years he became a practical abo-
litionist. A slave girl given to his mother by her father had thereby become
the property of his father, who provided in his will that she should have her
freedom upon attaining the age of twenty-one. The girl married, and before
she was entitled to freedom gave birth to a boy, who was left as a slave in Ten-
nessee, the mother accompanying the family to Iowa, in 1847. W'hen Judge
Woods was in the midst of his college course, and when his finances were at
such low ebb as to compel him to borrow money, he was urged to consent to
the sale of the slave boy, who at that time would have commanded a good
price: but he declined to profit in that way, and insisted that the boy should
be brought north and given his freedom, which was done.
Upon leaving college Judge Woods accepted a position as a teacher at
Marion, Indiana, where he remained until the school was disbanded, owing to
the excitement which followed the battle of Bull Run. Thoroughly loyal to the
cause of the Union, he enlisted in a company which was organizing-, but by
reason of an injury to his foot he was not able to go into the service. Mean-
while, in view of his chosen vocation in life, he had pursued the study of law
with diligence and marked proficiency. His reading had always been extensive
and of wide range, but as a life work he had determined to enter the legal pro-
fession, and from the time of his graduation had given close attention to technical
study along that line. He secured admission to the bar in December, 1861,
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS. , 253
at Marion, and on the 17th of March, 1862, entered upon the practice of his
profession in Goshen, Indiana, — a state which he has honored and dignified
by his labors as a lawyer and jurist, as well as a man among men. The dreary
novitiate which awaited him was short; almost from the beginning he was
successful, and as he demonstrated his ability to handle complex and im-
portant litigations his clientage grew rapidly in volume and in representative
character.
In 1867 Judge Woods was elected a member of the general assembly qf
Indiana, where he served most efficiently on the judiciary committee, and in-
troduced a number of bills, most of which found their way to a place on the
statute books of the state. In 1873 he was elected judge of the circuit court
for the thirty-fourth circuit of Indiana, composed of the counties of Elkhart
and Lagrange, and was re-elected in 1878, without opposition, discharging
the judicial duties with such ability as to gain a state reputation and to secure
from the Republican convention of 1880 a nomination for the office of judge
of the supreme court, to which he was elected. An article upon the supreme
judges of Indiana, prepared by W. W. Thornton, and published in 1892, contains
the following discriminating estimate : "By his experience on the nisi prius
bench Judge Woods came to the highest tribunal well fitted for its exacting
duties. He was and now is a man of splendid physique. He is a man of orig-
inality, depending less than the ordinary judge upon precedents and the opin-
ions of others. He is fearless, and does not hesitate to express his views when
duty requires him to do so. Somewhat combative in his nature, but not offen-
sively so, he is ever ready to meet an opponent. His independence of char-
acter and thought has occasionally led him into error, though not seriously
so. in his judicial opinions. The language of his opinions is forcible, and they
are totally destitute of verbiage. He goes directly to the core of a case, decides
it in a few paragraphs, reasoning out the controverted question, and citing few
authorities. Although he was but little over two years on the supreme-court
bench, he ranks as one of the strongest men who ever sat upon it."
Judge Woods continued as a member of the highest judicial tribunal of
Indiana from January, 1881, until May, 1883, when he was appointed by Presi-
dent Arthur to the position of United States district judge for the district of
Indiana, succeeding the late Judge Walter Q. Gresham, who had been ap-
pointed postmaster-general. For almost nine years Judge Woods held this
preferment, and within that time tried more than the usual number of political
cases. The most important was the trial and conviction of parties indicted
for conspiring to obtain unlawful possession of tally sheets containing a record
of the vote in the city of Indianapolis at the congressional election of 1886.
Judge Woods' construction of the statute applicable to the case was strenuously
contested, but was sustained by the decision of the supreme court; In re Coy,
127 United States, 731. The case which attracted most attention, however,
was the proceeding against Colonel Dudley, charged with writing a letter from
New York, within the campaign of 1888, advising bribery at the polls. The
election was the most exciting ever held in the state, and charges of corrup-
254 * THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
tion were freely made by both parties. A "confidentiar* letter, purporting to
have been written by the chairman of a Democratic county committee to a sub-
ordinate, had fallen into the hands of the enemy. It advised that voters who
could be bought were simply floats and should be looked after closely, that
no one mijifht escape. Another letter, over the alleged signature of Colonel
Dudley, written on a sheet bearing the imprint of the Republican national com-
mittee, and addressed to an unknown person in Indiana, was published by the
Democratic state committee. It gave full and explicit directions concerning
the election, and contained the offensive clause: ^'Divide the floaters into
blocks of five, and put a trusted man, with the necessary funds, in charge oi
these five, and make him responsible that none get away and that all vote our
ticket.'' In his charge to the federal grand jury, which met November 14, 1888,
Judge Woods called attention to section 551 1 of the United States revised
statutes, which makes bribery an oflfense, and provides that any person who
"aids, counsels, procures or advises any such voter, person or officer, to do
any act hereby made a crime, * * * shall be punished by a fine of not
more than five hundred dollars, or by imprisonment not more than three years,
or both, and shall pay the costs of the prosecution." A consideration of this
statute by Judge Woods and ex-Senator McDonald having developed a differ-
ence of opinion between them as to its proper construction, Judge Woods pur-
posely omitted any construction of the section, and gave his charge to the
jury substantially in the language of the statute, so as to leave the district at-
torney free to conduct the investigation before the grand jury in his own way.
A month later, in response to a request for more explicit instructions, he quoted
section 5511 of the statutes and added this construction: **But in any case,
besides the mere fact of the advice or counsel, it must be shown that the crime
contemplated was committed, or an attempt made to commit it." This precipi-
tated a storm of partisan criticism. It was charged by the Democratic press,
and by the senior member from Indiana upon the floor of the United States
senate, that this construction was inconsistent with the first charge, and that
the judge had been induced to shield the guilty by making indictment impossible
unckr the construction of the law. The criticism having been repeated in
words of bitter denunciation in the Democratic state platform of 1890, the
judge published an elaborate statement of facts, with correspondence and data,
which not only exonerated him from any possible suspicion of wrong-doing
and inconsistency, but also showed his construction of the law to be correct.
It also appears that his ruling was in exact accordance w^ith an early decision
of the supreme court, in the case of the United States versus Mills, 7 Peters,
137, which seems to have been overlooked until after public discussion of the
subject had ceased. The vindication was complete.
Judge Woods continued upon the United States district bench until March
17, 1892, when, upon the nomination of President Harrison, he was confirmed
and commissioned circuit judge of the United States, for the seventh district,
and as such he presides in the circuit court of appeals, which sils in Chicago.
He was well fitted by previous judicial experience and a profound know'ledge
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS,
of the law to assume the duties of this important and dignified of
decisions which he has rendered upon this bench have won the co i
and approval of the brightest legal minds of the nation. Among i
cases which have been tried before him, the one that undoubted I
great attention and general interest was the application for an inj (
behalf of the government, to compel the directors of the World's i
Exposition to close the gates on Sunday. In the hearing of the < 1
Judges Woods and Jenkins and Judge Grosscup, of the district cc i
gether. The first two decided to grant the injunction, and each d i
elaborate oral opinion in support of his decision. The former held t
had been such a transfer of the possessions of Jackson Park to '
States for the purposes of the exposition as to vest in congress tl
control, and that as congress had made Sunday closing a condition t
it had voted an appropriation in aid of the exposition, and had re <
commission to adopt a rule for the closing of the gates on Sunday,
were accepted, the government had the right to exact compliance
condition and rule. The further actions touching this matter are an in
tion of the history of the litigations pertaining to the exposition,
scarcely be referred to in this connection. A more detailed accoui
in the sketch of Edwin Walker, — the eminent Chicago attorney, wh '
timately concerned with the litigation, on other pages of this volume.
Another case over which Judge W^oods presided, and which ca
the attention of the nation, was the trial, for contempt of court, of E <
Debs, et al., in which Edwin Walker, special counsel, and Thomas E. i
appeared for the government, and S. S. Gregory and C. S. Darrow fc
fendants. In the opinion, filed December 14, 1894, the charge of 1
was sustained, seven of the defendants being found guilty of contempt i
in violating the injunction. In his opinion Judge Woods said, amo
thing^s : "If men enter into a conspiracy to do an unlawful thing, and i
to accomplish their purpose advise workmen to go upon a strike, knov i
violence and wrong will be the probable outcome, neither in law nor i
can they escape responsibility." The substance of the evidence is : *
fendants, in combination with the members of the American Railwa^
and others who were prevailed upon to co-operate, were engaged ir ;
spiracy in restraint or hindrance of inter-state commerce over the 1
entering Chicago, and in furtherance of their design those actively eng
the strike were using threats, violence and other unlawful means of
ence with the operations of the road; that by the injunction they we :
manded to desist; but, instead of respecting the order, they persisted i
purpose, without essential change of conduct, until compelled to yield to s .
force. The court, therefore, finds the defendants guilty of contempt, as ch ]
In an address delivered before the Marquette Club, of Chicago, in
ary, 1898, Justice Brewer, in reviewing the animus and results of th<:
strike, paid to Judge Woods the following high tribute: "The great st
which this city was the historic center attests the wisdom of judicial ii
256 THE BEXCH AXD BAR OF ILLINOIS.
ence. * * * The peaceful ending of that strike is a supreme attestation
of the power of the American people to govern themselves. That honest and
true-minded men were in both sides of that controversy no sensible man doubts,
and that it was settled judicially, and not by bayonets and bullets, is the glory
of all. And here let me say in passing that the hero of that struggle for the
domination of law was Circuit Judge William A. Woods, whose name will be
revered and honored through the coming ages, long after the memories of his
critics and assailants shall have become, like the body of Lazarus, four days
in the grave."
On the 6th of December, 1870, was solemnized the marriage of Judge Woods
to Miss Mata A. Newton, of Des Moines, Iowa, and of this union two children
have been born, namely : AHce Newton, who is an art student, and Floyd
Allen, who is a lawyer at Indianapolis.
The social qualities of Judge Woods have won him many friends, both
within and extraneous to professional circles, and his rich fund of knowledge,
as combined with a genial personality, make him an approachable and com-
panionable gentleman, — one who realizes the true values of life and recognizes
How fatuous are pretentiousness and self-glorification. In his sixteenth year
he became a member of the Presbyterian church, to w^hose general work and
collateral charities he contributes a due quota. In his political adherency he is
a stanch Republican, but no political preference has ever biased his judicial labors
and actions. **He has a genius for the law," was the published expression of a
prominent Indiana poHtician of opposing views in political matters. Courage,
firmness, persistence in application, strength of will, tenacity of purpose, capacity
for W'Ork and rugged honesty, — these are some of his dominating characteristics.
He is recognized as a jurist of the highest integrity, careful and painstaking in
research, deliberate and conservative in judgment. His sense of justice is
strong and inviolable, and while his heart is tender, his sympathies are never
misplaced. Whatever he may be off the bench, while discharging his duties he
is strictly nonpartisan. Tyrian and Trojan are the same to him. His powers of
reflection, naturally penetrating and comprehensive, have been matured and
strengthened by years of experience. His record on the bench of the various
courts stamps him as an upright judge, and in all things above reproach.
Another federal judge in a public speech said of him : "Than whom no judge
on any bench can see further or more quickly into any question." Such men
honor their profession and dignify human nature.
Murray F. Tuley, judge of the circuit court of Cook county, is one of the
best known jurists that Chicago has produced. A man of unimpeachable char-
acter, of unusual intellectual endowments, with a thorough understanding of the
law, patience, urbanity and industry, he took to the bench, upon his election
in 1879, ^he very highest qualifications for what is one of the most responsible
offices in the system of our state government; and his record as a judge has
been in harmony with his record as a man and lawyer, distinguished by un-
swerving integrity and a masterful grasp of every problem that has presented
itself for solution.
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS. 2^7
Murray Floyd Tuley had come to this city from Kentucky, his native
state. He was bom in Louisville, March 4, 1827, a son of Courtney M. and
Priscilla P. (Buckner) Tuley, both of whom were of English extraction. In
1832 his father died, and after eleven years of widowhood Mrs. Tuley married
Colonel R. J. Hamilton, of Chicago. The future judge, at the time of his father's
death, was but five years of age. He acquired his early education in the pub-
lic schools of Louisville, and at the age of thirteen secured a position as clerk
and errand boy in a country store. He improved his leisure hours in diligent
studv, and thus made considerable educational advancement by the time he was
sixteen. In 1844, when seventeen years of age, he began reading law in the
office of his stepfather, who took much pains to instruct him, and in 1846 he
entered the Louisville Law Institute, where he remained for a year, pursuing
his studies under the direction of three distinguished professors, — Duncan,
Loughborough and Pirtle.
In the spring of 1847 J^^g^ Tuley returned to Chicago and was admitted
to the bar, but almost immediately thereafter he offered his services to the gov-
ernment and enlisted for the Mexican war, as a member of Company F, Fifth
Regiment of Illinois Volunteers, of which Colonel Newby was in command.
His ability was recognized by his election as first lieutenant of the company,
with which he served until the close of hostilities. The brigade to which he
was attached was under command of General Sterling Price, afterward one of the
Confederate generals of the civil war, and his service was in New Mexico.
Judge Tuley determined to engage in the practice of his profession in New
Mexico at the close of the war, and opened an office in Santa Fe, where he soon
won an enviable reputation that led to his appointment, in 1849, ^^ ^^^^ position
of attorney-general of the territory, in which capacity he served with much
credit for two years. He was also a member of the legislature of New Mexico
in 1853-4, and left the impress of his individuality upon the legislation and
jurisprudence of the territory.
In 1854 Mr. Tuley returned to Chicago, where he engaged in practice for a
time as a partner of Andrew Harvie. Later he was associated in business con-
nection with Judge Gary and afterward with J. N. Barker. In 1869 he was
appointed corporation counsel of the city of Chicago, which position he filled
with marked ability, protecting the interests of the corporation in a way which
added to his reputation as a lawyer and a citizen, who had the well being of this
community at heart. He was the law officer of the corporation at the time of the
great fire, and to his counsel and energetic action the people of Chicago are largely
indebted for the successful spanning and bridging of the legal chaos in which
the fire left them. He is essentially the author of the act of incorporation of
cities in this state, under which Chicago is now acting ; he framed this act, and it
was largely through his influence that it was passed in the state legislature.
After serving as corporation counsel for four years. Judge Tuley resumed the
private practice of law in 1873 as a member of the firm of Tuley, Stiles & Lewis.
In 1878 he was elected alderman of the first ward and was a leading member of
the city council. In 1879 he was elected a member of the circuit bench, and has
17
2S8 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS,
won an enviable position thereon. He discharges the functions of his high office
in the interests of right, and his decisions are clear, logical, and based upon law,
of which he is an able interpreter.
The Judge was married in 1851 to Miss Catherine Edmonson, of Missouri,
and since 1854 they have resided continuously in Chicago, where he has a large
circle of social as well as professional acquaintances and friends.
John E. Kehoe is one of the younger members of the Chicago bar and has
attained a position of distinction in the profession. He was bom in Sangamon
county, Illinois, on the 26th of February, 1867, his parents being Patrick and
Margaret (Brannick) Kehoe. They were natives of Ireland and came to the
United States in early childhood, locating near Syracuse, New York. The
father came»to Illinois when about sixteen years of age, taking up his residence
in Sangamon county. After the inauguration of the civil war he enlisted in
his country's service, in 1861, as a member of Company I, Fourteenth Illinois
Infantry, which regiment was organized and commanded by General, then
Colonel, John M. Palmer. Mr. Kehoe served as a private until the cessation oi
hostilities in 1865.
Reared in the county of his nativity, John E. Kehoe of this review acquired
his preliminary education in the common schools of Waverly, and in 1884 entered
Illinois College, at Jacksonville, in which institution he was graduated in June,
1888. Having determined to make the practice of law his life work, immediately
after his graduation he entered the law office of General John M. Palmer, under
whose direction he continued his reading until admitted to the bar, in Springfield,
in November, 1890. He remained, however, in the General's office until the fol-
lowing year, when the latter was elected to the United States senate.
In 1892 Mr. Kehoe came to Chicago to accept a position in the law depart-
ment of Armour & Company, with which corporation he remained for two years,
since which time he has engaged in the general practice of law with offices in
the Temple. He served as attorney for the town of West Chicago in 1897, and is
the twelfth-ward chief of the Tammany Society of Chicago. His practice has
been of a very important character, including connection with some of the lead-
ing litigation that has been heard in the courts of the western metropolis. He
was one of the counsel for the defense in the second Luetgert trial and made one
of the leading closing arguments. In speaking of this the Chicago Record
said: ''Logically marshaling his facts and presenting the bits of evidence for and
against Luetgert in such a manner as to throw a favorable light upon the de-
fendant's actions, Attorney John E. Kehoe began his argument for the defense.
Pleasant-voiced, easy of manner, and concise in his statement of facts, he held
the attention of the jurors throughout the day. His gestures were as few as
those of Mr. McEwen, but he frequently laid more stress upon his words and
showed the oratorical training of the collegian in the modulation of his tone.
The speaker, in well chosen English, made a plea which even the attorneys for
the state admitted was diplomatic and ingeniously argumentative." In this as
in many other important cases in which he has appeared it may well be said that
the greatest characteristic of his mind was strength, his predominant faculty
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS. 259
was reason, and the aim of his eloquence to convince. To an understanding of
uncommon acuteness and vigor he added a thorough and conscientious pre-
paratory training, and he exemplifies in his practice all the higher elements of
the truly great lawyer.
Jacob R. Custer is a native of Pennsylvania, his birth having occurred in
Chester county, on the 27th of May, 1845. His parents, David Y. and Esther
(Rambo) Custer, were both born in Montgomery county, Pennsylvania, the
former on the 26th, the latter on the 29th, of January, 1815. The father was a
farmer and miller, and died in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, in March, 1895. His
widow still survives, and maintains her home in that city. She was of Swedish,
the father of German, lineage, and both were representatives of prominent fam-
ilies of the Keystone state. Members of the Custer family still own and occupy
land which was granted their ancestors by William Penn and of which no con-
veyance by deed has been made. Others of the name removed to Ohio and
founded the branch of the family to which General George A. Custer belonged.
Peter Custer, the grandfather of our subject, was a native of Montgomery
county, Pennsylvania, and bore arms in the war which brought to the nation
her independence.
' The public schools afforded to Jacob Rambo Custer his preliminary educa-
tional privileges, and then within the classic walls of an old historical educational
institution at Trappe, Pennsylvania, — Washington Hall, — he continued his
studies through the summer months from 1861 until the fall of 1864, devoting the
winter season to teaching. For several months he was a member of the Penn-
sylvania militia, at the time of the invasion of the Keystone state and the battle
of Antietam, in 1863. In the fall of 1864 he became a member of the sophomore
class in Pennsylvania College, of Gettysburg, and in 1867 was graduated with
third honors. The summer months passed and he then resumed study, but this
time as a preparation for the bar, having determined to make the legal profes-
sion his life work. His preceptor was William F. Johnson, an able lawyer of
Philadelphia, who directed his reading for a year, after which he was matriculated
in the Albany Law School, of Albany, New York. Upon his graduation from
that institution in May, 1869, he was immediately admitted to the bar of New
York, but wisely chose the growing west as the scene of his future labors and
in the fall of that year came to Chicago.
Steadily Mr. Custer has advanced until he now occupies an eminent position
at the bar of the western metropolis, yet his progress has been made in the path
which all must tread who seek professional preferment. Earnest study, close
application, indefatigable energy and unfaltering determination, — these are the
foundation of his success. He continued alone in business until June, 1879,
when he formed a partnership with William J. Campbell, whose office he had
shared for a year previous. This connection was continued with mutual pleas-
ure and profit until the death of Mr. Campbell, March 4, 1896. On the ist of
July following Mr. Custer entered into partnership relations with Lester O.
Goddard and Joseph A. Griffin, and the firm of Custer, Goddard & Griffin soon
26o THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
won a place equally prominent with that occupied by the former firm of Custer
& Campbell. I
In 1880 Mr. Custer was appointed master in chancery of the superior court
of Cook county, serving in that capacity until 1892, when he resigned. From I
lUR-r nnfil litfin lie cerve/1 3C tViB 3ttrM-n<iv fr.r fh» shfTtft nt Cnt^ir i-nntltu HnrmiT
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS. 261
a lawyer, his kindly impulses and charming cordiality of manner having rendered
him exceedingly popular among all classes.
Frederick Hampden Winston has been for thirty-five years a distinguished
member of the Chicago bar, but is now living a retired life. He is a native of
Georgia, his birth having occurred in Sand Hill, Liberty county, in 1830. His
parents. Rev. Dennis M. and Mary (Mcintosh) Winston, were the owners of a
number of slaves, but becoming imbued with the idea that slavery was wrong
they removed to Woodford county, Kentucky, and there liberated their negroes.
This disposal of their property largely diminished their capital, and when our
subject was left an orphan at the age of twelve years his inheritance was very
small save in the strong character, noble principles and honorable name which
they left to him.
However, he was educated in excellent private schools of Kentucky until
sixteen years of age, when he entered upon his business career. He returned
to Georgia with the intention of engaging in the cotton trade, then the principal
industry of the south, and during the succeeding two years devoted his energies
to mastering the trade of manufacturing cotton goods. In 1848 he was joined
by others in organizing a company for the purpose of manufacturing cotton cloth,
and by the company was sent to New^ York to superintend the construction of
the needed machinery, but in 1850, when this task was completed he found the
capitalists in the south were becoming very w^ary of making investments, and
accordingly he abandoned the idea of devoting his energies to manufacturing
and turned his attention to the law. After six months preHminary study in the
office of the United States senator, Hon. W. C. Dawson, he matriculated in the
law department of Harvard College. After his graduation in 1852 he spent six
months in adding to his theoretical knowledge a good practical experience in the
office of Hon. William M. Evarts, the most distinguished lawyer of New York.
In 1853 Mr. Winston removed to Chicago, and after a few months formed a
partnership with Norman B. Judd, a distinguished legist of that day. At differ-
ent times he has since been associated with Mr. Frink, Henry W. Blodgett and
his son, Frederick S. Winston, and through all the years of his active connection
with the bar he maintained a foremost place among the brilliant representatives
of the legal profession in Chicago. He was especially prominent in that branch
of jurisprudence known as railway law, and for many years was chief general
counsel for the Lake Shore & Michigan Southern, the Chicago, Rock Island &
Pacific, and Pittsburg, Fort Wayne & Chicago Railroad Companies. After about
thirty years of active practice, embracing service in the highest courts, Frederick
H. Winston retired from the bar in 1885, and was succeeded in his large practice
by his eldest son, Frederick S. Winston.
For years Mr. Winston was an active leader of the Democracy, and though
he had often been urged to accept nominations for high offices, he for the first
time became an office-holder after his retirement from the bar, when he ac-
cepted President Cleveland's appointment as minister to Persia. This enabled
him not only to perform an important public service, but also to carry out his
long cherished plan of traveling in the orient. In 1886 he resigned his official
262 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
position in Persia and spent considerable time in traveling through Russia,
Scandinavia and several other countries. Upon his return to Chicago he
embarked in various business enterprises, the most notable being the Union
Stock Yards Company, of which he became president. He was also one of
the organizers of the Lincoln National Bank and long served on its directory.
For twelve years three Repubhcan governors kept him in the presidency of
the board of Lincoln Park commissioners. Socially he is well known and is a
valued member of the Germania Mannerchor, the Union Club, the Chicago
Chib and the Iroquois Club. While in Charleston, in 1894, he was elected
a member of the Society of Cincinnati, and in Boston, the same year, was
elected a member of the Order of the Colonial Wars.
On the 20th of August, 1855, Frederick Hampden Winston led to the
marriage altar Miss Maria G. Dudley, a daughter of General Ambrose Dudley,
of Frankfort. Kentuckv. Her death ot^curred in iRRi;. leavins' six children.
THE BENCH AND BAR OF H.LINOIS. 263
law in the office of Shorey & Norton, being admitted to the bar in October,
1874. In 1880 he was licensed to practice before the supreme court of the
United States. Although corporation law is properly his specialty, his knowl-
edge of the law and its practice is very wide. He has been connected with
some of the most important litigation that goes to form the judicial history of
the state, and was the attorney for the commissioners whose duty it was to
organize and put on a successful footing the World's Columbian Exposition.
He was called upon to decide all legal questions arising, arranged its statutory
declarations and its legal organization, and arranged for and superintended
the balloting for the election of directors of a corporation whose shareholders
numbered twenty-eight thousand. He had charge of the initial meeting of
the stockholders, held April 4, 1892, at Battery D, on which occasion there
were fifteen hundred persons present owning stock.
In 1880 Mr. Hatch was united in marriage to Miss Grace H. Greene, who
died April 20, 1886. In June, 1894, he wedded Miss Elizabeth W. Wright, of
Northampton, Massachusetts. He is a popular and prominent member of
various clubs, including the Union League, Chicago Literary, University, and
the Chicago Press Clubs, together with the Chicago and State Bar Associations.
In poHtics he is a gold Democrat. His connection with the public library
covers the period from 1890, when he was appointed a member of the director-
ate, and in 1896 he was elected president of the board. It was during his
incumbency that the plans for the splendid public-library building were con-
summated and the structure completed, at a cost of two million, one hundred
and twenty-five thousand dollars, which amount was within the appropriation
made for the purpose. Mr. Hatch was particularly engaged in securing the
passage of the legislative measure necessary to the erection of the building, and
to his efforts as much as to any other one man the magnificent library of the
city is due, standing as a monument to the enterprise and untiring labors of
some of the most progressive, far-seeing and broad-minded men of the metrop-
olis, of whom Azel F. Hatch is one.
Elbridge Hanecy. — To indulge in prolix encomium of a life which is emi-
nently one of subjective modesty w^ould be palpably incongruous, even though
the record of good accomplished and of high relative precedence attained might
seem to justify the utterance of glowing eulogy. He of whom we write is
a man of marked ability and vitally instinct with the deeper human sympathies ;
and yet he shuns everything that partakes of compliment or self-aggrandize-
ment, and in this spirit would the biographist wish to have his utterances
construed.
Judge Hanecy was born in Wisconsin, on the 15th of March, 1852, and
is a son of William and Mary (Wales) Hanecy, who were natives of Massa-
chusetts, from which state they removed to Wisconsin about 1850. The father
served in the Mexican war as a non-commissioned officer and was engaged in
mercantile pursuits in Springfield, Massachusetts, prior to his removal to the
west. On his arrival in Wisconsin he purchased a tract of land in Dodge
county, where he carried on agricultural pursuits until his death, in 1852.
264 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
The mother afterward married Albert Littell, who served in the war of the Re-
bellion and died while on his way home, after the close of hostilities.
The Judge acquired his preliminary education in the common school of his
native state and afterward pursued his studies in the College of Milwaukee.
Reading and stud}' has ever been with him a source of dehght, and he is a
man of broad general information.
His connection with Chicago dates from 1869, when he came to this city
and accepted a position with the firm of Field, Leiter & Company, with whom he
remained until the memorable fire of 1871. He was afterward with John V.
Farwell & Company for a short time; but, wishing to enter a broader field of
labor and one more congenial to his tastes, he engaged in the study of law
in the office of Her\'ey, .-\nthony & Gait, under whose preceptorship he con-
tinued his preparatory reading until his admission to the bar. September 11.
1874, when he immediately entered upon the practice of his chosen profes-
sion. In 1889 he formed a partnership with George P. Merrick, who had
formerly been a law student in his office, and the firm of Hanecy & Merrick
continued at the head of an extensive and successful law business until the
election of the former to the circuit bench. In his profession he is an untiring
worker, and while in active practice prepared his cases with the utmost regard
to the detail of fact and the law involved. He never lost sight of even the
most minor point which might advance his clients' interest, and at the same
time gave full weight to the important point upon which the decision finally
turned. His argument was inci.sive and logical, his enunciation clear and
decided, and his delivery strong. He stooped to no questionable methods, was
fair and just to the opposition, and won the sincere respect of the members of
tlie bar. On the bench his administration has been uniformly marked by
commendable dignity and the most scrupulous regard to justice. He looks
upon the law as a system of social and political philosophy, and not as a collec-
tion of arbitrary rules founded on technical distinction. His style as a judge
is clear, accurate and concise, and in reading his opinions no doubt is left on
the mind as to the point decided. His language is chaste and forcible, while
his composition is a model of judicial statement. He sat as a law judge from
December, 1893, until July, 1895. when he was assigned as a chancellor of the
circuit court, which position he held until September, 1897. He was three
times elected umpire of the board of arbitration, the second and third years
unanimously, for the adjustment of differences between the Bricklayers' and
Stonemasons' Associations and their employers, — a fact that shows how greatly
his fair-mindedness is regarded in the community.
On the 1st of March. 1876. the Judge was married to Miss Sarah Barton,
a daughter of William A. I'arton, and they have six children, — Olive, Edith,
Ruth, Myra, Hazel and Harriette. Their only son is deceased. The Judge
is prominently identified with a number of social clubs, including the Union
League, Chicago Athletic and Washington Park Clubs, the Veterans' Union
League and the Hamilton Club. He is especially interested in the welfare and
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
progress of the city and gives to all measures for the general gO'
support of a public-spirited and broad-minded citizen.
John C. King is a talented and successful lawyer, now the sen
of the law firm of King & Gross, with offices at No. 89 East Washir
He was educated in Cincinnati, Ohio, completing his literary educ
Mary's College, in 1871. After the completion of his collegiate
engaged in teaching school in Cincinnati for one year, and during
attended lectures at the Union College of Law, ex-Governor Hoadl>
of the instructors of the institution. Mr. King was admitted to
Cincinnati in 1873, and for five years thereafter w-as a member of the
Morrow & King.
In 1878 Mr. King came to Chicago, was admitted to the bar of Co
and for twenty years has maintained a foremost place in the profess
city. From 1880 until 1895 he was largely engaged in the practice c
law and tried more than one hundred murder cases, in each instar
his client from the gallows. He never loses sight of a single point
advance the interests of his clients, and at the same time gives to ea<
importance, never failing to keep in the foreground the main point at
that upon which the decision of a case finally turns. He has splendid
power, is earnest, eloquent, forceful and logical, and while touching
tions of his hearers he never fails to convince their intellects at the Sc
Since 1895 he has practically retired from the practice of criminal
gives his attention to civil litigation. He has a broad and compi
knowledge of all departments of jurisprudence, and in the various
of civil law has also won some notable victories which entitle him
among the distinguished men who devote their energies to such prac
was in 1891 that Mr. King formed a partnership with Alfred H. Gros
the firm name of King & Gross, a connection that has now contini
mutual pleasure and profit for seven years.
Adams A. Goodrich is accorded a distinguished place among th«
sentative American jurists, having gained an eminent position at the
the second city in the Union. His abilities, natural and acquired, well
for his chosen calling. He has that casl of mind, — an indispensable a
of the successful lawyer, — which enables him to recognize beneath 1
terior or surface formation the structural elements, and to determine
flexible laws which underlie all things. It is this keen analytical power
forms the foundation of success for every one who would gain distinc
the greatest of all the learned professions, and it is a power which Mr. Gc
possesses in an unusual degree. Careful preparation, earnest purpos
above all a realization of the fact that to the law one must look for th
tection of Hfe and property are also conspicuous elements in the profei
career of him whose history we now essay.
Bom in Jerseyville, Jersey county, Illinois, on the 8th of January,
Mr. Goodrich represents one of the pioneer families of the state, his i
Henry O. Goodrich, having located in Jersey county in 1839. He afte
266 rnil BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
married Miss Jane A. Knapp, and it was through the assistance of his maternal
uncles that Mr. Goodrich got his start in Hfe. He was educated in the public
schools of Jerscyville until sixteen years of age, when, through the appoint-
ment of his uncle, A. L. Knapp, then representing Illinois in congress, he
entered the military academy at West Point, where for three and a half years
he received the military and mental drill imposed by that institution. On
account of ill health he was then forced to go to the west, where for two years
he traveled in search of health. Returning then to his native town he decided
to make the practice of law his life work and directed his energies to that end.
His initiatory studies were pursued in the law office of his uncle, Robert M.
Knapp, of Jerscyville, and later he continued the reading in the office of his
uncle, Hon. A. L. Knapp, of Spring^eld. Upon examination by the supreme
court at the capital city he was admitted to the bar in 1873 ^^^ ^^ ^^^^ opened
an office in the city of his nativity.
No matter what wealth one may possess individually, or how fortunate he
may be in his ancestral connections, progress at the best can be secured only
through individual merit ; and so, applying himself to his chosen work with unre-
mitting ardor and zeal, Mr. Goodrich steadily advanced and soon left the ranks oi
the many to stand among the successful few\ Upon his admission to the bar
he did not cease to be a student, but has continued an extensive research in
the realms of jurisprudence until its foundation principles and supplementary
laws are found in the storehouse of his memory so well classified that time is
never squandered in a search for the needed proof to apply to a controverted
point. After some years successful private practice in Jerscyville, during which
he secured a good clientage, Mr. Goodrich was elected state's attorney in 1878,
and again in 1880 and 1884. In October, 1887, he resigned that position,
having been nominated for the office of county judge, to which he was elected.
During his term on the bench he opened an office in Chicago, and in August.
1889, removed to this city, where he has since made his home.
Mr. Goodrich has won high honors at the Chicago bar and is also well
known to the profession here as a judge, having occupied the bench of Judge
Prendergast during the latter's official term. Thus he acted as judge of Cook
county, and his fitness for judicial duties was most marked. The judge on
the bench fails more frequently, perhaps, from a deficiency in that broadminded-
ness which not only comprehends the details of a situation quickly, but also
insures a complete self-control even under the most exasperating conditions
than from any other cause ; but Mr. Goodrich was equal to all such demands.
He was for the period of one year attorney for the drainage board, but resigned
that position in order to devote his time to his large private practice. How-
ever, after handing in his resignation, he was called upon by his successor to
assist in many complicated condemnation suits.
Judge Goodrich maintains membership relations with the Masonic, Knights
of Pythias and Odd Fellow fraternities, having attained the Knight Templar
degree in the first named, the Encampment degree in the last. His political
support is unswervingly given the principles of Democracy, but political honors
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS. 267
and offices have had little attraction for him. He was appointed one of the
three inspectors of the Chicago bridewell, and does all in his power to amelior-
ate the condition of the unfortunate people there. His interest in the welfare,
progress and moral and material advancement of the city is deep and sincere,
and his efforts in its behalf are not without result.
Edwin Walker. — It is not an easy task to delineate adequately the char-
acter and labors of a man who has led an eminently active and busy life and
who has attained to a position of high relative distinction in the more important
and exacting fields of human endeavor. But biography, nevertheless, finds
its most perfect justification in the tracing and recording of such a life history.
It is, then, with a full appreciation of all that is demanded, and of the pains-
taking scrutiny that must be accorded each statement, and yet with a feeling
of significant satisfaction, that the writer essays the task of touching briefly
upon the details of such a record as has been the voice of the character of the
honored subject whose life now comes under review.
In reverting to the genealogy of our subject we find that he is descended
from a long line of sturdy, intelligent and honorable ancestors, and that in both
the lineal and collateral branches representatives have been prominent in the
history of the nation, — the family identification with the American colonies
dating back, in certain instances, to -a period antecedent to the war of the
Revolution. Edwin Walker, the well known corporation lawyer, is a man
of distinguished professional attainments, holding marked prestige at the bar
of the nation. No class of American citizens has or will wield a more potent
influence upon the advancement and stable prosperity of the nation than the
skilled and honorable lawyers, — the conservators of the eternal principles of
right and justice. In a compilation of this nature there is peculiar propriety
in according distinctive recognition to him whose name initiates this article.
Edwin Walker was born in Genesee county. New York, in the year 1832,
being the son of Obadiah and Phoebe (Cushman) Walker, the former of whom
was a native of New Hampshire and the latter of Massachusetts, — both repre-
senting families notable for mental and physical vigor. The father remained
in the old Granite state until about the age of eighteen, when he removed to
the central part of the state of New York, where he continued to reside until
his death, — a period of nearly three-quarters of a century. He was a man of
marked individuality and strong intellectual powers, devoted his active life to
agricultural pursuits and was an influential factor in his section of the Empire
state. Dominated by the highest principles of integrity and honor, he retained
the esteem and confidence of his fellow men, and his life was prolonged to the
unusual age of ninety-two years, his death occurring in 1887. Loyalty and
patriotism were among his pronounced characteristics, of which he gave dis-
tinct evidence by rendering active service in the war of 181 2. The mother of
the immediate subject of this review died when he was a child of but three years.
Reared on the parental homestead in Genesee county, Edwin Walker was
accorded the advantages of as thorough an academic education as the place
and period afforded, and at an early age he formulated his plans for the future,
1
268 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
turning his attention to that profession in which he has attained such distinctive
honors and success. He pursued his technical studies under effective preceptor-
ship at Batavia. New York, and in 1854. at Buffalo, was admitted to the bar
of his native state. Soon after his admission he came to the west, locating in
the city of Logansport, Indiana, where he was engaged in the practice of his
profession until 1865. At the very initiation of his specific career he recognized
that the law demanded of its votaries a definite and undivided fealty, and he
wisely and steadily set aside the alluring overtures tor his acceptance of political
preferment, and by close application and assiduous toil soon attained prom-
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS. 269
^■alker became a party to the proceedings by intervention. A decree of fore-
<:losure was entered and, upon his motion, provided for statutory redemption.
^At the sale under the decree, in the interest of his client, he bid for the property
about nine hundred and fifty thousand dollars, but John I. Blair, of New Jersey,
^vas the successful purchaser. Under the decree, and in accordance with the
statutes of the state of Illinois, the Chicago & Pacific Company, as defendant,
could redeem the property from the sale within one year, upon the payment of
the amount bid, together with eight per cent, interest thereon. Within a year
Mr. Walker purchased for the St. Paul Company substantially all the capital
stock and also all the judgments against the Chicago & Pacific Company. A
special meeting of the stockholders was called, and by vote they authorized the
lease of the road to the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Company, and also the
execution of a new mortgage to secure a new issue of three millions of bonds
upon the property. Mr. Walker had been elected president of the Chicago &
Pacific Company, and with money furnished by the St. Paul Company re-
deemed the property from sale under the decree. The lease was executed, the
St. Paul Company entered into possession, completed the road, and now it is
one of the principal lines of that system. This figures as the only case of the
redemption of a railroad and all its property from sale under foreclosure decree
by, or in the name of, the bankrupt defendant company.
The other case to which we wish to make reference was the foreclosure
of the mortgage of the Chicago, Danville & Vincennes Railroad Company, of
which Mr. Walker was general solicitor. In 1874 the owner of nine of the first-
niortgage bonds filed his bill in the circuit court of Will county, and, upon ex
parte proceedings, had a receiver appointed, and was placed, by order of the
court, in possession of the property. The bill made the trustees under the
mortgage, as well as the railway company, parties defendant. An act of con-
gress, defining the jurisdiction of the federal courts and providing for the re-
moval of causes from state to federal courts, was passed by congress and was
approved on the 3d of March, 1875. Mr. Walker, believing that the cause was
removable under this act, prepared a petition, following as closely as possible
the provisions of the law. The circuit court of Will county was not then in ses-
sion, but the petition was filed with the clerk, and a transcript of the record
requested. This was immediately prepared and was filed in the office of the
clerk of the federal court. A motion to remand was interposed by the plain-
tiff's counsel, and the motion was heard by the late Hon. Thomas Drummond,
who was then circuit judge. After full argument, the court overruled the mo-
tion to remand, and held that the cause was removable under the act of con-
gress, and that the petition and bond followed substantially the requirements
of the act. This was probably the first removal under the act of 1875, and
Judge Drummond's construction of the act was the first considered by any
court ; his construction has been recognized as the law under that act until the
present date. Subsequently the trustees under the first mortgage filed a bill
to foreclose, and upon motion the receiver appointed by the state court was
removed and a new receiver appointed under the bill filed in the federal court.
270 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
A decree of foreclosure was entered in 1876, the property was sold thereunder
and was conveyed by the purchasers to the present Chicago & Eastern Illinois
Railroad Company. Mr. Walker, as solicitor for the railroad company and the
trustees under the second trust deed, appealed from the decree to the supreme
court. The supreme court reversed the foreclosure decree of the circuit court
and the order of sale under the decree. The Chicago & Eastern Illinois had
been in possession of the property for about five years before the decree of re-
versal was entered. The cause was remanded and the litigation was continued
by all parties in interest until 1884, when a compromise was effected between the
Chicago & Eastern Illinois Company and the clients of Mr. Walker, and the
title of the former to the property thereby perfected. Very many of the rail-
roads of the country were seriously affected by the panic of 1873, resulting in the
default in payment of interest on their bonds, and in the foreclosure of mort-
gages, with eventual reorganization of new companies by the purchasers. In
all this litigation the foreclosure case of the Danville Company was a leading
case, and the rulings and orders entered in such cause by Judge Drummond
were followed generally by other courts throughout the country, and finally sus-
tained on appeals to the supreme court of the United States.
Mr. Walker's ability, skill and tact as a trial lawyer were, perhaps, never
more thoroughly demonstrated than in the divorce case of Carter versus Carter,
where he was retained as leading counsel for Mr. Carter. His masterly cross-
examination of Mrs. Carter, extending over two days, probably did more than
anything else to win for his client the verdict of the jury. His manner in the
conduct of a case is always cool and self-possessed, very quiet and deliberate,
and he conducts the examination of a witness in an easy, conversational tone
which usually results in eliciting the truth from the most obstinate witness.
Nothing that opposing counsel can say, even though meant to annoy and irri-
tate, can swerve him from the point at issue, and whatever may be the answer
of a witness, however evasive or plausible, unless satisfied that it is substantially
the truth, Mr. Walker returns to the attack, approaching the witness on an
unguarded side, and usually brings forth a correct statement of the facts. In
the presentation and argument of his cases before the courts nothing is more
remarkable than the wonderfully deep penetration of his intellect, as shown
in the masterly way in which he surveys the controversy as a whole, gprasps its
salient features and marshals all its details in logical order and in one compre-
hensive review. The clearness and force with which he states a case from his
own point of view leaves nothing in doubt, and this very clearness takes the
minds of his hearers forward with a persuasiveness which is almost convincing.
Not less remarkable is his keen and' acute skill in analytical reasoning and in
logical argumentation ; and of this every one of his oral addresses to the court,
and each of his printed arguments in cases on appeal before the courts of last
resort, gives abundant proof. These qualities have long been conspicuous in
Mr. Walker's court work, and have gained for him the very highest standing
as a lawyer, not only at the Chicago bar, but in the supreme court of the United
States. In the many important railway and other litigations in which he has
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS. 271
been concerned, he has sometimes had opposed to him the most eminent cor-
poration lawyers in the country; and all who have encountered him in the
arena of forensic debate have had occasion to acknowledge the soundness of
his judgment in dealing with large and important interests, and the uniform
fairness which has characterized his attitude toward the other side. He never
takes unfair advantage of his adversary, and never mistakes personalities or
sharp saying for argument, but makes every attempt to meet the argumentum
ad hominem to himself with a dignified rejoinder, which makes an impression
all the more favorable to himself in the mind of the listener. In the words of
one of the ablest leaders of thought in the present age, "In controversy his
disciplined intellect preserves him from the blundering discourtesy of less edu-
cated minds, who, like blunt weapons, tear and hack instead of cutting clean;
who mistake the point in argument, waste their strength on trifles, misconceive
their adversary, and leave the question more involved than they found it. He
may be right or wrong in his opinion, but he is too clear-headed to be unjust ;
he is simple as he is forceful, and brief as he is decisive." The justice of this
characterization as applied to Mr. Walker will at once be recognized by his
associates at the bar, since they have many times over had to admire the abso-
lute candor and consideration with which it is his wont to treat them in the
utmost heat of legal controversy.
In his arguments before the courts and juries Mr. Walker attempts no
rhetorical flourishes or oratorical effects, but his language is singularly well
chosen and graceful, and though he rarely refers to notes, he always has a re-
markable command of his case, and his arguments are interesting even to a non-
professional listener. In talking to a jury he becomes to a certain extent a
thirteenth juror, and reasons with them upon the facts in the case in a plain
and effective manner. No man at the Chicago bar has ever enjoyed the con-
fidence of the judges in a greater degree than Mr. Walker, and even jurymen
who have never seen him before seem to become impressed with the conviction
that his statements of both the law and the evidence are to be relied upon. In
general practice Mr. Walker has held at all times a large clientage, being re-
tained by many of the leading railroad companies of the country in special
cases, and by many other large corporations. Of his connection with that
magnificent triumph of the age, the World's Columbian Exposition, it is in-
cumbent that we speak specifically, since he was not only one of its foremost
promoters and efficient workers, aiding materially in securing to Chicago the
honor of its location within her borders, but was conspicuously concerned in
defining" its policies and in handling its interests in the various litigations in-
cidentally encountered.
Probably as complicated a piece of legal and corporate machinery as was
ever created, and as comprehensive in the scope of its relations, was the World's
Columbian Exposition, which closed its brilliant and successful career late in the
year 1893, apparently undisturbed by one of the worst financial panics in the
history of America. The marvelous range of its relations, the wonderful
diversity of its interests, and the remarkably small number of instances of con-
272 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
flicting powers, through all the mazes of legislation and administration of so
vast an enterprise, are not more worthy of consideration and record than is the
skill that could so successfully master the great problems and pilot the enter-
prise through its most dangerous storms to a successful issue. Some of its
most trying situations were the result of legal complications, — complications so
serious that at one time they threatened to involve the federal and state courts
in a conflict over jurisdiction ; and for a period of a few days the directors of the
exposition found themselves commanded by the state courts to open the gates
on Sunday, and at the same time commanded by the federal courts not to open
the gates on Sunday. It was in critical situations of this nature that the services
of Edwin Walker were confidently relied upon by all connected w^ith the ex-
position, and throughout the whole period covered by the exposition it required
not only his ability as a lawyer, but his tact as a man familiar with the affairs
of business and with the management of men, to overcome and avoid the diflS-
culties and legal impediments incidental to so gigantic and unusual an enter-
prise.
Mr. Walker was one of the early promoters of the exposition, and during
its period of organization he took an active part and was elected its temporar)'
president. W hen the time came for the necessary national laws and the choice
of a location for the great undertaking, Mr. Walker was made chairman of the
subcommittee on legislation, and had charge of the work in Washington while
congress was making its choice. After Chicago w'as chosen he was made
chairman of the committee to draft and frame necessary legislation, and after-
ward became a director, chairman of its legislative committee, and member of
both executive and conference committees. He w^as at the forefront in al\ the
litigation touching the exposition, guiding its legal matters through with un-
precedented finesse and discrimination. His association with this litigation
was so intimate and valuable, that it is but consistent that there be reproduced
in this connection his own record of the complications encountered and sue-
cessfully overcome.
While he has been thoroughly devoted to his profession, Mr. Walker has
also been identified with numerous business enterprises. More than a quarter
of a century ago he formed a copartnership wuth Colonel W. P. Rend, in the
coal and transportation business, and the firm of W. P. Rend & Company is
one of the best known in the west, operating extensively in Ohio and Pennsyl-
vania. The relations of these two men have been of the most intimate char-
acter, and during their long copartnership nothing has occurred to mar the
friendship formed so many years ago. Mr. Walker has many other financial
and business interests of importance, but to these it is scarcely necessary to refer
in detail.
Though stanchly arrayed in the support of the Republican party and its
principles, he wisely discriminates between the exigencies and differing neces-
sities of local and national affairs, and he has always been ready, regardless of
politics, to join with independent citizens in movements to secure the correction
of local abuses in the administration of municipal affairs. He has been signally
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS, 2
averse to political preferment and party strife, and has invariably refused
become a candidate for public office, preferring to devote his attention, w
absolute singleness of purpose, to the profession in which he has attained
marked prestige and success. A thorough and devoted churchman of t
Protestant Episcopal church, Mr. Walker is a communicant of Grace chur
in Chicago, and for more than a score of years he has been a member of i
vestry, while for a number of years he has been senior warden, — an incumben(
which he retains at the present time. To this important parish and to the woi
of the church at large, as touching "all sorts and conditions of men," the sen
ices and judgment of Mr. Walker have been invaluable.
To only those who have the privilege of knowing Mr. Walker intimatel
in his private and social relations can there come a full appreciation of the in
nate worth of his character. Endowed by nature with a superior intellect, hi
mind has been cultivated not only by reading, study, literary occupations anc
extensive travel, but also in the vast and varied experiences of the great schoo
of life. His manners are easy, dignified and refined, and he has that "grace
ful tact and Christian art" which win the respect, esteem and admiration of al.
who know him, while for those "in any way afflicted, in mind, body or estate,''
his sympathy is ever quick, constant and helpful. The perfect fairness and up-
rightness of his disposition, to which we have already alluded in speaking of
his conduct in the management of litigations, are exhibited by him in the varied
affairs of life, and make friends of those who through circumstances have been
placed in hostile relations to him. The rare qualities and splendid traits which
designate the true Christian gentleman appear in all his intercourse with his
fellow men. His kindliness, tender sympathy for the poor and distressed, and
his lifelong fidelity to friendship have attracted to him a wide circle of friends
in the city where he has passed the greater portion of his life and where he is
regarded as one of its representative and valued citizens.
In the year 1857 Mr. Walker was united in marriage to Miss Lydia John-
son, daughter of Colonel Israel Johnson, a prominent merchant and honored
citizen of Logansport, Indiana. She lived but two years after their removal to
Chicago, but during the few years of their married life she became endeared to
a large circle of friends, and promoted in every possible way the success of her
husband. Of this union three sons were born. The two eldest, Edwin C. and
J. Brandt, are married and have pleasant homes in Chicago. They are suc-
cessful commission merchants, being associated together in business, under the
firm name of W^alker & Company. The youngest son, William Earl, a boy of
great promise, died in his twenty-first year, at the commencement of his senior
year at Yale College. His scholastic attainments were of a high order, and he
was being carefully educated and trained for the legal profession. In 1870 Mr.
Walker consummated a second marriage, being then united to Mrs. Desdemona
Kimball, daughter of Major Samuel Edsall, one of the oldest and best known cit-
izens in the public and social life of Fort Wayne, Indiana. Few women in Chicago
have a larger circle of social and admiring friends than Mrs. Walker, who pre-
sides with dignity and gracious refinement over the pleasant home, — made the
18
274 THE BEKCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
more attractive by the presence of her two daughters. Misses Alma L. and
Louise E. Kimball. Although a member of many prominent social clubs of the
city, Mr. Walker finds his greatest solace and satisfaction with his family and
friends at his attractive home on Michigan boulevard, participating in such
social functions as his professional and other duties will permit. He has trav-
eled extensively throughout the United States and abroad, and is constantly
forming new friendships and associations. Though now (1898) nearing the
psalmist's span of three-score years and ten, Mr. Walker has maintained to an
exceptional degree his physical vigor, and gives no evidence of waning powers,
save that he has to have more frequent recourse to travel and rest, thus reliev-
ing himself in a measure from the manifold cares and responsibilities which
have ever attended his wonderfully active and useful life.
George Cook Fry was born in Selinsgrove, Pennsylvania, September 30,
1846, and is a son of Conrad J. Fry, who in 1856 came with his family to Illinois,
locating in Freeport. The subject of this review attended the public schools
there, and in [864 entered the University of Michigan, in which institution he
was graduated with the class of 1868. In the same year he began the study
of law in the office of Bailey & Brawley, of Freeport, the members of tlie firm
being the Hon. Joseph M. Bailey, aftenvard a member of our supreme court,
and the late F. W. S. Brawley. During the winter of 1868-9 ^'r. Fry taught
school, but at the same time continued reading law under the direction of the
above named firm. After passing an examination he was admitted to the bar
by Judge Sheldon, at Freeport, in August, 1869. and the same month came to
Chicago as a clerk in the employ of Bailey & Brawley. who then removed their
office to this city. He remained in the employ of that firm until shortly after the
great fire of 1871, when. Judge Bailey being elected to the circuit bench. Mr.
Fry entered into partnership with Mr. Brawley, with whom he was associated
for two years. From 1883 until 1888 he was in partnership with George S.
House, now of Joliet. and for the next five years was associated with James E..
Babb. one of the brightest of our younger lawyers. Mr. Babb then removed to
Idaho, on account of ill health. Mr. Fry's present partner is James \V. Hyde,
formerly of Freeport. The firm has pleasant offices in the New York Life
Building, and docs a general practice, having a fair share of the public patronage.
Mr. Fry shows the versatility of his legal powers by his successful conduct
of various important cases of different kinds, and is known as a hard-working,
painstaking lawyer. He usually gives his pohtical support to the Republican
party, but is not a strict partisan. He belongs to the Douglas, Kenwood and
Union League Clubs.
In 1874 Mr. Fry was united in marriage to Miss Sue M. Lawyer, of Free-
port.
William Prentiss comt-s of a long line of lawyers, statesmen and soldiers.
On the paternal side he is descended from Scotch and English ancestors who
came to .Xmerica at an early epoch in our country's history and located in
Massachusetts. Stanton Prentiss, the paternal great-grandfather of our subject,
was a Revolutionary soldier and had charge of the La Fayette wagon train
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS. 275
during that momentous struggle for independence. The grandfather, William
Prentiss, was a soldier in the war of 1812, and the diary which he kept during
that period is now in possession of his grandson and namesake. Samuel Pren-
tiss, a collateral relative, was United States district judge of Vermont for many
years and was also United States senator from that state. George D. Prentice,
the poet and brilliant editor of the Louisville Journal, was also of the same
family, although the names are spelled differently. On the maternal side
William Prentiss of this review is of Irish and German ancestry, and his great-
grandfather, whose name was McGee, came from Ireland to the New World
shortly before the Revolutionary war, in which he patriotically served under
command of General Nathaniel Greene.
William Prentiss was born in Davenport, Iowa, September 19, 1848, and
during his infancy was taken by his parents to Schuyler county, Illinois, whence
the family removed shortly afterward to Vermont, Fulton county, where the
father, who was a physician, died in 1854. In i860 the mother married James
Manley, a farmer of McDonough county, Illinois, and upon the farm of his
stepfather Mr. Prentiss soon became familiar with all the duties and labors that
fall to the lot of the agriculturist. He assisted in the cultivation of the fields
through the summer months and attended the district schools in the winter
season, and subsequently he continued his education in a seminary in Abing-
don, Illinois, in the State Normal School, at Normal, and in Knox College,
of Galesburg; but before the time of graduation his health failed and he was
obliged to abandon his college course.
In 1869 Mr. Prentiss removed to Minnesota for the benefit of his health
and remained in that state for seven years. From the government he entered
a tract of wild land which he transformed into a good farm, and in connection
with his farming operations while in Minnesota he also taught school, and for
three years was superintendent of schools of Cottonwood county. He also
began the study of law while there, borrowing books from the Hon. Daniel
Buck, of Mankato, now a member of the supreme court of Minnesota. In 1876
he returned to Illinois, locating in Macomb, the county seat of McDonough
county. Tw'O years later he was admitted to the bar and the same year was
elected state's attorney of that county to fill a vacancy. In 1880 he was re-
elected for a full term of four years, and discharged the duties of that office
in a most commendable and satisfactory manner. In 1881 he was elected
mayor of Macomb, which is the Republican stronghold of McDonough county,
being the only Democrat elected to that office in more than twenty years. In
1885, when he had been but seven years at the bar, he received the unanimous
support of the legal fraternity of McDonough county, without regard to party,
for circuit judge, and was nominated in the Democratic judicial convention
for the fourth place on the ticket at a time when a law was pending establishing
such an office. It, however, lacked a few votes of passing the lower house and
Mr. Prentiss therefore did not become district judge, as he would undoubtedly
have done had the law passed, for his district was strongly Democratic. As
advocate or counsel he was retained on one side or the other of nearly all
276 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS. '
important cases tried in the courts of McDonough county, and also had a large
clientage in adjoining counties. While state's attorney in i88z he secured a
verdict to liang Robert E. Gick for murder, that being the most important
homicide case ever tried in the county and the only instance in which such a
verdict was given.
Seeking a still broader field of labor ATr. Prentiss came to Chicago in 1891,
and almost immediately came into prominence as a leader of the Democratic
party in this city. In 1893 he received the nomination for circuit judge of Cook
county, but a Republican tidal wave swept the district that year and he was
defeated, as he was again in 1897, when once more a candidate. He is, however,
very popular in Democratic ranks and is highly esteemed by .many leaders of
the party. He was a delegate to the last Democratic national convention and
took a very active part in the campaign of 1896.
In 1872 Mr. Prentiss was united in marriage to Miss Elizabeth Helen
McCaughey, of Fulton county, Illinois, and to them were bom three sons.
The eldest, James Manley, was drowned in 1893, at the age of nineteen years,
while out boating on Lake Michigan. He was with a young lady whose lite
he saved at the sacrifice of his own. The other sons, Jackson McCaughey and
William, are attending school. Mr. Prentiss is a most genial man, of gentle-
manly deportment and cordial disposition, and his social qualities render him
a favorite in all classes,
Edward M. Holloway, clerk of the United States circuit court of appeals,
was born in Indiana, on the 30th of May, 1861, and is a grandson of D. P.
Holloway, who for many years was a member of congress and United States
commissioner of patents. His father, Colonel W. R. Holloway, of Indianap-
olis, is now. 1898, consul general at St. Petersburg, Russia.
Mr. Holloway came to Chicago seven yeafs ago, and has been connected
with the clerk's office for about four years. On the 20th of October, 1898, he
was appointed clerk of the United States circuit court of appeals of Chicago
by Judges Woods, Jenkins and Showaller, then sitting on the bench, and took
the place made vacant by the death of Oliver T. Morton. He did not ask the
appointment and took no steps to secure it; it came to him spontaneously from
the judges who were requested to make the appointment by the lawyers who
practiced in the court and were familiar with the efficient and satisfactory man-
ner in which Mr. Holloway had, tor a series of years, performed his duties as
chief deputy clerk. He is justly a favorite with the court and bar. He is pleas-
ing in manner, always obliging, and ready to give any information proper to be
given in relation to the affairs of the office.
Stacy Whitney Osgood, a practitioner at the Chicago bar, is a native of
Ypsilanti, Michigan, born January 23, 1841, his parents being Leonard \V. and
Elizabeth (Whitney) Osgood. In 1847 the family came to Illinois, locating in
Rockton, Winnebago county, where the father's death occurred. The mother
afterward removed to Winnctka, where her last days were passed.
Stacy Whitney Osgood entered the public schools of Rockton and also
pursued a high school course there, after which he took a special course in the
\
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS. 277
University of Michigan, and in 1864 was graduated from the law department
of that institution. In the spring of that year he entered the law office of
Blodgett & Winston, with whom he remained two years, and in 1866 he began
practicing on his own account. He formed a partnership with Judge Frank
Baker, which connection was continued five years, and then entered into part-
nership with M. F. Riggle, which relation was maintained until the expiration
of Mr. Osgood's term as assistant county attorney. Since that time he has been
alone. He enjoys a fair patronage and makes a specialty of probate and realty
practice.
For a number of years Mr. Osgood has been an active factor in the village
government of .Winnetka, where he is recognized as a most progressive and
public-spirited citizen. He has served as president of the village board, is now
a member of the council, and is chairman of the judiciary committee. In his
political views he is a Republican, and socially he is connected with the Masonic
fraternity. In 1867 he was united in marriage to Miss Mary Shaw, of Rock-
ton, Illinois, and they have three children.
Mrs. Myra C. Bradwell, a pioneer in the movement to give to women equal
rights before the law and equal opportunities to labor in all vocations, demon-
strated by her life work what women can do in activities heretofore monop-
olized by men, and was one of the most remarkable women of her generation
and one who had no small share in making that generation what it is.
Myra Colby Bradwell was born in Manchester, Vermont, February 12,
183 1. Her father, Eben Colby, was the son of John Colby, a Baptist min-
ister of New Hampshire. The Colby family records show that Anthony Colby,
the first of the family to settle in America, came to Boston from England in
1630. Her father's mother was a lineal descendant of Aquilla Chase, a family
that gave to the world the noted divine. Bishop Philander Chase, of the Epis-
copal church, and Salmon P. Chase, chief justice of the United States. On
her mother's side she was a descendant of Isaac Willey, who settled in Boston
in 1640. Two membe/s. of the family, Albert and John Willey, served in the
little army that suffered glorious defeat at Bunker Hill. In the history of her
family one finds many distinguished men of varying activities in statecraft, on
the field and in the domain of the professions. Never was heredity better ac-
centuated than in this teacher, editor, lawyer. In the warp of her nature was
woven the woof of that steriing New England character which has made such
an impress on our national life.
In infancy she was taken to Portage, New York, where she remained until
her twelfth year, when she came west with her father's family. Her family
were aggressive abolitionists and stanch friends of the Lovejoys. The story of
the murdered martyr, Elijah Lovejoy, as recounted by a friend of her youth.
Owen Lovejoy, made a d^ep impression upon her mind. Thus eariy wa^; iiu
planted a hatred of slavery and injustice in the soul of one who was dc^tinca
in subsequent years to bear a conspicuous part in freeing her sex from some of
the conditions of vassalage in which it had stood, a champion who hrv^ke iMte
of the strongest barriers to woman's enfranchisement, the bar, and paval tho
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS. 279
■ misfortune, she stood cheery and indomitable, uttering brave prophecies of future
good. Not an issue of her paper was lost ; but, hastening to Milwaukee, she had
the paper printed and published on the regular publication day.
She finally decided to apply for admission to the bar and to practice law.
She had been permitted to work side by side with her husband as a most success-
ful teacher; why not as a lawyer? And why not? Because, forsooth, of hoary
precedent and musty precept, relics of feudal ages. In 1869 she passed a most
creditable examination tor the bar, but was denied admission by the supreme
court of Illinois upon the ground that she was a married woman, her married
state being considered a disability. She knew that the real reason had not been
given. Marshaling her forces with that rare generalship so characteristic of her,
she filed an additional brief which combated the position of the court with great
force and compelled the court to give the true reason. In due time the cburt,
by Chief Justice Lawrence, delivered an elaborate opinion in which it was said,
upon mature deliberation, the court had concluded to refuse to admit Mrs. Brad-
well upon the sole ground that she was a woman. She sued out a writ of error
against the state of Ilhnois in the supreme court of the United States. Her case
in that tribunal was argued in 1871 by Senator Matt. Carpenter. In May, 1873,
the judgment of the lower court was affirmed by the United States supreme court.
Chief Justice Chase, who never failed to give his powerful testimony to aid in up-
lifting woman from dependence and helplessness to strength and freedom, true
to his principles, dissented. As has been well said, "Discussion o( the Myra
Bradwell case had the inevitable effect of letting sunlight through many cob-
webbed windows. It is not so much by abstract reasoning as by visible ex-
amples that reformations come, and Mrs. Bradwell offered herself as a living ex-
ample of the injustice of the law. A woman of learning, genius, industry and
high character, editor of the first law journal in the west, forbidden by law to
practice law, was too much for the pubhc conscience, tough as that conscience is."
Although Mrs. Bradwell, with Miss Hulett, was instrumental in securing
the passage of a law' in Illinois granting to all persons irrespective of sex
freedom in the selection of an occupation, profession or employment, she never
renewed her application for admission to the bar. Twenty years after, the judges
of the supreme court of Illinois, on their own motion, performed a noble act of
justice and directed license to practice law to be issued to her, and March 28,
1892, upon petition of Attorney- General Miller, Mrs. Bradwell was admitted to
- practice before the supreme court of the United States.
A pioneer in opening the legal profession for women, Myra Bradwell's signal
service to her sex has been in the field of law reform. With her, the conviction
that a principle was right brought with it a sense of duty to labor for its adop-
tion. With keen foresight she saw that the financial independence of women was
the stepping-stone to their emancipation. She drafted the bill giving a married
woman the right to her own earnings. A case in point, so monstrous in its
injustice, gave an added impetus to her zeal. A drunkard who owed a saloon-
keeper for his whisky had a wife who earned her own living as a scrub woman,
and the saloonkeeper gamisheed the people who owed the wife and took her
28o THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
earnings to pay her husbancrs liquor bill. It needed but an application like this
for her to succeed in her efforts to pass the bill. She also secured the passage
of the law giving to a widow her award in all cases. 'Believing thoroughly in
the principle enunciated by John Stuart Mill,. "of perfect equality, admitting no
privilege on the one side nor disability on the other," she was. an enthusiastic
supporter of the bill granting to a husband the same interest in a wife's estate
that the wife had in the husband's.
She never missed an opportunity to try and secure any change in the law
which would enlarge the sphere of woman. With this purpose in view she ap-
plied to the governor to be appointed a notary public. Finding her woman-
hood a bar even to this humble office, she induced her husband, who was in the
legislature, to introduce a bill making women eligible to the office of notary pub-
lic, which bill became a law. The bill drafted by her husband permitting women
to act as school officers and which was passed while he Avas in the legislature,
received her hearty support. Twice Mrs. Bradwell was honored by special
appointment of the governor, being appointed a delegate to the prison reform
congress of St. Louis, and it was mainly by her efforts that women, after'a severe
contest, were allowed a representation on the list of officers, she declining to
accept any office herself; subsequently she was appointed by the governor as
one of the Illinois Centennial Association to represent Illinois in the centennial
exhibition of 1876 and was treasurer of the woman's branch of this association.
After the completion of the work several hundred dollars remained in her hands,
which was voted to the Illinois Industrial School for girls at Evanston. Mrs.
Bradwell was one of the founders of this school and for years a member of its
executive committee, and for fifteen years its treasurer. By her individual
efforts in 1869 Mrs. Bradwell obtained the signatures of all the judges of the
courts in Cook county and many of the lawyers and ministers of the city to the
call for the first great woman's suffrage convention to be held in Chicago. She
was one of the workers in the suffrage convention held in Springfield in 1869
and for a number of years one of the executive committee of the Illinois
Woman's Suffrage Association. She also took an active part in the convention
at Cleveland which formed the American Woman's Suffrage Association.
A thorough Chicagoan, in the life, progress and best interests of her city she
had a citizen's interest and a patriot's pride. She was untiring in her eflforts to
secure the World's Fair for Chicago, accompanied the commission to Wash-
ington, and rendered valuable services there in obtaining the location of the
exposition in Chicago. She was appointed one of the Board of Lady Managers
and was chairman of the committee on law reform of its auxiliary congress. It
is interesting to note that the woman who labored so courageously, persistently
and effectively to secure for women their rights was herself a representative in the
first national legislature of women to be authorized by any government.
Mrs. Bradwell was the first woman who became a member of the Illinois
State Bar Association and the Illinois Press Association ; was a charter member
of the Soldiers' Home Board, the Illinois Industrial School for Girls, the Wash-
ingtonian Home and the first Masonic chapter organized for women in Illinois •
1 ''.-^r
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS. • 281
was a member of the Chicago Woman's Club, the Daughters of the American
Revolution, the Grand Army Relief Corps, the National Press League and the
Woman's Press Association.
A gentle and noiseless woman, her tenderness and refinement making the
firmness of her character all the more eifective, Mrs. Bradwell was one of those
who live their creed instead of preaching it. She did not spend her days pro-
claiming on the rostrum the rights of women, but quietly, none the less effectively,
set to work to clear away the barriers. If life is service, then truly did Myra Brad-
well live, for the life of this noble woman was one of tireless activity of thought,
of word and deed for the weal of humanity. A noble refutation of the ofttimes
expressed belief that the entrance of women in public life tends to lessen their
distinctively womanly character, she was a most devoted wife and mother, her
home being ideal in its love and harmony. She was the mother of four children,
two of whom survive her, Thomas and Bessie, both lawyers, and the latter the
wife of a lawyer, Frank A. Helmer, of the Chicago bar. Mrs. Bradwell died
February 14, 1894.
Qf her Bishop Fallows truthfully said : "The ideal creation of the poet or the
artist's imagination in the presentation of perfect womanhood has rarely been
actualized in flesh and blood as in the character of this honored woman. The
beauty of holiness, which is the beauty of wholeness, you will remember, was the
conspicuous beauty of her character. It was the blending of strength and win-
someness, of gentleness and firmness, of tact and persistency, of the lovy sweet
voice so much loved in woman, with the ringing words for truth and justice and
the enfranchisement of her sex, which are to reverberate through the ages for-
ever, of the faithful pef formance of every home duty with the larger service to
her country and her race."
James. W. Duncan is one of the leading lawyers of the Chicago .bar. He is
a native son of Illinois, born at La Salle, January 18, 1849, his parents being
Nicholas and Isabella (McBoyle) Duncan. They were natives of Ireland and
Scotland respectively, and came to the United States in early life, locating in
La Salle, Illinois. James W. Duncan attended the common schools and later
was a student in the University of Niagara, New York, after^which he began the
study of law in the office of E. F. Bull, of La Salle. In 1871 he was admitted to
the bar and practiced law in his native town until 1882, when he removed to
Ottawa, where he continued until 1888, the year of his arrival in Chicago, and
here he has since made his home. From 1876 until 1888 he was associated in the
practice with Andrew J. O'Conor, under the firm name of Duncan & O'Conor,
and from 1888 until 1897 was a member of the well known firm of Duncan *&
Gilbert, of Chicago. His business has been extensive and embraces litigation
in various departments of the law.
In 1872 Mr. Duncan was united in marriage to Miss Bridget Cody, of
La Salle, Illinois, who died- October 11, 1^98, leaving two children. In politics
Mr. Duncan is a Democrat, and is a member of the Iroquois, Sheridan and Col-
umbus Clubs.
Edward Osgood Brown has been a practitioner at the Chicago bar for a
282 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
quarter of a century. At one of the first places where civilization was planted
on New England soil he was bom, being a native of Salem, Massachusetts. His
parents were Edward and Eliza Osgood (Dalton) Brown, and his birth occurred
August 5, 1847. The family is of English origin, although connected with the
history of America through many generations. It is probable that the first
American ancestor of our subject was John Brown, who located in Ipswich, Essex
county, Massachusetts, some time before 1650. Many representatives of the
name were shipmasters and merchants, and the grandfather of our subject was
one of the famous skillful and daring navigators who, about the beginning of the
century, made Salem known throughout the civilized world. At one time, single-
handed, he drove a piratical band of Malays from his ship, killing eight and dis-
abling many more.
In the old historic town of Salem Edward Osgood Brown was reared to
manhood, acquiring his preliminary education in the public schools. Later he
was a student in Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, and in the
Harvard Law School, of Cambridge, Massachusetts, pursued his professional
education. For a year following his collegiate course in Brown University he
devoted his energies to teaching in St. Mark's Academy, in Southboro, Massa-
chusetts, and then began preparation for his chosen vocation, the law, as a
student in the office of Ives & Lincoln, prominent attorneys of Salem. He was
graduated in the law department of Harvard University in the class of 1869, and
applied himself with such diligence to his studies and to the mastery of the prin-
ciples of jurisprudence that he won first prize for an essay on Punitive Damages,
which was later published in the Western Jurist. As assistant clerk of the
supreme court of Rhode Island, he served from the time of his graduation until
1870, when he was admitted to the bar of that state, at Providence, and at once
entered upoji the practice of law as a member of the firm of Gorman & Brown,
which connection was continued until April, 1872.
At that date Mr. Brown came to Chicago in company with Orville Peckham,
a college classmate, who for more than twenty-five years has been his law partner
at the Chicago bar. Almost immediately they won prominence as practitioners
in the western metropolis. The litigation resulting from conditions brought
about by the great fire of 1871 was very extensive and of an important character,
involving many intricate and perplexing questions. The services of men of skill
and ability were in constant demand, and the firm of Peckham & Brown soon
gained wide reputation as the result of their masterful handling of important
litigated interests. Their attention has been largely given to corporation law
and they are attorneys for the First National Bank of Chicago and for many
other scarcely less important concerns. Mr. Brown was retained in the case of
the People versus Knickerbocker, called the probate-court case, involving the
constitutionality of that court ; the sanitary district or drainage cases, involving
the constitutionality of the sanitary district laws; Zimgible versus Calumet
Company, which involved a vast amount of real estate on the Calumet river; and
the case of Roots versus Wilson, which, though only a private contention, was
of such magnitude as to awaken widespread interest. He represented the com-
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS. 283
missioners of Lincoln park in the McKee scrip matter, where claimants, under
congressional scrip, undertook to locate their warrants on millions of dollars'
worth of property along the lake shore on the north side of Chicago, and is at
present engaged as counsel in the suit by the West Park commissioners against
the receiver of the insolvent National Bank of Illinois for the amount — over three
hundred thousand dollars — ^held by E. S. Dreyer, treasurer at the time of the
failure of that bank and his own.
Mr. Brown is a member of the Chicago Bar Association and the Chicago
Law Club, and ranks very high among his professional brethren, who unite in
bearing testimony as to his high character and superior mind.
In 1884 Mr. Brown married Miss Helen Gertrude Eagle, a representative
of an old Detroit family and a niece of Rev. Walter Elliott, of New York, who for
a while was editor of the Catholic World. They have five children, — three sons
and two daughters, — namely: Edward Eagle, Helen Dalton, Walter Elliott,
Robert and Mary Wilmarth. Mr. Brown is a member of the Roman Catholic
church, a convert in his early youth. He is a valued and popular member of
various social and literary clubs, was president during the World's Fair year
of the Massachusetts Society in Chicago, has been vice-president of the Iroquois
Club and chairman of its political committee, and belongs to the Chicago
Literary, the University, the Sunset, the Columbus and the Chicago Single
Tax Clubs, and the Catholic Literary Association. He gives an unfaltering sup-
port to the Democracy and is an ardent believer in and supporter of the
single-tax movement. He was a warm personal friend of Henry George, the
exponent of the single-tax idea, and has written a number of very able articles
on that subject. He has pronounced literary ability, and in addition to some
valuable papers on medico-legal subjects, he is the author of three pamphlets
on the early history of Michigan and Illinois. He is a fluent and forcible writer,
adorning the sound logic with the beauties of rhetoric which serve to rob the
most intricate and technical subjects of all prosaicness. His keen analytical
mind and facile pen have made him well known as lawyer and author, and in
those finer traits of character which endear man to man in ties of friendship he is
royally endowed.
Henry A. Ritter, a member of the well-known law firm of Defrees, Brace &
Ritter, of Chicago, was bom in Selinsgrove, Pennsylvania, on the 1st of Novem-
ber, 1857, and is a son of Captain Henry K. and Maria K. Ritter. The father
was a soldier in the Union army during the civil war, serving as captain of Com-
pany K, One Hundred and Eighty-fourth Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry. In
1865, he removed to Austin, Missouri, where he engaged in farming until his
death, which occurred in February, 1879. His wife still survives him, and is yet
a resident of that place.
In the public schools of Austin Henry A. Ritter began his education, and in
1876 he entered Wabash College, Crawfordsville, Indiana, where he completed
the regular course and was graduated in June, 1881, with the degree of Master
of Arts. In July of the same year he began the study of law in the office of
Baker & Mitchell, at Goshen, Indiana, where he remained until December 3,
284
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
1884, when he came to Chicago. In this city he was admitted to the bar in
March, 1886, and has since engaged in the active practice of law. He was first
associated with the firm of Shuman & Defrees, then for a short time was a
member of the firm of Defrees & Ritter, and later a member of the firm of
Aldrich, Payne & Defrees. On the ist of November, 1893, the present firm of
Defrees, Brace & Ritter was formed, and has had a continuous existence since
that time. The subject of this review has done not a little to win for it the high
reputation which it now enjoys, and the important character of its legal business
indicates the ability and legal talents of the partners.
In April, 1891, Mr. Ritter was united in marriage to Miss Sarah E. Louder-
back, of Chicago. Socially he is connected with the Marquette and the Uni-
versity Clubs, and in the line of his profession he holds membership with the
Illinois Bar Association. His political support is given the Republican party.
CHAPTER XIV.
REFORMS IN ABATEMENTS, AMENDMENTS AND PRACTICE AT LAW—
IMPRISONMENT FOR DEBT.
SINCE the revision of the statutes by Mr. Brayman, in 1845, ^^^ alteration
and improvements in the statutes of Illinois chiefly relate to the subject
of abatements, amendments and practice at law, which may be groupec
together for convenience. Section 3, chapter i, in relation to abatements, pro
vides that "No action or proceeding shall be defeated by plea in abatement, ii
the defect found is capable of amendment, and is amended on terms prescribed by
the court."
The first paragraph of section i of chapter 7, entitled "Amendments," pro-
vides that "the court in which an action is pending shall have power to permit
amendments in any process or proceeding in such action, either in form or
substance, for the furtherance of justice, on such terms as shall be just, at any
time before judgment rendered therein, and by the "practice act," section 23, it
is provided that "At any time before final judgment on a civil suit amendment
may be allowed on such terms as are just and reasonable, introducing any party
necessary to be joined as plaintiff or defendant, discontinuing as to any joint
plaintiff or defendant, changing the form of the action, and in any matter, either
of form or substance, in any process, pleading or proceeding which may enable
the plaintiff to sustain the action for the claim for which it was intended to be
brought, or the defendant to make a legal defense. The adjudication of the
court allowing an amendment shall be conclusive evidence of the identity of the
action."
This act took effect, and was in force July i, 1872. The courts have en-
forced the acts before mentioned, liberally, and the acts allowing amendments
are a substantial reform in the laws, and do not affect the rule that "sound plead-
ing is the life of the law," nor do they offer the premium to ignorance which is
sometimes attributed to them. The common-law forms of pleading, when aided
by statutes allowing amendments, are flexible and convenient.
In the "code states," where the common-law forms of pleading and practice
have been superseded by "the petition" (or by whatever name the plaintiff's
pleading may be called), he must state such facts as will, if undisputed, entitle
him to SL recovery, and the defendant's pleadings are required to be sufficient to
show a defense to the plaintiff's action. Demurrers or exceptions are allowed
in the code states, by which the sufficiency of all pleadings may be submitted
first to the trial court and afterward to the court of appeal.
But the most striking reforms effected by the statutes are those which relate
to the production of evidence in civil and criminal trials. Section 16, chapter 30,
28s
286 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
entitled "CTiiTiinal Jurisprudence," provides that "No black or mulatto person or
Indian shall be permitted to give evidence in favor of or against any white per-
son whatsoever; every person who shall have one-fourth part, or more, negro
blood shall be deemed a mulatto, and every person who shall have one-hall
Indian blood shall be deemed an Indian."
The chapter entitled "Evidence and Depositions" of the Revised Statutes of
1845, which applies to civil cases only (section 23), provides that (among other
things) "A negro or mulatto person or Indian shall not be a witness in any court
or in any case against any ivhite- person. A person having one-fourth negro
blood shall be adjudged a mulatto."
The writer has had some amusing experiences in the practical enforcement
of the laws which exclude negroes from testifying against white persons. In
1846. while exercising the office of probate justice of the peace of Macoupin
county, a white man sued a negro before him on an account for a few dollars.
On the appearance of the parties at the time fixed for the trial, the plaintiff
sought to avail himself of the 39th section of the 59th chapter of the Revised
Statutes, which provides that "in all trials before justices of the peace, when
either party may not have a witness or other legal testimony to estab-
lish his or her demand, discount or set-off, the party claiming such demand,
discount or set-ofT may be permitted to prove the same by the testimony of the
adverse parly, and if such adverse party should not appear at the time of trial
or shall refuse to be sworn or to testify, the party claiming the same shall be
permitted to prove his or her demand, discount or set-oflf by his or her own oath,"
The defendant — the negro — offered to be sworn as a witness and to testify
as to the plaintiff's demand; the plaintiff objected to the testimony of the de-
fendant on the ground that he was a negro, and the statutes prohibited him from
being a witness in any court or in any case against a white person, and offered
himself as a witness to prove his own demand. The probate justice of the peace
(the writer) held that the statute made an exception in case of parties to suits
before justices of the peace, and that the defendant was a competent witness,
made so by the plaintiff himself. The plaintiff dismissed his suit, and his attor-
ney loudly complained that the probate justice had permitted a negro to be a
witness against a white person!
Another case in which the writer was personally concerned grew out of the
act of 1853, usually called "the Logan Law," for the reason that General John
A. Logan, then a member of the house of representatives of the state of Illinois,
introduced it into the house and secured its passage. This act, among other
things, punishes the offense of bringing a negro slave into the state of Illinois,
with the intent to set him free, by fine and imprisonment.
A necro boy escaped from the rebel works at Xew Madrid and came into the
THE BENCH AND BAR OF H^LINOIS, 287
We reached home in Carlinville on the 3d of June, 1862, and remained until
August, and I then returned to my command in the field. The negro boy re-
fused to return with me, and at the September term of the circuit court of
Macoupin county the grand jury indicted me, charging, in the indictment, that
I had brought "one Martin, a slave, into the state of Illinois, with the intent to set
him free."
I was absent in the army at the September term oi the court, and the indict-
ment was "stricken from the docket with leave to reinstate." On coming home
I gave the state's attorney notice that at the December term of the circuit court,
1864, I would move to reinstate the cause on the docket and demand a trial.
At the December term the indictment was reinstated and the cause was tried
by a jury. It is due to my professional brethren to say that without an excep-
tion they offered to appear for me and defend me, but I declined their services
with thanks, and told them that I expected to say to the jury what no attorney
ought to say for a client : I expected to ask the jury to sign a petition to the
legislature, requesting that body to repeal the law which rendered negroes in-
competent to be witnesses against a white person.
The jury was empanelled and sworn, and I told them in stating my case
that the indictment charged that I had brought a slave into the state with
intent to set him free. I also told them that the laws and policy of the state of
Illinois presumed every person to be free, without regard to color, and that
there was no other person in the county who could prove whether the person
described in the indictment was or was not a slave, but that under the statute
he, being a negro, could not be a witness against me. I said to the jury that
he was honest and truthful, and that they, for want of proof beyond a reasonable
doubt that the person described in the indictment was a slave, would be com-
pelled to find me "not guilty," because the law excluded the only witness who
had knowledge of that essential fact.
I then handed to the jury a petition to the legislature, in which the facts
were recited, praying for the repeal of the statute which rendered negroes in-
competent as witnesses against white persons. The jury agreed upon a verdict
of "not guilty," and seven members of the jury signed the petition.
The legislature, which assembled in 1865, passed an act to repeal section
16 of division 3, chapter 34, of the Revised Statutes, all of chapter 74 of said
Revised Statutes and "an act to prevent the immigration of free negroes into
the state," — commonly known as the "Black Laws." The act took effect from
and after its passage, and the "Black Laws" disappeared from the statutes
of Illinois.
But the greatest triumph of law reform was effected by the passage of "an
act relating to the competency of witnesses in civil cases," which was ap-
proved by the governor on the 19th of February, 1867. The first section of
the act provides that "No person shall be disqualified as a witness in any civil
action, suit or proceeding, except as hereinafter stated, by reason of his or her
interest in the event thereof as a party or otherwise, or by reason of his or her
conviction of any crime ; but such interest or conviction may be shown for the
288 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
purpose of affecting the credibility of such witness, and the fact of such con-
viction may be proven hkc any fact not of record, either by the witness himself,
who shall be compelled to testify, or by any other witness cognizant of such
conviction, as Impeaching testimony, or by any other competent evidence."
Lawyers who were in full practice before 1867 remember the remarkable
change made by the "act relating to the competency of witnesses in civil cases."
The act was carefully guarded, so that "no party to any civil action, suit or
proceeding, or person directly interested in the event thereof, shall be allowed
to testify therein on his own motion, or in his or her own behalf, by virtue of the
foregoing section, when any adverse party sues or defends as trustee or con-
servator of any idiot, lunatic or distracted person, or as the executor, adminis-
trator, heir, legatee or devisee of any deceased person, or as guardian or trustee
of any such heir, trustee or devisee, unless when called as a witness by such
adverse party so suing, and also except in the following cases :
■'First, In any such action, suit or proceeding, a party or interested person
may testify to facts occurring after the death of such deceased person.
"Second. When in such action, suit or proceeding any agent of any deceased
person shall, in behalf of any person or persons suing, or being sued in either
of the capacities above named, testify to any conversation or transaction between
such agent and the opposite party, or party in interest, such opposite party, or
party in interest, may testify concerning the same conversation or transaction.
"Third, When in any such action, suit or proceeding any such party suing
or defending as aforesaid, or any person having a direct interest in the event
of such action, suit or proceeding, shall testify in behalf of such party so suing
or defending as to any conversation or transaction with the opposite party, or
party in interest, then such opposite party, or party in interest, shall also be
permitted to testify as to the same conversation or transaction.
"Fourth, When in any such action, suit or. proceeding any witness, not
a party to the record, or not a party in interest, or not an agent of such
deceased person, shall, in behalf of any party to such action, suit or proceeding.
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS,
2i
for debt unless, upon refusal to deliver up his estate for* the benefit of h
creditors, in such manner as shall be provided by law, or in cases where thei
is a strong presumption of fraud."
The sixth section of chapter 57 of the Revised Statutes of 1845 containe
a proviso that "Nothing herein shall restrain or prevent any execution fror
being issued against the body of any defendant where the judgment shall hav
been obtained for any tort or trespass committed by such defendant."
The act approved February 28, 1845, numbered II (2) of the laws publishec
with the revision, provided that "When any defendant in execution shall be
held in custody on final process in a case where the defendant cannot be dis-
charged under the provisions of the act entitled "An act for the relief of in-
solvent debtors," approved January 12, 1829, when said defendant shall make
an affidavit, before some competent officer authorized to administer oath, that
he or she has no rights or credit, property, real or personal, in possession or
action, except such property as is exempt from execution by the laws of the
state, it shall not be lawful for said defendant to be committed to the common
jail of any county of this state, unless the plaintiff in execution, his or her agent
or attorney, shall on Monday of each and every week pay to the jailer the fees
to which he may be entitled on said imprisonment. * * * If at any time the
plaintiff, his or her agent or attorney, shall fail to advance the jail fees as
herein provided, it shall be the duty of the officer or jailer, as the case may be,
forthwith to discharge the prisoner, and it shall not be lawful to arrest or
imprison the said defendant a second time upon an execution issued upon the
same judgment; but nothing herein contained shall operate to discharge said
defendant from the payment of such judgment and costs, if property can be
found to satisfy the same. If the plaintiff, his or her agent or attorney, shall
make the advances of the jail fees, as herein provided, the said defendant may be
imprisoned, at one dollar and fifty cents per day, until the judgments and costs
shall be satisfied, and the officer making the arrest shall in that event endorse
the execution, 'satisfied in full by imprisonment.' "
This provision is still retained, and there are but few instances in which
plaintiffs choose to make the advances required by the statute.
19
CHAPTER XV.
THE BENCH AND BAR OF PEORIA COUNTY.
FEORIA COUNTY was organized under an act of the legislature o( Jan-
uary 13, 1825, with its present boundaries, to which were added for
county purposes all that tract of country north of town 20 and west oi
the third principal meridian, formerly a part of Sangamon county, and all that
tract of land north of Peoria county and of the Illinois and Kankakee rivers.
The territory so attached embraced a large portion of the north part of the
state, including what is now the city of Chicago. Cook county was not organ-
ized until 1831. It is of interest to note that, as shown by the early records of
Peoria county, licenses in those times were granted by its county authorities
to certain persons to maintain ferries over the Chicago river at Fort Dearborn
and the "Callimink" (Calumet), at the head of Lake Michigan, as well as to
keep a tavern at Chicago, and that, although Chicago had its own justices of the
peace, yet persons desiring to be married there were obliged to come to Peoria
for their marriage licenses.
The first term of the circuit court commenced the 14th day of November.
A. D. 1825, with John York Sawyer, judge; John Dillon, clerk, and Samuel
Fulton, sheriff. The court was held in a log building, fourteen feet square,
that stood on the bank of the river. It had only one window and its loft was
low, — in fact it was a genuine log cabin. It also served for religious meetings
on the Sabbath. The basement was reached through an opening or door
on the river side and was sometimes used as a jail, sometimes as a stable. A
better jail, built of three thicknesses of logs, with a log floor covered with oak
plank well spiked, was «ubsequently erected and continued to be the county
prison for many years.
The following testimony of some of the earliest settlers will throw much
light upon the administration of justice in those early days. John Hamlin, writ-
ing in 1844, says : "In the year 1826 I lived three miles from Mackinaw, on the
Peoria and Springfield road, in what is now Tazewell county, but then attached
to Peoria; and, being twenty-one years of age that year, I was summoned on
the grand jury. There were not enough adults then in Peoria county proper
to form the grand and petit juries, and hence they were summoned from the
attached portion. All the grand jurors but two were from the east side oi the
Illinois river, and were chiefly my neighbors. We took our provisions and
bedding, the latter being a blanket or quilt for each. It was also the oractice
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS. :
on this occasion. In truth, so faithfully was the flagon 'put under requisit
that but two of our number were sober when we appeared in court to rece
the judge's charge. Judge Sawyer was the presiding judge, James Tun
the prosecuting attorney, and Messrs. Cavarly, Pugh, Bogardus and Turr
the entire bar.
"There were only about eight bills of indictment found by the grand jury,
one of these against an Indian named Nomaque, for murder. He had be
tried the fall before, but, obtaining a new trial, he was indicted again this ten
"The court house was a log building on the bank of the river, in whi(
the jurors slept on their blankets on the floor. There was a tavern kept I
Mr. Bogardus, but it was not large enough to furnish sleeping accommodatioi
for them. The grand-jury room was a lumber cabin, in which Bogardus ke]
saddles and other cattle fixings.'*
Nomaque, the Indian mentioned in the above extract, had been tried at th
first term of the court held by Judge Sawyer, at which time he was convicted fc
the murder of a Frenchman and sentenced to be hanged; William Hamiltor
a son of the celebrated Alexander Hamilton, being counsel for the defense, an<
James Turney, attorney general, for the prosecution. The case had been car
ried to the supreme court and the judgment reversed. It is reported in Beecher'i
Breese, with copious notes by the author. At the time of his second indictment
there being no secure jail, the sheriff kept him under guard at a private house
when an attempt was made at his rescue by some drunken Indians, but without
success. He was afterward allowed to quit the country and is reported to have
united his fortunes with Black Hawk, and to have lost his life in the battle of
Stillman's Run. It has been hinted that "the flagon" cut quite a figure in his
first trial.
In the same year (1844) Isaac Underbill wrote as follows : "I first landed
on the shore of Peoria lake on Christmas day, 1833, and took lodgings with
our worthy townsman, A. O. Garrett, who then kept the Teoria Hotel,' in a
small two-story wooden building at the corner of Main and Washington streets.
The only building west of the hotel at that time was a bam, a short distance up
Main street. The entire town consisted of but seven frame houses and a few
log tenements. The day following I left in the steamboat 'Peoria' for the south.
In a few months I returned again to Peoria. During my absence extensive
preparations had been made for building, and before the first of September
about forty houses and stores were erected.
"Judge Young was the presiding judge at that time and held the circuit
court in a small building, fourteen feet square, on the river bank. The grand
jury sat under the shade of a crab-apple tree, and the petit jury deliberated in
an old French cellar, partially filled up, and surrounded with a growth of rank
hig^h weeds and grass. The venerable Isaac Waters was clerk of the court.
His office and dwelling were in a small log cabin, where now (1844) stand the
plow w^orks of Tobey & Anderson. The old gentleman used to carry the seal
of the court in his pocket, and on one occasion, by mistake, offered it to the
postmaster in payment of postage.
292 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
"The only practicing members of the bar that resided here at that time
were the Hon. Lewis Bigelow and Charles Ballance. The former was an emi-
nent jurist and profound scholar. I was informed that he wrote a digest of the
law^s of Massachusetts, a valuable work of upward of eight hundred pages,
with one quill. He died here in 1838. William Frisby, a member of the bar
of much promise, arrived here in 1834. By his indefatigable studies he was fast
reaching the topmost round of the ladder of his profession, when he died, in
1842, lamented by a large circle of friends and acquaintances.''
Judge Samuel D. Lockwood succeeded Judge Sawyer, and, in 1829, Judge
Lock wood was succeeded by Judge Richard M. Young, who remained on the
bench until the close of the year 1834. Charles Ballance, who is mentioned
in one of the foregoing extracts, was a prominent attorney at law who had
settled in Peoria as early as 183 1. In the latter part of his life he wrote a history
of Peoria, from which some of the following facts are gleaned.
Judge Young's circuit extended from below Quincy to Chicago, including
the present cities of Quincy, Rock Island, Galena, Ottawa and Chicago, and
embraced all the intermediate territory. In May, 1833, he made his appear-
ance in the village of Peoria and announced that he was on his way to Chicago
to hold court. He had traveled about one hundred and thirty miles from
Quincy, where he lived, and had to travel, as the trail then ran, not less than
one hundred and seventy miles further, to hold his first court on his circuit.
He traveled all the way on horseback.
After Judge Young's time, and before the accession of the Hon. Onslow
Peters, the circuit court of Peoria county was presided over by the following
named judges, in addition to those already mentioned: Thomas Ford, Sidney
Breese, Stephen T. Logan, Daniel Stone, John D. Caton, T. Lyle Dickey and
William Kellogg, each one of whom occupies a prominent place in the history
of his times and needs not any extended notice here. It is a matter of history,
however, that Thomas Ford died in poverty, at the house of his intimate friend,
Andrew Gray, an early settler of Peoria. The grand jury was then in session,
wath Andrew Gray as foreman. That body passed a series of resolutions pay-
ing tribute to the memory of Governor Ford, from which the following extract
is taken:
'*While state's attorney in our sparsely settled country he discharged his
duties faithfully and successfully; as a judge he was impartial, laborious and
just ; as a man and citizen, one of the noblest works of God. He was nurtured
in our state while in its infancy ; he grew with its growth and strengthened with
its strength. He won his way from a fatherless boy to eminence and fame and
has left a bright example to those behind him, that virtue, industry and fidelity
insure success and will be crowned with triumph."
My acquaintance with the Peoria bar began on the second Monday in May,
A. D. 1853, ^^21^ being the day on which Onslow Peters assumed the duties of
circuit judge of the newly formed sixteenth circuit, consisting of the counties of
Peoria and Stark. For some years prior to that time Peoria and Stark counties
had constituted a part of the tenth circuit, composed of the counties of Fulton,
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS. 293
Peoria, Stark, Henry, Rock Island, Mercer, Knox and Warren. The formation
of the sixteenth circuit, composed of only two counties, one of them being very
small and having but little business, so localized our courts that from that time
forward circuit riding in this vicinity ceased to be one of the occupations of the
profession.
At that time, as nearly as I can remember, the Peoria bar consisted of the
following named leading attorneys and firms : Norman H. Purple and Ezra G.
Sanger, Lincoln B. Knowlton, Elihu N. Powell and William F. Bryan, Halsey O.
and Amos L. Merriman, Jonathan K. Cooper, Charles Ballance, Henry Grove
and Alexander McCoy, Elbridge G. Johnson and George S. Blakesley, John
T. Lindsay and Henry Lander, Henry S. Austin and Charles C. Bonney.
Thomas Ford, Lewis Bigelow, John L. Bogardus, William Frisby and
William L. May had been prominent at the bar, but they had passed away. Lin-
coln B. Knowlton, Halsey O. Merriman and Ezra G. Sanger soon joined the
ranks of the dead. Before coming to Peoria, Bigelow^ had been a member of
congress from Massachusetts, but he is better know^n to the profession as the
compiler of Bigelow's Digest of the Massachusetts reports. Frisby was his
son-in-law, a brilliant young lawyer, whose life was cut short in early manhood.
John L. Bogardus was more prominent as a business man and dealer in lands
than as an attorney.
Before coming to Peoria, William L. May had served one term in the legis-
lature and two terms in congress. He also was more of a business man than
an attorney, and possibly his most enduring monument is the Peoria w^agon-
road bridge, for the building of which he obtained a charter from the legislature.
The building of this bridge, which w^as the first one erected over the navigable
portion of the Illinois river, was the occasion of a most important decision of
our supreme court, in the case of the Illinois River Packet Company versus the
Peoria Bridge Association, reported in 38 Illinois Reports, page 467.
Lincoln B. Knowlton was a man of great ability. He had been a member
of the constitutional convention which framed the constitution of 1848. I re-
member him as a stalw^art man, above medium height, broad-shouldered and
raw-boned. He w-as then in the last stages of consumption. With a shaggy
overcoat thrown loosely over his shoulders, he walked down the middle aisle of
the court-house with great dignity, and took his seat in a hair-cloth rocker
which had been provided especially for his use. He died within a month of
that time. The following tribute was paid to his memory by the Peoria bar
on the occasion of his death: "Resolved, That we pay but a just tribute of
respect to the deceased when we declare that his character as a faithful, eloquent
and successful advocate in our courts, as a man in w^hom were united the fidelity
and honorable conduct of a good law^yer, as w^ell as the most expanded liberality,
kindness and generosity of man, commands our most unfeigned respect; that
the poor, oppressed and unprotected have occasion long to remember and to
appreciate his generous efforts, gratuitous labor and professional exertions, so
often and so faithfully put forth in their behalf, they having ever found in him
the poor man's and the widow's advocate and friend."
294 . THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
Lincoln Brown Knowlton was bom in Shrewsbury, Massachusetts, in 1804,
his paternal ancestors having come to America from Knowlton Manor, in Kent,
England, in 1642. Lieutenant Daniel Knowlton and Colonel Thomas Knowl-
ton, famed in the early Indian wars and the Revolution, were lineal ancestors.
Nathaniel Lyon was his own cousin, through a Knowlton mother. The three
Knowlton brothers settled in Ipswich, Massachusetts. Lincoln B. Knowlton
was very gifted in an intellectual way, and at an early age was sent to Union
College, at Schenectady, New York, whose president was then the famous edu-
cator, Eliphalet Nott, D. D., LL. D. After graduating at Union College Mr.
Knowlton studied law with the governor of Massachusetts, "Honest John
Davis," as he was called. Mr. Knowlton came to Peoria at a very early period
in its history and was one of the most brilliant and prominent lawyers of his
day, being known as the Henry Clay of the Illinois bar. He loved his profes-
sion, refusing a judgeship and being practically pushed into politics. He was
nominated for congress the year he died (August, 1854), and knowing that he
could not live to fill the office, asked the privilege of naming his successor,
James Knox, who was elected. He was sent as a delegate to the last Whig con-
vention, which met at Baltimore and nominated his idol, Henry Clay, for the
presidency. The last speech ever delivered by Mr. Knowlton, when he was
almost too weak to stand, and the glory of his rich, magnetic voice had gone,
was in advocacy of the election of Clay to the presidency. He was an intimate
friend of Abraham Lincoln, David Davis, Stephen A. Douglas and other emi-
nent men who lent dignity to the early bar of Illinois.
I have no recollection of ever having seen Halsey G. Merriman. He was
a very popular lawyer, and had been attorney for the town of Peoria when it
obtained its charter as a city, which was largely the work of his hands.
Ezra G. Sanger was a young man of talent and considerable prominence.
He had been a member of the legislature in 1848, and one of the presidential
electors in 1852. With Judge Purple as a partner, he was fast attaining to
an eminent position at the bar, when the dreaded consumption claimed him also
as a victim.
The old court-house had, in 1836, been replaced by a two-story brick one,
with a cupola and a portico ornamented with four round sandstone columns.
It was considered an elegant building for the times, and continued to be the seat
of justice for about forty years. Here also many political battles were fought,
for it was the only public hall in the town, and for years all political conventions
and political meetings were held in it. Its walls on many occasions resounded
with the eloquence of such men as Abraham Lincoln, Stephen A. Douglas,
Owen Lovejoy, Wendell Phillips, Joshua R. Giddings, Josiah Quincy, Jr., and
other men of note.
An incident of the times, which strongly impressed itself upon my memory,
was the great debate between Lincoln and Douglas on October 16, 1854. The
circumstances which brought these two political giants together at that time I
did not know, but in some way an arrangement was made that Senator Doug-las
was to have three hours for his opening speech, Mr. Lincoln was to have the
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS. 295
same time for reply, and Douglas was to have one hour to close the debate. I
was then a young man, and not much inclined to political life, but having been
brought up a Democrat, I was disposed to side with Senator Douglas. I listened
with much interest to his speech in defense of the repeal of the Missouri Com-
promise, but was not altogether satisfied with it. When he had closed, Mr.
Lincoln arose and spoke about as follows : "My Fellow Citizens : I would like
to make a bargain with you. Judge Douglas has occupied all the time allotted
to him for his opening speech. It is now late in the afternoon, and if I begin
my speech now, I will not be able to finish it until the time you will want to go
to your suppers, and, as I would not like to have my speech cut in two, I would
suggest that we adjourn this meeting now and come together again promptly
at seven o'clock. I can then finish my speech by ten, and Judge Douglas can
finish his by eleven, which is not an unusually late hour at this season of the
year. What do you say?" Immediately a cheer went up from his friends all
over the vast audience, accompanied by throwing of hats into the air, and other
demonstrations of approval. So the meeting was adjourned until seven o'clock,
which gave Mr. Lincoln the advantage of a much larger night audience, and an
opportunity for arranging his thoughts beforehand. When the evening came
Mr. Lincoln proceeded with his speech, during the progress of which he drove
Mr. Douglas into some very close quarters. When the latter arose to reply,
he manifested strong symptoms of anger, and continued to speak in that strain
until the close of his hour. This debate took place on a small platform, erected
on the portico at the south corner of the court-house, and the speakers and
officers of the meeting came upon it through a window, in one of the offices.
It is said upon good authority that Mr. Lincoln expected to again debate with
Senator Douglas on the following day in an adjoining county, but upon the
solicitations of the latter, on the ground that his was a controversy with a wing
of his own party, and not with the opposing party, Mr. Lincoln decided to re-
turn home.
I never saw Mr. Lincoln afterward, except on one occasion when he was in
attendance at the circuit court of Woodford county, then being held in a yet
smaller court-house in the town of Metamora. Judge David Davis, clad in a
gray and apparently homespun suit, with heavy-soled boots on his feet, one leg
thrown over the low desk in front of him, his steel-gray hair cropped short, was
presiding. Mr. Lincoln sat among the lawyers, with his chair thrown back
and his hands clasped behind his head. I was struck with the largeness of all
his features, especially his ears, which seemed out of all proportion. No one
would have suspected then that either of these two men would ever attain to the
world-wide reputation to which they afterward succeeded. It may be men-
tioned in this connection that this little town of Metamora, now abandoned as
a county seat, was the place where Adlai Stevenson, late vice-president of the
United States, commenced practice as a youthful attorney, and the place where
Simeon P. Shope, an eminent justice of our supreme court, spent his boyhood
days. Here also, at court times, were accustomed to assemble many other dis-
tinguished attorneys from neighboring counties, amongst whom may be men-
296 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
tioned the late Asahel Gridley, Lawrence Weldon, now of the court of claims
at Washington, and Robert E. Williams, of Bloomington ; Benjamin S. Pretty-
man and Samuel W. Fuller, of Pekin ; T. Lyle Dickey, of Ottawa ; Samuel L.
Richmond, John Burns, Thomas M. Shaw and George Barnes, of Lacon; Henry
GrQve, Henry B. Hopkins, E. C. and R. G. Ingersoll and Sabin D. Puterbaugh,
of Peoria.
Although the old court-house at Peoria had on many occasions been made
to resound with the eloquence of the distinguished statesmen already named,
yet their eloquence did not by any means eclipse that of some of our home talent.
I well remember a murder case tried in the early days of Judge Peters' in-
cumbency, in which Elbridge G. Johnson and Judge Norman H. Purple were
counsel for the prosecution, and Judge William Kellogg and Julius Manning
for the defense. This was indeed a battle of the giants. In all my experience
at the bar I have never heard, in any one case, four addresses to the jury of
such uniform eloquence and power as those presented on this occasion.
Mr. Johnson was a native of New Hampshire, but afterward located in the
state of Vermont, where he read law with the distinguished Judge Redfield,
and was there admitted to the bar at the early age of twenty years. He prac-
ticed his profession in the state of Vermont until the year 1850, when he located
in Peoria and there continued in active practice until the time of his death,
January 26, 1885. It has been truthfully said of Mr. Johnson, that he did not
attain to that distinction to which his eminent talent entitled him. He was ex-
tremely sensitive, so much so as to almost revolt at the idea of putting himself
forward as a candidate for any public position. I had occasion at one time to
be a witness of his great diffidence, when attending the supreme court at Ottawa.
As is well known to those who attended that court, the chairs in the great court-
room, for some inexplicable reason, were arranged about its outer walls, so
that every attorney who wished to address the court was obliged, as it were,
to run the gauntlet of the entire bar in attendance. Mr. Johnson had a motion
to present, but was scarcely able to summon courage necessary for the occasion,
remarking at the time that he would as lief stand up to be shot at as to go
forward to present his motion.
The following points in his character are taken from an able address de-
livered by his former partner, Hon. H. B. Hopkins, on the occasion of his death;
"He was a man of dignified and imposing personal appearance, with nature's
emphatic stamp of superiority. He was all his life under the dominion of strong
powers, both mentally and physically. His intellect belonged to the type of the
colossal. * * * Although he did not attain all that distinction which his
early life seemed to indicate, in the judgment of his contemporaries, yet he always
had in himself all the qualities of greatness and power which justified that prom-
ise, and he needed only the occasion and sufficient force of impulse to have
quite realized it. * * * Upright and honest, he had no patience with tricks
or duplicity. His opinions upon social, moral, religious, political and personal
topics were most independent. * * * Behind the shelter of an external
indifference was a nature so sensitive and delicate that almost everything either
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS. 297
hurt him or consoled him. A bundle of nerves, a tissue of sensibilities, a bat-
tery of forces, pain and pleasure were the ever vibrating tides of his emotions.
* * * In the early part of Mr. Johnson's residence here he held the office
of state's attorney for one term, and later served one term in the state legislature,
as a member of the house of representatives, and soon after the enactment by
congress of the old bankrupt law he was appointed register in bankruptcy for
this congressional district, and held the office until the law was repealed. He
discharged the duties of these various offices with unquestionable ability and
faithfulness."
William Kellogg had been a member of the lower house of the state legis-
lature, after which he was elected judge of the tenth circuit, which then in-
cluded Peoria and Stark counties. This office he held with distinction from
February, 1850, to November, 1852. After leaving the bench he resumed the
practice of law until 1856, when he was elected to congress, and continued to
be a member of that body until March 4, 1863, during which time he took a
prominent part in the legislation of that critical period of our country's history.
Judge Kellogg was a fine orator and displayed his eloquence with great
power, both at the bar and in the halls of legislation. In person he was of
medium height, somewhat inclined to corpulency, had a high forehead and was
of fair complexion. His face was full and his voice clear and distinct, his
gestures graceful, and his whole manner that of a finished orator. After leav-
ing congress he came to Peoria to reside and remained in the practice of the
law at this place until the time of his death. His public career belongs rather
to the state and nation than to the local bar of Peoria.
Of Julius Manning I cannot speak too highly. He was one of my pre-
ceptors, and, for the last year of his life, it was my great privilege to be his
partner. He was a native of Canada, his birthplace having been near the Ver-
mont line, and he received his education at Middlebury College in that state,
where he also studied law. He came to Illinois in 1837 and at once took a
leading" position at the bar, as well as in political matters. Before coming to
Peoria he had for some years lived and practiced law in Knox county, from
which county he had been elected to the lower house of the general assembly
for two successive terms, and in 1848 he was elected a member of the electoral
colleg^e in the presidential contest of that year. His practice had been exten-
sive, covering several counties, including Peoria. In the year 1854, soon after
the death of Halsey O. Merriman, he came to Peoria and formed a partnership
with Amos L. Merriman, which firm continued until June, 1861, when Mr.
Merriman was elected to the office of circuit judge of the sixteenth circuit. It
was at that time that I became a partner of Mr. Manning. In the autumn of
that year Mr. Manning and Judge Purple were, by almost common consent,
elected to represent the counties of Peoria and Stark in the constitutional con-
vention. In January, 1862, he left the office to attend that convention, and re-
mained at Springfield until the time of its adjournment. Upon his return home
his health was very much impaired, and he deemed a trip to Canada, where he
had once lived, advisable for rest and recuperation; but when his preparations
298 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
t
had all been made, and while paying a visit to his old home in Knoxville, he
suddenly expired, on July 4, 1862, at the early age of forty-eight years.
In political faith Mr. Manning was a Democrat, and although, in the con-
stitutional convention, he went with his party in a course which seemed some-
what questionable, yet he was always loyal to the country. I well remember
when the Rebellion first broke out and excited crowds were filling our streets it
became the earnest desire of many good citizens to know the standing of Julius
Manning on the all-important questions then agitating the country. Accord-
ingly, when called upon to address the multitude assembled in front of his office,
he appeared on the balcony and commenced something in this wise: "My
Fellow Citizens : I belong to the north, I was born in the north, I married my
wife in the north, my children were born in the north, my interests lie in the
north, and in this fight I am for the north." He then went on to show that
when sections are at war with each other, there can be no middle ground, but
that every man must be on one side or on the other. As for himself, whatsoever
others might do or be, he was for the north. This speech produced a profound
impression upon the community and had much to do with placing many waver-
ing Democrats on the right side.
His forecasting of political events was shown by a remark made by him
at the time of Abraham Lincoln's first nomination. A few of us, mostlv Demo-
crats, were in his office awaiting the results of the balloting in Chicago. When
the news of Lincoln's nomination came, there was manifested a considerable
degree of merriment over the choice of the convention, which was checked by
Mr. Manning, who said : ''Boys, don't laugh ; Abe Lincoln is the hardest
man to beat the Republicans could have nominated." This was before the split
in the Democratic party. After that event occurred Mr. Manning threw his in-
fluence in favor of Douglas, in the presidential campaign of that year.
Mr. Manning was slightly above medium height, portly in person, erect in
carriage, dignified in appearance, fair in complexion and in the color of his hair,
his features heavy and prominent but pleasing in expression. He dressed well,
wore a silk hat and carried a gold-headed cane. His presence commanded
respect wherever he appeared.
As an orator Julius Manning had few equals and no recognized superiors.
His voice was musical and clear as a bell, his enunciation was perfect, his
gestures elegant, his expression earnest and his whole manner most persuasive.
He was a student of rhetoric. Although his speeches seemed, to a listening
audience, to be entirely extemporaneous, yet on all important occasions, when
time was at his command, they were studiously prepared. Some of his skele-
tons, still extant, observe the rhetorical division of exordium, argument and
peroration, and the line of thought assigned to each was scrupulously followed
in delivery.
As a lawyer he was perhaps not so methodical nor so exact in the prepara-
tion of his cases as was Judge Purple, but in point of native talent and the
intuitive grasping of the principles of the law he was generally regarded as the
latter's superior. With the jury he was almost invincible, and many a man
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS, 299
owed his life or his liberty to the eloquence of Julius Manning, when in less
able hands he might have been condemned to punishment.
The estimate in which he was held by his brethren of the profession is best
expressed by the resolutions adopted by the Peoria bar on the occasion of his
death, one of which reads as follows :
Resolved, That in the death of Mr. Manning the bar of this county and state has
lost one of its brightest ornaments, the state one of its most distinguished citizens, and
society one of its noblest and worthiest members. Endowed by nature with a mind of
the finest texture and of the most enlarged capacity, enriched and strengthened by
cultivation, he grasped with remarkable ease and clearness the whole science of law, and
successfully applied it in practice with a rare combination of eloquence and logic. He
had thoroughly mastered the elementary principles of his noble profession, and his mind
was a vast store-house, in which memory had carefully garnered up and stored away
inexhaustible treasures of legal lore. He was thus always provided and ready for any
professional emergency, whether on the circuit or at home. He was no less conspicuous
for his modesty. Always unconscious of his own merits and preferring the quiet of home
rather than the pleasures of the social circle, he sedulously shunned the turmoil and eclat
of public life. He entered the political arena but seldom, and with reluctance, in
obedience to the urgent and unsolicited demands of his numerous friends. In his deport-
ment, whether in public life or in professional or social intercourse, he was always
courteous. No barbed shaft ever found place in his full quiver. His heart was as
expansive as his mind. Kindness exhaled from him as an atmosphere, and shed its
beneficence upon all alike who came into his presence.
In religious matters, during most of his life, JuHus Manning was a liberal
thinker. While entertaining a very high regard for the person, character and
teachings of Jesus Christ as a man, he could not yield his assent to what is known
as orthodox teaching; but in the last few months of his life he became a thor-
ough convert to the evangelical faith and to all appearances was a devout Chris-
tian.
Norman H. Purple's proper place in history is with the bar of the state
at large, rather than with the local bar of Peoria. But, having spent the best
years of his life with us, we claim him as one of our own. A detailed sketch of
his life appears in connection with a preceding chapter on the supreme judges of
the state. After retiring from the supreme bench he removed to Peoria and
resumed the practice of the law, which soon became extensive and lucrative.
The great contest in the Military Tract between patent titles and tax titles
was then at its height. By an act of congress, in 1812, two million acres of land
in Illinois, northwest of the Illinois river, had been set apart for soldiers' bounties.
These lands, having been patented directly to the soldiers, had become taxable,
and many of them had been sold for taxes. These tax titles were the only
ones upon which many of the actual settlers held their farms. As lands became
valuable the country was scoured, from Maine to Texas, by speculators in lands,
in search of the patentees or their heirs. When they, or some other persons
of like names, were found, suits would be commenced in their names, or in those
of their grantees, for the possession. In many instances, when the occupant had
bought up the apparent patent title of one set of heirs, another, and possibly a
300 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
third, set would turn up claiming- the same land. Many of these suits were
brought in the federal courts, and many of them in the courts of the state.
In this great controversy many of the members of the bar in the Military Tract
came to be recognized as the leading land lawyers in the country. Among these
may be mentioned Archibald Williams, Orville H. Browning, Charles B. Law-
rence, of Quincy ; Robert S. Blackwell, author of Blackwell on Tax Titles, ot
Macomb; Hezekiah M. Wead, William Kellogg, William C. Goudy and S. Com-
ing Judd, of Fulton county ; Joseph Knox, of Knox county ; and Norman H.
Purple, Julius Manning, Onslow Peters, Elihu N. Powell, William F. Bryan and
others of Peoria county. In this contest the law relating to tax titles and the
statutes of limitation became practically settled for all time.
Another fruitful source of litigation in those days consisted of the French
claims in Peoria. During the war of 1 812 one Captain Craig, acting under orders
of the territorial governor, had come to the French village at Peoria lake and,
erroneously supposing the inhabitants to be acting in league with the hostile
Indians, burned their village and carried the inhabitants away to more southern
counties. To atone for this act of injustice congress, in 1823, had granted to
these settlers the lots on which they had resided, with their adjacent outlets.
The quarter section on which the county seat was afterward located, and the
tracts now known as Bigelow and Underbill's Addition and Ballance's Addition,
were all patented subject to these rights of the French, but the claims were not
surveyed out for several years after the grant. Charles Ballance, the attorney
already mentioned, had become the owner of a large tract of land upon which he
had laid out an addition, besides being the owner of other lots covered by the
French claims. He, therefore, became champion of the parties in possession,
while one Robert Forsythe, of St. Louis, championed the cause of the French,
he being one of the heirs. The controversy hinged upon the statute of limi-
tation, and the points to be determined were: First. Did the statutes run
against these grants? Second. Were the defendants within the provisions oi
any of those statutes? These questions being finally resolved in favor of the
occupants, this vexatious litigation which had lasted for twenty years came to
an end. In these contests Judge Purple and Julius Manning had frequent occa-
sion to measure intellectual swords with each other.
Judge Purple was a forcible rather than an elegant speaker. Unfortunately
he had somewhat of a nasal enunciation, which, with those not accustomed to
hear him, detracted not a little from the elegance of his diction. In appearance
he was tall, erect and dignified, in physique he was well proportioned, in gesture
not graceful, but the earnestness of his delivery made up for all the other de-
fects and gave his speeches great weight. In the use of sarcasm he was cutting,
and, when occasion demanded repartee, he was quick and pointed.
As a practitioner at the bar Judge Purple was exact as well as exacting.
He never presented a matter in court without due preparation. Keeping him-
self within the rules of the court, he expected the same of others. He wrote a
bold and very legible hand, and although his penmanship was not elegant,
yet his court papers were always prepared with scrupulous neatness. In 1857
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS. 301
Judge Purple compiled and published an edition of all the laws of the state then
in force, and before then had published a compilation of the real-estate statutes,
which ar€ known as Purple's Statutes and Purple's Real Estate Statutes.
Hezekiah M. Wead was a member of the convention which framed the con-
stitution of 1848, and was the successor of William Kellogg as judge of the tenth
circuit. After retiring from the bench he came to Peoria, and spent the re-
maining years of his life in the practice of the law, during which time he was
associated at different times with Marion Williamson, Elihu N. Powell, William
Jack and Lawrence W. James. He was a talented lawyer, an able and upright
judge, a forcible speaker, a man of fine physical development and of strong will
power. His career in Peoria was a successful one.
His position upon the questions of the day is shown by the following extract
from a paper of the opposite party in politics, relative to an oration delivered
by him July 4, 1862 : "It was one of the best and most appropriate addresses
of the kind we have ever Hstened to. * * * At the close the speaker alluded
to the war progressing for the integrity of our country and the supremacy of
the constitution under which we have made such glorious progress in all that
can make a people great and happy. He w^as not among those who looked
despondingly at the future; or had fears as to the result. The result,' said the
Judge, Svill be the total overthrow of treason and rebellion, and before another
Fourth of July dawns, the re-establishment of the national authority over every
foot of the soil of these United States.' "
Henry Grove was a diamond in the rough. Born in Pennsylvania, he had
in early life been taken by his parents to the state of Ohio, where he spent his
youth and early manhood. Having there become accustomed to the hardy
life of the pioneer backwoodsman, he retained many of its characteristics during
life. In fact, he prided himself upon, and obtained much of his popularity by,
keeping closely in touch with the sons of toil. He was a man of most decided
native ability, but lacked »that culture derived from early education, which many
of his associates possessed. On this account some of them were inclined to
deride him somewhat when he first came to the Peoria bar, but he proved him-
self a fair match for the ablest of them, not so much by the force of pure logic
as by the force of that vast amount of wit, humor and ridicule which he was
able, as occasion required, to throw into his speeches. I remember one occa-
sion, when being hard pressed by his opposing counsel he found it necessary to
divert the attention of the jury from the case itself, by turning upon his oppon-
ents. Making a terrific assault upon them for their alleged duplicity, and seiz-
ing the old worn Bible on the clerk's desk, quick as a flash he turned to the
proper passage, and, pointing alternately to the two opposing counsel, read in
the most sonorous voice he could command, "I say unto you the publicans and
harlots go into the kingdom of God before you !" The effect was magical and
brought the crimson to the faces of his opponents.
He was a man of about medium height and weight, had a heavy shock of
black hair, which showed but slight acquaintance with either comb or brush;
heavy eyebrows, small piercing eyes, prominent Roman nose, thin lips covering
J
302 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS,
firmly set teeth, protruding chin and full beard, less the mustache. His ill
fitting clothes seemed to be hung upon him without reference to appearance.
He wore low shoes, often down at the heels, and, if tied at all, they were tied
with leather shoe-strings.
But with all these peculiarities Henry Grove was a man of power as well
in political life as at the bar. As might be supposed from his antecedents, he
had an utter contempt for the aggressions of the slave power, and early espoused
the cause of the Anti-Nebraska party. He was elected to the legislature in
1854, and recorded his votes with others of that political faith, and when the
tug of war came in i860 he was made a delegate to the national convention,
and had the honor of voting for Abraham Lincoln as a candidate for president
of the United States. He was loyal to the core, and although too old, as he
said, to go into the army, he was one of the most liberal supporters of the boys
who did go. At the time of his death the Peoria bar passed a series of resolu-
tions commemorative of his life and services, and upon presentation of the
same to the circuit court, Mr. William F. Bryan gave the following sketch of
his character: "It is superfluous to say that Mr. Grove had traits of char-
acter which made him peculiarly notable. His presence was always manifested
by some demonstrative act. With but a limited education he had a rare com-
mand of the sturdy elements of his mother tongue. He was laboriously dili-
gent in the practice of his profession and was always energetic and aggressive
in behalf of his clients. * * * He loved the court-room and the excite-
ment incident to its proceedings. His whole professional career has passed
like a popular panorama before the public eye. Better, therefore, perhaps than
any of his contemporaries, has he delineated his own character, and as it were
so moulded and shaped it that like the statue of a sculptor it stands forth seen
and recognized by all men." Henry Grove died in the month of May, 1872.
Alexander McCoy was a native of Pennsylvania, was graduated at Wash-
ington College in the class of 1844, was admitted to the bar in Ohio, about the
year 1850, after which he came to Peoria and formed a partnership with Henry
Grove, in 1851. In 1856 he was elected state's attorney for the sixteenth cir-
cuit, for the term of four years, and was re-elected to the same office in i860.
The duties of this office he discharged with signal faithfulness and ability. I"
1 86 1 he formed a partnership with Judge Purple, which continued until the
latter's death, in 1863. In 1864 he was elected to the lower house of the legis-
lature, on the Republican ticket. His ability as a lawyer was at once recognized
by his being made chairman of the judiciary committee, which made him the
leader of the house.
When the thirteenth amendment to the constitution of the United States
was submitted to the legislature of Illinois for ratification and the same had
passed the senate, it was upon the motion of Alexander McCoy that the same
was at once ratified by the house. By this prompt action of its legislature the
state of Illinois was the first to place the seal of immortality upon the brow of
her noblest son, by its ratification of this amendment, insuring perpetual free-
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS, 303
dom not only to the black men of the south, but to every human being wher-
ever our fla^ floats.
Upon the retirement of Judge Marion Williamson from the bench, in 1867,
a partnership was formed between himself, Alexander McCoy, Lorin G. Pratt
and John S. Stevens, which continued until the death of Judge Williamson, the
year following. The business was then continued under the name of McCoy
& Stevens until 1870, when Mr. McCoy retired and took up his residence in the
city of Chicago. There he had at different times as partners, George F. Harding,
Lorin Grant Pratt, C. B. McCoy and Charles E. Pope. About the year 1887
he retired from business, and in January, 1889, removed to California, where he
died on February 10, 1893.
His late partner, Charles E. Pope, in writing to the surviving members of
his college class in 1894, pays him the following beautiful and truthful tribute :
"I can truthfully say that closely he approached my ideal of what the lawyer and
true man should be. He was by nature and practice an honest man. This
characteristic, united with great knowledge of equity principles and practice,
made him a most excellent equity lawyer. His manner of presenting his case
in court impressed those who listened to him with the feeling that he thoroughly
believed in the justice of the cause he was advocating. His force of character,
his rugged common sense, his careful, conscientious preparation of his case,
his cool analytical dissection of the facts and law, usually led to. success. Mr.
McCoy's ability as a lawyer was well known to the public at large. His clients
were among the most prominent citizens here. As regards his character as a
man it is hard for me to speak in terms of moderation. His standing among
his professional brethren was unchallenged. He was trusted and respected by
all- Most genial, and gifted with a keen sense of humor, he was a most de-
lightful companion. Those who have known him cannot, I am sure, but have
been led thereby to a higher realization of what man can and ought to be."
Jonathan K. Cooper was one of the early members of the Peoria bar. He
was a native of Pennsylvania, grandson of Robert Cooper, a noted Presbyterian
divine and chaplain in the Revolutionary army. His father was John Cooper,
who for many years was principal of a classical academy at which the son re-
ceived his early education, and where he laid the foundation of that literary
taste and that felicity in the use of pure English for which he was noted. At
the age of seventeen years he entered Jefferson College, an institution of high
grade, located at Cannonsburg, in western Pennsylvania, and was graduated
in 1835. He afterward pursued a course of study of the law in the law school
attached to Dickinson College, in Carlisle, where he came in contact with such
men as Justice Gibson, Thaddeus Stevens and other leading lawyers of the
state.
Upon the completion of his course he was admitted to the Carlisle bar,
about the year 1839, soon after which he came to Peoria. As a lawyer Mr.
Cooper was conscientious, painstaking and extremely careful of his clients' in-
terests. He was modest and retiring to a fault, generally underrating his own
abilities, while probably overrating the ability of others. By cultivation he had
304 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
become accustomed to the use of the choicest language, which he never lost
sight of even in the heat of debate. He was a forcible, although not brilliant
speaker, but he fully made up for this apparent defect by the earnestness of his
manner, the force of his language and by the most admirable choice of words in
which he was accustomed to express his thoughts.
Mr. Cooper was not ambitious for fame, nor was he ever an aspirant for
any office, but quietly and industriously pursued the practice of his profession
as long as the state of his health would permit. He had a supreme contempt
for everything low or vile, and never would on any occasion countenance a
suggestion of vulgarity, either at the bar or in his intercourse with his fellow
men. He, as well as others, sometimes became the object of Mr. Grove's ridi-
cule, but Mr. Cooper was able to cut back with a keen blade. On such occa-
sions it was a contest between the tomahawk of the son of the forest and the
polished steel of the knight errant. Yet, opposite as they were in character,
they were warm friends and each enjoyed the confidence and esteem of the
other.
• At the time of his death it was truthfully said of him by Hon. H. B. Hop-
kins, one of his associates at the bar : **For many years he enjoyed more of
personal regard and friendship, and the kindly expression of them, more of the
love and trust of home friends, of professional associates and business patrons
than falls to the happy lot of many men of our times and locality. * * * It
is with regret, with grief and a tear that we contemplate the broken tie which
bound him to us, and place a fresh memory along with that of those who have
preceded him. * * * And in amiable qualities, in gentleness and sweetness
of life and character he had few equals among the living or departed of our gen-
eration."
About the year 1857, two brothers. Ebon Clark Ingersoll and Robert G.
Ingersoll, came from Gallatin county to Peoria. They were both immediately
recognized as talented young attorneys, and, both being Democrats, they soon
took prominent positions in that party. The elder brother was then a repre-
sentative in the legislature from the fourth district, and after the death of
Owen Lovejoy, in March, 1864, he was elected as a RepubHcan to succeed the
latter in congress. After the expiration of that term he was elected three times
in succession to represent the fifth district. Having failed in his re-election
in 1870, on account of the breaking up of party lines, he retired to private life
in Washington city, where he continued to reside until the time of his death.
He was in congress at the time of the close of the war, and took an active part
in the proceedings of that body during the exciting times of the reconstruction
of the Union.
Robert G. Ingersoll was regarded as an abler lawyer, but was not so success-
ful in politics as his brother. In i860 he ran for congress, as a Democratic
candidate against Judge William Kellogg, the Republican candidate. In 1861
he went into the army as colonel of the Eleventh Regiment of Illinois Cavalry.
His experience in the army wrought a complete revolution in his political
views, and ever afterward he was an ardent Republican. From February, 1867,
THE BENCH AND BAR OF HJJNOIS. 305
to January, 1869, he held the office of attorney general, by appointment of
Governor Oglesby.
In 1868 he was a candidate before the Republican state convention for the
office of governor, but was defeated by the friends of General John M. Palmer,
who was subsequently elected. Some years after his brother had taken up his
residence in Washington city, Robert G. Ingersoll went there to reside, and the
two continued in business together until the death of the former. The latter
subsequently went to New York city, where he has achieved such a wide repu-
tation that a full account of his career becomes impossible in these local notices.
Henry W. Wells is perhaps the senior member of the Peoria bar in active
practice. Having received his early education at Galesburg, Illinois, he entered
the National Law School (then at Ballston, but afterward removed to Pough-
keepsie, New York), where he graduated in 1853 and was admitted to the New
York bar. Returning to Illinois he continued his studies in the law office of
Messrs. Johnson and Blakesley, teaching school in the winter seasons, until
the year 1855, when he entered upon the practice of the law at Cambridge,
Henry county, Illinois, and very soon did an extensive business. In 1862 he
enlisted in the One Hundred and Twelfth Regiment of Illinois Infantry, as a
private, and was afterward promoted to the office of major. He continued in
the service until the close of the war. In 1865 he returned to Peoria and has
ever since been engaged in the practice of the law\ He is well known to the
profession as the author of a valuable treatise entitled Wells on Replevin, which
is accepted as standard authority. In 1869 he was elected as a member of the
constitutional convention and did efficient service in the framing of our present
constitution. This is the only public office Major Wells has ever held.
John T. Lindsay was at one time a member of considerable prominence
of our bar, but is now a non-resident of the county. When I first became ac-
quainted with the bar of Peoria he was engaged in the practice of the law in
company with Henry Lander, formerly a partner of Julius Manning, in Knox
county. Mr. Lindsay continued the practice of the law for many years there-
after, and during that time had several partners. He served for one term as
a member of the house of representatives and one term in the state senate.
While a member of the senate, although he had been elected as a Democrat,
he voted for the ratification of the thirteenth amendment to the constitution of
the United States.
Charles C. Bonney properly belongs to Chicago, where his reputation has
bejsn achieved, yet it is true that he was admitted to the bar and for several
years practiced his profession in Peoria. While here he took into his office as
a student a penniless Irish boy named William W. O'Brien, who afterward
became a man of considerable note at the bar, as well as in political life. He
was unfortunate in not having a good academical education, for he was a man
of natural abilities and force of character. As a successful criminal lawyer
he had few superiors in the state. He was a forcible speaker, impulsive in the
argument of his cases and seemed to carry his point by mere force, rather than
by logical argument.
20
3o6 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
He was an ardent Democrat and adhered to the anti-war wing of his party
to the last. He was elected to the lower house of the legislature in 1862 and
took a prominent part in the action of that body which finally led to its ad-
journment by the proclamation of Governor Yates. He was a delegate to the
national Democratic convention which nominated Horatio Seymour for presi-
dent, in 1868, and in that same year was the candidate of his party for congress-
man for the state at large against General John A. Logan, the successful can-
didate. He subsequently removed to Chicago, where after some years of prac-
tice, with varying success, he died.
In addition to those already named the following members of the Peoria
bar have been members of the legislature, viz. : Senators, — Mark M. Bassett,
one term; Andrew J. Bell, two terms; Lucien H. Kerr, one term; John S.
Lee, two terms; John M. Neihaus, one term; James D. Putnam, present in-
cumbent. Representatives, — Mark M. Bassett, one term; Robert S. Bibb, one
term ; Samuel Caldwell, one term ; Horace R. Chase, one term ; John S. Lee,
one term; John M. Neihaus, one term; William E. Phelps, one term; Michael
C. Quinn, two terms; James M. Rice, one term; Julius S. Starr, two terms.
It would afford me much pleasure to be able to give an extended notice
of all my contemporaries at the bar, as well the living as the dead, but lack
of time and space forbids. The Peoria bar had an honorable representation in
the army during the war of the Rebellion whose records are well preserved
in local history. I add the following brief notes relative to the judges of the
circuit court:
JUDGES OF THE CIRCUIT COURT.
Onslow Peters was the first judge of the sixteenth circuit. He was a native
of Massachusetts and had come to Peoria as early as the year 1836. Before
his accession to the bench he had enjoyed a practice extending over a large
portion of the northern end of the state. He was a man of great public spirit ;
had been a member of the constitutional convention of 1847, si"^ is said to
have been the author of our system of township organization. He was a strong
advocate of popular education and aided much in the establishment of our system
of public schools.
He was re-elected in 1855, but occupied the bench less than three years in
all, having died, in Washington city, February 28, 1856. As I remember him,
Judge Peters was rather short in stature, had a very bald head, surrounded
by a ring of dark hair; had a broad and not very expressive face, and was
burdened with a great rotundity of person. He is, by one historian, said to have
been somewhat pompous in his manner, but, never having heard him speak
except at some local meetings of a business character, I am not able to add my
testimony to that charge. I knew him as a good-natured, genial gentleman,
ever ready to do a kindness or to render friendly advice to a young man when
needed.
Upon the death of Judge Peters, Jacob Gale became his successor for
a few months. Judge Gale had not been engaged in the active practice of
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS. 307
the law for some years, but had for a long time held the office of circuit
clerk, and by that means had kept himself well informed as to the proper admin-
istration of the law. But the onerous duties of the bench proving distasteful to
him, he resigned his office and was succeeded in November of the same year
by Elihu N. Powell.
Judge Powell came from Ohio at a very early day, and, although he had
not the advantage of a thorough education in early life, yet, through indomi-
table industry and perseverance in his studies, he became a very able lawyer.
He has had as a partner for some years Mr. William F. Bryan, under the firm
name of Powell & Bryan, which firm attained to a very extensive and lucrative
practice. At the time of his death, in 1871, Judge Powell was considered the
senior member of the Peoria bar. He had the rare faculty of being able to cite
from memory, giving book and page, any reported case he had ever read.
Neither he nor his partner, Bryan, were great orators, but each of them was able
to present his case to court or jury with commendable ability and force. Mr.
Bryan still survives, but has long since retired from the bar.
Judge Powell was succeeded in 1861 by Amos L. Merriman, who held
the office until the latter part of the year 1863, when he resigned the same
to take up the then growing business of prosecuting war claims against the
government; for which purpose he removed to Washington city, where he still
resides. As before stated he had been partner with his brother until the time
of the latter's death, in 1854, after which he was partner of Julius Manning until
his accession to the bench. He was the office lawyer of both firms, and became
an expert in the preparation of court papers, as well as all other documents
necessary to be prepared in the office of an attorney. He was not considered
a very able advocate, but was an excellent judge of the law, and discharged the
duties of his high office with ability and to the satisfaction of all. Upon the
retirement of Judge Merriman he was succeeded by Marion Williamson.
Judge Williamson had come to Peoria about the year 1856. He was a
native of Ohio and had received only a common-school education, but his
native talent and diligent study overcame all obstacles and placed him in the
front rank of the youngef members of the bar. After coming to Peoria he
was first associated for three years with Hon. Hezekiah M. Wead, after which,
until his accession to the bench, he practiced alone. It was truthfully said of
him, "He filled the office with honor to himself and benefit to the community.
His peculiar adaptability to the position made him one of the best officers that
evet sat upon the bench." Upon retiring he formed a partnership with Alexander
McCoy, Lorin G. Pratt and John S. Stevens, which was terminated by his death
the following year.
Sabin D. Puterbaugh, the successor of Judge Williamson, was likewise a
native of Ohio, but had come with his parents to Illinois when he was five years
old. His early education was obtained at the common schools of Tazewell
county. He was admitted to the bar in January, 1857, and at once became
partner of Hon. Samuel W. Fuller, then state senator from that district. After
the removal of Mr. Fuller to Chicago, Mr. Puterbaugh formed a partnership
3o8 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
with Hon. John B. Cohrs, which continued until 1861. Mr. Puterbaugh then
entered the army as major of the Eleventh Illinois Cavalry, and remained in the
service until November, 1862, when he resigned and removed to Peoria. In
1868 he formed a partnership with E. C. & R. G. IngersoU, the former of whom
w^as then a representative in congress. This firm continued until June, 1867,
when he was elected to the office of circuit judge. He held this office until
March, 1873, 2^"^ ^^^^ resigned to resume the practice of his profession. As a
judge he was upright, painstaking, diligent and correct in his decisions, and
discharged the duties of his office with ability and fidelity. He is perhaps best
known to the profession as the author of Puterbaugh's Common Law Plead-
ings and Practice and Puterbaugh's Chancery Pleading and Practice, both of
which works are accepted as standard authority.
Judge Puterbaugh also, in 1877, took a conspicuous part in the measures
before the legislature for the reorganization of the judiciary, and the creation
of the appellate courts. To his efforts probably more than to those of any other
one man the state is indebted for the adoption of those measures. -
In politics he was a Democrat until the outbreak of the Rebellion, when
he identified himself with the Republican party, and he was one of the presi-
dential electors in 1880, at which time he cast his vote in the electoral college
for James A. Garfield for president and Chester A. Arthur for vice-president.
He continued in the practice of the law until his death, which occurred on Sep-
tember 25, 1892.
Upon the resignation of Judge Puterbaugh, Henry B. Hopkins was ap-
pointed by the governor to fill out the unexpired term. Although an excellent
lawyer, Mr. Hopkins did not give promise of very great success as a judge.
The trouble seemed to be that he was too cautious and too considerate, and
consequently too slow in his movements for the speedy dispatch of business.
He was a native of Vermont and had for many years been a partner of E. G.
Johnson. He was exceedingly laborious and painstaking, and had the reputa-
tion with the judges of the supreme court of having prepared some of the best
arguments ever presented to that tribunal. He died in 1892.
Joseph W. Cochran, a native of Ohio, succeeded Judge Hopkins. He had
come to Peoria about the year 1858, and had been successful as a lawyer and
master in chancery. His present place of residence is the city of Chicago.
At the same election John Burns, of Lacon, Marshall county, was elected judge
of the adjoining circuit. Judge Burns had been engaged in successful practice
for many years in Marshall and adjoining counties, and had represented his
district in the constitutional convention of 1862. By the action of the legisla-
ture of 1877 these two circuits were united, and David McCuUoch w*as elected
as the third judge of the new circuit.
At the election of 1879 Judges Burns and McCuUoch were re-elected and
Ninian M. Laws, of Marshall county, succeeded Judge Cochran. Judge Mc-
CuUoch was immediately assigned to the appellate bench of the third district,
which position he continued to occupy until the end of his term.
At the election of 1885, Thomas M. Shaw, of Marshall county, Nathaniel
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS. 309
W. Green, of Tazewell county, and Samuel S. Page, of Peoria county, were
elected. Judge Shaw had very ably represented his district in the state senate
during the thirty-second and thirty-third sessions of the legislature, and had
at the latter session been honored with the unanimous vote of the senators
of his party for the position of president pro tempore of the senate. He is now
filling his third term on the circuit bench.
Judge Green was immediately assigned to the bench of the appellate court,
a position he continued to occupy until his retirement, in 1897. Judge Page
resigned in 1890, and was succeeded for the remainder of the term by Hon.
Lawrence W. James. At the election of 1891, Judges Shaw and Green were
re-elected and Nicholas E. Worthington succeeded Judge James.
Judge Worthington had ably represented the tenth district for two terms
in the congress of the United States, and had been appointed by President
Cleveland as a member of the labor commission, in which capacity he had made
and presented to the president a very able report.
At the election of 1897 Judges Shaw and Worthington were re-elected and
Leslie D. Puterbaugh succeeded Judge Green. Upon his re-election Judge
Worthington was immediately assigned to the bench of the appellate court for
the fourth district, a position he still occupies.
CHAPTER XVI.
LAWYERS OF PEORIA COUNTY.
DAVID McCULLOCH.— Before the days when the railroad connected
Peoria with the outside world David McCulloch located in that city and
has since made it his home. He was born January 25, 1832, in Cumber-
land county, Pennsylvania, and is a son of Thomas and Isabella (Blean) iMc-
Culloch, the former a farmer by occupation. The great-grandfather of our
subject, John McCulloch, a resident of the north of Ireland, came to America
about the year 1735, locating west of the Susquehanna river, where many of his
descendants still reside.
David McCulloch acquired his collegiate education in Marshall College,
of Mercersburg, Pennsylvania, and was graduated in the class of 1852. He
then engaged in teaching in his native village for six months, after which he
started westward, having determined to try his fortune in Illinois. He arrived
in Peoria on the 23d of April, 1853. There was then no railroad nearer than
Bureau Junction, near Hennepin, and he completed the journey by steamboat
from La Salle. For two years after his arrival he conducted a private school,
after which, in the spring of 1855, he began »the study of law in the office of
Manning & Merriman, prominent attorneys of Peoria, and was admitted to the
bar in 1857. In November, 1855, however, he was elected school commissioner
of Peoria county, an office equivalent to the present one of county superintendent,
in which capacity he served for three terms of two years each, from 1855 until
1 86 1. He was then taken into partnership in the practice of his profession with
Julius Manning, one of the ablest lawyers in the state, who died July 4, 1862.
In the same year he formed a partnership with Charles P. Taggart, who in
1864 was elected state's attorney of the sixteenth circuit; but on account of his
failing health the duties of the office were for more than two years performed
by Mr. McCulloch. From 1870 until 1875 Mr. McCulloch was a partner of
John S. Stevens, and in 1877 was elected to the office of circuit judge, in which
capacity he served for eight years. In 1879 ^^ ^^^ts assigned by the supreme
court as one of the justices of the appellate court of the third district, where for
five years he was associated with Judges Chauncey L. Higbee and Oliver L.
Davis. The former then died and was succeeded by Judge William Welch for
one year. On his retirement from the bench in 1885 Judge McCulloch formed a
partnership with his son, E. D. McCulloch, and the firm has since occupied a
leading position at the Peoria county bar, retaining a distinctively representative
clientele.
That the Judge ranks high with his brethren of the bar is indicated by the
fact that at the first meeting of the State Bar Association he was placed on a
310
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS, 3"
committee with Judges Sabin D. Puterbaugh and Anthony Thornton, which
devised the plan and drafted the bills which afterward, with some modifications,
became laws, whereby the judicial system was reconstructed and the appellate
courts were brought into existence; also by the fact that he was elected as
the second president of that association ; that he has repeatedly been called
upon to address it upon the most important topics, and has acted upon its most
important committees.
Judge McCulloch was reared in the Democratic faith and cast his first
presidential vote for James Buchanan, for whom he entertained a high personal
regard on account of his having been president of the board of trustees of
Marshall College while Mr. McCulloch was a student at that institution. In
i860 he voted for Stephen A. Douglas. During the campaign of 1862 he, as a
war Democrat, advocated the election to congress of Colonel Thomas J. Hen-
derson (who was then actively engaged in the field) as against Owen Lovejoy ;
but, finding the lines between union and disunion becoming very strongly
drawn, he declined voting for some of the Democratic candidates. From that
time until 1886 he voted the Republican ticket and since then the Prohibitioji
ticket. At all times he has been a loyal American, placing country before party,
and at the present time is giving his support to the McKinley administration,
for, in this critical period of our history, when all the tact and diplomacy of
our statesmen are needed to settle the controversy with Spain, he believes in
upholding the hands of him upon whom rests the great responsibility of main-
taining the honor of the nation and asserting her rights against the encroach-
ments of foreign powers. It is at such times that partisanship should sink into
insignificance and the interests of the nation should be paramount, and in such
a crisis men of the caliber of Judge McCulloch are ever found true to the
highest principles and loftiest patriotism.
In his church relationship the Judge is a Presbyterian, and since 1870 has
served as a ruling elder in the Second Presbyterian church of Peoria. He has
also for several years been a member of the board of directors of McCormick
Theological Seminary at Chicago, one of the leading educational institutions of
that denomination. He was married September 2, 1858, to Mary Fulton Hemp-
hill, who resided near Shippensburg, Cumberland county, Pennsylvania. Their
children are Edward Dickinson, William Herron and Mary Hemphill, now the
wife of Edward D. McDougal.
W. F. Bryan, of Peoria, is a retired lawyer, who for some years was promi-
nently identified with the legal profession in that city. He is descended from
Anglo-Irish ancestry. The name Bryan is derived by English heraldry from
Bryn, which is the Anglo-Saxon name of a hill. It is now found among old
family names of England, buried under titles. Ireland, however, has her
familiar O'Brians and O'Briens, and France her Chateaubriands, Brians and
Briens. The great-grandfather of our subject, Samuel Bryan, was a native and
resident of Dublin, and a prominent shipping merchant of that place. He mar-
ried a Miss Dennis, who was also born in that locality and brought the pure
Irish strain into the paternal ancestry, although France claims title to this name
312 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS,
also, through her national Saint Denis, deriving it from Dionysius (Dionese), of
Gracca.
George Bryan, their eldest son, and the grandfather of our subject, was
born in Dublin, in 1730, and in 1750 crossed the Atlantic to the new world,
locating in Philadelphia, where he also engaged in business as a shipping mer-
chant. He was then only twenty years of age, and the following extracts from
a letter which he received from his father in 1752 will serve to show some-
thing of the spirit of that era and the opinions and manners of the better class
of Irish gentlemen at that period. One can easily picture him as a man of the
eighteenth century with cocked hat, powdered wig, plaited or ribboned queue,
knee breeches, silk stockings, silver-buckled shoes and a small sword hanging
from his side. In response to a letter from his son, he took the opportunity
to give him some good advice concerning the paths of life in which he should
walk, and said : **I am informed your evenings are taken up in boating on the
river and down to Mr. Bleakly^s. This can in no way improve you as a man
coming into life. I've commended to you the best of company to keep, — men in
business, men of conversation and good manners, that when I meet you again I
may not meet with the rustic or tar, but the genteel, pretty, agreeable fellow,
as well as the complete, sensible merchant ; and this will never be the case if you
proceed in your present course ; for you take the readiest method to lock your-
self from what I have recommended to you to do. I gave you long letters
before leaving home, recommending your going into all companies where men
of manners, sense, etc., were to be found, — the expense I valued not, — and those
as good or better than yourself. The amusements of dancing, fencing, the use
of the small sword, taking a glass of wine or punch with a few such, I am
recommending at particular evenings, and after business is over will be showing
yourself to mankind to .be known and regarded. Let not the carelessness of the
world about you with respect to God and religion have any effect on you, for if
once you can lose sight of this you will be an easy prey to every vice which
offers. I am doing everything in my power to advance you in the work and
establish you as my son. Do not defeat it in any one instance, but resolve,
and I am sure you have resolution enough to surmount everything I can find
fault with."
The good advice offered was dutifully followed by the son, and George
Bryan not only won the respect and esteem of his fellow men but also received
at their hands high honors, and left the impress of his strong individuality upon
the early history of the state. He had acquired a collegiate education, and his
tastes and ambition soon inspired him to other than a mercantile life. From 1764
until his death, in 1790, he was the popular favorite and active recipient succes-
sively of judicial, ministerial, executive and legislative honors, and finally, in
1780, won the highest judicial honors within the gift of the people of the state,
serving as judge of the supreme court of Pennsylvania until the time of his
death. In his first contest for political office, in 1764, he was elected burgess
over Dr. Franklin and another opponent. "Franklin," writes the chronicler
naively, "died like a philosopher ; his associate agonized in death and afterward
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS. 313
General Reed went over to the British." (Life of General Reed, volume i, page
30.) "An active political opponent, a Federalist, accredits Judge George Bryan
as the author of the first constitution of Pennsylvania, which the Federalist de-
nounces as the inevitable precursor of anarchy. (Life in Pennsylvania, L. 302.)
An electric flash of sarcastic humor now exhibits Dr. Frankhn as an 'oily gam-
mon' who had discovered that *oil would smooth the ruffled surface of the sea.'
So had he found it most effectual in assuaging the troubled minds of his fellow
men. Hence he was claimed by both constitutionalists and antis. With respect
to Mr. Bryan, so conspicuous at this era, he seldom failed to give evidence of such
recondite memory that a bet was once offered that he could name the town crier
of Bergen-op-Zoom. In other respects he was well enough and even one who
in the main was acting the patriot (ibid.) ; but, alas ! after the manner of Jeffer-
son, who then, as Lincoln in our time, advocated 'government of the people, for
the people and by the people.' "
George Bryan was also a delegate to the congress, held in New York in
^765, to protest against the British stamp act. (Life of Reed, volume 2, page
481.) As vice-president and as acting president of Pennsylvania in 1778, he
urged the legislature to aboUsh slavery. 'Teople of Europe," he said, *'are
astonished to see a people struggling for liberty holding negroes in bondage ;"
and in 1779, as a member of the legislature, he secured the passage of the first
act abolishing slavery in this country. (Ibid., volume 2, page 173.) In 1779 he
was appointed, in connection with James Madison and others, to estabUsh the
boundary line between Pennsylvania and Virginia, and while so engaged advised
and secured the adoption of the Mason and Dixon line, which was subsequently
(1780) ratified by congress. In 1780 he was appointed judge of the supreme
court of Pennsylvania, and served in that capacity for ten years, when death
ended his career.
He was married in Philadelphia, to Elizabeth Smith, and they had five sons
and two daughters. One of the sons, Arthur Bryan, became the father-in-law
of Commodore Turner of the navy.
George Bryan, Jr., father of our subject, was born in Philadelphia and
acquired a collegiate education. His early manhood was devoted to mercantile
pursuits in that city. He was a man of domestic tastes and retiring disposition,
and the only public ofEce which he held was that of auditor general of the state,
which was doubtless given him on account of the brilliant reputation of his
father. When public office became the spoils of the victor he naturally retired.
At the time of his elevation to the ofl&ce he removed to Lancaster, Pennsylvania,
which was the capital of the state from 1799 ^^^il 1812. It was then removed
to Harrisburg, and Mr. Bryan accordingly took his family to that place ; but on
his retirement from office he returned to Lancaster, where he carried on mer-
chandising until his death, in December, 1838. He married Anna Maria Stein-
man, a native of Lancaster and of German (Moravian) parentage. She was
educated in the noted Moravian Academy, at Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, the first
school for young ladies in America. Her father, Frederick Steinman, was an
active and prosperous hardware merchant and manufacturer, and her mother
314 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS,
was Margaretta Sybilla (Mayer) Steinman. They were members of the Mo-
ravian church, which, together with the Lutheran and German Reformed
churches, embraces a large portion of the enterprise, wealth and culture of Lan-
caster.
W. F. Bryan, of Peoria, was born in Lancaster, August 22, 1810, and
when only two years of age was taken by his parents to Harrisburg, where he
began his education. He afterward studied in his native city, the family re-
turning there on the father's retirement from office. He pursued a regular
college curriculum in private schools, and soon after laying aside his text-books
he was sent to Washington, D. C, to learn the art of printing. His father had a
wealthy cousin who had retired from an active and successful career of politics
and journalism and was then enjoying the fruits of his labors in an elegant
country villa near that city. The ultimate object of this choice of a profession,
as he afterward learned, was to equip him for the higher career of editor; but
setting and distributing type became monotonous to him and he returned home.
Later, however, while preparing for the bar in the city of Lancaster, he realized,
in a small way, though incognito, his father's aspiration for him by assuming
the editorship of a weekly political paper. One other good resulted from his stay
in the capital city. His residence there was enlivened by weekly visits to the
hospitable mansion of his relative, Samuel Harrison Smith, and there he was
often brought in contact with many distinguished statesmen of the time, which
of course had its influence upon his life. After his return from Washington Mr.
Bryan was sent to Chillicothe to be initiated into the vocation of merchandising,
but the business pursuits selected for him by others did not accord with his
tastes and temperament and he ultimately drifted into a profession more in
harmony with his tastes and desires. It was while in Chillicothe that he became
a member of a debating club, where he frequently met Allen G. Thurman, after-
ward the distinguished senator from Ohio, and the eminent lawyer and jurist.
From that time the bar became the pole star of Mr. Bryan's ambition. He bent
all his energies toward reaching the goal, immediately returning to Lancaster,
where he began the study of law.
In due course of time he was admitted to the bar. About that time the cry
of "Westward, Ho!" resounded through the land, and on the tide of emigration
steadily drifting toward the setting sun he made his way to Illinois. The journey
was made by stage to Pittsburg and thence by the Ohio and Illinois rivers,
stepping from the steamer to the levee at Peoria in the spring of 1839. For
many years thereafter he engaged in the practice of law and secured a large
clientage. He was a close and diligent student and gained a broad and compre-
hensive knowledge of the science of jurisprudence. He won some important
suits, yet the theory and the science of law were ever more attractive to him
than the contests of the forum. His cases were prepared witK the greatest
thoroughness and precision, and his arguments were logical, forceful and con-
vincing. Possessed, however, of an extremely nervous organism, he was in a
measure unfitted for the exciting scenes of the court-room, yet the court records
. THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS. 315
indicate by the many leading cases which he won his marked ability and talent
for the law.
In September, 1845, Mr. Bryan was united in marriage to Miss Jane G.
Evans, of Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Her father, Robert Evans, then deceased,
was a successful merchant and left his family in comfortable circumstances, and
the mother, Anna Margaretta (Gundaker) Evans, being most devoted to her
children, provided them with the best educational privileges. She was a member
of the Lutheran church until her marriage, when she joined the Presbyterian
church, to which her husband belonged. Her death occurred a few years after
the marriage of her daughter, Mrs. Bryan, who completed her education in
Philadelphia, and was a most cultured lady. To our subject and his wife were
bom six children, namely : Anna Margaretta, wife of Arthur H. Rugg, a resident
of Chicago; George, of Peoria, who married Eugenie M. Steele, of Romulus,
New York, and has two children, — Margaretta and George ; William Frederick,
a resident of Peoria ; Edward Arthur, who married Lucy Gibson, of Peoria, and
with his wife and son, William Frederick, resides in Chicago; Robert Evans,
who died in early childhood ; and Jennie Logan, who resides with her father in
Peoria.
Largely on account of his nervous temperament and studious inclination
Mr. Bryan has always preferred the retired life of the scholar to the active one
of the politician or society man. He has never sought or desired political pre-
ferment and has held no public office, whatever, except in scientific and literary
societies to which he has belonged. He has carried his research and investi-
gation far and wide into the realms of literature and science, and has delighted
in the companionship of his favorite authors, who are to him true and tried
friends of long years' standing. At all times he has commanded the respect and
esteem of his fellow men, and well deserves mention in the history of the Illinois
bar, at which he won high standing.
Hezekiah M. Wead. — ^Vermont is a small state, and comparatively a sterile
one; but the intelligence, industry,. energy and self-reliance of her sturdy sons
for many years after the adoption of the federal constitution gave to them an
influence, out of proportion to their numbers, in the development and legislation
of each new commonwealth admitted to the Union. In common with other
states carved out of the Northwestern territory, Illinois, in her infancy and youth,
received as emigrants many sons of Vermont who, thoroughly uniting their
own fortunes to hers, gave to their adopted state loyal and intelligent service,
and in their turn waxed strong with her growth and prospered with her pros-
perity. Between the years 1820 and 1850 especially, the learned professions in
Illinois, and particularly that of the law, received from the Green Mountain state
many such recruits ; and among those who thus sought upon the fertile prairies
of the west a more inviting field for the practice of law than was afforded by»
the conditions of their native states, and who achieved in his new home an
honorable degree of success, both as a lawyer and a citizen, was Hezekiah M.
Wead.
Family tradition has it that his early ancestors were Huguenots, who, driven
3i6 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
from France by religious persecution, about 1650, settled in western Connecti-
cut, and that some of the descendants of the original stock early emigrated from
Connecticut, first to Alassachusetts and afterward to Vermont, in which state,
at Sheldon, Franklin county, the subject of this sketch was born, on the ist of
June, 1810. As a boy he was bright and intelligent, and possessed a good
memory and lively imagination. His father was not a man of great means, and
he pursued his education in the village school of Sheldon, through the winter
seasons only, until he attained his seventeenth year. He then attended an acad-
emy at Castleton, Rutland county, for about six months, which completed his
education, so far as instruction in a school-room was concerned. However, he
had already acquired a desire for learning and a love of books, and by extensive
reading in early manhood he became well informed upon matters of American
and European history, English literature, political economy and other congenial
subjects, as well as in the profession to which he devoted his special attention
and best efforts through life.
After leaving Castleton Academy he served for a time as a clerk for a
merchant in West Rutland, Vermont, and later worked his passage on a canal-
boat, starting from a point near Rutland and going to Pittsford, Monroe county,
New York. In the latter place he taught school for several terms, and at the
same time began the study of law, having access to the library of Ira Bellows,
Esquire. From Pittsford he went to Malone, Franklin county, New York, where
he continued the study of law under the direction of Asa Haskell, and where, in
1832, he was admitted to practice before the court of common pleas of Franklin
county.
He did not remain long, however, at Malone, but went from there to St.
Albans, Vermont, which is near his birth-place. There he entered the office of
Messrs. Smalley & Adams, then eminent lawyers of that place, with whom he
remained as a law student for a few months, when he was admitted to the Ver-
mont bar. Subsequently he removed to Akron, Ohio, where he taught school
for about a year, and then returned to the Green Mountain state, where shortly
afterward, about the yfear 1836, he formed a co-partnership for the practice of
law with General Seth Cushman, of Guildhall, who was then one of the most
eloquent and able lawyers of New England. This connection was maintained
for two years, during which time the firm practiced in several adjoining counties
of Vermont and New Hampshire. Soon after the dissolution of this partnership
Mr. Wead w^ent to New Jersey, where he engaged in teaching school for about
three years. At the expiration of that period, he removed to Illinois in 1840,
locating in Lewistown, Fulton county, at which place he at once opened an
office for the practice of his profession.
In his history of Illinois Governor Ford says that the year 1840 was one of
the darkest periods in public affairs in the annals of the state. The reckless
system of public improvements, inaugurated in 1836, had then resulted in an
inevitable crash, with great financial loss to the state. The State Bank and the
Shawneetown Bank, in both of which the state was a large stockholder, and to
sustain the credit of which its good faith was pledged, had both suspended specie
THE BENCH AND BAR OF H^LINOIS, 317
payments, and their notes, already greatly depreciated in value, continued to fur-
ther depreciate until both banks ultimately failed. The state debt in 1840
amounted to about fourteen million dollars, then a prodigious sum compared
with the state's resources and ability to pay ; interest was in arrears ; and there
seemed no way possible to provide for the payment of the debt. At this critical
juncture in the affairs of the commonwealth dishonest men and men not natu-
rally dishonest but of faint heart, throughout Illinois, began to advocate repudia-
tion of the debt, and so popular was this cry as -a remedy for the result of the
previous reckless expenditures of the state legislatures that it soon became a
controlling state issue, and for several years following 1839 i^ ^^as a question of
great doubt whether or not the state would financially repudiate.
Mr. Wead, before his arrival in the state, had been an ardent Democrat, and
continued there his allegiance to that party. In both that party and in the Whig
party, however, repudiationists and anti-repudiationists were to be found, ^r.
Wead promptly allied himself with the latter, and gained many warm friends by
the earnestness, ability and force with which, upon the stump and off of it, he
advocated his views in this regard.
Very soon after his arrival in Fulton county his ability as a lawyer was
recognized, and he speedily obtained a fairly lucrative practice for those days.
In 1847, partly because of his standing at the bar, but mainly because of his
unyielding opposition to state banks and repudiation of the state debt, he was
elected a member of the convention to revise the stale constitution, and when
that convention met he was appointed a member of the committee on judiciary
and took an active part throughout the sessions of the convention in the prepa-
ration of the new constitution.
During the time of his experience as a teacher in Ohio and New Jersey,
Mr. Wead had been led to take a very deep interest in educational matters, and
particularly in the question of popular education. This interest continued to be
actively manifested for many years after his arrival in Illinois, at which time the
common-school system of the state was in a most chaotic and unsatisfactory
condition, and he labored zealously to correct this evil and advance the useful-
ness of the public schools. Other friends of popular education throughout the
state were also working most earnestly with the same end in view, and in 1844
a convention was held in Peoria at which John S. Wright, of Chicago, D. J.
Pinckney, of Ogle, and H. M. Wead, of Lewistown, were appointed a committee
to prepare and submit to the next session of the legislature a memorial in favor
of an efficient common-school system. This memorial was prepared and sub-
mitted to the legislature of 1845, ^^^ appears in the Reports of the Transactions
of the Illinois Legislature of that year.
Mr. Wead took an active part in the preparation of this report, which was
an able and exhaustive document, and recommended many radical and important
changes in the existing laws. Most of the changes so recommended were ulti-
mately made, and this memorial forms an important stone in the foundation of
our common-school system. Few of these changes, however, were made by the
legislature to which the memorial was submitted, although the system advocated
3i8 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS
therein had the hearty support and approval of Governor Ford, then the chief
executive of the state. It did, however, take some steps toward bringing about
the reforms recommended, and subsequent legislatures slowly took other steps
in the same direction. At the time of the meeting of the constitutional conven-
tion, however, there was still much left to be done, and the friends of a broad,
efficient common-school system throughout the state were very anxious that
recognition should be made of the matter, and such system provided for, by
the new constitution. The Hoii. John M. Palmer was chairman of the committee
on education of that body, and was heartily in favor of most of the provisions
referred to; and he, as well as Mr. Wead, and many others, labored earnestly
to have some action in the matter taken by the convention. The time for such
action, however, appeared to be unpropitious. By the majority of the delegates
it was deemed either unwise or not within the scope of their duties, and nothing
was then done; but later, by the constitutional convention of 1870, the subject
was directly and efficiently acted upon.
No other subject before the convention of 1847, not excepting even the
question whether the legislature should or should not be authorized to charter
state banks, excited more earnest attention or discussion than the provision
to be made in the constitution for a system of judiciary. Under the constitution
of 1818 the judiciary system of the state conformed closely to that of the United
States. The judges of the supreme court were appointed instead of being elected
by popular vote as they now are; they held their office during good behavior;
they performed not only the functions of a court of appeals, hut also held nisi-
prius courts in the various circuits of the state, and tfiey appointed their own
clerks in such circuits. The system had not proved satisfactory to the bar, nor
to the public ; the appointment of clerks had even provoked a great deal of
scandal, but the ideas of the various members of the judiciary committee in the
convention and of the other members of the convention were widely variant
as to a system to take the place of the then existing one. .After much debate a
system was agreed upon, providing for dividing the state into three grand
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS. 3^9
cepting the offices. It seems probable, in view of the fact that many of the best
lawyers who ever graced the bar of the state were elected either to the supreme
or circuit judgeships, while the constitution of 1847 was in force, that the exact
result feared did not arise; but when the great number of resignations which
occurred is considered, it seems likely that many able lawyers accepted office
to acquire the position, standing and honor which resulted, and having acquired
these, resigned the place because financially unable to retain it. Thus, in the
tenth judicial district, which was created in 1848, at the next session of the
legislature after the constitutional convention met, every judge elected for a full
term, between the time of the organization of the circuit and the adoption of the
new constitution in 1870, resigned without serving his full term. Among these
so resigning were Charles B. Lawrence and William Kellogg. In other circuits
and also upon the supreme bench, resignations were likewise very frequent ; but
since the constitution'of 1870, fixing adequate salaries, was adopted, resignations,
by either supreme or circuit judges, have been almost unknown.
In 1852 Mr. Wead was elected judge of the sixteenth circuit above referred
to. He served in that capacity only until the summer of 1855. the new constitu-
tion providing for the election of judges throughout the state in June of that
year. His service upon the bench was satisfactory to the bar. and also to the
public of his circuit, but he was pecuniarily unable to bear the burden of holding
the office for another term, and declined to be a candidate for re-election.
About the time his term of office expired, Judge Wead removed from Lewis-
town to Peoria, and resumed there the practice of his profession, in which he
continued up to the time of his death, being engaged in many important cases.
In the matter of contested land titles especially he acquired a wide reputation,
and between the years 1855 and 1870 he had a large practice in the trial of eject-
ment cases at each term of the United States circuit court (then held in Chicago),
in addition to his practice at the Peoria bar.
In i860, prior to the breaking out of the Rebellion, Mr. Wead earnestly
opposed the doctrine of secession and warmly supported the government in
suppressing the Rebellion, although he continued his allegiance to the Demo-
cratic party until his death. Indeed, so strong was his attachment to Democratic
principles that in 1872, when Greeley, whom he knew well personally, and with
whom he kept up a friendly correspondence from 1840 until 1855, was a candi-
date for the presidency, he refused to support him, upon the ground that
Greeley was instinctively, radically and unalterably opposed to the fundamental
principles of the Democratic party ; that his connection with that party, at that
time, was but temporary, and upon questions which would soon cease to be
political issues ; that from his mental constitution and habits of thought it would
inevitably follow, should he be elected to the presidency, he would separate from,
and be at war with, the party which elected him, long before his term of office
would expire.
In 1 84 1 Judge Wead was married to Eliza Young Emery, a daughter of
Samuel Emery, a Methodist clergyman, who, on account of ill health, had
abandoned regular service as a minister of that church and settled at Trivoli, in
320 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
Peoria county, in 1837. By this marriage seven children were bom, two of
whom died in infancy, and one, Edgar E., at twenty-one years of age, while
serving in the Union army during the war of the Rebellion. The other children
are still living.
In 1861 Judge Wcad removed from Peoria to a farm distant about four
miles from that city, and there resided until his death, driving to and from his
office in the city each day. He passed away May 10, 1876, after a most useful
and honorable career. He left the impress of his sterling character upon many of
our institutions. He was a man of marked individuality and independence of
thought and action, and his sterling honesty and integrity won for him the
respect and esteem of the highest and the humblest, the richest and the poorest
of his native state. As a lawyer of high talent and ability, his standing was
unquestioned for more than thirty years prior to his death. In public life the
fearlessness and freedom with which he expressed his true sentiments; his
unhesitating denunciation of chicanery, dishonesty, hypocrisy and meanness;
his strong prejudices, and combativeness of character, — created for him many
enemies, and deprived him of the full measure of success to which his abilities
entitled him, and which, no doubt, had he possessed more suavity and tact, would
have been his ; but at all times he was honest in his beliefs, true to his opinions
and loyal to his friends, and his name adds brightness to the pages of the history
of Illinois.
William Jack, a well known attorney at law of Peoria, was born in West-
moreland county, Pennsylvania, on the loth of July, 1843, ^^^ ^s a son of
Joseph and H. J. (Herron) Jack, also natives of the Keystone state. He acquired
his education at Sewickley Academy, in Mount Pleasant township, Westmore-
land county, and when a young man in his seventeenth year came to Illinois.
Locating in Peoria, he here continued his education in the high school and was
graduated in the class of 1862. He had previously determined to make the prac-
tice of law his life work, and immediately after his graduation became a student
in the office of Judge M. Williamson, with whom he remained for a year and a
half. He then continued his studies with Judge H. M. Wead. and after his ad-
mission to the bar formed a partnership with his preceptor, a connection that was
continued until January, 1874. In that year he entered into partnership with
L. W. James under the firm name of James & Jack. He was appointed master
in chancery for the circuit court of Peoria county, in September, 1873, ^^^ filled
that position for several terms. He is an able lawyer of wide experience and
pronounced ability, and enjoys a liberal clientage.
On the 5th of August, 1869, Mr. Jack was united in marriage to Miss Annie
Grier, daughter of John C. Grier, of Peoria. He is a member of the Second
Presbyterian church of Peoria, and is a valued citizen of the community who
gives his support to all beneficial measures, and lends the influence of his oppo-
sition to all movements that are detrimental to the public good.
Oliver J. Bailey, one of the leading lawyers and prominent business men of
Peoria, is a member of the firm of Bailey & Sedgwick, one of the oldest in years
of continuous practice in Illinois. He was born in the town of Arcadia, Wa^Tie
;:»
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS. 321
county, New York, September 6, 1846, and is a son of Morrison and Mary
Bailey, who with their family removed to Will county, Illinois, in 1849. The
father was a farmer by occupation and entered land from the government in the
township afterward organized as Green Garden. There he carried on agri-
cultural pursuits until 1852, when he removed to Waterloo, Blackhawk county,
Iowa. In 1856 he was elected to the Iowa legislature from Blackhawk and
Buchanan counties, and in many matters of public concern exerted a wide and
beneficent influence. In July, 1862, he enlisted and was made quartermaster of
the Thirty-second Iowa Infantry.
Oliver J. Bailey removed with his parents from the Empire state to Illinois
and thence to Iowa, remaining at Waterloo until 1865, when he returned to this
state. His educational privileges were only such as were afforded by the com-
mon schools, but he has always been a student, and extensive reading and a
retentive memory have made him a man of broad general information. Soon
after his return to Illinois he began the study of law in the office of General
F. P. Partridge, of Sycamore, DeKalb county, and was admitted to the bar in
October, 1868, at which time he opened an office in Sycamore, continuing in gen-
eral practice there until 1872, when, with James H. Sedgwick, then in practice
at Sandwich, DeKalb county, he removed to Chicago. The firm of Bailey. &
Sedgwick opened an office in the Metropolitan block, and for a short time after
the Chicago fire enjoyed the distinction of having the only complete set of
Illinois reports in the central part of the city. In 1875 Mr. Bailey was appointed
attorney for the Aetna Life Insurance Company, with charge of the litigation
growing out of municipal and other western investments of such company, and
in that position he is still the active representative of the legal interests of the
company.
The same year the law firm of Bailey & Sedgwick removed to Peoria, which
has been its place of location since that time. In the same year Mr. Bailey also
formed a partnership with B. L. T. Bourland, of this city, who had long been
one of the loan agents of the Aetna Life Insurance Company for central Illinois.
The agencies for Springfield and Peoria were consolidated and the general busi-
ness of the two agencies was placed under the management of Bourland^ Bailey
and so remains. The subject of this review has always made a specialty of muni-
cipal and real-estate law, and during the years of his practice has represented
many eastern corporations and investors in most important litigation, as the
dockets of the federal courts of this and adjoining states will show. He was
admitted to practice in the United States supreme court October 24, 1878, on
the motion of Hon. Montgomery Blair. His knowledge of the law is very broad
and accurate, and his forceful and logical presentation of his cause never fails
to impress the court or jury and seldom fails to convince.
On the 4th of September, 1865, two days before he was nineteen years old,
Mr. Bailey was married to Mary E. Needham. He has never been prominent
in political circles, eschewing all such interests as would interfere with his pro-
fessional duties. His services, however, are in much demand on public occasions,
when his brilliant gifts of oratory and deep thought never fail to hold the close
21
322 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
attention of his auditors, no matter what the subject may be upon which he is
addressing them. He is a man of the most inflexible integrity and fidelity to
duty, and his thorough reliability is shown in the fact that he has so often been
chosen guardian of public interests.
Recently he was made the executor of the will of Jacob Guyer, founder oi
the Guyer Home for Aged Women, and was also elected president of the board
of trustees of the Bradley Polytechnic Institute. He is also president of the
Cottage Hospital Association and the Young Men's Christian Association. His
wise counsel and sagacity have proven important factors in the safe conduct oi
a number of important business enterprises and he is now president of the Title
Guaranty, Abstract & Trust Company and the Central National Bank, and vice-
president of the Dime Savings Bank, — all of Peoria. He is also president of the
board of trustees of the village of North Peoria and a member of the board oi
school inspectors, and was tendered the first presidency of the board of park
trustees, but declined on account of his connection with the real-estate business.
He manages extensive farming interests, having about three thousand acres of
land, which is under his immediate control.
A Peoria paper, writing of Mr. Bailey said: "His conservatism, excellent
business ability, foresight and sound judgment peculiarly fit him for leader-
ship, while his knowledge of parliamentary law and usages make him an ideal
presiding officer. The greatest confidence is placed in him, and the experience
of years has proven the man's sterling integrity and that no confidence entrusted
to him was ever betrayed. He is above reproach and it is gratifying to his
many friends to so honor him. He has never sought any of the honors conferred
upon him, but they have come to him unsolicited, — ^because he is worthy of
them."
William T. Irwin was born at the home of his ancestors in Dayton, Arm-
strong county, Pennsylvania, June i, 1856. His great-grandfather valiantly
fought for the independence of the colonies in the war of the Revolution, and
when freedom was proclaimed and the republic was established he located in
Cumberland county, Pennsylvania, whence he soon afterward removed to the
western part of the state. He took up his residence on the farm which is now the
home of Joseph T. Irwin, father of our subject, and in the same rooni in the
ancestral home of the Irwins the grandfather, father and son, — ^the last being
William T. Irwin, — ^were born. The grandfather was a Scotch-Irish Presb)rte-
rian, and his son, Joseph T. Irwin, has carried on agricultural pursuits as a life
work. Strongly opposed to the institution of slavery, he was one of the leading
abolitionists in western Pennsylvania, and when the civil war was inaugurated he
raised a company for the service, and as its captain went to the front. His wife,
Mrs. Mary J. Irwin, is of German descent, and they still reside at the old family
homestead in the Keystone state.
In the common schools of Dayton William T. Irwin acquired his pre-
liminary education, which was supplemented by a course in the Glade Run
Academy, a very thorough-going Presbyterian institution, in which he was
graduated in the class of 1878. With a taste for higher education and literature,
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS,
Mr. Irvvin has embraced every opportunity for advancement in those Hnes,
now accorded recognition for his scholarly attainments and classical le;
During the months of vacation he worked on his father's farm, and aftei
pleting his common-school course, although only fifteen years of age, sec
teacher's certificate with the intention of teaching school. His father, ho
thinking he was too young, would not consent to his accepting a schoo
the following year, when he entered upon a successful career as an edt
terminated by his service as principal of the Dayton graded schools, in whi
acquired his preHminary training.
He came to Illinois in the spring of 1879 and entered the law off
Judge Alfred Sample, then of Paxton but now of Bloomington. There h(
formed clerical service while prosecuting his studies, and in May, 1881, wa
mitted to the bar at Springfield ; and in the autumn of that year opened an •
in Peoria, where he has remained continuously since. He at once form
partnership with Judge J. W. Cochran, at one time judge of the circuit c
of the Peoria district, a connection that was maintained until the removal o
Judge to Fargo, North Dakota. Mr. Irwin was then alone in practice
1896, when he was joined by W. I. Slemmons in a partnership that still
tinues. In later years Mr. Irwin's services have been more in demand in the
of corporation law. In the spring of 1891, entirely without his solicitation
was made the Republican nominee for the office of city attorney, and overc;
a usual Democratic majority of from five to seven thousand, winning the e
tion by eight hundred votes. After a two-years service he was again ele(
by a majority of fifteen hundred. For four years he discharged the duties of t
office and then retired to private life. Mr. Irwin has never been an office-see
and with the exception just noted has never held office, yet at all times he i
stalwart supporter of the Republican party and an earnest champion of its me
ures. He has aided in many municipal enterprises, was instrumental in
organization of the park system of the city and has supported many other mo^
ments for the pubHc good. Socially he is a prominent Mason. He became
member of Illinois Lodge, No. 263, A. F. & A. M., of Peoria, in 1887; Peo.
Chapter, No. 7, R. A. M., in 1889; Peoria Commandery, No. 3, K. T., in i8c
and attained the thirty-second degree of the Scottish Rite in Peoria Consisto
in 1893. He also belongs to the Knights of Pythias fraternity, having joinc
Peoria Lodge, in 1892, and Knights of Constantine of the Order of the R(
Cross, in 1894. He has been three times successively elected illustrious sovereig
of St. Helena Temple, No. 3, of Peoria, and now holds the office of grand vicero
of the grand council of IlHnois.
On the 1st of June, 1886, Mr. Irwin married Miss Ida M. Woodruff, c
Peoria, daughter of Nelson Woodruff, one of the early inhabitants of the cit;
and a pioneer dealer in ice here. An ice company of the city, doing an extensiv<
business, still bears his name. Mr. and Mrs. Irwin have a son, Joseph Wood
ruff, bom September 19, 1889. They are prominent and active members of Grace
Presbyterian church, of which Mr. Irwin has served as a member of the board
of trustees for ten years.
' I I
t t
t «
r "!'
a: I
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS, 325
those fundamental principles of right which ought to govern in all the affairs
of men. Having laid his foundations deep, he has, by the constant application
of these great principles, been able to practice his profession with such a degree
of success as to have merited and gained the confidence of all who have known
him.
As a citizen he is highly esteemed, and his kindly impulses and cordiality
of manner have rendered him exceedingly popular among all classes.
Winslow Evans. — Peoria's leading lawyers rank in worth and ability with the
best legal practitioners of the commonwealth, and the subject of this review
is numbered among the successful practitioners of that city. His entire life
has been passed in Illinois, his birth having occurred in Marshall county, on the
19th of December, 1855. The Evans family is of Welsh descent and was founded
in America by representatives of the name who left their little rock-ribbed native
land and crossed the Atlantic to Philadelphia. The grandfather of our subject,
Joshua Evans, was born in Loudoun county, Virginia, and during his boyhood
accompanied his mother to central Ohio. When the war of 1812 was inaugurated
he enlisted in an Ohio regiment, which was attached to Hull's command at the
time of the surrender of Detroit. Two companies, however, were at the time
out on a scouting expedition, and learning of the surrender before they reached
the fort they refused to go in and returned to central Ohio, maintaining a running
fight with Indians through the northern woods of that state. To one of these
companies Joshua Evans belonged. In 1830 he emigrated to Marshall county,
Illinois, becoming one of its pioneer settlers. The father of our subject, Albert
Evans, was only three years of age at the time of the removal of his parents
to this state. Having arrived at years of maturity he married Harriet Springer,
who was of Swedish descent, the original American ancestry locating in Wil-
mington, Delaware. Mr. Evans was a farmer and also followed carpentering and
building.
Upon the family homestead in Marshall county Winslow Evans spent the
days of his boyhood and youth, his early education being acquired in the public
schools of Wenona. Later he continued his studies in the Illinois Wesleyan
University, in Bloomington, and was graduated in both the literary and law
departments in 1876, winning the degrees of Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of
Law. Subsequently he pursued a post-graduate course of study in the same
institution and on examination and thesis won the degrees of Master of Arts
and Doctor of Philosophy. While pursuing his law studies in the university
he also read law in the office of ex-Governor Fifer and I. N. Phillips, court re-
porter, to whom he attributes much of his success.
Mr. Evans began practice in Marshall county in 1880. He resided in Lacon
and traveled the circuit, engaging in general practice, his clientage constantly
increasing. In 1886 he was elected county judge for a four-years term and
upon the bench won the respect of the entire county bar by reason of his
accurate understanding and interpretation of the law and his freedom from
judicial bias. Since his removal to Peoria in 1891 his practice has been more
along" special lines, such as insurance, real-estate and corporation litigation, but
326
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
he is well versed in all departments of jurisprudence. He is now enjoying a
profitable clientage and a well deserved reputation as a leading member of the
Peoria bar.
Mr. Evans was married in Kewanee, Illinois, October 28, 1883, to Miss
Eva McCullough, who on her father's side was of Scotch descent, and on her
mother's of Pennsylvania Dutch. Both her parents came from Franklin county,
Pennsylvania, to this state. Mr. and Mrs. Evans have a son, Donald W., born
April 12, 1887.
In his political views Mr. Evans has always been an earnest and loyal
Republican. From 1881 until 1885 he served as a member of the board of
supervisors of Marshall county, and, as before stated, was on the bench for four
years. In 1890 he was the Republican candidate for circuit judge, but the district
being Democratic he shared the fate of the others on the ticket and was de-
feated. In each campaign he advocated the party principles from the lecture
platform, and his addresses are entertaining, logical and convincing. He has
also served as delegate to the state and other conventions of his party, but his
time is principally given to his profession, in which he has made continued and
marked progress.
CHAPTER XVII.
REFORMS IN THE CRIMINAL LAW.
THE reforms in criminal procedure and the administration of criminal jus-
tice have kept pace with improvements in the methods of civil procedure.
Within the * course of my professional experience I have witnessed
paroxysms of local popular feeling against crimes and against persons sup-
posed to be criminals. In some cases mobs have attempted to administer rude
justice upon offenders and (copying from my own memoirs) I said in my message
to the legislature of 1871 :
**Amongst the exceptions to the general enforcement of the laws of the
state are several instances of outrages committed by mobs. On the 21st day
of February, 1870, one Harrison Reed, who was charged with murder, com-
mitted in Madison county, was taken from the custody of an officer who was
conveying him to jail, and killed. On the 20th day of April, 1870, one Hank
Leonard was forcibly taken from the jail of Marion county and put to death
under circumstances of peculiar atrocity. On the i6th day of April, 1870, one
Joseph C. Ramsey, while in the custody of an officer of Putnam county who was
conveying him to the county jail, was seized by a mob and hanged.
**These cases were officially reported to me, and other instances of lawless
violence have occurred in the state in regard to which I have no official in-
formation. It will be observed by an examination of the reports made to me
of the circumstances that attended the killing of the persons above named that
they w^ere at the time helpless prisoners, without any means at hand for self-
defense, and if the officers who had them in charge attempted to defend them
it was done in a manner that reflects no great degree of credit upon their
firmness or sense of duty.
"The case of Reed is especially humiliating. He had escaped from the state
and was arrested under the order of the governor of Missouri, in consequence
of a requisition made by me, and was murdered while in the custody of an
officer of this state, who could not or would not protect him. When the facts
were fully investigated by me I offered a reward of one thousand dollars for
the apprehension and conviction of the offenders in each of these cases, but no
arrests have been reported to me. The papers that relate to them will be trans-
mitted to the general assembly. The frequent recurrence of crimes committed
by mobs, and the fact that instances of the punishment of the offenders are
rare, suggest the inquiry whether some legislation is not necessary for their
repression. The governor is charged by the constitution with the obligation
'to take care that the laws are faithfully executed,' and yet, although he may
be satisfied that, in this class of cases and others, officers neglect or refuse to
327
328 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
discharge their duties, or that state's attorneys are incompetent or refuse to
take the necessary steps to punish offenders, he can neither remove nor suspend
them, nor bring them to trial before the judicial tribunals. It is for the general
assembly to determine whether it is proper to give to the executive department
any additional powers, to be employed for the enforcement of the criminal laws.
In the cases mentioned my powers are exhausted, and the violators of the laws
are unpunished."
Again, in my message of January 8, 1873, I called attention to the same
subject, and said : *'In my message to the general assembly of January 4, 1871,
I had occasion to specify a number of cases of violence by mobs, and I regret
to be compelled to say that since that time other, though fewer, outrages of a
similar character have occurred in different points in the state. In some of the
cases that have been reported to me the acts of the mob were done openly and
publicly, and in one case a band of armed and disguised men assassinated a
peaceful citizen at his home. In each of these cases reported I offered a re-
ward of one thousand dollars for the apprehension and conviction of the guilty
parties.
"Perhaps we are not permitted to hope that the state will be entirely ex-
empt from outbursts of popular passion that will override reason and justice
and law^ ; nor can it be expected that designing or malignant men will not be
found who w'ill be able to avail themselves of some pretext for organizing and
directing the passions of mobs, or who will seize upon occasions of passing
frenzy of the public mind and precipitate the commission of crime, but from
evidence afforded me I am persuaded that the people in all parts of the state
are impressed with the conviction, supported by the experience of some localities,
that mobs demoralize and deprave the public conscience and promote the com-
mission of crimes. We may therefore hope that examples of mob outrage will
hereafter be rare in the history of the state."
After the ever memorable Chicago fire, w^hich occurred in October, 1871,
and which was followed by numerous reports of outrages and crimes, there was
a demand for a more vindictive enforcement of the law'S. Public meetings were
held ; the newspaper press and religious bodies alike demanded the more vigor-
ous enforcement of the law. The popular mind was filled with apprehension
as to the prevalence and increase of crime, so that the then governor felt con-
strained to call the attention of the general assembly to the subject. In his
annual message of 1873 he said:
"From the language of the newspaper press and the reported expressions of
citizens in public meetings the people of the state have been led to apprehend that
crime and disorder have increased in the city of Chicago and other large cities of
the state. After having given much attention to the facts of the more aggra-
vated offenses reported to have been perpetrated in Chicago, as well as to the
general condition of the city, I am satisfied that many of the reports that have
influenced the public belief are exaggerated, and that, considering the extraor-
dinary circumstance of the almost total destruction of the city within a little
more than a year past and the great influx of population from every quarter.
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS. 32
the laws are enforced and order is as well maintained in Chicago as in otlie
great cities of the country.
"It is true that some startling examples of fraud in commercial circles hav
occurred in Chicago that are in their influence more disastrous to the morals
the business, and the character of the people of the state than is the aggregat*
effect of many minor offenses, and the parties implicated in them are stil
unpunished, and much opposition has been made to the enforcement of th(
laws relating to the sale of intoxicating liquors and to keeping open public-
drinking establishments on the Sabbath; but the commercial frauds seem to
be but characteristic of the period, and the controversies in respect to the liquor
and Sunday laws can produce no mischief while confined to the use of legal
means for the maintenance of real or supposed rights, or for influencing public
opinion. The extensive acceptance of the belief that crimes, especially those of
a homicidal character, have increased in frequency has led to the suggestion
of many changes in the law, with a view to a remedy. The changes most
frequently insisted upon may be stated : First. The aboUtion of the grand-jury
system and the substitution, for an indictment, oi an accusation to be preferred
by the law officers of the state. Second. To take from the parties charged with
crimes the right to a change of venue. Third. To disallow challenges to per-
sons upon the ground of an opinion formed upon information obtained from
printed publications, or, as some propose, without regard to the source from
which information is acquired, if the proposed juror will swear that, notwith-
standing any opinion he may entertain, he can try the case impartially. Fourth.
To establish additional restrictions upon the right of the accused persons to
demand continuances. Fifth. To make death the penalty for murder; and,
Sixth. To abolish or greatly restrict the executive authority to grant pardons,
and to wholly take from that department the power to commute the death
penalty to imprisonment for life of the person convicted, or for any other term.
"To those who have such confidence in mere legislation that they assume
that every abuse may be corrected and every evil repressed by laws, and to that
other class, who are ignorant of the origin, history and reason of the institu-
tions and rules and methods of procedure proposed to be abrogated or changed,
and who welcome every change in the existing laws as an improvement, all the
alterations proposed will be acceptable; but others will remember that the
grand jury is one of the 'institutions* of our free-spirited fathers, and most of the
formal and carefully guarded rules of criminal procedure that are now the
subject of complaint, were devised to protect the lives and liberties of the
people against the aggressions and encroachments of power, and others, like
that of confiding the measure of punishment upon convictions for murder to
the jury, are the results of observations of men of the most profound knowledge
and the largest experience in the administration of criminal laws. They are
parts of a judicious and well settled system, — not perfect, but one that com-
bines greater advantages for the prompt administration of justice, with the
proper g-uards for the safety of the rights of the citizen, than any that exists in
any other country or under any other form of government.
330 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
"In view of the necessity that has always been admitted to exist for careful
regulation for the protection of individuals, it is painful to witness the mistaken
zeal that prompts a portion of the public press and influential public bodies to
urge fundamental changes, simply that citizens may be more defenseless when
pursued by the authorities of the law upon accusations of crime.
"Every change in the criminal laws that deprives parties accused of a
means for obtaining impartial trial, or that proposes to substitute the discretion
of a judge or a state's attorney for fixed and well defined rules of law or settled
modes of procedure, is a sacrifice of the safety of the citizen. Happily, except
on occasions when the public mind is excited by appeals to popular fears or
prejudices, the passions of the American people are not cruel, but who is pre-
pared to say that when a citizen may be put upon his trial upon a charge that
involves his life, in the midst of a community that is filled with prejudice
against him, without the power to demand of right the removal of his trial
to an impartial vicinage, with no right of continuance, to await a better state
of public sentiment or to obtain evidence, no challenge to his triers upon the
ground of opinions formed against him, death, the inevitable consequence of
conviction, and the governor without power, even upon the clearest facts, to
arrest the bloody sentence, the vindictive prejudices of some community may
not demand a victim and that then a state's attorney may not be found who will
not consent to accuse, and that the judge, upon whose discretion the rights of
the citizen depends, may not yield to public clamor, and consent to the sacrifice?
"The institution of grand and petit juries is an essential part of the judicial
system of a free state. Theorists, who can demonstrate that the rule of a
single wise man is better than that of the njultitude, and law reformers, who
would substitute the discretion of a state's attorney or a judge for the delibera-
tions of a grand jury or fixed rules of procedure, alike forget that no method of
election has yet been devised that will insure the choice of the wisest for rulers
or state's attorneys or judges ; nor do they attach enough importance to the
fact that in a republic no system of laws can be devised that will, without en-
dangering the public liberties, be effective for the prevention and punishment
of crimes, unless the laws themselves provide for the participation of the people
in their administration ; and that neither public nor private rights can be secured
when they are in any important sense subject to the discretion of any ruler or
magistrate,
"It seems to me, then, that while the attention of the general assembly
should be directed to the present state of the criminal laws and the law of
criminal procedure, with a view to their improvement, nothing should be done
to enlarge the discretion of courts in criminal cases, nor to delude the people
with the belief that any change that can be made will relieve them from the
necessity of giving their own attention to the proper execution of the laws.
"It is at once the vice and weakness of wealthy and prosperous com-
munities that a majority of those who should be the most capable and useful
citizens prefer, from purely selfish reasons, to delegate the discharge of their
most important public duties to others; and experience has demonstrated that
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS. 331
whether the mercenaries who undertake the protection of public interests or
who are, by the indifference of the people, allowed to seize control of public
affairs, are the hired soldiers of the standing army or the traders in offices who
cajole, neglect and plunder the people, or those who make jury duty a trade, —
the result is the same; the degradation of the laws, contempt for public justice
and, in the end, the destruction of all the securities for the safety of life, liberty
and property.
"I do not feel at Hberty to consume much space in the discussion of the
change in the law, insisted upon by many, to take from the jury on trials for
murder the right to determine whether the party found guilty shall suffer death
or be punished by confinement in the penitentiary for any term exceeding
fourteen years and that may extend to the whole of his life, and thus make the
judgment of death the absolute legal consequence of a conviction for murder.
I have no doubt of the right of the state to put to death persons who by their
own deliberate criminal acts make that course necessary for the public safety,
nor do I question the existence of the right to inflict the death penalty as a
punishment for crime; but I am quite as decided in the conviction that that
mode of punishment has but little influence to deter from the commission of
crime, and that, on the other hand, it is a worn-out vestige of barbarism that
hardens and depraves the people.
"Deliberate homicide by public authority has much greater influence to
weaken respect for human life than the commission of murder by lawless per-
sons, and it is remarkable that the ecclesiastical bodies and that portion of the
so-called religious and secular press that demand the more frequent infliction
of death by judicial sentence, concede the whole point in dispute when, im-
pressed with the horrible and depraving influence of public executions, they
insist upon the necessity of excluding those from the spectacle who are to be
instructed and impressed by the example. It may be true that there are classes
of persons who can only be restrained from the commission of crimes by the
fear of death. There may be communities in which the example of the inflic-
w
tion of the death penalty would be productive of benefit, and it may also be true
that monsters of crime may sometimes be found whose extermination is de-
manded, not to vindicate the authority of law, but the dignity of human nature.
It would not, therefore, be judicious for the state to renounce the power to
inflict death, but the propriety of the exercise of the power in any instance
can best be determined by a jury drawn from the body of the people.
"It may be proper for me to make some allusion to the probable influence
of the pardoning power by the governor upon the administration of the crim-
inal laws. The executive authority to grant pardons, reprieves and commuta-
tions is, under the constitution, absolute, and to be exercised by him at his
discretion and, like all discretionar}* powers confided to public oflScers, is ex-
tremely liable to abuse. I have exercised the pardoning power, in proportion
to the whole number of convictions in the state, more sparingly than any of
my predecessors, and I am satisfied that I have not done so in improper cases ;
but I have had ,the satisfaction of releasing persons from the penitentiary after
332 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
they had furnished me the most imqiiestionable proof of their innocence of the
alleged crimes of which the jury had found them guilty. I have, by pardon.
shortened terms of imprisonment that were certified to me by the judges and
juries imposing them to have been excessive: and I have in more than one
instance interfered for the relief of the poor and ignorant who were the victims
of designing persons.
"We know that the bhndness of legal justice is but a fable, and that though
the laws in their letter and spirit are just and humane and equal, as a practical
fact the wealthy and influential do disregard and violate them with a measure oi
impunity not permitted to the poor and friendless. We know, too, that the
jails, into which are crowded those who are accused of the commission of
crimes and are unable to furnish bail, are moral pest-houses, where vice is
taught to the innocent, and the guilty are made more depraved. W'e know
that instances are not wanting in which jailers, or their subordinates, alone or
in conjunction with some of a class of professional men who dishonor the law
and disgrace the courts that tolerate their presence, have deprived friendless
prisoners of all they possess, and have then delivered them over to a certain
conviction, their sentences of imprisonment aggravated and lengthened by the
vile character of their counsel, who first robbed and then betrayed them.
"I have pardoned some of this class of unfortunates upon the ground that
if the state cannot protect them, it ought to make them the reparation of for-
giveness. No subject is more worthy of the attention of the representatives
of an enlightened Christian people than the imperfect provision made for the
protection of the rights of the poor, the ignorant, the inexperienced and the
friendless in the criminal courts. The evil is most apparent in the cities and
populous counties of the state. Every year the population of the state is in-
creased by emigrants from all the nations of Europe and from every stale
of the Union, those who are of every grade of character and every degree of
intelligence. Of the thousands who come into the state many are ignorant
of our language and our laws, and many are, upon their arrival, poor and often
ill, dispirited and inexperienced. In the cities the missionaries of vice are ever
active and its temples are always open, and from their doors none are driven
away. To these the inexperienced and unwary are often tempted to resort
or, from want of employment, the irresolute are impelled to the commission
of crime, or often they are made the dupes and instruments of those with
whom crime is a trade, or, being strangers and friendless, they are readily
suspected, and when arrested they are unable to find bail and are committed
to jail, and if indicted the judge, however humane and considerate, is com-
pelled to entrust their defense to some lawyer without standing or experience
in his profession, and a conviction follows, for there is no one to demand
justice, or implore mercy. It is time that the practice of delivering the living
bodies of poor prisoners to legal students for professional instruction was
abandoned, and I insist that provision should be made for the election or ap-
pointment, in large cities and populous counties of the state, of suitable persons
whose duty it should be to visit the places where persons are confined on crim-
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
inal charges, confer with and advise poor prisoners, protect tl
pressions and extortions, attend examinations, investigate the c\
them, advise with injured parties and the court and state's atto
view to the dismissal of prosecutions when the ends of justice \
course be promoted; or with reference to the proper measure o
in cases where the punishment is discretionary with the judge;
cases, alone or in conjunction with the counsel assigned by the c
their defense.
"A proposition to provide for the appointment of an officer
administration of the laws from the standpoint of those who ar<
crimes is novel, but every one familiar with the administration of
laws of the state is fully aware of the fact that a truthful stateme
wrongs inflicted upon persons charged with offenses would provi
crimes have been committed in the name of the law."
Notwithstanding occasional aberrations of public sentiment th(
a steady improvement in the administration of criminal justice,
most striking of these is found in paragraph 486 of the criminal
provides that '*No person shall be disqualified as a witness in any c
or proceeding, by reason of his interest in the event of the same, aj
otherwise, or by reason of his having been convicted of any crim<
interest or conviction may be shown for the purpose of affecting
bility; provided, however, that a defendant in any criminal case or
shall only at his own request be deemed to be a competent witne
neglect to testify shall not create any presumption against him, nc
court permit any reference or comment to be made to or upon such
A similar act of the congress of the United States, which omits
forbidding comments upon the failure of defendants to testify aga
selves, under the peril of unfavorable comments in case they decline
is unconstitutional.
There is still another statute that presents the improved humar
age with respect to crimes and the punishment therefor. It is en
act relating to the sentence of prisoners convicted of crime, and
a system of parole, approved June 15, 1845." It provides that "Ev(
over the age of twenty-one years who shall be convicted of a felon}
crime punishable by imprisonment in the penitentiary, excepting trea
der, manslaughter and rape, shall be sentenced to the penitentiary
court imposing such sentence shall not fix the limit or duration of
tence, and the term of imprisonment of any person so convicted shall n
the maximum term provided by law for the crime for which the pe
convicted and sentenced, making allowance for good time as now
by law, — the release of such a prisoner to be determined as hereina
vided : Provided that from and after July i, 1897, the state boarc
dons, if then created, shall, ex-officio, have the powders and perform tl
devolved upon the commissioners of the penitentiary by the act to w
is an amendment. * * * The provisions of this act shall not a
334
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
far as they concern his parole, to any person over twenty-one years of age
convicted and sentenced to a penitentiary in this state, who may be shown on
his trial to have been previously sentenced to a penitentiary in this state or
country, but such person shall be held and considered to be an habitual criminal,
and shall be required to serve the maximum sentence provided by law for the
crime of which he was convicted, less the good time which he may earn by good
conduct, as now provided by law."
This policy must be regarded still as experimental, but it is hoped by the
benevolent that it will afford an opportunity to many persons to return to their
families and friends, and thereafter lead honest, and peaceable lives.
CHAPTER XVIII.
THE BENCH AND BAR OF MORGAN COUNTY—NOTABLE CASES.
BY HON. CYRUS EPLER.
THE county of Morgan was created by an act of the legislature of the
date of January 31, A. D. 1823. The county was attached to the first
judicial circuit, of which the Hon. John Reynolds was then judge.
The county commissioners located the temporary county-seat at Olm-
stead's Mound, near Swinnerton's Point, now called Allison's Mound, situated
about six miles west of the city of Jacksonville. The first term of the circuit
court of the county was held at this place, in the fall of the year 1823. The
oflScers of the court were: John Reynolds, presiding judge; Wiley B. Green,
sheriff; Milton Ladd, ckrk; and James Turney, attorney general. The at-
torneys present at that term were Murray McConnel, of Morgan county ; James
Turney and Alfred W. Cavarly, of CarroUton ; Benjamin Mills, of Vandalia ; and-
Jonathan Pugh and WilHam S. Hamilton, of Springfield.
General Murray McConnel has given us the traditional account of this
term of court. The temple of justice, in which the court was held, was a
round-log cabin, about sixteen feet square, with a lean-up against one side of
the main building, and was the family residence of Mr. Olmstead. The Olm-
stead family vacated the house to the use of the court, and took up their abode
in camp in front of the house, and furnished meals for the judge, officers and
court attendants and attorneys on a table set between the house and the camp,
and the guests slept on beds laid on the floor of the court-room.
The grand jury was organized, and occupied the shade of a neighboring
tree, as a jury room. The petit-jury box consisted of split logs set up on legs,
forming benches; and when they took a case for the consideration of their
verdict, they were taken by the constable out into the grove. Sometimes the
parties to the suit, and the witnesses, participated in their deliberations. On
one occasion all hands — ^parties to the suit, witnesses and jurors — got into a
roug-h-and-tumble fight, to quell which the sheriff and the judge repaired to the
jury room (the shade of the trees) which was the field of battle. But the court
did not undertake to punish the offenders, for the reason that there was no
prison within eighty miles ; and an attempt to punish them by fine would have
been useless, for the reason that not one of them had any money or property,
except his gun, and that was exempt from execution. The General informed
us that at this term of court a newly made justice of the peace visited the judge
in the court-room, saying to him: '*]x\dgt, I am the 'squire in these parts,
and some of those fellers says I can't divorce married people ; and will you tell
335
tlie
Tui
Job
The
Clia
THE BENCH AND BAR OF HAJNOIS, 337
Tiirney, J. Quimby, Benjamin Cox, William Thomas, Walter Jones, David
Evans, John W. Evans, P. M. Irwin, S. G. Anderson, A. S. Manning, T. J.
Diimus, C. J. Drake, Charles Jones, John J. Hardin, Stephen A. Douglas, A.
H. Buckner, Josiah Lamborn, Myron Leslie, Henry E. Dummer, James Berdan,
N. M. Knapp, Henry B. McClure, William Brown, Richard Yates, Robert
Crawford, David A. Smith, Henry Dusenbery, Josephus Hewitt, James A.
McDougal, Benjamin Orear, Ottawa Wilkinson, John L. McConnel and John
McConnel — all long since deceased. Of the above named attorneys Stephen
A. Douglas, John J. Hardin, James A. McDougal and Richard Yates managed
their first cases in a court of record in the old brick court-house, and subse-
quently all rose to political eminence and national reputation.
Subsequent to the year 1850 James W. EngHsh, William Strong, Cincin-
natus M. Morrison, Henry J. Atkins, Barbour Lewis, Henry Case, Edward L.
McDonald, Oscar A. De Leuw, Thomas W. Smith, James H. Kellogg, Har-
rison O. Cassell, John W. Meacham, William Gallaher, William EngHsh, Myron
L. Epler^ James N. Brown, Harry Stewart, Wilber Goheen, E. C. Brearly, and
William McWilliams were resident members of the Jacksonville bar, — all of
whom now sleep in the silent city of death. Most of them died in their young
manhood, — seemingly to us, too young. Some of them were of marked legal
ability and had attained eminence at the bar; and others, younger, gave great
promise. It is hoped that some one in the future will more fully wTite of their
places at the Jacksonville bar.
Murray McConnel w-as a native of the state of New- York, and left his
parental home while a minor, of the age of sixteen years, and alone pushed out
to the far west **to grow up with the country'* and to forge his own fortune.
He "settled" in this country before Morgan county was organized, about the
year 1820. He was the first, or one of the first, members of the bar of the
county, and continued the practice of his profession here till the day of his
death, in the year 1869. ^y nature he was a strong, self-reliant and self-
asserting man, of a rugged, clear legal mind, unpolished by the luster of early
literary education and legal training. As a law^yer he was self-made and able,
ever ready to meet his opponents in legal conflict. For forty-five years he
ranked with the ablest members of the bar of the county.
Judge William Thomas moved to Jacksonville from the state of Kentucky,
and entered upon the practice of his legal profession at this bar in the year
1826. He w^as, or became, learned in all branches of the civil law and prac-
tice, and especially on the equity side. He stood with the lawyers as the Lord
Readsdale of the bar; carried his court papers in the old-style green-baize
bag", and ever wrote with the goose quill. He was w^ell equipped by nature
and his learning for the chancellorship. He was a mover and colaborer in all
deserving public improvements and interests. He died in the city of Jack-
sonville in the year of 1889.
Josiah Lamborn moved to and became a member of the bar of Jackson-
ville about the year 1835, from the state of Kentucky. He was the most noted
criminal lawyer of his day at that bar; was a very forcible advocate, rich in
22
338 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
resources, a lawyer by nature, not by learning, and a legal genius. His gen-
eral success as a lawyer was not so marked as it might have been. He was a
little convivial in his nature, as were some of his associates, and to keep within
proper bounds they formed themselves into a private temperance club, one of
the rules of which was to meet once a week and give their experience and tell
the truth. Time after time Lamborn confessed to a violation of the abstinence
pledge. Finally one of the brothers undertook to discipline him, by admon-
ishing him that he could quit if he would, to which he repHed, "I am aware
of that, but the devil of it is, I can't would." He was a large man. over six
feet high, and was a fine-looking man, but had a deformed foot and carried a
large, heavy cane. Once interrogated why he carried so large a cane, he said
in reply, "I carry it as a peace-maker ; don't you know that if you will raise your
cane and crowd your antagonist, nine times out of ten he will run?" "But,"
said his friend, "how about the tenth time?" "Oh, well," he said, "you must
not be so d — d a fool as not to then run yourself." He died in the year 1847
and was buried in the cemetery at Whitehall.
Of the earliest members of the Jacksonville bar. Judge William Brown
was one marked for his ability and legal learning. A native of Kentucky, about
the year of 1835 he moved to Jacksonville, and became a member of the
Jacksonville bar. Being well versed in the science of the law, and of quick
legal perception and marked for his courtly etiquette, he was one of the most
distinguished jurists and successful practitioners at the bar. His business life
was somewhat divided betw^een his legal practice and other lines of private
business and public interests, and he was successful in all. He departed this
life, in the city of Jacksonville, in the year 1871.
John J. Hardin, Stephen A. Douglas, Richard Yates and James A. Mc-
Dougal, all of national renown, were early members of the Jacksonville bar.
All were able and prominent lawyers in their day of practice. But, buoyed
up by an honorable ambition for broader fields of action, they left their legal
practice at an early day of life and engaged themselves in state and national
affairs.
James Berdan, one of the early members of the Jacksonville bar, was a
native of New York, and prepared himself for his profession in the city of
New York, under the old rule of many years study before admission to the bar,
and was very thoroughly read in the law before he came to this tow-n, — which
was in the year 1834, — where he entered upon the practice of his profession.
He was a gentleman of culture and literary and artistic taste, and was an ac-
complished lawyer, especially in equity pleadings and practice. He was a
model draftsman of legal documents and court papers, and his writing was like
copperplate. He was a little too modest for the rough-and-tumble ways of trials
of issues before a jury. He died in Jacksonville in the year of 1883.
Henry E. Dummer was a native of Maine, and immigrated to the town
of Jacksonville and became a member of its bar about the year 1835, but soon
thereafter removed to Springfield, and after a short residence there removed to
Beardstown, where he practiced his profession with marked success till about
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS. 339
the year 1864, when he returned to Jacksonville and renewed his relations with
that bar, and so continued till his death. He was a master of the legal science
in all its lines and departments, and most skilled and adroit in its practice. No
opponent could hide himself behind any legal f^lacies that the "J"<^&^" would
not discover, and generally to his opponent's discomfiture. By nature and his
broad learning he was a thoroughly equipped lawyer of the highest order.
He was one of the few attorneys of the bar to whom most of the others looked
for advice and assistance, and this aid was certainly and cordially given. He
was judge of the county court of Cass county for several terms. While resid-
ing in the city of Jacksonville, on account of declining health, he visited north-
ern Lake Michigan, in the year of 1878, and there died.
Henry B. McClure immigrated to Jacksonville from the state of Vermont
in the year 1835 and at once entered upon the practice of the law. That was
his business and nothing else. He was a very able jurist and thorough lawyer.
He was noted for being the most laborious and painstaking member of the
bar in the preparation and management of his cases. He would subject his
client to the strictest examination and cross-examination as to the facts of
his case, would then take time to thoroughly examine the law bearing on the
case, and then, and not till then, would he prepare his legal papers. If an
opposing counsel left a weak point in his case exposed he might expect Mc-
Clure to find it. As his cases progressed he kept himself posted as to every
step taken, from the summons to the final order and execution, and to the re-
ceipt of satisfaction. In the year 1881, on his way to the city of Lansing, in
the state of Michigan, going hurriedly from his hotel in Chicago to the Michi-
gan Central depot, he reached a seat in the coach, laid down his overcoat and
satchel, put on his glasses, opened his morning paper, and in one minute was
dead.
David A. Smith was a native of the state of Virginia, and immigrated to the
state of Alabama, where he entered upon the practice of his profession at an
early age of life. Subsequently he moved to Carlinville, Illinois, and after
some years' practice there, moved to Jacksonville and became a member of its
bar in the year 1840. His motto was, "thorough work and thorough pay."
He was a learned jurist, an able lawyer, especially in all the branches of civil
law and practice, and particularly on the equity side; but would rarely take a
criminal case. He diagnosed his cases quickly and almost always correctly, but
if erroneously, which was difficult for him to see, he generally followed his first
impressions to the end. An erasure or interlineation was rarely seen in his
legal papers. He was able to do more work, and do it well, than any other
member of the bar in the same length of time, and he was a very successful
and financially prosperous practitioner. He died in the state of Minnesota in
the year 1865, while on a tour of recreation and health.
Captain John L. McConnel, son of General Murray McConnel, was born
and educated in the city of Jacksonville, and became a member of its bar
about the year of 1847, ^^^^^ his return from the Mexican war. Nature favored
him with more than ordinary intellectual gifts. He was a shrewd lawyer and
340 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
strong advocate. He was possessed of marked literary ability and taste, and
was the author of several literary productions of fiction, of very considerable
merit, which are entitled as follows: Talbot and Vernon, Graham, or Youth
and Manhood, The Glenns, and Western Character. He died in Jacksonville
in the year 1862.
SOME NOTABLE CASES.
Tft^ first indictment for murder *in Morgan county was found in the year
of 1839, against John A. Hall, charging him with the murder of Robert Denny.
Hall was a tailor and Denny went into Hall's shop, where he was at work on the
bench. The parties quarreled, and Hall being assaulted, or threatened with
an assault, by Denny, threw his tailor shears at and into Denny and killed him.
Hall was tried and acquitted. Judge William Thomas was the judge then
presiding, William Brown was the state's attorney, and Josiah Lamborn was
defendant's attorney.
The only man sentenced to be hanged in Morgan county was George
Gardner, who was indicted in Scott county in the year 1841, charged with the
murder of Phillip W. Nash, at Exeter, by shooting him with a shotgun. The
trial was brought to Morgan county on a change of venu€. Gardner was tried,
found guilty of murder and sentenced to be hanged, at Jacksonville, on the 23d
day of July, 1841. But on the night before, Gardner broke jail and made his es-
cape. Some people insinuate that he escaped through the front door, although the
jail was broken. So no man has ever been hung in Morgan county under a
sentence of a court. Judge Stephen A. Douglas sentenced the convict ; John S.
Greathouse, the state's attorney, prosecuted, and John P. Jordan, of Winchester,
defended him.
The earliest immigrants to Jacksonville were mostly from the southern
states, but after a few years there were heavy immigrations from the north
and cast, until the population of the town was about equally divided between
the southerners and northeners. As some of the southern people used to say, the
population of the town was about equally divided between the "Whites and the
Yankees." Although the southern people of the town and county were generally
opposed to slavery, they did not sympathize with any interference with the
supposed slave rights of their friends in the states from which they came. As
time progressed a broad difference of sentiment existed between the two classes
of people in the town, which was very much inflamed by the cruel murder of
Lovejoy, at Alton, in the year of 1837, and soon thereafter Jacksonville be-
came a station on the ^'underground railroad."
About the year 1835 a Kentucky family by the name of Chinn, in some way
related to the Rev. Porter Clay and the Hardin family, then residing in Jack-
sonville, moved to this town, and brought with them two of their slaves, named
Robert Logan and Emily Logan. Having been kept here a year or two by
their master, the slaves were informed by some of the anti-slavery people that
they were free, and were induced to leave their master and to live with other
people of the town. But after a short time, when Robert was cutting wood at
THE BENCH AND BAR OF H.LINOIS. 341
the wood-pile, he was violently seized and tied and forced into a carriage by
four armed men and was carried to Naples and shipped on a steamboat to the
south. At the July term, 1838, of the circuit court of Morgan county, Charles
S. Hardin and Marcus Chinn were severally indicted on the charge of kid-
naping Robert Logan, and at the October term, 1838, of said court, Chinn was
tried and acquitted and the indictment against Hardin was quashed. Jesse B.
Thomas was the presiding judge at both terms of said court, Josephus Hewitt
drew the indictment as state's attorney, and David M. Woodson prosecuted, as
state's attorney, at the October term.
Emily Logan, after leaving her master, lived in the family of Mr. Elihu
Wolcott and, under his direction and support, at the October term, 1838,
by her attorney, Henry B. McClure, she instituted suit for her freedom, against
Marcus A. Chinn, who claimed her as his slave, in the nature of a writ de homine
replegiando. At the March term, 1840, of said court, Judge William Thomas,
who was presiding, declined to try the cause, for the reason of his having ad-
vised as to the form of the action, before he had gone on the bench, and he
ordered a change of venue of the cause to the Sangamon circuit court.
Cyrus Walker, the noted criminal lawyer of Schuyler county, Illinois, and an
uncle of the lamented Hon. Pinckney H. Walker, was defendant Chinn's attor-
ney in the Morgan county circuit court. At the November term, 1840, of the
Sangamon county court the case was tried by a jury, and they found that "she"
(Emily Logan) was not his (Marcus Chinn's) "slave," and assessed her damages
at one dollar, and she recovered a judgment establishing her freedom.
In February, 1843, Mrs. Sarah W. Liles, a resident of the state of Louisiana,
on her way from Kentucky to her home, came by way of Jacksonville on a visit
to friends. With her she had her slave Julia, a colored girl about the age of
eighteen years. Shortly before her intended departure for her home in Louisi-
ana her servant Julia was spirited away by some of the anti-slavery people and
taken to the home of Mr. Cushing, near Greenfield, Greene county, on her indi-
rect way to Canada. Here she was overtaken, in the care of Julius A. Willard, and
brought back to' her mistress. At the March term, 1843, o^ the circuit court
of Morgan county Julius A. Willard and Samuel Willard were severally in-
dicted for secreting and harboring Julia, a colored girl and a slave of Mrs. Sarah
W. Liles. At that term of court the defendant, Julius A. Willard, by his at-
torneys, William Brown, Henry B. McClure. and Cole, appeared and
demurred to each count of the indictment, which was sustained as to the first
five, and overruled as to the sixth count. The balance of the order of the
court runs as follows: "And the said defendant stands by his demurrer and,
not defending further, it is ordered by the court that the defendant make his
fine to the people of the state of Illinois in the sum of twenty dollars, and that
he pay the costs of the prosecution."
The same attorneys. Brown, McClure and Cole, appeared and defended
Samuel Willard, and at the May term, 1845, 0^ said court the defendant with-
drew his demurrer and pleaded guilty, and the court entered a fine of one
dollar against him and ordered that he pay the costs of the prosecution. Samuel
342 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
D. Lockwood was the judge presiding in the prosecution of these indictments,
and John W. Evans, of Jacksonville, was the state's attorney prosecuting;
Dennis Rockwell was clerk and Alexander Dunlap sheriff. It may be fitting
to state that Dennis Rockwell was appointed clerk of the circuit court of Morgan
county within the first year of the existence of the county, and held the office
continuously till the year 1848. He was also at the same time, for several
years of the early life of the county, county clerk and recorder, and postmaster
and, as some of our people have said, he carried the letters that came to the
postoffice in his hat and distributed them to the people.
On the morning of the 9th day of February, 1869, General Murray Mc-
Connel was found lying on the floor of his office at his residence, his head
saturated with and resting over pools of his warm, fresh blood, breathing his
last breaths of life. At that time he was residing on the west side of North
Main street, in the city of Jacksonville, about two blocks north of the public
square, and one block south of the Wabash depot. His private office was
on the ground floor, in the L part, and on the south side of his residence. His
family consisted of himself, his wife, his son Edward, his two grandchildren,
Murray and Belle McConnel, and the housemaid, Mary Ryan, and no other
person was abiding with the family at that time. The General had prepared
himself to take the train for Springfield, then due in a few minutes, on some
private business respecting his claim to a large tract of land situated in the
central part of the city of Chicago.
William A. Robinson, who was subsequently indicted for the alleged mur-
der of General McConnel, was a well appearing young man, of the age of
about twenty-eight years, had been raised in Lawrence county, Illinois, and
was of a highly respected family. He had been living in the city of Jackson-
ville about three years and most of the time had been clerk in a hotel kept
by the Kelsey brothers. He had married into an Irish family of the city of
Jacksonville, plain, good people. He had a child of the age of one year.
He had been for a few .months, and was then, keeping a little provision store
in a little room on the north side of the public square, jointly occupied by
J. T. Stevenson as a tin shop and store. He had been living in a rented house
on North Main street, north of the McConnel house, but a few days before had
sold his household property and sent his wife and child to his father in Law-
rence county. At the time of the homicide he was stipulating with Kelsey for
the sale of a part of his stock of goods to him in satisfaction of indebtedness
due from him to Kelsey.
A coroner's inquest was held over the dead body, Robinson was suspected,
and after taking evidence a few days the jury found by their verdict that Mc-
Connel had come to his death by the hand of William A. Robinson, and he
was committed to jail to await the action of the grand jury. The theory of the pros-
ecution was that McConnel held Robinson's note for four hundred dollars, then
overdue ; that McConnel had been pressing him for its payment ; that Robinson
visited McConnel's office on the morning of the homicide, prepared with a
weapon, probably some tool procured in Stevenson's tin shop, for the purpose of
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
killing McConnel and taking his note. And that finding McConnel in his
alone he offered to pay the note, and that McConnel took the note from his c
and when he was proceeding to compute the interest on it Robinson in
the mortal blow, took the note and left the office. The material ev:
taken before the coroner's jury, as appears in the coroner's report filed
circuit clerk's office, is substantially as follows :
Mary Ryan, the housemaid, testified that at the time of the homicid
knew of no one being in the house but the General, his wife and herself
Edward, Murray and Belle had gone from the house. That about nine o'
she was in the General's office, dressing up the room, and saw him sitting
his table with his feet on the stove hearth, reading a letter; from there
went up-stairs to do her chamber work, and while there she heard the i
bell ring, and went down and out of the back part and around the south
of the house and down to the front gate, and received the milk and retu
the same way into the back part of the house; and placed the milk, and
turned up-stairs to her chamber work. That while so up-stairs (and she
not certain whether it was the first or last time mentioned) she heard nc
below, one like a door jar and the other like the fall of something heavy;
that about ten or fifteen minutes after she had left the General in his office
returned to the office to supply the water-pitcher, and found him lying on
floor dead, or dying, and various persons were called in for assistance. /
some of these called in testified that they found the General lying on the of
floor in a dying condition, and that he died in a few minutes; that the bi
lower part of the skull was crushed by some heavy blow, another simi
wound on the top of the head, and one just forward of one ear. That a file
bundle of vahiable papers was lying on the table; that an interest book v
lying open on the table, and that there was a heavy pencil-mark on the op
leaf of the interest book, as though he had been tracing a column on the boc
and some sudden impulse had pushed the pencil forward; that a commi
wooden pencil, with the leaden point broken off, was found lying on the flo
near the table ; that his hat was lying on the floor, and two long, heavy pape
weig^hts were on the table, without any appearance of having been recent
handled, and that his watch and money were found in his pockets undisturbed
William H. Worrell, the dairyman, testified that he had known William J
.Robinson for several months by sight, and had seen him several times in hi
store, at Stevenson's tin shop. That he, the witness, was carrying on a dair
and had been delivering milk to the McConnel family for several months
That on the morning of the 9th day of February, as he drove from the eas
onto North Main street, nearly opposite the McConnel residence, to delivei
milk, he saw Robinson walking on the street pavement in a south direction
and when he reached the front gate he passed through the same and walked
up the front walk toward the McConnel house; and that when he was about
half way from the gate to the house his view was obstructed by the top of his
milk-wagon being turned down and to the side, occasioned by the wheels
running into a rut, and he saw him no more; that he stopped at the front
344 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
gate a minute and then rang the milk-bell, and the girl soon came and re-
ceived the milk and returned to the house. And that between the time he so
last saw Robinson on the front pavement, going toward the house, and the time
the girl came from the house, Robinson had had time enough to enter the
house; that Robinson was wearing a cap and a brown overcoat of medium
length ; that this afternoon (the afternoon when witness was being examined)
he had gone to Robinson's store and bought some raisins of him ; that Steven-
son was there at the time, and in the presence of Robinson said that some one
had said that he, witness, saw Robinson go into McConnel's yesterday; and he,
witness, said he thought he did ; and Stevenson said to Robinson, that that
was about the time that he, Robinson, had gone down there, and that Robin-
son said yes, about nine o'clock, but that Stevenson made no reference to
Robinson's purpose in going to McConners.
Elizabeth Mahoney testified that she knew William A. Robinson well; that
he had been living close to where she lived ; that a few days before McConnel's
death Robinson's wife had gone away and he had sold all his furniture; that
on Tuesday morning about nine o'clock, as she was walking south on North
Main street, opposite McConnel's house, she saw Robinson coming from the
direction of McConnel's house ; that he was inside the yard, nearly down to the
front gate ; that he passed out at the gate and went north ; that she did not
notice his dress particularly; he had a short brown-colored business coat on;
he had no overcoat; he had on a cap.
William A. Robinson testified before the coroner, that he was born in
Lawrence county, Illinois, in the year 1842; that he had been living in Jackson-
ville about four years; that about two years of that time he had been clerk
in the Mansion House, kept by Frank Kelsey; that he was married and had
one child ten months old; that in June, 1868, he had gone into the grocery busi-
ness in Jacksonville; that he and his family had, until within a few days, lived
in a house on North Main street, and his wife had gone to Lawrence county
to his father's ; that on Saturday he had sold his furniture ; that he thought his
stock of goods amounted to about one thousand dollars, of which he had
arranged with Frank Kelsey to take enough to pay him an indebtedness of
five hundred and sixty-one dollars which he owed him; that he had been well
acquainted with General Murray McConnel, and that a year or two before that
time had borrowed four hundred and twenty dollars of him and gave his
note for the payment of the same ; that he took up said note by giving another
note to McConnel for four hundred dollars, prepaying the interest by adding
it in the principal ; that he did not remember when it was made payable ; that
he paid the last mentioned note to McConnel in his office in December last;
that no other person was there at the time, and that he burned the note in his
stove the same day. That about nine o'clock on the morning that McConnel
was killed he passed by McConnel's house, on the sidewalk going north to the
house in which he had been Uving, to get a bread-board and some nutmegs
which he had left there, to give them to a neighbor woman, and as he was
passing the McConnel house he saw the witness, Mrs. Elizabeth Mahoney, on
THE BENCH AND BAR OF H^LINOIS. 345
the opposite side of the street, going south, and that he was down on that street
but once that morning. That he had accumulated in his store the four hundred
dollars w4th which he paid the McConnel note, in the month of December ; that
his collections were then good ; that he kept no bank account, but carried his
money ; that he kept books in his business ; that his books showed the payment
of that note ; and that it had been paid about the loth of December. (While
Robinson was being examined an officer had gone to his store, took and
brought his store-books before the coroner, and they were handed to Robin-
son.) And, further testifying, Robinson stated that these were his books in which
he had kept a cash account of debits and credits ; that the small book was the
old one, in which the entries were first made ; that he wanted a new book, and
had got the large one and transferred the entries of the small old book into the
large new book; that he found the entry of the payment of the four hundred
dollars to McConnel, of the date of December loth, in the large book, but that
he did not find that entry in the small book ; that he did not know why it was not
in the small book ; that these entries were in his hand-writing ; that in the large
book these items and dates appeared in the cash account:
Dec. 7 — To Mdse $11^.2$
" 8 " " 73.60
" 9 " " 96.00
" 10 " '' 63.25
II 74-00
And also the item of date of December loth on credit side, "Pd. M. Mc-
Connel, $400.00." That in the small book these items and dates appeared in
the cash account:
Dec. 7— To Mdse $3.25
" 8 " " 3.60
" 9 " " 6.00
" 10 " '' 3.25
II 4.00
And that there appeared on the credit side of the small book no item of the
payment of four hundred dollars to McConnel, and that he did not explain the
facts of the difference of the entries in the two books, but that the large book
was rig^ht, and that he had not written the figures 11, 7, 9, 6 and 7 in the large
book that week, and that these figures, and the item of payment to McConnel,
were written with the same ink.
It will be observed that the two merchandise accounts in the two account
books would be precisely the same, as to dates, items and amounts, if the figures
II , 7, 9, 6 and 7, were taken respectively from the several items of the account
in the new large book ; and the difference in the aggregate amounts of the two
accounts, is $400. And it was in evidence before the coroner's jury, and also on
the trial in the circuit, that the officer who took the books from Robinson's
store, also found on his desk or counter one of Robinson's business cards, on the
back of which was written, in apparently fresh ink, a figured calculation corre-
sponding with the difference of the said two book accounts, and brought out the
346 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
result four hundred dollars. And Kelsey. the proprietor of the hotel in which
Robinson had been clerk, testified that in Ills opinion the figuring on the back
of the card was in the hand-writing of Robinson. And Robinson testified that
he knew nothing of the writing on the card, and that he did not write it.
It was the theory of the prosecution that after Robinson discovered that sus-
picion was pointing to him he changed the entries in his new account book so as to
account for the four hundred dollars with which to pay the McConne! note. At
the April term of court Robinson was indicted, on the charge of murdering Mur-
ray McConnel. A special May term of court was called for the trial. The old
court-house was thought unsafe as a court-room. The new court-house was then
not completed. Strawn's opera house was provided for the trial, which was taken
by the public as an invitation to attend the great, tragic murder trial, and they
were there, — men, women and children. The hall was large, with galleries on three
sides. Court convened on the 25th day of May. Charles D. Hodges was the
judge presiding, an able jurist and a just man. William Brown, the state's at-
torney, prosecuted, assisted by Isaac L. Morrison, Henry J. Atkins and Isaac J.
Ketcham, all of Jacksonville. The accused was defended by Judge Aaron Shaw,
of Lawrenceville ; Judge David M. Woodson, of Carrollton; Hon. James C.
Robinson, of Springfield ; and William H. Barnes, of Jacksonville.
Outside o( the merits of the case, the defense had some advantage, McCon-
nel's long, energetic and successful business life had engendered some animosi-
ties and jealous feelings with some of the people, which had not been altogether
forgotten at the time of his death; and a supposed subsidized press, through a
local correspondent of the St. Louis Democrat, the Chicago Journal and the
Springfield Journal, day by day, during the trial, flooded the town with articles
hostile to the prosecution and the deceased, and favorable to the defense. And,
strange as it may appear, almost all the women present took a decided stand
in favor of the defense, possibly on account of their natural sympathy for the
unfortunate but genteel appearing wife and innocent child of the defendant, and
for the well appearing defendant himself. Perhaps some of them had not for-
gotten some old grudge or prejudice against the deceased. At all events
tlicy manifested their sympathy for the defense and their prejudice against the
prosecution in the most shameful and unbecoming manner, by outbursts of ap-
plause in open court, until that was suppressed by the judge, and, occupying the
gallery immediately over the jury box, by dropping notes down on the jury, and
showering down boucjuets on the defendant and his wife and child, and on the de-
fendant's attorneys immediately on the adjournments of the court. By way of
showing contempt for the prosecution, while Attorney I. L. Morrison was
making the closing argument for the prosecution, a large bunch of smart-
weed, dog-fennci and other noxious growth was thrown from the gallery on bis-
table in front of him. The verdict of the jury was for the acquittal of the
defendant, and after the adjournment of the court, as soon as they could be
reached by the women, the defendant, his wife and child and the defendant's at-
torneys and some of the jurors were profusely honored with bouquets, and a
move was made to give the acquitted defendant and his wife a banquet at the
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS. 347
hotel that night, but some of the more sober-minded people, for shame, inter-
fered and put a stop to it. The people of the state of Illinois did not prosecute
anyone else, or look for anyone alse to prosecute, for the murder of General
Murray McConnel.
In the trial of a judicial cause that elicits much public sentiment, no influence
is more menacing to a fair administration of justice than the interference of an
unscrupulous public press, or the presence of a large attendance of sympathetic
and prejudiced women.
David Allen Smith* was born near Charlotte Court House, Charlotte county,
\'irginia, June 18, 1804. His ancestors were English people who came to Vir-
ginia at a very early day. Many of their descendants are now residents of that
part of Virginia. His parents, Thomas and Millie (Roper) Smith, removed to
Pulaski, Giles county, Tennessee, when he was but a few years old. There was
but one other child in the family, a daughter, who died in very early life. In the
year 182 1 they removed from Pulaski to Courtland, Lawrence county, Alabama;
but David was left at Pulaski, under the care of the Rev. Mr. Wier, with whom
he pursued a full course of academic studies. After this he entered the office
of Judge Bramlett, of Pulaski, and began the study of law. In a letter to his
father, under date of April i, 1821, he speaks as well of his general reading as
of his reading of law, and says : ''Since I have been with Judge Bramlett I have
read Hume's History of England, in eight large volumes ; Gibbon's Decline and
Fall of the Roman Empire, in eight large volumes ; also three volumes of Sir
William Blackstone's Commentaries on the laws of England, and I am now re-
viewing for my examination, as I have already stated."
He was admitted to the practice of law in 1824, in the twentieth year of his
age, and at once entered upon his professional work at Courtland, and there con-
tinued it until 1837, when he removed to Illinois. Although of a cheerful and
lively disposition and fond of company, he was a very diligent student. The very
full notes he made while pursuing his law studies show that he read with great
care and that he was never content, in his researches, until he obtained a clear
view of the subject he had in hand. These notes themselves are remarkable evi-
dences of patient investigation and careful notation, and they and his letters and
other writings show clearly that before he was admitted to the bar he had already
obtained a good education. Considering the condition of the country at that
early day his opportunities were good, but good as they were, he made the
very best use of them.
Soon after his admission to the bar, he married Miss Jane Smith, a daughter
of Captain William Smith, of Charlotte county, Virginia. She lived only about
six months after their marriage ; but it is said that it was due to her influence that
he was led to an earnest consideration of the claims of religion upon him ; and
here seems to have been the commencement of that active and faithful Christian
living which characterized him up to the close of life. On the 4th day of August,
1830, he was married,- at Huntsville, Alabama, to Miss Eliza Eleanor Allan, a
♦Contributed by John M. Lansden.
348 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
daughter of the Rev. Dr. John Allan, then widely known as the pastor of the
Presbyterian church of Huntsvillc.
In 1837 he removed from Courtland to Carlinville, Illinois. He remained
in Carlinville. in the practice of the law, for two years; and in 1839 removed
to Jacksonville, where he remained until his death, July 13, 1865. He was thus
engaged in the active practice of the law forty-one years. — thirteen at Court-
land, two at Carlinville and twenty-six at Jacksonville. He was a good lawyer
when he left Alabama, and after locating in Illinois it was but a short time
before he had acquired an e.xcellent practice. The extent of his practice in the
supreme court of the state is seen in the large number of cases he had in that
court, reported in the third to the thirty-ninth volumes of our reports, and
embracing the years i83() to 1865.
Soon after going to Jacksonville he formed a copartnership with General
John J. Hardin, who afterward became colonel of the First Regiment of Illinois
N'olunteers in the war with Mexico, and who fell at the head of his regiment,
February 23, 1847, at the battle of Buena Vista. While General Hardin was
absent in the service Mr. Smith regularly divided the income of the business with
Mrs. Hardin. The diligence that characterized him as a student, characterized also
his professional life. He exemphfied that oft forgotten truth — forgotten as often
by lawyers as by others — that without diligent attention to one's work there can
be no well founded hope of success. The rewards of his professional labors are,
therefore, easily accounted for. They came to 'him as the necessarj- and
legitimate fruits of the dihgent use of his talents and acquirements. These were
of a high order, it is true; but in the will that governed and applied them must
be found the secret of his success.
In pohtics he was a Whig so long as there was a Whig party. He believed
firmly in its principles ; but when that party ceased to exist he naturally allied
himself with the Republican party, and it is probable that he found there even a
more congenial home than his former party had afforded him. He was a
member and an elder in the Presbyterian churches of Courtland, Carlinville and
Jacksonville. In the work of the church, as in the legal profession, he stood in
the front rank, and was there always a leader. With him the work was not to be
confined to a groove or restricted to a narrow field. He never exhibited great
alarm at the cry of "politics in the pulpit." He saw a clear distinction between
carrying politics into religion and religion into politics. He would not concede
that questions clearly possessing moral as well as political features should be
controlled solely by the latter ; for to him the moral feature of a matter was often
its chief feature. Liberality to all the local and general enterprises of the church
was not to him the sole criterion of duty. He recognized the great truth that
the highest demands of religion are of a personal nature, not to be satisfied with
material gifts; and, therefore, while he gave regularly and always liberally, he
gave to the cause all those personal attentions without which no Christian
profession or life can possess much character or force.
His children were as follows: Captain Thomas WiUiam, deceased; Ann
Mary, wife of James Moore, Esq.. of La Porte, Indiana, both deceased ; Eliza
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS. 349
Ellen, wife of Rev. George C. Noyes, D. D., of Evanston, deceased ; John Allan
and David Brainard, of Jacksonville ; Euphemia Wyeth, wife of John M. Lans-
den, Esq., of Cairo; Laura Allan, wife of Captain James H. Kellogg, of Jackson-
ville, deceased ; Catharine Barr, wife of James E. Munroe, Esq., of Chicago ;
James Edward and Sarah Emma, twin children, both deceased, and Hugh Barr,
of Jacksonville.
Upon his father's death he came into the possession and ownership of a
number of slaves. It may be that he owned slaves before that time. It is not
known that his views in regard to slavery had undergone a change. He may
have always believed that it was wrong. Be that as it may, he became impressed
with the belief that his ownership of the slaves imposed upon him a very im-
portant duty to them. How he, among so many others thinking and acting
otherwise, reached the conclusion he did, or how long he was in reaching it, we
do not know ; but in March, 1837, he presented to the county court of Lawrence
county, Alabama, a petition for the emancipation of his slaves. The decree of
emancipation was entered by the Hon. James Gallagher, the judge of the court,
March 22, 1837.
This action of Mr. Smith was so averse to the wishes and advice of his
friends and perhaps some of his kinsmen, that it became evident his longer resi-
dence in Alabama would be agreeable neither to them nor to him. This spirit
of emancipation, so practically manifested, found no countenance in public opin-
ion, and the natural fitness hi things suggested that such a man should seek a
home in a state where there w^ere no slaves and hence no need of emancipation.
To a man who was willing to part with his slaves without a money consideration,
it was not difficult to bestow^ freedom upon them ; but to turn and face, for himself
and his freedmen, an indignant community, was quite another matter. The
gift of freedom by the master to his slaves seemed an open declaration against
slavery itself and a kind of necessary condemnation of all who desired or were
willing to stand in the relation of master to slave. How very natural was it,
therefore, for Mr. Smith to desire to exchange his Alabama home for a home in
Illinois. But he found prevalent in Illinois a public opinion not wholly different
from that which he supposed he had left in Alabama. He and his freed slaves,
whose departure from Alabama was in the interest of peace, w^ere regarded in
Illinois as a disturbing element, so much so, that he, no doubt, questioned with
himself as to whether he had made the proper choice of a new home. To him
it must have seemed at times that the misfortune of slaverv to the slave was
quite offset by the misfortune of emancipation to the master. But the emancipa-
tion of his slaves did not dissolve all of the bonds existing between him and
them. Some remained, and these it seemed to enlarge and strengthen; for
from the day of their emancipation to the day of his death, they and their children
were ever objects of his care and solicitation.
This portion of Mr. Smith's Hfe w^as to him an age of persecution. He
would not have said so, but it was persecution for righteousness' sake; and it
is for this reason that we have thought it proper to dwell somewhat upon it
in this short sketch of his life. But throughout all those years he seems never
350 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
to have wavered ; and while he is not known to have mentioned it to any one,
he must have rejoiced, as the years drew on, to see his course in those trying
times so signally vindicated. He lived to see emancipation made general; and
no doubt when it came, although in the conflict of war, he remembered more
vividly than ever before the circumstances under which he had emancipated his
own slaves.
We close this rather lengthy part of the sketch by giving one of the two
decrees of emancipation entered by the Alabama court on Mr. Smith's petition,
March 22, 1837.
Alabama,
e Coutlly.
Be ii remembered that at a special term of the county court begun and held for said
tounty at the court-liouse in the town of Moulton, on Wednesday, the 22d day of March.
1837. Present, Hon. James Gallagher, On petition of David A. Smith, of said county,
to have emancipated his following slaves, to-wit, negroes: Old Isham (full description
given of each), young Isham. Anthony, Henry. Mary. Kitty, Eliza, Thomas. John.
Sarah. Monamid. Matilda, Nathan, according to the provisions of an act of the legislature
o( said stale of Alabama, entiiled "'.An act lo authorize the judges of the county courts
to emancipate slaves." and it appearing to the satisfaction of the court that said David .A.
Smith has fully complied with the terms and requisitions of said act, and tlial each of said
slaves, as were capable, from age, had rendered meritorious services to their said master.
it is ordered, adjudged and decreed, in pursuance of said act of the legislature and the
foregoing fads, that the said slaves and the future increase of the females be forever freed,
discharged and emancipated from the claim or claims of the said David A. Smith, his
heirs, executors, admini?;iralors and assigns, lo the involuntary or slavish seriice of the
said slaves and their future increase of the females; and that said David A. Smith pay the
costs of this proceeding. JAMES GALLAGHER. Judge.
LAWYERS OF MORGAN COUNTY*
Isaac La Fayette Morrison, for more than forty years one of the leaders
of the bar of IHinois, was born in Barren county, Kentucky. January 20, 1826.
His father, John O. Morrison, was a native of Virginia, whither his father,
Andrew Morrison, had emigrated from the north of Ireland. Andrew Morrison
enlisted in the Continental army during the Revolutionary war and was killed
at the battle of Brandywine. Maternally Mr. Morrison is a descendant of
the Welborn family of North Carolina. His maternal grandfather. Samuel Wei-
born, was also a Revolutionary soldier and served under General Nathaniel
Greene in his campaign in the Carolinas. Afterward he moved to what is now
Monroe county, Kentucky, in which state John O. Morrison, who had im-
migrated thither in 1793, and 1
John O. Morrison, a farmt
therefore a great amount of re
the latter. He attended the <
after his father's death a large
upon him, and for several year;
♦The following sketches are
« «
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
study. When the opportunity offered itself he entered the Masonic Semii
located in La Grange, Kentucky, and later studied law in the office of Addison
Gazelay, and was admitted to the bar in 1849. He began to practice his {
fession in La Grange, but clients being few and he being an opponent of
institution of slavery and its advocates, he determined to locate in a difier
section, where the opportunities to advance were better and where slavery
not exist.
In 185 1 he settled in Jacksonville, Illinois, and although he had no friei
or acquaintances in the state he quickly gained an enviable reputation as a law;
of ability and as a man of undoubted integrity. • By constant application a
honesty of action and purpose he soon earned for himself a prominent positi
in the front ranks of his profession, and his career at the bar of the state has be
a long continued series of triumphs. His intellect is vigorous and acute, 1
judgment quick and comprehensive and his argument is close and rig^d in log
skillful in method, agreeable and forcible in manner. In legal learning, in wh
may be called the erudition of his profession, he has no superior at the bar, ai
those qualities have given to him the eminent standing so readily accorded
him. As a pleader at the bar he endeavors to make his argument so as to pla
the facts before the court without embellishment; but should occasion see
to require force he can bring a flood of eloquence to bear upon the facts, and
some cases uses refined sarcasm with effect.
He has not always practiced his profession alone but at various times h<
had partners. At the time of the Rebellion, Herbert G. Whitlock, then
student, left his office to enter the army. After his return from the war he wa
admitted by Mr. Morrison into a partnership, which continued for twenty-tw
years. For seven years, between 1861 and 1869, Mr. Morrison was associate
with Cyrus Epler, now circuit judge. At present his son-in-law, Thomas Worth
ington, is his business partner.
Mr. Morrison has never been a politician in the sense of office-seeking. Hi:
love of freedom and opposition to slavery naturally placed him in the ranks of th<
Whigs, and he was one of the active organizers of the Republican party. H(
was a delegate to the first Republican state convention in 1856, and also a dele-
gate to the Republican state convention of i860. In 1864 he was a delegate to
the Republican national convention at Baltimore, which renominated Lincoln
for the presidency. He represented his district in the Illinois legislature for
three terms and rendered valuable service to the people. In the session of 1883
the Republicans had but one majority, and having organized the house were
held responsible for the legislation. One of their number was taken sick, and,
being thus without the means of controlling the house, the services of a com-
petent leader were badly needed and Mr. Morrison naturally took command.
His ability as a legislator was unquestioned, and his knowledge of the law
and parliamentary usages made him a power in the deliberations and acts of the
hoAy. As chairman of the judiciary committee he assisted in molding all the
important measures of the session. The so-called Harper high-license bill which
was introduced by Mr. Harper and given his name, was conceived and drafted by
352 THE BliXCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS,
Mr. Morrison and Major James A. Connolly, then United States attorney for
the southern district of Illinois. The law has been beneficial in many ways and
has been the pattern after which the various high-license laws of the several
states which have adopted high license have been drawn. Mr. Morrison led
the champions of high-license in the house and carried it successfully. The op-
position to the measure was great, and the vote was not entirely upon party
lines. The final victory was largely due to the management of Mr. Morrison,
and the ability that he displayed therein commanded the respect of most of his
fellow .members whether of his own party or of the opposition. An examina-
tion of the full history of the proceedings of the legislature during the three
months which were occupied by its deliberation of the bill would disclose Mr.
Morrison's name mentioned with honor on each page.
In 1880 Mr. Morrison was nominated for congress, and made a spirited
canvass of his district, which consisted of Christian, Sangamon, Menard, Cass,
Morgan and Scott counties. The district was overwhelmingly Democratic, and
he did not expect to be elected, but he succeeded in materially reducing the usual
Democratic majority. For the past ten years Mr. Morrison has not been active
in political matters, but has aided his party during its campaigns by public
speaking in advocating the principles of the RepubHcan party. He was a dele-
gate to the state convention in 1892 and as chairman of the committee on reso-
lutions reported a resolution indorsing President Harrison for the presidential
nomination. However, he has devoted himself almost exclusively to the practice
of his profession.
He was general counsel for the Jacksonville Southeastern Railroad line
before it was placed in charge of a receiver, and is still counsel for some of the
stockholders ; was also vice-president of the Chicago. Peoria & St. Louis road.
Mr. Morrison was married in 1853 to Mrs. x\nna R. Rapelje, nee Tucker, a
native of New York city. They have two children : Miriam A., the daughter,
is the wife of Thomas Worthington, who is a partner of Mr. Morrison in the
law firm of Morrison & Worthington. The son, Alfred Tucker Morrison,
resides at home.
Mr. Morrison owes his success entirely to his own efforts. He has not
feared that laborious application which his pr6fession requires of all its successful
members, and, combined with industrious habits, he possesses a mind which
constant application has stored with a knowledge of the law and its adaptation.
His career should serve as an inspiration to the young law student, and should
induce him to exert himself to his fullest capacity and endeavor to emulate the
example furnished.
Hon. Richard Yates, the war governor of Illinois, was a native of Ken-
tucky, born in the city of Warsaw, on the 18th of January, 1818, — the year of
lUinois' admission to the Union. When thirteen years of age he accompanied
his father's family on their removal to Springfield, this state, and in Jacksonville,
Illinois, he completed his literary education, being graduated in Illinois College,
in 1838. Determining upon the practice of law as a life work, he began reading
the legal authorities and when he had sufficiently mastered the principles of
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS, 353
jurisprudence was admitted to the bar. He then opened an office in Spring-
field and won distinction as one of the leading jurists at a period when Illinois
was famed for the brilliance of her legal fraternity. He also became a prom-
inent factor in politics, and from 1842 until 1849 was a member of the legis-
lature, while in 1850 he was elected to congress, being the youngest member of
the thirty-second congress. He was re-elected in 1852, and in i860 was elected
governor of Illinois, and again in 1862. He had been an outspoken opponent of
slavery, and at the opening of the civil war was very active in raising volunteers.
He convened the legislature in extra session on the 12th of April, 1861, — ^the
day after the attack on Fort Sumter, — and took military possession of Cairo,
garrisoning it with regular troops. In Governor Yates' office General Ulysses
S. Grant received his first distinct recognition as a soldier in the civil war, being
appointed by him mustering officer of the state, and afterward colonel of the
Twenty-first Regiment of Illinois Volunteers. On the expiration of his term as
governor Mr. Yates was elected to the United States senate, where he served
from 1865 until 1871. He died in St. Louis, Missouri, November 27, 1873, his
death occurring while he was returning from a visit to Arkansas, where he had
been examining a railroad as United States commissioner. He exerted a wide
influence on public affairs in Illinois during the middle portion of the century
and was an important factor in securing such strong support from Illinois for
the Union cause and the administration at Washington.
Felix D. McAvoy is one of the enterprising young politicians and members
oi the Jacksonville bar. He is a native of Illinois, his birth having occurred May
10, 1859, o" t^i^ ^^^ family homestead in Morgan county. During his boy-
hood and early manhood he worked as an agriculturist and was of great assist-
ance to his parents in the management of the farm which they owned and oper-
ated. Later he became the confidential clerk and bookkeeper of the well known
grain merchant, Edward C. Lax, and while in his employ learned the funda-
mental principles of business. He was faithful to the interests of his employer,
and even then gave promise of the successful future which he was about to carve
out for himself. He was so fortunate as to acquire an excellent education as a
foundation for further advancement, and in 1882 he was graduated in Saint
Mary's College, in Kansas. •
The honored parents of Felix D. McAvoy are both living, their home being
in Jacksonville, where they are passing their declining years in peace and plenty,
after a life-time of industrious, successful toil. The father, Daniel McAvoy, now
seventy-six years of age, was born in Queens county, Ireland, and came to this
country in 1857, settling in Jacksonville, Illinois. He was a stone-mason by
trade, and during the first years of his residence here he worked on a number of
the public buildings of this locality. Later, he bought a farm, about six miles
south of the city, and there he reared his family to become good and useful citi-
zens. His wife, whose maiden name was Ann Johnson, is now in her sixty-ninth
year, and she, too, is a native of county Queens, Ireland.
Felix D. McAvoy entered upon his present line of work by taking up the
study of law in the office of J. W. Springer and C. H. Dummer, and received in-
23
354 THE BENCH AXD BAR OF ILLINOIS,
struction, likewise, from J. T. Springer and William P. Calloh. With the last
mentioned gentleman he has been associated in partnership for several years,
and they have built up a desirable reputation for knowledge and skill in the law.
Mr. McAvoy was admitted to the bar in 1888 and has g^ven his whole time and
attention to his professional duties since. He has not, however, in his zeal
for personal advancement, neglected his duties as a citizen and his share in public
matters. In 1892 he was elected state's attorney on the Democratic ticket, being
an earnest ally of that party, and served efficiently in that position until the close
of his term, four years later. He was also assistant United States marshal under
Herman Webber, and is now United States commissioner, having superseded
William J. Bryan in that office.
Judge Edward P. Kirby stands prominent among the members of the Illi-
nois bench and bar and is an honored citizen of Jacksonville. During his long
residence here he has actively aided in all public enterprises and improvements,
championing progressive movements of all kinds. For thirty-five years he has
been engaged in the practice of his profession in this city, and no one stands
higher in the estimation of the legal fraternity of central Illinois. A native of
this state, he was born sixty-five years ago, October 28, 1833, in the town of
Hadley. His parents, Rev. William and Hannah (Wolcott) Kirby, were both
natives of Connecticut. The founder of the Wolcott family in America settled in
New England in 1630, while the progenitor of the American branch of the
Kirbys came to these shores scarcely a twelvemonth later, in 1631. Members of
both families fought in the Continental army, and from that day to the present
patriotism has been a marked characteristic with them and their descendants.
Judge Kirby received an excellent education, and after completing his com-
mon-school studies entered Illinois College, at which well-known institution of
learning he graduated in 1854. He then engaged in teaching in a private school
in St. Louis for three years, after which he held the position of assistant prin-
cipal in the West Jacksonville high school for one year. Dr. Newton Bateman,
the principal, then being elected superintendent of public instruction, Mr. Kirby
became his successor in the other position, and as such he served for four years,
giving general satisfaction.
In 1863 the Judge took up the study of law hi the office of Morrison & Epler,
of Jacksonville, and in February, 1864, was admitted to the bar of Morgan
county. Since that date he has been actively occupied in practice here. In 1882
he entered into partnership with Hon. William Brown and Robert D. Russell,
and this connection continued in existence for some four years. In 1886 Mr.
Russell removed to Minneapolis, where he was shortly afterward elected district
judge. For several years the firm of Brown & Kirby transacted legal business,
or until the appointment of Mr. Brown to the place of general solicitor for the
Chicago & Alton Railroad. In the fall of 1873 ^^e subject of this sketch was
elected county judge of Morgan county, and upon the expiration of his term of
service was re-elected. Thus he held the office continuously from 1873 ^^ ^^'
Politically, he has always given his support to the Republican party, and in the
autumn of 1890 was elected to the lower house of the thirty-seventh general as-
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS. 355
sembly of Illinois. For about fifteen years he served as secretary and treasurer
of the Hospital for the Insane, and was trustee of that institution for twelve
years, retiring from the office in 1893. Since 1865 he has been a trustee of
Illinois College.
In October, 1862, occurred the marriage of Judge Kirby and Miss Julia S.
Duncan, who died July 5, 1896. Miss Duncan was the youngest daughter of
ex-Governor Joseph Duncan, who was the fifth occupant of the gubernatorial
chair in Illinois. In .1898 the Judge married Miss Lucinda Gallaher, youngest
daughter of Rev. William G. Gallaher, one of the pioneer Presbyterian ministers
of central Illinois.
Hon. Edward McConnel has for many years been before, the public in vari-
ous capacities of distinction and honor. He is an old citizen of Jacksonville, his
birth having occurred here July 19, 1840, and, with the exception of a few years,
his entire life has been spent in this place. He has been intimately associated
with the development and progress of this thriving little city and has done all
within his power to promote its prosperity. In 1894 he was elected to the lower
house of the thirty-ninth general assembly of Illinois, and in 1896 was further
honored by being elected to the senate from his senatorial district. — his term to
expire in 1900.
The Senator is a son of Murray and Mary (Mapes) McConnel, natives of New
York and New Jersey respectively. The father fought in the Black Hawk war in
this state, and was one of the sturdy old pioneers who paved the way for on-
coming civilization and placed this section on a sure basis of law and good gov-
ernment. Edward McConnel learned the elementary branches in the public
schools of his home community, completing his education in Illinois College,
where he was graduated in June, 1859. The following autumn he began the
study of law, in the office of his brother, John L.
When the Civil war broke out Mr. McConnel enlisted in Company B, Tenth
Illinois Volunteer Infantry, on the three-months call, and was mustered into the
army in Cairo, Illinois. In August, 1861, he was appointed first lieutenant of the
Sixteenth United States Infantry and served until March, 1866, when he resigned
and returned home. His regiment was at the front most of the time and saw
active service in the operations in Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia and Mississippi,
being- attached to the Fourteenth Army Corps. Lieutenant McConnel's service
was marked for bravery and gallantry of action, and he was frequently publicly
commended for his strict and unwavering attention to the duties devolving upon
him in some of the most arduous campaigns of the great civil conflict.
Coming home from the battle-fields of the south, Mr. McConnel was en-
gaged in the manufacture of woolen goods for several years, and met with success
in his business venture. In 1875 he resumed the law studies which the war had
interrupted fifteen years before. He was admitted to the bar in 1879, since which
time he has been actively occupied in practice. For fourteen years he was
master in chancery, from 1883 to 1897. The marriage of Mr. McConnel and
Mrs. Julia F. Garetson took place in St. Louis, Missouri, December 7, 1874.
Cyrus Epler, for twenty-four years circuit judge of Morgan county, Illinois,
3S6 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
was born in Clark county, Indiana, and is of German and Scotch-Welsh descent.
He removed with his parents from Indiana to Morgan county, Illinois, in 1831,
and was reared upon a farm until nineteen years of age. He then entered the
preparatory department of Illinois College, of Jacksonville, and later pursued his
education in the college, where he was graduated with the class of 1847.
On leaving that institution he took up the study of law in the office of
Brown & Yates, the members of that firm being Judge William Brown and
Hon. Richard Yates, afterward governor of Illinois. For a year he continued
his reading of the text-books which furnished a fundamental knowledge of the
science of law, and then, on account of failing health, joined the California
argonauts and went to the Pacific slope. After two years* absence he returned
to his legal studies and was admitted to the bar in the year 1852. He immedi-
ately entered upon the practice of law and the same year was elected circuit
attorney for the first judicial circuit, which office he held for four years. In
1856 he was elected to the state legislature as the representative of the district
composed of Morgan and Scott counties, and in 1859 ^^^ re-elected to the same
office. He was master in chancery for six years, continuing in that position until
1873. Up to that time Judge Epler had continuously practiced law in the state
and federal courts, but in 1873 ^^'^^ elected circuit judge of the eighteenth judicial
circuit, embracing the county of Morgan. In the year 1879 he was elected judge
of the seventh circuit, embracing Morgan county; and in 1885 and again in 1891
was re-elected. In 1897 he declined to offer himself for re-election, having
served on the bench for twenty-four consecutive years. During all this long
period, he brought to the performance of his most difficult and dehcate duties
a large experience and much legal learning, an earnest desire to decide correctly
and fairly, coupled with the most laborious and painstaking care. He impressed
all the people with his sincerity and singleness of purpose. No one questioned
his integrity.
With such a record. Judge Epler may well feel entitled to the plaudit, **Well
done, thou good and faithful servant." During all that period of nearly a quarter
of a century he never missed regularly holding every term of court assigned to
him. He faltered at the performance of no duty ; his course awakened the con-
fidence and respect of the bar and the public. Now, as he moves down the
western slope of Hfe, where the shadows begin to lengthen, he may justly feel a
sense of satisfaction in the thought that in his long life, honorably spent, he has
left no duty unperformed.
Charles A. Barnes, judge of the county court of Morgan county, and for
twenty years a member of the bar of Jacksonville, was born in Alton, Illinois,
July 4, 1855. His father, William Barnes, D. D., was born in New England,
and was of Scotch descent. He was graduated in Yale College and has devoted
his life to the Presbyterian ministry. He married Eunice Hale Hubbard, a
descendant of Nathan Hale, the noted American patriot, who made his way
within the British lines at the time of the American Revolution and was captured
and hung as a spy. Mrs. Barnes was also born in New England, and her peopk
<^ Cy^.f^.^,
^ ^:
'-/^-u^
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS. 357
were of English descent. From Alton Dr. Barnes and his wife removed to
Jacksonville in i860 and have since made their home in that city.
Judge Barnes was only five years of age when he accompanied his parents
on their removal to Jacksonville. He attended the public schools, was graduated
in the high school and then entered the Illinois College, completing the classical
course in that institution by his graduation in June, 1876. Determining to
make the practice of law his life work he continued his education in the law de-
partment of the University of Michigan, at Ann Arbor, where he was graduated
in 1878. Returning to Jacksonville he opened an office and has since engaged
in practice. It has been his chief object in life to become a good lawyer and
he now enjoys a wide and enviable reputation as a trial lawyer, being especially
successful in the conduct of criminal cases, owing to his close examination of
witnesses, his logical deductions and the clearness and force with which he pre-
sents his cause to judge and jury. In 1897 he was elected county, judge of Mor-
gan county to fill a vacancy and is now upon the bench.
For eight years the Judge was a member of the Illinois National Guard,
serving as a private of the Morgan Cadets, Company I, of the Fifth Regiment.
In politics he has always been a stalwart Democrat, and is an active supporter
of the men and measures of the party, his eloquent, entertaining and logical ad-
dresses during campaigns winning many converts to the party and strengthening
those of doubtful faith. On the Democratic ticket he was elected city attorney
of Jacksonville in 1882 for a two-years term, and in 1884 was elected county
attorney, which position he filled for eight consecutive years, discharging his
duties with promptness and impartiality. By Governor Altgeld he was ap-
pointed president of the board of trustees of the Illinois Institution for the Edu-
cation of the Blind, and served in that position from 1893 until 1897. His public
service has always won the pubHc commendation, for he has the general welfare
at heart and is most conscientious and able in the performance of the duties de-
volving upon him.
On the 19th of February, 1889, Judge Barnes married Miss Madge G. Mar-
tin, of St. Louis, Missouri, and they have one daughter. Socially he is connected
with the Masonic, Odd Fellows and Knights of Pythias fraternities. He was
grand chancellor of the Knights of Pythias of the state of Illinois for the year
1892-3, and is now one of the supreme representatives from Illinois to the
supreme lodge. In his religious belief he is a Presbyterian and belongs to the
State Street church of that denomination.
Harry M. Ticknor. — It is always a pleasurable task for the chronicler to
trace the history of a young, ambitious man, — one who in his early prime has not
yet lost the enthusiasm and high ideals of youth and whose plans for the future
are broad and far-reaching. The worthy member of the Jacksonville bar whose
name appears above is such an one. Standing at the threshold of a most prom-
ising- career, and thoroughly devoted to his profession, he is not selfish and one-
sided in his aims, but is deeply interested in whatever afifects the general public
and his country. The cause of education, of improvement, in his home com-
munity and the state at large, of everything, in short, which makes for higher and
358 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
better forms of civilization and individual and public life, are each and all mat-
ters of moment and grave consideration to him.
Harry M. Ticknor comes from a highly esteemed eastern family, his ances-
tors having held many places of honor and prominence in the annals of the
^ ^:
^^^^^
36o THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
tried with success a few notable criminal cases, among them the Williams ior-
gery case. His siiccessfitl speech to the jury on behalf of the defendant in this
case, occupying two days in delivery, at the end of a trial of great public interest,
which lasted six weeks, placed him in the proud rank of eminent jury advocate.
His oratory is convincing and his zeal and earnestness never fail to impress his
auditors. Care and precision mark the preparation of his cases, and his essen-
tially clear-headedness enables him to grasp at once the salient points in a
case and to present them with unusual conciseness and directness.
Previous to the annexation of the town of Lake, which at that time con-
tained one hundred tliousand inhabitants. Mr. Thornton was elected to the
office of corporation counsel, and most efficiently served in that capacity. In
1897 he was appointed by Mayor Harrison corporation counsel of Chicago, and
is therefore the present incumbent. In i88y he was elected president of the
board of education of Auburn Park, which is his place of residence. The pride
of the American citizen in American institutions culminates in the public schools,
and, considering the zeal and energy expended in developing them and the
momentous influence they have upon the manhood of the country, this is justi-
fiable. Mr. Thornton was elected a member of the Cook county board of edu-
cation and subsequently was elected a member of the board of education of Chi-
cago. In January, 1885, an appointment, made by the governor of the state
and confirmed by the senate of Illinois, gave him a membership on the state
board of education. He has been a prominent and very useful factor in educa-
tional circles, and is the originator of a number of reformatory measures now
enforced in the public schools. His observations, gleaned from investigation of
the Cook County Normal School, were published and attained considerable
prominence. He inaugurated the College Preparatory School of this city, and
likewise the system of truant schools. In 1895 he framed the teacher's pension
bill, and through his influence it became a law. The educational interests of the
city are certainly largely indebted to Mr, Thornton, and his work has been of
the greatest benefit. Of scholarly attainments and literary tastes, he has given
much of his time to study, and few men are better informed on matters of gen-
eral interest. His political support has ever been strongly given the Democratic
party, but in the public offices he has filled, so faithfully has he discharged his
duties that he has received the commendation of many of the leaders of tHe
opposition.
Jlr. Thornton was married in 1883 to Miss Jessie F. Benton, of Chicago,
and they now have three daughters: Mabel J., Pearl Esther and Hattie May.
In fraternity and society circles Mr. Thornton has a wide acquaintance. He i>
a man of pleasing personality, genial manner and true courtesy, and his mani
admirable qualities of mind and heart have endeared him greatly to his many
friends. Though he is most widely known in professional and educational cir-
cles, his honor in all life's relations has won him the respect and regard of hi:^
fellow men,
Thomas Drummond was born October 16. 1809, in Bristol. Maine, At this
place James Drummond. father of Judge Drummond. was bom and spent his
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS. 361
entire life. He was a sailor, as well as a farmer, and the earlv life of his son was
spent amid surroundings that eminently fitted him for the admiralty practice in
which he gained such marked distinction. James Drummond was a man of
superior intelligence, and for several years was the representative of his town
and county in the state legislature. He married a daughter of Henry Little, of
New Castle, Maine. Thomas was the eldest of their four children.
After mastering the preliminary branches, Thomas Drummond entered Bow-
doin College, where he was graduated in 1830. Immediately after his graduation
he began the study of law and was admitted to practice at the Philadelphia bar
in March, 1833. Mr. Drummond soon gained recognition at that bar and entered
upon a quite promising practice, which he handled with so much ability that his
older colleagues predicted for him a brilliant future. In May, 1835, ^^ deter-
mined to remove to Illinois, and soon established himself at Galena, where he
gained a wide repute for the solidity of his attainments. During the fifteen years
that he remained at that bar he was engaged in a large number of the most im-
portant cases tried in northern Illinois. He represented the Galena district in
the Illinois legislature in 1840-41, and never thereafter occupied a political
office.
Mr. Drummond was appointed judge of the United States district court of
Illinois, in February, 1850, and held his first term of court in Springfield in June
and in Chicago in July of the same year. When he was first called to the bench
the labors of his position were considered arduous, but the rapid development of
Chicago's marine interests, the large increase in patent litigation and the gen-
eral extension of the commercial and material resources of the state caused an
immense increase in the business of his court. Besides presiding in the district
court, he sat as circuit judge in the transaction of nearly all the business of that
court during the first ten years of his occupancy of the district bench, and in con-
sequence his duties were onerous in the extreme.
Judge Drummond removed to Chicago in 1854. In 1855 the southern dis-
trict of Illinois was organized, leaving the northern district as the original district,
with Judge Drummond as the presiding judge, and over which he presided for
fourteen years. December 22, 1869, President Grant appointed him judge of the
circuit court of the United States for the seventh judicial district, comprising
the states of Illinois, Wisconsin and Indiana. As circuit judge, he held court
in three different places in Indiana, four in Wisconsin and two in Illinois, but
the greater portion of his time was spent in Chicago, where the most important
litigation of the northwest is concentrated.
The long and honorable judicial career of Judge Drummond was closed in
1884 by his voluntary retirement from the bench at the age of seventy-five. On
his farm near Wheaton, a short distance from Chicago, he found needed relaxa-
tion, but his old associations drew him to his office in the federal building in
Chicago almost daily.
No word of criticism or comment unfavorable to Judge Drummond was
efxpressed during his long incumbency of the bench. He was too great a man
and a jurist to depend for advancement on personal or partisan favor. Even amid
362 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
the tumults of the rebellion period he never permitted any political consideration
to influence him. In early life a Whig, he was on the bench when the Repub-
lican party came into existence, and, though he upheld its principles to the end
of his life, his political conviction was never made apparent in his conduct as a
judge. He held the most exalted conception of the judicial office, and his con-
stant aim was to dispense justice with the most religious regard to the rights of
every interest involved. When he laid off the judicial robe, unspotted after wear-
ing it more than a generation, it added luster to the high office to which it be-
longed, and his name took its place in the legal history of the west as that of
one of its best and greatest characters.
Though interested in letters, art and science. Judge Drummond did not
cultivate them with any ambition to shine through their mastery, but only so far
as they might be helpful in elucidating or simplifying the philosophy or the
application of the law. Perhaps a year before his death his infirmities compelled
him to relinquish even the semblance of work. Although well advanced in his
eighty-first year, he retained his faculties unclouded to his last hour, and his
death occurred at his home at Wheaton, May 15, 1890. He was buried from
St. James church, Chicago, four days later, and thousands of people came in all
sincerity to pay their last tribute of respect to the honored dead. In religion
Judge Drummond was an Episcopalian. He married, in 1839, Delia A. Sheldon,
of Willow Springs, Wisconsin. They had two sons and five daughters.
Arthur Henry Chetlain was born in Galena, Illinois, in 1849, ^"^ ^^ ^^'
scended from a notable ancestry. His father, General Augustus L. Chetlain,
is a Huguenot, of French-Swiss extraction, his parents having emigrated to
America from the canton of Neufchatel, Switzerland, in 1821. They came by
way of Hudson bav to the Red river of the Selkirk settlement of British
America, thence to St. Louis, Missouri, in 1823, and in 1826 to the then cele-
brated lead mines at Galena, where the old homestead was founded. In that
locality General Chetlain was reared and became the first commander of the
regiment raised by General Grant. He participated in all the battles of his
division in the war of the Rebellion, and when hostihties had ceased was bre-
vetted major-general of volunteers. During President Grant's administration
he was appointed United States consul to Brussels, Belgium. He was the
founder and first president of the Chicago Home National Bank, and has been
a prominent figure in business and military circles for years.
Reared in his native city, Judge Chetlain acquired his preliminary educa-
tion in its public schools and then entered the University of Wisconsin, where.
on the completion of a two-years course, he was graduated with the degree of
Bachelor of Arts. In Brussels, Belgium, he completed the full course in natural
science in the '*Universite Libre" and won the degree of Bachelor of Science.
After his graduation at that institution he served as a bearer of dispatches be-
tween the American legation of Paris, France, and the United States authori-
ties in London, England, during the Franco-Prussian war.
Returning to his native land in February, 1871, Judge Chetlain took up the
study of law in the office of William Lathrop, of Rockford, Illinois, and on
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THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOfS. 363
passing an examination before the supreme court of the state, June 20, 1873,
was admitted to the bar. Not content, however, with this preparatory training,
he returned to his parents' home in Chicago and continued his studies in the
law office of Edward A. Small. In July, 1874, he formed a partnership with
Stephen S. Gregory, which continued for five years, when it was consolidated
with the firm of Tenney & Flower, this relationship being maintained until 1881,
when Judge Chetlain was forced to withdraw on account of ill health. He then
spent a year and a half in travel through the western states and Mexico for rest
and recuperation, and in 1883 resumed practice in Chicago. His practice has
covered a wide range, and in it he has traversed the entire domain of the law.
While a member of the firm of Tenney & Flower he acquired a wide familiarity
with commercial and contract law, and also with the law of private corporations.
After his return to Chicago he was in general practice until the spring of 1891,
when he was appointed by Mayor Washburne first assistant corporation counsel.
In that capacity he was called upon to assume active charge of a vast amount of
litigation of the most important character. He represented the city in much
complicated litigation connected with the lake front in suits brought by the
railroads to enjoin the opening of public streets across their tracks, and in many
other cases involving the city's rights of property and the exercise of its powers
of police. In these cases constitutional questions of great importance and diffi-
culty were involved ; he dealt with them exhaustively and ably and was generally
successful.
Judge Chetlain speaks and reads French and has been counsel in Chicago
for the French, Belgian and Turkish consulates. As a lawyer he has always
been diligent, thorough and intelligent. In the preparation of his cases no mere
superficial view contents him ; he is not satisfied until he feels he has carefully
considered every phase of the questions presented and given them the most
thorough and conscientious examination of which he is capable. He does not
jump at conclusions, but maintains those he has reached with vigor and tenacity.
Of studious habits and with the instincts and training of a scholar, he
regards the law as a noble and reasonable science in which results are to be
attained by logical and intellectual processes of reasoning. He does not ignore
cases, but studies them patiently in the effort to grasp their underlying principles
and then to make intelligent application of those principles to new questions. He
does not, in dull and slavish effort to follow the letter of the law, miss its entire
spirit and purpose, — that which alone makes it a living beneficent force in human
society.
Of singularly fair and impartial mind, always coufteous and considerate in
his treatment of others, it was natural that he should be considered for the
bench. In 1892 he was nominated by the Republican party for judge of the
superior court, but went down to defeat with his ticket before the great tidal wave
of Democratic success which rolled over the country that year. In 1893 he was
again nominated for the same position and in November of that year was elected
to fill out the unexpired term of Judge George H. Kettelle, who died during that
364 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
summer. Judge Chetlain was re-elected to the bench of the superior court of
Cook county in November, 1898.
He has been a painstaking, diligent and conscientious judge and has earned
and commands the confidence, respect and regard of the bar and the esteem of
the community. His fairness, justness and universal courtesy and urbanity are
recognized and appreciated by all who practice before him. An incident in a
local cause celebre which occurred early in his judicial career show^s that he is
not wanting in that sterner stuff which judicial duty sometimes requires.
Prendergast, who killed Mayor Carter H. Harrison in October, 1893, had been
tried for his crime, had interposed insanity as a defense, had been convicted and
sentenced to death. The supreme court had denied him a supersedeas. The
afternoon of the day before that set for his execution, his counsel, having applied
to various other judges to hear such an application, finally appeared before
Judge Chetlain, then sitting in the criminal court, for a trial as to the prisoner's
sanity upon affidavit that he had become insane since sentence ; and in order to
give time for such trial moved for a judicial reprieve or postponement of the
execution. The state's attorney appeared, conceded in open court that the
prisoner was entitled to a trial by jury under the statute, but insisted that it
proceed at once. After some discussion the court took a recess until eight
o'clock that evening. On coming in at that hour he held that notwithstanding
this admission of the state he was not satisfied that a prima facie case had been
made under the statute, but w^ould hear evidence as to whether the affidavit was
true. Three disinterested witnesses were accordingly sworn whose testimony
tended to sustain the allegations of the affidavit which had been sworn to by the
prisoner's brother, and the court then held the prisoner was entitled to a trial
on the issue thus raised. The state denied the powder of the court to postpone the
execution. In the midst of the discussion the news came that the executive had
refused a reprieve. The argument proceeded until nearly midnight. The court-
room was crowded to suffocation and a great concourse gathered in the street,
attracted by the strange battle for a human life that hung by so slight a thread.
The proposition was plain ; the prisoner was entitled to a trial, the power of
the court to postpone the execution for the purposes of such a trial was plenary
and was demonstrated by the argument. But judges are but men; and the
entire community seemed to demand the immediate execution of this wretched
man. Most judges would have gone with the tide; not so Judge Chetlain.
Considering the questions presented calmly as if seeking the solution of an in-
tellectual problem he saw clearly that the prisoner was, as indeed the state
conceded, entitled to this trial; that it could not be conducted decently in the
few hours intervening before the time set for the execution, and that his power
to postpone the execution was undoubted. He dared to do his duty; and, just
before the day set for the execution began, in such an atmosphere of sup-
pressed excitement as rarely exists in a court-room, even in a capital case, he
entered an order for such a trial and postponed the execution for two weeks.
This was a thing unprecedented in this state and almost unheard of in modem
criminal jurisprudence. It was severely criticised by the press and the un-
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS. 3
thinking generally; but it has passed into precedent and is now recognized
admissible and proper procedure in this county and elsewhere in this state ai
has been followed in several instances.
In the Dreyer case Judge Chetlain refused to hold that public moneys
the hands of a treasurer became absolutely his if he paid or agreed to pay \\
terest thereon under the statute, and accordingly refused the motion to quai
the indictments in that case. Since this ruling Dreyer has been tried, convictc
and sentenced before another judge, who followed the law as laid down by Judg
Chetlain.
Judge Chetlain is not connected with any church, though he is a ma
not only of high principle but of much genuine religious feeling. He ha
always been a Republican, active and influential in the councils of his part}
president of the Marquette Club, and February 12, 1896, at the great dinne
given by that organization to William McKinley, prior to his nomination for tht
presidency, Judge Chetlain was the member of the club chosen to represen
it among the speakers of the evening. He is not a partisan on the bench, anc
his political sentiments never color his judicial conduct. He is married, has
an interesting family of five children, and resides in the north division of the
city of Chicago, of which he has been a resident for twenty-five years.
Hiram T. Gilbert, of Chicago, is a native of Illinois, his birth having oc-
curred in Troy Grove, La Salle county, on the 9th of May, 1850. His parents
were Dr. Alson I. and Mary C. Gilbert. He was graduated in the high school
in Ottawa, Illinois, with the class of 1869, and immediately afterward entered
Cornell University, where he studied for two years. In 1871 he w^ent abroad,
and from August of that year until December, 1873, was a student in the Uni-
versity of Leipsic, Germany. While in that institution he devoted his ener-
gies to the mastery of the principles of jurisprudence, and after his return to his
native land continued his law studies in Ottawa, Illinois, until September, 1875,
when he was admitted to the bar.
Immediately afterward Mr. Gilbert opened a law office in Ottawa, where
he remained in active practice until May, 1888, when he came to Chicago, and
as a member of the firm of Gilbert & Fell is now at the head of a good business.
He is now engaged in general practice and has a representative clientage.
In 1877 Mr. Gilbert married Miss Georgiana Leland, of Ottawa, IlHnois.
He is a member of several social organizations, including the Iroquois, Chicago
and Hyde Park Clubs and the Athletic Association.
Jesse Cox, of the Chicago bar, was born in Burlington, New Jersey, on
the 29th of October, 1843. The following year his parents moved to Phila-
delphia, where he was educated in private schools and under the instruction
of a private tutor, receiving a thorough classical training. As he approached
his majority, his tastes turned toward the law as a life work, and he began
preparation for that profession in Philadelphia, in January, 1862, in the office
of George M. Wharton, one of the old-time lawyers of the Pennsylvania metrop-
olis. Mr. Cox also attended a course of law lectures in the University of Penn-
sylvania, and was admitted to the bar in December, 1865. For seven years
366 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
thereafter he engaged in practice in Philadelphia, and on the ist of Januar)-,
1873, came to Chicago.
For a quarter of a century he has been connected with the bar of this
city and has won distinguished honors and a most gratifying success. For
twenty-one years he has occupied a suite of rooms in the Staats Zeitung Build-
ing and from that point has conducted an extensive and important law business,
which for the most part has been of a general nature ; but for some nine years,
from 1878 until 1887, he made a specialty of patent-law practice. He has
always been a close and earnest student of law principles, and his knowledge
of the science of jurisprudence is comprehensive and accurate. His devotion
to his clients' interests is proverbial, yet he never forgets that he owes a higher
allegiance to the majesty of the law and will not stoop to any unworthy means
to gain his cause. Close study and diligent research, however, enable him to
fortify his position with many facts and points in law unfamiliar to the majority
of practitioners, and therefore he seldom loses in any litigation.
One of the most important cases with which Mr. Cox has been connected
is that of the People ex rel. Hugh Maher versus Erastus Williams. The de-
fendant. Judge Williams, had been on the bench for many years and was a
very able and learned jurist. A case had been tried before him in which the
parties were Hugh Maher, a large land-owner and board-of-trade man, and
Charles B. Farwell, a prominent dry-goods. merchant and member of the firm
of John V. Farwell & Company, of Chicago. Maher alleged that an eighty-
acre tract of valuable land near Riverside in Cook county was conveyed by him
to Farwell to secure the payment of money lost by him to Farwell in gambling.
Farwell alleged that the land had been conveyed to him in part payment of an
election bet made between Maher and Farwell on the election of Lincoln. After
the trial of the case, in which Maher was defeated, Judge Williams refused to
sign a certificate of the evidence to the supreme court so that Maher could take
an appeal from his decision. The Judge alleged various reasons for his re-
fusal. Maher then filed a petition in the supreme court for a writ of mandamus
to compel Judge Williams to sign the certificate of evidence, and the w^rit
prayed for was granted. This case attracted widespread attention at the time,
owing to the prominence of the parties and the nature of the case. This was
the second time in the history of the state that a judge had been ordered by
the supreme court to sign such a document, and in the other case the judge
resigned rather than obey the order of the supreme court. Reported in 91st
Illinois, page 87.
Mr. Cox was married in October, 1869, to Miss Annie Malcom, of Phila-
delphia, a daughter of Rev. Howard Malcom, who was for many years a prom-
inent minister of the Baptist church, and was at one time president of the
Georgetown (Kentucky) College, and later of the University of Lewisburg,
Pennsylvania.
Judge Abner Smith. — Is there anything in life so comprehensive, so com-
plex, so intricate, so beautiful in its theory, so protective in its power as the
law? It is the foundation upon which all society and its manifold interests
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS. 367
rest. It is th«j growth not of years or centuries, but of ages. At the creation
there seems to have been implanted in the breast of man a certain love of jus-
tice,— an idea extremely crude in the beginning, but gradually developing and
expanding as the years have passed, until the grosser ideas have been elim-
inated and it gains more of the perfection and purity of the ideal. Justice at
first seemed to embody force, — the survival of the strongest, — power was its
chief element and right depended upon might. Gradually, as civilization has
transformed the world and nature's plans and purposes have been more fully
comprehended by man, it has been found that provision has been made for the
protection of the weak against the strong, and that life is carefully guarded.
The same immutable laws that apply to plant and animal life hold in regard to
the highest order of creation, — man; and as people have awakened to a com-
prehension of this fact, laws in its bearing on the rights, privileges and pro-
tection of the individual, has undergone a change that has wrought a safe-
guard against the incursion of wrong, oppression, abuse, injustice and all the
evils that would crush the powers and liberty of an individual ; and at the same
time it has tempered justice with mercy, so that the hope of reform may follow
the expiation of the transgression.
Again, as progress has multiplied demand, and demand has given rise to a
multiplicity of interests in all the lines of individual and united effort, the occa-
sion has compelled the formation of new laws applicable to these various in-
terests,— each law plain, simple and arbitrary in itself, yet the whole forming an
intricate and complicated system of jurisprudence that demands on the part
of those who would gain distinction and success at the bar strong mentality,
sound judgment, keen discrimination, acute analytical power and the ability
to present a clear and forcible arrangement of fact, added to an accurate and
extensive knowledge of law. But when the lawyer would essay to administer
that justice which is the inherent prerogative of every individual, he must add
to his qualities as a lawyer a self-control that will enable him to lose his in-
dividuality, his personal feelings, his prejudices and his peculiarities of disposi-
tion in the dignity, impartiality and equity of the office to which life, property,
right and liberty must look for protection.
We are led to this train of reflection in contemplating the life and work of
Judge Smith. On a bench which is by no means without distinction, he is a
leading and commanding figure, and the high place he has won for himself in
the estimation of the people is fully deserved. He has a fine address and is a
concise and forcible speaker, and his career has been as brilliant as successful.
He is now serving his second term on the circuit bench, re-elected on a non-
partisan ticket, which took into account no political affiliations, but regarded
only the ability, honesty and fitness of the nominees. A distinguished member
of the legal profession, he demonstrated in his first term his peculiar aptitude
for the important duties of the office, and gained distinctive honors in the high
encomiums which were passed upon him by the profession, the press and the
public.
A native of the old Bay state, Abner Smith was born in Orange, on the
368 THE BENCH AND BAR OP ILLINOIS.
4th of August, 1843, his parents being Humphrey and Sophronia (Ward) Smith,
the former a native of Warwick, Massachusetts, and the latter of Orange, that
state. In colonial days the Smith family was implanted on American soil and
the Ward family is no less distinguished for its early connection with the events
which form the annals of our country in the beginning. Authentic records show
that the A\'ard family has furnished many brilliant representatives of those
callings which demand superior mental attainments, and the name has long had
an honorable connection with the bench and bar, the pulpit, the law-making
bodies of the country and with science and letters. .\s early as 1639 William
Ward, emigrating from England, took up his residence in Sudbury, Massa-
chusetts, and an eastern chronicler in speaking of his descendants says: "The
collateral branchL'S of the different generations which have passed away and the
many which still live have been and are uniformly substantial and upright
people, whose careers are intensely interesting to the student of to-day, since
their fame lives in history and their deeds are chronicled in story. The numer-
ous family lines of subsequent offspring have spread over the length and breadth
of the country, and have been an honor and a credit to so excellent a family."
Thus from an honorable ancestry Judge Smith is descended. About i860
his parents removed from his native town to Middlebtiry, Vermont, in order to
provide their children with better educational privileges, and in the pubhc schools
of that place their son Abner pursued his studies until he had gained a proficiency
that enabled him to pass the examinations necessary for entrance into the college
of Middlebury. in which institution he was graduated with honors, in the year
i8f)'). He made the best use of his time, and it is worth while to be wise in the
use of time, for it is with time that we purchase everything that life has of good.
He was a close and earnest student, and a marked element of his student life
was his investigation concerning the cause of all things. — a characteristic which
has been a strong force in his professional career. A view over the field of
business life determined him to prepare for the bar, and with this purpose ever
before him he took u]» the practical daily duties. As a step toward the goal
which he determined to ultimately gain, he taught school, and for five years
had charge of the Xewton Academy, at Shoreham, \'ermont, his ability in the
position being indicated by his long continued service.
Since 1867 Judge Smith has been identified with the interests of Chicago.
joining his parents, who had located here in 1862. Now came to him the de-
sired opportunity of preparing for the bar, and he hastened to take advantage
of the same by licconiing a student in the law office of James L. Stark, one of
the native sons of Vermont and a descendant of the renowned Colonel Stark,
who went to the aid of our subject's ancestor. Major General Ward, at the out-
break of the war of the Revolution. He soon mastered the fundamental prin-
ciples of law and advanced rapidly in his understanding of the more intricate
passages of jurisprudence until, in 1868, the supreme court of the state declared
his fitness for a place in the ranks of the legal practitioners of Illinois, and he
became associated with the bar of Chicago, with which he has since been con-
nected. He entered into partnership with his former preceptor, under the
^y.
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS, 369
firm name of Stark & Smith, and thus practiced until the death of Mr. Stark,
in 1873, when he settled up his partner's estate and succeeded to the legal
business of the firm. He was then alone until 1887, when he formed a pro-
fessional alliance with John M. H. Burgett, the firm of Smith & Burgett holding
distinctive priority among the legal associations of the city for a full decade.
After the expiration of this time Judge Smith for the most part conducted an
individual practice until his election to the bench, — the notable success which
his is, and the high honors which have been conferred, standing in the most
patent evidence of his ability and of his sterling integrity. He is especially
fitted for the law, for he is pre-epiinently just by nature, and this led him to
refuse in his practice to undertake the trial of many a cause whose justice he had
reason to doubt. In his practice he had little of the wearisome experience of
the novitiate, for success came to him soon. Tlie legal business of several cor-
porations has been entrusted to his care. He was for some time attorney for the
National Life Insurance Company, of Vermont, and the Life Indemnity & In-
vestment Company, of Iowa, now the Iowa Life Insurance Company, being at
present a member of the directorate of the latter. He w^as at one time a director
of the North Star Construction Company, which built the Duluth & Winnipeg
Railroad and which is still operating that line. He has accumulated a hand-
some fortune, has quite extensive real-estate interests and is identified with
various important corporations as a stockholder, in which connection it may
be noted that he is treasurer of the Anderson & Freeman Ice Company. How-
ever, the greater part of his time and attention has been given to his law
business. He has been connected with much of the important litigation in the
courts during his connection with the Chicago bar, and many clients have had
their business interests in his hands for years, — in matters of trusts, unsettled
estates, guardianship, etc., — thus showing how^ implicit confidence is placed
in his ability and fidelity.
It is not strange that a man of such absolute fearlessness and honesty as
Judge Smith should be called to judicial office, and thus it was that in the fall of
1893 he was elected to the circuit bench. He had always given free expression
to his advocacy of the principles of the Republican party, but up to that time
had steadily refused to become a candidate for office. Yielding then to the
importunities of the party leaders and his many admirers, he allowed his name
to be placed on the ticket, and was triumphantly elected, receiving a majority
second to only one other. For almost four years he sat upon the bench, dis-
charg^ing his duties with a dignity and impartiality that won him the high ap-
proval of the profession and the pubHc. Then came another election, — one
unique in the history of the city. Men of broad mind and liberal thought came
to the front, announcing their determination to support a non-partisan ticket.
Politics has naught to do with the administration of justice, and those who
would make the election one of party interest were not worthy the right of
franchise, — so reasoned those leaders who advocated the non-partisan ticket.
At the time there was one supreme-court judge, one judge of the superior court
and fourteen circuit judges to be elected. Of the circuit judges eight were
24
370 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
Republicans and six were Democrats, and all were men tried and true in the
office, — men whose merit, ability and trustworthiness had been shown by years
of faithful service. The Republican central committee placed the names of
these men, Abner Smith, O. H. Horton, Elbridge Hanecy, Edmund W. Burke,
A. N. Waterman, C. G. Neely, R. S. Tuthill, John Gibbons (Republicans), Fran-
cis Adams, Frank Baker, M. F. Tuley, E. F. Dunne, R. W. Clifford and Thomas
Windes (Democrats), on their ticket, together with those of Judge Theodore
Brentano, of the superior court, and Judge B. D. Magruder, of the supreme
court, for the respective offices in which they were the incumbents. This con-
servative and rational course at once won the endorsement of the majority of
members of the bar. Ex-Judge S. P. McConnell, well known as one of the most
stalwart Democrats of the city, endorsed and worked for the ticket and was made
chairman of the nonpartisan committee. It was decided that the candidates
should take no active part in the campaign work, lest they, as adherents of one
or the other of the old parties, should seem to labor for party ends. Other tickets
were placed in the field until there were eight. The two wings of the Democracy
each had one, and the Republican League, wishing to make the contest a party
measure, made up a ticket of Republicans, but when the question of which list
of candidates should be placed on the official ballot as the ticket of the Repub-
lican party came up, the county board of review, in an oral opinion given by
Judge Carter, decided that the ^'Republican nonpartisan'' ticket, as formulated
by the central committee, was the real representative of the party. A similar de-
cision was rendered in regard to one of the Democratic tickets, and in an edi-
torial the Chicago Tribune wrote : "Happily, as election day approaches, the
entire drift is toward the popular endorsement of the wise and conservative course
of the Republican managers." The nonpartisan ticket received the support of
almost the entire press in the circuit, and the result of the election is now a matter
of history. The men who had administered justice capably, honestly and fear-
lessly were continued in office, elected by a very large majority. It was a
compliment to personal worth, without regard to party affiliations, and the ju-
diciary of the circuit court to-day is one of which any state in the Union might
well be proud.
Thus Judge Smith was a second time triumphantly chosen to wear the
ermine, and on the bench has won a reputation that has added new laurels to his
successes before the bar. A contemporary writer said of him : "As a judge his
acts are strong and full of breadth, accuracy and force. In sound judgment,
in patient industry, in clear conception of the spirit and scope of jurisprudence,
and intuitive perception of right. Judge Smith ranks high in the estimate of
bench, bar and public. Since jurisprudence is the foundation of the common-
wealth and indispensable to its growth, purity and advance, it is well that such
judges represent and interpret it."
Turning from the public to the private life of Judge Smith, we find that he
laid the foundation for a happy home by his marriage, October, 5, 1859,- to Miss
Ada C. Smith, a daughter of Sereno Smith, of Shoreham, Vermont. They be-
came the parents of one child, Ferris S., who died in June, 1875. Their home
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS. 371
has long been the center of a cultured society circle, and their pleasant residence,
at No. 15 Aldine Square, where they have lived for twenty-two years, is a
favorite resort with their large circle of friends. They are thoroughly ac-
quainted with all that is best in general literature, and for the higher forms of art
have a keen appreciation. The Judge is a valued member of various social or-
ganizations, being thus connected with the Union League, the Carlton Club and
the Douglas Club, having been one of the organizers of the last named. His
manner is ever kindly and courteous and his friendship is greatly to be prized.
No personal successes have ever effaced from his memory the friends of his
earlier years. He has risen with rapid stride to an eminent station, but his
hands have ever been down-stretched to help those who would follow. His
life has been truly one of usefulness and honor, and an honest man is the
noblest work of God.
C. Porter Johnson is a native son of Illinois, having been born in State Line,
on the 15th of August, 1866, the son of Joseph Simpson Johnson and Matilda
(Kemper) Johnson, the former a native of Kentucky and the latter of Virginia.
Our subject was reared to the sturdy discipline of the farm, remaining on the
parental homestead until about eighteen years of age, and in the meanwhile
availing himself of the educational advantages afforded by the common schools.
Later he supplemented this discipline by attending Lee's Academy, at Loxa,
Illinois, where he remained for two years, after which, in 1885, he went to Terre
Haute, Indiana, for the purpose of preparing himself for the practice of that pro-
fession which he had determined to make his vocation of life. There he entered
vigorously upon the study of law ; and that his capacity and predilection were not
mistaken is shown in the fact that he secured admission to the bar of Indiana
within the following year.
Mr. Johnson's ambition was one of courage and action and he had firmly de-
termined to occupy no middle ground in directing his efforts to the goal of
the greatest possible measure of success. Accordingly, in 1887 the young bar-
rister came to Chicago for the purpose of engaging in practice here, taking thus
an initiative from which the average young man would have flinched or have
deemed presumptuous. He secured admission to the Illinois bar within the same
year, and by industry and consecutive application was soon enabled to build up
a satisfactory practice, which has steadily increased until he is now a busy man,
retaining- a clientage of representative order. He confines his practice prin-
cipally to civil cases, in which he has a large range.
Mr. Johnson soon impressed his individuality and his ability upon the minds
of the public, as is shown in the distinguished recognition accorded him in
November, 1892, when he was elected to the state senate, from the second sen-
atorial district of Illinois. There is additional significance attaching to this
preferment, from the fact that he was the first Democrat elected to that body
from the second district — thus strikingly attesting his popularity among his
fellow citizens of all classes. In the summer of 1898 he received the nomination,
of his party for congress, but was defeated at the polls in November.
His social relations are indicated by his membership in fraternal societies and
372 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS,
clubs composed of men of the highest character. His name is inscribed on the
roll of the Iroquois, the Waubansee, the Harvard and the Whitechapel Clubs.
He is prominently identified with the Masonic order, being connected with all
bodies of the same from the blue lodge to the Oriental Consistory of the Ancient
and Accepted Scottish Rite, having thus far advanced to the thirty-second degree.
As a Knight Templar he is identified with the Chevalier Bayard Commandery,
and he is a Noble of Medinah Temple of the Mystic Shrine. Mr. Johnson also
holds membership in the Independent Order of Odd Fellow^s, the Knights of
Pythias, the Royal Arcanum, the Independent Order of Foresters and the
Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks.
In his religious views Mr. Johnson is an adherent of the Baptist church,
and with his family finds a church home in the Baptist church in Englewood,
being also a liberal contributor to its collateral charities and benevolent enter-
prises, as he is to every worthy object in which his sympathies or aid are enlisted.
He is democratic in the best sense of the term, is easilv accessible to all classes,
believing that personal worth, not adventitious circumstances, makes the man.
In his law practice he has gained an excellent reputation as an industrious,
painstaking and capable attorney, systematic in his work and conscientious in
serving his clients.
On the 2 1 St of August, 1889, was consummated the marriage of our subject
to Miss Derelle West, of Georgetown, Illinois.
Clarence A. Knight. — Illinois has always been distinguished for the high
rank of her bench and bar. Perhaps none of the newer states can justly boast oi
abler jurists or attorneys, and Chicago — the city marvelous — claims her propor-
tionate share of those who have attained eminence in this most exacting of all
the professions. In Mr. Knight we find united many of the rare qualities which
go to make up the successful lawyer. He has in a high degree that rare ability of
saying in a convincing way the right thing at the right time. His mind is
analytical, logical and inductive. With a thorough and comprehensive knowl-
edge of the fundamental principles of law, he combines a familiarity with
statutory law and a sober, clear judgment which makes him a formidable ad-
versary. He ranks to-day among the most brilliant and successful members of
the Chicago bar and his law practice has become one of the most extensive in the
city.
Mr. Knight is a native of McHenry county, Illinois, born October 25, 1853.
His preliminary education, acquired in the common schools, was supplemented
by a course in the Normal School of Cook county, where he was fitted for
teaching, a profession which he followed for several terms. In April, 1872, he
came to Chicago, where he took up the study of law, and in 1874 he was admitted
to the bar before the supreme court of Illinois, at Ottawa. Throughout his
professional career he has been a resident of Chicago, and in this city with its
many able jurists he has won an honorable position, steadily advancing by merit
and commendable effort to a place in the front ranks of the representatives of the
law. In 1879 h^ ^'^'^s appointed assistant city attorney by Hon. Julius S. Grin-
nell, and five years later, upon Mr. Grinneirs election as state's attorney, Mayor
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
Harrison appointed Mr. Knight city attorney. He was afterward mad
ant corporation counsel under Mayor Roche. During the ten years of
nection with the city law department a vast amount of important busines
One of the many measures of great moment to the people was that ai
Hyde Park to Chicago. The original act was declared unconstitutional
supreme court. Mr. Knight prepared an act to cover the case, and it was
by the legislature in 1889. Under the provisions of this law, in June of th
Hyde Park, Lake View, JeflFerson, the town of Lake and portions of Cicei
annexed to Chicago.
In July, 1889, after ten years' continuous practice in the law departr
the city, he resigned to engage in private practice and entered into parti
with Paul Brown, under the firm style of Knight & Brown. In 1893 Mr. ]
was appointed general counsel for the Lake Street Elevated Railroad Cor
In April, 1898, he was appointed general counsel for the Union Elevatec
road Company, Northwestern Elevated Railroad and all the surface e
street railways connecting with the North and West Chicago Street R
Companies. He conducted the litigation on behalf of the Union EIi
Railroad Company, in the litigation concerning the right to build a "loop
vated railroad on Lake and Van Buren streets and Wabash and Fifth av(
His clientage is of a distinctively representative character and is very exte
During the past fifteen years he has been connected with much of the impc
litigation that has been heard in the courts of this city, and in every depari
of the law he handles his interests with masterly skill. He possesses tirele
dustry, remarkable acumen and is fertile in resources. His success,
measured by the extent and importance of his law practice, as well as b;
financial returns, is very gratifying.
In 1877 Mr. Knight married Miss Dell Browm, a daughter of Dr. 1
Brown, of McHenry, Illinois, and they have two children, — Bessie and Jame
Mr. Knight has long been a member of the Masonic fraternity, and is a Kr
Templar of Chevalier Bayard Commandery. He also belongs to the R .
League and Independent Order of Foresters.
Henry S. Towle, a member of the firm of Offield, Towle & Linthicum,
long been prominently identified with one of the most important branche
law practice. He was born October 10, 1842, in Mishawaka, Indiana. I
father, Oilman Towle, was an honored citizen of that state and was widely 1
favorably known. He married a Miss Beekman, and both trace their ance
to patriots of the American Revolution.
Henry Sargent Towle acquired his primary education in Mishawaka, Ii ;
ana, being in attendance at the high school at that place when the country 1
came involved in civil war. He made several efforts to secure admission to
volunteer service of the government, but was prevented by ill health. Be 1
unwilling to entirely forego any service for the assistance of the government,
became connected with a sanitary expedition which was organized under
direction of Governor Morton for the relief of Indiana soldiers in the field. T
first took him to the battle-ground of Shiloh, and later to other places.
374 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
Mr. Towle subsequently entered upon a collegiate course at Valparaiso,
Indiana, and prepared for the legal profession by attending at the University of
Michigan, being a graduate of the law department of that institution. He came
to Chicago to enter upon the practice of law, and in the early years of his resi-
dence here was connected with the law firms of Arringlon & Dent and Goodwin
& Lamed. He became permanently associated with the firm last mentioned,
having been admitted as a partner in 1869, under the firm name of Goodwin,
Larned & Towle. His association with this firm initiated him into what became
a specialty, which he has steadily pursued, his business for many years past
having had relation principally to patents, trademarks and copyrights, including
litigation incident thereto. Mr. Towle, however, for a number of years was
connected with practice in other lines to some considerable extent. On the
retirement of Mr. Larned and the admission of Mr. Charles K. Offield as a
partner in 1874, the firm of Goodwin, Offield & Towle almost entirely gave up
general practice and gave attention only to the specialties before mentioned.
On the death of Mr. Goodwin, the other two partners continued their business
relations, and more recently have been joined by Mr. Charles C. Linthicum. in
the organization of the present firm of Otfiold, Towle & Linthicum.
The long association of Messrs. Offield & Towle indicates congeniality and
an agreeable division of labor, in which Mr. Towle has been highly successful
and proficient, besides manifesting ability and business qualities, as well as a
character for integrity and rectitude, which have deservedly brought him into
high esteem and prominence. He has taken a prominent part in building up
the large practice of his firm. As a lawyer he is industrious and able, and
enjoys the respect and confidence of his associates at the bar. The practice of
his firm in their special lines of litigation, in the federal courts, extends from
Boston to San Francisco, and their clients represent many of the most prom-
inent interests which depend upon protection under patents and trademarks,
thus bringing his firm for years into numerous important suits involving patent
and trademark property.
While the extensive practice of the firm has engrossed his close attention and
has brought him, as well as the other members of his firm, a wide acquaintance
with business men and affairs, he has all the while manifested a deep interest in
educational and philanthropic work, as well as in other matters of public interest.
He has always retained his interest in the University of Michigan, having served '
as president of the Chicago Aiumni Association of this university. He has been
a trustee of the Northwestern University for over twenty years; was one of the
trustees of the Union College of Law when it was a joint department of the
old Chicago University and of the Northwestern University. He has been a
factor in the management of the same law school since it has been entirely
under the control of the Northwestern University. Mr. Towle has taken
special interest in elevating the standard of legal education in Chicago, and has
served as chairman of the committee of the trustees of the Northwestern Uni-
versity having charge of the Law School, formerly the Union College of Uw.
The cause of pfliiration has fiaH a nr. inr,.-= a^,—-,-. ^a ._ :_ ^1.7 .1. _.. .l.
r.
xu
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS. 375
subject of this sketch, who has not only for years urged a higher standard for
admission to the bar, but has also worked earnestly in endeavoring to secure
(or our city the advantages of the most thorough instruction in all departments
of university work.
He has given special attention to the work of the Chicago Home Missionary
and Church Extension Society, with which he has been connected as a trustee
and as an officer for many years. He has long been identified with the Methodist
Episcopal churcli. and has been active in various departments of church work.
He holds a membership in the Chicago Bar Association, in connection with
which association he has served as president. He holds a membership in the
Illinois State Bar Association and the American Bar Association, and is a
valued member of the Union League Club, as well as the Hamilton and several
other clubs and social organizations.
Mr. Towle was married in 1868 to a daughter of Robert F. Queal, of
Evanston, Illinois. Her death occurred in 1881, and in 1884 he married Miss
Sarah A. Meacham, of Oak Park, Illinois, at which place Mr. and Mrs. Towle
now reside. He is most highly esteemed in all relations of life as a man' of
probity, trustworthiness and capability.
William P. Uiack. — Progress ever indicates effort ; only retrogression fol-
lows inertia. Purpose, determination, strength and energy ever lie back of ac-
complishment, and that which is gained without efEort is regarded as worthless.
"Honor and fame from no condition rise," sang the poet ; they come as the
crown of unceasing, noble labor, and the truly famous men of the land are
those whose character is above question, and whose mental attainments are of
a very brilliant order. Both qualities are indispensable to real fame, and when
we say that Captain W. P. Black is to-day numbered among the famous men
of the nation it is at once understood that his eminent position results from such
causes. One act alone in his life entitled him to rank among the famous men
of America, and that was his defense of the anarchists in 1886. In the face of the
strongest opposition of old-time friends, the profession and public opinion, he
undertook to plead for the lives of men whose sentiments differed radically from
his own, but who, as human beings, deserved all the protection that law could
give. Life and property would be valueless if this right of defense were denied to
the individual through popular feeling; for it is a matter of history that the
populace has been often found on the wrong side; and thus as a matter of
principle, and with a nobleness that led him to put aside all personal feeling.
Captain Black stood for the defense of those few men when the bitterness of
public feeling not only threatened to engulf them but to bring disaster upon all
who might in any way be associated with them. Viewed in the calmer light
of the present, his action seems heroic, yet it was without a thought of self-
aggrandizement that Captain Black undertook the management of a case that
brought him renown not only on this side the Atlantic but also in foreign lands^
The early life of Captain Black passed quietly and uneventfully. A native
of Kentucky, he was born in Woodford county, in 1842, and is of Scotch-Irish
lineage, claiming among his ancestors those who fought for the independence of
376 THE BEXCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
the nation in the memorable period between 1776 and 1783. From South
Carolina, where the first settlement was made, the family removed lo Westmore-
land county, Pennsylvania. Rev. John Black, one of the earliest representatives
in the Keystone state, was a minister of the Presbyterian church, and his son
and great-grandson also followed the same calling. The latter, Rev. John
Black, D. D., was the father of Captain William P. Black. At the time of his
father's death our subject was but five years of age, and with his mother he
soon afterward removed to Danville, Illinois, where his boyhood days were
passed. Of a studious nature he laid a substantial educational foundation in the
English branches, acquired a good knowledge of literature and later entered
Wabash College, at Crawfordsville. Indiana, where his collegiate career was
marked by close application and high standing. His social qualities made him a
favorite with the pupils, while his excellent scholarship won him the respect
and admiration of his preceptors.
While engaged in pursuing his education, the south attempted secession and
with all the ardor and patriotism of his nature he espoused the Union cause.
Hardly had the smoke from Fort Sumter's guns cleared away, when with (orly
of his fellow students, including his only brother, John Charles, who rose to the
rank of general, he joined Company I of the Eleventh Indiana Zouaves, com-
manded by Colonel, afterward General, Lew Wallace, He joined the "boys in
blue" April 15, 1861, as a private, and on the expiration of the three-months
term was mustered out as a corporal. In the meantime it was seen that the war
was to be no holiday affair, that both sides were determined to win the victory,
and President Lincoln had issued his call for three-years men. Corporal Black
then at once assisted in recruiting a company in Vermilion county, Illinois,
and was elected its captain. These troops were mustered in at Chicago as
Company K, Thirty-seventh Illinois Infantry, known as the Fremont Rifles, and
thus before he had reached his nineteenth birthday Captain Black went to the
front at the head of one hundred men to vaUantly battle for the preservation of the
Union. He retained the command of his company until he was duly mustered
out of service, on the 30th of September, 1864, participating in all the engage-
ments of his regiment. At the seige of Vicksburg he held the responsible and
dangerous position of brigade picket officer, having charge of the rifle pits of his
brigade, and demonstrated that he possessed that high courage which would be
implicitly relied upon and put to any test.
The year following his return from the war Captain Black spent in the office
of the provost marshal of the seventh Illinois congressional district, in Danville.
He has been identified with the interests of Chicago since the autumn of 1865,
when he became a law student in the office of Arrington & Dent, a well known
law firm of the city. After his admission to the bar he practiced for a year in
Danville, and then, returning to Chicago, formed a partnership with Thomas
Dent, his former preceptor. This connection was continued until Captain
Black withdrew in order to undertake the defense of the anarchists.
His reputation as a lawyer is second to none. During the greater part of his
professional career he has devoted his energies to civil law and has demonstrated
THE BENCH AND BAR OF HJJNOIS. 377
his power to handle its intricate problems with masterly skill. He is remarkable
among lawyers for the wide research and provident care with which he prepares
his cases. In no case has his reading ever been confined to the limitations of the
question at issue; it has gone beyond and compassed every contingency and
planned for the defense against every possible attack. His logical grasp of facts
and principles and of the law applicable to them has been another potent element
in his success, and a remarkable clearness of expression, an adequate and precise
diction, which enable him to make others understand not only the salient points of
his argument but also his every fine gradation of meaning, may be accounted
among his most conspicuous gifts and accomplishments.
In civil law he had a very extensive clientage, and was doing a very profitable
business when the friends of the anarchists besought him to undertake their case.
After listening w^ith characteristic courtesy to their request, he informed them
that he was not a criminal lawyer and advised them to apply to some of his col-
leagues at the bar who made a specialty of that branch of practice. The reply to
this was that these lawyers had already been conferred with and had refused to
engage in a service w-hich they feared would jeopardize their standing as citizens
and members of a community intensely hostile to the men who were to be placed
on trial. The friends of the anarchists appealed to Captain Black's love of justice,
his sense of fairness, and his regard for the right of fair and impartial trial by jury,
and at last wrung from him the promise that he would aid them to secure such
counsel as would insure an able defense of the accused men. He then tried hard,
but was unable to succeed in persuading any of the successful criminal lawyers
of the city to take hold of the case. It had in the meantime become clear to him
that the men charged with the "Haymarket murder'' were in danger of being
sacrificed for want of adequate defense. This was something which his sense
of duty would not permit him to look upon with indifference. Whether or not
the accused persons were guilty as charged, was a question not to be decided in
advance of trial and the hearing of the evidence. He felt it to be the duty of some
member of the bar to defend them with all the zeal and ability at his command,
and his chivalric nature would not allow him to shrink from a discharge of that
duty, because of consequences which might be unpleasant or even disastrous to
himself.
The history of the trial is too well known to need recounting here. As
Captain Black studied the case he became more and more convinced that the
men were innocent of the specific crime with which they were charged, — murder.
He had no sympathy with their anarchistic sentiments, — for there is no more
loyal American citizen in Chicago, — but he defended the men against punishment
for the crime with which they were charged with all the strength of his nature.
However, from the beginning it seemed a foregone conclusion that the men
would hang, — the public wanted and demanded their punishment for what they
had spoken or written rather than for the killing of the policemen; it was
anarchy rather than murder for which they were tried. From the judgment of
the criminal court Captain Black appealed to the supreme court of Illinois, then
to the supreme court of the United States, and failing in both instances to gain a
378 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
reversal, sought executive clemency, thus doing all in his power, as every honor-
able lawyer who undertakes a case should do, to save his clients.
A fair estimate of the noble character of the service which Captain Black
rendered in this connection is summed up in the following extract from an
address delivered by Judge Tuley before the Young Lawyers' Bar Association.
He said :
"Xo true lawyer follows his profession solely for the money that is to be
made out of it ; and the brightest and most cherished recollections of a lawyer are
those where without fee or hope of reward he has protected the weak against the
strong, the ignorant and lowly against the aggressions of the rich and powerful,
or when he has reached out his helping hand to stand by the friendless and for-
saken. In the history of our profession, there is no brighter chapter or one that
casts more glory upon our profession than that which recounts how the four
sergeants of the English bar, at the peril of their lives, stood by and defended
King Charles the l^^irst, when on trial for his life on the charge of treason.
"Sometimes occasions arise when it is the duty of the true lawyer to sacrifice
himself upon the altar of his profession. I cannot refrain from mentioning an
incident within my own knowledge, and which I have never before related, where
a member of the bar rose equal to a great occasion and made this sacrifice upon
the altar of duty. This lawyer, whom I had known for many years, called on
me in my chambers one day before the trial of the anarchists and at a time when
the excitement was at its highest pitch, and stated that he wished to consult with
me as a friend and as a judge. He said that he had been applied to by the friends
of the anarchists to undertake their defense ; that he told the parties that he had
not followed to any great extent the practice of the criminal law and advised them
to employ some one who made the criminal law a specialty ; that they came back
a second time and stated that they had been unable to get any such person to
undertake their defense as they had but very little money, and again pleaded with
him to undertake it. 'The amount of money they have offered me,' he said, *is not
worthy of consideration ; but it is their all, — all that they can raise. I told them
I would consider the matter and give them my decision. You know,' he con-
tinued, 'what undertaking their defense means to me or any other lawyer of
position at the bar.' I said, *You have then counted the cost?' *Yes,' he replied,
T think 1 can foresee the result to me if 1 undertake their defense. I have now,
as you know, a large and profitable business that my partner and myself have
been many years in building up. Our clients are principally of the class—
caj)italists and board-of-trade men — who are much exercised over this matter and
about the growth of anarchy and lawlessness generally. I shall have to give
months to the case and must neglect other business to some extent. I think I
can foresee that he who undertakes the defense of these anarchists will be looked
upon w^ith at least great disfavor. It means to some extent social ostracism and
I believe an almost total sacrifice of my business and possibly of my future
prospects. Now, Judge, what shall I do ? What would you do ?'
*T replied, 'Captain Black,' — for it was Captain William P. Black,— 'your
question is a very serious one, and probably one that you should solve your-
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS, 379
self; but as you ask my opinion I will give it to you. As these men have
offered a retainer and that to the extent of their ability, I have no hesitation in
saying that your duty to your profession, your duty to yourself, demands that you
accept it and undertake their defense. I must say that you have rather under-
estimated than overestimated the cost to yourself ; but yet, Captain, it is always
expedient to do one's duty.* He replied that he felt that it was his duty to take
the case and that my advice encouraged him to do so.
"You all know how well, how ably through many wearisome months he
performed that duty. He extorted the admiration of those who denounced him
by the heroic defense he made. The result, as to himself, was even worse than he
anticipated. Many of his so-called friends gave him the *cold shoulder,* his
partnership was dissolved, nearly all of his clients forsook him, and I believe that
In six months he who was earning his ten to fifteen thousand dollars a year
could not count upon one thousand a year income. The feeling that had been
engendered gradually died out and people began to reason among themselves.
He manfully stood up and fought his way back into a lucrative business. The
Chicago bar should delight to honor him, this brother lawyer who made so great
a sacrifice to maintain the honor of the profession.*'
When the case was over Captain Black resumed the practice of law, but it
was as he supposed, and as Judge Tuley stated, — his defense of the anarchists
had cost him a great share of his civil practice. As the years passed, however,
and calmer judgment returned, there has arisen a feeling of appreciation for the
sacrificing and heroic spirit that led the lawyer, in obedience to the ethics of his
profession and the spirit of the law, to stand for a fair trial for those who were
accused of offense ; old clients returned and new clients came to him, and he is
now in the enjoyment of a larger law business than ever before. He has been
connected with much of the most important litigation in the civil courts for many
years and has achieved distinction, not only for his ability but also for the
integrity and honesty of purpose which characterizes all his professional acts.
He is now in the active practice of his profession in Chicago, his zeal unabated,
his efficiency unimpaired.
Captain Black has given deep thought and careful investigation to social
and economic questions of the day, and on these topics has written many able
articles. He is an unusually clear, earnest and vigorous writer. In 1881 he
prepared and delivered before the Chicago Philosophical Society a lecture on
Socialism as a Factor in American Society and Politics, which was published in
the Chicago Times, republished in pamphlet form and extensively quoted and
noted in various parts of the country. It was a remarkably clear, interesting and
philosophical consideration of the great question of the social relations of the
wage classes in our growing republic. A year later he delivered before the same
body a lecture on Russia and Nihilism, which has since been delivered, by
request, before the Liberal League of Chicago and the Industrial Jleform Club
of the same place, and which has been printed in the Weekly Magazine and
reprinted in tract form. In regard to this lecture Wendell Phillips wrote to
Captain Black as follows :
38o THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
Boston. July, 1882.
My Dear Sir: — Hearty thanks for your instructive and eloquent address on Russia
and Nihilism. Such a masterly and logical summing up of the case against the Romanoffs
must give our people pause and make them think. Then we shall see a public opinion
more worthy of our past and our national position among civilized states.
I have read and reread your statement, each time with fresh admiration and added
ihanks that any American has been found ready to make it an honor to us and a service
to the world. Yours with great respect,
Colonel W. P. Black. WENDELL PHILLIPS.
Captain Black is in no sense of the word a politician though taking a keen
interest in the affairs of the country to whose service in the tented field he gave
three and a half years of his life. In his views he is thoroughly independent,
casting his vote and his influence always with what he believes the better side
of every cause. Prior to 1872 he had been a stanch Republican, but in that year
he advocated the cause of Horace Greeley, and has since been independent,
though usually voting with the Democracy. In the fall of 1882 he became a
candidate for congress upon the unsolicited nominations first of the anti-
monopolists in their conventions, then of the Democracy and afterward of the
independent Republicans. Although Captain Black was defeated, through
treachery in the Democratic camp, — and then by only twenty-four hundred votes,
when at the preceding election the opposing party had a majority of six thou-
sand votes, — the campaign awakened great interest and brought to him many
written and spoken tributes concerning his character and attainments. Henry
L. Turner, a prominent real-estate dealer and lifelong Republican, wrote of him
in the following manner: "Speaking from a personal acquaintance of years'
standing, the writer, if asked, would say of Captain William P. Black that he
would bring to the legislative office a heart throbbing with a benevolent love
for his fellow men, sympathetic with their misfortunes, and ambitious to be oi
service to them ; a quick and enlightened conscience, with a profound sense of
personal responsibility; an independence of thought and action almost phe-
nomenal ; an honesty deep seated as the earth's foundation ; an incorruptibility
absolutely unassailable ; an intellect of great breadth and keenness ; a mind well
stored with a comprehensive knowledge of law and history; a ripe and widely
varied experience; an eloquence at once dignified and impassioned, impressive
and graceful ; a patriotism strengthened and purified on the battle-fields of the
rebellion, and a courage which cannot be daunted; a life so pure and spotless
that the fierce breath of a bitter canvass has cast no mist upon it; a religious
principle which manifests a reverent regard for all the ways of righteousness ; a
widely gathered familiarity with the management of affairs, and a broad general
culture ; a splendid presence, and manners courteous, affable and polished."
His home life is ideal in its pleasant relations. In 1869 Captain Black mar-
ried Miss Hortensia M. MacGreal, of Galveston, Texas, who has shared with him
in all his benevolent and philanthropic work. He is known as a Christian
gentleman of liberal views and scholarly tastes, and all moral and social reforms
receive his support. Faultless in honor, fearless in conduct, and stainless in
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS,
reputation, he stands to-day as one of the most brilliant and respected meml
of the Chicago bar.
Elbert H. Gary. — In the history of jurisprudence in IlHnois the name of ^
Gary is prominently associated with much of the important litigation that
called forth the powers of the most talented members of the bar. While \
versed in all departments of the law, he is by preference and patronage confini
his attention largely to that important branch of the profession known as c
poration law, and has won for himself very favorable criticism for the care
and sympathetic methods he has followed in the conduct of his legal busine
He has remarkable powers of concentration and application, and his retenti
mind has often excited the surprise and admiration of his professional colleagu
Since 1870 Mr. Gary has engaged in the practice of law in Chicago, whith
he comes from his home in Wheaton, — the place of his residence throughout 1
entire life. He was born in Du Page county, IlHnois, October 8, 1846, a son
Erastus and Susan A. (Vallette) Gary. His boyhood days were passed on h
father's farm, where during the summer months he assisted in the labors of tl
fields. During the winter season he pursued his studies in the district schoo
until close application had prepared him for entrance to Wheaton College, i
which institution he was a student for several terms. At the age of eighteen Y
began reading law in the office of Vallette & Cody, of Naperville, where he cor
tinued for a year and a half, when he w^as enrolled among the students of th
Chicago University. He was graduated in that institution in June, 1867, and i
October following was admitted to the supreme court of Illinois, and in 1878 wa
admitted to practice in the supreme court of the United States.
Establishing an office in Chicago, Mr. Gary was joined by his brother
Noah E. Gary, in 1874, a business relation that was maintained for about sixteei
years. In the meantime, from 1879 ^^ntil 1886, one of his former preceptors
Judge Hiram H. Coby, was also a member of the firm. Since 1890 Mr. Gar}
has been alone in the conduct of his very extensive and important law business
His efficiency and superior skill in the handling of the intricate problems oi
corporation law brought him an extensive clientage along that line, and gradu-
ally his corporation practice crowded out many other departments of juris-
prudence. His eminent ability in this direction is indicated by the fact that he is
now serving as general counsel for several large corporations, including the
Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, for the western department, the Illinois Steel Com-
pany, the American Steel and Wire Company, the Car Service Association, the
American Bonding and Trust Company and Maryland Casualty Company. He
has been a member of the Chicago Bar Association since its organization and
served for one year as its president.
Mr. Gary was married, June 23, 1869, to Miss Julia E. Graves, of Aurora,
and has two daughters. He maintains his residence in Wheaton and has con-
tributed largely to the material development and welfare of the city. He is the
principal stockholder and the president of the Gary Wheaton Bank, which he
established in 1874, and he has held several offices. A Republican in politics, he
was elected on that ticket as president of the town council for three terms, and
382 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
when Wheaton was raised to the rank of a city he was chosen its first mayor,
acting in that capacity several terms. In 1884 he was elected judge of Du Page
county and occupied that bench for two terms. He is a member of a number of
important social organizations, including the Union League, Chicago and
Athletic Clubs, of Chicago, and has a membership connection with the National,
State and Chicago Bar Associations.
Henry H. Kennedy, a member of the law firm of Moses, Rosenthal & Ken-
nedy, of Chicago, was born in Washington county, Iowa, in 1861, and acquired
his literary education in Iowa College, of Grinnell, that state, graduating in that
institution with the class of 1883. For nearly a year thereafter he was con-
nected with the staff of the Grinnell Herald, and then entered the law depart-
ment of the Michigan State University, at Ann Arbor, where he was graduated
on the completion of the regular course in 1885.
Immediately afterward Mr. Kennedy came to Chicago and from 1885 until
1890 was employed in a clerical capacity in the law office of Moses & Newman.
In the latter year he became a member of the law firm of Moses, Pam &
Kennedy, now Moses, Rosenthal & Kennedy, and in that connection enjoys a
large and important law practice, which is an indication of ability on the part
of the different members of the firm.
In 1892 Mr. Kennedy was united in marriage to Miss Minnie G. Perkins, of
Grinnell, Iowa. He belongs to the Union League Club, and in his political
affiliations is a Republican who stanchly advocates the principles of his party.
Edward Dudley Kenna was born at Jacksonville, Illinois, November 17,
1 86 1, and educated in the common schools of Springfield, Missouri, where he
studied law and was admitted to the bar, on May 7, 1880. On May i, 1881, he
was appointed assistant attorney of the St. Louis & San Francisco Railway Com-
pany and moved to St. Louis. On November i, 1889, he was made general
attorney of that company, in which position he continued until September 15,
1895, when he was appointed general solicitor of the Atchison, Topeka & Santa
Fe Railway Company and removed to Chicago.
Mr. Kenna was married June 2, 1894, to Miss MadeHne Kerens, of St. Louis.
They have two children, the elder a boy, Richard Kerens Kenna, and the
younger a daughter, Mary Dudley Kenna.
PYederick \V. C. Hayes was born in Johnstown, New York, January 26,
1859, and was of Scotch-Irish lineage. His father Richard B. Hayes, was a
representative of a noted Irish family, his uncle filling the high office of lord
chancellor to the crown ; another relative. Canon Hayes, was a celebrated
clergyman of the church of England. The father, Richard B. Hayes, leaving his
home in Banbridge, county Down, Ireland, in 1856, sailed for America and
identified his interests with those of the New World. He was the manufacturer
of the Hayes' Royal Irish linen thread of world-wide reputation. Mary E.
(Nellis) Hayes, the mother of Frederick W. C. Hayes, was a native of Ephratah,
New York, and a descendant of the well known Edwards family of the Empire
state.
Frederick W. C. Hayes became a resident of Chicago in his early boyhood,
il.=c_^^^^^
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
and pursued his literary education in the grammar and high schools. In i
of 1876 he was matriculated in the old University of Chicago, wherein \
graduated with honors, as a member of the class of 1880, receiving the deg
Bachelor of Arts, which degree was also conferred upon him by the p
University of Chicago. He pursued his studies under many disadvanta
disadvantages, however, which gave way before his resolute and deter
spirit. His pecuniary condition made it necessary that he should provide f-
expenses of his college course and for his own maintenance, and this li
by teaching nights and by delivering newspapers. After his graduation i
university he entered the Union College of Law, in 1880, and two years
was admitted to the bar. During that time he worked in the recorder's
and acted as clerk for Justice Charles Arnd. He entered upon his profess
career as a member of the law firm of Young & Hayes, his partner being Kii
Young. That connection was continued until 1884, when the illness of
Young made a dissolution of the partnership necessary. Mr. Hayes was
alone in practice for some time, but on account of ill health was forced to s
the greater part of three years, from 1889 until 1891, in New Mexico. Wh«
that territory he served as principal of a New West school, and in additic
teaching during the week often preached on Sunday. He was teacher, jai
and minister, and a friend of all in the place, and it is doubtful if any one
made a deeper impression for good upon the community.
Upon his return to Chicago Mr. Hayes became connected with the law
partment of the city, under the Washburne administration. He was a fine
around lawyer, but he possessed an intimate knowledge of special-assessn
and condemnation law, and for that reason was selected by the city of Chic
as special counsel in many such cases, — in 1892 and subsequent years. He
charge for the city of the big Wentworth avenue sewer case, the largest
most important special-assessment case ever tried in this country. The t<
assessment amounted to eight hundred and sixteen thousand dollars, and
different juries passed upon the different phases thereof. In one of these tri
involving over one hundred and twenty thousand dollars of objections, twe
prominent lawyers were pitted against Mr. Hayes, and after a trial of over thi
days the jury found for the city. This was a great personal triumph for ]^
Hayes, as it was largely through his efficient efforts and skill that the case v
won, and at once established- his reputation as a most able trial lawyer. 1
afterward had charge of the still greater project, — the Ninety-fifth street se\^
and drainage plan, — and because of these and other cases, by reason of his stu
and broad views, he became thoroughly informed upon the subject of draina^
from a legal and engineering standpoint. It was on account of his special knov
edge, as well as his general ability, that he was elected attorney for the drainaj
board at a time when knotty and complicated problems were presenting ther
selves for solution. The purpose of the drainage canal is to furnish pure wat«
and thus save the lives of our people. No one felt more strongly the noblenei
of such a high purpose than did Mr. Hayes. He put aside private interests t
384 THE BEXCH AXD BAR OF ILLINOIS.
•
devote his whole attention to the public good. He fell at the post of duty, over-
come by the tremendous strain made upon his system by his hard labors.
At the time of his death he was a member of the well know^n and leading
law firm of Mann, Hayes & Miller, the partners being James R. Mann, Frederick
W. C. Hayes and George \V. Miller. The senior member of the firm is now
congressman from the first district of Illinois, and the junior member is repre-
senting the third senatorial district in the Illinois legislature. The firm success-
fully combined politics and the practice of law, and each one, though com-
paratively young, attained official distinction, and together they built up an
extensive practice in corporation and municipal law. For a time Mr. Hayes
was one of the masters in chancery of the superior court of Cook county, and in
the spring of 1897 w^as selected as attorney for the sanitary district of Chicago.
On the 2d of September, 1886, Mr. Hayes was united in marriage to Miss
Lucy Ella Leach, of Manchester-by-the-Sea, Massachusetts, and two children
were born to them, Frederick and Lucy, w^ho with their mother share in the loss
of husband and father. When a youth of thirteen years Mr. Hayes became a
member of Plymouth Congregational church, and later transferred his member-
ship to the South Congregational church, at the corner of Fortieth street and
Drexel boulevard. Politically Mr. Hayes was an ardent and zealous Republican,
and for several years was president of the Thirty-second Ward Republican Club.
He was one of the original seven who founded the Marquette Club, of Chicago,
and was its first vice-president, but resigned in the winter of 1897 and joined the
Hamilton Club. He was a Knight Templar Mason and a member of the Royal
Arcanum. His social qualities were marked, and his genial disposition and
courteous manner made him a popular favorite. He w^as a product of our
earnest and intense Chicago life. Against odds w^hich would have overcome a
less courageous spirit, he found his way to the front ranks, so that before he had
reached the age of forty he had carved for himself a niche in Chicago's temple
of fame. To his clients, as well as his friends, Mr. Hayes gave himself and his
utmost powers with lavish prodigality, and with the highest sense of duty and
devotion. He was w^arm-hearted, generous and loyal to his friends; he made
new ones wherever he went and he never lost them. Whether in the bitterness
of political strife or the intensity of a lawsuit, his cheerfulness and good nature
never left him. He was always self-possessed and was always considerate of the
feelings of others. A prominent citizen said of him : "I never knew^ a man who
so w^on the love of men." This is a simple but eloquent tribute to his sterling
worth and high character, for it is only noble qualities that command the love of
our fellow^ men. He was true and faithful in all the relations of life, was an able
and aggressive lawyer, a vigorous but courteous opponent and always com-
manded the respect of the bench and bar. He died November i, 1898, and his
remains were interred in the old family lot in Johnstown, New York. Thus
passed from our midst one of the most able lawyers that has ever practiced at the
bar of Illinois, — one no less esteemed for his worth of character than for his
superior talents of jurisprudence.
Samuel Shaw Parks is numbered among the representative citizens of
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS. 385
Chicago that Massachusetts has furnished to the western metropohs. He was
bom in Palmer, that state, on the 6th of May, 1863. His parents were WilHam
R. and Dora (Shaw) Parks, the former bom in Palmer, in 1833, the latter bom in
Albany, New York, in the same year. She was a daughter of Dr. Samuel Shaw,
one of the first homeopathic physicians of western Massachusetts and a very
prominent and influential citizen, -
Liberal educational privileges fitted Mr. Parks for the duties of lite. He
was graduated in the Monson Academy, in Monson, Massachusetts, with the
class of 1882, and then entered Amherst College, where he completed the pre-
scribed course by graduation with the class of 1886. During his course, he
became a member of the Beta Theta Pi fraternity. In 1886 he came to Chicago
and in 1888 was graduated from the Union College of Law of this city. Here
he became a member of the Phi Delta Phi — a legal fraternity. In June, 1888,
he was admitted to the bar and for the past decade has been an active member of
the profession, engaged in general practice, with offices in the Ashland Block.
Earnest purpose and untiring effort have gained him the success he has achieved,
— success that would be creditable to a man of older years.
On the 6th of August, 1888, Mr. Parks was united in marriage to Miss Grace
Runyan, a daughter of Eben F. Runyan, one of the oldest and most prominent
lawyers of Chicago. They have two children : Clarence Runyan, born August
3, 1890, and Dora Ruth, born July 19, 1892. Socially Mr. Parks is connected
with the Menoken Club and with various Democratic organizations, being a
warm advocate and ardent supporter of the Democratic party and a firm believer
in the Chicago platform.
William F. Wiemers, of Chicago, was born on the 14th day cf February,
1857, his parents being natives of Germany. His early hfe was passed
upon an Illinois farm. He received his elementary education in the public
schools of his neighborhood, and supplemented the same by a course of study
at Shurtleff College, Upper Alton, Illinois, at which institution he was gradu-
ated in 1882. He then entered the Union College of Law, of Chicago, and on the
completion of the course was graduated in the class of 1884 and admitted to the
bar. He at once opened an office in the city of Chicago, and has enjoyed a con-
stantly increasing practice, which is mostly confined to civil matters, embracing
some important litigated interests. In 1893 he was appointed master in chancery
of the circuit court of Cook county, lUinois, a position which he still holds and
for which his painstaking, methodical, conservative nature and careful profes-
sional habits especially fit him.
In politics he is a Republican. He is a logical thinker, a fluent writer, and
has made frequent contributions of interest to the local press on current subjects
and questions of a politico- legal character. At all times and all places he com-
mands the respect and esteem of his fellow men by his upright life, his versatility,
marked intellectuality and unfailing courtesy.
In 1889 Mr. Wiemers w'as united in marriage to Miss Clara B. Kenison.
Socially he is connected with the Marquette and Hamilton Clubs and with the
Masonic fraternity.
386 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
John W. Ela, of Chicago, is a native of New Hampshire. He was bom in
184a, in the town of Meredith, on the sliore of Lake Winnepesaiikee. His boy-
hood and youth were passed in \ew England, and having determined to enter
the legal profession he prepared for the bar at the Harvard Law School and i"
the office of Judge Samuel W. Rollins, of Meredith.
He commenced practice at Plymouth. Xew Hampshire, and was gradu-
ally building up a good clientage when the civil war was inaugurated, and iu
1863 he enlisted in the Union army, assisted in raising Company B. of the
Fifteenth New Hampshire \'oluntcers, became captain of that company aiiii
served until his regiment was mustered out. at the end of its term. Attracted by
the west. Mr. Ela then came to Chicago and has for more than a quarter of a
century been a member of the bar d( this city and one of the prominent and
successful lawyers of the state. He framed the Illinois civil-service law, — the fitst
law of that character passed by a western state, — and was at the head of the
movement which resulted in its passage by the legislature and its adoption by
the city of Chicago. When he drafted the bill Mr." Ela was president of ihe
Chicago Civil Service Reform Association, and was an earnest and active worker
in the organization of which he was the head. He labored almost continuously
for the "merit system" from the time the idea was put before the people of the
west until it became a law. and his capability to handle this subject resulted not
only from a broad knowledge o( law and the need of purity in politics, but also
from study and investigation into the subject of the civil service in the com-
munities— city, state and national — where it was in operation. Probably no
man in the country is better informed on the subject than John W. Ela. He has
for some years been an active member of the executive committee of the Nationa\
Civil Service Reform League, of which league George William Curtis was one
of the founders and the first president, and of which Carl Schurz is now
president.
Mr. Ela was one of the counsel, before the supreme court of this state,
who argued for the constitutionality of the Illinois act. He was counsel for the
civil service commission of Chicago, in the case against the board of education of
Chicago, in which Judge Tuley, of the circuit court, decided that that board
must come under the civil-service law, and argued the case (or the commission
before the supreme court, upon the appeal by the board. He was counsel for
the civil service commission in the suit against the secretary of the commissioner
of public works, of Chicago, to compel the giving of testimony before the com-
mission, in which suit the constitutionality of that provision of the law was
attacked by the defense. He was also counsel for the commission in the
mandamus suits in the supreme court to compel all appointments to positions in
the offices of the city collector, city clerk, city treasurer and city comptroller to
be made under the provisions of the act; claiming that the act covers all these
offices; and he made the argument in that court for the commission. Mr. Ela
was president of the police commission (the other members being John H.
Hamline and Harry Rubens) appointed by Mayor Hopkins, in 1894, to put the
Chicago police department under the merit system; which commission made
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS, 387
the first application of the reform in Chicago, and gave the people an object
lesson as to its benefits.
Among the other matters of a public nature in which Mr. Ela has been
counsel may be mentioned his appointment by Governor Altgeld to assist in the
defense of the state, in the supreme court, in the combined attack upon the con-
stitutionality of the state factory law; involving the question, among others, of
the validity of the provision establishing an "eight-hour day" for women. In
1895 ^c was employed by the Chicago Times-Herald to go to Springfield as its
counsel and render opinions on proposed laws pending in the legislature. There
was considerable excitement during that session over the veto, by Governor Alt-
geld, of several bills favoring certain classes, or corporations, claimed to have
been passed by corrupt means, and the efforts of their friends to pass them over
the veto; and over other supposed corrupt bills still pending. The Times-
Herald employed Mr. Ela to go to Springfield to examine the vetoed bills and
all proposed measures which could affect the public, and give his unbiased
opinion upon such measures and their effect if they should become laws. These
opinions were published in that journal from time to time until the close of the
session. It was a session noted as a "record-breaker" in alleged attempts to
accomplish corrupt legislation. As to the results of the efforts of Mr. Ela and
the Times-Herald it is only fair to say that, notwithstanding the extraordinary
activity of the friends of the vetoed bills (which were all opposed by these
opinions, and by the paper) not one of them was passed over the veto, and
scarcely one of the measures denounced in the opinions and the paper has yet
become a law. There was considerable indignation expressed by some of the
legislators, at first, on the assumption that Mr. Ela came there to watch over
them; but, as the character of his services developed, there was general com-
mendation of the work he was accomplishing.
While a Democrat in national politics, Mr. Ela has always opposed carrying
party politics into local elections. He has actively supported every "citizens'
movement" in city elections in Chicago. He has been a member of the execu-
tive committee of the Civic Federation, and its vice-president ; was chairman of
the committee which prosecuted the election frauds ; vice-president of the Army
and Navy League, which did such effective work in assisting Chicago soldiers
and their families during the war with Spain, and has been president of the
Chicago Philosophical Society.
Miles J. Devine. — The true measure of individual success is determined by
what one has accomplished, and, as taken in contradistinction to the old adage
that a prophet is not without honor save in his own country, there is particular
interest attaching to the career, of the subject of this review, since he is a native
son of the place where he has passed his active life, and so directed his ability
and efforts as to gain recognition as one of the representative citizens of Chicago.
He is actively connected with a profession which has important bearing upon the
progress and stable prosperity of any section or community, and one which
has long been considered as conserving the public welfare by furthering the ends
of justice and maintaining individual rights. He ranks among the leading young
388 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS,
lawyers of the city and is now acceptably filling the important position of city
attorney.
Mr. Devine was born in Chicago, November ii, 1866, and is a son of Patrick
and Elizabeth Devine. His preliminary education w^as acquired in the common
schools, and after his graduation at the high school he attended successively the
St. Francis Seminary, of Bay View% Wisconsin, the Seminary of Our Lady of
Angels, of Niagara, New York, and Lake Forest University. When his literary
education was completed he turned his attention to the study of law as a student
of the Chicago College of Law, and was graduated in that institution in June,
1890. His success at the bar was marked and immediate. No dreary novitiate
awaited him, for almost immediately he had secured a fair patronage, which has
steadily increased until it has reached extensive proportions. He seems to have
a natural discrimination as to legal ethics, and he is so thoroughly well read in
the minutiae of the law that he is able to base his arguments upon thorough
knowledge of and familiarity with precedents, and to present a case upon its
merits, never failing to recognize the main points at issue, and never neglecting
to give a thorough preparation. His pleas have been characterized by a decisive
logic and a lucid presentation rather than by oratory, although he is well known
as a public speaker and orator, and his power is the greater before court or jury
from the fact that it is recognized that his aim is ever to secure justice and not
to enshroud the cause in a sentimental garb or illusion w^hich will thwart the
principles of right and equity involved.
Mr. Devine first became a member of the law firm of Devine & O'Connell,
and had not long been in public life before his ability was recognized, and in
1892 he w-as appointed by Hon. Carter Harrison, Sr., to the position of assistant
city prosecuting attorney, and Mayor Hopkins and Mayor Swift both continued
him in that place. By this time his private practice had grown to such propor-
tions that he resigned his position in order to devote his entire time to the inter-
ests of his cHents. But the public refused to permit him thus to retire to private
life. In 1893 he was nominated by the Populists of the fifteenth senatorial
district for state senator, but on account of his pressing business duties he
declined the nomination. In August, 1896, he declined the nomination of his
party for congress, but during the memorable campaign of that year he labored
earnestly for the free-silver platform and its representatives. In March, 1897,
he reluctantly consented to accept the nomination for city attorney, the w^elfare
of his party outweighing all personal considerations. He was elected by the
greatest plurality ever given a city attorney in the history of Chicago or any
other American city, and is now discharging the duties of the office in a manner
highly satisfactory to all concerned. He is vice-president and chairman of the
executive committee of the Cook County Democracy and his labors in behalf oi
the party have been most effective.
On the 2 1 St of October, 1886, Mr. Devine married Miss Emma Gamash, oi
Lake county, Illinois, and they have four children : Miles J., Jr., Paul P., Leo T-
and Mabel R. Mr. Devine has a genial, social nature, and his courteous deport-
ment ever bespeaks the character of the true gentleman.
■■%.
i'.y.-2i<,u
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS. 389
Edward Swift Isham, senior member of the law firm of Isham, Lincoln &
Beale, was born in Bennington, Vermont, January 15, 1836. His American
ancestry had its beginning with John Isham, a native of Northamptonshire,
England, who coming first to Newburyport settled afterward in Barnstable,
Massachusetts, and was there married, December 16, 1667, to Jane, daughter of
Robert Parker, of Barnstable. This pioneer's will was admitted to probate at
Barnstable, October 10, 1713. His second son, Isaac Isham, was born in
February, 1682, and was married May 3, 1716, to Thankful, daughter of Thomas
Lumbert, Jr., and his will was probated at Barnstable, August 5, 1771. The third
son of Isaac Isham was John Isham, born in Barnstable August 6, 1721, who, in
his youth removed to Colchester, Connecticut, where he married, December 19,
1751, Dorothy, daughter of Ephraim Foote of that town, and died March 2, 1802.
He commanded a company of colonial soldiers in the French and Indian wars.
His son, Ezra Isham, born in Colchester March 15, 1773, settled in Manchester,
Vermont, in 1795, or a little later, and was for many years the leading physician
of that region, his death occurring February 8, 1835. Dr. Ezra Isham was mar-
ried June 21, 1 801, to Anna (Nancy) Pierpont, a daughter of Robert Pierpont of
Manchester, Vermont, who was the son of James Pierpont of New Haven, and
grandson of the Rev. James Pierpont, for thirty years, from 1684, pastor of the
First church of New Haven, and of his wife, Mary Hooker, granddaughter of
Rev. Thomas Hooker, pastor of the church of Newtown (now Cambridge), Mas-
sachusetts, who led the migration of that church to Connecticut, in 1636, and was
the first minister settled at Hartford. James Pierpont was the cousin of Jonathan
Edwards, the younger; of President Timothy Dwight, of Yale; and of Aaron
Burr. Pierpont Isham, son of Dr. Ezra Isham and Anna Pierpont, was born in
Manchester, August 5, 1802, and died in New York, March 8, 1872. He married
Semanthe, daughter of Noadiah Swift, M. D., of Bennington, a physician and a
citizen of much distinction, and a son of Rev. Job Swift, D. D., who was a grad-
uate of Yale in the class of 1765, and who was called "The Apostle of Vermont,"
at his death. Pierpont Isham became a lawyer of distinction and was for a
considerable period a justice of the supreme court of Vermont.
Edward S. Isham, the subject of this sketch, is the eldest son of Judge
Pierpont Isham. His early boyhood was passed in the beautiful region border-
ing Xew York and Massachusetts, among the mountains which, on the Massa-
chusetts side, break down into what are known as the Berkshire hills. The
requirements of a delicate constitution caused interruption of his studies at
the age of sixteen, and he spent the years 1850 and 185 1 among the mountains
of South Carolina, in search of health and strength. Returning to the north,
he completed his preparatory course at Lawrence Academy, Groton, Massa-
chusetts. He matriculated in Williams College in 1853, was graduated in
1857, and by invitation of the faculty returned thither in i860 to deliver a
master's oration, and is a member of the Phi Beta Kappa society. After study-
ing law in his father's office, and at the law school of Harvard College, he
was admitted to the bar, at Rutland, Vermont, in the autumn of 1858. He soon
started west, intending to locate either in St. Louis or in St. Paul, but on reach-
390 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
ing Chicago en route and viewing its possibilities, years passed before he saw
either St. Paul or St. Louis. After a short time spent in the law office of Hoyne,
Miller & Lewis, Mr. Isham, in the spring of 1859, formed a partnership with
James L. Stark, a Vermont acquaintance, under the firm name of Stark &
Isham, — a connection which lasted until 1861. His superior abilities soon gave
him a prominent position at the bar, and business came to him freely. In 1864
he was elected a member of the Illinois legislature, and during his term served
upon the judiciary committee. He spent the years 1865 and 1866 in Europe,
and upon his return he again took up his practice, which rapidly increased and
soon became as important and lucrative as that of any lawyer at the Chicago
bar. In February, 1872, the partnership of Isham & Lincoln began, and this
association has existed ever since. In 1886 William G. Beale was admitted to
the firm and the name was enlarged to that of Isham, Lincoln & Beale (which
still obtains) and later Mr. Isham's son, Pierpont, became a member.
Of the many eminent lawyers who have honored the Chicago bar during the
past forty years Mr. Isham is one of the most eminent. He belongs to the
inner circle of the bar. His professional life has been passed, for the most
part, upon the highest plane of legal work. The care of interests involving
largely the element of personal trust, the conduct of important equity causes,
the legal direction of corporate affairs, litigation connected with railroad fore-
closures,— these matters have constituted the greater part of his practice, though
he has not infrequently been engaged in jury cases. The field of his professional
labors has extended into many jurisdictions, and his fine legal attainments, his
scholarly and forceful arguments, his many successes, have given him a wide
and merited reputation. Perhaps his forte as a lawyer lies in his power to
analyze and expound purely legal questions, and this is coupled with a rare gift
for luminous statement, at once convincing and elegant. His opinions and his
counsel are much sought for the guidance of large financial interests and for
the solution of perplexing legal problems.
Among important cases of public interest with which Mr. Isham has been
connected was that concerning the distribution of the estate of Walter L. New-
berry, and the establishment of the splendid library which he endowed. Mr.
Isham was always the counsel of the trustees of the estate and conducted the
litigation in which that estate was involved from time to time. In that case
the question was one of construction involving the meaning of a specific direction
in Mr. Newberry's will. The testator, who died at sea, November 6, i858, left
a widow and two young daughters. In his will, after providing for them, he
considered the contingency of the death, without issue, of both his daughters,
which meant the complete extinguishment of his immediate family. In that
event he directed that upon the death of the last survivor of its three members,
the estate should be divided by his trustees into two equal parts,— one to be
distributed among **the surviving descendants" of his brothers and sisters, and
the other to be applied by the trustees to the founding of a free public library
in Chicago. It is known that he estimated at forty per cent, the chances that
this provision for a library would take effect. Mrs. Newberry renounced the
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS,
provision made for her by the will, and claimed, and received instead o
share of the estate given her by statute. The testator's two children
1874 and 1876 respectively. The contest was commenced by the cc
relatives in April, 1877, by application to the court of chancery to coi
once a distribution of the estate to them, though only the two daughters h
and Mrs. Newberry was still living. Incidentally, the library provision
take effect at' the same time. . As Mrs. Newberry had survived bo
daughters, the direction in the will was, in effect, to divide the estate at her
The theory of the complainants was that the devise was of three life-(
and that the object of the postponement of distribution was to give efi
them ; that the gift over to complainants was intended to be limited not up
lives, but upon the life estates, and the estates being ended by the death
daughters and the renunciation of the widow, the distribution should be
at once. To this it was answered for the trustees that the life estate <
widow was not ended by her renunciation ; that she thereby had merely s
tuted the life estate given by statute for the life estate given in lieu of it b]
so that even if the gifts over were in fact not limited upon the end of the
lives, but upon the end of the estates, the estates were not ended, and th
tribution could not be accelerated. Moreover, the direction to distribute <
death of Mrs. Newberry could not be construed to mean at the end of ht
estate, for the death entered into the description of the persons to whon
estate was given. The "surviving descendants" meant those surviving a
death of Mrs. Newberry, and if the court should give the word **death'
meaning of **the end of her life estate," or any other than its natural and ordi
meaning, it would not merely accelerate the possession of the property b
owner certain at some time to become entitled to receive it, but would ch>
the donees from survivors at one time to survivors at another, and so give to
class of persons an estate that was devised to another class. In the circuit c<
decree w-as made as sought by complainants, in July, 1877, for the immec
distribution of the estate. Appeal was taken, however, to the supreme cc
and upon argument at Springfield the decree of the court below was rever
in June, 1878. Afterward a petition and an amended petition for reheai
were filed by Messrs. Wirt Dexter and E. B. McCagg and Judge Charles
Lawrence. The rehearing was granted, and the cause was again arguec
Springfield, in January, 1880. From the fact that the rehearing was thus allo>
it was generally anticipated that the conclusions of the court would be chang
and the decree for distribution affirmed; but after the argument the court h
to its original judgment, and ordered the first opinion to be refiled. Tl
again, in June, 1880, another rehearing was obtained from the supreme co
and an oral argument ordered, but before the cause was reached for rear^
ment, Mr. Isham moved the court to rescind the order for rehearing, on 1
ground that when it was made the court had no power to make it, and that t
time was past within which it had any power to disturb the twice entered jud
ment. In this situation the complainants secured the intervention of the j
torney general of the state, asking a reconsideration on behalf of the pub
392 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
interest in the library bequest. The order for rehearing was rescinded by the
supreme court, and the application of the attorney general was refused. Then,
when the cause was redocketed in the court below, the complainants amended
their bill making the attorney general a party. He filed a cross bill, to which the
trustees demurred; the demurrer was sustained, and the amended and cross
bills were dismissed. Then an appeal was taken by the complainants and the
attorney general to the supreme court, and the subject of the relation of the
attorney general to trusts for public charities was argued at Ottawa. The court
refused to change its conclusions, and in April, 1883, the struggle to disturb the
disposition of the will at last came to an end. (99 IlHnois Reports, 11; 100
Illinois Reports, 484; 106 Illinois Reports, 584.) Mrs. Newberry died in
December, 1885, and the library endowment, greatly enhanced by the accumu-
lations during her lifetime, amounted then to nearly three millions of dollars.
Another case of public interest with which Mr. Isham was connected was
that relating to the mayoralty of the city of Chicago, when it became incor-
porated under the general law of the state, in April, 1875. At that time Harvey
D. Colvin was the mayor of the city, elected under the old charter. It was
claimed by his adherents that the new incorporation law operated to extend
his term of office nearly two years, until April, 1877. The matter was taken
in hand by the Citizens' Association, and application for a writ of mandamus,
directing the city council to call a special mayoral election, was made by Isham
and Lincoln in the supreme court, on the petition of Charles M. Henderson,
George Armour and Mark Skinner. The cause was argued in the supreme
court, in January, 1876, by Melville W. Fuller, the present chief justice of the
United States, and by Mr. Isham for the relators, and by Mr. Root and Judge
Corydon Bcckwith for the respondents. There being at the time one vacancy
in the bench, the court consisted of six judges and was equally divided upon
the question submitted, so that under the constitution the singular instance
occurred of a court unable to render any decision whatever in a cause which the
court declared "involved public interests of the gravest importance." Aftenvard
an election was held.
In 1883 ^^r- Isham argued before Judge AlcCreary, in the United States
circuit court, at Topcka, Kansas, the case of Benedict versus the St. Joseph &
Western Railroad Company, and procured the appointment of a receiver, by
which that road was taken from the Union Pacific Railroad Company and re-
organized. His firm was instrumental in procuring from Judge Gresham a
change of receivers for a portion of the Wabash, St. Louis & Pacific Railway
system east of the Mississippi river, and subsequently continued to be con-
nected with the widely discussed litigation to which that change was intro-
ductory.
In 1886, during the great railroad strike, at a time when the supineness and
inefficiency of the state authorities left the traffic of many railroads at the mercy
of the strikers, Mr. Isham, representing the Lake Shore road, secured the inter-
vention of the United States circuit court at Indianapolis, on the ground that
the commerce obstructed, being inter-state, was carried on in the exercise of a
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS, 393
right secured by the laws of the United States. A temporary injunction was
issued against the principal strikers, and the order asserted the jurisdiction
of the federal court and "signified a change from the local to the national author-
ity and law in the matter of dealing with obstructionists/*
Among other important cases which he has argued, some of which have
become leading cases upon the subjects involved, and some of which, in the
supreme court of the United States, have involved grave constitutional ques-
tions, may be specially noted: Brine versus Insurance Company (96 United
States, 627), with its connected case of Warner versus the Connecticut Mutual
Life Insurance Company (109 United States, 357) ; Pickard, Comptroller, versus
Pullman Southern Car Company (117 United States, 34); Rand versus Walker
(lb., 340) ; Pullman Palace Car Company versus Texas & Pacific Railroad Com-
pany (11 Federal Rep., 625); Union Trust Company versus Illinois Midland
Railway Company (117 United States, 434); Kingsbury versus Buckner (70
Illinois, 514); Central Transportation Company versus Pullman Palace Car
Company (139 United States, 24) ; Windett versus the Connecticut Mutual
Life Insurance Company (130 Illinois Reports, 621) ; Pullman's Palace Car Com-
pany versus Central Transportation Company, United States supreme court.
May 31, 1898 (not yet reported).
Almost from the time of its organization Mr. Isham has been a prominent
member of the Chicago Literary Club and has delivered many addresses before
that body on the occasions of its public receptions. He wrote an article on
the **Social and Economic Relations of Corporations'* in the Encyclopedia of
Political Science, and prepared an address read before the New York Historical
Society on "Frontenac and Miles Standish in the Northwest," and in November,
1898, delivered the annual address before the Vermont Historical Society, at
Montpelier. In 1893 he received the degree of LL. D. from Williams College.
In 1861 Mr. Isham was united in marriage to Miss Fannie, daughter of
Hon. Thomas Burch, of Little Falls, New York, and they became the
parents of two sons and two daughters. Mrs. Isham died February 9, 1894.
The elder son, Pierpont, was graduated in the United States Military Acad-
emy, at West Point, in 1887, served for a time in the Seventh Cavalry, at Fort
Riley, and afterward in the Third Cavalry, at San Antonio, Texas, and is now
the junior partner in the firm of Isham, Lincoln & Beale. The younger son,
Edward S., was graduated at Yale in 1891, and is now connected with commer-
cial interests.
John H. Hamline. — The specific and distinctive office of biography is not to
give voice to a man's modest estimate of himself and his accomplishments, but
rather to leave the perpetual record establishing his character by the consensus
of opinion on the part of his fellow men. That Mr. Hamline occupies a notable
position among the able lawyers of Illinois is shown by the many times his pro-
fessional associates have honored him with official preferment in their fraternal
organizations ; and that the public accords him prominence is demonstrated by the
liberal clientage which he now enjoys. It is therefore fitting that Mr. Hamline
be numbered among the leaders of the bench and bar of Illinois, that future
394 THE BENCH AND BAR OF H^LINOIS,
generations may know something of the part which he played in forming the
judicial history of the state.
He was born in Schenectady, New York, on the 23d of March, 1856, and
completed his literary education by his graduation at the Northwestern Uni-
versity, of Evanston, in 1875. He then entered the Columbia College Law
School, was graduated in 1877 ^^^ '" the same year was admitted to practice
by the supreme court of Illinois. In 1892 he was admitted to practice by the
United States supreme court, and during his professional career he has been in-
terested as counsel in some of the most important litigation that has been heard
in the courts of the state. With the long line of decisions from Marshall down,
by which the constitution has been expounded, he is familiar, as are all thor-
oughly skilled lawyers. He is at home in all departments of law, from the
minutiae in practice to the greater topics wherein is involved the consideration of
the ethics and philosophy of jurisprudence and the higher concerns of public
policy. He served as corporation counsel of the city of Evanston from 1880
until 1884, and was alderman from the third ward of Chicago from 1887 until
1889. He is a welcome addition to the membership of the Union League, Chi-
cago, University, Columbia, Chicago Literary, Sunset, Hamilton and Law
Clubs, and at different periods between 1890 and 1897 has served as president
of the Chicago Law Club, Chicago Law Institute, Chicago Bar Association, Illi-
nois State Bar Association and the Union League. While president of the Union
League Club he organized and directed the movement which secured the passage
of the civil-service reform act. While president of the State Bar Association
he secured the consolidation of the supreme court.
Such in brief is the history of one whose professional ability and sterling
w^orth have won him marked prestige in business and social circles.
Will H. Lyford is actively connected with a profession which has import-
ant bearings upon the progress and stable prosperity of any section or com-
munity, and one which has long been considered as enhancing the public wel-
fare by conserving the ends of justice. Since 1892 he has occupied the very
important and responsible position of general counsel for the Chicago & Eastern
Illinois Railroad Company, and ranks among the ablest attorneys at the Chicago
bar.
Mr. Lyford w^as born September 15, 1858, in Waterville, Maine, and is a
son of Oliver S. Lyford, vice-president of the Chicago & Eastern Illinois Rail-
road Company. He w^as educated in the public schools of Buffalo and Cleve-
land, and was graduated in the high school of the latter city in the class of 1879.
He then entered Colby University, of Waterville, Maine, where he w^as gp^ad-
uated in 1879. Immediately afterward he came to Chicago and entered the
railroad service as a civil engineer, becoming later chief clerk in the office of the
manager of the Chicago & Eastern Illinois Railroad. In 1882, through per-
sonal connection with an Important chancery suit, he became interested in the
study of law and entered the law department of the railroad company with
which he is now connected. In October, 1884, he was admitted to practice at
the bar of Illinois, and the following year was appointed assistant general
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS,
395
solicitor for the Chicago & Eastern Illinois Railroad Company. On the ist
of January, 1888, he was made general solicitor; and on the 15th of March, 1892,
became general counsel, which important position he has since filled. He has
made a close study of railroad law, one of the most important and intricate
departments of the science of jurisprudence, and has conducted some notable
litigation, his efforts being crowned with success for the corporation which he
represents. He never loses sight of any detail having bearing upon his case,
and at the same time he g^ves to the more prominent points due importance.
His knowledge of the law is exact, his preparation of a case painstaking, and
his power before judge and jury is acknowledged by all.
On the 28th of April, i886,' Mr. Lyford married Miss Mary McComas, of
Nebraska City, Nebraska. He is a member of the Chicago Club and the Chi-
cago Athletic Association, and in politics is a Republican. He is a man of very
modest manner, yet of pleasing personality, and his uniform courtesy and gen-
uine worth have made him a great favorite in social as well as professional circles.
CHAPTER XX.
THE JERSEY COUNTY BAR.
HE division of Greene county and the organization of all that part south
of the Macoupin creek into a new county called Jersey, on August 5,
1839, marked the beginning of the history of the Jersey county bar. Few
in number in those days were the local attorneys at the county-seats in nearly all
parts of the state, and those in Jerseyville, though few, made compensation for
their paucity of number by their great energy and ability.
The old structure destroyed by fire in the winter of 1884 w'as the first court-
house erected in Jersey county. In those days, when judges and lawyers rode
the circuit together, many prominent lawyers and eminent jurists of Illinois and
other states tried cases in that old-fashioned hall of justice. The names of
Lincoln, Oglesby, Palmer, Phillips, Burr, Brown, and many others of note be-
came familiar to the citizens through the associations of judge and jury, attorney
and client. The building up of the county as it is to-day, that is, in the titles of
real-estate and business interests generally, was guided and directed by those
early lawyers and the others who have followed them in the profession, and of
their careful and thorough work each day gives evidence. All the pioneers ot
the bar who practiced in Jersey county when the old court-house was new and
the comforts and elegance of the present modern structure w^ere unknown have
gone to try their last appeals before the court of infinite justice and mercy.
The first practicing attorney to locate within the bounds of what now con-
stitutes Jersey county was Martin B. Miner, who came to Jerseyville in 1840.
He was born in Addison county, \"ermont, March 22, 1805 : he was a descend-
ant of a Ilerrry Bullman, a miner, who, for a deed of loyalty, was renamed
Miner by King Edward III of England. His ancestors came to America in
T630. He read law with Herman Allen, M. C, of Burlington, Vermont, and was
admitted to practice in that state in 1834. In the autumn of 1836 he removed
to Illinois, locating first at Woodburn, later at Alton, and eventually at Jersey-
ville. where he died in (October, 1874.
The second attorney was C. H. Goodrich, who came to this county in an
early day from Harpersfield, New Jersey, where he was born in 1794. For eight
years he served as state's attorney of the first judicial circuit of Illinois, and was
one of the prominent lawyers of the state. He was eminently successful, and
figured in many of the important cases of those early days. He died in Jersey-
ville in March, 1868.
H. H. Howard was the third attorney to locate in this county. He was
first occupied here in teaching a private academic school, but later began the
practice of law. He formed a partnership with his nephew, A. L. Knapp, who
396
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS. 397
afterward became prominent in local and national affairs. At an early date, Mr.
Howard was editor of the Democratic Union, a newspaper of Jerseyville. About
the time of the civil war he moved to Kansas.
M. S. Littlefield located in Jersey county in i860, and continued in the prac-
tice of law for a comparatively brief period. He raised and became captain of
Company ¥, Fourteenth IlHnois Infantry, of which Senator John M. Palmer
was colonel. North Carolina became his home at the close of the war.
E. A. Pinero located in Jersey county and commenced the practice of law
in the '60s. He was successively associated in business with R. A. King, G. W.
Herdman and T. J. Selby in Jerseyville, and, later on, he and Mr. Selby removed
to Tecumseh, Nebraska, where they remained several years. Returning, Mr.
Pinero located in Hardin, Calhoun county, Illinois. During many years prior
to his death, he was a patient sufferer from a painful rheumatic ailment which
rendered him a well-nigh helpless invalid.
T. J. Selby was admitted to the bar in 1869, but did not engage in active
practice until the expiration of his term of office as county clerk, in 1878. The
firm of Pinero & Selby was then formed, as noted above. After returning from
Nebraska Mr. Selby located in Hardin, Illinois, where he now resides and holds
the office of state's attorney of Calhoun county. In Jersey county he was elected
to the office of sheriff, county clerk and mayor of Jersey\'ille, and for several
years was the editor of the Jersey County Democrat.
Anthony L. Knapp was born in Middletown, New York, June 14, 1828.
His father was a cultured physician who removed to Illinois with his family
while Anthony was still a child. As a boy he displayed a very studious turn of
mind, and spent much time with his books. Perhaps it was this studious tem-
perament which suggested his adopting the law as his profession, and later
events proved that his choice of a life work was a wise one. The habit of read-
ing which he formed in boyhood characterized his entire life, and through this
means he not only acquired a profound know^ledge of the law, but also gained
wide information in other directions.
In 1847 Mr. Knapp accepted a position as private secretary to Governor
French, and later he was elected a member of the Illinois senate, serving in the
twenty-first and twenty-second general assemblies. In 1861 he was sent to the
thirty-seventh congress to complete the term of General John A. McClernand,
who resigned to enter the army, and in 1863 he was elected congressman for a
full term. While in the senate and in congress Mr. Knapp, though still a very
young man, succeeded in impressing all with whom he came in contact with his
ability, and he then made friends who looked up to him and respected him to
the end of his life. His speeches in congress always showed a thorough ac-
quaintance with the subject under discussion and were fitting expressions of his
clear and logical mind.
Mr. Knapp was well fitted for statesmanship, but both his ambition and
taste suggested another field of endeavor to him, so that after the completion
of his second term in congress he returned to the practice of law, to which he
devoted his energies throughout the remainder of his life. Immediately after his
398 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
retirement from the council chambers of the nation, he removed from Jerseyville,
Illinois, which up to this time had been his home, and became a resident of
Chicago, but remained in the latter place only two years.
In 1867 Mr. Knapp located in Springfield, where he formed a partnership
for tlie practice of law with James C. Robinson and William E. Shutt, which
connection continued until his death, in 1881. During all that time the firm
had an extensive practice, which gave Mr. Knapp scope for all his leg^l abilities.
It was as a lawyer that he was most widely known, for in the pursuit of his pro-
fession all his abilities were brought into play in the most effective way. Nature
undoubtedly intended him for the law, and his tastes and talents eminently
fitted him for the brilliant position which he made for himself at the bar oi
Illinois. His knowledge of the law was accurate, comprehensive and scholarly.
His wide reading made him thoroughly familiar with legal authorities, and
he was so well grounded in the principles of jurisprudence that it became second
nature to him to apply them to all law problems that came within his notice.
In dealing with statutory law he was always able to reason out the steps by
which the common law had been modified, and the degree to which it had been
repealed. Yet, notwithstanding his profound knowledge of the law, Mr. Knapp
gave to each individual case the most painstaking study. He always under-
stood the minute details of a case entrusted to him and all the possible applica-
tions of the law to that particular case. His understanding of men and his
ability to analyze character were also important elements in his professional
success.
As a trial lawyer he was very successful. His perceptions were clear, and
his preparation of a case always removed any mistiness or uncertainty from his
own mind ; hence his speeches, whether before jury or court, were not burdened
with unnecessary intricacies, but were direct and forceful and w^ere expressed
in very simple and pure English. He had to be convinced that a cause was just
before he could give to it the benefit of all his forces, but when once he was
assured that justice was with the side he represented his logic w^as irresistible
and his tenacity of purpose so great that he carried the jury with him.
Mr. Knapp was in every sense a gentleman, and during the trying scenes
necessarily experienced in years of practice in the courts he never forgot to
render to the opposing counsel the most perfect courtesy, and when he found
it necessary to rebuke or criticise any one he did it with so much dignity and
gentleness that he gained his point without using unnecessary pain. Mr.
Knapp was never a politician in the modern sense of the term, yet he firmly
believed and upheld the principles of Democracy and always gave his allegiance
to that party. His good judgment and clear perceptions were held in such
high esteem by Democratic leaders, both state and national, that to the end of
his life they often came to him for advice.
Outside of his professional life he exhibited many rare qualities. He was a
man of unusual sympathy, and he showed his friends a generous and noble
nature. He did not care to have a very large circle of acquaintances, but in-
stead he attached himself to a few sympathetic souls, and it was his pleasure
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS. 399
to meet these often. While of a rather reserved temperament, to those nearest
to him his conversation showed broad culture and wide acquaintance with liter-
ature, and these attributes, added to the genial humor so characteristic of him.
greatly endeared him to those fortunate enough to call him friend. He was
a man of high ideals, and he lived up to them. "He passed, a soul of nobler
tone," leaving the world better for his having lived in it. Mr. Knapp died while
still in the prime of manhood. May 23, 1881. He left a widow and one son, who
now reside in Deposit, New York.
Robert M. Knapp, a brother df Anthony L. Knapp heretofore mentioned,
was born in New York city, April 21, 1831. He was educated in the common
schools of Kentucky and in the military institute of the same state. He came to
Jersey ville in 1851, began the study of law with his older brother, and was ad-
mitted to the bar in 1.855. He practiced law until his death, June 24, 1879.
Robert M. also was elected representative to the state legislature, in 1867, and
to the national congress in 1872 and 1876. He was mayor of Jersey ville during
the years 1871, 1872 and 1876. As a lawyer he held the first rank.
Robert A. King engaged in the practice of law in Jersey ville in 1867. He
entered into partnership with E. A. Pinero and G. W. Herdman, but was soon
obliged to withdraw from the firm on account of ill health. In 1869 he was
elected a member of the constitutional convention that formed our present con-
stitution, and one year later was elected representative in the legislature. In
1872 he was appointed county judge, a position he held by election until 1882,
when he took up his abode in California.
Benjamin F. Slaten was born in St. Clair county, Illinois, February 20, 1820.
When eight years of age he moved with his father to this county, where he re-
ceived his education in the common schools. In 1856 Mr. Slaten was admitted
to the bar. He was elected to the legislature in i860. In 1862 he enlisted into
the army as captain of Company K, Ninety-seventh Illinois Volunteers. In
1887 he was elected state's attorney of this county. At the expiration of his
term he retired from active practice and for several years has been living quietly
upon his farm.
George E. Warren was born in Ohio, August 16, 181 7. The following
year he moved with his parents to Rhode Island, where he remained until 1835,
when he graduated at Brown University. After graduating he came to Illinois
and settled in Greene county, where he studied law in the office of Woodson
& Hodges. He was admitted to the bar in 1839, practiced in his profession until
the spring of 1840, in Alton, when he moved to his farm in this county. In
1862 he opened a law office in Jerseyville, as the head of the firm of Warren &
Pogue, and continued in active practice until his death, in 1892. Mr. Warren
held various offices of honor and trust. In 1849 he was elected county judge
of Jersey county, which office he held for eight years. He was mayor of Jer-
seyville during the year 1875. In 1878 he represented his district in the legis-
lature of the state.
W. H. Pogue was born December 23, 1836, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania,
where he received a classical education. He came to Illinois in 1854, and in
400 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
1855 became a law student in the office of Edward Keating. In November,
1857, he was admitted to the bar and commenced the practice of his profession
in Alton, where he remained until 1862, when he removed to JerseyviUe. Here
he formed a partnership with his father-in-law, George E. Warren. In 1882
he withdrew from the firm to accept the position of county judge of Jersey
county. He was re-elected in 1886 and continued in the office until his death,
in 1887.
Orville A. Snedcker was born near JerseyviUe, June 11, 1848. His early
instruction was received in the home circle' and in the district school. He be-
came a student in Shurtleff College, at Alton, Illinois, and subsequently in Bryant
& Stratton's Business College at Chicago. Upon completion of his collegiate
course he entered upon the study of law in the office of Judge Robert A. King,
in JerseyviUe. and in 1870 was duly admitted to the bar. He at once became
actively engaged in the work of his profession, being for a number of years
in partnership with O. B. Hamilton ; but during the later period of his life his
attention was directed principally to real-estate law and to the control of his
extensive farming and other interests in this and adjacent counties.
In politics Mr. Snedeker was an ardent Republican. He was elected a
member of the legislature of his state in 1892 and again in 1894. He was the
author of the school-house flag bill, and was prominently active in procuring
the state appropriation for the Lovejoy monument at Alton, erected for the
commemoration of an important event in the history of the state. In the
strength and vigor of his manhood he was overtaken with an incurable malady,
to which he succumbed September 4, 1897. In his associations with the bar of
his county, as well as with all others, his kindly interest in the affairs of men
and his great public spirit endeared him to all that shared his genial fellowship.
Joseph S. Carr was born in St. Charles, Missouri, in 1832. His early edu-
cation was received in the common schools of St. Charles. His schooling was
completed at the old St. Charles College, in which he graduated. He was
licensed to practice law in the state of Missouri. At the outbreak of the civil
war he entered the Confederate army and served under General Price as colonel
of a Missouri regiment. In the year 1869 he located at Kane, Greene county,
Illinois, where he continued the practice of law. In 1881 he was elected to
represent his district in the state legislature, where he served two terms. In
1883 he removed to JerseyviUe, where he remained until his death, February 26,
1896. In politics Mr. Carr was an earnest Democrat. As a lawyer he was
prominent, having won distinction in the celebrated Neely will case, which was
twice carried to the supreme court. He was a close student of law and depended
entirely upon this profession for his livelihood, even in his declining years.
In connection with the Jersey county bar, brief mention may be made of
W. K. Titcomb, a member in 1846; of John W. Merrill, who for a short time was
a partner of Judge King ; of William P. Chesnut, who died in JerseyviUe, after a
brief residence in the city ; of John W. Slaten, who practiced a few years about
the close of the war ; of W. L. Ames, for a short time a member of the firm
of Warren, Pogue & Ames; of H. N. Wyckoflf, now engaged in mercantile pur-
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS. 401
suits in his native town; also of M. R. Locke, William Jackson and James F.
Greathouse. These gentlemen were all duly admitted to practice, but were not
long associated with the bar of this county.
George W. Herdman was born in Rockland county, New York, March 6,
1839. In 1854 he moved with his father to this county, where he assisted on the
farm until he was twenty-four years of age, when he entered the law office of Judge
S. M. Woodson, of Carrollton, where he remained for two years. He graduated
at the Louisville Law School in the spring of 1867 and immediately opened an
office in Jerseyville. Soon afterward he became a partner in the firm known as
King, Pinero & Herdman, and later in that of Knapp & Herdman, which latter
association terminated in the election of R. M. Knapp to congress. Mr. Herdman
practiced alone until his election to the office of circuit judge in 1882, to which
office he was twice re-elected. In 1870 Judge Herdman was elected as repre-
sentative to the legislature, and in 1876 to the state senate. His repeated elec-
tions to the various important offices of county and state, held in consequence of
the suffrage of the people, show fully their estimate of his ability and fitness for
the several positions to which they have called him. It may truthfully be said,
without charge of flattering, that no judge ever sat upon the bench in this
county who was more thoughtful, honest and unprejudiced in his rulings and
decisions ; nor one who had a higher appreciation of the importance and dignity
of the offices he so honorably and acceptably filled. He justly merits the con-
fidence and esteem of the citizens of his county.
A. M. Slaten was born in this county August 28, 1842, and was educated
in the common schools of the county and McKendree College, at Lebanon,
Illinois. The early part of his life he was engaged in mercantile pursuits. He
studied law, and was admitted to the bar in 1876 and located in Jerseyville, where
he has continued in the active practice of his profession. In 1890 he was elected
county judge and was twice re-elected to the same office, which he now holds.
Mr. Slaten has won the admiration of the citizens of Jersey county, regardless
of party politics, for his honest and upright dealings with them.
Theodore S. Chapman, born at Becket, Berkshire county, Massachusetts,
March 31, 1849, removed with his parents to the vicinity of Rockford, Illinois,
in 1854, where his father, Theodore Chapman, died in March, 1855. Later on
his mother became a Baptist missionary to Burmah, India.
The subject of this sketch attended the common school in Winnebago county
until twelve years of age, and then attended the high school and Madison Uni-
versity (now Colgate) at Hamilton, New York. At eighteen he came to La
Porte county, Indiana, and taught district school two years; then to Jersey
county, teaching district school one year ; then elected principal of the Hamilton
School, at Otterville, in the same county. He studied law while teaching school,
and was admitted to the bar, on examination before the supreme court, January
14, 1874. He commenced practice in Jerseyville, and occupied for twenty-five
years the office in which he began.
Mr. Chapman was elected minority representative to the house of repre-
sentatives in this state in 1882, for the district composed of Jersey, Greene and
26
402 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
Scott counties, and took part, being on the "steering committee," in the memor-
able contest for election of United States senator that began on January i8, 1885,
and ended June 19th, in the election of Hon. John A. Logan, by vote of "103."
He was elected to the state senate from the same district in 1884, serving four
years, being the only Republican ever representing the district in the state
senate ; he also served as president pro tem. of the same body in the years 1888
and 1889. He was attorney in the suit brought to make effective the provision
of the will of George Washington, a liberated slave, which resulted in the organ-
ization, under the supervision of the court of chancery, of the board of trustees
of the George Washington Educational Fund. He was elected first secretary
and treasurer of the board, and has been president of same since 1890. The
fund, under a plan presented by him, now amounts to some nineteen thousand
dollars, which for years has sustained, free of all expense, at Fisk University
from three to six beneficiaries, selected from colored residents of the state.
Adams A. Goodrich, one of the noted lawyers of Illinois, is a native of
Jersey county, his birth being recorded in the year 1849. He was educated in
the graded schools of Jerseyville and at the Military Academy at West Point.
After studying with his uncles and receiving his credentials in 1873, he began the
law practice which has been constantly attended with brilliant success. He was
twice elected state's attorney of this county and once to the office of county judge.
At the termination of his official service, desirous of a broader field of action,
he removed to Chicago, where he is now at the head of one of the leading and
successful kw firms of that city. Judge Goodrich stands high in the many
fraternal orders of which he is an honored member.
Oscar B. Hamilton was born in Greene county, Illinois, January 31, 1839.
The earlier years of his life were devoted to mercantile pursuits. He attended
the St. Louis Law School in 1869-70 and was admitted to the bar in the latter
year. He has been actively engaged in the practice of law since that time,
and is now the senior member of the law firm of Hamilton & Hamilton.
Edward J. Vaughn's early days were spent on a farm in the eastern part d
this county, wliere he was born January 5, 1870. His elementary education was
begun in the local district school, where he was prepared for the Jerseyville
high school, in which he graduated in 1888. His law course was directed by
T. S. Chapman and resulted in his admission to the bar in 1891. With Mr.
Chapman he formed a law partnership in 1894, which was terminated two years
later, when Mr. Vauglin resumed his individual practice. Without opposition,
he received the nomination for the office of state's attorney in 1896, but on the
adoption of the Chicago platform withdrew from the candidacy on the Demo-
cratic ticket and became an active supporter of the gold-standard Democracy.
He has been twice elected member of the school board and has served one term
as city attorney, his election to this office occurring in 1895.
Mr. Vaughn's prudence in legal affairs and his accomplished oratory have
enlisted his services in much important litigation; in this connection may be
mentioned the recent John G. Schwartz will contest, which terminated favorably
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS. 403
to his clients, the heirs at law. He is a Royal-Arch Mason, an Odd Fellow and a
Modem Woodman.
Thomas F. Ferns was born in the city of Jerseyville, July 27, 1862. He
was educated in the common schools of said city and graduated in the high
school May 16, 1882. He entered the office of A. A. Goodrich in the fall of
1882, for the study of law. In October, 1883, he entered the St. Louis Law
School, where he graduated May 10, 1885. Prior to his graduation at said
law school he was admitted to practice by the supreme court of Missouri, and
afterward, on March 20, 1885, was admitted to practice law by the supreme
court of Illinois. He was elected city attorney of Jerse)rville for three successive
terms, holding the office from 1885 to 1891. He was elected to the Illinois
general assembly three successive sessions, — from 1891 to 1895, inclusive. He
was admitted to practice in the supreme court of the United States on December
I9> 1895. In addition to his extensive law business Mr. Ferns is engaged in
farming and the raising of cattle.
O. D. Leach was born in St. Clair county, Illinois, October 4, i860. He
was educated in the schools of Jerseyville, in which he graduated in 1880. He
taught school for six years following his graduation, at Otterville and Grafton,
and was principal at each place. He was county superintendent of schools from
1886 to 1890. He studied law under Hamilton & Slaten and was admitted to
the bar in 1890. He formed a partnership with O. B. Hamilton, which firm
continued until 1893, since which time Mr. Leach has practiced law alone.
H. W. Pogue was born March 17, 1863, in this county. He graduated in
the Jerseyville high school in 1882. He began the study of law with Warren
& Pogue in the fall of 1882 and was admitted to the bar, at Mount Vernon, Illi-
nois, in the spring of 1886. Mr. Pogue was elected state's attorney, to fill
vacancy, in September, 1887, and was re-elected in 1888 and 1892.
Charles S. White's earlier years were spent on a farm in the vicinity of
Jersejrville. After sufficient preparation in the district school he entered the
city high school, where he graduated in 1886. He entered upon the study of
law under the direction of Chapman & Vaughn, in 1893, and was admitted to the
bar two years later. Since opening a law office in Jerseyville, in 1896, Mr.
White's entire time has been devoted to the constantly increasing business en-
trusted to his care. His birth occurred December 10, 1868.
George F. Lane, a resident of Elsah, Illinois, was educated at McKendree
CoIIeg^e, and in 1874 became a student of law in the office of H. H. Horner, a
real-estate lawyer of Lebanon, Illinois. After his admission to the bar he
established a law office at Elsah, in 1879, where he has since devoted his energies
to the law and real-estate business.
George M. Seago was born on a farm eight miles northwest of Jerseyville,
August 21, 1870. He entered the Jerseyville high school in the fall of 1887,
and gfraduated in that institution in 1891. After teaching two terms of school in
Jersey county he began the study of law and was admitted to the bar at Mount
Vernon, Illinois, November, 1894. Mr. Seago is the present secretary of the
Jerseyville Building, Loan & Homestead Association.
404 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
Martin J. Dolan came directly to this county from the home of his child-
hood, at Tourmakeady, Ireland, where he was bom May 12, 1871. Reaching
America, alone, at the age of twelve, he fitted himself for entrance into the Jer-
seyville high school, in which his general education was obtained. He began
the study of law with T. F. Ferns, of Jerseyville, and later entered the St. Louts
Law School, where he was graduated in 1893. He was admitted to practice
in June of the same year, and immediately became an active member of the
profession in Jerseyville. Mr. Dolan was elected to the office of state's attorney
of this county November 5, 1896, on the Democratic ticket.
Paul M. Hamilton, one of the younger members of the Jersej'ville bar, was
born December 18, 1872. He received his early education in the public schools
of this county. The study of law was begun with his father. O. B. Hamilton,
and was completed at the St. Louis Law School. Admitted to the bar in 1895,
he at once formed a copartnership with his father, and is at present the junior
member of the firm of Hamilton & Hamilton.
Eugene Hale was born in Greene county, Illinois, August 15, 1864. He
lived on a farm and attended the common schools of his native county until
1884, when he became a tinner's apprentice at Carrollton, Illinois. He began
the study of law under the direction of James R. Ward, of same city, and later
studied with Joseph S. Carr. mentioned above. He was admitted to the bar
in November, 1895. Mr. Hale was a delegate to the Republican state convention
in 1894; was elected city attorney of Jerseyville in April, 1897; was nominated by
Republicans for the office of county judge in 1898, but declined the nomination.
Charles N. Noble was reared on a farm in the southern part of the county,
where he was born in the year 1869. He attended the Jerseyville high school,
where he" graduated in the spring of 1892. During the summer of 1891 he
studied law in the office of Judge A. M. Slaten. He attended the Northwestern
University Law School, in Chicago, for one year, and in February, 1894, he was
admitted to the practice of law in this state.
F. M. Edwards, born in Delhi, Illinois, August 25, 1873, completed a four-
years course of study in Shurtleff College, in 1892, and in the following year
entered the Gem City Business College, in which he was graduated in 1894.
His law education was begun with the firm of Hamilton & Hamilton, of Jer-
seyville, and completed in the law school of Washington University. He was
admitted to the bar in 1897. Mr. Edwards is located in his native town.
H. P. Noble was reared near Grafton, Illinois, where he was bom August
S, 1873. After graduating in the Jerseyville high school, in 1894, he entered
upon the study of law in the office of C. N. Noble. He was admitted to the
bar in 1896 and immediately thereafter opened an office in Jerseyville, where he
is at present engaged in his profession.
J. J. Hughes received his education in the public schools of Jerseyville,
Jones Commercial College, Northwestern University Law School, and Kent
College of Law. At the completion of this extensive preparation he was ad-
mitted to practice, in March, 1895. Mr. Hughes was born in Jersey county, in
October, 1871.
CHAPTER XXL
THE BENCH AND BAR OF EFFINGHAM COUNTY.
CONTRIBUTED BY BBNSON WOOD.
EFFINGHAM COUNTY was organized in 1831. Its county seat, located
where the Cumberland road crossed the Little Wabash river^ was named
Ewington, in honor of Hon. W. L. D. Ewing. Hon. Theophilus W.
Smith, associate justice of the supreme court, presided at the first term of the
circuit court. May 20, 1833. Hon. Thomas Ford, afterwards governor, was the
judge at the May term, 1835. From that time until 1843 ^^^ court was held by
Hon. Sidney Breese, who, upon his election to the senate of the United States,
was succeeded by Hon. James Semple.
At the October term^ 1840, James Shields made his appearance. Court
opened the 19th day of the month. Shields was appointed by Judge Breese at-
torney-general pro tern., on the 20th, and prosecuted a state case. On the 21st
he filed his petition for naturalization, stating his birth in Tyrone county, Ireland,
on May 17, "about 1810." He was admitted to citizenship the same day on his
first papers, having declared, in his petition, that he came to the United States
more than three years before attaining his majority. The advancement of Gen-
eral Shields, as all know, was somewhat rapid. If I mistake not, he had already
served a term or two as a member of the general assembly. He was auditor of
public accounts the following year. In less than three years he was one of the
associate justices of the supreme court, and in March, 1844, came back to Ewing-
ton and presided over the court that had naturalized him less than three and
one-half years before. The record of his naturalization fails to show that he had
any witnesses. The original papers are not to be found. Probably they went as
evidence to the United States senate to which he had been elected for the term
beginning March 4, 1849. He was denied a seat in that body, not having been
a citizen for nine years prior to his election. A special session of the legislature
was, however, called after he became eligible. He was again elected and took his
seat, succeeding Judge Breese. While this is not the place to give a history of
General Shields' remarkable career, it might not be amiss in this connection to
say that his wonderful luck did not desert him. He was brigadier-general in the
Mexican war, and was desperately wounded at Cerro Gordo. His brilliant mili-
tary record made him United States senator from Illinois. He afterward re-
moved to Minnesota, and then to Missouri, and represented both those states in
the United States senate. Besides, he was a brigadier-general in the war of the
rebellion.
Hon. Gustavus Koerner, associate justice, held the court from 1845 ^o 1849;
40s
4o6 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
then came Hon. W. H. Underwood, circuit judge, who was followed by Hon.
Justin Harlan in 1851, and he by Hon. Charles Emerson in 1853. Judge Emer-
son held the court for ten years, and seems to have been the most highly regarded
by the people and the bar, according to reports of "old settlers." By a change in
circuits, Hon. Charles H. Constable, an able lawyer and elegant gentleman of the
*'old school," presided from 1863 to October, 1865. He died at Effingham while
holding a term of court.
The foregoing covers briefly the war and ante-war history of the bench in
Effingham county. All of these judges were prominent characters in the history
of the state; all were men of marked ability and purity of character.
The attorneys for the state who appeared during this period were: Wickliff
Kitchell, attorney-general, and State's Attorneys W. H. Underwood, Phillip B.
Fouke, Alfred Kitchell and John R. Eden. Underwood was afterw-ard circuit
judge, and Fouke and Eden members of congress.
The greater number of the members of the bar who tried cases at old Ewing-
ton were from other counties, and *'rode the circuit" with the judge. Levi Davis,
Ferris Forman, Elam Rust, Anthony Thornton, Samuel W. Moulton, M. C.
McLain^ John P. St. John, Tevis Greathouse, Josiah Fisk and Arthur J. Galla-
gher were some of the more prominent. Thornton and Moulton have both served
in congress. Forman was colonel of an Illinois regiment in the Mexican war.
Thornton was also judge of the supreme court, and Gallagher was, for a term, an
able and upright circuit judge. St. John was twdce governor of Kansas.
Eli Philbrook, Kendall H. Burford, William B. Cooper, Henry D. Caldwell,
Benjamin F. Kagay, Henry B. Kepley and Wesley Watson were local attorneys
during portions of the same period, residing at Ewington or, after the removal of
the county seat, in 1862, at Effingham. Philbrook, Burford, Watson and Cooper are
long since dead. Cooper was a Massachusetts Yankee and was one of the most bril-
liant lawyers of southern Illinois. He was major of the Ninety-eighth IlHnois
Infantry in the war of the Rebellion. Caldwell was a captain in the Fifth Illinois
Cavalry. Watson was a sergeant in the Twenty-sixth Illinois Infantry. Kag^y
has served as a member of the general assembly and as mayor of the city of
Effingham. Kepley is high up in the councils of the Prohibition party, of which
he is an active and influential member. Both Kagay and Kepley are still active
practitioners at the bar.
During the first thirty years following the organization of the circuit court
there was but twice a failure to transact business at any of the terms. The April
term in 1836 was opened and immediately adjourned for the term by Judge
Breese, on account of ''absence of jurors, by reason of high water, and indispo-
sition of the judge." There is a tradition that at the May term, 1840, the judge,
attended by the attorney-general and the goodly company of lawyers that rode
the circuit with him, put in their appearance the afternoon of the second day.
The gentlemen did not dismount, but sat upon their horses in front of the court-
house. The clerk, sheriff and jurors came out to greet them, and the judge, still
sitting upon his horse, opened court then and there. The g^and jury was selected
and sworn, when the clerk reported no cases on the docket to try, and the fore-
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS. 407
man reported no business before the grand jury. The judge adjourned "till court
in course," and the procession proceeded along the old Cumberland road to
Greenup^ the place of holding the next court. The time spent was less than
ten minutes. There is a slight corroboration of this tradition. There is no rec-
ord whatever of any spring term of court in 1840.
One of the earlier clerks of the circuit court was Hon. W. H. Blakely. He
was appointed by Judge Breese in 1835 and served some twelve years, when
he was elected a member of the constitutional convention of 1848. He was a New
Yorker by birth and a man of intelligence and fine judgment. His records are
models of neatness, accuracy, legibility and correct orthography. He was twice a
member of the general assembly, — in 185 1, and again in 1873. He died in 1878.
Some of the clerks were wont to spell words quite differently from the way
of Walker and Webster. There is a record of an indictment for "purgery."
Whether the offence consisted of ''swearing lies," or was a species of malprac-
tice will perhaps never be known in the absence of the original papers.
According to the accounts of the pioneers of those early days, there was very
little money in circulation, and less need of any than is now the case. Lawyers'
fees were low and were paid mostly in produce and live stock. The successful
practitioner, financially, was the lawyer who could best collect, handle and dis-
pose of this kind of pay. McLain was said to have possessed good ability in
this line. While he was living at Lawrenceville tradition declares that he reached
home from a trip on the circuit the 4th day of July, and found an heir had been
born to him that morning. He was greatly elated. He entertained his
friends at the "grocery." He filled a hollow log with powder and fired
it, blowing off the corner of a church building on the next lot. He then opened
gates and let down bars, turning loose all of his live-stock, of which he had a
large number — a stallion and two Durham bulls among the rest. He told his
hired man to quit work. He declared that every person and animal about him
should have liberty that day in honor of the event, and the next day went among
his neighbors and satisfied all damages done. He named the new-comer "Lib-
erty McLain." He died not long since at Indianapolis, where the son, an hon-
ored citizen, resides.
After the war law business greatly increased, and with it there was a larger
number of judges. From 1865 to 1873 Hiram B. Decius^ of Cumberland county,
was circuit judge. He had great success, and no one who has presided over the
circuit court, before or since, has had a larger number of judgments affirmed by
the supreme court. James C. Allen succeeded him in 1873. Judge Allen had
served three terms in congress, one term as clerk of the national house of rep-
resentatives, had been a member of the constitutional convention of 1870, and
also a member of the general assembly. In 1877 John H. Halley was elected an
additional circuit judge, and Allen went upon the bench of the appellate court,
where he remained for two years. He has since served a term as postmaster at
Olney, where he lives. He is still a practitioner. Judge Halley was a Virginian
by birth. Before the war he was a member of the Missouri legislature. He was a
4o8 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
lieutenant-colonel in the Confederate army, — a bluff Virginia gentleman of the
old type, a man of strict integrity and no small ability.
Since 1879 the circuit judges have been C. S. Conger, Thomas S. Casey,
William C. Jones, Carrol C. Boggs, Silas Z. Landes and E. D. Youngblood. The
present judges are Samuel L. D wight, William M. Farmer and Truman E. Ames.
Judge Landes has twice represented his district in congress. Judge Boggs is now
a member of the supreme court. Judge Casey, who died some years ago, was a
member of the state senate and was colonel of the One Hundred and Tenth Illi-
nois Infantry in the late war. Judge Dwight was captain in one of the Illinois
regiments.
For several years after the war John Scholfield and O. B. Ficklin were
regular attendants upon the sessions of the circuit court. Ficklin had been a
member of congress from 1843 to 1849, 2tnd again from 185 1 to 1853. Scholfield
served as state's attorney and member of the legislature, one term each. He was
a member of the constitutional convention of 1870, and died in office, after a
service of twenty years on the bench of the supreme court. Illinois never had
an abler lawyer or more upright judge than John Scholfield.
Foreign attorneys have traveled the circuit very little since 1865. Among
those who occasionally attended the courts were George R. Wendling, James
A. Connolly, Thomas Brewer, James C. Robinson, George W. Wall, Thomas J.
Golden, Richard W. Thompson, Horace S. Clark and Jacob W. Wilkin. All
these have filled places of distinction.
The members of the local bar in addition to those before named have been
Benson Wood, Sylvester F. Gilmore, N. P. Robinson, William H. Gilmore,
S. E. Pearson, W. H. Barlow, W. B. Wright, Virgil Wood, R. C. Harrah, E. N.
Rinehart, A. W. Lecrone, D. L. Wright, F. W. Loy, H. S. Parker, W. S. Holmes,
G. F. Taylor, B. Overbeck, A. S. Loy, C. H. Kelly, T. E. Gilmore and Jacob
Zimmerman. Benson Wood, A. W. Lecrone and W. H. Barlow served in the
late war, having each the rank of captain. S. F. Gilmore was a non-commissioned
officer. Robinson was a member of the legislature. He has been dead a num-
ber of years. W. H. Gilmore, Barlow, Lecrone and Pearson have also died. S.
F. Gilmore and W. B. Wright have held the office of judge of the county court.
Harrah, W. H. Gilmore and Zimmerman have been state's attorney. Rinehart
has twice served in the state senate. Benson Wood has been a member of the
legislature and has also represented the district in congress.
With the passing of the foreign attorney who traveled the circuit there has
been a lack of amusing incidents and the good fellowship that characterized the
courts of former years. There has been more work at night in law offices, and less
talk and hilarity at hotels. But some good things have occurred in court well
worth preserving. Judge Hooks, of the county court, at the close of the evidence
in a long-spun-out trial limited the attorneys to ten minutes, and the jury to fifteen
minutes in which to make their verdict. Under that admonition the jury came
into the court-room with their verdict promptly on time. Judge Parks, of the
same court, made much use of the word "disperse." If the attorneys got to
wrangling he would bid them to "go on and disperse with the case." If they
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
were *'pollyfoxing" for delay he would tell them that "the case mi
persed." He onjce declared that he knew his judgment was rights be(
lawyers on both sides were mad." A German juror who was being
touching his understanding of the English language, replied that he "k
vat the vitness say, but not much vat the lawyer say." Judge Hool<
thetically remarked that "The court often labors under the same diffici
ruled that the juror was entirely competent. At the first fall term of t
court held by Judge Decius, "Uncle John" and two others rose in
to the inquiry whether any member of the jury had any excuse to offe;
should not serve. One pleaded sickness of himself; another sickne;
family. When Uncle John was asked to state his excuse, he said: "Jedg
stay. I haint gathered my hickor>' nuts yit, and the woods are full c
Ficklin, who was present, volunteered in Uncle John*s behalf, and insij
it was a valid excuse^ and the court discharged him. Indeed, the repul
the judge for fairness and justice would have greatly suffered, in the es
of the audience, had he done otherwise.
If this were a history of the bench and bar of Effingham county ;
would not be complete without something concerning justices of the pe<
the practice before them. But the state would hardly have room to con
books, if all these good things were written. Changes of venue in the eai
were very frequent, and each party was allowed one, and that after he ha(
the "Court" on some motion decisive of the case, and it had been decided
him. The rule quite generally prevailed, and to some extent does yet, of d
the case in favor of the party who brought it to the justice by the change of
With some justices, "costs" were the principal thing.^aw and evidence,
cidents. The party who was "good for costs" hardly had a fair show, unl
opponent was equally good. In all matters of misdemeanor over which j
had jurisdiction, "three dollars and costs" was the regular portion of th
doer who was found guilty, no matter how aggravated the offence was. In
instances, one, and even two justices were invited to sit in the trial of civil
with the justice before whom the suit was brought.
But some, yes, many, of these old justices of the peace were men of fine
and strong character. John Broom, George M. Sharp and Samuel Fortne>
long in office, and their decisions would have been a credit to any circuit <
All have passed away, — the last named but quite recently. Fortney was ai
fashioned Democrat of the "states-rights" school, — a believer in the "resolt
of '98." He was orderly sergeant of Captain Lee's company of the Fourth ]
ment of Illinois Volunteers in the Mexican war, and, it is said, learned to
and write while filling that position. He was strictly honest and
and was a most excellent officer and citizen. Before the war
officially declared to be ended, he held that that part of the fe(
law which made an unstamped instrument inadmissible as evidence i
state court was unconstitutional, — not in just that language, however,
said : "Congress nor nobody else has any business to say what kind of evid*
goes into my court." At the same time he informed the party who had put f
410 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
the document that he lia<l "Iain himself liable" to severe penalty, at the hands of
the I'nitcd States courts, by his faihire to put on the requisite stamp. This doc-
trine, put forth in this homely way, was afterward held good by the supreme court
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THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS. 411
justice and not to enshroud the cause in a sentimental garb or illusion wKich would
thwart the principles of right and equity involved.
Mr. White was married August 25, 1875, to Miss Nellie J. Bliss, daughter of
Rev. A. Bliss, a pioneer minister of the Methodist Episcopal church, and for many
years a member of the Southern Illinois conference. Their children are: Mary
and Nellie K., deceased; Bliss C, Annie and John B. Mr. White was a promi-
nent Mason in Effingham Lodge and was recognized as one of the leading Repub-
lican workers, his eloquent and convincing oratory proving an important factor
in many of the state campaigns. In 1888, however^ his views differing from those
of the party, he allied his forces with the Democracy, and in writing of this a
local paper said: "Mr. White has evidently studied the one great issue deeply
and thought of it profoundly. In the acquisition of so gifted a man as John C.
White the Democracy is to be congratulated. He is no demagogue ; he has not
changed through the promise or hope of office; he is thoroughly conscientious
and thoroughly in earnest. He will make his appeal to the higher aims and the
nobler purposes of the people and will sow seed that will grow for all time."
Mr. White died at his home in Effingham December 12, 1888, and perhaps
we cannot better give an estimate of his professional and personal worth than
to add to this record letters that were written to Mrs. White on his death and
resolutions passed by the bar. The latter read as follows:
Whereas, It has pleased Divine Providence to summon John C. White, an honored
member of the Effingham county bar, from the scenes of earthly tribunals to a court where
equal and exact justice is meted out to all, seasoned with mercy; and
Whereas, He has been a true counselor to his clients, a successful advocate of their
causes in our courts, and a hard and laborious student at law for the sake of right, always
a friend of the court, courteous to his brethren in the profession, just to opposing counsel
and litigants in the trial of causes, respected by all, esteemed by the profession as a lawyer
of great attainments who loved his profession because it aided the cause of justice; a good
citizen, discharging every obligation and every trust with fidelity; a kind and indulgent
husband and father; therefore be it
Resolved, That in his death the bar of this county has lost one of its most able and
honored members, our city and county one of its most useful and valuable citizens, his
family a loving husband and father, and that we tender to his bereaved wife and children
our sympathy and mourn with them, in this their darkest hour of affliction.
R. C. HARRAH, )
B. WOOD, [• Committee.
S. F. GILMORE. )
From T. R. Burch, general agent of the Phoenix Insurance Company, came
the following letter:
Mrs. John C. White, Chicago, December 20, 1888.
Dear Madam: The painful though not unexpected intelligence
has been received of the death of your husband, and we desire to express to you our
sincere sympathy on this occasion of your sorrow. We have known Mr. White for sev-
eral years and have learned to value him very highly, both as a gentleman and as a
business man. His connection with the legal department of this company has given us
great satisfaction. His gentlemanly deportment and clear insight concerning the equities
and the law involved in propositions that were submitted for his consideration had im-
412 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
pressed us with his great superiority as a lawyer and as a just and humane man. We
cannot recall the loss of any one whom we more deeply regret so far as our own affairs
may be affected. We know his loss to you is infinitely greater. In his relations as hus-
band and possibly as father, we can imagine that he possessed many qualities that en-
deared him to you and to the community of which he was a part.
At the time of your recent visit to our office, while no mention was made of the fact,
we felt that he held to life's tenure by a weak hand, and that possibly we should not see
him again. Of course it is a common thing for our friends and our associates to drop out
of the line in which we are accustomed to walk. Nothing is more common than death,
and perhaps there is nothing that we should regard with greater favor. We who have
traveled along in the hard and dusty roads of life, receiving but little for our labor and
our pains save vexation and disappointment, do not prize too highly the gift and we have
come to doubt whether life or death is the greater boon. The loss is to you, we are as-
sured, and not to your husband. He had lived to learn in life's difficult school the vanity
and worthlessncss of those things for which men chiefly strive. He had seen that wealth
and ambition are not worth the labor they cost. But one thing he has proven of ad-
vantage. We refer to growth of character. He had obtained the full stature of a noble
and fully developed man, morally and intellectually. He had acquired that wealth and
those prizes that suffer no detraction, no depreciation submitted to any standards of value,
whether here or hereafter. What he has gained in those particulars have added to the
permanent value of his soul and will follow him in any life to which he may be bom.
You will find much comfort in the recollection, that you have been associated in life and
enjoyed the opportunities of so close a communion with so good a character and so noble
a type of a gentleman.
Yours with great respect,
T. R, BURCH.
Dr. B. F. Wise, state agent of the Phoenix Insurance Company, wrote of
Mr. White: *'He was one of the brightest men I have ever known, and a highly
accomplished and genial gentleman, thoroughly a master of his profession. We
will find no more John C. Whites for a long time to come; in fact, I believe he
had no superior in Illinois and very few equals." Such words well indicate the
life of Mr. White. He was a man of very strong character, fearless in defense of
what he believed to be right, and his influence was a potent factor for good in
the community. His record forms a part of the history of southern lUinois and his
memory remains as a welcome benediction to all who knew him.
Ferdinand W. Loy was born March lo, 1859, in Effingham county, Illinois.
His parents, Thomas M. and Susanna (Wright) Loy, have long since departed
this life. His father came to this county in 1832, emigrating from the state of
Alabama, and aided in organizing Effingham county. He filled a number of
offices in the county; was the first probate judge of this county; was county sur-
veyor, county clerk, and represented this and Fayette county in the legislature at
an early day. His wife also was an early settler, coming from the state of New
Jersey. Her people were Quakers.
The subject of this sketch attended the common schools of this county,
taught three terms of school and read law in vacation. He afterward attended
the normal school at Valparaiso, Indiana, for one year, and then determined to
complete his law course. He secured the position of principal in said school, and
in this way he earned his expenses while taking the course in the law department
of that institution, graduating in 1881. He was afterward admitted, by the su-
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS, 413
preme court, to practice in Indiana and Illinois. He is a self-educated and self-
made man in every sense of the word, having depended upon his own exertions
from his youth, and in a business way he has been successful.
Hon. Benjamin F. Kagay has been identified with the legal profession for
forty-three years, and is the oldest practicing lawyer in Effingham. His ambition
and earnest purpose in early life soon enabled him to attain to a leading position
among the successful practitioners, and he has ever maintained a place of dis-
tinctive preferment among those who have devoted their energies to the law in
southern Illinois. He has won for himself very favorable criticism for the careful
and systematic methods which he has followed. He has remarkable powers of
concentration and application, and his retentive mind has often excited the sur-
prise and admiration of his colleagues.
Mr. Kagay was born in Fairfield county, Ohio, February 27, 1831, and is
a son of A. B. and Sarah (Hall) Kagay. His mother was of Scotch-Irish extrac-
tion and the fafher was directly of German descent, but his ancestry could be
traced back to Switzerland, whence originated the family that has now numerous
branches in America. In 171 5 John Kagay, emigrating to this country, located
in Pennsylvania, and afterward removed to the Shenandoah valley. He had three
sons, one of whom became a resident of the Shenandoah valley, while the second
remained in Pennsylvania, and the third emigrated to Canada. Among the chil-
dren of the latter was a son who engaged in the John Brown raid at Harper's
Ferry, and was killed near that place. There have been four emigrations of the
Kagay family to this country, the first being John Kagay in 1715, the second
Johormes Kagay in 1739, the third Rudolph Kagay in 1764, and the fourth Simon
Kagay in 1818. In Switzerland the family name is spelled Kagi, but in America
it has various spellings, including Keagy, Kagy, Kagay, Kagey and Cagy. How-
ever, the ancestry, can all be traced to a common source.
Benjamin F. Kagay of this review acquired his elementary education in the
schools of Findlay, Ohio, in which town his father had located in 1832. In 1841
the latter removed with his family to Ewington, Effingham county, Illinois, where
he engaged in the saddlery and harness business, and in 1843 he was elected
county clerk. Educational privileges in the town were very meager. A strolling
school-teacher would usually be employed to take charge of the school during
the three-months winter term, and such schools Mr. Kagay attended. Writing
and singing masters would also organize classes, likewise a teacher of geography,
and through such means, by diligent study, Mr. Kagay fitted himself for the pro-
fession of teaching. He was employed to take charge of a school in the **lost
township" of Fayette county, Illinois, his pupils, some of whom were older than
himself, coming from Clay, Effingham and Fayette counties. While thus engaged
he boarded around among his students. Later he took several courses in pen-
manship, after which he taught that art in Marion, Fayette, Effingham, Clay,
Bond, McLean and Sangamon counties. Thus passed the time from 185 1 until
1853, after which he engaged in teaching in the common schools in Effingham,
Fayette and Shelby counties.
At the age of eighteen Mr. Kagay began reading law and mastered Black-
414 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
stone's Commentaries under the instruction of Eli Philbrook, the second lawyer
to locate in Ewinglon, Effingham county, Illinois, During the year 1853 he taught
school in Fayette county and at the same time pursued a course in the study o(
law under the direction of Mr. Crump and William Campbell. In August, 1854,
he was licensed lo practice in the courts of Illinois, and the following year opened
an oflicc in Ewington, tlien the county seat of Effingham county, at which time
his father was serving as county treasurer. On the removal of the county seat to
Effingham in i860 he opened an office in the court-house at that place and lias
since been an honored and prominent member of its bar. In 1862 he formed a
parinerslitp with William B. Cooper, and for twelve years the firm was employed
on one side or the other of every important case that was tried in the circuit court
during that period, their clientage being very extensive. Since the dissolution oi
that partnership Mr. Kagay has been alone and has continued actively in practice
up to the present time. While he was well grounded in the principles of common
law and admitted to the bar, he has continued through the whole of his profes-
sional life a diligent student of those elementary principles that constitute the
basis of all legal science. He prepares his cases with great care and his ad-
dresses before the courts are models of clearness and logic. He is ever faithful
and true to his clients' interests and as a result has been connected with the
most important litigation of his district.
From his boyhood Mr. Kagay has been interested in military affairs and early
learned to play the tenor drum. His knowledge in this direction was utilized in
summoning the volunteers for the Mexican war and also the war of the Rebel-
lion and at the old settlers' reunions. This faithful drummer still calls the people
to tile place of meeting. His service in civil office began as clerk of the board of
trustees of the incorporation of the town of Ewington in 1855. He filled the posi-
tion of supervisor of Douglas township, Effingham county, for three terms from
1869. was president of the town of Effingham from 1864 until 1867, and when
the city was incorporated in the latter year he was elected its first mayor. In 1871
he was elected to represent Effingham county in the state legislature to fill a
vacancy occasioned by the death of David Leith. For four years Mr. Kagay
served as police magistrate, was city attorney of Effingham for four tenns of two
years each, and for thirty years has been a notary public. Politically he followed
in his father's footsteps and became a Whig: in 1858 he supported James C. Roh-
inson for congress; in i860 he voted for Douglas for president, and from that
time to the present has followed the fortunes of the Democratic party. In early
life he belonged to the Methodist Episcopal church, but is now inclined to the
belief of the Unitarian church, although he is not identified with any religious
organization. Since 1857 he has been a valued and faithful member of Effingham
Lodge, Ko. 149, A. F. & A. M., in which he served as worshipful master for a
number of terms, while of Effingham Chapter, R. A. M.. he has been high prie>t
(or a number of years.
The home life of Mr. Kagay has been very pleasant. While teaching pen-
manship in Fayette county he became acquainted with Miss Martha J. Steams,
a daughter of Dr. Abraham and Ann S. Stearns, and after a short courtship they
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
were married, February 6, 1853. Her parents were pioneer settlers
Jocating" in the state during its territorial days. Her father was a nat
nessee, and her mother belonged to the Thompson family of Kentuck\
Mrs. Kagay became the parents of five children, three of whom are li\
who is engaged in the real-estate and insurance business in Effingham,
and has one son, B. F., Jr., aged ten years, and a daughter^ Bessie I
seven; Laura K. is the widow of A. B. Judkins, of Springfield, Illinois
September 23, 1897, since which time she has removed to Los Angeles,
where she lives with her two children. Aline and Alvin Franklin, aged re
sixteen and tw^elve years; and Mattie K., wife of O. P. Bray, of Inc
Indiana, a passenger conductor on the Vandalia line, by whom she ha*
Orvnll Perry, aged ten years.
In 1890 Mr. Kagay visited California, where he remained one year,
ing that time obtained a license to practice law in all the courts of the sta
still an active and able member of the bar of Effingham and has won 1
distinction by the capable manner in which he has cared for the litigation
to him. His name has been long conspicuously identified with the \
Effingham county and he is a worthy representative of that type of i
character and of that progressive spirit which promote public good in a
individual prosperity and conserving popular interests.
Captain Henry D. Caldwell, long numbered among the honored ci
Effingham county, deserves special mention as having been one of tl
soldier bovs who shouldered arms in the defense of the Union, and in
long, weary campaign carried the old stars and stripes to victory. At h
w
try's call he w-as ready to cheerfully lay down his life for her good, and
this supreme sacrifice was not required of him, something almost as p
health, was the price he paid for the preservation of the principles of equs
union for which he struggled. With characteristic reticence and mod
frequently sums up his army life in one short sentence, but the detailed hi
the long, arduous marches, hard-fought battles, skirmishes with the cnei
posure to all kinds of weather, lack of food and proper clothing, etc., w(
a volume. He was always faithful, prompt and reliable, always at his
duty, and the praise and hearty commendation of his superior officers wen
accorded him. Beginning his army service in the ranks he was gradual
moted, and was finally commissioned captain of his company. His duties «
stop there, however, for upon different occasions he was the officer in clir
various battalions of his regiment and also of his regiment and brigade. B
the respect and loyalty of the men under his command, as well as the cst(
those who were in authority over him, and in many a gallant act of bravei
daring brought fresh honors to the Union cause.
In tracing the ancestry of Captain Caldwell we find that he springs
sturdy English-Irish stock, some of the most sterling characteristics of eacl
ing descended to him by inheritance. Born January 21, 1825, in Russell cc
Virginia, he is a son of Andrew Caldwell, who was of Irish parentage, and po
a native of the Emerald Isle. The mother of the Captain was a Miss Jerusha E
4i6 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
•
ton in her girlhood, her parents being English people. Mrs. Caldwell died when
her son, our subject, was but ten years old, in Shelby county, Illinois, whither
the Caldwell family had removed some years previously. Her mother, whose sur-
name was Dickinson, was also English. Andrew Caldwell resided in this state for
some fourteen years, from 1830 to 1844, his death occurring in the year last
named. During the war of 1812 he served as a lieutenant in a Virginia regiment,
and later was a member of the state legislature there. He was a man of education
and prominence, respected by a large circle of friends. Having decided to seek
a new home and wider opportunities in the growing west, he took his little family
to Illinois. For some time he resided near Mattoon, Coles county, and subse-
quently he made his home in the town of Chester, Randolph county.
The early years in the life of Captain Caldwell were spent in the Illinois of
pioneer days, when privations and hardships were a matter of course. Cabins
were rudely constructed ; had dirt floors, chimneys built of clay and sticks, and
great wide doors, large enough to drive a yoke of oxen through, so that the huge
logs which were to be burned in the fireplace could be taken into the house with
little effort on the part of the inmates. The hardy pioneers, who were obliged to
rely entirely upon themselves in every essential, were really men of genius, as may
be gathered from the fact that in the construction of the cabins of those days in
this state, not a nail or strip of iron was used, the deficiencies being supplied in
various ways. Wooden pins served for hinges to doors and shutters, and a wood-
en latch, with the **latch-string always hanging out,'* in the hospitable language
of the period, was a sign of welcome to the rare passer-by. Primitive and simply-
constructed bedsteads, benches and tables constituted all the furniture of the hum-
ble cabin, save a chest, perhaps, and a few treasured articles, brought from the
far-away eastern home. A gun, powder-horn and bowie-knife were in evidence in
these pioneer habitations, and many a meal was supplied by the skilled shot of
the man of the house, who brought in wild game of various sorts.
As may be inferred, the subject of this narrative had but limited opportunities
for gaining an education. For a short time he attended a subscription school and
after he grew to manhood he went to the Sullivan (Indiana) Seminary for tw^o or
three terms. When he had become a strong, sturdy youth, he commenced flat-
boating on the rivers, and followed this pursuit for several years. Being of a
studious disposition he put in many a leisure hour with his books, and after he
had left the pleasant river life he even went to school again for a short time. He
began the study of law then, and started in practice, giving all his energies to his
profession up to the outbreak of the civil war. Next, he followed his army service,
he being one of the first to enter the ranks of devoted patriots and one of the last
to leave, as he would not have done, had his country longer needed him. Poor
health has always been his portion since, and for a number of years he has been
practically retired from business on this account. The boys who wore the blue
have always been very near and dear to his heart, and for years he has been a
valued member of the Grand Army of the Republic. Politically, he has ever been
an uncompromising politician, supporting the party nearest his convictions and
avoiding sectionalism. He voted for Bell and Everett, but has since voted the
THE BENCH AND BAR OF H^LINOIS,
Republican ticket. Among his old friends and associates of the bench
were J. C. Emerson, of Decatur; Elam Russ, of Greenville, prosecuting i
John S. Kelley, clerk of the circuit court and master in chancery; Sa
Park, sheriff; Eli Philbrook; James Ladovv, etc.
The first marriage of jMr. Caldwell was with Sarah A. Edwards, the
being solemnized in Darwun, Clark county, Illinois, on the 20th of Marc
She died June 30, i860, at Teutopolis, Effingham county. All of the four (
born to them are deceased, two having died in infancy and the others
years. The Captain married his present wafe, who was then Miss Ann M
in Moultrie county, Illinois, April 17, 1864. Their six children were Chai
Robert A., Franklin L., Walter T., Wert B. and Jack. Charles W., Wert
Jack survive.
Hon. Rufus C. Harrah of Effingham is one of the representative mem
the bar in this section of the Prairie state. Moreover, he is one of the pion
Illinois, and for forty years has been actively interested in everything r
to the commercial and public prosperity of his adopted state. In the vario
portant offices of distinction and responsibility which he has filled he has
entire satisfaction to the general public, those of his own profession and
terested in the proper management of civic affairs. While he stands as a
exponent of the Democratic party platform, he is not a partisan in the n
sense, but is broad-minded and liberal, devoted to the good of his fellow m
Born in Putnam county, Indiana, in 1846, Mr. Harrah w^as a lad of t
years when he accompanied his parents to Jasper county, Illinois. The co
was sparsely settled at that time and he was obliged to walk three miles to s(
which, however, he attended only in the winter season, the rest of the year 1
devoted to farming. He was a quick, intelligent student and w-ith the n-
which he earned in teaching school for three years he paid his tuition in the
bondale schools and in Westfield College. When in his fourth year at the co
he left its halls in order to begin the study of law. His preceptor was J. N. G
of this city, and it was not until 1874 that he was admitted to the bar, for, ii
meantinie he was elected and served as a police magistrate. In that cap;
he met with commendation, and in 1877 he was honored by a re-election.
continued to act as a magistrate until 1880, when he was further honored by b'
elected state's attorney. During the long period — some sixteen years — of
service as such he made a record of which he has just cause to be proud. Nei
fear nor favor had any influence over him, and at all times he earnestly sough
bring" the guilty to justice, though no trace of ill will or unfairness was ever
ser\'^able in his treatment of defendants.
At the same time that he w^as officiating as state's attorney Mr. Harrah c
ducted an extensive law practice for himself, but never did he allow the one
encroach upon the other. He is particularly well versed in law and has met w
marked success at the numerous times that he has appeared in cases before t
supreme court and the appellate courts of the state. Among his other victor
wsLS tliat in the case of the American Express Company versus the People, in t
27
4i8
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
supreme court, where he successfully defended the constitutionality of the present
game law.
Having had abundant opportunity to know what the courts of the state cost
the people, he is the more solicitous on their behalf and has a much higher idea
of his duty toward the great commonwealth than many members of the bar
possess. He is firm and unyielding when he has become convinced of the rights
of a case, and unwaveringly carries out his convictions of duty. With one ac-
cord, his associates in the legal profession render him praise and honor, and
regardless of party they gave him their support, when, in the spring of 1897, he
was a candidate for the circuit judgeship.
CHAPTER XXII.
THE BENCH AND BAR OF CUMBERLAND COUNTY.
CONTRIBUTED BY FLAVIUS TOSSEY, OF THE TOLEDO (iLLINOIs) BAR.
CUMBERLAND COUNTY was stricken from Coles in 1843. The first
term of circuit court was held in October, 1843, ^^^ annually thereafter
two or three years. Greenup was the county seat until, after divers votes,
at which no point received a majority, Prairie City (now Toledo) received a
majority of votes in 1855, after which the books were removed to the latter place,
which has been the county seat ever since.
The terms of court at Greenup were held in a log school-house (long since
non est) a hundred yards, or thereabouts, south of the Conzet House. This hotel,
on Cumberland street, or "National Road," has never passed out of the Conzet
family, and, thoroughly modernized, under its present owner, Charles Conzet, and
his estimable wife, with the same old well of fifty-five years ago, is celebrated
throughout this section of the state as a resting place for the weary traveler, even
as the old hotel, then known as tavern, was in the long ago, with the venerable
father of its present proprietor at its head.
William Wilson, one of the supreme judges, — I think chief justice, — of the
state, held the first two or three terms of court. I remember reading in Parsons
on Contracts, in my law-studying days, copious extracts from this judge's opinion
as supreme judge in a case of Talbott, Monohon and others, taken from this
county to the supreme courts perhaps in the '50s. Aaron Shaw, of Lawrence
county, was prosecuting attorney for some terms of court in the early days.
Among other members of the bar whose voices were heard in the old log school
court-house were Kitchell and Allen, of Crawford; Constable, Harlan, Dulaney
(the last still living), of Clark; Joshua W. Ross, of Fayette; Linder, Ficklin,
Cooper, of Coles; and in one case brought by change of venue, Abraham Lincoln,
of Sangamon.
The writer has heard "old settlers" say that Lincoln's method of argument
was cool, dry^ without ornament, but hard-headed and deep. He defended a man
for assault to murder, — a serious offense in those days, — ^but the defendant was
convicted, and, if recollection be not at fault, was pardoned. I have an old table,
since the county seat has been at this place, cast out as worthless furniture many
years ago, and purchased of the sheriff for seventy-five cents, said to have been
the table at which Lincoln and others spoke in those old times. There were
doubtless other "circuit riders" from other counties who attended court in those
old days, but memory does not now recall them.
Elisha H. Starkweather was the first resident lawyer in Cumberland county,
having dwelled upon a farm which was then in Hurricane precinct, and practiced
419
420 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
his profession before the formation of this county, at Charleston, Coles county.
After the formation of this county he removed to Greenup, and continued prac-
tice, being at the first court held. He was an old "common-law" lawyer, and while
not ornate in delivery his pleadings developed a thorough mastery of Chitty. He
was born and educated "down east,'' and was as well deep in literary as legal lore.
He was Cumberland county's first master in chancery and served a term or two
in the legislature. After the Terre Haute, Alton & St. Louis Railroad was located
through Charleston, he removed to that point, but continued to practice in our
Cumberland circuit courts until his death, — in 1862 or 1863, I think. Alia N.
Rosecrans now lives upon and owns the **old Starkweather farm" in Union town-
ship (formerly Hurricane precinct), this county.
James LaDow was among the early resident lawyers of this county, living at
Greenup until his death — about 1859 — and practicing there until the county-seat
came here; afterward he practiced here, but kept his residence at Greenup. He
was highly esteemed by his brethren of the bar and by his neighbors during the
short time he was permitted to dwell in their midst. His widow, Mrs. Lucy P.
LaDow, was appointed postmaster at Greenup in 1861, and is said to have been
the first lady postmaster in the United States.
L. W. Templeton was a brilliant early-day lawyer who lived in Greenup. In
the midst of what appeared to presage a prosperous career at the bar the death-
call came, and he had to respond, about 1859 ^^ i860.
The last term of court held by Judge William Wilson was the May term,
1848. The annual terms had shifted from October to May, and soon thereafter
the terms were held semi-annually. The constitution of 1848 coming in force, the
supreme judges ceased doing circuit duty, and judges were elected specifically to
hold circuit courts.
Justin Harlan, of Marshall, Clark county, was the first regularly elected cir-
cuit judge to hold court in Cumberland county. His first term was at Greenup
in May, 1849. One of his most important cases was The People versus Samuel
Olmsted and Polly Olmsted, for murder of two children of the former. The first
special term held in this county was begun December 9, 1851, and the caption of
the old Complete Record for that term is in Judge Harlan's writing, — showing
that said special term was held "for the indictment and trial of Samuel and PoUy
Olmsted, now in jail on a charge of murder." They were indicted at this term,
and admitted to bail, in two thousand dollars each, to the next term, when a
change of venue was granted to the Clark circuit court. They were finally tried
in Clark county, and the father, Samuel Olmsted, acquitted; the step-mother was
found guilty and sentenced to the penitentiary for five years. When taken to the
prison, she being enceinte, the warden refused to receive her, and she was re-
turned to this county in charge of the sheriff and died soon afterward. There are
a few old men who talk of this case yet. It was then a celebrated case all up and
down the then sparsely settled Wabash valley. There was strong talk of lynch
law, but good order finally prevailed, — whether right or wrong. Linder, Con-
stable and many other distinguished old-time lawyers, whose names I cannot
recall, were in this case, and its hearing attracted people — all overland — from a
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS. 421
half-dozen counties in southeastern Illinois, and some from across the Wabash
on the Indiana side. Samuel Olmsted had "parted" from his first wife, married
this murderess and, after her call to Satan, one or two other women. After
their death, he became repentant, and he and his first wife in their old age were
reunited — the marriage ceremony being performed by their son, Benjamin B.
Olmsted, then a justice of the peace, a prosperous merchant and farmer and
an excellent citizen, who passed his declining years at Johnstown, this county.
Justin Harlan served the people faithfully until 1861. He was an erudite
lawyer, a just judge, and God's noblest work, — an honest man. At different times
during his judgeship the number of his circuit was changed, — sometimes a county
dropped or added. He held courts in Coles, Shelby, Edgar, Effingham, Clark and
other counties — among them Douglas, after its organization in 1855, from Coles
county. He did more circuit duty, tried more cases than, and gave as good satis-
faction as, all three of the latter-day judges in country circuits of to-day. He did
not rush matters, but gave every case its due time for trial. He was a great whit-
tler, would fashion chains, charms, etc., from pine, and appear to be taking little
notice of a jury trial, but when a question of competency of evidence arose, or the
time for instructions arrived, it was soon seen that not a detail of the case was
escaping his notice.
James C. Robinson, after the Mexican war, engaged in the practice of law.
He dwelled on a farm near Westfield, Clark county. I presume his first plea in
a circuit court was before Judge Harlan. Mr. Robinson frequently attended our
courts. In i860 he was elected to congress from the district of which our county
was a part, defeating James T. Cunningham, of Coles coimty, one of the best
men that ever lived, and father of the now* venerable John Cunningham, editor
of the Greenup Press. Mr. Robinson was re-elected a time or two, as I recollect,
before he removed to Springfield, w^here he died in 1886. As he was long a part-
ner of General Palmer, the editor of this w-ork, I shall trespass no further with
details as to him, than to say that the last time I saw him was at Charleston, in
1886, a short time before his deaths in company with Colonel Ficklin, who also
departed this life soon afterward.
James Polk Robinson and Nathaniel P. Robinson (sons of James C), the
former then living at Olney, the latter at Effingham, used to practice in our courts.
James P. died in the west, where he had won laurels as a practitioner; Nathaniel
P., after a few^ years in Texas, where he was thought to have regained health,
dropped dead in a drug store in Terre Haute, I think. The last time I saw these
two bright brothers was at the St. James hotel (formerly the Madison House), in
Marshall, in March, 1884.
In 1856 William W. Craddock was presented by the Republican party as a
candidate for state's attorney — that officer then traversing the circuit with the
judge. **Crad'' was an unusually bright man and practitioner, oratorical, argu-
mentative and witty. The Democrats of the circuit w-ere at a loss whom to pit
against him, but finally chose a young man, from Clark county, who had not long
before graduated at the Louisville Law School. In those days it was customary
for opposing candidates to make a joint canvass of counties or circuits or districts.
422 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
public debates being held at most of the towns or voting places. The first debate
between Craddock and the new candidate was at the court-house in Prairie City
(now Toledo), and many Democrats were nervous as to how their nominee would
fare. It was a well fought battle. ,The new candidate made his mark at once.
His name was John Scholfield. He was elected, and made a vigorous prosecutor,
refusing re-election. As is well known, he died two or three years back, a supreme
judge of Illinois, elected as such without opposition in his district, after having
declined an appointment to the chief-justiceship of the United States supreme
court, — more honored in his refusal to accept this latter place, where the people
have no voice, than he would have been in accepting. His opponent in the state's
attorney's race, Mr. Craddock, died, I think, at Mattoon, in the prime of life,
highly esteemed by all who knew him, and possessed of one of the most brilliant
intellects that graced the bar of this section of the state.
About the first man sentenced for contempt in this place was an old fellow
who looked on the raw liquor when it was strong. His favorite expression, when
boozing, was a prolonged whistle, followed by the words, *'Whoop! That's the
obstacle!" One day while court was in session the old fellow rolled into the
court-room, and listening a moment to some advocate lunging forth bursts of
eloquence to a jury, soon electrified the audience with — (Prolonged whistle) —
**Whoop! That's the obstacle!" Amidst the roars of laughter and the discom-
fiture of the attorney that followed, was heard the voice of Judge Harlan, direct-
ing the sheriff to ^'remove that obstacle until to-morrow morning, at a charge
of ten dollars and costs." The common jail of the county not yet being built, the
old fellow escaped incarceration. Right here we might pause to remark that
prior to the removal of the county seat to this place, large sycamore gums, heavy
and well covered, had served as the bastile for offenders during term time, — Clark
or Coles counties furnishing jail facilities between terms for prisoners of our
county. Afterward a small one-story brick building w^as built in this town and
called a jail, and it still exists — a disgrace to the county and to civilization, and
has been condemned by the grand juries of the county for the past quarter of a
century.
In the early '50s, at Greenup, Thomas Brewer, who had served his county as
sheriff, was admitted to the bar, became a partner of Hon. E. H. Starkweather
and so remained until the latter removed to Charleston. After the permanent
county seat w-as located at this place he at once bought land near the town, erected
a commodious dwelling, removed here and remained here until his death. While
brought up in a new country and in an early day, the son of a pioneer, without
those facilities for education afforded even a few years afterward, he was pos-
sessed of a wonderful fund of natural sense and eloquence. ' He was a shrewd
observer of events and men, and, while not a close student of the law, well remem-
bered every proposition he had learned, either by reading or in actual practice.
He was eloquent and persuasive and resourceful. His force before juries was
wonderful, and I think never excelled, if equaled, in our county. He was elected
to the general assembly in 1858, and to the state senate in 1874. His eloquent
voice has been heard in campaigns all over eastern Illinois. By honesty and rea-
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS. 423
sonable frugality, not parsimony, he acquired a competence, but was not wealthy.
He never gave up farming entirely at any time. In his latter years he ceased his
law practice, save occasionally to aid an old friend or some one in distress, and
became a licensed minister of the Methodist Episcopal church, of which for almost
a lifetime he had been a consistent member. He never preached for pay; he gave
hundreds of dollars, yes, thousands, to the poor, to the church, to the ministry,
wherever he felt it was needed, receiving nothing. Where words of comfort
were needed in death, he was there. Although not of the same faith, such was
our esteem for him as a man and as a minister and life-long acquaintance that he
preached the funeral sermon of John B. Tossey, a brother of the writer, who was
cut down in early manhood, in October, 1885. That same evening Mr. Brewer
exhibited symptoms of some kind of throat trouble. In November, 1886, the end
came. His had been a busy and a useful and a Christian life, and his loss was
universally felt and mourned. He was buried in the family lot in the Toledo
cemetery, the funeral being in charge of the bar of this and surrounding counties.
His last words were: "All is well." Among visiting attorneys at his funeral was
Hon. Thomas L. McGrath, of Mattoon, then state senator of the district of which
Cumberland county was a part. The writer and he walked together from Mr
Brewer's residence to the Methodist Episcopal church. Mr. McGrath was then
badly crippled by rheumatism, and only a couple of years afterward — in Decem-
ber, 1888, I think — ^jusf after re-election, he was suddenly called hence.
About the year 1857 Hiram B. Decius was admitted to the bar. He was a
native of Fairfield county, Ohio^ but came to this county with his parents when
very young. He was elected county judge in 1861, but before his term expired
was elected representative to the legislature for the counties of Cumberland and
Clark. Shortly after the expiration of his term in the legislature he was elected
to the circuit judgeship, to complete the term of Hon. Charles H. Constable, who
died at Effingham during a term of court. Judge Decius w^as re-elected in 1867
for the full term, serving until 1873. After his term expired, in 1873, he resumed
the practice of law, and continued therein until his death, which occurred in
September, 1882.
His was an active, energetic life. He was an indefatigable worker and
student. His judgment as a lawyer was almost unerring, and Jiis decisions in the
cases taken from his to the supreme court were nearly unanimously sustained. He
"rode the circuit" for years as a lawyer, and in most of the counties in which he
held court he had to traverse the distance by land. He too, like others of the
circuit judges of years ago, did more work, held more courts and heard and dis-
posed of more cases at a much smaller salary — I think twelve hundred dollars a
year — than all three of the judges in the latter-day circuits.
As a lawyer, after his retirement from the bench, he was engaged in many
of the leading cases in adjoining counties, as well as nearly all in his own county.
Among important cases tried before him as a judge were the celebrated Cham-
paign cattle cases, about the year 1870^ involving the constitutionality of certain
legislation against Texas cattle. He held favorable to the constitutionality of the
law, and his decisions w^ere upheld by the supreme court. He defended in the
424 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
celebrated Long Point murder case, in 1876, his associate counsel being Judge
J. W. Wilkin, now of the state supreme court, and L. N. Brewer, of this village.
The defendants were acquitted. He was also leading counsel in a great deal of
litigation growing out of the construction of the old Grayville & Mattoon, now
the Peoria, Decatur & Evansville, Railway. He was about fifty-two years old
when he died, and he left a competency to his four surviving children. Of these,
Lyle, now of the firm of Everhart & Decius, is now in the active practice of his
father's chosen profession.
Back in the trial of the celebrated Champaign cattle cases above mentioned,
among the counsel whom I remember were Judge C. B. Smith, Judge Summers,
Judge Scholfield and O. B. Ficklin; there were others whose names I do not now
recall. Still further back, before Judge Decius' election to the bench, — in fact,
about the year 1861, there was a celebrated replevin case between two good old
farmers* — both with fat pocketbooks — over the ownership of a calf, worth prob-
ably five dollars *'in coin of the realm." It was brought by appeal to the circuit
court, and was tried twice, with the result of disagreed juries, after numerous con-
tinuances, and the sending to the army in the meantime for divers depositions of
men who knew something about the case and who had enlisted. Among the
counsel were Messrs. Thomas Brewer, Decius and Ficklin for the plaintiff, and
Messrs. Craddock, Scholfield and Ethelbert Callahan for the defendant. I recol-
lect Judge Scholfield making an able argument bearing on the instinct of the calf
— then grown to a large steer — in going in the direction of the farm of the defend-
ant : to this Colonel Ficklin responded that he had not heard of Mr. Instinct being
sworn in the case. Eventually the suit was decided in favor of the defendant, the
mistaken identity being plain.
George C. McCune came here about 1857 and engaged in practice. I think
he came here from Shelbyville, having previously come there from a prolonged
trip with the '* '49ers" to California, and having ere that gone from Ohio to the
Mexican war. He was a well read lawyer, but had a temper of large dimensions,
which was often taken advantage of by opposing counsel to his disadvantage in
the trial of cases. Previous to leaving Ohio he had been a preacher of universal
salvation, and away back about 1837, according to John A. Gurley's '*Star in the
West," he was "churched" for licking a toll-gate keeper who said the rule passing
preachers over a bridge at half-fare didn't apply to Universalist preachers. The
only time I remember seeing the old gentleman engaged in active liostilities was
at a school election, where he challenged the vote of a fellow son of Erin; where-
upon canes and chairs were broken, a head or two likewise, before the school
officers could quiet the *'muddle.'' "Mac," as he was familiarly know^n, succeeded
with Judge Constable in clearing one Shafer, of the northeast part of the county,
of a charge of assault to murder, before a jury, Judge Harlan presiding, about the
year 1859 or i860. Mr. ]McCune died in 1867 and his remains were deposited in
Salem cemetery, by the side of those of his wife, who preceded him two or three
years.
About 1857 or 1858, one John K. Youstler came here to practice law, but
soon hunted pastures new. Well, the new court-house, in the midst of the old
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS. ' 425
frog-pond, and a few straggling houses, was not a very entrancing field for young
limbs of the law, foot-loose to look for more imposing locations. But the little
straggling village has grown, and still grows, and those members of the bar who
anchored here have had no cause for regret.
After Mr. Starkweather removed to Charleston, in 1857, H. B. Decius fabove
mentioned) was appointed master in chancery, remaining in that position until
his elevation to the judgeship, when William H. McDonald was appointed, — of
whom further notice will appear soon hereafter.
In t86o, Douglas and Coles counties being in this circuit, Hon. James R.
Cunningham, of Charleston, was the Democratic, and Hon. Joseph G. Cannon,
then of Tuscola, the Republican, candidate for state's attorney — that office re-
maining a circuit office, as it should yet be, and was until 1872. These gentle-
men both canvassed the circuit, not jointly, however; but Cunningham was
elected. He was an honest, faithful lawyer, well read in the old writers, and was
an efficient officer, He was county judge a term or two at Charleston, in his
latter years, and died there a few short years ago. His unsuccessful opponent
afterward went to congress, removed to Danville, and continues in congress.
Silas S. Whitehead, then and yet of Marshall, was elected staters attorney in
1864 and in 1868. He still practices here.
William H. McDonald, from Ross county, Ohio, came here in 1864, and is
now practicing at Greenup. He was master in chancery from about 1865 till
1874; was state representative in 1872 and state's attorney from 1888 till 1896.
About 1865 David B. Green began practice. Two or three years afterward
he formed a partnership with Clinton Woods, then late of Moultrie county, which
partnership still continues. Lyle C. Woods, son of Clinton, was admitted a year
ago. and has an office in same building.
Leonidas L. Logan, from Indiana, came here in 1861; and is practicing yet.
His partner is Walter C. Greathouse, formerly of Edwards county. Mr. Logan
was state's attorney for the county a short time in 1872, and has served as county
judge two terms. At one time he was in partnership with James B. Atchison, now
in the state of Kansas.
In 1873 James C. Allen, then of Crawford, now of Richland, county, was
elected circuit judge, and served till 1879. ^^ 1874 he appointed William W.
Whitney, of Neoga, master in chancery, w^ho served till about 1878. He was a
lavv'yer, but was engaged in banking. He died five or six years ago.
Levi N. Brewer was appointed master in 1878, by John H. Halley, who was
elected judge in same circuit with Allen in 1878. Judge Halley served till 1879.
He died recently at Antlers, Indian Territory. He was from Virginia, but long a
resident of Newton, Jasper county. Mr. Brewer served as master until 1880, and
was succeeded by James L. Ryan, appointed by Judge William C. Jones, who,
with Thomas S. Casey and Chauncey N. Conger, had been elected judge for the
second district in 1879. ^^^- Brewer was again appointed in 1884, and served till
1897. He is the son of Hon. Thomas Brewer, previously mentioned; was admit-
ted in 1875 or 1876; was in partnership some years with Judge Decius, and is
now enjoying a good practice.
426 * THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
Thomas C. Brewer, a brother of Levi N., was making a bright young law-
yer, when, at the age of about twenty-seven, in January, 1890, he was cut down
by death. He was buried with the honors of Oddfellowship.
Norman L. Scranton came here from the Shenandoah valley in i860; has
practiced since 1865, and now has a successful business at Casey, Clark county.
His son, Hiram L. Scranton, was admitted in 1884, was elected state's attorney
the same year and now has a good clientage at Greenup.
William C. Prather has been practicing since 1877; was elected state's at-
torney in 1880, and still resides and practices here. Andrew J. Lee learned the
law with Judge Eckols of Greencastle, Indiana; came here in 1865, was elected
state's attorney in 1872 and has now retired from practice. Thomas Warner,
elected state's attorney in 1876, was for some time a partner of Thomas Brewer.
He now lives in Fayette county.
Winfield S. Everhart and Flavins Tossey were respectively admitted, at
Springfield in January, 1878. Until Judge Decius' demise, Mr. Everhart was his
partner. The firm is now Everhart & Decius — Lyle Decius (a^ son of the late
judge) having been admitted in the spring of 1896. The firm has a large practice.
F. Tossev still resides here.
In 1885 Judges Jones and Conger were re-elected. Judge Casey, as able a
judge as ever held court anywhere, moved to Springfield and died there. He was
succeeded by Carroll C. Boggs, who was re-elected wiien S. Z. Landes and E. D.
Youngblood were elected in 1891. He is now supreme judge. During their terms
Judges Jones and Landes held most of the courts here.
James L. Ryan, who was appointed master by Judge Jones, in 1880, and
who served till 1884, was a well read law^yer and w^as successful in his practice
till he joined the Baptist church, in 1891, and he has become one of its ablest min-
isters. He resides at Greenup. His brother, William L. Ryan, was a bright law-
yer and noble man, but was cut down by death in 1897, — the result of injuries
received by the burning of the building in which he had rooms. They were
both graduates of Ann Arbor, Michigan.
Peter A. Brady, a lawyer since 1873, was born near the Lincoln homestead
in South Coles. He has his share of practice, residing at Greenup. In 1878 C.
B. Castelo and L. W. Leith, who had read wath that eminent lawyer. Major W. B.
Cooper, who died some years ago at Effingham, opened an office here. Mr. Leith
soon received a government appointment and left to accept it. Mr. Castelo is still
in practice here.
Albert F. Bussard, appointed master in 1897, was a member of the firm of
Osman, Duncan & Bussard. W. A. Osman went to Chicago; J. A. Duncan
returned to Crawford county ; Mr. Bussard continues in practice and has his share.
Charles M. Connor was admitted two years ago, and is doing his share of
work for a new attorney. He graduated at Bloomington Law School. Smith
Misner read law with L. N. Brewer; was admitted to the bar and was elected
state's attorney in 1896, and is doing his duty. Irving J. Brown and Alvin C.
Voris are Neoga attorneys, each with a fair commercial practice. Each is a law-
college graduate.
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
Lieutenant Charles L. Smeidel, who died at Memphis in iS
completed his law studies wath Brewer & Decius before volunteer
here from Philadelphia, and was a splendid scholar and man.
G. A. R.^ at Greenup, is named in his honor. Nathan Harvey died
Indiana, in the midst of a good practice. He practiced here in
Conover, who died a good lawyer, at Bloomington, was born in t
read law here in 1864-5.
David A. Lyle, United States Army ordnance department, i
Lyle gun for life-saving stations, completed a course of law readii
Decius here, when he was appointed to West Point from Fairfield
his residence, by Congressman Finck.
George C. Mathes, who died at Charleston and was buried w
the Knights of Pythias lodge, was born in this county, read law '
Woods, and was admitted in 1883 or 1884. He was just gaining a \
Judge Thomas B. Wall, now of Wichita, Kansas, is an old
coimty boy ; likewise Douglas Kirkling, late prosecutor in Hutchir
likewise Samuel C. Miller, prosecutor, Kansas City^ Kansas. John \
died, a brilliant lawyer, at Butler, Missouri. He learned the law w:
Warner here and the late Judge Halley at Newton. John M. Humpl
of Cumberland, is sojourning here for the present, after many years
practice in Kansas.
Charles S. Cooter, a graduate of the Bloomington Law School
in this county, began practice here two or three years ago and now 1
Chicago. Jacob O. Wallace, now of Moweaqua, formerly practiced la
Lewis Decius, cousin of the late Judge Decius^ now practices in Ne
reading with W. S. Everhart and being admitted in this state; like\\
Fisher, prosecuting attorney, at Chadron, Nebraska.
McLain, Hamlin & St. John was a law firm at Charleston in the
McLain afterward engaged in nursery business; H. J. Hamlin h
prominence and practice at Shelbyville; John P. St. John made 1
Kansas. They have all been here years ago in our courts.
Eli Wiley, who died in 1897, at Charleston, used to attend here o
The firm is now (H. A.) Neal & (Charles S.) Wiley. E. P. Rose, wh
denly at Mattoon a few years ago, was well known as a practitioner in
Major J. A. Connolly, now in congress from the Springfield district,
Charleston, frequently attended our courts. Charles C. Lee, A. J. Frye
Chezem, of Charleston; Horace S. Clark, John F. Scott, James W. C
Phipps, L. C. Henley, Emery Andrews, Bryan Tivinen, of Mattooi
Wood, E. N. Rinehart, S. F. Gilmore, W. B. Wright, R. C. Harrah, H.
of Effingham; T. J. Golden and J. W. Graham, of Marshall; Judg
Thornton and S. W. Moulton, of Shelbyville; G. W. Fithian, J.. W. G
C. A. Davidson, of Newton, have at times practiced in our courts, an
temporary with our attorneys. Robert E. Hamill, formerly of Marshi
Springfield, frequently practiced in our courts.
In 1897 this county became a part of the fifth judicial district. A
428 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
election F. Rookwalter, of Danville, H. Van Sellar, of Paris, and Frank K. Dunn,
of Charleston, were chosen judges. Judge Dunn is giving satisfaction. He
appears to be a jurist similar to ex-Judge Landes, who is now practicing in the
lower district, which means that he is making an able jurist.
In November, 1885, vandals destroyed the court-house and nearly all the
records — the main object appearing to be to get rid of the records — by fire. The
reminiscences herein set out have been necessarily mostly from memory. The
writer flatters himself that, though by stress of circumstances and necessaiy
economy of space, these matters are briefly set out, they are in substance accu-
rate. If this article has, in the least, served to preserve, from utter oblivion, the
memory of many of the jurists and practitioners named therein, and to make
kindly mention of all, as well the living as the dead — the writer must be content.
Judge Leonidas L. Logan is well known in the eastern part of Illinois as a
leader of the Cumberland county bar. He resides in Toledo. He was bom in
the neighboring state of Indiana, at Brookville, July 31, 1832. When he was six
years of age his parents. Dr. Benjamin and Margaret Logan, removed to Browns-
burg, Indiana, where he attended the common schools, acquiring a good English
education. He began reading law under the instruction of Robert Harrison, of
Lebanon, Indiana, in the year 1862, and was admitted to the bar at that place in
1865. In the meantime, however, he had engaged in other lines of business. He
had continued his residence in Brownsburg until 1853. w^hen he was married and
removed to a farm, devoting his energies to agricultural pursuits until the fall
of 1859. In that year he removed to Fayette, P)Cone county, Indiana, where he
engaged in merchandising, and during the same period took up the study of law.
After his admission to the bar, Mr. Logan removed to Toledo. Illinois, m
September, 1865, and was licensed to practice in the courts of this state in the
year 1866. He has met with a fair degree of success, securing a good clientage,
which has brought him a comfortable living. In November, 1882, he was elected
judge of the court of Cumberland county for a four-years term, and after a retire-
ment of four years was re-elected to the same office in 1890. On the bench he
was conscientious in the administration of justice and took into careful consider-
ation all the evidence and the law applicable thereto, while in private practice
his devotion to his clients' interests is a recognized fact. His political support
has always been given the Democracy.
In 1867 Judge Logan became a member of the Independent Order of Odd
Fellows and took all the degrees. Jle has maintained his residence in Toledo for
a third of a ccnturv, and is widely and favorably known. He was first married in
October, 1853, ""^ Hendricks county, Indiana, to Sarah Morris, and unto them
were born four children: Arkansas, born in 1855: Oran W., in 1858; Izara, in
i860: and \'ina, in 1865. The wife and mother died in 1884 and the Judge was
again married in 1887, his second union being with Elizabeth Seely, of Bloom-
field, Indiana, by whom he has two children: Leonidas and Leone E., twins, born
July 22, 1888.
CHAPTER XXIII.
AUTOBIOGRAI»HY OF JOHN M. PALMER— SKETCH OF THE LI
OF WILLIAM H. BISSELL.
IN THE following personal sketch* prepared for the history of \
and Bar of Illinois, my original intention was- to offer to the read 1
work only such facts as relate to my professional and judicial hisi
have found it impossible to make my life story connected without brie
to circumstances growing out of my political, military and executiv
ments. With these brief prefatory observations, 1 begin the sketch of m]
I was born in Scott county^ Kentucky, on the 13th day of Septem
and was removed by my parents to Christian county, in the same state, i (
My earliest recollections go back to a new and then sparsely settle )
of southern Kentucky. My father, Louis D. Palmer, was born in Noi
land county, Virginia, on the 3d day of June, 1781, and was thq third so:
and Ann McAuley Palmer, who were both born in that county, the fir
1st day of November, and the latter in April, in the year 1747; the; <
Christian county, Kentucky, within a few months of each other, the oldes
in that part of the state.
My mother, Ann Hansford Tutt, was born in Culpeper county, 1
where her father, Louis Tutt, and her mother, Isabella Yancey, were bo
the year 1750. Their ancestors were early settlers in Virginia, the Ti
England and the Yanceys from Wales.
My grandfather Palmer, in his quiet, stubborn way, took part in th
lutionary contest; he appears upon the roll of Revolutionary soldiers as
ute-man," and received a pension for his services.
The settlers of southern Kentucky established schools that met the c
for instruction in the essential branches of education as they were then und ;
reading, wTiting, and arithmetic as far as the "rule of three;" later, Englis i
mar, according to Lindley Murray, was introduced, but grammar was fc 1
years treated as one of the optional studies, being considered rather orn; i
than useful. Mv teachers, Isaiah Boone, a relative or a descendant of the
Daniel Boone, and Hezekiah Woodward, a professional teacher, were cor i
instructors, and used the rod, of good sound hazel or hickory, with great < t
I received my fair share of instruction and punishment and do not distinct!} 1
lect when I could not read.
The time of our residence in Christian county, from 18 18 to 1831, wa
with important political and social discussions and changes; I have a ve ;
♦Prepared at the special request of the publishers.
42Q
430 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
tinct recollection of the great contest between what were known as the "old
and the new court'* parties, which commenced by certain rulings of the court of
appeals, supreme court of the state. The lands in Kentucky were generally held
under titles derived from the state, of Virginia, of which Kentucky had been a
part, and the negligence of the land officers and the careless manner in which
surveys had been made led to a confusion of boundaries in Kentucky. The
courts of the state were crowded with suits which involved conflicting surveys
or imperfect transfers and other questions of like character, to the ruin of hun-
dreds who had bought lands in good faith and had made improvements on them.
In order to relieve the unfortunate settlers the legislature of the state passed laws
for the protection of occupying claimants, which, had they been enforced by the
courts, would have made the recovery of lands against occupants practically
impossible; at the same time the people were poor and in debt.
The legislature, in its efforts to relieve them, had created banks and
attempted to make the paper issues of these institutions a practical tender in
the payment of debts. The method of relief was by what were known as re-
plevin laws. These gave to the debtor, after a tender of payment in bank paper,
the right to a stay of execution upon judgments, on a tender of bond and
security. The exact details of the methods provided by the statutes, by which
the stay of execution was intended to be secured, are not important, for, what-
ever they were, the court of appeals (which consisted of John Boyle, chief jus-
tice, and William Owsley and Benjamin Mills, associate justices) held them to
be unconstitutional, and upon that ground refused to enforce them. In 1824
an attempt was made by the legislature to remove the chief justice and his
associates by an address to the governor, but in order to remove them the con-
currence of two-thirds of each branch of the legislature was necessary.
The requisite "two-thirds" could not be obtained to the address, so the
expedient was adopted of repealing the law creating the court, and in that way
getting rid of the judges. The repealing bill also provided for the appointment
of other judges of the court; the governor approved the repealing act, and
appointed other judges, who, it was expected^ would support the validity of
the "relief laws." Chief Justice Boyle and his associates, Owsley and Mills,
refused to recognize the validity of the repealing act or to surrender their
records to the "new" court. The state had for a time two courts of appeals,
and the people were divided into two parties, which, w4th great heat, supported
the rival tribunals.
My father was a "new" court man, but Mr. Clay, w^ho was then strong in
the confidence of the people of Kentucky, and most of the other conserv^ative
men of the state supported the "old" court, and after a contest, characterized
by great excitement, the "new-court" party was defeated. A majority of the
legislature was elected fayorable to the old court; this legislature repealed tht
law under which the new court was created. I have no doubt but that the
new-court party was wrong, but the names of Boyle, Owsley and Mills, some-
times sarcastically called the "three kings." were for a long time odious to me.
In 1831 my father and family left Kentucky for Illinois, leaving me, wiih
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS. 431
my venerable grandparents, to follow them in October. My father settled on
Paddock's prairie, about ten miles from Alton, and an equal distance from
Edwardsville, where he built a log house, which he occupied in the spring of
1832.
I cannot forbear quoting from my own memoirs, **The Recollections of an
Earnest Life," an account of my own journey from our residence in Kentucky
to Illinois:
"After passing Hopkinsville, the seat of justice of Christian county, Ken-
tucky, we took the route from that place by way of Princeton, in Caldwell
county, Kentucky, to Ford's ferry, on the Ohio river, and thence, after crossing
the river, proceeded by Equality, Mount Vernon and Carlyle to Edwardsville.
This road, which was then, as far as Carlyle, the great route from southern
Kentucky, middle Tennessee and North Carolina to central Illinois and Mis-
souri, was crowded with 'movers,' who were making their way, by all the then
known methods of travel, from the handsome family carriage to the humblest
ox-cart. Many families traveled on foot, with a pack horse to carry their heav-
ier movables, or to provide for the transportation of the smaller children. Such
modes of travel are never noticed now to any extent; the railroads of modern
life make scenes such as are described here impossible.
"After passing along the road which still runs some three miles west of
McLeansboro, in Hamilton county, for a few miles, we came to Moore's prairie,
the first we had ever seen, and as we advanced toward Edwardsville the prairies
grew more extensive. The prairies then were scarcely marked by improve-
ments, except very near the timber borders, for the early settlers dared not
go out on the far-stretching plains; many persons told us that the prairies
would never be settled, and for years I believed that prairie land more than
two or three miles from the timber was practically valueless.
"But the prairie, in its natural state, was indeed 'a thing of beauty'; some-
times we would travel miles without seeing a habitation, or if houses could be
discerned they would be situated at points of timber and at a greater or less
distance from the roads; deer would be seen in herds, as if they had not learned
to be startled by human presence. Nothing was more animating than the scenes
we witnessed as we journeyed over these long stretches.
"Perhaps the imagination had much to do in finding objects of interest on
the prairies, but to me they were enchanting, and after years of familiarity with
the magnificent, undulating acres of the great prairies of Illinois and other
western and northwestern states, now that they are all inhabited, dotted with
cities, towns, villages and highly cultivated farms, they linger in my memory
like a grand, restful dream."
The period to which I refer was one of great prosperity in Illinois; lands
were entered, purchased from the United States, at one dollar and twenty-five
cents per acre; population poured into the state, and employment was abun-
dant on every hand. I remember that one winter, with a younger brother, we
cut sawlogs on government landj and by that means earned forty-eight dollars.
My father added the balance needed, two dollars, and the amount of expenses
432 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
at the land office, and 1 entered forty acres of land in my own name, which,
after attaining my majority, I conveyed to my father. The next spring and
early summer I drove a prairie team, four yoke of oxen attached to a twenty-
four-inch plow ; I worked at home when needed, and finally, in the summer oi
1834, my father **gave me my time/' This expression may have an amusing
sound to the hoys of this day, who will hardly consent to give their fathers their
time.
One evening, while my father and self and younger brothers were discuss-
ing the subject of education and matters of that kind, my father said to me, in
reply to some expression of a wish to obtain a good education: **Very well, sir,
you owe me four years of service yet; I will give you that; go and get an edu-
cation." I looked at him with an expression of surprise, no doubt, and asked
in an excited, trembling voice, "When may I go, sir?" He seemed amused, and
said, "To-morrow morning, if you like." I remember that I left the room to
conceal my feelings. After recovering my composure I returned to the room
where my father was seated, and sat for some time in silence, when he said,
with signs of emotion, **I have no money to expend for your education, but a
healthy boy as you are needs no help; you may go to-morrow morning. I give
you your time. Do not disgrace me. May God bless you."
This scene still lingers in my memory. I had looked forward to the inde-
pendence of manhood with the eagerness of hope; I had reveled in dreams of
results to be accomplished; I had imagined myself a successful farmer, or law-
yer or a soldier — successful in every employment; I meant when I got to be a
man to be "rich, learned and happy." My brothers were to be happy and suc-
cessful; and even then there would come into the picture a girlish face that
was to figure in the successes which I imagined were to attend my entry upon
the sphere of manhood.
Here was an offer made by my father to anticipate the day of my emanci-
pation, to "give me my time." I accepted his offer, and as he had said it, I
knew he w^ould not mention it again. That evening I talked to Roy and Frank,
my brothers, who seemed to be as much elated with the prospect before me as
I was. Next morning, after an early breakfast, I left home on foot, without
money or additional clothes. Both seemed to me unnecessary, for was I not
going out into the world a free man, w'here clothes and money were abundant
and to be had by any one who w'ould earn them?
The boys started with me, and they called the dogs, three of them, our
constant companions; they were to go with me to the top of the hill, a mile
probably from the house. We had crossed the creek w^hen the dogs started a
rabbit; we w-aited for the dogs and then moved on.
My father was not at the house when I left, but he, too, had followed to a
bluff we had passed, and from that point w^atched us. I did not then know why
he stood watching, but I know now-. W^hen I reached the top of the hill, there
we stood, reluctant to separate. After a while Roy said he knew where he could
start a rabbit on his way home. He called the dogs and, without saying a word
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
to me, ran off at his utmost speed, followed by Frank, and I was I
my newly acquired fortune, '*my time," with all of its hppes and p
The boys ran until out of sight. I very well understood th(
they ran, and would have been glad to follow and overtake them, 1
nation was Upper Alton, where there was a school recently est
was understood to be a "manual-labor school," and it was my purj
that institution and pay my expenses by labor. I reached Upper
one o'clock in the afternoon^ and had made up my mind before a:
that it would be necessary at once to find work. I had- no doub
could do so without difficulty. I needed no dinner; my dreams wer
food, but as I passed along the principal street, soon after enterin
I saw a man named Haney plastering a new frame house for Dr. C
kell and turned off to where he was superintending or making a bee
I asked him if he wished to hire some one to make and carry morta
he did. I had never made mortar for a plasterer. He put a sho^
hand and told me how to manage the sand, the lime and other
watched me work a while, offered me seventy-five cents a day, tolc
I could get board at one dollar and a quarter per week, went with
boarding house and agreed to be responsible for me. I worked tha
and continued to work until the job was done. I do not remembe:
number of days this required, but I do remember that when I wa
had settled my board, bought a shirt and a pair of socks, I had all of :
left, which was, as I thought, clothes and money enough for any bod
I then entered the college, and for a while paid my board by m
on Saturdays ; I .also, with mv elder brother, Elihu, took a contract
the trees from a street leading from Upper Alton to Middletown.
were large white oaks ; we grubbed them up and were well paid for d>
I remained at school in a desultory way until the spring of 1835,
country was filled with rumors of the *Texas -revolution," as it was ca
failure to carry out my intention to unite with the volunteers, organi
Louis to join the "Revolutionists," was caused by an incident that s(
very ludicrous, but was at the time a crushing blow. I had volunte
my arrangements were made to join a few friends at Alton, take the st
which it was expected would take us to St. Louis, where another boat '
ing to start for New Orleans on our arrival.
I spent the night before the morning fixed for my departure at m}
two miles east of Upper Alton. I took leave of my relatives and left ti
filled with anticipations of the battle-fields in Texas, and started on fc
a small pack of clothing, to reach the boat and then off for the field <
I had gone a mile, perhaps, after leaving Upper Alton when I w
taken by Mr. John Maxcy, whom I knew to be a constable of Uppe
He spoke to me kindly, inquired where I was going. I told him to
Alton to take a boat for St. Louis, and from thence to Texas, to take
the revolution. He handed me a paper, and said, "Here is something y(
forgotten." To my astonishment the paper read:
28
434 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
"The people of the State of Illinois, to any constable of said county,
greeting: We command you to take the body of John M. Palmer, if he be
found in your county, and bring him forthwith before me, to answer the com-
plaint of, etc." I had never seen such a paper before; it commanded the con-
stable to arrest me, and to take me before the justice of the peace. The con-
stable told me I could discharge myself by paying to him four dollars and a
half and about one dollar and twenty-five cents costs. I assured him that I had
not forgotten the debt, but had arranged with my cousin, Isaac Palmer, to pay
it for me. He said that might be all right, but he must have the money or I
must go back. Unfortunately, my whole stock of money did not exceed two
dollars, so I went back, humiliated beyond measure.
I arranged the matter during the day, but to get the money I had to prom-
ise to go to work; the steamboat lost a passenger and the cause of Texas an
enthusiastic supporter. I then went to work again, did not at once return to
school, but paid the money I had borrowed, and then, in the May following,
occurred one of those incidents which so much resembles fiction that I cannot
forbear relating it.
Many persons now living remember Mr. Enoch Moore, whose remarkable
form so often attracted attention. In 1836 he kept a tailor's shop in Upper
Alton. One day I stepped into his shop and saw hanging up a suit of clothes.
The coat and pants were of some cotton goods, which I cannot describe, and
the vest was figured like calico.
Mr. Moore saw that I needed clothes, and that I looked at the suit with
interest; he told me that he had made it for a person who had failed to take it,
and offered it to me for twelve dollars. I had no money, and told him so. He
asked my name, and when I told him said he knew my father, and added that
he thought I could earn the money and pay for the clothes. I finally, wnth
great hesitation, agreed to take them, and for the first time contracted a debt
deliberately.
I have told the story of my arrest, which, I supposed, was applicable to all
debts. During May and early June I paid most of the amount, and on the even-
ing of July 3d I went to my father's with more than enough to pay the balance
due Mr. Moore. Mv father, who saw the amount I had, and which the "bovs"
were counting with great satisfaction, said: "Go to-morrow and pay Mr. Moore
and then you will be a free man, now you are a servant."
On the next day I went, accompanied by my brother Roy, to Upper Alton
on foot, paid Mr. Moore, and had money left; went on to Lower Alton, spent
freely (twenty-five cents) for cake and beer of the old kind, and reached my
father's about sundown, a proud and happy boy.
In 1869, after I was inaugurated governor, I reminded Mr. Moore of the
fact that he had sold me the clothes on credit and re-appointed him secretary of
the governor, ex-officio fund commissioner, to which a salary of fifteen hun-
dred dollars a year was attached.
In August, 1836, I was living in the south part of Macoupin county and
attended house-raisings and other amusements of like character, and witnessed,
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS. 435
and had opportunity for familiarizing myself with, the habits of the people,
which were to me always interesting and amusing. The elections were then
Held on the first Monday in August, and although not a voter I attended an
election held at the house of a Mr. Wood, south of where Woodburn now is.
There were three judges and two clerks of the election, and the method
of voting was viva voce. One of the qualifications required of a voter was resi-
dence in the state for six months previous to an election. I remember that a
man named Hoskins, whom I had not seen before, offered to vote, and when
asked how long he had lived in the state said he came here in the month of
April previous; the senior judge, after teUing him he had not been in the state
long enough, hesitated a moment, then asked if he had "had the chills?" He
answered, "Yes, I had one yesterday, and feel one coming on me now." The
judge said, "Put him down and let him go home, the chills are as good as a six
months' residence." His vote was recorded. It may be well enough to say, by
way of apology for the judges, that there was a large bottle of whiskey on the
table, of which they had partaken liberally.
Accepting the rule adopted by the judges, I supposed, for several years
afterwards, that having the "chills" was equivalent to six months' residence
in the state. In September I returned to Upper Alton, where I spent most of
the winter in school, working, in payment of my board, in the family of Rev.
Ebenezer Rodgers, a Baptist minister, who had lately come into the state from
Missouri. Mr. Rodgers was an Englishman by birth and the father of my friend,
Colonel Andrew Fuller Rodgers, formerly of the Eightieth Illinois Infantry.
In December, 1838, I took a school for three months east of Canton,
Fulton county, and while engaged in that school I determined to study law.
I read Blackstone's Commentaries and McNally on Evidence.
My school ending about the middle of March, I decided to visit my father,
who lived in Madison county, and my eldest brother, who lived at Carlinville,
Macoupin county.- I took passage on a steamboat from Utica to St. Louis,
crossed the river on a ferry, and walked to Carlinville, which I reached on the
26th of March, 1839.
I then entered the office of Mr. John S. Greathouse as a student. Mr.
Greathouse was one of the leading lawyers of the town and I had Coke on
Littleton, with Hargrave and Butler's Notes placed in my hands for a begin-
ning. I'had read Blackstone's Commentaries much as every law student reads
that excellent and learned work the first time.
It will be interesting to students of the present day, when law books are
so multiplied that general treatises on any subject are to be found in the book-
stores, as special works on all important subdivisions of the law and reports
are found in law-libraries by the thousand, to know that the Reports of the
Supreme Court of Illinois at that time were contained in one volume — Breese.
My preceptor, Mr. Greathouse, who was a well-read lawyer, had in his
office a few volumes of English Reports, Coke, Raymond and Buller's Nisi
Prius, Starkie and McNally on Evidence, and Chitty's Pleadings, then a com-
paratively new work. I have a few of these old books left still, but some of the
436 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS,
most ancient and rare have fallen into the hands of the **filchers" of rare books
who have always looted the careless collectors.
It may be useful to students to state for their benefit mv methods of study.
I read carefully, with a glossary of law terms^ and made full notes; I did not, in
my notes, as a rule, merely quote the language of the authors, but my effort
was to grasp the subject and state it in my own language. My conceptions of
the meaning of what I read were often inaccurate, but I think, on the whole,
the method was preferable to any other. It promoted brevity and terseness
and aided in systematizing the knowledge acquired, and I think my experience
justifies me in saying that knowledge of the law, acquired by the metliod I
refer to, is much longer retained and more easily and intelligently applied to
practical use than it can be when the student merely masters the words of his
author^ or instructor. I may add here — for I will not return to the subject-
that it is essential to a successful study of the law that a student should master
the history of the people with whom laws originate. Laws are but expressions
of the feelings, habits and necessities of mankind, and can only be understood
by a thorough familiarity with their history and with their applications and uses.
I was aided in my studies by that great promoter of diligence, poverty; I
was compelled to earn something, and as there were some sales of land, and the
volumes of the record were few, I examined titles and prepared deeds, and
soon found some employment before justices of the peace. It was not long
before I found myself able to meet my expenses, which, with board at one
dollar, or one dollar and a quarter per week, did not exceed one hundred dollars
a year. The only interruption of my studies was that my friends insisted
that I should become candidate for county clerk, and I now know that the
leaders of my party, when they insisted upon my candidacy, had no expectation
that I would succeed. After the election I pursued my studies with great
industry and made great progress in the acquisition of the mysteries of the law,
so that in December, 1839, I borrowed five dollars from a friend to pay my
expenses, and, as Mr. Greathouse was going to Springfield in his own carriage,
he invited me to ride with him, which I did. (In my sketch of Judge Douglas
I have given all the particulars of my admission to the bar.) I continue the
quotation from my own Memoirs: After about two weeks of this life I tried
a case before a justice of the peace in Carlinville and got two dollars and a half,
and, as I had no wants, I paid two dollars of this to my poor landlord, Allison.
During the first week in January I traveled about twelve miles to the head of
Cahokia and tried a suit, for which I received five dollars, and after paying
Allison four dollars of this, and fifty cents for my horse, saddle and bridle for
the trip, 1 recovered my courage and in February started on foot to Edwards-
ville to attend the circuit court of Madison county, which w^as then in session,
Judge Sidney Breese, afterwards so distinguished in the judicial and political
history of the state, presiding. (I have given a sketch of the incident which
followed my attendance in the Madison circuit court in the sketch of Governor
Reynolds.)
At the May term of the Macoupin circuit court, after my admission to the
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
bar, I was assigned to the defense of Aaron and William Todd, in (
with others; William Todd was acquitted and Aaron Todd was c
the murder of Larkin Scott, their cousin, and was hanged at Carli
this time my business had so increased that it afforded me a comfo
port, according to the simple habits of the times, and I think I mt
from that time to the present I have never seen a day when I w
employment. I do not mean to say that I have worked every da}
if idle it was not because I had not something to do.
I pass over the election of 1840, in which I took an interest, and
Mr. Van Buren. After the election of 1840 I continued the practice c
fession with great industry, and during this time won a fair share of 1
ness that reached the court.
On the first Monday in August, 1843, I was elected to the office (
justice of the peace. That officer had jurisdiction of the probate bus
also that of an ordinary justice of the peace. I held that office until li
I was elected to be a member of the constitutional convention which £
in Springfield on the 7th day of June, 1847. I was placed, at my owr
on the committee on education, and made a report from that committ
provided that "It shall be the duty of the general assembly to prov
system of common schools which shall be as nearly uniform as may be
out the state^ and such common schools shall be equally free to all the
in the state, and no sectarian instruction shall be permitted, in any o
It was too early for the adoption of free schools, and the convention
further attention to the subject.
On the first Monday in August, 1847, ^ 'vvas defeated for re-electio
office of probate justice of the peace. In May, 1848, I was again electee
office, my successor having resigned, and at the election in the Noven:
lowing I was elected county judge of Macoupin county.
In 1852, at a special election held to fill the vacancy occasioned
death of the Hon. Franklin Witt, I was elected state senator from a
composed of the counties of Greene, Jersey and Macoupin without opp
and was re-elected a member of the state senate in 1854 from the same
as an anti-Nebraska Democrat.
In 1856 I resigned my seat in the state senate, and afterwards was pr
of the first Republican convention which assembled in Illinois. After th.
I continued the practice of my profession, and supposed I had abandone
tics forever; in 1859, much against my will, I became a candidate for a
the lewder house of congress, and was defeated by Gen. John A. McCle
in i860 I was one of the electors at large, pledged to vote for Mr. Lincol
In 1 861 I was a member of the peace conference which assembled in
ington on the 4th of February of that year, and took part in its deliben
and on the 9th day of May of the same year I was elected colonel of the
teenth Regiment of Illinois Infantry at Jacksonville by the unanimous v
the men composing the regiment. On the 25th of May, 1861, I was mu;
438 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
(with my regiment) into the service of the United States for three years, or
during the war.
When I left home, in May, 1861, I told my clients that the war would soon
be over and that I would return at the September term of court and would
attend to their business; but I was mistaken, for. my resignation as major-gen-
eral of volunteers was accepted on the first day of September, 1866.
My military history would be out of place in a work like this, but in Febru-
ary, 1865, I was assigned to the command of the Department of Kentucky by
Mr. Lincoln himself, where many legal questions of a most embarrassing char-
acter arose which the department commander was compelled to decide
promptly. Kentucky was excepted from the Proclamation of Emancipation,
and it was never known whether it furnished more troops to the Confederacy
or the Union.
My first report was made to the adjutant-general on the 24th of February,
1865. On the 22d of February, 1865, Colonel Robert J. Breckinridge, of the
rebel army, was arrested inside of our lines as a spy.
The secretary of war happily relieved me of any responsibility for him by
ordering him to be taken to Columbus, Ohio, as a prisoner of war. On the
3d of March, 1865, congress passed a joint resolution which declared the fam-
ilies of soldiers to be free^ and then my troubles commenced. It is perhaps
known that the marriages of slaves were not recognized by any of the laws of
the states in which slavery existed ; this made the enforcement of the joint reso-
lution declaring the families of soldiers to be free particularly difficult in Ken-
tucky and in other states and parts of states not embraced in the Emancipation
Proclamation.
Another fact tended tp still further complicate the question: When I took
command of the Department of Kentucky a draft was impending; I do not
remember what the quota of the city of Louisville was, but the masters of able-
bodied slaves were selling them to the government for enlistment as soldiers,
and in case the slave exhibited any reluctance to enlistment he was confined in
either the jail or the slave pens that were conveniently situated for that purpose,
so that I was compelled to appoint an officer to enquire into the case of all
colored persons held in confinement by the civil or military authorities, with
directions to report to me the catises for their detention. I ordered the dis-
charge of all persons confined in slave pens by private authority, and in like
manner from the jails, unless held for some criminal charge. It will be remem-
bered that Kentucky was under martial law at that time.
There was at that time, and subsequently, a statute of the state which pro-
hibited slaves to go at large and hire themselves out as free persons, and as the
fact of the freedom of almost all colored persons was disputed it was sought
to enforce the laws prohibiting vagrancy and the statute before adverted to.
Perhaps I can condense the whole matter by giving extracts from my com-
munication to the mayor and a committee of the common council of the city
of Louisville, dated May nth, 1865: "I have the honor to acknowledge the
receipt of your communication of yesterday's date in reference to the presence
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS. 439
and condition of the large number of colored people in the 'city of Louisville, in
which you express apprehensions of pestilence from their crowded state and
ask my co-operation in ridding the city of the evil. * * * Before replying
to the general facts and views you express, allow me to correct the error found
in your statement, that 'no arrangement was or has been made by the military
authorities for the protection and support of colored persons coming into the
city:' on the contrary, the wives and children of colored soldiers coming here,
and those residing in the city, have been fed by the government, and all who
could be induced to do so have been transported to Camp Nelson and there
provided for^ at the national expense, and the military authorities are still will-
ing to provide in the same way for all of that class. But there are difficulties
in the problem you present that cannot be solved by the enforcement of the
laws against vagrancy, or by restricting the rights of the owners of slaves to
allow them the small measure of freedom implied in permitting them to hire
their own time and go at large as free persons.
**These people and their ancestors, for generations, are and have been
natives of the state of Kentucky, and have all as strong local attachments as
other natives of the state. Recent events, which need not be particularized,
have disturbed, if not changed, their former relations towards those once their
masters. What is now required is that their relations to the state be defined
with reference to existing and not past facts. When that is done confidence
between the races will be restored, each will again become useful to the other,
and order and prosperity will take the place of the confusion and vagrancy
which is now seen on every hand, to the alarm of all.
**As preliminary to this, and as a preventive to vagrancy, these people must
be allowed to migrate at their pleasure and seek employment where it is to be
found. Now, under the operation of laws obsolete for all useful purposes, and
alive only for evil, colored men and women in Kentucky who might and would
find employment elsewhere are forbidden to cross the Ohio river, except on
almost impossible conditions.
"Capitalists who own and operate the boats that navigate the river (which
has already led some minds to inquire whether the ownership of large property
is not a disqualification rather than a proper qualification for the manly exercise
of the rights of citizenship), terrified by these grim shadows of the past, throw
unjust and oppressive difficulties in the way of the transit of even free persons,
while those whose right to freedom is questioned by anyone, upon grounds
however slight, are denied the right of escaping from idleness and enforced
vagrancy to where industry is possible and employment within reach. This
difficulty, however, can be partially obviated by military authority.
**Deeply impressed by the dangers to public health, which you so truthfully
and forcibly depict, and anxious that the laboring poor of the city shall be saved
the terrible consequences of the 'disastrous pestilence' of which you assure me
great fears are entertained, I have caused to be issued the General Order No.
32, from the headquarters of this department, a copy of which is herewith laid
before you, and will, I hope, meet your approval."
440 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
The General Order No. 32 required all carriers of passengers, whether by
the river or by the railroads, to transport colored persons, on the tender of a
reasonable fare, to their destinations.
On the first Monday in August, 1865, Judge George W. Johnston was
elected judge of the circuit court, and at the September term of the circuit court
he charged the grand jury that my order. No. 32, was contrary to the statutes
of Kentucky. The grand jury found many indictments against me, alleging
the illegaHty of that order, under which, as was charged, many slaves had
escaped from Kentucky.
Bench warrants were issued for my apprehension and placed in the hands
of the sheriff. He waited upon me politely with the writs, and I told him that
I would certainly appear at the next term of court and answer the indictments.
I told him at the same time that I would submit to an arrest, if he desired it,
but also informed him that I could not command an army through the grates
of a jail, and that I had already issued orders to General Watkins, second in
command at Louisville, if I was arrested and confined to capture the jail and
imprison all who were concerned in finding the indictments, including the
sheriff. He did not arrest me! At the November term of court I appeared,
and the judge accepted my promise to appear and answer the indictments.
At the December term of the court, after Alabama, which completed the
requisite number of states, had adopted the constitutional amendment, with
the Hon. Milton Hay, now deceased, while I was engaged in a trial of a
suit in the circuit court of the United States, I received a peremptory order to
come to Washington, and from thence proceed to Raleigh, N. C, and preside
over a court martial to be convened at that place for the trial of certain officers
connected with the Freedmen's Bureau. I proceeded to Washington, received
my orders from the secretary of war, spent part of the Fpurth of July, 1866, in
Richmond, Virginia. Arrived at Raleigh on the 5th^ remained there until the
1 2th of August and then returned to Washington, where I met General Grant.
The General kindly offered to recommend me for the appointment of brig-
adier general in the regular army, w^hich I declined, and in return offered him
ten thousand dollars for his first year's salary as president of the United States,
which he declined.
On my return to Illinois I resumed the practice of the law with Mr. Hay,
and in April, 1867, removed my family to Springfield, where I have resided ever
since. In November, 1868, I was elected governor of Illinois, which dissolved
the partnership with Mr. Hay.
My partnership with him was a most agreeable and profitable one. He
was a great lawyer and an honest man; his logical power was unsurpassed by
any one with whom I have ever been associated ; we tried many causes of great
importance.
I was inaugurated as governor on the 12th day of January, 1869, but on
the 30th day of the same month I was compelled to veto an '*act to incorporate
the La Salle Ice and Transportation Company," upon the ground that it disre-
garded the registry laws; and on the first day of February, 1869, I vetoed an
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS. 441
act entitled "an act to repeal an act entitled an act to establish a court of com-
mon pleas in the city of Cairo," upon the ground that it allowed extra compen-
sation for services already rendered by the marshal and ex-marshal of the city
of Cairo. On the 6th day of February, 1869, I vetoed a bill which organized
a district for taxation, including the town of Greenville, in Bond county, in
which I said, "Indeed, it seems to me that we are rapidly reaching a point where
other taxation will be impossible; the people are now taxed by counties, cities,
towns, townships and school districts^ and it is by this bill proposed to lay off
special districts, strips and sections, so that excuses may be found for levying
new taxes for new objects, and thus eat up the substance of the people."
I was compelled to veto a bill which required the city of Hloomington to
issue bonds and levy a tax for the purpose of paying for the grounds recently
purchased in said city by the Chicago & Alton Railroad Company for their
machine shops. I also vetoed a bill for an "act to fund and provide for paying
the railroad debts of counties, townships, cities and towns" upon the ground
that it required the taxes of one municipal corporation to be devoted to another.
I vetoed many other bills, upon the grounds that they were unjust or in
violation of the constitution. In all I vetoed one hundred and twelve bills
passed by the legislature. In many of the vetoes I was sustained by the su-
preme court.
In 1888 I was nominated as a candidate for governor by the Democratic
state convention, which met in Springfield. In 1890 I was nominated as a
candidate for United States senator for the term of six years, beginning on the
4th of March, 1891, and was elected on the one hundred and fifty-fourth ballot
March nth, 1891. On September 3d, 1896, I was nominated by the national
Democratic party as a candidate for the presidency. On the 3d of March, 1897,
my term as senator expired, and since that time I have devoted myself to the
practice of the law, as a member of the firm of Palmer, Shutt, Hamill & Lester.
WILLIAM H. BISSELL.
William H. Bissell* was born in Yates county, New York, on the 25th day
of April, 181 1. He received a respectable but not thorough academical educa-
tion. He studied medicine and came to Monroe county, Illinois, to practice
his profession. In 1840 he was elected to be a member of the house of repre-
sentatives of the general assembly. On his return from the meeting of the
legislature he concluded to study law, and he pursued his studies until qualified
for admission to the bar, and was afterward elected to be state's attorney for
the district in which he resided. In the meantime he removed to Belleville.
In the office of state's attorney he acquitted himself with great credit.
When the war was declared against ^Mexico he raised a company, of which he
was elected captain, and was by the volunteers chosen to be the colonel of the
second regiment raised in this state.
"For his opportunity he evinced a high order of military talent. Indeed,
* Sketch prepared by the editor of this work.
442 THE BENCH AND BAR Of ILLINOIS.
it was suspected from his practical knowledge of military affairs that he was
at one time connected with the army. He contributed by his valor and skill
to the successful result of the battle of Buena Vista. He was distinguished for
his quiet subordination, his care of his men and for the regular discharge of
all the duties of the commander of a regiment. After his term of senice
expired he returned home, and was twice elected to the house of representatives
in the congress of the United States.
"During the groat contest of 1850 he voted in favor of the adjustment
measures, holding the (ollowiug language on the doctrine of non-intervention:
'It is a principle, sir, upon which 1 have always stood, and from which I have
no idea of departing — a principle maintained and cherished by my constituents,
and one which they will be slow to surrender.' But in 1854, when the same
principle was sought to be applied to the organization of the territories of Kan-
sas and Xebraska, involving a repeal of thb Missouri compromise, he approved
that unnecessary assault upon the domain which for thirty years had been con-
secrated to freedom." — Davidson and Stuve, History of Illinois, pages 457-8-
He was nominated a candidate tor governor by the Bloomington conven-
tion, which was held on the 29th of May, 1856, as an anti-Nebraska Democrat,
and was elected over his principal opponent, William A. Richardson, by a
majority of 4,697.
Governor Bissell was buried in the '"old cemetery" at Springfield, and was
afterward reinterred in Oak Ridge cemetery, at which time the editor of this
work, who was then governor of the state, delivered an oration, which is copied
from his memoirs and here given place. The address was delivered May 31,
1871, at the dedication of the Bissell monument, and is as follows:
Citizens: We have been invited to-day to aid in dedicating this structure, to b« a
memorial of a name that the people of Ihis stale honor and revere, and we have visited
ihe quiet spot where slept all that time has left of William H. Bissell— the soldier, the
-Statesman and the patriot — and we have lovingly borne his remains to this place and
have deposited them here, no more to be disturbed; that this beautiful work may here-
after perpetuate his name and honor his memory. This solitary monument is to stand io
this city of the dead, a voiceless yet impressive witness that a great man has fallen, but is
not forgotten by his countrymen: while the inscriptions cut into the solid marble testify
at once to the brevity and nobility of his shining and useful life.
You have dot
his public duties, th
priaie terms as will
but will afford pro
Fellow citizen
performance of my
a recital of such f;
for as much as you
you- He was bon
with the almost inii
vanished- Of all o
f<:Tgotten ones strut
of their day: but r
It may well h
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS. 443
names will only be known to the students of the vanishing past, and none will care to
know when their lives began or when they ended. The great Napoleon, near the close
of his wonderful life, gave to this thought a mournful impressiveness when he ex-
claimed: "After all I have done, ten centuries hence I will fill but a single page of
history!" Indeed, the dates of human deaths and births are of no importance, for birth
and death signify but changes in form of being; the one is but the incarnation, and the
other the release of a soul; they are alike inevitable, and in themselves furnish no special
lesson for the benefit of mankind. It is true that the circumstances that surround an
early childhood and follow it in its growth, until it develops into mature life, are of vast
consequence. No mortal mind can fathom and no words explain the extent to which lives
are impressed and influenced by the conditions that attend childhood. It will be fully
known only when we stand in the presence of the Infinite, to what extent our example or
our neglect has taught the feet of innocent childhood to stray; and it is also true that
incidents of death sometimes impressively demonstrate the complete growth of the most
elevated qualities.
The end of the righteous is peace. The true man, at the close of a well spent life,
may look into the abyss that lies before him with confidence that he will awake in a new
sphere, filled with labors and duties; into a life that has its relations and obligations. He
must resign "this pleasing, anxious being," but he will enter into another, possessed of
larger powers.
It is material, therefore, to a proper understanding of the life of Governor Bissell
that you should be informed that he was of "humble parentage." These words we have
inherited from our mother country, together with many of its admirable, as well as
absurd, forms of thought and expression, and they are used to signify that his parents were
simple and honest God-fearing people. If they had been wealthy and influential I would
no doubt have employed the only admissible republican substitute for nobility b> de-
claring them to have been "highly respectable," even though they neither "feared God nor
regarded man."
During his childhood he had before him the parental examples of industry and
frugality and of the honest, painstaking discharge of daily duties; his life commenced and
his boyhood was surrounded by such influences and no other, and none that knew him
well will doubt that they were the foundations of the rules of a life that was singularly
brilliant and successful and that would, under favorable circumstances of physical health
and constitutional vigor, have become eminently distinguished. Young men of the present
day are slow to comprehend the difficulties that forty years ago embarrassed those who
were eager to obtain the advantages of thorough literary culture. Even in some of the
states that are now overflowing with wealth and population, schools and higher institu-
tions of learning were comparatively rare. They were roads, but not royal roads, and
Governor Bissell was able by these agencies to acquire a respectable, though I think not a
thorough academical education.
I do not refer to the circumstances of the childhood and youth of Governor Bissell to
find corroboration for the popular belief that enforced industry and self-denial in early life
are unfavorable to high intellectual or moral development, for, contrary to the general
view, I am persuaded that the stern lessons of poverty, in the modified and softened forms
in which it presents itself in our country, are more useful and impressive than any that can
be imparted in the schools. The fortunate young man possessed of generous traits, re-
lieved from ill judged and enervating support, is permitted to acquire and cultivate the
master quality of manhood, self-reliant helpfulness, a hopeful, enduring confidence in his
own capacity to do. This lies at the foundation of all true success in life, and is learned
only in the field of actual struggle; and the boy who is compelled to face obstacles and
overcome them will enter upon manhood with a courage to which all things are possible,
and though he may, in the great battle of life, suffer reverses and occasional defeats, he
will win the victory at last.
Governor Bissell came to Illinois in his early manhood, a physician, and engaged in
444 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
•
the practice of his profession. I have never thought it to be singular that a man of his
active, ambitious qualities, but acute and inquisitive mind, should have been at first fasci-
nated by the study of the laws of life and health, of disease and death. How marvelous
it is that we live and move and think and love and fear and hate; how wonderful it is
that we thrill with abundant joyous health, that we tremble and cower at the touch of
slight disease; and how astounding that death is on every hand around us — above and
beneath — that he conceals himself in the waters and floats upon the breeze; he touches us,
and we are no more.
Those who knew the quality and texture of Bissell's mind will readily understand
the earnestness with which he would labor to master these mysteries, and that after having
learned that they were all concealed from mortal view; that they are as unfathomable as
nature herself, he would turn his attention to other fields of effort.
He was elected to the legislature, and was engaged in public employment, with
slight interruptions, for the remainder of his life. He turned his attention to the profes-
sion of the law, and soon attained a high rank in his new calling.
On the breaking out of the war with Mexico he was chosen the commander of a
regiment, and during his term of service he evinced the possession of high military
qualities. He was, soon after the close of the war, elected to a seat "in the national con-
gress, and was afterward chosen to be governor of the state, the tenth^ in the order of
service, and died on the i8th day of March, i860, before the expiration of his constitutional
term, at the age of forty-eight years. How brief this life, and how few are the leading
events to which I have referred; and yet I have already declared in your hearing that such
a life is to be regarded as successful.
Biography is history, and the history of the world is usually written as if there was
nothing worthy to be chronicled but the rise and fall of empires, the beginning and end
of dynasties, and the marches and battles of armies; and yet these, of all others, are the facts
least worthy to be remembered. Man, under God, is the universe, and information that
his governmental forms at different periods have justified one or some other designation,
furnishes us no clue by which the actual condition of peoples may be ascertained. Em-
perors and kings have been sometimes the guardians of liberty, and popular forms of gov-
ernment, on the other hand, have often been administered by the despotic and cruel.
Armies are but imperfect types of the civilization of their period, and great battles won
in the name of despotism have often proved to be the triumph of human freedom.
The events that constitute the staple of history are valueless until subjected to philo-
sophical analysis and considered in all their relations and influences; and when this is wisely
(lone the ajre to which they are to be referred stands out before us like a picture, in which
every object preserves its proper proportions. And so it is of the leading facts in the
life history of eminent men. We may be told that Washington was the commander-in-
chief of the American armies during the war of the Revolution, and that he was afterward
the president of the United States; but these are the most unimportant circumstances of
Ins grand and sublime life. We are to be instructed and profited by a history of his minor,
inner life; by a knowledge of all those admirable qualities that existed and. when so happily
combined, constituted the man who was "first in war, first in peace and first in the hearts
of his countrymen."
And those of us who stand here, near the city of Springfield, which was his cherished
liomc when he lived, and in this solemn city, which is his home now that he is dead.
and within sight of that towering column erected to point out to the pilgrims of liberty
who may inquire for the tomb of the noble martyr where he sleeps, do not, when we
speak of Lincohi, say he was once a member of congress, or that he was twice elected to
the highest place in the gift of the American people, for we know that these events were
but the result of the qualities that marked him the central figure in the sublimest events
in history. But we speak of his modesty, his truthfulness, his fidelity to the right, his in-
dustry, his wonderful wealth of firmness and courage, his broad capacity, that were so
suddenly developed by the responsibilities of his great place that they seemed to us like
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS. 445
the inspirations of Deity; his patriotism, and the golden chain of personal excellencies that
cannot be described and that bound all these into one compact and harmonious whole, so
lofty and so great that it astonished us who knew him best and imagined we knew all
that there was to be learned of his character. Men are to be studied and described by
their qualities, their capacities and their trials. In the true portraiture of history, events
in their lives are only appealed to as witnesses. Acts are but the objective types or re-
sults of inner forces.
I have already mentioned that Governor Bissell abandoned his early profession for
that of the law. For this field of labor he possessed many natural qualifications. He was a
clear and accurate thinker and was an honest thinker, if I may be allowed to use a term
that more properly belongs to the domain of morals, to illustrate mere intellectual
processes.
Notwithstanding the rigor and exactness of all true forms of logical reasoning, every
one has observed that some minds are so radically oblique that they cannot perceive or
accept, but will always, though unconsciously, resist the most accurate deductions of rea-
son. Such persons are affected by what may be very fairly termed intellectual color-blind-
ness. The mental eye is incapable of perceiving some of the rays of light that contribute
to the true color of truth, and they therefore labor on, all unconscious of their existence.
His mind, at a glance, took into view all the shades of truth, and accepted logical results
as if they were the decrees of fate. He cherished for the law the most profound respect,
and, like the sages whose wisdom has made the profession illustrious, he esteemed the
law to be "the science of practical justice," and held that its professors are bound by the
most solemn obligations to maintain and enforce it. In his view the law is a shield to the
lielpless and a defense to the innocent. Some who are now present will remember when
Bissell was the representative of public justice, and when the ablest of the profession
esteemed it an honor to be selected to defend the poor. His antagonists felt always
sure that the claims of the law would be maintained, but that justice and right would
. never be disregarded. Some of his professional rivals live to-day to cherish his memory;
but others, ah, how many of them! are like him, gone to appear in the tribunal of the
Infinite Judge.
As a politician he was earnest and sincere. The ostensible grounds of political con-
troversy in the earlier years of the public life of Governor Bissell are of but little real
importance. The great conflict that created the Democratic and Whig parties was over.
As early as the year 1840 the Whig party, upon issues that are not now easily explained,
carried the presidential election and nearly all the states, but it perished in the very hour
of its triumph, and in 1844 the Democratic party, under the leadership of Mr. Polk, cap-
tured, and carried into the citadel with shouts of triumph, the wooden horse, filled with
its deadliest enemies. The inauguration of Mr. Polk was followed by a war with Mexico,
and the results of that war forced upon the country the necessity of considering some of
the aspects of the, even then, dreaded slavery question.
Governor Bissell, who had borne an honorable part in the war, was elected by the
people of his district to represent them in the house of representatives in the federal con-
gress, and upon that theatre early distinguished himself for clearness of views and for his
calm, though courageous, utterances. He entertained the opinion that slavery, when es-
tablished or maintained within any of the states, by their own authority, was properly
beyond the reach of any external disturbance; but he was equally firm in the expression
of the belief that it did not exist, and could not be established by federal authorities, in any
of the territories acquired from Mexico.
The discussions in congress on this and kindred topics were attended by the usual
explosions of passion and feeling. Amid all the scenes of these turbulent sessions of
congress. Governor Bissell bore himself with that quiet calmness that characterized him on
the field of Buena Vista. He was courteous to all; he was dignified and deferential, but
in spite of all this he became involved in an affair that no one that undertakes to do
justice to his memory can pass over in silence. For decorous words, calmly and courte-
446 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
ously, though firmly, spoken in debate, he was challenged by Mr. Jefferson Davis, then
a member of congress from Mississippi, but afterward notorious as the chief of the brief and
ill-starred southern confederacy, to fight a duel, and he coolly and decisively accepted the
challenge.
Before discussing the questions of morality and propriety that are to be considered
in determining upon the conduct of Bissell upon this occasion, I may be permitted to say
that his acceptance of this challenge was with a deliberate intention to fight. He nro-
posed no unusual weapons or terms; he indulged in no useless words. In this respect
his conduct was characteristic of his life. Whether his acceptance of the challenge was
justifiable or not, depends upon all the attending circumstances. Personal self-defense
is a right recognized alike by divine and human laws, and that defense is most perfect that
not only repels but anticipates and prevents danger.
The war of the sections, that afterward summoned millions to the field, had even then
commenced, and the challenge of Mr. Davis was addressed not only to William H. Bis-
sell, but to his state and the whole north. Northern public men then and afterward, under
the mistaken belief that the northern people demanded that they should not repel insult
by the punishment of the aggressor, submitted to contumely and outrage to an extent
that even now cannot be remembered without a flush of indignation. It seemed then to be
demanded of public men that they should speak freely and assert the right to freedom of
speech, but that they should not employ the only mode possible for its defense. I admit
that the principles of Christianity condemn all forms of violence not employed withm
the strictest limits of self-defense; but I have often felt that the right to employ force in
the vindication of other rights is as sacred and as necessary as that of personal self-pro-
tection.
At that time it was the purpose of southern public men to subjugate the whole conti-
nent to slavery; and personal menaces and insults toward members of congress from the
north and west were the means resorted to to give effect to their plans. They trusted in
the efficacy of intimidation, and the challenge to Governor Bissell was an experiment in
that direction, and history has already testified as to the measure of its success. In my
judgment, under the circumstances that then existed, the acceptance of this challenge
was simply the discharge of a necessary duty to the state; there was no middle ground:
insults must have been borne or resented: intimidation must have been submitted to or
repelled, and no man ought now to hesitate to decide as to what was the proper line of
duty.
But I have consumed too much time upon this interesting episode in the life of the
distinguished man whose remains are to be to-day forever shut out from mortal view.
Before the close of his congressional term he was smitten by that mysterious disease that
pursued him without relenting until the close of his life.
In the year 1856 he was elected by the people to be the governor of Illinois, but even
before that event, which afforded him such gratifying proof of the affection and con-
fidence of his fellow-citizens, it was manifest to his friends that his active career was ended.
He brought to the administration of the state the resources of a clear and still vigorous
mind and an earnest purpose to advance the public weal; but his stealthy foe did not re-
lease his grasp, and on the i8th day of March, i860, quietly removed him from earth
I have thus briefly spoken of the dead, but not fully: have presented points in hi>
history and character that are worthy of study and imitation, and now we leave these poor
remains here to rest in peace until the great day when he and we ourselves shall rise and
stand together before the throne of the Eternal.
Gentlemen, you who were charged by the state with the duty of designing and erecting
this monument, have acquitted yourselves well. Governor Bissell was the official associate
of some of you, and the friend of all. Yours has been a melancholy duty, but on your
part one of love. Accept the thanks of the people of the state, through me, for your fidelity
to your sacred trust.
CHAPTER XXIV.
THE COURTS OF KNOX COUNTY— EARLY MEMBERS OF THl
BAR— LAWYERS OF PRESENT BAR.
CONTRIBUTED BY B. P. WILLIAMS, ESQ.
KNOX COUNTY was organized on the loth day of June, i8
first term of the circuit court was held at the residence of John
mon, section 32, Henderson township, about four miles nor
Galesburg, on October i, 1830, Judge Richard M. Young, then juds
fifth judicial district, presiding. In the absence of Thomas Ford, stat i
ney, James M. Strode was appointed state's attorney pro tem. The tei
but one day. But little business was transacted, the grand and petit jur
discharged without performing any duties. The next term of the circ 1
was held in the log court-house at Knoxville on June i8, 1832. The gi
reported to the court that they had no business before them and kn*
violation of law which it was their duty to notice. The first contested 1
an action brought by Rhoda Tanner against her husband, John Tannei
resident of the state of Illinois, for divorce. This was not hastily grar 1
only after a thorough and patient investigation into the merits of th
The old log court-house was built in 183 1. It seems to have been a sty i
fice for those days, being erected at an entire cost for building and fu
of $349.43-
The second presiding judge was Hon. James H. Ralston, a native
tucky. He was elected by the legislature, in 1837, to fill a vacancy occ i
by the resignation of Judge Richard M. Young. Judge Ralston renia 1
office but a short time. He was succeeded by Hon. Peter Lott, a native
York, and he by Stephen A. Douglas, who continued to hold our cour
1841 until August, 1843, when, having been elected to congress from t :
congressional district of Illinois, he resigned the office of judge. The
and fidelity with which Judge Douglas performed his duties as presiding i
profoundly impressed both the bar and the community.
Hon. Jesse B. Thomas was presiding judge from 1843 to 1845. I
succeeded by Hon. Norman H. Purple, of Peoria, who held the office fc
years, when he resigned on account of the insufficiency of the salary. It •.
to say that few, if any, abler men ever held the office of nisi-prius judge
state of Illinois. Judge Purple honored the office.
Hon. Thomas Ford, better known as Governor Ford, was prose*
attorney of our circuit from the organization of the county until Janua
1885. Of him it has well been said, ''Possessed of high and noble qualiti
447
448 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
manhood; a thorough student, keen, energetic, untiring lawyer; of strict integ-
rity, he was universally esteemed and respected."
Among others of the abler state's attorneys in our circuit were the late
Hon. William A. Richardson, Robert S. Blackwell and William C. Goudy.
Take it for all in all, Knox county, from the inception of its organization to the
present time, has been singularly fortunate in its bench and bar.
Patrick H. Sanford was born in Cornwall, Addison county, Vermont,
November lo, 1822; graduated at Middlebury College in 1846; read law with
Judge Asahel Peck, at Burlington, X'ermont; came to Knoxville in December,
1852; completed his law studies with Manning & Douglas; was admitted to
the bar in the spring of 1853, and from that time to the present has been and
continues an honored member of the Knox county bar. He w^as county super-
intendent of schools from 1856 to 1862; master in chancery from 1856 to 1864;
was a member of the lower house in the twenty-second general assembly; mem-
ber of the state senate in the twenty-eighth and twenty-ninth general assem-
blies; and county judge from 1886 to 1898, inclusive. He has now returned to
active practice. He has always been found possessed of excellent legal judg-
ment, coupled w4th spotless integrity.
Thomas G. Frost was born at Whitestown, Oneida county. New York,
May 4, 182 1. He graduated with honor at Hamilton College, in the class of
1843, pursued his preliminary law^ studies in the office of Strecker & Comstock,
at Rome, New York, and was admitted to the bar in 1846. He was engaged
in active practice at Rome, New York, until 1857, when he removed to Knox
county^ settling in the city of Galesburg, w-here he resided until his removal to
Chicago, in 1871. It is said by one who was thoroughly acquainted w^ith Mr.
Frost during his residence and active practice in Oneida county, New York,
that "he was shortly recognized as one of the most promising lawyers of the
county. A close student, with a w-ell trained and discriminating mind, pains-
taking and industrious, thoroughly grounded in legal principles, he discharged
his duties to his clients with painstaking, conscientious fidelity." Entering
upon the practice of law^ in Knox county, Mr. Frost found, in the foremost
firms of the county^ specially able antagonists. These senior practitioners w'ere
Manning, Douglas & Craig, than wdiom no firm in central Illinois ranked
higher; Tyler & Sanford, likewise experienced and skillful attorneys; while,
at Galesburg, Arthur A. Smith, with his partner, had deservedly many friends.
It was shortly found that Mr. Frost was thoroughly capable of conducting any
cause, either in the nisi-prius courts or in the supreme court. During the fif-
teen years that he remained a member of the Knox county bar he was always
employed on the one side or the other of every important cause. Nor did he
ever fail properly to acquit himself. It was notably true, and conceded on all
hands by every worthy antagonist, that no man at the bar excelled him in every
fitting characteristic of an able, conscientious and thoroughly trustworthy law-
yer. No man ever more thoroughly devoted himself to the interests of every
client whose cause he espoused. In the early winter of 1880 Mr. Frost was sud-
denly stricken. He temporarily came to his old home in Galesburg, seeking
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS. 449
rest from his arduous labors ; and thence shortly went to Las Vegas, New Mex-
ico, in the hope of obtaining relief at the springs, but without avail. On
December 29, 1880, he passed away, sincerely mourned and warmly admired by
everyone who knew him intimately.
At a meeting of the members of the bar of Chicago, held January 3, 1881,
to take action on the death of Mr. T. G. Frost, the late lamented Charles B.
Lawrence was elected chairman and H. B. Bergen secretary. No better epit-
ome of the life and character of Mr. Frost can be given than by embodying
some of the suggestions there made. Judge Lawrence said, among other
things: **Our profession is one of antagonism between its members while we
are in life, but the moment death has come, and the busy brain has ceased its
labor, and the lips are dumb forever, all thought of former contests vanishes,
and we remember of a dead brother only what was noble and generous and
good. But the man in memory of whom we have come here to-day needs not
the sanctity of the grave to bring oblivion to any heart-burnings. He had no
enemies. He was so good a man, so upright, so courteous, and in all the instincts
of his nature such a modest and high-hearted gentleman that even in the con-
tests of the bar, earnest and able as he was, he awoke no bitterness of personal
feeling.
**I have known him well for many years, and I had not only a profound
respect for his character as a man, but a very high opinion of his professional
abilities and attainments. Of a temperament that sought retirement rather than
display, he did not fill so large a space in the public gaze as he might easily have
done if he had desired. But lawyers who have had him as an antagonist in the
courts have had good reason to know that if there was a weak point in their
case he was certain to find it and lay it bare. He had a very unusual degree
of analytical power, and he added to these an unwearied industry and great
power of application. The result was that he made himself absolute master
of every case committed to his charge, and he did this with a conscientious fidel-
ity, whether the amount involved was small or great. While I was on the bench
I was always struck by the exhaustive character of his legal arguments, and I
have recently heard a distinguished judge of one of our courts make a similar
remark. He was an honor to our profession; he stood in its front ranks; and
in his comparatively early death our bar has suffered a great loss."
Judge Thomas Drummond said: "I first understood Mr. Frost's character
as a lawyer from an argument which he made before me at Indianapolis several
years ago, and I must confess I was rather surprised as to the ability which
he manifested on that occasion. And it was a very important case. I had heard
but very little of him before that time, although I knew he was a member of
the Chicago bar. He has frequently argued cases before me since, and I think
there was no member of the bar that gave more instruction to the court upon
the case that was being argued than Mr. Frost. It was done in a very quiet,
unobtrusive, unostentatious manner. There was no noise; there was no effort
at display; there was no attempt to do anything except simply to present the
le^al questions arising in it to the court. There was no special fancy; it was
29
4SO THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
simple, plain, downright logic, and it was always a gratification to me to hear
him argiie a case, because his only object seemed to be, what I think should be
alw^ays the main object of the lawyer in addressing the court, to inform the
court of the merits of the case and present the question in the most forcible
way on his own side. He was always perfectly fair, perfectly just. There never
was the slightest attempt on his part, at any rate I never discovered it, to mis-
lead or deceive the court."
General John B. Hawley, chairman of the committee on resolutions, said
of him, among other things: "He stood in the very front rank among the ablest
of his profession, and had long occupied that position. His natural endow-
ments were great, and he had spent his life in the severest study and training,
that he might be fully equipped for the proper discharge of all his duties as a
lawyer and citizen. In both relations he discharged his whole duty. Ever
faithful to his client, and ever bringing to his case every w-eapon that could be
justly and fairly used to advance his interests, he never for one moment forgot
his duty or resorted to unfair methods, or sought to deceive the court or jury.
He was a model lawyer. He was beloved and admired by all who knew him.
With great abilities he combined gentleness of heart and temper and an affec-
tionate nature. These traits in his character naturally drew many to him and
gave him warm and faithful friends. He lived on a higher plane than most men.
With him duty was the guide of his life, and where duty led he followed. This
was shown in all the relations he sustained in life. Such a man is a great bless-
ing to the w^orld, his death a great loss to his race. It is the putting out of a
beacon light."
Of the many able lawyers, both resident and non-resident, practicing at
the bar of Knox county in the early years, no man was ever more thoroughly
honored and esteemed, whether as a lawyer or a citizen ; no man ever met him,
whether as associate or opposing counsel, in any matter of importance who had
not, by reason of it, a higher appreciation of the nobility of our profession.
Curtis K. Harvey was born in Knoxville, Illinois, in 1847. ^is father,
Curtis K. Harvey, was a pioneer member of the Knox county bar; an able and
worthy antagonist of Julius Manning from 1839 to 1847, when he was suddenly
stricken and died, leaving a son, Curtis K. Harvey, an infant in arms, and tw^o
daughters, of whom one is the gifted and estimable wife of Hon. A. M. Craig,
so long an able and distinguished member of our supreme court. Young Har-
vey graduated at Knox College in 1868; pursued his preliminary studies with
his brother-in-law, A. M. Craig; was admitted to the bar in 1869, and was
immediately admitted to partnership with Judge Craig. On the accession of
Judge Craig to the supreme court he formed a partnership wdth Judge Leander
Douglas, a former partner of Judge Craig. He died March 2, 1878, almost at
the very threshold of his professional life, but during the nine years that he was
a member of our bar we all came to admire and love him. He was a man of
superior ability, fine education, had a thorough knowledge of the principles of
law: possessed of a retentive and ready memory and quick perception. He
reasoned from principles with accuracy, was clear and original in presenting his
1
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS. 451
case to the jury, and his legal arguments were characterized by unusual force
and clearness. He was in every relation a model man and brother. In his death
Knox county lost one of the very best and ablest sons ever bom unto her; the
bar one of its purest-hearted and ablest members. No one was ever privileged
to be well acquainted with him without being made better thereby.
Leander Douglas, a nephew of Julius Manning (whose memory is yet
green in the hearts of the bar and people of Knox county), came to Knoxville
in 1852, and commenced practicing as junior member in the firm of Manning
& Douglas. Possessed of rare mental faculties and legal acumen, he was shortly
recognized as an able member of the bar. On the death of Mr. Manning the
firm became Douglas & Craig. The firm enjoyed a large and lucrative practice.
Their services were in demand in Knox and the surrounding counties. The
mental characteristics of the partners were such that each supplemented every
effort of the other. No case entrusted to their care was lost through lack of
ability and thorough and painstaking fidelity to the interests of the client. In the
year 1870 Judge Douglas moved to Missouri. On the accession of Judge
Craig to the supreme bench he returned to Knox county, settling in Galesburg,
where he continued to practice until 1880. He possessed unusual gifts as an
advocate. In fact, it came to be generally conceded that in a cause involving
sacred human rights no member of our bar possessed even approximate ability
to sway the hearts of men.
* Arthur A. Smith, of Galesburg, for twenty-nine years circuit judge of
the tenth judicial district, is a native of Ohio. He was born in Batavia, Clare-
mont county, on the 9th of May, 1829, ^ind is a son of Eratus and Martha (Hulick)
Smith, the former a native of Rhode Island and the latter of the Buckeye state.
The Judge acquired his elementary education in the place of his nativity, and in
the fall of 1840 came to Knox county, Illinois, where he entered upon a course of
advanced study in Knox College^ making his home in the city of Galesburg,
the seat of that institution of learning. He was graduated in the class of 1853
and at once entered upon the study of law under the supervision of Abraham
Becker, formerly an able practitioner of New York, completing his course in
the office and under the direction of Hon., Julius Manning, of Peoria, Illinois.
In 1855 Judge Smith was admitted to the bar of Illinois and immediately
began practice in Galesburg, where he continued in the active practice of his
chosen profession until after the outbreak of the civil war. Feeling that his
country needed his services, in 1862 he joined the boys in blue of the Eighty-
third Regiment of Illinois Infantry, and upon the final organization of that body
was elected lieutenant-colonel. Subsequently he was commissioned colonel,
and was brevetted brigadier-general. Throughout the war he was an active
participant in the struggle and rendered cfifective service to the government in
maintaining the integrity of the Union. His regiment served in the west, prin-
cipally in the Army of the Cumberland, and his personal gallantry and bravery
inspired his men to deeds of valor.
* The following sketches are not a portion of the article contributed by Mr. Williams.
452 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS,
When hostilities had ceased Judge Smith returned to Galesburg and
resumed the practice of his profession, rapidly acquiring an extensive and
remunerative clientage. In 1866 he was appointed by Governor Oglesby to fill
the unexpired term of Judge John S. Thompson, and at the expiration of that
term, in June, 1867, he was elected to the same office, — judge of the tenth judi-
cial circuit, then comprising the counties of Knox, Warren, Mercer and Hen-
derson. For the five succeeding terms he was chosen by the vote of the people
for the same office, but two years before the expiration of his last term he re-
signed on account of ill health, making a continuous service on the bench of
about twenty-nine years. He is a learned and skillful practitioner and ex-
pounder of the law, and his judgments and rulings were remarkable for their
soundness and accuracy.
In his political views Judge Smith is a stanch Republican, and in 1861 he
was elected to the state legislature, where he served for two sessions, through-
out which his conduct was characterized by inflexible loyalty and marked
ability. In all matters pertaining to the social and political welfare of his
adopted state and county he is warmly interested. He has aided effectively in
developing and fostering the industries and resources of Galesburg, and while
in the halls of the legislature worked profitably for the interests of his constitu-
ents. He has been a trustee of Knox College for more than tw^enty years, and
the cause of education finds in him a warm friend. He belongs to the Grand
Army post of Galesburg, and is a member of the Loyal Legion commandery, of
Chicago.
In 1855 Judge Smith married Miss Mary Delano, whose death occurred
the following year. He afterward wedded Mary E. Benner, of Galesburg, and
they have five children: Blanche V., Arthur A., De Witt, Loyal L. and Benner
X. The daughter is an accomplished musician and spent five years in Europe
in the cultivation of this artistic talent. Arthur A. is a rising young attorney
of Galesburg. De Witt is engaged in the jewelry business in Chicago, whik'
Loyal is an attorney of that city, and Benner was until recently a leading lawyer
of Salt Lake City, Utah, and deputy attorney-general of that state, but when
the Spanish-American war was declared, he resigned and entered the military
service of his country.
Edward Payson Williams has resided in Galesburg for more than fifty years,
and for the past twenty-five years has been the recognized leader of the Knox
county bar. His modest and unassuming nature has kept him from the public
gaze, but the strength, clearness and accuracy of his judgment, coupled with
an unflecked purity and integrity of life, have made him known and respected
and loved by all who have been either his clients or his friends.
His father, Sherman Williams, was one of the early abolitionists, and first
settled in Missouri; but his views on the slavery question were not accepted
there and he was driven from the state by the pro-slavery element^ fleeing by
night with his wife and young children. His mother, Sally (Bradley) Williams,
was a woman of very remarkable intellectual power, an omnivorous reader, with
a genius and love for guiding and instructing youthful minds.
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS. 453
Mr. Williams' early life was spent on a farm, and, excepting portions of a
few years which were spent in the district school and in Knox College, he did
the hard and exacting work of the farm until he had passed his twenty-fifth year.
An injury which he then received disabled him from continuing in that calling,
and he took up with indomitable purpose his preparation for the practice of
the law. After two years of study, he was admitted to the bar of Illinois on an
examination conducted in person by the late Judge Corydon Beckwith. From
the very beginning of his practice he took rank as a lawyer who knew the law
and could present it clearly, who prepared his cases with thoroughness and who
tried them both skillfully and honorably; who gave the same high service to the
small cause and to the poor client that the largest interests could command;
and it was soon known to all that he would neither take a retainer because the
professional rewards were to be large if the cause did not commend itself to his
judgment and conscience, nor refuse a cause that seemed to him meritorious
though no reward were promised and its advocacy was unpopular.
His name will be found as counsel in nearly every volume of the reports of
the supreme court of Illinois from the 48th to the present time. Upon import-
ant or intricate questions of law^ no better briefs than his have been filed in
that court. They have furnished the basis for the opinions of the supreme court
in many leading cases; notably, in the celebrated county-seat fight between
Knoxville and Galesburg, settling the right of citizens by a bill in equity to
purge poll books and election returns of the illegal votes cast, and to have the
court determine the result of the legal votes at such election. Knox County
versus Davis, Illinois Reports, volume 63, page 405. In Stowell versus Bair,
Ilh'nois Appellate Reports, volume 5, page 104, he filed a masterly brief on the
question of the priority of lien upon growing crops between the landlord and
the mortgagee. In Patterson versus McKinney, Illinois Reports, volume 97,
page 41, his brief upon the proposition that conveyances to one's family made
while heavily indebted and engaged in speculations can be set aside in equity
as fraudulent, is preserved in the report. In Kiernan versus C, S. F. & C. Rail-
way Company, Illinois Reports, volume 123, page 188, the court sustained his
splendid set of instructions as to weight of evidence in condemnation cases.
During his long career at the bar he has met in professional contests nearly
every prominent lawyer of the Military Tract, and has won his fuU share of
victories. In the early days his practice was not confined to Knox county, but
extended to all the counties of the circuit. In Fulton county he practiced with
Hon. William C. Goudy, who afterward became a well known lawyer in Chi-
cago, and Hon. S. P. Shope, afterward justice of the supreme court and now
in active practice in Chicago. He was often retained with or against Hon.
Thomas G. Frost, afterward of Frost & Miller, of Chicago; Hon. A. M. Craig,
now one of the justices of the supreme court; Hon. Charles B. Lawrence, after-
ward justice of the supreme court, and then one of the leaders of the Chicago
bar, and many others. He was an early friend of John P. Wilson, Esq., and of
Judge Blodg^ett, of Chicago. All who have met him in the courts or have in
other ways come to know him, esteem him for his fidelity as a friend and his
454 THE BENCH AND BAR OF H.UN01S.
integrity as a citizen, and warmly admire the ability and conscience wliich have
characterized every act of his professional life. But his best work and highest
title to distinction does not lie in his purely professional work. His greatest in-
fluence has been wielded as a man of honor and moral bravery, and through
the many men who have gained their professional ideals and inspiration while
students in his office.
From the day he entered a law office until now, he has placed the obliga-
tions of a lawyer before his rewards and has always cared more to settle strife
and protect rights by fair compromise than to encourage litigation or imperil
his clients' interests in the hope of professional reward or distinction.
He has not drawn the line merely against dishonest claims or methods,
but against causes and courses that while entirely honest might prove hard-
ships to the party, though beneficial to the attorney. For example, a mort-
gage for over twenty thousand dollars was sent him with instructions to begin
foreclosure proceedings. The mortgagor was in default and a foreclosure pro-
ceeding would have brought an attorney's fee of an unusual size and of which,
on account of the large number of persons dependent upon him, he was in
real need. Yet because the mortgagee was honest and would, in his judgment,
be able to pay the larger portion of the defaulted interest within the next six
months, he made the unasked recommendation of a postponement of the fore-
closure proceedings. The result was that the mortgagor saved his land and the
mortgagee secured his debt, and Mr. Williams received, but a nominal fee. And
examples of this sort might be multiplied. The golden rule controls him both
as a lawyer and as a man.
Students from his office are found in the upper ranks of the profession from
New York to Seattle, Washington, and all hold him both as a lawyer and citi-
zen in the highest regard and affection.
He is a Republican in politics, as was natural from his early experiences,
but he has never sought public office. In the early days of his practice he was city
attorney of Galesburg for one term, and master in chancery of the circuit court
for a short time. His friends have long desired to place him upon the circuit bench,
where his profound knowledge of the law, tempered by his fine sense of justice,
would have been so valuable to litigants; but he has been unwilling to make
any canvass for the place or to undergo the strife of a political campaign. He
has neither the temperamenr nor the natural gifts of an advocate, though in
cases appealing strongly to his feelings he has made some very notable and
effective arguments to juries. His conspicuous pre-eminence, however, is as a
wise counselor who ahvays sought and rarely missed "the right of the matter."
Though past three-score years, he is still in active practice in the full possession
of his ripened powers, and has associated with him in the practice two sons, —
Messrs. Edwin N. and G. P. Williams, — who are rendering him strong and
efficient aid in conducting the litigation in which the firm is retained.
James A. McKenzic, of Galesburg, was bom April 28, 1837, at Spring
Corners, Crawford county, Pennsylvania, and is a son of Alexander and Dei-
dama (Hendryx) McKenzie. He completed his literary education by his gradu-
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS. 455
ation in Knox College as a member of the class of 1859. He took the full course
in three years, completing the work of the junior and senior classes in the school
year of 1858-59, and standing first in each. He began the practice of law in
i860, in Cambridge, Illinois, remaining an active member of the profession
at that place until after the inauguration of the civil war, when he entered his
country's service.
Mr. McKenzie volunteered in August, 1861, and was commissioned captain
of Company H, Thirty-third Illinois Infantry. His miUtary duty was of a very
important and difficult character. For three weeks he was judge advocate of
the militar}^ commission at Reeves station, Arkansas, was judge advocate of
court-martial for six weeks at Batesville, Arkansas, called to that duty by
Major-General Curtis, in 1862, and was provost marshal of the division com-
manded by Brigadier-General Steele, at Helena, Arkansas, until transferred to
the staff of Major-General Curtis as provost-marshal-general of the Army of
the Southwest. His service was always most efficiently and faithfully per-
formed, and his duty in a most important and difficult branch of the army was
ably discharged.
Returning to the north, Mr. McKenzie resumed the practice of law in Gales-
burg, where he has since made his home. He was elected state's attorney for
the tenth circuit, and held that office from 1864 until 1872. He has a large and
distinctively representative clientage, has depended entirely upon his own efforts
for advancement, and study, close investigation and marked ability have enabled
him to make a splendid record. He stands high as a lawyer, his position re-
sulting from his marked individuality and his clear knowledge and statement of
the law. He is true to his clients and to himself, justly regarding his self-respect
and the deserved esteem of his fellow men as more valuable than any wealth,
fame or position which springs from toadyism and sycophancy.
John James Tunnicliff, of Galesburg, has long figured as a leader of the bar
in his section of the state. For a third of a century he has practiced in the
courts of his district and has won the laurels that crown briUiant achievement.
In his early manhood he came to Knox county, and Galesburg has been the
scene of his professional labors almost from the beginning of his career as a
lawyer.
His birth occurred at Penn Yan, New York, March 17, 1841, his parents
being" Nelson and Mary (Smith) Tunnicliff. The former was a- merchant and a
son of John TunnicliflF, one of the early settlers of Herkimer county. New York.
Our subject acquired his education in Hamilton College, of Clinton, New York,
where he was graduated in the class of 1863, after which he took a course in the
Albany Law School, being admitted to the bar at Albany, New York, in 1864.
Immediately afterward he came to Illinois and spent a few months in the office
of Judge D. G. Tunnicliff, of Macomb, after which he located in Galesburg,
where he has since made his home.
In this city he entered into partnership with the late Thomas G. Frost,
then one of the leading lawyers of the state, the firm being known as Frost &
Tunnicliff. They soon built up an extensive practice in the counties of Knox,
4S6 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
Henry, Mercer, Warren and Henderson, and also practiced in the supreme court
of Illinois and the United States courts. Their business relationship was ter-
minated by Mr. Frost's removal to Chicago, in 1871. The following year Mr.
Tunnicliff was elected on the Republican ticket to the office of state's attorney
of Knox county, and was five times re-elected, serving in that capacity for
twenty consecutive years, or until 1892, when he declined to again become a
candidate. In 1880 his brother, George Tunnicliff, became his partner under
the firm name of J. J. & G. TunnicliflF, and thus he continued in general prac-
tice, at the same time discharging his official duties. This firm is still in ex-
istence and is among the leading law firms in this part of the state. During his
official career J. J. Tunnicliff prosecuted several cases that attracted widespread
attention almost throughout the nation, and was regarded as one of the ablest
prosecutors of the state. He represented the state in the trial of John Marion
Osborne for the murder of Adelia M. Matthews, and the prisoner was executed
in Knoxville, March 14, 1873, the only criminal ever hanged in Knox county.
He also secured the conviction of the notorious "Frank Rande," alias Charles
C. Scott, who was tried for murder, the case occupying the attention of the
court for nearly two weeks, reporters being in attendance from Indianapolis,
St. Louis, Burlington, Michigan City and Chicago. The argument of the state's
attorney covered seven hours and was a most masterful summing up of the
evidence and the law. The Chicago Tribune referred to it "as worthy a place in
a most praiseworthy prosecution." Mr. Tunnicliff also successfully prosecuted
one of the first and most important indictments under the "dram-shop act oi
1872," for selling liquor to a minor, which the supreme court affirmed, the
case of McCutcheon versus the people, 69th Illinois, 601, being the leading
case on the question, "that the law imposed upon the licensed seller the duty
to see that the party to whom he sells is authorized to buy."
Mr. Tunnicliff has been twice married. On the 3d of July, 1866, he wedded
Catharine Ludlow Burrows, daughter of the late John A. D. and Louisa (Dud-
ley) Burrows, of Clifton, Ohio, and granddaughter of Colonel Ambrose Dudley,
of Lexington, Kentucky. She died May 10, 1871, leaving one son, Frederick
B., bom April 29, 1871. Mr. Tunnicliff was again married, January 23, 1873,
his second union being with Margaretta Willoughby Duffield, daughter of Rev.
George Duffield, D. D., and Augusta Willoughby Duffield, of Detroit, Michi-
gan. They have two sons and a daughter: George Duffield, born January 22,
1874; Augusta Willoughby, born August 12, 1877, ^"^ John James, born April
22, 1879. Mr. Tunnicliff is connected with the Presbyterian church, and be-
longs to Veritas Lodge, I. O. O. F., of Galesburg. In politics he is a Repub-
lican. He was elected mayor of Galesburg on "the citizens' ticket," in 1895-
His administration was progressive, and m his official capacity he advocated
all measures for the public good and advancement. While acting as prosecut-
ing attorney his service was most fearless, and personal considerations had no
wci^crht with him in the discharge of his duty. Close study, hard work and the
careful discipline of a strong mind have rendered him one of the most able and
successful lawyers at the bar of Knox county.
CHAPTER XXV.
THE BAR OF SHELBY COUNTY— ANECDOTES.
J\ LL HISTORY has its origin in legends, and one of the most oft
ly curring stories that the grandfathers tell to the grandsons is that
-* ^ were giants in those days."
The anecdotes that are most often related by the old settlers, to the ;
lawyers relate to the wonderful trials, and magnificent speeches that grea;
yers made, in the "good old times."
We have no reason to doubt the truthfulness of these memories, yet
little credit may be granted to the affection of the narrator and the roseate
that time lends to a fertile story-teller who feels that nothing should be Ic
translating the past into the present.
U. F. Linder. — For many years we of the Shelby bar have heard o
great speech-making power of U. F. Linder, but his home was elsewhere
some other chronicler shall tell his story.
Daniel Gregory. — Among the first lawyers who lived in Shelby county
Daniel Gregory, who afterward made his home in Vandalia. He died tl
leaving a family of girls. He held several offices and was once selected to
for circuit judge. He was once a member of the legislature of Illinois. He
a brother of Michael Gregory, whose children and grandchildren now liv
Shelbyville, and of Gregory, the founder of the Chicago stock-yards.
Daniel Gregory's practice was chiefly confined to the details of getting
to public lands, then subject to entry and homestead in this and adjoining co
lies. He was a man of sterling character and enjoyed the closest friendship
Lyman Trumbull, Judge Breese and O. B. Ficklin. Letters written by th
from 1846 to 1856, show very clearly they each esteemed him an import
factor in their political machinery.
Morris R. Chew's name also appears upon the records of Shelby county
an attorney. He did not give his entire time to law business, but engaged
teaching school and farming. His son was Hon. William Chew, who studi
law with Moulton and Chafee in 1867 and 1868, and practiced here until 1
death, in 1895.
William Chew was a minority member of the legislature of 1876 and w
one of the leaders of that general assembly in which "Long" Jones and IIo
J. A. Connolly first distinguished themselves. William Chew was an hone
man, a stalwart Republican and on occasion could make a fine speech.
His education was gained at the common schools of the county and, as 1
often remarked, in driving oxen to break the virgin sod of the great prairie
457
458 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
He owned several hundred acres of land at his death. He left one son, William
H. Chew, now a member of our bar and partner of George D. Chafee.
Hon. William A. Richardson once swung his shingle in Shelb>Tille, but
did not stay long. It is related that he had a fist fight with Dr. Trower, but upon
what occasion tradition does not disclose. He was a Democrat, but on locating
in Ouincy became a Whig, and achieved great honors, being at one time United
States senator.
Another gentleman who stayed in Shelby ville about a year is the Hon.
Joseph G. Cannon. It is the current talk that he had one case before the justice
of the peace, and was beaten in that. He tells that he owed for his board, and
borrowed ten dollars of General Hall to leave town; he found more favor in
Douglas county; made money, paid his debts, and has achieved national fame
as a member of congress for many years.
In 1836 Hon. Anthony Thornton came here from Kentucky, to visit his
uncle, General William F. Thornton, then a leading citizen of the state and a
banker and merchant. At that time Shelbyville had but two or three stores,
and the county had, perhaps, from five to ten thousand people.
Mr. Gregory and Mr. Chew were the only local lawyers at the time. Mr.
Thornton had obtained in Ohio a college education, and was by nature and
training well prepared to achieve success as a law-yer; he at once gained the
best business then to be had, and met and crossed swords with all the nomadic
members of the bar from other counties that rode the circuit. As is w^ell known,
in these early times lawyers were traveling from one county to another most oi
the time, and in so doing he often met O. B. Ficklin, U. F. Linder, Judge Con-
stable, General Shields, General Field, Ferris Forman, "Long Jim" Davis,
H. M. Vandeveer, Hon. R. J. Oglesby, and many others. His success was as-
sured from the first.
He was called upon to help make the constitution of 1848; was in the
legislature in 1851, and again a member of a constitutional convention in 1862.
He was elected to congress in 1866, in the old tenth district.
He was elected judge of the supreme court in June, 1870, over Aaron Shaw,
who was the nominee of the Democratic party in a district having a great Dem-
ocratic majority.
One of the most useful acts for the profession which the judge had charge
of was drafting the law by which we now have the appellate court, without
which all the business of the supreme court would be in a hopeless suspense.
He also helped organize the State Bar Association, and is the only man w^ho
held the office of president of the same for three successive terms.
Anthony Thornton in his prime was a great man, physically and mentally.
He was six feet four inches in height, and weighed over two hundred pounds.
He had good health and was a hard fighter in a law suit. He had a large head,
big features, large nose, heavy, projecting eye-brows, cold, gray eyes, dark
auburn hair. A painstaking, diligent worker and blessed with a rich, powerful
voice, he was well equipped for his chosen profession. As a judge of the cir-
cuit court he had no superior, and his work is well known to the profession. He
THE BENCH AND BAR OF H.LINOIS. 459
was twice married, his first wife being Mildred, daughter of General Thornton.
His present wife was Katherine, daughter of Addison Smith. He has three
children living; has a lovely home (Maple Hill), and is enjoying a happy old
age, still engaged, at eighty-three, in active law practice.
Some time after Mr. Thornton had located here, probably in 1849, Samuel
W. Moulton moved to Shelby ville from Sullivan. He was a Yankee from Salem,
Massachusetts, son of a sea captain, and himself had made a voyage with his
father. Being very near-sighted, he was handicapped for most professions, and
probably therefore became a close student of books. When about twenty-one
years old, he followed the New England custom, and went south to teach school,
spending some time in Mississippi.
He was married early, to Miss Mary Affleck, of Scotch parentage, and
together they started for the new west to carve out fortune and fame, and soon
locating in Shelbyville, have here lived and prospered, loved and esteemed by a
wide circle of friends, for their genial hospitality, and their unvarying kindness.
They have never had any children, but have rarely been without some girl
or boy, to whom they gave a home and an education and that friendship which
can never be repaid. In 1873 Dr. Headen and his wife died, leaving a large
familv of small children, and Mr. and Mrs. Moulton took to their home Walter
C. Headen, then a small lad of about ten years, and bestowed upon him the
comforts, pleasures and luxuries of their home, graduating him at the city
schools and sending him to the Normal University, at Normal.
Mr. Moulton became one of the best lawyers in the state, and with Thorn-
tori on one side and Moulton on the other, saddle-bag lawyers from other coun-
ties soon learned that it was not worth while to visit Shelby county. The close
study of law was Moulton's recreation; for him to be supremely ha'^py he
wanted a case with a Chinese puzzle in it, the rule in Shelley's case, a common-
law marriage with a spice of insanity, then he could read up and jot down notes
that no one but him could ever read. His rule was to read every paper three
times.
Mr. Moulton was ever a warm friend to the common schools, and in the
legislature, of which he was a member in 1853, ^^ was the prime mover of the
act which gave Illinois her splendid school system, and of the law giving the
state the Normal University, at Normal. Mr. Moulton was president of the
board having charge of the university for many years, but resigned in 1882, on
account of then failing health. Mr. Moulton enjoys the distinction of being
probably the only man in the state who was twice elected to congress, once as a
Republican and once as a Democrat. In 1865 he was sent to congress from
the state at large. At the same time Judge Thornton was sent from this dis-
trict, so that Shelbyville was probably the smallest city in the United States
having two congressmen at the same time.
We challenge any other western city of our size to produce two as eminent
lawyers who have for over fifty years lived and practiced law in the same town.
Moulton became a war Democrat early in the war, a follower of Douglas' last
46o THE BENCH AND BAR OF U^LINOIS.
speech, and so remained during the war and reconstruction times, being chosen
for congress as a Republican.
At the time of the Greeley race he voted the Democratic ticket and has kept
this up till the free-silver heresy of Bryan swept the party from its ancient moor-
ings, when it is probable he did not waste his vote. He was a candidate for
governor when General Palmer was nominated, but having no war record, he
was shelved by the military element in the convention.
William J. Henry and William R. Reed came here in i860. Henry had
been a lawyer in Iowa, and a short time in Missouri. Reed was a young man
just out of Delaware schools.
The law business being light, Henry and Reed collated a digest of the
Illinois Reports, the first in the market and one of general use till later and
better ones were made by others. Henry, though entirely uneducated, had an
active mind and was tireless in working at his cases, and he had a knack of
working up a case where other lawyers would pass it by. He always had a fight
on his hands, and did a very lucrative business for years, here and in adjoining
counties, particularly \'ermilion, where he lived a few years. The railroad dona-
tion bonds, and the United States bankrupt law afforded him a good income.
In addition to his work as a lawver he wrote a book on ecclesiastical law, which
is the best one in use at the present time. He also wrote a **Story of the Cross,"
the same embodying his idea of the romance and the trials of Christ. The last
was quite readable, but unsalable, and the Methodist Book Concern absorbed
both of them and left his family penniless. He went to Kansas City and had a
scheme nearly completed by which he would have made a large fortune in a
short time, when he was accidentally killed. His business was complicated, and
when his estate was settled his family had nothing. One of his daughters. Mrs.
Lord, now lives in Springfield, Illinois, and supports her little family by office
work, as we are informed.
Mr. Reed, mentioned above, died of Bright's disease a few years after com-
ing here. He was a literary man, and never enjoyed the rough-and-tumble
scramble of trial in court.
Anthony T. Hall, nephew of Judge Thornton, came to Shelbyville about
1859 from Oxford, Ohio, where his father was president of the schools. He
was a warm-blooded, impulsive, jolly fellow, and could make a very entertain-
ing and sanguine speech. He died a few years after coming here, but gave
promise of making a successful lawyer.
George D. Chafee came here from Ann Arbor, Michigan, in April, 1861,
and, as the war immediately began, he had ample time to study and rest. He
had lost his right arm a few years before in a threshing machine, so was not
eligible for military duty, and tried in vain to get into service.
He obtained the agency for some insurance companies, assisted in bal-
ancing some business men's books, and eked out a hard living for a couple of
years, then became assistant United States assessor, and for a while collector,
helped enroll the county for the draft, and did such other work as he could get
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS. 461
until 1886, when he became a member of the firm of Moulton & Chafee, which
firm, with Headen's name added, existed till January, 1897.
Mr. Chafee was a Hayes elector in 1876, and in the controversy in congress
he was summoned to Washington to appear before Proctor Knott's committee.
It took one hundred and eighty-five electoral votes to elect the president, and
without Chafee the Republicans would be one shorty so close had the matter be-
come. He was elected to the thirty-second general assembly and was made chair-
man of the railroad and warehouse committee and acted as chairman of the judi-
ciary committee.
In 1868 he married Miss Marie Smith, the youngest daughter of Addison
Smith. He lives on Broadway, in a comfortable home, and has two sons and
two daughters.
The firm of Mouser & McGrew was known in Shelbyville for several years.
Enoch McGrew was a farmer, then school teacher, then lawyer. He was well
liked and reasonably successful. He died after practicing about ten years. H.
S. Mouser was a student from Marion, Ohio. He was elected school superin-
tendent and had a very good practice. When the boom opened in Dakota he
moved to Huron, where he still lives.
William W. Hess opened a law office here in 1876, and later was chosen
county judge, which office he was filling at the time of his death. He never
contended for a general practice^ but made an excellent judge and aimed to
hold the scales of justice level. He left surviving him a widow, a daughter of
Dr. Harnett, and she still occupies a pleasant home on North Morgan street.
One of the interesting members of the Shelby county bar was Lloyd B.
Stephenson. He came here from Winchester, Virginia, in 1866, with his wife,
having been a captain in the Confederate army, and lost everything. He studied
law with John M. Orr, of Virginia. He was elected, in 1872, prosecuting attor-
ney and held the office two terms. He was a good trader, — in fact, had a fight
because some one called him a Virginia "Yankee." He made money from the
first, speculated in silver mines, was sent to the state senate from this district,
and later moved to St. Louis, Missouri, where he now lives. His wife was Kate
Gray, one of a large family of handsome Virginia women and an admirable
hostess. The Captain had a family of four girls, three of whom are happily
married.
George R. Wendling was born and reared in Shelbyville. His grand-
father, who formerly lived here, was one of Napoleon's soldiers at the retreat
from Moscow. George R. early showed a genius for talking; was chief pro-
moter of a local company to play Hamlet, and he was the melancholy prince.
He studied law rn Chicago and here, and was admitted to practice. He was
partner of A. T. Hall while Judge Thornton was on the supreme bench. The
most noted case Wendling took part in was in defense of T. M. Thornton, for
shooting George Tackett. Wendling distinguished himself by his oratory, and
used all the best thoughts of all the famous speeches on such subjects, in a
masterly manner, causing many tears in the audience and some with the jury.
Before this case Chafee and Wendling working together, procured the release
462 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS,
on bail of John Austin and Antonia McClintic, on a habeas corpus case before
Judge Thornton. The defendants were charged with, and believed to be guilty
of, the murder of Eugene McClintic, husband of one of tlie defendants. She
has lately been mentioned in the Fort Smith paper, charged with the murder of
another husband.
Wendling was a member of the constitutional convention that drafted our
present organic law and is said to have made a great speech on an adoption of
the same clause, which to him was fraught with danger to the public or his
party. For the last twenty years Mr. Wendling has given his entire time to
lecturing, and is now accounted one of the first platform orators of this coun-
try. He married Josephine Stephenson, and lived for many years in Shelby-
ville, but now has his winter home in Washington, D. C.
He has three children. His youngest daughter, Grayson, married a lawyer
in Washington. She was doubtless as handsome a girl as lived in that city ot
beautiful women. In this brief sketch of the bar of this county, space will not
permit a review of Mr. Wendling's remarkable lectures. The following is a
newspaper synopsis of one of his lectures, *Ts Death the End?" The theme is
not new^ to lawyers or others^ and perhaps some thought in this may aid some
one in studying the subject:
"At the Third Baptist church, before a highly cultured audience, Hon.
George R. Wendling last evening undertook to prove the immortality of the
soul by science and history. He presented a review of the various arguments
against another life, and classified them under four separate heads, or as spring-
ing from four different sources, (i) A reaction against the absurdities and
superstition of Pagan religion and the old mythologies. (2) The undeniable fact
that all the visible phenomena of deatli imply annihilation. (3) An intellectual
pride which has begotten modern rationalism and says *I will not believe what
I do not know.' (4) The deductions of modem science. Discussing each ot
these in turn, the lecturer passed from the negative side of the question to an
affirmative argument, to which he devoted the remainder of his address. He
took for the cornerstone of his argument the famous saying of St Paul, There
is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body.' The relation of the mind to
the brain, the control of the physical organism of man by a spiritual power of
which every man is conscious as existing within him; the wonderful range and
nature of that spiritual power; the differences between that pow-er and mere
physical power were all discussed and illustrated from many points of view, and
the conclusion reached that the 'spiritual body' in man is a distinct and superior
entity — the image of God himself.
"The lecturer then proceeded to an argument and illustration of the state-
ment that nowhere in nature can be found a single analogy or presumption
showing that the spiritual body dies with the death of the natural body. On the
contrary, the modern doctrine of the conservation of force; the scientific fact
that in all nature nothing is ever annihilated; the fact that annihilation is im-
possible, because it deprives God of the power to do justice among men by
rewarding those suffering ones who live lives of purity and self-sacrifice and
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS. 463
poverty for the sake of humanity ; the universal and instinctive faith in a future
life; and, above all, the stupendous fact that the human race is a failure if there
be no other lite — all these arguments were adduced and presented in the order
stated to show that 'the spiritual body' of man passes into another sphere of
existence when 'the natural body' dies.
"Upon the proposition that if there be no other life than this the human race
is a failure, Mr. Wendling said:
" 'I know it is said that this man or that man is a successful man. Successful
in what? In the accumulation of wealth? Naked he came and naked he will go,
and his estate is scattered before the second generation passes. Is it fame as a
lawyer that you seek? The penniless daughter of a world-renowned chief jus-
tice was a poor government clerk in Washington the other day. Is it military
glory? Napoleon died with a broken heart, and. the homage of the world could
not lift the cloud of sorrow which gathered on the heights of Mount McGregor
around the form of the dying chieftain. General Grant, Would you become a
mercantile prince? Ninety-five of every hundred is the percentage of unsuc-
cessful merchants. Would you master the sciences? Sir Isaac Newton, with his
gigantic intellect, confessed at fourscore that he had picked up only a few peb-
bles on the shore of the ocean. Is it literary reputation that you wish for? How
many authors have appeared the world over, in the last forty years whose works
Viill be read forty years hence? I doubt if there be five.
" 'Would you achieve greatness in the field of historical research and specu-
lation? Only twenty-five years ago the world hailed Buckle as the rising star
in that domain, and I recall an afternoon I once passed with General Frank
Blair, he many years my senior, but finding a common tie in our admiration for
the great Buckle; and I shall not forget the eloquence of that gifted man as he
praised Buckle, while I gave warm assent. Within five years from that conver-
sation the best thinkers had discarded Buckle's theories and repudiated Buckle's
conclusions. Would you found a school of philosophy? No English philoso-
pher in the last two centuries has so great a number of followers as Herbert
Spencer, and yet Spencer's influence upon educated thinkers is waning to-day,
and some of his books are going now to the top shelf. Is domestic happiness,
a noble wife, happy children, and a glowing fireside, your highest aim? So be
it! for that is indeed the very sublime of human life! But think of a family circle
with no hope of a life beyond, and many a grass-covered mound between the
cradle and the grandsirc, and not an hour's ride from the threshold to '.he ceme-
tery out there beneath the trees.
■' 'Turn then where you will, look up and down every avenue, view life in all
its varying phases, and there can be but one solemn conclusion — if there is no
lite beyond the grave, man is an abject failure. A failure! Can that bo? No!
No! Man standing at the summit, the heir of all the ages, destined to ultimate
dominion over the whole earth, the master of steam and electricity, the auto-
crat of earth and sea, and compelling even the stars to yield their secrets to his
spectrum analysis; man, walking to and fro in the corridors of the universe.
naming and weighing the planets, and telling when and where the wandering
464 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
comet shall reappear; man, endowed with such wonderful powers as these, and
endowed, too, with a heart that can love and love forever — no! The Almighty
has not written the word failure on the forehead of such a being as that, and,
somehow and somewhere, man must and will push up and on in a career worthy
of a creature thus made in the very image of the Infinite One himself.' "
J. William Lloyd was a cousin of Wendling; was for many years a clerk
of the circuit and county court, and studied law and made a set of abstracts of
title. He made a success of his business, but died in his prime, leaving a widow
and also one son and one daughter, both of whom have followed him over the
great divide. His wife was Mary Kelley, daughter of Chatten Kelley, at one
time mayor of Shelbyville.
William C. Kelley, a son of Chatten Kelley, was educated in Kentucky,
studied law here, and was admitted to practice. He has been state's attorney
of the county and was an efficient, honest officer and an able, careful lawyer.
He was a great reader and an all-around good citizen. He is now a law partner
of H. J. Hamlin, before forming which association he was for many years a
partner in the firm of Kelley & Ragan. He is highly esteemed and at one time
was the bar candidate for circuit judge.
Hon. W. C. Headen is another lawyer, native of the town. As mentioned
elsewhere he was the ward of Hon. S. W. Moulton, his present senior partner.
Mr. Headen is a born politician, has twice served his district in the legislature,
and has won credit for his fairness and ability in legislative work. He has been
city attorney on several occasions and member of the school board. He is an
able and laborious lawyer, a good citizen, a member of the Baptist church, a
good talker on the platform or before a jury.
He has a beautiful home, graced by a sweet family. His wife was Virginia
Barrett. He has one son, who is in the Illinois State University, and one
daughter, at home.
In 1864 two young men from Potsdam, New York, came west to grow up
with the country, and spent a few years teaching school. They finally studied
law, Truman E. Ames taking a course at Ann Arbor and then locating in Wind-
sor, Shelby county, and later moving to Shelbyville, Illinois. At the death of
Judge Hess he was elected judge and was later re-elected. Before his last term
expired he was elected circuit judge for this district. He is the only circuit judge
Shelby county can boast of ever having. The Taylorville Democrat says of him:
Judge Truman E. Ames, of Shelbyville, arrived here Monday morning
and opened up the March term of the Christian county circuit court. Judge
Ames is the last one of the three new judges, elected last June, to hold court in
Taylorville. Judge Dwight was the first and Judge Farmer was the second.
Judge Ames took hold of the business like an old hand.
Judge Ames is a native of New York state, where he was born in the year
1850, and consequently is in his forty-eighth year. He was born and raised on a
farm, and his early life was not much different from that of the usual farmer's
boy. He was gifted with a strong mind, and it manifested itself in a desire for a
good education. After attending a country school for a few years, he attended
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS. 465
an academy with the intention of fitting himself for teaching. He no sooner
became a teacher than his fertile mind led him to aspire to still greater mental
activity, and he managed to secure a course through the New York State Nor-
mal University., He then determined to follow the star of empire westward,
and in 1872 located at Windsor, Shelby county, Illinois, where he was principal
of the public school for two years. During his leisure hours he studied law, and
graduated from the law department of the University of Michigan in 1877. He
began the practice of law at Windsor, where his ability won for him a large
clientage, but he needed a broader field for his talents, and in 1880 he located
at Shelbyville, Illinois. Though a Democrat, he was appointed city attorney by
a Republican mayor, and conserved the interests of the city with remarkable
ability. He was thrice elected county judge of Shelby county, and was holding
that office for the third time when he was elected judge of this circuit. Socially
he is one of the finest gentlemen anywhere, and his decisions show that he is
well learned in the law. He has made an excellent impression on bar and spec-
tators, and shows a conscientious disposition to do what is right.
The other New York boy is Howland J. Hamlin, of the firm of Hamlin
& Kelley. He has been in the firms of Thornton, Wendling & Hamlin and
Wendling & Hamlin. Mr. Hamlin is a fine lawyer, keen, alert, full of resources,
and a close student. His successes have not been confined to Shelby county;
he has had experience with the best talent of the state, in Chicago, Champaign,
Charleston, Sullivan, Springfield and elsewhere. His fort is talking to a jury,
but he does not depend on that and leave other essentials undone.
He has been in close contact with the railroad and warehouse commission
of the state, as adviser, and concerned in much of the important business coming
before that body. He has also assisted in shaping and controUing legislation,
having been employed by several of the great department stores to aid them in
conserving their rights. He lives on North Broadway, in a beautiful house pre-
sided over by his wife and daughter. Mrs. Hamlin is a lady highly esteemed by
all who know her and is devoted to her husband and her home. His daughter,
Agnes, is a lovely girl with a magnificent voice, and is now at school in Wash-
ington, Mrs. Hamlin is a daughter of Dr. York, of Windsor.
William Townsend made his advent in Shelbyville, in 1883, but had been
in Stewardson some years. He was born in Toronto, Canada, in July, 1849, and
studied law with Albert Green, of Sullivan. The Democrats of Shelby county
elected him state's attorney one term, and he has been master in chancery one
term, both of which offices he filled with credit. Townsend is a humorist and
a voracious reader of fiction and poetry, and is a fine critic in these lines. He
sees the mirth in what he reads, and often commits it to memory and gives it
to his friends.
His business has never been pressing, and others, not as good lawyers, get
more, mainly because he is an independent thinker and says what he thinks, and
committed the crhne of being for sound money in a county where nine-tenths of
the Democrats were rabid with the virus of free silver. He has turned his talent
into the lecture field, and now delivers in a most unique style a temperance
466 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
lecture, the like of which has not been heard before, entitled "Smiles and Tears
at the Shrine of Bacchus."
Theodore F. Dove was for several years principal of the high school of
Shelby ville. He was educated at Delaware, Ohio; is of German stock, stout and
short. He was associated with W. J. Henry for several years, and got a good
financial start out of some bankrupt cases. He is a hustler outside of the legal
profession, and never hesitates about making a trade in lands or commercial
paper, and will trust anybody who will give a judgment note, with, or without
a chattel mortgage. It is not unusual for him to feed two or three hundred
cattle and hogs, and yet, with all this outside business, he is never away from
his office a half day at a time. He is a success on foreclosures, and partition
suits, settling estates and judgment notes, and is credited with making more
money than any other two lawyers.
He married a daughter of Dr. Clark, of Ohio, and has tw^o fine boys, one
at home and one in Delaware. He has a spacious house on Main street, and
until the death of his wife, two years since, no home was more pleasant or more
hospitable. He was a liberal entertainer, and more than one bishop of the
Methodist Episcopal church has spread his legs under Dove's mahogany.
He is a "fluted pillar" in the Methodist Episcopal church, w^th a coin capi-
tal, and as the church never takes money without adequate compensation, it
stands by him. He is a genial, jolly pushing business man, believing in all
important law^ matters. He can hire a good lawyer to help him cheaper than he
<!an spend the time to learn it. He owns farm after farm, and, curiously enough
to others not so successful, he makes them pay. He mixes brains with his fann-
ing, as with his other business.
William Baum studied law and was admitted, but he at one time moved to
St. Louis, and at another to Milwaukee. He is a trader and money-lender, and
gives the latter more attention than he does his legal business, and makes a suc-
cess of it.
W. O. Wallace is state's attorney and is serving his second term: he took
a degree at Ann Arbor. He was brought up in the eastern part of Shelby
county on a farm; he was at one time a partner of Mr. Thornton. He married
the daughter of George Bolinger, a merchant of Shelbyville. Mr. Wallace is
somewhat of a commercial gentleman. He has remarkable success in getting
parties charged by the grand jury to plead guilty.
One of the latest additions to Shelby county bar is J. K. P. Grider, who was
raised in Windsor on a farm. He is a patient, persistent young man and stays
with a case for all there is in it, and will make a very good and safe lawyer.
Thomas Righter, until two years since a teacher in Stewardson, is now an
active member of the bar. He is big and good-natured and flounders some-
what, but gets hold of a fair share of business.
B. F. Wilson, for two terms the police magistrate of Shelbyville, has many
of the natural qualifications of an excellent lawyer, his reasoning faculties are
first-class; he is cool, deliberate and impressive. He made a good magis-
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS. 467
trate and would make a first-class county judge. He lacks only experience to
make a number-one lawyer.
Another of the bar who was raised near Windsor is Eben A. Richardson, a
son of George A. Richardson, a farmer, preacher and justice of the peace, and
one of the pioneers of Sand Creek. "Twig," as he is familiarly called, is a char-
acter. His early education was neglected, or he has a faculty of murdering the
good English, yet he has such strong common sense, and such a vigorous way
of putting it^ that he makes court or jury understand exactly what he means.
He also knows the law in no poor way and reads the cases in our reports
with as clear an understanding as any member of the bar. He is a good mixer
with all the sovereigns that come from the river hills, or the landed aristocrats
that drive in on two wheels from the "black stick." He is on familiar terms with
all and can bite off a large section of Lincoln green, and get on the good side of
any of them. His judgment about a juryman and what he'll decide in i given
case is as good as anybody's. He is master in chancery and makes it pay, and
his findings on referred cases are more than likely to stand with the court. He
has a wife and baby boy, of whom he is justly proud.
Milton Barbee has a good legal mind, but has been school superintendent
for two terms, and the duties of that office were so engrossing that he permitted
himself to grow rusty in the law. He illustrates the common saying that the law
is a jealous mistress and demands exclusive devotion at her shrine. This is
the only place that law is described by the gentle gender, yet justice is usually
symbolized as a blind goddess, holding the scales in one hand, an even balance,
and a drawn sword to execute her just judgments. Upon school law and in-
surance Barbee is well up, and if he will apply himself to faithful study can
easily take a good rank in the profession.
One of the latest accessions to the bar is William H. Chew, now a partner
of Mr. Chafee. He is a talented young man, a son of Hon. William Chew, and
nephew of Hon. W. C. Headen. He has every reason to look forward to a
fhie career. He has a natural talent for speaking, is a close reasoner' and a
clear thinker, is willing to work and knows how to prepare and present a case
to the best advantage.
George B. Rhoads is another new, bright young lawyer. He studied law
in the office of Moulton, Chafee & Headen, and was admitted to practice be-
fore he was twenty-one years of age. He graduated from the city school, and
passed an examination as pharmacist before he was eighteen years old. His
father is a druggist, so that the boy learned pharmacy from necessity, but he is
^ born student^ reads Latin and French with ease and has also mastered short-
hand to aid him in his profession. He is a walking encyclopedia and is past
master in Bible lore, being a strict believer in John Calvin.
These side issues are his amusements, but for real delight he studies law,
and runs a principle from Blackstone down to the last of volume of the su-
preme or appellate court, and when he has gone over it he knows it, and has
no stammering hesitancy in telling it to the court. He has tireless industry,
health, youth and ambition, and lacks only opportunity to make a great lawyer.
468 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS,
On the bench, if he ever gets there, he would be a servant of the people that
would save money to the public and be a delight to an intelligent bar.
William H. Ragan is at present county judge, succeeding Judge Ames in
that office. He is also mayor of the city, and until the last election was on the
school board. He was the son of a poor farmer in the county, and has made
his way without financial aid. He supplemented his w^ork on the farm with
school-teaching until he became a lawyer. He lived with old 'Squire Henry
when getting his education, and did the work, in doors and out, night and morn-
ing, and when his morning work was completed he literally ran to school. He
is an easy talker and has talked his way over the county in nearly every school-
house, and the admiring Democracy have hung upon his words and rewarded
him with office. He was for several years partner of William H. Kelley and
recently has been, associated with Judge Thornton.
Hon. C. R. Torrence was born and reared at Cowden, this county. His
practice has never been great, but that which he has done shows care and ability.
He has been a Republican all his life, was elected to the legislature in 1896
and served with credit. He was one of the stanch supporters of Hon. William
E. Mason for the United States senate. He is a candidate for re-election to the
legislature at time of this writing. Mr. Torrence is connected with the Method-
ist Episcopal church, owns considerable land, has a fine family and enjoys the
pleasures of home.
William H. Craig is the latest addition to the bar of Shelby county. He
was the first man to pass the examination for admission to the bar under the
new rules, and was the only man out of a class of seven that met with success.
The Chicago Legal News and other legal papers made extended notice of this
fact at the time. Mr. Craig has been engaged for several years in the abstract
business and has thus far not engaged in the active practice of his profession.
ANECDOTAL PARAGRAPHS.
S. W. Moulton enjoyed the reputation of being a very bad penman, and
many who were unfamiliar with his writing could make poor progress in trying
to read it. He was at one time school superintendent in this county and issued,
in the absence of printed blanks, which were not common in those days, writ-
ten certificates. It is related that J. William Lloyd once captured a bug or
spider and after dipping it in ink made it crawl ov^er a sheet of paper and then
took 'it to Moulton to read. Moulton looked at it and tried hard to make some
sense out of it. Finally he said: "Bill, I wrote that, but Til be d — d if I can
read it now."
Another story has been told, but it is doubtless apocryphal. He was very
near-sighted, yet very polite, — ^particularly to ladies. Some brother member of
the legislature reported of him that he and Moulton were walking out one even-
ing after session to get fresh air. Springfield then was only a village, and
the town cows were pastured in the vacant lots. This member tells that when
he and Moulton came up to one of these gentle creatures in their path, Moul-
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS. 469
ton touched his hat and said "Good evening, madam," before he saw it was a
cow. Coming back, a little later, they met a woman near the same place, when
Moulton took her breath away by saying: "Get out of the way, you d — d
old rip, I spoke to you once to-night."
The wit of the Irish has been shown under all circumstances, and Shelby-
ville has illustrations of it. Jerry Sullivan is a well known character and full
of wit and most ready to try it on any body. He can't read at all and was and
is a Democrat, from principle, of course. When H. S. Mouser followed Greeley
into the Democratic party he was taken up by the party and nominated for
school superintendent of the county. Some time afterward a Republican, think-
ing to have a little fun with Jerry, asked him: "How is it, Jerry, jn a county
where the Democrats are two in number to one Republican, your party takes
up the first renegade that goes into your ranks and gives him office?" Jerry
said, in his richest brogue: "In the ould countree when a strange caat cooms
to a house and the folks want to keep the caat they always grease his paas."
Judge Thornton disliked Henr}' with a real relish, and Henry's pronuncia-
tion of his name always made him wince. Mr. Henry always added a syllable
and made it Thornington. Thornton always snorted when Henry essayed the
use of any of the law Latin common in the books, as he was sure to break all
the rules of accent and probably mispronounce every word. One day they met in
a justice court and the justice of the peace was not "learned in the law." The
writer was an interested looker on to learn how battles were fought and won.
The writer had the closing speech. Henry used a Latin maxim supposed to
apply and settle everything, and, having argued all the points, sat down after
his learned peroration. The justice of the peace was a little man, seated in a
"split-bottom" chair. Mr. Thornton commenced to rise up and when fully
straight towered way above the little court, and with his long finger close to the
court's nose he began in his most profound and impressive manner to talk to
the court in all the law Latin, law French and odd lines from Homer that he
could remember, never smiling or letting the court or Henry know he was not
in dead earnest. For fifteen minutes he held the court in awe, and at least as-
tonished the rest of us. He sat down, and the courts knowing the judge's learn-
ing, concluded he must be right, and decided for him.
At the time George D. Chafee was in the legislature there was a deter-
mined effort on the part of the Democratic minority to prevent appropria-
tions, or reduce them, for all the public institutions, — particularly the Soldiers'
Orphans' Home, at Normal.
Durfee, of Decatur, was selected to make a fight upon this, and Chafee
was to champion it. When the motion was made for the final passage of the
bill Durfee got the floor and, reading several extracts from some part of
Gulliver's Travels^ informed the Republicans they would live to regret their
votes to squander the public money, and after stating that the* war had been
over for twenty-five years, he asked the gentleman from Shelby how long the
Republicans intended to vote away the money of the people for soldiers'
orphans.
470 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
After briefly going over the situation Chafee answered that, "So long i&
any old soldier had virility enough to beget a child the Republican party pro-
posed, in gratitude for the father's patriotism, to take care of and educate his
child." Then saying that he, too, had read Gulliver, he continued by stating
that he would tell the gentleman from Macon and his party that though they
used the same engines that Gulliver had used on the queen's palace, yet they
could not quench the fire of patriotism or wash away our Republican charitable
and benevolent institutions, — their engines were totally inadequate.
CHAPTER XXVI.
CONTEMPORARIES OF THE CHICAGO BAR.
WILLIAM H. BARNUM.— The leaders in the history of the world are
few, the followers many. It is the rare exception when one steps from
the beaten paths wherein the multitudes walk to stand far in advance
and point the way to greater possibilities and higher achievements. This is as
true in the realm of thought as in the more material walks of life. The mind
seems loath to accept a new truth, an unfamiliar idea; but advancement pre-
sents an ever-broadening view, and, as from a mountain height, the individual
looks abroad over an extended landscape which in its entirety presents phases
undreamed of when only seen in part. Viewed from one standpoint only, an
incomplete conception is gained of the subject under consideration; it must be
seen in its many-sided aspects if a true idea is reached. Especially does this
apply to a question in litigation. Every circumstance that may have direct or
indirect bearing upon it must be considered; analysis must separate it into
component elements; judgment must determine the relative value, and place
the points with regard to principal and subordinate; discernment must compute
the effect of the arrangement; and rhetoric, in brief or argument, must present
this in the most effective way. Many lawyers possess one or more of these
essentials, but it is the possession of all that has made William H. Barnum one of
the leaders in **the greatest of all the professions." A distinguished jurist^ he
stands in advance of the majority, and so prominent and well versed is he in the
law that many important questions with which he has been connected have set-
tled the law of the state, based upon his arguments.
This well known member of the Chicago bar was born in Onondaga county.
New York, February 15, 1840, but when a child of two years became a resident
of Illinois, his parents locating in Belleville, St. Clair county, in 1842. His ele-
mentary education was obtained in private schools and at the age of sixteen he
became a student in the State Normal School in Ypsilanti, Michigan, where he
remained for two and a half years, interrupted, however, at intervals by his
teaching in the schools of Belleville. As a sophomore he entered the University
of Michigan, at Ann Arbor, in the fall of 1858, and though compelled to relin-
quish his course in the junior year he was, many years ago, made the recipient
of an honorary degree from that institution. On leaving Michigan he resumed
teaching in Belleville, keeping up his classical, literary and historical studies
under competent instructors in Latin, Greek and German. His systematic prep-
aration for the bar was begun in i860, when he became a student in the law
office of Hon. George Trumbull, of Belleville. At that time the bar of Belleville
numbered among its members some of the most distinguished men of the state
471
472 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
and nation, a (act which naturally fired the ambition of the youthful student.
Admitted to the bar in 1862, he be<jan practice in Chester, Randolph county,
Illinois, and practiced for the five ensuing yeats in that circuit, comprising live
counties. He followed his cases to the supreme court. During three of his five
years' residence in Chester he served, by appointment, as master in chancery.
His clientage rapidly increased, but, being eager (or a wider field, in the fall
of 1867 he came to Chicago on the invitation of Lawrence J, J. Xissen, with
whom he formed a partnership, which lasted about eleven years. During this
time he attended almost exclusively to the court practice of the firm and acquired
considerable distinction as a trial lawyer, as well as for his legal arguments and
briefs in the supreme court. For little more than a year George F. Harding
was associated as a member of the firm. Upon the dissolution of the partnership
Judge Barnuni and Cornelius Van Schaack became co-partners, and that connec-
tion continued until Judge Barnum's elevation to the bench of the circuit court
of Cook county in the sunmicr of 1879.
As a jurist he has ever evinced a broad knowledge of law and equity juris-
prudence, a conscientious regard for the rights of ail classes of litigants, and
excellent capacity for research and investigation. By arrangement with his
colleagues he occupied the chancery bench for three years, and during that time
disposed of a large amount of business. There were on the docket a large num-
ber of cases and motions in arrears from former years, and many of them ver>'
difficult ones. The bar generally appreciated and commended the facility as well
as the thoroughness with which the work went forward in Judge Barnum's
hands. By means of general calls, expeditious disposal of business and in-
variably speedy decisions of causes and motions, his chancery calendar was
reduced to comparatively small and quite manageable proportions, when, in Sep-
tember, 1882, it was turned over to his successor. Judge Barnum then took up
a common-law docket pursuant to the arrangement mentioned, not because oi
any preference for it but from a desire lo keep abreast with the bar and with the
progress of the legal questions through the courts. He held terms of the crim-
inal court also and presided there at many important trials. In the course of
his judicial duties in the several departments mentioned he was called upon to
decide causes of great magnitude, of public and private concern, and questions
of unusual difficulty and delicacy. His decrees and judgments were almost uni-
forndy affirmed, tor he was strictly fair and impartial, no matter what the public
sentiment or who were the parties engaged in the controversy. He resigned
December i, 18S4, near the close of his six-years term, declining to accept
another nomination, when such a nomination, indeed, would have been equiva-
lent to an election, llis course on the bench was absolutely Tearless, just and
above reproach.
It was Judge Barmmrs desire, however, to resume the private practice of
law, and he became the senior member of the law firm of Barnum. Rubens &
Ames, and in this relation his success was marked and immediate. This con-
nection was continued '" '' ■' ~ '""" ...1...- i-.i — -d :.i..a,
in order to associate w
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS. 473
returned from Yale College and been admitted to the bar; and they are still
associated in practice. The Judge seems equally versed in every department of
jurisprudence, and in all occupies a commanding position, which excites the
admiration of the entire profession. He is essentially a natural lawyer, and his
strong mental endowments and acquired ability have gained him a foremost
place in the ranks of those who devote their energies to the calling. With a
power for concentration, a capacity for details, and a comprehension of view, he
unites a will for application that knows no diversion from its purpose and no
hesitation before accomplishment.
It would be difficult to find a lawyer of his age in the state who has tried
more causes and written more briefs and arguments than Judge Barnum, or
withal met with more uniform success; and some idea of the great extent,
variety and importance of his legal business may be gained from the following
record illustrative of the cases he has tried in the state and federal courts.
Scarcely had he taken up his residence in Chicago, in 1867, when he became
connected with the famous Uhlich will case, which involved land and buildings
then worth a million and a half dollars. Fifteen months were devoted by Judge
Barnum to the preparation and trial of the case, and the record covered twelve
hundred and fifty large printed pages. The supreme judges were nearly equally
divided as to its decision, which was delayed some three years. The final decision
is reported in Illinois Reports, volume 61, page 499. Judge Barnum's briefs
in this case were in general demand among his fellow lawyers and gave him at
once a commanding position at the Chicago bar.
A case of almost equal celebrity at the time, in wdiich Judge Barnum ren-
dered his services gratuitously, was that of a little boy, Daniel O 'Council. It
was a habeas-corpus case before the supreme court in 1870. The result of his
efforts was not only the liberation of the boy but the breaking up of the old
Reform School outrage, through the^able and eloquent decision rendered by
Justice Thornton, reported in 55 Illinois Reports, 280. In that case it was held
that the state, as parens patriae, could not exceed the power of the natural parent
except in punishing crime. It was said, 'Tf a father confined or imprisoned his
child for one year a magistrate of the law w-ould frown upon the unnatural act,
and every tender mother and kind father would rise up in arms against such
monstrous inhumanity. If, without crime, without the conviction of any offense,
the children of the state are to be thus confined for the good of society, then
society had better be reduced to its original elements and free government
acknowledged a failure."
An absolutely novel question of the utmost importance arose in the equally
celebrated case of Hughes vs. Washington, reported in Illinois Reports, volume
65, page 245. Judge Barnum wrote the briefs for the successful party in the case,
but for reasons personal to himself and his client consented that his name should
not appear. His success enabled Mr. Hughes ultimately to recover a large part
of the lands involved, as will appear in lUinois Reports, volume 72, page 84.
Prior to the employment of Judge Barnum the case had been decided against
Hughes just before the conflagration of 187 1, which destroyed all the volumi-
474 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
nous records, pleadings and proofs, but the decree had not been signed or filed.
The pleadings having been afterward supplied, the defendants asked a postpone-
ment of the entry of the final decree until they could restore the evidence upon
which it was based. This was denied, and the chancellor rendered a final decree
against the defendants from his recollection of the destroyed evidence. This was
held to be error and the cause was reversed accordingly. It was held that the
court, before passing the decree, should have allowed a reasonable time for the
defendants to restore the evidence, as that was the only means by which the
defendants could make their right of appeal availing. Here it will be seen
another great constitutional right, the right of appeal and to make the appeal
available, was established through Judge Barnum's efforts. It is a right as
invaluable as that vindicated in the foregoing case of Daniel O'Connell. The
lands involved were known as the ** Kingsbury'' and ** Webster" tracts, which
Value exceeded half a million dollars. The descendants of the Confederate .offi-
cer. Colonel Washington, a grand-nephew of George Washington, were parties
to the suit.
Time and space would not permit any extended notice of the celebrated Tur-
ner-Hill land litigation, which was conducted by Judge Bamum through nearly
all the civil and criminal courts of Cook county, and the United States circuit
court through a series of years from and after the year 1875. Several other
important suits relating to the same lands had previously been conducted by
Judge Barnum to a successful close, when, late in December, 1875, deeds dated
in 1836 and 1842 for the first time appeared of record, and on the same day and
shortly afterward some fifty or more ejectment suits for the land were brought
in the United States circuit court in Chicago. Judge Barnum conducted the
defense of all these cases and after some months of preparation and the taking of
innumerable depositions succeeded in satisfying the court and jury, after a six-
weeks trial, at which an army of witnesses testified, that the deeds were for-
geries.
The case was full of dramatic incidents. For months, and even years, public
attention was riveted upon it, and upon the prosecutions for the forgeries in the
criminal court. The newspapers teemed with daily accounts of all the incidents
of all the several trials, the addresses of the counsel and the charges of the courts.
Never before or since has there been any such remarkable litigation in Chicago
or in the west. Judge Barnum's already great reputation was heightened to
almost national proportions by his management of these great and difficult cases
against such lawyers of national reputation as Emery A. Storrs, Leonard Swett,
Orestes Browning and others of almost equal fame. Nothing less than a volume
would suffice to delineate the striking incidents, circumstances and episodes of
the trials, and the intricate and knotty questions of law which were stubbornly
fought over, inch by inch, from the beginning to the end of the litigation. A
friend of the Judge's, on congratulating him upon his victory, well remarked
that such a case was in itself a liberal education. The cases bristled with almost
all conceivable questions of real-estate and criminal law, and particularly the law
of evidence. The forged titles were completely routed. The career of forgers
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS. 475
and their forgeries, which had bid fair to become an extensive one in this county,
was cut short. The owners of real estate lying near Chicago, many of whom had
been or were about to be victimized, breathed freer. The clouds were lifted from
the possessions of the South Park commissioners, and many other property
owners, upon whom the land pirates had commenced their operations. In the
press and in many private letters of congratulation Judge Barnum was declared
to be a public benefactor and to have earned the good will, not only of this com-
munity, but of many others throughout this state, and four or five other states
to which the piracies had extended. Nothing more memorable and commend-
able than the results of this fight was ever accomplished by any lawyer in the
state of Illinois.
Questions of incalculable importance under the eminent domain laws of the
state were settled for the first time in the city of Chicago against Barbien, — Illi-
nois Reports, volume 80, page 482 — w^hich has ever since been followed as a
leading precedent. This was a mandamus case growing out of the condemna-
tion of property for the widening of North State street in Chicago. The decision
arrived at was in conflict with the conclusions of courts of last resorts in several
other states and was welcomed as a godsend by the then impoverished city
administration of Chicago, with which the supreme court evidently sympathized
not a little.
Judge Barnum achieved a signal success in the great real-estate case of
Home versus Ingraham, m w^hich he appeared in the court below and wrote
the briefs in the supreme court for William S. Ingraham. This case will ever
remain a leading authority on the subject of partnerships in real-estate invest-
ments. An enormous tract of Chicago land of immense value was involved.
The case is reported in Illinois Reports, volume 125, page 198.
The case of Tierney vs. the Laflin-Rand Powder Company involved the
liability of that -company for the consequences of an explosion of its powder
house, resulting from a stroke of lightning. Both the appellate and supreme
courts found the case a difficult one to decide. Two conflicting opinions were
WTitten by the latter court, the last of which, on a rehearing, was in favor of
Judge Barnum's client, Mrs. Tierney, whose house, about a half mile distant
from the powder house, was destroyed by the explosion. The case is reported
in Illinois Reports, volume 131, page 322.
The firm of Barnum, Rubens & Ames argued and presented to the supreme
court, in Dennehy versus City of Chicago, what is known as the Wholesale
Liquor Dealers' License cases, involving the question whether the licenses im-
posed were or were not a tax, and whether the city had or had not the power
to impose it. This case was ably argued on both sides. The decision was in
favor of the city, — Illinois Reports, volume 120, page 627. One of the learned
justices dissented. The law on the subject was thoroughly reviewed and clari-
fied; and from a legal standpoint the decision has been regarded as reducing the
law on the subject to a state of stability.
The case of Hill versus Harding et al. illustrates the tenacity of purpose
and conviction with which Judge Barnum clings to his views of the right and
476 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
justice of his case. This litigation lasted altogether thirteen years, and ended in
his favor. It went through every court of Illinois three times and twice to the
supreme court of the United States. It is reported in Illinois Reports, volume
83, page 77\ and volume 116, page 197; United States Reports, volume 107,
page 631; and volume 130, page 699. Most delicate and perplexing questions
of attachment and bankruptcy law were argued and settled forever, to the great
advantage of the profession and the public in all subsequent and future cases.
The case of Brown versus Luehrs affords a scarcely less striking instance
of continuity of purpose and persistent fighting to a successful termination. This
case likewise went twice through the courts of law and chancery of this state to
the supreme court. It illustrates the doctrines upon which courts of chancery
will and will not grant new trials at law. It is reported in Illinois Reports, vol-
ume 79, page 575; and volume 95, page 195; and Illinois Appellate Reports,
volume 74.
A most interesting and instructive case turning on forged judgment notes,
judgment thereon, sales thereunder, homestead laws and jurisdiction, was that
of Hullen versus Dawson, reported in Illinois Reports, volume 139, page 633.
Ames versus Moir elucidated and settled the question what is "a debt,"
"created by the fraud of a bankrupt," within the meaning of the bankrupt act.
Judge Barnum was associated with John G. Reid in presenting this case to the
state and federal supreme courts, — Illinois Reports, volume 130, page 582; and
United States Reports, volume 138, page 306.
In the Butler Paper Company versus Jeffrey, Judge Barnum scored a signal
triumph in an important case, — Illinois Appellate Reports^ volume 37, page 96,
and Illinois Reports, volume 151, page 588.
Shearer versus Pacific Express Company, involving the liability of express
companies as common carriers and the consequences of mis-deliver}' of a pack-
age of money to an impostor, has had many vicissitudes in the* trial courts, the
appellate court and the supreme court; first lost in the circuit court, then won
in the appellate court, — Illinois Appellate Reports, volume 42, page 641 ; won
again in the circuit and appellate courts, then lost in the supreme court, then
won on a rehearing where the first opinion was against the consignor; but the
latest w-as in his favor, — Illinois Reports, volume 160, page 215. It is difficult
to conceive a case of greater interest to express companies and other common
carriers and to their customers, the consignors and shippers of money and mer-
chandise.
In the case of Waldron versus Waldron a man's first wife sued his second
wife for the alienation of the husband's affections. Judgment went against the
defendant in the United States circuit court for seventeen thousand and five hun-
dred dollars. Ju(li;c r.arnum was subsequently employed to take the case
throui;h the federal supreme court. He obtained a reversal, reported in 156
United States Reports, 453. lie was opposed by eminent counsel.
Among Judge r)arnum's more recent cases may be mentioned Durborow
versus Niehoff,— Appellate Reports, volume 37' page 403; Charles versus Rem-
ick,— Illinois Appellate, volume 50, page 534; Illinois Reports, volume 156, page
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS. 477
327; Western Indiana and Belt Line Railroad versus Flynn, — Illinois Appellate
Reports, volume 54, page 387; 154 Illinois Reports, volume 154, page 448; Smith
versus Chytraus, — 152 Illinois Reports, 664; Ryan versus Cudahy, — Illinois Re-
ports, volume 157, page 108; and Stiles versus Stiles. The latter case was won
before Chancellor Ewing, who saw and heard all the witnesses and their con-
flicting testimony. That learned Chancellor delivered an elaborate and eloquent
opinion, completely exonerating Judge Barnum's client and vindicating her
innocence.
The appellate court of the first district unanimously affirmed his decree
in a strong opinion delivered by his Honor, Judge Gary, — Appellate Reports,
volume 62, page 408. In confirmation of these opinions another was written by
Mr. Justice Harker in the appellate court of an adjoining district, in which he
said there was not a syllable of incriminating evidence, and that to sustain a
conviction would be to convict upon mere suspicion, — Appellate Reports, volume
65, page 501.
But the supreme court, which never had the opportunity of seeing the wit-
nesses, held otherwise, — Illinois, volume 167, page 576.
The decision of the supreme court in Ryan versus Cudahy is regarded as
having upset all legal precedents in Board of Trade cases, and, as one of the
daily papers has expressed it, "specifically disposes of the board's time-honored
assumption that it is, as between its own members, a law unto itself." 'Tt seems
plain," says the court, "that where property rights are involved, as in the case
here, the courts have the power to so far supervise the action of a tribunal like
the one in question as to determine whether they have proceeded according
to the rules and regulations provided for their action, and, if they have failed in
a substantial manner, correct abuses which may result from their unwarranted
procedure." The case grew out of a corner in short ribs run in the year 1892.
Ryan appeared before a committee appointed by the board to dispose of a large
sum of money which had been put up as margins. Under Judge Barnum's
advice his cHent, Ryan, offered to prove before the committee facts showing that
the market had been manipulated, but the committee, adhering to the practice
which all prior committees had followed in such cases, refused to hear any evi-
dence whatever, excepting the price of sales on the board on the day of delivery.
The supreme court decided that the committee . . . "had no right to confine
their investigations to the mere diflferences between the contract price of short
ribs and the price at which the sales were made on the board on the day of
delivery, closing their eyes to the facts that these sales may have been false,
fraudulent and fictitious, — sales brought about by fraudulent combination and
violation of the statute of the state. If the committee is to be confined to a mere
calculation of the differences between the contract price and the figure estab-
lished by combination on the board of trade on the day of delivery, regardless
of the fact whether such figure is real, fictitious or manipulated by a corner,
then a tribunal of that character is but a device for legalizing acts prohibited by
the common law of the state," — 157 Illinois Report, 108.
478 THE BENCH AND BAR OF HJJNOIS.
Taking all in all, in view of its future salutary effects, this is- probably the
most .important Board of Trade case decision ever rendered in this state.
Joel W. Stevens was born in the city of New York September 7, 1854,
acquired his education in his native state and spent his youth in the east, but
when seeking a favorable business opening he chose Chicago, the city marvelous,
— whose doors are ever open to the ambitious, energetic and honorable men
who would by merit advance from obscurity in business life to fame and fortune.
Endowed by nature with strong mentality and trained by education and culture,
he came to Chicago in 1885 to take his place among those who are contending
for the rich prizes offered the energetic, the persevering and the enterprising.
He had determined to devote his life to the law, and in 1896 was admitted to the
bar. Opening an office in this city, he began practice and has succeeded in win-
ning a good clientage. He soon recognized that competition was rife, but that
real merit finds ready acknowledgment; and, not afraid to study and work, he
has steadily advanced to a place w'here he commands attention and respect by
reason of his ability. "He was the leading counsel,'' said a law journal, "in the
celebrated Bates bigamy case, which perhaps attracted more national attention *
than any case of like character ever tried. The defendant was a unique char-
acter in the matrimonial world, and his propensity for frequent marriages, the
facility with which he contracted them, the resourcefulness displayed in caring
for so many different households upon a meager salary and the diplomacy dis-
played in keeping each household ignorant of the existence of the other, evinced
mental and moral conditions that gave concern to humanitarians, social econ-
omists, insanity experts and medico-legal jurists in this country and Europe.
Mr. Stevens did not succeed in acquitting his client, because a lawyer cannot
achieve the impossible; but his conduct of the defense was exceedingly clever,
displaying extensive kTiowledge of the law of the case and a familiarity with the
art of defense that excited comment from the bar and the public press. Another
important case with which Mr. Stevens was identified as chief counsel was the
Barber forgery case."
He is not only a competent lawyer but is a man of resourceful business abil-
ity, whose connection with several important enterprises has materially advanced
their interests. For some years he was chief engineer in the marine service and
for fifteen years was superintendent of the Merchants' Arc Light and Power
Company, resigning the latter position in 1897. His practical and scientific
knowledge of engineering and electricity, supplemented by his executive ability,
fully equipped him for the discharge of the responsible duties devolvins: upon
him. He has keen discrimination in business affairs, remarkable sagacity and
excellent executive ability.
On the T4th of December, 1876, Mr. Stevens was united in marriage to Miss
Mary Stevens. Socially he is connected with the Masonic fraternity, having for
a number of years been numbered among its leading representatives. In politics
he gives his support to the Republican party when matters of public policy are
involved, thus voting the national and state Republican tickets. He has in his
possession a most interesting relic of the most famous leader of the Republican
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS, 479
party, — a business card on which is inscribed, "A. Lincoln, Attorney and Coun-
selor at Law, Springfield, Illinois." Attached to this is the following unique
statement: "To whom it may concern: My old customers and others are no
doubt aware of the terrible time I have had in crossing the stream, and will be
glad to know that I will be back on the same side from which I started on or
before the 4th day of March next, when I will be ready to swap horses, dispense
law, make jokes, split rails and perform other small matters in a small way."
Robert H. Parkinson, an able member of the Chicago bar, is a native of
Maine and a graduate of Dartmouth College. He was admitted to the bar in
1872 in St. Louis, Missouri; from 1874 to 1893 he resided in Cincinnati, and
since then has been a practitioner in Chicago.
Leander D. Condee was bom in Athens, Ohio, on the 26th of September,
1847, ^^^ is a son of Henry M. and Jane (Rickey) Condee. In 1854 he ac-
companied his parents on their removal to Illinois, the family locating on a
farm in Coles county, and later removing to Kankakee county, where he pursued
his education in the public schools. Later he entered the University of Mich-
igan and on the completion of the prescribed course was graduated in 1868. The
following year he began the practice of law in Butler, the county-seat of Bates
county, Missouri. In 1873 he came to Chicago, where he has since continued
m active practice, and during his twenty-five years* connection with the Chicago
bar he has won a place of distinction among his professional brethren. He
first formed a partnership under the name of Richmond & Condee, which firm
was succeeded by that of Condee & Bliss. Subsequently he entered into partner-
ship with John A. Rose, under the firm name of Condee & Rose, which con-
nection was continued for ten years, since which time Mr. Condee has been
alone.
Mr. Condee has always been known as a general practitioner and for many
years has enjoyed a very extensive clientele, having served as counsel in the
trial of some of the most important suits that have been heard in the Chicago
courts. He served for four years as attorney for the village of Hyde Park
before its annexation to the city and when it was the largest village in the world.
In politics he has always been a stalwart Republican, and creditably served as
a member of the state senate from 1880 until 1884. In 1892 he was his party's
candidate for judge of the superior court, but with the others on the ticket met
defeat. Since that time he has taken no active part in politics, his entire atten-
tion being given to his extensive law practice. He possesses all the essential
qualifications of the most able lawyers, the power of keen analysis, close reason-
ing and precision in the preparation of his cases, and in argument he is forceful
and convincing before both judge and jury. He seems almost intuitively to
grasp the strong points of law and fact, while in his briefs and arguments the
authorities are cited so extensively and the facts and reasoning thereon are
preserited so cogently and unanswerably as to leave no doubt as to the correct-
ness of his views or of his conclusions. He is now professor of the law of
corporations in the Chicago College of Law.
Mr. Condee is married and resides in Kenwood, and is a member of the
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS. 481
his native state and later studied in the State Normal University at Normal,
Illinois. He came to this state at the close of the civil strife in 1865. The
vicissitudes of war had left him penniless, and locating in Ramsey, a small town
on the Illinois Central Railroad, he began hauling ties and working on the road
as a section hand. His energies and attention were devoted lo teaching from
1867 until 1869, and when not confined with the duties of the school-room he
gave his time to the mastery of the principles of jurisprudence. He afterward
read law in the office of Henry & Fouke, and in January, 1873, passed an ex-
amination before the supreme court at Springfield and was admitted to the
bar of Illinois. He began practice in Vandalia and at once attracted so much
attention in legal circles that he was elected prosecuting attorney of Fayette
county the same year, filling the office until 1876. In the latter year he was
nominated by the Republican party for congress, and although unsuccessful
such was his popularity that he reduced the former Democratic majority of his
district from five thousand to. fourteen hundred.
Mr. Ashcraft has always been a close and careful student, and the business
entrusted to his care has always claimed his undivided attention, his devotion to
his clients' interests being proverbial. This, combined with his capability in the
presentation of a case to judge or jury, soon won him success, and he rapidly
secured a good clientage at the bar of Vandalia, where he practiced for fourteen
years. He met in forensic contest in southern Illinois such eminent jurists
as John Scholfield, of Marshall, later chief justice; Anthony Thornton, of Shelby-
ville, for several years a member of the supreme bench; T^sse J. Phillips, of
Hillsboro, who was also chief justice; John M. Palmer, 01 Springfield ; S. M.
Moulton, of Shelby; and B. W. Henry, of Fayette and to his contests with
these men he attributes much of his success as a trial lawyer.
In April, 1887, Mr. Ashcraft became a member of the Chicago bar and of
the firm of Cratty Brothers & Ashcraft, the latter connection continuing until
the 1st of June, 1891, when he became a member of the present firm of Ash-
craft & Gordon. As a member thereof he contributes largely to its reputation
for the thoroughness, ability and integrity which so signally characterize the
discharge of its professional obligations and have in a few short years made it
one of the solid, reliable law firms of the city. Mr. Ashcraft is distinctively a
trial lawyer, and from the time of his arrival in Chicago he has been eminently
successful, having all the business he can attend to, while his reputation is such
that he is in a position to select his cases. He is one of those shrewd and
kindly lawyers who know at first glance the practical and common-sense side
of cases coming under his ken, which makes his work easy and sure when he
takes hold of a suit.
In 1875 Mr. Ashcraft was united in marriage to Miss Florence R. Moore,
daughter of Risden Moore, of Belleville, Illinois, and they have four children :
Raymond M., Edwin M., Florence V. and Alan E. Mr. Ashcraft belongs to the
Hamilton Club, is a prominent Mason, and has always been a stanch Republican
in his political associations. A contemporary biographer has said of him : "A
tireless worker, persevering and industrious, he never relaxes his energy until
81
482 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
the case or the work he has in hand is completed. He is a forceful speaker,
his style of argument being at once clear, logical and convincing. He never
resorts to claptrap, and indulges but little in flowers of rhetoric, but in a plain,
matter-of-fact manner appeals to the good sense and judgment of his auditors.
He is a man of broad humanity, strict integrity and great popularity, and counts
among his personal friends men of all classes and ranks, and is justly entitled to
be regarded with Chicago's leading lawyers."
Henry S. Monroe, although he has almost reached the psalmist's span oi
three-score years and ten, is still engaged in the active practice of his profession,
and the energy and enterprise with which he prosecutes his law business sets to
shame many a younger man who, grown weary of the strife of life, shrinks from
further contact with it. For forty-two years Mr. Monroe has practiced at the
bar of Chicago, and the prestige which he soon gained has never been lost; in
fact, the favorable judgment which the public passed upon him in the early
years of his professional career has but been strengthened with the passing
decades as he has successfully mastered the most intricate problems which the
law presents.
Mr. Monroe was born in Baltimore, Maryland, February 9, 1829, and is a
son of Dr. Henry Monroe, a native of New York, who in the w^inter of our
subject's birth visited Baltimore for the benefit of his health, which was then
greatly impaired. He had already won a high reputation in medical circles
when, at the age of twenty-six years, he was obliged to leave Broome county,
New York, and seek respite from his labors. The Monroe family was a promi-
nent one in New England in colonial days, and thirteen of its members are said
to have served in the battle of Bunker Hill. In the spring after the birth of his
son Henry, Dr. Monroe returned to Broome county, New York, where he
secured wild land, which he transformed into one of the best farms of that local-
ity. His wife, w^ho bore the maiden name of Sylvia Thomas, and whose mother
belonged to the distinguished Stanton family of western New York, was a lady
of culture and refinement, and during the first ten years of Henry Monroe's
life she was to him teacher, parent and guide, her influence on his character
being most marked. As the boy grew, various farm duties were assigned to him,
and after he had assisted in the work of plowing, planting and harvesting, he
entered the district schools of the neighborhood, where he laid the foundation
for a good education. Of a studious nature, he made rapid advancement in
his studies. He was especially fond of history and was very proficient therein.
He prepared for college in Oxford, Chenango county. New York, and at the
end of three years entered the junior class of Geneva College, New York, where
he graduated with highest honors, being valedictorian of the class of 1850.
In the office of Henry R. Mygatt, of Oxford, New York, one of the ablest
lawyers of the state at that time, Mr. Monroe began the study of law, and while
pursuing his studies taught school for a few terms. In 1853 ^^ ^^^.s admitted to
the bar, and purchasing a few law books with borrowed money he came to
Chicago, where he had only one friend living, Hon. Stephen A. Douglas, who
introduced and recommended Mr. Monroe to his many friends. In a short time
'^^^Um/1^ if- vfCtry/r^o-C
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS, 483
the latter had many acquaintances, friends and clients, his social qualities ren-
dering him popular, while his genuine worth commanded the respect of all
with whom he came in contact. He opened an office early in the spring of
1855, and his practice has grown with the growth of the city, until it has now-
assumed very extensive proportions and is of a very important character.
In the early days one of the most important cases which he tried was that
of Martin O. Walker versus John Frink, two well known stage-coach proprietors.
He appeared alone for the defense, w^hile arrayed against him were several of the
most prominent members of the Chicago bar, and the signal victory which he
won at once established his reputation as a most able advocate. Another im-
portant case which won him distinction was that of Fisher versus Stone, a case
of malpractice, involving scientific problems then unsolved, in which medical
men were profoundly interested, and in which leading men of that profession
from New York, Albany, Philadelphia, Buffalo, Cleveland and Louisville were
witnesses. Mr. Monroe completely mastered the details of the matter, went to
the bottom of the subject, and astonished everybody, particularly the medical
experts, with the breadth and accuracy of his knowledge, and his masterly pre-
sentation and handling of the case. It is stated that the result of the trial was
to materially change the opinion of medical experts upon a scientific question
involved, which was then unsettled, so much so that experts in Europe as well as
this country, with very few exceptions, agreed with Mr. Monroe.
Among the important cases which he has tried in later years is the cele-
brated Michael Reese will case in California, an important land case tried be-
fore the chief justice of New Hampshire; others are the Emma mine contro-
versy in Utah ; the suit between the owners of the Dives and Pelican mines in
Colorado; the case of Tilden and Myres versus the Chicago & Alton Railroad
Company, tried in the United States court in New York; and later the cele-
brated case of Sturges versus Farwell and others, the Derby will case, and the
case of Colehour versus Roby. The Sturges case perhaps attracted more wide-
spread attention than any civil case ever tried in Illinois. Mr. Monroe con-
trolled and managed it from beginning to end, and thereby won new laurels.
A contemporary biographer has said 'of him : "He encourages no one to go
to law unless he has a clear case, but once his services are enlisted he labors with
indefatigable zeal for the interests of his client. As leading counsel in important
corporation, commercial and insurance cases, and in defending prosecutions
under the revenue laws, his great success has been especially conspicuous. As
cross-examining counsel, and as an advocate before a jury, he has few peers at
the Chicago bar. Lately Mr. Monroe has been largely engaged in real-estate
litigation, being the leader in this line of the profession in Chicago. The late
Chief Justice Breese, of Illinois, in the case of Barret versus Spaids (Illinois
Reports, volume 70, page 143), in speaking of Mr. Monroe, calls him *a dis-
tinguished attorney of this court,' and says he 'is known to be able, honest and
conscientious.' An eminent federal judge, before whom Mr. Monroe has tried
a great many important cases, once stated to several members of the bar that
*as an all-around lawyer Mr. Monroe had no superior at the Chicago bar.'"
484
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
The following is sent to the publishers by one who is an able member of the
bar and who has known the subject well in his professional and personal life:
I do not think any sketch of Mr. Monroe as a lawyer would be complete without
mention of his peculiar and remarkable power as an advocate. I have heard him in the
supreme court of the United States and that of Illinois; heard him argue cases in chancery
and questions of law before trial judges. He always understands his case, and his state-
ments of fact are clear, logical and convincing. I once heard him, in the supreme court
of the United States, spend his entire time in stating the facts of his case, adding at the
close: "If I have succeeded in fairly and truthfully presenting the facts of this interesting
and complicated case, this court will, 1 think, have little difficulty in deciding it."
I think he is greatest before a jury. I have heard him in civil cases when everyone
within sound of his voice, including judge and jury, bent forward and listened with
breathless attention to his every word. I never witnessed such effect upon jury and audi-
ence as was made by his closing argument in defense of Charles Custer, indicted for the
murder of Bill Ruse. The papers had all pronounced and the people thought it deliberate
murder. No case in this city was ever more ably prosecuted. Custer, three days after he
had been abused and thrashed by Ruse, loaded his gun and deliberately walked to Ruse's
residence. Ruse came out bareheaded and unwarned, and just as he left the steps Custer,
thirty yards away, raised his gun and instantly killed Ruse. The prosecution had no
doubt of his conviction, and when the leading counsel for the state sat down everyone
in the large and crowded court-room believed Custer doomed. Mr. Monroe rose, and
his opening sentence enlisted the sympathy and attention of both jury and spectators.
His analysis and grouping of the evidence was so marvelous and skillful that it threw a
ilood of new light upon the acts of Custer, which had before seemed conclusive of his
guilt. For three hours the jury and spectators listened with breathless attention, the ex-
citement and interest being often so great as to be painful. When he sat down everyone in
the court-room believed Custer safe, and so it proved, in spite of the able speech which
followed, and the charge of the judge, which was "dead against him." When Mr. Monroe
ceased his argument he turned to me and in a whisper said: "This is the last murder case
which I will ever try."
His defense of Joseph R. Bickerdike, for defrauding the government was equally
remarkable and ingenious. No one, not even his friends and relatives, believed he could
be saved from the penitentiary if the prosecuting witnesses told the truth. Mr. Monroe
put none on the stand, and still the jury, in five minutes, brought in a verdict for
Bickerdike.
Mr. Monroe studies his cases, the facts in particular, so carefully that he is rarely taken
by surprise, and the Harder he is pressed the better he is. I once heard him in addressing
a jury in a very important and interesting case so present the facts as to make both judge
and jury believe that the decision of the case turned upon a single question of fact, and
then bent all his energies to demonstrate that on that question the evidence was in his
favor. He was never in better form or voice. His illustrations were so apt and his reason-
ing so convincing, and the jury so interested and excited, that when at the end of his
argument he stepped forward and asked a question, which two of the jury instantly an-
swered, Mr. Monroe won, and the opposing counsel relied upon this answer of the jurors
in their motion for a new trial, but the presiding judge (the late Judge Rogers) refused it
In 1856 Mr. Monroe married Miss Mattie Mitchell, daughter of William
B. Mitchell, of Akron, Ohio. Until the death of his wife they maintained a
leading place in a cultured society circle. The family relations of our subject
have always been most pleasant, his children being worthy the love and respect
of any man. Two of his daughters are distinguished writers, and his only son
already occupies a high place in his profession and all hold high social positions.
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS. 485
Mr. Monroe has one of the largest and finest private libraries of the northwest,
embracing the standard French and German as well as English works. At
the time of the great fire in 1871 Mr. Monroe was the possessor of one of the
mgst complete and extensive law libraries in the Mississippi valley. Not only
does he find rest from his arduous professional duties in literature, but he
* also realizes the importance of a healthful physical development, and that a
strong mind dwells in a strong body. To this end he has indulged a love of
hunting and of driving a spirited horse, and to-day he possesses the physical
and mental vigor of a man of much younger years.
Elijah B. Sherman, LL. D., lawyer and scholar, patriot and statesman,
orator and author, occupies a conspicuous position among the gifted legists
and citizens of the state. His influence is felt not alone in his profession, where
he has won distinguished honors, but is manifest in public opinion and public
action. He is interested from a humanitarian standpoint in the questions
which affect the welfare of the race; from the standpoint of a scholar in those
things which concern the mental development and show the trend of intel-
lectual advancement of the age. He studies every issue that arises, not in an
abstract sense but in its relation to the welfare of humanity; and while he is
pre-eminently a lawyer, he is at the same time an able literary critic, a philos-
opher, a fluent writer, an able and eloquent speaker and above all a friend to
humanity.
The independent and courageous spirit which characterizes all his actions
probably comes to him from his Vermont ancestors, for that state has pro-
duced men who have ever been found as champions of liberty, order and
humanity, since the time the Green Mountain boys went forth to defend
their homes and families against the oppression of the British tyrants in the
war of the Revolution. His grandfather, Ezra Sherman, was a descendant
of Samuel Sherman, who came to this country with Rev. John Sherman and
removed from Connecticut to Vermont, thus establishing the family in the
latter state. The ex-secretary of state, John Sherman, and General William
T. Sherman were among the descendants of Samuel Sherman; and his cousin,
John Sherman, the sea captain, was the ancestor of Roger Sherman, one of the
signers of the Declaration of Independence.
The father of our subject, Elias H. Sherman, was a Vermont farmer,
and at his home in Fairfield, on the i8th of June, 1832, Elijah B. Sherman
was born. His boyhood comprehended the almost invariable conditions from
which the energies of our large cities are each year recruited. He had am-
bition without apparent opportunity; a taste for literature without the means
of feeding it ; a predisposition to thoughtfulness without the ordinary scholas-
tic channels into which to turn it. The mountains have always been the great
feeders both in nature and in society, and in Mr. Sherman's case what he then
supposed were limitations upon his life were, in reality, its keenest stimulus
and its highest opportunities. The poetic and aspiring element of his nature,
shut out at first from the pedagogic training of the printed page, turned for .
relief to the mountains, brooks and meadows of his native state, — that school
486 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
from which came such lawyers as Evarts and Phelps, such statesmen as Col-
lamer, Morrill and Edmunds, such modern heroes as Dewey and Clark of the
Oregon, such artists as William Morris Hunt, Larkin G. Mead, Hiram Powers
and many another of America's brilliant sons. With nature for a tutor ^nd
human life and his surroundings for his studies, Mr. Sherman found a school
from which the city-bred boy is barred, and whence issue year by year the
men who, in city and country, make events.
At twenty-one years of age he had. during a limited attendance at the
common schools through the winter months, mastered the rudiments of an
education. He then secured a clerkship in a drug store in Brandon, but not
finding this to his taste he spent a year as a student in the Brandon Seminary
and a similar period in Burr Seminary, in Manchester, whence he later en-
tered Middlebury College, from which institution he was graduated in i860.
He met the expenses of his academic and collegiate course by teaching school
a portion of each year, but he managed to win a fair share of class and college
honors, and in 1885 his alma mater honored itself by conferring upon him the
degree of LL. D., an act made significant by the fact that Middlebury College
has conferred that degree upon less than half a dozen of its own children in
the last forty years.
Following his graduation Mr. Sherman engaged in teaching school in
South Woodstock for one year and then took charge of Brandon Seminary,
where he remained until May, 1862, when he assisted in raising a company
of the Ninth Vermont Infantry, Colonel Greorge J. Stannard commanding.
Mr. Sherman enlisted as a private but was made lieutenant upon the organiza-
tion of the company. The regiment was captured at Harper's Ferry just
before the battle of Antietam, was paroled and sent to Camp Douglas, near
Chicago, to await exchange. Not wishing to remain idle here Lieutenant
Sherman began the study of the law. He prosecuted his studies in the law
department of the University of Chicago, in which he was graduated in 1864,
and immediately afterward entered upon the practice of his profession.
As a lawyer and a master in chancery of the United States circuit court,
to which responsible position he was appointed by Judges Harlan, Drum-
mond and Blodgett in 1879, ^^^- Sherman has exhibited an intellectual cast
that marks our best jurists. His most prominent trait, perhaps, is an ex-
traordinary quickness of perception. A lawyer unfolding to him a line of
thought always sees, in the face of his listener, that the line is taken up and
mastered as soon as uttered. To this perceptive faculty are linked a com-
prehensive grasp and the rare power of precise utterance. He never fails
to impart the pleasure which comes from being exactly understood, A master
in chancery is in every sense an equity judge. For these duties Mr. Sherman
combines admirable qualities. His nature is sympathetic, but his judgment is
impartial. The emotional elements are dominated by his understanding. His
intellect comprehends the law as a great science necessarily uniform in its
application ; and is of the fiber that thus enforces the law, even to the displace-
ment of wishes and inclinations that are born of sympathy. This combination
THE BENCH AND BAR OF H.LINOIS. 487
of powers makes a real chancellor, — ^the susceptibility of appreciating the
rights and circumstances of others, and the intellectual power that can, in the
necessarily uniform administration of a great system, set each particular feel-
ing aside.
In 1884 Mr. Sherman was appointed chief supervisor of elections for the
northern district of Illinois, and supervised the congressional elections up to
the time the law was repealed. At the election in November, 1892, he ap-
pointed fourteen hundred supervisors who registered two hundred and sixty-
seven thousand voters, made inquiry as to their right to vote, scrutinized the
votes cast and made return to the chief supervisor of the results of the elec-
tion. In 1882 Mr. Sherman was president of the Illinois State Bar Associa-
tion, and his annual address attracted wide attention by reason of its literary
excellence and profound learning. He has also been vice-president of the
American Bar Association.
Mr. Sherman's political support has been given the Republican party
since its organization. His father's home was a station on the "underground
railroad," and he early became imbued with an antipathy to slavery; and
when the Republican party was formed to prevent its further extension he at
once attached himself to the organization, and has since been one of its most
earnest advocates. In 1876 he was elected to the Illinois house of repre-
sentatives and took a leading position in that body, which then enrolled among
its members some of the ablest men of the state. He was chairman of the
committee on judicial department and a member of the judiciary committee.
In this capacity he assisted in securing the passage of the act establishing
appellate courts, the wisdom of which provision experience has rendered no
longer debatable. At this session there was also to be a senator elected to
succeed General Logan, and Mr. Sherman was one of the most influential
supporters of the General and was selected to make one of the nominating
speeches in the house. In 1878 he was re-elected to the general assembly
and became chairman of the committee on corporations and a member of the
committee on militia. At this session the act which had been passed in 1877,
organizing the Illinois National Guard, was amended and amplified, a measure
largely due to Mr. Sherman and in recognition of which he was appointed
by Governor Ctrllom judge advocate of the first brigade, in which position he
served until 1884. Aside from his service in the state legislature, he has never
held or desired any political office, but has continued to be a steadfast Re-
publican, not from selfish motives but from a deep and abiding conviction
that the principles of that party are essential to the highest welfare of the
country. He is not, however, a partisan, and is not blinded to the faults,
foibles and mistakes of his associates, and is able to recognize and appreciate
patriotic devotion in those who differ with him.
In 1866 Mr. Sherman was married to Miss Hattie G. Lovering, daughter
of S. M. Lovering, of Iowa Falls. Their son, B. W. Sherman, is well known
as a rising member of the Chicago bar. Mr. and Mrs. Sherman have dis-
pensed hospitality and exerted social influence widely felt. The poetic side of
488 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
Mr. Sherman's nature, his wit and kindly feeling, make him a delightful
companion. He is never more at home nor shines brighter than when en-
tertaining his guests or moving among his fellow men. These qualities,
probably as much as anything else, brought him into prominence in the Odd
Fellows fraternity, where he has held the highest offices, including that of
grand master of the grand lodge of Illinois. Immediately after the Chicago
fire the grand lodge selected him as a member of the relief committee, and as
its secretary he aided in disbursing to the members of the fraternity, who had
suffered heavy losses, one hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars. In ad-
dition to his connection with that society Mr. Sherman is a valued and popular
member of various other organizations. He has been president of the Illinois
Association of the Sons of Vermont, Saracen Club, Alliance Club and Oak-
land Club, and is a thirty-second degree Mason. He also belongs to the
Grand Army of the Republic, to the Illinois Commandery of the Loyal Legion,
to the Union League Club and to several literary societies of high character.
In kindly remembrance of his college affiliations and yielding to the unani-
mous wish of the annual conventions he has served as president of the National
Association of the Delta Upsilon fraternity since 1893. He has fine literary
taste and is widely known as an excellent writer and eloquent speaker. He
has delivered many addresses before literary clubs and at army reunions.
His style is original and unique. He has, as much as any writer known, the
faculty of grasping the pervading impressions and thoughts of the time and
in aptest expression transferring them to the printed page. He has a fine sense
df the secondary as well as the primary meaning of words; and thus g^ves to
their use a freshness, as well as a precision, that arouses thought. No lawyer
at the Chicago bar is heard with greater expectation or interest on occasions
requiring the expression of public opinion, and he has been equally eflFective
on lighter and more festive occasions. The annual banquet of the Sons of
Vermont has always been brightened by his wit and set to laughter and cheer-
ing by his artful admixture of humor and New England good sense. '*As a
lawyer, orator, writer, critic and citizen, he fills a conspicuous place. He is
worthy the traditions of the state from which he hails, the distinction of the
name he bears, and the high place he has made for himself and continues to
keep."
Frank Hatch Jones was born in the town of Griggsville, Pike county,
Illinois, on the 6th of March, 1854. His parents were George W. and Cecelia
B. Jones, of Springfield, Illinois, and in their home his boyhood days were
passed, his time being largely devoted to the mastery of the English branches
of learning taught in the public schools of Pittsfield, Illinois. His literary
education was completed by his graduation at Yale University in the class of
1875. It was but natural that a man of his splendid intellectual endowments
should turn toward a professional career, and in the Columbia Law School of
New York city and the Chicago Law School he prepared for the bar and was
admitted to practice in 1879.
He entered upon his professional career in Springfield, Illinois, and dur-
THE BENCH 'AND BAR OF ILLINOIS. 489
ing his residence there served as a member of the general assembly, which
elected Hon. John M. Palmer to the United States senate, making the nomina-
tion speech in the house by selection of the Democratic caucus. There is no
profession which furnishes so many prominent representatives to political life
as the law, the reason for which is obvious and requires no explanation. The
strongly developed power of analysis that enables one to handle the intricate
problems of jurisprudence also enables him to solve the complex questions of
statecraft and to administer the affairs of office where so many interests are
involved. Added to these elements in Mr. Jones there is another reason why
he early became a recognized leader in the ranks of his party, and that is his
brilliant oratory. He has a ready command of language, is logical, entertain-
ing and convincing, easy in his delivery and never fails to make a deep im-
pression on his hearers. He was accorded recognition by his party during
President Cleveland's second administration, when he was appointed first as-
sistant postmaster general. It is a well attested maxim that the greatness of a
state lies not in its machinery of government, nor even in its institutions, but
in the sterling quaHties of its individual citizens, in their capacity for high
and unselfish effort and their devotion to the public good, and in his official
service Mr. Jones has manifested a public-spirited loyalty that has rendered
him a capable and honored servant of the nation.
In September, 1897, Mr. Jones came to Chicago, where he has since en-
gaged in practice in connection with Edwin F. Uhl, who was ambassador to
Germany during President Cleveland's second administration, and Kenesavv
M. Landis, who was private secretary to Judge Gresham, when the latter filled
the position of secretary of state. Mr. Jones has now a distinctively repre-
sentative clientage, and while enjoying a lucrative practice has also won the
respect of his professional brethren, who esteem him for his courtesy and worth.
Robert Mather, general attorney for the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific
Railway Company, ranks among the able members of the legal profession in
Chicago. He was born in Salt Lake City, Utah, July i, 1859, and completed
his literary education at Knox College, Galesburg, Illinois, where he graduated
in the class of 1882. In October of that year he came to Chicago, where for
some time he was employed in the office of the treasurer of the Chicago, Bur-
lington & Quincy Railroad.
In 1884 ^^r. IMather became a student in the office of McClellan & Cum-
mins, well known attorneys of this city, and was admitted to the bar in March,
1886. He engaged in general practice until 1889, when he accepted the posi-
tion of local attorney for the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Railway Com-
pany. In that capacity he served until 1894, when he became general attorney.
His practice is largely confined to railroad and corporation law, and in those
^lepartments he has been concerned in some important litigation.
Among the important cases which he has tried is that of the Chicago,
Rock Island & Pacific Railway Company versus City of Chicago (Illinois Re-
ports, volume 143, page 641 ; Supreme Court of Illinois, volume 148, page
479). In this case the supreme court condemned the practice, which in Chi-
490 THE BEXCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
cago had grown into an abuse, of abandoning an unsatisfactory assessment
of damages in condemnation proceedings by the municipality and fiHng a new
petition to obtain a re-assessment by another jury. The holding was that the
first assessment was conclusive against the city and a bar to a second proceed-
ing:.
In Gatton versus the Railway Company (Iowa Reports, volume 95, page
112), Mr. Mather's contention was that there was no law, prior to the enactment
of the inter-state commerce act, which could regulate the charges of a common
carrier for transportation from state to state, and the Iowa supreme court
formulated this proposition in its decision, which holds that there is no com-
mon law of the United States.
Mr. Mather represented the appellant in Rhodes versus Iowa (United
States Reports, volume 170, page 412), where the United States supreme court,
reversing State versus Rhodes (Iowa Reports, volume 90, page 496), held that
the federal statute known as the Wilson bill, which had been construed to per-
mit the states to prohibit the sale of imported liquors in the original packages
(In re Rahrer, United States Reports, volume 140, page 545), was not intended
to give to the states power to prohibit the importation of intoxicating liquors,
and that the statute of Iowa which prohibited carriers from bringing such
liquors into the state was unconstitutional.
At the twentieth annual meeting of the American Bar Association, held
in Cleveland, Ohio, August 26, 1897, Mr. Mather read a paper on "Constitu-
tional Construction and the Commerce Clause."
Mr. Mather is a member of the Union League Club, the Chicago Club,
the Law Club, and of the American, the Illinois and the Chicago Bar Associa-
tions.
Judge Axel Chytraus is a representative American citizen, although of for-
eign birth. He was born in Sw^eden, on the isth of September, 1859. Nearly
his entire life, however, has been passed in Chicago, for he became a resident of
this city at the age of ten years and has since made the western metropolis his
home. He was educated in the public schools, and, determining to devote his
life work to the most exacting of all the learned professions, — the law, — he
entered upon preparation for the bar as a student in the law office of Howe &
Russell. His abilities, both natural and acquired, well fit him for this calling.
On the 7th of November, 1881, Mr. Chytraus was admitted to the bar and has
since been engaged in active practice. He was for a time a member of the firm
of Blanke & Chytraus, and subsequently a third partner was taken in, — Mr.
Deneen. After a time Mr. Blanke was elected judge of the superior court of
Cook county, leaving the firm Chytraus & Deneen, which partnership is still
maintained. In November, 1898, Mr. Chytraus was elected judge of the
superior court.
His professional career has been one of success from the beginning. He
possesses wonderfully keen analytical power, is exhaustive and accurate in the
preparation of a case and fortifies his position with all the points of law and
precedent that will strengthen his suit. He has been retained as counsel on
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS, 491
many important cases tried before the supreme and appellate courts, as well
as the lower courts, and his entire attention has been devoted to the duties and
obligations imposed by his profession. The aim of his eloquence has ever
been to convince, and his predominant faculty is reason. Such characteristics
go far toward making an able judge. He has won for himself very favorable
criticism for the careful and systematic methods which he has followed and
stands well with his brethren of the bench and bar.
On the 23d of June, 1892, Mr. Chytraus was united in marriage to Miss
Laura Haugan, daughter of H. A. Haugan, president of the State National
Bank, of Chicago, and he holds firmly to the political faith of the Republican
party.
John P. Wilson, the senior member of the law firm of Wilson, Moore &
Mcllvaine, of Chicago, was born on his father's farm in Whiteside county, Illi-
nois, July 3, 1844, and is a' son of Thomas and Margaret (.Laughlin) Wilson,
who were of Scotch descent, although the mother was born in Pennsylvania.
The father, however, was a native son of that land of hills and heather, and in
m
1833 crossed the Atlantic to America," taking up his residence in this state.
There he devoted his energies to farming until three years before the close of
his life, when he removed to Evanston. The residue of his days were passed
in that beautiful suburb, and in 1883 he was called to the "home beyond."
Upon the home farm John P. W^ilson spent the days of his boyhood and
youth, aiding in the labors of field and meadow and acquiring a preliminary
education in the district schools of the neighborhood. His love of study and
close application were manifest in the rapid progress which he made in the
school-room, and in his leisure hours mental advancement was attained through
extensive reading, so that at the age of seventeen he was prepared for college.
His classical training was received in Knox College, of Galesburg, Illinois,
and on the completion of the regular four-years course he was graduated, in
the spring of 1865, winning the degree of Bachelor of Arts before he had at-
tained his twenty-first birthday. Through the two succeeding years his time
was partially devoted to teaching, but aside from the duties of the school-room
was given entirely to the mastery of the principles of jurisprudence, in which
he made such rapid progress that in 1867 he was admitted to the bar.
Choosing the rapidly-growing city of Chicago as a field for his professional
labors he came to this city and accepted a clerical position in the office of Bor-
den, SpaflFord & McDaid, a leading law firm of the city, that he might gain a
practical knowledge of the workings of the courts and the plans of procedure
of eminent practitioners. On the dissolution of the firm he spent two years
in the office of John Borden, and in 1870 became a member of the firfn of
SpaflFord, McDaid & Wilson. Several changes afterward occurred in the firm
until now Mr. Wilson stands at the head of the firm of Wilson, Moore & Mc-
llvaine, whose legal talent has secured to its members a foremost position at
the Chicago bar. Mr. Wilson has for many years made a specialty of real-
estate and corporation law, two of the most important branches of juris-
prudence, whose complicated interests demand ability of the highest order.
492 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
Some of the most prominent business men and corporations of the city are
numbered among his clients, and the involved cases which he has conducted
to successful completion have shown a complete masten,' of the subject, thor-
ough and precise preparation and most careful and diligent research. He is
so well versed in his special departments of the law that his knowledge is al-
ways ready tor use, and his familiarity with principle and precedent is one of
the potent elements in his success.
When the promoters of the great sanitary district of Chicago were in the
midst of their fight to secure the undertaking of that stupendous scheme of
civil engineering that will rank among the first of the world, they chose Mr.
Wilson to draft the law which created it and retained him to defend its con-
stitutionality when the fight was on in that direction. His success is now
a matter of common knowledge. So also in 1890, when the World's Columbian
Exposition Company was in the midst of its vast operations to put that greatest
of exhibitions on foot. Mr. Wilson was elected general counsel, and the con-
stitutional amendment and legislation of the special session of the general as-
sembly of 1890 were drafted under his personal supervision.
A contemporary biographer said of him : "His keen analytical powers
amount almost to a genius for law. He is essentially a natural lawyer. With
a power for concentration, a capacity for details, and a comprehension of view,
he unites a will for application that knows no diversion from its purpose and no
hesitation before accomplishment. Of a modest, retiring and scholarly dis-
position, he has confined himself to the quieter sides of life and devotion to his
chosen profession."
Mr. Wilson was married on the 25th of April, 1871, to Miss Margaret C.
Mcllvaine, daughter of J. D. Mcllvaine, of Chicago. They have live children:
Margaret C, Martha. John P., .Anna M. and Agnes.
Lambert Tree, lawyer and diplomat, was born in the capital city of the
nation, November 29, ]832. and from that city has been sent on important mis-
sions abroad, representing his country at two of the important courts of Europe.
A man of strong mentality, scholarly tastes and breadth of thought, he is we'd
prepared to deal with the intricate and delicate problems of foreign diplomacy
and with the complex questions of the law. Two of his great-grandfathers were
patriots in the war of the Revolution and one of them, who was commander
of an artillery company, was killed at the battle of Trenton.
After acquiring a liberal classical education Judge Tree became a student
in the law office of James Mandevillc Carlisle, then the leader of the bar of
Washington. He continued his reading under the direction of that able jurist
for two years and then continued his studies in the University of \'irginia, until
his admission to the bar, at Washington, in 1855. A few months later he
opened an office in Chicago, and no dreary novitiate awaited him. for his ripe
scholarship and splendid legal attainments were soon recognized and gaineil
him a large clientele. Whenever public duties have left him free to follow his
profession he has enjoyed an extensive business of the higher class of law-
practice and has gained distinction as an able advocate and counselor. In
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS, 493
1864 he was elected president of the Chicago Law Institute, and in 1870 he was
chosen to fill out ,the unexpired term of Judge McAllister, who was at that
time a member of the bench of the circuit court of Cook county and was elected
to the supreme court. At the next election of judges for the full term Mr.
Tree was elected to the circuit bench. One of his first official acts after as-
suming the ermine was to instruct the grand jury to investigate charges of
malfeasance in office against members of the city council and upon trustworthy
evidence to indict such officials and bring them to trial at the bar of the court.
Numerous indictments were found, and the trials that followed were among
the most exciting in the history of this bar and for a time had a salutary effect
on the administration of municipal affairs. In 1875 Judge Tree resigned his
position, for his close application to his arduous duties had undermined his
health and he sought rest and recreation in Europe.
Before his return to America, in 1878, Judge Tree was nominated for con-
gress in the fourth district of Illinois, by the Democrats, and, notwithstanding
his declination, his name was retained on the ticket and he received, in one of
the Republican strongholds of the state, a vote not large enough to elect him,
but so great as to surprise even those who best knew his personal popularity.
After his return from abroad he devoted himself to law, literature and the man-
agement of his private interests. In 1882 he was the Democratic nominee
for congress, but the Republican majority in the district was too strong to
overcome. In 1884 he was chosen a delegate at large to the Democratic na-
tional convention, which met in Chicago and nominated Grover Cleveland,
by whom, in July, 1885, J^dg^ Tree was appointed minister to Belgium. In
the course of his official service he represented the United States government
in several international congresses held at Binissels, and participated in the
formation and execution of some important treaties, one of which provided for
the exchange of parliamentary and other public documents between the prin-
cipal nations of Europe and the United States, and another of which provided
for the establishment of an international bureau for the translation and publica-
tion of custom tariffs of the nations of the world. Judge Tree, in 1887, also
represented our government in the international congress for the reform of
maritime and commercial law, — a notable assemblage of representatives of all
civilized nations, and in its deliberations the American member won universal
respect for the masterly manner in which he looked after the interests of his
country. In September, 1888, Judge Tree was appointed minister to Russia,
but in 1889 he resigned his position and returned to his native land. In 1891
he was again called into the public service, by President Harrison, who ap-
pointed him the Democratic member of the commission of three members
provided by congress to represent the United States in the international mone-
tary conference, which met at Washington, — it being required by the law that
one member of the commission should be of the Democratic party. Judge Tree
formulated and presented to the conference the propositions which were sub-
sequently and unanimously adopted by it.
From 1892 until his resignation in 1896 he was president of the Illinois
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494 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS,
State Historical Library Board. At present he is a life trustee of the Newberry
Library. The honors with which his life have been crowned have come to
him in recognition of real worth as a statesman, a lawyer and a man.
Oliver H. Horton, who on the 15th of February, 1898, was appointed by
the supreme court of Illinois to the appellate bench, has won distinguished
honors in professional life, and in public and private commands the uniform
regard of all with whom he has been brought in contact. Man's worth in the
world is determined by his successes and his usefulness; the estimate of his
character is based upon what he has accomplished for himself, and the service
he has rendered to others. In an analyzation of the Hfe of Judge Horton
we find that in both particulars his is a well rounded, symmetrical character.
The advantages of his early years were few, but he made for himself oppor-
tunities and utilized the difficulties he encountered as stepping-stones to higher
things. He is in the truest and best sense of the term a self-made man, and the
*'lumber-shover'' of forty years ago stands to-day among the most eminent
members of the Chicago bar, honored and respected alike for his superior legal
wisdom and the manly virtues which everywhere call forth admiration and
esteem. He is a jurist by reason of his profound knowledge of law, a scholar
by reason of his familiarity with the writings of master minds of the past and
present, a lecturer by reason of the eloquent and exhaustive addresses he has
delivered on topics of general interest, and a Christian gentleman whose in-
terest in his fellow men is broad, deep and sincere.
Judge Horton was born in Cattaraugus county, New York, on the 20th ot
October, 1835, and was a son of Rev. Harvey and Mary H. Horton, the former
a native of Vermont and the latter of Connecticut. His father was a Baptist
minister. When a young man of less than twenty years Judge Horton left the
east and took up his residence in Chicago, which was then a typical western
city, hurriedly and unsubstantially built, but containing the germs of develop-
ment for the remarkable metropolis of to-day. . For three years he was engaged
in the lumber business and during that time realized what it is to be ill and
friendless in a strange city. In 1859 he went to the south, but returned after a
few months, and in i860 took up the study of law in the office of Hoyne, Miller
& Lewis, remaining as a student and clerk with that firm until January, 1864,
when the partnership was dissolved. A new firm was then organized under
the name of Hoyne, Ayer & Horton, the partners being Thomas Hoyne, Benja-
min F. Ayer and Oliver H. Horton. The last named was graduated in 1863
in the law department of the University of Chicago, but had previously been
admitted to the bar.
In 1865 the firm of Hoyne, Ayer & Horton was dissolved and the firm oi
Hoyne & Horton formed, while on the ist of January, 1867, another change in
partnership caused the assumption of the firm name of Hoyne, Horton &
Hoyne, Thomas M. Hoyne having been admitted as a partner. That connec-
tion was continued until the death of the senior partner, who was killed in a
railway accident in 1883, when the name of Horton & Hoyne was assumed.
Four vears later the dissolution of the partnership resulted from Judge Horton's
THE BENCH AND BAR OF H.LINO
elevation to the bench. As an advocate and counselor he
best in the city. He has carried his investigation and reseat
of jurisprudence far and wide, and his accurate knowledge of
ous departments is remarkable. In the preparation of his g
taking and exact, and his grasp of the strong points in litigat
tuitive. He advanced rapidly at the bar and soon his client
and extensive. When Mayor Roche was called to the chair
of this municipality, he tendered to Judge Horton the positi
counsel. The two gentlemen were not personally acquaint
the offer was a tribute to the worth of the Judge as a man ai
however, declined the honor, but the mayor insisted, saying t
would suit him, and finally Mr. Horton said that he would
his services in the capacity of corporation counsel without re
Mr. Roche could decide upon someone who would be satisf;
and party. With this understanding Judge Horton soon aftei
and during his absence a telegram from a friend informed hin
had sent his name to the council. By telegraph he then re
name be withdrawn, but soon received another dispatch contair
tion that he had been unanimously confirmed. Thus it was \
time he accepted public office, having many times before declin
that direction.
It was in 1887 that Judge Horton was first called to wear tl
elected a judge of the circuit court on a non-partisan ticket, «
always been a stanch RepubHcan. Again, in April, 1891, he
and once more, on a non-partisan ticket, was chosen for that
1897, presiding over the court with a dignity and impartiality
tained the majesty of the law. He was thus serving when he i
pointment of the supreme court to the appellate bench of tl
diflferent times he has received very flattering offers from law
porations to resume the private practice of law, but for tweh
remained upon the bench. In the hands of such judges the indi
feel that every interest is safe and that law will be administered
est intelligence and with a keen regard for equity. A man of
character, of unusual intellectual endowments, with a thoron
ing of the law, patience, urbanity and industry. Judge Horton to
the very highest qualifications for this most responsible office
of government ; and his record as a judge has been in harmony
as a man and a lawyer, distinguished by unswerving integrity
grasp of every problem that has presented itself for solution,
makes a success in the discharge of his multitudinous delicat
nilings are seldom reversed, and before whom counsel and liti
an unshakable confidence, is a man of well rounded character,
mind and strong intellectual attainments. That Judge Horton
such a jurist is a universally accepted fact.
He has presided at the trial of many cases which have ha
496 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
upon the general welfare. He dissolved the injunction, granted by another
judge; which prevented the mayor and chief of police from interfering with the
selling of pools and making gamblers' **books" on races at Garfield park, a
decision which led to the ultimate closing of the race track, which was regarded
by all law-respecting citizens as one of the worst gambling institutions in the
city. He was associated with Judges Tuley, Tuthill and Burroughs in render-
ing the decision which made possible the building of the fine Art Institute on
the lake front. In 1889 Mrs. Sarah Daggett, who owned property on the
opposite side of the street, got out an injunction against the city, restraining the
council from occupying or using the old Inter-state Exposition Building; and
when the old building had been torn down and work begun on the Art Insti-
tute she souglit to enforce that injunction and was upheld by a decision of
Judge Tuthill in her favor. Work was stopped on the building and a motion
to modify the injunction was made in the circuit court, which was decided in
favor of the Art Institute, thus securing to the city one of its most desirable
and cherished institutions.
Judge Horton's opinions are ever regarded by the profession as models
of judicial soundness, and at the same time he has the keenest consideration
for the equity of the case and often tempers justice with mercy. He is a man
of broad humanitarian principles, which lead him to extend to a guilty one
every encouragement and aid possible, not in violation of the principles of
justice, to become a respected and law-abiding citizen. In this he displays
somewhat of the elements of the reformer. His experiences in the trial of
divorce suits has led him to take an advanced stand in favor of remodeling the
law^ in this particular, for he believes that the protection and perpetuation o{
the home is the buhvark of the nation. For the purpose of reform in the matter
of divorces Judge Horton introduced into the state legislature, in 1889, the
following bill : ^'Whenever the judge, upon hearing the evidence upon a bill
for divorce taken as confessed, shall be satisfied of any collusion, or suppres-
sion of facts, or that the public good or the due administration of justice may
be promoted thereby, such judge may appoint a solicitor to represent the de-
fendant and continue the hearing as such judge may see fit. * * * When-
ever a divorce is granted in any case, the court shall, by its decree, fix periods
within which the parties respectively shall not thereafter again marry, which
shall not be less than one year nor more than ten years as to either of the
parties, and may not be the same as to both. Any party to such decree who
shall marry after the entry thereof, and before the expiration of the time fixed
by such decree within which he or she shall not marry, shall be guilty of big-
amy under the law of this state and be punished accordingly."
Judge Horton is also an advocate of reform in the courts. He believes
that judicial office should have nothing to do with politics; that the salaries
should be raised to ten thousand dollars ; that the tenure should be for life or
during good behavior, with a pension after fifteen years of service, or when the
judges reach the age of seventy; that the judges should not have the power
of appointing other officers, including justices of the peace, which action would
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS, 497
divorce the courts from politics effectually and irrevocably ; and that the courts
should be self-supporting by means of a fee bill which would make the costs
payable by the litigants and not by taxation of the general pubHc.
An interesting fact in Judge Horton's career is that for twenty-seven years
he occupied an office on the same lot. He went into that office as a boy, swept
it out and polished up the handle of the door, and left it as senior partner of one
of the most prominent law firms of the city to go upon the bench.
Judge Horton has ever been an advocate and patron of education and
aesthetic culture. For over a quarter of a century he has been a valued member
of the Chicago Literary Club; is one of five members composing the board of
trustees of the Lewis Institute ; is one of the six members of the board of trus-
tees of the Garrett Biblical Institute; is the first vice-president of the board
of trustees of the Northwestern University; served as one of its trustees for
over twenty years, and has been a member of its executive Committee for
nearly the same time. Judge Horton is an orator of many pleasing qualities,
and his breadth of thought and culture enables him to please and at the same
time instruct the most critical audiences. On the 26th of March, 1889, he
delivered before the Marquette Club, of which he is an honorary member, an
eloquent, patriotic and logical address on **The Protected Ballot Box." He
has also frequently addressed the Medico-Legal Society, of which he was a
charter member, and of which he served as president in 1892. He is a member
of the Athletic Club, the Glen View Golf Club, Quebec Golf Club, Forty Club,
Hamilton Club and the Sunset Club, and he possesses in a high degree that
quality of good-fellowship which makes him a valued addition to the society
ranks. He belongs to the Veteran League Club and has been a member of the
Union League Club since its organization. He was chairman of its committee
on political action at the time the election law was passed, — in fact was the
author of the same and did much to secure its adoption. He was the first presi-
dent of the Alumni Association of the Union College of Law, is a member of
the Bar Association, and for several years was treasurer and afterward president
of the Law Institute.
Judge Horton was for many years actively connected with the Young
Men's Christian Association as a director, held the office of vice-president for a
number of years and was chairman of the lecture committee. For nearly
twenty years he was a member of Grace Methodist Episcopal church, in which
he held every position to which a layman is eligible. He was trustee of the
Chicago missionary and church-extension societies, in 1880 was sent as a lay
delegate to the general conference, which met in Cincinnati, and the next year
was elected a lay delegate to the ecumenical conference which met in London,
England. For twelve years he was superintendent of the Sunday-school of
Grace church, during which time it had a larger membership than any other
home school west of the Alleghanies. When the great fire swept over the
city in 1871, of the twelve hundred members of the school all but sixteen were
rendered homeless, and of the members of the congregation all but two. After
the fire Judge Horton worked hard to reunite the scattered children, and it was
22
498 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
not long before the school was as large as ever. For three years he was presi-
dent of the Methodist Social Union, is president of the Laymen's Association
of the Rock River conference, president of the Superannuates' Relief Associa-
tion, and trustee of the Wesley Hospital. He is now an attendant on the
services of the Trinity Methodist church.
The Judge was married December 27, 1857, to Miss Frances B. Gould,
who came from New York to Chicago in early childhood and has ever since
resided here. They have had two children, but they have passed away.
In private life and public office Judge Horton is always the same reliable,
honorable man and citizen, — affable, yet firm in maintaining what he regards
to be right and in the expression of his sentiments, however much they may
antagonize those of other people. No one ever leaves him in doubt as to his
position upon any question of business or politics ; and no one ever has reason
to question his perfect sincerity in any expression he may make or any position
he may take. If his word can be secured, it is as good as any bond that was
ever solemnized by signature and seal ; if his friendship can be won — and worth
can always win it — it is as loyal as truth is to itself ; and if social order or social
advancement needs a support that never weakens, it can find it in him. He
never weighed an act of his life, public or private, in the scale of sinister policy.
Almon W. Bulkley has practiced law at the Chicago bar through a period
of eighteen years, and his comprehensive legal learning, his able application
of law principles to litigated questions and his fidelity to the interests of clients
have contributed to the enviable success which crowns his well directed efforts.
He was born in Groton, New York, April 13, 1852, coming of distinguished
ancestry connected with one of the oldest families both of this country and
England. The original etymology of the name was Buclogh, changed in the
thirteenth century to Bulkeley and modified four centuries later by the omis-
sion of the first e. The complete record of the family begins with Robert,
Lord of Bulkeley, county of Cheshire, England. For several centuries his
descendants lived and prospered in Cheshire and other parts of England. They
were lords and nobles, bishops and canons of the church, all celebrated for
their great wealth and nobility of character.
The founder of the American branch of the family was Rev. Peter Bulk-
ley, who was born in Odell, Bedfordshire, England, January 31, 1583, and died
in Concord, Massachusetts, March 9, 1659. He was educated at St. John's
College, Cambridge, where he afterward became a fellow. Later he took or-
ders and succeeded to the living of his father, in Odell, where he remained
for twenty-one years, when he was silenced for non-conformity. In 1635 he
sold his estates and emigrated to America. After several months spent in
Cambridge, Massachusetts, he made his way into the interior and foundea
the town of Concord, where he established the first church in 1636 and lived
until his death. Three of his five sons emigrated to Fairfield, Connecticut,
where the grandfather of this sketch was born. From this stock is descended
Almon W. Bulkley, son of Lorenzo and Juliette A. (Coonley) Biulkley. His
mother was of Holland Dutch lineage.
^6y^.
500 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
and the development of nations and governments there has been evolved a
system of rules and principles founded tipon the rights of the individual and his
relation to society. ?<' •'"■ ;■>•"——'■' "f I'f- i.—-. k-.^^™„ ™^,= k-^^-i ^^a ,.^^:^a
new laws have been
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of jurisprudence have
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thus it is that we hav^
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with America em brae
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early as 1639, and 1
great-grandfather of 1
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ried by the grandfatl
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born in Connecticut
cultural pursuits. H
York, in 1818. and h
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tional privileges, goi
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THE BENCH AND BAR OF H.LINOIS, 495
elevation to the bench. As an advocate and counselor he ranked among the
best in the city. He has carried his investigation and research into the realms
of jurisprudence far and wide, and his accurate knowledge of the law in its vari-
ous departments is remarkable. In the preparation of his cases he was pains-
taking and exact, and his grasp of the strong points in litigation was almost in-
tuitive. He advanced rapidly at the bar and soon his clientele was distinctive
and extensive. When Mayor Roche was called to the chair of chief executive
of this municipality, he tendered to Judge Horton the position of corporation
counsel. The two gentlemen were not personally acquainted, and therefore
the offer was a tribute to the worth of the Judge as a man and a citizen. He,
however, declined the honor, but the mayor insisted, saying that no other man
would suit him, and finally Mr. Horton said that he would give to the city
his services in the capacity of corporation counsel without remuneration until
Mr. Roche could decide upon someone who would be satisfactory to himself
and party. With this understanding Judge Horton soon afterward went south
and during his absence a telegram from a friend informed him that the mayor
had sent his name to the council. By telegraph he then requested that his
name be withdrawn, but soon received another dispatch containing the informa-
tion that he had been unanimously confirmed. Thus it was that for the first
time he accepted public oflSce, having many times before declined all honors in
that direction.
It was in 1887 that Judge Horton was first called to wear the ermine, being
elected a judge of the circuit court on a non-partisan ticket, although he has
always been a stanch Republican. Again, in April, 1891, he was re-elected,
and once more, on a non-partisan ticket, was chosen for that office in April,
1897, presiding over the court with a dignity and impartiality that fully sus-
tained the majesty of the law. He was thus serving when he received the ap-
pointment of the supreme court to the appellate bench of this district. At
different times he has received very flattering offers from law firms and cor-
porations to resume the private practice of law, but for twelve years he has
remained upon the bench. In the hands of such judges the individual and state
feel that every interest is safe and that law will be administered with the broad-
est intelligence and with a keen regard for equity. A man of unimpeachable
character, of unusual intellectual endowments, with a thorough understand-
ing of the law, patience, urbanity and industry. Judge Horton took to the bench
the very highest qualifications for this most responsible office in the system
of government; and his record as a judge has been in harmony with his record
as a man and a lawyer, distinguished by unswerving integrity and a masterful
grasp of every problem that has presented itself for solution. The judge who
makes a success in the discharge of his multitudinous delicate duties, whose
rulings are seldom reversed, and before whom counsel and litigant come with
an unshakable confidence, is a man of well rounded character, finely balanced
mind and strong intellectual attainments. That Judge Horton is regarded as
such a jurist is a universally accepted fact.
He has presided at the trial of many cases which have had direct bearing
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THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS, 501
upon the study of law. In 1856 he went to Dubuque, Iowa, where he was ad-
mitted to the bar and practiced with great success until 1888.
Coming to Chicago in that year, his marked ability soon gained him
enviable prestige at the bar of Illinois. No dreary novitiate awaited him here,
for it is merit alone that wins advancement in the legal profession, and the
public were not long in recognizing that Mr. Beach was not lacking in that
regard. The controversies in the co.urts, — especially in the line of corporation
and insurance law, have frequently been represented on the one side or the
other by our subject, whose thorough preparation and skillful presentation of
his cases is indicated by the ease with which he handles the matter in the
courtroom, parrying every attack and at the same time marshaling his points
of fact, evidence and law with the precision of a general on the field of battle.
He has won many notable suits, and the legal fraternity, as well as the public,
accords him high rank among the successful lawyers who have won fame both
at the Iowa and the Illinois bar. Many of the cases he has tried and won
have become and are leading cases in constitutional, real-estate and corpora-
tion law, as well as the laws of insurance, negligence and insanity.
Mr. Beach was married to Miss Helen M. Hoskins, of Seneca Falls, New
York, in 1857. They have three sons.
Mr. Beach is a member of the Presbyterian church and the Union League
Club. He manifested his loyalty to the country during the war of the Re-
bellion by faithful service in the Union army, as a member of the Forty-
fourth Regiment of Iowa Infantry, and is now a companion of the Illinois
Commandery of the Loyal Legion and a member of the Grand Army of the
Republic. Reared in the political faith of the Whig party, when it ceased to
exist he joined the Republican party, and has since given to it an active,
unwavering, earnest and intelligent support. While a man of independent and
positive opinions, and not in accord with corrupt machine methods, he has
never been a mugwump. He is a man of scholarly tastes and attainments,
especially in mathematics, science and history, and he possesses one of the best
selected private libraries in the city.
John G. Shortall. — When Horace Greeley, in 1854, uttered the now
famous words, "Go west, young man ; go west," his advice was followed to good
purpose by at least one ambitious young lad. At that time John G. Shortall
was in Mr. Greeley's employ, an attache of the New York Tribune, and had
been for some time in daily association with that eminent American, and his
associates, Charles A. Dana, Bayard Taylor, George Ripley, George M. Snow
and others, profiting by their friendly counsel and ripe experience and uncon-
sciously laying the foundation of a successful business and professional life.
Mr. Shortall, who is the eldest son of John Shortall, of county Kilkenny,
and Charlotte (Towson) Shortall, of county Dublin, Ireland, was born in
Dublin, September 20, 1838. He was brought to America when six years old,
the family settling in New York. While but a mere boy, Mr. Shortall's parents
died, and he earned his own living in the service of the Tribune and Horace
Greeley until he came west in 1854. His first occupation in the west was in
502 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
connection with the survey and completion of the Illinois Central Railway be-
tween Scales Mound and Galena, after which he returned to Chicago and was
employed on the Chicago Tribune until he was engaged by the late J. Mason
Parker, of Boston, an accomplished lawyer, to assist him in his compilation oi
the real-estate abstracts or digests of the land records, and began the study of
the law. He applied for admission to the bar and was admitted in 1894. In
1856, upon their completion, Mr. Shortall leased the Parker abstract books or
records, and began the making of abstracts of real-estate titles, and after-
ward, in 1 86 1, purchased the same. In 1864 Louis D. Hoard became asso-
ciated with him, and the firm name became Shortall & Hoard, and so continued
until the merging of his firm's property with the abstract books of Chase
Brothers and Jones & Sellers, in 1872, these being the properties now of The
Title Guaranty and Trust Company, of which Mr. Shortall is a director. The
saving of these invaluable records and abstract books during the great fire in
1871, under the immediate direction of Mr. Shortall, constitutes one of the most
exciting incidents of that memorable event and is well described in the history
of the fire.
Since his retirement from active business, in 1872, Mr. Shortall has devoted
himself mainly to charitable, educational and humanitarian work. He is deeply
interested in musical matters and has served as a director of the early Chicago
Philharmonic Society, and for many years as president of the Beethoven
Society. He has also been among the foremost in fostering the fine arts and
has taken a high position in literary circles, as many of his writings in the
best publications of the day attest. He was for a number of years president of
the board of directors of the Chicago Public Library.
It is as a humanitarian and philanthropist, however, that he has won his
highest honors. For many years Mr. Shortall has directed the important work
of the Illinois Humane Society. The society, which is now the greatest or-
ganized force for the suppression of cruelty and oppression in the west, was
formed in 1869, and until Mr. Shortall took charge of its affairs was an en-
thusiastic group of willing workers, but comparatively limited in scope and
means. In 1879, ^^ his earnest solicitation, the society's work was extended
to include the protection of children as well as animals, and in this compre-
hensive direction now stands without a rival. Mr. Shortall is an honorary
member of the Pennsylvania Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals,
and has also been president of the American Humane Association, organized
at his suggestion in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1877.
He is an independent in politics, and as a moving spirit in the Municipal
Reform Club and Citizens' Association has accomplished much in the way of
securing a purification of the civil service. Patriotism is one of the distin-
guished characteristics of the Shortall family and found an ardent example
in Mr. Shortall's only brother. Pierce, who served for four years in the civil
war, and was killed in the last battle of that unfortunate and regretful contest.
In everything that tends to the advancement of his fellow men, and the liberal-
izing of society upon broad and benevolent principles, Mr. Shortall is a man
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS. 503
of the world. Years of travel and observation in this country and Europe
have broadened and improved a naturally liberal and cultured mind. In all
matters pertaining to Christianity Mr. Shortall is governed by the same uni-
formly liberal and just ideas. By birth and profession he is an Episcopalian,
and constant in his support of the church as of the highest educational value
and to be sustained upon economic as well as religious grounds; and yet so
great was his admiration for the advanced liberalism and broad Christianity of
Prof. David Swing that he was not only one of the first men in Chicago to
guarantee the support of the Central Church, but continued thenceforward a
constant attendant on its services until the death of that eminent divine. In
all these relations, to home, society, to church and state, we may fairly desig-
nate Mr. Shortall as standing among the men of Chicago who have made it, —
who have so honorably acquitted themselves as to be entitled to distinction as
its representative men in the best sense of that term. Mr. Shortall was mar-
ried on September 5, 1861, to Mary Dunham Staples, eldest daughter of John
N. Staples, of Chicago, by whom he has one son, John Louis, who was born
in 1865. Mrs. Shortall died August, 1880, beloved by all who knew her.
M. Lester Coffeen, of the well known law firm of Tenney, McConnell,
Coffeen & Harding, is a native of the Empire state, and has been a resident of
Chicago since 1869. He was educated in Normal, Illinois, and pursued his
legal studies in the old Chicago University, in which institution he was gradu-
ated w^ith the class of 1 871. For a few years thereafter he read law in the
office of Van Arman & Vallette and learned the practical working of the courts,
being thus prepared by experience as well as theoretical knowledge for the
duties of his profession. For a number of years he served as deputy clerk
of the superior court, acceptably filling that position.
About 1879 Mr. Coflfeen formed a copartnership for the practice of law with
Emery A. Storrs, which connection was continued for about a year, when Mr.
Coflfeen took up the practice alone, being associated with no partner until
1887. In that year he became a member of the firm of Tenney, Bashford &
Tenney, of which firm the late Judge George Driggs was at one time a member,
as was also Judge William E. Church, under the firm name of Tenney, Church
& CoflFeen. In 1895 Judge McConnell resigned from the bench and became a
member of the present firm of Tenney, McConnell & Coflfeen, Mr. Harding
being admitted to a partnership since that time. This firm does a general law
practice, its members being all men of pronounced ability.
Mr. Coflfeen has enjoyed a fair share of the more important practice of the
city, and has conducted to a successful issue Htigation that has awakened
widespread attention. He is well prepared for practice by a thorough under-
standing of the principles of jurisprudence, and his ability to apply them to
the contested points has been shown on various occasions, when he has served
as counsel or advocate in important legal interests. He is popular in pro-
fessional circles and has served as a member of the Board of Managers of the
Chicago Bar Association, in which he takes an active interest. He is also a
504 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
member of the Chicago Chib and the Country Club of Evanston, and occupies
an enviable place in social as well as legal circles.
Theodore G. Case. — The inevitable law of destiny accords to tireless energy
and industry a successful career, and in no field of endeavor is there greater op-
portunity for advancement than in that of law, — a profession whose votaries
must, if successful, be endowed with native talent, sterling rectitude of character
and singleness of purpose, while equally important concomitants are close
study, careful application and broad general knowledge, in addition to that of
a more purely technical order.
In the Chicago Law Journal appeared the following record of this well
known attorney : "There are lawyers — and lawyers. The subject of this
sketch is a lawyer, as evidenced by his numerous successes in his professional
career before court and jury cases equal in importance and effect to any found
in the recent Reports."
Theodore G. Case was bom in Castleton, New York, July 13, 1853, where
he received an academic education. In the early '70s he engaged in railroad
construction for a brief time in Texas, but soon returned to his native state and
devoted himself thinkingly to the study of the law, — first with Linn & Babbitt
of Jersey City, and afterward with Hon. William M. Evarts, in whose offices he
acquired the practical — essential — part of his profession, and at the same time
took a full course in the law school of the University of New York, in which
he graduated with special credit.
In 1878, as one of the solicitors of the Farmers' Loan & Trust Company,
he was specially assigned to conduct the foreclosure of the company's first and
second mortgages upon the Green Bay & Minnesota Railway Company's rail-
road and other appurtenances in Wisconsin. These cases were stoutly con-
tested, some of the best talent of the state appearing for the defendant, but
Mr. Case succeeded in obtaining a decree for his client for six million and three
hundred thousand dollars. While practicing at Green Bay Mr. Case was en-
gaged in nearly all the leading cases in the courts, the most important one
being that of Jennings versus the Green Bay & Minnesota Railway Company, —
Wisconsin Reports, volume 48, page 549, — in which the supreme court of
Wisconsin sustained Mr. Case's contention that a mandamus would lie against
a municipality to enforce issuance of bonds voted to aid the building- of a rail-
road. This was a case of first impression, and has been accorded general
recognition by other state and federal courts.
In 1884 Mr. Case resigned his position with the Wisconsin Railroad and
moved to St. Louis, having been retained by the bond-holders of the St. Louis,
Hannibal & Keokuk Railroad Company. The duties of this position were
unusually complex and onerous, requiring all the tact and ability of the most
resourceful lawyer. In the litigation in which Mr. Case was engaged soon after
locating in St. Louis, he had pitted against him such clever and doughty
lawyers as John B. Henderson, Charles Johnson, Patrick Dyer, B. Gratz
Brown and others of equal power and prestige. The results are found in many
pages of the early Federal Reports, beginning with the twenty-second, in
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINO,
which, on pages 36, 471 and 769, the signal success of Mr. C
icled. The opinion of Justice Brewer, of the United States
page 471, in the case of Blair, trustee, etc., versus the St. I
Keokuk Railroad Company, is a notable one. The case had
District Judge Treat, whose judgment was averse to ev<
Solicitor Case, but on the hearing in the circuit court Justice
the decision of the district judge and adjudged Mr. (^ase's cli^
to all he had claimed for them.
In 1886 Mr. Case came to Chicago and at once entere
and aggressive practice of his profession. His work in the C
been markedly individuahzed, and as a consequence has attrj
clientage. Although pursuing a general practice, yet Mr. Cs
tain extent, made criminal and personal-injury cases his speci;
notable cases conducted by him is that of Holdom, etc., ve
Order of United Workmen (Illinois Reports, volume 159, paj
one of the first instances in this jurisdiction in which the coi
tended for by Mr. Case, that the recovery of an insane ber
policy of life insurance is not forfeited by his killing the ins
circumstances that the killing would be murder if he were sa
the Cook county criminal court, Mr. Case secured a ruling,
before police magistrates, involving a bridewell sentence, t\n
entitled to trial by jury. This ruHng worked a radical changi
practice and also was the origin of the act specially providing
found in Laws of Illinois, 1893, page 96. The Schwartz, Pai
Rvan murder cases, in which Mr. Case conducted the defe
ability, are causes celebres in the annals of Chicago courts.
Bowman versus Bowman (Illinois Appellate Court Reports, \
165), the court held, for the first time, after exhaustive argume
that a common-law marriage is a sufficient basis for divorce ;
and suit money pendente lite.
A return to first principles and a rigid conservation of t
accused were compassed by him in the State versus Maddei
versus Carr, tried in the criminal court of Cook county in 1
which the court was convinced by the intelligent insistency of
attorney, that in all criminal cases jurisdiction attached at tin
issued and not from date of indictment as had been the immen
that court. Upon this ruling the defendant Carr was discharg
although he had been indicted twice. These cases fixed the
paragraph 623, section 18, division 13, of the Illinois Criminal
Mr. Case's list of personal-injury cases is too lengthy to
noting. In this line of practice he has shown winning pow
pleader, and rarely fails to secure a verdict, one of which he la
fifty thousand dollars, the largest ever rendered in the west in
ages for personal injury.
The short-cause calendar law, which is recognized by the 1
So6 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
a most beneficent public measure, owes its place upon the statutes of lUinais
to the discernment and persistent efforts of the subject of this notice. This law
has made it possible to begin and end a suit within two months, instead of two
or three years, and has practically put a stop to eighty per cent of all appeals
from justices' courts.
Mr. Case is specially noted for his versatility, his ready command oi
language, his masterful power in grouping pivotal facts and bringing out in
boldest relief the salient points of a case, his familiarity with legal principles, and
a telling application of them to the conditions developed on trial, — ^all of which,
supplemented by his breezy brusqueness, genial good humor and keen knowl-
edge of human nature, have won him many a case. He, too, is markedly
strong as a cross-examiner, and as a trial lawyer wnll doubtless attain fore-
most rank at the American bar.
George Record Peck was born near Cameron, Steuben county, New York,
in 1843, and at the age of six years was brought west by his parents on their re-
moval to Wisconsin, where he spent his childhood amid the hardships of farm
life in a western clearing. At the age of sixteen, with only a common-school
education, he left the work of the farm to become a district-school teacher,
that he might add to the scant income of his father and free the farm from
debt. At the age of nineteen, feeling his duty to his country paramount to
everything else, he enlisted in the First Heavy Artillery of Wisconsin, was trans-
ferred to the Thirty-first Wisconsin Infantry, and marched with Sherman's
army to the sea. After three years* service he was mustered out, at the age of
tW'Cnty-two, having by his fidelity and gallantry been promoted to the rank of
captain.
On being mustered out" of the service. Captain Peck immediately returned
to Wisconsin to begin his preparation for that perennial war, the practice of
law, in which he has won the highest honors. He spent six years in Janesville,
as law student, circuit-court clerk and practicing lawyer, and then sought
a wider field in the new state of Kansas, pursuing his profession with signal
success in Independence, from 1871 to 1874. In the latter year he was ap-
pointed by President Grant to the office of United States attorney for the
district of Kansas, and removed to Topeka, where for nineteen years he won
ever increasing distinction as a lawyer and influential citizen and a man of
letters. Within a month after his appointment he was directed by the attorney
general of the United States to bring a suit involving a title to nine hundred
and sixty thousand acres of land. The ability with which he brought this and
other cases to a successful issue soon made him one of the leading lawyers of
the state. In 1879 ^^e greater rewards of private practice led him to resign the
office of district attorney. In 1881 the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad
Company elected him its general solicitor, and from that time until September,
1895, that large and constantly growing system of railroads was created and
developed under his counsel and direction.
Mr. Peck's connection with Kansas politics during the entire period of his
residence there was of the most influential and honorable character. During
^!**i
.If
V
V/
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS, 507
the last ten years his leadership of the Republican party of that state was un-
questioned. Any office within the gift of the people would have been gladly
bestowed upon him. Upon the death of Senator Plumb, in 1892, Governor
Humphrey offered the vacant seat in the United States senate to Mr. Reck,
but the splendid honor was declined. During the early months of 1893, in the
beginning of Governor Lewelling's administration, the capitol at Topeka was
filled with legislators contending not only with parliamentary weapons but
also with arms for the control of the legislative halls. The capitol and the
surrounding grounds were an armed camp. Sentinels guarded the entrances
and members of the contending parties were flocking thither as to war. Then
it was that George R. Peck, by the force of his commanding character and
influence, controlled the situation, and by his wise counsel and indomitable
will averted the anarchy and bloodshed that were impending.
During his residence in Chicago, his political experience and learning and
his fine literary art have become familiar to the public through his occasional
addresses. The most notable of these have been his address on General George
H. Thomas before the Loyal Legion of the United States, at Indianapolis ; his
response on Abraham Lincoln at the Marquette Club banquet, in Chicago;
his address on the Puritans before the Ethical Society of Milwaukee; his
address on the Worth of a Sentiment delivered before the Washington and
Jefferson Societies of the University of Virginia; his address on The Ethical
Basis of American Patriotism, before the graduating class of Union College,
New York; his oration at the unveiling of the statue of General John A.
Logan in Chicago, and his address on George Washington before the students
of the University of Chicag^o.
As a lawyer Mr. Peck ranks with the greatest this country has produced,
and few of these can show such a list of professional triumphs. When the
Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad Company secured control of the St.
Louis & San Francisco Railroad, in 1891, one of the stockholders of the latter
company sought to enjoin the sale on the ground that the two roads were
parallel and competing. The case was bitterly contested in the circuit and
supreme courts of the United States. Mr. Peck's successful management of
this litigation, in which the formation of the Atchison system was involved, gave
him his place among the first railroad lawyers of the time. In this he was
ably assisted by E. D. Kenna, a young man who has achieved distinction at the
bar and won high honors in the profession.
When, in December, 1893, the Atchison system went into the hands of re-
ceivers, and the problem of its reorganization was pressing upon the holders
of its almost worthless securities, the direction of the legal proceedings de-
volved upon Mr. Peck. Within two years the mortgages had been foreclosed,
the property sold and a working plan of reorganization effected, and the great
railroad system preserved unbroken. Such a feat of efficient and rapid re-
organization of so large a railroad property is unparalleled in railroad history.
In September, 1895, Mr. Peck resigned as general solicitor of the Atchison
system, to become general counsel of the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Rail-
So8 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
way Company, and Hon. Henry C. Caldwell, United States circuit judge, in
accepting his resignation, asked that he still give to the Atchison reorganiza-
tion committee the benefit of his counsel until the reorganization should be
completed. He also characterized his connection with the receivership matters
in terms of highest praise.
Since his removal to Chicago, Mr. Peck has been associated with Hon.
John S. Miller and Merritt Starr, in the law firm of Peck, Miller & Starr. His
tastes and his talents are so general that there is no subject of great human
interest with which he is unacquainted, or to which he has not given sympa-
thetic aid. Companionable, warm-hearted and generous, admiration of his
masterful abilities is forgotten in the warmer admiration of the man.
Edgar A. Bancroft has been identified with the interests of Chicago since
1892. Here he has gained prominence as a lawyer, among his fellow practi-
tioners, while his qualities of good fellowship have won him the friendship
and regard of many with whom he has been brought in contact.
Mr. Bancroft is a native of Illinois, was born in Galesburg, where he at-
tended the public schools, and later was graduated at Knox College, in the
class of 1878. Attracted to the profession of the law, he entered the law school
of Columbia College, New York, and received the degree of LL. B. in 1880.
He began his professional career a year later at Galesburg, and in 1884 became
a member of the firm of Williams, Lawrence & Bancroft. He advanced rap-
idly in his chosen calling, displaying those qualifications which are ever essen-
tial to a successful career at the bar, — a keen, logical mind, business sense, and
a ready capacity for hard work.
The firm of Williams, Lawrence & Bancroft continued in active practice
until May, 1892, when the junior member was appointed solicitor for Illinois of
the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad Company, and removed to Chicago.
He filled that position until 1895, when he was elected general solicitor of the
Chicago & Western Indiana and the Belt Railroad Companies, in which
capacity he has since served with ability and fidelity. The closing year of his
service with the Santa Fe Company was marked by the memorable railroad
strike of 1894, and the Santa Fe was involved. As attorney for the receivers of
that road he obtained the first order for an injunction against the chiefs of tlie
strikers; and he afterward represented the interests of the receivers in the
famous contempt proceedings against Eugene V. Debs and the other directors
of the American Railway Union. He was thus brought into close contact with
all the questions, legal and industrial, growing out of the local riot and revolu-
tion of June, 1894. His paper on "The Chicago Strike of 1894," read before the
Bar Association of Illinois at Springfield in 1895 and since published in pam-
phlet form, is an able exposition of the origin and effects of that uprising, and a
valuable contribution to its history and legal aspects.
Mr. Bancroft has also made a close study of the political problems of the
day, and is an earnest champion of the principles of the Republican party. In
1888, while a resident of Galesburg, he was presidential elector for the tenth
congressional district of Illinois. In the fall of 1887 he was retained in the con-
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS. 509
tested election case of Worthington versus Post from that district. He ap-
peared for General P. S. Post before the election committee, and though the
committee and the house were both largely Democratic, and General Post's
plurality on the official count was but twenty-nine, both committee and house
voted unanimously to seat Mr. Bancroft's client, and General Post was de-
clared entitled to a seat in the fiftieth congress. After coming to Chicago Mr.
Bancroft took no active part in politics, until the campaign of 1896, during
which he spoke frequently in Chicago and neighboring cities. He has been an
aggressive member of the Civil Service Reform League, and rendered con-
spicuous service in securing the passage of the civil service law by the legis-
lature and its adoption by the city of Chicago.
He is a member of the Chicago Literary Club, the Union League, the
Marquette, the Hamilton and the Caxton Clubs, and is also connected with the
bar associations of the city and state. His addresses at the banquets of these
organizations have added to his reputation as an effective speaker. He gave
the annual address before the Oklahoma Bar Association in January, 1898,
on "The Lawyer's Duty to the State." The variety of his intellectual activities
is evidence of his untiring industry, while his experience of seventeen years in
the trial of difficult law cases and the record of results attained indicate his
ability. He deserves, and is given, recognition with the leading lawyers of
Chicago.
CHAPTER XXVIl.
THE EARLY BENXH AND BAR OF JO DAVIESS COUNTY,
THE county was organized in February, 1827, and originally embraced a
large part of northwestern Illinois, now divided up into several large
counties, and was a part of the first judicial district of the state. In the
original bill for its organization it was named Ludlow, in honor of the naval
hero of that name ; but in the house an amendment made it Jo Daviess to per-
petuate the name of Joseph Hamilton Daviess, who fell in the battle of
Tippecanoe.
Before any court was organized one Michael Dee was convicted of theft, by
arbitrators, and all smelters and miners were forbidden to harbor him or give
him employment. This was the first administration of law in the county. A
curious coincidence is that a year later this same Dee had the distinction of the
first indictment and conviction by a court, for assault wath intent to commit
murder. For two years justices of the peace were the presiding judges of
the circuit court. They were three in number, John Corinoly, Hugh Coulter
and Abner Field. At their first session they fined two members of the bar for
contempt, and ordered the sheriff to keep their bodies until it was paid. It is
said this was done to impress the bar with the dignity and importance of the
court, of which the lawyers had not shown sufficient appreciation.
In 1829 the county was placed in the fifth judicial circuit, constituted of the
counties of Jo Daviess, Peoria, Fulton, Schuyler and Adams, and Richard M.
Young was appointed, by act of the legislature, to preside as judge in the circuit.
In May, 1829, he held his first session in Galena, and continued to preside until
1835. when he was succeeded by Stephen T. Logan. Thomas Ford, aftenvard
(iovcrnor, succeeded Logan in 1836. and he was succeeded by Daniel Stone,
in 1837, and he by Thomas C. Browne in 1841, who presided until 1849, ^^'^^"
Benjamin R. Sheldon was elected judge.
Jnd^e Sheldon continued to preside in the circuit court until 1870, when he
was elected to the supreme bench, and there continued until June, 1888. He
died at Rockford, Illinois, in 1896, leaving considerable wealth. He was never
married. Galena was his home until a few year's after he was elected to the
supreme bench. His reported judicial opinions are his monuments. He came
to Galena from Massachusetts in the '40s. He was not regarded as a great
lawyer nor broad in his views as a judge. Before his election to the bench his
practice was small and unremunerative and confined mainly to collections. He
was not an orator, but had a judicial turn of mind. He was a graduate of
Williams College, Massachusetts. His intense patriotism led him to say at a
war meeting in 1862 that the constitution should be disregarded when it re-
510
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS. 511
strained the purposes of the administration, and shortly afterward, on the applica-
tion of David Sheean, a member of the Galena bar, he refused to grant a writ of
habeas corpus to one Dpnnelly, who had been imprisoned without warrant or
sworn complaint, but who was beaten and taken to jail by two private citizens,
because he had said in front of a recruiting office that he would not enlist until
he got his bounty in his hands, as certain persons who had enlisted had not
received the promised bounty. This being regarded as discouraging enlist-
ments, Judge Sheldon refused to issue the writ on the ground that in the New
York Tribune there was a statement that the secretary of war had issued an
order that all persons guilty of. discouraging enlistments should be arrested and
detained. Being denied release, Donnelly brought suit through his counsel for
false imprisonment, which suit was tried before Sheldon and is reported in 41st
Illinois Reports, page 126. Sheldon also sustained pleas that the president
might order the arrest of any citizen in time of war beyond belligerent lines
when the civil courts were open and unobstructed. This ruling the supreme
court set aside in 44th Illinois Reports, page 142. Sheldon's manner was cold
and distant, and if was supposed he had no feelings or passions that could be
aroused to swerve him from a strict administration of the law. But these occur-
rences show he was but human.
The records show that at the October term of court in 1828 John Turney,
William Smith, James M. Strode and Benjamin Mills, attorneys at Galena,
attended that session of court. John Turney was a native of Tennessee and
came to Galena in 1827. He practiced at the bar there, with ability and suc-
cess, until 1845, when he died. His son, William A. Turney, was afterward
the gentlemanly and obliging clerk of the supreme court, at Springfield.
William Smith also came to Galena in 1827, was a man of fine abilities, but did
not live long after his arrival. James M. Strode was quite a character. He
came from Kentucky at an early day and got the title of colonel in the Black
Hawk war. He was a forcible talker, but often amused his hearers by his mis-
quotations, of which he was very fond, and his queer and crude figures of
speech and odd expressions. He left Galena in 1840, but returned in 1858 to
defend an old Kentucky friend, as odd and queer as himself, one Elias Bay-
less, on a charge of libel. On this trial the libelous letter was in evidence, and
Strode insisted it was a forgery because his friend. Bay less, could never spell
Yankee right, and in the letter it was correctly written "Y-a-n-k-y." Through-
out this argument, it appeared that he had lost none of his oddities. He died
at Chicago shortly after that.
Benjamin Mills was a native of Massachusetts, reputed to be one of the
most brilliant of the Galena bar during his time. He was a member of the
legislature of 1832 and chairman of the house managers in the prosecution of
Judge Smith, by impeachment, for official misconduct. Ford's History of
Illinois contains these words in reference to Mills and this trial : "This highly
gifted man shone forth with uncommon brilliancy, in three days' summing up,
by way of conclusion, on the side of the prosecution.'' Soon after this session
512 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
his health failed and he quit practice and went back to his old home in Massa-
chusetts, where he died.
Charles S. Hempstead came from St. Louis, where, he had practiced sixteen
years, to Galena in 1829 and practiced over forty-five years at the Galena bar.
He died in Galena in 1874. He did a large commercial business in the early
part of his career in Galena and accumulated considerable wealth. He was a
refined, temperate and very religious gentleman, scrupulous in all his dealings
and pleasant in his associations with men. He was not a public speaker, but a
good office lawyer. He entered into partnership with E. B. Washburne when
that gentleman came to Galena. The firm was Hempstead & Washburne, and
continued until the latter went to congress, in 1852. As a good citizen and
upright man his death was regretted by all who knew him. His sixty years of
law practice is probably not equaled for length in the United States.
Following these pioneers of the Galena bar came Jesse B. Thomas, later
judge of the supreme court; Stephen Hempstead, subsequently elected gov-
ernor of Iowa ; Thomas Hoyne, who became a brilliant light of the Chicago bar
in later years; Joseph C. Wells, who became lieutenant governor of Illinois;
and Thompson Campbell, of whom it is said no one could talk wnth him for
ten minutes without hearing something to remember.
Thomas Drummond came to Galena in 1835, from his native home, in
Maine, and practiced law here until he was appointed United States district
judge, in 1849. He was a graduate of Bowdoin College, Massachusetts. His
career as judge of the United States district and circuit courts is well known to
the bar of Illinois, by whom his decisions are regarded as profound and able.
As a lawyer at the Galena bar he stood close to the head. Although over-
bearing and arbitrary in his contact with opponents, he was respected for his
ability, integrity and energy. He was great among the great lawyers then
in Galena. He served one term in the legislature, in the house, with Trumbull,
Bissell and others, being elected thereto in 1840. In 1847 ^c was one of the
Galena directors of the Galena & Chicago Union Railroad Company. In 1850
he took his seat as United States district judge, succeeding Nathaniel Pope in
that position. In 1869 he was appointed judge of the United States circuit
court for the seventh judicial district, embracing the states of Indiana, Illinois
and Wisconsin, in which he presided until he retired, in 1884. He died at
Wheaton, Illinois, on May 15, 1890, at the age of eighty-one years. While
practicing in Galena his clients were the bankers, merchants and business men.
Although not an eloquent or graceful talker, he was forcible and argumentative,
dwelling with great power and minuteness upon the strong points. He was
looked upon as honest, cautious and safe, and his advice was regarded as
valuable. Though removing from Galena when appointed judge, he loved
his old home here and made frequent and prolonged visits up to the time of his
death.
Elihu B. Washburne was more of a politician than a lawyer. He obtained
fame as a member of congress, from 1852 to 1868, from the Galena district. He
was President Grant's first secretary of state and minister to France during the
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS. 513
Franco-Prussian war. As a lawyer he was not above the average, and his
business as such was confined mainly to collections. He came to Galena in
1840 from the state of Maine, financially poor, and practiced law until 1852,
when he was elected to congress over the gifted and talented Thompson Camp-
bell, in his candidacy for a second term. He died in Chicago in October, 1887,
at the age of seventy-one years, leaving a rich estate, and is buried in Green-
wood cemetery, in Galena, where a towering granite shaft marks his resting
place.
Joseph P. Hoge came to Galena from Ohio in 1836. He was a great
scholar and a great lawyer. Graceful and eloquent as an orator, he was equally
clear, concise and classic in his addresses. He was unexcelled in his terse,
lucid and logical presentation of legal principles to the court. Quick in his
perception, he readily met every emergency in the trial of a case and was always
entertaining, even in discussing dry, technical questions. Of course he was
successful in business. He had no superior at the Galena bar. He was sent
twice to congress, — 1842 and 1844. He and his partner, Samuel Wilson, went
to San Francisco in 1853, where they practiced law with distinction and suc-
cess and accumulated large fortunes. He died there a few years ago, upward of
eighty years of age.
John M. Douglass, in whom as a lawyer the people had implicit confidence,
came to Galena from Plattsburg, New York, in 1840, footing his way from
Chicago, because he did not have money enough to pay stage fare. He was a
profound and successful advocate. At his advent in Galena, and for many years
following, he was on one side of every mining suit, and every client felt lucky
in obtaining his services, and paid him large fees. He would go into the mine
in question with an old suit of clothes, crawl on his hands and knees through
low and narrow drifts, posting himself on the situation and points in dispute
and then astonish his hearers with his exact knowledge of every detail of the
mine in examining witnesses and in arguing the case. He never tried a bad
case, but always settled it ; and when Douglass went into a trial everyone knew
he would win. He had extraordinary power of thought, and so absorbed would
he become that he would not notice persons in the room or speak to them on
the street, oblivious to all surrounding influences. It is said of him by those
who knew him best that his ofT-hand opinions were worthless, but after he had
thus subjected a question to the processes of his mind you could absolutely
rely upon the correctness of his advice. This faculty enabled him to explore
all the dangers and advantages in his cases, and he was never to be taken by
surprise. He was always on guard and well fortified, even at points his adver-
saries failed to see or attack. He was always candid, fair and honorable and,
when aroused, his earnestness was intense and overwhelming. His per-
suasive faculties in argument were irresistible. He was eccentric and peculiar
in his habits. He shunned society and ridiculed its follies, preferring the com-
panionship of his own mind, and occasionally of a single friend, to general inter-
course with his fellow men. In all his transactions for other people he kept
before his mind the thought that as long as he did business for them better
33
5H THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
than anyone else would do it his services would be in demand, and when
others could do the business better than he, people had no use for him. He
left Galena in 1855 and entered the employ of the Illinois Central Railroad Com-
pany, at Chicago, as its counsel, and later became one of its resident directors,
and still later its president for several years, — during the period from 1865 to
1 87 1, inclusive. In 1875 he again acted as counsel for the company, but soon
had to retire on account of ill health. He then went to his large stock farm in
Jo Daviess county, operated by himself and his brother William for several
years thereafter, retiring later to Chicago, where he died, leaving a considerable
fortune to his widow and children.
O. C. Pratt and \'an H. Higgins, of the law firm of Pratt & Higgins. con-
stituted a prominent and successful firm in Galena from 1844 to 1852. Pratt
had a fine education and great natural ability, was a shrewd lawyer and elo-
quent speaker. He was haughty and unpopular, but respected for his superior
talents. He went to California in 1852 and became a judge there and later
was lieutenant governor of Oregon, where he died. Higgins was not an
orator, but a law book-worm, an untiring student and filled himself with legal
lore, which he made use of in the court to the astonishment of the younger men
of the bar. His piles of books, when he was about to argue a case, seemed
formidable to the beginner. He went to Chicago in 1852, became a successful
practitioner there, was sent to the legislature and elected judge. He acquired
a fortune and died at Chicago but a few years ago.
Colonel E. D. Baker, widely known for his brilliant eloquence, came to
the Galena bar in 1847, from Springfield, Illinois, and was elected to congress
from the Galena district in 1848. After his term expired he went to California
and from there to Oregon, whence he became United States senator. He pro-
nounced a masterly eulogy upon the lamented David C. Broderick, of Cali-
fornia. He enlisted in the war of the Rebellion and was killed in battle at Ball's
Bluff, on the Potomac, early in the conflict.
Wellington Weigley, the father of the Weigleys in Chicago, was educated
for a Methodist minister and pursued that calling a number of years in Jo
Daviess county before changing his profession to the law, which he pursued
at Galena with success until a few years ago, when he retired to his farm near
the city, where he now lives at a greatly advanced age. He was a vtiy per-
suasive speaker, earnest and energetic and much to be feared by opponents,
especially when he had the close of a case. He came to Jo Daviess county
from Pennsylvania in 1835 and took up the practice of the law early in the '40s.
He was a member of the constitutional convention of 1862, and opposed the
adoption by the people of the instrument framed by that body.
Madison Y. Johnson, a genial conversationalist, was born in Xenia, Ohio,
January 7, 1817, and removed when a child with his parents to Louisville,
Kentucky, and began the practice of law there, removing thence to Shawnee-
town, in 1841, where he practiced until 1844, and then came to Galena and
practiced in Galena continuously until he died, in 1890. Though not a pro-
found lawyer he made a first good impression on his hearers and was a dan-
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS, 515
gerous opponent in the trial of a case. In his argument he used set expressions,
which members of the bar would sometimes count up into the thousands in one
speech. He was like Strode in his quotations. He was energetic and per-
sistent in all his undertakings. He was fearless in maintaining what he be-
lieved to be right, even if it involved personal inconvenience and danger. He
was not popular. He had no elements of iht demagogue about him, but defied
the popular will in maintaining what he conceived to be right. An extreme in-
stance of this was his imprisonment in Forts La Fayette and Delaware, from
August 28 until December 13, 1862, upon the order of the secretary of war pro-
. cured by Congressman Washburne and executed by United States Marshal
Jones, of Chicago, and his deputies, the basis of which was a suit for damages
he instituted for one Nicholas Roth against one Bradner Smith, for false im-
prisonment, which case is reported in 41st Illinois Reports, page 314. After
his release he instituted suit in his own behalf, for false imprisonment, against
Washburne and Jones and his deputies and also against Bradner Smith, who
made affidavit of the beginning of the Roth suit to procure Johnson's arrest.
The defense was the existence of war and the order of the president, through
his secretary of war. The special pleas were embellished with a charge that he
was a member of the "Knights of the Golden Circk" and was aiding the rebel-
lion, which was wholly untrue and was demurred to, and the demurrer was
sustained by the supreme court in an able opinion by Justice Lawrence, re-
ported in 44th Illinois Reports, page 142. On return of the case to the circuit
court the defendants, by agreement, confessed their guilt and admitted on the
record that Johnson had done no wrong, had upheld the constitution and laws of
his country and submitted to a judgment of one thousand dollars damages and
costs, thus falsifying the charge in the special pleas and making a perpetual
record in refutation of their allegations.
Robert H. McClellan, the law partner of John M. Douglass, came to Galena
from Albany, New York, in 1850. He was a good lawyer, and frequently ad-
vised his younger associates at the bar. He has been the local attorney of the
Illinois Central Railroad Company since his advent in Galena. He has become
very wealthy, and most of his time is devoted to the care and management of
his immense property interests in this and other states. He was president
of the National Bank of Galena for several years and was at one time an active
and useful member of the legislature, in the senate, and was chairman of the
committee having charge of the bills introduced into that body. Though con-
siderably advanced in age, he is still an active and energetic citizen of Galena,
alive to all matters of public interest as well as to his individual affairs.
John A. Rawlins was born in Jo Daviess county in 1831. He was reared
on a farm, and when old enough burned charcoal and sold it in Galena to
procure the means for his own education. Besides the common-school educa-
tion, he attended the seminary at Mount Morris for some years, and during the
same period of time that Senator Cullom was educated there. He began the
practice of law in Galena in 1854 and continued it there until late in 1861. He
was a powerful and earnest talker and masterful in all his efforts at the bar. He
5i6 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
tried his cases so well that those who heard him would say nothing was left
undone on his side of the case. He was very popular with all people and his
success before a jury was generally assured. He was really fierce in public
debate, overriding all opposition and arousing his hearers to great excitement.
He was the Democratic candidate for district presidential elector in i860, and
held public debates throughout the district, with Allan C. Fuller, the Repub-
lican candidate. Late in 1861, he became aide on General Grant's staflf and later
his adjutant general and chief of staff with the rank of brigadier general and
major general. He remained with General Grant to the close of the war, and
in fact until his death. He was regarded as indispensable to Grant. He never
returned- to the practice of law. When General Grant became president in
1869 General Rawlins was appointed secretary of war and died after holding
that office for a few months. He is buried at the Soldiers' Home, near Wash-
ington, D. C., and a statue to his memory (a very good likeness of him in mili-
tary costume) is erected on Pennsylvania avenue in the city of Washington,
where he died. When General Grant was talked of as a presidential candidate
in 1868 Rawlins came from W^ashington to Galena early in that year and de-
livered an elaborate address at a public meeting, setting forth the political views
of General Grant, which was published in all the prominent newspapers of the
country and undoubtedly contributed largely, as it was intended to do, to the
nomination and election of Grant to the presidency. Universal regret was ex-
pressed at his death, through the press of the whole United States, and the
prediction was frequently therein made that, had he lived, he would have be-
come the president of the nation.
Of the seven lawyers in the Sheean family David and J. L. were bom in
Boston, Massachusetts, the former in 1833 and the latter in 1835, and came to
Jo Daviess county with their parents in 1837 ^^^ were reared on a farm.
Thomas J. was born on the farm, in 1838, and he, with his son, James M., and
his brother, David, now compose the law firm of D. & T. J. and J. M. Sheean.
Thomas J. began to study law in his brother David's office in 1867, and they
have been practicing together since June, 1869. James M. was born on the
old homestead farm near Galena, in 1866, and entered the law firm in 1889 and
soon acquired a legal reputation equal to if not exceeding that of the old mem-
bers of it. He was elected city attorney three terms, from 1891 to 1897, and
framed the present revised ordinances of the city of Galena, regarded as the
best codification of the city laws that has ever been made. Thomas J. was
elected mayor of the city for three successive terms, from June, 1873, to June,
1876. J. L. read law in 1857 in the law office of the present United States
senator, William B. AlHson, at Dubuque, Iowa, and opened a law office at
Anamosa, Iowa, where he pursued his profession successfully until 1897, when
he died. In 1862 he married the sister of General John A. Rawlins, who still
survives. His sons, James B. and John R., are now lawyers at Omaha, Ne-
braska. The former is assistant general counsel of the Fremont, Elkhom &
Missouri Valley Railroad Company; and another son, William D., is prac-
ticing law at Anamosa, Iowa.
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINi
David read law with John A. Rawlins and formed a coj
in January, 1858, which continued, under the firm name of
until January, 1862, when it was dissolved only because of
prolonged absence of Rawlins in the army. He has pre
for upward of forty years in the same rooms in which he
that period of time the business of the firm has extended
several courts of this state and the states of Iowa and Wi
United States courts at Chicago and in Iowa, and the su
United States at Washington. The firm has been the loc
Chicago & North-Western, the Chicago, St. Paul & Ka
Chicago Great Western Railway Companies for a number of
Sheean was twice elected city attorney and once mayor of C
eluded in the same order of the war secretary with Mr. J(
1862, and was unconditionally released the same day, Decen
Galena people and those of the county were greatly incense
administration, and towards Mr. Washburne, who instigal
elections of that year Washburne's usual majority of from o:
thousand two hundred in the county fell to thirty-seven. J(
returned home together after their release. They were m
Freeport by delegations from Galena, to welcome them bac
Sherman House in Chicago a crowd and brass band called
made short addresses from the balcony and more extended
evening at Kingsbury hall. At the depot at Freeport an ir
gathered, which they addressed from the platform of the cai
people were wild with joy ; bonfires blazed upon the hills, d
were illuminated. The assembled crowd at the depot deman
from each of them. A long procession was then formed and
with bands of music and great cheering through the principa
tinual flame of fireworks, to the market square, where th(
dressed the people. This welcome was confined to no polit 1
joiced at their return.
Sheean brought suit against Washburne and the United ! i
deputies and others, for false imprisonment, with like result
case. The case is reported in 44th Illinois Reports, page i :
Mr. Sheean's detention was the commencing of a suit for f 1
for one Donnelly (reported in 41st Illinois Reports, page 1
therein stated. The defendants in that suit made affidavit to
upon it Mr. Washburne procured the order to send him to Fi
New York harbor. While Mr. Sheean was away Judge Sli
case to be dismissed for want of prosecution, at the October t<
his return he renewed the suit (reported as above), and final!
ag^es for Donnelly.
The final judgment in Mr. Sheean's own case, in the ci
Daviess county, as in Johnson's, contains these averments, enl
agreement: "And the defendants now come and admit that
5i8 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS,
fore filed by them and the matters and things therein set forth against the
plaintiff are untrue in substance and in fact, and ask leave to withdraw the same,
which is granted, and defendants confess the wrongful trespass and imprison-
ment set forth in the declaration, and say they are guilty as therein charged, and
confess that the seizure and imprisonment of the plaintiff was wrongful, unjusti-
fiable and without cause, and say that the plaintiff did no act, used no ex-
pression, nor exercised any influence not in support of the government of the
United States, its constitution and laws, and submit to a judgment of one
thousand dollars and costs."
All the Sheeans are liberal in religion, members of no church, and are
Democrats in politics.
Thompson Campbell was born in the year 1811 at Kennett Square, Chester
county, Pennsylvania. Soon after his birth his parents removed to western
Pennsylvania and settled in Butler county, where he grew up and attended
school until of an age to enter college. He entered Jefferson College, at
Canonsburg, Pennsylvania, and after finishing his college course, having re-
solved to make the law his profession, he went to Pittsburg and read law under
the direction of M. Y. Fetterman, a prominent and distinguished attorney of
that city, was admitted to the bar there, and began the practice of the law.
Being attracted to what was then the far west, he removed to Galena, Illinois,
at that tiriie the most flourishing town in the west, where he had for his col-
leagues and friends men of ability and note.* He continued to hve in Galena
until appointed secretary of state by Governor Ford. During his term of
office he resided in Springfield, Illinois, and there wrote the first public-school
report of the state. He was elected a delegate to the constitutional convention
called to amend the constitution of the state, and took a leading part in the
deliberations of that body. In 1850 he was elected a member of congress, to
succeed Hon. E. D. Baker, and was defeated, by Hon. E. B. Washburne, for
a second term. He was appointed by President Pierce, United States land com-
missioner to settle private land claims in California, and removed with his
family to San Francisco in the year 1853, entering immediately upon the duties
of his important trust, which demanded the exercise of the highest legal ability.
His decisions were seldom, if ever, reversed on appeal. About 1855 he re-
signed to renew the practice of the law, in which he achieved marked success,
maintaining the high reputation won in Illinois. In 1859 he made, in company
with his family, a visit to Europe, returning after a year to take up his resi-
dence in Chicago. In the campaign of i860 he was an elector at large on the
Breckenridge ticket, stumping Illinois and Wisconsin for that ticket In 1861
he returned to California and resumed his legal practice. At the outbreak of
the civil war he promptly gave his support to the Union cause and became one
of the Republican leaders of the state.
To quote from '^Representative Men of the Pacific": "So widely did his
fame as an orator and thinker extend, that, in July, 1863, the proprietors of
the Sacramento Union, the leading journal of the state, proposed to Mr. Camp-
bell that if he would visit Sacramento and deliver a speech on the state of the
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS. 519
country, they would at their own expense have it reported stenographically and
printed in full. This offer was accepted, and Mr. Campbell made one of his
ablest and most convincing speeches. The state central committee ordered
ten thousand copies to be printed in pamphlet form, but soon raised it to fifty
thousand. It was generally agreed that the victory achieved by the Union
party in California, was owing a§ much to the efforts of Mr. Campbell as to
those of any other Republican leader."
Mr. Campbell was elected to the California assembly and made chairman
of the judiciary committee. His influence in that committee and in the as-
sembly chamber was remarkable. The excitement produced by the war at that
time was intense, and one of the principal subjects of discussion was the declar-
ation contained in the resolutions passed by the Union convention that the
volunteer soldiers were entitled to vote at the general election in California,
although they might be without the boundaries of the state at the time. Ad-
dressing himself to this topic, Mr. Campbell electrified the convention with a
speech at once argumentative and eloquent, the beauty and finish of his periods,
the perfect harmony existing between his own feelings and the general senti-
ment of the party, the impassioned mood of the speaker, the vast audience, —
all joined to heighten the effect of this splendid effort. He spoke of the lofty
valor, heroism and unfaltering devotion of the Union soldiers, which would
render their posterity more proud of them than if they had sprung from a race
of kings, and stated that we would send the ballot, if necessary, round about the
pendant globe, but that it should reach them.
In 1864 he was chosen a delegate to the national convention at Baltimore,
and participated in the proceedings which renominated Abraham Lincoln for
the presidency. On his return home his voice was heard on many public oc-
casions. He continued to practice his profession until his death, which oc-
curred, after a short illness, at his home in San Francisco, December 6, 1868.
He left a wife, son and daughter to mourn the loss of a devoted husband and
father.
Though perhaps somewhat recapitulating in certain portions of its subject-
matter, as taken in connection with the preceding paragraphs, yet so full of in-
terest and valuable information is the following article that it would be
flagrant neglect to omit its reproduction in this work. The article is an address
which was delivered before the Illinois State Bar Association in 1894, by Hon.
R. H. McClellan, of Galena, who kindly permits its use in this connection :
When I accepted the invitation of President Anthony to prepare a paper upon the
early history of the bar of Jo Daviess county to be read at the present meeting of the
Bar Association of the State of Illinois, I had little idea of the difficulties attending
the procuring of authentic information upon the subject, or I think I should have declined
the undertaking. That period of the early history of the Jo Daviess bar which I propose
to consider in this paper, comprises the first two decades, or from the organization of
the county down to 1850. As I did not come to Galena to live until after the latter date,
I have no personal knowledge of the events narrated previous to 1850; though I did
have subsequently a personal acquaintance with many of the members of the bar whose
I history I have sketched. Several of them I came to know intimately. But I find that
520 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
all the lawyers who were in this county during its first decade — in fact, all who were
here as late as 1850 — are either dead or have left the county, if still living. And all the
old citizens of the county who were their contemporaries and who could have given
valuable and reliable information are likewise dead or gone. The early court records are
also very scant and unsatisfactory, for years not even containing a list of the attorneys who
were in practice. Owing to this state of facts it has been no easy task to procure the
material for the very meager sketch of the early members of the Galena bar which follows.
The county of Jo Daviess was established in 1827, and made a part of the first judi-
cial circuit. It extended from the Wisconsin line south to the military tract, and con-
tained sufficient area to make a respectable state. Its singular name was given it by
the legislature in honor of the memory of Colonel Jo Daviess, a gallant Kentucky soldier,
who was killed at the head of his regiment at the battle of Tippecanoe. The first term
of the circuit court (and the first court ever held in the county) was held in June, 1828,
by three justices of the peace acting as the judges, the statute having given them the
authority to so act in the absence of a regular judge. Another session was held in
October, 1828, by five justices of the peace. These justices seem to have entertained
high notions of their dignity, as at their first session they fined Attorneys Payne and
Strode ten dollars each for contempt of court, and the next term they imposed a fine
of five dollars upon William S. Hamilton, son of the illustrious Alexander Hamilton, for
another infraction of the judicial dignity. As they were very common and illiterate jus-
tices of the peace, it is quite likely the amount of fines imposed upon the offending attor-
neys very inadequately measured the real contempt which these learned lawyers actually felt
for that primitive court. Contempt of court seems to have gone out with these justices
of the peace, and. I think, no lawyer has been fined for this offense during the last
fifty years of the history of the Jo Daviess county circuit court. The judges have been
able, learned and patient, and the lawyers considerate and respectful.
In May, 1829, the Hon. Richard M. Young presided as judge at that term. He was
succeeded in 1835 by Stephen T. Logan, who was succeeded in 1836 by Thomas Ford
(subsequently governor of the state), who was followed in 1837 by Dan Stone, who was
succeeded in 1841 by Thomas C. Browne, who presided until 1849, when Benjamin R.
Sheldon was elected. I am unable to find any record showing what lawyers were present
at the first term of the circuit court in June, 1828, but at the October term of that year
John Turney. William Smith, James M. Strode and Benjamin Mills were reported as
bting in attendance. John Turney was a native of Tennessee and came to Galena in 1827
and was an active and successful practitioner until his death in 1844 or 1845. William
Smitli came to Galena also in 1827. He had the reputation of being a man of fine talents
and a good lawyer, but was of intemperate habits and died at an early day. Colonel
James M. Strode was from Kentucky and was in active practice in Galena for many years.
He was a prominent officer in the Black Hawk war, which seems to have been regarded
by its participants in that day as one of the greatest wars of either ancient or modem
limes. He left Galena for Chicago about 1840, and died near that city several years ago.
Benjamin Mills was a man of remarkable ability, learning and eloquence, of whose
wit and brilliancy tradition has handed down many amusing anecdotes. The older mem-
bers of this association who were acquainted with the late Judge Joseph Gillespie, of
Madison county, will doubtless remember his telling some of* these stories over and over
again — night after night — in the hotels of Springfield. Indeed to the last days of his life
Judge Gillespie never tired of eulogizing Ben Mills. By the common consent of all his
contemporaries Mr. Mills was regarded as the most popular and brilliant lawyer of his
day at the Galena bar. He was a member of the legislature of 1832-3 and in the impeach-
ment trial of Judge Theophilus W. Smith, one of the justices of the supreme court, for
official misconduct, he was chairman of the managers of the prosecution of the house
of representatives.
During the larger period of his residence in Galena Mr. Mills was like, perhaps,
most of the lawyers of the time and place, a man of somewhat convivial habits, hut
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS. 521
reformed, and became a most earnest and decided Christian. His health after a few years
failed and he was obliged to abandon his practice and go back to his native state, Massa-
chusetts, to die. And thus went out in the early morning of his promise the brightest
legal light that ever illumined the bar of Jo Daviess county.
I have not been able to find that there were any other lawyers at the Galena bar when
the first terms of that court were held in 1828 than those above named. After 1830 the
growth of the town and the rapid increase of business, and the fact that Galena was the
only town in the west in which there was any considerable amount of money of any
kind, and the only town where gold and silver was the only circulating medium, induced
many eminent lawyers from all parts of the country to come here and open offices, so
that soon the Galena bar became noted as one of the ablest, if not the very ablest, bar
in the state — a reputation which a history of its members will show was well justified.
My space will not permit a sketch of all the attorneys who composed the bar from
1830 to 1850. I can only briefly notice those who were the most prominent, men conspicu-
ous for their talents, legal learning or eloquence. In this list we find Governor Thomas
Ford, Jesse B. Thomas, afterward a justice of the supreme court, and Stephen Hemp-
stead, subsequently governor of Iowa, all of whom at one time were members of the
Jo Daviess bar. Thomas Hoyne, for many years one of the most distinguished lawyers
of Chicago, began his early career at the Galena bar and practiced there for a consider-
able period. Joseph C. Wells, a lieutenant governor of the state, was also for many
years an active member of this bar. All these men left Galena at an early day and became
eminent, and their several histories are well known.
Charles S. Hempstead, for over forty years a citizen of Galena and a member of the
bar, came to Galena from St. Louis in* 1829 and entered at once upon a large and lucra-
tive practice. He was a good commercial lawyer, and the business relations of Galena
being almost entirely with St. Louis, he secured all the St. Louis collections and became
wealthy. He was -a gentleman of the old school: polite and refined in his manners,
temperate in his habits, moral and religious in his life and of the most unblemished
integrity. He was one of the original directors of the Galena & Chicago Railroad Co.
He died respected and lamented by the whole community in 1874.
In 1835 Thomas Drummond became a member of the Galena bar. He was a native
of Maine and a graduate of Bowdoin College. Being a young man of education and
culture and a well-read lawyer, he very soon secured an excellent practice. His clients
were the bankers, merchants and best business men of the busy little town. He was
industrious, studious and faithful to his clients, and proverbially honest and conscientious.
In his legal practice at the bar he exhibited the same high devotion to duty and love
of truth; the same abhorrence of fraud and chicanery which so peculiarly marked his
judicial career. Although not an eloquent or graceful speaker, he was strong and argu-
mentative, dwelling with great force and minuteness upon the strong points of his case.
He was always earnest and very persistent in his advocacy — sometimes, indeed, almost
pertinacious. As a counselor his advice was highly valued by business men, as he was
regarded as honest, cautious and safe. For many years and until his appointment as
judge of the United States district court of Illinois, in 1859, his high character, learning
and ability caused him to be looked upon as, perhaps, the leading member of the bar
of his county. What he was as a jurist upon the bench is well known to all the lawyers
of this state. His eminent ability — his learning — his absolute impartiality; his incor-
ruptible integrity; his love of justice; his intense passion for equity and his hatred of
fraud, trickery and dishonesty; his wonderful devotion to the duties of his high office,
even down to partial blindness and extreme old age, were remarkable, and were charac-
teristics seldom found in combination to the same degree in the great judges of any age.
It is not strange that the Galena bar always regarded him with admiration and were
justly proud of his well-earned fame.
Joseph P. Hoge, another eminent member of the Jo Daviess bar, came to Galena
from Ohio about 1836. Mr. Hoge was a man of great natural ability and highly edu-
S32 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
cated. He was a graceful and eloquent orator. His style was remarkably clear, concise
;ind classic. No man at any bar could surpass him in the power of lucid statement and
terse, logical presentation of legal principles of the court. It was a treat to the acutest
intellect to listen to him while arguing the driest abstract legal proposition. In this
respect he never had his equal at that bar. He was learned as he was able, and a suc-
ctssful lawyer in the trial of cases. It is not too much to say that there was no court
in the Union in which Mr. Hoge would not have held high rank. His talents were,
indeed, in every respect superior. He was twice elected to congress from his district
Tn 1853 he went to San Francisco and there maintained his high reputation; became judge
of one of the courts and died two or three years ago, upward of eighty years of age.
Samuel M. Wilson, a partner of Mr. Hoge, came to Galena about 1845 from Ohio.
He was a close, technical lawyer — a hard student and a man of the most untiring industry.
Xo man could raise more points in a case or fortify them with more numerous citations
of authorities. He was engaged in many important suits and with a great degree oi
success. He went to San Francisco with Mr. Hoge in 1853, gained a very large and
very profitable practice and acquired a fortune. He became one of the most distinguished
lawyers in California and died some three or four years ago.
But beyond question the most popular and brilliant advocate at the bar in those
days was Thompson Campbell, who came to Jo Daviess county about 1836, from the
state of Pennsylvania. He was decidedly a man of genius. His figure, language, voice
and manner were all captivating and prepossessing. He was persuasive, witty and elo-
quent. Many of his speeches, especially in criminal trials, have been reported by lawyers
who heard them to have been masterpieces of forensic eloquence, abounding in wit, satire,
pathos and every element of the highest style of oratory. In that kind of public speaking
he had no equal at the Galena bar in his day. He was secretary of state under the admin-
istration of Governor Ford and was member of congress from 185 1 to 1853. He went
to California from congress and was made judge of the United States land court in
that state. Had his industry and devotion to his profession equaled his intellectual powers
he might easily have reached the loftiest eminence in the legal world. But he relied
almost wholly upon his genius and was not a student.
In 1840 a poor young man from the state of Maine, who was destined to play an
important part in the affairs of his state and nation, arrived in Galena and became a
member of the Jo Daviess bar. This young man was Elihu B. Washburne. He had
just graduated from the Harvard Law School and at once commenced practice in Galena.
He was successful from the start and after a few years formed a partnership with Mr.
Hempstead and continued in active practice, with him until his election to congress in
1852. He was elected to congress nine times in succession, and would probably have had
a life tenure of that office had he not been appointed by President Grant, in 1869, minis-
ter to France, which position he held for over eight years. Mr. Washburne was a mem-
ber of the Jo Daviess bar for over forty years; but the most of his practice was per-
formed previous to his entering congress. As a lawyer he was a hard worker; untiring
and industrious and of unswerving fidelity to his clients. Indeed, faithfulness to trusts
committed to him was a leading trait in his character all his life. He was a man of
aspiring ambition, iron nerve and restless energy. He was brave and resolute; abso-
lutely fearless; as was evidenced in many instances during his early life in the mining
region, as well as through his whole career.
An incident or two will illustrate this feature of his character as well as give some
idea of the habits and customs of the people of that time and place. To practice law
in the mines in those early times, it was as necessary to have nerve as knowledge. One
day a merchant of Galena, a large and blustering bully, having become offended at some
professional act of Washburne, bought a rawhide and publicly proclaimed his intention
of giving, the obnoxious young attorney a cowhiding. He entered the office of Hemp-
stead and Washburne, where Washburne was sitting at his desk, and attempted to exe-
cute his threat. But before he could strike a blow the young lawyer had him by the
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINO
collar, and, rushing him out of the office to the head of the stairs,
over the banisters, breaking his arm in the fall. It is needless to ad
was adjourned sine die. On another occasion Washburne was m
village schoolhouse when a big drunken rowdy kept interrupting hin
up the meeting. He was requested to be quiet, but refused and coi
conduct. As none of the audience seemed disposed to interfere, Wai
from the platform, caught the ruffian by the coat collar and hus
room and threw him into the street; then returned to the stand anc
without so much as saying, "Where was I at?"
Mr. Washburne's cool courage was exhibited on maiiy occasion
sessions of congress before the war. But it was in Paris in 1870, dui
Germans, when every other foreign minister had fled in terror froi
Washburne's characteristic bravery shone out so conspicuously a
admiration of the civilized world. Had Mr. Washburne not left the
of a statesman his talents, industry and ambition would doubtless hav
ranks of the eminent lawyers of his state.
The deepest thinker and the profoundest lawyer of the Jo D
days was undoubtedly John M. Douglass. Mr. Douglass came to Galei
burg. New York, in 1841, and, not having money enough to pay stag*
of the way from Chicago. He had not enjoyed the advantages of
tion, though he possessed a most excellently disciplined mind,
dinary power of abstraction and concentration of thought. So a
become in thinking about a legal proposition or a case he had
come wholly oblivious of all around him, neither seeing nor h«
the same room, nor recognizing them if he met them on i
faculty of concentration enabled him to go to the foundation o
and when he went into the trial of a case there was nothing connectec
had not explored. He could hardly be surprised, for he had antic
tingency. He gained a large practice in a very short time. His firs
ever, were achieved in trying suits for the lead miners. At this time all
were owned by the United States government and leased out to prospc
If a big lead happened to be struck there was almost always some party
it as his. Then if the claimant was not driven oflF by force and arms-
entry and detainer before a justice of the peace and a most exciting
These miners were rough and many of them desperate men, and it
address and coolness on the part of the attorneys in these trials t
passions of the turbulent crowd and prevent bloody outbreaks. To
cases required not only a knowledge of the rules and customs of n
acquired the force of common law, but also an intimate acquaintanc
themselves, the formation of mineral and the character of the rocks, th
ranges, etc. A man might well be an excellent lawyer and yet be utter]
of these cases. Books and precedents were of no avail. A man m
the bowels of the earth to learn these matters. Mr. Douglass made
study. He would descend deep shafts and follow dark drifts and de^
come out covered with mud and ochre. But he would know his mine
While still a very young man he was confessedly the best mining 1;
region and was for years engaged in almost every mining suit in
^as a very profitable practice, as he never would leave his office to g
of the peace in these cases without a fee of at least $100 to $300 or $4
advance in gold or silver coin. Out of these mining suits Mr. Dough
accumulated what was then a handsome fortune.
Mr. Douglass was a powerful and successful advocate. He was ca
''is convictions were intense and his earnestness something terrible w
^^ial. His powers of persuasion were such as to make him almost ir
524 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
Jo Daviess jury. In criminal cases his defenses were exceedingly able and ingenious
and he seldom failed to acquit his clients.
I think I am safe in saying that it was the unanimous judgment of those lawyers
who practiced with him that he was the profoundest lawyer of their acquaintance. Mr,
Douglass went to Chicago in 1855 and entered the service of the Illinois Central Railroad
Company and was for many years the president of that company. Mr. Douglass was not
only a very profound but a very eccentric man, peculiar in his habits. He preferred the
companionship of his own mind to that of his fellow men and dwelt apart, never mingling
in society. He was a deep, incessant thinker, always pondering over some great prob-
lem— never resting. People seeing him on the streets lost in reverie, and, perhaps, talking
to himself— called him absent-minded, or worse. At length the machinery of his mind
shattered his physical frame, his health broke down and he retired to private life. For
the last year or two of his life his brilliant intellect was shadowed, at times, by morbid
illusions and he became very much of a wreck of his former self. But in his pnme
he was a really remarkable man. Take him, all in all, as an acute thinker, a profound
lawyer, an invincible reasoner and a convincing orator — winning more verdicts than any
other lawyer at the bar: he was without doubt easily the foremost man and the ablest
of his day at the Jo Daviess bar.
Wellington Wcigley came to Illinois in 1835 from Pennsylvania, a very young man,
as a minister of the gospel and preached in the Methodist church in Galena for some
time. He was an eloquent and popular preacher, but soon abandoned the pulpit for the
law and for many years was a very prominent lawyer at the Jo Daviess bar. with an
extensive practice. He was a distinguished mining lawyer, having studied mining thor-
oughly and practically, and was the only man in the mines who was able to try sucn
cases successfully against Douglass; and the only man, really, that Douglass was afraid
of in that sort of litigation. Mr. Weigley was master of an exceedingly neat and per-
spicuous Anglo-Saxon style. No man could make himself better understood. He was
an excellent speaker, earnest and magnetic, and had immense pow^er over juries, and
was regarded by his opponents as one of the most dangerous men to close a case there
was at the bar. He was a member of the constitutional convention of 1862. Fillmore
Weigley and Frank W. Weigley, prominent lawyers of Chicago, are his sons.
(The writer's estimate of Judge Benjamin R. Sheldon is given elsewhere in ihts
work.)
The legal firm of Pratt & Higgins. composed of O. C. Pratt and Van H. Higgins-
was a prominent one from about 1845 to 1850. O. C. Pratt was a man of fine education
and remarkable natural ability. He was a keen, shrewd lawyer and ready and eloquent
speaker. His manners were haughty and unpopular, but his superior talents were con-
ceded by all. He went to California, became a judge and acquired immense wealth from
the practice of his profession. Van H. Higgins at that time made no pretentions to
oratory (Pratt being the orator of the firm), but he was a most diligent and untiring
student. His industry and faculty for absorbing legal lore were wonderful. Xf> "^*^"
at the bar had such an extensive knowledge of the decisions of the courts. He could qn«^t^
cases from memory by the hour and give volume and page. His minute and prodigi' us
legal learning quite frightened the younger members of the bar, but it set them to huntm?
np authorities as well. Mr. Higgins went to Chicago in 1852 and maintained and in-
creased his reputation there for ability and learning. He became judge of the supcnor
court of Cook county and acquired a large fortune.
Col. E. D. Baker, known all over the Union for his eloquence and brilliancy, w^s
for some time a member of the Jo Daviess bar. But his object in coming to this county
was not really to practice law, though he pretended to do so, but to enter politics. He
had scarcely got located before he began his canvass for congress, to which he was elected
in 1848. After the expiration of his term he went to Oregon, became United Stares
senator and was killed in the war of the Rebellion. Whatever may have been his ments
as a lawyer, as an orator he had few equals.
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOl
There were many other lawyers of that day of less note, but st
and talents, only a few of whom my space will allow me to met
way. John Stark, a man of literary tastes and fine education, a nati^
practiced law for several years in Galena, but finally gave up the law
A. L. Holmes, from New Hampshire, a graduate from Dartmouth Cc
of ability, who left the law for mercantile pursuits in 1849. And thei
man, a man of splendid talents: an eloquent orator, brilliant, witty an
an inveterate hater of O. C. Pratts, whom he always spoke of as it-
harangued the jury," he used to say. Had it not been for his h
Churchman would have been one of the first lawyers in the state.
fornia in 1848, shone there with great brilliancy for several years \
in the darkness. There was B. B. Howard, lawyer, politician and pat
senator, postmaster of Galena, and when the rebellion broke out, ra
soldiers and was killed with a large number of his command in a raili
in the war.
M. Y. Johnson, a man of many peculiarities of character and we
state, came to Galena from Kentucky in 1844 and had a large practic
He was a man of kindly disposition and possessed of a rude and hon
a quaint, original humor, often very effective before the juries of his d*
I would not convey the impression by anything I have said that j
bers of the Jo Daviess bar were men of such splendid talents as those '.
that would not be correct. While that bar was remarkably and exc
contained also some ignorant and stupid members, such as are found
bars, and will continue to be found until a higher standard of education
edge shall be required for admission.
I hope it may not be impertinent in this presence to inquire v
standard for admission to our colleges and to all the other professions
advanced in late years, the time has not come in this state to demand a n
of intelligence, education and knowledge of law on the part of thos
tc practice than has been heretofore required, if the profession of law is i
regarded as one of the learned professions?
Permit another suggestion and I have done. There is no other
fession in which there is so much wasted energy as in the legal prof"
no other calling which demands such vast exercise of the logical faculty,
expenditure of intellectual force. And yet there is no profession in \
of mental effort are so transient, or so soon obliterated from the public
of the great preachers of the world, the Spurgeons, the Whitefields, the
sen'ed in their published sermons and passes down from generation. Tl
nown of the eminent poets, historians and novelists, are embalmed in i
become immortal. But the erudite, exhaustive and profound argument,
labors of many months, of the great lawyer is heard by perhaps half a (
then in a few days forgotten forever.
The brilliant and fascinating plea of the eloquent criminal advocate
jury by storm and thrills the audience with wild enthusiasm and saves the
the prisoner, is but a seven days' wonder, and then the orator and his elc
oblivion. Now in view of these facts would it not be a wise thing to do,
tion, or a similar association, to take some steps to preserve some specir
ments and speeches of the eminent lawyers of the state, with sketches 0
then from time to time, say once in a decade, publish them, so that the i
something of the great men of their state and appreciate them?
CHAPTER XXVIII.
HISTORY OF THE BOND COUNTY BAR.
BY HON. WILLIAM A. NORTHCOTT.
BOND COUNTY was organized by an act of the territorial legislature.
passed January 4, 181 7, and at that time extended as far north as the
Wisconsin line, and was one of the fifteen counties comprising the ter-
ritory of Illinois at the time of its admission as a state.
The first court was held June 30, 1817, at Hill's Station, a fort on Shoal
creek, about eight miles southwest of Greenville. Judge Jesse B. Thomas,
afterward United States senator from Illinois, presided. The legal business of
the county from this date until ^bout 1837 was conducted by visiting lawyers,
and no record can be found or tradition given of any resident attorney. In
1838 Judge M. G. Dale, then a young attorney, located in Greenville and re-
mained there until a short time prior to the war, when he removed to Edwards-
ville, Madison county, and continued practice until his death, in 1896. He was
a remarkable man in many respects, and one who retained during his entire
life the respect and good will of the people of both Bond and Madison counties.
He always dreaded to speak in public, and was not strong as an advocate before
a jury, but as county judge, at different times in each of these counties, he
was a strong judge of law and a most impartial, upright official. He was a very
active man, continuing in practice up to the time of his death.
James M. Davis, the next resident lawyer of the Bond county bar, was ex-
actly an opposite type from Judge Dale. He was a man of fiery eloquence, and
his particular delight was in presenting a case to the jury or in making a
political speech in the public forum. In 1849 ^^ went to Vandalia to take a
position in connection with the United States land office, afterward removing
to Hillsboro, Montgomery county, where he was the tutor and benefactor oi
Congressman Ed. Lane, who read law under him and who received his law
library as a legacy. Until the beginning of the war Mr. Davis was an active
Whig, but at that time became a Democrat and a radical sympathizer with
the rebellion. He was a man of considerable talent and great social qualities.
At the beginning of 1850 the following were the resident lawyers of Green-
ville and members of the Bond county bar: Cornelius Lansing, Elam Rust,
Tevis Greathouse, Judge S. P. Moore and Samuel Stevenson. Of these Judge
Moore continued his residence the longer in Greenville, not removing until
during the war or shortly thereafter. Tevis Greathouse was a man of much
more than ordiharv ability, fond of literature and an omnivorous reader. After
leaving Greenville he practiced law, until his death, in Vandalia.
Between 1855 and i860 many new additions were made to the membership
526
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS, 527
of the bar, the most notable being the enrollment of Judge Salmon A. Phelps,
who can very appropriately be called its Nestor. Judge Phelps was admitted
to the bar in the state of Mississippi in 1841, and moved to Pocahontas, Bond
county, in 1844, living on a farm, but practicing law both before justices of the
peace and the courts of record at Greenville until 1855;, when he moved to the
county-seat and has been actively engaged in practice up to the present time.
From the years 1859 to 1879 ^^ ^^^ his sons had the bulk of the civil business
of the county bar. Judge Phelps never liked the criminal practice and while
he was frequently retained in the defense of cases, yet it was always distasteful
to him. His honorable conduct, strict integrity and disposition to discourage
litigation has left a marked impress upon the younger members of the county
bar. He has been a man of exemplary habits, kind and courteous, and has
the honor in his old age of living in the same county where he has resided for
fifty-three ye^rs, having the respect and love of all his neighbors. Two of his
sons were admitted to the bar in Greenville. One of them. Judge Alfred
Phelps, is one of the leading lawyers of the state of Colorado, living at Denver,
where he has, by his marked ability and high demand as a lawyer, accumulated
a splendid fortune. Another son, George S. Phelps, was at one time state's
attorney of Bond county, and is now a member of the bar at Leadville, Colo-
rado, where he has held the positions of city judge and district judge.
Four sons of Ira Kingsbury were, at different times, members of the county
bar. The first to be admitted was Judge A. N. Kingsbury, in 1855. After
practicing a few years in this county he removed to Hillsboro, where he was one
of the leading lawyers until the time of his death. Dennis H. Kingsbury was
admitted to the bar about 1856 and continued practice here until his death, in
1893. He was a natural-born lawyer, with all the instincts for special pleading
and forms of law ; besides he was an aggressive debater and a hard fighter be-
fore a jury. He was a man of strict integrity and while of a combative dispo-
sition, which frequently led him into personal encounters with his enemies, he
was strong in his friendships as well as his enmities. He always commanded a
fair share of the clientage of the bar. He never allowed politics or love for
place to interfere with his profession, but was its devotee to the exclusion of all
other masters. Darius Kingsbury, after admission, removed to Carlyle, where
he is still engaged in the practice of law. John Kingsbury, after practicing in
Greenville for a number of years, retired, and lives on a farm in Bond county.
J. F. Alexander and A. G. Henry, who afterward became two of Bond
county's most distinguished citizens, were admitted about the same time, in
1857. Mr. Alexander was at one time a member of the state senate and prom-
inently identified with the building of the Vandalia Railroad and the Louisville
& Nashville Railroad. He was also at one time grand master of the Odd Fel-
lows of Illinois. He devoted but little attention to the practice of law, but
was one of the best parliamentarians in southern Illinois, and had a wide and
extensive acquaintance throughout the state. He was a man of elegant man-
ners and strong intellectually.
Judge A. G. Henry was county judge of Bond county for two terms, and
S2S THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
also served two terms in the legislature of Illinois. He is a man of strong
native ability and uncompromising in his devotion to his political beliefs.
Ahhough at an advanced age and confined to his house most of the time by
sickness, yet his mind is clear and his memory good, he being a ready and
entertaining conversationalist.
Job A. Cooper, who was born in Bond county and admitted to practice
in 1859, was at one time circuit cierk of the county and was an active member
of tile bar during the few years he was connected with it. Shortly after the
war he moved to Colorado and rapidly rose in distinction, becoming governor
of the state, and is one of its wealthiest and most prominent citizens.
William H. Dawdy was admitted to the bar while residing in Vandalia,
but shortly afterward, in 1868, located in Greenville, where he has practiced
law ever siticc and is still one of the most prominent members of the bar.
Judge Dawdy has been a member of the court of claims of the state, and also
assistant United States district attorney and state's attorney of Bond county.
He is a strong advocate before a jury, and during the thirty years of his prac-
tice at this bar has been on one side or the other of nearly every important
contest. He is very fond of a good story and is of a sociable and courteous
disposition. He and Judge Phelps have done much toward giving the county
bar its deserved reputation for fairness and honesty, both toward the couil,
jury and clients.
WiUiam A. Northcott, now lieutenant governor of lUinois, was admitted
to the bar in West Virginia, in 1877, but removed to Greenville in 1879 and
has continued in the practice of law ever since. Shortly after coming to Green-
ville he formed a partnership with Dennis H. Kingsbury, which continued
until Mr. Northcott was elected state's attorney, in 1882. He held this office
tor three successive terms.
Judge Cicero J. Lindley entered upon the practice of law in Greenville in
1882 and held the office of county judge from 1886 to 1892. He lives on his
large and profitable farm three miles south of Greenville, but he has been en-
gaged in many prominent cases. Judge Lindley is widely known throughout
the state of Illinois as chairman of the state railroad and warehouse commis-
sion, and also as having received the entire Republican vote for United States
senator in 1890, when Governor John M. Palmer was elected. Judge Lindley
is an orator with a state reputation, and is well grounded in the principles of
law.
F. W. Fritz was admitted to the bar in 1889 and immediately formed a
partnership with W. A. Northcott, which still continues. He has been twice
elected state's attorney of Bond county, atid has been actively engaged in
practice ever since admission. He is a man of strict integrity, a true friend,
and hard worker in his profession. Mr. Fritz is a public speaker of con-
siderable merit and is prominently connected with his party and has advocated
its principles upon the stump since 1888.
C. E. Cook was admitted to the bar in Montgomery county and practiced
for a few years at Raymond, locating at Greenville in 1889, where he is still
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS, 529
a member of the bar. He has a good clientage and is an industrious lawyer.
He has been city attorney and also attorney for the Greenville Building &
Savings Association nearly all the time since coming to Greenville.
H. W. Park was admitted to the bar in Richland .county and located in
Greenville in 1891, and was connected with the firm of Northcott, Fritz &
Hoiles until 1897, when he opened an office by himself. He is well learned
in the law and was the tutor of Alfred Adams, Joseph Streuber and Clarence
E. Hoiles.
James M. Miller, L. H. Craig, H. H. Craig, Thomas Tiffin, Charles E.
Davidson, Solon A. Enloe, L. E. Bennett, Joseph Streuber and Alfred Adams
were all, for short periods, members of the Greenville bar.
Clarence E. Hoiles, member of the firm of Northcott, Fritz & Hoiles,
was admitted to the bar in 1896. He is a grandson of Charles Hoiles, who
founded the banking house of Hoiles & Sons, and belongs to one of the oldest
and most prominent families in Bond county. Kingsbury & Northcott, North-
cott & Fritz and Northcott, Fritz & Hoiles, have been the styles of the firms
to which Mr. Northcott has belonged since 1880.
The latest member of the Greenville bar is Joseph H. Story, who was
admitted in the summer of 1897, and was appointed county judge, by Governor
Tanner, in December of that year, to fill the vacancy caused by the resigna-
tion of John F. Harris, who was elected in 1894, but who removed to Montana
in 1897. The list of Bond county's lawyers begins with Judge Dale and ends
with Judge Story.
The first case on the Bond county docket was that of the United States
versus Anderson Riley, for assault and battery, and he was fined five dollars
and costs. The first civil case was that of Michael Dodds versus Paul Beeks,
an action of trespass on the case. The conclusion of this case is found in the
following court entry : */The plaintiff . was solemnly called and came not,
neither is his suit further prosecuted; therefore, on motion of the defendant by
his attorney, it is ordered by the court that the jurors, from rendering their
verdict aforesaid, be discharged and that the plaintiff be nonsuited and that
the said defendant go thereof without delay and recover against the plaintiff
his costs by him about his defense in this behalf expended."
Judge Phelps says that the first court he attended in Bond county was in
1844. James Shields, afterward distinguished as a soldier and United States
senator from three states, presided. Among the lawyers in attendance were
Lyman Trumbull, William H. Bissell and Joseph Gillespie. In Bond and other
counties during the early history of the bar in Illinois the principal attorneys
were those who were in the habit of traveling from court to court. Among
those distinguished visitors were such lawyers as Sidney Breese, U. F. Linder,
Anthony Thornton, A. P. Fields, Governor Koerner, Governor John Reynolds,
Jehu Baker, John B. Hay, Richard and Ben Bond. In later years visiting at-
torneys well known in the Bond county court-room were such men as Met-
calf, Van Hoorebecke, B. W. Henry, Judge William Farmer, Judge Ed. Lane
and Judge Jacob Fouke.
34
530 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
Lincoln never appeared before the Greenville bar, but he was employed
in cases going from Bond county to the supreme court. One memorable case
was that of Stout versus Byrnes, which was a contest about a hog. which
Byrnes had found trespassing upon his premises and had castrated and lurned
loose in the woods and which died. Stout claimed the hog, and his attorney
brought an action for trover and conversion. In the supreme court Lincoln
appeared for Stout and took the position that the castration of the hog was
such a conversion as entitled Stout to his action, and the supreme court held
the position not well taken. This case is reported in 15th Illinois Reports,
page 180.
Judge Phelps tells an amusing incident, growing out of a chase after three
fugitive negroes, who were caught in the southwestern portion of Bond county
after an exciting chase, which was joined in by about one hundred residents
of that part of the county. Three of the men captured the fugitives, slipped
them through to St. Louis and received the reward of one hundred and fifty
dollars, refusing to divide with the other hunters. Suit was brought before
a justice of the peace for division of the prize money, and an appeal taken to
the circuit court. Judge Underwood, in passing upon the case, said he "guessed
the rules of the hunt would apply and the money must be divided amongst all
those engaged in the chase;" and the division was accordingly made.
Judge Henry tells of an incident occurring when Judge Sidney Brcese was
presiding over the circuit court. It seems that, as was the custom in those days,
after adjournment of court the lawyers engaged in the amusement of a little
game of cards for money, and that the grand jury "got onto them," indicted
them, and they immediately plead guilty and paid their fines. Judge Breese,
who was a particcps criminis, in open court said to the clerk. "Just assess a
fine of ten dollars against the court," which was accordingly done.
In later days such men as Judges Snyder, Watts, Wall, Wildermann and
Burroughs have presided over the Bond county circuit court. Judge Snyder
was always fond of a good story and enjoyed telling his share of them. It is
related of him that during one session of the court, there was a lawyer who
was extremely tiresome in telling his stories, and they were very poor stories
at that. On one occasion, when the bar and judge had gathered to enjoy the
recital of these stories, this lawyer was particularly obnoxious in a long-winded
story he was trying to tell; and finally Judge Snyder, becoming impatient,
sprang from his scat, grabbed the offending lawyer by the shoulders, and
shaking him heartily, said: "Tell that story quick, d — n you! or I'll shake
the life out of you."
Upon one occasion such splendid story-tellers as Joseph Gillespie, W. H.
Snyder and "Jim" Robinson, of Springfield, and one or two others, were gath-
ered together telling stories. J. P. Garland, of Greenville, a strict church
member, was present and a nonparticipant. His sober manner and grave
face gave those present the impression that he was ashamed of a court and bar
that indulged in such trivial nonsense; but this impression was speedily over-
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS. 531
come, when, after a lull in the story-telling, he slapped his hand upon Joe
Gillespie's knee, saying : "Why don't you tell another ?"
W. H. Dawdy tells a good joke upon Dennis H. Kingsbury, which hap-
pened at the time they were both leaders of the Greenville bar. Kingsbury
had a horse called Tim, which he was very fond of driving and which was
pretty fast. On one occasion he was arrested by the city marshal of Green-
ville for fast driving through the streets, and Dawdy defended him. In his
plea Mr. Dawdy took the position that Tim was too slow a horse to go fast
enough to violate the city ordinances. Mr. Kingsbury arose with much dig-
nity and withdrew the plea and paid his fine, saying, "I would rather pay it
than to have the record of my horse attacked."
While Mr. Northcott was state's attorney he was prosecuting Louis White
for arson, and John Kingsbury, was defending. In his argument Mr. Kings-
bury said, "My client was a faithful soldier in two wars, the Mexican and the
war of the Rebellion. Where was Louis White at the battle of Buena Vista?
I'll tell you, gentlemen of the jury, he was on the back of a mule, fleeing from
the enemy!" This climax captured the jury and the defendant was acquitted.
One of the most popular judges presiding over the Bond county circuit
court was Judge Amos Watts, of Nashville. He was always kind and con-
siderate of the younger members of the bar. In appearance he was very much
like Lincoln, and was full of dry humor. At one time in calling the docket,
he called the case of Daniel Joiner versus Ellen Joiner, for divorce. With a
dry smile, he said: "I guess Joiner wants to be disjoined."
♦Salmon A. Phelps, ex-county judge of Bond county, and a well known
practitioner at the Greenville bar, was born in Otsego county, New York, on
the 2d of June, 1817, his parents being Joshua and Elizabeth (Peck) Phelps.
Both were born and reared near Hebron, Connecticut, and after their marriage
they removed to Otsego county, New York, about 1798. They there located
on a farm, but later made their home in Cooperstown, New York, where Judge
Phelps remained until leaving home in order to complete his education. After
preparing for collegiate work he entered Union College, at Schenectady, New
York, in 1834, and was graduated in 1838. It was not long after this that
he was offered a position as assistant in a private academy in Steubenville,
Ohio, where he engaged in teaching during the fall and winter terms of 1838-9.
In the spring of the latter year he was offered a more lucrative position, in
Woodville, Mississippi, where he engaged in teaching in 1839 and 1840, at the
same time devoting his leisure moments outside of the school-room to the
study of law.
In the autumn of 1840 Judge Phelps was admitted to the bar and began
the practice of his chosen profession in Woodville, where he remained until
the spring of 1844, when, on account of his wife's precarious health, he re-
moved to Illinois, locating on a farm in the western part of Bond county. In
the spring of 1856 he took up his residence in Greenville and resumed the
* The following paragraphs are not a portion of Mr. Northcott's contribution.
532 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
practice of law, which he has since continued, enjoying a fair share of the pub-
lic patronage. He took no very active part in politics in Mississippi, except
to aid in opposing the repudiation of the state debt in 1842-3. He came to
Illinois a Henry Clay Whig, in 1844, but the event which attended the formation
of the Republican party aroused his deep interest, and he joined the new or-
ganization, voting for its candidates in 1856. Since that time he has continued
one of its stalwart advocates and has taken an active part in campaign work
in Bond and adjoining counties. From 1850 until 1872 he discussed from the
campaign platforms the issues aflFecting the general welfare of state and nation,
but since that time has left the more arduous political work to others. In the
fall of 1890 he was. elected county judge, and served for a four-years term, in
a strictly impartial manner.
Judge Phelps was married, in Woodville, Mississippi, in December, 1841,
to Miss Hannah H. Bulkley, of Granville, Washington county. New York,
and on account of her health, as before noted, purchased a farm in Bond county,
Illinois, in 1843, removing thereto in the spring of 1844. His wife died soon
afterward, however, and in 1845 he married Miss Caroline R. Bulkley, also oi
Granville, New York, who died in Bond county in 1881. The Judge's sons,
Alfred C. and George S., were both soldiers in the Union army during the civil
war. The elder enlisted as a private in 1862, and was discharged with the
rank of first lieutenant, in 1865. After his return home he spent one year in
college at Jacksonville, Illinois, then studied law and was admitted to the bar
in Bond county. He then practiced with his father until 1873, when he re-
moved to Denver, Colorado, and is now a prominent member of the Denver
bar. He was also a member of the first legislature of that state. The second
son, George S. Phelps, entered the army in 1865 and served through the last
summer of the war. After completing his education he served as circuit clerk
for six years, w^as admitted to the bar in 1879, and served as prosecuting at-
torney of Bond county in 1882. The following year he removed to Leadville,
Colorado, where he is now practicing \^\v with excellent success. He has
served both as state's attorney and as county judge at that place.
William A. Northcott. — The history of a state, as well as that of a nation,
is chiefly a chronicle of the lives and deeds of those who have conferred honor
and dignity upon society. The world judges of the character of a community
by those of its representative citizens, and yields its tributes of admiration and
respect for the genius or learning or virtues of those men whose w'orks and
actions constitute the record of a state's prosperity and pride. It is this record
that offers for our consideration the history of men who for their probity, use-
fulness and achievements, as well as their integrity in the affairs of life, are
ever affording to the young examples worthy of emulation.
While Hon. WilHam A. Northcott ranks among the ablest lawyers of
southern Illinois, he has also won distinguished honors in connection with the
administration of the affairs of the state, and is now holding the important
office of lieutenant governor of Illinois. He was born in Murfreesboro, Ten-
nessee, January 28, 1854, a son of General R. S. Northcott, who at the breaking
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THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS. 533
out of the war of the Rebellion was forced to leave his Tennessee home on
account of his Union sentiments. Accordingly he went to West Virginia,
where he was commissioned colonel of a regiment. He served throughout
the entire war and for nine months was held as a prisoner in Libby.
Having acquired his literary education in the public schools, Mr. North-
cott afterward entered the United States Naval Academy, at Annapolis, Mary-
land, and later he engaged in teaching school. Preparing for the practice of
law, he was admitted to the bar in 1877, and in 1879 removed to Greenville,
Illinois, where he has since made his home. From the beginning of his career
as a legal practitioner his eflForts have been attended with success. He has
mastered the science of jurisprudence, and his deep research and thorough
preparation of every case committed to his care enable him to meet at once
any contingency that may arise. His cause is fenced about with unanswerable
logic, and his arguments are strong, clear, decided and follow each other in
natural sequence, forming a chain of reasoning that his opponent finds very
difficult to break. In 1882 he was elected state's attorney of Bond county,
was re-elected in 1884 and again in 1888, his faithful service being plainly in-
dicated by the frequency with which he was chosen for the position. In 1880
he was appointed by President Hayes to the office of supervisor of the census
for the seventh district of Illinois, and in 1890 was appointed by President
Harrison a member of the board of visitors to the United States Naval Acad-
emy, while by that board he was selected to deliver the annual oration to the
graduating class. In 1892 he was the Republican nominee for congress in the
eighteenth district, but was defeated in the Democratic landslide of that year.
In 1896 his name was placed on the Republican state ticket for the office of
lieutenant governor, and, receiving the highest vote ever given to any man
in Illinois, he is now serving in that important position, by virtue of which he is
the presiding officer in the senate.
On the 31st of March, 1880, Mr. Northcott married Miss Julia Dressor,
daughter of Senator Dressor. She died the following year, leaving a son,
Nathaniel D. Mr. Northcott was again married in 1882, his second union
being with Miss Ada Stoutzenberg, of Marine, Madison county, Illinois, and
they have one daughter, Amy Allen. Mr. Northcott is a prominent and valued
member of several civic societies, including the Masonic fraternity, the Inde-
pendent Order of Odd Fellows, Knights of Pythias, Modern Woodmen of
America, Court of Honor, Home Forum, Royal Neighbors and Fraternal
Tribune. In November, 1890, he was elected head consul for president of the
Modern Woodmen of America, was re-elected in 1892, 1895 and again in 1897,
and still continues in that office. His career, both public and private, is marked
by the strictest integrity and faithfulness to every trust reposed in him. He
has been honored by the state and by social organizations, and in turn his
upright career has been an honor to them. In society he is a most genial,
cordial gentleman, appreciative of worth in others, and his kindly manner has
won him a host of friends, who esteem him for his personal worth, aside from
his political and civic honors.
534 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
Fred William Fritz is a practitioner at the bar of Bond county, Illinois,
is a resident of Greenville, has gained distinctive preferment in his chosen
profession and has now a very important and extensive clientele. He was
born in St. Louis, Missouri, April 21, 1862, and is a son of Jacob L. and Kath-
arine Fritz, who came to this country from western Germany. The father was
a Union soldier during the war of the Rebellion, serving as a member of a
Missouri volunteer regiment. In 1866 he took up his residence in Bond
county, Illinois, where he spent the residue of his days, his death occurring
October 7, 1885. His wife is still living, her home being in St. Louis, Missouri.
Her maternal grandfather was a soldier under Napoleon Bonaparte in his cele-
brated Russian campaign and witnessed the burning of Moscow.
With the exception of a short course in a St. Louis business college, Mr.
Fritz of this review enjoyed only such educational advantages as were afforded
by the common schools of his neighborhood. Later he engaged in teaching
in the schools of Bond county for a number of years, most of the time holding
a first-grade certificate, granted him by the county superintendent of schools.
His tastes lie along literary lines, and desiring to devote his energies to a
professional career, he began reading law in the office of Hon. William A.
Northcott, at Greenville, and in November, 1889, ^^is admitted to the bar.
Before his admission, in the spring of that year, he formed a partnership with
Mr. Northcott, under the firm name of Northcott & Fritz, and later Clarence
E. Hoiles, of Greenville, was admitted as a copartner, at which time the style
of Northcott, Fritz & Hoiles was assumed. Reference to the county records
will show that this firm has been employed on one side or the other of every
important case tried in any of the local courts during the last nine years. As
the senior member is compelled to give most of his time to the affairs of the
Modern Woodmen of America, a fraternal insurance company, of which he is
one of the chief officers, much of the law business devolves upon Mr. Fritz,
who is fully capable of handling the responsible duties concerning their ex-
tensive law practice. He has won for himself very favorable criticism by the
careful and systematic methods which he has followed. He has remarkable
powers of concentration and application, and his retentive mind has often ex-
cited the surprise of his professional colleagues. As an orator he stands high,
especially in the discussion of legal matters before the court, where his compre-
hensive knowledge of the law is manifest and his application of legal principles
demonstrates the wide range of his professional acquirements. The utmost
care and precision characterize the preparation of his cases and have made him
one of the most successful attorneys in Greenville.
Mr. Fritz was married October 7, 1897, to Miss Lucie Smith Keller, a
daughter of John Keller, of Edwardsville, Illinois, who is quite well known
in Madison county as a Democratic politician, having held several township
and city offices within the last ten years. Mrs. Fritz is a graduate of the high
school of Edwardsville and is one of the most accomplished pianists of this
section of the state. She presides with grace over their hospitable home, and
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS, 535
with her husband is welcomed to the best homes of the city in which they re-
side.
Mr. Fritz was a member of the lUinois National Guard for a number of
years and was twice unanimously tendered the captaincy of his company, but
the press of his professional duties obliged him to decline the honor. He filled
the office of abstracter of census in his congressional district in 1890; was elected
state's attorney for Bond county in November, 1892, and after a four-years
term was re-elected in November, 1896.
He has always been a stanch advocate of Republican principles, and does
all in his power to promote the growth and insure the success of his party.
He holds membership in the Presbyterian church and is a valued member of
various social organizations. He belongs to the subordinate lodge and en-
campment of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, and in the former has
filled all the chairs ; is a member of the Knights of Pythias, in which he is now
past chancellor ; a member of the Sons of Veterans, twice serving as captain of
the local camp; a member of the Modem Woodmen of America, the D. O.
K. K. and the Masonic fraternity. Such is a brief record of one whose success-
ful and honorable past is an index of his future.
CHAPTER XXIX.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN— DAVID DAVIS— SHELBY M. CULLOM— GEORGE
MANIKRRE— ISAAC N. ARNOLD— THOMAS HOYNE— MEL-
VILLE W. FULLER— LEONARD SWETT.
J\ IJRAHAM LINCOLN, the sixteenth president of the United States,
l\ stands out conspicuously in the category of illustrious American heroes
-^ ^ and statesmen, next to Washington. The one earned the distinguished
appellation of "father of his country," the other that of its **savior" from the
perils of a fratricidal war.
On the I2th of February, 1809, in Larue (then Hardin) county, Kentucky,
Abraham Lincoln was born. His parents were Thomas and Nancy (Hanks)
Lincoln. Of his ancestry in early years, the little that is known may best be
given in his own language:
My parents were both born in Virginia, of distinguished families — second families
perhaps, I should say. My mother, who died in my tenth year, was of a family by the
name of Hanks, some of whom now remain in Adams, and others in Macon county.
Illinois. My paternal grandfather, Abraham Lincoln, emigrated from Rockbridge county.
Virginia, to Kentucky, in 1781 or 1782, where, a year or two later, he was killed by Indians—
not in battle, but by stealth when he was laboring to open a farm in the forest My
ancestors, who were Quakers, went to Virginia from Berks county, Pennsylvania. An
effort to identify them with the New England family of the same name ended in nothing
more definite than a similarity in Christian names in both families, such as Enoch, Levi,
Mordecai, Solomon, Abraham and the like. My father at the death of his father was
but six years of age, and he grew up literally without' education. He removed from
Kentucky to what is now Spencer county, Indiana, in my eighth year. We reached our
new home about the time the state came into the union. It was a wild region, with
bears and other wild animals still in the woods. There I grew to manhood.
There w^ere some schools, so called, but no quahfication was ever required of the
teacher beyond "readin', writin', and cipherin* to the rule of three." If a straggler sup-
posed to understand Latin happened to sojourn in the neighborhood he was looked upon
as a wizard. There was nothing to excite ambition for education. Of course when I
came of age I did not know much. Still, somehow, I could read, write, and cipher to
the rule of three, and that was all. I have not been to school since. The little advance
I now have upon this store of education I have picked up from time to time, under the
pressure of necessity. I was raised to farm work, which I continued until I was twent>'-
two. At twenty-one I came to Illinois, and passed the first year in Macon county. Then
I got to New Salem, at that time in Sangamon, now in Menard, county, where I re-
mained a year as a sort of clerk in a store.
Then came the Black Hawk war, and I was elected a captain of volunteers — ^a suc-
cess which gave me more pleasure than any I have had since. I went into the campaign;
was elated: ran for the legislature the same year (1832) and was beaten — the only time
I have ever been beaten by the people. The next and three succeeding biennial elections
I was elected to the legislature, and was never a candidate afterward.
During this legislative period I had studied law, and removed to Springfield to
536
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILUNOIS. 537
practice it. In 1846 I was elected to the lower house of congress; was not a candidate
for re-election. From 1849 until 1854, inclusive, I practiced the law more assiduously than
ever before. Always a Whig in politics, and generally on the Whig electoral tickets,
making active canvasses, I was losing interest in politics when the repeal of the Missouri
Compromise roused me again. What I have done since is pretty well known.
The early residence of Lincoln in Indiana was sixteen miles north of the
Ohio river, on Little Pig^eon creek, one and a half miles east of Gentryville,
within the present township of Carter. Here his mother died, October 5, i8t8,
and the next year his father married Mrs. Sallie (Bush) Johnston, of Elizabeth-
town, Kentucky. She was an affectionate foster-parent, to whom Abraham was
indebted for his first encouragement to study. He became an eager reader, and
the few books owned in the vicinity were many times perused. He worked fre-
quently for the neighbors as a farm laborer,* was for some time clerk in a store
at Gentryville, and became famous throughout that region for his athletic pow-
ers, his fondness for argument, his inexhaustible fund of humorous anecdote, as
well as for mock oratory and the composition of rude satirical verses. In 1828
he made a trading voyage to New Orleans as "bow hand" on a flatboat; removed
to Illinois in 1830; helped his father build a log house and clear a farm on the
north fork of Sangamon river, ten miles west of Decatur, and was for some time
employed in splitting rails for the fences — a fact which was prominently brought
forward for a political purpose thirty years later.
In the spring of 183 1 he, with two of his relatives, was hired to build a flat-
boat on the Sangamon river and navigate it to New Orleans. The boat stuck
on a milldam and w^as gotten off with great labor through an ingenious mechan-
ical device, which some years later led to Lincoln's taking out a patent for **an
improved method of lifting vessels over shoals." This voyage was memorable
for another reason, — the sight of slaves chained, maltreated, and flogged at New
Orleans. — ^which was doubtless the origin of his deep convictions upon the slavery
question.
Returning from his voyage^ he became a resident for several years of New
Salem, a recently settled village on the Sangamon, where he was successively a
clerk, grocer, surveyor and postmaster, and acted as pilot to the first steamboat
that ascended the Sangamon. Here he studied law, interested himself in local
politics after his return from the Black Hawk war, and became known as an
effective ''stump speaker." The subject of his first political speech was- the im-
provement of the channel of the Sangamon, and the chief ground on which he
announced himself (1832) a candidate for the legislature was his advocacy of this
popular measure, on which subject his practical experience made him the high-
est authority. Elected to the legislature in 1834 as a Henry Clay Whig, he rap-
idly acquired that command of language and that homely but forcible rhetoric
which, added to his intimate knowledge of the people from whom he sprang,
made him more than a match in debate for his well educated opponents. He was
re-elected to the general assembly in 1836, 1838 and 1840, serving four consecu-
tive terms. Admitted to the bar in 1837, ^^ soon established himself at Spring-
field, where the state capital was located in 1839, largely through his influence;
538 THE BUNCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
became a successful pleader in the state, circuit and district courts; marriotl, in
1842, Alary Todd, a lady belonging to a prominent family of Lexington, Ken-
tucky; took an active part in the presidential campaigns of 1840 and 1844, as
candidate for elector on the Harrison and Clay tickets, and in 1846 was elected
10 the United States house of representatives, over the celebrated Peter Cart-
wright. During his single term in congress he frequently appeared in the de-
bates, and for a new member made a favorable impression as a rising statesman.
'He voted for the reception of anti-slavery petitions, for the aboHtion of the slave
trade in the District of Columbia, and for the Wilmot Proviso; but was chiefly
remembered for the stand he took against the Mexican war. For several years
thereafter he took comparatively little interest in politics, but gained a leading
position at the Springfield bar. Two or three non-political lectures and a eulogy
on Henry Clay (1852) added nothing to his notoriety as a politician.
In 1854 the repeal of the Missouri Compromise by the Kansas-Nebraska
act aroused Lincoln from his indifference, and in attacking that measure he had
the immense advantage of knowing perfectly well the motives and record of its
author, Stephen A. Douglas, of Illinois, then popularly designated as the "'Little
Giant." The latter came to Springfield in October, 1854, on the occasion of the
state fair, to vindicate his policy in the senate, and the "Anti-Nebraska" Whigs
remembering thait Lincoln had often measured his strength with Douglas in the
Illinois legislature and before the Springfield courts, engaged him to make a re-
ply. This speech, in the opinion of those who heard it, was one of the greatest
efforts of Lincoln's life, — certainly one of the most effective in his whole career. It
took the audience by storm, and from that moment it was felt that Douglas had
met his match. Joint discussions were held by the distinguished disputants at-
Peoria and other points, the effect of which, with the fierce campaign against
the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, resulted in the election of an anti-Ne-
braska legislature, and Lincoln was selected as the anti-Nebraska candidate for
the United States senate, to succeed General James Shields, whose term expired
March 4, 1855, ^"^ ^^^ ^o several ballots; but Lyman Trumbull was ultimately
chosen. The second conflict on the soil of Kansas, which Lincoln had predicted,
soon began. The result was the disruption of the Whig and the formation of
the Republican party. At the Bloomington state convention in 1856, where the
new party first assumed form in Illinois, Lincoln made the greatest speech of
his life, in which for the first time he took distinctive grounds against slavery in
itself. Thenceforth he became the leader of his party in the state.
At the national RepubHcan convention in Philadelphia, June 17. after the
nomination of Fremont, Lincoln w-as put forward by the Illinois delegation for
the vice-presidency, and received on the first ballot one hundred ten votes,
against two hundred fifty-nine for William L. Dayton. He took a prominent
part in the canvass of that year in this and other states. In 1859 Lincoln was
unanimously nominated by the Republican state convention as its candidate for
the United States senate in place of Douglas, and in his speech of acceptance
used the celebrated illustration of a **house divided against itself" on the slavery
question, which, while in the resulting argument it was made to conduce to his
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS. 539
final defeat, was so handled as to make impossible the nomination of his oppo-
nent as the Democratic candidate for president, which was his objective point.
The seven great debates carried on at the principal towns of Illinois between
Lincoln and Douglas, as rival senatorial candidates, resulted, at the time, in the
election of the latter; but being widely circulated as a campaign document it
fixed the attention of the country upon the former as the clearest and most con-
vincing exponent of Republican doctrinfe.
Early in 1859 he began to be named in Illinois as a suitable Republican can-
didate for the presidential campaign of the ensuing year, and a political address
delivered at the Cooper Institute, New York, February 27, i860, followed by
similar speeches at New Haven, Hartford and elsewhere in New England, first
made him known to the eastern states in the light in which he had long been
regarded at home. By the Republican state convention, which met at Decatur,
Illinois, on the 9th and loth of May, Lincoln was unanimously endorsed for the
presidency. It was on this occasion that two rails, said to have been split by his
hands thirty years before, were brought into the convention, and the incident
contributed much to his popularity. The national Republican convention at
Chicago, after spirited efforts made in favor of Seward, Chase, and Bates, nom-
inated Lincoln for the presidency, wdth Hannibal Hamlin for vice-president, at
the same time adopting a vigorous anti-slavery platform.
The Democratic party having been disorganized and presenting two candi-
dates, Douglas and Breckenridge, and the remnant of the ''American" party
having put forward John Bell of Tennessee, the Republican victory was an easy
one, Lincoln being elected, November 6, by a large plurality, comprehending
nearly all the northern states, but none of the southern. The secession of South
Carolina and the gulf states w-as the immediate result, followed a few months
later by that of the border slave states, and by the outbreak of the great civil
war.
The life of Abraham Lincoln became thenceforth merged in the history of
his country. None of the details of the vast conflict which filled the remainder
of Lincoln's life can here be given. Narrowly escaping assassination by avoid-
ing Baltimore on his w'ay to the capital, he reached Washington February 23,
and was inaugurated president of the United States March 4, 1861.
In his inaugural address he said: **I hold that, in contemplation of universal
law and the constitution, the union of these .states is perpetual. Perpetuity is
implied, is not expressed, in the fundamental laws of all national governments.
It is safe to assert that no government proper ever had a provision in its organic
law for its own termination. I therefore consider that in view of the constitution
and the laws, the Union is unbroken, and to the extent of my ability I shall take
care, as the constitution enjoins upon me, that the laws of the United States be
extended in all the states. In doing this there need be no bloodshed or violence,
and there shall be none unless it be forced upon the national authority. The
power conferred to me will be used to hold, occupy and possess the property and
places belonging to the government, and to collect the duties and imports ; but
beyond what may be necessary for these objects there will be no invasion, no
540 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
using of force against or among the people anywhere. In your hands, my dis-
satisfied fellow countrymen, is the momentous issue of civil war. The govern-
ment will not assail you. You can have no conflict without being yourselves
the aggressors. You have no oath registered in heaven to destroy the govern-
ment, while I shall have the most solemn one to preserve, protect and de-
fend it."
He called to his cabinet his principal rivals for the presidential nomination—
Seward, Chase, Cameron and liates; secured the co-operation of the Union
Democrats, headed by Douglas; called out seventy-five thousand militia from
the several states upon the first tidings of the bombardment of Fort Sumter,
April 15th; proclaimed a blockade of the southern ports, April 19; called an
extra session of congress for July 4th, from which he asked and obtained four
hundred thousand men and four hundred million dollars for the war; placed
McClellan at the head of the federal army on General Scott's resignation, Octo-
ber 31; appointed Edwin M. Stanton secretary of war, January 14, 1862, and
September 22, 1862, issued a proclamation declaring the freedom of all slaves
in the states and parts of states then in rebellion from and after January 1, 1S63.
This was the crowning act of Lincoln's career — the act by w^hich he will be
chiefly known through all future time — and it decided the war.
On the 1 6th of October, 1863, President Lincoln called for three hundred
thousand volunteers to replace those whose term of enlistment had expired;
made a celebrated and touching, though brief, address at the dedication of the
Gettysburg military cemetery, November 19, 1863; commissioned Ulysses S.
Grant lieutenant general and commander in chief of the armies of the United
States, March 9, 1864; was re-elected president in November of the same year,
by a large majority, over General McClellan, with Andrew Johnson, of Tennes-
see, as vice-president; delivered a very remarkable address at his second inaugu-
ration, March 4, 1865; visited the army before Richmond the same month;
entered the capital of the Confederacy the day after its fall, and, upon the sur-
render of General Robert E. Lee's army, April 9th, was actively engaged in devis-
ing generous plans for the reconstruction of the Union, when, on the evening
of Good Friday, April 14, he w^as shot in his box at Ford's theater, Washington,
by John Wilkes Booth, a fanatical actor, and expired early on the following
morning, April 15th. Almost simultaneously a murderous attack was made
upon William H. Seward, secretary of state. At noon on the isth of April An-
drew Johnson assumed the presidency, and active measures were taken which
resulted in the death of Booth and the execution of his principal accomplices.
The funeral of President Lincoln was conducted with unexampled solemnity
and magnificence. Impressive services were held in Washington, after which
the sad procession proceeded over tlie same route he had traveled four years
before from Springfield to Washington. In Philadelphia his body lay in state
in Independence PJall, in which lie had declared before his first inauguration
that "1 would sooner be assassinated than to give up the principles of the
Declaration of Independence." On the 4th of May he was buried at Oak Ridg^
cemetery, near Springfield, Illinois, where a monument emblematic of the enian-
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS. 541
cipation of the slaves and the restoration of the Union marks his resting place.
The leaders and citizens of the expiring Confederacy expressed genuine indigna-
tion at the murder of a generous political adversary-. Foreign nations took part
in mourning the death of a statesman who had proved himself a true representa-
tive of American nationality. The freedmen of the south almost worshiped the
memory of their deliverer, and the general sentiment of the great nation he had
saved awarded him a place in its aflFections second only to that held by Wash-
ington.
The characteristics of Abraham Lincoln have been familiarly knOAvn
throughout the civilized world. His tall, gaunt, though not ungainly figure,
homely countenance and his shrewd mother wit, shown in his celebrated con-
versations overflowing in humorous and pointed anecdote, combined with an
accurate, intuitive appreciation of the questions of the time, are recognized as
forming the best type of a period of American history in which the strength of
the Union was tested and the ability of the people to maintain a free government
in this country was fully established. As the years roll by from that stormy
period of doubt and battle, the name of Lincoln looms up with increasing luster.
His was the brain that shaped the policy of congress and cabinet, his the uncon-
cjuerable spirit which fed the flames of patriotism and kept them in a continuous
glow of fervent heat. With unbending will and a prescience which could pierce
the future, the path of war was made the way to victory — the union restored,
a nation saved. His heart was as warm as his hand was strong, and when the
great triumph came his was the voice first to proclaim amnesty and peace.
Judge David Davis, one of the most eminent jurists and statesmen of Illi-
nois, was born on the 9th day of March, 181 5, in Cecil county, Maryland. His
family was of Welsh origin, but had been settled in that county for more than
a century, and had acquired in every particular the distinctive features of Amer-
ican nationality. He was unfortunate in the loss of his father at an early age;
but the kindness of an uncle in many ways atoned in some measure for his early
privation. His father left sufficient estate not only to educate him in classical
acquirements but also enough to enable him to live beyond the apprehension of
want during the years of unproductive life in the early career of manhood. This
patrimony was, through the dishonesty and negligence of his guardian, lost
to him.
Having attended the local schools of Maryland, at the age of thirteen he
was entered a student at Kenyon College, Ohio, at which he graduated at the age
of seventeen. Although he had no special talent for public speaking, his taste
and inclination directed his attention to the bar as the business of life. As has
been said, he had sufficient means to enable him to acquire an education and
profession. He was not borne down by the privations of poverty, nor was he
enervated by the expectation of hereditary riches. The lines had fallen to him in
the golden mean between want and wealth. After leaving college he went to
Lenox, Massachusetts, and read law in the office of Judge Henr>' W. Bishop,
then ane of the leading lawyers of the Bay state. After remaining there about
two years he attended the New Haven Law School for one year. With a good
542 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
classical education, a course of reading in the office of Judge Bishop, and a term
at New Haven, he was fully prepared to enter upon the responsible and arduous
duties of a practicing lawyer.
His residence in Ohio, and other information, impressed on his mind the
magnitude of the resources of the Mississippi valley, especially the northwest;
and, on being admitted to the bar, he emigrated, in the year 1835, to Illinois.
It has been said: **At the time he sought his home in the west, as a very young
man, he traversed the breadth of nearly five states, then in comparative infancy,
that he might grow with the growth and strengthen with the strength of that
commonwealth which has so honored him by its confidence, and whose history
his name has enriched in the example of a great character." He first located
at Pekin, but after a short time, in 1836, he removed to Bloomington, w'hich for
a period of fifty years was his home.
In 1838 he was married to Miss Sarah W. Walker, daughter of Judge Wil-
liam P. Walker, of Lenox, Massachusetts. She w-as well w-orthy to be the wife
of Judge Davis, and shared with him the privations of his early struggles and
the prosperity of his later triumphs with all the grace and dignity that is born
of the beauty of goodness. The Judge, on coming to the years of responsible
life, followed the hereditary tendency of his family in politics and became an
ardent Whig. He had a great admiration for Mr. Clay, which amounted to an
enthusiasm. In 1840 he was the Whig candidate in the Bloomington district for
state senator; but, the majority being largely against his party, he w^as defeated
by Governor John Moore, then and for many years afterward one of the most
popular Democrats of the state. W^hile the Judge was active in politics, he did
not permit his party to interfere with his practice. He was most diligent in. and
devoted to, his profession. Shortly after his coming to the bar he was offered
the position of clerk of the court, in which oflfice he could make four times his
income from his practice; but he declined, having no doubt the inspiration of
that hope which, in the end of his career, placed him among the most distin-
guished jurists of the United States. Daniel Webster had the same experience
with a clerkship in the commencement of his career as a lawyer, and disposed of
it in the same way, much to the disgust and disappointment of his father.
In 1844 Judge Davis was elected to the lower house of the Illinois legisla-
ture, and distinguished himself by the clearness and accuracy of his views of the
law^ and his great capacity of labor in the committee room. He declined a re-
nomination. Although pronounced in his political opinions, he w^as not a poli-
tician, lie delighted in the practice of the law and the acquirement of that infor-
mation which would enable him to discharge the higher functions of judge.
During the time of his practice the bar of central Illinois was very able, and
afterward became most distinguished. Among the prominent lawyers were Mr,
Lincoln, Judge Logan, Judge Douglas, Colonel Baker — one of the most brilliant
orators of his day — Judge Trumbull, Major Stuart, Mr. Browning and Colonel
Hardin. It would be untrue, and therefore unjust to the memory of Judge
Diivis to rank him with some of those men as a practicing lawyer. He always
disclaimed the comparison, and an honest chronicler should disclaim it for him.
///. fJ.XCll JXD I^.IR Of ILLIXOIS.
I * <
1. n o<'iir-4* nf r<..':''.:iii^, in ilie oliice of Jui'.^c r»ishop. aiui a it
» t v».i- :"!i\ j>rrprirc(l In (Mitor \:\M)n the rL>}M»nsil)k* an<I ar^^u---
^^ i i\\ \ vv
'-•<.«• in ( )!iio. aii'l oiIut inforn.atinn. iinpros-cd on his min^i ^•'
• • ' j«'-«>'.mc\s Ml" \hr MiN>i.ssipi)i valley, especially the northwr--
• • .. '. 'ii<tl to il.c Imi*. he emigrated, in the >ear 1835. to lllin< .
".\t the lime he s<.nj;lu his hDiin- in llie west, as a very yoii:.^
• .'■••! 'hr ]»iea«ilh of nearly five states, lh«*n in comparative mfanr.
. ;• '• r.x^ \. ith the i^rwwih and streni^tiien with the strenj^th of th.i
■■ , ..:. ■•'.:. I. li ha> su honor* «] him b\ it> confidence, and whose Iiisto:
' .' . . * - VI '«' I ••! in llu" fX'inipU* of a ^reat cliaracter." He first locatf
. 1 1 '• f .1 •• I .1 ^^»oii time, in 1S3O. he reniovt-d t > rdoominj^ton, which fo-
' ; ' ' ' 'i" \ i-a: ^ was hi> lionie.
■': .^'.S .< w:.- irarrii d to Mi^s Sarah \\*. WalLer. dan^liter of Jiwiije Wil-
li.-" r \'^ .i' t:. of l.m'x. M.i^^aihn-rttv. Slie was weM W'-rthy to he tlie wife
' • - l-.i\!s, anc! ^har(.d wnh Inm ;he privaiitms <m' h:^ earl\ strui::j2cle> an<!
; ■ -:'*y .>f Irs lat<M trirni] lis \\ !lh :u\ tht- tir.icc ard rjij^^nit) that is horn
. ■ ' r'v . » ;,'.(K'ni». The Ji'''^«*. • "1 t'-mini:^ ^' the \ears of re"^pon-;ih't
» . .' t l.«;re»li:ary teT^drn-x of liis fanuly in ])oiitics and hecanit an
' > it. I'. id a creat adi^iiiation for Mr. C'lav, which amoiinttd tt» an
• ,.-•. *-■ > ,0 he was the W lij-V cand'Mate in tlie r»loomin^t<.m district fv»r
• '• •'•:. die niaj'»rily hi-mi; Iar;^cl\ ai;ainst hi- parts, he was defeated
' ' • 11 .Monre. tlien ar.d for n any w-ars afterward one cjf the most
. ..I i '. '. . .r.'.t- ( i the stati' \\ lide I'^e Ind^e wa^ actiw in politics, he did
n-'i ]••.'■!;. it I/^ ]}A*:\ !v> iniv-rfeTX' with his pi;Kii'*e. IK was most (hhg"cnt in. and
ti<\"iid lo, Iii> jirofc-.>ion. Shortlx :J\vr his ion in^ to the har he was offered
the ]M)sition of clerk (^f the c«'rrt, in wliich oftuc he c«nild make fonr times his
inconu- fit.m his practice: hm he di-clinctl. haviiii; no d.onht the inspiration of
that hope which, in the end of hi> career, placiMl liim among the most distin-
LMr.d''d MM-i-ts of the I'nitt'd Stales. 1 )anie] W'vhvtrr liad the same experience
■^ in in the coimnuu mient of his career as a lawyer, and disposed of
V. .\. mucli to the disi;nst and disappointment of his father.
1 -axis wa-- t'lUcd to the lower hi nse of the Illinois legislft*
' I'd hinv* !l ^» \\\i' clearness an<l accnracv of his views of the
I ;
I '
!'•
U '<
c'
i .1 ^:-. j-.icii\ u?
r in the committee room. He dech'ncd a
lit '
licMi
ni.i! '
1 ^' 1 1 • I ' \
• ' • .\'M:< nL:h ]>!• ii-.imv'(d in his pt^litical r.]Mni(ais, he was iiot a poti**
; 'i <'t 'iL'htrd in tin- pj.'u'tuH <>' ilir law and the accpiirement of that infelT-
• V hi< ]} woiiM I nahle him to 'lischari^e the hij^her functions of judgt.
ti r tine o! ],!> practice the har of central Illinois was very able, Slid
aft T^a'.i hecame :>''.^t •listin^iiislied,. Among the ])rominent lawyers were Mr.
Lincoln, liid^c Lo.. u-, Jtidi^o PouLdas. COlonel Iiaker — one of the most brHfiiaBt
orators of his d;'\ jud^e Tnunhuil, Major Stuart, Mr. Browning and CcdOMl
Llardin. I: womd he unf-iie. and therefore unjust to the memory of JVtiSgt
Davis to laitlv Imn with some of those men as a practicing lawyer. He alwsv»
disclaiiiH <! thf com]viris<jn, and an honest chronicler shouhl disclaim ^t for hbll.
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINO
The profession of the law had to him a wider range than t
barrister. Nature had made him a judge by the same myste
it had made others advocates ; and while he was not to wear thi
he was to be graced by the beauty of the ermine. While a
judicial cast of mind, and his career as a lawyer marks the
duty of the truly professional in the economy of society.
In 1847 he was elected to the constitutional convention
constitution of 1848, and he bore a very important part, espe
viding for, and establishing, the judicial department. During
legislator he was conspicuous in his efforts to remodel and it
machinery of both the state and national governments. The
federal appellate jurisdiction is modeled on the plan propos(
member of the senate of the United States, and which pass
marked unanimity. At the time of the adoption of the cons
had been at the bar about twelve years, and during that time 1
given his attention to the practice, and had impressed upon tl
and the people of central Illinois the fact that he was most i
for the bench. At the first election of judges, without oppositi
in a circuit composed of fourteen counties, embracing McLcc
At the time he became identified with the bar of Illinois, in
was struggling in the commencement of that career which n
conspicuous in the ranks of the profession but marked him as <
men of history. Between him and Judge Davis, from their fir
the close of Mr. Lincoln's life, a most cordial intimacy existcc
of that unerring judgment which enabled the judge to pass 1 |
of men, he discerned in Mr. Lincoln intellectual and moral attr :
est order.
After he became judge Mr. Lincoln continued to travel th(
court in all the counties of the circuit, and contributing by
ability to the administration of justice, and to the social enjo} i
humor unsurpassed in the richness of its merriment. In 18. \
circuit had not been broken by the survey of a railroad, and h
Judge Davis to hold two sessions of the court in each year i
largest counties of the state. The clearness and quickness o:
preparatory education, both literary and professional, and his 1
capacitated him to discharge with promptness the various anc
of his position. In some of the qualities of a judge he had :
in the long line of judicial ability with which our history as ?
graced. The important duty of a judge is not all performed
and application of the just principles of the law: these can 1;
majority of cases, from vast storehouses of jurisprudence, to \>
and America, the eminent judges and lawyers have contributed
the truth, to eliminate error and to adjust the rights of partic
they really exist, is the exercise of a faculty that cannot be direi
cases. The preservation of estates and the protection of inf;
544 V HE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
incompetency or disiioncsly of jj^iiarciians, and tlie rapacity of unscrupulous spec-
ulators, marked one of liis peculiar traits as a circuit judge. His faithfulness in
behalf of tlie trust estate ut wards may have been strengthened by his own expe-
rience, the estate inherited from his father having been squandered by an unscru-
pulous and irresponsible guardian. He had great faith in the uhiniate value of
Illinois land, and it re<|uired a very urgent necessity to justify the sale of an
infant's real estate. His administration of the law in the circuit court was most
eminently satisfactory to ilie people and the bar. But few appeals were taken
from his decisions, and his disjiatch of the public business was a marvel of effi-
ciency and industry. He was a natural-born judge, and while he was not tyran-
nical he forcibly exercised power to accomplish the ends of justice.
After his election as judge in 1848 he ceased any active agency in politics,
bilt continued his adhesion to the Whig party until its disruption after the disas-
trous campaign of 1S52. Although anti-slavery in his thought and feeling, he
disliked the radical tendency of the Abolitionists. In the campaign of 1858 he
took a great interest, being opposed to the repeal of the Missouri Compromise
and a devoted friend of Mr. Lincoln. Mr. Lincoln and Judge Douglas had been
the great champions of the- Whig and Democratic parties; and, aside from Judge
Davis' personal attachment to Mr. Lincoln, he was interested in him as the great
leader of the opposition to the Democratic party. Mr. Lincoln, though defeated
for United States senator, laid the foundation in 1858 for his election to the
presidency. Upon his great success in the joint debates of that year Judge
Davis, in common with the rest of Mr. Lincoln's personal friends in Illinois,
enlarged the boundaries of his ambition, and from that time he was an avowed
candidate for the presidency. In that candidacy Judge Davis took a lively
interest and bore a most distinguished part. He thought that the aspirations
of his most intimate friend for the higliest office in the land justified his partici-
pation in politics. The national convention of the Republicans met in Chicago
on the i6th day of May, i86o, and to that convention he was one of the delegates
at large. He was so much devoted to the interest of Mr, Lincoln that he could
not absent himself from the convention, and besides it was Mr. Lincoln's per-
sonal desire that he should attend. This was the first great convention held bv
the Republican party, and had before it as candidates the most distinguished
statesmen of that party, and of its delegates the ablest members and the most
accomplished politicians. Judge Davis, from the commencement to the close,
was recognized as the le.ider of Mr. Lincoln's forces; and without his agency in
that convention it may be doubted whether Mr. Lincoln would have received
the nomination. In his adhesion to that great man he was not actuated by his
personal friendship, but by an abiding faith in the ability and integrity of the
man. While ne had no apprehension that the election of a Republican as presi-
dent would involve the country in a war, he thought that the grave responsibility
that would fall upon the choice of that party would require ability of the highest
order and patriotism of the most heroic mold. He took a great interest in the
campaign which followed the nomination, but did not participate in it as an
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS. 545
active politician. He continued to hold the circuit court uninterruptedly until
the autumn of 1862.
During the first year of the war the Department of the Missouri, through
the inefficient administration of the quartermaster, became a chaos of confusion,
with millions of money contracted and claimed, with honest demands delayed
and dishonest claims pressed for payment. The president, in order to relieve the
embarrassment of the situation, appointed a commission, consisting of Judge
Davis, General Holt and Mr. Campbell, of St. Louis, to investigate and pass
judgment upon the rights of the parties. It was an immense work of investiga-
tion and required the highest grade of talent to bring order and justice out of
the confusion. The three men as a combination had the best quality of ability
for the task. Judge Davis and General Holt being eminent lawyers, and Mr.
Campbell being one of the most experienced merchants of St. Louis. The find-
ings and reports of that commission have been quoted by the highest courts of
the land, and the result accomplished by it is an enduring compliment to the
integrity and capacity of the men who composed it.
During the fourteen years in which Judge Davis presided in the circuit of
Illinois the popular estimate which the bar and the people had made of his ability
to perform the duties was justified beyond the most sanguine expectations of his
friends, so that when a vacancy occurred in the supreme court of the United
States in the circuit including the state of Illinois, he was recognized by the bar
as the person to be appointed to that responsible position. The president had
an acquaintance with all the prominent lawyers of the circuit, and had the most
intimate knowledge of the ability of Judge Davis; and into his hands, by the
constitution, was committed the power and duty of selecting from those lawyers
a fit justice for the most important court ever instituted by man. In the quality
of Washington, which in the selection of a public officer arose superior to the
obligation of personal friendship. President Lincoln, as shown by his adminis-
tration, was not deficient i and it must be presumed that in the selection of Judge
Davis, as one of the justices of the .United States supreme court, the public good
and a just regard for the exigencies of the condition of the country prompted
him. After a service of fourteen years on the circuit bench of Illinois, he was,
in November, 1862, transferred to the higher jurisdiction of the national judi-
ciary. He had not been accustomed to the accuracy of judicial thought required
in the preparation of written opinions, but had most thoroughly investigated and
studied the law in all the leading features of its administration. At the time he
became a member of the supreme court it was composed of some of the ablest
judges of its entire history. The promotion was well calculated to embarrass
him with grave apprehensions of his success; for while he was a brave and fear-
less man when boldness was a virtue he had a modest appreciation of his own
ability. His opinions when deliberately formed, though firm, while in the
process of development were susceptible to every legitimate and logical influ-
ence. At the time he became a member of the supreme court many questions of
importance were pending — questions not of property, not of individual reputa-
tion— ^but great questions of international and public law, questions of civil lib-
36
546 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS,
erty — not in the interpretation of statutes but in the construction of the constitu-
tion of the United States.
He was eminently conservative in the tendency of his mind and judgment;
and while he did not coincide with many of the theories of constitutional con-
struction in favor of a strong government, he believed in the sovereignty of the
federal power in the passage and execution of such laws as it might determine
were within the purview of the constitution. He believed in that theory of the
constitution which recognized the union not as a mere compact between the
states, but as a government formed upon the adoption of the people and creating
direct relations between itself and the citizens. In the discharge of his new-
duty as a justice of the supreme court he soon impressed his brethren of the
bench with his superior judicial qualification: and he wrote but few opinions
until the American bar was satisfied that the president had made no mistake in
his selection of a judge.
The period of the war was prolific in forcing upon the consideration of all
departments of the government new issues of legal inquiry. The financial policy
of the government, the belligerent rights of enemies, questions of personal lib-
erty, military commissions, questions of prize — in fact, all the interests of fifty
millions of people, both of peace and war, were the subject matter of jurisdiction
from 1862 to 1877. ^^^^ of the most important cases of the period was assigned
to him — ^a case which excited great public interest and provoked much popular
discussion. The matter at issue being a question of individual liberty, and the
power of the government in time of war, made it one of the great historical cases,
ranking in importance with Marbury versus Madison, and the Dartmouth Col-
lege case. It was the case of ex parte Milligan; and an examination of it will
justify the resolution of the McLean county bar, "That we do most especially
appreciate, as fine specimens of judicial statement, his opinions, which embrace
•
a discussion of the genius and mold of the American government, and recognize
those opinions as worthy of a place among the great judicial interpretations of
the American constitution." The leading thoughts of the decision are: "The
constitution of the United States is a law for rulers and people in war and in
peace, and covers with the shield of its protection all classes of men, and at all
times and under all circumstances. The government within the constitution
has all the powers granted to it which are necessary to preserve its existence,
as has been happily proved by the result of the great effort to overthrow it
It will be seen by an examination of the reports containing his opinions that he
fearlessly followed the dictates of an honest judgment, regardless of what might
be the prejudice or passion of the hour; and, whether his reason was on one
side or the other of the line of popular clamor, he followed the logic of his con-
victions."
After the close of the war many cases came before the supreme court in-
volving the constitutionality of the legal-tender acts of congress. In the case
of Hepburn versus Griswold a majority of the court held that **there is in the
constitution no express grant of legislative power to make any description of
credit currency a legal tender in payment of debt." The effect of this decision
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS. 547
was to invalidate by judicial decision one of the most important acts of the
government in the prosecution of the war, and to disturb the business of the
country, by making nothing but coin applicable to the payment of debts con-
tracted before the passage of the acts of congress providing for the issue of
treasury notes. From that decision Judge Davis, with Judges Swayne and Miller,
dissented. In a short time after the promulgation of this decision other cases
reached the supreme court involving the same question; and in what is known
as the *'legal-tender cases" the court reversed the decision of Hepburn versus
Griswold by holding that "the acts of congress known as the legal-tender acts
are constitutional when applied to contracts made before their passage, and
are also applicable to contracts made since." The last decision was made by
a divided court, Judge Davis holding with the majority that congress had the
power to pass the legal-tender acts of 1862 and 1863. Mr. Choate, with the
wand of his genius, has marked with beautiful accuracy the perfect judge: "He
shall know nothing about the parties; everything about the case. He shall
do everything for justice, nothing for himself, nothing for his patrons, nothing
for his sovereign. If on one side are the executive power and the legislature
and the people — the source of his honors, the givers of his daily bread — and
on the other side an individual, nameless and odious, his eye is to see neither
great nor small, attending only to the trepidations of the balance. Give to the
community such a judge and I care little who makes the rest of the constitution
or what party administers it; it will be a free government." To this high ideal
Judge Davis attained.
Although he had not participated in politics since the convention of i860,
in January, 1872, the Labor Reform party nominated him for the presidency.
Owing to the dissatisfaction in the Republican party the liberal movement was
inaugurated in the early part of 1872, which culminated in a convention in May;
and to that convention his name was submitted as a candidate. Illinois was di-
vided between Judge Davis and Senator Trumbull, which destroyed the chances
of both. The friends of Judge Davis were largely in the majority, but there
being no state convention held in Illinois the question had to be settled by an
equal division of the delegation. The result of the convention was the nomina-
tion of Mr. Greeley and the memorable campaign of 1872. In the election of
1876, in Illinois neither of the great parties secured a majority of the legislature,
and the balance of power was held by the independent party which nominated
Judge Davis as its candidate for the United States senate. General Logan was
the nominee for the Republican party, and various persons were supported by
the Democracy. After a contest lasting from the first of January until the first
of March, the Democracy united with the Independents and elected the Judge
a senator from the 4th of March, 1877. The honor was unsolicited on his part,
and no effort was made by him to influence the choice of the legislature. He
did not exchange the court for the senate because he preferred the dignity and
duty of the latter, but because the legislature tendered him the place, and under
all the circumstances he did not feel at liberty to decline.
His career as judge commenced in 1848 and ended in 1877, making a con-
548 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
tiniioiis service of twenty-nine years of judicial labor. Upon his retirement his
brethren of the bench left upon the records of the court an enduring memorial
of his many virtues, as shown by correspondence. On the 5th of March, 1877,
he addressed his brethren of the court as follows:
**My official connection with the supreme court of the United States closes
to-day. Having passed all the years of my active life at the bar or on the
bench, it is not without serious misgivings that I enter upon a new sphere of
public service ; but I have not felt at liberty to decline a seat in the senate, with
which 1 have been honored by the general assembly of the state of Illinois.
Having severed the relations which have existed between us for so many years,
I beg leave to bear my testimony to the eminent learning, ability and integrity
which have characterized your judicial labors. From the organization of the
government the supreme court has been composed of able and upright judges.
In my judgment, it is now as worthy of the confidence of the American people
as it ever has been at any period of its history. Since I was invited to its coun-
cils by President Lincoln six of its members have been numbered wdth the dead.
I take great satisfaction in the reflection that my relations wath them and all
my associates have been uniformly kind and cordial. In offering you my part-
ing salutations, I beg you to be assured of the respect and sincere good wishes
with which I remain your friend and servant."
To the above the court, by letter, replied:
*'We have received with sincere regret your letter announcing that your
official connection with us is closed. During the fifteen years in which you have
been a member of this court questions of the gravest character have come before
it for adjudication, and you have borne your full share of the labor and respon-
sibility which their decision involved. We shall miss you in the conference room,
your wise judgment and your just appreciation of facts; in the reception room,
your kind and courteous greetings. With the hope that your life in the future
may be as useful as it has been in the past, and that the ties of personal friend-
ship which now bind us so closely to you may never be broken, we subscribe
ourselves very sincerely your friends."
While he had but little legislative experience when he became a member
of the senate, he at once took a position among the leaders of that distinguished
body, serving on the judiciary committee with Edmunds, Conkling, Thurman,
Garland, Carpenter and other great lawyers of the American senate. He served
as acting vice-president for nearly two years, and with but little experience in
the technical knowledge of parliamentary law he decided every question that
came before the senate without submission, and never was reversed by the action
of the senate. In the sennte, as in every other situation, he commanded the
respect and confidence of his associates, and retired from that body at the end of
his term to enjoy the ease and comfort of private life. As a member of the judi-
ciary committee he performed faithful service in shaping the legislation of con-
gress during the entire term of his office.
In November, 1879, ^^ss than two years after his election. Mrs. Davis, who
had been in delicate health for some time, died at her old home in Massachusetts,
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS. , 549
leaving after her the memory of many acts of kindness in alleviating the wants
of the poor, both in Washington and the city in which she lived for nearly half a
century. In March, 1883, upon the expiration of his term as senator, he was
married to Miss Adeline Burr, of Fayetteville, North Carolina, a lady of many
accomplishments, and fitted in every respect for the high social position which
she occupied as the wife of Judge Davis.
After his retirement from the senate he devoted his attention to private
business, which, on account of his extensive property, was large and exacting.
As he approached the age of seventy the vigor of his constitution and the
vivacity of his spirits became much impaired by the encroachments of disease;
on the 26th of June, 1886, after an illness of several months, he passed the mys-
terious change of death. At the time of his illness, though retired from public
life, men of all creeds and of all parties anxiously hoped for his restoration to
health and vigor. As a public man he had filled no ordinary space in the affec-
tions of the people, and in the appreciation of personal friendship throughout
the length and breadth of a land made better and happier by the goodness and
greatness of hi^ character. He left surviving as children Mr. George Perrin
Davis and Mrs. Sarah D. Swayne to perpetuate the worth of a life rich in the
goodness of duty performed. Nature and education had stamped upon him
every lineament of gentility. Though he was wealthy, fortune-making was not
a passion of his life. He loved thrift, independence and possessibn, but mere
wealth had no allurements for him. He served the state as a judge at a nominal
salary, to the great sacrifice of his pecuniary interests, and his whole life was
devoted to the public service to the detriment of his private fortune. His life
was a success, not accidental but deserved. He approached the ladder of fortune
and fame, and placed his feet on every round on which he stood as the result
of his own labor and merit. If he had opportunity, he created it; if he had
success, he achieved it; if he had victory, he won it. He produced the condi-
tions of his own advancement. He filled three-score and ten years with good-
ness and crowned them with greatness. He commanded the respect of his
fellow-citizens of all sections and of all parties, and, in the language of Judge
Kelley, "he is well known to the country by his career as an independent
senator and a learned and conscientious justice of the supreme court of the
United States."
Shelby M. Cullom was born in Wayne county, Kentucky, November 22,
1829, 2ind within the following year his parents removed to Illinois, settling in
Tazewell county, where they passed the residue of their days and where they
now sleep the skep of the just. The father, Richard Northcraft Cullom, was
for many years a leading citizen of Illinois and was well known by all the prom-
inent men of his time throughout the state. He was a member of the state legis-
lature several times and was a close friend of Abraham Lincoln, vStephen T.
Logan, John T. Stuart, Benjamin S. Edwards and other representative Whig
politicians and lawyers, his identification with the old Whig party being a very
active and intimate one from the time of its inception.
The son of a farmer, our subject became early accustomed to the hardy but
550 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
plain fare and the laborious duties attaching to farm life, the discipline being
a valuable one during the formative period of his life. In those days educational
facilities in the newer western states were very limited in scope. Young Cullom
had early in life decided to adopt the law as his chosen profession, and so realized
the necessitv of a broader and more liberal education than the country schools
afforded. His ambition and determination soon led him to the practical consul-
tation of ways and means; he prevailed upon his father to lencj him a team of
oxen and a plow, and with this primitive equipment he began the battle oi Uie
on his own responsibility, engaging for several months in breaking prairie at
two dollars per acre. He then taught a country school for six months, and the
money thus earned enabled him to attend school at Rock River Seminary, Illi-
nois, for two years. He was an assiduous student, and the magnificent physical
strength which he had attained by following the plow and swinging the ax came
into great use as the mental portion of his system was called upon for its most
vigorous work. After returning from school he went to Springfield, Illinois,
and there began the study of law, entering the office of Messrs. Stuart & Ed-
wards, who constituted one of the strongest and best known law* firms of that
place and period.
In 1855, two years after he began his legal studies, Mr. Cullom was admitted
to the bar and immediately thereafter came to him his first official preferment,
that of city attorney of Springfield. It was a year of excitement on the tem-
perance question; the city had passed ordinances prohibiting the sale of liquor,
and young Cullom did all in his power to enforce the laws, proving quite suc-
cessful in his prosecutions. He soon, however, entered upon a broader field
of practice, finding in the circuit court a higher plane for the exercise of his
talents, and meeting here, as antagonists, some of the foremost practitioners
of the day. As a lawyer his presentation of a case was always logical and con-
cise. In judgment he showed himself to be keen and accurate, with that judicial
ability which implied intuitive wisdom. He soon gained a lucrative practice, and
had he seen fit to remain in private life he might to-day have been counted
among the men of wealth, instead of one w^ho has in a measure sacrificed personal
ambition for the purpose of rendering service to the public.
In 1856 he was nominated and elected a member of the house of represen-
tatives in the state legislature, was re-elected in i860 and was chosen speaker.
Cullom had always been strongly arrayed in the support of the Republican party,
but his second election came, notw'ithstanding the differences in political creed be-
tween himself and a majority of his constituents in Sangamon county, thus show-
ing that his services as a legislator had been appreciated and that as a man he
was held in highest estimation. At the election in i860 the county gave the
Douglas electors a small majority, but such was Cullom's personal popularity that
he was elected to the house by a majority of sixty-two votes. The Republicans
being now, for the first time, in the majority in the legislature, he was chosen
speaker and upon him fell the honor of being the youngest man upon whom this
responsible position has been conferred in the state. In 1862 President Lin-
coln, who was a warm personal friend of our subject, appointed him a commis-
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLIl
sioner to pass upon the accounts of quartermasters and *
a trust of more importance than is indicated by a super
which demanded the exercise of discriminating care and s
able report which was in due time presented shows the
which the incidental duties were performed. In the same
came a candidate for the state senate, but the feeling in his
at this crucial period and so opposed to the war that natura
tive of a party pledged to its prosecution, he was defeal
elected by the Republicans of the old eighth district for
popular branch of congress, his opponent being one of h
Hon. John T. Stuart. Two years later he was re-elected t(
again in 1868, on which occasion he foimd as his antagon:
Edwards, his other preceptor, who likewise met defeat at th
protege. Mr. Cullom entered into the national congress di
period of reconstruction when the best thoughts of the ables
were brought into constant requisition in the effort to eff
many perplexing questions that presented themselves. The
the fact that he was an active and aggressive member, cv
share in the debates, the while maintaining a conservative a
opinions adequately fortified. Within his last term in the
chairman of the committee on territories, and prepared a bil
of polygamy in Utah territory, which passed the house but
This bill became the practical basis of subsequent legislati
of which has destroyed the jjistitution of polygamy.
After returning from congress Mr. Cullom was urged tc
to enter the state legislature and thus to aid in insuring whai
imperative measure, the revision of the laws of the state, j
effective co-operation in retaining the capital at Springfiel(
for its removal having been in progress for several years. ]
come a candidate and was again elected to the lower houj
once more chosen speaker by his party colleagues, who w
Nothing further was heard of the project for the removal of
legislature undertook and completed the most effective revis
has perhaps ever been made in the state. In 1874 our subjec
time elected representative of his county in the assembly anc
of his party for speaker, but was defeated, owing to a sue
between the Democratic and independent members of the ho
became notorious as the *'Haines legislature," which has pa
the worst the state ever had.
It was at this juncture that the friends of Mr. Cullom b<
his name in connection with the candidacy for governor of tl
for which he was admirably fitted, by reason of his distinctive
experience in public affairs. In 1876, accordingly, he recei
at the Republican state convention and was elected as gove
bined forces of the Democrats and independents, the same coa
552 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
year before defeated him for the speakership. His administration as governor
of Illinois was highly satisfactory to the people of the state, whose affairs were
never in better condition than when he retired from office. At the end of his
term not a word could be urged against his executive policy, even by his political
adversaries, and he was elected to serve a second consecutive term, — the first in-
stance of the sort in the history of the state. Within the period of his adminis-
tration the last of the state debt was paid, as an example of the economic and
judicious policies which the executive had insisted upon.
In March, 1883, by the expiration of the term of United States Senator
David Davis, there came up the matter of electing his successor, and though
Governor Cullom was at this time but half way through his second term the
Republican caucus of the thirty-third general assembly nominated him to repre-
sent the state in the national senate and he was duly elected. Mr. Cullom re-
signed his office as governor in February, 1883, and his career as senator began
March 4th of the same year. At the expiration of his first term, in 1889, he was
re-elected, and in January, 1895, he was again elected, for a third term, which
expires March 4, 1901.
As senator it is said that, before he took his seat, he determined to do all
in his power to accomplish three things: first, to prevail on the government to
construct the waterway known as the Hennepin canal, connecting the upper
Mississippi river with the great lakes at Chicago; second, to bend every effort
to carry forward to successful issue that endeavor which had enlisted his atten-
tion while a member of the lower house, — the abolition of polygamy in Utah:
and third, to vitalize the commercial clause of the ^institution by an act of con-
gress, *Vegulating commerce among the several states," etc., etc. What better
criticism of his efforts can be offered than this: polygamy has been obliterated
and Utah has been admitted into the Union as a state; the Hennepin canal is
being constructed; and an act of congress was passed in 1887 known as the
Cullom act, "regulating commerce among the several states." It is in connec-
tion with the last and most important measure of this notable list that Senator
Cullom has become most distinguished as a legislator. He was at the head of a
committee which made an exhaustive investigation of the condition of inter-
state commerce as conducted by the common carriers of the country and which
finally brought about the passage of the act already mentioned. This, the Cul-
lom act, which was approved in 1887, is regarded by very many of the ablest men
of the country as the most important measure which has been enacted since the
close of the war.
Xo man has ever represented Illinois, either as a member of the state legisla-
ture, as a representative in the lower house of congress, as governor of the state,
or as a United States senator, who has been more faithful to the trust reposed in
him by the people. His mental characteristics are of the solid and practical
rather than of the ostentatious and brilliant order. He is essentially strong in
intellect and capable of reaching safe, reasonable and prudent conclusions.
In December, 1855, at Springfield, lUinois, was consummated the marriage
of Senator Cullom to Miss Hanna ]M. Fisher, who died in 1861, leaving two
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS. 553
little daughters, Ella and Catherine. Ella became the wife of William Barrett
Ridgely, of Springfield. Catherine married Robert Gordon Hardie, an artist of
distinction in New York. Her untimely demise occurred May 17, 1894. Some
years after the death of his first wife Mr. Cullom married her younger sister,
Miss Julia Fisher. Two children were born of this union, but both died in in-
fancy.
George Manierre, statesman, journalist^ lawyer, and jurist, came to Chicago
at the age of eighteen and died at forty-six, but in the intervening period made
his impress on the destiny of the city, state and nation; led in the work of the
emancipation of slaves, determined and established great principles of law, aided
public education, and in a thousand w^ays benefited humanity. He was born in
New London, Connecticut, in 1817, of Norman-French descent. The father
died in 1831, and his widow^ with her children, removed to New York. It was
necessary for the boys to work, and George found a place in a banker's office,
which he soon gave up. He became a student of law under the direction of Judge
John Brinckerhoff, in New York city, and in 1835 he came to Chicago. He
found a place in the law office of Grant & Peyton, with whom he continued his
studies until the firm dissolved, when he was fortunate enough to secure the
friendship and mentorship of Jonathan Young Scammon. In 1839 he was ad-
mitted to the bar. Upon the resignation of Mr. Scammon he was installed as
deputy clerk of the circuit court, and later was appointed master in chancery.
In 1840 he formed a law partnership with George Meeker and took up the
regular practice of the profession. In 1841 he entered upon his historic service
as city attorney, during which he prepared a digest of Chicago's original charter
and the municipal ordinances which was the standard of authority until 1853.
He served two terms in this office.. He performed the duties of school commis-
sioner from 1844 to 1852, and in 1846 consented to be alderman from the first
ward that he might the better work out some changes in the school ordinances.
In 1849 he was appointed sole master in chancery for Cook county and held that
office until, in 1855, he was elected judge of the circuit court for the Chicago dis-
trict, then embracing Cook and Lake counties, and he was re-elected without
opposition in 1861. He died four years before his second term would have ex-
pired.
Such is the bare record of his rise in two decades from a boy, poor and un-
know'n, to the bench of one of the most important courts of his day, to which
he was elevated at the age of thirty-eight. While it is true that Mr. Manierre
achieved his greatest distinction as a judge, it is not less true that the years he
lived before he attained that high station were full of interest and instinct with
influence upon his life and his time.
The ability with which he made a digest of the municipal charter and ordi-
nances has been referred to. Shortly after his admission to the bar he assumed
editorial charge of the Chicago Democrat and he imparted to the paper a terse-
ness and vigor of expression, joined to a breadth of comprehension, rarely to be
found in a political journal. He was one of the founders of the Chicago His-
torical Society and one of its life members. Of the Chicago Lyceum, the oldest
354 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
literary society in the city, he was secretary, and of its successor, the Young
Men's Association, he became president. He was also one of the founders oi the
Law Institute and library. }lis tastes were all hterary, and when lie became
a lawyer America was deprived of an able author and journalist. The Manierre
School, on the north side, is but a deserved monument to his long and useful
devotion to the cause of public education in Chicago. He was a member of the
first board of regents of the t'hicago University, in 1859, and held the office at
the time of his death, and he was conspicuous in about every movement for
the public welfare from t836 to 1863, His part in the estabhshment of Lincoln
park should alone endear him to every loyal Chicagoan.
A Democrat politically, Judge Manierre was yet an ardent champion of the
I'ree Soil idea. As early as 1848 he endorsed a vigorous appeal to his own partv
against the e.Mension of slavery. He gave to fugitive slaves seeking freedom
in Canada his sympathy, his money and his professional counsel as they might
require one or more of them. At the historic Aurora convention, held Seplem-
ber IQ, 1854, as chairman of the committee on resolutions. Judge Manierre pre-
sented the party platform and recommended the adoption of the name "Republi-
can." From that time until, in i860, Mr. Lincoln's election was effected on an
anti-slavery platform, (ieorge Manierre never faltered or wearied in the work
he had cut out for him.self. Personally he cared not whether he had led or
followed, so that he worked unceasingly to the end desired, but from his verj'
nature he was made a leader by others who needed the directing force of hU
honest, liberty-loving character. That was the last presidential campaign in
which he lived to participate. He assisted in bringing the Republican party into
being and oflficiatcd at its christening. He watched it during its infancy, fostered
its rapid development, and lived to see the first vigorous, irresistible triumph of
its maturity. Hut he was not permitted to live to see treason discomfited and
human bondage stamped out in America.
As truly as the designation may apply to any lawyer who ever lived in
Chicago, George Manierre was a great lawyer. So finely constituted, so thor-
oughly equipped, so spirited a man could scarcely have stopped short of that.
Every old member of the bar remembers how completely he always commanded
the respect of judges, lawyers, and juries. But if he gave satisfaction as a lawyer
far beyond most of his contemporaries he compelled even greater admiration as
a judge. His findings were usually unassailable, and as contrary to the practice
common to judges, he wrote them out, many of them have been taken as authority
by writers of text books. Though not a long one, his judicial career was an
exceptionally brilliant and creditable one, and its lasting usefulness is apparent
in the fact that his important findings were all conceded to be error-proof and
were taken by compilers of law books as final and binding interpretations of the
law involved in each case. He loved humanity and human rights too well ever
to have been wilfully unfair in any ruling, and his accurate knowledge and
magnificent judgment were as nearly proof against error as is possible to a man.
His absolute fearlessness of public opinion was apparent in his every action.
Is it right, and will it be for the good of the country and of man? were his
only questions when considering what course he should pursue. His fervent
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS. 555
patriotism and love of liberty will be honored when the names of mere partisans
shall be recalled only to scorn.
Judge Manierre was married, in 1841, to Miss Ann Hamilton Reid, daugh-
ter of William Reid, barrister, of Glasgow, Scotland, who, with four sons, —
George, William R., Edward, and Benjamin Manierre survived him. The close
confinement to which he was subjected by a long and exacting trial superin-
duced the attack of typhoid fever which terminated his career May 21, 1863.
Isaac N. Arnold. — Shortly after the death of this distinguished citizen of
Chicago Hon. E. B. Washburne, in a feeling of tribute to his memory delivered
before the Historical Society, thus briefly pictured Mr. Arnold's career: ''During
all the active years of a long and well spent life Mr. Arnold has been a citizen
of Chicago, contributing, by his indefatigable industry, his patriotism, his public
spirit, his rare abilities, his great acquirements, his spotless moral character, his
high social qualifications and instincts as a thorough gentleman, to give luster to
the city of his residence and to the generation to which he belonged. A success-
ful lawyer that stood in the front rank of his profession; a cautious, far-seeing
and wise legislator, distinguishing himself in the halls of legislation, national as
well as state ; a successful public speaker and a writer of great power and wide-
spread popularity, he has left to the generations that succeed him the legacy of
a noble example and a noble name."
Mr. Arnold was born in Otsego county. New York. His father, George
Washington Arnold, was a physician in good standing. He w^as descended from,
those Arnolds early in New England, some of whom were associated with Roger
Williams and others in founding the colony of Rhode Island. The spirit which
prevailed in that glorious little repubhc in those days descended to Isaac New-
ton Arnold and made him a general of those who struggled not alone for re-
ligious liberty, but for liberty of intellect and liberty of person; for it is a part
of our legislative history that on the 15th of February, 1864, this man intro-
duced in congress a resolution declaring that the federal constitution should
be so amended as to abolish slavery in the United States^-the first step ever
taken in congress in favor of the abolition and prevention of human bondage in
this country.
Among the hills and vales of Otsego county, that lovely region made fa-
mous by the residence and romance of Cooper, Mr. Arnold passed his boy-
hood. He was a mere boy when he learned in the hard school of experience
how terrible is the struggle for existence and for the knowledge which alone is
power. It would be interesting to trace his progress, step by step, as he worked
his way through the public schools and through the village academy, but it is
of Isaac N. Arnold the man, not Isaac N. Arnold the boy, that these pages have
to do — the Isaac N. Arnold of Chicago, of Illinois, and of the nation.
From the time he was seventeen until he was twenty he taught school one-
half of each year, in order to maintain himself and attend school the other half,
and thought himself fortunate to be able to accomplish so much. Then, enter-
ing the law offices of Richard Cooper and Judge Morehouse, at Cooperstown,
he took up the study of law and pursued it with such success that in 1835, at
556 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
the age of twenty-two, he was admitted to the bar. For a short time he prac-
ticed as a partner with Judge Morehouse, but in 1836 he came to Chicago and
entered upon that career which was to rank him before its close as one of the
most distinguished jurists of this country. For more than thirty years he stood
at the head of the Chicago bar. Always painstaking in the preparation of his
cases and thoroughly well informed, by diligent and unremitting study, he was
a powerful advocate, both before the court and before the jury, and it has been
said of him that "in that persuasive style of address which tells most eflfectively
upon the average juror he had no superior." To give any account of the im-
portant cases in which he appeared from time to time would be practically to
write the history of this bar for more than a quarter of a century. On the 9th
of December, 1841, somewhat more than five years after he came to Chicago,
he was admitted to practice at the bar of the supreme court of Illinois, and from
that time imtil his retirement he was a conspicuous figure, and his name was
familiar in all the courts of the state.
It was in 1843 that Chief Justice Taney, of the supreme court of the United
States, handed down a decision affirming the unconstitutionality of the then
existing state law, providing, among other things, that unless the property of
a judgment debtor should realize two-thirds of its appraised value it should not
be sold under execution. The law thus condemned and ultimatelv erased from
the statute books of the state had enabled unscrupulous persons to evade the
payment of their debts, and had been planned and passed in the interest of an
unprincipled class by an unprincipled legislature. Mr. Arnold had been elected
to the lower house of the Illinois general assembly in 1842, and had become
known as a determined opponent of a policy so disgraceful to the state and detri-
mental to the credit of the people. His attitude led to his being employed to
enforce the claim of a New York judgment creditor against a debtor. When the
case was carried, finally, to the United States supreme court, he submitted an
able and convincing written argument in support of his position, which was
sustained by Mr. Taney in one of the most elaborate opinions ever delivered in
that court. Thus, more than fifty years ago, he conferred upon the people of
the state a benefit which, had he no other claim upon their gratitude, would
richly entitle him to a place in history.
In 1844 ^^^ ^^'^s again elected to the lower house of the Illinois general
assembly, which then embraced men of ability and distinction, among whom
Mr. Arnold was conspicuous, not alone for learning and efficiency, but for force
of character and an innate honesty that made him the people's true and faithful
servant and a watchman and guardian of all public interests. In 1846 he retired
from public life, and during the ensuing ten years devoted himself to the practice
of his profession. During this period he held only one official position, that of
presidential elector on the Polk ticket, in 1844. It was the repeal of the Missouri
Compromise, in 1854, that was at length influential in bringing him out of his
retirement. This measure was as abhorrent to his fine sense 'of public honor
•
as the repudiation act of the Illinois legislature had been. He became an anti-
Nebraska Democrat, and was so known in 1856, and at the beginning of the war
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS. 557
he became, as did most Democrats of that stripe, a member of the Republican
party, because it was the anti-slavery party and the war party. In 1856 he was
a candidate of the anti-Nebraska Democrats and the Republicans of Cook county
for membership of the house of representatives in the state legislature, and was
elected. At the succeeding session he distinguished himself by his support of
Governor Bissell, w^hom the Democrats sought to keep out of the gubernatorial
chair on the claim that, against the peace and dignity of the state of Illinois, he
had once accepted a challenge to fight a duel. Mr. Arnold's speech in defense of
the governor settled the question and placed the author in view of the whole state
as one of its ablest public men.
In i860 Mr. Arnold was elected to congress from the Chicago district and
made his debut in that capacity July 4, 1861, at the beginning of the extra session
of the thirty-seventh congress, called for the suppression of the rebellion of the
southern states. Mr. Lincoln had long known Mr. Arnold — they were warm
personal friends, in fact, and there was no member of that congress to whom the
president looked with greater confidence. In this, his first session in congress,
Mr. Arnold was honored by being chosen to pronounce the eulogy on the death
of Hon. Stephen A. Douglas. In the proceedings of the regular session of this
congress, which opened on the 2d of December, 1861, Mr. Arnold took an active
part, and publicly placed himself among the foes of slavery by his vote to
abolish the institution in the District of Columbia. He also introduced a bill,
and against the bitterest opposition secured its passage, to prohibit slavery in
every place subject to national jurisdiction, and throughout his congressional
career he acted consistently upon his own adjuration: '^Whenever we can give
slavery a constitutional blow, let us do it." His speech delivered in the House
May 2, 1862, in favor of the confiscation of rebel property, for which a bill had
been introduced, was by some regarded as the ablest he made in congress, and
as an exposition of constitutional law it attracted the attention of lawyers every-
where.
From the outbreak of the civil war until just before its close he was at his
post, always alert, always patriotic, so loyal and efficient in support of the ad-
ministration that his determination to return to private life was received with
universal regret. He had before this entered upon his first great literary work,
"The History of Abraham Lincoln and the Overthrow^ of Slavery in the United
States," and, as his residence in Washington afforded him more ready access to
documents which it was necessary for him to consult for its completion, he
accepted the appointment, from President Johnson, of auditor of the treasury
for the post-office department, which he resigned in 1867; but this work, which
holds a high place among the many which have been written on the same event-
ful period of our history, was not completed until after his return to Chicago.
Here he resumed the practice of his profession, but devoted himself to literature
and to historical research as opportunity was afforded. He wrote a number
of interesting and valuable historical sketches and took an active interest in the
formation of the Chicago Historical Society, of which he gave a history in an
address delivered upon the occasion of the opening of its first hall, in 1868, and
558 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
of which he became president by election December 19, 1876. In 1880 Mr.
Arnold published his work, the "Life of Benedict Arnold: His Patriotism and
His Treason." His work on Lincoln and the extinction of slavery never quite
satisfied his own critical judgment, and about two years before his death he
began to write the "Life of Abraham Lincoln," his latest work, and the one on
which his reputation as a biographer and historian will mainly rest.
His day of life w^as waning, but he awaited the night with the calmness of
a man who tried to do his duty, trusts in God, and fears no future. On his
seventieth birthday he wrote: "Three score and ten! Death must be at no great
distance. I wish to live only so long as I may be to some extent useful, and not
w-hen I shall be a burden. May my remaining days be useful and innocent."
He was in religion a communicant of the Protestant Episcopal church, and was
for many years a vestryman of St. James* church, Chicago.
He was twice married. His first wife was Catherine E. Dorrance of Pitts-
field, Massachusetts, who died October 20, 1839, leaving one son, who died
.about five years later. August 4, 1841, he married Harriet Augusta Dorrance,
a sister of his first wife, who bore him nine children. Mr. Arnold's death oc-
curred on the 24th of April, 1884.
Thomas Hoyne. — The parents of Thomas Hoyne were Patrick and Eleanor
M. Hoyne, who were obliged to leave Ireland about 181 5 because of difficulties
in which Patrick Hoyne became involved with the British government, on ac-
count of his advanced political ideas and the unguarded manner in which he
advocated them. They found an asylum in the city of New York, and there
Thomas Hoyne was born, February 11, 1817. He achieved his early education
at a Catholic school attached to St. Peter's church, and was left an orphan at a
tender age. Before the latter affliction fell upon him he became an apprentice
to a manufacturer, and in that capacity worked for four or five years in his native
city. As a boy he manifested a strong desire for knowledge, and during his
apprenticeship joined what was known as the Literary Association, the mem-
bership of which included several persons who afterward distinguished them-
selves in the literary or political world. It was with men of this class that he
early came in contact, and by the brightness of whose intellects he was impressed
and inspired. In that old literary society Mr. Hoyne made his debut as a debator
and acquired the rare art of charming oratory. As an apprentice he attended
two night schools, in one of which he made a special study of English grammar
and elocution, in the other giving particular attention to the classics and acquiring
a fair knowledge of Greek and Latin.
In 1835 young Hoyne accepted a clerkship in a large jobbing house in
order to earn money to pay his educational expenses. In 1836 he began the
study of law in the office of Hon. John Brinkerhoff, and late in 1837 came to
Chicago to join his old and esteemed friend, Judge Manierre, who had come
two years earlier and w^as filling the office of clerk of the circuit, and who soon
made a place for Mr. Hoyne in his office. In his spare hours he devoted him-
self to study, giving particular attention to Latin and French, and for two years
'was an active participant in the meetings of a literary society. In the autumn
THE BENCH AND BAR OF H^LINOIS, 559
of 1838 he took charge of a public school near the northwest corner of West
Lake and North Canal streets, but when, after four months, he found that the
duties of this position interfered with his law studies, he relinquished them and
entered the law office of J. Young Scammon. It was as a teacher that he first
met John Wentworth, then a school inspector. Mr. Scammon liked young
Hoyne and became his friend and patron.
Mr. Hoyne was admitted to the bar late in the fall of 1839^ and from that
time until his death, except during a little more than two years spent at Galena,
he practiced his profession in Chicago, making a brilliant record at the Cook
county bar and appearing often before the supreme court of Illinois and the
United States supreme court. He early associated himself with Benjamin F.
Ayer. In January, 1864, Oliver H. Horton entered the partnership, of which
Thomas M. Hoyne also became a member. In 1840 the Democrats elected
Alexander Lloyd mayor and Thomas Hoyne city clerk. In 1841 he wrote the
memorial which was presented to congress asking for increased appropriations
for the improvement of the Chicago harbor.
After his return from Galena he was elected probate justice of the peace and
held that position until the court was abolished, in 1848, and succeeded by the
office of county judge. He was an earnest advocate of the Mexican war, but on
the passage of the Wilmot proviso, prohibiting the extension of slavery in any
territory acquired from Mexico at the close of the war, he became what was
then known as a "Free Soiler." In 1848 he was a presidential elector^ and
stumped the northern half of Illinois in support of Van Buren and Adams. An
able address to the people which, as' chairman of an important political com-
mittee, he wrote and issued that year, was **a bold, manly and vigorous protest
against the further encroachments of slavery and was designed to affect the
opinion of the Democratic masses of the state." While he continued his oppo-
sition to the extension of slavery, Mr. Hoyne did not break entirely away from
the Democratic party, and in 1853 received from President Pierce the appoint-
ment of United States district attorney for Illinois, which was greatly beneficial
to him in a professional way. He sided with Judge Douglas on the Kansas-
Nebraska bill and the Missouri Compromise repeal bill, and took an active part,
as a Democratic orator, in the presidential campaign of 1856. In 1858 he ad-
vocated the admission of Kansas under the Lecompton constitution. In 1859
Mr. Hoyne was prevailed upon by Judge Drummond and others to accept the
position of United States marshal, and entered upon its duties in April, that year.
In i860 he superintended the census for the northern district of Illinois. During
the civil war his patriotism was intense, and no man in Chicago was more earnest
in trying to save the Union. He was a very active member of the Union defense
committee, and wrote its historical appeal to the people of this state. He was
a member of the committee that visited Lincoln to urge a campaign down the
Mississippi river in 1862. During the long and trying period of civil strife every
emanation from his pen or tongue had the thrilling ring of a devoted lover of his
country. When the remains of Illinois' martyr president were being borne from
Washington to Springfield Mr. Hoyne was one of the committee of escort from
56o THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
this state. After I lie war he sided with President Johnson against congress, and
was a delegate to the "Conservative convention," held at Philadelphia in August,
1866. In 1870 he was nominated by acclamation for congress in the Chicago
district, but declined to run. Mr. Hoyne supported Horace Greeley for the
presidency in 1872, and was an elector that year in the first district. Two years
later he acted with the opposition, so called, and aided in draw-ing up the call of
the Democratic state committee, issued in this city and embodying a specie
plank, free commerce, civil rights, and other issues.
July 9, 1875, Mr. Hoyne delivered an address before the JeflFersonian Club
of Chicago, of which he was the president, in which he took the ground that
"there is sufiftcient vital moral force and patriotism in the people to save their
free institutions'' and denounced the tendency to corruption among the politi-
cians of the day and clearly announced his own political tenets as exemplifying
the spirit of the club in whose interest he was speaking. As an enemy of cor-
ruptionists and a leader in the work of their discomfiture he was brought out
as a candidate for mayor in the spring of 1876, and was triumphantly elected by
a majority of over thirty-three thousand, the largest to that time ever given a
municipal chief magistrate in Chicago. Mayor Colvin contested the legality of
the election, and appealed to the courts. The circuit court, which really has
no jurisdiction in the case, decided by a vote of three to two that the election was
illegal. Mr. Hoyne could, with every prospect of success, have appealed to the
supreme court but as his object was to cleanse the city of corruption, and not
to secure honor or place for himself, and as the administration in power agreed
to resign if another election were permitted without appeal, Mr. Hoyne, for
the sake of the public good, assented, and, refusing to again be a candidate for
the mayoralty, encouraged the election of Monroe Heath in his stead. He never
afterward consented to be even considered in connection with any political
office, but was to the end of his life Chicago's devoted and steadfast friend.
In 1859 Mr. Hoyne subscribed five thousand dollars for the endowment of
a chair of international and constitutional law in the University of Chicago,
of which he was for years the friend and adviser and which, in 1862, conferred
upon him the degree of LL. D. To Mr. Hoyne also belongs the credit of se-
curing the great Lalande prize telescope for the university, and he was elected
the first secretary of the Chicago Astronomical Society. He was a life mem-
ber of the Mechanics' Institute, the Academy of Sciences and the Chicago His-
torical Society. He was one of the most active in founding and fostering the
Chicago free public library, of which he wrote an interesting historical sketch
in 1877, and w^as also one of the originators of the Chicago Bar Association anH
was its vice-president in 1874 and a member of its committee on legal education
in 1875. An address entitled 'The Lawyer as a Pioneer," which contained
sketches of the early Illinois and Chicago bar (1837-40), was left by Mr. Ho}Tie
and was published in book form. In June, 1873, when the University of Chi-
cago and the Northwestern University formed the Union College of Law, Mr.
Ilovne w^as chairman of the board of trustees in behalf of the University of
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CHAPTER XXX.
REPRESENTATIVE LAWYERS OF ROCK ISLAND, CHRISTIAN, CLAY,
FRANKLIN AND MACON COUNTIES.
HON. IRA OTWAY WILKINSON, a descendant of the Wilkinson and
Ellis families of Virginia, was born at Pittsylvania Court House, Pittsyl-
vania county, Virginia, August ii, 1820, and died of heart disease, at
Jacksonville, Illinois, August 24, 1894; he was never married.
The mother died a few months subsequent to his birth and the child re-
mained with his Grandfather Ellis about two years and a half, when his father,
Otway Wilkinson, moved to Hopkinsville, Kentucky, and remarried. Fourteen
years afterward his father and family removed to Jacksonville, Illinois, where
he continued to reside for the remainder of his life. Since Judge Wilkinson's
decease the only survivor of his father's family is his sister, Mrs. Margaret W.
Rockwell, who lives in the old family homestead, at Jacksonville, and who has
kindly furnished the foregoing particulars for publication.
Judge Wilkinson's father was a near relative of General Wilkinson, U. S. A.,
who, during President Jefferson's administration, was connected with the arrest
and trial of Aaron Burr. His maternal grandfather w^as Rev. Ira Ellis, who
was bom in Sussex county, Virginia, in 1761; was licensed to preach by Bishop
Francis Asbury, and was a member of the celebrated Christian conference, held
at Baltimore, in 1784, that organized the Methodist Episcopal church of America.
He filled the most important circuits, stations and districts of that day, in Vir-
ginia, Delaware, Philadelphia, and Charleston, South Carolina. Bishop As-
bury in his Journal (Volume III, page 180) says: *'I desire to render all their
due. Ira Ellis is a man of quick and solid parts. I have often thought that had
fortune given him the same advantages of education he would have displayed
abilities not inferior to a Jefferson or a Madison. But he has in an eminent degree
something better than learning — he has undissembled sincerity, great modesty
and uncommon power of reasoning," etc. Rev. Ira Ellis married Mary Mason
(nee Macklin), widow of John Mason, in 1795, and had by her three children, —
Nicholas, Ira Irwin and Fanny Macklin Ellis, the last named being the mother oi
Ira O. Wilkinson.
While resident at Hopkinsville, Kentucky, he acquired the elements of a
common-school education, and upon the family removal to Jacksonville he was
placed at a select school, in charge of Rev. Horace Spaulding, and there carefully
instructed and prepared for entering Illinois College as a sophomore, graduating
at the college in due course, cum laude. His classical training and natural apti-
tude for thorough investigation as well as mental habitude for profound study —
and perhaps in a measure his admiration of the reputation and high standing of
563
I
564 THE BENCH AND BAR OF HXINOIS,
many eminent members of the Illinois bar at that time — led him to adopt the
practice of law as his profession. Under the tutelage of that able and accom-
plished jurist. Judge William Thomas, of Jacksonville, he became more than
ordinarily well prepared, theoretically and practically, to enter upon the profes-
sion; so much so that his thorough preparation gave promise of early distinction
and success, and his proficiency was the subject of special commendation by his
learned instructor.
Upon his admission to the bar, in the early '40s, his first law partnership
was entered into with the Hon. Richard Yates, afterward governor of Illinois,
and they were so associated for some years. Desirous of "growing up with the
country" in a nearer field of operation, one less preoccupied by lawyers already
renowned in the profession, and as affording more immediate advantages to a
young practitioner, the partnership was dissolved in 1845 ^"^' ^^^^^ visiting
different localities in Illinois and Missouri, he selected Rock Island as his future
home and opened an office. His reputation as an able and well read lawyer
steadily grew in public estimation from this time on, and, in 1846, among his
early cases, was the widely celebrated trial of the murderers of Colonel Daven-
port, United States agent stationed on the island of Rock Island, in which he
was senior counsel for the defendants. The result of that trial and of his mani-
fest skill and ability in conducting the defense gave him at once extended repu-
tation among the citizens of the state, established and made known his legal
talent, — perlucidum ingenium juridicum, — and from thenceforward to the close
of his life his legal practice was always large and remunerative.
In 1847 he was elected probate justice of Rock Island county, and in 1849
judge of the circuit court. In 1861 he was elected to the bench a second time,
serving until 1867. During the interval of service as circuit judge he formed a
partnership with Hon. George W. Pleasants, who was subsequently, and for
many years, one of the judges of the appellate court of this state, and who, as
such, achieved distinguished reputation. Declining a third term, Judge Wilkin-
son located in Chicago and resumed his law practice. His law^ library, one of
the largest and choicest private libraries in the state, was totally lost in the
great Chicago fire, but with unremitting exertion it was subsequently replaced by
another, substantially as extensive and valuable. During the administration of
President Johnson it was understood he was offered the position of United States
district judge, but preferably remained a practitioner in private life rather than
again enter upon the duties of a judgeship. Few persons, indeed, of his in-
fluence in the political arena and reputation as judge have so resolutely and
persistently refused to accept proffered political and judicial honors. In 1881
he returned to Rock Island and entered into partnership with J. T. Kenw^orthy.
Esq., and Major J. M. Beardslcy, which association continued until 1885; from
that time until compelled, by his last and fatal illness, to desist, he practiced law
by himself.
The life work of Judge Wilkinson as lawyer and jurist was successful to an
extent not commonly attained among the members of the profession. He
was aptly and fully qualified, both mentally and by profound study, not only in
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS. 565
preparation and trial of cases at bar and legal argument addressed to the court,
but also for the adjudication of the broader and more intricate questions of
equity jurisprudence. Using the term in its legal sense, his pleas at common law
were clearly and critically exact, exemplifying, in the language of Chitty, cer-
tainty combined with brevity and precision. Characteristically, both as attorney
and as judge, his mental attributes and legal attainments were of a high order, —
deliberate, firm, sound of judgment, patient and laborious in investigation, of
clear and penetrating perception, and, above all, possessed of a mind intuitively
and pre-eminently of judicial cast. His addresses to the jury — never ornate or
grandiloquent, but clothed in plain yet appropriate forms of speech — were re-
markable for force, order and skill in presenting or reviewing the evidence ad-
duced, and in bringing out intelligently, and broadly setting forth the paramount
and governing facts arid principles upon which the questions at issue should be
determined and decided. On the bench few nisi-prius judges have with equal
ability in the trial of causes, and to the same extent, disassociated from their
own preferences and judgment the personality of the attorneys and parties to
the suit, and impartially heard and determined a cause upon its real merits as
shown by the evidence and the law of the case.
As lawyer and judge a biographical sketch of the life and services of Judge
Wilkinson may befittingly find a page in the annals of the Illinois bar. Among
the large number whose learning and professional life have contributed to the
enduring fame and unquestioned eminence of the several courts of the state,
few have surpassed Judge Wilkinson at the bar, and fewer still (if any) have
excelled his ripe legal scholarship, his broad and comprehensive knowledge of
equity jurisprudence, and his successful chancery practice.
Aside from books pertaining to the profession, may be instanced the number
and variety of literary and scientific works to be found in his private library,
attesting not only the impress and influence of his early scholastic discipline,
but a love of study in general, and a mentality which delighted in abstruse re-
search, even to the most occult limits of philosophy and science. As of many
other professional men illustrious on the roll of honor, so of him it may be
happily said that "in conversation he was a ready man, in reading a full man,
and in thinking a great man." His personal traits in some particulars were
sui generis. Among the personal friends with whom he held social intercourse
he was affable and engaging, unaffected and courteous, to all who approached
him attentive and obliging, — his friendship was sincere and lasting; conversely,
beyond a doubt he was a good hater of shams and fads, and in cases which merited
it a satirist seldom rivaled. In affairs of state and national policy he was public-
spirited, patriotic and a wise and experienced counselor in measures affecting
public welfare. To his advice and assistance, both as a citizen and city attorney,
Rock Island in particular is indebted for much that pertains to its progress ^nd
prosperity. The benefactions to the needy and deserving from his private re-
sources were generous, liberal, and made without ostentation; many a grateful
heart was gladdened thereby; and professionally, many a young attorney has
been assisted and advanced in his legal labors by the Judge's kindly advice, the
566 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
free use of his library, and his practical assistance — that, too, without hope or
expectation in return of fee or reward.
His inanimate remains lie entombed in the silent city of the dead; his spirit
has returned to God who gave it; his memory still survives. His name and fame
are an enduring legacy to the city of Rock Island and to the bar of Illinois.
As was said in eulogy of the illustrious Webster, so let it be said in remembrance
of Ira Otway Wilkinson:
"Though cold in death his perished frame may lie,
The spirit that once warmed it can never die."
John Thomas Kenworthy, the subject of this sketch, was born in Andalusia,
Rock Island county, Illinois, October 24, 1846. His ancestors were Anglo-Saxon
in descent. His father, Samuel Kenworthy, and mother Sarah M, Kenworthy,
nee Eby, resided for the greater portion of their lives at Andalusia and were
among the most reputable and well-to-do citizens of that town. His father's
occupation was that of miller and merchant; he was also one of the Argonauts
who sought a Golden Fleece in California in 1849. Though moderately success-
ful in his search for gold he preferred the life of his early home, and, leaving
behind him the golden fields of the Pacific shores, he returned to Andalusia,
where he continued to reside until his decease.
The son, John T., attended the common schools of his native town until
the age of fourteen, and by that time was regarded as fully instructed in the
"three R's" and graduated in school with some distinction in that grade. Trans-
ferred from the common school to an academy, his further studies were pursued
as preparatory to a due course in college, but before completing the full course
his patriotism and youthful ardor, like that of thousands of bright young students
of that day, led him to discontinue collegiate preparation and enlist in the ranks
of the Union army. He entered as a private in Company G, One Hundred
and Forty-Sixth Illinois Volunteers, and continued in service until mustered out
at the close of the war. Though the ardor of youth may have somewhat abated,
the fire of patriotism in his breast still glows with undiminished force, and his
country's honor has no warmer or more valiant defender.
His collegiate course was never completed, but a taste for classical study
has ahvays been a favorite pursuit in his leisure hours, and his knowledge of
metaphysical, psychological and historical works, — the result of student life and
consumption of midnight oil, — are prominent characteristics and personal at-
tainments, which in a large measure have supplied the lack of collegiate instruc-
tion and have made him^ in an uncommon degree, a well read man and an
intelligent student in a wide field of research, both scientific and literary.
Though descended from a Presbyterian family on both the paternal and
maternal sides, his own religious views have never led him to become a member
of any denominational church. Among societies of a secret and fraternal char-
acter he has been distinctively prominent, being both a Knight of Pythias and
an Odd Fellow. In politics, born and reared a Democrat, he has never for-
saken the faith of his forefathers. In early manhood he was elected to fill cer-
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS. 567
tain town offices, and for some years was a county supervisor, yet his natural
inclination was always averse to engaging in political contests and office-seek-
ing, both of which, later in life, he has studiously avoided, and with unremitting
constancy has devoted his attention and energies to the work of a legal practi-
tioner at the bar.
May ig, 1870, he. was married, at Andalusia, to Miss Clara E. Wells,
daughter of Rinnah Wells, Esq. They have three children: Charlotte F., born
September 9, 1871, now a teacher in the Rock Island public schools; Samuel
R., born October 14, 1873, "ow a lawyer of the Rock Island county bar; Clara
E., born June 7, 1884, now attending the Rock Island high school.
The Kenworthy family first settled in Rock Island county, Illinois, in 1838;
the Wells family in 1835. John T. Kenworthy and wife are both members of
Rock Island County Old Settlers' Society.
Subsequent to the w^ar of 186 1-5 he read law in the office of Hon. George
W. Pleasants, of Rock Island, and in 1869 was admitted to the bar and opened
a law office in the city of Rock Island. In 1870 he formed a law partnership
with Major James M. Beardsley, also a soldier in the Union army, which con-
tinued as Kenworthy & Beardsley until 1880, when Judge I. O. Wilkinson
joined the firm and remained so associated until 1885. The firm was then dis-
solved, since w'hich he has remained in law practice without partnership.
In his legal career, it may of a verity, and without reserve, be said that
John T. Kenworthy has reached eminence and distinction^ — has achieved much
more than ordinary success at the bar. Being now in the prime of life and in full
vigor of intellect, there lie before him in the future the vista of still greater
attainments and the fullness of well rounded, well merited professional distinc-
tion. With few equals in the niceties and perfection of pleading and the manage-
ment of cases at the bar, his reputation as a lawyer of assiduous and careful prep-
aration, of skill and undoubted ability, commands the attention and respect not
only of nisi-prius courts but of the appellate and supreme courts of the state of
Illinois.
A public-spirited citizen, possessed of broad and liberal views upon ques-
tions relating to and of interest to the common weal, with sound and equable
judgment, a kind neighbor and a sincere friend, a judicious counselor and a
recognized able jurist, — his standing in the community worthily becomes the
man^ and his name is honorably associated among the prominent members of
the Illinois bar.
William McEniry is of Celtic origin, and his parents were natives of county
Cork, Ireland. The father, William McEniry, Sr., came to America in 1841
and located in Moline, then a small village of Rock Island county, IlHnois, where
he remained for five years. In 1846 he returned to his native land and married
Elizabeth Caughlin, with whom he returned the following year to Moline. There
he engaged in the manufacture of brick until 1852, when he purchased a farm
in Zuma township. Rock Island county, upon which he made his home until his
death, in 1874. His widow still survives him.
Their son, William McEniry, the well know^n lawyer and statesman of Rock
T
S68 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS,
Island, was born at the parental home in Ziima township, May 9, i860, and be-
tween the ages of six and seventeen years pursued his education in the district
schools of the neighborhood, where he acquired a good fundamental knowledge
to serve as a foundation upon which to rear the superstructure of a splendid
scientific and law education. In 1877 ^^ entered St. John's Commercial College,
of Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin, where he remained for a year. In 1878 he
matriculated at the University of Notre Dame, of Indiana, and, having com-
pleted the scientific course, was graduated with the class of 1883. ^^ ^^^^ same
year he became a student in the law department of the University of Michigan,
at Ann Arbor, where he was graduated with the class of 1885. Another year of
continued application and hard study in the of!ice of William Jackson, of the
Rock Island bar, followed his graduation at Ann Arbor, and in 1886 he was
licensed to practice and opened an office in the city where he yet makes his home,
— Rock Island, Illinois.
In April, 1887, Mr. McEniry was elected city attorney of Rock Island for a
term of two years, and discharged the duties of the office with decided skill and
ability, greatly to the satisfaction of Mayor V. M. Blanding and the council, and
to the manifest satisfaction of the general public. Since that time his legal
reputation and business success have been constantly augmented and increased,
and a large clientage attests the masterful manner in which he handles important
litigation in the courts.
On the 15th of October, 1890, was celebrated the marriage of Mr. McEniry
and Miss Alice Cleary of New Orleans, Louisiana, daughter of John Cleary,
w^ho for the past forty years has been one of the most successful levee contractors
of that state. Mr. and Mrs. McEniry have four children: John, Elizabeth, Wil-
liam and Katharine, the eldest born July 20, 1891, the youngest September 5,
1897. Both the McEniry and Cleary families possess a well earned and ample
competence, and are highly esteemed in a wide circle of acquaintances, both
north and south. Both have also been long identified with the Democratic
party, and in the field of politics the subject of this sketch has achieved a success
which makes his friends predict for him still greater honors in that line.
In November, 1896, he was elected a member of the Illinois house of repre-
sentatives and was made a member of the appropriation and judiciary committees.
Through his personal exertions before the former committee and in the house he
became a potential factor in securing the location of the State Western Hospital,
at Watertown, Rock Island county, and later, as a member of the same com-
mittee, he was signally energetic and effective in advocating and securing an
appropriation of three hundred and fifty thousand dollars for the completion of
the hospital edifice and its use for eleemosynary purposes. Among other legis-
lative enactments which Mr. McEniry was equally instrumental in securing may
be mentioned the well known Woodmen bill, which enabled the order of Modern
Woodmen of America to remove their main office from Fulton, Whiteside coun-
ty, Illinois, to Rock Island: also the passage of the matron bill and the plumbers'
bill. Such unusual success, seldom attained by a young member in his first
legislative term^ gave Mr. McEniry unwonted influence and standing not only
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS. 569
in the house, but also before the people of the state. As a representative Demo-
crat, his strength and influence were widely felt within the precincts of the party
councils, were often put in requisition, energetically exerted and seldom sur-
passed. Vigilant, active and alert, his intuitive perception of the merits of any
proposed measure and a clear logical view of the situation enabled him to grasp
securely and comprehensively the salient points, to measure the strength and
force of the opposition, and in the end to command success. These attributes
of mentality and character doubtless contributed much to his becoming one of
the most efficient and popular members of the fortieth general assembly of the
state of Illinois.
Mr. McEniry was then but twenty-five years of age. Possessed of a splen-
did physique, courteous personality, liberal culture and a classical education,
and withal endowed with more than average inborn gifts of eloquence, his friends
regarded him even then as a young man of more than ordinary promise. In-
heriting from his father perfervidum ingenium Hibernicum, fervor of speech and
the power of captivating an audience, his advance in public life has been rapid
and brilliant. His success and ability as a member of the Rock Island bar has
brought him in pleno grandu repute and distinction commensurate with his
years and experience. Agreeable and companionable among his associates,
generous in disposition, of high culture in sentiment, strong and forceful in his
personal convictions and persistent of purpose few among the rising lawyers of
this state or the coming representatives of the people in the near future enjoy
more well merited distinction or are held in higher public estimation.
Edward D. Sweeney, of Rock Island, Illinois, was born at Simsville, on the
banks of the Brandywine, in the state of Delaware, on August 13, 1833. From
Delaware he removed with his father to western Pennsylvania, in 1839. He
received his education at famous old Allegheny College, Meadville, Pennsyl-
vania, teaching school during part of the time to assist in defraying his college
expenses.
After leaving college he came west, first stopping at Alton, IlHnois, in
February, 1857, and from there going to Greene county, where he taught school
for a few months. Learning of better inducements at Rock Island, he came
to the place destined to be the scene of his labors and future home, in July^ 1857,
and was shortly afterward chosen principal of its second-ward school. While
engaged in this work he spent his spare time in the study of the law under the
direction and guidance of Hon. George W. Pleasants, for many years and until
recently judge of our appellate court, and in August, i860, he was admitted to
the bar of this state. He at once begun the practice of his profession, in which
he is still actively engaged, as senior member of the well known firm of Sweeney
& Walker, the location of their office, in the city of Rock Island, being still on
the same corner where Mr. Sweeney began his legal career thirty-eight years
ago. They enjoy a very large general practice, representing many important
corporate interests in that vicinity, and for over twenty years have been division
attorneys for the St. Louis and Rock Island division of the Chicago, Burlington
and Quincy railroad.
570 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
Mr, Sweeney has been twice married, his first wife being formerly Miss
Harii(.-[ K. Allen, of Greenfield, Illinois, to whom he was united in 1862, and
who bore iiini five children, two of whom are deceased; those living are Mrs.
F. S. Ki'iififld, of Chicago: Edward A. Sweeney and William J. Sweeney, the
latter a --uulent in his senior year at Cornell College, New York. Mrs. Sweeney
died in i8<^tj, and in 1894 he was united in marriage with Miss Emma Tunnell,
his present wife.
In rtligion Mr. Sweeney is a Methodist and a regular attendant at the First
Methodist Episcopal church, in Rock Island, to which he is much attached.
Through his efforts and means he has done much in aiding and upbuilding the
chr.rch and extending its influence.
In politics he has always been a steadfast Republican. — one of those who
desire no offices for themselves, but strive to assist others and work always for
tile success of the party. He stands high in the councils of the Republican
party in his part of the state, is a generous contributor to the party's support,
and for many years, during political campaigns, has done effective work on the
stump in that vicinity.
Early in his legal career Mr. Sweeney was appointed United States com-
missioner in the district including his county, in which position he continued,
performing its duties acceptably and well, until the abolishment of commis-
sionerships outside of the larger cities, a couple of years ago. For over thirty-
three years he has been an Odd Fellow, belonging to Rock Island Lodge, No. 18,
where he regularly attends and in which he takes much pleasure and interest.
As an orator Mr, Sweeney takes high rank among people of his section,
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS. 571
Livingston county, New York, May 16, 1839. At the age of five years he accom-
panied his parents on their removal to Nashville, Washington county, Illinois,
where his mother died in 1846, and his father soon afterward. The Judge, then
a young lad, went to St. Louis, where he resided with relatives until 1853, when
he became a resident of New York city. It was there that he served an apj)ren-
ticeship to the trade of a brick mason and plasterer, and at the age of nineteen
he returned to St. Louis, where he worked as a journeyman for two years. On
attaining his majority he went to the Pacific coast, where he engaged in gold-
mining, but Illinois proved a more attractive field of labor to him than the far
west, and in March, 1864^ he purchased a large farm in Clay county, Illinois.
While devoting his energies to the labors of field and meadow he also took up
the study of law, but delayed obtaining his license to practice until 1872, at
which time he opened an office in Louisville, Illinois. His success was marked
and immediate. Before a year had passed his clientage rivaled that of the older
practitioners and has since steadily increased in volume and importance. For
twenty-six years he has been a member of the Clay county bar, where his efforts
have been crowned with that success which only comes through capability and
merit. He is thoroughly informed in the science of jurisprudence, has a keen,
analytical mind that has gained him marked prestige in his profession, and he
has been retained as counsel in the most important litigation in his district. His
practice has also extended to the appellate courts and he has won many notable
forensic victories against strong opposing counsel. He invariably prepares his
cases with thoroughness and enters the court-room ready to meet every pos-
sible objection of his opponents, whether it concerns the law bearing on the case
or previous judicial decisions. His addresses, either to the court or jury, are
always forcible and often eloquent.
The political career of Judge HoflF has been alike able and honorable. He
has always been an earnest advocate of Democratic principles and has delivered
many campaign addresses in which his logical arguments, entertainingly pre-
sented, have carried conviction to the minds of his hearers. During the presi-
dential campaign of 1896 he published the Flora Democrat, which he made
one of the strongest free-silver papers of southern Illinois. He is tireless in
his advocacy of Democratic measures, for his belief arises from an honest con-
viction that the welfare of his nation can best be conserved through this political
channel. He was for two years state's attorney of Clay county, and for nine
years occupied the bench of the county court, where he administered the duties
of his office with a fairness and impartiality that made him one of the most
popular and esteemed judges that has ever occupied that position. His decisions
were models of judicial soundness^ being based upon his accurate knowledge
of the law and his understanding of his fellow men. In the spring of 1898 he
became a candidate for the Democratic nomination for congress.
The Judge was married July 31, 1864, to Miss Cornelia Van Ness, a daugh-
ter of John B. Van Ness, of New York city, and they now have four children:
Cora L., Ely, Alonzo, Nina G. and Clare Van Ness.
For thirty-eight years the Judge has been a member in good standing of
572 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
tlie Independent Order of Odd Fellows, in which body he has served as high
I)riest. lie also belongs to the Knights of Pythias fraternity, and for twenty-
eight years has been a member of the Christian church. His honesty is unim-
peachable and he is a man of broad views and generous impulses, true to every
trust reposed in him and faithful to all the duties of public and private life.
Ko resident of Clay county enjoys the esteem of his fellow men in a higher
degree or has attained greater eminence in the profession which he has made
his life work.
Hon. Dios C. Hagle, late of Flora, Illinois, for a quarter of a centur>' was
a notable figure in the councils of the Republican party and ranked equally
high in the legal profession. Honorable and upright in all his dealings, anxious
for the good of his country, state, and home community, his life was a literal
exponent of his high ideals and lofty purpose. His name and record were above
reproach, and to his bereaved family he leaves the heritage, more precious than
riches and fame, of a pure, unblemished life. In the world of business and states-
manship he played an important part, but chiefly was it in the home circle that
his noblest qualities were displayed, and nothing was so dear to him as his unpre-
tentious home.
"Born, lived, died," — such, in brief, is the summing up of a human life; but
what a world of difference in the way these outlines are filled out by our fellow-
beings! The record of Mr. Hagle's life is one remarkable for simplicity, yet
replete with lessons for the thoughtful. Unselfishness was its keynote, and gen-
uine love for God and man was the spring of his conduct. He is one of the
grand sons of the old Buckeye state, his birth having occurred in Brown county,
September ii, 1839. ^^ ^^ early age he came to Illinois with the other members
of the parental household, and his boyhood was chiefly passed in Wayne county.
He not only mastered the rudiments of an education in his youth but became
well-grounded in sterling principles and in loyal patriotism. When the time
came that his country needed his service in her great struggle for union and
freedom he set aside all other enterprises and ambitions and shouldered the
musket. He was one of the first "boys in blue" who answered to the call for
Troops, in the spring of 1861, and for three years he w^as always faithfully at his
post of duty on southern battle-fields. He enlisted as a private in the Eleventh
Missouri Infantry, and served with them until his three-years term of enlistment
liad expired.
Upon returning from the service Mr. Hagle followed farming in Wayne
county. He took up the study of law in 1866, his preceptor being William H.
II anna, of Louisville, Clay county, Illinois; was admitted to the bar in 1868,
and he entered upon the practice of his profession in the town of Louisville,
remaining there for several years, and meeting with success. In 1875 he went
to Dakota, and there embarked in legal work. The year after his arrival there
his talents were recognized by his fellow-citizens, w^ho elected him to the terri-
torial legislature (for Dakota had not yet become a state) of Dakota, and upon
the organization of the lower house he was honored by being chosen as speaker.
He concluded to return to Louisville, nevertheless, and the same year, 1877, we
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS. 573
find him once more pursuing his customary vocation there, among his old
friends. In 1880 he was elected state's attorney of Clay county, and upon the
expiration of his term he was re-elected. In 1888 he was elected to the state
senate, and it was largely on account of a magnificent effort of his, in placing
Governor Tanner in nomination, that the latter was so happily brought before
the special notice of the people. When the Governor had entered upon the
duties of his office he recognized our subject's devotion and loyalty toward him
by appointing him first assistant attorney general. In 1886 he became a resi-
dent of the town of Flora, where he was living at the time of his death, February
6, 1898. In the various fraternities he stood very high, and his genial, happy
manner of looking on the bright side of life made him a general favorite. He
was a Knight Templar Mason and belonged to the blue lodge at Flora, the
Modern Woodmen of America, the Order of the Eastern Star and the Grand
Army of the Republic.
In 1870 Mr. Hagle married a daughter of Samuel George, of Wayne county,
but eight years later she died at their Louisville home, leaving one daughter.
In 1879 ^^^"- Hagle married Miss Belle Ingraham, of Harter township. Clay
county, Illinois. One son and four daughters came to bless this union. *The
family is still living in the pleasant Hagle residence in Flora, where they are
highly esteemed by all.
Harvey W. Shririer, of Flora, Illinois, is one of the prominent members
of the bar in his section of the state, and is now serving his third term as state's
attorney of Clay county. He is a stanch Republican and was elected on the
party ticket for the first time in 1888. He has been retained in the office ever
since, being re-elected in 1892 and 1896, his present term to expire in 1900.
The interests of justice and the rights of the people never suffer in his hands,
and the universal opinion in regard to his record here is that it has been wholly
above reproach. As a lawyer his pleadings are marked for clearness, concise-
ness, comprehensive knowledge of the law and an equal knowledge of human
nature. He is an able advocate and his opinion never fails to carry great weight
with judge and jury.
Mr. Shriner is in the prime of manhood, as his birth occurred the first year
of the Civil war, October 25, 1861. His birth-place was in Benton county, Ohio,
but his early recollections all cluster around Illinois, as he was but a year old
when he was brought by his parents, Silas and Susan Luse Shriner, to this state,
and here it was that his youthful days were passed. He grew up in Clay county
and received a common-school education, making the best of his advantages.
He succeeded so well that he was placed in charge of a school the winter that
he was eighteen years of age, axid for the six winters following he was similarly
occupied. In the meantime he decided to enter the legal profession, and to that
end took up the study of law, in his leisure hours. After about two years of
work under the guidance of D. C. Hagle, he was admitted to the bar in February,
1887, and in the following June entered into partnership with Mr. Hagle, under
the firm name of Hagle & Shriner. This business connection was a very pleas-
ant and profitable one, and continued in existence until the death of Mr. Hagle.
574 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
Mr. Shriner has never had a criminal case reversed by the supreme or appellate
courts, and the ablest members of the county bar are his warmest friends and
advocates. The only fraternal order with which he is associated is the Modern
Woodmen of America.
On the loth of September, 1885, Mr. Shriner married Miss Emma Critch-
lovv, who died January 5, 1896, leaving three sons, namely: Austin, Carlton C,
and Silas.
Albert Morrison Rose is known as one of the most capable members of
the bar in his section of the state; and although he is hardly yet in the prime
of life he has long since left the ranks of the many to stand among the suc-
cessful few. The specific and distinctive office of biography is not to give voice
to a man's modest estimate of himself and his accomplishments, but rather to
leave a perpetual record establishing his character by the consensus of opinion
on the part of his fellow men. The public renders its decision of the worth of
an individual, a decision which gives him rank in both business and private life,
and the place of Mr. Rose is thus determined.
Mr. Rose, now a resident of Louisville, was born in Georgetown, Clay
county, this state, on the 26th of September, 1862. His father, Dreaur}- Rose,
was a native of Kentucky and a carpenter by trade. He married Caroline Acki-
son, a native of Clay county, Illinois, whose people came to the west from
Pennsylvania. Having acquired his preliminary education in the public schools
of his native county, Mr. Rose pursued an academic course of study in the
university in Vincennes, Indiana, and on laying aside his text-books entered
upon educational work in the capacity of teacher, which profession he followed
with marked success for nine years. During that period he began reading law
in the office of John A. Barnes, of Louisville, Illinois, diligently applying himself
to the mastery of the principles of jurisprudence. In the fall of 1890 he was
admitted to the bar and the following spring entered into partnership with his
preceptor under the firm name of Barnes & Rose, w^hich connection was con-
tinued until 1897, when Mr. Barnes removed to Chicago. Not long afterward
Mr. Rose was joined by W. H. Dillman, in the establishment of the firm of Rose
& Dillman, one of the most progressive and successful law firms in the southern
part of the state. Mr. Rose's practice is of a general character, including both
civil and criminal litigation. His knowledge of the law is broad and his retentive
memory makes it always available. He shows great precision and care in the
preparation of his cases, and while guarding every assailable point in his own
suit never fails to catch sight of an available point of attack in an opponent's
argument. His mind is keenly analytical and he is an earnest and ofttimes elo-
quent speaker. His fervent utterances have the ring of truth and honest convic-
tion, swaying the minds of the hearers, as with pathos, humor, fact and logic
he plays upon their emotions."
Mr. Rose exercises his right of franchise in support of the men and meas-
ures of the Democracy, and has been a member of the Louisville board of trus-
tees since 1892, discharging his duties with a fidelity and promptness that
indicates high public-spirited loyalty to the general welfare. He is a consistent
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS. 575
member of the Christian church, and holds a membership connection with the
Masonic ffatemity. Since twenty-one years of age he has been a member of
the Odd Fellows order, and among his brethren of these organizations he is
held in the highest regard. On the 28th of December, 1892, he was united in
marriage to Miss Lula Branson, daughter of Dr. J. M. Branson, of Wayne City,
Illinois. Their home is brightened by the presence of a little son. Robley B.,
and the Rose household is the abode of a cultured hospitality that makes it a
favorite resort with the best people of the community.
Judge Rufus M. Potts, of Taylorville, was born in Christian county, Illinois,
on September 3, 1870, where he still resides. His parents, George D. and
Lenora (Langley) Potts, were also natives of Christian county. Mr. Potts lived
on the farm with his father until he was seventeen years of age. His elementary
education was acquired in the country schools, which was supplemented by two
terms in the city schools of Taylorville. After leaving the farm he taught two
years in the district schools. He then commenced the study of law in the office
of Drennan & Hogan, in Taylorville, and was admitted to the bar in August,
1892, at the age of twenty-one. He then entered the office of Palmer, Shutt &
Drennan, of Springfield, as a law clerk, and a portion of the time he was con-
nected with this firm he was Senator Palmer's private secretary. After Mr.
Potts had completed his year's work with Palmer, Shutt & Drennan, he returned
to Taylorville and engaged in the practice of law. Mr. Potts is now one of the
leading attorneys in central Illinois. He having no one to assist him, his
advancement in his chosen profession is due to his own efforts and ability. He
is especially strong in the trial of his cases before juries, and has been counsel
in several of the most important cases in his part of the state ; and aside from his
legal attainments no man ranks higher as a gentleman than Mr. Potts.
Mr. Potts has always taken an active interest in politics and is prominent
in local and state Democratic political circles. He was elected county judge of
his county on the Democratic ticket, on November 8, 1898, and has the distinction
of being the youngest judge in Illinois. February i, 1898, he was elected presi-
dent of the Illinois County and Probate Judges' Association. At the beginning
of the American-Spanish war Mr. Potts aided in the organization of Colonel
Wilson's provisional regiment, being the Tenth Illinois, and was selected major
of the first battalion of this regiment.
His oratorical ability has occasioned his selection as the orator of many
public celebrations, and he never fails to interest, instruct and entertain his
hearers. On October 16, 1895, Mr. Potts and Miss Wilhclmina R. Grunwaldt,
of Springfield, Illinois, were married, and they have one daughter, — Wilhelmina
Madonna Potts. Mr. Potts and family have high social standing.
James C. McQuigg, a representative of the Pana bar, was born in Wooster,
Ohio, on the ist of August, 1840, and is a son of John and Sarah (McAfee)
McQuigg. The parents were natives of county Antrim, Ireland, and in the latter
part of the '30s came to this country. The father died February i, 1885, at the
age of eighty years, and the mother passed away in March, 1897, at the advanced
age of ninety-two years. They had nine children, all of whom are yet living.
576 THE BENCH AND BAR OF H^LINOIS.
James AIcQuigg was reared in the state of his nativity and acquired his
preUmirtary education in tlie common schools. In 1861 he responded to his
country's call for troops, enlisting?: for three years as a member of Company C,
Sixteenth Ohio Infantry. With his command he went to the front, participated
in all the engagements in which it took part, and at the battle of Vicksburg
was wounded, after which he was sent to the hospital. When the war was over
and the country no longer needed his services he returned to his home and con-
tinued his education in \'ermillion College, of Ohio. Subsequently he began
the study of law, in Wooster, Ohio, under the direction of Captain A. S. Mc-
Clure, afterward member of congress, and when he had gained a good knowl-
edge of the fundamental principles of the science of jurisprudence he matricu-
lated in the Ann Arbor law school, where he continued his studies from 1865
until his graduation in the class of 1867.
In May of the latter year Mr. McQuigg opened his law office in Pana,
where he has since made his home. In the '70s he was elected and sensed for
one term as city attorney, and in 1876 was a candidate for state's attorney, but
though the county went Democratic by a vote of over nine hundred he was
defeated by only eighty-three votes, — a fact which indicates his personal popu-
larity and shows the support which he received from the opposition party. In
politics he has always been a stalwart Republican, and served as presidential
elector in 1880. He engaged in the general practice of law and is now enjoying
a fair share of the public patronage in his line. He is married and his pleasant
home in Pana is blessed with a son and a daughter, — Myron and Florence.
James Carroll MclJride, a practitioner at the bar of Taylorville, was bom
near Palmyra, Illinois, on the i6th of July, 1845, and is a son of Thomas ^^•
and Margery A. (Wiggins) McBride, natives of Tennessee and Kentucky, re-
spectively. He attended the common schools of Illinois, then Earlham College,
Richmond, Indiana, and later entered the Lincoln University, where he remained
three years, being graduated in the class of 1869. In 1870 he pursued the study
of law under the direction of Judge Welch, of Carlinville, and in January. i87i»
was admitted to the bar. He then opened an office in Taylorville, where he
•
has since remained, enjoying a very liberal share of the public patronage in
law lines. For three years, from 1880 until 1884, he was in partnership with
G. B. Crooker. He served as justice of the peace early in his practice, an office
which his father had held, and in whose court General Palmer used to practice
during the boyhood days of our subject. Mr. McBride has also held the office
of master in chancery for one term and of city attorney many terms. In the
spring of 1897 he was nominated by the Democracy for the position of judge
of the fifth judicial circuit, but about that time the legislature changed the
circuit, and he was accordingly deprived of the office. He has been engaged
as counsel or advocate either for the defense or the prosecution in almost ever)*
important case that has been tried in the courts of Christian county for the past
ten years. The volume and important nature of his business indicate his ability
and his brethren at the bar accord him a prominent place in their ranks.
On the 17th of May, 1871, Mr. McBride was united in marriage to Miss
.- w
THE BENCH AND BAR OF H^LINOIS.^ 577
Mattie Wheeler, who was born in Indiana, but reared in Logan county, Illinois.
They now have four children. One of the two sons, W. B. McBride, has been
recently admitted to the bar and is now in partnership in the practice of law with
the subject of this sketch.
Socially, Mr. McBride is a Mason, has attained the Knight Templar degree,
and has served as master of the lodge for six years. He has been a member
of the board of education for four years, and was serving thereon at the
time of the erection of the fine high school building at Taylorville. In
addition to his law practice he has other business interests. He was one of
the organizers of the Taylorville Coal Company, of which he served as president
and director for many years, and is now a director of the First National Bank,
his sound judgment in business matters making his counsel valuable.
James L. Drennan, a member of the law firm of Hogan & Drennan, of
Taylorville, was born on the 25th of February, 1869, on his father's farm in
Mosquito township, Christian county, Illinois, where he resided for eighteen
years. No event of special importance changed the usual routine of the life of
the farmer's lad, who assisted in the labors of field and meadow until after the
harvests were gathered in the late autumn, when he entered the district school
of the neighborhood, there to pursue his studies until the opening of spring
made it again necessary for him to take his place at the plow. He was only
thirteen years of age at the time of his father's death, and being the eldest son
at home the responsibility of managing the farm devolved upon him for six
years. When he was a young man of nineteen years his mother left the farm
and he then began business on his own account.
For three years he successfully engaged in teaching school, and then began
preparation for the bar as a student in the law office of Drennan & Hogan, the
senior partner being his elder brother, John G. Drennan, the junior partner,
John E. Hogan. Under their direction he continued his studies for two years,
and was admitted to the bar in August, 1893, when twenty-four years of age.
He was then taken into partnership with the firm of Drennan & Hogan, under
the firm name of Drennan, Hogan & Drennan, but after a year the senior partner
withdrew and removed to Springfield. Our subject has never taken an active
part in the trial of cases in the circuit court, having served as chief clerk in the
circuit clerk's office for the first two years after his admission to the bar, after
which he was appointed master in chancery by Judge Creighton, and in the
latter position he is still serving.
On the 5th of May, 1890, Mr. Drennan married Miss Hattie M. Jones, who
died May 22, 1897, leaving a daughter, Margaret O., who is with her father.
Judge Horatio Middleton Vandeveer, of Taylorville, was born in Washing-
ton county, Indiana, on the ist day of March, 1816. In the fall of 1829 his
father, the Rev. Aaron Vandeveer, moved with his family to Illinois and settled
on a farm on Clear creek, in Sangamon county, where the youth of the subject
of this memoir was passed. For about three months only did he enjoy the
advantage of attending school, and the remainder of the time he was obliged,
owing to his father's straitened circumstances, to assist in the cultivation of
37
578 .THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
the farm ; and here the privations he had to endure formed and molded those
elements of character which became such prominent features in his later years.
But the mere question of environment could not prevent his active mind from
acquiring the knowledge that it craved. He formed the acquaintance of Hon.
John T. Stuart, — an acquaintance which ripened to warm friendship, — and that
gentleman gave him ready access to his personal library, where, by close and
assiduous study, he was able to obtain considerable legal knowledge. In 1836
he taught school, in one of the old-fashioned, log school-houses so common
at that time, and continued this for two years, alternating this employment with
farming, and occupying his leisure hours in reading and study. In 1839 he was
admitted to the bar, being the first resident lawyer of the county, where he
established an enviable reputation both for ability and integrity. His first case
was in the circuit court, and resulted in victory.
Activity in public affairs and a strong political bias w-ere inevitable in a man
of such characteristics and indomitable energy, and it was but a natural sequence
that he should assist in the organization of Christian county, in 1839. The first
election was held April i of that year, and he was chosen county recorder, and
shortly thereafter was appointed school commissioner by the county court. Two
months later (June i, 1839) he was appointed by Judge Samuel H. Treat to
be clerk of the circuit court, which office he filled with marked ability for many
years. In 1842 he was elected a member of the Illinois house of representatives,
defeating Martin White, the former member, and Henry T. Luckett, — ^both
able and popular men. In 1843 he was reappointed clerk of the circuit court,
and during the same year was elected justice of the peace. He was subsequently
appointed postmaster at Taylorville, which office he held for a long period.
In 1846 he raised a company for the Mexican war, of which he was chosen
captain. The company, however, was rejected by the government, as the quota
of the state was full, under the call. Shortly after this President Polk appointed
him assistant quartermaster in the United States Army, with the rank of cap-
tain. He served through the Mexican campaign with distinction and received
high commendation from the colonel of his regiment. W. B. Warren. Return-
ing from the war, he was placed in nomination by his friends as a candi-
date for congress, but while the balloting was proceeding he arose in the con-
vention and absolutely refused to allow himself to be considered as a candidate.
Had he not done this he undoubtedly w^ould have been the nominee of the con-
vention. In 1848 he was chosen by the Democratic party as one of the presi-
dential electors for Illinois, and as such cast his vote for Lewis Cass. In 1849
he w^as elected county judge for a term of four years, and re-elected at the expira-
tion of that time, serving, in all, eight years. It was during this period that
the present county court-house was erected at Taylorville, at a cost of eighteen
thousand five hundred dollars, and its erection free from debt may be ascribed
to Judge Vandeveer, who w^as foremost in the movement to give to Christian
county a substantial court-house, without resorting to the issuance of bonds, as
was the custom so prevalent in other counties. In November, i860, he was re-
elected a member of the house of representatives, and in 1862 was elected senator
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS. 579
from the district composed of Macoupin, Montgomery, Christian and Shelby
counties, and was recognized as one of the strongest members of that body,
being one of those clear-headed, constructive and able business managers whose
persistent industry, comprehensive grasp of details and power to marshal them
for practical results made him invaluable in committee, where legislation is per-
fected and all important measures are prepared. In June, 1870^ he was elected
judge of the tenth judicial circuit, embracing the counties of Christian, Mont-
gomery, Fayette and Shelby, to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of
Judge E. T. Rice, of Hillsboro, and in 1873 was re-elected without opposition
for the full term of six years. As a presiding judicial officer he rendered many
important decisions and established a firm reputation for ability, integrity and
impartiality. Though his judicial career comprised years when vindictive party
feeling and great political excitement prevailed, yet he ever held the scales justly
poised, and no tincture of prejudice or undue bias can be found to have stained
his decisions or to have warped his judgment.
In 1868 he founded the Bank of H. M. Vandeveer & Company, from which,
however, he retired in 1875, and since that time it has been owned and operated
by his two sons, William T. and Eugene A. Vandeveer. The sons, however,
have retained the name of their illustrious father, who built the foundation so
strong that it was rated as the strongest private bank in the United States, its
financial stability being fortified by thirteen thousand acres of land located in
Christian county.
Judge Vandeveer was married in 1841 to Miss Mary J. Rucker, a native of
Kentucky, who, with their two sons previously mentioned, and a daughter, Mrs.
Lizzie V. Kirkwood, of Taylorville, survive their husband and father.
In 1888 Judge V^andeveer was taken ill with rheumatism, and in 1889 visited
the Hot Springs of Arkansas, with, however, but slight benefit. The ailment
gradually increased, and, in spite of the tender ministrations of a loving and
devoted wife and family and the best medical skill obtainable, he passed away,
on the I2th day of March, 1894, mourned by all who knew him, honored by
all who love justice and integrity, and secure in a fame that is a part of the com-
mercial, political and legal history of Illinois. Had any evidence been needed
to show the high estimation in which Judge Vandeveer was held by those who
knew him 4)est, and among whom so many years of his life were passed, it
would have been supplied by the many expressions of grief and of respect with
which the news of his death was received. The people, the press and the mem-
bers of the bar gave formal expression to the feeling of general loss. A just
tribute to his character is the following series of resolutions passed by the mem-
bers of the Bar Association, at a meeting held for the purpose shortly after his
death :
Resolved, That in the death of H. M. Vandeveer the bar of this county has lost its
oldest and ablest member, and the community its most distinguished citizen.
The results achieved by him in his professional and business life are the best evi-
dences of his character and ability. As a lawyer he stood in the front rank of successful
58o THE BENCH AND BAR OP ILLINOIS.
practitioners. He was not a specialist, devoting himself to and becoming eminent in ok
branch o( the law alone; he was ec|iia1]y successful in all departments.
As a judge he was able, conscientious and fearless. He brought to the bench, if not
profound learning, that which was far more useful, a wide experience in affairs and an »l-
most unerring judgment. In his business life the same singular sagacity, clear judgment and
tireless industry secured financial success in an extraordinary degree. Often called to posts
of honor and responsibility by his fellow citizens, he discharged every duty with fidelitj.
His signal abiliiy made him a leader in every field of endeavor that he chose to enter, jet
his habits of life were simple and he despised ostentation in all its forms, Sirrcfcen viOi
a lingering and fatal malady, he bore with patience and fortitude intense suffering In ihc
closing years of his life. We deeply sympathize with his family in their bereavemenl. and
ourselves will long remember his wise counsel, his kindly presence and helpful assistance.
Resolved. That these resolutions be spread upon the records of the circuit court and
a copy be furnished to the family of our deceased brother.
Individtial members of the bar also delivered eulogies extolling his merits
as a lawyer, as a man and as a citizen.
John E. Hogan, of Taylorville, was born in Pana. Christian county. Illinois,
on the 30th of November, 1865. The following year his parents removed
to Taylorville, where he attended the public schools until fifteen years of age.
He then began earning his own livelihood as a clerk in a grocery store and was
thus employed until attaining his majority, when, having resolved to make the
practice of law his hfe work, he entered the office of John G. Drennan, who
directed his reading and study until his admission to the bar, in February, 1889,
at Mount Vernon.
Mr. Hogan at once opened an office and began practice in Taylorville. his
business constantly growing with the passing years as he has demonstrated his
■ ability to master the intricate problems of jurisprudence. He served as police
magistrate from 1889 until 1892, and from 1893 until 1897 acceptably filled ihe
position of master in chancery. In 1891 he entered into partnership with John
G. Drennan, his former preceptor, and a further change was made in the firm
by the admission of James L. Drennan in 1894. The following year the senior
partner withdrew and the firm then became Hogan & Drennan, which connec-
r<.,
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLI '
in connection with Captain Joel S. Post. That partners i
and he was alone in business until 1889, when he forn :
Charles E. Schroll, with whom he was associated until
he has again been alone, and through all the years of h ;
bar he has won many notable forensic triumphs.
He has taken no active part in politics as an offic
interested in the questions which concern the welfare oi i
1862 he married Miss Martha Simkins, of Ohio, and the) \
Charles Adlai Ewing, one of the most prominent U "
ticed at the bar of Decatur, is well portrayed in the foUov
one who knew him well:
"If the life of Mr. Ewing were measured by intel :
purity of purpose, by number of friends, by acquisition :
kindness and deeds of patriotism, then these fifty years
ample to round out into full measure the perfect stature
beauty. From infancy to death there was ever a hallov 1
his very presence. Cradled in the lap of a home life that '
perfections^ his youth furnished choice companionship fc
Charming of manner, genuinely witty, considerate and ter ;
ageous, always honorable, loving excellence for its own
of emulation, these were characteristics which belonged I
which enabled him to move through the arena of an active
calm poise and forceful accomplishment of honest and wij \
qualities of mind and heart were necessary to the great la^ ^
citizen^ and Mr. Ewing possessed them in that high degr<
to successfully champion individual rights and rescue an ir 1
the most insidious and imminent danger that has threate 1
drove the great Douglas to proclaim that there were but
those for the Union and those against the Union. It may I
concern for the triumph of the honor of his country in :
which triumph he lavishly gave of his time, of his money a
may have caused the apparent sacrifice of his noble life.
to the Greeks, said: The tomb where freedom weeps can
prematurely reached by its inmate. Such martyrdom is b
higher fortune can ambition covet?' The bar has lost fr:
lawyer, the state a great citizen, and the country at large ;
the good that he accomplished is enduring, and is ours to c
"Charles yVdlai Ewing was born November 3, 1846,
tucky. His father, the Rev. Fielding N. Ewing, moved to Y
in 1850, and from Bloomington to Chicago in 1859, there p
place of several acres just south of the present site of the \
hospital. In 1864 he moved to Decatur, Illinois, where h:
in the midst of beautiful and capacious grounds. The li
instrumental in establishing the first college building of tl
logical Seminary, and it is now called Ewing Hall.
S82 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
"The subject of this memoir was one of the pupils at the Chicago University
in the early '60s, and numbered among his classmates Judge Kohlsaat, Frederick
A. Smith, Henry A. Gardner and other prominent citizens of Chicago. Mr.Ewing
was graduated at Princeton College in the class of 1868 and at the Albany Law
School in the class of 1870, and immediately formed a partnership with Hugh
Crea, of Decatur, which connection lasted until Mr. Ewing's death, November
6, 1896. — a period of over a quarter of a century. The law firm of Crea & Ewing
ranked among the best in the state of Illinois, and possessed a very lucrative
practice, numbering among its clients the Wabash and Central Illinois railroads
and other large corporations.
"Mr. Ewing owned a number of valuable farms in Macon and McLean
counties and was very fond of visiting them and planning and directing their
improvements. Having acquired a handsome property, he was enabled to leave
his family in very comfortable circumstances. In June, 1871, he married Miss
Palmer, of Albany, New York, who, together with her daughters, — Mrs. Old-
ham, Zella Emma, Eugenia and her son, Charles A., — survive him.
"In politics Mr. Ewing was always a Democrat, and made a number of
vigorous and eloquent campaign addresses in behalf of Democracy. With the
exception of a nomination for circuit judge, he neither sought nor would accept
office. During the last administration of Governor Oglesby he was appointed
by him on a commission, composed of some of the ablest men in the state, with
the late Hon. Milton Hay as chairman, to revise the revenue laws of the state,
and they formulated a code which was pronounced by the press and the thinking
public to be the best adapted to the requirements of the people of all that had
ever been presented to an Illinois legislature for adoption. That tlie legislature
failed to enact the new code into law is probably the best commentar)* on its
excellence. Mr. Ewing always referred to this piece of public work with pride
and satisfaction.
"In the campaign of 1896 Mr. Ewing devoted his time, money, energy and
eloquence to the defeat of the doctrines promulgated by the Chicago conven-
tion, and was so alarmed and aroused thereat that he w-as one of the foremost
to bring about the organization of the sound-money Democrats for an active cam-
paign in behalf of the success of the principles of true Democracy as set forth
in the platform of the Indianapolis convention. It is generally regarded by Mr.
Ewang's friends that the burdens which devolved upon him by the chairman-
ship of the state central committee, and the concern he felt about the outcome
of the election, probably taxed his physical strength beyond endurance, so that
after his Peoria speech, the Saturday night before election, he was stricken down
and was with difficulty borne to his home in Decatur. Upon his arrival home
he seemed to improve, and on election day — his fiftieth anniversary — ^he was
taken in his carriage to the polls to cast his vote. He was permitted to know
the results of the election and to rejoice therein; but on the 6th of November,
in the early morning, without fear, and in the calm possession of his faculties,
surrounded by his family, he passed away to the invisible world. The funeral
exercises took place on the following Sunday. Delegations from all parts of
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS. 583
the state were in attendance, and a perfect outpouring of the citizens of Decatur
attested the genuine affection felt by the great public for this rare man."
He was an ardent and devoted supporter of the Presbyterian church.
Edmund S. McDonald, one of the representative members of the Macon
county bar, has been actively engaged in the practice of law in Decatur for the
past eighteen years, and has acquired a truly enviable position in the esteem
and honor of the general public .and of his brethren in the profession. Pos-
sessing a fine education and thorough knowledge of the law, he plans his work
and maps it out with the precision, clearness and judg^nent of a general who
skillfully foresees and plans a campaign. While he conducts a large general
practice, his specialty is corporation law, in which he is an expert authority.
Few men are better qualified to undertake all kinds of municipal corporation
work, in the organizing of towns and villages into cities, in preparing codes and
constitutions, etc.
A son of John and Nancy (Sisson) McDonald, our subject was born in
West Virginia, September 7, 1851. His parents were both natives of Pennsyl-
vania and were residents of West Virginia but a few years. Edmund S. received
a public school education, this being later supplemented by a course at the
Northwestern University at Evanston, Illinois. He took up the study of law
with the firm of Nelson & Robey, and was also assisted and guided in his work
by Messrs. Crea & Ewing. In 1880 he began practicing his chosen profession
in Decatur^ and from that time to the present has conducted his business alone.
He was admitted to practice before the supreme court of the United States in
1876, and in 1889 was elected city attorney and served as such for two terms.
He uses his right of franchise in favor of the Republican party, and endeavors
to discharge his full duty as a citizen and voter. For a period of five years he
was a member of the state militia.
The marriage of Mr. McDonald and Miss Annabell^ Thomas, of this city,
was solemnized in 1893. They have a very attractive home here, and within
its hospitable walls often entertain their hosts of friends in this community.
They have one little son, Edmund U. by name.
David L. Bunn was born near Bloomington, McLean county, Illinois, on
the 27th of September, 1837, and is a son of Rev. D. P. and Mary K. (Moser)
Bunn, the former a native of Ross county, Ohio, and the latter of Berks county,
Pennsylvania. The father was for over half a century a minister of the Univer-
salist church. In his boyhood David L. Bunn accompanied his parents on their
removal to Macon county, Illinois, where they remained for several years, and
then went to Mount Pulaski, Logan county, this state, which continued to be
their place of residence until 1854, when they took up their abode in Decatur.
In the meantime the son had entered Lombard University, of Galesburg, Illi-
nois, and on the completion of his three-years course he joined his parents in
their new home.
Through the ensuing three years he successfully engaged in teaching school
in Decatur, but desiring to devote his energies to other professional duties he
became a law student in the office of Captain Joel S. Post, and in 1862 was
584 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
admitted to the bar. At the fall term of the Macon county circuit court he was
appointed by Governor Yates to the position of state's attorney for the judicial
district composed of Macon, Piatt, Moultrie and Shelby counties, to fill a va-
cancy occasioned by the resignation of James P. Boyd. He served in that capac-
ity until 1864, when he was elected state's attorney for the regular term of four
years. During the last two or three years of his incumbency the counties of
Ford, Champaign and Fayette were also included in the circuit, thus materially
increasing his duties.
On the expiration of his term Mr. Bunn resumed the private practice of
law as a partner of his uncle, A. B. Bunn, and for the past twenty-two years he
has been associated in business with Edwin Park, under the firm name of Bunn
& Park. His practice is large and of an important nature, and demands thor-
ough understanding of the intricate problems of jurisprudence. That he is lack-
ing in none of the essential elements of the able lawyer is indicated by the many
prominent cases which he has won. He has always taken an active interest in
the questions and issues affecting the welfare of his state and nation and has
been a leader in political circles. Until about twelve years ago he acted with the
Republican party, but on the organization of the national Prohibition party he
joined its ranks, and has since been a stalwart advocate of its principles.
Through a belief in the justice thereof, and not through any hope of securing
office, he has consented to become his party's candidate for the office of state
senator and for judge of the circuit court. He is active and influential in
religious work, and for the past forty years has been a consistent member of
the Universalist church.
In July, 1864, he was united in marriage to Miss Amanda M. Suits, who
was born near Syracuse, New York, and they have two children, — Frank E.
and Edna M.
William Thomas Cussins, numbered among the leading members of the
Decatur bar, whose practice in the courts of Macon county extends over a period
of more than a quarter of a century, is a native of the grand old '*Buckeye'* state,
his birth having taken place in the city of Zanesville, Muskingum county. Sep-
tember 21, 1845. His father, Samuel A. Cussins, was a native of Pennsylvania,
while his mother, whose maiden name was Jane M. Cariens. was born in Mary-
land. I lis father was a carpenter by trade and did considerable contracting and
building, also spending some of his years as an agriculturist.
After completing his common-school education Mr. Cussins, of this sketch,
prepared himself for college in Miller Academy, New Washington, Guernsey
county, Ohio. Later he entered Eureka (Illinois) College, where he was assist-
ant professor of Latin for one year previous to his graduation. During his last
years of college student life, and afterward, he served efficiently as principal of
the schools of Harristown, Bement and Macon, this state. He has always taken
great interest in educational matters and has used his vote and influence upon
the side of progress, advocating better facilities for the rising generation.
The ancestors of Mr. Cussins were noted for their stanch patriotism and
good citizenship. His grandfather Cussins was a soldier in the war of 1812 with
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS. 585
England and half a century later the grandson, our subject, took up arms in
defense of the Union. He was but seventeen years of age at the time of his
enlistment in Company C, One Hundred and Thirty-ninth Illinois Infantry.
For generations the Cussins have been adherents to the principles of the Demo-
cratic party, and our subject is no exception to this rule.
A few years after the close of the war Mr. Cussins began the study of law
under the guidance of A. B. and Lewis Bunn, and was admitted to the bar in
1871, after passing the required examination, which was conducted by Judge
A. J. Gallagher and W. B. Thompson, state's attorney. The young man imme-
diately opened an office in Decatur and has been actively engaged in practice
here ever since. He won the favorable opinion of his associates at the start, and the
ensuing years have but served to strengthen his standing as a member of the
legal profession in this portion of the county. Gifted by nature with a keen,
clear mind, which was developed by a liberal education and experience in the
school-room, he has steadily advanced along the lines of mental activity, and
possesses quick insight, superior judgment and fertility of resource. He man-
ages his cases with masterly skill and tact, and the success which he has achieved
in the field of jurisprudence attests his ability and thoroughness in the applica-
tion of law.
John A. Brown, who for the past thirty-five years has been closely identified
with the progress and development of Decatur, is regarded as one of her most
enterprising and public-spirited citizens. Perhaps no one is more thoroughly
conversant with the subject of landed property and titles in Macon county than
he, as he has given his entire time and attention to this branch of business for
many years.
A native of Abington, Plymouth county, Massachusetts, born July 23, 1843,
Mr. Brown is of the seventh generation from one of the founders of that pretty
town. His ancestor, Rev. Samuel Brown, with his little flock of devout disciples,
settled in Abington in 1632, and was of that heroic body of Pilgrims who bravely
encountered the storms and privations of bleak New England in order that they
might enjoy religious freedom. Both of the grandfathers of our subject were
soldiers of the Revolutionary war, while his father, Lysander Brown, was a hero
of the war of 181 2. The mother of John A. Brown bore the maiden name of
Polly Cushing.
The first seventeen years in the life of our subject were spent at the old fam-
ily homestead in Massachusetts; but he, possessing a more adventurous and
ambitious spirit than most of his ancestors, determined to try his fortunes in the
west, and in 1857 came to Illinois. He had received a good education in his
native state, and upon his arrival here he obtained a position as a teacher in the
schools of Morgan county. In 1865 he took up his residence in Decatur, teach-
ing for a few terms and later becoming editor on the staff of the daily Repub-
lican. His connection with the newspaper continued about two years. In 1873
he commenced the study of law under the direction of Hon. A. Brower Bunn,
and was admitted to the bar in Mount Vernon in 1875. He at once began the
practice of his profession and entered into partnership with F. B. Tait. This
S86 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
firm was very successful during the three years of its continuance, but since the
connection was severed Mr. Brown has been alone in his law practice.
For a period of sixteen years Mr. Brown was a master in chancery, he hav-
ing been appointed to that office in Macon county in 1876. Always interested
in the cause of education, he was fittingly appointed to serve in this field of en-
deavor, and during some thirteen years was the treasurer of the school funds of
Decatur township. In his political opinions he is a Republican, loyal and inter-
ested in the success of his party. During the Civil war he enlisted three times
and also took a zealous part in the organization of Union Leagues. Gradually
he has drifted into the real-estate and corporation branch of law and represents
various firms and corporations, besides promoting some, from time to time. He
is a strict man of business, active and energetic, and has never been obliged to
lose a day from his office on account of illness. Taking the part of the farming
community, Mr. Brown was largely instrumental in bringing about lower
freight and passenger rates on the different railroads of fhis state, as he and
others made such an aggressive stand on the matter that legislation was resorted
to, and our present laws were put in force.
On New Year's Day, 1868, Mr. Brown married Miss Annie L. Fowler, of
Decatur. They have two daughters, — Alma May and Jessie Brown.
Charles H. Layman is numbered among the ablest members of the bar of
southern Illinois, and his extensive legal business at once indicates his masterful
skill in handling the intricate problems of jurisprudence, at the same time bring-
ing him a substantial financial return for his well directed energies. He was
born June 18, 1848, in Williamson county, Illinois, and is a son of John D. and
Nancy (Fitts) Layman. The family had its origin in the Land of the Alps, and
in the early settlement of America three brothers of the name left the mountain
crowned country of Switzerland to seek homes in the New World. One located
in New York, the second in Ohio and the third in Alabama, and it is from the
last mentioned that our subject is descended. Numerous representatives of the
name now reside in Ohio and Pennsylvania. The father of our subject was born
and reared near Huntsville, Alabama, whence he emigrated to Illinois about
the year 1825. He died on the 28th of April, 1850, near Locust Grove, Franklin
county, this state, and his wife, who was a native of Tennessee, died in Benton,
May 30, 1886. They were the parents of eight children: Tabitha, wife of Levi
Browning; S. J., a physician of Tamaroa, Illinois; Thomas J. and Nerissa, both
deceased; Eliza, of Benton; Charles H.; Judge M. T., of Jacksonville, Illinois;
and Malissa E., deceased.
In the common schools of his native county, Judge Layman was edu-
cated, pursuing his studies in the intervals when his services were not needed
on the home farm. He assisted in the cultivation of the fields through the
summer months, and often in the winter season aided in clearing land for the
next spring's planting. He was a youth of industrious habits, fond of books,
and his first step after leaving school was to take up the study of law. He
had learned through history of the men who had won honor and distinction in the
legal profession and with an inherent love of justice and right he resolved to
6^V%.;
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'I l(j\c <»i i' -tl. •. an- I ^'t '
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS. 587
acquaint himself with the science which underlies our laws and stands as the
protection of life, liberty and property. After thorough and systematic prepara-
tion he was admitted to the bar in 1868, and began the practice of law in Mur-
physboro, Illinois, in 1870. Steadily he worked his way upward in his pro-
fession, and the ability with which he handled the intricate problems of law en-
trusted to his care led to his selection for judicial honors in 1873, when he was
elected county judge of Jackson county for a four-years term. His service on the
bench won him high commendation. He discharged his duties with dispatch
and at the same time neglected no point, however minor, and his decisions were
regarded as models of judicial soundness. In 1878 he was elected to the state
legislature ^nd the following year was appointed by President Hayes to the
position of United States attorney of Wyoming territory. He has been engaged
in the practice of law in Benton since 1881, and has been connected with the
most important litigation heard in the courts of southern Illinois during that
period. He is renowned for his careful preparation of cases. He g^ves to the
cause entrusted to his care the deepest study and most earnest thought, and his
thorough familiarity with the contested points makes it impossible to surprise him
along any line of attack in the courtroom. He guards the interests of his
clients with the vigilance with which he cares for his own. He is especially
strong in pleading and in arg^iment, and the logical sequence of his deductions is
rarely called into question. He was counsel in the Pry land case, reported in
the 109th Illinois; the Mace murder case, which was tried in Benton in 1897
and was the primary counsel in the suit in reference to the operation of passenger
trains in addition to freight trains. This important case was heard before the
court, at Benton, January 9, 1894, and later before the supreme court of the state,
where was brought to light a fundamental principle of law that had lain dormant
in* Illinois for half a century, namely: that railroads must operate passenger
trains in addition to and independent of freight or mixed trains. As the result
of the learning and ability of Mr. Layman and his careful and thorough prepara-
tion this case was developed and the decision rendered has had an important
bearing upon similar suits since.
During the civil war Mr. Layman gave evidence of his loyalty to the Union
by enlisting as a member of Company B, Eighty-ninth Illinois Volunteer In-
fantry, August II, 1862. For almost three years he valiantly aided his country,
participating in many a hard fought battle, and when victory perched aloft on the
Union arms he received an honorable discharge, on the 24th of June, 1865. His
political support has ever been given to the Republican party and he is a stalwart
champion of its principles and policy. He belongs to the Grand Army of the
Republic and was commander of the first post of Franklin county, organized in
1867. His life has ever been characterized by fidelity to all civil, military and
professional duties, and Benton numbers him among her valued citizens.
Thomas J. Layman left an indelible impression on the public life of Benton,
Franklin county. No citizen of the community was ever more respected and no
man ever more fully enjoyed the confidence of the people or more richly de-
served the esteem in which he was held. As a lawyer he stood pre-eminently
588 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
high, and through thirty years was recognized as one of the most 'able practition-
ers in corporation law in his part of the state. In the ^'learned professions" ad-
vancement must depend upon individual* merit; influence cannot secure it, nor
wealth purchase it. It was by earnest and systematic preparation and a contin-
ued study of the principles of jurisprudence that Mr. Layman won and retained
an enviable position among his fellow members of the bar. all of whom held him
in the highest regard, by reason of his great fairness and courtesy to an oppo-
nent.
A native of Franklin county, Illinois. Mr. Layman was born on the 8th of
Januar>', 1838. and was a brother of Judge Charles H. Layman, whose sketch
precedes this. He was indebted to the common schools for the educational
privileges he received, and extensive reading in later years broadened his fund
of general knowfe^dge. At the age of nineteen he began teaching school and also
studied law under the preceptorage of Judge Andrew D. Duff, of Benton, Illi-
nois, and continued thus to occupy his time until May, i86t, when President
Lincoln issued his first call for seventy-five thousand volunteers, to crush out
the rebellion in its incipiency. He joined the boys in blue of Company C, Eigh-
teenth Illinois Infantry, commanded by Captain William S. Crawford, but his
health became impaired and he was discharged on the 9th of December fol-
lowing.
For some months after returning to the north Mr. Layman suffered from the
effects of his army life. When he had sufficiently recovered he resumed the study
of law under the direction of Judge Duff, and in 1862 was admitted to the bar.
by the supreme court of Illinois. Later he was admitted to practice in the federal
and supreme courts of the United States, and in his profession enjoyed a con-
stantly increasing clientage. The zeal with which he devoted his energies to Ijis
profession, the careful regard evinced for the interests of his clients, and an as-
siduous and unrelaxing attention to all the details of his cases, brought him a
large business and made him very successful in its conduct. His arguments
elicited warm commendation, not only from his associates at the bar, but also
from (the bench. He was also a very able vvriter, his briefs showing wide re-
search, careful thought and the best and strongest reasons which could be urged
for his contention, presented in cogent and logical form, and illustrated by a
stvlc unusually lucid and clear. Durinc: the last vears of his life he devoted most
of his time to suits involving land titles and to those involving the validity of
bonds issued by counties and other municipal corporations to railroads, and his
success in that line wcmi him a reputation that but few lawyers of the present day
can claim. He had several bond cases pending in the federal courts at the time
of his death, an^ong them the suit relating to the bonds of Perry county, amount-
ing to two hundred thousand dollars, but in this case, as in almost all others, as
was his custom and rule of life, his case was all prepared and almost all of his
work done in advance of the call.
Mr. Layman was married May 14, 1868, to Miss Elizabeth R. Lemen, a
daughter of John Lcmcn, of DuQuoin, and they became the parents of four
children: John C, Mattie P>., Carrie and Thomas J. As a husband, father and
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS. 589
neighbor the affection and kindness of our subject knew no bounds. His home
relations were ideal, and he regarded no personal sacrifice too great that would
enhance the welfare or happiness of his family.
In politics Mr. Layman was a stalwart Republican from the time when he
cast his first presidential vote for Abraham Lincoln, in i860, and he supported
that party when it required personal heroism to do so. He was not a politician
and sought no political honors. He was often urged to become a candidate for
office, and would undoubtedly have been elected to the circuit bench had he not
dechned the honor. He also received the support of the bench and bar of Illi-
nois and a large number of the Illinois representatives and senators in congress
for the office of judge of the "private-land court." His integrity of character and
many generous qualities, together with his remarkably kind and cordial address,
won for him personal popularity and the highest respect. He died at his home
in Benton, January 15, 1892, thus ending a life which would bear the closest
scrutiny of the Higher Court.
Judge Daniel M. Browning has exemplified in his career, in a marked de-
gree, what a high position a young man may rise to in this country, provided
that he possess natural ability, perseverance and honest determination to suc-
ceed. Not very many men, however, can boast of having accomplished so much
as he to whom this tribute is penned. His talents were recognized and his unu-
sual merits canvassed when he was just entering upon manhood, with the result
that he was placed on the bench of the county court of Franklin county before
he had seen the twenty-fourth anniversary of his birth. His personal popularity
was such that overwhelming majorities of the opposition party were overcome
in his favor, and time after time he was re-elected. Having held the judgeship
for the long period pi sixteen years, and not yet having reached two-score years,
he retired to private life and has since conducted a flourishing and lucrative
practice.
A native of Benton, Franklin county, Daniel Monroe Browning was born
October 11, 1846, his parents being William R. and Lydia Browning. His
father was likewise a native of this county, his birth having occurred in 1810.
He was one of the pioneers of this section at a time when there were very few
residents here, and he is justly entitled to be called one of the founders of this
county's prosperity. He was a man of superior ability, largely self-made and
self-educated, and no one was* held in .higher esteem in this community than he.
When well along in life he took up the practice of law, and at one time or
another he occupied almost all of the county offices within the g^ift of his fellow-
citizens. His death, which occurred in this county June 29, 1866, was looked
upon as a great public loss.
The boyhood of Judge Browning passed quietly and without important
event, save that the great Civil war, which came on when he had reached an im-
pressible age, made a lasting mark upon his mind and apparently added years
to his powers of judgment and methods of viewing the great questions of life.
Those "times which tried men's souls" could not fail to leave indelible impres-
sions upon the minds of all, and a few months, ofttimes, ripened the unthinking
590 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS,
youth into the man of sober thought and matured judgment. Young Browning
was privileged to receive an academic education, after completing which he
entered upon the law course in the State University of Indiana, and was grad-
uated there in June, 1866. The same month he passed an examination before
the supreme court of Illinois and was admitted to the Bar of the state before he
was twenty years of age. He at once opened an office and embarked in the
practice of his chosen profession. His initial work in this direction was con-
ducted in the town of Benton, where he had been born and brought up, and per-
haps the ambitious young lawyer found out the truth of the old saying, that "a
prophet is not without honor save in his own country." At any rate, he deemed
it best to teach in the public schools for a year or two thereafter, while waiting
for added years and dignity and experience.
From the time that he first received the right of franchise until the present
Judge Browning has been a zealous Democrat. His personal worth and popu-
larity led to his being elected county judge of his home county in November,
1869, and so well did he satisfy the wishes of the people that he was their candi-
date again in 1873 ^"^ ^^77> almost no opposition being encountered by his
friends. In June, 1879, he was further honored by being elected circuit judge of
the first judicial circuit of Illinois. His ability and high standing in the estima-
tion of the people and the profession which he adorns may be judged by the fact
that this circuit gave him a flattering vote, whereas it is usually Republican by
a majority of two thousand or more. Since June, 1885, he has been engaged in
private practice. April 17, 1893, Judge Browning was appointed by President
Cleveland to the office of commissioner of Indian affairs, and continued to dis-
charge the duties of that position until May 2, 1897, and he then removed from
his old home in Benton to East Saint Louis, where he entered into partnership
with the Hon. W. S. Forman, with whom he has since been associated. In 1882
he was elected grand master of Masons of Illinois and a year later was re-elected
to said position. Since he was seventeen years of age he has been a member of
the Baptist church of Benton.
October 11, 1866, the twentieth anniversary of his birth, Judge Browning
married Miss Tirzah Isabel Naylor, of Benton. They have three living children,
namely: Olive, wife of Professor S. B. Whittington, of the Southern Illinois
Normal University; Elsie, wife of Robert A. Cochran, superintendent of the
Ouapaw Indian school at Baxter Springs, Kansas; and H. Leroy, a young man
of twenty-three years, now engaged in the practice of law in partnership with his
father in East Saint Louis. Pie is a graduate of the law department of the
Columbian University, of Washington, D. C, and was recently appointed United
States commissioner for the state of Illinois.
Carroll C. ^I. \ an B. Payne has been during his entire life numbered among
the inhabitants of Franklin county, and is a representative citizen of Benton.
He has always firmly upheld good laws and government, and when the peace
and stability of his loved country was threatened at the outbreak of the civil war
he took up arms against the enemies of the Union, and bravely fought for the
cause which he believed to be right.
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS. 591
The family whence our subject sprang has long been considered one of the
prominent ones of this section of the state. His father, Lewis G. Payne, was an
influential farmer of Franklin county, and at various times occupied official posi-
tions/ of trust and responsibility. For years he was a justice of the peace and
school commissioner, and the higher offices of sheriff and county treasurer also
were his. For some time he served in the capacity of deputy county clerk and
was a member of the county court. Born in North Carolina in 1811, he lived to
see his eighty-second anniversary, his death occurring in 1893. He married, in
his young manhood. Miss Charity Brilton. The traditions of the Payne family
trace the origin of the family in the United States to three brothers of the name
who settled here in early colonial days. They were of sturdy, industrious, pros-
perous Scotch-Irish stock, and many of their best characteristics have been
transmitted to their descendants.
Carroll Carlin Martin Van Buren Pavne was born in Franklin countv, Illi-
nois, January 26, 1839. When he was old enough he was sent to the subscription
schools of the day, and subsequently he was a student in the schools which were
managed on the present system. Completing the limited curriculum of these
schools about 1858, he soon commenced the study of law under the guidance of
Zebedee Hammock, of Tamaroa, Perry county, Illinois. He was not then strong
enough for the arduous labor of the farm, and this fact led to his taking up a
quieter occupation. His studies, however, were interrupted about this time by
the war of the Rebellion.
In September, 1862, he tendered his services to the Union, enlisting in Com-
pany F, One Hundred and Tenth Regiment of Illinois Volunteer Infantry.
Though he was but twenty-three years of age he was elected first lieutenant of
the company and discharged the duties of that office with fidelity and zeal, win-
ning the commendation of his superiors and comrades alike. Upon returning
from the southern battlefields he resumed his legal studies, finishing his educa-
tion in that line under the preceptorage of Judge A. D. Duff, of the Benton Law
School. He was examined by Judge W. J. Allen and E. V. Pierce and was ad-
mitted to the bar, since which time he has been engaged in practice, with little
interruption. In 1864 and 1865 he served as circuit clerk and in 1868 was elected
to the Illinois legislature. He has always been a stalwart Democrat, and has
frequently made stirrring speeches for his party principles and nominees. At
present he is acting in the office of United States commissioner, having been
appointed by Judge W. J. Allen. Prior to this he was a police magistrate in
Benton, from 1889 to 1895. In his religious views he coincides with the creed of
the Missionary Baptist church.
The marriage of Mr. Payne and Eliza R. Penny was solemnized April 14,
1864, in Benton. Mrs. Payne was born in Benton and was here reared to woman-
hood. Her parents were pioneers of this county, coming here from Lebanon,
Tennessee. The eldest child of our subject and wife is Edwin, born April 2,
1865, ana the other children are Minnie, Philip Duff, Lester Bond, William
Judson, John Lewis, Mary Jennette and Beatrice.
William H. Hart, an enterprising member of the Benton bar, has been asso-
592 THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
ciated with William F. Spiller under the firm name of Hart & Spiller for the
past four years in this place. He is an able exponent of the law and stands high
in the estimation of his fellow citizens and his professional brethren in Franklin
county. Some eight years ago he engaged in his chosen life w^ork here, and
from that time to the present he has enjoyed an extensive and lucrative practice.
Possessing a clear, logical mind and thorough knowledge of the law, he prepares
his cases with directness and dispatch, and when appearing before judge and
jury proceeds directly to the point at issue, without waste of time or words. His
concise, straightforward arguments carry conviction and weight, and rarely fail
of their desired effect.
The parents of Mr. Hart were poor, but industrious, honorable and noble
Christian people. The father, William Jasper Hart, is still living and is hale and
hearty, his home still being on the old homestead, which he has managed for
many years with skill and success. His w^ife, whose maiden name was Sarah Ann
Murphy, a most estimable woman, died in 1876, a faithful member of the Mis-
sionary Baptist church. She was of Irish ancestry, while W. J. Hart is of Eng-
lish descent.
William Henry Hart was born August 31, 1862, at Lake Creek, Williamson
county, Illinois. In his early boyhood he attended the district schools in the
vicinity of his country home, and when he was fifteen he commenced attending
the public schools in Benton. In 1881 he left his high-school studies in order to
assume charge of a district school in this (Franklin) county, and for the following
nine years he was engaged in educational work in this section and in De Soto,
Jackson county; Coulterville, Randolph county, and Harrisonville, Monroe
county, Illinois. In 1867 he had removed with his father to this county, and
since 1877 he has looked upon Benton as his home. At first, in his career as an
educator, he received but twenty-six dollars a month, but gradually his services
were better paid, and during the years that he acted in the capacity of principal
his remuneration was quite adequate to meet his expenses and to provide many
of the luxuries, as well as necessities, of life. His ambitions had not yet been
satisfied, however, and he decided to enter the legal arena and strive for a foot-
hold. He had not been long engaged in practice in Benton ere he was nom-
inated for the office of village attorney, and was duly elected. He has always
affiliated with the Democratic party, and in 1898 was their nominee for the county
judgeship, and is now the county judge of Franklin county. For two years
he had an office with Hon. D. M. Browning and W. S. Cantrell, but since 1894
he has been in partnership with W. F. Spiller. They represent the Benton State
Bank and the Chicago & Eastern Illinois Railroad Company as attorneys and
receive the patronage of a large share of the local population.
Mr. Hart's home is in the town, but he also owns and manages a fine farm
of one hundred and twenty acres in this vicinity. He is active in the Democratic
party and during the last presidential campaign was a strong and influential
champion of "free silver" and Bryan. He is in favor of giving suffrage to women,
and is strongly antagonistic towards the licensing of saloons. Since 1897 he has
been a Master Mason, but, though he freely acknowledges the good that is
THE BENCH AND BAR OF H.LINOIS. 593
wrought by secret societies, he believes that the country would be better off if
no such orders existed. It is his firm opinion that the cause of Christ suffers to
a certain extent, financially and otherwise, by the presence of the various secret
fraternities, and that the church was created to meet all needs of social and frater-
nal association. He is one of the members and trustees of the Christian, or
Disciples' church of Benton, as is also his wife.
August 29, 1890, Mr. Hart married Mary Ward East, in Coulterville, Illi-
nois. At the time of their marriage Mrs. Hart was a teacher in the public schools
of Coulterville, where she had been employed for several terms, meeting with
success as an instructor of the young. She is a daughter of S. M. East, a drug-
gist and well-to-do business man of that town. The two children who brighten
the home of Mr. and Mrs. Hart by their presence are William Ward, born July
19, 1894, and Marion Murphy, born May 24, 1896.
William F. Spiller is one of the most wide-awake and popular attorneys at
the bar of Franklin county. A native of this county, he has passed almost his
whole life within its boundaries, and here, where he is so well known, naught but
good is said of him, and kind wishes follow him wherever he goes. He is now a
junior partner in the firm of Hart & Spiller, which firm disposes of a goodly por-
tion of the law cases of Benton and surrounding country.
While he stands deservedly high in professional circles, Mr. Spiller is no less
a favorite in the political ranks of the Democratic party. Four years prior to
his admission to the bar of Franklin county he was elected to the office of circuit
clerk, and acted in that capacity until 1888, a term of four years. He was further
honored in 1892, when he was elected as state's attorney, his term expiring in
1896. He proved a thoroughly practical and efficient official^ prompt, reliable
and trustworthy. It is said, and truly, that he might have almost any public
office within the gift of the people of his acquaintance, but he is modest and re-
served, and is not an office-seeker in anv sense of the term.
William F. Spiller was born February 27, 1858, in this county, as previously
mentioned, his parents being Perian B. and Xancy K. (Osten) Spiller. The
father was of Irish descent, while the mother was of German extraction. The
boyhood of our subject was spent in the usual routine work of a farm, his educa-
tion being that afforded by the district schools, supplemented by a fifteen-months
course in the Northern Indiana Normal School, at Valparaiso, Indiana. Re-
turning home from that well known educational institution, young Spiller en-
gaged in teaching in this county and continued in that field of endeavor for
seven years, — from 1878 to 1885. During this period he taught school for one
year, — the winter of 1880-81, — in Kansas, and while there began the study of
law under the instruction of A. H. Skidmore, of Columbus, that state. When he
returned to this, his native county, he entered the law office of Judge Browning,
and having completed the required amount of study, was admitted to the bar in
t888, in Mount Vernon. The law class of which he was a member was dubbed
the **cyclone" class, owing to the fact that a cyclone struck the town of Mount
Vernon at the time that he and his fellow students were to be examined, and said
38
594
THE BENCH AND BAR OF ILLINOIS.
exercises were necessarily deferred to a later date. He has been prospered since
he became a full-fledged attorney and is yearly enlarging the sphere of his use-
fulness and activity.
February 25, 1883, Mr. Spiller married Miss Ella Harrison, a daughter of
Captain Isham Harrison. Five children blessed their union, but the three sons
are deceased, and only two little daughters, Clara atid Pearl, remain to brighten
the home. Mr. and Mrs. Spiller are members of the Christian church and are
active and interested in all good works.
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