New Holland and Waterloo New Holland and Clarksburg Deer Creek road Bloomfield and Darbyville Yankeetown and Circleville Darbyville and London Darbyville, Five points and Mt. Sterling Bloomfield and St. Paul Williamsport and Darbyville Yankeetown and Lester Mills Scioto and Genoa Walnut Creek, Circleville and Ashville

1868 1868 1869 1869 1869 1869 1869 1869 1869 1870 1870 1870

$23,280 13,250 19,700 22,335 24,000 26,140 12,175 11,900 13,060 32,200 5,422

TURNPIKES AND PLANK ROADS IN FRANKLIN COUNTY.

The principal turnpikes in Franklin county, other than Cumberland, or National road, and the Columbus and Portsmouth pike, are the Columbus and Sandusky, Columbus and Harrisburg, Columbus and Johnstown, Columbus and Sunbury, Columbus and Groveport, Cottage Mills and Harrisburg, and the. Jackson and Franklin.

The first constructed, any part of which was in the county, was the Columbus and Sandusky pike. The Legislature, in 1823, passed an act incorporating a joint stock company for the construction of this road, consisting of the following men : John Kitbourne, Abram J. McDowell, Henry Brown, William Neil, Orange Johnson, Orris Parrish, and Robert Brotherton, of Franklin county, and nineteen others residing along the proposed line, in the vicinity of Delaware, Bucyrus and Sandusky. The capital was to be one hundred thousand dollars, and the company was authorized to increase it, if necessary, to twice that amount. It was divided into shares of one hundred dollars each. By an act of congress, passed in 1827, over thirty-one thousand acres of land were granted, in trust, for the use of the company. The company's charter required at least a width of eighteen feet of artificial road to be made, "composed of stone, gravel, wood, or other suitable material, well compacted together, in such manner as to secure a firm, substantial and eve road, rising in the Middle, with a gradual arch." Much trouble and hard feeling were caused by the different understandings of this clause of the charter. The company interpreted it to mean that a Clay road could be constructed, and the general expectation of the public was, that in order to properly meet the requirements 6 the charter, the roadway must be composed of stone or gravel. The road was not finished until seven years after it was commenced. It was one hundred and six miles in length, and cost nearly seventy-five thousand dollars, a little over seven hundred dollars per mile. It was a:, clay or mud pike, not so good as the needs of the large travel demanded,—in wet seasons, in some places quite impassable. When completed, Nathaniel Merriam, who was appointed for that purpose by the governor, made an examination of the road, and. reported that, in his opinion, it was constructed in accordance with the provisions of the legislative act. This report, however, did not make the actual condition of the road any better, in the eyes of the people who were obliged to travel upon it, and the disapprobation was occasionally made manifest, by the tearing down of the toll gates. Much bitterness of feeling was created, and the trouble bid fair to be continued indefinitely, but in 1843 the legislature took hold of the matter, and on the 28th of February, of that year, an act was passed whereby the charter of the company was unconditionally repealed. Although this act made it unlawful to maintain the toll system upon the road, the toll-gates were kept up, and tolls collected, until 1845, when an act was passed establishing the road to be a public .highway, and authorizing a State road to be surveyed and located, upon the bed of the clay turnpike, from Columbus to Sandusky. The company, relying upon the report of the examiner, which had been favorable to them, maintained that the acts of the legislature were unconstitutional, and numerous applications were made to succeeding legislatures for relief. They were unsuccessful, however, and the company, although trying by various means to secure its rights, failed to gain what it sought. The attorney general declared he thought a wrong had been done the company. At the session of 1856-7 a bill passed the senate to authorize the company to bring suit against the State, but it was lost in the house. The Columbus and Worthington plank road, or turnpike company, was chartered by the legislature, March 23, 1849, to construct a plank road, or turnpike, from Columbus to Worthington, with the privilege of extending it. to Delaware. The company consisted of Solomon Beers, John Phipps, John B. Piatt, Philip Fisher, Robert E. Neil, and others. The first directors were B. Comstock, William Neil and Alanson Bull. The company being authorized to construct a road upon any public highway, chose the old bed of the Columbus and Sandusky turnpike. The road was finished in 1850, and on the first of January, 1851, the first dividend was declared. The capital stock of the company was twenty-seven thousand, eight

HISTORY OF FRANKLIN AND PICKAWAY COUNTIES, OHIO - 55

hundred and twenty-five dollars, with power to increase to fifty thousand dollars.

The Columbus and Harrisburgh turnpike was constructed in the years 1848 and 1849, by a company incorporated in 1847. The capital stock was twenty thousand, eight hundred and fifteen dollars, and the road cost thirty-five thousand, six hundred and two dollars, of which amount the county donated four thousand; five hundred dollars, to pay for the erection of the' bridge over the Scioto. The company was left largely in debt, to the payment of which, a portion of the receipts of the road were devoted.

The Columbus and Johnstown turnpike was constructed in 1851, from Columbus to Walnut creek, opposite the village of Bridgeport. The company of incorporators consisted of Robert Neil, Windsor Atchison, George Ridenour, Jesse Baughman and Walter Thrall, with -their associates.

The Columbus and Sunbury turnpike and plank road company was incorporated March 20, 1850, and constructed a road, diverging from the above about three miles northwest of Columbus, and extending to Central College. This road was made in 1852, and cost-nearly seven thousand dollars. The incorporators of the corn pang were William Trevitt, Christian Heyl, Peter Agler, James Park, George Wagler, John Dill,- Peter Harlocker, Timothy Lee, W. G. Edmison, John. Curtiss, E. Washburn and Stillman Tucker.

The Columbus and Granville turnpike, or, as it is commonly called, Brush's plank road, was made in 1852, from Columbus to Walnut creek, a distance of seven miles. The original members of the company were Jos. Ridgeway, Samuel Barr, Gates O'Harra, Wm. A. Platt and Samuel Brush. The fact that the last named gentleman was the first president of the company, and held that place for many years, was the cause of the road receiving its name.

The Columbus and Groveport turnpike company was incorporated by an act passed March -19, 1849, and consisted of William Harrison, Nathaniel Mesion, William H. Rarey, William Darnell, Edmund Stewart and William W. Kyle. About twelve thousand five hundred dollars' worth of stock was subscribed, and the road was completed in 1850, the cost exceeding that amount, and being paid out of the earnings of the road.

The Cottage Mills and Harrisburgh turnpike was made M 1852, and is about seven and a half miles in length. The incorporators were Adin G. Hibbs, Levi Strader, Solomon Borer, Isaac Miller and William Nuff, and their associates. The first board of directors were S. B. Davis, A. G. Hibbs, Isaac Miller, Levi Strader and Solomon Borer; and the contractor was A. Poulson.

The Franklin and Jackson turnpike was constructed from the Columbus and Harrisburgh pike down the river, to the Cottage Mills and Harrisburgh pike, a distance of ten miles, in 1852, at a cost of from seven to eight thousand dollars.. The incorporators of the company were Samuel Landes, John Moler, Adam Miller, Jacob Huffman, John Stimmel, John Cherry, William L. Miner, Michael L. Sullivant and Gershum M. Peters.

The Columbus and Lockwin plank road, commencing at the intersection of the old harbor road with the Columbus and Johnstown turnpike, and extending seven miles, was constructed in 1853 and 1854, the cost being sixteen thousand, five hundred dollars—almost two thousand, four hundred dollars per mile. It was very strongly made, of plank eight feet long and three inches thick, and on four-inch stringers.

The Clinton and Bluden plank road company was organized under the general act passed in 1853, and in that and the following one the road was constructed. It runs from a point on the Lockwin road about four miles north of Columbus, and extends to the county line, half a mile north of Westerville, being a little over eight miles in length. The cost of construction was about sixteen thousand, six hundred dollars, or over two thousand dollars per mile.

CHAPTER XIV.

EARLY COMMERCE. *

MIGRATION to the territory embraced in Ohio commenced with considerable activity about 1799, and from the admission of Ohio as a State of the Union, it became extraordinarily active up to about 1807 or 1808, Virginia, Pennsylvania and Connecticut furnishing the greater amount of immigrants, though all of the States furnished representatives. Among them there was but few speculators in large locations of land; most came to secure a home in the fertile State, 'intending by, their own labor to improve and enjoy it. There was comparatively little wealth in the hands of immigrants, and that little had to be expended in living, until the land should be Cleared up and made productive. Many of the emigrants took boats on the Ohio, and in these they went down the river until they reached the Muskingum, the Hocking, the Scioto or Miami rivers, up which they worked their way to their intended location. Floating down the Ohio was comparatively easy, but pulling up the lateral streams was work indeed. Emigrants were not unfrequently delayed 'on the latter streams for want of sufficient depth of water.

The principal places where families and merchants stopped to prepare for embarkation were Brownsville, or Redstone, Pittsburgh and Wheeling. There were people in each of those places who made it their business to accommodate strangers descending the Ohio river,. with any article that might 'be wanted; either provisions, farming utensils or boats, at a cheap and reasonable price. There' wefe large boat-yards at each of these places, where boats were generally well made .and strong. The price varied according to their make, length and strength; one, convenient for a family, between thirty and forty feet in length, cost from one dollar to one dollar and a quarter per foot, making, perhaps, thirty-five dollars for a com-

* By Judge Henry N. Hedges, of Circleville.

56 - HISTORY OF FRANKLIN AND PICKAWAY COUNTIES, OHIO

plete family boat, well boarded up on the sides and roofed to within seven or eight feet of the bows. Exclusive of this expense was the price of a cable, pump and fire-place, perhaps ten dollars more. (See Navigator of 1818.) Besides these family boats, there were a number of keel boats on the Ohio and lateral rivers, used and employed by common carriers of merchandise, family goods, etc. It is said (in the Navigator before referred to) that what added to the commerce of Cincinnati was the line of barges running regularly from that city to New Orleans, descending, loaded with the produce of the country, and returning with cargoes of sugar, coffee, rice, hides, wines, rum, and dry goods of various kinds, and cotton from Natchez. Messrs. Baum, Perry & Biddle, of Cincinnati, had a line of barges constantly so engaged.

According to the census of 1810, Cincinnati, Ohio, contained one thousand, two hundred and seventeen males and one thousand and six females; total, two thousand, two hundred and twenty-three.

The principal articles constituting lading for the boats trading on the Ohio and Mississippi were flour, whiskey, apples, cider, peach and apple brandy, bar-iron and castings, tin and copper-ware, glass, cabinet work, mill-stones, grind-stones, nails, etc. The principal articles brought up the Ohio in keel boats were cotton, lead, furs, peltry, hemp, and tobacco from Kentucky.

The migration into .Pickaway county from the year 1800 to 1807 was such as had no precedent in the west. The greater portion of the later emigrants came by land, bringing their families and necessary utensils in wagons. Their progress was slow, owing to the unimproved condition of the roads, and they generally took advantage of the. early fall to make the trip, the roads being then comparatively dry, and the streams low. Usually several families were found in the same company, thus affording each other aid and society on their toilsome way. Arrived at the end of their journey, and making their locations of land, there was nothing to be done but grapple with the forest and prepare their lands for the plow and seed. It was during this preparation that the merchants had their harvest and profits. As before remarked, the large majority of the settlers were men of small means, and everything had to be purchased for cash. The merchant knew the wants of the people, and had prepared himself accordingly, and for several years his tribe multiplied and was.. prosperous. But as the little money had left the hands of the settler, and he had by this time been able to raise his bread and meat, and his family had learned to spin and weave, merchandizing grew rapidly less remunerative, and the majority of the merchants failed. Soon after the introduction of steam, the barges, the keel and family boats gave way, and the principal means of transportation was by steam, on the Ohio and Mississippi. The means of transportation with eastern cities, particularly with Philadelphia and Baltimore, was by large wagons, drawn; usually, by six horses.

The emigrants turned their attention to stock, which was easily cared for, as the pasturage was abundant, and, at an early day, the cattle and hogs raised in Ohio were driven on foot to the eastern markets. Pickaway county, being about equally divided in two parts by the Scioto river, there was afforded ample meal for the transportation of her surplus of corn, flour, whi key, bacon, etc., to the Mississippi country and to New Orleans. These articles were shipped on flat boats, ha. ing a carrying capacity of from three hundred to five hundred barrels each. When these boats had floated to their destination, they were sold and broken up for the lumber in them.

I have before me the log-book of James Campbell, a partner of Henry Nevill, the old Jefferson merchant in the dry goods business, who entered the Ohio at Portsmouth in charge of a flat boat, on the twentieth of March, 1820, and landed at New Orleans the twentieth of April. He made daily memoranda .of the state of the weather, the number of steamboats that passed him going up or down, and other incidents that interested him, with other matters; that he "caught a catfish of fifty pounds weight near island No. 73, in the Mississippi;" "that neat island No. 82 he assisted George Kuder to unload the boat which he had charge of for Mr. Thomas Bell, of Circleville, of said county of Pickaway." The boat was stove in, in landing, and sank to the roof in three minutes. The flour in barrels was taken out of the water; emptied out, and repacked, there being lost, in the oper ation of re-packing, not over five per cent. He also recorded that he passed the boat of Mr. Wolf, of Pick, away county, Ohio.

About 1808 or 1809, by which time there was considerable surplus of horses, cattle, hogs, wheat, corn, and whiskey, for which no market could be had,' except by driving the stock to the eastern cities, or floating it down the Scioto and thence to New Orleans, with the surplus of wheat, corn, etc. About this period (1808) the matter of the abundance of the surplus productions of the State was brought up for consideration by the Ohio legislature. Relief was sought by the charter of banks in the different portions of the State, some of which had success and aided the business of the country; others failed, thus making matters worse.

The next important transaction was the declaration of war, in 1812. This, of course, inflated prices, and made a demand for the surplus produce at home, at prices satisfactory. At the close of the war, or very soon after, the surplus of the country increased largely, prices of everything raised or produced in the State came down to the lowest level, with no market of a commercial character at any price that was remunerative. A large portion of the corn and rye was converted into whiskey, much of which was shipped south, and the balance consumed at home. (It was claimed that good whiskey, used moderately, was an anti-miasmatic. Quinine, in its present form, was then not known.) Because of the depression of prices, following, in a few years, the close of the war of 1812, there was but little trade. There was much surplus of stock and grain that it was difficult to convert into money, and this state of things continued growing but little better until the adoption of the canal system, in 1825.

It was after the war of 1812, up to the commencement

HISTORY OF FRANKLIN AND PICKAWAY COUNTIES, OHIO - 57

and conclusion of the Ohio canal, that our farmers. and merchants were engaged in the Orleans and Mississippi trade. Orleans, or flat boats, built to carry four and five hundred barrels, were built on the lateral waters of the Ohio, to visit the Muskingum, the Scioto, Little Miami, Great Miami, and the Wabash. In Pickaway county, as many as thirty boats were built in one year, and sent to New Orleans, loaded with the produce of the country. As early as the year 1810, a Mr. Rosewalt had on the stocks at Pittsburgh a steamboat of one hundred and thirty-eight feet keel, calculated for three or four hundred tons burthen. This steamboat was launched in March, and descended the Ohio and Mississippi, and landed. at Natchez, December, 1811, and was in the trade from Natchez to Orleans until after the year 1818.

From this day steamboats increased rapidly on the Ohio and Mississippi rivers, and, in a few years, supplanted the barges, keel-boats, and flat boats of . the earlier days. In the year 1819, Jacob Hitler, lately deceased, made trips with produce, principally flour, and with his brother, George Hitler, now of Pickaway county, continued to make annual trips until 1830.

Lucas Sullivant sent boats from Franklinton, Franklin county, and William Neil went with cargoes from a point on the Olentangy or Whetstone, near Worthington, to New Orleans, and from thence to Liverpool.

Mr. George Fry, of Circleville, now seventy-seven years of age, who had been on five trips to New Orleans, and three times, in addition thereto, to the falls of the Ohio, says that the flat boats of the State of Ohio were from sixty to sixty-five feet long,. sixteen feet wide, boarded up, and calked. The height of the boats was seven feet. Most of the Scioto boats had a triangular bow, while others were square in the front as in the rear. There were three oars on deck—one in the rear, called the steering oar, and two side oars, called sweeps. The sweeps were only used to pull out of an eddy, or to assist in avoiding objects that were dangerous. The steering oar was used only to keep the boats in their safe course. There was no thought of accelerating the progress of these boats after they reached the Ohio. They were simply put into the current and allowed to go with it

CHAPTER XV.

RAILROADS.

On the twenty-third of February, 1830, William B. Hubbard, who for many years afterward was a resident of Columbus, prepared and submitted to the general assembly "an act to incorporate the Ohio canal and the Steubenville railway company." This was only one year after the successful experiments of George Stevenson, with his first locomotive engine, at Gadshill, England. New charters were granted at every session of the legislature, but up to the close of 1836 very little had been

- 8 -

accomplished, owing to the financial depression. In 1837 the law afterward. called "the plunder act," "to authorize a loan of the credit of the State .of. Ohio to railroad companies, and to authorize subscriptions by the State to turnpike, canal, and slack- water navigation companies," was passed, and under it the railroads secured about seven hundred thousand dollars, yet not enough to build and equip thirty miles of road.! The act, becoming very unpopular, was repealed in 1840. The first .railroad in Ohio was built in 1841. In that year there were but thirty miles in use. As late as 1840 there were only three hundred and fifty miles constructed, but from that time on, the increase was quite rapid. In 1877, the total length of the railroads in Ohio was four thousand, eight hundred and seventy-eight and forty-one one-hundredths miles.

The importance of Columbus as a railway center can be partially appreciated, when we state that fifteen hundred and forty miles of railroad center in that city, the passenger trains entering a depot not eclipsed, in size and appearance, by any. in the west. This mileage does not include the far-reaching connections that all Columbus roads have, and no branches are counted. The railroad facilities of Columbus include three separate, direct routes to New York, Philadelphia and Baltimore, competing lines to the lake, and rail communication with the inexhaustible coal fields, lying to the southwest, only about sixty miles distant, and also with the iron ore region.

THE COLUMBUS & XENIA RAILROAD.

This was the first railroad leading into or out of Columbus. The company was chartered by a special act passed March 1; 1844, but the road was not constructed until 1848 and 1849. The first passenger train' passed over it February 20, 1850. Soon after this date the members of the legislature took an excursion. over this road, and the Little Miami, to Cincinnati and back. The Little Miami company obtained a charter' March 11, 1836. The two companies, November 30, 1853, entered into a contract of union; or' partnership, by which the roads of both were operated as one line. The two companies leased, January T, 1865, the Dayton and Western road, and purchased, the same year, the Dayton, Xenia & Belpre road from Xenia to Dayton. The partnership, or union, was dissolved November 30, 1868, and a contract of lease entered into by which the Little Miami company leased, for ninety-nine years, the Columbus & Xenia road and the rights and interests of that company in the other roads that had been leased or purchased by the two companies. The condition was the promise of the Little Miami company to pay seven per cent. per annum on a capital of one million, seven hundred and eighty-six thousand,. two hundred dollars, and the interest on the funded debt.

The Pittsburgh, Cincinnati & St. Louis railroad company, on December r,. 1869, leased of the "Little Miami company, its railroad and its right in the Columbus & Xenia and other road's. The statement of the Columbus

* Henry C. Noble, Centennial address.

58 - HISTORY OF FRANKLIN AND PICKAWAY COUNTIES, OHIO.

& Xenia company, in Poor's railway manual for 1878, has the following in regard to finances:

Capital Stock paid in Funded Debt  Total		$1,786,200.00 302,000.00 $2,088,200.00
Per Contra.:
Construction  Equipment  Stocks and Bonds Cash  Other Assets  Total	$1,493, 146.00 321,64.96 103,030.00 920.52 169, 458.52	$2,088, 200.00

 

The funded debt consists of first mortgage, seven per cent. bonds, due September 1, 1890. Officers: President, Joseph R. Swan, Columbus; secretary and treasurer, Robert S. Smith, Columbus. Further account of this road is included under the heading of the Pittsburgh, Cincinnati & St. Louis railroad.

CLEVELAND, COLUMBUS, CINCINNATI & INDIANAPOLIS RAILROAD.

This, leaving off the last addition to its title, was the second Columbus railroad put in operation. The company's original charter was dated March 14, 1836, but fifteen years elapsed before the road was built. An excursion train passed over it from Columbus to Cleveland February 21, 1851, carrying the members of the State legislature, the city authorities of Columbus and Cincin¬nati, and many other citizens. The company embraces four original corporations and lines, as follows : 'The Cleveland, Columbus & Cincinnati, the Springfield & Mansfield, the Bellefontaine & Indiana, and the Indianapolis & Bellefontaine roads.

The " Bee Line," as the road is popularly called, consists of three hundred and ninety-one miles of road, of which three hundred and seven are in Ohio, and located as follows : From Cleveland to Columbus, one hundred and thirty-eight miles; from Galion to Indianapolis, two hundred and three ; from Springfield to Delaware (Spring- field branch), fifty miles. This road, in 1877, run passenger trains, nine hundred and thirty-four thousand and ninety-four miles.; freight trains, three million, sixty thousand, one hundred and ninety-nine miles, and other trains, one hundred and nineteen thousand, four hundred and eighty-nine miles, 'carrying a total of six hundred and ninety-five thousand, one hundred and twenty-eight passengers, and transported a total of one million, fifty-two thousand, four hundred and thirty-two tons of through, and one million, six hundred and twenty-four thousand, two hundred tons of way freight. The earnings of the road were:

From passengers " freight " mail “ express " rents, interests and dividends. Total

$680,918 78 2,453,893 56 75,717 78 74,494 53 149,421 30 $3, 434,356 15

The total expenditures were $2,770,344: 28, leaving a balance of net earnings (19.92 per cent.) of $664,011.87. The net surplus was $61,901.92. The organization of this company is in Cleveland, where are located its principal offices. . In its report on rolling stock, the company shows the possession of one hundred and thirty-nine' locomotives, and a total of three thousand, eight hundred and fifteen revenue cars (including the equipment of the Cleveland & Sandusky railroad). The construction ac-. count amounts to over eighteen million dollars, and the capital stock is placed at. about one millon, five hundred] thousand dollars.

THE CENTRAL OHIO-(BALTIMORE & OHIO RAILROAD).

The Central Ohio railroad, now under lease to the. Baltimore & Ohio company, and known as the central division of the Baltimore & Ohio railroad, was the third line opened out from Columbus. The building of this road was a project which had its inception at Zanesville... The company was formed under a special law, passed., February 8, 1847, for building a railroad from Columbus, through Newark and Zanesville, to such a point on the Ohio river as the directors might select. The company was organized at Zanesville, in August, 1847, Solomon Sturges being elected . president. John H. Sullivan was elected president in 1848. The road was put under contract in 1850. Delays followed, and it was not opened to Newark until the twenty-sixth of January, 1852, and to Columbus, until the eighteenth of January, 1853. In 1859, the road was placed in the hands of a receiver, and November 1, 1865, a new company was formed, to which the property was conveyed June 29, 1866. An agree, ment was made November 21, 1866, with the Baltimore & Ohio company, by which the road was to be operated for twenty years, the Baltimore and Ohio railroad com piny to retain sixty-five per cent.. of the gross earnings for the first five years, and sixty per cent. thereafter, and out of the remainder to pay annually one hundred and sixty-six thousand dollars to the company, for interest on the funded debt. The lease was modified, in 1869, so that the Baltimore and Ohio railroad company were to retain sixty-five per cent. throughout the entire term, of twenty years.

While the road was in the hands of the receiver, March 14, 1864, a sale of half the line, from Newark to Columbus (thirty-three miles), was made to the Steubenville & Indiana (now the Pittsburg, Cincinnati & St. Louis railroad) railway company, for seven hundred and seventy-five thousand dollars.. That portion of the line is now jointly owned by the two companies. This road is shown by Poor's manual to have made a total earning, in 1877, of $761,524.88. The expenditure was $612,23747. The net earning was thus $149,286.51; rentals received under lease, (thirty-five per cent.), $266,533.71. Actual deficit to lessees, $117,146.0. The rolling stock reported is as follows: Locomotive engines, thirty-one; cars-passenger; nineteen; baggage, mail and express, eight; freight, three hundred and forty-one. During the. year, passenger trains were run 325,139 miles, and freight trains, 836,282. The number of passengers carried was 256,984; and• the amount of freight moved was 608,486 tons. The construction account amounts to $5,500,000. Most of the officers are non-residents of Columbus.

The next railroad that was constructed in this section of country was the Columbus, Piqua & Indiana road.

HISTORY OF FRANKLIN AND PICK AWAY COUNTIES, OHIO - 59

The charter was dated February 23, 1849. The first train passed over the road, from Columbus to Urbana, July 4, 1843, and in a few months, ran from Columbus to Piqua. This was one of the several roads which, consolidated, made the line generally known as the

COLUMBUS, CHICAGO & INDIANA CENTRAL RAILROAD.

The Columbus, Piqua & Indiana company becoming embarrassed, it was re-organized under the name of the Columbus & Indianapolis railroad company. The road was sold August 6, 1865, under an order of court, and subsequently transferred by deed to the re-organized company. This company became the owners, in 1864, of the Richmond & Covington railroad.

The Columbus & Indianapolis railroad company, of Ohio, and the Indiana Central railroad company, of Indiana, were consolidated in September, 1864, under the name of the Columbus & Indiana Central railroad company. The company thus formed was consolidated with the Toledo, Logansport & Burlington railroad. company, and the Union & Logansport company, both of. Indiana. 'l'he new Organization was consolidated, in 1868, with the Chicago & Great Eastern railroad company. taking the name of the Columbus & Indiana Central railway, thus made to extend from Columbus, Ohio, to Chicago; from Bradford Junction, Ohio, to Indianapolis; from Richmond, Indiana, to Logansport, and from Logansport to the western line of Indiana—in all five hundred and eighty-two miles. Of this, one hundred and thirty-seven miles are in the State of Ohio, extending from Columbus to Union City, on the State line, one hundred and sixteen miles, and from Bradford Junction to a point on the State line toward Richmond, twenty-one miles. The Columbus, Chicago & Indiana Central road is under lease to the Pittsburgh, Cincinnati & St. Louis -railroad, the "Pan Handle" route, the lease having been in effect since 1869. The Pittsburgh, Columbus & St. Louis company also leases the Little Miami and the Columbus & Xenia roads. The length of the Columbus, Chicago & Indiana Central line from Columbus to Indianapolis is one hundred and eighty-seven and three-tenths miles, and from Bradford, Ohio, to Chicago two hundred and thirty miles. The other lines give it a total length of five hundred and eighty and five-tenths miles. The rolling stock is: Locomotive engines, one hundred and twenty-five; cars—passenger, sixty-one; freight, one thousand, six hundred and seventeen. The freight moved in the year 1877 was one million, five hundred and twenty-one thousand, one hundred and forty-one tons;- number of passengers carried, six hundred and fifty-two thousand, seven hundred and sixty-seven. The total earnings were three million, three hundred and ninety-six thousand, two hundred and fifty-five dollars and fifty-eight cents, and the total expenditures two million, nine .hundred and forty thousand, nine hundred and fifteen .dollars and forty-five cents, leaving the net earnings four hundred and fifty-five thousand, three hundred .and forty dollars and twenty-three cents. The construction and equipment of the road have cost (to the time of the last report) thirty-eight million, eight hundred and fifty-one thousand and ninety-seven dollars and. forty-four cents.

PITTSBURGH, CINCINNATI & ST. LOUIS (PAN HANDLE).

This company was formed May 1, 1868, by -the consolidation of the Pittsburgh & Steubenville railroad company, of Pennsylvania, chartered March 24, 1849; the Halliday's Cove railroad company, of Virginia, chartered 1850; and the Steubenville & Indiana railroad company, chartered in Ohio, in 1848. The road of the latter company was opened in 1858. The Pittsburgh & St. Louis railroad was re-organized December 28, 1867, under the name of the Pan Handle, and the road was opened in 1865. It was leased, on completion, to the Pennsylvania railroad company, by which it is now operated. The length of the main line, from Pittsburgh to Columbus, is one hundred and ninety-two and three-tenths miles; and there is a branch eight and one-tenth miles in - length, from Cadiz Junction to Cadiz, Ohio. The rolling stock consists of one hundred and six locomotives and one thousand five hundred and twenty-three cars. The report of operations for the year ending December 31, 1877, shows that passenger cars were run five hundred and eighty-seven thousand, eight hundred and twenty-five miles, and freight cars a distance of one million, eight hundred and forty- one thousand, six hundred and seventy-nine miles. The total number of passengers carried was six hundred and eighty thousand and eighty-' two, and the amount of freight moved, one million, seven hundred and twenty-two thousand, three hundred and eighty-six tons. The total earnings were $3,108,193.26, and the total expenditure, $2,022,913.15; leaving a net balance of $1,085,280.01. The construction and equipment have cost $19,942,294.81.

THE PITTSBURGH, FORT WAYNE & CHICAGO RAILROAD.

This company was formed by the consolidation of. the Ohio & Pennsylvania railroad company, the Ohio & Indiana; and the Fort Wayne & Chicago. The road was opened, through its entire length, January I, 1859, and the year' after the consolidation was effected. The road was sold, under foreclosure, in 1861. A new company was organized in 1862, and in 1869 leased all of its railway -and property to the Pennsylvania raiload company, by which it was subsequently transferred to the Pennsylvania company, by which it is now operated, the lessees paying seven per cent. upon the capital stock and funded debt. The rolling stock is reported to consist of two hundred and seventy-eight locomotives and five thousand three hundred and sixty-one cars. Passenger trains were Tun,. during the year ending December 31, 1877, one million, five hundred and one thousand, three hundred and ninety-five miles, and freight trains, four millions, five hundred and ninety-six thousand, two hundred and two miles. The number of passengers carried was two million, ninety-six thousand, one hundred and thirty-one, and the amount of freight moved, two million, six hundred and ninety thousand, seven hundred and ninety-five tons. . The total earnings. were $6,928,856.11, and the total expenditures $4,064,398.34; leaving, as a balance of net earnings, $2,864,457.77. The cost of construction, rolling stock, real estate, and buildings, is given. at $38,728,585.71.

60 - HISTORY OF FRANKLIN AND PICKAWAY COUNTIES, OHIO.

THE COLUMBUS, SPRINGFIELD & CINCINNATI, AND THE CIN-

CINNATI, SANDUSKY & CLEVELAND RAILROADS.

The first named company had its origin in the Columbus & Springfield railroad company, which was chartered. February 16, 1840. A road was built from Springfield to London—twenty miles--under this charter, and leased, in 1854, to the Mad 'River & Lake Erie, since called the Cincinnati, Cleveland & Lake Erie railroad company. The road was sold May.8, 1868, under a decree of the United States district court, and bought by Jacob W. Pierce, of Boston, for one hundred thousand dollars. The Columbus, Springfield & Cincinnati railroad was incorporated May 1, 1869, with a capital stock of one million; five hundred thousand dollars, and Mr. Pierce transferred his purchase, soon after, to the new company. By an arrangement with the purchaser, the road was continued under the management of the Cincinnati, Sandusky & Cleveland railroad company, to which it was permanently leased July 1, 1870. It was subsequently completed to Columbus, a distance of forty-four and thirty-seven hundredths miles. The Cincinnati, Sandusky & Cleveland railroad company was incorporated by special charter as the Mad River & Lake Erie railroad company, for building a road from Dayton, via Tiffin and Bellevue, to Sandusky. The company became dissatisfied with this line -and abandoned it, and built a new line, via Tiffin and Clyde, to Sandusky, and leased it to the Mad River & Lake Erie company. The company passed through many financial embarrassments, the road was sold, the company re-organized, its name changed, etc. The company leased, March 25, 1871, that portion of its line, twenty-.five miles in length, between Dayton and Springfield, to the Cincinnati & Springfield Short Line company, which, took possession in 1872. The Cincinnati, Sandusky & Cleveland company has now .a main line from Sandusky to Springfield, one hundred and thirty and two-tenths miles, a.branch road from Carey to Findley, and the . Columbus, Springfield & Cincinnati road, from Columbus to Springfield, forty-four and thirty-seven hundredths miles, making a total of one hundred and eighty-nine and thirty hundredths miles. The rolling stock (according to Poor's manual, 1878) consists of thirty-five locomotives, and eight hundred and eighty cars. Passenger trains were run a distance of three hundred and sixty thousand, five hundred and eighty miles. The total number of passengers carried was two hundred and eighty-five thousand, five hundred and thirteen, and the total amount of freight moved, three hundred and sixty-five thousand, three hundred and seventy-nine tons. The total earnings were $655,420.83, and the total expenditures, $504,266.05, leaving net earnings, $151,- 154.78. The construction and equipment to July i, 1877, cost $6,217,055. Most of the officers and directors of the road reside at Sandusky.

CLEVELAND, MT. VERNON & COLUMBUS RAILROAD.

The main line owned by the Cleveland, Mt. Vernon & Columbus railroad company, extends from Columbus to Hudson, a distance of one hundred and forty-four and forty-two one-hundredths miles, and there is under lease by the company, twelve and a half miles, known as the

Cleveland & Massillon railroad. The company wa first chartered; in 1851; as the Akron branch of th Cleveland & Pittsburgh railroad company, and the roa was opened, from Hudson to Millersburgh, in 1853 The same year the company was re-organized, under the name of the Cleveland, Zanesville and Cincinnati rail. road. The road was placed in the hands of a receive in 1861, and in 1864 was sold, under foreclosure, t George W. Cass and John J. Marvin, who, on the first o July, 1865; sold their purchase to the Pittsburgh, For Wayne & Chicago railroad company, by whom the road was owned and operated, until leased, with that of th company's main line, to the Pennsylvania company.

The Pittsburgh, Mt. Vernon, Columbus & London railroad company, was organized May i I, 1869, and, in the following November, purchased so much of the old, Unfinished road, right of way, etc., of the Springfield, Mt. Vernon & Pittsburgh road, as lies east of Delaware, and extending through Mt. Vernon in the direction of Millersburgh. The same company purchased the entire Cleveland, Zanesville & Cincinnati road, before known as the Akron branch, and obtained an assignment of the Cleveland & Massillon road. The name of the company was changed, by decree of court, December 28, 1869, to the Cleveland, Mt. Vernon & Delaware railroad company. The road, as now operated, was completed in 1873. Its rolling stock consisted, in 1877, of twenty-two engines, and six hundred and twenty-six cars. Passenger trains were run 187,366 miles, and freight trains 237,634 miles. The total number of passengers carried was 231,950, and the amount of freight moved, 240,507 tons. The total earnings of the road were $388,896.16, and the sum of the expenditures, $307,171.16, leaving a balance of net earnings of 81,725. The cost of construction and equipment, up to January 1, 1878, was $4,628,870.61.

THE COLUMBUS & HOCKING VALLEY RAILROAD.

This, one of the most valuable of railroads to Columbus, had its origin under the name of the Mineral railroad. A company by that title was incorporated April 14, 1864, to construct and operate a railroad from Athens to Columbus, with a capital stock of one million, five hundred thousand dollars. M. M. Greene labored, for some time, in southern Ohio to secure the necessary subscriptions, but was not rewarded with success. In January, 1866, he came to Columbus, and laid the matter before a number of leading citizens, and soon after a meet ing was held, and Mr. Greene presented fully his views as to the importance of the proposed road, the benefit which would result to the city from the development of the coal and iron fields of the Hocking valley, etc. The meeting resulted in the determination to have a preliminary survey made, and Messrs. B. E. Smith, Wm. Davidson, Wm. G. Deshler, W. B. Brooks, Wm. A. Platt, B.. S. Brown, Win. A. Neil and Theodore Comstock each contributed one hundred dollars for this purpose. This was the beginning of an enterprise which fully sustained Mr. Greene in his representations, and which has been of great benefit to the city of Columbus and to the Hocking valley. After the report of the survey had been made, books were

HISTORY OF FRANKLIN AND PICKAWAY COUNTIES, OHIO - 61

opened for the subscription of capital stock, and, after great effort "all along the line," the necessary sum, seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars, was raised. The stockholders met at the city hall, December 19, 1866, and organized the company by electing the following board of directors : Peter Hayden, B. E. Smith, Wm. G. Deshler, Isaac Eberly, George M. Parsons, J. C. Garrett, M. M. Greene, Wm. Dennison, 'Theodore Comstock, W. B. Brooks, I). Tallmadge, Wm. P. Cutler and E. H. Moore. This board elected the following officers: President, Peter Hayden; vice president and superintendent, M. M. Greene; secretary and treasurer, J. J. Janney ; solicitor, Allen G. Thurman. Mr. Greene was directed to take charge 04 the road and to locate the line. In 1867 the name of the company was changed to the Columbus & Hocking Valley railroad company. The board of directors contracted, May 22, 1867, with Dodge, Case & Co., for the construction of the road, in the sum of one million, six hundred and sixty-five thousand dollars, payable in bonds and cash. The board authorized the issuance of one million, five hundred thousand dollars in first mortgage, seven per cent. bonds, to run thirty years, at the same time providing a sinking fund. In consequence of numerous delays, the road was not opened to Lancaster until January, 1869, to Nelsonville in September, 1866, and to Athens in July, 1870. As it was opened from point to point, business constantly increased, taxing the road to the utmost limit of its equipment. While yet unfinished, the earnings of the road were sufficient to pay the interest upon the bonds as they were required to be issued. The completion caused considerable excitement in the Hocking valley country. Lands advanced rapidly in price, coal companies, with abundant capital, were rapidly organized, new mines opened, and a general stimulus given to trade and the development of the country. There was a great demand for the opening of branch roads into the several coal valleys, and in 1870 the company, yielding partly to the demand, constructed a branch to Straitsville, thirteen miles in length, authorizing the issue of three hundred thousand dollars in ten year seven per cent. bonds, to provide funds for the same. Although built as a coal road, the other business, arising from the creation and growth of towns along the road, and in the increased production of lands in its vicinity, gave the road a large miscellaneous business. The road is decidedly a home enterprise, projected, built and owned by those living along its line. The larger part of its stock, and nearly one-third of its bonds, are owned by citizens of Columbus. .

The report of the company shows that at the close of the year 1878, the capital stock was two million, thirty thousand, one hundred and fifty dollars. The construction of the main line has cost two million, eight hundred and thirty-two thousand, seven hundred and eighteen dollars and twenty-three cents, and its equipment over a million and a quarter more. The rolling stock consists of thirty-one locomotives, and one thousand, two hundred and twenty cars. The total number of passengers carried was one hundred and thirty-eight thousand, three hundred and seventy-two, and the number of tons of freight carried was over one million. The total .earnings were $871,553.16, and the total expenses $480,425.73, leaving the net earnings for 1878, $391,127.43. Following are the officers and directors, as given in the last report: Directors, M. M. Greene, William G. Deshler, Henry C. Noble, B. S. Brown, P. W. Huntington, W. B. Brooks, Isaac Eberly, C. P. L. Butler, H. W. Jaeger and John L. Gill, of Columbus; John D. Martin, Lancaster; C. H. Ripley, Logan; S. W. Pickering, Athens. Executive committee, M. M. Green, Wm. G. Deshler, P. W. Huntington, Isaac Eberly, Henry C. Noble. Officers: President, M. M. Greene, Columbus; secretary and treasurer, J. J. Janney, Columbus; general superintendent, Orlando Smith, Columbus; superintendent, G. R. Carr, Columbus; auditor, T. J. Janney, Columbus; general freight and ticket agent, W. A. Mills, Columbus.

Under the same Management as the above is the

COLUMBUS & TOLEDO RAILROAD,

the company of which was organized May 28, 1872. Construction was commenced in the summer of 1875. The line of rail is from Columbus to Walbridge, Ohio, one hundred and eighteen and two-tenth miles, and from that place to Toledo the company uses the track of the Toledo & Woodville railroad company. At Columbus it connects with the Columbus & Hocking Valley railroad. The rolling stock consists of eleven locomotives and nine hundred cars. The earnings for the year ending December 31, 1878, were $517,871.23, and the expenditures, $295,612.50, leaving the net earnings $2 2 2;258.73. The number of passengers carried was one hundred and forty-five thousand, two hundred and eighty-three, and the amount of freight moved, over three hundred and forty-five thousand tons.. The capital stock is $897,07.62; cost of construction, to January 1, 1879, $2,386,139.93; of equipment, $429,966.17 ; of real estate, $81,743.64. The organization is at Columbus, and is almost exactly identical with that of the Columbus & Hocking Valley railroad, already given.

THE SCIOTO VALLEY RAILROAD,

 

One of the most important which enters Columbus, although a short line, and of great convenience and value to the people of Franklin, Pickaway, Ross, Scioto and Pike counties. By its construction, an outlet was given the production of as rich a piece of country as there is in Ohio, and the people of Columbus, Circleville and Chillicothe, gained connection with that great trunk line, the Chesapeake & Ohio railroad. The line extends a distance of one hundred miles, from Columbus to Portsmouth, upon the Ohio river. It was completed to Circleville, May I, 1876, and to Chillicothe in July, of the same year, thus securing a right to the title of the "Centennial Railroad; of Columbus." It was not opened for travel to Portsmouth until January, 1878. The company was organized in February, 1875, and the road from that time to the present has been under, essentially, the same management. The financial statement of this company shows that the capital stock authorized is $2,006,000 ; funded debt, first mortgage, seven per cent. bends, due. January 1, 1896, outstanding, $1, 240,000 ; reserve,

62 - HISTORY OF FRANKLIN AND PICKAWAY COUNTIES, OHIO.

$50,000. The issue of bonds is limited to $13,000 per mile, or $1,300,000 in all. A sinking fund of one per cent. per annum is provided, which commenced January 1, 1879. The rolling stock of the company is, eight engines, ten passenger, and seventy-two freight cars. The total number of employees is two hundred and twenty. three. The number of passengers carried,. in 1878, was one hundred and fourteen thousand, five hundred and twenty-nine, and the number of tons of freight moved was ninety-eight thousand, three hundred and eighty-two. The gross earnings were $198,018.04, and the total. expenses, $91,377.79, leaving the net earnings at $ Io6,- 64o.25. The total assets and liabilities are $3,027,885.43. The equipment cost $2,884,689.49. The principal office of the company is in Columbus. Following are the directors and officials of the road : Directors—William Money-penny, E. T. Mithoff, T. Ewing Miller, John G. Mitchell, John C. English, Samuel Thomas, Columbus; Edward Smith, Circleville; L. G. Delano, Chillicothe; Wells A. Hutchins, Portsmouth; officers—president, T. Ewing Miller; general manager, G. T. Chapman; treasurer, F. C..Sessions; secretary,.W. Neil Dennison; . chief engineer, J. Huntoon; superintendent, J. B. Peters.

The foregoing gives an account of all the roads now in operation that center in Columbus, or identified with the interests of the county. The Columbus & Gallipolis road is partly constructed, and the Columbus & Sunday Creek and the Ohio & West Virginia are projected and in course of construction. All three of them have their organization principally at Columbus.

All of the roads that have been mentioned in this chapter enter Columbus; but there is one other in which the people of Pickaway are interested, and which runs through that county, from east to west, passing through Circleville—

THE CINCINNATI & MUSKINGUM VALLEY RAILROAD.

This company was chartered as the Cincinnati, Wilmington & Zanesville railroad company, February 4, 185i, and the road was opened in 1857. It was sold, under foreclosure, October 17, 1863, and re-organized March 11, 1864, under the title of the Cincinnati & Zanesville railroad company. It was sold again in 1869, and 187o was re-organized the second time, under its present title. On the first of January, 1873, the road was leased to the Pittsburgh, Cincinnati & St. Louis railroad company, and has since been operated by the Pennsylvania company, lessees of the Pittsburgh, Cincinnati & St. Louis road.

The rolling stock consisted, in 1877, of fourteen engines, and three hundred and ninety cars. Passenger trains were run, in the year named, a distance of one hundred and ninety-seven thousand, three hundred miles, and freight trains, two hundred and sixteen thousand, nine hundred miles. The total number of passengers carried was one hundred and eighty-four thousand, seven hundred and sixty-nine, and the number of tons of freight moved was two hundred and forty-six thousand, six hundred and three. The total earnings were $366,773.86, and the expenses $340,888.90, leaving the net earnings $25,884.96. The construction account to January 1, 1878, was $5,540,164.3.8. The capital stock was $3,997,320, and the funded delt $1,500,000. Total assets and liabilities, $5,994,453.25.

CHAPTER XVI.

THE COURT AND THE BAR OF FRANKLIN COUNTY.

 

Lucas Sullivant, from Kentucky, early in 1797, with his corps of chain carriers, markers, etc., engaged in the surveying of lands and locating warrar!s in the Virginia military district, west of Scioto, in the month of August laid out the town of Franklinton. Here commenced the first settlement of the territory composing the county of Franklin, then in the county of Ross, under the territorial government.

 

 

The county of Franklin was stricken off from Ross, and organized under the act of. March 30, 1803, which took effect April 30, 1803. At that date there were only nine other counties in the State, viz.—Adams, Belmont, Clermont, Jefferson, Fairfield, Hamilton, Ross, Trumbull and Washington.

 

The regular courts, for several years, were held in hired rooms in Franklinton, until the court house was erected, in 1807-8, by Lucas Sullivant, contractor, which continued in use until 1824, when the county seat was removed to Columbus, which, under the act of February 14, 1812, had become the capital of the State, where the legislature commenced, on Monday, December 2, 1816, holding its sessions in 1816-17, and a court house for the United States courts was built, in 1820, and those courts removed from Chillicothe, in 1821. The courts for Frank lin county were held in the United States court house, until 1840, when they were moved into the county court house, at the present location, on the corner of High and Mound streets.

 

In the early days of mud roads and log cabins, the lawyers rode from county to county, the circuit, with the judge on horseback, equipped with the old-fashioned leggings and saddle-bags, averaging about thirty miles a day. The party had their appointed stopping place:. where they were expected, and, on their arrival, the chick ens, dried apples, maple sugar, corn dodgers and old whiskey suffered, while the best story-tellers regaled the company with their humor and anecdotes. The courts held in Franklin county, including the United States courts, always attracted a large number of the most distinguished lawyers—Philemon Beecher, Thomas Ewing, Judge Irwin, Judge Spalding, Tappan, Wright, Hammond, in the State courts, and Henry Clay, Philip Dod dridge, of Virginia, and other giant leaders of the bar from abroad, in the United States courts, in addition to the Ohio lawyers. In the early history of this county, which included Madison, land titles and the identity of hogs were the principal subjects of litigation, and to be master

 

* By Col. Llewellyn Baber.

 

HISTORY OF FRANKLIN AND PICKAWAY COUNTIES, OHIO - 63

 

of special pleadings, under the old system, was the great ambition of the successful practitioner.

 

THE FIRST COURT.

 

" Be it remembered, that at a Court of Common Pleas, held in the town of Franklinton, in and for the county of Franklin, on the first Tuesday of May and the third day thereof, it being the first court thereof held in said county, and the day appointed for holding courts in the same by an act of the general assembly of the State of Ohio, entitled An act organizing the judicial courts, John Dill, David Jamison, and Joseph Foos, esquires, having been duly commissioned by his excellency, Edward Tiffin, esquire, Governor of the State of Ohio, as associate judges of the Court of Common Pleas for the county of Franklin, and having first taken the oath of allegience, and also the oath of office, they assumed their seats.

 

" Present: John Dill, David Jamison, and Joseph Foos, esquires, aforesaid, judges.

 

"The Court then proceeded to appoint the clerk, whereupon Lucas Sullivant was apointed clerk pro tem., who also took the oath of office. "Adjourned to the first Tuesday in September next."

Order Book A, page 1.

 

SEPTEMBER TERM, 1803

 

"At a Court of Common Pleas, begun and held in the town of Franklinton, on the first Tuesday in September, in the year of our Lord 1803, and of the State the first, before the Honorable Wyliss Sullivant, esquire, president, and David Jamison and Joseph Foos, esquires, two of the associate judges of said court.

 

" John S. Wills, Michael Baldwin, Philemon Beecher, William W. Irwin, and Jonathan Reddick, intending to appear as attorneys in this court, took the oath of fidelity to this State, the oath to support the constitution of this State, and the oath of an attorney-at-law, they were severally admitted to practice as attorneys therein."

 

"On the same day--September 6th—Jeremiah McLean, James Furgeson, and William Creighton, appointed commissioners by the legislature for that purpose, filed their report, selecting Franklinton as the permanent seat of justice.

 

"The grand jury presented two indictments, and John S. Wills was appointed prosecuting attorney, and the next day (September 7th). the court adjourned to the next term."

 

Order Book A, page a.

 

Messrs. Wills, Baldwin, Beecher, Irwin, and Reddick, were already regularly admitted attorneys under the territorial organization, but, on the transition from the territorial to the state government, were required not only to take the attorneys' oath over again, but to swear fidelity to the State especially, which indicates that the jurists of that day universally admitted that the states and the general government were each supreme within their own sphere, repudiating, as equally heretical, both the extremes of centralization and secession.

 

JOHN S. WILLS, whose name is the first in the list of attorneys who took the oath on the first day of the term, and the only one who became a resident lawyer of Franklin county, was born in Virginia, in the year 1773, and the only memorial to his early history is the license of his admission to the bar, on the twenty-seventh of May, 1794, in the Isle of Wight county, Virginia. The original, written on sheepskin, is in the possession of his grandson, John W. King, esq., of Georgetown, Brown county, Ohio, 0f which the following is a copy.

 

"Virginia to wit.----

 

WHEREAS, We have been appointed by the general assembly to examine into the capacity, ability and fitness of such persons as shall apply to us for license to practice as attorneys in the courts' of this commonwealth, and whereas, John S. Wills, gent., bath applied to us for a license, and produced to us a certificate from the county court of Isle of Wight, of his honesty, probity and good demeanor, and we, having examined him touching his eapacity, ability and fitness, and found him duly qualified ; these are therefore, in the name of this commonwealth, to license and permit the said John S. Wills to practice as an attorney in the superior and inferior courts of this commonwealth. Given under our hands and seals, this twenty-seventh day of May, in the year of our Lord, one thousand, seven hundred and ninety-four, and of the commonwealth, the eighteenth.

 

JOS. PRENTISS. [SEAL.]

RICH'D PARKER. [SEAL.

JOS. HENRY. [SEAL.]

 

Shortly after he was admitted to the bar, in Virginia, he moved to Cincinnati, a frontier settlement in the northwestern territory. In 1797 he was married to Mary Gibson, daughter of Col. Thomas Gibson, then of Cincinnati, and had three children, all of whom are dead except one daughter, Mrs. King, widow of George King, late of Georgetown, Brown county, Ohio, and who was born at Chillicothe, April 16, 5802, to which place her father had removed from Cincinnati. He moved next to Franklinton, the county seat of the newly erected county of Franklin, and on September 6, 1803, was admitted to practice in the State courts, and, on the same day, was appointed prosecuting attorney of the county, and served until 5805, and again filled the same office, from Oh0 to 1813, and was judge advocate general, attached to the headquarters at Franklinton, during the war. Mr. Wills was an excellent lawyer and practitioner, and master of the old system of pleadings, and criminal law. In 1818 he moved to Georgetown, Brown county, where he continued to practice until April 28, 1829, when he died, in the fifty-sixth year of his age—the pioneer member of the old Franklin county bar.

 

REUBEN BONAM was born in Maryland, and settled in Franklinton about the same time as John S. Wills. He was appointed prosecuting attorney by the court in 5805, and was a man of fine education, but giving way to intemperate habits, which was the vice of the times, he became too poor to dress even decently, got in some trouble about money that was missing, went off, and enlisted,at Cincinnati, as a private. soldier, in one of the regular regiments, going to New Orleans. Tradition says that there he became a reformed and sober man, and, after his discharge from the service, died, a respectable citizen, and left descendants.

 

THOMAS BACKUS was born at Norwich, Connecticut, August 8, 1785. His father, Elijah Backus, was a native of the same place. After graduating at Yale college, and being admitted to the bar in Connecticut; in the year 1800, he removed to Marietta, Ohio, and engaged in the practice of the law in partnership with Wyllis man, and established the Gazette newspaper there, and issued the first number November 30, 1801, with Elijah Backus as editor, who had been appointed receiver of public moneys of the United States. It sustained the administration of President Jefferson, and was the first Democratic paper issued in Ohio. Elijah Backus was a member of the Ohio State senate in 1803. Hon. Lewis Cass read law with him, and was admitted to the bar at Marietta. He was the owner of the island in the Ohio river below Marietta, which, afterwards, became celebrated as Blannerhasset .Island, he having sold it to Mr. Blannerhasaet. Elijah Backus removed, in 1808, to Ruskin, Illinois, and was Judge of the court of claims when he died there, in 1812.

 

64 - HISTORY OF FRANKLIN AND PICK AWAY COUNTIES, OHIO

 

Thomas Backus was educated in Connecticut, and after graduating at Yale college, returned to his father's home at Marietta, Ohio, studied law in the office of Backus and Silliman, and was admitted to the bar, at Marietta, in 1808, by the supreme court. On Novem- ber 10, 1810, he was married to Temperance Lord, and in 1811 removed to Franklinton, Franklin county, Ohio, and engaged in the practice of the law. In 1829 he was appointed prosecuting attorney by the court. He owned a large body of land, six miles up the Scioto from Franklinton, and was largely engaged in real estate operations. He removed, with his family, in 1823, to Union, Ohio, and was there appointed prosecuting attorney, and during his term of office died, October 25, 1825, and his wife soon after removed back with the family to Franklinton, and, in 1828, to Columbus.

 

Mr. Backus wrote frequently for the newspapers. .He was an able and incisive writer. He sometimes indulged in poetry. His lines on the demolition of the beautiful Indian mound, on the corner of High and Mound streets, Columbus, that was used up in the manufacture of bricks for the first State house, and from which human bones were taken, became celebrated for their pathos, and were published in Martin's history of Franklin county, page 51.

 

GUSTAVUS SWAN, son of John and Sarah (Mead) Swan, was born July 15, 1787, at Petersborough, New Hampshire. His means of early education were limited, as his parents were poor, but, by his own perseverance and exertion, he obtained an excellent classical, mathematical and scientific course of instruction, at the Aurean academy, Amherst, Hillsborough county, New Hampshire. Dr. Reuben D. Murrey, son of Dr. John Murrey, and who subsequently settled in the city of Boston, and became one of the most celebrated surveyors in the country, was a fellow schoolmate. Judge Swan always said .he was indebted to Dr. John Murrey's aid in his studies, and encouragement, more than to any one else, for his subsequent success in life. He studied law with Samuel Bell, a celebrated lawyer, at Concord, New Hampshire, who was afterwards governor of the State, and was admitted to the bar in New Hampshire.

 

He first came to Marietta, Ohio in 1810, and remained a year there, and was admitted to the bar of Ohio. In 1811 he came to Franklinton, then the county suit of Franklin, and commenced the practice of the law. His ability and industry soon gave him high professional reputation, and he was employed in all the important cases, which brought him in constant conflict with Beecher, Ewing, Irwin, Baldwin, Grimke, and other distinguished leaders of the Ohio bar, who then rode the circuit, and practiced in the courts held at the capitol of the State. Judge Swan, in these legal contests, involving nice questions, under the old rules of pleading, and requiring a thorough knowledge of the land laws, especially in the Virginia military district, soon took rank among the first at the bar. He was a diligent student, and fine speaker, having great power with a jury, and his practice extended through Fayette, Madison, Union, Delaware, Pickaway and Fairfield counties, where his name is still associated, in the traditions of the people, with the pioneer lawyers of his day. He was the first representative elected by Franklin county, to the legislature, as soon as she was entitled to elect alone, in 1812, and was elected again in 1817. He was constantly engaged in the practice of his profession, until 1823, when he was appointed, by Governor Morrow, judge of the court of common pleas, in. place of Judge J. Adair McDowell, deceased, and was elected by the legislature, on its meeting, for the term of seven years, and was the judge when the court was removed from Franklinton to Columbus, in 1824, and made an able one. In pursuance of the resolutions o the general assembly, passed January 22, 1825, he corn-. piled the land laws for Ohio, including the State laws to 1815-16, an invaluable publication to the practitioner.

 

In 1820 he resumed the practice of law in Columbus, to which place he moved his residence, in 1815. He continued, from that date, in active practice, until 1843, doing a lucrative and extensive business. By this time he had acquired a large fortune. He had been president, from 1823, of the old Franklin bank, of Columbus, incorporated by the legislature, February 23, 1816, whose charter expired. January 1, 1843. On the organization of the State bank, of Ohio, and its branches, under the act of February, 1845—the old Franklin bank, on July 1, 1845, organized. as one of its branches---Judge Swan was elected one of the directors, and afterwards president, of the State bank of Ohio, he being 'considered one of the ablest financiers in the State. The duties of the place' required his whole time, in connection with his other large private interests, and he retired from practice.

 

The last time he appeared as counsel, in court, was in defense of William Clark, a convict in the penitentiary, tried for the murder of Cyrus Sell, one of the guards, by a single blow with a cooper's axe. He was tried at the December term, 1843, of the supreme court for Franklin county, in the eighth volume of the Ohio State reports, and convicted of murder in the first degree, and hung on February 9, 1844, with a female colored convict, Esther, who had killed another prisoner. The The defense was insanity, and there was an array of eminent counsel on both sides,. Judge N. H. Swayne conducted the prosecution, examining the medical experts for the defense, including his own family physician. Judge Swan, who had been generally successful in criminal cases, put forth his full powers, and confidently remarked, it is said, that he had never had a client hung in his life, and if Clark was, he never would' put his foot in the court house again, as a lawyer; and he never did, unless on his own business.

 

Judge Swan, from this time, devoted himself to his duties as president of the State bank of Ohio, and the management of his large estate. He was very fond of books and philosophical discussions. On October 14, 1819, he was married, by Rev. Dr. James Hoge, to Mrs. Amelia Weston, daughter of George and Mary Aldrich, born at Meriden, Massachusetts, December 20, 1785 in died, November 5, 1859, and is buried under the same monument, in Green Lawn cemetery, with her husband, who died February. 6, 1860. Judge Swan had two sons

 

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both of whom died before him. George was lost at a, on the ill-fated steamer, Lexington. It was a great id to his father, which was intensified by the death of }lades, who, he hoped, would have lived to take his position. He had two daughters, Mrs. Sarah Whitney, New York city, and Mrs. Jane Parsons, wife of George M. Parsons, of Columbus, Ohio. David Scott was born in Peterborough, New Hampshire, in 1786, came to Franklinton in 1811, engaged in the practice of the law, and was appointed prosecuting attorney from 1813 to 1814, by the court, in which last year he died. He was married.

 

DAVID SMITH, son of John and Elizabeth Smith, was born at Francistown Hills, Conough county, New Hampshire, October 2, 1785, came to Franklinton in 1812, and roved to Columbus in 1816, and practiced law. In connection with Ezra Griswold, in 1812, he commenced publishing the Ohio Monitor, and remained sole editor thereof until 1836, when he sold out to Jacob Medary, and the paper was merged into the Hemisphere—a weekly Jacksonian Democratic paper—and finally became the Ohio Statesman, when Samuel Medary was elected State printer. Mr. Smith was elected associate judge in 1817, and resigned, on his election to the legislature, in 1822. He was a member, also, in 1822, and State printer in 1831-1834. He was a fine writer, and was engaged mostly in newspaper enterprises. In the latter years of his life he was absent, most of his time, from Columbus, visiting his children, but returned, and died here on February 3, 1863, in the seventy-eighth year of his age, and was buried in Green Lawn cemetery.

 

WILLIAM DOHERTY was born in Charleston, South Carolina, November 30, 1790, from whence he came, during the war of 1812, to Franklinton, and took up his residence in Columbus in 180. He married, on July 10, 1821, Eliza, a daughter of General Jeremiah McLene, and made Columbus his residence the balance of his life, and practiced law. He studied law in Columbus, and also previously, and, possessing a turn of mind for public business, and being a man of fine address, he became very popular. For seven years in succession he was clerk of the house of representatives in the Ohio legislature—one session in Chillicothe and six in Columbus. He was, for a number of years adjutant-general of Ohio, and United States marshal for the district of Ohio for four years. In 1831 he was elected senator from the district of Franklin and Pickaway, and chosen president of that body at his first session—a compliment rarely bestowed on a new member. He died on February 29, 1840, in the fiftieth year of his age.

 

ORRIS PARISH was born in Canterbury, Windom county, Connecticut, in the year 1782. His father was Reuben Parish, and his mother Zurilla Bishop. Orris received the early part of his education in the common schools of Connecticut. In 1790, his father's family, with: those of his grandfather and uncle, Levi Parish, settled in Middletown (now Naples), Ontario county, New York, where Orris attended such schools as were found in the first settlements in the wilderness, and he may have attended the academy a few terms, in -Canandaigua, New York. In 1807, or 1808, he entered the law office of the late John C. Spencer, but, before completing his course, his parents died, and he left Spencer's office, and finished his studies with his cousin, John Parish, in Windom, Windom county, Connecticut. In 1811, or 1812, he emigrated to Ohio, and settled in Franklinton, Franklin county. He was there during the war, and, in 1815, moved to Columbus, after the capitol was fixed there. He acquired some distinction as a practitioner, especially in jury cases, where his style of oratory was very effective, His services were consequently in large demand, and he had a large practice on the circuit, which, in those times, was traveled, on horseback, from court to court, even to distant counties, by the jolly lawyers of the olden time; among whom he was noted. He was a very eccentric man, and many stories are related of him, his free translation to a jury of the legal phrase "nectus in coma," which he gave as "coming into court head and tail up," was long remembered by the fun-loving generation of that day, and has descended as a bon mot in the profession. In 1816 he was elected president judge of the court of common pleas for this district. At the legislative session of 1818-19 charges were preferred against him calling for an investigation of his official conduct. They were referred to a committee, and the judge published his address to the committee, in which he says : "To you, gentlemen, I submit my official conduct, and of. you I solicit the most rigid inquiry and the severest scrutiny" concluding, "I neither-ask nor desire, any other justice at the bar of my country, or Heaven; than that which I have contributed my best exertions to measure out to those whose rights have been confided to my hand." The committee reported in his favor, and afterwards he resigned, and returned to the practice of the law, at which he continued with great success, as his reputation as a. jury lawyer was co-extensive with the State..

 

On _____, 181-, he was married to Aurelia Butler, daughter of Judge Butler, of Madison county, New York, at the residence of her brother-in-law, Richard Douglas, in Circleville, Ohio. He built, on Fourth street, Columbus, a residence known now as the Whitehill property, at present the residence of Chauncey N. Olds, a leading lawyer of the city. He and Gustavus Swan, David Scott and David Smith, were the first four lawyers, and that located in Columbus after it was laid out in 1812.

 

JOHN A. McDOWELL, son of Samuel McDowell and Ann Irvin, was born near Harrodsburg, Kentucky, May 26, 1780. He studied law, and served with distinction on the staff of Governor Shelley, in the war of 1812. At the battle of the Thames, in Upper Canada, the British commander, General Proctor, escaped from the field of battle, leaving his carriage and personal baggage, which was captured. Among the spoils was a heavy old-fashioned silver watch, with a seal, which was presented to Governor Shelley, who detached the seal and gave it to his aid-de-camp, Major John-A. McDowell, who retained it, and often exhibited it in after life as a trophy. It is now in possession of his relative, Joseph Sullivant, of Columbus, who preserves it as a memento.

On November 9, 1809, he was married to Lucy Todd

 

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66 - HISTORY OF FRANKLIN AND PICKAWAY COUNTIES, OHIO.

 

Starling, youngest daughter of Colonel William Starling and Susannah Lyle, and at the solicitation of his brother-in-law, Lucas Sullivant, removed, with himself and wife, to Franklinton, in 1815, or early in 1816, and became a prominent and successful lawyer, and in 1819 was appointed by the court as prosecuting attorney for Franklin county, and in the session of 1818 and 1819 was a member of the lower branch of the legislature, and in 1820 was elected president judge for his judicial district. He died September 30, 1823.

 

He was a fine-looking, handsome man, of great talents, and very popular, and if he had lived would have risen to a higer position. He left two surviving children.

 

JOHN R. PARISH, son of Roswell Parish, was born at Canterbury, Windom county, Connecticut, in 1786. He was educated in the common schools and in the Plainfield academy, in a town of that name, next north to Canterbury. He read law in the office of his uncle, John Parish, in Windom, and was admitted to the bar. He emigrated to Ohio, and settled in Columbus, in 1816, and commenced the practice of the law. He was a man of vigorous mind, and a good lawyer, and had a fair share of the litigative business. In 1820 he was elected a member of the house of representatives from Franklin county, in the legislature and re--elected in 1821, and made a popular legislator, and on the expiration of his term, was appointed by the court as prosecuting attorney, continued for several years.

 

Mr. Parish married Mary Phillips, of Columbus. Like many of the lawyers of that period, he indulged in the convivialities of the times. He died in June, 1829, in the forty-third year of his age. He was a cousin of Judge Orris Parish, and is said to have been much the abler lawyer, and better versed in the legal learning of the profession.

 

James K. Corey was born near Cooperstown, New York, in 1797. Came to Columbus in 1819, read law with John R. Parish and was admitted here. He was a promising young lawyer, but died on the first" of January, 1827, in the twenty-ninth year of his age. He married Miss Samson, who, after his death, married the Rev. William Preston, of Trinity Episcopal church.

 

PHINEHAS BACON WILCOX, was the only son of Seth Wilcox and his wife, Molly Bacon, and was born September 26, 1798, at Westfield, Connecticut, about ten miles west of the town of Middletown, on the Connecticut river, where hi§ father, a substantial farmer, resided on his farm at " Forty Rod Hill."

 

His ancestors were of Saxon origin, located at Bury St. Edmunds, Suffolk county, England, one of whom emigrated to America and settled in Boston, Massachusetts, two of whose sons settled in the north part of Middletown — quaintly styled " Middletown Upper Housen "—in 1675, from one of whom his father, Seth, was descended.

 

He assisted his father in the usual duties of a New England farmer's son, until about the age of sixteen, when he attended Cheshire academy, Connecticut, and Middlebury academy, Vermont, to be fitted for Yale college.

 

He entered Yale, and was graduated in the -class o 1821, at the age of twenty-three, and soon after marries Sarah D. Andrews, of Wallingford, Connecticut, w was a sister of the late Samuel C. Andrews, of Columbus, and also a relative of John W. Andrews, and of the wife of Judge J. R. Swan, of that city. The new couple started, for their bridal trip, to the then unknown an far distant wilderness of the "Ohio country," not full, determined where they would settle, but making for the new town of Columbus, on the "waters of the Scioto where his father owned lands, and where they arrive, after a long and 'somewhat perilous journey, in the fall of 1821.

 

Pleased with the prospects of Columbus, he concluded to make it his home, and commenced the study of law with Judge Orris Parish, whose office was a small frame building on the southwest corner of High a State streets, where the National Exchange bank now stands.

 

He was a close and diligent student, entering very little into the convivialities so prevalent in the new settle ment, and so destructive of many of the bright intellects of his day.

 

He was admitted to the bar in 1824, and commenced practice in the old court house in Franklinton, where he entered the lists against the "old lawyers," David Scott, Joshua Folsom, Gustavus Swan, and Orris and John Parish, and very soon, by close study, diligent attention to business, and unswerving integrity, he took rank with them and secured a large practice in Franklin, Madison, and Delaware counties, through which the bench and bar of that day rode circuit on horseback, with saddle-. bags and leggings.

 

He soon became eminent as a "land lawyer," having mastered all the intricacies of the Virginia military land titles, that perpetual source of litigation for so many years. He was also distinguished as a chancery lawyer, which practice he preferred. Nothing afforded him higher gratification, or more aroused his powers, than to track out some high-toned scoundrel who was attempting to oppress the widow and the fatherless, or defraud confiding creditors, and "sift his conscience," by means of a good old bill in chancery, with its charges and searching interrogatives. He was master of common law pleading, being familiar with all the learning and subtleties of the old English special pleas, and a constant student of English common law.

 

In 1833 he published his work—" Ohio Forms and Practice," and an enlarged edition of it in 1848. This book was the standard on law and equity practice and pleading, both in the State and the United States courts, until the adoption of the code of civil procedure in 1853, and was in universal use by judges, lawyers and clerks, in this and other States, under the old practice.

 

In 1849, when the matter of a new constitution and code was in agitation, he published a pamphlet, entitled " Tracts on Law Reform," with a view of moulding public opinion as to the proposed changes in our law system. The following motto, which he adopted for the tract, from an ancient author, indicates the conservative char-

 

FRANKLIN AND PICKAWAY COUNTIES, OHIO - 67

 

acter of the work—" We know already the worst of what is we know not the worst of what may he."

 

Like many lawyers of the old school, he could not abide the new code; but, upon its adoption, accepted the situation, and, in 1862, published his " Practical Forms Under the Code of Civil Procedure," intending, eventually, to enlarge it into a work similar to his "Ohio Forms and Practise," under the old system.

 

He was prosecuting attorney for Franklin county from 1834 to 1836, and wrote out numerous forms for indictments etc., which were long in use by his successors, as it required considerable skill to draft such instruments under the technicalities of the criminal law at that time. He was reporter of the supreme court of Ohio in 1842, reporting the tenth volume of Ohio reports, where his knowledge of law, and remarkable accuracy and terseness of statement, are conspicuous. It not unfrequently happened that the court, after deciding some difficult questions, would remark to the reporter : " We have decided so-and-so in this case, and depend upon you to give the reason."

 

His note upon assurances of title, in the case of Foote Vs. Bennet, page 317, of the tenth volume, has been considered one of the ablest and most perspicuous expositions of that abstruse subject, at that time not well understood by even good lawyers, and received a high unconium from Chancellor Kent.

 

He was United States commissioner for the district of Ohio for many years, which office he resigned, about the year 1858, rather than be made the instrument of remanding a fugitive slave to bondage.

 

His law library was very large and varied, for the times, especially in English reports, which were his delight and pastime. For many years it was the only library of any consequence in the West, and was constantly resorted to by judges and lawyers, whom he was always ready to assist in looking up difficult points—especially the younger lawyers, to whom he was, at all times, a kind and sympathizing friend and a willing adviser. Rare discussions, intermitted with rare wit and hilarity, were often had in that old library, at his residence on Vine street, when Ewing, Stanbery, Hunter, Goddard, Lane, Swayne, and others of his " brothers " met there.

 

Although he was a fine classical scholar, especially in Greek, which he kept up through life, and was a student of the civil law and history, yet he was pre-eminently a lawyer, a common-law lawyer, devoting his life to the study of law as a science, which he loved for itself, and considering the practice of the law as the highest and most ennobling of callings, above all petty tricks and mercenary purposes—a grand and noble profession, to be pursued, not for personal ends, but for the good of his fellow-men. It was once said of him, by a friend, that he lived upon Coke and the Bible.

 

With politics he had nothing to do. He was a staunch vhig, perhaps a little leavened with old Federal doctrines, and afterward a decided Republican.

 

Upon the breaking out of the rebellion, in 1861, he was much disturbed as to the ultimate result upon our institutions. Never doubting that the North would conquer, he believed that the greatest perils would then arise, having little faith in the loyalty of the South to our general government thereafter. After a long investigation on the subject, from Magna Charta down, suo more, he settled upon certain principles, which he had embodied in a brief, and sent to his friend Stanton, secretary of war, in 1862. Although quite radical as a remedy, and somewhat arbitrary, recent events, to the minds of some, seem to justify them; and, at least, they serve to show what doubts troubled good and thinking men, outside of politics, in that trying time. They are as follows :

 

1. Let the president, at the proper time, by a single blow of the war power, abraze, and forever annihilate, all organizations, political and civil, together with the metes and bounds of all the rebel States—reducing that province to a mere out-lying military province.

 

2. After the war, let that province be re-surveyed, somewhat after the manner of the Doomsday book, in England.

 

3. Offer, now, to any soldier, a bounty of --- acres of good land, to be selected by him or his heirs, anywhere, east or west, in that entire country.

 

4. Let real union men, now owning lands there, have an equivalent out of the re-surveyed. lands.

 

5. Let the residue of the lands be exposed to public sale, and apply the proceeds towards paying the expenses of the war ; and so re-people that whole country.

 

6. Do with the negroes as the British do—set all at work where they now are, except those who may choose to leave the country, giving them protection., compelling them to work, and securing to them the payment of reasonable wages.

 

7. In all cases, let patents for lands emanate, de novo, from the government, thus avoiding all danger from strict construction of tax laws, and acts of confiscation, in any of our courts. .

 

8. Unless something of the sort be done, shall we not, of necessity, drift into a military despotism?

9. Has our worthy president ever seen Swift's. "Discourse of the contests and dissensions between the nobles and commons in Athens and Rome?" It will bear study.

 

Just before this time, he called Stanton's attention to the gunpowder plot of Guy Fawkes, to blow up the house of parliament, and suggested precaution against a like danger to our national capitol.

 

He was a man of deep and sincere religious convictions, maintaining through life the principles instilled into his mind by a most excellent and sensible mother, who trained him in the strict views of the Puritans of New England; so that he was in reality, as an old covenanter would put it, a man "fearing God, hating iniquity, and despising covetousness."

 

A few years after admission to the bar, he made a public profession of religion, and united with Trinity Episcopal church, of Columbus, under the Rev. William Preston, where he was active for many years as vestryman, superintendent of the Sunday-school, as well as of a mission-school in the north part of the city, then a destitute locality called "Jonesburgh," and was a frequent attendant upon the ministrations of Dr. Hoge, of the First Presbyterian church, and of Dr. Smith, of Westminster, both of whom he highly respected and admired.

 

A distinguished legal friend in Cincinnati, hearing of his profession of religion, wr=ote him as follows: "So you, too, have become a Christian. I had thought that a business man could find something better to do. Let me have your reasons."

 

To this he replied by writing a little tract, afterwards

 

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published by the American Tract Society, styled, "A Few Thoughts," wherein he set forth, in very simple but earnest and forcible language, the cardinal truths of the Gospel and the reasons for the faith that was in him.

 

He carried his religious principles into all his affairs. He would never engage in any cause he did not deem just, and usually advised his clients to settle their differences and avoid litigation. He practiced unusual benevolence, giving systematically to all worthy objects, and never turning any poor man from his door. His character, in this respect, was once well summed up by one who knew him, as follows : "He was a man of high character and personal integrity, of great benevolence and charity, a fine type of a conscientious, Christian lawyer, attending, with great diligence and fidelity, to the cases of his clients, when, in his opinion, they had a just cause, but discouraging litigation, for the mere sake of litigation or procrastination, and utterly refusing to lend himself or his great legal attainments to any unjust cause, however large the fee, or tempting the glory."

 

He died on March 25, 1863, at his residence on Third street, in the city of Columbus, in his sixty-fifth year, leaving his widow, who survived until January 2, 1873, and two only children—General James A. Wilcox, hereafter mentioned, and Anna Maria, wife of Robert Ellis, of New York.

 

JOSEPH R. SWAN, son of Jonathan and Sarah (Rockwell) Swan, was born at Westernville, Oneida county, New York, December 28, 1802. He is of Scotch-Irish ancestry (from Londonderry) and received an academic education at Aurora, New York, where he commenced the study of law, which he completed at Columbus, Ohio, with his uncle, Gustavus Swan, and was there admitted to the bar in 1824. He immediately commenced the practice of his profession in Franklin and the adjoining counties, and soon gained the reputation of a learned, honest, and safe lawyer and counsellor.

 

In 1833, he was married to Hannah Ann Andrews, of Rochester, New York, daughter of Samuel S. Andrews, one of the early residents of that City from Darby, Connecticut, and has three sons and two daughters, one of whom is married to Major R. S. Smith, of Columbus. Mrs. Swan died in 1876. Mr. Swan was prosecuting attorney of Franklin from 183o to 1834. In 1834 he was elected by the legislature as common pleas judge for the district composed of the counties of Franklin, Madison, Clark, Champaign, Logan, Union and Delaware, and reelected in 1841, and by his satisfactory and impartial discharge of the duties of the office, obtained the reputation of being one .of the best judges in the State. Judge Swan, on the expiration of his second term, resumed the practice of law in Columbus, and formed a partnership with John W. Andrews, which did a large business under the firm name of Swan & Andrews.

 

In 1854, the opponents of the repeal of the Missouri compromise, by the Kansas-Nebraska act, which created quite an excitement in Ohio, nominated and elected him supreme judge, by over seventy-seven thousand majority. On the bench, he maintained his distinct characteristic of great conscientiousness, that neither personal interest nor sympathy could, in any manner, influence his judgment of right or law. This was strikingly illustrated in May 1854, when S. P. Chase, then governor of Ohio, brought a strong pressure to bear upon the judges of the supreme court, to obtain a decision declaring the fugitive slave laws unconstitutional and void, that the enforcement of them might be resisted by the State ; the court stood, two judges in favor of nullifying, and three opposed. If there had been a majority in favor, and the United States marshal had re-arrested the discharged prisoner, as he was instructed to do, and the governor had resisted the rearrest with military force, as he proposed to do by orders issued to the military to be ready for service, a conflict might have been brought on that would have changed the subsequent history of the loyalty of Ohio to the laws and constitution of the United States. Great excitement prevailed--party passion and prejudice ran high in the political convention that was to pass on the question of his renomination, and to assemble on the day after the opinion of the court was delivered. Rising to the importance I of the coming crisis, Judge Swan, then chief justice, in delivering the opinion of the court sustaining the fugitive.; slave law, in his closing remarks says:

 

" As a citizen I would not deliberately violate the constitution or the law by interference with fugitives from service. But if a weary, frightened slave would appeal to me to protect him from his pursuers, it is .probable I might momentarily forget my allegiance to the law and the constitution, and give him a covert from those who were upon his track. * * * And if I did it, and was prosecuted, .Condemned and imprisoned, and brought by my counsel before this tribunal on a habeas corpus, and were then permitted to pronounce judgment in my own case, I trust that I should have the moral courage to say, before God and the country, as I am now compelled to say, under the solemn duties of a.judge, bound by my official oath to sustain the supremacy of the constitution and the law—THE PRISONER MUST BE REMANDED.

 

In the convention, the next day, the prejudices and passions of the hour defeated his nomination, but the judgment of the bar of Ohio sustained him. The politicians I who raised the issue never reached the presidency. Ohio made Abraham Lincoln president, and resistance to the constitution and laws of the Union, pronounced valid by its highest court, came from those who took the sword to defend the right to extend slavery, and broke their idol in pieces by their own folly.

 

Judge Swan, in 1859, resumed the practice of law, and soon after became connected with the Columbus & Xenia railroad, and afterwards the general solicitor of the Pittsburgh, Cincinnati & St. Louis railway company, in which capacity he is still engaged. Governor Brough appointed him to the vacancy on the supreme bench, occasioned by the death of Judge Gholson, which he declined, as he did also the same pdsition tendered him since the war. Judge Swan has prepared the following elementary law books, which have been accepted by the profession in Ohio as the best authority on the subjects upon which they treat: In 1835-36, "Swan's Treatise"—an indispensable companion of every justice of the peace—which has passed to the tenth edition; 1843, "Guide for Executors and Administrators"; 1841, "Swan's Revised Statutes"; 1854, a revised edition of the statutes; 186o, a revised edition of the statutes, to which L. S. Critchfield annexed notes of the decisions of the supreme

 

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court; in 1868, a supplement to the edition of 1860 was compiled and published, with notes of the decisions of the supreme court, by Milton Sayler; 1851, " Swan's Pleadings and Practice," two volumes; 1862-63, "Swan's Pleading and Precedents under the Code." None of the decisions of the supreme court rendered by him have ever been overruled. As a jurist, his opinions stand high with the profession. His well known integrity has secured him the universal respect of the people where he resides, and of the State where his books have made his name a household word. For years he has been an active member of Trinity Episcopal church.

 

SAMUEL C. ANDREWS was born at Wallingford, Connecticut, in 1794. He was educated . at Middlebury college, Vermont, and removed to Columbus, Ohio, at the instance of his brother-in-law, P. B. Wilcox, about the year 1828, and soon after entered upon the practice of the law, but did not pursue it with much diligence, being a man of literary tastes, and poetical temperament. He took an active interest in our public schools, and was, for many years, a leading member of our board of school examiners.

 

He was adjutant-general of the State, under Governor Lucas, in which capacity he accompanied the governor upon his famous military expedition to Toledo, in March, 1835, to assert the claims of this State in respect to the Michigan boundary line.

 

He died at Columbus, on March 13, 1863, and, by his dying request, was buried in the Andrews family burial lot, in the old graveyard, at Wallingford.

 

LYNE STARLING, son of William Starling and ,Mary (McDowell) Starling, was born March 3. 1806, in Mercer county, Kentucky; came to Columbus, Ohio, in 1830, entered the clerk's office, studied law with P. B. Wilcox, esq., and entered upon the practice, and in 1838 was appointed clerk of the court of common pleas, supreme court, and court in bankruptcy; was re-appointed March 15, 1845, and resigned in February, 1846. Having secured a competency by successful business operations, he went to New York and became a wholesale merchant, and afterwards removed to .Illinois, where he had purchased a large body of land, then returned to Kentucky, joined the Union army, and was appointed chief, on the staff of General Crittenden, his personal friend; served with distinction throughout the war, and was noted for his courage and capacity in battle, and was promoted to the rank of brigadier-general, March 25, 1835. He was married to Maria A. Hemley, of Frankfort, Kentucky, and became a cotton planter in Arkansas, and died in 1877.

 

NOAH H. SWAYNE, youngest son of Joshua Swayne, was born in Culpepper county, Virginia, December 7, 1804. His father was a prosperous farmer and a member of the society of Friends. His earliest American progenitor came over with William Penn, and settled on a farm near Philadelphia, which is still in the 'hands of his descendants. Joshua Swayne died in 1808, in Jefferson county, Virginia, to which he had removed, leaving his children to the care of his widow, an excellent woman of marked vigor of mind, who carefully watched over the education of her sons. Noah went to school in the neighborhood until thirteen, when he entered the academy of Jacob Mendenhall, at Waterford, in London county, then in high repute with the society of Friends. He was placed at. Alexandria, in his fifteenth year, with Dr. George Thornton, a physician of eminence, with the intention that the studies commenced here should be continued in a hospital at Philadelphia; but the death of Dr. Thornton, a year later, led to the abandonment of the plan, and circumstances fixed the purpose of the student in the study of law. He returned to school, to Alexandria, where, under a good classical instructor, a thorough preparation for college was accomplished, at which time the pecuniary losses, of his guardian deprived him of the means to carry out his purpose. He entered at once, as a student, in the law office of John Scott and Francis P. Brooks, at Warrenton, Fauquier county, Virginia, finding there, as a fellow-student, Henry S. Foote, afterwards governor and senator from the State of Mississippi. A lasting intimacy between the two arose from this association.

 

Admitted to the bar in 1823, the non-slaveholding example. of his father, enlivened with his own views, de termined him to remove immediately to Ohio. The journey was made on horseback. The year of preliminary residence, required by law, before attorneys from other States were permitted to practice in Ohio, was passed in Zanesville; when he opened an office, in 1825, at Coshocton, the county seat of an adjoining county. His success was immediate and considerable. He was appointed prosecuting attorney of the county the first year, and he was occupied with this, and private practice, until 1829, when he was elected from the county to the house of representatives. During the next year President Jackson appointed him United States attorney for the district of Ohio, and he removed to Columbus, where the courts of the United States, in Ohio, were then held. These and the supreme court of Ohio offered ample and inviting occupation, in view of which he declined the office of presiding judge of the common pleas for that district, to which, two years later, he was elected by the general assembly.

 

In 1832 he was married, at Harpers Ferry, Virginia, to Miss Sarah Ann Wager, daughter of ----- and Catharine (Bates) Wager. His wife, who had imbibed this principle of the old Virginia school of emancipation united with him in immediately liberating a number of slaves, who had become his property by the marriage.

 

In 1839 he was appointed, by President Van Buren, United States district attorney—the division in the Democratic party, in reference to the sub-treasury, having led to the change. From this time he devoted himself, with untiring labor, to his profession; uniting the learning of the books with the eloquence of the advocate, he soon acquired the reputation of being one of the best jury lawyers in the State. His peculiar forte was in the examination of witnesses, and in skillfully analyzing the testimony in each case. His cross-examination, for four days, of Sydney Burton, the prosecuting witness in the celebrated trial of William Rossane and others, in the spring of 1853, indicted in the United States circuit court at Co-

 

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lumbus for burning the steamboat " Martha Washington," to procure the insurance, in which Henry Stanbery, since attorney general of the United States, was pitted against him, will never be forgotten by those who heard it. Judge Walker, Ewing, Pugh, Pendleton, and a brilliant array of counsel were in the case.

 

In 1839 he formed a partnership with James E. Bates, doing a large business, under the firm name of Swayne & Bates, which continued until 1852. On the adoption of the new constitution, Mr. Bates was elected judge of the common pleas court of the sub-division composed o the counties of Franklin, Madison and Pickaway. On January 1,1853, he formed a partnership with Llewellyn Baber, a relative of his wife, who had read law with him. The new firm, under the firm name of Swayne & Baber, until its dissolution, April 1, 1860, still continued to hold its business in Columbus and ruputation in the courts throughout the State, in which its senior partner was employed as co-counsel in many important cases. In May, 1859, Judge. Swayne appeared as co-counsel, with Belden, the United States district attorney for the northern district of Ohio, and argued, against Attorney General Wolcott, the celebrated fugitive slave cases, ex parte Langston, on habeas corpus, in the supreme court at Columbus, reported in ninth volume Ohio statutes, pages 78-199, in which Judge Swan delivered the opinion of a majority of the court, sustaining the constitutionality of the fugitive slave laws, which defeated his renomination in the Republican State convention, and resulted in the movement from Ohio which nominated Abraham Lincoln for president, in 1860.

 

Wager. Swayne, his eldest son, now General Swayne, of Toledo, Ohio, succeeded as the partner of his father, on the dissolution of the firm of Swayne & Baber, but at the breaking out of the rebellion, immediately entered the service, raised the Forty-third Ohio volunteer infantry, and served with distinction throughout the war. Judge Swayne, after retiring from the office of United States district attorney, took no active part in politics until 1856; he had been a Democrat, of the old Jeffersonian school, and his education, naturally, led him to oppose the extension of slavery, and he made speeches for Fremont, and, also, supported Lincoln for the presidency. He, however, was ready to do anything to promote the public interest, and from 1837 to 1840 served as a fund commission, with Alfred Kelly and Judges Graham and Swan, under a resolution of the legislature, appointing them to take charge of the State debt, and endeavor to restore the public credit, then badly broken down, and supply means to complete the public works, both of which objects were economically carried out, they declining any compensation for the service. In connection with William Allen and another prominent gentleman, he was sent to Washington, by the governor, to adjust the disputed location of the east portion of the boundary line between Ohio and Michigan, which was effected, leaving the disputed territory in Ohio.

 

In 1840, William W. Awl, Noah H. Swayne and James Hoge, was appointed a committee by the legislature to report upon the condition and number of the blind in Ohio. Their labors resulted in the establishment of the famous asylum for the blind at Columbus, with which, as also the asylums for the deaf and dumb, and for lunatics, Judge Swayne was actively connected as trustee for man years.

 

At the outbreak of the war for secession, his who time was given to the service of the governor, in inviting the Ohio lines to the field.

 

Judge McLean, who presided at that time over the sixth circuit of the supreme court of the United States, composed of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and Michigan, had for years been a warm friend of Judge Swayne, and frequently expressed the wish that he might be succeeded by him. This idea, originating with himself, had spread from him to leading members of the bar within the circuit, and some recent arguments at Washington, made before the supreme court by Judge Swayne, had had a like effect with the other judges. Consequently, on the unexpected death of Judge McLean, the expression from both the bar and the people was in favor of his appointment, which was recommended to the president unanimously by the Ohio delegation in congress, without distinction of party. President Lincoln appointed Judge Swayne in February, 1862, and he was unanimously confirmed by the senate, a result especially gratifying to hi friends, who, at one time, feared a cabinet intrigue f! substitute a lawyer from some other State.

 

Judge Swayne's circuit covered a large extent of tern:, tory, and part of the time he has had assigned to hi another circuit, which required his holding court in New Orleans. His labors have been arduous and constant, and the accuracy and erudition of his opinions found in the reports, have been promoted by accumulated stores of many years' research, resulting from the habit of noting down whatever ought to be preserved.

 

On the question of the constitutionality of the legal tender acts he dissented, with Justices Miller and Davis, from the opinion of the majority, delivered by Chief Justice Chase, holding unconstitutional the legal tender greenbacks Mr. Chase had issued as secretary of the treasury. He united in the opinion of the court, delivered by Mr. justice Strong, overruling that decision. (in 12 Wallace 457) in the legal tender cases.

 

Judge Swayne has always been an enthusiastic student of ancient and modern literature, and the degrees of D., conferred on him by Yale, Dartmouth and Marietta, were a recognition of the studies of a lifetime. But he seems always to enjoy himself most in the domestic circle, so long and happily presided over by a most intelligent and excellent wife.. He has four sons—General Wager Swayne, Henry Foote Swayne, Noah and Frank Swayne, residing in Toledo, and a daughter, Mrs. Edwin Parsons; of New York city. Four daughters, Catharine, Rebecca, Virginia and Sally, who died in childhood, sleep near together, in the Green Lawn cemetery, Columbus. Judge Swayne preserves, in a remarkable degree, the health, presence and vigor of intellect, that result from good habits and a well-spent life.

 

HENRY STANBERY was born in the city of New York, on the twentieth of February, 1803. His father was

 

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Jonas Stanbery, a physician. Henry Stanbery was educated in a select school, in New York, until he removed, with his father's family, to Zanesville, Ohio, in 1814. After some preparation at home, he went to Washington college, Pennsylvania, from which he was graduated in 1819. When sixteen years old he commenced the study of law, with Ebenezer Granger, at Lancaster. On his death he continued his studies with the late General Charles C. Goddard. As he could not be admitted to the bar until he was twenty-one years of age, he had the advantage of nearly five years preparatory study, which he always considered of especial value. In May, 1824, he was admitted to the bar, by the supreme court of Ohio, on circuit in Gallia county. On his return from that county, on horseback, in company with the many noted lawyers who had been present, he was cordially urged, by the late Hon. Thomas Ewing, to commence practice in Lancaster, and ride the circuit with him. He accepted this flattering invitation. The circuit extended from the counties of Washington and Gallia, on the Ohio river, to Delaware and Marion counties, including those adjoining the direct line. The system of circuit practice was such that a lawyer had little opportunity to examine his case, between is retainer and the trial. It therefore required great readiness in the use of his knowledge, and .a reliance upon his own resources to be successful. That Mr. Stanbery was equal to these emergencies, is evident from his rapid rise in the profession; and that such practice suited his talents, is apparent from the wonderful quickness, both of attack and defence, by which he has always been characterized in the trial of cases. Mr. Stanbery remained in Lancaster, contemporary with Judges. Sherman Beecher and Irwin, and with Thomas Ewing, the elder, Hocking Hunter, John T. Brassee, Thomas King, and many other lawyers then residing there, and in the adjoining counties, whose distinguished efforts at the bar have shed an enduring glory over its early history, that has not since been eclipsed by brighter lights.

 

In 1846 the office of attorney-general of the State of Ohio was created, and Henry Stanbery was elected, by the general assembly, to be the first occupant of this office. The term was five years. He accepted the place, and at once, early in 1846, removed to Columbus, where he resided for more than five years, and so became member of the bar of Franklin county.

 

At this time the United States courts were located in olumbus. He had a very large and valuable practice n these courts, and in the supreme court of Ohio. These were the days that the lawyers of Ohio had the opportunity of a large arena in which to make their best (forts, and thus become known to the bar. of the entire State. Columbus was often full of lawyers, young and old, who remained for weeks, attending these courts..

 

In 1850 Mr. Stanbery was elected one of the delegates 'win Franklin county to the convention which framed he present constitution of Ohio. It was first held in olumbus, and then removed to Cincinnati. In this convention he was conspicuous in debate. Naturally onservative, and belonging to the Whig party, he assisted ready in checking the extreme radicalism openly urged by some of the ablest and most brilliant of the younger members.

 

In 1853 he removed to Cincinnati, where he has ever since had an office, but his residence is on the hills of Kentucky, opposite the eastern part of the city, and a few miles east of Newport, where he has ample room to indulge his love of nature and engage in horticultural pursuits, of which he has always been fond.

 

His practice of the law in Cincinnati was similar to that in Columbus, his largest cases being in the United States courts and in the highest State courts.

 

In 1866 he was appointed attorney general of the United States by President Johnson. He accepted this office, after consultation with • his friends, with the sole desire to assist in carrying the government safely through the perilous times following the war. He resigned this office, to become one of the counsel of the president, upon his impeachment. He was in such delicate health at the time that most of his arguments in that trial were submitted on paper. After the termination of the trial, he was renominated by the president to the office of attorney general, but the senate had not magnanimity enough to confirm him. Since then he .has held rib public office. He has been president of the law association of Cincinnati. His pen has been used on some of the questions of the day, and sometimes he has made public addresses, but in later years, as in early life, he has been too much of a lawyer to be a successful politician.

 

Henry Stanbery is a man of fine appearance, tall and straight, with dignified bearing and a very pleasant face, though his features are large and strongly marked.

 

He was, from the first, a most accurate lawyer, fond of technicalities and ready in applying every refinement of pleading, and all the nice rules of evidence and practice. It was, however, in the discussion of the general principles of the law, which arose in his cases, that he especially delighted. Upon all young men who studied the law, ..he would urge the essential importance of mastering general principles in order to attain the highest success. He was especially fond of the Latin maxims, which he regarded as the very embodiment of terse wisdom. In his manner as a practitioner, Mr. Stanbery was a model. Always courteous and dignified, he was, nevertheless, as alert and ready as a soldier on guard. He was quick to perceive the slightest weakness in his opponent's cause, and on it dealt his blow with overwhelming suddenness. His manner, in the examination of witnesses, was admirable. He never bullied or attempted to mislead him, but with sincere frankness, and winning address, would secure from the reluctant or the unfair witness often full and true answers to his questions. His language is of the purest English, and his style free from all glitter of mere words. To court and jury alike, his speeches were clear. His arguments on the law were models of orderly arrangement and logical force, often eloquent from their very qualities. His addresses to the jury were masterly discussions of the facts, ingeniously mustered- to sustain his views, and were exceedingly attractive.

 

In writing, he was a marvel of accuracy. Often his manuscrips were printed from the original draft, with

 

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scarcely a correction. He was systematic and thorough as a worker, never putting off anything for a more convenient season, but at the earliest moment analyzing his case and settling the law and the facts which would control it.

 

In personal character he is, and has ever been, a man of the highest honor, integrity, and probity—to be trusted implicitly. While he was devoted to the interest of his client when he was willing to undertake his cause, he never mislead the court or jury, or deceived an opponent by any misstatement of law or fact. His word was truth. He has always been a courteous gentleman to all ages and ranks, and especially kind to the younger members of the profession. He never lost his self-control, or indulged in petulance or passion. He is a member of the Episcopal communion.

 

In all these respects Henry Stanbery was, and is, one of the foremost lawyers, not only of Ohio, but of the United States, and as a man, entitled to the highest veneration and regard.

 

Mr. Stanbery married twice; first, Frances, daughter of the Hon. Philemon Beecher, of Lancaster.. The children of this marriage were Philemon B., Henry, George, and Frances, now the wife of Francis Avery, of San Francisco. Henry died just as he was entering upon the study of the law, to. the deep grief of his father. His second wife is Cecilia, daughter of the late William Key Bond, a lawyer of distinction, formerly of Chillicothe, and afterwards of Cincinnati.

 

Mr. Stanbery has retired from the law, and, in the enjoyment of ample means, he is spending the decline of life amid his family and friends, in otium cum dignitate.

 

SAMUEL BRUSH, son of Platt .and Elizabeth (____) Brush, was born January 13, 1809, in the town of Greene, Chenango county, New York, his father being, at that time, a practicing lawyer in Oxford, in the same county, where they resided until 1815, when the family removed to Chillicothe, Ohio, and his father formed a partnership, in the practice of the law, with his brother, Col. Henry Brush, then a member of congress.

 

In 1820 he removed, with the family, to Delaware, Ohio, his father having received the appointment of register of the land office, for the sale of government lands in the seven northwestern counties of Ohio, and resided there until 1828, when his father returned to Chillicothe to live, on his removal by General Jackson, and he himself took charge of the State land office, at Tiffin, Ohio, until his father resigned his office as register thereof.

 

He was a clerk in his father's office from his early youth, and received a classical education, through three private tutors, graduates of colleges, one of whom was General John A. Quitman, afterward governor of, and member of congress from, Mississippi. He read law with his father, who, in the spring of 1830, had removed, with such of his family as were then living, to his farm, near Fremont, Ohio. He was admitted to practice law at Tiffin, Ohio, by the supreme court, August 30, 1830—his uncle, Judge Brush, being one of the judges on the bench. The court was held at Tiffin, but the judges and lawyers boarded at Fort Ball, where his examination took

place, before a committe of the ablest lawyers of the bar, on the favorable result of which Judge Brush, his uncle, congratulated him, as he had feared that he would not be found qualified. He was admitted to practice in the circuit and district courts of the United States, for Ohio in 1831, and in the supreme courts of the United State and district court of the District of Columbia in the winte of 1840-41.

 

In the spring of 1831 he left Fremont, on account of his health, and went to reside in West Union, Adams county, Ohio, and there practiced law, and was elected prosecuting attorney in October, 1833, serving as such two years. He then went to Batavia, Clermont county, Ohio, and there practiced until the fall of 1836, when he removed to Columbus, Ohio, and opened an office in December, of that year, on State street, adjoining the office of Starling & Gilbert, who dissolved part nership in 1837, when he formed with M. J. Gilbert under the firm name of Brush & Gilbert, which firm did a large and lucrative business in Columbus for severa years. He acquired the title of major while in Columbus, by holding the commission of brigade inspector. He was elected vice-president upon the organization of the Franklin County Agricultural society, and was afterwards elected president, and served two years, during which period the fair grounds were purchased and buildings erected thereon, at a cost of over six thousand dollars, and when he retired the society was out of debt and had a surplus of two hundred dollars in the treasury.

 

He was president of, and built, the Columbus and Granville plank road.

 

In 1859 he retired from the practice, and removed t Canandaigua, New York, and engaged in farming, resid ing on a farm at the head of the main street of th village. During the civil war, although foreseeing th demoralization that would result therefrom, he contrib uted all in his power to aid in its prosecution, for the purpose of restoring the Union, and maintaining the laws of the United States, and purchased a substitute for his son, who was in college,' and not liable to the draft. His son, Henry Brush, having graduated at Hobart college, studied raw, and being admitted to the practice, in the fall of 1868, he opened a law office with him- in the city of Buffalo, New York, where they practiced two years, and, their health. failing them, they returned to Canandaigua, and continued the practice until the death of his son Henry, on July 17, 1879. His death, so unexpected, at the time when he had acquired a reputation as a sound lawyer and able advocate, was the greatest misfortune of his life, as he was an only child. In consequence of this sad blow, he retired from air active practice of law.

 

Mr. Brush, as a lawyer, was a superior special pleader, no case prepared by him having ever been lost, or judgment reversed for defective pleading. His mind possessed great powers of concentration, and he handled wit ability a great number and variety of facts and points, i the trial of important causes. He was a man of grea industry in pushing his business, being always ready fo trial in his cases, but never encouraged litigation, unles confident that his client had a case.

 

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He was always true to his friends; a man of undoubted integrity of character, and sincere in his opinions, conservative and independent in his politics, and anti-sectarian in his religious views.

 

He was married June 7, 1843, at Port Gibson, Ontario county, New York, to Cornelia A. Jenkins, daughter of Lewis Jenkins, esq., and grand-daughter of Judge Moses Atwater, of Canandaigua, New York. His wife is still heiving.

 

MATTHEW J. GILBERT was born at New Haven, Connecticut, in 1810, and was graduated at Yale College in 1829. Having taken the course of study, and attended the heectures, at the law school connected with said college, he came to Columbus, Ohio, in 1830, and after reading heaw with P. B. Wilcox, esq., was admitted to the bar, in 1831, by the supreme court of Ohio. He immediately commenced the practice, at Columbus, and continued engaged therein until his decease, which occurred suddenly, while temporarily absent from home, at Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in May, 1848. Mr. Gilbert was an excehelent lawyer, and will long be remembered by old clients for refusing, when offered, to take fees that he thought were too high for the services rendered.

 

WILLIAM W. BACKUS, son of Thomas Backus, and Temperance (Lord) Backus, was born on his father's farm, near Franklinton, in Franklin county, Ohio, on October 12, 1814. He was educated at the primary school, and graduated at Kenyon College, Ohio ; studied law in the office of Judge Gustavus Swan, and immediately entered into the practice of the law at Columbus, with his brother, Elijah Backus. He was elected prosecuting attorney of Trumbuhehe county, in 1838, and re-elected in 1840. He was married to Sarah P. Fuller, of Delaware, Ohio, May, 1842, and died, at Columbus, Ohio, in the twenty-ninth year of his age.

 

ELIJAH BACKUS, son of Thomas Backus and Temperance Lord Backus, was born on his father's farm, near Franklinton, Franklin county, Ohio, on March 3, 1812. He was educated in the primary schools at Columbus, studied law with his brother, W. W. Backus, and was admitted to the bar by the supreme court at Columbus, in 1838. He went into the clerk's office, and, in 1838, was appointed crerk, pro tem., and continued until the spring of 1839, when he entered into the practice of his profession with his brother, William W. Backus, under the firm name of E. & W. W. Backus, which continued untihe the death of his brother, in 1842. After this Mr. Backus practiced his profession alone, doing a large and lucrative business, not only at home, but on the circuit. He was well versed in the common law, and thoroughly posted in the technicalities of the old practice, which he especially delighted to play off on the younger members of the profession. But as soon as, under the instruction of dear-bought experience, they had fully mastered all the catches and fine points of special pleading, and he found himself often beaten at his own game, he would laugh and say, "These young cubs are so fast learning my hand that I will have to throw up." Mr. Backus was especially familiar with the law on the subject of land tithees in the Virginia Military district, and was largely employed in cases arising out of it. Much of his success was owing to his great nerve and calculating coolness in- trying a case before a jury. He understood perfectly the system of examining and handling witnesses to the best advantage. He argued his points directly and without wasting words.

 

His early death, on March 3, 1855, in the forty-fourth year of his age, prematurely cut short a career of great promise. From March, 1852, General Joseph Geiger was in partnership with him until his death.

 

He was married to Caroline V. Wheeler, on November 1, 1843, at the then residence of her brother-in-law, where the beautiful Ohio lunatic asylum is built. One son and three daughters survive him.

 

Thomas Sparrow was born at Utica; New York, in July, 1818. His father Samuel Sparrow, was a gentleman of fine ability, as a scholar and man of business; polished in manners and cultured in mind. He was a landholder in Wicklow county, Ireland—a county adjoining Dublin where he married Mary Roe, a sister of the Rev. Peter and Dr. Henry Roe, gentlemen of high standing in Dublin. She came with her husband, first temporarily, in 1799, and, having returned to Ireland in 1803 or 1804, removed permanently to America in 1817, and they settled at Utica, New York. Samuel Sparrow, having purchased a large tract in the "Fire-lands" of northern Ohio, the family removed to Huron county in 180, and located in what is known as the Woodward neighborhood, and were active in organizing the first Episcopal churches in that part of Ohio. Mrs. Sparrow died in September, 1821, of malarial fever, leaving five children : Susan (Mrs. William Woodward), William (Rev. Dr. Sparrow), Edward,) at present a lawyer at Lake Providence, Louisiana), Anna (Mrs. M. H. Mitchell, now living at Mount Vernon), and Thomas, who was three years old. In 1823 his father took him to Worthington, at that time the seat of Kenyon College, and placed him under the instruction of Mrs. Ingraham, a. sister of Bishop Chase's. wife, who subsequently married Dr. Sparrow, a professor in the college, and from that time he was constantly a member of the preparatory schools until he entered the Freshman class, after the removal to Gambier, where he graduated in 1837. He studied law with Mr. P. B. Wilcox, at Columbus, Ohio, and was admitted to the bar on July 8, 1840, by the supreme court, at Tiffin, Seneca county, Ohio, Judges Hitchcock and Lane on the bench. He commenced the practice of law in Columbus, in 1842; first, for one year, in partnership with Fitch James Mathews, and then with Pierrepont, in 1844, which continued two years. He then practiced alone until he was appointed postmaster by President Pierce, for four years, from the fifth of September, 1853, when he formed a partnership with Otto Dressel, which contin ued two years, and he again practiced alone until 18—. He formed a partnership, about 1860, with James E; Wright, esq., which continued until 1869. Mr. Sparrow was elected prosecuting attorney in 1848, and served two years.

 

He was a man who eminently possessed the confidence of the community, in the honesty and integrity of his

 

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character. He was twice selected a commissioner to investigate alleged defalcations in the treasury of the State, first in the case of Joseph Whithall, and again in the great Breslin and Gibson defalcation, in 1857, and his reports in the matter established his reputation as an impartial seeker after the truth, doing his duty without fear or favor. When the finances of the county were in a suspicious situation, he was elected county commissioner, and, without compassion or mercy, scattered the vampires who had fastened on the treasury.

 

Mr. Sparrow was not an advocate, but in the business of the profession, he stood among the very first. He was accurate, and gave general satisfaction to his clients. He was a man of culture, and a constant reader of books. Masonry, which he entered in Magnolia lodge, in 1857, seems to have struck the sympathetic cord of his nature, and, in a very short time after he joined the order, he 'rose to the highest position, and throughout the State was a marked man, and regarded as one of the ablest expounders of the views of the order.

 

In 1842, he married Martha Sisson, daughter of Dr. P. Sisson: of Columbus, and, after her death, he married, on March 31, 1869, Mrs. Anna (Purshall) Stokes, the accomplished widow of Horace M-. Stokes, his predecessor in the office of grand master of Masons. Mr. Sparrow's health had been failing for some time before his death, which occurred on August 7, 1871, at his residence in Columbus. -

 

Mr. Sparrow was a strong Episcopalian, and from early life identified with the Democratic party of Ohio, and consistently adhered to that organization. His funeral, on August. io, 1871, was attended by the Masons and Knight Templars from different parts of the State, and was the largest and most imposing Masonic funeral that ever took place in Columbus, and will long be remembered by those who took part in it.

 

EDWARDS PIERREPONT. was born in North Haven, Connecticut, in the year 1817; graduated at Yale college in the year 1837; studied law in the New Haven law school, under Judge Dagett; was admitted to the bar, in the State of Ohio, in 1841, and entered into partnership in the practice, at Columbus, with his friend, P. B. Wilcox, upon whose suggestion he had come to Ohio, which. continued until 1844, and then with Thomas Sparrow, until 1846, when he removed to New York city, and soon established a large practice there.

 

In 1857 he was elected judge of the superior coat, of New York, in place of Chief Justice Oakley, and held that position until 1860, when he resigned.

 

In 1862 he was appointed, with General Dix, to try prisoners of state, confined by the United States government in the various forts and prisons; and, in 1867, was employed as counsel for the government in the famous Surratt case, who was tried at Washington for complicity in the assassination of President Lincoln. He was appointed, by President Grant, United States attorney for New York; and, in 1875, was appointed attorney-general of the United States. In May, 1876, he was appointed United States minister to the court of St. James, England.

 

He is still living, in New York city, highly esteemed as a counsellor, and a gentleman of superior legal a scholarly attainments.

 

J. WILLIAM BALDWIN was born at New Haven, Con, nectica, April 3o, 1822, and was graduated at Yale college, August, 1842. After graduation, he continued to attend the law school connected with said college, until September, 1843, when 'he came to Ohio, and, having read law for one year, under the direction of Samuel Brush and Matthew J. Gilbert, attorneys, of Columbus, Ohio, he was admitted to the bar by the supreme court, of Ohio, at its September term, 1844, in Wayne count Ohio. He immediately commenced the practice, at Columbus, Ohio, and has continued therein ever sinc , with the exception of a short period, in which he served as 'judge of the superior court, of Franklin county, Ohi by appointment of Governor Tod, after the resignatio n of Judge Mathews.

 

Judge Baldwin is one of the oldest, and most experienced practitioners in the profession, and especially versed in the learning of the old system of special plead ing, and has little liking for the modern innovations. His decidedly the best chancery lawyer at the bar, in Columbus, and his services are in great demand, when ever a patient and laborious investigation of the matte is required. In 184— he married a daughter of the venerable Dr. Hoge, the pioneer minister of Presbyterianism in Central Ohio.

 

OTTO DRESSEL was born September 21, 1824, in Detmald, the capital of the principality of Lippe, Germany, and only about four miles from the battle-field where, abou the time' of the Saviour's birth, Arminius delivered Germany from the Roman yoke, by defeating. Varus and hi legions. His father, Adolf Dressel, was director of th teacher's seminary at Detmald, and his mother, Carolin Dressel, was born at Siebert. He was educated at the col lege (Gymnasium Leupuldinum) at Detmald, from 1833 to 1842 ; studied law at the University of Lena from 184 to 1845 ; in 1846, on State examination, at Detmald, was admitted to the bar, and the same year was appointed assisant judge of the city court at Detmald.

 

In 1848, he took part in the revolution, the ultimate object of which was to republicanize Germany. He was president of the Democratic central committee for the district embracing the principality of Lippe, and part of the adjacent Prussian province of Westphalia, and editor of the Wage (Scale), a Democratic newspaper. On March. 24, 1849, criminal prosecution was commenced against him, on account of participation in the revolution, and, on September 24, 1849, he was sentenced to imprisonment. He barely escaped, by precipitate flight, in disguise, and taking refuge on the first vessel he reached, not knowing its destination. His pursuers were close on the track, and searched the vessel, but, by the kindness of the captain, he was concealed effectually. Fortunately the ship was bound for the United States, and sailed "for. Baltimore, where he arrived the last of November, 1849, a stranger, poor and friendless ; but his talents and energy were equal to the emergency. He went West, settled at Massillon, Ohio, in 1850, studied law with Hurlburt & Wales, and, in 1852, was admitted to the bar by the su-