100 - BENCH AND BAR OF OHIO. that time the Supreme Court consisted of four judges, and at the close of the December term, in March, held in Columbus, the court divided and two judges went upon the circuit, which lay north of the National Road, and two upon the southern circuit. London was the location of the first court to be held in the southern division. Mr. Harrison was then, as he has been heard to relate, " poor as Lazarus"— even being compelled to purchase on credit the few books of his office library — at once began the practice of his profession at London, where he resided until May, 1873, when he removed to Columbus. His rise was not meteoric, like the " flight of mercury," but steady, sure and permanent, like the enduring growth of the oak which Mr. Harrison so much in solidity of mind and stability of character resembles. his clients came cautiously at first, soon confidently and in numbers. An amusing incident occurred during the trial of the first case in which Mr, Harrison appeared as counsel in a court of record. On the morning of the day before the trial he left his boots to be mended, explaining to the shoemaker that the work must be done before the court met the next morning, as he had no other footwear except a pair of old-time " carpet slippers." He was assured that the boots would be ready at the appointed time without fail ; but the promise was not kept. The case was called. The shoemaker happened to be a witness for the plaintiff, and his journeyman had been subpoenaed as a witness for the defendant, who was Mr. Harrison's client. On cross-examination of the shoemaker, Mr. Harrison asked him whether he had not made certain statements to his journeyman, which were very different from his testimony in-chief. The witness admitted he had made such statements, but explained that when he made them to the journeyman he was not under oath. Mr. Harrison then inquired, " John, you are still under oath, are you ? The witness said, " Yes." " When, then, will you have my boots mended ? " By to-morrow noon," was the answer. The boots were done a couple of hours before the time fixed under the solemnities of a judicial oath. His practice was that of the usual practitioner of the day, the " circuit traveller" with its crude means of transit, its romantic and varied experiences in court and tavern. Not Only throughout southern Ohio, but in other parts of the State his clientage called him. Mr. Harrison has never been an office-seeker ; public office has never been in the line of his ambition or his taste, but true citizen that he is, he has discharged his duty to the commonwealth of both State and Nation when called upon by his fellow-men. His political honors have been many, and to the gift of each he has added the luster of his learning, the value of his invincible integrity, sound wisdom and indefatigable devotion to duty. In politics he was first a Whig and then a Republican. In the fall of 1857, when Salmon P. Chase was re-elected governor of the State, Mr. Harrison was elected a member of the House of Representatives from Madison county. It was an exciting and close contest, Mr. Harrison, as the Republican candidate, being opposed by a formidable combination of the adherents of the Democratic and " Know-Nothing " parties. Mr. Harrison was successful by a majority of twenty-four. In the Ohio House of Representatives, BENCH AND BAR OF OHIO - 101 which convened in January, 1858, Mr. Harrison met as colleagues such members as Judge J. A. Ambler of Columbiana, Judge W. II. West of Logan, Judge J. M. Briggs of Fayette, Judge W. R. Rankin of Franklin, James Monroe, later the veteran congressman from Lorain, Judge Isaac C. Collins of Hamilton, and Judge William B. Woods of Licking, later of the United States Supreme Court. Amid this galaxy of gifted scholars and statesmen, Mr. Harrison was accorded at once conspicuous rank. It was a largely Democratic body. The judiciary committee consisted of seven members, with Judge Rankin as chairman. Messrs. Harrison and Ambler were the only Republican members, but to Mr. Harrison was accorded a very large share of the work, and in this field his legal learning, unerring judgment and fervid patriotism found ample employment. Through this committee Mr. Harrison introduced, and caused to be enacted, many of the leading laws of our State. Among these were the bills concerning the relation of guardian and ward ; providing for the semi-annual payment of taxes for the relief of the District Courts and others of equal importance. Little opportunity, however, was given Mr. Harrison for the development or display of his forensic powers. Those were the days when party lines were closely drawn, and important measures, especially of a political nature, were dictated by that tyrant of party politics," King Caucus," and propelled by partisanship through the Howe without proper public deliberation or debate. But toward the second session, the winter of 1858-9, Mr. Harrison's eloquence burst forth in the discussion over the report of the commission appointed at the preceding session to investigate the State treasury defalcation. Governor Chase was serving his second term, having been re-elected by the Republican party. By this report of the commission, his political opponents attempted to implicate and besmirch the character of the governor. In his special message communicating the comtmissioners' report to the House, the governor called attention to the invidious criticism embraced in the report. To rebuke the governor, it was moved to print the report of the commission without the message of the governor accompanying it. The gross injustice of this political partisanship aroused Mr. Harridson, and be obtained the floor for the defense of the wronged governor. In the delivery of his speech, the earnestness of his efforts brought on a sudden attack of hemorrhage of the lungs; his friends, alarmed at the incident, insisted that be should not proceed with the discussion, but despite their importunities, after a brief respite, be continued his speech to its forcible conclusion. He was borne from the room in a condition of complete exhaustion. But his persuasive, logical and just argument dominated the House, and the message of the governor was published with the report of the commission and the attempted partisan thrust at Mr. Chase fell unavailing. It was a dramatic scene, but characteristic of Mr. Harrison's fearlessness and love of justice and fair play. In 1859 Mr. Harrison was promoted by his constituents to the State Senate. The Sentate of 1860-61 was distinguished for the ability and brilliancy of its members, among whom were James A. Garfield, afterwards President of the United States, Jacob D. Cox, later general of the army, governor of the State and 102 - BENCH AND BAR OF OHIO. member of General Grant's cabinet ; Judge Thomas C. Jones, Judge Thomas M. Key, James Monroe, E. A. Ferguson and others, whose names have since been illustrious in the annals of our State and Nation. Mr. Harrison was made chairman of the judiciary committee, and was elected president pro tempore of the Senate. In this position he exhibited the qualities of an admirable presiding officer; calm, dignified, impartial, with a thorough comprehension and a ready application of the principles of parliamentary law. The session of 1861 was one of the most memorable in the history of the State. It was the period of the outbreak of the great rebellion and the Nation's peril. During that session questions of the greatest moment, not only of State, but of Nation, were considered and acted upon. Those were the times that tried men's souls, and called for the exercise of the utmost calmness, the deepest wisdom, the most unflinching courage and unwavering patriotism, and often the sacrifice of lifelong party principles. Among the matters brought before the members were the measures to strengthen the public credit, provide ample currency, raise and equip armies, provide ways and means for the common defense and the maintenance of the Federal Union in all its entirety and integrity. To all these Mr. Harrison gave courageous, efficient and zealous support. The power and resources of his mind, the strength of his character, the deep devotion of his loyalty, were all consecrated to the opportunities and duties of the hour in behalf of the cause of the country of his adoption. Before the Rebellion shook the Nation with its initial reverberations, Mr. Harrison, as a loyal lover of peace and humanity and a disciple of law and order, did all in his power to avert the storm of civil war. James Buchanan was still President, and in view of the threats of the Southern States, had sent a special message to Congress on the subject of the contemplated uprising of the South against the federal government, in which he had ostensibly taken a position in favor of the maintenance of the Union. Mr. Harrison with his Republican colleagues took the ground that they should assume the integrity and sincerity of President Buchanan in his message, and in support of such a policy, Mr. Harrison had the honor, on January 12, 1861, to introduce in the Ohio Senate the following joint resolutions, of which he was the author : " I. That the people of Ohio, believing that the preservation of the unity of government that constitutes the American people one people is essential to the support of their tranquillity at home, of their peace abroad, of their safety, of their prosperity, and of that very liberty which they so highly prize, are firmly and ardently attached to the national Constitution and the union of the States. " II. That the general government cannot permit the secession of any State without violating the obligations by which it is bound under the comtpact to the other States and to every citizen of the United States. " III. That whilst the constitutional rights of every State in the Union should be preserved inviolate, the powers and authority of the national government must be maintained, and the laws of Congress faithfully enforced, in every State and Territory until repealed by Congress, or adjudged to be unconstitutional by the proper judicial tribunal ; and that all attempts by State authorities to nulllfy the Constitution of the United States, or the laws of the BENCH AND BAR OF OHIO - 103 federal government, or to resist the execution thereof, are revolutionary in their character, and tend to the disruption of the best and wisest system of government in the world. "IV. That the people of Ohio are inflexibly opposed to intermeddling with the internal affairs and domestic relations of the other States of the Union, in the same manner and to the same extent as they are opposed to any interference by the people of other States with their domestic concerns. "V. That it is the will and purpose of the people of Ohio to fulfill in good faith all their obligations under the Constitution of the United States, according to the spirit and intent thereof, and they demand the faithful discharge of the same duty by every State in the Union ; and thus, as far as may be, to insure tranquillity between the State of Ohio and the other States. " VI. That it is incumbent upon any States having enactments on their statute books conflicting with, or rendering less efficient, the Constitution or laws of the United States, to repeal them and it is equally incumbent upon the general government, and the several States, to secure to every citizen of the Union his rights in every State, under that provision of the Constitution which guarantees to the citizens of each State all the privileges and immunities of the citizens of the several States; and thus inspire and restore confidence and At of fraternal feeling between the different States of the Union. "VII. That the Union-loving citizens of those States who have labored, and still labor with devotional courage and patriotism to withhold their States from the vortex of secession, are entitled to the gratitude and admiration of the whole American people. "VIII. That we hail with joy the recent firm, dignified and patriotic special message of the President of the United States, and that the entire power end resources of Ohio are hereby pledged, whenever necessary and demanded, for the maintenance, under strict subordination to the civil authority, of the Constitution and laws of the general government by whomsoever administered. "IX. That the governor be requested to forward, forthwith, copies of the foregoing resolutions to the President of the Nation, and the governors of all the States of the Union, and to each of the senators and representatives in Congress from this State, to be by them presented to each branch of the national legislature." Well has a distinguished contemporary said that those resolutions, so patriotic in their spirit, merit for Mr. Harrison a just immortality. They passed the Senate with but one dissenting voice, and received but two opposing votes in the House. In February following, when Abraham Lincoln, President-elect, was on that memorable journey to Washington, he stopped at Columbus, and, while the guest of Governor Dennison, Mr. Harrison was presented to him as a member of the State Senate. The President-elect at once inquired if he was the Harrison who was the author of the patriotic and timely resolutions, and, upon being so assured, expressed great pleasure at meeting the author. At the special request of Mr. Harrison, the venerable Thomas Ewing, one of the most honored and trusted of Ohio's statesmen and jurists, was appointed by Governor William Dennison as one of the commissioners to represent Ohio in a conference of the States, called by invitation of the Virginia legislature, to assemble at Washington, D. C., on the 4th of February, 1861, to consider the then impending crisis. But the God of battles could not be stayed—the purity and perpetuity of our Federal Government could 104 - BENCH AND BAR OF OHIO. be secured only by the baptism of blood. The guns of treason belched forth their fire upon Sumter, and the Nation, horror-stricken, trembled at the issue. Naught but physical frailty prevented Mr. Harrison from enlisting in his country's service, but there was sore need of staunch citizens at home, no less than courageous soldiers at the front. Mr. Harrison was foremost in that noble number of loyal statesmen who in the legislative forum fought as persistently and patriotically to sustain the National Government as did the boys in blue on the tented field. Shortly after the adjournment of the legislature in 1861, Mr. Harrison was chosen by the electors of his district to the seat in Congress made vacant by the resignation of ex-Governor Thomas Corwin upon his appointment as Minister to Mexico. He took his seat in the National House of Representatives at that momentous extra session called by President Lincoln, and which convened July 4, 1861. Here Mr. Harrison was called to cope with the great questions that presented themselves to the legislative body of a nation tossed in the throes of armed rebellion. Mr. Harrison's participation in the deliberations of this session need not be related in detail. The acts of that Congress are a memorable part of our national history. The voice of Mr. Harrison, when uplifted, but echoed the patriotic inspiration of his purpose, and his vote on every question but emphasized the loyalty and wisdom of his action. The close of this Congress, March 3, 1863, marked the retirement of Mr. Harrison from public life. By the legislative re-apportionment of the Congressional Districts of Ohio, in 1862, Madison county, in which Mr. Harrison resided, was attached to the Franklin District, in which the Democratic majority was large, and Mr. Harrison was succeeded by Samuel S. Cox. Since that retirement from the political field Mr. Harrison's pursuits have been exclusively confined to the line of his profession. His stewardship as a statesman, so creditable to himself and so valuable to his country, ripened his experience, broadened his knowledge and enlarged his mental vision, but did not allure him from his profession, for which he was by nature so eminently fitted, and which he has, by his achievements, so splendidly adorned. As has been noticed by one of his distinguished biographers, Judge W. H. West : " The opportunities of Mr. Harrison, while pursuing his legal studies, were most fortunate. The Bench of Springfield was adorned by the modest learning of Judge J. R. Swan, its Bar by the sterling qualities of Edward Cummings, the courtly dignity of Sampson Mason, and the brilliant genius and gifted versatility of William A. Rodgers. The lesson of precept and of example derived from these model " gentlemen of the old school" ripened into fixed and most agreeable traits of professional character. Not less fortunate was the opening of Mr. Harrison's professional career. The ancient " circuit practice " had for him a fascination which yet continues. The intricate system of land titles peculiar to the Virginia Reservation, within which his " circuit" lay, had not ceased to be a fruitful source of litigation. The magnitude of individual estates in the Scioto Valley often gave rise to controversies about their succession. His rapid rise at the Bar soon opened to him these fields of legal contention, in which he was early accustomed to encounter, and often successfully contend with ex-Justice Swayne, Mr. John W. Andrews, Mr. P. BENCH AND BAR OF OHIO - 105 R. Wilcox, Governor Nelson Barrere, the lamented Judges Briggs, Sloane and Dickey, Mr. Jonathan Rennick, distinguished for his great good sense, the late flocking II. Hunter, and to occasionally meet the venerable Thomas Ewing. In these rencounters he early learned that there could be no excellence without labor; that undisciplined genius may transiently soar, but only toil can maintain the ascent it makes. To have once achieved success in these contests was worth ambition ; to maintain the conflict on equal terms through a succession of years was its goal. To this he bent his powers, and has not been disappointed. Jealous a mistress as is the law, he paid her assiduous devotion, crowning her with garlands gathered from every department of her domain. Studying her precepts as a system of philosophy, he applied them as a science, not as an art. Not omitting to cultivate familiarity with adjudicated cues, it was rather to extract from each its underlying principle than to employ it unintelligently as judicial ip8e dixit. Aided in this by strong sense, quick perception, discriminating judgment, and great power of analysis, he has united familiarity with the intricacies of procedure to a substantial mastery of judicial construction and interpretation, and the general principles governing in the adjudication of the multiform rights which spring from the ever-colliding relations of life.' Mr. Harrison's early practice was, as before intimated, under the old regime of the "circuit-travel days," which gave a far wider and more varied field for observation and experience with men than the modern methods of judicature. Qn this subject we cannot do better than vote a passage by Mr. Harrison himself, concerning the "Early Ohio Bar," to which subject he so felicitously responded at the Thurman banquet, November 13, 1890 : "In the early history of Ohio each judicial circuit was composed of many counties, and each county was very large. The lawyers traveled with the president judge of the circuit from county to county, on horse, over wretched roads, a great part of the year, with their papers and books in their " saddlebags," and some of them not without " flasks" and " packs." They were often compelled to lodge two-in-a-bed, thus carrying into practice Blackstone's theory that the science of the law is of a sociable disposition. A session of a judicial court in a country was an event of interest to all the inhabitants thereof. It was largely attended by mere spectators. The lawyers were thereby stimulated to do their best, much more than they were by the pittances received from their clients. The elegant court rooms of the present day, devoid of spectators, are by no means as favorable schools or theaters for advocacy and oratory as the primitive log court houses, crowded with appreciative listeners. The early lawyers were noted for their mother wit, their knowledge of human nature, and their knowledge of the underlying principles of jurisprudence and of right, and the facility and accuracy with which they applied them. There were active and influential politicians, and they sought the gratification of their ambition by service in public life. In these times, to render the State some service was regarded as honorable and praiseworthy as to have rendered service to the Nation. (Would that this view were again adopted !) The early lawyers were not dwarfed by the barren littleness of the profession when followed as mere trade. They were less anxious about fees than they were to win the applause and gain the suffrages of their fellow-citizens. They practically illustrated the notion which regards the fee of the lawyer as the offering of gratitude, not as the wages of labor, and that a lawyer is the servant of his fellow-men for the attainment of justice, in which definition is expressed both the lowliness and the dignity of his calling. There 106 - BENCH AND BAR OF OHIO. were no stenographers in the times of the early lawyers. Trials were of short duration. The lawyers went straight to the material points in controversy, and the fray was soon ended. A trial was not a siege, but a short hand-to-hand contest. " The Early Ohio Bar cultivated a warm professional feeling, and their standard of professional integrity and honor was high. There were then no Bar associations with disciplinary jurisdiction. None were needed. Professiohal ethics and professional honor were very rarely violated, and, when violated, the offender was at once completely ostracized by his brethren, and his occupation was gone. The free, and open, and fraternal, and honorable chardacter of the profession of the law has never been better illustrated than it was by the Early Ohio Bar." In 1870 Mr. Harrison was a candidate for judge of the Supreme Court of Ohio, but with his colleagues on the ticket he was defeated at the election. In 1875 Governor Hayes, recognizing the superior fitness of Mr. Harrison for the position, appointed him a member of the Supreme Court Commission of Ohio, and the Senate promptly and unanimously confirmed the appointment, but Mr. Harrison declined. He could ill afford to sacrifice a large and lucrative practice for the inadequate emoluments of judicial office. Afterwards, upon the decease of Judge William W. Johnson, in 1887, Governor Foraker tendered a seat upon the Supreme Bench to Mr. Harrison ; but he declined the honor. Hr. Harrison's life, so fraught with the results of acts accomplished, is a striking illustration of the rewards received for unceasing and untiring effort. His genius is that genius which Carlyle designates as " hard work." Though endowed with talents of the highest order, though armored in mind with all the weapons of wisdom, knowledge and experience, yet he bestows the utmost conscientious and painstaking labor in the preparation of his cases. It is his habit upon occasion, not merely to burn the midnight oil, but not infrequently his task finds him tireless at his desk till " night's candles are burned out," and " morn, waked by the circling hours, with rosy hands unbars the gates of light." His briefs are clear and exhaustless treatises, not only upon the principles, but the application of the law to the facts pertinent to the points at issue. They are models in logical and legal arrangement of the case at Bar. recited in all the potency and perfection of a masterful command of language, Nor have his herculean labors, the handmaid of his natural powers, been restricted to the immediate pursuits of his practice. Possessed of a large and fruitful mind, he has chosen for his intimate and familiar companions, the leaders of thought, speech and action in all ages. A. constant reader, with a remarkably retentive memory, his mind is stored with the choicest productions of ancient and modern classics. One who has been both his associate and his antagonist in the legal forum has said of him : " His style is logical, terse and compact, though not barren of illustration and embellishment. His singularly agreeable voice, distinct enunciation, candor of statement, and great earnestness of manner, win sympathy, secure confidence and carry conviction. In this, hardly less than in the logic of his words, lies the secret of his success. But the magic of his power is the courage of conscious right, and the boldness of thorough preparation, which distinguish him. Armed with these his attack is direct, pinioning BENCH AND BAR OF OHIO - 107 wrong by exposing its deformity, and rearing about justice a fortress of truth. Mastery of self is the strength of his armor. Ever subordinating tear', his quickness of repartee and keenness of sarcasm render him invulnerable; yet so playful and pleasantly does he employ these weapons that, While their victim rarely wishes to provoke their second employment, his repartee punctures without sting, and his sarcasm cuts without wounding." It is in the consideration of questions of constitutional law that the mental acumen and legal ability of Mr. Harrison have found their most adequate and fitting field. As a constitutional lawyer his reputation is national, and he is ranked among the foremost of American lawyers. His success in the Boesel Railroad Cases, reported in Granger's Ohio Supreme Court Reports (1872), established his eminence as a lawyer on constitutional questions, while, at the same time, it saved the people from the imposition of an oppressive system of taxation that would yield no return. Since that time Mr. Harrison has appeared either on one side or the other, before the Supreme Court, in the leading contests concerning the validity of legislative enactments. Mr. Harrison proceeds to the presentation of his case in absolute frankness and fair-with the facts and law marshaled like the forces of an unconquerable with every point of the line guarded for the attack, be it offensive or But, great as are his powers of argument and logic, his disposition rather than disputatious, and, as has often been said by his acquaintance of both Bench and Bar, it is to be regretted that the highest position in his profession, a seat in the National Supreme Court, has not demanded his services. Indeed, it is an interesting incident that he was at one time selected for that position. Mr. George Alfred Townsend, the famous newspaper correspondent, relates in a recently published letter, that when a vacancy on the Bench of the Supreme Court of the United States was caused by the decease of Mr. Justice Lamar, President Harrison, in a recent conversation in New York with some members of the Bar, stated that it was his intention to nominate Mr. Harrison to fill the vacancy, but that a question arose as to Yr. Harrison's age. Quiet inquiry developed that he had just passed his sixtieth birthday, which precedents had established as the time limit. That fact alone prevented his nomination. Though having declined, among other horors, appointments to fill vacancies of the Supreme Court of Ohio, President Harrison was satisfied that Mr. Harrison would have accepted the appointment he was about to tender him. It would have come as acknowledgment of Mr. Harrison's unquestioned qualifications for the position. The late Judge Howell E. Jackson was appointed to fill the vacancy. In many causes in the Federal and State Courts Mr. Harrison has acted either as Referee or Special Master in Chancery. Some of them are reported. In each case his decision, except in so far as his conclusions were founded upon express direction of the court of first instance, was sustained. Mr. Harrison's domestic relations have' been as happy and delightful as his professional career has been honorable and brilliant. On December 21, 1847, be was married at London, Ohio, to Miss Maria Louisa Warner, a daughter of Henry Warner, one of the honored pioneers of Madison county. 108 - BENCH AND BAR OF OHIO. Three daughters and four sons were the result of this union. One of the daughters and two of his sons are deceased. The youngest son, Warner, who gives promise of being a worthy son of his distinguished father, is now associated with his father in the practice of the law, the firm being located at Columbus, and known as Harrison, Olds, Henderson & Harrison. The firm was formerly Harrison, Olds & Marsh. Mr. Marsh, now deceased, was a son-in-law of Mr. Harrison. D. K. Watson, formerly attorney-general of the State of Ohio, and congressman from the Franklin district., is a son-in-law of Mr. Harrison. To Mr. Harrison the principles of the law are more than a science, its practice more than art—to him the profession of the law is a mission, a sacred calling, demanding not only the highest attributes of the mind, but the consecration of character, the honesty and integrity of the most exalted and noblest manhood. At the opening of the College of Law of the Ohio State University, at Columbus, October 1, 1891, Mr. Harrison delivered the address, and his tribute to his profession on that occasion deserves place in this sketch. He said : "Law is not merely the instrument of government. Many persons seem to so regard it. But this conception of law is an erroneous one. On the contrary, the truth is, law is the basis of public liberty, and also the safeguard of each individual citizen's public and private rights and liberties. This is at least what the law of the land is in every free country. It is pre-eminently what I have described it to be, in our own State and country. Wherefore there must necessarily be in our own, and in every free State, a body of men who have a thorough and profound knowledge, an enlightened appreciation, and an enthusiastic love of the fundamental principles which constitute the basis of public liberty, and the private and public rights and liberties of the individual citizen. These liberties and rights cannot be expounded and vindicated, and maintained in their integrity without such a body of men. From their ranks magistrates, known as judges, must be chosen to administer the constitutional, statutory and common law of the land, and thus dispense public and private justice, and maintain the rights of every citizen. It is a plain truth—perhaps an obvious common-place—that without an enlightened judiciary no one's life or liberty or property or reputation is safe. And the efficiency of the administration of the law depends as well upon the learning, ability and integrity of the Bar as upon the learning, ability, impartiality and independence of the Bench. They are correlatives. As showing that the profession of the advocate and jurist is one of the principal supports of public liberty and of individual personal rights and liberties, is the historical fact that this calling has flourished most amidst free institutions, and under the most popular governments. Not only so. This profession, in any State or country or age, is an efficient activity in promoting the public welfare, especially when its controlling members are, before entering upon their active duties, deeply instructed, not merely in the law of the land, but also in the ethics of the profession of the Bar as taught by those who are alone worthy of being its masters and guides," Mr. Harrison's considerate courtesy and uniform urbanity to all, old or young, with whom he comes in contact, are the rare qualities of the older school of gentlemen, alas, too little exemplified in the present generation. Such an one as man, citizen and lawyer, is Mr. Harrison. Those who have enjoyed BENCH AND BAR OF OHIO - 109 the boon of his friendship, aye, even the privilege of his acquaintance, will acknowledge it but due praise to say of him that he is foremost of those " Men who their duties know, But know their rights, and knowing, dare maintain." Through the characters and lives of such in the noble purpose of their vocation, are the lines of the poet true, that " Sovereign law, that states collected will, O'er thrones and globes elate. Sits empress, crowning good, repressing ill." JOSEPH R. SWAN, Columbus. The late Joseph H. Swan, who was born in Oneida county, New York, December 2S, 1802, and died at Columbus, Ohio, December 18, 1884, became eminent and distinguished in his profession. He acquired his literary education in his native State and came to Columbus at the age of twenty-two, when the city was a village containing not more than Mean hundred inhabitants. The entered the office of his uncle, Gustavus Swan, then and for many years one of the ablest lawyers in the State of Ohio, who was appointed to the Supreme Bench in 1830. He applied himself with snob assiduity under the guidance of his capable preceptor as to be qualified for radios very soon. Upon admission to the Bar he commenced the practice in Franklin and adjoining counties, to which the prestige of his uncle immediately introduced him. Little time was required to demonstrate his own abilities and independence of adventitious aids, and he advanced rapidly from a respectable beginning to a position of great eminence. His first office was prosecuting attorney of Franklin county, to which he was appointed in 1830 by the judges of the Court of Common Pleas. In January, 1833, a statute was enacted making the office elective, and in October of the same year Judge Swan was elected prosecuting attorney by the voters of Franklin county. The faithfulness and ability with which he discharged the duties of public prosecutor, which was then an office of great importance, received the swift and unqualified approbation of the Bar, and their approval found expression in the action of the general assembly, electing him judge of the Common Pleas Court within a year. The circuit comprised the counties of Franklin, Madison, Clarke, Champaign, Logan, Union and Delaware, and the legislature elected Judge Swan first in 1834, and re-elected him in 1841. No judge ever presided the Bench with more dignity; hone was ever more profoundly impressed ith the gravity and delicacy of judicial duties. His character and presence pined respect on the part of members of the Bar who practiced before him, the decorum which should ever characterize a court of justice followed ithout the exercise of ministerial power with which the law clothes a judge. here was that in his character as a man, no less than his high qualifications r the judicial office, which commanded unfeigned admiration and deference. tural reserve may sometimes have been mistaken for austerity, but he 110 - BENCH AND BAR OF OHIO. was too large and too just a man to be wanting in courtesy to a member of the Bar. The youngest lawyer who argued a motion before him, uncertain as to his position, timid sometimes in the assertion of his rights, always felt sure of the friendship and assistance of the court. He was so well established in the principles of the law and so clear in his perceptions of justice as not to be overawed by. a display of authorities. Mere dictum, even though in the form of an opinion expressed by a higher court, must be reasonable in order to have binding force as a precedent. Whilst he was not deficient in respect for the learning and the authority of the highest court, he was brave and independent enough to make a precedent in his nisi pries court, when the " authorities" submitted appeared to work an injustice between the parties litigant. A decision must be founded upon sound reasoning and fulfill the requirements of justice in order to command his approval. He was firm and impartial in the discharge of official duties, unmoved by popular clamor, uninfluenced by favoritism or prejudice. He was endowed with that penetration and clearness of vision which enabled him to go straight to the marrow of a subject and reject whatever was irrelevant. His vigorous, logical mind arranged and classified facts rapidly and reached a conclusion without circumlocution, His thorough understanding of a case preceded his judgment thereon. In every exercise of the judicial function he was both conscientious and scrupulous, during the period of eleven years that he occupied the Bench of the Common Pleas Court. Judge Swan resigned in 1845 and resumed the practice in partnership with John W, Andrews at Columbus, which was continued with unqualified success until 1854, when he was elected judge of the Supreme Court of the State. He was admirably qualified by natural abilities, by temperament and judicial training for the duties and responsibilities of this exalted office. The high reputation which he had created was sustained and advanced in the Supreme Court. His accession to this tribunal was about the time when the contention between the defenders and the opponents of slavery was most bitter, and public opinion was much inflamed. Judge Swan was elected in 1854 by a combination of the elements of opposition which crystallized in the formation of the Republican party. The fugitive slave law was extremely odious to his supporters. It had been held constitutional by the Supreme Court of the United States, and yet there was in Ohio, as in many of the free States, a deep-seated hostility to its enforcement. The issue was presented to the State Supreme Court in the case Ex parte Bushnell, wherein it was sought by a writ of habeas corpus to liberate a prisoner confined under a judgment of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Ohio. The State Court was relied upon by the majority' of electors for judicial nullification. The excitement was intense, and the expectancy of a clash between the State and Federal authorities was painful. In such a crisis marvellous self-control was required, even in a strong man, to preserve an equable temper so as to consider argument dispassionately and reach a conclusion by the slow process of reasoning. Judge Swan, as chief justice of the court, prepared and delivered the opinion, in which he held that a State court could not interfere with the orderly action of the United States BENCH AND BAR OF OHIO.- 111 courts within recognized constitutional limits. He was expected to decide as a partisan, but he decided as a lawyer and a judge, with the same calmness and the same deliberation that marked his entire career. He held the law to be authoritative and its administration a matter of conscience and duty, whether he approved the terms of the law or not, For this firmness in adhering to principle, even to the alienation of political friends, he was defeated for nomination in the convention of his party, and retired forever from public life at the close of his first term. He was great enough to decline an appointment W the State Supreme Bench, and to decline another nomination for the office, both of which were subsequently tendered. Nor did he resume the general practice of his profession. In 1860 he was chosen president of the Columbus & Xenia Railroad Company, and while serving as head of the executive department, was also the chief legal adviser, both of that company and the Little Miami. In 1869 he was appointed general solicitor of the Pittsburg, Cincinnati & St. Louis Railway Company, and held the position ten years, until failing health impelled his resignation, There was an expression of the highest confidence and sincerest regret placed on record by the directors in accepting his resignation. It was declared:  "The officers of the companyhaveoneand all been deeply penetrated by a sense of the legal learning, sound judgment, large experience, strict integrity and unbounded kindness and courtesy, which have ever marked his course with his associates and the discharge of his official duties," Judge Swan was a member of the constitutional convention of 1850, elected as a delegate from Franklin county. The proceedings show, what migbt have been expected, that he was one of the ablest, most influential members of that body. In the committees on the judicial department, public debts and public works, he rendered efficient service, as well as in the debates. here, as on the Bench and in private life, his convictions and sense of right controlled his action. The legislative acts of 1840 relating to the settlement of decedents' estates and to wills, as well as other important statutes, owe their origin to him. In 1836 he prepared and published " A Treatise on the Law Relating to the Powers and Duties of Justice of the Peace," which is regarded one of the most useful books ever published in the State, having passed through eleven editions. In 1843 he published in the Stated "A Guide of Executors and Administrators." In 1845 and 1850 he published "Swan's Pleadings and Precedents," in two volumes. In 1860 he published " Swan's Pleadings and Precedents under the Code," which so clearly interprets its provisions and so wisely suggests rules of construction, as to avoid carrying to the Supreme Court questions arising under the code. Judge Swan was the author of four general revisions of the statutes of Ohio, and his work is pronounced admirable. His taste for general literature was marked the range of his reading was vast, and his capacity for work was marvelous. Upon the announcement of his death the Bar Association of Franklin county adopted a memorial presented by a committee of the Bar, of which J. W. Andrews was chairman, and R. A. Harrison, Allen G. Thurman, C. N. Olds, H.. B. Albery, J. H. Outhwaite, E. F. Bingham and H. C. Noble were 112 - BENCH AND BAR OF OHIO members. While the biographical sketch herein presented is based upon the memorial of that committee, the essence of the report adopted is found in the first resolution : " The members of the Bar sincerely lament the death of Judge Joseph R. Swan, and express the high consideration they entertain of his integrity, his ability, his learning, his impartiality, his industry, his dignity, his love of justice, his moral courage, and his fidelity to every trust and duty, whether public. or private, which marked his career as a judge and public man and his character in private life." Similar action was taken by the Bar of the Supreme Court, by the railroad companies with which he was connected, by the Starling Medical College, in which he was a lecturer, and by the corporations which he served as director. Judge Swan had five children, three sons and two daughters, all living at the date of his death in 1884. Frank Swan, the eldest, is now a retired manufacturer, living at Stamford, Connecticut. He is married and has one son, a student at Dane Law School, Cambridge, Massachusetts. Maryette Andrews Swan, the second child, married A. C. Neave, of Cincinnati, and resided at Clifton until her decease, in 1885 ; she left two sons, Joseph R. and Charles Neave. The third child, Ann Floyd Swan, married (in 1860) Major Robert S. Smith, an officer in cavalry service of the regular army, who, after the war was over, resumed the practice of law ; who now resides in Columbus and is treasurer of the Columbus & Xenia Railroad Company. Mr. and Mrs. Smith have one daughter, who is married to Rutherford H. Platt, a nephew of President Hayes. Joseph R. Swan, Jr., the fourth child of Judge Swan, is a lawyer in practice, married and resides at Utica, New York ; has three children, two daughters and one son, all living. He has become the successor of his father as the editor and reviser of " Swan's Treatise" since his father's death, and has issued several new editions of the work. The youngest child is James Andrews Swan, married to Jane Parsons, and residing at Newport, Rhode Island. They have no children. In his capacity for original, independent thought, in the strength of his personality, and in the character of his service to the State as a member of its highest court, probably no jurist who has lived in the commonwealth excels the subject of this biography. A very intimate friend of the late Judge adds : " Judge Swan was the most reticent man I ever knew--a characteristic that came chiefly, I think, from his bashfulness and retiring disposition. His integrity of character was so firmly fixed that no personal interest could swerve him from the path he believed to be right. Therefore he passed through life leaving an impress upon his generation and upon history which time cannot efface. His name is indelibly written in the laws and statutes of our State—a name that stands for truth and justice, integrity and honor. A delightful memory of him lives in the hearts of all whose good fortune it was to meet and know him in his daily life. He was a model citizen, a model husband, a model father, and withal, he was great in the simplicity of his character." BENCH AND BAR OF OHIO - 113 BELLAMY STORER, late of Cincinnati. Bellamy Storer was born at Portland, Maine, on March 26, 1796. He was prepared for Bowdoin College by Dr. Edward Payton and Ebenezer Adams, formerly a professor at Dartmouth, and displayed such aptitude for learning and such thoroughness of study as be able to to enter college in August, 1809. He did not graduate, however, but the study of law in Boston under the direction of the celebrated Chief Justice Parker, and in 1817 he was admitted to the Bar in that city. In the same year he removed to Cincinnati and was admitted to the Bar of the State of Ohio and at once began the practice of the law. In a very short time he became know as a leader among the young men of his profession and also achieved a prominent position in the business and political life of the city. In 1824 he advocated the election of John Quincy Adams to the Presidency, editing The Crises the organ of his party. He was the candidate of the Whig party, then in the minority, for member of Congress from the first Ohio district in 1834, and after a most spirited canvass defeated the administration candidate, Robert Lytle, by a fair majority. In Congress his high character, directness of method and vigorous eloquence gave him a high standing and he was urged to accept the nommation, but declined it, preferring to return to the practice of his profession. He was a vigorous supporter of the Presidential candidacy of his friend, General William Henry Harrison, and in 1844 he was Presidential eleetor on the Whig ticket, casting his vote for Mr. Clay. In 1852 he was nominated, against his desire, for the Supreme Bench of Ohio, but was defeated, although be ran ahead of his ticket several thousand votes. In 1854 he was elected judge of the Superior Court of Cincinnati, having as his colleagues in this distinguished court, Judges O. M. Spencer and W. Y. Gholson. Storer drew the short term, but he wafs kept on the Bench by subsequent re-elections until 1872, when be resigned to engage once more in the practice of his profession, taking as his partner his son, Bellamy, the present minister to Belgium, who had been admitted to the Bar in 1869. This court, composed of Storer, Spencer and Obolson, has been regarded as the strongest court in the history of the Cincinnati Bench, and its reported decisions, while those of a court not of the last resort, are as much respected as those of any court in the country. Judge Storer brought to the Bench great knowledge of the law, as well as great love of its study, unremitting zeal in the performance of his judicial duties and eminent fairness of mind and temperament. Although quite companionable by nature and of-a most lovable disposition, he was the personification of judicial dignity and uprightness when on the Bench. Always conscious of the elevated character of his position, he impressed the same consciousness on all who approached his court room, without being in any degree austere or severe. His uniform courtesy to all, his straightforward methods and his unquestioned learning gained for him remarkable popularity both with his profession and with the public at large. He was very popular with the younger members of the Bar, and many of the lawyers of the present day, grown old in the profession, look back with grateful remembrance upon words of encouragement given them years ago by Judge Storer. 114 - BENCH AND BAR OF OHIO. In 1855 he became a professor in the Cincinnati Law School, which position he held until 1874, when he became professor emeritus. Throughout his life Judge Storer was a very successful speaker at both political and religious meetings. In his early life he was active in a band of young men called " Flying Artillery," who went from town to promote religious revivals. In 1862, when the city was threatened by the Confederate invasion, he shouldered his musket and marched as a private in defense of the city which had honored him. Kenyon College and Bowdoin College, of which latter institution he was for many years trustee, each bestowed upon him the degree of Doctor of Laws. He died June 1, 1875, leaving a name, as a lawyer and man, that after a lapse of almost a quarter of a century, is a familiar synonym for learning and virtue.   GENERAL THOMAS EWING, A. M., LL. D. (1829-1896), was born August 7, 1829, in Lancaster, Ohio. He was a son of Senator Thomas Ewing, the famous lawyer and statesman. His mother, through whom he was related to James Gillespie Blaine, was Maria Wills Boyle, a granddaughter of Neal Gillespie, who emigrated from County Donegal, Ireland, and became a man of eminence in western Pennsylvania in the latter part of the last century. His mother's father, Hugh Boyle, also a native of Donegal, took active part in a political conspiracy and, in 1791, was forced to flee to America, where for forty years he was clerk of the Supreme Court of Ohio for Fairfield county. At nineteen Mr. Ewing was a private secretary to President Taylor. In 1852 he entered Brown University, where he was popular with faculty and students. Those who knew him then recall his splendid physique ; his intellectual, transparent countenance; his genial temper; his strong anti-slavery feelings and his hatred of injustice in every form. The warm admiration which the president, the illustrious Dr. Wayland, showed for him was one of the pleasant recollections of his life. From Brown University he went to Cincinnati and entered the law office of the Honorable Henry Stanbery, and the Cincinnati• Law School. In 1855 he began practice in Cincinnati. Soon after he was employed by Mr. John W. Andrews, a prominent lawyer of Columbus, to assist in defending three actions at law in the United States Circuit Court, for infringement of " Parker's Patent Reaction and Percussion Water Wheel." Success in these led to his being retained to defend over fifty other cases brought on the same patent. In most of these he pleaded the Ohio statute of limitations, the patent having expired six years before the suits were commenced. The plea was sustained. Upon this point the Circuit Courts were divided for many years, but the Supreme Court in 1895 decided that State statutes apply in such cases. On January 18, 1856, Mr. Ewing was married to Miss Ellen Ewing Cox, daughter of the Rev. William Cox of Piqua, Ohio, a minister of the Presbyterian Church distinguished for zeal and eloquence. Though Mr. Ewing was reared a Catholic, he did not accept the doctrine of infallibility. By mental constitution he was unable to limit Christianity to any denomination, but he believed in Jesus Christ as his divine Master and Savior. Early in 1857 he removed with his family to Leavenworth, Kansas, where he formed a partnership with his brother, Hugh Boyle Ewing, for the practice of law. Later the firm included William Tecumseh Sherman, who was married to his elder sister, Ellen Boyle Ewing, and Daniel McCook. In the Civil War, three members of the firm attained the rank of brigadier general, and the fourth became the great hero of Atlanta and the march to the sea. During the famous struggle which resulted in the admission of Kansas as a free State, Mr. Ewing rendered a service to freedom of much historic interest. The administrations of Presidents Pierce and Buchanan favored the pro-slavery party, which, until the fall of 1857, controlled the Territorial government. In the summer of that year a convention was elected to frame a Constitution under which the Territory might be admitted. The free-state party, knowing that its votes would not be counted, took no part in the election of members of this convention. It met in the fall, and was presided over by John Calhoun, the United States surveyor-general. It framed the "Lecompton Constitution," and submitted to popular vote, not the entire Constitution, but only the question whether the Constitution should be adopted with or without provision for slavery. Even if slavery were rejected, the slaves then in Kansas would remain slaves. A separate election was ordered, to be held after that on the Constitution, for choosing officers under it. The convention appointed the judges of both elections, and directed Calhoun to canvass all returns. The free-state party declined to participate in the first election, and the Constitution was adopted with slavery. The pro-slavery party hoped that the free-soilers would also ignore the election of officers, in which event the Democratic Congress and President would admit Kansas as a slave state completely officered by pro-slavery men. In this condition of affairs a free-state convention met to determine the party policy. The radical free-state leaders in the convention were determined on the adoption of what was called the "non-voting" policy, because they opposed any recognition of the Lecompton Constitution and therefore opposed participation in the election of officers under it. And the followers of 01(1 John Brown opposed all peaceful measures and sought to provoke war with the National authority in the Territory, hoping that, once started, it would result in the destruction of slavery in the United States. The conservative men in the convention, including Mr. Ewing, encouraged by the fact that the free-state party had recently gained control of the Territorial legislature, advised the " voting-policy." They knew their party largely out-numbered the pro-slavery party, and hoped that, with the aid of the legislature, they could enforce a fair election, and choose free-soilers to all the State offices. Then if the State should be admitted under the Lecompton Constitution, the State government, which could act without Congressional supervision, could call a new convention to adopt a Constitution prohibiting slavery. After a protracted debate, the " voting policy " was about to be adopted by the convention, when suddenly E, B. Whitman, one of the radical opponents of that 116 - BENCH AND BAR OF OHIO. policy, strode into the convention hall, booted and spurred and covered with mud, and in a violent speech asserted that battle was joined between free-soilers and Federal troops at Sugar Mound, eighty miles away, whence he had come to call the people to arms. The excitement which followed was furious. Mr. Ewing vehemently denounced Whitman's statement as false; but despite his efforts the trick, for trick it was, succeeded. The convention declared for the "non-voting" policy. This declaration created the final crisis in the struggle for freedom in Kansas. The situation was desperate. The date was December 24th. The election was set for January 4th. The settled portion of the Territory was larger than the State of Ohio, and without a railroad. Mr. Ewing's temperament qualified him to meet the situation. He was effective in emergencies. Now, when most of his party associates were disheartened, he bolted the convention, though only fifteen or twenty out of the hundred and twenty-nine delegates followed. The bolters nominated a full ticket, canvassed the territory, sending newspapers and ballots by couriers to every settlement, and, in spite of bitter opposition from radical leaders and press, brought most of the free-state party to the polls. Mr. Ewing contributed to this canvass all the money he had and could borrow, amounting to over one thousand dollars. The pro-slavery leaders, finding themselves outvoted, resorted to enormous frauds in the count, and Calhoun officially proclaimed the election of the pro-slavery candidates. Thereupon Mr. Ewing procured the appointment of a commission by the Territorial legislature to investigate the election returns. The investigation, which he mainly conducted, resulted in the discovery of the original returns, buried in a candle-box under a woodpile, on the premises of the surveyor-general at Lecompton. They were full of plain forgeries. The Democratic party in Congress, and the Buchanan administration abandoned the attempt to admit the Territory under the Lecompton Constitution, which fell covered with execration and infamy. This closed successfully the long struggle against slavery in Kansas. Early in 1858 Mr. Ewing's father, who, with full knowledge of the sentiment in Washington, had been his constant and wise adviser, wrote to him : " I am much pleased with the course you have taken, and borne through, in what is justly considered the crisis of the day, involving the fate of Kansas and the present peace of the Union. It was fortunate for you that the occasion offered, and having made the most of it you have done more to give yourself a desirable reputation than, under other circumstances, you might have been able to do in a well spent life." When, in January, 1861, Kansas was admitted under a free Constitution, Mr. Ewing, then but thirty-one years of age, was elected Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. He served less than two years, but established a high reputation as a jurist. With him " the law stood for justice and the judge for righteousness." In September, 1862, he resigned the chief-justiceship to enter the Union army, and recruited the Eleventh Regiment Kansas Volunteer Infantry, of which he was elected colonel. For gallant conduct at Prairie Grove, one of the fiercest battles of the war, he was commissioned a brigadier general on March 13, 1863, by special order of President Lincoln. He was assigned to. BENCH AND BAR OF OHIO - 117 the " District of the Border," comprising the State of Kansas and the western portion of Missouri -- a " hornets' nest of a district," as he called it. This command, for which his acquaintance and influence especially fitted him, he held from June, 1863, to February, 1864. While in command of this district, on August 25, 1863, he issued an order known as " Order No. 11," directing the depopulation of large portions of four border counties of western Missouri. By the order the loyal inhabitants were required to remove to the military posts, the disloyal to remove out of the counties. It was a severe measure, but the only way of surmounting the difficulties to be overcome. These counties, after having suffered much from Kansas Redlegs under Jennison and other predatory leaders, whom General Ewing suppressed with a strong hand, had become the base of operations of about a thousand Missouri guerrillas, under Quantrill, who incessantly raided southern Kansas. Speaking of the issuance of the order, General Ewing, at a reception tendered him in Kansas City in 1890, said : "I remember when I came here, that on my trip to Independence, along a road by which I had once seen beautiful farm houses so thickly located as to make it almost seem a great long street, I saw, with but one exception, only the monuments which Jennison left, blackened chimneys. But one house between Kansas City and Independence was inhabited. About that time I went to Nevada, which I had remembered as a pretty town. Arriving there, I did not find a human being in the place—it was entirely deserted—not even a cat, dog or domestic animal of any kind could be seen, save some cows that had taken up their abode in the court house, which had been left in ruins, the records being trampled beneath the hoofs of the cows. "Every expedition I sent out to overtake the guerrillas failed to achieve the object sought. We could not overtake them. On every side of us were living, people who not only befriended and sympathized with the guerrillas, but furnished them with advantageous information as to the movements of the army or any detachment. After they had committed many depredations and then penetrated to Lawrence, where they murdered nearly 200 people in cold blood and burned the city, I knew some decisive measure had to be adopted. The Kansas people were aroused, and it seems providential interference that stayed them from going into Missouri and at least murdering those people they knew kept the guerrillas posted. I believe as to General Schofield and I know as to myself, that Order No. 11 was issued out of a . spirit of mercy to the people whose homes were in the border counties. It was a deliberate order and my judgment has never faltered an instant. But I confess I have suffered a great deal from the weak and partisan construction put upon it, When it was issued and before it went into effect, Montgomery Blair made an appeal to President Lincoln to have it revoked. In turn President Lincoln called upon General Schofield for an explanation—and the order went into effect. It was to me the only means of restoring peace. Those people were told that they must move and they did so without any show of military interference, and I am sure were no more inconvenienced than any of you would be to-day who had to change your place of abode. All you people, who were with me, know the truth of these statements. I remember that my own father remonstrated with me about that order and I know his heart was right, but he didn't know. I have been pelted by the Democratic party on this account; and the charge that I was cruel to my fellow beings 118 - BENCH AND BAR OF OHIO. while in a position to command is galling. Yet if I had it all to do over again I would do it in the same way." After General Ewing had thus removed the spies and purveyors from " the hills of the robbers," Quantrill, unable to continue the vendetta, led the guerrillas south. Under General Ewing's firm administration re-settlement of the country soon began, and the Border War, which had raged for eight years, was ended forever. General Ewing conducted one campaign where he displayed military ability sufficient, had the operations been larger, to give him rank as a great commander. In September, 1864, the distinguished Confederate lieutenant general, Sterling Price, a brigadier general in the Mexican War, once governor of Missouri, and a man of great political influence in the State, crossed the Arkansas river with 20,000 men, and marched on St. Louis. By capturing that city he hoped to bring Missouri into the Confederacy, thus securing a great base of supplies, and possibly so discrediting the administration as to prevent the re-election of President Lincoln in November. General Rosecrans was in command of •the Department of the Missouri, and General Ewing of the District of Southeast Missouri. The Federal troops were scattered in small detachments at important towns, and could not be concentrated in numbers sufficient to defeat General Price's large army. The only chance of averting the immense loss of prestige and resources which the surrender of St. Louis would involve was to check General Price until the city could be reinforced with troops brought from other States, by holding fast to Fort Davidson, a small work with capacity of about a thousand men, situated in a low valley ninety miles south of St. Louis at the village of Pilot Knob, so called from a near-by hill. In this fort were large quantities of ordnance, and commissary's and quartermaster's supplies, which General Price sorely needed. General Rosecrans, at the urgent request of General Ewing, sent him to Fort Davidson. He reached there on the morning of Monday, September 26, instructed to hold the fort against any detachment, but to evacuate should General Price's main army move against it. He found the main army approaching but the advantage of delaying the enemy if only for two or three days was so great, that, as he says in his report, he " resolved to stand fast and take the chances." He held Shut-in Gap, four miles below the fort, throughout the 26th, and then fell back to a gap about one thousand yards from the fort, between Shepherd's Mountain and Pilot Knob. Early Tuesday morning his troops were ejected from this gap, the enemy following and moving down the hillside in strong force. The guns at the fort drove them back with heavy loss. The gap was retaken, again lost, and again the artillery drove the enemy from the hillsides. But in the afternoon they swarmed into the valley in such numbers that. General Ewing had to draw in his entire command. The enemy made one splendid assault upon the fort, and were repulsed with terrible slaughter. General Price, thinking he had the little garrison, as General Ewing afterward said, " like a nut in a cracker," mounted guns on the surrounding hills preparatory to shelling the fort next day. About midnight General Ewing evacuated. He slipped BENCH AND BAR OF OHIO - 119 through the enemy's lines along a road opened, as has since transpired, by the strategy of a Union woman of the neighborhood, who having by an invitation to a barbecue tolled off the Confederate Colonel Dobbins and his hungry command, sent word that the Potosi road was unguarded. The fort was blown up soon after the troops withdrew. Then began a life or death retreat toward a fortified camp at Rolla, 100 miles away. The command was pursued by overwhelming cavalry forces, and embarrassed by refugees, men, women and children, who were in almost constant panic ; but before it was overtaken it reached a ridge with precipitous sides, where the pursuers could not head it off, along which it retreated. Its rear was protected by veterans of the_ 14th Iowa Infantry. In thirty-six hours it reached Leesburg, sixty-five miles from Pilot Knob, where it had to leave the ridge, and was soon completely surrounded. By hard fighting a fortified position was reached. The command was so exhausted that further retreat was impossible. The enemy made several assaults on Friday, and appearing in large force on Saturday they reconnoitered General Ewing's position. Apparently concluding that to carry it by assault would be too costly, they drew off, and on October 2nd the band of heroes marched into Rolla. General Ewing's total loss (lid not exceed 350 men, while the enemy's loss exceeded 1,500 men at Fort Davidson alone. General Price was delayed a week, during which St. Louis was reinforced. The attack was abandoned and the invading army was driven from Missouri without capturing an important town. General Ewing was made a brevet major general for meritorious conduct at Pilot Knob. He resigned on February 23, 1865, at the close of the war in the West. In the spring of 1865 he removed to the city of Washington, where he enjoyed for six years a large and lucrative practice. He was at different times in partnership with his father, Senator 0. H. Brown= ing, and his brother, General Charles Ewing. He was the general attorney for the Central Pacific Railroad Company. He defended Arnold, Spangler and Dr. Mudd when on trial with Mrs. Surratt and four others before a military commission charged with conspiracy to assassinate President Lincoln. In the words of a writer of authority, he " became the leading spirit of the defense * * * and wrought the miracle of plucking from the deadly clutches of the judge-advocates the lives of every one of the men he defended." During this period he opposed the reconstruction policy of the Republican party, His objections were that it would proscribe the whites of the South and make the negroes the rulers ; that their government would have to be propped by bayonets and must fall when the support was withdrawn : that it would prove a vast burden on the North and destructive to the South, and was wholly unconstitutional. He addressed the soldiers' convention which met at Cleveland, Ohio, in September, 1866. Of this address James G. Blaine says, in his Twenty Years of Congress : " The only noteworthy speech in the convention was delivered by General Thomas Ewing. * * * * He and Mr. Browning were law partners at the time of Mr. Johnson's accession, and both now resolved to oppose the Republican party. General Ewing's loss was regretted by a large number of 120 - BENCH AND BAR OF OHIO. friends. He had inherited talent and capacity of a high order, was rapidly rising in his profession, and seemed destined to an inviting political career in the party to which he had belonged from its first organization. In supporting the policy of President Johnson he made a large sacrifice, —large enough certainly to free his action from the slightest suspicion of any other motive than conviction of duty." President Johnson offered Mr. Ewing the positions of secretary of war and attorney-general but he declined both offers. In 1870 be removed to Lancaster, with ample means acquired in his profession, and embarked in the work of developing the Hocking valley. He was largely instrumental in the construction of the Ohio Central Railway. But the panic of 1873 robbed him of all pecuniary return from his efforts, and cast upon him a vast indebtedness, which he could easily have avoided, but which he struggled to pay during the remaining quarter century of his life. He was a member of the Constitutional Convention of Ohio in 1873-4, where his legal attainments and admirable powers of debate gave him a leading place. But the proposed Constitution failed of adoption by the people. In the financial discussions following the war to the resumption of specie payments in 1879, General Ewing was pronounced in his opposition to the various statutes devised to enhance the value of the currency and effect the payment of the government bonds in gold. He opposed the law of 1869 which declared that bonds, the principal of which was originally made payable in greenbacks, should be paid in coin. In 1871 he attacked the refunding operations of the government, and the policy of currency contraction, from which he anticipated commercial disaster, an anticipation fulfilled in the panic of 1873. In January, 1875, the Act was passed by Congress providing for the resumption of specie payments. He aroused the Democratic party against the resumption policy, and for the next four years was the most conspicuous figure in the Greenback movement. In 1875 William Allen was elected governor of Ohio, upon a platform written by General Ewing, which squarely opposed resumption. In 1876 Allen G. Thurman sought the Democratic nomination for the Presidency. Though less pronounced in opposition to resumption than was Governor Allen, Senator Thurtman was General Ewing's preference for the nomination, but upon condition that the declaration of financial policy adopted in 1875 should not be modified. When the State Convention met ih Cincinnati, the followers of Senator Thurman, led by the Honorable Frank Hurd, controlled its organization, and introduced resolutions which in effect declared for the abandonment of opposition to the resumption policy. Minority resolutions re-affirming the platform of 1875 were reported by Governor William D. Morgan. At a moment when defeat seemed certain General Ewing mounted the stand. "I rise," said he, " not to speak for a man, but for the cause." By a powerful and impassioned speech he carried the Morgan resolutions. He himself presented the name of William Allen, at St. Louis, as the nominee of the Ohio Democracy. General Ewing represented the Lancaster district in Congress from 1877 to 1881, where he advocated the remonetization of silver, and became the leader in the successful fight to amend the resumption BENCH AND BAR OF OHIO - 121 scheme so as to provide that the greenbacks should be reissued instead of being destroyed when once presented for redemption. But for this amendment the currency, already reduced in volume, would have been greatly contracted, to the immeasurable distress of the industrial classes. And resumption would have been impossible, as Secretary Sherman admitted in his interview with the committee on finance, March 19, 1878, where the question was put to him by Senator Allison : " In other words, you think we cannot come to and maintain specie payments without the power to reissue?" To which Secretary Sherman answered : " I do not think we can." On the money question General Ewing was unwarrantably charged with advocating inflation. His position was, in fact, the conservative position. He sought to preserve the greenbacks, and to avert the fall in prices which forced resumption produced. He proposed to retire the national bank currency, and fix by constitutional amendment the volume of the greenback currency and its enlargement in proportion to the annual percentage of increase in the population. In Congress he was also largely instrumental in stopping the employment of Federal troops and supervisors at elections conducted under State laws. Respecting the tariff he was a moderate protectionist. During his last year in Congress a bill was reported unanimously from the committee on the postal service which proposed very large reduction in the appropriation for the service in the far West. Any one familiar with the conduct of business in Congress knows how all but certainly the unanimous report of a committee controls. General Ewing knew that the people affected would suffer by the proposed changes, and after a vigorous debate he carried an amendment confirming the usual appropriations. In closing his speech he referred to the famous pony-express, established by Ben Holliday before the war, between St. Joseph, Missouri, and San Francisco, and in one of his happiest expressions likened it to a spider's thread swung across the desert." In 1879 General Ewing was the Democratic candidate for governor of Ohio, but was defeated after a brilliant campaign which attracted the attention of the Nation, it being recognized that success would place him in the front rank of Presidential possibilities. Intensely democratic, he aimed to serve the whole people and had the courage of his convictions; and the Democracy of Ohio honored him with a devotion such as has been enjoyed by few men. In 1881 he retired from Congress and from politics. Removing to Yonkers, New York, in 1882, he practiced law in New York City. He was for many years in partnership with the Honorable Milton I. Southard, formerly of Ohio, who had represented the Zanesville District in Congress. In 1893 he organized the firm of Ewing, Whitman & Ewing, in order to join with him his sons, Thomas and Hampton Denman Ewing. In 1895 he was attorney to the department of buildings of New York City. He delivered addresses on numerous public occasions, which he prepared with great care. In an address before the Law School of the University of the City of New York, he favored the abolition of the requirement of unanimity of the jury in civil cases, and the codification of the " private law." In closing, he said: 122 - BENCH AND BAR OF OHIO. " Gentlemen, always recollect that you are American lawyers, and owe allegiance to the people. Be loyal to your sovereign in word and deed. The experiment of self-government has been concluded and is a world acknowledged success. * * * * Exert your influence in perfecting the law, and in administering it expeditiously, economically and justly. Seek to make a lawsuit a terror to evil-doers only. Guard the liberty of the people and that equality which is the soul of free government. Punish abuse, oppression and corruption wherever and however they appear in the profession or in the courts. So that the people may forget the grievances of which poets and novelists have bitterly and mournfully written ; and Oily Gammon, and Sampson Brass, and Jarndyce and Jarndyce, and poor little Miss Flite, may be remembered only as myths showing the griefs of the olden time; and so that American jurisprudence may illustrate Sir Matthew Hale's lofty and eloquent tribute to law : All things on earth do her reverence, the least as feeling her protection, the greatest as not exempt from her power. Her voice is the harmony of the world ; her seat is the bosom of God." General Ewing was a founder of the Ohio Society of New York in 1886, and its president until 1889. He loved the people of Ohio and hoped to return to live in Lancaster, at or near which city lived, with their families, his brothers, General Hugh Boyle and Judge Philemon Beecher Ewing, his sister, Mrs. C. F. Steele, his eldest son, William Cox Ewing, and elder daughter, Mrs. Edwin S. Martin. General Ewing was struck down by a cable car in New York on January 20, 1896. He was taken to his apartment where he was living with his wife and younger daughter Beall. He died on the morning of January 21, without recovering consciousness. He was buried at Yonkers on the Friday following. His wife and all his children survive him. In his every-day life he was pure and unselfish. Though full of high ambition, he was hopeful ahd cheerful under adversity and disappointment. In manner he was dignified and simple ; in conversation ready and interesting, full of humor and amiability. Always generous and approachable, he had hosts of friends. No one appealed to him in vain. " His hand gave help, his heart compassion." He was an affectionate son and brother, a loving father, a devoted husband. In noting his death the Cincinnati Enquirer said : " Though General Thomas Ewing removed to New York about fifteen years ago, he resided still in the warm affections of the people of Ohio. His death will be mourned in every community in which he ever lived. Thomas Ewing was an ideal gentleman. Handsome in person, easy and gracious in manner, and lofty in his ideals, he made a deep impression on everybody he met. He was a gallant and effective soldier, an able lawyer, a sincere statesman, and a politician who set a high moral example in the practice of politics. He was worthy to be the son of the eminent Thomas Ewing of old, whose name is inseparably woven in the history of Ohio and the administration of national affairs." BENCH AND BAR OF OHIO - 123 JOSHUA REED GIDDINGS, Jefferson. Few figures in Ohio history attained greater prominence than Joshua R. Giddings. He was born at Athens, Pennsylvania, in 1795, and died at Montreal, in the Dominion of Canada, May 27, 1864. Much of the intervening period his life was turbulent and always active. His ancestors settled in New England about the middle of the seventeenth century. As an infant he was taken by his parents to Canandaigua, New York, and thence, at the age of ten, to Wayne township, Ashtabula county, Ohio. In 1805 the settlers of Jefferson county were few and the forests almost unbroken. The Giddings family were made of the stuff out of which the best pioneers are fashioned. Joshua was athletic in his physical proportions, well fitted to be a hard fighter or a good runner. He was not only qualified for work in the clearing and on the farm, but his intellectual faculties made him ambitious to achieve something in the realm of mind. He was industrious in reading and study, appropriating to himself with avidity the contents of all books available. He was keen to take advantage of every opportunity for advancement. In the War of 1812 he became a volunteer soldier, and was in the engagement fought at Sandusky. At the age of nineteen he was a good scholar. It is a commentary on his desire to be informed that all of his acquirements in the way of literature and mental culture were obtained at night, without interference with the hard physical labor which he was required to perform. He taught school for a time and entered upon the study of law in 1819, with Elisha Whittlesey. He absorbed readily and assimilated what he read. He was, therefore, soon qualified for practice. In 1829, after practicing ten years, he formed a partnership with Benjamin F. Wade, under the style of Giddings & Wade, which continued several years. In 1826 he was elected to the legislature and declined re-election. He also declined to permit his name to be used as a candidate for United States senator, because of the intense anti-Masonic feeling in the legislature aroused by the disappearance of Morgan. Mr. Giddings wasp Mason. Ten years later he was elected to Congress as a Whig, and was kept in Congress continuously for twenty-one years. His first election was for the residue of the term of Elisha Whittlesey, who died in office. In 1848 he became a Freesoiler and developed into one of the great abolition leaders. His whole being revolted against the slave traffic, and the auction block in the District of Columbia in sight of the Capitol he regarded as a national humiliation and disgrace. He became the advocate of the slaves who mutinied on board the Creole, landed her at Nassau and secured their freedom. For his opposition in Congress to the demand against Great Britain for compensation, the House of Representatives voted to censure him without a hearing. He resigned at once, appealed to the people of his district for vindication, and was re-elected by a large majority. This support at home gave him increased strength in Congress. He was never wanting in courage. Standing six feet two inches in height and weighing two hundred and twenty-five pounds, he was a veritable Titan in physical strength and was under all circumstances fearless. His moral courage was equal to his physical strength. His feeling was so strong on the subject of human slavery that he regarded it 124 - BENCH AND BAR OF OHIO. his duty to protect and defend the slaves struggling for freedom, to the utmost extent of his ability. His efforts in behalf of one hundred of these fugitives who were caught and imprisoned at Washington almost subjected him to mob violence. In the emergency, when the danger seemed greatest, he was calm, stern and even defiant. Retiring from public service on the 4th of March, 1859, he returned to his quiet home at Jefferson, in the Western Reserve, and resumed the practice of law, which, indeed, had never been abandoned. In 1861 President Lincoln appointed him consul-general of the British North American provinces, and he died in Montreal at his post of duty. Mr. Giddings was one of the greatest orators the State of Ohio has produced, but it required a great question or an important occasion to rouse him. When thoroughly interested and aroused he was able to stir the multitude by his wonderful oratory. His imagination was marvelous and his words came almost by inspiration. His convictions were deep and overpowering. He spoke with intense earnestness. Opposition was necessary to bring out his best qualities, and on such occasions his manner was impassioned and inflamed. He was the master of a good style of English, but in ordinary speech, on a question having no vital interest, he was rather a stammerer and his address was halting. he had none of the graces of the cultivated orator, but on every question involving a great principle or exciting human sympathy he had the soul of oratory. He' served in Congress during a period when the South was represented by her greatest leaders, many of whom were familiar with the "code duello," and extremely sensitive to any opposition to their domestic institution. Several anecdotes are related of Mr. Giddings, illustrating his physical courage and his utter indifference to the "code." He was so ready in sarcasm and denunciatory speech that he soon became an object of dislike to the " fire-eaters." And yet none courted a personal encounter with him. He was not accustomed to carry resentment or cultivate malice, and yet the men with whom he had engaged in acrimonious discussion on the floor of the House preferred not to meet him outside until a reasonable time had elapsed. He once had rather a fierce contention with a Mr. Black, and soon afterwards, when walking on Pennsylvania Avenue, he discovered Mr. Black approaching him in the opposite direction. The latter discovered Mr. Giddings about the same time, and not caring to meet him face to face, turned suddenly from the street and passed down a convenient alley, while Mr. Giddings walked leisurely along, swinging his ponderous cane and not saying a word. On one occasion he was challenged by Preston Brooks, of South Carolina, to fight a duel, and the challenge was not noticed. The South Carolinian regarded this as an indignity, and declared that nothing but a personal encounter would satisfy him. Finally the patience of Mr. Giddings was exhausted, and he announced on the floor of the House that he was ready for the battle to proceed, and authorized Mr. Brooks to name the time, place and weapons. The enraged Mr. Brooks retorted : "Now is my time, and my weapon a pistol." " Oh, very well," rejoined Mr. Giddings, " all I want to settle this affair is a York shilling raw BENCH AND BAR OF OHIO - 125 hide." This humiliated his antagonist so that he kept quiet afterwards. Perhaps the ruling passion in the life of Joshua Giddings was his intense love of liberty and hatred of oppression. The wrongs of the weak always excited his sympathy and he was ever ready to engage in their defense. He was a good lawyer, but his conspicuous public life shadowed the luster of his law practice. He was an author, and the first volume which he brought out was in the line of his sympathies. It was entitled "Exiles of Florida," and purported to be a history of runaway slaves. It was, in fact, an interesting portrayal of their sufferings and triumphs. Later he wrote a " History of the Rebellion," giving especial attention to its authors and causes. The style of this was vigorous and entertaining. He was married in 1819 to Miss Laura Waters, of Granby, Connecticut, and three sons were born of the marriage. The eldest, Comfort P., a farmer, living in Jefferson; the second, Joseph Addison Giddings, was highly educated, studied and practiced law with his father, and read widely in literature. He served a term as probate judge and for some time was editor of the Ashtabula Sentinel. His wife was Mary A. Curtis, of Ashtabula, and his family consists of four children. He acquired a considerable fortune, and after spending many years in his profession and literary pursuits retired to his extensive farm to engage in stock raising. This pursuit is entirely congenial to his tastes as a cultivated *gentleman. The youngest son, G. R. Giddings, was a brave soldier in the Union army during the Rebellion and attained the rank of colonel: He gave his life as a sacrifice to his country at Macon, Georgia. JOHN FASSETT FOLLETT, Cincinnati. Honorable John F. Follett is descended from Puritan ancestry of unquestioned patriotism and sterling character. His great-grandfather, Eliphalet Follett, was a captain in the Revolutionary War and one of the victims of the Wyoming Massacre, when his grandfather, eldest of the children, was a lad of thirteen. The family returned to Vermont with one old horse, on which the youngest child was carried by its mother. His grandmother was the daughter of John Fassett, one of the justices of the first Supreme Court of Vermont. He is the son of a New England farmer, the youngest but one of a family of nine children, and was born in Franklin county, Vermont. Of the nine children six were boys, all of whom have become exceedingly strong and able men. Three have honored the law—Charles, Martin D., and John F. ; Charles having been elected for two terms judge of the Common Pleas Court and for two terms judge of the Circuit Court, and Martin D. having been elected judge of the Supreme Court of Ohio in October, 1883. One, Alfred, has chosen the field of medicine; while the other two, George and Austin W., have been unusually successful in mercantile pursuits in New York City. In 1837, when the subject of this sketch was less than five years of age, his father removed to Ohio and settled in Licking county. His early education was received in the log school-houses, and such academies as the county of Licking then afforded. 126 - BENCH AND BAR OF OHIO. Ambitious for a higher and broader culture than was afforded by these primitive institutions, he determined to procure for himself a classical education, and entered Marietta College in 1851, and graduated with the highest honors of his class in 1855. After leaving college he taught school for two years, the first in the Asylum of the Blind at Columbus ; and the second as the principal of the Columbus high school. The income derived from teaching enabled him to liquidate the debt which he had contracted in obtaining a collegiate education. In July, 1858, he was admitted to the Bar at Newark, Ohio, and at once entered into a partnership with his brother, the Honorable Charles Follett, which continued until the fall of 1868, when he removed to Cincinnati, where he has since resided. In 1865 he was elected as a representative to the Fifty-seventh General Assembly from Licking county, and was re-elected in 1867. Upon the organization of the Fifty-eighth General Assembly in January, 1868, he was nominated by acclamation by the Democrats in caucus, and afterward was elected speaker of the House of Representatives, the duties of which office he discharged with signal ability. Before the opening of the adjourned session in the fall of 1868, he had removed to Cincinnati to engage in the practice of law, and consequently resigned the speakership, as well as his office as representative. Destined to be a leader, he has risen rapidly in his profession,,and upon going to Cincinnati, took rank immediately with the foremost men of that unusually able Bar, among whom it is doubtful if he has a superior as an advocate. His practice has been very large and lucrative, and he has been identified as counsel in much of the most important litigation in both State and Federal courts in southwestern Ohio. Thoroughly devoted to his profession, be steadfastly declined to be led away from the law by the allurements of public office until his fame as a lawyer was firmly established. In 1880 he was nominated by acclamation by the Democratic State Convention as one of the electors at large for Ohio, on the Hancock and English Presidential ticket. In 1881, although he was very prominently mentioned for governor, no canvass was made in his interest, and, preferring to let the nomination seek him rather than to seek it, he was not the selection of the convention. In 1882 he was made the temporary chairman of the Democratic State Convention. In the fall of 1882 he was nominated by acclamation by the Hamilton county Democratic Convention to represent the First District of Ohio in Congress. His opponent was the Honorable Benjamin Butterworth, a candidate for a third term, and probably the best campaigner in the State of Ohio, and whom, after a most gallant and hotly contested canvass, he defeated by a majority of 819. In politics he has been a life-long Democrat, one of the old school, whom shadows and reverses have not changed. Gifted and eloquent as a speaker, he has few, if any, equals on the stump in Ohio. For years he has cheerfully devoted weeks to every campaign, and his services are in constant demand at the executive committee rooms of his party. There is scarcely a county in the State where his voice has not been heard, and where he does not number his friends by the score. Of wonderfully popular manners, and of brilliant parts, BENCH AND BAR OF OHIO - 127 he will command such attention in the nation's councils as to endear him to every true Democrat in Ohio. At the commencement of 1879 his Alma Mater, in recognition of his scholarly attainments and public services, conferred upon him the honorary degree of Doctor of Laws. Mr. Follett combines in unusual measure the qualities of the advocate and the office lawyer, Few equal him in the careful study of a case, sparing no pains to become master of everything that can bear upon it and to collate all the precedents and authorities, whether for or against him. Fond of referring to the elementary principles on which the law is based, he yet omits nothing which can be of use in supporting his contention or in refuting that of his opponent. His analysis is logical and thorough, bringing into strong light the essentials of a controversy and ridding it of everything that is factitious. In the court room, master of every part of his case, his earnest and eloquent advocacy fixes the attention of court and jury, and enforces by cogent and fervent delivery the argument he has so well prepared • in his study. His client finds in him a friend and adviser willing to labor most industriously to further the interests he has espoused, and one who makes it a rule in small cases as well as great to do thoroughly whatever he undertakes. His brother lawyers find in him a thoroughly honest and honorable opponent, or a most genial and considerate associate. EDMUND W. KITTREDGE, Cincinnati. The subject of this biography was born in Rockingham county, New Hampshire, November 29, 1833. He is the son of Dr. Rufus .Kittredge and Sally Underhill Kittredge. Dr. Kittredge, after practicing medicine in Chester for a number of years, removed, in 1849, to Cincinnati, where he continued in the practice for some years, ultimately removing to Peekskill, New York, where he died in 1880. He was a native of Chester, and was of the sixth generation in this country, all his ancestors in America having been, like himself, physicians. The family probably first settled at Tewksbury, Massachusetts, and the first known records of the Kittredge family are found there. Mr. Kittredge graduated at Dartmouth College in 1854, and came to Cincinnati in the same year. He studied law in Cincinnati with the celebrated Judge Timothy Walker, and afterwards attended Harvard Law School, and was admitted to the Bar at Cincinnati in the fall of 1856. he was first associated with Judge M. W. Oliver in the practice of the law, and ultimately with Judge J. B. Stallo, subsequently minister to Italy, the firm name at that time being Stallo & Kittredge. At other times he has been associated with Murray C. Shoemaker, Joseph Wilby; R. F. Simmons, his firm at present being styled Kittredge & Wilby. He married, in 1866, Virginia Gholson, daughter of William Y.' Gholson, of Cincinnati, and has had seven children. His wife died in 1890. From almost the beginning of his career as a lawyer, Mr. Kittredge became marked among his associates at the Bar for his thoroughness of preparation and the, earnestness with which he conducted 128 - BENCH AND BAR OF OHIO. litigation intrusted to him, and as a result he soon came into control of a large practice which has ever increased in magnitude and importance, until to-day, both by reason of his unusual attainments as a lawyer and the magnitude of his practice, he stands among the very first members of the Bar in the State. He has a commanding presence and a powerful, penetrating voice, which, added to his great knowledge of the law and his skillful method of examination of witnesses, make him pre-eminently successful as a trial lawyer. Among the most important cases in which he has taken part are the trial of the disbarment of Thomas C. Campbell, in which he, with Mr. William M. Ramsey, took a leading part on behalf of the relators; Walker vs. the City of Cincinnati, and the subsequent cases in reference to the construction of the Cincinnati Northern Railroad, and the case of Mannix vs. Archbishop Purcell. For a number of years Mr. Kittredge acted as president, of the Cincinnati Bar Association. In politics Mr. Kittredge was originally a Republican, but in 1872 he joined the ranks of the Liberal party, and from that time has identified himself very prominently with the Democratic party. He has never sought nor held office, but has always been a leader in the councils of his party, as well as in all matters concerning the welfare of the community in which he lived. Speaking of him, Mr. John W. Warrington, his warm friend and associate in a very large amount of litigation, says : " Perhaps the two leading characteristics of Mr. Kittredge's mind are intensity and critical analysis. - These qualities inevitably lead to strong convictions in favor of any cause which has once been espoused, and to systematic presentation of its merits. They insure tenacity and uniformity of interest in the various questions arising. Another characteristic of his mind is versatility in the illustration of a given subject by the use of analogous rules laid down in relation to kindred and even remote subjects. When an intense man is analytical he is always persuasive. When he is also resourceful in apposite simile he is powerful. Mr. Kittredge possesses unusual endurance and application. Starting with a careful early mental training, he has ever since augmented his knowledge, and has especially devoted himself to a scientific study of the law. Indeed, is originality and attainments give him wide range and always render him instructive. His honesty and character are superlative. His bearing is dispassionate and courteous. As an advocate, he is remarkably -equipped both in attributes and culture; and as a man he is an exemplar." Ex-Governor Jacob D. Cox, the dean of the Cincinnati Law School, adds the following estimate of Mr. Kittredge : " Mr. Kittredge's growth at this Bar has been extremely steady and positive. His characteristics as a young lawyer were great thoroughness of preparation, mixed with a judicial quality of mind, which gave all his efforts great weight with the Bench from the very beginning of his career. He was entirely unpretentious in his manner, avoiding flights of oratory and winning his way by a strong logical method, appealing to the intellect rather than to the feelings. As he grew older and more experienced, his method and manner ripened into one of a dignified and active persuasiveness, impressing one with both the candor and weight of his argument. These qualifications naturally gave him prominence in mercantile and corporation cases ; also his practical common sense and muscular grasp of mind gave him a marked weight. For many years now he has been in the front rank of business practitioners in our BENCH AND BAR OF OHIO - 129 courts. He is a man of entire independence of character in every direction, having no taste for partisanship in politics. He has been known as a reformer, earnestly supporting the civil service reform, and the separation of municipal questions from general politics." RUFUS KING, Cincinnati. Rufus King was born at Chillicothe, Ohio, May 30, 1817, and died at Cincinnati, March 25, 1891. Some of his ancestors were men of large abilities and much distinction. His grandfather, Rufus King, had a prominent part in the American Revolution, and acquitted himself honorably in a service of three years as a member of the Continental Congress. After the adoption of the Constitution he served for eighteen years as United States senator for the State of New York. The mother of our subject was a daughter of Thomas Worthington, a very early settler of Ohio, a member of the first Constitutional convention and the first United States senator chosen by and for the State. He was also elected governor of the State in 1814, and served two terms. He was a man of much force and influence in the State; a man of character, enterprise and public spirit, whose earnest efforts in behalf of improvement and progress were of immense value. Edward King, the father of Rufus, was a lawyer of eminence and marked ability, who engaged. in the practice of his profession for many years at Chillicothe and Cincinnati. It may reasonably be assumed, therefore, that Rufus King, the subject of this sketch, was richly endowed by nature for a successful carper in the law. He was also qualified by education and training to undertake the active duties of his profession, and the responsibilities which always belong to a life of useful prominence. His early education and preparation for college were received at home under the care and tutelage of his mother, a woman of superior literary talents and noted likewise for her active benevolence. From the excellent school at home he went to Gambier, where he remained four years, and thence to Harvard University. After completing the classical course he entered the Harvard Law School, in which he was permitted to receive instructions at first hands from the great masters, Story and Greenleaf. He was admitted to the Bar at Cincinnati in 1841, and very soon rose to a position of prominence. He had marked taste and adaptability for the law, and carried into the practice the habit of study without which no permanent success can be achieved. Engaging in the general practice, as was the custom of the times, he won fame both as counsellor and advocate. He chose to devote his time and energies to the practice of law, and declined to enter politics by the acceptance of political office. Even so exalted and honorable a position as judge of the Supreme Court of Ohio was declined by him when tendered, in 1864, by Governor Brough. He was preeminently a lawyer, and is remembered with a degree of veneration by the Bar of to-day in Cincinnati. He served as dean of the Cincinnati Law School and president of the faculty ; was one of the active founders of the public 130 - BENCH AND BAR OF OHIO.   library association. He was always the patron of popular education, and his service on the board of education of Cincinnati, continuing from 1851 to 1866, marked an era in the public school system of the city. He was president of the board for eleven years, and during that period the evolution of the schools into one of the finest systems of the country was secured very largely through his instrumentality. Mr. King was elected a member of the convention chosen in 1873 to revise the Constitution of the State, and succeeded Morrison R. Waite as president of the convention, when the latter was appointed Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court. As a member of the school board he was active and influential in the controversy undertaken to exclude the Bible from the public schools, maintaining with much force and logical argument that moral and religious instruction, non-sectarian in character, had a rightful place in the public schools. Rufus King was a lawyer of superior ability, liberal learning, patient industry and discriminating judgment He had clear views of equity, and never permitted the narrow interpretation of a statute to obscure or override the substantial justice administered in a court of chancery. His mind was wonderfully clear and his penetration deep; but he did not rely for success upon acumen or other natural gifts. He studied each case and presented it in court only after the exhaustive research which gave him the mastery of its principles and details. This habit, more than any other influence, made his reputation as a successful practitioner. And Rufus King was a great lawyer. He was married in 1843 to Margaret Rives, daughter of Landon C. Rives, of Cincinnati. WARNER M. BATEMAN, Cincinnati. Warner M. Bateman was born August 5, 1827, at Springboro, in Warren county, Ohio, of Welsh and Quaker stock, his father's grandfather emigrating from Wales to Pennsylvania some time prior to the Revolutionary War. When he, was eighteen years old he began preparation for the study of law, under the direction of Thomas Corwin, taking up an extended course of historical and political reading which he continued for three years, at the end of which time he began the study of law proper, moving in 1849 to Lebanon for the purpose of prosecuting his study to greater advantage. In 1850 he was admitted to the Bar in Licking county, Ohio, and in November of that year he removed to Cincinnati, taking up there the regular practice of his profession. Although he had little experience and few acquaintances, he soon became quite prominent at the Bar, and by reason of his activity in the organization of the Republican party and his excellent standing at the Bar, he was nominated in 1856 as a candidate of that party for judge of the Court of Common Pleas. Although defeated at this time, in 1865 he was elected a member of the State Senate, where he took a prominent and active part in all the deliberations of the body. He was particularly zealous in his endeavors to prevent the increase of corporate privileges, advocating in particular a more rigorous legislative control of the railways of the State. He was chairman of the committee appointed to investigate the abuses BENCH AND BAR OF OHIO - 131 of railroad management and to suggest suitable legislation to correct those abuses. This committee, during the fall of 1866, made a very extensive examination of the subject, taking a very large amount of testimony, and finally submitted an elaborate report prepared by Mr. Bateman, and two bills which in view of the committee would correct the abuses complained of. One of these, the bill creating the office of railroad commissioner, became a law, and the other, arranging for a comprehensive scheme regulating railroads, although not passed at that time, by reason of the disagreement of the two Houses, has since, in its main features, been incorporated into the laws of this and many other States. In 1868, as a result of his services in the State Senate, he was the choice of his party as a candidate for Congress, but refused to accept the nomination, preferring to continue the practice of his profession. In April, 1869, President Grant appointed Mr. Bateman to be attorney of the United States for the southern district of Ohio. During the three previous years the powerful " Whisky Ring" had gained a foothold in the district and had defrauded the government of taxes to a very large amount. Mr. Bateman at once took the necessary steps to break up this ring and to recover the amount due the government, and in litigation that followed he met the most desperate resistance conducted by the ablest counsel at the Bar, but in the end he succeeded in recovering a very large amount of taxes and penalty and in punishing many of the chief offenders and breaking up the ring. The judgments recovered in 1870 alone amounted to the sum of $495,000, and in that year he tried 147 civil cases, in all of which he was successful, except eleven, and sixty criminal cases, losing but eight. In the first six months of his term he tried fifty-seven crimihal cases, of which but two were lost, and fourteen forfeiture cases, in all of which he was successful, collecting and paying into the treasury over $158,000. As a result of his efficiency and the thorough enforcement of the law, the southern district of Ohio has since that time been practically free from any frauds of this kind. By the Act passed March 3, 1873, the government appropriated three-fourths of a million dollars for the purchase of a site for the post office and custom house in Cincinnati, As the property desired belonged to a number of people who held it at prices that did not seem to the government to be reasonable, a purchase at private sale was found to be impossible, and resort was had to the government's power of condemnation. There having been no previous case of this character to guide Mr. Bateman as a precedent, and the jurisdiction of the Federal courts in such a proceeding being denied by many, Mr. Bateman determined to test the question by regular proceedings for condemnation in the United States Circuit Court. In this case he met with the opposition of able counsel, and the entire question of the right of the government to condemn was discussed at length, and at last decided in favor of the government, which decision was afterward affirmed by the Supreme Court of the United States, and stands as the first and leading case upon the subject. Mr. Bateman was also successful in securing a valuation of the property appropriated, at an amount less by $70,000 than the appropriation made by Congress, an 132 - BENCH AND BAR OF OHIO. achievement quite unusual in such litigation. As a result of these proceedings the property was acquired upon which now stands the government building in Cincinnati. Another case of great importance which arose during Mr. Bateman's term of office was that between the Newport & Cincinnati. Bridge Company and the government. The bridge company, in 1869, secured the passage by Congress of a joint resolution authorizing the erection of a very expensive bridge over the Ohio river, which it began and had nearly completed, when, during the year 1871, Congress required that it be raised thirty feet higher than contemplated by the plan under which it was being constructed. After the bridge was completed in 1873, the bridge company, through the Honorable Stanley Matthews, brought suit against the United States for damages caused by such change in the amount of half a million dollars, and the case was heard upon demurrer to the bill before Justice Swayne of the Supreme Court. The questions at issue in this case, and their, importance, deserved the exhaustive preparation and discussion Mr. Bateman gave them. He was entirely successful, the bill being dismissed and the government saved from any liability. Mr. Bateman was re-appointed to the office of United States attorney in April, 1873, and held that position until 1877, at which time he resigned and resumed the general practice of the law in Cincinnati, in which he has been and still is eminently successful. Since then his practice has taken a wide range, both as to form and subject-matter. He has been engaged in some of the most famous railroad and insurance cases, will contests, civil rights suits and criminal trials which have occupied the Federal and 'State Courts in the vicinity of Cincinnati in the last two decades. Space permits referring only to a few of the most notable. For a number of years election frauds had been increasingly common in Cincinnati. 'These iniquities culminated in the October elections of 1885, and made " Fourth Ward A" memorable in the history of the State. The returns of that precinct were held back until it was ascertained how many votes were needed to return the entire Democratic legislative delegation and then the requisite number of ballots were stuffed in the box and a corresponding number of fictitious names added to the tally sheet. A large body of prominent citizens, without distinction of party, organized the Committee of One Hundred to investigate these frauds and punish the offenders. Mr. Bateman was employed as their attorney, and prosecuted and secured the conviction of Tosney, one of the judges at that precinct. He also represented the Republican contestants in the State Senate and House and conducted mandamus proceedings in the Supreme Court. In these proceedings he fully justified the reputation which he had earned while United States attorney as a terror to evil-doers. In the defense of Hopkins, the assistant cashier of the Fidelity National Bank, in the United States Circuit Court, although unsuccessful, Mr. Bateman made as great a reputation as he had done as a prosecutor. The case was regarded by the public as hopeless, and immense crowds thronged the court room daily, for weeks, to witness a defense which awakened universal admiration, and would have resulted in a disagreement, but for the peremptory instruc- BENCH AND BAR OF OHIO - 133 tion of the court to find the defendant guilty on the undisputed facts of the case. Mr. Bateman's most extensive experience in recent years has been in the defense of libel cases. He represents several newspapers which have been particularly zealous in the exposure of corrupt officials, their publishers thus becoming involved in many serious suits. In the defense of these he has been signally successful, and has become a recognized authority on the subject of newspaper libel law. Mr. Bateman has for many years been a great admirer and intimate friend of Senator John Sherman. In 1880 he was one of the delegates at large from Ohio to the National Republican convention, and had charge of Mr. Sherman's interests as a candidate for the Presidency in the campaign which preceded the convention. Notwithstanding the activities of his professional life, Mr. Bateman has set a good example as a citizen, and has always taken a warm and intelligent interest in the leading questions of the day. Among his published public addresses are those on " The Vatican Decrees and the Political Tendencies of the Roman Church," " Hayes' Southern Policy," in 1877; the " Chinese Question," in 1879 ; " Goethe," in 1884 "What will you do with your Boys and Girls," in 1885; " Women in Business and Public Affairs," in 1893, and many others. In 1895 he delivered an address on " Private Corporations" before the Ohio State Bar Association, which attracted wide-spread attention and favorable comment. The need of stringent legislation to prevent the growing evil of corporate abuses was forcefully presented and remedies suggested. In the practice of his profession Mr. Bateman has always been distinguished for the thorough preparation which he gives to his cases and for his clearness of statement ; these two qualities making him strong before judge and jury alike. Not only is he an able lawyer, but in the trial of a case and in all of his business transactions he is a man of great courtesy of manner and genial disposition. One of the most distinguished judges who has ever held a position on the bench of Hamilton county speaks of Mr. Bateman in the following language : " He is an able lawyer, a strong advocate, a scholarly man, well read in general literature, a good citizen, a faithful officer." In 1854 he married Miss Emma Buell, of Cincinnati, who died August 6, 1867. On the 9th of August, 1876, he married Miss Ella L. Trowbridge, of Newark, New York, a gifted woman and a fine musician, who, with their three children, make a charming home circle. JOSHUA HALL BATES, Cincinnati. General Joshua Hall Bates was born in Boston, Massachusetts, March 5, 1817. His parents, George Bates and Elizabeth Hall, were natives of that State. His paternal grandfather was a major in the Revolutionary War, and on his mother's side were ancestors who became distinguished in public life. His father was a prominent physician of Boston and a personal friend and political supporter of Andrew Jackson. On account of that friendship and support President Jackson appointed the subject of this , sketch a cadet to the Military Academy at West Point, where he was grad- 134 - BENCH AND BAR OF OHIO. uated in 1837 and assigned to the Fourth United States Artillery, with rank of second lieutenant. (The boyhood of General Bates was spent in the public Latin School of Boston, in which the course of instruction is almost equivalent to a college education, and he was graduated in 1832.) Shortly after leaving West Point, Lieutenant Bates was ordered south and served five years in the army, more than half of which was spent in active service in Florida during the Seminole Wars, and in suppressing other Indian outbreaks. He was then sent with his regiment to the northern frontier to quell the patriot disturbances with Canada, remaining there two years. During his term of service he had been promoted to the rank of first lieutenant, for brave and meritorious conduct, and was in command at Fort Niagara when he resigned in September, 1842. The young officer, though having strong inducements to continue his military career, when be might well have hoped to attain high rank in the army and honorable mention in his country's history, determined to adopt the practice of law for his life work. He began during his service to improve his spare time in the study of law; and after resigning, attended the Law School of Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he pursued the course of study and enjoyed the benefit of lectures. The war department paid him an unusual compliment in withholding acceptance of his resignation until after his admission to the Bar, thus granting him the benefit of rank and pay while prosecuting his studies. Family relationships and ties drew the young law student to Cincinnati for a permanent residence and he entered the office of Judge Bellamy Storer, under whose instruction he continued his studies. He was admitted to the Bar in 1842 and associated himself with Honorable William Key Bond, an old attorney and ex-member of Congress, with whom he remained two years. He then formed a partnership with Mr. W. S. Scarborough, which was continued until the war broke out. The business of the firm grew to large proportions and became profitable. When the Rebellion opened the government naturally looked to the young men who had been educated in the military academy for the commanders of regiments and leaders of armies. The experience and honorable record of Lieutenant Bates commended him. He was summoned to Columbus to confer with Governor Dennison, and was at once commissioned brigadier general and placed in command of the camp bearing the governor's name, to organize the volunteers into regiments, and to transmute the raw material into soldiers by drill and discipline. By October General Bates had dispatched fifteen regiments to the field. During the war he spent much time in active support of the Union cause, and was frequently called to Washington for consultation with the highest civil and military authorities of the government. Occasionally, when in a reminiscent mood, he entertains his friends with accounts of these visits and of his impressions of the great Lincoln, obtained from personal interviews. General Bates had command of the troops sent against Kirby Smith's raid into Ohio, and rendered the Union cause most valuable service wherever and whenever opportunity presented itself. He was elected in 1864 to the State Senate to serve the one year remaining of a term unexpired. After peace was declared BENCH AND BAR OF OHIO - 135 he again assumed the practice of the law in partnership with his eldest son Clement Bates, and devoted his. time to the profession successfully until 1875, when he was again elected to the State Senate by the Republicans. He served his constituency in a most able and satisfactory manner. After the expiration of his term in the Senate he devoted himself to his profession, and in 1883 formed ,a partnership with Rufus B. Smith, now judge of the Superior Court, and afterwards associated himself with H. P. Kaufman under the style of Bates & Kaufman, which partnership still exists. The law practice of General Bates has been varied and extensive and he has always commanded the highest regard of his associates. In 1872 he was chosen a member of the electoral college which elected General Grant President of the United States a second term. Although originally a Democrat; General Bates left that party on war issues and has since been a staunch Republican. He has been elected as candidate of the Republican party three times to important offices. He has been a citizen of Cincinnati for over fifty years, and with only a few interruptions has been occupied continuously with the duties of his law practice. Although prominent in his party and always taking a deep interest in all things affecting the public welfare, he has never been willing to accept any municipal office or any official position connected with his profession. He has for many years lived at Woodburn, a suburb of Cincinnati, and was for several years mayor of that place. In 1844, on May 8th, General Bates was married to Elizabeth Dwight Hoadly, daughter of George and Mary A. Hoadly, of Cleveland, and a sister of Honorable George Hoadly, afterwards governor of Ohio and now a resident of New York. General and Mrs. Bates are the parents of five children, all boys. Clement, the eldest, is practicing law in Cincinnati, has been a judge of the Common Pleas Court and is the author of several important law books, on insurance, partnerships, etc.; the second son, Charles, Jr., is a civil engineer in New York City ; the third, William S., is a patent lawyer in Chicago ; the fourth, Merrick L., after spending some time in Europe pursuing literary studies, is living in New York City ; the fifth son, James H. S., is an electrician, also living in New York City. JOSEPH COX, Cincinnati. Joseph Cox, presiding judge of the Circuit Court, Cincinnati, is the son of Dr. Hiram and Margaret Edwards Cox, from both of whom he inherited a strong constitution, great energy and love of labor.  He has literally worked his way up. His grandfather on his father's side was one of the early settlers in western Virginia, and on his mother's side, in western Pennsylvania; both were in the war of the Revolution, and also the Indian war, prior to 1800, and the latter was killed near Wheeling in a conflict with the Indians, about 1795. His grandmother, after this event, with her five children made her way .over the mountains to Franklin county, Pennsylvania. His paternal grandfather died from the effects of wounds received in felling a tree, leaving a family of three sons and four daughters to provide for them- 136 - BENCH AND BAR OF OHIO.   selves. 'Hiram Cox, the father of our subject, was then but twelve years of age, and was apprenticed to a saddler, but he was fond of study, and so applied himself, in his spare moments, that at the age. of sixteen he became a school-teacher. While so engaged, he was also a scholar, taking lessons privately in the higher branches, so that at the age of twenty-one he was an .excellent Latin, Greek, German and scientific scholar. At twenty-one he opened an academy, at Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, which obtained a very high reputation, and was-conducted by him for ten years. In the meantime he was married. Joseph was the second of eight children, and was born in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, August 4, 1822. He evinced great quickness and aptitude for learning at an early age, and before his seventh year, by attending his father's school, had acquired the art of reading, writing and arithmetic far beyond his years. His father, determined on the practice of medicine, which he had been studying for some years, was now attracted by the great fame of the Miami valley, and in February, 1830, the family prepared to move to what was then looked upon by many as beyond the pale of civilization. The manner of that journey we take from some family note given on that subject: " Our beds, carpets, straw bread baskets, copper kettles and smoothing irons, and other articles of furniture, besides our clothing, were stored in boxes in a Conestoga wagon, to which were attached six large horses, with arches over their collars and bells ringing right merrily. Mother sat in front with four children, on the boxes, while father trudged sturdily along with the driver. When within a day and a half of Pittsburgh it became so cold that we had to take the stage and go forward more rapidly, for fear of being frozen. This was a fortunate step for us, as the snow became so deep on the mountains that it was a whole week before the wagon reached Pittsburgh. This greatly annoyed us, as we were anxious for passage on a beautiful steamboat that was about to start on her first trip. But this, too, subsequently proved to be a providential hindrance, as we had only proceeded as far as Wheeling on the old Seventy-six,' when we discovered the wreck of the boat we had been so anxious to travel on. She had taken fire and burned to the water's edge. After this we were not only satisfied with our old boat, but thankful for the deliverance we had experienced. On reaching Cincinnati we found that the canal was frozen up so that we could not continue our journey to Dayton until February 25, 1830." Dr. Cox practiced his profession in Dayton for two years, and then :removed to Cincinnati and was graduated at the Ohio Medical College in 1831. After remaining in the city one year he removed to Clermont county, where he resided four years, and then returned to Hamilton county and continued the practice of medicine until his death, in 1867, at the age of seventy. He was a great student, prominent and successful in his profession, of large, philanthropic heart, an unblemished Christian character, and universally respected. While in Clermont county, the subject of this sketch attended the public schools and also the academy of Rev.Ludwell G. Gaines, a Presbyterian minister, near Goshen. This academy was kept in an old log cabin on his farm, and was known through the country as " Quail Trap College." Mr. BENCH AND BAR OF OHIO - 137 Gaines was a thorough teacher. As a linguist he had few superiors, and he exacted from every scholar punctuality, diligence and thoroughness in every lesson. His old scholars will recall the tall, huge form, with the immense head, walking up and down the school-room with arms folded behind his back, listening intently, and detecting in a moment the slightest error in reading, parsing or scanning. No man was ever more faithful in the discharge of his duty, or took greater interest in the welfare of his pupils. After remaining in this school nearly three years, Mr. Cox became an assistant in the academy of Mr. Thompson at Springdale, taking charge of the Latin and scientific department. Here he taught until his wages amounted to enough to pay for his first session's tuition at Miami University, Oxford, Ohio, where he remained nearly three years. For want of funds he was compelled to leave before graduating, but the university afterwards conferred on him the honorary degree of A. M. The first year after leaving Oxford he studied medicine under his father, did miscellaneous work about their home in the country, and assisted in settling up his father's accounts, and for this purpose rode a good portion of the time on horseback through the country. In April, 1840, he commenced the study of law with Thomas J. Strait, Esq., of Cincinnati, then one of the most extensive and successful practitioners of the city. For the first eighteen months he resided at Springdale, twelve miles in the country, and walked twice a month, on Saturday, to the city to recite. He then entered the law office of Cary & Caldwell, and about a year afterwards was admitted to the Bar, and commenced practice, forming a partnership with Henry Snow, Esq., then also a beginner. This partnership lasted for about five years, with the usual experience of young lawyers—small fees, close living, little money, and much hope. But the time was not passed in idleness. His scanty means were eked out by assisting in keeping books for some small store-keepers unable to employ a regular bookkeeper. In company with several other lawyers, moot courts and debating societies were organized, where mind encountered mind in the apparent mimic, but to them real fray, giving to them strength, elasticity and self-reliance. A regular course of legal reading by topics, with miscellaneous reading by way of diversion and variety, and frequent articles for newspapers, an active participant in the political struggle, annually going around the country making speeches in the interest of the old Whig party, sometimes as many as thirty or forty in a campaign, left little time for idle repining .at fortune. Twice he was nominated by that party for the office of prosecuting attorney, not, however, with any hope of success, for the county was Democratic by from five to eight thousand majority. In 1854, however, he was elected to that office by a large majority, and now his careful training and forensic experience came into active play. During his term of office his business was of an extraordinary character. It seemed as if all the evil elements had been brought face to face with justice. During the two years of his term he tried over thirty eases of murder, including the celebrated Arrison case for the murder of Allison and wife, by blowing up with an infernal machine the medical 138 - BENCH AND BAR OF OHIO. college on Central Avenue and Longworth Street. This was perhaps the most interesting and closely fought case ever tried in Hamilton county. As a case depending altogether on circumstantial evidence, to be followed up link by link through a long series of acts, it has never been paralleled. It was tried three times ; once before Mr. Cox was prosecuting attorney, and twice during his term. The first time it resulted in a verdict of murder in the first degree, which was set aside for error; in the second the jury disagreed ; in the third he was found guilty of manslaughter, and sentenced to the, penitentiary for ten years. Arrison served out this imprisonment and died a few years later. The case was defended by Judges Johnson, Key and Dickson, with great ability, each trial lasting about twenty-five days. The arguments of each counsel drew crowded court rooms, and the young prosecutor rose with the occasion, and in a masterly, logical and fervid speech of three hours, won the encomiums of old lawyers and judges, and surprised his warmest friends. During his term he also succeeded in breaking up a large gang of counterfeiters, who made their headquarters on the Big Sandy, and sallied forth at intervals to flood the city with counterfeit notes. Some ten or twelve of the most prominent were convicted and sent to the penitentiary. It was also during his term that charges of extravagance and corruption were made against the public officials and contractors in the erection of the new court house and lunatic asylum, and he assisted in having the contract annulled or modified, thus saving, as was belteved, hundreds of thousands of dollars to the county. He also prosecuted one of the county commissioners for corruption in office, and finally succeeded in having him convicted, fined and dismissed. There never was, perhaps, in the history of the county, so many important cases in one term as occurred during that of Mr. Cox. These cases, too, were defended by the ablest members of the Bar, and thus he was compelled on every occasion to be prepared to meet all that talent, industry, ingenuity and learning could bring to bear against him. That he sustained his position with great ability and to the entire satisfaction of the public, we believe was the verdict of men of all parties. At the end of his term he declined to be a candidate for re-election, resumed practice, and for a number of years was favored with an extensive general business. In the organization of the Republican party he took great interest, believing that its principles alone would bring universal liberty, prosperity and happiness to the Nation. He entered ardently into all the campaigns, and spoke fearlessly and eloquently in its behalf. During the Rebellion he espoused, naturally for him, the Union side, and by pen, tongue and means, aided all in his power to sustain the Union, encourage enlistments, support the families of soldiers, and aid the sick and wounded. In 1866 he was elected judge of the Court of Common Pleas of the First Judicial District, and after serving in that capacity with general satisfaction for five years, was re-elected twice for a like term, and served for fifteen years. On the organization of the Circuit Court (which is a Court of Appeals) he was elected one of the three members ; and after serving two years, the allotment of his first term, he was elected twice for terms of six years each, and is now serving his third term, which began February 9   BENCH AND BAR OF OHIO - 139 1893. As a practicing lawyer at the Bar, Judge Cox was remarkable for promptness, thoroughness of preparation, quickness of perception, excellent business ability and knowledge of general things, and an intense earnestness of purpose which carried him and his hearer always with him. He has a large knowledge of ordinary topics and things, and business affairs of life, and knows well how to command this knowledge. On the Bench, Judge Cox is prompt, decisive, sees the point of a case and grasps it in all its bearings on a mere suggestion. The general principle and authority to sustain a given case seem to come to his aid almost intuitively, and the last word of counsel in the most difficult one has hardly ceased, when the judge is ready to unravel its intricacies and announce his decision with a clearness which brings conviction, and is rarely reversed. So in his charges to a jury there are a distinctness and clearness which always convey to the understanding the legal bearings of the case, and there has never been an instance, since he has been on the Bench, in which the jury returned for further instructions. He is an intense worker, always up with his docket, and never seeming to be fatigued. Aside from his profession, Judge Cox has been one of the most faithful laborers in every good work. He often lectures with great acceptance, and always to full audiences, before philanthropical, religious and moral associations, and before literary societies and colleges. Among his addresses which have attracted attention and favorable notice are those in relation to the archaeology of the Mississippi Valley, one on Gettysburg, and another on the life of General Harrison, delivered for the purpose of urging the legislature of Ohio to erect a monument to his memory, and another delivered in Springfield, Ohio, at the unveiling of the statue erected to the memory of the Union soldiers of Clark county who fell in the Rebellion ; address at the dedication of Eden Park, Cincinnati, on the 4th of July, 1870 ; centennial address at Marietta, April 7, 1888; at Hamilton, Ohio, September 15, 1891, and also various addresses before the State Bar Association. Judge Cox possesses great versatility of talent, is a fluent, earnest, eloquent speaker, writes with great rapidity and correctness, and has furnished many valuable articles for the press. He perhaps is known to, and knows, more persons in the city of Cincinnati and county than any other man in it. He rarely forgets one whom he has seen or a name he has heard. In 1848 Judge Cox was married in New Orleans to Miss Mary A. Curtis, daughter of the late Benjamin R. Curtis, of Richmond, Virginia. Nine children have .been born of this marriage, of whom six are living. HARLAN PAGE LLOYD, Cincinnati. Major Harlan P. Lloyd was born at Angelica, New York, and is descended from an illustrious Welsh family, whose estate was at Dolobran, in Wales. The head of this family was a lineal descendant of King Edward the First. One branch of the Lloyds went to England, and took a prominent part in the war for constitutional liberty under Oliver Cromwell. Their descendants emigrated to New England, and                   140 - BENCH AND BAR OF OHIO.   settled in Rhode Island. Several of them were soldiers in the war of the Revolution. Mr. Lloyd's father was Honorable Ransom Lloyd, of Angelica, New York, who was for many years judge of the Court of Common Pleas in Allegany county. He was the personal and political friend of W. L. Marcy, Horatio Seymour, and other prominent statesmen of New York. Judge Lloyd married Miss Julia M. Starr, of Danbury, Connecticut, a descendant of one of the Puritan forefathers, who joined the Plymouth Colony in 1634. Her grandfather and great-grandfather were officers in the war of the Revolution, and the former was killed in battle when the British forces assaulted his native city. Judge Lloyd's grandfather was killed in the battle of Bennington, 'Vermont. From both parents young Lloyd inherited patriotic ardor and military instincts. He enjoys the singular distinction in genealogy, that from 1634, when his remote ancestor served in the wars against the Pequod Indians in Massachusetts, until his own service in the war of the Rebellion', every generation furnished a military officer in the service of the Colonies and of the United States. He had a thorough academic training, and entered the Sophomore class in Hamilton College in 1856. He graduated in 1859, one of the youngest students of his class, winning the second honor in general scholarship and the highest prize in rhetoric and oratory. Three years later he received the degree of Master of Arts. For a year he was classical instructor in a collegiate institute at Bloomfield, New Jersey, and at the same time pursued the study of the law. Later he placed himself under the immediate tuition of Honorable Martin Grover; judge of the New York Court of Appeals, and was thus peacefully engaged when the firing upon Sumter called the nation to arms. He heard the appeal and closed his books. Duty was plain, and straightway he assisted in raising and equipping the first company of soldiers which left his native village; and after the memorable disaster of Bull Run, gave his entire time for several months to the work of recruiting volunteers. Untiring in his efforts in this behalf, he visited nearly every school district in his native county, and addressed numerous meetings in churches and school-houses. In the national emergency he freely gave heart, voice, strength and example to encourage and animate his fellowmen to the rescue of their imperiled country. A full company of the Sixth New York Cavalry, of which he was first lieutenant, enlisted under him, and marched to Camp Scott, on Staten Wand. There his regiment was consolidated with another, but he was involuntarily mustered out of service. He thereupon repaired to Albany, and was there admitted to the Bar in December, 1861, afterward taking a thorough course at the Law School of the University of Albany. Early in June, 1862, he again enlisted, this time in a battery. Promotion followed rapidly. After faithful service at Newbern and Roanoke Island, under General Burnside, he was commissioned captain of the Twenty-second New York Cavalry, and ordered to the Army of the Potomac. His soldierly conduct and qualities frequently attracted the notice of his superior officers, and at the close of the war General Custer tendered him a position in his own regiment in the regular BENCH AND BAR OF OHIO - 141 army, but he declined the honor. He took part in the battles of the Wilderness, at Spottsylvania Court house, Cold Harbor, the siege of Petersburg, at Jerusalem Plank Road, and in all the battles of the Wilson raid. Then he marched to the defense of Washington against Early, and thence to the Shenandoah valley, taking part in every battle of that brilliant campaign. While leading a charge at the head of his regiment, near Winchester, August 21, 1864, he was shot directly through the body, and was considered mortally wounded. He was sent to the hospital, and thence to his home in New York, as soon as he could be removed. He partially recovered, and with an open wound took the stump for Abraham Lincoln, in the fall of 1864, and made campaign speeches till the very day of election. Then he rejoined his regiment in the field, was commissioned as major, and served on a general court-martial during the winter of 1864 and 1865. In the spring of 1865 he marched up the valley of the Shenandoah with General Sheridan and General Custer, and his regiment led the attack at Waynesboro, in the battle which resulted in the capture of the entire army of General Jubal Early, one of the most brilliant of General Sheridan's famous series of victories in the valley. The column pushed on to Charlottesville and Gordonsville, destroying the Virginia Central Railroad and General Lee's source of supplies, until it reached a point only eight miles from Richmond, on the west. Then,. wheeling suddenly to the left, General Sheridan crossed the York river to White House Landing, and joined General Grant's army in front of Petersburg. During this rapid march Major Lloyd served as aid-de-camp on the staff of General Wells, of Vermont, and won the highest commendation for his soldierly qualities. He took part with the army of the Potomac in the daily and nightly battles which resulted in the surrender of General Lee at Appomattox. He was next appointed commissary of musters by the secretary of war, and was assigned to duty on the staff of Major General Torbert, commanding the Army of the Shenandoah. He mustered out and sent home all the men of this army, and was himself honorably discharged at Rochester, New York, in August, 1865. Thus closed his brilliant military career. Major Lloyd now cast about for a field in which to practice his chosen profession. He was not long in determining to go to Cincinnati, and as an entire stranger, without any means, he opened a law office and began the struggle with many competitors. Business came slowly at first, but diligent study and faithful, energetic attention to the interests of his clients gradually enlarged his practice and made for him the prominent place at the Cincinnati Bar which he now holds. Of the many important causes in which Major Lloyd has been engaged, there is none more interesting than one of his early practice. Some emancipated slaves sought to recover an estate which they claimed by inheritance from a runaway slave from Kentucky, who had accumulated property in Cincinnati. Major Lloyd was retained to prosecute their claim. Suit was instituted in 1869. The defenses of the occupying claimants were three-fold: That the plaintiffs were illegitimate, as a slave marriage had no legal validity; that the plaintiffs were chattels, and had no legal status at the time the descent 142 - BENCH AND BAR OF OHIO. was cast ; and finally, that if any property descended, it vested in the master and not in the slave. Major Lloyd took the broad ground that the validity of the slave marriage should be recognized in the interests of justice and morality, as it certainly had been under the law in many of the slave States. His argument was an exhaustive review of the history of the institution of marriage among the slaves in this country, and of the legal authorities which recognize its validity. The Superior Court, in general term, unanimously sustained Major Lloyd's position, and gave judgment accordingly. The case was the first of its kind in the country, and attracted much attention, especially among the colored people. They looked upon the result as one of the chief steps in attaining for the race complete equality before the law. Major Lloyd gave the bankrupt law and the decisions under it the closest study, and was engaged in several cases which afterward became leading cases in its construction. One worthy of mention was argued at Mansfield, in this State. The case turned on the question of the power of the State court to set aside a discharge in bankruptcy granted by a Federal court, under the law of 1867. This was the first case on this subject in Ohio, and the question was then undecided. Major Lloyd took the negative, argued the case three times at Mansfield, and finally won it. The law in Ohio and other States has since been settled, affirming the theory of Major Lloyd in that case. Another important case, considered from a legal standpoint, was a copyright case in the United States Supreme Court. The case had been decided adversely to Major Lloyd's client by Judge Emmons, of the United States Circuit Court, and by Judge Swing, of the United States District Court, before he was retained. Major Lloyd argued the question at length, and both in his brief and in his oral argument before the Supreme Court, presented an elaborate review of American and English decisions. The court unanimously sustained his position in an opinion which makes this a leading case. It has already been quoted a number of times by English courts. It is reported in Volume 101, United States Reports. He has constantly been retained in leading cases in the Ohio courts, in the Supreme Court of the United States, and in the courts of many different States., In 1884 he was employed to contest a will of a wealthy decedent at St. Louis, Missouri, and won a great victory for his Cincinnati clients. He was retained in more than thirty cases growing out of the failure of the famous Fidelity Bank in 1887. Some of these cases involved hundreds of thousands of dollars, and one case involved nearly three millions. He was also selected to represent the McMicken heirs in the contest for the removal of the University of Cincinnati. His argument in the Supreme Court of Ohio was very able, and was never answered, and no opinion was rendered in that court. Major Lloyd has been associated in practice with C. S. Bates, who afterwards became a clergyman in Cleveland; with Governor Ed ward F. Noyes, afterwards United States minister to France; with Honorable Alphonso Taft, attorney-general of the United States and United States minister to Vienna and St. Petersburg, and with Honorable W. H. Taft, now United States Circuit Judge. Major Lloyd's scholarly habits, BENCH AND BAR OF OHIO - 143 his close application to business, and business like methods, his strict integrity, his quickness of perception and clearness of thought, accompanied as they are with great facility of speech and perspicuity of expression, have given him a very high rank in his profession and the fullest confidence of .his clients. Major Lloyd's powers of speech, already alluded to, his creative imagination and literary education make him a successful lecturer and public speaker. He delivered the baccalaureate address before the University of Cincinnati in 1882. Frequent calls have been made on him for lectures on historical subjects, the delivery of which gave the greatest satisfaction to his audiences. As a Republican he has gone on the stump and lifted his voice with no uncertain sound in favor of his political principles. He has never held a political office, nor been a candidate for one. A large number of lawyers throughout the district recommended him for appointment as judge of the United States District Court, after Judge Swing's death. Alter some consideration he declined to be a candidate, preferring to remain in the practice. The weight of Major Lloyd's influence has always been on the side of Christianity, and therefore he has always been actively interested in the Sabbath-schools in Cincinnati, in the Young Men's Bible Society, and in the Young Men's Christian Association, of which at one time he was president. He was also president of the State Convention of the Young Men's Christian Association at Toledo, in 1874. He is deeply interested in the Grand Army of the Republic, and has devoted much of his time to the interests of that order. In 1884 he was elected commander of the Department of Ohio, and served with great ability. The membership rapidly increased under his leadership, and the usefulness of the organization was greatly enlarged. He is a prominent member of the military order of the Loyal Legion, and has frequently delivered addresses before its members. Major Lloyd is also a member of various clubs, literary, social and political, and was elected president of the Cincinnati Literary Club in 1892. In 1877 he went to Europe, spending several months in travel and study, visiting England, Scotland, Belgium, France, Germany and Switzerland. He went again in 1883, spending much time in Bavaria and Austria, and later has made two other European trips. A few years after he commenced practice in Cincinnati he was unanimously elected as professor of rhetoric and belles-lettres in Hamilton College, to succeed that eminent scholar Dr. A. J. Upson. Still later he was asked by many friends to take the presidency of the University of Cincinnati. Both these positions were declined. He has also been invited to deliver courses of lectures on constitutional and municipal law at several of the colleges. He was appointed by -the governor as trustee of the Ohio Soldiers' and Sailors' Orphans Home, and served in that capacity for a long time. While there he did much to reorganize the graded school system and to increase the efficiency of this branch of the institution. In June, 1869, Major Lloyd was married at Poughkeepsie, New York, to Miss Harriet G. Raymond, daughter of President John H. Raymond, of Vassar College. Two children were born of this union, Raymond and Marguerite. Mrs. Lloyd died in April, 1890. In July, 1893, Major Lloyd was married to Miss Anna O. von Kienbusch, of New York. 144 - BENCH AND BAR OF OHIO. WILLIAM MARTIN DICKSON, Cincinnati. William M. Dickson, lawyer and jurist, was born in Scott County, Indiana, September 19, 1827, of Scotch-Irish Presbyterian stock. His grandfather presided over one parish near Dumfries, Scotland, for over fifty years. He was united on his mother's side with the oldest families of Virginia, descendants of the North of Ireland, among them the Campbells, Ochiltrees and Lowrys. He was a lineal descendant of Sir Charles Richardson, the African explorer. His father, a second son, having visited the English Colonies in an official position, drifted to America, met and married Rachel Lowry, near Madison, Indiana, and settled in Scott county. Two boys were the issue of this union. In 1837 his father died, leaving a widow and John J,, aged thirteen years, and William M., aged eleven, who moved to Hanover, Indiana, where there was-at that time a good school. The death of the father and the panic at that time had reduced the family to want. The elder brother volunteered to learn a trade, so that his brother William, the weaker and younger, could attend school. William first attended college at Hanover, which college being moved to Madison compelled him to leave home. For the first two years he walked to Madison each Monday morning, carrying on his back the food for the week: By working during vacation, and tutoring, he managed to get enough money to attend college at Miami University, Oxford, Ohio. Here, by also tutoring and teaching in the summer time, he managed to make enough money to graduate from Old Miami in 1846. While teaching school in vacation in Kentucky he studied law and was admitted to practice at Lexington. In 1848 he attended law school at Harvard University. While there, Chief Justice Parker, of New Hampshire, at that time one of the instructors at Harvard, was his preceptor. Justice Parker selected him from a large number of students as an unusually bright, honest young man, and made him one of his own household, treated him as one of his own children. Afterward, without money, without a friend, alone, with only a letter of introduction from Justice Parker to the late Nathaniel Wright, Dickson came to Cincinnati Judge Dickson presented this letter to Mrs. Wright, who immediately invited him, on account of his• past friendship to Judge D. Thew Wright, at Cambridge, to come and live at her house. By tutoring in Judge Wright's family, teaching elsewhere, and by reporting as a. space reporter on the old Cincinnati Times, he made a living. While teaching in Kentucky he had met Anna Maria Parker, and had fallen in love with her, but poverty and the struggle for life had prevented him from asking her to marry him. About this time Dr. Parker, with this daughter, Annie Maria, visited Cincinnati to hear Jenny Lind. Mr. Dickson had bought five tickets on speculation, had sold two for enough to pay for the five, and invited Dr. Parker with his daughter to join him. Annie was a great-granddaughter of General Benjamin Logan, of pioneer memory; granddaughter of Colonel John Allen, who fell in command of the Kentuckians at River Raisin in 1812; was the own cousin of Mary Todd, the wife of Abraham Lincoln, and cousin of Governor Porter, of Pennsylvania, Justice Marshall, of Pennsylvania, Governor Crittenden, of BENCH AND BAR OF OHIO - 145 Missouri, Governor Murray, of ,Utah, and Logan Murray, of New York. In 1852 Judge Dickson was married to Annie Maria Parker, and they immediately came to Cincinnati, both almost strangers at this time. He ran on the Independent ticket for prosecuting attorney of the police court. To the surprise of all, he was elected. He was the first prosecuting attorney of the court, which during its infancy had many struggles to maintain its jurisdiction. It was Dickson who made this court the success it is to-day. During his term of office occurred the famous Bedini riots, and the cry of " Down with the Dutch!" Snelbaker was mayor. Dickson, with Frederick Hassaurek and Judge Stallo as advisers, brought about harmony, and by his uniform, just conduct toward the unfortunate Germans endeared• himself to them. After leaving the police court he rapidly rose to the foremost rank among our lawyers. His arguments under the Fugitive Slave Law and in the celebrated Blind Tom case are well known. In 1859 he was appointed by Governor Salmon- P. Chase as judge of the Common Pleas Court of Hamilton county. On February 12 he was sworn into office, succeeding Judge Oliver, who had resigned. He was judge of this court until November 7, 1859, being succeeded by Judge Collins. On account of his extreme youth and younger looks his appointment as judge was objected to by the older lawyers ; but by hard work, uniform and impartial treatment to all, just and fearless decisions, he left the Bench to renew the practice, beloved and respected by all who had come in contact with him. During the war, his sympathetic nature made him espouse the cause of the colored man. He took the stump for universal amnesty, liberty and the Union. He partook in his love for the Union of the spirit of Webster; in his love for abolition, the uncompromising spirit of Sumner. In 1860 he was elected Presidential elector for Abraham Lincoln. He refused the position of assistant judge advocate general, with the rank of lieutenant colonel on the staff of General George B. McClellan. He organized the first colored regiment during the war, holding that the colored man was a fit subject to fight for the Union and his own liberty. During the war he was the confidential friend of Lincoln, Stanton and Chase; spent much of his time at Washington and had much to do in framing the Amnesty Proclamation at the close of the war. His ready pen and active brain were ever employed in the service of his country and his party. His contributions to the press, and his pamphlets at this time, attracted universal attention. He first secured by law, to the negro, the right to ride in the Cincinnati street cars. In 1866, at the early age of thirty-nine, his health failed. Travel abroad brought no relief. Notwithstanding his physical suffering, the last twenty-five years of his life were spent in study and writing on public topics. He was a hard student, and particularly loved biography and history. He was a constant writer during these twenty-five years for the magazines of the country, for the daily press of this and other States, always upon political and social subjects and always under the initials " W. M. D." His style of writing was peculiarly concise, terse and perspicuous. In all his writings, that which most impresses one is that he could say more in a few words than almost any other writer. In his attacks on monopolies, jobbery 146 - BENCH AND BAR OF OHIO. and public trickery, public dishonesty, office seeking for the mere office, he was never misunderstood. Public dishonesty he could not brook, but for private misfortunes or private wrong he always had the kindly word "forgive." Among his correspondents were John and George Carlisle, of Scotland, John Bright, Max Muller, Gladstone, John Stuart Mill, Disraeli, George William Curtis, Seth Lowe, etc. He was for some years before his death president of the board of trustees of the Ohio Medical College. His greatest. public love was the formation and success of the Republican party. George William Curtis, in Harper's Weekly of November 2, 1889, among other things, says this of Judge Dickson : " Judge Dickson was a man of that union of deep convictions, cultivated intelligence and intellectual ability, upright character, political courage and independence which is peculiarly American. His sudden and lamentable death is a distinct loss to the force of the best American citizenship. His name will not pass into our history, but it is such qualities as his that make it." Mrs. Dickson died March 6, 1885. Judge Dickson was killed October 15, 1889, by an accident on the Mount Auburn Inclined Plane Railway, leaving surviving him three children : Parker, William L. (both lawyers of Cincinnati), and one daughter, Jennie, now Mrs. Jennie Dickson Buck, of Syracuse, New York. BENJAMIN F. WADE, deceased. History has already assigned Benjamin Franklin Wade to the immortality of fame. As a man, a jurist and a statesman his life and deeds merit commemoration. His birth was almost contemporaneous with the opening of the nineteenth century, at least during the first year in the State of Massachusetts. He was tehth in a family of eleven children and his mother was a woman of culture and morality, The Wades, who were of English descent, took root in America from Major Jonathan Wade, who planted himself at Medford, Massachusetts, in 1634, after emigrating from Norfolk, England, and married a daughter of Governor Bradstreet. In youth Benjamin Wade struggled with poverty, and in gaining the victory over it he gained the independence and self-reliance which characterized his subsequent life. He was mainly self-educated and his early acquirements embraced a broad knowledge of history and general literature, as well as science and mathematics. He taught school for a time and settled in the Western Reserve, Ashtabula county, a few days before attaining his majority. He was favored with a rugged constitution and well fitted for the life of a backwoodsman; as a stepping stone to something better. He had the physical strength to clear the forest and the intellectual strength to qualify himself for great success in a profession and the foremost rank of statesmanship. He drove cattle across the Alleghenies to Philadelphia as a hired man and worked with pick and shovel on the New York & Erie Canal. He had the disposition to work hard at any employment to which he devoted himself, whilst he fostered an ambition to enter a profession in which brains count for more than muscle and BENCH ANT) BAR OF OHIO - 147 sinew. He studied law with Joshua Whittlesey and was admitted to the Bar, beginning his practice at Jefferson. He was the partner of Joshua R. Giddings for the first ten years of his practice, and at the very threshold of his career in the law served as prosecuting attorney of Ashtabula county. While engaged in practice with Mr. Giddings, the late Judge Rufus P. Ranney was a student of law in their office, and upon the dissolution of the firm of Giddings & Wade, that of Wade & Ranney was organized. This was in 1839. Mr. Wade had then overcome the diffidence which served as an impediment in his early practice. To the student of his public life only, the statement that he was bashful, timid and hesitating, and made frequent failures in essaying public addresses, is quite incredible; for at the meridian of life he was a most effective speaker clear, earnest, intelligent and powerful. He was able to influence the verdict of a jury, move a popular assembly, or carry a measure through the United States Senate, by the eloquence of his oratory and the logic of his argument. As a lawyer he was not the equal of Judge Ranney, but very few of his contemporaries surpassed him in the management of litigation or in effective ability as an advocate. He was a match for the learned, eloquent and very elegant Millard Fillmore, of New York, who was pitted against him in the Ashtabula courts in a very important admiralty case. In the days of his prime at the Bar he asked no favor and was able to take care of himself in a contention with its ablest members. Mr. A. G. Riddle, of Washington, has contributed to the Western, Reserve Law Journal some anecdotes of Mr. Wade as a practicing lawyer and a judge, which are not without interest in this connection. One of the pioneer churches in the Reserve called a pastor to care for the spiritual wants of the flock and agreed to pay him a stipulated salary. This sum was to be paid by the voluntary subscriptions of individual members, each of whom signed a paper promising to pay " the sum set opposite his name," in the products of the farm or work-shop, all of which were practically legal tender for such debts at that time. After some years a large percentage of the membership became indifferent to their obligations or unable to pay, the pastor's salary was largely in arrears, and his family was in want. He hesitated to sue the church, and the delinquent members sought to enforce his resignation by an accusation of immorality and arraignment before the church authority. In his extremity the man of God applied to Wade & Ranney, who appeared for him, prepared his defense and won a victory. The same attorneys then brought suit to recover his salary, and in the trial Mr. Wade had the closing argument. He arraigned the defaulting members with caustic severity, and pictured in dark colors the meanness of the church, exhibited in the treatment of its pastor. He declared he would submit the case on two fundamental laws regulating human conduct : 1. " The laborer is worthy of his hire." With effective pathos he portrayed the great service of the pastor, and his devotion to the church in nourishing its weak ones and caring for all its interests. He asserted the church, as an organized body, had hired him and was bound to pay him. 2. " He who danceth must pay the fiddler." This recognized rule of human conduct he declared was equally binding. It 148 - BENCH AND BAR OF OHIO. was deduced from the mass of unwritten law which governs the social relations of men. It was the consensus of universal judgment pithily expressed as a maxim. The church had danced all these years and had not paid the fiddler as the law required," and without further argument or asking any instructions from the court he submitted the case and the jury found for the plaintiff, assessing his damages at the full amount claimed. The case was appealed, but the verdict stood. Two farmers, well off for the times, became involved in a dispute over a matter of considerable importance, and their contention was carried into court. Mr. Wade was employed by the defendant, and his client was stubborn. The plaintiff was endowed with equal grit and pertinacity. Mr. Wade soon became convinced that the litigation persisted in would involve both the parties in financial ruin, and he resolved to save them. Seeking out the plaintiff's counsel, he proposed a compromise, and after the case was considered carefully, terms of adjustment were agreed upon by the opposing counsel. The defendant was greatly enraged. He was combative, and this settlement deprived him of the chance to ruin his neighbor. He followed Mr. Wade into court and openly protested against a settlement without trial. After a few words of explanation by couhsel the case was finally disposed of by entering in the clerk's minutes the terms as agreed upon. After. wards, as related by Judge Ranney, when the belligerent parties to the suit had time to cool, both the plaintiff and the defendant personally thanked Mr. Wade for the satisfactory adjustment of what promised to be an endless as well as a ruinous feud. Another time he appeared for the defendant in a slander case, opposed to his former partner, Joshua Giddings, attorney for the plaintiff. Mr. Giddings, who had high standing as an advocate, was closing his argument with wonderful effect by reciting Iago's eulogy on a good name. He had reached the familiar quotation : p> " But he who filches from me my good name p> Robs me of that—" At this point his memory failed him and he sought to recover it by repeating—" robs me of that—robs me of that—" Whilst the jury and the audience, wrought to an extreme nervous tension by the eloquence and pathos of the advocate, listened with eager intensity for the climax, and he again repeated, " robs me of that"—" which I never had," suggested Ben Wade, in tones gentle and insinuating. The effect was electric. The tension relaxed and the anticlimax was greeted with laughter which the court was unable to repress, even if so inclined. No human power could resist the humorous outburst responsive to so ridiculous an incident. Of course the argument could not be resumed, and the verdict was for the defendant. Mr. Wade was elected presiding judge of the Court of Common Pleas for the third circuit, by the legislature, in 1847. Thoroughly equipped by natural ability, learning and temper, and by twenty years of successful practice, he assumed judicial duties. His service was in the highest degree honorable and in all respects able. It is only because of the overshadowing greatness of his subsequent career in politics and statesmanship, and because of the more conspicuously public character of BENCH AND BAR OF OHIO - 149 his record in the Senate of the United States during the period of greatest peril to the Nation—the time of rebellion and reconstruction—that the history of his four years on the Bench is so little known. It is sufficient to state here that he judged in righteousness and followed his convictions with a firmness that could not be shaken, even by an overruling decision of the Supreme Court. This was fairly tested in one case, at least, which was tried before him. An appeal was taken from his decision in a case involving nice distinctions and technical construction of the law, and the Supreme Court reversed him. The case was remanded, and on the second trial Judge Wade adhered to his former ruling. On being reminded by counsel that the Supreme Court had held the opposite, he replied gravely : "I am aware of that, and I will give that court a chance to set itself right." His views were sent up at length in the record and the Supreme Court did set itself right by reversing its former judgment. Whilst yet serving on the Bench, in 1851, he was elected United States senator by the legislature, although he was not a candidate and had no information that his name was used in that connection until the telegram announcing his election was received. He was not without experience in political strife and training in the work of a legislative body. In 1837 he had been elected to the Ohio Senate as a Whig and had been the leader of the forlorn hope in the Senate against the odious " black laws " enacted by a majority during the first session which he attended as a member. The anti-slavery spirit was born and bred in him and the cruel legislation offended his sense of justice, He held firmly to a political creed promulgated in the Declaration of Independence, and among his profoundest convictions was the belief that the maintenance of human slavery in the United States was repugnant to that Declaration. He believed that the inalienable rights with which men are endowed by the Creator should not be contravened by restrictive legislation ; that the right to liberty was not less a birthright than the right to life. Ohio was in 1838 strongly pervaded by a Kentucky sentiment on the question of slavery, so that defeat awaited Mr. Wade in 1839. A year later, however, the leaven of his speeches and those of his coadjutors had so permeated the masses that he was again elected in 1841 by the largest majority ever accorded a candidate in that district. He was a leader of the. Harrison campaign in the Western Reserve, and before it closed his reputation was national. In all of the succeeding Presidential campaigns, to the end of his life, he was a conspicuous advocate and champion of the Whig and Republican parties. Upon entering the United States Senate, as the colleague of Salmon P. Chase, he naturally took his place among the great leaders. He was in the forefront of the battle to resist the aggressions of the slave power just before the war, and exhibited a courage which was a revelation to the Toombses and Wigfalls and Davises of the Cotton States. Accustomed as a backwoodsman to the use of his rifle, he carried that weapon with him to Washington ; but fortunately for his adversary, none challenged him to mortal combat. His bluff manner contained no element of bravado, but the genuineness of his courage won the admiration of his bitteret antagonist. The evi-