250 - BENCH AND BAR OF OHIO.   this Bar not only Mr. Stanbery, but Joseph R. Swan, Noah H. Swayne, P. B. Wilcox, John W. Andrews, and others ; at the Lancaster Bar, Thomas Ewing, Hocking H. Hunter, and John T. Brasee ; at Chillicothe, Thurman, Leonard, Scott, and Creighton. The Bars throughout the State were animated by the loftiest conception of the position, duties and qualifications of the profession. Mr. Noble's moral character, deportment and promise attracted the attention and regard of the leaders, and he formed ennobling intimacies with them. His career shows how powerful and ennobling was the influence which they exerted in. the formation of his character as a man, as a citizen and as a lawyer. Shortly after Mr. Noble entered upon the practice Mr. Stanbery called him into a ' patent case.' Mr. Noble took hold of the case with zeal, and Mr. Stanbery put him forward in the management of it. In the hearing and argument of the case Mr. Noble displayed such marked aptitude and skill in mastering and handling the peculiar questions of fact and of law which this class of cases involves, that he was afterwards retained in many such cases while the Federal courts were held In Columbus. From the time Mr. Noble was called to the Bar until he retired from the general practice in the year 1876, he followed his profession with untiring zeal and perseverance, and with great success. His practice embraced cases in every department of the law, but his quickness and business-like capacity enabled him to carry on, successfully and alone, a large and varied practice, and at the same time devote a good deal of his time and attention to reading and study outside of the law, and to matters of public concern. Mr. Noble was in every respect admirably adapted to the profession of his choice. He had a clear, active, vigorous, discriminating, well developed mind. He had a retentive memory. He was fond of investigating legal principles, and also of studying and unraveling a complicated state of facts, and he did not weary in mastering the details of transactions. He had the rare power of seeing things in a practical, commonsense, true light, and of presenting them clearly in the same light to others. He could state legal principles or facts, however complicated, distinctly and concisely. He was always candid in stating and dealing with either facts of principles. He never attempted to spin fine webs of sophistry at the expense of common sense. He was an ideal representative of the best type of lawyers. As a lawyer ‘of all work’ - work in every and any branch and department the law he had no superior at this Bar. He was always fair, honest an straight forward. He did not depend for success in a cause upon adroitness maneuvering, but relied upon the merits of his case. He did not regard a lawyer as a mere implement or tool of his client, to be used at the client's pleasure for good or evil. He had a suggestive mind ; its resources were varied; a all his intellectual movements were rapid ; he had great elasticity of mind many of his best thoughts came like flashes of lightning, hence he was very ready in the trial of a cause in meeting unexpected phases of it. As an advocate he threw not only his mind into a cause, but, when he felt sure his client cause was just, his heart also. He was a persuasive, agreeable, fluent speaker. His vocabulary was rich. He was never at a loss for a word or an idea, an BENCH AND BAR OF OHIO - 251 was felicitous in his diction. He was not simply tolerably honest and candid, but thoroughly so. He was fair to all concerned in a trial. His personal and professional character was beyond reproach. These characteristics always secured for him a patient, attentive hearing before courts and juries. His professional honor and gentlemanly accomplishments, his kindly manner and ready sympathy, especially toward the junior members of the Bar, endeared him to his professional brethren ; and his influence as a lawyer was as good as it was great. His professional conduct and life furnish a conclusive answer to the obloquy sometimes cast upon the whole profession of the bar by prejudiced or unthinking people. Mr. Noble set an example of undeviating integrity and fairness in all the relations of life. No pleasure could tempt him, no profit allure him, no ambition corrupt him, no example sway him, no persuasion move him to do anything which he knew or surmised, or suspected to be evil. The universal and unbounded confidence of this community in the integrity, sound judgment, intelligence, and public spirit of Mr. Noble was conspicuously and conclusively shown a few years since, when Judges Bingham, Evans and Wylie appointed him to act with the county commissioners, probate judge, county clerk, and sheriff, in approving plans, drawings, representations, bills of material, specifications, work, and estimates of cost thereof, for the new court house for this county, in accordance with the statute in such case made. Mr. Noble was unanimously elected chairman of this commission and acted as such. The sequel demonstrated the wisdom of his appointment. * * * * There is no other instance, in Ohio at least, where the cost of a public building has been less than the appropriation. Every dollar expended on this court house was judiciously and honestly expended; the tax-payers received the worth of their money, and they have, at a comparatively low cost, the best court house in Ohio. Mr. Noble always took an intelligent interest in whatever projects were suggested or set on foot touching. the growth, prosperity, development, improvement Or honor of the city of Columbus. He was amongst the first to see and predict the rapid growth of the city which has since taken place. He was active and influential in promoting the development of the resources and trade of the Hocking Valley. He early perceived the expediency and wisdom of constructing a railroad from Columbus down that valley to Athens. Upon the construction 'of that road, he was elected a director of the company by which it was constructed, and acted many years as a member of the executive committee. He also favored the construction of a railway from Columbus to Toledo, to be operated in connection with the flocking Valley road. Upon the organization of a company for that purpose he was elected one of its directors. In 1867 he was elected a director of the Columbus and Xenia Railroad Company, and was annually re-elected, and served continuously until his decease. In 1885 he was elected president of that company to fill the vacancy occasioned by the death of Judge Swan; and he has been re-elected annually since that time. In those positions he as not merely 'a figure-head,' but he took an active interest in the business which the law enjoins as a duty in such cases. On the 11th of March, 252 - BENCH AND BAR OF OHIO. 1872, Mr. Noble was appointed trustee of the State Blind Asylum, and continued to act as such, under reappointments, until March 19, 1S78, when he resigned. That trust and the trust as commissioner of the, court house appropriation are the only public offices or public trusts which Mr. Noble ever accepted. It is well known that he was, on many occasions, tendered public positions; but he declined them. In the State Journal of 1856 is a card signed by him, declining to be a candidate for State senator. While Mr. Noble had decided convictions upon political party questions, he was too independent and conscientious to wear a party collar or obey the edicts of a party caucus. This was one of the reasons why he 'declined political preferment. He also, doubtless, believed he could be more useful to the public out of office than in. 'And it is certain that he did render much valuable, gratuitous service to the public, and, by his independent position, accomplished more for the community at large in some directions than he could have done had he been hampered by accepting partisan positions. Mr. Noble was the first president of this association after its revival. Ile was a member of the Ohio State Bar Association from 1880 until his death and was treasurer from July, 1881, until December, 1882. So long as Mr. Noble practiced law he had a large office business.' The business men of Columbus advised with him, and he drew many contracts, wills, and other instruments. He was universally regarded as a safe adviser. Knowing the evils of litigation, he composed many threatening legal controversies. Mr. Noble administered many important private trusts. Confidence in his business sagacity and his integrity, would have placed many more such trusts in his hands had he not declined them. Every trust which he accepted was administered judiciously and with scrupulous fidelity. Upon the organization of the board of, trade of Columbus in 1883, Mr. Noble became a member of it. He was one of the most active, intelligent, useful and influential members. His legal knowledge, as well as business sagacity, gave weight to his opinions. Among the subjects which he persistently argued upon the attention of the board were questions involved in the solution of the momentous and pressing problem of the government of American cities. His last real work w the preparation of a well studied, able paper, embodying what he regarded as a practical solution, to a considerable extent at least, of th difficult problem, which- he caused to be laid before the board for th consideration. This important paper has received favorable comment fro gentlemen who have bestowed much reflection and research upon the wor ing of municipal government in the United States, and the measures which may cure, or at least mitigate. Mr. Noble recently prepared and submit to the judges of the Common Pleas Court rules for the government the jail of this county. The judgment of no citizen of Columbus concerning any measure or project affecting her welfare was more sought for that Mr. Noble's and he was always ready to carefully examine every such project and give his best judgment in regard to it. Under a joint resolution of general assembly,' adopted April 19, 1883, Mr. Noble was appointed BENCH AND BAR OF OHIO - 253 the governor a member of a commission to make a careful examination as to the kind, amount and effect upon prisoners of the work performed in the penal institutions of the State, and as to all the facts pertaining to such work ; and also to recommend such legislation as to the members should seem advisable to diminish or prevent evils or abuse, if any, arising from such work ; and likewise to recommend the abolition of the convict contract system, if they thought necessary, and the substitution therefor of some other system of work, or such alterations in the contract system as such commission thought ought to be made therein. Mr. Noble devoted the greater part of a year to the investigation of the questions submitted to the commission, visiting other States to obtain knowledge upon the subject. The commission made an elaborate report to the general assembly. The recommendations of the report were adopted and embodied in a legislative Act. This Act contained some provisions which were not recommended by the commission. These latter provisions did not work well, and were repealed; but the provisions which were recommended by the commission remained in force, experience having demonstrated their practical wisdom. Mr. Noble united with the Westminster (Presbyterian) Church in the year 1863. At the time of his death, and for many years previously, he was a member of the First Church. His religious convictions were deep rooted, but he was not socially austere. His religion was not a melancholy religion, but cheerful, inspiring, and practical, purifying the heart, governing daily conduct in all the relations of life, and affording true, substantial happiness. Like the greatest lawyer on the English Bench of his generation, Lord Cairns, Mr. Noble taught in the Sunday School. He did this, with the utmost punctuality and unfeigned pleasure, for thirty years. For many years Mr. Noble devoted one-tenth of his income to religious and charitable objects. This statement is made on the authority of one who has personal knowledge of its truth In this, as in other matters, he hewed to the line of every admonition as well as every positive .command of the sacred Word, which was a lantern unto his feet. Although every one who knew Mr. Noble personally noticed the gentleness of his disposition, yet he was firm in the maintenance of whatever he believed to be right or expedient. But he (lid not possess the smallness of mind which makes some men ashamed to retract an opinion. The amiability of his appearance extended to his character, but his clear and keen sense of right developed strength of conviction and force of character. He had, the courage to live manfully. He was free and genial in every company. He was fluent, entertaining and instructive in conversation, and of great vivacity. He was free from affectation or assumption, and was accessible and kindly ,to all. He was warm hearted. His friendships were firm and well chosen. He was devoid of even a tinge of envy or jealousy. He had an open eye for the beautiful in nature and art. Mr. Noble filled so well the position in the social economy of this growing city to which the confidence of his fellow-citizens called him that it cannot easily be refilled. Although his position was not created by public law, he was, in the highest and best sense, a public man, and his death is justly regarded as a public loss. 254 - BENCH AND BAR OF OHIO. On the 28th of September, 1848, Mr. Noble was married to Elizabeth J Edmiston, the daughter of Dr. John M. Edmiston and Matilda J. (Gwynn) Edmiston, who were among the first settlers of Columbus. No man eve filled more entirely the charmed circle of domestic life. His wife survives him, and also his sister, Mrs. Acton ; and his brother, John W. Noble, secretary of the interior department of the National government, who attribute much of his success in life to the advice, encouragement and aid of his elder brother, Henry. Another brother and five sisters are dead." GEORGE K. NASH, Columbus. George K. Nash, like many of Ohio's distinguished men, began life on a farm in the Western Reserve. His father Asa Nash, a farmer, was a native of Massachusetts, and emigrated to the Buckeye State in 1840. The Nashes are of English extraction, and date the arrival of the family in America was in the year 1639. His mother, Electa Branch, was also a native of Massachusetts and a descendant of English stock. George K. Nash was born in Medina county, near the county seat, Medina, in 1842. His early education was that of the usual country boy in the common schools of Medina. In 1863, at the age of twenty, he entered Oberlin College, then one of the leading educational institutions of the West. At the completion of his Freshman year. his loyalty and patriotism led him to leave the student's campus for the soldier's camp. He enlisted in 1864 as a private in the 150th Regiment, Ohio National Guards, and served for one hundred days. At the time he was mustered out of service he was in ill health and unable to continue in the army or resume his studies at college. His inclination was strong toward the profession of the law, and he began at Columbus, 1865, his preparation for admission to the Bar by entering, as a student, the law office of Judge R. B. Warden, an eminent jurist who had been a member of the Supreme Bench of the State. In Columbus, in April, 1867, Mr. Nash was admitted to the Bar and at once began the practice of his profession, forming a partnership with Morton E. Brasee, under the firm name of Brasee & Nash. This partnership continued until the death of Mr. Brasee• in 1869. Mr. Nash formed no other legal associations until 1890, when he received as partner Mr. John J. Lentz, who in 1896 was elected to Congress. The firm is known as Nash & Lentz. So extensive has been. the business of Judge Nash, that during the past few years he has had many assistants in his office, some of whom, through the opportunities thus afforded, have become prominent in their profession, notably Tod B. Galloway, now Probate Judge of Franklin county, and Henry Williams, assistant prosecutor of Franklin county. The ability, integrity and industry that characterize Judge Nash have deservedly and frequently won for him high and honorable preferment in his profession. After practicing for three years, with a constantly increasing clientage, he was elected, in 1870, prosecuting attorney for Franklin county, overcoming the usual Democratic majority of about three thousand. In 1872 he was BENCH AND BAR OF OHIO - 255 re-elected, and daring his terms of service was a faithful, efficient and successful attorney for the people. A few months before the close of his second term he resigned to look after important business matters that had been placed in his hands. For several years thereafter private law practice occupied his time and attention, and his reputation as a skilled and able practitioner steadily increased. In 1876 he made a gallant, but unsuccessful fight as a candidate for Congress against General Thomas Ewing. In 1877 he was the nominee of his party for attorney general, but the entire Republican ticket met defeat. In 1879, at the Republican State Convention, he was again nominated on the first ballot for the office of attorney general, and was elected in October of that year. So acceptably did he discharge the duties of his position, that at the close of his first term (1881) he was re-nominated and re-elected, receiving-a large majority over his opponent, Frank C. Doherty, one of the strongest men on the Democratic ticket. During his second term in April, 1883, he resigned the office of attorney general to accept the position of judge on the Supreme Court Commission, the appointment coming unsought from Governor ,Charles Foster. This commission completed its labors in April, 1885, when Judge Nash returned to a large and lucrative practice. An ardent and steadfast Republican from youth, Judge Nash has always taken patriotic interest in public affairs and an active and influential part in both State and National politics. He has often been intrusted with the leadership and management of his party, and always with honor to himself and usually with success for his party. In 1880 he was chairman of the Republican State Committee, and under his brilliant direction a majority of over thirty-four thousand was polled in the State for the Presidential candidate, James A. Garfield. In 1881 and 1882 Judge Nash also served as chairman of the State Executive Committee, the former year being the one in which Governor Foster was elected. In the State Convention held at Zanesville, June, 1895, Judge Nash received two hundred and seventy-nine votes as the nominee for the office of governor, and the fact that those votes came from sixty of the eighty-eight counties in the State was evidence of the popular esteem in which he was held. In the State campaign of 1897 Judge Nash was again placed in charge of the interests of his party, as the chairman of the State Executive Committee. As a lawyer, Judge Nash ranks in the very forefront of his profession. This was recognized by his being elected president of the Ohio State Bar Association, for the years 1896-7. He is a close, careful, indefatigable student; a logical reasoner and an argumentative, persuasive speaker; simple, dear, frank and straightforward in speech and manner, without the ornaments of oratory he carries conviction equally to the jury or to the political audience. Among the most important suits in which he has been retained as counsel, was that which arose between Mr. Vanderbilt of the New York Central, and Mr. Jewett of the Erie Railway. The issue was concerning the consolidation, by Vanderbilt, of the Bee Line with the Cincinnati, Hamilton & Dayton Railway. Judge Nash represented the opposition to the consolidation, and was eminently successful in the contest. Among the other many notable suits in which he 256 - BENCH AND BAIL OF OHIO. was engaged was that of the Franklin county Tally Sheet Forgery Cases, in which .he assisted the prosecution. Judge Nash was president of the Columbus Constitutional Convention, 1891, called to draft the charter of the present municipal government for the city of Columbus. As a man, Judge Nash h the respect and confidence of his fellow citizens, including his political opponents, to a remarkable degreee. Especially is he the friend of those who need assistance, and many a successful lawyer owes his start and encouragement in the beginning of his profession to Judge Nash. Judge Nash was married in April 1882, to Mrs. Ada M. Deshler, of Columbus. 'By this union there was one daughter. Mrs. Nash died in 1886, and the beloved daughter died in 189g. AMOS WOLFE, Springfield. Whether or not Mad River township possesses a soil peculiarly adapted to the growth of professional men, it is true that it is the native place of several men who have attained a high position in the profession of law. General J. Warren Keifer, Judge F. M. Hagan, Honorable Samuel Shellabarger, Judge Summers, Honorable T. J. Pringle and others who have risen to prominence in law practice, on the Bench and in the field of politics, claim Mad River township as their place of birth. Among the number also is Amos Wolfe, the subject of this sketch. He can present a clear abstract of title to his American citizenship. His great-grandfather in his early days was a subject of King George of England, and in the historical struggle for independence was a commissioned officer in the American army; and after the colonies had established the right of self-government by their might, he cast his first vote for the first President of the United States. He lived to the age of one hundred and two years and died in the county of his nativity in Pennsylvania. Michael and Sarah Wolfe, the parents of Amos, were both natives of Pennsylvania, but came to Ohio in 1835, and settled in Clark county on a farm in Mad River township, where the early life of our subject was passed. He was born in 1841, and when he attained school age attended the public school of his district. In 1861 he entered Whittenberg College, but on the breaking out of the Rebellion he entered the army and served in the capacity of private soldier for four and one half months, when he was honorably discharged. He entered the Normal University at Lebanon, Ohio, and in 1864 was graduated from the business or commercial department. Deciding on a professional life, he re-entered Whittenberg College to complete his education and was graduated from that institution in 1868, after taking the full classical course. One year later he entered the Law Department of the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor and received his diploma in 1871. Ile was admitted to practice in all the courts of Ohio and Michigan the same year. He began practice at once in Springfield and remained alone for the fi three years, when he entered into. partnership with Allen H. Gillett, which continued for five years. Since that dissolution he has been alone. He has in t twenty-five years of his practice at the Springfield Bar built up a very substan- BENCH AND BAR OF OHIO - 257 tial legal business and made a high reputation for integrity. In politics he is a Republican. Though he has not been active as a politician, he has taken considerable interest in the success of his party. He was for quite a period chairman of the county Republican committee. He has devoted his time and energies to his profession and has never aspired to or held any political office. As a citizen he is held in high esteem both by the profession and the public. He was married in 1879 to Miss Margaret L. Lorimer, of Springfield, Ohio, and is now living in the comforts and enjoyment of a happy and contented private life. GILBERT H. STEWART, Columbus. Gilbert Holland Stewart, lawyer, judge, was born in Boston, Massachusetts, March 15, 1847. His father was Alonzo Stewart and his mother Isabella Ireland Stewart. Both were natives of Maine and descendants of early New England Puritanic stock. They settled in Boston in the spring of 1846. When he was five years old his parents remoyed to that portion of the city of Cambridge nearest to Boston, then and now known as East Cambridge, and known in Revolutionary times as Craigee's Point. He received his early education in the Cambridge public schools, entering the Cambridge High School in 1860, the principal of the school being at that time the distinguished educator, Lyman R. Williston. He graduated from the high school in the spring of 1864, the principal of the school then being William J. Rolfe, who is now known as the eminent Shakespearean scholar and text-book author. In the fall of 1864 he was admitted to Harvard University in the class of 1868. He pursued his course of study with success and high standing in his class, until the spring of 1867, the middle of the Junior year, when, impatient to engage in his chosen profession, he entered the Harvard Law School, becoming at the time a student in the law office of Lorenzo Merritt, East Cambridge, Massachusetts. July 19, 1867, Mr. Stewart transferred his residence to Galion, Ohio, and continued his legal studies at that place in the law office of H. C. Carhart. May 5, 1869, he was admitted to the Bar of Ohio by the District Court of Franklin county, Ohio. The motion to the court for the appointment of the examining committee was made by the Honorable Chauncy N. Olds, and the committee conducting the examination consisted of Honorable George K. Nash, Colonel J. T. Holmes, and Honorable Morton S. Brasee. Mr. Stewart practiced law in Galion until April, 1873, when he removed to Columbus, where he has since resided. Soon after his arrival in Columbus he formed a partnership with Captain R. P. Woodruff, attorney, which partnership continued for some six years and was then dissolved by mutual consent. When the Circuit Court of Ohio was established, Mr. Stewart's superior education, legal ability and success at the Bar were deservedly recognized in the fall of 1884, by his nomination by the Republicans of his circuit and election as judge of the Circuit Court of Ohio for the Second Circuit, to serve for the period of four years. At the end of his first term, in 1888, his successful service resulted in his renomination by BENCH AND BAR OHIO - 258 acclamation, and his re-election to the office for the term of six years. At the annual meeting of the circuit judges of Ohio in 1892, he was chosen Chief 'Justice of the Circuit Court of Ohio for the ensuing year, 1893, and at the close of that year was re-elected by his fellow judges for the year 1894. At the expiration of his second term of judgeship in 1894, though universally urged to again accept, he declined a renomination, and retiring from the bench on February 8, 1895, resumed the practice of law at Columbus. Judge Stewart was a member of the board of education of Columbus, from 1880 to 1882, declining a re-election. He was elected a member of the city council of Columbus in the spring of 1884, but resigned his position upon his election to the Circuit Court the fall of the same year. In February, 1882, he was made lecturer on Medical Jurisprudence in Starling Medical College, Columbus, and in March, 1884, was elected to the professorship of the same subject, which position he still holds and in which subject he has become recognized as a high 'authority. January 20, 1897, Judge Stewart was elected by the members of the Columbus Board of Trade to the presidency. of that organization, the membership of which embraces five hundred leading business men of the capital city. At the commencement of 1889, at the request of his college class-mates, he received the degree of A. B. from his Alma Mater, Harvard University. Judge Stewart was married on June 22, 1875, at Worthington, Ohio, to Clara Landon Ogden, daughter of the eminent educator, Professor John Ogden, who was at that time president of the Central Ohio Normal School at Worthington, and afterwards State school commissioner, North Dakota. Judge Stewart is known not only as a lawyer learned in his profession, with marked ability as a practitioner and a judge, but also as a gentleman of wide culture and unusual literary tastes and accomplishments. He is a clear and forceful speaker, a graceful and entertaining writer. Unquestioned integrity, unwearied energy ,and unfailing frankness and courtesy characterize him in every sphere of his life—the practice of his profession, his political career and action, and his social- relations. ANSELM T. HOLCOMB, Vinton. General Anselm T. Holcomb was born in Mason county, Virginia, March 14, 1803. His ancestors were New England people, who lived long in Connecticut. All of them were patriots, and some of them soldiers. His grandfather was an officer in the Revolutionary War, His father, General Samuel R. Holcomb, a citizen of Virginia, removed to Ohio when this boy, who afterwards became a general, was only one year old. The family settled in Gallia county, where the father became a very popular and influential citizen; a strong and capable man, possessing in an eminent degree the physical and mental qualities that fit a man for leadership. His stature was large, his bearing dignified and soldierly, his manners and address pleasant; and above all he was fortified by integrity of character, sagacious discretion and saving common sense, which gave him wide popularity and large influence. BENCH AND BAR OF OHIO - 259 In the development of the frontier and the promotion of the public welfare by the active support of wholesome enterprises his influence was acknowledged. He was in the front rank of citizenship, and a leader in politics, serving his country both in the Senate and House of Representatives of the State legislature. He was a soldier and a commissioned officer in active service during the War of 1812. and afterwards received appointment as a major general of militia. Anselm T. Holcomb, the subject of this memoir, worked on his father's farm in boyhood, acquiring such education as could be obtained in the log cabin schools of that day, and in a select school kept in Gallipolis by the Honorable Thomas Ewing. He was assiduous and mastered the books which he studied, and whilst his education was liberal the best part of it was obtained by general reading. He read with avidity all the books available, and in this way became well informed on all subjects. His reading was never superficial ; it was a study, so thorough as to enable him to talk entertainingly on all matters of history, science, politics, religion, and even literature. He was quite familiar with the varied interests of the community, the State and the Nation. He was accustomed to write and expressed his views forcibly on paper. He studied law at the age of thirty-six, and was graduated from the Cincinnati Law School in 1840. His ripe experience in affairs and general knowledge were the means of securing a profitable practice at once, which his tact, ability, application and integrity enabled him to hold and increase. He was a solid, capable and successful lawyer, possessing a large fund of accurate knowledge of the books and an ardent love of the profession. He was during the time of his independent practice a capable instructor of students in the law, and took great delight in giving young men aid and encouragement. He served three terms in the legislature, and was associated in that body with many of the eminent men of the State. According to the custom of the times in which he practiced law, he rode the circuit, attending the courts held in all neighboring counties as well as his own. While on a visit to his brother in Missouri, in 1871, General Holcomb was suddenly stricken with paralysis, from which he never recovered. He lived six years afterwards. His intellect remained clear and his memory tenacious to the last. He died at his home in Vinton, January 14, 1877. General Holcomb was not only an able lawyer, a profound student, and a popular writer, but he was also a very entertaining conversationalist. his wit was spontaneous and pleasing ; his speech abounded in humor, and he was the life of his social circle. He was a Mason in high standing. He was married in early life to Esther Mathews, and their only child died in infancy. The hospitality dispensed in their home was the result of abounding kindness of heart in the general and his estimable wife. 260 - BENCH AND BAR OF OHIO. HENDERSON ELLIOTT, late of Dayton. The subject of this memoir was for nearly twenty-five years judge of the Court of Common Pleas of the Second Judicial District. Though a native of North Carolina, Judge Elliott has every right to be classed as a prominent Ohio citizen. He was of Scotch-Irish descent. His parents on both the maternal and paternal sides were North Carolina Quakers. His great-grandfather, William Elliott, emigrated to America about 1700, and his posterity, with the descendants of the Rutledges and Pinckneys, are among the most prominent of the early settlers of the Carolinas. Jesse Elliott, the father of Judge Elliott, was born in North Carolina, and was a member of. the Southern wing of the family, which had already begun that disintegration whereby its members became so extensively scattered throughout the country. He was a resident of Perquimans county, where the subject of this sketch was born on August 17, 1827. hi 1831 Jesse Elliott removed to Ohio, and settled with his family on a farm in Butler county, where he continued to reside until his death, in 1840, at the age of sixty-three. Industrious in his habits,. unassuming in his manners, and upright in his dealings, his greatest heritage to his posterity was an exemplary life and an untarnished name. His wife was Rachael Jordan, who, after the death of her husband, removed with her family to Preble county, Ohio, and died in Iowa at the age of seventy-four. Henderson was four years of age when his parents came to Ohio, and he saw nothing but the rugged side of life in his youthful days. In the summer and winter months he attended school in a little log school house, when he could be spared from the exacting duties of clearing and cultivating his father's farm. All told, the time he spent in the district school did not aggregate over eighteen months. Though without the advantage of instructors, he nevertheless acquired the rudiments of an education. He improved his leisure hours in study at home, and at the age of nineteen began to teach in the neighboring districts. The money he thus obtained he used in completing his education. He spent three years at Farmers (now Belmont) College, near Cincinnati, Ohio, where he had for class associates Edmond Stafford Young (deceased), and Honorable Lewis B. Gunckel, and others who afterwards became prominent at the Bar and in statesmanship, and for fellow alumni, Murat Halstead and Bishop J. M. Walden. Up to this point, the life of Judge Elliott is a striking example of what a boy with the odds against him can do for himself in getting an education. He now had a fair education, but it was his only stock in trade. In order to complete his preparation for the profession of law, which he had chosen for his life work, he again took up the role of teacher, and while discharging his duties in that capacity, he studied law under General Felix Marsh, of Eaton, and was admitted to the Bar by the Supreme Court at Columbus in 1851. He began practice in Germantown, continuing to reside there for three ye when he removed to Dayton, where he was afterwards continuously enga in the active work of his profession, either at the Bar or on the Bench, wi the exception of the three years from 1867 to 1870, when he was editor of th Dayton Daily Ledger. During the war 'partisan sentiment was at times BENCH AND BAR OF OHIO -261 fever heat. Judge Elliott espoused the cause of the Union and took an active part in raising recruits for the army. In 1861 he was elected prosecuting attorney of Montgomery county, serving for two years. In 1871 he was elected judge of the Court of Common Pleas for the Second Judicial District, and was re-elected four times. In November, 1896, he would, had he lived, have completed twenty-five years' continuous service on the Bench of that district. During these years he tried thousands of civil cases and over a thousand, criminal cases, and he sentenced about eight hundred persons to the penitentiary, and three to the gallows. The strongest proof of the satisfactory nature of his administration of justice is the number of times his constituents have repeatedly returned him to the same position, and the other fact that his decisions have rarely been reversed by the Supreme Court. There is, we believe, but one instance of such reversal in a criminal case on record, and in that case the State legislature afterwards changed the law to conform to his views. In 1851 he married Rebecca, daughter of John Snavely, of Montgomery county, Ohio, and there were born to them four children, three daughters and one son. The widow, together with two daughters, the Misses Ada J. and Florence Elliott, survived him. He was connected with the Methodist Church for fifty-three years, most of the time in an official capacity. He served as a lay delegate to the General Conference in 1880. He was also a member of the I. 0. 0. F. for forty-three years, and at the time of his decease he was president of the Odd Fellows' National Beneficial Association. He was a member of the State Bar Association from the time of its organization, and was chairman of its important committee on judicial reform for many years, succeeding General Durbin Ward in that position. He took an active part in organizing the present Circuit Court system of Ohio. He was elected president of the State Bar Association in 1890, serving one term. He also served for three terms as president of the Dayton Bar Association. Judge Elliott died at his home in Dayton, Ohio, on the 25th day of June, A. D. 1896, having continued to discharge his judicial duties until April of that year. The Bar of Montgomery county adopted a suitable memorial expressive of their high respect for the deceased, and attended his funeral in a body. Many judges and lawyers from a distance were also present. The funeral services, which were held at the Raper Methodist Episcopal Church, were conducted by Bishop J. M. Walden and other prominent ministers of that denomination. In whatever position of trust or responsibility Judge Elliott was placed, he discharged every duty devolving upon him conscientiously, and with rare good judgment. Strong of mind, clear and forceful in his speech and writings, unswerving in the discharge of his duties, he has stamped his indelible mark on the Dayton Bar. In speaking of him, a prominent attorney but expressed the universal opinion when he said : "As a lawyer, Judge Elliott was faithful and conscientious in the discharge of his duty to his clients ; as a judge he was above reproach ; and as a man, he was courteous, affable, upright in his conduct, an excellent neighbor, and a citizen whose life is worthy of emulation." 262 - BENCH AND BAR OF OHIO. HENRY R. PROBASCO, Cincinnati. Henry Russell Probasco was born in Cincinnati May 12, 1856, the son of William B. Probasco and Mary Russell Probasco, both of whom were of Revolutionary descent. Haying completed a liberal education, and having had as his preceptors, in the study of the law Honorable Stanley Matthews and Honorable William M. Ramsey, he was admitted to the Bar at Cincinnati in his twenty-first year, and began an active and successful practice. On the 28th of June, 1877, he was married to Minnie Sherman Moulton, the eldest daughter of Colonel C. W. Moulton of the Cincinnati Bar and a niece of General Sherman and Senator Sherman. In connection with his practice, he became actively interested in politics, being Republican in principle, and has held a high rank in his party councils and been honored by a number of official positions. His practice has been almost exclusively in connection with large and important interests, and he is now counsel of the Brewers' Exchange of Cincinnati, the C. H. & D. Traction Company, the Cincinnati Typothetae, the Brewers' Protective Association of Cincinnati, Covington and Newport, and corporation counsel for Glendale. During the investigations into the political frauds of 1884-5-6, he was associated with Senator Foraker and Governor Noyes in behalf of the Republicans, and had much to do with the reform of election practices in Cincinnati, and the construction of the present election laws. Among his kinsmen we Judge John Probasco, who was a partner of Thomas Corwin, General Dur . Ward, and Honorable Zebulon Baird of La Fayette, Indiana. He has fro time to time been an organizer and member of political and social organiztions and clubs, and has taken an active interest in public enterprises. WILLIAM B. PROBASCO, Cincinnati. The late William Boswell Pro was born July 6, 1824, at Lebanon, Ohio, where his youth was passed where he obtained his education, was prepared for, and admitted to the Bar assuming at once an important position among the members of the Bar. H was married on February 22, 1849, to Mary Jane Russell at Lebanon, and co tinued to live in Lebanon until in 1852, when he removed to Cincinnati, where he soon after took into partnership with him, William M. Ramsey. The fir of Probasco & Ramsey enjoyed the confidence of a large number of clients and had taken a position at the Cincinnati Bar second to none, when on July 31, 1864, Mr. Probasco died at Lebanon, Ohio, after a short illness. Not only did Mr. Probasco hold high station in his profession, but he occupied a co manding and influential position in the Presbyterian Church, of which he w for many years an elder at Glendale, Ohio. Although much interested i public events and politics, he took no active part at any time except in 185 when he was nominated by the Republicans as candidate for city solicitor Cincinnati on the first Republican ticket—under the title of the American Reform Ticket—ever nominated in Cincinnati. He was a brother of Jud John Probasco, who was a partner of Honorable Thomas Corwin, and broth innlaw of General Durbin Ward and Honorable Zebulon Baird, of La Fay Indiana. BENCH AND BAR OF OHIO - 263 WILLIAM S. GROESBECK, Cincinnati. William Slocum Groesbeck was born in Rensselaer county, New York, on the 24th day of July, 1815. He was the son of John H. Groesbeck of Kinderhook, New York, and Mary Slocum Groesbeck, who were early settlers of Cincinnati. The Groesbeck family came; originally from Amsterdam, where they were people of much consequence. In 1S16 the family moved to Cincinnati, taking up their residence on Front street: near Race. The father engaged in the grocery business and subsequently became a pork packer ; at the time the United States Bank sold out its assets in Cincinnati Mr. Groesbeck became one of the purchasers, and during the remainder of his life was a banker. His residence changed in 1832 to the present site of Pike's Opera House, and subsequently to West Seventh street. William S. Groesbeck received his early education at Augusta College, Kentucky,: where he remained a year; at the expiration of this time he, with his brother-Herman, entered the Miami University at Oxford, from which institution he: graduated with the class of 1835, having as classmates, among others, Governor Dennison, Honorable John A. Smith, Honorable Samuel F. Carey and Governor John McRea. At both institutions he was known as a painstaking, and close student, and at the end of his term of study received the highest honors of his class. He immediately entered the law office of Vachel Worthington in Cincinnati, and began that thorough study of the law which, after his admission to the Bar in 1836, placed him in a very short time among the leading young members of the profession. He was a student of great. industry and thoroughness and in his early days at the Bar laid the solid foundation of legal learning for which he afterwards became so distinguished.-His prominence at that time was greater as a lawyer and counselor than as an advocate, though his speeches showed the same precision and force which. afterwards made and placed him among the first orators of the land. His first. law partner was Charles Telford. After his death Mr. Groesbeck formed a. partnership with Samuel J. Thompson, which continued until 1857, at which time his success had been such as to enable him to give up the active practice of the profession. In 1851 he became a member of the State Constitutional Convention and took an active part in the work of that body ; subsequently: when the Constitution was submitted to the people he wrote an extended series of articles explaining its provisions. In the following year he was a. member of the commission to codify the State code of civil procedure. Upon the establishment of a new Superior Court in Cincinnati in 1854, a public let-. ter signed by some of the most prominent citizens was addressed to Mr. Groesbeck, asking him with W. Y. Gholson and Bellamy Storer to constitute the. new court, but he declined the nomination. In the same year he was a Democratic candidate for Congress from the Second District of Ohio, George H.. Pendleton being associated with him on the ticket. as a candidate from the First District ; both were defeated. At the following election the two candidates were more successful, Mr. Groesbeck defeating John A. Gurley and: J. Scott Harrison, the latter having been his successful antagonist at the pre-. vious election. In this same year Mr Groesbeck was the orator on the occa- 264 - BENCH AND BAR OF OHIO. sion of the visit of Kossuth to Cincinnati. Mr. Groesbeck was a member of the commission of foreign affairs while in Congress. His speeches were few in number, but one of them delivered quite early in his term of service won for him considerable reputation. The occasion was a debate with Alexander H. Stephens on the subject of the Walker expedition. Mr. Groesbeck gave a lawyer's interpretation of the neutrality laws, basing his argument upon the fundamental proposition that " the sea is no sanctuary for crime." Other Ohio members who were with Mr. Groesbeck in Congress were Lewis D. Campbell, S. S. Cox, John A. Bingham, John Sherman, George E. Pugh, Benjamin F. Wade, Joshua R. Giddings and William Lawrence. Mr. Groesbeck did not succeed in his contest for re-election, his defeat being due to his position with regard to one of the phases of the Kansas-Nebraska controversy. He again came into public life in 1861, when, with Salmon P. Chase and Thomas Ewing, he represented Ohio at the Peace Convention held at Washington. This body, called at the invitation of the State of Virginia, for the purpose of devising a means of averting the impending war, contained some of the most distinguished men of the country, among them ex-President Tyler, Erastus Corning, Reverdy Johnson, David W. Field, John M. Palmer, Senators Fessenden, Morrill and Frelinghuvsen. Mr. Groesbeck had opposed slavery and the extension of slave territory. Although a member of the Democratic party when the war was " inevitable," he became a firm supporter of the preservation of the Union, declaring that " secession must be put down." A few days after the firing on Fort Sumter a party of gentlemen met at the Burnet House in Cincinnati to consider the dangers to which that city was incident. A telegram signed by W. J. Flagg. W. S. Groesbeck, S. F. Vinton, Larz Anderson, Rutherford B. Haves and George E. Pugh was sent to Washington, asking that Captain George B. McClellan, at that time living in Cincinnati as the president of the Ohio and Mississippi railroad, should be appointed to organize forces and take command at that point. This was McClellan's first prominence in the war. Mr. Groesbeck at that time and for years afterwards proclaimed publicly his aversion to secession and his satisfaction with the result of the war, saying in 1861, to Governor Dennison, " I would rather sacrifice all I have than live to see this Union dissevered." At a dinner to Judge Leavitt, in 1870, he responded to a toast, " War legislates and with the legislation of the war we are satisfied "; again he said, " The amendments have been made and they will stand." Mr. Groesbeck was elected State senator in 1861 ; he took a yery active part in the discussions of the body concerning finance and judicial legislation, and exerted great influence in favor of economy, an influence much -needed at that time. By far the most brilliant of Mr. Groesbeck's achievements and one that brought him immediate international prominence was his speech made in defense of President Andrew Johnson, upon the occasion of .impeachment of the latter by Congress. The resolution for impeachment passed the House of Representatives on February 24, 1868. On March the 5th, Mr. Bingham, chairman of the board of managers selected by the House, read at the bar of the Senate the articles of impeachment, eleven in number, BENCH AND BAR OF OHIO - 265 charging in various legal forms the violation of the tenure of office act, improper criticism of Congress and obstruction and interference with the reconstruction enactments. The President was represented by his own attorney general, Henry Stanbery, who resigned his position for the purpose ; Benjamin R. Curtis, a former justice of the Supreme Court, and by many regarded as a leader of the American Bar ; William M. Evarts, who subsequently succeeded Stanbery as attorney general ; T. A. R. Nelson, a great personal friend of the President, and Jeremiah S. Black, a member of Buchanan's cabinet. At the last moment Mr. Black withdrew and Mr. Groesbeck was selected by the President to take his place. He took no part in the early stages of the trial, but on April 25th, addressed the Senate on behalf of the President in a speech so sound in its law, so strong in its expression, and so powerful in its appeal to the emotions that it has been considered a masterpiece of American oratory. Of this address Roger Foster, in his recent work on the United States Constitution, speaks as " a masterly argument upon the legal questions in the case." Mr. Blaine, in his Twenty Years of Congress, uses this language, " Mr. Groesbeck was favorably known to the country by his service with the Democratic representatives in the twenty-fifth Congress, but little had been heard of his legal learning outside of Ohio. He took no part in the conduct of the impeachment case, but his final argument was a surprise to the Senate and to his professional brethren, and did much to give him a high reputation as a lawyer ;" and again Mr. Blaine says, "He made a clear, forcible presentation of the grounds of defense." S. S. Cox, in his book of reminiscences, says : "Unexpectedly to some, but not to the writer, William S. Groesbeck, of Ohio, who was not at first in the case, was the most successful in presenting, with enormous vehemence of logic and eloquence, the defense of the impeached President ;" again, that " the most remarkable speech was made by Mr. Groesbeck." Mr. Curtis, the leading counsel for the President, expresses his opinion of the argument in a letter to Mr. A. R. Spofford, as follows : " MAPLEHURST, July 21, 1868. "My DEAR MR. SPOFFORD : " I thank you for so kindly communicating to me Mr. Groesbeck's very friendly and too flattering expressions. It is one of the most valued of my experiences in the trial of the President that I learned to know Mr. Groesbeck, and when he made, what I consider one of the most impressive speeches I ever heard, he did not surprise me, though he seems to have surprised many others. I think that when the trial shall be read by the next generation of young men, his will be thought to be the most finished and complete of all the arguments. " With great regard, I am yours, " B. R. CURTIS." The President is quoted by William W. Warden, his secretary, as follows : "It is due from me to say that I read the letter of Judge Curtis to President Johnson on the evening of the day of its receipt, and that the President, ford ially and with emphasis, endorsed the sentiments and opinions of Judge Curtis. I think I told you years ago how much President Johnson esteemed you, alike in your public and private life, and that he said to me repeatedly 266 - BENCH AND BAR OF OHIO. that he regarded you as one of the ablest jurists and purest statesmen in America. This conversation occurred when the President was consulting as to the selection of counsel for the impeachment trial." The praise of those who heard the speech was not limited to associates; the first to congratulate Hr. Groesbeck was Mr. Bingham, the chairman of the board of managers, and General Butler, another of the managers. The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Salmon P. Chase, came down from, his seat and did the same, and is quoted as having characterized his address as " the greatest speech ever delivered in America.' The newspapers gaye it as a general opinion that Mr. Groesbeck had borne off the laurels from both sides for argument and eloquence, one paper speaking of the argument as -a speech which will rank with the greatest orations of ancient or modern times." Mr. Groesbeck was the sensation of the day and his fame was heralded throughout the country as a proper man to succeed to the. Presidency, or to one of the vacant seats on the Bench of the Supreme Court. He had been considered before by Mr. Buchanan in this latter connection, and again in 1873 his name was to be considered by President Grant for the vacant Chief Justiceship. In the national Democratic convention of 1872, Mr. Groesbeck was one of the four who received votes for the Presidential nomination, and in the Electoral College he received several votes for the vice-presidency. In 1880 he was again prominently mentioned for the Presidency, but refused to become an active candidate for the nomination. He was appointed a member of the monetary commission of 1876, his associates being John P. Jones, Louis V. Bogy, .George S. Boutwell, of the Senate ; Randall L. Gibson, George Willard, Richard P. Bland, of the House of Representatives, and. Professor Francis Bowen of Harvard College. Mr. Groesbeck signed the majority report made March 2, 1877, with Messrs. Jones, Bogy, Willard and Bland, in favor of the restoration of the double standard and the unrestricted coinage of both metals, but agreed with Mr. Bland in favor of the ratio of 16 to 1 instead of 15 ½ to 1, as favored by Messrs. Jones, Bogy and Willard. On September 13, 1877, he was the orator on the subject of " Gold and Sliver" before the American Bankers' Association of New York, and the following year he was selected with Reuben E. Fenton and Francis A. Walker as a commissioner on the part of the United States at the international monetary conference at Paris. Mr. Groesbeck at the second session gave a brief historical review of the American legislation on the subject, and in conclusion stated the views of the United States in two propositions urging the undesirability of the exclusion of silver from free coinage and the possible use of both metals as unlimited legal tender money to be reached by international agreement as to ratios. Mr. Groesbeck took throughout the whole proceeding a most active part and delivered an address of considerable length in favor of international bimetallism. Mr. Groesbeck was an ardent advocate of civil service reform and delivered a most forcible address on the subject at College Ball in Cincinnati. His interest in politics continued throughout his life; he was at all times a consistent Democrat, but retained the esteem and respect of all BENCH AND BAR OF OHIO - 267 parties throughout his life. His last public address at a political gathering was at the great Campbell meeting at Music Hall in Cincinnati in 1889 his speech in favor of Mr. Campbell was considered a most powerful influence for his success. As an occasional orator his services were in constant demand. He it was that welcomed Kossuth and also Andrew Johnson on two occasions when he visited this city, once during the war when he came as senator from the Southern State of Tennessee and afterwards during his Presidency. He made addresses at the General Grant banquet and at the banquet tendered Frederick Hassaurek, and at the lawyers' farewell dinner to Mr. Perry he rendered a tribute to the memory of Abraham Lincoln which was considered an eulogy of the first rank. In 1878, on behalf of the city, he welcomed the American Social Science Association and afterwards addressed the body on the subject of silver. He was a man of great public spirit and in 1872 presented to the citizens of Cincinnati the sum of $50,000, the income of which is expended annually for music in Burnet Woods, the well-known park of. the city. He was a member of the board of trustees of the sinking fund of Cincinnati from 1883 to 1891. Mr. Groesbeck married Miss Elizabeth Burnet, a daughter of Judge Jacob Burnet. She died April 6, 1889, leaving five children surviving, two of whom, Herman and Telford, are members of the Cincinnati Bar. Mr. Groesbeck died on the 7th day of July, 1897, at his home, Elmhurst, which is beautifully located in the suburbs of Cincinnati. The following pen portrait, written many years ago by the late George Ward Nichols, gives an accurate presentation of the man :   "Mr. Groesbeck as an orator and a statesman is an illustration of the best fruit of the highest civilization. He is such a figure as might have stood in the Senate in the days of Webster, Benton and Clay. In his personal appearance, his tall and ample body is surmounted by a head of singular force and determination. The forehead is square and ample ; the eye, which looks straight out from a shapely, ardent brow, is full and fearless; the nose uncompromisingly prominent; while the lips, firm and set, are surrounded by a rigid inflexible jaw. When speaking, Mr. Groesbeck's manner is Websterian in its sententious dignity, and in other ways is there a resemblance between these distinguished men.. In simplicity of method, in vivid conceptions, clear intui- tions of law and statecraft, Mr. Groesbeck is like Webster, while his moral integrity is irreproachable and his personal habits are simple and abstemious. With his character of Puritan severity is joined a keen sense of the funny and absurd, which, although concealed by his stern exterior, now and then flashes with inimitable force." THOMAS B. PAXTON, Cincinnati. Thomas Barbour Paxton was born on June 4, 1838, in Clermont county, Ohio, near the town of Loveland. His father was born on the same farm, which was located by his grandfather in the year 1795. his father's family were Scotch-Irish in descent and settled first in this country in Rockbridge county, Virginia, near the Natural Bridge. His grandfather, during the Revolution, lived in Bedford county, Pennsyl- 268 - BENCH AND BAR OF OHIO. vania, and served with distinction throughout the war, attaining the position of lieutenant colonel of one of the Pennsylvania regiments. He was one of those selected by General Anthony Wayne, by reason of his experience and bravery, to go with him on his campaign against the Indians in northwestern Ohio. He remained with General Wayne during the whole campaign, acting as officer of the advance guard, and took a prominent and active part in the battle of the "Fallen Timbers." After the declaration of peace he settled a short distance' south of the present town of Loveland, on the Little Miami river, and engaged himself for a number of years in surveying and dealing in Virginia land warrants. Thomas Paxton, father of the subject of this sketch, was born in 1799 on the farm originally located by Colonel Thomas Paxton, and continued to reside there until his death, which occurred in 1877. Thomas B. Paxton received the rudiments of: his education in the schools of Clermont county, part of the time being under the tutelage of Professor James K. Parker in an historic old academy near New Richmond. He graduated in the scientific department of the Ohio Wesleyan University at Delaware, Ohio. Subsequent to leaving college he taught school for about a year, studying law at the same time in the office of Tilden, Rairden & Curwen in Cincinnati. He subsequently entered the Cincinnati Law School and graduated from that institution in the spring of 1860, and at once formed a partner. ship with Isaac B. Matson. The firm occupied the old offices and succeeded to the practice of the late George H. Pendleton. This partnership continued until the election of Mr. Matson as Probate Judge of Hamilton county, Ohio, in 1874. Mr. Paxton was elected county solicitor on the Democratic ticket in the year 1873, defeating the late Nicholas Longworth. When John W. Warrington left the office of city solicitor, in the year 1875, he formed a partnership with Mr. Paxton, and the partnership has continued from that date to the present time under the firm name of Paxton & Warrington. In addition to the position above named, Mr. Paxton has served the city of Cincinnati as a member of the board of aldermen, and also one term as director of the city workhouse. In 1886 Governor Foraker-appointed him as one of the trustees of the Ohio Soldiers' and Sailors' Home, a position to which. he was reappointed by Governor Campbell in 1890, and subsequently by Governor McKinley in 1894, and he served for several years as president of that board. In 1887 the sinking fund commissioners appointed him as one of the trustees for the construction of the new city hall, in which position he took an active interest, and the work on the part of the trustees was entirely satisfactory to the general public. Mr. Paxton has always been a Democrat in politics, but beyond the offices mentioned has refused to seek or hold office, although he has been a number of times solicited to become a candidate for positions of importan While Mr. Paxton has never been a politician, he has by reason of his personal and professional standing always been recognized as a sound and influential adviser in legal matters, and although a Democrat he is not a partisan, but a conservative, independent and conscientious follower of the principles in which he believes. Mr. Paxton was married in 1874 to Mary, daughter of Dr. BENCH AND BAR OF OHIO - 269 William Wharton of Kentucky, and has two children, Thomas B. Paxton, J r., and Florence W. Paxton, the former of whom has just completed a course at Yale College and is now studying law in the office of the firm. GEORGE J. SMITH, deceased. The subject of this biography, one of the pioneer lawyers of Ohio, was the youngest child of Rev. James Smith and his wife, Elizabeth Porter Smith, natives of, and for many years residents of Powhatan county, Virginia. His father was the owner of a large plantation in the valley of the James river in that county, about twenty miles above Richmond. In the latter part of his life the son entertained so great a dislike to the system of slavery then existing in that State, that he determined to remove to a region where it did not exist. With this object in view he made three trips from his home to Kentucky and what is now the State of Ohio. The first to Kentucky was in 1785, and the second and third in 1795 and '97 to the territory northwest of the river Ohio. He kept journals of these trips, which are now in possession of his descendants. In the year 1798 he emancipated the slaves which he had inherited from his father, and with his wife and eight children, and in company with his brother-in-law, Rev. Philip Gatch, removed to what is now the State of Ohio, landing at Columbia, near the mouth of the Little Miami river, on the 7th of November, 1798, and near which he resided until his death, which occurred July 28, 1799. His son George J. Smith was born near Columbia, Hamilton county, May 22, 1799, a few months before the death of his father. In 1800 his mother with her family removed to what is now Warren county, and settled upon a farm near Waynesville. Her son worked upon the farm, attending the country schools in his early youth, and for a short time a private school in Lebanon. In April, 1818, he entered as a student of law the office of Thomas Corwin, who had been admitted to the Bar in May, 1817, and had commenced the practice of the law in Lebanon, and there had the advantage of the personal tuition of his preceptor, who until the time of his death was one of his most intimate friends. Mr. Smith was admitted to the Bar in June, 1820, and immediately commenced the practice in the law in Warren and the five or six other counties which at that time formed a judicial district, traveling the circuit as was the custom of many of the lawyers in those days. In 1825 he was elected a member of the Ohio House of Representatives, and was elected again in 1826 and 1827, serving three terms. In 1829, at the age of thirty years, he was elected by the legislature, without his knowledge, to the office of president judge of the Court of Common Pleas, succeeding Judge Joshua Collett, who had been elected judge of the Supreme Court. Judge Smith served in this position for the full term of seven years, when he resumed the practice of the law. For four years, from 1836 to 1840, he was a member of the Ohio Senate, and for the first two years was the speaker of that body. He was also a member of the convention which formed the State Constitution of 1851. In 1858 he was elected judge of 270 - BENCH AND BAR OF OHIO. the Court of Common Pleas for the Third Subdivision of the Second District, and was re-elected in 1863. He retired from the Bench February 9, 1869, and did not afterwards actively engage in the practice of law. Judge Smith was married to Hannah Whitehill Freeman, April 9, 1822. She died November 25, 1866. Four of their children survived them, viz.: James M. Smith, now of Cincinnati ; George W. Smith, John E. Smith, and Harriet M. Smith, of Lebanon, all of whom are still living. Judge Smith was highly esteemed by all who knew him. He was an able, industrious and successful lawyer and a model judge. In all of the public positions held by him he performed the duties imposed upon him most conscientiously, with great fidelity, and to the satisfaction of his constituents. He died at his home in Lebanon April 18, 1878. JAMES M. SMITH, Cincinnati. Judge James M. Smith, son of the late George J. Smith, was born at Lebanon, Ohio, on the 27th day of January, 1825. Like his father, he did not have the advantages of a college education. He attended the public and private schools of Lebanon until he was about eighteen years of age, and was then for nearly two years a cleric in the office of his uncle, Joseph Whitehill, treasurer of the State at Columbus. At the end of that time he began the study of law in the office of his father and his partner, John Probasco, Jr. He was admitted to the Bar in the spring of 1846, and in 1847 commenced the practice of his profession at Xenia, Greene county, Ohio. In the winter of 1850, Mr. Probasco having been elected by the legislature, judge of the Court of Common Pleas, young Smith returned to Lebanon and was in partnership with his father until February, 1855, when he assumed the position of judge of Probate Court of Warren county, to which office he had been elected in the preceding year. He served one term of three years in this office, and in 1858 resumed the practice of the law. From 1859 until 1872 his partner was his brother, John E. Smith, of Lebanon. In 1878 he was elected judge of the Court of Common Pleas for the Third Subdivision of the Second Judicial District, and in 1876, and again in 1881, was re-elected to the same office. On the organization of the Circuit Courts in the State in 1884 he was elected as one of the judges for the First Circuit, and resigned his office as judge of the Court of Common Pleas to accept the position, after a seryice on that Bench of thirteen years—his associates in the Circuit Court being Judges Joseph Cox and Peter F. Swing, both of whom at this time (1897) are still members of the court with him. Judge Smith drew the four year term, and in 1888, and again in 1894, was re-elected for the full term of six years. In 1887 and again in 1888 he was chosen by the judges of the Circuit Court as Chief Justice thereof. In this service of more than twenty eight years on the Bench of those different courts, it may be justly claimed for Judge Smith that he has been an industrious, conscientious, upright painstaking member of the judiciary, and that he has discharged the du imposed upon him to the satisfaction of the people, and the members of t Bar. Many of the decisions of the Circuit Court, of which he is a mem BENCH AND BAR OF OHIO - 271 and of which he announced the opinions, appear in the thirteen volumes of the Ohio Circuit Court Reports which have been issued up to this time. The maiden name of the mother of Judge Smith was Hannah Whitehill. On the 23rd day of January, 1851, he was married to Sarah Belle Clements, daughter of Dr. C. B. Clements, and Susan Hurin, his wife, late of Lebanon. They have three children living : Harold H. Smith, of Toledo ; Mrs. L. D. Thoman, of Chicago; and Mrs. M. S. Todd, of Cincinnati. JOHN W. WARRINGTON, Cincinnati. Mr. Warrington was born July 26, 1846, in Clarke county, Ohio. He is a son of the late Rev. Charles B. Warnrington, who, born in England, came to America in the early days of this century, and to Cincinnati in 1819. He devoted his life to the ministry, in southern Ohio, in the Methodist Episcopal Church. He married Miss Mary Davisson, of Clarke county, Ohio, whose parents were natives of the State of Virginia. John Warrington attended the public schools of South Charleston, Ohio, until he entered the army, and afterwards received an extended classical training under private tutors. At quite an early age he conceived the idea of becoming a lawyer and his studies were for the most part directed to the accomplishment of that end. Shortly after the outbreak of the Rebellion, although but sixteen years of age, he laid aside for a time his preparation for his life profession and enlisted in Company C of the 110th Ohio Volunteer Infantry, in the fall of 1862. He took part in all the experiences of that regniment and was engaged in the battles of Winchester, June 14, 15 and 16, 1863, and at Brandy Station November 8 ; Mine Run, November 27 of the same year; and in the battles of the Wilderness on May 5, 6 and 7 of the following year, and at Spottsylvania on the 9th and 10th and 11th of the same month, and at Cold Harbor the 1st of June of that year. He was also engaged in the fighting in front of Petersburg in June of the same year, and at Monocacy on July 9, and at Opequon on September 19, Fisher's Hill September 22. and Cedar Creek on October 19 of that year. He participated in the Siege of Petersburg in the winter of 1864 and 1865, taking a part in the assault on the outer line of the works on March 25, 1865, and in the final assault in which the main lines and fortifications in front of Petersburg were taken on April 2, 1865, which last assault resulted in the capture of Petersburg and of Richmond, the capital of the Confederacy. At day dawn of April 2, 1865, after the troops had broken through the main line of fortifications and were engaged in an assault upon the strongly fortified fort, he was wounded by an iron ball from an exploded cannon shot. Just prior to the discharge of this shot, he, with his fellow soldiers, was lying close up under the fort awaiting a re-formation of the troops for a final assault. Warrington, believing, however, that he could tell the direction of the fire of the cannon in front of him, and being anxious to watch the course of the shot from it, which he thought would not come straight towards him, stood upright, but one of 272 - BENCH AND BAR OF OHIO. the balls from the fuse shot which exploded directly over his head entered the patella of his left knee, inflicting a very dangerous and severe wound. He was taken from the field to Judiciary Square Hospital, at Washington, and honorably discharged on a certificate of disability by the surgeon on July 24, 1865. He had also served with the regiment in August and September of 1862 in New York City and Brooklyn, under Colonel J. Warren Keifer, in enforcing the draft in these cities and keeping down the riots. Immediately after his discharge he resumed his studies preparatory to admission to the Bar, and in 1867 entered the Law School of the Cincinnati College, where he was graduated in 1869. Almost immediately after his admission to the Bar he entered the office of J. Bryant Walker. the solicitor of the city of Cincinnati, as assistant city solicitor, which position he held under Mr. Walker and Fred W. Moore until 1873, when he was himself elected city solicitor. He served in this position for the period of two years. At the end of term he entered upon the practice of the law, having won a reputation equal to that of the best among the younger members of the Bar. associated himself at once in the practice of .the law with Thomas B. P ton, and the firm has continued Paxton & Warrington up to the present d His reputation and position at the Bar from that date to the present time he constantly improved, until to-day he stands among the very leaders of the profession in the State, and his practice has been both large and lucrative. has been engaged in many of the most important cases that have arisen in county and State for a number of years, and has also been called many times to attend to important cases in the Supreme Court of Ohio, and also a number of times in the Supreme Courts of other States and of the United States. Although he has been the legal adviser for many of the largest corporations this community for a number of years, and, as a result, has attained a position second to none as a corporation lawyer, yet his practice has been of a wide scope and his reputation is in no sense limited to any one particular branch of the law. He is remarkable for the thoroughness of his preparation of the law points of cases and the clearness and fairness with which he presents them in the trial of a cause and by reason of his careful attention to details and great clearness of judgment he is also pre-eminent in his statement of facts bearing upon points at issue. His thorough knowledge of the fundamental principles law, his careful preparation of cases, his masterly grasp of details and his pleasing address in the conduct of a trial, have all contributed to make him one the most successful as well as one of the most popular members of the Mr. Warrington has devoted so much of his time to the faithful practi his profession that he has had little time for politics. He is a Republican has been urged a number of times to become a candidate for Congress, and been tendered other positions, both State and National, of high honor, but uniformly refused to accept them. The only political position held by excepting those already mentioned, was that of Presidential elector fro Second Congressional District in 1876, at which time he cast his vote f friend President Hayes. He has been twice married. There are two child BENCH AND BAR OF OHIO - 273 viving his first marriage. His eldest son, George, graduated at Yale College in the year 1895, and has since then attended the University at Gottingen, Germany. GUSTAVUS H. WALD, Cincinnati. Gustavus Henry Wald was born in the city of Cincinnati on March 30, 1853. He received his early education in the public schools of that city, graduating at Hughes High School. Subsequently he entered Yale College, where he was graduated with the class of 1873. He then took up the study of law at the Harvard Law School, where he received the degree of Bachelor of Laws in 1875, and in March of the same year was admitted to the Bar of Suffolk county, Massachusetts. He returned, however, to his native city for the practice of his profession and entered the office of Hoadly, Johnston & Colston, where he remained until January, 1876, having been admitted to the Ohio Bar the previous fall. In 1876 he took an office with Charles Bowditch Wilby, and in September of that year he formed a partnership with Mr. Wriby under the firm name of Wilby & Wald, which relationship still continues. In 1878 the courts of Hamilton county appointed him one of the standing committee for the examination of applicants for appointment to the office of notary public in Hamilton county, which position he continued to hold for many years. He gave to this work his most conscientious attention, and under his influence these examinations became more efficient, and as a consequence there has been a decided improvement in the qualifications of the holders of notarial commissions in the county. Shortly after Mr. Wald's admission to the Bar he began the preparation of an American edition of " Pollock on Contracts," which he published in 1881. The value of the notes of the American edition was at once recognized and the work grew in favor to such an extent that a second edition was necessitated, which appeared in 1885. The appreciation in which Mr. Wald's contribution to this work is held, is indicated by a remark of the editor of the American Law Review in a recent issue of that periodical discussing the editors of English law books "for the American Bar : " " We are able to recall but one, viz., Mr. Wald's edition of Pollock, in which the work of the American editor has added anything of permanent value to the text, or has at all increased the reputation of the editor himself." During his first year at the Bar Mr. Wald contributed frequently to legal magazines and periodicals, and in 1877 he became a member of the editorial staff of the Central Law Journal, which position he retained for several years. In 1885 he was asked by Sir Frederick Pollock, who had just undertaken the editorship of the Law Quarterly Review, to become one of the contributors to that journal. In 1883 the election of Judge Hoadly to the governorship of the State created a vacancy in the faculty of the Cincinnati Law School, which was filled by the trustees of that institution by the selection of Mr. Wald for the position, which he held for several years. In 1891 he received the unsolicited nomination, at the hands of the Democratic party of Ohio, for membership of the Supreme Bench of the State, 274 - BENCH AND BAR OF OHIO. but none of the nominees of the convention were elected. He was elected in 1893 one of the council of the Harvard Law School Association for the full term of five years, and in June, 1895, upon the occasion of the celebration of that association of the twenty-fifth anniversary of Professor Langdell's incumbency as Dane Professor of Law, Mr. Wald, one of his pupils, was called upon to deliver one of the formal addresses. The occasion was a memorable one in the history of legal education in this country and brought together many distinguished lawyers from the various States of the Union, and was made the occasion for a special trip from England of Sir Frederick Pollock. Upon the organization in 1896 of a Law Department of the University of Cincinnati, Mr. Wald became a member of the faculty of that institution, choosing for the subject of his lectures the law of contracts. Having at his command a great fund of information, with remarkable facility in imparting it to others, he has been eminently successful as a teacher. He was for many years a member of the Cincinnati Literary Club, at one time its president, and contributed a number of papers to its proceedings. His literary style is pure and crisp. The words chosen by him are never of doubtful derivation or significance, and the reader can never be at a loss for his meaning. These qualities are characteristic of his legal work, both written and spoken, as well as his work of lighter character. In the latter, his keen sense of humor is frequently in evidence. He is a student at all times; his briefs are prepared with the greatest care and are scholarly discussions of the law ; his arguments to a court or jury are simple and direct, with none of the devices of the superficial orator, and his conduct of a case and his examination of witnesses have the same direct and thorough qualities. He is a linguist of unusual attainments, and well informed on a great variety of topics, and these facts, combined with his accurate and thorough knowledge of the law and readiness in debate, make him a most formidable antagonist as well as a charming companion. ALMON MITCHELL WARNER, Cincinnati. Integrity, patriotism and fidelity to highest human impulse are the distinguishing characteristics of Mr. Almon M. Warner, born March 6, 1843, at Plainfield, Hampshire county, Massachusetts. He inherits from.his father, James Warner, the resolute character that attaches to the English, and from his mother that industry and application that is pre-eminently conspicuous as a Scottish heritage, and traces his ancestry through his mother in direct line to Robert Bruce, the famous Scottish chieftain and king. He was educated in the common and select schools of Massachusetts, graduating at the age of nineteen from Williston Seminary, and at a time when the nation most demanded the services of brave men actuated by love of country, Mr. Warner gave heed to the " slogan," and enlisted in Company H, Thirty-seventh Massachusetts Volunteers, under the command of Colonel Oliver Edwards, and was at once made second sergeant, being transferred later to Company E, in the same regiment, and promoted to the rank of BENCH AND BAR OF OHIO - 275 first sergeant. His services on the field and at the front are but characteristic of the sturdy lineage whence he came. Daring and brave in the execution of duty, at the battle of Sailors' Creek, Virginia, April 6, 1865, while attempting to capture a Rebel flag, he was severely wounded, in recognition of which, and for many similar services, he was promoted to a lieutenancy. From August, 1862, to August 28, 1865, when he was honorably discharged from the service, he was with his regiment—a part of the 6th Army Corps that participated in eighteen of the great battles of that historic era, including Fredericksburg, Gettysburg, the Wilderness, Spottsylvania, Winchester and Petersburg. He began the study of law January 1, 1866, in the office of Church & Sawyer, Albion, Orleans county, New York, both of whom attained great distinction in public office and in their profession, and was admitted to the Bar in May, 1869. He practiced in Albion until March, 1870, when he removed to Leesnburg, Virginia, and continued practice, two years afterward removing to Huntington, West Virginia. In 1874, actuated by earnest aspiration, he removed to Cincinnati and permanently located, surrounding himself with greater opportunities, all of which he utilized in building a lucrative practice. In 1883 he was nominated for the office of judge of the Superior Court of the city of Cincinnati by the Republican party, but suffered defeat with the entire ticket. In 1870 Mr. Warner married Miss Elizabeth H. Densmore, of Albion, New York, the fruits of which union are two charming daughters, Maud Loraine and Carrie Elizabeth. Notwithstanding the many duties of an active lawyer, Mr. Warner has given much of his time to religious and society interests. He and his family are, and have been for many years, members of the Walnut Hills Congregational Church of Cincinnati. His social character is evidenced by the prominence he has attained in the societies with which he is identified. In the I. 0. 0. F. he was for three years major commanding battalions of Patriarchs Militant in Cincinnati, a past Grand, past Chief Patriarch, and past Grand Representative. In the F. & A. M. he is a popular and honored member. As in his youth his soul was aflame with a patriotic zeal for his country, so in mature manhood his love for the comrades who with him shared the burdens of warfare, is no less intense. In the ranks of the G. A. R. he is an untiring worker, jealous of its principles, loyal to its tenets, and faithful to every duty enjoined upon him; a past Post Commander, past Department Commander of Ohio, and member of the Committee on Pensions of the National Encampment. When first identified with the Bar of Cincinnati, Mr. Warner pursued a general practice. In 1891, however, the changed conditions, growing out of an appointment as general counsel for Snow, Church & Co., caused him to direct his attention to Commercial law, since which time he has given his best efforts to this great field in our jurisprudence. A keen appreciation of the importance of details, and a peculiar talent for method, pre-eminently fit him for the responsible position he occupies with his company, and as a lawyer representing great interests growing out of the internal commerce of our country. 276 - BENCH AND BAR OF OHIO. HIRAM D. PECK, Cincinnati. Hiram D. Peck, formerly judge of the Superior Court of Cincinnati, was born near Cynthiana, Kentucky, March 23, 1844. His paternal grandfather, Hiram Peck, was one of the founders of Montpelier, and was a colonel commanding Vermont troops in the War of 1812. His mother was a member of a Virginia family, and also descended from the Broadwells, of New Jersey. He was prepared for college very young, at the academy in Cynthiana, under the direction of Rev. Carter Page, and entered the Miami University, pursuing the regular classical course, from which he was graduated in 1862, at the age of eighteen. He enlisted in the Eighty-sixth Ohio Volunteer Infantry, and served from May till September, when he returned home to engage in the study of law in accordance with his purpose form in early boyhood. He entered Harvard Law School and prosecuted his studies to graduation in 1865. Without delay he took up the practice of law in Cincinnati. From 1873 to 1876 he served as assistant city solicitor, and in 1 was elected city solicitor, filling the office for two years. He then formed a partnership with Mr. Goss, with whom he was associated until chosen to the Bench. In the spring of 1883 he was nominated by the Democratic party for the office of judge of the Superior Court, and elected. In 1884 he was re-elected judge of the same court and served out his term, ending in 1889, at which time he declined a re-election, and resumed the practice of law in partnership with Frank H. Shaffer. The firm of Peck & Shaffer is one of the leading legal partnerships in Cincinnati, and conducts a large business. Judge Peck is especially strong in corporation law., In 1875 he compiled the "Municipal Laws of Ohio," which has passed through four editions. In 1884 he published the " Township Officer's Guide," whose popularity is attested by seven editions. He was a director of the University of Cincinnati from 1878 to 1883. In 1891 he was appointed professor of the Law of Evidence and Corporations, in the Cincinnati Law School, a position which he still holds. The honorary degree of LL. D. was conferred upon him in 1892 by Miami University, and also the University of Cincinnati. He was appointed trustee of the Ohio Soldiers' and Sailors' Home by Governor McKinley, in 1894, and reappointed in 1895. While absent, traveling in Europe in 1884, he was nominated as the Democratic candidate to represent the First District of Ohio in Congress. Although he declined to accept, he was supported strongly at the election in November, running ahead of the ticket, but going down to defeat in the avalanche which overwhelmed his party. He has an influential part in the councils of the .Democratic party. A prominent Cincinnati lawyer, who has known Judge Peck ever since he was a student in college, says: "He conducted the office of city solicitor with great ability, and at the same time was eminently just and fair. As a judge his decisions stand high. He sere on the Bench as long as he desired and his retirement was voluntary. enjoys the confidence of the profession is well read outside of the law is a very clever gentleman. In practice he has had some of the most important cases before the courts." Another eminent member of the Bar Association says : BENCH AND BAR OF OHIO - 277 " He is a man of broad literary culture, whose decisions stand high among lawyers. He is without assumption, always approachable, and lovable in disposition. He is especially proficient in laws relating to corporations, and his practice is largely in that class of cases. He is strong as an advocate. He is a man of impulsive nature, but his impulsiveness is always on the right side. He is a hard student and a good talker. Ac a lawyer he has the faculty of getting at the real points of the case. He is not accustomed in argument to cite numerous authorities, but rather argues on principle. His social attributes enable him to form acquaintances readily, and his acquaintances become friends." He was married November 18, 1868, to Miss Harriet E. Weld, of Boston, Massachusetts, of the wealthy and influential family of that name. Three children have been born of the union. JAMES E. CAMPBELL, Hamilton. James Edwin Campbell is a native of Ohio. He was born in Middletown, July 7, 1843, the son of Andrew Campbell and Laura P. Reynolds. Through the lineage of his father his descent is Scotch through that of his mother it is English. He is the sixth generation in descent from Jonathan Reynolds, who emigrated from Plymouth Earl, in Devonshire, England, and settled near Plymouth colony in 1645. Through a collateral branch of his mother's family he is descended from John Parker, who commanded the American patriots in their heroic struggle at Lexington. His paternal great-grandfather, Andrew Small, at the age of eighteen, accompanied Montgomery on his fatal expedition to Quebec and suffered unspeakable hardships on his return through Canada. Both of his grandfathers were soldiers in the War of 1812. After the first settlement of the Reynolds family in Massachusetts, branches of it extended over into New York and Rhode Island, becoming numerous in both States. James E. Campbell attended the public schools of his native town and subsequently received excellent private instruction from the Rev. J. B. Morton, pastor of the Presbyterian Church of Middletown for many years, and also a successful teacher. Before attaining his majority he taught school for a time and began a course of reading in law. His inheritance of patriotism was a moving impulse which prompted his enlistment in the military service of the government. In the summer of 1863 he became master's mate on the gunboats Elk and Naiad, of the Mississippi and Red river flotillas, and took part in several engagements. The unhealthfulness of the climate soon affected him to such a degree that after one year's service he was discharged, on the recommendation of the board of surgeons, and returned home, almost a mere skeleton. Immediately on the recovery of his health he resumed the study of law in Middletown, and was admitted to the Bar in 1865. The interval between that time and the opening of his practice at Hamilton in the spring of 1867 was passed by him as book-keeper of the First National Bank of Middletown and deputy collector in the internal revenue service at Hamilton, under General Ferdinand Van Derveer, the col- 278 - BENCH AND BAR OF OHIO. lector. In 1867 he was appointed a commissioner of the United States and performed the duties of that office for two years, in addition to a general practice. During the war and prior thereto he had been a Republican ; but when the Union was restored and the war issues were closed, the changed conditions gave prominence to new issues and occasioned a new alignment of partisans. In 1872, with thousands of others, he renounced further allegiance to the Republican party and supported Greeley and Brown. Since that time he has been a Democrat. In 1875 and again in 1877 he was elected prosecuting attorney of Butler county, holding the office four years and discharging his official duties with entire acceptability. In 1879 he was the candidate of his party for State senator, and was defeated by only twelve. votes. He placed his profession above politics and devoted fifteen years unreservedly to it before entering upon an office which is regarded as strictly politicial. As a lawyer he has few superiors of his age at the Bar of the State, especially in the readiness and skill with which he grasps the real points in a case. He is a clear, strong, logical speaker, well informed on questions of law. No man in Hamilton has a cleaner or more' honorable record. In addition to the asual and general practice, he has been charged with many important receiverships and other trusts. He has membership in the Grand Army of the Republic and other social or benevolent orders; in Masonry he is a Knight Templar. He is at present one of the trustees of the State University. he works hard and systematically, is thorough in. the mastery of details, and therefore accomplishes more than most men. His courteous manlier and social disposition win friends, and his integrity of character retains them. January 4, 1870, he was married to Miss Elizabeth Owens, whose father, Job E. Owens, was a native of Wales, and whose mother, Mary A. Price, was of Welsh descent. They have four children. In August, 1882, Mr. Campbell received the unanimous nomination of his party as its candidate for Congress. Although the returns showed his competitor's election by a majority of forty-one, he successfully contested the election, chiefly on the ground of illegal votes of non-resident students in Green and Warren counties. He received the largest vote ever given to a candidate in Butler county, which was the residence of his competitor as well as himself, and carried the county by the unprecedented majority of 3,187. His first service was in the 48th Congress. he was again elected in 1884 and 1886, serving' continuously for six years. In 1889 he was elected governor of Ohio, defeating Governor Foraker. In this office he displayed executive and administrative abilities which commanded the admiration of his party and the respect of all citizens. He was renominated in 1891, but defeated by Governor McKinley. Since that time he has devoted himself to his private affairs, although his name has been publicly canvassed in connection with exalted positions. He was named generally throughout the country as member of the President's cabinet in 1893, but refused to be considered in that connection on account of business interests, which had already suffered too much from the devotion of his time to those of the public. Governor Campbell commands the respect and confidence of his party, as well BENCH AND BAR OF' OHIO - 279 as the public, in a very high degree. His firm and fearless course while governor gave evidence, which the people quickly caught and retained, of the possession of those qualities which make a chief executive officer both efficient and popular. EDMOND S. YOUNG, Dayton. Edmond Stafford Young, deceased, one of the ablest members of the Dayton Bar, and one of the most prominent citizens of that city, was born at Lyme, New Hampshire, on February 28, 1827, and was the son of George Murray Young and Sibel (Green) Young. he was of Scotch-Irish descent—his grandfather, Dr. Hugh Murray Young, having been an early Irish emigrant to Connecticut. His father, George Murray Young, was born in Litchfield county, Connecticut, on April 1, 1802. He was educated at Exeter and Poughkeepsie Academies, and then learning the trade of a printer, carried on business for a time as a printer and publisher. In 1836 he married Sibel Green, daughter of Benjamin Green of Lyme, New Hampshire, and granddaughter of Colonel Ebenezer Green, a Revolutionary soldier. In 1835 he moved with his family to Ohio, and located at Newark, where for ten years he was extensively engaged in mercantile pursuits. In 1845 he went to Cincinnati, where for six years he carried on the produce and commission business. He removed to Dayton in 1851. He was elected mayor of that city in 1854, and re-elected in 1855, and he was subsequently appointed United States commissioner, an office which he held until his death. His wife died in Dayton in 1865. he was Grand Worthy Patriarch of the Sons of Temperance when that order numbered thirty thousand in Ohio. In politics he was a Whig, and subsequently a Republican. During the war he was a staunch Union man. He was a prominent member of the Presbyterian Church, and was at all times, in whatever community he resided, honored and respected for his integrity and strength of character. He died at Dayton on August 30, 1878. Edmond Stafford Young attended college at Granville, Ohio, and afterwards at Cincinnati, graduating from Farmers College (afterwards Belmont), near that city, in 1845. At the latter institution he had among his fellow students ex-President Benjamin Harrison and Murat Halstead and Honorable L. B. Gunckel and the late Judge Henderson Elliott of Dayton. He read law in the office of W. J. McKinney of Dayton, and after a term of service in the office of the clerk of the court of Montgomery county, Ohio, graduated from the Cincinnati Law School, and was admitted to the Bar in the year 1853. Mr. Young's professional partners were, successively, George W. Brown, Honorable David A. Houk and Oscar M. Gottschall, with the latter of whom his partnership continued from 1866 until 1879. In 1878 his eldest son, George R. Young, was admitted to the firm, which under the name of Young, Gottschall & Young, continued until the year 1879, when Mr. Gottschall retired, Mr. Young and his son remaining together in the practice under the firm name of Young & Young until his death in 1888. In September, 1856, at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Mr. Young Married Sarah B. Dechert, daughter of Elijah Dech- 280 - BENCH AND BAR OF OHIO. ert, a prominent lawyer of Reading, Pennsylvania, and granddaughter of Judge Robert Porter of that city. Her mother, Mary Porter, was descended from Robert Porter, a native of Ireland, who landed at Londonderry, New Hampshire, and afterwards purchased a farm in Montgomery county, Pennsylvania, where he took up his permanent residence. His most successful and prominent son (Mrs. Dechert's grandfather) was General Andrew Porter, who was born September 24, 1743, and served with distinction as an officer during the Revolutionary War. After its close he was commissioned major general of militia of Pennsylvania, and was tendered the position of secretary of war by Madison, but declined. His son, .Judge Robert Porter of Reading, Pennsylvania, was born January 10, 1768, and served during the latter part of the War of the Revolution as a lieutenant of artillery. Having entered the army with his father when but eleven years of age, he was perhaps the youngest soldier and officer of that war. In 1789 he was admitted to the Bar at Philadelphia, and was afterwards appointed president judge of the Third Judicial District of Pennsylvania, a position which he filled for over twenty-five years, and then resigning, retired to private life. Mr. Young was a strong Union man, and an earnest supporter of President Lincoln's administration. He was appointed by Governor Brough, commissioner of the draft for Montgomery county, and made the largest draft of any in the State. He-also served as a member of the military committee, and was identified with the organization of all the local companies raised in Dayton and its vicinity. He devoted much time and labor to the cause, and through his outspoken and uncompromising efforts, was often exposed to much personal danger. Mr. Young was a member of the first non-partisan police board of Dayton, appointed in 1873, by which the present metropolitan police system of that city was inaugurated. He was also one of the founders of the Dayton Bar Association, now known as the Dayton Law Library Association. During the course of his practice he was frequently urged to accept a judicial position, but declined. Upon the death of Judge W. W. Johnson in 1886, he was asked to become a candidate for his unexpired term upon the Supreme Bench; and, without his knowledge, a petition for his appointment, signed by the entire Dayton Bar, was presented to Governor Foraker. Learning of the movement, however, Mr. Young, for personal reasons, declined to permit the use of his name. He was a member of the Ohio State Bar Association, ,and also of the American Bar Association, and from a biographical sketch of him, which appears in the published proceedings of the latter organization, for the year 1888, we select the following extract, which is truthfully descriptive of him, both as a lawyer and a citizen: " Mr. Young was a man of striking physical appearance, and of marked mental characteristics. He-was born to be a lawyer. His breadth of intellect, his strong, determined will, his sound, impartial judgment, his remarkable reasoning powers, his gift of nice and correct discrimination, made up a mental organization distinctively legal. While at the same time his large and well proportioned head, with its high, expansive forehead, set firmly on his broad, square shoulders, gave him a personal appearance in keeping with his mental BENCH AND BAR OP OHIO - 281 characteristics. * * * He was a strong and pure type of that class of American lawyers, who, eschewing outside schemes for the promotion of wealth or personal aggrandizement, devote to their profession the full measure of their powers, and seek happiness in the conscientious discharge of their professional, domestic, and civic duties." In referring to his characteristics and to his standing in the profession, Honorable Richard A. Harrison, himself one of the most eminent lawyers in Ohio, in conversation with the writer, remarked : " Edmond S. Young, in his day, stood in the front rank of the practitioners at the Ohio Bar. He was a pure and able lawyer, who honored his profession and who deserves to be classed among the eminent jurists of the State. Had he chosen to enter the political arena, or to accept a position on the Bench, he would have undoubtedly attained great distinction. He was, however, too honest for a politician and too active for a judge, and he valued independence and self-respect far above political preferment. His honors came to him mostly in the line of his practice, and none of them came cheaply. He won his reputation as a lawyer in combat with some of the best legal talent in the country. He had a powerful mind, well trained in the intricacies of the law. He was the soul of honor, and would not stoop to trickery of any kind, or take an unfair advantage of an opponent. He was one of the best types of the ideal lawyer it has been my fortune to meet. He was fond of saying of a prominent judge of his acquaintance (the late Judge Daniel A. Haynes), ' God made him a judge, and so I can truthfully say of him, God made Edmond S. Young a lawyer." He died suddenly on the evening of February 14, 1888, while still in the active practice of his profession, leaving his widow, two sons and one daughter, Mary (since deceased), surviving. GEORGE R. YOUNG, Dayton. George R., senior member of the legal firm of Young & Young, and one of the most prominent members of the Dayton Bar, was born in that city on October 2, 1857, and is the son of the late Edmond Stafford Young, and Sarah (Dechert) Young. Mr. Young was educated in the Dayton public schools, graduating with honors from the Central High School in 1875. He was valedictorian of his class, and also received the gold medal for best scholarship. After taking an additional course from private tutors, he read law in the office of his father, until his admission to the Bar in 1878. He was admitted by the court—after passing on the question of his eligibility — some months before he reached his majority, and he was probably at the time the youngest attorney in the State. Immediately after his admission to the Bar, he was taken in as a member of his father's firm, which thereupon became Young, Gottschall & Young, and subsequently Young & Young, as stated in the preceding sketch of E. S. Young. While absent in the East in 1881, Mr. Young was without his solicitation or knowledge nominated by the Republican party for prosecuting attorney of Montgomery county. He made the race against a strong and popular candidate and an adverse majority of over a thousand, but was defeated by only a few hundred votes. In 1885 he received the Republican nomination for city solicitor, but the city being then 282 - BENCH AND BAR OF OHIO.   largely Democratic, he was again defeated by a small majority. Since this time he has never been a candidate for political office— attending strictly to the practice of his profession, and giving it all his time and attention, and he has met with marked, and well merited success. He has taken a leading part in the trial of many important cases, and is recognized by the profession, both as a sound and able lawyer, and as an advocate of superior ability. In the fall of 1894, Mr. Young's name was suggested to Governor McKinley as a successor to Judge John A. Shauck, about to leave the Circuit for the Supreme Bench; and a petition for his appointment was circulated. This petition was signed by every member of the Dayton Bar, save one, who having already recommended another aspirant, wrote a personal letter withdrawing his support and endorsing Mr. Young. Owing to want of time in case of appointment to close up his private practice, Mr. Young subsequently withdrew from the contest. In speaking of this incident, in the writer's hearing, a prominent member of the Dayton Bar remarked : "There is not another man, I believe, at this Bar, whose fitness for the position would receive so general recognition." And continuing, he said: " The Young brothers stand very high here, both as lawyers and as citizens, and have a large practice. George R. Young, the senior member of the firm, possesses many 'of his father's characteristics. Like him, he is purely a lawyer, and is one of the hardest working attorneys at this Bar. There is no man at the Montgomery county Bar more universally respected by the profession than George R. Young. He has ability, an accurate knowledge of the law, and is thoroughly honorable in the conduct of his practice. Like his father, he will not resort to tricks to secure an advantage, and he tries his cases on their merits. He is strongest, perhaps, before a court where legal knowledge counts for more than figures of speech. But he is a good all around lawyer, strong either before a court or jury, and in the routine of office work." Mr. Young is a charter member of the Dayton Club. He was one of the founders of the Dayton Literary Union, which flourished for many years, and was the first president of the present High School Alumni Association. Ile has been for years a trustee, and is now vicenpresident of the Dayton Law Library Association, and is a member of the Ohio State and American liar Associations. WILLIAM H. YOUNG-, junior member of the firm of Young & Young, and a well known member of the Dayton Bar, was born in Dayton on March 2, 1860, and is the son of the late Edmond S. and Sarah D. Young. He was educated in the Dayton public schools. After leaving the high school, he read law in the office of his father and brother. He was admitted to the Bar in 1884, and upon the death of his father in 1888, became a member of the present firm of Young & Young. Mr. Young is a Republican in politics, and has usually taken an active part in campaign work. Although he has never held or sought political office, his name has frequently been mentioned in connection with the congressional nomination, and with other honorable positions. He has attained a reputation for eloquence as a speaker—is characterized by. BENCH AND BAR OF OHIO - 283 tact, sound business judgment, and great personal magnetism, and is an effective stumper and jury advocate. He has hosts of devoted friends attached to him by his warm-hearted and generous nature, and holds an enviable position at the Bar as an able and successful lawyer. In speaking of him and his brother, a prominent Dayton lawyer said : " Both are strong in their respective positions, and there is no law firm in this section of the State more generally respected by the profession than the firm of Young & Young." CHARLES W. DALE, Dayton. Without stopping to consider the causes that contributed to that condition, the fact remains that the Dayton Bar, in point of ability, ranks among the very highest in the State. There never has been a time within the past fifty years when the Bar of Montgomery county did not number among its members some of the brightest legal lights in the State, and the same is true to-day and will be twenty-five years hence, because of the logical fact that like causes inevitably produce like effects. In 1840 C. L. Valandigham and Robert C. Schenck were young practitioners at the Dayton Bar, without fortune or fame. Twenty-five years later their utterances attracted the attention of the civilized world. Never before in the history of the Dayton Bar was there such an array of promising young attorneys as at the present time, and a brief sketch of one or two of them will not be without historical value. Among the most conspicuous of these rising lawyers we mention the name of Charles W. Dale, police court judge of Dayton. He was born at Germantown, Montgomery county, Ohio, September 13, 1861. His preparation for his life work began in the public schools of his native town and, fortunately for him, they were good ones. He improved his opportunities and when he was graduated from them he was thought perfectly competent to take the position of instructor, and for four years after completing his course he taught in the public schools of the town. While teaching he continued his studies and read law to such advantage that when, in 1882, he entered the Law Department of the Cincinnati Law School and University, he had a better education than had many men at the beginning of their careers who rose to high places in their profession. He was graduated from that institution in 1883, and the same year was admitted to the Bar and entered on the practice of his profession at Dayton. He used the same degree of energy and intelligence in building up a clientage as he did in obtaining an education, and succeeded in the latter as he did in the former. He compiled a book entitled " Familiar Laws," that has attained quite wide circulation. In 1892, when the police court was. established at Dayton, he was elected as its first judge, and so satisfactorily and well did he discharge the duties incumbent upon him that at the expiration of his term he was re-elected for another term of three years. He possesses the qualifications of a good judge as well as successful advocate. He is well grounded in the principles of law, quick and accurate in his judgments. He is a pleasant, ready and forceful speaker. 284 - BENCH AND BAR OF OHIO. In politics he is a pronounced Republican and takes an active interest in th success of his party. He was prominently mentioned as the candidate of his party for Common Pleas judge, to succeed Judge Elliot. Judge Dale is a bachelor, and a prominent figure in the social life of the city. He has in him the elements of success, and whether he continues on the Bench or practices his profession at the Bar, is destined to rise higher in his calling. To give a idea of the estimation in which he is held, we quote the language of on of the leading members Of the Dayton Bar : " In the history of this Bar there are few men who have risen faster in public estimation than has Judge Dale. He has ability, discharges his duty conscientiously under every circumstance and has more than met public expectation. He has met strong public approval as a municipal judge. He has maintained himself well in every position he has occupied since he began his practice at the Bar." JOHN C. CLARK, Greenville. The .descent of Honorable John C. Clark is from three nationalities, English, German and Irish. His father, Benjamin H. Clark, was of English and German extraction, was born in Lebanon county, Pennsylvania, and settled in Ohio in 1831, as a farmer. His mother's maiden name was Martin, her ancestry German and Irish. He was born in Darke county, January 17, 1849. His early education was obtained in the district school; his boyhood employment was on his father's farm. He had no opportunity to take a course in college, but after completing the branches of study in the common schools he attended the Greenville high school and made such proficiency as enabled him to teach. While engaged in teaching he pursued his studies farther in Latin, mathematics and other sciences, in history and English literature. His inclination to the law was early, and among the influences which attracted him to it may be mentioned the exalted character of the profession ; the numerous avenues it opens for advancement, position and self-culture. He began the study of law with Judge A. R. Catherwood and H. M. Cole, October 6, 1875, and was admitted to the Bar by the District Court at Greenville, in May, 1877. The nature and scope of his practice are such occupy the time and talents of the average lawyer in country towns. He h endeavored to confine himself to the best class of cases and it has been his habit to refuse cases that appear to have no merit. His preparation both to the law and the facts is thorough before he enters upon the trial of, a cause. And when such careful preparation has been made his case is presented clearly and conducted vigorously. He has carried into the profession of law th habits which he formed as a student at school, which marked his course w engaged in teaching. The offices which he has held are strictly in the lin his profession. He was prosecuting attorney of Darke county from January 1, 1881, to January 1, 1886. Since May, 1893, he has been one of the judges of the Court of Common Pleas for the Second Judicial District. His execution of the duties of prosecuting attorney was such as to commend him to the BENCH AND BAR OF OHIO - 285 public. It was marked by ability and discretion in the prosecution of crimninals and by the strictest fidelity to the interests of society and the commonwealth. His administration of the judicial office has been alike commendable, reflecting credit upon himself and evidencing his high regard for the profession. His aspirations are praiseworthy; his intentions are honest; he desires to arrive at a correct conclusion, and is willing to devote to investigation and research all the time necessary to reach it. Although his scholarship is not as broad or his learning as great as the acquirements of some lawyers and jurists, yet it is well understood that the learned are sometimes poor lawyers and that learning and industry combined may not always win the highest success. Good judgment and saving common sense are the most important qualifications of the judiciary. In the practice of law Mr. Clark recognizes the value of the Baconian division for the dispatch of business: " The preparation ; the debate or examination ; and the perfection." His preparation covers every point of the case. In the progress-of the trial he sifts the evidence with great care, brings out all the witnesses know, and then perfects his case by a careful presentation of the facts elicited by the testimony for the consideration of the jury. He is modest, unpretentious and exceedingly careful that the profession which he has chosen shall not suffer in reputation through any fault of his own. He takes up the duties, official and personal, as they come to him in the daily routine of life and performs them without a disposition to give undue prominence to his personality. In the summer of 1869 Judge Clark was nominated in Columbus for judge of the Circuit Court of the Second Judicial Circuit of Ohio, competing therefor with some of the ablest lawyers of the circuit. In the November election he carried his home county by the largest majority ever given to any candidate with a competitor, and would have been elected but for the unprecedented majorities given against his party in Franklin and Montgomery counties. He was married September 27, 1888, to Miss Ada J. Greene, of Franklin, a highly educated and cultured young lady. OSCAR M. GOTTSCHALL, Dayton. Mr. Gottschall is head of the firm of Gottschall & Crawford. He was born at Newark, Ohio, on the 14th day of August,1843, but was brought up in Dayton, to which city his parents removed when he was but two years old. His parents were John and Abigail Jane (Conklin) Gottschall, the former of German and the latter of Dutch descent. His paternal grandfather was a native of Germany, who came to America in the fore part of this century and settled in Pennsylvania. His father removed in early manhood to Ohio, and has continued to live in that State. Mr. Gottschall's mother is descended from Dutch stock, which settled in New York State in colonial times. Her grandfather took an honorable part in the war for independence, fighting in the Continental army during the memorable struggle. Oscar M. Gottschall's early education was obtained in the public schools of Dayton, where he graduated from the high school in the 286 - BENCH AND BAR OF OHIO. class of 1861. He at once commenced the study of law in the office of the late Edmond S. Young, one of the most conspicuous members of the Dayton Bar, which he continued for about one year. In August, 1862, he laid aside his textbooks and his personal aspirations to take up arms in defense of his country. He enlisted in Company K, Ninety-third Ohio Volunteer Infantry. Shortly afterwards he was promoted to quartermaster sergeant of his company. In January, 1863, he was made sergeant major of his regiment, and in 1864 was raised to the position of adjutant, which place he held until his muster out, June 25, 1865. His regiment was first attached to General Gilbert's brigade in Kentucky, and later to McCook's corps in the Army of the Cumberland. He participated with his regiment in all the hard fighting of that army, from Stone River to Atlanta, and later, under General Thomas, in the final defeat of Hood in Tennessee. He was twice wounded, first at the battle of Chickamauga, and again at the battle of Mission Ridge. His promotion to the adjutancy of his regiment was the result of the recommendation of his superior officer for gallantry and meritorious conduct on the battle field of Chickamauga. After the close of the war he resumed his studies in the office of Mr. Young, at Dayton, and was admitted to the Bar on May 12, 1866. He at once entered upon the practice of law in partnership with his preceptor, under the firm name of Young & Gottschall. In 1878 Mr. George R. Young was admitted into the firm, which became Young, Gottschall & Young, and continued until 1879, when Mr. Gottschall withdrew. He then formed a partnership with R. D. Marshall, the firm being Marshall & Gottschall. This association continued until September, 1883, when the firm was dissolved, Mr. Gottschall continuing in practice alone until February, 1885, when the firm of Gottschall & Brown was formed by the admission of Mr. 0. B. Brown. In 1893, Mr. Ira Crawford, Jr., was admitted to the firm, which became Gottschall, Brown & Crawford, and so remained until Judge Brown was elected to the Bench, in July, 1896. May 1, 1897, Mr. L. F. Limbert became associated with Gottschall & Crawford, and October 1st the style of the firm became Gottschall, Crawford & Limbert. Mr. W. S. McCormaughey is also associated with the firm. Early in his professional career Mr. Gottschall was recognized as a. man of force and a lawyer of ability, which soon brought him a profitable clientage and one of the best character. His thirty years of practice in the State and Federal con have brought him a reputation as a lawyer deservedly high, and a busin that is remunerative. He is purely a lawyer ; his profession is his ambiti He stands high in the esteem of his brethren at the Bar, and is regarded as fearless advocate and a fair opponent. Speaking of his practice and ability a lawyer, and his position as a citizen, one of the leading members of the ton Bar remarked : " Oscar M. Gottschall ranks with the leading attorneys of the Bar of district. He is a capable man and maintains himself well either as a co for or before a court or jury. In some of his characteristics he is without peer, and, I may say, without an equal at this Bar. Judging by his wri you might take him for a professor of penmanship in a commercial collect and he is very rapid. He began practice here soon after the close of the war BENCH AND BAR OF OHIO - 287 and was not long in building up a fairly remunerative practice. He was fortunate in the selection of his preceptor, and being an apt pupil he was a pretty good lawyer when he entered on the practice of his profession. He has always been a close student and in the earlier years of his practice he was associated with old and strong attorneys, which was also to his advantage. He has never been anything else than a lawyer. He has eschewed politics and, I believe, never held an elective office, certainly none outside the line of his profession. His practice is large and remunerative and runs through all the courts from the Common Pleas to the Supreme Court of the United States. He is a good all round lawyer, and there is no part of the work of an attorney that he does not do well. He is conscientious in the discharge of his duties to his clients, and fair in the treatment of his opponents. He is noted for perfect integrity and a moral character above reproach, and is ardently devoted to his profession. he is quiet in his manners, studious in his habits, and the most of his leisure hours are spent with his books and in the family circle." In politics Mr. Gottschall is a Republican. Though he takes no active part in politics, he does not shirk the responsibility of citizenship and is among the public spirited citizens of Dayton. Fraternally he is a member of the Masonic Order and of the Loyal Legion. He is a member of the First Baptist Church of Dayton. He was married April 15, 1869, to Miss Octavia T. Soule, (laughter of Charles and Elizabeth Mead Soule. Her father, Charles Soule, was a prominent artist of the West, and his work in portraits was held in the highest estimation by art critics and by those whose portraits he painted. The Soule family traces its genealogy back three hundred years in England, and the founder of the American branch, together with the founder of the Mead family in America, came over in the Mayflower in 1620. Mr. and Mrs. Gottschall have a pleasant home, but no children. SAMUEL ANDREW BOWMAN, late of Springfield. This eminent lawyer and jurist was born at Zanesville, Ohio, January 13, 1832, and died at Beatrice, Nebraska, December 19, 1895. His father, John Bowman, was a native of Germany, and his mother, Susan Bowman, a German American, born in Ohio. His early education was obtained in the public schools of Zanesville; later he entered Kenyon College, but finished his course at Wittenberg College, Springfield, graduating in 1852, in the second class from that institution. He was educated with a view to the ministry, but finally decided on the law as a profession, and immediately after leaving school took up the study of law, with Jewett & O'Neil of Zanesville, completing his preparation with General Charles Anthony of Springfield. In 1854 he was admitted to the Bar and at once began practicing at Springfield. His natural ability and his equable mental poise attracted attention and his rise was rapid ; before reaching middle age he had attained a commanding position at the Bar of the State. His first business associate was General Sampson Mason, who invited him into the firm when Rodney Mason, his brother, retired from practice. The connection was a good one for Mr. Bowman, as it put him into a large practice, 288 - BENCH AND BAR OF OHIO. and it was a good one for Mr. Mason, as it gave him an able assistant. This partnership continued until General Mason's death in 1870. His next partnership was with Judge Goode, and he was never thereafter without one or more partners, which the large business made a necessity. The style of the firm at different times was Goode, Bowman & Scott; Bowman, Pringle & Scott; Bowman, Summers & Bowman ; and Bowman & Bowman. Until the death of the senior partner, the latter firm was composed of Samuel A. Bowman and his sons, Edmond 0., John E. and Border. Early in his career he became known as a forceful man of strong parts and numbered among his clients some of the largest corporations in the State. He was attorney for the Little Miami Railroad for thirty years, for the Cincinnati, Sandusky and Cleveland many years, and for the Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago and Indianapolis, now known as the "Big Four" Railroad. He had a very extensive practice in the State and Federal Courts, and tried many cases involving large sums of money. Between the years 1870 and 1885 his practice extended into several States, particularly in patent litigation. He was purely a lawyer, and his profession was his only ambition. His mind was a remarkable one. He seemed to grasp the salient points in a case almost by intuition. When satisfied that he was just in his contentions, he was a bold and fearless lawyer, and generally succeeded in gaining his point. Mr. Bowman was a close student both of nature and books. He possessed a mind of great natural vigor and strength, which was trained to its highest capacity by methodical study, reading and thought. He had the useful faculty of focusing his powerful mind on the subject before him and the ability to express his conclusions in a clear, concise, logical manner. He was absolutely incorruptible, honest alike to friend and foe. He was strong and aggressive ; untiring in a cause, when he believed in it ; always faithful and true to the interest of his clients. He would not do a mean thing, and abhorred deception in others. All of his learning in the law was at ready command, which added to his effectiveness in argument and advocacy. Speaking of his position at the Bar of the State and in local circles, the president of the Clark county Bar association, among other things, said : " Mr. Bowman was for many years the first citizen of Springfield, respect by all, loved by many, and greatly admired by those who knew him best. man of great natural ability ; thoroughly educated in his youth ; with a clear, strong and brilliant mind, enriched by much knowledge acquired in many fields of literature and science; noted for his perfect integrity, and a moral character without reproach • and ardently devoted to the noblest of all the learned professions he was distinguished—and long deserved to be distinguished—as one of the best lawyers in Ohio. In a better locality for .the exercise of his talents he would have acquired national fame as a lawyer. If ambition had led him into politics, he could easily have reached an exalted station in public life; and professional honors of the highest order would not have been beyond his grasp." His forty years' practice at the bar brought him high reputation and for his family a competence. As a citizen he was pre-eminently public-spirited, his office was the rendezvous of the projectors of every public movement. was practically the originator of such enterprises as Ferncliff Cemetery, BENCH AND BAR OF OHIO - 289 savings bank, the Associated Charities, the Springfield Seminary, in its present form, and the Gentlemen's Literary Club. He was a charter member of the cemetery board, drew up the articles of incorporation, and was a member of the board of directors from its formation to his death. The Associated Charities was particularly the creation of his heart and brain, and he was its leading spirit until his retirement, on account of failing health. He was for a number of years a director of Wittenberg College. In 1881 he purchased the Foos interest in the Second National Bank for the Messrs. Whitely, and was for a year or more a director and president of the bank. Mr. Bowman was, married December 23, 1856, to Miss Adeline Ogden, of Springfield, who died July 5,1895. They left six children, Edmond Ogden, John Elden and Border, of Springfield ; William H., of Beatrice, Nebraska ; Mrs. Laura Elder, of Indianapolis, and Mrs. May Showell, of Dayton, Ohio. In politics Mr. Bowman was a Republican, in church relations a Presbyterian; but in all things a broadminded and liberal citizen. AUGUSTUS N. SUMMERS, Springfield. Judge A. N. Summers was born in Shelby, Richland county, Ohio, June 13, 1856. He is one of the nine children born to Rev. Daniel Summers and Louisa Hine, his wife. His father, a native of Pennsylvania, was educated for and is engaged in the ministry of the Lutheran church. His mother, a native of Illinois, and a woman of estimable character, died some years ago. He came to Springfield from Van-dalia, Montgomery county, Ohio, to enter Wittenberg College. He completed its course of study, and graduated from that institution in the class of 1879, and received the degree of A. M. in 1881. Immediately after graduation he began the study of law in the office of the late Samuel A. Bowman, who was then one of the ablest and most successful lawyers of Springfield and of the State, and upon his admission to the Bar in 1881 entered into partnership with him, under the style of Bowman & Summers. He was elected city solicitor of Springfield in 1885, and re-elected in 1887 and 1889. He was elected one of the judges of the Circuit Court for the second circuit in 1894 for the term of six years, and entered upon the discharge of his duties in February, 1895. He was married November 17, 1887, to Nellie Thomas, daughter of Honorable John H.. Thomas. They have two sons, Thomas Bonser and Daniel. Judge Summers is a polished and scholarly gentleman, of refined tastes, strong native abilities and habitual diligence. He is an accomplished advocate and a thorough lawyer, amply qualified in every respect to discharge the duties of his high office, and is an honest and upright judge and a man of spotless integrity of character. He is a progressive, public-spirited citizen, enjoying the highest respect and esteem of all who know him. 290 - BENCH AND BAR OF OHIO. JACOB KREIDER MOWER, Springfield. Any history of the Clark county Bar for the last forty years that did not contain copious reference to Jacob K. Mower would not be a faithful record of the events as they transpired. During the period of his practice at Springfield he has seen men of his own age, who were his colleagues in the early years of his professional life, rise like meteors and attract the attention of the millions; but it was rather by the display of their peculiar genius than by the usual slow and painstaking methods of the lawyer. A man may by the delivery of a brilliant speech on the floor of Congress, or by the successful turn of a battle, become famous in a day; but success at the Bar does not come that way. Of all the lawyers, liying or dead, who have tried cases in the Clark county courts during the last half a century, there is no name that appears oftener than J. K. Mower. He is purely and only a lawyer ; has not used his profession as a stepping stone to political preferment. The only political office he ever held was that of county representative in the State legislature for one term, and that was not of his own seeking. He is one of the kind of lawyers whose devotion to the profession inspires admiration. His clients place their interests in his hands with a feeling of absolute confidence that they will receive the best attention he is capable of giving them. His honesty is unquestioned, and his lawyer-like abilities are undisputed. He has built his reputation mainly as a trial lawyer. His judgment as to the value of evidence is discriminating. He has the happy faculty of getting the facts from the witnesses and knows where to stop, both in direct and cross examination. He is a pleasant speaker, logical and convincing, rather than brilliant ; his arguments have great weight with a jury. Like most of the men who have gained prominence in their profession, he was raised on a farm. His parents, George and Mary Mower, were natives of Pennsylvania, and our subject was born in Franklin county of that State, A pril 4, 1833. They came to Ohio when Jacob was but one year old and settled on a farm near the village of Ontario, in Richland county. The rudiments of his education were obtained in the district school near his home, and these were supplemented in later years at the Massillon high school. His collegiate education was obtained at the Ohio Wesleyan University and the Ohio University at Athens. He was graduated from the latter in 1856, receiving the degree of A. B., and A. M. three years later. Soon afterwards he became superintendent of the Athens public schools, devoting his leisure to the study of law text-books. Later he entered the office of Leonidas Jewett., where he continued his studies until 1858, when he was admitted to the Bar. December of the same year he took up his residence in Springfield and open an office for the practice of his profession. He began alone, but later ated with him a Mr. Rawlins, under the firm name of Mower & Rawlins, an this business relation continued five years. He never formed another prof sional or business partnership until his son became associated with him. H served as city solicitor for two years, 1868 to 1870, and the next two years w in the State legislature as the representative of Clark county. He was fc five years a member of the board of education of the city of Springfield, from BENCH AND BAR OF OHIO - 291 1873 to 1878, and four years president of the same. Practically his professional life has been unbroken since he opened his office. While he has not been a politician, he has always held firm and pronounced political convictions. He cast his first vote for the first Republican Presidential candidate, John C. Fremont, and has affiliated with that party ever since. His anti-slavery views he acquired by inheritance and education. His father was first a Whig, then a Republican and always an anti-slavery man. In the days when the " underground railroad" was kept in active operation, neither the youthful Jacob nor his more experienced father hesitated or refused to pilot the fleeing slaves from their home to Oberlin, where they were provided with a safe cover. Mr. Mower was married December 2, 1858, to Miss Eunice M. Rice, the intelligent and cultured daughter of Dabinus and Pamelia Hilberd Rice, of Amesville, Athens County, Ohio. Mr. and Mrs. Mower have three children, two daughters and one son. Mabel, the eldest, was graduated from the Ohio Wesleyan University with the class of 1882, and received the degree of A. B. Alice Mary took the same degree at Wittenberg College, Springfield, in the year 1884. Carl Kreider was graduated from the same institution in 1886, and after studying law in his father's office for three years, was admitted to the Bar in 1889. Ile is now the junior member of the firm of Mower & Mower. WILLIAM JAMES GILMORE, Columbus. Judge Gilmore was born in Liberty (now Bedford City), Bedford county, Virginia, April 24, 1821. He was the son of Dr. Eli Gilmore and Clarissa Mosby Clayton. Both were natives of Virginia. The father became a prominent physician in the community in which he lived in Ohio; the mother was a sister of the Honorable Alexander M. Clayton, of Mississippi, for many years a member of the High Court of Errors and Appeals of that State. William Gilmore, the grandfather of the subject of this sketch, moved from Virginia to Ohio in 1818, and was followed in 1825 by Dr. Gilmore and his family. They settled in Israel township, Preble county, a community consisting then, as now, almost exclusively of Associate-Reformers, Covenanters and United Presbyterians of Scotch and Scotch-Irish descent. Here young Gilmore obtained such elementary education as was afforded by pioneer teachers in the log school house, and at Hopewell and Westfield academies. He began reading law in 1844 in the office of Honorable Thomas Millikin, at Hamilton, Ohio, and completed his studies with J. S. & A. J. Hawkins, in Eaton, Ohio. While prosecuting his studies he supported himself, as he had for some years before, by teaching school, clerking, and as a farm laborer. He was admitted to the Bar by the Supreme Court of Ohio at Columbus on the 8th day of December, 1847. With the exception of a portion of the first year after his admission, his office was located at Eaton; but his practice called him into all the surrounding counties, where he was known as a very successful lawyer. The public offices which Judge Gilmore held were all in the line of his profession. He was 292 - BENCH AND BAR OF OHIO. prosecuting attorney of Preble county for four years, 1852 to 1856 ; in 185 he was appointed by the governor, and subsequently elected to fill a vacancy on the Common Pleas Bench, his term expiring in 1862; in 1866 he was again elected to the same position, and re-elected in 1871, serving until he enter upon his term as one of the judges of the Supreme Court of Ohio, in 1875. He retired from the Bench in 1880 and removed his residence to Columbus where he continued in the successful practice of his profession until his death. He was president of the Ohio State Bar Association for the year 1885-86, a was, for a number of years prior to his death, by appointment of different governors, a trustee of Miami University, and also of the Ohio Archaeological and Historical Society. On September 7, 1848, he married S. Anne Rossman, daughter of William Rossman of Eaton, and two sons were the issue of this union. His wife died in 1885. Jackson H., the elder son, died in 1880. The venerable lawyer and jurist died August 9, 1896, at the residence of his surviving son in Columbus. Judge Gilmore did not confine his reading to the law ; it was varied and extensive, and what he read he could always call from the wonderful store-house of his memory. To a clear judgment, a quick perception and great caution, he was mainly indebted for the success that attended his legal career. He was an upright, modest and successful lawyer an excellent judge, not only of the courts at nisi Arius, but of the highest court of the State; a steadfast friend, a genial companion and a generous citizen. His merits and services and characteristics as a public servant and private citizen inspired the confidence and commanded the esteem and admiration of every one who had the pleasure of a personal acquaintance with him. DAVID L. MEEKER, Greenville. Honorable David L. Meeker, who for nearly twenty years served as judge on the Common Pleas Bench, was born in Darke county, Ohio, July 18, 1827. His parents were David M. Meeker and Nancy Ann Miller. The former, a native of Newark, New Jersey, came to Ohio in 1802, when about ten years of age, and worked for a time in the brickyards at Cincinnati. On reaching the age of manhood he became a farmer, and located first in Hamilton county, but soon afterward settled in Darke county when it was almost the extreme limit of frontier settlement. Here the remainder of his life was passed in the work of transforming the wilderness into a productive farm and by the assistance of his worthy helpmeet rearing a large family of children, who have honored his memory and added luster to the name. He died in 1852. Judge Meeker's boyhood was spent on the farm where he became familiar with all of the hard work and discomfort of clearing the land and cultivating the soil when the rewards of agriculture, in money were scarcely greater than the advantages offered for education. He attended the school in his native district a portion of each year, and enjoyed the limited amusements which the country afforded. The privations of pioneer life were more than offset by the helpfulness of neighbors and the genuine, unpretentious BENCH AND BAR OF OHIO - 293 hospitality characteristic of log cabins and enterprising settlers. When sufficiently advanced in his studies he was employed in teaching the district school for several winters, and extended his studies to academic branches in the academy, which marked the progressive instincts of the people among whom he lived. While engaged in teaching he directed his course of reading with a view to entering the legal profession as soon as the opportunity offered. His preliminary study of the law was under the instruction of the late Judge Ebenezer Parsons, of Miami county, and he was admitted to the Bar in June, 1851. For almost a year thereafter he was travelling in the West, and it was not until 1853 that he settled in Greenville for the practice of his profession. The discipline acquired by study and teaching, the habits of industry formed, and the close application to books, together with an excellent natural capacity, qualified him for success in the law. He made his way unaided among the attorneys of the county and soon established himself as a lawyer. In 1856 he was elected prosecuting attorney for the county and was re-elected in 1858, serving four years. His preference for the practice rather than the duties of public office was so pronounced that he yielded reluctantly to the solicitation of friends to accept even the judgeship. He persistently declined to permit the use of his name as a candidate for Congress, although he was frequently urged for that important position. In 1861 he was elected judge of the Common Pleas Court of the First Subdivision of the Second Judicial District for a term of five years, but resigned after four years of service and was succeeded by Judge William Allen. Resuming the practice, he was permitted to continue it without interruption until October, 1872, when he was appointed judge by Governor Noyes, on the unanimous recommendation and petition of the Bar in every county of the judicial district. This appointment was for the unexpired portion of the term to which Judge McKerny had been elected. His service on the Bench was so acceptable to all the people that he was chosen at the election next following to succeed himself without opposition. Both of the leading political parties nominated him, and the members of the Bar without dissent recommended his election. After this he was re-elected for two terms and declined a third because of failing health. It is given to few men to enjoy the public confidence to a degree that disarms all political opposition. The example of Judge Meeker is almost unique. Although a member of the Democratic party and a partisan, in the sense of supporting its principles' and candidates, he was known to be so fair and impartial as to be universally trusted by political adherents and adversaries alike. He was married June 18,1857, to Miss Mary A. Deardoff, daughter of John Deardoff, of Darke county, who bore him eight children, and died November 21, 1876. He was married again September 5, 1878, to Miss Jennie D. Crisler, of Eaton, Ohio, a woman of many accomplishments, who presided over his household with dignity and grace, assisting him to dispense the hospitality for which his home was noted. His tastes were essentially domestic, and he found the pleasures at home which some men seek at the club. The time not necessarily devoted to business was spent in the society of his family and. among the inspiring, 294 - BENCH AND BAR OF OHIO. renewing influences of home. One of the leading lawyers of the district has furnished a characterization of him substantially in the following terms: Judge Meeker filled a place in the history of this judicial district that is creditable to himself and honorable to the profession. A judge for a period of almost twenty years, he retired from the Bench with the highest respect of the profession and admiration of the public. He was always a close student, and when in practice was known as a hard working lawyer, and likewise a successful one. His greatest reputation, however, will rest on his work as a judge. His judgment was almost unerring. He possessed what is well termed a legal mind ; understood thoroughly the principles of the law ; was painstaking in his investigations, and accurate in his decisions. He was always fearless and impartial in the discharge of every duty. There has never been on the Bench in the history of this judicial district a judge who held the confidence of the profession and the public to a greater degree. His personal popularity was unbounded. Nature made him a gentleman, and he made himself a lawyer. One of the sources of his popularity was undoubtedly his unassuming manners, unfeigned cordiality, his fine sensibilities, and readiness to help his fellow men. Both in the relations of private citizenship and in public office, Judge Meeker's life was irreproachable. Not only was he an able jurist, but also a successful business man. He possessed one of the finest homes in the county, accumulated a competence and left a valuable estate. Judge Meeker died September 5, 1896, suddenly, at his home in Greenville. While at the supper table he was stricken with partial paralysis, which became complete a few minutes later, causing a painless death within three hours. The tributes to his character and worthiness, expressed in a memorial meeting of the Bar and in the funeral service, were hearty and sincere. They testified that he was not only an incorruptible judge, but scrupulously, delicately and conscientiously free from all willful wrong, in thought, word or deed. His uniform kindness and patience to the younger members of the Bar were marked. In later years he was accustomed to recount for the edification of the young lawyers his own early struggles to secure success, the discouragements he encountered and the difficulties he had overcome. He was not a dreamer in any idle sense, but as a boy looked forward hopefully, spurred to his best endeavors by high aspirations. In a paper read at his funeral by Mr. D. W. Bowman, a former law partner, it is said that throughout a career of nearly half a century at the Bar and upon the Bench, the day dream of his boyhood, the cherished desire of his heart in youth, was never lost sight of, but kept in full view. With this noble longing for professional success he wore the judicial ermine for twenty years, and laid it aside as spotless as when it first touched, his shoulders. He achieved a fame that posterity will not willingly let die. Judge Meeker's second marriage was without issue. All of his children by his first marriage survived him. They are as follows : Frank D., Greenville, in loan and real estate business, lately married to Emma Anderson, of Franklin; Sadie E., married to D. L. Gaskill, attorney at law, Greenville, a late partner of the deceased ; Walter S. Meeker, attorney at law, Greenville, late partner of the deceased, married to Minnie BENCH AND BAR OF OHIO - 295 Lowry; Mary C., married to J. R. Smith, druggist, Dayton; Nan Meeker, Greenville, unmarried ; Verge G., married to W. H. Gilbert, attorney at law, Troy; Alice M., married to A. R. Crawford, of Ventura, California, deputy clerk of the court; Carrie W. Meeker, Greenville, unmarried. FRANCIS MARION HAGAN, Springfield. Of the members of the Springfield Bar who owe their prominence entirely to their acknowledged legal ability must be classed Francis M. Hagan. He was born June 10, 1844, in Clark county, on a farm in Mad River township. His father, Hugh Hagan, was a native of Northumberland county, Pennsylvania, born in 1803, and came to Ohio with his parents in 1815. The paternal grandfather of Francis M. was a native of County Monahon, Ireland, and was a Scotch-Irishman. He came to America in 1798 and settled in Pennsylvania. Seventeen years later, attracted by the fame of the Northwest Territory and Ohio, the first State erected therein, he pushed westward over the mountains with his family and established a home in the fertile valley of Mad River, Clark county. The subject of this sketch may rightfully claim Ohio citizenship, also by inhernitance. His mother, Anna Furay, who was of French-Irish extraction, was a native of the State, born in Ross county, October 13, 1816, lived until 1892 and died in Clark county. Mr. Hagan obtained his early education in the common and select schools of his native township. His youthful ambition was to become a lawyer and his 'efforts to obtain a collegiate and legal training were unremitting until the object was accomplished. He was for some years a student in Antioch College, at Yellow Springs, but before he had completed the course his health failed and, he was compelled to retire. The years of his early manhood were spent in teaching and reading law, never for a day losing sight of his guiding star. He was admitted to the Bar in 1873 and the next year began the practice of his profession at Springfield. In acquiring his legal education Mr. Hagan had not been satisfied with a superficial knowledge, but had been a hard student and had so thoroughly mastered the elementary principles of law that when he began practice he soon established such a reputation for marked legal acumen as to place his name among the leaders of the Clark county Bar while he was yet a comparatively young man. He has not been ambitious for political honors, as his profession has been and is his ambition. The places of trust he has filled have not been used as stepping stones to higher honors, but rather as means to increase his useful and practical legal knowledge. He has never occupied any office outside of his profession, with one exception, for a short time, though he has occupied a number of places of honor and trust in the line of his practice, and in every one of them he has maintained himself in such a manner as to gain a higher place in the public estimation. He was elected city solicitor in 1879, and so fruitful of good results for the city was his administration that he was again elected to the' same office in 1883, and in that election received the unqualified endorsement 296 - BENCH AND BAR OF OHIO. of both political parties. His familiarity with municipal laws and correct interpretation of municipal privileges were so marked that he came to be regarded as an authority on such questions. Since he retired from the office he has invariably been called into consultation in all matters of importance concerning the interests of the municipality. He was appointed postmaster by President Cleveland in 1887 and retained the office until a change of the national administration brought the appointment of a successor. His administration of the office was eminently satisfactory. In 1890 he was chosen president of the board of trade of Springfield, Ohio, and in that position had ample opportunity to demonstrate the versatility of his talents. From 1885 to 1890 he was one of the trustees of the Mitchell Hospital, Springfield. On the death of Judge White in 1890 he was appointed by Governor Campbell to fill his unexpired term. His broad knowledge of the law and equitably balanced mind fitted him peculiarly for the Bench, and his services there were remarkably satisfactory. He has been trustee of the associated charities for a period of ten years. He was president of Clark County Bar Association, 1892 and 1893. In political faith Mr. Hagan is a Democrat and in every contest for office to which he has been elected he has had to overcome a large adverse majority. He is well versed in the foundation principles of law and has a large general practice. He is held in high esteem by the profession, both as a man and a lawyer. He was married May 21, 1881, to Miss Justina Bevitt, daughter of Dr. Bevitt, of St. Charles, Missouri. They have three children, Francis Marion, Hugh and Margaret. The judge attends the Presbyterian Church with his family, though he himself is not a member. EDWARD N. HUGGINS, Columbus. Mr. Huggins was born on the 6th day of November, 1860, at Mount Oreb, Brown county, Ohio. His father was James E. Huggins, a farmer, born in Ohio. His grandfather was a native of North Carolina and came to Ohio about the first of the present. century, settling in Brown county. The family is of Scotch-Irish extraction. They came to this country and settled originally in Pennsylvania. The great-grandfather Huggins removed thence to North Carolina about the time of the American Revolution. Another great-grandfather, Robert Irwin, father of his grandmother on the father's side, was one of the pioneers of North Carolina, and one of the framers of the noted Mechlenburg Declaration of Independence. The grandfather of Mr. Huggins, Robert Huggins, with a brother, William Huggins, left North Carolina on account of slavery and came to Ohio under the leadership of Rev. James Gilliland, a Presbyterian minister of anti-slavery principles, and most of whose parishioners followed him from North Carolina to Ohio, where in Brown county on Red Oak creek, a few miles north of Ripley on the Ohio river, Mr. Gilliland, very early in this century, founded the Red Oak Presbyterian Church. This little pioneer church was intensely anti-slavery, and in the exciting contests that arose on the slavery BENCH AND BAR OF OHIO - 297 question became a noted point on the border, both for the dissemination of anti-slavery doctrines and as a safe retreat for fugitives fleeing from slavery across the Ohio. Mr. Huggins's grandfather lived for some years near Red Oak. He then bought land on Whitewater Creek, farther back from the river, and cleared out a farm, and there his family of five sons and one daughter were brought up. Until the day of his death his house was a station on the " underground railroad," guarded by his stalwart sons. It became a saying on the border that if a negro fleeing from slavery got into the Huggins neighborhood he was safe. His mother, Arethusa Catherine Diboll, was born in Pennsylvania in 1820, and shortly afterwards removed with her parents to Ohio. His grandfather on the mother's side was a prominent physician. The Dibolds are descended from the Collins-Huntington family, of New England, some of whom were prominent in the struggle for American independence during the Revolution. Young Huggins attended the common schools of Brown county and afterwards continued his academic education at the Hillsborough academy ; but to his parents he is indebted for a broader and more liberal education. Both his father and mother devoted much time and care to his training. At the age of twenty-one he entered the office of Judge Samuel F. Steel, of Hillsboro, Ohio, and commenced the study of law, remaining under his direction for two years. In the fall of 1883 he entered the Senior class of. the Cincinnati Law School and was graduated in June, 1884. While in Cincinnati he was for a time in the office of W. H. Taft, now judge of the United States Circuit Court of Appeals. Immediately after receiving his degree of Bachelor of Laws he settled in Columbus, where he has since resided. In the following spring he formed his first partnership, with J. G. McGuffey, under the firm name of McGuffey & Huggins. Three years later this partnership was dissolved and he formed a partnership with Honorable D. K. Watson, who was then attorney general of Ohio. The relation thus formed continued four years, when it was dissolved and the firm of Huggins & Sowers was formed, which still continues in existence. Mr. Huggins is a lawyer of ability and few men of his age enjoy a larger business. The character of his practice is general. He is an original thinker and an effective orator. In politics he has always been a Republican and taken an active interest in all political affairs. He is in great demand during campaigns and has made many public speeches in behalf of his party. He was the candidate of his party for Congress in 1892. In 1896, at the request of Governor McKinley, his personal friend, he was a candidate for delegate to the National Republican Convention held at St. Louis. In October, 1890, Mr. Huggins was married to Clara E., daughter of the late Dr. W. W. Ellsbury, of Brown county, an ex-member of Congress. There are no children. 298 - BENCH AND BAR OF OHIO. JAMES W. ROBINSON, Marysville. Honorable James W. Robinson was born in Darby township, Union county, Ohio, on his father's farm, November 28, 1826. He is of Scotch-Irish extraction and one of the eight children born to John W. and Elizabeth Mitchell Robinson. .His paternal ancestors were Presbyterians, and his grandfather, Rev. James Robinson, was a zealous and prominent minister of_ that church, a man of acknowledged piety, great zeal, and distinguished for his faithful and effective service in the cause of the Master in western Pennsylvania and Central Ohio. His father, John W. Robinson, brought up in the faith of his fathers, was an elder in the Presbyterian Church for many years and a capable man in his personal affairs, as well as public business. Although a farmer during his entire life, he held the offices of justice of the peace and county commissioner ; was highly esteemed for his integrity and uprightness until his death, in 1853. His mother, woman of remarkable gentleness of disposition, as well as strength of character, was a native of Union county, Ohio, and a daughter of Judge David Mitchell, who settled in the Territory of Ohio. in the closing year of the last century. Judge Mitchell was-a strong man in ability, moral character and purpose. He was one of the first associate judges of Union county. James W. Robinson was born at a time when it was the fashion for boys to work. There were no "gentleman farmers" in the neighborhood ; all were working farmers occupying small tracts of land, covered for the most part with primeval forests. The occupation of his boyhood was to assist in clearing the underbrush, opening up a farm and cultivating the soil among the stumps of the new clearings. It was toil early and late—the kind of toil that raises blisters on the hands and stone bruises on the bare feet ; toil that is in the nature of an investment and finds its chief present reward in hope of better things for the future. He was favored above many of his fellows in having intelligent ancestors who were liberally educated, and who transmitted to him more than average intelligence, a tendency to do right and a disposition to .perform the duty of the present as it came to him. An aspiration for learning was also a part of his inheritance, and with eagerness he made use of the meager advantages afforded in the district schools, which he attended a part of each winter until fifteen years of age. His fondness for books and the desire for learning increased with his years and his knowledge. His father wisely decided to permit him to follow his own leadings to the fullest possible extent. This decision was rendered easier by the delicate physical organism of the boy, and a condition of health which in some degree unfitted him for the labor of the farm. Therefore young Robinson placed himself under the instruction of Robert Wilson, a successful teacher who was conducting a private school near Milford. He made rapid progress in the common branches, and soon evinced a strong inclination to take up the study of Latin. In orde to gratify this desire, he was instrumental in securing as teacher of the district school in the neighborhood a man versed in the Latin language. At seventeen he was employed as teacher of a district school, for which he received the customary remuneration of eight dollars a month. During the time of his BENCH AND BAR OF OHIO - 299 employment as teacher he pursued his Latin studies under the instruction of an educated minister liying four miles distant, making trips on horseback to attend recitations. Spurred by an ambition to attain high scholarship, he applied himself assiduously under the direction of this minister, until he was qualified, not only to enter college, but for admission to the Sophomore class. He matriculated in Jefferson College at Cannonsburg, Pennsylvania, which, subsequently united with Washington, formed Washington and Jefferson College, at Washington, Pennsylvania. He was graduated with honors in 1848 in a class of seventy-two. After leaving college he became principal of a select school at Woodstock for a term, and then settled in Marysyille, where he taught in the old academy. Simultaneously with teaching he studied law under the instruction of Otway Curry, then a distinguished lawyer. After this preliminary reading he took a course of lectures in the Cincinnati Law School, securing the degree of Bachelor of Laws in 1851. He was admitted to the Bar in April of that year, and became associated in partnership with his former preceptor in the law. The firm of Curry & Robinson was one of the strongest and best known in the county, having a large clientage and a profitable business. His next partnership was formed in 1869 with Leonidas Piper, and continued in force for nineteen years. Upon the election of Mr. Piper to the office of Probate Judge, in 1888, Mr. Robinson became associated with his brother, Colonel A. B. Robinson, and Mr. R. L. Woodburn, thus constituting a firm which controlled a large amount of business in the circuit. During his active life Mr. Robinson has given much time to the public service and to politics. Starting as a Whig, he was identified with that party until its dissolution. His deep convictions on the subject of slavery naturally led him to join the band of patriotic men who formed the Republican party. And during the forty years that have elapsed he has been one of the able exponents of the principles, and one of the influential supporters of the policies of the Republican party. In 1851, six months after his admission to the Bar, he was elected prosecuting attorney for Union county. In 1857, and again in 1859, he was elected a member of the Lower House of the Ohio. legislature, and acquitted himself honorably as a law-maker. His views of the needs of the State were broad and practical, and as chairman of the judiciary committee he was able to exert a wholesome influence on the work of legislation. In 1864 he was again elected to represent his county in the legislature. During the Civil War he was one of the ardent supporters of President Lincoln, unwavering in his devotion to the Union, and active in the work of advancing measures for the prosecution of the war. In 1872 Mr. Robinson was elected as the Republican candidate to represent his district in the Forty-third Congress, defeating General C. W. Morgan. The district then comprised the counties of Union, Hardin, Marion, Morrow, Delaware and Knox. Ile was well qualified for the work of the National House of Representatives. His knowledge of the law and parliamentary usage, his experience in a legislative body, his readiness in debate, his general information and high principle, gave him a standing and influence in the House .of Representatives.