USA > Iowa > Wapello County > History of Wapello County, Iowa, Volume I > Part 22
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depends upon the natural fitness, caliber and character of the student. In either case very many are admitted that ought to be doing something else. To illustrate: Some fifteen or sixteen years ago I was obliged to go to Iowa to argue a case in the Supreme Court. It happened to be when a class from the State University Law School was before the court for exam- ination. The answers of one of the boys were so decidedly nebulous, that Judge Beck was in doubt as to whether he had any just conception of legal principles. So the judge, in his delightfully amiable way, put this question to him: "What is the most essential element of a promissory note?"-referring of course to the consideration. "That it should be paid when due," was the answer. In a practical sense, it cannot be denied that there was more truth than poetry in the response. And here is an instance under the old system. Judge Knapp of Keosauqua, who was one of the great lawyers of that period, was at times very gruff. He, Robert Sloan, hereinbefore referred to as one of your present judges, and some other member whose name has escaped me, were appointed a committee to examine a certain applicant. The other members of the committee asked him a number of questions, the answers to which disclosed the fact that his legal attainments were very slim. Finally Judge Knapp thought he would ask him a practical one, and said: "Suppose Cox and Shelley of Keokuk (then a wholesale mart for this part of the state), should send you an account for collection ; what steps would you take in the matter ?" "Well," was the answer, "I would sit down and write to the man to come in and pay it. Then I'd wait on him three or four days, and if he didn't come in, I'd put it in the hands of a justice of the peace, and in about a week I'd go around and get the money." "Yes, like h-1 you would," growled Judge Knapp. He had been there himself.
Another difference between the conditions of that time and this is the curtailment which the banks have made of the lawyer's business. Then foreign collections were sent to and made by the lawyers of the different towns. Now, they are sent to and made by the banks. For instance, if a wholesaler in New York, Chicago, St. Louis, Keokuk or Burlington, held an overdue claim for goods sold to a local merchant, it was sent to a lawyer there, who made the presentment, collection and remittance-less a good round percentage. Now, they are sent to the banks, which were then few and far between, who charge very little for their trouble, and as a consequence do all the business in that line in respect to claims that are not necessary to be sued upon ; and then, they go into the hands of some attorney which the bank has selected.
Another difference between the old and the new is in respect to forensic eloquence, the eloquence of the bar. It was formerly cultivated as one of the fine arts, and to hear the lawyers "plead," as it was called, in an impor- tant case always drew a goodly number to the court room. Unless a young man gave some promise of becoming a speaker, he was hardly deemed fit
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for the bar. They generally made a preacher of him. The tropes and figures of forensic eloquence have given place to those made by the cold hand of commerce and the lightening calculator. The old time aspiration for eloquence at the bar has been quenched by the roar of the stock exchange. The occupation of the advocate, like that of Othello, is virtually gone.
We had some strong speakers among us, who on occasions displayed the power of stirring advocates. To look at Henry Trimble as Judge Knapp always used to call him, you might fail to see amid the lines of that furrowed face, any signs of pathos or eloquence. But I have seen him on two or three occasions in the olden time, exhibit powers in that behalf that would hastily change your mind. It is my opinion, as I know it was that of Judge Love as well as of Judge Caldwell, that twenty-five or thirty years ago, he was the most skillful and the best trial lawyer in Iowa. He was a soldier in the Mexican war, a colonel in the great Civil war, and bears on his face the scars of that conflict. He was one of your distinguished judges forty years ago, though his chiefest distinc- tion was that of a trial lawyer rather than as a judge, which is but natural from the fact that one role was so strong that it greatly overshadowed the other. He is now an old man, verging closely to eighty, but still engaged in the practice, I am told, and has at this late day taken to hunting for the first time in his life, with dog and gun, and has even renewed his attention to the ladies. This must be a case of second sight. Judge Trimble formerly lived at Bloomfield in Davis County but in later years he moved to Keokuk, where he ably represents the interests of the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad Company. Taking everything into consideration, including their age, I think he and Chester C. Cole, one of the brightest and clearest judges that ever sat upon the supreme bench, are the most remarkable lawyers now in practice at the Iowa bar. (Both Cole and Trimble have gone.)
Judge Knapp, Joseph C. Knapp, to whom I have before alluded, was also at times, and when he was fully aronsed in an important case, an advocate of great power. He was really a great man, and had his lot been cast in a large city rather than a country town, he would probably have attained a national reputation. He needed the stimulus of great demands and the execution of great purposes. He did not have these and lapsed into the inertia of his surroundings. He had a great contempt for little things and I think became discontented with his environments. But it was too late in life to change; and he lingered and died in Keosauqua. He was leonine in appearance and character but it took something more than the ordinary to arouse him. When once aroused, he was a veritable Jupiter Tonans, and made everything around him tremble. I heard him when thus waxed make the closing argument in the slander case of Bizer against Warner, forty-five years ago, and it made my youthful blood tingle.
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And finally, there was Henry Clay Dean, who occasionally appeared as attorney for the defendant in capital cases. I remember one distinctly -that of the state against Progden for murder. After Mr. Dean had closed the argument and the judge had given his instructions to the jury, Mr. Dean placed himself, or at least was stationed, in the aisle through which the jury must pass to their room, and as they did so he said to me in tones loud enough for the jury to hear, "That settles it ; under those instruc- tions the jury are bound to acquit." He was easily the finest natural orator I have ever heard; nor was his oratory pyrotechnic or vapid. He was deeply learned and drew his inspiration from the richest sources of history and the classics. I had an excellent opportunity to know, for as a youthful orator I stumped the state with him for Douglas in 1860; and though I changed my politics when the war broke out, our intimate friendship remained to the end. A more delightful companion there could not well be. He had been both a preacher and a lawyer. He had been highly celebrated for his eloquence in both lines. He was once chaplain of the United States Senate and Henry Clay pronounced his opening prayer the most eloquent that had ever been uttered there. He was eccentric in the extreme and by sheer force of his eloquence and extraordinary personality carried everything before him. For these reasons he was frequently employed in the character of cases referred to.
He reminded me always of an advocate noted in the life of Lord Chief Justice Denman. Before ascending to that position he had been a nisi prius judge on the circuit embracing Yorkshire. In one of the towns thereof dwelt an advocate, famous for his eloquence and the way he carried the juries. His name was Jones. In a certain case called by Denman for trial, Jones was for the plaintiff. The jury were empaneled, the evidence intro- duced and the closing speech made by Mr. Jones in his best manner. The jury retired in charge of the bailiff to consider their verdict. Soon they rapped to announce that a verdict had been reached. In trailed the jury with its Yorkshire foreman at the head, and halted on approaching the bench. Judge Denman, following the prevailing practice, asked the fore- man, "Have the jury agreed upon a verdict ?" "We has, your Honor," was the reply. "Is it for the plaintiff or the defandant?" inquired the judge. "We knows naught of plaintiffs or defendants, but we'es for Mr. Jones." So it was with Henry's juries. They were generally for Mr. Dean.
The witticism of the bar was well exemplified in Mass Jones of Davis County, and its eccentricities by Enoch Eastman and Judge Crookham of Mahaska County. The former, Mr. Eastman, removed soon after that time to Hardin County and died at Eldora, if I mistake not.
Mass was a natural born humorist. He would have made a first class comedian ; one that would have improved the original playwright by impro- vising between the lines. He had the peculiar faculty of making others laugh without smiling himself. It was difficult to tell when he was serious.
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Here is an illustrative incident. It was while he was the prosecuting attor- ney for this district. I was present. The case was the prosecution of the defendant for selling liquor ; the defense was that it was not liquor but ginger ale and sold as such. The witness swore that that was what he called for. Then the fun began. He was plied with all sorts of questions in a most amusingly quizzical manner; as to how he came to have such a thirst for ginger ale about that time; how it looked; how it smelled; how it tasted; how much he poured out; how many times he drank; what the interval between each drink; why he was drinking ginger ale so many times; how he felt after the first drink; after the second, the third, the fourth, the fifth, and to describe his feelings minutely. (An Englishman I once knew said he could tell water when he saw it, it looked so much like gin.) In summing up, Mass said to the jury in his quiet, inimitable way, "Gentlemen, you might thing from my manner of examining the witness that I know a good deal about drink, and the effect thereof ; but (raising his voice and vigorously extending his arm) the fact nevertheless is, that I never drank a gallon of liquor in my whole life." Then after a pause, and lowering his voice, "at one time, gentlemen."
Here is another. You may have heard it as a story; but it is a real incident, was well known at the time and is perfectly authentic. Mass had a case before a justice of the peace out in the country. He was for the defendant, while a wiseacre of a school master who had picked up a few Latin words, appeared for the plaintiff. The facts were all in his favor, and in summing up the different groups, in his argument at the end of each peroration he would exclaim with great gusto, "And that is the summum bonum of the matter and the case must go to the plaintiff." Mass had really no defense, but his ready wit and keen sense of the ridiculous sup- plied him with one. So when he came to reply, he said to the justice, "I have a great regard for that old law of summum bonum, on which the gentle- man wholly relies, for its antiquity. It was an old English law and served well its day and generation in ancient times. But the people finally outgrew and became dissatisfied with it; and it was one of the laws England tried to force upon the Colonies. But," said Mass, raising his voice and arm, "our forefathers fought and spilt their blood in the Revolution to overthrow that law and they did overthrow it and reared in its stead the law of e pluri- bus unum, which must govern this case." Thereupon the justice, who was an Irishman, by the way, said, "I have a great deal of respect myself for that old English law of summum bonum. It was good enough for that time, and was good enough for the English, but I agree with Mr. Jones that our forefathers tumbled that law over in the Revolution, and this case will be decided in favor of the defendant under the law of e pluribus unum which was put up in its place."
Mass was not only an excellent lawyer but a good man, and I believe belonged to the church. He had, however, the eccentric habit of swearing
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when he was provoked, without being sensible of it. On a certain occasion he was noting down some points in the argument of the opposing lawyer. Brother Teter, whom many of you will recognize as a widely known and facetious clergyman of the Methodist Church, came in and took a seat where he could look over Mass' shoulder. Just then, the opposing lawyer traveled very provokingly outside of the record in his remarks, and Mass noted down, "By G-d, he is traveling outside of the record. By G-d, I will travel outside of the record also;" whereupon Brother Teter said to him, "Brother Jones, how can you be so profane in court?" Mass looked up and said, "Who told you that? If you hear anybody say that I use profane language, you are authorized to say for me that he is a d-d liar."
This is on a parallel with an instance in the career of Bishop Polk of the Confederate army, which was told at the time and which has been verified since I came to Missouri, by a soldier who was present on the occasion. Polk was the most distinguished bishop of the Episcopal Church in the South, the Phillips Brooks of the region. but he had received a mili- tary education at West Point and when the war broke out laid aside his cas- sock for the mail coat of arms, and became one of the most distinguished of the Confederate generals. He had stationed his forces along the Mis- sissippi River to barricade the descent of Farragut's fleet. It was known that if the fleet succeeded in passing a bend of the river above, nothing could prevent its further progress. Mutual bombarding between the fleet and his forces was going on in that direction. He was in one of the rifle pits below and soon the shells of the fleet came screeching and bursting through the air above their heads; whereupon the good bishop fell upon his knees and fervently invoked the Divine majesty of heaven to pour out his wrath upon the invading fleet and sink it in the depths of the river. As he arose from his knees, he saw one of the boats of the fleet poking its nose around the bend, and exclaimed at the top of his voice, "There, by God, they come now."
As to Enoch Eastman before alluded to, and whose name is so closely interwoven with Iowa history as to make it as familiar as a household word, a more original character and a more perfect specimen of a real old fash- ioned, down east, backwoods, nasal talking Yankee could not well be imagined. Very tall, slim, bony, gaunt, long-necked and loose jointed, he always reminded me of Ichabod Crane, the Yankee schoolmaster in Irving's "Legend of Sleepy Hollow." In facial expression his features were long and pointed and deeply pitted by smallpox; but this, it was thought, was rather an improvement to his appearance than otherwise. He was reared in the mountains of New Hampshire and worked in a sawmill and on the farm of his father until he was nearly of age. He used to relate that he worked one season for a farmer seven months at $io a month and at the end handed his father $67 of his earnings. This was characteristic of the man. Notwithstanding his early disadvantages, he acquired an
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academic education ; and from the time he came to Iowa in 1844, until his death, he was justly regarded as one of the best equipped lawyers in the state. He was at one time your lieutenant governor. But he never could, and probably never desired to throw off his Yankee dialect or Yankee tone imbibed among the hills of his native state. He always referred to the joint sessions of the House and Senate as the "jint" session, and persisted in calling the District Court the "Deestrict" Court. He could look as grave as a Presbyterian deacon and sing psalms as solemnly as one of Crom- well's soldiers. At the same time he had a keen sense of the ridiculous and was as cunning as a fox. On one occasion he appeared before a young judge, and to enforce a point he desired to make, Enoch brought with him, and attempted to read, Blackstone, to the court, whereupon the young judge after moving uneasily about in his seat for a while said: "Mr. East- man, I've read Blackstone." "Oh, hev ye," responded Enoch looking at the judge over the top of. his spectacles with an air of surprise. On another, while trying a log case in Mahaska County, to which he first came, Crook- ham, who was nearly as quaint as himself, and represented the other side of the case, told the jury he was something of a farmer himself and knew all about hogs. Enoch in his reply said in his shrill voice, "The gentle- man says he knows all about hogs. He oughter, for he is the biggest b-o-r-e in the county."
But there was a deeper and more sublime vein in his nature. As the erection of the Washington monument was approaching its completion, each state was called upon to contribute an appropriate motto to be inscribed on its face. Enoch composed and presented the following for his state: "Iowa : the affections of her people, like the rivers of her borders, flow to an inseparable union." What could be more chaste and elegant. It was adopted and inscribed along with the mottoes of the other states, and is universally conceded to be the rarest gem of them all. It is sufficient to render his name as enduring as Iowa itself.
Judge Crookham was one of the early lawyers of the state. He was plain and homely in dress and manners, and delighted to represent the common people. He was not felicitous in speech, very absent minded, and perpetually perpetrating bulls at which, however, he never laughed him- self, because he never noticed them. Judge Lockridge related to me this incident, which he said occurred in his presence. It was in the very hog case to which reference has been made in connection with Governor East- man. His client's name was Fifield. After other witnesses had testified, he put his client on the stand and with a wave of his hand said: "Now, Mr. Fifield, tell these hogs all you know about the jury." Nevertheless he was a lawyer of no mean ability, and before a jury of his county, every member of which he would personally know, he was a most formidable adversary.
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Probably the most unique among the great lawyers of the territory and state was David Rorer of Burlington, whom I knew intimately, as indeed I did all of the men of whom I have spoken. The last case in which he appeared and argued orally in the Supreme Court of Iowa was with me. It was that of Wapello County against The Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad Company, to recover on the quantum mernit the value of certain railroad bonds which the county had subscribed and paid for. He repre- sented the company and I the county.
Judge Rorer had been the compeer of all the distinguished men of the territory and state and stood shoulder to shoulder with the greatest of them. He was peculiar in appearance and manner. He was short in stature, with short arms and limbs, but well and strongly built; impetuous, swift and quick as lightning in thought and movement ; his voice, deep, sonorous and capable of ascending and descending the gamut of sound quickly ; his eye like an eagle's, large, full, round, lustrous, that fairly blazed when he was excited; his action and gestures when addressing the court or jury, extremely animated and, if the term may be properly used, picturesque. He was perfectly sui generis. I never saw a man that resembled him and never expect to see one. The tout ensemble of the person was without a model. When the Lord made him, He threw the molds away. He carried the green bag of the olden time lawyer on his arm for his books and papers and never deigned to call the statement of plaintiff's cause of action, the "Petition," but always the "Declaration." He was an able lawyer and a highly gifted and accomplished man. Nothing could quench his indomit- able spirit. "Age could not wither, nor custom stale his infinite variety." Even when comparatively an old man he wrote and gave to the profession two standard and highly prized works-Rorer on Judicial Sales, and Rorer on Railroads. He tried the first case to be found in your reports, in re Ralph, reported in Morris, page 1. Though a southerner he took the side of the slave Ralph whom his master had permitted to come and live in Missouri, and by reason of which the Supreme Court, composed of three democratic judges with the gifted Charles Mason at the head, declared Ralph to be a free man. And throughout our great Civil war, he exhibited the greatest patriotism and loyalty. He used frequently to visit this bar. It was in the old courthouse which has given way to your splendid new one. But it was not old when I first entered it. It was new-not entirely completed. When I first passed its portals I beheld engaged in argument two young intellectual giants. It was in the case of ex rel Wapello County reported in thirteenth Iowa, in which it was held for the first time that the county had no power to subscribe stock to build railroads. These young giants were Henry Clay Caldwell and James F. Wilson. Senator Wilson has paid the debt of nature. Judge Caldwell, full of years and full of honors, has recently retired from the Federal bench after a service of forty years. His service had been the longest of any Federal judge then on the
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bench and it had been as illustrious and beneficial to the country as it had been long. It would have been a saving grace could it have continued. He exerted all of his great powers to hold the judicial course to just and proper lines. His wonderfully strong personality, his high character, his keen and exalted sense of justice, and the extraordinary vigor with which he enforced his views, gave him a national reputation. His virile opinions have been far reaching in their influence and will increase in interest as time passes. They are distinguished for their entire consistency, for the pro- found knowledge of the law which they exhibit, and for the heroic applica- tion of those great principles of justice upon which our jurisprudence is founded:
He may be said to be an Iowa product, as he came to it while a child with his father and family, when it was a territory; and a part of your city is built upon land which members of his family acquired upon the departure of the Indians in May, 1843. His father, Van Caldwell, had been a Virginia planter. He came to the territory at a very early day and was known up and down this beautiful valley for his old fashioned hos- pitality and his great admiration for Henry Clay, for whom his son was named.
Had Judge Caldwell remained at the bar, he would beyond question have attained great distinction as a lawyer, for he strikingly displayed while a young man the essential qualities necessary for that purpose. He was a member of the Legislature in 1860, was made chairman of the judici- ary committee on account of his legal attainments and attracted general attention by his impetuous and strong off-hand speeches. But on the breaking out of the war, he entered the army, where he served with dis- tinction as major, and afterwards as lieutenant colonel and colonel of the Third Iowa Cavalry, and at the close of the war was appointed a Federal judge by Abraham Lincoln, which changed the course of his career.
JUDGE HENRY B. HENDERSHOTT By Hon. Edward H. Stiles
The recent death of Francis Springer who, as a member of four legis- lative assemblies of the territory and two of the state, president of the Constitutional Convention of 1857, and many years a judge in his judicial district, rendered conspicuous service in laying the foundations and shap- ing the jurisprudence of Iowa, forcibly reminds us that nearly all of th individual links that bind us to its early history are broken. Scarcely any remain. The subject of this sketch, Henry B. Hendershott, is now, I believe, the only surviving district judge of the period during which he presided over the second judicial district. In his eighty-third year, with a personal history glorified by pure living and useful services to the terri- tory and state, he calmly watches the lengthening shadows.
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His career adds another instance to the strong and self-made men who braved the hardships of pioneer life to make Iowa what she is. It is well worthy of study as an inspiring example to young men without means who are emulous of honors and success. It is also worthy of permanent preser- vation in the archives of the state in order that perpetual honor may be done to the memory of one who has served it so faithfully and well. He was decidedly a child of the frontier, and in essential respects may be said to have been a resident of four different territories during his earlier years. For though born in Ohio after it became a state, it was only a short period after its emergence from a territorial condition and while it was yet for the most part a wilderness. It was admitted in 1802, and had then a popu- lation, including whites and negroes, of only some forty thousand people. He was born in the wilds of Miami county in 1816. In the fall of the same year the family moved to the then Territory of Illinois, the subject of this sketch being carried in his mother's lap on horseback, while the other members of the family traveled, and carried their personal effects in wagons.
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