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Ex Libris Otto C.Schneider Chicago
IVF CHICAGO
WATERMAN
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HISTORICAL REVIEW
OF
CHICAGO AND COOK COUNTY
AND SELECTED BIOGRAPHY
A. N. WATERMAN, A. B., LL. D. 1 1
EDITOR AND AUTHOR OF HISTORICAL REVIEW
VOLUME II
ILLUSTRATED
THE LEWIS PUBLISHING COMPANY CHICAGO NEW YORK
1908
THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY
R
206295B ASTOR. LL TOX AND TILDEN FOUNDATIONS 1942 L
1
THENEWY. RA PUBLIC LIBRARY
ASTOR, LENOX AND FILDEN FOUNDATIONS
PRESENT COURT HOUSE
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19071
CHICAGO AND COOK COUNTY
The Courts and the Bar
Until the early thirties the local judiciary consisted of justices of the peace. The pioneer John Kinzie was recommended for justice of the peace in June, 1821, when Chicago was a part of Pike county ; also in 1823, when Chicago was in Fulton county, and was recommis- sioned in July, 1825, after the organization of Peoria county, in which Chicago was included. Other justices were :
Alexander Wolcott and Jean Baptiste Beaubien, appointed Sep- tember, 1825.
John L. Bogardus, appointed January, 1826.
John S. C. Hogan, elected (by new law of 1826) July. 1830. Stephen Forbes, elected November, 1830.
At the organization of Cook county in 1831 there were four jus- tices, commissioned, in May, 1831, one of them being Archibald Cly- bourne, who lived on a farm now within the city limits. Russell E. Heacock became a justice in September, 1831, Isaac Harmon was elected in June, 1832, and in July, 1834, a large majority of the voters gave the honor of this office to John Dean Caton. Until after the organization of Cook county the only recorded business before the justices was marriages.
The territory of Cook county, as formed in 1831, was made a part of the fifth judicial circuit, which then comprised all the coun-
CIRCUIT ties of northern Illinois, fifteen in number (since di-
COURT. vided into more than twice that number). Richard
M. Young, one of the earliest lawyers and judges of Illinois, was appointed judge of this district. The records of his court in Cook county, if there were any, have been destroyed, and it is on traditional authority stated that he held court in Fort Dearborn in 1831 and 1832. The late Thomas Hoyne, who did not become Vol. II-1
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a resident of Chicago till the fall of 1837, stated that Judge Young held court in September, 1833, and in May, 1834. It is probable that the first case of record was tried at the latter date.
By act of January 17, 1835, Cook county became part of the newly created sixth circuit (embracing nine counties, or about a third of the state). Thomas Ford, who had been state's attorney in the fifth circuit, was appointed judge of the district. The terms in Cook county in 1835 were held by Sidney Breese and Stephen T. Logan respectively, Judge Ford presiding here at the two sessions of 1836. The First Presbyterian church (north of the present Sherman House, and fronting on Clark street) was the court house during these two years, and in that pioneer religious edifice several hundred cases were tried, including the second murder trial in Chicago and the famous Beaubien land case.
The seventh judicial circuit was created by act of February 4, 1837, embracing the counties of Cook, Will, McHenry, Kane, La- Salle and Iroquois. The judge of this circuit, until November 20, 1840, was John Pearson, who has been described as "a poor lawyer and an industrious office-seeker." His selection was very distasteful to most of the Chicago attorneys, and it was only by great forbear- ance on their part that an open rupture was prevented. At least one effort was made to impeach this judge, and in several instances the unpleasant relations between judge and bar were brought to the at- tention of the supreme court. A man of strong prejudices, obstinate, sometimes petty in his ways, and differing in politics with the major- ity of the lawyers practicing before him, he never succeeded in im- pressing the bar with his uprightness as a judge and the complete integrity of his purpose.
Within the term of Judge Pearson belongs the history of the first municipal court. This was a court of concurrent jurisdiction with the circuit court within the limits of the city, and it did much to relieve the overcrowded docket of the latter court. The provisions for the establishment of this court are contained in the first city char- ter, and Thomas Ford, who had recently resigned as judge of the sixth circuit, was appointed by the legislature as its first judge. Its sessions, fixed to begin every other month, were practically contin- uous during the existence of the court. The court's principal activity was in the trial of debtor cases growing out of the business depres-
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sion following 1837, and it was largely due to the convenience of the court as a medium of justice between debtor and creditor and its ready despatch of judicial business that an opposition to the court arose, which resulted in the legislature abolishing the court, February 15, 1839. Its records were transferred to the circuit court.
The next judge of the seventh circuit, who began the spring term at Chicago in April, 1841, was Judge T. W. Smith, who found over a thousand cases awaiting trial. By an act of the legislature in Feb- ruary, 1841, the nine circuit judges of the state had been legislated out of office, and the supreme court increased to nine members, who in addition to their duties as judges of the supreme court, held the respective circuit courts, the supreme court having two terms each year. This arrangement continued until the adoption of the con- stitution of 1848. Judge Smith was popular with the Chicago bar. and much esteemed for his high order of talent and legal attainments. He resigned December 26, 1842. At the spring term of the latter year a severe illness prevented him from presiding in Cook county, and in his stead Stephen A. Douglas was assigned to this court for a special term beginning July 18, 1842, this being the only time Mr. Douglas served Chicago as judge.
Judge Smith's successor in the seventh circuit was Richard M. Young, who had been commissioned a justice of the supreme court, January 14, 1843. This pioneer judge continued to hold court perio- dically in Cook county until his resignation in January, 1847, when he was succeeded by Jesse B. Thomas, Jr., who was judge until the new order of things instituted by the constitution of 1848.
In the meantime the judicial business of this county had been steadily increasing, and the court was unable in three sessions of the circuit court each year, as provided by act of 1843, to properly dispose of the cases ready for hearing. Therefore, in February, 1845, the COUNTY COURT. legislature established "a Cook County Court" of record, with jurisdiction concurrent with the circuit courts, to hold four terms each year. Hugh T. Dickey, who was the first judge of this court and held the first term of this court in May, 1845, had been a member of the Chicago bar since 1838, and by his ability as a lawyer and his dignified, impartial conduct on the bench at once brought this court into favor with the bar and the public.
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By the constitution of 1848 the circuit courts were re-established. Nine circuits were created, each of which elected a judge for six years. According to power conferred by the constitution, the general assembly increased the number of circuits until, before the constitu- tion of 1848 was replaced by that of 1870, there were thirty circuits. By the new constitution the supreme court consisted of three judges, each elected for a term of nine years.
The new constitution provided that the jurisdiction of the county court should extend "to all probate and such other jurisdiction as the general assembly may confer in civil cases, and such criminal cases as may be prescribed by law." punishable by fine not exceeding one hun- dred dollars. It was also provided that the county judge, who was to be elected for four years, with such justices of the peace as were designated by law, should hold court for the transaction of county business, thus replacing the county commissioners court and judge of probate of the previous constitution.
The schedule of the constitution continued the existence of the Cook county court as already established. Hugh T. Dickey resigned as judge, and was elected judge for the newly created seventh judicial circuit. His successor in the county court was Giles Spring. In order to distinguish the original Cook county court, established in 1845, from the new county court (whose duties were largely admin- istrative and probate), the legislature (act of November 5, 1849) changed the title to "Cook County Court of Common Pleas," and it was given equal jurisdiction with the Cook county circuit court. Already the dockets of the two courts were crowded beyond the capacity of the two judges.
The superior court of Cook county, which now has twelve judges, originated in the old Cook County Court of 1845, which later took the additional name "of Common Pleas." In Feb-
SUPERIOR
ruary, 1859, the legislature amended the original act
COURT. so that the court known as the Cook County Court of Common Pleas was continued with all its powers, jurisdiction and authority, and with the additional jurisdiction conferred by the act. It was to be composed of three justices, and thereafter known as the "Superior Court of Chicago." John M. Wilson, judge at the time of the passage of this act, was continued a member of the court, and as his associates Grant Goodrich and Van Hollis Higgins were elected
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in February, 1859. The superior court of Chicago became, by the constitution of 1870, the Superior Court of Cook County.
From 1853 until the adoption of the constitution of 1870 the recorder's court of Chicago was in existence. It was established by act of February 12, 1853, as "an inferior court of civil and criminal jurisdiction" (concurrent within said city with the circuit court in all criminal cases, except treason and murder, and having jurisdiction of civil cases where the amount in controversy did not exceed one hundred dollars). Robert S. Wilson was the first judge, and the first clerk was Philip A. Hoyne, brother of Thomas Hoyne.
The first circuit judge to hold court in Chicago, following the organization of Cook county in 1831, was Richard M. Young, who
had been commissioned judge of the fifthi circuit,
RICHARD M. YOUNG. comprising all the state north of the Illinois river, in January, 1829. From his residence at Quincy he had to ride over all northern Illinois, as far as Chicago, to attend the different courts. It is said that he held a court session in Fort Dear- born in 1831 and the following year in the house of James Kinzie. though there is no record of the proceedings. In 1835 his circuit was limited so as to place Cook county in the sixth circuit, but as an associate justice of the supreme court (1843-1847) he frequently held court in Chicago. He was United States senator from Illinois 1837 to 1843. The close of his life was disastrously clouded by in- sanity.
The court sessions held by Judge Young in the first years of Chi- cago's history were events of great importance not only to those especially interested in the proceedings of the court, but to the citi- zens in general. "When circuit court was in session," said Thomas Hoyne in speaking of the "Lawyer as a Pioneer," "probably every member of the bar was in attendance. There were no district tele- graphs nor telephones, and during the term time the lawyers kept no office hours. Besides, the entire number was only twenty-seven persons."
From 1855 until his death in May, 1863, the judge of the seventh judicial circuit, comprising Cook and Lake counties, was George
GEORGE Manierre. As a historic figure in the public life of the city and state during the middle period of the last century he has been honored as a statesman,
MANIERRE.
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journalist, lawyer and jurist. Originally a Democrat, he was chair- man of the committee on resolutions in the famous Aurora conven- tion of September, 1854, presented the party platform and suggested the name "Republican" for the new party. In Chicago affairs, he is to be remembered for the part he took in the establishment of Lincoln Park, as a member of the first board of regents of the old Chicago University in 1859, one of the creators of the Law Institute and Library, a founder of the Chicago Historical Society, and a de- voted friend of public education, in token of which a school on the north side bears his name. At one time he was editor of the Chicago Democrat. He was born in Connecticut, began studying law in New York City, came to Chicago in 1835, was admitted to the bar in 1839, and from that time until his death was constantly in some official service. As city attorney during the early forties, he prepared. a digest of the original charter and municipal ordinances which was the standard of authority until 1853.
At the time of the adoption of the constitution of 1870 the state courts of record in Chicago were (1) the circuit court, over which one judge presided, that judge being, in 1870, Erastus S. Williams; (2) the superior court of Chicago, over which three judges presided, each of the judges usually holding a branch of the court; (3) the recorder's court; and (4) the county court of Cook county, which then had probate jurisdiction. Judge Williams sat in Lake county as the judge of the circuit court until after 1870, the counties of Lake and Cook constituting the judicial circuit for which he was judge, prior to the adoption of the constitution of 1870. In addition there were the federal courts.
In 1870 Cook county was constituted one judicial circuit, and the Cook county circuit court was given five judges, one of whom was the judge of the recorder's court. Judge Williams, who presided over the court before the change, William K. McAllister, former judge of the recorder's court, and William W. Farwell, Henry Booth and John G. Rogers, elected as additional, judges, were the first set of judges of the circuit court as constituted in 1870.
The recorder's court was continued under a new name, the "crim- inal court of Cook county," one of the judges from the circuit or superior courts being assigned to it.
From five judges in 1870 the circuit court now has fourteen
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judges, the increase having been authorized by the legislature in ac- cordance with the increase of population in the county.
The constitution having authorized the establishment of appellate courts, the legislature in 1877 created four such courts for as many districts in the state. Cook county was made. one district. The judges of such court were to be three circuit judges, assigned by the supreme court for the term of three years. The judges first assigned to the appellate court in Cook county, for the September term of 1877, were W. W. Heaton, George W. Pleasants and Theodore D. Murphy. The volume of business coming within the jurisdiction of the appellate court increased until a branch court was established in Cook county.
One of the strongest political figures in Illinois during the middle period of the last century was Ebenezer Peck. A natural leader of
EBENEZER men, and at the same time an able and industrious
PECK. lawyer, it is natural that his name should as it does often appear in the history of his times. To the legal profession of the present day he is probably most widely known as the reporter of the supreme court who first gave to these the name "Illinois Reports," and who edited the volumes from eleven to thirty. From 1863 to 1875 he was one of the judges of the court of claims at Washington. He came to Chicago in 1835, having been born in Maine and having risen to prominence in law and politics in Mon- treal. He and J. D. Caton have always been regarded as the principal authors of the first charter of the city of Chicago. For some years he was in politics a Democrat, but was one of the founders of the Republican party in Illinois and one of its most influential leaders, as well as a close friend and admirer of Lincoln.
It is noticeable that the early lawyers of Chicago, with very few exceptions, came from New York and the New England states. The state of Kentucky, however, produced Buckner S.
BUCKNER S. MORRIS. Morris, a conspicuous figure in the early history of the bar. He was somewhat peculiar in character, an impetuous, kind-hearted, upright man, who believed in the justice of slavery. Largely on the ground of his outspoken sympathy with those struggling to maintain the existence of the conditions amid which he was reared, he was arrested during the war and tried by a court martial for plotting to free rebel prisoners. He was
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acquitted, there being no evidence of his having done anything but speak intemperately and hastily of the war to maintain the Union. Thereafter he retired from active practice and died in 1879. He was connected with public affairs in various capacities. He began practice at Chicago in 1835, and in 1838 was elected mayor of the city. Some of his partners in practice were J. Y. Scammon, Grant Goodrich, and John J. Brown. In 1853 he succeeded Hugh T. Dickey as judge of the circuit court of Cook county, serving out an unexpired term. As a jurist no man was more ready to acknowledge a misap- prehension of the law or misunderstanding of the facts.
Peace! troubled soul, The waves that rose so high And shook the solid earth Are now at rest, While they who rode upon the stormy sea Clasp hands on fields o'er which they fought.
The first lawyer that came to Chicago to reside, though not to engage in regular practice, was Charles Jouett, who was sent here as Indian agent in 1805. (This is on the authority of the late Judge Elliott Anthony.) He was born in Virginia in 1772, studied law at Charlottesville, Virginia, and was appointed by Thomas Jefferson- Indian agent at Detroit in 1802. In 1805 he was appointed Indian agent at Chicago, and on October 26, 1805, assumed charge, by direc- tion of the government, of the Sacs, Foxes and Pottawattomies. He was again appointed Indian agent at Chicago by President Madison in 1815, and moved here with his family in that year.
It is said that Giles Spring was the first lawyer to make a living by his profession in Chicago. He arrived in the village in 1833 a few days before John Dean Caton, and from that time
GILES SPRING. until his death in May, 1851, was one of the best known members of the bar. He was judge of the Cook county court of common pleas at the time of his death. Of him Judge Goodrich said: "Spring was a phenomenon, a natural born lawyer. His education was quite limited, and he paid little re- spect to rule of grammar, yet could present cases to court and jury with clearness and force seldom equaled. He seemed sometimes to have an intuitive knowledge of the law and mastery of its profound -
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est and most subtle principles. His brain worked with the rapidity of lightning and the force of an engine." Giles Spring was born in Massachusetts in 1807, when a young man moved to the "Western Reserve," studied law at Ashtabula with the notable men, Ben F. Wade and Joshua R. Giddings, and was admitted to the Ohio bar. He and J. D. Caton were usually ranged on opposite sides of the im- portant cases before the early courts. "The only rivalry between us." wrote Judge Caton, "was as to who could most zealously serve his client, with the greatest courtesy and kindness to each other." A man of lovable disposition, confirmed in the high regard of the com- munity both by character and ability, he was unfortunately a victim of drink, and his premature death was attributed to this influence.
Living near Fort Dearborn in 1828, on the south branch of the river at a place called "Heacock's Point," was Russell E. Heacock. RUSSELL E. HEACOCK. Born in Litchfield, Connecticut, in 1780, a carpenter by trade, he studied law in St. Louis in 1806, and like other pioneers, discovered the need of varied ac- tivities while a resident of Chicago during the twenties and early thir- ties. In 1831 he was licensed to keep a tavern, and in the same year was made a justice of the peace. In 1835 his law office was in a building at the corner of Lake and Franklin. Historical testimony affirms that he was a man of remarkable independence in thought and action. For example, he was the only one of the thirteen residents of Chicago to vote against the incorporation of the village. The late James B. Bradwell said of him: "As a public speaker pleasing, in- structive and often eloquent ; his outspokenness, his fine conversa- tional powers, his generosity and frankness of character, and his in- exhaustible fund of narrative and anecdote made him most compan- able." He helped organize Cook county and brought the first suits in its circuit courts. During the canal agitation, he advocated the "shallow cut" instead of the "deep cut," and when the state became bankrupt the canal was constructed according to his original ideas, though they had been the object of much ridicule and he was called "Shallow Cut" Heacock. He died in 1849, having been a paralytic since 1843. Concerning his log cabin residence, Judge Anthony says it was situated "about three quarters of a mile southeast of the lock at Bridgeport and about one mile south of Hardscrabble."
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"The judicial annals of our state," declares Judge Anthony, in estimating the achievements of John Dean Caton, "are his monu-
ment." Judge Caton survived all his earliest Chi-
JOHN DEAN CATON. cago contemporaries, and though he had long before retired from active practice, he was at the time of his death in 1895 regarded as the ablest and most revered representa- tive of the old Cook county bar. Of Irish stock and a colonial Vir- ginia family that settled in New York after the Revolution, he was born in Orange county, New York, March 19, 1812. As a boy he was a support to his widowed mother, and the hardships of his youth- ful experiences on a farm caused him shuddering recollections all his life. He learned harness making, but the trade was distasteful, and he then became a wagoner and peddler. At the age of seventeen he began attendance at an academy, studying law also, and supported himself by teaching and farming. He had learned the rudiments of the law when he came west in 1833, and in the fall of that year, when he took the admission examination before Judge Lockwood, the latter concluded the test by saying, "Young man, I shall give you a license ; but you have a great deal to learn to make you a good lawyer. If you work hard you will attain it"-which he did by becoming asso- ciate justice of the state supreme court within nine years. He lived on a farm for several years, and soon after resuming practice in 1842 was appointed to the supreme court as successor of Governor-elect Ford. He was one of the first judges under the new system by which each of the nine supreme justices presided over one of the Illinois circuits. By the constitution of 1848 it was provided that the su- preme court should consist of three judges elected by the people, with- out circuit duties. Judge Caton was re-elected to its bench, and honored that high office until his resignation in 1864, having been chief justice of that court during the last seven years. He was active in constructing and largely responsible for the successful com- pletion of the telegraph lines comprised under the old Illinois and Mississippi Telegraph Company, and which were afterward leased to the Western Union. Judge Caton was a student of many branches of learning, and during his later years traveled extensively.
"He was a man who had great strength of character, and was characterized by sound judgment and most excellent common sense.
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He was not what would be called a skilled pleader and an adroit prac- titioner, but his plain and rugged manner of presenting every ques- tion to a jury was something which was highly commended by the old pioneers and commanded their admiration. He was honest and fair, and despised anything that smacked of trickery." Judge Caton, it is claimed, brought the first suit in the circuit court at Chicago, and tried the first jury cases in Cook, Will and Kane counties. His was the first law office in Chicago, and Giles Spring, his forensic op- ponent, had desk room in the same office. The office was a back room and attic in Dr. Temple's building on Lake street. It fell to the lot of Judge Caton, shortly after his elevation to the supreme bench, to preside at the historic trial of the People vs. Lovejoy in Bureau county, and in instructing the jury he voiced emphatically the princi- ple that "if a man voluntarily brings his slave into a free state the slave becomes free."
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