USA > Illinois > Cook County > Chicago > Historical review of Chicago and Cook county and selected biography, Volume II > Part 14
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Adolph Moses was born at Speyer, capital of the' Palatinate, Ger- many, on the 27th. of February, 1837, being a son of Joseph and Rebecca (Adler) Moses. From early boyhood his own inclinations and his parents' wishes coincided in the choice of the legal profession, but, after passing through the public and Latin schools of his native place, he found such a prevailing prejudice against his race in Ger- many that he decided to come to America. Arriving at New Orleans on the twenty-second of December, 1852, the youth at once became a student at the Louisiana University, and had the benefit of receiving his first professional instruction from such lawyers as Randall Hunt,
THENEW PUBLIC LIBRARY
ASTOR, LENOX AND TILDEN FOUNDATIONS
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Christian Roselius, Alfred Hennan and Judge Thomas M. McCaleb. Graduating in March, 1861, he was admitted to the Louisiana bar and commenced practice in New Orleans, but his career was inter- rupted by the Civil war, since his nine years' residence in the south naturally drew him to espouse the cause of the Confederacy ; and es- pousal with him was ever another word for action. First, think hard, and then act with equal vigor-this appears to have been one of his life rules. He therefore joined the Twenty-first Louisiana Regiment of infantry and, as captain of one of its companies, fought with bravery and earnestness for two years.
At the expiration of that period Mr. Moses came north and located at Quincy, Illinois, where he remained in practice until his removal to Chicago in 1869. The vigor, independence, breadth and openness of its people, with the prevailing civic spirit of cheerful confidence, fully accorded with the character of the young attorney ; and he remained, for the balance of his life, one with Chicago in letter and spirit. His knowledge of the law, both broad and accurate, brought him at once into the front rank of practitioners, and, with the growth of Chicago as a commercial and business center, his legal practice increased pro- portionately. The extent and variety of it can be seen by reference to reports of the Supreme and Appellate courts, in whose archives are many briefs and arguments which are the product of his active brain. As a legal adviser, he attained a wide reputation, and was employed by many large corporations in this capacity, being especially desig- nated at the bar as the senior member of the firm of Moses, Rosenthal and Kennedy.
.Mr. Moses was also a writer of force and merit, his "Rambles Through the Illinois Reports," illustrating the judicial, political and social history of the state and its people, through the medium of the Breese Reports. In 1890 he founded the National Corporation Re- porter, a legal journal devoted to the interests of corporations, and of which he was sole editor for several years. Later, he established the United States Corporation Bureau, of which he was president at the time of his death. He had also served as president of the State Bar Association in 1897, and had always done his full share to make its proceedings interesting and instructive. In 1895 he read a paper before that body on the subject "Abolition of the Variance," which was widely circulated and much discussed. At the opening of the con-
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solidated Supreme court in October, 1897, Mr. Moses was selected by the bar of Illinois to deliver the address of welcome to the court, which is published in the annual report of the State Association of 1898, and in the official reports of the proceedings of that court.
A firm Democrat in politics, Mr. Moses was never a politician. In 1879 he was an unsuccessful candidate of his party for the office of judge of the Superior court, but otherwise refused the use of his name as an aspirant for political honors. His deep interest in matters of public education, however, induced him to act as one of the directors of the Chicago Public Library for a term of six years, and as chair- man of the library committee, he accomplished much for the advance- ment of that institution. He was the originator of the John Marshall centennial of February 4, 1901, and his membership in the Chicago Historical Society indicated a decided trend of his thought and literary investigations.
In 1869 Mr. Moses married Miss Matilda Wolf, a native of Man- heim, Germany, and the following children have been born to them: Joseph W., Julius, Hamilton, Paul A .; Virginia, now Mrs. Moritz Rosenthal; and Irma, wife of J. W. Moses, of New Orleans. Two of the sons were members of the firm of which he was the senior mem- ber at his decease, Moritz Rosenthal, the second member, being his son-in-law. Mr. Moses was a member of various social, benevolent and political organizations, including the Masonic fraternity, the Standard and Iroquois clubs, and the Independent Order of B'nai B'rith, acting as the first president of the national convention of the last named fraternity in 1869. For many years he had been a member of Sinai Congregation, and his death, November 6, 1905, at Ashe- ville, North Carolina, removed from that body one of its most faithful and influential members.
When it is realized that John Sumner Runnells has been general counsel of the Pullman Company for a period of more than twenty
JOHN S. years the student of large affairs at once places him in the first professional ranks. It is true that
RUNNELLS.
George M. Pullman began devising practical sleep- ing cars half a century ago, that the Pullman Palace Car Company was organized forty years ago, and that since the days of the "Pioneer" sleeping coach many resourceful and able men have co- operated with the great founder of the enterprise to make it an in-
-
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dustrial power of national scope. But, although Mr. Runnells is not a pioneer in the work of the Pullman Company, he has remained at the head of its complicated legal department during the period of its greatest development and, with his strong hand at the helm, has guided it through many complications. His connection with the com- pany commenced a few years after the founding of the town of Pull- man, which may be said to have inaugurated the modern expansion of the great industry which has set the standard for the construction of railway cars throughout the world. He has been general counsel of the company since 1887 and vice president since May, 1905, the appointment to the latter position being a signal recognition of the strength and breadth of his influence upon the general progress of the company.
Born at Effingham, New Hampshire, on the 30th of July, 1844. son of John and Huldah S. Runnells, John Sumner Runnells received the benefits of a sturdy New England rearing which developed the strongest elements of his character. After passing through the pub- lic schools of Tamworth, New York, and the New Hampshire Acad- emy in his native state, at the age of sixteen he entered Amherst College. On his graduation in 1865 he had taken the highest honors in Greek and in extemporaneous speaking. This latter talent has proved one of his marked and strong traits. As a ready speaker and orator, Mr. Runnells has made a high reputation apart from los sub- stantial professional career, being well known as a finished orator on patriotic and public occasions ; and his ability in this direction doubt- less influenced his political progress during his earlier years.
From his collegiate successes at Amherst, Mr. Runnells went to the old town of Dover, New Hampshire, and began studying law. The Civil war had just closed and, despite the draining of the coun- try's resources, the middle west was entering upon an unprecedented era of material development, and the prophets of progress already saw the great plains of the farther west spanned by iron ways and sprinkled with villages and cities. This new world required strong and wise men from the east to cast their fortunes with virile west : and Mr. Runnells proved of this accession. In 1857 he left Dover and came to Iowa, where he became private secretary to the governor of the state. His energy, versatile ability and attractive personality brought him rapid promotion. In 1869 President Grant appointed
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him to the consular service and he spent two years in England, which gave him a new experience and could not but broaden his life.
On his return to the United States, in 1871, Mr. Runnells was admitted to the Iowa bar and began practice at Des Moines. In 1875 he was elected reporter of the state supreme court, and eighteen volumes of its records bear testimony that his position was no sine- cure. His high standing as a practitioner was strengthened by his appointment as United States district attorney by President Arthur, his services in that position extending from 1881 to 1885. This was also the period of his greatest activity and prominence in Republican politics, being chairman of the Iowa state committee from 1879 to 1880, Iowa member of the national committee in 1880-4, and a dele- gate to the national Republican convention in 1880. Though his Iowa practice was mainly of a general nature, Mr. Runnells became noted in the specialty of railway and telegraph law. In view of his promi- nence he could not but become involved in the complication growing from the enforcement of the state prohibitory laws, and materially added to his reputation as principal attorney in a case which involved the constitutionality of certain of their sections. He conducted this case not only through the state courts, but carried it to the supreme court of the United States, where his main contentions were sustained.
As stated, Mr. Runnells' private practice concluded with the year 1887, when he came to Chicago to enter the services of the Pullman Company as its general counsel. In that capacity his greatest repu- tation has been made. He has also acted as special counsel for the Burlington, the Wabash and other railroad systems, as well as for the Western Union Telegraph and American Express companies. For a number of years past he has been senior member of the firm of Runnells and Burry, whose large practice has extended to all branches of civil law. After a mere enumeration of such activities, it may be deemed unnecessary to allude to Mr. Runnells' executive force as one of the causes of his continuous advancement, as well as his ability to manage varied and complicated interests successfully, without friction and confusion.
While a resident of Des Moines, Iowa, Mr. Runnells was mar- ried, March 31, 1869, to Miss Helen R. Baker, by whom he has become the father of the following: Mabel, now Mrs. Robert I. Jenks ; Lucy, Mrs. A. W. Jackson; Clive and Alice Rutherford. Mr.
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Runnells is president of the Chicago Club and of the Saddle and Cycle Club, and has membership with the Chicago Literary, Univer- sity and Onwentsia clubs of Chicago, and with the University Club of New York. In his domestic life and outside the pale of his pro- fession, he is affectionate, unassuming and companionable, and alto- gether may be designated a fine product of metropolitan life.
In the long and uniformly progressive career of Willian H. Barnum several personal traits are quite noticeable, among which is versatility of talents combined with thoroughness
WILLIAM H. BARNUM. of preparation and depth of legal knowledge. A man of broad education and experience, of high per- sonal character, courteous and able, he is one of Chicago's strong characters. Mr. Barnum is a native of Onondaga county, New York. born February 15, 1840, son of Charles and Harriet (Rogers) Barnum. When he was two years of age his parents became resi- dents of Belleville, Illinois, where he received his preparatory educa- tion in various private schools. At the age of sixteen he became a student in the State Normal School at Ypsilanti, Michigan, his two and a half years' course there being occasionally interrupted by teach- ing in Belleville schools. In the fall of 1858 he entered the Univer- sity of Michigan as a sophomore and, although obliged to relinquish his course in the junior year, his Alma Mater long since enrolled him among her Alumni and bestowed upon him an honorary degree. On leaving Michigan University he resumed teaching at Belleville, con- tinuing his classical, literary and historical studies under competent private instructors. In 1860 he became a student in the law office of Hon. George Trumbull, of that place, whose bar, then especially. in- cluded some of the most distinguished lawyers of the state. Ad- mitted to the bar in 1862, Mr. Barnum began practice in Chester. Randolph county, Illinois, and for the ensuing five years remained in the circuit which comprised five counties of the state. Quite a muuin- ber of interesting and most important cases tried by him in those years went to the supreme court, some of them ranking as leading cases. During three of his five years' residence in Chester Mr. Barnum served as master in chancery and, although his clientage rapidly in- creased, in the fall of 1867 he removed to Chicago, in pursuance of his original intention to ultimately establish himself in some metro- politan city.
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Mr. Barnum became a resident of Chicago on the invitation of Lawrence J. J. Nissen to join him in a partnership. The firm thus formed continued for a period of eleven years. During this time Mr. Barnum attended almost exclusively to the court practice of the firm and acquired distinction as a trial lawyer, as well as for his legal arguments and briefs in the supreme court. In 1876-8 George F. Harding was identified with the firm under the style of Harding, Nissen and Barnum, and upon its dissolution Judge Barnum was for two years associated in practice with Cornelius Van Schaack until elevated to the bench of the circuit court (in the summer of 1879). Mr. Barnum served as circuit judge of Cook county from the time mentioned until December 1, 1884, when he resigned to re-enter pri- vate practice.
As a jurist Judge Barnum evinced a broad knowledge of law and equity, a conscientious regard for the rights of all classes of litigants and fine executive ability in the dispatch of business. By arrange- ment with his colleagues he occupied the chancery bench for three years, and with facility and thoroughness cleared from the dockets a large number of cases and motions which had been in arrears for sev- eral years. By means of general calls and speedy decisions his chan- cery calendar was reduced to comparatively small and quite manage- able proportions, when in September, 1882, it was turned over to his successor. Pursuant to the arrangements mentioned, Judge Barnum then took up a common-law docket, not from any preference for it, but from a desire to keep abreast with the bar and with the progress of legal questions through the courts. He also held terms of the criminal court, and his judicial duties, wherever performed, were dis- charged with absolute fearlessness and impartiality. His resignation occurred near the close of his six years' term and he declined to accept another nomination, when it would have been equivalent to an election, his decided preference being for the greater activities of private practice.
Mr. Barnum again became a member of the Chicago bar as senior member of the firm of Barnum, Rubens and Ames. This connection was continued for three and a half years. He then associated with him his son, Albert W. Barnum, who had just returned from Yale College and been admitted to the bar. This congenial relationship lasted until the death of the latter in 1903. From first to last, it
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would be difficult to find a lawyer in the state who has tried more causes, written more briefs, made more arguments and carried more of his litigation to a successful conclusion, than William H. Barnum. An active Democrat, he was the nominee of his party for the circuit judgeship in 1903, but otherwise has never been a candidate for office. the professional responsibilities which he has borne forbidding par- ticipation in general politics. In 1860 Mr. Barnum was united in marriage to Miss Clara Hyde, of Belleville, Illinois. They have had five children : Belle, now Mrs. M. D. L. Simpson, of Riverside, Illi- nois; Albert, now deceased; Gertrude; Edna, the wife of Justin K. Toles, residing in California ; and Harry H. Barnum. The last named is a successful Chicago lawyer in active practice.
The late Frederick Hampden Winston was a fine type of the courteous, dignified southern gentleman, united to the energetic, suc-
cessful, practical man of the North. In him met the
FREDERICK H. WINSTON.
best traits of the Cavalier and the Puritan, and pro-
duced a breadth and solidity of character, with a smoothness and richness of mental composition, which made him a most marked character among the many strong and unique men of Chicago.
Rev. Dennis M. Winston, brother of Frederick S. Winston, a leading merchant of New York City, and himself a talented young Presbyterian divine, in the early years of the nineteenth century sought the milder climate of the South for the benefit of his failing health. Locating finally in Georgia he married Miss Mary McIn- tosh, granddaughter of the distinguished General McIntosh and a representative of one of the first families of that state. A portion of the considerable wealth which fell to this Mrs. Winston consisted of slaves. At their home, known as Sand Hill, Liberty county, Georgia, was born their son, Frederick Hampden Winston. in the year 1830. on the 20th of November. When he was five years of age his parents removed to Kentucky, locating in Woodford county, and with a spirit of self-sacrifice in which they were by no means alone among the noble families of the South, they freed their bondsmen because of conscientious scruples. The act deprived them of most of their wealth, and two years after their arrival in Kentucky Mrs. Winston passed away. Her husband survived her only until 1842.
At the age of twelve years Frederick H. was therefore left with-
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out parents or prospects of any special promise, but the legacy of a splendid character left by his cultured and Christian parents saved him from despondency and eventually brought him along the high- road to an honorable success. He was educated in the good private schools of Kentucky until he was sixteen years of age, when he re- turned to Georgia to engage in that favorite occupation of the ambi- tious young men of the South, the manufacture of cotton. For the succeeding two years he was engaged in learning all the details of the industry, and in 1848, when but eighteen years of age, he. joined others in the organization of a company which sent him to New York to superintend the construction of machinery. His task was satisfac- torily completed by 1850, and he returned to Georgia to open the works, but as capital had even at that early day become timid in the South the enterprise was not placed on its feet, and young Winston determined to adopt a professional life.
Frederick H. Winston's career as a lawyer opens with his entrance as a student to the office of Hon. William C. Dawson, then United States senator from his native state, and after six months there he entered the law school of Harvard College. Prior to his graduation in 1853 Mr. Winston had the enterprise to go to New York and spend six months in the office of her most eminent lawyer, and perhaps the leader of the American bar, Hon. William M. Evarts. Under his able guidance he was soon admitted to the New York bar and in 1853 was prepared for practice in whatever line he should be called.
Locating in Chicago in that year, after a few months of inde- pendent practice he associated himself with Norman B. Judd, one of the most prominent members of the western bar, thus establishing the firm of Judd and Winston. During the seven years of their fine and large practice they reached a high position as corporation lawyers, and the partnership was terminated only by the appointment of Mr. Judd as minister to Germany by President Lincoln, in 1861. Later. he was identified in partnership practice with Henry W. Blodgett, who in 1870 was appointed by President Grant to the bench of the United States district court at Chicago. Although these national honors reacted favorably upon Mr. Winston as a lawyer, indicative as they were of the eminence of those who considered it mutually ad- vantageous to associate professionally with him, at the same time
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they involved changes and readjustments which threw heavy burdens upon him. As one of the most active and prominent Democrats in the West high honors had repeatedly been urged upon him by both party leaders and the administration, but he had persistently refused them in favor of professional labor and progress, and during the fif- teen years succeeding Judge Blodgett's elevation to the bench he be- came known as one of the greatest railroad lawyers in America. For many years he was chief general counsel for the Lake Shore & Michigan Southern, the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific and the Pittsburg, Fort Wayne & Chicago railways, serving the Pennsylvania line for two decades and carrying all the roads through some of the most important litigation of their history. After about thirty-two years of the most eminent service, not only in railway law but in the highest grade of practice in both state and federal courts, Mr. Winston retired from active practice in 1885.
Mr. Winston's retirement from active professional work was largely determined by a long-cherished desire to travel, especially in the countries of the Orient. He had been for twenty years an active leader in the Democratic party, and was a national figure in its delib- erations and campaigns, but had refused Congressional nominations and all public preferment of a permanent character. As early as 1868 he had served as a delegate-at-large to the convention which nomi- nated Horatio Seymour to the presidency, and represented Illinois in the national convention which placed Samuel J. Tilden in nomination. In 1884 he was a district delegate to the convention which named Grover Cleveland as the standard bearer of the party, and during his first administration held the closest relations to the president. It was in recognition of his eminent qualities that, in 1885, the administra- tion appointed Mr. Winston minister to Persia, and as the scene of his official duties allowed him a splendid opportunity to come into close touch with the fascinating life of the East he readily accepted the proffer. After spending about a year in the discharge of his duties in connection with the Persian ministry, in 1886 he resigned his office and spent a period of travel in Russia, Scandinavia and other countries. Returning to Chicago he soon embarked in various enterprises, notably that of the Union Stock Yards Company, of which he became president. He was also one of the organizers of the Lin-
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coln National Bank and long served on its directory, and for twelve years was president of the board of Lincoln Park commissioners.
On the 20th of August, 1855, Mr. Winston was married to Miss Maria G. Dudley, daughter of the well known Gen. Ambrose Dudley, of Frankfort, Kentucky. Six children were born to them, and be- sides Frederick S. (whose biography follows this), the sons were Dudley W. and Bertram M., leading brokers of Chicago. Mrs. Win- ston's decease occurred in 1885 and Mr. Winston died February 19, 1904.
Mr. Winston was a fine illustration of the courtly, successful lawyer. More than that, he was a lover of literature and the arts, and was an ardent lover of music. He was a member of the Ger,- mania Maennerchor, the Union Club, the Chicago Club, the Iroquois Club, and, on account of his connection with the McIntosh family, was identified with the Society of the Cincinnati and the Order of the Colonial Wars.
Frederick S. Winston is the son of the late Frederick H. Winston, one of the most eminent of American corporation lawyers and for
FREDERICK S. many years a Democrat of national prominence. A
WINSTON. biography of the elder Winston, including much of the remarkable family history in both paternal and maternal lines, will be found preceding this sketch. Frederick S. Winston is a Kentuckian, born in Franklin county, October 27, 1856, being the member of an American family which has appeared promi- nently in the epochs of several generations. His grandfather was Rev. Dennis M. Winston, a graduate of Hamilton and Princeton col- leges and a talented clergyman of the Presbyterian church, who lo- cated in Georgia and there married Miss Mary McIntosh, a member of one of the most distinguished families of that state. On account of their anti-slavery sentiments the Winstons moved to Kentucky, where they evinced the high courage of their convictions by liberat- . ing their slaves despite the blow which the act dealt to their family fortunes. It was here that Frederick Hampden Winston was married to Maria G. Dudley, and that Frederick S., their eldest son, was born.
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