USA > Illinois > Cook County > Chicago > Historical review of Chicago and Cook county and selected biography, Volume II > Part 25
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Colonel MacChesney is a member of the American Bar Associa- tion, Illinois State Bar Association, the Chicago Bar Association, Chi- cago Law Institute and the American Society of International Law, and his high standing among his associates is illustrated by the fact that he was chosen a delegate to the Universal Congress of Lawyers and Jurists at St. Louis in 1904, and has recently been appointed by Governor Deneen Commissioner on Uniformity of Legislation in the United States to represent Illinois in the Annual National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws. He has long been promi- nent in military matters, being identified with the National Guard of both California and Arizona, as well as of Illinois. During the Spanish-American war he did garrison duty on the Pacific coast, and is now lieutenant colonel and judge advocate of the First Brigade, Illi- nois National Guard. He is also commander of the State Camp of the Sons of Veterans (U. S. A.). Colonel MacChesney has also been greatly interested in and prominently identified with athletics as a member and manager of various college teams during his student days and as a member of various boards of alumni control since then.
He is identified with Chicago Association of Commerce, where he represents the attorneys' section on the Ways and Means Committee, Geographic Society of Chicago, Stanford Club of Chicago, Michigan Alumni Association, California Society, Southern Club, Michigan Union, American Association for the Advancement of Science, Men's Club of Hyde Park, Irish Fellowship Club, Engineers' Club, Knox County Association of Chicago, and the University, Union League, Hamilton, Illinois, City, Colonial, Chicago Literary, Twentieth Cen- tury, Chicago Yacht and South Shore Country clubs. In the fraternal ranks he is a Mason and a member of the Royal Arcanum. On De- cember 1, 1904, Colonel MacChesney married Miss Lena Frost, daughter of W. E. Frost, of Riverside, Illinois. Mrs. MacChesney is a graduate of the University of Michigan (received her A. B. in 1901), and was afterward a student in the University of Berlin and the University of Chicago. She is a member of the Association of Col- lege Alumnæ, Chicago Association of Michigan Alumnæ, and the German, Twentieth Century, College and Chicago South Side clubs.
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Ellen Gertrude Roberts has since 1900 been a practitioner of law at the Chicago bar and her success is such as many a much older
ELLEN G. attorney might well envy. One of the most notable signs of the times, indicative of the trend of modern
ROBERTS.
thought, is the attitude of public opinion toward the woman in professional life, and the acknowledgment of her worth and the value of her work. Miss Ellen G. Roberts as a practitioner of law has won high honors and gratifying success. She was largely reared in Kansas City, Kansas, to which place her parents, Thomas Brooks and Nancy (Dunlop) Roberts, removed during her infancy. They had previously been residents of Detroit, Michigan, her native city, and their family numbered six sons and seven daugh- ters. In this household Miss Roberts spent her girlhood days and. entering the public schools, passed through successive grades until she had completed the high school course. She was for two years a teacher in the public schools, after which she took up the study of bookkeeping and accounting in its most intricate form and became an expert. Her capability, energy and fearlessness to undertake a task, no matter how difficult or what the circumstances, combined with her persistence, won her success and she was enabled to command most excellent positions of that character. In the meantime she con- tinued her studies in the classics and history, kept well informed on general interests of the day, especially in regard to business matters, and made her extensive reading of value. One of her salient traits is her ready assimilation of all which she reads. She has, moreover, remarkable powers of adaptability.
Seeking a still broader field of labor in Chicago, Miss Roberts came to this city in the nineties and was given a position as accountant with one of the prominent business houses. While thus employed she took up the reading of law and for three years was a student in the Kent College of Law in the evening classes. Following her gradu- ation on June 2, 1900, at which time she won the class prize for the best scholarship in all studies. she took the bar examination at Spring- field and was admitted to practice in October, 1900. She then re- signed her position as accountant and entered upon the active prose- cution of the profession. She possesses a mind analytical, logical and - inductive, readily recognizes the relation of facts and co-ordinates the points in litigation with a force that indicates a thorough mastery
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of the subject and a mind trained in the severest school of investiga- tion, wherein close reasoning has become habitual and easy. In seven years her clientage has increased to extensive and gratifying proportions and she has been connected with much important litiga- tion tried in the courts of the city. She possesses a fine law library and is a member of the Chicago Bar Association and of the Illinois State Bar Association. She is also a stockholder in the Chicago Law Institute.
Miss Roberts, in addition to her law library, possesses a most in- teresting private library. She holds membership in Queen Esther chapter, No. 41, Order of the Eastern Star, and owns a fine residence at No. 81 Bowen avenue. While in her office and before the court her dominant quality seems to be a keen, incisive intellect. In social circles she possesses those truly womanly traits of character which everywhere command admiration and respect. She has simply made use of the innate talents which are hers, directing her efforts along those lines where rare discrimination and sound judgment have led the way.
Albert H. Putney, a member of the Chicago bar since 1899, is professor of constitutional and international law and equity juris-
ALBERT H. prudence at the Illinois College of Law, and since PUTNEY. 1904 has been dean of the faculty. Thoroughly qualified by training and practice in the various departments of his profession, he has achieved considerable reputa- tion and become an authority regularly quoted on the subjects of constitutional and international law. He is author of two works, "Government in the United States" and "Colonial Government of European States," which were published by the United States govern- ment for use as text books in the Philippine Islands. He has written considerably for various legal publications, and for one year was editor of the Law Register.
Mr. Putney was born in Boston in 1872. After preparing for college at the Newton (Massachusetts) high school, he entered Yale in 1889, and at graduation in 1893 received special honors in history and political economy, also being one of the class speakers. He studied two years at the Boston University Law School, where he received the degree LL. B., and was admitted to the Massachusetts bar in 1895. Until moving to Chicago he practiced law in Boston. The
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only interruption to his practice in Chicago was one year spent in the Philippines. Since 1900 he has been a member of the faculty of the Illinois College of Law, and became dean of the faculty in 1904. Ile is a member of the Odd Fellows, Knights of Pythias, Press Club, County Democracy and Jefferson Club. His offices are in the Even- ing Post building.
Bernard L. Lee, senior member of the firm Lee and Lee, and in special charge of the chancery business, is an acknowledged authority
. BERNARD in the field mentioned. He is a native of Mahoning
L. LEE. county, Ohio, born on Christmas of 1863, the son of
Bernard F. and Jeannie S. (Simpson) Lee. His father, born in the same county in 1813, died there in 1886, being most widely known as the founder and chief patron of the historic educational institution, Poland Union Seminary, located in Mahon- ing county. He died in 1886, being engaged for most of his active · life in railroad construction and coal mining. The mother of Mr. Lee was born in Mahoningtown, Pennsylvania, in 1828, and died in Mahoning county, Ohio, in 1882. She was a daughter of William and Sarah Simpson, who emigrated from Scotland to the United States early in the seventeenth century, and settled in Pennsylvania. Bernard L. Lee is a cousin of the late Hon. Alfred E. Lee, a soldier in the Civil war, subsequently prominent in army circles, and ap- pointed by President Hayes as consul general to Germany. He died in California in 1905.
Mr. Lee received his carly education at Poland Union Seminary, which his father founded, and pursued higher courses at Oberlin Col- lege, also in Ohio, and at Williams College, Massachusetts. He com- menced his professional career as a student in the office of Hine and Clarke, at Youngstown, Ohio, and was admitted to the bar of that state in 1888. In 1891 Mr. Lee became a practicing lawyer of Chi- cago, and has since been engaged chiefly in civil procedures. As stated, since forming the firm of Lee and Lee he has devoted his time and abilities mainly to chancery practice.
In 1896 Mr. Lee was married to Miss Maud MeKeown, of Youngstown, Ohio, daughter of the late W. W. Mckeown, who was for many years one of the leading business men of that city. He died in 1905. They have had one child, Eleanor. In politics Mr. Lee is a Republican, but in no wise active. He is an carnest Presbyterian.
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and has been superintendent of the Sunday school at Edgewater, as well as a liberal supporter of the local organization. Both in the city of his professional practice and in the place of his residence he is always ready to give the full measure of his strength to public and charitable movements which his good judgment approves.
David Spencer Wegg has made a wide reputation throughout the northwest both as a lawyer eminent in railway and large corporation interests and as an active, practical manager in these
DAVID S. WEGG. lines. Born in St. Thomas, Ontario, on the 16th of December, 1847, the son of John W. and Jerusha (Duncombe) Wegg, he traces his descent from English ancestors, the founder of the American branch of the family being Sir Charles Duncombe (Lord Faversham), who came to the United States in 1730. They were among the early and leading citizens of the Do- minion, prominent in politics, education and finances. The immediate ancestors of his father, who were born in Norfolk, England, were mainly artisans and architects, but among them were an admiral in the English navy and a representative of the crown on the Island of Trinidad. When, during the reign of King Charles II, "Ye company of Gentleman Adventurers, trading into Hudson's Bay"-more fa- miliarly known as the Hudson's Bay Company-was incorporated, George Wegg, another ancestor of the Chicago lawyer, became the first secretary and treasurer and served as such for thirty-four years.
In his younger years David S. Wegg himself seemed destined for the artisan element of his family, working in the paternal carriage shop and acquiring proficiency at that trade. But this proved but a step to something higher, as was proven by the way in which he devoted his hours not given to manual labor. He read much and thought deeply, qualified himself for teaching, and entered the work- ing ranks of the pedagogues in connection with the schools of St. Thomas. This, even, was not the height of his ambition, for while teaching he had also been engaged in the study of law, and when he came to Madison, Wisconsin, a young man of twenty-five, he was well grounded in its underlying principles. An uncle, Chief Justice Lyon, of the state supreme court, who then resided in the capital city, had taken so kindly to the young man that he became a member of his family, and thus pursued his studies as a law student at the University of Wisconsin.
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Graduating from the law department of the state university in 1873, Mr. Wegg was immediately employed by the firm of Fish and Lee, of Racine, Wisconsin, of which he soon became a partner. In 1875 he went to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and was honored with a partnership connection with ex-Chief Justice Dixon, for years one of the most brilliant and learned members of the bench and bar of the Badger state. The firm of Dixon, Hooker, Wegg and Noyes will long be remembered as one of the most eminent legal copartnerships in the northwest, both from the extent and the quality of its business. Mr. Wegg's duties took him into court to a large extent, and he speedily developed into one of the best known forensic lawyers who practices in the higher courts of the state. When this connection was dissolved on account of the illness of Judge Dixon, Mr. Wegg en- tered another eminent firm of long standing, that of Jenkins, Elliott and Winkler, whose business was also largely confined to railway and corporation litigation. From this agreeable and lucrative association he was called into the official field of railway management, being ap- pointed assistant general solicitor of the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railway Company. In the discharge of the duties of this posi- tion he was called to practice in almost all the courts of the different states through which that great system of railroads passed, and gained a high reputation throughout the northwest as a skilful and learned railroad lawyer. In 1885 Mr. Wegg assumed charge of the law department of the Wisconsin Central Railroad Company, and moved to Chicago, where he has since resided. Here, without relinquishing any of the legal duties which had devolved upon him, he assumed a vast financial and managerial responsibility. The company undertook the immense task of obtaining an entrance into Chicago, and, in the face of powerful and long established competitors. Mr. Wegg was as- signed the bulk of the responsibility for its accomplishment. In the prosecution of this undertaking it became necessary to organize the Chicago & Northern Pacific Railroad Company, of which he was made president, with the broadest powers of management, both constructive and legal. He purchased the right of way, conducted condemnation proceedings, negotiated bonds, built a magnificent depot and attended to the thousand details of the immense undertaking with the skill of a trained expert and the prudence and sagacity of a practical lawyer. When the Northern Pacific Railroad Company acquired possession
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of the Wisconsin Central, Mr. Wegg was elected a director of the great continental corporation, a position which he afterward resigned. In the performance of all the multifarious duties assigned to him and assumed by him, Mr. Wegg has evinced a rare combination of execu- tive and managerial ability, legal acumen and broad judgment, even in comparison with western practitioners who have a national reputation as corporation lawyers. In the earlier years of his practice he ex- celled most of his competitors in his skill in the presentation of rail- road cases to juries, while before the court his mastery of legal princi- ples, familiarity of precedents and power of forcible argument made him well nigh invincible. He was the trustee of large estates and held many responsible positions of trust and confidence with corpora- tions other than those mentioned. While engaged in strictly private practice his services were not only in large demand in the northwest but in important and complicated litigations he was often called to New York and other eastern cities.
Outside of his professional and financial relations, Mr. Wegg is remarkably well informed, and in some lines of literature and science an adept. He is a free and interesting conversationalist, an agreeable companion and a man of broad and charitable qualities of mind and heart. He is a member of the Union League and Literary clubs of Chicago.
Some five years after entering practice, his professional success being then already assured, Mr. Wegg married Miss Eva Russell, daughter of Andrew Russell, of Oconomowoc, Wisconsin, his wife being a native of the Badger state. The marriage took place in 1878 and has resulted in the birth of two children-Donald Russell and David Spencer, Jr., the former born in 1881 and the latter in 1887. Mrs. Wegg's family is of Scotch ancestry, and as Mr. Wegg is of good English stock, the sons of the family are sturdy specimens of Briton. The members of the family are connected with St. James' Episcopal church. Although not a partisan and never actively en- gaged in politics, Mr. Wegg is a consistent Republican.
Hon. James Hamilton Lewis, an able lawyer and Democratic leader of national reputation, was born in Danville, Virginia, on the JAMES H. LEWIS. 18th of May, 1866. In the year of his birth the family removed to Augusta, Georgia, but he received his literary training at Houghton College and the
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University of Virginia. Subsequently he studied law in Savannah, Georgia, and was admitted to the bar in 1885, when he was nineteen years of age. Two years thereafter, in November, 1886, he located at Seattle, state of Washington, where he resided for sixteen years. engaged in practice and acquiring national prominence as a statesman and political leader.
Mr. Lewis entered official politics as a member of the territorial senate, and in 1890 was urged by his party as a candidate for the con- gressional nomination, but declined the honor. In 1892 he declined the nomination for governor because of opposition to the party plat- form, and two years later was a nominee for the United States sena- torship, being also the choice of his party for the vice presidential nomination. In 1896 he served as a delegate to the national conven- tion, and was the congressman-at-large in 1897-9. He came before the country, in 1897, as author of the resolution passed by Congress recognizing the independence of Cuba. In 1900 he was a candidate for vice president, being endorsed by the states of the Pacific coast for that high office. Although a member of Congress, Mr. Lewis was also a colonel in the Washington State Guard at the time of the outbreak of the Spanish-American war, and resigning his seat to accept military service, was appointed inspector on the staff of Gen- eral Fred D. Grant. As such he served until the conclusion of hostili- ties.
Colonel Lewis has been a resident of Chicago since 1902, has been engaged in a lucrative and growing practice here, and is already recognized as one of the strongest men interested in its progress, and abundantly able to assist large and beneficial movements. In 1905 he was elected corporation counsel of the city, and in the legislature of 1906-7 received a minority nomination for United States senator from Illinois. Mr. Lewis' wife was formerly Miss Rose Lawton Douglas, of Georgia, to whom he was married in November, 1896.
Marquis Eaton is a young lawyer of pronounced character, whether considered from the standpoint of his professional attain- ments or from the viewpoint of progressive citizen-
MARQUIS ship. He is a member of the well established firm
EATON. of Cody and Eaton, and his election to the presi- dency of the Hamilton Club in May, of this year, is a substantial tribute to his standing as a man and a stirring citizen.
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Mr. Eaton is a native of Van Buren county, Michigan, born on the 5th of April, 1876, son of Charles L. and Nellie (Joiner) Eaton. At the age of twelve he was appointed page in the Michigan house of representatives, and in 1892 graduated from the high school at Paw Paw. Soon afterward he entered the literary department of the Uni- versity of Michigan, but his college course was terminated by the sudden death of his father, adjutant general of the state, in February, 1895. Returning to Lansing he was appointed chief of the tax di- vision of the auditor general's office, which he resigned in 1897 to become associate reporter of the supreme court of Michigan. In this position his duties were confined to writing the official head notes for the published decisions of the court, and he was thus employed until his removal to Chicago in 1901.
In the meantime Mr. Eaton had been admitted to the Michigan bar, his examination in 1897 having brought him the highest honors of all competing candidates. For nearly three years after his father's death he not only efficiently performed his duties in the auditor gen- eral's office but devoted five hours each evening to the study of law, with such other time as he could find. As the privilege of examina- tion for admission to the bar extended, under the Michigan law, only to students in offices and university graduates, an amendment to the statute was passed by the state legislature which covered his case. Immediately after passing the examination he was admitted to. prac- tice in Michigan, and has since been admitted in all the courts, includ- ing the supreme court of the United States. The first two years of his residence in Chicago were spent in an independent practice, but in 1903 he became a member of the firm of Cody, Eaton and Mc- Conahey, which by the subsequent retirement of Mr. McConahey as- sumed its present style. As a member of the firm of Cody and Eaton, he is actively engaged in general practice, although his individual tendencies are toward business and corporation law. His experience in these lines has shown an unusual aptitude, and he is already an officer or director in eight prosperous corporations.
Since he became of voting age Mr. Eaton has been an active Re- publican and a participant in the civic progress of whatever commu- nity has been his home. In the campaign of 1900 he toured the state of Michigan for the central committee, and in Illinois he has been identified with the Seventh Ward Republican Club for many years.
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His career in the Hamilton Club, of which he is a life member, has been one of continuous activity. After serving as secretary and treas- urer of the Banquet committee, in 1904 he was elected a director and immediately appointed chairman of the Political Action committee. Retiring from the board in 1906 he was made chairman of the Com- mittee on Municipal Legislation, was afterward chairman of the Re- ception committee, and on May 18, 1908, was elected to the presi- dency. Mr. Eaton is a member of the Illinois State and Chicago Bar associations and of the Law Club, and is one of the Board of Managers of the Chicago Law Institute. He belongs to the Ken- wood Lodge, A. F. and A. M., and to the Alpha Omega and Zeta Psi fraternities. His religious faith is Congregationalism, and he is a member of the University Congregational church and the Chicago Congregational Club. Mr. Eaton's wife, to whom he was married in Flint, Michigan, June 8, 1904, was formerly Jacquette Hunter. They have a son, now three years of age, and reside at 5623 Washington avenue.
That Alfred R. Urion is the general counsel for Armour & Co. is sufficient evidence that he is a lawyer of broad and practical
ALFRED R. ability, thorough, determined, alert, versatile and
URION. resourceful. On the paternal side he is descended from English Quakers, while his maternal ancestors were Irish, and through these strains of blood have come to him all of his specified traits as a lawyer and a man. A son of John and Mary (Randolph) Urion, he was born near Salem, New Jersey, on Sep- tember 29, 1863, and obtained his elementary and literary education in the public schools of his native locality, at the South Jersey Acad- emy of that state, and at the Central High School of Philadelphia. Shortly after graduating from the latter he came west and became a student in the law office of Henry Miller at Fargo, North Dakota. the supreme court of that state admitting him to its bar in 1884. A short time thereafter he was admitted to the Minnesota bar and com- menced practice at St. Paul, his four years in that place giving him a wide experience and earning him a substantial standing.
Mr. Urion's ability in the handling of important business litigation had so recommended hint to the consideration of Armour & Co. that they offered him the position of their general attorney, and in 1888 he came to Chicago to assume his duties. Later he was promoted to
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the office of general counsel, which carries with it the active supervis- ion of the intricate legal matters of the gigantic corporation, as well as the actual handling of a mass of details. His mental strength keeps these diverse matters well in hand, but he has also the reputation of be- ing one of the shrewdest cross-examiners at the Chicago bar, which have no superiors in the country.
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