USA > Illinois > Cook County > Chicago > Historical review of Chicago and Cook county and selected biography, Volume II > Part 6
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from every standpoint of professional conduct and absolute justice, his decisions and general dispatch of business was so prompt and yet courteous, that he was re-elected in 1904 for another six-years' term. Although his voting politics is Republican no one has ever intimated that his judicial proceedings are in any way affected by his party leanings.
Judge Chytraus was married June 22, 1892, to Laura Haugan, daughter of H. A. Haugan, president of the State Bank of Chicago. They have no children living. The Judge has been for many years a member of the Union League Club, and is also identified with the Marquette Club. He is well advanced in Masonry, having reached the thirty-second degree.
George Albert Carpenter is a native of Chicago, and the son and grandson of ancestors who have had a large part in its pioneer his-
GEORGE A. tory. He was born October 20, 1867, the son of
CARPENTER. George B. and Elizabeth (Greene) Carpenter. His father is a native of Conneaut, Ohio, where he was born March 12, 1834, becoming a resident of Chicago in 1850, while his mother, a New Hampshire lady, died in June, 1905, at the age of sixty years. The grandfather, Benjamin Carpenter, was es- pecially connected with the civic history of the city. He was a man of energetic and positive nature, and at one time served as a mem- ber from the old ninth ward, in the city council. When the depart- ment of public works was created in 1852, he was appointed its first commissioner and accomplished much in the early improvement of the streets, water works, etc.
Judge Carpenter received his early education at the old Ogden public school and the Higher School for Boys, conducted by Cecil Barnes. At the latter institution he prepared for college, and became a student at Harvard University in 1884, graduating four years there- after with the degree of A. B. Upon this firm literary foundation he entered the law school of Harvard University, and in 1891 ob- tained from it his professional degree of LL. B. In October of the previous year he had been admitted to the Illinois bar, and in June, 1891, commenced the practice of his profession in Chicago. At first he was informally associated with Abram M. Pence, and in January, 1892, entered into partnership with him under the firm style of Pence and Carpenter. This connection continued until September, 1905.
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when Mr. Pence died; but the firm remained the same in name until June, 1906, when Mr. Carpenter was elected to the circuit bench. He was elected as a Republican, that political faith, with its predecessor, the Whig, being almost a family inheritance.
Judge Carpenter has a wide connection with the clubs and socie- ties of Chicago, having membership in the Law, Chicago, Univer- sity, Saddle and Cycle, Onwentsia, Fellowship and Lake Geneva Country clubs.
George A. Carpenter was united in marriage May 10, 1894, to Miss Harriet Isham, a daughter of Dr. R. N. Isham, one of the lead- ing surgeons of the country, who died in March, 1904. Her mother, formerly Katherine Snow, was born in the city of Chicago in 1833, being a daughter of G. W. Snow, himself one of the early pioneers of the city. The children born to Judge and Mrs. Carpenter are Katherine Snow and George Benjamin Carpenter.
Merritt Starr is one of the sons of the Empire State who have achieved eminence in the great commonwealth of Illinois. A native
MERRITT STARR.
of Ellington, Chautauqua county, New York, he is a descendant in the ninth generation of Dr. Com-
fort Starr, of Ashford, Kent, England, who, in 1635, crossed the Atlantic in the sailing vessel Hercules and took up his residence in Boston, and whose second son, Comfort Starr, A. M., of Emmanuel's College, Cambridge University, was one of the . founders and a member of the charter board of Fellows of Harvard College. On the maternal side Mr. Starr is descended from John Williams, who was a member of the Rhode Island senate during the Revolutionary war, and a grandson of Roger Williams, the founder of the colony of Rhode Island. Both of the families were repre- sented in the American army during the struggle for independence.
In his early boyhood Mr. Starr's parents removed to Rock Island, Illinois, where he attended school preparatory to entering Griswold College at Davenport, Iowa. Later he was a student in Oberlin College, from which he received the degree of A. B. in 1875. The degree of Master of Arts was subsequently conferred upon him by Oberlin College. Having become imbued with the desire to enter the legal profession, he read law for three years in the office of the attorneys for the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad Company, and in 1878 entered the college and law departments of Harvard
Faithfully Yours Maritt Stars
THE NEWYORK PUBLIC LIBRARY
ASTOR, LENOKAND TILDEN FOUNDATIONS
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University, at which he was graduated in 1881, and received the degrees of Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Laws.
Upon graduating at Harvard Mr. Starr came at once to Chicago, was admitted to the bar and entered upon a successful professional career. His first professional work was the preparation of briefs for some of the prominent attorneys of Chicago. While he was thus engaged lie prepared and published some valuable contributions to legal literature. Among these are "Starr's Reference Digest of Wis- consin Reports" (1882), the practice chapters in the treatise known as "Gould on the Law of Waters" ( 1883), and, in connection with the late R. H. Curtis, "Starr and Curtis's Annotated Statutes of Illi- nois" (1885, 1887, 1892 and 1896). He was the first editor of the decisions of the supreme court of Illinois for the Northeastern Re- porter, holding the position in 1885-88, at the end of which time he was forced by the demands of a growing private business to re- sign it. He has been a frequent contributor to legal publications, is an orator of recognized ability, and is listened to often and with pleasure by local clubs, law societies and popular audiences. On the suspension of the Indiana banks in 1883, he conducted the litigation carried on in Chicago on behalf of their creditors and established in the supreme court of Illinois the then novel doctrine, that banks must hold the entire funds of the garnished depositor for the benefit of all the creditors who may thereafter perfect claims under the statute. In these important and warmly contested cases he met the late W. C. Goudy, John W. Jewett, and other leaders of the Chicago bar. Mr. Starr was honored with the friendship of the late Corydon Beck- with, ex-judge of the supreme court of Illinois, and assisted him in important matters.
In 1890 Mr. Starr formed a partnership with Hon. John S. Mil- ler, ex-corporation counsel of Chicago, and ex-Senator Henry W. Leman, under the firm name of Miller, Starr and Leman. Two years later the junior member of the firm retired, but Messrs. Miller and Starr continued their business relations, and in the autumn of 1893 became associated with Colonel George R. Peck, then general solici- tor of the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway Company, and since 1895 general counsel for the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railway Company. The firm of Peck, Miller and Starr has for years occupied a prominent position at the Chicago bar.
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Mr. Starr possesses marked individuality and originality. His opinions are neither inherited nor acquired from others, but are the result of his own careful and conscientious investigation and delib- eration. As a lawyer he is distinguished for clearness of perception, tireless industry and keen discrimination. In an important case his brief gives indubitable evidence of exhaustive research, legal acumen, forcible statement and faultless logic. But he is not content with be- ing a lawyer. He is a man of wide and generous culture. An om- nivorous reader, he is familiar with the best books, classic and mod- ern, and being blessed with a memory loyal to its trust, he can, when occasion demands, bring forth from the rich storehouse of the world's wisdom, treasures new and old. Not unfamiliar with art science and philosophy, his greatest delight is in the domain of litera- ture, wherein he finds rest from professional toil. He is a true and steadfast friend, a genial companion, prizing all the amenities and courtesies that make life pleasant and friendship valuable.
Recognizing his obligations as a citizen, Mr. Starr has taken an active part in every effort to improve municipal government. He in- fluentially participated in the organization of the Civil Service League, drafting the city civil service law and assisting in its passage, as well as fathering the bills and instituting the merit system in the state and county institutions. He was a leader in the promulgation of the Greater Chicago charter, in 1904, and no important move- ment can be named which has had for its object the betterment of the public service in which he has not taken the part of a conscien- tious, leading citizen.
Mr. Starr adheres to the principles of the Republican party, be- lieving that they best conserve the public good. He is connected with various societies and organizations for the promotion of social, literary and philanthropic aims and purposes, and is a member of the Union League, the Chicago Literary, the University, the Harvard (Chicago), the Skokie Country and the Kenilworth clubs. His pro- fessional connections are with the Chicago, the American and the Illinois State Bar associations, and the Chicago Law Institute, hav- ing served as president of the last-named for two terms and for many years as director. He has always been deeply interested and proved a wise leader in progressive public education, and has served for some time as a member of the township board of education. He
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is a trustee of Oberlin College, and a leading member of the Congre- gational Club.
Mr. Starr was married September 8, 1885, to Miss Leila Wheel- ock, of Cleveland, who was a fellow-student at Oberlin College. Their children are: Winifred Ursula, Philip Comfort, Merritt Paul, and Leila Beatrice. Mrs. Starr is a member of the Chicago Woman's Club and takes an active part in literary and philanthropic work.
John Marshall Clark, secretary of Grey, Clark & Engle, large and well-known leather manufacturers, is an honored business man of the pioneer period of Chicago's history. He is also one of those rugged historic characters, who,
JOHN M. CLARK.
having accomplished their good work in the build- ing of the west, located in its representative city to participate in its unparalleled growth in material and civic affairs.
Mr. Clark was born in White Pigeon, St. Joseph county, Michi- gan, on the Ist of August, 1836, and is a son of Robert and Mary E. (Fitch) Clark. Early in life he evinced a preference for engineering work, and finally entered the noted Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, at Troy, New York, graduating therefrom in 1856 with the degree of C. E. In the meantime his family had removed to Chicago, where he had passed the years of his boyhood and youth from 1847 to 1852. Upon his graduation from the Polytechnic Institute Mr. Clark re- turned to this city, and from 1856 to 1859 was connected with the engineering corps of the Illinois Central Railroad. In the latter year he started for the western plains and their promises (amply fulfilled) of wonderful development, participating in the laying out of the original site of Denver, in which he also had a proprietary interest. He was here engaged, professionally, for three years, and in 1862 went to Santa Fe as a surveyor of the government lands in New Mexico. While thus employed the Confederates made their raid into the territory, and Mr. Clark rendered the federal cause valuable serv- ice by conveying important documents connected with the government land office to Fort Union. Later he served as an aide-de-camp on the staffs of Generals Donaldson and Stough, being with the latter at the battle of Apache Canyon.
After the war Mr. Clark returned to Chicago, in order to enter the more promising field of business, in which he has since remained. He at once bought an interest in the leather manufacturing firm of
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Grey, Marshall & Company, which had been established in 1857 by William L. Grey and James G. Marshall. Later the style of the firm became Grey, Clark & Company, and in 1880, by the admission of Augustus Engle to a participation in its affairs, was formed the present Grey, Clark & Engle. At one time Mr. Clark was president of the Chicago Telephone Company, in which he is still a director.
John M. Clark has enjoyed a long, intimate and important con- nection with the public affairs of Chicago, and for many years was recognized as among its ablest and most popular Republican leaders. He served as a member of the common council in 1869-71, and in 1881 was put forward by his party as a candidate against Carter H. Harrison, Sr. Later, he was a member of the Chicago board of education, and in 1890 was appointed by the national administration as collector of the port, serving in that office for the succeeding four years. He was also honored with the presidency of the first board of civil service commissioners in 1895-97. Mr. Clark has been widely and influentially connected with various city organizations, having held the presidency of the Chicago Club and been a leading member of the Union League, University, Literary, Calumet and Commercial clubs.
William K. Ackerman, chairman of the board of examiners of the first Civil Service Commission, was long held to be one of the
WILLIAM K. most honorable and clear-headed citizens of Chi-
ACKERMAN. cago. He was a man of remarkable organiz- ing and systematizing powers, and accomplished much for the practical good of the commission in its formative and experimental period. For a quarter of a century he had ably filled various executive offices with the Illinois Central, be- ing also one of the strongest forces in the development of that great system. Born in the city of New York on the 29th of January, 1832, Mr. Ackerman was of old Knickerbocker stock, his grandfather, Abram Ackerman, serving as captain of a company in the regiment known as Jersey Blues, and being with General Anthony Wayne at the storming of Stony Point. Lawrence Ackerman, his father, was also born in New York City; resided there for eighty-five successive years, and served in the War of 1812 as a lieutenant of artillery, hav- ing at one time command of the troops stationed on Bedloe's Island. W. K. Ackerman received his education in the eastern metropolis,
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and after engaging there in business for several years entered the service of the Illinois Central Railroad Company in May, 1852, as a clerk in the financial department of that corporation in New York. The land grant had just been obtained from the Illinois legislature to assist in the building of the road, and within the succeeding eight years the trunk line, with various branches, was completed to Mem- phis and New Orleans through central Illinois. This period of Mr. Ackerman's career was spent in New York at the financial headquar- ters of the road, of which he had already advanced to the secretary- ship.
With the main line of the Illinois Central in working order, Mr. Ackerman was dispatched to the immediate territory of its operations which centered in Chicago. He took up his residence in this city on the 10th of September, 1860, and at once assumed the duties of the local treasurership, becoming treasurer of the entire corporation in April, 1870. In 1872 he was elected a director of the company; was appointed general auditor in 1875, in which position he introduced an entirely new system of accounts; became vice president in 1876 and was elected to the presidency in October, 1877. He filled that office until August, 1883, when he returned to the vice presidency which he retained until his retirement from the road, January 1, 1884. During his thirty-two years of connection with the company, as much as any other man, he brought its affairs into admirable system and smooth working order, and it was also largely owing to him that the admirable suburban system of the road was introduced. He afterward became connected with the western management of the Baltimore & Ohio road ; made a fine record as comptroller of the vast and intricate finances of the World's Columbian Exposition ; afterward contributed of his wide experience and practical wisdom in the organization of the Civil Service Commission of Chicago, and at his death, Febru- ary 7, 1905, was generally estimated as a faithful worker in a vigor- ous community, who, without posing as one of its strong characters, had in reality accomplished much of supreme importance.
Within the present generation there has not arisen in the west a greater or more brilliant lawyer or a finer citizen than George Rec-
GEORGE R. ord Peck, general counsel of the great Chicago, PECK. Milwaukee & St. Paul Railway system since Sep- tember 15, 1895. For the previous fourteen years
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he had served as general solicitor of the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad Company, and there is, therefore, no lawyer in the coun- try who has taken more important part in the railway litigation of the west than Mr. Peck. He was long at the head of the state bar and the Republican party of Kansas, was offered the United States senatorship, and was for years one of the leading public men in that section of the country. Besides noteworthy powers of both a pro- fessional and public nature, Mr. Peck is a deep scholar and has been honored with various degrees from leading colleges, while as a pol- ished and eloquent orator on national and general subjects he has few equals.
Mr. Peck's birthplace was near Cameron, Steuben county, New York, and the day of his nativity May 15, 1843. He is the son of Joel M. and Amanda (Purdy) Peck, and when he was six years of age his parents brought him to the new family farm in Wisconsin. He spent the earlier period of his life in a western clearing, which he himself helped to make, and at the age of sixteen, with only a common-school education, he abandoned farm work to become a school teacher that he might assist his father in the difficult task of lifting a mortgage from the old homestead. At the age of nineteen he enlisted for service in the Union army, joining the First Heavy Artillery of Wisconsin and being subsequently transferred to the Thirty-first Wisconsin Infantry, with the latter command participat- ing in Sherman's historic march to the sea and his later operations northward. During the three years of his service his faithfulness, intelligence and bravery had advanced him from the ranks to the grade of captain, in which position he was honorably mustered out of the service at the age of twenty-two.
Captain Peck immediately returned to Wisconsin to prepare for the profession which he had chosen, and spent six years in Janes- ville as law student, circuit court clerk and general practitioner. De- siring to test the country further west as a professional field, he re- moved to Independence, Kansas, where, from 1871 to 1874, he prac- ticed with signal success. In the latter year he was appointed by President Grant to the office of United States district attorney of Kansas, and with the assumption of his duties, removed to Topeka, the state capital. There, for nineteen years, he won ever-increasing distinction as a lawyer, man of letters, influential citizen and public
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character. It was during this period (1887) that the University of Kansas, in recognition of his great ability, conferred upon him the degree of LL. D. Within a month after his appointment as United States attorney he was directed by the attorney-general of the United States to bring suit involving a title to nine hundred and sixty thous- and acres of land. The promptness and ability with which he brought this suit and other cases to a successful issue soon marked hin as one of the leaders of the western bar, bringing him such inducements to resume private practice that, in 1879, he resigned his government position. After two years of lucrative independent practice, the At- chison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad Company elected him its gen- eral solicitor, and from that time until 1895 that large and constant- ly-growing system of railroads was developed under his legal coun- sel and direction.
Mr. Peck's wide and strong influence in Kansas politics was early recognized, and during the last ten years of his residence in Topeka his leadership of the Republican party was unquestioned. Upon the death of Senator Plumb, in 1892, Governor Humphrey offered the vacant seat in the United States senate to Mr. Peck, who, on account of the magnitude and pressing nature of his railroad duties, declined the high honor. In the early months of 1893, when the political imbroglio of the Lewelling administration had assumed such an alarming aspect, it was George R. Peck, according to the verdict of both parties, who, by force of his wisdom and will and the inexplic- able influences of a fine character, averted the threatened anarchy and bloodshed.
In Kansas, as well as in Illinois, he might have attained eminence in politics and statesmanship, but there, as here, he has always de- clined those public honors which were not in line with his profession ; and it is as a great railroad lawyer that his name is most prominently associated. Further notice of his triumphs in his chosen field is, therefore, here taken. In 1891, when the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad secured control of the St. Louis & San Francisco Rail- road, one of the stockholders of the latter sought to enjoin the sale on the ground that the two roads were parallel and competing. The case was bitterly contested in the circuit and supreme courts of the United States, and Mr. Peck's successful management of this litiga- tion in which an important extension of the Atchison, Topeka &
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Santa Fe System was involved, gave him a place among the first railroad lawyers of the country. When in December, 1893, the Atchison system went into the hands of a receiver and the problem of its reorganization was pressing upon the holders of its almost worth- less securities, the direction of the momentous legal proceedings de- volved upon Mr. Peck. Within two years the mortgages had been foreclosed, the property sold, a working plan of reorganization ef- fected and the great railroad system preserved unbroken. Such a feat of both rapid and efficient reorganization of so large a railroad property is unparalleled, but it was not until its accomplishment that Mr. Peck resigned the office which had involved so many anxieties and heavy responsibilities.
In September, 1895, Mr. Peck resigned as general solicitor of the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe system to become general counsel of the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railroad Company, but the judge of the United States circuit court at Topeka asked that he still give the Atchison reorganization committee the benefit of his counsel until the reorganization should be completed in all its details. Since his removal to Chicago he has not only borne the weighty responsibilities of his railroad connections, but has been privately associated with John S. Miller and Merritt Starr, in the law firm of Peck, Miller and Starr, chiefly engaged in the practice of corporation law.
Mr. Peck has a national reputation as a polished, scholarly and eloquent orator, and upon numerous public occasions has delivered addresses which have attracted wide-spread notice. Since coming to Chicago various institutions of learning have conferred upon him honorary degrees in recognition of his standing as a lawyer and man of letters, including LL. D. from Union College, New York (1896), LL. D., Bethany College and A. M., Milton College (1902). Among the many notable addresses which have brought him high standing as an orator may be mentioned : That on General George H. Thomas before the Loyal Legion of the United States, at Indianapolis; re- sponse on Abraham Lincoln at the banquet of the Marquette Club, Chicago; address on the Puritans before the Ethical Society of Mil- waukee; oration on the Worth of a Sentiment, before the Washington and Jefferson Societies of the University of Virginia; The Ethical Basis of American Patriotism, before the graduating class of Union College, New York; oration at the unveiling of the Logan statue on
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the lake front, Chicago, and that on Washington before the students of the University of Chicago. A mere mention of such titles as the above indicates in some measure the scope of Mr. Peck's mentality. Companionable, warm-hearted and generous, admiration of his mas- terful abilities is often forgotten in the warmer admiration of the man.
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