History of Chicago. From the earliest period to the present time, Part 123

Author: Andreas, Alfred Theodore
Publication date: 1884
Publisher: Chicago, A. T. Andreas
Number of Pages: 1340

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. the Twentieth General Assembly, January 5 to February 19, 1857, Mr. Arnold was chiefly distinguished for his elaborate and successful defense of Governor Bissell oo the charge of ineligibility. 10 1858 Mr. Arnold failed to receive the nomination for Congress at the Republi- can convention of this district, but labored earnestly for

the election of his successful competitor, John F. Farns- worth. In 1860, he defeated Mr. Farnsworth in the convention, and was elected to the Thirty-seventh, or War Congress, by fourteen thousand six hundred and sixty-three votes, or seventy-six votes over the presi- dential ticket. He was among the first representatives to arrive in Washington to participate in the inaugura- tion of Lincoln March 4, 1861. From that time until the close in 1865 of his second Congressional term to which he was elected in 1862, he devoted all his time and energies to the cause of the Union and the support of the administration. His first speech in Congress was an eulogy of the deceased Douglas, with whom he had politically associated in Illinois in the earlier years of the public life of both. At the regular session in Decem- ber Mr. Arnold was chairman of the committee on defense of the great lakes and rivers. In an able report to the House, in February, 1862, he strongly recommended that the Illinois & Michigan Canal be converted into a ship . canal. He introduced a bill embodying this project, and in June urged its passage with much force in a strong speech. But despite his most strenuous efforts it was defeated when it came to a vote at the next session, though he made a second powerful speech in its behalf in January, 1863. In the next Congress, to which Mr. Arnold was elected in 1862, he was chairman of committee on roads and canals, and introduced a bill providing an appropriation of $6,000,- ooo with which to enlarge the Illinois & Slichigan Ca- nal. It passed the House February 2, 1865, but failed in the Senate. It was not, however, matters of mere local interest, however great, which chiefly occupied Mr. Arnold's attention during the momentous period of his Congressional career. Even the great question of internal improvements which for fifty years had en- listed the best efforts of the statesmen of Illinois and of Mr. Arnold since his arrival in the State twenty-five years before, was dwarfed into insignificance by the great national questions which now taxed to the utmost the best powers and ripest wisdom of the two War Congresses of which he was a member. It is a matter of national record that Mr. Arnold was among the earliest and most radicals upporters of the administration, and had the honor of being the first member of Congress to advo- cate the most sweeping of the war measures which many declared revolutionary and unconstitutional. Though a lawyer he saw at once that even the highest laws of peace should not give way to the stern arbitrament of war. The sword had been appealed to, and society's provisions for the opposite conditions of peace and war could not be simultaneously invoked. The unmasked assassin in vain cries out, " Thou shalt do no murder." Mr. Arnold advocated the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia, the first link in the chain of measures which finally secured "Liberty throughout the land to all the inhabitants thereof." By this first act, about three thousand slaves obtained their freedom. March 24. 1862, he introduced the bill which prohibited slavery in every place directly subject to national juris- diction, and which with some amendments became a law June 19, 1862. Flis first great speech in Congress May 22, urged as a legitimate war measure the libera- tion of the slaves of rebels, and the confiscation of all their other property. In the discussions which followed the President's emancipation proclamation, Mr. Arnold took an active part. The first debate began May 31. 1863, and the question was brought to a vote June 15. when it was found that ninety-three favored while sixty-five opposed grafting abolition on the statute book. On the assembling of Congress in December,

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THE BENCH AND BAR.

1863, it was felt by the friends of the administration that to give permanence to the results of the great proclamation it was necessary to pass supporting meas- ures. January 6, 1864, Mr. Arnold made a speech in the House, on "The Power, Duty and Necessity of destroying Slavery in the Rebel States." February 15, 1864, Mr. Arnold, in the House, introduced the resolu- tion, " That the Constitution should be so amended as to abolish slavery in the United States wherever it now exists, and to prohibit its existence in every part thereof forever " (See Cong. Globe, Vol. L, p. 659 , which was adopted by a decided majority but fell short of the nec- essary two-thirds vote. In the further progress of the discussion until the resolution embodying the now his- toric thirteenth amendment was passed in the House, January 31, 1865, by one hundred and nineteen to fifty- six votes, Mr. Arnold took a conspicuous part. July 14, 1864, on his return to Chicago during adjournment of Congress, he was honored with a public reception by his constituents, to whom his career in Congress had proved very satisfactory, and a resolution of thanks for his able and faithful services was passed unanimously. He, however, declined a renomination ; but strongly urged the renomination of l'resident Lincoln, and labored indefatigably for his re-election, addressing a great num- her of meetings during the campaign, in Illinois, Wis- consin, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and New York, in earnest support of the man and his policy. His own Congressional career closed March 3, 1865. In 1860, his income from his profession was $22,000 ; his ex- penses for four years as a member of Congress, though perhaps exceptionally frugal, and certainly not extrava- gant were about $20,000 in excess of his salary. It seemed therefore the wiser course to withdraw, and save his modest fortune from speedy extinction. With a special predilection for literary composition, and a decided talent for historic research, besides a lawyer's power to weigh evidence and discern motive, supple- mented by a very sincere admiration for his subject, he had set himself the task of writing the life of Lin- coln and the story of the final overthow of slavery in the United States. To facilitate his labors the Presi- clent proposed to appoint him United States Attorney for the District of Columbia, and auditor of the treas- ury for the post-office department, neither office requir- ing the incumbent's exclusive time.

Upon the assassination of Lincoln, the writing of the work became more urgent, and President John- son appointed him to the auditorship only. He had, however, got so much farther away from Democracy than Mr. Johnson, that he soon ceased to be in sym- pathy with the new administration, and felt compelled to withdraw. In his letter of resignation he undertook to show Mr. Johnson how he was drifting from the prin- ciples of his " illustrious predecessor," and of the great party which had subdued the great Rebellion. Return -. ing to Chicago in 1867, Mr. Arnold completed the His- tory of Abraham Lincoln, which has a specific histori- cal value because of the author's personal knowledge of, and sympathetic admiration for the President, besides his own individual participation, and often conspicu- ous share in the great movement for the final overthow of slavery. He then turned his attention to collecting and compiling the specches and State papers of Mr. Lincoln, when the great fire by sweeping away some $200,000 worth of his productive property drove him again into professional life. He formed a partnership with Messrs. Higgins and Swett in 1872, and worked hard for two or three years, when his health gave way.

and he again retired to private life and his favorite lit- erary pursuits, which will be referred to hereafter.

JOHN DEAN CATON was born in the town of Mon- roe, Orange Co., N. Y., March 19, 1812. His father, Robert, had married his third wife, Hannah Dean, by whom he had four children, of whom the subject of this sketch was the third, and the first of two sons. He had had eleven children by his first wife, of whom ten were sons; and by his second, only one son and no daughter; so that John Dean was the twelfth son and fifteenth child of a progeny of sixteen. The father was born March 22, 1761, on the Potomac, in Virginia, where his father, also Robert, owned a plantation. This older Robert was an Irishman by birth, and had been in the English service, but had settled in Maryland some time before the Revolutionary War. The younger Robert, though only in his sixteenth year at the Declaration of Independence, took part in the struggle and settled on the Hudson at the close of the war, Here he became a preacher of the Society of Friends, and his third wife was the daughter of another preacher of that Society. He died in 1815, at a comparatively early age for the head of so numerous a family. When young Caton was four years old his mother, widowed a year before, moved to Oneida County, where a brother resided, with whom she and the children staid some months, and then rented from him a small place in Paris Township. Here the future Judge obtained the first rudiments of his educa- tion, attending the district school until he was nine years old. In 1821 one Solomon Ross, a Friend, took him to reside on his mountain farm near Smyrna, Chenango County, where the labor proved excessive for a child of his years, and whence after a nine weeks' detention. he was humanely conveyed thirty miles to his home by an- other Friend who sympathized in his desolation. Soon after he brought home the first fruits of his labors as a farm boy, at $2.50 a month, being a quarter of beef thus earned from Captain Hubbard. At eleven. he worked for Mr. Sexton at $3 a month, and was dis- charged for harrowing an unbroken sward, through a misapprehension of orders. With occasional and poorly paid work from different farmers, and attendance at school in the winter months, young Caton slowly climbed up to the age of fifteen. Pursuant to his father's wishes he was then put to a trade, that of harness-maker being selected. He soon grew weary of the business, and his eyes becoming accidentally inflamed, he easily procured his welcome dismissal from the " horse-tailor." Job Collins. Meanwhile his mother had removed to Utica, aided in part by such slender help as he had been able to give her, where he now rejoined her, in 1829. Here he spent nine monthsat the Academy, and made such proficiency as to be able to earn money at surveying and teaching before he was eighteen. He taught a district school near Ovid in the winter of 1829-30, and hired out to a neighboring farmer in the spring, but receiving a severe cut in the foot, he bade good-bye to farm, until he got one of his own some years later in Illinois. He now obtained his first knowledge of the classics at the school of Mr. Grosvenor, at Rome. He again taught a district school in the winter of 1830-31, and returned to Grosvenor's school in the spring. Meanwhile his am- bition had been aroused, and he sought to become a lawyer, having already begun to pettifog in the local justice courts. In December, 1831, he entered the law office of Beardsley & Matteson, at Utica, as a student: afterward that of Wheeler Barnes at Rome, and later that of James H. Collins at Vernon. In 1833 he turned his face to the West, and while at White Pigeon, Mich.

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HISTORY OF CHICAGO.

was invited by Irad Hill to take passage on his raft to St. Joseph, whence he came to Chicago on the Ariadne, under command of Captain Pickering, arriving in the outer harbor June 19, 1833. Here he soon began to pick up such petty cases as offered, some of which are referred to elsewhere. In his law business of that year should be mentioned his effort in behalf of some six free negroes, at a fee of perhaps of one dollar each. The law of Illinois re- quired that free negroes should show their manumission papers, to entitle them to free circulation among the whites. The Chicago blacks of the period claimed to be born in the free States, but having no papers were subjected to annoyance under the letter of the law from the hostility of such as were enemies of their race. Caton brought their case before the Court of County Commissioners, pleading with success that some court representing the sovereignty of the State must have the right of granting freedom papers to these unfortunates ; and that their honorable body was such court. Though they may not liave been able to find any constitutional or legislative grant of such powers their hearts yielded to the enthusiasm of the young lawyer, and they author- ized the issuing of the required papers. In the fall of 1833, Mr. Catoo went to Pekin, Tazewell County, to be examined for admission to the Bar by Judge Lockwood, who thus addressed him at the close : "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 ; if you do not, you will be a failure." He then proceeded to Greenville, Bond County, and had his license indorsed by Judge Smith .* January 1, 1834, he set out as guide to Dr. Temple, mail-con- tractor, on the first stage coach which left Chicago for Ottawa. In February, he formed a partnership with his former law-teacher, Collins. In May he attended the Circuit Court, and brought the first jury case, being the identical one in which he cheated his friend Spring out of a client but into a better fee, as elsewhere stated.t Mr. Caton was elected Justice of the Peace, July 12, 1834, receiving one hundred and eighty-two votes out of a total of two hundred and twenty-nine, in a very active campaign, which left but a few if any votes un- polled. In the fall of 1834, he was ill for forty-seven days in the country at Colonel Warren's, and remembers of the court business of that term only the memorable case of uxoricide by an Irishman, whose acquittal was unexpectedly secured by the plea of Collins, on which the court instructed the jury, that if they could not find him guilty of murder in the first degree, as indicted, it was their duty not to bring in a verdict of manslaughter in any degree, but to acquit. On the 28th of July, 1835, Mr. Caton married Laura Adelaide, daughter of Ja- cob Sherrill, of New Hartford, Oneida Co., N. Y., whose affections he had won some few years before. In a contest with Isaac Harmon for the office of l'robate Judge to succeed Richard J. Hamilton, Caton was de- feated. In 1836, with N. B. Judd, he formed the firm of Caton & Judd ; and in that year built the first dwell- ing within the school section, on the West Side, at the southeast corner of Harrison and Clinton streets. He took an active part in the movement for a city charter in November. 1836, representing the second district of the town in the meeting for consultation with trustees. The financial troubles of 1837 did not leave him un- scathed ; he lost not only most of his real estate but his

health also ; and in 1838 he took refuge on a farm near Plainfield, which he had entered some years before, and of which he plowed a portion that year, and to which he moved his family in 1839. He kept up his law practice in three or four neighboring counties, being the first lawyer to bring suit in the Circuit Court- of Kane and Will counties, as he had previously been in Cook County. In 1840, again in conflict with Harmon. Having recovered his health he accepted the position of Associate Justice of the Supreme Court made vacant by the election of Judge Ford as Governor, his commission bearing date August 20, 1842, In the October term of that year. in Bureau County, the historic case of the People z. Lovejoy for that "he did harbor, feed, secrete and clothe a certain slave girl, knowing her to be such." etc., was tried before the new Judge, who distinctly laid down the principle, new in that day, that "if a man voluntarily brings his slave into a free State the slave becomes free." which had much influence on the jury in acquitting Lovejoy. At the close of the legislative session in March, 1843, John M. Robinson, who had been United States Senator, 1835 to 1841, was elected to the vacant judgeship, but dying in April, Caton. after an intermission of only a month, was selected by Governor Ford, and at the next session of the General Assembly was elected by them, and served until the re-organization of the judiciary under the Constitution of 1848. He was then elected one of the three Justices of the Supreme Court December 4, 1848, who were to serve three, six and nine years, by which provision the election of one Justice every three years was secured. The six- years term fell to Caton, and towards its close, on the resignation of Chief Justice Treat, in April, 1855, he succeeded the place of pre-eminence for the few remaining months. Being re-elected in June, 1855, for nine years, he again became head of the Bench oo the resignation of Chief Justice Scates in 1857, and so con- tinued until his own resignation, January 9, 1864, five months before the expiration of his term. To accom- pany an ailing daughter to Europe he laid aside the er- mine which he had worn for over twenty-one years with honor to himself, credit to the Bench and satisfaction to the Bar and the people. Meanwhile he had become in- terested, in 1849, in what was then known as ()'Reilly's telegraph, but which was organized as the Illinois & Mississippi Telegraph Company, of which he was chosen a director. In 1852 the company was on the verge of bankruptcy and was saved only by Judge Caton's business tact and fertility of resource. He proposed that the company should obtain from the General As- sembly of Illinois an amendment to their charter author- izing an assessment, and the sale of the defaulting stock. The board concurred and elected him president and general superintendent with absolute power. He se- cured the necessary legislation, and obtained enough from an assessment of $2.50 on cach share, and the sales of defaulting shares, to meet the most pressing oblig ;- tions: and devoted his spare time, without however the slightest infringement on his judicial functions. Ile studied the art of telegraphy, making himself an expert of that day; traveling in the Northern wilds to obtain at supply of cedar posts, negotiating with railroad com- panies in Illinois, lowa and Minnesota for transporta- tion, and placing his lines along their roads. The Weekly Democrat of November 3, 1853, thus refers to his activity at this period: "Judge Caton will soon be the telegraph king of the West. From all parts of Illi- nois we have reports of the system and energy with which the telegraph lines are managed, and of new vil-

* On the Supreme Court list his name does not appear until December 7. 1835.

+ Judge Caton holds that this was the first term of the Circuit Court of Chicago in which any law business was done. If Juder Young was here carlur. he may have organized a grand jury, or only passed through.

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THE BENCH AND BAR.

lages being put in communication with the rest of man- kind by means of the lightning wires." After some years the stock of the company began to pay dividends; and in 1867 its lines were leased to the Western Union Telegraph Company, Judge Caton retiring from the inanagement. His pursuits since then have been a com- bination of literary and business enterprises, intermingled with the superintendence of his large farm, and the adornment of his city home on Calumet Avenue, and numerous journeys at home and abroad. His judicial decisions are scattered through twenty-seven volumes of Illinois Reports from Scammon III to Illinois XXX. In these he has stamped the impress of his mind indel - ibly on the jurisprudence of the State. They exhibit a man of industry in research, a writer of vigor and method, a thinker who is argumentative and discriminating, and occasionally original. A few of his decisions especially after experience had taught him to lop off redundency, would do credit to a Judge of any Bench, State or National. While not overladen with citations they are marked by deliberation and sound sense, and have stood the test of time. His early habits of self reliance impart a vigorous individuality, and his power of seizing essential points gives a clearness to his decisions that make them both readable and valua- ble. The best traits of his judicial style are reproduced in his other writings which cover antiquarian and scien- tific as well as purely literary and historical researches. He generally expresses his thought with clearness and precision, and as much condensation as is consistent with an easy, full and unaffected style. As an advocate he was not remarkable for readiness, requiring careful study to insure success. But his long experience as a Judge and man of affairs, enhanced by his later indus- try in the fields of literature, has developed a fair read- iness for extemporaneous speaking, and some of his latest public addresses have been marked by the easy self-possession of a man long accustomed to the exer- cise of recognized and respected authority. His mind is rather active than brilliant ; and he is properly re- garded by himself and others as a man of patient indus- try, endowed with a good working mental apparatus rather than genius or phenomenal power. Of large and rugged frame, his brain is of similar type-brawn and brain being closely related. At this writing, he is in his seventy-second year, still hale and active, alternating between town and country, between literary investiga- tions and business undertakings, between scientific in- quiries and the pursuits of a country gentleman, sur- rounded by his flocks and herds, with no serious physi- cal impairment except a dimness of vision produced by cataract which he hopes to have successfully removed in a few months. Mr. and Mrs. Caton are the parents of seven children, of whom three died in infancy, one at the age of five, and three survive. Of these one is a son, Arthur J., who is a lawyer, and two are daughters, Mrs. Norman Williams and Mrs. Charles E. Towne, whose husbands are lawyers. All these reside in their respect- ive homes within the same inclosure as their parents, which seems the crowning glory of a life largely devot- ed to the welfare of the family.

GRANT GOODRICH, born in Milton Township, Sara- toga Co., N. Y., August 11, 1812, is the eighth son and ninth child of Gideon and Eunice Warren Good- rich, and a direct descendant in the seventh generation from William Goodrich, who arrived in New England in 1630. In 1817 Gideon Goodrich removed with his family to Chautauqua County, N. Y .. and here the sub- ject of our sketch received his early education in his father's house, from a teacher whose pupils consisted

mainly of the Goodrich children. Some five years later young Goodrich went to live with a married sister at Westfield, in the same county, where he had an oppor- tunity to get an inkling of the higher English branches and of the Greek and Latin classics under the guidance of a resident lawyer. About 1825 being it was thought predisposed to consumption, he took to lake navigation in the vessels of his brother, a shipowner of Portland Harbor on Lake Erie, whither his father had also re- moved. In 1827 with a physical system strengthened beyond expectation by the air and exercise of two years of seafaring life, young Goodrich, now in his sixteenth year, returned to Westfield to prosecute his studies at the Academy of that place. In 1830, he there entered the law office of Dixon & Smith ; and in his twenty-second year set out for the West, arriving in Chicago, "early in May, 1834." Two months later he made a journey to Jacksonville, where he was examined and licensed by Judge Lockwood of the Supreme Court. As early as June, 1835, he formed a law partnership with A. N. Fullerton, which was chiefly devoted to the sale and renting of real estate, and was dissolved February 22, 1836. With- in a few days Mr. Goodrich became the law partner of Giles Spring, and so continued until the election of the latter to the Bench in 1849. Both partners found wives at Westfield, where Goodrich had been long and favor- ably known, and where he had joined the Methodist Church in 1832. He married Miss Juliet Atwater. July 24, 1836. In common with almost every other enter- prising citizeo of the Chicago of 1837 the panic of that year found him involved on his own and others'account to the extent of $60,000, which it took many years to clear off, but which he eventually paid without abate- ment. He not only advocated payment in full of all obligations by the State, city and individuals, but en- forced the exhortation by example. In 1838, he was elected Alderman of the Sixth Ward, and was president of the Lyceum in 1839. The firm of Spring & Goodrich did a very respectable part of the law business of Chicago during the thirteen years of its continuance, the excellent personal habits of Mr. Goodrich being a valuable counterpoise to the unfortunate infirmity of Spring, while the legal ability of both commanded the con- fidence of clients. A short-lived partnership with Buck- ner S. Morris followed in 1850, and was dissolved in 1857, Mr. Goodrich practicing for a time alone. About this time he co-operated zealously with others for the establishment of the Northwestern University at Evans- ton. In 1852 he was partner of George Scoville. and in 1855 W. W. Farwell, now better known as Judge Farwell, joined them, the firm becoming Goodrich. Far- well & Scoville. In 1856 Sidney Smith took the place of Scoville, and the prestige of the firm was enhanced rather than diminished by the change. Goodrich. Far- well & Smith beiog universally recognized as a strong combination. In 1857, Mr. Goodrich's health gave way and under the advice of his physician he made a pro- tracted tour of Europe, not returning home until the spring of 1859, when he was elected Associate Justice of the newly constituted Superior Court of Chicago, a position he retained until 1863. when he resumed hi- place in the law firm as constituted before his departure for Europe six years before.

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History of Chicago. From the earliest period to the present time, Part 123

Author: Andreas, Alfred Theodore Publication date: 1884 Publisher: Chicago, A. T. Andreas Number of Pages: 1340

Author: Andreas, Alfred Theodore
Publication date: 1884
Publisher: Chicago, A. T. Andreas
Number of Pages: 1340