History of Chicago. From the earliest period to the present time, Part 124

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

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In 1871, he lost considerable property by the fire, and it took about five years to recover from its results. In 1874 he withdrew from general practice, and ha- since devoted himself chiefly to the care of his property. and the encouragement of the various social, religion- and benevolent interests of Chicago in which he he

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borne a share for more than half a century. Originally a Whig, and later a free-soiler and abolitionist he drifted, easily into the Republican party, and was an earnest supporter of Lincoln's administration and the war for the Union. A temperance man on principle, he pre- fers high license to prohibition as a means of reducing the appalling volume of crime and poverty which spring from the liquor traffic. As a Judge he ranked among the most absolutely impartial and thoroughly informed on the Bench of this city; and no taint or suspicion of unfaithfulness or venality has ever attached to his career as Judge, lawyer or citizen. His wide business experience and excellent personal habits, as well as his extended knowledge of the principles of law and ready familiarity with the statutes of Illinois, together with his firmness of character and soundness of judgment, have made him not only a successful advocate but a very valuable counselor. Mr. and Mrs. Goodrich are the parents of four sons and one daughter. One son died at the age of twenty-six, a studious, well educated and promising lawyer. Another son is now a member of the Chicago Bar. A third son is a manufacturer in Boston, and the fourth is a real estate dealer here. The daughter settled in St. Louis, on her marriage, but on the death of her husband returned to her father's house. Now (1883; in his seventy-second year, and in the enjoy- ment of exceptional health and vigor, Mr. Goodrich can look back on a more successful and better rounded life than most men.

MARK SKINNER was born September 13, 1813, at Manchester, Bennington Co .. Vt., where his father, Richard, a native of Connecticut, had settled as a law- yer in 1800. His mother was of the historic Pierpont family. The elder Skinner became professionally and politically prominent in the State of his adoption. He was Prosecuting Attorney and Probate Judge, Member of the Legislature and Governor, Representative in Congress, and Chief Justice of the State. Young Skin- ner had all the advantages of a good early education, followed by a careful preparation for college and com-

Mark Erium

pleted by a course of study in Middlebury College, Ver- mont, which he entered in 1830, and from which he graduated in 1833, before he was quite twenty. His father died the same year, and he began his law studies under Judge Ezek Cowen at Saratoga Springs, and Nicholas Hill, afterward of Albany. He also spent a year at the New Haven Law School of Yale. He now determined to make Chicago his home and arrived here in July, 1836.

He at once obtained admission to the Bar, and with- in a month formed a law partnership with Mr. Beau- mont. In 1837 he was chosen one of the board of School Inspectors, and for many years he was a leading spirit in all that concerned the well-being and advance- ment of the school interestsof Chicago. He was chosen City AAttorney March 10, 1840, and on the resignation by Justin Butterfieldl of the office of U. S. District At- torney for Hlinois, in 1844. Mr. Skinner was appointed to fill the vacancy, and an effort was made by his friends to secure him a more permanent occupancy of the posi- tion, but the friends of I. N. Arnold also bestirred them- selves in the same direction. In the interests of har- mony [ Mr. Skinner peremptorily declined being a candi- date in March, 1845,] the appointment was given

to D). L. Gregg, of Joliet. In 1846 Mr. Skinner was elected to the Legislature, and was appointed chairman of the committee on finance. He introduced a bill for refunding the State debt which was of great value, by definitely determining the extent of the debt, by intro- ducing system and responsibility in its management. and by reducing six or eight different styles of honds into one uniform and only authorized issue. In the ap- portionment of delegates to the State Convention of 1847, he labored with success to secure as the basis thereof the State census of 1845 rather than the United States census of 1840. By reason of the more rapid growth of Chicago and northern Illinois, a just repre- sentation and proper weight of influence in the com- ing convention could thus only have been secured. He was also instrumental at this time in securing the passage of an act to resume payment of interest on the State debt, which had been in default nearly ten years. Soon after the close of his legislative labors, March 1. 1847, he resumed the practice of his profession, forming a partnership with Thomas Hoyne, April 24. On the death of Judge Spring in May, 1851, Mr. Skinner he- came a candidate for the Bench of the Cook County Court of Common Pleas, and was elected over his com- petitor, John M. Wilson, for the remainder of Spring's term to June. 1853, when he declined a renomination. because of ill-health contracted through the excessive labors of that court. At his entrance on the duties of Judge, finding the calendar overladen, he sat continu- ously for seven months, cleared it up and kept ahead. With his retirement from the Bench, his previous with- drawal from political contention, and the interruption to professional practice incident to both episodes as well as the threatened physical infirmity, he turned his attention to the management of large financial oper- ations, in which his success has been very marked. No one in Chicago, perhaps, has so largely represented non- resident capitalists or handled larger amounts of the borrowed money so extensively used in building the city. In 1858 he became a member of the Second Pres- byterian Church. In the Rebellion period his services were conspicuous and valuable as first president of the Chicago Sanitary Commission, afterward named the Northwestern, from 1861 to 1864. He was also a mem- ber of the more general United States Sanitary Com- mission during the whole period of its existence. Be- sides his valuable services in that field he also gave to his country, in 1862, his eldest son Richard, who had just graduated at Yale, at the age of twenty, and who then entered the regular army as Second Lieutenant in the Tenth Infantry, and was killed before Petersburg. Va., June 22, 1864. Judge Skinner has been actively identified with nearly all the benevolent and reforma- tory enterprises of Chicago, and more especially with the Reform School, of which he was one of the original founders, and president of the first board of directors. With his usual energy and ability he made a business- like investigation of all such institutions as were accessi- ble for personal inspection and a diligent study from printed reports of the more famous reformatory institu- tions of England, France and Germany. His conner- tion with the earlier railroads of Chicago as a director of the Galena & Chicago, and of the Chicago, Burling- ton & Quincy, was of no slight value to those enter- prises by reason of his marked financial ability and the wisdom of his counsels as a lawyer and a man of busi- ness.

ENOCH WEBSTER EVANS was born at Fryburg. Ox- ford Co., Me., in 1817. of William and Anne Webster Evans. Getting his carlier education at the common

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school and academy of Fryburg, he spent two years at Waterville College, and two at Dartmouth, where he graduated in the class of 1838. He studied law under Judge Chase, of Hopkinton, N. H., until the summer of 1840, when he set out for Chicago. Here he spent a few months in the office of Spring & Goodrich, and secured admission to the Bar, as is supposed, although his name does not appear on the Supreme Court list until March 14. 1842. He was partner with Joseph N. Balestier for a short time, Balestier & Evans being found advertised in the Daily American of September 25. 1840. He attracted some attention about the same time as a speaker at the Tippecanoe Club. He soon re- moved to Dixon, Ill., where for a time he was the part- ner of the late Judge Heaton, and from there to Ken- osha, Wis., where he was married September 16, 1846, to Miss Caroline Hyde, daughter of a Mr. Hyde, of Da- rien, Genesee Co., N. Y. In 1858 he returned to Chi- cago, and was for a short time the law partner of James T. Hoyt, and still later, of Mr. Tousely. He was, how- ever, better fitted for independent professional business than for partnership. There have been but few lawyers so devoted to the profession as Mr. Evans. He was a lawyer and nothing else, except a good citizen, a worthy man, and an excellent husband and father. In 1871 he was urged by many of the most influential lawyers to become a candidate for Judge of the Circuit Court of Cook County, but declined. His more notable cases were Wilkinson rs. Chicago Tribune, and the Zeigenmeyer murder case. He was very extensively identified with suits for damages against corporations, especially the railroads and the city, in cases of personal injury, and his success in these was quite remarkable. He was naturally, or by force of habit, earnest, urgent and convincing as a speaker, and was usually able to marshal all his resources of pleading and argument, as well as persuasion and eloquence, as far as necessary for the success of his case, before a jury. But his power before the Supreme Court, or in chambers, was still more creditable to his ability as a thorough lawyer. He died September 2, 1879, leaving a wife, two sons and two daughters. The elder of the sons is William W., a lawyer, and the younger is Lewis H .. a civil en- gineer. Of the daughters one is married and the other single. He was a regular attendant at St. John's Epis- copal Church, especially while in charge of his friend, Dr. H. N. Powers, but was not a member of any Church. At the Bar meeting in commemoration of his death Calvin De Wolf, who had known him since 1840, said : " He was eminently worthy of admiration and esteem;" and the committee on resolutions declared : "That in the death of Mr. Evans the community had lost a most worthy and excellent citizen, a man of the highest in- tegrity and honor, the Bar one of its brightest orna- ments, the record of whose professional career during its entire length has never suffered blot or stain, and his widow and family a husband and father endeared to them by that devotedly affectionate attachment which renders home so worthy." " He was not." said Judge Moore, "an ordinary man, but one who ran over with carnestness for whatever he undertook. He was a lawyer of more than usual learning and intelligence. * *

* He was a man of majestic sentiment, who

drew others to him."

JAMES M. STRODE. faintly connected with Chicago in those earlier years, first as a circuit-riding attorney. then as State Senator, 1832 to 1836, with residence still at Galena, and then more closely from 1836 to 1840 as Register of the land-office here, and afterward as member of the Chicago Bar and Prosecuting Attorney

until 1848, belongs as such to a somewhat later period than 1837, when he was properly a Government official and not a practicing lawyer. Professionally he belonged about equally to the Bars of Jo Daviess, Cook, and Mc- Henry counties, successively.

ALBERT GREENE LEARY, who is thought to have been a native of Maryland, is first heard of in this sec- tion through the Chicago American of August 15. 1835. as a lawyer at Ottawa, implying that he must have been admitted to the Bar in some other State, as he is not enrolled in Illinois until March 2, 1837. He must have soon removed to Chicago or Cook County, as he was elected to represent the latter in the State Legislature on the repudiation ticket in 1836. On the 19th of Novem- ber he notified his law customers to call on J. Y. Scam- mon during his own absence in the East, whence he re- turned in time for the first session of the Tenth General Assembly, at Vandalia, December 5, 1836, at which he or his friends in his behalf tried to procure his election as State's Attorney, but he was rejected in March, 1837, as ineligible, being a member of the General Assembly. At the close of the short extra session in July, he re- turned to practice in Chicago and advertised location August 16, 1837, but does not seem to have exercised much influence or made any impression on the public mind as a member of the Bar. In 1839, he lost his books and papers by fire. In 1840 he was again elected to the Legislature. The second session of the Twelfth General Assembly of Illinois closed March 1, 1841. and Mr. Leary again turned his attention to law, advertising as commissioner for Maryland April 9. He is again advertised as a lawyer in February, 1842. May 21. 1845, the death of his infant child at St. Louis is noticed in the Chicago Democrat ; and his own of yellow fever at New Orleans, over eight years later, in the Chicago Weekly Democrat of August 27, 1853. He had mar- ried a niece of President Tyler, and their associations are judged to have been mainly Southern.

MAHLON DICKERSON OGDEN was born June 14. 1811, at Walton on the Delaware, in Delaware County, N. Y., where his father had settled about 1792. He was named for Mahlon Dickerson, United States Senator and Governor of New Jersey, with whom the father had been associated in early life. Young Ogden was edu- cated in the district school, and later at Trinity College. Geneva, N. Y., where he graduated about 1832. Soon afterward he removed to Columbia, Ohio, where he studied law under the future Justice Swayne until 1836, when he was admitted to the Bar. Meanwhile his elder brother, William B., had formed in Chicago the nucleus of a large business in real estate. as the representative of the American Land Company, of Frederick and Arthur Bronson and other Eastern investors in Chicago lots and Illinois lands. Hither Mahlon D), proceeded on a visit, and deciding to make it his future home, re- turned to Columbus, where he was married to Miss Kassoo, and went back to Chicago in the spring of 1837. to settle. In accordance with an agreement formed at his previous visit he now entered into part- nership with 1. N. Arnold ; and was admitted to the Bar of Illinois December 11. 1837. Mr. Ogden never had much to do with the court business of Arnokl & Ogden, bis taste running more in the line of office work. and especially to realestate, and disputed titles. For ten years the firm had charge of the law relations and legal papers of the business managed by William B. Ogden and later by Ogden & Jones. He resided in the old officers' quarters in Fort Dearborn for a few years after his arrival here, houses being still scarce ; but removed about 1839 to the corner of Dearborn Avenue and On-

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HISTORY OF CHICAGO.

tario Street, where he had built the home he occupied for twenty years. In 1841 he was elected Probate Judge or, as then styled, Justice of the Probate Court, and held the office for four years, acceptably to the general public. In 1845 he was elected Alderman of the Sixth Ward. In 1847 the partnership with Mr. Arnold was dissolved. Mr. Ogden became directly and exclusively identified with the business of his brother, and in 1849 obtained a partnership interest in the firm of Ogden, Jones & Co. In 1851 Mrs. Ogden died, leaving two children, Charles C., now a resident of Little Rock, Ark., and Mrs. Will- iam E. Strong, of this city. In 1856 the firm of Ogden, Jones & Co. became Ogden, Fleetwood & Co., involy- ing no other change than the replacing of Jones by Fleetwood. In 1856 Mr. Ogden married Miss Frances Sheldon, a daughter of General Sheldon, a former resi- dent of Delaware County, N. Y., but at this time of Janes- ville, Wis. In 1859 he erected on the block north of Wash- ington Square, the residence which afterward became historic as the only building that escaped destruction on the North Side within the range of the great fire. In 1868, the firm was changed to Ogden, Sheldon & Co, in which he and Edwin H. Sheldon were general partners, and William B. Ogden was a special partner until his death. In 1871, in common with nearly all large owners of real estate in Chicago, he sustained heavy loss in the great fire. In 1872 he was elected Alderman in what was called "the strong " Commou Council, he and other members of which had been induced to become candi- dates in opposition to a corrupt ring then in control of the city. The two years' public service thus rendered was the only deviation from private business he allowed himself since 1846. In his original profession he made very little money, hut as soon as he went into business he grew rapidly rich. The shrinkage in real estate value which succeeded the panic of 1873, some outside ventures in Ohio manufactures, and the too free use of his credit to certain financial institutions of the city forced him, in 1878, to put his estate into liquidation. The city mansion, already referred to, passed out of his hands, and what had been for some years his summer residence at Elmhurst became the comfortable but much less pretentious home of himself and family. Here he died, February 13, 1880, of pneumonia, after a short illness, in the sixty-ninth year of his age. Mrs. Ogden and her three children, a daughter and two sons, be- sides the two children by his first wife, survive him. Mr. Ogden was a man of fine personal appearance, but of a delicate constitution, which his excellent habits so fostered that he reached almost the rounded term of three score years and ten. Of a firmness that was akin to obstinacy, of perfect integrity and truthfulness, and possessed of a most delicate sense of honesty, his char- acter was above reproach. In religion, he was a faithful attendant at the services of the Episcopal Church of St. James for forty years before 1877, when he became a regular member. His fame is of the business, rather than the professional or public order. With the few exceptions mentioned, he took no part in public affairs or great public enterprises. His life was of the quiet, useful and industrious type. Possessed of a pleasing address, good conversational pow- ers and a genial temperament, he made hosts of friends. The enhanced value of Chicago realty since his estate was put in liquidation has resulted in giving his heirs a goodly inheritance, reinforced as it has been by their share of the larger estate of their uncle.

EDWARD G. RYAN, born in Ireland in 1810, and an immigrant to this country before he was of age, arrived in Chicago in 1836, and advertised as a lawyer as early as December ro, of that year, though his name docs not appear on the list of the Supreme Court until the 3Ist of that month, when he was present at its session in Vandalia on some Chicago law-suits. He formed a partnership with Henry Moore June 1, 1837, but the firm of Moore & Ryan was short-lived, the senior ment- ber leaving Chicago in 1838 for his health. Among other activities in 1837, Mr. Ryan took a decided stand against a movement of embarrassed debtors for the suspension of the Municipal Court of Chicago. One of the most earnest advocates of suspension, James Curtiss, having stated at a public meeting that he had

given up his law practice because unwilling to harass the impoverished people, Mr. Ryan exclaimed, " It is very apocryphal whether Mr. Curtiss has abandoned his practice, or his practice has abandoned him." After the separation from Henry Moore, Mr. Ryan became associated with Hugh T. Dickey, under the style of Ryan & Dickey, which was dissolved January 27, 1840. Mr. Ryan now turned his attention to journalism, be- coming editor of the Tribune, the first number of which appeared April 4. 1840, and which he freely used in the conflict of the Chicago Bar with Judge Pearson. Being of an irascible disposition, Mr. Ryan made many enemies, which he seemed to regard as proof of intel- lectual prowess. Being also of a combative turn of mind, and withal full of an overweening self-esteem, he seemed to delight in persistent efforts to impress others with an equal appreciation of his assumed superiority. In 1842 he removed to Racine, and thenceforth his history belongs to Wisconsin, where he rose to eminence. becoming Chief Justice in 1874, because of his ac- knowledged probity and ability, notwithstanding the extreme unpopularity of his political views ten years before. He died October 19, 1880, reaching within twenty-five days of threescore years and ten.

PATRICK BALLINGALL, often assigned to this pe- riod, was then a student with Spring & Goodrich, and became a member of the Chicago Bar only after his return from DuPage County in 1843.

HUGH T. DICKEY is also similarly mentioned, al- though not a resident until 1838.

NORMAN B. JUDD, an arrival of 1836, and partner with Caton as early as August, 1837, will be sketched elsewhere, about the period of the Civil War, when he achieved a national reputation.

GEORGE MANIERRE, an arrival of 1835, and Deputy Clerk of the Circuit Court and law student in 1836. was not admitted to the Bar until July 15, 1839, and belongs therefore to a somewhat later period.

The type

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THE BENCH AND BAR.

GEORGE W. MEEKER, a partner of Manierre, was like him a student in 1837, and admitted to the Bar half a year after him, December 16, 1839.

THOMAS HOYNE, also an arrival of 1837, and often spoken of as a member of the Bar of that year, was not admitted to practice until December 16, 1839, and will be more appropriately sketched at a later period.

COURTS OF CHICAGO, 1837 TO 1844 .- By the act of February 4, 1837, a new circuit was established. It included Cook County, and was numbered the Seventh. For its Judge, John Pearson, of Danville, an obscure lawyer, admitted to the Bar December 5, 1833, was chosen by the Legislature. The selection proved very distasteful to the lawyers of Chicago. Hon. Thomas Hoyne, despite his judicial candor, writing of this event, more than a generation later, reflects a feeling of disap- pointment that at the time must have been intense. Judge Pearson, he says, " was known to be incompetent for the position, and to be sadly wanting in the qualities which inake a good judge. His appointment had con- · sequently been unpopular with the Chicago Bar from the beginning. The Democratic party was in power in the State, and John Pearson was a Democrat-he was a poor lawyer and an industrious office-seeker."

The spring term in 1837 was opened May 22, by Judge Pearson, with seven hundred cases on the docket. Before his arrival he had promulgated an elaborate, burdensome and perhaps somewhat arbitrary system of rules for the guidance of lawyers transacting business in his court, which did not tend to smooth the way to a favorable reception of himself, his methods, or his deci- sions by the Chicago Bar. But the urgency of impa- tient clients and the heavy docket rendered the dispatch of business a paramount object, and the indulgence of resentful feelings by either party to the impending con- fict would have given an undesirable advantage to the opposite side. Thus both terms of the year 1837 passed without an outburst. In 1838, this sustained forbear- ance and self-restraint on both sides promised to estab- lish a reconciliation, or at least a modus vivendi, which if not cordial would be mutually respectful, and the organ of the Whigs rather pointedly and encouragingly noted these indications.

But the sectional jealousy and political antagonism that had unhappily been set in motion by the appoint- ment of Judge Pearson, even more than his alleged incompetency, would not suffer the accomplishment of so desirable a result, and the suppressed quarrel found vent in 1839. The spring term had been held, and the dlocket had again become so burdened by reason of the discontinuance of the Municipal Court that he an- nounced an extra term of the Circuit Court for the second Monday in May. It was at that special term, as related farther on, that the issue between the Bench and the Bar of Chicago took shape. Meanwhile two new courts had been created for Chicago by its charter of March 4, 1837.

THE FIRST MAYOR'S COURT .- Section 68 of the city charter provided, " That the Mayor * * * shall have the same jurisdiction within the limits of said city * * * as the Justices of the Peace, upon his conforming to the requirements * * * regulating the office of the Jus- tice of the Peace."

THE MUNICIPAL COURT .- It was by the establish- ment of this court more especially that relief was sought to be given to the administration of justice in Chicago. The accumulation of untried cases on the docket of the Circuit Court of Cook County, and the delay in civil suits, which amounted almost to a denial of justice, owing to the urgency and legal preference of criminal cases, had

rendered imperative some additional provision. The Constitution of 1818, in its Bill of Rights, Article VIII, Section 12, had provided against such a state of things in words which admirably summarized the fundamental purpose of laws and courts : "Every person within this State ought to find a certain remedy in the laws for all injuries or wrongs which he may receive in his per- son, property or character, he ought to obtain right and justice freely, and without being obliged to purchase it, completely and without denial, promptly and without delay, conformably to the laws.'

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History of Chicago. From the earliest period to the present time, Part 124

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