History of Cook County, Illinois From the Earliest Period to the Present Time, Part 65

Author: Andreas, A. T. (Alfred Theodore), 1839-1900
Publication date: 1884
Publisher: Chicago : A.T. Andreas
Number of Pages: 875

USA > Illinois > Cook County > History of Cook County, Illinois From the Earliest Period to the Present Time > Part 65

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. Johnson's New York Reports, Vol. X., 327-33-

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life. He was one of the trustees of Rush Medical Col- lege at its incorporation, March 25, 1837. The firm immediately attained a front rank in the profession. Col- lins was already well known, and it soon became evident that the new accession was fully his equal. Both were fine lawyers, in the maturity of their powers, the breadth of their experience and the depth and variety of their legal attainments. Nearly all the other members of the early Chicago Bar were young men, awaiting opportn. nity to flesh their maiden swords, and win reputation and power, Butterfield & Collins came to be recog- nized as at the head of the Bar, not alone in Chicago but in the State, Against the movement for the sus-

JUSTIN BUTTERFIEL.D.

pension of the Municipal Court in 1837, Mr. Butter- feld, in common with nearly all the lawyers in the city, threw the weight of his influence. And in the conflict between the Bench and Bar of Chicago, which signal- ized the incumbency of Judge Pearson, 1837 to 1840, he took an active and characteristic part. It was he that in open court, November 11, 1839, held out to the indignant Judge the alternative papers, a bill of excep- tions against his own rulings, to sign, or the mandamus of the Supreme Court of Illinois to obey. He was fined $20.00 for contempt ; but he was not to be cowed or browbeaten, and, with his associates of the Bar, the case was carried before the State Senate, where the political bias, if not the greater calmness of that quasi- judicial body, saved the Judge from the sentence and penalties of impeachment and the wrath of his enemies. In 1841 Mr. Butterfield was made Prosecuting Attorney for the United States Judicial District of Illinois, which he held until the election of President Polk. In 1842 he drew up the canal bill, the main provisions of which had been previously settled in conference by Arthur Bronson, William B. Ogden, I. N. Arnold and himself,

and in virtue of which the holders of canal bonds were induced to advance $1,600,000 wherewith to complete the canal, In 1843, through a misunderstanding about the ilivision of income from his official position, the partnership between him and Mr. Collins was dissolved; and after the close of his official relations with the ad- ministration he took into partnership his son, Justin, Jr. In 1847 Erastus S. Williams, a law student of the oki" firm, and of late years better known as Judge Williams of the Circuit Court of Cook County, was added to the new firm. June 21. 1849, after the re-accession of the Whigs to power, he was appointed Commissioner of the General Land Office by President Taylor. A com- petitor for the position at that time was Abraham Lincoln, who was beaten, it is said, by the superior dispatch of Butterfield in reach- ing Washington by the northern route, but more cor- rectly by the paramount influence of his friend Daniel Webster. In fact, Lincoln was then, or had recently been, in Washington as member of the Thirtieth Con- gress, and had the indorsement of the Illinois delega- tion, but the pressure of Mr. Webster was irresistible. While in this office he co-operated zealously with Senator Douglas toward securing for Illinois the land grant which became the subsidy of the Illinois Central Railroad, and indirectly through the seven per cent of its gross earnings made payable by its charter to the State, an efficient aid in restoring the credit of the common wealth and finally extinguishing its indebtedness. He held the position of Land Commissioner until disabled by paralysis in 1852. On his retirement he received from President Fillmore the highest praise for efficiency and ability in that office. He had introduced system and industry in the transaction of its business. He lingered some three years in an enfeebled condition, when he died at his home in Chicago, October 23, 1855, in his sixty-sixth year. His wife-before marriage Eliz- abeth Pierce, of Scoharie, N. Y .- and four children survived him. Two sons, Justin and Lewis, who had been bred to his own profession, had gone before. Lewis, born in 1817, and admitted to the Bar December 16, 1840, died in Chicago October 27, 1845. Justin, born in 1819, and admitted to the Bar June 10, 1840, died of consumption in Washington, March 5. 1852. His oldest son, George, an officer in the navy, died about 1850. The survivors were William, the first graduate of Rush Medical College; and three daugh- ters, Mrs. Sidney Sawyer, Mrs. Frances Gelatly, and Mrs. William S. Johnston, Jr. Mrs. Johnston died January 7, 1875. Mr. Butterfield had always been ex- ceptionally happy in his domestic relations, and was deeply mourned by his family and friends, At the memorial Bar-meeting held two days after his death, his associates thus expressed themselves; " Possessed of great clearness and sagacity of judgment, cautious and steady energy, a well-balanced independence, a just re- spect for authority, and at the same time an unflinching adherence to his own deliberate opinion of the law, he And the secured great respect as a lawyer.

services of the deceased * entitle him to the

gratitude of his adopted State." " Justin Butterfield," says Arnold, "was one of the ablest, if not the very ahlest lawyer we have ever had at the Chi- cago Bar. He was strong, logical, full of vigor and resources. In his style of argument, and in his per- sonal appearance he was not unlike Daniel Webster, of whom he was a great admirer, and who was his model. He wielded the weapons of sarcasm and irony with crushing power, and was especially effective in invec- tive. Great as he was before the Supreme Court, and

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everywhere on questions of law, he lacked the tact and skill to be equally successful before a jury." " Mr. Butterfield's success in the profession," says Judge

soon obtained a share of the limited law business of the period, and in the American of February 18, 1837, he advertised that certain notes and, accounts were in his hands for collection. In March he was chosen the first Clerk of the new city, a position which he soon found more onerous than remunerative; and which he resigned before October, to give his attention to his growing professional business. He had, meanwhile, John M. Wilson, "resulted from what may be called the power of adaptation, always seizing upon the most effective mode of subserving the interest of his client. * * * He possessed an intuitive appreciation of the strength and resources of his adversary, and was the last man to attempt to laugh a case out of court, unless the prosecution was feeble or the plaintiff and his case were open to the assaults of ridicule and sarcasm. * * * He rarely indulged in flights of fancy, though he never failed to lighten up his addresses to court or jury with a caustic humor which was always effective, his manner giving a point and force to the words. The high posi- tion he attained was owing, as intimated, to his intuitive apprehension of the questions upon which cases must be-decided, and by adapting his mode of attack or dc- fense to the peculiar circunstances of each case." Mr. Butterfield possessed readiness in reply and aptness in retaliation, which with his professional skill and knowledge made him a formidable adversary and a desirable advocate. Many stories are told of his wit and humor, which need not be here repeated, as they only illustrate traits of character and manner already described. formed a law partnership with Mahlon D. Ogden, of which the first mention made is dated August 16, 1837, though known to have been established some months earlier in the spring. With a colleague at headquarters, Mr. Arnold was now free to broaden the relations and spread the reputation of the firm by riding the circuit of the adjoining counties and attending the State and United States courts at the capital as elsewhere sketched in this work, chiefly from his writings. Arnold & Ogden soon came into public recognition, and were en- gaged on one side or the other in a very considerable proportion of the more important cases in this section, In those dark days of Illinois history, from 1836 to 1846, when men were sometimes elected to the Legisla . ture on a more or less outspoken platform of repudiation, Mr. Arnokl's position and views on the opposite side came to be recognized. He was known as an earnest pleader for saving the credit of the State by accepting in good faith the whole burden which had been so un- wisely laid upon them by their representatives. Thence- forth he was universally regarded as a champion of public honor, a principled opponent of repudiation and of whatever else tended to weaken the purpose of the people to manfully pay the penalty of the internal im- provement mania, which had been the cause of the mis- chief. In January. 1840, Mr. Arnold purchased for $400, a lot in Fort Dearborn addition, which is perhaps worthy of mention in illustration of the great fifteen years before. Besides the subject of this sketch, growth in value of Chicago real estate. With the not very expensive building erected thereon since the fire it now brings a rental of $2,500. In the same year he was elected a member of the first board of inspectors under the school act of 1839, a position which his increasing public responsibilities soon forced him to relinquish. January 18, 1841, a public meeting was held in Chicago to promote direct taxation for the payment of interest on the State debt. Mr. Arnold was one of the signers to the call, as well as a prominent speaker at the meet- ing and chairman of the committee on resolutions. Notwithstanding these and similar evidences of an earnest solicitude, on the part of some of the best people of the State to maintain or repair the public credit, the Legislature, in February, passed a law which gave a right of redemption in all cases of land sold under mort- gages and deeds of trust, whether in virtues of decrees at law or in equity, and provided that before any such sale the property should be appraised and should not be sold at less than two-thirds of such appraisal. As this legislation practically suspended the collection of debts, Mr. Arnold at once took the ground that it was unconstitutional, and carried two test cases to the Supreme Court of the United States where his views were confirmed and the obnoxious laws declared void. In April, 1841, he was appointed Master in Chancery by Judge T. W. Smith, a position he held until his election to the Legislature. Four months later, August 4, he was married at Batavia, N. Y., to Harriet Augusta, daughter of Dr. Trumbull Darrance, of Pittsfield, Mass. He was formally admitted to the Bar of Illinois, De- cember 5, 1841, at one of his many professional visits to the capital, though he had been licensed some time before, and his New York license had secured him full

ISAAC NEWTON ARNOLD was born in Hartwick, Otsego Co., N. Y., November 30, 1813. His parents were Dr. George Washington, and Sophia Mason Ar- nold, who had removed thither from Rhode Island some they had two sons and four daughters, all of whom grew to maturity, except one boy who died in infancy. I. N. Arnold got his early education at the district school and the local academy. While procuring his later education after the age of fifteen, when he was thrown upon his own resources, and during his studies for the Bar, he made a frugal living by copying in the office of the surrogate, teaching a neighboring school, by office services for his law teachers, and finally by an occasional trial before a Justice of the Peace. He first studied law under Richard Cooper, of Coopers- town, and then under Judge E. B. Morehouse. He was admitted to the Bar in 1835, at the age of twenty- one, and became the partner of his late teacher, Judge Morehouse. He soon found opportunity for his first triumph in a role in which his success afterward became quite marked, that of advocate for persons charged with capital offenses. A negro named Dacit was under indictment in Otsego County for fratricide, an unjust presumption of guilt seizing the public mind because the two brothers were believed to be rivals in love. Mr. Arnold became satisfied of the innocence of his client and secured his acquittal. As he approached his ma- jority he concluded to go West, and in pursuit of this purpose lie arrived in Chicago in October, 1836. He published his card as a lawyer as early as November 19, of that year. His chief source of income at first was his skill as a writer of real estate contracts, trans- fers and abstracts, in the office of Augustus Garrett, auctioneer and dealer in lots and lands, and afterward Mayor of the city. In those early days of almost frenzied activity in that line of speculation, Mr. Arnold often earned ten dollars a day in that capacity. He

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recognition from the first as a member of the earlier Chicago Bar. At the Democratic State Convention in 1842, he introduced a resolution committing that body to an explicit declaration against repudiation. It was seconded by Mr. Swan, of the Rock River district, but failed to receive the indorsement of the majority. Mr. Arnold received the nomination for representative of his district in the General Assembly and was elected. He resigned the office of Master in Chancery August 6. He had about this time received a letter from Arthur Bronson, of New York, a creditor of this State to a con- siderable amount, and informally representing the views of other creditors, which outlined the method of paying the canal debt by borrowing enough to complete it and pledging its future revenue to the payment of interest and principal of the old and new debt. At a confer- ence some weeks later in Chicago between Mr. Bron- son, William B. Ogden, I. N. Arnold and Justin Butter- field this design assumed more definite shape and was drafted by Mr. Butterfield as the famous canal bill, which contributed so effectually to restore the State credit and enhance the prosperity of Chicago. The principles involved and the sustaining arguments were represented fully and forcibly by Mr. Arnold before the Mechanics' Institute, November 16, in a lecture on " The Legal and Moral Obligations of the State to pay its Debts, the Resources of Illinois, and the Means by which the Credit of the State may be Restored." In the session of 1842-43 he was chairman of the com- mittee on finance, and introduced the canal bill already mentioned. By persistent cfforts he was enabled to carry it through, but by only a very small majority. In 1844 he was again nominated and elected to the Legislature, and was presidential elector on the Demo- cratic ticket. Toward the close of the year, upon the resignation of Justin Butterfiekl, his friends petitioned the administration for his appointment to the vacant place of District Attorney for Illinois, while another section of the party favored Mark Skinner. To promote harmony the appointment was given to D. 1 .. Gregg, of Joliet. Meanwhile the loan of $1,600,000 provided by the canal bill of the year before was delayed through the cautious hesitancy of the money lenders, who required additional and clearly specified guarantees from the Legislature, in all of which subsidiary work Mr. Arnold took an active part, having at length the satisfaction to see the whole matter amicably adjusted in 1845. At the close of his second term in the Legislature by its ad- journment, March 3, 1845, he resumed the practice of his profession with new interest and increased success. In 1847 he dissolved partnership with Mr. Ogden, and after some months became associated with George W. Lay, Jr., in 1848, In that year, too, he threw his polit- ical fortunes and talents into the new Free-Soil party, and was a delegate to its national convention at Buffalo, and its State convention at Ottawa. He took an earnest and active part in the anti-slavery campaign, being one of the chief orators of the party of Illinois. In all the succeeding biennial campaigns his voice and influence were consistently opposed to the aggressions of the pro- slavery party, and in 1856 he was elected to the Legislat- ure on that ticket. In that year, too, the firm of Arnold & Lay became Arnold, Larned & Lay by the accession of Edwin C. Larned. In the single session of the Twentieth General Assembly, January 5 to February 19, 1857, Mr. Arnold was chiefly distinguished for his elaborate and successful defense of Governor Bissell on the charge of ineligibility. In 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 farce 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 & Michigan 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. His first great speech in Congress May z2, 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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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 President Lincoln, and labored indefatigably for his re-election, addressing a great num- ber 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- dent 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 speeches 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 lie again retired to private life and his favorite lit- erary pursuits.

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 okler 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 83 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 ahle 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 toearn 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 Cook County, Illinois From the Earliest Period to the Present Time, Part 65

Author: Andreas, A. T. (Alfred Theodore), 1839-1900 Publication date: 1884 Publisher: Chicago : A.T. Andreas Number of Pages: 875

Author: Andreas, A. T. (Alfred Theodore), 1839-1900
Publication date: 1884
Publisher: Chicago : A.T. Andreas
Number of Pages: 875