USA > Illinois > Kane County > History of Kane County, Ill. Volume I > Part 40
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Mark Fletcher was clerk of the circuit court of Kane county, and a most excellent clerk he was, too. He had a vein of quiet humor about him in which he frequently indulged. He had taken an American silver dollar and placed it on the outside of his Bible, on which he administered official
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oaths. He then placed it in his press and made a deep and distinct impres- sion of the coin on the cover of the book, on the opposite cover of which there was a cross. When asked why he had the impression of the dollar on the book, he replied that when he swore a Catholic he presented that side on which the cross was shown, but when he swore a Yankee, he presented that side of the book on which the dollar was shown.
At one term of the court a case of divorce was tried in which a Presby- terian minister from Elgin was the complainant. He proved a pretty strong case of the misconduct of the defendant by several witnesses brought from Quincy, Illinois, but not being entirely satisfied, I held the case over for further consideration. A day or two after I called the case up, reviewing the evidence, and expressing my doubts about its sufficiency and the hope that some further evidence might be produced which would remove my doubts. * Some bystander from Elgin, having misunderstood what I had said, rushed away in hot haste and informed the clergyman that I had granted his divorce. Whereupon, the same evening he was married to a sister of his flock, but after two days of wedded bliss he learned, to hiis consternation, that I had not decided the case at all.
He immediately started for Geneva, and rushed into the court in breath- less haste just as I was about to adjourn it for the term, and made known the plight in which he found himself. His despair was unmistakable. I allowed him to be sworn. His testimony removed all doubt and I granted the decree. I was told that he hastened back to Elgin with as much speed as he had shown in his way down, and was married over again as quickly as some one could be found to perform the ceremony.
In the olden time judges, lawyers, jurors and witnesses all had to be accommodated at some little hostelry at the county seat, where it would take two or three tablefuls to feed all the guests; then when the bell rang for a meal there would be a rush for the dining room, when none stood upon the order of their going. A table was usually placed near the door, upon which the guests as they passed in threw their hats or wraps in a promiscuous pile. Mr. Helm, a resident lawyer of Yorkville, a man of full habit and pretty large proportions, in going out had some difficulty in finding his own hat, and in his efforts tried on several which would not fit him; all were too small, for his hat was nearly as big as a bee-hive. He had just laid down a small hat, which would barely sit upon the top of his head, and picked up his own, when Mr. Butterfield came along, and claimed the little one which he was about to lay down, when Mr. Helm remarked: "Brother Butterfield, it seems to me you have a very small head. My hat would cover your face as well as your head." "Yes, yes, Brother Helm," said Butterfield, "you have a very thick head, but mine is a good deal the longest."
Right on this point I may refer to another instance in illustration. When going to open the first term of the fall circuit in 1844, in Kendall county, I found the roads in a most horrible condition, showing that no road labor had been bestowed upon them. That was the wettest summer that I ever knew in this country. All the sloughs were full of water, and had been tramped up until they seemed to have no bottom, and I myself, with a light carriage and
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two horses, got stalled in a slough not two miles from the court house, and had to pack my wife and children out to dry ground, and then to hitch the horses to the end of a pole, and draw out the carriage. If to be covered literally with mud constitutes an element of beauty, then, indeed, was I beautiful for once in my life.
The result was that before night the grand jury brought in indictments against every road-supervisor in the county, and before I adjourned court that week I had the satisfaction of fining every one for neglect of duty. Indeed, all came in and pleaded guilty but one. Fridley had seconded my efforts with the greatest zeal.
When I adjourned that court and went on my way to Geneva, I found the road fairly lined with men repairing it, not only in Kendall county, but in Kane also, which was my next county. This convinced both Fridley and me that the fame of our work had gone before us. I charged all the grand juries in my circuit that fall, in substantially the same way, with equally good results. The influence of that campaign on the roads of that circuit was plainly observable, so long as I held the courts there at least.
Most lawyers who have practiced in the country will remember that it has frequently occurred that controversies about the identity of domestic animals have been maintained on both sides, at first with confidence, and then with bitterness, and that many witnesses will be brought who testify to the identity of an animal with the same confidence that they would to the identity of their own children, but directly opposite to each other. Such a case was once tried before me either in Kane or Kendall county (I do not remember which), in which the identity of a calf was involved. The usual number of witnesses testified on each side, and with equal confidence, until it was impossible to form any satisfactory conclusion as to which was right, when finally the owner of the cow and of the calf introduced them both to maintain his claim to the latter. He showed that when he brought the calf home and turned it in with the cow, it at once rushed up to her and com- menced sucking. which she not only suffered it to do, but caressed and licked it in the meantime, as if greatly satisfied to see it again.
Now I thought we had something tangible, upon which some reliance might be placed, but the other party brought up witnesses, and several of them, who testified that that particular cow would allow any calf to suck her, and always manifested an equally maternal affection for every calf she met, and licked and fondled all with great impartiality, and that that calf had been suffered to suck several different cows and would claim that privilege of any cow that it met. All of these witnesses testified with equal confidence, and it was manifest with equal integrity and sincerity.
Which way that jury guessed in making up their verdict I do not remember, but of course, whichever way it was that verdict had to stand.
There were no railroads then to help us on the way, and Mount Vernon, as things then existed, would now be considered in a remote and secluded part of the country. I went from Ottawa in a double buggy, with my wife and child, and drove through the country to Springfield, which occupied four days. On the way I stopped at Washington, in Tazewell county, and held
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my last circuit court at a special terni, which had been appointed by Judge Treat to try a criminal case, which I had sent over by change of venue from Peoria county. At Springfield I left my wife and child at quarters which I had secured for them, and took in Judge Treat, whom I had invited to ride with me on to Mount Vernon.
We started from Springfield on a dark, cloudy morning, and before we had proceeded half a mile a heavy snow storm set in, which proved to be the most severe that had been known there for many years. I drove a good team, and we pressed forward through the blinding storm without stopping until we reached Macoupin Point, twenty-eight or thirty miles, by which time the snow was about ten inches deep, when we were glad to take shelter, though the weather was not cold. The next day we pushed on toward Green- ville, in Bond county, which we reached the second night after, and the next day we reached Carlyle, in Clinton county. Here one of my horses was taken ill, when I left him and procured another in his place. The snow was still deep and the roads very heavy. Indeed, for more than three-quarters of the way since we left Springfield, not a single track was seen from the road.
The unusual fall of snow seemed to shut everybody up, and we passed many log cabins in the timber which bordered the prairies, and in the forest through which the road passed, where we could see families shivering around large fires in their cabins, with both doors and windows wide open, and pigs squealing around on the outside as if they, too, would be glad to get near that fire.
Indeed, the people there hardly seemed to know what snow meant or how to protect themselves from the cold, and this caused constant remark between us.
We had expected when we left Springfield to reach Mount Vernon on Saturday, but here we were only at Carlyle on Saturday night with a sick horse and a still unbroken road before us. We got our new horse and made an early start Sunday morning and pushed forward at the best speed we could; but a considerable coat of snow was still on the ground and it was already getting dusk when we reached, in the edge of the timber, the brick farmhouse of a well-to-do farmer, who, we learned at Carlyle, was in the habit of entertaining travelers, and where we could get excellent quarters unless the good lady of the house should happen to be out of humor, and then we would have to stay out all night, if necessary, in a storm, before she would let us into the house. For many years I remembered the name of this farmer and the distance from Carlyle to his house and from there to Mount Vernon, but I cannot state them now with certainty. I am very confident we were still from fourteen to eighteen miles from the latter place. It was raining hard and a cold wind was blowing, and it was getting dark when we drove up to the fence in front of the house, where the landlord came out and met us, who, upon our application for entertainment, with evident embarrass- ment, frankly told us that his wife was in a tantrum and that he could not afford us shelter. He told us that the nearest house was about two miles ahead, where lived a widow in a log cabin, and that this was our only chance for the night.
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Neither of us had ever been there before, but entreaty was of no avail; we started on. Even the snow which would have afforded some light, had disappeared in the course of the afternoon. We found the road to be narrow and winding, deeply gullied, up and down steep hills, and across creeks, now swollen with the rain, over some of which were narrow, corduroy bridges, and through others we had to ford. We had not gone half a mile before pitch darkness set in, so we could not see a vestige of the road, or even the forest trees, which bordered on either side. Then one of us had to get out and wade through the mud in front of the horses, and with our feet feel where the road was, and see if there were gullies on either side, and so we plodded on for more than three hours, copious rain falling all the time, and the cold wind increasing in violence. We had to look sharp all the latter part of the way, lest we should pass the widow's cabin without observing it. At last we did find it along toward midnight, and succeeded in arousing the widow and her little family of children, and the brave woman, as she was, admitted us without knowing whether we were tramps or honest men. Treat went in and helped to get up a good fire, while I unhitched the horses and took them to a shed across the road, which partly protected them from the storm. I found some corn for them in a crib near by, and then went to the house. where I found a good fire and some corn bread and cold meat set on the table with a pot of coffee. Humble and plain as it was, this was a luxurious repast ; we were nearly famished. There was but one room in the house, in which there was a bed and under it a trundle bed, where a part of the children slept.
Covered as we were with mud and rain, we must have presented any- thing but a charming sight ; but after drying ourselves as well as we could by the grate fire, we managed to get into the bed, while the good woman nestled into the trundle bed with her little ones.
With the break of day we were astir, when I went out to feed and harness the horses, while the landlady fried some meat, with which, and some more corn bread, we made our breakfast. The rain had stopped, but the cold had increased very considerably, and the horses, having been but partially pro- tected from the storm and still wet and shivering. were evidently in bad humor. However, I managed to hitch them to the vehicle, into which we . climbed, having compensated the woman liberally for her kind entertain- ment, reflecting sharply upon the contrast between her kindly hospitality, and the conduct of the rich farmer's wife, who had refused us shelter under such forbidding circumstances.
Well, there are many good women in this world, while there are some who are not so good ; and we really thought that her husband was more to be pitied in the long run than we were.
When we started up to pursue our journey, the new horse, which had evidently been used to better treatment, laid back his ears and refused to budge an inch. I did not thrash him, and whip him, as one might have been inclined to do, but got out and got to his head and petted him and coaxed him till he seemed to have attained a better humor, when I got in and he started up and went along very cheerfully ; indeed, he acted as if he would like to have taken a run for awhile. We pursued our way slowly but
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diligently through the muddy forest road, and reached Mount Vernon soon after noon, where we found Judge Trumbull, who had arrived before us.
When Judge Breese took his seat upon the bench of the supreme court for the second time, the court consisted of Breese, Skinner and myself. In the course of conversation we discovered that we all three came from Oneida county, New York, and this remarkable incident soon became known to the bar, and was the subject of comment among theni.
At that time, what may be called the circuit practice necessarily pre- vailed, and in each circuit in the state there was a class of lawyers who attended most of the courts in their own circuits, and very frequently attended the courts in the other circuits, mostly to try important cases, where their special reputations had caused them to be retained. This circuit practice was a special school, unequaled in its way, and in it these circuit lawyers acquired qualifications which could be learned in no other school.
They had but few books to study, but these they studied to a purpose. Blackstone and Coke upon Littleton, were their favorite books, and from them they learned the fundamental principles of the law, and the reasons why the law was so.
As in traveling the circuit few books could be carried, and but rarely were books to be found at the county seats, excepting the statutes, this sort of legal qualification was indispensable for both judges and lawyers, and the character of their work was such as to train them to think quickly and accurately, and to change the thoughts rapidly from one subject to another.
In passing from one county seat to another, the judges and lawyers always rode on horseback, with saddlebags, very frequently traversing unin- habited prairies of from ten to twenty miles or more across. Indeed, at that early time all the settlers lived in cabins along the skirts of the timber, with inclosures in the adjoining prairies in which were cultivated fields, their stock ranging in the groves or grazing on the prairies. Nearly every cabin entertained travelers, who stopped for meals or to stay over night. Ham and eggs, fried chicken and warm biscuit, with good coffee, constituted the menu at nearly every cabin. If the position was such that the approach of the traveler could be seen some distance away, and it was about meal time, it did not require very attentive listening for him to distinguish the outcry of the chickens from the hen-coop as one or more were being immolated, which he knew was to satisfy the cravings of his inner man.
If a boy was about to take his horse, he might go into the house at once; if not, he would have to stable and feed his own horse, which many preferred to do, to make sure that they were well cared for. If he went into the house soon, he might see the good lady pull from under the bed a bread- tray, which was kept constantly supplied with dough, and in a trice the biscuits would be molded and placed in the bake-pan; chickens were placed in the frying pan; the coffee-pot was set to brewing; the table was set; and in an incredibly short time he was seated at the table with a meal before him as inviting as was ever set before a guest in the most fashionable hotel, with the most modern conveniences. The food was plain but substantial, and was always cooked to a turn. It was not smothered up in rich condiments, but
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its flavor was most appetizing. Even now, I fondly remember the feasts which I have enjoyed in those log cabins.
In riding from one county seat to another, the judges and lawyers gen- erally traveled in a band together, although not always in a compact body. Usually the gait was a fast walk or a slow trot, and frequently the band would be separated into little squads of from two to four, when the monotony of the ride was relieved by conversation and the relation of anecdotes or story- telling, as it was called, though ordinarily these last were reserved for the evening, when the whole party would be assembled. Then it was that the delights of circuit riding were most appreciated. All were good story-tellers, and with rare exceptions each one added somewhat to his store since the last meeting, either from having heard a good story from somebody else or invented one; and a new story, if it were only a good one, was always received in the way that showed that it was fully appreciated. Frequently a quite ordinary incident would be dressed up and so embellished as to be exceedingly ludicrous and amusing.
The early circuit riders, for the purpose of illustrating certain char- acteristics of the human mind, used to tell a story of Judge Harlan (a name suggestive of the ermine) when he was circuit judge. They stated that when he had closed his court at a little town in the southern part of the state, and nearly all were ready to mount their horses and proceed to the next county, and just as he was putting his foot in the stirrup, a lawyer rushed up with a paper in his hand, and asked him to sign a bill of exceptions. With evident marks of impatience, he dropped the reins of his bridle, and hastened back into the log tavern and called for pen and ink, which were shown him on the little counter in the bar-room. Goose quills, then, only were used for pens. He seized one and jammed it into the inkstand with such force as to spoil it. He only appreciated this when he attempted to sign his name. And this crushing process he repeated several times before he succeeded in writing his name, and then it was hardly legible, when he threw down the pen and paper, evidently in bad humor, and bolted from the house, mounted his horse, applied the whip, and took the lead upon the trail which led across a ten-mile prairie to a cabin in a grove of timber.
The rest followed as best they could; but none could succeed in eliciting from him even a word of recognition during a ride. When he reached the cabin, he accosted a woman who stood at the front of the house, and asked her for a drink of water. This she brought him in a gourd, from the well, of which he drank heartily, and when he returned the gourd to the good lady, he remarked, "That is good water, and I tell you, madam, they do keep the infernallest pens back in this little onery town that we just left, that you ever saw," and he again took the lead, apparently still brooding over those pens.
Euchre parties were frequently formed, and so time was pleasantly passed ; and sometimes a dance was gotten up, when an old fiddle could be found, and some one was capable of using it. Judge Young himself was deemed the best fiddler on the circuit, and so contributed much to the hilarity of such occasions.
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Sometimes a mock trial was instituted, when an indictment was pre- sented against some member of the bar, accusing him of most ridiculous crimes, embellished with laughable incidents. On such occasions, the judge, the lawyers and the witnesses fairly overflowed with wit; and boisterous laughter was not considered a breach of decorum in that court, and the verdict of the jury partook of the character of the previous doings. A verdict of "guilty" was almost a foregone conclusion, and the penalties inflicted were frequently the most ludicrous and amusing of all the proceed- ings. If the wit was keen, it was frequently deeply penetrating, but the sub- ject of it must bear it good naturedly and console his irritated feelings with the reflection that he would get his revenge on some future occasion. To show irritation at hard rubs was the worst thing a man could do, but to turn them off in some witty way enhanced his popularity for the time.
But the first few days of the term could not be given up to amusement ; all thoughts must be bent on business. Before the cavalcade of judges and lawyers had arrived, suitors and their friends, witnesses and sightseers, had already appeared, and were awaiting this important arrival; and scarcely had the advocates dismounted, generally covered with dust or mud, when they were surrounded by clients, eagerly seeking to engage their favorite counsel, and as soon as their leggings and dusters or overcoats could be dis- carded, they gave ear to those who sought their services, and listened to brief accounts of the cases in which their services were sought. One man wanted a suit defended; another wanted a case tried; another a suit commenced, and soon everything was bustle and excitement. Special pleas must be prepared in one case ; in another, a demurrer must be filed; in a third, a bill in chancery must be drawn, or an answer prepared; and in another, preparations for a trial which might come off immediately; and finally, some poor fellow was in jail for horse-stealing, or counterfeiting, or perhaps for murder, who wanted a lawyer to defend him; and all this heterogeneous mass of business was rushed in upon them in a manner which would have confused any mind not well trained to that mode of practicing law. Not infrequently, men were called in to take part in a trial when the jury was already being called, and they must learn the case during the trial itself, and it was astonishing to see how rapidly they could see the salient points of the case, and methodically arrange and present them.
As an instance of some of the means resorted to by the early courts to relieve the country of the presence of desperadoes and law-breakers of various kinds, B. F. Fridley is reported to have related the following: At one time, while horse stealing and all sorts of kindred mischief were going on, a gang of counterfeiters was discovered, and it was necessary that decisive action should be taken. Accordingly, a subpoena duces tecum was issued, commanding the counterfeiters to appear before the court at a designated place, on such a date, and bring with them all the counterfeit bills in their possession. This was issued because it was deemed necessary that the bills should be used in evidence. Of course, the defendants were not obliged to pay any attention to the command, but of that fact they were not aware; and as the best way out of the difficulty they left for pastures new, and were
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not again heard of. The end sought was, therefore, attained without much trouble, and the region was rid of the counterfeiting gang.
Few books upon legal matters existed in the early circuit, and Hon. B. C. Cook describes the lawyers who "rode the circuit" as "strong men, dependent more upon their own intellectual strength than upon books." And be it remarked that their intellectual strength proved a solid rock upon which they based a successful career. The bulk of business in the early courts was transacted by lawyers outside of the county, among whom were J. J. Brown, of Danville, Leslie Smith and J. D. Butterfield, of Chicago; Jonathan K. Cooper, Onslow Peters and Lincoln B. Knowlton, of Peoria; Judge Dickey, of Ottawa, and others. B. C. Cook was also from Ottawa, althoughi lie practiced to a great extent in the Kane county courts. When first known in the profession here he was a young man just entering upon his public career. From 1846 to 1852, as stated, he was prosecuting attorney of the district, and it has been said of him that he was a terror to all criminals, who, in their own language, "would rather have the devil after them than that young, pleasant, smiling, white-headed Cook." Mr. Cook was elected afterward to the state senate, and later served several terms in congress. He was a dele- gate from Illinois to the peace congress, to arrange a settlement with the southern states, when they were about going out of the Union, and took a bold and decisive stand in favor of upholding the constitution, and pre- serving the Union at all hazards. He subsequently served many years as chief attorney for the Chicago & Northwestern Railway, with headquarters at Chicago.
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