USA > Illinois > Pike County > History of Pike County, Illinois : together with sketches of its cities, villages and townships, educational, religious, civil, military, and political history, portraits of prominent persons and biographies of representative citizens > Part 35
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Law in those past-off days demanded of its votaries different qualities from now. It exacted the instincts of the smarter men, of genius and nerve and novelty. It was the intellectual over the ed- ucated who chiefly led the van. Of books there were few. Author- ities and precedents slumbered not in the great handy libraries. The entire resonrees of the Bounty Tract could hardly fill out the shelves of one ordinary lawyer's library to-day. Hence alike, whether engaged in counsel or in litigation, native resource, re- membrance of past reading, but mainly the readiness and aptitude with which legal principles drawn from rudimental reading or educed by intuition could be applied to any interest or exigence in " the infinite vanity of human concerns," were the armories whence were drawn their welded weapons of assured success.
Ile was a luckless lawyer who had to hunt his books to settle a suddenly controverted point, or answer a bewildered client's query ; and he was a licensed champion, who, theorizing from his instored legal lore, or instinctive acumen, knew on the instant where best to point his thrust and was equally ready with every form of parry and defense. The off-hand action and advice of such men, nerved by necessity and skilled by contest, became of course to be regarded almost like leaves of law.
One can thus somewhat realize what keen, pliant, incisive re- sonree was attained by such careers, how inspiring and attractive were their collisions, how refined and subtle and sharpened their intellects must have become.
It should not be supposed that looseness, lack of accuracy or legal formula, marked the rulings of the Bench or Bar. There was friend- ship and familiarity, it is true, because everybody knew everybody ; the court-houses were shambling great log shanties, their furniture, chairs and desks, split-bottomed and unplaned, would have set a modern lawyer's feeling on edge, but the Bench was always filled with character, knowledge and dignity (in fact, the second Judge who held Court in Pike county, John York Sawyer, weighed 386 pounds, and if that Bench was not full of judicial dignity where will the proper amount of avoirdupois be found ?), and forensic ruling and requirement was governed by as much judicial precision and professional deference as would mark the records of the most pre- tentions tribunals in the land.
The Bar in those days was a sort of family to itself. There was a mutual acquaintance. All traveled the Circuit, went to every county on Court week, came from all quarters. Egypt and Galena had their representatives. Some went there because they had busi- ness: some because they wanted to get business, and all that they might learn.
In Court, by practice and observation, was acquired much of knowledge that the paucity of books denied the student and young practitioner. Out of Court their association was like that of a de-
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bating society or law school. They mingled in common, ate, drank, smoked, joked, disputed together. The Judge had at the tavern the spare room, if such a room there was, and the lawyers bunked cosily, dozens together, in the "omnibus," as the big, many-bedded room was called, and there they had it. Whatever of law point past, pending, or probable could be raised, they "went for," dis- cussed, dissected, worried, fought over it until, whether convinced or not, all knew more than when they commenced; and thus, strug- gling over these made-up issues of debate, became sharpened, by mutual attrition, the legal faculties that were panting for future and more serious contests.
These lawyers were on exhibition, too, and they knew it. Every man in the county came to town Court week if he could. There were but few people in the country then, and Court week was the natural periodical time for the farmers to meet, swap stories, make trades, learn the news, hear the speeches and form their own opin- ions as to which of these " tonguey fellers it is safest to give business to or vote for for the Legislater."
A pretty good idea how universal was the gathering of necessity at the county-seats in those primitive days may be gleaned from the fact that often Sheriff, Capt. Ross and Deputy Sheriff "Jimmy " Ross had to go on the jury to make up the number. They could not find enough men in reach to sit as jurors. They had jolly old times, those limbs of the law-jolly, indeed. Most of them were young. All were instinet with the very cream of zeal, enterprise and origin- ality that inheres to a new community, and among them jibe and. jest and fun and yarn and repartee and sell were tossed about like meteorie showers.
An amusing incident is told in which figured an eminent surviv- ing member of the Bar, of the Military Tract. He, the Judge, and the Prosecuting Attorney, traveling over the prairie, while lighting their pipes, either thoughtlessly or accidentally set the grass on fire. It spread, swept toward the timber, destroyed a settler's fences and improvements, and some luckless wight was indicted for the offense. The lawyer above was engaged as counsel for the culprit.
The Prosecuting Attorney of course had his duty to perform to the furtherance of the ends of justice; the Judge had the outraged interests of law to protect under the solemnity of his position and oath; but it required all the earnest effort of the gifted counsel, all the generous ruling of the Judge, all the blundering action of the Prosecuting Attorney, the united sympathies, in fact, of this secretly sinning legal trinity to prevent the jury from finding a verdicl against the innocent accused. Countless are the racy legends of Illi- nois life and law, unrecorded and fast fading away as the memories that hold them pass from existence, but time and space give now no warrant for their recital.
BAR OF THE PAST.
Of those attorneys who resided in the county at one time, or
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practiced here, and are now either dead, have quit the practice or moved away, we will speak first :
Gen. E. D. Baker, whose father was an Admiral in the English navy, and whose brother, Dr. Alfred C. Baker, now resides at Barry, was an eminent lawyer, a fine rhetorician and orator, a man of great intelleet, and a leader in the halls of legislation. After many years' practice in Illinois he went to California, which State soon sent him to Congress as Senator, but he was finally slain by treach- ery at Ball's Bluff in Virginia.
Hon. O. H. Browning, of Quincy, too well known to describe here, has practiced at this Bar.
Col. D. B. Bush, of Pittsfield, is the oldest man in the county who has been a member of the Bar at this Court. He was admit- ted to practice in 1814.
Hon. J .. M. Bush, the present editor of the Democrat, has prac- ticed law here with commendable success.
Nehemiah Bushnell, a partner of Mr. Browning's at Quincy, has also practiced law in the Pike county Circuit Court. Ile was an easy, quiet and thorough lawyer, and a superior man in the U. S. Court. He died in 1872.
Alfred W. Cavalry was a smooth, pretty talker. He moved to Ottawa and died there a year or two ago at a very advanced age.
George W. Crow, of Barry, was a young man but not much of a lawyer. He went to Kansas.
Stephen A. Douglas practiced at the Pike county Bar in early days.
Daniel H. Gilmer was a young but able lawyer, thorough-going, learned, careful and popular. For a time he was a partner of Archi- bald Williams, and was subsequently a Colonel in the army, sne- ceeding Col. Carlin : he was killed at Stone river. His daughter Lizzie is now Postmistress at Pittsfield.
Jackson Grimshaw, younger brother of Hon. Wm. A. Grimshaw, was leader of the Bar in his day. He resided at Pittsfield fourteen years, then went to Quincy, where he died in December, 1875.
The following high eulogy was paid to the memory of Mr. Grim- shaw by Hon. I. N. Morris before the Bar of Quincy, at the time of his decease : "I rise to second the motion to place on the records of this Court the resolutions adopted by the members of the Bar of Quincy, as a slight testimonial to the memory of Jack- son Grimshaw. It is but little we can do, at best, to keep the defacing march of time from obliterating every sensitive memory of our departed friends, but we can do something toward it and let us do that little in this instance. Jackson Grimshaw deserves a living place in our minds and in our hearts. Yet he was mortal. He, like other men, had his faults and his virtues. His faults belonged to himself. His virtues to all. When the melancholy news eame ont from his residence, at 11 o'clock yesterday, that he was dead, its echo went over the city like the sound of a funeral bell, and "poor Grimshaw " was the general wail amid the heart-
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felt sorrow of all. His genins was of no ordinary kind; his energy was tireless, and he was true to his profession, his client and his honor. I challenge any man to say if he ever heard either impeached, even by a suspicion. If there was any thing the deceased hated more than any other, it was an illiberal, tricky, unmanly, dishonorable act, inside or outside of the profession, more especially inside of it. He had no patience with anything low or mean. These words grate on the ear, but I know of none more appropriate or expressive. His impulses flowed from a pure and noble inspiration, and were guided by a cultivated mind. I repeat it with pride, Jackson Grimshaw was an honest man. He bowed to no expediency, nor to sordid motive. He was easily excited, and the blood would monnt to his cheeks instantly at a wrong or indignity, and he would rebuke it on the spot. All will concede there was not a particle of deceit or hypocrisy about him. What he was he was, and we all understood him. He did not ask a favor in a smiling, cunning, obsequious way, but he trod the world as a man; and he looked with pity and disdain upon the servile who crawl upon their belly. In short, I say from a long and intimate acquaintance, notwithstanding his quick resentment and hasty words, he was superior in all the better qualities of the head and heart, for he never meant or planned a wrong: never coolly devised an evil, or gave the least countenance to it in another. I do not speak the language of romance or eulogy, but the simple, unadorned language of truth, and by that standard let him be judged. He would not prostitute his profession to plunder the widow or the orphan, or, in other words, he did not study or practice it merely as a means of gain, but for the higher and nobler purpose of estab- lishing justice among men, and not degrading the court-house into a place of tricks, technicalities and legal legerdemain. His sense of right was exalted, and he was not a spawn of nature, but was cast in the best mold. I repeat it, he was in the broadest sense of the term an honest and honorable lawyer and man.
It is no disparagement to others to say that in his profession he was the peer of any of them. He was a close student, but what was better, he was a close thinker. The principles bearing on his case shone through his mind as the face in the mirror, and they were unfolded to the Court and the Jury in language clear, forcible and convincing. His plain law, his impressment of facts, his eluci- dation, his power of analysis, his clear, forcible language and delivery, placed him justly in the front rank at the Bar.
Zachariah N. Garbutt was born in Wheatland, N. Y., about the year 1813; graduated at the University of Vermont; studied law in Washington city in the office of Matthew St. Clair Clark; he directly emigrated to Jacksonville, Ill., where he finished his legal course; he came to Pike county about the year 1839, returned East for a year, and then came back to Pittsfield, where he estab- lished the Free Press in 1846. and from which paper he retired in 1849; he also practiced law some, was Justice of the Peace and
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Master in Chancery. He was a strong anti-slavery Whig and a temperance advocate, and in the Mormon war, as Mr. Grimshaw says, " He earned laurels by piling up big sweet potatoes for the troops of the anti-Mormons." Earnest and somewhat original in his opinions, very independent in the expression of his thoughts, he was an upright, jovial man, and something of a genius. Finally, while traveling for a firm in St. Louis on commercial business, he was attacked with varioloid in Memphis, Tenn., where he died in 1855. In 1841 he married Phimelia B. Scott, a native of New York State, and who has since married Mr. Purkitt, and still re- sides in Pittsfield.
Alfred Grubb was first Sheriff, then a member of the Legisla- ture, then County Judge, and then admitted to the Bar, and prac- ticed in the Courts. He had considerable legal knowledge, and was well versed in the rules of practice, but his natural ability was comparatively deficient.
Gen. John J. Hardin, who had descended from a stock of soldiers and lawyers, was a fine attorney. He used to practice con- siderably at the Bar in this county, and often stop here on his way to Calhoun and return. For a period he was State's Attorney on this Circuit. He was killed at the battle of Buena Vista.
Milton Hay, formerly of the firm of Hay & Baker, now ranks high as a lawyer at Springfield, Ill., being a member of the firm of Hay, Greene & Littler, and has accumulated a fortune. He has been a member of the State Constitutional Convention and of the State Legislature.
Mr. Hewitt practiced here a while, and went to Iowa.
Capt. Joseph Klein, of Barry, was admitted to the Bar, but never practiced in the Circuit; was a partner of J. L. Underwood until 1869. He had considerable ability. He was once a steam- boat captain, and came from St. Louis to this county.
Josiah Lamborn, a lame man, once Attorney General of the State, resided at Jacksonville, and afterward at Springfield. He had a great deal of talent, but was a corrupt man.
Abraham Lincoln practiced at the Pike county Bar in early days.
Sumuel D. Lockwood, who resided at Jacksonville, was a very superior man as a lawyer and as a gentleman. He was once Attorney General of the State, Judge of the old Fifth Circuit, and was the author of the original criminal code of Illinois. He resigned the office on account of ill health, and went up to or near Aurora, where he died a short time ago. He was also one of the original trustees of the Asylum for the Blind at Jacksonville.
Gen. Maxwell, of Rushville, has appeared before the Bar in this county. His favorite song was, "The big black bull went roaring down the meadow." At one time he was a partner of Wmn. A. Minshall, and at another of Win. A. Richardson.
Isaac N. Morris, of Quincy, but recently deceased, has practiced law in Pike county.
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Murray O' Connell, of Jacksonville, practiced here considerably. He was a rongh-speaking man, but of great wit. During Buchan- an's administration he was 5th Anditor of the Treasury. He was murdered at the age of seventy.
John G. Pettingill, School Superintendent for a number of years, was also a lawyer in this county, but is now living in Mis- sonri.
N. E. Quinby, another Pike county lawyer, is now deceased.
James H. Ralston, formerly of Quincy, used to practice here and was for a time Circuit Judge. He was finally killed and de- voured by wolves in California.
Hon. Wm. A. Richardson, State's Attorney for a long time, used to practice here, but of late years he has visited the county more in the role of a politician.
John Jay Ross, son of Capt. Leonard Ross, was a lawyer of Pike county, but his practice was mostly confined to Atlas. He is now dead.
David A. Smith, once of Jacksonville, practiced here a great deal. He was a partner of Gen. Hardin at the time the latter died.
Thomas 'Stafford, a Barry lawyer, had not much ability. He soon removed from Barry to parts not now remembered.
Mr. Starr practiced at Coles' Grove in very early day : he after- ward went to Cincinnati.
John T. Stewart, of the firm of Stewart, Edwards & Brown, Springfield, is a shrewd lawyer of the Scotch kind. He was the first antagonist of Stephen A. Douglas in the Congressional race that the latter made in 1838, and was beaten by eighty-odd votes. The noted " Black Prince" turned the election. This district then extended to Galena and Chicago.
E. G. Tingle, Barry, whose father was a Judge in Maryland, was a well-read lawyer, but he did not stay in Barry long.
Hon. Lyman Trumbull, ex-U. S. Senator and now practicing law in Chicago, has appeared as attorney in the Pike county Court.
James Ward was a native of Ohio, and in this county was Jus- tice of the Peace and Probate Judge. He died, leaving a family at Griggsville and numerous relatives.
Calvin A. Warren, of Quincy, but now dead. has visited here some as a lawyer, and was State's Attorney for a time.
Charles Warren, for a time partner of Milton Hay in Pittsfield, was counsel of the commission appointed to ascertain the damages incurred by the damming of Copperas creek.
Alpheus Wheeler, an eccentric preacher and lawyer, came from old Virginia to Pike county at the close of the Black Hawk war, residing for some time at Highland. In 1838 and 1840 he was elected to the Legislature of Illinois where he made his peculiar speeches and encountered the wit and humor of another remarkable man, but of a more elevated type of manhood and education, namely, Usher F. Linder, who died recently at Chicago. On one occasion Mr. Wheeler addressed the Chair, saying, "Mr. Speaker, I
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have a-rose-" " Does the gentleman keep a flower garden?" inter- rupted the 'Speaker. Mr. W. practiced law in Pittsfield and ob- tained considerable business. He took great pride in his oratorical efforts and made some lofty flights in speeches to the jury. On one occasion when D. M. Woodson, State's Attorney, submitted a ease without argument for the purpose of preventing Wheeler from speaking, the latter replied: " Gentlemen, I admire the State's At- torney; he has shown the most sublime eloquence, as from some men it consists in most profound silence." " He used to say of Woodson, " His eloquence is like the tall thunder amongst the lofty oaks, coming down for to split things." This remark at one time excited some one who had a ready hand at a rough pencil sketch to draw a picture of a man's head with a big nose elevated in a tree- top, upon the west wall of the court-room at Pittsfield, and it re- mained there for many years, until the house was whitened up on the inside. That big nose was a caricature of Wheeler's. In a ease for killing a cow, when O. H. Browning made some points for the defendant, Mr. Wheeler replied: "The gentleman tells you, gentle- men of the jury, that the plaintiff, my client, cannot recover in this suit because the cow warn't no cow because she never had a calf, but that she war a heifer. Gentlemen, that are not the notion of a sound and legal lawyer but the notion of a musharoon." This al- most convulsed the court-house with laughter. Another objection of Browning's in this case was thus replied to by Mr. Wheeler: " Gentlemen of the jury. Mr. Browning says that our cow warn't worth a cent. Now, gentlemen, where were there ever a cow that warn't worth a cent? That cow were worth something for her meat, if she warn't worth nothing for a milk cow. She war worth some- thing for her horns; she war worth something for her hide, if not for her meat or milk; and gentlemen, she war worth something be- cause the tail goes with the hide." The cause of Browning's point was, that Wheeler had failed to prove by witnesses the worth of the cow.
A suit brought by Wheeler for one Harpole against his brother was for damage done to hogs by entting the toe-nails off the hogs so as to prevent them from elimbing. Wheeler, in describing the injury done to the hogs, insisted that the hogs had a right to toe- nails and a right to climb, and that, although they had done dam- age, yet it was laid down. " root hog or die."
One Zumwalt was indicted for destroying a mill-dam of Dr. Hezekiah Dodge's. Wheeler in this case assailed the character of Dr. Dodge, who was a respectable man and whom the jury did be- lieve. Zumwalt was convicted upon evidence that he had said at his son-in-law's, on the night of the destruction of the dam of Dodge's. "Just now the musrats are working on old Dodge's dam." Wheeler said of Dodge on the trial, " Dr. Dodge are a man so de- void of truth that when he speaks the truth he are griped."
During another of the lofty flights of our hero, a wag, John J. Ross, a lawyer and a man who made and enjoyed a joke, laughed
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so at one of Mr. Wheeler's speeches that he became excited, and, turning upon Ross in a very contemptuous way, with a majestic sweep of his long arm brought down at Ross, said: " I wish I had a tater: I'd throw it down your throat." Wheeler did not close his speech that evening, and the next morning early, when he was again addressing the jury and Ross at the Bar table, by some hand several large potatoes were put down in sight of Wheeler's eye. He fired up and let out a torrent of invective upon Ross, every one, Judge and all, in a loud roar of laughter.
In a fine frenzy at one time, Mr. W. parodied Shakspeare thus:
" Who steals my purse steals trash ;
Robs me of that which not enriches him but makes me poor, ---
all to injure my client."
Wheeler went to Bates county, Mo., since which time he has been lost sight of by people of this county. It is reported that he is not now living.
James W. Whitney was denominated " Lord Coke " on account of his knowledge of law. For a sketch of him see chapter on the early settlement of this county.
Archibald Williams, formerly of Quincy but later of Kansas and U. S. Circuit Judge, has been an eminent practitioner at the Bar of Pike.
John H. Williams, now of Quincy and a Circuit Judge, is a son of Archibald Williams, a man of good sense, and has been an able pleader at the Bar of Pike county. He is one of three Judges of this Circuit, but seldom holds Court in Pike county.
David M. Woodson was a State's Attorney of the old 1st District, which then included Pike county; afterward was Circuit Judge for 18 years, then was member of the Legislature. His partner in the law was Charles D. Hodges, late Circuit Judge of Greene county.
Gov. Richard Yates delivered his " maiden" speech as an at- torney here in Pittsfield.
THE PRESENT BAR.
We have endeavored to mention the names and give what facts we could learn of every attorney who has ever practiced in the courts of Pike county. We will now speak of those who compose the Bar at present. No name will intentionally be omitted. The list we give was furnished by some of the leading attorneys of the county, and we believe full and complete.
Hon. Wm. R. Archer is a native of New York city, where he read law and was admitted to the Bar in 1838, and shortly after- ward moved to this county, where he has ever since resided, ever active to forward any movement for the progress and prosperity of the county.
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HISTORY OF PIKE COUNTY.
R. M. Atkinson was admitted to the Bar in 1868; was elected County Judge in 1865 and served two terms.
Quitman Brown is engaged in the practice of law at Milton.
A. G. Crawford .- Mr. Crawford is a native son of Pike; studied law at Pittsfield, and graduated from the Chicago law school. He received his non-professional education in the schools of this county and at Blackburn University at Carlinville.
Joseph L. Dobbin .- This gentleman, who resides at Pittsfield, has been gaining a foot-hold in this county as an attorney of high rank.
Edward Doocy, Griggsville, is a graduate of Illinois College at Jacksonville, and was admitted to the Bar in 1874. He was born in Griggsville in 1851, and as a lawyer he now has a successful practice.
Isaac J. Dyer, Time, was reared in Jacksonville; had but limited literary education; received his professional education at the law school of Washington University at St. Louis, and was admitted to the Bar in 1873. He served in the late war and was disabled for life by wounds in the left arm.
James F. Greathouse, of Pittsfield, is a son of one of the early pioneers of Pike county. He was reared in Montezuma township and has thus far continued to reside in the county. He served his country during the trying days of the Rebellion.
Delos Grigsby, son of Judge Grigsby, has recently been admitted to the Bar.
Hon. Wmn. A. Grimshaw, the oldest practicing attorney of the county. ranks as one of the leading lawyers of the State; was ad- mitted to the Bar in Philadelphia at the age of 19; in 1833 he came to Pike county, since which time he has been actively identified with almost every public interest of the county.
Samuel V. Hayden is engaged in the practice of law at Milton.
Harry Higbee, son of Judge Higbee, and partner of Messrs. Wike & Matthews, attended Columbia Law School, New York city, and the Chicago Law School, and was admitted to the Bar in 1878.
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