USA > Illinois > Adams County > Quincy > Quincy and Adams County history and representative men, Vol. I > Part 16
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Judge Skinner was a member of the lower house of the Legislature in 1848-50. Twenty years afterward, when he had retired with honors from the supreme bench and also praetieed snecessfully in Quiney, he served in the Constitutional Convention of 1870 as chairman of the judiciary committee. His death occurred at Quiney February 4, 1877. and a strong man, a remarkable advocate and an able judge disappeared from the earthly stage with his passing.
EARLY CIRCUIT JUDGES
"Under the Constitution of 1848, which provided for a Supreme Court of three judges, one to be chosen from each of the three grand divisions, and for cireuit judges, one for each cirenit, JJudge Lyman Trumbull was chosen from the first, or southern grand division. Judge
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Samuel II. Treat from the second or central grand division, and John D. Caton from the third, or northern grand division.
"Judge Treat, upon his resignation in 1855, was, the same year succeeded by Judge O. C. Skinner, and he in 1858 by Judge P. H. Walker, who served until his death in 1876.
"Judge Caton, after a long service upon both benches, resigned in 1864, when for a few months his place was ably filled by Judge Corydon Beckwith ; but at the election of that year Judge C. B. Law- renee was chosen successor. He filled the position one term of nine years.
"Of the judges above named as chosen under the Constitution of 1848, Judges Walker and Lawrenee were in office at the adoption of the constitution of 1870, and were not displaced by it.
CHARLES B. LAWRENCE
"Charles B. Lawrence was a citizen of Quincy for more than ten years, but such was the man, such was his genius for evading pub- licity and the printer's ink, that I cannot find anything relating to him in the histories or recollections. He was here as early as 1847, for on the 20th of January, 1847, he signed his name to the record of the annual meeting of the Second Congregational ( Unitarian) Society as Secretary. He was a member of the law firm of William & Lawrence during most of the time of his stay here, but, owing to ill health he bought a farm up near Galesburg and lived on it. In 1856 he appears to be living at Prairie City in MeDonough County. He was on the Supreme Court of the State from 1864 to 1873."-Contributed by W. A. Richardson.
JOSEPH SIBLEY
At his elevation to the State Supreme Court in 1855, Judge Skinner was succeeded on the circuit bench by Joseph Sibley, a New Hamp- shire man who had been practicing law and legislating for about nine years as a resident of Nauvoo and Warsaw, Haneoek County. Scon after being admitted to the bar in 1846, he had settled at the former place, where he commeneed practice and from which he was twice sent as a member of the Legislature. In 1853 he beeame a resident of Warsaw and two years later was elected to the circuit beneh. He was re-elected for three successive terms, and when the Appellate Court was reorganized in 1877, Judge Sibley was appointed by the Supreme Court to that beneh, serving thus until the expiration of his term in 1879. IIe had moved to Quiney and made that city his home thereafter until his death June 18, 1897, in the seventy-ninth year of his age. Judge Sibley was honest and solid in character, both as a man and a judge. Strangers often considered him offensively blunt, but those who knew him best saw beneath his surface a kind heart.
The political circumstances attending the accession of Judge Sibley
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to the Circuit Court are thus described by General Tillson : "The appointment of JJudge Treat as United States district judge for southern Illinois made a vacaney in the Supreme Court of the State in the Second district, and Judge Skinner, who had acceptably presided over the Adams and Hancock circuit, offered as a candidate for that position. Opposed to him were Stephen T. Logan of Sangamon, and Charles II. Constable, of Wabash counties. Political feeling was not enlisted in this election, but like the election on the liquor question, local sentiment and preference were active and controlling; each aspirant receiving the general vote of his own section of the district, Judge Skinner was easily successful by about 10,000 majority.
"The contest for the Circuit judgeship and a successor to Judge Skinner was like the above, a sort of triangular duel, and was at- tended with more of personal bitterness than often attaches to a purely political contest. The Adams County bar, with a desire to avoid political strife, had almost unanimously recommended for this position George Edmunds, an active and rising young lawyer of Quincy. A personal hostility to Mr. Edmunds brought forward an opposition and some severe attacks which were refuted, but operated upon the election. Resultant on this was the candidacy of Joseph Sibley and John W. Marsh, of Hancock County; the first as the nominee of a Democratic convention, and the latter one of the oldest and most experienced lawyers of the state, supported generally by such Whigs of the district as had not committed themselves to the candidacy of Mr. Edmunds. It was a close and doubtful election, end- ing in the election of Mr. Sibley by a small majority. Judge Sibley was three times re-chosen to this office, holding it for twenty-four years, the longest term of judicial circuit service known in the state."
OTHER CIRCUIT JUDGES
Judge Sibley was succeeded by John H. Williams, who served with excellent credit until 1885. JJudge Williams died Sept. 24, 1912. He was the first native of Quiney to attain the circuit judgeship. A son of the well known Archibald Williams, he was admitted to the bar in 1855; became a member of the firm of Williams, Grimshaw & Wil- liams. As an attorney Judge Williams is said to have been "a man of high attainments, honorable and upright" and "as a judge he made a record for his sincere and learned opinions. " He entered the law firm of his noted father. Archibald and Judge Lawrence, which continued until the latter was elevated to the supreme bench in 1864.
William Marsh, who succeeded Judge Williams, served from 1885 to 1891. He was a New York man and graduated from Union College in 1842. JJudge Marsh was admitted to the bar in 1815 and, after practicing at Ithaca, settled at Quiney in 1854. He had therefore been in practice over thirty years when he was elected to the eireuit judgeship, and during that long period of professional activity and useful citizenship had earned a high and broad station in the com- inunity.
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Oscar P. Bonney, the next circuit judge, served during the term covering the years 1891-97. He was a native of Missouri and previous to his admission to the bar in 1873 lived with the parental family at various places in that state and Illinois. He came to Quincy in his youth, studied law with Wheat, Ewing & Hamilton; was admitted to the bar in the year named; was successively city and state's at- torney and was holding the latter office when he was elevated to the bench. During his term as circuit judge, he was nominated for the supreme bench, but was defeated by Joseph N. Carter. Judge Bonney was a courtcous and an able lawyer and a sound judge, and his record served to elevate the standard of both the bench and bar of Adams County. His death occurred in Chicago, February 14, 1905.
John C. Broady succeeded Judge Bonney in 1897 and served his six years' term, or until 1903. Judge Broady's record was excellent, and his practice as a lawyer, both before and after his elevation to the bench, has made him a leader at the Adams County bar.
Judge Albert Akers, present incumbent of the circuit bench, suc- cecded Judge Broady in June, 1903.
THE PROBATE AND COUNTY JUDGES
At the head of the list stands the name of Henry H. Snow, the champion office holder of the county, whose first commission as pro- bate judge dates from September 15, 1825. His second term which covered a period of eleven years and nearly one month commenced January 23, 1826. Judge Snow was succeeded by William F. Flood on February 17, 1837, and Judge Flood was still in office when the judiciary was reorganized by the Constitution of 1848. Under its provisions all probate matters were absorbed by the county judge- ship.
Philo A. Goodwin, the first county judge under the new constitu- tion, commenced his four years' term November 17, 1849; Judge W. H. Cather went into office in November, 1853, and served for two terms; Judge E. B. Barker, in 1861: Judge Thomas J. Mitchell, 1865; Judge J. C. Thompson, 1873; Judge Benjamin F. Berrian, 1877; Judge Carl E. Epler, 1894; Judge Charles B. McCrory, 1902; Judge Frank Garner, 1910; Judge Lyman McCarl, since December of the last named year.
JUDGE B. F. BERRIAN
Wilcox's "Representative Men and Homes of Quincy, Illinois": "While ex-Governor Wood is the founder of Quincy, to the late George W. Berrian, father of Judge B. F. Berrian, belongs the dis- tinction of discovering the site of the Gem City. In the spring of 1818 Mr. Berrian, with his uncle, Richard Berrian, started from New York in a covered buggy to visit that section of western Illinois known as the Military Tract. Their trip was a long and eventful one, much
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of the west still being in the possession of the Indians and the white settlements being hundreds of miles apart. In June, 1819, necom- panied by a man named Jacobs who had lived for some time within the present boundaries of Adams county, they visited the bluffs where Quincy is now located. Old poles, remnants of wigwams or teepees, were still numerous, but the visitors were satisfied at that early day that this would be the site of an important city. Some time after leaving this locality, near Atlas, the Berrians met John Wood and ever after these early pioneers were warm personal friends. Judge Berrian still has in his possession letters written by his father from Edwardsville in 1819.
"Judge Berrian was born in New York City, October 2, 1830. With his father's family he left New York on the last day of April, 1844, to come west. They went by boat to Perth Amboy, New York, thenee by ears to Harrisburg, via Philadelphia, where they took a passenger boat on the eanal to Hollidaysburg. The mountains were crossed by train on five inelined planes, the cars being hauled up and lowered by wire cables operated by powerful engines. From Johnstown, on this side of the mountains, the journey was made by canal to Pittsburg, thenee by steamboat to St. Louis and Quiney, where the party arrived on the morning of May 20. A long, round- about and tiresome journey fifty years ago, now made in comfort in a single day.
"In the development of Quiney Judge Berrian has been a promi- nent factor. Ile was one of the first aldermen to represent the Fourth Ward, elected in 1857 and re-elected in 1859. In 1869 he was elected mayor and under his administration the city resumed cash payments. Previous to that time the resources of the eity had become so reduced that all payments had been made in vouchers which were at a discount of 40 per cent, but he determined to restore the credit of the city and by reason of his careful and successful financial management eash payments were resumed.
"In 1876 he was elected county judge and held that important office for seventeen years. During his long term of service on the bench the affairs of the court were administered with even-handed and impartial justice and Judge Berrian is universally regarded as one of the most honorable officials of the city and county."
HANGINGS, LEGAL AND ILLEGAL
In the palmy early days when Earl Pierce was sheriff of Adams County oceurred the first and the last exeention in that part of the state. It was also the first hanging in the Military Tract, so far as known. In the month of December, 1834, one Bennett was executed in Quincy for the murder of one Baker, poor wretches whose family names only have come down to the present. The killing was at Ben- nett's cabin above town, on or near the bay, where both of the prin- cipals had been caronsing for some days. The case was clear against
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him, and at 10 o'clock A. M. of that winter's day, the militia of the town and neighborhood was paraded under the command of Captain Hedges and others to form a guard at the execution. Many spee- tators, including a number of women, attended. Bennett was a tall, lean old man, and when brought out of the old log jail, dressed in a long white shroud and cap, he walked behind the wagon (driven by old John Sly, who was dressed in a buckskin hunting shirt) to the gallows. All were impressed with the firm, Indian like tread and carriage of the murderer. He behaved with the utmost firmness and dignified resignation. It is said that his last words of regret and admonition drew many tears from the crowd of spectators.
An old settler who witnessed the execution adds to his aecount of it : "That day six fights occurred in town. Not one of the offenders was arraigned or fined. The writer, who had been there only about a month, began to think Quiney a hard place."
After the execution of Bennett, the gallows were not again called into requisition to expiate the crime of any Adams County criminal for more than a quarter of a century. In 1861 Attison and Nelson Cunningham murdered a feeble old man named Harrison, who lived some miles south of Quiney and was supposed to possess some money. For this crime Attison Cunningham, the leader in the terrible affair, swung from the gallows in the rear of the courthouse. Friday morn- ing, November 29, 1861.
The hanging of Rose, the bushwhacker, in 1865, by a Quiney mob, is the only instance in the history of Adams County in which lynch law has been applied to an offender. He was aeensed of having shot a Mr. Trimble, a prominent democrat of Marcelline. Rose was taken from the jail by some of the convalescent soldiers in the hospital at Quiney and, aided by a number of other citizens of little prominence, met an illegal death at the hands of the maddened rioters.
THE LUCKETT-MAGNOR MURDER TRIAL
This was one of the most sensational eriminal eases ever brought into the Adams County courts. Thurston J. Luckett and William Magnor were local printers, in 1847, the former with quite wealthy connections. They were intimate friends before a woman came between them and caused jealous suspicions and mortal hatred. Finally they had a quarrel in the Clay Hotel and Magnor was stabbed to death. Browning & Bushnell were engaged to defend Luckett and no money was spared to elear him; publie sentiment also inelined toward the defendant, and the members of the bar were especially partial to him. Such circumstances rather tended to weaken the morale of the prosecution, its chief official representative even leav- ing the city during the progress of the trial and his assistant handling the situation rather feebly. The killing was done in the spring and the trial was eondueted at the October term of the Circuit Court. The feature of the ease which made it noteworthy, aside from the standing
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of the principals in the tragedy, was O. H. Browning's address to the jury, in defense of Luckett, which From all accounts of those who heard it was one of the most masterly appeals ever made by that master of eloquence and persuasion. After its delivery the last vestige of doubt as to the outcome of the trial disappeared; Luckett was promptly acquitted.
A SLANDER SUIT WITH A MORAL
The year 1849 is marked by two events which were brought into court and caused more than loral interest. The first was a slander trial which was conducted during the June term of the Circuit Court. and was the outcome of bitter personal as well as political quarrels. S. M. Bartlett, editor of the Whig, brought the suit against C. M. Woods, publisher of the Herald. Woods and Anstin Brooks were the Herald proprietors, and Brooks was the editor who had written the articles alleged to be slanderons, but the suit was brought against Woods as being equally liable and perhaps financially preferable as a defendant. The Herald was, of course, solidly democratie, and the proceedings assumed an even broader partisan character from the fact that most of the whig lawyers of the city were engaged for the plaintiff, while the lawyers of the democracy were lined up for the defense : also, because Judge Minshall had just been elected, under the new constitution as the whig candidate for the circuit bench. The judge, who was undoubtedly honest, although inclined to slowness of wit, was placed in a very embarrassing position, which certainly did not add to the elearness or promptness of his decisions. If they leaned toward the whig side of the contention the democrats all charged him with being politically prejudiced, and if he seemed to ineline the other way by so much as a hair's breadth the whigs elaimed that he was afraid to be fair to them on account of his known political preferences. The suit swung back and forth for several days, and the result was a nominal verdiet for the plaintiff ; the whigs had achieved a sort of a moral victory and the democrats were left intact in the region of the pocket-book. Those who followed the sequel of the famous slander suit insisted that one of its results was to broaden, if not to sweeten, the spirit of the local press, and that since that time Quiney editors have come to understand that the publie is not in- terested in their personal quarrels, and that it has a right to demand that space in the prints for which they pay their good money should be devoted to matters of a public nature only.
THE KILLING OF MAJOR PRENTISS
The murder of Maj. Henry L. Prentiss, who, on Christmas eve of 1849, was found dead near the courthouse, stirred Quiney deeply, as he was well known in local polities and a popular and esteemed citi- zen. In this case Austin West, who was charged with the offense, was
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tried in the following year and sentenced to three years in the peni- tentiary. It was evidently an unpremeditated homicide, the killing perhaps being the result of a hot-blooded quarrel incited by promis- cuous conviviality.
The court records show that West was indicted for the murder of Major Prentiss at the May term of the Circuit Court, 1850; that William A. Minchell was judge and R. S. Blackwell, prosecuting attorney.
FAMOUS EELS SLAVE CASE
It was not until 1853 that the famous fugitive slave case which so harassed the life of Dr. Richard Eels was decided in his favor, and the decision rendered that he had been unjustly convicted by the lower court sixteen years before. He died in the West Indies about the time the suit was determined. To begin at the beginning of the trouble-one evening, in the late summer of 1837, a tall and rather lean black man arrived in Quincy from Missouri. He swam the Mississippi River and was, of course, as wet as a half-drowned rat. A colored agent of the Underground Railway, Barryman Barnet, communicated his arrival to Doetor Eels. The doctor had a good buggy and a fast horse and, after giving the black man a dry shirt and a pair of pantaloons, started north with him; no doubt expect- ing to reach the next station, where other friendly parties would forward the eseaping slave to his next stopping place. But his master had arrived in Quincy and organized a pursuing party, some of whom met Doetor Eels and the fugitive negro and ordered them to halt. Instead, the doctor stirred up his steed and outdistaneed his pursuers for the time being. Another squad overtook him, how- ever, and, hiding the black in a corn field, he eireled around toward home. But the slave was caught by Sam Pearson, and a party of pursuers followed the doetor to his residence where they found the buggy containing the towel, linen shirt and breeches of the negro still wet with Mississippi water.
On the following day a warrant was sworn out by the master of the slave before Henry Asbury, justice of the peace, and a preliminary trial was held at the courthouse to determine whether the doctor should be held to bail to answer the charge of "harboring and aiding a fugitive to escape from the service of his master." Says Squire Asbury : "The examination took place in the courthouse and was largely at- tended, with able lawyers on each side. The doctor was held to bail. The ease was afterward tried in the Cireuit Court, I believe before Judge Douglas (Judge Skinner-Editor), and Eels was convicted and fined. The ease thence went to the Supreme Court of the State and finally to the Supreme Court of the United States. Both deei- sions may be found. The justice of the peace delivered a written opinion, and he is almost sorry to say that all the courts above him took substantially the same views of the case as he had taken. The
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affair cost Doetor Eels many thousands of dollars and almost broke him up, but the great notoriety of the Eels case, especially when it reached the Supreme Court of the United States, no doubt brought some of the anti-slavery people of New England forward with money to assist in the defense."
As stated, the controversy over the Eels case, as it affected the doctor personally and disturbed the friendly relations between Quiney and the Missouri side of the river, was decided by Judge Skinner, of the Circuit Court, in an opinion which he delivered on January 21. 1853. It was to the effeet that the authorities of the United States only had jurisdiction over suits concerning runaway slaves. A public meeting had previously been held in Marion County, Missouri, unan- imously resolving to sever all business intercourse with Quincy on account of the disposition of so many of its people to aid the eseape of runaway slaves. The question agitated on the Illinois side of the river was as to the obligation of citizens in this matter, under the provisions of the Black laws incorporated into the constitution of 1848, and how far the legal machinery of the state could be made subservient to the demand for the return of the fugitive slaves. Judge Skinner's decision placed the cognizanee of such cases with the United States Government, which seemed to eut the elaws of the State of Illinois in its dealings with the masters of runaway negroes.
THE PIONEER MEMBERS OF THE BAR
The first lawyer to make Quiney his residence was Louis Mas- querier or Masquerre, who, about 1828, located at the little settle- ment known as Quiney, the seat of justice of Adams County. He does not seem to have made more than a ripple, or to have deterred others from entering the field. as several members of his profession located there. Among those who afterward became most famous were O. H. Browning, who has already figured considerably in these pages, and Archibald Williams, another strong character, whose high and broad reputation spread far beyond the confines of Adams County.
It is true that Mr. Masquerier dropped somewhat suddenly out of sight, although he is deseribed as a notable man in his short day as a member of the Adams County bar. He was evidently a ready speaker and writer, a man of ambition and much information, but capricious and quite lacking in common sense. Clever and generally liked, nevertheless he was probably well hit-off by a local wag, who pronounced him a graduate from an institution "for the promotion of useless knowledge and the general confusion of the human under- standing." After residing a short time in Quiney, Mr. Masquerier mover to Southern Illinois and there died.
ARCHIBALD WILLIAMS
Mr. Williams located in Quiney two years before the arrival of Mr. Browning. He became a resident of the young county seat in
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1829, only four years after it had been staked and platted. Judge Williams was a Kentuckian, like so many other of the able men of the eity and county. He was born in 1801 and his early struggles for an education and general self-improvement seasoned him into school-teaching material and a sturdy young man, well adapted to make his way in the undeveloped West of the Mississippi Valley. From teacher he graduated to law student and the final choice of his profession indicated, by his after success, that his decision was the result of wise self-analysis. In 1828 he was admitted to the bar in Tennessee and moved to Qniney during the following year. There, during his first six years of practice, he achieved the highest rank as a lawyer and a splendid citizen. He was elected to the Legislature three times and in 1847 seleeted against a democrat, in a democratic distriet, to serve in the Constitutional Convention. Twee he was nominated by the whigs as their choice for United States senator, but the overwhelming opposition was too much even for his popularity ; he was also defeated as a whig candidate for Congress immediately preceding the birth of the republican party. Mr. Williams was offered a seat on the United States Supreme Beneh so late in life that he refused the honor on the ground that his advanced age would' dis- qualify him from completely performing the arduous and honorable duties of that position. In 1849, while in the prime of his professional strength he was appointed by President Taylor district attorney for Illinois, and in 1861 was appointed by President Lincoln United States district judge of Kansas. Strong, kind, charitable, generous, polished and courteous, Judge Williams left numerous warm friends and count- less admirers to regret his earthly departure from them, on Septem- ber 21, 1863. At the time of his deeease, he had been a resident of Quincy for more than thirty-four years, and few of its citizens ever became more firmly intrenehed in its confidence and affection.
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