USA > Illinois > McLean County > The good old times in McLean County, Illinois : containing two hundred and sixty-one sketches of old settlers, a complete historical sketch of the Black Hawk war and descriptions of all matters of interest relating to McLean County > Part 25
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men ; and I am glad to know that pleasant personal relations be- tween all these men have not only been thus restored, but re- stored as we have every reason to believe permanently.
" A misapprehension, quite too common, to which the Gen- eral has exposed himself, by these outbursts of feeling, is my apology for thus noticing this feature of his character.
" Hoping you may be able to pick up something that may be of value, as illustrating the life of one who has occupied so large a space in the public mind, from among these rambling, fragmentary thoughts, I have the honor to be
"Yours truly, JESSE W. FELL."
Such is the sketch of General Gridley, which Mr. Fell has written. The reader has found it full of thought, showing a re- markable insight into the workings of the mind, and full of knowledge of him of whom he writes.
On the 18th of March, 1836, General Gridley married Mary Ann Enos. They have four children living. They are Juliet, Albert, Mary and Edward. The last named lives at home with his father, and is a young man of great promise.
JUDGE DAVID DAVIS.
The greatest legal light of Bloomington is Judge David Davis. He was born in Cecil County, Maryland, on the ninth of March, 1815. He graduated at Kenyon College, Ohio, on the fourth of September, 1832, and commenced the study of law at Lenox, Massachusetts, in October following, in the office of Judge Henry W. Bishop. After studying there for two years he went to the New Haven Law School where he remained until the fall of 1835, when he removed to Pekin, Tazewell County, Illinois. After practicing law for one year in Pekin he removed to Bloomington, which has ever since been his home. Here he succeeded to the law business of Mr. Jesse W. Fell, who became much interested in operations in real estate. He took possession of Mr. Fell's old office which was one door east of what is now . Larison & Espey's drug store. Mr. Davis succeeded in the law at the very outset. He was not a great orator nor even a very fluent talker, but he was a clear-minded man and soon took a front rank in his chosen profession.
On the thirtieth of October, 1838, Judge Davis married Miss
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Sarah Walker at Lenox, Massachusetts. She is a daughter of Judge Walker of that State. Judge Davis has two children living, a son and a daughter; the former is living with his family near Bloomington.
In the year 1840 Mr. Davis was the candidate of the Whigs for the office of State Senator against Governor Moore, but the latter was successful. The senatorial district then embraced the counties of Moultrie, Macon, Piatt, De Witt, McLean and Living- ston. In 1844 Mr. Davis was elected to the lower house of the Assembly, but declined to be a candidate for re-election.
In 1847 he was elected a member of the Constitutional Con- vention and in 1848 was chosen by the people, without opposi- tion, to be Judge of the Eighth Judicial Circuit, embracing four- teen counties. This was a position for which Judge Davis was eminently fitted. It has been said of him that his leading char- acteristic is love of equity, and this, combined with a strong will, quick perceptions and the very clearest judgment, made. his decisions universally respected. His decisions were seldom appealed from and more seldom reversed. An old settler, while speaking of the time when Judge Davis was on the bench, re- marked, rather sarcastically: "Everybody seemed to think in those early times that the administration of justice was the ob- ject of going into our courts." The love of justice and the pen- etration which characterized Judge Davis are well illustrated by the following incident which was told of him by Mr. Lincoln, when the latter appointed Judge Davis to a seat on the Supreme Bench of the United States. On one occasion a guardian, for mercenary purposes, proposed to sell the estate of his ward and thereby have some money to handle. The guardian by his coun- sel had made out a prima facie case and his witness was about to leave the stand, when Judge Davis stopped him and put him through a severe examination, which showed up the guardian's bad faith; he then turned to the latter and said in his sharp shrill voice : " Now ain't you ashamed of yourself to be trying to cheat your ward in this way ! Clerk, dismiss this application at plaintiff's cost."
Judge Davis did not enforce the most rigid rules of order in his court, though he was careful that everything should be done with propriety. He was fond of humor and did not wish to
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spoil a joke for the sake of any false or extreme ideas of dignity. On one occasion, when a case of assault and battery was being tried, a witness who was a participant in the affair was telling of his movements and remarked that while the fight was hottest he providentially knocked his antagonist down. The Judge said he could not allow such testimony, as Providence had very little to do with such a fight, and the witness corrected his testimony by saying that as good luck would have it he knocked his antago- nist down. At one time a witness while describing a horse was very profane in his language and continued so while speaking of the reputation of the brute, without any interruption from the Judge ; but when the witness stepped from the stand the court remarked : " Mr. Sheriff, you will take charge of this man until he pays a fine of twenty-five dollars; the court will give the witness until he is called again to testify, to determine what por- tions of his evidence are objectionable in style." Judge Davis was always impatient when he discovered any symptoms on the part of a witness to evade or conceal the truth. In a warmly contested lawsuit one of the witnesses swore strongly against the defendant and did so in a fierce, revengeful manner. The attorney for the defendant then asked the witness if he did not have some ill-feeling, some old grudge against the defendant, but the witness evaded the question and the lawyer pressed the matter strongly until the witness was obliged to admit having had a slight misunderstanding. The case was growing exciting when the lawyer enquired: "Don't you hate the defendant ?" The witness began his usual prevarications when the Judge ex- claimed with his shrill voice : " Man, why don't you say you hate the defendant! Say so, of course you hate him, of course you hate him, say so, say so, say so and stop your lying !" Judge Davis was not a severe man in the administration of criminal law, but he was always anxious to have the community as well as the law-breakers impressed with its efficiency. While sen- tencing criminals his manner was most impressive, and when any particularly evil trait of character was apparent, his appear- ance was really terrible. At one time a young man, who had been found guilty of robbing a very old and almost helpless gentleman on the highway, was brought up to be sentenced. The case was one which showed the lowest state of depravity in a
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young man in the vigor of life. The Judge called the attention of the accused to the enormity of highway robbery and spoke particularly of the fact that the young criminal in committing the offence had thrown aside all respect for age. The manner and appearance of the Judge were really terrible as he closed his remarks by sentencing the prisoner to serve seven years in the Illinois Legislature ! " Penitentiary, your Honor," suggested the prosecuting attorney. The Judge directed the clerk to let the record show "penitentiary" instead of " legislature."
The Eighth Judicial Circuit which embraced at first four- teen counties contained an array of talent rarely equalled among the same number of lawyers. Judge Logan was the leader of the bar, but following him closely were Lincoln, Stuart, Baker, Linder, Gridley, Judge O. L. Davis, Judge Thornton, IIon. O. B. Ficklin, Judge Emerson, C. H. Moore, Judge Benedict, Judge Parks, Judge Edwards, and others, some of whom have since become immortal in history. Lincoln was the constant companion of Judge Davis in their travels around the extensive circuit, and at the close of their journey each day Lincoln re- lated those humorous stories which have made him so famous. Mr. Davis traveled in a two-horse buggy and Mr. Lincoln rode in his own conveyance drawn by his celebrated horse "Buck," the one which followed the great martyr in the funeral proces- sion to his final resting-place.
The year 1860 was one memorable in Illinois. Some years before this many prominent citizens of the State resolved to press Abraham Lincoln as a candidate for President of the United States, and during this year the excitement was so in- tense that nearly all law business was at a stand-still, because the lawyers and judges devoted all of their time to the campaign. Judge Davis was by far the most active and influential of Mr. Lincoln's supporters and his labors were almost herculean. Per- haps some idea may be given of the labors of Judge Davis by giving an extract from a letter, written by Mr. Jesse W. Fell to a late distinguished senator of the United States, in reply to a question by the latter as to the part taken by Mr. Fell in the campaign of 1860. The question was suggested by an autobi- ography of Abraham Lincoln, of which Mr. Fell was the pro- prietor, recently published by Osgood & Co. of Boston. The following is the extract :
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" Before responding to your inquiries, allow me to say, you give me much more credit than I am entitled to for the part I took in bringing before the American people the name of Abra- ham Lincoln as a candidate for the Presidency. Your original impressions were entirely correct. To Judge Davis more than any other man, living or dead, is the American people indebted for that extraordinary piece of good fortune, the nomination and consequent election of that man who combined in his person in so high a degree the elements necessary to a successful adminis- tration of the government through the late most critical period in our national history.
" It is quite possible Mr. Lincoln's fitness, or rather availabil- ity, as a candidate for that position may have occurred to me before it did to the Judge, but at an early day-as early, I think, as 1858-it had his earnest approval, and I need not say his vastly superior influence gave to his opinion on this subject a weight and character which my private and humble opinion could not command.
" It is well known that Judge Davis, though not a delegate, was one of the leading men at the Decatur State Convention in May, 1860, that elected delegates to the Chicago National Con- vention ; that he was there selected as one of the senatorial delegates to the latter body; that for more than a week prior to the nomination he had in connection with other friends of Mr. Lin- coln, opened the 'Lincoln Headquarters' at the Tremont House, Chicago, where, and throughout the city, wherever delegates were to be found, he labored day and night, almost sleeplessly, throughout that long and dramatically interesting contest, work- ing with a zeal, assiduity and skill never surpassed, if ever equalled ; and that when those herculean labors culminated in the choice of his trusted and most confidential friend, his feel- ings so overpowered him that not only then but for hours after, in grasping the hands of congratulating friends, he wept like a child.
" Whilst it is undoubtedly true that, without the hearty and vigorous co-operation of quite a number of equally eminent men, the prestige attached to the names of Seward and others could not have been broken, and this nomination secured, no one, as familiar as I was with what was then and there enacted, can
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doubt for a moment the pre-eminent part there played by the Judge. Among Lincoln hosts he was emphatically the great central figure ; the great motor of the hour. 'Render unto Cæsar the things that are Cæsar's.'"
In 1861 Judge Davis, Judge Holt and Mr. Campbell were chosen by President Lincoln to investigate the management of the Quartermaster's Department at St. Louis, which was under the management of Quartermaster MeKinstry who held his office under General Fremont. The investigation was thorough and laid bare the corruption and mismanagement of affairs at St. Louis.
In 1862 Judge Davis was appointed by Abraham Lincoln one of the Associate Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States. This appointment was not made by any personal solici- tation of Judge Davis, but simply on account of Mr. Lincoln's knowledge of the man, and by the effort of friends. At the time of his appointment he was well known in Illinois as a man of great judicial learning and the best of judgment, but his rep- utation had not gone beyond his State, as he had never filled. a position where his decisions would be published. But when he came to the Supreme Bench of the United States his reputation as a jurist went beyond the most sanguine expectations of his friends. A writer in the American Law Times, in discussing the character of Judge Davis, says : "Judge Davis is a natural law- yer, a character so truly great that to doubt him would be im- possible. His mind is all equity, and as vigorous as it is kind. He is progressive, and yet cautious ; a people's judge, and yet a lawyer's." His opinion in the Milligan case has attracted more attention from the people at large than any decision since that of Judge Taney in the Dred Scott case. Judge Davis lays down some fundamental principles of constitutional law which will stand as land marks for ages after he shall have been gathered to his fathers.
That which people are most anxious to learn about Judge Davis is his connection with the Cincinnati Convention. The active principles of the movement which resulted in the Cin- cinnati Convention were :
First .- The administration of public affairs in the interest not of a party but of the whole people.
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Second .- Official responsibility and a war of extermination against that system of jobbery and corruption which disfigures both of the great political parties, and which is sapping the very foundations of civilized society.
Third .- An absolute destruction of the old doctrine : "To the victors belong the spoils," and a restoration of the Jeffer- sonian maxim : "Is he honest ? Is he capable ?"
Fourth .- Reconciliation. Freedom and local self-government for the South, and an end of bayonet rule.
Judge Davis was well fitted by nature and education to be at the head of such a movement. He had been elected several times to the position of Circuit Judge by the voice of the people irrespective of party, and his every feeling was in sympathy with its active principles. His quick perception and his hatred of all forms of peculation and jobbery would make him an effective executive officer and a terror to evil-doers. Judge Davis was nominated for President by the Labor Reformers at the Colum- bus Convention, and this made him an object of jealousy by many of the friends of the candidates who were to come before the Cincinnati Convention, and they began to combine against him. So effective was their combination that he was beaten and Mr. Greeley nominated in his stead. It is now gener- ally acknowledged that this was a great mistake. The following "Scrap of Political History," which was published in the Bloom- ington Pantagraph, sheds some light upon the condition of affairs at Cincinnati :
A SCRAP OF POLITICAL HISTORY.
" Editor Pantagraph : Overhauling old papers my attention has just been called to the following, written by one of the dis- tinguished men of our country-the late Senator from Wisconsin- who, by the way, has wisely quit politics and taken to a profession he is so eminently fitted to adorn. He may not thank me for thus resurrecting old matters with which his name is associated, but at the risk of incurring not only his displeasure, but that of one still more distinguished, I feel constrained to ask its publi- cation. Had the Senator written in the light of subsequent history, it could not have been more truthfully and strongly done.
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"Just as the Cincinnati Convention was going into that memorable session that terminated in the nomination of that great and good man that now rests from his labors, this corres- pondence was thrown before that body, and to that fact may be ascribed that other fact that this masterly expose of the duty of the hour never afterwards appeared.
" As politics are now dead, and these names forever removed from the political arena, I trust and believe this publication will excite no unfriendly criticisms.
" (The letter of Senator Doolittle was in reply to one from the Wisconsin delegates at Cincinnati, asking his 'opinion on the candidates prominently named, in the order of their sup- posed strength, in securing the votes of both Republicans and Democrats to secure success.')
Mr. Doolittle's Response. " CINCINNATI, May 1st, 1872. " Hon. H. A. Tenney, Chairman, etc. :
" You ask me my opinion as to the candidates prominently named. They are Judge Davis, Governor Brown, Mr. Adams, Senator Trumbull and Mr. Greeley; and you ask me to speak frankly my opinion as to which would carry the greatest number of Republican and Democratic votes.
" Of all these men, I can speak in high terms as to capacity, integrity, and as to their being in full sympathy with the present Liberal Republican movement.
" Personally, as against the probable nominee of the Phila- delphia Convention, I could support either of them. But what you ask is my opinion as to their strength. I state their names in order just as I believe they really stand in their popular strength as nominees against General Grant : First, David Davis ; second, B. Gratz Brown ; third, Lyman Trumbull; fourth, Charles Francis Adams ; fifth, Horace Greeley. Without giving reasons why others should not be nominated, I give some reasons why I think Judge Davis should be, in order to insure union and success.
" First .- He is and always has been a Liberal Republican. In himself he is a true representative of the principles upon which the Liberal movement is based.
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" Second .- He will take as large a Republican vote as any man in the East, and more than any other in the West. As a test of his popularity a gentleman from Illinois informs me he has been five times elected to important offices by the votes of the people ; three times as Circuit Judge in a large district, re- ceiving each time every vote in the district, once as a member of the Legislature without serious opposition, and once as a member of the Constitutional Convention, receiving every rote in his county. Where can you find a better record than that ? He lives in a Republican county, where there is a Republican ma- jority of two thousand. If nominated, he will receive more than one thousand majority, as we are assured by more than five hundred Republicans from his own county, now here, who have come two hundred and fifty miles to attend this convention to show how he stands as a Republican and as a man at the home where he has lived for thirty-five years. In the history of the United States no record of any man can be found to show greater popularity than the almost unanimous election of Judge Davis five times in succession to public office. He will carry a large Republican vote, also, because he was the bosom friend of Mr. Lincoln. He was the man, who, more than any other, brought him out for President. He was the administrator of his estate, and the guardian of his children. He is in every sense a great man-great headed, great hearted, and full of vigor, and of as much executive will and force as any other man that lives.
" Third .- He would be, in my opinion, unanimously indorsed by the Democratic Convention, and would carry the solid vote of the Democracy of the United States, North and South, against Grant.
" Fourth .- His nomination here, followed by his indorse- ment at the Democratic Convention to be held hereafter, insures an election.
" Fifth .- IIis nomination will carry the Legislature of Illinois, and will re-elect Mr. Trumbull to the Senate, where, instead of being under the ban of a tyrannical majority, as he is, he would be the leader of the Senate. This is Mr. Trumbull's great role. It is where duty and interest and public good should lead him ; it is the place to which he is best fitted. There is too much at
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stake upon the success of this movement to allow personalities to control the action of the convention.
" Respectfully yours,
"J. R. DOOLITTLE."
Judge Davis has been remarkably successful as a dealer in real estate, and in all of his purchases and sales has shown the very best of judgment. His first purchase of real estate was made in Chicago, but as he was associated with others, and the disposition of the property was in a great measure beyond his control, the speculation was not fortunate. Nevertheless he had . great faith in the future of Chicago, although it then numbered only a few hundred inhabitants, and he purchased an eighty-acre tract of land lying about three miles from the harbor. It now sells by the foot, so far as it is offered for sale. It is to this for- tunate investment that he is indebted in part for the ample fortune he possesses. His policy in dealing in real estate has been to purchase property in the suburbs of a growing town, in order that it might become valuable with the increase of the place in size and prosperity. He was always careful to buy land intrinsically valuable, considering what it would produce, so that in any event his speculation would be a safe one.
As is well known, Judge Davis is a man of great public spirit, but thinks public matters should be managed as other business matters are, on a good financial basis. He has been charged with being indifferent in the matter of subscribing to build railroads. His theory with regard to railroads is that they should be built where it will pay to build them as an investment, and that the idea of voting aid from towns, counties and states, or donating lands along the line of the proposed road is wrong in principle. He believes that capitalists are always sharp enough to see where it will pay to invest their money and are ready to build railroads which will return a fair profit to the in- vestors. He thinks that the voting of aid by towns and counties and making land grants results in many cases in building roads which will not pay running expenses, and in others of putting roads in the hands of unprincipled managers who care nothing whatever for the people who have helped them and the towns that have voted them aid. Under these circumstances he has
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always been very conservative and cool about assisting railroads and some fault has been found with him for so doing ; but many of those who have blamed him in times past are now very much of his way of thinking.
Bloomington and Normal have been much benefited by their State institutions, the Normal School and the Soldiers' Orphans' Home. The location of these institutions here was due in a great measure to Judge Davis, who donated forty acres of land to the Normal School and sixty acres to the Orphans' Home. The former donation was worth at the time when given, four thousand dollars and the latter twelve thousand. It will be re- membered that great exertions were made to have these institu- tions taken elsewhere and Judge Davis' example and influence did very much to prevent their transfer.
So far as matters of charity are concerned it is not usually safe to speak definitely of any one. People who have the greatest reputations for charity usually deserve only a part of the credit they receive, as a suspicion is sometimes aroused that their charities are performed to be seen of men. Judge Davis does not indulge in ostentatious charity, but his friends assert that very few can be found anywhere so liberal even when judged by the proper standard-ability to give.
Judge Davis was at one time enabled to do some service to the city of Bloomington by saving to it the machine shops of the Chicago & Alton Railroad. These shops secure a monthly dis- bursement of fifty thousand dollars and the matter is of the greatest importance to Bloomington. When they were burned down, Judge Davis was holding court in Chicago. He there learned that it was the intention of various parties to make an effort to transfer the machine shops to another point. He im- mediately gave notice to the citizens of Bloomington who took active measures to save them.
The character of Judge Davis is pretty well shown by the incidents related in the foregoing sketch. It is also indicated by his appearance and manner. He is about five feet and eleven inches in height, has a large, commanding form, a broad, expan- sive forehead, blue, penetrating eyes and a rather prominent nose. He has a very pleasant address and superior conversa- tional powers; in his manner he is disposed to be familiar, par-
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