USA > Indiana > Courts and lawyers of Indiana, Volume I > Part 32
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James L. Worden, who was on the Supreme bench from 1858 to 1865, was born, May 10, 1819, in Sandisfield, Berk- shire county, Massachusetts, being the son of John and Jane Worden. About 1829 he came to Ohio with his mother and spent his youth upon a farm, receiving only a common school education. In 1839 he entered the law office of Thomas J. Straight, of Cincinnati, and was admitted to the bar in 1841. He began practicing in Tiffin, Ohio, but moved to Whitley county, Indiana, in 1844, and in 1845 to Noble county. Shortly after going to Noble county he was elected prosecuting attor- ney for the Tenth judicial circuit and held that office by re- election until he was appointed Judge of the same circuit in 1855. Meanwhile, in 1849, he had moved to Fort Wayne. In 1855 he was elected Judge and on January 15, 1858. he was appointed to the Supreme bench of the state. In the fall of the same year he received the office by election. He was elected mayor of Fort Wayne in 1865 after his failure to be re-elected to the Supreme court in 1864. He resigned as mayor after a year's service because of his increasing law practice. From
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1865 to 1871 he was associated with John Morris in the law practice. He was re-elected to the Supreme bench in 1870, taking his seat January 3, 1871. To this position he was re- elected in 1876, resigning December 1, 1881. He then en- gaged in active practice until his death, June 10, 1884. In 1845 Judge Worden married Annie Grable, a daughter of Ben- jamin Grable.
The second Supreme court, composed of Judges Worden, Davidson, Perkins and Hanna-all Democrats-sat through the stormy period of the Civil War. The conduct of the court did not add to its prestige in the minds of the people. It al- lowed itself to be drawn into the quarrel between the Gov- ernor and the other state officers and became a partisan in- strument in the hands of the latter.
The election of 1864 was in a presidential year; Lincoln and the conduct of the War were at stake. Morton threw his powerful personality into the struggle. The Democrats re- nominated the members of the Supreme court. The Republi- cans nominated James S. Frazer, of Kosciusko county, for the First district; Jehu T. Elliott, of Wayne county, for the Sec- ond; Charles A. Ray, of Shelby county, for the Third; and Robert S. Gregory, of Tippecanoe county, for the Fourth. The Republican ticket was successful and an entirely new court took office on the first Monday of January, 1865.
James S. Frazer was born in Hollidaysburg, Pennsylvania, July 17, 1824, the son of Scotch parents, James and Martha Frazer. They gave him a good education. In 1837 he came to Wayne county, Indiana, and three years later he entered the office of Moorman Way, of Winchester, to study law. He taught school during the winter and in March, 1845, was ad- mitted to the bar. He opened up an office in Warsaw, Kos- ciusko county. In 1847, 1848 and 1854 he was a member of the Lower House of the State Legislature. From 1865 to 1871 he was one of the Judges of the Supreme court. On May 8, 1871, he was appointed by President Grant as one of three commissioners to adjust the claims between Great Britain and the United States arising out of the Civil War. He was in Washington from 1873 to 1875 adjusting the losses sustained by the United States during the War. In 1879 he was ap- pointed one of a board of commissioners to revise and codify
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the laws of the state. In 1889 he was appointed by Governor Hovey Judge of the Kosciusko Circuit court and served one year in this position. He was a member of the Odd Fellow's and of the Presbyterian church. On October 28, 1848, he married Caroline Defrees. They had seven children: William Defrees, Harriet D., Martha S., May C., Nellie R., Fannie and Jennie. He died at Warsaw, February 20, 1893.
Jehu T. Elliott was born, February 7, 1813, near Richmond, Wayne county, Indiana, a son of Abraham Elliott. His educa- tion was limited to country schooling, but he received suffi- cient education to begin teaching at the age of eighteen. About 1833 he started to study law in the office of Martin M. Ray, at Centerville. A year later he was admitted to the bar and opened an office at New Castle. In 1835 and 1837 he was secretary of the House of Representatives. In 1839 he be- came prosecuting attorney of the Sixth circuit, which position he held until 1844. From 1844 to 1852 he was a Circuit Judge, resigning to become president of the railroad being built from Richmond to Chicago. This position he resigned in 1854 and was later again elected Circuit Judge, serving until elected in 1864 as one of the Judges of the Supreme court. After re- tiring from the bench in 1871, he resumed the practice of his profession and was thus engaged until his death, February 12. 1876, at New Castle, Indiana. On October 24, 1833, he married Hannah Scott Branson, a daughter of Owen and Hannah Branson. Nine children were born, four of whom died in in- fancy, the others being Eliza Josephine, Helen Mary, William Henry, Jane and Carrie May.
Robert S. Gregory was born in Kentucky, February 15. 1811, and two years later his parents moved to Indiana. Dur- ing the twenties he clerked in the store of Samuel Hanna & Company at Ft. Wayne. In 1829 he went to Fountain county, Indiana, where he was engaged in merchandising for several years. From 1832 to 1843 he lived at Crawfordsville and read law with Professor Humphreys, being admitted to the bar at Crawfordsville May 12, 1838. He began practice with Alexander Thompson. He served in the State Senate from 1841 to 1843. In 1843 he located at Lafayette, where he con- tinued to practice the remainder of his life. He served on the Supreme bench from 1865 to 1871, and after retiring prac-
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ticed with his son, William, until his death in 1883. He was married in 1830 and had four children, James, William, Mollie and Julia.
Charles A. Ray, a member of the Supreme court of Indiana from 1865 to 1871, seems to have disappeared from Indiana history with his retirement from the bench in 1871. It is not certain where he lived before becoming a Supreme Judge and there is no less certainty as to his residence after leaving the bench. According to the records in the secretary of state's office, he was appointed Judge of the Twelfth Common Pleas district on September 30, 1861. This district was then com- posed of Marion, Hendricks and Boone counties. Ray was elected Judge of the same district in October, 1862, and served on the bench until he resigned, December 7, 1864. In the fall of that year he had been elected to the Supreme bench. It appears that Judge Ray removed to California some time in the seventies and became a Judge in that state. In the cata- logue of the Indiana state law library (1898) the name of Charles A. Ray appears as the author of four legal volumes, but whether this is the Judge Ray of the Indiana Supreme court is not known.
Before the court elected in 1864 came the difficult ques- tions of reconstruction, the legal tender act, the temperance law of 1859, and the provision in the Constitution prohibiting negroes from coming into the state. These are only a few of the large questions that came before the court for adjudi- cation.
At the election of 1870 a new court was elected. The Re- publicans nominated Andrew L. Osborne, of Laporte county, for the First district. Judge Frazer was not a candidate for renomination. Horace P. Biddle, of Logansport, would doubtless have been nominated but for the fact that one of the United States senators and the secretary of state were at the time residents of that city. The other three Republican members of the Supreme court were renominated.
The Democrats were hopeful and went into the state con- vention with a vim born of anticipated success. The conven- tion reversed its usual procedure and nominated judges first. James L. Worden, of Fort Wayne, was nominated by acclama- tion for the First district. A. C. Downey, of Ohio county,
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Henry W. Harrington, of Jefferson county, and Barton W. Wilson, of Decatur county, were the candidates from the Sec- ond district, Downey winning on the first ballot by eight hun- dred and three votes out of one thousand one hundred and twenty-one. From the Third district, Samuel H. Buskirk, of Monroe county ; Simeon W. Wolfe, of Harrison county; Am- brose B. Carlton, of Lawrence county, and Napoleon B. Tay- lor, of Marion county, were candidates. Buskirk lacked only one of having the necessary five hundred and sixty-two votes on the first ballot and was nominated on the second. From the Fourth district, James M. Hanna, of Sullivan county, John Pettit, of Tippecanoe county, and Newton F. Malott, of Knox county, were candidates. Pettit was nominated on the first ballot. At the October election, 1870, Worden was elected by three thousand seven hundred and thirty-four ma- jority, Downey by three thousand seven hundred and ninety- eight, Buskirk by three thousand one hundred and eighteen and Pettit by three thousand and seventy-seven. Thus for the second time the entire court was turned out together. However, Judge Worden had previously (1858-65) sat on the bench.
John Pettit was born on a farm near Sacketts Harbor. New York, June 24, 1807. His parents intended him for the ministry, but he developed no inclination for the profession. When his tutor pressed him to study theology, he quit school, and studied law with Judge Potter at Waterloo, New York. In 1830 he started west, but stopped at Troy, New York, and taught school one term. He reached Lafayette, Indiana, May 12, 1831. In 1833 he was admitted to the bar and the same year was elected to the General Assembly. After serving one term in the House, he was appointed United States dis- trict attorney by President Van Buren in 1839, serving until 1843. From March 4, 1843, to March 3. 1849, he sat in Con- gress. In 1850 he was a member of the Constitutional Con- vention. In January, 1853, he was elected to serve the un- expired term of James Whitcomb in the United States senate. In 1855 he was elected Circuit Judge. In 1859 Buchanan ap- pointed him Chief Justice of Kansas, where he served until Kansas became a state. In 1861 he returned to Lafayette. and resumed his legal practice, serving as city attorney four
(17)
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years and as mayor from 1867 until he was elected to the Su- preme bench in 1870. On June 17, 1877, six months after he finished his term, he died at his home in Lafayette.
Alexander C. Downey was born in Hamilton county, Ohio, September 10, 1817, the son of John and Susannah (Selwood) Downey. In 1818 they removed to Dearborn county, Indiana, where he received a common school education, and finished his schooling at the county seminary at Wilmington in the same county. He studied law with James T. Brown and was admitted to the bar in 1841. In 1844 he moved to Rising Sun, Ohio county, and in 1850 was appointed Circuit Judge by Governor Wright. He was elected to the office in 1851, under the old Constitution and again in 1852 under the new Consti- tution, serving until August, 1858. He then resigned to en- gage in practice. From 1854 to 1858 he conducted the law department of Asbury University. He was a member of the State Senate from 1863 to 1865. In 1870 he was elected Judge of the Supreme court of Indiana, but declined a renom- ination in 1877 and went into active practice. He had the degree of Doctor of Laws conferred on him in 1858 by Asbury University, and the same in 1871 by Indiana University. He was a Mason and a Methodist. On April 19, 1846 he married Sophia J. Tapley. They had eight children, Samuel Reed, Daniel Tapley, Harry Selwood, Alexander Coffin, George Eddy, John Chandler, Anna Winona and Frank Merritt.
Samuel H. Buskirk was born in New Albany, Indiana, January 19, 1820. His parents moved to Bloomington, where he received a common school and college education, graduat- ing from Indiana University in 1841. In 1848 he began the practice of law. He was a member of the Lower House of the General Assembly in 1848, 1851, 1855, 1863 and 1865, serving as speaker in 1862. In 1870 he was elected to the Supreme bench and served six years. After his term expired he located at Indianapolis where he died, April 3, 1879. He married Sarah Walters in 1845.
One of the chief objections to the old Supreme court was that it was two or three years behind with its work. The state added a clerk and a reporter, but by 1870 the docket was crowded and there was a murmur at the delay. Instead
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of trying to expedite matters, the court indulged in longer opinions and more technicalities.
At the special session of the General Assembly of 1872, under date of December 16, the state was divided into five dis- tricts and a new judge provided for, making the maximum number permitted by the new Constitution. The districts were reversed so that the First was now the southwest, the Third in the central portion, the Fourth in the northeast, and the Fifth in the northwest. These districts were as follow:
First District: Monroe, Owen, Clay, Parke, Morgan, Sulli- van, Green, Knox, Daviess, Martin, Dubois, Pike, Gibson, Posey, Vanderburgh, Warrick, Spencer, Perry and Orange.
Second District : Ohio, Rush, Switzerland, Dearborn, Shel- by, Brown, Lawrence, Crawford, Harrison, Floyd, Clark, Scott, Jefferson, Ripley, Decatur, Bartholomew, Jackson, Washing- ton and Jennings.
Third District: Tippecanoe, Johnson, White, Warren, Fountain, Montgomery, Clinton, Boone, Tipton, Hamilton, Vermillion, Marion, Putnam, Hendricks and Vigo.
Fourth District: Allen, Whitley, Huntington, Wells, Adams, Grant, Blackford, Jay, Delaware, Randolph, Howard, Madison, Hancock, Henry, Wayne, Fayette, Union and Franklin.
Fifth District: Lake, Benton, Porter, Laporte, St. Joseph, Elkhart, Kosciusko, Marshall, Starke, Jasper, Newton, Pu- laski, Fulton, Wabash, Miami, Cass, Carroll, Lagrange, Steu- ben, DeKalb and Noble.
A separate act passed the same day (December 16, 1872) amended the act of May 13, 1852, in relation to the organi- zation of the Supreme court. Originally, the court consisted of four judges, but the act of 1872 added an additional judge and provided that three judges should form a quorum. Pur- suant to this act, the Legislature, in the act which divided the state into five districts, authorized the governor to appoint a Supreme Judge for the newly organized Fifth judicial dis- trict to serve until his successor should be elected and quali- fied.
Pursuant to the act of December 16, 1872, Governor Baker appointed Andrew L. Osborne, who had been defeated at the recent election, to serve until the next regular election.
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Andrew L. Osborne was born in New Haven county, Con- necticut, May 27, 1815, and there received his early education. He went to Chicago at the age of twenty and worked at the printing trade, at the same time studying law under William Stewart. In 1836 he located in Michigan City, Indiana, where he continued his studies. In 1838 he formed a partnership with Judge Gustavus A. Everts in the practice of law, a part- nership which continued until 1843. He then removed to La- porte, where he formed a partnership with John B. Niles. In August, 1844, he was elected a member of the House of Rep- resentatives, serving two terms and then serving in the Senate for the three following years. In 1857 he was elected Judge of Circuit court for the Ninth judicial circuit and served thirteen years. When the Legislature in 1872 increased the number of Supreme court judges to five, he was appointed Judge of the new district for a term expiring January 4, 1875. He was defeated for re-election by Horace P. Biddle in 1874. After retiring from the bench he re-entered practice with an office in Chicago.
At the election on October 13, 1874, Horace P. Biddle was elected to the Supreme bench from the Fifth district for a full term over A. L. Osborne by a vote of one hundred and ninety-eight thousand and eighty to one hundred and sixty- five thousand seven hundred and sixteen. Biddle ran about fifteen thousand ahead of his ticket. He was entirely inde- pendent politically, though running at this time on the Demo- cratic ticket.
Horace P. Biddle, a member of the Supreme court from January 4, 1875, to January 3, 1881, was born in Hocking county, Ohio, March 24, 1811. His parents were Benjamin and Abigail (Converse) Biddle, the father dying in 1829 and the mother in 1817. He was reared on a farm and received such education as the country schools of his day afforded. At the age of sixteen he went to Muskingum county, Ohio, where he found employment as a clerk in his brother's store, and remained with him for the next ten years. Although he did not begin to study law until he was about twenty-five years of age, he had in the meantime been an omniverous reader of the best books which came within his reach. The studious young man attracted the attention of Thomas Ewing,
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then United States senator from Ohio, and, upon his advice, young Biddle entered the law office of Hocking H. Hunter, of Lancaster, Ohio, to study law. He was admitted to the bar at Cincinnati in April, 1839, and in the following October was admitted to the practice of his profession before the federal courts at Columbus. In the summer of 1839, the young lawyer traveled the circuit in Ohio and gained much valuable experience, even though his practice was not very remun- erative.
His connection with Indiana began in 1839, when he opened an office in Logansport on October 18, of that year. Within a year he had a lucrative practice and from that time to his death he was regarded as one of the leading lawyers of Indiana. In 1844 he was nominated as a presidential elector on the Whig ticket and made speeches throughout the northern part of the state in behalf of Clay. The following year he made the race for a seat in the state Legislature on the Whig ticket, but was defeated by a majority of thirty-one votes. In De- cember, 1846, the Legislature elected him President Judge of the Eighth circuit, but he resigned in 1852, just before the close of his term, to make an unsuccessful race for Congress against Norman S. Eddy.
The next important event in the career of Biddle was con- cerned with his effort to be elected to the Supreme court of the state. William Z. Stuart had filed his resignation from the Supreme bench on August 4, 1857, the same to take ef- fect on the first Monday in January, 1858. Acting on the ground that there was a vacancy, the Republicans nominated Biddle for the seat of Stuart, and he was elected by a goodly majority. However, Governor Willard-a Democrat-re- fused to issue him a commission, saying that there was no vacancy, that Stuart in reality was Judge until the first Mon- day in January, 1858. The case was carried to the Supreme court-all Democrats-as a result of mandamus proceedings brought by Biddle against the governor, but that body decided (January 15, 1858) that the contention of the governor was correct. Whereupon the governor at once appointed James L. Worden to the bench.
Biddle was elected to the Constitutional Convention in 1850 and became one of the most useful members of the con-
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vention. From 1851 to 1860 he devoted most of his time and attention to his legal profesion, while at the same time he was engaged in literary pursuits. It is said that his annual income from his practice reached as high as eight thousand dollars a year, a fact which is conclusive evidence of his abil- ity as a lawyer. In 1860 he was elected Judge of the Eighth circuit and was re-elected unanimously in 1866, declining a third term in 1872. The next two years were devoted exclu- sively to literary work, but the call of the public proved too insistent to be ignored.
The Democratic state convention nominated him for a place on the Supreme bench in 1872 and he defeated his op- ponent, Andrew L. Osborne, by a majority of thirty-three thousand. Upon leaving the bench in 1881, he retired to his island home, "The Hermitage," in the Wabash river at Logans- port, and lived a solitary life until his death, May 13, 1900.
While Biddle reached a high rank as a lawyer and judge, yet his enduring fame will rest on his literary work. He never went to school after he was sixteen years of age, but by his own efforts became a proficient Latin scholar and had a reading knowledge of French and German. His first literary effort was in the field of poetry and his "A Few Poems," is- sued in 1849, received favorable comments from such men as Irving and Longfellow. He issued a second edition of the volume in 1858, adding a sufficient number of poems to make a volume of two hundred and forty pages. In 1874 another volume of poems came from his pen, "Glances at the World"; in addition to these separate volumes of poetry he wrote con- siderable verse which later found its way into his "Miscellany".
But it was in the realm of music that Biddle gained his greatest recognition. As early as 1849 he had written a treat- ise on music under the title of "The Musical Scale", but it was not published until 1860. The copyright of the volume was bought by Oliver Ditson, one of the leading musical pub- lishers of the United States, and so great was the demand for the work that it ran through three editions. Biddle in- vented a musical instrument to which he gave the name "tetrachord", and issued a monograph explaining why and how he came to invent it. He also wrote extensively on the the- ories underlying musical tones, and his review of Tyndal's
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theories of sound was accorded a high rank not only in this country, but also in England. In fact, Biddle's theory of the musical scale was accepted in London as against the theories advanced by Tyndal and Helmholtz. Among the other writ- ings of Biddle may be mentioned the following: "Elements of Knowledge," "A Scrap Book of Poems," "The Amatories, by an Amateur," "A Discourse on Art," "The Definition of Poetry," "The Analysis of Rhyme," "Russian Literature" and "America's Boyhood".
The Republican convention which met at Indianapolis, February 22, 1876, nominated four candidates for the Supreme court. For the First district, William E. Edson, of Posey county, was nominated over B. E. Rhoads, of Monroe county. Edson was born at Mount Vernon, Indiana, in May, 1834, and was educated in the Mount Vernon Seminary under the in- struction of his father, Eben Edson. In 1855 he was admitted to the bar and the next year elected to the Legislature. He also served one term as Common Pleas Judge.
For the Second district, A. C. Voris, of Lawrence county, was nominated over William K. Marshall, of Jackson county, Charles E. Walker, of Jefferson county, and Ralph Hill, of Bartholomew county. Voris was born in Switzerland county, Indiana, about 1830. He was a graduate of Hanover College, and the law department of Harvard. During the Civil War he served on the staff of General Hancock. After the close of the war he practiced at the Lawrence county bar.
For the Third district, Horatio C. Newcomb, of Indianap- olis, was nominated over D. P. Vinton, of Lafayette. New- comb was born in Tioga county, Pennsylvania, December 22. 1821. He came with his parents to Indiana in June, 1833. His education was limited to the common schools. In 1841 he entered the law office of his uncle, N. A. Bullock, at Vernon, and in 1844 was admitted to the bar. In 1846 he moved to Indianapolis, and formed a partnership with Ovid Butler. He was elected mayor of Indianapolis in 1840 and re-elected in 1851, but soon resigned. In 1865 he was elected a Represen- tative and in 1860 a Senator in the General Assembly. He edited the Indianapolis Journal from 1864 to 1868, serving in the House of Representatives, meanwhile. He was appointed one of the Judges of the Marion Superior court in 1871 and
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was elected to the same office in 1874. He died in Indianapolis, May 23, 1882.
For the Fourth district, Henry B. Sayler, of Huntington county, Joshua H. Mellett, of Henry county, and John F. Kib- bey, of Wayne county, were before the convention. Kibbey, who was nominated on the first ballot, was born at Richmond, Indiana, May 4, 1826. In 1847 he began the study of law in the office of O. P. Morton, with whom he later formed a part- nership. In March, 1862, he was appointed attorney-general by Governor Morton. From 1864 to 1876 he was a Common Pleas Judge.
The Judges of the Supreme court had incurred a storm of hostile criticism in furnishing their rooms at the state capitol. It was an era of scandals and when it was proclaimed by the Republicans that the Judges had used public money in buying upholstered chairs everybody seemed eager to believe the charge. It so angered the Democrats that they turned on the Judges and became, if possible, more abusive than the Re- publicans. As a result of this criticism all the judges but Worden had opposition at the convention which opened at Indianapolis on April 20, 1876. From the first district, W. F. Parrott, of Evansville, Samuel H. Buskirk, of Bloomington, William M. Franklin, of Owen county, and Newton F. Malott, of Vincennes, were aspirants. Buskirk was nominated on the first ballot. From the Second district, George A. Bick- nell, of Floyd county, Barton W. Wilson, of Decatur county, and Scott Carter, of Switzerland county, contested the nomina- tion with A. C. Downey, but the latter was nominated on the first ballot. From the Third district the candidates were A. B. Carlton, of Terre Haute, Delana R. Eccles, of Greencastle, John Pettit, of Lafayette, and Napoleon B. Taylor, of India- napolis. John Pettit was nominated on the first ballot. James L. Worden was re-nominated without opposition.
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