USA > Kansas > Woodson County > History of Allen and Woodson counties, Kansas > Part 5
USA > Kansas > Allen County > History of Allen and Woodson counties, Kansas > Part 5
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HISTORY OF ALLEN AND
the Dutch justice replied that nothing was impossible "mit Got." During one of the terms of court which I held in Allen County, a person who was admitted to the bar, furnished to the bench and bar an oyster supper with the etceteras, and the bench and bar generally attended and seemed to en- joy it and to have a good and jovial time. Many stories were told by mem- bers of the bar, and Judge John R. Goodin, who was a good singer, sang some good songs; but, to the credit of the Allen County Bar, I will state that no one of them appeared to become intoxicated. At the term of court held at Humboldt, an indictment was found against George W. Stamps for murder in the first degree. He was tried at that term and at the next term for this offense, and the jury at each trial disagreed. The evidence tended to show that he was a Union soldier, and during the war he had killed a man in that county who claimed to be and was a rebel sympathizer, and in those days it was difficult to obtain a verdict of guilty from any jury under such circumstances. At the third term he pleaded guilty of man- slanghter in the first degree and was sentenced to ten years imprisonment in the penitentiary. He was then permitted to travel over the county to obtain signers to a petition for his pardon. He obtained a very large num- ber of signatures to his petition and carried it himself to the governor at Topeka and obtained a pardon. He was never taken to the penitentiary. During the terms of the District Court which I held in Allen County many other humorous incidents occurred, which have now passed from my mem- ory.
During those early times we had but few law books in Allen County. We had the Kansas Statutes, including the session laws and the compiled laws of 1862. We also had Swan's Pleadings and Precedents, Nash's Pleadings and Practice, Chitty's Pleadings, Blackstone's Commentaries, Kent's Commentaries, Parsons on Contracts, Greenleaf's Evidence, Whar- ton's Criminal Law, Wharton's Precedents of Indictments and Pleas, and a few others. We had very few of the reports of adjudicated cases. The first volume of the Kansas Reports was not published until about the close of the year 1864, and the succeeding volumes came later. The lawyers. however, in those days discussed the questions which they presented to the courts and juries, more upon general principles and the law as stated in the text books, and less with regard to decisions as found in the reports of adjudicated cases than they do now.
At that time, which was just at the close of the war of the rebellion, there was a greater percentage of criminal cases, as compared with civil cases than there is now; and the percentage of prosecutions for assaults and batteries, assaults with intent to kill or injure, and for murder and manslaughter, was also much greater then than now. With these ex- ceptions the business of the Courts of Allen County in those days was . very similar to the business of the courts in that county at present.
D. M. VALENTINE.
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WOODSON COUNTIES, KANSAS.
humboldt Lawyers prior to 1880. BY HON. L. W. KEPLINGER
In all that engaged public interest, or went to make up her early his- tory, whether it were an incipent county seat contest, an election to vote bonds to aid railroads or build machine shops, or a scheme to evade such bonds already voted, the lawyers of Allen County were conspicuously at the front. To preserve their names in history, and more especially to trans- mit to future generations of Allen County lawyers the memory of their pre- decessors who, during and prior to the seventies, drove angling across the unfenced quarter sections, of which it was composed, to talk politics in school houses, or try lawsuits before justices on the open prairie, is the ob- ject of this article.
Strongly marked characters, full of ambition, for the most part of ex- ceptional ability, schooled and moulded by the conditions which prevailed during the civil war, if not actual participants in that great strife, the law- vers of Allen County, during the period referred to, were a most interesting body of inen. No one who knew them will doubt that men like J. R. Goodin, Orlin Thurston, J. Q. A. Porter, H. C. Whitney, G. P. Smith, J. C. Murray, J. B. F. Cates and H. M. Burleigh, fall easily in the class of those who, as congressmen and senators, or in other fields of effort, have at- tained distinction.
The presence of the United States land office at Humboldt made that point the chief center of attraction for lawyers who came to Allen County. I was better acquainted with those who came there, and it is of the Hum- boldt lawyers I shall now speak.
ORLIN Orlin Thurston, who came from Ohio about the year 1857, THURSTON. was the most forceful character of the group, and the one most capable of influencing the community in which he lived, had his disposition been somewhat different. He was at one time during the war colonel of a regiment of State militia, which rendered efficient ser- vice on the border during the summer and fall of 1861. He was of medium height, strong physique and most resolute purpose, thoroughly practical and little swayed by sentiment. He was a most excellent judge of men and af- fairs, and never failed to impress others with confidence in his judgment and sagacity. As a speaker, though not an orator, he was earnest, forcible and impressive. He gave his attention largely to business affairs, outside of law, and seldom appeared in court. He once represented his district in the State senate, but his peculiarities of temperament and disposition debar- red him from the high career for which his strong qualities so eminently fitted him.
His general deportment was that of a person of distinction. All old timers will remember the Colonel's stately going with driver and coach to and from his river-bank home, atmosphered as it was with unsavory legend, aristocratic and repellent.
Few men ever so little cared for, sought after, or received the general good will of the public, especially in his later years. At the same time,
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HISTORY OF ALLEN AND
among those lie considered his friends, he was the most courteous, genial and obliging of men. I am fully persuaded some people thought ill of him because they disliked him vastly more than they disliked him because of any evil there was in him. To a very great extent, at least, the trouble was he was too much of the Corialanus type. If ever he broke a pledge, or spoke the word that was not true, the writer who was closely connected with him for years, is ignorant of the fact and he now lifts his hat to the memory of his friend and former law partner, Colonel Orlin Thurston.
JOHN R. Here was a remarkable man, equally at ease in the presence GOODIN. of president or bootblack; good company for both and well inter- ested in either. He was certainly the most companionable of men. Few men, and no Kansan, ever had more of the elements of per- sonal popularity. Referring to his engaging manner, a client who had just come from paying him a fee, remarked in my hearing: "It just does me good to pay that man money." He was neither a money-maker nor a inoney-saver. Utterly incapable of close application; never a student; he possessed to a remarkable degree the faculty of assimilating the researches of others. He never read a book so long as he could find any one to talk to, and this was always easy for so brilliant a conversationalist to do. At the same time and without the slightest effort, with both tongue and pen he framed most exquisitely worded sentences. The chance remark of a juror on one occasion called forth a half-dozen impromptu verses, which speedily found their way through the eastern press. I noticed them in the editor's drawer of Harper's Magazine some years later.
He was a man of consummate tact, clear head, sound judgment and commanding presence. He specially excelled as a speaker. He did not orate, he just talked. But such talk! Imagine a Wendell Phillips, and the writer has heard Phillips, less learned, less cultured, more florid, in short more western, more given to anecdote, abounding in familiar illustrations and local reference, engaged in animated conversation with his audience, with an occasional and sometimes a prolonged rise to the impassioned, and you have Goodin, the orator.
Although a Democrat living in a district which was unanimously Re- publican, he was kept on the bench term after term until elected to con- gress in 1874, in a district in which his party was largely in the minority. Failing of re-election he resumed the practice of law at Humboldt. In the later seventies he was a candidate for governor on the opposition ticket but was unsuccessful. Judge Goodin was born at Tiffin, Ohio, December 14, 1836. He received his education at Kenton, Ohio, and came to Hum- boldt in the spring of 1859. He remained at Humboldt until 1883 when he removed to Wyandotte, now Kansas City, Kansas, where he remained in the practice of law until his death, which occurred in December, 1885.
ELI Though not quite so early an arrival in Allen County, Eli GILBERT. Gilbert came west so early his eastern origin didn't count at all. He originated in Morgan County, Ohio, in 1821, and after- wards came to the then frontier in Iowa, where he remained until 1859
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WOODSON COUNTIES, KANSAS.
when he came to Allen County. He, also was an orator, though not of the Wendell Phillips type, and for several years, over a wide extent of territory, his peculiar frontier oratory was largely a substitute for law libraries.
To a new-comer and prospective client who wished his services, not to assist in the trial, but because of his reputed influence over juries, he thus gravely gave rates. "For a few sensible remarks I charge $10.00; for a speech $15.00; but one of my regular 'hell-roarers' will cost you $25.00." It may be added, however, that whichever variety was contracted for, it was the last mentioned which was always forthcoming.
To the eternal envy of all future Allen County lawyers, let one inci- dent in Judge Gilbert's career be reserved from oblivion. The necessities of a case required that the jury should be convinced the prosecuting witness had bitten off his own ear. The Judge's eloquence rose to the occasion. Verdict, "not guilty." He was kindly disposed toward all men, convivial, full of jokes, stories and reminiscences, especially of a personal nature. Shakespeare's most pleasing character, who was in some respects a feeble imitator of the Judge, will never know how lonesome he has been all these years until Eli Gilbert comes to swap anto-biographies with him in the land of shade.
Judge Gilbert was at one time Probate Judge of Allen County. He also represented his district one term in the legislature, where he voted for the right nian for United States Senator and, as a consequence. received an appointment as Receiver of the United States Land Office, in the western part of the state. He is now nearing his end at Lawrence, Kansas, and all who ever knew him will wish him well.
JOHN Q. A. PORTER. John Porter, who came from Ohio in 1867, had left Kansas about one year before I came. He was elected to the legislature in 1868 and, at the close of his term, for some mysterious reason, he never returned to Allen County. To this day, however, tradition assigns him a foremost place among the young men of promise and ambition who came to this country at the close of the war. He returned to Cincinnati, where he still continued to practice at one bar too many, which resulted in the usual wreck. In 1883 Porter came to Kansas City proposing to locate there. Instead he went to Albuquerque, New Mexico, where he was soon after found dead in the office of one of his old time Humboldt friends, then residing in that city.
J. B. F. Here was an innovation. All others named came from north of CATES. the Mason and Dixon Line, but J. B. F. Cates came from the moun- tains of East Tennessee Having neglected to change politics when he crossed the political equinox, he Jet politics alone when he came to Kansas and gave his attention exclusively to law. He settled at Hum- boldt in 1867 and remained there in the practice of his profession until 1878, when he removed to Kansas City, Missouri, where he speedily took rank among the foremost lawyers of that city. He continued in the practice there until 1884, when for some reason, for which he has never been able to give a satisfactory excuse, either to himself or his friends, he gypsied
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HISTORY OF ALLEN AND
away to Florida where he abandoned Greenleaf and Blackstone and be- came the man with the hoe. After exchanging several thousand dollars for a good stock of orange grove experience, he gravitated back to his first love, Kansas, aud the Seventh Judicial District. Settling temporarily in Fredonia, he divided his time between Kansas and Oklahoma, after which he came to Chanute, where he now resides within gunshot of old Allen, in which he will eventually be found. Being neither dead or otherwise ab- sent, but still on the ground, delicacy forbids that freedom of treatment, the subject of this sketch would otherwise receive from his former associate, law partner and admiring friend. However, this much shall be said, though possibly not equal to some others in some respects, yet as an all- round lawyer, both in intellectual acumen and legal learning and skill as a practitioner, he easily stands the peer of any who came either before or after. The writer freely accords him the honor of being the best lawyer and worst penman in the whole group.
H. C. H. C. Whitney came to Humboldt at the close of the war. WHITNEY. Of all the lawyers who came to Allen County Whitney was the most ambitious and the writer, who was on close terms of intimacy with him, is still of the opinion that in many respects his ability justified his ambition.
Prior to the war a young attorney of one of the outlying counties in Eastern Illinois, he was what might be termed a local partner of Lincoln. He evidently had the confidence of Lincoln, and almost every biography of Lincoln contains correspondence between them.
He was paymaster in the army during the civil war. At its close he came to Kansas for the purpose of becoming Congressman. Uni- ted States Senator and afterwards President of the United States. He was a man of phenomenal memory. The world is indebted to Mr. Whitney for one of Lincoln's famous speeches, the one delivered at Bloomington, Illi- nois, in 1856, which was reproduced by Whitney from longhand notes taken by himself.
More than any man I ever knew, he was familiar with public affairs and public men. There was scarcely a man of prominence in the North during the Civil War whom he had not met and with whom he was not actually acquainted. Once after Thurston had returned from a trip East, he made this criticism: "When Thurston goes East he never meets anybody but hotel clerks and porters." It was never that way with Whitney. Whitney's appearance and manner were far from being pleasing, especially to strangers. In this respect there was the strongest contrast between him and Goodin. He was at one time in the State Senate but being unsuccess- ful in politics he removed to Chicago about '75 or '76 and entered the practice of law in that city with W. B. Scates former Chief Justice of Illinois. He seemed to succeed exceptionally well for some years, but in the midst of a divorce trial in which his client was one of the leading bankers ot the city, he was all but fatally wounded in the liead by a pistol shot fired by the opposing wife. It was years before he recovered and he never resumed his
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WOODSON COUNTIES, KANSAS.
practice. Though by no means an orator, he was an exceptionally fluent and forcible speaker and writer. Since quitting the law practice he lias written a work on marriage and divorce. Also a most interesting life of Lincoln of several hundred pages. He is now living somewhere in Massa- chusetts.
THOMAS L. Byrne was another of those striking characters whom to
BYRNE. have known briefly was to remember for ever. Light com- plected, flaxen haired, pale blue eyes, lithe as a cat, of most nimble wit, one of the kind that could keep the table in a roar, and with temper nimbler still. He came to Humboldt in 1868. I recall one incident which characterizes the man. Driving up to Iola in a hack Goodin and Gilbert were regaling later arrivals such as Byrne, Barber and myself with stories of more primitive times. Finally Byrne broke in "Pshaw, that's nothing. Do you see that hill over there?" pointing to the Dave Parsons Hill south of Elm Creek whose demolition for cement purposes now furnishes employment for hundreds of men, "When I first came to Allen County that hill was nothing but a hole in ground."
Byrne was always prominent and quite active in all public affairs. His family consisted of a wife, a most estimable lady of culture and refine- ment, and several children to all of whom he was devotedly attached. In the spring of '71 without warning he dropped from sight and for no con- ceivable reason, and from that day to this "What became of Byrne?" has been a mystery which remains to be solved in generations to come by some literary genius of Allen County who chooses to interweave in thrilling romance the stirring scenes and picturesque characters of Allen County's early days.
H. M. Here too was romance. The son of Matthew Hale Smith, BURLEIGH. a writer of national distinction, he disliked the name for some reason and changed Smith for Burleigh. Though rather young for the position he served during the war on the staff of some corps commander, Burnside, I think, in the army of the Potomac with the rank of Major. His appearance was striking, of medium height, spare and straight, dark visaged, wicked twinkling black eyes, brisk, alert, with air and bearing suggestive of dash, rattle of sword and scabbard and jingle of spur, always neatly attired, in cold weather with a military cloak with the cape jauntily thrown back to exhibit a trifle of its red flannel lining, such was the appearance of the man.
One picture of Burleigh I shall never forget. An editor by an injudic- ious application of an epithet to a newly arrived lawyer converted the writer hereof into a prosecuting witness, and himself into a defendant, in a crim- inal libel suit. Upon the trial Burleigh, who in addition to being County Attorney, was an excellent reader, for one solid hour read in evidence from Dickens to a jury of Allen county farmers, and from that day to this no Allen county editor has ever called an Allen county lawyer "Uriah Heap".
Burleigh was au accomplished gentleman, somewhat literary, much above the average as a talker and very fair as a lawyer. Soon after the
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HISTORY OF ALLEN AND
incident referred to he went to Athol, Massachusetts, where he practiced law for some years. Then came an interregnum of mysterious disappearance coupled with piratical and sentimental romance. Afterwards he reappeared and practiced law in Athol until a few years since when he was found dead in his office.
G. P. Strongly touched with genius, versatile and visionary, active SMITH and energetic, fearless and tireless, audaciously aspiring and thirsty for prominence and notoriety, of very exceptional ability as speaker and writer, such was Colonel G. P. Smith. Probably no man was ever more on the alert for an opportunity to rise and address his fellow citizens, and few could do so on short notice with more credit. Lack of continuity, both as to occupation and locality, was his most notable characteristic. Ohio, Virginia, Eastern Illinois, Middle Illinois, Humboldt, Fredonia and back to Ohio. Doctor, soldier, editor, lawyer and farmer, doctor and farmer, editor, lawyer and always a politician, such was his history. His career was strenuous, stormy and eventful. In '56 he was a leading spirit in organizing a Fremont Club in Wheeling and during the fall of that year he made an aggressive campaign in West Virginia. On one occasion an attempt was made to lynch him but he was rescued by friends though not until he had disabled several of his assailants with his knife.
In '61 Lincoln appointed him collector of customs at Puget Sound, but the outbreak of the war offered employment more to his liking and he declined the appointment. Aide-de-camp on the staff of General Rosecrans with rank of Captain, Major of the 69th and Colonel of the 129th Illinois, such was his army career and in each of these positions his energy, force of character and courage won for him distinction.
After the war he edited the Journal at Jacksonville, Illinois, for several years. In 1869 he settled in Humboldt, Kansas, as lawyer and farmer. Through the seventies he alternated in rapid succession between law, med- icine, farming, editorial work and politics and in fact at times combined all five. Though fond of mingling with people he was at the same time an indefatigable student of general literature, political economy and kindred subjects as well as philosophy. No hard day's work on the farm or in the office was ever tiresome enough to send him to bed before midnight when he had a good book to read, and he never read an inferior book. He held it to be the most inexcusable waste of time to read a good book when one better could be had. One of his poems entitled "The Gods and I are at Strife", written in moments of depression after the death of an idolized and only daughter and his phenomenally gifted son Byron, and after the utter failure of all his plans, may still be seen occasionally in the newspapers.
His special excellence was as a campaign orator and as such he was always in demand. In '64 together with Ingersoll then unknown to fame, he campaigned over Northern Indiana. In '71 he represented his district in the State Legislature. As candidate for State Auditor he canvassed the State some years later but was on the wrong ticket. In about '85 he returned to his starting point in Eastern Ohio where he soon after died.
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WOODSON COUNTIES, KANSAS.
L. W. Born in Morgan county, Illinois, in August, 1841, raised KEPLINGER on a farm, entered the army in August 1861, present with Company A of 32nd Illinois (of which John Berry of Erie Kansas, was afterward Captain) at the capture of Fort Donelson and wherever else the army of the Tennessee won glory, including the march to the sea and the grand review at Washington; mustered out in September 1865. He was a private until three days after the battle of Hatchie River, then first Sergeant until January 1865, then Second Lieutenant until mustered out. From the time of receiving his commission until mustered out he was on staff duty as acting adjutant, or as aide-de-camp on the staff of General W. W Belknap of the Iowa Brigade. He graduated at Wes- Jeyan University at Bloomington, Illinois in 1868; then with Major J. W. Powell's "exploring expedition" in Colorado; with Powell and W. N. Byers, then editor of the Rocky Mountain News, and some others made the first ascent of Long's Peak in August 1868, read law at Bloomington, Illinois, admitted to bar in December 1869, had trunk packed for Kansas in time to have been there before the close of '69 but was detained until a few weeks later by sickness of a relative, was therefore constructively present and one of the sixties, opened office in Humboldt early in 70, first in partnership with G. P. Smith; then with Orlin Thurston; then with J. B. F. Cates; from '83 in partnership with J. R. Goodin at Wyandotte, now Kansas City, Kansas, until Goodin's death in '85, since that time and now in practice with Hon. C. F. Hutchings at Kansas City, Kansas. He was in the Legislature in 1877. Such is the history of the subject of this sketch.
Keplinger was as different from each one of those heretofore mentioned as they were from each other. He was not convivial. He liked to be with books rather than with people. He shunned rather than sought after prominence. He had a horror of being called on to make a speech. He regarded sentiment as of paramount consideration and he sought to make up in earnestness and industry what was lacking in grace or eloquence. He brought with him to Kansas an uncertain quantity of political aspira- tion which however was hampered with the notion (which he still enter- tains) that the office should seek the man. After years of waiting, a little measly office that no one else in the party wanted, sought him. He was permitted to write his own platform. He put in this plank "When bad men secure nominations the mistakes of conventions should be corrected at the polls." The rest of the ticket was elected and Keplinger was defeated. But he had his revenge a few months later when the candidate on the State ticket at whom that plank in the platform was especially hurled, became a sudden inhabitant of South America But all the same the State never recovered the bonds he ran off with.
For all that, however, and though now a resident of Wyandotte county, he accords Allen the foremost place in his affections and to her he will assuredly return when he dies.
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