USA > Kansas > Montgomery County > History of Montgomery County, Kansas > Part 26
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W. W. MARTIN was born at Crawfordsville, Montgomery county, Indiana, and, before becoming a member of the bar, lived at Thorntown, Indiana. where he pursued farming until he entered the Union army. He was admitted to practice at Lebanon, Indiana, and afterward located at Fort Scott, Kansas, where he filled the office of attorney for that city and was, later, probate judge of Bourbon county. He then filled one term as Register of the United States Land Office at Independence Kansas, and after his term of office had expired he returned to Fort Scott, and was there, in November, 1888, elected a member of the Kansas State Senate for a term of four years. In August, 1901, Judge Martin was appointed treasurer of the National Military Home for Disabled Vet- eran Soldiers at Leavenworth, Kansas, which position he now holds.
ELMER E. MATTHEWS was admitted to the bar of Montgomery county on examination, after having read law at Independence, Kansas. After his admission he located at Sedan, Kansas, where he pursued his profession about ten years and then returned to Independence and quit
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the practice. He was born at Muncie, Indiana, July 29th, 1860, and, at the age of twenty-one, came with his family to Independence. where he has since lived, except during the ten years he was in the practice at Sedan.
SELVIN V. MATTHEWS was born at Muncie, Indiana, on Feb- ruary 15th. 1858, and came with his parents to Independence in May, 1872, and has since resided here. His sketch appears with that of his father, on another page herein.
WILLIAM A. MERRILL was born in Lafayette county, Missouri, August 22nd, 1861. Ile taught school in Johnson county, Mo., and there- after, in October, 1897, was admitted to the bar at Warrensburg, in that state, after which he located at Caney, where he has since practiced his profession. He was admitted to the Montgomery county bar at the March, 1898, term of court.
J. A. MILLS was admitted to the bar of the county in August, 1872, but never afterward engaged in the practice here.
J. J. MOON was admitted to practice at the December, 1871, term of court, but did not practice law here.
VIN W. MOORE was born in Coshocton county, Ohio, on December 9th, 1871, and was reared on a farm. He came to Kansas with his par- ents in October, 1883, and located for a short time at Iola, and then moved to his father's farm about six miles southwest of lola, where he lived 'till November, 1894, when he settled at Coffeyville, where he has since resided in the practice of the law.
S. B. MOOREHOUSE was admitted to the bar of the county in Oc- tober, 1870, but never engaged in the practice of law.
MICHAEL McENTRY was born in Limerick, Ireland, in 1845. He eame to Kansas in the late 60's and first settled on a claim near Hum- boldt, where the local land office was then located.
He became involved in a contest over the right to make an entry of his land and during the pendency of the litigation over the dispute, be- came familiar with the law pertaining to the rights of settlers on the public domain, and was engaged as a clerk or an assistant in the office of Messrs. Cates & Thurston, who had a large business trying contest suits and loaning money to settlers to pay for their lands. In 1871, or 1872. Mr. MeEniry moved to this county and took up a claim about two miles east of the city, and near Morgan City, and afterward moved to In- dependence, where he actively engaged in the business of looking after the rights of disputants in contest cases in the local land office here. Ile was admitted to practice law by the District Court of Montgomery county. but never actively engaged in the practice outside of office work. After his admission to the bar he repeatedly served as police judge and justice of the peace in Independence, during the time he resided here. Early in the 80's he moved to Coffeyville and took charge of the Eldridge
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House at that place, and for several years owned and conducted the lead- ing hotel of that city. While at Coffeyville he filled the office of police judge and was also an officer and stockholder in the First National bank there.
Some ten or more years ago Judge MeEniry sold his hotel and went to Chicago where he remained a short time and then to Litebfield, Il- linois, where he again became engaged in the hotel business. He after- ward left Litchfield and returned to Chicago, where he now resides. The judge was a most genial, free hearted and companionable man, and made an efficient and popular officer, and in the administration of the duties of the judicial offices he filled, evinced a clear knowledge of the law on such questions as were frequently presented to him.
J. H. MeVEAN became a member of the bar of Montgomery county, in its infancy, and located at Elk City, where he practiced law for about twelve or fifteen years and died. He was a well qualified lawyer. By nature he was talented, and, before his admission to the bar, had thor- oughly fitted himself to enter the profession, but after entering his pro- fessional career, gradually yielded to excesses that finally resulted in his death.
W S. MeFEETERS was admitted to practice law at the first term of the District Court ever held in the county, in May. 1870. He came to the county before its organization, and located at Verdigris City, and was one of the most active men in the efforts to locate the county seat east of the Verdigris. He was a bright, energetic young man, but never ap- peared in the courts of Montgomery county after the first term of the District Court. During the summer of 1870, while enroute on a trip to Fort Scott. then the nearest railroad station, he claimed and took charge of a team of mules that were held as estrays by a farmer on the road and took them to Fort Scott and sold them. It afterward transpired that the mules belonged to a Mr. Hargrave (a brother of AAsa Hargrave of border warfare fame). The owner set on foot a prosecution against Mr. McFeeters which resulted in his conviction of grand larceny and a sentence to the penitentiary. He never afterward returned to the county.
GEORGE W. MCCLELLAND was born at Nashville, Illinois, on May 18, 1855. and lived there till 1878, where his time was spent teaching and attending school. His education was completed at the Southern 11- linois Normal School. He went from Illinois to Missouri where he lived for a short time, during which, and in 1880, he was admitted to the bar at Nevada, Missouri. The next year he moved to Kansas, and located at Chante. He was afterward. in 1881. admitted to the Labette county bar and then in the same year to the Supreme Court of the State. He was afterward located at Kinsley, Kansas, and served one term as attorney for that city. He was located for a time at Oklahoma City, Oklahoma Territory, during the exciting times of its earliest settlement, and while
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there served as police judge, and in that office spent, perhaps, the bus- iest period of his life. In his official capacity he disposed of 4,750 police court cases, and on one occasion fined some of the notorious Daltons. MeClelland joined the Montgomery county bar in 1896 and has contin- uously pursued the practice at Cherryvale, where he has since the date of his location there, served two terms as attorney for that city.
W. MeWRIGHT was admitted to the bar of Montgomery county at the October. 1870, term of the District Court on the certificate of his ad- mission to practice in Illinois, but never entered the practice in the county.
S. F. MeDERMOTT was admitted to the bar of Montgomery county on March 9, 1880, and located in the practice at Coffeyville, where he now resides.
REUBEN NICHOLS was. on the certificate of his admission in Il- linois, admitted to the bar of Montgomery county, at the October. 1870, term of the District Court, and shortly afterward located in Howard county. and began the practice, which he has since continued. Howard county was, after Mr. Nichols went there, divided, and formed into two counties (Elk and Chautauqua), and Mr. Nichols, then continued the practice in Elk county. His practice however was not confined to that county. but for years extended over several adjoining counties. He has, during his long career, in the profession, been widely known as a promi- nent attorney.
J. A. ORR, after graduating in 1894 from the legal department of the University of Kansas, joined our bar and practiced here a short time, when he located at Colorado Springs, Colorado, where he has become prominent in the profession.
WILLIAM T. O'CONNOR became a member of the bar of Montgom- ery county about 1880, and was in the practice here for a number of years. He began his professional career as the junior partner of the law firm of Hill & O'Connor and was afterward a partner in the firm of Stan- ford & O'Connor and, later, a member of the law firm of Humphrey & O'Connor. Mr. O'Connor left Independence in the 80's and went west where he engaged in other pursuits.
ROY A. OSBORN was born at Rockport, Missouri, November 30, 1874, and resided there till 1880, when he went to Ness City, Kansas, where, after staying about five months, he moved to Wakeeney, Kansas, and lived there until 1893, and then located at Salina, Kansas, where he prac- tired law a short time and then. March 2, 1901, he became a member of the Montgomery county bar, located at Coffeyville and has since pursued his profession at that place.
Mr. Osborn was a student at the University of Kansas from which he was graduated in the Academic Department in 1897, and in the law department in 1900, and, on June 7. 1900. he was admitted to practice
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by the District Court of Douglas county and by the Supreme Court of the State.
JUDGE S. J. OSBORN was born at Eaton, Preble county, Ohio, and afterward moved to Mount Pleasant, Iowa, where his time, was, for a number of years, taken up in manual labor and teaching school.
In September, 1872, he, having studied law and qualified himself to practice, was admitted to the bar at Rockport, Atchison county, Mis- souri. In January, 1880, he became a member of the bar at Larned, Pawnee county. Kansas, and in the same year located in the practice at Wakeeny, Trego county, Kansas, and soon after became county attor- ney for the county. He resided in Trego county till he moved to Salina, Kansas, about February, 1895, and entered the practice there in part- nership with T. L. Bond, which he continued until he located at Coffey- ville ir 1902. where he has since pursued his profession, as a member of the law firm of Dooley & Osborn.
While living at Wakeeny, Mr. Oshorn represented his county in the Legislature of the State, in 1885 and 1886, and in the latter year, was ap- pointed by Governor John A. Martin, judge of the newly created Dis- trict Court, of the Twenty-third Judicial District, comprising thecounties of Rush, Ness. Ellis and Trego and the unorganized counties of Gove, St. John. Wallace, Lane. Scott, Wichita and Greely. At the end of his term of appointment, the judge served two consecutive full terms in the same office, he having been twice elected thereto. While living at Salina, he represented Saline county in the Lower Honse of the Kansas Legisla- ture in 1899, and was elected Speaker of that body.
JOHN Q. PAGE was admitted to the bar of Montgomery county in 1871 on the certificate of his admission to practice in the Cirenit Courts of the State of Missouri.
When he was admitted here he was in the banking business at the site of the present First National Bank in Independence. He never en- gaged in the practice of law, but less than two years after his admission to the bar here, became, for a brief time, famous on account of his sup- posed connection with the York-Pomeroy embroglio, early in 1873. His name became connected with that exciting affair, by one of the defenses urged by Mr. Pomeroy against the charge of attempted bribery, in the assertion that the money was paid to Senator York to be turned over to Mr. Page for investment in loans at the high rates of interest then pre- vailing in the country. The soundness of this portion of Mr. Pomeroy's defense was never conclusively determined and was generally doubted, although Mr. Page it was thought, was inclined to support it. Mr. Page quit the banking business and left Independence in a short time after the defeat of Mr. Pomeroy.
ALZAMON M. PARSONS was born at Effingham, Illinois, on May 18. 1858. He afterward lived in Davenport, Iowa, until about thirty
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years of age, when he came to Kansas and taught school and farmed till March 6, 1897, when he was admitted to practice by the Distriet Court of Montgomery county. Since his admission most of his time has been devoted to the practice although he has taught school at times.
Mr. Parsons, since locating in the practice at Caney, has filled the office of justice of the peace two terms and also that of police judge two terms.
B. F. PARKS came to Independence from or near Chicago, Illi- nois, late in the 70's and entered the practice of law here but did not con- tinne in the business here longer than abont one year. Judge Parks, as he was called, was a very aggressive practitioner and was gifted with unusual oratorieal ability and possessed a good knowledge of the law.
THOMAS W. PEACOCK was admitted to the bar of the county at the August, 1872, term of the District Court and remained in the county a number of years, afterward as editor and proprietor of a weekly news. paper, and then moved to Topeka where he pursued the same vocation. He never practiced law here.
GEORGE R. PECK was admitted to practice in Montgomery county on April 3, 1872. His long and brilliant career since then, on the highest planes in the profession, and the great number of signal triumphs he has won in the practice, easily mark him as our most distinguished lawyer.
A just history of Mr. Peck would contain an account of these, but the limited space allotted to this article forbids efforts to enter upon such a pleasant undertaking. Inasmuch as the present purpose is to write more particularly of those matters that pertain to the county- and that in a narrow space-we find some excuse for eliminating much that would be interesting in the life of Mr. Peck after he left here. A true history would also include events outside of his profession, as he is not only a profound lawyer but a ripe scholar and a magnificent ora- tor. The many classic orations he has delivered to cultured audiences, furnish proof of the fact that he is a man of eminence in arenas outside of his professional life.
He practiced less than two years at the Montgomery county bar and he often says, that brief period covers the happiest days of his life. While he was fascinated with life in a new country, which he now says is "one of the greatest charms of human life," by his genial disposition and captivating social qualities, he always made time pass pleasantly to the companions of his young manhood ; and now, after a lapse of thir- ty years or more. many easily recall the pleasant hours spent in his com- paDy. This was the social side of Mr. Peck during his short professional sojourn here and while, in history, it may become paled in the light of such achievements as lead to enduring fame, it should ever be accorded a place.
Before he had been in Kansas two months, he wrote to a home pa-
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per in Wisconsin ( Janesville Gazette, January 18, 1872), "There is no chance for sleigh riding, but if one is fond of mud, he can be accommo- dated. Tastes differ, but with the little experience I have had, I must say that I had rather put up with the mud here than the intense cold in Wisconsin. *
* * There is only one way in which you can arrive at a decision of the vexed question whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of an eight months winter in the north or a short winter here. and that is by trying it." A few years later, during the destructive drought, there was but little, if any, difference in his opin- ion or. the mud question in Kansas; as more mnd was "a consummation devontly wished" from early in the summer of 1874, till late in the win- ter of 1875.
Mr. Peck was born in Cameron, Steuben county, New York, on May 15, 1843. He was the youngest of a family of ten children. When . about six years old he moved to Palmyra, Wisconsin, with his parents, who settled there on a farm, on which Mr. Peck spent his time until he was about sixteen years of age, teaching and attending the local schools. When about seventeen years old he entered, as a student, Milton College in Wisconsin, where he remained three terms, during which he spent his vacations teaching.
He had intended to enter an eastern college and complete his edu- cation, but under the call of President Lincoln, for 300,000 more volun- teers, he enlisted as a soldier in the First Wisconsin Heavy Artillery, in which he served three months and was then commissioned first lieu- tenant of Company "K." Thirty-first Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry, and afterward, in June, 1864, was promoted to the captaincy of the same com- pany, and served in that capacity until he was mustered out in July, 1865. He then returned to Wisconsin and studied law in the office of Hon. Charles G. Williams, of Janesville. On February 15. 1866, he was admitted to practice by the Circuit Court of Rock county, Wisconsin, and in the fall of the same year was elected clerk of the same court, in which office he served from January 1, 1867, to January 1, 1869. At the expiration of his term of office he entered the practice at Janesville, which he continued until he moved to Kansas in 1871-reaching Inde- pendence in December of that year, by stage from Cherryvale. On his way from Lawrence he met Edgar Hull, then on his way to open a bank at Independence, and arranged to become the attorney for the contem- plated financial institution. After his arrival at Independence, he at first went into the office of W. H. Watkins, probate judge of the county, and at once applied himself to the study of the Kansas Statutes and de- cisions, which he continued for a month or more, when his friend and fu- ture partner. George Chandler, joined him. Mr. Peck and Mr. Chandler then formed the well-remembered law firm of Peck & Chandler, and opened an office over Page's Bank on the corenr of Pennsylvania avenue
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and Main street, at the present site of the First National Bank, and this firm at once acquired a lucrative practice.
Early in 1873. Messrs. Peck & Chandler purchased a lot on North Pennsylvania avenue, and erected a two-story brick building thereon and occupied the second story as law offices, until January, 1874, when Mr. Peck retired from the firm and moved to Topeka to assume the duties of United States attorney for the District of Kansas, to which office he had been appointed by President Grant.
On locating at Topeka he went into partnership with Ilon. Thomas Ryan, a former United States Attorney and afterward a member of Congress and Minister to Mexico and now First Assistant Secretary of the Interior. This firm, under the style of Peck & Ryan, did a large general practice during the six years Mr. Peck served as United States Attorney-he having been appointed as his own successor by President . Hayes, and after serving two years on his second term, resigned the of- fice to devote his entire time to the general practice.
During his term of office and for several years after, he had been employed as attorney for the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway Com- pany. and, in May, 1881, was appointed general solicitor for it. He held this responsible position most of the time until 1893, when he moved to Chicago and continued in the same office till September, 1895, when he resigned to accept the position of general counsel of the Chicago, Mil- waukee & St. Paul Railway Company, which high office in railroad cir- cles he has held since that date.
Mr. Peck was by nature endowed with extraordinary mental force, and is a man of extensive information acquired from reading the works of the best authors. He is a "born leader" in any walk in life he may be placed. While at Independence he was at the head of our young bar and has, so far, wherever located, maintained the same ascendency.
When he became United States Attorney in Kansas he was about thirty years of age and was without experience in the practice in the Federal Courts, and a comparative stranger to many of the lawyers who controlled the practice of those courts. These attorneys, for the most part, lived in the large towns along the Kaw and Missouri rivers, where the State was first populated, and they distrusted Mr. Peck's ability to acquit himself creditably in the important office to which he had been ele- vated from the obscure bar recently created on a late Indian reservation. His first case in the United States Court was against one Holmes who was charged in forty-two counts, with opening registered letters and oth- er malfeasance in office, and defended by such eminent criminal lawyers as Thomas Fenlon, J. W. Taylor and Albert H. Horton. Mr. Peck con- cluded the arguments in a close, able and logical address of one and one- half hours, and easily convicted the defendant and dispelled from the minds of those who heard him all doubts of his ability to fill the office ..
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About a year after, he was associated with such renowned lawyers as Jeremiah S. Black and William Lawrence, and opposed by George F. Edmonds and P. Phillips in two cases pending in the Supreme Court of the United States, involving the title to many valuable tracts of land on the Osage Ceded Lands in Kansas: and as some of these were located in this county, a short review of the history of one of the cases may, prop- erly, be bietly noted here.
One June 2. 1825. by treaty, certain lands were reserved to the great and little tribes of Osage Indians which included a strip about three miles wide, now on the east border of Montgomery county. On March 3, 1863, Congress ceded to the State from the public lands therein, alter- nate sections designated by odd numbers, to be used to secure the con- struction of railways within her borders. On February 9, 1864, the State by an act of its Legislature, accepted the grant so made by Congress and tendered a portion of such lands to the Leavenworth, Lawrence & Fort Gibson Railroad Compay to induce it to build a line of road as provided in the act.
On September 29, 1865, by treaty with the said tribes of Indians they ceded a portion of their reservation (including said strip on the east border of Montgomery county) to the United States.
In 1870 and 1871, The Leavenworth, Lawrence & Galveston Railroad Company-the name of the company having been changed by an act of the Legislature, passed February 24. 1866-constructed a line of railroad through a portion of the Osage Ceded Lands and claimed the odd-number- ed sections within the ten-mile limit, and secured a patent to the same.
A suit was instituted by the United States in its Circuit Court in Kansas to vacate such patents on the ground that no portion of the lands included in the Osage Ceded Lands was intended by Congress in the act of March 3. 1863, to be embraced in the grant to the State, for the reason, among others, that Congress could not or would not donate lands to which the title of the Indians had not been extinguished.
The United States was successful in the Circuit Court, and the railroads appealed to the Supreme Court, where some of the best legal talent in the Union was engaged, and the cases vigorously contested on every feature, and the decree of the Circuit Court affirmed. Mr. Peck wrote an elaborate brief, which was a remarkable argument for one so young and of such limited experience in the courts of last resort. In it the issues were clearly set forth, the authorities aptly and succinctly cited and applied, and his logie unanswerable. This able brief ended on the 33rd, and last page in this language : "I can only look upon the claim of the railroads to these lands, as a flagrant attempt to secure a magnifi- cent domain by the mere force of incorporated audacity. It is not the United States alone which is interested in resisting these pretensions; other rights are involved. These lands are thickly settled by a people
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who came upon them, not as trespassers, but invited by their govern- ment. These are their homes." Perhaps nothing ever gave Mr. Peck more pleasure than to hear his brief complimented by one of the very first lawyers in the Union-Jeremiah S. Black-who adopted Mr. Peck's theory on all the questions involved. He and his friends as well as the settlers on the disputed lands, were rejoiced at the great victory he won in the case.
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