USA > Michigan > Bench and bar of Michigan : a volume of history and biography > Part 10
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"As a city counsellor he made a thorough study of the laws relating to municipal corporations. He was a very able and successful representa-
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tive of the city in that important and responsible position, saving the city many thousand dollars by this knowledge. On the Bench he manifested the same habits of exhaustive study; the same force and vigorous ability which had characterized him in the practice of law. As a lawyer and judge he was distinguished for his thorough mastery of the subject and for the vigor and force with which he applied his legal knowledge to the facts of a particular controversy. His opinions on the Bench were characterized by great learning, exhaustive research, clear thought and forceful expres- sion. Many of the important opinions rendered by the Supreme Court during the time he was on the Bench were written by him. As a citizen he is of the highest character; is a genial companion, and an interesting raconteur. He is in frequent request as a public speaker on political occasions and in great demand at Masonic meetings throughout the state."
Judge McGrath has been as successful in Masonry as in law. He was made a Master Mason in Union Lodge No. 3, at Detroit, August 2, 1869. In 1876 he was elected Master of Union Lodge and served two years. The position of Worshipful Master gave him membership in the Grand Lodge, where his influence was soon felt. His intense love of Masonry, his quick perception and his intuitive grasp of Masonic jurisprudence almost immediately secured for him prominence and high reputation in that body. In 1878 he was elected Junior Grand Warden, in 1879 Senior Grand Warden and in 1880 Grand Master, of the Grand Lodge of Masons in Michigan. His record as Grand Master is not excelled by that of any other who ever held the position. Since his retirement from the office he has exercised a power in the Grand Lodge that is almost boundless, by reason of his thorough knowledge of the history and ritual of the order, his devotion to it and his personal popularity. In 1889 he prepared a digest on Masonic Law, which was published .. by the Grand Lodge the following year. He was exalted a Royal Arch Mason in 1870 and elected High Priest of Peninsular Chapter in 1880. He is a member of Damascus Commandery No. 42 K. T., a Thirty-second degree Scottish Rite Mason and a member of Michigan Sovereign Consistory, at Detroit. He is also a member of the Mystic Shrine, Moslem Temple, Detroit, and a member of several other societies. He was married June 15, 1878, to Miss Lillian Walker, daughter of Hon. E. C. Walker, of Detroit. His family consists of three girls and a boy.
FRED A. BAKER, Detroit. Fred Abbott Baker was born on a farm in the township of Holly, Oakland county, Michigan, June 14, 1846, and comes of a long line of New England ancestors. Nicholas Baker was graduated at St. John's College, Cambridge University, England, in 1632 and soon after joined the Puritan exodus from England to America which was going on at that time. Rev. Peter Hobart, the first minister of Hing- ham, Massachusetts, was also a Cambridge graduate. He and twenty-nine others on September 18, 1635, drew for house-lots in Hingham, and Nich-
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olas Baker and his brother Nathaniel drew lots at the foot of the large mound or elevation in Hingham, still known as "Baker's Hill." Nathaniel Baker remained in Hingham until his death in 1682. He was one of the rate payers who participated in 1681 in building the Old Meeting House in Hingham, which is still in use, and his name appears in its first list of pew-holders. Nicholas Baker removed in 1644 or 1645 to the adjoining town of Hull, where he lived and was an extensive land holder until he received an invitation to preach at Scituate, a nearby town in Plymouth Colony. He was ordained minister of Scituate in 1660 and he died there in 1678. The granite block placed in the old burying ground in Scituate in memory of the first ministers of that town bears the name of Nicholas Baker, who is described by Cotton Mather in his Magnalia Christi Americana as "so good a logician that he could offer up to God a reason- able service; so good an arithmetician that he could wisely number his days; and so good an orator that he persuaded himself to be a christian."
The high character and learning of those who served as ministers at Scituate at that time is shown by the fact that two of Mr. Baker's prede- cessors there, Henry Dunster and Charles Chauncey, were the first and second presidents of Harvard College. Samuel Baker, a son of Nicholas Baker, married Fear Robinson, a daughter of Isaac Robinson, the son of the apostle of the Pilgrims, John Robinson, the Leyden pastor, and Mar- garet Handford, a niece of Timothy Hatherly, the London merchant who founded Scituate, and who served Plymouth Colony for years as one of the assistants to the Governor. Samuel Baker removed to Barnstable on Cape Cod. His son John, after the death of his wife in 1732, moved to Scotland township, Windham county, Connecticut, where he died in 1763. Three generations of the family are buried in the old Scotland burying ground. Adonijah Baker, a great grandson of John, moved from Con- necticut to Berkshire county, Massachusetts, and then to Greene county, New York, living at Catskill, Durham and Caro. His wife, Betsey Abbott, was a daughter of Col. Samuel Abbott, of Norwich, Connecticut, who was colonel of the 20th Connecticut Regiment in the Revolutionary war. In 1838 Adonijah Baker came to Michigan and the following year settled in the township of Holly. His son Francis acquired an adjoining farm, and was a much respected citizen of the township until his death in 1887 in his eighty-fourth year. Francis Baker was a representative in the State Legislature in 1846, and for more than thirty years he was the leading justice of the peace of his township. The. trial of causes before him, are among the earliest recollections of his son, Fred A. Baker, the subject of this sketch. Young Baker attended the public schools of Holly and in Flint, and in 1863 he was a member of the freshman class in the Michigan Agricultural College at Lansing. He graduated from Eastman's Business College, Poughkeepsie, New York, in 1864, and was for some time a clerk and bookkeeper in his father's general country store in the village of Holly. lle enlisted in the Eleventh Michigan Cavalry, but on his medical examina-
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tion was rejected, because of a hernia, which subsequently disappeared. In September, 1865, he entered the office of Col. Sylvester Larned, of Detroit, as a student at law, and June 14, 1867, his twenty-first birthday, he was admitted to the Bar before the Oakland Circuit, the examining committee consisting of Michael E. Crofoot, Mark S. Brewer and William B. Jack- son. In October, 1867, he accepted the position of chief clerk in Colonel Larned's office and remained there for three years, when loss of health, due to overwork and excessive study, compelled him to return to Holly. In 1872 he returned to Detroit and forming a co-partnership with Edward Minock, he entered on a successful professional career. Mr. Baker's con- nection with the office of Colonel Larned had given him a larger practical experience at the Bar than is enjoyed by most young lawyers. Colonel Larned had a large civil and criminal business, and always made great use of the young men of industry and capacity connected with him, and within six years after he was admitted Mr. Baker had prepared, argued and submitted to the Supreme Court of the State no less than thirty-five cases, among them such leading ones as Berger v. Jacobs (21 Mich. 215); Don Moran v. People (25 Mich. 356); and Lingham v. Eggleston (27 Mich. 324). His name first became familiar to the general public from his connection with the case of Park Commissioners v. Common Council of Detroit (28 Mich. 228), involving the constitutionality of an act by which the Legislature of the State undertook to compel the City of Detroit to buy a park. Ash- ley Pond, William A. Moore and Henry M. Cheever were retained by the common council to contest the validity of the act, which had received the endorsement of such eminent members of the Detroit Bar as Geo. V. N. Lothrop, Theodore Romeyn, Charles I. Walker and J. Logan Chipman. Mr. Baker had publicly and fearlessly, and in advance of everybody, attacked the act as unconstitutional, and under the supervision of Ashley Pond he prepared the brief which aided in obtaining from the court a decision sustaining his views. The Park case led him into the study of constitutional law, and the law of municipal corporations, and from that time to this he has been engaged in about all of the more important con- stitutional and municipal litigation that has taken place in this city and State. His partnership with Mr. Minock was dissolved at the end of two
years. His only other partner was Hon. William G. Thompson, who, on becoming in 1877 one of the executors and trustees of the Brush estate, withdrew from the firm and from practice. Mr. Baker has never sought for political preferment, but while in Holly he served one term as a mem- ber of the village council, and also as village attorney. In 1876 he was elected as one of the representatives of the City of Detroit in the State Legislature, and was one of the most prominent and influential members of that body. In January, 1878, he was appointed city counsellor of the City of Detroit and held the office for three years and a half, during which time he had charge of many important cases for the city. He has also served the city as a member of the Board of Park Commissioners, but
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resigned because the position took too much of his time. Mr. Baker has always voted the Democratic ticket and in 1896 was ardent and enthusi- astic in his advocacy of the free coinage of silver, a subject to which he has given considerable attention and study. August 4, 1896, he was chosen chairman of the Democratic State Central Committee in place of Elliot G. Stevenson, resigned, and August 26, 1896, he was unanimously elected to the position by the Democratic State Convention at Bay City. He was instrumental in bringing about the fusion of the Democratic party with the People's party, and the Union Silver party, under which the cam- paign of 1896 was fought in Michigan. Mr. Baker was married August 8, 1867, to Miss Josephine Mary Bissell. She was a daughter of Edward Bissell, then of Holly, and Lucy Bourgeatdit Provencal, a descendant of one of the old French families of the City of Detroit. Mr. and Mrs. Baker are the parents of four children, Belle, George J., Frank E., and May.
CHARLES D. LONG, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. Charles Dean Long was born in Michigan, at Grand Blanc, Genesee county, June 14, 1841. His parents, both of them natives of New England, settled in Michigan in 1840. His father Peter Long, a resident of Tewksbury, Mas- sachusetts, before coming west, was descended from a family of Longs whose progenitor emigrated from England and settled in the territory of the Bay State in the seventeenth century. His mother's family. for sev- eral generations were Connecticut people, and he has inherited the best elements of character, popularly attributed to the sturdy, honest and thrifty inhabitants of Colonial New England. He was a dutiful son, indus- trious and helpful at home, assiduous in his application to books at school. At thirteen he left his native village and entered the school at Flint, in which he took the course preparatory to admission to the Freshman class of the University of Michigan. While attending this school he supported himself by teaching, which he began before reaching the age of sixteen. This fact evidences the carly development of his intellectual powers and also his capacity for self-government, as well as the exercise of authority. He taught four winter schools prior to the war, and at the same time quali- fied himself for college. When the rebellion was inaugurated he sacrificed on the altar of his country his long cherished ambition to acquire a class- ical education. A glowing patriotism led him to offer his services in behalf of the Union. In August, 1861, at the age of twenty, he enlisted as a private in Company A, Eighth Michigan Infantry. He remained in the service only eight months, but that was long enough to seal his devotion to the cause with his blood and with physical pain from which there is no respite while consciousness remains. April 16, 1862, he received two severe wounds in the battle of Wilmington Island, Georgia. One of these
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caused the loss of his left arm, which was amputated above the elbow; the other was even worse in the enduring character of the suffering it occa- sioned. A rifle ball penetrated his body through the hip and lodged in the groin, where it still remains imbedded. The wound thus occasioned has never healed. It requires careful dressing every day. The young man was not only disabled for active military service, but also incapacitated for carning a livelihood by manual labor. Upon returning home he at once began the study of law at Flint. In 1864, by the partiality of his fellow- citizens, he was elected to the office of county clerk, and afterwards was thrice re-elected, holding the office four terms. This afforded the coveted opportunity. It enabled him to devote his leisure to the study of law and at the same time acquire the practical knowledge of court proceedings, the form of pleadings and the method of conducting litigation. He was ready for practice and admitted to the Bar before the expiration of his term as clerk. From the office of clerk he passed to that of prosecuting attorney of Genesee county, to which he was first elected in 1874 and subsequently twice re-elected, holding the office three successive terms, aggregating six years. Next he was appointed one of the supervisors of the National census of 1880 for the State of Michigan, having supervision of a district comprising thirty counties, in which were placed more than four hundred enumerators. Higher honors were yet in store for him in the line of his pro- fession. When the Legislature, in its discretion, increased the number of judges of the Supreme Court to five and extended the term, he was elected Associate Justice in the spring of 1887 for the term of ten years. His plurality over his competitor, Charles H1. Camp, of Saginaw, was 36,000. Hle entered upon his judicial service January 1, 1888. His work on the Bench has been marked by a singular devotion to duty and surprising ability. Taken from the ranks of the Bar without judicial experience, his past afforded no adequate criterion by which to estimate his fitness for the exacting requirements of the highest State Court. His friends believed in him, and the event has rather enlarged their confidence, while it has made the profession throughout the State acquainted with the qualities and characteristics of his mind, which the smaller circle had known before. During the ten years immediately prior to his elevation to the Bench, he was engaged in the practice in partnership with George R. Gold. The business of the firm comprised every variety of civil cases known to inland practice in a western State. It was very large and valuable, not only for its immediate pecuniary rewards, but also as a means of general and special education in the law. In the very nature of things, Judge Long has been distinctly identified with politics. The misfortune of war was not without influence in drawing popular attention to him and making him the child of fortune in politics. From the close of the war until his election to the Supreme Court he was active, earnest, zealous in every cam- paign to promote the success of the Republican party. In addition to the offices already mentioned, he was appointed Judge Advocate by Governor
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Jerome, with the rank of colonel as a member of the Governor's staff. During the gubernatorial administration of Russell A. Alger he was a mem- ber of the State military board and held the rank of colonel on the Gov- ernor's staff. Governor Luce appointed him one of the commissioners for the State of Michigan to attend the Centennial Celebration of the adoption of the Constitution of the United States, held in Philadelphia, September, 1887. He has held the office of president of the Detroit College of Law since its first organization. The college is prosperous, graduating thirty- seven law students this year. Few men in the State are better known and none has wider popularity. He has resided at various times in different parts of the State, and all of his neighbors speak well of him. He is modest, unassuming and unselfish. His judicial temperament tends to the preservation of serenity under all circumstances. His generosity of heart and kindness of sentiment endear him to the people who know him; and these qualities, united with natural talents, liberal knowledge of the law, and large administrative ability, qualify him eminently for the dispatch of business in public office in a manner which commands popular approval. So long as the government of the United States makes provision for pen- sioning her disabled soldiers, Judge Long will receive a liberal pension, with the approval of all his fellow-men who favor justice; and yet a ruling of Commissioner Lochren, in charge of the Bureau of Pensions in 1893, rendered it necessary to appeal to the United States Supreme Court in order to secure what he believed to be his rights. He regarded the ruling unfair and tested it in the courts, not because it was a personal wrong or injury, but because the same ruling worked hardship to comrades who need the justice and generosity of the Government which their valor and sacri- fice preserved. His course in carrying the contest through the courts was heartily approved by his comrades throughout the land. The case, being ruled upon a technicality, will be further prosecuted. It was done for the sake of humanity, and not without some misgiving, because the action was necessarily personal, while the principle involved was general. His own personality received whatever of obloquy attended the transaction. Judge Long was married, December, 1863, to Miss Alma A, Franklin. From this wedlock three children were born, one son and two daughters, all of whom are well married and happily settled in life.
CLAUDIUS B. GRANT, Justice of the Supreme Court. Judge Clau- dius B. Grant was born at Lebanon, York county, Maine, October 25, 1835. His parents, Joseph Grant and Mary Merrill, were of Scotch and English descent. They were unable to provide for him more than a com- mon school education, but he aspired to something higher. Having decided early to obtain a college education he was sufficiently resourceful to accomplish his purpose without financial assistance. Ambitious, ener-
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getic, self-reliant, he prepared for college at Lebanon. In 1855 he entered the University of Michigan, and was graduated in 1859 upon completion of the classical course. For the next three years he was employed in the high school at Ann Arbor. The first year he filled the position of assist- ant teacher of classics; the next two years he was principal of the high school. In the summer of 1862 he responded to the call of President Lin- coln for more volunteers, resigned his position, raised a company assigned to the Twentieth Michigan Infantry, and was commissioned captain of Company D, July 29, 1862. Soon afterwards he left for the seat of war with his command. November 21, 1863, he was promoted to the rank of major in the Twentieth Regiment, on December 20, 1864, was promoted to the lieutenant colonelcy, and on the same day was commissioned colo- nel. He participated with his regiment in the numerous engagements in Kentucky, Tennessee, Mississippi and Virginia, including the battle of Horseshoe Bend, the sieges of Vicksburg and Jackson, the battles of Blue Springs and Campbell Station, the siege of Knoxville, the defense of Fort Sanders, the battles of the Wilderness, Spottsylvania Court House, Cold Harbor, the assault upon Petersburg, June 17 and 18, '64, and all of the operations before that Confederate stronghold. The day following the surrender of General Lee, Colonel Grant resigned his command and returned to Ann Arbor where he entered upon the study of law in the University of Michigan. He was admitted to the Bar in June, 1866, and began the practice in partnership with ex-Governor Alpheus Felch. The same year he was elected recorder of Ann Arbor, and was also a member of the board of education of that city for four years. In April, 1867, he was appointed postmaster of Ann Arbor, and held the office three years. In 1870 he was elected a member of the Legislature and re-elected in 1872, serving two terms. During the session of 1871 he was chairman of the committee on public instruction. In 1873 he was elected speaker pro tem, and was chairman of the committee on ways and means. In 1871 he was elected a Regent of the University of Michigan, and served in that capacity eight years. In 1872 he was appointed by President Grant alter- nate commissioner for the State of Michigan under the law organizing the Centennial Commission, and served until the close of the Exposition, in 1876. In 1873 he removed from Ann Arbor to Houghton, where he formed a partnership for the practice of law with Joseph H. Chandler. In 1876 he was elected prosecuting attorney for Houghton county for a term of two years. In this office he exhibited those high qualities which have been conspicuous in his assumption of responsibilities and the discharge of public trusts. There is probably no official position which demands a higher degree of courage and integrity than the office of prosecuting attorney. A weak man in the position yields to the temptations which beset him on every hand. A dishonest man courts the ever-present occa- sion to grant immunity to such offenders as are willing to pay for it. Col- onel Grant regarded only his duty to the public and the obligations of his
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official oath. He was strong and self-reliant, conscientious and courage- ous. He stood for the enforcement of all laws, and was therefore a terror to evil-doers. In 1882, upon the organization of the Thirty-fifth Judicial Circuit, he was elected Circuit Judge, and in 1887 was re-elected by an overwhelming majority. As evidence of the esteem in which he was held by citizens of the Upper Peninsula it is only necessary to state that he had not, at the time of his first election, become a resident of the judicial cir- cuit in which he was chosen judge. He became a permanent resident of Marquette in 1886. Judge Grant has always taken an interest in politics and been a supporter of the Republican party. In February, 1889, he was nominated for Justice of the Supreme Court by the State convention of that party. The news of his nomination was received with unbounded enthusiasm in the Northern Peninsula, and his personal popularity was attested by the flattering vote he received at the election which followed. Before entering upon the discharge of his duties as a member of the Court complimentary banquets were tendered him both at Marquette and Sault Ste. Marie. His record on the Circuit Bench as Judge of the Thirty- fifth Judicial Circuit had given him a reputation as wide as the State. At the time of entering upon his judicial duties the Circuit had unen- viable notoriety for violation of the laws regulating the liquor traffic, and the existence of the vilest dens of prostitution. He publicly instructed the sheriff and other police officers that it was their duty to institute prosecutions against these violators of the laws. He explained to saloonkeepers the law regulating the liquor traffic, and in public addresses in every city of his circuit demanded the enforcement of the law and that officers should perform their duty in this regard. When he left the Bench no district in the State had a better reputation for the observance of law, and not a single den of prostitution existed in it. His able, fearless and conscientious performance of his duty had wrought a remarkable transformation, so that the district had become one of the most law-abiding and resulted in a great decrease of crime. It is this rec- ord which endeared him to the best people, the law-abiding and law- respecting citizens of that entire section. During the six years of his service upon the Supreme Bench, Judge Grant has exhibited the qualities which make the decisions of a court of last resort respected by the law- yers and the masses. He has been careful and unremitting in his investi- gations in order to be able to interpret and construe statutes correctly. The desire to be right, always uppermost, is strong enough to impel whatever labor is required to ascertain the right. While a strong parti- san he is able to be impartial in his judicial opinions. It is not as a judge alone that he has acquired such a hold upon the affections of the people of the State. His active interest as a citizen in the preservation of law and order strengthens the bond. He is regarded as the head of the Law and Order League, and has delivered almost one hundred addresses in the State on the subject of the proper enforcement of law. His abilities
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