USA > Michigan > Bench and bar of Michigan : a volume of history and biography > Part 12
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House Judiciary committee and in 1877 of the Senate Judiciary committee. In 1879 and 1881 he was assistant secretary of the State Senate. He was admitted to the Bar in 1876 and practised his profession in Detroit until January, 1882, when the Supreme Court having been empowered, by the adoption of a constitutional amendment, to appoint its own clerk, Mr. Hopkins was appointed to the position now occupied by him. During the fourteen years and upwards that he has been clerk the work of the court has greatly increased and Mr. Hopkins has given the business of his office his entire time and attention. The work is laborious and trying. It requires an aptitude for forms, but during all the years the journal of the court shows great care and skill in the preparation and entry of judgments, decrees and orders, so that he has earned and holds the entire confidence of the Court in all the manifold duties of his office. By the Bar of the State he is regarded as a model clerk. He is always prompt to answer inquiries, and always correct in the draft of orders required to be made. He is genial and kind to every person with whom he comes in contact; is generous and loyal in his friendships, and is greatly loved in his home city as well as by his numerous acquaintances throughout the State. In his appointment the Court made no mistake. He has without doubt a more extensive acquaintance among the members of the legal fraternity than any other person in the State. Mr. Hopkins was married in 1880, and has a wife and three children.
EDWARD D. KINNE, Ann Arbor. Judge Kinne was born at DeWitt Center, near Syracuse, New York, February 9, 1842, the youngest child in a family of two sons and one daughter. His parents were natives of New York State and of English descent. His mother was Rachel C. Wetherby. His father, Julius C. Kinne, who died in 1855, was a farmer, a strong man and a member of the New York Legislature several times. He attended the district school until fifteen, and was prepared for college in the Academy at Cazenovia. In 1860 he entered the University of Michigan as a student and was graduated in 1864. After that he went to Washington and became a student of law in the Columbia Law School, while he performed clerical duties under appointment in the diplomatic division of the Treasury Department. He held the clerkship three years, was graduated from the law school and was admitted to the Bar in the District of Columbia. Soon afterwards he settled in Ann Arbor for practice and has retained his residence there continuously. His only partnership in the law was formed with Hon. Olney Hawkins, and it was terminated in 1869. The same year he was elected city recorder and held the office two terms. In 1871 he was chosen city attorney and held that position three terms. He was elected mayor of Ann Arbor in 1876, and re-elected. In 1879 he was elected to the Legislature as a Republican.
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In 1887 he was nominated by the Republican convention for Circuit Judge, and elected by a majority of more than two thousand, although the counties of Monroe and Washtenaw, comprising the circuit, were both strongly Democratic. His popularity was not impaired by a service of six years on the Bench. He was re-elected in 1893 by a large majority, spite of the fact that a very determined effort was made by the politicians of the opposing party to compass his defeat. His legal and scholastic attain- ments were excellent when he was first elected to the Bench. A general practice of sixteen years had developed his qualities and established his reputation as a lawyer. His complimentary vote, three thousand larger than that cast for his party's ticket, may be accepted as the public esti- mate of his character and abilities by the community in which he had lived and practised law. His record on the Bench has been such as to command the admiration of the Bar, the confidence of litigants and the approval of the public. He has always been a student, not only of the law, but of the sciences and of politics and history. His growth has, therefore, been continuous. He has breadth of vision and depth of thought. On the Bench he has never manifested the slightest taint of partisanship. Ilis treatment of the Bar, his rulings in a case, his jury charges, all attest that he possesses the judicial temperament to a very marked degree. He has not betrayed any narrowness or any disposition to regard mere technicalities as all-important. He is able to comprehend legal principles and apply them in the determination of a question or a case. He hears patiently the argument of counsel and decides after due deliberation, thus evidencing his regard for the rights of parties, the courtesy due attorneys, and the desire to be correct in his rulings. His demeanor on the bench impresses every one favorably. There is no exhibition of haste or impatience; no appearance of a desire to be auto- cratic, or to exercise judicial authority as a prerogative and to a degree that savors of oppression. He is earnest, thoughtful, conscientious, im- pressed with the gravity of the functions of a court and the powers of a judge. His freedom from bias or prejudice, his sedulous application in order to arrive at correct conclusions, evidence his conviction that justice is the end of courts of law. He had the united and hearty support of the Bar of his Circuit for the nomination for Justice of the Supreme Court in 1895. His qualifications for the position are undoubted, and he is eminently worthy of the honor. Judge Kinne was married in 1867 to Miss Mary C. Hawkins, daughter of Olney Hawkins, who was leader of the Ann Arbor Bar for many years. She died in 1882, leaving a son and a daughter. The son, Samuel D., was graduated from the Literary and Law Departments of the University of Michigan, but, instead of devoting himself to the law, settled in Colorado and engaged in the mining business. The daughter, Mary W., is a student in Packer Institute, New York. Hle was married a second time in 1884 to Mrs. Florence S. Kelly (nee Jewett), of Ann Arbor.
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HIRAM J. BEAKES, late of Ann Arbor. Judge Hiram J. Beakes was born in Middletown, New York, September 6, 1827. He studied law with Clark & Rapello, the latter of whom was for many years a Justice of the New York Court of Appeals. In 1851 he was admitted to the Bar. The same year he removed to Ann Arbor and began the practice of law. In 1854 he was elected Circuit Court Commissioner, in 1863 a member of the State Legislature, and in 1864 he was elected judge of probate of Washte- naw county, to which position he was re-elected in 1868. In 1873 he was elected mayor of Ann Arbor, and the next year was re-elected to that position. In 1880 he was nominated for Presidential elector on the Dem- ocratic ticket. For some years he was the acknowledged head of the Washtenaw Bar. In 1875 he opened a law office in Detroit with Hon. Sullivan M. Cutcheon, under the firm name of Beakes & Cutcheon, shortly changed to Beakes, Cutcheon & Stillwagen. He continued, however, to retain a good part of his Ann Arbor clientage, still making his home in that city. The new Detroit firm had built up a large practice at the time of Judge Beakes' death, which occurred May 18, 1882, in the prime of ยท his life and usefulness. Judge Beakes possessed fine legal attainments and in point of ability as a lawyer ranked among the first in the State. He delighted in tracing legal propositions back to their beginning and was a great student of English as well as American law. In their resolutions, the Detroit Bar spoke of him as one of its most eminent members, stating that they were called upon to mourn the loss of one whose high professional attainments, pure character and strenuous industry won for him distinction and success in his profession and eminence and usefulness in the various stations of civil life to which the confidence of his fellow citizens had called him. Judge E. D. Kinne in addressing the Washtenaw Bar said: "There is no commendation or praise but what our departed brother is entitled to. Ile was a man of broad and liberal culture, of fine literary talents. A more delightful gentleman was never met in the home circle. Judge Beakes never failed to give information to those seeking it from him and 1 never questioned his opinions. He was an humble man, a gentleman, a true and faithful lawyer and a trusted friend." A large number of the present leading lawyers and jurists of the State studied law in Judge Beakes' office. He was survived by his wife and only daughter.
SETH C. RANDALL, Ann Arbor. Mr. Randall, prosecuting attorney of Washtenaw county, is a native of Orleans county, New York, where he was born February 15, 1842. His father, George A. Randall, was born in the same State, Wayne county, July 14, 1819, and died seventy-six years later. His mother is a native of Buffalo, where she was born May 24, 1819, and is now living in this state at Birmingham, Oakland county.
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Mr. Randall came into the State with his parents when only seven years of age. Ilis parents located on a farm four miles from Battle Creek, and remained there two years. Much sickness was prevailing in that neighborhood and his parents became discouraged with the outlook. They determined to return to New York, where they felt sure of good health, and started to drive overland. They passed through the villages that are now prosperous cities along the line of the Michigan Central Railroad, until they came to Wayne. Here they stopped to visit an uncle, and after a few days all went north into Oakland county to visit a sister of the elder Randall. She was living at Birmingham, and the appearance of the coun- try around that village so pleased Mr. Randall that he purchased a farm and made it his permanent home. He was a farmer, but did much butcher- ing during the season for the Detroit markets. In this work he was assisted by his son Seth, who remained at home until he was twenty years of age. The Civil War had then been raging about a year and the young man saw his duty at the front. Accordingly he enlisted in Company D, 22d Michi- gan Volunteer Infantry, and served throughout the war. His early educa- tion had been somewhat neglected, and when he came out of the army he made what haste he could to atone for the lack of schooling in youth. He took a course in Bryant & Stratton's Business College at Detroit, and attended the public school at Birmingham for a year, beginning with the fall term of 1865. He attended the high school at Ypsilanti one year and then taught school for a year. While he was teaching he was also doing preparatory work for the University of Michigan. He entered that school in 1868, and spent two years in its literary department. He was employed as principal of the Burr Oak schools in 1870 for two years, and then entered the Law Department of the University of Michigan, and in due time was graduated with the class of 1874. He settled at Dundee and practised law for nine years, and is still a member of the firm of Randall & Corbin, in that place. He came to Ann Arbor and opened an office in 1883. lle is still engaged there and is a member of the firm of Randall & Jones. He has always been a Republican, and cast his first vote for Lincoln while home on a furlough from the army. He has held several local offices, and stands high in the esteem of those who know him best. He is a public spirited man and ready to co-operate with any movements that look to general improvement. He was treasurer of Bloomfield town- ship, Oakland county, for one term, and for two terms was superintendent of schools for Dundee township, Monroe county. For two terms he was secretary of the board of school examiners for Monroe county. He is in his first term as prosecuting attorney of Washtenaw county. He was mar- ried in May, 1870, to Miss Ellen L. Plank, of Dundee. They have one son, 11. M. Randall, who is a graduate of the University of Michigan, and is at the present time in charge of the scientific department of the high school at Saginaw, teaching physics and chemistry.
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JOHN LOGAN CHIPMAN, late of Detroit. The Chipman family was established in this country in 1630, and each generation has had distinguished representatives in public life. John Chipman, the first of the family on American soil, wedded a daughter of John Howland, a Mayflower pilgrim, and their grandson John, was a graduate of Harvard College and a minister of Beverly, where he died at the age of eighty-four. Another of the family, Nathaniel Chipman, was a learned and accomplished judge of the highest court of Vermont in the closing years of the last century. Henry Chipman, his son, was a gentleman of wide culture and great ability. He wedded Martha Logan, whose father was a wealthy planter of South Caro- lina, and came with his beautiful bride to Detroit in 1820. He made a deep impression upon the frontier, and quickly became one of its leading spirits. Here John Logan Chipman was born June 5, 1830, and grew to manhood with the scent of the wildwoods in the air he breathed. He was educated in the city schools and in the University of Michigan, but left school before he had completed his University course to enter the service of the Montreal Mining Company, and was sent by them into the Upper Peninsula to seek desirable locations for mining enterprises. While in their employment he spent his leisure time in reading law, and was admitted to the Bar in that remote region. In these years he became intimately acquainted with the Indian on his native heath, and championed their interests in after years. He inherited a special talent for the law; his personal qualities pushed him to the front, and the northern country soon became too pent-up a Utica for his masterful powers. He returned to Detroit, and in 1856 was elected city attorney, a position which he held for four years, making a creditable record. In 1864 he was elected to the Legislature, and history speaks of him as one of its upright and influential members. In 1866 he made his first venture into National politics as the leader of a forlorn Democratic hope, making a very earnest campaign as a candidate for Congress. He was not elected - the odds were too great - but he carried the city of Detroit by a handsome majority, and bound the city to himself by ties that were never broken. The following year he was appointed attorney for the city police board, and served in that position until he ascended the Bench in 1879 as Judge of the Detroit Superior Court. He had been engaged in' a professional career of a quarter of a century, and had won a wide reputation as an accomplished and eloquent lawyer. He excelled in every function of his profession, and was regarded as one of the greatest trial lawyers of his day. In cross examination and in his address to the jury, he was the beau-ideal of the American trial lawyer. Judge Chipman also won great reputation on the Bench. He was a master of the law, and he followed innate promptings of justice. He served out his first term of six years and was re-elected without opposi- tion. In every controversy he sought the facts and asked what was right, and in repeated instances his decisions have been quoted by the Supreme
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Courts as almost perfect crystallizations of the law governing controverted points. He was a man of the people, and declared that no man should suffer injustice in his court because of poverty. The enlightened libel law of Michigan rests almost entirely upon his affirmed decisions. He resigned the judicial office which he had so successfully administered to become a member of the House of Representatives of the Fiftieth Congress, and once in his place he seemed to have been specially fitted for it. He was naturally a law-maker, as he was naturally a lawyer and a judge. He was the representative of the business interests of Detroit, and had friends among the people regardless of party. He was a member of the Com- mittee on Foreign Affairs and his voice was the voice of young America. He had an eye to the future and advocated a policy which he declared would cause "our flag to float where other flags were seen and which would give us a fair share of the commerce of the globe out of which other nations are making so much at our expense." He was a friend of the soldier and stoutly protected his interests. He was active in behalf of every proposed improvement of the Great Lakes and foresaw an ultimate deep water way from the West to the ocean. He favored a vigorous foreign policy, and declared that he never closed a public address without the thought that Canada should be annexed to the Union. His career as a judge and a representative are preserved in the history of the Nation, and there his place is secure. He died January 25, 1894, while yet in the full prime of his splendid powers, and at a period when age had not chilled the generous impulses of his heart. He had witnessed the sublime transfiguration of his country, and for him life had been worth the candle. He filled many positions of trust and left a record without a stain. Fifty thousand people waited upon the funeral train that bore his remains through the streets of his native city to their last resting place in Elmwood cemetery. He was stricken down at home in the midst of preparations for his journey to Washington, but in the face of danger he went to the Capitol. He grew worse and was carried to the hospital. When the fatal character of his disease became apparent and the result could not long be delayed, he took the hand of his faithful companion, and said " Wife, repeat the Lord's Prayer with me," and even as its accents were trembling on his lips he fell asleep, and the Congress and the country lost one of its most faithful and useful Representatives.
CHARLES A. KENT, Detroit. The subject of this sketch was born October 11, 1835, in Hopkinton, St. Lawrence county, New York. His parents, Artemas Kent and Sarah Weed, were New England people. The Kents on emigrating to America settled in Suffield county, Connecti- cut, where they lived for several generations. The grandfather of our subject lived in Dorset, Vermont, and his son Artemas, a farmer, left New
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England and located in New York in young manhood. Charles A. Kent was fitted for college in St. Lawrence Academy, at Potsdam, New York, and entered the University of Vermont at Burlington in 1852. On com- pletion of the classical course he was graduated in 1856. For the year next ensuing he was principal of an academy at Montpelier, and for the next two years he was a student in Andover Theological Seminary. In the fall of 1859 he came to Detroit and began the study of law with Messrs. C. I. and E. C. Walker and Alfred Russell. The following year he was admitted to the Bar and in 1861 formed a partnership with E. C. Walker, one of his preceptors, which continued for nineteen years. Since 1880 he has been engaged in practice alone. He was law professor in the University of Michigan from 1868 to 1886, a period of eighteen years. He was married in 1874 to Frances C. King, daughter of R. W. King of Detroit. Mr. Kent has devoted the last thirty-six years unreservedly to the profession of law. He has never sought political office, although he has rendered active support to his party and never neglected the duties of good citizenship. He has served on the board of education for the city of Detroit four years and in 1882 was a member of the commission appointed to revise the tax laws of the State. He has been a close, critical student of law and successful in practice. Making no pretensions to oratory he would not be classed with great advocates. His speech is didactic rather than ornate. His method is that of the teacher rather than the declaimer. Many hundreds of students in the University Law School bear enthusi- astic testimony to the perspicuity of his expositions before the class. His knowledge of a subject is thorough and his ability to impart knowledge to others is well attested. In the class room he was resourceful, always having something to say which was not only interesting, but also valuable as a preparation for young lawyers. The title " Professor " is worthily bestowed on him. For his long and successful service in that relation he will be remembered and esteemed by members of the Bar of Michigan and other states who have enjoyed the benefit of his lectures. Professor Kent is an modest man, predisposed to undervalue his own abilities. He is a relative of the great Chancellor Kent. The lineage of both is traced to a common ancestor, the Chancellor being the third generation and Charles A. the fifth in descent. There is a marked predilection for the law in the Kent family. Some of the cases of unusual public interest with which Mr. Kent has been connected as counsel are the following: In the Supreme Court of the United States " Township of Pine Grove vs. Talcott (19 Wallace 666"). This case involved the validity of about $1, 500,000 of bonds issued by the municipalities of Michigan, which the Supreme Court of the State had held void in 1870. For a period of four years thereafter the legal questions involved attracted the attention of the Bar and the issue was awaited with interest by the public. "Tucker vs. Ferguson (22 Wallace 527 "), which involved the right of the State of Michigan to tax a large area of railroad lands. It excited general interest at the time.
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". Lord vs. Steamship Company (102 U. S. Statutes 541"). In this case it was first held that commerce passing on the ocean from one port to another port in the same State was foreign commerce within the meaning of the Constitution of the United States and hence subject to Federal jurisdiction. In the Supreme Court of the State, " Youngblood vs. Sex- ton (32 Michigan 406"). This case involved the question whether under a Constitution which prohibited the granting of a license to sell intoxicat- ing liquors, the business of selling such liquors could be specially taxed. The question was one of remarkable interest at the time. "State Tax Law Cases (54 Michigan 117"). In these were involved the validity of the tax law of 1882, a subject then of great interest to the tax payers. " Palms vs. Palms (68 Mich. 335"). In this case the validity of a will disposing of property valued at several millions was attacked, and the con- struction of the statutes of the State as to the time in which property can be tied up was also a question to be determined. The Detroit papers devoted a great deal of space to this cause during the trial. A more recent case which has attracted universal attention, not only in the State but elsewhere, is "The City of Detroit vs. The Citizens' Street Railway Com- pamy et al," involving the question whether or not the provisions of the State Constitution and statutes prohibiting the creation of certain corpora- tions for a period of more than thirty years operate to prevent municipali- ties from granting to such corporations the right to occupy the streets for a period extending beyond the limits of their chartered lives. This action was brought in the State Court and transferred to the U. S. Circuit Court, whence some defendants appealed to the Supreme Court of the United States and others to the U. S. Circuit Court of Appeals. It is a safe assertion that no other case in the State of Michigan has ever attracted so much public attention. An old practitioner of Detroit says of Mr. Kent: " Ile is a well read man, as may be known by the fact of his deliv- ering lectures at Ann Arbor for eighteen years. He forms his opinions slowly and adheres to, them with great tenacity when once formed. He was spoken of by the Republican party for membership on the Supreme Bench and possesses qualities which would have added strength to the Bench." A very prominent judge says: " He is a most excellent coun- sellor, but not a jury advocate, which may account for this. He is candid, reliable and safe-as much so as any lawyer in Detroit."
WILLARD MERRICK LILLIBRIDGE, Judge of the Third Judicial Circuit, of Detroit. Judge Lillibridge was born at Blossvale, Oneida county, New York, in 1846, and came of an old New England family. His ancestors settled in Rhode Island about the middle of the seventeenth century, and were connected with the early settlement and development of that Colony. Rev. David Lillibridge, the great-grandfather of the subject 26
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of this sketch, was a Baptist Clergyman, long located at Willington, Con- necticut. He was a man of sturdy patriotism, and a soldier in the French and Indian War. Ira Lillibridge and Sophronia Merrick, the parents of the Detroit jurist, were married, and settled in Blossvale about 1822. They had a numerous family of sons and daughters, of which Willard Merrick was the youngest, with one exception. The father was a farmer and lumberman, and was glad to provide his children with every educa- tional advantage that the times afforded. Willard M. attended the public schools at Blossvale and Taberg, was a student in the seminaries at Whitestown and Cazenovia, and entered Hamilton College in 1865, took a full classical course, and was graduated with honor in 1869. Soon after graduation, he became superintendent of the public schools at Plattsburgh, New York, where he remained two years, and was very successful as a teacher. He had, while in school, cherished the purpose of adopting the law as his profession, and during his college studies had taken an extra course in that direction ; while teaching he had also been a careful student of the elementary works of the law, under the guidance of an eminent lawyer. In 1871 he resolved to devote his entire energies to preparation for the career in that profession. He studied one year in St. Louis, and then returned to Detroit and became a student in the office of Walker & Kent, then one of the leading law firms in that city. He was admitted to the bar in 1873, and soon afterward opened an office in Detroit. Judge Lillibridge says with candor, that his success at the Bar was slow and gradual, and he passed through those years of discouragement and wait- ing, which seem to be the lot of all. He had abundant time to carefully prepare the cases submitted to his charge and to continue further his systematic study of the law. Success came at last, and his professional and business interests became profitable. He had a large clientage, includ- ing some of the leading business firms and corporations in the city. While in practice, he was employed in many cases in Detroit and elsewhere, and his reputation as a learned, careful, and clear-headed counsellor and lawyer, became well known. Among the cases tried by him, may be mentioned the Southworth Will case, in the United States Court at Mil- waukee, and the well known Mandamus case against the Diamond Match Co., in Delaware, which he conducted successfully through all the Courts of that State. Mr. Lillibridge was also retained and conducted the extended litigation of David M. Richardson, involving a large amount of property, and was counsellor for Rodney Mason in his suit against the George T. Smith Middlings Purifier Co., and had charge of the later pro- ceedings against the receivers of that Company. He was attorney for the board of education on several occasions, and in 1891, was nominated by Mayor Pingree for city counsellor. He has always been a lawyer of busi- ness characteristics. He knows the law thoroughly, and makes his client's cause his own. A prominent member of the Detroit bar says of him:
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