USA > Michigan > Bench and bar of Michigan : a volume of history and biography > Part 21
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where they helped to swell the receipts for these worthy charities. He was married to Miss Ella Campbell, of Hudson, Nov. 26, 1879, a young lady able to appreciate his worth and to command his respect ; as a natural result the union has been a happy one. They have two children - Harold, born April 8, 1881, and Bartley Campbell, born Feb. 23, 1883. Mr. Davitt is strong in his convictions, and fearless in their defense, ready to uphold what he deems right and to condemn and denounce what he regards as wrong with little regard to how it may affect his popularity. He is not one of those who would buy favor by forbearing to denounce wrong. He is intensely American and an active opponent of those who, by dark lantern, secret, oath-bound methods, would deny to any class the rights of American citizens.
JOHN F. O'KEEFE, Saginaw. Mr. O' Keefe comes of Irish and Scotch stock. His father was born in Ireland, and came from a family distin- guished for its long line of scholars, himself being educated in Dublin College. His mother is of Scotch ancestry. He was born in Wilson, Niagara County, New York, December 28, 1860. He spent his early years on the farm and in the district schools. In 1881 he was graduated from the Wilson Academy of his native town. Mr. O'Keefe was for three years principal of the Somerset high school, at Somerset, New York, and one year superintendent of the public schools at Lewiston, New York. He was graduated from Mount Union College in 1887 and came at once to Saginaw, Michigan, where for three years he was principal of the Teach- ers' Training School. During this time, by appointment of the State Superintendent of Public Instruction, he conducted teachers' institutes and lectured on the science and art of education in the leading cities of the State. He studied law in the office of Hanchett, Stark & Hanchett, and was admitted to the Saginaw county Bar in June, 1890, and soon there- after he was licensed to practice in the Supreme Court of Michigan and in the Circuit Courts of the United States. He has an extensive practice in the State and Federal Courts. He is a conscientious worker, a hard fighter and a successful advocate. He has been retained in many of the impor- tant causes tried in the Saginaw Circuit during the past two years. He was one of the attorneys for the defendant in the famous libel suit for $50,000 of Mayor William B. Mershon vs. Rev. William Knight. He was attorney for the plaintiff in the case of Hohan vs. The Union Street Railway, one of the most stubbornly contested cases tried in the Saginaw Circuit in a long time, and in which plaintiff secured a judgment of $2, 800. The Rapid Transit Railroad Co., an electric line connecting Saginaw with Bay City, has retained him as their general counsel. Ile is also retained by several local corporations. The number of cases which he has con- ducted in the Supreme Court of Michigan is unusual for one so young in
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the profession. Out of twelve cases which he has argued in that court only one was lost. It is worth while to mention the case of Swarthout vs. Lucas (102 Michigan, page 492). This involved the question of the authority of a Circuit Judge to punish contempt by imprisonment. A litigant who refused to pay an attorney fee upon a motion was imprisoned for contempt of court. The Supreme Court, upon appeal, was of the opinion that the Circuit Judge did not possess the power which he exercised, and the decision of the Circuit Court was reversed. Mr. O'Keefe was counsel for the appellant. Another important case was the Union Central Life Insurance Company vs. Howell, et al., involving an alleged shortage in the account of Howell, who was agent of the com- pany. The suit was brought against the agent and his bondsmen, upon the bond. In their answer defendants did not deny the execution of the bond. Upon the trial the Circuit Judge permitted them to introduce testimony tending to prove the execution of the bond at a date later than that which appeared on its face. The case was carried to the Supreme Court on a writ of error and the ruling of the Circuit Court was reversed, thus deciding for the first time in Michigan that defendants could not be permitted to introduce evidence to prove the execution of an instrument on a date different from that which it bears, without first serving notice by affidavit denying the execution of such instrument, as provided for by the Circuit Court rule No. 79. The case is reported in 101 Michigan, page 333. Mr. O'Keefe was married November 14, 1894, to Miss Ida K. Cal- lam, daughter of William Callam, Esq., one of the wealthiest men of Saginaw. They have one son, William C. Mr. O'Keefe is a member of the Masonic Fraternity, the East Saginaw Club and the First Presbyterian Church. In politics, he is a Republican, and frequently stumps the county for his party. He has, however, persistently declined to be a candidate for office and says he will never give up his law practice for politics. His office is in the Bearinger Building, and his pleasant home at No. 520 Millard St., is in the prettiest residence part of the city.
HENRY E. NAEGELY, Saginaw. The subject of this sketch was born in East Saginaw, which is now a part of the city of Saginaw, March 16, 1869. Ilis father, Capt. Henry Naegely, is a native of Switzerland, born in canton of Zurich, in December, 1838. He received a commercial edu- cation and military training in the schools of Winterthur, remaining in that place until his departure for America in 1860. At the age of twenty Captain Naegely was impressed by the advantages offered to the young and ambitious in the new world, and soon afterwards left the little Swiss republic for America. He settled first in Wisconsin, remaining there until 1861 when he enlisted in the Union army and went to the front. His carly military training and experience fitted him at once for command, and
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he was made an officer immediately. Upon his own merit exhibited in his skill and bravery he rose in rank by successive promotions until, at the close of the war, he held a captain's commission and had command of a company. In addition to this he was acting assistant adjutant general on General Morrow's staff. At the close of the war Captain Naegely located in Detroit, where he remained until 1868. He then removed to East Saginaw, where he engaged in the hotel business, which he still continues. The mother of our subject was Maggie Breen, born in Ireland, May, 1845. She possesses many noble qualities of mind, with the generous traits attributed to the people of her nationality. She has strength of intellect and a charitable disposition. The primary and preparatory education of Henry E. Naegely was acquired in the schools of Saginaw, from which he was admitted to the University of Michigan in 1889. Three years were devoted by him to the study of letters in the Literary Department. At the end of that time, moved by a well-defined purpose and increasing desire to begin the study of law, he entered the Law School of the Univer- sity in. 1892. During his first year in the Law Department he was selected as class president by the members of his class. This was regarded at the time as a distinct honor for a Michigan student to receive, inasmuch as no student from this State had been elected president of his class for many
years. Mr. Naegely was admitted to the Bar May 26, 1894, at Ann Arbor. Ile was graduated in law in June, 1894, and at once commenced the practice of the profession in Saginaw. He has met with such success as to be already well established as a member of the Bar. In religious belief Mr. Naegely is an adherent of the Roman Catholic faith. Politi- cally he is allied to the Democratic party, and his ability as a public speaker makes him the champion of his party's principles occasionally on the stump.
ARTHUR H. SWARTHOUT, Saginaw. Arthur HI. Swarthout was born in the township of Saginaw, June 9, 1859. He is descended from good old Holland stock. The ancestors of his father emigrated from Hol- land and settled in New Amsterdam in colonial times. His grandfather, Capt. Anthony R. Swarthout, came west and settled in Saginaw county in 1835, when the entire valley was yet a wilderness. As he was a surveyor the settlement of the country gave him employment at his profession, which he followed profitably for many years. James N. Swarthout, the father of our subject, was a native of Michigan, a farmer, and lived all his life in Saginaw county, where he died in January, 1890. The mother of Arthur H. was Jane M. Hliesordt, a native of the State of New York, and of Holland descent. She is still living and finds a home with her son. Arthur H. Swarthout passed his boyhood on his father's farm, attending the district schools during a portion of each year, until he was fourteen
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years of age. He then entered the Saginaw high school, W. S., and took the full course of instruction, from which he was graduated in 1877. After leaving school he was engaged in teaching for two winter terms, in order to procure the means with which to defray his expenses at the university. In the fall of 1879 he entered the Law Department of the University of Michigan and pursued the studies laid down in the course, attending the lectures and making use of all the means at his command to gain the best possible preparation for practice. He was graduated in 1881 and immediately thereafter settled in Grayling, Crawford county, where he opened an office, having been formally admitted to the Bar at Saginaw in May of that year. In 1882 he was elected prosecuting attorney of Crawford county, but resigned before the close of his term and removed to Saginaw in 1884. His first business and professional partnership was F. W. Wellington, and it was terminated at the end of the first year, by the retirement of Mr. Wellington from practice. For the eight years next ensuing he was alone, but in 1893 became associated in partnership with J. F. O'Keefe, under the firm name and style of Swarthout & O'Keefe, an association which was terminated in March, 1896. Mr. Swarthout has made a specialty of patent law during the last twelve years, and he is unquestionably the patent lawyer of Saginaw. He has achieved marked success in that branch of practice. Among the important patent cases with which he has been connected was that of Kinney vs. The Withington & Corley Manufacturing Company (15 C. C. A. 531), involving construc- tive license to manufacture where the patentee made the invention in the shop of his employer, but at his own expense. Among the important cases in which he prepared briefs are Beaver Creek Township vs. Hastings (52 Mich. 258); Swarthout vs. McKnight, Circuit Judge (N. W. Reports, Vol. LX, page 973); and the Union Central Life Insurance Company vs. Howell (59 N. W. R. 599); and Union Central Life vs. Smith (63 N. W. R. 438). Politically Mr. Swarthout is a Republican. During the time of his residence in Grayling he was very active in support of his party. In addition to receiving the nomination and election to the office of pro- secuting attorney, he was appointed a delegate from the Tenth Congres- sional District to the National Republican Convention held at Chicago in 1884, and cast his vote for James G. Blaine as the candidate finally nominated for President. After his location in Saginaw he devoted himself without reserve to his profession. In disposition he is social and charitable. Ile is a member of the Masonic order; a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, to which he is warmly attached. His activ- ities are employed in the duties growing out of church membership, and for the improvement of the community in morality and the virtues of christianity. In 1893 he was elected president of the State Sunday School Association, and vice-president of the International S. S. Association. He is a man of strict principles and high spirit; although entertaining serious views of life and its duties, he is free from forbidding reserve and
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Chancery H. Sage
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is very cordial in social intercourse. He has a high reputation as a patent lawyer, excellent standing as a citizen and is well described as a christian gentleman. Mr. Swarthout was married December 15, 1881, to Miss Abbie E. Squire, daughter of Josiah Squire, a farmer of Saginaw county. She died in August, 1892, leaving three daughters: Mable, aged fourteen ; Florence, twelve; and Ruth, seven. In 1894 he married Annie E. Squire, a sister of his first wife.
CHAUNCEY 11. GAGE, Saginaw. Hon. Chauncey Hurlbut Gage was born at Detroit, Michigan, June 15, 1840. His parents were Morgan L. and Amy (Coffeen) Gage. llis father was prominent in business life, a manufacturer and later superintendent of construction of plank roads in Saginaw and Tuscola counties, Michigan. During the Mexican War he was Captain of an independent company attached to the First Michigan Volunteers and was assigned garrison duty at Forts Mackinaw and Brady. He was also captain of Company A, Fourteenth Michigan Infantry in the war of the Rebellion, serving in Tennessee and Mississippi. He was an excellent soldier, brave, faithful and true, and popular with his men as is shown by the fact that his memory is perpetuated in Morgan L. Gage Post No. 375 G. A. R., of Saginaw, East Side. Captain Gage came to Detroit in 1819 with his father from New York State. The family came originally from New England where the first settlement of the Gages in America was made prior to the Revolution. Judge Gage's mother was Amy Coffeen of Ohio, also descended from New England stock. In 1849 Captain Gage removed with his family to Saginaw City and three years later to East Saginaw. This section was then almost a wilderness, and in such primitive condition the facilities for obtaining an education were very limited. Young Chauncey, however, attended the public schools of Saginaw and later of Sandusky, Ohio, diligently grasping the rudiments of knowledge until he reached the age of sixteen years, when he began his active career of usefulness. At this age he entered the employ of S. W. Yawkey & Co., then one of the leading lumber firms of the Saginaw Valley, and remained with them and their successors, C. Moulthrop & Co. for two years. In 1857 he went to Lansing and was elected to fill the position of enrolling clerk of the State Senate. He discharged the duties of this office at the regular and extra sessions of 1857 and 1858. Follow- ing this he studied law in the office of Webber & Wheeler and remained with them and Mr. Webber until January 1, 1863. In 1861 he was examined before the Circuit Court and was admitted to the Bar. In 1864 he was a member of the East Saginaw school board. In 1866 President of the Young Men's Literary Society. In 1871-2 he was recorder for the city of East Saginaw, a judicial office, by which he was also consti- tuted acting mayor in the absence of the mayor, and in 1878 he was city
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attorney for East Saginaw. In the fall of 1862 he was elected prosecut- ing attorney for Saginaw county, assuming the duties of that office Janu- ary 1, 1863. He discharged the duties devolving upon him with such success that he was re-elected in 1863 and served until 1865. On retiring from office he continued the general practice until 1882. In the fall of 1880 he was a candidate for Circuit Judge of the Tenth Judicial District of Michigan, on a non-partisan ticket and was supported by a majority of the Bar of the county and was also made the candidate of the Democratic and Greenback conventions. He was elected for a term of six years- Jan. 1, 1882 to Jan. 1, 1888. In 1887 he was re-elected for a second term without opposition. Again in 1893 he was nominated by the Demo- cratic party, and although he received a large vote, he shared the fate of his party ticket, being defeated by the small majority of thirty votes, in a total poll of nearly 10,000. Since January 1, 1894, Judge Gage has been engaged in the general practice of his profession. Years of service on the Bench, with the study and research thereby entailed, have but ripened and matured his fine legal attainments and given him a comprehensive grasp of the law in all its bearings. Since again entering the legal arena, practice "has flowed in on him and he enjoys a clientage of high character. Judge Gage is a Democrat by inclination but is not a politician, his official life having been confined to legal trusts, independent, in a measure, of all party affiliation. He was married in September, 1864, to Miss Mildred Smith, daughter of Captain Martin Smith, a ship-builder and prominent citizen of Saginaw. By this marriage Judge Gage had one child, Stuart M., who is now an architect and mechanical engineer at Seattle, Washing- ton. Mrs. Gage died in March, 1866, and on July 12, 1875, Mr. Gage married Miss Isabel Peck, daughter of Hon. George W. Peck, who was a prominent lawyer of Lansing, Speaker of the House of Representatives of Michigan, and member of the Congress of the United States, and Sophia E. Peck. Mrs. Gage, their daughter, was born in Livingston county, Michigan, April 20, 1852. By this marriage Judge Gage has had two sons, Harold 1 .. , aged eleven years, and Lewis P., deceased. During his long service on the Bench, Judge Gage established a reputation for extreme fairness in the treatment of litigants and counsel. In the treat- ment of hardened criminals he was severe, but with no uncalled for severity. In the cases of first offenders he inclined rather to leniency but never to laxity, or to an extent not warranted by the circumstances. His judgment of the law was clear, which fact is proved by the result on appeal in many intricate cases wherein his judgment has been affirmed by the court of last resort. He commanded the respect and good will of the Bar to an unusual extent and retired with their sincere good wishes for his success in his practice. In manner Judge Gage is one of the most companionable of men, open, honest, easy of approach, affable, free of speech and possessing a sterling character above reproach. Ile commands the respect and esteem of a community where he has lived from early childhood.
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WILLIAM R. KENDRICK, Saginaw. Judge William Russell Kendrick was highly favored at the beginning by all that is valuable in heredity. Ile is descended on his father's side from sturdy English ancestry, some of whom emigrated from England and settled in New England before the Revolution. His grandfather, Sanford Kendrick, was for many years associate judge in Lapeer county. His father, Lucius Kendrick, a native of Alden, Erie county, New York, came to Michigan in 1836, as a youth with his parents, who settled among the pioneers of Lapeer county. Lucius Kendrick was a farmer, a teacher, a lawyer, a man of culture and literary taste; a writer of merit, whose contributions to the local newspapers were so popular as to be widely copied and universally read; whose adult life was all spent in Dryden, where he died in 1885. William R. was born at Dryden, Lapeer county, June 21, 1848. His mother, Eliza Look, a native of Dunkirk, New York, of Puritan descent on her father's side, and a member of the Pixley family, of Martha's Vineyard, on the side of her mother, came to Michigan with her parents in 1842 and lived until 1875. His early days were spent on the farm and in the district school. At the age of sixteen he began teaching and taught continuously in the district schools for two years. He then attended the Almont Union school for two terms and spent a year in Olivet College. At the age of nineteen he was elected principal of the Dryden public schools and held the position for two years. Before he had arrived at the age of twenty-one his earnings at school teaching amounted to twenty-four hundred dollars. On arriving at his majority he returned to Olivet College and remained there one year. He then entered the University of Michigan, where he studied three years in the scientific course. He took up the study of law in the University and was graduated from the Law School with the class of 1873. After practising a short time he was admitted to the Supreme Court at Detroit, in the spring of 1874. In the same year he formed a partnership at Grand Rapids with Charles N. Potter, who is now Judge of the Supreme Court of Wyoming. This partnership lasted until the spring of 1875 when Judge Kendrick removed to Otsego county where he was elected prose- cuting attorney. He remained there until 1881 and held the office of prosecuting attorney during the entire time and was also Circuit Court Commissioner. In January, 1881, he removed to Saginaw and formed a partnership with Judge L. C. Holden, which remained in force three years, until Mr. Holden was elected probate judge. For three years thereafter he continued in practice alone. In 1886 he was nominated for prosecuting attorney and received seven hundred votes more than his party ticket, but was defeated. In 1887 he formed a partnership with John M. Harris which existed until September, 1895, when he was appointed Circuit Judge by Governor Rich, to fill the vacancy occasioned by the resignation of Judge R. B. Mcknight. Although this appointment came to him without solicitation on his own part, it came at the unanimous request of members
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of the Bar, expressed in a petition signed by the practising attorneys of the Bar of the county without distinction of party. All of his opinions, without exception, have been sustained by the Supreme Court. Though active in politics, and chairman of the Republican county com- mittee for several years, he was free from partisan bias on the Bench. In ISgo he was elected prosecuting attorney by a majority of nine hundred when candidates on the opposing ticket were elected by a majority reach- ing twenty-two hundred. He was faithful and fearless in prosecuting offenders under the law. He prosecuted violations of the law regulating the sale of intoxicating liquors, with energy and zeal. He was equally active and zealous in enforcing the collection of taxes imposed by that law, and as a result of his well directed activities the sum of seventy thousand dollars was collected before the third day of May. The fines and taxes exceeded by . nearly twenty thousand dollars the amount ever paid before from the same sources. He could see no reason for permitting these men and interests to avoid payment of their proportion of taxes imposed by law, and held that their responsibility and duty to pay were no less weighty than that of the owner of real estate. He declined a re-election to the `office of prosecuting attorney in 1892 on account of important personal business interests. He has been an active practitioner of the law both in the Circuit and Supreme Courts and has managed successfully through those courts many important cases. In Parkhurst vs. Johnson (50 Michi- gan, page 70) he was one of counsel for defendent. This was a case involving the question of negligence and has been a leading case on that branch of the law very much cited. During his term it became his duty to prosecute several persons indicted for murder who were convicted and sentenced to long terms. While his practice, when not in official position, was general in character, he preferred chancery cases, and this kind of practice may be called his specialty. He is a member of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, and Supreme Legal Adviser of United Friends of Michigan. Judge Kendrick was married November 3, 1875, to Adeline Bristol, of Almont, Michigan, daughter of Joseph Bristol, a prominent and successful business man of that town. They have three children-two sons and a daughter: J. Lucius S. is nineteen years of age; Ethel E. seventeen and Russell Ray, twelve. All are in the public school. The Judge has a very interesting family and a delightful home. He has accumulated a handsome property ; his wife is an artist of ability and his children are all bright and intelligent, advanced in their studies and amateur musicians. Judge Kendrick is an admirable specimen of what may be termed a self-educated, self-dependent American citizen.
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WILLIAM M. MILLER, late of Saginaw. Mr. Miller was born Febru- ary 24, 1826, at Williston, Vermont, where his ancestors had lived and thrived for several generations, honored and esteemed by the entire com- munity. Hle was a lawyer by inheritance. His father, Solomon S. Miller, a leading lawyer, spent his life in his native town, where he died in 1830. His grandfather, Judge Solomon Miller, who was distinguished among the Green Mountain Boys as an active partisan of American Inde- pendence before he became a learned lawyer and a dignified judge, died in Williston prior to the birth of this subject. William M. Miller's mother, who was Eliza Mitchell, died when he was only one year old. His father dying four years later left him to the care of his uncle, Harry Miller, who adopted him and thereafter stood in the relation of father. He was rather a feeble-bodied child, too young at the time to realize his loss in the death of his parents, and was so tenderly reared by his uncle and surrounded with such comforts in his adopted home as never to have felt the loss save as an indefinite memory. Hon. Harry Miller was a man of affairs who in early life was the owner of a large and valuable farm, and became a wealthy man for that time and place. His abilities made him a leader of thought and he served with credit two terms in the Legislature of Ver- mont, and later as State Senator from Chittenden county. In the mean- time he had become a director in the Bank of Burlington, and also in the Farmers' and Mechanics' Bank of Williston. In 1858, the latter bank having acquired a large lumber interest in Saginaw, Senator Miller came to Saginaw to look after its interest, and in a short time purchased the property, associating with himself Ami W. Wright and Valorius l'aine, under the firm name of Miller, Paine & Wright. The investment was profitable, and he soon extended his business at Saginaw by establishing the banking house of Miller, Braley & Co., which developed into the First National Bank of Saginaw. Harry Miller had no children, and, being a man of enlightened views and liberal disposition, he provided generously for the education of his adopted son. After a thorough preparatory edu- cation Willjam M. was graduated from the University of Vermont in 1847 with special honor; he was a member of the Greek Letter Frater- nity, Sigma-Phi. During his college days he laid the foundation of an extensive literary knowledge to which he continually added by judicious and diligent study, and which formed one of the strong elements of his character as a lawyer. He early selected the law for his life work, and began his studies in the office of his maternal uncle, the Hon. Henry Leavenworth, of Burlington, Vermont, immediately after his graduation from college. His studious habits, diligence, modest pride and ambition enabled him to make rapid progress, while the large and varied practice of Mr. Leavenworth gave him an opportunity to combine practical experi- ence with his theoretical acquirements, and to obtain an early admission to the Bar. He married Miss Harriet E. Granger, of Glens Falls, New York,
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