History of Ingham and Eaton counties, Michigan, Part 92

Author: Durant, Samuel W. cn
Publication date: 1880
Publisher: Philadelphia : D.W. Ensign & Co.
Number of Pages: 772

USA > Michigan > Eaton County > History of Ingham and Eaton counties, Michigan > Part 92
USA > Michigan > Ingham County > History of Ingham and Eaton counties, Michigan > Part 92

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The adjournment, pending the argument, until two P.M. did not bring Judge Felch to the rescue. How they wor- ried through that afternoon does not appear from the jour- nal. The only entry for that afternoon is the following :

" JOHN DEWEY 2'8. Attachment.

JASPER R. RAND. S

" The defendant three times called, and the second default entered.

"In the above-entitled cause it is ordered on motion of Frink & Blair, attorneys for plaintiff, that the parties file their pleadings under the rules and practice of this court.#

" Court adjourned until to-morrow morning at eight o'clock. "ORAMEL D. SKINNER,

" P. S. SPAULDING."

The next morning Judge Felch had not come. They had staved off the quashing of the indictment as long as to them seemed possible. A circuit judge would have found no difficulty in holding the matter, if he thought best, for a year. But the first journal entry for that day is as follows :

"THE PEOPLE 18. JAMES E. FISHER.

"On motion of M. S. Brackett, attorney for defendant, it was ordered that the indictment be quashed, and that the said James E. Fisher be dismissed and discharged from the premises in the said indictment.

"Journal read, corrected, and signed in open court.

" ORAMEL D. SKINNER, "P. S. SPAULDING."

This placed the matter beyond the reach of any remedy by Judge Felch. It is said that in several instances the circuit judge has learned upon his tardy arrival at the court-room that the lawyers and associates had quashed all of the indictments on file and set all the prisoners at large.

At the next term, Sept. 30, 1845, Judge Felch is promptly in his place, and appoints M. S. Brackett prose- cuting attorney for the term,-to keep him out of mischief. Joab Baker applies for admission to practice as an attorney. M. S. Wilkinson, David Johnson, and D. A. Winslow are appointed the examining committee. A subsequent entry shows a favorable report by the committee and the ad- mission of Mr. Baker to the bar. His name is the second one signed to our roll of attorneys. He became an able and successful defender in criminal cases, practiced for several years in Clinton County, often attending our circuit, and is now in practice at Muskegon, in this State.

COUNTY COURT.

When the County Court was established, its two judges presided without the presence of the circuit judge, and the circuit judge presided alone in the circuit. Litigants in the County Court could, by an entry upon the rec- ord, elect to remove their cases from the County Court to the Circuit, and there have them tried before the Circuit Court.

The first County Court appears to have opened June 7, 1847. N. S. Booth, of Bellevue, was presiding judge, and A. D. Shaw was clerk. A. L. Jordan, of Chester, had been elected second judge.

At the January term, 1849, Henry M. Munson, an at- torney of Charlotte, having been elected, takes his seat as county judge. At the November term, 1850, we find the cases of Susannah Booth vs. James McQueen, and The People vs. James Fisher, another case of assault and bat- tery. The writer was one of the jury which tried Fisher. Mr. Sherwood Snyder was one of the jury. Messrs. Brackett & Shaw defended. When the jury went out to consider their verdict, Mr. Snyder made a bed of his buffalo robe in the corner of the room, and as he lay down upon it he quietly informed the rest of us that when we had de- cided to bring that man in not guilty we could wake him up. The verdict was " not guilty," and Mr. Fisher once more escaped the clutches of the law.

The County Court was a short-lived institution. The attorneys did not at all times manifest the respect due to a court, and managed to prolong trials beyond endurance. The last county judge was Charles E. Beardsley, Esq., of Bellevue, a lawyer who had practiced in the courts of Canada, where an attorney will not be recognized by the court unless he is properly arrayed in his black gown. Judge Beardsley was hardly prepared for the rough ways of a back woods bar, and the attorneys, knowing his ideas of judicial decorum, determined to give him a surprise. The journal of Nov. 11, 1851, shows bad feeling on the part of the bar towards the judge by the continuance by consent of nearly all the cases on the calendar. This is followed by a large number of elections to remove the cases to the Circuit Court for trial. Several pages of the journal are filled with these elections, until hardly a case is left pending in the County Court. Finally, upon the 13th of November we find an entry which speaks for itself, as fol- lows, in the handwriting of S. D. Green, Clerk :

" It is hereby ordered and adjudged that Henry A. Shaw be and is fined five dollars for contemptuous language used to the Court, to wit : ' I will pay the Court for sitting here if he thinks he is not paid already,' in answer to a remark of Court.

" CHAS. E. BEARDSLEY, " Co. Judge."

The grand jury come in with indictments and are dis- charged. The next day, Nov. 14, 1851, was the last of the County Court. It ended in open rebellion against the judge. The sheriff had been ordered to arrest one of the attorneys for contempt. John Van Arman, Henry A. Shaw, Martin S. Brackett, C. C. Chatfield, and quite a number of other attorneys stood up together in battle array,-some with their coats off and shirt-sleeves rolled up (instead of having their black gowns on), and gave the judge and sheriff to

* This in effect set aside the default.

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HISTORY OF EATON COUNTY, MICIIIGAN.

understand that not one of their number could be taken out of that bar. The sheriff stood hesitating at the entrance, when some of them in friendly tones assured him that he had better not try to come in there. He probably saw at a glance that the caution was given for his good. They were many of them men whom it would be difficult to handle. M. S. Brackett bore the reputation of being physically the most powerful man in the county. Spec- tators say that as he bared his arms muscle and tendons rose up like whip-cords. Mr. Shaw was tall, quick, and powerful. He had once nearly broken the neck of an an- tagonist by kicking him under the chin while standing be- fore him. Mr. John Van Arman had been a soldier in the Mexican war, and looked as if he had rather fight than eat. No arrest was made. A jury of twelve men sat near looking on. Some of them afterwards censured the sheriff for not calling upon them for help. At the time calling for help was not thought of. The judge, finding himself powerless, adjourned court and put on his eloak and hat and started across the square for the Eagle Hotel. Mr. Brackett ac- companied him with a rawhide in his hand, with which he beat-not the judge, but time for the judge. They reached the hotel together, and Mr. Brackett, still beating time, escorted the judge np-stairs to his room, but did not strike him a blow. Thus ended the County Court. Some litiga- tion followed between the judge and Mr. Shaw, but without serious results.

Judge Beardsley was a highly educated gentleman, and in the Canada courts, where he had practiced, he was known as a lawyer of good standing. His great mistake here probably was in endeavoring to act the part of a dignified judge in such a place as a County Court. Another mistake was in resenting some want of courtesy on the part of Mr. Brackett by giving utterance to a severe tirade of invec- tives, during which he must have lost his self-control. He afterwards retired from practice and entered the min- istry of the Episcopal Church. He died several years since.

HON. ABNER PRATT, the stern and inflexible judge, succeeded Judge Feleh as circuit judge, and as one of the judges of the Supreme Court.

He was on the Circuit Court bench at the time the lawyers broke up the County Court by the row with Judge Beardsley. They never tried any such experiments with him, for he was just the man to enforce respect. He was strictly formal as to records and proceedings ; made the jury stand up when he charged them ; was a good lawyer, abhorring slip-shod pleading ; and looked sharply after the short-comings and misdoings of officers.

Upon one occasion Messrs. Shaw and Brackett, opposing each other, were both on their feet talking at the same time. "Sit down," he said, with a slight shade of stern- ness. The wrangle continued. "Sit down, I tell you." Ilis clenched fist went down upon the desk ; pitcher and glass tumbler jumped and jingled, but the two lawyers were solidly in their seats. A hush pervaded the court-room as the aeolian ring of the glass died away, and fire streamed from the judge's black eyes at both of those sileneed attor- neys. His hair, which had won him the sobriquet of " old porcupine," appeared to stand more stiffly erect than ever.

" I won't submit to such treatment while God lets me sit on this bench," he said, in his deep, growling bass. "Gen- tlemen, you ought to be ashamed of such conduct."

Judge Pratt greatly reformed the court procedure. The journal entries are much more formal and correct than they had been, and the tribunal began to be respected by the people. He was born in Springfield, Otsego Co., N. Y., May 22, 1801. Ilis father was a farmer, and the judge's early educational advantages were limited to the winter district school, and such leisure as a hard-working farm- boy can find for books. He settled as an attorney in Mar- shall, in 1839.

The writer saw him on the defense in the Hannibal murder trial in Kalamazoo in the fall of 1840,-the last murder case under the death-penalty law. The fact that Hannibal must die intensified the interest. There was a large array of legal talent upon both sides, including the eloquent Charles E. Stuart and Horace Mower. Messrs. Pratt, Stuart, and Belcher were on the defense. Every juror called was closely questioned as to conscientious scruples against inflicting the death penalty. Hundreds were on this account rejected. But the idea of death haunted the entire trial, and probably did much towards aequitting the defendant, who under our present law would have been punished. Mr. Pratt's manner before the jury was loud, bold, impetuous, but effective. The way he came down upon and tore an opponent reminded one of the fierceness of the tiger, while Charles E. Stuart was all suavity and pathos, wafting us all away upon the bosom of a beau- tiful river of eloquence. Never before or since was I so completely carried away and entraneed as while Stuart spoke.

About the year 1845 or '46, Mr. Pratt was elected to the Michigan Ilouse of Representatives. The law punish- ing adultery was called Pratt's law. He was again elected to the same seat in 1862. In 1858 he was appointed consul to Ilonolulu by President Buchanan, which posi- tion he is said to have commendably filled. He was always a Democrat, and one of the most prominent Masons in the State. He died March 27, 1863.

HON. BENJAMIN F. GRAVES succeeded Judge Pratt upon the bench of our circuit, holding his first term here Oct. 6, 1856. Ilis last term was held in June, 1866. He has been nearly all the time since upon the Supreme Bench. It is said that Mr. Hughes pronounced him the best Nisi Prius judge he ever knew. And it is also said that Judge Graves did much towards encouraging Mr. Hughes to make his best efforts before juries instead of limiting himself to law arguments before judges. Mr. Graves, it is reported among lawyers, won his first judicial distinction while acting as a justice of the peace in Battle Creek. A decision of his was carried up before Judge Pratt and by him reversed. It went on up to the Supreme Court, and there the justice of the peace was held to be correct. Ile was at first appointed, in 1857, to fill the vacancy occasioned by the resignation of Judge Pratt, and afterwards elected for the full term of eight years. He was re-elected at the end of his first term by an almost unani- mous vote of both parties. His circuit was large, inelud- ing the countics, at one time, of Eaton, Calhoun, Kala-

373

THE PROFESSIONS.

mazoo, and Van Buren. He held sixteen terms in cach year, and no judge was ever more thorough in his work. His written opinions, while on the Circuit Bench, show great research among authorities, and very close thinking. He was a great annotator. llis Court-Rule book and Com- piled Laws were marvels of microscopic penmanship which filled with references the margin and fly-leaves. As a result of this labor he could readily meet and correctly decide difficult points almost as rapidly as they arose. His trial notes of cases were very full, which rendered it easy for him to settle bills of exceptions. This was before the employment of stenographers. He always gave his charges in writing before the law required it. Strict and firm in matters of practice, the bar soon began to like his methods. The high opinion which the bar formed of him probably had much to do with placing him on the bench of the Supreme Court, Jan. 1, 1868, where he still remains. He was born at Gates, near Rochester, N. Y., Oct. 18, 1817.

From 1866 to Dec. 13, 1875, the bench was occupied by HON. GEORGE WOODRUFF of Marshall, a man of high culture, refinement, and kindness of heart. He was followed, Jan. 10, 1876, by Hon. Philip T. Van Zile, of Charlotte, and he by Hon. Frank A. Hooker, April 8, 1878. He is still upon the bench, and is popular with the bar and people. Want of space prevents my speaking of these judges as I would like.

DISTINGUISHED MEMBERS OF THE BAR.

Several of the attorneys who practiced in our circuit during early days have since either become distinguished as attorneys or have obtained high position in office. Among these may be mentioned ex-Governor Austin Blair, who, during the war of the Rebellion, when Michigan fur- nished 90,000 men, was considered one of the ablest of that brilliant galaxy of loyal Governors and pure statesmen who clustered around the great Lincoln.

During his boyhood Mr. Blair worked upon his father's farm, acquired a primary-school education, and graduated from Union College in 1837. He was admitted to practice in the Court of Common Pleas in Tioga Co., N. Y., in 1841, moved during the same year to Jackson, Mich. During a temporary stay at Eaton Rapids, in 1842, he was elected county clerk of this county.

During the years from 1850 to 1860 he came occasion- ally from Jackson to address mass meetings, or to try cases in the Circuit Court. Either before a jury or upon the stump the people were always cager to hear him. As a jury advocate he was fervid in manner and clear and cogent in argument. He always inspired a desire to help his side win the victory. In one case, which had been tried and argued, the parties had settled while the jury were out. When the jury returned into court one of the attor- neys arose and informed the court that the parties had settled their matter of difference. Judge Graves undertook to instruct the jury that their labor, owing to the settlement, was at an end. But they, after a short consultation, deter- mined not to be thus foiled and persisted in rendering their verdict in favor of Mr. Blair's client, which was much better for him than the result reached by way of settlement.

During these years Hon. JOHN W. LONGYEAR, after-

wards member of Congress, and at his death United States judge of the Eastern District of Michigan, was located at Lansing, and did a larger law business in this county than any other non-resident attorney excepting the firm of Hughes & Woolley, of Marshall, of which D. Darwin Hughes was the senior member.

Mr. Longycar was a native of the State of New York, born Oct. 22, 1820. He moved to Lansing, and there went into practice in 1842. He was elected to Congress in the fall of 1862. In 1867 he was a member of the State Constitutional Convention. In May, 1870, he was appointed judge of the United States District Court, East- ern District of Michigan. He died suddenly, March 11, 1875. There was no attorney practicing here who was neater and more exact and scrupulous io the way of papers than Mr. Longyear. His law was carefully looked up and noted in his brief. IIc never made a mistake. Ilis law was always law with the court. He appeared to be as candid, as conscientious, and as anxious for truth and justice as the judge himself. His talks to the jury were mere informal talks, evincing no ambition for oratory and no anxiety to win a verdict, and yet all that he said was listened to and remembered, appearing, by its own weight, to impress itself upon the mind without any impressiveness of voice or manner. In personal appearance he was the very personification of the nervous, energetic, quick, and intelligent lawyer. His hair was black, bushy, and curly. His eyes, dark, piercing, and quickly expressive, and the color around them remarkably dark. His complexion was dark and bloodless. His high and handsome brow often wore an expression of bodily suffering and mental anxiety. In person he was tall, slender, and straight as an Indian. He upon one occasion stood before Judge Graves honestly il- luminating some point or proceeding, when M. S. Brackett, who was opposed to him, arose and spoke of the great ingenuity of the counselor. "The what !" said Mr. Long- year, looking at him,-and such a look ! " Thunder cloud" conveys no idea of it. Such a steady, piercing gaze would rather convey the idea of an endless perdition than of an impending storm. Mr. Brackett readily saw the offensive point, and at once modified his remark, eliminating all that the term " ingenuity" could possibly imply. This incident, perhaps, gives a better glimpse of Mr. Longyear's ideal of law practice than anything else I could say. There are attorneys who plume themselves upon the shrewdness and ingenuity of their work. Mr. Longyear was not one of these. With a great deal of respect for the court, he always appeared to have a good deal of well-deserved respect for himself.

Dave Hughes, as our people once called him, or D. DAR- WIN HUGHES, now regarded as one of the ablest and most distinguished lawyers of the great Northwest, lived, taught school, studied law, and was admitted to practice in this county. His name stands third on our roll of applicants for admission. The date is April 1, 1846. He was born in Camillus, Onondaga Co., N. Y., Feb. 1, 1823. In 1840 he, with his father's family, removed to Bellevue in this county. In 1843 he came to Charlotte, and remained about one year, during which time he held the position of deputy county clerk, deputy surveyor, and under-sheriff,

374

HISTORY OF EATON COUNTY, MICHIGAN.

and at the same time commeneed reading law. In 1843 he returned to Bellevue, and entered the law office of M. S. Brackett as a law student, and to eke out a support he taught a select school for ladies. In 1844 he entered as a student the law office of Gibbs & Bradley, of Marshall. After his admission in 1846, and up to 1850, he was editor of the Marshall Democratic Expounder, and about that time became a partner of Isaac E. Crary. In 1855 he formed a law partnership with Justus D. Woolley. About this time we heard it occasionally remarked by those who bad been down to Marshall for legal advice, that " that little Dave Hughes was getting to be about as good as any of the Marshall lawyers; that he couldn't talk as well as John Van Arman, but he was sound." John Van Arman was, as a jury advocate and trier of cases, the most elo- quent and adroit attorney who ever practiced in this county. He frequently came here from Marshall to participate in some exciting trial. In fact, every case he tried became exciting, and called together a large concourse. Just before visiting the court-room to see him, the writer asked a friend as to Mr. Van Arman's personal appearance. Said the friend, " When you go into the court-room piek out the homeliest man you can see there,-a swarthy, high cheek- boned fellow with a big mouth,-and you may be sure it is John Van Arman." There was no difficulty in establish- ing his identity from this description. But when he spoke his voice sounded pleasant and attractive, his language was well chosen, and his wit and sarcasm were at times eruel and almost murderous, but he could indulge in the most engaging pleasantries. Before he had spoken five minutes he became warmed up to an intensity of feeling and ex- pression which carried all who heard him. He hardly ever failed to procure a verdict. About the year 1856 the writer heard him in the prosecution of a murder trial here at Charlotte, he having been appointed by Judge Pratt to act as prosecuting attorney. The grand jury at that term had just found an indictment against a woman for murder- ing her husband by administering arsenie, which she had stolen from the house of a neighbor. The proof of guilt, under the management of' Van Arman, appeared strong and conclusive. Mr. Hughes and M. S. Brackett were employed upon the defense. The fact that Mr. Hughes was employed created no sensation then. Now it would almost assure the public of an acquittal in the face of the strongest evidence of guilt. The attorney's for the defense worked hard to gain time to prepare for trial, but Judge Pratt, a stern and arbitrary judge, was firmly determined to try the case that term, and would permit no delay. IIe seemed to have made up his mind, with the public, that there could not be, and ought not to be, any defense. A motion to quash the indictment was summarily overruled, and a jury ordered to be impaneled for trial. The court- room was packed. The windows of the old court-house on the public square were taken out, and lumber-wagons placed uear them to furnish standing-room for those who could not get in. To their very tops these open windows were crowded with faces, so that the court-room was close and dusky. John Van Arman appeared to be the centre of attraction. His volubility, ready repartee, thorough under- standing of the entire case, together with his great ex-

perience in criminal trials, made him master of the situa- tion. Mr. Brackett managed to get in a few words now and then ; but Mr. Hughes, since become famous for his defense in the much more desperate Vanderpool ease, since successful in his twelve last murder cases, in this case had but very little to say, and found it difficult to rise from his chair at the far end of the long bar-table for a few words to the court. He and Mr. Brackett had been crowded so un- expectedly into the trial, and had learned so little of the faets, that they appeared to have no business inside of the case. Bystanders began to feel that it was a pity the woman could not have some one to defend her. Mr. Brackett afterwards distinguished himself by his able de- fense in the Dillon murder trial at Hastings. But in this, the Mary Brooks case, there was no defense worthy of the name. Such haste on the part of the court was injustice both to the defendant and her attorneys.

Mr. Van Arman in his first opening, before taking the evidence, had made the ease look as black for the defendant as he could possibly paint it. In his opening argument after the proofs were closed he was as brief as possible. There had been hardly any testimony for the defense. Messrs. Hughes and Brackett were brief and earnest, but apparently hopeless. Van Arman, in his elosing argument, did not speak over an hour. It hardly seemed necessary to speak at all. He heavily belabored the learned counsel for the defense because they had no theory,-not even the ghost of a theory had their fertile brains been able to im- agine which would in any way tend to explain this crush- ing load of evidence against this wicked woman. They were, he said, almost mute, not for the want of ability to talk, but because there was nothing to be said in her behalf. Ilis climax was a harrowing description of the torture pro- duced in the stomach of the dying husband by the action of arsenie. Ile compared it to a thousand pinchers (he pronounced it pincers), all wringing and twisting at once upon the sensitive inner coatings of that poor victim's stomach. What little sympathy there may have been for the accused wife was now dispelled by this picture of her cruel perfidy in giving this terrible poison, under the pre- tense of medicine, to her sick husband. The jury were out but a few minutes before returning with a verdict of guilty. During the solemn hush caused by the rendering of such a verdict the judge told the defendant to arise, and then asked her if she had anything to say why the judgment of the law should not be pronounced against her. She very naturally supposed this called upon her for a speech. Evi- dently feeling that she herself must make her only defense, she at once arose and stepped upon the raised platform by the side of the judge's desk to address the audience. As if her proximity to the judicial ermine was contamination, Judge Pratt sternly and harshly ordered her to go down upon the floor, moving his hand as if to push her away.

The scene is yet vivid in my mind. Judge Pratt, with his black bushy hair standing fiercely ercet, his black piercing eyes shooting fire from under his shaggy, over- hanging eyebrows, appeared the personification of stern- ness and the power of the law. There was the woman, with her calico sun-bonnet shading her face, shrinking pitifully away, crushed and confused by this unexpected rebuff when

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History of Ingham and Eaton counties, Michigan, Part 92

Author: Durant, Samuel W. cn Publication date: 1880 Publisher: Philadelphia : D.W. Ensign & Co. Number of Pages: 772

Author: Durant, Samuel W. cn
Publication date: 1880
Publisher: Philadelphia : D.W. Ensign & Co.
Number of Pages: 772