USA > Michigan > Saginaw County > The county of Saginaw, Michigan : topography, history, art folio > Part 13
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John J. Wheeler was a gentleman of retired nature, yet his modest demeanor did not prevent his being recognized as a worthy opponent of the gentlemen with whom he came in contact at the Bar, or impair his own self-confidence. As an advocate he was not conspicuous, possessing in no great de- gree those qualities that excite sympathy or captivate the unthoughtful. He relied alone, and with a fair degree of suc- cess, upon the cold logic of his argument, appreciated in pro- portion to the intelligence of those he sought to convince, and delivered in the same tone and manner with which he would have advised a client in his office. Mr. Wheeler was a kind hearted man, but not demonstrative, and unusually quiet when absorbed in his own reflections. It is said a friend of Mr. Wheeler, of a jovial bluff nature, met him one morn- ing on the way to the court house. Wheeler appeared to be lost in his own thoughts, and as they approached each other the friend said: "Why John, what are you mad about ?" Mr. Wheeler simply glanced at him in an inquiring way, and without further recognition, passed on. About a year after- wards the two met again at the same point-it was one of Wheeler's off days; he heartily extended his hand, saying: "Don't you remember we met near here one morning a while ago, and you asked me 'what I was mad about,' well, I was' not mad, I was just thinking about a little matter up in court." Few members of the Saginaw Bar ever commanded more real respect and esteem than John J. Wheeler.
William A. Clark, John Dillingham, Col. Geo. A. Flan- ders, Oscar F. Wisner and C. Stuart Draper came to our Bar later, and they too have appeared before the tribunal from whose decrees there is no appeal.
Mr. Clark was a lawyer of considerable reputation be- fore he came to Saginaw, and at once took a prominent po- sition here. In fertility of genius and facility of resources he had few superiors as readily appears from an examination of our state reports during his practice here. Mr. Clark was an expert upon questions of evidence and well understood its tendency and effect, and never made a mistake that tended to his client's injury. He once defended a man charged with stealing wheat from a neighbor's barn. A witness of cred- itable character testified to seeing the defendant leaving the barn with a bag filled with something upon his back; that the ground was covered with snow, the moon full, nearly over- head, and shining brightly, and that he fully recognized the defendant. Mr. Clark, producing an almanac, completely confounded the witness and established the innocence of his client by showing, from it, that the moon was in its last stage and not visible on the night in question. It was subsequently found to be a last year's almanac picked up " by mistake "- but that was before he came to Saginaw.
Col. George A. Flanders had a good record as a soldier.
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He was a graduate of an eastern college. With a cultivated mind he was not a diligent law student, though he discharged the duties of prosecuting attorney in an able and efficient man- ner. He was properly regarded by all who knew him as a man of fine abilities, but he had little tact in securing clients. To descend from the military rank of colonel, and the pride and circumstance of war, to the petty legal business that us- ually comes to an inexperienced lawyer, in a strange place, is a rudeshock to the proud and sensative mind. As a jury advocate he ranked high, and as a political speaker was ex- celled by few. His fine appearance, agreeable manner, and ready, unlabored eloquence made him a popular man on the stump.
Oscar F. Wisner and Charles Stuart Draper came to Sa- ginaw together and remained together until death closed the partnership-both dying at about the same time. Few part- ners resembled each other less or were more attached to each other. Mr. Wisner was an eminently just and fair-minded man who despised fraud and humbug in every form in law, business, politics and religion. He was a natural lawyer, as well as a diligent student of the law, and from his first ap- pearance at the Saginaw County Bar took a high position, commanding alike the respect of the court, the Bar and the community, and continued growing in general estimation to the day of his death. He was not wanting in the qualities that make the mere advocate, but he was most at home in discussing legal questions before the court, where his knowl- edge of principles, his familiarity with the cases, and his pow- er of distinction made it necessary for those who opposed him to come prepared. Personally he was a modest man, never seeking office or public notice, and yet self-asservative and aggressive when the rights of his client called for action. Not much inclined to idle civilities, but a generous and faith- ful friend, and an agreeable companion with those who knew and appreciated his real character. His pleasures were sim- ple-a sail boat stored with necessaries, with a single com- panion or alone, and a trip around the shore of Lake Huron, camping at night in some sheltered cove where the shore and water invited a long swim in the morning before resuming his voyage, was his ideal of summer's outing; and as he navi- gated his frail craft around the rocky reefs of Port Austin and Point Aux Barques, he felt a pleasure unknown to the va- cant minds that crowd the resorts of fashion.
To speak of Wisner is to think of Draper. No man was better known or more thoroughly appreciated in Sag- inaw County and the Saginaw Valley, than C. Stuart Draper. He came to Saginaw a young man and a stranger. but his affable manners, modest, self-possessed demeanor, his talents neither paraded nor concealed, and the plain, honest directness of his speech, promptly secured him friends and clients. A gentleman by instinct and education, his sympa- thies were all with the masses, whose respect and support he naturally commanded, without losing the confidence of those whose larger business and greater means made them desira- ble clients. His natural eloquence, and the great store of accumulated facts from which his wide reading and retenta- tive memory, enabled him to draw apt illustrations at will; his knowledge of human nature, and his logical reasoning placed him as a jury lawyer among the very first in the state. Nor was the lawyer in his case sunk in the mere advocate; he was a most diligent student, and his active legal mind en- abled him to quickly grasp and apply legal propositions. He never sought to mislead the court by knowingly upholding an unsound principle or the misapplication of a sound one, and, therefore, always commanded the respect and confidence of both the court and his opponents. To say that he was always right would be to say more than can be truthfully af- firmed of any one, but when professional zeal led him to up- hold a doubtful principle no one thought of imputing it to a questionable motive.
The foregoing list includes only the names of the more prominent members of the Saginaw Bar whose labors here were terminated by death, while in the full performance of their duties, or who went elsewhere to continue them-and to die. Others labored here with equal diligence and honor and are well entitled to a notice not possible here.
After all it can make but little difference, since in a few passing years, all will be equally forgotten. Active and prominent, for a brief space, and usefully important as law- yers are in every civilized community, the memory of their labors, as a rule, hardly survives their lives. The names of the learned legal writers, who have helped to formulate the
law, and to make it the grand science it is, are remembered only by the profession; and the names of the great advo- cates and lawyers who charmed and astonished their con- temporaries with their eloquence and wisdom, if remembered either in or out of the profession, are remembered because they were connected with great political events, rather than because they were great advocates and lawyers. Erskine and Curran are remembered only by the few, because their great efforts were made and their abilities displayed in excit- ing state trials, involving important political consequences, while the eloquent Charles Phillips and the learned and elo- quent Dr. Sampson are not remembered at all, except by the legal antiquary. Webster is not generally remembered for his argument in the Dartmouth College case, or in the Gi- rard will case, but for his political reply to Haynes. It is the same with the bad as the good; few indeed would now recall the name of Jeffreys had not Macaulay, for political reasons dragged it from oblivion to blazon it upon the tower of perpet- ual infamy. There have been few Jeffreys in the world, and while the virtues and merits of the great leaders of the pro- fession are soon forgotten, it can be truthfully said they sel- dom figure upon the darker side of the historical page; and all who know the members of our Bar here, named or un- named, will agree that upon the record of their lives, the recording angel will find little to blot with a tear, though they may have contributed but little to the glory of their country. Mankind remembers and honors its butchers and forgets its benefactors. The name of Napoleon is upon the tongue of everyone, while Maynard, the great English lawyer, who, in the convention of 1689, so efficiently helped to lay the foun- dation of real British constitutional liberty, upon which our own structure is reared, is not remembered by one in a thousand.
To speak of all the members of the present Bar would be impossible here, and, where all have a claim to notice, to speak of any to the exclusion of others, would be invidious. We may, on proper occasion, speak freely, if we speak truly of the departed, but we cannot give a correct abstract of one's record until that record is completed; we may, how- ever, refer to William H. Sweet, Benton Hanchett, Dan. P. Foote, and Charles H. Camp, since they form the connecting link between the earlier and the present Bar, all of whom are in practice, more or less active; yet they too are being, or soon will be, crowded to the rear by the younger members of the Bar, who seem, by a sort of professional descent, to have inherited in no small degree the qualities that distinguished our earlier Bar; and for that rea- son a brief reference to them will not, perhaps, be ill-timed.
Mr. Sweet came to the Bar at about the time Sutherland, Moore and Webber became its recognized leaders, and he is still in active practice and universally regarded as an able trial lawyer and a most skillful examiner of a balky witness. Though equal in years to his retired earlier associates at the Bar, he is yet vigorous and as confident as ever that his clients are absolutely in the right.
Mr. Hanchett is too well known as an able lawyer, as well as a strong advocate to require detailed mention, and would now be United States Circuit Judge had the senate been in sympathy with the political views of ex-president Harrison at the time of his nomination to that office.
Mr. Camp's qualifications and reputation as a lawyer may be inferred from the fact that he would now be a judge of the Supreme Court, making instead of guessing the law, had the judgment of the electors equalled the wisdom of the con- vention that nominated him. The truth is, Mr. Camp was on the right side of politics and that, as is too often the case, caused his defeat.
Mr. Foote entered upon the study and practice of the law, or rather the practice and study of the law, at the age of thirty-one, after graduating as sailor, miner, traveler, school teacher and farmer, and now enjoyes the distinction of being a member of the Saginaw Bar, a place he has held since 1864.
James L. T. Fox, if not financially the most successful, is the oldest member of the Saginaw Bar still in active practice. He came here at an early date when Saginaw was exulting in its first weekly paper, in which his professional card announced that he would give "particular attention to the de- fense of innocent persons wrongfully accused of crime. None others need apply." His practice for a time proved that the most of those who fell under the displeasure of the criminal law were "wrongfully accused," but his familiar enemy, rheu-
matism, with its attendant ills, though not able to overcome his genial temper, sadly interfered with his professional labors, and the result is but another illustration of the truth of the Scotch saying, "success depends as much upon good luck as good guiding."#
Chauncey W. Wisner was one of the notable members of the Bar. He came to Saginaw with Judge Gage and for a time was an active and conspicuous member. He possessed all the natural elements of a lawyer, except the power of con- tinued application. Well read in general literature, with an active imagination, bright fancy, keen wit, and of ready speech, he gave early promise of becoming a good advocate; but the dull routine of the court, with its small, unimpressible audience, was less attractive to him than the surging, applaud- ing crowd gathered on the street corner to hear political truths, as he explained them, from the top of a dry goods box. This, however, did not prevent his becoming an active and successful business man, but both combined, did prevent the continued practice of the law, and he gradually gave his whole attention to business speculation-and politics-and the Bar, some years before his death, lost one who might have become a good lawyer. As state senator he will long be remembered by the people of the City of Saginaw. Person- ally he was a kind hearted and most agreeable man. For some year preceding his death he resided in considerable state upon his large and valuable farm, and took pride in being called the Bridgeport farmer.
That Saginaw county had, and still has, an able Bar, resulted from natural causes. Abilities and study may make a learned man, but not an able lawyer; opportunities and practice are essential to the latter, and here the conditions were all favorable. Saginaw County, now one of the finest agricultural counties of the state, never had any great quan- tity of pine, but its happy condition laid the great pine pro- ducing regions of Michigan under contribution. Just above the present City of Saginaw, the Cass River, rising in Huron County, and traversing Tuscola and the eastern part of Sagi- naw Counties, joins its waters with the Saginaw River; at a short distance above its mouth, the Flint, rising in Lapeer, flows through Genesee county and empties into the Saginaw; the Shiawassee River, rising in the county of that name, receiving Bad River near the southern line of Saginaw Coun- ty, and Swan Creek below the mouth of the Cass, the Titta- bawassee, formerly affording steamboat navigation to Midland, swelled by the waters of the Pine River from Gratiot County, the Chippewa from Mecosta and Isabella, the Salt and its own proper branches from Clare and Gladwin counties, unite with the Saginaw, more than doubling its capacity. These rivers had numerous tributaries down which logs could be floated at certain seasons of the year, many of which, with the improvement of the country, have shrunk to a small farm ditch or wholly disappeared, These rivers and their tributary streams penetrated the best part of the great pine district of central Michigan. They afforded a natural and easy way of transporting logs to Saginaw. The logs were banked upon the nearest stream that would float them, either in single file or by means of dams. The great lumbering operations invit- ed settlements and the shores of the streams became farms of more or less value. The large business of securing this timber, which it was thought would last forever, involved the making and breaking of many contracts, and a conflict of interest, as well among the lumbermen as between them and the farmers located on the streams; and much litigation, often raising new and important questions, necessarily resulted. The old rules of law, defining navigable streams, had no application to the new situation, and many of the rules regu- lating riparian rights, needed to be applied with qualifications, adapting them to conditions not elsewhere existing. The importance of the interests involved demanded the most care- ful consideration, and the most diligent study of the authorities to support a new application of conceded principles. Trials involving many thousands of dollars, and principles more important still to those interested, and occupying many days, were of frequent occurence. The large logging and lumber business and the energetic way in which it was pushed, necessarily furnished much legal business and that gave val- uable legal experience. That the more active and diligent and ambitious members of the Saginaw Bar should become lawyers was inevitable.
The reports of the Supreme Court of the state show the diligence and ability of the Bar of Saginaw in the settlement * Mr. Fox died after this article was written and before publication.
SWAN CREEK SCHOOL. DIST. No. 2, FR.
HEMLOCK VILLAGE SCHOOL.
RICHTER. DRUGGIST.
Doughde
LOUIS J. RICHTER'S DRUG STORE, 702 GRATIOT STREET.
DRUG STORE
RES. OF CHAS. HAMMOND, BIRCH RUN TWP.
RES. OF JOHN G. NUERMINGER, SAGINAW TWP.
RES. OF ROBERT C. VOGT, SAGINAW TWP.
E
RES. OF HERMAN REINHARDT, BLUMFIELD TWP.
RES. OF MICHAEL HEMMETER, COR. PORTER AND BRISTOL STREETS.
MERRILL VILLAGE SCHOOL.
JAMES TOWNSHIP SCHOOL. DIST. No. 4.
MITTS & MERRILL'S FOUNDRY AND MACHINE SHOPS, 1009 So. TILDEN STREET.
WOOLEN MILL OF FRANKENMUTH. F. RANKE, PROP'R.
BLUMFIELD HOUSE, BLUMFIELD TWP. WM. SCHNELL, PROP'R.
EAGLE BREWERY, 720 N. FAYETTE STREET.
FRUIT AND BERRY FARM OF J. R. EATON, BRANT TOWNSHIP.
RES. AND PORTRAITS OF MR. AND MRS. R. W. BEEMAN, SWAN CREEK TOWNSHIP.
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of these questions, and many incidental ones growing out of them, and in the settlement of which many present members of the Bar took no unimportant part.
The earlier history of the Bar is not without humorous incident. Judge Birney was officially a member of the Bar of Saginaw, and A. C., then a prematurely old-young lawyer, now a grave, learned and esteemed judge, though not a res- ident of the county, was an important figure at its Bar before the county was disfigured by roads, or the smaller ports of the lake vexed by steamboats. Iosco County was then in the Saginaw District, and Tawas its county seat. The only way of reaching Tawas was by old Capt. Marsack's fish boat, not a bad craft for those days. The court was to be held at Tawas, and the judge, with a proper attendance of lawyers from Saginaw and Bay, among whom was A. C., left lower Saginaw for Tawas in Marsack's fish boat. When well down the Saginaw Bay, where it expands into the lake, and the north-east wind, on slight provocation, comes roaring and screeching around Point Aux Barques, the bay suddenly got into one of its tantrums, with those cross-seas, so characteris- tic of that unreliable sheet of water. It was near night; the sea was terrific-to a landsman, and Tawas, as the wind with increased vigor came out of the north, yet a long dis- tance to the windward. Birney, who was a conscientious, dignified gentleman, as well as a sedate judge, feeling that the situation called for the reconciliation of ill-friends, said to A. C. in his gravest manner, intensified by the situation : " Mr. A. C. there have been some passages between us I much re- gret, and now seemingly upon the verge of eternity, I hope we may as Christian gentlemen shake hands and forget and forgive." Here a huge wave nearly capsized the boat and as soon as it was found it had not gone over, A. C. bracing himself against the weather gunnel, extended his hand, and in his usual hearty tone, said: " By the eternal, Judge, I'll do it-I'll do it, Judge, with the understanding that if we ever get ashore this shall all be held for naught."" The judge's answer, to this proposition thus modified, was never given, for, at that moment, Marsack, suddenly determined to work under the lee of Gravelly Point, now known as the famous sum- mer resort of Point Lookout. The captain usually navigat- ed his craft in French, but in times of peril, like a true sail- or as he was, dropped into English, and he now sang out: " Ho dare Pete, you black nigger, haul down zee ank, and trow ober board dat man-sal." The captain's order, though a little confused, was correctly understood by Pete, who com- prised the crew; he let go the main halliards and quickly cast the anchor over the weather bow. As the fore-sail had been left standing, her bow fell off as the anchor caught, and Pete skillfully paying out her line, the boat drifted along the edge of the reef and grounded on the sandy beach, just under the lee of the long, narrow, low point, at the time submerged by the waves that broke on its weather side and washed across the low ground, a foot or more deep. . The judge and his friends safely waded ashore and found shelter farther inland under one of the great sand drifts the north-easters have piled up on that romantic point. The supperless night on
the beach was far better than a berth at the bottom of the Bay, and the sea and the weather in the morning, as calm and serene as A. C.'s conscience, enabled them to take an 8 o'clock breakfast at Tawas, and put an end to all peace ne- gotiations.
While our judges and lawyers have been conservative and have always paid a proper respect to precedents, as must be done if we would not deprive the law of all certainty, they have also recognized the fact that the law is not an ex- ect, fully completed science, and have not hesitated, on prop- er occasion, to make a new precedent, if demanded by jus- tice and warranted by sound principles. To speak of par- ticular cases would be to trespass upon the rule of this article, . but they will readily be found by those who examine our state reports. The judges have all been men of strong con- victions of right, yet no important case is remembered where they have unduly sought to influence the jury. And yet, ju- rors do sometimes discover the bias of the judge, however discreet he may be. One of the later judges of the court, a man of unquestionable fairness and integrity, but of rather strong notions of the right, charged the jury in an import- ant case, in the manner he judged proper, and sent them out at 6 p. m., to consider of their verdict, and directed them, when they agreed, to sign and seal their verdict, and deliver it to the clerk, supposing, of course, they would agree in a short time. On coming into court the next morning the judge was surprised and displeased to find the jury had not agreed, and directed the officer to bring them before the court. It would seem the judge had some intimation as to how they stood that did not please him. In the course of his remarks to them, he said, in effect: " I am surprised that you have not agreed, gentlemen; the amount involved in this case is small, the trial has taken an unusual time, and the evidence is such there ought to be little difficulty in agreeing upon a verdict. It has been intimated to me that you stand eleven to one. If I knew the name of that one, I think I would excuse him from further attendance upon this court." Thereupon a lit- tle, old man, from the country, wedged in on the back seat between two city men of aldermanic proportions, hastily squeezed himself out, and stepping forward a bit, said: "No, no, shudge; don't do that, I'm the only man on your side." It is much the fashion of a certain class to speak of the "un- certainties of the law;" but after all that same class furnishes the jurors to whom the uncertainties of the law are largely due, as shown by the following, well-remembered incident. In 1860, one Mr. Stolze, lost a 2-year-old, black bull, that was soon found, in the field of a farmer across the line, in Midland County. On the trial of a replevin suit, before a Midland County farmer justice, the proof showed that the animal had a dark-red stripe on his back and a few white hairs at the end of his tail. The justice, after consulting with his neighbors, decided that the bull had been misde- scribed, and rendered a verdict against Stolze. Stolze, too poor to appeal to the Circuit, appealed to a justice in Saginaw County and had the farmer arrested for stealing his bull. The case had become important for the defendant and he
employed Judge Sutherland, then in full practice at the Bar. A jury was demanded and drawn, and the court was held in the village ball room, closely packed with Stolze's neighbors and the people about. A Mr. B. appeared on the panel. The judge thought it proper to examine the jury as to their bias and commenced with B. by asking him if he had formed or expressed any opinion upon the case. "No," said B., his face as innocent of expression as a pumpkin. "But, I mean, Mr. B.," continued the judge, "have you formed or expressed to anyone an opinion upon the merits of the case ?" " No," said B., his face blanker than ever. The judge knew him; leaning forward and speaking in his quick, pleasant, per- suasive manner said: "Fred, whose bull is it?" The answer came promptly, " He Stolze bull by dam, Jabe, I know him dis tree year." After all Fred's real mistake was in sup- posing he was there as a witness, and not as a juror; but so long as important rights are referred to the determination of a jury, from whose errors there is little relief, and the jurors are drawn from a class quite apt to make such mistakes, there can be little surprise that the law has some "uncertain- ties" and they should be placed where they belong.
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