USA > Missouri > Encyclopedia of the history of Missouri, a compendium of history and biography for ready reference, Vol. II > Part 101
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Jad'B Gaht .
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GAME AND FISH PRESERVE ASSOCIATION-GANTT.
40,000 votes, notwithstanding the fact that the Whig party, with which he affiliated polit- ically, was in a hopeless minority in the State. Failing health caused him to resign the judgeship in 1855, and thereafter he only ap- peared as a practitioner in the United States Supreme Court. In 1858 he removed to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, for the purpose of giving his children superior educational advantages, and was living there when the Civil War cloud began to lower. When the Legislature of Missouri passed an act calling a State convention to take action on matters at issue between the Northern and Southern States, Judge Gamble hastened to St. Louis to find public sentiment greatly inflamed and a condition bordering on anarchy prevailing. The evening after his arrival he addressed a public meeting at the courthouse, and pro- claimed his unswerving fidelity to the Union. The effect of one man's words is sometimes magical, and it was so in this instance. His utterances rallied the Union men of the city and strengthened their cause immediately. From that time forward he was one of the recognized leaders of the Union movement in Missouri, was a conspicuous member of the State convention, and when that body de- clared the office of Governor vacant by reason of the flight of Governor Jackson from the capital Judge Gamble was unanimously chosen Provisional Governor. He entered upon the discharge of the duties thus thrust upon him in July of 1861, with the eyes of the nation upon him and the Federal author- ities regarding him as one of its safest and wisest counselors. Worn out by his arduous labors he died on the eve of the final triumph of the Union arms, and a nation mourned his demise. Governor Gamble married, in 1827, at Columbia, South Carolina, Miss Caroline J. Coalter, who was a sister to the wife of Honorable Edward Bates, Attorney General in President Lincoln's cabinet. At his death he was survived by two sons and one daugh- ter. Hamilton Gamble, eldest of the sons, married Sallie M. Minor, and died some years since. Dr. David C. Gamble, the second son, married Flora Matthews. Mary Coalter Gamble, his only daughter, married Edgar Miller, of St. Louis.
Game and Fish Preserve Associa- tion .- An association incorporated May 9, 1884, for the purpose of owning, controlling
and investing in property to be used as game and fish preserves, which were to be under the exclusive control of the members of the association. It is an association of sports- men who desire to own their property and protect the game and fish found thereon for their own uses, either within or outside of the State of Missouri. The amount of capital stock is fixed at $4,000, divided into 200 shares of $20 par value each. The names of the original stockholders were J. B. C. Lucas, L. D. Dozier, David A. Marks, Henry C. West, Frederick A. Churchill, John F. Shep- ley, and Benjamin W. Lewis, of St. Louis. There are now-1900-about 200 members. The affairs of the association are controlled and managed by a board of seven directors, the annual election taking place on the sec- ond Tuesday in March of each year.
Game Law .- In Missouri the killing or taking of game is prohibited as follows: Coon, mink, otter, beaver or muskrat, April Ist to November Ist; buck, doe or fawn, Jan- uary Ist to October Ist ; wild turkey, March Ist to September 15th ; prairie chicken, Feb- ruary Ist to August 15th ; pheasant or quail, January Ist to October Ist; woodcock, Jan- uary roth to July Ist; dove, meadow lark or plover, February Ist to August Ist. Catch of prairie chicken or quail by nets or traps pro- hibited.
Gantt, James Britton, ex-Chief Jus- tice of the Supreme Court of Missouri, was born October 26, 1845, in Putnam County, Georgia.
His father was Henry Gantt, a native of Lancaster district, South Carolina, and the son of Britton Gantt, who emigrated from South Carolina to Putnam County, Georgia, in 1816, and was one of the pioneers of that county. His mother was Sarah Williams (Dismukes) Gantt, the daughter of James Dismukes and Gillian Cooper, also among the pioneers of middle Georgia. All of the ancestors of Judge Gantt were planters.
Judge Gantt was educated in the Clinton Academy, and the Bibb County Academy, at Macon, Georgia.
His education was interrupted by the war between the States in 1861. When only sixteen years old he volunteered in the Con- federate Army, and became a member of Company B, Twelfth Georgia Infantry, a
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regiment which lost five of its captains and had 210 men and officers killed and wounded at McDowell on May 8, 1862, and which served successively under Stonewall Jackson, Richard S. Ewell and Jubal A. Early, until the surrender at Appomattox, April 9, 1865.
Judge Gantt, though the youngest member of his company, was made orderly sergeant in the winter of 1862, and held that position at the close of the war. He was wounded twice at Gettysburg, once at the Wilderness on May 5, 1864, and was permanently dis- abled by a wound in his left knee at Cedar Creek, in the Valley of Virginia, October 19, 1864.
As soon as the war ended he went to work and taught a private school at Ramoth Academy, in Putnam County, Georgia, and the next year as private tutor for Colonel Lucius M. Lamar, and at the same time be- gan the study of law under Colonel Lewis A. Whittle, a distinguished lawyer of Macon, Georgia. Having read a year under Col- onel Whittle, he attended the law depart- ment of the University of Virginia for two sessions, and took his degree of bachelor of laws from that institution in July, 1868.
Judge Gantt removed to Missouri in Oc- tober, 1868, and was admitted to the bar by Judge R. E. Rombauer, then one of the judges of the St. Louis Circuit Court.
Dissatisfied with waiting for a practice in a great city, in which he was a stranger, he determined to start in an interior town, and accordingly, in July, 1869, he went to Clin- ton, Henry County, Missouri, which city has since, with only a short interruption, been his legal residence. Soon after he came to Clinton he became a member of the firm of Parks, Thornton & Gantt, a firm which en- joyed a large and lucrative practice, and its members afterward promoted. Judge James Parks was afterwards for sixteen years the probate judge of Henry County, and William T. Thornton was Representative of the county in 1876-7, and afterwards Gov- ernor of New Mexico.
In 1875 Judge Gantt formed a partnership in the practice of law with Senator George G. Vest, at Sedalia, Missouri, Colonel Philips having been elected to Congress.
In 1877 Judge Gantt returned to Clinton, and in 1880 was elected judge of the Twenty- second Judicial Circuit of Missouri. For six
years he filled this position with great credit to himself.
He retired from the bench January 1, 1887, and returned to a lucrative practice.
During the next four years he success- fully defended five murder cases, and repre- sented Keith & Perry in the litigation which grew out of the explosion of Mine No. 6 at Rich Hill, Missouri, in which twenty-three miners were killed outright, and fifty or sixty were severely burned and injured. In the defense of these cases he won distinction by his tact and intimate acquaintance with the facts and law governing the cases. In 1888 Judge Gantt championed the cause of Judge D. A. DeArmond for supreme judge. His speech placing his candidate before the judicial convention at Springfield, won him golden opinions, and placed Judge DeAr- mond before the State as worthy of the high position which he has since sustained in Congress.
In 1890 Judge Gantt became a candidate for Judgeof the Supreme Court, and after one of the most memorable campaigns in the his- tory of the State he was nominated at St. Joseph, and was elected by the largest ma- jority over his Republican opponent ever given in the State. In 1888, the Democratic majority over the Republican candidate was 27,694, and over all 4.536, but in 1890 Judge Gantt received a majority of 61,788 over his Republican opponent, and 35,479 over all opposing parties. He was re-elected in 1900.
As judge of the Supreme Court, Judge Gantt has fully met the prophecies of his friends. His opinions are clear and con- nected, terse and vigorous in diction. He has proven himself a most industrious and tireless worker. His opinions are found in fifty volumes of the Supreme Court Reports, beginning with the 102d volume, and in- cluding the 152d volume. He has been in- trusted with some of the most important cases that have ever come before that court. His decisions have stood the test of criticism in the Supreme Court of the United States in a number of appeals to that court. He has never been reversed by that court. In the famous case of Matthews vs. The San Francisco Railway Company, the statute of Missouri providing that railroad companies should be responsible for all fires set out by their servants and locomotives, without re-
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gard to whether it was negligently done or not, was challenged as unconstitutional, but Judge Gantt maintained its validity in an opinion which was greatly admired by the bar of the state, and his judgment was unani- mously affirmed by the Supreme Court of the United States, that court paying him the un- usual compliment of adopting his opinion largely in his own words.
In State ex relatione Garth vs. Switzler, Pro- bate Judge, 143 Mo. 287, the constitutionality of a collateral succession tax was brought be- fore the Supreme Court, and the opinion was written by Judge Gantt, and greatly added to his fame as a jurist. He held the so-called tax was not a tax, because it was levied for a private purpose, and was a rank instance of paternalism-a principle which he most vig- orously denounced.
One sentence of that opinion is worthy of reproduction in this sketch. He said: "Some of the learned counsel for the curators of the university admit that such a support of the students is paternalism in its most pro- nounced form, but say it is 'not of a hurtful or dangerous kind; that is, only paternalism of the State and not of the Federal govern- ment.'
"Paternalism, whether State or Federal, as the derivation of the term implies, is an as- sumption by the government of a quasi fatherly relation to the citizen and his family, involving excessive governmental regulation of the private affairs and business methods and interests of the people, upon the theory that the people are incapable of managing their own affairs, and is pernicious in its tendencies. In a word it minimizes the citi- zen, and maximizes the government. Our Federal and State governments are founded upon principle wholly antagonistic to such a doctrine.
"Our fathers believed the people of these ·free and independent States were capable of self-government ; a system in which the peo- ple are the sovereigns and the government their creature to carry out their commands. The citizen is the unit. It is his province to support the government, and not the govern- ment's to support him. Under self-govern- ment we have advanced in all the elements of a great people more rapidly than any nation that has ever existed upon the earth, and there is greater need now than ever before in our history, of adhering to it. Paternal-
ism is a plant that should receive no nourish- ment upon the soil of Missouri."
Among other important opinions by Judge Gantt, which stood the test of the Supreme Court of the United States, were Oxley Stave Co. vs. Butler County, in which the title to about 10,000 acres of land was involved, and the title affirmed in the county, 121 Mo. 614; and State of Missouri vs. Thompson, in which a statute of Missouri providing for the comparison of writings was challenged as cx post facto, and which he upheld and was affirmed by the Supreme Court of the United States. The opinions in many other cases of great moment in the State have been pre- pared by Judge Gantt. Notably the North Terrace Park case from Kansas City, 147 Mo. 259; Williams et al. vs. Chicago, Santa Fe & California Railway Company; the St. Louis police law of 1899.
Judge Gantt is a Democrat of the old school, and has never wavered in the support of the principles of his party. He has al- ways been active in the party councils of his congressional district and State. He was a member of the first Democratic State Con- vention in 1872, after his disfranchisement was removed. He has often been a delegate to State and congressional conventions.
Only once has he ever entered a contest for a purely political position, and that was in 1886, when he contested for the Demo- cratic nomination in the Sixth Missouri District against Honorable William J. Stone, afterwards Governor.
In that race Judge Gantt carried Bates, Barton and Henry. and Governor Stone carried Cass, Dade, Cedar and St. Clair and Jasper, the vote of the last named county deciding it after a memorable contest.
In 1887 and 1888 he served as one of the curators of the Warrensburg normal school by the appointment of Governor Marmaduke.
No man who ever wore the Confederate uniform and followed the flag of the South- ern Confederacy until it fell at Appomattox to rise no more, cherishes its memories with more pride and a deeper devo- tion than the subject of this sketch. He delights to recall the achievements of Lee, Jackson, Ewell and Early, and to compare their strategy with the renowned captains of the world.
Having made an honorable fight himself, he never hesitates to acknowledge the
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prowess of those against whom he contended for four terrible years, and he numbers among them many of his best and most intimate friends.
As an evidence of the esteem he has in- spired among Federal soldiers, he was in- vited, last spring, to lecture on his own per- sonal recollections of a Confederate soldier in Virginia, by the Loyal Legion, at St. Louis, an order composed wholly of Federal officers, and at its close re- ceived a perfect ovation, and yet not once did he say a word which indi- cated that he did not still feel the cause for which he fought was a righteous one. Judge Gantt is the captain commander of the General M. M. Parsons Camp of Confederate Veterans at Jefferson City. He is also a member of Virginia Historical Society, and of the American Social Science Association, and the National Bar Association, and the Beta Theta Pi Greek Society.
He is a member of the Cumberland Pres- byterian church. He was married in 1872 to Miss Alice Warth, who died in August, 1889. Of that marriage he has four children living, one daughter and three sons.
In 1891 he married Mrs. Mattie W. Lee, of Clinton, Missouri. Judge Gantt was elected chief justice of the Supreme Court on February 1, 1898, and occupied that position until February 1, 1901.
Gantt, Thomas Tasker, lawyer and jurist, was born at Georgetown, D. C., July 22, 1814. He was of Maryland ancestry. His maternal grandfather, Major Benjamin Stod- dert, was a Revolutionary officer, and was Secretary of the Navy under President John Adams. Left fatherless in his infancy, his youth was passed upon a plantation in Prince George's County, Maryland, afterward at Georgetown College. He entered the West Point Military Academy in 1831, and in his studies ranked among the first five in his class, but at the end of his second year he was disabled by an injury to his right leg, causing lameness which disqualified him from remaining longer, and from which he suffered more or less during the remainder of his life. Giving up a military career, he studied law under Governor Pratt, of Maryland, was ad- mitted to the bar in 1838, and the following year came to St. Louis to permanently reside, soon forming a partnership with Montgom-
ery Blair, then United States district at- torney. This connection continued until Mr. Blair's appointment as judge of the St. Louis Court of Appeals in 1844. In 1845 he married Miss Mary Carroll Tabbs, grand- daughter of Charles Carroll, of Bellevue, Maryland. In the same year he was ap- pointed United States district attorney by President Polk, holding that office four years. Mr. Gantt was a member of the convention which framed the State Constitution of 1875. The new constitution created the St. Louis Court of Appeals, and Mr. Gantt was ap- pointed by Governor Hardin its presiding judge. On the various questions adjudicated by this court during his service on the bench, terminating January 1, 1877, more than one hundred opinions bear testimony to his learning and discriminating judgment. At the close of his judicial term Judge Gantt returned to his practice at the bar. In the controversies preceding the Civil War, though always residing in a slave State, Judge Gantt opposed without reserve the doctrine of secession. At the election in January, 1861, for delegates to the State Con- vention, called to consider the relations of Missouri to the Union, he was elected a dele- gate on the unconditional Union ticket by an overwhelming majority, and of that body he was an influential member. Notwith- standing his physical infirmity, being offered a commission as colonel in the army, he served on McClellan's staff as judge advocate and subsequently in the field, until July, 1862, when, his health failing, he resigned and re- turned to St. Louis. Soon afterward he was appointed provost marshal general of Missouri, but was relieved in November, 1862. Although a pronounced Unionist, Col- onel Gantt was never a radical as that term was understood in Missouri. On the contrary, he bitterly opposed the "Drake Con- stitution" and the test oath of loyalty, sus -. tained the policy of President Andrew John- son, and co-operated with such men as Blair, Broadhead and Glover in their political ac- tion. To an intellect clear and comprehen- sive he added superior professional and literary culture, adorned with unusual acqui- sitions in the branches of science and art. To courage absolutely fearless was united the gentleness of a most charitable nature. As a lawyer he attained the very first rank, not only before the courts of Missouri, but at the
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bar of the Supreme Court of the United States, whose reports attest not only the great number of his cases, but the import- ance of their character. He died January 17, 1889.
Garay, Francisco de, Spanish ex- plorer, died in Mexico in 1523. He was a companion of Columbus on his second voy- age ; was afterward famed for his opulence. and became Governor of Jamaica. In 1519 Alvaro Alonso de Pineda commanded a fleet of four ships, which were sent out by Garay to Yucatan. The ostensible object of the voyage was to search for a strait west of Florida, but pecuniary gain was the real pur- pose. The strait was not found, and the ships, turning toward the west, explored riv- ers and ports, and communicated with the inhabitants. They finally reached Vera Cruz, and a pillar was set up between that place and Tampico to commemorate the discover- ies of Garay. After eight months of explora- tion the navigators took possession of the region for 300 leagues along the coast in the name of the crown of Castile. The Missis- sippi, then called "Espiritu Santo," was shown distinctly on the maps of Garay's pilots. When Charles V examined the ac- count of the explorer a royal edict was issued in 1521 granting Garay the privilege of colon- izing at his own cost the region he had dis- covered, the limits of the grant being to a point south of Tampico and the extreme dis- covery of Ponce de Leon, near the Alabama coast. This did not satisfy Garay, and in 1523 he lost fortune and life in a personal dispute with Cortes for the control of the region on the River Panuco .- (Appleton's "Cyclopedia of American Biography.")
Garden City .- A village in Cass Coun- ty, on the Kansas City, Clinton & Southern Railway, twelve miles southeast of Harrison- ville, the county seat. It has a graded school, a normal school and business insti- tute ; four churches, a local newspaper, the "Garden City View;" two banks, a flourmill and a creamery. In 1899 the population was 800.
Gardenhire, James B., lawyer, leg- islator, Attorney General of Missouri, and solicitor of the United States Court of Claims, was born in Davidson County, Ten-
nessee, near Nashville, in 1821, and died at Fayette, Missouri, February 20, 1862. He came to Missouri in 1841, after having studied law at Nashville, and located in Sparta, at that time the county seat of Buchanan County, and entered on the prac- tice of his profession. He soon became a leading lawyer at a bar where he encountered such well known men as A. W. Doniphan, Willard P. and William A. Hall and other men of mark in the Platte Purchase, and in 1846 was elected to the Legislature from Buchanan County, serving with credit on the judiciary committee. In September, 1851, he was appointed, by Governor King, attorney general, to fill the vacancy caused by the death of William A. Robards, and the follow- ing year was elected for a full term of four years. He was an emancipationist, and ad- vocated the gradual extirpation of slavery in Missouri. In 1880 he was, against his wishes and counsel, made Republican candidate for Governor, but received only 6,135 votes. In 1861 he was appointed by President Lincoln solicitor of the court of claims at Washing- ton, but in 1862 resigned on account of ill health and returned to Missouri, and shortly afterward died. He was bold and fearless in his convictions, upright and conscientious in his public and private relations, and possessed the respect of all who knew him.
Gardner, Abraham Miller, lawyer, was born December 16, 1816, at East Hamp- ton, Long Island, and died in St. Louis, Sep- tember 29, 1893. When he was about seven years of age his father removed to Mont- gomery County, New York, settling on a farm a few miles from the village of Canajo- harie. There the son grew up and obtained his early education in the village academy. He then completed a course of study at Union College, and afterward studied law in Buffalo, New York, under the preceptorship of Messrs. Smith and Thompson, eminent lawyers of that city, then practicing in part- nership. Immediately after his admission to the bar Mr. Gardner came to St. Louis, and in the year 1842 began the practice of his pro- fession in that city. In 1847 he was elected city attorney of St. Louis, and held that office for four years. This was the only public office which he ever held, with the exception of that of collector of the port of St. Louis, to which he was appointed to serve out the
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unexpired term of his brother, Samuel H. invited during political campaigns to canvass Gardner, who died while holding the office. the State in the interest of his party. As a churchman he was a devout and consistent Catholic, ever ready with his voice and pen to defend his church. Without fee, he was the adviser, counselor and advocate of many of the religious orders of the city and a hard- working member of the various charitable organizations. During his residence of fifty years in that city Mr. Gardner was all the time in active practice, and gave to his professional duties the closest attention and the most thoroughly conscientious effort. For many years he was one of the recognized leaders of the bar, and was especially well known as a capable and successful corporation lawyer. He was mar- ried, in July of 1845, to Miss Eliza C. Palmer, of Buffalo, New York. Three daughters were the children born of their union, two of whom were living in 1898. They were Mrs. C. H. Semple, of St. Louis, and Mrs. Eliot C. Jewett, of Monterey, Mexico.
Garesche, Alexander J. P., lawyer, was born March 1, 1822, at Matanzas, in the Island of Cuba-where his father was then stationed as United States consul-and died in St. Louis, November 10, 1896. He was fitted for college at a boarding school in Wilmington, Delaware, and was then sent to Georgetown College. When his parents re- moved to St. Louis in 1839 he accompanied them, and took his collegiate degree from St. Louis University in 1842. Immediately afterward he began the study of law under the preceptorship of the eminent jurist, Judge Thomas T. Gantt, and in 1845 was admitted to the bar. Entering at once upon the prac- tice of his profession, he was soon afterward elected city attorney, that being the only pub- lic office he ever held. Thereafter he had a long and honorable career at the bar of St. Louis, being especially prominent as a gen- eral practitioner and in the conduct of probate business. His success brought many clients who could pay nothing, and his warm and generous sympathies caused him to give to such clients the most kindly consideration, and to render services where there was no hope of pecuniary returns. At the beginning of the Civil War he was a member of the National Guard of Missouri, and held the position of judge advocate in the First Regi- ment, which was captured by General Lyon at Camp Jackson. He was paroled immedi- ately after the capture and took no part in the Civil War, being opposed to the seces- sion movement, although he believed that the Southern States had a right to maintain the institution of slavery. In politics he was an unswerving Democrat, and was frequently
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