History of Saint Louis City and County, from the earliest periods to the present day: including biographical sketches of representative men, Part 103

Author: Scharf, J. Thomas (John Thomas), 1843-1898
Publication date: 1883
Publisher: Philadelphia : L.H. Everts
Number of Pages: 1358

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St. Louis journals of July 13, 1830, contain ac- counts of a dinner given in his honor by his personal friends and those who approved of his public course. A preliminary meeting had been held July 7th, and the following gentlemen were appointed the managing committee : George Collier, Josiah Spalding, D. Hough, Jesse. G. Lindell, Henry S. Geyer, W. R. Grimsley, F. L. Billon, W. H. Hopkins, D. B. Hill, C. Wahren- dorf, M. Tesson, J. Baum, William K. Rule.

On Saturday, July 10th, two hundred persons sat down to the banquet at the old Missouri Hotel. Mayor Danicl D. Page acted as president, and William Rus- sell, Thomas Forsythe, James Clemens, and Thomas Cohen were vice-presidents. David Barton delivered.

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an address that occupied more than an hour. His friends in 1831 persuaded him to run for the Lower House as candidate against Spencer Pettis, of the Jackson party, but the latter was so overwhelmingly in the majority at that time tliat all Barton's eloquence could not turn the scale. In 1834-35 he was sent to the State Senate, and assisted greatly in compiling the " Revised Statutes." This ended his ·public life.

Many stories are told about David Barton's witty remarks. Once, when pleading a case before the Su- preme Court, the judge (George Tompkins) stopped his argument with " Do you call that law ?" " No, your Honor," he replied, with suavity, " but I did not know but that the court would accept it as law." He was short in build, broad-shouldered, and had a high forehead, and was very careless in his dress. His conversational powers were great. After his death, on the 26th of September, 1837, the State named a county after him, and also placed a marble shaft over his grave, whose inscription characterized him as a profound jurist, an honest statesman, and a just and benevolent man. The saddest fact in regard to his life is its close, which was clouded by an impaired judgment and by an intellect reduced almost to imbe- cility. The St. Louis Republican of Oct. 9, 1837, says, " Such has been the melancholy condition of his mind, from which for some time past there has been no hope of his recovering, that we cannot but look upon his death as a relief from a worse condi- tion. The deceased was one of the most distinguished lawyers and politicians of the West. His name is particularly identified with thic history of Missouri from the organization of the State government to the present time. He was alike distinguished for his eloquence and profound legal acquirements, and un- aided by fortune or alliance, rose by dint of an in- domitable spirit and his own capacious mind from rustic obscurity to fame and affluence. During the session of the Legislature of 1834-35, Judge Barton was observed to be unusually abstracted and moody; a slow but desponding melancholy seemed to be preying upon his faculties, which continued to assail him until he sunk at last into liopeless and desperate insanity, the inevitable symptoms of which were first recog- nized by his friends in a series of numbers which ap- peared in this paper during the past winter over the signature of 'Cornplanter.' His malady increased with the most frightful effects, leaving naught of the once highly gifted statesman and critical jurist save an emaciated frame and a ruined and distraeted mind."

Joshua Barton, brother of the preceding, was mueh less of a public speaker but far more of a jurist. He

was born in East Tennessee about 1788, though the exact date is unknown. His earlier law studies were pursued in the office of Rufus Easton, St. Louis, and Edward Bates, afterwards his partner, and Attorney- General of the United States during Lincoln's adminis- tration, studied under the same profound jurist. After the State government was formed he became Secretary of State, but resigned to accept the United States dis- trict attorneyship. He was then in the prime of his powers, and Judge Edward Bates used afterwards to say that " he had the best legal mind at the St. Louis bar, and was the most accomplished lawyer he had ever met."

At this time also the third Barton brother, Isaac, was holding the position of clerk of the United States Court of Missouri, which he obtained in 1821, and kept till his death in 1842. The star of the Bartons seemed in the ascendant. David was winning laurels in Washington, and few could contend with Joshua in the St. Louis courts ; but in 1823 a communication appeared in the Missouri Republican charging Gen. William Rector, surveyor-general of Missouri, Illi- nois, and Arkansas, with corruption in office. He was absent, and his brother Thomas called on the editor, learned that Joshua Barton wrote the letter, and chal- lenged him. In their correspondence Barton refused to fight unless Rector would first admit the truth of the charges, and this being done they met on Bloody Island, where so many duels had occurred. It was June 30, 1823, weapons pistols, distance ten paces. At the first fire Barton fell dead, shot through the lieart. His body reposes in St. Charles, near where the old round stone fort stood. On the 2d of July the St. Louis bar met, Alexander Stuart being chair- man, and it was unanimously resolved that, in testi- mony of their respect for his memory, eaclı member should wear crape on the left arm for thirty days.

On March 6, 1859, the chords of public sorrow were deeply touched by the announcement of the death, on the previous night, of Henry S. Geyer, for more than forty years one of the very foremost at the St. Louis bar. All the records of that time give evidence of the respect and admiration he had inspired, and his fame as an acute jurisconsult was national. The principal arguments and authorities presented in the Dred Seott case werc submitted by him. He was born of German parents in Frederick County, Md., Dee. 9, 1790. His early promise attraeted the attention of Gen. Nelson, with whom he studied law. Another early friend was his uncle, Daniel Sheffie, of Virginia, a prominent lawyer and politieian. He began prac- tice in 1811, but entered the army in 1812 as first lieutenant, and rose to the rank of captain in active

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duty on the frontier. In 1815 he re-entered the legal field in St. Louis, and almost immediately won recog- nition. At that time the laws of the Territory were in a rudimentary condition, and the inchoate titles granted by Spain were being examined and readjusted, and the most intricate problems were involved in their settlement. Capt. Geyer applied himself so assidu- ously to this department of law that for over forty years hardly an important land case was settled in Missouri without his aid. But he also possessed a variety of legal accomplishments, and was perfectly at home in the subtile distinctions of commercial law, in complex details of chancery cases, and in the skillful management of jury trials, when his examination of witnesses and of the evidence was unequaled. A writer says of him, " His· vigilance, dexterity, and perfect presence of mind were indescribable." But we will let his old associ- ates describe his valuable services to jurisprudence. When, March 8, 1859, the St. Louis bar met to pass resolutions regarding their loss, their sorrow was mani- fested in the most marked degree. Edward Bates was president, and Albert Todd and F. A. Dick vice-presi- dents. C. D. Drake, J. M. Krum, J. K. Shepley, C. Gibson, and T. C. Reynolds drew up the resolutions, which contained the fol- lowing :

HENRY S. GEYER.

" Through a period of more than forty-three years his clear, acute, and logical mind, unim- paired to the last, dealt with all the great questions which have arisen in connection with the peculiar jurisprudence of this State, and none has been more distinctly felt by our State and Federal judiciary in their elucidation and final determination.

" His influence upon the statute law of Missouri has been no less marked. When he had been but two years in the then frontier town of St. Louis he compiled, with rare accuracy and system, and published a digest of the laws then in force in the Territory of Missouri, which still bears his name, and has al- ways held a position of unquestioned authority. In 1818 he was a member of the Territorial Legislature of Missouri. In 1821 he was elected a representative in the First Legislature of this State, and on taking his seat was chosen Speaker of the Housc. He held the same position with distinguished ability in the Second and Third General Assemblies. Upon that which con- vened in 1824-25 devolved the difficult duty of making the first revision of the statute law of Missouri. He had been by the

preceding Legislature appointed one of the revisers, and he thus had an opportunity to do much in moulding the legisla- tion of a young State, where few men could be found having the peculiar qualities which he possessed in a very eminent de- gree for such a work. Again in 1834-35 he participated labori- ously and with great ability in the enactment of the second revision of the statutes. His last legislative service was in the session of 1838-39. In 1843 he was again appointed one of the revisers of the statutes, but declined the appointment. Through- out his legislative career he was distinguished for comprehen- sive views, for independent and accurate judgment, for clear perception of what was required in general legislation, and for a remarkable adaptation to the laborious and ill-understood work of framing laws.

" In his service as senator of the United States in 1851 he ex- hibited the same mental qualities which had distinguished him at home. His mind was logical, acute, fertile, elastic, analyti- cal, and vigorous. His legal learning was varied and profound, and he wielded it with a skill and power equaled by few. His forensic efforts, whether before a court or a jury, were always impressive, and often exhibited the highest order of ability."

The members of the bar voted to wear mourning for the usual period, and the resolutions were presented to the Supreme Court and to the inferior courts.

It is impossible within the limits of this brief sketch to fully describe the unique legal position of Henry S. Geyer. In the Supreme Court of the United States he came into contact with such men as Webster, Ewing, and Rev- erdy Johnson, who enter- tained the highest respect for his ability. Politically, he was a firm Whig, and an ardent admirer of Henry Clay. When that party disappeared he returned to the Democratic ranks. When elected to the Senate (1851) it was as the successor of Thomas H. Benton. His greatest reputation as a criminal lawyer was gained in the trial of Darnes for the murder of Davis, publisher of a St. Louis paper, in 1840. After Darnes' acquittal, Mr. Geyer's profound argument, which occupied two days in its delivery, and turned upon the closest analysis of surgical evidence, was published in book form in Boston. Rufus Choate expressed the highest admiration for its ability. In one of his noted land cases, that of Strother vs. Lucas, William Wirt was his associate, and Chief Justice Marshall, who presided, afterwards expressed his as-

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tonishment at Geyer's legal acumen. Indeed, the entire history of the times makes evident the fact that he was a formidable opponent whom few could safely encounter, and throws into strong relief the admirable singleness of purpose and devotion to any cause in which he is enlisted that marks the great lawyer. Many stories might be told of his sparkling, graphic sarcasm and pungency of retort, and he wielded a good con- troversial pen, writing many articles for the St. Louis journals of the day. His religious beliefs were de- cided, and he was a consistent member of the Epis- copal Church. Personally he mingled but little with the people, being reserved and not intimate with any one, but he showed a great fondness for practical joking, and there are some capital stories of his suc- cess in that line. Some time in 1816 he exchanged shots with Capt. Kennerly, and the latter was wounded in the leg. The exact cause of the duel has never been understood, but the difficulty was amicably set- tled, and they continued friends.

Benjamin B. Dayton was for years a partner of Henry S. Geyer. He was born in New York State in 1817, graduated at Union College in 1838, reached St. Louis, and at first was with Ferdinand W. Risk. About 1844 he married Miss Mary Jennings, of Phil- adelphia. In 1855 the dreadful Gasconade bridge disaster occasioned his death. He was a hard student, and a man of most exemplary habits. The firm of Geyer & Dayton did a large business in land cases.

One of the first judges of Missouri was Mathias McGirk, a contemporary of the Bartons. His col- leagues were J. D. Cook and John R. Jones. They were appointed in 1820. Judge McGirk was born in 1790, in Tennessee, and reached St. Louis about 1814. In 1827 he removed to Montgomery County, and there married a Miss Talbot. In 1816 he was author of the bill to introduce the common law into Mis- souri, and he framed other important bills while a member of the Legislature. In 1841 he retired from the bench, devoting himself to agriculture. He was not a brilliant jurist, but had practical sense, a reten- tive memory, and an admirable style, both as conver- sationalist and writer. In politics he was a Whig. Little information is obtainable about Andrew and Isaac McGirk, relatives of the preceding, who prac- ticed law in St. Louis. Isaac died in 1830. John D. Cook, Judge McGirk's associate on the bench, was a member of the State Constitutional Convention, and a jurist of excellence. When Judge R. S. Thomas 1

was removed from the Circuit Court, Judge Cook was appointed, preferring that place. He presided there many years, and was a noted nisi prius judge. He had great ability, but was too indolent to take a com- manding place. Judge Cook was always a pleasant companion, and widely known for his benevolence and friendliness to younger members of the profession.

Another of the noted lawyers of the formative era in Missouri was Judge Rufus Pettibone, who was born in Litchfield, Conn., in May, 1784, and grad- uated at Williams College in 1805, taking high honors. Adopting the legal profession, he studied in Central New York, and afterwards in Albany, where he was admitted in 1808. In 1812, Oneida County elected him to represent it in the Legislature, and the next year he married Louise Esther De Rus- sey. Five years later he removed to St. Louis, and on his arrival was offered and accepted a partnership with Col. Rufus Easton, then one of the leaders of the bar. Even at this early date numbers of persons in the Territory were opposed to slavery, and a ticket was by them presented when the admission question became prominent. J. B. C. Lucas, Rufus Easton, Rufus Pettibonc, Robert Simpson, and Caleb Bowles were on that ticket, though well aware they were in a hopeless minority. When the State government was organized Rufus Pettibone was appointed judge of the Second Circuit, embracing the counties of Gasconade, Callaway, Montgomery, St. Charles, Lincoln, Pike, and Ralls. In 1823 he was appointed to the Su -. preme Bench. In the winter of 1824-25, in con- junction with Henry S. Geyer, he also revised the State laws, and prepared the same for legislative enactment. On the last day of July, 1825, in the fullness of his powers, he died, and the State lost one of its most valued citizens. Mr. Geyer announced his death in the St. Louis Circuit Court, and it, as well as the Supreme Court, adjourned with the usual marks of respect.

Now and then, in every profession, there are lives that tradition sets apart and crowns with peculiar sacredness, seemingly without definite reason, except that they were brief, brilliant, and tragical. Such a life was that of Horatio Cozens, whom the common opinion of his time ranked as a phenomenon of rapid and fervent eloquence. But little is known of his boyhood, birthplace, and education. After the ad- mission of Missouri he came to that State from Vir- ginia, and in a few years built up a large and lucra-

1 This Richard S. Thomas reached Upper Louisiana in 1815. In 1817 he was appointed a circuit or district judge, but in 1824 was impeached and removed. He is said to have been

disagreeable and tyrannical, and to have become very intem- perate. Some years after his removal from office he was thrown from a horse and killed.

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tive practice. In July, 1826, being then but about twenty-six years of age, he was stabbed and instantly killed by French Strother, a dissipated young lawyer, with whose uncle Cozens had had some political con- troversy. It was a brutal, unprovoked murder, and caused the wildest excitement. The murderer broke jail a few days later, fled to Mexico, and died of de- lirium tremens. Mr. Cozens left a· young wife and two children. The members of the bar met a few days later, Thomas H. Benton being in the chair, and Henry S. Geyer secretary. Resolutions express- ing the deepest regret were adopted, and crape was worn for thirty days. At a much later day the fa- mous Edward Bates was wont to express unbounded admiration for Cozens, and call him the worthy rival of Geyer himself. The memory of the gifted, attractive ora- tor is forever linked with the story of his early, deplorable death.

Incidentally, heretofore, we have mentioned the name of Edward Bates. His ca- reer covercd the most event- ful period of Missouri's his- tory, and no member of the legal fraternity stood higher or was more estcemed. He was widely known and loved, perhaps more so than any of his contemporaries, for all unite in admiration of the gentleness, kindness, and perpetual, overflowing cheer- fulness that made him a universal favorite. Edward Bates was born on a farm in Goochland County, Va., Sept. 4, 1793, and received an academic education, but, being the youngest of twelve children, and his father dying, his scholastic training was defective through lack of means. His brother Fleming, clerk of Northumberland County, aided him as far as possible. He was offered a posi- tion as midshipman in the United States navy, which he declined, but while still a lad he served as a private in the war of 1812. It is also on record that his family had been Quakers, but his father disobeyed their doctrines and joined the Revolutionary patriots.1

EDWARD BATES.

In 1814 young Bates came to St. Louis, without a profession, and with very small means. His elder brother, Frederick Bates, was then living in St. Louis, being secretary of the Territory of Missouri, to which position he had been appointed by President Jeffer- son, after holding a United States judgeship in Mich- igan, in order to thwart and counteract the supposed schemes of Gen. Wilkinson, then Governor, in aid of Aaron Burr's designs. He was also first recorder of land titles when the office was created in 1806, and secretary of the first board of land commissioners in 1807. After the formation of the State government Frederick Bates was elected the second Governor of the State, and dicd in office in 1825.

The first thing Edward Bates did was to enter Col. Rufus Easton's law-office, where he remained until admitted to practice in 1816. In 1818 he was appointed district attorney of the Ter- ritorial government, and commissioned by Governor Clark. He was chosen a delegate to the Constitu- tional Convention in 1820, attorney-general the same, year, member of the Legis- lature in 1822, United States attorney for Missouri district in 1824, and was sent to Congress in 1827 over John Scott, but was defcated for re-election by Spencer Pettis. After returning from Con- gress he was elected a mem- ber of the Legislature from St. Charles. Immediately after this Mr. Bates removed to St. Charles, and lo- cated on a farm in the county of St. Louis, on Dar- denne Prairic. He still had an extensive and profit- able practice, but used to say that it took all the money that Lawyer Bates could make to support Farmer Bates. He resumed practice in St. Louis in 1842, until he was elected judge of the Land Court by popu- lar vote, a position which he filled with great ability.

In 1850 he was offered the secretaryship of war in Fillmore's cabinet, but declined it; was elected presiding officer of the great National Whig Conven- tion at Baltimore in 1856; was honored by Harvard with a degrec in 1858 ; and was chosen Attorney-Gen- cral in Lincoln's first cabinet. In thesc various capaci- ties his useful life broadened into many channels. Ill

1 It was related of the father of Mr. Bates that when Lord Cornwallis offered him British protection, he carefully folded up the papers and returned them, disdaining to accept the prof- fered advantage.

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health caused him to leave the cabinet, and he died in March, 1869. It would be difficult to find a more rounded, complete, satisfactory record of public ser- vice. During all these years he was indefatigable in his study of law and literature, and had the conduct of many important cases.1

1 Mr. Bates' labors in behalf of the public schools of St. Louis are especially worthy of mention, and are thus described by Col. T. T. Gantt in an address before the United States Court on the occasion of Mr. Bates' death :

" The first cases in the trial of which he became conspicuous in the eyes of the younger members of the bar, unfamiliar ex- cept by tradition with his merits as a barrister, were those which tested the title of the Board of President and Directors of the St. Louis Public Schools to lots of ground in the township of St. Louis equal in area to one-twentieth of all the land included in a survey comprising the town, its common fields and common. The litigation thus inaugurated was, from every point of view, most interesting, not only by reason of the immense value of the endowment given to the public schools of St. Louis by the act of 1812, but on account of the difficulty of the questions to be decided before the title could be settled ; the subject engaged the attention of the profession as scarcely can be predicated of any other head of titles to land. The first decision on the title of the schools was given by our Supreme Court in 1843. Even at this day the school corporation is still engaged in the asser- tion of a doubtful claim to some lands in this city. But it is believed that all matters of substance in this connection were determined by the court of last resort in 1861. With the earlier, more difficult, and precarious strife of the first cases Mr. Bates was intimately connected. He was the leader of the counsel for the schools, and obtained from a court, one of the judges of which was irreclaimably hostile to the pretensions of that cor- poration, the decision which, after long dispute, has at length become the accepted law of the land. I shall not, I think, as long as I remember anything, forget the impression made upon me by the argument which Mr. Bates made before Judge Engle, then presiding in the Court of Common Pleas, upon the general merits of the school title to lots of ground in St. Louis under the act of 1812 and the acts supplementary to it. The theme was a vast one. The discussion was new to the judge before whom it was carried on, for, though a man of great learning and ability, he had been trained in a school which had not familiarized him with our peculiar system of land titles, and there was, especially at that day, a complexity about these which few, if any, were able to master who had not an acquaint- ance with our local history, impossible of attainment except after years of residence among us. The immense advantage of this perfect acquaintance was, of course, enjoyed by Mr. Bates, who had almost been an eye-witness of the most impor- tant events involved, and the matchless order in which he grouped these events and traced their bearing upon the case at the bar made an abiding impression upon a young lawyer who felt keenly his own want of the peculiar knowledge which en- abled Mr. Bates to shine so brightly. After that argument it was my privilege to see and hear him over and over again, both at the bar of the Circuit and the Supreme Courts, sometimes ex- hibiting the tact which enabled him to extract from cven un- willing witnesses the facts which it concerned his client to have in evidence, sometimes dealing, with an ability altogether his own, with a mass of conflicting testimony in his appeal to a jury, and sometimes wringing from a reluctant court, by irre- sistible argument, a reconsideration and overruling of a hasty decision."

In politics he was in early life a Jeffersonian Re- publican ; in 1825 he supported Adams; afterwards he was a strong Whig, but when that party perished did not join any other, though in the Republican Convention of 1860 he was strongly supported for the Presidency. When the civil war broke out he was intensely loyal, and advocated the most decisive meas- ures for its suppression. Brought up as a member of the Society of Friends, he adhered to many of their doctrines, but joined the Presbyterian Church in 1842, and was for years a presiding elder.

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History of Saint Louis City and County, from the earliest periods to the present day: including biographical sketches of representative men, Part 103

Author: Scharf, J. Thomas (John Thomas), 1843-1898 Publication date: 1883 Publisher: Philadelphia : L.H. Everts Number of Pages: 1358

Author: Scharf, J. Thomas (John Thomas), 1843-1898
Publication date: 1883
Publisher: Philadelphia : L.H. Everts
Number of Pages: 1358