USA > Missouri > Greene County > Past and present of Greene County Missouri, early and recent history and genealogical records of many of the representative citizens, Volume I > Part 51
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Thomas J. Murray is one of the many who have begun the practice of law and after awhile found other pursuits more congenial or more profitable. After following the procession with reasonably fair success for eighteen years, he quit and engaged in other pursuits. In 1897 he organized the Greene County AAbstract Company and became its vice-president and general mana- ger. Soon thereafter he became the chief executive officer of the company, which position he still holds. For one term he was probate judge of Greene county. He is a man of excellent and attractive disposition, and absolutely true to his friends. His present position -- that of enjoying in ease the good things of life-has been won by him by the hardest kind of labor and the strictest attention to his own business and letting that of others alone.
Orin Patterson is one of the profoundest and clearest thinkers at the bar. He is analytical, logical, consecutive and exhaustive in his examination of a question, and when he determines his determination will usually stand review by the most searching criticism. His style of speaking is adapted more to argument before a court than advocacy before a jury. His brother, Otis, is much more of a hustler. He is a never-ceasing worker : and his in- domitable energy is ever resulting in the acquisition of additional business as well as insuring faithful attention to that already on hand.
Born in Knox county. Missouri. January 19, 1859. . \. W. Lyon came to Springfield in 1891, since which time he has drawn to him many clients, all of
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whom he has held by the performance of faithful service and to whom he has given.
E. D. Merritt is a man who is tied to his friends and never forgets not to let his enemy smite him on the other cheek. When the next smiting is in order he does the smiting himself. He is a clever fellow, and any confidence reposed in him is not misplaced. He is a good lawyer and nurses his client as though he were his own child.
W. H. Horine has given the untiring labor of many years to the building of a practice which would place him in easy circumstances when the sear and yellow leaf of age would fall athwart his pathway. In this he has succeeded. and he is still traveling along in his old methodical way which adds to the volume of his business day by day.
M. C. Smith, a refugee from the grasshoppers and Republicanism of Kansas, came years ago to Missouri. He is a true, manly man, and since his coming here has established a reputation as a citizen of progressiveness and worth and a lawyer of the strictest integrity and dependableness. He was born in Hinds county, Mississippi, November 13, 1849, graduated from the Kansas State Normal, admitted to the bar in Yates Center, Kansas, in 1883. and came to Springfield in 1894.
Perry T. Allen is a lawyer whose reputation as one who wins his cases has extended far beyond the confines of Greene county and he finds employ- ment in most important litigation in many counties in southwestern Missouri. He is full of vim and energizing force. He is well read in the principles of the law and is a ready and voluable speaker.
G. D. Clark deserves credit for having grown from the maker of tomb- stones to one who knows the law. When he was in active practice he at- tracted the attention of by-standing lawyers by the expert manner in which he cross-examined a witness. He served in the Union army during the Civil war, simply, in his own language, as a common soldier -- never in the front rank during a charge nor in the rear rank during a retreat. He is one of the best-hearted fellows that ever lived, and whatever belongs to him belongs. also, to him who needs it.
G. M. Sebree stands among the leaders of the bar. His father was warden of the penitentiary during the administration of Governor Wood- son, and G. M. lived with him during the time, and from 1876 to 1884 he lived on the farm where he was born in Howard county. Tiring of a farmer's life-and by far too many young men tire of this, the freest and most in- dependent life one can lead-he became a student in Central College, and after five years there he went to St. Louis Law School, which he attended one year and was admitted to practice by Judge Amos Thayer, circuit judge in St. Louis in 1886. From there he went to Marshall, Missouri, where he was in the law office of his brother, Frank P. Sebree, about a year, from
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which place he went to Higginsville, where he practiced till May, 1888, when he came to Springfield and practiced alone for four years, when he formed a partnership with W. D. Tatlow, which continued for three years, when he entered the firm of Sebree, Farrington, Pepperdine & Wear, which, six years afterward, dissolved, and he is now a partner of W. J. Orr. For ten years in his early practice he was attorney for a large number of jobbing houses in Springfield and attended in their interests most of the courts in southern Mis- souri and northern Arkansas. He was attorney for the Bell Telephone Com- pany and for seven years president of the Ozark Bell Telephone Company, a branch of the Missouri and Kansas Telephone Company. He continued to act as president of this until it was absorbed by the Missouri and Kansas com- pany, since when he has been the local attorney. He was one year president of the Springfield Club, and during his official term located the Pythian Home here, an institution which will, for all future time, so long as those now living are concerned, stand as a monument to the genius of George M. Sebree. He is a warm-hearted, friendly man, and through him runs a streak of dry humor. He is high-minded, very intelligent and is one of the remaining few whose life is characterized by the courtesy and chivalry of the old-fashioned south- ern gentleman.
J. P. McCammon was born May 25, 1853, in Iowa and was graduated from Wesleyan University in 1887. He has the distinction of having read law in the office of Gen. J. B. Weaver, one-time candidate for President of the United States on the Greenback ticket. After he came to Missouri he con- tinued his study in the office of Hubbard & Simmons and was admitted to practice in 1881. For a number of years he was associated in the practice with J. T. White, but deeming other pursuits more profitable, he helped or- ganize the Springfield Fidelity and Casualty Company, which was absorbed by the Southern Surety Company, now having its headquarters at St. Louis, where Mr. McCammon spends most of his time. From a poor young man, his insight into profitable business ventures has brought him, in his middle age, to the position of a capitalist and the guardian and investor of others' funds. He is a gentleman in the true sense of the word and straight, honest and clean in every transaction in which he engages.
Frank B. Williams was born near Golden City, Missouri, November 23, 1869, and was educated principally at Watertown, South Dakota, and was ad- mitted to the bar in Arkansas in 1895. He obtained his diploma from the St. Louis Law School, came to Springfield and was elected probate judge in 1902. He served one term faithful to the duties the office imposed and is now city councilor of Springfield, having succeeded T. M. Seawell, the first person who ever held that position. He is in partnership with Matthew H. Galt, who was born in Carroll county, Maryland, October 9, 1881, on Sunday, which may, perhaps, have something to do with the divine like stream that flows
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through him. He graduated at the Maryland Agricultural College in 1889 and at the University of Michigan in 1904. He came to Springfield in 1907 and entered the practice at once. His firm is doing a good business and the two are gentlemen of high standing and hold prominent positions in their profession.
E. A. Barbour was born in Wilkesboro, North Carolina, July 31, 1859, was educated at the State University of Arkansas and admitted to the bar in Springfield in 1884. Soon thereafter he and V. J. Stillwagen practiced to- gether till the death of Stillwagen. He afterward formed a partnership with F. M. McDavid, under the name of Barbour & McDavid, and the firm is over twenty years old. Besides their attorneyship for the Missouri Pacific, they represent the Holland Banking Company. Mr. Barbour, like many other at- torneys of our bar, has worked himself to a position of influence and high standing by hard and ceaseless toil.
Warren White, son of J. T. White, and Paul O'Day, nephew of John O'Day, are both young men with promising futures. They are assistant prose- cuting attorneys to Sam M. Wear. Worthy they are from every point of the compass and from every angle in the circle.
Ernest McAfee, son of Judge C. B. McAfee, and a native here and to the manor born, is enjoying a practice largely of his own selection, which con- sists in cases of importance, involving great property interests. He possesses some of his father's admirable qualities and has taken him as his model of professional life, the which, if he strictly follow, will bring him fame and wealth.
Major W. M. Weaver is the oldest person living who was born in Greene county. He was admitted to the bar in 1874 at Mt. Vernon, Missouri, where he practiced till he came to Springfield, in November, 1898, where he con- tinued in the practice for several years and is now enjoying the comforts which spring from the abundance of honest accumulation. He enlisted for service in the Mexican war on his seventeenth birthday and of the one hun- dred who went with him to Mexico he is the sole survivor. He was the second white child born in Greene county. He was never seriously sick, is a jolly, good fellow, ever as bright as a balmy spring morning and as gay and happy as a swain.
. J. T. White was born in Greene county April 22, 1854, and graduated from Drury College in 1878. He was reared on a farm, as a great majority of the prominent men in American history were. He was admitted to the bar in 1882 and is a member of whom his professional brethren are justly proud. His private character is a model for all who wish to live a blameless life. He has never held a political office. but for five years was reporter for the St. Louis Court of Appeals ; and to know what is decided in an opinion of which he wrote the syllabi it is not necessary to go beyond his writing. The gist of
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the opinion is so clearly set forth that its meaning is frequently more fully comprehended by a reading of the syllabi than by a reading of the opinion itself. Judge Goode once said that if he had his syllabi before he wrote his- opinion in the case the opinion would be a more lucid one. He is a lawyer of distinguished ability, and his brief in the case against the James A. Burge estate by a boy who claimed Burge had given him practically all the estate, plainly shows that in putting his case on paper for an appellate court he has 110 superior, if any equal, at the bar. His strongest forte in practice is in the argument of legal propositions before the court. He is a polished gentleman, most obliging and accommodating in transactions with his fellows, social in disposition, kind of heart and true to his friends as well as to every trust re- posed in him.
James A. Moon, commonly called "Dick," came upon this mundane sphere at Iowa City, Iowa, December 22, 1859, and graduated from the Iowa State University in 1880 and from the law department in 1882. He came to Springfield in 1888, where he has since practiced and by proper conduct and strict attention to business has made himself a practice that brings to him a comfortable remuneration. He has reared a son, Fred A., who is now asso- ciated with him in the practice and is city attorney of Springfield. He is a bright young man with a promising future.
CIIARACTERISTICS OF OTIIER LAWYERS.
Oscar T. Hanilin was born in Pickens county, South Carolina, August 5, 1866, and came to Missouri in 1869, or rather was brought here then. He was educated in the common schools of the county and at the Baptist College at Bolivar. After studying law in the office of his brother, C. W. Hamlin, at Bolivar, he was admitted at that place to practice, January 2, 1887. He came to Springfield July 2. 1889, and has since practiced his profession here, as a general practitioner appearing in all the courts. He has defended in many im- portant criminal cases, notably the Bass case, where the defendant was found guilty of murder in the first degree and sentenced to life imprisonment, which sentence was affirmed by the Supreme Court, but, on motion by the de- fendant's attorneys, the court reversed itself and discharged the defendant. He also assisted in defense of the mob charged with hanging and burning three negroes on the public square. The result of these cases has been stated on former pages. While not specializing, somehow or other Mr. Hamlin secures the most of the cases where damages are sought for personal injuries. In the prosecution of these cases he has been more than ordinarily successful and has obtained judgment in large amounts and collected them for his clients. He is enjoying perhaps the most lucrative practice of any member of the.
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bar. He is strictly attentive to business and each succeeding year finds his fortune greatly increased.
Lewis Luster is one of the late acquisitions to the bar, having come here in 1909 from West Plains, Missouri, where, for six years, he was associated in the practice with W. J. Orr. He became reporter for the Springfield Court of Appeals on his advent to Springfield and held the position, filling it with marked ability, till the political complexion of the court was changed by the election in 1912, when he gracefully stepped down and out. He was born at Brunswick, Chariton county, Missouri, and was practically reared in a print- ing office, his father being editor of the Brunswick Newes; and later he became foreman of the Howell County News, a Republican sheet established by his. father, and while in the printing office he studied law, completing his course in the law department of the Washington University at St. Louis in 1902, after he had been admitted to the bar at West Plains. He is a lawyer of fine ability and promise. He is a speaker of fascinating power and a gentleman of exemplary private character, with a future full of reward for studious appli- cation ..
O. E. Gorman came into the world in Champaign county, Illinois, in 1867; was educated in the public schools and the University of Michigan and came to Missouri in 1888. He taught school for several years and was elected school commissioner of Lawrence county in 1891. He was admitted to the bar in 1896 at Springfield, where he is still in the practice, a partner of Judge J. T. Neville. He has achieved, during his practice, an honored name, an enviable reputation, an honest competency.
A man worthy to be remembered by those who come after us is George Grant Lydy, who for eight years was judge of the Probate court of Greene county and managed the affairs of the office in a way that reflected credit on himself. He was born April 20, 1865, at Mt. Gilead, Ohio, from the high school of which place he graduated, and after teaching school for several years read law and was admitted to the bar before the Supreme Court of Ohio in 1889. and came to Springfield in 1890. In 1904-05 he served as grand master and grand representative of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows of Missouri. He holds exalted rank as a lawyer and a citizen.
U. G. Johnson is a most genial and entertaining companion. He can crack a joke and spin a yarn in delightful manner. He has been practicing law here since 1907. having come from Webster county, Missouri, where he was born December 10, 1874. He graduated from Drury College in 1903, with the A. B. degree, and took the degree of M. A. in 1905, in which year he was admitted to the bar.
G. A. Watson, the tallest member of the bar, the tallest man, in all proba- bility, who ever was a member of the bar, standing six feet and four inches in his stocking feet, came to Springfield from Ozark, Christian county, in 1896.
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Before coming here he had been six years prosecuting attorney of Christian county and representative in the Legislature one term. He was born in Mar- shall county, Tennessee, August 28, 1850, educated at Lebanon, and admitted to the bar at Lewisburg, Tennessee, in 1877. He is an inimitable story teller, and many a time in traveling from Ozark to Forsyth in a wagon has he kept the gang in a roar of laughter all along the "mail trace" road. We were on our way to court. Twice each year we made this trip, and when Watson was along, as he usually was, there was no end of merriment in the party. There never was a better-natured man and a smile is always on his face. If he knew he were going to die right now he would still smile. He has been a pronounced success in life. From a youngster, struggling for fame and for- tune, he has developed into one of the most distinguished practitioners at the bar and the president of a bank.
Leonard M. Hayden was born in Springfield, Missouri, March 25, 1880. He was educated in the public schools of Springfield and in Drury College, from which he graduated in 1901, and graduated from the Kansas City School of Law in 1903, and at once began practice in Springfield, where his ability is recognized. His practice is on the increase and his careful attention to business will insure him success.
G. W. Goad is an admirable man, and is regarded by every member of the bar as a veritable brother. He was born in Carroll county, Virginia, Sep- tember 19, 1863. He graduated from the law department of the University of Missouri in 1887, was admitted to the bar the same year at Clinton, Mis- souri, and came to Springfield. August 6, 1890. His practice has made him a good living, but, like many of the best lawyers, he has accumulated not much wealth. His deportment indicates his belief that "a man's life consisteth not in the abundance of things which he possesseth."
W. J. Orr is, perhaps, the most thorough railroad lawyer at the bar. He has made the law applicable to railroads his life study ; and he has been no intermittent student, but the glare of the midnight lamp has many a night gleaned across the pages of his study and the intensity with which he has ap- plied himself caused the silver threads to spread themselves among the gold of his locks. He was born at Ashley, Pike county, Missouri, February 2, 1856, and was admitted to the bar at Beverly Green, Pike county, in 1878. He went to Oregon in 1880 and returned to Missouri in 1885. He located at West Plains, Missouri, in 1890 and became at once attorney for the Kansas City, Fort Scott and Memphis Railroad Company, which position he occupied till the road was taken over by the Frisco, in 1901, since which time he has been attorney for the Frisco in southwest Missouri and northeast Arkansas, and has his office in Springfield, where he located in 1914. He is a great admirer of Grover Cleveland, and if he should live forty years from now he will be voting for Grover Cleveland, just as some Democrats are still voting
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for Andrew Jackson. He is full of reminiscences concerning the earlier law- yers of southwest Missouri, and it is a pleasure to hear him recount them.
J. T. DeVorss was born near Circleville, Ohio, April 3, 1866. His mother died when he was ten days old and on account of his disposition he never was able to live with any one family more than four years. At the age of thirteen years he ran away from all families and lived with the cattle which he fed for his board, his board being furnished by the owners of the cattle. During the summer months he worked on the farm and attended the district school. He was so precocious that at the age of fifteen he taught a district school himself. By his industry and zeal he worked his way through Grand River College in two years and Missouri State University in five years and graduated from both institutions with high honors. He was admitted to the bar in 1888 and immediately began the practice at Gallatin, Missouri. In 1907 he moved to Springfield on account of the superior edu- cational advantages he might have here for his children. In 1912 he formed a partnership with Dan M. Nee, and the firm does a good practice and is well established in the confidence of the bench, the bar and the public.
Edward G. Wadlow is a young lawyer of vim and energy and push. He was born at Ash Grove, Missouri, June 22, 1874, was educated in the common schools of Greene county and was admitted to the bar in Spring- field in May, 1901. Among such legal lights as then shone and are now shining at the bar he has forged his way and his practice is yielding him far more than a mere living. He is a pleasant, agreeable fellow, unselfish, and he holds that the chief aim of one's existence ought to be in making others happy. And this is the true doctrine of the Christian faith.
Albert Sidney Cowden was born in Polk county, Missouri, October 6, 1862, and was named after the great Confederate general who was killed at Shiloh. He was educated at Morrisville College and the State University and graduated from the law department in 1888 and at once admitted to the. bar in Springfield where his practice has yielded him a competency. He is a good lawyer ; he is a good man.
Nathan Bray, in his time, was one of the strong men of the bar. He formerly practiced at Mt. Vernon but many years ago moved to Springfield and formed a partnership with J. C. Cravens. His reputation and his ability as a lawyer added great prestige to the partnership and soon it had one side or the other of nearly all important cases in this and adjacent counties.
Henry C. Young was a conspicuous figure at the bar. For many years he and T. A. Sherwood practiced under the firm name of Sherwood and Young. They were brothers-in-law, Sherwood having married Young's sister. Mr. Young was a princely man in his deportment. In his office or (31)
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in his home the visitor had always a royal entertainment. He was a lawyer of wide renown and high standing and left his impress on his time.
Benjamin U. Massey was a lovable character. He was one of the young men who began practice here in early days. He was a lawyer of the highest class. "His life was gentle, and the elements so mixt in him, that Nature might stand up and say to all the world: This was a man."
GONE TO OTHER FIELDS.
.A large number of those who were once members of the Springfield bar have gone elsewhere to continue the practice or engage in other pursuits; they are: Rufus Burns, now practicing in California; W. L. Atkinson, now preaching the gospel, somewhere: Captain Bates, whose whereabouts is un- known; Milton Gable, who has dropped out of the recollection of the most of us. as, also, have R. A. Druley, Jolm White, J. B. Cox, J. O. Martin, Peter Helton, J. R. Creighton, Walter Crenshaw, D. W. Davis, J. B. Henslee, D. M. Coleman. Randolph Lawrence, G. W. Breckenridge. 11. L. McClure. James Camp is in a soldiers' home in Kansas ; J. R. Milner, T. A. Sherwood, Rufus Bowden, J. B. Tatlow are in California; R. L. Goode, B. B. Brewer, M. C. Early, F. M. Wolf are in St. Louis ; H. E. Havens is farming in Cuba; J. R. Waddill, practicing in New Mexico; A. H. Julian, living on a farm north of Springfield; Thomas Moore, located at Ozark, Missouri; W. H. Winton once probate judge, now living at Morrisville, Polk county, a preacher in the Methodist Episcopal church, south, once presiding elder of this circuit and a son-in-law of the famous Bishop Marvin ; Walter Hub- bard, son of Judge W. D. Hubbard, now in Chicago; Thomas B. Love, Harry McGregor, now in Texas; R. V. Buckley, for many years practicing in Joplin, Missouri ; A. A. Heer, now in Nevada ; Samuel J. Salyer, now in the banking business at Humansville, Missouri; S. L. Craig, now in Springfield, in the real estate and abstract business: S. C. Haseltine, following the most delightful of all occupations-farming; S. A. Haseltine, now living in Kan- sas City ; Vint Bray, in Springfield profitably engaged in mining and other business enterprises ; ----- Morgan, in Greene county following the plow and turning the sod, thus causing two blades of grass to grow where only one grew before; W. G. Robertson, practicing at Muscogee, Oklahoma, where comparatively a few years ago, in his own expressive language, "the hand of civilization had not set its foot"; T. R. Gibson and M. B. Hart who are here meeting out the law as justices of the peace; J. R. Vaughan, engaged in business in St. Louis; S. G. Wood in the real estate business in Springfield; E. D. Kenna in New York City and one of the two lawyers in the United States who passes on the validity of bonds issued in this country and whose purchase is sought by European capitalists; J. C. Lane, following his pro-
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