USA > Missouri > Cole County > Jefferson City > The Bench and bar of St. Louis, Kansas City, Jefferson City, and other Missouri cities : biographical sketches > Part 3
USA > Missouri > St Louis County > St Louis City > The Bench and bar of St. Louis, Kansas City, Jefferson City, and other Missouri cities : biographical sketches > Part 3
USA > Missouri > Jackson County > Kansas City > The Bench and bar of St. Louis, Kansas City, Jefferson City, and other Missouri cities : biographical sketches > Part 3
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Hle became a partner of Judge John A. S. Tutt, and was not long in securing a good practice. He was doing finely in his profession when the civil war broke out. He promptly entered the federal service, and Governor Gamble commis- sioned him lieutenant colonel of the 7th regiment Missouri state militia, under Colonel John F. Phillips, who was one of his classmates in college.
His record in the army was as manly and honorable as his course has always been in private or civil life. Part of the time during the war, he was attorney general of the state, under appointment of Governor Hall. On being mustered
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out of the service in the spring of 1865. Colonel Crittenden settled at Warrens- burgh, where he soon rose to prominence at the bar of his judicial circuit.
In 1867 Colonel Crittenden and Senator F. M. Cockrell formed a copartner- ship for the practice of the law, at Warrensburgh, the county seat of Johnson county, which continued until virtually dissolved by the election of General Cockrell to a seat in the United States senate, in January, 1875. During those years no law firm in Missouri was more widely known. Colonel Crittenden was a conscientious, painstaking lawyer, of sound judgment, and, at that time, of ripe experience. He was well versed both in the elementary principles and science of his profession, and in the practical application of those principles in the court house. He was both a safe counselor and pleader, and an eloquent and successful advocate as well; a rare combination, which could not fail to bring to its possessor an enviable reputation, in a profession in which both talent and learning are indispensable prerequisites to even moderate success.
Colonel Crittenden was elected to congress in 1872, on the democratic ticket ; was defeated for renomination in 1874, the contest being tripartite, and his old classmate and military associate, Colonel Phillips, also a democrat, being the suc- cessful candidate. He was not a candidate in 1876, but was nominated, and un- successful, as was also the case in 1878. In 1876 he was a nominee of his party for elector at large, and resigned on learning that he had been nominated for congress.
In 1880 the subject of this sketch was the democratic candidate for governor, and was elected by an unusually large majority, and that office he is now filling with marked ability, and decided independence.
HON. WILLIAM G. HAMMOND, LL.D. SAINT LOUIS.
W ILLIAM GARDINER HAMMOND, dean of the faculty of the Saint Louis Law School, dates his birth at Newport, Rhode Island, May 3, 1829, his parents being William G. Hammond, a graduate of Brown University, and Sarah Tillinghast (Bull) Hammond. The Hammond family settled on Narragansett Bay near the close of the seventeenth century. William G. Hammond, Sr., was a lawyer, and the surveyor of customs at Newport from 1829 to 1847, and died in 1858. The mother's family have been residents of Rhode Island since its pur- chase from the Indians in 1638. The Tillinghast family, to which both grand- mothers of our subject belonged, are of Huguenot descent. Sarah Tillinghast Bull was of the fifth generation in descent from the noted Baptist preacher, Obadiah Holmes, who was severely whipped because of his religious belief, and to whom a monument is about to be erected by the Baptists of the United States.
The subject of this biographical notice is a graduate of Amherst College, class of 1849, taking the Latin salutatory, to which was added an oration in Eng.
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lish as a special compliment. Hon. Julius II. Seelye, late member of congress, and now president of Amherst College, was a member of the same class; also William J. Rolfe, the editor of Shakespeare. While in college Mr. Hammond was one of the editors of the " Indicator," a college periodical. He studied law in Brooklyn, New York, with Hon. Samuel E. Johnson; was admitted to the bar in 1851, and immediately formed a partnership with his preceptor. He practiced in Brooklyn and New York city until 1856, and the year before was the republi- can candidate for judge of Kings county.
Mr. Hammond had married Miss Lydia B. Torrey, daughter of Hon. Joseph W. Torrey, once a distinguished lawyer in Detroit, Michigan, and in 1856, partly for the improvement of her health, and partly to improve his own mind by travel and study, he went to Europe, traveling through England, Ireland, France, Ger- many and Italy, spending nearly a year at Heidelberg, where he paid particular attention to the study of civil law and comparative jurisprudence, returning in 1858.
He spent some months in his native town, and in December, 1859, went to lowa, reaching there with a cadaverous pocketbook, and having no clients. He commenced work as a civil engineer on a railroad at one dollar a day, being the rear chainman. In a little more than a year he was promoted, through all the intermediate steps, to chief engineer on another railroad, and remained such until this enterprise was stopped by the beginning of civil war.
Mr. Hammond then taught the languages one year at Bowen (now Lenox) Collegiate Institute, Hopkinton, Iowa, and subsequently for one winter was at the head of the Anamosa city schools. In that place, the shire town of Jones county, he settled in 1863, and resumed the practice of his profession. Two years after- ward he was married to Miss Juliet M. Roberts, daughter of Rev. William L. Roberts, D.D., of Hopkinton, and has by her one daughter.
In 1866 Mr. Hammond removed to Des Moines, and became associated with Judges George G. Wright and Chester C. Cole in conducting a law school, a private enterprise started that year. In 1868 the school was transferred to Iowa City, and was attached to the state university, Mr. Hammond removing to that city. Hle occupied the chair of chancellor of the law department until 1881, when he came to Saint Louis to become dean of the law school already men- tioned. That position he fills with eminent ability and to the great satisfaction of the friends and patrons of that department of Washington University.
As a law lecturer Doctor Hammond has been preeminently successful, and has attained a distinction which can only be accounted for on the ground of natural fitness and inclination for such work. When he entered that field of labor the methods of legal instruction were, even as pursued in the law schools, funda- mentally defective. The student was expected to acquire knowledge by rote. One after another were placed in his hands text books, which were written for the practitioner to serve as guides in the application of principles supposed to be familiar to him to the various facts and circumstances of particular cases. As
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well might a student of mathematics, who is yet ignorant of trigonometry and calculus, be given a treatise on construction of bridges or on railroad curves.
Realizing fully these defects in method and aim, Doctor Hammond sought to so shape his instruction as to train the student in the art of legal thinking. He regarded as of more importance the underlying principles of the law, and the correct classification of those principles, than the details of their varying appli- cation, for as to the latter the student may largely inform himself, while as to the former he is left almost without help from text books or decisions. The plan Doctor Hammond has adopted is to give in a lecture the history and develop- ment of the topic in hand, the law of its growth, so to speak, together with ref- erences to such text books and cases as will illustrate and amplify in detail the principles stated. These lectures are not formal written discourses, but rather oral expositions, based upon a brief written analysis, with such references as are deemed suitable for subsequent consultation, and such is his familiarity with the whole field of the law, and his aptness and accuracy in the expression of legal principles, that his lectures have the merit of clear and concise statement, coupled with the interest and animation of an oral explanation, which it is scarcely pos- sible to give in reading from a manuscript. He has sometimes supplemented his lectures by brief synopses, giving the main points referred to and the citations, to relieve his students of the tedious and purely mechanical labor of making extensive notes.
Probably there are few other men in this country who have given such careful thought to methods of legal instruction as has Doctor Hammond, and few, if any, have been more successful in originating and carrying out right methods. His object has been to train his students to be leaders in the profession, not mere machine lawyers. By precept and example he fosters a love for thorough inves- tigation and varied learning, and brings to his work a cultured and scholarly mind and a veneration for his profession which cannot but awaken in the student . an ambition to succeed nobly in it, and a contempt for the petty success of the shyster and charlatan.
Doctor Hammond has been a very busy man since he came to the West, and has performed a great deal of labor with his pen. In 1865 and 1866 he prepared a digest of lowa reports, a continuation of a work begun by Hon. John F. Dil- lon, and the two volumes, known as " Dillon and Hammond's Digest," had for some years great favor with the legal fraternity. In 1867 he started the "West- ern Jurist," at Des Moines, and conducted it until the summer of 1870. Since that date he has been a frequent contributor to other legal periodicals. The synopses of his lectures to law students, both in lowa City and Saint Louis, pub- lished for the benefit of the students, are numerous and able.
Professor Hammond has also done a good deal of literary and scientific work, being a contributor years ago to "Putnam's" and "Harper's" magazines, the "Continental Magazine," the " Round Table," and later prepared an introduction to the American edition of " Sandars' Justinian," published in Chicago, which was
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also published separately under the title of "System of Legal Classification of Hale and Blackstone in its Relation to the Civil Law," and received high praise from Sir Henry Maine in his last work on " Early Law and Custom."
He has also read papers at different times before the American Social Science Association, of which he was for some years one of the vice presidents. Several of this class of papers, and of his lectures and addresses, have been published in pamphlet form, and never fail to attract the attention of thoughtful people.
In 1871 Professor Hammond was associated with Hon. W. H. Seevers, late chief justice of Iowa, and Ilon. W. J. Knight, of Dubuque, in preparing the pres- ent code of Iowa, which was adopted by the legislature in 1873. The degree of doctor of laws was conferred upon him by Jowa College at Grinnell in 1870, and by his alma mater in 1877. For ten years before his departure from Iowa, in 1881, he was president of the State Historical Society of Iowa by annual reelections.
We have gathered a large portion of the data on which this sketch is founded from a volume entitled the "United States Biographical Dictionary and Portrait Gallery of Eminent and Self-Made Men -Jowa Volume," published by the American Biographical Publishing Company in 1878. That work thus speaks of our subject:
"Professor Hammond is gifted with a strong constitution, which alone could have borne him through the labors of his past life and sustained him through trials that would have discouraged a less energetic man. In personal appearance he is about the medium height; in manners, grave and dignified; a man of sterling worth, generous and genial, liberal in his sentiments, and social in his nature. * * He is favorably known throughout the country, and bids fair to stand in high places among the foremost men of the legal profession.
HON. ROBERT A. CAMPBELL. SAINT LOUIS.
R OBERT ALEXANDER CAMPBELL, lieutenant governor of Missouri, is a native of this state, being born in Pike county, September 2, 1833. His parents were James W. Campbell, a merchant and Presbyterian minister, born in Kentucky, and Sophia (Henry) Campbell, a native of South Carolina. His pater- nal great-grandfather, Alexander Campbell, was colonel of a Virginia regiment in the Continental Army, and in command at the battles of King's Mountain and Guilford Court House. He is honorably mentioned in "Chambers' New Ency- clopædia." The father of Sophia Henry, Malcolm Henry, was also a colonel in the same army. He came to Missouri, then a part of Missouri territory, in 1817, and he was a member of the convention, which, in 1820, framed the first constitu- tion of the state. The paternal grandfather of Robert also came to Missouri in 1817, and both families have been identified with the interests of this common- wealth from its organization.
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The subject of this sketch was educated at the Spring River Academy, this state, and the Illinois College, Jacksonville, and is a graduate of the latter insti- tution, class of 1851. He taught school during one vacation, while in college. Hle went to California in 1852 with his father and Hon. John Swift, his cousin, and returned late in 1854. Afterward he was clerk one year for I. N. Bryson, of Louisiana. He read law at Bowling Green, Pike county, with Hoo. James O. Broadhead, and was admitted to the bar in 1860.
He was in practice at Bowling Green when civil war began, and went into the army as adjutant of General J. B. Henderson's brigade, rank of captain, and on being mustered out in 1862, reenlisted and became major of the 49th Missouri infantry, which was on duty in this state, and in which he served till the war closed.
Major Campbell practiced law at Bowling Green, and subsequently at Louisi- ana until 1869, when he was elected president of the Louisiana and Missouri River railroad, and continued in that position until the road was leased to the Chicago and Alton Railroad Company. He was elected president of the Saint Louis, Keokuk and Northwestern railroad, and when it was partly finished, it was sold to A. B. Stone, of Cleveland, Ohio. In February, 1874, Major Campbell settled in Saint Louis, and took charge of the construction of the Lindall Hotel, and attended to the estate of Henry Ames' heirs, who were the owners of the hotel.
For many years the subject of these notes has been identified with the politics of his native state. At an early day he held a clerkship in the legislature for two or three sessions. In 1861 he was made secretary of the convention called to consider the state of the country, and held that post while that convention con- tinued to meet, a period of two or three years, it constituting, in fact, for a while, the government of the state.
Major Campbell was defeated for the state senate in 1864, and for the consti- tutional convention in 1865; was elected a member of the legislature in 1868, 1870, 1876 and 1878, and was speaker pro tem. in the thirtieth general assembly (1879). In that legislative body he was chairman of the committee on banks and corporations, and, was on the committees on judiciary, eleemosynary institutions and internal improvement. He took a very prominent part in legislative matters, and became quite popular, so much so that in 1880 he was nominated for the office of lieutenant governor, and elected by the usual democratic majority. He makes a first-class presiding officer.
Governor Campbell was originally a whig, a Fillmore man in 1856, a Bell and Everett man in 1860, and since the war has acted with the democratic party. He is a man of a good deal of influence, with whatever party he affiliates.
Perhaps there is no act of his life as a lawyer in which he takes more satis- faction, not to say pride, than that of the so-called "Test Oath Case," of The States vs. Father Cummings, which he carried to the supreme court of the United States, where the oath was declared unconstitutional.
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The wife of Governor Campbell was Margaret Blain, of Bowling Green, her parents settling there before she was born, the marriage being dated November 7, 1866. They have two children, Malcolm Henry, aged fifteen, and Ida, aged eight years.
HON. JAMES W. BURNES. SAINT JOSEPH.
C ONGRESSMAN BURNES is a native of Indiana; born August 22, 1833, in Morgan county. He is the son of James and Mary (Thompson) Burnes. His father was a prominent lawyer and judge of the circuit court in Virginia. He removed from Virginia to Platt county, Indiana, in 1837. James was educated in the common schools, and received special instruction. Hle entered Harvard Law School, and was graduated, receiving the degree of bachelor of laws, in 1852. He began practice in Platt county, Missouri. Hle was elected judge of the court of common pleas in 1868, which office he held five years. During the period he held that office he never had a case reversed by the appellate court. He was made circuit attorney in 1856, and held that office two years. In 1873 he removed to Saint Joseph, where he has been engaged in banking and railroading, and he also owns a large stock farm. He keeps a large herd of imported stock, to which he gives his attention considerably of late.
Judge Burnes is a gentleman of versatile talents; he has a comprehensive mind, active and analytic. He is a good logician; has a brilliant imagination, and a fine flow of language. He is public-spirited, and has always contributed to the building up of Saint Joseph and the encouragement of literature and art. He has been successful in all of his undertakings.
He married Miss Mary Ann Skinner. He has two children living, and six adopted children of his deceased brother.
HON. THERON M. RICE.
BOONVILLE.
T' HIERON M. RICE, late member of congress from the seventh district, and formerly judge of the first judicial circuit, is one of the leading members of the Cooper county bar. He is a born gentleman, high-minded and aspiring, and in every position of honor to which he has been appointed by the suffrage of his fellow citizens, he has shown himself to be every inch a man. He is a Buckeye by birth; a native of Trumbull county; born at Mecca, September 21, 1829. The western reserve, on which he was born, has been noted for thirty or forty years for its eminent statesmen, among whom were Hon. Joshua R. Giddings, Hon. Benjamin F. Wade, Hon. Milton Suttiff, Hon. Rufus P. Ranney, and last and greatest of all, Hon. James A. Garfield.
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The parents of Mr. Rice were Levi and Almira (Buttles) Rice, the former a native of Vermont, the latter of Connecticut. Levi Rice was a farmer, and reared his son in habits of industry, giving him an excellent opportunity to harden his muscles, as well as strengthen his virtues and his manly resolutions, having the most healthful moral surroundings.
At eighteen years of age the subject of this sketch entered Chester Academy, Geauga county, and for four years alternated between attending school and teaching, thus securing a fair education by his own exertions. The same period of time was now given exclusively to the mental drill of others, meanwhile devot- ing the spare hours at his command to Coke, Blackstone, etc, his preceptor being Hon. John Hutchins.
In 1853 Mr. Rice was admitted to the bar of his native state, and formed a partnership with his preceptor, at Canfield, where he practiced for five years. Believing that the West afforded a better field than Ohio for a young man of aspiring aims, and heeding the injunction of Horace Greeley, addressed to per sons of his age and stamp of character, Mr. Rice came to this state in 1858, and settled at California, Moniteau county, where he was in practice when civil war began, three years later. Ilis patriotism was aroused at once. He organized a company, which eventually became a portion of the 26th Missouri infantry, Colo- nel George B. Boomer, commander; followed the fortunes of that brave, historical regiment through the sieges of Corinth and Vicksburg, the battles of Iuka and Missionary Ridge, the operations around and capture of Atlanta, and the march to the sea, and thence through the Carolinas, our subject being mustered out as lieutenant colonel of the regiment. The historian of that gallant body of troops bears testimony to Colonel Rice's intelligent patriotism, soldierly bearing, and bravery and coolness on the battle field.
On leaving the army, the subject of this sketch returned to Moniteau county, and located at Tipton, where he had good success in his legal practice. In 1868 he was elected judge of the first judicial circuit of Missouri, and served the full term of six years. On the bench he was cool and clear in-judgment, and lucid in his logie, "and his course," writes the historian of Cooper county, " was such as to deepen the respect which was felt for him, and to strengthen the hold he had upon the confidence of his fellow men."
Notwithstanding his reluctance to mingle in politics, and his strong desire to follow steadily the practice of his profession, Judge Rice was nominated by the greenback party in 1880 for congress, and was elected. In the forty-seventh congress he served on the committees on public land and pensions. In 1882, without consulting him, he was the greenback candidate for supreme judge. There were two other tickets in the field, and in a triangular fight his party was left in a hopeless minority.
Since 1870 the home of Judge Rice has been at Boonville. He has a second wife and six children. The family worship at the Episcopal Church. The robust virtues, which the subject of these notes had an excellent opportunity to cultivate
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in his younger years, have been of incalculable benefit to him through the diver- sified scenes and spheres in which he has been called to act. Whether at the bar, on the battle field, on the bench, or in the halls of national legislation, he has stood erect, like a brave man, and presents to-day an unsullied, stainless character.
HON. B. GRATZ BROWN. SAINT LOUIS.
T HE leadership of the free-soil movement in Missouri has often been justly credited to B. Gratz Brown, who is at the present writing one of the most prominent men in Missouri. He came to Saint Louis at the age of twenty-three, and at once entered upon the practice of the law, and took a prominent position in Benton's free-soil party, then in its infancy. In 1852 he was elected to the Missouri legislature from Saint Louis, where he soon became prominent. In 1854 he was made editor of the Missouri " Democrat," and became conspicuous as an able and polished writer; his articles against the slave power were cogent and effective. He was reflected to the legislature in 1856, and continued his onslaught against the slave power. On the breaking out of the civil war he espoused the Union cause, and was one of the first to organize a regiment for the three months' service, and led them to the field. General Lyon consulted with him regarding the capture of Camp Jackson, in May, 1861. To the prompt action of the United States troops on that occasion is due in a great measure Missouri's remaining in the Union. After Colonel Brown's term of service expired he served with Gen- eral Curtis, and also rendered valuable assistance in organizing the state militia.
As a champion of emancipation, after a bitter contest in the Missouri legisla- ture in 1862-63, he was chosen United States senator. The election took place in 1863, when Colonel Brown and General John B. Henderson were elected. In the senate Colonel Brown was chosen chairman of the committee on public buildings and grounds; also of contingent expenses, and served on the committees on Union Pacific railroad, Indian affairs, military affairs and printing. His ability gained him distinction in the senate. On account of ill health he was forced to decline a reflection, which would have been freely given him, and Colonel Brown returned to private life in Saint Louis.
In 1870 the republican party in Missouri divided on the question of restoring to citizenship persons in the state who had been disfranchised. Colonel Brown took part with the liberals, and by combining with the democrats he was elected gov- ernor over McClurg by a majority of over 40,000. In 1872 he was nominated for vice-president with Horace Greeley. Ile has given freely in support of local institutions in the city. He exercised good judgment in his purchases of real estate, which were extensive and profitable, but later financial reverses forced him to give his attention anew to personal business and withdraw entirely from politics.
B. Gratz Brown is a native of Kentucky; born at Lexington May 28, 1826. His boyhood was spent in private schools, with a classical course in Transylvania
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