USA > Missouri > The history of the bench and bar of Missouri : With reminiscences of the prominent lawyers of the past, and a record of the law's leaders of the present > Part 19
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In Judge Adams all these essentials seem to have combined in a marked degree. His knowledge of business affairs and of the methods or rules which govern in their conduct - whether such knowledge has been derived from intuition or from careful observation and study -is regarded by all who know him as unusually comprehensive and accurate.
Naturally social in disposition and enjoying contact with his fellow men, he has learned well how to measure them and to understand the motives which influence their conduct. These advantages, added to a clear and profound knowledge of the law, and a mental energy which forbids relaxation until satisfied that no part of the field of investigation has been neglected or overlooked, gives to his work, when finished, such evidence of thorough- ness and strength as almost to insure it against even the danger of assault. Whether in advising a client, in drafting a contract or legal document of any kind, in preparation of the case for trial, in conducting its trial, or in the presentation of it by argument or brief- whatever the matter in hand - he devotes to it, all the energy and fidelity at his command, thorough concentration of thought, tireless study of detail, and a masterly discernment and analysis of every question either of fact or law, which could in any measure influence or control it. To do well whatever was worth the doing at all, seems to have been the rule of his professional life, and to have been uniformly and faithfully adhered to, no matter how diligent or exhaustive the study or labor it demanded.
It is too soon as yet to attempt a review of his service on the Federal Bench. From the manner, however, in which he has so far discharged the duties of that office it is evi- dent he is still guided and controlled by this same rile which so largely contributed to his eminent distinction and success as a member of the bar.
When Judge Adams concluded to marry, he returned to his New England home and selected the sweetheart of liis yontlı. She was Miss Emma Richmond, of Woodstock, Vt., a refined and accomplished lady, to whom he was married September 10, 1870.
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WILLIAM A. ALDERSON, SAINT LOUIS.
A MONG the representative younger members of the St. Louis bar, one whose evident talent marks him for future high preferment, is the gentleman whose name heads this article. He was born in the old town of St. Charles, this State, October 1, 1856. His parents were pioneers even in that long settled section. His father, Benjamin A. Alderson, was born in Harford County, Maryland, and was by profession a civil engineer. With Colonel Latrobe, he engaged in building the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, and was chief engineer in the con- struction of the Southern levees and nearly all the old railroad lines through the South, especially in Tennessee, Mississippi and Louisiana. This line of business proved profit- able, and after a time he retired from his professional duties, and settling down at St. Charles, devoted the latter years of his life to caring for his property interests there. He was a man of magnificent physique and great mental powers, in his day, and lived to the advanced age of eighty-five, dying at St. Charles, May, 1895.
William A. Alderson's cognate ancestry gave promise of the calling he adopted and to which his talents so well fit him. His mother was, prior to inarriage, Mary Lisle Baker, who was born in Culpepper County, Virginia, but was reared at Winchester. Her mother was the sister of those eminent citizens of St. Louis, Hamilton R. and Archibald Gamble, than whom no greater lawyer ever graced the bar of Missouri than the first named. It will be remembered that he stood without a peer at the head of the Missouri bar, and that during life he was the recipient of signal honors at the hands of the peo- ple, having served not only as Governor, but was likewise one of the Judges of the Missouri Supreme Court. As his mother was the niece of these two eminent men, Mr. Alderson is their grand-nephew.
In the public and private schools of St. Charles, which are justly noted, our subject received his early educational training. His father being familiar with and a believer in the excellence of the schools of his native State, sent him to West Nottingham Academy, Cecil County, Maryland, where he prosecuted the work of preparation for college. When sufficiently advanced he entered Lafayette College at Easton, Pa., where he was a member of the class of 1878. Having set his heart on the law as his profession, he began its study at once, but being a young man of mettle and ambition, determined to be self- sustaining thenceforward. Hence, after he left college he taught school and did newspaper work for a period of three years. Then he entered the office of the Hon. Theodoric F. Mc- Dearmon, a leading and able lawyer of the St. Charles bar, and pursued his legal studies to a conclusion. Admitted to practice at St. Charles, October 1, 1878, on the fourth day of the same month, he reached Kansas City, which he had selected as a location. For a short time he was in the office of Holmes & Dean, then one of the most successful legal firms of that remarkable city. Judge W. H. Holmes, the senior member of the firm, is now dead, while Mr. O. H. Dean is now of the well-known firm of Warner, Dean, Gibson & McLeod. Two months after reaching the city he formed a partnership with Edward L. Scarritt, now a Judge of the Circuit Court of Jackson County, an arrangement that proved both pleasant and profitable.
In 1885 Mr. Alderson was made First Assistant City Counsellor of Kansas City, an office that under the circumstances proved a most onerous and responsible one. He held that office from 1885 to 1889, the period that included the highest point reached in that
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city's great "boom," when its litigation and legal affairs were complicated and extensive, because of the extensive street improvements and the building of cable railway lines. Dur- ing these four years he tried all of Kansas City's litigation in the trial and appellate courts, and the reports of the State and Federal Courts will show the result of his labors. Many propositions of municipal law were first asserted and established in this State in the cases he conducted for Kansas City. Among other noted ones in which he was the repre- sentative of that city, was the famnous case of the Worswick Manufacturing Company and Isaac Kidd of Cleveland, Ohio, against Kansas City and George C. Hale, Chief of Fire Department, instituted to stop the use of the swinging harness used in the fire department of that city. The same plaintiffs had already secured judgments against Buffalo, N. Y., Pittsburg and Allegheny, Pa., but Kansas City, through the advice of its young Counsellor, refused to surrender to the monopoly. The litigation was carried on heatedly for three years, and evidence was taken in different parts of the United States. It was contended by the plaintiffs that under a patent which they held, no one could use any kind of swinging harness in fire departments without paying royalty to them. Mr. Alderson asserted and insisted that the patent was void because of want of novelty, and succeeded in securing evidence to sustain the proposition for which he contended, and after elaborate presenta- tion of the case before Judge John F. Phillips, District Judge, and Mr. Justice Brewer, who was then United States Circuit Court Judge, every proposition set forth by the city was sustained and the patent of the plaintiff was declared void. The plaintiffs had boasted that their revenue under the patent had been $50,000 a year. The resistance of Kansas City had stopped the payment of royalty to the plaintiffs by other cities, and the day fol- lowing the decision the Worswick Manufacturing Company closed its doors and made an assignment. The case was appealed to the Supreme Court of the United States and was there affirmed. This was a causas celebre and attracted the attention of the cities through- out the country, as almost every fire department used the appliance; and many municipal- ities, including St. Louis, contributed largely to the expense of the litigation, their interest being in having the case decided against the validity of the patent.
The work done in this important case and the ability shown in conducting it, won the highest praise from his brother practitioners. An examination of the records of the Appel- late and Supreme Courts shows that he was connected with much other important litigation besides this, both while First Assistant City Counsellor and afterward.
In newspaper work done before he began practice, Mr. Alderson displayed a capacity as a writer which caused his friends to urge that he adopt journalism instead of the law. The talent of the writer is peculiar, in that it nearly always strives to express itself, resist- ing all efforts at repression, and the existence of such prompting is generally evidence that the impulse is based on genuine natural qualifications. It was this literary tendency that finally took Mr. Alderson away from Kansas City. For some time he had inade a close study of the subject of "Judicial Writs and Process," and in 1894 he combined liis literary ability and legal knowledge and wrote a treatise upon that subject. For such purpose lie went to New York City in 1894, and was engaged for fourteen monthis on the work, which was published by the well-known law book publisliers, Baker, Voorliis & Co., of that city. Justice Brewer of the United States Supreme Court said of it that he did not know of any text book that covered the same ground and commended it to all practicing lawyers. Judge T. A. Sherwood of the Missouri Supreme Court said of it: "Its lucid statement of prin- ciples on a subject than which there is perhaps none more intricate in the law, will very
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much lighten the work of bench and bar." It met the most favorable criticism from the law press, and Francis Fisher Kane, in a lengthy review of the book in the "American Law Register," says: "This most interesting volume is the first complete survey that has been made of the law of process. The author has traversed the entire territory and has given us a philosophical treatise covering all that is included within his subject."
Returning to St. Louis in May, 1895, Mr. Alderson formed a partnership with Walter F. McEntire, which was maintained until 1897. The firm gained rapidly in the confidence and appreciation of the people and in prestige. A most important affair that engaged the attention of the firm, was the litigation growing out of an inefficient School Board and inadequate school laws in St. Louis. The activity of Alderson & McEntire virtually resulted in the abolition of the old Board, and the enactment of a law by the Legislature containing wise and modern provisions. Since the dissolution of the firin of Alderson & McEntire, Mr. Alderson has practiced alone.
After returning to St. Louis, Baker, Voorhis & Company, on the reputation made by his book upon "Judicial Writs and Process," offered Mr. Alderson a large sim for the preparation of a new edition of Beach's work upon Receivers, which task was undertaken and completed in February, 1897, when "Alderson's Beach on Receivers" was issued from the press. The comments of lawyers, judges and legal periodicals upon this book are most complimentary and strong. As edited, revised and extended by Mr. Alderson, the book is pronounced the best work upon that important subject.
Mr. Alderson is a member of the Masonic, Pythian, Royal Arcanum and Order of the Golden Chain fraternities. He is popular with all classes of society, and has that geniality and kindness of manner that is decidedly rare in the great rush of latter day activities. His liberality of mind is only exceeded by his generosity of heart. To his unselfish kindness many a man is indebted. He is a man free from the selfish trait so often found in those who have been more successful than their fellows; and this characteristic has endeared him to those with whom he comes in daily contact.
Mr. Alderson was married October, 1880, to Mabel Haines, of Muncie, Indiana, who had a short time prior to the marriage moved to Baxter Springs, Kansas, where the inar- riage took place. Her father, S. A. Haines, was a prominent citizen of Muncie, Indiana, and lived the last of his years at Baxter Springs, Kansas, where he died in 1894. The couple have four children, three boys and one girl.
WILLIAM STEPHEN ANTHONY, SAINT LOUIS.
W ILLIAM STEPHEN ANTHONY, the talented young Assistant United States District Attorney for the Eastern District of Missouri, was born at Potosi, Washington County, Missouri, March 10, 1864. The Anthonys comprise one of the oldest families in Southeast Missouri. Mr. Anthony's paternal grandfather, who was of German extraction, made his way laboriously through hundreds of miles of wilderness, migrating from North Carolina and settling in Southeast Missouri, this perilous trip being made very near the first year of this century. Even North Carolina, his native State in that day, was not progressed beyond a primitive or frontier condition and to leave it and encounter the hardships and dangers of the terra incognita beyond the Mississippi required a degree of courage that is rare
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enough among those accustomed to the conveniences and ease of the civilization of our day. Southeast Missouri was then an almost unbroken wilderness, and when the grandfather first settled in Washington County, about its only inhabitants were wild beasts and Indians equally as wild. He built the first sawmill west of the Mississippi. His wife, the grand- mother of our subject, still survives her pioneer husband, having reached the advanced age . of eighty-four.
Mr. Anthony's father, John M. Anthony, was a well-to-do farmer and stock raiser . of Washington County. He was an influential citizen of that section and was honored by his fellow citizens by responsible official positions, serving both as Sheriff and as Collector of Washington County. His wife, the mother of William S., was, in her maidenhood, Martha W. Johnson, a member of a family that emigrated to Washington County from Kentucky. She is yet living, but the husband and father died in 1886.
After the usual preparatory courses, William S. Anthony finished his education at Washington University, St. Louis, graduating from that institution in 1885. Long before that date, however, he had set his heart on adopting the law as a profession, and he com- pleted the literary courses of the University only to take up the legal course as a student in that department known as the St. Louis Law School. He graduated in 1887 and returning to his home at Potosi, within a few months was actively embarked in the strife of local political warfare. He went out as a leader, as his party's candidate for Prosecuting Attor- ney, and was elected. This was in 1888, and on the completion of his term he was again elected to the same office. So fearlessly did lie adininister the responsible office and such was his diligence and impartiality that at the end of his second term he, without doubt, could have been elected to any office within the gift of the people of Washington County, had he consented to serve instead of retiring, as he did, from the field in 1890. As a pub- lic official he was governed by thic conviction that laws were enacted to be active and effective and that it was and is the duty of every officer to enforce them, and in this con- nection it is notable that he was the only Prosecuting Attorney in Southeast Missouri who attempted and did enforce the local option law.
But the young lawyer was not to retire permanently from the public service as he calculated. After a short time spent in private practice, on April 1, 1894, he was appointed by Attorney General Olney First Assistant United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Missouri. This lias necessitated the establishment of headquarters in St. Louis, where he has been located since his appointment.
Mr. Anthony's selection for his present place is an honor which inen of maturer years and greater professional experience inight well envy and strive for. It demonstrates that though young in years he is endowed with an ability and a reliability that is a promise of still higher successes. By these qualities he has risen to the requirements of his office and to the fullest expectation of liis superior officers. He is ambitious, is a diligent student of the law's science, and his seniors, who arc acquainted with his capabilities, believe that he will yet make a reputation worthy the aspirations of any man.
On JI111c 19, 1895, Mr. Anthony was united in marriage with Miss Fannie Casey, of Washington County. They have one child, a daughter, who has been named Lucille. Mrs. Anthony belongs to a prominent and well known family of Southeast Missouri and is the daughter of Dr. Frank Casey of Washington County.
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PAUL BAKEWELL, SAINT LOUIS.
HE name Bakewell is English, and the name and family are closely connected with T Derbyshire, England, a town in that county bearing the family name. Robert Bake- well, a great-uncle of our subject, was a man of such character and accomplishments as to entitle him to a place in the Encyclopedia Britannica, where considerable of the family his- tory will be found. Hon. Robert Armytage Bakewell, the father of the subject of the pres- ent biography, was gifted with the indomnitable purpose, the rugged but sterling character which is peculiarly Scotch, and the hard, good sense to balance other commendable qualifi- cations, which is likewise a characteristic of that people. Judge Bakewell was born, 1826, in Edinburg, Scotland, his father being an Episcopal clergyman, for many years located at Norwich, England. The son adopted the law as a profession, and while still a young man came to America. In St. Louis he inet and married Marie Anne Coudroy de Laureal, the mother of the subject of this sketch. This marriage was consummated May 3, 1853. The bride was of French blood and was born at Guadaloupe, West Indies, August 26, 1832. She was the daughter of a family of wealthy planters of that island, was reared in luxury and educated at the family seat at Versailles, near Paris, France. In 1848 France sum- marily abolished slavery in her colonies and this wrought the ruin of the West Indian planters. Consequent upon such great changes in their fortunes, the Coudroy de Laureal family came to St. Louis, and in that city Mr. and Mrs. Edward Coudroy de Laureal still reside, aged respectively eighty-eight and eighty-nine.
Hon. Robert A. and Marie Anne Bakewell had eight children, all of whom are yet living. When the St. Louis Court of Appeals was organized, Hon. Robert A. Bakewell was appointed one of the Judges and administered justice from the bench of that court with wisdom and impartiality for a period of nine years, or until January, 1885.
Paul Bakewell was born at St. Louis, August 21, 1858. He was educated at St. Louis University and then began, in 1876, the study of law in the office of his uncle, William Bake- well, of Pittsburg, Pennsylvania. William Bakewell was one of the first in the United States to give exclusive attention to patent law, and was then and is now one of the foremnost lawyers in that specialty in the country. In the fall of 1877 the nephew returned to St. Louis and entered the St. Louis Law School, graduating in May, 1879, and in the fall of that year lie was admitted to practice in the State and Federal Courts. At first he entered the general field of practice, and therein found his full share of experience in its various branches, such as real estate, commercial, admiralty and probate law, and even some experience in the criminal department. The latter came under the head of "crimes against the United States," and the most important case was that of the United States vs. Wynn, reported in 9 Federal Reporter, 886, and 11 Federal Reporter, 57. Wynn was charged by information with robbing the mails. Mr. Bakewell appeared as the defender of Wynn, and in the trial for the first time raised the question that the crime was "infamous " within the ineaning of the United States Constitution (Article 5 of Amendments), and that consequently tlie de- fendant should have been indicted. Both the United States District Court and the United States Circuit Court ruled against this contention, but later, the Supreme Court of the United States declared Mr. Bakewell's position right and in express terms decided that the lower courts erred on this point in the case of United States vs. Wynn; see ex parte Wil- son, 114 United States, page 426.
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About 1881, as his practice began to drift into patent, trade mark and copyright law, he concluded to become a specialist and therefore began to practice exclusively those branches, a department for which he was thoroughly fitted by the course of preparatory study prosecuted in the office of his uncle at Pittsburg. That it pays to become a specialist is shown by the way in which Mr. Bakewell has risen. He has been fully impressed with the necessity of study and has devoted himself diligently to the mastery of those three branches of law, with the result that he is considered an authority in that department. As he goes into a case equipped with a full knowledge of the law bearing thereon, he almost always carries it to a successful termination.
In 1886 he was admitted to practice before the Supreme Court of the United States. Most of his practice is before the Federal Courts. Since 1882 he has had all the cases he could handle in his specialty. He has cases in all parts of the country, and has appeared in some of the most important causes in his specialty that have appeared before the courts. His success is demonstrated in the records and decisions of the various courts. He has been for two years, and yet is, a member of the Committee on Patent Laws of the American Bar Association, which must be considered an evidence of his standing with the legal pro- fession.
Mr. Bakewell was married at St. Louis, April 30, 1884, to Eugenia Stella McNair, daughter of Antonie de Reilhe McNair, and grand-daughter of Alexander McNair, the first Governor of Missouri, incumbent from 1820 to 1824. The couple have seven children, all living, and named respectively: Marie McNair Bakewell, Eugenia Stella McNair Bakewell, Paul McNair Bakewell, Edward Lilburn McNair Bakewell, Claude John McNair Bakewell, Nancy Catherine McNair Bakewell, Cornelia Josephine McNair Bakewell.
Mr. Bakewell stands high as a citizen as well as a lawyer. He is in thorough accord with any movement of genuine reform or having for its end the betterment of mankind. He is a highly educated, highly civilized gentleman, with noble aspirations, wide sy11- pathies, charitable nature, is interested in good government and is a Democrat in politics, supporting the Cleveland administration. Some conception of his erudition and complete knowledge of the department of the law he has so studiously investigated may be obtained by reading his very able and interesting discussion of "The Development of Patent Law," to be found elsewhere in this volume.
CLAUDE RUSSELL BALL,
MONTGOMERY CITY.
THE well known young lawyer whose naine heads this biography, combines in his veins the blood of two of the oldest, mnost virile and influential families in Northeast Missouri -the Balls and Dyers. Both families are pioneers of that section of the State, coming of course from Virginia, as did nearly all the leading families of that section. On the paternal side, Mr. Ball's grandfather, James Ball, born in Fauquier County, Virginia, in 1787, mar- ricd a Miss Smith, a native of Henry County, Virginia. He was a soldier of the War of 1812 and died in St. Louis County, Missouri, in 1852. His son, John Edmund Ball, was born in Virginia and came overland with his father's family when they emigrated from that State to Missouri. They made the trip in a "half moon " Virginia wagon and found the end of their long journey at Bridgeton, St. Louis County, where they settled December 5,
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1835. There John Edmund Ball met and married, April 17, 1850, Elizabeth H. Dyer, daughter of David Patterson Dyer, and Nancy R. Sammons, his wife, both natives of Henry County, Virginia, the former born in 1792 and the latter in 1794. David P. Dyer was a man of high ability and great force of character. Like Mr. Ball's paternal grandfather, he was a soldier of the War of 1812, and afterward represented his county in the Virginia Leg- islature.
Some time after their marriage in 1850, Mr. Ball's parents removed from St. Louis County to Lincoln County and there on the farm lying on Big Creek, near Troy, he was born, January 3, 1864. The family continued to reside at this point until 1869, when they removed to Montgomery County, where the parents are yet living, contemplating in old age the success of the large family of children they reared. The son was educated in the common schools of Lincoln and Montgomery Counties, and at McCune College, Louisiana, Missouri. After he graduated at the college he secured a situation in the tobacco factory at Louisiana and then taught two terms of country school, at the same time whenever opportunity offered, prosecuting the study of law under the tutelage of his brother, Hon. David A. Ball, of Pike County, one of the ablest and best known lawyers of Northeast Missouri. He was admitted to the bar by Judge Elijah Robinson, at Louisiana, in May, 1885, which event was followed by his location at Clarksville, Pike County, to practice law. He remained there but a year, however, removing in August, 1886, to Danville, county seat of Montgomery, the county which joins Pike on the south. In 1889, Montgomery City having been made the county seat, he removed thither, and has succeeded in building up a splendid practice there. From 1888 to 1897 he was in partnership with his brother, the third member of his family who is a lawyer, under the style of Ball & Ball.
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