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 29
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Opportunity and environment have everything to do in shaping the career of every 111an. Had opportunity existed the subject of this sketch would have doubtless proved a soldier who would have won honors, if the influence of heredity is also a factor of weight in determining the future, for liis ancestors, with the possible exception of the first two who established the family in America, have all been men who hield some military office. His father, Alured Homer, hield the rank of Captain and was a leading citizen of Brimfield, Massachusetts. His biography is incorporated in the" History of Brimfield" as one of the worthies of that place. His father held the rank of Colonel, and during the War of 1812 liad command of the entire cavalry force of Massachusetts. The great grandfather of our subject was a patriot of the Revolution, serving, his country valiantly and well. Begin- ning with the "Lexington Aların," lie marched and fought to the surrender of Corn- wallis, eiglit years later. He entered the service as an Ensign and left it as a Captain. His father was also 110 less patriotic and was a member of the Committee of Correspond- ence of Massachusetts Colony. But as no alarum of war lias roused his country since Mr. Homer was a boy of fifteen, lie has had to be content with following in the foot- steps of his able pioneer ancestor of the Seventeenth Century, and in the bloodless field of legal contest has no less certainly won honors that did his ancestors who sought mili- tary fame.
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Mp3 Hower
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THE HISTORY OF THE BENCH AND BAR OF MISSOURI.
Mr. Homer was born near Brimfield, Hampden County, Massachusetts, July 29, 1849. He prepared for college at Hitchcock Free High School at Brimfield, and graduated at Williston Seminary, at Easthampton, Massachusetts, in the class of 1867. He then entered Amherst College and there graduated honorably in the class of 1871. The choice of a voca- tion in life is a matter of serious import. It may make or mar the career of a man. Mr. Homer was certainly most fortunate in this crisis of his history, for his subsequent life has demonstrated his complete adaptability to the work of his profession. After deciding to become a lawyer, he entered Columbia Law School of Columbia University, New York, and shortly after receiving his diploma went to Northampton, Massachusetts, and was there admitted to the bar in June, 1872.
Westward lay the course of Empire, then as now, and the newly created young lawyer decided to follow it. He arrived in St. Louis in the November following his admission to the bar in June, had soon made arrangements to begin work, and has continued in practice there from that time to this without change or removal.
Mr. Homer has an extensive fraternal, social and business connection through the vari- ous bodies of different kinds to which he belongs. He is a member of the Sons of the American Revolution; he is one of the founders of the flourishing New England Society of St. Louis, and for the past thirteen years has acted as its Secretary; he is recognized as a brother by the Ancient Order of United Workmen and the Legion of Honor, and is likewise a member of the Mercantile Club and one of the Examining Board of the St. Louis Law School of Washington University. In church work he is well known for his ac- tivity and benevolence, and for twenty-three years has been continuously an officer of Pilgrim Congregational or Central Congregational Church of St. Louis. He has been President of the Congregational Club, Director of the City Missionary Society of St. Louis for eleven years, or from its organization, and is now President of the last named society.
September 20, 1876, Mr. Homer was married to H. Louise Hart, of Hartford, Connec- ticut. They have two sons and two daughters, namely: Ruth Louise, born October 27, 1877, now a member of the class of '99 at Smith College, Northampton, Massachusetts; Roland Mather, born January 6, 1882, now of the class of '99, St. Louis High School; Mary Hart, born March 3, 1889, and Bradford Crouper, born January 14, 1895.
As a lawyer Mr. Homer has steadily risen from his admission to the bar in St. Louis in 1872, until at the present time when he has won reputation as an able lawyer and enjoys a large and lucrative practice. His integrity, unflagging industry and courage to maintain his convictions in every field of professional strife have commanded for him the esteem of his contemporaries, of the judiciary and the community in which he lives. He is now, in the prime of life, thoroughly equipped for the honest toil which his profession exacts; he may reasonably expect long years of success and usefulness to follow.
JAMES L. HOPKINS, SAINT LOUIS.
NE of the young attorneys of St. Louis whose natural powers give assurance of a suc- cessful career, is James L. Hopkins, who is a native of that city, where he was born in 1868. His father was Christian R. Hopkins. His mother's inaiden name was Anna Love, a daughter of James Love, an old pioneer of St. Louis. Mr. Hopkins obtained his
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education in the commnon schools of St. Louis, at Washington University, and received his degree of LL. B. from the law departinent of that institution. He was admitted to practice in the Missouri courts, October 7, 1889, at St. Louis, and to the United States Supreme Court, November 9, 1894. He is fully embarked in general practice in St. Louis, and is ambitiously forging to the front.
In fraternal circles Mr. Hopkins is recognized as a brother by the Masons and Knights of Pythias, being a member of Missouri Lodge No. 1, in the former order, and of Golden Crown Lodge, K. P., of which he is a Past Chancellor. He is also a prominent member of the Jefferson Club, and one of the most active young Democrats in the city. As a student of the law he has shown great assiduity, which has been rewarded by a thorough knowl- edge of that science. Of a mental constitution thoroughly adapted to the law, he evidences a literary tendency which has found expression in various contributions on legal subjects to different class publications. He has contributed numerous articles to both the Central Law Journal and the Encyclopedia of Pleading and Practice, and has written a number of essays on medico-legal matters, which indicate a knowledge of the subject which shows he has studied it deeply.
Mr. Hopkins was married in 1892. Miss Georgien Shields, a gentle and accomplished lady of Nashville, Tennessee, became his wife and has borne him one child.
GRANVILLE S. HOSS,
SAINT LOUIS.
MONG the attorneys whose distinguished merit has served to give the bar of Missouri A so enviable a prestige among the States, there is none whose ability commands a more cordial recognition than that of Granville S. Hoss, who, having but recently removed from Nevada, Missouri, is now an honored inember of the St. Louis bar.
Mr. Hoss was born in Pettis County, Missouri, October 29, 1850, and therefore, is now in the full vigor of physical and intellectual development. His paternal ancestors, of Ger- man origin, were early established in America, settling at Greenville, Tennessee. There the grandfather of the subject of this sketch was President of old Greenville College, illustrating in this honored position, the regard in which he was held by his fellows. Greenville was, also, the home of Andrew Johnson who, at that time, made the clothes for the college faculty. A coat made for President Hoss by the then unknown tailor is 110w in the possession of an aunt of Mr. Hoss, which coat she preserves as a memorial of her father and as a relic of the skill with the necdle displayed by the future President of the United States.
Samuel B. Hoss, the father of the subject of this sketch, was reared and educated at Greenville, and for a long period filled the chair of Latin in Greenville College. In 1840, he came to Missouri, settled in Pettis Comty and there engaged in farming. Three years thereafter he married Ahneda Snell (the mother of Granville), who was a member of a family resident in Missouri since the earliest pioneer days. Coming from Scott County, Kentucky, the Snells settled in Boone County, Missouri, while Missouri was yet a Terri- tory, and they were esteemed as among the most influential members of the Kentucky colony of Central Missouri.
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Born in this great commonwealth, of a parentage of sturdy, sterling and honorable worth, Granville early developed those frank, sanguine, philanthropic characteristics and those personal traits which, among Missouri's worthiest sons, have marked him as a dis- tinguished type. The foundation of his scholastic training was laid in the public schools and the superstructure erected at Westminster College, Fulton, Missouri. Recognizing tlie genius of his young pupil, one of the earlier instructors of Mr. Hoss secured from his father the promise that he would give liis son a collegiate training. This was fulfilled in part by the father, when the son, relying upon his own resources, wrought out his own educa- tion in self-reliance and in intellectual training. Granville was not wanting in that finer ambition which makes men great and pure; hence, he sought in the study of the law the attainment of the ends of which he dreamed. On leaving school, he entered the office of Scott & Stone at Nevada, Missouri, where he fitted himself for that profession, and in 1874, was admitted to the bar.
Until the following year he occupied the office of his preceptors, when he opened his own office and practiced alone until 1881. During this period he made exceptional pro- gress; his earnestness and ability winning the favorable opinion of both bar and public. At the dissolution of the firm of Scott & Stone in 1881, Mr. Hoss was, by Judge Scott, invited to take the place of the retiring partner, the firmi name of the new partnership being Scott & Hoss.
He was now established. . He had fought his life's greatest battle and had won. In the tranquil flow of the succeeding years, he sought the hand of Miss Julia, the beautiful and accomplished daughter of J. C. McBride, a well known farmer and educator of Monroe County, Missouri, and on October 10, 1883, they were united in marriage. Gifted witlı noblest traits, possessed of high literary culture and strong religious impulses, she had formed a lofty ideal of the aims and duties of life, and this ideal she saw realized in her husband. The affinity between this couple being one of sympathy in feeling and aspira- tion, nothing has ever arisen to break the happiness of perfect domestic concord.
The legal partnership formed in 1881 was, in 1886, dissolved by the death of Judge Scott, after which Mr. Hoss continued for three years to practice alone. Then, a second partnership was formed with his other legal preceptor, Hon. Wm. J. Stone, who at that time was making a record as one of the most brilliant members of the United States Con- gress.
Mr. Stone was, in 1892, elected Governor of Missouri, which, of course, rendered a dissolution of the partnership necessary. During Governor Stone's official term, Mr. Hoss continued his practice, which had become very extensive, at Nevada, and at the expiration of that time, both he and Governor Stone removed to St. Louis where they are now asso- ciated. The reputation of bothi having preceded them to the metropolis, they at once came into a good practice.
Like all men of character and well-defined opinions, Mr. Hoss has always been deeply interested in every political movement, though he has never entered the arena as a politi- cian. A Democrat, a member of the dominant political party in his State and County, a man of recognized ability and potent influence, he would doubtless have received any honor in the gift of his people had his ambition led him to take the initiative. Notwithstanding these facts, he has never accepted an office other than a wholly honorary or professional one. He served for two terms as City Attorney of Nevada, having been first elected in 1876 and served until 1880. During that period he was elected Prosecuting Attorney of Vernon County and served until 1882. Mr. Hoss has become an influential member of the Demo-
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cratic party and is now a member of the State Democratic Central Committee; and, in recent years, he has represented a constituency at scores of conventions-district, county and State. In fraternal circles lie is known as a brother in both Masonic and Pythian orders. In the foriner organization he is a Knight Templar and has served as a Master of Blue Lodge.
Mr. Hoss is strictly and thoroughly a lawyer. In rigorous precision of thought his training has been such as to enable him to move most readily to correct conclusions in con- sidering the most intricate legal propositions. A remarkable innate knowledge of human nature, united with long years of experience in the practice of his profession, make him one of the most formidable members of the bar of Missouri. He is a superb cross-exani- iner; in this country having no superior and but few equals. His ability in the marshaling of facts, and his generalship in the hot trial of a case are truly wonderful. In argument lie is keen, incisive, logical, powerful; in demeanor, frank, dignified, masterful.
The biographer may record the inerits of our subject as a practitioner with never so facile pen, yet should his work end here, lie would give us but a poor idea of the man-a vague, shadowy outline. It is not as a practitioner alone that we must look at him. Rightly to know him we must see him in all the relations of life-as son, as husband, as father, as friend, as patron, as citizen; in short, we must see him as he is-a inan in the highest sense of that liigh designation. Though modest and reserved among strangers, yet with close acquaintances this reserve is thrown aside, disclosing a genial companion whose rich vein of humor and keen appreciation of wit give delightful entertainment, while instruction is added from the wealth of a broad and richly cultured mind. He is one, every impulse of whose nature has its source deep down in a big, warmı, tender heart.
Four bright and interesting children, to whom Mr. Hoss is much devoted, have blessed his married life-two sons and two daughters: Granville S., Jr., Leroy K., Margaret Boone and Julia McBride.
LOUIS HOUCK,
CAPE GIRARDEAU.
F her men of thought and action to whom Missouri will ever staud indebted, there is none more worthy hier grateful appreciation than Louis Houck, of Cape Girardeau. One reason Missourians consider that they owe him much, is that perhaps no inan within hier borders has contributed more to the material development of the State than lie. He lias confined liis efforts largely to that wonderful and Nature-blessed section known as South- east Missouri, which contains the greatest diversity of good things the Universal Mother has given to man. With mild and salubrious climate and a variety of soils that will give any- thing asked of them, with her forests that yield a score or more of useful woods and her mountains which hold valuable stones of many sorts and a mineral richness including everything from iron ore to gold, her crying need has been railroads to develop and carry to tlie markets of the world her manifold richness. Louis Houck has given hier these, and on this account alone the people of that part of the great commonwealth owe him a debt of gratitude which rests alike on the people of the entire State. But while of late years Mr. Houck has devoted his attention to the construction of railway lines, his first success in life was achieved through the law, and lie is a lawyer of capability and experience.
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THE HISTORY OF THE BENCH AND BAR OF MISSOURI.
Louis Houck was born near Belleville, Illinois, April 1, 1841. His father, Bartholo- mew Houck, was one of the oldest Gerinan newspaper men in the country. He was pro- prietor of one of the first papers published in the German language in Illinois. Coming to America from Bavaria in 1829, in St. Louis he inet and married Anna Senn, who had reached this country from Switzerland in 1830. This marriage took place in 1837, and the couple went to reside near Belleville, where the subject of this sketch was born in 1841. In the same year they moved to a farin in Gasconade County, Missouri, remaining there until 1843, when they returned to St. Louis, where in 1848 the elder Houck began the publication of a German paper. In 1849 he became the editor of the Belleville Zeitung. Both parents are now dead.
Louis Houck received much of his earlier education in his father's printing office, than which there is no better school. But he was ambitious to obtain a complete education, and in 1858 he went to the University of Wisconsin at Madison, where he remained during that year and the next. Returning to Belleville he established the German Democrat, although it was with no intention of following editorial work as a career. He had chosen the law instead, and whenever his duties permitted, he prosecuted his legal studies. In 1861 he entered the office of Judge William H. Underwood and pursued his reading to a conclusion, and was admitted to practice by the Supreme Court of Illinois, in 1862, at Mount Vernon. In 1865, having disposed of his paper, he left Belleville and went to Cairo, Illinois, where he formed a partnership with Judge H. K. S. O'Melveny, one of the ablest lawyers of the southern point of the State. In 1868 the partnership was dissolved and Mr. Houck went to St. Louis, where he was appointed Assistant United States Attorney, General Noble then being the United States Attorney. In 1869 he went to Cape Girardeau, on which circuit he practiced successfully until 1881, when having become interested in railroad building, its demands on his time necessitated his retirement from the law.
While as a practitioner he displayed ability that placed him in the front rank of the profession, his legal reputation does not rest alone on his attainments as a practitioner. He is also the author of several legal works of value. In 1865 he published the first general work on the subject of "Mechanic's Liens;" in 1868 he published his work on the "Law of Navigable Rivers;"' and in 1871-72 he edited and annotated the first fifteen volumes of the "Missouri Reports." While his writing has been largely on law subjects, he has a literary taste and power that would have enabled him to succeed in the general field of literature. His last legal literary effort is in the form of a paper read before the Missouri Bar Association in 1882. Its subject was the "Federal Courts, " and as it is published in the Bar Association proceedings, any one who so elects can, through reading it, obtain a fair idea of Mr. Houck as a writer and a lawyer.
Since he retired from practice in 1881, he has engaged exclusively and extensively in railroad construction and management. The first road he built was the St. Louis, Cape Girardeau & Fort Smith, the mileage of which has been increased from time to time, until it now extends from Cape Girardeau on the Mississippi into Carter County, where it con- nects with the eastern terminus of the Current River branch of the Kansas City, Fort Scott & Gulf. This road is 100 miles long. He constructed and owns the St. Louis, Kennett & Southern, sixty-five miles long. The venture following this was the construc- tion and operation of the Chester, Perryville & Ste. Genevieve Railway, extending through Perry and Ste. Genevieve Counties. He built Houck's Missouri & Arkansas Railroad, reaching from Commerce to Morley, in Scott County, and which is now extend-
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ing to Moorehouse to a junetion with the Cairo branch of the Iron Mountain. His fifthi railroad ist he Kennett & Oseeola, twenty miles in length, extending from Kennett into Arkansas. Mr. Houek is perhaps the most eonspieuous projeetor and owner of rail- roads on his own aeeount in Missouri. Of the more than 200 miles of railway lines men- tioned, Mr. Houek owns all the stoek exeept as much as is necessary to make them cor- porations. He has made some of them pay, too, and will sooner or later make all of them pay, which is more than many roads long established and extending hundreds of miles through developed territory have done in recent years.
Mr. Houek married Mary Hunter Giboney, of Cape Girardeau, December, 1872. They have three children, namely: Irma, Giboney and Rebecca Ramsey Houek. The Giboneys are among the oldest families of Southeast Missouri.
WARWICK HOUGH,
SAINT LOUIS.
W ARWICK HOUGH, lawyer and jurist, was born in Loudoun County, Virginia, Jan- uary 26, 1836, is the son of George W. and Mary C. (Shawen) Hough. His earliest Virginia aneestor was John Hough, who removed from Bueks County, Pennsylvania, to Loudoun County, about the year 1750, and there married Sarah Janney, whose family had also moved to Virginia from Bueks County, Pennsylvania, and who was great-aunt to John Janney, President of the Virginia Secession Convention of 1861, and the presenter of the sword of Washington to Robert E. Lee. John Hough was a grandson of Rieliard Hough, who eaine from Cheshire, England, to Pennsylvania, under the auspiees of William Penn in the ship "Endeavor," landing in Philadelphia, in 1683. After the death Richard Hough, William Penn wrote of him: "I lament the loss of honest Rieliard Hough. Such men inust needs be wanted where selfishness and forgetfulness of God's mereies so inucli abound."
Both the parents of Judge Warwiek Hough were born in Loudoun County, Virginia- his father, April 17, 1808, and his mother, December 25, 1814-and they were married there in 1833. In 1838 they removed to Missouri, Judge Hough's father, who was at that time a merchant, bringing with him a stoek of goods, which he disposed of in St. Louis. He then moved overland with his family to Jefferson City, which a few years earlier had been made the eapital of Missouri. At Jefferson City, he continued in the mercantile line until the year 1854, when he retired from business pursuits. Prior to this he liad been prominent and influential in Missouri polities, and had served with distinetion as a member of tlie State Legislature. In 1854 lie was the candidate of the Demoeratie party for Con- gress and engaged aetively in the political controversies of the day, which were then of a very fervid eharacter and plainly foreshadowed the great eontest of 1860-1865. In eon- junetion with Judge William B. Napton and Judge William Seott, then on the Supreme Benel of Missouri, and Judge Carty Wells, of Marion County, Mr. Hough participated in framing the famous "Jaekson Resolutions," introduced by Claiborne F. Jackson (after- ward Governor) in the Missouri Legislature in 1849, which resolutions occasioned thie eel- ebrated appeal of Col. Thomas H. Benton from the instructions of the Legislature to the people of Missouri. These resolutions looked forward to a conflict between the Northern and Southern States, and pledged Missouri to a co-operation with her sister States of the
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South. The leading Democrats of Missouri were then known as Calhoun Democrats, chief among them being David R. Atchison, William B. Napton, James S. Green, Carty Wells and Claiborne F. Jackson, and the bitter personal hostility existing between Calhoun and Benton was much intensified by these resolutions, the authorship of which Colonel Benton attributed to Calhoun. The result of the canvass was Colonel Benton's retirement from the United States Senate.
Soon after making his unsuccessful canvass for Congress in 1854, Mr. Hough was appointed by Governor Sterling Price a member of the Board of Public Works of Missouri, which was then charged with the supervision of all the railroads in the State to which State aid had been granted. For several years he devoted his entire time to the public interests in this connection, and rendered valuable service in conserving the interests of the State in these various railroad enterprises. He was frequently tendered positions in the government service, which would have necessitated his removal to the National Capital, but declined to accept such appointments. He was for a time Curator of the Missouri University, and, in conjunction with Dr. Eliot, of St. Louis, did much to benefit that institution. He was one of the founders of the Historical Society of Missouri, and a public man who contributed largely to the formulation of legislation essential to the development of the resources of the State. He had a knowledge of the political history of the country unsurpassed by that of any one in the State, and a superior knowledge also of general history, constitutional law and literature. He died at Jefferson City, February 13, 1878, respected and mourned not only by the community in which he lived, but by the people of the entire State. His wife, Mary C. Hough, daughter of Cornelius and Mary (Maine) Shawen, was the first person to receive the rite of confirmation in the Episcopal Church at Jefferson City. She was a woman of great refinement, of rare amiability and sweetness of temper, devoted to her hus- band, home and children, and at the time of her death, which occurred at Jefferson City, January 17, 1876, it was said of her: "The works of this quiet, Christian woman do fol- low her. They are seen in the character of the children she raised and trained for useful- ness, in the number of young persons whom she influenced by her precept and example, to a higher life and nobler aim, and in the grateful remembrance of the many who have been the recipients of her kind attentions and unostentatious charities."
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