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 30
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Warwick Hough, the son of these worthy parents, was reared at Jefferson City and obtained the education which fitted him for college in the private schools of that city. He was a precocious student, and at sixteen years of age, when the principal of the school lie was attending was compelled by illness to abandon his place, he assumed charge of the school at the request of its patrons and conducted it to the end of the term, teaching his foriner school-mates and hearing recitations in Latin and Greek, as well as in other branches of study. At fifteen years of age, he had acted as Librarian of the State Library while the Legislature was in session. Entering the State University of Missouri, he was grad- uated from that institution in the class of 1854, with the degree of Bachelor of Arts, and three years later received his Master's degree from the same institution. As a collegian, he was especially noted for his fondness of the classics and of the sciences of geology and astronomy. He could repeat from memory page after page of Virgil and nearly all the Odes of Horace. In his senior year, he invented a figure illustrating the gradual acceler- ation of the stars, which was used for years after he left college by his preceptor, whose delight it was to give him credit for the invention. His superior scientific attainments caused him to be selected from the graduating class of the University in 1854 to make
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some barometrical observations and calculations for Professor Swallow, then at the head of the Geological Survey of Missouri. Later, he was appointed by Governor Sterling Price, Assistant State Geologist, and the result of his labors in this field were reported by B. F. Shumard and A. B. Meek in the publislied geological reports of Missouri.
Before lie attained his majority, he was chief clerk in the office of the Secretary of State, and he was Secretary of the State Senate during the sessions of 1858-59, 1859-60 and 1860-61. Meantime, he had studied law, and in 1859 was admitted to the bar. In1 1860 he formed a law partnership with J. Proctor Knott, then Attorney General of Mis- souri, which continued until January of 1861, when he was appointed Adjutant-General of Missouri by Governor Claiborne F. Jackson. As Adjutant-General he issued, on the 22d of April, 1861, the general order under which the military organizations of the State went into encampment on the third day of May following. It was this order which brought together the State troops at Camp Jackson, St. Louis, the capture of which precipitated the armed conflict between the Federal authorities and Southern sympathizers in Missouri. Prior to his appointment as Adjutant-General, Judge Hough had had military experience as an officer in the Governor's Guards of Missouri, in which he had been commissioned First Lieutenant, January 17, 1860. He commanded the Governor's Guards in the Southwest Expedition in the fall and winter of 1860, under Gen. D. M. Frost. His appointment as Adjutant-General gave him the rauk of Brigadier-General of State troops and liis occupancy of that position continued until after the death of Governor Jackson, when he was appointed Secretary of State by Gov. Thomas C. Reynolds. He resigned the office of Secretary of State in 1863 to enter the Confederate military service, and January 9, 1864, lie was commissioned a Captain in the Inspector General's department and assigned to duty by James A. Seddon, Confederate Secretary of War, on the staff of Lieut .- Gen. Leonidas M. Polk. After the death of General Polk, he was first assigned to duty on the staff of Gen. Stephen D. Lee, and afterward served on the staff of Lieut .- Gen. Dick Taylor, com- manding the Department of Alabama, Mississippi, East Louisiana and West Florida, with whom he surrendered to Gen. E. R. S. Canby, receiving his parole May 10, 1865.
The proscriptive provisions of the Drake Constitution prevented him from returning at once to the practice of his profession in Missouri, and until 1867 he practiced law at Memphis, Tennessee. After the abolition of the test oath for attorneys he returned to Missouri and established himself in practice at Kansas City, entering at once upon a bril liant and distinguished career as a lawyer. He soon became recognized as one of the leaders of the Western bar, and in 1874 was elected a Judge of the Supreme Court of Missouri.
During his ten years of service on the Supreme Bench-in the course of which he served two years as Chief Justice of that distinguished tribunal -lie was conspicuous for liis learning, his scholarly attaimnents and uncompromising independence. His style was sententious and pre-eminently judicial, and his opinions, which are noted for their perspic- uity, are perhaps the most polished rendered by any Judge who has occupied a place on the Supreme Bench of Missouri in recent years. The style and quality of liis judicial labors may be judged by reference to his opinions in the following cases:
Sharpe vs. Johnson, 59 Mo., 557; S. C., 76 Mo., 660; Rogers vs. Brown, 61 Mo., 187; Valle vs. Obenhause, 62 Mo., 81, dissenting (his views in this dissenting opinion were afterward approved by the Court in Campbell vs. Laclede Gas Company, 84 Mo., 352, 378; and Valle vs. Obenhause was formally overruled in Dyer vs. Wittler, 89 Mo., 81, after
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Judge Hough left the bench); Turner vs. Baker, 64 Mo., 218; Smith vs. Madison, 67 Mo., 694; Noell vs. Gaines, 68 Mo., 649, dissenting (the views announced by Judge Hough in his dissenting opinion in this case were subsequently adopted by the Supreme Court in 1896, and the case of Noell vs. Gaines was overruled in Owings vs. Mckenzie, 133 Mo., 323) ; McIllwrath vs. Hollander, 73 Mo., 105; Buesching vs. St. Louis Gas Light Company, 73 Mo., 219; State ex rel vs. Tolson, 73 Mo., 320; State vs. Ellis, 74 Mo., 207; Fox vs. Hall, 74 Mo., 315; Skrainka vs. Allen, 76 Mo., 384; and Fewell vs. Martin, 79 Mo., 401.
His independence in refusing to lend his judicial sanction to the spirit of repudiation of municipal obligations, with which many of the counties of Missouri were, for a time, infected, was the most potent factor in preventing his re-nomination, and in depriving the State of the more extended services of one of its ablest and most accomplished jurists. What was, however, a loss to the State was a gain to Judge Hough, for immediately after his retirement from the bench, he removed to St. Louis, and since 1884, has enjoyed a large and lucrative practice in that city.
The State University of Missouri conferred upon him the degree of Doctor of Laws in 1883. Politically, Judge Hough has always affiliated with the Democratic party, and held the views entertained by Mr. Calhoun as to the nature and powers of the Federal Govern- ment, and the reserved rights of the States. He is widely known to the Masonic fraternity as a thirty-second degree Scottish Rite Mason.
He married in 1861, Miss Nina E. Massey, daughter of Hon. Benjamin F. Massey (then Secretary of State of Missouri), and Maria Withers, his wife, of Fauquier County, Virginia, whose great grandinother was Letitia Lee, daughter of Philip Lee, grandson of Richard Lee, who came to Virginia in the time of Charles the First. In December of 1861, Mrs. Hough joined her husband, who was then, with Governor Jackson and other State officers, with General Price's army in Southwest Missouri, and remained South during the entire period of the Civil War, making her home at Columbus, Mississippi, in the military department to which her husband was assigned after entering the Confederate service. Of Judge Hough's five children, two are sons and three are daughters. His eldest son, War- wick Massey Hough, was graduated from Central College, of Fayette, Missouri, in the class of 1883, while Bishop E. R. Hendrix was President of that institution, as one of the honor men of his class, winning two prizes, one for elocution and the other for oratory. He is now a lawyer of recognized ability, practicing his profession in St. Louis, and for several years was Assistant United States District Attorney. Judge Hough's second son, Louis Hough, was graduated at the Missouri Medical College, of St. Louis, in 1891, and is now Chief Surgeon of the St. Geronimo Railroad, in process of construction from the Tehaun- tepec Railroad, in the Republic of Mexico, to the State of Guatemala.
Judge Hough has two brothers and three sisters. His oldest brother, Dr. Charles Pinckney Hough, is a graduate of the Missouri Medical College, of St. Louis, and 110W lives in Salt Lake City. He has high rank as a physician and surgeon, and has had extended observation and experience in the hospitals of England, France and Germany. The young- est brother, Arthur M. Hough, is a lawyer and resides at Jefferson City, Missouri, the place of his birth. He ranks well at the bar, has taken much interest in Masonry, and has been Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Missouri. The eldest of Judge Hough's sisters married Dr. George B. Winston, of Jefferson City, a physician of note, and survives him. His second sister is the wife of Captain John P. Keiser, of St. Louis, and the third, Georgie B. Hough, is unmarried.
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GEORGE HUBBERT, NEOSHO.
THE Huguenots of France were remote ancestors of a number of Missouri's lawyers, and to these brave and fearless protesters against oppression, George Hubbert of Neosho traces his origin. In his case, the Huguenot stock was intermingled with the blood of the Lees of Virginia, a noteworthy combination, to which can perhaps be traced the ease witlı which he lias succeeded in the profession of his choice.
He was born in Barry County, Missouri, on October 14, 1844. His father, William Hubbert, served for several continuous terms as Clerk of the County and Circuit Courts of Barry County, before the war; then he entered the Southern army, doing duty on inany fainous fields, and at the close of the conflict returned to his home at Cassville, and as late as 1873 succeeded his son George as Probate Judge of Barry County. His death occurred in Arkansas in 1895. Nancy Lee was the maiden name of George Hubbert's mother. She was the daughter of Miller Lee, of Barry County, was of English origin, her ancestors having originally settled in the western part of Old Virginia, and belonged to the famous Lees of that State, who have figured so prominently in the history of the Republic. Slie died several years prior to the decease of her husband. Matthew Hubbert, the grandfather of the subject of this sketch, a Tennesseean, was descended from those Huguenots, who to preserve their religious liberty came to our shores from France two hundred years ago, landing in the Carolinas and spreading thence through the adjoining States. Matthew Hubbert and Miller Lee emigrated to Missouri in 1839, settling in Barry County. Botlı branches of the family have been Missouri farmers of the old style for more than fifty years, wresting a livelihood from the soil through natural pluck and persistency. With such a sturdy parentage, it is small cause for wonder that George Hubbert has attained his present high position among the lawyers of Southwestern Missouri.
He obtained his education in the common schools of Barry County, to which was added the practical and business training acquired in newspaper, printing and Circuit Court Clerk's offices and mercantile pursuits, up to the war of 1861, after which he studied law in the office of Judge Joseph Cravens, being admitted to the bar at Cassville, in 1868, by Judge John C. Price. After practicing at Cassville for five years, he opened an office in Neoslo, where he has since practiced continuously.
Although not an office-seeker in the political sense of the terin, Mr. Hubbert at the time of his removal to Neosho, hield the office of Probate Judge, having been chosen for that position at a special election, the first held in the State after the removal of the dis- abilities imposed on Confederates by the "Drake Constitution." Mr. Hubbert, thoughi his opponents were a war Democrat and a Republican, won by more than twice the 11um1- ber of votes obtained by botlı of the other candidates. This was a signal triumph and a testimonial of the confidence of his fellow-citizens, extended early in his professional career, of which any man might well be proud, and which his later life lias fully justified. 'Though often since invited to accept nomination for office (which would be equivalent to election), he has continually declined, preferring to devote his time and talents entirely to the practice of law. There is no doubt that his choice in this matter is a wise one, because lie has demonstrated for nearly thirty years that as a lawyer hic has ability above the com- 111011 average of men, combined with an energy and perseverance which will not admit of failure. His practice is an extensive and lucrative one, embracing in its scope some of the largest interests in his section of the State, as well as the best and most influential citizens.
Geo Hubbert
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Like his father, George Hubbert, who was then little more than a youth, fought on the Confederate side in the late Civil War, enlisting in 1862 in Mitchell's Regiment, Eighth Missouri Infantry, D. M. Frost's Brigade, C. S. A., serving until the end of the struggle and taking part in many of the battles fought in the Louisiana and Arkansas campaigns. When Gen. John B. Clark, in command of the brigade, surrendered at Shreveport, Louis- iana, in 1864, young Hubbert doffed his uniform as Lieutenant of Company I, and with him the war was ended and all its bitterness. His broad patriotism and appreciation of the valor of his former foes were evinced in high degree by an address at Neosho in 1885, on the life and services of the late General Grant. This address was widely circulated by the local G. A. R. organization, as one of the highest tributes by a Confederate, to that magnanimity of the Federal soldier which made possible a reunited and happy country. His military discipline was of much value to him later in life as a lawyer, he evincing in business a correctness of method and a degree of decisiveness which perhaps he would not have had were it not for his army experience.
Like all men who are patriotic enough to give volunteer military service, he takes an intense interest in the welfare of his county and town, and therefore can always be found fostering any movement for the advancement of Newton County and Neoslio. His civic pride is pronounced and the progress of the community is as gratifying to him as his own professional success. As a Mason, Odd Fellow, Ancient Order of United Workman and member of other fraternal organizations, he has proved himself fraternal and generous to an unwonted extent, standing high in the local councils of the various orders, though in later years arduous professional duties have largely absorbed his time.
Mr. Hubbert's marriage occurred in August, 1872, when he wedded Miss Mollie Full- bright, of Springfield, at Cassville. She was a daughter of David Fullbright, of Greene County, Missouri, the Fullbrights being one of the best known families in Southwest Mis- souri. There are four children by this union, two boys and two girls, the only married one among them being one of the boys.
ELLIOTT MCKAY HUGHES,
MONTGOMERY CITY.
IKE many another lawyer who has displayed an ability and achieved a success worthy L of a place in this volume of the elect of the Missouri bench and bar, Judge Elliott Mckay Hughes is derived from Virginia-Kentucky stock. His father, Elliott Hughes, born in January, 1809, was a native of Bourbon County, Kentucky, and was a son of Thomas Hughes, who was a native of Virginia, but inade a settlement in Kentucky when it was still a wild and untamed wilderness. At Jacksonville, Illinois, Elliott Hughes was married to Jane Sandridge McConnell, in January, 1836, both the contracting parties having moved to Morgan County, Illinois, with their respective families, a short time previous to the inar- riage. Jane Sandridge McConnell was the daughter of John McConnell, and like her hus- band, came from Bourbon County, Kentucky, where she was born in April, 1811. Five years after the marriage, or in 1840, the parents moved westward, settling in Montgomery County, Missouri. Shortly after the settlement they moved to the adjoining county of Lincoln, and in 1845 again moved to Montgomery County. It was during their residence in Lincoln County that their son, the subject of this sketch, was born, November 7, 1844.
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Young Elliott was educated in the common schools of Montgomery County, and at High Hill, Montgomery County, Missouri. As so many prominent lawyers of this country have done, he taught school as a means to achieve his ambition - the law. He was a teacher of schools in Adams County, Illinois, Pike County, Illinois, and Montgomery County, Mis- souri, and then went to Jacksonville, Illinois, where he entered the office of Morrison & Epler to study law. Both were lawyers of ability, and Mr. Epler for the past thirty years has been Judge of the Circuit Court of Jacksonville. When the young legal aspirant completed his reading he returned to Montgomery County and was there admitted to practice in April, 1867, by Judge Gilchrist Porter. He located at Danville, the county seat of Montgomery County, and at once began practice, enjoying a reasonable degree of success from the start. The people of his county, recognizing his fitness for the office through his former avocation as a teacher, in 1870 elected him School Superintendent of Montgomery County, a position he held for two years. At the end of his term, in 1872, the office of Prosecuting Attorney for the county having been established, he was elected to that position, which he filled with such conscientious devotion to duty that he was twice re-elected, serving through three terms.
Judge Hughes lived at Danville until January 1, 1887, when he took his seat on the Circuit Bench, to which he had been elected in the fall of 1886. This necessitated his removal to Montgomery City, the largest town of Montgomery County, and there he has since resided. Upon his election in 1886, his circuit was composed of the counties of Montgomery, Audrain, Pike and Lincoln. In 1892, liis term having expired, he was elected as his own successor, the boundaries of his circuit having been changed in the meantime to consist of the counties of Montgomery, Warren, Audrain, St. Charles and Lincoln.
Judge Hughes is a Democrat and has been since he cast his first vote. He is infli- ential in secret society circles, being a Royal Arch Mason, an Odd Fellow and a member of the A. O. U. W., and has held about all the offices in the lodges to which he belongs.
Judge Hughes was married at St. Charles, Missouri, December, 11, 1872, to Miss Virgie F. Potts, daughter of Jolin J. Potts, a native of Loudoun County, Virginia. Judge and Mrs. Hughes are now surrounded by a most interesting family of seven children, six sons and one daughter, named respectively, Virginia, twenty-four; Guy, twenty-two; Will, twenty; Samuel, eighteen; Elliott, sixteen; Charles, fourteen, and Robert, eleven. The daughter, Virginia, was married September 15, 1897, to Ernest S. Griffith, of Minneapolis, Minnesota.
In temperament Judge Hughes is calin, cool and patient, characteristics of the highest value on the bench. He likewise has that discriminating, analytical turn of mind which well fits him for the position he occupies. His integrity is unquestioned and his course on the bench has won him the highest commendation of the people he serves, A fair idea of the esteem in which he is held inay be gathered from the following editorial extract, which appeared in the Lincoln County News of a recent date: "As his term on the bench is drawing near its end, a number of leading citizens of the circuit are exercised over the question as to whether Judge E. M. Hughes will or will not be a candidate to succeed him- self. The News cannot say whether or not Judge Huglies las signified his intention of again becoming a candidate, but of this it is certain: No wiser, abler, fairer or more upright Judge ever sat on this bench. Lincoln County is for him and will be as long as he
E. M. Hughes.
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chooses to aspire to the place. Our patriotic citizens are impressed with the necessity of preserving the purity of our judiciary, and that is why they are anxious that Judge Hughes should continue to occupy the place he does."
GEORGE WASHINGTON HUMPHREY,
SHELBINA.
G EORGE WASHINGTON HUMPHREY, of Shelbina, is a native of Illinois, having been born on a farm near Springfield, August 21, 1865. The Humphreys are of Irish extraction, though long resident of this country. William Henry Humphrey, the grandfather of George W., was a native of Henry County, Kentucky. Our subject's mother was Mary S. Rodefer, a native Missourian, who was born in Marion County. Her father was David Rodefer, a native of Virginia, who early emigrated to Missouri. The Rodefers were of German origin. Mary S. Rodefer was married to William Thomas Humphrey, the father of our subject, in Lewis County, Missouri, in 1852. The latter was born in Henry County, Kentucky, and with his career is connected one of the most romantic and thrilling episodes in the history of Missouri.
In the fall of 1862 he was a resident of Palmyra, and his connection with what is known as the "Palinyra Massacre" was the most vivid recollection of his after life. Tradi- tion tells that on that fatal morning of the 17th of October, 1862, ten inen were seized as hostages and lined up to be shot. They were nearly all leading citizens of Palmyra, inen who had tried to avoid the strife of the conflict, and were certainly not rebels. There was at least one man of family in the lot. Rather than that he should suffer and liis wife and children mourn, a young man with a heroisin and unselfishness unequalled since the days of Damon and Pythias, stepped forward and offered himself as a sacrifice in his place. William T. Humphrey was that man of family. But. tradition is inaccurate, tending as always toward the romantic and ideal. It is true that Mr. Humphrey was condemned to be shot, and that another died in his place, but the latter did not offer himself of his own volition, as a "vicarious atoneinent" in satisfaction of a butcher's thirst for blood.
The true story, as gathered from Mr. Humphrey and others, is to this effect: In the fall of 1862, Colonel Porter, with his Confederate forces captured the town of Palinyra. After he evacuated it, it was occupied by General McNiel, infamous forever because of the crime he committed there. Shortly thereafter, a man named Osborne, an ex-soldier of the Third Missouri Federal Cavalry, but reputed to have been later a spy, disap- peared. McNiel supposed he had been captured, and sent a message to Colonel Por- ter, commanding the Confederates in the vicinity, to the effect that if Osborne was not produced by October 17, that he (McNiel) would execute ten of the best citizens of Palmyra. Major John N. Edwards says that Porter never received the message until the awful act of retaliation had been committed, and could not have produced Osborne, as he knew nothing of him, had he received it in time.
The fatal day arrived and Mr. Humphrey was one of those who was ordered to prepare for death. When his wife heard of his condemnation, she made such frantic and eloquent appeal to McNiel and was so persistent that he finally consented to let the husband go on her account. But his Provost Marshal, a man named W. R. Strachan, who entered into the
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details of the execution with the spirit and enthusiasm of the real butcher, swore that nothing less than the original complement of ten men would satisfy him. When he received notice of MeNiel's action he was at the jail where the ten men were already preparing for execution. The "weakness" of his superior offieer did not please him at all, and when lie inade the declaration that some one would have to die in Humphrey's place, Reed, tlie jailer, said: "If that is so, for God's sake seleet some man without a family!" Just then young Hiram Smith, who had come to town to see one of his friends who was of the con- demned, and who had just elimbed the stairs to the second story of the jail, was seen by Straelian. The latter inserted Smith's name in the death warrant where Humphrey's had been erased, stepped before the unhappy visitor and began reading the death warrant. Smith had been condoling with the other condemned men in the cells, and was weeping when the Provost Marshal began to read his death warrant. He dried his eyes at once, walked to a near-by bucket and took a drink of water, and again facing his executioner, said quietly and without a tremor in his voice: "I can die as easily as I took that drink of water." And so he did, too.
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