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 36
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HENRY CLAY LACKLAND, SAINT CHARLES.
Nº O family has borne a more useful or honorable part in the social, military, political and
religious affairs of this country than the Lacklands and the family's various closely related branchies. The family has proved exceedingly vital and is therefore very prolific and long-lived, and few of either its sons or daughters have failed to give a good account of themselves. Especially in war and the law have they proved useful and successful, and spreading throughout Maryland, Virginia and Missouri, wherever the family name has been planted, it has produced men and women in the highest degree useful to society, citizens who were an lionor to their country. From a little brochure printed by the subject of this sketch in 1894, for the benefit of his grandehildren, it is learned that the first Laeklands known in this country were two brothers, Jerry and Jolin, who some time prior to the Rev- olution, were planters near Roekville, in that part of Frederick which in 1776 became Mont- gomery County, Maryland. Jerry moved to Virginia prior to the Revolution and his descendants are both numerous and prominent in that State. Jolin, who was the great- grandfather of H. C. Lackland, of St. Charles, was the ancestor of many Maryland and
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Missouri Lacklands and some of the Virginia branches. He married Marjery Edmonstone, whose great-grandfather, Col. Ninian Beale, was one of the most prominent figures in the early history of Maryland. To John Lackland and Marjery Edmonstone, his wife, were born six children. James, the eldest, the grandfather of our subject, was born in 1756. It is said of him that he was "tall, handsome, commanding, of unusually handsome person, of strong will, tenacious upon points of honor, somewhat imperious, generally sedate and dignified, and impressed in later years with a strong sense of his religious responsibility." In 1775, at the age of nineteen, he made a journey on liorseback from Maryland through the then wilderness to Kentucky, where he entered a quantity of land. Returning home, he was commissioned by the Council of Safety, May 14, 1776, Second Lieutenant of a company with which he served in the Revolution. He lived on a splendid plantation near Rockville, and was the owner of a mill and numerous slaves. That he saw the evils of slavery is proved by the fact that he became a convert to Jefferson's emancipation theories, and by his will, made in 1812, provided that each of his slaves and their descendants should become free when they reached a certain age. James Lackland married Catherine Lynn, daughter of David Lynn, who came from Dublin, Ireland, about 1717, and afterward was County Judge of Frederick County, Maryland, and under appointment of the Maryland General Assembly was one of the three Commissioners (Archibald Edmonstone and Henry Wright Crabb, both likewise ancestors of this subject, being the other two) who laid out the town of Georgetown, District of Columbia, in 1751. David Lynn sent three sons into the Army of Independence. To the marriage of James Lackland and Catherine Lynn was born four sons and four daughters. James Cooper, the fourth son, father of H. C. Lack- land, was born in Montgomery County, Maryland, in 1791, and served in the War of 1812 as Lieutenant and in Montgomery County, 1817, was married to Matilda Crabb, who died at St. Charles in 1862. To this marriage was born eleven children, nine sons and two daughters, of whom Henry Clay was the eighth son.
In the fall of 1833 James C. Lackland, with his wife, nine sons, his slaves and part of his household goods, started to move West. The removal, which was more like that of a patriarch of ancient times than aught else, was made in wagons and one carriage (for the mother and younger children), there being no railroads in those days. Thus they crossed the Alleghany Mountains, on the summit of which the celebrated "Shower of Stars," of November, 1833, occurred. At midnight the whole heavens were illuminated with flying, shooting, brilliant meteors, and the negroes were struck with panic, believing the Judge- ment Day had come. At Wheeling, West Virginia, the cavalcade embarked on the steamer "Dove," and thus made its way to St. Louis. From there they proceeded to Florissant, St. Louis County, where in beautiful Florissant Valley they located on a farmi. But while the large family and their servants had made the long journey successfully, they were destined to meet with misfortune in their new home. In the summer of the second year after the settlement, the three eldest sons sickened with diseases incidental to a new country and died within three weeks of each other, and are buried at Fe Fe, St. Louis County, where many Lacklands lie. Two men slaves also died the same summer. The other negroes were freed as they reached the proper age, in accordance with the will of 1812, and one of these yet lives in St. Charles. Prior to the location of James C. Lackland ill St. Louis County, his brother George, with his family, settled there and shortly after he came his brother Dennis located there. The descendants of these three brothers have played a conspicuous part in the development and progress of that part of the State.
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Rufus J. Lackland, President of the Boatmen's Bank, St. Louis, is a son of Dennis Lack- land, and William H. Thompson, Cashier of the same institution, is also closely related to the Lacklands.
In the spring of 1836, James C. Lackland, with his family, moved to St. Charles, where the subject of this sketch and a brother yet live. Of Mr. Lackland's mother it only need be said that she came of a family no less excellent and prominent than the Lacklands. Her father, Gen. Jeremiah Crabb, married a daughter of Col. Charles Greenbury Griffith, a name known and respected in all parts of Maryland and Virginia. Both Colonel Griffith and Gen. Jeremiah Crabb served with distinction in the Revolution. The latter, the maternal grandfather of our subject, was a man of high character and prominence. He volunteered at the age of fifteen as a patriot soldier, and after the Revolutionary War received a commission as General from Washington. He helped put down the "Whiskey Rebellion" and was a member of the Second Congress. Of all Mr. Lackland's ancestors, it may be truthfully said that they were men and women of noble character, of the highest endowinent mentally, morally and physically, rigidly honest and upright and deeply sensible always of the obligations they owed themselves, their families, their fellow-men and God.
Henry Clay Lackland was born in Montgomery County, Maryland, August 26, 1830, and was therefore but three years old when the family migrated to Missouri. His first schooling was received at St. Charles, and when sufficiently advanced he entered St. Charles College, which is yet one of the flourishing educational institutions of that city. There he pursued his studies with the intention of subsequently entering the law, and graduated in 1848. Some time later he entered the office of Robert H. Parks, one of the able lawyers of the earlier history of the Missouri bar, and was next admitted to the bar, at St. Charles, by Judge Carty Wells, in 1852. The State was thinly settled and there was comparatively little litigation among the peaceful inhabitants of those times, so the young man did not at once attempt a regular practice. Instead, he secured employment as a surveyor, and during the next two or three years engaged in making locations and running grades for the North Missouri (now the Wabash) and the Missouri Pacific Railways, then building. Next he taught school in the county, and was Professor of Mathematics in St. Charles College from 1856 to 1859. He had begun practice and that practice now has covered a period of almost forty years in St. Charles. From 1872 to 1875 he practiced in partnership with William F. Broadhead, brother of the distinguished James O. Broadhead, of St. Louis, but since then he has practiced alone. His practice is almost entirely civil, although lis experience includes a number of criminal cases of importance. One such, remembered by the older inhabitants, was the State vs. Hubbard, an outgrowth of the great civil con- flict. Hubbard was charged with murder and arson, in connection with the raid of the noted rebel guerrilla, Bill Anderson, and his destruction of Danville, Missouri. As the defendant's attorney the Court named Mr. Lackland, who succeeded in interesting the learned and able Uriel Wright, and although the case was bitterly contested, Hubbard was cleared.
Mr. Lackland has received numerous honors at the hands of the people among whom lie lives. Prior to the war he was School Commissioner of St. Charles County, and in 1875, when the people selected thicir ablest men to draft a new State Constitution, he was one of the two chosen from his Scuatorial district. In 1878 lic was elected to represent his county in the State Legislature, serving until 1881. He has also serving as City Attorney and City Councilman of St. Charles. He is a "Sound Money" Democrat.
B. D. Le
Legal Pubushing To. St. Louis.
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THE HISTORY OF THE BENCH AND BAR OF MISSOURI.
Mr. Lackland was married to Miss Nannie Harden at Washington, Franklin County, Missouri, in 1856, and who died at St. Charles in March, 1877, in the thirty-ninth year of her age, deeply lamented by all who knew her. Mrs. Lackland bore her husband three sons, namely: James Cooper Lackland, who went to Texas in 1878 at the age of twenty- one and engaged in the banking business, being now Cashier of the State National Bank at El Paso, Texas. He married Septima Price, of Fort Worth, Texas, and has two chil- dren. The second son, Joseph Harden, married Theodosia H. Shore, and is now editor of the Cosmos at St. Charles. He has one child. The third son died in St. Charles on Sep- tember 4, 1888, of malarial fever, in the twenty-first year of his age. He was a youth of noble character and great promise, and was admired and loved by all who knew him.
Mr. Lackland is a gentleman of grave and dignified bearing, although affable and kindly in his intercourse with his fellow-inen. His is a patrician face and he impresses the beholder as a man of refinement and scholarly tastes, and such are his characteristics. He stands high in his profession and is a careful and thorough lawyer.
BRADLEY D. LEE, SAINT LOUIS.
T THE late Bradley D. Lee was born in Litchfield County, Connecticut, March 24, 1838, and came of that courageous and freedom-loving Puritan stock which braved death in the Western wilderness rather than submit to English tyranny, and when the tyrant followed and sought to coerce, drove him from American soil. His grandfather, David Lee, was a soldier of the Revolution. His son, Henry B., the father of our subject, was wedded to Mary Austin and to them was born five sons. Three of these they gave to their country in its hour of peril. Only one of them-the one who is the subject of this biography-did they ever see again. Edwin R., who was a Captain of the Eleventh Con- necticut Regiment, was killed in the battle of New Berne, North Carolina, in 1862, while Henry B., Jr., who was First Lieutenant of the Seventh Connecticut Infantry, commanded by Colonel (now United States Senator) Hawley, fell before Richmond in one of the last engagements of the war. Bradley D. entered service as First Lieutenant of the Nineteenth Connecticut Infantry. He enlisted September, 1862, and was shortly after reaching the front, assigned by President Lincoln to general staff service with the rank of Captain. He served in the Army of the Potomac until the close of the war, and on being mnustered out was brevetted Major for meritorious conduct.
His father was an extensive farmer, was also a builder and was engaged in other busi- ness enterprises and gave his son good educational advantages. With a common school training as a basis, he entered Williston Seminary and then the office of Hon. Hiram Goodwin, at Riverton, Litchfield County, to read law, after he had completed the prescribed course at the seminary. He had been with Mr. Goodwin less than two years when he enlisted in the army. On the declaration of peace he returned home, and within a short period, entered the law department of Yale College, whence he graduated in 1866 with the degree of Bachelor of Laws.
With his diploma, and actuated by a lofty ambition to succeed, he joined the tide that was just then setting so strongly westward and landed in St. Louis. A partnership was formed with Daniel T. Potter and he began the practice which was destined to be
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crowned with such marked success. The firm of Potter & Lee existed about a year, to be followed by a partnership with B. F. Webster (Lee & Webster). On the dissolution of tliis association at the end of three years, Mr. Lee for two years practiced alone. From 1872 to 1878 he was associated with Elmer B. Adams, and this partnership arrangement was finally ended by the election of Mr. Adams as Judge of the Circuit Court. Hon. Jef- ferson Chandler succeeded Mr. Adams, and the firm of Lee & Chandler continued up to the removal of the latter to Washington in 1881, when Mr. Lee, Col. D. P. Dyer and John P. Ellis formed a co-partnership under the style of Dyer, Lee & Ellis. In 1889 Colonel Dyer withdrew and the firm continued as Lee & Ellis up to January 1, 1892, when the strong legal combination of Lee, McKeighan, Ellis & Priest was organized.
The more than a quarter of a century that Mr. Lee practiced in St. Louis was crowned with a success that any lawyer might well have envied. His beginning was mnodest and he attained his position as a lawyer solely by merit, industry, learning and ability. . Many of those who had business in the courts believed him to be without a peer as a general prac- titioner. They knew he was absolutely honest and wholly sincere, and therefore they were ready to follow his advice and to act on his opinion. He learned his profession in the only school that makes thorough-the school of actual experience and practice, and it is not surprising therefore that he was considered a master.
While his oratory may have lacked extreme polisli or flowery figures of speech, it from such lack gained in strength, conciseness and power. He was an excellent trial lawyer, as well as industrious and painstaking in the preparation of his client's side of the case and at the same time closely studied the salient points of the opposing side. In that great departinent of legal work, the cases which never reach a court, he was pre-eminently suc- cessful. He had the honesty and courage to reveal to his client the exact status of liis case and if wrong to tell him so. Thus it was that he amicably adjusted many cases that would have otherwise proved disastrous to those who sought his counsel. His sincerity was no less apparent than his good judgment was certain and it was seldom that his legal advice was not followed. But once convinced that a client was right, that his cause was just, his whole soul and sympathy were enlisted and he brought to bear his deep knowl- edge of the law, his long legal experience and all the powers of liis eloquence and ability to win the canse. With the greatest activity, perseverance and even entliusiasin he pursued the case to a conclusion, fortified by a sincere belief in the justice of the fight and a courage tliat never faltered or flinchied. He was noted for his legal versatility and was what is known as an "all around lawyer." His knowledge of the science of his profession was deep, and he was well versed in the law's technicalities, in rules of procedure and prac- tice of the various courts. As an advocate and speaker lie was earnest but pleasing, force- ful but courteous. In manner he was genial, of attractive personality, and was therefore popular in a wide circle of acquaintances.
November 23, 1870, Mr. Lee was united in marriage to Miss Belle F. Waterinan, daughter of Hon. A. P. Waterman, of Beloit, Wisconsin. They had two children-Edwin W., born July 1, 1875, and Wayne, born October 14, 1880. The widow survives her liusband.
Major Lee died on the 10th day of May, 1897. He had been in poor health for a year or two. On January 20 he went with his wife out of the city for the purpose of rest and with the belief that his healthi miglit be restored. He returned the latter part of March to the city, but was never able to return to liis office after leaving it January 20. His death
7. H. Lahmann
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was universally regretted by all classes of people. Even those who did not know him joined in the general mourning. The meeting of the bar of St. Louis to consider and pass reso- lutions upon his life and death was one of the largest that has assembled upon any similar occasion for many years, if not at all. The feeling of loss and regret was deep and sincere at the meeting, and the remarks inade evidenced inore than usual feeling and attachment to the deceased. The address of Clinton Rowell on that occasion was particularly noticed as being impressive, touching and affecting, and his tribute to the memory of Major Lee was of the highest order.
FREDERICK WILLIAM LEHMANN, SAINT LOUIS.
T INDOUBTEDLY one of the most brilliant and accomplished lawyers at the St. Louis bar is Frederick William Lehmann, whose splendid attainments have elevated him in less than eight years to a most enviable position among the lawyers of this State.
Mr. Lehmann was born February 28, 1853, in Prussia, and was brought to America when a child of three or four years, by his parents. This was about 1856 or 1857. The family lived in various places, and Mr. Lehmann, as a boy, attended the public school in Cincinnati, and country schools in Ohio and Indiana. Afterward he studied at the college at Tabor, Iowa, and graduated there in June, 1873. He was still a student when he made up his mind to adopt the legal profession, and as celerity of action has always been a marked trait of his character, he secured several books and began to study while yet keep- ing abreast of his class at college. It was by such means that he qualified in the law, and therefore a few months before he graduated at Tabor College, he was admitted to the bar in Toemah County, March, 1873.
Being thus versed in the law's literature and theory, with a solid general education as a basis, he crossed into the neighboring State of Nebraska, locating at Nebraska City. There he remained until February, 1876, when he removed to Des Moines, Iowa. His progress in his profession at Des Moines was rapid. His talent attracted the attention of several large corporations, and he was soon doing a splendid practice. It was in Decem- ber, 1890, that he came to St. Louis as the General Attorney of the Wabash Railway, holding this responsible position up to June 1, 1895. On that date he became a member of the firm of Boyle, Priest & Lehmann, that association still being maintained.
Since he came to St. Louis his rise has been rapid and his success conspicuous. He has been connected with several of the greatest legal battles fought in the courts of St. Louis in recent years, and while his professional career deserves a more detailed record than is given here, modesty is one of his most notable characteristics, and on that account only a brief sketch is possible. But he is a lawyer in the highest degree, able, broad, resourceful and of splendid intellect, and is one who is destined to leave an admirable record of his genius on the pages of the history of the Missouri judiciary.
Mr. Lehmann had always been, up to the campagin of 1896, an active Democrat. In that year he dissented from the financial views of his party platforin, and by virtue of his natural ability as an organizer rose to a first position among the "Gold Standard" dissenters of the Democracy. He showed remarkable resources in that field, and his eloquence on the stump was recognized as a most hurtful factor by the opposition.
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THE HISTORY OF THE BENCH AND BAR OF MISSOURI.
Mr. Lehmann was inarried December 23, 1879, at Des Moines, Iowa, to Miss Nora Stark. They have three children, named respectively, Sears, Frederick W., Jr., and Jack.
JAMES M. LEWIS,
SAINT LOUIS.
JAMES M. LEWIS was born in Polk County, East Tennessee, in 1858, and was reared and educated in the mountainous section of the State, widely celebrated for grandeur and beauty of scenery, and among a class of people noted for industry, intelligence and integrity. He is of Scotch-Irish ancestry and was named after his maternal grandfather. His early years were passed on his father's farm and in attending the common school of the district. Later on he was a student at the University of Tennessee, where lie received a classical education. At the age of nineteen he left his native State and came to St. Louis, and entered himself as a student in the law office of his relative, ex-Senator John B. Henderson. He was admitted to practice as attorney and counsellor at law in 1879 in the City of St. Louis. Soon after his admission to the bar he removed to Louisiana, Pike County, Missouri, and began the practice.
In the spring of 1882 Mr. Lewis returned to St. Louis and became associated in the practice with his preceptor, ex-Senator John B. Henderson, then the most extensive prac- titioner at the St. Louis bar. His ability, as the result of superior intellectual qualifica- tions, aided by a close application to his profession, won for him favorable notice from older members of the profession. Thus it was that from the start Mr. Lewis had an excel- lent field for the cultivation of his talent, by an intimate connection with some of the most important cases then in litigation in the State, United States Circuit Court and in the Supreme Court of the United States. His connection with the jurisprudence in Missouri is marked, and in some of the most prominent and intricate litigations his services have been retained.
Perhaps one of the most responsible and weighity pieces of professional work that Mr. Lewis was called to perform was in connection with the famous case of Charles H. Jones vs. Joseph Pulitzer and others. The plaintiff sought an injunction to prevent the defend- ants from interfering with plaintiff's control and management of the Post-Dispatchi, or with tlic control over the columns or policy of the paper during the term of his contract. It was hotly contested, and the propositions of law advanced by the plaintiff were sustained by the Supreme Court of Missouri.
Mr. Lewis is not a politician, but he is an ardent believer in the principles of tlie Democratic party. In 1885 lic was enrolled, upon motion of Senator Vest, in the Supreme Court of thic United States. In 1889 Governor Francis commissioned Mr. Lewis Judge Advocate General with the rank of Brigadier General, National Guard of Missouri. He was elected Vice-President of the American Bar Association at Saratoga, New York, in 1890, and at Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in 1893.
In February, 1897, Governor Lon V. Stephens appointed Mr. Lewis Police Commis- sioner for and within the City of St. Louis, and he is now acting President and also
Janur D Lloyd
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THE HISTORY OF THE BENCH AND BAR OF MISSOURI.
Vice-President of the Board of Police Commissioners of St. Louis. In social circles he is a prominent figure, being a member of St. Louis, University, Noonday and Jockey Clubs.
JAMES TIGHLMAN LLOYD,
SHELBYVILLE.
H ONORABLE JAMES TIGHLMAN LLOYD, Member of Congress, has, as a lawyer, reached that period in his career which is the most interesting, because it is a time when a lawyer's best work must be expected. That is to say, he is forty years of age and a little over, having been born August 27, 1857, in Canton, Missouri. The original Lloyds who settled in this country were of Welsh and English lineage. The father of the present Mr. Lloyd, who was Jere Lloyd, was the son of Zachariah Lloyd, a native Delawarean, he himself having been born in Delaware. Emigrating from the Diamond State in the year 1838, the father of James T. Lloyd came to Missouri, where he settled in Lewis County, pursuing the avocation of a farmer. He married Frances Jones, the daughter of William Jones, a native Kentuckian, of Irish descent. She was born in Kentucky, and with lier parents came to Marion County, Missouri, in 1829, they engaging, like the father of the subject of this sketch, in farming for a livelihood. The marriage occurred January 31, 1856, at Canton, Missouri.
After a rudimentary course in the common schools of Lewis County, Mr. Lloyd entered Christian University, at Canton, Missouri, from which institution he graduated in the class of 1878. Then, removing to Monticello, he studied law in the office of O. C. Clay, being admitted to the bar on June 17, 1882, at Edina, Missouri, by Judge Benjamin E. Turner. He then returned to Monticello, where, in partnership with his former preceptor, O. C. Clay, he practiced until March, 1885, locating then in Shelbyville, where he lias since remained and practiced.
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