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 41
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65 | Part 66 | Part 67 | Part 68 | Part 69 | Part 70 | Part 71 | Part 72 | Part 73 | Part 74 | Part 75 | Part 76 | Part 77 | Part 78 | Part 79 | Part 80 | Part 81 | Part 82 | Part 83 | Part 84 | Part 85 | Part 86 | Part 87 | Part 88 | Part 89 | Part 90 | Part 91 | Part 92 | Part 93 | Part 94
John Dr. Noble
287
THE HISTORY OF THE BENCH AND BAR OF MISSOURI.
Attorney General of the United States, needed a District Attorney at St. Louis, and hearing that he was residing there, had General Noble appointed to that place in 1867. The influ- ences of the war were yet felt in that quarter, and there were inany and serious infractions of the United States statutes by counterfeiters, and fraudulent manufacturers and dealers in alcoholic spirits and tobacco evading the internal revenue taxes. For three years he was a inost energetic and successful prosecutor of these offenders, and fairly broke up the unlaw- ful combinations that had before flourished. He not only proved himself capable of prepar- ing his cases with legal accuracy, but was acknowledged to be an unusually eloquent advo- cate before the jury or the court. His services in this position were gracefully acknowl- edged in this regard by General Grant, who thanked him before his Cabinet "for the faitlı- ful manner in which he had performed the duties of his office." The President afterwards, also, tendered him the place of Solicitor General, but he requested permission to stay at his regular practice, where lie was again meeting with success, and so declined the honor. From 1870 to 1888 he pursued his profession at St. Louis with great success, increasing his reputation as a lawyer and improving his fortune decidedly.
Among his professional triumphs during this period may be mentioned that at Santa Fe, New Mexico, in the case of Huntington vs. Moore & Mitchell, involving $300,000, and won in the United States Supreme Court; the Little Pittsburg mining case, at Denver, Colorado, tried before Justice Miller on circuit; in St. Louis, the case of Meyer & Co. vs. the St. Louis Fire Insurance Company, for loss of cotton at Jersey City, New Jersey, amounting to about $100,000, and involving difficult questions of law relating to fire and marine insurance; that of the National Bank of Commerce of New York vs. the National Bank of the State of Missouri, in which the verdict obtained for the plaintiff before a jury of the United States Circuit Court at St. Louis, was over $434,000; that of the Granby Mining Company vs. St. Louis & San Francisco Railroad Company, an injunction against the railroad company compelling the restoration of zinc mines of great value that had been seized by the railroad company; that of the City of St. Louis vs. the St. Louis Gas Light Company, a suit in equity, involving property of the company worth $3,000,000, and $1,000,000 in money, in which the company's case was completely won in the State Supreme Court after two adverse decisions below; and another case between the same parties in which there were collected $1,000,000 from the city. General Noble was also for a time one of the attorneys for Gibson in Gibson vs. Chouteau, a case that went five times through the Supreme Court of Missouri, three times through the United States Supreme Court, and was twice decided by the Secretary of the Interior. He also brought to a successful con- clusion for his clients, the St. Louis Beef Canning Company, its litigation with Libby, Mc- Neil & Libby relating to the patents for preserving canned ineats, which reached the United States Supreme Court.
The records of the United States Supreme Court and of the State Supreme Court indi- cate that General Noble was not only an able advocate before the jury, but was capable of holding in the upper tribunals his verdicts obtained in the lower courts. His ability as an attorney and his marked individuality as a public spirited citizen gave him a national repu- tation, and in 1889 President Harrison appointed liim Secretary of the Interior, a position for which his successful experience as a lawyer and his inarked executive abilities especi- ally fitted him. His administration of the duties of this responsible office were character- ized by decision of character and a comprehensive knowledge of public affairs. He super- intended the opening of Oklahoma Territory and its settlement, with so much regard for the
288
THE HISTORY OF THE BENCH AND BAR OF MISSOURI.
welfare of the people, that his name there is greatly respected. He gave earnest attention to the rights of settlers under the homestead laws, and brought the land office affairs, which had fallen ahnost hopelessly behind, up to current business. He defended the Eleventh Census, that was taken under his supervision, from the many hostile attacks made upon it. The pension laws were administered with fidelity, and he was instrumental in having great bodies of mountain and forest lands reserved, in order to preserve the sources of our streams from being impaired, and to secure for the irrigation of the arid regions a sufficient supply of water in the future. In his last message President Harrison paid a very marked tribute to the capacity and fidelity of the Secretary of the Interior, which has been generally acknowledged to be well deserved. In no period of its history has the business of that Department been larger or better administered.
Since 1893 General Noble has pursued the practice of his profession at St. Louis, and has already re-established himself at the bar, where he has been so well known for so many years.
RICHARD HENRY NORTON,
TROY.
LTHOUGH a native Missourian, Richard Henry Norton is a Kentuckian by descent. A His father, Elias Norton, was born in Scott County, Indiana, but was a son of Wil- liam Norton, who was a native of the Blue Grass State. The latter was of Irish blood, and removing from Kentucky to Scott County, Indiana, at an early day, became a citizen of standing and influence in his new home, where he served a number of years as Judge of the County Court. He was a cabinet maker by trade, but was also a farmer, as was nearly every one in that day. Mr. Norton's mother was Mary McConnell. She was born in Bour- bon County, Kentucky, was of Scotch antecedents and came to Missouri in 1840, settling in Lincoln County, in which county Elias Norton also located three years later (1843), coming from his native place in Indiana. The father and mother were married at Troy, in Lincoln County, and of the three children born to them, Richard was the second.
The latter was born at Troy, on November 6, 1848, and in that town has spent his entire life. As will be seen from the above he started with the highest possible predis- position to succeed in life-being of Kentucky ancestry and of Scotch-Irish blood. As a boy he attended the common schools of Troy and then attended Westminster College, at Fulton, one year. From there he went to St. Louis University, in which he was a pupil six years, going from there to the St. Louis Law School, where he graduated in the class of 1870. The same year he was admitted to the bar at Troy, by Judge Gilchrist Porter, and immediately opening an office, has continued in practice there to the present day.
It is said that the boy who attempts a career in his native town has to reckon with the contempt which comes of familiarity; but our young lawyer displayed that ambition, vigor and brilliancy that soon opened the eyes of his old neighbors to the fact that here indeed was a young man of no common order. Hence he soon overcame the disability of always having been known by the people among whom he lived, and which is as unreasonable as it is universal, and as a consequence was soon enjoying a good practice. At the present time Mr. Norton is the head of the law firm of Norton, Avery & Young. Its practice is largely civil, and an idea of its standing in that section is conveyed when it is stated that
R. N. Miten.
289
THE HISTORY OF THE BENCH AND BAR OF MISSOURI.
it appears in ninety per cent of the cases tried in the Circuit Court of Lincoln County. Mr. Norton is the attorney for both the Farmers and Mechanic's Bank and the People's Bank of Troy.
In 1888 Mr. Norton was elected to the Fifty-first Congress and was re-elected in 1890, representing the "Bloody Seventh," now the Ninth Congressional District, celebrated in the political annals of the State because of the enthusiastic interest of its people in political affairs and the numerous hot and prolonged contests that have been waged there. To be elected to Congress in the old Seventh, or its successor, the Ninth, one inust have an un- resisting firmness of character, high ability, courage and tenacity as a fighter. These attributes Mr. Norton has in an eminent degree, and his election twice to represent his people is a compliment with characteristics that do not usually attach to elections to the same body elsewhere. In Congress Mr. Norton served his district well, and as a legislator demonstrated his broad-gauge liberality and thorough grasp of public affairs. He was a Democrat up to the campaign of 1896, when being unable to agree with his party on the currency question, he acted with the National Democrats.
Besides his law practice, Mr. Norton is one of the most extensive farmers and producers of live stock in the State. He owns and operates a magnificent farm of 2,000 acres, fertile and finely improved, on the Mississippi River in Lincoln County, and when he is not in his law office in Troy, he can generally be found at his farm supervising its affairs. He lives in Troy and has a beautiful country home. There Mrs. Norton and her daughter entertain royally, and because of the hospitality and geniality of the owner and his family, every distinguished man who visits that section carries away with him as one of the most agreeable memories of Troy the kindliness and sociability of the Norton home.
On January 1, 1874, Mr. Norton was married to Miss Annie Ward, daughter of Dr. James A. Ward, a leading physician of Troy. Mr. and Mrs. Norton have one child, Mary Virginia Norton. She is as beautiful as accomplished, and is the pride of her parents.
Mr. Norton is a man of commanding figure, and has that presence which impresses one who is given to analysis of character, as a person of great reserve force. He is an easy, smooth and graceful speaker, and though not much given to rhetorical flourish, can present a proposition simply and forcibly. Though he is by no means lacking in self-con- fidence and self-possession in court or elsewhere, he is not so fond of the excitement that attends the actual trial of a case as are some other lawyers. Where his strength as a lawyer lies is in the preparation of the case for trial. He likes the library, and in working out and briefing an intricate legal proposition there is not in Northeast Missouri a lawyer more skillful than Richard H. Norton, of Troy.
JOHN O'DAY, SPRINGFIELD.
IT may well be doubted whether any man has left a deeper impress on the professional, material and political affairs of contemporary Missouri than Col. John O'Day, of Spring- field. For years he was closely identified with the great railroads of Missouri, and in pro- moting the construction of these lines which have contributed so largely to the develop- ment of the country, the value of his efforts to the State has been inestimable. For inany years he was the most powerful political factor of the commonwealth, and in large measure
290
THE HISTORY OF THE BENCH AND BAR OF MISSOURI.
dictated the policy of the State, although never in his life lias he held any other than an 11011- orary political office. Of late years, having grown wealthy, he has retired to a large extent from the management of large business affairs and from politics, as he has always been above all else a lawyer, and when opportunity offered he devoted all his time to that pro- fession, as a matter of choice.
Col. John O'Day was born in Ireland, November 18, 1844, and is a son of John and Mary O'Day, by whom he was brought, when a child less than two years of age, to Amner- ica, where settlement was made in Livingston County, New York. He was educated in the academy at Lime, New York, and afterward studied law with Judge Windsor and was admitted to practice in Juneau County, Wisconsin, his family having removed to that place. Subsequently they removed to Springfield, Missouri, where his father died at the advanced age of eighty-four years.
Colonel O'Day selected Springfield as his home soon after the close of our Civil War. At that time Springfield was a small village, containing not more than 2,000 inhabitants. Large and profitable litigation sprang out of the titles of real estate which had become unsettled during the war. Of this litigation Colonel O'Day had his full share. His ability as a thorough and astute lawyer was soon recognized and it was not long till his indomitable energy and devotion to the duties of his profession brought him the largest clientage and inost lucrative business of any member of the Springfield bar. He was engaged in nearly every case of importance, both civil and criminal, in Greene and the surrounding counties.
When Colonel O'Day began practice there he was only twenty-two years of age, but his untiring industry, his marvelous physical and mental constitution, which never knew fatigue, and especially his brilliancy, soon compelled the recognition he sought. It was 110 unusual thing in those days for Colonel O'Day, when he was engaged in an important case to place sleep largely in abeyance, working sixteen to eighteen hours a day where other inen were exhausted in ten, and to the fact that his magnificent and aspiring mentality was placed within a physical organization of the tougliness of iron, is largely attributable his snc- cess. He had to compete with such men as Gov. John S. Phelps, Henry C. Young, Judge John Price, Judge Jolin S. Waddill and C. B. McAfee, the latter being the only surviving 111ember of the bar of those days, excepting Colonel O'Day.
As time passed, although his practice increased, suchi was his energy and capacity for business, that he gradually became interested in the development of this imperial State, and was soon concerned in the organization and construction of railroads. Missouri owes him inch in that connection, for he has probably done more than any other one man in thic creation of the great systems which have contributed so largely toward making Missouri what it is-the fifthi commonwealth of the Union. His work in this line was begun as early as 1868, when he became interested with Andrew Pierce and A. C. Kingsland of Bos- ton, and Gen. Jolin C. Fremont, and was largely instrumental in urging the construction of tlic old South Pacific Railroad from Rolla, Missouri, westward. He continued his con- nection with the old South Pacific, tlic Atlantic & Pacific, and its present successor, the St. Louis & San Francisco, up to 1890, filling tlic position at first of General Attorney and tlich Vice-President and Manager of the Western divisions. He was President of the Springfield & Southern, the Springfield & Northern, thic St. Louis, Salem & Little Rock, the St. Louis, Wichita & Western, and the St. Louis, Arkansas & Texas Railways, at dif- ferent times. These lines extended from Missouri into Arkansas, Kansas, Indian Territory and Texas.
Legal Publishing Co. St.Louis
291
THE HISTORY OF THE BENCH AND BAR OF MISSOURI.
Colonel O'Day is one of the best known Masons of the State. He has been a member of the order since 1866; is a Royal Arch Mason, a member of Kansas City Shrine and is a thirty-third degree adept. For many years Colonel O'Day was the recognized leader of the Missouri Democracy, and under his management it was invincible. It was during the period of his administration as Chairman of the Democratic State Committee that Missouri gave the largest Democratic majorities in her history. He is a born leader of men and his whole career is testimony to his splendid genius as an organizer. Although for the past quarter of a century he has given invaluable service to his party and could have had any official place for the asking, he has steadfastly refused to accept any office whatever. He is a man of the most inflexible independence, and while kindly and genial in manner, his great forcefulness and virility are apparent in all his relations with his fellow-man. He is eloquent of speech and has that fluency and force of language and idea in even greater degree than is characteristic of the sons of the Emerald Isle. Whether before a jury or an audience, his method of expression is vigorous and strong, dealing largely in the simple, incisive and vigorous Anglo-Saxon element of the language, rather than the softer and more effeminate Latin and Greek derivatives. Colonel O'Day is a gentleman of large wealth, and the highest evidence of his worth as a man is that he knows how to use it. He is generous and charitable, and with sympathies most sensitive to the misfortunes of his fel- low-man.
LEO RASSIEUR, SAINT LOUIS.
Nº class of citizens have contributed more to the advancement of St. Louis than those of German blood. In fact, no city in the Union of its size is more distinctively Ger- man than St. Louis. Of such origin, there is none more conspicuous, both because of his commanding ability, and an Americanism more intense and wide than that of many to the manner born, than Judge Leo Rassieur, lawyer and soldier.
Judge Rassieur was born April 19, 1844, at Wadern, near the city of Treves, Prussia. His father was Theodore and his inother Margaret Rassieur. The latter's family name was Klauck, and her son suffered the irreparable loss of her love and motherly care when he was still a tender child of four years, Mrs. Rassieur dying in 1848. Three years subsequent to this (to the family) sorrowful event, the father decided to come to America. Leo came with him, being then seven years of age, and in 1851 the father and son took up their res- idence in the city that has since been the home of the latter. It was there he received his education, first attending the common schools of the city and then entering the Central High School, whence he graduated in June, 1861.
Shortly prior to the last named event, the Civil War began. It may be noted that this great conflict befell at a most critical time in the lives of nearly all the men whose histories are written in this volume; at a period in their lives, in fact, when they were just entering upon the threshold of manhood, when they had completed their education and were in that unsettled and formative stage where they were contemplating the choice of a vocation and making preparations to enter upon the serious duties of life. On all of them it undoubtedly had a deep and lasting effect. There are few whose characters the dangers and hardships of war did not develop and strengthen, and without its influence their lives would certainly not have followed the direction they severally did take. On none was its effect more pro-
294
THE HISTORY OF THE BENCH AND BAR OF MISSOURI.
After leaving college, the young lawyer was admitted to the bar at Lawrenceville, Brunswick County, Virginia, in 1870. During the same year he was given his first experi- ence in official position, acting for a brief period as Prosecuting Attorney of Brunswick County, owing his position to a special appointment by the court under the operation of a law then in force. Afterwards he formed his first legal partnership, his associate being 10 less a person than the Hon. Charles T. O'Ferrall, afterward Governor of Virginia.
In 1872 he located in New York City. He there made a most promising beginning, but spurred by impatience as he contemplated the length of time it would require to make his talents known, and being convinced that the great West, where the rapid march of events quickly brings merit to the top, was the proper field of his activity, he was accord- ingly found in 1874 located at Marion, Kansas. His expectations found the beginning of their realization in a year after he settled in his new home. He was first elected City Attorney of Marion, and after that County Attorney. He served nine consecutive years in these two positions. In 1884, ten years after coming to Marion, he moved away from there and located at Wichita, Kansas. Wichita then gave every promise of becoming a great city, the metropolis of the Southwest. It was just the place for the aspiring and ambitious man, and that Judge Reed made a fortunate move in locating there was shown in 1888 when he was elected Judge of the Eighteenth Judicial District, then by long odds the most important district in the State.
On the bench of this court he made his record as an able jurist, a fearless judge and a learned lawyer. He occupied the office for eight years, being elected as his own successor in 1892 and was nominated again in 1895, but owing to his determination to locate in Kan- sas City was constrained to decline. During his incumbency of the bench, Wichita passed through her phenomenal boom. The docket of the court was crowded with litigation, involving every bearing of the municipal law. Some of these cases were of highest impor- tance and all were disposed of with a wisdom which indicated in the court a deep insight into the mysteries of the law.
In 1896 Judge Reed decided to remove to Kansas City, and on making public his determination to leave Wichita, the news was received with marked regret both by the bar and prominent citizens of that town. These sentiments were voiced in the press, and from a lengthy review of his career published in the Wichita Eagle, a few extracts are here appended. The Eagle said in part: "His last terin of court, which will be a busy one closes a career in this city, which while being brilliant in jurisprudence, has been also warm to the people, rigorously just when occasion demanded, and sympathetic and lenient when humanity, in the maelstrom of legal tangle and delay, put up a hand for lielp.
* * Eiglit years as a faithful public servant made him the unanimous choice of the Republican party for four years longer, which if his private interests did not prompt him to decline, would have been confirmed by a large majority of his constituents. The opinions of the retiring Judge during his laborious service in the District Court are a part of the American law and will be regarded as a briglit page in judicial history."
Judge Reed's knowledge of technical and general points of law is most extensive. He is given to constant research and study, and no matter in what he may be interested notli- ing is too light or trivial to secure energetic attention. Being a man studions and earnest of purpose, it is no labor for him to delve to the very root of all subjects, actuated by the analytical turn of mind which is satisfied only with the First Cause. Full of the sentiment of his Southern home lie is an orator of intensity and his chiaste and elegant periods embel-
295
THE HISTORY OF THE BENCH AND BAR OF MISSOURI.
lished by his gifts of voice and gesture are at times prose poems. Of magnificent and com- manding stature, with a face clean shaven as a Roman Senator, Judge Reed is a notable figure in any assemblage. As a trial lawyer he enjoys a reputation far up in the class in which he is here associated.
While a resident of Wichita, Judge Reed was Dean of the Law Faculty of Garfield University from 1888 to 1891. He is a Mason of the highest standing, having taken the thirty-second degree. In 1897 Judge Reed located in St. Louis and beyond doubt will there make a record no less enviable than elsewhere.
Judge Reed first married Mary Williams, daughter of R. E. Williams, a distinguished Illinois lawyer residing at Bloomington. By reason of her descent from Revolutionary sires, Mrs. Reed became a leading member of the Society of the Daughters of the Revolu- tion. She died March 25, 1894, leaving two children, named respectively Robert and Eliza. In April, 1897, the Judge again married, espousing Mrs. Julia A. Moffitt, of St. Louis, a social leader of that city.
GEORGE DELACHAUMETTE REYNOLDS,
SAINT LOUIS.
G EORGE D. REYNOLDS, one of the widely known and successful attorneys of the St. Louis bar, was born at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, December 16, 1841, and is the son of Rev. William Morton Reynolds, D.D., and Anna Maria (Swan) Reynolds. The father died at Harlem, Illinois, in September, 1867, while the mothier is still living and is a resi- dent of Springfield, Illinois. Dr. Reynolds was a noted educator and writer; he was one of the founders and first Professors of Pennsylvania College, at Gettysburg, and subse- quently President of colleges at Columbus, Ohio, Allentown, Pennsylvania, and Springfield, Illinois. All of Mr. Reynolds' ancestors were of patriot blood, and all the men of the family who lived in those times served in the Colonial and Revolutionary Wars.
His parental grandfather, George Reynolds, was an officer in the War of the Revo- lution and at the beginning of that contest, although only eighteen years old, was a Captain in the Sussex County, New Jersey, militia. When the Continental Armny was organized, he, in 1775, was commissioned Ensign in Capt. Archibald Shaw's company, Second Batallion, First Establishment of the New Jersey Continental Line. In 1776 he served as Ensign in Capt. Joseph Brearley's company, Second Batallion; then became Second Lieutenant in Luce's company, in 1777, and First Lieutenant in Lowrie's com- pany, Shreve's Regiment, and resigning that office in 1778, was made Captain and Quarter- master on the reorganization of that department by General Greene, and served until the end of the long war. He was born in Warren County, New Jersey, October 13, 1757, and was the son of David Reynolds, who with his brother James, came to this country from Ireland in the first part of the Eighteenth Century, and settled in Pennsylvania, afterwards removing to New Jersey. The Revolutionary hero and veteran died at Ha- gerstown, Maryland, in 1821. His wife, Mary, daughter of Elias Delachaumette, was of Huguenot stock. The mother of Mr. Reynolds was the daughter of John E. and Maria (Smith) Swan. John E. Swan was a son of Mathew Swan, one of the early Scotch-Irisli settlers and a pioneer merchant of Baltimore, Maryland. John E. Swan was, however, born in Adams (then York) County, Pennsylvania, and his wife, Maria, also born in that
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.