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 49
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November 16, 1862, the Judge was married to Emelie Plass, daughter of Frederick W. and Henrietta (Teyssen) Plass, and a native of Germany. She bore her husband five children, four of whom survive. Rose is the wife of Benjamin W. McIlvaine; Ella is the wife of Charles Gildehaus, and Alice is the wife of Sylvester C. Judge. The only son, William F., has patterned after his father, is a practicing lawyer and the partner of his father, who has entered regular practice since retiring from the bench in 1896.
1
PART II-WESTERN DIVISION.
JURISDICTION OF THE KANSAS CITY COURT OF APPEALS.
THE JACKSON COUNTY BAR.
BY JOHN C. GAGE.
THE history of the Jackson County bar had its beginning on the twenty-ninth day of March, 1827, when, at the house of John Young, the place designated by statute, the Circuit Court first met, David Todd presented his commission as Judge of the First Judicial Circuit and caused it to be recorded, and the Jackson County bar was organized by the enrollment of Peyton R. Hayden, Abiel Leonard, John F. Ryland, John Wilson, Amos Rees, and Robinson P. Beauchamp, as attorneys.
As it appeared then, it was doubtless an event of no great significance, but as we look backward and see it now, it was a most auspicious and imposing inauguration. The names of Hayden and Leonard, Ryland and Wilson, still live in the judicial history of the State; the impress of their lives and characters was set deep, not only upon the bar and the jurisprudence of their day, but on the social structure of the State itself, on its subsequent legislation and administration of justice, and particularly on the character of its lawyers. Men of great ability, learning and power, we still regard them with rever- ence, and turn to them as the best inodels for the judges and lawyers of our own day ; and it is not without a thrill of pride that the Jackson County lawyer reads this record now and sees that these great and good men stood sponsors to the organization to which he belongs, on the day of its birth.
The county was then much larger in extent than now, embracing the territory now included in several adjoining counties, but the population was very sparse and for many years the increase was slow in comparison with that of the neighboring counties. The prairies, of which it was largely composed, were not, for a long time, believed to be avail- able for agricultural purposes, and a large portion of the best land had been reserved from sale by the usual methods and at the usual prices at which other public land was sold. Great and sometimes violent opposition was made to these unusual sales, and the sales and the settlement of the county were thus delayed.
About 1830, the Mormons began their settlements in the county and soon became the majority of the population, and prophecies and threats were made by them that they were soon to possess and enjoy the entire county, to the exclusion of all others. Disturbance, collision, and what is called the "Mormon War," ensued. One of the early lawyers, named Brazeal, was killed in one of the frays. The Mormons were finally driven from1 the county in 1833 but the State and Federal Governments were appealed to in their behalf, and their efforts to return still kept the county in a state of uncertainty for some years. During all this time the adjoining counties, undisturbed by such excitements, had been advancing in population and wealth and it is for this reason, probably, that while these other counties have transmitted to us the names of lawyers eminent in their profession at that time, Jackson County has no such in her record. Inter arma silent legis, and lawyers are as little heard as laws amid the din of war and tumult.
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THE HISTORY OF THE BENCH AND BAR OF MISSOURI.
In the decade prior to the Civil War, the state of affairs had become more settled, the course of Western trade had become established, the migration to California had inade large demands on the resources of extreme Western farmers, Kansas was opened to occupation, population rapidly increased, Kansas City inade its appearance on the inap of the county as a place of considerable commercial importance, and during this period we find, for the first time, in the county, a sufficient number of lawyers of ability and character to constitute a bar.
In 1856, a Common Pleas Court, with limited territorial but otherwise general jurisdic- tion, was established at Kansas City, and subsequently a bar was gathered at that place, so that at the breaking out of the war, there were some twenty-five lawyers at Kansas City, about twenty at Independence, and several at Westport. The war scattered this band to the four winds, some to the Confederate and some to the Federal ariny, some to their former Eastern homes, and some to the Western Territories. During the war the courts were prac- tically suspended, and only two or three lawyers remained permanently at Independence and a like number at Kansas City. At its close everything took on a new aspect and new life. Kansas City, the remote border town, was now the terminus of the Missouri Pacific Railroad, and was selected as one terminus of the great trans-continental Pacific Railroad, and a flood of population came pouring into it. With it returned some of the old lawyers to their former homes, and a fair proportion of new lawyers. Many of these were young men seeking their fortunes, and among them were a large number of high training and education, full of courage and determination to deserve and win success. In later years, since they have become the leaders and patriarchs of the profession, they are fond of styl- ing themselves "the Argonauts of 1865," and recounting the difficulties of their early days and the disadvantages under which they labored in their encounters with the old lawyers. In fact, the odds were not all against them. Besides themselves there were about as many other "Argonauts" as there were old inhabitants in the county, and the sympathy and sup- port of these they had. The old lawyers did, in fact, make a formidable array against them. Such men as Russell Hicks, William Chrisman, Samuel L. Sawyer, Abram Comingo, J. Brown Hovey, J. K. Sheley, of Independence, or William Douglas, M. D. Trefren, H. B. Bouton, of Kansas City, were not to be despised as antagonists by any, and they were all thoroughly familiar with the law, the courts, the practice, and the country. It cannot be said that in the face of such competition, these young men were wafted to their present positions "on flowery beds of ease." But these older lawyers were gentlemen of high char- acter. Mr. Chrisman was undoubtedly the leader of them in ability and in practice, and inay be taken as a type of the rest. He and his associates were the schoolmasters of all tlicse neophytes. No man ever met Mr. Chrisman, either as opponent or associate, in a trial, who did not learn from him some useful lessons that were not to be forgotten. Hc taught these young men first, that they could not rely upon any tricks or subterfuges of sharp practice to win cases; his penetrating and subtle intellect foresaw all such attempts, and his address foiled them and turned them back. He taught, too, as few men could teach, the value of thoroughi preparation of cases and thic necessity of constant alertness, watchfulness and vigor, allowing no time for display, in a trial. His associates, in their various methods, furnished similar instruction, and in that school the present bar of Jack- son County was brought np. We cannot say that they have "bettercd the instruction " of Mr. Chrisman and thic old lawyers of his time, but they have followed and profited by it.
349
THE JACKSON COUNTY BAR.
The demands of an increasing population and business have brought about an increase in the number of courts and judges, and the establishinent of Appellate and Federal Courts in the county, and the history of the bar from 1865 to the present has been one of constant increase and advancement in its numbers, character and influence. In 1867 there were about sixty lawyers in Kansas City and thirty in Independence; in recent years, the num- ber for the county has been somewhat over five hundred.
Probably nothing ever contributed more to advance the interests, and maintain the character of this bar, than the acquisition of its law library, which it secured in 1871. At that time the Kansas City Law Library Association was formed, and one of the most com- plete libraries in the country purchased. The effort was a very great one for the narrow means available, but it was carried through successfully, and thus was obtained the only possible ineans of a thorough preparation and consideration of cases. Good use was made of the library obtained at so much trouble and expense, and good lawyers and good law were produced by it. It is certain that neither the Federal nor the Appellate Courts would liave been established in Kansas City when they were, if the bar had not provided this library. The real estate in Kansas City was then becoming very valuable, and the titles were in a state of the greatest uncertainty. The old French and Indian settlers had traded and conveyed this property with as little formality as they conveyed their horses and cat- tle. The difficult work of establishing these titles fell upon the courts and the lawyers.
In 1871 the Circuit Court was established at Kansas City, Jackson County was made a judicial circuit by itself, and Samuel L. Sawyer, a very able land lawyer, and a remarkably skillful pleader and practitioner, was made Judge. In settling the difficult questions arising out of these disputed titles, this library was constantly used by day and night, for years, by Judge and lawyers, and thus the titles were finally established on sound legal principles and without substantial loss or injury to any just rights or claims. This great work was faith- fully performed by the courts and the bar, and has been of inestimable public benefit, in making firm and stable the foundations on which is built a great city, while the performance of the work has developed inany excellent lawyers.
Many complications arising out of the war and the disorders incident to it, required settlement in the courts, and the questions arising were new and difficult. In the meantime a great city was springing up from a small beginning, with unheard of rapidity. Vast, far- reaching enterprises, starting on weak foundations, were taking shape and form and advanc- ing to consummation. To properly frame and direct and guard this great and unexampled growth and development, has been a work to task the best legal ability. It is enough to say of this bar that it has always shown itself equal to these great demands. Never, any- where, has there been a greater field for the exercise of all the skill of lawyers, and if the question is ever asked how it was that this bar acquired the equipment necessary to fill it, the answer is made by pointing to the library, obtained with so much effort in their years of poverty, and used so well. In its use they have been workers-not plodders-intelligent workers, with the great motto always before them: "No question is ever settled until it is settled right." Courageously acting upon this motto, inany an erroneous decision of the Superior Courts has been modified or reversed at their instance.
For several years past the bar has maintained the Kansas City Bar Association, which, unlike most associations of the kind, has not been permitted to drag out an existence of "innocuous desuetnde, " but has had a life of continuous, useful activity. Through its in- fluence, much useful legislation has been secured; in its frequent meetings matters of pub-
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THE HISTORY OF THE BENCH AND BAR OF MISSOURI.
lic law are the subject of profound and earnest discussions and disquisitions, while its annual banquets furnish the means of forming and cementing the relations of acquaintance and good-fellowship between its members and the leading judges and lawyers of this and other States, and its general influence has been most efficient in maintaining and advancing the standard of professional honor and integrity.
This bar has furnished to the State two of its mnost learned and useful Supreme Judges -the Hon. Warwick Hough and Hon. Francis M. Black, while it has a fair claim to a third, in the person of the Hon. John W. Henry, by reason of his having passed a span equal to an ordinary lifetime, as one of their number, although it is but fair to say that sev- eral other counties have a similar claim on him.
The old bar of the war period has passed away; a few veterans, it is true, "lag super- fluous on the stage," but the ranks are filled and the work is done by mnen of a younger generation. In all its history it has borne its part well as an important member of the body politic. Measured by any fair standard it compares favorably with similar bodies elsewhere, and it justly possesses the confidence and respect of the community where it exists.
Kansas City, Mo.,
January, 1898.
WELL-KNOWN MEMBERS OF THE EARLY BAR OF JACKSON COUNTY.
BY DANIEL S. TWITCHELL.
JACKSON COUNTY as early as 1848 became the undisputed master of Western co111- ) merce, and from that time to the present with increasing momentum, the forces of nature and human enterprise in happy union, have contributed with mighty power to main- tain the local supremacy so early gained as against all competition in the modern march of empire. Richly ladened as this favored part of Missouri may be at the present time or in the distant future, with the gathered and created stores of art and mechanical industries and the fabulous treasures of nature for human enjoyment, so long as history remains and is conned by the student and seeker of human happiness and wisdom, there will never be witnessed or known a time or condition when the days and experiences of the early settlers, in all walks of life, of Jackson County may not be regarded with sentiment akin to envy and admiration. As in subduing the wild and prolific fields of nature, the building of liomes and temples of worship, and cities with ever increasing marts of trade, Jackson County has ranked conspicuously in the front of the great Western van that has long since marched its triumphant column along a field thie fairest and briglitest in all the earth to possess and enjoy, so has she been justly renowned for men of learning, eloquence and uusurpassed genius, members of the early as well as the present bar of Jackson County.
The writer of this article has personally known all those who are at any length men- tioned herein, and it is hoped, on his part, that whoever inay peruse these pages will be enabled by his efforts to see and appreciate the lives and characters of those whose names appear as members of the Jackson County bar, as they were acted and shadowed forth in life by the parties themselves.
Samuel H. Woodson .- Hon. Samuel H. Woodson was perhaps the most popular man who ever practiced law in Jackson County. He was born in Jessamine County, Kentucky, October 18, 1815. He was a graduate from Center College, Danville, in that State, in the year 1835. He took a law course at Transylvania University, Lexington, Kentucky, and graduated with the class of 1839. He entered upon the law practice first at Nicholasville, in his native State, immediately after receiving his honors from Transylvania, but before the end of the following year he was permanently located in Independence, which has been the home of many of the ablest lawyers of Missouri. His associates in the law practice from 1840 to 1856 were William Chrisman, who afterwards attained to eminence as a lawyer, and Abram Comingo, the noblest Roman of tliein all. In 1856 Mr. Woodson was elected to the Congress of the United States upon a strictly Whig platform, and to the manifest sur- prise of the opposition he was re-elected with a substantial majority, to the same then dig- nified office in 1858, a year in which the first dark clouds of military conflict began to settle around a devoted people. After the war had been waged, peace restored and Missouri had entered upon her great career of commercial supremacy, there needed no other inducement
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THE HISTORY OF THE BENCH AND BAR OF MISSOURI.
to cause the Hon. Samuel H. Woodson to resume his law practice, uniting his labors with those of J. K. Slieley, also of Independence. He continued in practice until his appoint- 111e11t as Judge of the Twenty-fourth Judicial Circuit, in the place of Samuel L. Sawyer, who had, March, 1876, resigned on account of ill health. In 1880, at the November elec- tion, Mr. Woodson was clected to the same position, which he filled until his death, which occurred January 23, 1881.
To furnish a reason for, and analysis of the unusual and admitted power of Judge Woodson over the masses of the populous county of Jackson, inight lead to a discussion fruitful in anecdotal reminiscences, but is not possible in my allotment of space in this work. Especially with the older residents of the county did he exercise a power almost unlimited and with them his word was law. Emotional, magnetic, with gracious and cul- tivated demeanor and with an honest interest in the well-being of humanity, he held almost supreme sway over the political conduct of Jackson County's best citizens. Tender and sympathetic as a woman, time with its fitful changes, swept by and around him, but left the flowers of youth blooming in his heart which may have detracted from his dignity and impressiveness as a lawyer but did not hinder his elevation to imperial and exalted position in the affection and good will of his people.
William Holmes .- William Holmnes will be long recalled as the only member of the bar of Jackson County who might, on occasion go from the court room and its worldly scenes, to a prayer meeting and be equally influential in either gathering. Judge Holmes came to Missouri in the year 1868, from Augusta County, Kentucky, where he was born March 2, 1814. Of Scotch-Irish stock on both the material and paternal sides, he exhib- ited in mental and physical constitution, the peculiar traits of the nationalities represented in his individual make up. With nearly an even race with the Judge between law and divinity for some years in the northwestern counties of Missouri, he finally laid aside his inclinations toward the priestly office and assumed exclusively the ancient and highly hon- orable gown of lawyer and Judge, resuming his career at the bar in Johnson County, Kansas.
Judge Holines read law at Palmyra, in the office of that great luminary of the Missouri judiciary, Samuel L. Glover, and was duly licensed to practice law in the year 1839. In 1867 he moved to the ancient town of Shawnee, Johnson County, Kansas, and was appointed by Governor Robinson, Probate Judge for that county. In 1862 Judge Holines, with his family, located in Kansas City, where he continued to reside and follow the law, up to the time of his death, in 1888. In 1866 lic formned the notable and successful law firm of Holmes & Black, that stood for many years at thic head of thic law business in Kansas City. With increasing years and experience Judge Holmes steadily developed into a most eminent and able lawyer and when past the age of sixty, loved thic work to which he exclusively and successfully devoted thic last years of his life.
Judge Holmes in the years 1876 and 1877, at a very critical period in Kansas City's history, served in the Common Council and did much to restore public confidence in the city's future growth and credit. As a conversationalist, Judge Holmes excelled, and in the art of winning doubtful verdicts from a jury, his record was little inferior to the best and most eloquent pleaders of the bar of his county. He never grow old, at heart at least, was pure and clean in private and public affairs, fond of manly and athletic practices, a faitliful friend and at all times a thorough gentleman.
353
WELL-KNOWN MEMBERS OF THE EARLY BAR OF JACKSON COUNTY.
Robert E. Cowan .- Robert E. Cowan, one of the lawyers who came to Kansas City fol- lowing the close of the war, and as his history shows in 1868, is justly entitled to more than a mere epitome or brief sketch of his life and character. Judge Cowan was certainly no common man; he was in fact a person of unusual ability and his scholarship and knowledge of the law were profound and critical. His only weakness consisted in his not keeping up the studies of his early years. As a pleader he seldom made mistakes and in his declara- tions of the law while serving as the first and only Judge of the Special Law and Equity Court of Jackson County, he was generally sustained by the Supreme Court whenever an appeal was taken from his decision. He sought only to ascertain the truth of an investiga- tion and was willing to perform unusual labor to effect the ends of justice.
Judge Cowan was born in Staunton, West Virginia, in 1830. He served in the Legis- lature of his native State, in the Confederate Congress and also in the Confederate army under the immortalized leader and soldier, "Stonewall " Jackson. After his arrival in Kansas City, he first entered into partnership with the Hon. John T. Crisp, and next was associated with Warwick Hough, now of St. Louis, who became one of the Judges of the Supreme Court. Judge Cowan became very prominent in the Pythian order and removed to St. Louis, where he died July 14, 1887.
J. Brown Hovey .- J. Brown Hovey, one of Jackson County's most brilliant and suc- cessful lawyers, was a native of the State of New York, whence lie came to the City of Independence, Missouri, in the year 1843.
A complete and perfect sketch of the life of this inost remarkable man would include the best part of the more notable events connected with the early bar of Jackson County, which possessed many members who aided in making the bar of the State not inferior to that of any of the older States of the Union. The records of the courts of this county, and the reports of the Supreme Court of the State contain monumental proofs of his industry, his training, and of his personal triumphs in the profession he loved and always adorned.
Mr. Hovey was by rare gifts of nature fitted for the profession of the lawyer and ad- vocate. His mind and temper were essentially that of the controvertialist rather than of judicial mould. He loved applause, earned it, and received it liberally from court and client. His efforts before a jury were brilliantly effective, and he displayed masterly power in his analysis of the facts of the case. In his argument to the court, he combined the powers of the orator and rhetorician, supplemented by the sturdy blows of the master of logic, and in the appellate courts, with brief and oral argument, lie rarely submitted his case until discomfiture and defeat were the unwelcome rewards of the efforts of his opponent.
It may be interesting to record one of the many episodes in the early history of this most remarkable man, which was related years since to the writer by an esteemed meill- ber of the Independence bar, is herein inserted as part of this sketch, and illustrates the novel way young Hovey adopted to popularize himself with the solid yeomanry of Jack- son County. One bright Sunday in October, 1846, with the finest turnout that the city of Independence possessed, with driver and equipage, and himself proudly seated therein, a farmer's home some miles in the country was his destination. In superb style, and with due regard to his importance as a rising young attorney from the beautiful city of Independence, he stepped proudly from his carriage to the door of his farmer friend and acquaintance, who he discovered was not at home. To the young colored lad who meekly listened to his statement of the object of his unlooked for visit, he said, in his grandest
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THE HISTORY OF THE BENCH AND BAR OF MISSOURI.
style of delivery: "When your inaster returns, say to him that Mr. J. Brown Hovey, attorney and counselor at law from Independence, called to see him to-day," and drove proudly away. Deeply impressed with the superb manner of the brilliant young attorney, and the importance of the message, upon the arrival of the astonished and perplexed countryman, his black boy, with the imitative faculty of his race, proceeded to deliver in like manner the message he bore: "Mr. J. Brown Jehovah, eternal counselor and lord, called upon you to-day and left this, his card, to be given you with his compliments, on your return this evening."
James K. Sheley .- Hon. James K. Sheley was of the class of men born in Kentucky in her best days, and of whom, without desire to belittle one or exalt another, Abraham Lin- coln was a type and leader. Unequal in mental power to the "Great Emancipator," in personal appearance and the virtues of rugged honesty, James K. Sheley might justly be said to belong to the class of Kentuckians of whom the "Martyr" President may be named as supreme in true nobility of character.
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