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 62
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THE HISTORY OF THE BENCH AND BAR OF MISSOURI.
Judge Burgess has been on the bench continuously for twenty-four years, which is evidence sufficient of his ripe knowledge of the law. Such a long service on the bencli has bcen of the highest utility to his State in his exalted position. He has been a man of assimilative mind, and has not neglected to profit in the highest degree from his rich experience. It would not be placing him too high to say that he is fully up to the high average of the Judges who have occupied the Supreme Bench.
DANIEL DEE BURNES, SAINT JOSEPH.
HE son of a noble and distinguished sire, the Hon. Daniel Dee Burnes, of St. Joseph, T has proved himself a worthy inheritor of his father's inantle, and has already attained an eminence and distinction which reflect luster on the family name. Daniel Dec Burnes was born in Ringgold, Platte County, Missouri, January 4, 1851, and is the son of Hon. James Nelson Burnes and Mary (Skinner) Burnes. Both his ancestral lines, as far back as their histories go, were of that strong, courageous and indomitable class that has conquered a continent and built a great civilization-the pioneers of America. On the paternal side the house is of Scotch-Irish blood, a combination which has pro- duced a race of men, vigorous, able, fearless, industrious and dominant, and whose repre- sentatives have left the impress of their strong individuality on every part of the earth where fate has cast them. The name could undoubtedly be traced back to a relationship with Scotland and the world and nature's sweetest and most lovable singer, Robert Burns, but while this subject of the Burnes ancestral tree is one pregnant with historic 111atter, and therefore of seductive charm to the historian, it is with the Present and the Living that this modern age demands he deal, and he therefore hastens to a considera- tion of the personage who in this sketch is representative of both, and whose biography is of exceptional interest, as must be that of every man who succeeds.
The great grandfather of our subject settled in Spottsylvania County, Virginia, at an early day, and was one of the Revolutionary heroes of the Republic. James Burnes, the grandfather, ruled by the adventurous and freedom-loving pioneer spirit, moved to Indiana in the opening years of the century, and in 1837 emigrated still farthier west to the Platte Purchase, settling where the town of Weston, Missouri, now stands. James Nelson Burnes, the father of Daniel Dce Burnes, was ten years old when this settlement was made. As inost people know, few mien have left as deep an impress on Northwest Missouri as the late James Nelson Burnes, lawyer, Judge, banker, man of large affairs, and four times elected to represent his district in Congress, where he at once rose to distinction and eminence. A full sketch of his career will be found on the pages following this record of his son. The Skinner family, of which the mother of our subject was a member, is of Kentucky origin, and were of the best people produced by the Blue Grass State.
Daniel Dec Burnes was given superior educational advantages, graduating at St. Louis University, receiving the degree of A. B. in 1870, and the degree of A. M. in 1874. He had, prior to this, determined to follow in the footsteps of his distinguished father, and like him, therefore, entered Harvard Law School to equip himself in a knowledge of law. He received the degrec of LL. B. from that college in 1874, and returning to Missouri, was admitted to practice in the Platte Circuit Court in 1875.
D. H. Barnes
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He soon proved his capacity both as lawyer and business inan. The interests and enterprises of a business nature left by his father required executive talent in their manage- inent, and in this respect Mr. Burnes has proved his high capacity as a financier and busi- ness man. He has investments in many and diverse lines of business, and has carried for- ward the work of development begun by the elder Burnes in a manner that has excited the admiration of the business world of St. Joseph and other cities.
He has proved his understanding and grasp of political affairs as an official represent- ing the people, who honored him by an election, in 1893, to Congress. As the representa- tive of the Fourth District in the Fifty-third Congress, he conceived and carried forward a number of measures of benefit to that section of the State. He is a Democrat in politics, and as he has the confidence and respect of men of every party, it is likely that he could have represented the district as long and as often as he chose to do so.
Mr. Burnes is connected with a great inany orders and societies, especially those of a fraternal nature. He is a Noble of the Mystic Shrine, a Knight Templar, a Knight of Pythias, a member of the Improved Order of Red Men, of the Sons of Herman, the Elks, etc.
He was married in St. Louis, Missouri, May 17, 1877, to Miss Martha Swearingen Farrar. They have one living child, Kennett Farrar Burnes, now eighteen years old, and preparing to enter Harvard College.
JAMES NELSON BURNES, SAINT JOSEPH.
O NE of the distinguished citizens and able public men of whom Missouri is justly proud and whose memory she holds dear, is the late James Nelson Burnes, who died in Washington, D. C., January 24, 1889. He was stricken while still in the harness, the blow, a paralytic stroke which was the beginning of the end, falling just as he uttered the last words of a speech in the House of Representatives on January 23.
James Nelson Burnes was of Scotch-Irish stock, that admixture of blood, which if results prove aught, seems to go the farthest toward the making of the inost perfect human character, producing a balance which has given us men strong yet tender, daunt- lessly courageous yet gentle, rugged, patriotic and sagacious as well as unselfish, poetic and profoundly religious; men in fact of the most vigorous virility, graced by a touch of that soft femininity, the blending of which creates the highest and strongest manliness. In marked degree was Colonel Burnes an exemplar of these combined traits, an evidence of the finely tempered metal produced by the comingling of these elements.
The names, Burnes, Barness and Burns, may be traced to a like source, as he who bore the latter name and inade it immortal, in his youth spelled it "Burnes," but with poetic license changed it as it is known to fame. There is therefore every reason to believe that Colonel Burnes, and Robert Burns, Scotland's sweetest and inost impassioned poet, descended from the same ancestral line.
The grandfather of the subject of this sketch came to America prior to the Revolution and settled on, a farm near Fredericksburg, Virginia. When hostilities between the Colo- nies and mother country began, he espoused the cause of the patriots and became what was known as a "minute man," ready to leave his plow and seize his flint-lock musket to repel
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tlc invader, at a minute's warning. On February 14, 1779, three years before the last gun of the Revolution was fired at Yorktown, James Burnes, the father of James Nelson Burnes, was born. In 1805 lie married Mary Thompson, the daughter of a worthy Culpepper County, Virginia, family. The young couple sought their fortunes in the then far West, locating in the State of Indiana, and there on August 22, 1827, James Nelson Burnes, the fourth of the five sons born to thein, first saw the light. In his tenth year, his father yielding to the pioneer spirit, determined to move farther West, induced to adopt such a course by the ceding by the Fox and Sac tribes to the government of what is yet known as the "Platte Purchase," and its opening to settlement. There, ere the close of year 1837, the family established itself at a point on the Big Muddy where the town of Weston now stands. Inhaling the fresh, pure air of the prairies, surrounded by the manifold beau- tics of nature and in contact with the honest, hardy and natural mnen of that day, the son there grew to manhood. As time passed the fertile Platte Purchase increased in popula- tion and civilization. Its division into counties left Weston in Platte County. There was work for the pioneers of that time to do, but the parents of James N. fully appreciated the importance of a sound education, and hc and his brothers were given all the advantages of the commnon schools, and in his nineteenth year he graduated from the Platte County High School.
Among the families that settled in Northwest Missouri was that of Phinehas Skinner, a shrewd and aggressive Kentuckian, whose forefathers were among the pioneers of the " Dark and Bloody Ground." This good man had several daughters and one of these, Mary by name, as subsequent events proved, was the affinity of James N. Burnes. The marriage took place in 1847. Mary Skinner was of sweet and lovable disposition and endowed with a high order of intellect. The union proved a most happy one and the felicity of the couple increased as the years went by.
The Burnes family had always considered James gifted with the qualifications which could best find their expression in the profession of the law, and this opinion being along the line of his own ambition, he determined to adopt that calling. He was now in the first flush of a lusty manhood, healthy, active, athletic, with a body strengthened by generous use, gifted with a quick and ready intelligence and of the highest mental ability, he was nobly qualified to succeed in any of life's vocations.
The deepest brotherly love and fraternal sympathy had always existed between the Burnes brothers, a love that took practical form then, existed throughout life and was shown in a marked manner on the death of Daniel in later years. Daniel was the business partner of his brothers, James N. and Calvin. On his death, his family of six small chil- dren were left orphans, and simply as a natural duty, not considering that he deserved tlie least credit therefor, James N. Burnes took his brother's children to his home and there- after treated thein as his own. It was through the assistance of these brothers that he was enabled to enter Harvard Law School, where, in 1852, he graduated.
Returning then to Platte County he entered on the practice of his profession witli all thic hopefulness and energy of his twenty-five years. But he was too active and ambitious to wholly depend on the slow-coming success characteristic of the professional legal begin- ning, and it was therefore about this time that the marked commercial genius with which lic was endowed, began to be manifest. He began buying and selling hemp on commission and trafficing in real estate. The people had always realized thic superior mcttle of this young man, but his entrance into professional and commercial life served yet more strongly
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to remind them of his sterling qualities, and therefore in the third year after his graduation he was elected Circuit Attorney of that district and in the same year was chosen Presidential Elector, casting his vote for Buchanan and Breckenridge. Then followed the terrible Civil War. Mr. Burnes' sympathies were with the Union, and although he did not enter actively into the struggle, he was elected Colonel of militia, a title that afterward adherred to him to the end of his life.
The war was the cause of his change in politics. He became a Republican, and in 1868 was elevated to the bench as Judge of the Circuit Court of Platte County. In 1872 he retired from this office, and also from the private practice of law, at which he had been engaged twenty years.
In the campaign of 1870, the Republican party nominated two tickets. One ticket was known as the Radical Republican and the other as the Liberal Republican, and on that B. Gratz Brown ran for Governor. Colonel Burnes identified himself with the Liberal movement and was one of the most impassioned advocates of a policy of pacification and the enfranchisement of those engaged in the then late Rebellion. After this campaign, true to his instincts and principles, lie returned to the Democratic party, and was one of its ablest leaders to the end of his life.
On retiring from the bench in 1872, Colonel Burnes removed to St. Joseph, which gave him a wider field for those great commercial enterprises in which he afterward engaged. These enterprises were so numerous and diverse that they are not easily traceable. They brought him both fame and fortune and through lini, more than any factor, were his city and section developed. His active efforts comprehended the construction of railroads, the building of great bridges, extensive operations in real estate and the promotion of hun- dreds of other enterprises of public benefit. He built the railway known as the Weston & Atchison, was the chief promoter of the line from Ottumwa, Iowa, to Leavenworth, Kansas, now a part of the C., R. I. & P. To him St. Joseph is largely indebted for her excellent system of waterworks, and it was largely his efforts and capital that developed both Atch- ison and Leavenworth, Kansas, he being a member of the original town site companies of both cities. In his scheme of the development of this section he conceived and executed the noble bridges that span the Missouri at these cities. His great commercial genius found expression in Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska and Missouri, but his own town, St. Joseph, owes him the largest debt of gratitude, and there he engaged in a variety of enterprises too numerous to mention.
His career up to 1877 had been one of unbroken success, but in that year an event occurred which threatened to drive him on the rocks of disaster. The banks in which the State funds were deposited suspended payment. Colonel Burnes, as one of the chief bonds- inen of the State Treasurer, stood to make good a large part of the deficit of $1,004,000 thus created. Through his splendid business talent the danger was averted, the claim of the State against the banks assigned to the bondsinen and every dollar due the State paid in full.
In 1882 he yielded to a call which was signed by all the prominent business men and citizens of his district, and became a candidate for Congress. He was triumphantly elected and redeemed to the Democracy a district which up to that time had been strongly Repub- lican. He was placed by the Speaker on the Committee on Appropriations, a most unusual compliment to a new member. There the opportunity was given him to display those rare qualifications as a business man and a statesman which made his record in Congress a credit
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to himself and his State. As a member of this Committee he formed the acquaintance of Samuel J. Randall, its Chairman, who became his friend, and his appointment to the Chair- manship of one of the most important sub-committees testified the esteem and confidence in which he was held by the great Pennsylvanian.
In 1884 Colonel Burnes was for the second time elected, by an increased majority, to Congress. Again was he assigned to the Committee on Appropriations and also served on the Committee on Education. Again he was elected as his own successor in 1886, to the Fiftieth Congress, and it was during this session that he accomplished the most important act of his legislative career-the defeat of the French Spoilation Claims, making in opposition to that bill one of the ablest speeches of the session. In 1888 he was returned again to the House of Representatives by a majority nearly twice as large as that of 1886, and in that chamber he fell as above related, while in discharge of his duty to his people.
Of his life and career in Congress his contemporaries, some of the most distinguished men of the Nation, have spoken in fervent eulogy and with a truth and eloquence that would make any attempt at recapitulation here seen tame and useless. Suffice to say that he was one of the strongest, ablest and most eloquent men who ever represented Missouri in the Lower House; that his life stands as an example of what industry and untiring effort mnay accomplish; and that he was one of Nature's noblemen and a benefactor of his people and his State.
JAMES TRAVIS BURNEY, HARRISONVILLE.
F the ambitious young attorneys who reflect credit on the bar and on their profes- sion, James Travis Burney, of Harrisonville, is one of the best known in the western section of Missouri. Mr. Burney practices law in the county where he was born, a circumstance that is rare enough in the history of the State's bar. He prefers to remain among his own people, not following the course of mnost young lawyers, who remove from the old home to begin business among strangers, not desiring to be subject to that sceming reluctance of humanity to recognize the maturity of one whom it has known as a boy, and which illustrates that human perceptions and feelings do not keep pace with time, so swift is its flight.
Our subject is the son of James Adam and America D. (Moore) Burney, both of whom are still living, the father being now one of Cass County's mnost prosperous farmers. He, too, is a Missourian, his family coming to this State in 1821, the year of its admission to thic sisterhood of States. The Burneys are of Scotch-Irish blood, and came with that great tide of emigration which flowed from England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales to America about the middle of the last century. They first settled in North Carolina, where they lived dur- ing the War for American Independence. An ancestor of the subject of this sketch was a soldier in the patriot army, and is said to have engaged in the battle of Guilford Court House. The family name was afterward planted in Tennessee, and from that State Mr. Burney's grandfather and his family came to Missouri in the year above stated. On bothi sides of the house his ancestors werc sturdy, God-fearing, resolute, honest people, and the value of good parentage is strongly illustrated in their descendant.
James J. Primary.
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The latter was born forty-one years ago, or to be more exact, April 9, 1857, on his father's farin in Cass County. In 1861, when he was about four years old, his father removed with his family to Miami County, which lies just across the line from Cass County, in Kansas. During the time of his residence there, the elder Burney was elected and served one term as County Assessor, and also served about two years in the Union Army. In 1865 the family returned to Cass County, where they have since resided.
James T. Burney prepared for college in the public school of his native county, and entered the State University at Columbia, Missouri, in 1874. He did not complete his education there, but went to the State University of Kansas, at Lawrence, where he con- tinted his studies until 1877. Afterward he taught in the public schools of his county until 1879. Going then to Harrisonville, he entered the office of Sloan & Railey, to study law, and was adınitted to practice by the Circuit Court sitting at Harrisonville in 1880. He at once began practice, and can look back over the seventeen years of his professional career, satisfied that a more than ordinary degree of success lias crowned his labors. His first partnership was with Judge Abram Comingo, the firm being known as Comingo & Burney. Judge Comingo, afterward a member of the firm of Philips, Comingo & Slover, Kansas City, was one of the ablest lawyers of Western Missouri in those days. From 1882 to 1889 Mr. Burney was in partnership with his former preceptor, Robert T. Railey. At the present time he is associated with his brother, Abraham L. Burney, under the style of Burney & Burney. The firm has good practice.
Mr. Burney lays great importance on the necessity of a lawyer knowing his case thor- oughly before he goes to trial. Hence he studies every case that comes into his hands, diligently and closely, as he would an abstruse problem, and therefore goes into court so entirely familiar witli all the bearings and ramifications of his cause, that he is seldom the victim of novel coups and surprises from the opposing counsel. His is a logical turn of mind and he is a formidable debater. His language is fluent, and his appeal to a jury is generally characterized by directness and strengtlı, and a line of argument the inost con- vincing that it is possible to present. He is exceptionally strong as a trial lawyer.
He is a Republican in politics, and while lie consented to become a candidate in tlie year 1892 for Circuit Judge, it was only as an act of party devotion that he ran, as there was little or no hope of his party winning against the large Democratic majority of that dis- trict. He has no ambition to be both a lawyer and an office-holder, as he is convinced that to be a successful lawyer is honor enougli. He is public spirited and is foremost in all measures of civic progress, and has lent his aid and influence to advancing Harrisonville from the condition of a small, isolated town, with one branch road but a few years since, to the proud place she occupies to-day as one of the railroad centers of the State. He has always taken an active interest in the educational advancement of his county and town, and for many years has occupied the position of President of the Harrisonville Public Schools. He is also President of the Bank of Harrisonville, a prosperous and successful banking institution of his town. He is a Mason, a Knight Templar, a Mystic Shriner, and has been Master of Harrisonville Lodge, No. 147. In his professional capacity he has been con- nected with the noted Cass County bond matter, which has sorely tried the patience of the people of that county for twenty years. He defended the county in the latter stages of its litigation, which grew out of a refusal to pay these railroad bonds issued by a bribed County Court, whose members, it may be stated in passing, became, on account of their malfeasance, the victims of a mob's vengeance in the celebrated Gunn City tragedy. Mr.
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Burney managed the county's side of the case with tact and ability, and by reason of his efforts, in connection with some other citizens, the bonds were compromised at seventy cents on the dollar and refunded at a low rate of interest, a result that has been of incalculable benefit to the county.
February 11, 1881, the year following the one in which he was admitted to the bar, Mr. Burney was married at Pleasant Hill to Miss Mary Bills, daughter of P. W. Bills, one of the old settlers of Cass County, who came to Missouri from Kentucky more than fifty years ago. Two children, both sons, have been born to this marriage: James G., who is fifteen years old, and William L., who is eleven.
CHARLES G. BURTON,
NEVADA.
A LAWYER in whom Southwest Missouri takes pride, and a Republican who is undoubt- edly one of the ablest leaders of that party in the State, is Judge Charles G. Burton, wlio has been a citizen of the commonwealth since 1868. Born April 4, 1846, at Cleveland, Ohio, the years of his minority were passed in his native State. He is the son of Leonard Burton, who died January, 1892, and of Laura Burton, nee Wilson, who died in April, 1860. The boy early developed those ambitious aspirations which through life have increased rather than abated in intensity. Another trait early developed was an abiding self-confidence, from which grew the faith that whatever others could do he could also achieve.
With such high ambitions he went to the front in the dark days of 1861, enlisting Sep- tember 7, 1861, in Company C, Nineteenthi Ohio Volunteer Infantry. October 29, 1862, he was discharged because of illness. In 1864 he was a member of Company A, One Hundred and Seventy-first Ohio National Guards, during a one hundred days' campaign in which that organization participated.
After his return from the army he entered upon the study of law in the office of Hutch- ens & Forrest, completing his course in the office of Hutchens & Glidden, at Warren, Ohio. He was admitted to the bar at this place in April, 1867. In the same month of the following year he reached Missouri and located at Virgil City, Vernon County. Vernon County and the Southwest was then a vast stretch of almost virgin acres, whose great roll- ing prairies were in the spring time carpeted with green, the figures of which were set in wild flowers of an hundred brilliant hues. Here and there were the new and unpainted houses of the settlers and the population then was sparse, but the young lawyer of twenty- two could afford to wait, especially as liis natural foresight told him that these beautiful prairies, with their fertile soil, would be developed into rich farms, making of it a populous and wealthy section within a few years. And so it resulted. When he reached Virgil City lic formed a co-partnership with Elbert E. Kimball, who was destined later to be his party's candidate for Governor. In May, 1869, Judge Burton changed the scene of his operations to Erie, Ncoshio County, Kansas, where he practiced until May, 1871, then returning to Vernon County, Missouri, and establishing himself in practice at Nevada. There lic lias since lived.
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