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 66
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For sixteen years Judge Ellison has acted as one of the Board of Regents of the Kirks- ville State Normal School, and next to the law, the cause of education is perhaps nearest his hcart. He stands high in Masonic circles, and for twenty-five years has been a mnem- ber of that body, and is a Knight Templar and a Shriner. He takes a laudable pride in the number of law students who have read and studied their profession under him, and are now becoming distinguished members of the bar in Missouri, and several of the more Western States.
December 30, 1869, Judge Ellison was married at Canton to Julia M. Hatch, a rarely educated and refincd lady. The couple have four children, all growu. Of the two daugh- ters, the eldest, Isabelle, is now the wife of D. M. Vinsonhaler, a practicing lawyer of Omaha, Nebraska. The other daugliter, Julia, is the wife of U. J. Hill, a broker of Kan- sas City. Both the sons, following thic profession to which the name has been such au ornament, arc just entering upon the practice of law. Samuel is a member of the firm of Humphrey & Ellison, of Shelbina, Missouri, while James is in the office of D. M. Vinson- haler, at Omaha, Nebraska.
WILLIAM COWGILL ELLISON, MARYVILLE.
W ILLIAM COWGILL ELLISON, one of the younger members of the gifted family
of that name, was born at Cantou, Lewis County, Missouri, October 1, 1852. He is the son of Judge James Ellison and Martha Cowgill Ellison, and in himself are repeated many of the noble attributes that distinguished his able father, a short record of whom will be found on page 66. The mother of William was Martha Cowgill, a native of Kentucky. She was of Scotch descent, and thus our subject is bnt another example, of which there are a multitude in this book, of the high possibilities of a mixture of Scotch and Irish blood. The Ellisons seem especially fitted by nature for the bar, for four of Judge James Ellison's sous have followed his example, and have proved no less adept than he in that calling. Both Andrew Ellison, Judge of the Second Judicial Circuit, James Ellison, Judge of the
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Kansas City Court of Appeals, and George Ellison, of Canton, are brothers of the subject of this biography.
For culture and brilliancy, William C. Ellison is facile princeps in that center of Nod- away County's elegance and education, Maryville. He is a charming conversationalist, and among his neighbors readily occupies a place as a leader of thought. In his reading he is thorough, and he is a deep thinker as well as careful reader.
As a lawyer, Mr. Ellison has had charge of many cases, winning with ease, by legal learning as much as by native eloquence. His court room tactics are closely studied by the minor barristers. It is a high tribute to any man in position, and especially to any lawyer, when those whom he first regards as rivals become imitators. This means that his superior- ity is confessed by others without being asserted by himself. "Imitation," they say, "is the sincerest form of flattery."
As City Counsel of East St. Louis, Illinois, for three years, he was a most capable adviser. Later, from 1886 to 1888, he was Prosecuting Attorney of Nodaway County. A few cases in which he has been engaged, with triumph to himself and profit to others, are here enumerated: Munson versus Enson, 94 Missouri, 504; Smock versus Smock, 37 Mis- souri Appeals, 56; Redpath Brothers versus Lawrence, Manning & Cushing, 42 Missouri Appeals, 101; Griffin versus Pembroke, 64 Missouri Appeals, 263; Nichols versus Bank, 55 Missouri Appeals, 81; People ex rel. Sullivan versus Weber, 86 Illinois, 283; Cairo & St. Louis Railroad Company versus Wiggins Ferry Company, 82 Illinois, 230.
Politically he has not been ambitious, the duties of his profession claiming nearly all his time. He was a candidate for Congress on the Democratic ticket in 1894, and in 1896 was a delegate to the National Convention, at Chicago, which nominated Bryan. He is a Mason, being a foremost member of the Knights Templar in the Maryville Commandery, and a Mystic Shriner.
In his marriage Mr. Ellison is a superlatively happy inan. Mrs. Ellison was Miss Laura Lucas, daughter of Dr. J. R. Lucas, of Lewis County, Missouri. This accomplished lady has borne him three promising children, who are all minors. They are George Robb, a student at college; Cornelia Margaret, and Sue Martha. The father of Mrs. Ellison is a Christian minister, known widely and well in religious circles throughout Missouri and the States adjoining.
Mr. Ellison was educated at the private schools of Lewis County and at Christian University, in Canton, Missouri. He studied law in the office of his father, Judge James Ellison, at Canton. He was admitted to the bar in 1873, at the county seat of Lewis County. The first practice of the young lawyer was at East St. Louis, in the year of his admittance. He remained there, practicing and prospering, until 1880. Then he located at Maryville, and has ever since been a barrister of Maryville and that part of Northwest Missouri.
HENRY CLAY EWING, JEFFERSON CITY.
H ENRY CLAY EWING, one of Missouri's honored citizens, comes of a distinguished family - a family noted for its wise and able men and noble women. The name Ewing runs throughout the web and woof of Kentuckian history, and wherever a repre- sentative of the family has carried the name of Ewing into other States, he has generally
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made that name known and respected .* Henry Clay Ewing's grandfather, Robert Ewing, was born in Virginia, was a General in the Revolutionary Army, served two terms in the North Carolina Legislature, moved to Logan County, Kentucky, in 1792, was elected to the Legislature and served twenty-one successive years in its two houses. The record his tombstone bears ends with - " He was the oracle of his family and among his neighbors cmphatically a peacemaker."
H. Clay Ewing is the son of Robert Allen and Jane (Ramsay) Ewing. The father was one of a family of four sons and five daughters, practiced law for many years at Jef- ferson City and was prominent as a leader in his day. He died in 1857, his widow surviving him until 1883. The latter was a daughter of Gen. Jonathan Ramsay, who settled in Callaway County in 1817.
The subject of this sketch was born August 15, 1828, at Jefferson City and has spent his long life therc. He has seen Missouri grow from a domain of unfenced prairie and virgin forest into a populous and cultivated empire and throughout that term has left the impress of his personality on the development of the commonwealth. He was educated in the common schools of the State Capital, studied law in his father's office and was there admitted to practice in 1852. Since then, a period of almost forty-five years, he has prac- ticcd continuously in the courts of his native city, excepting such terms as he has given to the service of the public.
In 1873 he was elected Attorney General of Missouri and held the office one term. In 1876 he was Chairman of the Democratic State Central Committee, and managed the campaign with such cleverness and ability that the State gave for Tilden the biggest majority in her history. In 1883 he was elected to the Legislature and in the term fol- lowing, was Chairman of the House Committee on Banks and Corporations. He was one of the Curators of the University of Missouri, owing his appointment to Governor Woodson. In 1877 and 1878 he was one of the trustees of the Missouri School for the Blind and for several years was a State Fish Commissioner. In 1883 he was a delegate to the Tenth National Conference of Charities and Correction, held at Louisville, and in November of the same year, was appointed Supreme Court Commissioner. This Com- mission, which was created to assist the Supreme Court in catching up with its docket, was in existence about two and one-half years.
Mr. Ewing is a member of the Methodist Church, South, and is one of the influential laymen of that body. As a lawyer he is gifted with a inind eminently discriminating, is endowed with great versatility and as a publicist is a figure that has wielded great influence in the affairs of the State for years. He is a man of unimpeachable integrity and of great moral stamina and is respected far beyond even the wide circle of his acquaintance.
"No better iden of the standing of this family ean be found than that given in a sermon preached as a memorial of Hon. George Washington Fwlug an uncle of II. Clay Ewing, who was for seven years a member of the Kentucky Legislature, and for three years a member of the Confederate Congress. The sermon was preached in Logan County, Kentucky, in 1888, by Rev. David Morton, who knew the fantily intimately and had lived in Logan County all his life. The extraet is here appended:
" In my youth one of the eras in the history of Logan County was referred to as 'The year in which the Ewings came and brought the law with theint ' This must have been 1792, for that year the county was formed and Young Ewing was one of the three original Stagistiates The family not only got this even start with the county, but continued to make and administer and interpret law In the connells and courts of State and Nation for a period of seventy-three years next following the year 1792. Except for a few brief interregunins, men namel Ewing, and belonging to this family, linve represented Logan County in the Legislature, State and National, In the Constitutional Convention, and on the bench, for all these years; and, besides, have ever been prominent on the hustings and at the war of the county And. in these intervals, descendants, of other names, from the original stock, have in many instances filled positions of honor and re ponstbility Besides, the family name and other names representing its branches are found in the annals of other counties and states, and of one of the grent Christian denominations of the country."
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Mr. Ewing was married in 1855 to Miss Georgia Chiles, daughter of Walter G. Chiles, of Glasgow, Missouri. Mr. and Mrs. Ewing have no children. Mrs. Ewing is a niece of that famous figure of war time, Gen. Sterling Price.
JAMES L. FARRIS,
RICHMOND.
Nº 0 State can boast a bar of higher legal attainments, or whose members have exercised a greater influence in shaping the destinies of the commonwealth, than Missouri. Every county seat of her broad domain contains a bar whose members are generally men of ability and character, many of them of State or National reputation. Richmond, the county seat of Ray County, has always been proud of her brilliant lawyers, and of these one of the most talented and best known is James L. Farris. He has contributed more than an equal share to the development of that town, and his efforts have extended beyond its confines in shaping the laws of the State. As a lawyer his success is good evidence of his professional qualifications. He is powerful as an advocate, with that quick perception which enables him to grasp the merits of the most intricate case at a moment's notice; to realize and guard the weak points of his own case, to see immediately and attack the vul- nerable points of his adversary's case; and to present the salient features of his own side of the controversy in the most plausible possible way, are the most noted characteristics of his attainments as a jury lawyer. In disposition he is courteous and affable, and possessed of that sanguine, optimistic temperament so characteristic of his "own people," as Rud- yard Kipling would say; a Southern temperament of that impulsive kindliness, geniality and warmth, modified by a proximity to the methodical practicality of the North, which prevents such noble traits going to the extemity of hot and ungovernable passions.
A more explicit biography of Captain Farris records that he was born May 7, 1833, at Williamsburg, Kentucky. His father, Joseph I. Farris, was a Kentuckian, and his mother, whose maiden name was Jane W. Rogers, was born in Tennessee, and it was to the last named State that the parents moved shortly after the birth of their son. They chose Dan- dridge, Jefferson County, as their abode, and in that town the subject of this sketch spent his boyhood and received his education.
In 1856 the young man left the old homestead in Tennessee to seek a location in the newer West, his journey terminating at Richmond, Ray County, Missouri. While making preparations to adopt the bar, the War of 1861 came on and interfered with his plans. He was one of the first to realize the futility of trying to pursue a civil vocation while the flame of civil discord lit the country, and besides, his heart was fired with enthusiasm for the Cause that was Lost; he therefore at once joined the Confederate Army and was made Captain of the second battery organized for the Confederate service in this State, a battery that was led by its gallant Captain from the beginning to the end of the bitter con- test. Captain Farris was paroled at Gainesville, Alabama, in 1865.
On his return from the war, Captain Farris passed through Carlinville, Illinois, and finding there a promising outlook for a young lawyer, decided to locate. He was admitted to the bar in 1867, and remained in Carlinville until 1869, when he returned to Richmond, Missouri, and opened an office. Early in his career he was elected Prosecuting Attorney of Ray County, and twice served the people in that capacity. A most flattering honor was
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conferred on him in 1875, when he was sent as a delegate to the Convention which adopted the Constitution which replaced that bearing the name of the proseriptive Drake. Sinee then Captain Farris has four times represented his eounty in the Legislature, each time taking his place as one of the strong individualities of that body. At two of these ses- sions he was made Chairman of the Judiciary Committee, which is one of the most import- ant, if not the most important Chairmanship of the House. He is a leading Freemason of his seetion of the State and has been connected with that order sinee 1863.
Captain Farris has been twiee married. The first wife was Amanda M. Tisdale, a native of Missouri, whom he married during his days as a student of law, in 1859. The second was Olivia N. Galtney, of Mississippi, to whom he was wedded in 1873.
JOHN CUTTER GAGE, KANSAS CITY.
JOHN CUTTER GAGE comes of a family wholly Americanized, and whose residence on this continent is older than the Republic itself. His ancestors eame from England with one of those bands of adventurous and hardy patriots who sought the Western wilder- ness to escape the tyranny of kingeraft and the religious intolerance of the ruling classes of Europe, and established the family in New England at least two hundred years before his birth. One of his great grandfathers was a Lieutenant in the British Army. His father, Frye Gage, was a New England farmer; his mother was a member of a respectable Puritan family, her maiden name being Keziah Cutter. Their son, John C., was born at Pelliau, New Hampshire, April 20, 1835.
He spent his boyhood on his father's farm, and this period of his history was little different from that of most New England boys, in like condition of life. His preparation for college was made at the noted Phillips Academy at Andover, Massachusetts. In 1852 he entered Dartmouth College, leaving there in 1854, and in the following year, 1855, entered Harvard, graduating from the latter institution in 1856. He read law in the office of S. A. Brown, of Lowell, Massachusetts, and was admitted to the bar in Boston in September, 1858. Within a month of the last named date he was ou liis way westward. Reaching St. Louis he was admitted to the bar in that eity, and after spending the winter looking for a loeation in a country the "newness" of which at that time ean seareely be appreciated by people who did not see the Missouri of 1858, he very wisely ehose the village called Kansas City, which had just shed its swaddling elothes as Westport Land- ing, and in the following Marel permanently located there. It will therefore be noted that Mr. Gage is a pioneer as well as an able lawyer.
His career sinee the date of his loeation in Kansas City has been a very active one. Hle began praetiee alone, but since then has been associated in partnership with the follow- ing named gentlemen: Messrs. W. C. Woodson, William Douglas, Sanford B. Ladd and Charles E. Small.
Mr. Gage was married April 26, 1886, to Ida Bailey, daughter of Dr. Elijah Bailey, of Monroe County, Missouri. They have two children: John Bailey Gage, born in 1887, and Marion Mansur Gage, born in 1889.
As a lawyer, Mr. Gage stands pre-eminent at the bar of Kansas City. Of great orig- inality of mind, his career as a lawyer bears the stamp throughout of his strong individuality.
John C. Sage
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His grasp of the law is inost inclusive. He has studied it as a science. He is a man of conscience, and its dictates have formulated his action in the practice of law as in all other departments of life. His effectiveness as a speaker does not consist so much in the bril- liancy of method, as in the power of truth simply stated. He is known as a logical reasoner rather than an eloquent speaker. His strong point is perhaps, his ability as a counselor. His wisdom is then of the highest utility. It is a notable fact that his brethren without exception (and that does not except his enemies), accord him unqualified tribute as a learned and gifted lawyer.
Mr. Gage is a man of remarkable versatility. Undoubtedly his splendid success at the bar, is in a large measure derived from the fact that he is able to throw the light of inany divergent branches of knowledge on whatever proposition of law he desires to elucidate. One instance which illustrated a knowledge of a branch of which the lawyer is supposed to know nothing, occurred in the litigation between Kansas City and the company which sup- plied her with water. Each litigant placed a corps of civil and mechanical engineer- ing experts on the stand to testify as to the value of the water works plant and other matters, one of the points of the litigation being the purchase of the plant by the city. The testimony of these experts as to the value of the plant differed so radically, that United States Judge Caldwell, before whom the case was tried, not being satisfied with the expert testimony, sent East for a corps of disinterested experts to enlighten him. The testimony, consisting of reams of type-written matter, was laid before them. After they had been reading some time they asked: "Who is this man Gage, who is conducting the examination?" They were told that he was the attorney for the city. The answer was that the record showed that fact, but they wanted to know what he had been before he practiced law. On being told that lie had been a lawyer since before the time when the memory of the oldest inhabitant ran not to the contrary, they insisted that he inust either have been a civil engineer, or studied that science with the intention of becoming one. "For," said they, "none but a thorough civil engineer could have asked the questions put by Mr. Gage to these witnesses. The questions show him to be as conversant with the technical details of the business as any practical engineer." It is thus with Mr. Gage in every case involving matters of scientific or technical knowledge. If he is not acquainted with the special branch involved he immediately begins its study, and as a consequence he has become one of the most versatile and accomplished lawyers in the State.
In politics he is a Democrat and although he has never aspired to any office, being an attorney-at-law and not an attorney-at-politics, he was persuaded in 1883 to become a can- didate for the Lower House of the Legislature. He was elected and made one of the best Representatives ever sent from his district. He is a member of the State Bar Association and has acted as the President of that body. His articles on the "Bar of Jackson County" and on Willard P. Hall, in this work, are contributions of the highest historical interest.
The people of Kansas City give an universal testimony to the ability and worth of Jolin C. Gage. As a man he is admirable no less than he is profound as a lawyer. A man of most pronounced and radical views, and a born fighter for what he believes to be the right, his opinions have naturally run counter to the views of certain people, and he has made some enemies; but it is a fact more eloquent than words, that even these concede his high ability as a lawyer, his sincerity of purpose and the lofty integrity of his character. He may be considered a man whom Hatred or Envy cannot successfully malign, at least in Kansas City. He is a person of great mental and physical energy and his city owes him
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111cl. Of the greatest public spirit, his initial energy accomplished wonders for the city in the days of its carly building. Though a busy lawyer, he did as much perhaps as any other man to bring capital to Kansas City, and interest the world in her advantages. Of simple manner and democratic ways, there is a strength in this very simplicity which con- veys the fact that lie is a man of ability and character; and indeed he is, though a very modest onc. There is about him none of that thrusting forward of self that is characteristic of many men of small soul, and no taint of that offensive egotism that too often mars the characters of men of real capacity. In short, he is able, modest, kindly, unselfish, lovable, and his carcer of forty years in Kansas City is without a stain or blemish. On the con- trary, it has been a career that has been of the highest usefulness and benefit to his fellow man .*
JAMES B. GANTT,
CLINTON.
JO abler jurist has occupied the woolsack of the Supreme Bench in recent years than the Hon. James B. Gantt, at this time Presiding Judge of that court, and therefore the highest judicial officer of the State. He is a ripe scholar, has a profound knowledge of the law, is a lover of books and a believer in those refined humanities which impel the race constantly toward a higher plane of being.
Judge Gantt is a Georgian. He was born on a farm in Putnam County, that State, October 26, 1845, and at forty-five was raised to the Supreme Bench of this great State, an age much below that at which most lawyers achieve that distinction. As a lad he attended the excellent village schools then maintained in the South, and was but a boy which the political dissensions of that day burst forth in civil war. As a matter of course he was a partisan of his State, and when he had reached his sixteenth year he culisted in the Twelfth Georgia Infantry and was assigned to the Army of Northern Vir- ginia. It was in the spring of 1862 that he marchicd away from his home to face the dan- gers of the bloody campaigns of that army. His regiment was a part of the command led by the immortal "Stonewall" Jackson, and he followed that intrepid leader in his cam- paigns against Milroy, Banks, Shields and Fremont, successively; then came, in their order, Cedar Mountain, Chantilly, Sharpsburg, the second Manassas and the seven days' battle about Richmond, in all of which the young soldier bore his part as became one of Jackson's irresistible legion. At Chancellorsville he heard the firing from the Confederate line, by which deplorable blunder the South lost the services of this great General. From Chancellorsville, and the loss of Jackson, young Gantt followed Lee, two months later, to Gettysburg and participated in that great and sanguinary battle, and was there twice wounded. But this was only the beginning of his injuries. After his recovery from thic
" In illustration of Mr Gage's nobility of character and inflexible honesty, many incidents are related in Kansas City. One of these demen tr ates how rugged and uncompromising is this integrity. He had been very successful at the law, and had made consider- able money which he invested in the development of Kansas City. He was caught in the boom's collapse and most of his fortune swept awty Among several manufacturing companies which he had induced to locate in Kansas City was one with which he was connected as a din tor It went down with many other concerns which suffered the Inge shrinkage in values incidental to the collapse of the boom, an I left a huge sum of debt im excess of its assets. Creditors had no legal method of recovery, and Mr. Gage was certainly not responsible boa greater extent then a number of others interested in the corporation. He was morally liable for no more than his share, but so con mations is he that he di I not permit legal exemptions to enter into the case at all, and he assumed the entire indebtedness of the company, and Has since been paying it off year by year. It is stated (and this is very gratifying) that he has already paid the greater tart of these unny thousands, for which the firm's ereditors can thank only his rigid honesty.
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