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 69
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In the ranks of Masonry he lias donc high and most honorable service, having held the office of Royal Arch High Priest of Carthage Chapter, No. 61, and as a Knight Tem- plar having held nearly all of the subordinate positions in that branch of Masonry. He is a Democrat, and in his politics he excreises the same energy and vigor observable in his leg.il practice. Political struggles in Jasper County, whether National, State or local, would not seem natural unless Thomas Hackney's voice were hcard and his influence felt, but it is always as a private and unprejudiced citizen that he cuters the arena, and perhaps it is for that reason that he has achieved more success in carrying his point than if hc were a professional statesman. There can be no doubt of his ability to grasp a public
Tos. Hackney
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question in all its details very readily and to present it to his fellow-citizens in all its vari- colored lights, like the facets of a prism bringing into particular prominence the right and bright side.
The marriage of Mr. Hackney occurred May 8, 1888, at Carthage, Missouri, when he wedded Addie K. Newell. By this union they have one child, a boy, Earl Newell Hack- ney. Mrs. Hackney is the daughter of a prosperous merchant of Carthage.
FRANK HAGERMAN, KANSAS CITY.
Y the concensus of opinion of his professional brethren, there is in Frank Hagerman B
all the elements of the thorough lawyer. Devoted to his profession, and following the law with a love unbroken by outward events and considerations, he has reached his present prestige by that absorption in his work which leaves no room for self-conscience- ness. So have men in all lines of human effort reached the higher levels and the best effects. Fame and success do not come so inuch from striving after thiem, as through an ab- sorbing devotion to the work that is allotted to one to do, that excludes all things but that.
Mr. Hagerman studied law and was admitted to the bar at Keokuk, Iowa, in July, 1876. He also received his general education there, attending the public schools and grad- uating June 5, 1874. Although reared in Iowa lie is a native Missourian, having been born in Clark County, April 27, 1857. He was but nineteen years old at the time of his admission to the bar.
Upon the appointment of the late Judge Mccrary as United States Circuit Judge, Mr. Hagerman became a member of the firm from which the Judge retired. On December 1, 1887, Mr. Hagerman removed to Kansas City and became a member of the firm of Pratt, McCrary, Ferry & Hagerman. This partnership existed until the death of Judge Mccrary when the firm became Pratt, Ferry & Hagerman, and so continued until September 1, 1896. Since that time Mr. Hagerman has practiced alone.
Mr. Hagerman is a man of great energy, and industry is one of his notable character- istics. His judgment, especially on a proposition of law, is seldom at fault. He has been a student of his profession, and therefore knows its many intricacies and turnings which only can be well understood by the one willing to devote great energy and inental power to its unravelling. He has sharply defined political opinions, and maintains a mnost lively interest in public affairs, but he is more of a political altruist than a politician in the usual acceptation of the word, and has never held but one political office-that of City Attorney of Keokuk. He is exceptionally popular and has a very extensive acquaintance in the western part of the State, notwithstanding the fact that his application to his profession is unremitting.
During his eleven years' residence in Kansas City he has advanced very rapidly. He was one of the five original receivers of the Lombard Investment Company, a concern whose business affairs were as extensive as diverse in character. Afterward lie was the sole receiver, and it was owing largely to his legal and business talent that its affairs were wound up in such good shape. His skill as a lawyer has long since attracted the atten- tion of the big corporations who are always on the watch for the highest order of legal
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ability, and therefore much of his professional labor is now of a corporation character. Mr. Hagerman excels as a trial lawyer. As such he is seen in his best legal aspect.
He is a brother of James Hagerinan, of St. Louis, at this time General Solicitor of the Missouri, Kansas & Texas Railroad.
JOHN BLACKWELL HALE, CARROLLTON.
THE fame of Col. John Blackwell Hale as a lawyer has grown with the years and spread far beyond the town wherein he lives. To be a Missourian and not to know Colonel Hale is to argue yourself unknown. He is a leader of men, a publicist and and man of affairs, and one of the State's distinguished citizens.
'The name Hale is perhaps of English origin. Leastway, it comes from one of the 'Three Kingdoms, so called, whose people have carried the luminous banner of human lib- crty cver at the front of the advancing column of progress, and have furnished America much of her bonc and brain and sinew. However, the Hales planted the naine on the shores of Maryland in the early dawn of American history, and there grew to be one of the power- ful and influential families of the commonwealth. Colonel Hale's father, Rev. John Hale, was a Presbyterian minister, who died in 1838, when his son was seven years old. His
mother was, before marriage, Mary E. Blackwell, who survived her husband many years. She was a daughter of Joseph Blackwell, of Virginia, a patriot and a man of mnuch force of character, as were most of the Blackwells, who for many generations have been a prominent and influential Virginian family. Joseph Blackwell was a Captain of a Virginia Company in the War of the Revolution, under Washington. Colonel Hale, whose middle name com- incinorates his descent from this family, was born February 27, 1831, in Hancock County, in what is now known as West Virginia.
When Colonel Hale was ten years old, his mother being a widow, decided to remove to Missouri, she desiring to get nearer her relatives. The trip was made in 1841, and the family settled in Carroll County, where two of Mrs. Hale's brothers lived. The subject of this sketch grew to manhood in that county, there received his education, and there lias spent his life up to the present time, growing in the esteem of its people as he grew older. When the time came for him to choose a calling in life, he decided to become a lawyer. 'The partners of the firm of Able & Stringfellow, then the two ablest lawyers of that time and section, knew and were favorably impressed with the young man, and agreed to allow him to enter their office at Brunswick, Missouri, as a student, for law colleges in that day were few and far between. After he completed his studies he returned to Carrollton to be admitted to thic bar, in 1852, by Circuit Judge G. W. Brown. He at once entered the field and has practiced continuously at that place for a period of forty-five years, being for twenty years of the time associated with that skillful and eminent lawyer, Capt. William M. Eads.
When the war broke out, the young lawyer espoused the cause of thic Union. He joined the Sixty-fifth Regimeut of Missouri Militia, and was elected its Colonel. Later he became Colonel of the Fourth Provisional Regiment of Missouri Militia, and served three years in the field, comporting himself under every circumstance as a brave and valiant soklier.
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Even before the war, Colonel Hale had begun to rise in the estimation of his fellow- inen, being endowed in an extraordinary degree with the talent of a leader and skill as a shaper of events. But notwithstanding his popularity and his long and unblemished career, he has never been a politician in the general acceptation of the terin. For almost half a century he has been an influence in shaping the affairs of State and Nation, and yet has held few offices that were not wholly honorary. Positions of high responsibility and trust of this nature have been confered on him constantly during the many years lie has been before the public, and such honors demonstrate conclusively that he could have had almost any office or emolument for the asking, but his devotion to his law practice would not permit acceptance. In 1856 he was elected to the Missouri Legislature, and that may fairly be considered the beginning of his career as a publicist. Since then he has been one of Missouri's delegates to four National Conventions, and has twice served as Presidential Elector, once as Legislator and once as Congressman. Up to 1886 he was a Democrat, but in that year became a Republican, and is now one of the State leaders of that party.
In 1860 Colonel Hale served as one of the Electors on the Douglas ticket, and in 1864 was a delegate to the National Democratic Convention at Chicago, and four years later, 1868, was a delegate to the National Convention of the same party which met in New York City. In 1872 he was a Greeley and Brown Elector, and in 1875 was a member of the State Convention which formulated the Constitution of that year. In 1884 he was nom- inated by the Democracy as its candidate to Congress to represent what was then the Second District. He was elected by a good imajority and served in the Forty-ninth Congress. When changing policies and opinions brought Colonel Hale into the ranks of the Repub- lican party in 1886, he was hailed as a distinguished and valuable convert to its theories. Its leaders insisted on him making the race for Congress as his own successor. He con- sented, and made an energetic canvass, although he knew the district to be overwhelm- ingly Democratic; but he made a splendid showing on election day, notwithstanding his opponent, Charles H. Mansur, was elected. In 1892 he was a delegate to the National Republican Convention at Minneapolis, which nominated Harrison, and in 1896 was one of that party's Presidential Electors. For months before the meeting of the Republicans of the State at Springfield in the year last named, Colonel Hale was talked of throughout the State as the candidate for Governor. Many powerful members of the party urged him to make the race, but he positively declined.
In all his public career, requiring a firin stand in matters where opinions conflicted, and in the bitterness of partisan politics, Colonel Hale has made friends among mnen of all shades of opinion and has retained the respect and confidence of the people. He has appeared as counsel in a number of the cases of first importance in the civil jurisprudence of Missouri, and is now engaged in a practice which consumes his entire time. He is a skillful tactician in legal contests, and his broad knowledge of mankind enables him to suc- ceed where many men would fail. His command of language is extensive and his eloquence is of a kind to almost persuade a jury against its will. In his intercourse with his fellow- inan he is genial, always courteous and his good nature is unfailing. He realizes that this is the age of intelligence; he knows the power of mind over matter and is therefore a
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diplomat. But this is only a biographical sketch; the full history of such a man as Colonel Hale cannot be written until he is dead; such men live every moment of the time allotted them and they daily inake history.
On January 6, 1859, Colonel Hale was married to Mary E. Cosby, a beautiful and estimable young lady of Carrollton. They have a most interesting family of six sons and one daughter - all grown. The two oldest sons are married.
WILLARD PREBLE HALL, SAINT JOSEPH.
JUDGE WILLARD PREBLE HALL, of St. Joseph, comnes of a family distinguished in
the history of Missouri, a family whose men have been noted for their high legal talents and their capacity for leadership and ability to mould public opinion. Among that coterie of older Missouri lawyers, respecting whom interesting facts will be found elsewhere in this volume, both Willard Preble Hall and his brother, William A. Hall, were two of the shining intellectual lights. Both left sons, who inherited the full share of the family legal genius and ability, and these are to-day prominent in the affairs of this State and an honor to its bar. Of the contemporary representatives of the family, our subjeet is perhaps one of the best known, and one too who has attained as fair a legal reputation as is the posses- sion of any lawyer of his age in Missouri.
He is the son of Gov. Willard Preble Hall, who for many years was respected and ad- mired for his noble qualities of mind and heart, and who was a distinguished lawyer who wrought a leading part in the development of this imperial State. The earliest record of the Hall family in America dates back to about twelve years subsequent to the landing of the Mayflower. In 1634, a family consisting of a widow and several sons settled at Med- ford, Massaelinsetts. From one of these sons who married a daughter of Simon Willard, the subject of this memoir is descended. Simon Willard settled in Massachusetts about the same time as the Halls, who have kept alive a memory of the union of the two families by bestowing his surname as the given name of inany of the descendants of this pioneer ancestor of the Hall family. The great grandfather of our subject was Steplien Hall, at one time a tutor at Harvard College, and who afterward married Mary Holt, a widow,
daughter of Deacon Cotton, of Portland, Maine, where Stephen Hall lived after his mar- riage. His son, Jolin Hall, was a mechanic and a man of high natural gifts. He was an inventor and conceived many ideas of great utility and value. For many years he was Superintendent of the Government Armory at Harper's Ferry, and unjust though it ap- pears, the many useful things conceived by his creative mind brought him no peenniary remuneration. Being an employe of the Goverment, that Government would issue him 110 patents. Perhaps the most valuable and important of all these inventions was the breeeli loading gin, Hall's carbine being the first gin ever made that embodied this prin- ciple. He married Statira Preble, of Portland, Maine, a daughter of Isaialı Preble and a sister of William Pitt Preble. Willard Preble Hall, the son of Jolin. Hall, and father of our subject, graduated at Yale College in 1839, and came to Missouri in 1840. The emigration to the West was made largely because the health of the head of the family liad failed, and the sons believed their prospects would be brighter in the new community than in the old. The family settled in Randolph County. In this State the young law graduate
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of Vale inet and married Anne Richardson, the mother of the present Judge Willard P. She was the daughter of Maj. W. P. Richardson, who came from Kentucky to Missouri late in the 'thirties, and subsequently became a noted figure as a Whig politician. He was at one time Indian Agent at a post in Kansas, and played a conspicuous part in the period of truculency and bloodshed known in history as the "Border War of Missouri and Kansas."
Judge Willard P. Hall, with whom this sketch has to do, was born at St. Joseph, Missouri, September 19, 1851. After the rudimentary basis was laid, he received his educa- tion in the St. Joseph high school. From there he went East, and entered Yale, where he continued till the end of the junior year; then returning home he at once began the study of law in his father's office, and having made considerable progress in that line prior to that time, he was able to pass his examination and secure admission to the bar in the fall of 1872. He was first associated with Judge O. M. Spencer, then H. K. White became an associate, and the firm was changed to White, Spencer & Hall. Next Judge Hall asso- ciated with Vinton Pike under the firm style of Hall & Pike. On the dissolution of this firm a partnership was entered into with B. J. Woodson, which is still existing.
The only public places Judge Hall has ever accepted have either been in direct line with his profession or wholly honorary. The first office held by him was that of City At- torney of St. Joseph, to which he was elected in 1876. At the end of his term, in 1878, he was elected Prosecuting Attorney of Buchanan County. These two places served to demonstrate that the legal mantle of the father had fallen on the shoulders of the son, and accordingly in 1885 he was invested with the high responsibilities and dignities of Judge of the Kansas City Court of Appeals, in which position he served with honor to his profes- sion and State until 1889. Since the expiration of his teri he has closely devoted his attention to his law practice, with the result that he has one of the best clienteles in Northwest Missouri. In 1889 Yale conferred upon Judge Hall the degree of Master of Arts.
Of recent years Judge Hall has manifested a deep interest in political affairs, though not with personal advantages in view. In the campaign of 1896 he was a State leader of the National Democratic forces and one of the most powerful advocates of that view of the question. He was a delegate to the Indianapolis Convention that nominated Palmer and Buckner, as well as to the State Convention that nominated Trimble for Governor.
June 22, 1876, Judge Hall was married at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to Isabel Fry Alrich, daughter of William T. Alrich. The Alriches are a Delaware family, having come from Holland and settled in that State prior to the Revolution. To this marriage liave been born three children, two of whom survive: Anne Richardson, a daughter, and Preble, a son.
JOHN WILLIAM HALLIBURTON, CARTHAGE.
THE name Halliburton is Scotch, and from that land of supremely canny and thrifty T folk, the name was brought to America by two brothers at a time prior to the rebel- lion of the Colonies against the tyranny of the inother country. The brothers froin some cause chose widely separated places of settlement, as one located in New York and the other in North Carolina. From the North Carolina branchi sprang the Missouri family, which was planted in this State early in its history by the grandfather of the subject of
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this biography. Thic latter is the son of Hon. Westley and Armilda E. (Collins) Halli- burton, and was born at Linneus, Linn County, Missouri, December 30, 1846. His father, Hon. Westley Halliburton, was a man of fine intellect and character, and he was one of the ablest lawyers and jurists of Northern Missouri, and for many years was one of the State's most influential Democratic leaders. He held many honors at the hands of the people, and many offices of responsibility and trust, judicial and political. While a resident of Macon County he served as County Judge and as Prosecuting Attorney between the years 1844 and 1852. He was then made Receiver of the United States Land Office at Milan, Sullivan County, and removed to that place. He was elected to represent Sullivan County in the Legislature, and served in the same capacity afterward from Linn. In 1856 he was elected State Senator from that district, serving as such until 1860. In 1875 he was sent as a delegate to the State Constitutional Convention and took a conspicuous part in the pro- ceedings of that body. He was elected State Senator from his district in 1880, serving a term of four years. He continued as one of the most vigorous leaders of his party up to the time of his deatlı, June 16, 1890. The Collinses, the cognate branch of Mr. Halliburton's family, were people who were among the colonists of America. On this, as well as on the paternal side, all of our subject's ancestors who lived in that day were soldiers in the American Revolution.
Our subject's education was acquired at the public schools of Linn and Sullivan Counties and Mount Pleasant College, at Huntsville, Missouri. He began the study of law with James M. De France, at Kirksville, and left there to enter the St. Louis Law School, taking the junior course in the winter of 1868-69. He was admitted to practice at St. Louis in April, 1869, without examination, the Circuit Judge accepting the assur- ance of Judge E. B. Ewing as to the young aspirant's efficiency as sufficient.
Armed with his license, he returned to Kirksville and began practice there in the year last named. He remained there five years, and then located at Milan, where he remained until 1877, in which year he went to Carthage, where he lias been for the past twenty years, a member of the firm of McReynolds & Halliburton.
October 16, 1878, the year following liis location at Carthage, lie returned to Kirksville to marry the lady whose plighted trotli he carried with him when he left that town. She was Julia B. Ivie, a handsome and accomplished young lady of Kirksville. Mr. and Mrs. Halliburton have thirce living children, named respectively, Westley, Jolin Josepli and Louise. The elder son, Westley, is now a student of the State University.
When the Civil War ended Mr. Halliburton was yet in his "teens," but he saw experience as a soldier in that great struggle, nevertheless. His sympathies were intensely Southern, and, accordingly when Gen. Sterling Price entered Missouri on his last raid in the early antuinn of 1864, he joined him, remaining until the close of the war in the Confederate service. At the present time lie is Judge Advocate of the Second Regiment, National Guards of Missouri.
Mr. Halliburton has served as City Attorncy of Carthage, but further than that he lias not consented to act as an official, having 110 aspirations to cuter public life. He belongs to three fraternal orders, namely, the Odd Fellows, Royal Arcanum and Knights of Pythias. In politics he is a straight Democrat, and his interest in politics is solely
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that of a citizen seeking good government and the general welfare of the many. £ But Mr. Halliburton is above and beyond all else a lawyer. In the law is his whole ambition, and like all men of strength who have devoted their whole energies to a single result, he has achieved a success that places him in the front rank of his profession.
WILLIAM DECATUR HAMILTON,
GALLATIN.
W ILLIAM DECATUR HAMILTON, one of the skillful criminal lawyers of Northwest Missouri, is a native of this State and comes of ancestors who are among Missouri's oldest pioneers. His father is perhaps the oldest native Missourian living in the State, having been born in 1818. The subject of this biography was born at Doe Run, St. Francois County, November 2, 1849, and is the son of William Decatur and Amanda Jane Hamilton. The father, a Baptist preacher, was also born in that county, in 1818, as above noted, three years before Missouri had become a State. He still lives on the old home place in St. Francois, and for one who has seen eight decades of time add themselves to each other, he is remarkably strong and vigorous. His father, James Hamilton, was a native of Pendleton, South Carolina, and inarried Elizabeth Matkin, a native of Georgia. The couple in the course of time decided to seek a lionne in the great Western wilderness, and after months of travel through sparsely peopled settlements and Indian-haunted for- ests, finally, in 1817, reached St. Francois County, Missouri. James Hamilton was not permitted to remain long a resident of his new home, as in the same year of his settlement and before his son's birth, he died.
The maternal branch of Mr. Hamilton's ancestral tree has likewise long been identified with Southeast Missouri. His grandfather, James V. Brown, was of Scotch origin, was born in Morgan County, Kentucky, there married Mary Warthien, of English blood, but a native of the same county. On beginning life together they sought a home in Madison County, Missouri, at a date not recorded, but which could not have been many years dis- tant from the time the Hamiltons settled in the contiguous northern county. There their daughter Amanda Janc was born, and there married William D. Hamilton and became the mother of our subject, who is the second son, and one of six children born of said marriage- four sons and two daughters, their names being as follows: Jolin W., William D., James V., Elisha M., Mary E. and Malıala.
Our subject was reared on the farm in St. Francois County. He attended the common school, and when far enough advanced, entered Elmwood Academy, at Farmington, the chief town of his native county. When seventeen years old he struck out into the world for himself, actuated by the commendable purpose to obtain a higher education in spite of every obstacle. This was in 1868, and in that year he worked on a farm for a short time, in Johnson County, Missouri, where he had temporarily located. He attended the public schools whenever the necessity of earning a living could be placed in abeyance for a time. Even prior to leaving home he was ambitious to become a lawyer, and for some time had been working to the accomplishment of that purpose. He became a student at the State Normal School, at Warrensburg, and afterward qualified as a school teacher. In 1870 he entered the office of Orr & Williams, at Holden, Johnson County, and began the study of law, continuing his teaching of winters to enable him to spend the summers as a student.
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