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 77
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He has three times been Prosecuting Attorney of Caldwell County, the first term re- sulting from the annual election in 1876, for a period of two years, and his re-election, in the fall of 1878, for two years, came as the natural consequence of his constituency's ap- preciation of his fidelity and official devotion. He was again nominated and elected to the same office, serving one term, from January 1, 1887, to January 1, 1889. During his service of two years as Mayor of Kingston he instituted several necessary reforms and im- proved the community in many ways. As Mason, Odd Fellow and Knight of Pythias he is a prominent fraternalist in his section, having been for many years treasurer of the I.O.O.F. lodge in Kingston1.
On April 1, 1875, lie married Miss Mariam Johnson, by whom he has two children, Agnes, a bright girl of sixteen, and Einmet, an equally promising boy, six years old.
JOHN W. McANTIRE, JOPLIN.
THE populous and enterprising County of Jasper can naturally boast of having among its citizens some of the most eminent lawyers in Southwest Missouri, and one of the foremost in this class is John McAntire, the subject of this brief biography.
In. martine
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The founders of the American branch of the McAntire family were three brothers wlio settled in North Carolina at an early day, one brother subsequently removing to Virginia, and his descendants emigrating from there to Kentucky. John W. McAntire was born in Hardin County, Kentucky, October 13, 1848, his father being Aaron B. McAntire, who inarried Sarah Hills. From Kentucky the McAntires traveled westward, in 1849, to Mis- souri, where they settled in Scotland County. Young McAntire began his education at a country school house, then his parents moved to Memphis, Missouri, where he continued his schooling, and afterwards attended La Grange College for one term. He taught school for several terms and after beginning the study of law, held the position of principal of Memphis public school for a short time on account of the resignation of the principal of the school. He then studied law in the office of Cramer & Peters, at Memphis, Missouri, and was there admitted to practice in September, 1872. After admission to the bar he decided to make Joplin his future home, and has been practicing in Jasper County ever since.
During the quarter of a century Mr. McAntire has spent in Jasper County he has sev- eral times been honored by his fellow-citizens with responsible officio-legal positions. During the second year of his residence there (1873) he was made City Attorney of Joplin. In later years he was elected and served three terms. During the two years from January 1, 1879, to January 1, 1881, he held the position of Prosecuting Attorney of Jasper County, and performed his duties with fidelity and success. He is at present local attorney for the Kansas City, Pittsburg & Gulf and the St. Louis & San Francisco Railways, in Joplin, and is also attorney for the Miners' Bank and the First National Bank, of Joplin.
Though Mr. McAntire is one of the best-known citizens of Joplin, his fame as a law- yer is not confined to that city, but spreads through the whole of Southwest Missouri. Wherever he has performed any legal duty during the past twenty-five years his work has been remembered with honor and his reputation enhanced. He has been, throughout his career as a lawyer, a keen observer, allowing no feature of a case, however trifling, to escape utilization; and his skill in grasping and managing details is as great as his power to amalgamate them into one harmonious whole for more forcible presentation in court. This capability he often exhibited as attorney for his clients in either important or unini- portant cases, which accounts in a large degree for the success which has crowned his work as a lawyer. In his conduct of a case, logic is more highly valued by Mr. McAntire than oratory and eloquence, and he would always rather persuade a jury by calm statement than by an exercise of forensic art. He studies his case before he takes it into court and devotes great care and attention to his briefs.
Mr. McAntire has invariably been one of the leaders in the conduct of all public enter- prises in that section from which his town and county were expected to derive benefit. He has never confined his energies to the promotion of any one class of public improvements, but has willingly lent head and hand to the furtherance of any project beneficial to his city and county. He prepared the bill providing for terms of Circuit Court in Joplin, and took great interest in obtaining the passage of a law by which money could be appropriated to build a court house in a place other than the county seat, to the end that Joplin might have a court house.
As an Odd Fellow and a member of the Ancient Order of United Workmen he has repeatedly demonstrated his fraternalism and devotion, and is a prominent Odd Fellow in his part of the State. The holding of public office has never had much allurement for
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him, outside of City and Prosecuting Attorneyships; and he has therefore never sought any other office, yet as a Democrat he has for years been a leading figure in the councils of his party, and to his efforts and the efforts of those like him, can be attributed much of the growth of the Democratic party in the Fifteenth Congressional District.
Mr. McAntire's marriage occurred shortly after he settled in Joplin, his wife's maiden name being Mary E. Lamkin, and the ceremony taking place June 18, 1873. They have three fine children, Clarence A., Bertha M. and John W., Jr. Mrs. McAntire was born in Fayetteville, Arkansas, her father having been William Lamkin. Her mother, who before marriage was Miss Callahan, was a cousin of ex-Governor Charles Hardin, of Missouri.
GEORGE WASHINGTON MCCRARY, KANSAS CITY.
G EORGE WASHINGTON MCCRARY, son of James and Matilda Mccrary, was born
near Evansville, Indiana, August 29, 1835, and died at St. Joseph, Missouri, June 23, 1890. His short life of fifty-five years was a remarkable one, viewed from any stand- point, and history furnishes a no more striking exemplification of the possibilities of Amer- ican citizenship.
He was one of a family of thirteen children, was of Scottish descent, his ancestors hav- ing immigrated from Scotland early in the Eighteenth Century, and settled in the neighbor- hood of the present town of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. His great grandfather, James Mc- Crary, served as a Captain in the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War. His inother's maiden name was Matilda Forrest. His parents were poor and his chief inher- itance was a vigorous constitution, a logical and well balanced mind, and a predisposition to morality and purity of character. In October, 1835, the family removed to McDonough County, Illinois, and in 1837 pushed on toward the western frontier, settling in what is 110w Van Buren County, Iowa. Their home was within a few miles of the Missouri line, and was in the "Disputed Territory" then claimed by both Missouri and the Territory of Iowa. Here the boy grew up in hard work, acquiring such an education as the common schools of the locality afforded, and reading such books and newspapers as could be obtained. Later he attended an academy near his home, and there acquired a good English education and received considerable instruction in the higher branches of learning.
In 1855, at the age of nineteen, he entered the law office of Rankin & Miller, at Keokuk, Iowa, as a law student. His preceptors were Col. John W. Rankin, widely known as an able lawyer, and Samuel F. Miller, afterwards a member of the Supreinc Court of the United States.
Mr. McCrary worked hard and was admitted to the bar in 1856. He at once con1- menced the practice of the law at Keokuk, and soon after formed a partnership with one of his instructors, under the firm name of Rankin & McCrary. Possessed of strong anti- slavery convictions, he cast his lot with the new Republican party, his first vote being for Fremont for President, in 1856. In 1857, at the age of twenty-two, he was elected a Republican member of the Lower House of the Iowa Legislature from Lee County, and four years later was chosen a member of the State Senate, where he served for four years. Dur-
Ger, mm= Gravy
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ing the first two years of his Senatorial term he was Chairman of the Committee on Indian Affairs, at that time the most important committee of the State Senate; and during his last two years he served as Chairman of the Judiciary Committee.
In 1868, at the age of thirty-three, Mr. McCrary was elected to Congress from the First Iowa District. He was re-elected to the Forty-second, Forty-third and Forty-fourth Con- gresses, and served with marked ability and distinction. While in Congress he was assigned to membership on the Committees on Naval Affairs, Revision of the Laws, Railways and Canals, the Judiciary and Elections. In the Forty-second Congress he was appointed Chairman of the last named committee by Speaker Blaine, and in that capacity induced the House of Representatives, probably for the first time in its history, to consider contested election cases upon their merits, irrespective of party affiliations. As Chairman of the Committee on Railways and Canals of the Forty-third Congress, he prepared a report on the constitutional power of Congress to regulate interstate railway commerce and vigorously supported a bill embodying the recommendations of the report in the long debate which led to its passage in the House. In the Forty-fourth Congress, as a member of the Judiciary Committee, he became the author of a bill under which the judiciary of the United States was reorganized. Probably Mr. McCrary's greatest service to the country as a Congress- man was in the authorship of the measure proposing the appointment of an Electoral Com- mission, the adoption of which brought about a peaceful solution of questions which had arisen concerning the result of the Presidential election of 1876, and which must now, in view of the dangers which it obviated, be regarded as wise statesmanship, no matter how we may differ as to the justice of the decision reached. He was one of the joint committee which framed the electoral bill and afterward acted as one of the Republican counsel before the Commission, and in a strong legal argument, sustained the election of President Hayes.
In 1877, at the age of forty, Mr. Mccrary became a member of President Hayes' Cabinet, having the portfolio of Secretary of War. During his administration of this department, the first systematic work preparatory to the publication of the official records of the War of the Rebellion was begun; the Signal Service Bureau was improved and connected with similar institutions abroad; and the authority of the department was con- strned by the Secretary for the first time to be sufficiently broad to authorize the issuing of tents, blankets and rations to persons rendered destitute by pestilence, the occasion being the destitution in Southern Mississippi, resulting from an epidemic of yellow fever.
In December, 1879, Secretary McCrary resigned from the Cabinet to accept the ap- pointment of United States Circuit Judge for the Eighth Judicial Circuit, and assumed his duties in January, 1880. Despite the fact that he came to the bench fresh from political life, where lawyers are, as a rule, ruined rather than inade, he had still throughout his political career continued the practice of the law, both at the bar of his own State and before the Federal Courts. Furthermore, his work in Congress had run principally along the lines of legal and constitutional research; thus he brought to the bench a degree of legal attainment, which, aided by a natural judicial temperament, enabled him to discharge the duties of his position to the satisfaction of a bar whichi had grown critical under the Judgeship of his distinguished predecessor, Judge Dillon. His decisions as Circuit Judge are comprehended in the five volumes of "Mccrary's Circuit Court Reports."
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On March 1, 1884, Judge McCrary resigned from the bench and accepted the position of General Counsel for the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad Company, with his headquarters at Kansas City, Missouri. His residence in Missouri dates from this period and for the balance of his life he remained a citizen of this State. Soon after his removal to Kansas City he became a member of the law firin of Pratt, Mccrary, Ferry & Hagerman, and this relation continned unbroken during his remaining days. In 1885 he was elected President of the Missouri Bar Association. During his service on the Committee on Elec- tions in Congress, he laid the foundation for his book on the "American Law of Elections," which was first published in 1875, and which through subsequent editions has remained a leading authority on this subject, both in Congress and among lawyers. In 1877 the degree of LL. D. was conferred upon him by Iowa College, of Grinnell, Iowa, and on December 4, 1886, he was elected an honorary inember of the loyal legion of the United States.
Judge Mccrary was a Unitarian in religious belief. There was no uncertainty in the tone of his Christianity, and he vigorously combated the effort inade in 1886 by certain Unitarian Churches to commit that denomination to a purely ethical belief, declaring that his church stood "for a positive faith in God, in immortality, in worship and in personal righteousness as exemplified in the teachings of Jesus Christ." He was a contributor at various times to the leading periodicals upon questions of public interest, and frequently engaged in other lines of literary work.
At the National Republican Convention in 1880, when it became apparent that neither of the leading candidates for President could be nominated, Judge Mccrary's name was imentioned as one on whoin the anti-Grant delegates could unite, and a committee waited upon him to secure permission to use his name for that purpose, but he forbade it. He, however, received one vote for President. A few months before his death he was favor- ably mentioned for Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States to fill the vacancy then existing.
In 1857 he was married to Helen A. Gelatt, a talented Iowa woman, who through the constant progressions of his life proved to be a worthy helpmeet and companion, and who now resides at the old family home in Kansas City. Five children were born of the inar- riage, two sons and three daughters, all of whom survive him. The youngest son, George H., is now a practicing attorney at Kansas City.
It has only been possible in this limited space to outline the happenings of a life so full of activity and achievement. But the wealth of accomplishment and the rapid but orderly development here portrayed proclaim no ordinary man. Almost continually in office for twenty-five years, and serving successively in the legislative, executive and judicial depart- ments of the Government, he not only performed the duties of each office with fidelity, but demonstrated his capacity for work by coming out of each a better lawyer than when he took the office. Althoughi never defeated for office, lie never resorted to any of the arti- fices of the politician for success. In every instance the office in reality sought the 111211.
His private life was singularly sweet and pure. He seemed to live serenely above the ordinary strifes and passions of life. He was unostentations in manner, sound and deliberate in judgment, temperate in speech, generous in disposition, but earnest and fearless in his
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convictions - a "reasonably modest, learned man." He was devoted to his family, true to his friends, fair with his opponents; enemies he had none. Of him it may most truly be said :
" His life was gentle and the elements So mixed in him that nature might stand up And say to all the world, this was a man."
Kansas City, Mo., February, 1898.
HENRY L. MCCUNE.
HENRY L. McCUNE, KANSAS CITY.
H ENRY L. MCCUNE, one of the younger members of the Kansas City bar, was born at the little town of Ipava, Fulton County, Illinois, June 28, 1862. The blood of two excellent families unites in his veins and he is the inheritor of tendencies and high attributes which are the most valuable legacy that can be bequeathed any son - a worthy and unsullied name, an inclination toward and a love of the best and highier things of life and an ambition to attain them. His father, the Hon. Joseph L. McCune, was a native of Ohio, was of Scotch-Irish extraction and descended from a family that reached these shores at an early day. He was a leading banker and merchant of Ipava, and one of the influential men of his section of Illinois. He took deep interest in political affairs, and up to the time of his death in December, 1893, was one of the leaders of his party and was sent by it to represent his county in the State Assembly. His widow, who yet resides at the old home in Illinois, was born in West Virginia, and was before her mar- riage, Martha E. Quillin. She is the daughter of a Presbyterian minister and of English descent. Her family is among the oldest and most honorable, dating its American founda- tion from Richard Woodhull, who came to America some time in the year 1600 and located on Long Island, where the family continued to reside until after the Revolution, and where some of his descendants may yet be found. She traces her family, which is related to the noted Woodhull and Hedges families of England, back in unbroken line to the time of the Norman conquest in 1066.
The subject of this sketch is the eldest of a family of seven children. He was reared in the town of Ipava and there obtained his common school education. When he had com- pleted such preparation he, at the age of fifteen, was sent to Illinois College, at Jackson- ville, remained there two years, and in 1879 entered the University of Illinois, at Cham- paign. He graduated in the class of 1883, and having prior to this decided to adopt the law, entered the office of Morrison & Whitlock, at Jacksonville, Illinois. This reading was supplemented by a thorough course at the celebrated Columbia Law School, in New York City, where he entered in 1884 and graduated in 1886.
Impressed by the opportunities accorded the young and ambitious lawyer in the grow- ing West, in the fall of the year of his graduation from Columbia College he located at Oswego, Kansas, where he became the junior member of the firm of Perkins, Morrison & McCune, the senior member of which, Judge Perkins, was elected to represent Kansas in the United States Senate. During his residence in Oswego, Mr. McCune was twice appointed City Attorney of that town, and made an excellent official. On the expiration of his second term he went to Kansas City (May, 1890), and has since resided there and prac- ticed his profession. With the beginning of 1891 he entered into a partnership with
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Charles L. Dobson and Herbert L. Doggett, and the firm was known as Dobson, McCune & Doggett 11p to Judge Dobson's appointment to the Circuit Bench of Jackson County, in February, 1894. This dissolved the firm and Mr. McCune practiced alone until January, 1897, when Judge Dobson resigned from the bench and returned to practice with his foriner partner under the firin name of Dobson & McCune.
Mr. McCune has never taken an active part in political affairs, has never sought office, although he acts with the Republican party. During his college days he took a course in military science at the University of Illinois, and now holds a commission as Captain in the Illinois State Guards. He is likewise a member of the Sigma Chi Fraternity, of the Kansas City Commercial Club, and a leading member of the Congregational Church. In Decem- ber, 1895, lie was elected President of the Kansas City Bar Association. The Kansas City Bar Monthly said of him on that occasion: "Mr. McCune, although the youngest member ever elected President of the Association, is recognized as one of the leading lawyers in. Kansas City. His sterling qualities and courteous manner have won him numerous friends, wlio deliglit in pointing to him as a worthy representative of the younger members of the Kansas City bar."
Mr. McCune has recently edited and published the fourth edition of Judge McCrary's well known work on the law of elections. The sketch of Judge Mccrary, which precedes this, will be found interesting by reason of the interest of the theme no less than because of the nearness of the author's view, Mr. McCune being the jurist's son-in-law.
September 6, 1888, Mr. McCune married Helen A. McCrary, daughter of United States Circuit Judge George W. McCrary. Her girlhood was spent in Washington, where she received her education, afterward studying art at the Art League, New York. She has inuch artistic talent, and takes an active interest in all affairs of an artistic nature. Mr. and Mrs. McCune have one child, Joseph, born May 27, 1891.
HENRY CLAY MCDOUGAL, KANSAS CITY.
NE of the strong, brainy lawyers of the western part of the State is Judge Henry Clay McDougal, of Kansas City, who is a native of Virginia and is now fifty-three years old. Born in Marion County, Virginia, December 9, 1844, lie was there reared on a farm and his youth was passed amidst the simple, healthful, natural surroundings of that time and place. He comes of excellent ancestry in both branchies, and liis great grandfather, William McDougal, a Presbyterian minister, having come to America in Colonial days. As he came from the Highlands of Scotland, when lie reached the beautiful and picturesque hills that border the limpid Monongahela River in Virginia, he naturally chose that section as his abiding placc. His grandson, John Fletcher McDongal, the father of our subject, married Elvira Boggess, a native of Marion, the same county in which he was born. Of this minion, Judge Henry C. McDougal is the second son. His maternal ancestors were of English and Scotch origin and among the earliest colonists of America. They came from England under the second charter granted in 1609 by James I. to "The Company of Adventurers and Planters for the First Colony in Virginia," settling on the James River. This loca- tion was made about 1621, only fourtecn years after the first settlement of white inen had been made at Jamestown, in that vast extent of wilderness north of South Carolina.
Henry L' Mccune
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Later, in 1660, they left the James River, and in that year settled on the Potomac in what is now Fairfax County, Virginia, and from there Lindsay Boggess, his great grand- father, came to Marion County, Virginia, in 1799.
Judge McDougal's father being a farmer and stock breeder, the son thus employed was early taught the lessons of inanly self-reliance and industry. He attended the com- mon schools near his home, and was ready to enter college when the Civil War broke ont. That contest was more trying to the people of Virginia than to those of any other section. Of course the bitter feeling was intense, and it operated to revolutionize society. Families were divided and the friendship of years broken over the questions that precipi- tated that fratricidal strife. Judge McDougal's family felt the disintegrating effects of the war, for while his elder brother and most of his schoolmates were avowed Secessionists and enlisted in the Confederate army early in 1861, he saw his duty in adherence to the cause of the Union. Therefore in July, 1861, shortly after the terrible defeat of the Federals on the twenty-first of that month at Bull Run, he enlisted as a private in Company A, Sixth Regiment of Virginia Infantry Volunteers (Union), "for three years, or during the war." Although the command participated in no battles of a magnitude to raise it to historical importance, it nevertheless saw much hard and active service in the mountains of Virginia, on the Kanawhas and on the upper Potomac, where it was. harassed by guerillas and en- gaged in numberless skirmishes. In 1863 the young soldier was detailed as Chief Clerk of the Third Brigade, Second Division of the Eighth Army Corps, to which position he yet refers as being valuable to him in the lessons of promptness, accuracy and reliability incul- cated by his Colonel, Nathan Wilkinson, late of Wheeling, West Virginia. This office he held until he was finally mustered out of service in August, 1864, at Wheeling.
Within ten days after he quitted the military service of the United States he entered its civil service, having accepted a situation as Clerk in the United States Quartermaster's Department, at Gallipolis, Ohio. Early in the summer of 1865 he was sent by the Quar- termaster General as his agent to take charge and dispose of an immense amount of Gov- ernment stores at Cincinnati. This business having been satisfactorily closed in October, 1865, he was made Chief Clerk of the Transportation Division of the Quartermaster's De- partment, and sent to Indianapolis, Indiana. There he remained until March, 1866, when he resigned and returned to his old home in Marion County.
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