USA > New Mexico > History of New Mexico : its resources and people, Volume I > Part 45
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On October 1, 1881, Judge Parker, coming to New Mexico, located at Socorro, and a month later was examined by a committee of the bar and admitted to practice. He first settled at Mesilla, then the county seat of Doña Ana county, where he maintained his office for a year, and in the fall of 1882 removed to Kingston, a mining town then enjoying a "boom." In May, 1883, he removed to Hillsboro, where he has since maintained his residence, though spending the greater part of his time in Las Cruces. He practiced in Hillsboro and the surrounding counties until elevated to the bench, being appointed on January 10, 1898, bv President Mckinley, to the office of associate justice of the supreme court of the Territory. He was reappointed to the same office by President Roosevelt in December. 1901, and again in December, 1905. The only other office Judge Parker has held is that of superintendent of schools of Sierra county,
Judge Parker has been married twice. On September 28, 1892, he wedded Lillian L. Kinney, of Minneapolis, Minnesota, who died August II, 1893, leaving a daughter, Rosamond Lillian. On October 26, 1904, he married Anna Davis, a native of Sioux City. Iowa. A son, Frank Wil- son Parker, Jr., was born to them July 27, 1906.
Judge Parker has been closely associated with various public interests in New Mexico. He was a member of a militia company organized at Hillsboro during the Geronimo raid, but was in no active service. He was made a Mason in Kingston Lodge, A. F. & A. M., belongs to the Chapter and Commandery at Deming, the Shrine at Albuquerque and to Elks lodge at Silver City. In politics he has always been a Republican. Upon the bench he has made an excellent record for the judicial soundness and impartiality of his decisions, seeming to lose utterly that personal view and prejudice which interferes with the uniform administration of justice, and he is regarded today as one of the ablest representatives of the judiciary of New Mexico.
William H. Pope, now associate justice of the supreme court, re- moved from Atlanta, Georgia. to Santa Fé, New Mexico, in 1804, and in the spring of 1895 resumed the practice of law as a member of the firm of Victory & Pope. the senior member being Hon. John P. Victory, then attorney general of the Territory. In 1895 he was appointed a member of a commission to rebuild the capitol of New Mexico, and served on said commission until the completion of the new capitol in 1000. In March, 1896, he was appointed by the attorney general of the United States as a
4. Frank M.Parken
Elisha N. Long Las DEjong Me
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special assistant for the prosecution and defense of causes arising before the court of private land claims, and served the government in this capacity before that court in Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona until his resigna- tion in June, 1902. In April, 1901, the secretary of the interior appointed him United States attorney for the pueblo Indians of New Mexico, from which he resigned in June, 1902. In June, 1902, Judge Pope was ap- pointed by Hon. William H. Taft, civil governor of the Philippine Islands, as judge of the court of first instance of the Philippine Islands, and served in these islands in that capacity for about a year, returning to America in June, 1903. In October, 1903, he was appointed associate justice of the supreme court of New Mexico. In 1904 Judge Pope was appointed by President Roosevelt as a delegate on behalf of the government to the international congress of lawyers and jurists held in connection with the St. Louis Exposition.
Hon. Elisha Van Buren Long, ex-chief justice of New Mexico, was born in Wayne county, Indiana, March 7, 1836, son of Elisha and Malinda (Hale) Long. He was educated in the common schools of Wayne county, in the New Castle Academy, New Castle, and Fort Wayne College, Fort Wayne, Indiana. He studied nights and mornings at home, worked on a farm, taught school and clerked in a store, and thus paved the way to a professional career. In the office of Judge Worden, at Columbia City, Indiana, Mr. Long began the study of law, afterward had for his preceptors Stanfield & Anderson, of South Bend, Indiana, and in due time was ad- mitted to the bar. He began the practice of his profession at Warsaw, Indiana. In the winter of 1872-3 he was appointed circuit judge of the fourth judicial district, comprising Kosciusko, Marshall and Fulton coun- ties, and at a special election the following summer was elected to the office for a term of six years. The district was then changed, Whitley county being put in place of Marshall. He was re-elected and altogether served on the bench there for a period of thirteen years. As showing his popularity irrespective of party lines, we note that Judge Long was up to that time the only Democrat ever able to carry Kosciusko county or Warsaw, the county seat, the county then having a normal Republican plurality of eight hundred and the town three hundred. He received a majority of one hundred votes from Warsaw and three hundred from Kosciusko county.
Judge Long has always been a steadfast, consistent Jacksonian Demo- crat, as well when his party was out of power as when the opportunities for success were good. He has often lived in localities where to be a Democrat was an obstacle to political preferment. In Indiana he estab- lished as a Democratic newspaper in his home town, the Warsaw Union, and was for many years in his earlier life both editor and proprietor of that publication, which continues to be the organ of Democracy of his old home county. For a short period he at one time lived at Anderson, Madison county, Indiana, where he was a partner in law practice of Judge Blake of that city. During that period he purchased, edited and published the Anderson Standard, the Democratic organ of Madison county. As a delegate from his county in Indiana he attended every Democratic state convention from 1860 up to and including that of 1884, as well as every Democratic congressional convention of his district with a single exception. He was a delegate to the national Democratic conventions of 1860, 1876
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and 1884, and also a delegate from New Mexico to the national convention of 1892. Under President Cleveland's administration Judge Long was appointed chief justice of the Territory of New Mexico, which position he filled for a term of six years. Since his retirement from the bench the judge has devoted his attention to private practice. Soon after he resumed practice he became associated with Captain L. C. Fort, with whom he was in partnership until the latter's death. With a keen insight into affairs, well versed in the law and, above all, with an earnest desire to be fair and impartial in all his rulings, Judge Long made an enviable record on the bench.
Among his important judicial decisions perhaps none are more note- worthy than the one which relates to the Las Vegas land grant at Las Vegas. (See history of Land Grants.) This grant contains about four hundred thousand acres of land, of which the city of Las Vegas is the center. For many years important legal questions arose relating to the title to this large and valuable body of land. In the case of Milhiser vs. Padilla, Judge Long, while chief justice, gave an elaborate opinion, exten- sively edited at that time, in which he held that this grant belonged to the town or community of Las Vegas, thus confirming to that town a property which is destined to prove of incalculable benefit to its inhabitants. The opinion embraced in this decision has been approved by four different judicial tribunals, and lastly by the supreme court of the United States. As a result, June 27, 1893, the United States issued to the town of Las Vegas a patent for this fine property, which inures to the benefit of the people within the grant. Chief Justice Mills determined that the proper method of managing the property was by means of a board of trustees to be appointed by the court, and thereupon he appointed as such board Jef- ferson Raynolds, Eugenio Romero, Elisha V. Long, Charles Ilfeld, re- spectively president, vice-president, secretary and treasurer, and Fred H. Pierce, Jose F. Esquibel and Isador V. Gallegos. Judge Long is also the appointee of the board to examine into the claims of the actual home settlers within the grant for the purpose of recognizing and confirming their titles. At this writing, the summer of 1906, over one hundred of these titles have been reported upon by Judge Long and deeds executed by the board. While this work is local, it affects probably five hundred settlers within the Las Vegas grant, and is a part of the present history of Judge Long and as well an important item in the history of San Miguel county.
Before leaving Indiana and at the time of his removal to New Mexico Judge Long was in ill health. The bracing climate of Las Vegas, how- ever, gave him a new lease on life and he is today in the enjoyment of good health, with prospects for a ripe old age.
Judge Long was married in 1873 to Miss Alice R. Walton, a native of Pennsylvania, and they are the parents of four children, namely: Alfred Hendricks, a sheep rancher in Guadalupe county, New Mexico; Boaz W., engaged in business in San Francisco and Mexico City; Mary Walton, wife of Dr. Thomas E. Olney, of South Bend, Indiana; and Teresa W., at home.
Thomas J. Smith, chief justice of the Supreme Court of New Mexico from 1893 to 1898, was one of the strong men of his day in the Terri- tory. He was born in Culpeper county, Virginia, July 26, 1838, a son of William Smith, once governor of Virginia, and a descendant of Sir
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Sidney Smith of England. He was a graduate of William and Mary Col- lege and obtained his education in the law in the University of Virginia. He began practice in West Virginia. When the Civil war broke out he entered the Confederate army and became a brigadier general. At the close of the war he resumed his law practice, locating in Fauquier county, Virginia, serving one term as judge of that county and as a member of the state legislature. In 1884 President Cleveland appointed him United States attorney for New Mexico, an office he filled four years, when he returned to Virginia to resume private practice. His appointment as chief justice is said to have been entirely unsolicited on his part. He undoubtedly was fearless as a judge and endeavored to be just.
Hon. Daniel H. McMillan, ex-justice of the supreme court of New Mexico, whose effective and public spirited labors have extended to va- rious state and national interests, is now residing at Socorro. He was born in New York, New York, in 1848, and his collegiate education was acquired in Cornell University, which he attended in 1868-9. Admitted to the bar at Buffalo, New York, in 1872, he at once entered upon the practice of his profession in that city and his prominence in political cir- cles in the Empire state was indicated by his election to the New York senate. where he served from 1885 until 1887, when he was renominated, but declined to again become a candidate. He served as manager of the Buffalo state asylum from 1884 until 1899, was trustee of the New York state normal from 1887 until 1899; manager of the Buffalo library from 1883 until 1889: president of the Buffalo library in 1889-90; law ex- aminer for admission to the bar in the fifth judicial department of the state of New York from 1883 until 1894; member of the New York Republican state central committee in 1887. He was also alternate dele- gate at large to the Republican national conventions held at Chicago in 1888, at Minneapolis in 1892 and at St. Louis in 1896. He was likewise delegate at large to the New York state constitutional convention in 1894 and was a member of the commission to revise the educational laws of the state of New York in 1899. His prominence in his profession was indicated by his selection for the office of vice-president of the New York State Bar Association in 1887-8 and he was also a member of the Ameri- can Bar Association. His activity extended to church, social and fraternal circles. He was a member of the Presbyterian church; belonged to the Buffalo and Liberal clubs of Buffalo, New York, to the Chi Psi fraternity, and in Masonry he attained the 32d degree in the Consistory and also became a member of the Mystic Shrine.
On account of impaired health Mr. McMillan made his way to the west in 1898, spending the succeeding fall and winter in Arizona and New Mexico. In December. 1899, President Mckinley appointed him to the supreme hench of the Territory of New Mexico, a position which he ably filled until the Ist of June, 1902, sitting in the fifth judicial district. Since 1901 he has made his home in Socorro. He is a lawyer of superior ability and his conduct on the bench was in harmony with his record as a man and lawyer, distinguished by unimpeachable integrity and by a masterful grasp of every problem presented for solution. He formerly had extensive holdings in coal mines and sheep ranches in the Territory, but these he has sold. He has promoted important territorial interests
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and is the champion of many measures of civic pride, his labors proving of direct and immediate servicableness in behalf of public progress.
Judge McMillan was married to Miss Delphia Jackson of Arcade, New York. They have two sons, Morton K. and Ross, both well known among the younger business men of New Mexico.
Hon. William D. Lee, late Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the Territory of New Mexico, is a member of the Lee family of Vir- ginia. His grandfather, Henry Lee, emigrated from a point near Win- chester, Virginia, and settled on a farm ner Lebanon, Ohio, in an early day of that state, where Dr. Henry D. Lee, father of Judge Lee, was born.
William D. Lee was born in Fayette county, Indiana, November 8, 1830, was educated at Asbury, now DePau, University, Greencastle, In- diana. He studied law in the office of Hon. Richard W. Thompson at Terre Haute, Indiana, and graduated in the law department of the State University at Bloomington in the year 1853. He entered the practice of law in the town of Rensselaer, county seat of Jasper county, Indiana, where he remained until the year 1862, when he was elected prosecuting attorney of the 12th judicial circuit and removed to the city of Lafayette, where he remained practicing his profession until he removed to New Mexico, .excepting while he was engaged in the military service during the Civil war, in which he served as captain of Company E, 135th Indiana Volunteer Infantry. In the year 1876 he removed to New Mexico and engaged in the practice of law, forming in 1880 a partnership with the late Captain L. C. Fort, under the name of Lee & Fort, at the city of Las Vegas, which partnership continued until the 4th day of March, 1889, when Judge Lee was appointed by President Harrison an associate justice of the supreme court of the Territory of New Mexico and assigned to the second judicial district with headquarters at Albuquerque, to which place he then removed. He served on the bench nearly five years.
In the year 1855 Judge Lee was married to Miss Naomi A. Rees, who, like himself, was a native of Indiana. Seven children were born of this marriage. On the 16th day of May, 1905, Judge Lee and wife celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of their marriage.
On retiring from the bench Judge Lee engaged in the practice of law at Albuquerque, where he now resides.
Warren Bristol, deceased, judge of the third judicial district from 1872 to 1884, was born at Stafford, Genesee county, New York, March 19, 1823. He was educated in Yates Academy, the Lima Seminary, Wil- son Collegiate Institute and Fowler's Law School. He was admitted to the bar in Lockport, New York, and immediately afterward went to Quincy, Illinois. Not finding that town a desirable location for practice he removed to Hennepin county, Minnesota, where Minneapolis now stands, and was one of the men who gave that city its name. Upon the organiza- tion of that county he was elected prosecuting attorney and was after- ward elected to the same office in Goodhue county, where he afterward served as probate judge. In 1855 he presided over the first Republican state convention held in Minnesota, and was a delegate to the Baltimore convention of 1864, which renominated Lincoln. In the meantime hc served in both houses of the Minnesota legislature. In 1872 President Grant appointed him associate justice of the supreme court of New Mexico,
Im D. Lee
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a post which, by successive reappointments, he filled until he resigned in 1885. He heard a number of cases which have become historic and was on the bench during the entire Lincoln County War, presiding at the trial of the desperado known as " Billy the Kid." In 1889 he was unanimously elected as a delegate to the constitutional convention from Grant county, and this service was the last of a public nature he performed. The closing days of his life were spent in Deming, to which place he removed in 1882, and where his death occurred January 12, 1890.
Judge Bristol's judicial acts were broad and accurate. In judgment, industry, in clear conception of the spirit and scope of jurisprudence and in intuitive perception of right, he ranked high in the estimate of the bench and bar and the laity. The so-called cattle wars of Lincoln county and the opening of the railroads, with their accompaniment of bands of desperadoes, brought on a heavy volume of business, but he disposed of all cases brought before him with care and dispatch.
Needham C. Collier, judge of the second judicial district from 1893 to 1898, was born at Indian Springs, Georgia, April 30, 1847. In 1864 he enlisted in the Confederate Army, serving eight months. He was grad- uated from Georgetown College, District of Columbia, in 1868, and in 1871 was admitted to the bar in his native county, where he began practice. In 1875 he removed to Savannah, Georgia, where he practiced for ten years, when he came to New Mexico and located in Albuquerque. In 1887 he was elected city attorney and was re-elected in 1889 and 1891. In the latter year he formed a partnership with O. N. Marron, an arrange- ment that continued until 1893, when he was appointed by President Cleve- land as judge of the second judicial district.
William Henry Whiteman, associate justice of the first judicial district, 1889-90, was born in Ohio, April 2, 1844. In 1861 he enlisted in the Twentieth Ohio Infantry as a private, and served until the close of the war. A short time before the war closed he received promotion in a regiment of colored troops. After the war he studied a year in the Ohio Wesleyan University at Delaware, after which he removed to Carrollton, Missouri, where he was admitted to the bar in 1870. He was afterward active in Republican politics in Cherokee county, Kansas. He came to Albuquerque in 1881, and represented Bernalillo county in the legislature in 1884. After retiring from the bench he resumed the practice of law. In 1898 he was appointed adjutant general of New Mexico, a post he filled until 1905, when he resigned and removed from the Territory.
Colonel William L. Rynerson, who died at Las Cruces October 3, 1893. was born in Mercer county, Kentucky, February 22, 1828. His childhood was spent in Indiana, and he studied law in Franklin College, that state. In 1852 he left for California, where he engaged in mining until the Civil war. In Angust, 1861, he organized Company C, First California Infantry (California Column). He became second lieutenant, afterward was promoted to first lieutenant and later adjutant of the regi- ment under Carleton. In 1864 he was promoted to the rank of captain and assistant quartermaster of the staff of United States Volunteers. Later he was chief quartermaster for the district of Arizona, and near the close of the war was brevetted major and lieutenant colonel for meritorious service. In the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth legislative assem- blies he represented Doña Ana county, and was also receiver of public
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moneys in the Mesilla land district. In 1869 he was admitted to the bar of New Mexico, and for three years served as district attorney. He was a Mason, and in politics was a Republican. He was appointed adjutant general of New Mexico by Governor Pile. He served for two terms in the legislative council and for two terms was district attorney of the third judicial district. In 1880 he was appointed a delegate of the national convention held in Chicago, which nominated Garfield for the presidency, and was a member of the Republican national convention at the time of his death. He also served as secretary and treasurer of the board of regis- tration. In 1871 he was married to the widow of John Lemon.
In 1867 Colonel William L. Rynerson, then a member of the Terri- torial council, introduced a series of resolutions charging Chief Justice John P. Slough with various offenses and demanding his removal from office. These resolutions were passed unanimously by the council. He accused Slough of being "tyrannical, overhearing and frequently unjust." Further, "imprisoned jurors who *
* * have failed to render ver- dicts in accordance with his own expressed views and wishes. He has imposed fines upon jurors amounting to their entire pay as jurors at the terms at which they were serving, because they refused to follow his in- structions in finding verdicts. He has, at various times, conducted him- self in so arbitrary a manner in his courts as to intimidate the jury, and so flagrant at times were these exhibitions of his tyranny, that members of the bar, in duty to their clients, have in court openly informed him that the juries held him in fear. * * " He was further accused of drunk- enness in public places, ohscene and vulgar language, unprovoked assault upon those in the military service, and uncalled-for attack upon a federal officer, venerable in years, for which he was arrested, and refusing to stand examination was afterward put under bonds for trial.
Learning of this, Slough attacked Rynerson in most vulgar language, while the latter was playing billiards in the Exchange Hotel in Santa Fé, December 14, 1867, the evening of the day the council adopted the Ryner- son resolution calling for his removal. Slough also made threats against the life of Rynerson, so alleged, who tried to avoid meeting him. The next day Rynerson, believing, as he said, that Slough was drunk and therefore irresponsible at the time. asked him to retract what he had said. Slough refused to retract, but instead drew a derringer upon Rynerson. The latter then drew a revolver and fired, the wounds causing Slough's death. Rynerson gave himself up and was held without bail. Afterward he was released on a writ of habeas corpus and bailed at $20,000. The jury acquitted him at the trial. There is much in the evidence which showed Judge Slough to have been very injudicious in his general bearing, and to have been a man of ungovernable passions, which frequently got him into quarrels not in keeping with the dignity of the high position he filled. He was appointed chief justice in 1866.
Ex-Judge Alfred A. Freeman, of Carlsbad, was born in Tennessee, in 1838, was there reared and inade his home until 1877. He was admitted to the bar in 1860. He was a strong Union man and was exempted from conscript in the Confederate army, as he was a teacher. He resumed practice in 1866 in Brownsville, Tennessee. He was a member of the legislature in 1866, 1871, 1876 and 1877, was appointed assistant attorney general for the postoffice department at Washington under Hayes, in
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which position he served for eight years. From 1885 until 1890 he was engaged in the practice of law as a partner of United States Senator Money. In October, 1890, he was appointed by President Harrison as judge of the fifth judicial district of New Mexico, in which he served four years and five months, being located at Socorro, but since 1891 has been located at Carlsbad, where he is engaged in private practice.
Hezekiahı S. Johnson, who occupied the bench in the second judicial district from 1870 to 1876, came to Albuquerque about 1860, possibly a year later. In 1862 he was elected to the lower house in the legislature as a Republican. He enjoyed a lucrative practice. He married a native woman, and his influence among the native citizens was strong. Judge Johnson was active in the missionary work of the Episcopal church for several years.
Singleton M. Ashenfelter, one of the oldest and best known residents of the Territory. died in Silver City, January 23, 1906. Mr. Ashenfelter graduated at Dickinson College, Carlisle, Pennsylvania, in the year 1865, and was president of his class. In the summer of 1866 he assumed edi- torial charge of the National Standard, published at Salem, New Jersey, at the same time reading law in the office of Peter Montgomery, of Phila- delphia. In the fall of the same year he went on a long voyage around Cape Horn, accompanied by a sea-going friend, Captain John Shourds, of Camden, New Jersey. He landed in Valparaiso, Chili, in March, 1867, and spent nearly two years on the west coast of South America. In the fall of that year he was appointed clerk in the United States consulate at Guayaquil, Ecuador. He returned home in 1868, completed his legal studies and was admitted to the bar. In June, 1870, he came to New Mexico. In September of the same year he was by President Grant ap- pointed United States district attorney for this territory, and held such position until the early part of 1872, and so was one of the very earliest attorneys practicing here. At the expiration of his official term he removed to La Mesilla, where he took charge of the bookkeeping department of the overland stage line owned by J. F. Bennett & Company.
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