USA > New Mexico > History of New Mexico : its resources and people, Volume I > Part 48
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While living in Oregon, Mr. Turner was active in political circles, but held no office. He is a stanch advocate of Republican principles and is a
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member of the committee for Grant county in the non-partisan statehood league. In 1903 he was elected to represent his district in the territorial legislature, and in March of the same year he was chosen district attorney, which position he is now filling for the second term. During his incum- bency in office he prosecuted Frank Chenowith for the murder of Kilburn, the city marshal of Silver City, and secured his conviction.
On the IIth of July, 1892, Mr. Turner was married to Miss Ida Switzler, a native of Oregon, and they have two sons, Switzler and Rus- sell. Mr. Turner is master of Silver City Lodge, A. F. & A. M., is ex- alted high priest of the chapter, is a member of the commandery and is past exalted ruler of the Elks lodge. He is a friend of public education and of the normal school and gives active co-operation to many measures for the material, intellectual and political progress of his community.
Amos Weber Pollard, prosecuting attorney for Luna county and a resident of Deming, came to this place on the 6th of October, 1901. He was born in Portage, Wisconsin, April 21, 1870, a son of Amos B. and Fannie F. (Weber) Pollard. His boyhood and youth were passed in the state of his nativity, and his more specifically literary education was com- pleted in the Portage High School, after which he spent several years in commercial practice. He was, in 1899, commercial clerk in the state treasurer's office in Madison. He afterward matriculated in the law de- partment of the Wisconsin University of Madison, from which he was graduated in 1901. He was admitted to the Wisconsin bar, and a few months later came to New Mexico.
On coming to the southwest Mr. Pollard practiced first in Deming, New Mexico, arriving in this city on the 6th of October, 1901, from Phoe- nix, Arizona, where he had resided during the winter of 1900-I. He opened an office for the practice of law, and has since been closely con- nected with the legal profession. He possesses keen, analytical ability, and in the presentation of his case his deductions follow in logical se- quence. He has comprehensive knowledge of the principles of jurispru- dence, and his careful trial of a case indicates thorough preliminary prep- aration. In March. 1905, he was appointed to the office of district attor- ney, in which capacity he is now serving. He had served as village at- torney of Deming in 1903, and in the same year was elected to represent his district in the thirty-fifth session of the territorial legislature. Always interested in political questions and issues involving the welfare of the county, the Territory and the nation, he is a stalwart and unfaltering sup- porter of the Republican party, believing that its principles contain the best elements of good government. In connection with his other interests he is a stockholder in the Deming National Bank, and all matters relating to the progress and welfare of the community receive his endorsement and liberal co-operation.
Mr. Pollard was made a Mason in Deming and is now master of Deming Lodge No. 12, A. F. & A. M. He is likewise secretary of the Royal Arch Chapter and a member of the commandery. He was married to Edith E. Rogers, of Portage, Wisconsin, a daughter of J. H. Rogers, an attorney of that city, and they have one daughter, Wandra. The posi- tion of the family socially is a prominent one, for they have gained many friends among the best class of citizens during their residence in Deming.
Herbert B. Holt, of Las Cruces, district attorney for the eighth judicial
Granville & Richardson
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district, composed of Doña Ana, Otero and Lincoln counties in New Mexico, has filled this position since the spring of 1905, and is also regent of the Agricultural College. A native of Connecticut, he pursued his literary education in the schools of that state and of Massachusetts and studied law in Topeka, Kansas, further continuing his legal education under the direction of Judge S. B. Newcomb, of Las Cruces. For twelve years he was official stenographer for the third district courts, and in the fall of 1897 was admitted to the bar, since which time he has been engaged in active practice with a large and growing clientage, indicative of his capable manner of handling the important litigated interests entrusted to him. The same year of his admission to the bar he was made chief clerk in the New Mexico council. For five years he has been regent of the Agricultural College and secretary and treasurer of the board, and in March, 1905, he was appointed to the position of district attorney for the eighth district, in which capacity he is now serving.
Mr. Holt is deeply interested in the work of improvement and devel- opment in New Mexico, has been very active in promoting. the irrigation interests and was one of the organizers of the Elephant Butte Water Users' Association of New Mexico, which was formed in January, 1905, since which time he has been its president. He is a man of great public spirit, displaying ready recognition of opportunities, which he utilizes for the general good as well as individual success.
New Mexico, in a recognition of her prominent citizens, acknowledges her indebtedness to Granville A. Richardson for active co-operation in many business enterprises and movements which have had direct and im- portant bearing upon the progress, upbuilding and prosperity of the Ter- ritory. As a prominent attorney of Roswell, he is widely known and he has also left the impress of his individuality upon legislative history and upon material development. Born in Ohio, he was reared in Kentucky, and after mastering the elementary branches of learning pursued an aca- demic course in Emanuel College in Kentucky, where he won the Bachelor of Arts degree. He pursued the study of law in the University of Mich- igan at Ann Arbor and gained therefrom the degree of doctor of law. He was admitted to the bar before the court of appeals at Frankfort, Ken- tucky, in July. 1886, and in September following came to New Mexico, locating first in Lincoln county, where he practiced for a short time in partnership with George B. Barber, removing thence to Roswell in 1888. He opened the first law office in the Pecos valley. Subsequently he formed a partnership with Warren & Fergusson at Lincoln and continued with them for about a year. He practiced alone in Roswell until 1902, when he organized the present firm of Richardson, Reid & Hervey, which has an important and distinctively representative clientage, being connected with the leading litigation tried in the courts of this district. Mr. Rich- ardson has always enjoyed a large practice and has a wide reputation for superior ability in the line of his profession. Soon after coming to Ros- well he became attorney for the Pecos Irrigation & Improvement Company and was made local attorney for the railroad company when its line was extended through this county. He has always prepared his cases with painstaking care and precision, is strong in argument, sound in reasoning and logical in his deductions, and his devotion to the clients' interests is proverbial. He is an able lawyer of wide erudition, correct in his adapta-
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tion of legal principles, and his success has gained for him a foremost place in the ranks of the legal fraternity of the Territory.
Not alone in the line of his profession, however, has Mr. Richardson figured in public life. In 1890 he was elected to represent the ninth sen- atorial district in the general assembly of the Territory and served for one term. In 1892 he was a delegate from the Territory to the Democratic national convention. In 1898 he was again elected to the Territorial senate and for eight years he has been president of the commission of irrigation, New Mexico. He is likewise a member of the board of regents of the New Mexico Agricultural College, and for the past four years has been president of that board. He is very active in educational movements, stand- ing as the champion of an advanced system of public instruction and for the establishment of such educational institutions as shall be a credit and honor to the state in providing its sons and daughters with opportunities for intellectual progress. In the year 1905 Mr. Richardson was president of the New Mexico Bar Association, which indicates his high standing in the profession. He is also president and one of the most active and helpful members of the Roswell Commercial Club, looking to the material upbuilding and substantial development of Roswell along those lines which are a matter of civic pride and virtue. He is deeply interested in the agricultural, horticultural and stock raising interests of the Territory, has studied possibilities along these lines and has been the champion of the question of the irrigation of the arid lands. His most important and most recent position is that of special commissioner, by appointment of the supreme court of the United States, to take and direct the taking of testi- mony in the celebrated suit of Colorado vs. Kansas.
A prominent representative of the bar of the Southwest is J. M. Hervey, of Roswell, who is known as a man of high attainments as a lawyer and as one who has achieved success in his profession. He went to Lincoln on the 23rd of December, 1886, receiving his education in its public schools, and then entered Albion College, of Michigan, in 1894, where lie spent one year. In 1896 he matriculated in Ann Arbor Uni- versity, where he graduated in the law department in 1899, and in April, 1900, he commenced the practice of his profession in Roswell, where he had lived since June 21, 1887. From the beginning of his career as a legal practitioner his efforts have been attended with success, for he has largely mastered the science of jurisprudence, and his deep research and thorough preparation of every case committed to his care enable him to meet at once any contingency that may arise. Mr. Hervey was appointed to the office of district attorney on the 19th of March, 1903, to which position he was reappointed March 16, 1905, being the present incumbent. He is a member of the Chaves County Bar Association, also of the Territorial Bar Asso- ciation, and in 1903 was made vice-president of the fifth judicial district. Colonel George W. Prichard, ex-attorney general of New Mexico, has been an attorney at the territorial bar for more than a quarter of a century. He was born at New Harmony, Indiana, a son of James E. Prichard, who was on the bench for a number of years. Colonel Prichard graduated from the literary and law departments of the University of Michigan, at Ann Arbor, leaving that institution in 1872. He practiced law at Little Rock, Arkansas, for some years following his graduation, and Governor Powell Clayton of that state appointed him lieutenant-colonel of
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the Arkansas Militia. In 1876 Colonel Prichard was a candidate for presi- dential elector on the Republican ticket, a rare honor for so young a man. In 1879 he came west in quest of health and settled at Las Vegas. Twice he has been elected to the legislative council. In 1882 President Arthur appointed him United States attorney for Mexico, which position he filled until the Cleveland administration appointed a Democrat in his stead. He served as solicitor general from 1904 until the spring of 1906, and is now engaged in the private practice of law in Santa Fé. He was for some time an independent practitioner in White Oaks. He is honored by his fellow citizens and is esteemed as a man of eloquence, of talent, of integ- rity, of large legal experience and knowledge. He has been a stanch Re- publican from the day he attained his twenty-first year and has fought many a valiant and hard battle for party success. He was initiated a Knight of Pythias in Eldorado Lodge No. I, at Las Vegas, and was supreme chancellor from 1880 until 1884 and is also past grand chancellor.
Edward L. Medler,* of Albuquerque, who has been assistant United States attorney of New Mexico since 1901, has engaged in practice since 1894, when he was admitted to the bar, in Los Lunas. He was born in Washington, D. C., in 1873, and came to Albuquerque in 1881. Ten years later he entered the employ of W. B. Childers, of Albuquerque, as stenographer and under the direction of his employer took up the study of law. After his admission to the bar he was graduated from the law department of Yale University, with the class of 1895. In 1901 he was appointed assistant to W. B. Childers, then United States attorney, and has continued in that office under W. H. H. Llewellyn. He has had en- trusted to him a number of important cases and is making a splendid record in his practice before the courts of the Territory.
Antonio Abad Sedillo, attorney at law at Socorro and ex-district attorney of Socorro county, was born April 15, 1876, in the city where he yet resides. He is descended from Antonio Jose Sedillo, the original grantee of the Antonio Sedillo land grant, lying partly in Valencia and partly in Bernalillo counties. His son, Antonio Abad Sedillo, Sr., grand- father of our subject, was school commissioner of Socorro county when it included Sierra county. The parents of our subject were Rufino Sedillo and Donaciana Montoya Sedillo. Mr. Rufino Sedillo was probate clerk of Lincoln county in the years 1877 and 1878 and was afterwards deputy probate clerk of Socorro county for many years. Mrs. Sedillo is a direct descendant of two well known and influential families of Spanish extraction in the Territory of New Mexico, namely, the Montoya and Baca families.
Antonio A. Sedillo acquired his education in the public schools and the night school. He is practically a self-made man. He pursued his law course under the direction of the Sprague Correspondence School of Law
*Edward Medler, father of Edward L., was at one time a prominent contractor of Albuquerque, coming to this city from Washington, D. C., in 1880. The building of the town had just been started and he erected many of the most important business structures, as well as many handsome residences during the period in which he made his home in the territory. Among these were the famous San Felipe Hotel, which occupied the site on which the Elks Opera House now stands; the N. T. Armijo block; the Cromwell block; the First National Bank building; the Fergusson build- ing; the Bernalillo county court house and several of the city school houses. In 1901 he removed to Los Angeles, California, where he now resides.
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and read at times with others. He was admitted to the bar of El Paso, Texas, April 5, 1899, and began practice here in 1900, while in 1901 he was admitted before the supreme court of New Mexico. He had previously done hard manual labor at a smelter, and had also been employed as clerk in several stores and as a sewing machine agent in Socorro county, and in a curio store in El Paso, and he was deputy probate clerk for three years, while for one year he was deputy county assessor of Socorro county. He taught school in Socorro and Sierra counties, and was principal of the public schools in the city of Socorro for a few months. For one year he acted as city clerk and was chief interpreter in the house of the territorial legislature during the thirty-fourth and thirty-fifth general assemblies. In 1903 he was appointed district attorney and served for one term, during which time several important cases came up before the courts, one in regard to the settlement of the finances of Socorro county, in which, associated with Mr. Fergusson, he secured eighteen thousand dollars judgment for the county.
Since retiring from office Mr. Sedillo has engaged in private practice and has been connected with much of the important litigation tried in the courts of his district. Quite a number of notable cases have been con- ducted by Mr. Sedillo, who as counsel for the defense or prosecution, has shown marked ability in handling his cause.
On the 22d of April, 1901, was celebrated the marriage of Mr. Sedillo and Miss Gertrudis (Tulita) Vigil, of Socorro county. Their children are : Juan Antonio, Manuela Cupertina and Rufino Rodolfo.
In his political affiliation Mr. Sedillo is a stalwart Republican, well informed on the issues of the day and recognized as a leader in the local ranks of his party. He was secretary of the Republican central committee of his county for six or eight years, and has edited Spanish papers during the campaigns in support of the principles of the party. He made his first political speech at the age of twenty years and has since delivered many public addresses in support of political principles and candidates.
William C. Heacock has resided in Albuquerque since the spring of 1881 and was the first police judge of the city. He was born in Buffalo, New York, in 1850 and was graduated from the United States Naval Acad- emy at Annapolis, Maryland, in 1872. He served for eleven years in the navy, attaining the rank of master, equivalent to the present rank of lieu- tenant. While in the naval service he took up the study of law and was admitted to the bar in Reading, Pennsylvania, in 1880. In the spring of 1881 he came to Albuquerque and compiled the first ordinances of the city and also acted as its first police judge. He has enjoyed an extensive and successful practice in criminal law and is recognized as one of the most able advocates at the New Mexico bar, with a comprehensive knowledge of jurisprudence and a keen analytical mind that enables him to correctly apply his knowledge to the points in litigation.
William Edgar Kelley, an attorney at law at Socorro, New Mexico, who was a member of the constitutional convention of 1889 and has ex- erted considerable influence in public affairs, was born July 18, 1836, in St. Joseph county, Michigan, before that state had been received into the Union. He was reared and educated in the north and in 1863 was mar- ried to Sophia Lincoln, who was a native of the state of New York, but
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at the time of her marriage was living in Coldwater, Michigan. She died in the year 1890.
On leaving his native state William E. Kelley removed to Kansas and afterward went to Mississippi, where he remained for about seven years. He was admitted to the bar in that state in 1874, and practiced at Granada, Mississippi. In 1875 he was before the United States senate investigating committee at Jackson, Mississippi, as a witness concerning the election frauds that had been perpetrated that year in that state, and he served as superintendent of schools there for a year and was also in the internal revenue service. After spending seven years in Mississippi he returned to Michigan and was admitted to the bar in that state. He ar- rived in New Mexico in 1879 and entered into partnership with his brother- in-law in the purchase of sheep, which they sent over the trail to Dodge City and thence to Garden City, New Mexico. All that winter Mr. Kelley pumped water by hand for thirty-five hundred sheep. The next winter disaster overtook liim in the loss of five thousand sheep. He then went to Socorro in 1881 and opened an office for the practice of law, in which he has since continued, having now a large and important clientage, his legal business being of a distinctively representative character. From 1882 until 1886 he served as justice of the peace, a time when the lawless element was in great force and it required strong determination and fearlessness to bring into subjection the men who were constantly setting at naught the laws of the land. Judge Kelley has always been a stalwart Republican and has long been recognized as a leader of his party in New Mexico. He was a delegate to the statehood constitutional convention of 1889 and was a strong supporter of the constitution, the question being submitted in October, 1890. He is now an advocate of joint statehood. He has been a delegate to the New Mexico territorial conventions and his influ- ence has, in part, proved a decisive factor in settling questions relating to the public policy. In his social relations he is connected with Gem City Lodge, No. 7, I. O. O. F.
Alois B. Renehan, who has been engaged in practice in Santa Fé since 1894. was born in Alexandria, Virginia, January 6, 1869. He re- ceived his classical education in St. John's College, at Washington, D. C., and St. Charles College. at Ellicott City, Maryland, and prepared for the law in Georgetown University. Removing to Santa Fé in September, 1892. he was admitted to practice before the Supreme Court of New Mexico in 1894. In 1895 he was appointed city attorney of Santa Fé, and was again elected to the same office in 1897. He was twice Democratic nominee for the Territorial Senate, being twice defeated by narrow ma- jorities. He served for two terms, in 1899 and 1902, as secretary of the Democratic territorial central committee. More recently he has not been very active politically. In the practice of his profession, the court dockets show that he has participated as counsel in the most important litigation in the First Judicial Distriet in the past eight years, with success almost uniform.
Richard W. D. Bryan has been engaged in the practice of law in Albuquerque since January Ist, 1889. Born in Rye, New York, in 1849, he is a son of a Presbyterian minister. He was graduated from Lafayette College, Easton, Pennsylvania, in 1870, and completed a course in the law department of the Columbian University, in Washington, D. C., with
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the class of 1876. The same year he was admitted to the. bar in Wash- ington. Following his graduation from Lafayette College he engaged in teaching in the Military School, at Westchester, Pennsylvania, and spent two years in the Arctic region as astronomer of the Polaris expedition headed by C. F. Hall (1871-73). From 1873 until 1881 Mr. Bryan was connected with the United States Observatory in Washington, preparing a narrative of the polar expedition, and when Congress bought the rec- ords of Hall's second expedition Mr. Bryan completed these for the gov- ernment. Following his admission to the bar he practiced law in the capitol from 1876 until 1882, and in August of the latter year came to Albuquerque under appointment of the Presbyterian Board of Home Missions as superintendent of the Albuquerque Indian school, in which capacity he served faithfully for six years. He has since bera engaged in the practice of law limiting his business to civil matters, his clientage being largely in corporate and commercial lines. In politics he is a Democrat.
C. R. Brice, a member of the firm of Bujac & Brice, attorneys-at-law in Carlsbad, Eddy county, was born in Texas in 1870 and pursued his education in the schools of that state. He is descended from ancestry who came from South Carolina, where they had lived for many genera- tions. Having completed his more specifically literary education Mr. Brice took up the study of law in Memphis, Texas, and practiced before the bar of that state from 1893. Locating in Memphis he followed his chosen profession in the Panhandle until 1899 when he removed to Bloom- ing Grove, where he engaged in the banking business. Ill health led him to seek a change of climate, and on the Ist of May, 1903, he came to Carlsbad. Here, in May, he entered into a partnership with Captain E. R. Bujac, and the firm of Bujac & Brice has since continued in active practice at the bar of Eddy county and of the Territory. They are at- torneys for the Pecos Irrigation Company and practice quite extensively in the courts of New Mexico and of Texas, important litigation being en- trusted to them. Mr. Brice is a lawyer of considerable power, correct and discriminating in his analysis, logical in his deductions and clear and cogent in his reasoning, and he has won many notable triumphs before court and jury.
W. B. Walton, who lias left and is leaving the impress of his indi- viduality upon the history of New Mexico, came to the Territory in the fall of 1891, locating in Deming. He studied law under the direction of S. M. Ashenfelter of that city and in the spring of 1893 was admitted to the bar. In the meantime he had charge of the business and was editorial manager of the Deming Headlight, which he purchased in 1893 and pub- lished until 1895. In the latter year he was appointed clerk of the Third Judicial District court, and took up his residence in Silver City. He served in that capacity under Judge Gideon D. Bantz, now deceased, con- tinuing in the office until 1898. About that time he sold the Headlight and in February, 1898, purchased the Silver City Independent. He has since engaged in the practice of law and has been accorded a liberal clientage in recognition of ability, which places him with the foremost representatives of the legal fraternity in this part of the Territory.
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