USA > Ohio > Bench and bar of Ohio; a compendium of history and biography, Vol. I > Part 12
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GEORGE HOADLY, Cincinnati and New York. Honorable George Hoadly, twenty-eighth governor of Ohio elected by the people, was born in Now Haven, Connecticut, July 31, 1826, the only son of George and Mary Ann Hoadly. His mother (a daughter of William Walton Woolsey and Elizabeth Dwight Woolsey of New York) was a great-granddaughter of Jonathan Edwards, a niece of President Dwight of Yale College, a sister of President Woolsey of Yale College, an aunt of Theodore Winthrop, who was killed at Little Bethel early in the war of the rebellion, and an aunt of Miss Sarah Woolsey, known in literary society as "Susan Coolidge." His father was a man of great learning, integrity and purity of character, and very highly esteemed in social and public life, being at one time mayor of New Haven, Connecticut, and afterwards mayor of Cleveland, to which place he had removed with his family in 1830. The subject of this notice, a very bright boy, received his elementary education in Cleveland, and at the age of four- teen entered Western Reserve College at Hudson, Ohio, graduating there in 1844. He then entered the Harvard Law School at Cambridge, Massachusetts, spending one year there under the instructions of Judge Story of the Supreme Court of the United States and of Professor Simon Greenleaf, and from there he spent a year at Zanesville in the office of Charles Converse, a very prom- inent lawyer, who afterwards became judge of the Court of Common Pleas, and also of the Supreme Court of Ohio. Leaving in the fall of 1846, he came to Cincinnati and entered the office of Chase & Ball, and was admitted to the Bar in August, 1847. Remaining in the office of Chase & Ball, he secured the confidence and friendship of Salmon P. Chase, who, distinguished as a lawyer, was rising to prominence in political life. became governor of the State of Ohio. senator of the United States, secretary of the treasury of the United States
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and finally chief justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. During all these passing years the friendship of Salmon P. Chase and George Hoadly grew warmer and stronger, and continued to the death of Judge Chase. The acute perception of the trained lawyer in the very prime of life, and at the threshold of a most noteworthy public career, enabled him to discover very quickly the remarkable capacity of the young student, fresh from law school. More than that ; he soon discovered in young Hoadly that peculiar assemblage of intellectual faculties which constitutes a legal mind and affords the best endowment of a successful lawyer. The student grew into the firm and was very early entrusted with large cases. When Mr. Chase's political duties withdrew him from his professional duties, the care and trial of many cases of which he had charge devolved upon Mr. Hoadly, who had become a member of the legal firm of Chase, Ball & Hoadly. The ability manifested by him in their management secured the confidence of the clients of the firm and of his brother lawyers. In 1851 he was elected judge of the Superior Court of Cincinnati by the legislature, for the residue of the term to which that court had been limited by the constitutional convention. His predecessors, Judges Este, Coffin, Johnston and James, were all men of eminent ability, and their judgments had gained for that court a high reputation, which Judge Hoadly, notwithstanding his youth and inexperi- ence, ably sustained. This court going out of existence, Judge Hoadly in 1853 entered into partnership with Edward Mills, and became city solici-' tor in 1855-6. In 1859 he again took his seat on the judicial Bench, suc- ceeding Judge W. Y. Gholson in the new Superior Court. He was re-elected in 1864, but resigned the office in 1866 to form the partnership of Hoadly, Johnson & Jackson, which soon took rank among the most successful law firms. When the constitutional convention of 1873 was to be created, for the revision of the Constitution, he was chosen one of its members and took an active part in all its proceedings. He was chairman of the com- mittee on municipal corporations and devoted some eight months exclusively to the work of the convention. In addition to his labors on the Bench, and at the Bar, Judge Hoadly devoted much time as professor of the Cincinnati Law School, filling a professor's chair therein for eighteen years, and at the same time was an active trustee of the Cincinnati University. In fact all his time not engaged in his legal duties was devoted to the public in some capacity. In his early career as a politician he was a Democrat, but the growing interest in the question of slavery was creating a difference in the party. Strong- minded men like Governor Chase and Judge Hoadly refused to bow before the slave power, and boldly strove to purify the country from this black shame. From the independence of such men was born the Republican party, in which Governor Chase, Judge Hoadly and many of their Democratic friends became prominent and faithful leaders until the end of the war of the rebellion had forever made this country one of freedom, when he, with many others, returned to the Democratic party as the party of all needed reforms. In the celebrated contest between Hayes and Tilden he represented the Tilden side as
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counsel before the Electoral Commission, which had been appointed by Con- gress to settle the disputed question of the Presidency. In 1875 his Alma Mater conferred upon him the degree of LL. D. In 1883 the Democratic State / convention nominated him for governor, and, although prostrated by sickness and unable to take an active part in the campaign, he was duly elected by a plurality of thirteen thousand, notwithstanding the confidence of the Republi- can party with their very popular candidate. In 1851 Judge IIoadly married Mary Burnet Perry, the third daughter of Captain Samuel Perry, one of the earliest settlers of Cincinnati. He has a family of three children - George, a graduate of Harvard University, B. A. in 1879, LL. B. in 1882, a member of the legal firm of Harmon, Colston, Goldsmith & Hoadly ; Laura, and Edward Mills, a civil engineer. As a lawyer Judge Hoadly possesses large and varied abilities. He is painstaking in his researches, able and honest in counsel, clear and forcible in argument, strong in the management and trial of causes. As a judge his quick perception and deep penetration enabled him to apprehend readily the substantial matter and the legal questions involved in a controversy ; while his sound reasoning and integrity of purpose led to correct conclusions. He was seldom reversed. His good temper happily supplemented other qualifi- cations for service on the Bench. He was always courteous to members of the Bar and never manifested irritation. In private and social life he is beloved and trusted as a man warm and true to his friendships, and charitable to those who differ from him. He is a good friend to a young man struggling for success in the legal profession. In March, 1887, he removed to New York City, where the legal firm of Hoadly, Lauterbach & Johnston was formed, to the extensive business of which the judge now confines his attention. He is entirely out of politics.
ALLEN GRANBERY THURMAN, lawyer, jurist, statesman and scholar, came from that State which has produced so many names illustrious and in- fluential in American history. For six generations his ancestors had been natives of " Old Dominion " -- Virginian descendants of Cavalier stock. He was born at Lynchburg, Virginia, November 13, 1813. ITis father was the Rev. Pleasant Thurman, a Methodist minister, and his mother was an'only daughter of Colonel Nathaniel Allen, nephew and adopted son of Joseph Hewes, the latter one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. In 1819, when Allen Thurman was but six years of age, his father transplanted the family to Ohio, for the reason, it is said, that he had renounced his belief in slavery and desired to emancipate his bondsmen, and on the free soil of the young and promising Buckeye State, take a fresh lease upon life. The family settled in the pretty and then thriving village of Chillicothe, which was there- after the home of Allen Thurman until his removal to Columbus in 1853. The father's capital, at the time of locating in Chillicothe, consisted mainly of his ability, industry and education, and to support the family in the new northern home, he taught school. His son Allen, a slender, sickly lad, was one of his
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pupils, at once distinguished for studious and industrious habits-traits which characterized him through his entire, eventful life. The father and teacher died a few years after the removal to Chillicothe, and Allen's education was thereafter directed, and indeed mostly conducted by the good mother, a woman of rare mind and attainments and well able to impart most excellent instruction. Allen fitted for college, attending the Chillicothe Academy, but the home could not spare the means necessary to send the boy to college, and Allen, from this period on, may be classed, with many of our most distinguished public men, as " self-educated." He most ambitiously and diligently improved his opportunities. His resolution, that he would through his own efforts ac- quire, at home, as much as his more fortunate early school-mates might learn at college, was more than realized. While maintaining himself and assisting in the support of his widowed mother, he ardently adhered to his books and read and studied unceasingly. At eighteen, when a clerk in the town post office, he learned from the postmaster, also one of the official surveyors of the Virginia Military District in Ohio, the science of land surveying, which he practiced while fitting himself for the Bar. By association with a neighbor- ing French-Canadian family in which, gossip romantically relates, there was an attractive mademoiselle for whom Allen had a boyish attachment, he ob- tained a fair knowledge of the French language-a study he never ceased to cultivate-which became his favorite literary recreation and yielded him profit and pleasure throughout life. He had begun the study of law under the tutor- age of his uncle William Allen, a resident of Chillicothe, afterwards United States Senator and governor of Ohio, and at twenty-one was appointed private secretary to governor Robert Lucas. With the governor he temporarily resided at Columbus, the State capital. His position in the governor's office afforded him many opportunities and advantages. While discharging the duties of this office he continued his legal studies with Noah H. Swayne. then one of the leading lawyers of Columbus, and later associate justice of the United States Supreme Court. At the age of twenty-two (1833), Allen Thurman was ad- mitted to the Bar and at once began, in Chillicothe, the practice of his chosen profession, in which he immediately displayed marked proficiency. He be- came the law partner of his uncle, William Allen, who was at this time a mem- ber of Congress, and who entrusted his large law practice to the care of his nephew, young Thurman, The Honorable R. A. Harrison, in a speech on the " Early Ohio Bar," says of Mr. Thurman at this time :
" His possession, in an unusual degree, of the personal qualities and traits of character which at once attract attention and inspire confidence - his great power of patient and persistent investigation, thoroughly digesting and mak- ing available for use his accumulation of knowledge - his prompt instinct of the substance of principles and affairs - the keenness of his power of analysis and at the same time the strength of his power of generalization - his great readiness and skill in the use of every weapon of honorable forensic warfare - his sterling integrity - his self-reliance and independence of character - and his striking personality quickly gave him high rank in his chosen profession, and a large practice throughout southern Ohio, and placed him on the Supreme
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Bench of this State, with the universal approval and acclaim of the Bar, when he had been a practicing lawyer only sixteen years. Among the second gener- ation of the early Ohio Bar, Allen G. Thurman was universally recognized as a leader. In order to fully appreciate this fact. it should be remembered that there were giants in those days, and a good many of them. The fame of many of Judge Thurman's colleagues at the early Ohio Bar, both as lawyers and as statesmen, was as broad as the country. Their careers somewhat influenced the course of his career. The names of some of them became as familiar as household words in every American home. Among his contemporaries may be mentioned Thomas Ewing, William Allen, Thomas Corwin, Thomas L. Hamar, Samuel F. Vinton, Thomas Morris, Charles Hammond, Benjamin Tap- pan, Henry Stanberry, Salmon P. Chase, Benjamin F. Leonard, George E. Pugh, Thomas Scott Robert C. Schenck, William Creighton, Rufus P. Ranney, Noah H. Swayne (one of Judge Thurman's law preceptors), Morrison R. Waite, Stanley Matthews, Benjamin F. Wade. John Sherman, George H. Pendleton. William S. Groesbeck, Aaron F. Perry, William Dennison, Jr., Hocking H. Hunter, Joseph Olds, Sherlock J. Andrews, Wells A. Hutchins, Edwin M. Stanton, Sampson Mason, William Johnston, Peter Odlin. William Kennon. Joseph R. Swan, Phineas B. Wilcox, Charles B. Goddard, William A. Rogers, John W. Andrews, John T. Brasee, Henry B. Payne, George Hoadly, Nelson Barrere, Clement L. Vallandigham, James H. Thompson, Bellamy Storer, Charles Fox, Nathaniel Wright, William Y. Gholson, Wilham V. Peck, Oscar F. Moore, Richard Stilwell, and Alfred S. Dickey. Is there any State in the Union that has ever had a Bar of greater men, either as lawyers or statesmen, than the Bar of which Judge Thurman was one of the most con- spicuous members ? "
In November, 1844, Mr. Thurman was married to Mrs. Mary Tompkins, a daughter of Walter Dun of Fayette county, Kentucky, and widow of Mr. Gwynne Tompkins of Lexington, Kentucky. Upon the death of her husband, Mrs. Tompkins with her mother and little daughter had removed to Chilli- cothe. This marriage proved a most happy one for both parties. They were inseparable and loving and congenial companions for nearly half a century, until Mrs. Thurman's death in 1893. The same fall and just before his mar- riage, Mr. Thurman was elected by the Democrats of his district, which usually gave a Whig majority, to the 29th Congress. When he entered that body December 1, 1845, he was its youngest member. At this time Congress became agitated with a fresh outbreak of the "irrepressible conflict" concern- ing slavery. In this his first service in public life Mr. Thurman evidenced his ability, his strong partisanship, his unflinching integrity and his fearless inde- pendence. He was always a Democrat of the strictest sect, but fair and just. In the House of Representatives he took no aggressive stand against slavery in the Southern States, but with many other Northern Democrats he opposed the attempted repeal of the Missouri Compromise, which restricted the territorial limit of slavery, and he supported by voice and vote the " Wilmot Proviso," which proposed to extend the anti-slavery provisions of the Ordinance of 1787 to our newly acquired Mexican territory. It is claimed for Mr. Thurman that he was at no time in sympathy with the traitorous and rebellious teachings of the Calhoun school of Democracy, but that he was on all occasions outspoken in his opposition to the doctrines of nullification and secession. Some of the
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platforms of his party in Ohio drawn by himself are quoted as evidence of Mr. Thurman's loyal views. In the House of Representatives Mr. Thurman was placed on the judiciary committee and readily distinguished himself as a young lawyer of great promise. In spite of the brilliant and auspicious open- ing of his political life Mr. Thurman's experience in the 29th Congress did not conform to his taste or his ambition, and at the end of his term he decided that the practice of law was more congenial to him than a public career, and declining a renomination, he returned to his law office in Chillicothe and there rapidly acquired a large and lucrative practice until 1851, when at the age of thirty-eight he was elected one of the five Supreme Judges of Ohio under the newly adopted State Constitution. In this election he led the other names on the ticket by 2,000 votes. He served as Chief Justice from December, 1854, to February, 1856, when he refused a renomination and resumed his law prac- tice at Columbus, which became his residence for the remainder of his life, excepting his official stay in Washington. As a member of the Bench Mr. Thurman ranks exceedingly high. His cotemporaries were Rufus P. Ranney, Thomas W. Bartley, Joseph R. Swan and William Kennon-a remarkably strong body of men. Mr. Thurman was not a legal genius like Mr. Ranney, nor had he the intellectual instinct of Mr. Swan, but he had an innate and unerring sense of justice, a breadth and impartiality of view, a rugged and unswerving hatred of wrong and fraud. He hewed to the line of truth, let the chips fall where they would. Fairness united with a firm grasp upon the fundamental principles of law and justice gave his decisions great weight. His opinions as recorded in the reports of the Supreme Court are conspicuous for their clear, cogent reasoning and accurate statement of the law. He is univer- sally recognized as one of the ablest, most learned and best judges in every respect Ohio has ever had. After retiring from the Bench, for some ten years Judge Thurman devoted himself assiduously and most successfully to the prac- tice of the profession he so fondly followed. Ripe in learning and experience, few lawyers were his equal. Of.the lawyer at this period a distinguished inti- mate friend writes :
" To us business men he was a lawyer and his place of business was a one- story. two-room frame house, on his home lot, located where the Great South- ern Hotel now stands (Columbus, Ohio). The sign at the door read . Allen G. Thurman, Attorney at Law.' The front office was a store-room of books- not of law only, for he was an omnivorous reader-upon which he could draw for anything and everything in useful literature. The rear office was his work- shop, where, piled in careless confusion on shelves, tables, chairs and on the floor, were the books and documents of his current work.
" A courteous, kindly greeting met the caller at the door, whether he be a client with thousands at stake ; a young lawyer seeking advice and help; a neighbor to have a chat; a book agent, 'bringing coals to Newcastle'; an office-seeker, with an application for his signature ; or a tramp begging a dime. Judge Thurman's natural goodness of heart made his office an ever flowing spring, in which cups of every kind were dipped and filled, and deeply drank from, as the water so freely given was pure and refreshing. That office was a work-shop where midnight oil was burned, for then at least he was undis-
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turbed. Clad in an old knit woolen jacket with unbuttoned vest, easy slippers on his feet, while a dense cloud of tobacco smoke formed a halo around his head, he pored over his books and did his thinking and writing. Such applica- tion and industry turned out only the best of work, in law and fact. There, truth impaled sophistry, ethics unmasked hypocrisy, logic had no fustian, and reasoning being from the initial, the conclusions were rational. Advice given and papers drawn in that office were terse, clear and comprehensive ; saying just what was meant, and meaning just what was said.
"Judge Thurman's judicial mind saw clearly both and all sides of a ques- tion, and his honesty of purpose said that justice and not chicanery should be embodied in every paper that went from his office.
" He was a close student, a wide reader, and was gifted with an unusually tenacions memory ; hence he stored a large fund of information which he could at any and all times promptly use to the best advantage.
" His mathematical mind loved truth for the truth's sake, and he pursued the truth regardless of obstacles, as he did in his early life, when a land sur- veyor. He went with his instruments straight and steadily on to a closure, regardless of a tree, or rock, or river, or swamp ; and the greater the obstacles, the greater his satisfaction in overcoming them.
" He loved the law more than the profits thereof, as his fees were mod- erate when compared with those of other lawyers for like work. In his view, the first duty of a lawyer to his client was to prevent, not encourage litiga- tion; but if that could not be, then to fight to the end."
His style in the court room was a splendid sample of the old school of advocates. He thoroughly mastered a case before presenting it. He had a relentless hold on the great principles of law and he employed facts with the unerring aim that a frontier huntsman would drive a bullet to its mark He was slow in coming to a conclusion, very forcible in expressing it when reached. His mind worked in a logical order, so that he was truly convincing at the Bar. He would sum up a case and deliver it to a jury as a general would organize, marshal and move his troops upon a redoubt-arranging law and facts in a most invincible and comprehensive way. He utterly spurned the shams and tricks and deceptive technicalities of law, or forensic bombast. His simplicity and truth made him almost irresistible. His method of speech was of the most direct character. He made little effort to ornament his argu- ment, but talked right on in plain, pure, strong, good old English. There was no rhetorical pyrotechnics, few if any quotations from poets or orators- nothing "to tickle the ear or please the fancy." His effort was to convince and persuade, and he commanded alike the closest attention of the most learned judge or most illiterate juror. Judge Thurman's last appearance as a lawyer in the courts of the country was as one of the counsel for the State in what is known as the "Tally-sheet Forgery," tried in the Common Pleas Court, Franklin county, in 1887. Many weeks were occupied in the trial of this case. The defendants were charged with altering tally sheets so as to defraud certain persons out of offices to which they had been elected. The accused were members of Judge Thurman's political party, but his anxiety to preserve the purity of elections was so intense that he did not hesitate to enter upon this prosecution and conduct it with great vigor. For many weeks,
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although constantly suffering great physical pain, he was in daily attendance upon the court. His argument was one of great power and replete with the noblest sentiments of patriotism. We reproduce his closing words to the jury, which were inspired not only by his love of party, but by a stronger love for his country :
" But I do want this party to which I belong now more than sixty years - for I began when I was a child - this party which has done so much for me and which I have conscientiously believed in, which has its faults, which has been wrong sometimes, as all parties have been wrong, but in which I have believed, to which my faith has been pledged and has been kept - I do want that party in the going down of the sun of my life, when I shall look for the last time abroad on the earth, I do want to see that party still standing, still respected, still honored and still deserving the good will and kindness and sup- port of all my fellow-beings."
During the decade from 1857, when Judge Thurman retired from the Supreme Bench, until his re-entrance into public life, the great Civil War spread its horrors over the country. Judge Thurman desired to be regarded during the period as a patriotic War Democrat. In a letter to a friend he defined his position in this national crisis in these words : "I did all I could to help preserve the Union without war, but after it began I thought there was but one thing to do, and that was to fight it out. I therefore sustained all constitutional measures that tended in my judgment to put down the rebel- lion. I never believed in the doctrine of secession." In 1867 Judge Thurman was placed in nomination as the Democratic candidate for the governorship. His Republican opponent was General Rutherford B. Hayes, who was then a representative in Congress. This gubernatorial campaign was most exciting and closely contested. The questions at issue were the national reconstruction measures which the Democrats bitterly assailed, taking their stand upon a platform prepared by Clement L. Vallandigham and practically advocating State supremacy. In this election also was involved the adoption or rejection of an amendment to the Ohio State Constitution, eradicating the restriction of the elective franchise to " white " citizens and granting negro manhood suf- rage. This amendment had been submitted to the voters of the State by a joint resolution of the Republican legislature of 1866-7. With his party Mr. Thurman opposed the amendment and in the campaign vigorously stumped the State for over four months. The result was a partial victory for the Democracy. Judge Thurman was defeated for governor by less than 3,000 majority - the negro suffrage amendment was overwhelmed with some fifty thousand adverse majority, and the Democrats carried, by a small majority, both branches of the legislature. Both Mr. Thurman and Mr. Vallandigham became candidates for the United States senatorship. The Democratic caucus, by a vote of two to one, selected Mr. Thurman, and on March 4, 1869, he took his seat in the Senate, succeeding Benjamin F. Wade. At the close of his first term his party again carried the legislature, thus securing his re-election to the Senate. At this same State election ex-Senator William Allen, his uncle, was elected governor, by less than one thousand majority. Mr. Thurman was thus
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