USA > Ohio > Bench and bar of Ohio; a compendium of history and biography, Vol. I > Part 17
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John F. Follett
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hide." This humiliated his antagonist so that he kept quiet afterwards. Perhaps the ruling passion in the life of Joshua Giddings was his intense love of liberty and hatred of oppression. The wrongs of the weak always excited his sympathy and he was ever ready to engage in their defense. He was a good lawyer, but his conspicuous public life shadowed the luster of his law practice. He was an author, and the first volume which he brought out was in the line of his sympathies. It was entitled "Exiles of Florida," and pur- ported to be a history of runaway slaves. It was, in fact, an interesting por- trayal of their sufferings and triumphs. Later he wrote a " History of the Rebellion," giving especial attention to its authors and causes. The style of this was vigorous and entertaining. He was married in 1819 to Miss Laura Waters, of Granby, Connecticut, and three sons were born of the marriage. The eldest, Comfort P., a farmer, living in Jefferson ; the second, Joseph Addi- son Giddings, was highly educated, studied and practiced law with his father, and read widely in literature. He served a term as probate judge and for some time was editor of the Ashtabula Sentinel. His wife was Mary A. Cur- tis, of Ashtabula, and his family consists of four children. He acquired a con- siderable fortune, and after spending many years in his profession and literary pursuits retired to his extensive farm to engage in stock raising. This pursuit is entirely congenial to his tastes as a cultivated gentleman. The youngest son, G. R. Giddings, was a brave soldier in the Union army during the Rebel- lion and attained the rank of colonel. He gave his life as a sacrifice to his country at Macon, Georgia.
JOHN FASSETT FOLLETT, Cincinnati. Honorable John F. Follett is descended from Puritan ancestry of unquestioned patriotism and sterling character. His great-grandfather, Eliphalet Follett, was a captain in the Revolutionary War and one of the victims of the Wyoming Massacre, when his grandfather, eldest of the children, was a lad of thirteen. The family returned to Vermont with one old horse, on which the youngest child was carried by its mother. His grandmother was the daughter of John Fassett, one of the justices of the first Supreme Court of Vermont. He is the son of a New England farmer, the youngest but one of a family of nine children, and was born in Franklin county, Vermont. Of the nine children six were boys, all of whom have become exceedingly strong and able men. Three have honored the law-Charles, Martin D., and John F .; Charles having been elected for two terms judge of the Common Pleas Court and for two terms judge of the Circuit Court, and Martin D. having been elected judge of the Supreme Court of Ohio in October, 1883. One, Alfred, has chosen the field of medicine ; while the other two, George and Austin W., have been unusu- ally successful in mercantile pursuits in New York City. In 1837, when the subject of this sketoh was less than five years of age, his father removed to Ohio and settled in Licking county. His early education was received in the log school-houses, and such academies as the county of Licking then afforded.
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Ambitious for a higher and broader culture than was afforded by these primi- tive institutions, he determined to procure for himself a classical education, and entered Marietta College in 1851, and graduated with the highest honors of his class in 1855. After leaving college he taught school for two years, the first in the Asylum of the Blind at Columbus; and the second as the principal of the Columbus high school. The income derived from teaching enabled him to liquidate the debt which he had contracted in obtaining a collegiate education. In July, 1858, he was admitted to the Bar at Newark, Ohio, and at once entered into a partnership with his brother, the Honorable Charles Follett, which continued until the fall of 1868, when he removed to Cincinnati, where he has since resided. In 1865 he was elected as a representative to the Fifty-seventh General Assem- bly from Licking county, and was re-elected in 1867. Upon the organization of the Fifty-eighth General Assembly in January, 1868, he was nominated by acclamation by the Democrats in caucus, and afterward was elected speaker of the House of Representatives, the duties of which office he discharged with signal ability. Before the opening of the adjourned session in the fall of 1868, he had removed to Cincinnati to engage in the practice of law, and con- sequently resigned the speakership, as well as his office as representative. Destined to be a leader, he has risen rapidly in his profession, and upon going to Cincinnati, took rank immediately with the foremost men of that unusually able Bar, among whom it is doubtful if he has a superior as an advocate. His practice has been very large and lucrative, and he has been identified as counsel in much of the most important litigation in both State and Federal courts in southwestern Ohio. Thoroughly devoted to his profession, he stead- fastly declined to be led away from the law by the allurements of public office until his fame as a lawyer was firmly established. In 1880 he was nominated by acclamation by the Democratic State Convention as one of the electors at large for Ohio, on the Hancock and English Presidential ticket. In 1881, although he was very prominently mentioned for governor, no canvass was made in his interest, and, preferring to let the nomination seek him rather than to seek it, he was not the selection of the convention. In 1882 he was made the temporary chairman of the Democratic State Convention. In the fall of 1882 he was nominated by acclamation by the Hamilton county Democratic Convention to represent the First District of Ohio in Congress. His opponent was the Honorable Benjamin Butterworth, a candidate for a third term, and probably the best campaigner in the State of Ohio, and whom, after a most gallant and hotly contested canvass, he defeated by a majority of 819. In politics he has been a life-long Democrat, one of the old school, whom shad- ows and reverses have not changed. Gifted and eloquent as a speaker, he has few, if any, equals on the stump in Ohio. For years he has cheerfully devoted weeks to every campaign, and his services are in constant demand at the executive committee rooms of his party. There is scarcely a county in the State where his voice has not been heard, and where he does not number his friends by the score. Of wonderfully popular manners, and of brilliant parts,
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he will command such attention in the nation's councils as to endear him to every true Democrat in Ohio. At the commencement of 1879 his Alma Mater, in recognition of his scholarly attainments and public services, con- ferred upon him the honorary degree of Doctor of Laws. Mr. Follett combines in unusual measure the qualities of the advocate and the office lawyer. Few equal him in the careful study of a case, sparing no pains to become master of everything that can bear upon it and to collate all the precedents and authorities, whether for or against him. Fond of referring to the elementary principles on which the law is based, he yet omits nothing which can be of use in supporting his contention or in refuting that of his opponent. His analysis is logical and thorough, bringing into strong light the essentials of a controversy and ridding it of everything that is factitious. In the court room, master of every part of his case, his earnest and eloquent advocacy fixes the attention of court and jury, and enforces by cogent and fervent delivery the argument he has so well prepared in his study. His cli- ent finds in him a friend and adviser willing to labor most industriously to further the interests he has espoused, and one who makes it a rule in small cases as well as great to do thoroughly whatever he undertakes. His brother lawyers find in him a thoroughly honest and honorable opponent, or a most genial and considerate associate.
EDMUND W. KITTREDGE, Cincinnati. The subject of this biography was born in Rockingham county, New Hampshire, November 29, 1833. He is the son of Dr. Rufus Kittredge and Sally Underhill Kittredge. Dr. Kittredge, after practicing medicine in Chester for a number of years, removed, in 1849, to Cincinnati, where he continued in the practice for some years, ultimately removing to Peekskill, New York, where he died in 1880. He was a native of Chester, and was of the sixth generation in this country, all his ancestors in America having been, like himself, physicians. The family probably first set- tled at Tewksbury, Massachusetts, and the first known records of the Kittredge family are found there. Mr. Kittredge graduated at Dartmouth College in 1854, and came to Cincinnati in the same year. He studied law in Cincinnati with the celebrated Judge Timothy Walker, and afterwards attended Harvard Law School, and was admitted to the Bar at Cincinnati in the fall of 1856. He was first associated with Judge M. W. Oliver in the practice of the law, and ultimately with Judge J. B. Stallo, subsequently minister to Italy, the firm name at that time being Stallo & Kittredge. At other times he has been associated with Murray C. Shoemaker, Joseph Wilby, R. F. Simmons, his firm at present being styled Kittredge & Wilby. He married, in 1866, Virginia Gholson, daughter of William Y. Gholson, of Cincinnati, and has had seven children. His wife died in 1890. From almost the beginning of his carcer as a lawyer, Mr. Kittredge became marked among his associates at the Bar for his thoroughness of preparation and the earnestness with which he conducted
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litigation intrusted to him, and as a result he soon came into control of a large practice which has ever increased in magnitude and importance, until to-day, both by reason of his unusual attainments as a lawyer and the magnitude of his practice, he stands among the very first members of the Bar in the State. He has a commanding presence and a powerful, penetrating voice, which, added to his great knowledge of the law and his skillful method of examination of witnesses, make him pre-eminently successful as a trial lawyer. Among the most important cases in which he has taken part are the trial of the disbar- ment of Thomas C. Campbell, in which he, with Mr. William M. Ramsey, took a leading part on behalf of the relators; Walker vs. the City of Cincinnati, and the subsequent cases in reference to the construction of the Cincinnati Northern Railroad, and the case of Mannix vs. Archbishop Purcell. For a number of years Mr. Kittredge acted as president of the Cincinnati Bar Asso- ciation. In politics Mr. Kittredge was originally a Republican, but in 1872 he joined the ranks of the Liberal party, and from that time has identified himself very prominently with the Democratic party. He has never sought nor held office, but has always been a leader in the councils of his party, as well as in all matters concerning the welfare of the community in which he lived. Speaking of him, Mr. John W. Warrington, his warm friend and asso- ciate in a very large amount of litigation, says :
"Perhaps the two leading characteristics of Mr. Kittredge's mind are intensity and critical analysis. These qualities inevitably lead to strong con- victions in favor of any cause which has once been espoused, and to systematic presentation of its merits. They insure tenacity and uniformity of interest in the various questions arising. Another characteristic of his mind is versatil- ity in the illustration of a given subject by the use of analogous rules laid down in relation to kindred and even remote subjects. When an intense man is analytical he is always persuasive. When he is also resourceful in apposite simile he is powerful. Mr. Kittredge possesses unusual endurance and appli- cation. Starting with a careful early mental training. he has ever since aug- mented his knowledge, and has especially devoted himself to a scientific study of the law. Indeed, his originality and attainments give him wide range and always render him instructive. His honesty and character are superlative. His bearing is dispassionate and courteous. As an advocate, he is remarkably equipped both in attributes and culture; and as a man he is an exemplar."
Ex-Governor Jacob D. Cox, the dean of the Cincinnati Law School, adds the following estimate of Mr. Kittredge :
"Mr. Kittredge's growth at this Bar has been extremely steady and posi- tive. His characteristics as a young lawyer were great thoroughness of prep- aration, mixed with a judicial quality of mind, which gave all his efforts great weight with the Bench from the very beginning of his career. He was entirely unpretentious in his manner, avoiding flights of oratory and winning his way by a strong logical method, appealing to the intellect rather than to the feelings. As he grew older and more experienced, his method and manner ripened into one of a dignified and active persuasiveness, impressing one with both the candor and weight of his argument. These qualifications naturally gave him prominence in mercantile and corporation cases ; also his practical common sense and muscular grasp of mind gave him a marked weight. For many years now he has been in the front rank of business practitioners in our
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courts. He is a man of entire independence of character in every direction, having no taste for partisanship in politics. He has been known as a reformer, earnestly supporting the civil service reform, and the separation of municipal questions from general politics."
RUFUS KING, Cincinnati. Rufus King was born at Chillicothe, Ohio, May 30, 1817, and died at Cincinnati, March 25, 1891. Some of his ancestors were men of large abilities and much distinction. His grandfather, Rufus King, had a prominent part in the American Revolution, and acquitted himself hon- orably in a service of three years as a member of the Continental Congress. After the adoption of the Constitution he served for eighteen years as United States senator for the State of New York. The mother of our subject was a daughter of Thomas Worthington, a very early settler of Ohio, a member of the first Constitutional convention and the first United States senator chosen by and for the State. He was also elected governor of the State in 1814, and served two terms. He was a man of much force and influence in the State ; a man of character, enterprise and public spirit, whose earnest efforts in behalf of improvement and progress were of immense value. Edward King, the father of Rufus, was a lawyer of eminence and marked ability, who engaged in the practice of his profession for many years at Chillicothe and Cincinnati. It may reasonably be assumed, therefore, that Rufus King, the subject of this sketch, was richly endowed by nature for a successful career in the law. He was also qualified by education and training to undertake the active duties of his profession, and the responsibilities which always belong to a life of useful prominence. His early education and preparation for college were received at home under the care and tutelage of his mother, a woman of superior literary talents and noted likewise for her active benevolence. From the excellent school at home he went to Gambier, where he remained four years, and thence to Harvard University. After completing the clas- sical course he entered the Harvard Law School, in which he was permitted to receive instructions at first hands from the great masters, Story and Greenleaf. He was admitted to the Bar at Cincinnati in 1841, and very soon rose to a position of prominence. He had marked taste and adapta- bility for the law, and carried into the practice the habit of study with- out which no permanent success can be achieved. Engaging in the general practice, as was the custom of the times, he won fame both as counsellor and advocate. Hle chose to devote his time and energies to the practice of law, and declined to enter politics by the acceptance of political office. Even so exalted and honorable a position as judge of the Supreme Court of Ohio was declined by him when tendered, in 1864, by Governor Brough. He was pre- eminently a lawyer, and is remembered with a degree of veneration by the Bar of to-day in Cincinnati. He served as dean of the Cincinnati Law School and president of the faculty ; was one of the active founders of the public
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library association. He was always the patron of popular education, and his service on the board of education of Cincinnati, continuing from 1851 to 1866, marked an era in the public school system of the city. He was president of the board for eleven years, and during that period the evolution of the schools into one of the finest systems of the country was secured very largely through his instrumentality. Mr. King was elected a member of the convention chosen in 1873 to revise the Constitution of the State, and succeeded Morrison R. Waite as president of the convention, when the latter was appointed Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court. As a member of the school board he was active and influential in the controversy undertaken to exclude the Bible from the public schools, maintaining with much force and logical argument that moral and religious instruction, non-sectarian in character, had a rightful place in the public schools. Rufus King was a lawyer of superior ability, liberal learning, patient industry and discriminating judgment He had clear views of equity, aud never permitted the narrow interpretation of a statute to obscure or override the substantial justice administered in a court of chancery. His mind was wonderfully clear and his penetration deep; but he did not rely for success upon acumen or other natural gifts. He studied each case and pre- sented it in court only after the exhaustive research which gave him the mas- tery of its principles and details. This habit, more than any other influence, made his reputation as a successful practitioner. And Rufus King was a great lawyer. He was married in 1843 to Margaret Rives, daughter of Landon C. Rives, of Cincinnati.
WARNER M. BATEMAN, Cincinnati. Warner M. Bateman was born August 5, 1827, at Springboro, in Warren county, Ohio, of Welsh and Quaker stock, his father's grandfather emigrating from Wales to Pennsylvania some time prior to the Revolutionary War. When he was eighteen years old he began preparation for the study of law, under the direction of Thomas Corwin, taking up an extended course of historical and political reading which he con- tinued for three years, at the end of which time he began the study of law proper, moving in 1849 to Lebanon for the purpose of prosecuting his study to greater advantage. In 1850 he was admitted to the Bar in Licking county, Ohio, and in November of that year he removed to Cincinnati, taking up there the regular practice of his profession. Aithough he had little experience and few acquaintances, he soon became quite prominent at the Bar, and by reason of his activity in the organization of the Republican party and his excellent standing at the Bar, he was nominated in 1856 as a candidate of that party for judge of the Court of Common Pleas. Although defeated at this time, in 1865 he was elected a member of the State Senate, where he took a prominent and active part in all the deliberations of the body. He was particularly zealous in his endeavors to prevent the increase of corporate privileges, advo- cating in particular a more rigorous legislative control of the railways of the State. He was chairman of the committee appointed to investigate the abuses
Namenle Waterman
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of railroad management and to suggest suitable legislation to correct those abuses. This committee, during the fall of 1866, made a very extensive exam- ination of the subject, taking a very large amount of testimony, and finally submitted an elaborate report prepared by Mr. Bateman, and two bills which in view of the committee would correct the abuses complained of. One of these, the bill creating the office of railroad commissioner, became a law, and the other, arranging for a comprehensive scheme regulating railroads, although not passed at that time, by reason of the disagreement of the two Houses, has since, in its main features, been incorporated into the laws of this and many other States. In 1868, as a result of his services in the State Senate, he was the choice of his party as a candidate for Congress, but refused to accept the nomination, preferring to continue the practice of his profession. In April, 1869, President Grant appointed Mr. Bateman to be attorney of the United States for the southern district of Ohio. During the three previous years the powerful "Whisky Ring" had gained a foothold in the district and had defrauded the government of taxes to a very large amount. Mr. Bateman at once took the necessary steps to break up this ring and to recover the amount due the government, and in litigation that followed he met the most desperate resistance conducted by the ablest counsel at the Bar, but in the end he succeeded in recovering a very large amount of taxes and penalty and in punishing many of the chief offenders and breaking up the ring. The judgments recovered in 1870 alone amounted to the sum of $495,000, and in that year he tried 147 civil cases, in all of which he was successful, except eleven, and sixty criminal cases, losing but eight. In the first six months of his term he tried fifty-seven criminal cases, of which but two were lost, and fourteen forfeiture cases, in all of which he was successful, collecting and paying into the treasury over $158,000. As a result of his efficiency and the thorough enforcement of the law, the southern district of Ohio has since that time been practically free from any frauds of this kind. By the Act passed March 3, 1873, the government appropriated three-fourths of a million dollars for the purchase of a site for the post office and custom house in Cincinnati. As the property desired belonged to a number of people who held it at prices that did not seem to the government to be reasonable, a purchase at private sale was found to be impossible, and resort was had to the government's power of condemnation. There having been no previous case of this character to guide Mr. Bateman as a precedent, and the jurisdiction of the Federal courts in such a proceeding being denied by many, Mr. Bateman determined to test the question by regular proceedings for condemnation in the United States Circuit Court. In this case he met with the opposition of able counsel, and the entire question of the right of the government to con- demn was discussed at lengthi, and at last decided in favor of the government, which decision was afterward affirmed by the Supreme Court of the United States, and stands as the first and leading case upon the subject. Mr. Bate- man was also successful in securing a valuation of the property appropriated, at an amount less by $70,000 than the appropriation made by Congress, an
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uated in 1837 and assigned to the Fourth United States Artillery, with rank of second lieutenant. (The boyhood of General Bates was spent in the public Latin School of Boston, in which the course of instruction is almost equivalent to a college education, and he was graduated in 1832.) Shortly after leaving West Point, Lieutenant Bates was ordered south and served five years in the army, more than half of which was spent in active service in Florida during the Seminole Wars, and in suppressing other Indian outbreaks. He was then sent with his regiment to the northern frontier to quell the patriot disturb- ances with Canada, remaining there two years. During his term of service he had been promoted to the rank of first lieutenant, for brave and meritorious conduct, and was in command at Fort Niagara when he resigned in Septem- ber, 1842. The young officer, though having strong inducements to continue his military career, when he might well have hoped to attain high rank in the army and honorable mention in his country's history, determined to adopt the practice of law for his life work. He began during his service to improve his spare time in the study of law, and after resigning, attended the Law School of Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he pursued the course of study and enjoyed the benefit of lectures. The war department paid him an unusual compliment in withholding acceptance of his resignation until after his admis- sion to the Bar, thus granting him the benefit of rank and pay while pros- ecuting his studies. Family relationships and ties drew the young law student to Cincinnati for a permanent residence and he entered the office of Judge Bellamy Storer, under whose instruction he continued his studies. He was admitted to the Bar in 1842 and associated himself with Honorable William Key Bond, an old attorney and ex-member of Congress, with whom he remained two years. He then formed a partnership with Mr. W. S. Scarborough, which was continued until the war broke out. The business of the firm grew to large proportions and became profitable. When the Rebellion opened the government naturally looked to the young men who had been educated in the military academy for the commanders of regiments and leaders of armies. The experience and honorable record of Lieutenant Bates commended him. He was summoned to Columbus to confer with Governor Dennison, and was at once commissioned brigadier general and placed in command of the camp bearing the governor's name, to organize the volunteers into regiments, and to transmute the raw material into soldiers by drill and discipline. By October General Bates had dispatched fifteen regiments to the field. During the war he spent much time in active support of the Union cause, and was frequently called to Washington for consultation with the highest civil and military authorities of the government. Occasionally, when in a reminiscent mood, he entertains his friends with accounts of these visits and of his impressions of the great Lincoln, obtained from personal interviews. General Bates had command of the troops sent against Kirby Smith's raid into Ohio, and ren- dered the Union cause most valuable service wherever and whenever oppor- tunity presented itself. He was elected in 1864 to the State Senate to serve the one year remaining of a term unexpired. After peace was declared
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