USA > Ohio > Bench and bar of Ohio; a compendium of history and biography, Vol. I > Part 2
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JOSEPH GILMAN was the third generation from John, the English emi- grant. He was born in Exeter, New Hampshire, 1736. He was chairman of the committee of safety for his State during the Revolution and proved himself a firm, strong, resourceful man. His private fortune was given freely to equip New IIampshire soldiers and he was reimbursed in worthless paper. He was the unswerving advocate of independence and the staunch friend of Samuel Adams and his compatriots. He was a member of the Ohio Company and settled in Marietta in 1789, with his wife and son, B. Ives Gilman. He was appointed judge of Probate and Quarter Sessions by Governor St. Clair, and while serving in that capacity, was appointed judge of the Supreme Court by the President. IIe was not a profound lawyer, but a careful, upright judge. He was candid and usually guided to correct conclusions by his strong common sense, industry and desire to be right. He was a student and also possessed admirable social traits. He died in 1806.
RETURN JONATHAN MEIGS, JR., son of the first territorial lawgiver, was born in Middletown, Conn., in 1765, graduated from Harvard at twenty, stud- ied law in his native State, and came to Ohio with his father in 17SS. Gov- ernor St. Clair appointed him in 1790 a commissioner to the British commander at Detroit, a delicate and responsible mission for a young man of twenty-five years. He was an active participant in the Indian wars and served with such distinction as to receive a regular appointment to the rank of lieutenant-col- onel. He practiced his profession in the courts until 1798, when President Adams appointed him judge of the territorial Supreme Court. He was elected by the legislature one of the judges and the first Chief Justice of the State of Ohio under the constitution of 1802, and served two years; was then appointed to a district in Louisiana. In 1807 he was appointed judge of the United States District Court of Michigan and soon afterwards elected governor of Ohio. The Supreme Court held that he was ineligible on account of residence in Louisiana and Michigan, but his services were not lost to the State, as the legislature elected him to the United States Senate for the unexpired term of the Hon. John Smith, who was charged with complicity in the Aaron Burr conspiracy and resigned to avoid impeachment. At the close of this term, in 1809, Judge Meigs was re-elected for the full senatorial term; but the people of Ohio elected him governor the following year and he served in that capac- ity until 1814. He was the "war governor" of the State and displayed unu- sual ability in organizing the militia, fortifying the posts, protecting the settlers and assisting General Harrison. He was appointed Postmaster-General by President Madison, to succeed Gideon Granger, and served from 1814 to 1823, when he retired to private life. Death came to him in his peaceful home at Marietta in 1825. The practical politician of the present age may affirm that the judicial opinion of the ineligibility of Judge Meigs to the governorship is defensible on partisan grounds. Others may believe that the judges rendering the opinion may have been unconsciously influenced by the fact that the poli- tics of the governor did not correspond with their own.
As Governor Meigs was the second generation to bear that peculiar
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Christian name found nowhere in history outside of his family, a reference to its origin in this connection is excusable. His grandfather, Jonathan Meigs, courted an attractive Quakeress near Middletown, Connecticut, and suffered a nonsuit on two occasions. He was a persistent suitor, however, and pleaded earnestly for a new hearing and a reversal of judgment. Again unsuccessful, he had turned from the presence of his idol. mounted his horse and was slowly riding away, when the good spirit moved the heart of the gentle Quakeress to set aside the judgment thrice decreed and grant the prayer of the petitioner. Hastening to the cabin door, she shouted, "Return, Jonathan. Return. Jona- than." The happy lover returned, a marriage followed, and the " Return,"
prefixed to his own good Bible name "Jonathan," was applied to their first- born at his christening and descended with manifest family pride to the second generation and some collateral branches. Few men in the annals of the Ohio Company, or the history of the Northwest Territory and the erection of the Ohio State government, occupied a position of dignity, responsibility and use- fulness equal to that maintained by the Meigses, father and son.
GENERAL RUFUS PUTNAM was pre-eminently a soldier. He was educated early to the profession of arms by entering the service of George II. in the colonial war of England against France in 1757, receiving a commission from the governor of Massachusetts colony. His opportunities of acquiring literary education were very meager, although he became a practical surveyor and civil engineer. His skill in the profession secured his appointment as member of a commission in 1772 to survey and allot lands in the southern colonies which had been granted to the provincial soldiers, but the work was cut short by an order of King George III. suspending land grants for the purpose. He volunteered his services among the first patriots of the Revolution, and served until independence was achieved and the army disbanded. At the request of General Washington be constructed the fortifications at Boston, for which he received special commendation of the commander-in-chief. The personal friendship became intimate between Washington and Putnam. The latter was the prime mover and really founder of the Ohio Company. He was appointed its first manager with plenary powers. He came out to the Northwest Territory with the first colony of settlers, superintended the construction of their de- fenses and became identified with the civil history from the beginning. The governor appointed him judge of the first Court of Common Pleas. In 1790 he was appointed judge of the Supreme Court to succeed Judge Parsons and held the office more than six years, resigning to accept the more lucrative position of surveyor-general of the United States, tendered him by President Washington. Judge Putnam was a born leader. To his English descent may be attributed his firmness of character and resolute determination in the prose- cution of a purpose. His inherent love of justice was typified by the balance, which he adopted as the emblem of his judicial office. He was born at Sutton, Massachusetts, April 9, 1738, and died at Marietta May 4, 1824. His relative, General Israel Putnam, was more conspicuous in the country's military his- tory, but not more renowned for generous traits and the possession of virtues
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most admirable in man. Judge Putnam's liberal, practical education was acquired by observation and actual contact with the foremost men of the age. He was six feet in height, and stout, but his calmness of demeanor and reso- lute expression of countenance must be considered in connection with his com- manding presence in estimating the qualities which fitted him for leadership. He was a Christian in belief and practice.
Under the judicial system of the territory the calendar of the Supreme Court was arranged so as to hold a term in Detroit, Vincennes, Cincinnati and Marietta each year. The judges made the journeys on horseback, usually accompanied by members of the Bar. The time occupied in these itineraries and the camp life en route tended to the cultivation of good fellowship and gave opportunity for the discussion of legal problems, if not for the judicial consideration of cases. They carried most of the law in their heads, so as to have room in their saddlebags for a change of linen-a fresh dickey or two. None of them indulged in the modern luxury of silk night-shirts. It is worth while to remember that law books were not so numerous then as now. Simeon Greenleaf, author of the Treatise on the Law of Evidence, was only six years of age, and Joseph Chitty was only thirteen. Thomas Chitty was not yet born. The Commentaries of the great chancellor, Kent, were pub- lished forty years later. "Story on the Constitution " of the United States ; on Equity Jurisprudence ; the Conflict of Laws, and on the Law of Agency came out nearly half a century after these lawyers and jurists rode the circuit in the new Northwest. They did not even have the benefit of the "Newgate Calendar "! Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of England were yet very new. It is probable they relied largely upon the Bible for law as well as inspiration, and besides that reveled in the "treasure of learning" found in "Coke upon Littleton," which had been given to the English-speaking race three hundred years before. At any rate they were men learned in the law and accomplished in horsemanship.
The first body of laws for the government of the territory was selected from existing statutes ; it was compiled by the governor and judges in 1795, and printed at Cincinnati. At that time the Supreme Court, composed of . three judges having a salary of $800 a year, had original and appellate juris- diction in all civil and criminal cases-exclusive jurisdiction of cases of divorce or alimony. A legislative assembly chosen by the people met in 1798, and nominated ten men, from whom the President of the United States appointed five to constitute a Legislative Council, in lieu of a Senate. This was the inauguration of the second grade of territorial government. The requisite qualifications of an elector were that he should have a freehold of fifty acres, be a resident of the district and a citizen of some State. A residence of three years and a freehold of two hundred acres qualified a free, white małe inhabitant over twenty-one years of age for the office of representative; while a member of the council was required to own five hundred acres. In 1800 the Northwest Territory was divided, setting off Ohio by two intersecting lines-one drawn due north from the mouth of the Great Miami river, the
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other due east from the most southerly bend of Lake Michigan. Other boundaries, already fixed, were the Ohio river and the west line of Pennsyl- vania. All of the remainder of the Northwest Territory was organized as the Territory of Indiana, and the judges hereinbefore mentioned were relieved from holding court in Detroit and Vincennes. In 1802 a convention was held for the formation of a Constitution preparatory to the admission of Ohio into the National Union. This convention, composed of thirty-four members, met on the first day of November and concluded its labors on the twenty-ninth day of the same month. It assumed the entire responsibility of adopting a Con- stitution for the State and made provision for its becoming operative without ratification by popular vote. Whether it was because of any fear that it would be rejected, or because of an assumption that it was no concern of the people; or because the members concluded that ample authority had been delegated to them to adopt, approve and ratify a Constitution, does not clearly appear from the debates. The work of the convention was done promptly and courageously, and Ohio became a State with less than the usual formality. The highest judicial power was by the Constitution vested in a Supreme Court composed of three judges (with permission for a fourth after five years) elected by joint ballot of the general assembly for a term of seven years; having original and appellate jurisdiction as to matters of law and equity; providing that two of the judges should constitute a quorum for the deter- mination of cases. The governor was authorized to fill vacancies by appointment when the legislature was not in session. A session of the Supreme Court each year in every county of the State was required, giving it the appear- ance and some of the functions of a county court. The legislative act organizing the courts and defining their duties gave to the Supreme Court original juris- diction in all civil cases where the amount in controversy exceeded one thousand dollars, whether the proceeding was at law or equity, and appellate jurisdiction of all actions brought originally in the Common Pleas. It had concurrent jurisdiction in the issuing of writs of error and certiorari. While the system imposed upon the judges a vast amount of labor, it also involved some confu- sion in the adjudication of cases. The tendency to this was greater because of division of the State into two circuits and the simultaneous holding of court in both. This was done after a second act of the legislature, increasing the number of judges to four and empowering two of them to hear and adjudicate cases, which was in force from 1815 during the life of the Constitution. It was possible without a general conference on each important question to have different constructions and opposite opinions of the law emanating from the Supreme Court of Ohio at the same time. That such conflicts were rare is complimentary to the intelligence, wisdom and sound reasoning of the judges. The necessity or advantage of a court of review and last resort became more real as the years passed, and the legislature enacted a law in March, 1831, pro- viding for a general term of the Supreme Court to be held annually in Colum- bus, attended by all of the judges. This was the Court in Bank. Its duty was to hear and adjudicate finally the causes which had been reversed by some of
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the judges sitting in the circuit on appeal from the Courts of Common Pleas. It was indeed and solely a reviewing court and a court of last resort in the State. The importance of making official reports of the cases adjudicated and the reasoning by which such a conclusion was reached in each case, for the information and guidance of inferior courts as well as attorneys at law, was recognized, and the system of official reporting inaugurated. Prior to that time no such reports had been published. and in fact, so long as the jurisdiction was divided, or the decisions were subject to review, the necessity was not imperative. The "Old Supreme Court," as that under the first Constitution had been designated, was always respectable and above the suspicion of dis- honesty. No member of it was ever impeached. Most of the judges had received not only a liberal education, but the discipline and finish incident to a classical course of study. A majority of them were graduates of Yale or Harvard. They were generally learned in the law, and some of them became eminent, not only in the profession, but in political office. A large preponder- ance of them were born, reared and educated in New England, where the Ohio Company originated. Of the thirty judges comprising the court during the half century of its existence, the State of Connecticut furnished eleven, Massa- chusetts seven, Vermont, New Hampshire and Rhode Island each one; New Jersey three, Virginia three, New York one, Maryland one and South Carolina one. More than two-thirds of the whole number hailed from New England, coming west fully equipped either for the practice of law or judicial service.
SKETCHES OF THE JUDGES.
The judges comprising the first Supreme Court under the State govern- ment were Return Jonathan Meigs, Jr., of Washington county, who had served five years in the Supreme Court of the territory; Samuel Huntington of Cuya- hoga and William Sprigg of Jefferson. The first two were appointed by the legislature. March 1, 1803; the third was not appointed until April 2. Judge Meigs resigned after two years of service under this appointment, and was succeeded by Daniel Symmes of Hamilton county. Judge Sprigg, concerning whom history has recorded nothing of importance, resigned in 1806, and was succeeded by George Tod of Trumbull county, in February, 1807.
SAMUEL HUNTINGTON was a native of Connecticut, born in Coventry Octo- ber 4, 1765. He was a nephew of the signer of the Declaration, by whom he was adopted and educated. He studied law, was graduated front Yale in 1785, was admitted to the bar of Norwich in 1793, and practiced in his native State until 1800, when he made a tour of the settlements in the Western Reserve, and went down to Marietta, where he formed the acquaintance of Governor St. Clair. After stopping a short time in Youngstown he settled in Cleveland in 1801, and was soon recognized as a gentleman of broad scholarship and superior talents. He possessed larger wealth than the average frontiersman of the times, and lived in comparative luxury in his smart log dwelling. Ilis
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family comprised a wife and two sons, with a governess brought with them from New England. He was active, enterprising and thrifty; affable in social intercourse, correct in business methods. He was a member of the constitu- tional convention in 1802, and immediately afterward a senator representing Cuyahoga county, and was chosen speaker of the Senate. He was ambitious and remarkably well qualified for a public career. Alter serving four years of his term as judge of the Supreme Court he resigned to accept the governor- ship of the State, to which he had been elected. In the office of governor he displayed rare executive ability. His diminutive stature was supplemented by abundant intellectual force and nervous energy, so that his personality made an impression upon the State during the formative period. He was a just man, whose innate sense of fairness enforced impartial judgment regardless of the wealth or social standing of parties.
GEORGE TOD was a native of Suffield, Connecticut, born December 11, 1773. His advantages in youth were well improved, and he was graduated from Yale in 1795. For a short time thereafter he engaged in teaching at New Haven, in order to obtain ready money to defray expenses while pursu- ing his legal studies in the school of Judge Reeves at Litchfield. After ad- mission to the Bar, he came to Ohio in 1800, well qualified for practice, and settled in Trumbull county. During the same year he prosecuted the pleas of the United States in the first court of Quarter Sessions held at Warren. He also served for a time as secretary of the territory. In 1802 he was appraiser of taxable property. His scholarship, abilities as a lawyer and prominence in affairs gave him exceptional qualifications for judicial service, and his record as judge during the three years he occupied the Supreme Bench added to his fame. He was elected to the State Senate, and after the war of 1812-14, in which he served with honorable distinction, he was president judge of the Court of Common Pleas and also prosecuting attorney. He was the father of David Tod, the governor of Ohio during the first years of the war of 1861-5. In politics he was a Whig, and although seventy-seven years of age, was an active supporter of General Harrison's candidacy for President in 1840.
DANIEL SYMMES, who succeeded Judge Meigs, was a nephew of John Cleves, "the patriarch of the Miami wilderness." He was born in Sussex county, New Jersey, in 1772, educated in Princeton College, and came west with the family, among the first settlers in the Miami Purchase. He practiced law in Cincinnati and represented Hamilton county in the State Senate. After the close of his term on the Supreme Bench he was appointed register of the land office at Cincinnati, and held the office about seven years. He died at the age of fifty-five.
THOMAS MORRIS was appointed judge of the Supreme Court in 1809, from Clermont county, under an act of the legislature passed that year increasing the number of judges to four; but as the next legislature repealed the act, his judicial service as a member of the highest court was only nominal. He was a native of Virginia, born in 1776, and came to the territory in 1795, working as a farm hand while he studied law. He was admitted to the bar in 1804 and
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became a very successful lawyer, taking rank with the ablest. He was a mem- ber of the legislature twenty-four years, and in 1832 was elected to represent the State in the United States Senate. He was unalterably hostile to slavery and maintained the right of petition in the Congress of the United States, and the freedom of the press, against such orators as Calhoun. He was aggres- sive, honest. brave and conscientious; but the Democratic party, to which he belonged, did not sympathize with his intense opposition to slavery, and he was retired at the close of a single term. Two of his sons, Jonathan D. and Isaac Newton, were successful lawyers and both of them served in Congress.
THOMAS SCOTT was first appointed to fill a vacancy on the Supreme Bench in 1809 and reappointed for a full term the following year, but resigned five years later on account of the inadequacy of the salary. He was a native of Allegheny county, Maryland, born in 1772, and descended from Scotch-Irish ancestry on his father's side and Welsh-English on the side of his mother. His experience as a lawyer was peculiar and not altogether agreeable to him- self, because of the alleged opposition of his church. He was educated for the ministry and settled in Kentucky as a circuit-rider in the Methodist Epis- copal Church. In 1800, as related in his autobiography, he was admitted to the Bar at Lexington, Kentucky, after a course of reading under Honorable James Brown, and made his home in Flemingsburg. He was appointed prose- cuting attorney for Fleming county and gained a little practice, but acknow]- edges that he did not succeed well. He claimed to have studied the elementary textbooks, but never read a " book which treated on practice either in the courts of law or equity." And yet he attributes his want of success to the influence of the Methodist Church, which he asserts was arrayed against him because he had abandoned the ministry for the law. He moved to Chillicothe in 1801, and soon afterwards was appointed to fill the office of clerk of the Courts of Common Pleas, Probate and Quarter Sessions. Subse- quently he served as prosecuting attorney for half a dozen counties, and after his retirement from the Supreme Bench he represented Ross county in the leg- islature for one term. In 1822 he was a member of a commission of three appointed to revise the laws of the State. Under an appointment of Presi- dent Jackson, in 1829, he held the position of register of the land office at Cincinnati for more than fifteen years. It would appear from this record that the baleful influence of the church was exhausted in preventing his suc- cess as a lawyer and in no wise exerted to interfere with his perennial aspira- tion to public office.
WM. R. IRVIN was a native of Albemarle county, Virginia, born in 1778, came to Ohio early, studied law at Lancaster and became a member of the Bar of Fairfield county, whose later fame was hardly surpassed by that of any other in the State. He represented that county in the legislature and was appointed judge of the Supreme Court in 1810. As a Jackson Democrat he was elected to Congress in 1828 and served one term.
ETHAN ALLEN BROWN, appointed to the Supreme Court from Hamilton county in 1810, was a man of high legal and literary attainments. He was
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born at Darien, Connecticut, July 4, 1776, simultaneously with the independ- ence of the American colonies. He enjoyed unusual advantages in education. He was a critical student of language under the tuition of a noted linguist and a student of the law under the instruction of Alexander Hamilton. While en- gaged in mastering the principles of the law he might easily have become indoctrinated in the system of political economy of which his instructor was the greatest exponent ; but he was a Democrat to the end of his life. In 1802 he settled in Cincinnati, where he soon acquired a large and profitable prac- tice. In 1810 he was appointed judge of the Supreme Court and served the full term. In 1818 and again in 1820 he was elected governor of the State, but resigned soon after his second election in order to accept an election to the United States Senate for half a term. For five years he filled the office of canal commissioner, and in 1830 President Jackson appointed him minister to Brazil for a term of four years and then commissioner of the land office for little more than one year. After his retirement to private life he removed to Indiana and died at Indianapolis in 1852. Judge Brown was a man of large abilities and liberal learning, qualified alike for the honors of his profession and the responsible duties of political office. His conspicuous public career, extending over a period of forty years, left his reputation unclouded.
CALVIN PEASE, appointed judge of the Supreme Court from Trumbull county in 1815, was a noteworthy character in the judicial history of the State. Without the advantages of education and culture possessed by some of his associates, he was not excelled by any of them in the peculiar association of faculties which enables the judge to detect sham and sophistry, and to dis- cern the essence of a controversy or the applicability of a statute. He was transplanted in the vigor of young manhood to " New Connecticut" or the Western Reserve, from the "Land of Steady Habits." His birthplace was Suffield, and the date of birth September 9, 1776. He studied law in the office of Gideon Granger, and began practice in New Hartford in 1798. Early in the year 1800 he came to the territory, and when the first Court of Common Pleas and Quarter Sessions was held at Warren, in the new county of Trum- bull, in August of the same year, he was appointed clerk. In October follow- ing he was admitted to the bar and at onoe engaged in general practice. His first judicial appointment came in April, 1803, when he was appointed presid- ing judge of the Third Circuit. After seven years of service on the Circuit Bench he resigned and resumed the practice. An incident of historic interest during his term was the attempted impeachment of himself and George Tod, associate judge of his circuit, for holding unconstitutional an act of the legis- lature. The lawmakers, jealous of their prerogative, and assuming that Ohio legislative enactments, like those of the British Parliament, were above criti- cism, sought to discipline the offending judges for their temerity in thus invading their own peculiar domain. The act in question provided that justices of the peace should have jurisdiction in civil cases to the amount of fifty dollars -without the right of trial by jury. The judges held it to be in conflict with the Constitution of the United States, which declares, " In suits of common law
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