USA > Ohio > Bench and bar of Ohio; a compendium of history and biography, Vol. I > Part 25
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of the case. Of course he accepted the delicate trust, which enlisted his best efforts. During Hill's argument, which was one of the finest he ever made, the prosecuting attorney interrupted him to read some proposition out of a law book. Hill's silencing comment was: ' Well ! Greeley would say of that proposition, it is surely absurd enough to be good law,' and proceeded. The Major was a happy and grateful man when the verdict of not guilty was returned. Upon the trial of an alimony case, Hill had occasion to ask the defendant, a plain but eccentric and rather irritable man : 'You have not lived very pleasantly with your wife for a number of years, have you ?' The rather vigorous answer was: . That's a lie! Me and my woman has lived together forty year and she never give me a cross word. What do you think of that ?' With characteristic promptness Hill replied : 'I think that either you're an old liar or she's an old fool. ' Hill was once dealing with some figures during his argument, when opposing counsel interrupted to say with some spirit : ' Oh, that's mere jugglery of figures. I learned that at school when I was a boy.' Hill retorted : ' The gentleman's advantages have been superior to mine. I never attended a jugglery school in my life.' Hill's greatest strength as an advocate is found in the peculiar tact he employs in dealing with his subject from the stand-point of plain men-from the common view of things. No jury or court is ever in doubt as to what Hill means by what he says. He is an absolute stranger to all professional trickery, and his dealings with his clients, as with opposing counsel, are always frank and fair. His scent for fraud and double dealing is keen and infallible, and bad luck to the sycophant or the sham that stands in his way. Perhaps Hill's crowning accomplishment as a lawyer is found in the philosophy, resignation and entire good nature with which he accepts defeat at the hands of court or jury."
WILLIAM H. HUBBARD, Defiance. William H. Hubbard, judge of the Court of Common Pleas of the second subdivision of the Third Judicial District, residing at Defiance, is a native of Connecticut. His parents were Edward C. and Sarah Humphreys Hubbard, both of whom were mainly of English descent, although having some strains of French and Irish blood. The ancestors of our subject settled in Connecticut more than three centuries ago, and there their descendants continued to reside until his parents removed
Af H. Hubbard
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to the Western Reserve in Ohio, in 1856. N. Hubbard, the great-grandfather of our subject, was paymaster and quartermaster-general of the Connecticut troops in the Revolutionary War. Later he was a member of the Western Reserve Land Company, and made frequent visits to the Territory of Ohio in the interest of the company. He was also a maritime merchant whose ships were employed in trade with the West Indies. . The ancestors of Judge Hub- bard's mother were also prominent in public affairs and in the war of the Revolution. The sword of her maternal grandfather, still in the possession of our subject, tells of that unequal contest and testifies to the bravery of the wearer, in the inscriptions engraved thereon. Colonel David Humphreys, his mother's paternal great-uncle, served on the staff of General Putnam, and after- wards on that of General Washington ; and, after the latter became President, he acted as major domo of the executive mansion. The warm personal friend- ship between him and General Washington continued to the death of the latter. Colonel Humphreys was also minister from this country to Spain and Portugal. Both General Hubbard and Colonel Humphreys were original members of the order of the Cincinnati. William H. Hubbard was born at Middletown, Connecticut, April 13, 1850. When he was six years of age his parents removed to Ashtabula, Ohio, where his father continued to reside until his death, in 1893. His mother, brothers and sisters all remain in Ashtabula. His early education was obtained in the common schools, but, from the time he was nine years old until he entered the practical school of life, he was fortunate in being under the private tuition of the Rev. James Bonner, B. D., of Edinburgh University, Scotland ; to whose skillful and loving training he ascribes in a large degree his powers of thought and analytical reasoning, as well as his love of study and of the best literature. He graduated at East- man's Business College, in 1866, and became an accountant and book-keeper. In 1870 he was book-keeper and assistant paymaster for the contractors who built the Ashtabula & Jamestown Railroad, now part of the Lake Shore system. While employed with these various duties he was devoting his leisure time to the study of law, concluding his studies in the office of Sherman & Hall, Ashtabula. He was examined and admitted to the Bar by the Supreme Court, at the term of January, 1871. In 1873 he was admitted to the Bar of the United States Courts for the Northern District of Ohio. And later, on motion of ex-Senator Edmunds of Vermont, he was admitted to practice in the Supreme Court of the United States. He began practice at Ashtabula, and continued there until 1880. In 1881 he located at Napoleon, Ohio, and prac- ticed there until he removed to Defiance, in July, 1885, where he formed a partnership with the Honorable W. D. Hill, then member of Congress from the Sixth District of Ohio, and one of the forcinost lawyers of northwestern Ohio. This association continued until 1892, when Mr. Hill removed tempo- rarily to Montana. After practicing alone for about a year, Mr. Hubbard took into partnership with him Mr. J. H. Heckman, the firm being styled Hubbard & Hockman. This partnership continued until November, 1896, when it was dissolved by the election of Mr. Hubbard to the Common Pleas judgeship,
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which he now holds, and the simultaneous election of Mr. Hockman to the office of Probate Judge of Defiance county. Judge Hubbard's subdivision com- prises the counties of Williams, Defiance and Paulding. As a lawyer, Judge Hubbard has always been regarded as among the very best. He has been emi- nently successful as a trial lawyer, and is a most excellent advocate, possessing alike the power of making clear-cut statements of the law to the court and great eloquence in the argument of his case to the jury, while never neglect- ing the facts of his case. A well-known judge responds to our inquiry for information, as follows :
"I know William H. Hubbard, of Defiance, well. He practiced before me when I was on the Bench, and I have practiced with and against him, since. He is a man of unusual mental powers and legal ability. He has a wonderful knowledge of legal principles. His first inquiry is always as to what the law ought to be in any given case, and having determined this to his own satisfaction, he rarely fails to produce an abundance of authority to dem- onstrate that such is the law. He is a man of genial manners, a very courtly and courteous gentleman."
Judge Hubbard is making a most excellent judge, and the Bar of his dis- trict, wherever he has held court, are warm in their expressions of their high opinion of his ability, integrity, impartiality and fearlessness. In politics Judge Hubbard is a Democrat, but of late years, on account of the exactions of his practice, he has not taken an active part, beyond responding to some of the calls made on him for speeches in his own vicinity, during the fall cam- paigns. In his family relations he is most happy. He was married at a very early age, but his first wife lived only a short time. In 1881 he was married to Miss Mary Moore, daughter of Rev. James Moore, D. D., the Episcopal clergyman at Oberlin, Ohio, but since deceased. The reverend doctor was a native of Baltimore, Maryland, and Mrs. Hubbard was born there. They have now three children, two daughters and one son, namely: Lucy Margaret, aged fourteen years ; Edward Moore, aged twelve; and Clara Nannie, aged ten years.
SIDNEY EDGERTON, Akron. Ex-Governor Edgerton has for more than half a century been a resident of the progressive and prosperous city which is still his home. He was born at Cazenovia, Madison county, New York, August 17, 1818, and obliged to take care of himself from the time he was eight years of age. His father, Amos Edgerton, a gentleman of ability and scholarship, a teacher by profession, had the misfortune to lose his sight some years before death and died when our subject was an infant of six months. His mother, Zervia Graham, a native of Connecticut, a lady of refinement, left without means of supporting her children as she could have desired, removed to Ontario county and lived until he was twenty-eight years old. At the age of eight he went to live with a farmer named Darling, where he remained a year or two and then drifted to other places until he was twelve. From that time until he reached the age of sixteen he attended the district school in
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winter and worked on a farm in summer. He then engaged with his brother, who was a carpenter and joiner, with a view to learning that trade. After a fair trial it became evident that he had no mechanical genius and little skill in handicraft of any kind. He was frankly told by his brother that a boy who thought more of books and papers than he did of tools would never make a good carpenter; and he was advised to give it up. His expenses for one year in the Lima Seminary were paid by his brother, and after that he paid his own expenses by teaching until he had spent four years in this excel- lent school. Indeed his time was all occupied in study and teaching until he was twenty-four years of age. In the spring of 1844 he located in Akron and taught for a short time in the academy at Tallmadge. Through all the years from childhood he had felt a strong predilection for the law. It was in his mind long before he undertook to learn the carpenter's trade, and sadly inter- fered with his sawing to a line or making a square mortise. He was present in a justice's court during the trial of a suit at law when a very young boy, and was fascinated by the contention and evident learning of the lawyers. His yearning to become as one of them accounted for his fondness for books and his unskillful handling of carpenter's tools. He had already managed to read some of the text-books in law, and now at the age of twenty-six he entered the Cincinnati Law School with a fixed purpose, mature enough to know the meaning and the necessity of application ; courageous enough to make any sacrifice required to accomplish his heart's desire. He was the class-mate and companion of Richard A. Harrison of Columbus, an earnest student some years his junior, now one of the ablest lawyers in Ohio, as well as one of the best men. The two were animated by the same lofty ambition and sustained by the same unfaltering purpose. It is not surprising, therefore, that they were the first in a class of seventy-five to receive their certificates of graduation, while fifty of the number failed utterly. Mr. Edgerton began practice at Akron and at various times formed partnerships which covered indefinite periods. His first was with Daniel S. Lee, which continued only one year. His second was with Judge Van R. Humphrey and W. H. Upson, which con- tinued, at least with Judge Upson, about eight years. His nephew, Wilbur F. Sanders, the late United States Senator for Montana, then became associ- ated with him in a partnership which continued until he removed to the West. For twelve years he was in partnership with Jacob Kohler, beginning in 1866. He was interested in politics from the time he left the Law School and was ever guided by the convictions of a strong character. He did not hesitate to declare himself a free-soiler and was a member of the convention in 1848 which gave birth to that party. He was also a member of the Pittsburg convention which organized the National Republican party. For fifteen years in the prime of life he held public office. In 1852 and again in 1854 he was elected prose- cuting attorney, serving four years. During his first term he prosecuted suc- cessfully a celebrated murder case-The State of Ohio vs. Parks. The accused was convicted, and secured a new trial. The case was taken to Cuyahoga county on change of venue, where the prisoner was again convicted, sentenced
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and hung. It was the first execution in the county. In 1858, and again in 1860, he was elected to Congress, serving until March 4, 1863, during a most exciting period of the country's history. At the close of his second term he was appointed Chief Justice of the Territory of Idaho, by President Lincoln. Judge Edgerton recounts the incidents of his trip to the far West and his offi- cial residence there in a very entertaining style. The journey was made across the plains from the Missouri river with ox teams. The party consisted of the judge's family, W. F. Sanders, late United States senator, Miss Darling and Miss Geer, and five men. The time occupied was three months and a day, and the route lay along the old California trail to South Pass, the Landee Cutoff to Snake river; thence following up the river fifty miles to a ford and thence, after crossing, westward to Bannock, the territorial capital. The hunting was good, so that the emigrants feasted on antelope and prairie chickens. The ladies, however, had some difficulty in making appetizing or even palatable chicken-pie out of a sage hen. Nature and association impart to the fowl a very pronounced flavor of its name, and the seasoning is too high for a " ten- derfoot." It was September when the party arrived at Bannock. The Ter- ritory of Idaho was then almost interminable, including the whole of Montana, and the journey from one border to the other would have occupied a year. Fortunately for the judge, there were no laws to be construed but " miners' law," and no marshal to execute the orders of the court. Hence no sessions of court were held. The population was composed of miners and saloon keep- ers, with the customary aggregation of sports and dance hall habitues that flock to a prosperous mining camp, including a small percentage of good peo- ple for salt. After spending about four months in the study of geography and . political economy, Judge Edgerton made a trip to Washington to secure a division of the Territory, going on horseback to Salt Lake, thence by stage to the Missouri river. He had friends and influential acquaintances among the old members of Congress, and his mission was successful. Montana was carved out of Idaho, leaving an empire whose limits he might explore. judicially. On the return trip, when he reached Salt Lake, he first learned that he was appointed governor of Montana by President Lincoln. He raised the stars and stripes on the executive residence at Bannock-probably the first speci- men of his country's flag ever seen in the Territory. The inhabitants sympa- thized with the Rebellion, and the tough element in various ways manifested its disapproval of the emblem of Union and authority. The governor was firm and the flag continued to wave. The first territorial legislature was held in 1864 and, in the language of the governor, was opposed to him "politically, socially and morally." The proceedings were lively and sometimes the atmos- phere was squally ; but the governor exercised his prerogatives freely and fearlessly, vetoing obnoxious bills and defeating many objectionable schemes. The government continued to operate smoothly until the autumn of 1866, when he came East for the purpose of placing some of his children in school. It was at the time President Johnson was making his notorious "Swing around the Circle," and Governor Edgerton was not oblivious of the fact that the
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Barren Proble
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President had become a valiant headsman. He therefore tendered his resig- nation in February, 1867, to save the axman trouble, but it was not accepted until July. He resumed the practice of law in Akron, with a broader vision and a wealth of experience acquired in the West. His prominence at the Bar and in public life has given him employment as counsel in many of the note- worthy cases tried in the county. Governor Edgerton is a broad-minded, generous-hearted man. He has always entertained liberal, progressive views, and advocated the policies which in his judgment were for the betterment of the human race. His sentiment and influence have been against oppression and wrong. He has always been an earnest man, with a strong sense of duty and the moral courage sufficient for any occasion. In the calmness of his evening he is gracefully and quietly retiring from the hurly-burly of profes- sional engagements, to enjoy in their fullness the love of his children, the gratitude and respect of his fellow men. He was married in May, 1849, to Miss Mary Wright. Four sons and five daughters were born of the marriage. One son and all of the daughters are still living: Wright Prescott Edgerton, graduate of the Military Academy at West Point and professor of mathemat- ics in the same; Martha E. Plossman, editor and manager of the "Great Falls Leader " of Montana; Idaho E. Buckingham, wife of George Buckingham of Akron; Pauline Edgerton, city librarian of Akron; Ione and Nina, at home. His wife died in 1883, but his sunset will be gilded by the love of his kind.
WARREN P. NOBLE, Tiffin. Honorable Warren P. Noble is of English descent through the lineage of his father, with a strain of Irish blood trans- mitted from his maternal grandfather. His father, William Noble, was a native of Connecticut, which had been the place of residence for several gene- rations of his ancestors. He emigrated to Pennsylvania when a young man and settled near Berwick, then in Luzerne, but now in Columbiana county. Here he courted and married Miss Rebecca Lytle, a native of that place, whose ancestors on her mother's side had resided there for several generations, and whose father, Thomas Lytle, was a native of Ireland. The subject of this biography was one of the ten children of William and Rebecca (Lytle) Noble. IIe was born near the said town of Berwick, June 14, 1820. The stock from which he sprang was eminently brave and patriotic-the stuff out of which enterprising pioneers are made. His maternal grandmother was one of the sufferers, and barely escaped being a victim of the Wyoming massacre in 1778, saving herself and family from the fury of the savages by fleeing to a stockhouse. His father was a volunteer for the War of 1812, but hostilities soon after ceased and he never was sent to the front, but continued for years after the close of the war one of the Connecticut settlers of the Wyoming val- ley in Pennsylvania. The family afterwards moved to Ohio when Warren P. was an infant, locating for a time in Wayne county ; going thence to Medina and finally settling in Seneca for a permanent residence. William Noble
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learned the trade of a millwright, and was engaged in building mills both in Pennsylvania and Ohio for many years. He lived to a good old age and employed his time usefully, dying at his home near Fostoria, Ohio, in 1864, aged eighty-one years. The companion of his youth died in 1872, at the age of seventy-one years. Warren P. Noble attended the public schools of Wayne, Medina and Seneca counties until eighteen years old. He then entered the Wadsworth Academy, which was under the supervision of John McGregor, one of the ablest educators of the time in Ohio-a man who so impressed the minds and hearts of his pupils that forty years after his death they perpetu- ated his memory by a marble statue, chiseled in Italy and reared and unveiled at Wadsworth, Ohio. He remained in this school two years, and supported himself by teaching in the public schools during the winter months. Among the most pleasurable recollections of his early life is the school at Fostoria, of which he was the principal in 1840 and 1841. Several of the boys under his instruction in that school have since become men of great prominence in the professions and in politics. Among the latter it is proper to mention Honor- able Charles Foster, congressman, governor and secretary of the treasury. From his youth Mr. Noble was a lover of books and applied himself with persistent diligence to reading and study. He was a thoughtful, careful, dis- criminating reader, determined to appropriate and assimilate all that he read. While engaged in teaching he took up the study of law and pursued it with a purpose and persistency which may always be relied on to win. He set about it with all the vigor of his intellect, gaining a considerable insight into the principles before abandoning that stepping-stone profession which furnished the expense money for such period as might be necessary to occupy entirely with the work of preparation, before he could secure any revenue from his life profession. In February, 1842, he removed to Tiffin and continued his study of the law in the office of Rawson & Pennington, where the late General William H. Gibson, of the silver tongue, was his fellow-student. He was admitted to the Bar July 4, 1843, and at once entered upon a practice which has been continuous save for the interruption of public service. In 1846, as soon as he reached the eligible age, prescribed in the Constitution, he was elected to the State legislature. Two years later he was re-elected, serv- ing two terms. In 1851 he was elected prosecuting attorney; but resigned the office after serving three years. A few years after the opening of his practice, he formed a partnership with his brother, the late Judge Harrison Noble, who had studied with him, which was continued about a quarter of a century. They then took into the firm as a partner Nelson B. Lutes, one of their students, and continued the practice under the firm name of "Noble Brothers & Lutes," for a couple of years; when, by mutual agreement, this firm was divided, leaving the subject of this sketch to pursue the practice alone. Afterwards, about the year 1876, he formed another partnership with Perry M. Adams, a very bright and promising young lawyer, who had been a student in his office. And this association was dissolved only by the death of Mr. Adams, whilst serving as president pro tem. of the Ohio State Senate, in 1891.
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On the death of Mr. Adams he formed another partnership with his son, War- ren F. Noble, and Guilford B. Keppel, under the firm name of Noble, Keppel & Noble, with the understanding that as soon as the business on hand was closed up, Mr. Noble would retire. This partnership is still nominally contin- ued, but to use his own phrase, Mr. Noble is " endeavoring to slide out." These are the only partnerships entered into by Mr. Noble during his long career at the Bar. In 1860 he was elected to Congress on the Democratic ticket, and his service in that body during the critical period of the Nation's history was alike honorable to himself and satisfactory to his constituents. He was a War Democrat, supporting with heartiness and vigor the measures adopted for the enforcement of law and the suppression of rebellion. The restoration of the Union was placed above temporary expedients and every other consideration. On that proposition he supported the administration of Abraham Lincoln as sincerely as if the government had been administered, and the laws executed, by a member of his own party. He recognized the broad distinction between patriots and the enemies of the Nation, and allied himself with all who placed patriotism above partisanship, and recognized no other political allegiance in the discharge of his official duties during the time of great- est peril. His course was approved by the Union soldiers and a large majority of the electors of his district, so that he was re-elected in 1862, in spite of the fact that the State had been considerably gerrymandered in the meantime, by which Republican counties had been annexed to his district and Democratic counties cut off. His majority in the second race was twelve hundred. His constant efforts in behalf of the soldiers and regard for their interests com- mended him to their suffrage. His service in Congress covered almost the whole period of the Civil War, as it began March 4, 1861, a month before the firing upon Sumter, and ended March 4, 1865, little more than a month before the surrender of Lee. Among the intellectual giants in the House of Repre- sentatives were James G. Blaine, Roscoe Conkling, George H. Pendleton, Wil- liam Windom, James A. Garfield and Thaddeus Stevens, with the latter of whom he served on a committee for four years, in the meantime securing and retaining Mr. Stevens's warm friendship. The issue of war tested the strength of the government and the principles of men, and the man who exhibited in his public acts the breadth of statesmanship rather than the narrowness of parti- sanisin was prepared to render an account of his stewardship to his constitu- ents without a shameful blush or plague of conscience. Mr. Noble retired from Congress with an excellent reputation and resumed the practice of the law, which has occupied his time and in which he has been successful by virtue of application and persistent determination. Much of the important litigation in the courts of his circuit has been directed by his painstaking care. Many of the decisions of the Appellate Courts bear the impress of his patient investi- gation and logical argument. He has arrived at an estate when it is possible to take otium cum dignitate. He has invested some of his accumulations in public enterprises, and has united himself with certain orders that teach and practice benevolence. In Masonry he is a Knight Templar, and he is also an
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