USA > Ohio > Bench and bar of Ohio; a compendium of history and biography, Vol. I > Part 33
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was engaged was that of the Franklin county Tally Sheet Forgery Cases, in which he assisted the prosecution. Judge Nash was president of the Columbus Constitutional Convention, 1891, called to draft the charter of the present municipal government for the city of Columbus. As a man, Judge Nash has the respect and confidence of his fellow citizens, including his political opponents, to a remarkable degreee. Especially is he the friend of those who need assist- ance, and many a successful lawyer owes his start and encouragement in the beginning of his profession to Judge Nash. Judge Nash was married in April, 1882, to Mrs. Ada M. Deshler, of Columbus. By this union there was one daughter. Mrs. Nash died in 1886, and the beloved daughter died in 1896.
AMOS WOLFE, Springfield. Whether or not Mad River township possesses a soil peculiarly adapted to the growth of professional men, it is true that it is the native place of several men who have attained a high position in the profession of law. General J. Warren Keifer, Judge F. M. Hagan, Honorable Samuel Shellabarger, Judge Summers, Honorable T. J. Pringle and others who have risen to prominence in law practice, on the Bench and in the field of politics, claim Mad River township as their place of birth. Among the number also is Amos Wolfe, the subject of this sketch. He can present a clear abstract of title to his American citizenship. His great-grandfather in his early days was a subject of King George of England, and in the historical struggle for independence was a commissioned officer in the American army ; and after the colonies had established the right of self-government by their might, he cast his first vote for the first President of the United States. He lived to the age of one hundred and two years and died in the county of his nativity in Pennsylvania. Michael and Sarah Wolfe, the parents of Amos, were both natives of Pennsylvania, but came to Ohio in 1835, and settled in Clark county on a farm in Mad River township, where the early life of our subject was passed. He was born in 1841, and when he attained school age attended the public school of his district. In 1861 he entered Whittenberg College, but on the breaking out of the Rebellion he entered the army and served in the capacity of private soldier for four and one half months, when he was honorably discharged. He entered the Normal University at Lebanon, Ohio, and in 1864 was graduated from the business or commercial department. Deciding on a professional life, he re-entered Whittenberg College to complete his education and was graduated from that institution in 1868, after taking the full classical course. One year later he entered the Law Department of the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor and received his diploma in 1871. He was admitted to practice in all the courts of Ohio and Michigan the same year. He began practice at once in Springfield and remained alone for the first three years, when he entered into partnership with Allen H. Gillett, which continued for five years. Since that dissolution he has been alone. He has in the twenty-five years of his practice at the Springfield Bar built up a very substan-
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Gilbert H. Stewart.
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tial legal business and made a high reputation for integrity. In politics he is a Republican. Though he has not been active as a politician, he has taken con. siderable interest in the success of his party. He was for quite a period chairman of the county Republican committee. He has devoted his time and energies to his profession and has never aspired to or held any political office. As a citizen he is held in high esteem both by the profession and the public. He was married in 1879 to Miss Margaret L. Lorimer, of Springfield, Ohio, and is now living in the comforts and enjoyment of a happy and contented private life.
GILBERT H. STEWART, Columbus. Gilbert Holland Stewart, lawyer, judge, was born in Boston, Massachusetts, March 15, 1847. His father was Alonzo Stewart and his mother Isabella Ireland Stewart. Both were natives of Maine and descendants of early New England Puritanic stock. They settled in Boston in the spring of 1846. When he was five years old his parents removed to that portion of the city of Cambridge nearest to Boston, then and now known as East Cambridge, and known in Revolutionary times as Craigee's Point. He received his early education in the Cambridge public schools, entering the Cambridge High School in 1860, the principal of the school being at that time the distinguished educator, Lyman R. Williston. He graduated from the high school in the spring of 1864, the principal of the school then being William J. Rolfe, who is now known as the eminent Shakespearean scholar and text-book author. In the fall of 1864 he was admitted to Harvard Uni- versity in the class of 1868. He pursued his course of study with success and high standing in his class, until the spring of 1867, the middle of the Junior year, when, impatient to engage in his chosen profession, he entered the Harvard Law School, becoming at the time a student in the law office of Lorenzo Merritt, East Cambridge, Massachusetts. July 19, 1867, Mr. Stewart transferred his residence to Galion, Ohio, and continued his legal studies at that place in the law office of H. C. Carhart. May 5, 1869, he was admitted to the Bar of Ohio by the District Court of Franklin county, Ohio. The motion to the court for the appointment of the examining committee was made by the Honorable Chauncy N. Olds, and the committee conducting the examination consisted of Honorable George K. Nash,. Colonel J. T. Holmes, and Honorable Morton S. Brasee. Mr. Stewart practiced law in Galion until April, 1873, when he removed to Columbus, where he has since resided. Soon after his arrival in Columbus he formed a partnership with Captain R. P. Woodruff, attorney, which partnership continued for some six years and was then dissolved by mutual consent. When the Circuit Court of Ohio was estab- lished, Mr. Stewart's superior education, legal ability and success at the Bar were deservedly recognized in the fall of 1884, by his nomination by the Republicans of his circuit and election as judge of the Circuit Court of Ohio for the Second Circuit, to serve for the period of four years. At the end of his first term, in 1888, his successful service resulted in his renomination by
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acclamation, and his re-election to the office for the term of six years. At the annual meeting of the circuit judges of Ohio in 1892, he was chosen Chief Justice of the Circuit Court of Ohio for the ensuing year, 1893, and at the close of that year was re-elected by his fellow judges for the year 1894. At the expiration of his second term of judgeship in 1894, though universally urged to again accept, he declined a renomination, and retiring from the bench on February 8, 1895, resumed the practice of law at Columbus. Judge Stewart was a member of the board of education of Columbus, from 1880 to 1882, declining a re-election. He was elected a member of the city council of Columbus in the spring of 1884, but resigned his position upon his election to the Circuit Court the fall of the same year. In February, 1882, he was made lecturer on Medical Jurisprudence in Starling Medical College, Columbus, and in March, 1884, was elected to the professorship of the same subject, which position he still holds and in which subject he has become recognized as a high authority. January 20, 1897, Judge Stewart was elected by the members of the Columbus Board of Trade to the presidency of that organization, the membership of which embraces five hundred leading business men of the capital city. At the commencement of 1889, at the request of his college class-mates, he received the degree of A. B. from his Alma Mater, Harvard Univer- sity. Judge Stewart was married on June 22, 1875, at Worthington, Ohio, to Clara Landon Ogden, daughter of the eminent educator, Professor John Ogden, who was at that time president of the Central Ohio Normal School at Worthington, and afterwards State school commissioner, North Dakota. Judge Stewart is known not only as a lawyer learned in his profession, with marked ability as a practitioner and a judge, but also as a gentleman of wide culture and unusual literary tastes and accomplishments. He is a clear and forceful speaker, a graceful and entertaining writer. Unquestioned integrity, unwearied energy and unfailing frankness and courtesy characterize him in every sphere of his life-the practice of his profession, his political career and action, and his social relations.
ANSELM T. HOLCOMB, Vinton. General Anselm T. Holcomb was born in Mason county, Virginia, March 14, 1803. His ancestors were New England people, who lived long in Connecticut. All of them were patriots, and some of them soldiers. His grandfather was an officer in the Revolutionary War. His father, General Samuel R. Holcomb, a citizen of Virginia, removed to Ohio when this boy, who afterwards became a general, was only one year old. The family settled in Gallia county, where the father became a very popular and influential citizen ; a strong and capable man, possessing in an eminent degree the physical and mental qualities that fit a man for leadership. His stature was large, his bearing dignified and soldierly, his manners and address pleasant; and above all he was fortified by integrity of character, sagacious discretion and saving common sense, which gave him wide popularity and large influence.
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In the development of the frontier and the promotion of the public welfare by the active support of wholesome enterprises his influence was acknowl- edged. He was in the front rank of citizenship, and a leader in politics, serv- ing his country both in the Senate and House of Representatives of the State legislature. He was a soldier and a commissioned officer in active service dur- ing the War of 1812. and afterwards received appointment as a major general of militia. Anselm T. Holcomb, the subject of this memoir, worked on his father's farm in boyhood, acquiring such education as could be obtained in the log cabin schools of that day, and in a select school kept in Gallipolis by the Honorable Thomas Ewing. He was assiduous and mastered the books which he studied, and whilst his education was liberal the best part of it was obtained by general reading. He read with avidity all the books available, and in this way became well informed on all subjects. His reading was never superficial ; it was a study, so thorough as to enable him to talk entertainingly on all mat- ters of history, science, politics, religion, and even literature. He was quite familiar with the varied interests of the community, the State and the Nation. He was accustomed to write and expressed his views forcibly on paper. He studied law at the age of thirty-six, and was graduated from the Cincinnati Law School in 1840. His ripe experience in affairs and general knowledge were the means of securing a profitable practice at once, which his tact, ability, application and integrity enabled him to hold and increase. He was a solid, capable and successful lawyer, possessing a large fund of accurate knowledge of the books and an ardent love of the profession. He was during the time of his independent practice a capable instructor of students in the law, and took great delight in giving young men aid and encouragement. He served three terms in the legislature, and was associated in that body with many of the eminent men of the State. According to the custom of the times in which he practiced law, he rode the circuit, attending the courts held in all neighbor- ing counties as well as his own. While on a visit to his brother in Missouri, in 1871, General Holcomb was suddenly stricken with paralysis, from which he never recovered. He lived six years afterwards. His intellect remained clear and his memory tenacious to the last. He died at his home in Vinton, Jan- uary 14, 1877. General Holcomb was not only an able lawyer, a profound student, and a popular writer, but he was also a very entertaining conversa- tionalist. His wit was spontaneous and pleasing; his speech abounded in humor, and he was the life of his social circle. He was a Mason in high stand- ing. He was married in early life to Esther Mathews, and their only child died in infancy. The hospitality dispensed in their home was the result of abounding kindness of heart in the general and his estimable wife.
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HENDERSON ELLIOTT, late of Dayton. The subject of this memoir was for nearly twenty-five years judge of the Court of Common Pleas of the Sec- ond Judicial District. Though a native of North Carolina, Judge Elliott has every right to be classed as a prominent Ohio citizen. He was of Scotch-Irish descent. His parents on both the maternal and paternal sides were North Carolina Quakers. His great-grandfather, William Elliott, emigrated to America about 1700, and his posterity, with the descendants of the Rutledges and Pinckneys, are among the most prominent of the early settlers of the Carolinas. Jesse Elliott, the father of Judge Elliott, was born in North Caro- lina, and was a member of the Southern wing of the family, which had already begun that disintegration whereby its members became so extensively scattered throughout the country. He was a resident of Perquimans county, where the subject of this sketch was born on August 17, 1827. In 1831 Jesse Elliott removed to Ohio, and settled with his family on a farm in Butler county, where he continued to reside until his death, in 1840, at the age of sixty-three. Industrious in his habits, unassuming in his manners, and upright in his dealings, his greatest heritage to his posterity was an exemplary life and an untarnished name. His wife was Rachael Jordan, who, after the death of her husband, removed with her family to Preble county, Ohio, and died in Iowa at the age of seventy-four. Henderson was four years of age when his parents came to Ohio, and he saw nothing but the rugged side of life in his youthful days. In the summer and winter months he attended school in a little log school house, when he could be spared from the exacting duties of clearing and cultivating his father's farm. All told, the time he spent in the district school did not aggregate over eighteen months. Though without the advantage of instructors, he nevertheless acquired the rudiments of an education. He improved his leisure hours in study at home, and at the age of nineteen began to teach in the neighboring districts. The money he thus obtained he used in completing his education. He spent three years at Farmers (now Belmont) College, near Cincinnati, Ohio, where he had for class associates Edmond Stafford Young (deceased), and Honorable Lewis B. Gunckel, and others who afterwards became prominent at the Bar and in statesmanship, and for fellow alumni, Murat Halstead and Bishop J. M. Wal- den. Up to this point, the life of Judge Elliott is a striking example of what a boy with the odds against him can do for himself in getting an education. He now had a fair education, but it was his only stock in trade. In order to complete his preparation for the profession of law, which he had chosen for his life work, he again took up the role of teacher, and while discharging his duties in that capacity, he studied law under General Felix Marsh, of Eaton, and was admitted to the Bar by the Supreme Court at Columbus in 1851. He began practice in Germantown, continuing to reside there for three years, when he removed to Dayton, where he was afterwards continuously engaged in the active work of his profession, either at the Bar or on the Bench, with the exception of the three years from 1867 to 1870, when he was editor of the Dayton Daily Ledger. During the war partisan sentiment was at times at
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H. Ecciones
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fever heat. Judge Elliott espoused the cause of the Union and took an active part in raising recruits for the army. In 1861 he was elected prosecuting attorney of Montgomery county, serving for two years. In 1871 he was. elected judge of the Court of Common Pleas for the Second Judicial District, and was re-elected four times. In November, 1896, he would, had he lived, have completed twenty-five years' continuous service on the Bench of that dis- trict. During these years he tried thousands of civil cases and over a thousand, criminal cases, and he sentenced about eight hundred persons to the penitentiary, and three to the gallows. The strongest proof of the satisfactory nature of his administration of justice is the number of times his constituents have repeatedly returned him to the same position, and the other fact that his decisions have rarely been reversed by the Supreme Court. There is, we believe, but one instance of such reversal in a criminal case on record, and in that case the State legislature afterwards changed the law to conform to his views. In 1851 he married Rebecca, daughter of John Snavely, of Montgomery county, Ohio, and there were born to them four children, three daughters and one son. The widow, together with two daughters, the Misses Ada J. and Florence Elliott, survive him. He was connected with the Methodist Church for fifty-three years, most of the time in an official capacity. He served as a lay delegate to the General Conference in 1880. He was also a member of the I. O. O. F. for forty-three years, and at the time of his decease he was president of the Odd Fellows' National Beneficial Association. He was a member of the State Bar Association from the time of its organization, and was chairman of its im- portant committee on judicial reform for many years, succeeding General Dur- bin Ward in that position. He took an active part in organizing the present Circuit Court system of Ohio. He was elected president of the State Bar Association in 1890, serving one term. He also served for three terms as presi- dent of the Dayton Bar Association. Judge Elliott died at his home in Day- ton, Ohio, on the 25th day of June, A. D. 1896, having continued to discharge his judicial duties until April of that year. The Bar of Montgomery county adopted a suitable memorial expressive of their high respect for the deceased, and attended his funeral in a body. Many judges and lawyers from a distance were also present. The funeral services, which were held at the Raper Metho- dist Episcopal Church, were conducted by Bishop J. M. Walden and other prominent ministers of that denomination. In whatever position of trust or responsibility Judge Elliott was placed, he discharged every duty devolving upon him conscientiously, and with rare good judgment. Strong of mind, clear and forceful in his speech and writings, unswerving in the discharge of his duties, he has stamped his indelible mark on the Dayton Bar. In speaking of him, a prominent attorney but expressed the universal opinion when he said : " As a lawyer, Judge Elliott was faithful and conscientious in the discharge of his duty to his clients ; as a judge lie was above reproach ; and as a man, he was courteous, affable, upright in his conduct, an excellent neighbor, and a citizen whose life is worthy of emulation."
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HENRY R. PROBASCO, Cincinnati. Henry Russell Probasco was born in Cincinnati May 12, 1856, the son of William B. Probasco and Mary Russell . Probasco, both of whom were of Revolutionary descent. Having completed a liberal education, and having had as his preceptors, in the study of the law, Honorable Stanley Matthews and Honorable William M. Ramsey, he was admitted to the Bar at Cincinnati in his twenty-first year, and began an active and successful practice. On the 28th of June, 1877, he was married to Minnie Sherman Moulton, the eldest daughter of Colonel C. W. Moulton of the Cin- cinnati Bar and a niece of General Sherman and Senator Sherman. In connec- tion with his practice, he became actively interested in politics, being a Republican in principle, and has held a high rank in his party councils and been honored by a number of official positions. His practice has been almost exclusively in connection with large and important interests, and he is now counsel of the Brewers' Exchange of Cincinnati, the C. H. & D. Traction Com- pany, the Cincinnati Typothetæ, the Brewers' Protective Association of Cincinnati, Covington and Newport, and corporation counsel for Glendale. During the investigations into the political frauds of 1884-5-6, he was asso- ciated with Senator Foraker and Governor Noyes in behalf of the Republi- cans, and had much to do with the reform of election practices in Cincinnati and the construction of the present election laws. Among his kinsmen were Judge John Probasco, who was a partner of Thomas Corwin, General Durbin Ward, and Honorable Zebulon Baird of La Fayette, Indiana. He has from time to time been an organizer and member of political and social organiza- tions and clubs, and has taken an active interest in public enterprises.
WILLIAM B. PROBASCO, Cincinnati. The late William Boswell Probasco was born July 6, 1824, at Lebanon, Ohio, where his youth was passed and where he obtained his education, was prepared for, and admitted to the Bar, assuming at once an important position among the members of the Bar. He was married on February 22, 1849, to Mary Jane Russell at Lebanon, and con- tinued to live in Lebanon until in 1852, when he removed to Cincinnati, where he soon after took into partnership with him, William M. Ramsey. The firm of Probasco & Ramsey enjoyed the confidence of a large number of clients, and had taken a position at the Cincinnati Bar second to none, when on July 31, 1864, Mr. Probasco died at Lebanon, Ohio, after a short illness. Not only did Mr. Probasco hold high station in his profession, but he occupied a com- manding and influential position in the Presbyterian Church, of which he was for many years an elder at Glendale, Ohio. Although much interested in public events and politics, he took no active part at any time except in 1857, when he was nominated by the Republicans as candidate for city solicitor of Cincinnati on the first Republican ticket-under the title of the American Reform Ticket-ever nominated in Cincinnati. He was a brother of Judge John Probasco, who was a partner of Honorable Thomas Corwin, and brother- in-law of General Durbin Ward and Honorable Zebulon Baird, of La Fayette, Indiana.
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WILLIAM S. GROESBECK, Cincinnati. William Slocum Groesbeck was born in Rensselaer county, New York, on the 24th day of July, 1815. He was the son of John H. Groesbeck of Kinderhook, New York, and Mary Slocum Groesbeck, who were early settlers of Cincinnati. 'The Groesbeck family came originally from Amsterdam, where they were people of much consequence. In 1816 the family moved to Cincinnati, taking up their residence on Front street near Race. The father engaged in the grocery business and subsequently became a pork packer ; at the time the United States Bank sold out its assets in Cincinnati Mr. Groesbeck became one of the purchasers, and during the remainder of his life was a banker. His residence changed in 1832 to the present site of Pike's Opera House, and subsequently to West Seventh street. Wil- liam S. Groesbeck received his early education at Augusta College, Kentucky, where he remained a year ; at the expiration of this time he, with his brother Herman, entered the Miami University at Oxford, from which institution he graduated with the class of 1835, having as classmates, among others, Gov- ernor Dennison, Honorable John A. Smith, Honorable Samuel F. Carey and Governor John McRea. At both institutions he was known as a painstaking and close student, and at the end of his term of study received the highest honors of his class. He immediately entered the law office of Vachel Worthington in Cincinnati, and began that thorough study of the law which, after his admission to the Bar in 1836, placed him in a very short time among the leading young members of the profession. He was a student of great industry and thoroughness and in his early days at the Bar laid the solid foundation of legal learning for which he afterwards became so distinguished. His prominence at that time was greater as a lawyer and counsellor than as an advocate, though his speeches showed the same precision and force which afterwards made and placed him among the first orators of the land. His first law partner was Charles Telford. After his death Mr. Groesbeck formed a partnership with Samuel J. Thompson, which continued until 1857, at which time his success had been such as to enable him to give up the active practice of the profession. In 1851 he became a member of the State Constitutional Convention and took an active part in the work of that body ; subsequently when the Constitution was submitted to the people he wrote an extended series of articles explaining its provisions. In the following year he was a member of the commission to codify the State code of civil procedure. Upon the establishment of a new Superior Court in Cincinnati in 1854, a public let- ter signed by some of the most prominent citizens was addressed to Mr. Groes- beck, asking him with W. Y. Gholson and Bellamy Storer to constitute the new court, but he declined the nomination. In the same year he was a Dem- ocratic candidate for Congress from the Second District of Ohio, George H. Pendleton being associated with him on the ticket as a candidate from the First District ; both were defeated. At the following election the two candi- dates were more successful, Mr. Groesbeck defeating John A. Gurley and J. Scott Harrison, the latter having been his successful antagonist at the pre- vious election. In this same year Mr Groesbeck was the orator on the occa-
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