USA > Ohio > Bench and bar of Ohio; a compendium of history and biography, Vol. I > Part 55
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" It gives me pleasure to speak of Judge Warnock, because I can do so and speak the truth without any mental reservation. I have known him inti- mately for over thirty years and can say that in every position he has occupied, either as a lawyer, as a public servant, as a judge or as a citizen, his life has been above reproach. He is one whose life may be read as the pages of an open book, without causing the reader to, in some measure, lose respect for the author. As a lawyer his efforts are indefatigable in the interests of his clients. As a judge he was fair and impartial, that justice might be done; and as a citizen he has come as near being an example of the golden rule as any person of my acquaintance. In his practice he is a good all round lawyer. He is concise in his statements and accurate in his judgment on questions of law. As an advocate he is one of the strongest in this section of the State. IIe is a fluent and ready speaker, logical and clear in his statements and effective before a jury. One of his marked characteristics is the uniform courtesy that marks his intercourse with all men, whether at home, in his office, on the street or in the court room. I do not say that he makes no mistakes-he is human ; but I do say that he is clearly living up to the light he has."
In his political faith Judge Warnock is a Republican, though not active in politics. In his religious creed he is a Methodist and is prominent in church affairs. He was one of the lay delegates from the Cincinnati conference to the general conference at Baltimore, in 1876. He holds the position of vice- president of the Third National Bank of Urbana. Ile is a member of the Masonic order, of the Grand Army of the Republic and the Loval Legion. He was married August 20, 1868, to Miss Kate Murray, of Clark county.
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They have three daughters. Judge Warnock is quiet and refined in his taste, is well read in current literature, and the hours not devoted to his business are spent at home with his family.
WALTER SCOTT THOMAS, Troy. William J. Thomas and his son, Wal- ter Scott, have been leading members of the Miami county Bar for seventy- five years. Walter's parents were William J. and Lucinda (Neal) Thomas, the former of Welsh descent and a native of Philadelphia, and the latter of Scotch origin and a native of Parkersburg, West Virginia. He was born at Troy on the 8th day of April, 1838. Robert Thomas, his paternal grandfather, was a native of Swansea, Wales, who came to America in 1790 and located at Phil- adelphia, Pennsylvania. Later he removed to Ohio and settled at Lancaster, where he died in the second decade of the present century. He established one of the first pottery manufacturing plants in the State at Lancaster and operated it until his death. William J. Thomas was prepared for college at the Lancaster schools and finished his literary education at the Ohio Uni- versity at Athens. His legal education was obtained under the instruction of the elder Thomas Ewing. He was admitted to the Bar of Ohio, came to Troy in 1819 and opened an office for the practice of his profession, and for about fifty years was one of the prominent lawyers of western Ohio. He was one of the early postmasters of Troy, and later served as prosecuting attorney of Miami county for three terms, and also represented his district in the State Senate for two terms. He was one of the leaders of the Whig party in that section, but when that party coalesced with the new Republican party, he thereafter affiliated with the Democratic party. He died at Lawrence, Kansas, in 1869, at the age of seventy-three, of pneumonia, from the effects of a cold contracted while out bunting with a party of friends in that vicinity. Mr. Thomas's maternal ancestors came to America from Scotland in the early part of the eighteenth century, settled in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia and became a large and influential family. They took an active part in the war for independence. Mr. Thomas's maternal grandfather was also a soldier in the War of 1812. His grandmother in early life was a wealthy slave owner, who, being too conscientious to hold human beings as chattels, freed her slaves and brought them with her to Ohio. The family located at Troy, where many of her descendants still live. She was a near relative to the mother of General Stonewall Jackson of Confederate army fame. Walter S. Thomas received his early education in the public schools of Troy. He was a member of the first class that was graduated from the high school in 1856, and was. valedictorian of the class. In 1857 he entered the Sophomore class of the Miami University, at Oxford, and was graduated from that institution in 1860, with the classical honors of his class, receiving the degree of Bachelor of Arts. Later in life his Alma Mater conferred on him the degree of Master of Arts. After leaving school he at once began the study of law in his father's office,
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which he continued for one year. He entered the Law Department of Har- vard University in the fall of 1861, remaining there until the close of the school year in 1862. He was admitted to the Bar of Ohio in the same year, and immediately began the practice of his profession in partnership with his father, at Troy. The blood of his Revolutionary ancestors was too warm in his veins to permit him to remain at home in security and ease when his coun- try called for help. In the fall of 1863 he entered the United States navy and was assigned to service in the squadron of the Mississippi, serving until the close of the war in 1865. Returning home, he resumed the practice of his pro- fession. During the summer of the same year he was appointed United States commissioner for the Southern District of Ohio, and has held the office contin- uously to the present time. In the fall of 1865 he was elected on the Repub- lican ticket for the office of prosecuting attorney of Miami county, and was re-elected in 1867. Later he served two terms as member of the board of edu- cation, part of the time as president of the board. In 1887 he became princi- pal owner, and two years later assumed editorial control and management, of the Miami Union, the oldest Republican newspaper in the county, which he still controls. With this exception he has since his admission to the Bar devoted his attention entirely to the practice of law, and the firm of Thomas & Thomas, of which he is the head, has the full confidence of the business community. The practice of the firm is a general one in both the State and Federal courts. Mr. Thomas has found time to cultivate his literary taste and is also quite a linguist. He speaks both French and German fluently and is a writer of ability. His mind has been enriched by research in many fields of literature and by travel and observation in many countries. His travel has carried him over most of the inhabited parts of the North American continent, and he has toured in Europe twice, first in 1872 with his wife and son, and again in 1889, when he visited the Paris Exposition and spent four months on the European continent. He is a member of the Masonic order, a Knight Templar since 1869, and of the Knights of Pythias. He was married Decem- ber 16, 1863, to Miss Isabella Stuart Collins, daughter of James and Sarah (Mitchell) Collins, of Fairport. New York, whose ancestors were among the early settlers of Vermont. Mr. and Mrs. Thomas have four children : Eugene Collins, in the newspaper business at Troy ; Letitia E., Lucinda C., and Walter C. In speaking of Mr. Thomas's career at the Miami county Bar, one of the oldest and best known practitioners said :
"There are few better known law firms in this district than that of Thomas & Thomas. The father of the present members of the firm was among the early settlers of the county, and began practice here when courts were held in log school houses and one judge sufficed for a circuit that included Cincinnati, Dayton, Toledo and all intermediate points. He grew with the country, and being a good lawyer and faithful to the interests of his clients, he had a large clientage when his son Walter S. Thomas came into the busi- ness. The latter is a well educated and a well read man in the law and has maintained himself well in the practice. Some years after the death of his father a brother of Walter S. was admitted to the business, and the firmn of
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Thomas & Thomas, as now composed, was formed. They are regarded as conservative and safe lawyers, and the firm has a very large practice which covers a wide territory."
ADDISON F. BROOMHALL, Troy. Mr. Broomhall is a native of Ohio born at Wilmington, Clinton county, July 22, 1856. His parents were Webb and Adelaide (Funkle) Broomhall, the former of English and the latter of German and English descent. John Broomhall, who came to America in 1732, was the founder. Both his paternal and maternal ancestors came to America in Colonial times. His father came to Ohio from Chester county, Pennsyl- vania, with his parents, when a child, and later in life married and settled at Wilmington, Clinton county, where he engaged for many years in merchan- dising. Addison received his early education in the common and high schools of Wilmington and Circleville, which was supplemented by a course at Wit- tenberg College, Springfield, Ohio. In 1879 he located at Troy, and took up the study of law under the instruction of Walter S. Thomas, a prominent prac- titioner of the Miami county Bar. After taking the prescribed course of two years he was admitted to practice by the Supreme Court and at once entered on the practice at Troy, in partnership with his preceptor. This association continued for two years, when the firm was dissolved. Since that time he has continued the practice alone. Mr. Broomhall belongs to that class who owe their success entirely to their own industry and ability. He has attained a position in the very front rank of the Miami county Bar without the aid of either money or influential friends. He is purely a lawyer, modest and unas- suming in his manners personally, but he has the reputation of being aggressive to the verge of boldness in the interest of his clients. He has a high apprecia- tion of the duties of the profession and the responsibilities of the attorney to his clients. He has a large practice, both general and corporation. He is the attorney for the C. H. & D. R. R. Company for Miami county, and has main- tained himself well in his practice against some of the best talent in the State. Referring to his ability as a lawyer and to his leading characteristics, an old and prominent member of the local Bar says :
" Addison F. Broomhall is not one of the oldest members of this Bar, but he is one of the leading ones. He is succeeding because he deserves success. I have known him from a very young man and have watched his career with considerable interest. He has always been a hard student, and fortunately for him, he is physically constituted so that he can well withstand the task he puts upon himself. He is very conscientious in the discharge of his duty to his clients. He is not above the drudgery of the profession. His cases are pre- pared with painstaking care, and he fights to the last ditch for the interests he represents. He is at his best in the trial of cases before a jury or the court. He is alert and quick to perceive the advantage or mistakes of his adversary, and contention seems to act as a spur to his mind. He is at all times a pleas- ant and logical speaker, clear in his arguments and concise in his statements, and under the influence of strong feeling is both eloquent and brilliant. The professional side of his nature is public and well known ; there is another side
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to his life that is not so well understood. During business hours he attends strictly to his business as a lawyer and does not permit outside matters to inter- fere with his practice, but when office hours are over he enters a new sphere in which his family and his library are the central figures. He has a decided literary taste, and his readings embrace a wide variety of subjects. He is of studious habits and in his researches has imbibed some ideas on economic questions that are not laid down in the platforms of either of the two great political parties, and has expressed these views forcibly both in public speech and in public print. While he has affiliated with the Republican party, he has advanced views on some of the questions of public concern, regardless of what others may say. This is one of his characteristics. He would rather be right than to be popular. He is absolutely devoid of ambition for political prefer- ment; his highest ambition is to be a useful citizen. As a platform speaker he has more than a local reputation and is frequently called outside of the State to make addresses. He is held in high esteem by the profession locally, and in that wider circle with which practice in the higher courts has brought him into contact."
Mr. Broomhall was married in December, 1881, to Miss Estella Baird, daughter of Davis and Martha Baird of Troy. They have one son and one daughter.
HARRISON WILSON, Sidney. Colonel Harrison Wilson, one of the judges of the Second Circuit, is a native of Ohio. He was born on a farm near Cadiz, March 15, 1841. For several generations his ancestors lived in Virginia. His grandfather, Thomas Wilson, who served in the Revolutionary War for seven years and received wounds from which he never recovered, emigrated to Ohio when his father, Thomas Wilson, Jr., was only three years of age. The family settled in Jefferson county on military lands granted to the grandfather for his patriotic services in behalf of the independence and union of the American colonies. His mother, Mary Harper, also a Virginian, who was related through her father to the famous Jackson family of Virginia, died when he was only five years of age. He was thus deprived, at a period when it is most urgently needed, of the unselfish love, the tender sympathy and deep solicitude which only a mother feels for her child. When the judge was seven years old the family removed to a farm in the adjoining county of Belmont, and the ensuing period of six years was passed in farm work and attending the dis- trict school. At the age of thirteen his father placed him and his two brothers in the Albany Manual Training School in Athens county and then removed to Iowa, where he passed the remaining years of his life, dying in 1876. Judge Wilson matriculated in the Ohio University at Athens, in which he completed three years of the college course, teaching each winter to support himself at college during the remainder of the year. At the close of his Junior year he was teaching for a term, and one evening after school was dismissed he wrote on the blackboard, " This school closed until the war is over," walked eighteen miles that night and enlisted as a soldier, on the 21st day of June, 1861. He was mustered as a private in Company I, Twenty-fifth Ohio Volunteer Infantry, and served
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in the ranks with his company in West Virginia until December 7th of the same year. when he received an appointment as second lieutenant. He was assigned to the Twentieth Ohio Infantry under its re-organization for three years' service. Serving with this regiment until the close of the war, he was advanced from the lowest rank of commissioned officer to the command of the regiment, without skipping an intermediate position. His promotions were successively to first lieutenant, captain, major, lieutenant colonel and colonel. For a period of nine months he also served as adjutant. Shirking no duty, asking no soft places, he was in all of the engagements under Grant from Fort Donaldson to Vicksburg; under Sherman from Chattanooga to Atlanta, and from Atlanta to the sea; through the Carolinas to Washington and in the grand review which marked the overthrow of the Rebellion. His bravery was attested by the medal of honor, conferred for "gallant services on the field," at the battle of Raymond. Colonel Wilson was a member of a fighting family. He is one of the six brothers who rendered honorable service in the Union army. His brother Lewis, who was first lieutenant and acting adjutant, was killed at the battle of Gettysburg. His brother William was a member of the Third Ohio Infantry and confined for months in the dreary Libby Prison. His brother Thomas, captain of a company in the Sixty-second Ohio Infantry, was severely wounded at Fort Wagner, and has never recovered. At
the close of the war Colonel Wilson settled at Sidney and took up the study of law with the late attorney-general, James Murray. He was admitted to the Bar in 1873, and for six years thereafter was associated in partnership with General Murray-until the latter's death in 1879. From that time until his election as judge in 1895 Colonel Wilson continued in the practice at Sidney. He built up a profitable business from a large clientage. His employment covered much of the litigation in the courts of his own county and extended to numerous important cases outside the county. In 1895 he was chosen to the Bench of the Second Circuit for the residue of the term of Judge Shauck, who had been promoted to the Supreme Bench. At the November election, in 1896, he was re-elected for the full term, beginning February 9, 1897. He evinces marked aptitude for the work of a judge. His disposition to investi- gate cases and authorities, his general knowledge of the law, and his desire to decide correctly, all tend to cautious, deliberate action. His integrity of mind and honesty of purpose-his absolute incorruptibility-make him eminently safe in the disposal of large interests. The constitution of his mind is such as to give him a clear conception of the knotty questions sometimes involved, and his feeling of fraternity permits the fullest and freest inter- change of opinions with his associates on the Bench. His urbanity and courtesy give him popularity with the Bar, and there is general satisfaction with his opinions. Judge Wilson was a capable trial lawyer and a strong advocate before he became a judge. Politically he has always been a Republican. His personal popularity made him an available candidate of his party for Congress in 1878, and while not hoping for election he was able to reduce the Democratic majority of five thousand down to eighteen hundred,
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and scare the opposition considerably. He is a Past Commander of Neal Post No. 62, G. A. R., and a member of the Ohio State Commandery of the Loyal Legion. He takes a lively interest in affairs of the organizations to perpetuate the history and memories of the war. Judge Wilson was married January 1, 1867, to Mary C. Fry, of Sidney, and the union has been blessed with a family of eight children. The home life of the judge is almost ideal in its happiness and hospitality. He has no occasion for the social pleasures of a club, when his home affords all the means of recreation and social enjoyment. There is about it and within it an air of refinement and purity, and its appointments, as well as its membership, conduce to rest- fulness and renewal of the vigor and vivacity essential to the best profes- sional work, the activities of business, or the duties of social life.
CHARLES L. SPENCER, Xenia. The Spencers are of English descent. They came to America in colonial times and settled in Connecticut. The grandfather of Charles L. moved to New York early in the present century, locating in Herkimer county, where Newton Spencer, the father of our subject, was born. When a young man he came to Ohio, about 1838, and located at Newark. He was a miller and followed his trade. He married Miss Lucinda Trickey, of Pennsylvania ancestry. Charles L. was born in Newark, April 4, 1848. When he was seven years of age his father moved to southern Iowa and engaged in farming. In that new and, at that time, undeveloped country, educational advantages were meager, and were only such as could be obtained in the country district schools during the three months they were in session each year. The remainder of the year he assisted his father on the farm. He was an active, earnest boy, quick to improve his opportunities, and though his early education was confined to the rudiments, he supplemented this by gen- eral reading and study at home, until he reached the age of nineteen, when he entered the Ohio Wesleyan University at Delaware. He remained at that institution for five years, with the exception of a portion of three winters when he taught school. While teaching he kept up his studies and held his position in his class. His last experience as a teacher was as principal of the Xenia high school. Choosing the law for a permanent vocation, he began a course of reading with English & Baldwin, a prominent law firm of Columbus, Ohio, and afterwards with Noyes & Lloyd, of Cincinnati. He was admitted to the Bar in 1875 and began practice the next year at Xenia, in partnership with J. E. Hawes, who afterwards became judge of the Common Pleas Court of Greene county. This arrangement continued one year, when the firm was dissolved. Mr. Spencer was alone for two years and then became associated with W. J. Alexander in a partnership which continued six years. After that time Mr. Spencer was alone until the present firm was formed, in 1886. In his twenty years' practice at the Xenia Bar Mr. Spencer has made a fine repu- tation as a lawyer and built up a large practice. He has always been associated
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with strong men, Mr. Little in particular, his present partner, having a repu- tation for ability that is national, and a practice that extends to every court in the State. He has been honored by almost every office within the gift of the peo- ple of his district. He was first mayor of the city ; prosecuting attorney two terms ; member of the State legislature ; attorney-general of the State; mem- ber of Congress, and presiding judge of the United States and Venezuela Claims Commission. Both members of the firm are what may be termed self-made men. They both began life with nothing but their native ability, and rose to their present eminence in their profession by their own exertions. Both in the character of their clientage and in the volume of their business, the firm is per- haps the leading one in Greene county. There are very few cases of importance that come before the court that this firm is not represented. This is particularly true of the cases that are carried to the higher courts. In politics Mr. Spencer is a Republican. He was married in 1885 to Miss Luella M., daughter of Andrew and Lavinia Currie, of Greene county. The family are members of the Methodist Episcopal Church and regular attendants, and socially stand high. The local standing of Mr. Spencer is voiced in the quota- tions below from the conversation of a very able representative of the Xenia Bar : " For a young man Mr. Spencer occupies a very enviable position at the Bar. The firm of Little & Spencer is conceded to be a leading one in western Ohio. Mr. Little has been a very conspicuous figure in this section for many years, and his personality, of course, has much to do with the large practice the firm controls. Mr. Spencer is a growing man. He is a well read lawyer and a safe and conservative counsellor. He is affable in his manners and personally is well liked. For the length of time he has been in practice, there are few men at this Bar who have a larger clientage. Mr. Little is him- self a very able man and has always had able men for business associates, and Mr. Spencer is no exception to the rule."
JOHN E. SATER, Columbus. John E. Sater was born near New Haven, Hamilton county, Ohio, on the 16th day of January, 1854. His father, John J. Sater, was a farmer, and a native of this State. The Saters are of English descent. They came to this country prior to the American Revolution and settled in eastern Pennsylvania. His grandfather came to Ohio in the early days and was one of the first settlers in Crosby township, Hamilton county. His mother, Nancy Larison, was born in Ohio. Her parents came to the State from New Jersey and settled near Cincinnati about the beginning of the pres- ent century. Young Sater was left an orphan at ten, and his circumstances were such that he was compelled in a large measure to educate himself. He attended the country schools until he was thirteen ; then entered a select school near his home, working in the spring and summer on the farm. At sixteen he began teaching and in this way, and from his work on the farm, earned a con- siderable part of the money with which he completed his education. In the
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