USA > Ohio > Bench and bar of Ohio; a compendium of history and biography, Vol. II > Part 19
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"I have known Judge Mooney all his life, as a boy, as a student, as a law- yer and as a judge, and I can truthfully say I have always known him as a leader. At school he was a leader in his classes, as he also was out of school in making life miserable for residents of the town. He was always fond of athletic sports, and he is a well developed man both physically and mentally. Anything he undertakes he does thoroughly. He has the quick intuition of his race, a strong, well balanced mind, and industry and will-power to accom- plish his purposes. He is a warm-hearted man, and there is no counterfeit in the cordiality with which he meets his acquaintances. He possesses in a degree that quality which is commonly defined as magnetism, but a better definition of the term would be a just appreciation of what is due others. He is unas- suming in his manners, and is personally one of the most popular men in the district. As a lawyer he leaped into the front rank at the Auglaize county Bar at a single bound. As a judge he is recognized as one of the ablest jurists on the Common Pleas Bench in this section of the State. Attorneys in the district have absolute confidence in him in every respect, and feel that when he has passed on a case they pretty nearly know the law that will govern it. He is fair and impartial, and is respected by the public just as highly as he is by the profession."
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A judge of one of the higher courts of the State adds : "Judge Mooney's opinions are very highly respected by the members of the higher courts. It is very rare that any of his cases are carried up. He has a profound knowledge of the law, and his judgment is very accurate. He seems to have a natural affinity for the law, and his work on the Bench evinces hard and conscientious study of the law books. He has a strong mind, trained carefully and methodically."
Judge Mooney is not a society man. His time is devoted to his profession, his family and his books. In politics he is a Democrat, and manifests due interest in all political questions, although he has never accepted any office not related to his profession. He was married August 31, 1892, to Miss Mary E. Spellacy. They have two daughters, Catherine and Eleanor.
. JOHN J. MOORE, Ottawa. Judge John J. Moore, for six years on the Com- mon Pleas Bench, and late Judge of the Circuit Court, is a native of Ohio. He is of Scotch-Irish extraction on both sides. The ancestors of his father emi- grated from the North of Ireland in the seventeenth century and settled in Pennsylvania, and the ancestors of his mother came from the same locality to Pennsylvania about the middle of the eighteenth century. His paternal grand- father, James Moore, served under General Anthony Wayne in some of the expeditions against the Indians, and his maternal grandfather, then a resident of Ohio, served in the War of 1812. Both parents were born in Pennsylvania, the father in 1800 and the mother two years later. His father, James Moore, came to Ohio in his twenty-fourth year and settled in the wilderness of Trum- bull county, which was then inhabited largely by Indians and wild animals. Here he cleared and cultivated a farm, and here married Margaret Johnson, who as a child of nine years had come from her native State of Pennsylvania in 1811 and settled in the primeval forest of Trumbull county. His father carried on the business of a tannery in addition to his farming, was a prosperous business man and lived until 1879. His mother lived for about seventy years in the neighborhood where she settled in 1811, and assisted also in transforming the wilderness into a garden of fertility and beauty. She died in 1880. Judge Moore was born August 3, 1835, on the farm situated in Milton township, Trumbull county, as it was then, which has since become a part of Mahoning county. Until eighteen years of age he worked on the farm steadily except during the winter, when he attended the district schools in the township of his birth. At eighteen he entered upon an independent career for himself, teach- ing school in the winter and attending schools of higher rank in the summer, in order to enlarge and perfect his own education. In this manner he sup- ported himself and paid his expenses for five years, at Mount Union College, near Alliance, Stark county. By alternate teaching and study-managing a district school in winter and attending college in summer-he acquired a lib- eral education. In 1861 he commenced the study of law in the office of Hon- orable S. W. Gilson, at Canfield, and continued his reading there under
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instruction until the spring of 1863, when he was admitted to the Bar. He was fortunate at the beginning of his practice in being associated as a partner with his preceptor, Mr. Gilson, who was not only a very able practitioner, but a gentleman of literary culture and distinction in his section of the State. The partnership was continued until the fall of 1866, when Judge Moore removed to Putnam county and settled in Ottawa. This place has been his home con- tinuously for more than thirty years and during all that time his abilities and energies have been devoted to his profession. When not engaged in practice at the Bar he has been occupied with service on the Bench. He formed a partnership at Ottawa with C. J. Swan, in the firm of Swan & Moore, which was maintained until he was elected judge of the Court of Common Pleas in the fall of 1878. In 1883 he was re-elected and entered upon the duties
for a second term. A year later, however, he was nominated and elected judge of the Circuit Court for the Third Judicial Circuit, comprising nineteen counties in the northwestern corner of the State. In 1889 he was re-elected for a term which expired in 1895, so that his judicial serv- ice covered a period of sixteen years-six on the Common Pleas and ten on the Circuit Bench. He was not a candidate for a third term
as Circuit Judge, but resumed practice in the various courts upon retir- ing from the Bench. He has been engaged in all the important litigation and in some of the criminal cases in Putnam county. Among the latter was the case of John Goodman, indicted for the murder of Haywood and his wife, in which he was retained for the defendant. It was a case exciting deep inter- est in the community and the evidence against the accused was so clear and overwhelming that he was convicted and hung, despite the able defense put up for him. During the six years Judge Moore occupied the Bench of Com- mon Pleas he tried seven murder cases, a record unequalled in that part of the State by any other judge. Five of these cases were tried in Henry county. Among them was the State of Ohio vs. R. K. Scott, who was a general of volunteers in the Union army during the Rebellion and subsequently was Gov- ernor of South Carolina. He was charged with the murder of a young man named Drury, but was acquitted on proof that the shooting was accidental, the pistol having been discharged by catching the hammer on the margin of a pocket from which it was being removed. Judge Moore was first elected to the Legislature in 1869 and again in 1871, taking an active part in the legislative proceedings during the sessions of 1870 and '72-3. He has always been a Democrat, but too much of a lawyer to enjoy a life of political office holding. Before his election to the Bench it was his custom to support his party by an active campaign on the stump. He was a delegate to the National Democratic Convention which was held at Indanapolis in 1896, and supported the ticket there nominated. He has been a member of the State Bar Association of Ohio from the date of its organization, and was chosen president of it in 1889. He is also a member of the National Bar Association, and of the American Bar Association. His social and benevolent traits find expression to a degree by membership in the Masonic Lodge. Judge Moore has travelled extensively in
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the United States, visiting every section of the country and gathering valuable information concerning physical characteristics of different sections. He was married in 1859 to Miss E. C. Patterson, of Mahoning county, whose father, Hugh Patterson was of Scotch descent, and whose mother, Anna Van Etten, was of Dutch descent, her ancestors being among the Hollanders who first set- tled New Amsterdam (New York). They have one son, Gilson Moore, who is engaged in mercantile business in Ottawa.
JOHN M. HENDERSON, Cleveland. John M. Henderson, who is entitled to be classed as one of the representative lawyers of the State, was born April 14, 1840, at Newville, Richland county, Ohio. His father, Dr. James P. Hen- derson, an eminent physician who continued in the practice of his profession until 1885, was one of the pioneers, coming to the State from Pennsylvania in 1823, where his ancestors had settled. Dr. Henderson, as early as 1838, was elected to the State legislature and in 1850 was a member of the convention which prepared the present Constitution of Ohio. The Hendersons were of Scotch-Presbyterian stock, the first of the family having been sent to this country as a missionary by the Scotland Presbytery of Fife, about the year 1753. His mother was Ann Moreland, whose family ancestors came originally from the North of Ireland and settled in Pennsylvania. The subject of this sketch was one of four children, the others having died in childhood or early youth. Young Henderson's education commenced in the district schools and at an academy near home. Upon leaving the academy he entered the pre- paratory department of Kenyon College, where he remained three years and until the end of his freshman year. From there he entered Miami University at Oxford, Ohio, where he was graduated in 1862. This latter college was one of two universities of this State founded upon grants from the general government, the other being the Ohio University at Athens. He was allowed to select his own profession. Law being his choice he entered the office of Judge Darius Dirlam, of Mansfield, who became his preceptor in the prelim- inary study of the profession he had chosen. Later he went to Cleveland, and entered the Cleveland Law School, from which he received his degree of LL. B. in 1864. He immediately commenced the practice of law, not limit- ing his practice to any particular branch of the profession. There have been no breaks or interruptions in his practice, and to-day it has grown to large proportions, and he now enjoys as select a clientage as any lawyer in Cleve- land. Several times efforts have been made to induce him to accept the nom- ination for a judgeship. His high character as a man and his strong judicial mind eminently fit him for the Bench. However, he has invariably declined the honor, preferring to continue in active practice, for which he is so well qualified. One of the leading judges of Cleveland, speaking of Mr. Hender- son, says: "He is, without doubt, one of the best lawyers at this Bar, always careful, painstaking and considerate in his work, and if I wanted an opinion
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upon an intricate legal proposition there is not a lawyer in the State better qualified to give it and to whom I would give preference." He has one of the best law libraries in the city and possesses the rare quality in a lawyer of knowing how to use it. He cannot be called a great jury lawyer, but as a safe counsellor he excels, and in the trial of equity cases and argument before the court he is excellent. Quick to see the finer points in a case, he presents them with a force of logic which is remarkable. He possesses a high sense of honor, is faithful and just in the discharge of every duty. These are the virtues, coupled with the man's gentleness of character, which have gathered about him so many close friends. He not only has the respect and confidence of the Bar, but of all who know him. His first partner was John C. Grannis, with whom he was associated from 1865 to 1874. Afterwards he was associated with Virgil P. Kline, from July, 1875, until October, 1882, under the firm name of Henderson & Kline. The latter year S. H. Tolles was admitted to the partnership and the style of the firm became Henderson, Kline & Tolles, which continued until 1895, when Mr. Henderson withdrew and formed a partnership with F. A. Quail, the firm now being Henderson & Quail. Mr. Henderson has been engaged in many important cases, of which the following are noted : Talcott vs. Henderson, as fixing for the State of Ohio the rule as to the duty of purchaser in insolvent circumstances to disclose his condition in making purchases of property on credit; Ohio vs. Lake Erie Iron Company. This was a case involving the constitutionality of an act of the Ohio legisla- ture requiring corporations to make bi-monthly payments to their employes, being one of several acts passed about the same time attempting to restrict the right of employers in dealing with employes. Another important case was that of Laubeck vs. Andrews, defining the rights of owners of land cov- ered by non-navigable lakes throughout the State, as against the public and owners of marginal lands. In politics Mr. Henderson is a Republican, always taking an active interest in political questions which affect his party or coun- try, but never a seeker of public office; and with the exceptions of a few minor positions he has never held office. He is not a member of any society or club that might tend to divide his time with his family. In 1872 he married Anna Carey, and they have a most interesting family of seven children, six daugh- ters and one son, all living.
FRANKLIN J. DICKMAN, Cleveland. Honorable Franklin Jackson Dick- man, LL. D., ex-Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Ohio, was born in Petersburg, Virginia, August 22, 1828. His parents were Joseph Dickman and Mary Foster Bartlett. His mother, Mary Foster, born in Dudley, Mass- achusetts, was a great-granddaughter of Timothy Foster, of Dudley, who, with his twelve sons, served in the American Revolutionary War, all at the same time. For her first husband she married Nathaniel Bartlett, a relative of Josiah Bartlett, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. Upon removal to Petersburg, Virginia, her husband there died, and she married Joseph Dick-
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man, who was born in New England and came of distinguished ancestry. (Joseph. Dickman and his wife are buried in the Blandford Cemetery, in the suburbs of Petersburg.) The subject of this biographical notice was fitted for college at the Petersburg Classical Institute, under the instruction of the Rev. Dr. E. D. Sanders, late of Philadelphia, and in the same class with General Roger A. Pryor, who was an officer in the Confederate service and afterwards became one of the Supreme Court judges of the State of New York. At the age of sixteen he entered the junior class of Brown University, at Providence, Rhode Island, and was graduated at the age of eighteen, with the salutatory honors of his class. During his college course the Rev. Dr. Francis Wayland, author of " Moral Science," was president of that institution, and among Mr. Dickman's classmates were Chief Justice Thomas Durfee, of Rhode Island, the Honorable Francis Wayland, ex-lieutenant governor of Connecticut, and now at the head of Yale College Law School, and the Honorable Samuel S. Cox, who long bore the pseudonym of " Sunset Cox." After graduation Mr. Dick- man spent a year at the university, during which time he availed himself of the ample facilities there offered for literary and scientific study. Leaving the university he entered the law office in Providence of the Honorable Charles F. Tillinghast and Honorable Charles S. Bradley, and at the end of two years was admitted to the Rhode Island Bar. He opened an office in Providence and there remained in the practice of his profession until his removal to Cleveland, Ohio. In 1857 he was the candidate of the Democratic party of Rhode Island for the office of attorney-general of the State, running on the same ticket with General A. E. Burnside, who was the Democratic candidate for Congress for the Eastern District of Rhode Island. In 1858 Mr. Dickman was appointed a member of the board of visitors to the West Point Military Academy, and was made secretary of the board. While a member of the board and under induce- ments held out by several of its members, he determined to change his resi- dence, and in November, 1858, left Providence for the purpose of locating in the West. Having finally concluded to settle in Ohio, he spent a few weeks in his native place, Petersburg, Virginia, and then went to Cleveland, where he has ever since resided. On the breaking out of the war between the States he ardently espoused the cause of the Union, and in 1861 was nominated as a War-Democrat by the Union party of Cuyahoga county for member of the Ohio House of Representatives, and was elected by a large majority. In that body he was made chairman of the committee on railroads and was a member of the judiciary committee, and of the committee on municipal corporations. On the 24th of December, 1862, he was married to Miss Anne Eliza Neil, only daughter of Robert Neil, Esq., of Columbus, Ohio, and granddaughter of the Rev. Dr. James Hoge, a son of Dr. Moses Hoge, president of Hampden-Sidney College, Virginia, who was pronounced by John Randolph the most cloquent man he ever heard in the pulpit or out of it. Mr. Dickman has three children now living, a son, Robert Neil Dickman, and two daughters, Edith Hoge Dick- man and Mabel Elkin Dickman. At the close of his legislative term he formed a law partnership with the Honorable Rufus P. Spaulding, who had just been
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elected to Congress from the Cleveland District, which partnership was continued until May, 1875. In March, 1867, he was appointed by President Johnson, United States attorney for the northern district of Ohio, which office he resigned in March, 1869. In April, 1883, he was appointed by Gov- ernor Charles Foster a member of the Ohio Supreme Court Commsssion, and served two years, until the commission terminated by the operation of law. In November, 1885, he was appointed by Governor J. B. Foraker a judge of the Supreme Court of Ohio. In July, 1887, he was nominated by the Repub- lican State Convention assembled at Toledo for judge of the Supreme Court of Ohio, to fill the unexpired term of Judge W. W. Johnson, then deceased, and was duly elected at the following November State election. In June, 1889, he was renominated by acclamation by the Republican State Conven- tion, at Columbus, for judge of the Supreme Court, for the full term of five years, beginning February 9, 1890. Under the judicial system of the State he became Chief Justice of the court in February, 1894. The written opinions of Mr. Dickman while judge and Chief Justice of the Supreme Court may be found in volumes XL to LII of the Ohio State Reports, and cover a wide range of legal questions. Among his decisions are many involving important con- stitutional questions, and in cases which are now leading authorities. From the many we may cite the following : Anderson vs. Brewster, 44 Ohio St. Rep., 576, settled that the act known as the Dow Law, which provided for an assess- ment or tax upon the business of trafficking in intoxicating liquors was not in effect a license law, was not within the inhibition of the 18th section of the schedule of the Constitution of Ohio, and in no respect violated the Constitution. State vs. City of Hamilton, 47th Ohio St. Rep. 52, quo warranto, involved the constitutional right of the municipality to erect its own gas works at the expiration of its contract with an incorporated gas company which had erected works and supplied gas for streets and public and private buildings. The company contended that it had been deprived of vested rights by the municipality. In State vs. City of Toledo, 48th Ohio St. Rep., 112, quo warranto, was considered the constitutional power of the defendant to issue its bonds and exercise the taxing power to pay the principal and interest thereon, for the purpose of erecting natural gas works to supply gas for public and private uses. In Railway Company vs. Telegraph Association, 48th Ohio St. Rep., 390, there was a full examination of the respective rights of telephone companies and electric railway companies. It was held as a fundamental rule that the dominant purpose for which streets in a municipality are dedi- cated and opened is to facilitate public travel and transportation, and in that view new and improved modes of conveyance by street railways are by law authorized to be constructed ; and a franchise granted to a telephone company for constructing and operating its lines along and upon such streets is subor- dinate to the rights of the public in the streets for the purpose of travel and transportation. The doctrines announced in this opinion were favorably com- mented upon and approved by Lord Chief Justice Coleridge, of the Queen's Bench in an important jury cause. In State ex rel vs. Jones, Auditor, 51st Ohio
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St. Rep., 592, mandamus, the statute known as the Nichols Law, for the taxation of express, telegraph and telephone companies, came under review, and it was contended with great ability that the statute was in conflict with the State and Federal Constitutions. The case was taken on error to the Supreme Court of the United States, where the opinion of Chief Justice Dickman was carefully considered in argument and the decision of the Supreme Court of Ohio affirmed. On June 22nd, 1892, the honorary degree of Learned Doctor of Laws was conferred upon Judge Dickman by his Alma Mater, Brown Uni- versity. While engaged in the practice of his profession he did not forget the liberal studies of earlier years and found time to prepare many orations and addresses for literary and patriotic occasions. During the existence of the New York Knickerbocker Magazine he published in its pages a series of articles requiring much research, on Butler's "Horae Juridicae," and was the author of several elaborate contributions to other periodicals on historical sub- jects. There is a curiosity of literature connected with Mr. Dickman's student life in Rhode Island, which may be of interest to some readers. Mr. Rufus Choate, in his noted letter to the Maine Whig committee, in 1856, refers to the "glittering generalities of natural right which make up the Declaration of Independence." Bartlett, in his "Familiar Quotations," 9th edition, 1896, in a note to the quotation from the Maine Letter, says : "Although Mr. Choate has usually been credited with the original utterance of the words 'glittering generalities,' the following quotation will show that he was anticipated therein by several years : 'We fear that the glittering generalities of the speaker have left an impression more delightful than per- manent' "-Franklin J. Dickman, review of a lecture by Rufus Choate, Providence Journal, December 14, 1849. Judge Dickman is a most charming and companionable man. Notwithstanding he has lived away from the South since his boyhood days, he retains all of the characteristics of the true southern gentleman of the old school. Gentle, considerate and thoughtful of others, he has a host of friends and admirers, not only in his adopted city, but throughout the State of Ohio and the country. The lives of such men make the world better by their living. While Judge Dickman is an able lawyer, and while he spent many of the best years of his life in active practice, it must be from the standpoint of a jurist that he will be judged in the future. A most important service was rendered to the public of this State when Judge Dickman was appointed a member of the Supreme Court Commission, as it directed the public to his eminent fitness for the Supreme Court, a position to which he was subse- quently twice elected. No member of our Supreme Court has brought to the discharge of its duties higher qualifications for the position than he. During the ten years he was on the Bench he never forgot the responsibilities of, or the requirements necessary to the position he so ably filled. His opinions are not only profound expositions of the law upon the questions involved in the case, but they are the best statement of the reasons for the existence of the law as adjudged. No one can read them without recognizing the mind of a great master. In his breadth of scholarship, in his legal learning, in his lucidity of
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statement and in his mental integrity, no judge of the Supreme Court is entitled to a higher rank. In these respects he may be compared to the late Justice Story, of the Supreme Court of the United States.
'DANIEL R. TILDEN, Cleveland. Daniel Rose Tilden, late judge of the Probate Court, of Cuyahoga county, was a noteworthy character. He was born in Lebanon, Connecticut, in November, 1807, and died in Cleveland March 4, 1890. All of his adult life was spent in Ohio. He came to this State at the age of twenty, and settled first in Portage county. Having studied law with Judge Rufus P. Spalding at Warren, he was admitted to the Bar and removed with his preceptor to Ravenna, where the firm of Spalding & Tilden was formed, and continued in practice until Portage county was divided and Summit organized. Upon the removal of Judge Spalding to Akron, Mr. Tilden continued in practice at Ravenna in partnership with W. S. C. Otis until his election to Congress in 1844. He was re-elected in 1846, and at the close of his congressional service removed to Cleveland, where his residence was maintained to the end of his life. His law practice was conducted in partnership with Robert F. Payne, and was continued until 1854, when he was elected judge of the Probate Court. For eleven successive terms Judge Tilden was elected to this office, in which he served thirty-three years. He retired in 1888, after he had exceeded the limit of four score years, enjoying the con- fidence of the public and the respect of all the Bar. He was married three times, has last wife being Cornelia Lossing, who survived him. His life was pure and clean, such as to deserve the high tribute indicated by his repeated elections. Judge Tilden was succeeded in office by Judge Henry C. White, who, on request of the editor, has prepared the subjoined comment and estimate :
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