USA > Ohio > Bench and bar of Ohio; a compendium of history and biography, Vol. II > Part 40
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gave much of his time to reading upon scientific subjects and original investi- gation. Judge Coffinberry was appointed to many offices of trust and respon- sibility. He was one of the committee appointed by the city council to solicit funds for and erect the statute to Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry, which for many years was an object of artistic beauty adorning the public square of Cleveland. He was one of the originators of the Superior street viaduct over the Cuyahoga river, and most urgently advocated that it should be a free bridge. In politics Judge Coffinberry was an ardent Whig until the campaign of 1856, when he supported James Buchanan for President, and ever after affili. ated with the Democratic party. When the War of the Rebellion broke out he was chairman of the Democratic central committee of Cuyahoga county, and at once became a "War Democrat" and zealously worked among the members of his party in bringing them into active support of the war. After the great Union convention of Ohio which nominated David Tod for governor, and over which Senator Thomas Ewing presided, lie acted as the principal secretary. In 1875 Judge and Mrs. Coffinberry met with a most painful acci- dent. They had just returned to the city from Mount Vernon where they had been to attend the wedding of their son. In crossing a track on the way from the depot their carriage was struck by a freight train and both were seriously injured, the judge suffering the loss of a leg. In January, 1841, Judge Coffinberry was married to Anna M. Gleason, of Lucas county. He died November 30, 1891.
WILLIAM B. SANDERS, Cleveland. Mr. Sanders was born in Cleveland on the 21st day of September, 1854. His father, Rev. William D. Sanders, was a Presbyterian minister and a native of Ohio, whose father came to the State in the early part of the present century, from Massachusetts, where his ancestors were among the first New England settlers. His mother, Cornelia R. Smith, was born in Ohio, her parents having also come from Massachu- setts. The parents of young Sanders removed from Cleveland to Jacksonville, Illinois, when he was about one year old, his father becoming a professor of rhetoric in the Illinois College. When old enough the son entered the pre- paratory department of this college and in 1873 was graduated upon com- pletion of its course of study. He then entered the Albany Law School at Albany, New York, graduating in 1875, and shortly afterwards was admitted to the New York Bar. Returning to Cleveland he became a member of the law firm of Burke, Ingersoll & Sanders .. In February, 1888, he was appointed by Governor Foster a judge of the Court of Common Pleas for Cuyahoga county, to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of Judge Mckinney. At the ensuing election he was elected to the same position, having received the nomination of the Republican party without opposition. In January, 1890, he resigned to become a member of the law firm of Squires, Sanders & Demp- sey, and is at the present time a member of the firm. During his official ser- vice Judge Sanders exhibited abundant evidence of the possession of the qual-
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ities of mind and traits of character which serve to dignify the Bench and invest the judiciary with the attributes which command respect and deference. He kept the ermine pure and unsullied. He maintained the traditional scales in equipoise. He saw clearly the rights of litigants as disclosed in the plead- ings, but never saw the parties themselves. The personality of the plaintiff or defendant had no weight, but the rights of each received most patient scrut- iny from the Bench. Judge Sanders is a lawyer of marked ability and a gen- tleman of culture. In 1884 he married Annie Otis, a daughter of Charles A. Otis, of Cleveland. He has one daughter by this union.
JOHN CROWELL, Cleveland. Samuel Crowell was born at Chatham, Barnstable county, Massachusetts, March 10, 1742, at which place his an- cestors for several generations had resided, and died at East Haddam in 1810. He married Jerusha Tracy, of East Haddam, by whom he had one daughter and five sons, the eldest of whom was William, born at East Had- dam, July 10, 1771. William Crowell married Ruth Peck and had a family of fourteen children, nine of whom were born in New England. Among the latter was John, the subject of this memoir, who was born at East Haddam, Connecticut, September 15, 1801. In the fall of 1806 the family removed to the Western Reserve, settling in Rome, Ashtabula county. Mr. Crowell's family were the first settlers in the township of Rome and their nearest neigh- bors to the south were eighteen miles distant. The hardships which the earli- est settlers were called upon to endure were severe and their privations very great. They could get comparatively none of the comforts, and even food, shelter and clothing were only to be obtained by the greatest effort. But their sturdy hearts were protected by strong arms, and log cabins rapidly began to appear and the cultivated fields soon began to crowd the forest. John Crowell's boyhood was passed in the midst of primitive surroundings. His father was a carpenter, who, with the help of his two oldest boys, built most of the frame dwellings for miles around. It was necessary for John to assist in clearing the timber land and cultivating the farm until he was of age. He occasionally attended a winter term at school and had a few months' tuition at a select school in Jefferson, and had one winter's private instruction from a Rev. Jolin Hall, a theological student. Books were difficult to obtain, and he had few. In November, 1822, he walked to Warren, a distance of about twenty-six miles, in order to avail himself of the advantage of an academy conducted by E. R. Thompson, a graduate of Cambridge University. a capa- ble instructor and a gentleman of high character. With some slight inter- ruptions he continued in attendance at the academy until the year 1825, when he began the study of law with Mr. Thomas S. Webb, of Warren, with whom he remained as a student until 1827, when he was admitted to the Bar. Mean- while he supported himself by teaching school, and for six months was princi- pal of the academy. He opened an office at Warren and soon obtained a good
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clientage. For several years he was joint owner and editor of the Western Reserve Chronicle, and a supporter of John Quincy Adams. Mr. Crowell's ability, ambition and industry soon procured for him an extensive practice and a commanding position at the Bar. His talents were versatile and not entirely absorbed by his profession or his newspaper. He took a deep inter- est in all questions bearing upon the welfare of the people, the moral or intel- lectual improvement of the inhabitants. He was one of the earliest advocates of temperance. He aroused enthusiasm for total abstinence and was one of the leading assistants in organizing at Warren one of the first temperance soci- eties in the West. He was opposed to slavery, a prime mover in the coloni- zation society, but finding the scheme impracticable, he, with Gerritt Smith and others, withdrew from the organization in 1835. Mr. Crowell took a live interest in political affairs and in 1840 was elected State Senator. He became the acknowledged leader of his party in his congressional district and was elected to Congress as a Whig in 1846. In Congress he was a member of the committee on claims and Indian affairs. In 1848 he made a speech on the subject of slavery in the District of Columbia. It was one of his ablest efforts ; strong and pathetic as a plea for humanity and brilliant in its elo- quence. When the admission of California into the Union as a free State was under discussion in the House he took part in the debate and argued eloquently against the extension of slavery. He served two terms in the House of Rep- resentatives and then returned to the practice of the law, removing to Cleve- land in 1852, where he secured a large clientage and took high position as a lawyer. In 1862 he was elected president of the Ohio State and Union Law College, a position he filled with the greatest credit to himself and to the great satisfaction of the faculty and the .students, for a period of fourteen years. His lectures were full of the philosophy of the law. The degree of Doctor of Laws was conferred on him by the college. Mr. Crowell was the editor in chief of the Western Law Monthly for some time. He also delivered several courses of lectures on medical jurisprudence at the Homeopathic Hos- pital College, was made dean of the faculty and received the honorary degree of Doctor of Medicine. He took an active interest in the Ohio State militia and for nearly twenty years held the office of brigadier general, and was ultimately elected major general. He looked upon Christianity as the basis of all true civilization, and throughout his life he was a consistent and decided supporter of the Episcopalian Church. He was mentally a well developed and symmet- rical man. This was manifested by his adaptability to a number of pursuits absorbing his attention at one time and each receiving its due care without sacrificing another. He was an able lawyer, an excellent classical scholar, a fine teacher, a capable journalist, a Christian gentleman. Mr. Crowell was an invalid for some years before his death, which occurred in 1882. He was married in 1833 to Eliza B. Estabrook, of Worcester, Massachusetts, and to them were born five children, one of whom died in infancy. Of the others, John Crowell, Jr., an able lawyer and at one time a partner of General Mor-
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timer D. Leggett, and William Crowell are now deceased. Surviving are Julia K., widow of Colonel Henry G. Powers, and Eliza S., widow of the late Henry F. Clark, both of Cleveland.
WILLIAM F. CARR, Cleveland. Mr. Carr was born at Canal Fulton, Ohio, in 1848. He removed with his parents to Illinois when a child, where he remained until the fall of 1872, when he returned to Ohio and read law with General E. B. Finley, at Bueyrus. He was admitted to practice in 1875, and immediately settled in Cleveland, where he has since practiced. He was a member of the firm of Emery & Carr from 1876 to 1879. In the latter year Mr. Emery removed to Bryan and Mr. Carr practiced alone until 1884, when the firm of Carr & Goff was formed. In January, 1890, the partnership was enlarged and the firm became Estep, Dickey, Carr & Goff. In 1896 Mr. Carr and Mr. Goff withdrew and united with Virgil P. Kline and S. H. Tolles to form the firm of Kline, Carr, Tolles & Goff, which continues at the present time. From the time Mr. Carr was admitted to practice he has steadily and with ever-increasing respect of the Beneh and Bar won his way to the front rank of his profession. He possesses in a high degree the power of long con- tinued and exhaustive concentration in the study of his cases, and when he feels in his own mind that he has reached correct results, he conduets his case with unwavering and unhesitating fidelity to those convictions. Studious, con- scientious, faithful to his elientage, fair to his opponents, honorable in his treatment of the court, he has come to be regarded as one of the most effective and foreible attorneys at the Cleveland Bar. Mr. Carr is president of the Cleveland Bar Association, president of the Colonial Club, and a member of " the board of directors of the Park National Bank, and a member of the Ameri- can Bar Association. He is general counsel of the Akron, Bedford and Cleve- land Railroad, of the Cleveland, Painesville and Eastern Railroad, and of the Lorain and Cleveland Railroad.
WILLIAM HUBBLE FISHER, Cincinnati. William Hubble Fisher was born in the city of Albany, New York, November 26, 1843. His father was the Rev. Samuel W. Fisher, D. D., LL. D., from 1846 to 1858 pastor of the Second Presbyterian Church of Cincinnati, Ohio, and subsequently president of Ham- ilton College, New York. The subject of this sketeh is directly deseended from an officer of the Continental Army of the American Revolution. Jona- than Fisher (his great grandfather) of the Massachusetts militia, was chosen by field officers as second lieutenant in Fifth Company Northampton, 2nd Hamp- shire, County Regiment, Massachusetts, March 22, 1776. His mother was Jane J. Jackson, of New Jersey, descended on her mother's side from the Van de Lindas, an old Holland Duteh family, and from Peter Schuyler, the Governor
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of New York. Mr. Fisher passed his boyhood in Cincinnati; entered Hamil- ton College, and graduated therefrom in 1864 with honor, and has recently been elected a inember of the Epsilon Chapter of the Society of Phi Beta Kappa, an ancient fraternity of scholars. After a course of law at the Law School of Columbia College, New York, under Professor Theo. W. Dwight and Professor Lieber, he was admitted to the Bar of the State of New York in 1867. He practiced his profession at Utica, New York, at which time John S. Crocker, attorney in patent cases, transferred to him all his business relat- ing to that branch of the profession. In 1870 he formed a partnership with Honorable Samuel S. Fisher, ex-commissioner of patents, in Cincinnati, Ohio. After three years the partnership was dissolved, Mr. Fisher since continuing in the practice of patent law. He is the author of Fisher's Patent Reports, Vol. I, a compilation of cases of great value to those engaged in the practice of law relating to patents. On September 10, 1873, Mr. Fisher was married to Miss Mary L. Lyons, of Lyons Falls, New York, and to them have been born four children, three of whom are now living. While at Utica, New York, Mr. Fisher, with two other gentlemen, originated the Young Men's Christian Association of Utica, an organization now strong, active, useful and vigorous, and possessing a new and handsome building, the property being valued at over $100,000. He is an elder in the Second Presbyte- rian Church of Cincinnati, is the corresponding secretary and director in the Young Men's Christian Association of Cincinnati, has been president of the Cincinnati Society of Natural History, and in the line of photography he has made certain interesting inventions enabling animals to take their own pict- ures by day and by night. Mr. Fisher has recently been elected a member of the Western Association of Writers.
JOHN A. McMAHON, Dayton. Honorable John A. McMahon has long been recognized as a leading member of the Dayton Bar. He is a lawyer by heredity as well as by profession and successful practice. His father, John V. L. McMahon, was a distinguished lawyer of Baltimore, and held rank among the leaders of the Maryland Bar. John A. McMahon was born in Frederick, Maryland, February 19, 1833. At an early age he was sent to St. Xavier's College, Cincinnati, where he graduated in 1849, after a full collegiate course. He remained in that institution as a teacher until June, 1850. In 1852, he settled in Dayton, and became a law student in the office of the late Honor- able Clement L. Vallandigham, who married the sister of his father. He was admitted to the Bar in 1854, and immediately formed a partnership with Mr. Vallandigham. Thorough preparation and diligence as a student enabled him at once to achieve a high position at the Bar, and a general reputation in the community that secured a large and important practice. He was not infre- quently, before he was twenty-five years of age, opposed in the trial of causes to some of the ablest lawyers of the State. Upon one occasion, in the year
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1859, he tried an important case at Dayton, in which Judge Thurman, then in the zenith of his reputation at the Ohio Bar, was the opposing counsel. Mr. McMahon was successful in winning the case, and also won the encomiums of his distinguished opponent. After Mr. Vallandigham's entrance into official political life, Mr. McMahon practiced alone for a time, and in 1861 formed a partnership with the late Georger W. Houk, which continued until January, 1880. On the 23d of January, 1861, Mr. McMahon married Miss Mollie R. Sprigg, of Cumberland, Maryland, a lady belonging to one of the oldest fami- lies in that State. He persistently declined all political preferment up to the year 1872, when he was elected a delegate at large by the Democratic State Convention of Ohio, to attend the Democratic National Convention held at Baltimore in that year. He several times refused a nomination for Congress from the Dayton district; but in 1874, after he had been nominated in spite of his declination, his acceptance was so strongly insisted upon that he consented to make the canvass. The district at that time was largely Republican, but he was elected to the Forty-Fourth Congress by a majority of nearly eleven hun- dred votes. In the first session of the first term he was one of the managers of the Belknap impeachment proceedings, and upon the organization of the man- agers, for the conduct of the trial, Mr. McMahon was selected chairman of the sub-committee to try the case. During the same session he was appointed upon a special committee to investigate the St. Louis whisky frauds. He was afterward appointed by the House one of the committee of fifteen, of which Mr. Morrison, of Illinois, was chairman, to investigate the presidential election in the State of Louisiana, prior to the counting of the electoral vote in 1877. Mr. McMahon was renominated without opposition for a second term by the Democratic party, and was re-elected to the Forty-Fifth Congress. Upon the organization of the session, he was assigned to a position upon the judiciary committee and the committee on accounts. During the session he was also selected as one of the Potter investigation committee. In that Congress the undetermined questions connected with a distribution of a remainder of the Geneva award fund, amounting to nearly ten million dollars, were referred to the House Judiciary committee. It soon became apparent that there would be so wide a difference of opinion in the committee as to necessitate two reports, one from the majority and one from the minority. The minority report was drawn and reported by Mr. McMahon, and was signed by Frye, of Maine; Butler, of Massachusetts ; Conger, of Michigan, and Lapham, of New York. It was adopted by the House, and the principle of this report was subsequently enacted into a law. In 1878, though desirous of retiring from public life, Mr. Mc Mahon was again unanimously nominated and elected to the Forty-Sixth Congress. During his third term he was a member of the committee on appor- tionment, and upon its expiration in 1881, he resumed his practice in Dayton, at which he has been continuously engaged ever since. After the election of a Democratie State Legislature in 1889, Mr. McMahon was a candidate for the nomination, by a caucus of his party, for United States Senator, receiving the vote next to that of Honorable Calvin S. Brice, who was chosen and elected.
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Mr. McMahon's political service was characterized by ability and a broad scope of usefulness, reflecting credit upon himself and honor upon his constituents. As a lawyer, his career has been abundantly successful. The secret of his prominence in the profession does not lie alone in his strong natural endow- ments, his breadth of mental grasp and intellectual vigor. It may be found in the fact that he has always been a close and conscientious student, not only of text-books, but of the reported decisions of both English and American courts, so that he is to-day familiar in a marked degree with case law, as well as the r underlying legal principles. Industry, method, thoroughness, intense applica- tion-these are the habits which Mr. McMahon has brought to the practice of the law, and which, under the direction of a keen, alert intellect, have placed him in the front rank of Ohio lawyers.
ISRAEL WILLIAMS, Hamilton. Israel Williams was born August 24, 1827, in Montgomery county, Ohio. His father, William Williams, was a farmer and a native of Bedford county, Pennsylvania. The family settled in York county, Pennsylvania, prior to the American Revolution. They are of Welsh stock and were originally an old Quaker family, who, for their religious belief were driven out of Wales. In 1816 his father and grandfather came to Ohio and settled in Montgomery county. In 1830 they removed to Champaign county, where they resided at the time of their death. His mother, Mary Marker, was a native of Frederick county, Maryland, and her parents were natives of Wittenberg, Germany. They came to America and settled in west- ern Maryland some time in the last half of the eighteenth century. About 1821 they removed to Ohio, settling in Montgomery county, where they engaged in farming. At an early age Israel was sent to the common schools of his district, where he received his early training. Until eighteen years of age he attended school during the fall and winter and worked on the farm in spring and summer. At eighteen he began teaching school for the purpose of getting money with which to secure a higher education. Two years later, in 1847, he entered the high school at Springfield, where he remained one term. He then taught until the following spring, when he entered Granville College, now Dennison University. Here he remained two and a half years, and during this period taught school in winter. In 1852 he entered Farmers' College, from which institution he was graduated in 1853. At once he entered the law office of Gunckel & Strong, of Dayton, where he commenced the study of law. In this office he pursued his studies for fifteen months, and for eleven months of the time he taught a country school near Dayton. He then entered the Cin- cinnati Law School for one term of six months, and in March, 1855, he received his degree of Bachelor of Laws. He was immediately admitted to practice, and entered the office of Miller & Brown, of Hamilton, who had offices in Hamilton and Washington, D. C. Mr. Williams was assigned to the Wash- ington office, where he remained seven months. He then went to Des Moines,
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Iowa, where he spent the winter of 1855-6. In May, 1856, he returned to Hamilton and became a member of the firm of Miller & Brown. Two months later Mr. Brown retired from the practice of law, and the firm of Miller & Williams was formed, which continued about eighteen months, and until Mr. Miller accepted the presidency of the Cincinnati, Hamilton and Indianapolis Railway Company, and retired from the practice of law. Mr. Williams has since continued the practice of his profession alone. He has occupied the same offices forty-one years. His practice has always been of a general civil character, never at any time having anything to do with criminal business. In this way he grew to be a representative business lawyer of Ham- ilton, and for years has had in his keeping much of the commercial practice of the city. He has been identified with the majority of the important cases that have been tried in this county in the past third of a century. As one of the leading counsel for the city of Hamilton he did more than any one man to secure cheap gas for the city, and through successful efforts in the local courts, the Supreme Court of Ohio and the Supreme Court of the United States, the question was settled, determining the right of a municipality in the State of Ohio to construct and operate gas works, not only for public lighting but for private use of its citizens. Mr. Williams is recognized as a lawyer of ability, being well read in the principles of the profession. He is a man of high moral character and has the confidence and respect of all who know him. Outside of his profession he has devoted considerable time and study to geology, min- eralogy and archeology, and for years has been a contributing member of the Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Society. Since 1891 he has been a member of the board of trustees. Mr. Williams in politics was a Democrat until 1861, when he became a member of the old Union party, and after the close of the war became a Republican, and continued so until 1896, when he supported William J. Bryan for President. Being strongly in accord with the principles of independent bimetalism, he advocated the Democratic cause, and did all in his power to secure the election of Mr. Bryan. He is not now firmly identified with any political party. He believes that the financial policy of this country will never be settled right until we are on a bimetallic basis, and that this can never be secured except by independent action on the part of the United States government, without waiting for the consent or aid of any other nation. In 1860 Mr. Williams married Maggie Wakefield, of Butler county, Ohio, and by this union there are four children, three daughters and one son.
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