USA > Ohio > Bench and bar of Ohio; a compendium of history and biography, Vol. II > Part 45
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years. In 1866 and 1867 he was a member of the Ohio Senate. For many years Mr. Hollister has been a member of the Presbyterian Church, and is now an elder in the Mt. Auburn Church.
GEORGE W. RISSER, Ottawa. On his father's farm in Putnam county, near Pandora, George W. Risser was born October 30, 1868. His father, David Risser, was a native of Bavaria, Germany, and his mother, Margaret Krohn, of German descent, was a native of Butler county, Ohio. David Risser left the Fatherland in 1856 for the United States-the land offering larger liberty and better rewards for labor. After living a short time in New York State he came on to Cleveland, where in June, 1861, imbued with patriotism for his adopted country, he enlisted in the Union army. He served throughout the war and was mustered out in November, 1865. Returning to Ohio he settled on a farm in Putnam county, where he has continued to live and prosper with the thrift characteristic of the industrious citizens of his nationality. . On the 24th day of May, 1866, he married the daughter of Samuel and Sarah Weaver Krohn, and George W. Risser is the first born of this union. He worked on his father's farm and attended the country school in boyhood, cultivating the habits of industry, economy and thrift while he acquired the rudiments of a substantial education, broadened later by attending a business college at Ada, Cleveland and Delaware, and rendered more practical by three years of teach- ing during the time he was a student. He was graduated from the business course of Delaware College. In October, 1891, he entered the Cincinnati Law School, where he remained to complete its course of study and from which he received his degree of Bachelor of Laws on the last day of May, 1893. The next day he was admitted to the Bar of Ohio, with permission to practice in all of the State courts. He settled in Ottawa at once and entered the office of A. V. Watts, where he remained two years. On the first day of January, 1895, he opened a law office on his own account and has carried on a general practice alone to the present time. Although a young practitioner he has managed a considerable amount of important litigation, and so successfully as to prove his adaptability to the law. Politically Mr. Risser is a Democrat, zealous for his party's success and active in behalf of it. During the campaign of 1896 he loyally supported the ticket nominated by the convention held in Chicago. He is a pleasing, argumentative speaker. In 1897 he was nominated by his party for prosecuting attorney of Putnam county, and was elected in Novem- ber by a plurality of more than eighteen hundred, the largest plurality ever given to a candidate for that office in the county. Mr. Risser is a member of the order of Free and Accepted Masons and of the Knights of Pythias. He is manager of the Ohio Telephone Company, operating in Putnam county, and has already made a reputation as a business man equal to his reputation at the Bar. The elements that combine to make him a strong character are well compacted in him, and his personal worth is duly attested.
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HARRY D. CRITCHFIELD, Mount Vernon. Harry D. Critchfield is a native of the State and of Knox county. He was born on a farm within six miles of Mount Vernon. His boyhood until the age of sixteen was spent in work on the farm and in attendance at the district school. For the next two years he was a student in the high school at Urbana, after which he worked for several years as a clerk in mercantile houses at Mount Vernon. The con- finement indoors had a deleterious effect upon his health and he went to the mountainous regions of the West to recuperate. After spending four years in Montana and regaining his health he returned to Mount Vernon and took up the study of law. He studied in the office of Critchfield & Graham from December, 1887, to March, 1889, when he was admitted to the Bar. For the first five years he practiced alone, and then, in January, 1894, he received H. C. Devin into partnership, and the firm of Critchfield & Devin, then formed, con- tinues in business. In April, 1892, Mr. Critchfield was elected city solicitor, and in 1894 was re-elected, holding the office four years and performing the duties appertaining thereto in a very efficient manner. During his continu- ance in the office he was called upon to defend the municipality in several important suits brought against it for damages. With zeal and ability he guarded the corporation from all attempts to loot the public treasury. At the same time he advocated a liberal policy in the matter of street improvements and kindred enterprises undertaken to promote the beauty, the material pros- perity of the city and the comfort of her citizens. The paving of streets was an incident of great importance whilst he was the official adviser. In private practice he has secured a valuable clientage, whose business he manages suc- cessfully both in and out of the courts. He is the adviser and active attorney of some large companies whose business is not only extensive but involved. Among his clients are C. and G. Cooper & Co., of Mount Vernon, proprietors of the water works. The duty of winding up the affairs of the Mount Vernon Bridge Company was intrusted to him. Mr. Critchfield is an active, earnest, zealous Republican. He was appointed the first State organizer of the Repub- lican League, and has served as chairman of the county executive committee. In politics, in his profession and in personal matters he is active, vigorous and successful. He is well read and generally informed on matters of public importance or concern. He is keen, shrewd, aggressive and a good speaker. His social status is indicated by membership in the Royal Arcanum, the National Union and all the Masonic bodies of the city. He was married Jan- uary 20, 1890, to Miss Elizabeth Curtis, granddaughter of Hosmer Curtis. They have one daughter, Catherine C., five years old.
HOWARD CLARK HOLLISTER, Cincinnati. Judge Hollister was born Sep- tember 11, 1856, on Southern avenue, Mt. Auburn, Cincinnati, Ohio. He is the eldest son of Honorable George B. Hollister and Laura B. (Strait) Hollister. George B. Hollister was born in Plattsburg, New York, of Vermont parents
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and was, in fact, a Vermonter by family and training. Coming West, he was associated in the practice of the law with his wife's father, Thomas J. Strait, then one of the most successful lawyers in Ohio. George B. Hollister became a prominent member of the Bar of Hamilton county, Ohio, and served in the Senate of the State of Ohio. Howard Hollister was by inheritance, then, a lawyer. He was educated at the public schools, but left before he finished his course at Woodward High School to complete his preparation for college by two terms at Greylock Institution, South Williamstown, Massachusetts. In September, 1874, he entered the academical department of Yale University and was graduated in June, 1878. He has always had a magnetic social qual- ity and a power of attracting and retaining friends, which made him one of the most popular and best beloved members of his large class of one hundred and twenty-five men. Although he did not make any particular effort to secure honors in scholarship, he derived a benefit from his college life in mental dis- cipline and a knowledge of men which has stood him in good stead ever since. After graduation he returned to Cincinnati and studied law with his father and attended the Cincinnati Law School. He was admitted to the Bar of the Supreme Court of Ohio in May, 1880, and within a few weeks after received the degree of Bachelor of Laws from the Cincinnati Law School. In the year 1882 he was appointed assistant prosecuting attorney of Hamilton county and acquired a valuable experience while still young at the Bar in the trial of jury cases and the examination of witnesses. When he left the prosecuting attor- ney's office he became a member of the firm of Hollister, Roberts & Hollister. He developed an interest in his professional work and a power of application that soon attracted clients. After a practice of some ten years he was elected a judge of the Court of Common Pleas of Hamilton county, in the fall of 1893, by a handsome majority. He has brought to the discharge of his duties on the Bench the same industry and power of application which were shown in his practice, and in the administration of his office he exhibits a high appreciation of its dignity and responsibilities which is too often wanting in the members of the judiciary. He is making a valuable reputation as judge. Judge Hol- lister, on the 2nd of June, 1887, was married to Miss Alice Keys, a daughter of Samuel B. and Julia (Baker) Keys. They have four children, three boys and one girl. The judge's home is on Madison Road, East Walnut Hills.
COLUMBUS DELANO, Mount Vernon. Any history of the Bar of Ohio during the last fifty years, or, in fact, any history of prominent men of Ohio in any department during the period would be incomplete if it omitted any reference to Columbus Delano, who for more than half a century was one of the most brilliant lawyers, and one of the most cultivated of the prominent public men of the State. Through a long and busy career he was recognized as a leader in public affairs, and reached a high position among his contem- poraries as a man of brilliant attainments, strict integrity and far-reaching
( Delano
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influence. Columbus Delano was born at Shoreham, Vermont, June 15, 1809, and died at his residence, Lake Home, near Mount Vernon, Knox county, Ohio, October 23, 1896, in the eighty-eighth year of his age. At the age of eight years he was removed to Ohio, in the care of relatives, who settled in the county of Knox. His boyhood was passed on a farm, where he engaged in the usual farm work of that time, but he was devoted to study and made good use of all his spare time in the pursuit of knowledge. His elementary education was acquired at such schools as were then available, by means of which he gained a good common school education and a fair knowledge of the classics. He had an absorbing love of history, and at the age of eighteen he had read such standard historical works as were then available in a rural neighborhood. He was ever of a serious and thoughtful disposition and early looked upon life as a matter of the utmost importance, and after long deliberation he chose the legal profession as the vocation best adapted to make his way to a useful position in the community. In 1829 he entered the law office of Hosmer Curtis, at that time the leading attorney at the Knox county Bar. After three years' study he was admitted to the Bar, in 1832, and at once entered upon the practice of law at Mount Vernon. His success as a practitioner was imme- diate and phenomenal. Soon after his admission he had the good fortune to be retained as junior counsel in a very important case involving intricate legal questions and a large estate. By an accident he was left in sole management of the case when it came to trial, in which he achieved a signal victory, and at once gained such a reputation that he was elected prosecuting attorney in a county largely opposed to him in politics. He served one full term, and was re-elected, but resigned because of his rapidly growing practice, with which his official duties seriously interfered. His close application to business, his con- stant attendance upon the courts of his own and adjacent counties, his unusual skill and success as an advocate, his industry and prominence in his profession and his strict integrity met with their deserved reward, and at a comparatively early age he went to the front rank of his profession in Ohio, among the Ewings, Stanberrys and others, whose legal reputation was national. Mr. Delano was an anti-slavery Whig in politics, and while seeking no office and holding none, he was looked upon as the leading exponent of the principles of his party in all State and local contests, and his reputation as a stump orator extended beyond the bounds of his State. His congressional district was strongly Democratic, and a Whig stood little chance for official honors. In 1844, however, he was unanimously nominated as the Whig candidate for Congress, and although the Democratic candidate for governor for that year carried the district by a majority of over six hundred, Mr. Delano was elected over his Democratic oponent by a majority of twelve votes, after one of the most hotly contested campaigns in the previous history of the State. Mr. Delano took his seat in the Twenty-ninth Congress, in 1845, where he soon took high rank as a leader and debater in that eventful time. The Twenty- ninth Congress contained many men of great experience and abilty. Mr. Delano was a member of the committee on invalid pensions, where he ren-
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dered excellent service, but his influence was by no means confined to the duties of that committee. He bore an active part in the heated and often acrimonious debates of the session, and his career was brilliant. His district having been changed in the meantime, he was not a can- didate for re-election, but returned home and closed up his business preparatory to a removal to the city of New York. At the Whig State Convention of 1848 he came within two votes of receiving the nomination for governor. Retiring from the practice of law he removed to New York as principal of the banking firm of Delano, Dunlevy & Co., with a branch at Cincinnati, Ohio, in which business he was very successful. In 1856 he returned to Ohio to engage in agricultural pursuits, for which he always had a very strong predilection. He was a delegate to the Chicago convention of 1860, and was an ardent friend and supporter of Mr. Lincoln. In 1861, at the outbreak of the war, he was appointed by Governor Dennison as commissary general of Ohio, and administered the affairs of that department with his usual thoroughness and marked ability. In 1862 he was a candidate before the Republican legislative caucus for United States Senator and again lacked two votes of the nomination. In 1863, he was a member of the Ohio legislature, where his legal talent and his thorough familiarity with public affairs enabled him to render most valuable service. In 1864, he was a delegate to the Balti- more Republican National Convention and was chairman of the Ohio delega- tion. He was elected to the Thirty-ninth Congress, in which he was chairman of the committee on claims, a position involving a vast amount of labor. It is a remarkable fact that during that session every bill that Mr. Delano intro- duced became a law. He was re-elected to the Fortieth Congress, in which he was a member of the committee on foreign affairs. March 5, 1869, he was appointed by President Grant commissioner of internal revenue. Here his careful business methods came into play and his administration of the affairs of that important bureau was marked by the most signal success. Under his administration the bureau was thoroughly re-organized and so effective was his management that, in a single year, he increased the revenues from distilled spirits more than 300 per cent. and on tobacco more than 400 per cent. It was during Mr. Delano's administration of the internal revenue department that the first colored man was appointed to a clerkship under the United States government. November 7, 1870, Mr. Delano was appointed secretary of the interior, a position he held until October 1, 1875, when he resigned and returned to his farm in Ohio. He discharged the duties of sec- retary with characteristic ability and painstaking method. From the time of his retirement from the interior department he spent his time at his beautiful country place near Mount Vernon, Ohio, where he enjoyed the well earned repose from life's labors, though he was far from being an idle man. He engaged in the active management of his large estate and in sheep raising, his flocks being among the finest in the country. He was the founder and for many years president of the National Wool Growers' Association, and he was the recognized champion of the wool industry during several tariff revisions of
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the past two decades. In that behalf he was of great service to the flock masters of the country. In educational and religious affairs he took great interest. He was for many years trustee of Kenyon College and its anciliary institutions, and at the time of his death was chairman of the executive com- mittee of its board of trustees. "Delano Hall," built by him, is a fitting memorial of his substantial interest in the institution. He was a life-long member of the Protestant Episcopal Church. In his religious life he was earn- est, constant and straightforward. IIis zeal and devotion to his church and its interests were recognized by his associates in that he was a senior warden of St. Paul's Episcopal Church at Mount Vernon and was repeatedly elected a delegate to diocesan and national assemblies. For many years, and, at the time of his death, he was president of the First National Bank of Mount Vernon. He was one of the oldest Free Masons in Ohio at the time of his death. £ His domestic life was peculiarly happy and beautiful. In 1834. he was united in marriage with Miss Elizabeth Bateman Leavenworth, a native of Connecticut, who survives him. The fruit of this marriage was three children, one of whom died in infancy-Elizabeth, wife of Rev. John G. Ames, of Washington, D. C., and John Sherman Delano, who died a few months before the death of his father. Mr. Delano was not an ambitious man in the ordi- nary sense of that word, in that he was not self-assertive. What he gained in the way of public recognition he deserved by his recognized talent, his great industry, his careful and conscientious discharge of duty and his power as a public speaker. He was especially valuable as a cautious, conservative coun- sellor, not liable to be stampeded by excitement, and calm in the midst of alarms which were apt to sweep the average statesman from his moorings. So thoroughly grounded was he in the elementary principles that a longer experi- ence at the Bar must have raised him to the very highest rank in the profes- sion, if he did not really attain that position in his comparatively short career as a lawyer.
SHELDON H. TOLLES, Cleveland. S. H. Tolles was born at Burton, Geauga county, Ohio, October 1, 1858. His father, Henry S. Tolles, a mer- chant and a native of Connecticut, located in Ohio about 1850. His mother was Cynthia Hitchcock, a daughter of the late Judge Peter Hitchcock, who for twenty years was judge of the Supreme Court of Ohio and one of the most useful members of the constitutional convention of 1850. The early education of Mr. Tolles was in the district schools of his native town. Afterwards he entered the Western Reserve College, from which he was graduated in 1878. He at once entered the office of Judge J. B. Burrows, at Painsville, where he studied law and was admitted to practice in 1880. Ile then went to Minne- apolis, Minnesota, and practiced there for one year. Returning to Ohio in the winter of 1881-2 he located in Cleveland and formed a partnership with Judge J. E. Ingersoll, the firm being Ingersoll & Tolles. This partnership was shortly afterwards dissolved, in consequence of Mr. Ingersoll's appointment as
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judge of the Court of Common Pleas. Mr. Tolles then became the junior in the firm of Henderson, Kline & Tolles. In January, 1895, Mr. Henderson retired and the firm of Kline & Tolles was continued for one year, when it was augmented by the addition of two new members-W. F. Carr and F. H. Goff-and the firm of Kline, Carr, Tolles & Goff was formed. The practice of Mr. Tolles has been general, but he has always had a large amount of cor- poration and manufacturing business. He is a man of ability and high moral character, and his standing at the Bar and in the community is excellent. In politics he is a Republican but has never held an office or been an applicant for office. In 1887 he married Jessie R. King, of Painesville, and has two sons.
DANIEL A. RUSSELL, Pomeroy. Honorable D. A. Russell, one of the judges of the Fourth Circuit, is an excellent scholar, an eminent jurist, an esteemed citizen. He was born on a farm in Athens county, Ohio, September 2, 1840, and at the age of three years removed with his parents, who settled on a farm in Meigs county. His early educational advantages were such as the district schools of that county afforded. When he arrived at the age of sixteen he entered the Ohio University at Athens, where he studied two years, and then went to the Ohio Wesleyan University at Delaware, where he also remained for two years. He left college with the class of 1860 to continue his studies a little later, and in the meantime accepted a position in the county treasurer's office at Pomeroy. He remained but a short time in this office. The blood of the heroes of 1776 was in his veins, and when his country called for defenders he promptly laid aside his own hopes and aspirations and offered himself for his native land. He enlisted July 16, 1861, in Company E, Fourth Virginia Infantry, as a private soldier, and served with marked bravery in the first West Virginia campaign, participating in the battles of Hurricane Ridge, Charleston and Poliko, West Virginia. August 22, 1861, he was promoted for bravery on the field to the position of second lieutenant of his company. In September, 1862, he was again promoted to first lieutenant, and January 5, 1863, he was made captain of his company. His regiment was transferred to the West, and he took part in the important action at Haines Bluff, Miss- issippi, and served with Grant during the siege of Vicksburg, where he was twice hit by confederate bullets. He was with Grant's army at the battle of Cherokee Station, and the siege and capture of Jackson, Mississippi, and the famous battle of Missionary Ridge, where the entering wedge that split the confederacy in two was driven. From there his regiment was sent East and attached to Sheridan's army, operating in the Piedmont region of Virginia. He was an actor in the battles of Piedmont, Lexington, Lynchburg, Snickers Ferry, Winchester, Cumberland and other engagements that followed in rapid succession the movements of that dashing commander. His term of enlist- ment having expired, he was honorably discharged September 11, 1864. February 3, 1865, he was appointed major of the 187th Regiment Ohio. Vol-
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unteer Infantry, and served in that capacity until January 27, 1866, when he received his final discharge. After closing his army career, he took up the thread where he had dropped it in 1861. He entered the law school at Cincin- nati, and was graduated in April, 1866, and admitted to the Bar at the same time. Having finished his preparation he returned to Pomeroy and took up the active practice of his profession in partnership with Louis Paine. This connection lasted for one year, when the partnership was dissolved. He next associated himself with John Cartwright, an arrangement that continued until 1874. He was city solicitor for six years, from 1873 to 1879. In 1874 he associated his brother, Charles Francis, in partnership with himself under the firm name of Russell & Russell. This firm continued in this connection until our subject, in 1889, went out of the firm to take a seat on the Bench of the Fourth Judicial Circuit, to which he had been elected the previous year for a term of six years, and to which he was re-elected at the close of the term in 1894. He is said to possess one of the ripest legal minds in the State. He was chosen as one of the delegates which met at Columbus, Ohio, in 1873 to revise the State constitution. Of his attainments and the esteem in which he is held by those who have known him longest, we reproduce quotations from a few men prominent in the profession from all parts of the fourteen counties which his circuit embraces, and from his colleagues on the Bench:
"' Judge D. A. Russell stands high in his profession, and as a judge admin- isters justice fairly and impartially. He is one of our foremost citizens, and is a liberal and public spirited man in all matters pertaining to the welfare of the community. In his practice he was a good all round attorney and as a trial lawyer was hard to surpass. Judge Russell is a lawyer of ability and an able practitioner, and as a judge is sustaining himself on the Bench. His decisions stand the tests of the higher courts.' 'At the time he was called to the Bench he was considered the best lawyer at the county Bar and had the largest practice. As a citizen he is held in very high esteem.' 'I have tried cases with Judge Russell and I know that he deserves his high reputation as a lawyer. He is conscientious and will not swerve in the discharge of his duty, unpleas- ant though it may be. As a soldier he had no superior, and as a citizen ranks high.' 'I have the very highest opinion of Judge Russell. Have known him for many years and have been associated with him in many very important cases, and he has the best ideas of the ethics of the profession of any man I ever knew. As a lawyer he has no superior in this district, and as judge is popular with the Bar and with the public. Socially, he stands high, and as a companion and friend no one can be more.' "
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