USA > Ohio > Bench and bar of Ohio; a compendium of history and biography, Vol. II > Part 5
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MORRISON R. WAITE was appointed Chief Justice in January, 1874, to suc- ceed Justice Chase. He was born in Lyme, Connecticut, November 29, 1816. His father, Henry Matson Waite, was also a native of Lyme, a graduate of Yale College, who practiced law in his native town with large success ; filling the offices successively of representative and senator in the State legislature ; receiving appointment in 1834 as judge of the Supreme Court of Errors, and later being elected Chief Justice by unanimous vote of the legislature, a posi- tion which he held until the age limit of seventy years was reached. Members of the Waite family generally were great men, and men of strong character and upright lives. The mother of Morrison R. Waite was a granddaughter of Colonel Samuel Selden, who commanded a Connecticut regiment in the Revo- lutionary army ; was made prisoner of war in September, 1776, and died the following month. Judge Waite was graduated from Yale in 1837, in a class comprising William M. Evarts, Edwards Pierrepont, Samuel J. Tilden, Ben- jamin Silliman, and others more or less distinguished. He took up the study of law in his father's office, but in 1838 came west and settled at Maumee, Ohio, where he renewed his studies in the office of Samuel M. Young. He was admitted to the Bar in 1839, and formed a partnership with his preceptor. The practice of that time involved travel on horseback to the different counties of the circuit and the management of all kinds of cases. In 1850 Mr. Waite removed to Toledo, opening a branch office for his firm, and six years later, upon the retirement of his associate from practice, his brother, Richard Waite, became a partner. This association was continued until his appointment as Chief Justice, when his son, E. T. Waite, became the junior partner of his brother. Mr. Waite continued in the practice and was very soon recognized throughout the State as one of the greatest lawyers at the Bar. He never was at any time a politician and yet always had deep convictions upon the impor- tant questions which separated parties. He was first a Whig and afterwards a Republican ; was elected representative in the State legislature in 1849 and served with special credit. He was a candidate for delegate to the Constitu- tional convention of 1850, but defeated simply on account of politics. Through- out the war he was the very earnest supporter of Mr. Lincoln's administration,
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and was especially in sympathy with his policy of making the preservation of the Union, and not the abolition of slavery, the paramount issue of the war. He was chosen by the Republicans who represented that policy as a candidate . for Congress in 1862, but was defeated. In 1863 he declined the position of judge of the Supreme Court of Ohio, tendered by Governor Brough. Although his practice had been within the borders of Ohio almost entirely, his reputation as an able constitutional lawyer had become national ; so that in December, 1871, he was appointed by President Grant one of counsel representing the United States in the arbitration at Geneva, where the claim of the govern- ment against Great Britain for the depredations committed by the "Alabama " was submitted. Before that tribunal he demonstrated large capacity, entire familiarity with the case and a wide knowledge of international law. There was no more effective presentation of the government's case than the one made by Morrison R. Waite. When the award was finally settled by the board of arbitration he returned to Toledo and resumed his law practice. As evidence of his growth among the people of his own section of the State it is only necessary to mention the fact that he was elected without opposition, in 1873, to the convention called to revise the Constitution of the State, and when that convention assembled in Cincinnati he was chosen president. While serv- ing as presiding officer he was nominated by President Grant for Chief Justice, although he had taken no steps to secure the position and was not aware that his name was seriously considered by the President. Members of the convention over which he presided were greatly pleased with the honor conferred upon him and a resolution was introduced expressing approbation of his nomination. This resolution he very promptly ruled out of order. It is a singular fact that Mr. Waite was admitted to practice in the Supreme Court only one year before his nomination as Chief Justice, and his admission was upon the motion of Caleb Cushing ; and Caleb Cushing's name had been sent to the Senate as the succes- sor of Chief Justice Chase, and then withdrawn by the President just before Waite's nomination. Mr. Waite assumed the duties of Chief Justice March 4, 1874, and continued to discharge them with marked ability until his death in 1888. He brought to the position a very large mental capacity, and powers of physical endurance almost unequalled. Naturally strong and well knit as to his organism, he had been trained in early life by hard work and had become thoroughly seasoned by the exercise and toil incident to his early practice. His life had always been free from vicious habits and he was therefore strong, symmetrical and perfect in the development of a powerful physique. His experi- ences in the rough and tumble contests of the forum had contributed to his qualification for the labor and the acumen necessary to the correct decision of important questions submitted to the highest court. He took up the work courageously, exhibiting always ability, industry and patience in the discharge of his duty. He possessed the dignity of character and of manner which com- manded respect. Under his guidance the business of the court was transacted with harmony among the judges, and decisions were reached with as much facility as at any period of the court's history. He wrote many of the deci-
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sions himself, and all of them passed the scrutiny of the critics and were accepted without complaint as the law of the land by all parties interested. Judge Waite had a very exalted estimate of the character and responsibilities of the office of Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. He regarded it so rever- ently as not to lend himself to any movement on the part of his friends to make him a candidate for President. He was not ambitious to be chief exec- utive of the Nation, and as a matter of principle he declined with great posi- tiveness to permit the use of his name in that connection. He averred it was dangerous to have a judge look beyond the judiciary in his personal ambition. In all that pertained to the duties of his office he was sincere, honest, pains- taking and capable. His usefulness was the more conspicuous because he was satisfied with the honors conferred and was unselfish throughout his public life. Judge Waite was married September 21, 1840, with Amelia C., daughter of Samuel Selden Warner, of Lyme, Connecticut. Five children were born of this union, of whom Henry Selden died April 10, 1873, leaving a wife and two sons ; Christopher C., a railroad official of prominence, died in Columbus in 1896 ; and one died in infancy. The living are Edward T., lawyer, Toledo, and Mary F., of Washington, D. C.
STANLEY MATTHEWS, for many years a leader of the Bar of Ohio and of the country, was born at Cincinnati, July 21, 1824. His father, Thomas J. Matthews, was a native of Leesburg, Virginia, and subsequently professor of mathematics in Transylvania University in Lexington, Kentucky. He was by vocation a civil engineer, and as such ran the State line between Tennessee and Kentucky, and built the Lexington and Frankfort Railroad. The mother of Stanley was Isabella Brown, a daughter of Colonel William Brown, who came from Connecticut and settled at Columbia in Hamilton county, Ohio, in 1788. Stanley Matthews passed his boyhood in Kentucky, but in 1832 his father was made president of Woodward High School in Cincinnati, and the son entered that institution as a pupil and remained there continuously until 1839, when he entered the Junior class of Kenyon College at Gambier, Ohio, whence he graduated the following year, having displayed especial proficiency in the classics. In the following fall he entered upon the study of the law at Cincin- nati. In 1842 he removed to Maury county in Tennessee, where for two years he was a teacher in the Union Seminary, near Spring Hill, conducted by the Rev. John Hudson. In February, 1843, he married Mary, a daughter of James Black, a resident of Maury county. He began the practice of the law at Columbia, and also edited there a weekly political paper called the Ten- nessee Democrat. In 1844 he returned to Cincinnati, and being admitted to the Ohio Bar in 1845, he formed a partnership with Judge Heys and Isaac C. Collins. He became prominent as assistant prosecuting attorney of the county, which appointment was secured for him'by the president judge, William B. Caldwell. His reading of Dr. Gamaliel Bailey's anti-slavery daily newspaper, the Cin- cinnati Herald, led to his temporary abandonment of the law, and in Novem- ber, 1846, he became the editor of that paper and so continued for over a year, until the suspension of its publication. His political position by that time was
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of such prominence that he was elected clerk of the Ohio House of Repre- sentatives for the session of 1848-9, at which Salmon P. Chase was elected United States senator. In 1850 he resumed the practice of the law, and in 1851, after the adoption of the new State Constitution, he was elected one of the three judges of the Court of Common Pleas of Hamilton county. He resigned his position January 1, 1853, and formed a partnership with Vachel Worthington, his former law preceptor, under the firm name of Worthington & Matthews. In 1855 he was elected to the Ohio Senate and served his term. In 1858 he was appointed United States attorney for the Southern District of Ohio by President Buchanan. Shortly after the inauguration of President Lincoln he resigned his office, and in June, 1861, was commissioned lieutenant colonel of the Twenty-third Ohio Volunteer Infantry. The colonel of the regiment was W. S. Rosecrans, and the major Rutherford B. Hayes. He served in the West Virginia campaign until October, when he became colonel of the Fifty-first Ohio, and served under General D. C. Buell in the operations of the Army of the Cumberland in Kentucky and Tennessee. He was provost marshal of Nashville until July, 1862, when he was put in command of a brigade. In May, 1863, he was elected judge of the Superior Court of Cin- cinnati, having for his associates Bellamy Storer and George Hoadly. He resigned this office in July, 1865, and at once took a leading position at the Bar. Although previous to the war Judge Matthews had been a Democrat, his affiliations subsequently to that time had been Republican. In 1872 he was temporary chairman of the Liberal Republican Convention, but refused to sup- port Mr. Greeley, its nominee. In 1876 he was the Republican candidate for Congress, but was defeated by General_Henry B. Banning, after a very close vote. In the celebrated contest before the electoral commission Judge Matthews appeared for Rutherford B. Hayes, and his arguments before that tribunal were the admiration of the Bar of the country. Subsequently, when John Sherman resigned his seat in the Senate to accept the treasury portfolio, Stanley Matthews was selected to serve out his unexpired term, being succeeded in 1879 by George H. Pendleton. Upon the retirement of Justice Swayne from the Supreme Bench, President Hayes, and subsequently President Gar- field, nominated Stanley Matthews for the vacant position. He was confirmed and received his commission May 12, 1881, and served on the Supreme Bench until the time of his death, March 22, 1889. Shortly after Mr. Justice Matthews removed to Washington he lost his wife. Two sons, one of whom, Mortimer, is a member of the Cincinnati Bar, and three daughters survive this union. In June, 1887, Mr. Justice Matthews was married in Washington to a highly cultured woman. Mr. Justice Matthews stood in the very first rank of Ohio lawyers. His learning was prodigious and his mind was trained to a thorough grasp of every phase of the law. Readiness, accuracy and force distinguished him as a debater and advocate. A man of fine physical presence, great personal dignity and an eminently judicial temperament, he represented the highest type of lawyer and judge.
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1167040
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT.
In pursuance of an Act of the Congress of the United States of America, begun and held at the city of Washington in the District of Columbia, on Mon- day the sixth day of December, in the year of our Lord 1802, entitled " An Act to provide for the due execution of the laws of the United States within the State of Ohio,". the Honorable Charles Willing Byrd produced a com- mission from Thomas Jefferson, Esq., President of the United States of America, bearing date the third day of March, 1803, appointing him judge of the District Court of the United States in and for the Ohio District, together with a certificate of his having had the oath prescribed by an Act of Congress to regulate the time and manner of administering certain oaths, and also the oath of a judge of the District Court of the United States for the District of Ohio administered to him by Edward Tiffin, Esq., governor of the State of Ohio. And thereupon a court of the United States for the District of Ohio was held at the court house in the town of Chillicothe on Monday the sixth day of June, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and three, and of American Independence the twenty-seventh. The said Charles Willing Byrd served as judge until August 11, 1828, when he died. And thereupon William Creighton, Jr., was appointed. The latter assumed his duties November 1, 1828, and held court until December 31st of the same year. His appointment failed for want of confirmation by the Senate and thereupon a vacancy occurred, which was not filled until March. Mr. Creighton had served as secretary of the State of Ohio, having been elected by the General Assembly in 1803.
JOHN W. CAMPBELL was nominated by President Jackson March 7, 1829, and unanimously confirmed by the Senate. He entered upon the discharge of his judicial duties at once and served until his death on the 24th of September, 1833. Judge Campbell was a Virginian by birth and Scotch-Irish by descent and parentage. Near the beginning of the seventeenth century his Scotch ancestors emigrated from Argyleshire and settled near Londonderry in the North of Ireland. In 1740, members of the family first settled in Angusta county, Virginia, where he was born February 23, 1782. His education was carefully supervised by private tutors, two of whom were Presbyterian clergy- men. He studied law under the instruction of his uncle, Thomas Wilson, at Morgantown, Virginia, was admitted to the Bar of Ohio in 1808, and began practice at West Union, Adams county. The family had removed into the territory in 1798. By his engaging manners and estimable character, his knowledge of the law and careful attention to business, he was enabled to rise rapidly in his profession. He served as prosecuting attorney for the counties of Adams and Highland, was a member of the legislature, and in 1812 was a candidate for Congress. He was defeated the first time, but was elected in 1816, and re-elected four times, by a vote that was practically unanimous. He
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discharged the duties of Congressman faithfully and honestly for ten years, and was ever mindful of the obligation to his constituents arising from the representative character of the office. He was a supporter of Jackson's theory of the supremacy of the national law, and was the opponent of protective tariff. On retiring from Congress he settled on a farm in Brown county in 1827, and was the Democratic candidate for governor in 1828. His canvass was in all respects creditable to him, although it did not end in his election. Defeat at the polls was followed a few months later by his appointment to the office of judge of the United States Court for the District of Ohio. Judge Campbell was a severe student and a man of exemplary habits. He neglected no duty, and found much time by rising at a very early hour in the morning for writing on various topics of popular concern, and for literary study. He was a believer in Christianity and observed its precepts in his daily life. When the scourge of cholera visited Columbus in 1833 no hands were found more willing to relieve want, and no voice brought more solace and cheer to stricken households than the hands and the voice of Judge Campbell. He literally wore his life out in saving others or administering to their relief. Anxiety and exposure and the strain of overwork so reduced his vitality that he was unable to resist the acute attack, which terminated in his death at Delaware Springs, September 24. 1833. Judge Campbell had a clear intellect and a cultivated mind. He discerned points and principles of law and expressed his views with precision. His practical, saving common sense was his unerring monitor.
BENJAMIN TAPPAN was appointed September 24, 1833, by President Jackson to succeed Judge Campbell and held court for three days - December 23, 24 and 25, 1833 - but the Senate refused to confirm him and thereupon a vacancy ensued which was not filled for more than six months. Judge Tap- pan, a native of Northampton, Massachusetts, had come to Ohio Territory in 1799 at the age of twenty-six and entered upon the practice of law at Steuben- ville. As a boy he had been apprenticed to a copper-plate engraver in Boston and learned the trade before taking up the study of law. His father was a gold and silversmith by trade and his mother was Sarah Homes, a grandniece of Benjamin Franklin. He belonged to a family of considerable distinction in commercial affairs, church work and philanthropy. He served as a member of the legislature of Ohio and was presiding judge of the Court of Common Pleas for seven years, and senator of the United States four years. He was a good lawyer, somewhat droll in manner, but master of a quick wit and keen sense of humor. He became a Free-soiler, lived to the age of four score and died at Steubenville in 1857.
HUMPHREY H. LEAVITT succeeded Tappan, entering upon the discharge of his judicial duties July 24, 1834. He was born at Suffield, Connecticut, June 18, 1796, and came to Ohio with his parents in 1800, settling at Steubenville after a short stop at Cadiz. After admission to the Bar he served a term as prosecuting attorney, was elected representative and senator in the State legislature, served in Congress from 1830 to 1834 and at the close of his
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second term was appointed to the district judgeship. He served thirty-seven years on the Bench of this court and retired by virtue of the constitutional provision regarding the age limit. He was a clear-headed lawyer and a high- minded judge ; conscientious in the discharge of a public or a private duty and painstaking to discover his duty with respect to any question presented for investigation or decision. He was exceedingly well versed in laws relating to patents, and some of his decisions in cases of that class have been accepted as the highest authority. He was a firm supporter of the government during the Rebellion, and held that incendiary speech, calculated to excite sedition, at such a time, was not to be justified or tolerated as a right of "free speech." On February 10, 1855, the State was divided into the " Northern District " and the " Southern District " of Ohio, Judge Wilson receiving appointment for the Northern District. From that time until his retirement Judge Leavitt presided in the Southern District. He was a Presbyterian and served as com- missioner in the General Assembly of the church eleven times.
HIRAM V. WILSON, the first judge appointed for the United States Court in the Northern District of Ohio, was nominated by President Pierce in March, 1855, soon after the Act of Congress dividing the State became a law by the signature of the President. Judge Wilson had gone to Washington at the instance of the Cleveland Bar to labor for the passage of the bill, and his appointment to the judgeship was acceptable to members of the profession acquainted with his abilities and characteristics as a lawyer. He was a native of Madison county, New York, born in April, 1808; was graduated from Hamilton College in 1832; read law under the instruction of Honorable Jared Wilson of Canandaigua, New York, and Francis Scott Key of Washington, D. C., author of "The Star Spangled Banner." He was energetic, studious and self-reliant, maintaining himself while pursuing his studies by teaching school. Upon coming west in 1833 he stopped in Painesville for a short time, but soon settled in Cleveland, where he formed a partnership with the late Henry B. Payne, a former classmate in college. Both were very poor at the time, with barely the necessaries of life; but they were persistent, plucky, hopeful. In 1844 Edward Wade was received into the firm, changing the name to Payne, Wilson & Wade. Upon the retirement of Mr. Payne in 1846, Reuben Hitchcock succeeded him in the firm of Hitchcock, Wilson & Wade. In 1850 Mr. Hitchcock retired and James Wade was admitted to the firm, which became Wilson, Wade & Wade, and so continued until Judge Wilson's appointment to the Bench. Up to that time he was a lawyer, devoted wholly to the practice, with ever increasing success and ever growing reputa- tion. He had, it is true, prior to his elevation to the Bench, engaged actively in partisan politics, and was the Democratic candidate for Congress in 1852. It was a three-cornered contest-Whig, Democrat and Free-soiler-and his law partner, Edward Wade, was elected as the Free-soil candidate. Upon his elevation to the Bench Judge Wilson abandoned the field of partisan poli- tics forever. He held it was the duty of a judge to keep his mind free from the possibility of bias or prejudice which might be fostered by the too active
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support of a party. He was a pure and upright judge, measuring up to the Baconian standard of impartiality. He became exceedingly proficient in admiralty law as applicable to the great chain of lakes and inland navigation generally. Perhaps his opinions set forth at length in deciding important cases of this character are the clearest expositions of the law to be found in the books. Certainly none exhibited a deeper research and none have been more generally accepted as authoritative. The prominent citizens of Oberlin, indicted for the rescue of a fugitive slave from his captors in violation of the Fugitive Slave Law, were tried in his court, and it is said he calmly and dis- passionately charged the jury, without a manifestation of partisan zeal or a disposition to be influenced by the demonstration in favor of the prisoners. He was a War Democrat, judicially, holding that any attempt to subvert the gov- ernment was treasonable ; but the right of peaceful assembly and free speech should not be abridged or denied. Judge Wilson was naturally and always courteous, extolling the virtue of urbanity by his own example. His venera- tion for the profession was profound, and both at the Bar and on the Bench he sought to honor it. He died of consumption November 11. 1866.
CHARLES T. SHERMAN, of Cleveland, son of Judge Charles R. Sherman of the Supreme Court of Ohio, was appointed March 2, 1867, to succeed Judge Wilson, and served until 1873, when he resigned. Martin Welker was there- upon appointed and served until January 16, 1890.
AUGUST J. RICKS, appointed to succeed Judge Welker on the day of the latter's retirement, is a native of Ohio. He was born at Massillon, February 10, 1843, son of Charles Ricks and Regina Marguerite LaPierre. His paternal lineage is German and his father lived in the fatherland (Prussia) until he arrived at man's estate. His grandfather, a man of large wealth, was engaged in the carrying trade when Napoleon's army confiscated his horses and wagons, together with all movable property,'in 1813, leaving him poor. Judge Ricks attended the public and high schools of Massillon, and matriculated at Kenyon College in 1861. The martial spirit led him from the college to the army in 1862, with a lieutenant's commission. On account of his youth and inexpe- rience he declined the captaincy of his company, which was tendered. He served during the war, in the campaign of East Tennessee under General Burnside; on the staff of General Milo S. Hascall in the Atlanta campaign ; on the staff of General J. D. Cox, with the rank of captain, in North Carolina in 1865. On returning home he took up the study of law in Mansfield, but in a few months went south and resumed his studies in the office of Judge Baxter at Knoxville, Tennessee, until 1870, when Mr. Ricks became editor and proprietor of the Knoxville Chronicle, a daily newspaper, of which he retained possession five years. In 1875 he settled in Massillon, forming a law partner- ship with Judge Anson Pease. Three years later he was appointed clerk of the United States Court for the Northern District of Ohio, and while clerk acted as master in chancery by appointment of Judge Welker. Numerous cases, especially relating to railroads, were referred to him as master, in which his opinions, when reviewed, were almost uniformly sustained by the Supreme
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