USA > Ohio > Hamilton County > Cincinnati > Cincinnati, the Queen City, 1788-1912, Volume II > Part 19
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Among the men of this era who adorned the Cincinnati bar was Alphonso Taft, a' native of Vermont and a graduate of Yale college, who settled in Cincin- nati in 1839 and soon acquired a lucrative practice. During his long career at the bar he had, at different times, as partners, Thomas M. Key, William M. Dickson, Patrick Mallon, Aaron F. Perry, George R. Sage and H. P. Lloyd, as well as his
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sons, Charles P., Peter R., and William H. Taft. He was concerned in many im- portant litigations, one of them being the case involving the validity of the bequest by Charles McMicken of a large quantity of property to the city of Cincinnati for educational purposes, and which forms the basis of the University of Cincinnati. The case went to the supreme court of the United States, and was argued there by Thomas Ewing on behalf of the contestants, but Judge Taft was uniformly successful in maintaining the bequest. He served as judge of the superior court from 1865 to 1873, when he resigned and reentered the practice. At various times in his life Judge Taft took a prominent part in politics. At one time he contested the first Ohio district against George H. Pendleton for congress, but was defeated. . Subsequently he was supported by a large section of his party in the state convention for governor of Ohio, but was not nominated. In 1876 he was appointed to the office of secretary of war in the cabinet of President Grant, from which position he was removed to that of attorney general in the same cabi- net, where he continued until the end of Grant's administration. In 1882 he was appointed by President Arthur, minister to Austria, from which he was subse- quently promoted to the position of minister to Russia. He remained in St. Petersburg until the end of his term of office in 1885. Judge Taft was always active in charitable works and in movements of a public nature intended to be beneficial to the community at large. He died on May 30, 1891, in his eighty- first year. Judge Taft was the father of five sons and a daughter, who reached years of maturity, but one of his sons, Peter R. Taft, died in 1889. The other four, Charles P., William H., Henry W., and Horace V., and his daughter, Fanny Louise (now Mrs. William Edwards, of San Diego, California), survive him.
Of all of the men of the Cincinnati bar of ante bellum era, perhaps the man who produced the most profound impresssion as a lawyer was Stanley Matthews. As an advocate in cases involving consideration of complicated circumstances or important principles of law, he has had few superiors. He had a logical power which enabled him to follow out a chain of reasoning with perfect accuracy to its conclusion, and at the same time a breadth of imagination which enabled him to delineate and place in relation all of the facts and personages connected with the case, each in his or its true perspective. He had a ready command of a great vocabulary, so that the precise word needed to express any shade of meaning was always at his command. Judge Matthews was born in Cincinnati in the year 1824. He was the son of a professor of Woodward high school. He grad- uated from Kenyon college in the year 1840 and was noted for his excellence in classical scholarship. He was admitted to the bar in the year 1845 and afterwards held sundry minor offices, including that of assistant prosecuting attorney of Ham- ilton county and clerk of the Ohio house of representatives, in 1850 and 1851, and was elected a judge of the Court of Common Pleas, which position he held for a year or two and then returned to the practice in partnership with Vachel Worthington. In 1855 he was elected to the state senate, and from 1858 to 1861 he served as district attorney by the appointment of President Buchanan. At the beginning of the Civil war, he entered the army and was commissioned lieutenant colonel of the Twenty-third regiment of Ohio Volunteers. In April, 1863, while serving in the army, he was elected judge of the superior court of Cincinnati, and
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resigned his position in the army to take that of the judgeship, but in 1865 he resigned his position as judge and returned to the bar, where he met with great success, for he was then at the height of his powers and he represented many of the greatest interests in this part of the country. He was chairman of the national convention which nominated Horace Greely as a candidate to the presidency of the United States, with which result he was so much disgusted that as soon as it occurred he took his hat and with great deliberation walked out of the conven- tion, and subsequently supported General Grant at the election. Later he was one of the counsel for Hayes before the electoral commission which decided the dis- puted presidential election of 1876, and is said to have furnished the argument which carried the majority of the commission for Hayes, and enabled them to avoid the dilemna which was presented by counsel for Tilden, and upon which it was supposed the republican cause would be necessarily impaled. In May of 1881 Judge Matthews was nominated and confirmed an associate justice of the supreme court of the United States, a position which he held until his death in 1889, and in which he rendered most distinguished service. His opinions are noted for clearness of statement and for rigid adherence to the rules of law carefully stated and applied. His firm, vigorous style is a pleasure to the reader, and while some of his opinions went counter to the views of many, none of his judgments have ever been seriously questioned or reversed.
In a paper read before the State Bar Association some years since, Governor Harmon gave an account of the life and character of Aaron F. Perry, which was heard with great pleasure by that body and subsequently much admired. The subject of his paper was worthy of such an effort. A brief abstract of that paper hardly suffices to give a just idea of its merits. Mr. Perry was a native of Ver- mont, of Puritan stock. "He had," said Governor Harmon, "the inheritance which such descent implies-health and vigor of mind and body, love of justice, and a spirit inclined upward. He had not much advantage of early education through the medium of schools, but he was a rare instance of self-improvement. The love of knowledge inherent in him was such that he became a man of wide and varied learning. His position and reputation were due to distinction at the bar alone. He was plain Mr. Perry to the end. The cases in which he was chiefly engaged were of great importance, some of them involving questions concern- ing the result of the Civil war. He probably made a wider reputation as chief counsel of General Burnside upon the application of Mr. Vallandigham for writ of habeas corpus. It took a strong man to maintain a debate with George E. Pugh, who was counsel for Mr. Vallandigham. It required a wise, sage, cautious and learned man, with ingenuity tempered with broad sagacity, to sustain Mr. Lincoln in the arrest of this distinguished prisoner, without rudely pulling down the pillars of the Temple of Liberty. Without passing judgment on the merits of the case, it may be justly said that Mr. Perry's argument, which was reported in full, gives a good display of the extent of his learning and the clearness and versatility of his thought, his logical faculty, the force and nicety of his doctrine, his power of analysis, and play of his fancy and his humor, which gave spice without bitterness to his discourse. To his great talents he added a high char- acter and crowned a successful professional career with a pure and unselfish life, and to talents and character he joined manners of a kind and courteous gentleman who never knowingly gave offense and was slow to take it; who
BELLAMY STORER
STANLEY MATTHEWS
JUDGE V. WORTHINGTON
GEN. E. F. NOYES
JUDSON HARMON
JOSEPH B. FORAKER
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respected the dignity of others and seldom had occasion to defend his own. He had what might be called the saving sense of humor. He had also a keen and lively wit, but delighted in its wings rather than its sting."
It has been said of Rufus King that the most remarkable circumstance of his life was that it was chiefly spent in laboring for the good of others. He began to practice in Cincinnati in 1840. In 1846 he was a member of the convention to form the city charter. Subsequently he was a member of the city council, and later of the school board, where he served for fourteen years. From 1852 to 1867 he was president of the board. He was the first president of the united board of the Woodward and Hughes High schools, a position which he held until the close of his life. He was president of the directors of the McMicken Uni- versity, now the University of Cincinnati, from 1859 to 1877. He was the author of the law which founded the public library of Cincinnati, and was also presi- dent of the board of directors of that institution. In 1871 he was a member of the constitutional convention of the state, and was made president of the conven- tion after the resignation of Chief Justice Waite. He was connected with the Cincinnati Law school as dean and professor from 1875 until 1891, the time of his death. He took a special part in the organization of the Cincinnati Law library and was president of its board of trustees for thirty-six years, and remembered it by a bequest of twenty thousand dollars in his will. He was an active sup- porter of the college of music and the art museum. It will be seen that there was not much compensation to be derived from any of the positions held by him, and it is obvious that he cared nothing for that feature. He was one of those who derived more pleasure from giving than from receiving. His was a noble life and reflects great credit upon the bar of which he was a member. Descended from illustrious ancestors, he was in every way worthy of them.
Another member of the Cincinnati bar whose work and whose fame were mainly outside of professional lines, was William Haines Lytle, born in Cincin- nati of distinguished parentage. He early acquired a reputation for eloquence. His manner is said to have been distinguished and his bearing chivalrous. He served in the Mexican war, at the close of which he returned as commander of his company, to which position he had been promoted. In 1850 he was a member of the state legislature. When the Civil war began, he was made colonel of the Tenth Ohio Volunteer Infantry, and he seems to have been wounded in nearly every action in which he took part, due, it is said, to the reckless manner in which he exposed himself. He was first wounded at Carnifex Ferry, West Virginia, one of the earliest affairs of the war. His horse was killed and he was thrown from him with a bullet through his leg. Participating in that same conflict with Colonel Lytle, were Colonel Robert L. McCook and Major Rutherford B. Hayes, all of them of the county bar. Colonel Lytle was again wounded at Perryville. The wound was a very severe one and Lytle did not expect to recover. When he was lifted up by one of his men, he said: "You may do some good work yet, I can do no more. I et me die here." He was captured by the enemy and subse- quently paroled and returned to Cincinnati, and was restored to health. He finally received his death wound at Chickamauga. Looking over the battle ground years afterwards, General Rosecrans stopped at a certain point and said: "I was standing here with my staff when Lytle came up at the head of his brigade.
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He saluted as he rode by, and in less than fifteen minutes his horse came gallop- ing back without a rider." Brilliant as was his career as a soldier, Lytle is prob- ably now best remembered as a poet. His verses entitled "Antony and Cleo- patra," have gone around the world with the English language and are still re- cited in the schools. He left a number of other poems, some of which have been published and others which have never seen the light, but there is in all of them that indefinable touch which marks the work of a true poet. He took no pains about them and never published them in any way.
GEORGE E. PUGH
Any discussion of the lawyers of Cincinnati that leaves out of consideration the name of George E. Pugh is incomplete. Although his fame is national as a politician, as a lawyer he achieved even greater distinction. Many citizens of Cin- cinnati have occupied prominent positions in the public mind, but at the bar there has been but one George E. Pugh. He was born in this city in 1822 and gradu- ated at Miami university in 1840. He immediately took up the practice of the law, in which he was very successful. At the beginning of the Mexican war he became a captain of the Fourth Ohio regiment and also served as aide to Gen. Joseph Lane. In 1848 he was elected to the legislature. In 1850 he became city solicitor of Cincinnati. In 1851 at the age of 29 attorney general of the state. He was elected to the United States senate as a democrat in 1855, his term extending from December of that year to March of 1861. His career in that body is a part of the history of the nation. He was very active and soon became a leader of the northern democrats. He was a delegate to the national convention held in Charles- ton in 1860 and made the reply to the celebrated speech of Yancey, pointing out that the northern democracy would not follow the South in its extreme measures. At the outbreak of the war he joined with William S. Groesbeck, Rutherford B. Hayes and others in telegraphing the president the suggestion that General Mc- Clellan be placed in charge at Cincinnati. He made the principal speech in the Vallandigham habeas corpus case in 1863, and in that year was a candidate for lieutenant governor on the ticket with Vallandigham. He was defeated, as he was the following year for congress. He was elected delegate to the state constitu- tional convention in 1873 but declined to act. As an advocate and as an orator he was regarded as without a rival. His intellectual powers matured early in life and for some years his wonderful memory, little short of marvelous, and his power of collecting and using his materials even under the most adverse circum- stances, made him almost invincible. In an argument before the court he was able even without preparation to cite with verbal accuracy decision after decision pertaining to the question in point. He was never at loss for an authority and was equally forcible in his presentation of it. He died July 19, 1876.
The foregoing from Greves Centennial History of Cincinnati states in a brief and forcible way the facts concerning this remarkable man. He had a genius for law and advocacy. His blows to his opponents were lightning-like in their quick- ness and destructive effect, yet he was of a genial and friendly disposition and much loved as well as admired by those who knew him best.
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Edward Alexander Ferguson was a native of New York, born November 6, 1826. In 1830 he came with his parents and an elder brother, William Gribbon Ferguson, to Cincinnati. He received his preliminary education in the public schools and at Talbot's Academy, later entering Woodward College from which he was graduated in the English department in June, 1843. He was admitted to the bar by the supreme court of Ohio in May, 1848, and began practice in the following December, having for the previous eighteen months taught in the pub- lic schools of Cincinnati. From the beginning of his work as a lawyer it was evident that he was destined for leadership and he soon gained recognition as one of the brightest members of the Cincinnati bar. In April, 1852, being then twenty-six years of age, he was elected by the city council of Cincinnati as city solicitor. His first duty was to go to Columbus, Ohio, where the first general assembly under the constitution of 1851 was in session and there he assisted Judge Gholson in drawing up a bill which became the municipal code of Ohio. His term as city solicitor expired in May, 1853, and soon afterwards he was ap- pointed by the commissioners of Hamilton county as their legal adviser, which position he filled for about eight years. In October, 1859, he was elected as a member of the state senate and while in that body drew bills which became laws relating to the city and county government and street railways, and many others. He specialized in corporation law and became recognized as one of the leading corporation attorneys of Cincinnati. He served as general counsel for the Cincin- nati Gas Light and Coke Company for about thirty-three years and was retained as attorney by the Spring Grove Avenue Company, the Stock Yards Company, the Incline Plane Railway Company, the Steam Stoker Company, and also for some years general counsel for the Cincinnati, Hamilton & Dayton Railway Com- pany. He was an indefatigable worker, possessing extraordinary powers of phys- ical and mental endurance which for many years were taxed almost to their limit.
It was his connection with the Cincinnati Southern railway, the only railway owned by a municipality in the United States, which brought Mr. Ferguson most prominently before the public and in the discharge of duties pertaining to this project he found a field for the exercise of his rare talents that could scarcely have been presented elsewhere. He was a member of the original board of trustees of the Cincinnati Southern railway and continued a leading member of the board during the remainder of his life-a period of nearly thirty-seven years. He de- vised the plan upon which the railway was built, being the author of the act passed by the Ohio legislature May 4, 1869, known as the "Ferguson Act," which provided for its construction by the city, which was completed in December, 1879. He was closely identified with the actual construction and ultimate disposition of the railway, and but few details in its history fail to reveal the impress of his ac- tivity. Material interests, political preferment were sacrificed, and a life of high possibilities devoted with rare unselfishness to this one end.
On the 17th of September, 1851, Mr. Ferguson was married to Miss Agnes Moore, a granddaughter of Adam Moore, an early pioneer and a leading mer- chant of Cincinnati, and they became the parents of sons and daughters in whom they took just pride and who live to perpetuate his work and his memory. He died April 20, 1906, in the eightieth year of his life.
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William S. Groesbeck was born in the state of New York on the 4th day of July, 1815, of Dutch and English ancestry. The Groesbeck family are said to have come originally from Amsterdam and were people of much consequence there. The family removed to Cincinnati in 1816 and William graduated at Miami University in 1835, in a class containing a number of men/who afterwards distinguished themselves in public life. Then and afterwards he was known as a painstaking and close student. 'He studied law with Vachel Worthington, and was admitted to the bar in Cincinnati in 1836, where he entered into practice with Charles L. Telford and afterwards with Samuel J. Thompson, with such success that in 1857 he was able to give up the active practice, but he continued to take a lively interest in public affairs and matters relating to his profession. He was a member of the convention which framed the constitution of 1851 and took a large part in the deliberations of that body. He afterwards 'served as a member of the commission to prepare the code of civil procedure, and the work as it came from the commission has been generally regarded as one of the most perfect specimens of legislation ever produced in Ohio. He was elected by the Democrats in 1856 and in 1858 he was reelected to represent the second district of Ohio in congress. In 1861 he was appointed, with Chief Justice Chase and Thomas Ewing, to represent the state of Ohio at the peace convention which as- sembled at Washington on the invitation of the state of Virginia, to devise meas- ures to avert the approaching war. He was an opponent of slavery and a sup- porter of the union before and after the commencement of the Civil war. After the war he said in one of his speeches, "War legislates, and with the legislation of the war we are satisfied." And later, in speaking of the constitutional amend- ments, he said : "Amendments have been made and they will stand." Gradually he had become known to the people of his city as an orator of great power, but he remained so strictly in retirement, and usually took so little part in official life, that his qualifications in that respect were not much known in other com- munities .. But in the year 1868 he startled the whole country by his speech in defense of Andrew Johnson upon the trial of his impeachment before the United States senate. It was everywhere regarded as the ablest of the great speeches made on that occasion and had much to do with the failure of the attempt to impeach the president. It has been spoken of by historical writers as "a masterly argument on the legal questions in the case;" "a clear and forceful presentation of the grounds of defense;" that Mr. Groesbeck was "the most successful in presenting with enormous vehemence of logic and eloquence, the defense of the impeached president." Mr. Justice B. R. Curtis, who was of counsel in the case, spoke of it as "the most finished and complete of all the arguments." It was the speech of a great man and worthy of a great occasion, and ranks high among the greatest speeches ever delivered in the United States senate. As a result, Mr. Groesbeck was frequently spoken of as a proper person for the presidency and for the office of chief justice, and other great offices, none of which were sought by him. He subsequently made occasional speeches of great beauty and power. One of the latest was at the banquet tendered by members of the bar to Mr. Aaron F. Perry upon the occasion of his retirement from practice in the year 1891, in the course of which Mr. Groesbeck rendered a tribute to the memory
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of Abraham Lincoln which was considered something remarkable. He served as a member in the National Monetary Commission, representing the United States in that body, at Paris, and made strong addresses in favor of an agreement among the nations as to a uniform coinage of gold and silver. He died July 7, 1897. A man of great dignity and magnificent presence, he was such a figure as one would imagine proper to appear in the senate in its greatest days.
George H. Pendleton was born of distinguished ancestry in Cincinnati in the year 1825, was educated there and at Heidelberg, Germany, and was admitted to the bar in the year 1846; represented the First District in congress from 1857 to 1865. He was nominated as a candidate for the vice presidency on the ticket with General McClellan in the year 1864 and in 1868 was defeated for the presi- dential nomination by but a few votes in the convention. He was chosen and served as senator from Ohio from 1878 to 1884. During his term in that office he greatly distinguished himself as the author and advocate of the first civil service act passed by congress. He was appointed by President Cleveland as ambassador to Germany in 1885 and died abroad in the year 1889. Few men of higher ideals have served in the legislative bodies of our country. He was popular with all classes and parties, although an unswerving Democrat. His ap- pearance and manners were such that he became known as "Gentleman George," and the soubriquet clung to him throughout life.
THE SUPERIOR COURT OF CINCINNATI.
A court consisting of a single judge and called the Superior court of Cincin- nati was created in the year 1838 and continued to exist down to the time of the adoption of the constitution of Ohio of 1851. The judges who successively oc- cupied the bench of that court were : David K. Este, Charles D. Coffin, William Johnston, Charles P. James and George Hoadly.
After the adoption of the constitution of 1851 the same feeling which had brought the old Superior court into existence led to the creation of the present Superior court of Cincinnati, the act providing for which is dated April 7, 1854. The territorial jurisdiction of the court was confined to the city boundaries, and its jurisdiction in other respects was limited so as to exclude criminal, divorce, and other similar business, as well as minor cases coming up on appeal from jus- tices of the peace. The object for which the court was created was to dispose of civil controversies of the larger sort concerning rights of person and property, and, on the whole, after an active existence of more than fifty years, it seems to have justified the expectations of its founders.
The first election of judges was held on the first Monday of May, 1854, and resulted in the choice of William Y. Gholson, Oliver M. Spencer and Bellamy Storer. Their terms of office were determined by lot and Judge Gholson received a commission for a full term of five years, Judge Spencer for a term of four years, and Judge Storer for three years. The first term of the court began under au- spicious circumstances. The three judges who then qualified and took their seats on the bench were lawyers of much more than ordinary reputation and capacity. An event rare in the history of the American judiciary occurred: the leaders of the bar gave up practice and took seats upon the bench. The firm of Storer &
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