USA > Ohio > Cuyahoga County > Cleveland > Cleveland, past and present; its representative men > Part 20
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MOSES KELLY.
The subject of this sketch was born January 21st, 1809, in the township of Groveland, now county of Livingston, then county of Ontario, State of New York. He was the oldest son of Daniel Kelly, who emigrated from the State of Pennsylvania to Western New York in the year 1797. He is of Scotch-Irish descent in the paternal line, and of German descent on the side of his mother. His great grand- father, on his father's side, emigrated from the North of Ireland to America, early in the eighteenth century, and settled in the State of Pennsylvania, within a few miles of the city of Philadelphia ; his grandfather, born there, was a Revolutionary soldier. Mr. Kelly lived with his father, on a farm in Groveland, until he was eighteen years old, having the usual advantages, and following the ordinary pursuits of a farmer's son.
At the age of eighteen he entered the High School on Temple Hill, in the village of Geneseo, Livingston county, New York, and commenced preparing for college, under the tuition of that eminent scholar and accomplished educator, the late Cornelius C. Felton, who subsequently became President of Harvard University. Mr. Kelly entered the Freshman class at Harvard in 1829, and graduated with his class in the year 1833. He immediately commenced the study of the law, with the late Orlando Hastings, Esq., of Rochester, N. Y., and read three years in his office and under his direction, when he was admitted to practice. He came to Cleveland in the year 1836, and formed a law copartnership with his old friend, college classmate and chum, the Hon. Thomas Bolton; the firm name was Bolton & Kelly. This partnership continued until the year 1851, when S. O. Griswold Esq., who had been their law student, was taken into the firm ; the firm name thereafter being Bolton, Kelly & Griswold. This connection continued until the close of the year 1856, when Mr. Bolton was elected Judge of the Court of Common Pleas. Since Judge Bolton retired from the firm Messrs. Kelly & Griswold have continued the practice of law under that firm name, and are still engaged in the practice.
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Mr. Kelly has made commercial law and equity jurisprudence his special studies, and in these branches of the law his great skill and learning are acknowledged by all his brethren. Indeed, as an equity lawyer he stands at the head of the profession.
It will be seen from the year 1836 until the present time, Mr. Kelly has devoted himself closely to the practice of the law; the only interruption to this was a two years service as State senator in the legislature of Ohio during the years 1844 and 1845. He was elected to the senate by the Whig party of the counties of Cuyahoga and Geauga, these two counties then composing one senatorial district. During the first session of the General Assembly, of which he was a member, the Democrats had a majority in the Senate while the Whigs had the control of the lower house. As is usual when a legislature is thus politically divided, no measures of general interest were adopted. But there happened during that session to arise a question which showed Mr. Kelly's independence, and true character. The Democracy had made complaint of the Whig extrav- agance and laid great claim on their own part to retrenchment and economy in the State administration. The Whigs to make political capital, proposed a bill reducing the salaries of all State officers ; the salary of the Judges was put at $750 per year and the pay of all other State officials in the same ratio. The measure was adopted by the party caucus, and was carried through the lower house.
It was hoped by many that the Senate, being Democratic. would defeat the bill, and thus the Whigs would have credit for great economy at the expense of the Democrats. But when it came to that body, the Democracy, not to be out done by their opponents, favored the bill.
Mr. Kelly, singly and alone of all his party, opposed the measure, .and spoke and voted against it. The bill was finally carried but was repealed in the course of a year or two afterwards ..
The most prominent subject before the legislature at the second session was the establishment of a suitable banking system for the State. The business men of Cleveland were in favor of free banks, but the great body of the Whig party were strongly in favor of a State Bank and branches, and having a majority in both houses in the session of 1845 were determined to establish that system. Mr. Kelly succeeded in engrafting upon the State Bank scheme the Independent Bank system, with State stocks pledged to secure the circulation, and also in adding additional checks and safeguards to the State Bank. His efforts in this direction were duly appreciated
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by his constituents, and at a public meeting, called by the principal business men of the city, irrespective of party, his action on the Bank bill was specially approved.
It is to be observed also that the present National Bank system is modeled after the plan of free banking advocated by Mr. Kelly at that time.
During the same session a question arose in which Mr. Kelly took an active part, in opposition to the great body of his party, the event of which vindicated his sagacity and practical statesmanship. The question was upon a bill to grant to the Ohio Life and Trust Company authority to issue bills to circulate as currency, to the extent of half a million of dollars. At the time this bill was introduced no banking system had been adopted by the legislature: most of the charters of the old banks had expired prior to that time, and the State was with- out an adequate bank circulation of its own. The chief stockholders and managers of that corporation were men of high character and great wealth. The company had been successfully managed, and its credit was then deservedly high. Also the principal men of the company were leading Whigs, among these were Judges Jacob Burnett and John E. Wright of Cincinnati, Nathaniel Wright of Cincinnati and Alfred Kelley Esq., who was also at the same time a member of the senate from the Franklin district, and this application on the part of the company was backed by the presence and personal influence of these gentlemen. The plea made by this company for this additional banking privilege was exceedingly plausible, and the measure was approved in a caucus of the Whig members almost without inquiry. The bill was introduced into the Senate by the Hon. Alfred Kelley, and its success was considered certain. Mr. Moses Kelly, alone of his party, expressed his opposi- tion to the bill. Urged as the measure was by so many leading men, and introduced by the acknowledged leader of the party, it seemed that such opposition must be fruitless. But on the third reading of the bill Mr. Kelly attacked it in a speech of great vigor, and strength of argument. He opposed it as unjust towards any banking system that might be established and as unwise in giving additional privileges to an already powerful corporation. But he opposed it chiefly because it gave to the corporation power to issue bills as money simply on individual security. Ile contended that whenever the State permitted any corporation or organization to issue bills to pass as money the faith of the State should be pledged to their ultimate redemption. While paying a high compliment to the
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ability and integrity of the managers of the Ohio Life and Trust Company, he declared there was no security but what in the future it might pass into the control of Wall street shavers and brokers, and from thence to ruin, and the people of the State left remediless with a worthless circulation in their hands. His vigorous opposition, and the strength of his argument awakened the attention of the party to the evils of the measure, and notwithstanding its powerful backing, the bill was effectually killed by Mr. Kelly's speech.
Mr. Alfred Kelley was greatly grieved at the failure of this measure. He however lived to see his error, and the ruinous failure of that company through the recklessness of the Wall street manage- ment into whose hands, as had been predicted, that company finally fell. Judge John C. Wright, now in Columbus, advocated the aforesaid measure. He was then the senior editor of the Cincinnati Gazette, and the influence of his paper was given to the bill. Although old, he was in the full enjoyment of his powers of intellect, and at that time wielded a great influence in the political affairs of the State. It happened that he was present in the senate chamber when Mr. Kelly made his speech against the bill ; although chagrined at the defeat of the measure in which he had such personal interest, so struck was he with the originality and force of the argument of Mr. Kelly, and with his independence of character, and ability to rise above mere party considerations in his legislative career, that he sought Mr. Kelly's personal acquaintance, and during the remainder of his life there existed a warm personal friendship between them.
At the expiration of his term of service Mr. Kelly returned to the practice and ever since has devoted his energies to his profession. The office of Bolton & Kelly has been the school of many prominent lawyers. Among the members of the Cleveland Bar who studied under them are Messrs. F. T. Backus, George Willey, John E. Cary and his present partner, Mr. Griswold. Mr. Kelly was City Attorney in the year 1839, and a member of the City Council in 1841. While he was in the Council he was active in support of the Lake Shore improvement, which stopped the rapid encroachment of the Lake upon the shore in front of Lake street.
In 1849, Mr. Kelly was appointed by the legislature one of the Commissioners of the city of Cleveland to subscribe on behalf of the city to the capital stock of the Cleveland & Pittsburgh Railroad Company. He accepted the trust, and for a number of successive years thereafter, until the stock of the city in that road was disposed of, was chosen a Director of the Cleveland & Pittsburgh Railroad
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Company, to represent the interests of this city in the capital stock of that company.
In September, 1866, he was appointed by President Johnson Di-triet Attorney of the United States for the Northern District of Ohio, and held the office until the next March, not having been confirmed by the Radical senate for the reason that he had been a member of the Philadelphia Convention of the previous summer.
On the organization of the City Bank of Cleveland under the law of 1545, Mr. Kelly became a stockholder therein and was a director, and its attorney, during its existence, and has continued in the same connection with the National City Bank which succeeded the former. lle also for a number of years has been a director and attorney of the Cuyahoga Steam Furnace Company.
Mr. Kelly was one of the organizers of St. Paul's Episcopal church, and has always remained a liberal supporter of the same.
He was married in the year 1839 to Jane, the daughter of Gen. Hezekiah Howe, of New Haven, Conn.
In 1850, Mr. Kelly purchased a tract of about thirty acres, being a part of what was then known as the "Giddings farm," fronting on Euclid avenue, a short distance East of Willson avenue. Here he soon after erected a tasteful dwelling, where he has since resided. and where in the leisure snatched from professional avocations he has gratified his taste for horticultural and agricultural pursuits.
In person Mr. Kelly is tall and spare, and dignified in demeanor. and although he has reached three score, he is still active and in good health. His character for integrity is unblemished and in his long professional career has never been known to uphold or defend a dishonorable cause. His rule has been to decline advocating causes which, in his judgment, have neither merits nor justice. In social intercourse he is affable and genial, and in public, private and professional life, has always commanded the respect, esteem and confidence of his fellow men. Firm in his convictions of duty, and resolute in doing it, yet so respectful and courteous to opponents is he that he may be said to be a man without an enemy.
The great rise in real estate and his professional earnings have rendered Mr. Kelly, if not what in these days would be called wealthy, comparatively rich, and surrounded, as he is, by an affec- tionate family and kind friends and possessed of all the enjoyments which culture and a successful life brings, we trust he may long continue amongst us.
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THOMAS BOLTON.
It has been said of history, that it should never venture to deal except with periods comparatively remote. And this was doubtless true when literature was venal, or in any way subservient to royal or to party power.
It has been alike suggested of biography, that it cannot be securely trusted in the portrayal of the living. And this is no doubt true where political or partisan objects are sought to be subserved. But with this exception the most faithful portraits may naturally be expected where the subjects of them are before us, and familiarly known to us. And so that the hand refrains from those warmer tints which personal friendship might inspire, and simply aims at sketches which the general judgment may recognize and approve, the task, however difficult, cannot be said to be unsafe.
Thomas Bolton was born in Scipio, Cayuga county, New York, November 29th, 1809. His father was an extensive farmer in that section of western New York, where rich fields, and flowing streams, and beautiful scenery, are happily combined.
At seventeen he entered the High School on Temple Hill, in Geneseo, where he fitted for college; and in the Fall of 1829, he entered Harvard University, where he graduated in 1833, the first in his class in mathematics. In this connection, it is pleasant to advert to the fact that his most intimate schoolmate, classmate and fellow graduate, was Hon. Moses Kelly, who was afterwards his partner in the law for many years at Cleveland, and that between the two from boyhood down to the present day, there has been a steadfast and unbroken life-friendship almost fraternal, both now in atlluence, but still living side by side. Such life-long friendships are unusual, but whenever they do exist, they imply the presence in both parties of true and trusty qualities which preserve their character as pure cement, exposed to any atmosphere, or tried in any furnace.
After graduating, Mr. Bolton entered upon the study of law at Canandaigua, in the office of John C. Spencer, now deceased, but then a strong and distinguished name in the profession. At the end of a year he came west, to seek a permanent location to further
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pursue his studies and enter upon the practice, first stopping at Cleve- land, on finding that any further west was hardly within the pale of civilization. Cleveland itself was then, September, 1834, but a mere village, of about twenty-five hundred inhabitants. Superior street had not been graded, and at its western terminus was higher than the first story of the Atwater Block, and the bank of the lake ex- tended fifteen rods out beyond the present Union Depot. The village did not become a city till 1836, when at a public meeting to determine upon the corporate limits, Mr. Bolton was appointed on a committee to draft the charter, and urged that both sides of the river should be embraced, but was overruled, and Ohio City was established on the other side of the river as a sort of rival, but since consolidated with Cleveland. His connection with city affairs was renewed as Council- man in 1839, and as Alderman in 1841.
But to go back to his professional life. Having studied law in the office of James L. Conger, at Cleveland, for a year, he was admitted to the Bar in September, 1835, by the Supreme Court of Ohio, on the Circuit, Chief Justice Peter Hitchcock, that Nestor among judges, then presiding. He was in partnership with Mr. Conger for a year, when he bought him out and sent for his old college friend, Mr. Kelly, with whom he formed a partnership, which continued until the Fall of 1856, a period of twenty years, when he was elected to the Bench.
As bearing upon his political career, it may be narrated, that in the Fall of 1839, he was elected prosecuting attorney of the county, at which time the Whig party was largely in the ascendancy, com- manding from 1,500 to 2,000 majority, though he was a Democrat and nominated by the Democrats for the office. Two years later, at the expiration of his term, he was strongly solicited by both parties to take the office another term, but declined in consequence of the inadequacy of the salary.
An incident occurred during his teri as prosecuting attorney which had a marked effect upon the politics of Cleveland and its vicinity. Up to 1841, slave-owners were in the habit of sending their agents to Cleveland and causing their runaway slaves to be arrested and taken before a magistrate, when a warrant would be obtained to return the slave, and he would be carried back into slavery. All this was done openly and publicly, creating little or no excitement, and Mr. Bolton, in the practice of his profession, was more frequently employed for this purpose than any other attorney in the city. In the Spring of 1841, three negroes, who were claimed as slaves, had run away from New Orleans and were in Buffalo. The agent of their
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master applied to a law firm in Cleveland for assistance. At that time, slaves arrested in Buffalo were in the habit of claiming a trial by jury, which was granted. To avoid a jury, with its sympathies, it was thought advisable to get the negroes into Ohio, and, accordingly, one of the attorneys, the agent and a negro of Cleveland, repaired to Buffalo. On their return the three negroes came with them, and it was said they had been kidnapped. On their arrival at Cleveland, the negroes were arrested under the law of Congress as fugitives from service, and lodged in the county jail. This information coming to the ears of the few Abolitionists then in the city, among others the late Hon. Edward Wade and Hon. John A. Foot, lawyers at the time in full practice, they applied to the jailor for admission to con- sult with the negroes. But public opinion was so strongly prejudiced against the Abolitionists that neither the jailor nor the sheriff would permit any of them to communicate with the prisoners. Accidentally, a colored man inquired of Mr. Bolton if he would take up their defence. He readily assented, and being prosecuting attorney of the county, and it being well understood that he was not an Abolitionist, the doors of the jail were readily opened to him, and he immediately made preparations for a vigorous defence of the prisoners. A writ of habeas corpus was immediately applied for to Judge Barber, one of the associate judges at the time; the negroes were brought before him, and their case continued for ninety days, to prepare for a defence.
When it was known about town that Mr. Bolton had undertaken the defence of the negroes, great indignation was excited, and many threatened to tear down his office, and to use violence toward his person. This only aroused him to greater energy and effort in behalf of the prisoners. In the meantime indictments were procured in Buffalo against the alleged kidnappers, and the excitement in the city greatly increased, so that on the day of the trial the court-house was packed with people. After an investigation, which lasted two days, the court discharged the defendants and they went acquit.
From the iniquitous proceeding in the case, and the manner in which it was prosecuted, and the excitement it produced, the com- munity was led to reflect upon the iniquity of the system and the oppression of the law; and from that day till the slave-girl Lucy was sent back into Virginia slavery, in 1862, (to appease, it is said, the wrath of the rebels, ) not a negro was sent back into slavery from the city of Cleveland, or county of Cuyahoga.
Mr. Bolton left the Democratic party in 1848, or, as he claims, it
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left him when it adopted its national platform of that year. He then joined the Free Soil party, and was a delegate to the Buffalo Conven- tion, and one of its secretaries. In February, 1856, he assisted in organizing the Republican party at the Pittsburgh Convention, and in the Summer of the same year was a delegate from this Congress- ional District in the Philadelphia Convention, which nominated Fremont and Dayton.
When he was admitted to the Bar, the Court of Common Pleas, under the old Constitution, consisted of four members, a president judge and three associates, elected by the Legislature, and the Su- preme Court of the State consisted of four judges, also chosen by the Legislature. A session of the Supreme Court was held by two of its members once a year in each county, and three sessions a year were held by the Court of Common Pleas in this and the adjoining coun- ties. In 1835, IIon. Matthew Birchard, of Warren, was president judge. He was succeeded by Hon. Van R. Humphrey, of Hudson, and he by Hon. John W. Willey, of Cleveland, who died during his term. Hon. Reuben Hitchcock was appointed by the Governor to fill the vacancy, and Hon. Benjamin Bissel, of Painsville, was elected by the Legislature during the next session. Hon. Philemon Bliss, then of Elyria, and now Supreme Judge of Missouri, was afterward elected, and his term was cut short in 1851, by the adoption of the new Constitution, under which the judges were elected by the people for the term of five years. Hon. Samuel Starkweather was the first judge elected under the new system, and in 1856, Mr. Bolton was chosen his successor. In 1861, he was unanimously renominated and elected witnout opposition, and in 1866, at the expiration of his second term, he retired from the Bench and the Bar.
We thus complete our outline sketch of the professional, judicial, and political career of one of our most prominent and respected citizens.
He came to the Bar of Cleveland before Cleveland was a city, and entered upon practice with that force and earnestness which were the ruling elements of his nature. He had able competitors, but he was a strong man amongst them. His promptness in the courts was proverbial. He was always ready, and if he granted indulgences he never asked for any. He was less given to books than his partner, Mr. Kelly, who was the student and chancery member of the firm. but in the ordinary departments of the common law and in criminal practice, he was always at home. He prepared his causes with the most thorough premeditation of the line of his own evidence.
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and of all the opposing evidence that could possibly be anticipated. Hence he moved with rapidity and precision, and was never taken by surprise. His arguments were not elaborate, or studied in point of finish, but they were strong, downright practical, and to the point. In this sense he was a fine and effective speaker to courts and juries.
These same characteristics he exhibited upon the Bench. Hardy and vigorous in his perceptions and understanding-thoroughly versed and ready in the law of pleadings and evidence-bringing to bear on the civil code, the logical training of the common law sys- tem-his ten years of service as a judge were honorable to himself and valuable to the public. In all the phases of his career and life he has been thoroughly upright.
Retired upon an ample fortune, amassed by forecast and business energy-fond of his home, and devoted with entire liberality to the education of his children-independent of office and in all other ways-strong and robust as ever in person and in mind-he is still a power in any direction wherever he chooses so to be. His broad, projecting brow, his direct and forcible speech and bearing. symbolize his character. They assure you of vital energy, strong, practical comprehension, directness and will. He may have more of the " fortiter in re," than of the " suaviter in modo," but all who know him have faith in his truth, implicit reliance upon the hearty fidelity of his friendships, and assurance, that he is always loyal to his convic- tions, both in public and in private life.
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JAMES M. HOYT.
Several years since, the writer of this was in conversation with a poor man who had a hard struggle with misfortune and sickness in his attempt to rear a large family, and secure them a humble home- stead. In the course of conversation the name of James M. Hoyt was mentioned, and the poor man was inquired of who that gentle- man was. " Lawyer Hoyt?" he replied, "why he's the honest lawyer, God bless him!" He who could acquire this title among the poor must be no ordinary man.
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