History of Cincinnati, Ohio, with illustrations and biographical sketches, Part 85

Author: Ford, Henry A., comp; Ford, Kate B., joint comp
Publication date: 1881
Publisher: Cleveland, O., L.A. Williams & co.
Number of Pages: 666

USA > Ohio > Hamilton County > Cincinnati > History of Cincinnati, Ohio, with illustrations and biographical sketches > Part 85

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Mr. Longworth was reputed to have died worth twelve millions. He was the father of Joseph Longworth, of the court of common pleas, who has had a long and hon- orable career as a lawyer and judge in Hamilton county.

THE LYTLES.

William Lytle, a captain in the Pennsylvania line in the old French War, was an immigrant to Kentucky in 1779. His son, also William, was a pioneer in southwest- ern Ohio, where he became famous in the border war- fare, and an extensive landholder in Clermont county, where he then resided, and elsewhere. An intimate per- sonal friend of President Jackson, he had no difficulty in obtaining from him the post of surveyor general of public lands. Many of his later years were spent in Cin- cinnati, whither he removed early in this century.

Robert T. Lytle was the son of General William Lytle, and was a native Cincinnatian. He was early admitted to the bar, and gave great promise as a young lawyer; but the attractions of politics and his rare gifts as an ora- tor soon took him into public life and long ruined him as a practitioner. He was but a youth when sent to the legislature, to which he was repeatedly returned, and then twice sent to Congress (the first time when but thirty-two years old) as a Democratic representative from this district. President Jackson made much of him at Washington. He spoke often and well in the house, and achieved national repute. As a stump orator also, he was hardly excelled at that time by any man of his years in the coun- try. Lytle sided with Jackson on the United States bank question, and this led to his defeat in 1834, by Judge Storer. He gave great promise as a lawyer and public man, which was defeated by his early death.

William H., son of Robert T. Lytle, studied law with his uncle, E. S. Haines, and also cultivated literature suc- cesfully. He was an officer in the Mexican war, and held a general's commission in the war of the Rebellion, during which he lost his life in action at Chickamauga.

JUDGE WRIGHT,

in early life a school-teacher, came to Cincinnati in 1816. He was a graduate of Dartmouth college, and was ad- mitted to the bar the following November term of the supreme court of Ohio. He married a niece of Judge Burnet, and succeeded early in getting a good practice. For many years he was distinguished at the bench and bar, and in the Cincinnati Law school. Says Judge Car- ter:

One of the best examples of a real and genuine lawyer of the old school and of the old bar, was Nathaniel Wright. He came in early times from the east to this city, thoroughly educated in academies and in the law. He obtained and maintained a good legal practice for many years, and, unlike some of his fellows, never was diverted from or went out of the way of his professional limits. He was strictly a lawyer and because of this he was reputed and relied upon as a counselor learned in the law, and became the Mentor of many of the lawyers. He was a rigid man in his moral and religious principles, and I doubt if anything was ever said or could be be said against him. His reputation as the soundest and safest of lawyers was much extended, and he was a

MOSSENG 60 NI

J. S. White

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great credit to the bar of early Cincinnati. He was the father of our present D. Thew Wright, lawyer and judge, and good and clever fellow and lived to venerable age, and died recently among us, respected by every one.

PEYTON SHORT SYMMES,

grandson of Judge Symmes, began his career in Cincin- nati. He never made so much figure in law as in lit- erature and public life. In 1817, and for many years afterwards, he was register of the land office here. In 1831-3 he was a member of the city council; 1833-49, an active member of the board of education, preparing some of its 'most elaborate reports; 1830 -- 50, a member of the board of health, exhibiting special activity during the cholera year of 1849. He was a trustee of the old Cincinnati college, and took a lively interest and intelli- gent part in the transactions of the Western College of Teachers and in nearly all the local literary societies of that time. He wrote much and well, as the Carrier's Ad- dress-poetry, of course-for the Cincinnati Gazette of New Year's Day, 1816, and many articles in the Lit- erary Gazette of 1824 -- 5, the Chronicle of 1826, and the Mirror of 1831-5, in both prose and verse. He is said to have had in preparation a biography of his distin- guished ancestor, Judge Symmes; but, if so, the matter prepared has never been recovered. He died July 7, 1861, at the residence of his son-in-law, Charles L. Col- burn, on Mount Auburn.

TIMOTHY FLINT'S VIEW.

The Rev. Timothy Flint, who spent the winter of 1815 -- 16 in Cincinnati, says in his book of Recollections :

At the bar I heard forcible reasonings and just conceptions, and dis- covered much of that cleverness and dexterity in management, which are so common in the American Bar in general. There is here, as else where in the profession, a strong appetite to get business and money. I understood that it was popular in the courts to be very democratic; and, while in the opposite State a lawyer is generally a dandy, he here affects meanness and slovenliness in his dress. The language of the Bar was in many instances an amusing compound of Yankee dialect, southern peculiarity, and Irish blarney. "Him " and "me," said this or that, "I done it," and various phrases of this sort, and images drawn from the measuring and location of land purchases, and figures drawn from boating and river navigation, were often served up as the garnish of thin speeches. You will readily perceive that all this has van- ished before the improvements, the increasing lights, and the higher models, which have arisen in the period that has elapsed between that time and this.

THE LAWYERS OF 1819.

Farnsworth's Directory of 1819, the first issued for Cin- cinnati, gives the following as the entire roll of the attor- neys of that time in the city :

Thomas Clark. William M. Worthington.

David Shepherd.

Francis A. Blake.

William Corry.

Nathaniel Wright.

Elisha Hotchkiss. Nicholas Longworth.

Samuel Q. Richardson.

Samuel Todd.

James W. Gazlay.

Nathaniel G. Pendleton.

Chauncey Whittlescy.

Benjamin M. Piatt.

Richard S. Wheatley.

David K. Este.

Joseph S. Benham.

Thomas P. Eskridge.

David Wade.

John Lcc Williams.

Hugh McDougal.

Stephen Sedgwick.

. Nathan Guilford. Daniel Roc.

Bellamy Storcr.

The names of Judge Burnet and General Harrison are strangely omitted from this list. They were undoubt- edly entitled to enrollment in the Hamilton county bar,

and they have their proper place in the catalogue given by Judge Carter.

Mr. Gazlay came about this year to Cincinnati from New York State, and entered upon a distinguished career in law and politics. In 1824, as a Jackson man, he was elected to Congress over no less a competitor than Gen- eral Harrison, he representing, as his friends put it, ple- beian or popular interests against aristocratic. Having voted, however, against the proposed appropriation from the Federal Treasury as a gift to General Lafayette, then on a visit to this country, Mr. Gazlay was relegated to private life at the next election of Congressman. He practiced but little at the bar after this, but retired to the country and spent much of his time in literary work. He was much respected through a long life, and died at the good old age of eighty-nine.

David K. Este was a graduate of Princeton College, came from New Jersey to Cincinnati about 1813, and was a very successful practitioner here. Mr. Mansfield says he was "a good lawyer, but chiefly distinguished for courtesy of manners, propriety of conduct, and success in business. Like Burnet, he was one of those cool, careful temperaments, which are incapable of being ex- cited beyond a certain point, and who never commit themselves out of the way. An Epis- copalian in the church, a gentleman in society, and a Republican in politics." He lived a long and honored life here, having grown very wealthy through the rise of real estate, in which he had invested the savings of his lucrative practice. He was Judge of the old Superior Court, organized in Cincinnati in 1838; but resigned in 1845, from insufficient salary. He was also for several years presiding Judge of the old Court of Common Pleas. He survived until recent days, dying at last at the age of ninety years.

William Corry was accounted a sound lawyer, and was the first Mayor of the village of Cincinnati, remaining in the office until the village became a city. He, too, was neatly depicted at the hands of the Cincinnati Horace :

Slow to obey, whate'er to call, And yet a faithful friend to all; In person rather stout and tall, In habits quite domestic;

Devaux in clegance is found To run the same unvaried round,

Ne'er groveling lowly on the ground, Nor stalking off majestic.

He was father of the late Hon. William M. Corry, who was an attorney of brilliant talents and a fine orator.

Mr. Hotchkiss was a practitioner of much reputation, a portly man of distinguished appearance, who also be- came Mayor after Cincinnati received a city charter.

Mr. Guilford had some repute as a lawyer, but was . better known in journalism and education, and as a pro- moter of public enterprises.

Mr. Roe, besides being a lawyer, was occasionally preacher to the Swedenborgian or New Jerusalem church, then worshiping on Longworth street.

Mr. Pendleton came at a very early day from Virginia, and in due time married a daughter of Jesse Hunt, the citizen who gave to the county the lots upon which the

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present court house is situated. He was a very reputable practitioner, and became prosecuting attorney. He was a successful candidate for Congress on the Whig ticket in 1840, defeating Dr. Alexander Duncan. A strong re- semblance in personal appearance was noticed between him and Thomas Corwin, on account of his swarthy complexion. He was a thoroughly polite gentleman, and a worthy progenitor of the distinguished Cincinnatians of that family name.

Judge Storer came from Maine in 1817, and had a highly successful career in this part of the west. Mr. Mansfield says "he had a remarkably quick and sprightly mind; also a certain species of humorous wit." In 1825 he was generally taken to be one of the two dozen or more editors of the Crisis and Emporium newspaper, published by Samuel J. Browne. In 1832 he was elected to Congress as a Whig, over Robert T. Lytle, the Jack- sonian candidate. His title was derived from his judge- ship in the new Superior Court of Cincinnati, created in 1854, which post he filled very ably. He was a learned and eloquent advocate, and a very popular man in the community. His services to education here will also be long and gratefully remembered.

Mr. Benham was one of the most remarkable charac- ters at the early Bar. He was father of Mrs. George D. Prentice. Mr. Mansfield says he was "an orator, and few men were more imperial in power and manner." He makes a figure of this kind in the Satires of Horace in Cincinnati:

With person of gigantic size, With thundering voice and piercing eyes,

When great Stentorius deigns to rise, Adjacent crowds assemble, To hear a sage the laws expound In language strange, by reasoning sound, Till, though not yet guilty found, The culprits fear and tremble.

Mr. Benham died somewhat early for his best fame and usefulness. Judge Carter, to whose entertaining book on the Old Court-house we are indebted for the material of most of the above notices, has this to say of him :

The great and convivial Joseph Benham I am reminded of-an elo- quent advocate and an able lawyer. He was a large and portly man, standing near six feet in his shoes, with large head and dark auburn flowing hair, broad shoulders, and capacious and "unbounded stom- ach," covered by a large buff vest and a brown broadcloth frock coat over it, and with a graceful and easy position and delivery. Before a jury he was indeed a picture to look upon. His voice was a deep basso, but melodious, and its ringing tones will never be forgotten by those" who ever heard him. He sometimes spoke on politics out of the bar, in the open air, to his Whig friends and partisans; and then he was always able and eloquent. He was also, I think, an editor of a Whig paper once; but it was at the bar he mostly distinguished himself. He was a Southerner, and had all the manners of the South of the days of yore. On the occasion of the visit of General Lafayette to Cincinnati in the month of May, in the year 1825, Joseph S. Benham was selected by the citizens to deliver the address of welcome to the great American-Frenchman and French-American; and well, exceeding- ly well, did he perform his part of the great ovation to the immortal Lafayette. It was upon the old court house grounds that Benham's great oration to Lafayette was pronounced before the most numerous concourse of people-men, women, and children-of this city and State, and from all parts of the west; and it was pronounced by the multitude, with one accord, that the tribute of genuine eloquence to Lafayette was great and grand, and fully entitled Lawyer Benham to be enrolled among the chief orators of the land. The occasion was certainly a memorable one, and his selection to the position of orator

of the occasion manifests to us in what eminent esteem the eloquence of Benham was held in those early days. He was of national repute .as a lawyer.

TORRENCE.

At this time the president-judge of the court of com- mon pleas was the Hon. George P. Torrence, who had as associates under the old system Messrs. Othniel Looker, John Cleves Short, and James Silvers-these gentlemen not being necessarily lawyers. Of Judge Tor- rence many pleasant things are related. The History of Clermont county, published a few months ago, says of him:

From 1820 to 1822 the dignified and popular George P. Torrence, of Cincinnati, presided with a courtly grace and dignity unequalled, his imposing presence lending charm to his descisions. In 1826 the dignified and popular George P. Torrence ascended the wool- sack and sat as judge for the seven following years; and many of Cler- mont's older people remember with pride his pleasant stories at the hotel when court had adjourned, and his apt way of making and retain- ing friends.

The following notice of another well-known judge, from the same work, may as well be given here:

In 1833 John M. Goodenow presided-a clear-headed jurist from Cincinnati, to which place he had moved sonie two years previous from Jefferson county. He made a splendid judge, and for many years was a leading attorney, and one of the best advocates in Hamilton county.

THE ROSTER OF EIGHTEEN HUNDRED AND TWENTY-FIVE.

The roll of attorneys at the local bar in 1819 num- bered twenty-seven. In six years it had increased nearly fifty per cent., then numbering thirty-nine. But fifteen of the old names, however, re-appear upon this list- those of

Joseph S. Benham,

- William Corry,

David K. Este, James W. Gazlay,

Wm. H. Harrison, sen., Nathan Guilford,

Nicholas Longworth, Nathaniel G. Pendleton,

Benjamin M. Piatt, Hugh McDougal,

David Shepherd,

Bellamy Storer,

Daniel Roe, David Wade, and

Nathaniel Wright.

The new names of 1826 were-

William Brackenridge,

Moses Brooks,

Edward L. Drake, Samuel Findlay,

Charles Fox,

William Greene,

E. S. Haines, Charles Hammond,

Elijah Hayward,

Wm. H. Harrison, jr.,

John Henderson,

Jesse Kimball,

Samuel Lewis, J. S. Lytle,

Jacob Madeira, Samuel R. Miller,

Jacob Wykoff Piatt, Benjamin F. Powers,

Arthur St. Clair, Dan Stone,

Daniel Van Matre, Elmore W. Williams,

Isaiah Wing, and

John G. Worthington.

In 1826, by act of the Legislature, attorneys and coun- sellors-at-law were subjected to a tax of five dollars apiece. This was the occasion of a docket entry in the Court of Common Pleas for Hamilton county, February 20, 1827, which includes the following list of attorneys as then at the bar of the county. This list numbers but thirty-two. Some names in the roll of 1825 are not here; and one new name, that of Mr. D. J. Caswell, appears :

David K. Este, Bellamy Storer, Joseph S. Benham, Nathaniel Wright, David Wade, William Greene, William Corry, Charles Ham- mond, Samuel R. Miller, Nicholas Longworth, Thomas Hammond, Samuel Lewis, Dan Stone, Charles Fox, Elijah Hayward, Jesse Kim- ball, John S. Lytle, f. W. Piatt, N. G. Pendleton, E. S. Haines,

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g. G. Worthington, W. H. Harrison, jr., Samuel Findlay. Moses Brooks, J. Madeira, Daniel Van Matre, Isaiah Wing, Nathan Guil- ford, Benjamin F. Powers, James W. Gazlay, D. J. Caswell, Hugh McDougal.

Republishing this record in his Miscellany in 1844, Mr. Cist is moved to say:

What changes have seventeen years brought in this list! Of the at- torneys, Este, Longworth, Lewis, and Pendleton have retired from pro- fessional business. Stone, Hayward, and Powers have removed from Cincinnati ; Brooks, Wing, and Guilford have changed their profession, and, with the exception of the ten in italics, who still survive, the resi- due are no longer living.

Some remarkable men were in the lists of 1825 and '27. We shall give sketches of two or three of the most prominent :

JUDGE FOX.

The name of Charles Fox, the Nestor of the Cincin- nati bar, appears for the first time in the catalogue of at- torneys in the city directory in that of 1825. He had then been admitted to the bar for two years. He came to the Queen City-an Englishman born, and already in this country some years-about 1820, and labored as a carpenter here for a time. He was also a singing-master, and had considerable knowledge and talent in other de- partment of thought and work. He studied law, was admitted, and soon formed an honorable and profitable partnership with Bellamy Storer, under the firm name of Storer & Fox, which lasted a long time and did a large business. Judge Carter says :

Perhaps there was, and now is, no lawyer who has had and has at- tended to more law business than Charley Fox, as he used to be so familiarly called. I remember the time when he used to be on one side or the other of every important case in court, and he was always re- garded by his brethren of the bar as a wide-awake and sometimes for- midable adversary. His extended experience made him most learned in the law, and particularly in its practice ; and he used to be sought for, for advice and counsel, in many questions of law practice, and the judges of the bench were in the habit frequently of interrogating lawyer Fox as to what was the true and right practice in given cases.

Mr. Fox became one of the judges of the local courts, and served ably and faithfully. He is still in practice, notwithstanding he passed his eighty-third year Novem- ber II, 1880.

CHARLES HAMMOND.

One of the strong men then at the bar here-strong in law as in journalism and everything else he undertook- was Mr. Hammond. He came to the town in 1822 from St. Clairsville, Belmont county, as a full-fledged practitioner, and the next year was made reporter for the supreme court, when that office was created. He retain- ed it until 1838, publishing the first nine volumes of the Ohio Reports, when he retired from the bar. He had already gone into journalism, and finally became absorb- ed in it, and was totally lost to the legal profession. We again take pleasure in referring to Judge Carter for rem- iniscences of him :

In this city he became both lawyer and editor, and he was excellent as cach, or both. He practiced law for a dozen years, perhaps; and then, in the increase of our city and the duties and labors of his news- paper, he relinquished the practice and devoted himself to it alone. He had wit and humor in himself, and was sometimes the occasion of them in others. My friend Mr. Robert Buchanan, of this city, told me this good one of him. Hammond had an important case once in court for him as client and as president of the Commercial bank, the only bank then in the city. The case was a quo warranto against Mr. Bu-

chanan, to find out by what authority he was exercising the functions of president and director of the bank. Mr. Hammond told Mr. Bu- chanan that the law was against him, but he would see what could be done. "You," said Mr. Hammond, "need not appear in court." Mr. Buchanan did not appear, but went "a-fishin'." Case came on, but no Mr. Buchanan present. Hammond moved for a postponement vociferously, but not with purpose to accomplish it particularly-he knew what he was about-on account of a' sence of Buchanan. Oppo- site counsel, not perceiving the cat in the meal, insisted, as Hammond thought he would, on immediate trial, and gained his point. Trial was had; "and now," said Mr. Hammond to adversary counsel, "bring forward your witnesses." He did bring them forward, and proved all he could; but as there was no one except Mr. Buchanan himself to prove the corpus delicti, and he was absent, of course the quo warranto proceeding was thrown out of court, as it ought to have been, being, as it seemed, a piece of spite-work upon the part of some men in- terested against Mr. Buchanan.

After the success, client met Mr. Hammond, his lawyer, to pay his fee. "How much?" "Fifty dollars; but I gained the case by a little pettifogging, which I didn't like at all." Mr. Buchanan handed his lawyer a check for one hundred dollars, and Hammond taking it and looking at it, exclaimed: "What is all this for?" Buchanan replied: "For yourself and your partner, the pettifogger." Hammond, laugh- ing and taking the check: "I shall dissolve with that scamp, and have nothing more to do with him hereafter."

The following anecdote, among others, is related of him by Mr. Roswell Marsh, of Steubenville, who pre- pared and published a pamphlet memoir of Mr. Ham- mond :

About a year before his death, after he had relinquished legal busi- ness, two men called upon him to get his opinion on a case. As a favor to his son-in-law he granted them an interview. When they were seated he turned from his writing-table, raised his glasses on his forehead, and requested them to state their case. It was this:

An honest old farmer in Indiana had loaded a flat-boat on the Wa- bash with produce for New Orleans, and had effected an insurance on the boat and cargo for seven hundred dollars. The boat and cargo had been wrecked and totally lost in descending the Wabash, and the owner had nearly lost his life in strenuous efforts to save his property. It was his all, and reduced him to poverty. He had a family to sup- port, and they must suffer if the insurance was not paid. But the terms of the policy required the owner, in case of loss, to make a pro- test. This, from oversight or ignorance, the old man had not done. The question propounded to Mr. Hammond, on behalf of the insur- ance company, was whether the company would be justified in paying the money. During the statement tears were observed on Mr. Ham- mond's cheeks. When they had concluded, he asked somewhat sharply if they came to him for his opinion expecting to put money in their pockets. This was admitted reluctantly. He then required a fee of twenty dollars, which was paid. Turning to his son-in-law, he said : "Take this money and send it to the orphan asylum." Turning again to the gentlemen, he said: "From your account the man has acted the honest part. My advice is that you go home and do like- wise."

Mr. Hammond made a very notable plea in the case of Osburn et al. vs. United States Bank, which is reported in 9 Wheaton, 738. Hammond was against the bank, and his argument was made before the su- preme court of the United States, of which Marshall was then chief justice. Referring to it, Judge Marshall said that "he had produced in the case the most re- markable paper placed on file in any court since the days of Lord Mansfield," and that he had almost persuaded him (Marshall) that wrong was right in this case.

BENJAMIN F. POWERS

was a brother of Hiram Powers the sculptor. He began practice hopefully, but was soon diverted into journalism as a co-proprietor and principal editor of the Liberty Hall and Cincinnati Gazette, winning far more distinction from his connection with the press than with the bar.

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WILLIAM GREENE

was born in Rhode Island in 1823 or 1824. He was an able and learned man, and did a large business. He be- came somewhat noted for his numerous opinions on points of constitutional law, and was often called "Con- stitutional Billy Greene." Once or twice he was a candi- date for Congress, but unsuccessfully.

E. D. MANSFIELD,

himself educated in part at the Litchfield Law school, then kept by Professors Reeve and Gould, undertook the practice of law in Cincinnati during most of the years between 1825 and 1836, when for two academic years he filled the chair of constitutional law and history in the Cincinnati college. Law and literature, in his case at least, did not thrive well together; and he never made a great figure at the bar. In his book of Personal Memo- ries he says of the associates of his earlier professional career that they numbered not more than forty, of whom three or four were retired from practice. But, he says, "in this small body were several men of mark and influ- ence-men of mind, weight, and character-some of them had influence upon the nation." Jacob Burnet was then reckoned at the head of the local bar.

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History of Cincinnati, Ohio, with illustrations and biographical sketches, Part 85

Author: Ford, Henry A., comp; Ford, Kate B., joint comp Publication date: 1881 Publisher: Cleveland, O., L.A. Williams & co. Number of Pages: 666

Author: Ford, Henry A., comp; Ford, Kate B., joint comp
Publication date: 1881
Publisher: Cleveland, O., L.A. Williams & co.
Number of Pages: 666