USA > Ohio > Henry County > History of Henry and Fulton counties, Ohio : with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of its prominent men and pioneers > Part 43
USA > Ohio > Fulton County > History of Henry and Fulton counties, Ohio : with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of its prominent men and pioneers > Part 43
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Population, property, and therefore sources of litigation increasing in the second subdivision as well as elsewhere in the State, and consequently business in the Court of Common Pleas, in 1878, this subdivision was again divided, and Fulton county was allotted to, and is now a part of the third subdivision of the third judicial district, the other counties in the subdivision being Henry and Putnam, and now constitute the sphere of the judicial labors of Hon. William H. Handy.
In accordance with the provisions of the creative act, to which reference has been made, the first term of the Court of Common Pleas held in Fulton county, was in Pike township, and at the house of Robert Howard, who kept an old-fashioned inn or tavern. Judge Palmer, of Paulding county presided. The attorneys then residing in the county were the Hon. Amos Hill, Lucius H. Upham, and Hon. Reuben C. Lemmon, now a Common Pleas judge of Lucas county, and one of the leading jurists of the State. It being, however, the purpose of this chapter, as its heading imports, more particularly to sketch the character and career of the respective members of the Fulton bench and bar, no description will be attempted either from any slight records that may possibly exist, or any reminiscences that may be gathered, of the first court held in the county, and no reflections indulged as to any contrasts, differences or resemblances, either real or fanciful, between the present means and methods of administering justice and conserving the peace in Fulton county, and what they were nearly forty years ago.
BRIEF SKETCHES OF EARLY AND PRESENT PRACTITIONERS.
Hon. Lucius H. Upham. Immediately following the formation of Fulton county, Mr. Upham located at Delta and opened a law office. He was then in the prime of life, having been born in 1808, at Windsor county, Vt., and receiving a thorough preliminary education for the active business of life at Chester Insti-
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tute, in his native county. He then came to Ohio and located and lived for sev- eral years at Wooster, Wayne county, and in 1841 began studying law with Judge Levi Cox. In 1843 Mr. Upham was admitted to the bar, and for the first six years thereafter practiced his profession at Wooster, from which place he removed to Fulton county. Mr. Upham, R. C. Lemmon and Amos Hill became citizens of the county about the same time. In 1856 Mr. Upham was elected to the Legislature of Ohio, and served one term in the House of Repre- sentatives thereof, his constituency being the counties of Lucas and Fulton.
It was but recently that Mr. Upham withdrew from active business. Though starting in the law somewhat late in life, he has been a successful law- yer. His knowledge of legal principles as exemplified in his active practice, and as counsel, was thorough and profound. He knows well the maxims of the law, and always was apposite in applying them. Of the pleasantest humor, sterling honesty, and manners of kind simplicity, it always has been a pleasure to his brethren to transact the business of the bar and the courts with him. About five years ago quietly and informally he withdrew from the courts, and now is but seldom seen in the haunted places of business activity of any kind, preferring to spend his closing days in the retirement of contemplative quiet.
Mr. Upham was twice married, and his oldest son is an attorney and re- sides in the State of California, but does not practice law, finding other business more congenial.
Hon. Amos Hill. On the 10th day of June, 1850, and within a few months after the legal creation of the county, Hon. Amos Hill became one of its resi- dents, and immediately opened a law office. Mr. Hill still survives, but is not now and for several years past has not been actively engaged in the legal pro- fession owing to ill health. In point of continuous practice he is the oldest attorney in the county. He is a native of Stark county, O., and was born April 4, 1824. Early in life he removed with his parents to Williams county, where he grew to young manhood on a farm, receiving in the meantime a good common school education, and teaching school for a brief period. He studied law with the Hon. S. E. Blakeslie, at Bryan, O., and was admitted to the bar a few months previous to his settlement in Fulton county. He resided at Ottokee, the county seat, until 1870, when he removed to Wauseon, whither the seat of justice had just previously been removed. For the first twenty years of his practice he was recognized as among the very foremost of the attorneys of the Fulton county bar. By nature thoughtful, studious, and pains- taking, and zealous in behalf of any interest intrusted to him, he acquired, and for many years transacted a lucrative professional business. While not brilliant as an advocate, yet he most thoroughly and exhaustively prepared his cases, both as to the law and the facts, which, combined with his soundness of judgment and unfailing rectitude and integrity in all matters entrusted to his professional confidence, gave him marked success both as an office and a trial lawyer.
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HISTORY OF HENRY AND FULTON COUNTIES.
In 1866 he was elected to represent Fulton county in the House of Repre- sentatives of Ohio, where he served his constituents with fidelity and ability for four years, having been re-elected in 1868. He still resides at Wauseon, but, as has been stated, because of his physical infirmities, is no longer en- gaged in active practice, confining himself to office work.
The Hon. Reuben C. Lemmon is a native of Seneca county, N. Y., and is now aged sixty-two years. In his youth he removed to Ohio, and studied law, and was admitted to the bar at Tiffin, Seneca county, this State. At the date of his admission he was twenty-five years old. A year later, in April, 1851, he became a citizen of Fulton county, locating in Pike township, the courts of the county being held there at that time. In 1852 he formed a partnership with Henry S. Commager and went to Maumee city, then the seat of justice of Lucas county. Early in 1854 Toledo became the seat of justice, about which time Mr. Lemmon went to Toledo, where he has since resided. Until 1874 Mr. Lemmon assiduously and very successfully practiced law in Lucas and the adjoining counties, never relinquishing his large business in Fulton county until he became Common Pleas judge at the above date. The judge has been twice married, his first wife dying in 1857. In 1859, at London, Eng., he married an estimable English lady. His son, Charles H., by his first wife, is his only child, and is prominent among the younger members of the Lucas county bar.
Mr. Lemmon was a very successful lawyer, and is a learned and competent judge. But few lawyers or judges have attained the honorable standing that he has occupied for many years, and no attorney at the bar of either Lucas or Fulton county, was, or is more generally and highly esteemed for learning, integrity and solid mental and moral worth than Judge Lemmon.
Michael Handy, esq., one of the most prominent leaders of the Fulton county bar for upwards of thirty years, was not to the "manor born," but came to Lucas county, O., from New York, his native State, in 1840, having previ- ously seen considerable of the world, both in the States and in Canada. He began active life as a school teacher and farmer, having previous to his admis- sion to the bar in 1850, at the mature age of forty years, taught school in many districts in Fulton county, and redeemed a farm therein from the wil- derness. He was a robust, many-sided man, with natural endowments both mental and physical of splendid vigor and activity. He was Fulton county's second prosecuting attorney, succeeding John H. Reid to that office in 1852, the same year of his admission to the bar. In 1886 he died full of years and honors honestly won and maintained. For many years he was associated with his son, Hon. Wm. H. Handy, now judge of the Court of Common Pleas, in law practice, and was a foeman well worthy the steel of the ablest lawyers of Northwestern Ohio. As a jury lawyer he was especially strong. He was a man of the people and knew them, their excellences, their weaknesses, their prejudices. Upon his professional name or his reputation as a citizen, there
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never was blown the breath of dishonorable suspicion or accusation. His wife preceded him to the grave several years, but to his five children who survive him, two of whom were most gallant and meritorious Union soldiers, he left the priceless heritage of a spotless name and a high and honorable professional reputation.
Nathaniel Leggett, one of the earliest members of the bar of Fulton county, died in February, 1862, being then in the prime of life. Of his early career but little can be ascertained. Before the formation of Fulton county he re -. sided in that part of it now embraced in Swan Creek township, where he hunted and cleared the land surrounding him, and engaged somewhat in farm- ing. Making the acquaintance of members of the Lucas county bar at Maul- mee city, he conceived the idea of becoming a lawyer, and with that in view borrowed books of Hosmer and Hall of Maumee city, and in the solitude of the then almost unbroken wilderness of the southeastern part of the county, began and prosecuted his studies, and was admitted to practice early in the fif- ties. His natural qualifications for business were excellent and he was of val- uable service to the company then building the "Air Line" railway in assist- ing to procure the right of way through Lucas and Fulton counties. He was also treasurer of Fulton county two terms. Together with Barber and Sargent he laid out the village of Wauseon, and became the owner of considerable val- uable real estate in the village. Being immersed in matters of general business he never found the time, or so adjusted the circumstances of his life as to devote himself exclusively to his chosen profession. He is spoken of by those who knew him best, as of sterling mental qualities and full of energy and ambition. He contracted the disease which culminated in his death in Kentucky whither he had gone on official business connected with the Union army. His remains were laid to rest in the beautiful cemetery of Wauseon, he being the first per- son buried therein. A modest memorial stone placed there by his old friend and business associate, Col. E. L. Barber, marks the location of his last earthly home.
Hon. Moses R. Brailey is a native of the State of New York, and was born at Ontario county, in that State, on the 2d day of November, 1816. In 1837. having just attained his majority, he started to seek his fortune in the West, as. Ohio was then called, locating in the same year in Huron county. He had been in Ohio but a short time before he began to take an active part in local politics, and his attention was thereby directed to the legal profession as a means, among other objects, of securing prominence and influence. Being en- couraged by his neighbors, who had begun to appreciate his talents and energy, and having received in his boyhood, in New York, the rudiments of a sound English education, which had been supplemented by considerable reading and close observation of human nature, he concluded to study law. In 1840 he en- tered the office of Stone and Kellogg, a leading firm at Norwalk, the county
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HISTORY OF HENRY AND FULTON COUNTIES.
seat of Huron county, and after two years of close application, was admitted to the bar in 1842, and at once opened an office in Norwalk. Devoting himself assiduously to his profession, he soon secured a living business, and in 1852 was elected prosecuting attorney of that county, the duties of which he dis- charged with excellent success. Having real estate interests of considerable value and promise in the then new county of Fulton, in 1857 he removed to that county, and, opening a law office, in 1858 he was elected prosecuting at- torney, and was again elevated thereto in 1860, acquiring also a large civil business in the meantime.
Immediately on the first call of President Lincoln for troops to defend the government from the assaults of armed rebellion, and on the 17th day of April, 1861, Mr. Brailey enlisted as a private in a company which was recruited for, and expected to become, a part of the historic 14th Ohio Volunteers, the first colonel of which was the gallant James B. Steedman. For some reason, known best to the military anthorities of the State, the company was disbanded in June, 1861, without being sent to the field of active military operations. On the 13th of August, 1861, Mr. Brailey again enlisted in the Union army, and was commissioned captain of Company I, in the 38th Ohio Volunteer Infantry, and on the Ist day of January, 1862, was promoted to be major of the regiment. In March, of the same year, by reason of ill health, he was compelled to re- sign ; but devoting all his time and energies to the cause of his country, as soon as his health had been somewhat restored, Major Brailey set about the work of recruiting under the authority of the adjutant-general of the State, and in June, 1862, had raised a company for the 85th Ohio Volunteer Infantry, which was assigned to the duty of guarding rebel prisoners at Camp Chase. In this regiment he held the commission of a captain, but was transferred therefrom in August of the same year, to the IIIth Regiment of Ohio Infantry, with the rank of major, and commanded that regiment in the field until the winter fol. lowing. In January, 1863, Major Brailey was promoted to the lieutenant- colonency of his regiment, and on the report of the Board of Army Surgeons attached to the military department of the Southwest, in January, 1864, he was discharged for disability, having just previously, for meritorious service, been brevetted brigadier-general. Immediately thereafter he was appointed pay agent for the State of Ohio, with headquarters at Columbus, and collected and disbursed over four millions of the money of Ohio soldiers, losing not a cent ; a splendid record and a glittering jewel in Colonel Brailey's crown of earthly honors, and no doubt a precious and consoling remembrance to him in his old age. In addition to his other duties, while acting as pay agent, General Brailey assisted in the organization and equipment of eleven regiments of Ohio troops, for the field. At the State election, in 1865, the patriotic people of Ohio further rewarded the efforts of General Brailey, in behalf of his country, by electing him Comptroller of the State treasury, to which position he was
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again elected three years later, holding that high and responsible office for six years.
In 1872 he returned to Fulton county and resumed the practice of his pro- fession, since which time, until overtaken by the infirmities of old age, and the increasing severities of chronic maladies contracted in the army, he has been active and unceasing in all the varied and laborious work of the profession.
As a lawyer, General Brailey has been somewhat of a specialist, inclining most to the criminal branch of the practice, in which he has shown signal abil- ity, both in the management and advocacy of that class of cases. He is quite familiar not only with the general principles underlying the administration of law, but with the rules of practice as based on the Ohio Code of Civil Pro- cedure, and that large amount of what may be termed judge-made law, or the common law as embodied in the reports of this and other States, and which, as the late Judge Walker said, referring to the reports of England, is nothing less than the stupendous work of judicial legislation. General Brailey possesses a mind naturally ready and clear. For the speeches and arguments of eminent lawyers he always had a great fondness ; and no other attorney in Northwestern Ohio, probably, can so readily and completely summarize the history of, and the legal questions involved in the celebrated trials in this country and England during the last century and a half.
He was married but once, and survives his wife. To them eleven children were born, three of whom are buried by the side of their mother in the quiet country churchyard of the Viers church in Fulton township.
Since the above was written, and on Wednesday, the 18th day of January, 1888, General Brailey was stricken with apoplexy and died at the residence of his son, James S., in Wauseon. He was buried in the family burial lot in the Viers cemetery on January 20, 1888.
Sydenham Shaffer was a native of Ohio, and born in 1829. His father was a prominent Methodist clergyman. In 1865 the subject of this sketch became a resident of Wauseon, and began practicing law. He held, from time to time, different municipal offices, and served one term as mayor of Wauseon. A short time subsequent to his locating in Fulton county he married the only daughter of Elnathan C. Gavitt, prominent in the history of pioneer Methodism in north- western Ohio. On the 2d day of March, 1886, Mr. Shaffer died, leaving his wife, but no children. He did not assiduously devote himself to his profession except as pension attorney and solicitor. He was a man of good natural en- dowments, but his predilections were literary rather than legal.
John W. Roseborough, now somewhat past middle age, has been practic- ing law at the village of Burlington, Fulton county, for about fifteen years Prior to his locating there he was prosecuting attorney of the county two terms, during which time his office was at Ottokee. He has taught school in different parts of the county, and been somewhat engaged in farming. For the
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HISTORY OF HENRY AND FULTON COUNTIES.
past seven years he has been prominent among the leading advocates of the principles of the prohibition party thoughout the State.
Elbridge T. Greenough was a native of New Hampshire, and was born at Boscawen in 1808. He was graduated at Dartmouth College in 1828, and studied law in the office of Ezekiel Webster, a brother of the "godlike Dan." Soon after Mr. Greenough's admission to the bar, and about the year 1830, he removed to Danville, Pa., where he practiced law six years. He then returned to his native State, and embarked in the mercantile business at Saulsbury. In 1860 he came to Wauseon, at which place he engaged in law business and real estate operations until his death, which occurred May 31, 1875.
Mr. Greenough was a man of thorough literary and legal training, but in- terested himself mainly in commercial transactions, speculation, and cases at law of an ex parte nature. The honors of the profession he cared nothing about, and hence he did not achieve that local eminence, the reward of active, successful nisi prius work.
Octavius Waters was of English birth, but left the land of his nativity to become a sailor at the age of fifteen years. He received his education at an institution called Guy's Academy, in Worcestershire. During his career as a sailor he visited many portions of the globe, landing finally at New York city in 1844. Immediately thereafter he came to Ohio and located in Wood county, where he engaged in the work of the Christian ministry, and for several years was known as a devoted and eloquent Methodist clergyman. In 1851 he located in Fulton county, having just previously married, and engaged for a short time in mercantile pursuits at the village of Delta. Occupying all his leisure time for the next five years in legal study, in 1856 he was admitted to the bar, and at once began practicing law at Delta, at that time the most enterprising and populous place in the county. He was prosecuting attorney of Fulton county for two terms, and a representative for one term in the fifty- sixth general assembly of Ohio, and served as a presidential elector at the elections of Grant and Garfield to the presidency. At the date of his death, which occurred at Delta, he was sixty four years old.
Mr. Waters was very prominent as a Mason, and as a Republican politician. His ability as a lawyer, which undoubtedly would have been successful and conspicuous, was sacrificed at the shrine of his shining talents for popular oratory. He was a very brilliant speaker, and as such could ill brook the dire- ful treadmill work and wearisome details of practice. Hence he was little known as a lawyer, and undoubtedly was careless of his reputation for legal ability. Had he loved the law his native and acquired abilities were such as unquestionably would have made him a great lawyer.
William H. Handy. Judge Handy was born in Pike township, Fulton county, on the 29th day of January, 1847, and was the second son of M. Handy, esq. He received his education at the village school, but left home
A LITTLE. PHIL A.
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at the age of sixteen to become a Union soldier. From the summer of 1863 until the close of the war he was at the front and participated with his regiment, the gallant Sixty-seventh Ohio Infantry, in all that stubborn and bloody cam- paign, which, beginning at the Wilderness culminated in the capture of the Confederate capital, and the overthrow of the Rebellion. On his return home he immediately commenced studying law with his father, but completed his studies in the city of Toledo with the Hon. R. C. Lemmen. In 1869 he was admitted to the bar, and was immediately associated with his father in business. From that period until December, 1884, when he was appointed judge of the Common Pleas Court to fill the vacancy occasioned by the elevation of Hon. J. J. Moore to the bench of the Circuit Court, Mr. Handy practiced law in Fulton county, except a brief interval during which he allowed himself to be diverted from his profession by the charms of local journalism, when he edited the Expositor, a weekly newspaper published at Wauseon.
For a clear, comprehensive, ready knowledge of the law, Judge Handy has probably never had a superior at the Fulton county bar, and during his prac- tice was recognized as especially able in the domain of pleading. In 1885 he was elected judge and in that position has given general satisfaction through- out the subdivision and wherever he has been called to preside in the courts of the district. But few of his decisions have been reversed by the Appellate Courts.
Judge Handy is married, and the father of three children.
William C. Kelley was of Irish descent and a native of Hancock county, O). He was born in 1837. His early opportunities to acquire an education were somewhat meager but by strict self denial and perseverance he had accumu- lated a sufficient stock of knowledge to teach school by the time he arrived at man's estate. After teaching several terms in the counties of Hancock and Putnam, he began studying law with Henry Brown, esq., a prominent attor- ney of Findlay, the seat of justice of Hancock county, but relinquished his studies to enter the Union army as lieutenant of a company of Ohio Iu- fantry, which office he resigned and came home by reason of trouble occasioned by the loss of his eye which he had sustained when a boy. Completing his studies at a law college, then in existence at the city of Cleveland, he was ad- mitted to practice in the courts of Ohio, and came to Wauseon, Fulton county, in 1864. Entering upon his profession with energy and vigor he soon secured a large share of the legal business of the county, and rose rapidly to a place among the foremost attorneys of the county. For twenty-one years Mr. Kelley maintained a large professional business, and succeeded in acquiring a very large property. In the midst of his success and activity he was seized with a fatal illness, dying on the 27th day of June, 1885. He was married in 1869 to Miss Minnie Ayers, of Burlington, Ia., who survives him. Mr. Kelly was a shrewd and able lawyer, very prompt in the disposition of his business,
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HISTORY OF HENRY AND FULTON COUNTIES.
and expected others to come strictly up to the mark of his own promptness. and exactness. When the docket was called he was ready. He seldom asked for favors, professional or otherwise, and as seldom conferred them on any one. He had the reputation of being somewhat hasty and harsh, which if true prob- ably arose from the bitterness and hardships of his early and rough experience. He was not a man of polish, and wasted but little time or thought on the pleasant amenities of life. He was careless of the form in which he presented an argument or a pleading and heartily despised sham and pretense, but the substance and the vital points in a case he always held to with a firm and un- relaxing grasp. Tried by his final success, which is the standard of the rough justice of the world, Mr. Kelley may be pronounced to have been an able lawyer.
William W. Touvelle was born at Steubenville, O.,. on May 12, 1847, and is of French extraction. His infancy and youth were spent at Celina, Mercer county, whither his parents removed in 1848. He was educated in the public schools of Celina, and at the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis, Md. Resigning his cadetship there after the expiration of two years, he began the study of law with the Hon. Frank C. Le Blond, of Celina, with whom he re- mained the customary two years, applying himself most assiduously to law, but not entirely neglecting other reading and study. In 1868 he was admitted to the bar, and locating in Fulton county he immediately entered into part- nership with Hon. Amos Hill, at that time one of the most prominent attor- neys in the county.
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