History of Summit County, with an outline sketch of Ohio, Part 54

Author: Perrin, William Henry, d. 1892?; Graham, A. A. (Albert Adams), 1848-
Publication date: 1881
Publisher: Chicago, Baskin & Battey
Number of Pages: 1104

USA > Ohio > Summit County > History of Summit County, with an outline sketch of Ohio > Part 54

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When the writer returned to Ravenna he inquired of Mr. Coolman. the hotel keeper, the name of his fellow-passenger. remarking that he had been very pleasantly entertained by him, and had set him down as a man of mark who had traveled considerably with his eyes and ears wide open. Mr. Coolman, who *By Judge James S. Carpenter and Dr. Alvin K. Fouser.

was himself an invaluable treasury of what open eyes and ears could gather up, smiled at the remark and replied: "That gentleman, sir, is Gregory Powers. He is becoming a very distinguished lawyer, and is, in truth, a rising man: but as to his traveling. he was born and brought up here in the woods, and I doubt whether he was ever out of Ohio." It is true that he had then seen little of the world out- side of Ohio; and that his acquaintance had rarely extended beyond the Western Reserve.

In his profession, Mr. Powers was not a voluminous reader. His library was not at all extensive, and his reading was mostly element- ary. His practice at the bar was earnest. grave, strictly honorable and always courteous. Ad- vocates had not in those days acquired the art of inspiring jurors by blowing in their faces. They stood at a distance of six or eight yards from the jury-box, and maintained a manliness of deportment superior to the more recent practice.

But it was not oratory that most distin- guished the forensic efforts of Mr. Powers. It was his ability by quick and clear analysis to disentangle the most covert and complex transactions among men, and follow them to their legal consequences. And it was matter of curious observation to a listener that his high tension of voice and feeling was more frequent and intense in his arguments to the court on some abstract point of law. than in unraveling facts to the jury. In the latter case, his highest ascents of voice and manner were more mild and of a more even tenor, intensely pressing the high claims of right and justice He was born in the township of Stow, then in Portage County, in 1805. His father was a native of Naples, Italy, and had been a sea captain. His mother was a lady of Middletown, Conn .. and died in 1811. Some-

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time after his mother's death, Gregory entered Burton Academy and continued there two years, making rapid progress in all studies which he took in hand, being especially distinguished in Latin and still more in mathematics. On leaving the academy he began the study of law, in the office of Judge Van R. Hum- phrey, in Hudson. As a student at law, Judge Humphrey said he was not a rapid reader. He habitually quarreled with what he was reading-turned back and read over and over again, till he was master of the text, and thus reconciled it to his sense of right as he went along.

In 1832, Mr. Powers was elected by the Clay men and Anti-Masons of Portage County, to the House of Representatives of Ohio. In 1833, he was a candidate for re- election, but political alternations had fixed that year for the Democratic party, and Mr. Powers was succeeded by Roan Clarke. In 1838, Mr. Powers was elected by the Whigs to the Senate of Ohio. In both branches of the Legislature his course was marked by the same high ability which had given him such eminence at the bar. He came home from the Senate apparently overworked and suffering at the heart, which brought him to his death at the age of thirty-four, July 10, 1839, end- ing a career, which, had it continued to the common limit of old age, must have set him among the loftiest characters of our country.

Van R. Humphrey was born at Goshen, Conn., July 28, 1800. His educational train- ing was wholly at the common school of his native place, but it seems to have been so thorough that he became a successful teacher of a common school while in his teens. At what time he commenced the study of law is not ascertained, but a certificate of The- odore North, attorney and counselor at law, dated Goshen, May 11, 1821, says: "He pur- sued his course of legal studies in my office with uncommon attention and diligence." A copy of the record of the Court of Common Pleas of Litchfield County, Conn., duly certi- fied by Frederick Wolcott, Clerk, shows that in September, 1820, he was admitted an attorney and counselor at law before all the Courts of Common Pleas in Connecticut.

April 17, 1821, he was married to Stella

Beach, of Goshen, and settled in Hudson, Ohio, the same year, where he continued his residence through life. An official certificate of S. Day, Clerk, shows that at a term of the Supreme Court of Ohio, on the 1st day of July, 1822, present the Hon. Calvin Pease and Peter Hitchcock, Judges, Van R. Hum- phrey was duly examined, admitted and sworn as an attorney and counselor at law and solicitor in chancery, within the State of Ohio. In 1824, he was elected, commissioned and qualified as Justice of the Peace for the township of Hudson. December 26, 1828, he was admitted to practice in the District Court of the United States, within the State of Ohio. In the year 1828, he was elected to the House of Representatives of the Legislature of Ohio, and was re-elected to the same office in 1829. He was elected by the Legislature of Ohio President Judge of the Court of Common Pleas of the Third Judicial District for the term of seven years, beginning in 1836 and ending in 1843.

From 1830, or perhaps a little earlier, till Judge Humphrey took his seat upon the bench, he and Gregory Powers were pitted against each other in most of the important cases in Portage and Medina Counties. They were both men of commanding presence, yet stand- ing at the opposite extremes of manly dignity and beauty. Powers tall, lithe and excitable, yet always self-possessed. Humphrey cool and imperturbable, tall, large, though not unwieldy or fleshy, but full and rounded out at every point -a manifest embodiment of muscular strength. His manner was deliberate; his voice loud, clear, of large compass and never harsh. His sarcasm, not frequent, and seeming ever to be held back in reserve, and never sought after, always hit its mark. His humor was inex- haustible and spontaneous, and his wit forth- coming at will. His imagination was splendid, but would have been improved by early disci- pline. His arguments were not distinguished for consecutive reasoning, but they seemed to be guided by a kind of insight into the essential elements of his case, so that, if his imagina- tion at any time outstripped his logic, there was an inner light that still lured him back to the essential points which he seldom failed I so to group together and enlighten as to give

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them effect. While Powers went directly to the leading points of his case and pressed them to their inevitable sequence, Humphrey swept in much of the surrounding mass, which, under his glowing imagination, took the color of his leading points. In a word, Judge Humphrey had just that broad foundation for a mental structure which early intellectual training would have made more readily avail- able for logical argument.

And yet, as Judge of the Court of Common Pleas, his decisions were remarkably correct. His quick and penetrative insight stood him in good stead there. His invariable kindness and impartiality, and the apparent ease with which he disposed of business, gave to his administration a general and hearty approval.

Christopher P. Wolcott was born in 1821, probably in Steubenville, Jefferson Co., Ohio. His father removed from Connecticut to that place some time prior to that date, it is believed. However, that may be, Steubenville was the home of his childhood and youth. His education, which was thoroughly classical, was received at several institutions, but lastly, at Jef- ferson College, Pennsylvania. He studied law under the Hon. Edwin M. Stanton, our distin- ; guished Secretary of war during the rebellion. In the spring of 1846, he formed a partnership with W. S. C. Otis, Esq., of Akron, to which place he immediately removed his residence. The chief indications he then gave of the eminence which he afterward attained, were his accurate knowledge of legal principles, the complete- ness of whatever pleading or other written document came from his hands, and the very careful preparation of his briefs. It was apparent that he distrusted himself before a jury and felt far more confidence in his ability to address the court. In truth, diffi- dence of his own powers was then his besetting impediment. Indeed, it was not till he had toiled under tortured sensibilities through a busy and laborious practice of several years that he had so shaken off this nightmare as to give full play to his forensic powers. He had given proof in many cases of ability to go through an extended statement of logical inferences with extraordinary clearness and force on questions of law, yet his efforts before a jury had always seemed constrained ,

and painful. But at length in the libel case of Wilson vs. Blake, in Common Pleas, Novem- ber term, 1852, he broke entirely away from his self-consciousness, and abandoned himself with burning energy to the full flow of a warm imagination. The court and bar were taken by surprise, and the verdict showed that noth- ing had been wasted on the jury.

The trial of Parks for murder, in December, 1853, was the next occasion that aroused the energies of Mr. Wolcott to their highest pitch. For him it was simply a medium of thought; and in his handling it became as transparent as the air. But the argument which stands, and forever must stand, as the monument of Mr. Wolcott's intellectual power and of his high attainments as a lawyer, was delivered as Attorney General of Ohio before the Judges of our Supreme Court at Chambers on two writs of habeas corpus, in the cases ex parte Bushnell and ex parte Langston, in May, 1859. It is reported in 9 Ohio State reports, page 97, covering eighty-three pages.

In the summer of 1856, Mr. Wolcott was appointed Attorney General of this State by the Governor, to fill a vacancy in that office occasioned by the death of F. D. Kimball. He was elected to the same office in 1857, and continued to discharge his duties with distin- guished ability until February, 1860. On the breaking out of the rebellion in 1861, the en- listment of volunteers for the military service was an easy matter. . But in a movement so sudden, so extensive and multitudinous, it was no easy matter to bring order and system out of chaos and irrepressible haste and confusion. In this emergency, Mr. Wolcott spent much of that year in aiding Gov. Dennison to regu- late and systematize the military operations of our State. Early in 1862 his brother-in-law, Hon. Edwin M. Stanton, having been appointed Secretary of War, Mr. Wolcott was appointed Assistant Secretary of War. It would be super- fluous to speak of the labors which the war of the rebellion imposed upon that department of the Government. Mr. Wolcott's sleepless de- votion to his official duties-the indefatigable energy with which he plied both mind and body in that service, soon wore him out. He died in the summer of 1862, a martyr to his country's cause.

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Isaiah Humphrey, after serving a term in the United States Army in fighting Indians and passing through the various vicissitudes of guarding our Western frontiers, settled down upon a farm in the township of Boston, somne fifteen miles from Akron. In the process of clearing up his land and applying his labors as a new farm exacts them of a husbandman, he thought there were minutes and interstices of time, which without damage to his agriculture, he could devote to the enlargement of his inind. He had a retentive memory, was a nat- ural humorist, had a keen sense of the ludi- crous, a perpetual fountain of ready wit, a rare knack at narration whether of anecdotes or of sober facts, and a good understanding, which, with persevering effort, could be disci- plined for logical reasoning. Here was a foundation for a lawyer. The distance of his residence from the county seat and its proxim- ity to the Ohio Canal where law-suits within a justices' jurisdiction were necessarily frequent, would of course often put in requisition a com- bination of such mental qualities in aid of dis- tressed litigants. Amid importunities of this kind, Mr. Humphrey took up the study of the law under his brother, Judge Van R. Humphrey, of Hudson. Meanwhile his farm and his family occupied his time as usual. His legal studies having been pursued some miles from Judge Humphrey's office, it very naturally happened that on his admission to the bar he found himself much abler in the general prin- ciples of the law than in matters of legal practice, which require skill that comes only with use.

It followed, of course, that in the Common Pleas Mr. Humphrey's pleadings were often defective and involved in perplexities. But his impurturbable coolness, good nature and tact got the better of them with occasional loss of time, which to the court and bar was amply com- pensated by the interludes of wit and humor that seemed to flash out in proportion as per- plexities thickened. He did not leave his farm, but with his farming went through many a lively wrangle in his profession. He died about April, 1877, sincerely lamented by his brethren of the bar.

Wolsey Wells' card is found in the Portage Journal then published at Middlebury in 1827,

giving notice that he had opened a law office at Akron in the hotel. The same paper informs us that the first boat on the Ohio Canal reached Akron July 2, 1827, having on board Gov. Trimble on his way to celebrate the opening of the canal to navigation, at Cleveland on the 4th of July. Gov. Trimble was welcomed to Akron in a speech by Wolsey Wells, Esq. In 1835, Mr. Wells was in law practice in company with Harvey Birch, Esq., at Elyria. After some years, practice at Elyria, he migrated to one of the northwestern coun- ties of Ohio, as agent of the State for the sale of public lands. It is reported that he died there a few years since. He was a lawyer of fine abilities and the strictest integrity. He took an active part in the anti-slavery and temperance reforms, in which he was out spoken and disdained all compromise.

George Bliss was a native of Vermont and came to Ohio quite young. He commenced the study of law about 1841, in the office of Hand & Cartter, and was admitted to the bar about 1843. His examination for admission was, with several other candidates, in the Su- preme Court at Medina; and his thorough understanding of legal principles and practice was remarked on by the committee in their retirement as pre-eminent among the candi- dates, and as the harbinger of certain success in his profession. He very soon rose to dis- tinction and formed a partnership with D. K. Cartter (now Judge of the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia), their office being in Akron. He had a voice of remarkable smoothness. It was of the kind which Cicero seems to have meant by his vor argenteu. It was a ringing, metallic voice, sliding through gradations so easily and coming forth in full volume with such apparent spontaneity, that it never wearied the hearer however long con- tinued.

A vacancy occurring in the Common Pleas judgeship of this district in 1850, Mr. Bliss was a candidate for election to that office by the Legislature of 1849-50. There were two other candidates. After numerous fruitless votes were taken, no candidate having received a majority, the Legislature gave the election the go by, and adjourned leaving the vacancy unfilled. The Governor of Ohio being then of

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the Democratic party, appointed Mr. Bliss to the office. The short time he held it was long enough to fix the general opinion of the bar that his administration of it, if continued for another term, would give general satis- faction.

In 1852, Mr. Bliss was elected to the House of Representatives in Congress by the Demo- cratic party. He continued his residence in Akron until about 1860, when he removed to Wooster. He continued the practice of his profession there until his death about 1875.

Lucius V. Bierce was born in Connecticut. He came to Ohio with his father's family when a lad. He entered the Ohio University at Athens, in Athens County, where he graduated at the termination of the customary college course. He taught some years in one or more of the Southern States, and then returned to Ohio and studied law. On being admitted to the bar he opened a law office at Ravenna, in Portage County. He was a very fluent and rapid speaker, had great facility in drafting and readiness in the dispatch of business. He soon became very popular as a lawyer, and was elected Prosecuting Attorney several terms in succession. About the year 1836, he removed his office to Akron, which was then in Portage County, where he continued his professional practice until the war of the rebellion broke out.

Gen. Bierce was neither an extensive nor a profound reader of law. His chief character- istic as a lawyer lay in his extraordinary tact and ingenuity in putting his adversary in a false position. When his opponent had made out a clear case and set down with confidence that it was standing in such blazing sunlight that no mists could be conjured up to darken it. Gen. Bierce was on his feet. Of all occa- sions for calling up his magic skill that was the one. Then all sorts of odd combinations of the law and facts which could make the false resemble the true were held up to the gaze of the jury. Hints, suggestions, imag- inings, possibilities outside and inside of the case the winged missives seemed to fill the air and flap in every juror's face, and it was good luck for justice and innocence if some of them did not lodge in the breast of many a juryman and puzzle the whole panel, in spite

a lucid charge from the court and all the sunshine that had blazed upon the case. Yet, take him as he was, no member of the Summit bar was so dreaded before a jury as Gen. Bierce. He was never thrown off his guard-never discomposed. The most threat- ening discomfiture found him on his feet ready to repel the onset.

In 1861, he was elected to the Senate of Ohio by the Republicans of Summit and Port- age Counties. He took a very active part in raising troops for the Union in the late war; and in 1863 he was appointed Assistant Adjutant General of Ohio, and discharged the arduous duties of that office with faultless exactitude. As a citizen and neighbor, Gen. Bierce was public-spirited, obliging and generous. He died November, 1876, and was buried with military honors.

John Harris, Jr., was born at Canton, Stark County, November 26, 1823. He was class- ically educated at Western Reserve College, of which he was a graduate. He stud- ied law under his father's tuition at Canton, and opened a law office at Akron about 1845. His health was delicate. He, however, showed himself fully competent in his profession. With abundant intellectual power to carry him through a contest, he shrank from the rough collisions which coarser natures often invited. Experience, however, would have given to his sensibility a recoil against coarse and ill-tem- pered thrusts all the more wounding to an ag- gressor, because it came unsuspected, from a keen and concealed weapon. Had he lived, he would have taken a high stand in the pro- fession, which all his practice would have tended to dignify and refine. He died at Canton March 12. 1855.

Harvey Whedon was born at Litchfield, Conn., in 1812. He opened a law office in Hud- son, Ohio, probably in 1838. He soon acquired a good office practice, and a reasonable share of practice in the courts of this county. A well-read, industrious lawyer, of good judg- ment, he was often consulted, and acquired a reputation of a safe counselor. He was elected Prosecuting Attorney of Summit County in 1852, and faithfully discharged the duties of that office for the constitutional term of two years. Mr. Whedon was a man of undoubted

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integrity and of solid worth. He died of typhoid fever August 29, 1855.

W. S. C. Otis was born in Cummington, Mass. He entered Williams College, where he took a high stand as a scholar, but left the college some time in his senior year, and, for awhile, followed teaching. In 1831, he en- tered the law office of Whittlesey & Newton, at Canfield, Mahoning County, and continued there with unremitting application till he was admitted to the practice of law in Ohio in 1833. Soon after his admission, he became a partner in his profession with Hon. Jonathan Sloane, of Ravenna. Mr. Otis' strength lay in his keenly discriminative perceptions, his ample powers of deduction, and the tenacity with which he held to the controlling points in his case, drawing from them alone its ulti- mate conclusions, and guarding every such point as no one could do who had not viewed and reviewed every phase of the matter in hand. As an advocate, his voice and action brought him little aid. He had great earnest- ness, a ready memory, spoke fluently and always to the point, though somewhat wordily. His facts and arguments were laid out with rare skill and judgment. To the court and the bar, however, he was much better known as a lawyer than as an advocate. In argument, whether to the court or jury, he was fond of making historical or classical allusions, which were always well selected and came in with happy effect. His ambition, when he began his profession, was very high, and, so far as emi- nence at the bar went, it was certainly not dis- appointed.

Mr. Otis was elected Prosecuting Attor- ney for Summit County, in 1844, and, in 1850, he was elected as a delegate from this county to the Constitutional Convention which framed the Constitution of Ohio now in force. Outside of his profession, he was a man of large intelligence-a diligent reader of his- tory, of the current literature of the times, of the classics, both ancient and modern, and of the Book above all books. He always kept up a close acquaintance with the ancient authors, both Greek and Latin, in their original tongues. Not long before his last illness, he published a pamphlet containing an examination into the common translation of a passage in one of

the epistles of the New Testament, drawing his conclusions from a critical acquaintance with the original Greek. In truth, from the beginning of his professional life, and we know not how much longer, he made the study of the Bible a specialty.

About 1842, Mr. Otis removed his residence from Ravenna to Akron, where he continued his professional practice. He was elected President of the first bank established in Akron, and held that office for some years. About 1875, he suffered from a paralytic shock, from which he so far recovered as to give attention to his extensive business till 1877, when a second stroke of palsy gave warn- ing that his work was done. He died leaving his widow and family amply provided for.

William M. Dodge was born January 2, 1805, in the State of New York. He ob- tained a good English education at the com- mon schools of his native place. He came to Ohio probably about 1828; studied law in Geauga County, and was admitted to the bar probably in 1830. Not long afterward, he took up his residence at Middlebury, and there opened a law office. After a short residence there, he settled in Akron, where he continued his professional business until he was elected Probate Judge of Summit County, in 1860. He had before then held the office of Prose- cuting Attorney for Summit County, hav- ing been elected to it in 1842, and discharged its duties satisfactorily through the term. Mr. Dodge was a public-spirited citizen. He took a very active part in the organization of the Akron school system. He was espe- cially efficient as a member of the Board of Directors, in all that pertained to building, or otherwise providing schoolhouses. In all such matters, he was a man of first-rate judgment, and he bent himself to the gratuitous work with untiring zeal. He died July 22, 1861.

William H. Gaston had been a school- teacher. At what time or where he studied law, or was admitted to the bar, is not known. In 1844, he was doing business as a lawyer, in company with W. S. C. Otis, at Akron. He gave himself to the work of the law office with unremitting diligence. He was a lawyer of a clear head, and of power to grasp and handle a matter of manifold complications in chan-

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cery and was ambitious to rise in his profes- sion. But a fatal disease seized upon his lungs and took him from the jarring crowds of suitors and lawyers, and jurors, and courts, and all the varied tumults of earthly things.

James D. Taylor was born at Youngstown, Mahoning County, November 24, 1816. He was admitted to the bar at Gallipolis, whither he rode on horseback for that purpose. About 1845, he entered into partnership with Henry W. King, Esq., of Akron, where he immedi- ately fixed his residence. The firm carried on a prosperous business till about 1850, when, the health of both partners declining, their partnership was dissolved. Mr. Taylor's ill- ness was pulmonary. He spent some time in the Southern States, in hopes, by help of a favorable climate, to overcome the malady which was wasting him away. It was sadly in vain. He died at Enterprise, Fla., March 23, 1855. While residing at Akron, he was married to Miss Isabella Howard, now Mrs. James Mathews, of Akron. Mr. Taylor was an industrious, clear-headed lawyer. He had a sprightly imagination, a keen, well-dis- ciplined intellect. A comely person, a good memory and ready command of language, an easy delivery, free but always graceful and appropriate gestures, a soft though not very sonorous voice, an animated countenance, and a wit that could make a home-thrust almost in a whisper, made him one of the most winning speakers of the time.

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History of Summit County, with an outline sketch of Ohio, Part 54

Author: Perrin, William Henry, d. 1892?; Graham, A. A. (Albert Adams), 1848- Publication date: 1881 Publisher: Chicago, Baskin & Battey Number of Pages: 1104

Author: Perrin, William Henry, d. 1892?; Graham, A. A. (Albert Adams), 1848-
Publication date: 1881
Publisher: Chicago, Baskin & Battey
Number of Pages: 1104