USA > Ohio > Wayne County > History of Wayne county, Ohio, from the days of the pioneers and the first settlers to the present time > Part 41
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Since its construction and its having been opened for students, Mr. Quinby has increased his donations to the institution by en- dowing a chair, learnedly and honorably presided over by Rev. James Black, D. D., Professor of Greek Language and Literature. Including other subscriptions not mentioned, he has swelled the volume of his donations to this institution to a sum already ex- ceeding fifty-five thousand dollars.
He has made liberal donations of real estate to churches, indi- viduals and enterprises of public utility, concerning which it might be objectionable to Mr. Quinby to particularize.
He has been, and now is, a large owner and dealer in real es- tate, and, exclusive of his vast possessions in and about Wooster, is also the proprietor of costly estates in Cleveland and other lo- calities.
The foregoing are the facts, as we have been able to collect them from different sources, which go to form the sketch of Mr. Quinby. That we have not been able to produce a fuller and bet- ter one is no fault of ours, and lies not in our disposition. We appreciate his modesty, but are sorry that its intervention precludes a more faithful and comprehensive portraiture of him.
The public who know him may learn more of him in the condensed outline given of his brother, the late Samuel Quinby, who for twenty years intertwined and interlaced himself with our local history. A long business career-from the time he was ten years of age-has not been destitute of interesting associations, important incidents and solid achievements. Were we permitted to enter into an analysis of his life and deduce from it logical con- clusions, it would supply many a valuable precept and furnish many a lesson to the aspirant for success.
Whether as " office-boy " for his brother, clerking for Mr. Lar- will, or conveying the moneys of the Government, or having charge of the Receiver's office, or as merchant, or dealer in real estate, or as banker, he has discharged his duties with applica-
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tion, accuracy, prudence, punctuality, honesty and fidelity to every trust. These traits of character were developed in him in boyhood and secured him the confidence of reliable and valuable friends. His businesss associations in his youth were with sound, discreet men. His mind took the bias and caught the contagion of their example. From his outset in life he took the business view of it. He began well, and herein has been his advantage. A. right beginning is the pledge and promise of prosperous days. He possessed character, and his employers accepted this as that much capital. In this respect they recognized him as a partner, though they did not share with him the dividends.
Dr. Chalmers once said that "the implicit trust with which merchants are accustomed to confide in distant agents, separated from them, perhaps, by half the globe-often consigning vast wealth to men recommended only by their character, whom, per- haps, they never saw-is probably the finest act of homage of one human being to another."
The trust confided in Mr. Quinby, by the agents of the United States Government, to take charge of and convey its moneys to its more central places of deposit, when he was but twenty years of age, is a better panegyric and a higher homage than we dare assume to bestow.
He first established a reputation for industry, honesty, integ- rity, prudence and a temperate evenness of habit. He possessed energy, resolution, determination, and adopted for his motto the one engraven upon the crest of the pickax, "I will find a way, or make one." He enjoyed sound native sense, cautious judgment, keen foresight, and accurate powers of observation. With these endowments he was prepared for the training processes of life, and it is safe to infer that he was an apt pupil, as unquestionably he was an attentive one.
That his career has been highly successful is generally known. He has accumulated wealth simply as a result of the growth and exercise of these qualities. We do not presume that he loves money better than other men who make it and handle it. There is living no man who says he is grasping, penurious, or avaricious. He hates a miser as he hates a meanness.
In his younger years he worked on a salary, like other young men-got no more wages than they did, but probably saved more.
In the mercantile business he met with disaster by storm at
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the very threshold-took all the chances that his rivals did; had a profit-and-loss book; and if he made money he made it out of the opportunities presented to his competitors.
As a banker his name has ever given character to the institu- tion that carried it; and if the public confidence sustained and gathered around it, it must be borne in mind that he made and constructed that name himself. Others, besides him, have had these opportunities.
As a dealer in real estate he could see only the eagle and the goddess on the other side; which was to be uppermost when he put down his money, he did not know. He has achieved nothing by chance or brilliant accidents.
Opportunity never especially favored him, although his good judgment at times has enabled him to seize her. "For opportu- nity has hair in front, behind she is bald; if you seize her by the forelock you may hold her, but if suffered to escape, not Jupiter himself can catch her again."
Only by employing the means and bringing to bear the qualities necessary to the accomplishment of it, has he acquired what he possesses. There are no splendid financial passages in his life, no bold and hazardous speculations. He has self-trust, self-com- mand and relies on his individuality, on his cool caution, his placid, calculating mind, his considerate, discriminating judgment, his far- striking thought and foresight, which peers through situations and inspects results.
There are no cascades, whirling eddies or shallows on his stream ; it has an even, deep and steady flow. He moves right along, observing the maxim of Amos Lawrence, "Do what you do thoroughly, and be faithful in all accepted trusts," and forever keeping the current of his endeavor in continual motion, his. various faculties employed, pushing steadily his various enterprises, until-
"As many lines close in the Dial's centre, So many a thousand actions, once afoot, End in one purpose."
He always has a fixed end and aim in view. Weathercock men are Nature's failures. There is nothing vascillating about him, and when he acts he acts quietly, but with decision. He has sufficient motive power to execute his projects, which is a great tonic, and communicates a certain momentum to all human action. He wills strongly and positively. There is no ostentation or show
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about him, preferring retiracy and the superintendence of his thoughts and secrets. He is is neither rash nor excitable, and in all his enterprises he "hastens slowly." In short, his life is illus- trated by "patience and work," and this Sir Isaac Newton is said to have defined as genius.
His business life is unexceptionable, and his practices germi- nate in his principles. He is a man of principle, and a principal man.
His private character is without a stain, and his name carries no. blemish. Ordinarily he is reticent, preferring silence and allowing. others to step to the front. When he does speak, he has premedi- tated his words, and speaks to the point. He goes about his work noiselessly, and if he performs a charity it is not blazoned on the corners, that every lip may gather it and run. A gift is a curse where the giver parades it. He is a plain, agreeable, un- varying man in his social relations, contemning flattery, pretense and deceit, and despising the pretender and hypocrite, who spreads palm leaves in the path of Jesus when he is popular in Jerusalem, and denies him after he is nailed to the cross.
His name is indissolubly associated with the University of Wooster, for to him, more than to any other man, are we indebted for that institution, which has become the nucleus of professional men like Drs. Taylor, Gregory, Black and Stoddard-gentlemen distinguished in scholarship, in the ministry, in authorship, and in the higher realm of science.
While that structure endures, and generations after Mr. Quinby shall have passed to "the appointed place of rendezvous where all the travelers on life's journey meet," it will continue as his monu- ment, and unborn sons of unborn sires will gather under its. shadow and breathe blessings upon its benefactor and friend.
JOHN McSWEENEY.
" Genius : like a star, it dwells alone."
A lawyer of marked ability must possess a first-class native in- tellect. In the arena of the law men are brought face to face. Their controversies are open, protracted, and sometimes violent. Almost every variety and description of human transactions are
* It is due to Mr. McSweeney to say that this sketch was written without his- knowledge or consent.
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embraced within the compass of their investigations. The ignor- amus and the mountebank are, in the hand-to-hand conflicts of the bar, instantly discovered, unmasked and overthrown. It is no exaggeration to assert, that there is no department of human effort, no field of human ambition, in which such varied mental endowments are so essential to success as in the profession of the law. No pretense of erudition, no assumption of surpassing knowledge, no pompous arrogance of superiority will achieve vic- tories in its formidable and fiery collisions.
The great advocate must be, every inch, a great man. He may be brilliant, but if he is an eccentric genius, with the super- additions of excellent scholarship, he will but dimly see the laurels grasped by others. He must possess a commanding intellectual appearance to win the first nod of attention ; great physical endur- ance and elasticity of constitution to undergo the laborious toil and protracted exertion his profession so frequently imposes. He must be a clear, cogent, compact, incisive reasoner, susceptible of subtle analyzations, and capable of elucidating and expounding the most abstruse and complex propositions of law, of engaging in subtle deductions, of reasoning from cause to effect and from effect to cause. He must possess a capacious and retentive memory to seize, digest and compile any body of facts, however vast; a sound judgment to analyze and amalgamate them; patient, plodding industry to prosecute tedious researches among the fundamental principles and technicalities of the legal science; a quick percep- tion to grasp and utilize a good opportunity ; coolness, self-pos- session, caution and fecundity of invention to anticipate and guard against surprises and ambuscades. He must have the edge of ap- petite whetted for combat ; must possess an imagination whose creations succeed each other like fruits in Armida's enchanted gar- den-"one scarce is gathered ere another grows;" wit to 'blaze and flame and burst into luminous coruscations ; fluency of speech to express any conceivable emotion ; courage, self-reliance, self- assertion, and resolution of will to press to the end all professional ventures; reticence to keep the holy secrets committed to him under the sanctities of his office; multifarious knowledge, elo- quence, versatility, voice, gesture, action.
During the last century and a half many of the brightest intel- lects in the foremost civilized countries have been found in the le- gal profession, and much of the civil and political liberty enjoyed
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by the human family is due to the enterprise, brain and genius of a long succession of cultured and distinguished lawyers.
The subject of this sketch, John McSweeney, Esq., is an able lawyer and brilliant orator. Nature fitted him for the bar. He has pre-empted the right to sway and swing juries, and we do not hesitate to pronounce him, without any exception, the best lawyer in Ohio.
His parents were from Ireland-sweet Innisfallen-where much of the genius of this world is secreted. At the time when Mr. McSweeney* was born, in 1824, they were living at or near Roches- ter, State of New York. From there they removed to Ohio and died, we believe, in Stark county, when he was but a child. They were in humble circumstances, his father being a shoemaker, and an industrious, intelligent man. Physically he was even larger than his son, and a man of most impressive and commanding aspect. He had accumulated a small amount of money, which after his death was carefully and judiciously applied to the best advantage of the parentless boy. John Harris, Esq., of Canton, was appointed his guardian, and a Mrs. Grimes of that city, a pious and estimable Catholic lady, raised him. He concluded his education at the Western Reserve College and at Cincinnati, attaining reputation as a scholar and great proficiency in the Latin classics.
He studied law with John Harris, Esq., of Canton, his guard- ian, and removed to Wooster in April, 1845, entering the office of Judge Ezra Dean, then one of the leading lawyers of Wayne county. He subsequently engaged in partnerships with Ohio F. Jones, Esq., Judge William Given, Hon. George Bliss and Hon. C. C. Parsons, Sen. He was joined in marriage, in 1851, with Catharine Rex, a sister of the Hon. George Rex of Wooster, a woman of strong mental endowments and marked character.
On coming to Wooster, in 1845, Mr. McSweeney almost im- mediately rose to the first rank at the Wooster bar, which position he has held without a rival ever since. In his practice at the Wooster bar he has been brought into competition with many of the distinguished lawyers of the State ; with Judges Dean, Avery, Given and Cox, Hon. John P. Jeffries, Hon. Lyman Critchfield, Samuel Hemphill, Judges Rufus P. Ranney and Spaulding, Hon. Thomas Bartley, Hon. Thomas Corwin, Hon. John Sherman, Sec- retary of the National Treasury, and Hon. D. K. Carter, now
*We regret our inability to furnish more particulars in regard to Mr. McSwee- ney's early years.
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Chief Justice of the District of Columbia. In the many hard fought battles and severe, bitter, desperate, forensic encounters he has had with the strongest lawyers of the State, he proved "a foe- man worthy of their steel," and if he did not come off victorious his adversaries were generally satisfied with a drawn battle; nor was he any the less distinguished in defeat. There will be no vio- lation of the literal truth in affirming that Mr. McSweeney during his practice at the Wooster bar, no matter how dry the subject or uninteresting the theme, invariably made spirited, animated and exciting speeches. He never fell even to a level of mediocrity. In discussing the most vapid, tedious questions of fact, or the most calloused technicalities of the law, he never failed to win the public favor and captivate the popular fancy by freshness of ideas, flashes of wit, perspicacity of reason, richness of vocabulary and grace of elocution.
About 1865, his reputation both as a civil and criminal lawyer having been safely established, his practice began to extend to neighboring counties, and at the present time it is only bounded by Chicago and New York. During the last ten years he has been employed in nearly all the important criminal trials in Northern Ohio, chiefly on the side of the defense.
The orator should be tall of stature that the infection of his form may win the crowd. A massive and graceful physical out- line, and a resonant, powerful voice, are valuable adjuncts to the advocate. Mr. McSweeney possesses these qualifications. He is over six feet high, straight as the nation's flag-staff, powerful and well proportioned, with an expressive, manly face, which kindles with every emotion of the soul, and an eye which is a language and possession of itself. Sober in pathos, furious in repartee, jolly in humor, terrific in invectives, he is always attractive, but never repulsive. His voice is rich, sonorous, melodious, exceedingly well modulated, never striking the ear harshly, and capable of the widest compass of exertion, from the stirring tones of impassioned declamation to the softest accents of adroit and bland persuasion. His gestures are frequent, forcible and appropriate. His action is vigorous, sometimes dramatic, never ungainly, and seldom over- strained. In the physical essentials of the orator nature has been affluent and prodigal in her gifts to him.
A good lawyer must be a sound thinker. Logic is the iron- clad, the Krupp gun, the breech loader, the bayonet of the lawyer. Knotted, laminated, irrefragable logic is the most potent weapon
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in his arsenal. The assertion will hardly be challenged that all profound lawyers are profound logicians. There may be eloquence, fine wit, humor, pathos, fluency, imagination, but if the cardinal ingredient, logic, is wanting, distinguished eminence at the bar is not attainable. It is scarcely necessary to speak of Mr. McSwee- ney as a sound reasoner, when we are ready to concede that his very sentences are "logic on fire." He can utilize it from the narrowest basis when dealing with nice technicalities, and with signal amplification when grappling with fundamental principles.
He is, perhaps, immoderately addicted to amplifying, elabo- rating and re-enforcing his propositions with analogous matter in grappling with logical problems of the law. In the soil of his im- agination comparisons, illustrations and analogies flourish with the rank and rapid growth of vegetation in a northern summer. The abundance and versatility of his logical resources enable him to draw the most subtle conclusions. In the use of this weapon he is dexterous, dangerous and audacious, and that he is skillful and competent in the use of it is evidenced by the fact that his plead- ings are seldom, if ever, demurable, or susceptible of a motion to strike out surplus matter, or make the allegations more specific. His imagination is truly opulent. A lawyer without imagination may be fitted to expound legal principles to the Court, but a jury will go to sleep on his hands and snore him out of countenance as a punishment for his prolixity. Legal investigation so frequently deals with interminable questions of dry fact, which, if not embel- lished by ideal conceits and creations, becomes painful and heavy to the jury. In this respect Mr. McSweeney is fortunately en- dowed.
His imagination is lively and luxuriant, indulging in lofty flights, brilliant idealisms, thrilling comparisons, decorating dull fields of fact with flowery freshness.
No jury ever went to sleep upon his words, for he compre- hends the force and genius of well-chosen words. If he employs sophistry he flounces and girdles her in the virginal costume of truth; if he denounces her she is stript, her mask riven and dashed to pieces. When excited his arguments seem to be fused in a fire of eloquence; his sentences fly like grape and canister, and he bounds like a race-horse, out posting Benn Pitman and his herd of reporters. His are not "chippings, pairings and shreds," but rounded, full-grown thoughts that boom and bounce and roll like mighty powder-driven bombs. He is a director in the world's
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corporation of thought. Arouse him, and the air steams with sulphur and saltpeter. He believes Moses was a great law-giver, but, if need be, he would smite the Commandments with the iron of his tongue. He is his own mechanic when he puts the polish upon a rascal. "He can hew out a Colossus from a rock, or carve heads on cherry stones." His speeches are vivid with sparkling poetry, poignant wit, caustic satire and burning rhetoric. "He is not a glancing stream, fettered with ice half the year, but a mag- nificent and mighty river flowing South," and as he sweeps on and surges forward he absorbs quotations, figures, excerpts from the Testaments and Shakspeare, and Milton and Homer, Addison, Byron, Burns, Moore, Scott, Don Quixote, Hume, Gibbon, Rob- ertson, still rolling on --
" Like to the Pontic sea, Whose icy current and compulsive course Ne'er feels retiring ebb, but keeps due on To the Propontic and the Hellespont."
When he addresses a jury or popular assembly, like Choate, he brings to his aid the entire anatomy of his frame, lips, eyes, arms, legs-the very garments which he wears. A gladiator in retort, prompt to resent an affront or repel an insinuation, the opposing advocate who rashly provokes his hostility retires from the contest wounded and satisfied not to repeat the experiment. In the many rough hand-to-hand controversies at the bar where professional swordsmen meet, and where recriminations are so frequently in- dulged, the adverse combatant always encountered an equal in him, and freqently a master. Like Webster, he can " heap Pellion upon Ossa," until his antagonist is crushed and beaten. His possibilities in this direction are exhaustless. He can soar with Junius to the higher heavens of invective, or descend with Swift to the muck and ooze of billingsgate.
It is a source of regret that these personal rencounters are so frequent in forensic warfare, and it is noticeable that Mr. Mc- Sweeney, as his practice extends and the currents of his body cool, is inclined to avoid asperities and to treat his opponents with that marked civility for which, at times, he is distinguished, when they are ready to reciprocate the same. He never hesitates for a word and uses words with precision. He is an expert in the use of the language of the law, which, in its purity, is highly musical. It abounds in words derived from Latin roots, and when spoken with
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precision by an advocate who possesses a melodious voice it strikes the ear with delightful effect.
A successful jury lawyer must be able to deal with facts. In this department of legal investigation Mr. McSweeney is unri- valed. He has a genius for narration, great dexterity in descant- ing upon probabilities, sharp ingenuity in grouping the vital facts upon his own side in logical sequence and in presenting them to the jury with telling effect. Quick to discover and bold to assail the vulnerable points in the opposing suitor's case, and marvel- ously keen in anatomising lies, he levels at his antagonist whole batteries of sarcasm, wit and ridicule. He fights for his client like the Old Guard for the First Napoleon and he despises a lawyer who will not. His claymore is ever at his side, and no man ever caught him napping at his post.
The art of cross-examination requires the highest skill and cir- cumspection of the lawyer. It is one of the most effective weap- ons known to the law in eliciting truth. Few, if any, lawyers in the State are so skillful with this weapon as he. His cross-ex- aminations are never undertaken without a distinct object in view. In these reconnoiterings of the witness he is not tethered by inflex- ible rules. His intuitions of human nature border on the marvel- ous; hence he enters the arena thrice armed. Lie to this alchemist of all your particles, you shuffling witness, if you dare ! His dis- sections of human nature are too consistent with flesh and blood to be anything but natural. With the timid witness he is persua- sive, with the willing he is courteous, with the prevaricator he is artful, with the brazen-cheek he is bold, with the insolent he is insolent, with the mendacious he is terrible. To-day he will storm a crest by pugnacious savagery ; to-morrow he will repeat the ex- ploit by wholly different tactics. He sometimes creeps upon his victim by stealth, and sometimes routs him by the audacity of the assault. Again he will smite the crafty liar as with a thunderbolt, or scalp him in some unsuspected lava-bed. While he is an adept in the art of cross-examination-indeed the champion cross-exam- iner of Ohio-he possesses the faculty of extracting from his own witnesses every circumstance favorable to his client.
It is seldom that the speeches of lawyers are reproduced in the columns of the press. Occasionally when some great trial is pro- gressing in the city which excites public attention and inflames public curiosity, the speeches of the lawyers are published in the metropolitan papers. This, however, rarely occurs. The practice
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of extemporaneous speech, which prevails to a wide extent at the bar, is calculated to produce a slovenly diction, and thus to mar the literary excellence of forensic efforts. The lawyer speaks to per- suade the jury or convince the Court, and he is, therefore, more careful of the substance than the diction of his discourse. Few of Mr. McSweeney's legal performances have been reported.
For years he has charmed and delighted crowded audiences in the old Court House with brilliant declamation, startling eloquence, caustic invective, sorties of wit, flights of imagination and singu- lar powers of seductive narration. We believe it to be no extrav- agance to affirm, that there has fallen from his lips in the old Court House eloquence as splendid as Erskine's description of the Indian chieftain in his defense of John Stockdale :
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