USA > Ohio > Franklin County > Columbus > History of the city of Columbus, Ohio, from the founding of Franklinton in 1797, through the World War period to the year 1920 > Part 30
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The Ohio Supreme Court has met in Columbus since the removal of the capital from Chillicothe. Of the thirty judges under the first Constitution, but one was from Franklin county-Gustavus Swan, appointed in 1830 to fill a vacancy expiring in 1831. Of those who served under the Constitution of 1851, three were chosen from Franklin county-Joseph R. Swan, Robert B. Warden and John W. Okey. Of the others a few, like Allen G. Thurman, of Ross county, and Selwyn N. Owen, of Williams county remained in the city where they had served and became a part of its active citizenship.
There have been two Supreme Court Commissions-judicial bodies created by the Gen- cral Assembly to assist the Supreme Court in clearing its dockets. The first of these was appointed in 1876 and concluded its labors in 1879. Richard A. Harrison was offered an appointment to it but declined. The second was appointed in 1883 and served two years. George K. Nash was a member.
The responsible position of Supreme Court Reporter has been filled by a number of Columbus men. The first of these was Phineas B. Wilcox, who served in 1840. Edwin M. Stanton, the great war secretary of Lincoln's administration, who clerked in a Columbus bookstore in 1834, served as Reporter in 1841-44 inclusive. Robert Bruce Warden was re- porter in 1853 and after a short service on the Supreme bench again in 1855. Leander J. Critchfield served from 1856 to 1871 and then declined reappointment. Epinetus L. DeWitt served from 1874 to 1885, and was succeeded by George B. Okey, who served till 1887. Emilius O. Randall was appointed in 1895 and served continuously till his death in 1919. He edited and published forty-eight volumes of the Ohio State Reports and ten volumes of the Reports of Court of Appeals. John L. W. Henney is the present Reporter.
The United States District Court was moved to Columbus soon after it became the cap- ital. It met for a time in a brick building, once known as the Buckeye House, which stood on the present site of the Chamber of Commerce building, Broad street, half a square cast of
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High street. Later, it occupied the hall of the House of Representatives, and then took rooms in the brick Court House, already referred to, on the State House square. In 1855, there was a division of the district, which took the United States courts to Cleveland and Cincinnati. In 1880, the court was returned to Columbus, when the eastern division of the Southern Ohio district was created. The sessions were first held in the Council chamber in the City Hall, then in rooms on the second floor of the building at the southwest corner of State and Fourth streets, and in the Federal building at the corner of State and Third streets, since its erection. The return of the United States Court in 1880 was signalized by the Columbus Bar Association, by a banquet in the City Hall, June 1, in honor of the United States Court judges and court officials. An address of welcome was made by Henry C. Noble, and there were responses by Justice Noah H. Swayne, of the Supreme Court of the United States, and Judges P. B. Swing, William White and Joseph R. Swan. Hon. Richard A. Harrison also spoke for the city.
In order, the judges of this court have been: Charles Willing Byrd, until 1828; William Creighton, two months, appointment rejected by the Senate; John W. Campbell, till his death in 1833; Benjamin Tappan, three days, appointment rejected by the Senate; Humphrey H. Leavitt, till his death in 1871; Philip B. Swing, till his death in 1882; William White, who died soon after he took his seat; George R. Sage, till 1898; Albert C. Thompson till 1909; John E. Sater, appointed in 1907 and still serving.
Judge Sater's appointment was due to the fact that the volume of business was such as to demand the presence of a Federal judge here all of the time. And it has continued to grow until at the end of his eleventh year of service, Clerk C. P. White's records showed that, excluding the sums handled in the bankruptcy court and sums which had been deposited awaiting the termination of suits involving such sums and an order of the court for their distribution, Judge Sater had rendered judgments for each and every day of the eleven years. Sundays and holidays included, to an amount averaging $11,000 a day.
The validity and construction of many of the State laws have been tested in this court during Judge Sater's incumbency. Notable among these laws so tested were the dairy and food act, the Juvenile Court act, the coal screen act, the act creating the Tax Commission, and the "Blue Sky" law, all the decisions except the last-named being affirmed. Federal statutes, too, have found in this court correct interpretations, notably the Harrison law regulating the sale and distribution of narcotics and the pure food law as applied to the marketing of champagne and Maraschino cherries.
The period of the great war of 1917-18 brought to this court some notable cases. Judge Sater tried what was probably the first case under the War Act-that against Hennacy and Townsley for conspiracy to defeat the enlistment and draft-and the conviction of the men is believed to have put an end here to resistance to the selective service act. He also tried the first case in the country under the statute which makes it a crime to threaten to kill the President, and he rendered the first reported opinion on the constitutionality of the vice clauses of the selective service act, as well as the first reported opinion on that part of the sabotage act which makes an attempt to interfere with the manufacture of war material a crime. The first case under the War Act making it a crime wilfully to interfere with the possesion and operation of railroad property, taken over by the President for the better prosecution of the war, was also tried in this court.
The Mayor's Court came into existence with the organization of Columbus as a town. Feb- ruary 10, 1816. The Mayor was clothed with the powers of a Justice of the Peace within the corporate limits. He could administer oaths and levy and collect fines, and he held court for the trial of law-breakers taken into custody by the police. His judicial powers re- mained with some slight variations the same until 1891, when the General Assembly created the office of Police Judge and Matthias Martin was elected to the bench for three years. In 1891 Judge Martin was succeeded by Thomas M. Bigger, who served until 1897, when he resigned to take his seat on the Common Pleas bench. Governor Asa Bushnell appointed Samuel J. Swartz to the vacancy, and at the succeeding municipal election, Judge Swartz was elected to succeed himself and served till 1899, when he resigned to take the office of Mavor. Moses B. Earnhart served by gubernatorial appointment until the next municipal election, when N. W. Dick was chosen and served till 1903, when R. L. Wildermuth was elected and, by reason of a change in the date of the municipal election, served till Janu- ary 1, 1908, when Samuel G. Osborn succeeded and served till January 1, 1916, when, under
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the law creating the Municipal Court, the Police Judges and the Justiees of the Peace were brought together in one beneh. This has resulted in dignifying all the processes of the old courts and in civil cases extending the jurisdiction so as to include those involving elaims to the amount of $750. Homer Z. Bostwick was elected Chief Justice, and Samuel G. Osborn, Frank Ruth and E. F. Berry were elected judges. In November, 1916, Chief Justice Bost- wiek, having been elected Probate Judge, resigned, and the Governor appointed John F. Seidel to the vacaney.
Separate Juvenile Courts were authorized by the General Assembly April 23, 1908, the judges of the Common Pleas Court in each county being empowered to designate one of their number to sit in the cases of minors under arrest. In Franklin county, Probate Judge Samuel L. Black was so designated and served efficiently until he retired as Probate Judge in 1917, when he was succeeded in this function by the newly elected Probate Judge, Homer Z. Bostwiek. The eases, not only of delinquent children, but also of adults contributing to the delinquency, of parents failing of their duty to children and of others whose conduct is inimical to ehild life, are dealt with in this court, and much good has been accomplished and is still capable of accomplishment.
Because of the number of the courts in Columbus the city was at a very early day a meeca of lawyers. Primitive means of travel caused delays and lawyers were here brought together more frequently in a social way than they now are. In various ways, each was able to measure up outside the court room, the antagonist he was to meet within it. Of the judicial procedure and the men engaged in it in the period eentering about 1810, the late L. J. Critchfield testified :
The meeting of lawyers in Columbus, in attendance upon the court, during the greater part of each winter, became in effect a high school of law and oratory. The men who thus assembled were the flower of the Ohio bar, and in measuring strength with one another in the discussion of causes in court, they developed and exhibited the highest intellectual powers of the profession and the best specimens of forensic eloquence. . .
We may well imagine what deep interest the court and bar, as welt as the general public, would take in these battles of the giants, when the combatants were such men as Burnet, Hammond, Wright and their compeers, with the occasional presence and participation of Doddridge of Virginia, and Henry Clay, of Kentucky; and when, during a later period, Ewing, Stanbery, Corwin, Vinton, Goddard and their associates were in their prime and contended for the mastery.
But those days passed with the coming of the railroad, the telegraph and other con- veniences of civilization which have increased the hurry of life. Lawyers are not now found in waiting groups as they onee were. The publie, busy with its own affairs, leaves the lawyers to their eloquenee and the courts to their processes, for the most part confident that justice will emerge.
Naturally, many important eases have been tried in the courts here. The first of them were fugitive slave eases, in which there was great popular interest because of the growing antagonism to slavery. The first of these was heard in the United States District Court here in 1816, but the most notable because it almost brought Ohio into rebellion against the United States, was heard in the Supreme Court here in 1859. It was the case of Simeon Bushnell and Charles Langston, who had rescued fugitive slaves from Federal offieers who were taking them back into the South. The rescuers were arrested and sought release by habeas corpus proceedings in the Supreme Court. The contention was that the fugitive slave law was unconstitutional. The Supreme Court sustained the law and remanded the prisoners, but only by a majority of one in a bench of five. Chief Justiec Joseph R. Swan delivered the opinion, holding that a State Court eannot interfere with the orderly action of the United States Court within its constitutional limit. It was a courageous action, especially since his interpretation of the law produced a result in conflict with his personal feelings and his political beliefs, for he had been elected in 1854 on an anti-slavery platform. In this decision he antagonized public sentiment throughout Ohio, but he was a man to do what he believed to be right, whatever might happen. At the close of the opinion, he said :
As a citizen I would not deliberately violate the constitution or the law by interference with fugitives from service, but if a weary frightened slave should appeal to me to protect him from his pursuers, it is possible I might momentarily forget my allegiance to the law and constitution, and give him a covert from those who were on his track. There are, no doubt. many slave-holders who would thus follow the impulse of human sympathy; and if I did it and were prosecuted, condemned and imprisoned, and brought by my counsel before this
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tribunal on a habeas corpus, and then were permitted to pronounce judgment in my own case, I trust 1 should have the moral courage to say, before God and the country, as I am now compelled to say, under the solemn duties of a judge, bound by my official oath to sustain the supremacy of the constitution and the law: "The prisoner must be remanded."
One of the most celebrated cases ever tried in Columbus was that against Lyman Cole and five others, charged with burning the steamer, Martha Washington, and her cargo, in the Ohio river, December 15, 1851, in order to collect the insurance. Arrests were made in December, 1852, and a preliminary examination was made before United States Commis- sioner P. B. Wilcox, who held them for trial in the United States District Court. The accused were indicted in May, 1853, and the trial began before Judge MeLean in the following October. There was a great array of lawyers. The District Attorney was assisted by Henry Stanbery, while among the attorneys for the defense were Thomas Ewing, George E. Pugh, George H. Pendleton, Noal: II. Swayne and Samuel Galloway. The trial lasted many days and aroused great interest, partly because of the sensational character of the charge, but chiefly because of the prominence of the counsel. The publie anticipated a great display of oratory at the elose, and there was bitter disappointment when the defense submitted the case after the District Attorney's argument. The jury, after deliberating two days, bronght in a verdiet of "not guilty," which was received with a great shout by the waiting people.
There have been important land title eases which cannot here be detailed. There was the "geography war" of 1880, arising from the effort of the Columbus Board of Education to reverse its action substituting Harper's geographies for the Cornell series. In the Supreme Court, the ease for the Harper publishing house, as against that of Van Antwerp. Bragg & Co., was won on an interpretation of parliamentary law, it being held that the hoard could not within one week of its decision reverse it except by a three-fourths vote, which did not appear.
The bar of Columbus has produced a number of really great lawyers, such as Joseph R. Swan, Allen G. Thurman, R. A. Harrison and Noah H. Swayne, the last named attaining to the bench of the United States Supreme Court. Some have shone in other fields-S. S. Cox, distinguished as a politician. diplomat and author ; Samuel Galloway, friend of Lincoln, orator and wit; General Joseph H. Geiger, widely known for his politieal oratory and humor- ous lectures. Gustavus A. Swan and Joseph R. Swan wrote books of "Pleading and Prac- tice," the latter being also the author of "Swan's Treatise," which has stood the test of more than two generations and is still regarded throughout the United States as the leading author- ity on magistrates' courts. P. B. Wilcox and James A. Wilcox wrote books of practice. Judge Fitz James Matthews, with the assistance of Judge H. B. Albery, published the last edition of "Raff's Guide," an authority for guardians and trustees. Judge Warden wrote a philosophieal treatise on "Man and Law"; W. H. Page, a book on "Wills and Contraets"; Henry J. Booth, a book on the law of street railways: Paul Jones. a book on taxation; David K. Watson, a history of the Federal Constitution, and Judge E. B. Kinkead, a work on pleadings.
The last fifty years have seen tremendous changes in the legal profession in Columbus. The growth of the city, the increase in the number of corporations and the development of new kinds of trading produced new relations Corporation law became more important. The practicing lawyer no longer needs the kio, fat-topped table in the middle of the room for maps and atlases and for drawing outlines of farm lands and town lots, for that elass of work has been taken over by the abstraeters of title and real estate men who have sprung up to dispute and divide his ancient heritage. Classification eame and now we have legal specialists of different kinds, each doing a work which was once but a part of that of the general practitioner.
In 1869 a Bar Association was organized, fifty-four names being signed to the constitu- tion, and with varying strength and activity this organization has continued till now, main- taining a measure of esprit de corps and striving to improve methods and facilitate the business of the courts. In its present membership there are 350 attorneys, the total of all classes in the county being estimated at 500.
For obvious reasons it is impossible to speak of all of these individually. Suffice it to say that for talent, virtue and achievement they measure well, and the bench and bar of Columbus will not suffer by comparison with any similar group in the land.
CHAPTER XXIII. THE PRESS.
A Pioneer Enterprise Here as Elsewhere-The Freeman's Chronicle of 1812-The Western Intelligencer Moved Here in 1814-The Ohio Monitor of 1816-Two Lines of Descent to the Present-The Ohio Statesman and Ohio State Journal-The Columbus Gazette, The Crisis of Medary and the Capital City Fact-Sunday Newspapers-The Dis- patch- The Citizen- Weekly Newspapers - German Language Papers - Religious Newspapers-Educational and Other Monthlies-Women in Journalism-Elliott-Os- born Tragedy.
Here as elsewhere, the newspaper was one of the earliest pioneer enterprises. The people of the settlement wanted to know, not so much what was going on among themselves as what the outside world was doing. The former they could learn from their neighbors by word of mouth, but the latter was a longer story and more difficult to obtain. All this is revealed in the newspapers themselves, through the columns of which one will look almost in vain for information about the life of the community. The interest of the people was in the doings of the government at Washington, the happenings in the East and in Europe, and the early editors met it as they could. But their troubles were many and great. Presses were primitive; paper and ink and type, like the news itself, were brought from long distanees over roads that were seareely more than trails, or up the river by boat. The means of transportation were such that the arrival of news and supplies was subjeet to all sorts of delay; and many a weekly issue was omitted because there was no white paper or ink. There were other omissions because there was sickness in the editor's family or other duties were more imperative. But the subseribers were charitable. No one was without shortcomings, and subseriptions were paid more often in produee than in money. The struggle to subdue the wilderness was common to all and, if every person was doing his best, there was no fault to be found.
It was war that brought the first newspaper to Columbus-the war of 1812. Colum- bus was still in swaddling clothes, but Franklinton, west of the river, was a town of fourteen years and a convenient rendezvous for soldiers. Besides the regular population, many were eoming and going. James B. Gardiner saw the opportunity of service and established the Freeman's Chronicle, "pledged to religion, liberty and law." The first issue of the paper hore the date of July 4, 1812. It was a folio of four columns to the page, and its news was of Washington, Europe and the Indian war. The foreign news was from three to five months old, the Washington news from three to five weeks old; with the war news the editor was more fortunate, for the headquarters of General William Henry Harrison, first at Piqua, were later removed to Franklinton. As for the immediate vicinity, the news was in the ad- vertisements or in the occasional brief comment of the editor. Other papers, which eame by mail, were the chief souree of information; and when the mail was delayed, there was no Freeman's Chronicle- breaks that were made up for by the occasional issue of extras, the size of a handbill containing some important news. One of these, issued Sunday evening, Jannary 24, 1813, announced "Lewis' vietory at the River Raisin." In an editorial, April 8, 1811, it is stated that $150 had been expended for paper alone during the last six months, and not more than $30 had been received for subseriptions. The end was in sight. The war had ended, the community had again settled down to peaceful pursuits and a rival newspaper had appeared on the other side of the river. Publieation ceased in 1815.
That rival was the Western Intelligencer which in 1814 was moved from Worthington where its publication was begun in 1811. The equipment for this paper was bought by Colonel James Kilbourne, founder of Worthington, in 1809, and Ezra Griswold had set seven columns of type for the first issue, but at that point the project was interrupted, and there was no issue until two years later, when Joel Buttles and George Smith bought the plant. An interesting tradition is that this press was originally the property of James B. Gardiner, of the Freeman's Chronicle, and was used by him in the publication of an earlier paper at Marietta.
The Western Intelligencer, when it was moved to Columbus, became the Western Intelli-
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gencer and Columbus Gazette. In 1817 the name was changed to Columbus Gazette, in 1825, to Ohio State Journal and Columbus Gazette; in 1837 to Ohio State Journal and Register ; in 1838 to Ohio State Journal, which it has since remained.
Men who have been prominently identified with this newspaper as owners or editors in its more than a century of publication are: Joel Buttles, George Smith, James Hills, P. H. Olmsted, Ezra Griswold, George Nashee, John Bailhache (1823), Charles Scott (1835), Smithson E. Wright, John M. Gallagher, John Teesdale (1843), William B. Thrall (1846), Henry Reed (1818), William T. Bascom (1851), Oren Follett, Aaron F. Perry (1855), John Greiner, Colonel Wm. Schouler, A. M. Gangewer, Henry D. Cooke, William Dean Howells (1858), F. W. Hurtt, Wm. T. Coggeshall (1865), J. Q. Howard (1868), General James M. Comly (1871), Andrew W. Francisco (1872), Sylvanus E. Johnson (1877), Colonel James Taylor, Samuel J. Fliekinger (1878), W. W. Bond, Captain Alfred E. Lee, General B. R. Cowen, Henry Monett, Jerome C. Briggs (1882), Colonel Wm. S. Furay, Edward K. Rife, George B. Hische, Colonel James Ellison, D. L. Bowersmith, R. F. Wolfe, H. P. Wolfe (1903), Samuel G. MeClure, Colonel E. S. Wilson, Robert O. Ryder, and Harry J. Westerman, who since 1901 has been the successful and widely copied cartoonist.
The next longest line of newspaper descent, which ended with the suspension of the News, under the management of Allen Albert in 1907, was begun with the establishment of the Ohio Monitor in 1816 by David Smith and Ezra Griswold. It came to represent the opposing political party and did so far many years. In 1835 Mr. Smith, who had become sole owner, sold the paper to Jacob Medary, who consolidated it with the Hemisphere, and published it under that name till 1837, when it became the Ohio Statesman, with Samuel Medary & Brothers as proprietors. On combination with the Ohio State Democrat in 1854, it became the Ohio Statesman and Democrat; in 1857, the name was changed back to Ohio Statesman; in 1879, it became the Democrat and Statesman; in 1880, the Times; in 1888, the Press; in 1895, the Press-Post, on the absorption of the Post, which had been established in 1888, with H. S. Perkins as editor and Charles Q. Davis as manager; in 1905, after it had fallen into the hands of a company of which Allen Albert was the representative, it became the News. And, bearing that name, it died in 1907.
The names tliat stand out prominently in connection with the Monitor and its successors are those of David Smith, who was its editor for the first 19 years; Samuel Medary, whose editorship, with the exception of two short intervals, extended from 1837 to 1857; S. S. Cox (1853-51), H. W. Derby, Horace S. Knapp, Colonel Charles B. Flood, James Haddock Smith, Thomas Miller (1858) George W. Manypenny, Amos Layman, Lewis Baker, E. B. Eshel- man, Riehard Nevins (1867), Jonathan Linton ( 1872), John H. Putnam, William Trevitt, John G. Thompson (1880), Solon Goode, James Goode, George H. Tyler, Simeon K. Dona- vin. Henry T. Chittenden (1884), Ferd J. Wendell, Charles W. Harper, J. H. Galbraith, Clarenee Jones, DeWitt C. Jones, L. P. Stephens, Ellis O. Jones, John J. Lentz, W. P. Harrison and Allen Albert.
One of the weekly papers of long life and much influence was the Columbus Gazette which was continuously published in one cause or another from 1819 to 1886. It engaged the activities of many men, including, George M. Swan, John Greiner, Gamaliel Scott, Charles S. Glenn, Alexander E. Glenn, S. S. Peters, E. O. Randall, L. G. Thrall, J. H. Hann and George E. Thrall. It began as a Free Soil paper and died advocating prohibition.
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