USA > Ohio > Montgomery County > Dayton > History of the city of Dayton and Montgomery County, Ohio, Volume I > Part 84
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In 1840 General Schenck in the "Log Cabin" campaign was elected to the legislature from this county in which body he at once became a leader. In 1843 General Schenck was elected to congress and by re-election served three terms and took high rank among his colleagues therein. In early public life General Schenck was an uncompromising whig but in the dissolution of the whig party he became a republican. In 1851 he was appointed by President Fillmore minister to Brazil, where he performed distinguished diplomatic service and on its termin- ation he returned and made his home in Dayton. The story is told that when General Schenck took the steamer on his return from Brazil, he was introduced around to the passengers as Minister Schenck, and at the first meal on the boat, one old lady, who took it from her introduction that the general was a minister of the gospel, asked that Minister Schenck "say grace." To which he replied, "that he regretted that he was not minister to that court." He was credited with being the first to suggest Abraham Lincoln for the presidency and his friends fully expected that he would be selected as one of the members of Mr. Lincoln's cabinet but in that they were disappointed. Upon the breaking out of- the Rebellion, General Schenck promptly tendered his services to the government and received a commission as brigadier general. He fought gallantly during the war and was severely wounded at the second battle of Bull Run which permanently disabled his right arm. He was subsequently for gallant services promoted to the rank of major general. In December, 1863, he resigned his commission in the army to take his seat in congress to which he had been elected in the October previous, defeating Mr. Vallandigham. In the house of representatives he served as chairman of the military committee. In 1864 and in 1866 he was again elected
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to congress, and during part of his service therein was chairman of the committee of ways and means and became the active leader of his party. In 1871 he was, by President Grant, appointed minister to Great Britain, in which capacity he served with distinction. During his service to the Court of St. James he acted upon the joint high commission in behalf of the United States by which a treaty was effected providing for the general conference to arbitrate certain serious difficulties which had arisen between this country and Great Britain, and which has been the forerunner of other peace conferences held since that time. As a lawyer, General Schenck stood in the front rank of the profession. As a soldier, he responded to the call of his country in its hour of need and performed gallant service in its behalf. As a statesman he was recognized by all the distinguished men of his day as the equal in ability and usefulness of the most eminent.
PETER ODLIN, for many years the senior partner with General Schenck in the law firm of Odlin & Schenck, was admitted to the bar in Washington city in 1819. Soon after he came to Perry county, this state, and from thence to Dayton, where he resided and continued in the practice of his profession up to the time of his death. As a lawyer Mr. Odlin was the equal in ability and ranked as such, with the most eminent lawyers of his day. He was a most impressive and effective speaker whether in addressing a court or jury, and while always dignified in manner, was most courteous to all with whom he came in contact. He repre- sented this senatorial district in the senate of Ohio, and stood very high with his fellow members of that body for his sincerity of purpose, force and eloquence in the advocacy of public measures. Mr. Odlin was one of the leading counsel in the celebrated Cooper will case tried in the common pleas of this county, in which were engaged some of the most eminent lawyers of this state, he was a gentleman of the old school of unimpeachable integrity and high sense of honor. For many years he was president of the Dayton National Bank of this city, and through a long business and professional life amassed an ample fortune, but in his old age, by overconfidence in indorsing the business paper of another, he lost the accumu- lations of a life time, everything save honor, for he gave up everything he owned or possessed to satisfy the creditors from whom he personally never obtained a penny. Such men as Peter. Odlin are worthy of remembrance, for their lives and examples are calculated to give tone for the better to the society in which they move.
C. L. VALLANDIGHAM, one of Ohio's most distinguished sons, was born in Columbiana county, this state, July 29, 1820. He was the son of a Presbyterian clergyman and was prepared for college by his father. At the age of seventeen he entered the junior class of Jefferson College, Cannonsburg, Pennsylvania. He remained, however, but a year, when he was solicited to and did take charge of an academy at Snowhill in Maryland, where he remained two years. In 1840, being then twenty years of age, he re-entered Jefferson College as a member of the senior class. A short time before his time for graduation by reason of a difficulty with Dr. Brown, the president of the college, he requested an honorable dismissal which was granted. Mr. Vallandigham studied law and was admitted to the bar in December, 1842. He commenced his professional and political life in the county of his birth, but removed to Dayton in 1847, where he ever after resided up to the time of his tragic and lamented death. Before removing to
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Dayton Mr. Vallandigham represented Columbiana county in the legislature, and on his settling in Dayton he was inclined to seek his future through politics rather than law, for he soon took charge of the Empire, the democratic newspaper which he edited with marked ability until 1849, when he sold out his interest. From this time he entered more actively on the practice of law, yet he was fired with political ambition, for in 1851 he was a candidate before the democratic state convention for the office of lieutenant governor but was unsuccessful. In 1852 he was the candidate of the democratic party for congress, but was defeated by Lewis D. Campbell. Again in 1854 he was a candidate but was again defeated by Mr. Campbell. This was the memorable Know-Nothing year, when this secret political organization swept the country to the surprise of the people who were not in its secrets. In 1856, for a third time, Mr. Vallandigham was pitted against Mr. Campbell, and although the face of the returns showed a majority of nineteen against Mr. Vallandigham, he gave notice of contest and on a trial by the house of representatives he was awarded the seat, the house finding that Mr. Vallandig- ham was elected by the legal majority of twenty-three. From his entrance into congress he became at once conspicuous in the political history of the country. In 1858 he was again elected, also in 1860 and was serving in congress when the war of the Rebellion broke out. He strenuously opposed the war as being un- necessary, unconstitutional and impracticable, as a means of settling the difficulties between the North and the South. He ranked in congress amongst the ablest and most distinguished members of that body. Because of Mr. Vallandigham's great prominence, his active opposition to the prosecution of the war was looked upon by the government with alarm, and together with other reasons, for a speech made by him at Mt. Vernon, Ohio, he was arrested by order of General Burnside on the morning of May 5, 1863, at his home in Dayton by a company of soldiers and taken to Cincinnati, where he was tried by a military commission for disloyal utterances in his Mount Vernon speech and was found guilty. An application for a writ of habeas corpus made to United States Judge Leavitt was refused, and Mr. Vallandigham was sentenced to close confinement during the war, which was afterwards changed to banishment within the rebel lines. In June following he ran the blockade from Wilmington, North Carolina, and arrived by sea at Halifax, whence he proceeded to Windsor, opposite Detroit, which became his place of sojourn for the time. While at Windsor he was nominated for governor of Ohio by the democratic party but was defeated by John Brough. In June, 1864, Mr. Vallandigham returned to his home in Dayton, was elected a delegate to the Chicago democratic national convention, which nominated General McClellan for the presidency, and took an active part in that political campaign., In 1868 he was a delegate to the democratic national convention held in New York, at which Horatio Seymour was nominated for the presidency, and made the nominating speech which carried the convention by storm. Salmon P. Chase was really Mr. Vallandigham's preference for the presidency, but finding that he could not secure his nomination he became the advocate of the nomination of Horatio Seymour. The democratic party having secured a majority on joint ballot in the Ohio legislature in the session of 1864-5. Mr. Vallandigham ex- pected to be elected United States senator, having set his heart on the place, but in this he was disappointed as Judge Allan G. Thurman was selected.
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Mr. Vallandigham was the author of what is known as the "New Departure Resolutions" providing for a broader and more liberal policy by the democratic party. These resolutions at the time created a great and favorable reaction in the public sentiment aroused during the war towards Mr. Vallandigham because of his opposition to it, and it was freely predicted that he would again come to the front as a leader of the democratic party. In January, 1870, Mr. Vallandig- ham formed a law partnership with Judge Haynes which continued down to the tragic death of the former, which occurred in June, 1871, in the town of Lebanon, this state, while he was there defending one Tom McGehan, charged with murder in the first degree for the killing of one Tom Myers in the city of Hamilton, Butler county, by shooting him.
To demonstrate his theory of defense, that Myers may have shot himself, Mr. Vallandigham undertook to snap a pistol, which he thought was not loaded, with the muzzle of same pointed towards his body, but which by the act was discharged, having unfortunately proved to be loaded, as a ball from same entered the lower part of his abdomen causing death in a few hours. As a political speaker Mr. Vallandigham had few equals and few men had more warm admirers, while he had many political enemies because of his earnest, forcible manner of expressing himself on political questions.
DANIEL W. IDDINGS, Sr., was born in Montgomery county north of Dayton on December 13, 1819, and died December 16, 1883, in his sixty-fourth year.
He attended the old Dayton Academy, and afterwards graduating from Miami University, was called to the bar in 1844 from the law offices of Odlin and Schenck, his preceptors. He became one of the best known lawyers of his time, and was especially sought as counsel by the large corporations, corporation law, and particularly the branch of fire insurance, being his specialty. He displayed great energy and ability in the preparation and trial of his cases in court, and was singularly trusted and admired by the judges and fellow lawyers for his general knowledge of the law and his convincing and accurate presentation of it.
He was engaged in the active practice of his profession until his death with his two sons, Charles D. and William B. Iddings, under the well known firm name of Iddings & Iddings.
He organized several fire insurance companies here, and was conceded to have done more than anyone to give Dayton its early prominence in the fire insurance world.
Of literary, as well as legal capability, he contributed somewhat to the Dayton Journal, and later started the Dayton Daily Gazette and was its editor-in-chief for five years. He was regarded as one of the ablest political writers of the earlier days in the Miami Valley. "Had he chosen to devote himself to literature he must have achieved a state, if not a national reputation," said the memorial committee of the bar at his death.
In 1867 he was appointed register in bankruptcy for the third congressional district of Ohio, and served continuously and with great credit until the final repeal of the old bankruptcy act.
In addition to his splendid service as mayor of Dayton for two terms during the trying years of 1856 to 1860 just preceding the Civil war, he afterwards served his ward most acceptably in city council for ten years, during all save two years
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of which time he was president of that body. He was always a stanch repub- lican. As a public speaker his wit, information and forensic powers must have rendered him formidable, for it is related that an old time citizen of Dayton, who has resided on the Pacific Coast for more than thirty years, referring to a speech of Mr. Iddings' on one occasion, wrote back to a friend, "How is my old friend, Dan Iddings, getting along? If I could only believe he would agree to make such a speech, or undertake to make such a speech, I promise that I would make a trip from California to Dayton to hear it," and it was a much longer and more arduous journey in those days than now.
Mrs. Maria R. Iddings, his widow, is still living, at 9 Stratford avenue, this city, with their son, William B. Iddings, the attorney, and secretary of the Mont- gomery County Mutual Fire Insurance Company, one of the fire insurance companies in whose organization the elder Iddings had a hand.
Two of his grandsons, sons of the late Charles D. Iddings, one of his law partners, are attorneys: Daniel W. Iddings, for the past eleven years law libra- rian of Montgomery county ; and Andrew S. Iddings, who has been deputy clerk of the supreme court of Ohio, and chief deputy clerk of the circuit and common pleas courts of Montgomery county, but is now engaged in the active practice of law. The other grandson, Roscoe C. Iddings, is special agent of the Montgomery County Mutual Fire Insurance Company.
WILBUR CONOVER was in his time one of the best lawyers that ever practiced at the Dayton bar. He was a graduate of Oxford (in the year 1840) and was distinguished at college for his superior faculties. He was a close student and possessed a clear, vigorous intellect. He studied law with Odlin & Schenck and on his admission to the bar became a member of the firm. He was afterwards the sole partner of General Schenck until that gentleman went to Brazil as United States minister. He then entered into partnership with Samuel Craig- head, which continued up to the time of his death. "He never aspired to public office.
SAMUEL CRAIGHEAD, deceased, was born in the Cumberland Valley of Penn- sylvania, received a classical education and after being admitted to the bar selected Dayton for his future home. He arrived here in the spring of 1844 and immediately entered on the practice of the law. In 1848 he was elected prose- cuting attorney of Montgomery county, serving two terms and maintaining by his able discharge of the duties of that office the high character that had been conferred upon it by his predecessors. His practice at the bar during his entire life was wide, varied and successful. Uniformly able and thorough in the trial of cases, always distinguished for courteous bearing, gifted as an orator, with excellent literary taste and superior social accomplishments, no man of his day represented more fully the highest type of the lawyer and gentleman than Samuel Craighead.
COL. M. P. NOLAN, deceased, one of the older lawyers, who has been dead for several years, worked his way to the front rank in the profession by untiring industry and natural ability. He was especially strong with juries in the trial of cases. Col. Nolan was a war democrat in the time of the Rebellion. Entered the army, commanding a regiment as colonel, and after his termination of service was appointed United States commissioner by President Johnson. Col. Nolan
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was one of the best Shakesperian scholars in Dayton, was always a close student of the muses and the drama and in social life a most companionable gentleman.
The late WILLIAM CRAIGHEAD graduated from Oxford in 1855, studied law with Conover & Craighead, was admitted to the bar in 1859, soon after formed a law partnership with the late Warren Munger which continued for some fifteen years. Subsequent to the death of Wilbur Conover, he formed a partnership with his relative, Samuel Craighead, which continued till the death of the latter, William Craighead, served as city solicitor of the city of Dayton two terms with great credit to himself and most acceptably to the people. Otherwise he did not seek office but devoted his whole time and talents to his profession. Mr. Craig- head was a man of fine character, a thoroughly capable lawyer and strictly devoted to his profession.
E. STAFFORD YOUNG was a lawyer of marked ability, who for thirty years and up to the time of his sad and sudden death, which occurred on the 14th of February, 1888, had been a member of the Dayton bar. His sterling qualities of personal independence and integrity commanded everybody's respect who knew him, and his diligent devotion to business, large experience and thorough knowl- edge of the law brought to him a liberal amount of business. No man in the community was more highly respected than Mr. Young because in him were all the qualities to make a citizen and professional man who measured up to the highest standard. He left surviving him two sons, George R. Young and Wm. H. Young, now in partnership in the practice of law in the city of Dayton, who stand in the front rank of the profession, being strictly lawyers, having no other ambition.
LEWIS B. GUNCKEL graduated from Farmers College in 1848 and from the Cincinnati Law School in 1851. In his early professional life he was associated with Hiram Strong which continued until Col. Strong entered the army after the breaking out of the Rebellion. In 1862 Mr. Gunckel was elected to the state senate and served therein as chairman of the judiciary committee. He was instrumental in the establishment of the National Soldiers' Home at Dayton, was appointed a member of its board of managers which position he held for twelve years, during ten of which he was secretary of the board and local manager of the Home. In 1872 he was elected to Congress, serving therein on the Military Committee. Since his retirement from Congress, and up to the time of his death, he was a member of the law firm of Gunckel & Rowe. Mr. Gunckel was an able lawyer and a public spirited citizen always ready to take part in anything which tended to promote the public good.
DAVID A. HOUK, deceased, came to the bar about the year 1854. He first formed a partnership with George Malambre and afterwards with E. S. Young. He served as prosecuting attorney two terms and made a high reputation in that department of the practice. He was recognized as a lawyer of fine acquirements in his profession, very logical and forcible in the presentation of his cases to court and jury. He was the democratic candidate for Congress against General Robert C. Schenck in 1864 but was defeated, the district being overwhelmingly republican. He was noted for his unflinching integrity and independence of character. He belonged to the class of distinguished men who would rather be right than be president.
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HON. JOHN A. McMAHON was born in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1833. His father, Hon. John V. L. McMahon, ranked among the very best lawyers of the early American bar. He was purely a lawyer and seems to have transmitted to his son the superior legal qualities that so eminently distinguished him through- out his career at the bar. Hon. John A. McMahon graduated from St. Xaviers College Cincinnati in 1849, came to Dayton in 1851, and at once entered in the study of the law in the office of C. L. Vallandigham who had married his aunt. He was admitted to the bar in 1854 and entered in the practice in Dayton in partnership with his preceptor. In 1861 he formed a law partnership with the late Hon. George N. Houk, which continued till about the year 1880. For some years subsequent Mr. McMahon practiced law alone and until the arrival of his son, J. Sprigg McMahon, of age, and of his admission to the bar, since which time father and son have practiced together under the firm name of McMahon & McMahon. I cannot express myself regarding the high character and qualifica- tions of Hon. John A. McMahon in any better way than to quote from an address I delivered at his golden jubilee banquet in this city. "It has become almost a truism that the sons of great men do not measure up to the paternal standard. In the case of our guest this is not the fact, for while his distinguished father, the late Hon. J. V. L. McMahon, ranked in his day with the most distinguished law- yers of the Maryland bar, a bar noted for its great lawyers, his son, our guest, tested by fifty years in the full and active practice of his profession, stands today not only the peer of any member of the bar of this state, but his legal ability is recognized far beyond its limits." * * In the day when Mr. McMahon came to the bar law was really the perfection of human reason, for as books were few, cases had to be reasoned out on principle ; the lazy man's aids, digests and endless reports of cases had not yet made their appearance. I well remember the trial of a case, though I cannot recall its title, in which Mr. McMahon, while yet a young lawyer, was pitted against the late Judge Allan G. Thurman, then in the zenith of his fame, and I know that before the case was ended Judge Thurman discovered in his young Dayton antagonist a foeman worthy of his steel, and so acknowledged it by publicly bestowing on Mr. McMahon a most deserving compliment. At the time I speak of there were at the Dayton bar such dis- tinguished lawyers as Robert C. Schenck, Daniel A. Haynes, C. L. Vallandigham, Henry Stoddard, Peter Odlin, Wilbur Conover, Samuel Craighead, E. S. Young, and in the trial of jury cases the equal of any, Peter P. Lowe. It was with such men at the local bar that Mr. McMahon had his first experience. How he acquitted himself is best told in the history of a remarkably active and successful professional career. Having had the honor for many years of presiding in a court in which Mr. McMahon won many of his well earned laurels the opportunity was fully afforded me to observe and note many of the striking features of his style and manner in the handling and trial of cases, which I enumerate as skilful in pleading, alert and industrious in preparation for trial, terse and incisive in argument, logical yet simple in illustration, frank but confident in manner, qualities in speech and habit calculated to impress juries with the advocates sincerity and to win verdicts. To the foregoing must be added wonderful powers of memory, for every fact, every rule, every principle involved or brought into the trial of a case he could distinctly remember, for he never took notes or trusted to the notes
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taken by others. Before the days of stenography when frequent wrangles would occur between counsel as to what witnesses testified to, or as to what other facts occurred during a trial, when making up bills of exceptions or otherwise, I never found Mr. McMahon's memory at fault. While by scholarly attainments, exten- sive reading, general knowledge of men and affairs and fine legal equipment Mr. McMahon has been eminently fitted for public office, so wedded has he been to his chosen profession that he never sought it. When he did enter the lists as a candidate for Congress, it was at the urgent solicitation of representative men of both parties, who recognized in him sterling honesty and eminent fitness.
Although the congressional district in which Mr. McMahon ran was at the time strongly republican, he was elected by a large majority. Again he was in- duced to enter the lists and was again elected and so for a third term. * * Coming as he does from good old democratic stock, he has always been true to its teachings ; although not seeking office he has been ever ready by counsel or on the hustings to advance its principles. It must he said however to his credit that he has never been carried away by the facts or fancies of political visionaries, who would sacrifice democratic principles to personal vanity or temporary ex- pediency. No doubt my hearers remember the Belknap impeachment case tried before the United States Senate on charges preferred against General Belknap as secretary of war. The trial took place while Mr. McMahon was serving in Congress, and he had the honor of having been selected on behalf of the house as one of the managers to prosecute the charges. As one of the active counsel for the defendant was ex-Senator Carpenter of Wisconsin, ranking as one of the ablest and most eloquent lawyers of the Badger State Senator Carpenter in that case made the grave mistake that lawyers sometimes do, of trusting too much to his reputation and eloquence for success, instead of carefully preparing the facts and looking up the law of his case. With an antagonist of Mr. McMahon's in- dustry and ready application of principles, Senator Carpenter found himself out- generaled at every stage of the trial, so much so that it became a subject of public notice in and out of Congress, and the press of the country regardless of party, paid a high compliment to Mr. McMahon for his ability and industry in the management of the case. That such a man as Mr. McMahon cannot be kept in Congress is to be deeply regretted, but the fact is as he has often told me, that he left Congress a much poorer man than when he entered and that though exceed- ingly democratic in his habits he found it necessary to return to the practice of his profession to provide for his family. * * While many great and important trusts involving large amounts of capital because of his integrity, industry and ability are placed in his hands by which, because of their number, he is enabled to select his cases and his clients, no deserving person no matter how poor, or humble, who has a meritorious case will be turned away. These traits in Mr. McMahon's character has always made him very popular with the masses. *
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