USA > Ohio > The biographical cyclopaedia and portrait gallery with an historical sketch of the state of Ohio. Volume I > Part 44
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FORD, SEABURY, the fifteenth governor elected by the people of Ohio, was born in Cheshire, Connecticut, in 1802, and died at his home in Burton, Geauga county, Ohio, May 8th, 1855. His father, John Ford, was a native of New England, of Scotch descent. His mother, Esther Cook, was a New England woman of Puritan lineage, a sister of Nabbie Cook, the wife of Peter Hitchcock, the first chief justice of Ohio. She was a woman of more than ordinary energy and business practicability. In 1805, John Ford visited and ex- plored the Western Reserve in northern Ohio, in search of lands and a home in the West, and purchased 2,000 acres of land in what is now the township of Burton, then a wilder-
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ness. In the autumn of 1807, with his wife and four children he removed to his land, and as a pioneer entered upon its settlement. Seabury, then five years old, was the youngest of the family, and at an early age exhibited indications of future intellectual force. Having received his education in the common schools, he was prepared for college at an academy in Burton. In the autumn of 1821 he entered Yale College, and graduated from that institution in 1825. Re- turning home he began the study of law in the office of Samuel W. Phelps, of Painesville, and completed his course of study in the office of Judge Peter Hitchcock, his uncle. In 1827 he was admitted to practice, and immediately opened an office in Burton, where he soon won a large and lucrative practice. While thus engaged, and also later in liis life, he took an earnest interest in State military affairs, and held for a number of years the rank of a major general of militia. His early farm life had awakened an interest in agricultural pursuits which continued during life, and prompted him in his subsequent career to encourage whatever advanced the best interests of this important pursuit. He likewise freely in- terested himself in politics, and in the year 1835 was elected by the whigs their representative in the State legislature from Geauga county. He was successively reelected twice and served six sessions, during one of which, that of 1840, he acted as speaker. In 1841 he was elected to the State senate from the district composed of Cuyahoga and Geauga counties. and continued a member of the senate until 1844, when he was again elected to the assembly. In 1846 he was again elected to the senate, and chosen speaker of that body. As a legislator he exhibited practical business talent, and keen appreciation of the true condition of such subjects as were. presented, more especially those relating to finance. In 1848, after an excited political contest, he was elected gov- ernor of the State by a small majority, and his administration, characterized by boldness, much ability, and a vigorous de- fence of the rights of man, commanded the respect of political opponents and the approval of his own party. At the close of his term he retired to his home in Burton, much broken in health. Here on the first Sunday after his return he had a stroke of paralysis, from which he never recovered. During twenty years he was an honored and useful member of the Congregational church. As a speaker, Governor Ford was analytical, argumentative, and convincing, and as a repre- sentative he had the most enthusiastic zeal for the public in- terests, and enjoyed continuous popularity, evinced by his repeated election. In moral life he possessed the most un- bending integrity, which was exercised in an unflinching spirit of opposition to all demagogues and their schemes. The Herald and Gazette, of Cleveland, for February 28th, 1839, copying an extract from a private letter of a gentleman in Columbus, said : "Representative Ford is one of the most valuable men in the legislature, and although unassuming and quiet, is far more serviceable to the State than many who make louder professions. He has saved the State treasury millions of dollars within the past few years." As a member of the finance committee, he paid particular attention to this subject, introducing a number of bills which became laws, containing principles which since have been engrafted on the financial system of the State. In the domestic circle he was kind and indulgent, genial and affable in social intercourse, and a generous, sympathetic and faithful friend. He married September 10th, 1828, Miss Harriet E. Cook, daughter of John Cook, of Burton, five sons being the issue of this union,
three of whom, Seabury C., George H. and Robert N., are living.
NASH, GEORGE K., attorney-general of the State of Ohio, Columbus, was born on a farm in Medina county, in this State, August 14th, 1842. He is a son of Asa and Electa (Branch) Nash, natives of Massachusetts, and of English ancestry. The father of Mr. Nash settled on a farm in Medina county at an early day, where he pursued the quiet life of a farmer, and where George K. was brought up. The early education of young Nash was such as was afforded in the public schools of Medina county, but at the age of twenty he entered Oberlin College, at Oberlin, Ohio, and took the regular course of study till he had reached the sophomore year. He then retired from the college, and be- gan reading law in the office of Judge R. B. Warden. April, 1867, Mr. Nash was regularly admitted to the bar in Colum- bus, and at once entered upon the practice of law. In 1864 he entered the service of the United States, volunteering as a private in Company K, 150th Ohio National Guard, and it was at the close of his military service that he first began the study of law. For three years subsequent to his admittance he practiced in the various courts of Franklin county and the city of Columbus, and, for a young man, was successful. For a time Mr. Nash was chief clerk in the secretary of state's office, under General Isaac R. Sherwood. In 1870 he was elected prosecuting attorney for Franklin county by a majority of three hundred and ninety-six, when the average democratic majority in the county on State and county ticket was one thousand four hundred and twenty-five. Moreover, he was, during the campaign preceding his election, chair- man of the republican county executive committee, and fought his opponents with a stern and unrelenting hand. So acceptably did he fill the office of prosecuting attorney that the people elected him his own successor in 1872 by a majority of seven hundred and ninety-three, when at the same election the average democratic majority in his county was two thousand and eighty-seven. His conduct while prosecutor was remarkable for its industry, care, and perse- verance. He prosecuted and convicted an unusually large number of criminals, and still treated all with great fair- ness. In 1876 Mr. Nash made the race for Congress against General Tom Ewing, but, of course, was defeated, since his district was hopelessly democratic. In 1877 he was defeated for the office of attorney-general with the remainder of the republican State ticket. However, he was recognized by the republican party of the State as the man for the place, and, upon the assembling of the republican State convention in Cincinnati, in 1879, Mr. Nash was again nominated for attorney-general on the first ballot, and was elected in Octo- ber following. During the campaign of 1879 his party rec- ognized the fact that he was among the most effective workers in the State ; every thing being done, however, in a quiet and unobtrusive manner, and in remote parts of the State. He is now discharging the duties of his office with credit to him- self and satisfaction to the people. The most important case in which Mr. Nash has been engaged since he became attorney-general was that of the State of Ohio, on relation of the attorney-general, vs. Wm. H. Vanderbilt et al. This case was a quo warranto proceeding, instituted in the Supreme Court of the State on the 25th day of October, 1881, by which it was sought to test the legality of an attempted consolidation of the Cleveland, Columbus, Cincinnati and Indianapolis
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efforts to restrain his fellows from wasting their substance for that which could not feed, clothe, or defend. He soon be- came impressed with the idea that temperance efforts would be unavailing unless suitable substitutes for the saloon or the bar-room could be provided. He then went about the organ- ization of a lyceum and a library association, and took an active part in its transactions until the war, when it was sus- pended. During the progress he has made, through suc- cessive stages, at the bar, his long career on the Common Pleas bench, in the Supreme Court commission, and on the bench of the Supreme Court, he has preserved the native diffidence and simplicity of his manners. Unlike too many of the law profession who have attained to eminence and lost their sympathy with those who have been left behind in the race, he is a notable exception, and is one of the first to whom his most rustic neighbor will resort for help or for friendly advice in time of trouble. His conduct during the late war deserves, at least, a passing notice. His county (Lawrence) had a frontage of thirty miles upon the then State of Virginia. The residence of General A. G. Jenkins was at Green Bottom, on the opposite bank of the Ohio river. Previous to the call of President Lincoln for 75,000 volun- teers for three months' service, General Jenkins had recruited a regiment of 1,500 hundred mounted men, known during the war as the Jenkins cavalry. For three months before the call for volunteers a secession flag floated over the south bank of the Ohio river, from the old town of Guyandotte, thus flaunting defiance in the very faces of the people of Lawrence county. The young men of the border counties of Virginia were rapidly flocking about the flag of the insur- gents. At that time the most serious apprehensions were en- tertained that there would be a similar revolt in the coun- ties of Greenup and Boyd in Kentucky, fronting Lawrence county. All that the masses in those counties then required was a leader and arms to take them into open rebellion. Fortunately, however, three influential lawyers in North- eastern Kentucky, Hon. Laban F. Moore, Judge Ireland, and Hon. E. F. Dulin, were staunch and bold friends of the Fed- eral union. A border State conference and a mass meeting was proposed to be held at Catlettsburg, Kentucky, February 22d, 1861, for the purpose of influencing opinion in Eastern Ken- tucky against precipitating a movement similar to that of their Virginia neighbors on the eastern side of the Big Sandy river. Judge Johnson was then holding court in Ironton. He adjourned his court, and with the lawyers and citizens, who had chartered a steam-boat for the purpose, went to the Catlettsburg meeting. Representatives were there from the border counties of Virginia, Kentucky, Ohio, and Indiana, and large masses of the rank and file from Eastern Ken- tucky, many of whom were ready to 'fight for their rights.' Then, two questions were paramount, viz .: I. The right of a State to peaceably secede from the compact of union. 2. The authority of the Federal Government to employ force to coerce insurgent officers and citizens of a seceding State to obey the mandates of the Constitution of the United States and the laws of congress. Many shadowy doubts were ex- pressed as to the power of congress, in the language of the time, to ' coerce a State.' The audience were divided in opinion. The clouds hung dark and lowering. In the midst of such surroundings Judge Johnson was called upon to give his views upon the political situation. His speech was not reported, yet it is fresh in the recollection of the writer. While admitting the right of revolution to any oppressed
people, where peaceable remedies have failed, he asked what were the actual grievances of the seceding States, what injury had been done, or threatened to bè done, to a single person in any Southern State by the Federal Government. Was it because Abraham Lincoln had been elected President, by the popular will, acting through the forms prescribed by the Con- stitution ? He then characterized the secession movement as an appeal from the will of the majority and from the vital letter of the Constitution itself to force, and said that no State could succeed in any such revolutionary enterprise ; that their people would, in the last resort, be ' coerced ' and humiliated by the powers inherent in the Federal Govern- ment. He uttered these views with the earnestness of deep and settled conviction. They seemed to break the spell that had settled upon the audience and opened the way for more freedom of expression. In April, 1861, when the first call was made for volunteers, Judge Johnson was among those who clearly saw that there would be no peace while slavery remained, and that the war would be likely to continue until the resources of the South should be fully exhausted. During the earlier part of the war the young men were eager to vol- unteer in the military service, and to learn something of tac- tics and drill. The judge, while serving on the Common Pleas bench, was elected captain of a company, and made the study of infantry tactics and drill a specialty until he had become familiar with the subject. He then practiced his men in all the various maneuvers of the military art, and taught them the use of military terms and words. In discipline he is said to have been as rigid as an officer of the regular army. During the first year of the war, while the spirit of the people was up, it was very difficult for volunteers to get into Ohio regiments; the result was, that parts of four Vir- ginia regiments were composed of volunteers from Lawrence county, Ohio. A very considerable number of those the judge had trained became officers in the Virginia regiments. Among the soldiers his familiar title of ' Judge ' was lost in the more popular one of ' Captain.' When on duty he wore the captain's uniform. His large and commanding form at the head of his company, in blouse and military cap, rever- ently saluted by his men as { Captain,' was a spectacle that often provoked a smile among his friends. Not once only, but again and again, he and his company stood sentinel upon the Virginia border to protect the inhabitants against raids from the Jenkins cavalry ; and on several occasions they assumed the aggressive, crossed the Ohio river, and went into the territory of Virginia. The war left, in and about Ironton, many fatherless children, who were poorly provided with homes and the means of education ; besides, it is a mining and manufacturing region, where the lives and fortunes of workmen are precarious. The social conditions in such localities favor an increase of the criminal and the perishing classes. Juvenile offenders were often brought be- fore his court, and sent to the boys' State reform school. He discovered that, in most cases, the offenses of such had been caused by poverty and want. The subject of reclaim- ing young children and removing them from vicious sur- roundings, and the practical means of accomplishing the object, had impressed themselves seriously upon his mind. He is one of the few men in high official station whom the 'short but simple annals of the poor' fill with deep emotion. He formed the plan of establishing in Ironton a 'Children's Home.' He soon interested others, both men and women, in the work, and accomplished his purpose before the gen-
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eral public scarcely knew of the beneficent work begun. The institution is in a prosperous condition, a 'home' for the little unfortunate ones which, in its results already accom- plished, must be reckoned as a far-reaching and influential means. of present and future good. Notwithstanding his pres- ent labors on the bench of the Supreme Court, he. devotes much of his time to forwarding the interests of the Brigg's Library and Institute. The principal labor of Judge John- son's life has been on the bench of the Court of Common Pleas. There is no district in the State presenting a greater variety of legal questions for judicial determination than came before him in the 7th district, involving questions of navigation, rights of belligerents during the war and for years afterwards ; inter-state commerce, such as the enforcement of contracts made in Louisiana under the civil law, the ques- tions constantly growing out of mining and manufacturing operations, and the uses of complex machinery. Such were his habits of industry and the inquisitive nature of his intel- lect, that when any new question was presented, he appeared to be familiar with it. He had made himself acquainted with the details of the methods by which the leading indus- tries were prosecuted, from agriculture to navigation. There is scarcely a detail in the processes of mining, or in the manu- facture of charcoal, iron, and steel, or other industries, with which he is not acquainted. His idea of a lawyer is, that he should know the methods by which the arts and in- dustries are prosecuted, and with the scope and range of modern science, and that he should engage in no pursuit but his own chosen profession. Few men in the magistracy any- where have given stronger evidences of a life of labor than he has done. His knowledge of the law has been vastly extended by 'his studies in the civil law which prevails in most of continental Europe. Perhaps no one appreciates more fully than Judge Johnson himself the utter insuffi- ciency of a mere knowledge of the common law to qual- ify a lawyer, sitting upon the supreme bench of the State of Ohio, to deal with questions upon which that court is sometimes called to decide. While on the bench of the Common Pleas, it was his custom to master all the facts and surroundings of the cases brought before him, which are treasured up in his unfailing memory. His recollection of parties, witnesses, and incidents, connected with the trial of causes that came before him twenty years ago, are as fresh in his memory as the events of the passing year. His judi- cial opinions, rendered in the Common Pleas Court, evinced as much labor and learning as those found in the books. He uniformly restated the evidence as presented by the par- ties litigant before proceeding with the reasons upon which his judgments were based. His statements were so exact, and his logical processes such, that the most vigilant lawyer seldom complained of any error in statement or deduction. Few, indeed, of his judgments were revised by the higher tribunals. He had the rare faculty of satisfying the bar that the law was honestly administered by him, and of weaken- ing the conceit of crafty litigants in bad cases. During the later years of his administration, jury trials were virtually abandoned in his court, except in damage suits and in criminal cases. In his court, crafty counsel, social or political influ- ence, wealth or popular clamor, were powerless to obstruct the administration of justice. No one ever accused him of hesitating or pausing to consider how any ruling of his, or any judgment he might render, would affect his popularity with the people, or whether it would make a new friend, or
cause him to lose an old one. At no time, not even during the maddening excitements of the civil war, were his rulings and adjudications tempered with favor or resentment. His is an honest intellect, more fearful of error than of men. It was this quality that impelled him to render an opinion dis- senting from the judgments of his associates in the late Su- preme Court commission on the question of jurisdiction in the famous case of Carey vs. the Baltimore and Ohio railway company, which will be found in 27th Ohio State Reports. That dissenting opinion will be likely to stand, for the rea- soning upon which it rests has not been answered. Nor can the judiciary of this State surrender their rightful authority over foreign corporations doing business in Ohio, without im- pairing their high standing for learning, ability, and usefulness. It is the testimony of lawyers and the people that this man has been faithful to the State of Ohio and to the Federal Union, faithful to the bar and to the people. A solid judg- ment, with reasoning faculties quickened by their varied ex- ercise, perceptions acute and penetrating, an inherent love of justice, with manners suited to the magistracy, fit him for the high judicial station he occupies.
HUNTER, HOCKING H., lawyer, was born on the site of the present city of Lancaster, Ohio, August 23d, 1801, and died at his residence in that city February 4th, 1872. He was a son of Captain Joseph Hunter and Do- rotha (Berkshire) Hunter, the former a native of Virginia and the latter of Maryland. Captain Hunter was an officer in the Revolutionary war, and at its close went to Kentucky, re- moving, in 1798, to Fairfield county, Ohio, being its first set- tler. Hocking H. Hunter was reared on a farm, where he passed his childhood and youth, aiding in its labors when old enough, alternated for a time by working in a saw-mill. November 30th, 1823, he was married to Miss Ann Matlack, daughter of Samuel and Elizabeth (Lynch) Matlack, who emigrated to Fairfield county about the year 1810. The wife of Mr. Hunter survived him and is still living, in 1882. After acquiring the mere rudiments of knowledge, picked up at home or in a country school, his educational facilities were limited to an attendance, for a longer or shorter period at a time, during the later years of his minority, at the Lancaster academy; at first under the tuition of Professor Stephen Whit- tlesey, a graduate of Yale, and afterwards of Professor John Whittlesey, another graduate of the same college. His study of the law was made in the office of the Hon. Wm. W. Irvin, formerly a judge of the Supreme Court of Ohio, and distin- guished among the first generation of lawyers of the State. Here he applied himself with zeal and assiduity, and in the Spring of 1824 was qualified for admission to the bar, and at once entered upon the practice of the law, to which, with singular constancy, to the exclusion of all other employ- ments, he devoted the whole of his life. In 1825 he was ap- pointed to the office of prosecuting attorney for Fairfield county, and discharged the duties of that position under successive appointments for a period of six years, down to 1831. Early in 1831 he was associated as a partner with the Hon. Thos. Ewing, and had almost exclusive charge of the extensive practice of the firm of Ewing & Hunter for the suc- çeeding years, during Mr. Ewing's term in the United States Senate. In 1863 he was prevailed upon to allow the use of his name for the office of judge of the Supreme Court of Ohio on what was known as the " Union Ticket," headed by John Brough. He was elected by a majority unprecedentedly
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large and duly commissioned to the office. But being satis- fied that he might do so without detriment to the public inter- est, he resigned his commission without taking his seat on the bench, and continued in the active practice of the profession ; in which he was under engagements to clients in numerous and important pending cases. During the early years of his professional life the local bar of Lancaster numbered not a few names that distinguished it, throughout the State, for force and ability. In this severe and trying school he made him- self a lawyer. As his powers matured and he grew in repu- tation, he attained a prominent position and practice at the bar of the Supreme Court of the State, and the Circuit Court of the United States, at Cincinnati; and appeared among the leaders of the profession in the Supreme Court of the United States, at Washington. On the occasion of his death the members of the bar of his native town, where he had been a conspicious figure for more than forty years, as also the bars of the higher courts named, met in their respective forums to pay just tribute to the memory of a good man who had made himself also a great man. The high professional standing, as well as the estimable personal character, of Mr. Hunter, are abundantly attested in the appreciative, warm, and sincere eulogies that came from the hearts of his surviv- ing friends at these memorial meetings; with some selections from which, as they appear entered at large on the minutes of the several courts, we close this sketch :
"Mr. Hunter's mind was eminently judicial, strong, dis- criminating, and energetic. He was devoted to labor and very careful in the preparation of his cases. His arguments, whether upon questions of law or fact, were clear, strong, di- rect, and exhaustive. He sought to gain his causes on their substantial merits, and practiced no art to delude court or jury. There was nothing precocious pertaining to his mind ; it developed and expanded during the most of his profes- sional life, so that, as he emerged from each successive con- flict, he appeared stronger and better prepared for the next."
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