USA > Ohio > The biographical cyclopaedia and portrait gallery with an historical sketch of the state of Ohio. Volume II > Part 42
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was possible for the Commissioner, upon ex parte evi- dence of the claimant alone, and without an open trial, to surrender the alleged slave to the claimant, and this was what the colored people feared might be done in this case. A prominent Friend, William Crossman, once said to him, with reference to the odium attached to any one holding the office of "Fugitive Slave " Commissioner, as it was incorrectly styled: "Friend Carpenter, we are glad to have thee hold the office, for we know that thee will give the poor colored man a fair trial." The case of George McQuarry (alias "Wash") excited much interest. On the affidavit of his claimant, Henry Miller, on 15th August, 1853, he issued a warrant to the United States Marshal for his arrest. He was taken near Troy, Ohio. He was brought before Mr. Carpenter, in irons, which he at once ordered to be taken off. He set next day (the 16th), at two P. M., for the hearing. Early in the morning application was made by Peter H. Clark, a prominent colored man, to Hon. John McLean, Judge Circuit Court United States, for a writ of habeas corpus, and the matter was, very much to the Com- missioner's satisfaction, heard before him. Thomas C. Ware, Esq., appeared for the claimant, and John Jolliffe and James Birney, Esqs., for the prisoner. The case was deemed im- portant as a precedent, as being the first one tried before a United States Judge. The testimony showed that "Wash " had been the slave of Miller, in Kentucky, and that he had escaped upward of four years previously. Counsel for "Wash" argued strongly against the constitutionality of the "Fugitive Slave" law and the denial of trial by jury, etc. Dr. Brisbane, a noted " Liberty" man, read a long manu- script address on that point, and on "the higher law" against slavery. Mr. Ware made a lengthy argument for the claim- ant, Miller. Judge McLean decided that the general govern- ment had a constitutional right to enact a law for the sur- render of fugitives from labor, etc., and remanded "Wash " to his master. The case of "Lewis," claimed by A. K. Marshall, of Fleming County, Kentucky, was the last which came before him. He appeared in custody of the United States Marshal, October 17th, 1853. A. S. Sullivan and F. T. Chambers, Esqs., appeared for the claimant, Marshall, and John Jolliffe, Rutherford B. Hayes, and James Birney, Esqs., for "Lewis." The testimony was heard on the 17th, and the legal questions in the case were argued by counsel at great length and with great ability that and the following day. An adjournment being had to the 20th, on that day a motion was made by counsel for "Lewis " for an adjourn- ment to the 25th, on the ground of the discovery of material testimony, which motion was granted. During the Com- missioner's decision, which was given in a low tone, his voice being affected by a cold, and while the close attention of those present was given to his remarks, the prisoner, seeing his opportunity, quietly withdrew from the room, no one but a few of his "Abolition" friends noticing his movements, and made his escape. When his absence was discovered, a scene of great confusion and excitement, and, on the part of his friends, of much merriment, followed. Some one had handed "Lewis" a hat belonging to Mr. Spurlock, and there was much inquiry for "Spurlock's hat." Every effort was made by the unhappy United States Marshal and the claim- ant to find "Lewis," but he had got sufficient start to make a train on the "Underground Railroad," then in active opera- tion, by the conductors of which he was finally landed in the then only land of freedom-Canada. The Marshal was
obliged to settle with the claimant, who demanded one thousand dollars, for "Lewis," but finally accepted eight hundred dollars. A very interesting account of this unpre- cedented escape from a court-room under charge of two officers, the concealment of the fugitive, and his final escape by the "Underground Railroad," in female apparel, to Can- ada, may be found in the " Reminiscences " of Levi Coffin, president of the said railroad, pp. 548-554. On the hearing of this case, Mr. Carpenter concluded, and would, but for the manner of its termination, have so decided, that the " Fugitive Slave " law was in conflict with the constitution of the United States in conferring judicial powers upon Commissioners of the United States Circuit Court. The question had not then been judicially determined by any higher tribunal, and he was there- fore compelled to determine it for himself. Some months after the hearing in the "Lewis" case, application having been made to him for the arrest of several alleged fugitives from slavery, who were said to be concealed in the woods near the city, he declined to issue a warrant, stating that he would give his reasons for so doing in one of the newspapers. Ac- cordingly, in the Cincinnati Gazette, of June 15th, 1854, he published an opinion, stating at length his views upon the constitutionality of the "Fugitive Slave " law-which were, substantially, that Commissioners were not courts, within the terms and meaning of the constitution, not having the re- quisites of courts, and therefore could not exercise the judicial powers conferred upon them ; the final decision of the question of a man's freedom or slavery for life, without appeal, being, in his opinion, the exercise of judicial power in the highest sense. Within a few weeks thereafter his decision against the constitutionality of the law was corroborated by the Su- preme Court of the State of Wisconsin, in the case of Able- man vs. The State ex rel. Sherman M. Booth. Mr. Carpenter was the first United States Commissioner to decline to exe- cute the law. He did not resign his office, because to do so would have been to recognize the validity of the law which, as being invalid, he held to have no binding force upon him. Had he considered it valid, he would have resigned after the hearing in the "Lewis" case, rather than continue to execute it. Commenting upon the foregoing decision, the Cincinnati Commercial, of August 3d, 1854, says:
" It will be recollected that S. S. Carpenter, Esq., of this city, a Commissioner under the laws of the United States, re- cently declined to act in cases where application was made for process, according to the provisions of the Fugitive Act. Mr. Carpenter was censured in some papers for retaining his commission and at the same time refusing to perform a por- tion of the duties of his office. His reasons, contained in a letter, dated June 15th, were published in the Cincinnati Gazette, and it can not be denied that he has displayed much ability, and made a justification of his conduct, which if not conclusive against the law is worthy of consideration as pre- senting novel and important questions of doubt in regard to the constitutionality of such of its provisions as relate to the powers and duties of the Commissioner."
One result of his thus acting up to his profound convictions was the loss of all his business as United States Commissioner, which then constituted a considerable portion of his pro- fessional income; and the gain of a great deal of public odium and censure on the part of the pro-slavery portion of the community, then largely in the ascendency. In 1857, and again in 1860, he was a candidate, on the Republican ticket, for the office of Judge of the Probate Court of Hamil- ton County, the last time coming within three hundred and twenty-five votes of election. The party was at that time in
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a minority in the county, and his only compensation, then and since, for his labors and losses in those and other cam- paigns, was the honor of having been a standard-bearer of his party in leading a forlorn hope. Mr. Carpenter was at first a Whig, and then a Republican. He has maintained unswerving allegiance to the doctrines of Republicanism since the origin of that party. By reason of physical in- ability, Mr. Carpenter was unable to enter the army when the war finally broke out, of which the "Fugitive Slave" act was the forerunner. He fought the preliminary skirmish in the courts bravely. It did not involve the shedding of blood, but it cost him heavily at the time-loss of business and the friendship of some less conscientious and resolute than he. It was heroism of a high order to withstand public opinion and the admonitions of a federal judge; to bear the odium, and in more than one instance the personal insults, of those who, taking advantage of his physical disability, were base enough to impugn his motives. Reared in the school of Thaddeus Stevens, and believing in the inalienable rights of all men, regardless of nationality or color, he could do nothing more and would do nothing less than to stand up to his convictions. As a lawyer Mr. Carpenter's reputation is that of a wise and safe counselor. His experience in the management of trusts and the settlement of estates has been large. He is a conscientious lawyer. No member of the Cincinnati bar is more trustworthy; no attorney more assid- uous in business or faithful to the interests of his clients. He has had large experience in the examination and trans- mission of titles, and his reputation for accuracy and pains- taking is unsurpassed. As a citizen he stands high in the respect and esteem of the community. He has been a mem- ber of the New Jerusalem Church for thirty-six years. He married October Ist, 1846, Miss Louisa Carman, by whom he had nine children, of whom seven are living-all adults. His second wife, whom he married February 8th, 1876, was Miss Mary Macy, daughter of John C. Macy, for many years a member of the house of Padgett & Macy, of Cincinnati. By her he has two children. Mr. Carpenter resides upon Wal- nut Hills. Of his nine living children, it may be said that the oldest son, Edwin J., is a civil engineer, having been educated as such in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and for the past ten years has been superintendent of government dredging on the Ohio River; Charles S., also a civil engineer, and educated in the same institute, has charge of a division of the Mexican Central Railway ; Samuel W., is a graduate of Cornell University, and is now an attorney-at-law, at Den- ver, Colorado ; Frank G., is a graduate of Chickering Insti- tute, and with his brother John H., is now in the grazing. regions of Colorado. Of those who pleaded before Com- missioner Carpenter, either for or against the poor slave, John Jolliffe, Frank T. Chambers, Judge W. Y. Gholson, and Thomas C. Ware are dead; Rutherford B. Hayes is an ex- President of the United States, Stanley Matthews is one of the Justices of the Supreme Court of the nation, while the Hon. Flamen Ball afterward became United States Attorney for the Southern District of Ohio, and is now the only prac- tising lawyer at the Cincinnati bar who participated in the stirring scenes in the Commissioner's court.
PENNINGTON, ROBERT G., lawyer of prominence at Tiffin, born in Delaware County, Pennsylvania, December IIth, 1816, comes of Pennsylvania parentage, of Quaker antecedents, and of English descent. Isaac Pennington, to
whom the ancestry is traced, was an Englishman of large influence and broad Christian charity. His daughter married William Penn, and with Penn, George Fox, Robert Barclay, and Thomas Elwood, he founded the "Society of Friends." The first American Pennington was Edward. He was the son of Isaac, and emigrated from England, with his brother-in- law, William Penn, in 1682. Edward married a daughter of Governor Jennings, of New Jersey, and from that marriage the Penningtons of New Jersey, as well as of Pennsylvania, claim their American origin. When the subject of this sketch had reached his eighth year his parents, Joseph and Sarah Pennington, moved their family from Pennsylvania to New York, and in Cayuga County of that State the lad passed nine years of his early youth. His father, a well-to- do mechanic and farmer, desirous of procuring more acres for the increasing household, visited Ohio, and purchasing lands in Seneca County, settled there in 1834. Robert was then seventeen. He had been kept at school during boy- hood, and was reputed a fair scholar. On reaching Ohio, however, he commenced a course of studies in the Huron Institute. He went through the curriculum of that popular school, and, having completed the academic course, turned his attention to the selecting of a profession. He chose the law. He read under the supervision of Abel Rawson, a dis- tinguished jurist and scholar, and was admitted to the bar in 1842. The preceptor, thinking well of the pupil, took him into partnership. The firm of Rawson & Pennington con- tinued for many years, and until the senior member, in 1850, retired from practice. It was in the office of that firm that the Hon. W. P. Noble and General W. H. Gibson took their early lessons in law and became prepared for the bar. Sub- sequently Mr. Pennington was associated as law partner with General W. H. Gibson, and later with another of his law students, J. C. Lee, ex-Lieutenant-governor of Ohio, and lastly with John McCauley, with whom he remained as partner to the time Mr. McCauley was elected Judge of the Common Pleas Court. In 1861, when the life of the nation was im- periled, Mr. Pennington rendered his country service by assisting to organize and prepare for the field the Fifty-fifth Ohio Volunteers. He went with that regiment to the front, as quartermaster, and proved himself worthy of the position. In course of time he became adjutant on General McLean's staff. But after two years of soldier-life he quitted the army, in consequence of impaired health, and returning to Tiffin, applied himself to the recovering of the clients and practice, which had strayed away during his absence. He was suc- cessful. Mr. Pennington has been devoted to his calling. He has made it the chief business of his life. Early in the practice he acquired the reputation of a painstaking, accu- rate, and honest lawyer. He has maintained that reputation. He has worn well. For over forty years he has been an active attorney, and has held out longer than any who was a member of the Tiffin bar at the time of his admission. In- stinctively and religiously he has been a hater of slavery. He was an original "Free Soiler," was conspicuous as a public speaker in the campaign of 1856, and the same year was a member of the Electoral College, and cast his vote for Fremont. He has upheld the faith, has been consistent, has at all times been in accord with the principles and policy of the Republican party. But he has never held official position. His party, recognizing his capacity for public life, have fre- quently placed him in nomination, but being in the minority in the district, it has failed to elect. In 1847 Mr. Pennington
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was one of the incorporators of the Seneca County Bank, a bank of issue, and the first established in the county. He was a director of that institution, and for a while its cashier. He was also a director and one of the largest stockholders of the late First National Bank of Tiffin. He was a projector of the Tiffin Gas Light Company, and for seven years was its president. He has taken an active and efficient part in the railroad projects that seemed likely to benefit his town, secur- ing the rights of way for them, investing largely in their stock, and facilitating and making possible their construction. And in this work he was for several years president of the Tiffin and Fort Wayne and the American and Central Railway Companies. Mr. Pennington has also encouraged and taken large pecuniary interests in manufacturing and other useful enterprises that had for their object the present and prospective welfare of Tiffin. And though, through the commercial dis- asters which have overtaken some of them, he has suffered severely, yet he is in possession of an ample and handsome competence. He is a close observer and thinker. His readings on the natural sciences and kindred subjects have been extensive, and he talks clearly on their application to architecture and the common affairs of life. Availing itself of this, the Court of Common Pleas has just (in 1883) ap- pointed him on the committee, of which he is chairman, to supervise the initiative acts, and to look after the construction of the contemplated new court-house of Seneca County. In 1842 Mr. Pennington was married to Caroline A. Kuhn, a native of the Island of Minorca, a province of Spain, and daughter of Joseph L. Kuhn, of the United States Navy, and granddaughter of Lewis Chadwick Hargrave, late British consul-general to the Spanish Balearic Islands. The late Dr. Henry Kuhn, an eminent physician of Tiffin, was her uncle. The doctor was also the husband of Mr. Pennington's eldest sister. Of Mr. Pennington's three daughters, Eugenia H. is the wife of Almon Hall, of the Toledo bar, and a lawyer of character and ability. Caroline C. is the wife of W. R. Steele, ex-member of the National Congress, and now a prominent attorney of large practice in the Territory of Da- kota ; and Louisa A., the youngest daughter, resides in Tiffin, and is the wife of Samuel Keech, who is engaged in mer- cantile pursuits. Mr. Pennington is about the medium height, carries himself erect, and his movements are easy and active. In address he is affable, frank and kindly. He is modest and unpretentious, and his general demeanor bears the im- press of his Quaker lineage. He attends, with his family, the services of the Episcopal Church, of which his wife is a communicant, and he contributes to its support.
BIGGAR, HAMILTON FISK, M. D., of Cleveland, Ohio, was born at Oakville, Ontario, Canada, March 15th, 1839. He comes from a very old Scottish family, the Biggars, of Biggarstown, Dumfries, Scotland, a family whose annals may be found in a work entitled "Scottish Queens." His grandfather, a native of Scotland, was educated and designed for a minister of the Scotch Church. He was married to Mary Lauder, by whom he had eleven children. He settled at Queenstown, Canada, and there his son, Hamilton, father of the subject of our sketch, was born in 1806. He was for many years a minister of the Wesleyan Methodist Church. He married Eliza Phelps Racey, daughter of James Racey, Esq., of Brantford, Ontario. They also had a large family. Hamilton F., after attending the public schools until he was eleven years of age, became apprenticed to mercantile busi-
ness. Not liking it, and being very young, he left this occu- pation, and returned to school for two years. He then at- tended the grammar school of R. J. Tyner, M. A., for one year, when he again entered a mercantile house, but did not find it to be adapted to his taste and abilities. Determined to ob- tain a thorough education, to fit him for something higher, he entered the University of Victoria, at Coburg. From that in- stitution he graduated as a Bachelor of Arts in 1863, and immediately began the study of law, in the office of John Cameron, of Brantford, and passed his primary examination for a barrister-at-law, at Osgood Hall, Toronto. Abandoning his legal studies, he decided to adopt the medical profession, and for that purpose came to Cleveland, in 1864, and entered the Homeopathic College, from which he graduated in 1866. He then attended the principal hospitals of New York and Philadelphia, after which he returned to Cleveland, and en- tered upon the practice of his profession. For seven years he was Professor of Anatomy and Clinical Surgery, then of Clinical Surgery with Operations, at the Cleveland Homœo- pathic College, and for many years he was also Registrar of the College. All these various offices he was compelled to re- sign on account of the multiplicity of his professional duties in his ever increasing practice. He has also occupied at the College the chair of Surgical Diseases of Women and Clin- ical Surgery. As a physician and surgeon, he is widely and favorably known, his services being at all times in great de- mand, and he has been successful and skillful in his practice. For two consecutive years he was urged to accept the chair of Surgery in the homoeopathic department of the Michigan University, at Ann Arbor. He is one of the physicians of the Cleveland Homoeopathic Hospital, and President of the Academy of Medicine and Surgery. The doctor is a man of fine physique, noble presence, manly bearing, sterling character, and moral worth, able as a physician and sur- geon, of a kind and sympathetic nature, conscientious in the duties of his calling, arduous in his labors, and eminent in his profession, of which his advanced studies have made him a peer, a member of the Episcopal Church. Socially he is a Christian gentleman-charitable, genial, hospitable. He was married, February 25th, 1869, to Miss Sue Miles Brooks, daughter of W. B. Brooks, Esq., of Columbus, Ohio. They have had born to them four children, two sons and two daughters.
JACOBS, WILLIAM C., physician, Akron, Ohio, was born at Lima, Allen County, Ohio, February 26tl1, 1840. His father, T. K. Jacobs, who was a farmer and real estate oper- ator, built the first brick building in Lima, except the court- house. He was of German descent, and came originally from Juniata County, Pennsylvania. He served as county treasurer for several years, and represented his district in the Ohio Legislature during 1860-61. His grandfather was a captain in the Revolutionary war. Dr. Jacobs's mother, Ann Elder, was of Scottish lineage, but was born in the State of Pennsylvania. He himself attended the common schools until the age of sixteen. In 1856 he entered the Naval Academy, at Annapolis, Maryland, and afterward made one cruise to Europe, as an acting midshipman. In 1859 he resigned and returned to Ohio, beginning the study of medicine, at Cincinnati, with Professor Blackman, the distinguished surgeon, and Dr. William Carson. He was a matriculate in the Medical College of Ohio, and graduated in March 1862. In April, 1862, he was appointed assistant
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surgeon, United States Army, and assigned to the 4th Ohio Volunteer Cavalry. In December, 1862, he was promoted to surgeon, and assigned to the 8Ist Ohio Infantry. At the time he received his appointment as surgeon he was less than twenty-three years old, and perhaps the youngest surgeon in the army, with the rank of major. He served in that ca- pacity until the end of the war, at which time, by reason of seniority in rank, he occupied the position of Medical Di- rector of the Ist division, 15th army corps. In October, 1865, he entered upon a successful career in the practice of med- icine, at Akron, where he still resides. He is a member of the Summit County Medical Society, the Northeastern Ohio Medical Association, the Ohio State Medical Society, and the American Medical Association, and has been an active mem- ber of the School Board, of Akron. He is a Republican in politics, though no seeker after official honors, as he devotes himself strictly to the duties of his profession. He married Miss Huldah M., daughter of Luther Hill, of Piqua, Ohio, whose father removed from Connecticut to Richland County, Ohio, in 1811. They were married September 10th, 1863, and have one child, a son, named Harold L. Dr. Jacobs has a fine mechanical turn of mind, and is therefore peculiarly adapted to surgery, in which he excels; showing great capacity for inventing, and skill as well as genius in applying surgical instruments and apparatus. These natural advantages tend to make him what he really is, a good and successful oper- ator. Socially he attracts many friends by his genial and hearty manners, and is equally esteemed in social and pro- fessional circles ; of a happy temperament and good physical constitution, he is eminently qualified to fill his important position in life. He is a member of the Masonic fraternity, being a Knight Templar and a 32° Mason.
BRADSTREET, EDWARD PAYSON, lawyer, was born June 5th, 1830, at Vermillion, near Sandusky, Ohio. He is a lineal descendant, on the paternal side, of Colonial Governor Simon Bradstreet, of Massachusetts. Governor Bradstreet married Ann Dudley, a granddaughter of Gov- ernor Thomas Dudley, and of Governor John W. Winthrop. In provincial times she was noted as a poetess, and was sometimes called " the tenth Muse." Her productions, over the name "Anne Bradstreet," are still extant. After their marriage, in 1628, at Northampton, England, they sailed for America in the Arabella Stuart. John Bradstreet, great- grandson of the governor, was a major-general in the English army, and took an active part in the French and Indian wars before the American Revolution. In 1764 he was put at the head of an army to punish the Indians in the North- west, who had failed to comply with the treaty stipulations, and marched west from what is now Buffalo, along Northern Ohio, as far as Detroit, sending for all the sachems as he went, and in the presence of his army laying down the terms of the treaty, and compelling them to swear fidelity to it. He raised the siege at Detroit, and a great council then held laid the basis of a permanent peace. For his great services he was granted by the old government immense tracts of land in Central New York, covering in part the city of Utica. Most of this he devised to his granddaughter, Martha Brad- street, a most remarkable woman, who spent much of her long life here and in England and Ireland in establishing her rights to the land, and afterward trying to vacate trust deeds to her relatives, in whom she was too confiding. In her long and fierce litigations, after her attorneys had been
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