USA > Ohio > Hamilton County > Cincinnati > The old court house : reminiscences and anecdotes of the courts and bar of Cincinnati > Part 3
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"Ain't the court the proper place to swear in?" interposed Harrison from his seat. "Where else could I swear?"
"No interruption, Mr. Harrison, you're in contempt of court," continued Judge Henderson in a loud tone- but, slyly turning to the clerk beside him, said, sotto voce, "Remit that fine, Mr. Clerk, for the d-n wit of the thing."
SOME REFLECTIONS.
So Harrison got off, and his client got his license for another year for his "poor" tavern. Conviviality was a strong point with some of the early lawyers, and some of the judges, too, for that matter. In their early days they had more time to devote to otium cum digni- tate, and all social pleasures followed as a matter of course. Men knew each other, and liked and loved each other in those bygone times. They were not sel- fishly grabbing and grasping and rasping each other for the sake of gain or lucre. Money, comparatively, was a secondary consideration among the lawyers, and their offices did not smell so much of the trade and the shop as nowadays. Theirs was an honorable profession. Lawyers met in court and out of court as high-toned, honorable men, and though there might have been keen encounters, they were of legal wit and learning. The profession was then an honor and not a trade; lawyers were honest men and not legal knaves. So, for the sake of all this, if too much Bourbon got aboard once in a while, it was happily stowed away without much damage 'resulting to navigation, or from navigation.
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JUDGE B- AND THE CONVIVIALS.
There was once the end of an important and some- what celebrated trial in chancery before the court by a compromise of the litigated matter among all the parties. There were more than a half-dozen of lawyers engaged in this trial, and when it was all over, an adjournment of the court and bar took place to the court and bar of the old Lafayette Hotel, on Main street, opposite the court house, kept by one of the pioneers of this city, by the name of Zebulon Byington. One or two of the judges and the half-dozen members of the bar concluded to have a right good time, so they left the bar of the inn and took a room above stairs, duly arranged and prepared by mine host, all to themselves. Of the lawyers, Judge B-, then practicing and not on the bench, was a boon companion, and he sat down with ease and dignity to the table of punch and good things. Of course, there was a feast of reason and a flow of soul, and a great filling and flow of bowl. The party, all of them, drank and drank, and they drunk, and after a while their chairs got too small and limited for some of them. They were discuss- ing the Agrarian laws of ancient Rome, and, of course, they became gregarious, and much spirited argument and debate ensued on the leveling results of these laws. Finally, Judge B -- attempted to rise from his limited seat and explain fully his attitude on the subject, and show his attitude as a subject. "Gentlemen," obtruded he-("gen-tle"-sotto voce to himself, and holding on to the back of his chair as best he could-"gently, gen-tly, old b-o-y "). " But, gen-tle-men,-I object-I-I-I am no -no-no gregarian nor-gorgon! I"-suddenly the chair slipped from his slippery and unhandy fingers, and the noble Judge lay sprawling, spread out flat upon the floor.
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" By all the gods!" exclaimed he, "spirit-level !- spirit -level! by Jupiter ! this is spirit level by all the Rum-an' gods !"
LAWYER BENHAM BEFORE THE COURT AND JURY.
The great and convivial Joseph Benham-I am reminded of-an eloquent advocate and an able lawyer. He was a large and portly man, standing near six feet in his shoes, and with large head and dark auburn flowing hair, broad shoulders, and capacious and "unbounded · stomach," covered by a large buff vest and a brown broad- cloth frock coat over it, and with a graceful and easy position and delivery. Before a jury he was indeed a picture to look upon. His voice was a deep basso, but melodious, and its ringing tones will never be forgotten by those who ever heard him. He sometimes spoke on politics out of the bar, in the open air, to his Whig friends and partisans, and then he was always able and eloquent. He was, also, I think, an editor of a Whig paper once, but it was at the bar he mostly distinguished himself. He was a Southerner, and had all the manners of the South of days of yore. He came to Cincinnati as a young and promising lawyer. The first time I ever saw him to know him, was in court, when he was speak- ing before a jury in some important case. I remember one thing he said : "Gentlemen of the jury," said he, " to illustrate, suppose that I was worth a thousand dol- lars and had it all in my vest, which, with all due defer- ence to you and the court and to myself, I suppose to be a very un-supposable case, and my legal adversary, by chicanery and false and fraudulent representation, should get it away from me, which, with the same deference to him, and the rest, I take to be a very supposable case, do
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you think that I would not appeal to the intelligence of such a respectable and good-looking jury as you, to rein- state me [putting both his hands into his capacious vest pockets,] in my vested rights. As you would, without a doubt, rein-vest me, in such a likely case, so do likewise for my poor and impecunious client-reinvest him !
THE ORATOR BENHAM AND HIS CLASSICAL CITATION.
We have said, Benham of the old court house, was a great orator. He was so. He was sometimes classical in his quotation and citations, and like all orators in early days, he was quite fond of showing off his classical learning on opportunity. On one occasion in an eloquent argument at bar in the old court room in a case of homicide, he was much exercised over the feeling mani- fested by old prosecuting attorney David Wade, against the prisoner. The case had excited much feeling on one side, and the other in the community ; some believing it was a murder, while others contended it was a plain case of self-defense. The prisoner had been a very respect- able gentleman, and his victim had been also, and Ben- ham was inviting the attention of the jury to this subject of feeling, and warning the jury to take no sides in this matter of feeling, but to decide upon the truth of the case, and Benham concluded : "Gentlemen of the jury, give up, drop entirely, all feeling in this important matter, and be like the ancient Roman in his adherence to the truth, who, in its defence, most eloquently declared, " Amicus Cato, amicus Plato, amicus Cicero, sed major veritas." And Benham sat down. The next morning, on looking at the report of his eloquence in the newspaper, he found "Advocate Benham, the great orator, closed his great speech to the jury, by eloquently declaiming : " I may
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cuss Cato, I may cuss Plato, I may cuss Cicero, said Major Verytas."
And wasn't the great orator mad ! He stamped and danced, and cusscd, and swore.
LAWYER BENHAM AND LA FAYETTE.
Lawyer Benham, Kentuckian that he was, was a great orator in and out of court. Before the people, he was, as theatrical people say, "immense." On the occa- sion of the visit of General La Fayette to Cincinnati in the month of May, in the year 1825, Joseph S. Benham was selected and appointed by the citizens to deliver the Address of Welcome to the great American Frenchman and French American ; and well, exceedingly well, did he perform his part of the great ovation to the immortal La Fayette. It was upon the old court house grounds that Benham's great oration to La Fayette was pronounced before the most numerous concourse of people-men, women, and children-of this city and State, and from all parts of the West; and it was pronounced by the multitude with one accord, that the tribute of genuine eloquence to La Fayette was great and grand, and fully entitled Lawyer Benham to be enrolled among the chief orators of the land. The occasion was certainly a mem- orable one, and his selection to the position of orator of the occasion manifests, to us, in what eminent esteem the eloquence of Benham was held in those early days. He was of national repute as an orator.
LAWYER BENHAM ON LAWYER FLINN.
Any person who ever saw Jacob Flinn, Esq. - or Judge Flinn, as he was afterwards-will remember that a bigger man did not exist in court. He was over six
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feet high, and of a very large physical frame, and he was as strong as an ox and stout as a bull. He began life as a farmer out in Columbia township, where he was born and reared, or better perhaps, raised, and he increased his strength and stalwartness by driving the plow as the plowing seasons used to come round. From the farm, after the usual study of the law, "Jake," as he used to be called, came to the bar, and in some respects he was as strong and stout, as a lawyer, as he had been as a farmer, and so Lawyer Benham found him.
He and Benham were, once upon a time, engaged on opposite sides in the trial of an important cause, and Flinn got a little the best of Benham, great and profound a lawyer as he was, for Flinn had the better side of the case, and was pretty sure to win. Benham was a big, burly man, too, nearly as big as Flinn, but he could have done nothing with Flinn in a wager of battle, so he was content to let Flinn push him to the wall without offering any absolute physical resistance ; and it took all the wit and wisdom he had at command, too, to resist Jake, intel- lectually. At last, the testimony through, the arguments of counsel were heard. Benham, for the plaintiff, spoke first, and had the close in reply to Flinn. Flinn, for the defendant, in his big, brawny figure and form, and sweeping arms, spoke long and well, and Benham argued in reply, and thus concluded : "Gentlemen of the jury-
"' Lo! the husbandman reaping ! How through his veins goes the life-current leaping. How his strong arm, in its stalwart pride sweeping, True as a sunbeam the swift sickle guides.'
"Lo! my learned opponent, Jacob Flinn ! Learned in the law as he is, the plow and the sickle lost a strong man when Jake left them, for the bar-I mean this bar, not that one-over the way."
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LAWYER NICK LONGWORTH AND HIS WAYS AND MEANS.
Of course, everybody has known, or read or heard of Nicholas Longworth, who stands among the first on the list of the earliest lawyers. He came to Cincinnati from Jersey in very early times, and commenced oper- ations as a shoemaker, and afterwards studied law and was admitted to practice law at the earliest bar ; but he did not practice law very much, though he was very capable, and possessed an acute and astute mentality, and he was always a good and clever gentleman, as sing- ular and eccentric as he was sometimes. His position as a lawyer affording him great facilities, he became mostly engaged in property speculations, and eventually became by far the largest real estate holder in this city and in the Western country, and the richest man. He was, in a sense, the Crœsus of the West, for his wealth increased and increased so much in the great growth of Cincinnati, that he hardly knew what to do with it, and certainly did not know all he owned, and was not able to count, account, or recount it.
LAWYER NICHOLAS LONGWORTH AND THE JUDGE.
Nicholas Longworth used to practice law in the very early times of Cincinnati, but in later days, having grown so wealthy in lands, tenements, and hereditaments, he was not given so much to it, as to the practice of arithmetic. He was, emphatically, Cincinnati's millionaire, Cincin- nati's rich man, Cincinnati's Astor, Vanderbilt, and Stewart combined, and for a rich man, though peculiar, particular, and eccentric, he was a good and clever man, both in the American and English sense. Not entirely deserting the bar, he was often seen in our courts, and one day he came into my court when I was upon the bench. There
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happened to be a lull in the business before the court, and Mr. Longworth came forward to the bench to greet me, and speak to me. After salutations, I opened :
" Mr. Longworth, you seem to have quit entirely the practice of the law?"
Longworth-"Oh, no, not altogether. I come into court to see you once in a while. I practice that much, and that is about as much as some lawyers I wot of prac- tice nowadays."
fudge-"I suppose, Mr. Longworth, it takes all your time to attend to your own pressing affairs, as you have so much wealth?"
Longworth-" Well, it does, and after all, I am no better off than other folks-for I only get my victuals and clothes and a place to sleep-and sometimes not even that, I am so pressed with business. Wealth makes a man wroth as well as worth, though not always worthy ; and deprives him of many comforts, and sometimes none so poor as the rich man."
JUDGE ESTE, AND HIS EARLY BAR FESTIVITY, AND BELLAMY STORER AND HIS CLASSICAL
. WIT AND HIT.
Of the earliest members of the bar, no one, perhaps, stood better than David K. Este. He came to this city when it was a mere village, and entering upon the prac- tice of the law, he soon made a success of it, and began to acquire property and wealth, which enhanced on his hands with the growth and progress of the town and city, until he became a very rich man, and remained so up to the day of his decease, which occurred within recent days, after he had passed more than fourscore years of life. Every one of our old citizens well remem-
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bers Judge Este. He was made a judge of the old Superior Court of Cincinnati, in the year 1838, and con- tinued on its bench, in the court room in the second story of the old court house, in much repute, as a good, impartial, and just judge, until the year 1845, when he resigned, chiefly on account of the inadequacy of his salary. It is related of the good judge-and honest man, however-that he was of very close and parsimonious likings and habits, and some humorous lawyers like Ben Fessenden, would say of him, that the judge would hold an old-fashioned United States silver quarter so closely and tightly between his thumb and forefinger, that he would make the eagle stamped thereon scream out, for very pain, from the squeezing! Be that as it may, it was remembered of the judge, that soon after he was elected and appointed Judge of the Superior Court by the Leg- islature of the State, he gave a party to the lawyers of the bar of the old court house, to celebrate the auspicious event, at his then palatial residence and grounds at the corner of Main and Ninth streets. All the lawyers from the known wealth of the judge, fully expected, and so noised around among themselves, that the party was to be a wine party, and they all would be gladdened and regaled with the finest aroma of the choicest-the very choicest of wines. The night of the party came on, and all the law- yers and the judges were on hand, and had a right good time. And now for the dining hall, and the refreshment table, and the expected choicest wines. The tables of the dining hall were not overloaded with good things, and when it came to the drinkables-instead of wine glasses, glass tumblers were abundant-one for each lawyer and judge, and into each of them was poured from duly un- corked bottles, foaming good ale ! Oh ! what a disappoint-
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ment. " What ails Este?" interrogated some of the lawyers. One skilled in Latin with glass of ale on hand, and in hand, exclaimed : " It is said, in vino veritas !" I wonder if it is equally true, or will become so to-night, in cerevisia, veritas ?" At last, classical Bellamy Storer taking a glass of ale up, and holding it aloft before the lawyers, oratorically apostrophized : " Ecce vinum! Est Este vinum !! Esto vinum !!! which being liberally trans- lated would be: "Behold the wine-it is Este wine. Be it, or let us suppose it to be wine!" Soon after the goodlye companie ex necessitate, dispensing with wine, dispersed, and went to their homes and beds to sleep, and with no headache in the morning-thanks to the economical judge ; and the lawyers all blessed him, for that once, no doubt.
BLACK NAT PENDLETON AND TOM CORWIN.
Nathaniel G. Pendleton was one of the earliest law- yers of the old court house. He came here from Virginia in very early times, and married the daughter of Jesse Hunt, the original proprietor of the grounds of the old court house ; and soon after had a good practice at the bar, and was once Prosecuting Attorney of this city. Besides being a lawyer, he gained some distinction as a poli- tician, and in the log cabin, hard cider "Tippecanoe and Tyler, too," days of the year 1840, having been nominated by the Whig County Convention, as their candidate for Congress, he beat the old war-horse Democrat, Dr. Alexander Duncan, and took his seat in Congress, at Washington city, in 1841. I remember him well. He was a Virginian of the old school, and was regarded and respected by everybody as a complete and finished gentleman. He was distinguished by a dark and
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swarthy complexion, almost like that of an Othello, and was quite as grand and dignified as the Moor of Venice, in all his ways.
Tom Corwin, though an early lawyer of the Ohio bar, mostly lived at Lebanon, and was not a member of the bar of the old court house until towards the end of its existence. Tom, too, was distinguished for being black and tawny like Nat and Othello; and when Pen- dleton was a candidate for Congress in the year 1840, Tom, the wagon-boy, as he was called by the political stumpers, was the Whig candidate for governor of Ohio. Tom and Nat, in the memorable campaign, made stump speeches frequently together, and they got quite a repu- tation as " black Tom and Nat," and it was hard to say which was the blacker of the two. On one occasion when they were stumping together, Tom Corwin, in his speech, told to the people, the following story :
"My fellow citizens," said he, " I am to be followed by my friend and politic and political brother, Pendleton. It has been quite a question, a subject of much discussion among the people here, which of us, was the darker horse. I had thought that question was settled long ago at the city of New Orleans, for my friend and brother Nat, and myself happened there, once upon a time, together ; and we were engaged, as all strangers would be, in seeing the sights of that famous French-American city; and we came to a grand masquerade festivity, and it was night time of course, and at the ticket office we paid our money -I forgot which paid for the tickets-Nat or I- no matter now-and got our tickets. We proceeded up stairs, towards the grand hall, and at last, on the landing, got to the door and the doorkeeper. Pendleton preceded me, and handed the doorkeeper his ticket, and made his
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way, advancing in. 'Stop-stop !' growled the Cerberus at the door, looking closely at Pendleton, 'you cannot go in here-colored people are not allowed to enter here ! I, tremblingly the while, also handed the doorkeeper my ticket, and, after scanning me closely, he opened wide the door, and loudly and emphatically exclaimed, 'Oh, you can go in ; you are a white man, you are, and not at all like that other fellow!' So, Iwent in, and Pendleton staid out! And this settled, I thought forever, the much mooted question. My friend here, is the darker horse !"
JUDGE STORER AND THE ABSENT COUNSELOR !
Bellamy Storer was one of the young, brilliant law- yers of the earliest bar of the old court house, and he lived up to within very recent times, having gone through with a most remarkable and distinguished career, as law- yer, Congressman, and, many years, judge of the second Superior Court in Cincinnati. A New England law fledgling, "away down in Maine," young Storer came to this city, or father town, then, in the year 1817, and he at once hung out his shingle, and commenced the practice of the law, and soon met with deserved success, because of his legal learning, and oratorical ability. He held his own as a member of the old bar, with any of them, and was popular with them as he was with the masses of the people, on account of his talents, and genial ways and manners. He turned his attention to politics, and was such a popular Whig politician, that in the Veto year 1832, I think, he was elected a Whig member of Con- gress from Hamilton County, beating as an anti-Jackson man, for a great wonder, General Robert T. Lytle, an emphatic, ardent, fervent and unexampled Jackson man. After this one political success, he preferred to leave the
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arena of politics, and for many years he resumed and continued the practice of the law, clear through the days of the old court house, and up to the time, 1854, when he was elected by the people of Cincinnati as one of the three judges of the new Superior Court. His career as a judge is so well known that it is perhaps needless to speak of it here. Lawyer and Judge Storer was particularly distinguished for much humor and facetiousness, and many was the joke he perpetrated orally, and practically. We have room now for only one, to show, perhaps, the character of all.
On one occasion, while on the bench, a case of importance was being tried before him, and on one side of it, Rufus King was attorney and counselor. The Court had just opened, the jury had been called, and had taken their seats in the jury-box, and the opposing lawyers were present, ready to proceed with the cause, but there was no attorney present for the plaintiff, who was represented by Mr. King. "Where, where is Mister King?" asked Judge Storer impatiently from the bench ; "where is he? Mister Sheriff, call Mr. King-call the King-make proclamations for the King, he must give the court au- dience." At this a classical lawyer, an amicus curia, arose in his place in the bar, and modestly suggested to the Court that, as he came along the corridor, he had just "seen Mister King retire into the adjoining cloaca!" "Aha," exclaimed the judge, "call no more for the Rufus-the red King. Mister Sheriff, we are disposed no longer, in the language of Cicero-' Arce-m facere ex cloaca! But we cannot wait, Mister Sheriff, go out immediately, and call in the privy counselor !"
The last sally set the whole bar, jury and audience in a roar, while the classical fun of the first part, kept the
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Latin scholars of the bar in good spirit and humor for a whole week or more. Lawyer, or Judge, or plain Bel- lamy Storer, could not afford to be humorous, or witty, without being at the same time classical, once in a while.
OTHER EARLIEST LAWYERS-JUDGE JOHN McLEAN.
Of the other members of the old first bar, we well remember the stalwart and great-looking John McLean, who came very early to this city from the State of New Jersey, I think, and soon became a distinguished man in Ohio, and was elected and appointed by the Legislature, one of our Supreme judges, and served long and well, occupying this position, as will be seen on reference to our list of Supreme judges, when the old court-house began. He became Post-master-General of the United States under General Jackson, and was then appointed and transferred by him to the bench of the Supreme Court of the United States, where he sat as an associate, up to the time of his last sickness and departure from this world. John McLean, was a good man, though never a very great man. He was for some time seemingly ambitious to become President of the United States, but in his ambition, he failed-he was not, and could not be a successful politician.
WILLIAM CORRY.
William Corry was an important man. He belonged to the quite early times of Cincinnati, and was a good lawyer, and a useful citizen. He was the first Mayor that Cincinnati ever had, having been appointed to that position in the year 1810, when Cincinnati was first in- corporated into a town, and continuing in that position from term to term until the year 1819, when the town
4
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became a city. He was the father of our present intellectual fellow citizen William M. Corry who suc- ceeded his father in the practice of the law at an early day. I just remember Mr. William Corry. He had his dwelling, and law office in a large white frame building on the West side of Main street, numbered 217 in the days of my boyhood, and it was here where all his sons and daughter were born, and reared and maintained by the business of his office, in the same building.
DAVID WADE.
David Wade was born I think, in Cincinnati at a very early time. The Wades were early settlers here. At manhood, David became a successful lawyer, and was for a very long time Prosecuting Attorney of Hamilton county, and performed the duties of that onerous and responsible position, faithfully and diligently. I well remember him, and his interesting family, for they resided next door to us on Broadway for many years, and were highly and deservedly respected. Mr. Wade was a good man, a good lawyer, a good public prosecutor, and a useful citizen.
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