History of Bedford, Somerset, Fulton counties Pennsylvania, Part 87

Author: Waterman, Watkins & Co.
Publication date: 1884
Publisher:
Number of Pages: 967

USA > Pennsylvania > Bedford County > History of Bedford, Somerset, Fulton counties Pennsylvania > Part 87
USA > Pennsylvania > Fulton County > History of Bedford, Somerset, Fulton counties Pennsylvania > Part 87
USA > Pennsylvania > Somerset County > History of Bedford, Somerset, Fulton counties Pennsylvania > Part 87

Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

"Example of goodness And worth seldom met."

Leaving college prematurely and regretfully, as he did by reason of a force of circumstances, he now seems to me, as I look over his after life, like one who then acted upon the wisdom of the moral taught in the Arabian proverb :

"Look not mournfully into the past ; It can never return. Improve the present ; it is thine. Go forth with a brave heart and manly arm Into the shadowy future."

After leaving college his name was registered as a law student in the office of Hon. F. M. Kimmell, with whom he continued to read until May 7, 1849, when, upon examination, he was admitted to practice in the several courts of Somerset county. The very creditable examina- tion he passed indicated the careful manner in which he had read and qualified. He read deeply, reasoned accurately, and remembered all he read that was worth remembering. Like a true Pythagorean he acted upon a sacred rule among them, that they should every evening thrice run over the actions and affairs of the day, and examine what their conduct had been, what they had done, or what they had neglected :

"Nor let soft slumber close your eyes, Before you've recollected thrice The train of actions thro' the day.

What have I learnt, where'er I've been ? From all I've heard, from all I've seen, What know I more, that's worth the knowing ? What have I done, that's worth the doing ? What have I sought, that I should shun ? What duty have I left undone ? These self inquiries are the road That leads to virtue and to God."

After his admission he entered into partner- ship with his preceptor and continued in the practice with him until his election to the judge- ship. The elevation of Judge Kimmell to the bench left him without a legal office friend and

guide. Thereafter he continued the practice of the law alone. It was doubtless at this period of his professional life that he suffered the severest test of self-reliance. The Somerset county bar, at that time - as it has always been since - stood confessedly high in Western Penn- sylvania. In its past and present history it pre- sents the names of many men who have well earned state and national reputations. To attain a foremost rank among a coterie of advocates and counsellors of such able capacity and thoughtful erudition as these, would have seemed to one of less hopeful disposition a herculean task. But he had been an observant student, was endowed with a comprehensive and analytical turn of mind, could comprehend principles and make applica- tions of law and facts, which were almost always sure to make him the victor in a cause. His success, too, was largely wrought by methods of untiring energy and a constantly well directed ambition, as the faithful coadjutors of com- petent legal skill. But it was not his carefulness and safety as a counsellor alone that gave him legal prominence. While in the preparation of a case he never wearied, so he never tired in the trial. He had a most accurate perception of the bearing of all testimony offered, and rare powers for the examination and cross-examination of wit- nesses. One of the most searching, exhaustive and annihilating cross-examinations it was ever the writer's privilege to listen to, in an experience of nearly thirty years, was his of a couple of im- ported perjured thieves brought up from Balti- more to testify for the defendant in a case of the Commonwealth vs. Robert Morris, indicted for burglary, many years ago, in Bedford county. Before he was half done with them the jury and everybody else in the court-room were satisfied that the rascals were lying. The quick verdict of guilty which followed was the result of his effort then. His plain statement of facts, close attention to the law, logical reasoning, and clear, clarion voice, made him a matchless advocate and invested him with almost supreme power before a jury. Judge Baer came of a German ancestry, and by diligent study made himself master of the language so that he could write and speak it with ease and fluency. This, in a community where the German language was generally spoken, gave him another strong hold upon the hearts of the people, and a decided advantage over others of his English-speak- ing brethren of the bar. His practice was not

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confined to the courts of his own county, but ex- tended into other parts of the commonwealth, and he was frequently engaged in the preparation and argument of important causes in the supreme court of the state. As a citizen, Judge Baer has always enjoyed the highest respect of the people of his county ; he has been foremost in all their. public enterprises ; has contributed liberally of his means, and is justly accounted a valued, generous and public-spirited man. He has done more perhaps than any other man in Somerset county to develop its resources, build its rail- roads and other public highways, and to add to the material wealth of its territory. In the beautiful town of Somerset his hand marks are upon many of the handsomest and most elegant buildings in the town. He has always been a friend of education and the common school system, and his warm sympathy with the public education made him conspicuous as the friend of all systems and institutions which have for their object the dissemination of knowledge.

In politics he was a pronounced democrat, without being a demagogue. He never stooped to political trickery to secure votes ; he was never an office-seeker, though he was at differ- ent times a candidate when urged to accept nominations by his friends. His unbounded popularity always brought to his support hosts of friends from the ranks of the opposition, and he always led his ticket. In 1872 he was elected a democratic delegate from his district to the constitutional convention that sat in Philadelphia the following year and framed the present constitution of Pennsylvania. In this select assembly of law makers he rendered valuable services as a working member and ranked high as a ready and logical reasoner upon subjects involving intricate questions of constitutional law. In 1881 he was placed in nomination as the democratic candidate for president judge. The district was very largely, indeed almost hopelessly, republican. Hon. John Cessna, a distinguished lawyer of Bedford, was chosen by the republicans as their judicial standard-bearer. His acknowledged legal abil- ity, extensive professional experience, long familiarity with all the minutiæ of practical politics and untiring energy, made him a most formidable opponent. In fact he was believed by his party, generally, to be invincible. The election of Judge Baer was scarcely hoped for, and yet, with his own county usually republican

by from ten to twelve hundred majority, he so greatly reduced it and the opposition vote in other parts of the district as to secure his elec- tion and win a victory which was little less than a surprise to his most sanguine friends. He was elected in November, 1881, and on January 1, 1882, he was sworn into office.

With this brief outline of his past life before us we need no astrologer to cast "the horoscope ascendant " in order to foretell the signs and events that are to mark the sky of his futurity. We have presented him in our impartial sketch as he was seen at his rural home in early child- hood, in boyhood's years, in early manhood, struggling to obtain an education, in his practi- cal business and professional life, and, coming up over a way to eminence that was steep and long, have seen him crowned with highest judicial honors in the temple of justice. His past life furnishes certain proof of his future success, and it requires no prophetic pen to write of him now, as prophecy, that which will be recorded as truth in history hereafter. It is not every one that is qualified either by nature or education to discharge acceptably and with fidelity the delicate, difficult and responsible duties of a president judge. A man may be a popular advocate, an able lawyer, and have "talents angel bright," and yet, if he be want- ing in moral worth, or have an ungovernable temper and a selfish heart, he is unfit for this high position where the fortunes and even the lives of men are sometimes suspended upon the weakness or strength of his decisions. Judge Baer, as we have seen, has come to the bench after a long experience as a successful barrister, familiar with all the routine of a general prac- tice and well informed upon all the questions decided in the reported decisions of the highest judicial tribunals of the state. He is now in the prime of physical and intellectual manhood and in the full enjoyment of the respect and confidence of the people of his district ; he is fully conscious of the responsibilities of his high position, and has the nerve to discharge its duties, unawed by fear and unseduced by affec- tion ; he has no prompter but his own con- science, and no guides but the truth and the law. With his intense love of justice and firm- ness in the face of all opposition, in his rulings and judicial decisions he always tempers justice with mercy. While he is firm, dignified and decided in his official position, he lays aside the

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ermine when he leaves the bench, and, so far from putting on the airs of a titled dignitary or assuming the role of an aristocrat, he moves among them as one who really " loves his fellow men," and they, in turn, more than any other man love him ; his very kindness of manner, respectful demeanor, and sympathy for the feel- ings of others, inspires the common people with confidence in his integrity and lends faith to his judgments. In a word, he possesses all the elements of an excellent, popular and model judge. Of his future it is plainly written :

" Here the reward stands for thee - a chief seat In Fame's fair sanctuary, where some of old Crown'd with their troubles, now are here enroll'd In memory's sacred sweetness to all ages."

HON. A. H. COFFROTH.

The following sketch of Hon. A. H. Coffroth was published in the National Free Press, Washington, D. C., April 3, 1880, while Mr. Coffroth was serving as a member of the forty- sixth congress, second session :

"One of the leading minds before the country at the present time is this gentleman from the interior of Pennsylvania, chairman of the pen- sions committee of the house of representatives. Mr. Coffroth . was born in Somerset, Pennsyl- vania, May 18th, 1828, and is consequently just turned fifty, and is in the full prime and vigor of manhood.

"On the father's side he takes descent from an old German family, and on the mother's from the English. His nature partakes of the strong, sturdy and robust German. He has inherited a powerful constitution from such a parentage; is full of life, vitality and power. He early began the practice of law in his native county, old Somerset, and never quitted it, or resided outside of his district, except to fill public trusts, of which he has had a full share. He has ever been with and among his constituency, and is en- shrined in their hearts. Mr. Coffroth is a natural orator, easy and fluent in language, natural in gesture, and highly persuasive-par- taking of the Demosthenian school of oratory- whom we imagine he is not unlike in many points of character and person. He is bold and daring in his oratorial flights and launches out into his subject with a master stroke ; and when wrought up with the interest it creates, the flashes gleam forth as the fitful lightning that precedes the thunder-peal.

" Mr. Croffroth is what we may term a self-

made man, as he at once entered into the arena of public life upon leaving the school or academy. He has great natural talent and excellent natural executive abilities. He has worked his own way up to the place he now so justly holds in the esteem of both his constituency and of the national legislature. Here is where we know men, and appreciate and estimate them.

"The father of Mr. Coffroth was one of the early settlers of Pennsylvania, and ere stage- routes were plenty as now, and ere the shrill whistle of the burden-bearing locomotive re- sounded among and threaded through the labyrinths of her mountainous regions, he packed his merchandise on horses and scaled their rugged summits. The son early partook of the hardy enterprise of the father and an outstripped his fellows.

" Mr. Coffroth, too, is a practical printer, and early wielded the editorial pep, which aided in schooling him for the practice of the law ; for there is no better preparatory school for the rough-and-tumble of life than the printing office. After the editor's uneasy chair came the law ; after the law came the call to the uncertain and evanescent blandishments of the political arena. But one need only look back to his short but eventful career to be convinced that he also mastered that fitful branch of public service, and that there has been no obstacle but that his indomitable will-power and energy has over- come, until today he stands foremost in the ranks of his party. He is a politician, but an honest one, and believes in equality before the law and exact justice to all. He is also a pro- found thinker, a great worker, and by a rigid adherence to system has been enabled to get through what would stagger most men. The lack of this essential qualification has put many of our otherwise good and useful men in early graves, for as a general rule most of our public men are sooner or later worked to death.

"Mr. Coffroth has a free, offhand, jovial nature and disposition, which tends to keep him above all wear from friction, and he hides behind an apparently rough exterior, one of the kindest and most noble hearts. He is an urbane and genial gentleman in either social or politi- cal life. To say that he has won hosts of friends here both in and out the congress, is say- ing but half the truth. That he is loved, honored and esteemed by his constituency and his state, is evident from the fact of the repeated trusts

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that have been confided to him and as the almost constant public employment demonstrates.

"Mr. Coffroth is a democrat-an old-time democrat, one who believes in the integrity of the Union ; an American, who loves his whole country and would be glad to see it prosperous and happy. And the Union soldier has no truer friend than he. From the first hour of his. arrival here, he has given his whole energies to their welfare, working himself days and into the small hours of the night, besides employing three or four clerks, to keep up the work of the pen- sions claims intrusted to him. He enters into that work with the utmost zeal and with his whole soul and energy. We have ever found him ready on application to drop all other busi. ness at once and give attention to pressing cases of need, giving of his time and means with a cheerfulness and devotion, seldom equaled in any party. The fallacious idea of the opposition, that because a man is a democrat he cannot be in full accord and sympathy with the Union soldier and still be a democrat, is long since exploded, and we have here certainly a grand exception to that rule ; for not satisfied with giving his entire time of the sessions to the work, even the vaca- tions have found him here, immersed in the interests of the suffering soldier. While other members have been at home, or on tours of recrea- tion and pleasure, or personal business, he has bowed himself to the almost thankless task of providing for future legislation for them and those depending on them. It is no wonder then, that he is esteemed by them and that an appre- ciative constituency continue to return him to the national legislature.

"Mr. Coffroth read law in the office of Hon. Jeremiah S. Black, that astute and distinguished lawyer of Pennsylvania and of whom he speaks in terms of the warmest admiration. He opened an office and commenced the practice of his pro- fession in Somerset in the February term of 1851.

" Mr. Coffroth was elected to the thirty-eighth congress and from a district that is strongly republican, distancing his competitor, Hon. Edward McPherson; and Gov. Curtin, carry- ing it on re-election by about fifteen hundred majority the next year. He was again re-elected to the thirty-ninth congress.

"Mr. Coffroth was a delegate to the Charles- ton convention, and lifted his voice against the foolish and reckless dogma of secession, sus- taining Hon. Stephen A. Douglas throughout.

"In 1872 he was a delegate to the Baltimore convention that nominated Hon. Horace Greeley. He was also president of the state convention at Harrisburg in 1879, and is being strongly talked of as a candidate for governor of the state. "We here think we have a better chance to know more of the real working worth of men than even their constituency have. A man is seen at the best advantage in his laboratory. And, as a public worker, we are enabled to judge of the earnest, arduous preparation for that work in private. A thorough acquaintance with one's own work makes him strong and effective. "From what we personally know of Mr. Cof- froth we have made an estimate of him that does not overreach. In the deadlock into which pen- sions have gotten by the mismanagement or. incapacity of others, his efforts toward their rectification have been almost superhuman. Among men of mark here he is foremost, and is rapidly growing in popularity and usefulness ; and we presume there is scarcely a man in the democratic ranks who is more pleasantly re- garded for his fairness and urbanity by his opponents on the republican side of the house. And it is a singular as well as an exceptional fact that an exceedingly partisan press here, as well as throughout the country, have voluntarily accorded to him all that we have here affirmed of him ; and the generous and hearty manner in which they have given it expression has been a source of personal gratification ; for they have not been slow to recognize the great and valu- able services he has rendered both the govern- ment and the public.

"Mr. Coffroth is a balance-wheel to his own party, and it would be well to heed some of his wholesome advice, and not throw away what success it has already achieved out of defeat, and after a demoralization by which it was well- nigh wrecked.

"And while, like the ancient sculptor Pyg- malion, who had by his patience, skill and industry, wrought a statue in marble so beautiful and lifelike that he fell in love with it, and prevailed upon Venus to endow it with life, so that he was married to it-so is he wedded to the party of his own ideal creation, but not Bo closely that he cannot through that infatua- tion catch gleams of the future glories of the republic.

"There is little doubt but that when the inter- ests of the soldier constituency he represents

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comes to be fully and clearly comprehended, and his adaptation to those interests properly under- stood, he will be returned again to his seat by a majority that will speak in no doubtful terms at the polls."

Mr. Coffroth's last term in congress expired on the 4th of March, 1881. Since that time be has been largely engaged in the practice of law, not only in the town of his nativity but in the adjoining counties, in the supreme court of the state, and in the courts of the United States.

HON. WILLIAM H. KOONTZ.

William H. Koontz, son of Jacob Koontz, was born in the town of Somerset, July 15, 1830. After receiving a common-school educa- tion, he began the study of the law in the office of Messrs. Forward & Stutzman, at Somerset, and was admitted to the bar in 1851. In 1853 he was elected district attorney for Somerset county, which office he filled for three years. In 1857 Mr. Koontz was nominated for the office of state senator in the district composed of the counties of Somerset, Bedford and Hunt- ingdon, but owing to local issues, was defeated. In 1860 he was chosen a delegate to the repub- lican national convention which met in Chicago, and was among the first of the delegates to vote for Abraham Lincoln's nomination. The same year Mr Koontz was elected prothonotary and clerk of courts of Somerset county, and held the office three years. From the first, Mr. Koontz had acted with the republican party, taking an active part in local politics. He early won a brilliant reputation as a campaign orator, which, added to his sound position upon the leading issues of the day, gave him promi- nence in the counsels of the party. In 1864 he was chosen a member of the thirty-ninth con- gress from the sixteenth congressional district of Pennsylvania, composed of the counties of Somerset, Bedford, Fulton, Franklin and Adams, and in 1866 was re-elected to the fortieth congress for the same district. Mr. Koontz was a member of the committees on the District of Columbia and on the expendi- tures of the interior department. In the excit- ing period of legislation which followed the inauguration of President Johnson, Mr. Koontz bore a conspicuous part, distinguishing himself by his broad and statesmanlike views and his eloquent oratory.

Vice-President Wilson, in the preface to his

"History of the Reconstruction Measures of the Thirty-ninth and Fortieth Congresses- 1865-8," thus summarizes the work of that eventful period in national legislation :

"The sudden collapse of the rebellion in the spring of 1865 precipitated upon the country the question of reconstruction, restoration and recon- ciliation. The president, withont consulting con- gress, early assumed the task of initiating mea- sures for restoring the rebel states to their practical relations to the government. On entering upon the work, the president assured hesitating political friends that he was entering upon an experiment ; that if he failed, the power to correct errors and mistakes would remain in congress. The policy inaugurated by the president placed the rebellious states, that were without civil government when hostili- ties ceased, completely under the control of the active supporters of the rebellion. Instead of referring the matter to congress, the president assumed that his policy was eminently success- ful. He resolved to adhere to it, leaving to congress simply the question of passing upon the qualification of senators and representatives. Congress, believing that the power to initiate proceedings for the restoration of civil govern- ments in the rebellious states was vested in the legislative, not the executive, department of the government, and that the results of the presi- dent's policy endangered the rights of the peo- ple and the authority of the nation, entered upon a series of legislative measures intended to secure the rights and privileges of the freed- men, protect those who had remained loyal to the government, preserve order and put those states under the control of men loyal to the country, to liberty and justice. Measures were introduced, discussed, and some of them enacted into laws, to secure the desired ends of restoring the unity of the country and establishing the equality of rights and privileges of citizens of the United States."

In stating the position of those whose acts and opinions made them prominent in the reconstruction measures, Mr. Wilson says : "Mr. Koontz, of Pennsylvania, was for the protection of the people of the south who had been true to the Union, without regard to race or color," then gives the following quotation from a speech of Mr. Koontz : "The great duty rests upon us to finish the work which was not com- pleted by warfare. The shackles of four mill-

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ion slaves were melted by the fierce fires of civil war; but the animus of slavery, its pas- sions and prejudices yet remain. It is our duty so to legislate as to remove the last relic of a barbarism that would have suited the dark ages, and to conform our institutions to the advanced condition to which we have been brought by the mighty revolution just ended. And when this shall be done, the great republic, freed from the dark stain of human slavery, will start upon her mission to promulgate, by precept and example, the immutable and eternal truth of the equality of man, and before whose resist- less march kingdoms and powers and all the systems built upon caste and creed, for the oppression of man, will be swept from the face of the earth, and known no more forever."

Mr. Koontz spoke earnestly in favor of a resolution for the relief of the destitute in the southern states, believing it to be a measure dictated by the teachings of Christianity, as well as a "most powerful measure of reconstruc- tion." Mr. Koontz addressed the house on the supplementary reconstruction bill, maintaining with forcible reasoning and perspicuous argu- ment, that it was necessary to a proper enforce- ment of the reconstruction acts already passed, and to a just and fair settlement of the difficult question.

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History of Bedford, Somerset, Fulton counties Pennsylvania, Part 87

Author: Waterman, Watkins & Co. Publication date: 1884 Publisher: Number of Pages: 967

Author: Waterman, Watkins & Co.
Publication date: 1884
Publisher:
Number of Pages: 967