USA > Pennsylvania > Juniata County > History of that part of the Susquehanna and Juniata valleys, embraced in the counties of Mifflin, Juniata, Perry, Union and Snyder, in the commonwealth of Pennsylvania. V. 2, Pt. 1 > Part 49
USA > Pennsylvania > Mifflin County > History of that part of the Susquehanna and Juniata valleys, embraced in the counties of Mifflin, Juniata, Perry, Union and Snyder, in the commonwealth of Pennsylvania. V. 2, Pt. 1 > Part 49
USA > Pennsylvania > Snyder County > History of that part of the Susquehanna and Juniata valleys, embraced in the counties of Mifflin, Juniata, Perry, Union and Snyder, in the commonwealth of Pennsylvania. V. 2, Pt. 1 > Part 49
USA > Pennsylvania > Union County > History of that part of the Susquehanna and Juniata valleys, embraced in the counties of Mifflin, Juniata, Perry, Union and Snyder, in the commonwealth of Pennsylvania. V. 2, Pt. 1 > Part 49
USA > Pennsylvania > Perry County > History of that part of the Susquehanna and Juniata valleys, embraced in the counties of Mifflin, Juniata, Perry, Union and Snyder, in the commonwealth of Pennsylvania. V. 2, Pt. 1 > Part 49
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Tipstaff's were officers appointed by the mar- shal of the King's Bench, to attend upon the judges with a kind of rod or staff tipped with silver, who take into their custoly all prisoners, either committed or turned over by the judges at their chambers. The King's Bench was the criminal court of the kingdom. The judges are sovereign justices of the Oyer and Terini- ner, General Gaol Delivery-conservators of the peace and sovereign governors of the land. It is the peculiarity of courts that their retainers become a queer lot. They are often stranded chips. Among others, we remember James Cornelius, Robert Lyon, John Nesbit, Benjamin Schell, George Schoch, L. B. Christ, Jolin Norton, George Roland, Edward Buoy, Jacob Nyhart, Peter Meixell, James Blair, E. A. Stark, Joseph Walker, David Ginter, Dan- iel Reber. Of late-within two years-a selec- tion of the constables of the different townships has been made for attendance on the court.
In these old proceedings we find the Tra- verse jurors and the panel of petit jurors, the distinction preserved, the former for thic Com- mon P'leas and the latter for the criminal courts.
The commonwealth business appears to have been at the first courts of Union County just about what it is in the year of our Lord 1856- the same kind of cases, and about the sune character. As the Quarter Sessions docket now shows the complaint of the nullius filius, just so the docket of the first court of February sessions showed.
The petitions for license to keep houses of entertainment were among the first -- two were
presented at February term and forty-two at May terin, 1811; they were presented to the court, who recommended them to His Excel- lency, the Governor, for his license.
But there was no lack of business. If the territorial part of this history will be consul- ted, it will be observed that the territory of the new county of Union was all the land of the county of Northumberland on the west side of the river,-a large block of land in which many and varied interests had gathered from its early settlement.1
Under the act creating the county, all pro- cesses to issue from the courts of Union County, returnable to the courts of that county, were to bear teste as of the first Monday of Novem- ber, 1813,-that is, the suit would begin as if issued on that day; all certioraris directed to, and appeals from the judgment of, any justice of the peace within the territory of Union County, and all criminal prosecutions which miglit originate there before the first Monday of November would be tried at Sunbury. Their prisoners were to be kept in the Sunbury jail, and the sheriff was allowed ten cents mileage for the transportation, and this was to be continued until the proper buildings were erected in the county.
By an act of Assembly of that year, March 28, 1814, all suits pending in the Common Pleas of Northumberland County on the Ist day of October, 1814, where the defendants re- sided in the territory of Union County, were transferred to the docket of that county, and so of the proceedings in the estates of decedents. In fact, the county of Columbia having been erected out of Northumberland at the same time, there had to be a mutual transfer of this kind between all the counties.
Thus it happened that over three hundred
I Snyder, speaking of the early seulement, says: " This region, then called by the general name of Shamokin, was us these days the frontier, and loone I upon by the swell- er's on the sea board as we upon lowa and Kan is at the present time. It served as a place of refuge for v! minaway and desperate characters from the centheastern counties. The sheriff and constable mellom ventured into the wilda on this site of the river, which is just the win fits title of Pascal's creek." This Is- spe mal ref I Is to Penns
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case's were transferred to our docket during the year, some of them very carly-one, for in- stanre, that had been sued in " the fifteenth year of the reign of our Sovereign Lord, finorge the III, by the grace of God, of Great Britain, France and Ireland, King, Defender of the Faith," etc., before William Plunkett, lg., A.D. 177-4,-and they brought with the the names of hosts of old lawyers,-Vame, Hartley, Steadman, Burd, Duncan, Ewing, Eckert and a hundred others, and a generation of lawyers died out before these cases went off the list. Some cases were tried; many of them stayed on the list by continuance for fifty years, and it seems that in 1823, by leave of court, they were dropped from the list. Hugh Bellas, then prothonotary at Sunbury, received seventy- five cents for the docket transfer of each case.
The first court, as has been said, was held in February, 1814, in the old German Church, now owned by William II. Smith, who had it by descent from his grandfather, Thomas Lehman. The commissioners then contracted with John Driesbach and others, who procured a building, still standing (then a one-story building, now has an addition of another story) on the southwest corner of Fifth and Green Streets : a building with two rooms, used for school purposes,-one side for the school-room and on the other the teacher lived, The con- tractors took out the partition and adapted it for the use of the court, and as rental the county paid them ten dollars for six months. The property now belongs to the heirs of Isabella Henry, used partly as a dwelling and partly as a trimming-shop. To George Roush they paid six dollars for six monthis for the room used for the prothonotary, and for September and December terms, 1814, and February term, 1815, Henry Yearick charged them four dollars for the three sessions for the room used by the grand jury. This comprised the necessities of the court at Mifflinburg.
At the last session held there, February 13, rules. They are printed, the date of their adoption being filled in with ink, and they are signed at the end with the written names of Seth Chapman and Hngh Wilson. A receipt
is on file in the commissioner's office in the beautiful, almost copper-plate, handwriting of Flavel Roan, dated February 16, 1815, signed by Seth Chapman, for $8.75 due to Andrew Kenedy, for thirteen copies of the rules, ordered to be filed in the office and sold by commis- sioners to attorneys.
The next set of rules were prepared by Judge Ellis Lewis and adopted at Now Berlin, Decem- ber 18, 1837. These remained, with some emendations made by Judge Wilson, until 1862, when Judge Woods adopted another set, and they have remained until the present, with some additions and emendations.
Judge Bucher appointed a committee, con- sisting of William Van Gezer, J. Merrill Linn and Alfred Hayes, Esqs., to revise the rules, and the revision has been just completed.
The act of Assembly creating the county gave jurisdiction to the judges of the Supreme Court, and attached the county to the Middle District, and afterwards to the Northern District, so long as the Supreme Court sat at Sunbury. Gradually the Northern District has been broken up, as the counties are permitted to apply to the Supreme Court to be attached to any district it may please. In 1860 the causes were heard in Philadelphia, being attached to the Eastern District; then for awhile at Harris- burg, the Middle District; but now it is again at Philadelphia, the causes being heard about the first week in May of each year, that weck being assigned to it, along, with Snyder and Clearfield.
THOMAS COOPER succeeded Benjamin Rush as president judge in this district in August term, 1806. In 1811 Cooper was impeached before the Legislature, and the Senate drew up an address to the Governor for his removal, and Governor Snyder did remove him July 10, 1811. He was a brilliant and able man, went to South Carolina, became president of a college and the father of secession. John C. Calhoun was his pupil. His specches are full of the to them, no doubt, by this removal.
A. D. 1815, the court adopted their first set of ; intensest hatred of the North ; point was given
Following close on, the 11th day of July, 1811, SETH CHAPMAN received his commission as judge of the Eighth Judicial District. He
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resided at Northumberland, and presided over the district twenty-two years, and in Union County just twenty years.
Hle was an able man, of social habits, and it was urged against him that he was indolent and dilatory, and that there was a want of confidence in his legal qualifications.1 Ile was impeached before the Legislature in 1825-26,- the main charge, partiality ; but acquitted, twenty-six Senators voting in favor of acquittal and five voting guilty.
The articles of impeachment against Judge Chapman were for instances gathered from the three counties over which he presided. The first was that he arrested and imprisoned Jacob Farrow without complaint supported by oath or affirmation, and without lawful cause, in Northumberland County. The second was from Union : that, contrary, to the act of Assembly, he reversed a judgment of a justice, Christian Miller (Stephen Hughes for the use of Daniel Cline vs. John Ramer), although twenty days had elapsed before the certiorari issued. The third was, that in case of Wistar vs. Clark, in Northumberland County, when requested to reduce his charge to writing and file it, he filed one that was not the same he had delivered to the jury. The fourth was in Columbia : that he had put a construction on an article of agreement that it was a deed of conveyance, because it contained the words "and do by these presents sell, convey, &c.," which was reversed by the Supreme Court, who said that the rest of the agreement showed it was not intended to be a conveyanee. The case was an ejectment under the old form, -John Doe on demise Richard Roe. The demise was laid for the term of ten years. The case was sued in 1800, but owing to mental derangement of the party, the ease was not tried until after the ten years had
1 Under the act erecting Cirenit Courts, Judge Molton C. Rogers held the first Circuit Court in New Berlin on the 9th of April, 1827. On the 10th, Peter Gearhart was put on trial for murder ; Bellas and Bradford for the common- wealth, Lashells and Mans for the defendant. (May 16, George A. Snyder remarks: " Took Judge Chapman two and one half days to try Henry Frock for / Ivaling walnuts, winle Judge Rogers, m April, tried a murder case, two farmeation and adultery cases, in three days.")
expired. The plaintiff moved to amend by extending the demise to thirty years, -a matter of form allowed at the time, -but Judge Chap- man struck the amendment off. This would non-snit the plaintiff, and was reversed. On the second trial the case turned on the instruc- tion of the agreement above stated; but the plaintiff's, after the evidence was in on both sides, demurred to the evidence. The defend- ant refused to join in the demurrer, and Judge Chapman refused to compel him. A lawyer can readily understand the tactics. The demurrer would have taken it away from the jury. C. T. Tilghman's opinion in the Supreme Court (11 S. & R., 381) is one of those clean-cut legal arguments for which he was able, and sustained Judge Chapman. The parties who are disclosed as the managers of the impeachment indicate very strongly the motive of it. And it is remarkable that just as the case came up for trial in the Senate, in 1827, were counted the votes of the people of Pennsylvania refusing to call a convention for the amendment of the Constitution, and not for ten years did they consent to it, and then reluctantly, and really against the full senti- ment of the people.
An examination of the court minutes shows that he did as much as the courts ordinarily do in a term. The great legacy of three hundred cases from the old list evidently elogged the business, and the bitterness of partisan politics had much to do with it. Governor Snyder served three terms, from 1808 to 1817, and Chapman was his appointee after the removal of Cooper. Perhaps the long-contested case of John Snyder's heirs against Simon Snyder, the Governor, had much to do with the estima- tion of him. That case was from the Circuit Court doeket, No. 97, November term, 1807. It appears to have been first tried in 1810, when the jury disagreed. June 18, 1812, it was again tried, and the jury found for defend- ant. In August, 1811, it was reversed by the Supreme Court, and tried again in December, 1814, when it first came on the Union County list. The jury found for the plaintiff, and the court granted a new trial. In 1819 it was again tried, and the jury found for the plaintiff
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and a rule for a new trial was discharged. It was reversed in the Supreme Court, and came on to trial in May, 1822, when the jury was dismissed because there was found to be a relative of the plaintiff on the jury after it was sworn, It was tried at a special term in Octo- ber, 1822, found for the plaintiff, and again reversed in the Supreme Court; and in 1824 was referred to Dan Caldwell, Michael Rathfon, Valentine Haas, Jolin Reifsnyder and Joseph Spotts, who found for the defendant, and it died away for want of an appeal. It thus mingled with the gubernatorial contest of Snyder, for, being the nominal defendant, he was accused of conspiring with Selin to cheat his brother's orphan children, and it ran on up to the year Chapman was impeached. The merits of the case, at least so far as a bitter partisan like Simon Snyder, Jr., could give it, are in Linn's " Annals of Buffalo Valley," page 465. Only the partienlars of the legal history are here given, and, so far, they illustrate his character.
It was not left to rest there. In the fierce battle that raged over the Judicial Tenure question in the Constitutional Convention of 1836, it was again lugged in to bear upon the question of the independence of the judiciary. When Mr. Dunlap alluded to the case in the debate, Mr. Merrill explained that Governor Snyder had no interest in the case, but was in possession of the land as guardian of the own- ers, who were minors. "The judges," he said, "had been of his appointment " (and this related not only to Chapman but the judges of the Supreme Court), "and the jury had become so suspicious that he (Judge Chapman) was so influenced by some improper motives, that they entirely disregarded his charge." "The canse had been tried several times ; afterwards, seven very respectable men, as arbitrators, decided according to the judge's charge, and the same title was afterward tried in the Circuit Court of the United States, and the decision was the same way."1
It may aid in forming a just estimate of the character of Judge Chapman, that he was
blamed by the defendant's party for cowardice, indolence, shrinking from the clamor of the people ; on the other side, he was accused of improper motives. The Supreme Court Ens- tained him twice, and one jury and seven arbitrators, who were able inen, on the facts.
Judge Chapman and Judge Wilson consti- tuted the court until August 26, 1815. John Bolender was commissioned and he took his seat at September sessions, 1815. The latter resigned on the 11th of December, 1820, when, on the same date General Adam Light was commissioned.
Judge Chapman held his place for seven years after his impeachment, resigning on the 10th of October, 1833. His enemies followed him with unrelenting virulence. A committee of the Senate was appointed in 1833 to investi- gate his official conduct, and on the 7th of March commenced to examine witnesses, when, on the 11th, a stop was put to the proceedings by the receipt of a note from the judge, saying that he had deposited his resignation with the Gov- ernor, to take effect on the 10th of October next. He adds, "This course might have been taken sooner, but it could not be thought of while it was believed any charge of want of integrity could be bro't against me."
What would seem a rather singular move in our day took place at September term, 1833. That imposing body, the grand inquest, with William Forster as their foreman, thought it within their province to petition the Governor to appoint William W. Potter, Esq., president judge of the Eighth Judicial District, vice Seth Chapman, resigned. Why not? But on the 16th of December, 1833, the commission of Ellis Lewis was read and he took his seat.
ELLIS LEWIS was born on the 16th of May, 1798, in Lewisberry, York County, Pa, a place about ten miles south of Harrisburg-in the " Red Lands "-on a small branch of the Conawago. Somewhere in 1740 some " Friends" of Chester County, under the influence of Wil- liain l'enn, settled in those pleasant parts. It was near Donegal, and the " Scotch-Irish " were squatting on his lands. Among those " Friends" were Ellis Lewis, the progenitor of the judge, who laid out and gave the name to the town.
' Deb. Pa. Con. vol. v. 13. p. 11.
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The judge's father died when he was but four years of age. A long minority and the faith- lessness of trustees dissipated the patrimonial acres ; but the judge inherited the brains, the refinement and literary taste of his ancestor. He was apprenticed to Wyeth, the publisher of the Dauphin Oracle, a paper published in Harris- burg, to learn the printing trade. An appren- tice in those days had a very menial place, and Ellis Lewis was compelled by his master to eat his meals in the kitchen with the colored slaves. This created such an utter disgust that he ran away, and Wyeth published him as a runaway, in the usual style, with a wood-cut of a man running, having a bundle on a stick slung over his shoulder, offering one cent reward.
Nevertheless, he became a printer and an edi- tor, read law and was admitted at the Dauphin County bar in 1822, at the age of twenty-four; in 1824, appointed deputy attorney general for Dauphin County ; in 1832, a member of the Legis- lature. It is said that in 1828 he heaped coals of fire on the head of Wyeth by having his son, John Wyeth, appointed deputy attorney- general of Union County. Governor Wolf made him his attorney-general of the State of Pennsylvania in 1832, and in 1833 appointed him to the Eighth District. Ten years later (1843) he was appointed president judge of the Second District, Laneaster County, and in 1851 elected one of the judges of the Supreme Court Drawing the second lot, lie became the chief justice in 1854, and declining a renomi- nation, at the expiration of his term, in 1858, retired. Before the constitutional change of 1851, all judges were appointed. After that they are elected by the people. All the Su- preme judges were elected for fifteen years, and, all going in at once, they drew lots-the one drawing the first lot would be chief justice for three years, and his term would expire, and another judge would be elected. Jeremiah S. Black drew the first lot, and his term ex- pired the first Monday of December, when Ellis Lewis became chief justice, his term expiring the first Monday of December, 1857. Black was re-elected in 1854, for fifteen years.
In 1858 he was one of the three commis- sioners to revise the criminal code of Pennsyl-
vania, whose report was adopted, and became the act of March 31, 1860, which is the present Criminal Code of Pennsylvania. He published an authoritative work, " An Abridge- ment of the Criminal Law of the United States." ITis decisions in the County Court were noted, and in view of his extended knowledge of medico-jurisprudence he had an honorary title of M. D. from a medical college, and twice from different colleges received the title of LL.D.
ABRAHAM SCOTT WILSON was appointed to the Twentieth Judicial District March 30, 1842, when Judge Lewis was transferred to Lancaster. Upon the change in the constitution making the judiciary elective, he was elected in the district, notwithstanding that it was largely Whig, and he had for his opponent Joseph Casey, who was an able man and an active politician. Judge Wil- son presided with dignity; his integrity was unquestioned, and his impartiality such as made every suitor satisfied, though defeated. Ile was very careful in his decisions ; his temper never ruffled, and his gentle manners made him very acceptable in his place. His biography belongs to liis home at Lewistown, but it may be here recorded what Judge Burnside said of him : " He was as good a lawyer as there was in the district, and he was an honest man." Near the end of his term he had a stroke of paralysis, which partially disabled him. His de- voted wife traveled with him and did the drudg- ery of his office, and it was a pleasant thing for the younger members of the bar to sit by him on the bench and take notes for him. When his term was ended he was too helpless to think of asking for the place again, and he retired to private life. It was not long - December 20, 1864-when James F. Linn announced his death, in this court, at his residenee in Lewistown, on the 18th day of December, 1864, at the age of sixty-four years. He was born just across the river, at Chillisquaque Creek.
HON. SAMUEL S. WOODS was elected to fill the bench in October, 1861. His opponent was the Hon. Isaac Slenker, of New Berlin, and the vote was so close that it required the vote of the soldiers in the field to decide the
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& C. Mucher
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antest. Ile was a large, portly man, of quick temper, but easily appeased, of ready yprehension, lond and clear in his expres- con, and without hesitation in the expression of what he thought was right; he would "ven strain a point in his charge to the jury ir that which he deemed the correct decision of the facts. He was strong in his Republican convictions, and it was deemed a matter of moment at that time that men of firm purpose sat upon the bench, when it needed not only men and money, but also the strong back- ground of loyalty at home. His death was ammonnced in court on the 19th of February, 1-73, and the resolutions of the bar gave a very nice appreciation of his character as a judge, in -tying that "he was remarkable for his force of character, keen perception, ready compre- Tension and strong grasp of the facts in liti- gnition, and in this more than ordinarily mitted." He died at his home in Lewistown on the 5th day of February, 1873, at the age of fifty-three. His life belongs to Mifflin County. Just as fierce a contest for the seat on the bench came, when Judge Woods' term expired, M: 1871.
The ermine fell upon the shoulders of a young man who had just entered his thirty-sixth war, and had been at the bar thirteen years.
JOSEPH CASPER BUCHER was born in Mid- lletown, Frederick County, Md., January 28, 1836. His father, Rev. J. C. Bucher, D.D., was then a resident minister of the German Re- formed Church at that place. When the son was six years of age the father accepted the pastorate of the German Reformed Church at Reading, Pa., where he remained a number of years. Whilst at Reading the son was a pupil of Father Kelly, a Catholic priest of some celebrity as a teacher. Upon the removal of the father to Mercersburg, Franklin County, l'a., the son entered the preparatory depart- ment of Marshall College, located there. In 1853, during his collegiate course, the institu- tion was removed to Lancaster, Pa., and united with Franklin College under the name of Frank- lin and Marshall. There the subject of this sketch completed his collegiate course and graduated in 1855, with one of the highest
honors of his class. The valedictory oration was assigned to him, and his address, delivered on commencement day, bore ample testimony that he was worthy of the honor, it being delivered with a power and eloquence that raised the enthusiasm of the audience to the highest pitch. After graduation he spent a year as principal of an academy in Maryland, and then connnenced the study of the law in the office of Hon, Isaac Slenker, of New Berlin, Union County, Pa. He was admitted to the Union County bar in 1858, and went into part- nership with his preceptor. In 1859 he was nominated for district attorney of Union County on the Democratic ticket, and was elected in the fall of that year by the handsome majority of 257 votes, although the Republican majority in the county on the State ticket was 523. IIe discharged the duties of the office with fidelity and ability.
On the 20th of November, 1861, he was married to Mary Ellen, daughter of Hon. John Walls. He was fortunate in this alliance. ITis wife was a woman of enlture and refinement, and her tastes were congenial to his own. She presides over his hospitable home with dignity and grace, and has contributed largely by the force of her character to the advancement of the interests of her husband.
In 1862, Hon. Isaac Slenker, his preceptor, was elected auditor-general of Pennsylvania. The partnership was then dissolved and Mr. Bucher removed to Lewisburgh, where he opened a law-office. His practice was exten- sive and varied, but was confined principally to the counties of Union and Snyder, although he frequently tried causes elsewhere. In his profession he was singularly successful, having very many of the best traits of an advocate. He obtained a superficial knowledge of the German language whilst at college, and during his residence at New Berlin acquired the habit of speaking it with fluency, and that was the patois of Snyder County, especially of the west end. His manner was hearty and cordial. He was easy of access. Had a quick, bright ap- prehension, and a very retentive memory. Had the faculty of gathering facts and spreading them in narration, grouped with graphic power.
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