The twentieth century bench and bar of Pennsylvania, volume I, Part 4

Author:
Publication date: 1903
Publisher: Chicago, H. C. Cooper, jr., bro. & co.
Number of Pages: 1102

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There is a legend to the effect that a cer- tain act which can be found in the Pamphlet Laws of Pennsylvania (1810, p. 136), for- bidding the citation of English precedents subsequent to 1776, was passed at the insti- gation of Judge Hamilton, in order to get rid of the multitudinous authorities with which Mr. Duncan was wont to confuse his judg- ment.

Isaac B. Parker .- Among the prominent attorneys who practiced for many years at our bar, who were admitted under Hamil- ton, was Isaac Brown Parker, March, 1806, on motion of Charles Smith, Esq. Mr. Parker had read law under James Hamilton just previous to the time of his appointment to the bench. His committee were Ralph Bowie, Charles Smith and James Duncan, Esqs. He was a gentleman of wealth and refinement, and a prominent lawyer of his day.

Alexander Mahan, who had been gradu- ated from Dickinson college (1805) and who

CUMBERLAND COUNTY

had read law under Thomas Duncan, was admitted August, 1808; Gibson, the elder Watts and Carothers being his committee. He was admitted to the Perry county bar in 1821, and was, says Judge Junkin, "a man of great oratorical power." (See sketch of Perry county bar by Hon. B. F. Junkin.)

Hon. William Ramsey was admitted the same date. He was prothonotary for many years and a prominent Democratic politician from 1827 to 1831, in which latter year he died. He began practice at the bar in 1827.

James Hamilton, Jr., was born in Carlisle, October 16, 1793, and graduated from Dick- inson college in 1812. He read law with Isaac B. Parker, was admitted while his father was upon the bench, April, 1816. Be- ing in affluent circumstances, he practiced but little at the bar, and died June 23, 1873.

John Williamson, brother-in-law of Hon. Samuel Hepburn, with whom he was for a long time associated, was born in this county September 14, 1789; graduated from Dick- inson college; read law under Luther Martin, of Baltimore, Md. (the "Federal Bulldog" and counsel for Aaron Burr), and was ad- mitted to this bar in August, 1811. Luther Martin, it is said, had an unlimited capacity for "legal lore and liquor," and in the for- mer respect only his pupil resem bled his pre- ceptor, for he was a very learned lawyer as a counselor. He died in Philadelphia, Sep- tember 10, 1870.

John Duncan Mahon, who was admitted under Hamilton in April, 1817, was born in 1796, and read law under the instruction of his uncle, Thomas Duncan. He became the leader of the Carlisle bar at a brilliant period, until, in 1833, he removed to Pitts- burgh and became a prominent member of the bar of that city, where he died July 3, 1861. He was a man of rare endowments. "He had," says Judge McClure, of Pitts- burgh, "the gift, the power and the grace of the orator, and in addressing the passions,

the sympathies and the peculiarities of men, he seldom made mistakes. His every gesture was graceful, his style of eloquence was the proper word in the proper place for the occasion, and his voice was music." He was affable in temper, brilliant in conversation, and was among the leaders of our bar under Hamilton, Smith and Reed, at a time when it had strong men by whom his strength was tested and his talents tried.

Hon. Charles Smith was appointed to suc- ceed Hamilton as the fifth president judge of our judicial district in the year 1819. He was born at Philadelphia, March 4, 1765, and graduated at first commencement of Washington college, Maryland, of which his father was founder and provost. He read law with his brother, William Moore Smith, at Easton, Pa. He was a colleague of Simon Snyder in the convention which framed the first constitution of Pennsylvania, and was a distinguished member of that talented body of men. Althoughi differing from Mr. Snyder in politics they were, for more than thirty years, firm friends, and when Mr. Snyder became governor of the state for three successive terms, Mr. Smith was his confidential adviser in many important mat- ters. In the circuit he became associated with such eminent men as Thomas Duncan, David Watts, Charles Hall, John Woods, James Hamilton and a host of luminaries of the middle bar. In the trial of ejectment cases the learning of the bar was best dis- played, and Mr. Smith was soon recognized as an eminent land lawyer. In after years, when called on to revise the old publications of the laws of the state, and under the authority of the Legislature to frame a new compilation of the same (generally known as Smith's Laws of Pennsylvania), he gave to the public the result of his knowledge and experience on the subject of the land law, in the very copious note on that subject which may well be termed a treatise on the land laws of Pennsylvania. In the same work,

28.

THE BENCH AND BAR OF PENNSYLVANIA

his note on the criminal law of the state is elaborate and instructive. When appointed judge in 1819, this district was composed of the counties of Cumberland and Franklin, and Judge Smith afterward became the first presiding judge of the District Court of Lan- caster. He removed to Philadelphia, where he died March 18, 1836, in the seventy-second year of his agc. "He was," says the late George Harris, Esq., "a superior lawyer, and, as a judge, very ready and decided."

THE BAR UNDER REED.

Hon. John Reed, LL. D., appears upon the bench in 1820. He was born in York (now Adams) county in 1786. He was a son of Emil William Reed, of Revolutionary . fame. He read law under William Maxwell, of Gettysburg, was admitted to the bar and practiced law for some years in Westmore- land county. In 1815 he was elected to the State Senate, and on July 10, 1820, was com- missioned by Governor Finley, president judge of this Ninth judicial district, then composed of the counties of Cumberland, Franklin, Adams and Perry. When, in 1839, by a change in the constitution, his commis- sion expired, he resumed his practice at this bar, and continued it until his death, at Car- lisle, January 19, 1850. In 1830 the degree of LL. D. was conferred upon him by Dick- inson, and in 1839 by Washington college, Pennsylvania. In 1833 the new board of Dickinson college established a professorship. of law, and Judge Reed was elected to fill that department (from 1834 to 1850). Many who were graduated at the law school then formed became eminent in their profession and occupied high political and judicial positions.

Judge Reed, we may mention, was the author of three volumes, now rare, known as the "Pennsylvania Blackstone." "He presided," says a former writer, "for nine- teen years in a district where the bar was not inferior to any in the commonwealth;

having among its members Thomas G. Mc- Cullough, George Chambers, James Dunlap, T. Hartley Crawford, John T. Denny, George Metzger, Thaddeus Stevens, Andrew Carotlı- ers, John D. Mahon, Charles B. Penrose, Frederick Watts, Wm. M. Biddle and others, all men of distinction with whom he was not only officially connected, but with many of them intimately associated.

At this period the bar was particularly strong. Of the old veterans, David Watts was dead, and Duncan was upon the su- preme benchi, but among the practitioners here were such men as Carothers, Alexander, Mahon, Ramsey, Parker, Williamson, Metz- ger and others; while among those admitted under him who were afterwards to attain eminence on the bench or at the bar were such men as Charles B. Penrosc, Hugh Gaul- lagher, Frederick Watts, William M. Biddle, James H. Graham, Samuel Hepburn, William Ramsey, S. Dunlap Adair and John B. Par- ker, a galaxy of names which has not since been equaled.

An unknown writer, speaking of his recol- lections of the Carlisle bar at about this period, says: "John D. Mahon was its bright, particular star; young, graceful, eloquent and with a jury irresistible. Equal to him in general ability and superior, per- haps, in legal acumen, was his contemporary and rival, Samuel Alexander. Then there was the vehement Andrew Carothers and young Frederick Watts, just admitted in time to reap the advantages of his father's reputation and create an enduring one of his own. And George Metzger, with his treble voice, and hand upon his side, amusing the court and spectators with his not overly delicate facetiae. And there was William Ramsey with his queue-a man of many clients and the sine qua non of the Demo- cratic party."

General Samuel Alexander was just be- ginning his practice at the bar in 1820 when Judge Reed took the bench. He was born

CUMBERLAND COUNTY

in Carlisle, September 20, 1792; graduated from Diekinson college (1812), read law at Greensburg with his brother, Maj. John B. Alexander, and became a prominent lawyer in that part of the state. He returned to Carlisle and began praetieing here at about 1818 and soon aequired a prominent posi- tion. In 1820 he married a daughter of Col. Ephriam Blaine, of Carlisle, commissary general in the Revolutionary war and grand- father of the late Hon. James G. Blaine, of Maine. He was a strong advocate, bold, vigorous, aggressive, with a large eommand of language, and was a master of personal inveetive. . In this he had no equal at the bar, and in the examination of witnesses, also, he had no superior. He died in Carlisle in July, 1845, aged fifty-two years.

From the late Hon. Samuel Todd, who was a pupil of Mr. Alexander, we learn that the latter "was possessed of a tenacious memory, and seldom forgot a ease which he had onee read; that he was possessed of great tact and an intuitive quickness of perception ; that in the management of a ease he was apt, watchful and ingenious, so that if driven from one position he was, like a skillful gen- cral, always quick to seize another, and that, in this respeet, his talents only brightened amid difficulties and shone forth the more resplendent as the battle became more hope- less."

Hugh Gaullagher, a practitioner at the bar under Reed, read law with Hon. Richard Coulter, of Greensburg, and shortly after his admission eommeneed practice in Carlisle. This was about 1824, from which time he continued to practice until about the middle of the century. He died in Carlisle, April 14, 1856. He was an Irishman by birth, eeeentrie, long-limbed, awkward in his gait and in his delivery, had the Irish brogue, but he was popular, affable, instructive in eon- versation, and well read, particularly in his- tory, and in the elements of his profession. IIe possessed inherent humor and a love of

fun, had a large eirele of friends and was among the number of the old lawyers who were fond of a dinner and a song. He was strong as a counselor, fond of the old eases, and would rather quote an opinion of iny Lord Hale or Mansfield than the latest de- livered by our courts. Governor Porter at one time thought very seriously of appoint- ing him judge of this district, but was de- terred from so doing on aeeount of his nationality. This has been told to the writer by one (the late Hon. Samuel Hepburn) to whom Governor Porter himself eommuni- cated the faet.

Hon. Charles B. Penrose, born near Phila- delphia, October 6, 1798, read law witlı Samuel Ewing, of Philadelphia, and imme- diately moved to Carlisle. He soon aequired a prominent position at the bar. He was eleeted to the State Senate in 1833. On the expiration of his termn he was re-elected, serving under Governor Ritner when Thad- deus Stevens was also a member of that body, and during the buekshot war. He soon achieved distinction among the men of ability who were then ehosen to fill that office. In 1841 he was appointed by Presi- dent Harrison solicitor of the treasury, which position lie held until the elose of President Tyler's administration. After praetieing in Carlisle he moved first to Lan- caster, then (in 1847) to Philadelphia, sue- eessfully pursuing his profession. In 1856 he was again elected as a reform candidate to the State Senate, during which term he died of pneumonia, at Harrisburg, April 6, 1857. In appearance, Mr. Penrose was slightly above the medium height, with white hair and a fine intellectual east of countcnanee. In his eharaeter he was un- selfish, benevolent and earnest in whatever he undertook to aceomplish, in his manners polished and courteous-in short, he was a gentleman.

William M. Biddle was another brilliant practitioner admitted under Reed. He was

THE BENCH AND BAR OF PENNSYLVANIA

born in Philadelphia, July 3, 1801. He was a great-great-grandson of Nicholas Schull, surveyor-general of the province of Pennsyl- vania from 1748 to 1761, who, by direction of Governor Hamilton, laid out the town of Carlisle in 1751. Mr. Biddle read law in Reading with his brother-in-law, Samuel Baird, Esq., and shortly after his admission to the bar, in 1826, he moved to Carlisle, where Charles B. Penrose, also a brother-in- law, who had recently opened a law office and was rising into a good practice, resided. Mr. Biddle soon acquired a large practice and took a high position at the bar, which he retained until his death-a period of nearly thirty years. He died in Phila- delphia, February 28, 1855. He was not only a genial gentleman and able lawyer, but was endowed with a fine personal pres- ence, great affability, a scintillating humor, which, combined with high moral and intel- lectual qualities, placed him among the leaders of the bar at a time when many brilliant men were among its members.

Hon. Charles McClure was admitted to the bar under Reed in 1826. He was born in Carlisle, graduated from Dickinson col- lege (1824), afterwards became a member of Congress (1837-1841) in place of William Sterrett Ramsey, and still later (1843-45) secretary of state of Pennsylvania. He was a son-in-law of Chief Justice Gibson. He did not practice extensively at this bar, but removed to Pittsburgh, where he died Janu- ary 10, 1846, aged forty-one years.

Hon. William Sterrett Ramsey was one of the most promising practitioners admitted under Reed. He was born in Carlisle, June 16, 1810. He went to Dickinson college, and in 1829 was sent to Europe to complete his education, and to repair, by change of scene, an already debilitated constitution. In the same year he was appointed by our minister to St. James (Hon. Lewis McClure) an attache to the American legation. He vis- ited Sir Walter Scott at Abbottsford, to

whom he bore letters from Washington Irv- ing. After the revolution of the three days, July, 1830, Mr. Ramsey was sent with dis- patches to France, and spent much of his time while there in the hotel of General Lafayette, and in his salons met many of the celebrated men of that period. In 1831 he returned to Carlisle and began the study of law under his father, William Ramsey. He continued his studies under Andrew Caroth- ers, was admitted to the bar in 1833, and in 1838 was elected as a Democrat to Congress, and at the expiration of his term was re- elected. He was, at the time, the youngest member of Congress in the House. He died before being qualified a second time, by his own hand, in Barnum's hotel, Baltimore, Md., October 22, 1840, aged only thirty years. Sic transit gloria. Most of the above facts are taken from an obituary notice said to have been written by his friend, James Buchanan, later president of the United States.

S. Dunlap Adair was another of the bril- liant lawyers admitted under Reed (in Janu- ary, 1835), and who practiced for a period of fifteen years. While a youth, he attended the classical school of Joseph Casey, Sr., the father of Hon. Joseph Casey (of Casey re- port renown), at Neuville, Pa., and was among the brightest of his pupils. He was apt as a Latin scholar, and later acquired a knowledge of other (modern) languages. He was well read in English literature. He studied law under Hon. Frederick Watts, and soon after his admission was appointed deputy attorney general for the county. He was a candidate of his party when William Ramsey, the younger, was elected. In stature he was below medium height, was delicately formed, near-sighted, had a chaste, clear style and was a pleasant speaker. He was with William M. Biddle, James H. Graham and William M. Meredith, of Philadelphia, counsel for Rev. Dr. MeClintock, in the anti- slavery riots which occurred in Carlisle in

CUMBERLAND COUNTY

. the summer of 1847. He died in Carlisle, September 23, 1850.

John Brown Parker, son of Isaac B. Parker, is the last whom we shall mention of the practitioners admitted under Reed. IIe was born in Carlisle, October 5, 1816, and was graduated from the University of Penn- sylvania in 1834; studied law with Hon. Frederiek Watts, and at the law school under Judge Reed, and was admitted to practice in April, 1838. He was for some years associated in practice with his pre- eeptor, Judge Watts. His ample means ren- dered the practice of law unnecessary, and he retired about 1865 and moved to Phila- delphia, where he resided for some years. He died in Carlisle, where he had again made his home, in the summer of 1888. A thorough gentleman and a fine classieal scholar, he is still remembered by the older members of the bar as one who was equally distinguished for his uniform courtesy, gen- tlemanly urbanity and unpretentious but real literary attainments.

EMINENT NON-PRACTITIONERS.

Among those who did not practice at all or for any length of time at the Carlisle bar, who were admitted under Reed, but who attained to eminenee elsewhere, were Hon. William B. MeClure, of Carlisle, who became judge of the Common Pleas and Quarter Sessions at Pittsburgh from 1850 to 1861, in which latter year he died; Andrew Galbreath Miller, LL. D., a student of Carothers, appointed by President Van Buren, judge in the territory of Wisconsin, and afterwards by President Polk United States judge of that state: Benjamin Me- Intyre, of New Bloomfield, who read with Hon. Charles B. Penrose; Samuel MeCoskey, who, turning to theology, beeame bishop of Michigan; Ilon. Henry M. Watts, after- wards of Philadelphia, appointed by Presi- dent Johnson minister to the court of Austria ; Hon. Andrew Parker, a pupil of

Carothers, who moved to Mifflintown and became a member of Congress. Then there was HIon. Charles MeClure, of Carlisle, stu- dent of John D. Mahon, who beeame a mein- ber of Congress, and in 1843-45 was secretary of state in Pennsylvania; Hon. James X. McLanahan, student of Carothers, who be- came a member of Congress (1849-53) ; the learned Dr. William N. Nevin, professor of aneient languages, and later of English literature and belles lettres in Franklin and Marshall eollege; Lemuel G. Branderberry, who praetieed here for a time, but was ap- pointed by President Taylor one of the first territorial judges of Utah; Hon. John P. Hobart (examined and admitted August 10, 1836), who was auditor general under Gov- ernor Ritner; Hon. Andrew G. Curtin (examined January, 1837, by Williamson, Gaullagher and James H. Graham), who was war governor of Pennsylvania; Rev. Dr. Alfred Nevin, LL. D. (same date and com- mittee as Curtin) ; the venerable Hon. Francis W. Hughes, secretary of the com- monwealth under Governor Bigler (still within the recollection of the writer wearing his white hair in a powdered queue) ; Hon. Joseph Casey, who read law with Lemuel G. Branderberry, and who became a member of Congress (1849-51), chief justice of the Court of Claims at Washington, and re- porter of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania (1855-60) in the vohunes which bear his name.

THE BAR AND THE SUPREME COURT.

During the time when Judge Reed pre- sided over the eourts in Cumberland county the bar of Carlisle was represented by no less than four justiees on the beneh of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania. These were Gibson, Duncan, Huston and Kennedy.

John B. Gibson was appointed a judge of the Supreme Court by Governor Snyder on the 27th of June. 1816, in place of Hon. Hugh H. Brackenridge, who died June 26th

THE BENCH AND BAR OF PENNSYLVANIA

of that year. The remarkable promptness with which the appointment was made, on the next day after the death of Bracken- ridge, is worthy of notice. At this time the Supreme Court consisted of Justices Tilgh- man, Yeates and Gibson. The next year (1817) Justice Yeates died, and Thomas Duncan was selected to fill the vacancy. The Supreme Court consisted of Tilghman, Gibson and Duncan from 1817 till 1827, in which year Thomas Duncan died, and Gib- son was appointed chief justice of the state. By act 8th of April, 1826, one year previous, the number of the judges was increased to five, and Moulten C. Rogers and Charles Huston were appointed the two additional judges.

In 1830 John Kennedy was appointed a justice of the Supreme Court by Governor Wolf.

For a period of nearly ten years, during which the Supreme Court consisted of but three members, two of them, Gibson and Duncan, were distinguished members of the Carlisle bar. And after the number was enlarged to five and Judge Duncan had died, the bar could still point with pride to the chief justice and to Judges Huston and Kennedy.

THE BAR UNDER HEPBURN.

Hon. Samuel Hepburn, LL. D., the seventh president judge, was the successor of Judge Reed, and first appeared upon the bench in April, 1839. He was born in 1807 in Wil- liamsport, Pa., at which place he began the study of law under James Armstrong, who was afterwards a judge on the supreme bench. He completed his legal studies at . Dickinson college under Reed, and was ad- mitted to the bar of Cumberland county in November, 1834. He was appointed adjunct professor of law in the law school under Judge Reed, and before he had been at the bar five years he was appointed by Governor Porter president judge of the Ninth judicial

district, then embracing Cumberland, Perry and Juniata counties. He was at this time the youngest judge in Pennsylvania to whom a president judge's commission had been ever offered. Among important cases the McClintock riot trial took place while he was upon the bench. After the expiration of his term he resumed the practice of law in Carlisle, where he died on Monday, No- vember 22, 1897, aged nearly ninety-one years. The degree of LL. D. was conferred upon him by Washington college, Pennsyl- vania.

We all of us remember Judge Hepburn, tall, lithe, erect and active, with a frame that seemed to defy the ravages of time; a refined and scholarly face, quick in thought and action, quick in repartee, able and un- tiring. Some of the older of us remember his melodious voice, his suave, persuasive eloquence, his balanced sentences whose spontaneous cadences might not have shamed the age of Bolingbroke., With him, the then oldest member of the bar, the last of that old regime, that old school of lawyers, passed away.

The most important practitioners admitted under Judge Hepburn were J. Ellis Bonham, Lemuel Todd, William H. Miller, Benjamin F. Junkin, William M. Penrose.

J. Ellis Bonham was born in Huntingdon county, New Jersey, March 31, 1816; he was graduated from Jefferson college, Penn- sylvania, studied law at Dickinson college under Reed, and was admitted to the bar in August, 1839. He was soon appointed deputy attorney general for the county, a position which he filled with conspicuous ability. His legal, literary and political reading and attainments were extensive. In 1851 he was elected to the Legislature, and during his term was the acknowledged leader of the House, as Hon. Charles R. Buckalew was of the Senate. After the expiration of his term, Mr. Bonham was nominated for Congress, and although he

CUMBERLAND COUNTY

was in a district largely Democratic, emi- nently fitted for the position, and liad, him- self, great influenee in the politieal organi- zation to which he belonged, he was defeated by the sudden birth of the Know-nothing party. He died shortly after of congestion of the lungs (Mareh 19, 1855), just as his talents had reached their prime, after having been at the bar for fifteen years, and before he had attained the age of forty.

In personal appearance Mr. Bonham was of medium height, of nervous sanguine tem- perament, with a countenanec that was seholarly and refined. As an advocate he was eminently a graceful and forcible speaker, attractive in his manner, with a poctie imagination and chaste and polished diction.

Hon. Lemuel Todd was born in Carlisle, July 29, 1817; was graduated from Diekin- son college in the elass of 1839; read law with General Samuel Alexander, and was admitted to practice in August, 1841. He was a partner of General Alexander until the time of his death, in 1843. He was eleeted to Congress from the Eighteenth dis- triet on the Know-nothing tieket against J. Ellis Bonham on the Demoeratie tieket, in 1854, and was elected Congressman-at- large in 1875. He was chairman of the first state committee of the Know-nothing party in 1855-56, and delegate to its first and only national convention in February, 1856. In this year he presided over the Union state convention (not yet known as "Republi- can"), and in the suecceding year was chair- man of the first Republican state committee. Ile ran as a candidate for governor in 1857, being second on the list of thirteen candi- dates, David Wilmot being nominated. He was temporary chairman of the state con- vention at Harrisburg in 1883, and had pre- sided over the state conventions of the Re- publiean party that nominated David Wilmot for governor, at Harrisburg; Governor Curtin at Pittsburgh, and that advocated

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The twentieth century bench and bar of Pennsylvania, volume I, Part 4

Author: Publication date: 1903 Publisher: Chicago, H. C. Cooper, jr., bro. & co. Number of Pages: 1102

Author:
Publication date: 1903
Publisher: Chicago, H. C. Cooper, jr., bro. & co.
Number of Pages: 1102