The twentieth century bench and bar of Pennsylvania, volume I, Part 65

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

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In corporation law, Mr. McCauley is an attorney of countless resources and splendid attainments, and the numerous companies that are represented in his offices would be a surprise to one not acquainted with them. In 1882 he was appointed attorney for the Rochester & Pittsburgh Railroad company in Elk county. When that line was re-organ- ized under the name of the Buffalo, Roehes- ter & Pittsburgh Railroad company, he was made solicitor for that corporation for the state of Pennsylvania. Sinee that time his jurisdiction has been enlarged and now em- braces the entire line and various tributary interests. He is in addition distriet solicitor for the Erie railroad company and the Penn- sylvania railroad company, and also their many constituent interests in that seetion. During the month of April, 1893, he brought about the organization of the Penn Tanning company, the Elk Tanning company, and the Union Tanning company. He also took a prominent part in the organization of the United States Leather company during the same year. He has been the general soliei- tor for all these companies and the various

interests which they represent, and is largely instrumental in making their operations successful from a business standpoint. More recently he organized the Jefferson & Clear- field Coal and Iron company, said to be one of the largest bituminous coal operations in the state of Pennsylvania. There were seventy tanneries represented in the tanning eompanics above mentioned, and the per- fection of the organization brought about by Mr. McCauley will be apprehended when it is stated that these companies have had little or no litigation. Mr. McCauley's gen- ius for organization had anticipated possible difficulties, and under his skillful manage- ment, the varied and important business of these concerns has gone smoothly on. Many of the cases in which he has figured as a rail- road lawyer have attracted national atten- tion, and among the leading ones may be noted the quo warranto proceedings insti- tuted by the state of Pennsylvania against the Erie Railroad company to cscheat its railway and coal property in Elk and Jeffer- son counties; that of the Rothschilds and others against the Buffalo, Rochester & Pittsburgh Railroad company to resist the reorganization of the company and the ejectment cases brought by the MeKean and Elk Land and Improvement company to reeover from the owners extensive traets in Cameron, Elk and MeKean counties. It is stated that in all the many aeeident cases brought against the various corporations to reeover damages for personal injuries, not a single verdict has been rendered against his clients.

Rufus Lucore, Ridgway, was born in Cam- eron, formerly MeKean county, Pennsyl- vania. Rufus had the ordinary experienees of a farmer boy, working on the farm and going to the district sehools. Later he attended the old style academy at Couders- port, and still later the Smethport academy. This comprised all his schooling, but by private study he became proficient in Latin,

ELK COUNTY

449

French and other studies and acquired a good edueation.

Young Lucore went to Elk county, and for several years was engaged in teaching and was county superintendent of schools. In 1863 he went to Northumberland county where he taught school, and at the same time carried on the study of law and was admitted to the bar. Mr. Lueore has given special attention to railroad and real estate law and the settlement of estates, and form- erly gave much time to the trial of eases, but latterly has been less aetive in that

branch of practice. In politics he is an in- dependent, but has never held or sought. office.

Mr. Lucore has been a member of the Masonic fraternity for thirty-five years, is also a Knight Templar. For six years he was president of the Elk County Bar Asso- ciation. In recent years, Mr. Lucore, being in poor health, has given much time to read- ing and study of literature of the law, especially the Roman law, and other kindred subjeets.

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THE BENCH AND BAR OF PENNSYLVANIA

BEAVER COUNTY

BY RICHARD B. TWISS

The history of the courts of Beaver county dates from the beginning of the nineteenth century. At that early day the amount of business to be transacted by the courts was not great and the number of lawyers and judges required to do it was few. And yet there were not lacking even in those early days, men of intellect, men of power, sound in legal learning and skilled in the practice of the profession, who wrought faithfully and well and laid broad and deep the foun- dation of what has grown to be a most im- portant part of the judiciary of the state. Any lack of local legal lights, was compen- sated for by the presence of itinerant law- yers who traveled from their homes in cities more or less remote to attend the carly courts, and who left the impress of their ex- ample and work as a lasting memorial to their professional fidelity and worth. Es- pecially was this true of those whose duty it was to preside over the courts, and while the life history of any of them would, of itself, fill a volume of interesting reading, the mer- est mention of them must suffice for the pur- poses of the present work.

In 1804, when the first court was held in Beaver county, the then Sixth district com- prised Beaver, Butler, Crawford, Mercer and Erie counties. The first judge appointed to preside over their courts was Jesse Moorc.

Jesse Moore was a native of Montgomery county, and was a practicing attorney at Sunbury, in Northumberland county, at the time of his appointment, April 5, 1803. He was an able and upright judge and rendered a service worthy of the high office he filled. On assuming his judicial duties, he settled at

Meadville, where he died at the age of fifty- nine, in 1824.

Samuel Roberts, Judge Moore's successor, was a native of Philadelphia, where he was educated and admitted to the bar in 1793, at the age of twenty. He practiced his profes- sion at Lancaster and afterwards at Sun- bury where he lived when appointed to the bench. Judge Roberts served with distinc- tion until his decease at Pittsburgh, Decem- ber 13, 1820; five days later, and just at the close of his term of office, Governor Findlay appointed as president judge of this district. William Wilkins.

William Wilkins was born December 20, 1779; he was educated at Dickinson col- lege, Carlisle, where also he studied law. and was admitted to the bar at the age of twenty-two. After serving three and a half years, Judge Wilkins resigned his office to accept the judgeship of the District Court of Western Pennsylvania, which he held four years. He afterwards served as a mem- ber of Congress and in 1831 was elected United States Senator for a term of six years, but in 1834 accepted an appointment as minister to Russia. After his return. in 1842, he was again sent to Congress and two years later was appointed secretary of war. He lived to be cighty-six years old and died in June, 1865.

Charles Shaler succeeded Judge Wilkins. June 5, 1824. He resigned from the Com- mon Pleas bench in 1835. He served thirce years as assistant judge in the District Court, 1841-44, and in 1853 was appointed by President Pierce United States district attorney for the Western District of Penn-

Henry Hoice,

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BEAVER COUNTY

sylvania. A more complete sketeh of Judge Shaler appears in Allegheny county.

Following him as president judge of the district came Hon. John Bredin, who held the office twenty years, and died in 1857. A more complete sketch of his life may be found elsewhere in this volume, in connec- tion with the history of Butler county.

Succeeding Judge Bredin as president judge of the district, in June, 1851, came Hon. Daniel Agnew.

Judge Henry Hice, who is a man of com- manding figure and striking personality, is of German lineage and a grandson of Henry Hiee, who was one of the pioneer settlers of Ligonier Valley, in Indiana county. He was born in 1834, in Beaver county, and is a son of Mr. William Hice. He studied law under the direction of Colonel Richard P. Roberts, with whom, after his admission to the bar in 1859, he engaged in practice. A vacancy occurring on the beneh of the Thirty-sixth Judicial District in 1874, he was appointed to fill it, and the next year was elected presi- dent judge of the Beaver district for a term of ten years, and served with distinction. Among the many important questions that came before him was one growing out of the riots of 1877 in the city of Pittsburgh, relat- ing to the liability of the county for dam- ages ineurred by the rioters. Judge Hice held that the county was liable in the eases that were tried in his eourt, and though his position was attacked by able and eminent attorneys, his opinion was fully sustained and affirmed by the Supreme Court. Judge Hiee is a skillful trial lawyer and an elo- quent and convincing advocate, and since retiring from the bench he has been much en- gaged in the trial of important cases. He is a man of great popularity among his wide range of friends and acquaintances, and wherever known is esteemed for his manly character and straightforward dealings. In 1860 he married Miss Ruth Ann Ralston, by whom he had four children, After her de-

cease, he married, in 1877, Mrs. Sarah H. Minis, a daughter of Chief Justice Agnew.

John J. Wickham .- On the retirement of Judge Hice in 1884, the duties of the office were assumed by Mr. John J. Wickham, a native of Ireland, whence he immigrated with his parents in 1850, and settled in Bea -. ver county. He was then six years old. He received a common school and academic edu- cation, began the study of law in 1867 and two years later was admitted to the bar. Going to Des Moines, Iowa, he spent nve years there in professional work and then returned to his native place and built up and condueted a large and luerative practice till his elevation to the beneh.

Following Judge Wickham, the next presi- dent judge of the district was J. Sharpe Wilson.

Daniel Agnew, LL. D., was born at Tren- ton, N. J., January 5, 1809. He removed with his family to Pittsburgh soon after his birth. and was graduated from the Western Uni- versity of Pennsylvania with the elass of 1825 and studied law with Henry Baldwin and W. W. Fetterman. On motion of Mr. Fetterman the court appointed Walter For- ward, Trevanion B. Dallas and Samuel Kingston his examining committee, upon whose report, on motion of Mr. Forward, he was admitted to the bar April 21, 1829. Soon after admission Mr. Agnew removed to Bea- ver, where he resided the remainder of his life. He was a member of the convention that framed the constitution of 1838, and was a member of the Pennsylvania electoral college in the presidential election of 1848. He was commissioned president judge of the Seventeenth Judicial Distriet, composed of the counties of Beaver, Butler, Lawrence and Mereer, by William F. Johnston, gov- ernor of the commonwealth of Pennsylvania. July 11, 1851, to fill a vacancy caused by the death of Hon. John Bredin, of Butler. In the election of 1851 Judge Agnew was elected to the same office and commissioned

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for a term of ten years from December 1, 1851. In 1861 he was re-elected and com- missioned for another term of ten years. In 1863 he was elected a justice of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, and commissioned for a term of fifteen years from December 1, 1863. On November 25, 1873, he was com- missioned chief justice of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, and served to January 1, 1879, when he retired.

Judge Agnew received the degree of LL. D. from Washington college in 1864 and from Dickinson college in 1880. After his retirement he wrote and published (1887) a history of the "Settlement and Land Titles of Northwestern Pennsylvania." He died at his old home in Beaver, Sunday morning, March 9, 1902.

Daniel Agnew started in life with but lit- tle of the world's wealth, and closed it with a comfortable fortune for himself and fam- ily, earned in the hard work of the profes- sion and the meager salary of a judge. He came to the bar in Pittsburgh amid a race of legal giants whose fame covered their day at the bar with an enchanting glamour, yet fondly remembered by bench, bar and peo- ple. Unaware of his powers, Mr. Agnew sought the quiet and primitive shades of a rural county for his field. At that time the land titles of Pennsylvania, north and west of the Ohio and Allegheny rivers and Cone- wango creek were in a state of uncertainty, causing extensive and serious litigation in all the counties covering that territory. Young Agnew was a skilled mathematician and familiar with the principles of suveying. He sprang into these land contests with a zeal inherent in his nature, and was soon an acknowledged authority in that class of cases, and a leader in the trials thereof. His fame, thus acquired, brought him clients in all departments of the practice, and he was soon recognized as a safe, sound lawyer, and able advocate on all questions usually sub- mitted to a lawyer by the people.

When Judge Agnew first went upon the bench, Beaver, Butler, Mercer and Law- rence counties composed the district. He was afterwards relieved of Mercer by its being taken into a new district. He held all the quarterly courts of each county with an argument court between terms. He usually traveled on horseback. By the end of his term, he was abreast of the business and his work so satisfactory that, in 1861, he was re- elected. His charges at nisi prius and opin- ions there and in the Appellate Court are si- lent but enduring monuments of his learning, genius and ability. He grappled new ques- tions as well as old ones with the grasp of a master, and decided them, conscious that his judgment was sustained by the law, facts and equities of the case. He was the first judge in the United States to decide that "greenbacks" were a lawful tender for precedent debts. His address and subse- quent opinion on the right of the general government to draft citizens into the mili- tary service of the nation revealed a wonder- ful power of analysis, extensive reading and thorough knowledge of constitutional law, powers and limitations. He was genial, courteous, affable, pleasant and agreeable. Off the bench he knew everybody; on the bench he knew no man-he only knew his cause. Gray-haired men and women to-day, who were children along the rough roads of his weary circuit, tell of how he spoke to all, learning their names and giving them kind and cheerful words, thus lightening the burthen of lonesome lives. These rides took him through the villages of Harmony and Zelienople, where he spent five or six years of his boyhood, swimming and fishing in the Connoquenessing, and, as he afterwards said, playing truant and marbles alternately. Profane language, vulgarity, indecent story or jest and intoxicating liquors he scorned as he would a loathsome plague. He was fond of hunting and fishing -- indeed, was an ardent lover of the field and the chase, Witha

Edward black Dougherty

4533

BEAVER COUNTY

vigorous constitution and abstemious habits, - until a few years before his death, he walked with the spring and elasticity of youth, with- out eane or other help. When he first eame to the beneh, he met many able lawyers whose modes and manner of transaeting business he deemed wrong, and in his efforts to correct what he deemed wrong many un- pleasant quarrels and disagreements oc- curred, in which the Judge sometimes lost his temper and indulged in reproofs which made matters worse instead of better, but ere long he saw the beam in his own eye and soon the ruffled temper and stormy scenes passed away, illustrating the truth of the saying that "He who eontrolleth his temper is greater than he who governs a eity." He was a manly man in the truest sense, and where apologies secmed to be in order he was the first to tender the right hand of. fel- lowship and invoke the dove of peace. This - ordeal once passed, the whole thing was buried in oblivion in so far as he was eon- cerned.

Judge Agnew was a good seholar, his scholarship being mainly acquired by the studies of a lifetime over and above his pro- fessional studies. He used to say that academieal training merely showed him the way. His many lectures on poetry, history, astronomy, geology and other subjects arc evidenee of the great range of his investi- gations. I have said he hated drunkenness and intemperanee. He would grant no lieense unless compelled to do it by the law and faets of the ease. On one occasion at Butler there was a fieree eontest for lieenses and the bar, knowing his position, had their elients prepare to fully meet all the requi- sites for suceess, and it resulted in a heavy crop of lieenses, mueh to his regret, as in many of the eases he had been overruled by his lay associates. Before leaving the beneh he hurriedly wrote the following at the foot of the lieense list :

"Now, ye longing, thirsty souls,

The temperanee law's no longer master ; Lieensed liquor tills your bowls,

And points you to the filthy gutter."

When Judge Agnew left the beneh he was succeeded, in 1864, by L. L. MeGuffin, of Newcastle, who served a full term of ten years. His deeease oeeurred in 1878, four years after he left the bench.

(Sketch by Archibald Blakeley.)

Edward B. Daugherty. Among the suecess- ful and influential lawyers formerly prae- tieing at the Beaver eounty bar, none was more worthy of an honorable mention than he whose name heads this sketeh.

A native of New Sewiekley township, Bea- ver county, Pa., he was born on October 20, 1833, to Daniel and Elizabeth (Black) Daugh- erty. His father, Daniel Daugherty, a na- tive of Londonderry, Ireland, was born in 1790. When was six years old his father, our subjeet's grandfather, Edward Daugherty, immigrated with his family to the United States, and settled in Delaware county, Pa. In 1801 he removed to Sewiekley township, in Beaver county, then a sparsely settled wilderness, and there developed a farm and reared his family, becoming an influential man among the pioneer settlers. Our sub- jeet's mother, Elizabeth Blaek, was a native of Beaver county, a farmer's daughter, and spent her life on the farm, where she was born.

Edward B. spent his boyhood on the farm with his parents, his early experienees being those of the sturdy farmer boy, working on the farm and receiving such education as the distriet schools of the early days afforded. He had a fondness for books, and made good use of his opportunities, and after finishing his preliminary studies, was sent to the Bea- ver academy. He was an apt mathematician and devoted himself especially to those stu- dies pertaining to eivil engineering and sur-

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THE BENCH AND BAR OF PENNSYLVANIA

veying, and after leaving sehool, engaged for a time as a eivil engineer and surveyor, and also taught school. ITis ambition, however, was to become a lawyer, and to gratify this desire he became a student and clerk in the law office of Mr. Samuel B. Wilson, at Bea- ver, where, in 1860, he passed his examina- tion and was admitted to the bar. He be- gan the practice of his profession at New Brighton, and continued there some nine years, but in 1869 settled at Beaver, where he conducted his praetiee with good sueeess until his deeease, in 1896.

Mr. Daugherty was a Democrat in politieal sentiment, but never sought politieal prefer- ment, finding in his professional work ample scope for his highest ambitions. He was a good lawyer, careful and conscientious, and honored his profession, having the eonfi- dence and esteem both of his professional brethren and his wide eirele of elients and friends. In his religious affiliations he was a Catholie. On May 5, 1870, Mr. Daugherty married Miss Mary Cunningham, whose parents were natives of Ireland. She was a native of Allegheny, Pa.

J. Sharpe Wilson, son of John H. and Mary Elizabeth (Mehard) Wilson, was born in Franklin township, Beaver county, Pa., November 10, 1862. His father was an old and respected eitizen, and in 1890 was eleeted commissioner of Beaver county, whiel offiee he held until his death in June, 1892. His grandfather, Thomas Wilson, was born in Center eounty, Pennsylvania. His great-great-grandfather, Hugh Wilson, set- tled in Northampton county, Pennsylvania, in 1798. The history of the family ean be traeed in the north of Ireland to the battle of Boyne Water, July 1, 1690, when his great- great-great-grandfather was a soldier in King William's army, and was one of three men who first crossed the river in the face of great danger, and for this deed of daring was granted a traet of land of one hundred and sixty aeres near Coote's Hill, County Cavan.

The judge is a nephew of Col. Joseph II. Wilson, of the One Hundred and First Regi- ment Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry, who served twice as district attorney, and twiee as member of the State Legislature. He was a prominent lawyer in his day, and was also a man of great military spirit.

On the maternal side, Judge Wilson is de- seended from the Mehard family, who came from the town of Larne, County Antrim, Ire- land, about 1820. Judge Wilson's people for generations baek have been extensive land owners and farmers. He spent the early years of his life on his father's farm and there de- veloped a sturdy physique and strong powers of endurance. He turned his attention to seholastie pursuits at an early age, and in 1885 he graduated from Geneva college at Beaver Falls, Pa., receiving the degree of A. B. Sinee, he has received the degree of A. M. from the same institution. He then entered upon the study of law in the office of Hon. Henry Hiee at Beaver, and was admit- ted to the bar on the 4th of June, 1888. He at onee engaged in the general practice of his profession, and enjoyed a large elientage. When only fifteen years of age, he com- meneed teaching in the distriet sehools of the county and, while reading, at intervals engaged in this avocation, and during a por- tion of the time taught in the Harmony aead- emv. Soon after his admission to practice, he became interested in Republican polities and early became a leader in matters of po- litieal organization. In November, 1895, he was elected to the office of president judge of the Thirty-sixth Judicial Distriet for a term of ten years, which will expire in 1906.

On the 25th of December, 1888, Judge Wilson married Miss Sarah I. Hazen; three sons and one daughter have brightened his household.

And such is the character of the men who have presided over the courts of Beaver county for the past hundred years, and the high esteen in which they are held in the

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Johan Wilson,

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BEAVER COUNTY

communities where they wrought is ample evidence of their lofty aims and lasting work. But equally worthy of praise arc the splendid men who wrought with them and whose part in helping to raise the bar of Beaver county to its present high plane can- not be overlooked. Who can forget the cir- cuit riders of the early days-men who rode from court to court, and who counted it an honor and a privilege to sacrifice personal comfort and case for the honor of the profes- sion ? To name all of them would exceed the limit and purpose of this work, and the mere mention of some of the more notable must suffice, owing to the large number equally worthy of praise.

Brown B. Chamberlain, Mr. McGuffin's successor, was born in Lower Canada (now the province of Quebec) in 1810. When he was two years old his parents went to Au- burn, N. Y., where he received his prelim- inary education in the common schools. Hc pursued his legal studies at Buffalo, first in the office of Messrs. Bates Cook and H. S. Stonc, and finished them in the office of Messrs. Filmore & Hall in 1834. The next ycar he was admitted to the United States Supreme Court, at Albany, and in 1836 took up his residence in Beaver county, and was there admitted to the bar in 1837. He was a man of fine abilities and high attainments in his profession, and besides holding numerous minor offices of trust, represented Beaver county in the General Assembly during the years 1853, '54 and '55. He assumed the du- ties of president judge of the Twenty-scv- enth Judicial District, comprising the coun- tics of Beaver and Washington, in the early part of 1866, and served till his successor, Mr. A. W. Acheson, who was clected in the autumn of that year, assumed the duties of the office.

Judge Acheson was a man of wide and commanding influence in Washington county, where he had his home; and, when

the district was divided in 1874, he remained on the bench in his home county, and Mr. Henry Hice was chosen to preside over the courts of Beaver county.

James Allison, a man of the people, who rose from obscurity to a high and command- ing position, was among these carly comers. A native of Maryland, he was born in 1772, a son of Colonel James Allison, who settled in Washington county in 1773. He studied law under his uncle, David Bradford, and after his admission to the bar, practiced in Washington county till his removal to Bea- ver in 1803. It was his habit to travel the circuit of the neighboring counties till 1822, wlien he was clected to Congress. After serving in that body a second term, to which he was clected in 1824, he resumed his pro- fessional work and devoted himself to it until his decease, at Beaver, in 1854. He was an able all-round lawyer, well learned in the law and especially proficient in the science of special pleading.

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The twentieth century bench and bar of Pennsylvania, volume I, Part 65

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