USA > Pennsylvania > The twentieth century bench and bar of Pennsylvania, volume I > Part 72
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Hon. John Blanchard, another early mneni- ber of Centre county bar, rose from com- parative obscurity to a position of emi- nence. Born in 1787, on a farm in Cale- donia county, Vermont, his early educa- tional privileges were confined to those of a district school. He worked on a farm and taught school until he attained his majority, employing his spare time in the study pre- paratory for Dartmouth college, from which he was graduated in 1812. He settled at York, Pa., about this time, and there took up the study of law, supporting himself by teaching. He began his practice at Lewis- town, but in 1815 moved to Bellefonte, where he afterwards made his home. He was twice elected to Congress, and while serving there was stricken with an illness that proved fatal before he reached his home. He died in 1849.
Mr. Bond Valentine, is the honored name of another who removed from Chester county to Centre county about 1815, while he was vet a boy. After his admission to the bar he rose rapidly to a place of prominence and influence. and practiced his profession at Bellefonte till 1841. Reared by parents who were members of the Society of Friends, he never outgrew the influence of his early life, and when, in 1841, he aban- doned his profession, it was for the purpose of devoting himself to the ministry of that religious seet. He lived till 1863.
James MacManus, was not only a lawyer of note, but also for many years one of Cen- tre county's prominent officials. A native of Carlisle, he was born in 1806, and at the age of eighteen began the study of law under
the direction of Hon. Thomas Burnside, at Bellefonte. The year following his admis- sion to the bar, 1826, he was made deputy attorney general for Clearfield county, and by snecessive reappointments filled the same office during the years 1828 and 1829. IIc performed like service for Centre and Clear- field counties in 1830, 1831, 1832 and 1833, and in 1839, and declined a reappointment in 1844. From 1841 to 1844. inclusive, ho was a member of the state Legislature. Though urged to stand as a nominee for Congress, he declined, preferring to devote himself to his professional work, and for a like reason, declined an appointment as president judge of his distriet, and carried on active practice until his decease.
Daniel Hardman Hastings was still an- other farmer boy who made his way from a lowly position to the head of the state gov- erment. He was born near Salona, Pa .. February 26, 1849, and had the ordinary ex- perience of a country boy working on a farm and attending the district schools. At the age of twenty-six years, he was admitted to the bar, and until 1888, carried on a gen- eral practice of law. With a genius for hard work and endowed with superior executive abilities, he was largely engaged in matters outside of his professional work and became heavily interested in coal and mining prop- erties and in financial institutions. He was active in the councils and affairs of the Re- publican party and was elected adjutant of the state in 1887, and the following year was delegate-at-large to the national Republican convention. He enjoyed the full confidence of all classes and at the time of the Jolins- town disaster, in 1889, was placed in full charge of the relief measures. He was elected governor of Pennsylvania in 1894. In 1896 as chairman of the state delegation to the national convention, he placed in nomina- tion for the presidency the Hon. M. S. Quay. He filled the governor's chair until 1899. Governor Hastings was for many years a
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resident of Bellefonte, where he was held in the highest esteem, and his sudden death from pleuro-pneumonia on January 9, 1903, was mourned as a public calamity.
Hon. John G. Love, who succeeded Judge Furst upon the beneh of the Forty-ninth judicial district, then composed of the eounl- ties of Centre and Huntingdon, assumed the duties of his office on the first Monday of January, 1895. He completes the long line of illustrious and efficient judges that have adorned the judicial office in eentral Penn- sylvania, and now at the conclusion of lis first ten years of serviee he has the satisfac- tion of knowing that the high standard of excellence and judicial fairness which has characterized the courts of this county and distriet has not been impaired during his administration of the law.
Judge Love is a native of the county, hav- ing been born at Stormstown, December 18, 1843. His early training was obtained upon a farm in the days when the strenuous work of clearing land was a part of the daily work of the farmer, who, frequently, as did his father settled in a neighborhood largely covered with timber, and cleared a portion of land and prepared it for eultivation.
With some experience as a elerk in a country store he began to show a fondness for books, and in his attendance upon the public schools he soon became proficient in the common school branehes, and later at- tended Diekinson seminary, at Williamsport, Pa., where he continued as a student through the winter of 1860 and 1861.
While at work upon his father's farm in the summer of 1863 he learned of Lee's in- vasion into Pennsylvania, and with his patriotism fired he left home in June of that year and joined the military foree, proceed- ing into Fulton county, and later entering the cavalry service and attaching himself to the Twenty-sceond Pennsylvania cavalry. He was mustered out in 1864, having seen
some serviec about Charleston, W. Va., and through the Shenandoah valley.
In 1865 he entered the law office of Ed- mund Blanchard, in Bellefonte, and in the fall of 1866 began a course in the law uni- versity, in Albany, N. Y. Hc had as a elass- mate the distinguished William McKinley, who later became president of the United States, and after faithful application he graduated from the Albany Law university in June, 1867, and was admitted to the su- preme court of the state of New York. In the fall of the same year he was admitted to practice at the Centre county bar, and from that day to this he has assiduously fol- lowed his profession with very much credit to himself and with pronounced sueeess.
Judge Love is not only known for his legal acumen but as a trial lawyer he established for himself a very prominent plaee as an invincible advocate of the interests of his client. Perhaps the most peculiar trait of his life that at once served him upon the bench is a fine analytical mind, and the ca- pacity to distinguish cases and apply lega! principles. This has brought to him the dis- tinetion of having been reversed in his nearly ten years of service but five times out of at least fifty-five eases reviewed by the appel- late courts of the state. Some of the most important cases have been heard before him, the most notable of which was the hearing upon the right of the governor of the eom- monwealth to veto the separate items of the general appropriation bill. This right was disputed by many of the judges of the state. and in a very clear and coneisely prepared opinion he maintained the authority of the governor to inquire into and pass upon the separate items of the appropriation bill, and in this was sustained by the supreme court of the state.
Since his elevation to the beneli the county of Centre has beeome a separate judicial district, and when he assumed his official
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duties the trial calendar was at least a year or more behind, but with remarkable vigor and a disposition to dispateh business he has made it possible now to bring a cause to trial within three months after the sunnons has been issued and served. With his keen per- eeption of the law, with an even tempera- ment and with fearless judgment he has placed this county among the foremost in the administration of our eourts and has added to the luster of a judiciary that has been honored by some of the most distin- guished minds in the state of Pennsylvania.
Andrew G. Curtin, another eminent law- ver and statesman who received his legal edueation under W. W. Potter and Judge Reed's law department of Dickinson col- lege, was of Irish lineage, a native of Belle- fonte, and born in 1817, twenty-four years after his father, Roland Curtin, emigrated to the United States from Ireland. After finishing his academic studies, he turned his attention to the study of law, and at the age of twenty-two, was admitted to the Centre county bar, and at once began an active practiec. He was an eloquent publie speaker, and took an active and aggressive interest in political affairs, and was an enthusiastie supporter of General Harrison for the presi- dency in 1844. Four years later he advo- cated the claims of Henry Clay throughout the state, was a member of the Electoral col- lege in 1852; in 1854 was appointed seere- tary of state, served his term, and in 1860 was elected governor of the commonwealth and re-elected for a second term. Governor Curtin declined the offer of a foreign min- istry from President Lineoln, in 1863, and again refused a like offer in 1865. Soon after General Grant's first eleetion to the presidency, in 1868, he was appointed min- ister to Russia, and in 1873 performed his last work as public official as a member of the state constitutional eonvention.
S. Miles Green, another of Centre county's early day lawyers, was a native of Miles-
burg, where he was born in 1797. After his admission to the bar, at the age of twenty- four, he settled in Clearfield county, where he became attorney general. He afterwards practiced at Meadville a number of years, and till the end of his life continued in aetive professional work, ranking among the leading influential lawyers of his time.
Such are a few of the honored men whose memories are cherished, and whom the bar of Centre county delights to honor, and while there remains a host of others equally worthy, limited space prevents individual mention of them.
Wilbur F. Reeder, who was born near Catawissa, Pennsylvania, January 7, 1855, traces his paternal ancestry back through six generations to John Reeder, who imini- grated from Norfolk, England, and settled at Newton, Long Island, in 1656. John Reeder (2nd), coming probably from New Jersey, settled near the present site of Elys- burg, Pa., prior to the Revolutionary war. Driven out by the Indians, he remained away some seven years, and on his return married Elizabeth Fisher, who was born in Sussex county, New Jersey, in 1774, and died in Northumberland county, Pennsyl- vania, in 1840. After 1799, John (2nd) and his family moved to Allegheny, Pa., where he died in 1873. His wife, Elizabeth Fisher, was a daughter of Joseph and Catherine (Mineger) Fisher, the former the progenitor of the Fisher family in the United States, was born in Saxony in 1734, and with a sis- ter, Elizabeth, immigrated to Ameriea about 1747, and settled in New Jersey, then a Ger- man colony. He removed to Northumber- land county, Pennsylvania, in 1788, and there passed the remainder of his life. He was a soldier in the Revolutionary war. His wife, a native of Holland, was born in 1746.
Joseph Reeder, a son of John Reeder (2nd), was born at Bear Gap, Northumber- land eounty, in 1799; married Catherine Muteheler, who was born in 1792 and died
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in 1852, and settled near Elysburg, where he owned a large plantation and lived until 1853. Then, until 1859, he was a merchant at Paxmos, whenee he moved to Northum- berland eounty and engaged in farming un- til 1870. He died at Elysburg in 1881. He and his wife, Catherine, were members of the Methodist Episcopal ehureh. Catherine was a daughter of Samuel and Mary (Fisher) Muteheler, the former from what is now Warren county, New Jersey, and the latter, born in 1769, a daughter of Joseph Fisher, hereinabove named. They were mar- ried in 1788, and in 1791 settled on a tract of land on Little Roaring ereek, Columbia county, Pennsylvania. In after years he was engaged in weaving flannels and woolen fabries. They were members of the Presby- terian chureh.
Hiram J. Reeder, a son of Joseph Reeder, the father of our subjeet, was born in Rush township, Northumberland county, Mareh 5, 1826, married, in 1849, Elizabeth, daughter of Joseph and Sarah (Tietsworth) Yocum, who was born in 1830. They lived on a farm near Catawissa, from the time of their mar- riage till 1870, when they moved to Cata- wissa. From 1863 to 1870 he was justiee of the peace and eleeted eounty commissioner in 1870 for three years, and in 1873 was again eleeted justice of the peace for five years. He is an influential eiti- zen, a prominent Mason and, with his wife, aetive in the Methodist Episcopal church. Of three children born to them, Joseph, born in 1851, died in 1860, and George C., born in 1853, died in 1863. Wil- bur F., graduated from Dickinson seminary, Williamsport, in 1875, with a degree of B. A. In the fall of the same year he began the study of law in the offices of Messrs. Buslı, Yocum and Hastings, at Bellefonte, and in May, 1877, after a rigid examination, was admitted to the bar. He is a clear thinker and a painstaking student, and in his prae- tiee has achieved most gratifying suceess.
In 1881 he beeame associated as a partner with Mr. D. H. Hastings, afterwards adju- tant general and governor of the state. He early beeame known as an able and reliable counsellor and advocate, and during his partner's official terms he suecessfully eon- ducted and eared for their large praetice. As early as January, 1889, Mr. Reeder con- ducted his first murder trial, in which, after a most bitter legal contest, he seeured an acquittal of the accused. Again, in Novem- ber, 1889, he sueeessfully conducted the de- fense of one charged with murder, and won from the local press high praise for his mas- terful eonduet of the case.
Mr. Reeder has been somewhat active in the affairs of the Republican party, and has several times served as chairman of the Re- publican eounty committee. In 1891 he was eleeted mayor of the city, and he has been prominently mentioned as a candidate for judgeship, an office for which his logical and judicial mind and his professional at- tainments eminently fit him.
Mr. Reeder has been identified with the Pennsylvania National Guards since 1880. He was a private of Company B. Fifth regi- ment ; corporal, July, 1880; discharged, Feb- ruary, 1882; first lieutenant Company B. July 22, 1889; re-enlisted July 23, 1894; ap- pointed assistant adjutant general on the staff of the commander-in-chief January 5. 1895. Colonel Reeder was on duty at Home- stead in July, 1892, and at Punxsutawney in June and July, 1894.
In 1896 Colonel Reeder was endorsed for Congressman by the county convention. and in the fall of 1897, was appointed deputy at- torney general of the state, an honor which was widely commented on as both merited and worthily bestowed. Colonel Reeder is a member of the Union League, of Philadel- phia, and other patriotic and social organi- zations, and is prominent in Masonic circles, having attained to the thirty-second de- gree.
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On December 19, 1878, he married Miss Lilie S. Gotwalt, a daughter of Rev. Thomas and Mary J. Gotwalt, and a lineal desecnd- ant of ex-Governor Schultz. They have one son, John Wallace, born December 26, 1879.
Hon. H. N. McAllister was another of Cen- tre county's distinguished lawyers. Born in Juniata county to William and Sarah Thompson McAllister, in 1809, he passed his boyhood on a farm. He was educated at Jefferson eollege, Canonsburg, and was ad- mitted to the bar of Centre county in 1835, having studied law in Judge Reed's law school at Carlisle, and with IIon. W. W. Pot- ter, with whom he was associated as a part- ner after his admission. During the War of the Rebellion, he entered the government serviee as captain of a company which he recruited, and on his return from the war, resumed his professional work and con-
ducted an extensive practice till his death at Philadelphia, in 1873.
The following is a list of resident attor- neys now in aetive practice : Hon. A. O. Furst, D. F. Fortney, H. H. Harshberger, .J. M. Keiehline, Clement Dale, A. A. Dale, Wilbur F. Reeder, W. C. Heinle, S. D. Ray, Ellis L. Orvis, G. H. Lichtenthaler, J. C. Meyer, E. R. Chambers, J. C. Harper, John M. Dale, William D. Crosby, John Blanchard, George W. Zeigler, W. J. Singer, Harry Keller, H. C. Quigley, N. B. Spangler, W. G. Runkle, S. D. Gettig, J. H. Wetzel, Hugh S. Taylor, J. Thomas Mitehell, W. Harrison Walker, J. K. Johnston, Edmund Blanchard, Thomas J. Sexton, S. Kline Woodring, John J. Bower, J. A. B. Miller, J. Victor Royer.
The following are members of the bar but not now in active practice: Col. James P. Coburn, H. Y. Stitzer, John F. Potter, Col. J. L. Spangler, J. W. Gebhart.
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PERRY COUNTY
BY B. F. JUNKIN
Perry county was erceted out of Cumber- land eounty territory, in 1820. The first judge was John Reed, appointed from West- moreland county, and the judicial district was Cumberland and Perry, afterwards Juniata eounty was annexed. The county seat was first located at Landisburg, then the most considerable town in the new coun- ty, and in 1823 or 1824 was established by special commissioners at Bloomfield, at that moment a blooming clover field, and hence its name.
The history of the Perry county bar is necessarily that of a part of the Cumberland bar, as its prominent lawyers, who knew the people of the new county, were eonneeted with their business, had been their advisors for many years, were closely related in their affairs, and no lawyers having for some time settled in the new county, eame over the mountain to greet their old elients in their new homes, and county manhood, and prac- ticed just as they had done before the ehange and the erection of the new county.
The Cumberland bar had the reputation of being one of the strongest in the state. Sev- cral of the judges of the supreme court, when composed of only three, and after- wards five members, lic in the Carlisle ceme- tery, at least three of them, to-wit, Hugh H. Brackenridge, Thomas Duncan and John Bannister Gibson, who for several years had been chief justice and a member from 1816 to 1853. The residenee of so many su- preme judges in Carlisle tended greatly to enhanee the reputation of the Cumberland bar throughout the state. It was not a ques- tion, could a good thing eome out of Naz-
areth, but there is where it must come from. The records of that eounty contain many writs issued in the name of George III, and at one time its territory extended to Fort du Quesne.
Hugh Brackenridge was an eccentric gen- ius: was the author of "Modern Chivalry," containing the adventures of a eaptain and Teague O'Regan, his servant and squire (the book lies before me), into which is brought prominently the Philosophical so- ciety, of Philadelphia. It is a tradition, that the judge, having found a pair of buckskin breeches in a water-eloset, had them eleaned, and as the original hide had been stretched out of its natural shape in the process of tanning and manufacture, after years of soaking, naturally recovered in some degree its original form of the animal from which it had been taken, yet not so as to determine its source with certainty, submitted the breeches to the Philosophical society, which. after bringing all their vast acquirements and skill to bear on the breeches for about one year, decided that it was the hide of some extinet animal that was not hair bear- ing.
In a case that came before the three judges of the supreme court, of whom Brackenridge was one, involving the free- dom of a slave whose master was passing through the state, the other two judges hav- ing delivered each his opinion separately. Brackenridge's turn came, and he said that he coneurred in all that his brothers had pronounced except the pronunciation of the word sojourner, which they pronounced sugenor.
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Another eminent lawyer, Thomas Duncan, and applied, it seems but a jumble and ill- was appointed to the supreme bench on May coherent mixture, but when understood and put together it becomes harmonious, eom- plete and exact, so that like an ingenious puzzle, when the various parts are adjusted and fitted together there is no piece wanting nor one left over. 14, 1817. I have now in my library the three volumes of Peere Williams' Chaneery Reports, with the name of Judge Dunean written on each fly leaf by his own hand. Judge Dunean was a small man and finieal in his dress, ahnost to dudishness. David The proprietary government, being anx- ious to have its lands settled upon by bona- fide residents and improvers, early provided by statute that any one was at liberty to take possession of four hundred acres of its land, and build up a home, permitting him to define his own boundaries, and if he did not, then the deputy surveyors were in- strueted to define it for him, by leaving his four hundred aeres in reasonable shape, em- braeing his improvements, in loeating ad- joining warrants, and he was eoneluded by the aetion of the surveyors-having the right to do the aet for himself, and did not, the government did it for him. Watts was a eo-practitioner with Duncan, and he was born in Rye township, then Cum- berland, and now Perry county, and they were rivals at the bar. Watts was a strong and powerfully built man and a great law- yer, but he was indifferent as to his personal appearance, dressed roughly, and one day Dunean said: "Davy, how many shirts do you put on each week?" "Why," said Watts, "one." "Oh!" said Dunean, "why I put on four." "Well," said Watts, "you must be a very dirty fellow to require four elean shirts each week." Again, on a heated argument in court, Watts reproached Dun- ean with his diminutive stature, and said, "You little whiffet, I could stuff you into iny poeket." "And if you did," said Dun- ean, "you would have more law in your poeket than you ever had in your head." These old lawyers praetieed regularly away up to the standing stone in Huntingdon eounty. They traveled on horseback, and as there were very few bridges at that day, they had to either ford or swim the streams.
At that day eommeree was restricted and manufacturing limited to blacksmith shops, the legal controversies were chiefly about titles to land, and we may say that these early lawyers and judges were the men who built up and established the land law of Pennsylvania. The Philadelphia lawyers say the state has no land system, that title as to warrant and survey and location, is merely a hop, skip and a jump, and no man knows in which his title rests, if at all, until he gets the opinion of a jury. I don't blame thein greatly for this belief, because, until the system is thoroughly studied, praetieed
Although this settler was indifferently ealled an improver and had paid nothing, he was permitted to stay there until he was able to pay for a warrant and survey, and if he wished, a patent, thereby constituting a perfeet title. But he could not abandon his loeation without the intention of return- ing; and when driven away by the Indians, as was common and frequent, the animus revertandi must be established to the satis- faetion of a jury. This settler was not a squatter-the squatter enters without invi- tation or eonsent of the owner, while the settler is invited and enters at the request of the owner.
The other way of acquiring title was to apply at the land offiee, purchase a warrant, have a deputy surveyor loeate it, by running and marking the lines distinetly on the ground, returning a draft of the survey into the land offiee within seven years of the date of the warrant-this gave title. But the gov- ernment would not grant the same man two warrants, but one only, for 400 aeres. To
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get around this rule speculators in Philadel- phia would take up the city directory, pick out, say twenty names (often of women), ap- ply to the land office for twenty warrants of 400 each, pay the purchase money, have the warrants located and drafts returned, and thus this one man obtained twenty war- rants, instead of only one, in all, for 8.000 acres. But the title would be vested in twenty different owners. To vest the whole in the man who paid the purchase money. he would get some one to personate the dif- ferent warranties by executing deeds in the names of the different warranties in due form, to the person who had obtained and paid for the warrants, put them on record, and as there was no one to dispute, or clain, against these conveyances the title became absolute in lapse of time. Soon, however, the goverment itself lost sight of the 400- acre limitation and indicated ownership by marking on its blotter in the land office the sale of the warrants, and who paid the pur- chase money, and this the courts held vested title in the man who paid for the warrants. All this seems quite simple, and as well un- derstood as the law of negotiable paper, prior to the passage of the act of May 16, 1901, which is really barbarous, in wiping out the learning of three hundred years by an edict as sweeping and unrelenting as the torch of Omer, and rendering every form of written obligation negotiable, from a gov- ernment bond down to a gun wad. The deputy surveyors of the government at the close of the seventeenth and the beginning of the eighteenth century, were won- derful men, able to trace and mark lines on the slopes of the Blue and Tuscarora moun- tains, with an accuracy which surpasses sur- veyor's work even upon level plains at the present day-their monuments standing to this day. In the course of trying hundreds of ejectment suits I saw many of their field notes and observations, and they uniformly began a batch of mountain surveys with a
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