The twentieth century bench and bar of Pennsylvania, volume I, Part 85

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

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tee keeps regular minutes of its meetings, follows precedents established, and is a rec- ognized institution, not only by the bar, but in the county generally. One unswerving rule of the committee is that it will not pro- ceed in any final examination without the presence of the court. The examinations are oral and the president annually assigns the various subjects to the several members of the committee, and no examiner is guided by either book or paper held in the hand.

Without disparagement to either the liv- ing or the dead, the following sketelies of a few of our deceased lawyers are given, men who were among the foremost of our bar, be- loved at home and honored abroad, and their legal acumen and skill as trial lawyers, and when arguing before the higher tribunals, won for them a state, and, for some, a na- tional reputation.

Besides these there were quite a number of others of prominence and ability, and whose memory is cherished by our bar, but it is impossible in a work of this limited ehar- acter to speak of all of them, and the selec- tion of a few of the shining lights of our pro- fession is no disparagement to the others not specially mentioned.

The Law Association of Schuylkill eounty was formed in 1902. It is officered by a chancellor, vice chancellor, a secretary and treasurer. A board of eensors consisting of a committee of seven members is annually appointed. It has already given promise of being a valuable auxiliary to the bar.

Christopher Loeser (1793-1865). An en- sign in the American army in the war of 1812, afterwards a general in the juris- prudence of Pennsylvania. He entered this bar July 31, A. D. 1821. There were other good lawyers here then, but he soon rose to distinction and for many years he has been known as the patriarch of this bar. After he had fully ripened into his recognized po- sition the unfurling of his flag meant that

the best talent of the country must meet him in the legal forum. This, with the import- ance of the interests involved, brought to "our loeal court the best talent of the coun- try. That knight who fell beneath his lance and even that knight who rarely unhorsed him would both exclaim that they had met here in these mountains a foeman worthy of their steel. He was in his day (and I do not think that day is yet past) the greatest land lawyer in Pennsylvania. His power of rea- soning before the court in bane, his elo- quence before the jury, and his careful pol- itic conduct of his cause made him so for- midable that with even the weaker case he seemed to have the stronger. When he had the opportunity to ridicule a case out of court he could do it with the grace of a. French dancing master. In physique he was not a fashion plate of the gentleman of the old school, although he was the plain pre- cise gentleman of the old school. He was of medium stature, squarely built, his face large and features well cut, his forehead prominent and his eye keen and full of lang- uage. He was a man of most positive ehar- aeter and stamped his personality upon every act or scene in which he took a part. He was ever at his ease and nothing could shake or move him. He was the first general solic- itor of the Philadelphia & Reading Railroad Company. Whenever it was learned that Christopher Loeser would make a speech to either court or jury in an important ease he always had a full audience to listen to him. He had such a fund of law-learning for the court, and wit and humor for the jury, that he always held his opponent in fear and dread of the issue. His speech was plain Anglo-Saxon, but garnished with figures and metaphors that no man could choose but hear. His logie so clear that he could lay the law that governed his ease before the court with a elearness that could not fail to reach truth. He was a lawyer of foreible speech and logie. He held his case in his

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hand while trying it. He cited few au- thorities, dwelt more upon legal principles, developing them and fitting them to his eause. Those who in more recent years have- heard the late Hon. William M. Meredith in the argument of a legal proposition are re- minded of Christopher Loeser. Governor Simon Snyder made him an ensign in the Ameriean army when he was still a youth ; his natural endowments and his industry inade him one of the greatest lawyers not only in Pennsylvania, but in Ameriea.

George Wildman Farquhar was born about the year 1800 and was edueated in the eity of Philadelphia, where he studied law under John Sergeant, and was admitted to the courts of that eity. About the year 1825 he came to Sehuylkill eounty, where he resided and praetieed until the time of his death, in February, 1846. During all the time he re- sided in this eounty he was actively engaged in the praetiee of his profession, and was conspieuous not only for his learning of the law, and his ability in the eonduet of eases, but also as a gifted orator. He was the first attorney in Sehuylkill eounty for the Phila- delphia & Reading Railroad Company and was one of the speakers on the oeeasion of the opening of the railroad to Pottsville. He represented also a large number of persons interested in valuable eoal lands in the eoun- ty, and for a number of years was the deputy attorney general for the county, an office eor- responding to the present distriet attorney. An honorable and distinguished posterity survives him at this bar, and one of his sons, Guy E. Farquhar, is its senior aetive inem- ber, and is the ehaneellor of the Law Asso- ciation of Sehuylkill county, and another son, Fergus G. Farquhar, also a prominent member of our bar. His son, Norman H. Farquhar, is a rear admiral in the United States navy; and another son, Frank Farqu- har, now deeeased, was a eaptain in the En- gineer Corps of the United States regular army during the Civil war,

Hon. John Bannan (1795-1868). A hero of the war of 1812. For many years one of the leaders of this bar. Self made, but well made. He was more particularly allied to the land law and many of the titles to the most valuable eoal lands in Sehuylkill eounty passed through his hands. He was of splendid physique and fine bearing. A man respeeted and honored throughout the state. He was a foreible speaker, a powerful advoeate and a wise and safe counsellor. IIe devoted his life to his profession and to his family. He was impregnable in the right. a true patriot, and a knight of honor and integrity. He lived to a ripe old age and reaped the fruits of his industry and the reward whiel his serviee to his country, his profession and to his community entitled him.

Hon. Benjamin W. Cumming (1808-1897). The subject of this sketeli was probably one of the most scholarly lawyers of this or any other bar of this state. He was a student, not only of the law, but of history and a lover of the elassies in literature. He was a believer in the doetrine announeed by Sir Walter Seott, that to become an original law- yer, an arehiteet in his profession, and not remain a mere tradesman, one must be a stu- dent of history and of literature. Not gifted with the eloquenee of a Bartholomew, the suavity of a Hughes, the ponderness of a Ryon, but withal in many instanees as potent and as powerful as any of these. He held a fund of elementary prineiples which always came to his aid. He eould lay grounds for a legal proposition which though at first not apparently pointing to the germ would grad- ually develop into a recognized prineiple which glowed with the light of its inherent truth. He was a quiet man and unassuming. but as fearless as a lion. He held in reserve a fund of legal lore that no matter what be- tided in the trial of his cause, he eould al- ways draw from it so as to give him easy play against his opponent. He lived to a

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great old age and was for many years the oldest member of our bar.

Hon. Francis W. Hughes (1817-1885). There probably never stood in the Pennsyl- vania forum a more graceful and symmetri- cal figure. Of medium size, dignified bear- ing, graceful and eharming in manner and speech, a keen expressive eye, his face and forehead bore the one word "intelleet." No man stood in his presence without feeling in- wardly that he stood before a great man. Possessed of natural endowments of the high- est order, with ambition and unfailing in- dustry, he developed into one of the very foremost eourt and jury lawyers in our state and nation. He could in the twinkling of an eye step out of an assault and battery ease and step into an ejeetment ease involving millions of dollars with equal graee and as- suranee that he knew the ground on which he trod. He was considered by the most emi- nent men of our profession in the state of Pennsylvania as one of the best, if not the best generally equipped lawyer that the Pennsylvania bar ever produced. He was the earnest advocate, the polished orator. Quiek to pereeive and retrieve his own error, he would pounee npon that of his opponent as the eagle darts upon its prey. For a pe- riod of over forty years few important eases were tried in our eourts but that he sat at one of the counsel tables. The Girard will ease, Munson against Tryon and many other celebrated eoal land eases in Pennsylvania were his. Innumerable murder trials, in- cluding the "Mollie Maguire" cases of this and the surrounding counties fell to his lot. Suave, urbane, genial in his manner. of an aetive nervous temperament, though always ealm, eoo! and eolleeted. A thorough logi- eian, a powerful speaker in the forum, on the platform or on the stump. It is eoneeded that he was easily the leader of this bar for many years.

Hon. John W. Ryon (1828-1901). Soldier and lawyer, Plain, blunt, brusque and pow-

erful in form, carriage and expression, yet gentle as a lamb. Fear and trepidation whether in or out of the forum were to him strangers. He was plain in his appearance and plain in his speech, not a polished ora- tor, but a most potent and powerful one, whether before the court or the jury. He was kind, generous and gentle, but woe be- tide that witness, that lawyer, or that court that trod too harshly on his toes or aroused .his ire. He was a great law reader, caring little for history and less for general litera- ture. He was a powerful lawyer before the eourt in bane and stood his ground as easily and fearlessly before the majestie supreme court of his state and of the nation as before his loeal Court of Common Pleas. As an ejeetment lawyer he was the peer of the greatest in the land. He was engaged in many of the most important "ejeetments ou original titles" in the various courts of our state, and many of the land marks and monu- ments of our land law bear the blaze made by his axe. He was, however, equally great and powerful and eminent in the eriminal as well as in the eivil eourts, and at the time of his death was not only the nestor, but the recognized leader, of our bar. He preferred the argument to the court to the speech to the jury. If he had a colleague he would almost invariably avoid the speech, although himself a powerful jury speaker. He was possessed of a fund. of quaint humor which so well aeeorded with his own personality that the group which so frequently sat about him might have been ealled a langhing con- vention.

He was born in Elkland, Tioga county. Pennsylvania, Mareh 4, 1825, and was a son of Judge John Ryon and a grandson of John Ryon. He received an academie education at Millville, N. Y., and Wellsboro, Pa., and eom- pleted his studies with Hon. James Lowry of the latter place. He was admitted to the bar of Tioga county in 1846 and soon after opened an office at Lawrenceville, In 1850 he was

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eleeted district attorney on the Democratic tieket, was re-elected at the expiration of his term, and filled the office six consecutive years. On the breaking out of the rebellion, he hastily supported the government and did all in his power to engage enlistments and raise troops for the defense of the flag. He was largely instrumental in raising Com- pany A of the famous Buektails. In 1861 he was appointed paymaster in the Pennsyl- vania Reserve corps, and held that position one year. In Mareh, 1863, Mr. Ryon re- moved to Pottsville, where he resided until his deeease. He represented the thirteenth distriet in Congress one term and for inore than thirty-five years was one of the leading lawyers of Pennsylvania.

Hon. Robert M. Palmer (1820-1863). An eloquent and distinguished lawyer and statesman. He was probably the most elo- queut speaker of the senate of Pennsylvania that ever graeed that ehair, a man of splen- did bearing and grace of manner and speeel. an industrious student, a profound thinker. he easily ranked with the ablest lawyers of the state. - On his way home from his post as minister to the Argentines, he died and was buried at sea. Many of his publie addresses upon public questions and matters of state adorn the literature of Pennsylvania.

Hon. James H. Campbell (1820-1895). A distinguished lawyer at the bar of Sehuyl- kill and Philadelphia. A member of Con- gress, Minister to Sweden, statesman, a mil- itary officer during the war of the rebellion. He was an able lawyer, enjoying a luerative practice and a splendid orator of the florid style. Dignified and graceful in manner and in speech, a thorough patriot and pronouneed in his convietions, he lived into ripe old age, beloved by all who knew him. He was among those upon whom the immortal Lin- coln relied for advice and counsel as well as to aid in fostering and cherishing a loyal spirit throughout the north during the dark days of the rebellion,

Hon. Lin Bartholomew (1835-1880). A sol- dier, a lawyer and an orator. His eloquence was a poem. When he spoke his whole body spoke. He eould eonvulse a jury with laugh- ter, and at the next instant move them to tears. He was eminently a eriminal law- yer. No murder trial was fully equipped without his presenee. Ile could grasp a proposition and marshal the faets that bore upon it with an aptitude that seemed born both of instinet and of genius. No eriminal so deep-dyed but that he could discover his motive and his erime mirrored in the mind of this master. While not a profound student, vet le read mueh. Many years ago the writer sat at the home of a United States senator while the ballot for his election was taking place. There were gathered there probably a dozen leading men of our state. The subject of this sketeh was diseussed, and it was the unanimous thought that "Lin," as he was familiarly ealled, was the most powerful and effective convention speaker they had ever heard in all their ex- perienee. It is a coneeded faet that his speech in which he nominated the late Chief Justice Sterrett for the Supreme Beneh of Pennsylvania defeated the nomination of Ex- Chief Justice Agnew, who had been slated for that place in the Republican convention held at Harrisburg in the year 1877. He was keen, quick-witted, broad and had a thor- ough understanding of human nature. Had he lived there is no doubt that the state and nation would have sought him out for high politieal preferment.

Hon. Franklin B. Gowen (1832-1889). One of the most brilliant men the state of Pennsylvania ever produeed. Ile was a great man, a great lawyer, a polished and eloquent speaker and was great in business affairs. After a most successful professional career in this county and afterwards in the city of Philadelphia he was made the presi- dent of the Philadelphia & Reading Rail- road Company as also of the coal and iron

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company bearing that name. He was liber- ally educated and wonderfully endowed and possessed of a most remarkable retentive memory, and it took but a very few years to place him in the front rank of the bar of the state. By means of employing deteetives and taking personal charge of the proseen- tion, he broke up that terror of the anthra- cite mining region, the "Mollie Maguires." Hle was keen, quick, and industrious, but above all a profound thinker, a brilliant orator, and a most forcible and convincing logician and speaker. Whilst frank and free in his manner, he was high-toned and sensitive, and of a retiring disposition and lived in his profession, his business and in the bosom of his family. It was due to his foresight that the Reading system is to-day the great factor in the anthracite coal trade.

Had he not left his profession and made the sacrifices he did to serve the great cor- poration whose general counsel he was for years, he would certainly have permanently established himself among the foremost and greatest lawyers of the nation.

Hon. Thomas R. Bannan (1828-1878). A graduate of Yale, a most scholarly lawyer. a member of the constitutional eonvention of 1872-3. He was genial, amiable and good. Ile had a lucrative practice and held the confidenee of all the world that knew him. Ilis memory still lingers about this bar as the fragrance of a sweet blossom. He be- longed to that elass of men who are some- times ealled "Nature's Noblemen."

George R. Kaercher, Esq, (1845-1890). In the more recent generation of lawyers none at this bar nor probably at any other bar in the state gained higher distinetion than George Ringgold Kaercher. An indus- trious student, an indefatigable and un- flinehing worker, possessed of a clear, bright and logieal mind, he turned his early edu- cation at Lafayette college to great aeeount. He was the efficient district attorney who

prosecuted the "Mollie Maguire" organiza- tion and its members to conviction and the severest penalty inflieted by the law. He early won distinction at the local bar, then in our supreme court and state, and held at the time of his death the high and important offices of general solicitor for the Philadel- phia & Reading Railroad and Coal & Iron company. He was the fifth lawyer of this bar to hold these positions. He was an ex- cellent trial lawyer, whether before the eourt in banc or the jury. He never entered upon a trial without having a diligently and fully prepared ease. He was beloved by every one who knew him. When the news eame that he was one of the victims of that awful ealamity, the wreck of a railway pas- senger train at Shoemakersville, Berks county, Pa., in September, 1890, a gloom fel! upon this community which is not yet lifted even to this day. Although strieken down in middle life and in the midst of his ca- reer, he had already won a place that few ean attain in the rounded period of three seore and ten.

Hon, James Ellis, born in 1835, died in 1897, was a man who loved, revered and honored his profession.

He was a gallant soldier, and rallied his neighbors to the front immediately upon the firing upon Fort Sumter while still a youth as first lieutenant in the Sixth regiment of the Pennsylvania Volunteers, later on as eaptain and quartermaster of the gallant Forty- eighth Regiment, Pennsylvania Volunteer In- fantry. He was later commissioned a major in the United States service, but the Penin- sular campaign of 1862 and some of the later campaigns so impaired his health that he could not be present at the,surrender at Ap- pomattox.

His reeord as a brave and gallant offieer in the army of the country of his adoption will ever be an honor to him and credit to this community, our state and nation.

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Major James Ellis was one of the group of lawyers who gave to the Schuykill county bar its reputation at home and abroad.

While he was not as well known in the pro- fession outside of our county as some of the others, Inghes, Gowen, Bartholomew and perhaps one or two more, he was, neverthe- less, a well-read lawyer and an ornament to the profession.

Ile was district attorney of our county and later on was in the legislature of Penn- sylvania, in which body he was one of the most prominent factors in all its functions. and was frequently consulted by the powers of the administrations in his state and nation.

From 1872 until the date of his death he was solicitor in Schuykill county for the Philadelphia & Reading Railroad Com- pany and its affiliated companies, and gave ahnost his entire time to their business.

He was a delegate at large to the consti- tutional convention of Pennsylvania in 1872- 73.

He was frequently called to act as dele- gate at large to the national Democratic con- vention, and was in the Pennsylvania dele- gation a potent factor in bringing about re- sults in the conventions, notably the first nomination of Grover Cleveland. He was in- deed among the first and most prominent leaders of the Democratic party in a number of the national Democratic conventions held since 1880.

He was of a retiring disposition, but al- ways genial and lovable. His sudden demise was deeply mourned by this bench and bar, by this community and by the state and all felt that a good man was taken away from this section of the state when he was laid away in the tomb.

Hon. Meyer Strouse, born in Germany in 1825, came to this country with his parents in his infaney, and was raised in Pottsville. where his father, Moses Strouse, for many years carried on the mercantile business on Centre street, Young Meyer also first fol-

lowed mercantile pursuits, and afterwards was engaged as journalist and author on va- rions newspapers and periodicals in Phila- delphia and other cities, until he read law and was admitted to the bar in 1855. HIe was quite a linguist and a ready and forcible speaker both in the German and English languages, as also in the Pennsylvania Ger- man dialect, and was for years a very popu- lar campaign speaker, but equally powerful when pleading to a jury in the courts, and being a man of good address, intelligence, vim and push, he soon acquired a prominent position at the bar and was for many years the special representative of the German ele- ment at the bar, enjoying a large clientage annong his German and German-American friends and also with the other elements of our people.

He became the Democratic nominee for Congress in the district then composed of Schuylkill and Lebanon counties, in 1862, and, although partisan feelings then ran high in the midst of the great Civil war, Mr. Strouse was a pronounced union or war Dem- ocrat and strongly favored the support of the national government in its great peril at that time, and the result was that he was elected in the fall of that year by a hand- some majority over the then incumbent, the Hon. James HI. Campbell.

During his first term Mr. Strouse re- mained a pronounced war democrat and an ardent supporter of the government, and was also a warm friend of the soldiers and espe- cially the boys from Schuylkill county, for whom he did great service and many acts of kindness while at the national capitol, look- ing after their welfare wherever he could, So at the expiration of his first term he was re-elected. in 1864. notwithstanding the Civil war then still raged fiercely. He served his second term with as much fidelity to the union and to his constituents as the first. `but at the expiration of his second term he retired from office, He was not a candidate

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for re-election, but returned to the practice of his profession and continued therein, but his health soon after began to fail so that he lingered for some years until relieved by death in 1878.

Fergus G. Farquhar is a native of Schuyl- kill county, born at Pottsville, Pa., Feb. 21, 1845, to George and Amelie Farquhar. ITis father was an eminent lawyer who located in Schuylkill county at the time when the mining of coal was being first developed, his inother was a German of noble birth whose family emigrated to the United States after the downfall of Napoleon, having sacrificed the family estate in equipping a regiment for the King of Prussia.

Young Fergus received his early educa- tion in the public schools of Pottsville. He entered the University of Virginia in 1860, · but the Civil war preventing his complet- ing his studies there, he subsequently took a full course at the University of Heidel- berg, graduating from the law department of that institution August 11, 1865, with the degree of doctor juris, after which he spent one year in the office of Hon. F. W. Hughes, who was one of Pennsylvania's most noted and highly respected lawyers, and was ad- mitted to the Schuylkill county bar in April, 1866. There he commenced the practice of law and has continued alone ever since, his practice being of the general character. comprising every branch of the law in the state and United States courts, and involves many cases of importance, in which his suc- cess has given him the reputation of an able, versatile and worthy practitioner.

Mr. Farquhar is a member of and coun- sellor for the Tax Payers' association of Schuylkill county and an independent Dem- ocrat, who has never sought or held a po- litical office.

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The twentieth century bench and bar of Pennsylvania, volume I, Part 85

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