The twentieth century bench and bar of Pennsylvania, volume I, Part 88

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

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Returning to Uniontown, Mr. Work en- tered the law office of Mr. Alfred Howell and fitted himself for admission to the loeal bar. On December 6, 1886, he received his lieense to praetiee, and for the past seventeen years has devoted himself uninterruptedly to his profession, and wherever known, is recog- nized as an able and reliable lawyer and a conseientious, high-minded man.

Judge Edward Campbell was appointed to serve out Judge Gilmore's unexpired term, which he did from May to Deeember, 1873. Judge Campbell is a son of Dr. Hugh Camp- bell, and was born in Uniontown July 24, 1838. He was edueated at Uniontown and Chambersburg academy, four years at Madi- son eollege, which closed just before he was to graduate. He then studied law with the late Judge Nathaniel Ewing, and was ad- mitted to the bar September 5, 1859.

Upon the breaking out of the war, he en- listed as private in the Eighty-fifth Penn- sylvania Volunteers, and, by suceessive pro- motions, beeame lieutenant-colonel. He was candidate for district judge on the Prohibi-

tion ticket in 1887, and in 1893 for the Su- perior Court. Since leaving the bench he has been in active practice.

William H. Playford. Among the names that have graced the honor roll of Fayette county's bar that of William H. Playford is worthy of most honorable mention.

A native of Brownville, Fayette county, he was born August 31, 1834, to the late Dr. Robert W. and Margaret A. (Shaw) Play- ford. His father was born in London, Eng- land, and his mother in Fayette county, Pennsylvania. After finishing his prepara- tory studies at Dunlap's Creek academy, William, in 1851 entered Jefferson eollege at Canonsburg, where he was graduated in 1854. Young Playford then spent a year as prineipal of Waterproof academy in Texas Parish, Louisiana, after which he studied law with Judge Nathaniel Ewing, Sr., at Union- town, and in 1857 was admitted to the bar. Mr. Playford was elected distriet attorney for Fayette eounty in 1859 for a term of three years, making an enviable reeord as public prosecutor. He was afterwards ealled to aid the commonwealth in the prosecution of numerous celebrated eases, among others that of Henry Mallaby, indicted for the mur- der of Joseph Eply at a politieal meeting in Smithfield, Fayette county, in 1863. Mr. Playford is regarded as specially qualified in corporate matters and for many years has been attorney for the Pennsylvania Railroad Company at Uniontown.

Mr. Playford has twice been elected to the state legislature, 1867-68, and in 1872 repre- sented his district in the state senate, where he served on the judiciary and finanee eom- mittees. In 1874 he was ehosen in eonven- tion with Chief Justice Agnew and others to consider and prepare amendments to the state constitution.

Mr. Playford is a Democrat, and in 1872 served as a delegate to the national Demo- eratie convention at Baltimore. He served as chairman of the Demoeratie state eonven-

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tion at Lancaster in 1876, has frequently served as a delegate to state conventions, and in 1880 was candidate for presidential elec- tor-at-large for the state of Pennsylvania.

The present attorneys at Fayette county bar are: J. B. Adams, A. P. Austin, William Beeson, Jolın Bierer, A. D. Boyd, S. P. Boyd, E. W. Boyd, John Boyle, W. H. Brown, Ed- ward Campbell, W. N. Carr, J. G. Carroll, J. S. Christy, C. D. Clark, M. M. Cochran, J. H. Collins, A. F. Cooper, J. M. Core, H. A. Cot- ton, J. R. Cray, W. E. Crow, R. W. Dawson, J. E. Dawson, A. F. Downs, H. S. Dumbauld, J. K. Ewing, Nathaniel Ewing, A. A. Ewing, J. H. Field, L. H. Frasher, F. M. Fuller, E. D. Fulton, W. L. Gans, S. R. Goldsmith, A. C. Hagan, E. C. Higbee, D. M. Hertzog, Wil- liam A. Hogg, R. F. Hopwood, Monroe Hop- wood, Leslie Howard, George D. Howell, T.

H. Hudson, George B. Jeffries, A. E. Jones, T. P. Jones, W. J. Johnson, George B. Kaine, Charles F. Kefover, R. P. Kennedy, T. S. Lackey, R. H. Lindsey, W. C. McKean, D. W. McDonald, J. T. Miller, L. L. Minor, P. S. Newmyer, W. W. Parshall, Ira E. Partridge, J. M. Oglevee, W. H. Playford, R. W. Play- ford, H. L. Robinson, F. P. Rush, C. W. Rush, B. F. Sterling, Daniel Sturgeon, W. J. Stur- gis, J. Q. Van Swearingen, T. R. Wakefield, R. D. Warman, A. D. Williams, J. C. Work, H. F. Detwiler.

The Fayette county bar has always been noted for the absence from its rolls of wom- an and the negro, and maintains a high standard of qualifications for admission.

The bench and bar of Fayette county has a record which sustains the high traditions of the Pennsylvania bar.

1. H. Play force

611

MERCER COUNTY

HON. S. R. MASON

The county of Mcreer was organized in 1800, under an aet of assembly passed Mareh 12 of that year.

Officers were appointed in 1803, and the first court was held in February, 1804, in a log house in what has since been known as the "Saw Mill" traet, about one mile east of where the present court house now stands. The first jail was also a log building.

The county as originally laid out, was thir- ty-two miles long by twenty-eight miles wide, and thus it continued, until by the aet of assembly of March, 1849, the county of Lawrenee was organized, by taking a part out of the counties of Mereer, Beaver and Butler.

The first judge, Hon. Jesse Moore, was appointed from Montgomery county, since that time, the judges have all been selected from the distriet, and are as follows :

Hons. John Bredin, Daniel Agnew, later chief justice of the Supreme court of Penn- sylvania ; John S. McCalmont, Gleni W. Seo- field, James Campbell, Isaac G. Gordon, later one of the justices of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania; John Trunkey, later one of the judges of the Supreme Court of Penn- sylvania; William Maxwell, Arcus MeDer- mitt, S. S. Mchard, S. H. Miller; the pres- ent judge.

Three of these judges are yet living, John S. McCahont, aged 83 years, and Judges Mehard and Miller, who are comparatively young men.

Among the attorneys admitted at the first court were Samuel B. and Alexander W. Foster, William Ayres, Patrick Farrelly, Henry Baldwin, afterwards one of the jus-

tiees of the Supreme Court of the United States. It is also said that Chief Justice Gibson was a member of this eourt. These men were sueeeeded by Hon. John A. Bing- ham, who was born and reared in Mereer, afterwards a member of Congress from the Cadiz distriet, Ohio, and one of the eommis- sion who tried the conspirators in the as- sassination of President Lincoln. Hon. John_ J. Pearson, who for more than forty years was president judge of the eourt at Harris- burg, Dauphin county, the capital of the state, Hon. William Stewart, who also rep- resented this distriet in the senate of Penn- sylvania, and the Congress of the United States, William M. Stephenson, Esq., Hon. John Hoge, and many others who were ree- ognized as gentlemen of learning and ability, and who stood high in the several eourts throughout the state, as well as in the Su- preme Court.

The present bar is composed of about fif- ty members, and among these are a number of gentlemen, who for learning and ability as well as integrity, stand seeond to no other bar in the state.

The mortality among the members of this bar has been marked. In the past fifty years more of its members have died than have ever been at the bar at any one time, and these deaths were very largely from the younger members.

At this writing, there are still living three who have passed the allotted time of three score years and ten.

Daniel Agnew, chief justice of the Su- preme Court of Pennsylvania from 1874-79, was born in Trenton, N. J., January 5, 1809

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In 1837-38 he was a delegate in convention to amend the constitution of Pennsylvania, was president judge of the Seventh judicial district of Pennsylvania during 1851-63; in 1863 to 1879 was justice of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, and in 1874 was ap- pointed chief justice of the Supreme Court. He died in March, 1902. See Beaver county.

John S. McCalmont, president judge of the Eighteenth distriet of Pennsylvania from 1853-61, was born in Franklin, Pa., April 12, 1822. He was a representative in the Pennsylvania state legislature in 1849 and 1850, serving as speaker during the lat- ter year; and was a presidential elector in 1852. In 1853 he was appointed president judge of the Eighteenth distriet of Pennsyl- vania, and was elected for a full term of ten years. Before the expiration of his term, however, in 1861, he resigned his position to take eommand of the Tenth Regiment, Penn- sylvania Reserve Volunteers. In 1885 he was appointed commissioner of customs in the United States Treasury department.

Johnson Pearson, of Mercer, subject of this sketeh, is one of the oldest, and for many years has ranked among the leading and in- fluential lawyers of his section of the state. A native of Neshannock township, Mercer (now Lawrence) eounty, Pa., he was born January 10, 1819, to George and Sarah (Rey- nolds) Pearson, both of whom were mem- bers of the Society of Friends, the former a native of Delaware county, Pa., and the lat- ter of Wilmington, Delaware. The father was an extensive and prosperous farmer and a man of commanding influence in his com- munity.

His paternal ancestors came originally from England, and were among the first settlers of the provinee under William Penn. John Pearson, our subject's grandfather, was a member of the Pennsylvania Senate in 1800, and took part in the legislation incorpor- ating Mercer county, He was a man of

strong character and wielded a wide influ- ence in his day.

Mr. Pearson passed his boyhood on his father's farm and was reared to hard work. He received his preliminary education in the distriet school and in May, 1837, entered Allegheny college at Meadville, Pa., from which he was graduated with the class of 1840, Angust 14, with the degree of bachelor of arts.

Ile began his law studies in Mercer in the office and under the direction of his cousin, Hon. John J. Pearson, afterwards judge of the courts at Harrisburg, on September 14, 1840, and passed his examination and was admitted to the bar the 28th day of Decem- ber, 1842. He immediately opened an office and has continued in praetiee in Mereer until the present time.

During his professional career of over sixty years, Mr. Pearson has devoted his energies closely to his professional work, with the result that most gratifying success has crowned his efforts. His practice, which has been general in character, has been very ex- tensive in all the courts, and both as a count- sellor and advocate he easily ranks among the first. He has always been a close student of the law, and with his thorough knowledge of legal science and readiness to apply that knowledge to the ease at hand, his legal opinions seldom fail to carry conviction. During recent years, his eldest son, Mr. George Pearson, who is now (1903) prothon- otary of the supreme and superior courts in Pittsburgh, was formerly associated with . him as a partner.

In September, 1848. he was appointed deputy attorney general for Mercer county and entered upon the duties of that office the 19th day of that month; he served until the office was abolished by the Act of Assembly of May 3, 1850, and then was elected district attorney and served as sueh three years from the first Monday of January, 1851; he was

John

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MERCER COUNTY

the last deputy attorney general and the first. distriet attorney of Mereer connty.

Aside from the above offices and sneh minor ones as director of schools, etc., Mr. Pearson has never held any politieal posi- tions, preferring to give his time and energy always to his profession.

As a member of the Whig party, Mr. Pear- son east his first presidential ballot for William Henry Harrison; he became a Re- publiean on the organization of that party in 1856, and has since remained loyal to its prineiples.

On Mareh 2, 1846, Mr. Pearson married Miss Sarah Jane Templeton, and by her has five ehildren.

Hon. John Trunkey. The immigrant an- cestor of the subject of this sketch was Charles Tronquet, a native of France, who settled in Connectieut soon after the French Revolution of 1789, and married Mary Gan- guard, who, in her own person, represented both his own race and the Puritan stock of New England, her mother's maiden name being Merritt. Ten children were born to Charles and Mary Tronquet, five sons and five daughters. The children followed the tide of migration from Connectieut to "The Western Reserve," Ohio, and aeeepted the pronunciation of their name which English- speaking people gave it, and changed the or- thography aceordingly and so the family name Tronquet beeame Trunkey.

Franeis Trunkey, the youngest of the five sons of Charles Trunkey, settled in Vernon, Trumbull county, Ohio, and on the first day of January, 1828, was united in marriage with Rachel Fell of West Salem, Mereer county, Pennsylvania, whose parents were the first settlers in that locality. Seven children were born of this marriage.

John Trunkey, the oldest of the children of Franeis Trunkey, was born on the 26th day of October, 1828. His boyhood was spent mainly upon his father's farm. That which most impressed, and is still remem-

bered by the few survivors who knew him at this period of his life, was his great fond- ness for books, and his thoroughness, pains- taking and exactness in whatever he under- took to do, whether that was the mastery of the elementary sciences or the performance of the ordinary farm work-characteristies which will be recognized by all who knew him in later life and in a different and wider sphere. Having availed himself of such ad- vantages as the public school of his father's distriet afforded, he completed his prepara- tion for professional study at a high school in the neighborhood, and at Chester aead- emy, in Geauga county, Ohio.

In the spring of 1849 Mr. Trunkey entered the office of Sanmel Griffith, Esq., of Mer- cer, Pa., as a law student; he was ad- mitted to the bar in June, 1851, and immediately became associated with his preceptor in the practice of law. Mr. Grif- fith, who subsequently represented his dis- trict in Congress, was an able and aggres- sive lawyer, one of the foremost advocates of the loeal bar, and, withal, a man of popu- lar manners, while Mr. Trunkey's diffidenee and modesty were such as to ineline him to shrink from, rather than court, the position to which his merits entitled him. Under sueh circumstances men of ordinary parts would rarely rise much above the rank of lawyers' clerks. Habitual deferenee to the opinions of his preceptor, and something akin to awe of him inspired by forensie triumphs wit- nessed during the most impressible period of life, are natural outgrowths of the relation of law student and preceptor, when that rela- tion has been otherwise profitable to the stu- dent : but they are, none the less, unfavorable to the growth, in the immediate presence of the preceptor, of that self-relianee without which there can be little substantial advanee- ment in the profession, sinee such advance- ment necessarily involves establishment in the confidence of the publie, which is more ready to accept an under than an over self-

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estimate by a young man. But Mr. Trunkey soon overcame the disadvantages of his posi- tion. The habits which he had formed, while alternately working upon his father's farm and pursuing his preliminary studies, had borne their legitimate fruits when he had completed the prescribed term of clerkship, and he came to the bar thoroughly equipped for entering upon the practice of his profes- sion. Nor were these habits relaxed when an examination preliminary to admission to the bar no longer confronted him; he con- tinued to be a severe student, and the hours of waiting for business were not the least busy hours of his busy life. The methods which he pursued when studying the law as a science he observed in the examination of every question submitted to him for his opin- ion, and in the preparation of his causes for trial. As a consequence, he soon became re- liant upon his own investigations and the convictions resultant therefrom. When he reached conclusions his diffidence seemed to be supplanted by a serene confidence therein, and the public were not slow to share this confidence with him.

Whether exactitude in the application of established principles to the problems which concern men in their various relations to each other, and to society, is born of a quick- ened and enlightened conscience, or springs necessarily and unavoidably from mental constitution, is a question upon which the- ologians, psychologists and metaphysicians may not all be agreed, but it is certain that it is usually, if not always, characteristic of men who seem to be truthful and just, sim- ply because they cannot be otherwise. Such a one appeared to be Mr. Trunkey when he first attracted public attention. While he was considerate of the opinions of others dif- fering from his own on fairly arguable ques- tions, he was intolerant of untruthfulness and of infidelity to accepted standards of right and justice. His critics-and who has not his critics ?- said his morality was of the

austere kind, and, in justification of their judgment, it was asserted that he would not defend a criminal. The criticism has this semblance of justice, that the criminal class- es rarely sought his services. But, if his clientage was of a higher and more desirable class, it was because the advice which he could and would give to the other was dis- tasteful to them, and the methods which he employed in their defense inspired no hope of anything better for them than justice. But it was not true that he would not defend a criminal, though it was undoubtedly truc that he would not defend a crime, and that simply because he could not. He accepted the maxim of the law that it is better that ninety-nine guilty men escape than that one innocent person suffer ; and was quite as will- ing to exert all his powers to prevent the con- viction of the guilty, at the expense of the sacrifice of the forms which have been de- vised for the protection of the innocent, as he was to engage in more congenial practice. This willingness necessarily resulted from his loyalty to the principles of our jurisprudence which he accepted as axiomatic truths.

In 1866 the counties of Venango and Mer- cer, which had theretofore been included within the Eighteenth judicial district of Pennsylvania, were erected into a new dis- trict, and a judge learned in the law to pre- side in the courts was to be elected. There were several aspirants for that office in the dominant party, but, whatever their indi- vidual merits may have been, no one of them commanded the confidence of the entire membership of that party, and it seemed to be impossible to agree upon any one as a party nominee. Under these circumstances many gentlemen, whose personal interests, as well as their patriotism, inclined them to regard the good of the public service as of more consequence than the success of their party, became profoundly concerned; doubt- less some of them were entirely satisfied with one of the aspirants referred to, and

Sincerely yours John Frunkey

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MERCER COUNTY

others with another, but each, with or with- out sufficient cause, felt that there was an im- pending danger, which must, if possible, be averted. It was, perhaps, natural that they should look to the minority party for a can- didate upon whom to unite, since they might hope to secure his nomination .by that party and thereby its support. Be that as it may, he was nominated by the Democratic party and elected to the office of president judge of the Twenty-cighth judicial district of Penn- sylvania before he had reached middle life.

The business of the courts of Venango county had increased enormously during two or three years preceding Judge Trun- key's elevation to the bench. The discovery of oil, then recent, had brought into the county a vast influx of people similar to the population of other new mining districts, and many controversies had arisen out of grants of mining rights, involving difficult questions and the application of legal principles to con- ditions with which the courts had not been familiar. The most of the cases remained untried, and others were rapidly coming into the court, while a statute of 1806 pro- vided : "It shall be the particular duty of the judges of the Supreme Court and judges of the courts of Common Pleas to see that all actions in their respective courts shall be reached and have a fair opportunity of a trial within one year after they shall have been commenced."

Such were the conditions which confront- ed the young judge when he came upon the bench. To obey the statute literally would require more hours of judicial labor each day for years to come than had, probably, ever been performed by any judge ; but, hav- ing undertaken the work, Judge Trunkey ad- dressed himself to it quietly and patiently, opening the courts at eight o'clock in the morning and sitting until six o'clock in the evening, with a recess of an hour at noon for lunch, and often holding night sessions. The amount of work performed by him at

this time was prodigious. The records show that during his first year on the bench he tried in Venango county one hundred and twenty indictments in the courts of Quarter Sessions and Oyer and Terminer, and one. hundred and thirty-six jury cases in the Common Pleas; and that he heard and de- cided two hundred and forty-four causes at argument courts, besides doing a vast amount of work at chambers, and keeping the business of the populous and important county of Mercer well in hand. It was in- evitable that such a strain should, sooner or later, tell upon his health, but to a friend who admonished him that he was discount- ing his energies at a fearful rate, his words, as they are still remembered, were: "The business of the courts is very much behind, and suitors have a right to demand speedy trials." It is said that these words were uttered in a most commonplace manner, and without the slightest indication of a con- sciousness that he was either saying or do- ing a heroic thing.

He was a model nisi prius judge. His court was always orderly and dignified. No un- seemly passages between counsel were toler- ated. Witnesses were protected against brow-beating, and no fair witness was ever, in his presence, subjected to a humiliating or annoying cross-examination. If he held the bar to a strict observance of the rules of propriety and decorum, he held himself to as strict observance of their rights and the pro- prieties of his own position. His motto, prob- ably never expressed in words, but apparent in everything that he did, was: "Festina lente." Although he dispatched an almost incredible amount of business in the Twenty- eighth judicial district, no man ever saw the slightest evidence of haste either in the court room or in the opinions which he wrote. He patiently heard, and carefully and respect- fully considered, everything that suitor or counsel had to offer in public, and never as- snmed to know more about a cause on trial

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before him than the counsel who presented it, nor allowed his mind to appear to gravi- tate toward a conclusion until the last word had been said. It has been the reproach of too many judges that they have permitted suitors and their friends to talk to them abont pending and impending causes; and this evil, more than errors of judgment- more, perhaps, than all other causes com- · bined-has tended to bring the administra- tion of justice into contempt. But it is the belief of the members of the bar who were in closest contact with Judge Trunkey while he was a trial judge that he never al- lowed a word to be spoken to him about a cause which he was to determine elsewhere than in the court room and in the presence of the opposite party or his counsel.

His scrupulous care for the proprieties of his position bore its legitimate fruits. No suitor, it is asserted by the lawyers of full practice in his courts, was ever known by them to complain that he was not fully and fairly heard, or that his cause was not tried solely upon the evidence publicly delivered, when Judge Trunkey was on the bench ; and such was the confidence of the bar and of the people in both his disposition and his ability to mete out exact justice between litigant parties that but few writs of error were taken to his judgments; and such was the correctness of his rulings in the main that, notwithstanding the great number of novel and difficult questions which grew out of the mining industry of his district in the earlier years of his service therein, but eight of his judgments were reversed during the cleven years of that service. When the number of causes tried by him and the intricate char- acter of many of the controversies are con- sidered, this record is in the highest degree creditable to the judge. Before it was closed his reputation as one of the foremost, though among the youngest, judges in the common- wealth was established, and singled him out from among many eminent lawyers for ad-

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The twentieth century bench and bar of Pennsylvania, volume I, Part 88

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