Venango County, Pennsylvania: Her Pioneers and People (Volume 1), Part 23

Author: Babcock, Charles A.
Publication date: 1879
Publisher:
Number of Pages:

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responsible for the custody of the early rec- ords of this county, the dockets and minute book have been abstracted or destroyed; there- fore, the historian is obliged to confess his inability to find out what is meant by that first jury having been "duly ballotted for and elected," a quaint phraseology which appears to be confined to this county.

PIONEER LAWYERS

Rude as were the pioneer times in many respects, yet the bar of that day contained many men of eloquence and learning, whose classical knowledge was by no means confined to the Latin pleadings universally employed at that time. They seem also to have been dis- tinguished by a camaraderie incident to the necessities of their practice, for the thinly settled state of the country obliged them to carry their business into several counties. Therefore a number of lawyers would travel on horseback from one county seat to another, having at each an appointed stopping place where they were always expected, and it has been related by an old-timer that at these places the chickens, corn-dodgers, maple sugar and old whiskey suffered, while the best story tellers regaled the company with their inex- haustible fund of wit and anecdote. Nor was the field of the practical joke entirely unculti- vated. It has been narrated that two convivial gentlemen of the bar having been induced to retire to their joint chamber, their professional brethren rigged up some contrivance by means of which their bed was hoisted up near the ceiling. Presently one of them, undertaking to get up, fell into what he conceived to be a deep pit, whence his cries awakened his bed- fellow, the latter, emerging from his own side of the bed, straightway fell into another deep pit, and the two victims lay on the floor shout- ing to one another from their respective cellars until the morning light revealed the true state of affairs.

Among the most prominent of the pioneer lawyers who practiced here during the early years of the county's history were the follow- ing named : David Irvine, David Le Fever. John Galbraith, Alexander McCalmont. John J. Pearson. James Thompson, John W. Howe. James Ross Snowden. Samuel Porter Johnson, Thomas Espy. William Stewart. Jonathan Avres and James S. Myers, of Franklin ; John W. Hunter. Alexander W. Foster, John B. Wallace. Edward Work, Ralph Marlin. J. Stuart Riddle. George Selden. Richard Bean. Patrick Farrelly. Henry Baldwin, Gaylord

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Venango County Court Room (View from Rear)

Venango County Court Room (View from Front)

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Church and David Derrickson, of Meadville; the United States in extraordinary circum- Samuel B. Foster and John Banks, of Mercer ; Gen. William Ayres, Charles Sullivan, George W. Smith and Judge John Bredin, of Butler, and James Ross and Thomas Collins, of Pittsburgh.

THE BENCH-PRESIDING JUDGES

As has already been stated, Venango county was for the five years prior to 1805 attached to Crawford county for judicial purposes, with the seat of justice at Meadville. The first pre- siding judge of the district was ALEXANDER ADDISON, a Scotchman by birth, who began the practice of law at Washington, Pa. As president of the courts of Common Pleas of the Fifth circuit he delivered a series of twenty-seven remarkable charges to grand juries which elicited a letter of commendation from George Washington, dated at Mount Vernon March 4, 1799. These charges are printed in the back part of Addison's Reports. and are as readable and applicable to good citizenship to-day as when they were pro- nounced, and this is especially true of the one entitled "A Defence of the Alien Act," made at December sessions, 1798, which reads indeed as though written for the year of Our Lord 1918, as witness these brief excerpts :

"In circumstances of extraordinary danger or alarm extraordinary measures must be adopted, for ordinary means are incompetent for extraordinary occasions. Though I may not kill a man while I am in no danger from him, yet if he be in the act to kill me or I find him breaking into my house in the nighttime to rob me, I may put him to death. This re- sults from the general law of self-defence. * * * Nor will the right of personal lib- erty restrain a magistrate from committing to gaol a man who has not actually done mis- chief, if another is justly afraid of mischief being done by him. All these are extraordinary cases to which the ordinary rules of property or of personal liberty and safety are not ap- plicable, and the violation of these rules in such cases is, in true construction, no violation of them, for they were never meant to be applied to such cases. but only to the ordinary and peaceful state of society and must yield to the great law of self-preservation and com- mon welfare.

"Nations, like individuals, are also bound by the law of self-preservation, in times of danger. to adopt measures which would be altogether unjustifiable in ordinary . times. *

* Congress. in its last session, found

stances of peril, unequaled since their in- dependence was solemnly acknowledged. * * * France had long known and pro- moted divisions and factions among us, and had sent spies into all parts of our country to procure information of our circumstances and opinions ; these travelled through America under various pretexts, of curiosity, or phi- losophy, or of avoiding tyranny or persecution at home. This Talleyrand, who demanded the bribe and loan from our ambassadors, travelled through this country as an emigrant, and after his return to France was appointed minister of foreign affairs. From its spies and other agents here the French government received constant intelligence of the sentiments of the citizens and the measures of the government of America, and was thus prepared to promote its own views and defeat ours. * * *

"Congress, therefore, passed 'An Act con- cerning Aliens' (25 June, 1798), the substance of which, in its own words, I shall here state :

"'It shall be lawful for the president of the United States to order all such aliens as he shall judge dangerous to the peace and safety of the United States, or shall have reasonable grounds to suspect are concerned in any trea- sonable or secret machinations against the government thereof, to depart out of the ter- ritory of the United States, within such time as shall be expressed in such order. * * * And if any alien so ordered to depart shall be found at large within the United States after the time limited in such order for his de- parture, and not having a license from the president to reside therein: or having ob- tained such license shall not have conformed thereto; every such alien shall on conviction thereof, be imprisoned and shall never after be admitted to become a citizen of the United States.' "

The foregoing extracts are enough to show that if the name of another European govern- ment be inserted, Judge Addison's charge to that grand jury of 1798 would be precisely applicable to the events of the present year, and they further prove that there is ample precedent for the recent proceedings against active enemy aliens.

It is hard to believe that such a distinguished jurist as Judge Addison should have fallen a victim to partisan prejudice, yet such is the sad fact. He was fearless and impartial in the discharge of his duty, and his bold and con- scientious course in supporting the general gov- ernment during the "Whiskey Insurrection" secured for him many personal enemies, whose

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opportunity for revenge came on an occasion when he refused to allow one of the associate judges to charge the jury after his own charge had been delivered. No judicial body would or could have convicted him, and, failing in the courts, his persecutors sought the compli- ant aid of the legislature. The house ordered his impeachment and the senate convicted him, the sentence being his removal as president judge of the Fifth Judicial district, and per- petual disqualification to any judicial office in the State. This trial, which took place in 1802, resulted in deposing one of the ablest judges that ever sat on the bench in Pennsyl- vania, and crushed the spirit of an upright and honorable man. He continued, however, to practice in the different courts until his death, which occurred in Pittsburgh in 1807.

JESSE MOORE, who, as we have seen, pre- sided at the first court ever held in Venango county, was the second judge of the district, and was practicing law at Sunbury when ap- pointed in April, 1803. He held the office without interruption until his death, Dec. 21, 1824, and is said to have been well educated, a diligent student and a good lawyer, discreet, upright, and impartial in his judicial opinions and decisions. He probably made the finest appearance on the bench of any of those who ever occupied it in Venango county, for he always retained the dress of the then old-style gentleman, wearing knee breeches, silk stock- ings, knee buckles as well as shoe buckles, powdered hair, and he was undoubtedly armed with a snuffbox. An old gentleman of Mercer, long since dead, wrote that as a little boy, between 1812 and 1820, he occasionally dropped into the courthouse, and was indelibly impressed with the grand appearance of the president judge. He adds : "I have since seen the Supreme court of the United States in session : their black gowns and the enforced quietness certainly give to it a very august aspect, but still there was lacking the grand old powdered head and queue that gave Judge Moore the advantage in imposing dignity."

The successor of this gentleman was HENRY SHIPPEN, who came to the bench of the dis- trict embracing Venango, Crawford, Erie and Mercer counties, in 1825. He was a native of Lancaster county, where he was admitted to the bar, and where most of his practice was acquired. although he was appointed to the bench from Huntingdon county. During the war of 1812 he was captain of a company from Lancaster which numbered as one of its privates James Buchanan. afterward president of the United States. While on the bench he

displayed those legal qualities which dis- tinguish the able lawyer and thorough jurist, his charges and decisions being characterized by learning and uprightness.

The next in order of succession was NATHANIEL B. ELDRED, of Warren county, who presided over the courts of the district from 1839 until 1843, when he resigned the judgeship to accept the post of naval appraiser at Philadelphia. Subsequently he became judge of the Dauphin and Lebanon district. He is re- membered as a man of keen intellect, a finished scholar, an able lawyer, a painstaking and im- partial public servant. He was a witty and brilliant conversationalist and a capital story teller, but at all times maintained the dignity of his position. His written opinions and charges to juries were models of legal composition, and as a lawyer his versatile talents and thorough reading made him successful in all branches of the profession. An anecdote is related of him in Goodrich's History. In an assault and bat- tery case, tried in Dauphin county, the evidence was that the defendant, whilst walking on the street in Harrisburg with his wife, knocked the prosecutor down for using insulting words to the wife. Judge Eldred charged the jury as follows: "Gentlemen: You have learned from the evidence the character of the offense. The facts are for you. In law any rude, angry or violent touching of the person of another is a battery, and is not justified by any provoca- tion of words only, however insulting they may be. But if I was walking with my wife and a rowdy insulted her, I would knock him down if I was able-swear an officer." The verdict was "not guilty."

GAYLORD CHURCH, who succeeded Judge Eldred, was a native of Oswego, N. Y., but received his education and was admitted to the bar in Mercer county, removing to Meadville in 1834. In 1837 he was appointed deputy attorney general for Crawford county, and in 1843 he was appointed president judge of the Sixth Judicial district, serving as such until 1849, when the district was changed, and Ve- nango became a part of the Eighteenth district. Judge Church possessed a well-balanced, judicial mind, was thoroughly versed in the law, and while not as popular amongst the members of the bar as were some of his suc- cessors, was nevertheless a dignified and effi- cient judge. After the expiration of his official term he practiced in the courts of Crawford, Venango and other counties until Oct. 22, 1858, when he was appointed to fill a vacancy on the Supreme bench of the Commonwealth, which he occupied for a short time. He died

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in Meadville in 1869, leaving a family, the eldest of whom, Pearson Church, was elected president judge of the Thirtieth Judicial dis- trict in 1877, and served on the bench for ten years.

ALEXANDER McCALMONT, one of the pioneer lawyers of Franklin, was born in Mifflin county, Oct. 23, 1785, but his parents were early settlers of Sugar Creek township, removing thither in 1803. Soon afterward Alexander engaged in teaching school and con- ducted one of the first schools established in Franklin. He subsequently became a prom- inent merchant and iron manufacturer, and also took an active interest in public affairs, serving successively as sheriff, county com- missioner, prothonotary and deputy surveyor. In the meantime he began the study of law in the office of David Irvine, and was admitted to the bar in 1820, engaging in active practice until 1839, when he was appointed president judge of the Eighteenth Judicial district and served on the bench for ten years. Judge McCalmont's district did not include Venango county until shortly before the expiration of his term, when this county was taken from the Sixth and thrown into the Eighteenth district. As a judge he displayed legal quali- ties which made him popular alike with attor- neys and litigants, and against the honor and integrity of his judicial record no word of sus- picion has ever been uttered. As a business man, official and lawyer, Judge McCalmont became well and favorably known throughout the counties of northwestern Pennsylvania, and possessed the confidence and esteem of his fellow citizens. Beginning the practice of the legal profession in middle life, he made amends for the loss of earlier opportunities by close study and application, and in time came to be recognized as one of the substantial lawyers of the Venango bar. He died on Aug. 10. 1857, leaving to survive him four children, of whom two became prominent lawyers, one of them attaining the judicial seat.

JOSEPH BUFFINGTON came to the bench in 1849, and served until 1851, when under the constitution the office became elective. As an attorney and jurist he early took rank with his associates, and as a judge he compared well, both in natural and professional abilities, with his predecessors of the bench. He was a member of Congress for two terms and also. served as judge of the Tenth Judicial district.

JOHN C. KNOX was elected judge of the Eighteenth district at the election held in. October. 1851, and is remembered as an official who had a faculty for disposing of court busi-

ness with remarkable efficiency and dispatch. He was an excellent Common Pleas judge, arrived at conclusions with but little apparent deliberation, and possessed a quick, discerning intellect which enabled him to solve readily difficult and technical legal points. He was eminently social by nature, and in the discharge of his judicial functions became popular with the members of the bar and all who had busi- ness to transact in his court. In May, 1853, he was appointed to fill a vacancy on the Su- preme bench occasioned by the death of Jus- tice Gibson, and the same year was nominated by his party and elected as his own successor. He served for five years as a justice of the Supreme court, and then resigned to accept the attorney generalship of Pennsylvania, the duties of which office he discharged until 1861, when he was appointed to a post in the depart- ment of justice at Washington. Retiring from official life he resumed the practice of his pro- fession at Philadelphia, and it was while en- gaged in the argument of an important case in one of the courts of that city that he was stricken with a malady from the effects of which he never recovered. He died in the city of Harrisburg.

JOHN S. McCALMONT, second son of Judge Alexander McCalmont, was born in Venango county on April 28, 1822, was educated in the schools of Franklin, and spent two years at Allegheny College. In 1838 he was admitted to the United States Military Academy at West Point, from which he graduated July 1, 1842. During his service as an officer of the Third and Eighth regiments of infantry, he employed his intervals of leisure in the study of the law, and, resigning his commission, returned to Franklin, where he was admitted to the bar on the 25th of November, 1844, but shortly there- after removed to Clarion. In 1845 he was appointed deputy attorney general for Clarion, McKean and Elk counties, an office with duties similar to those of the present district attor- neys. In 1849 and 1850 he was a member of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives; the last year serving as speaker, and in 1852 he was a presidential elector, and as such, with others. cast the vote of Pennsylvania for Franklin Pierce. In 1853 he was appointed to fill the vacancy in the office of president judge of the Eighteenth Judicial district. then com- posed of the counties of Clarion, Forest, Jef- ferson, Mercer and Venango, caused by the promotion of Judge Knox to the Supreme bench; and in October of the same year he was elected for the full term.

Upon the outbreak of the Civil war Judge

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McCalmont tendered his services to the gov- GORDON was appointed by the governor to the ernor and was by the latter appointed colonel judgeship, holding the position until the autumn of that year, at which time his suc- cessor was duly elected by the people. Judge Gordon was a resident of Brookville, Jefferson county, and was a lawyer of acknowledged ability. In October, 1873. he was commissioned a justice of the Supreme court, became chief justice July 14, 1887, and retired from the bench in 1888. of the Tenth Pennsylvania Reserves, and in June, 1861, resigned his judicial office. When the Reserve Corps was ordered to join the Army of the Potomac he was assigned to the command of the Third Brigade, and was in command at the battle of Drainesville, Va., in December, 1861. His health breaking down in camp during the following winter, he resigned from the army in May, 1862, and subsequently resumed the practice of the law. In 1877 President Hayes appointed him a visitor of the West Point Military Academy, and in 1885 President Cleveland appointed him commis- sioner of customs, which latter office he re- signed upon the incoming of the Harrison ad- ministration in 1889. From that time until his death, Dec. 2, 1906, he was engaged in the practice of law in Washington, D. C. It has been said of him by competent authority that "in many respects he was a model judge; he presided with dignity, never losing his temper, never deciding with undue haste only to re- verse himself at leisure; he had no favorites at the bar or among suitors, and left the bench with the confidence of the bar and the respect of the community in which the greater part of his life had been spent; and no question is known to have been raised as to his fidelity to duty in any of the various positions which he has occupied during his long life." At the cele- bration of the centennial anniversary of the organization of the courts of Venango county, held at Franklin in 1905, Judge McCalmont contributed some very interesting historical sketches.

GLENNI W. SCOFIELD was appointed by Gov- ernor Curtin to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of Judge McCalmont, and served until the election of his successor the follow- ing autumn. refusing the use of his name as a candidate at the election, or he might have been his own successor. He was a resident of Warren and afterward represented his district in Congress, and later served as a judge of the United States court of Claims.

JAMES CAMPBELL, of Clarion county, suc- ceeded Judge Scofield, having been elected on the IIth of October, 1861. He came to the bench fortified with a thorough knowledge of his profession, was a diligent student of legal literature and history. and in point of natural abilities and scholarly attainments ranks with the most gifted of his predecessors.

In 1866 the legislature created a new dis- trict out of Venango and Mercer counties. known as the Twenty-eighth, and ISAAC G.

JOHN TRUNKEY was elected in October, 1866, to the office of president judge of the new Twenty-eighth Judicial district. Judge Trunkey was of French descent on the pa- ternal side, his ancestor being one of the sol- diers who came over with LaFayette to take part in the Revolutionary war. The name was originally Tronquet. He was born Oct. 26, 1828, in Trumbull county, Ohio, but received his legal education in the office of Samuel Griffith, Esq., of Mercer, in this State. At the time of his elevation to the bench business had greatly increased in the courts, growing out of the great impetus given trade by the oil discoveries. The number of cases entered on the appearance docket at the August Term, 1866. was more than ten times greater than the number entered at the corresponding term in 1889, and the business of the criminal courts was correspondingly larger. The result was a huge accumulation of cases awaiting trial when the new judge came upon the bench. An Herculean task was before him, for the statute required that all actions should be reached and have at least a fair opportunity of trial within one year after their inauguration. But the judge girded himself for work, open- ing the courts at eight o'clock in the morning and sitting until six in the evening, and often holding night sessions. The amount of work performed was, therefore, prodigious. With all this press of business there was no undue haste, and every man who had business with the courts felt that he was fully heard and his cause carefully considered. Such was the con- fidence of the bar and of the people in both his disposition and ability to mete out exact jus- tice, 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 ques- tions which grew out of the petroleum indus- . tries in the earlier years of his service in the Common Pleas, but eight of his judgments were reversed during the eleven years that he sat in that court.

In the autumn of 1877 he was elected to the Supreme bench of the State, and in December

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resigned the president judgeship to enter upon the duties of his more exalted position. As a justice of the Supreme court Judge Trun- key manifested the same patient care and in- dustry that had characterized his work in the court below, making himself familiar with the entire case and then thoughtfully and con- scientiously preparing the opinions assigned him in good terse English, which will be a monument to his judicial acumen in days to come. But the last two or three years of his labor on the bench were years of suffering and affliction, for an insidious disease was sap- ping the foundations of life and health. By the advice of his physicians he went abroad for expert medical treatment, but this proved of no avail, and he died in London on the 24th day of June, 1888. The memory of Judge Trun- key is deeply revered by the people of Ve- nango county, for there has never been a name associated with its annals that will go down to posterity with a brighter or purer record.

In December, 1877, CHARLES E. TAYLOR Was appointed president judge of the Twenty- eighth Judicial district (which since 1874 has consisted of Venango county alone) to fill the vacancy on the bench caused by the resignation of Judge Trunkey. Mr. Taylor was born in Massachusetts in 1826, and in 1850 he came to Franklin, where he worked at his trade as a painter for several years. But nourishing an ambition to become a lawyer, he spent his evenings in the acquirement of legal knowl- edge while supporting his family by working at his trade during the daytime. By dint of great and most commendable perseverance he overcame this difficulty, and the further one that his early education was but a partial one, and he was admitted to the bar in 1858. In the autumn of the next year he was elected as dis- trict attorney, and was still filling that position when the Civil war began. He recruited a com- pany for the Fourth Pennsylvania Cavalry and was mustered in as captain of Company I in October, 1861, and served until honorably dis- charged from the army for physical disability by reason of wounds received at Harrison's Landing. Returning to Franklin, he resumed the practice of law and continued it until appointed to the bench to succeed Judge Trun- key. He was elected the following Novem- ber, and was re-elected as his own successor in November, 1888, by the largest majority ever given in Venango county. Judge Tay- lor was unquestionably popular with the mass of voters of Venango county. but certain tem- peramental infirmities. which increased with age, brought him into collision with some

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Venango County, Pennsylvania: Her Pioneers and People (Volume 1), Part 23

Author: Babcock, Charles A. Publication date: 1879 Publisher: Number of Pages:

Author: Babcock, Charles A.
Publication date: 1879
Publisher:
Number of Pages: