USA > Wisconsin > Milwaukee County > Milwaukee > History of Milwaukee from its first settlement to the year 1895 > Part 80
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Since the firm of which Mr. Spence is a mem- ber has been identified with the Milwaukee bar it has had a constantly increasing business of this character and the result has been a large exten- sion of its court practice. To this branch of the business, therefore, Mr. Spence has been called upon in later years to give the larger share of his time and attention, and in this as in other fields of practice he has met with gratifying success. Active, vigilant, tactful and resourceful in the conduct of litigation, as well as thoroughly systematic and business-like in giving attention to all the details of professional business, he has attained a promi- nent position among the members of the Milwau- kee bar and is well-known to members of the bar throughout the state.
While residing at Fond du Lac he served as a member of the general assembly from 1877 to 1879 and was postmaster of Fond du Lac from 1879 to 1884. He has, however, had little fond-
ness for either the honors or emoluments of office, although he has participated actively in almost every important political campaign since he be- came a resident of Wisconsin. Firmly believing in the principles and policies of the Republican party, he has sought to advance its interests when- ever opportunity offered, and has been prominent in the councils and conventions of his party on num- erous occasions. In 1884 he presided over the Re- publican state convention as chairman and has held other honorary positions of a similar char- acter.
In 1874 he was married to Miss Maria Cornelia Tallmadge, a lady of many social and domestic graces and a descendant of distinguished revolu- tionary ancestors. One of her great grandfathers was Col. Benjamin Tallmadge, who commanded a Connecticut regiment during the War of the Revo- lution, served for a time.on Gen. Washington's staff, was a participant in the battles of Brandy- wine, Germantown, Monmouth and Valley Forge and military custodian of Maj. John Andre, prior to his execution. When Andre was executed Col. Tallmadge walked with him to the scaffold and gave him the farewell to which a brave man. meeting death in accordance with the usages of war, was entitled. The great-great grandfather of Mrs. Spence was William Floyd of New York, one of the signers of the Declaration of Inde- pendence, a delegate to the Philadelphia Congress in 1774 and a delegate also to the First Conti- nental Congress and a member of that body con- tinuously until 1782.
SAMUEL HOWARD, a pioneer member of the Milwaukee bar, and one of the few members of the old bar who are still in active practice, came West with his parents as a child, and has spent almost his entire life in Wisconsin, He has resided in Milwaukee since 1846, and bas prac- ticed his profession here since 1866.
Mr. Howard was graduated from the University of Michigan in the class of 1862 at the end of a full classical course. He soon after entered the military service during the War of the Rebellion, and served six months as an aide on the staff of Gen. John C. Starkweather. He read law with Jedd P. C. Cottrill and Hon. A. R .. R. Butler, dis- tinguished representatives of the early bar of Mil- wankee, and was admitted to practice in 1866. For a dozen years or more he was engaged in general practice, and then turned his attention
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mainly to that branch of practice which consists of probate, trust, real estate and commercial busi- ness. He was assistant district attorney under Mr. Cottrill, and for some years was engaged to a considerable extent in criminal practice, but with- drew from it as soon as he found himself able to do so.
As a young man Mr. Howard had to struggle with and overcome numerous difficulties to obtain an education and establish himself in professional life. He learned the printer's trade and worked at the case to earn the means which enabled him to take a collegiate course. He had a short experi- ence also in journalism, having been at one time city editor of the Milwaukee Sentinel. As a member of the bar he progressed steadily toward prominence and prosperity as a practitioner, and has realized a large measure of success. He is now president and counsel of the Milwaukee Title Guaranty Company and the Milwaukee Abstract Association, the first company having been organ- ized with a capital of two hundred thousand dollars with Mr. Iloward as the principal stock- holder.
DANIEL H. JOHNSON, Circuit Judge of Milwaukee county, was born near Kingston, Ontario, July 21, 1825, and spent the years of his boy-hood in the Dominion. His early education was obtained in the schools of Kingston, and after coming to the United States he attended Rock River Seminary at Mt. Morris, Ill., one year. From 1842 until 1849 he engaged in teaching school and in the meantime read law.
At Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin, he was ad- mitted to the bar, in the Circuit Court of Craw- ford county, and began his practice in that county. For two or three years, while he was residing at Prairie du Chien he published the Prairie du Chien Courier, but with the exception of the time devoted to editorial work he practiced law continuously in Crawford county, until 1861. He was a member of the lower branch of the State legislature in 1861, representing the Coun- ties of Crawford, and Bad Axe-now Vernon county-and served as assistant attorney-general of the State during 1861 and a portion of 1862. In the summer of the year of 1862, he went south and was engaged for some months as a clerk in the pay-master's department of the United States army. Returning to Wisconsin in the fall of that year, he came to Milwaukee and
turned his attention again to the practice of law. In 1869 and in 1870 he represented the seventh ward of this city in the assembly of Wisconsin. From 1878 to 1880 he was city attorney, and in 1887 was elected Circuit Judge. He was re- elected to that office in 1893, and is now serving his second term upon the bench, which he has graced by his wise administration of justice and his efficient conduct of the business of the cont.
An able lawyer, Judge Johnson is also a man of decided literary taste and talent, having contribu- ted articles to the leading magazines, and being the author also of a work of fiction published some years since.
JOHN E. MANN, judge of the County Court of Milwaukee since 1874, was born in Schoharie county, New York, March 4, 1821. In 1840 he entered the Sophomore class in Williams College, but left that institution after remaining there two terms, to enter Union College at Schnectady New York. He was graduated from Union College in 1843, and read law in the office of Jacob Houck, Jr., being admitted to the bar at Utica, New York, at the general term of the Supreme Court in 1847.
He began the practice in Schoharie county, and continued his professional labors there seven years. In the summer of 1854 he came to Wis- consin and located at West Bend, the county seat of Washington county. He formed there a partnership with L. F. Frisby (a lawyer well known to the Milwaukee bar) which continued until 1859, when he was elected judge of the third circuit to fill a vacancy created by the resignation of C. H. Larrabee. In April following he was elected to the circuit judgeship for a full term of six years, and served in that capacity until Jan- uary of 1867, when he removed to Milwaukee.
When Judge Mann became connected with the bar of this city, he formed a partnership with A. F. W. Cotzhausen, which continued until Feb- ruary of 1874. At that time he entered upon his duties as county judge. to which office he had been appointed by Gov. Taylor, to fill the vacancy occasioned by the resignation of Judge Henry L. Palmer. Ile was subsequently made Judge of the County Court by election, and by successive re- elections has ever since continued to hold the office. The fact that he has now served the people of Milwaukee in this judicial capacity for
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more than twenty years, is evidence of his fitness for the place.
Judge Mann was married in 1845 to Katherine Dietz who was a grand-daughter of William Dietz, a close political friend of Martin Van Buren, and at one time a member of the congressional dele- gation from New York state.
BENJAMIN KURTZ MILLER was, for nearly thirty years, junior member of the firm of Finehes, Lynde & Miller, and as the surviving member of that firm, having succeeded to the business which they established, he is now at the head of one of the oldest law firms in the United States, although new names have taken the places of some of the old ones.
A son of Judge Andrew G. Miller, Mr. Miller was born in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, May 6, 1830. Coming with his parents to the territory of Wisconsin in the spring of 1839, he grew up in and with the city of Milwaukee. He received his early education in the schools of this city, and was then sent back to Pennsylvania, where he com- pleted his studies in Washington College, in 1848. Returning to Milwaukee, he read law under the preceptorship of his father, and in 1851 was ad- mitted to the bar. In 1857 he became a member of the firm of Finches, Lynde & Miller, which had built up a practice hardly equalled in volume by that of any other law firm then in existence in the state.
Entering this firm in the prime of his young manhood, Mr. Miller began his professional labors in a field for which he was admirably fitted. For many years the senior members of the firm had been widely known, not only as able trial lawyers, but as safe and conservative counselors, eminently trustworthy as the agents and representatives of non-resident clients. Having to give to the busi- ness of these clients a large share of his attention, Mr. Miller soon demonstrated that he had a gen- ius for that branch of the practice which deals with the care and conservation of estates, the management of trust funds, and the guardian- ship of the corporate and other interests of investors. Prior to that time Eastern capitalists had made extensive investments in the North west, and it fell to the young lawyer to disentangle and adjust many complications resulting from the financial panic of 1857. These affairs were handled in a way which added greatly to the prestige of the firm, and it detracts nothing from
the renown of the older members, to say that this result was largely due to the superior tact, good judgment and business ability of Mr. Miller. Matters entrusted to his care were disposed of in the most business like way, and with the develop- ment of the city of Milwaukee and its tributary country, a vast increase of business came to the firm of which he was a member. Corporate enter- prises of large magnitude coming into existence in this state sought his services as counselor and adviser, and to this branch of the practice he has given the larger share of his attention in later years. In this field he has achieved a greater measure of success perhaps, and greater celebrity as well, than any of his predecessors or contem- poraries of the Milwaukee bar. With organizing capacity and executive ability of the highest order, his familiarity with the laws governing the formation and management of incorporated com- panies, has brought him into intimate relationship with a large number of home and foreign corpor- ations. With the Wisconsin Telephone Company, the Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Com- pany, the First National Bank, the Milwaukee Gas Light Company and many other corporations he has long been identified both as an official and as legal adviser and comparatively few Western lawyers have represented financial and property interests of such vast magnitude.
The old firm of Finches, Lynde & Miller was broken up some years since when Asahel Finch, William Pitt Lynde and II. M. Finch died, and in 1885 Benjamin K. Miller, Jr., and George P. Miller, sons of Mr. Miller were admitted to part- nership with him. In 1890 ex-Judge George H. Noyes became a member of the firm which sinee that time has been Miller, Noves & Miller.
In 1865 Mr. Miller married Miss Isabella Peck- ham of New York, and after her death, he married, in 1869, Miss Annie MeLean Smith.
EMIL WALLBER, who although still compar- atively a young man, has long been a member of the Milwaukee county judiciary, was born in Berlin, Prussia, April 1, 1841, the son of Julius and Hen- rietta ( Krohn) Wallber. both of whom were natives of Berlin and lived there up to the time of their immigration to the United States in 1850. The ancestors of Judge Wallber were cultivated and refined people, whose prestige had been main- tained from time immemorial, they belonging to that class whose co-operation was of use to the
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government and to whom the rights of primogen- and has evidenced his fitness for the exercise of iture were allowed in consequence thereof.
Upon their arrival in this country the elder Wallber and his wife settled in New York city, where their two eldest sons attended the public schools. Judge Wallber attended there as a youth also the free academy, and shaped his studies to fit himself for the profession of law, which he had determined to adopt. In 1855 he came to Milwaukee and soon afterward began the study of law with Gov. Edward Salomon and Winfield Smith, then practicing in partnership, and both distinguished lawyers. When Mr. Salomon was elected lieutenant-governor of Wisconsin and snc- ceeded to the governorship upon the death of Gov. Harvey, Judge Wallber became chief clerk in the governor's office, serving in that capacity to the end of Mr. Salomon's term. He was admitted to the bar in 1864, and the same year was appointed assistant attorney-general by Mr Smith.
After serving as assistant attorney-general two years, he returned to Milwaukee and engaged in private practice impressing himself upon both the bar and the general public in a short time, as a capable and trustworthy lawyer. In 1873 he was elected city attorney of Milwaukee and by suc- cessive re-elections was kept in that office until 187S, when he declined a re-nomination.
In 1884 he was elected mayor of Milwaukee, and re-elected in 1886, serving in all four years as head of the city government. While filling the offices to which reference has been made, he had also served in other official capacities, having been a school commissioner from 1870 to 1873, and president of the board from 1871-3. He was also a member of the legislature in 1872, court com- missioner for ten years, and from 1883 to 1890 was a member of the Board of Regents of the Wisconsin State Normal Schools.
In 1889 judicial honors were conferred upon him, he being elected at that time, Judge of the Municipal Court of Milwaukee, a position which he has ever since held, and to which he was re- elected in 1895 for a full term. As a lawyer he was faithful to the interests of his clients, and able in the conduct of litigation. As a public of- ficial he has been popular with the people, honest and efficient in all the numerous positions in which he was placed. As a jurist, he has discharged with equal fidelity the duties incumbent upon him
judicial functions.
In social and fraternal circles, Judge Wallber has for many years been a conspicuous figure. He is a member of Aurora lodge No. 30, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons and of the order of Sons of Hermann. He has been most promi- nently identified with the "Turnverein Milwau- kee," and is a member of the Milwaukee Musical Society, Kindergarten Verein and other local German societies.
JOHN C. LUDWIG, who became a judge of the Superior Court of Milwaukee, in 1892, and has since filled that position, has been a member of the Milwaukee bar since 1875. He was born in this city December 1, 1850, and is one of the youngest members of the bar who has been called by the people to the exercise of judicial functions.
Judge Ludwig was carefully educated in the private schools of Milwaukee, and after thor- oughly fitting himself for professional life, began the study of law with Judge John E. Mann and A. F. W. Cotzhausen, who were then practicing in partnership. He was admitted to the bar in March of 1875, and at once engaged in active practice. He soon became recognized as a coun- selor and trial lawyer of ability, and while giving close attention to his professional duties, he in- terested himself actively also in the conduct of public affairs. He held the office of school com- missioner in 1878-9, and gave special attention to promoting and advancing the educational inter- ests of the city.
In 1892 Judge Frank L. Gilson, who had dis- charged the duties of the superior judgeship with marked ability for a period of two years, died suddenly and the appointment of a successor to him became necessary. Governor Peck appointed Mr. Ludwig to the vacant judgeship, and so satis- factorily to the bar and to the general public did he discharge its duties, that in 1893 he was elected for a full term. He entered upon this terni of service January 1, 1894, and is esteemed as an able, conscientious, and fair-minded jurist.
ROBERT N. AUSTIN, at this date (1895), a judge of the Superior Court of Milwaukee county, was admitted to practice in 1847, in his native state, came to Milwaukee in 1848 and has ever since been actively engaged in professional work.
IIe was born at Carlisle, Schoharie county, New York, August 19, 1822, and belongs to a family
Viuly youre
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whose history is of unusual interest. The name was brought to America by two brothers, who arrived in New England not many years after the landing of the Mayflower, one of the brothers set- tling in Boston, Massachusetts, and the other in New Haven, Connecticut. From Samuel Austin, one of the colonists of New Haven, is descended Judge R. N. Austin, whose grandfather, a soldier of the Revolutionary War, removed from Con- necticut to New York and settled in West Chester county. The father of Judge Austin was Rev. James Nelson Austin, a Presbyterian clergy man, and his mother's name before her marriage was Mary Beach.
In early infancy he was left a half orphan by the death of his father, and when he was five years of age, his mother's straitened circumstances made it necessary for him to seek a home with friends better able than she to care for him.
Fond of books and study, he managed, in spite of many difficulties, to obtain the rudiments of an education, and when he was sixteen years old began teaching in the country schools. Whether or not he at that time cherished an ambition to become a lawyer, is unknown to the writer, but that he was ambitious as a sudent and had a thirst for broader knowledge is certain. Although scores of obstacles lay in his pathway he determined to obtain a collegiate education and by dint of extra- ordinary effort accomplished his purpose, being graduated from Union College of Schenectady, New York, in 1845.
After leaving college he taught school for a time, taking charge of an academy in Cherry Valley, Otsego county, New York. At that time he was inclined to the study of theology, but a long and serious illness left him without means to pursue the contemplated course of study, and ma- terially changed his plans. Entering the law office of Hon. Jabez D. Hammond of Cherry Val- ley, he completed the study of law and was admitted to the bar in 1847.
Remaining in Cherry Valley only until May of 1848, Judge Austin left there at that time to come to Milwaukee, and his active professional career may be said to have begun in this city. Engaging in general practice he was identified for nearly forty years with a large proportion of the important litigation which has occupied the attention of the courts of this county, and with many notable cases in other courts of the state, in the Supreme
Court and federal courts. As a criminal lawyer he acquired great celebrity during the years of his active practice, and cannot be said to have been overmatched by any of the brilliant and able advo- cates from different portions of the state and from other states as well, against whom he has been pitted from time to time in the trial of causes.
Devoted to his profession and averse to any- thing which would divert his attention from his chosen calling, he allowed himself to hold no office other than that of court commissioner until 1890, when, against his protest, he was elected City Attorney of Milwaukee. Before his term of office as city attorney expired he was elected Judge of the Superior Court, and has since dem- onstrated his eminent fitness for the exercise of judicial functions and the discharge of judicial duties.
FRANK L. GILSON, who died in 1892 while serving as judge of the Superior Court of Milwau- kee, was born in Middlefield, Ohio, October 22, 1846. He was educated at Hiram and Oberlin colleges, and after leaving college came to Wis- consin in 1870. He soon afterward became a student in the law office of Messrs. Frisby & Weil at West Bend, Wisconsin, Judge Frisby, of that firm, being his uncle. In 1872 he was admitted to the bar and began the practice of his profession in Ellsworth, Pierce county. In a comparatively short time he built up a good practice, and in 1874 was elected district attorney of Pierce county. By successive re-elections he was retained in that office until 1880, and while establishing himself at the bar became prominent also in political cir- cles. He excelled as a campaign speaker, and participated actively in local, state and national campaigns. He was a delegate to the Republican National Convention held in Chicago in 1880, and the same year was elected to membership in the lower branch of the Wisconsin legislature. When the House of Representatives convened in January of 1881, he was elected speaker of that body, and presided over its deliberations in such a manner as to win the commendation of its meinbers.
In 1882 he removed to Milwaukee and soon be- came prominently identified with the bar of this city, forming a partnership with his uncle, Judge Frisby, under the firm name of Frisby & Gilson. He became a successful practitioner, being associ- ated later in a professional capacity with Eugene
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S. Elliott. Upon the resignation of Judge George H. Noyes from the circuit bench in 1890, Mr. Gilson was appointed to the vacant judgeship by Governor Hoard. At the time he entered upon the discharge of his duties, Judge Gilson was the youngest man on the bench in Wisconsin with a single exception, and was one of the youngest upon whom judicial honors have been conferred in the history of the state.
Notwithstanding the fact that he was a young man, he soon evinced, not only his thorough appreciation of the dignity and responsibility of his office, but his thorough fitness for the position to which he had been assigned. His active par- ticipation in politics at once ceased and he devoted himself zealously to the discharge of his judicial duties, bringing to bear upon his work a vigorous intellect, great energy and a capacity for sys- tematic and continuons effort. He was courteous, absolutely impartial, frank in his manners, care- ful and conscientious in rendering his judgments, and soon became an exceedingly popular member of the local judiciary. IIis death, which occurred June 14, 1892, robbed the bench of Milwaukee county of one who was destined to become a jurist of signal ability and an ornament to his profes- sion.
Personally Judge Gilson was not less beloved by his friends and acquaintances than esteemed by members of the bar and the general public. He was genial, kindly, warm-hearted and pos- sessed of many admirable traits of character. He had a broad knowledge of English literature, a mind richly stored with choice selections from book lore, was always an attractive conversation- alist, and under all circumstances a most agreeable and companionable man.
DEWITT DAVIS, who was for many years an active member of the bar, and who is still a much esteemed citizen of Milwaukee, came here origin- ally in 1857 to accept a position in the public schools of the city, but with a well defined pur- pose to engage in the practice of the law later on. He was a well educated, well balanced young man, who came of rather notable New England ancestry, and who had received in early life that careful industrial and economic training which has always been a prominent feature of the social sys- tem in rural New England.
Ilis ancestors on the paternal side were of Welsh origin, but family records fail to disclose
the exact date at which the family tree took root in this country. The earliest record obtainable shows that John Davis was born in Derby, Con- necticut, about 1650, and it is probable, therefore, that the immigrant ancestor of the family was among the earliest colonists of New England. Descendants of this John Davis were Capt. Joseph Davis and Col. John Davis, whose names figure in Revolutionary annals, Col. Davis having com- manded for a considerable time the Second Regi- ment of Connecticut militia. Joseph W. Davis, a descendant five generations removed of John Davis, of Derby, married Henrietta Newton, and Dewitt Davis is one of the children born of this union.
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