USA > Wisconsin > History of the bench and bar of Wisconsin, Vol. I > Part 39
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life those old-fashioned traits of honor and decorum which unhappily in present professional life seem to have lost some of their potency. In private life he is the kindly, courteous, considerate Christian gentle- man, commanding the respect, the esteem and the love of his ac- quaintances. JAS. G. JENKINS.
JEDD P. C. COTTRILL.
Jedd Philo Clarke Cottrill was born in Montpelier, Vermont, April 15, 1832. He received an academic and collegiate education, having graduated from the University of Vermont in 1852. For a time he was teacher in the common schools and an academy of his native state. His preparatory legal education was received in the office of Peck & Colby, a distinguished firm of practitioners doing business in the town of his birth. In 1854 he was admitted to the bar, and in No- vember, 1855, removed to Milwaukee and entered the then firm of Butler & Buttrick, his name appearing as the junior member; later the firm became Butler & Cottrill, and later yet a new firm was organized as Cottrill & Cary, A. L. Cary being the second named. This firm was subsequently changed to Cottrill, Cary & Hanson, Burton Han- son being the new member. After the dissolution of this firm Mr. Cot- trill formed a partnership with Vincent H. Faben.
In 1865-66 Mr. Cottrill was district attorney of Milwaukee county. During the years 1867 to 1870 he resided in New York. In 1875 he was appointed by the justices of the supreme court a member of the commission to revise the statutes. "In the revision of the statutes, besides compiling several chapters, his great work was the annotation of the decisions of the supreme court to the section construed. Bench and bar have yet failed to discover an error in this work by him per- formed."* In 1882 Mr. Cottrill was elected to the state senate as a democrat and served in the sessions of 1883 and 1885. . At this period his health had begun to fail and his services to the state were less valu- able than they would otherwise have been. His illness was prolonged and terminated February 8, 1889. On the following day the Milwau-
*E. E. Chapin, Esq., in his address to the United States circuit court.
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kee bar association met to take action on his death, and Messrs. J. W. Cary, Samuel Howard, Francis Bloodgood, Sr., A. R. R. Butler and B. K. Miller were designated a committee to report resolutions of re- spect. After reciting some facts concerning Mr. Cottrill, the tribute adopted by the association expressed that he had been regarded as a prominent and leading member of the Milwaukee bar. "He has been engaged in a great part of the important litigation in this state for the last thirty-four years; of a strong mind and bright intellect, thoroughly grounded in the principles of the law and possessed of a ready and forcible manner of expressing his ideas, he was no mean opponent of the oldest and ablest members of the pro- fession. His close, discriminating mind enabled him to see the weak points of his adversary, and he was not slow in taking advantage of them. Of a cheerful and social turn and a mind well stored with in- formation, he was an agreeable and entertaining companion as well as an able lawyer. Of an affectionate and kindly nature and popular man- ners, he was esteemed a general favorite among his acquaintances."
This memorial was presented to the supreme court by Samuel Howard; to the United States circuit court by Emmons E. Chapin ; to the Milwaukee circuit court by Burton Hanson, and to the Milwaukee superior court by George E. Sutherland. Mr. Chapin said in part: "Not often are we called to mourn the loss of one so remarkably gifted and generally beloved; one who illustrated and adorned his profession by ripe scholarship and legal learning; one who occupied a large place in the public confidence; one whose future promised still greater honor to himself and greater usefulness to the commonwealth when stricken by paralysis a few short years ago.
"Nature had done much for Brother Cottrill; she had endowed him plentifully with brotherly love, truth, charity, justice and mercy. She had given him 'at the outset abundantly of human love and human sympathy, aye, she had given him a human heart. These natural qualities were adorned by a liberal, polished education. With such a foundation he was well qualified for the profession which he so loved and honored.
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"He lived in and by the practice of the law. He was no speculator. He supported himself and his family while he was mentally and phys- ically strong in a most honorable practice of the law. He was honest, well-willed, constant and sincere in all his works.
"What he once said of a brother lawyer I may now say of him: 'While he was firm and uncompromising, especially against any proof or suspicion of wrong, and while he held to the rights of his client and what he believed to be the right of the case with unyielding tenacity, his manner was never offensive. His practice of the law was honorable to him and to the profession. He advised away from rather than towards litigation. He recommended friendly compromise and amicable adjustment rather than suits or controversy. He saw but the interests of his client, and in so doing was blind to every personal and selfish consideration. His personal life was the counterpart and reproduction of his professional life. He could not be different as a man from what he was as a lawyer.' "
Samuel Howard, Esq., addressed the court orally upon Mr. Cot- trill's life work. In response to their addresses Judge James G. Jenkins said: "The court has received with sensibility the formal announce- ment of the death of one who for more than a quarter of a century stood among the foremost in the ranks of a bar that is honored to count among its members a Ryan, an Arnold, a Lynde. It is well when such a one has passed into the great unknown that those who in life were his professional associates should take action upon his death and make permanent record of his work and character.
"So far as relates to his professional life the court cordially concurs with all that you, Mr. Chapin, and you, Mr. Howard, have so well and . so feelingly said of Mr. Cottrill. There was perhaps no other member of the bar capable to sustain the continued labor in which Mr. Cottrill indulged. Indeed, work seemed for him a normal condition of life, and recreation was looked upon by him with regret as a consumption of time that should be devoted to labor. He was rapid and accurate in his work, disposing of a volume of business with an ease and rapidity that was astonishing. He had none of the graces of oratory; none of that
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suaviter in modo that wins through popularity, appealing to sentiment, but he was possessed of that fortiter in re that compels conviction in unwilling minds. He relied for success upon the probative force of his facts and upon a correct apprehension of the law; not upon appeals to passion or prejudice. He was always strong, because he first con- vinced himself of the justice of the cause committed to his keeping .. He was diligent to ascertain and careful logically to array and present his facts, and he pressed them home upon the mind with all the strength of an earnest, positive nature convinced of their truth. And therein consisted the secret of his success as an advocate. Grace of manner and beauty of diction may charm the fancy; but facts and their forcible presentation by one persuaded in his own mind can alone com- pel conviction. No counsel can succeed who doubts the justice of his cause. To convince others, one must be first himself convinced.
"Mr. Cottrill's conception of the duty owing by counsel to client was of the highest type. He stood for his client against the world without thought of personal gain or loss. He would yield nothing that he deemed essential to the interests of his client. He was steadfast to his duty, uncompromising and unyielding. At the same time he recog- nized the duty of opposing counsel to be equally immovable. Innately and thoroughly honest, he abhorred fraud and wrong and prosecuted them with relentless vigor. He was devoted to his profession. He conceived it to be the highest of all the learned professions, because 'charged with the earthly administration of the justice of God.' He was jealous of its good name and fame, and was not tolerant to any act of its members that tended to disgrace an honorable calling. His research and presentation of the law was painstaking, thorough, discriminating, greatly aiding the court in the consideration and solution of the question presented. He was not always right, for infallibility is not an attribute of counsel or of courts. But he always thought he was right and tenaciously held to an opinion once deliberately formed. He seldom recognized the correctness of an adverse judgment. He could not. He submitted, but was not convinced.
"In all professional labor he was careful, thorough, discriminating,
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able, persistent. In professional conduct he was upright and honor- able. Through a long period of years he was faithful to his high calling; faithful to the duty it enjoined; faithful to its trusts.
"He was also a kind-hearted, generous man. Grief or pain or want would touch him to the quick. Seldom is it that one finds such qual- ities so centered in one man. Almost dogmatic in opinion, unflagging in energy, unrelenting in purpose, unyielding in duty, merciless toward wrong, he had the heart of a child, responding to every touch of human suffering or human want. His friendships were not many, but were strong and stable. His devotion to and pride in his native state were phenomenal. His love for the place of his birth and the scenes and companions of his youth knew no weakening or abatement from sepa- ration. To the last the green hills of Vermont were to him an in- spiring memory. His affections-as his purpose-were deep, strong and abiding."
On April 25th, 1889, Mr. Howard presented the memorial of the Milwaukee bar to the supreme court, and delivered a carefully prepared and admirable address, from which the following extracts are made. Referring to the facts that a few years after Mr. Cottrill came to Wis- consin the code of procedure was adopted, and that old lawyers looked with suspicion and distrust upon the radical innovation thereby made in the practice, he said that the subject of this sketch "grasped the spirit of the system at once. With the vigor of the earnest student he mastered it. He became the leading code lawyer, without a rival and without a peer. For years he was engaged in three-fourths of the im- portant litigation of our city. Not alone the code, he was master of the comomn law, both civil and criminal. His training had been such and his brain so active that he seemed to subdue with ease every sub- ject he examined. His memory was a marvel. Not so much a memory of words as of acts and ideas. In this he was very much like Hor- tensius, the polished lawyer in the latter days of the Roman republic. If I should be asked if I could name a man who could have written the story of the ten thousand Greeks, after the march, with all its details and philosophical reflections, from the start with Cyrus, the death of
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Clearchus, the plains, the villages, the rapid rivers, the vision, the moun- tain of snow, until the whole army was electrified by the shout of the sea! the sea! I should say Mr. Cottrill could have done it. He was a rapid and skillful worker. His mind kept even pace with the motion of his pen and in unison with it. When absorbed in drawing a difficult pleading he rarely consulted statute or authority. He would write page upon page of difficult work without a single erasure or inter- lineation. While a student in his office I have seen him draw pleadings as rapidly as .I could copy them.
"Above all things, Mr. Cottrill was a lawyer born, not made. He was a lawyer in the strict definition of the word. He was a philo- sophical lawyer, one who searches for the origin of legal principles. He was a student of jurisprudence, of philosophy, history, science. poetry, music and the arts. He could draw from the very source of learning when the occasion needed it to fortify his cause. He might be likened unto Sulpicius, who reduced the principles of law to a science. With Mr. Cottrill, the lawyer was above the advocate. It could be said of him that he was more of a lawyer than an advocate. He was at his best before the court. His manner was earnest and his language chaste and always at command. And when the subject demanded it, he might be called in his argument an eloquent civilian, a term so fondly used by Cicero. He was too good a lawyer to be placed with the advocate. The business of the advocate is to impress by his voice and manner and style and delivery; of the lawyer, to convince by the power of reason."
Mr. Justice Taylor responded to the memorial and address. He said in part: "As a member of the bar of this court Mr. Cottrill stood deservedly high. When he first began his practice in this court he had to contend with those able, clear-headed and vigorous-minded men who composed the pioneer members of the legal profession in this state, whose love of justice and right aided this court in laying the founda- tion of the judicial system of the state upon correct and sound principles of law and justice; he also had to contend with those men, coming later, who brought to the bar of this state more learning and the culture of
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the schools, with perhaps an equal amount of mental vigor and more persistent labor.
"Mr. Cottrill had, as a lawyer, one characteristic which entitled him to great credit. He was always strictly loyal to his client's cause. When he took the cause of his client he took it without a doubt in his own mind as to its justice.
"While this spirit of loyalty kept him firm in the belief of the right- fulness of his client's cause it did not render him blind to the position of the opposite counsel or lead him to treat with contempt his argu- ments or his cause. Having faith in the justice of the cause he advo- cated, his principal effort was to aid the court in getting a clear con- ception of his client's side of the controverted questions, without spending much time in combating the positions taken by his adversary. He was content to present one side of the case, and that side was always the side of his client.
"I had the good fortune to be associated with Mr. Cottrill for over two years in the work of the revision of the statutes of this state, and during that time had an opportunity to learn some of the mental characteristics of the deceased. He always exhibited a clear concep- tion of the nature of his work, and he clearly apprehended the relations of the separate parts of the statutes to the statutes as a whole. This readiness on his part to comprehend the relation of things was a very great aid in giving consistency and unity to the revision.
"Although nature had endowed him with mental tendencies which impelled him to the investigation of many subjects, especially those which relate to government and social relations, he was always able to control this tendency toward diversified labor, and concentrate his ener- gies upon that which for the time being demanded his particular atten- tion. During my association with him I learned that the deceased was a conscientious man, that he aimed to do right, and that if he at times erred, his errors were errors of judgment and not of the heart."
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WILLIAM PITT LYNDE.
From 1841 until 1885 William Pitt Lynde was an honored member of the Wisconsin bar; during much the greater portion of that time he was recognized as a lawyer of great learning and ability and during the whole period as a man of the highest character.
Mr. Lynde was born at Sherburne, New York, December 16, 1817. His parents were natives of Massachusetts and removed to Sherburne in 1800. The father was engaged in mercantile pursuits. Mr. Lynde's preparatory education was obtained at Hamilton academy and Court- land academy in his native state. He was a student at Hamilton col- lege two terms, entering there in 1834; entering the sophomore class of Yale college, he completed his course and graduated with the highest honors of his class in 1848. He is said to have excelled as a student in the ancient languages and to have been especially proficient in Greek. Soon after graduation he entered the law department of the University of New York and had for instructors Benjamin F. Butler, David Graham and Chancellor Kent. He finished his legal education at Harvard, under the instruction of Story and Greenleaf, and was graduated in 1841. In the same year he was admitted to the New York bar and in the fall started for and arrived at Milwaukee. In 1842 he formed a partnership with Asahel Finch, Jr., which continued until 1857, when H. M. Finch and B. K. Miller, Jr., became members; as thus constituted the firm continued until Mr. Lynde's death. The date of his admission to the bar of the supreme court of Wisconsin was July 17, 1843.
During the almost half century of Mr. Lynde's residence in Milwau- kee he was highly honored by his fellow-citizens and the officers of the government. He served as president of the village; was attorney gen- eral of the territory in 1844, and United States district attorney from 1845 till the admission of the state, resigning the former office to ac- cept the latter. In 1848 he was elected a member of Congress and served until March, 1849; in 1850 he was mayor of Milwaukee; in 1859
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he was the democratic candidate for associate justice of the supreme court, but was defeated by Byron Paine, the vote being 40,500 against 38,355; he served in the popular house of the legislature in 1866; in the state senate in 1869 and 1870; was elected to Congress in 1874 and again in 1876, and served therein as a member of the judiciary committee and as one of the managers of the Belknap impeachment trial. The memorial of the Milwaukee bar, prepared by Messrs. J. W. Cary, E. Mariner, F. W. Cotzhausen, E. E. Chapin and Jas. G. Flanders, says of Mr. Lynde's official life that he "was an able and leading mem- ber" of the Congresses to which he was chosen "and acquitted himself with great credit in the debates on the important matters considered by them, and was highly esteemed by his fellow-members and the coun- try generally as an able and safe legislator. His course as assembly- man and senator for the state of Wisconsin was always dignified and honorable and his action in the right direction. His administration of the affairs of the city, as mayor, was able, clean and without any stain of dishonesty or jobbery; and his discharge of the duties of attorney gen- eral and district attorney of the United States was able and skillful and tended greatly to enhance his professional reputation and standing."
Mr. Lynde's health was almost uniformly good until within a few months of his death, which occurred at his home in Milwaukee, Decem- ber 18, 1885. The memorial referred to continues: "Although the of- fices held by our deceased brother were numerous, important, and highly honorable, and their duties were discharged by him with honesty and ability, yet it was as a lawyer and member of our profession that his greatest success was attained, his greatest triumphs won, and his most enduring reputation secured. It was in his profession that he felt the greatest pride and to it were given his best study and effort. No other member of our association can boast of a professional life in Mil- waukee of over forty-four years' continuous practice, and very few of our profession are ever permitted to spend that number of years in the active practice of law. The extent and importance of the business entrusted to his firm, during the many years of its continuance, justly entitled it to be considered the leading law firm of the city and state,
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as it in fact was. His law office and law firm were not only the oldest in the city, but the oldest and most extensively known in the state. His learning and ability, in connection with his associates, has estab- lished a reputation and business for his firm of great value and a rich inheritance for his successors. Few, if any, lawyers in the state were as well read as Mr. Lynde. He had a thorough knowledge of the juris- prudence of the country, was conversant with the text books and re- ports, and well equipped in all branches of the law. He was not only well posted in his profession, but was a thorough scholar on general subjects, and to a considerable extent kept up his classical studies. Some twenty-five years ago Mr. Lynde was in the habit of daily spend- ing some portion of his time in reading Greek from the original, in which exercise he took great pleasure, and was frequently found en- gaged in it at his office. He took a lively interest in all charitable enterprises and organizations for the benefit of the human family. In all social relations of life he was affable, kind and courteous to all and was universally esteemed and respected. Mr. Lynde belonged to the Presbyterian church, of which he was a faithful and consistent member, supporter and attendant during all his life in Milwaukee .* One of his first acts on reaching the city was a subscription to a fund for the pur- chase of the original site of the First Presbyterian church, and at the time of his death and for many years previous he was one of the ruling elders. He was catholic and liberal in his religious views, and popular with other denominations.
"Our brother, who for so many years presided over this organiza- tion, has left us; his labors are ended, and he has gone to his reward;
*A writer in the Magazine of Western History says that Mr. Lynde was an ear- nest, active churchman because he was a sincere believer. He had subjected the Scriptures to a searching analysis, and weighed the evidence bearing on their in- tegrity and veracity in the serene altitudes of his judicial mind, and had not found them wanting. An impromptu utterance of his has fortunately been preserved which illustrates the stability of his convictions on the subject. A question of skeptical import arose in the family circle one day, and when it was the opportune time for him to speak he said: "Judged by all the rules of evidence, there is no fact in history nor any truth in philosophy more clearly demonstrated than is the divine verity of the life and teachings of Christ."
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but he has left us the record of his pure and unspotted life, his high character and learning, his uniform kindness and courtesy in all his intercourse with the members of the bar and in all relations of life, and the example of his noble and manly efforts for success in his chosen and loved profession, in which he was so greatly distinguished and suc- cessful."
The memorial of the Milwaukee bar association was presented to the supreme court May 27, 1886, by John W. Cary, who made an ad- dress. S. U. Pinney also addressed the court. On behalf of his as- sociates Mr. Justice Orton said:
"It has been my good fortune and is now one of the most pleasing memories of my life to have known Mr. Lynde since his early youth and to have been intimately acquainted with him in Wisconsin for more than forty years. I may therefore, without undue assumption, speak from actual knowledge of his character and his worth. The courts, the bar, and the people of Milwaukee and of the state at large, and this court and its bar, in his death have met with a great and irreparable loss. As a lawyer and profound jurist, as a statesman and safe coun- selor, as a great thinker and finished scholar, as a gentleman of business and adviser of business men, as a pure, benevolent, generous and high minded citizen, and as a husband, father, friend, neighbor and Christian gentleman he was pre-eminent. These words of praise and commenda- tion are not the mere idle expression of the cold and common charity for the dead, but the sincere and truthful utterances of a long-established and well-grounded common opinion and public sentiment of his true character, uninfluenced by his sad and sudden departure. What might have been unseemly or offensive words of flattery to the living may now well be spoken in his praise, so well merited and deserved. Flattery cannot soothe the dull, cold ear of death, but such a pure and noble ex- ample cannot be too highly commended to the living.
"It is seldom that there has been a human life more useful, finished and complete. He was guilty of no waste of time or neglect of oppor- tunity. From his early manhood, as a pioneer in the early settlement of the state, to the end, his life work has consisted of good deeds and
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