USA > Wisconsin > History of the bench and bar of Wisconsin, Vol. I > Part 40
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faithful public service, well known to our people and needing no special enumeration. He is as well known as the history of the state, of which his life and services formed so large a part. That man has not lived in' vain, but has accomplished all that was possible in human life, who has assisted in laying the foundations, framing the institutions, and deter- mining the destinies of a great state, and by his counsels and labors aided in shaping its policies, enacting and administering its laws, and after holding and honoring many of its highest offices as public trusts and performing faithfully every duty in all of his official, professional and personal relations, has left such a pure and noble example and an unsullied name. From the beginning he attained high rank in his pro- fession, and his practice in the courts, both state and national, has al- ways been large, lucrative and important. His professional as well as his personal character was evenly balanced and symmetrical, and his mental faculties were evenly and equally developed. He had no eccen- tricities of character or conduct, no startling surprises or episodes, no wild flights of fancy or vagaries of the imagination, no theoretical ex- periments or legal adventures. He pursued the even tenor of his way, not on a plane, but upwards, ever advancing towards the true end of his aspirations. His perceptive and reasoning faculties predominated, and with his great learning and clear observation he had well considered opinions and reliable judgment upon all matters of important concern.
"His profound knowledge of the law and studious preparation of his causes, his clearness and ability in argument, and his unbiased and con- scientious perception of legal and moral truth and right, his inflexible and unbending integrity, his kindly and even tender feeling towards others, his urbane and courtly manners and gentlemanly bearing, the high respect and honor in which he cherished our noble profession, and his uniform courtesy and candor towards the courts and his legal asso- ciates were his conspicuous and most admirable characteristics. Mr. Lynde was remarkable for the uniformity of his life. His personal ap- pearance changed but little with his years, and that so gradually as to be scarcely observable, and his age only added to his wisdom and capabilities. His years had been comparatively many, but he was still
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in that unimpaired maturity and ripeness of experience and judgment when his usefulness and abilities were the greatest, and his death the greatest loss. He had suffered affliction and trials and had been puri- fied in the crucible of human experience from all dross and grosser ele- ments of our nature, and his character was like fine gold. He had not survived his activities and capabilities for still greater usefulness, nor yet the hope and prospect of still higher honors. His pathway was a bright and shining one, and all may see and follow it."
JOHN R. SHARPSTEIN.
While resident in Wisconsin Mr. Sharpstein was active and promi- nent, having been district attorney of two counties, state senator, United States district attorney, newspaper editor, postmaster, superintendent of schools and member of assembly. After changing his residence to California he became, first, judge of a district court, and then an as- sociate justice of the supreme court.
John R. Sharpstein was born in Richmond, Ontario county, New York, May 3, 1823. His family settled on a farm about twenty-five miles from Detroit, Michigan, when he was twelve years of age; there he resided until he was admitted to the bar in 1847. His education was obtained in the schools and other institutions of learning in the vicinity of his residence. Immediately after admission he removed to and located in Sheboygan county, Wisconsin. In the spring of 1848 he was appointed district attorney to fill a vacancy caused by the resig- nation of David Taylor. Early in 1849 he took up his residence in Southport, now Kenosha, and opened a law office there. The next year he was elected district attorney ; his stay there was very brief. In 1852 and 1853 he was state senator from Milwaukee. In May, 1853, he was appointed United States district attorney, a position he held until 1857, when he resigned. While occupying that office he was closely con- nected with the important case of Ableman vs. Booth, which ran the gauntlet of the state and United States supreme courts. In 1856 Mr. Sharpstein became the proprietor of the Milwaukee News, the editorial control of which he retained about six years. In 1857 he was appointed
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postmaster of Milwaukee. The senate refused to confirm his nomina- tion, hence his service in that capacity covered but little more than one year. In 1860 he was a delegate to the democratic national conven- tion, and was a firm supporter of Mr. Douglas. In the spring of 1862 he was appointed superintendent of schools in Milwaukee, which office he resigned to take his seat in the popular branch of the legislature in the session of 1863. For about a year after the adjournment of the legislature he was in partnership with H. L. Palmer, of Milwaukee, in the practice of the law. His health became seriously affected by the cli- mate and in 1864 he removed to California and engaged in the practice of the law in San Francisco. In 1874 he was appointed to fill a vacancy in the bench of the twelfth district court, and in 1879 was elected an as- sociate justice of the supreme court. In making the allotment of terms he drew the three-year term, but in 1882 he was re-elected for a term of twelve years. While holding that office he died December 27, 1892, after a brief illness. The proceedings in the supreme court commemo- rative of his life, including the resolutions of the Milwaukee bar asso- ciation adopted just prior to his removal from Wisconsin, are pub- lished in vol. 96, California reports, page 675.
BENJAMIN KURTZ MILLER.
BY W. W. WIGHT. .
Andrew Galbraith Miller removed with his family from Gettysburg, in his much honored native state of Pennsylvania, to the village of Mil- waukee, in May, 1839. On November 8, 1838, President Martin Van Buren had appointed Mr. Miller an associate justice of the supreme court of the territory of Wisconsin,* and his removal hither, undertaken in the following spring, was in consequence of this appointment.
In the decades before railways it was a journey of more than twenty days from the capital of the Keystone state to the new home which the Millers were seeking in Wisconsin. A lad of eight years, a son of Judge Miller, just mentioned, and of Caroline E. (Kurtz) Miller, his wife, Ben-
*Wisconsin Historical Collections, VII, 463: 1 Pinney's Reports, 36, 50.
B. K. willen
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jamin Kurtz by name, participated in this long itinerary, enjoyed its novelties and braved its hardships. This son was born in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, May 6, 1830, and received the name of his maternal grandfather, Benjamin Kurtz. The father of this last came to America from Germany as a missionary to that stalwart Lutheran emigration from the Palatinate, which peopled the fairest valleys of the American Atlantic waterways at the expense of the valleys of the Rhine and of the Neckar.t
When the Millers arrived in Milwaukee, May 10, 1839, the village, excluding the west side of Kilbourntown, contained scarcely one thou- sand inhabitants .¿ The subject of this sketch, who for now almost sixty years has known no other home than Milwaukee, has seen his adopted municipality become a metropolis of more than a quarter of a million people. Few, very few, now survive therein, whose recollec- tions span so extended a period of the city's existence or are so graph- ically narrated. Mr. Miller's boyhood comforts and luxuries were pork and salt-beef; his daily stints were in primitive schools; his Sunday in- struction in no broad-aisled churches; he saw severed from their roots the forest trees that flourished where the postoffice now stands; he fol- lowed Indian trails which, from all directions, focused at the trading tents of George H. Walker and Solomon Juneau; he knew the Huron street bluff, then fifty feet above the water level, as the burial place of the Pottawatamies; the old frame courthouse upon the square was a fa- miliar object; the government lighthouse in the center of Wisconsin street met his daily gaze; to his boyish recollections the third ward, south of Michigan street and West Water street, were water, and half of the fifth ward was a marsh.
But opportunity and occasion for different and broader knowledge came with his approaching maturity. Mr. Miller's father, who was a graduate of Washington college, Pennsylvania, in the class of 1819,* was anxious for like educational preferment for his son. The latter,
tCobb's "The Story of the Palatines."
#The first census of Wisconsin was taken in 1836. Milwaukee upon the east side then had 778 inhabitants. Buck's "History of Milwaukee," I, 262.
*1 Pinney, 49.
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therefore, was fitted for college, having the private instruction of the Rev. Alfred L. Chapin, D. D., later the president of Beloit college(I). Mr. Miller entered the freshman class of Washington college in 1846, pursuing the classical course. He continued a student at that institu- tion until nearly the close of his junior year. Being then, to use his own expression, "too poor to continue," he returned home.
He began immediately the study of law under the tutelage of his father, Judge Miller, who, on June 12, 1848, upon the admission of Wisconsin to statehood, had been appointed by President James K. Polk judge of the district court of the United States for the district of Wisconsin(2). Mr. George S. West, the clerk of this court, appointed Mr. Miller deputy clerk August 1, 1848. Under his father's instruc- tion and with the advantages arising from contiguity to the courts Mr. Miller's advancement was uninterrupted, and he was admitted to the bar May 6, 1851, upon the day that he became twenty-one years of age. On July 10, 1851, upon the resignation of Mr. West, and upon the recommendation of the ablest lawyers then in practice, Mr. Miller was promoted to be clerk of the same court(3). The United States court room was then in the fourth story of Martin's block, on the southeast corner of Wisconsin and East Water streets(4), and Mr. Miller's home was then with his father at the northeast corner of Wisconsin and Jackson streets(5), the present residence of Dr. N. A. Gray.
While Mr. Miller was clerk of the district court he affixed his name officially to the warrant which, on July 11, 1854, issued for the arrest of Sherman M. Booth "for aiding and abetting and assisting the escape
(1) Dr. Chapin began to preach in Milwaukee-in the basement of the First Presbyterian church-May I, 1843. He was president of Beloit college from 1850 to 1886, and died in Beloit, July 22, 1892. Wight's Old White Church, 16, 21.
(2) I Pinney, 50.
(3) The petition for his appointment was signed by N. J. Emmons, E. G. Ryan, George W. Lakin, L. H. Cotton, James S. Brown, Samuel Crawford, J. E. Arnold, Thomas Hood, H. S. Orton, and Asahel Finch. The sureties on Mr. Miller's official bond were George S. West and Cyrus Hawley.
(4) Milwaukee Directory, 1851, 1852, page XXXI.
(5) Milwaukee Directory, 1851, 1852, page 106.
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of Joshua Glover from the custody of" a deputy marshal(6). The liti- gation in the highest state and federal courts which followed this arrest became causes celebres in the jurisprudence of the United States(7).
As clerk of the United States district court Mr. Miller served for almost six years, until his resignation on February 2, 1857. One in- stance, among others, of that good citizenship which has always been one of his characteristics, belongs to this period. He was one of the incorporators, in 1852, of the Young Men's Association of Milwaukee. Under this designation and under other names this institution had led a precarious life for a number of years, making frequent appeals to the public for its support(8). During Mr. Miller's directorship and with his active promotion the association was incorporated(9), and thus placed upon a basis of permanence. For twenty-five years the Young Men's Association was an important factor in the literary development of Milwaukee, and only yielded up its influence when a still wider field of activity presented itself. Its library of about twelve thousand volumes became the nucleus of the Milwaukee Public Library, which was formed March 8, 1878(10).
Mr. Miller's resignation as clerk of the United States district court had been occasioned by his entering, in January, 1857, into a partner- ship for the practice of law-a partnership which continued undissolved for more than a quarter of a century.
The firm of Finch & Lynde had been established in Milwaukee in 1842, composed of Asahel Finch and William Pitt Lynde(II). This
(6) Ex parte Sherman M. Booth, 3 Wisconsin, 146.
(7) See Re Booth, 3 Wisconsin, I; ex parte Booth, 3 Wisconsin, 145; Re Booth and Rycraft. 3 Wisconsin, 157; United States vs. Booth, 18 Howard, 477; Ableman vs. Booth, 18 Howard, 479; United States vs. Booth, and Ableman vs. Booth, 21 Howard, 506; Ableman vs. Booth, and United States vs. Booth, 11 Wisconsin, 498; Arnold vs. Booth, 14 Wisconsin, 180.
(8) Thus, in the Milwaukee Sentinel of January 25, 1848: "The Young Men's Association has appointed a committee to wait upon the young men of the city gen- erally to obtain their signatures to the constitution of the association."
(9) Laws of 1852, chapter 97, approved March 8, 1852.
(10) Under authority of Laws of 1878, chapters 6 and 7.
(II) Western Historical Company's "History of Milwaukee," 666.
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firm was an aggressive force in Milwaukee for nearly fifteen years. On January 1, 1857, it opened(2) to receive as partners Henry Martyn Finch, a nephew of the senior member, and Benjamin K. Miller, each of the four to receive one quarter of the net earnings. The new firm was first entered in the city directory as "Finch, Lynde & Miller, attys., 6 and 8 Albany building"(3). But its second appearance in the direc- tory(4) was in the form of Finches, Lynde & Miller, a name which be- came very familiar to the profession throughout the city and state, which as the firm designation remained unchanged until 1890 and which as a historic legend is still lettered upon the office doors. In a sketch of Mr. Asahel Finch, published(5) in 1881, his firm was stated to be "not only the oldest law firm in the city, but the oldest in the United States."
Prior to the establishment of this partnership Mr. Miller, on Septem- ber 3, 1856, married Isabella Peckham. This lady was the daughter of George W. Peckham, a banker and a lawyer in Milwaukee. As a banker he had been the president of the Bank of Commerce; in the profession he had been for a time a partner of Francis Bloodgood (6). Mr. Peckham built a family residence on Marshall street, south of Division street (now Juneau avenue), which in or about 1863 became by purchase the home- stead of his son-in-law, Mr. Miller. Much rebuilt and modernized (7) it
(2) Buck's "History of Milwaukee," II, 96.
(3) Erving, Burdick & Co.'s Directory for 1857, 1858, page 78. The Albany stood on the southeast corner of Michigan street and Main street, now Broadway. It was destroyed by fire March 1, 1862.
(4) Smith, DuMoulin & Co.'s Directory for 1858, page 79.
(5) Western Historical Company's "History of Milwaukee," 666.
(6) Mr. Peckham was brother of Mrs. Henrietta L. Colt, mother of Mr. Blood- good's wife, Josephine M. Bloodgood. Mr. Peckham was father of Geo. W. Peck- ham, librarian of the Milwaukee Public Library. Also, he was brother of Judge Rufus W. Peckham, of New York, who was father of Wheeler H. Peckham, of New York, and of Rufus W. Peckham, formerly judge of the court of appeals of New York, now justice of the supreme court of the United States.
(7) Buck's "History of Milwaukee," IV, 116. In the interval between his mar- riage and his purchase of the Peckham house Mr. Miller had resided on Cass street, near Division street.
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is still, as number 559 Marshall street, Mr. Miller's dwelling. Here his wife, the mother of his three surviving sons, died June 10, 1864. On February 19, 1869, Mr. Miller married Annie McLean Smith of St. John, New Brunswick, the mother of his only daughter.
The law firm auspiciously established in 1857 became immediately prosperous, and has absorbed much of Mr. Miller's attention until recent years. Indeed, until very lately, he has shaken off but little responsi- bility upon younger shoulders. The earliest case of the new firm re- ported in the Wisconsin decisions was that of Elmore vs. Hoffman and others(1), decided during the January term, 1858. Finches, Lynde & Miller appeared for the defendants, appellants, and secured a reversal. From that date onward for forty years but one volume of Wisconsin decisions fails to contain reports of causes argued in the supreme court of the state by them and by their successors.
The first break in this quartette was caused by the death, April 4, 1883, of Asahel Finch(2). In less than a year, on March 27, 1884, Henry Martyn Finch died(3), and on December 18, 1885, died Mr. Lynde(4). In the last named year Mr. Miller's two eldest sons-Ben- jamin K. Miller, Jr., and George P. Miller-were admitted to the firm, the name not changing. In 1890, upon the admission of George H. Noyes (who retired from the position of judge of the superior court for that purpose) the old name ceased to be actively employed. The desig- nation became, and until 1892 continued to be, Miller, Noyes and Miller. George H. Wahl having joined the partnership in that year, the name has since been Miller, Noyes, Miller & Wahl.
As already intimated the clientage of the firm which began as Finches, Lynde & Miller has always been large. The number of its causes, litigated and otherwise, including the matters long since settled and relegated to the "office morgue," has aggregated more than twenty thousand. In many of these proceedings large pecuniary interests were
(1) 6 Wisconsin, 68.
(2) Buck's "History of Milwaukee," IV, 412.
(3) 60 Wisconsin, LXVI.
(4) 66 Wisconsin, XXIX.
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involved, as well as important principles of law embodied. Especially has this been so as regards the properties of decedents. The estates of Governor Cadwalader C. Washburn, Alexander Mitchell, Edward H. Brodhead, Nathan Engelmann, George Burnham, Eliphalet Cramer, George W. Allen, Edward H. Ball, John G. Flint, George G. West, Enoch Chase, Horace Chase and John Ogden are instances of the estates which have passed through this office, the orderly and skillful handling of which appertained to Mr. Miller. Indeed his specialty has always been the office department of the firm's business. Rarely in court, still more rarely personally engaged in the trial of a cause, Mr. Miller's energies have found their most congenial activity, have realized their most brilliant successes in the unraveling of tangled estates, in the solu- tion of complicated questions concerning trusts, in the promotion of far reaching business interests, in rescuing tottering firms from their too greedy creditors, in negotiating peace among quarreling kinsfolk, in all the varied diplomacy which would have made a large modern law office the delight of a Tallyrand or a Metternich.
Mr. Miller has been counsel for interests, especially as to trusts, in the estates of most of the wealthy citizens of Milwaukee; moreover, in the days of the bankruptcy law, the transactions of the firm in that deli- cate specialty were very important. The insolvent business of Pierce & Whaling, the Milwaukee Iron Company, John Nazro, the Wisconsin Leather Company, the Engelmann Transportation Company, and the Rock River Insurance Company were settled by Mr. Miller's capable hands. Besides these matters his firm represented the many creditors holding bonds issued by the municipalities of Milwaukee, Racine, Ken- osha, Janesville, Beloit, Sheboygan, Watertown, Fond du Lac, Osh- kosh, Green Bay, in fine by every city or county in the state which put out obligations in aid of railroads. As to railroads themselves, Mr. Miller's firm were attorneys of the Milwaukee & Prairie du Chien Railroad Company, the La Crosse & Milwaukee Railroad Company, and the Milwaukee & Saint Paul Railroad Company before these cor- porations as a united entity under a new name arrived at the dignity of a special force of solicitors. In more recent years the same firm were
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attorneys for the receivers of the Northern Pacific Railroad Company until conflicting interests were adjusted and the road sold. Cases such as Dows vs. National Exchange Bank of Milwaukee (I), Dows vs. Wisconsin Marine and Fire Insurance Company (2), Scott vs. West (3), Burnham vs. Burnham (4), McLaren vs. The First National Bank of Milwaukee (5), Van Steenwyck vs. Washburn (6), The First National Bank of Monroe vs. Edgerton (7), The Farmers' and Millers' Bank of Milwaukee vs. Eldred (8), Blair vs. The Milwaukee & Prairie du Chien Railroad Company (9), Price vs. Wisconsin Marine & Fire Insurance Company (10), and Akerly vs. Vilas (II) are but examples of the important causes argued by the advocates of this firm, where, nevertheless, the public appearance in court was efficiently supple- mented by the work and advice of the silent man in the office.
A lawyer thus absorbed in affairs so congenial to his tastes finds little leisure, however sincere his interest for public affairs. A democrat in politics, Mr. Miller was keenly regardful of the momentous questions . which aroused the country and divided its citizens during his mature years, yet he never sought or held political positions. For two terms in 1872-3 and in 1873-4 he was alderman of the seventh ward of Mil- waukee. Aside from this trust he has never held office (12).
It can well be imagined, however, that a lawyer so deft and ready
(1) 91 United States, 618.
(2) 91 United States, 637.
(3) 63 Wisconsin, 529.
(4) 79 Wisconsin, 557.
(5) 76 Wisconsin, 259.
(6) 59 Wisconsin, 483.
(7) 56 Wisconsin, 87.
(8) 20 Wisconsin, 196.
(9) 20 Wisconsin, 254, 262.
(10) 43 Wisconsin, 267.
(II) 15 Wisconsin, 401; 21 Wisconsin, 88, 377; 23 Wisconsin, 207, 628; 24 Wiscon- sin, 165; 25 Wisconsin, 703.
(12) While an alderman he was one of a committee, of which were Mayor D. G. Hooker, Alderman Levi H. Kellogg and Jacob Velten, of the board of public works, besides himself, to examine the sewage system of St. Louis, Rochester, Brooklyn and Chicago, with the view of selecting the most satisfactory system for Milwaukee. Buck's "History of Milwaukee," IV, 227.
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in the orderly manipulation of affairs should be frequently sought for the directory of large financial institutions. This has been pre-eminently the case as respects Mr. Miller. He was a charter member of the Mil- waukee Club and of the Hotel Pfister, and as a director took a leading part in the erection of the two buildings-neighbors and neighborly to each other-occupied by those two corporations. Under a now aban- doned regime, he was for a long period a director of the Milwaukee Gas Light Company. He is a trustee and member of the executive committee and of the finance committee of the Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company, vice president of the Milwaukee Cement Com- pany, director of the First National Bank of Milwaukee, director of the Wisconsin Telephone Company and director of the Long Distance Tele- phone Company. To the profitable and flourishing condition of the corporations with which Mr. Miller is now actively connected his ener- gies, wisdom and experience have largely contributed.
Nor have these qualifications been withheld from the service of in- stitutions whose aims have been rather benevolent and educational than for purposes of profit. Mr. Miller attended the meetings held at the Newhall House preliminary to the organization of the Milwaukee academy in August, 1864, and was a member and the first secretary of its board of trustees. This school for the education of boys, which became the Markham academy in the summer of 1877 (I), has always had the benefit of Mr. Miller's active interest. For a long period he has exerted a lively and practical influence over the affairs of the Wisconsin general hospital and of the Wisconsin training school for nurses; he is chairman of the gratuity fund of the Milwaukee Chamber of Commerce, and is the president of the Milwaukee bar association.
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