USA > Wisconsin > History of the bench and bar of Wisconsin, Vol. I > Part 56
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Strong's dock in Milwaukee, October 1, 1854, and soon afterward vis- ited different parts of the state looking for a place to locate, also writing a series of letters for the eastern papers. He finally located at Ocono- mowoc, where he remained until the spring of 1856, at which time, hav- ing married Emily Jane Blanchard, an old schoolmate, he removed to Columbus, where he lived and practiced law until he came to Mil- waukee in 1880. Since that time he has resided in this city and con- tinued the active practice of law.
Mr. Chapin has earned not only a local, but a state reputation as an upright, painstaking and successful lawyer, having the confidence of the courts and public generally. He has been engaged in many im- portant suits and has accomplished much in settling disputed questions under the laws of the state. Probably the most important litigation in which he has been engaged was that in which he appeared as counsel for the general government and defended it against suits for damages on account of the improvement of the Fox and Wisconsin rivers, during Grover Cleveland's first administration. During the four years of service in this professional work Mr. Chapin disposed of one thousand one hundred and twenty-seven suits, involving claims against the gov- ernment aggregating three million and sixty-eight thousand dollars, before the commissioners and courts. This amount of claims, by suc- cessful management, was reduced to about three hundred thousand dol- lars, and thus ended litigation which had been before the commissioners and courts ever since the passage of the act, March 3, 1875. Mr. Chapin may very justly take pride in his services to the United States in the final closing of this most mischievous and oppressive litigation.
In politics Mr. Chapin is a democrat and for a long time served as a member of the democratic state central committee. Though fre- quently nominated by his party for public office, he always declined to run, yet was ever ready with voice and pen "to uphold the eternal and everlasting principles of Jefferson democracy." At his old home in Columbus he did much to build up the city and its schools. He drafted and assisted in securing the passage by the legislature of the city charter of Columbus, in 1874, and contributed greatly to the organization of the city and its free high school. He was for a long time president of
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the board of education in that city. June 23, 1896, Mr. Chapin was appointed by W. G. Rauschenberger, mayor of the city of Milwaukee, to the office of member of the city service commission for the term of four years, commencing the first Monday in July, 1896, and is still serv- ing as such commissioner. This appointment was made while Mr. Chapin was absent at the seashore and without his knowledge.
In Masonic circles Mr. Chapin ranks high. He was one of the charter members of the Columbus lodge, No. 75, chartered in June, 1856, of which lodge he is now an honored member. He has been grand lodge trustee, deputy grand master, and for two years in succes- sion, 1880-81 and 1881-82, grand master of the grand lodge of the state of Wisconsin, and the subsequent four years wrote the foreign cor- respondence for the grand lodge, reviewing the annual correspondence of the sixty-six grand lodges in correspondence with the grand lodge of Wisconsin. This work gave him a national reputation among Masons.
CORNELIUS K. MARTIN.
Cornelius K. Martin was born of James and Rebecca Martin, at Poughkeepsie, New York, April 16th, 1828, and died at Milwaukee, Wisconsin, October 23d, 1882. His youth was passed on a farın, but being very lame, as a result of hip disease when a child, he had more leisure for reading and study than in those days was usually enjoyed by a farm boy, so that he early acquired the bent that made him wring from the world at great expense of time and labor and resolute self-denial and discipline a college education and an admission to the bar. His academic course was carried on wholly by his own earnings. and so was a very long one, a year of college work following a year of saving for it by teaching in district schools, and his degree not coming to him till his twenty-sixth year. He married Olive Jane Elmore of Esopus, New York, immediately after graduation, and they then came to Wisconsin, where, first at Troy and after at Milwaukee, Mr. Martin taught school and studied law. He was admitted to the Milwaukee bar in July, 1857, and at that bar practiced without intermission until his last sickness in 1882. He was for eight successive years district at-
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torney for Milwaukee county. His partnerships were few and of short duration.
His practice was of a general nature, but it is by his conduct of sev- eral important criminal cases that he is chiefly remembered.
He was always deeply interested in politics, and was a very ardent and active democrat till the last years of his life, when he became a re- publican. He was a frequent speaker at political meetings.
Mr. Martin was a man of sanguine temperament, of a large frame, and with his handsome head and figure, his full, strong and carefully trained voice, his simple, concise and well-ordered vocabulary, and his habit of logical, direct thought, he was a power at the bar or on the platform.
JOHN T. FISH.
John Tracy Fish was born in Lake Pleasant, Hamilton county, New York, November 8, 1835. He is a scion in the eighth generation of the old and respected Fish family of New England, whose founder, Thomas Fish,* came from England before 1643 and became one of the earliest settlers of Rhode Island.
The parents of the subject of this sketch were Joseph Warren Fish and Submit (McCumber) Fish, the latter of Scotch ancestry. Mr. Fish's father was a farmer in good circumstances, a man of force and power, who possessed a natural "legal mind," which, had he become a
*The Genealogical Dictionary of Rhode Island devotes much interesting space to the progenitors of the Fish family. Thomas and Mary Fish, his wife, died respectively in 1687 and 1699, and to the first named, Thomas Fish, a grant of land was made in 1643, the date probably representing the time of the settlement in Rhode Island and being six years only after the banishment of Roger Williams. Thomas Fish was a member of the town council in 1674 and evidently a citizen of substance and consequence in his community. There appears a record telling how, in 1684. he deeded to his grandson, Preserved Fish, the homestead, comprising fifteen acres of land, upon which his son, Thomas, Jr., had lived and died, and by his will, dated 1687, it is shown that he left two sons and three daughters. The subject of this sketch, as indicated by the same genealogical records, is also a direct descendant of William and Mary Hall, of Portsmouth, R. I., the former of whom was admitted an inhabitant of Aquidneck on August 8, 1638. Their son, Zuriel, married Elizabeth Tripp, daughter of John and Mary (Paine) Tripp, the latter being a daughter of Anthony Paine, who was admitted an inhabitant of Portsmouth in 1638. In this way Mr. Fish traces indisputably his ancestry to those who were among the founders of Rhode Island and of New England.
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member of the bar, would have placed him high in the profession. From him Mr. Fish has inherited most of those qualities that have made his career at the bar a continuation of successes.
Forced to work upon his father's farm until he was twenty years of age, Mr. Fish's early education was necessarily irregular and imperfect, one term in the Kingsborough academy being all the schooling which he was able to obtain beyond that which was afforded by the district schools. Yet when, in the fall of 1855, he settled at Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, where his brother had previously located, he was able to secure a position as a teacher, a testimonial at once to his diligence, his perseverance and his pluck. Then for a season he turned his hand to manual labor, with such good result that his circumstances warranted an important change in his condition of life, and on May 1, 1857, he was married to Julia Ann King, of Woodstock, Illinois. She was the youngest of six children. Two of her brothers became prominent physicians. She died in 1869, leaving an infant but thirteen days old. This child is now John King Fish, attorney, with Fish, Cary, Upham & Black. The other children are Frank Marson Fish, judge of the first Wisconsin circuit; Emory Warren Fish, holding a responsible position with J. I. Case Threshing Machine company, of Racine, Wisconsin, and Etta, now Mrs. Charles E. Tingley, of Boston, Massachusetts.
In the fall of 1857 Mr. Fish left Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, and set- tled in McHenry, Illinois. He bought a farm, with the full intention of making agriculture his life work. Fortunately for him, judging by after events, the season of 1858 proved so disastrous as to leave him, after he had paid his debts, almost penniless. Then once more his energy asserted itself, and while considering what he should next do he displayed his pluck and energy by supporting his family by chopping wood.
It was at this critical period in his life that his very good friend, L. C. Church, an attorney of Woodstock, estimating his abilities higher than he did himself, urged him to study law. Mr. Schumacher, an at- torney of the same place, also gave him plenteous encouragement. Mr. Fish had free access to their libraries and, working with the utmost industry, frequently pursuing his studies far into the night, he was
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prepared by July, 1859, to take a successful examination for admission to the bar before H. S. Winsor, Robert Harkness (then judge of the first circuit), and Mr. Kellogg, of Whitewater.
Mr. Fish began to practice his profession at Sharon, Walworth county, Wisconsin. Recognizing the fact that whatever he was to be- come depended only upon himself, and that hard, steady work and con- tinual study were required to gain the mark of his ambition, he began a regular system of economizing his time, making every minute count to some advantage. Clients being few, to add to his pecuniary re- sources sums sufficient to support his family. he engaged in manual labor as a carpenter. His professional duties, however, were not neglected, and during this time he was employing all of his spare time in continuing his study of the law.
In August, 1861, he enlisted as a private in company C, thirteenth Wisconsin volunteer infantry, and when the organization was perfected was chosen its second lieutenant. In December he accompanied his command to Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, thence to Fort Scott and Lawrence, in the same state, and afterwards to Fort Riley. From the last named point he expected to be ordered to New Mexico with the expedition under General James Lane, but the project was abandoned and the regiment instead called to Lawrence and thence taken by boat to St. Louis and Columbus, Kentucky. In the fall of 1862 the young lieutenant was ordered to Forts Henry and Donelson, remaining at the latter place until just before the battle of Chickamauga, when he marched with his regiment to Stevenson, Alabama. On the evening of October 26, 1863, the regiment left Stevenson, Alabama, and went into winter quarters at Edgefield, on the Cumberland, opposite Nash- ville. During the winter the regiment left on a furlough for Wiscon- sin, where Lieutenant Fish remained for five weeks and then returned to Nashville. In April, 1864, the thirteenth regiment returned to Ste- venson and from the 6th of June, for nearly three months, it was located at Claysville, Alabama. Late in August it was ordered to Huntsville, where it arrived on the 3d of September. In July, 1865, the thirteenth regiment, then a part of the third brigade, of the third division of the
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fourth army corps, left for Texas, going into camp on the 16th of July.
Mustered out of service on December 26, 1865, as captain of his company, Mr. Fish returned to Sharon and in December of that year tried his first case in the circuit court. From that time on success has ever attended him. His cautious, deliberate methods gained for him the reputation of a safe counselor, and the confidence of his community was extended to him-a confidence which has always continued to be reposed in him throughout his long professional career. He was elected district attorney in 1868 and moved to Racine. In 1871 Mr. Fish became associated with Charles H. Lee, under the firm name of Fish & Lee. After seven years Mr. Lee retired from the firm to be- come special counsel for the J. I. Case Threshing Machine company. In 1878 Mr. Fish formed another partnership with J. E. Dodge, late assistant attorney general of the United States, and, with the exception of one year, during which Mr. Dodge was absent, this association was continued uninterruptedly for seven years. In May, 1884, his son, Frank M. Fish, became a third member of the firm, the style of which was Fish, Dodge & Fish. In October, 1885, Mr. Fish moved to Mil- waukee to enter the firm of Jenkins, Winkler & Smith. While not re- stricting his practice to any single department, Mr. Fish, from an early period in his professional career, made a close study of corporation and railroad law, and when, in 1887, John W. Cary was promoted to the position of general counsel of the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Rail- road company, he was induced to relinquish a flourishing general prac- tice and accept the appointment of general solicitor of that company, one of the principal railroad corporations of America. Placed in full charge of all its extensive litigation, with headquarters in Chicago, he carried out the arduous and very responsible duties until February, 1894, when he resigned and returned to Milwaukee. There the firm of Fish & Cary, composed of John T. Fish and Alfred L. Cary, was formed, and Mr. Fish resumed general practice. But his ability as a railway attorney had been so positively demonstrated that he was soon placed in charge of the legal affairs of the Ashland division of the Chicago & Northwestern Railway company, and in 1897 assumed the management of the entire legal business of the company within the state of Wiscon-
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sin. On the death of Jerome R. Brigham, one of the old and prominent lawyers of the city, during the early part of the year, the firm of Wells, Brigham & Upham was, in May, 1897, consolidated with that of Fish & Cary, forming the new firm of Fish, Cary, Upham & Black, which is unquestionably one of the most substantial and prosperous legal or- ganizations in the northwest.
Mr. Fish was again married, on September 1, 1870, to Eliza Samp- son, daughter of Rev. William H. Sampson, the first president of the Lawrence university, Appleton. They have two children-William S., now reading law, and Irving A., who is still attending school:
For more than thirty years Mr. Fish has been a distinguished figure at the Wisconsin bar, and during most of that period has ranked as one of its ablest and most successful members. His reputation as a lawyer has been won at a bar famous for the learning, skill and distinguished successes of many of its members and in open competition with some of the most brilliant and accomplished advocates of the present generation. This reputation is not based upon those superficial attributes which fre- quently bring notoriety and fortune to those possessing them, but on solid legal acquirements. In the opinion of many competent critics, Mr. Fish is probably without a superior in the special field to which he has of late years given his chief attention. So clear are his perceptions and so accurate his judgments that his conclusions are seldom over- thrown. His mental processes are so unerring in their results that they have been described as "mathematical."
An old lawyer who has had an extensive acquaintance with the bar of Wisconsin for nearly half a century, and who, during the whole profes- sional career of Mr. Fish, has known him intimately, speaks of him in the following terms: "During the past thirty years this state has had, and still has, many great lawyers practicing in its courts, but it is no disparagement to any of these to say that, in professional acquirements, in untiring industry, in soundness of judgment, in strict fidelity to duty and in professional success, Mr. Fish is the peer of any of them. He is, and long has been, one of the leaders of the bar, both in the state and federal courts. He never affects the ornamental graces of mere oratory, but he always goes into court fully equipped for the contest
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before him. He excels in the somewhat rare ability of stating the facts of his case concisely and strongly, and his arguments are clear, logical and convincing-much the most important and valuable factors in suc- cessful forensic effort.
"Mr. Fish has been a prominent practitioner in the supreme court of this state for the last thirty years, and cases there argued by him are reported in numerous volumes of the Wisconsin reports. Many of these are cases involving large interests and most important legal principles, and his arguments have been potent in forming and establishing the jurisprudence of the state. He also possesses business ability of a high order, which has not only been an important element in his great pro- fessional success, but has enabled him to amass a handsome fortune without diverting him from the earnest practice of the law.
- "Mr. Fish has never held office to any considerable extent, and has never sought office, but has devoted himself with singleness of purpose to his chosen calling, apparently quite indifferent to public position. Who can say that he erred therein? Yet those who know his eminent judicial qualities can but regret that he has always avoided judicial po- sition, and, hence has not been called to the bench of the state. His name goes easily in the list of the names of the best and greatest law- yers of Wisconsin.
"Mr. Fish is a gentleman of high personal character. He is a model husband and father and a most genial and attractive companion. His home, in which his children and friends love to gather often, is an ideal one."
HAROLD GREEN UNDERWOOD.
H. G. Underwood, an authority of wide repute on patent law, was born in Litchfield, Herkimer county, New York, on August 1, 1852. John DeLoss Underwood, his father, a well-known lawyer of Albany, New York, died in 1855.
The first definite records of the family date from 1106, when Guy Underwood figures as a judge and a royalist in the reign of Henry I. Upon him were bestowed the family arms, for valuable services ren- dered upon the battle field of Tenchebray during that year. The crest
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bears the motto Omnes Arbusta Juvant-"We all delight in the under- wood." Early in the seventeenth century the progenitors of the Ameri- can branch emigrated from Hertfordshire, England, and settled in Mas- sachusetts, near Plymouth. This advance guard consisted of the two sons of Aquilla Underwood: John Underwood, who established himself in the Old Bay state, and James Underwood, who became a resident of Virginia. Thus were planted the northern and southern branches of the family in America.
The mother of Harold G. Underwood was known in maidenhood as Marcia Green. Her father, Rev. Beriah Green, a Congregational minister, was settled over various charges in Vermont, Connecticut, Ohio and New York. He was also professor of sacred literature in the Western Reserve college of Ohio, president of the Oneida institute at Whitestown, New York, and first president of the American Anti- Slavery society. Freeman Foote, his mother's grandfather, was a sol- dier of the revolution under Colonel Ethan Allen, being present with that God-fearing patriot at Fort Ticonderoga.
Our subject passed his boyhood in Whitestown and Utica, New York, attending their public schools and enjoying a training in the classics under the tuition of his grandfather, above mentioned. On account of ill health the boy was taken from school, and then followed a period of uncertainty as to whether he should make a specialty of mathematics or of the law, to each of which studies he was partial. From the age of sixteen until he was twenty he served as assistant actuary of the New England Mutual Life Insurance company, of Bos- ton, in this capacity utilizing his mathematical talents. Finally, how- ever, his love for the legal profession predominated and, removing to Washington, he began the study of the law at Columbian university. Perhaps the strongest influence brought to bear in the formation of this decision was the warm encouragement of his uncle, John C. Under- wood, judge of the United States district court for the eastern district of Virginia. It was in his office that much of his early professional in- struction was obtained. He was admitted to the bar at Washington in 1875, receiving the degree of LL. B. during June of that year.
In the meantime (1873), while engaged in his legal studies, Mr.
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Underwood had accepted the position of examiner of patents in the United States patent office and continued in that position for six years after his admission to the bar. In 1878 he was the sole delegate of the United States to the first international patent congress held at Paris. and in March, 1881, he resigned his position in the patent office to commence the practice of his profession in Milwaukee, where his prac- tice has been principally in the United States circuit court, as well as the United States circuit courts of appeal throughout the country and the United States supreme court at Washington.
Naturally Mr. Underwood had decided to adopt patent law as his specialty, as by experience and natural adaptability no one could be bet- ter qualified to succeed in the field. It is needless to say to those who have followed his career that results have fully justified his judgment and that his success has been earned by the exercise of talents and practical knowledge, plus untiring industry and persistent concentra- tion of all his energies.
Mr. Underwood joined the Masonic order in 1873: is a Knight Templar, a thirty-second degree Scottish Rite Mason, and a member of the Mystic Shrine. He is vice president of the Wisconsin society of the Sons of the Revolution. He was married on June 20th, 1883. to Marie Lawson Scott, of Mendota, Illinois. Both he and his wife are members of St. Paul's Episcopal church. There are two children in the family, Walter Scott and Isabel.
NATHAN PERELES.
No citizen who has lived in Milwaukee for a long term of years and (lied there has enjoyed stronger traits of character, or been more sin- cerely mourned by all classes, than Nathan Pereles. He was cautious and yet generous in dealings with those whom he trusted. He had what has been called the "business instinct," and yet never was there a more tender hearted man. He was a splendid citizen and grateful to the country in which he had found opportunities for advancement, his pa- triotism finding vent not only in public spirit and public works, but in the education of his sons, who were early imbued with his national enthusiasm.
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Nathan Pereles was born in the village of Sobotist, Neutra county, Hungary, on April 2, 1824. His decided educational tendencies, evinced at an early age, are accounted for by the fact that his parents, Herman and Judith Pereles, were teachers and, although remarkably intelligent, were poor in worldly goods. Their son was therefore obliged to enter business when only fifteen years of age, as a clerk in a wholesale indigo and seed house in the city of Prague, Bohemia. He had been taught by his parents, as far as lay in their power, and after he became thus employed attended evening school. In his twenty- first year he had reached the position of- chief clerk in the business. and at this point it seemed that his progress was stayed.
In 1845, however, Mr. Pereles determined to better his prospects by emigrating to America. Although he came to New York with let- ters of recommendation to prominent capitalists and business men, he soon imbibed the independent spirit of the new land, albeit he was un- able to speak its language. He therefore passed by these men of in- fluence, engaged himself to a New Jersey farmer and, when not thus employed, gave his time to the mastering of the English tongue and the teaching of German and French to the young people of the neigh- borhood.
Two years thus spent in the east tended to fix the ambition in his mind to move still further toward the west of the United States. In 1847, accordingly, he located in Milwaukee, and, although his economy and industry had enabled him to accumulate a small capital, he had the good sense to first obtain employment before he commenced to in- vestigate the situation with a view of independently establishing him- self. In company with two friends of his youth, A. Neustadle and H. Scheftels, he finally opened a grocery store on Chestnut street, near Third. In 1849 the firm was dissolved, and for the succeeding five years he continued such a prosperous business alone that he was able to retire and devote a fair portion of his time to studies of the law, to which he had been partial for many years. The panic of 1857, how'- ever, found his name upon the notes of several friends who were unable to meet payments, and others upon whom he depended failed; so that with the fall of others his entire fortune was swept away.
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