USA > Wisconsin > History of the bench and bar of Wisconsin, Vol. II > Part 18
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In 1846 Mr. Barber was elected a member of the constitutional con- vention and served that body as a member of the committee on the organization and functions of the judiciary. "He was an able, indus- trious member, and performed valuable services." In 1852, 1853, 1863 and 1864 he was member of the assembly, and speaker in 1863; in 1856 and 1857 he was state senator; in 1860 he was chosen presidential elector on the republican ticket; he served two terms as member of Congress, beginning March 4, 1871; his committee assignments were on war claims and revision of the statutes. Besides holding these im- portant positions Mr. Barber served in numerous local offices-five years as chairman of the county board; four years as county clerk; six years as district attorney.
Mr. Barber was at one time associated with Nelson Dewey as a partner and later with George Clementson. His death occurred at his home June 28, 1881.
As a lawyer Mr. Barber was highly regarded for the soundness of his judgment and the uprightness of his character. His knowledge of legal principles was broad and he was able to apply them to questions
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as they arose. He possessed in an unusual degree the confidence of all classes of people in the southwestern section of the state, and never betrayed or forfeited that confidence in any degree. He was a most worthy man, of noble carriage and rare attainment. His abilities fitted. him for any office in the gift of the people. Though constantly hon- ored, he never sought office, and detested the "office seeker." In habits he was clean and correct, of unswerving honesty, and early won and held the lasting esteem of good citizens.
LORENZO BEVENS.
Mr. Bevens was born in the state of New York in 1805. "He had studied law and been admitted to the bar, and was a lawyer of moderate abilities, but his self-reliance stood him in stead of a better knowledge of the law." He settled in Grant county, Wisconsin, before 1836, and during the later years of his life resided at Platteville; was a member of the first constitutional convention, and served in that body as chair- man of the committee on municipal corporations. "He was a gentle- man of pleasing address, highly cultivated, possessed of decided abilities, and ever commanded the respect of his associates and friends." This estimate of him is from the Fathers of Wisconsin. Moses M. Strong's measure of the man is not quite so large: "He possessed a pleasing address and cultivated manners, and commanded the respect of his as- sociates." His death occurred at Platteville in 1849.
WILLIAM R. BIDDLECOME.
William Roselle Biddlecome was born in Oneida county, New York, November 27, 1820. His father was a Universalist minister and a farmer, and lived near Utica. He gave his son a good education, which was chiefly acquired at the Clinton Liberal institute in Oneida county, and at Union college, in Schenectady. At the institute he received a preliminary education and such collegiate instruction as fitted him to enter the junior class of Union college, which he did in 1841. He was graduated with his class in 1843, with high honors, and it was said he would have received the highest, but that he was com- pelled to absent himself from college during several weeks at the close
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of his course. After receiving his degree he went to Virginia and took charge of Prince George academy, and there spent two years in teaching and at the same time devoting his leisure hours to the study of law.
In the fall of 1845 he came to Chicago, intending to practice law in that city, and was there admitted to the bar. This purpose he aban- doned, and in December of that year he went to Potosi, in Grant county, which was then one of the most prosperous towns in the lead mines, and there commenced the practice of law with Orsamus .Cole, who went there about the same time, under the firm name of Cole & Biddlecome. The firm was also associated in the practice of their pro- fession at Platteville with Ben C. Eastman, under the firm of Eastman, Cole & Biddlecome. Mr. Biddlecome continued his practice with these two firms until December, 1852, when he removed to St. Louis, Missouri.
In St. Louis he confined himself almost exclusively to insurance law, in which he was very proficient, and soon acquired a large and lucrative practice. In the fall of 1859 his health gave way and he went to Florida, in the hope that a few months' rest would re-establish it, but his hope was not realized, and he died at St. Augustine, March 6, 1860. In 1850 Mr. Biddlecome was elected a member of the assembly from Grant county, and served during the session of 1851. He was a lawyer of far more than ordinary abilities, and if his life had been spared he would have stood at the head of his profession at any bar.
THOMAS P. BURNETT.
Thomas Pendleton Burnett was born in Pittsylvania county, Vir- ginia, September 3, 1800. He received an academic education and settled in Paris, Kentucky, where he entered upon the practice of his profession. In 1829 he was appointed by President Jackson sub-Indian agent at Prairie du Chien, and in that or the following year located there and entered upon the practice of the law; his residence continued there until 1837, and he held the position of agent until 1834. In 1835 he was appointed by Governor Mason, of Michigan territory, district attorney for the counties of Crawford, Iowa, Dubuque and Des Moines, but shortly resigned. He was elected in October, 1835, to the legis-
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lative council of Michigan territory, and was chosen president of that body. He was elected by Crawford county to the council of the first legislative assembly of Wisconsin territory, but was not admitted to the seat he claimed for the reason that in the apportionment made by Governor Dodge Crawford county was allowed two members of the house of representatives, but was not allowed a member of the council, or upper house. During this first session Governor Dodge nominated Mr. Burnett as district attorney of Crawford county. The nomination was confirmed by the council, but Burnett refused to accept the place, on the ground that the council was not legally organized and that his appointment consequently amounted to naught. Upon the organiza- tion of the territorial supreme court Mr. Burnett was appointed official reporter, holding the position until his death in 1846.
In 1837 he removed from Prairie du Chien to Grant county, finally settling on a farm in Mount Hope, on the military road between Fort Crawford and Fort Winnebago. He embellished the place and called it "The Hermitage." The winter of 1844-45, and again the succeeding year, he served as a member of the legislature from Grant county, and was chosen a representative from that county to the constitutional con- vention of 1846. He served for about three weeks in this body as a member of the committee on corporations, when he was called home by intelligence of the alarming illness of his wife. Contracting the disease from which she was suffering, typhoid fever, he died on No- vember 5th. Mrs. Burnett died the same day. His aged mother had succumbed to the same malady on the Ist of the month.
Mr. Burnett's work as reporter of the supreme court covered the written opinions filed during the years 1839, 1840, 1842 and 1843. These were originally published with the volumes of the session laws in order that they might be accessible to the profession. In 1844 there was published a volume of 237 pages, containing the opinions filed in 1842 and 1843, but those previously filed were not published therein. All the cases reported by Burnett are now accessible in Pinney's reports and in much better condition for use than as they were originally pub- lished.
Mr. Burnett argued not a few cases in the supreme court of the ter-
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ritory, indicating, as is said of him in the preface to volume I Pinney's ยท reports, that "he was one of the most prominent and successful mem- bers of the territorial bar, an excellent lawyer, and always zealous and indefatigable in the cause of his clients. At the time of his death he was one of the most promising men in this territory, and an honorable and successful career seemed open before him."
JOHN G. CLARK.
Few men have had a more varied career than John G. Clark, of Lancaster, Grant county. He has been a school teacher, miner, sur- veyor, legislator, soldier, lawyer and judge. The battles of his early life with poverty were long and to a less brave heart would have been dis- couraging. He manifested then, as ever since, a heroism truly noble, and has built up a character which commands the respect of all who know him.
John Garven Clark was born July 31, 1825, near Jacksonville, Illi- nois. So far as the means earned by working on farms at seven dol- lars per month would allow, he attended such schools as were in that neighborhood, and, at a later period, those in the neighborhood of his family's residence in Missouri, to which state they removed in 1837 and located at Philadelphia in Marion county. By his own industry Mr. Clark secured means to attend Marion college, in Missouri, for a time; in 1845 he entered the Illinois college, and was graduated there- from in 1847 with the degree of B. A. While a student there he boarded himself and paid his expenses with funds he earned in part then and after locating permanently in Wisconsin. .
Mr. Clark came to Wisconsin in 1837 first and returned in 1847 and at once engaged in lead mining in the vicinity of Hazel Green, Grant county. From 1849 to 1853 he was government surveyor in Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa and Missouri. In the winter of 1850-51 he taught school at Lancaster, Wisconsin. In 1853 he was deputy clerk of the Grant county circuit court; the following year he was elected clerk, and was twice re-elected for terms of two years each. During the time he held that office he qualified himself for admission
HISTORY OF THE BENCH AND BAR OF WISCONSIN.
183 to the bar, and was admitted in 1861. During that year he served as a member of the assembly.
Mr. Clark went into camp with company C, second Wisconsin; a special session of the legislature being called, it became necessary for him to attend it; hence, his connection with that regiment ceased. Soon after the close of that session he became assistant commissary general of Wisconsin. He did not hold that position long, but became first lieutenant and quartermaster of the fifth Wisconsin, holding those commissions until 1863, when he was appointed provost marshal of the third Wisconsin district with the rank of captain. In February, 1865, he was commissioned colonel of the fiftieth Wisconsin and served as such until he was mustered out in 1866. That regiment was stationed in southwestern Missouri for a time, and afterward on the plains among the Sioux Indians. The fifth Wisconsin, while Mr. Clark was with it, participated in the battle of Williamsburg, in the battles fought in the vicinity of Richmond in 1862, and in those of Antietam, Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville.
Owing to the long service given by Mr. Clark to his country, he did not enter upon the active practice of the law until 1867, when he opened an office in Lancaster. Business came to him and he gave it his best attention. Fidelity to his clients and careful preparation of their cases for trial brought him a desirable class of business, which increased in volume as the years went by. Colonel Clark continued in active practice until 1890, when President Harrison appointed him an associate justice of the supreme court of Oklahoma, a position he held about three years. In that capacity he performed a large amount of work; so much so that his labors impaired his health. On ceasing to hold that office he returned to Lancaster and subsequently resumed practice with his former partner, S. H. Taylor, the firm style being Clark & Taylor.
Politically Judge Clark is and has been a republican, and was in at the birth of that party and took, as early as 1858, a very active part in creating it.
For many years he has been a member of the Odd Fellows, and has several times been a representative in the sovereign grand lodge of that
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organization. He has also been a Mason for a long time and has filled the office of master for twelve or thirteen years and one term as grand warden.
In February, 1852, Mr. Clark married Miss Minerva A. Pepper, of Lancaster; they have a son and a daughter.
AMASA COBB.
Amasa Cobb was born in Crawford county, Illinois, September 27, 1823; was educated in the common schools of that vicinity; came to Wisconsin in 1842 and engaged in lead mining; served as a private dur- ing the Mexican war; admitted to the bar and began his practice at Mineral Point; in 1850 elected district attorney of Iowa county and re- elected in 1852; was state senator in 1855 and 1856; adjutant general from 1855 to 1858; member of assembly in 1860 and 1861, and speaker in latter year. Raised the fifth Wisconsin regiment, became its colonel and went into the service; while in the army was elected a member of Congress, and resigned his commission as colonel; was three times re- elected to Congress. During the recess of Congress in 1864 he raised the forty-third regiment and served as its colonel until the close of the war. On recommendation of General Hancock Colonel Cobb was brevetted brigadier general for special gallantry at the battle of Wil- liamsburg.
At the close of his congressional service General Cobb removed to Nebraska and located at Lincoln; he entered on the practice of his pro- fession and became interested in banking. In 1878 he became, by ap- pointment, a judge of the supreme court, and by repeated elections con- tinued a member of that body until January, 1892, becoming chief justice.
Mr. Cobb, while in Wisconsin, as his career indicates, made many friends, and so conducted himself as a private citizen and public servant as to gain and hold the confidence of the people of the southwestern part of the state. His abilities were quite moderate; as a speaker he was not capable of eloquence, but was quiet and conversational in his style of address. His opinions in the Nebraska reports are generally brief and without pretense of learning or great research. His strength
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lay in his capacity for affairs and in the confidence of the people in the soundness of his judgment and the uprightness of his purposes.
NELSON DEWEY.
The first governor of the state of Wisconsin was born in the town of Lebanon, Connecticut, December 19, 1813; in 1814 his parents re- moved to Butternuts, Oswego county, New York, where his youthful days were passed upon a farm; at sixteen he went to Hamilton academy, where he remained three years. He came to Wisconsin soon after it was organized as a territory, and settled in what is now Grant county; he was register of deeds there in 1837; was a member of the territorial house of representatives in 1839, 1840, 1841 and 1842, and speaker at the extra session held in August, 1840; was a member of the legislative council in 1842, 1843, 1845 and 1846, and president of that body the latter year. He was the first governor of the state, having been elected May 8, 1848, and re-elected in 1849; his service in that office covered the period from June 7, 1848, to January 5, 1852. In 1854 and 1855 he was state senator and for a number of years one of the commissioners of the state prison. His opponent in the campaign for state senator was Orsamus Cole, who lacked four votes of being elected.
Mr. Dewey "read law" with his father, Ebenezer, for a time, and completed his legal studies in the office of Samuel Bowne at Coopers- town, New York. In 1840 he formed a law partnership with J. Allen Barber, at Lancaster, which became one of the best known firms in the state. As a lawyer Governor Dewey ranked high. For many years he retired from active practice, but during the last years of his life, when financial disasters overtook and misfortunes assailed him, he returned to the practice of his profession.
"For over half a century he wrought, as one of the living founda- tion stones upon which our commonwealth is builded. He was a modest, quiet man, plain and simple in his tastes and habits; always kind, unassuming and courteous, and in all the trials and temptations of a long and varied life stood, with heroic fortitude, nobly erect, calm, dignified, self-contained, self-respecting."
During his first term as governor Mr. Dewey married Kate Dunn,
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daughter of Charles Dunn, the territorial chief justice. Mrs. Dunn died at Washington, D. C., March 16, 1897.
BEN C. EASTMAN.
Ben C. Eastman was born in Maine, October 24, 1812. He re- ceived an excellent scholastic education, and commenced the study of law with Judge Emmons, of Hallowell, and subsequently completed his studies in New York city. He emigrated to Wisconsin in 1839, and located temporarily at Green Bay, where his name appears enrolled among the attorneys of Brown county, in October of that year. He remained there but a short time when he removed to Platteville, which he made his permanent home, and where he continued to reside during his short life. He very soon acquired an extensive practice and took that high rank at the bar to which his talents, education, thorough knowledge of legal principles, ability as an advocate, industry, perse- verance and zeal so justly entitled him. He was recognized as the leading lawyer of the Grant county bar. His practice was not, how- ever, confined to that county, but he was employed extensively in Craw- ford and Iowa counties. As a business man he was prompt, honorable and exact, and matters of large magnitude were entrusted to his care, his attention to which gave entire satisfaction to his clients. He was prudent, but not sordid; generous, but not extravagant or wasteful, and with excellent judgment and foresight he made such investments of his professional income that before his death he contemplated with- drawing from the profession to enjoy that quiet and seclusion for which he often expressed a desire, and which he could have done with a handsome competency. But it was otherwise ordered, and he died while still in the midst of an active professional career.
In December, 1843, he was elected secretary of the council in the territorial legislature, and was re-elected at each of the two next suc- ceeding sessions, but after two weeks' service, at the session of 1846, he resigned on the 19th of January to attend to his professional en- gagements. In 1848 he was candidate, with three others, in a judi- cial race-free for all-for the first judgeship of the fifth circuit, in which Mortimer M. Jackson was the winner. In 1850, when Wiscon-
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sin had but three members, Mr. Eastman was elected as a represent- ative in Congress from the second district, and was re-elected in 1852 and served four years, with credit to himself and with honor to the state.
His figure was tall, erect and manly, neither lean nor portly, but well-fashioned, while his features, although somewhat sharp, were pleas- ant and attractive. His manners were polite and courteous and he won the respect and esteem of a large circle of admiring friends.
His last illness extended over a period of about three months, and was attended with much suffering and terminated in his death on the 2d of February, 1856, before he had yet reached the age of 44.
DANIEL G. FENTON.
Daniel G. Fenton was born in New Jersey, in 1810, was educated in Pennsylvania, and in 1836 came to Wisconsin. He first located at Mineral Point, as a lawyer, and after a short time removed to Prairie du Chien, where he continued the practice of his profession until the time of his death. He was clerk of the court from 1840 until 1849. He was a member of the convention which framed the existing constitution of the state, to which his name is affixed. In 1848 he was elected a mem- ber of the state senate from an odd-numbered district, and his term, as provided by the constitution, expired on the first Monday of January, 1849. He was judge of probate from 1849 until he died. He was an influential citizen of his county and took an active part in its political affairs. He died August II, 1851.
GEORGE L. FROST.
George Lombard Frost was the son of an eminent physician of Springfield, Massachusetts, at which place he was born March 18, 1830. His education, both classical and legal, was of the very highest order. After a very thorough preparatory course at Williston academy, East- hampton, Massachusetts, where he was graduated in June, 1846, he was during the same year matriculated in Yale college, and there pursued the full course of the standard of study required of students in that celebrated institution, for the period of four years, and in 1850 the de-
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gree of bachelor of arts was conferred upon him, and he was well pre- pared to erect the structure of his professional education upon the broad and solid foundation which he had built so well. The same care which had been devoted to his scholastic education was taken with his pro- fessional education, and he entered the law department of Harvard university and there, in 1852, completed his legal education, which was as thorough and perfect as the best of instruction and close application could make it.
In 1853 Mr. Frost removed to Wisconsin and first settled at Mineral Point, where he resided more than fifteen years, when, the county seat having been removed to Dodgeville and his family relations greatly changed by the death of his wife, he changed his residence to the new county seat. He continued in the uninterrupted practice of his pro- fession in Iowa county from 1853 until the time of his death.
Mr. Frost had not only acquired a superior education, but he pos- sessed native talents of a high order, and was endowed with a brilliant genius, consequently his forensic efforts were clear, intelligent and forci- ble. He possessed a logical mind and his arguments were a com- bination of sound reasoning and ornate eloquence. He never spoke long, but always to the point, and what he said was always intelligible to the commonest understanding.
In 1854 he was elected district attorney for Iowa county. In 1862 he was elected state senator, which office he filled during the years 1863 and 1864. He was a candidate for circuit judge in 1864, but was not elected. He was superintendent of public schools in Mineral Point in 1862, and in 1878, after his removal to Dodgeville, he was elected to the assembly, and was in the discharge of his duties at the time of his death.
Mr. Frost was eminently of a social disposition, and it would be agreeable to pass in silence the fact that his excessive indulgence in con- viviality very seriously marred his usefulness and his fame, but it is a pleasure to say that for a few of the latter years of his life his better . judgment had the ascendency over his appetites, and it was the reason- able hope of his friends that, if his life had been spared, he would have established the permanency of that self-control. He died at his lodg-
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ings in the Vilas House, Madison, while the legislature was in session, February 15, 1879.
DENNIS J. GARDNER.
Dennis J. Gardner is a typical western lawyer-able, energetic and versatile, whether engaged in the practice of his profession or in the conduct of the public affairs, which, during his unusually successful career, have been so freely entrusted to him. He was born February 26, 1853, in Platteville, Wisconsin, the son of David and Mary (Murphy) Gardner. His parents were natives of Ireland, but, coming to the United States when very young, they became thoroughly Americanized before reaching maturity.
In early manhood the father interested himself in lead mining, and settling in Platteville in 1842, eventually obtained control of the prac- tical work connected with the extraction of the ore, representing several companies. In 1843, the year succeeding Mr. Gardner's arrival, his future wife became a resident of the place, the marriage taking place in 1844. His father, the grandfather of our subject, was Edward Gardner, and was a teacher of mathematics. Dennis Murphy, the grandfather on the maternal side, a man of good education, was also a native of Ire- land, emigrating to the south at an early day and dying of yellow fever at New Orleans in 1840.
Dennis Gardner attended the district school, but, not satisfied with the extent of his educational acquirements there obtained, entered the state normal school at Platteville, graduating therefrom in 1875. His services as a teacher were in prompt demand, the first position which he was called upon to fill being the principalship of the Cassville high school, which was located in the same county (Grant) as his native town. Altogether he taught five years, the scene of his educational labors being Greenwood school in the town of Clifton, Cassville, British Hollow and Platteville. In the meantime he had commenced the study of law with William E. Carter, of Platteville, since so noted as a lawyer and a legis- lator. Carrying along his legal studies with his work as a teacher, and after spending two years in Mr. Carter's office, Mr. Gardner was ad- mitted to practice before the circuit court in February, 1882.
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