Source:
1789 - 1881
History of Cincinnati, Ohio
with Illustrations and Biographical Sketches
Compiled by Henry A. Ford, A. M., and Mrs. Kate B. Ford
 L. A. Williams & Co., Publishers
1881

CHAPTER XXIII.
Bench and Bar

PIONEER LAWYERS

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     To Thomas Goudy is usually accorded the honor of being the first lawyer in Cincinnati.  But it should not be forgotten that in the very first boat-load of Losantiville voyagers, among those who landed, as he himself testified much later, “on the twenty-eighth day of December, 1788,” was the most prominent lawyer and magistrate of Cincinnati’s first decade.  He was a worthy man to lead the long and distinguished roll of the bench and bar of the Queen City.

WILLIAM M'MILLAN

was born near Abingdon, Virginia, of Irish stock, the second of nine children.  He was graduated at the renowned old college of William and Mary, and left it, as his nephew and eulogist, the late Hon. William M. Corry, said long after, “not only with the diploma, but with the scholarship of a graduate whose distinction became important to the institution and more than reflected her benefits.”  Until his removal to the Miami Purchase, he divided his attention between intellectual and agricultural pursuits.  He was the first justice of the court of general quarter sessions of the peace, commissioned by Governor St. Clair for Hamilton county, in 1790, and was an active, energetic, public-spirited citizen here from the beginning.  In 1799 he was elected as a representative of the county in the territorial legislature, and was chosen delegate of the territory in Congress after the resignation of General Harrison.  While at Philadelphia, then the seat of Government, he was commissioned United States district attorney for Ohio; but was prevented by declining health from assuming the duties of the office for more than a short time.  He died in Cincinnati in May, 1804.  He had been one of the most zealous and influential members of Nova Csesarea Harmony lodge, No. 2, of Free and Accepted Masons; and that lodge, nearly a quarter of a century after his decease, Oct. 28, 1837, dedicated a monument to his memory, at which a glowing and eloquent eulogy was pronounced by William M. Corry, esq.  We extract the following tribute to his merits as a lawyer:

     During his professional career, there was no higher name at the western bar than William McMillan.  Its accomplished ranks would have done honor to older countries; but it did not contain his superior.  Some of our distinguished lawyers of that day were admirable public speakers: he was not.  Some of them were able in the comprehension of their cases, and skilful to a proverb in their management.  Of these he ranked among the first.  His opinions had all the respectability of learning, precision, and strength.  They commanded acquiescence; they challenged opposition when to obtain assent was difficult and to provoke hostility dangerous.

     The succeeding remarks strongly and no doubt correctly characterize the local bar of his day:

     The profession in those times are conceded to have held high characters for attainments and intellect.  Their recorded history demonstrates the fact, and those who have survived to this day still receive the tribute of unqualified praise for what they are, as well as what they were.  It was not easy to obtain the district attorneyship in that day, when men were chosen and appointed to office from amongst formidable competitors by the test of honesty and capacity, as well as patriotism.  The front rank of the law, then, as much as now, was inaccessible to the weak or the idle, and offices of gift went to the deserving, instead of the dishonest.

     Judge Burnet, in his Notes on the Settlement of the Northwestern Territory, has this to say of Mr. McMillan:

     He possessed an intellect of a high order, and had acquired a fund of information, general as well as professional, which qualified him for great usefulness in the early legislation of the territory.  He was a native of Virginia, educated at William and Mary, and was one of the first adventurers to the Miami valley.  He was the son of a Scotch Presbyterian of the strictest order, who had educated him for the ministry, and who was, of course, greatly disappointed when he discovered that he was unwilling to engage in that profession, and had set his heart on the study and practice of the law.  After many serious discussions on the subject, the son, who understood the feelings and prejudices of the father, at length told him that he would comply with his request, but it must be on one condition—that he should be left at perfect liberty to use Watts’ version of the Psalms.  The old gentleman was very much astonished, and rebuked his son with severity, but never mentioned the subject to him afterwards.

THOMAS GOUDY,

however, has undoubtedly the right to precedence as being the first member of the legal profession who put out his shingle in Cincinnati.  Indeed, he was here before Cincinnati was, coming, like McMillan, while the place was yet Losantiville, but later in the year 1789, it is said.  In 1790 he was one of the settlers who formed Ludlow’s Station, in what is now the north part of Cumminsville, and his name appears occasionally in the Indian stories of that period.  Three years afterwards he was married to Sarah, sister to Colonel John S. Wallace.  Among his children was the venerable Mrs. Sarah Clark, now residing with Mr. Alexander C. Clark, her son, upon his farm in Syracuse township, north of Reading.  Goudy’s office was originally upon the corner of an out-lot, on the present St. Clair square, between Seventh and Eighth streets; but he found it altogether too far out of town for a law office.  It was long abandoned, and came near falling a prey to the flames in the first fire that occurred in Cincin-

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nati—one that swept the out-lot of pretty much everything else upon it.  This was the only building put up for several years upon the spacious tract between Sixth and Court streets, Main and the section line on the west, about where John street now is.  The lots were then surrounded by a Virginia or “worm-fence.”

SAMUEL FINDLAY

     Contemporary with McMillan and Goudy, as a Cincinnati lawyer, was Ezra Fitz Freeman; and early came also an attorney of reputation, of whom Judge Carter has the following pleasant recollections:
     He was an intelligent man and a good lawyer; but he became fonder of politics, and engaging in them most earnestly and prosperously, he was sent to Congress from the Hamilton county district once or twice in the latter twenties.  He was a first-rate man in every sense, and we are glad to put him down in our reminiscences, I remember him as I saw him and knew him in very boyhood—a burly, portly form, largely developed frontal head, adorned with sandy hair; and he had the mien and manners of a finished gentleman.

DANIEL SYMMES,

     another early member of the Hamilton county bar, was a nephew of Judge Symmes and brother of Captain John Cleves Symmes, the advocate of the theory of concentric circles and polar voids.  His father, Timothy Symmes, only full brother of the hero of the Miami Purchase, was himself judge of the inferior court of common pleas in Sussex county, New Jersey, but came west soon after his older brother, and was the pioneer at South Bend, where he died in 1797.  Daniel was born at the ancestral home in 1772, graduated at Princeton college and came out with his father; was made clerk of the territorial court; studied law and practiced some years; after Ohio was admitted was a State senator from Hamilton county and speaker of the senate; upon the resignation of Judge Meigs from the supreme bench in 1804 was appointed to his place and held it until the expiration of the term, when he secured the post of register of the Cincinnati land office, and performed its duties until a few months before his death, May 10, 1817.

JACOB BURNET

     Judge Burnet has received incidentally so many other notices in this work that he need have but brief mention here.  He was born in 1770—son of Dr. Burnet, of New Jersey, who distinguished himself in the Revolutionary war—and in 1796 followed his brother, Dr. William Burnet, to the hamlet in the wilderness opposite the mouth of the Licking, and here made his beginnings as a lawyer and magistrate.  In about two years he was at the head of the legislative council for the Northwest territory—the man, scarcely beyond twenty-eight years old, who in influence and usefulness stood head and shoulders above all others in the first Territorial legislature.  His long and honorable career thereafter, ending only with his death in 1853, at an advanced old age, need not be recapitulated here.  He retired from active practice in 1825.  Judge Carter indulges in the following reminiscence of him:
     Judge Jacob Burnet, as he was called, after he became a judge of the supreme court, was a very early lawyer of the Ohio bar.  I laving come to the city of Cincinnati from the State of New Jersey, toward the close of the last century, and engaging in very early practice of the law in our courts, and becoming one of the most expert and learned and able lawyers of the bar, he may justly be esteemed the pioneer lawyer of the old court-house, and his name deservedly stands at the head of the list of its members of the bar.
     When the hapless Blennerhasset was to be tried as an accessory to the high treason of Aaron Burr, he was advised by the latter to employ in his defense Judge Burnet, and also Richard Baldwin, of Chillicothe.  It was expected that the trials would occur in the State of Ohio. Blennerhasset followed the advice, and presently wrote to his wife: “I have retained Burnet and Baldwin.  The former will be a host with the decent part of the citizens of Ohio, and the latter a giant of influence with the rabble, whom he properly styles his ‘blood-hounds.’”
     Some reminiscences of Judge Burnet’s own, extracted from his Notes on the Settlement of the Northwestern Territory, will have interest here:

     From the year 1796, till the formation of the State government in 1803, the bar of Hamilton county occasionally attended the general court at Marietta and at Detroit, and during the whole of that time Mr. St. Clair, Mr. Symmes, and Mr. Burnet never missed a term in either of those counties.
      The journeys of the court and bar to those remote places, through a country in its primitive state, were unavoidably attended with fatigue and exposure.  They generally traveled with five or six in company, and with a pack-horse to transport such necessaries as their own horses could not conveniently carry, because no dependence could be placed on obtaining supplies on the route; although they frequently passed through Indian camps and villages, it was not safe to rely on them for assistance.  Occasionally small quantities of corn could be purchased for horse feed, but even that relief was precarious, and not to be relied on.
      In consequence of the unimproved condition of the country, the routes followed by travellers, were necessarily circuitous and their progress slow.  In passing from one county seat to another, they were generally from six to eight, and sometimes ten, days in the wilderness.  The country being wholly destitute of bridges and ferrries, travellers had therefore to rely on their horses, as the only substitute for those conveniences.  That fact made it common, when purchasing a horse, to ask if he were a good swimmer, which was considered one of the most valuable qualities of a saddle horse.  Strange as this may now appear, it was then a very natural inquiry.

EIGHTEEN HUNDRED AND THREE TO EIGHTEEN HUNDRED AND TEN.

     Mr. James McBride, in his Pioneer Biography, notes as the Cincinnati lawyers who were wont to attend the Butler county courts during and between these years, Judge Burnet, Arthur St. Clair, jr., Ethan Stone, Nicholas Stone, Nicholas Longworth, George P. Torrence, and Elias Glover.  He adds: “The bar was a very able one, and important cases were advocated in an elaborate and masterly manner.”

ST. CLAIR AND HARRISON.

     The “Mr. St. Clair” named in Judge Burnet’s first paragraph, was Arthur St. Clair, jr., son of Governor St. Clair, and a man of some ability, who came within two votes of defeating General Harrison at the first election, by the Territorial legislature, of a delegate to Congress.  Harrison was also a lawyer, as well as doctor, farmer, soldier, and public officer, and sometimes appeared in a case; but won no distinction whatever at the bar.  His chief prominence in the courts was simply as clerk of the Hamilton county court of common pleas, from which position he was elected at one bound to the Presidency of the United States. His knowledge of the law, of course,

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was of much use to him in his various public and private employments.
     Harrison was, it should be noted, one of the very few temperate lawyers and public men of his time.  Judge Burnet recorded in his Notes many years afterwards that, of the nine lawyers that were contemporaries with him in his earlier days in Cincinnati, all but one went to drunkard’s graves.  It was an age, as we have seen elsewhere, of high conviviality and destructive good fellowship.  Harrison’s own son, it is said—the junior William Henry Harrison, a young lawyer of brilliant talents, eloquent and witty—fell an early victim to intoxicants. Apropos of the morality of the bar in the olden day, there is a tradition that two of the lawyers, named Clark and Glover, made full preparations to fight a duel over some personal or professional difference.  The affair was settled without bloodshed, but not until one of them had pulled off his shoes, to fight the more conveniently in his stocking feet.

EARLY JUDGES.

     Hon. A. H. Dunlevy, son of Judge Francis Dunlevy, of Columbia, in an address before the Cincinnati Pioneer society, Apr. 7, 1875, gave the following reminiscences of the bench of 1804-5:
     Among these early judges, besides my father, then the presiding judge, were Luke Foster, James Silver, I think, and Dr. Stephen Wood.  Judge Goforth was also on the bench, but lived in the city.  Here, too, I frequently met Judge John Cleves Symmmes.  In the early part of court he was always thronged with purchasers of his lands, and I have seen him while supping his tea, of which he was excessively found, writing deeds or contracts, and talking with his friends and those who had business with him, all at the same time.

OTHER EARLY LAWYERS.

     John S. Will, a native of Virginia, born in 1773, and admitted to the bar at the age of twenty-one.  In 1798 he went from Cincinnati to Chillicothe and attended the first session of the common pleas court of the territory there.  In 1809 he removed to Franklinton, now a part of Columbus, and died there Apr. 27, 1829.  He was not an eminently successful attorney, and is said often to have appeared as defendant, rather than counselor and advocate, in actions for debt.
     David Wade was more prominently identified with the early bar here.  He was public prosecutor in 1809, and for a long time afterwards.
     Moses Brooks came to Cincinnati in 1811, was at first an innkeeper, but studied law and was admitted to practice.  He abandoned the profession in 1830 from ill health, and became a successful merchant.  He was also, as we have seen under another head, an occasional writer of some note for the press.
     Nicholas Longworth came from Newark, New Jersey, to the west, and soon became a Cincinnati lawyer, but more for wealth than fame, and did not remain permanently in the profession, Judge Carter says:

     He came to Cincinnati from Jersey in very early times and commenced operations as a shoemaker and afterwards studied law and was admitted to practice law at the earliest bar, but he did not practice law very much, though he was very capable and possessed an acute and astute mentality, and he was always a good and clever gentleman, as singular and eccentric as he was sometimes.  His position as a lawyer affording him great facilities, he became mostly engaged in property speculations, and eventually became by far the largest real-estate holder in this city and in the western country, and the richest man.  He was, in a sense, the Croesus of the west, for his wealth increased and increased so much in the great growth of Cincinnati that he hardly knew what to do with it, and certainly did not know all he owned.  For a rich man, though peculiar, particular, and eccentric, he was a good and clever man, in both the American and English sense.  Mr. Longworth was reputed to have died worth twelve millions.  He was the father of Joseph Longworth, of the court of common pleas, who has had a long and honorable career as a lawyer and judge in Hamilton county.

THE LYTLES.

     William Lytle, a captain in the Pennsylvania line in the old French War, was an immigrant to Kentucky in 1779.  His son, also William, was a pioneer in southwestern Ohio, where he became famous in the border warfare, and an extensive landholder in Clermont county, where he then resided, and elsewhere.  An intimate personal friend of President Jackson, he had no difficulty in obtaining from him the post of surveyor general of public lands.  Many of his later years were spent in Cincinnati, whither he removed early in this century.  Robert T. Lytle was the son of General William Lytle, and was a native Cincinnatian.  He was early admitted to the bar, and gave great promise as a young lawyer; but the attractions of politics and his rare gifts as an orator soon took him into public life and long ruined him as a practitioner.  He was but a youth when sent to the legislature, to which he was repeatedly returned, and then twice sent to Congress (the first time when but thirty-two years old) as a Democratic representative from this district.  President Jackson made much of him at Washington.  He spoke often and well in the house, and achieved national repute.  As a stump orator also, he was hardly excelled at that time by any man of his years in the country.  Lytle sided with Jackson on the United States bank question, and this led to his defeat in 1834, by Judge Storer.  He gave great promise as a lawyer and public man, which was defeated by his early death.  William H., son of Robert T. Lytle, studied law with his uncle, E. S. Haines, and also cultivated literature succesfully.  He was an officer in the Mexican war, and held a general’s commission in the war of the Rebellion, during which he lost his life in action at Chickamauga.

JUDGE WRIGHT,

in early life a school-teacher, came to Cincinnati in 1816.  He was a graduate of Dartmouth college, and was admitted
to the bar the following November term of the supreme court of Ohio.  He married a niece of Judge Burnet, and succeeded early in getting a good practice.  For many years he was distinguished at the bench and bar, and in the Cincinnati Law school.  Says Judge Carter:
     One of the best examples of a real and genuine lawyer of the old school and of the old bar, was Nathaniel Wright.  He came in early times from the east to this city, thoroughly educated in academies and in the law.  He obtained and maintained a good legal practice for many years, and, unlike some of his fellows, never was diverted from or went out of the way of his professional limits.  He was strictly a lawyer and because of this he was reputed and relied upon as a counselor learned in the law, and became the Mentor of many of the lawyers.  He was a rigid man in his moral and religious principles, and I doubt if anything was ever said or could be be said against him.  His reputation as the soundest and safest of lawyers was much extended, and he was a

J. S.  White

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great credit to the bar of early Cincinnati.  He was the father of our present D. Thew Wright, lawyer and judge, and good and clever fellow and lived to venerable age, and died recently among us, respected by every one.

PEYTON SHORT SYMMES,

grandson of Judge Symmes, began his career in Cincinnati.  He never made so much figure in law as in literature and public life.  In 1817, and for many years afterwards, he was register of the land office here.  In 1831-3 he was a member of the city council; 1833-49, an active member of the board of education, preparing some of its most elaborate reports; 1830-50, a member of the board of health, exhibiting special activity during the cholera year of 1849.  He was a trustee of the old Cincinnati college, and took a lively interest and intelligent part in the transactions of the Western College of Teachers and in nearly all the local literary societies of that time.  He wrote much and well, as the Carrier’s Address— poetry, of course—for the Cincinnati Gazette of New Year’s Day, 1816, and many articles in the Literary Gazette of 1824-5, Chronicle of 1826, and the Mirror of 1831-5, in both prose and verse.  He is said to have had in preparation a biography of his distinguished ancestor, Judge Symmes; but, if so, the matter prepared has never been recovered. He died July 7, 1861, at the residence of his son-in-law, Charles L. Colburn, on Mount Auburn.

TIMOTHY FLINT'S VIEW

     The Rev. Timothy Flint, who spent the winter of
1815-16 in Cincinnati, says in his book of Recollections:
     At the bar I heard forcible reasonings and just conceptions, and discovered much of that cleverness and dexterity in management, which are so common in the American Bar in general.  There is here, as else where in the profession, a strong appetite to get business and money.  I understood that it was popular in the courts to be very democratic and, while in the opposite State a lawyer is generally a dandy, he here affects meanness and slovenliness in his dress.  The language of the Bar was in many instances an amusing compound of Yankee dialect southern peculiarity, and Irish blarney. “Him" and “me," said this or that, “I done it," and various phrases of this sort, and images drawn from the measuring and location of land purchases, and figures drawn from boating and river navigation, were often served up as the garnish of thin speeches.  You will readily perceive that all this has vanished before the improvements, the increasing lights, and the higher models, which have arisen in the period that has elapsed between that time and this.

THE LAWYERS OF 1819

     Farnsworth’s Directory of 1819, the first issued for Cincinnati, gives the following as the entire roll of the attorneys of that time in the city:

     The names of Judge Burnet and General Harrison are strangely omitted from this list.  They were undoubtedly entitled to enrollment in the Hamilton county bar, and they have their proper place in the catalogue given by judge Carter.

     Mr. Gazlay came about this year to Cincinnati from New York State, and entered upon a distinguished career in law and politics.  In 1824, as a Jackson man, he was
elected to Congress over no less a competitor than General Harrison, he representing, as his friends put it, plebeian or popular interests against aristocratic.  Having
voted, however, against the proposed appropriation from the Federal Treasury as a gift to General Lafayette, then on a visit to this country, Mr. Gazlay was relegated to private life at the next election of Congressman.  He practiced but little at the bar after this, but retired to the country and spent much of his time in literary work.  He was much respected through a long life, and died at the good old age of eighty-nine.\

     David K. Este was a graduate of Princeton College, came from New jersey to Cincinnati about 1813, and was a very successful practitioner here.  Mr. Mansfield says he was “a good lawyer, but chiefly distinguished for courtesy of manners, propriety of conduct, and success in business.  Like Burnet, he was one of those cool, careful temperaments, which are incapable of being excited beyond a certain point, and who never commit themselves out of the way. . . .  An Episcopalian in the church, a gentleman in society, and a Republican in politics.”  He lived a long and honored life here, having grown very wealthy through the rise of real estate, in which he had invested the savings of his lucrative practice.  He was Judge of the old Superior Court, organized in Cincinnati in 1838; but resigned in 1845, from insufficient salary.  He was also for several years presiding Judge of the old Court of Common Pleas.  He survived until recent days, dying at last at the age of ninety years.

     William Corry was accounted a sound lawyer, and was the first Mayor of the village of Cincinnati, remaining in the office until the village became a city.  He, too, was neatly depicted at the hands of the Cincinnati Horace:

     He was father of the late Hon. William M. Corry, who was an attorney of brilliant talents and a fine orator.
     Mr. Hotchkiss was a practitioner of much reputation, a portly man of distinguished appearance, who also became Mayor after Cincinnati received a city charter.
     Mr. Guilford had some repute as a lawyer, but was better known in journalism and education, and as a promoter of public enterprises.
     Mr. Roe, besides being a lawyer, was occasionally preacher to the Swedenborgian or New Jerusalem church, then worshiping on Longworth street.
     Mr. Pendleton came at a very early day from Virginia, and in due time married a daughter of Jesse Hunt, the citizen who gave to the county the lots upon which the

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present court house is situated.  He was a very reputable practitioner, and became prosecuting attorney.  He was a successful candidate for Congress on the Whig ticket in 1840, defeating Dr. Alexander Duncan.  A strong resemblance in personal appearance was noticed between him and Thomas Corwin, on account of his swarthy complexion.  He was a thoroughly polite gentleman, and a worthy progenitor of the distinguished Cincinnatians of that family name.

     Judge Storer came from Maine in 1817, and had a highly successful career in this part of the west.  Mr. Mansfield says “he had a remarkably quick and sprightly mind; also a certain species of humorous wit.”  In 1825 he was generally taken to be one of the two dozen or more editors of the Crists and Emporium newspaper, published by Samuel J. Browne.  In 1832 he was elected to Congress as a Whig, over Robert T. Lytle, the Jacksonian candidate.  His title was derived from his judgeship in the new Superior Court of Cincinnati, created in 1854, which post he filled very ably.  He was a learned and eloquent advocate, and a very popular man in the community.  His services to education here will also be long and gratefully remembered.

     Mr. Benharn was one of the most remarkable characters at the early Bar.  He was father of Mrs. George D. Prentice.  Mr. Mansfield says he was “an orator, and few men were more imperial in power and manner.”  He makes a figure of this kind in the Satires of Horace in Cincinnati

     Mr. Benham died somewhat early for his best fame and usefulness.  Judge Carter, to whose entertaining book on the Old Court-house we are indebted for the material of most of the above notices, has this to say of him:

     The great and convivial Joseph Benham I am reminded of—an eloquent advocate and an able lawyer.  He was a large and portly man, standing near six feet in his shoes, with large head and dark auburn flowing hair, broad shoulders, and capacious and "unbounded stomach," covered by a large buff vest and a brown broadcloth frock coat over it, and with a graceful and easy position and delivery.  Before a jury he was indeed a picture to look upon.  His voice was a deep basso, but melodious, and its ringing tones will never be forgotten by those who ever  heard him.  He sometimes spoke on politics out of the bar, in the open air, to his Whig friends and partisans; and then he was always able and eloquent.  He was also, I think, an editor of a Whig paper once; but it was at the bar he mostly distinguished himself.  He was a Southerner, and had all the manners of the South of the days of yore. 

     .  .  .  . On the occasion of the visit of General Lafayette to Cincinnati in the month of May, in the year 1825, Joseph S. Benham was selected by the citizens to deliver the address of welcome to the great American-French man and French-Amerlcan; and well, exceedingly well, did he perform his part of the great ovation to the immortal Lafayette.  It was upon the old court house grounds that Benham's great oration to Lafayette was pronounced before the most numerous concourse of people—men, women, and children—of this city and State, and from all parts of the west; and it was pronounced by the multitude, with one accord, that the tribute of genuine eloquence to Lafayette was great and grand, and fully entitled Lawyer Benham to be enrolled among the chief orators of the land.  The occasion was certainly a memorable one, and his selection to the position of orator of the occasion manifests to us in what eminent esteem the eloquence of Benham was held in those early days.  He was of national repute as a lawyer.

TORRENCE.

     At this time the president-judge of the court of common pleas was the Hon. George P. Torrence, who had as associates under the old system Messrs. Othniel Looker, John Cleves Short, and James Silvers—these gentlemen not being necessarily lawyers.  Of Judge Torrence many pleasant things are related.  The History of Clermont county, published a few months ago, says of him:

     From 1820 to 1822 the dignified and popular George P. Torrence, of Cincinnati, presided with a courtly grace and dignity unequalled, his imposing presence lending charm to his descisions  .  .  .   In 1826 the dignified and popular George P. Torrence ascended the woolsack and sat as judge for the seven following years; and many of Clermont's older people remember with pride his pleasant stories at the hotel when court had adjourned, and his apt way of making and retaining friends.

     The following notice of another well-known judge, from the same work, may as well be given here:

     In 1833 John M. Goodenow presided—a clear-headed jurist from Cincinnati, to which place he had moved some two years previous from Jefferson county  .  .  .   He made a splendid judge, and for many years was a leading attorney, and one of the best advocates in Hamilton county.

THE ROSTER OF EIGHTEEN HUNDRED AND TWENTY-FIVE

     The new names of 1826 were -

     In 1826, by act of the Legislature, attorneys and counsellors-at-law were subjected to a tax of five dollars apiece.  This was the occasion of a docket entry in the Court of Common Pleas for Hamilton county, Feb. 20, 1827, which includes the following list of attorneys as then at the bar of the county.  This list numbers but thirty-two.  Some names in the roll of 1825 are not here; and one new name, that of Mr. D. J. Caswell, appears:

     David K. Este, Bellamy Storer, Joseph S. Benham, Nathaniel Wright, David Wade, William Greene, William Corry, Charles Hammond, Samuel R. Miller, Nicholas Longworth, Thomas Hammond, Samuel Lewis, Dan Stone, Charles Fox, Elijah Hayward, Jesse Kimball, John S. Lytle, J. W. Piatt, N. G. Pendleton, E. S. Haines,

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J. G, Worthington , W. H. Harrison, jr. , Samuel Findlay. Moses Brooks, J. Madeira, Daniel Van Matre, Isaiah Wing, Nathan Guilford, Benjamin F. Powers, James W. Gazlay, D. J. Caswell, Hugh McDougal.

     Republishing this record in his Miscellany in 1844, Mr. Cist is moved to say:

     What changes have seventeen years brought in the list~  Of the attorneys, Este, Longworth, Lewis, and Pendleton have retired from professional business.  Stone, Hayward, and Powers have removed from Cincinnati; Brooks, Wing, and Guilford have changed their profession, and, with the exception of the ten in italics, who still survive, the residue are no longer living.

     Some remarkable men were in the lists of 1825 and ’27.  We shall give sketches of two or three of the most prominent:

JUDGE FOX.

     The name of Charles Fox, the Nestor of the Cincinnati bar, appears for the first time in the catalogue of attorneys in the city directory in that of 1825.  He had then been admitted to the bar for two years.  He came to the Queen City—an Englishman born, and already in this country some years—about 1820, and labored as a carpenter here for a time.  He was also a singing-master, and had considerable knowledge and talent in other department of thought and work.  He studied law, was admitted, and soon formed an honorable and profitable partnership with Bellamy Storer, under the firm name of Storer & Fox, which lasted a long time and did a large business. Judge Carter says:

     Perhaps there was, and now is, no lawyer who has had and has attended to more law business than Charley Fox, as he used to be so familiarly called.  I remember the time when he used to be on one side or the other of every important case in court, and he was always regarded by his brethren of the bar "as a wide-awake and sometimes formidable adversary.  His extended experience made him most learned in the law, and particularly in its practice; and he used to be sought for, for advice and counsel, in many questions of law practice, and the judges of the bench were in the habit frequently of interrogating lawyer Fox as to what was the true and right practice in given cases.

     Mr. Fox became one of the judges of the local courts, and served ably and faithfully.  He is still in practice, notwithstanding he passed his eighty-third year Nov. 11, 1880.

CHARLES HAMMOND.

     One of the strong men then at the bar here—strong in law as in journalism and everything else he undertook — was Mr. Hammond.  He came to the town in 1822
from St. Clairsville, Belmont county, as a full-fledged practitioner, and the next year was made reporter for the supreme court, when that office was created.  He retained
it until 1838, publishing the first nine volumes of the Ohio Reports, when he retired from the bar. He had already gone into journalism, and finally became absorbed
in it, and was totally lost to the legal profession.  We again take pleasure in referring to Judge Carter for reminiscences of him:

     In this city he became both lawyer and editor, and he was excellent as each, or both. He practiced law for a dozen years, perhaps; and then, in the increase of our city and the duties and labors of his newspaper, he relinquished the practice and devoted himself to it alone.  He had wit and humor in himself, and was sometimes the occasion of them in others.  My friend Mr. Robert Buchanan, of this city, told me this good one of him.  Hammond had an important case once in court for him as client and as president of the Commercial bank, the only bank then in the city.  The case was a quo warranto against Mr. Buchanan, to find out by what authority he was exercising the functions of president and director of the bank.  Mr. Hammond told Mr. Buchanan that the law was against him, but he would see what could be done. "You," said Mr. Hammond, "need not appear in court."  Mr. Buchanan did not appear, but went "a-fishin'."  Case came on, but no Mr. Buchanan present.  Hammond moved for a postponement vociferously, but not with purpose to accomplish it particularly—he knew what he was about—on account of absence of Buchanan.  Opposite counsel, not perceiving the cat in the meal, insisted, as Hammond thought he would, on immediate trial, and gained his point.  Trial was had; "and now," said Mr. Hammond to adversary counsel, “bring forward your witnesses."  He did bring them forward, and proved all he could; but as there was no one except Mr. Buchanan himself to prove the corpzis delicti, and he was absent, of course the quo warranto proceeding was thrown out of court, as it ought to have been, being, as it seemed, a piece of spite-work upon the part of some men interested against Mr. Buchanan.
     After the success, client met Mr. Hammond, his lawyer, to pay his fee. " How much?" “Fifty dollars; but I gained the case by a little pettifogging, which I didn't like at all."  Mr. Bnchanan handed his lawyer a check for one hundred dollars, and Hammond taking it and looking at it, exclaimed; " What is all this for?"  Buchanan replied:  "For yourself and your partner, the pettifogger.” Hammond, laughing and taking the check:  " I shall dissolve with that scamp, and have nothing more to do with him hereafter.”

     The following anecdote, among others, is related of him by Mr. Roswell Marsh, of Steubenville, who prepared and published a pamphlet memoir of Mr. Hammond:

     About a year before his death, after he had relinquished legal business, two men called upon him to get his opinion on a case.  As a favor to his son-in-law he granted them an interview.  When they were seated he turned from his writing-table, raised his glasses on his forehead, and requested them to state their case.  It was this:
     An honest old farmer in Indiana had loaded a flat-boat on the Wabash with produce for New Orleans, and had effected an insurance on the boat and cargo for seven hundred dollars.  The boat and cargo had been wrecked and totally lost in descending the Wabash, and the owner had nearly lost his life in strenuous efforts to save his property.  It was his all, and reduced him to poverty.  He had a family to support, and they must suffer if the insurance was not paid.  But the terms of the policy required the owner, in case of loss, to make a protest.  This, from oversight or ignorance, the old man had not done, The question propounded to Mr. Hammond, on behalf of the insurance company, was whether the company would be justified in paying the money.  During the statement tears were observed on Mr. Hammond's cheeks.  When they had concluded, he asked somewhat
sharply if they came to him for his opinion expecting to put money in their pockets.  This was admitted reluctantly.  He then required a fee of twenty dollars, which was paid.  Turning to his son-in-law, he said:
“Take this money and send it to the orphan asylum." Turning again to the gentlemen, he said: "From your account the man has acted the honest part.  My advice is that you go home and do likewise.”

     Mr. Hammond made a very notable plea in the case of Osburn et al. vs. United States Bank, which is reported in 9 Wheaton, 738. Hammond was against the bank, and his argument was made before the supreme court of the United States, of which Marshall - was then chief justice.  Referring to it, Judge Marshall said that “he had produced in the case the most remarkable paper placed on file in any court since the days of Lord Mansfield,” and that he had almost persuaded him (Marshall) that wrong was right in this case.

BENJAMIN F. POWERS.

was a brother of Hiram Powers the sculptor.  He began practice hopefully, but was soon diverted into journalism as a co-proprietor and principal editor of the Liberty Hall and Cincinnati Gazette, winning far more distinction from his connection with the press than with the bar.

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WILLIAM GREENE

was born in Rhode Island in 1823 or 1824.  He was an able and learned man, and did a large business.  He became somewhat noted for his numerous opinions on points of constitutional law, and was often called "Constitutional Billy Greene."  Once or twice he was a candidate for Congress, but unsuccessfully.

E. D. MANSFIELD,

himself educated in part at the Litchfield Law school, then kept by Professors Reeve and Gould, undertook the practice of law in Cincinnati during most of the years between 1825 and 1836, when for two academic years he filled the chair of constitutional law and history in the Cincinnati college.  Law and literature, in his case at least, did not thrive well together; and he never made a great figure at the bar.  In his book of Personal Memories he says of the associates of his earlier professional career that they numbered not more than forty, of whom three or four were retired from practice.  But, he says, “in this small body were several men of mark and influence— men of mind, weight, and character—some of them had influence upon the nation.”  Jacob Burnet was then reckoned at the head of the local bar.

BENJAMIN DRAKE,

brother of the celebrated Dr. Daniel Drake, and associate of Mr. Mansfield in the preparation of Drake and Mansfield’s little book on Cincinnati in 1826, began the study of the law in his nineteenth year, at the old home in Mayslick, Kentucky, whence he came to Cincinnati to take a place in the drug store of his brother.  He finished his preliminary studies about 1825, and began practice with William R. Moses.  The firm did a good business, in which young Drake bore a full part, though much engaged in journalism and general literature, until his untimely death in April, 1841, after a long and painful sickness.

A NEWSPAPER NOTICE.

     An interesting little editorial article, in regard to the bar and its business, appeared in the Saturday Evening Chronicle of July 9, 1827, from the pen of Moses Brooks, esq., who was himself lawyer as well as editor.  It runs as follows:

     At the late term of the supreme court of Ohio for Hamilton county, there were one hundred and sixty cases on the docket.  There are at the bar in Cincinnati forty lawyers.  Supposing the business in the supreme court to be equally divided among this number, it would give to each four oases.  If there be any truth in the old adage that legal business is just in proportion to the number of lawyers, it would seem that those in our city have but little talent or else a great deal of honesty among them.  For ourselves, we are disposed to refer the slender docket to the latter cause.  One fact, illustrative of the peculiar advantages which Cincinnati possesses, may be drawn from the following statement.  We refer to the extreme cheapness of subsistence in this place.  Most of the lawyers of our city present an embonpoint by no means corresponding with their docket.  Other members of the legal profession who may contemplate an immigration to Cincinnati need not, therefore, be discouraged.  There is little danger of starvation if they have but three or four suits in the supreme court in each year.

     Mr. Mansfield, in his Personal Memories, says of the Cincinnati bar of this period: “In no larger number than forty, it certainly had as large a proportion of gifted and remarkable men as perhaps ever adorned a similar body.”  Among them proved to be some remarkable examples of longevity, as no less than eight were living fifty years afterwards.  There were then surviving four out of a dozen members of a little society of attorneys formed in 1825 for mutual improvement.

SIX YEARS LATER.

By 1831, with the rapid growth of the city in population and business, the number of lawyers had also largely increased.  The following named are mentioned in the directory of that year:

     Jacob and Isaac G. Burnet, David K. Este, Nicholas Longworth, William Corry, Joseph S. Benham, B. Ames, James W. Gazlay, Nathaniel Wright, Samuel Lewis, Daniel J. Caswell, Henry Starr, Benjamin Drake, William R. Morris, John G. Worthington, Benjamin F. Powers, Daniel Van Matre, E. S. Haines, David Wade, Charles Hammond, Jeptha D. Garrard, Bellamy Storer, Charles Fox, Moses Brooks, Hugh Peters, J. Southgate, J. Lytle, B. J. Fessenden, Vachel Worthington, Thomas Longworth, James F. Conover, Thomas J. Strait, S. P. Chase, D. H. Hawes, Thomas Morehead, Robert T. Lytle, R.  Hodges, Jesse Kimball, N. Riddle, J. W. Piatt, H. Hall, B. E. Bliss, Daniel Stone, H. S. Kile, S. Y. Atlee, F. W. Thomas, Isaiah Wing, William Greene, Talbot Jones, Stephen Fales, N. G. Pendleton, E. Woodruff, H. E. Spencer, H. P. Gaines, S. Findlay, Henry Orne.

     Judge Carter adds the names of Judges John M. Goodenow and Timothy Walker.  These make, with the others, fifty-eight—an increase of nineteen upon the roll of 1825.  But four of them were known here to be living in 1880— Judge Fox, residing in Cincinnati, and still practing; Judge Woodruff and Henry E. Spencer, also in the city, but retire

JUDGE CHASE.

     In the spring of 1830 young Salmon P. Chase made his advent in Cincinnati, from Washington, where he had kept a classical school for boys.  He began a profitable practice at once, and by and by published his edition of the statutes of Ohio, which gave him wide repute and brought him a large practice.  In 1834 he became solicitor of the Branch Bank of the United States, and soon after of another city bank, which proved to be lucrative connections.  In 1837 he added materially to his fame by his eloquent and able defense of a colored woman, claimed as a slave under the Fugitive law of 1793.  The same year he made a famous argument in behalf of James G. Birney, editor of the Philanthropist, for harboring a runaway slave.  His strong anti-slavery bent early took him into politics, and his subsequent career as governor.  United States senator, secretary of the treasury, and chief justice of the Federal supreme court, is well known to the world.

JUDGE WALKER

came about 1831, married fortunately, and soon won name, fame and money.  Judge Carter has some pleasant things to say of his old preceptor:

     He was a most worthy man and a most worthy lawyer.  He had not genius, however; he had abundance of talent, and chiefly of acquirement.  He was learned in the law and out of the law.  He could deliver a good lecture and a good speech anywhere and almost on any topic, if you would give him time for his own preparation.  He was the author of Walker's Introduction to American Law, one of the best of law books for the legal studies of American law students.  He served as presiding judge of our old court of common pleas for a time, by appointment of the governor; and in every relation of life, public or private, he was a gentleman and a scholar.  He was full of

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good points intellectually, and good parts generally.  He never reached political distinction—he never sought it.  He was not ambitious; he was, perhaps, aspiring.  He will always be well remembered by those who knew him

HAWES AND STRAIT

     Daniel H. Hawes, a practitioner here between 1827 and 1834, made a beginning in business as a peddler of cakes, which he pushed about in a wheelbarrow.  After his admission he obtained a partnership with Thomas J. Strait, and the firm commanded a large business.  In 1832 he was chosen to represent the county in the legislature, though his opponent was the renowned but sometimes defeated General Harrison.
     Mr. Strait was a country schoolmaster in Miami township before removing to Cincinnati, where he became a quite prominent attorney.  He also, like most lawyers, went into politics, and was once an unsuccessful candidate for congress.  He removed finally to Mississippi, and died there.

JOHN M. GOODENOW

came to Cincinnati very early, from Steubenville.  In February, 1832, he was elected judge of the common pleas court, over Judge Turner.

THE WRIGHTS

     Crafts J. Wright, now of Wright’s Grove, near Chicago, came with Judge Goodenow, but shortly went into partnership with Charles Hammond, and in 1836 transferred his association to Judge Fox, whom he left after a time to take a place on the Daily Gazette.  He was in this a partner with Mr. Hamilton, with whom he was very intimate, and was afterwards president of the Gazette company.
     Judge John C. Wright, who had been a judge of the supreme court, and member of congress from the Steubenville district, came about 1834, and entered into partnership with Timothy Walker.  He succeeded Hammond as editor of the Gazette, and was known as one of General Harrison’s “conscience-keepers”—that little body of Harrison’s friends who took it upon themselves to see that he should say or write nothing indiscreet while the presidential canvass was pending.  He was also the author of Wright’s series of the Supreme Court Reports.  Crafts J. Wright was his son, and another son, Benjamin T. Wright, came with him, and proved a successful young lawyer, but died prematurely.

JAMES H. PERKINS

     One of the lawyers of the middle period here was Mr. Perkins.  He, however, remained but a short time in the profession.  Coming from Boston in February, 1832, he entered the office of Judge Walker, and was admitted in 1834.  The next year he undertook a manufacturing enterprise at Pomeroy, in this State, but abandoned it in a year or two, and returned to Cincinnati in the autumn of 1837.  He soon got into journalism, was for a year or two editor of the Chronicle, and then became minister of the Unitarian church, where, and as a literary man, he made much reputation.  One of his little fugitive pieces in the Chronicle, entitled “The Hole in My Pocket,” is believed to have been copied in nearly every newspaper than existing in the country.  He was compiler of the large octavo volume known as the Annals of the West, which is still greatly esteemed as furnishing the materials of history.  For years he was also a sort of city missionary in Cincinnati, and was of great service to the sick and poor.  Mr. Perkins died comparatively young, and his loss was very much regretted.  His death occurred Dec. 14, 1849.

SUNDRY NOTICES

      Vachel Worthington immigrated from Kentucky at some time before 1831, and gained some eminence at the bar for industry, learning, and ability.  He was strictly a lawyer, decling to be drawn aside into politics or literature, and. giving the most careful attention to his business, in which he naturally succeeded very handsomely.
     About the same time came Henry Starr Easton, an old man when he began practice here, but a fair lawyer, who soon made his way into practice.
     In 1830 came Frederick W. Thomas, a young attorney from Baltimore.  He was devoted mainly to literature and educational matters, and practiced quite irregularly.  He lived in Washington between 1841 and 1850, and afterwards served in Cincinnati for some time as a Methodist preacher.   He died here in 1867.
     Henry E. Spencer was a son of Oliver M. Spencer, and grandson of Colonel Spencer, of the Columbia pioneers.  He was mayor of the city for a number of years, and then president of the Fireman’s Insurance company.  His brother, Oliver M. Spencer, jr., was also an attorney at the Hamilton county bar.
     Harvey Hall was the compiler and publisher of the Directory of 1825, the second published in the city.  He prepared it with great care, and carried the same assiduity and patience into his subsequent practice of law, in which he achieved much success.  An interesting relic of his residence is a three-story brick building, remarkable for its very small windows, which is still standing on Eighth street, near Main.
     Edward Woodruff, son of Archibald Woodruff, one of the pioneers, was in his day judge of the probate and common pleas courts.  He is still living, but altogether retired from practice.
     Thomas Longworth, a cousin of Nicholas, was much respected as both lawyer and citizen, but did not remain permanently in practice.
     Thomas Morehead shared the good Scotch blood of his brothers, Dr. John and Robert Morehead, and was accounted a good lawyer.
     James F. Conover, although a lawyer, was better known as a politician and as editor of The Daily Whig.  He is remembered by the veterans of the bar as a scholar and a gentleman.

1831-49.

     Judge Carter, in his book of Reminiscences of the Old Court-house, has taken pains to collect the names of the large number of practitioners in Cincinnati during about eighteen years after the publication of the last roll we have copied—that of 1831.  This list, evidently carefully prepared, is as follows:

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(SHARON WICK'S NOTE:  The following names have been alphabetized for easier searching.)

     About fifty of all this large number, the judge thinks, were still alive in 1880; and of the survivors many have turned their attention to other pursuits.
     Speaking of the court house and bar of the second generation in Cincinnati, Mr. Scarborough says in his Historical
Address:
     The bar numbered not less than one hundred and twenty-five members.  The location of the court house was then more inconvenient even than it is now.  Some few of the law offices were, as at present, in its neighborhood; but the most of them were on Third street, between Sycamore and Walnut streets, while several were to the south of Pearl street, on Main, Columbia [Second], and Front streets.  The offices of Slorer & Gwynne and Charles Fox were of this number, the former being on the west side of Main, about half way from Pearl to Second street, and the latter on the southeast corner of Main and Columbia streets.  The office of T. D. Lincoln, afterwards Lincoln, Smith & Warnock, was a little to the east, on Columbia street, where it remained until about 1865.
     The lawyers of that time who had their offices near the court house were not all book men, and no one of them had any considerable library.  Necessarily, the books then used in court were carried from day to day to and from the court house and the down town offices.  “To tote” is an active verb, and generally believed to be not of purely classic origin.  The lawyers of that day, as well as the court messengers, came to know its signification in the most practical way.  The green satchel was used by every lawyer, and was almost as essential to him as the ear of the court.  Nevertheless, it is well remembered that in all sharply contested trials, prominent features were delays while authorities were sent for, and statement and altercation as to cases cited and not produced in court.
     The bar at that time was conspicuous for its ability—Judge Burnet, Judge Wright, Nathaniel Wright, and Henry Starr had retired, or were about retiring, from practice.  Judge Este had just left the bench of the old superior court, and Judge Coffin had become his successor.  The late Chief Justice Chase, Judges T. Walker, O. M. Spencer, W. Y. Gholson, and Bellamy Storer, and T. J. Strait, not to make mention of their compeers yet living, were then active members of the bar in full practice.
     Scarcely less brilliant or richly gifted were the younger members of the bar.  Some are still with us, among the leaders of to-day; others, as B. B. Fessenden, Jordan A. Pugh, C. L. Telford, A. E. Gwynne, and T. M. Key, are deceased.
    But among the more notable members of the bar were two not yet mentioned— William R. Morris and Daniel Van Matre.  Visitors to the court rooms of that day rarely failed, in the morning hour, to find them there, or to be attracted and favorably impressed by their deportment and marked, though dissimilar peculiarities.  Morris was a man of energy and push, of high spirit and great manly beauty.  Van Matre was thoroughly genial, singularly quiet and unobtrusive, and guileless as a child.  Withal he was cultured, and unusually exact and painstaking in the fulfillment of his purposes.  They were both good lawyers, and alike cherished their profession, and desired to do whatever they could to ennoble it.

THE ANDERSON BROTHERS.

     Judge Carter gives the following appreciative notice of these gentlemen:
     Lawyer Larz Anderson belonged to the bar of the old court-house, but, having married a daughter of the millionaire, Nicholas Longworth, he gave little or no attention to law except as it concerned the affairs of Mr. Longworth's large estate.  Larz Anderson was a good lawyer, however, and a polished gentleman, and was much liked by the old members of the bar.  His brother Charles, whom I knew as a fellow student at Miami University, became quite a distinguished lawyer as well as a polished gentleman, and also became of some account in politics, and was once elected by the people of Ohio as their lieutenant governor.  They were both Kentuckians, but came to this city in young age, and settled permanently among us.  Charles was much given to the drama, and at a great benefit for the poor of Cincinnati, in the month of February, 1855, he appeared in the character of Hamlet, enacting the scenes of the third act.  This was at the old National theatre of this city.  Some ten years after this, at another benefit for the poor, given at Pike's opera house, he enacted the whole of Hamlet, with great approbation and eclat.  So that it was well said of him, he was as fit for the winsome walks of the drama as he was for the perilous paths of the law.  In either capacity, as lawyer or actor, he acted well his part and there the honor laid; and it used to be said of him, he was a first-rate actor in both professions—law and the drama—notwithstanding an indignant adversary advocate in court once directly pointed at him before the court and jury, and proclaimed, by way of manifesting some contempt for the way he managed his cause, “Lo! the poor actor!” But Charles Anderson was a good lawyer as well as good actor, and a gentleman in every sense of the term.

TELFORD.

     One of the ornaments of the local bar, for a short time in the middle period, was Charles L. Telford.  He was a superior young man—“in no way a common person,” writes Mr. E. D. Mansfield; “he had uncommon talents, both of nature and self-culture, tall, erect, with dark hair and clear, dark eyes, his carriage was manly, dignified, and commanding.  In this respect he was one of a few whom nature has formed not to be reduced to the ordi-

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nary level by the want of gravity and dignity.”  He was graduated at Miami University, and became professor of rhetoric and belles lettres in Cincinnati college, upon the re-organization of its literary department in 1835.  While performing the duties of his chair he read law, was admitted to the bar and to a partnership with William S. Groesbeck, obtained a good practice, and about 1847-8, with Mr. Groesbeck, became a professor in the Law school.  He died comparatively young, however, the fell destroyer, consumption, claiming him for its own.

FOSDICK.

     Judge Carter gives the following little sketch of Fosdick, the lawyer-poet:

     The Western poet, William W. Fosdick, was a lawyer and a member of the bar of the old court-house in its later days.  Given to poets and poetry as he was, he was not very much given to the law, but he was quite capable, though he never practiced the law a great deal.  He was a good-souled, jovial fellow, and full of wit and humor, and was always a companion.  He was very fond of puns from others and of punning himself.  He was a punster, and stirred up a great many puns, and often in company he became the very life of it.  A coterie of lawyers were one day engaged in the old court-room of the old court-house discussing the Mexican war, when Fosdick was asked his opinion and expression.  He readily replied: "Gentlemen, I can easily express my sentiments in a single poetic line from Addison's Cato.  It may be a new reading, but them 's my sentiments: ‘ My voice is still—for war !’"

HODGE.

     Again from the Old Court House:

     Adam Hodge, as a lawyer, had very few superiors among the young members of the old bar.  He was distinguished for learning and legal sharpness and acumen, and was very successful in his practice.  He was a tall, thin, spare man, long arms and long legs and long body, and long but very agreeable and pleasant face, which, when he was arguing a case at bar, lit up with peculiar, fascinating illumination; and his eloquence attracted all his listeners, who were pleased with his use of language and his mellow bass and tenor tones of voice.  Adam also had wit and humor in him, and frequent sallies issued forth from his brain, with the applause of his auditory and to the discomfiture of his adversary.  He was a clever gentleman and a clever lawyer, and no one who had the pleasure of knowing will soon forget him.  He was engaged in the defence of many prisoners in the criminal department of the court; and he seemed to love to defend such, and would gloat with positive delight whenever he succeeded in getting any defendant acquitted.

ZINN.

     One of the most remarkable men of the bar of the old court house, and mentioned in Judge Carter’s list, died Nov. 17, 1880, at his home in Riverside, of tetanus or lock-jaw, induced by a surgical operation.  Peter Zinn was born in Franklin county Feb. 23, 1819, and came to Cincinnati in 1837 as a journeyman printer; published the Daily News in 1839; read law with Judge Storer and William M. Corry, and was admitted in 1849; became a partner with Charles H. Brough, then with John Brough, and with Judge Alexander Paddack; represented a city district in the State legislature 1851-2, and again in 1861; was major in the Fifty-fifth Ohio volunteer infantry, rendered signal service during the “siege of Cincinnati,” and was then appointed to command Camp Chase; after the war obtained distinction as a lawyer, especially in conducting for the plaintiff the celebrated case of the Covington & Lexington railroad (now Kentucky Central), against R. B. Bowler’s heirs el al., and author of Zinn’s Leading Cases on Trusts; retired from the bar a few years ago, to give attention to his extensive rolling-mill in Riverside and other private interests; and there ended his active and successful career.

THE KINGS.

     The Hon. Rufus King, of New York, is well known in American history as a distinguished minister of the United States Government at the Court of St. James, a United States Senator, and candidate of the Federal party for the Presidency in 1804, 1808, and 1816.  Edward King, his fourth son, was born at Albany, Mar. 13, 1795, and came to Ohio twenty years afterward, making his home first in Chillicothe, then the capital of the State.  He had followed his graduation at Columbia college with a course at the celebrated Litchfield Law school, was admitted to practice the year after his removal to Ohio, and by his talents and popular qualities soon acquired a large practice.  At Chillicothe he married Sarah, the second daughter of Governor Thomas Worthington.  Returning to Cincinnati in 1831, he practiced here with eminent success until his death, Feb. 6, 1836.  His most notable association here was with the Cincinnati Law school, which he helped to found in 1833; and when the college was re-established two years afterwards, he was selected by the trustees to fill the chair of the law department, which his failing health compelled him to decline.  He had been attacked the previous October with dropsical disease, and had taken a southern trip for it, but without material benefit.  He returned much discouraged, unable to resume his business, and grew rapidly more feeble until death relieved him.  While in Chillicothe he was four times elected a representative to the legislature from Ross county, and during two of his terms served the house as speaker.  Colonel Gilmore, of the Chillicothe bar, in a notice of Mr. King in the History of Ross and Highland Counties, says:

     There was a great deal to admire in Edward King's abilities, and a great deal to love in his character.  He was quick and acute in perception, of active and vivid imagination, abounding in good-natured wit, was fluent and pleasant in speech, graceful and often forcible in declamation, and always gentle and polished in manners.  He was generous to a fault—if that be possible—cheerful, frank, cordial to all acquaintances, high or low, learned or ignorant, rich or poor.  No wonder, then, that his praise was in all men's mouths.

     Rufus King, son of Edward, became in his turn an eminent Cincinnati lawyer, besides rendering the public great service in education and other lines of duty.  He is still living, and in full practice.

ALLEN LATHAM

was another Chillicothe lawyer who removed to this city, and spent his later years here.  He was born in Lyme, New Hampshire, Mar. 1, 1793, came early to Ohio and was admitted to the bar at New Philadelphia, removing to the old State capital about 1815.  At Chillicothe he did something in law practice, but more in land speculation, for which his office as surveyor-general of the military land district gave him special facilities.  He was also a prominent Democratic politician, represented Ross county in the State senate in 1841-2, and in 1838 was defeated as a candidate for congress by only one hundred and thirty-six votes.  He removed to Cincinnati in 1854, and died here Mar. 28, 1871, being then seventy-eight years old.

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THE BROUGHS.

     John and Charles H. Brough came from Lancaster to this city in the winter of 1840-1, purchased the Advertiser from Moses Dawson, changed its name to the Cincinnati Enquirer, and started the paper on its wonderful career.  Both were successful lawyers and public men.  John, as is well known, became auditor of State and one of the famous war governors of Ohio.  He was not admitted to the bar until 1845, and did not acquire so much business as a lawyer as he did in journalism and politics.  His voice was remarkably clear and strong, and when he spoke, as he sometimes did during the war, on the river-bank or from a steamer on the Cincinnati side, he could be heard easily in Covington.  Charles Brough became prosecuting attorney of the county, colonel of one of the Ohio regiments in the Mexican war, and afterwards presiding judge of the court of common pleas.  He died here of cholera in 1849.

RUTHERFORD B. HAYES

was a young legal immigrant of 1849.  He became partner with Richard M. Corwine, forming the firm of Corwine & Hayes, to which William D. Rogers was presently added, the partnership then becoming Corwine, Hayes, & Rogers.  The firm soon commanded a large business.  Hayes became prosecuting attorney, went to the war of the Rebellion as a major, was elected to represent the second district in congress while still in the field, and subsequently governor for three terms and President of the United States.  His great case here was that of Nancy Farrar, the poisoner, in whose defence he labored with great assiduity and ability, and finally with success.

CHARLES D. COFFIN

came to the city about 1842, and remained until his death, at the advanced age of seventy-six, which occurred but a few years ago.  He was judge of both the old and the new superior courts of the city.

DONN PIATT.

     This eccentric Washington editor, a member of the famous Piatt family of Cincinnati and the Miami valley, was a lawyer here many years ago.  After the resignation of Judge Robert Windom from the bench of the common pleas, Piatt was appointed by the governor to the vacant place.  His professional brethren thereanent said of him that, as he knew nothing of law, he would go to the bench without any legal prejudices.  Judge Carter, however, testifies that he was a good lawyer and made a good judge.

IN EIGHTEEN HUNDRED AND FIFTY-THREE

the bar of Cincinnati included one hundred and eighty-three lawyers and law-firms.  Some of sthe most famous names of the local bar are in thi list; as Hayes, Groesbeck, Taft, Long, Pugh, Anderson, and others.  We have said little in this chapter of the living still in practice of the later generation of lawyers, and of the equally distinguished not heretofore referred to—as Stanley Matthews, Judge Hoadly, Job E. Stevenson, and many more—the limitations of this chapter and book compelling us to deal almost exclusively with the past; but we must find room here for one remarkable anecdote told by Judge Carter of the late

GEORGE E. PUGH.

     On one occasion he was all alone, engaged in the defence of a celebrated case involving a great part of the Elmore Williams estate; and on the plaintiff's side, against him, were those two distinguished lawyers Thomas Ewing and Henry Stanberry.  The long table before the bench was filled with a hundred law-books, placed there by the plaintiff's lawyers; and from them, taking each one up and reading, Mr. Stanberry cited his cases, and occupied several hours in so doing.  Mr. Pugh replied to Mr. Stanberry, and, without brief or notes, or taking up or reading from a single law-book, he cited from his own memory all that Mr. Stanberry had quoted, and then, in addition, cited more than thirty different law-books—cases, principles, and points, and names of cases, and pages of books, where they were to be found on his own side of the case, without in a single instance using books, notes, or briefs.  It was truly a most unique and remarkable mental performance; and after he got through the presiding judge of the court called Mr. Pugh to him to the bench and asked him “how in the world he did it." Pugh modestly replied: “Oh, for these matters I always trust to my memory; and while that serves me, I want no books or briefs before me." What a valuable memory! By it, too, Pugh won his case, as he did many others.

THE OLD GUARD.

     Judge Carter gives the following list of survivors of the old court house (burned in 1849) at time his book was published in 1880:

     Charles Anderson, Samuel York At Lee, James Boyle, Joshua H. Bates, Jacob Burnet, jr. , Flamen Ball, Samuel F. Black, Calhoun Benham, Oliver Brown, Robert W. Carroll, Samuel F. Cary, Samuel S. Carpenter, A. G. W. Carter, Samuel S. Cox, John W. Caldwell, Edward P. Cranch, Jacob T. Crapsey, Jacob H. Clemmer, Frederick Colton, Nelson Cross, Joseph Cox, Aaron R. Dutton, William Dennison, James J. Faran, William T. Forrest, John Frazer, E. Alexander Ferguson, Charles Fox, William S. Groes Robert S. Hamilton, Rutherford B. Hayes, Charles Hilts, George B. Hollister, Samuel W. Irwin, Charles P. James, William Johnson, Rufus King, John Kebler, Timothy D. Lincoln, Frederick D. Lincoln, Oliver S. Lovell, J. Bloomfield Leake, Thomas Longworth, Nathaniel C. McLean, Alexander H. McGuffey, Edward D. Mansfield, Patrick McGroarty, Patrick Mallon, Charles C. Murdock, Andrew McMicken, John B. McClymon, William McMaster, Stanley Matthews, M. W. Oliver, George H. Pendleton, William Phillips, jr. , Donn Piatt, John L. Pendery, Andrew J. Pruden, Alexander Paddack, James W. Ryland, Thomas C. H. Smith, Richard H. Stone, Peter J. Sullivan, John B. Stallo, W. S. Scarborough, Henry E. Spencer, Alphonso Taft, James W. Taylor, William C. Thorpe, Samuel J. Thompson, John B. Warren, James S. White, Crafts J. Wright, Robert B. Warden, Edward Woodruff, D. Thew Wright, Peter Zinn.

     Not all of these reside in Cincinnati, but a number, as ex-Governor Dennison, Judge Crafts J. Wright, and others, live elsewhere.  Mr. Zinn has died since Judge Carter’s book was published.

AT THIS WRITING

the Cincinnati bar numbers not less than six hundred attorneys.  In this fact alone may be seen the impossibility of giving anything like a full biographical history of the profession here.  Among them are many practitioners and public men of national reputation.  Judge Carter, closing the pages of his toilful and interesting volume, proudly yet worthily vaunts the local bar in these terms:

It has furnished two Presidents of the United States—Harrison and Hayes.

It has furnished two justices of the supreme court of the United States —McLean and Chase—and one of them Chief Justice.

It has furnished two attorney generals of the United States—Stanberry and Taft.

It has furnished Burnet, Hayward, Wright, Goodenow, Read, Cald-

S. F. COVINGTON

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well, Warden, Gholson, and Okey, and Wright, as supreme judges of our own State, and quite a great number of the judges of our own numerous courts at home.  It would make a big catalogue to name them. 
     It has furnished, I believe, one judge of the superior court of the city
of New York, even.
     It has furnished two Secretaries of the Treasury of the United States —Corwin and Chase.
     It has furnished several governors of our State—Corwin, Bebb, Dennison,
Brough, Hayes, Anderson and Young.
     It has furnished several United States Senators, and any quantity of congressmen, and legislators innumerable.
     We have had, too, from our bar, divers ministers and consuls abroad; and we have now a minister at the court of France.
     We have furnished other officials of importance and consequence.

THE LAW LIBRARY ASSOCIATION

     The need of a convenient and ample library of reference was sharply felt by the bar of Cincinnati, as it grew in number and business, about the middle period of the history of the city.  Few of the lawyers had any large collection of books, and the labor of carrying such as were in hand and needed in cases, to and from the court house and offices, was by no means small.  Serious delays in important trials often occurred while awaiting the production of authorities.  At one time, when Judge Caldwell, of the court of common pleas, desired to consult some authorities not at hand, he called up a member of the bar, Mr. George E. Pugh, in open court to inquire what had been done toward the formation of a bar library, and, not satisfied with the progress made, lent his personal efforts thereafter to the procurement of subscribers to the fund.
     In 1834 a charter for the incorporation of the Cincinnati Law Library was obtained, Messrs. Edward King, E. D. Mansfield, Jacob W. Piatt, O. M. Mitchel, S. York Atl.ee, and other well-known members of the Bar of that day, being named as corporators.  Nothing further of account was done, however, until 1846, when not less than one hundred and twenty-five attorneys were at the Hamilton Bar, and the need of a library at the court house had become imperative.  In September of that year a meeting was called in the court room of the old Superior Court, and it was resolved that an effort should be made to establish a library.  Messrs. William R. Morris, Daniel Van Matre, William M. Corry, Alphonse Taft, and George E. Pugh, were appointed a committee to devise a plan and raise the money to execute it. A subscription paper was drawn up by Mr. Morris, which is still in existence, and headed by himself, his partner, and Mr. Andrew McMicken, who then occupied a desk in their office.  It provided that -

     The undersigned, members of the Cincinnati Bar, for the purpose of raising a fund for the purchase of law-books for the use of the Bar of said city, hereby mutually agree to forma Library Association on terms to be settled and determined, frotn time to time, as shall be deemed advisable hereafter, and also agree to pay, for that purpose, to the committee of the Association, the sum of twenty-five dollars each, payable as follows: Ten dollars when called on; five dollars at the end of six eighteen months from the time of making the subscription. 
     September 3, 1846.

     This was signed ultimately by one hundred and five
---------------
     * The materials for this section have been drawn mostly from the careful and elaborate historical address of W. S. Scarborough, esq., before the Law Library association, June 12, 1875, and published in a neat pamphlet.

persons, the last subscriptions bearing date 1849 and 1850.  Judge Burnet gave fifty dollars as a donor, not as a member.  With this the total amount subscribed was two thousand six hundred and fifty dollars—a very respectable beginning, truly.  About December 1st Mr. Van Matre, now chairman arid acting treasurer of the committee, began to collect the subscriptions, and in about six months realized one thousand and ninety-three dollars and twenty-seven cents therefrom.  Books had been bought in January, 1847, of Messrs. Derby, Bradley & Company, then principal law book-sellers in town, to the value of one thousand four hundred dollars, of which seven hundred dollars was paid down, and the rest was secured by the note of the committeemen.  Seventy-five dollars’ worth of books had also been bought of Rufus King and other members of the bar.  In these, the nucleus of the superb library since formed, were Bibb’s & Munford’s works, Dane’s Abridgment, and five volumes of State Papers on Public Lands.  A large book-case was bought for ninety-four dollars and fifty cents, and set up in the court-room of the Common Pleas, just at the right of the entrance.  Mr. Bernard Bradley was appointed librarian February 8; and the great usefulness of the Cincinnati Law Library began.
     In the spring of 1847 the association was formally organized, though against the opposition of Mr. Corry, Mr. Pugh, and perhaps others, under the “act to regulate literary and other societies,” passed by the legislature Mar. 11, 1845.  A constitution was adopted and body held on the first Saturday in June, 1847, at the Superior Court room, for the election of trustees, but twenty-four members were present.  The association now owed seven hundred and twenty-one dollars, and their subscriptions; eighty-eight had not paid their assessment of five dollars voted Feb. 19, 1847; and eighty-seven
had not paid the second installment.  The large sum of two thousand and fifty-five dollars was due, or about to become due, from the members.
     The trustees elected at the June meeting were W. R. Morris, Oliver M. Spencer, Daniel Van Matre, Alphonso Taft, and Jordan A. Pugh, with R. B. Warden.  They organized as a board by electing the first-named president, the second vice-president, and the third treasurer.  For four years thereafter, no record appears of any meeting of stockholders or trustees, though there is extrinsic evidence that the former held a meeting June 4, 1849, and assessed ten dollars per share upon the stockholders, at the same time raising the shares to forty dollars each.  It is said, moreover, that the annual meeting was regularly held, and the board and secretary regularly re-elected, except Jordan A. Pugh, who died of yellow fever in New Orleans, whither he had removed, and was displaced upon the board in 1849 by Judge Timothy Walker.  June 7, 1851, there was a general reconstruction of the board, Messrs. A. E. Gwynne, Rufus King, George E. Pugh, Jacob Burnet, jr., and Thomas G. Mitchell being elected trustees, and Peter Zinn clerk.  The three gentlemen first-named

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were chosen, respectively, as president, vice-president, and treasurer.  Mr. Pugh, however, became attorney-general of the State and resigned his office in the association late in the year, when it was conferred upon Mr. Burnet.
     When the old court house was burned, in the summer of 1849, the books of the library were saved, with some exceptions, and in pretty good condition.  The bookcases were lost, however, and one hundred dollars were soon after recovered from the Columbus Insurance company for them, and one hundred and ninety dollars for books destroyed.  The library then went with the courts to James Wilson’s four-story brick building, on the north side of Court street, west of St. Clair alley; and a small room was obtained for it on the third floor.  The collection now comprised one thousand and eighty volumes— eighty-three of American Federal reports, five hundred and forty-seven State reports, two hundred and thirty-eight English reports, fifty-one digests, fifty-nine of statutes, and one hundred and two text-books, treatises, etc.  About one-half of the English reports were in the imperfect American reprints, and have since been largely displaced by original editions. Many of the books, particularly text-books, had been lent or given to the library.
     At the meeting of June 16, 1851, it was resolved that the price of shares be reduced to twenty-five dollars and all assessments after June 1st of that year; that the library be accessible to all lawyers not three years in practice, upon the annual payment in advance of ten dollars; and that any member who should pay sixty dollars into the treasury, in addition to the forty dollars previously paid, should have a perpetual membership, without further charge or assessment.  The reduction in the value of shares worked badly, and a considerable number of shares practically lapsed.*  There was but small increase of membership, and on the fifth of June, 1852, but eighty-nine had a share paid up or any interest in a share.  Says Mr. Scarborough:

     Such was the condition of the Association at the end of five years from the time of its organization.  The membership lacked coherence and growth.  If not declining, and somewhat rapidly, it was at a standstill.  But the library, on the other hand, though small in fact, was large for its years, and for its purpose was a good one.  The getting together of one thousand and eighty volumes as a beginning, at the time and under the circumstances in which they were collected, was most creditable to all connected with it.  It was an achievement for the institution, as I think, far greater than any that, in the same length of time, has since been wrought.

     In 1852 the Association published its first catalogue, showing the number of books then on hand to be one thousand three hundred and eighty.  It was still somewhat in debt, and few books had been added to the library for some time; the trustees were therefore directed to make all collections possible. A new code of bylaws, in relation to shares and life-memberships, was adopted July 10th, the second of which read as follows:

     Any person may become a life-member on paying such sum as, in addition to any previous payments made by him, will amount to one hundred dollars; provided that the amount which shall be paid, in ad-

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     * The share of R. B. Hayes, then a young member of the Cincinnati bar, taken in 1852, though not forfeited, was practically surrendered to the association 1865—also that of General W. H. Lytle.

dition to the payments before made and assessments due, shall not be less than fifty dollars.

     This over-liberal by-law was changed, and life-memberships practically cut off June 4, 1864, by an amendment moved by Stanley Matthews, as follows:

     That the existing by-law regulating the form of certificates of life membership be amended so that hereafter the sum to be paid therefor at any given time, shall be the amount of the original stock, together with all subsequent assessments made thereon to that period, and the additional sum of one hundred dollars— all payments of original stock and assessments to be credited thereon.

     Since the passage of this no life-members have been added to the Association.

     The receipts and disbursements for the library, from June 5, 1852, to June 2, 1866, averaged per year about three hundred and thirty-six dollars from new members, six hundred and fifty-one dollars from assessments, thirty-six dollars and forty-three cents from non-members for use of the library, and one hundred and twenty-three dollars from the law school in the college building.  From life-members one thousand one hundred and twenty-five dollars in all were received (five hundred and fifty dollars in 1852), and from all sources seventeen thousand two hundred dollars and forty-seven cents, or one thousand two hundred and twenty-eight dollars per year, on an average.  The average disbursements were three hundred and twelve dollars for current expenses, and nine hundred and twenty-one dollars for books.  The total membership June 2, 1866, was one hundred and thirty-nine, of whom nineteen were life-members— 1852, Flamen Ball, Timothy Walker, Alphonso Taft, James T. Worthington, W. Y. Gholson, M. H. Tilden, T. D. Lincoln, Charles Anderson, George H. Pendleton; 1853, Thomas J. Strait, G. B. Hollister; 1855, M. E. Curwen; 1856, E. F. Strait, Aaron F. Perry; 1858, George H. Hilton; 1860, J. P. Jackson; 1863, Jacob Wolf, Anthony Shonter, Samuel Caldwell.  Sixty-five shares had been forfeited or surrendered.  The new members in fourteen years numbered one hundred and fifteen; so that but a few, comparatively, of the original members were left at the end of twenty years.

     During the next ten years the membership increased rapidly, as well as the library.  Judge Hoadly and Mr. W. S. Scarborough were long before appointed purchasing committee, and were industrious and enterprising in getting the best books the means of the association would allow.  They bought many valuable volumes at the sales of lawyers’ libraries, as when the library of Judge Purviance, of Baltimore, was broken up and sold in 1855, and that of Judge Cranch in Cincinnati in 1863.  Many purchases were also made from attorneys in practice here, of such Reports as were wanted.  In 1854, when about one hundred and fifty volumes of the American Reports were wanting, Judge Hoadly was instructed to get them upon the best terms he could, and at the same time the trustees resolved to keep up full sets of the Statutes of the several States—a work of very great difficulty.  It has been so successfully accomplished, however, that it is believed no other collection in the country, except the congressional library, is fuller in statute law.  In June, 1875, the library contained one thousand five

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hundred and sixty-five volumes of Statutes—a truly splendid collection—with two thousand four hundred and twenty-six volumes of State Reports, one hundred and ninety-nine of United States Reports, one thousand one hundred and fifty-eight of British and Canadian Reports, and treatises, digests, etc., enough to swell the total number to nine thousand one hundred and fifty-one.  Mr. Scarborough says: “Doubtless mistakes have been made in the selection and purchase of books, yet I know of no library that is so absolutely free from lumber and rubbish as this.  Our elementary works, owing to the early policy of confining the purchases mainly to reports and statutes, are mostly of recent editions.”  The first invoice of imported works was received in 1856, through Messrs. Little, Brown & Company, of Boston, and consisted of Irish Reports, and Reports of the House of Lords, and Privy Council decisions.  The largest addition was made in the year 1864-5, being four hundred and thirty-nine books, of which fifty-five were reports, the rest consisting mainly of bound volumes of The Law Magazine, The Law Reporter, American State Papers, Annals of Congress, and other congressional documents.  The next year three hundred and ninety-five volumes were bought, of which over two hundred are text-books.  On the 2d of June, 1866, the library contained about five thousand three hundred volumes, having increased nearly three hundred a year for fourteen years.  The increase was more rapid thenceforth, and was largely of imported books, some of them rare and costly.  The current American reports, and all valuable treatises appearing in this country, were bought as fast as they came out.  In 1869, a heavy importation was made, amounting to one thousand one hundred and eighty-eight dollars and fifty cents, completing the sets of English Chancery, House of Lords, Ecclesiastical, and Admiralty Reports, with other valuable sets.  In 1870-1 the Scotch Appeals and Irish Reports were bought in considerable number, also the Crown Cases, some Nisi Prius reports, and two hundred and forty-four other volumes.  Large additions have since been made, and the library now musters the magnificent total of fifteen thousand volumes.  In the spring of 1854 it was moved into the best room available in the new court house; and in the summer of 1857, upon the completion of the third story, it was taken to its present spacious and well-lighted quarters, where it has since found a comfortable and fitting home.  The county officials have always manifested a friendly feeling to the library, and provided for it as best they could without rent or other charge.  A written obligation now secures both parties against probable disturbance.  The librarians in charge have been: Bernard Bradley, 1847-8; A. A. Pruden, 1848-9; Joseph McDougall, 1849-50; John Bradley, 1850-61; M. W. Myers, 1861 to the present time.  N. B. Bradley, son of John Bradley, was the assistant of Mr. Myers for two years and a half after Mr. Myers’ appointment.

THE LAW SCHOOL.

Cincinnati college, by its original charter, was virtually a university, with the saving clause that no particular theology could be taught therein, which of course cut off a theological department.  Any other school, however, undergraduate or post-graduate, could be legally established as a branch of it, and when Dr. Drake and others, in 1835, instituted the medical department of the college, they interested themselves also in the founding of a law department and the revival of the literary department or faculty of arts.  A respectable law school was already in existence in the city, having been founded in May, 1833, by General Edward King, John C. Wright, and Timothy Walker, esq., three of the Leaders of the Cincinnati bar.  This was the first law school established west of the Alleghanies.  Its founders were themselves graduates of law schools at the east, and thought that similar advantages should be afforded to the rising generation of lawyers in the northwest.  Its first term began Oct. 7, 1833.  The school drew together a considerable number of students, whom the founders taught ably and successfully.  General King died, and Mr. Walker was persuaded to incorporate the school with Cincinnati college as its law department.   Another lecturer was engaged, and at the opening of the department the faculty stood as follows:

     Timothy Walker, professor of constitutitonal law and the law of real estate.
     John C. Wright, professor of practice, pleading and criminal law.
     Joseph S. Benham, professor of commercial law and the law of personal
 property.

     Under their auspices the department opened with a good number of students, and has maintained itself prosperously to this day, now more than forty-five years, being indeed all there is now and has long been of Cincinnati college, as an agency of formal instruction.  In strength and reputation it is among the very first in the land.  It has a large library and all necessary conveniences for its work.  Among its professors have been the Hon. William S. Groesbeck, E. D. Mansfield, Bellamy Storer, Judge James, M. E. Curwen, and several other gentlemen of distinction.  Ex-Governor Jacob D. Cox is now at its head.  The remainder of the faculty is constituted as follows:
     Rufus King, LL. D., professor of the law of real property, evidence, and institutes.
     George Hoadly, LL. D., professor of the law of civil procedure.
     Henry A. Morrill, professor of the law of contracts and torts.
     Manning F. Force, professor of equity jurisprudence and criminal law.
     Hon. John W. Stevenson, professor of commercial law and contracts.

     At the session of 1879-80 the number of students aggregated one hundred and twenty-five—fifty-six juniors, sixty-nine seniors.  The graduates of the school number more than a thousand.  Among them are many who became distinguished in various walks of public life— as Senator Charles D. Drake, of St. Louis, Judges Joseph Longworthand Jacob Burnet, jr., Generals S. F. Cary and William H. Lytle, Judge Stallo, Hon. William Cumback

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of Indiana, Robert Kidd the elocutionist, A. T. Goshorn, Thomas L. Young, Milton Sayler, Julius Dexter, Samuel F. Hunt, Ozro J. Dodds, and many others.  The diploma of the school entitles the graduate to admission to the Cincinnati bar without further examination.  The lectures are delivered in the college building, on Walnut street.  Fifteen hundred dollars are appropriated annually by the college corporation for the library.

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