Chicago City (part 22 of 57)

The pre-eminent position which Chicago has steadily maintained as a manufacturing and commercial center, for more than a generation, has had the effect to divert attention, to a great extent, from any claims which it might possess to prominence in other fields of effort. This has been especially true of it as a literary center, for while an enterprising and progressive daily press has made its influence felt and recognized over a wide extent of country, the more unobtrusive and secluded literary workers who have devoted their days and nights of toil to less ephemeral productions in the writing of books, have not always commanded the attention to which either their numbers or the value of their labors entitled them. And yet a somewhat careful survey of the field shows that a considerable army of this class of patient toilers have been at work, and not a few of them, with^ more or less success, laying the foundation of honorable distinction for themselves and reputation for their city. Probably no line of business in Chicago has grown more rapidly in the past few years than the publishing business, of which the extensive publishing houses of A. C. McClurg & Co., Rand, McNally & Co., S. C. Griggs & Co., Laird & Lee, Charles H. Sergei & Co., F. J. Schulte & Co., Fleming H. Revell & Co., Charles H. Kerr & Co., Donohue & Henneberry, the W. B. Conkey Company, and others afford abundant evidence, and it is already beginning to be a mooted question whether New York, which claims to have wrested the banner as the "literary center" of the Western Continent from Boston, may not itself, at no distant day, be compelled to surrender the palm to Chicago, as it has in some other lines of business.

As the subject of this section is "Chicago Authors," the object will be not so much to enumerate the books which have been produced by Chicago writers, as to give some recognition of those who have had a hand in this part of Chicago history, and indicate the class of authorship with which they were associated. And as authorship does not necessarily consist in publication alone, but rather in the writing of books which may never be published, it is worthy of note that there is a tradition that Chicago's first permanent citizen, Col. John Kinzie, while in the employment of the American Fur Company at Prairie du Chien, prepared a grammar of the Winnebago tongue, and still later performed a like task for the Wyandots or Ilurons of Ohio, though there is no evidence that either was ever put in print.

It may be regarded as a fact of some significance that the first book printed in Chicago was a law book - being a copy of "The Public and General Laws of the State of Illinois," printed by Stephen F. Gale in 1839. Previous to this (1837) a copy of the act of incorporation of the new city was printed in pamphlet form at the office of the Chicago . Democrat, and various other pamphlets, including the " Laws and Ordinances" of the city and sundry Fourth of July orations in similar form, in 1839; also a eulogy on the life and character of President William Henry Harrison at the American office in 1841. But these belong rather to the history of printing than to that of Chicago authorship.

The first book by a Chicago author was a religious one - a "History of Baptism" by the Eev. Isaac Taylor Hinton, though it was printed elsewhere. It was advertised in the American of May 1, 1840, and for sale in September following. The first work compiled and printed in Chicago was a copy of the decisions of the supreme court of the State

This was in the hands of the binders at the establishment of Holcomb & Co., when it was destroyed by fire in December, 1840, and thus never reached the point of publication. A second edition was printed by Thomas G. Wells, of Cambridge, Mass., in 1841, a copy of which may be seen in the Chicago Law Library. These had been preceded by the reports prepared by Sidney Breese, the first reporter of the supreme court, embracing the decisions from 1819 to 1831, in two volumes. The first of these was printed by Eobert K. Fleming at Kaskaskia, in 1831, and the second by Wm. Walters at Vandalia, in 1839. The third and fourth volumes of Scammon's Reports, bringing the decisions down to 1843, were printed in 1844 at the establishment of the pioneer job printers, Ellis & Fergus - the second member of the firm being the veteran printer, Mr. Robert Fergus, who still lives - and this was the first work of the kind completed and issued from the press in Chicago. The same year Messrs. Ellis and Fergus printed and published a pamphlet of thirty-four pages, giving an account of "The Massacre of Chicago (Fort Dearborn) of August 15, 1812." This was the first historical work from a Chicago press.

In 1845 appeared a volume entitled "Miscellaneous Poems," to which were added some prose writings on various subjects, by " Wm. Asbury Kenyon," with the imprint, "Chicago: Printed by James Campbell & Co., 1845.'' There is no positive evidence that the author lived in Chicago, though the preface bears date in the city. It is conjecjtured from some allusions in the verses that he may have been a resident of Du Page county.

One of the earliest historians of Illinois was Judge Henry Brown, a Chicago lawyer, who, in 1844, wrote and published what was justly regarded at the time as the most complete and trustworthy history of Chicago and the Northwest. In January, 1846, he delivered an address before the Chicago Lyceum, on the "Present and Future Prospects of Chicago," which is a valuable contribution to local history. Others who have furnished valuable material for the local or general historian in addresses delivered before the Lyceum, the Chicago Historical Society or other Associations, and whose productions have been preserved in the "Fergus Series," are Joseph N. Balestier, Judge J. D. Caton, Hon. Wm. H. Brown, Hon. Isaac N. Arnold, Hon. John Wentworth, Hon. J. Young Scammou, James A. Marshall, the late Gov. William Bross, Kevs. R. W. Patterson and Jeremiah Porter, Thomas A. Hoyne, E. B. Washburne and Edward Gay Mason, president of the Chicago Historical Society, besides the more extended productions of Henry H. Hurlbut, in his " Chicago Antiquities; " Charles Cleaver, in " Reminiscences of Early Chicago " (1833); John S. Wright, in "Early History of Chicago" and its " Present, Past and Future ;"A. N. Marquis, in his "Handbook," and Messrs. James W. Sheahan and George B. Upton, Elias Colbert, Franc B.Wilkie,Everett Chamberlin, and Alfred B. Sewell, in their several histories of the fire of 1871. The contributions of Messrs. Caton, Arnold, Brown (W. H.), Wentworth and Bross, to the stores of local and State history and biography, have been numerous and especially valuable, while the material facts embraced in all these have been gathered together by Captain A. T. Andreas in his comprehensive history of the city, in three volumes, the last of which was published in 1885, bringing the record up to that date. L. W. Volk, the well-known sculptor, has told the story of " The Douglas Monument " in an entertaining manner, and Captain Mi. chael Schaack lias given the tragic history of the " Haymarket Massacre " in "Anarchy and Anarchism in America." Several of these deserve more extended notice, did space permit - especially Arnold, the author of " Lincoln and Slavery," " Life of Abraham

Lincoln" and "Life of Benedict Arnold," besides various lectures and addresses on historical and biographical topics; Washburne, author of the " Life of Governor Coles" and of " Recollections of a Minister to France," and editor of various historical records; Caton, for his " Sketch of the Pottawatomies" and "Reminiscences of the Chicago Bar;" Brown, for the light he has thrown on the struggle to make Illinois a slave State; and Messrs. Sheahan, Upton, Wilkie and Colbert, who in addition to their labors as journalists, found time to enrich the shelves of local libraries with volumes of interest and merit on biograpical, historical and other topics - Sheahan, with the -best "Life of Stephen A. Douglas " that has been written and "An Atlas of American History;" Upton, in conjunction with J. J. Lalor, with translations of the lives of the German composers, several volumes of " Handbooks " of standard operas, oratorios, etc., besides his sprightly "Gunnybag Papers" and "Peregrine Pickle;" Wilkie, with his " Poliuto," "Sketches Beyond the Sea," "Sketches of the Bench and Bar," and his last book, published shortly before his death, " Thirtyfive Years of Journalism;" Colbert, in his "History of Chicago," written in collaboration with Everett Chamberlin, in his several works on astronomy and his latest on the evolution theory of man, under the title of "Humanity in Its Origin and Early Growth." In fact nearly all the authors of books in the early history of the city were in some way connected with the daily or periodical press. The earlie&t of these was Richard L. Wilson, the founder of the Evening Journal, who wrote the record of "A Trip to Santa Fe" as early as 1842, and still later, "Short Ravelings of a Long Yarn," a book of travel also. Other early journalists who were also the writers of books were William H. Bushnell, who wrote "Sketches of Early Settlers of Chicago;" a novel, "The Prairie Fire," besides a number of short stories and some graceful poems; and T. Herbert Whipple, the author of many short sketches, stories, and biographies, and a novelette entitled "Ethzelda, or Sunbeams and Shadows," based on the history of a band of robbers who lived in a cave on the banks of the Mississippi river. The most prolific and gifted writer of which Chicago had to boast a generation ago (also a newspaper man) was Benjamin P. Taylor, who began to use his pen as early as 1843, and who, in the course of forty years, produced some nine or ten volumes inverse and prose, the most important of the former being "January and June" and "Old Time Pictures and Sheaves of Rhyme," and of the latter, "Pictures in Camp and Field," " Summer Savory" Pictures of California Life" and his one prose novel, "Theophilus Trent." His musical rhymes, "The Isle of The Long Ago," "Rhymes of the River" and "The Old Village Choir," which won for him the title of the "Oliver Goldsmith of America," still find an echo in the popular heart. Charles Dudley Warner, one of the most eminent American authors, also made Chicago his home for a time while practicing his profession as a lawyer as partner of the late Wirt Dexter, previous to entering upon his career of authorship.

In the department of archaeology, history and science, the scholarly Dr. J. W. Foster, President of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and lecturer ou physical geography and cognate sciences, twenty-five years ago, in the old Chicago University, rendered valuable service in his "Pre-historic Races of the United States" and his "Mississippi Valley, Its Physical Geogragraphy," etc., published simultaneously by S. C. Griggs & Co., in Chicago and Trubner & Co., in London. Others who have labored successfully in historic fields, in general or special lines, are Rufus Blanchard, author of the "Discovery and Conquest of the Northwest and History of Chicago;" Gen. J. B. Turchin, in his " History of the Battle of Chicamauga ; " Rev. T. M. Eddy, in his "Patriotism of Illinois;" Maj. Joseph Kirkland in "The Story of Chicago," giving an account of the massacre at Fort Dearborn in 1812; Hon. Wm. Henry Smith, in the "St. Clair Papers" and sundry briefer papers of a historical and biographical character; W. K. Ackerman in his valuable "History of Illinois Railroads;" Dr. W. F. Poole in The Ordinance of 1787," "Anti- Slavery Opinions before the Year 1800" and "Salem Witchcraft;" Judge John Moses in his "History of Illinois," to whom reference has been made elsewhere under the head of "Libraries;" to say nothing of many others on similar lines which the late AVorld's Columbian Exposition has evoked. Miss Kirkland has rendered valuable service to the rising generation by her "Short Histories" of England and Fiance and of "English Literature for Young People," as also has Mrs. Bishop Cheney in her "History for Juveniles."

Reference has already been made in the early part of this chapter to the first law book published in Chicago. This was followed at a somewhat later date by a compilation of decisions of the supreme court, covering the period of the Breese and Scammon Reports (1819-41), which was prepared by Robert S. Blackwell, an eminent member of the Chicago bar. Other volumes in the department of law have since been issued by Ebenezer Peck (Reports); C. C. Bonney on "Railway Carriers;" Henry Bin more in several volumes on municipal and State law ; J. C. Fithian and Edward J. Hill ou "Practice;" James L. High and James P. Root, respectively, in volumes on the "Law of Corporations;" J. R. Faber on the " Law of Assignments;" Robert H. Vickers on the "Powers of Police Officers and Coroners;" Elliot Anthony's " Digest of Illinois;" Frank Gilbert on " Railway Law" and Marshall M. Kirkman on " Railway Rates and Government Control."

In the department of medicine, surgery, dental science and chemistry, the number of Chicago authors has been very considerable. Some of the more prominent have been : Drs. Joseph H. Buff urn, Nathan S. Davis, Edwin M. Hale, Reuben Ludlam, Wm. H. Byford, Lemuel C. Grosvenor, Joseph Mit- chell, Chas. W. Earle, D. A. K. Steele, A. F. Cooke, Alex. R. Crawford, F. B. Eisen- Bockins and Ransom Dexter. A historical sketch of the first practitioners of medicine iu Chicago, under the title " Early Medical Chicago," by Dr. James N. Hyde, is a valuable contribution to city history. Paul Christian Jensen has written on medical chemistry, Nicholas Senne, on general surgery, and L. P. Haskell, E. L. Clifford, B. J. Cigrand and Eugene S. Talbot, on various branches of dental surgery. Dr. Mary Hackett Stevenson has also written well on biology and physiology, and has done creditable work in general literature.

Returning to the domain of fiction, which has been only briefly touched upon, the number of Chicago writers in this class who have won recognition from the reading public is very large. Among the earlier, belonging to the period of Bushnell, Whipple and Taylor, already mentioned, were William Rounseville and Thomas R. Dawley (both early newspaper men), and Henry A. Clark, a Chicago lawyer with a penchant for literary work, who wrote for a large audience in the early '50's, or still earlier. Rounseville was a poet, having won some reputation in this line as early as 1845. Clark was the author of a novel, "The Banditti of the Prairies," which had a popular run for some time. Dawley was an artist, and illustrated his own work. By common consent Mrs. Juliette A. Kinzie stands in the front rank as writer in this department by virtue of her novel, "Waubun, or Early Days in the Northwest," which is valued on account of its accurate description of the massacre at Fort Dearborn. She wrote a second novel under the title, "Mark Logan, the Bourgeois." Mrs. Mary Hartwell Catherwood, author of "Tonty," "Old Kaskaskia," and other stories based on incidents connected with Illinois history, though not a resident of Chicago, is regarded as belonging to this city, and is accorded the position of successor to Mrs. Kinzie. Other namejs properly coming into this category are those of George S. Phillips ("January Searle"); Andrew Shuman, late editor of the Evening Journal, author of "Loves of a Lawyer;" Maj. Joseph Kirkland, author of "Zury," "Captain of Company K," "The McVeys," and several other novels; Eugene Field, poet and wit as well as novelist; Opie P. Reed ("Arkansaw Traveler"), Stanley Waterloo, Henry B. Fuller, John McGovern, Rev. F. W. Gunsaulus, Henry F. Keenan, Hobart C. Chatfield-Taylor, Richard Michaelis (in "Looking Further Forward," an answer to Bellamy), the late Col. Edward Reynolds Roe, Jonathan Periam, Robert C. Givins, Charles L. Marsh, Weldon Cobb, Col. G. A. Pierce, Howard L. Conard, Dr. L. II. Watson ("Louis Harrison"), James Lane Allen, John Ritchie, Austyn Granville, Leroy Armstrong, William Armstrong, Anson Uriel Hancock, Eugene J. Hall, Alva Milton Kerr, J. Percival Pollard (poet as well), Robert H. Cowdrey, S. F. Norton, Mrs. Mary Abbott, Mrs. Celia Parke Woolley, M. French- Sheldon, Miss Elizabeth S. Kirkland, Miss Clara Louise Burnham, Lilian Spencer, Mrs. Caroline F. Corbin, Mrs. Marah Ellen Ryan, Mrs. Lindon W. Bates, Miss Lilian Sommers, Mrs. Maude Howe Elliott, Mrs. Kate Donelson, Miss Mary Healy ("Mme. Charles Bigot"), Mrs. Mary Aplin Sprague, and Miss Eve H. Brodlique.

In the field of poetry the list would he scarcely so long as that in fiction, but it contains some noteworthy names. By virtue of his genial humor, his versatility, and, when the occasion calls for it, his deep feeling, a position in the front rank of Chicago's living poets must be conceded to Eugene Field, whose "Little Book of Western Verse" and translations of Horation odes show his skill as a versifier to great advantage. The "Poems of the Farm and Fireside by Eugene A. Hall and three volumes of verse by Dr. Horatio Nelson Powers take a high rank; in fact, the admirers of the latter claim for him a place at the very head of Chicago songwriters. Miss Harriet Monroe, author of " Valeria," and the " Colum- bian Ode,'' read at the dedication of the World's Fair in October, 1892, belongs to the list of Chicago authors. Others whose names have been conceded a conspicuous place are: Miss Blanche Fearing, Miss Eliza Allen Starr, Miss Amanda T. Jones, Mrs. Hattie Tyng Griswold, Ernest McGaffey, Kichard L. Gary, Mrs. Anna Oldfield Wiggs, Mrs. Ella Wheeler Wilcox, Mrs. A. AV. Arrington, Miss Lilian Bell, Benjamin Hathaway, Rev. James Vila Blake, Eev. F. W. Gunsaulus, Dr. Charles Warrington Earle, Campbell B. Waite, Louis J. Block, Capt. E. L. Huggins, Samuel T. Clover, George Horton, Charles Eugene Banks, "Ben," King (a dialect poet), George F. Root and Henry Clay Work, whose (Messrs. Root and Work's) patriotic and stirring war lyrics, "Battle Cry of Freedom," " Marching Through Georgia," etc., were heard all over the South during the war of the rebellion, and still retain much of their popularity. Mr. Francis F. Browne, editor of the Dial, though himself a poet of recognized merit, has performed his chief service in collecting and putting in form for convenient preservation the production of others in his edition of "Golden "Poems by British and American Authors," "The Golden Treasury of Poetry and Prose," and " Bugle Echoes ; a Collection of Poems of the Civil War." He has also done duty in the field of biography in the compilation and authorship of a volume of rare interest on " The Every Day Life of Abraham Lincoln." Three colored young men, Albeny Whitman, William II. A. Moore and Paul Dunbar, have attracted attention to themselves during the past year by the melody of their verse.

Nearly related to the poets are dramatic writers, of whom Chicago has had several who have produced successful plays. Among those worthy of mention are Elwyn A. Barron (dramatic critic of the Inter Ocean and author of the "Viking"), Will D. Eaton, Harry B. Smith, Slason Thompson (editor of the Evening Journal), Thomas Stewart Denison (also a novelist), and Con. T. Murphy. The popular comic operas, "Robin Hood," "The Begum," "Crystal Slipper," "Tar and Tartar," are productions of Mr. Smith's pen, while Mr. Thompson, working in connection with Clay M. Greene, produced the well-known comedies, the "Freaks of Fortune," " M'liss," and " Sharps and Flats." Mr. Thompson has also edited a volume entitled, "The Humbler Poets."

In educational lines Chicago authors have not been wholly idle. Among those who have used their pens in this department are William H. Wells and George Howland, both of whom served in the capacity of superintendent of city schools, and each of whom produced a "School Grammar," as well as a volume of practical hints for teachers. Professor Howland also furnished a translation of the "Jineid" of Virgil, and translations of parts of the "Iliad" and "Odyssey" of Homer. Prof. J. R. Boise, of the Chicago University, is also the author of a translation of the "Iliad," a book of "Greek Lessons" and a Greek grammar; Prof. E. S. Bastin is author of a volume on botany; Dr. Levi Seeley, of Lake Forest University, has written on mathematics; Charles M.Ham on his favorite topic of "Manual Training;" W. S. B. Mathews on "The History of Music" and "How to Understand Music;" Col. F. W. Parker, superintendent of the Cook County Normal School, has undertaken to instruct teachers "How to Teach Geography," while Prof. Robert McL. Cumnock, of the Northwestern University, has written and compiled one or two volumes for instruction in elocution. In fact, the large number of practical educators gathered about the three universities grouped about the city of Chicago, will tend greatly to stimulate this and other classes of authorship. Several of the members of the faculty of the University of Chicago, as President Harper, Professor von Hoist, and others, are already recognized as leading authors whose literary labors and reputations will hereafter be identified with Chicago. The faculty of the Northwestern University, a Chicago institution in its origin and associations, includes several men who have made their mark in authorship. Among these are Eevs. M. S. Terry, Miner Raymond, H. F. Fisk, Henry Bannister, F. D. Hemenway, Adam Miller, M. D., and Profs. Charles F. Bradley, Charles J. Little, Charles \V. Pearson, J. Scott Clark and J. Taft Hatfield. Several of these have written on theological topics and others on educational and literary lines. Rev. Henry Bascom Ridgaway, D. D., has written of biography and travel, and Rev. F. M. Bristol, for many years identified with the Trinity Methodist church of Chicago, now of Evanstou, has written on the line of literary criticism and church history.

Other authors who have dealt in religious themes, church history or biography are Revs. George N. Boardman, P. S. Henson, Lee M. Heilman, S. G. Lathrop, Willis Lord, D. L. Moody, T. W. Powell, Mrs. J. H. Worcester, Mrs. Mary E. Far well, C. E. Simmons, Rev. R. A. Torrey, Maj. D. W. Whittle, Rev. Moses Smith, Rabbi Liebman Adler, Robert Collyer, formally of Unity Church, Chicago, now of New York; the late Rev. William A. Hammond, Rev. Justin A. Smith, editor of the (Baptist) Standard; Rev. Simeon Gilbert, D. D., of the Advance; William M. Salter, Rev. J. H. Barrows, Rev. Jenkin Lloyd Jones, Rev. Minot J. Savage, Dr. Gustave A. Zimmermann and Austin Bierbower, while Dr. Paul Cams has treated Religious questions on philosophical lines. Charles B. Waite has written a somewhat voluminous "History of the Christian religion to the year 200" (published in 1881), in which he vigorously controverts the claims of authority set up for the early Christian teachers.

Chicago authors have produced a number of valuable works of reference, some of which are indispensable to students. First among these is the "Index to Periodical Literature," originated by Dr. Wm. F. Poole, Librarian of the Newberry Library, in 1853, and continued by him in quarterly numbers until 1882, when it passed into other hands.

Another work of great merit belonging to this list is "Lalor's Cyclopedia of Political Science," compiled and edited by John J. Lalor in three volumes. Bishop Samuel Fallows has produced " A Complete Dictionary of Synonyms and Antonyms," which is of great use to the writer. The "Dickens Dictionary" of E. A. Pierce and W. A. Wheeler, and the "American Slang Dictionary " of Mr. James Maitland have an interest and value for a certain class of readers.

Among travelers, the late Carter H. Harrison has written entertainingly in his volume entitled "A Race with the Sun;" others belonging to this class are Canon Knowles, Minerva Brace Norton, Charles Humphrey Roberts, John F. Finerty, Samuel T. Clover, Mrs. Julia Newell Jackson, C. Vickerstaff Hine, and G. 0. Shields. The latter is a prolific and popular author who, over the nom de plume. "Coquina," has mingled accounts of hunting with his reports of travel, and has occasionally stepped aside to write history,as he does in his account of Gen. Gibbons' battle with the Nez Perces at the "Big Hole." Herbert L. Aldrich has also written in an interesting manner of Arctic Alaska and Siberia in "Eight Months with the Arctic Whalemen." Dr. William C. Gray, editor of the Interior, who is an enthusiastic disciple of Isaac Walton, has written entertainingly of his" experiences under the title, " Camp Fire Musings," while William Bruce Leffingwell has treated of the sports of the chase and shooting.

Among writers on political and economic questions, Van Buren Denslow, long connected with the Chicago press, deserves to stand in the front rank. He has written several volumes on the tariff and kindred topics which have a place in the shelves of the public library. David H. Mason, also a Chicago journalist, has written several volumes or treatises bearing on the same questions. A. B. Mason and J. J. Lalor are authors of a "Primer of Political Economy" that has been highly commended. Other writers in this class are Gen. M. M. Trurn- bull, Charles T. Palmer and B. S. Heath Gov. John P. Altgeld has written a book entitled "Live Questions," which is, to a great extent, a criticism upon the administration of the laws, and at times upon the laws themselves.

la the domain of pure literature several Chicago authors have achieved notable success. One of the most conspicuous of these is William Mathews, LL. D., several of whose nine or ten volumes were produced while he was a resident of Chicago between 1856 and 1880. His "Getting on in the World " has been translated into every leading European language, while his other works, such as "Words, Their Use and Abuse, " " Hours with Men and Books," "Literary Style," "Oratory and Orators," "Wit and Humor," etc., have a charm for all students of the English language. Another series of rare merit is connected through their author, Mrs. Elizabeth A. Heed, with Chicago. Those are " Hindu Literature; or The Ancient Books of India." and "Persian Literature; Ancient and Modern," printed by S. C. Griggs & Co. A Chicago lawyer, Eobert H. Vickers, has produced a work of great interest and research in " The Martyrdoms of Literature." Among essayists and sketch writers, the character of whose works has not admitted of their classification with those already noticed, are Mrs. Olive Thome Miller, Rev. James Vila Blake, Dr. David Swing, Mrs. Amelia Gere Mason, Miss Mary E. Burt, Ellen Mitchell, Henry D. Lloyd and Mrs. Helen Ekin Starrett. The "Letters to a Daughter" and Letters to Elder Daughters," by the latter, are excellent in their way, and deserve to be in the hands of every young woman.

Chicago translators have done some good work. Prominent in this class stands Mrs. Kate N. Doggett, translator of Charles Blanc's ''Grammar of Painting and Engraving." The English translation of Prof, von Hoist's "Constitutional History of the United States of America " is the work of three Chicago men - Mr. John J. Lalor, Alfred B. Mason and Dr. Paul Shorey. George B. Upton's service in the translation of the biographies of eminent German musicians has already been noticed. Mrs. Fanny Hale Gardiner has rendered a service to both history and literature by her translation of Bazau's "Russia: Its People and its Literature." Other translations by Chicago writers, worthy of note here, are: T. A. Hoicomb's translation of Tegner's "Fridhiofs Saga;" A. D. Hall and G. B. Heckel's "Journal of Marie Bashkirtseft ; " "The Surgeon's Stories " from the Swedish of Topelius, translated by T. A. Schovelin and T. A. Holcomb; Bjornson's "Sigurd Slembe" and Jaeger's "Henrik Ibsen," translated by Wm. Morton Payne; Pierre Loti's "Icelandic Fisherman," by Mrs. Anna (Fowler) de Koven; Baroness von Suttner's "Ground Arms," by Mrs. Alice Asbury Abbot, and "Marianela; A Story of Spanish Love," from the Spanish of B. Perez Galdos, by Miss Helen W. Lester.

A considerable list of unclassified books by Chicago authors is deserving of reference. Among these are a volume on "Solar Heat, Gravitation and Sun Spots," presenting a theory of the universe, by J. H. Kedzie; "A Guide for the Student of English Literature," by Mrs. Anna Benneson McMahun, who is also the editor of the " Best Letters of Horace Walpole "'and of " William Cowper," comprised in A. C. McClurg & Co.'s series of "Laurel-Crowned Letters; " Amy Fay's "Music Study in Germany;" A "Life of Horace Greeley,"by L. D. Ingersoll, a former Chicago journalist; Miss Frances E. Willard "Glimpsesof Fifty Years" (an autobiography) and others. H. G. Cutler has been an industrious writer for years on historical and geographical topics.

While, of course, a large majority of Chicago authors have employed the English vernacular as their medium for addressing the reading public, few persons are aware of the large number of authors of foreign birth - especially Germans and Scandinavians - who have produced original works in their native tongue for American readers, or have done duty as translators of German or Scandinavian books into English, or vice versa. No list of Chicago authors would approach completeness which does not make mention of these. Prominent among German authors have been Caspar Butz, Emil Dietzsch, Dr. Gustav A. Zknmermann, and Eugene Seeger, in the department of history; Johann W. Dietz, TJdo Brachvogel, Paul Carus and Hermann Euhland, in poetry, and Mrs. Marie Werkrneister, Dorothea Boettcher, William Vocke and Arnold Boecklin, in fiction. Mr. Vocke, the eminent German lawyer, has been an industrious literary worker as well, and has translated many German poems into English, besides publishing a very valuable book in German on the "Rechtsverhaeltnisse (Legal Rights or Conditions) in America." Dr. Zimmermann, who is also supervisor of the department of German in the public schools of Chicago, is a profound scholar and voluminous author, chiefly of works of a historical character in the German language. Two of 'his most important works are the "Deutsch in America," being a history of German-American literature, the first volume of which was published in 1892, and "Four Hundred years of American History." also published in 1892. Besides these, he has published a volume entitled "Ephesus in the First Christian Century," being in the line of archaeological investigation, and a "Classical German Reader." All these are in the German, while he has also prepared a translation from the German into English of Prof. Theodore Schmid's book on the "Theories of Darwin and Their Relation to Religion, Philosophy and Morality," published a few years ago by McClurg & Co., with an introduction by the Duke of Argyle

Probably the most voluminous writer among the Scandinavian authors of Chicago is 0. M. Peterson, who has prepared several books in educational lines, besides translations of biographies of Lincoln and Grant, also a volume on Henry M. Stanley's explorations in Central Africa. Other Scandinavian authors are Prof. N. B. Andersen, Johan A. Enander, C. F. Peterson and P. G. Dietrichson who have labored in historical fields, while Magnus Elmblad (deceased) and Ernst Lindblom have cultivated poesy, and Alexander Erbe and Harald Schmidt have done some creditable work in the line of fiction. Prof. Peter Ilendrickson has also produced some works on agriculture. Kimd. Langeland has done something in the way of biography and Algot E. Strand and David Monrad Schoyen have turned out some translations.

Had it been practicable to include the writers for the periodical press, this chapter would have been almost indefinitely extended. As it is, it presents evidence of an intellectual activity among the thinkers and writers of Chicago in keeping with that which exists among its business men. It would have been an agreeable task to present the complete bibliography of each writer mentioned in the preceding pages, but that would have been impracticable on account of the increased space it would have required. It has been no part of the plan of this chapter to deal in criticism of individual authors, and while some names deserving of mention may have been omitted, it has been the purpose to show the progress which Chicago has been making in the field of authorship. While an approximately chronological policy has been pursued in treating of early Chicago writers, a 'system of classification has been adopted with a view to greater condensation of matter.

By. Joseph Kirkland

SOME of the earliest jurists of Chicago rank among the best and greatest Unlike the pioneer adventures in mercantile, manufacturing, banking and journalistic business, each of which, during The Bench its infantile years had only puny ani Bar. an(j ghjidjgh significance, the bench and bar were always able and reputable, the same at one time as at another. The learned professions seem to come at once to maturity as Minerva sprang, fully armed, from the brain of Jove. The decisions of the supreme court, rendered in its first years, stand to-day unimpeached as law and legal literature - indeed they receive the unqualified approval of leading lawyers of the present day who are far from giving the same indorsement to some of that court's later work.

True, the earlier court had a " clean page" on which to write, and being the setter of precedents for others to follow, was not called on to follow those which others had set. True, also, it was not burdened with business and could take its time with every case, discussing it in full bench instead of dividing up its work among its members, as has to be done now-a-days. Nevertheless, if it had been unlearned, unlettered, untrained in the principles and practice of the common law, it easily might have fallen into gross and palpable errors - Dogberry-like have written itself down an ass - and placed in the Eeports a mass of decisions so opposed to law, justice and equity as to have been reversible and reversed at every opportunity. On the contrary, the earliest decisions of the court are, as a general rule, those most rarely set aside.

In 1821 Chicago was included in Pike county, - in somewhat the same sense as the Island of Nova Zembla is included in Kussia - that is, the southern county of Pike (situated between the Mississippi and Illinois rivers below Quincy) stretched away northward and northeastward to the State line and Lake Michigan. On June 5, 1821, the commissioners' court of Pike county recommended John Kinzie as a suitable person to be appointed justice of the peace. . It is not known that he was ever so appointed'

In 1823, Chicago being then set off into Fulton county (fifty miles further up the Illinois), John Kinzie was again recommended for the office of justice of the peace.

was commissioned justice of the peace. In the same year Alexander Wolcott (Kiuzie's son-in-law) and Jean Baptiste Beaubien were also made justices of the peace. John S. C. Hogan and Stephen Forbes became justices in 1830, John Kinzie having died in 1828.

Up to this time it is not known that any court was held by either of the justices, or even a docket kept to record their acts and doings; though five marriages in 1828 and two in 1830, all performed by Justice Beaubien, are mentioned by Andreas (I. Hist. Chic. p. 420) who goes on to say:

By an act of February 16, 1831, it was provided that " The counties of Cook, LaSalle, Putnam, Peoria, Fulton, Schuyler, Adams, Hancock, Mc- Donough, Knox, Warren, Jo Daviess, Mercer, Rock Island and Henry shall constitute the Fifth Judicial Circuit. . . . Richard M. Young shall perform circuit duties in the Fifth Judicial Circuit.

The Bench And Bar

There shall be two terms of the circuit court held annually in each of the counties ... in the county of Cook on the fourth Mondays in April and the second Mondays in September."

Turning to William Bross's pamphlet of 1858, we are told that a term was held in September, 1831, "At Fort Dearborn in the brick house, and in the lower room of the said house." Also that the court of county commissioners ordered the sheriff to secure one or more rooms for the circuit court at the house of James Kinzie, (then on the West Side near the river fork) " provided it can be done at a cost of not more than ten dollars."

Governor Bross wrote this history before the great fire destroyed all the early county records, and it is fair to presume that he got his knowledge from the records themselves. Yet there is direct and living testimony that, wo term of court was held until 1834, and the first term was held, not in the brick house in the fort (it is also denied that there was any brick house there) but in an unfinished loft in the " Mansion House," directly north of the present Tremout House; and that the first case in that first term bore the name of John Dean Caton as attorney. This is the clear recollection of ex-Chief Justice Caton himself, and if the testimony needs any corroboration it is at hand; for a gentleman still living, who has been consulted by the writer, remembers going with the Judge, some time before the fire, and taking down the tin box containing the earliest files (the upper box, left-hand corner in the circuit court vault) and finding there the dusty bundles marked "one" and "two" and noting thereon the name of J. D. Caton as attorney.

The discrepancy can best be explained by assuming that Governor Bross did 7iot go to the files, but to the record-book of the county commissioners, and finding there that a court was ordered in 1831 and again in 1832, naturally concluded that a court was held; whereas the fact is that there being no cases the Judge was so advised and spared himself the long and hard journey over from Galena to the barren little hamlet clustered about Fort Dearborn. The one thing which is incontestible is that John Dean Caton, who arrived in 1833, brought the first suit begun in any court of record in Cook county, and that it was tried in the spring of 1834.

Giles Spring, Judge Caton's first associate and competitor, was born (1807) in Massachusetts, whence he emigrated to Giles spring. the «Weatern Reserve," in Ohio.

He studied law at Ashtabula with Benjamin F. Wade and Joshua R. Giddiugs. He came to Chicago in June, 1833, and advertised as a lawyer in the Chicago Democrat of December 17, 1833, as follows:

"G. Spring, Attorney and Counsellor at Law and Solicitor in Chancery. Office, second door west from the corner of Franklin and South Water Streets, Chicago, Dec. 17.. 1333."

In February, 183G, Mr. Spring formed a partnership with Grant Goodrich and July 24th in the same year, they married sisters, the Misses Budlong, at Westfield,Chatauqua County, N. Y. Mr. Spring was a life-long whig, and therefore, though often a candidate, always defeated in early Chicago, until in 1848 he was elected City Attorney, and in 1849, Judge of Cook County Court of Common Pleas; nearly the equivalent of our Circuit and Superior Courts. He died in 1851.

Notwithstanding his limited education, he seemed to be a sort of a natural lawyer, possessing an intuitive insight into its principles and maxims. 1 have had it from the lips of ve'y eminent counsel, who are still living, that Giles Spring had no superior at the bar in his power of analysis. He siemed to pos?ess the faculty of looking through n case at almost a single glance. ... He was a man of child-like simplicity of manners, as tendtr-hearttd a? a woman, and would have stepped aside to keep from treading on a worm. His one fault is that to which bright spirits are so often subject; the failing which seems to include all others in itself. It is as characteristic of the rudeness of an early day that I quote from the Chicago Democrat of February 9, 1850: "Court is adjourned from day to day by a spree of Judge Spring."

Fort Dearborn was dreamed of. Except Justin Butterfield, not a single lawyer of all those who have shown upon her voluminous roll, was born earlier than was Judge Hamilton, and yet he was less than thirtytwo years old when he became probate judge of Cook county; only thirty-four when the township of Chicago was organized; only thirty-eight when the city was incorporated, and only sixty-one when, in the year of Lincoln's election, he died, "full of years and of honors." This illustrates the youthfulness of the individuals who shaped the destinies of our city. Not a man of those who sat on the bench or pleaded before it during the city's youth had come to the stage of life called " middle age." Men came by scores and hundreds, but they were all young men and their unquestionable greatness accrued during their Chicago experience. It was not matured elsewhere and brought here readymade. The place has always been the paradise of the young, the hopeful, the eager, the strong and untiring.

Mr. Hamilton held more public offices witli less private gain than any other citizen has ever done. In 1835 being candidate for county recorder and finding himself charged with grasping too many places, he said:

In 1831, I received the appointment of clerk of circuit court, judge of probate and notary public. I then moved to Chicago and found that no one wanted these offices. Soon after, the gentleman holding the position of clerk of the county commissioners' court resigned, and I was appointed. The office of school commissioner was then held by Col. T. J. V. Owen, who resigned. Up to September 1834, that office has yielded me, in all, about $200; notary fees have not exceeded $50; probate fees have not amounted to more than $50. I have not realized from all offices, including that of recorder, during four years, more than $1,500.

He was triumphantly elected recorder, which goes to show that at that timo $375 a year was not considered exorbitant pay for a hardworking public servant holding positions of toil and responsibility. His subsequent public services included such offices as bank commissioner (1835), school inspector (1837), delegate to the state democratic convention (1840), alderman (1849), presidential elector on the democratic ticket (1852), and in 1856 candidate for lieutenant-governor, the only office, apparently, for which he was ever defeated. These constant marks of public confidence, in a community always watchful and critical of its servants, indicate unquestionable trustworthiness; for as Mr. Lincoln said in those very days, "You may fool all men sometimes, and some men all the time; but you cannot fool all men all the time."

Judge Hamilton was born in Kentucky, of English parents, was educated in the Shelbyville academy, and studied law in Louisville. In 1820 he migrated to Jonesboro, Illinois, alternately walking and riding a horse which he owned jointly with his friend and companion. He was thrice married, his first wife being Miss Buckner, of Kentucky, who came with him to Chicago in 1831. He used to tell, to illustrate the isolation of those early days, that when the rare and scanty mail arrived, they always took care to read the newspapers in theorderof their dates, so as to get the events of the outside world in their proper sequence. In 1832 he enlisted for the "Blackhawk war," being the first of thirty-seven names in the roll of Captain Gholson Kercheval and Lieutenants George W. Dole and John S. C. Hogan. In company with Captains Jesse B. Brown and Joseph Naper, and twenty-five other mounted men, he carried help to the inhabitants of the Fox River valley; arriving at Indian creek on May 22, 1832, and finding there thirteen dead bodies of the families of Davis, Hall and Pettigrew, all terribly mangled. He lived first in the fort, and, when that grew too crowded with the refugees, he moved to the Agency House; and in 1833, with Col. Owen, hired John Watkins to teach the little school in the old stable near by. At about this time lie built his house on what is now Michigan street between Cass and Rush, where he lived for nineteen years.

In 1834 his first wife died, and the next year he married Miss Harriette L. Hubbard, who became the mother of Henry E. Hamilton, who still survives (1894). In 1842 he became again a widower, and in 1843 he married Mrs. Priscilla (Buckner) Tuley, presumably the sister of his first wife. Her son, Murray F.Tuley,became thus stepson of Mr. Hamilton, and later studied law in his office, as we shall see further on. Judge Hamilton was largely interested in the land speculation of 1836, and by the collapse of 1837 found himself impoverished; but he was never bankrupt. He was one of the very rare exceptions to the general rule of insolvency, and paid every debt he ever contracted.

" There is scarcely a lawyer here now but owes much in his early life to Colonel Hamilton. He took every young practitioner who came here by the hand and helped him to business and practice." To this Judge Manierre added words testifying to his social and genial qualities, his usefulness, his private virtues and public services.

Ex-Chief Justice Caton, even at this late day, (1894), volunteers his testimony to add to these friendly tributes. He says, " He took me by the hand, invited me to use his office and his librar}', and to call on him for any help that lay in his power. He was a good man - that expresses it."

Richard M. Young, like so many early Illinois worthies, was a native of Kentucky. He was admitted to the Illinois bar in 1817, and represented Union county in the legislature in

1820-22. In 1825 he was made judge of the third circuit, and in 1829, on the formation of the fifth circuit, which took in all the State north of the Illinois river, he became its judge. In 1832 he urged upon Governor Reynolds the necessity of providing protection against the Indians for the inhabitants of his circuit. In 1836-7 he was elected to the United States Senate, where he spoke but rarely but was attentive to his duties and especially watchful of the interests of his State, at the same time urgent that its financial credit should never be stained.

Failing of re-election to the senate he was chosen an associate justice of the supreme court (1843) and held the office until his resignation in 1847. Thus he was called again (as associate justice) to hold court in Chicago, and he did so with credit to himself and satisfaction to the public. Of him we read in Andreas' History (vol. I, p. 423).

Physically Judge Young was a tall, fine-looking man, of dignified and attractive bearing. His intellectual ability was equal to filling an}' office respectably, though not with eclat, and, coupled with his industrious and methodical habits, made his political attainments above the average of his day and opportunities. His manners were gentle, courteous and entertaining; his feelings, generous and sympathetic; his disposition, amiable and unaggressive; and altogether he was eminently fitted to win and retain popular favor.

country to which his heart clung all through his life, and which he recalled during his last illness. His family traces its descent to the associates of Roger Williams, "the wonderful men who first proclaimed civil and religious liberty on this continent and in Rhode Island established the first real republic ever vouchsafed to man." (Memoir by William F. DeWolf). He was largely a self-made man, and between the ages of seventeen and twenty years prepared himself for the law by teaching school half the year to enable him to pursue his studies the other half. This strikes the keynote of his success; for, (to quote the admir- able words of Judge Drummond uttered on the occasion of the memorial services in Mr. Arnold's honor), " It is not those who have, but those who gain a competence, who achieve great distinction at the bar."

Young Arnold entered the office of Kichard Cooper, Esq., of Cooperstown, New York, and Judge E. B. Moorehouse of the same place, being admitted to the bar in 1835. In 1836 he came to Chicago and entered upon his distinguished career as a lawyer, citizen and patriot.

Upon Mr. Arnold's arrival in Chicago he entered upon the pursuit of his profession and in 1837 became the law partner of Mahlon D. Ogden, making a firm which built up a very large practice. In state courts and federal, in cases civil and criminal, he proved himself a powerful advocate and a man truly learned in the law. Few practitioners in Illinois or any other State have been engaged in a larger number of cases than was he, or in causes embracing a wider range.

In the dark days following the collapse of 1837, he stood up against repudiation of public debts. In 1842-3 he helped carry through the legislature the bill by which the Illinois and Michigan canal was made successful.

The early case of Bronson vs. Kinzie, (I Howard, 311) was a test of the constitutionality of the "stay laws" of the State, which he always opposed as being a step toward repudiation. The law of foreclosure provided that the encumbered property should be appraised, and at forced sale, unless two-thirds of its appraised value should be bid, it should not be sold. In 1841 he filed in behalf of Mr. Bronson a bill for strict foreclosure of a mortgage given by Mr. Kinzie, praying a sale to the highest bidder regardless of the redemption, appraisement and stay-laws. The Supreme Court of the United States (in 1843; Chief Justice Taney delivering the opinion) sustained the bill; sweeping aside all the assumptions which had been urged in favor of such laws, and

Another notable point in Arnold's early practice came upon him as counsel for the canal commissioners. Original settlers on "canal lands" set up pre-emption claims covering the entire tract that they had settled on, measured by the government surveys, sections, half-sections, etc. The canal commissioners had sub-divided the most valuable tracts into city blocks and lots, and Arnold succeeded in defeating the claims to the larger tracts, limiting them to the ground actually occupied by the "pre-emptioners."f

Mr. Arnold was by nature a Democrat and "strict constructionist," but from the moment the party began to be divided on the question of slavery he took the "Free Soil" side. In 1856 he was. elected to congress as an "anti-Nebraska Democrat," and in 1860, at the momentous election which made his friend, Abraham Lincoln, President, Mr. Arnold was again chosen to represent his constituents, and thenceforward for four years he was Chicago's great "war representative," one of the ablest, most useful and most conscientious members of that grand, strong, wise body of patriots. He was always at his post in committee and on the floor of the house, and his demeanor was amiable, courteous, polished - a gentleman. By nature, birth, education and conviction an anti-slavery man, he found here a splendid field for all his powers. He it was, who, (February 15, 1864), introduced the bill for the constitutional amendment abolishingslavery. Said he, "Let us now in the name of liberty, of justice, anJ of God, consummate this grand revolution. Let us now make our country the home of the free."

*In McCracken vs. Hayward, II Howard 608, a similar point was raised by Mr. Arnold on a sale under an execution upon a judgment at law, and the decision in Bronson vs. Kinzie was extended to cover that class of cases.

tBrainard vs. Canal Trustees. XII HI.. 488. The case was argued at Ottawa, in June, 1851', before Judges Treat, Trumbull and Caton, the two first named joining in the opinion; Caton dissenting.

In 1867 he completed and published his "History of Abraham Lincoln and the overthrow of Slavery", a work of surpassing interest and historic value.

The great fire was a terrible - almost fatal - blow to him. He suffered intensely in person and greatly hi property; losing treasures and relics of incalculable value - a heartrending loss. He took up law-practice anew in 1872; but failing health compelled him to abandon it two or three years later; after which he passed his closing years in congenial performance of historical and literary labor, and the dispensing of simple hospitality in his beloved family circle. In 1880 he brought out his most noted contribution to literature, a "Life of Benedict Arnold - his Patriotism and his Treason," a work of absolutely unique value, inasmuch as it does justice to the good deeds of the traitor while not in the least extenuating his unpardonable crime.

Mr. Arnold's last work, his "Life of Abraham Lincoln" was his own favorite achievement, and is in truth one of the most valuable of the many memoirs of our martyrpatriot. The only drawback to its usefulness is that it is one of many, while in treating the less hackneyed theme he had the ground to himself. To quote his grand old friend and eulogist, Hon. Elihu B. Washburn:

Never shall I forget the last interview I had with him, only a few days before he died, as he lay pallid and emaciated on his bed of death. Knowing all the interest I had felt in his book, be began to speak of it in feeble and even plaintive tones and closed by saying: "It was only when I had completed the last chapter that I collapsed." And so it was. Strengthened and buoyed up in his purpose to complete the great work of his life, when the task was finished he

Husband, father, friend, neighbor, citizen - his ashes repose on the shores of the lake where he had passed a long and honored life and its waves shall forever sing his requiem.

was considerate and attentive, according always to others the respect he expected from them, while from his intimates he gained the utmost personal affection. His early associates at the bar were J. D. Caton, Justin Butterfield, Giles Spring, Grant Goodrich, Hugh T. Dickey, Patrick Ballingall, J. Young Scammon, Norman B. Judd, James H. Collins, Buckner S. Morris, etc. He was an early and constant friend of the Historical Society and at the time of his death (April 24, 1884) be was its president. Its beautiful and complete pamphlet embodying the addresses and memoirs elicited by his death is the source whence these remarks are condensed.

In strict chronological order this would be the place for inserting the biographical sketch of Grant Goodrich, but for convenience it has been transferred to another part of this volume.

to Illinois in 1833 and settled on a "claim" (pre-emption) at Holderman's grove, some sixty or seventy miles southwest of Chicago. In 1834 his former student, Caton, found him in great distress, and arranged with him that as soon as he should recover the use of his feet, then badly frozen, he should come to Chicago and join Caton in the practice of law. The partnership lasted but about a year and Collins then formed another with Justin Butterfield. The firm of Butterfield and Collins was counsel for the Government in the celebrated case wherein J.B.Beaubien attempted to establish a preemption claim on the Fort Dearborn military reservation, alleging that he had settled on it during the interval when it was abandoned as a military post, between the massacre of 1812 and the rebuilding of the fort in 1816. Beaubien failed in his law-suit and, later, when the lots were sold, the citizens generally sympathizing with Beaubien, refrained from bidding on those occupied by Beaubien (the southwest corner of Michigan avenue and South Water street), whereupon Collins (thinking, as he said, that the gain would go to somebody other than Beaubien) bid them in himself, to the great anger of the public. In fact an indignation meeting was held next day (June 21, 1839), whereof William H. Brown was president, and JohnH. Kinzie and James Wadsworth secretaries, at which strong censure was expressed.

Collins was, as Mr. Arnold puts it, "a man of perseverance, pluck and resolution, and as combative as an English bull-dog," and he kept the lots - doubtless a profitless purchase ; as we can see, even after all these years that he never held the place in the common heart to which his talents and character seemed to entitle him ; and at the present writing (1894) there are old citizens who remember with bitterness his ousting of poor old Beaubien from his homestead. There are scores still living who say, " Well, it was a shame." Collins was one of the little band of "original abolitionists," and was (as is elsewhere observed) associated with Owen Lovejoy in the triumphant defense of the latter from the charge of harboring a runaway slave. The opponents of slavery were numerous in early days ; and Linder (an undisguised adherent of the other side) says in his "reminiscences" (referring to another matter.)

We members of the Wabash country elected him [John Pearsons] judge of the circuit court, of which Chicago was a part. This gave great offence to the lawyers of Chicago - Butterfield, Scammon and others. . . . But I remember that we of the Wabash at that time had no great love for these Yankee abolition lawyers. . . . Old Jonathan Mills, who had very little love for Pearsons, voted for him. He said he had two objects to accomplish - one was to get him out of our circuit, and the other was to annoy

But Pearsons had better never have accepted the office, for they made his seat so hot for him that he was forced to resign before his time expired.

It is needless to inquire toward which side of this quarrel the enlightened intelligence of this generation is sure to incline. One banner has gone down in blood and darkness, while the other shines in the sunlight of freedom.

Mr. Collins died in 1854, by cholera. This disease we have almost forgotten as a possible "scourge of God." The circumstances of the visitation of 1832, 1838, 1849, 1854 and 1866, are all somewhat alike, and all typified, in their main features, by an account which Ex-chief Justice Caton has given of the death of his old instructor, partner and friend:

Judge Caton was holding court in Ottawa on a certain afternoon. James H. Collins, his intimate friend and former partner, argued a case up to adjournment of court, apparently in good health and spirits. He went to his room in the Fox River House, and Judge Caton went to his own home. About, day-break some one came to the Judge's door and called him, saying that Mr. Collins had died of cholera. Judge Caton went at once to the hotel, where he found the report to be true; thence he went to the telegraph office (he was an officer of the company, carried an office-key and was himself a pretty good operator), and as he entered he heard Chicago calling Ottawa, the message bi'ingaddressed to Mr. Collins, telling him that a servant had just died of cholera at his house. The Judge took the message, and replied, in telegraphic custom, " O. K," and wired back the news that Mr. Collins himself was dead. (Story of Chicago: 235.)

(1790-1855.) born in Keene, N. H., in ] 7yO, and was therefore a man grown at the time of the massacre. He attended Williams College at seventeen, and at about twenty began to study law in the office of Egbert Ten Eyck, at Watertowu, N. Y. In 1814, while practising in Sacketts Harbor, N. Y., he married Elizabeth Pierce, of Scoharie, N. Y., and shortly afterward moved to New Orleans, where he soon had an excellent standing and practice. It is almost unquestionable that it was at this time of his career that he got the bias of thought which led him later in life to such hatred of slavery.

In 1835, he settled in Chicago, and formed the partnership of Butterfield and Collins, which lasted until 1843. He soon became a leader at the bar and in society, and the firm took rank at the head of the profession in Chicago, and even outside of it. He took the leading part in the contest which led to the resignation of Judge Pearson, the dramatic incidents whereof will be set forth when we come to sketch Judge Pearson's career.

In 1841 Mr. Butterfield was made, by the Whig administration, attorney for the United States District of Illinois. In 1842, in connection with I. N. Arnold, William B. Ogden and Arthur Bronson, he drew up the bill under which the bondholders were induced to advance $1,600,000 additional for use in continuing the work on the canal, a measure which effected the completion of that invaluable improvement. In 1847 he took in partnership Erastus S. Williams, long and favorably known in later years as judge of the circuit court of Cook county.

A noticeable feature of his career is his successful rivalry of Abraham Lincoln for the office of commissioner of the general land office in June 1849, under the Whig administration of Taylor and Fillmore. Mr. Lincoln had been a member of Congress from Illinois, and had the support of the Illinois congressmen for the appointment, but Mr. Butterfield had on his side the friendship of Daniel Webster, Secretary of State, and this naturally carried the day. Doubtless Lincoln was bitterly disappointed and angered, but all was for the best: If he had once come under the deadening influence of Washington office-holding, it is hard to imagine him a few years later carrying on the joint debate with Douglas, the campaign for the presidency, the war administration - all that has made his name immortal in love, reverence and gratitude.

Mr. Butterfield, as land commissioner, could and did do vast service to the State in the help he gave Senators Douglas and Breese and the Illinois delegation in the House in getting the canal land grant of which the State has made such splendid and profitable use - its prairies opened up for settlement, and its coffers filled with tolls.

Justin Butterfiekl was one of the ablest, if not the very ablest lawyer we have ever had at the Chicago bar. He was strong, logical, full of vigor and resources. In his style of argument, and his personal appearance, he was not unlike Daniel Webster, of whom he was a great admirer and who was his model. . . . Great as he was before the Supreme Court, and everywhere on questions of law, he lacked the tact and skill to be equally successful before a jury.

Henry Williams Blodgett, born in Amherst, Mass., in 1821, presents perhaps the most striking personality of the Chicago bench and bar during its whole history. He was earlier here than any other, and at this present writing, when he is just quitting the local field of labor to take up with one not merely national, but international, he has held his place as a Chicago jurist and citizen longer than has any other man.

His early history is strikingly typical of the possibilities the West has held in store for genius and ability, and his present and future greatness rounds out and completes the structure.

Israel P. Blodgett came from Amherst, Mass., in September 1830, to select land fora colony of sturdy, God-fearing New England - ers; and his family, including Henry, followed with the main body, traveling overland as far as Albany, thence by canal to Buffalo, and by steamboat to Detroit. Being too late for the Qrst and too early for the second of the two yearly schooners, they bought teams and wagons and drove through Michigan the remaining 300 miles; the whole journey having taken forty-four days.

David McKee, blacksmith for the Indians, whose house and shop were near the present crossing of Kinzie and Franklin streets, had been engaged to meet the new comers and care for the Blodgetts (Israel being thirty miles out, on the DuPage, where he had concluded to settle); and he met the caravan a mile or so south of Fort Dearborn. Mrs. McKee entertained the Blodgetts and got up a tea party for Mrs. Blodgett, inviting to meet her, Mrs. Graves, Mrs. Hamilton, Mrs. Owen and Mrs. Miller, they being all the

Henry's next visit to "the fort" was in 1832, when he had great fun paddling in a canoe up and down the river from the lakes to the forks, and wandering on its lonely banks and in the mysterious woods that covered the whole "North Side."*

His father was corporal in Captain Naper's company of mounted volunteers enlisted for the "Black Hawk war," but saw no active service. The building of the canal was begun and everything a farmer could raise was salable at good prices, so the old man grew rich - as folks then counted wealth - and his sons received a solid education. Henry worked and studied, as farmers boys are wont to do; and in 1838 enjoyed the precious boon of a year's schooling at Amherst, his birthplace. Then he returned and taught school a year and served on the engineering force on the canal. His memories of those primitive days are full of curious interest, and it is to be hoped that he will find time, during his busy life, to record and publish them for the benefit of the millions living and to live hereafter on the changed scene of his early days.

At twenty-three he began studying law in the office of J.Y. Scammon and N. B. Judd, and was admitted to practice in 1845, when he opened an office at Waukegan, which has been his place of abode ever since. He was one of the "original abolitionists," voted for James G. Birney iu 1844, joined the republican party at its formation and has always remained faithful to its principles. In 1852 he was elected to the general assembly of Illinois, and was, it is said, "the first avowed anti-slavery man" sent to the state legislature. He was a great worker, there as elsewhere, and followed the liberal course in treating such subjects as internal improvement and the development of the natural

"Judge Blodgett remembers to have seen at that time, lying on the bottom of the river and covered by its clear waters, remains of the arms, etc., thrown in there at the destruction of the old fort in 1812.

resources of the state, being the early friend and advocate of railroads and the other corporate enterprises which have helped so greatly in its progress.

He was one of the pioneers of the Chicago, St. Paul & Fond du Lac railroad, and a chief promoter of the Chicago & Milwaukee, whereof he became president. Both of these roads were afterward consolidated with the Galena and others, in the gigantic Chicago & Northwestern railway system, in which he became head of the law department in 1855. Still later he and F. H. Winston, his partner, Decame local counsel of the Michigan Southern and Northern Indiana, the Chicago & Kock Island, the Pittsburgh & Fort Wayne and the Northwestern, managing the law business of them all by their immeasurable energy.

In 1870, doubtless somewhat tired of the infinite labor and detail of his practice, he accepted from President Grant the distinguished (though poorly paid) office of Judge of the District Court of the United States, which post he filled with a degree of power and judicial eminence which is rare even in the federal judiciary, brilliant and blameless as is its record.

Judge Blodgett's memory is phenomenal; his clearness and penetration, both in the view of law and in the sifting of evidence, unexcelled; his mechanical insight, as called forth in the intricacies of patent cases, unparalleled; his command of English, as exemplified in his jury charges and his judicial opinions, beyond praise. Most rarely have his decisions been reversed, and the whole system of federal practice bears the impress of his work as that of a master mind.

The crown of approval of his long public service is set upon it by his appointment as one of the counsel of the United States before the Board of Arbitrators for the settlement of the international questions involved in the seal fishery dispute between England and the United States. All who know him feel perfect confidence that in this great matter justice has been done, national interests been unfailingly cared for, and a settlement arrived at which will serve as a precedent for the unraveling of maritime tangles in the future - with the blessed result of making wars between the nations less likely to occur for all time.

noted for solid sense and judgment. Thomas received such education as the simple neighborhood could give, and entered Bowdoin College at fifteen, getting his degree five years later. He studied law in Philadelphia in the office of William T. Dwight, son of President Dwight, of Yale, and was admitted to practice in 1833, and two years later moved to Galena, where he "hung out his shingle." He soon took rank as one of the best lawyers in Jo Daviess county, then containing some of the ablest practitioners in Illinois.

His characteristics were then, as always, intense application to the solid work of his profession ; investigation of facts and of precedents; cautious and thorough analysis of the principles of law involved in the case at bar; and, above all, absolute integrity, sincerity and candor. His fame for these qualities spread through the State and beyond, and in 1850 President Taylor, during his short term of office, selected him for the office of district judge of the United States for Illinois. Five years later the State was divided, and he became judge of the Northern district. The business was immense, both in the district and circuit courts, and most of the causes in both courts fell necessarily to him (the attendance of a supreme court justice in the circuit being comparatively rare); and the admiralty and patent cases, added to the ordinary civil and criminal litigation, entailed a degree of labor and devotion which would have been impossible to a man less able, methodical and untiring than was Judge Drummond.

In 1869 he was appointed to the federal circuit bench, his circuit embracing Indiana (three courts), Illinois (two courts), and Wisconsin (four courts); by far the larger part of the business being concentrated in Chicago, whereof the growth of litigation was unprecedented. Of bankrupt railways aloue, probably twenty have been settled in these nine courts and by receivers appointed in them, representing bonded indebtedness of perhaps a hundred million dollars. All this business came directly or indirectly under Judge Drummond's care, and his name passed through the long ordeal unassailed by a breath of suspicion, not only of corruption but of unfairness.

Among the important matters first settled in Judge Drummond's court was the question of the relative priority of the claim of the holder of a railway bond and that of the holder of a certificate issued by the receiver appointed by a court to administer the railway under foreclosure. The question had never been crystalized into a judicial decision. The first view, and that held by eminent lawyers, had been in favor of priority for the bonds; and it was Judge Drummond's high privilege to establish the contrary principle, which has been the rule of law to this day.

The question arose in the business of the Chicago, St. Paul & Fond du Lac railway. A deed of trust had been foreclosed and sale made by the trustees. The property was bid in by a committee of the bondholders, a new company organized and the property conveyed to it; and the thing to be settled was the status of old creditors claiming arrears of operating expenses. Mr. Tilden advised the new company that it took the road free and clear of all liabilities of the old company. This advice did not accord with William B. Ogden's sense of justice, and he, being president of both the old and the new companies, submitted it to Henry jects in voting for him; one was to get rid of him out of that circuit and the other to annoy the d - d abolition lawyers of Chicago. The sequel shows that if he did annoy them the annoyance was at least mutual.

In 1839 Mr. Scammon, wishing to appeal to the supreme court a case from Judge Pearson's court, presented the judge a "bill of exceptions " for his signature in usual course. The judge withheld his signature and Mr. Scammon got from the supreme court a writ of mandamus commanding Judge Pearson to sign the bill or show cause why he should not. He did neither, and on November 11, 1839, Justin Butterfield got up in court holding in his hand two papers, and (to quote the account given by Thomas Hoyne, then clerk of the court, as given in his " The Lawyer as Pioneer"):

With marked politeness of manner he [Mr. Butterfield] handed one paper to the judge, saying it was a bill of exceptions in the case of Phillips vs. Bristol, tried at a former term. The judge said, " I did not sign that bill of exceptions," to which Mr. Butterfield graciously replied, " I am aware of that, sir, but here" (presenting the other paper) " is a writ of mandamus from the supreme court command, ing you to sign it." The judge held the paper toward Mr. Butterfield, saying, " Take it away sir," to which he replied, " It is directed to you, sir, and I will leave it with you. I have discharged my duty in serving it and I will leave it with you."

It was at this point that the court turned to me as clerk and said, " Mr. Clerk, enter a fine of twenty dollars against Mr. Butterfield," and then threw the papers - the bill of exceptions and writ of mandamus - on the floor in front of the desk. He continued, looking at Butterfield: "What do you mean, sir? " It was now that Butterfield, raising his voice, hitherto restrained, fired the first gun of what was to be a campaign. " I mean, sir, to proceed against you by attachment if you do not obey that writ." The judge, replying, cried out, " Sit down, sir! sit down, sir! " and to me, " proceed with the record."

The record was read and the fine of twenty dollars entered up against Mr. Butterfield, and the court adjourned. The judge was descending from the bench and proceeding to pass through the bar, when all the lawyers jumped to their feet, while Butterfield promptly marched up to Pearson, saying, " Sir, you have now disgraced that bench long enough. Sit down, sir, and let me beg of you to attend immediately a meeting of this bar, to be held instanter, in which we are about to try your case and rid ourselves and the people, once for all, of your incompetency and ignorance." The judge left, but the bar prepared an impeachment, and that winter a long trial followed before the house of representatives at Springfield. . . But the house, which was largely composed of his political friends, refused to give the impeachers a hearing.

Mr. Hoyne was also of the Democratic faith, therefore his graphic picture can not be accused of adverse bias, and he expressly characterizes the conflict as having been between ignorance and incompetence on the bench and independence and intelligence at the bar.

The impeachment failed, but the judge resigned. Some kind of political "bargain" was made, and his party, parading him as a martyr, elected him to the legislature. The supreme court, as in duty bound, issued its writ of attachment against the obstinate jurist and had him arrested as he was trying to leave the State, brought him back and fined him $100 for contempt, which sum he paid and which was refunded to him by a subsequent legislature on motion of his friendly defender, Mr. Linder.

One of the great and good men of the early day was Hon. Mark Skinner, of whom a sketch will be found in the portion of the work reserved for the more extended biographies.

This substantially exhausts the list of legal practitioners who came to the rough bench and splintery bar of Chicago before L840. It was a strong, shrewd, hardy pioneer band, worthy fore-runners and long-time leaders of the great host of good men who followed them. Caton, Spring, Young, Arnold, Hoyne, Collins, Butterfield, Blodgett, Drummond, Goodrich, Skinner, Morris, Scammon, Huntington,Judd, Manierre,DeWolf - what faithful citizen of Chicago can read the list without a swelling of the heart eager to honor the memory of the many who are dead, and to greet with warmth the few who are yet with us?

Of The Diversity Of Illihois

From this point onward, the task of sketching the bench and bar becomes more difficult. Good men must be dismissed with words few and inadequate, and good men must be passed by without a word: for there are at the present writing three thousand practicing lawyers at the Chicago bar and more than thirty judges on the bench ; upright, able and intensely devoted to the overwhelming mass of litigation which presses itself ceaselessly upon the overcrowded dockets.

one of the best-known lawyers of that period, Richard J. Hamilton. He was born (1827) at Louisville, Ky. , and lost his father in 1832, from which time he attended public schools, and at the age of thirteen became clerk in a store, still, however, spending his leisure in study; so that he is eminently a self-made man. When he was sixteen his mother (of the well-known Buckner family) married Mr. Hamilton, and in due time young Tuley entered his step-father's office and began to read law. In 1846 he went to the Louisville Law Institute, and after a year there, returned and was admitted to the bar in Chicago.

This was the opening year of the Mexican war, and Mr. Tuley enlisted in the Fifth Illinois Volunteer Infantry and went with the regiment to New Mexico. That territory became part of our own country, and after the war ended he remained in Santa Fe, practicing law, until 1854; serving meanwhile as Attorney General of the Territory and member of the legislature.

Experience so large and varied is never lost on a man like Judge Tuley, and on his return to Chicago he at once became a successful lawyer, being the partner at one time of Joseph E. Gary (now his associate on the bench), and later head of the distinguished firm of Tuley, Stiles & Lewis. He was elected a judge of the circuit court in 1879 and has long held his place on the equity side -of that court; justifying a prophecy

Erastus Smith Williams was born in Salem, N. Y., and came to the West with his E. s. Williams. parents in 1836. He studied d82i-i884.) iaw in the office of Butterfield & Collins, who were at the head of the profession. He was admitted in 1844, and became a partner of the great Butterfield; later of the Other member of the old firm, Mr. Collins. The latter dying in 1854, Mr. Williams was appointed master in chancery by Judge Manierre, and on the death of the latter was elected to the bench in his place. In those days it was more customary than now, to make the mastership a stepping-stone to the bench; the master's duties being justly held to furnish experience sure to be of use to the judge. Judge Williams held his place as sole judge on the Circuit bench until its re-organization in 1870, when he became chancellor and chief justice. He continued chancellor until his retirement in 1879.

Andreas (II Hist. Chic. 455) gives an instance of Judge Williams's impartiality. Judge Van H. Higgins (1865) sued the Times for libel in having charged him with malfeasance in bringing his influence to bear to bias the court in a suit wherein he was complainant. (In fact the case was a foreclosure suit, of a character in which no defence was possible.) In the trial for libel the case chanced to turn on the admission of certain evidence offered by the Times in its defence. After full deliberation Judge Williams admitted the evidence, and the prosecution, taken by surprise, dismissed its suit. And at this very time the Times was, always had been, and always continued to be bitterly hostile to Judge Williams. He simply ruled against his sympathies, in deference to his conviction as to what he believed the law to be.

but wise; never forgetting the spirit in the letter. His patience is truly admirable. He can endure even n tedious and pointless argument, and such is his uniform courtesy that the youngest lawyer approaches the bench without fear. . . . He does not descend to unseemly disputes with counsel. He presides with dignity and decides without fear. He is singularly impartial. Neither friendship nor enmity can sway his judgment. No man can cast a blot on his unsullied reputation.

William Washington Farwell was born (1817) in Madison county, New York, the descendant of old New England Puritan stock. He was graduated at Hamilton college in 1837, and admitted to the bar in Rochester four years later. He came to Chicago in 1848, but did not settle here permanently until 1854. Thereafter, for sixteen years, he remained in active practice, in partnership with Grant Goodrich, Sidney Smith and others, and in 1870, on the re-organization of the circuit court (under Section 23, Article VI., of the Constitution of 1870), he was elected one of the five judges and served for nine years, sitting mainly on the Chancery side of the court.

The elections of 1879 were fatal to all Republican candidates, Judge Farwell among the rest, and in 1880 he was chosen professor of jurisprudence, pleadings and practice in the Union College of Law. In the new and noteworthy "Northwestern Law School" into which the old "Union" later (1892) developed, Judge Farwell holds his own high place.

Henry Booth was born in Roxbury, Conn., in 1818, graduated at Yale in 1840, and studied law in New Haven, where he was admitted to the bar in 1844. In 1859 he came to Chicago to institute the law department of the University of Chicago. He then became and has always continued a mainstay of that excellent law school, both in its original form and in that which it assumed in 1873, when the Northwestern University took a joint interest in it, under the name of the Union College of Law.

In 1870 Mr. Booth became Judge Booth, being elected to the circuit bench, a place he held and honored for nine years. Then the "land-slide " in politics carried him out with the rest, and he returned to the practice of the law, in conjunction with the care of the college, in the faculty whereof he is now dean.

Judge Booth has been a devoted public servant. Among the objects of his care are the Athenaeum, the Washingtonian Home, the Philosophical Society and the Society for Ethical Culture.

Joseph Easton Gary was born in Potsdam, N.Y.,in 1821. Heenjoyed agood, though not a collegiate, education, and was admitted to the bar in 1844, at St. Louis, Mo. He came to Chicago in 1856, becoming the partner first of Mr. Tuley, and later of E. and A. Van Buren. In 1863 he was elected to the superior court bench and had the unprecedented honor of being re-elected five times, being now (1894) in his thirty-second year of consecutive service and the seventy-fourth of his life.

Judge Gary has a mind at once judicial and business-like. He judges nothing in advance, but when fully heard he decides each question at once, off-hand, with a rapidity which would be dangerous for most men, but which for him seems to have almost the infallibility of instinct. To quote Captain Andreas (II Hist. Chic. 457):

Judge Gary is noted for the rapidity of his decisions and for his great dispatch of business, evidently holding, with Emerson, that it is more important to the public that cases should be decided than that they should always be decided correctly. A ni»i priua judge who delays the great column of suitors while he is trying to decide every case exactly right and beyond cavil, is not a good judge nor well fitted for his position, and is apt to do more harm than good.

Manifestly, this has its limits; for he who decides against law and practice will only load the appellate courts with needless work, and leave his own cases to be tried over again upon reversals. But he who most quickly strikes at the true conclusion is the pattern

The cause which will most surely carry Judge Gary's name down to remote posterity is the celebrated "Anarchist case "of 1886, when eight men were tried for complicity in the throwing of a dynamite bomb into the midst of a battalion of police, whereby sixty-seven men were injured, of whom seven died.

The prosecution bristled with difficulties. There was no certainty of ability to identify the bomb-thrower, therefore reliance must be placed on the statute which makes the accessory guilty of the crime of the principal. The indictment was one of the most voluminous ever returned in a murder case. It was drawn (under Mr. Grinnell's instructions) in the old, wordy, common law form, each accused being charged directly and also as accomplice with each of the others. The evidence was directed to prove conspiracy whereof the killing was the overt act.

The bomb explosion was on May 4, 1886, and the trial began June 7. Twenty-one days were spent in impaneling the jury and 982 men were examined before the twelve were selected, the defence being allowed every possible privilege of questioning and challenge. The trial lasted sixty-two days; the prosecution examining 143 witnesses and the defence 79. All this examination necessarily gave rise to objections and exceptions beyond count; each requiring prompt decision by the court, and each decision being made with the consciousness that it was subject to revision by the supreme court, and reversal in case it should be found erroneous and injurious to the accused, for the prosecution could not have a new trial in any case.

* Quite apropos of this is a saying now (1893) going the rounds wherein Judge Gary (now on the appellate bench I figures. Some one asked him what he round to do to occupy his time, to which he quickly replied: "Well, I spend most of my time reversing Judge X."

Seven of the accused being found guilty, the case was at once carried to the supreme court, which (by Justice Magruder) pronounced the entire trial free from fatal or material errors, and the verdict, judgment and sentence were carried out, execution following in due course, as all the world knows. This judicial exploit must give Judge Gary a lasting place in the history of American judicature.

Judge Gary's address to the convicted prisoners on pronouncing sentence was in keeping with his kind heart, his firm and upright mind, and his sterling, clear-sighted view of common law and common sense. The clause wherein he speaks of the lawlessness sometimes displayed by "organized labor," deserves to be written in letters of gold, framed and displayed wherever the noble and heroic hosts of wage workers most do congregate. They place the richest and strongest of that host under the control of the law and the poorest and weakest under its protection. He said :

What I shall say, will be said in the faint hope that a few words from a place where the people of the State of Illinois have delegated the authority to declare the penalty for a violation of their laws, and spoken upon an occasion so solemn and awful as this, may come to the knowledge of and be heeded by the ignorant, deluded and misguided men who have listened to your counsel and followed your advice. I say in the faint hope, for if men are persuaded that because of business differences, whether about labor or anything else, tbey may destroy property and assault and beat other men, and kill the police, if they, in the discharge of their duty, interfere to preserve the peace, there is little ground of hope that they will listen to any warning.

Not the least among the hardships of the peaceable, frugal and laborious poor, it is, to endure the tyranny of mobs, who with lawless force, dictate to them under penalty of peril to limb and life, where, when, and upon what terms they may earn a livelehood for themselves and their families.

Any government that is worthy of the name, will strenuously endeavor to secure to all within its jurisdiction, freedom to follow their lawful avocations and safety for their property and persons while obeying the law.

was the otate s attorney to whom fell the tremendous responsibility, and to whom was greatly due the inestimable success of the prosecution of the "Anarchist case."

Julius Sprague Grinnell was born in St. Lawrence county, N. Y., in 1842, of New England parents, who trace ancestry back to the town of Grenelle, now a suburb of Paris, France. The widely known, loved and honored merchant, Moses Grinnell, of New York, is of the same stock. Julius graduated at Middlebury College, high in the class of 1866. He studied law and was admitted (1868) in Ogdensburgh, N. Y., where he began practice of his profession and also taught for a year in the Ogdensburgh Academy.

Mr. Grinnell came to Chicago in 1870, just in time to be one of the host of sufferers in the great fire of 1871 - also to take part in the miraculous re-establishment of the city's strength and prosperity, being soon recognized as one of the best of the host of young lawyers then at the bar. In 1879 he was elected city attorney,and easily earned re-election in 1881 and 1883. In 1884 he was elected States attorney for Cook county, and in that capacity carried forward more important, distinguished and successful prosecutions of public offenders, than stand to the credit of any other man in the history of Chicago - perhaps of any city in the country or the world. In 1884 arose the famous election conspiracy case against Joseph C. Mackin, secretary of the Democratic State Central Committee, William J. Gallagher, a judge of election, and others. The crime, if successful, would have changed the political majority in the State legislature and caused the election to the Federal senate of a Dem ocrat in the place of General Logan, the Kepublican candidate.

The trial for tampering with the ballots and returns, was in the United States District Court, conducted by General Tuthill, district attorney, General Stiles, General Hawley and Judge Doolittle. Mackin was also indicted in the State court for perjury, and the case was prosecuted by Mr. Grinnell, General Stiles and Mr. Longeuecker. Mackin was found guilty in both courts and sent to the penitentiary.

The next great trial that was carried to a successful issue by Mr. Grinnell was the " County Commissioners' Boodler cases," in 1885, when William J. McGarigle,Edward S. McDonald and several others were convicted.

Next it fell to Mr. Grinnell's lot to manage the indictment, arrest, trial and conviction of the anarchists, Spies, Parsons, Schwab, Lling, Fielden, Engel and Fischer, that very remarkable prosecution which, as already observed, resulted in vindicating law and order by the signal discomfiture and condign punishment of their assailants. His readiness, his ability, his resolution, his legal acumen and his eloquence drew to him the attention of the entire public, and resulted in his election (1887) to the circuit bench, where he served with a degree of acceptation which only added judicial distinction to the fame he had won as an advocate.

Now came one more of the many instances which go to show that the money rewards on the bench ($7,000 a year), large though they seem to the outside world, are not large enough to retain the services of the very leading men in the profession unless the}' happen (through the possession of private fortune or otherwise) to look upon judicial honor and power as a full equivalent for greater pecuniary gains in private practice. In 1890 Judge Grinnell resigned his judgeship to accept the post of counsel for the Chicago City Kailway Company.

Judge Grinnell still holds that position and doubtless will do so as long as he desires. At the same time the people mourn the loss of an invaluable public officer and would be highly pleased with any change which should see him once more fighting knavery in the courts - a feeling which, it is said, is shared by Judge Grinnell himself, who is never so happy as when maintaining the right before court and jury in a sharply contested case.

Grinnell leads to another name, that of the counsel who, in this memorable struggle, were doomed to see efforts not less faithful, determined, heroic, devoted than those of their opponents, driven slowly but surely to inevitable defeat.

The leading counsel for the defence of the accused anarchists was Captain William Perkins Black. He was born in Woodford county, Kentucky, in 1843, of Scotch or Scotch- Irish race, whereof the first American representatives were immigrants to South Carolina before the revolution. William's youth was spent in Danville, 111., and in 1860 he was sent to Wabash College, at Crawfordsville, Ind., where he was (as he had always been at home) a close, apt and enthusiastic student. Wabash distinguished herself in 1861 by sending at one swoop about forty students into the army, among whom were William and his elder brother (General) John Charles Black.

After good and valiant service at the battles of Pea Ridge, Prairie Grove and the assaults on Vicksburg and Fort Blakely, as well as a host of minor actions, Captain Black, the war being over, came home to finish his education and study law, and in 1868 formed with Judge Thomas Dent the eminent and successful firm of Dent & Black.

Captain Black, with his thoughtful and able wife (Miss Mac Greal, of Texas) were long well-known advocates of philanthropy, humanity, the cause of the weak as against the strong, the poor as against the rich; in short, they espoused the generous and selfsacrificing side in social questions. This fact, together with Captain Black's forensic ability, made it quite natural that he should