Chicago City (part 43 of 57)

The "World's Columbian Exposition Auxiliary" in 1893 achieved a series of congresses that truly carried out the programme laid down by their promoters; which was to do for the moral and intellectual world what the Fair itself did for the material world. Under the direction of the Department of Moral and Social Reform (of which Mr. Shortall was chairman of the men's committee), were congresses of "charities, correction and philanthropy," and the humane congress (of the societies for the prevention of cruelty to animals and children) in which Mr. Shortall was particularly interested, and none was more thorough in its organization, or more gratifying in its results, than that devoted to the humane society work, over which Mr. Shortall personally presided. As the "Auxiliary" was a new departure, without example to imitate or precedents to follow, its aims had to be fixed and all its methods to be devised de novo. What division to make in subjects, what meetings to hold, whom to invite as writers and speakers, and how to induce them to attend (always at their own expense, there being absolutely no money at command for any purpose) - these were puzzling questions, requiring much thought in new directions, involving possibilities of failure which would be not only mortifying to the promoters, but disappointing to the public.

auxiliary, Mr. Bonney, to whom its success is largely due, and reflect the highest credit on all who accepted the burden of the great work, and carried it forward to the end.

Mr. Shortall, after nearly twenty years of family life, was bereaved of his life's partner, in August, 1880. He has one son, John Louis Shortall, who was born in 1865.

Tarlington Walker Harvey

The high rewards that are attainable In fortune, character and influence through a life of industry and probity, guided and regulated by .a sense of Christian obligation, are illustrated in the career of T. W. Harvey. With no extraordinary endowment of faculty, unaided by inheritance or friendly support, he was content to enter into the life which a rising community offered in a humble station, and to follow up the opportunities that opened before him with steadiness and industry, gaining, step by step, the rare fruits of well directed enterprise, until he finds himself, while yet his powers are only ripened and matured, the possessor of an enviable fortune, the director of a vast and complicated industry, a trusted repository of important interests, a patron of ennobling influences, and the head of a family circle which yields the richest fruits of satisfaction of which our human lot is capable, while it reflects credit upon the wise and guiding hand that has trained its harmonious members to lives of usefulness and honor.

The world is wont to measure success in life by wealth acquired, or social prominence or political position. These are but gauges of qualities which have enabled their possessor to overcome obstacles and push aside hindrances. The true tests of human greatness are the building up of character into symmetrical manhood, and the faculty of contributing to the well being of the community in some of the many lines which affect the welfare and perfection of society. When success in acquiring fortune and power is employed to better the condition of mankind, to establish and promote religion, education and the useful arts of living, the best ends of life are attained, and the surest guarantee of an honorable reputation secured.

While it is given to no one in this mortal state to attain perfection, it will be seen, as the career of Mr. Harvey is sketched, how nearly he has succeeded in attaining a truly successful life.

His parents were Johnson and Paulina (Walker) Harvey, residents of the town of Siloam, Madison county, New York. The father was a native of New York, and the mother of Massachusetts. They were industrious and religious people, in the common walks of laborious life. The father cultivated a farm, and worked at times as a carpenter, and at a later period built a planing mill, and manufactured, in a small way, sashes, doors and window blinds. Some years after their son had established himself in Chicago, the family removed to Sandwich, Illinois, where they passed the closing years of their lives.

Their son, Turlington W., was born March 10, 1835. At eleven years of age he entered the service of a grocer in Durhamville, New York, with whom he remained three years, working in the store, with the privilege of attending school during the winter months. His opportunities to obtain an education were fragmentary. The common school in childhood and a few terms at the academy were all that the early pressure of labor allowed him. From the store he entered his father's carpenter shop, and spent two years at the bench. At this period of his life his father built the planing mill, and the son worked in it until it burned down after only two years, operation. The mill with its sash, door and blind attachment, was rebuilt at Oneida, New York, and was operated by father and son for a year, when the young man, then nineteen years old, cut adrift and sought an independent and self-supporting life in the West.

We know not what motives actuated him. In the sequel the hand of Providence was manifestly in it. Perhaps, like the patriarch, " he went forth, not knowing whither he went." He " brought up " in Chicago. It was the beginning of the year 1854 - a period of "unusual growth and prosperity in the embryo western city. During the five years, 1850 to 1855, it had doubled its population from a little less than 30,000 to a little over 60,000 inhabitants. He took the first employment that offered in his line of work as a hand in a shop. Only a few weeks passed when his qualifications, becoming known, brought him an offer of foremanship in a sash and door factory, which position he held for five years.

In 1859 he formed a partnership with Mr. P. B. Lamb, and under the style of Lamb and Harvey embarked in the planing-mill business at 329 South Canal street. The same year he entered into a more enduring partnership with Miss Maria L. Hard man, with whom he contracted matrimony. She was a daughter of Jacob W. Hardman, of Louisville, Kentucky. After eleven years of congenial married life, Mrs. Harvey died, leaving four children as the fruit of the union, one other having died. The survivors were Charles A., John R., George L. and Robert H. Harvey.

The trade of Lamb and Harvey had so prospered that two years after they commenced business they built a new mill, at the corner of Polk and Beach streets. The business embraced planing and dealing, in a small way, in pine lumber. In 1865 Mr.

Harvey bought out the interest of his partner, and thenceforth conducted the business alone for eighteen years, until its incorporation as the T. W. Harvey Lumber company in 1883. In 1869 Mr. Harvey removed to the corner of Morgan and Twenty-second streets, where, on the new canal of the South Branch Canal company, he built a new, fireproof planing-mill and factory, and opened an extensive lumber yard. The facilities provided were most complete for handling a large business, which became not only the most extensive concern in Chicago, but the largest and most complete in the whole country. It occupied a dock frontage of 2,400 feet, sufficient for the simultaneous discharge of ten cargoes. The yards had a stor«p capacity of 35,000,000 feet of lumber. ThlPplaning mjll was furnished with ten planers and other machinery, driven by a 250 horse-power engine. There were ten dry kilns, each with a capacity of 50,000 feet. Five hundred men were employed in the mill and yards. The energetic proprietor of this magnificent establishment had purchased thousands of acres of pine timbered lands in the forests of Michigan and Wisconsin. He had erected saw mills at Marinette, Wisconsin, with a capacity of sawing 45,000,000 feet of lumber in a season. The cutting and rafting the logs, and the operation of the mills, employed a small army of men summer and winter. The production of the saw mills, however, did not supply the city yards, which handled, in prosperous years, over 100,000,000 feet of lumber. The deficiency was purchased at different lake markets, and shipped to Chicago in a fleet of vessels belonging to the business. Mr. Harvey did not lag behind competitors in availing himself of the newest inventions and the most perfected machinery. Among other expedients adopted was the construction of a logging railway, the first to invade the pine forests for the transportation of logs from the stump to the mill or water way.

even more in the development of agriculture over the vast pr;iirie region of the Northwest, what vast consumption of lumber! The profits, at only a moderate percentage, on so immense a production and sale were very large, and showed themselves in the rapidly accumulating resources of the energetic proprietor.

In 1883, as has been stated, the business was incorporated, Mr. Harvey becoming president of the company and retaining the chief directorship of the business, while many and important details were entrusted to others.

Mr. Harvey has been interested in other enterprises connected with the lumber business. He was president of the National Lumber company, and of the White Pine Lumber company, both extensive concerns, and the Marinette Saw Mill company.

As his resources have increased he has branched out into other and still more extensive lines of business activity. His latest enterprise is the laying out of the town of Harvey and the erection of an immense manufacturing plant, the Steel Car Manufacturing company, of which he is president. Here, on what three years ago was an unturned prairie, have sprung up, as if by the waving of an enchanter's wand, a population of 6,000 people and many important manufacturing establishments. The enchanter in this case is capital, guided and employed by a comprehensive and organizing master mind.

To those whose youth was passed on the country farm there is an almost irrepressible impulse to return to rural life, when the means for indulgence of the taste become abundant. Mr. Harvey has yielded to this impulse, and on a scale commensurate with his other enterprises. Some ten years ago he purchased a large tract of land in eastern Nebraska, where he has opened up the "Turlington Stock Farm." Here he has gatherered herds of the choicest blooded cattle, which, with their soft eyes and sleek coats, excite the admiration of all who see them and extort from impartial judges the highest prizes of the agricultural fairs.

It is but natural that one who has displayed marked qualities for business management should be sought as a guardian of large financial interests. So Mr. Harvey has been made a director of the Metropolitan National Bank as well as of the American Trust and Savings Bank. He was also selected as a director of the successful International Exposition held in Chicago, which perhaps was the incentive, as it was the precursor, of the Columbian Exposition.

Turning from the business career of Mr. Harvey, the most striking features of his life have been his personal piety and devotion to the interests of religion and morality. In him, at least, diligence in business has not destroyed fervency of spirit. In the early years of his residence in Chicago he connected himself with the Wabash Avenue M. E. church. He has been superintendent of its Mission Sunday school since 1862. As president of the board of trustees of the church he has guided its finances ; while, as president of the Chicago Bible Society, of the Chicago Evangelistic Committee, and of the Young Men's Christian Association during six terms, he has fostered the spiritual interests of the community.

In practical philanthropy (aside from private charities, which it is not the province of the biographer to mention) the most beneficial labor of this life has been in connection with the Chicago Belief and Aid Society. He has been one of its directors since 1866, and was its president during 1884-5, and 1893. During the distressing period that followed the great Chicago fire, this society was a chief channel for conducting the stream of contributions that flowed to the distressed people from every part of the world. Mr. Harvey had charge of the operation of the shelter committee, and for months he utterly neglected his own business to devote his time and energies to the urgent needs of the homeless and unprotected victims of the fire. Availing -himself of the depressed condition of the lumber market, he purchased for the Chicago Relief and Aid

Society large stocks of lumber at a low price, and used it in the construction of tenements for the families who had been turned into the streets and fields. When the cold winter was aggravated by a fuel famine, he sent teams by the hundreds into the remotest nooks of the burnt district, distributing coal to the chilled inhabitants. Other citizens of Chicago, and their number wa? not few, devoted themselves to this and like humanitarian work, but none equalled Mr. Harvey in zeal and unwearied devotion.

A few years after his domestic affliction, Mr. Harvey married the present mistress of his household. She was Miss Belle S. Badger, a daughter of A. C. Badger, of Louisville, Kentucky. The marriage was solemnized in 1873. It has added six children to his family. Mrs. Harvey is a lady of much refinement, liberal culture and social accomplishments. She is devoted to the nurture of her charming family, and sympathizes with her husband in all his manifold Christian and charitable ministrations. They have a luxurious home, as is fitting to those who have been so blessed with worldly wealth, while it is a center whence radiates a wholesome social influence. Mr. Harvey, with ample means at his command for self-indulgence, maintains the simplicity of habit made necessary by the straightened circumstances of his early life. His tastes are domestic, and, the cares of business laid aside, his highest delight is to share and enjoy domestic pleasures. Though passed the climacteric of life, his vigor of body and grasp of mind are in no way abated, and he has promise of yet many years of usefulness and satisfaction. When "life's fitful fever" shall be over, it will be proper for the memorialist fittingly to portray a character which can only be partially traced by the contemporaneous biographer.

Leonard W. Volk

This distinguished artist, whose genius and skill in transferring the outward form and expression of the inward spirit of illustrious men to imperishable marble and bronze have been an important factor in imprinting upon the material energy characteristic of Chicago a high assthetic quality, has been a resident of the city for about thirty-nine years. Here his life as an artist has been passed, and here the monuments of his genius constitute enduring and conspicuous features of her sculptured glories.

He is descended from the earliest settlers of the State of New York, where, at the town of Wellstown, Hamilton county, among the southern Adirondack mountains, then an almost unexplored wilderness, he was born on the 7th of November, 1828. During his infancy and boyhood his parents made several removals, living for longer or shorter periods at Rochester and Avon, New York, and Stockbridge, Massachusetts. His first memories were of the latter place.

Until he was twenty years old he passed most of his time among the marble quarries and works, in western Massachusetts, and learned the handicraft of marble cutting, carving and lettering. Through the practice of this trade he earned his livelihood, until his genius as a modeler was recognized, and through the appreciative aid of Senator Stephen A. Douglas, a first cousin of his wife, he was enabled to improve himself for higher employment in plastic art by study in Rome, Italy, for five years, at different times.

At about the time of his majority, in 1848, he took up his residence in St. Louis, where, with brief settlements at Galena and Rock Island afterwards, he continued to live for about seven years, engaged in the marble business. During these years he attempted modeling, his first commission being for two alto-reliefs for Archbishop Kenrick. Father Mathew, the celebrated apostle of temperance, sat to him for a portrait bust in 1850, and he copied in marble a bust of Henry Clay, the first work of the kind that had ever been executed west of the Mississippi river.

In 1852 Mr. Volk married at Dubuque, Iowa, Miss Emily C. Barlow, a native of Bethany, New York, Mrs. Volk was a cousin of Senator Douglas, who took a friendly interest in the family, just after their marriage, while living at Galena, and strongly urged them to remove to Chicago. This advice was not heeded at the time, but a few years later the distinguished cousin made them another visit at Rock Island, and before leaving said to Mr. Volk, " I wish to renew an offer which I requested your brother to make for me a year since. If you desire to go to Italy and study the art of sculpture, I shall be happy to furnish you with the requisite means. I don't ask you to take it as a gift, but as a loan, to be repaid when you are able, but never give yourself any concern about it."

The magnanimous offer was gladly accepted by the aspiring artist, who in the autumn of 1855 was installed in Rome, where, and at Florence, he passed two years in study and practice under competent advisers, like Thomas Crawford and others, and in the inspiring presence of the masterpieces of the world, in sculpture, as well as in its companion art.

On his return from Italy, Mr. Volk took up his abode in Chicago, and exchanged the workshop of the marble cutter for the studio of an artist. The first work which engaged his thought was the modeling of a bust of his patron, the first ever modeled in this city, in which the inspiration of art was intensified by sentiments of friendship and gratitude. During the memorable canvass between Douglass and Lincoln in 1858, he made a full length statue of the former in statuary marble. Two years later he modeled a bust of Lincoln, from life, which he afterwards chiseled in marble, also a life cast of his face and hands. Both these distinguished chiefs of opposing forces gave to the artist many sittings, enabling him to produce and perpetuate in two monumental chefs d'ceuvres, the accurate lineaments of their form and features.

The chair in which they sat constitutes the choicest ornament of the studio. After his election to the presidency Mr. Lincoln, in introducing the artist to a circle of friends, made a characteristically humorous remark that " in two or three days after Mr. Volk commenced my bust there was the animal himself!"

During his artistic career Mr. Volk hag made repeated visits and considerable sojourns at the world's great centres of art. At one of these in 1868-9 he executed in statuary marble an ideal statue of Faith, and busts of the late Dr. Daniel Brainard, Charles Walker and others. Again, during a visit to Rome in the years 1869, 1871 and 1872, he produced a statue of lone, and later portrait busts of Hon. Elihu B. Washburne, Judge David Davis, Leonard Swett, J. Young Scammon, Thomas B. Bryan and many others, as well as a statue in bronze of heroic size of the late Judge Knickerbocker.

To Mr. Volk was fittingly intrusted the design and execution of the colossal monument to the memory of Senator Stephen A. Douglas, in Chicago. The design was accepted in 1866, but the work lingered and was only completed in 1881. Its granite shaft towers 100 feet, inclusive of mausoleum and bronze statue surmounting, which presents in majestic form the life-like features of the distinguished senator. At the angles of the base are four bronze figures emblematic of Illinois, History, Justice and Eloquence. It is regarded as one of the most beautiful monumental tombs in the country, and has brought the artist who designed and executed it great fame.

A memorable public work executed by Mr. Volk is the soldiers' and sailors' monument at the city of Rochester, New York. He had responded to an invitation from the committee charged with the selection of a, design, all of whom were strangers to him, and submitted one with little expectation that it would be accepted. In this he was agreeably disappointed, for after examination and comparison with the designs offered by other artists, his was unanimously accepted, and a contract made for its erection, which was the work of nearly two and a half years of assiduous labor. The monument consists of a massive pedestal of Barre, Vermont, granite thirty-one feet high, twenty-two feet at base, all solid from bottom foundation to top, and no vertical points above the platform base. A statue of Abraham Lincoln in standard bronze metal surmounts the top about ten feet high, supported by a single circular stone weighing thirty-two tons, and its bases weigh about ten and eighteen tons each. The four pedestals projecting from the corners at the base are made in a single stone each, and support statues in standard bronze representing the four arms of the service - artillery, infantry, cavalry, and marine - heroic size, over seven feet high. On each side of the base under the circular stone are four tablet reliefs in bronze representing the bombardment of Sumter, the encounter between the Monitor and Merrimac, a scene in the last day of the battle of Gettysburg, and the surrender of Lee at Appomattox. On the base, containing a quotation from President Lincoln's oration of Gettysburg bronze seals of the United States and of the State of New York. Mr. Volk also exhibited portrait statues in Manufacturers' building - busts in bronze of Dr. Leslie E. Keeley, J. H. McVicker and others; also works in Horticultural, Agricultural and Illinois buildings. These historic statues of the two great statesmen of Illinois, with both of whom the artist enjoyed a personal friendship, will remain, from generation to generation, monuments alike of the distinguished men whom they commemorate, and of the artist friend who wrought into their expression the strong features and ideal character of their originals. The latest public work that has proceeded from the distinguished artist's hand is a heroic statue in bronze of the late General Shields, " Warrior, Jurist and Statesmen," that has been erected by the State of Illinois in the national capital "Statuary Hall."

Mr. Volk occupies for his professional work an unpretentious room in the Mc- Vicker theatre building, on Madison street, and resides on Thirty-fifth street, in the old Douglas cottage, near the monument. Here as may be supposed, in the family circle centre those affections of the heart, and those joys of fellowship with kindred souls> which nurture and mature the inspirations of art. Mr Volk exhibited three marble busts in the Art Palace, at the World's Fair, but not in competition; one of the late Col. Hascall, U. S. A., now placed in the library at West Point - presented by his widow.

Mr Volk has recently executed busts in marble and bronze of the late Myra Bradwell, and at present is taking sittings from Judge James B. Brad well, for a bust to be cast in bronze.

Douglas Volk is a young artist already distinguished, whose canvasses have been hung upon the walls of the Art building of the World's Columbian Exposition, and awarded both medal and diploma. He is a pupil of Gerome, having studied five years under this great master in the Ecole des Beaux Arts. On his return home he became a professor in the Cooper Union, New York. Several years, later he went to Minneapolis and organized the flourishing art school in that city, spending several years there. Recently he accepted a call to take a position as one of the professors in the Art League School, New York.

John Alexander Jameson

he gives some discriminating analyses of the character of each one of his subjects with many interesting anecdotes of their lives, it is their connection with the government and their share in promoting the ambition of ministers and the schemes that have made the success or failure of administrations,that lends to his fascinating narratives their chief piquancy. The English judge, before he has risen to the high position, has been first a successful politician. He has occupied a seat, and usually as attorney general, and has been a leader in parliament, and when he assumes the ermine, or is seated upon the woolsack, he is raised to the peerage, and occupies a conspicuous position in the House of Lords.

The American judge, through the different constitution of our political institutions, is not necessarily a politician, and usually the less he has been one the better is thought to be his qualification for judicial office.

This distinction, so important in tracing the career of an eminent jurist, deprives the American biographer of much of the material which lends to the sketches of Lord Campbell so much dramatic interest. The glamour of politics, and the high qualities of statesmanship are wanting. The struggles of the youth to qualify himself for the bar, the controversies in which the lawyer mingles before he is raised to the judiciary,become unimportant or seem trivial in comparison with the learning, the steadfastness and the dignity of the judge. There is a certain sameness in the careers of American judges. With some exceptions the common type brings to mind an ambitious and gifted youth, born, if not in penury, in humble circumstances, struggling with ceaseless labor and self-denial to obtain subsistence, while giving his thoughts to the acquisition of an academic and usually a collegiate education. An interval of labor, not seldom in the school-room, to pay accumulated bills, opens an entrance into professional schools. A calling to the bar follows; then comes a settlement in some growing community, often in the West. The gaining of a foothold in practice by slow and painful steps ensues; and with moderate success the founding of a home and family life results. After a few years of more marked prosperity, a selection by the bar for judicial honors is followed by popular ratification at the polls, and then come years of labor, of isolation, of anxious thought, of conscientious devotion to the high calling, of which the highest praise is that of duty done.

The career of Judge Jameson has been no departure from the ordinary type. He, too, struggled with limited means ; he won a liberal education by his own labor, and spent years in the school-room before he came to the bar. He began practice in a new Western town, then sought the wider fields of the city. His admirable qualities were appreciated by his fellow practitioners, who selected him to fill the chief seat of a newly-constituted court, and he spent eighteen years during the flower of his life in self-denying and conscientious labor successfully to discharge the duties of his high office, and returning to the bar, spent the remainder of his life with ripened powers and wide experience in the higher employment of the counsellor. Now, that all is finished, the highest encomium that is possible is that he was an able, impartial and learned judge.

The late Judge Jameson was born January 25, 1824. His father, Thomas Jameson, was a man of note and character, having held the office of sheriff for many years and having been a representative of his county in the constitutional convention of Vermont. His mother was of the Gilchrist family. Both were natives of New Hampshire, descended from the Scotch-Irish colonists of 1730. They settled in the town of Irasburgh, Orleans county, Vermont, where their eldest son, John Alexander, was born. The traits of character developed in him by his moral and material environment were those of intense application to labor, both of mind and body, and an ambition to excel in whatever he might undertake. Healthy, strong and active, he led the sports and labors of his fellows. As a boy it was said of him that he was a " tremendous fellow to work." In different phrase the same idea would characterize him throughout his whole career. At eighteen years of age he had passed through the studies preparatory to college, and in 1842 entered the University at Burlington, Vermont, where, after a full course of four years, he graduated. Next he became the principal of an academy in Stanstead, Canada, where he taught four years. He then secured a tutorship at the university of Vermont, while pursuing legal studies in the offirs^ of Lieutenant-Governor Levi Underwood, of Burlington. He attended law lectures at the Dane Law School of Harvard College, and was admitted to the har November, 1853. He then came to the West, and after practicing law two years in Freeport, Illinois, began his professional career in Chicago. In 1855 he married Eliza Denison, eldest daughter of the late Dr. Joseph A. Denison, Jr., of Royalton, Vermont, a descendant and representative of a well-known old colonial family of Connecticut.

He was at the Chicago bar for nine years, during which period at various times Paul Cornell, Charles B. Wait, and his first partner, H. N. Hibbard, were associated with him in business. In 1857 he built a house in the new suburb of Hyde Park, which was his home during the remainder of his life, and is still occupied by Mrs. Jameson.

In his practice, Judge Jameson excelled in the department of equity jurisprudence. He was familiar with the history of chancery and its precedents, and the cast of his mind inclined him to an application of equity principles in the complicated web of interests which are presented to the lawyer. While familiar with authorities, he was of a philosophical turn and often looked beyond adjudged cases, to search out the underlying principles. He was studious, broad minded, logical and judicial in his professional perceptions.

On the retirement of Judge Van H. Higgins, in 1865, he was elected to the bench of the Superior Court of Chicago. Besides Judge Jameson the bench then contained the late eminent John M. Wilson, and the distinguished Joseph E. Gary. On the death of Judge Wilson, Judge Jameson succeeded to the hearing of chancery causes; and it was upon that side of the docket that his most important and best known decisions were entered. During his first term on the bench, besides his duties as chancellor, he discharged the functions of lecturer to the classes in the Union College of Law, Chicago, and of editor of "The American Law Register," to the pages of which periodical he was a frequent contributor. It was during the same period that he collected, and arranged the data of his notable and now standard work on " Constitutional Conventions; their History, Powers and Modes of Proceeding." This alone was a prodigious task. Living with his family in what was then a secluded suburb, the early morning hours, and those that should have brought the quiet rest of evening, were devoted to these engrossing literary labors. Already a fine classical scholar, and speaking German readily, he added French, Spanish and Italian to his lingual acquirements, in order to avail himself of authorities in those languages. He gave himself no recreation; he took no holiday; his intellect was at a continual high pressure, and his whole life was one of extreme tension. Such was his power of concentration, that he wrote the text of his work in the family living room, amid the prattle of children, and what, to any less absorbed mind, would have been the interruptions, of family, visitors and servants.

This sustained stress of labor, added to the unfavorable effect of days passed in courtrooms illy ventilated and unwholesome, impaired at last Judge Jameson's health. His magnificent physical vigor gave way; and in 1872, after the beginning of his second term, he was for part of a year unable to perform his judicial duties. In the summer of 1873 he recovered sufficiently to resume them.

At the conclusion of eighteen years of judicial service Judge Jameson returned to the practice of law, acting mainly as counselor, and devoting himself largely to literary work. His papers in the reviews and law periodicals were numerous. He transferred to the university of Pennsylvania his unequaled collection of authorities on the formation of American organic laws. They form the nucleus in the university's department of American History, of what is called the " John Alexander Jameson Library." He occupied some years in the collection of materials for an exhaustive work on the relations of corporations and trusts to public policy, but this task was never completed. He gave much time and effort to the needs of the poor, to the establishment of charitable and reformatory institutions, founding with others, the Prisoners' Aid Society and the School for Dependent Boys, now settled at Glenwood, Illinois. The condition of the homeless waifs of Chicago appealed to all his feelings ; and his interest in the School for Dependent Boys, of whose board of managers he was the first president, ceased only with his life.

In 1889, he was elected president of the village board of Hyde Park, and served one year; his health causing him to decline in 1890 a renomination by his townsmen and friends. Hyde Park was annexed to Chicago in 1890. He may be said to have been the last acting president of that now extinct suburb, whose existence began and ended with his residence therein.

Judge Jameson never relinquished his literary labors. An article from his pen, entitled, " National Sovereignty," which he did not live to see in print, appeared in a comparatively recent issue of the " Political Science Quarterly." His death occurred suddenly, June 16, 1890. He will be remembered as a type of scholarly industry, a profound thinker and writer, an unselfish philanthropist and an upright judge.

Benjamin Franklin Ayer

Benjamin Franklin Ayer, son of Robert Ayer, and Louisa (Sanborn) Ayer, comes on both father's and mother's side from the oldest New England stock. He traces his descent directly from John Ayer who came from Norfold to New England in 1637, and settled at Haverhill in 1645. The Sanborns are descended from Stephen Batchelder, who came from Derbyshire in 1632 and became the first pastor of the church at Hampton, New Hampshire, in 1638. (Daniel Webster and Lewis Cass are among his descendants). The Sanborns have long been distinguished in the licerary world; Frank B. Sanboru of that line, one of the Emerson, Thoreau, Alcott, Lowell group of the "Concord School of Philosophy," being now a leading Boston litterateur and a well-known writer both in biography and in social science.

He received a good education, was graduated at Dartmouth College in 1846, studied law at Dane Law School (Harvard University) and was admitted to the bar and began practice at Manchester, New Hampshire. His attainments and his industry, ability and aptitude for his profession made his success certain and immediate. In 1853 he was sent to the State legislature, and in 1854 became prosecuting attorney for Hillsborough county.

In 1857 he came to Chicago and quickly rose to the front rank among the many strong lawyers then in practice here. In 1861 he was made corporation counsel, and two years later drafted the revised city charter. This part of his history embraces the opening of the war for the Union. Mr. Ayer was a war Democrat; one of those invaluable men who kept a straight course when a great body of their party went astray. His official position made him the spokesman of the city on several important public occasions. One of these was the great excursion to Philadelphia on the opening of the Pittsburgh and Fort Wayne railway. At the banquet given ia honor of the occasion he spoke in response to the principal toast "Our guests." This was on January 25, 18G1; before any overt act of armed resistance had been committed. Among other things he said :

We would cultivate with you those amicable and fraternal feelings which ought always to be cherished between the people of all the states composing our hitherto happy and prosperous Union. At this alarming and dangerous crisis, when some ofe<vijr sister states are madly repudiating their constitutional obligations, and the Federal government is menaced with destruction, it becomes those who remain loyal to the constitution to take temperate counsel together and consider what can be done to allay sectional discord, to heal existing difficulties and bring back the people of the disaffected states to the observance of their constitutional duties.

As was observed in the American of the 26th: "Mr. Ayer's speech, straightforward, frank and manly, as it was, elicted applause at frequent intervals. When he alluded to the mad repudiation of constitutional obligations by some of the states, the applause was prolonged for several moments together. Mr. Ayer is a fine specimen of the chivalrous, open-hearted Western man."

A year later occurred the civic celebration of July 4th; the only occasion when that day had been officially celebrated by Chicago. Mr. Ayer, as corporation counsel, was designated as the orator of the day, and his speech has been preserved. The following extracts will show the different tone taken by a " Douglas Man " or " War Democrat " when the South had really drawn the sword :

The pretexts for their rebellion are numerous. I have no time to discuss them. It is sufficient to say that some of them are unfounded, many of them are frivolous, and all of them fall far short of furnishing either justification or excuse for the atrocious conspiracy which has already bathed a continent in blood. The nature and magnitude of the interests at stake have been already indicated. It is a death struggle for Constitutional Liberty and Law. It involves the welfare of present and unborn millions; on the decision of which hangs the destiny of America, and in that the destiny of the world. Let us then take courage. God did not create this fair land to be the theatre of unceasing anarchy and strife. The rebellion will be subdued, and the lost stars which have shot so madly from their sphere will yet glisten again in the glorious galaxy of the Union .

Mr. Ayer was endowed with such natural powers and such personal character as would have made him successful in his own profession even if he had been forced to make his way unhelped and self-educated, as were so many of our great jurists. On the other hand he had received an education so fine and thorough that he would have done well even though less amply endowed by nature. The two kinds of advantage, joined, have made his course, if not easy, yet steady, continuous and rapid, and his resulting position at the bar an enviable one.

After the close of his official career the celebrated firm of Beckwith, Ayer and Kales was formed, a combination unsurpassed in ability and success during the eight years of its existence. On the retiring of the renowued Judge Beckwith the firm became Ayer and Kales and carried on its great business with undiminished vigor and distinction until, retiring from general practice, Mr. Ayer became solicitor for the Illinois Central, then a director in the company, and now (1894) he is its general counsel and a potent factor in its management. To quote from the Century Biography the words of an eminent Chicago brother-lawyer:

Benjamin F. Ayer has stood in the front rank of lawyers in Chicago for more than thirty years. Nothing has been allowed to divert him from his profession. He never relies on others to do his work. Every question is investigated until the subject is exhausted. While not controlled by precedents, he personally examines every case where the subject has been involved, in order to extract the principles applicable to the matter in hand. The most remarkable quality is the ability to make a correct and logical statement of his case to the court. This is done in language which can not lie misunderstood, and when presented orally, it is with a clear voice and appropriate emphasis, giving the greatest pleasure to the listener. The manner is one of honesty and candor which leaves no room for doubt as to his own convictions. He has always endeavored to aid the court in arriving at correct conclusions, both as to fact and law, believing It the highest duty of a lawyer to see that justice is done. In short he commands the confidence aud respect of judges and lawyers, and as a citizen is above reproach.

Another adds: " So clear are his perceptions and so accurate his judgment that his conclusions are seldom overthrown. His mental processes are so unerring in their results that they have been described as mathematical." Under a system different from ours, a system wherein it would be natural to step from the highest place at the bar to a seat on the bench, a man like Mr. Ayer would be more likely to be in the supreme court of the State or the Union than in the management of any corporation however great and important. But as it is, whether for good or ill, such men can not afford to take permanent official positions, even the highest in dignity, power and responsibility.

The task of director and general counsel of a railway, especially the Illinois Central, is one of delicacy and of harassing difficulties. A jealousy, natural and yet misplaced, exists in the public mind (and is voiced by the press) concerning the relative rights of the city and the railways. People feel as if the city had built the roads, which is quite untrue. Chicago never voted a dollar to any railway, and even the individual citizens' investment in the companies is trifling compared with the amount that came from elsewhere. It is probable that the railways would have been built if Chicago had never arisen; but it is sure that the Chicago of today would never have existed without the railways.

For carrying on the various and unending negotiations which arise between the railway and the city Mr. Ayer is eminently fitted. He is the glove of velvet covering the railway's hand of iron; not only covering it, but guiding it, restraining its grasp within reasonable bounds. He has a manner of his own, frank, gay, cordial, business-like. He can both talk and listen; he can argue, propose, reject, accept, insist, and concede. As is naturally the case with an able "specialist," he knows about all the other side has to say before the conference begins, yet listens and weighs all that is offered, and, having made up his mind what is best to be done, he has the needful weight to make his pertinacious and resolute client acquiesce in his views.

Mr. Ayer married (1868) Janet A. Hopkins of Madison, Wisconsin, daughter of Judge Hopkins, of the district court of the United States. Four children have been born to them: Walter,Mary Louisa, Janet and Margaret Helen. The family holds a high place in society, and Mr. Ayer is prominent in numerous clubs and societies; among them the American Bar Association, the Chicago Bar Association (of which he has been president), the Society of the Sons of New Hampshire (for two years its president), Western Kailroad Association (president for fifteen years), Chicago Historical Society, Chicago Law Institute, Chicago Literary Club, and the Chicago Club.

Rollin Samuel Williamson

Rollin Samuel Williamson was born on the 23d day of May, 1839, on a rugged Green mountain farm in the town of Cornwall, Vermont, on the little homestead, as one of a family of seven brothers and sisters. Here he with only such education as the district school afforded, he left home under the necessity of earning a living, which the farm, under the hands of his widowed mother, but scantily afforded to so many. With no courage which, fearing defeat yet achieves success, he began life as a telegraph messenger boy in Boston. At the age of sixteen he had become a skillful operator, and was assigned to offices in various, parts of New England and New York. In the year 1857, friendless and alone, he stood one day in a telegraph office in Chicago, seeking employment. He promptly corrected an error made by an operator - receiving a message somewhat blindly transmitted, which attracted the notice of the manager, by whom he was soon sent to Palatine, as operator and station agent. Here, the penniless youth earned a home and modest competence. While he attended to the click of his telegraphic instruments, he kept some text books of the law open before him. With characteristic industry and exceptional thoroughness, he read the books that law students should read, with only such assistance as his strong common sense could give him. As his ability and his leaning toward the law became known in the little Cook county community where the fates had thrown him, business came to him, which was the foundation of his extensive practice in after years.

Upon his admission to the bar, in 1870, he found that he possessed that for which young lawyers long - frequently in vain - a well-established clientage. Political preferment followed, and he served in the State legislature two terms as representative, arid one as senator from the seventh district. In 1880 he was elected judge of the superior court of Cook county, and in June, 1887, a judge of the circuit court, which position he held at the time of his death - on the 10th day of August, 1889.

Such a career as has been above briefly outlined is a possibility only to the American youth, and the fact that an almost uneducated boy of fourteen was able so to conduct and develop himself that not only an honorable position in a learned profession awaited his patient efforts, but that he was twice elected to the bench by the people of a populous and enlightened community, ought to be a stimulant of the most potent type to those for whom circumstances and the schools have done little. Judge Williamson's life proved him to have been a remarkable man, for mediocrity never achieves the eminence to which he attained, through the means he employed. Conscientious industry, with ability and becoming modesty, are the qualities which made him a leader among men.

Hard work was Judge Williamson's dailv companion. His office hours were seasons of activity wherein not a moment was wasted, and he nightly re-examined bundles of papers in the quietude of home, that nothing might be omitted and no strategetic point left unguarded. He seldom dropped the woes of his clients from his shoulders during his waking hours. This characteristic continued with him on the bench, and his life fully illustrated the statement frequently made that a judge's work begins when court adjourns. He never shirked a responsibility, and while, being human, he sometimes erred, his errors were never willfully or negligently made. No effort was, with him, too great to gain new light. With what success he sought the right, the history of the litigation which came before him abundantly shows.

Judge Williamson was almost abnormally considerate of the feelings of others. He was criticised during his first years on the bench because he explained so fully his reasons for ruling as he <HtT Patient in the extreme in listening, he was not slow to decide; and, though always open to argument, his firmness in a position once assumed was proverbial. The fact that his personal opinions were the result of patient investigation and deliberation made him a man of strong and lasting convictions. There never was the slightest doubt as to his political belief. He believed in his party, and he knew why he so believed. While many things in politics were condemned by him, he considered them to be only such excrescences as pertain to all institutions, however admirable as a whole. He was equally pronounced in all religious matters. He was an earliest and consistent believer in the Christian religion, as taught by the Methodist Episcopal church, and any Christian duty was willingly assumed. The Sunday school needed his services as superintendent, and, though the duties of his six working days bore heavily upon his strength? he responded to the call, filling that position for many years. There was no trace of bigotry about him. While his way seemed best to him, he recognized the fact that many paths lead to the Eternal city.

His heart was tender as a woman's. He had no sympathy for crime, and his belief in the majesty of the law was implicit; but a criminal, through transgressions, was the object of his compassion. A private life more pure and free from reproach it would be difficult to describe. His biographer need draw the veil of silence over no act of his. Married at the age of twenty, for almost thirty years the stream of his family life ran broad and clear. A beautiful home in after years supplanted the modest cottage to which he led his bride, and an adopted daughter was brought to womanhood with all the care and love which two truly parental hearts could bestow.

With enough of worldly possessions, an honorable position among men and a happy home, Judge Williamson entered upon the fiftieth year of his life. His judicial duties were pressing hard upon him, and the strong constitution which had once withstood the labor with ease seemed less able to bear its load. He struggled through the month of

June, 1889, to finish his term, and adjourned on the 29th, expecting to resume his duties in September. But a higher court had ruled otherwise, and his life went peacefully out in August.

Judge Williamson's life had filled a large space in the community where most of it was spent, and its effect upon the greater community of the country had been most commendable. Brilliant deeds upon the battlefield, or in the forum may be wanting; no stamp of genius may have been upon the brow of the departed: life may have been destitute of political elements, save such only as always cling to success achieved in the face of obstacles; yet if in its history there is that sturdy manhood, that earnest search for duty that may be faithfully performed, and that type of honesty which is not policy and needs not to be assumed, but is as much a part of existence as life itself, true success has been attained, and the record contains no fatal error, the world is better that he lived.

Such a life was led by Judge Williamson, and when death came it called him from the midst of his duties to the rest beyond. Surrounded by those best loved by him in the home his faithful industry had won, he passed away, leaving a recollection of his life in the midst of those who knew him - were they associates upon the bench, fellow practitioners at the bar, or personal friends and acquaintance, which renders possible the universal sentiment, "He was an able, earnest, honest man."

John G. Rogers

In the latter part of the seventeenth century Giles Kogers, a farmer and surveyor, came to this country from England, and settled in Virginia. Then also came Captain William Byrd, a young Cheshireman, who had received a grant of land from the Crown, covering nearly the whole site of modern Richmond and of Manchester, on the opposite banks of the James river. A son of Giles Rogers, named John, married a daughter of Captain Byrd, named Mary. These two, John and Mary, were the great grandparents of John G. Rogers, the subject of this sketch, on his fathers side.

Mary were five sons and three daughters. One of the sons, George, was the father of John G. Rogers. He was a physician, eminent in his profession, and acknowledged to be one of the most successful in southern Kentucky. He died in Glasgow, Kentucky, in March, 1860, leaving four sons and five daughters. Of the sons, two were afterward selected by their fellows as worthy to sit upon the bench, John G. and his younger brother, George Clark Rogers, who was judge of the circuit court, and resided in Bowling Green, Kentucky, until his death in 1870. The union of the Byrd and Rogers families was productive of some men of great renown. To this origin may be traced the genealogy of Gen. George Rogers Clark, who explored the Northwestern territory, and rendered incalculable services to his country by brave and judicious acts in that region and in Kentucky, during the revolution. To him, more than to any other, is due the fact that the boundary line between us and Canada runs through the great lakes, and not along the Ohio river. Gen. William Clark, a brother of George Rogers Clark, with the distinguished Merriweather Lewis, explored the continent west of the Mississippi river to the Pacific ocean, in the years eighteen hundred and four and five.

Other descendants from the same source were Col. George Croghan, of Fort Meigs and Sandusky memory, and the distinguished family of Semples, one of whom, Hon. John Semple, represented the state of Illinois in the United States senate.

The mother of John G. Rogers was Sarah Hensley Rogers, a daughter of Gen. John Gorin, who was a soldier in the revolutionary war, and a major in the war of 1812. She was born December 11, 1800,and died in 1870, after a most useful and Christian life, devoted to the good of all with whom she came in contact. When she passed away she was mourned scarcely less by the family servants, than by her immediate family.

would be thought necessary; but has done so for the purpose of showing that he was an example of hereditary strength of character. In the family history of Judge Rogers no weak or vicious link has been discovered, and he seemed the embodiment of the many virtues transmitted from generation to generation.

He was born in Glasgow, Kentucky, December 28, 1818, and attended the village school until he reached the age of sixteen years, when he entered Center College at Danville, Kentucky, at that time a very flourishing institution. Here he commenced the study of law, attending the lectures, for which the institution had become somewhat famous. Afterward he graduated from Transylvania university of Lexington, Kentucky, with honor, in 1841, as a Bachelor of Law. He then returned to Glasgow, where he practiced law successfully until 1857. During this period he was associated, for a time, with his uncle, the Hon. Franklin Gorin, one of the oldest lawyers of the State, practicing in the circuit court of the State, and in the court of appeals.

In 1844, he was married to Arabella E. Crenshaw, the eldest daughter of Hon. B. Mills Crenshaw, who was for a number of years judge of the circuit court, and afterward of the court of appeals of Kentucky, being chief justice at the time of his death, in 1857. At the time of his marriage, he had already achieved a high position among his fellows.

A short time ago an old boyhood friend of his told the writer of this sketch of a significant incident, bearing upon his standing in society. He said that he and several others, were discussing the approaching marriage of John G. Rogers, which caused much comment, owing to the high character of the young lawyer, and the reputation of Miss Crenshaw for beauty, wit and intellect, and that one made the remark: "What could be more appropriate? The prince is going to marry the princess."

Being anxious to try his fortune in a wider field, he came to Chicago in 1857, accompanied by his family. Here he was very soon recognized as an able lawyer and took a prominent position at the bar. By the constitution of 1870 one circuit was made of Cook county, with five judges, including the judge of the recorder's court and the judge of the old circuit court. Three new judges were to be elected, and Judge Rogers, having shown characteristics that were thought to be especially adapted to the position, was chosen, together with Judges W. W. Farwell, and Henry D. Booth. The two other judges were Erastus L. Williams, the former circuit judge, and W. K. McAllister, judge of the recorder's court. At the general election of 1873 he was re-elected for a term of six years, and again elected in 1879 and 1885.

The bar and the people universally respected, and many of them loved, him, and although he was alwa}'s nominated as a Democrat, he received the support of Republicans as well. Many said that he could hold the position as long as he lived, or wished to do so. No better language can be found with which to describe his general character, than has been used in a former publication, and which runs as follows: "Nature designed him for a judge. His mind was of the judicial order, and he would in almost any community have been sought for to occupy a place upon the bench. The high esteem in which he was held as a jurist among the entire profession was the result of a rare combination of fine legal ability and culture, and incorruptible integrity, with the dignified presence, absolute courage, and graceful urbanity which characterized all his official acts. Like the poet, the judge is born, not made. To wear the ermine worthily, it is not enough that one possess legal acumen, be learned in the principles of jurisprudence, familiar with precedents, and thoroughly honest. Most men are unable wholly to divest themselves of prejudice, even when acting uprightly, and are unconsciously warped in their judgments by their own mental characteristics, or the peculiarities of their education. This unconscious influence is a disturbing force, a variable factor, which more or less, enters into the final judgments of all men. In this ideal jurist, this factor was not discernible, and practically did not exist."

Judge Rogers was always deeply interested in political and public affairs generally, but was not a violent partisan, and, from clear evidence, it has been shown that he could have succeeded in a political career, had he so desired, and the people been willing to lose his services on the bench.

In early life he was affiliated with the old time Henry Clay Whigs; but after 1860 he was always identified with the Democratic party. In 1848 he was on the Taylor electoral ticket, and, four years later, on the Scott electoral ticket. Iff 1860 he was on the Bell-Everett electoral ticket in Illinois. In 1856 he was a member of the convention which nominated Fillmore for President.

From that time to the date of his election to the bench, by his influence and by active work he tried to advance the principles of the Democratic party. After assuming his duties on the bench he refrained from taking an active part in politics, holding that a , judge should not be a partisan in anything, and should not lower the dignity of his office, or render himself subject to a charge of prejudice or favoritism, or put himself in a position, by personally soliciting support for himself, where any one might so much as think he had a claim for special favors.

In other ways, however, he was always willing to serve the people. He was always an advocate for temperance, in its best sense, while not a total abstainer himself; and at one time was Grand Worthy Patriarch of the order of the Sons of Temperance, of Kentucky.

the order. He represented Excelsior Lodge, No. 22, of Chicago, in the Grand Lodge of Illinois, for several years, and in 1863 was elected Grand Master of Illinois, and in 1869 was chosen Grand Representative of the Sovereign Grand Lodge of the United States. In 1871 he was selected as one of the Chicago Odd Fellows' Relief Committee; and as its treasurer received and disbursed not less than $125,000. The admirable and delicate manner in which the bounty of the order was distributed added new glory to the name of this charitable organization. In society he was specially fitted to please, and was admired by all, by those occupying humble,as well as those in more exalted positions.

His name was a household word among Odd Fellows, and he was particularly loved by the lowly. He would stop and take by the hand a man of humble origin, with no social position, while he might merely pass, with a pleasant bow, the millionaire merchant, or social leader.

A prominent citizen of Chicago, said to the writer a short time ago: " I always feel like taking off my hat when I hear the name, John G. Rogers," and he was not alone in revering his name.

He was the first president of the Illinois club, which was chartered in 1878, and was again elected its president for the year 1882; and was also a prominent member of the Iroquois club, the famed Democratic social club of the West. He was also one of the original founders of the Charity Organization Society, started in 1883, to promote the co-operation of all the charitable organizations of Chicago. While not a wealthy man (his generous habits and charitable nature preventing the accumulation of a large fortune), he was in comfortable circumstances, and enjoyed a home of refinement and hospitality, where most of his time was spent when not actively engaged in his duties.

He was fortunate in the companionship of his family, consisting of wife and four children. Mrs. Rogers is a woman far above the average in intelligence, is accomplished, and of gentle and refined manner. She did much, during their long and happy married life, to help and sustain her husband, at times when a woman's keen instinct and gentle ways are worth so much to a man.

The four children have grown to the estate of manhood and womanhood, and are worthy descendants of so noble a parentage. The eldest son, though finely endowed by nature, has been much afflicted by ill health the greater portion of his life. The next son, George Mills, is a lawyer and a master in chancery in the circuit court, of which his father was judge. He married Miss Philippa Hone Anthon, a member of the old and respected family of that name in New York city. The eldest daughter is married to Mr. Joseph M. Rogers, the manager and agent of the Queen Insurance company. Sarah, the youngest daughter, is the wife of Judge Samuel P. McConnell, now on the circuit court bench.

Judge Rogers expired, almost instantly, on the 10th day of January, 1887, in the store of Charles Gossage, where he had gone, after the adjournment of his court, at the noon hour. The death of no citizen in Chicago has ever caused more profound regret, as was, in a measure, shown by the many testimonials, resolutions, and expressions of respect and sympathy, received by his family from various organizations, as well as from individuals. While not a member of the church, he had the greatest reverence for the Christian religion, and respected the beliefs of all.

William Heath Byford, Ll.D., M.D.

characters of his time. Whether one considers the obstacles which poverty and obscurity opposed to his entrance upon a learned profession, his patience and persistence in overcoming them, the worthy motives which impelled him through a long and busy life, the skill which he brought to a difficult profession, his resource of invention, or the profundity of his knowledge and aptness in imparting instruction, both by his pen and through the class room, he will be impressed that all these qualities, and others less marked, rank him among men of genius, and entitle him to be classed with the benefactors of mankind.

He was born in the village of Eaton, Ohiot on the 20th of March, 1817. His parents were in humble circumstances, his father following a mechanical trade and aspiring to give his son only opportunity to fit himself for a like pursuit. His only patrimony was physical vigor, and tenacity of purpose characteristic of the race from which he sprang, his ancestors coming from Suffolk in England.

His father dying when he was eight years old, left a destitute family of mother and two children, to whose maintenance he contributed his scanty earnings. He was obliged to abandon the slender school advantages that his youth possessed, and seek employment in manual labor wherever it was to be found. After four years of precarious work, he sought his grandfather's farm in Crawford connty, Illinois, where he continued to toil. When about fourteen years old he determined to learn a trade, and at first selected that of blacksmith, but was unable to find any master of the craft who would receive him. He was more fortunate with the tailors, finding one Davis who was willing to take him as an apprentice upon his procuring testimony as to his sobriety of habit and uprightness of character. His master proved to be a kindly, Christian man, but after two years of service he removed, and the young apprentice found a new master in the same trade at Vincennes, Indiana.

Here he continued until he arrived at the age of twenty years, and after an apprenticeship of six years was possessed of all the arts and mysteries of the humble handicraft.

During these years of toil and hardship, a kindling desire to secure a better education than befitted a tailor's apprentice prompted him to borrow books and devote every leisure moment, after the hours of work, to reading and study. By this casual and furtive effort, he acquired a mastery of English, made some progress in the elements of Latin, Greek and French, and made excursions into the more abstruse fields of physiology, chemistry and natural history. Stimulated by these attainments in literature, and impelled, perhaps, by an instinct of which he was not conscious, he determined to abandon the trade which he had acquired with so much toil, and fit himself to become a doctor. With this view he obtained a situation with Dr. Joseph Maddox, of Vincennes, with whom he pursued the study of medicine with such assiduity that in a little more than a year he was, upon examination by commissioners appointed for the purpose, certified to possess the requisite qualifications to entitle him to practice medicine. With this equipment for professional life, which, with one of less studious habits and acuteness of perception, would be deemed meagre, he established himself atOwensville, Gibson county, Indiana, on the 8th of August, 1838. Henceforth his professional life may be considered under the different heads of medical practitioner, author, inventor and teacher, in all of which he displayed eminent ability and rare adaptation.

In 1840 he removed to Mount Vernon, Indiana, where he became associated with Dr. Hezekiah Holland, and remained for ten years. During this period he attended lectures at the Ohio Medical College at Cincinnati, Ohio, and in 1845 received a regular diploma from that institution.

his practice was general, after which he devoted himself to the specialty of diseases of women, that department of medical practice technically designated as gynecology. His profound knowledge, wide experience and technical skill brought him not only fame but extraordinary pecuniary recompense. During the last twenty years of his practice his professional income was from $'25,000 to $30,000 per year.

As an author Dr. Byford was copious and profound. Commencing with a paper describing a case of Caesarian operation in 1847, he was a frequent contributor to medical journals, and author of books which have become standards in the medical profession. In 1847 he published a work on "Chronic Inflammation" and "Displacements of the Unimpregnated Uterus," the first medical work published by a Chicago author. Two years later he gave to the world a treatise entitled "Practice of Medicine and Surgery Applied to Diseases and Accidents of Women," which passed through four editions and became a textbook. In 1869 he published "The Philosophy of Domestic Life," and in 1872, his great work on " Obstetrics."

He was associated with Dr. N. S. Davis, Sr., in the editorial management of the Chicago Medical Journal, and later was editorin-chief of the Chicago Medical Journal and Examiner.

His inventive faculty led him to devise, modify and improve a variety of instruments used in the delicate operations of surgery, as well as to introduce new methods of treatment and manipulation in obscure cases.

It was, however, as a teacher and lecturer that Dr. Byford gained his most conspicuous success, and made the most durable impression upon the generation that sat under his instructions and witnessed his clinical demonstrations.

In 1850 he was called to the chair of Anatomy in the Evansville Medical College, Indiana, and two years later to the chair of Theory and Practice of Medicine, which he held until the institution closed, in 1854.

In the fall of 1857 he was called to the chair of Obstetrics and Diseases of Women and Children in Hush Medical College, Chicago. Two years later he aided in the establishment of the Chicago Medical College, and for twenty years filled the chair of Obstetrics and Diseases of Women and Children in that institution.

In 1879 he was re-called to Rush Medical College and accepted the professorship of Gynecology, which was especially created for him. One of his contemporaries bears the following testimony to his qualities as an instructor: "As a teacher, in the lecture-room, or in debate, Dr. Byford's utterances were always characterized by simplicity, clearness and pertinency. No wonder then that his clinics were always over-crowded with students and practitioners, and that his slightest word invariably received a degree of attention all the more flattering because involuntary."

His mind was eminently constructive, impelling him to suggest and put in operation new agencies of instruction and relief. Thus in 1870 he was one of the founders, and president of the faculty and trustees of the Woman's Medical College, of Chicago, and he was a prime mover in the organization of the Chicago Gynecological Society, and not least was his agency in the establishment of the Woman's Hospital in Chicago.

His attainments were repeatedly recognized by his professional brethren in bestowing upon him the highest honors of the medical profession. As early as 1857 he was elected vice-president of the American Medical Association, then sitting at Nashville, Tennessee. He was vice-president, and, in 1881, president of the American Gynecological Society.

Of his more personal qualities, the writer already quoted says: " He was not an extremist, he rode no hobbies. None the less his life had certain clearly defined and well cherished purposes. They were all nobly sustained. One of these was the advocacy of the medical education of women. In this cause he was the pioneer in the West. To it he gave freely of his time, of his influence and of his wealth. He loved young men; counsel, encouragement, recommendation, money - all were freely given as if he were the debtor. Back of all his skill of hand and wisdom of professional judgment, there was a wonderfully large and generous heart." The domestic relations of Dr. Byford were happy. He married in his youth, in 1840, Miss Mary Ann Holland, daughter of Dr. Hezekiah Holland, his early associate in practice. The children of the marriage were the late Dr. W. H. Byford, Jr., Dr. Henry T. Byford, an eminent gynecologist of Chicago, Mrs. Anna Byford Leonard, Mrs. Mary B. Schuyler, and Mrs. Maud B. Van Schaack. Mrs. Byford died in 1864, noted for domestic virtues and Christian piety. Dr. Byford died May 21, 1890, afflicted with angina pectoris, which no skill nor devotion could alleviate. At the ripe age of seventy-three years, after a life full of labor and crowned with honor, and in the hope of immortality, which as a devout Christian believer he cherished, he entered into his rest.

Edward S. Isham

The senior member of the law firm of Isham, Lincoln and Beale was born at Bennington, Vermont, January 15, 1836. His parents were Pierrepont Isham, a leading member of the bar of Vermont and for a considerable period a judge of its highest court, and Samanthe (Swift) Isham. In early life he suffered from ill health, which compelled him to pass several years in the South, but a^ the age of sixteen he entered Lawrence Acad. emy at Groton, Massachusetts, and subsequently went to Williams College, where he took his degree in 1857. He afterwards attended a course of lectures in the law school at Harvard College, and was admitted to the bar in Rutland, Vermont, in 1858. Coming to Chicago immediately thereafter, he formed a partnership with a Vermont acquaintance, James L. Stark, and entered upon practice. This partnership lasted for five years.

In 1864 he was elected a member of the Illinois legislature, where he rendered coir spicuous service to his State and constituency. At the expiration of his term in the legislature he visited Europe, where he remained for two years, devoting his time to travel and study.

On his return he resumed practice in Chicago, and shortly afterwards took into partnership Mr. Robert T. Lincoln, under the style of Isham & Lincoln. The firm has since that time been increased by the addition of William G. Beale and, more recently of Pierrepont Isham, son of the senior member.

He has on several occasions been conspicuously named by the members of his own profession for appointment to judicial position. Notably was this true in 1881. The general expectation of the bar in the West selected him for the vacancy in the supreme court which President Garfield was called upon to fill at that time. Subsequently, upon the creation of the court of appeals, his name was again widely discussed, his eminent fitness being universally acknowledged, and his own disinclination for public place was perhaps the chief obstacle in the way of his appointment.

His professional life has been passed upon the highest plane of a lawyer's work. Early taking prominenjt rank, he soon attracted to himself a clientage of the most valuable kind which falls to the lot of a lawyer. The largest interests have been entrusted to his care and guidance, and his success in their management has been evinced by the command of a volume of business which has been bounded only by the limits of his own time and inclination. The great Newberry will case, the most conspicuous litigation of its kind in the West, if not in the country, both in respect of the amount involved therein and of the importance and variety of legal questions involved, may be mentioned as an example of his work.

Mr. Isham's professional success has not been accidental, but well earned and well deserved. Of strong, vigorous intellect, he has brought to legal practice the reinforcement of wide and varied culture. His love of the law and devotion to his profession have led him to a mastery of its learning which busy lawyers barely acquire. In addition to this, he has been a man of wide reading and research, aud there are few paths of literature which he has left untrodden. He has upon various occasions delivered speeches and addresses of most admirable quality, and upon a great variety of subjects, which have been published and have elicited the highest' praise.

Mr. Isham has two sons, Pierrepont, before mentioned, and Edward S., who is engaged in mercantile business, and two daughters. His family residence is on Tower Place in the north division.

George Mortimer Pullman

In the first quarter of this century there lived in Brocton, Chautauqua county, New York, James Lewis Pullman, of whom George, born March 3, 1831, was the third son. The father was a house-builder and house-mover, and a thoughtful and intelligent man, who had invented some useful appliances in the line of his business ; all of which circumstances did their part toward giving to George the early bent of his business energy and the later success of which crowned his efforts. The father and mother (Universalists) brought up and educated their many children religiously, carefully and well; and so generously that at the father's falling ill, and his death after a year's gradual decline, there was nothing left except the homestead, and even the value of that was exhausted in the expenses incidental to that long, hard, sad twelve months.

Mrs. James Pullman was the daughter of James Minton, of Auburn, New York. Hers was one of those natures serene, cheerful, loving,dutiful and tireless. She so ordered her household that though riches were absent, poverty was unthought of; and anything like disobedience, idleness, extravagance or dissipation quite out of the question.

And upon her husband's death she resolutely took up the burden of life, carrying both ends of the yoke; not however without strong help, as we shall see hereafter.

It is unquestionable that the elder Pullmans were of fine calibre; for of the eight children who arrived at maturity, each, to use the common phrase, "turned out well." Taking them in order of birth: Royal H. became pastor of the First Universalist church in Baltimore and was a candidate for congress on the Republican ticket. Albert B., who died in 1893, was long a high officer in the Pullman company; George M. is the creator of that company and i he subject of the present essay; James M. (D. D.) is pastor of the leading Universalist church in America, that of Lynn, Massachusetts; Charles L. is contracting agent for the Pullman company; Frank W., who died in 1894, was assistant United States district attorney in New York; Helen A. is wife of George West of New York, and Emma C. is the wife of Doctor William F. Fluhrer, a leading surgeon of New York and the chief surgeon of Bellevue hospital.

Central New York was the birth place of many large families, which have blossomed and borne fruit in wide and ever widening circles of usefulness; few of them can show a better record in the second generation than this stout stock of "Old Chautauqua."

George, in his early youth, enjoyed all the teaching which the time, place and circumstances afforded . He was steady and teachable, sturdy and persistent; not remarkable or brilliant in any branch of study, but practical and retentive; getting and keeping the kind of knowledge which would fit him for work-a-day matters. At fourteen he seems to have been able to support himself, in part at least, for he took a clerk's place at forty dollars a year, a sum which did not lead him into dissipation or extravagance of living. A year later we find him at Albion, New York, in the cabinet-making shop of his oldest brother. He did not probably imagine that this humble apprenticeship would lead up, indirectly, to one of the largest enterprises of building and furnishing in the world; but so it has, for nowhere else has the matter of splendid, ingenious, artistic appliances for in-door comfort been carried to such a pitch as in the devising and constructing of the palace car; of which thousands have been built, and each year, if not each day and each car, brings a studied advance on its predecessor. Of this more hereafter.

In 1853, when James Lewis Pullman died, the event ended George's connection with the cabinet business, for the family was left without fortune, -and he, being the oldest unmarried son, took bravely on his young shoulders the task of caring for it, a labor of love which has only seen its completion since this present work was begun. Mrs. James Pullman died (in May, 1892), her son and stay being at her side at the last as he had been during all the forty years of her widowhood. On taking up the new burden of support, George naturally looked about for a new and broader field to cultivate. It chanced that the Erie canal, at the close of its first twenty-five years of usefulness, had been found too small for its business, and had to be enlarged. This involved the raising of a great number of buildings on its banks, and bids were invited for doing the work. Pullman was bold enough to bid for one or more of the contracts, and though his bid (being accepted) must have been lower than that of any other competitor, yet he was shrewd, industrious and capable enough to do the work at a profit, for a few years later we find him engaged in the same business (house-raising) in Chicago, having maintained the family meanwhile, and, besides, accumulated some $6,000 to serve as a nest-egg for future gains.

Modern residents of Chicago seldom think of the fact that as they walk the streets their heels are above the space where the heads of their fore-runners tfsed to pass and re-pass less than forty years ago. As late as the Fre mont campaign of 1856, Lake street (then the leading thoroughfare) was still in the mud of the original prairie level. If we would look for the very spot where the highlifted head of tall Abraham Lincoln moved as he went in and out of the old Tremont house we must cast our eyes directly downward; and for the massive brow of Stephen Arnold Douglass we must peer still further below the present surface of earth. A feature of the great fire not often mentioned is the fact that in thebusiness part of the town, when the flames had swept down the structures, the surface looked like a gigantic waffle-iron. The streets and alleys were raised, ridges crossing each other at right angles, while all the space between, having formed the basements and cellars of the buildings, was a series of vast shallow pits, the bottoms whereof were the original prairie surface.

It was toward the end of "the fifties" that adverse private interests gave way to public good, on the decision rendered by the circuit court (Chief Justice Caton presiding), that the municipality had the right to fix the street grade at will, without regard to the condition of abutting property. Most naturally Mr. Pullman's experience in houseraising drew his attention to the immense task which was to be done in Chicago, and taking his profits, so well earned on the Brie canal, he brought the cash westward to invest in larger enterprises, where he quickly found ample use for every power of mind and body, every minute of his time and every cent of his money. At the time of the Republican convention of 1860, he had fitted up a little one-story office at the corner of Franklin and Washington streets, on a lot 200 feet front, which he hired from Ebenezer Peck at $200 a year. The back part of the office he fitted up as a sleeping-room, while the yard was useful to store his tools, timbers, etc. It was in this office he met his eastern friends where they came to condole with him on the defeat of Seward and nomination of Abraham Lincoln.

Mr. Pullman was engaged in some of the largest lifting jobs ever.attempted in Chicago - or the world. The entire block of brick stores facing south on Lake street between Clark and La Salle was one of his achievements. It all rose together, lifted by six thousand jackscrews, the business continuing in each structure uninterrupted and not a pane of glass being broken or a yard of plastering destroyed. The operation was a world wonder, and so many came to admire the process that he was obliged to exclude them except at a certain time set for visitors; and when that day came the concourse of ladies was overwhelming.

At about this time occurred a new departure in Mr. Pullman's life, which seems like the only break in the continuity of his career. Yet it doubtless added to his experience of the world and of men, and so contributed to the breadth and strength of his later business life. It was his leaving Chicago for the West, where he spent three years in the gold fields of Colorado. He returned to Chicago, probably not the richer except in experience, and almost as certainly not the poorer unless his business instinct played him false for nearly the only time in his life.

movement whereby long distance travel has been revolutionized and innumerable lives lengthened, not only by preserving the health and strength of hard worked men who without his sleeping car would have died prematurely from nervous exhaustion, through loss of natural rest. Giving his days to labor and his nights to restful travel, a man may spread his field of usefulness over a continent without the sapping of his strength or the shortening of his days.

In the early stage of the immense task of building American railways, there were men who wore themselves to death who might have been alive to-day if they had had Pullman cars for their all night journeys. Even before his gold mining enterprise, Mr. Pullman had been struck with the need of a new movement. The idea had come to him while observing his fellow-passengers on an all night journey buying from an itinerant vender certain simple head rests to assuage the weariness of the long hours of darkness. Later he himself took passage on one of the "night cars" of that day, a car fitted up with comfortless rows of shelves, which compared with a modern "sleeper" about as an old emigrant sailing vessel compares with the stateroom of a modern ocean palace. Before he had lain there an hour the possibilities of the case dawned upon him - an elegant car, with comfortable berths which could be put out of sight during the day, began to take shape in his inventive brain. His cabinet making knowledge came to his aid, and one difficulty after another - and they were many - arose and were considered.

On his earnest representations, the Chicago & Alton railway gave him two old passenger coaches to experiment on, and an unused shed to work in ; and there he toiled, spending his own time and money until the first pair of real "sleepers" was turned out and put on the night trains between Chicago and St. Louis. They were successful - reasonably so - yet not to such an extent as to deter him from his old gold-hunting experiment, which now intervened. But that short aberration well over, he returned to his former passion with a zeal undimmed by absence and undaunted by the incompleteness of result in his former effort. Again he tried the Alton road, which, happily, gave him another chance, and that was all that he needed.

The obvious barrier to complete success in his first effort was that the old cars themselves were too small and too poor for the new task assigned to them. Ther<s must be more room overhead for day storage of berths, more width for berths when occupied, more strength of structure to carry the added weight, more solidity, richness, elegance, taste and beauty at every point. One year was his investment of time, and, of money, the unheard of sum of $18,000. It was an heroic effort, but the result was worth it. Instead of the old moving railway shanty, here was a traveling palace, a home on wheels. He named her the " Pioneer," and the "Pioneer" she is to this day, standing in honored retirement at Pullman.

Now came a difficulty, seemingly greater than any that had gone before. The taller roof of the new car would not go under the old railway crossings; the wide steps would not pass the old railway platforms. He had built a car; must he now build a railway to carry it ? The final tragedy of the Union war had taken place and the body of the martyred President was to be brought back to the State which had given him to the Nation. The Pioneer constituted a part of the funeral train and the occasion being so momentous, every obstacle on every railway was removed; the Pioneer was devoted to the memorable journey, and as a result, the eastern roads she ran over were thenceforth open to that car and others like it.

There is no need for a detailed narrative of the upward movement of the Pullman cars; from the two old experimental coaches altered, used and forgotten, to the modern Pullman vestibule train, which has since reached the acme of traveling perfection.

Every new step has been an advance, every new investment added profit. The marvelous story of the company is before the world; and its history is the history of its founder.

Among other business enterprises, with which the name of Mr. Pullman is connected, stands the New York Elevated Railway. About 1874 the New York Loan and Improvement company was formed in Mr. Pullman's office in New York; the three corporators and original shareholders being Jose F. Navarro, Commodore Garrison and George M. Pullman; Mr. Pullman being president of the corporation and owner of one-third of the entire capital stock. This was the company which built and owned the Metropolitan Elevated Railway, which ran in Second and Sixth avenues. The difficulties which faced that enterprise were inconceivable. Every horse railway in the city - a vast power - fiercely opposed every step. Commodore Vanderbilt was a still more determined foe. The courts were appealed to and their decision resulted favorably to the elevated roads, it was handed down when only 100 days remained within which enough of the road should be built and running to comply with the conditions of its charter. Failure seemed, to the world at large, inevitable; but in ninety-six days the " impossible " was accomplished.

Never allowing any alienation of his attention from the Pullman corporation's interests Mr. Pullman has found time and strength, to shed the bright, wise and genial light of his countenance on many other matters of public concern. The latest great enterprise to claim his help is the Nicaragua transisthmian canal, that immeasurable worldblessing which is awaiting the world's attention. And outside the business affairs which claim his regard, he is a patron of art, a lover of literature and an unstinted supporter of elegance in society. An early public service - laborious, responsible and gratuitous - must be mentioned; that rendered on the great occasion of the fire of 1871. The world's money began to pour in by millions, in a mass which was most difficult to grasp and care for. Most of it was sent to the Mayor, Roswell B. Mason, one of the most kindly, just and anxiously conscientious men who ever lived. He, and the common council which would have to be his agency for distributing the funds, were overburdened with care and responsibility, as well as otherwise obviously unfitted for the vast trust.

In his dilemma the mayor called a private meeting of eminent citizens and the general conclusion was reached (a majority taking that view) that the relief and aid society ought to be made the general distributing agency. But that society was not empowered by its charter to .become a trustee, and a seemingly invincible barrier arose at this point. The night was passing, the candles, their only light, were burning low, something must be done, and at last Mayor Mason called Mr. Pullman into another room and offered him the trusteeship. Mr. Pullman, loaded with business cares, demurred, but at last consented and it was arranged that he should, personally, take the trust, and on the Relief and Aid Society making him its treasurer, that society should be the channel of distribution. Mr. Pullman at once rented the Standard club house, (corner of Michigan avenue and Thirteenth street) and there installed as his cashier Charles G. Hammond, who was already an officer of the Pullman company and whose salary as cashier Mr. Pullman paid without any cost to the fund. The express companies were notified and the bundles of bank bills poured in to the new office, where, as Mr. Pullman says, "the pile looked a little like a hay stack." No dollar of that fund was lost.

In private life Mr. Pullman is as happy as in his business. In 1867 he married Miss Hattie A. Sanger, daughter of James Y. Sanger (one of the builders of the first Illinois and Michigan canal) an old and honored citizen of Chicago. Their children are Florence Sanger, Harriet Sanger (who has just become Mrs. Francis J. Carolan), George M. and Walter Sanger. The two latter (twins) are now pursuing their studies. The daughters have been ornaments to society and also active in religious and benevolent work.

This short narrative embodies the most romantic and characteristic points in Mr. Pullman's career. The world and posterity will give full fame and honor to his later achievement of devising and carrying out the great and significant industrial experiment embodied in the happy, contented and prosperous manufacturing town of Pullman, the founding, evolution and present condition whereof will be found fully treated elsewhere in this work.

William Charles Goudy

William C. Goudy ,'was born in Indiana in 1824. He comes of the Scotch-Irish stock, so well known in the southwestern part of Scotland and the northeastern part of Ireland, and so ably represented by descendants in America. The poet Burns was of the Scottish branch of this race, and among his verses is an allusion to " Goudie, terror of the Whigs." The names survive and seem to bear the nature with them, for Mr. Goudy is a Democrat of the Democrats; no drop of Whiggism in his veins.

William's father, Robert Goudy, was a carpenter early in life, and later a printer and binder in Indianapolis. H^ moved to Illinois and lived at Vandalia, Jacksonville and Springfield; becoming the publisher (1833) of '-'Goudy's Farmers' Almanac," a pioneer work of its class and one that reached a wide circulation. The almanac led to the Journal, a weekly political paper started in Jacksonville by Robert Goudy and Samuel S. Brooks. William, while getting a common-school education, naturally had the run of his father's printing office and learned much of the business of printing and something of the mental exercise of newspaper writing; but his bent was strong toward the law, and at twenty-one he was graduated at Illinois College at Jacksonville and set about preparing for his lifework at the bar. Like a host of other youths poor, studious and ambitious, he taught school for a support while reading law for a profession.

His first regular induction into legal life was in the office of Judge Stephen T. Logan, celebrated as the long time partner of Abraham Lincoln, a partnership which ended at just about the time when Mr. Goudy entered the office (1846.) In 1847 he was admitted to the bar and became a partner of the Honorable Hezekiah M. Wead, a leading lawyer of Fulton county, living at Lewiston. His success was immediate and continued unbroken until his death.