Hendricks County, Indiana - Chapter 21: The Bench and Bar, 1914

Chapter 21: The Bench and Bar

At the house of WilHam Ballard, on October 25, 1824, was held the first term of the circuit court. Then the county was in the fifth judicial circuit. The presiding judge was William W. Wick, commissioned by Jonathan Jennings on January 2, 1822. The associate judges at the same time were Nathan Kirk and James Downard, whose commissions were issued by Governor William Hendricks on July 26, 1824. Levi Jessup was clerk of the court.

The men who acted as grand jurors this first session were Thomas R. Ballard, foreman, Daniel B. Tryer, Jesse Kellum, Pollard Baldwin, John Hawkins, David Demoss, Noah Bateman. John Fowler, John Ballard, James Thompson, Abijah Bray, Adin Ballard, Moses Alderson, Thomas Gilbert, David Ross and Samuel Jones. Jonathan Jessup was selected to attend to the grand jury. Hervey Gregg was the prosecuting attorney.

In this session of court Calvin Fletcher, Gabriel Jones, Mr. Johnson and Daniel B. Wick were admitted to the bar. On the following day Craven P. Heister was also admitted to practice as an attorney.

On this day the first case came up for trial. It was that of Joshua W. Redman vs. Benjamin Benson, for debt. This case was continued. James Brown vs. William H. Henton was then called and tried. This closed the October term, the next beginning in the following April.

On April 25th the first case was tried before a jury, being the case of Brown vs. Hinton, for debt. The men who composed the jury were James McClure, Abijah Pinson, Ezekiel Hornaday, John Leaman, John W. Bryant, James Dunn, Samuel Woodward, Stephen Cook, Thomas Lockhart, David Demoss, David Ballard and Robert Cooper. The result of the trial was a judgment in favor of the plaintiff for thirty dollars.

So ran the trials for a number of years after the establishment of the court. The first really important case was in Feljruary, 1827, against Samuel

K. Barlow for killing George Matlock - charged with manslaughter. He was tried in August and sentenced to one year in the penitentiary, but he was granted a respite until the first day of the next term, Thomas Lockhart, Samuel Jessup, John Ballard and Abel Stanley giving a bond of three hundred dollars for his appearance.

First Probate Court

The first probate court was held in Hendricks county in April, 1825, and Nathan Kirk and James Downard were associate judges. At this meeting the wills of Uriah Hults and William Ballard were admitted to probate.

The list of judges who have served in the different courts of Hendricks county down to the present time will be found in the official summary of county officers.

The Bar

James M. Gregg was one of the first active attorneys in Hendricks county. He was born in 1806 in Patrick county, Virginia, and came to Hendricks in 1830. After being employed as dry goods clerk by James J. Given in Danville for a season, he became a deputy in the county clerk's office. In 1834 he was made county surveyor, and was later elected to the office of county clerk. At the close of his term of office as clerk he began the practice of law which he followed exclusively until his death with good success. He served one term in Congress, also one in the Legislature, and died in June, i860.

Simon T. Hadley was another of the early attorneys in the county. He was born in North Carolina in 1801, taught school for a time, and in 1826 came to Hendricks county and settled in Danville. He filled the offices of clerk and recorder "in this county, serving as both for seven years and as recorder alone for twenty-two years. He was president of the First National Bank in Danville for many years. Mr. Hadley never studied law as a profession, his practice being confined almost exclusively to probate matters, conveyancing and the writing of contracts. He was so reasonable in his charge, and possessed so fully the confidence of the people of the county that it was not at all infrequent for a citizen and his wife to drive over muddy roads in a two-horse wagon fifteen or twenty miles to get Uncle Simon to write a deed or other simple contract.

Christian C. Nave was also among the first and also among the most prominent of the Hendricks county lawyers. He was born in eastern Tennessee in 1803. He was educated for the legal profession and in the fall of 1831, at the age of twenty-eight years, left his native state for Indiana on horseback and after some investigation and inspection, arrived and settled in Danville. December 17, 183 1. He had traveled all the way from his eastern Tennessee home to Danville through the woods on hor.seback, and when he arrived his total belongings was his mount, a few articles of wearing apparel in his saddle bags, a copy of Blackstone's Commentaries, a pistol, and five dollars in money.

Before he had permanently located himself in the county seat of Danville, he was called upon to defend, for a nominal fee, a citizen for the murder of his neighbor. It was Nave's opportunity and right well he recognized it. Being naturally of great energy and shrewdness, he at once set about the construction of a defense, in what was generally thought to be a desperate case, which resulted not only in his client's acquittal, but also in extending Mr. Nave's reputation as an able advocate throughout central Indiana and which served him well and brought him many good fees throughout his subsequent action and eventful career. He was the subject of many amusing anecdotes, never accused of wrong or unprofessional conduct. He led the Third Indiana Regiment into Mexico as colonel, was liberal and public spirited and died in Danville in 1884. He was unfaltering in the study and practice of his profession up to the hour of his death, in his eighty-second year, and in his last sickness had his daughter sit by his bedside and read to him all the current opinions of the supreme court as they appeared.

Leander M. Campbell, a Kentuckian, was admitted to the Hendricks county bar in 1854. He was an educated man, had been a previous school teacher. He had a remarkable memory and seemed always to have at hand, ready for immediate use, any legal principle or ruling that had ever before attracted his attention. His social qualities were of the very 1iest and his acquaintance with the people of the county was so thorough that he used to sa}^ there was not a family living in the county for a period of five years that he could not tell its blood and marriage relations with all other families in the county.

In making up of juries and in the examination of witnesses this thorough acquaintance with the people was a great advantage he had over his opponents in a trial.

and always put forth his best endeavor to win his cases in the circuit c(nirt. He dishked the supreme court and seldom appealed a case - seldom had an occasion to appeal, for he was renowned as a "verdict getter." He enjoyed up to the time of his death, in 1890, a large and lucrative practice in central Indiana and in his prime was generally regarded as the Napoleon of the Hendricks county bar.

Peter S. Kenned}-, another Kentuckian, was contemporaneous with Mr. Campbell and was generally regarded as his yoke-fellow. He was a ripe lawyer, a good writer and really enjoyed presenting his argument to the supreme court better than to the circuit court or jury. In 1865 he moved with his family to Crawfordsville, where he spent the balance of his days.

In 1866 there came to the Hendricks county bar Jesse S. Ogden, a Virginian, who, for brilliancy in letters, elociuence in speech and loveableness in social intercourse, never had a superior, and perhaps never an equal, at this bar. Mr. Ogden left his mountain home in 1858 to seek his fortune in the West. He arrived in Danville in November, impecunious, but full of ambition. His first job of work was to undertake, with a negT(j, to cut ten cords of wood for Levi Ritter for ten dollars. He entered the I^anville Academy as janitor in 1859 and thus, in services, he paid his tuition for two school years and until August, 1861, when he left his school and enlisted in the Seventh Indiana Infantry. On the 22c\ of March, 1862, at the battle of Winchester, Virginia, he received a severe wound in the right hand - in fact, three of his fingers were literally carried away with a niinie ball and thus he was disqualified for further army service. He returned to Danville, was elected recorder of the county and while serving in that capacity spent his idle hours in reading law. He subsequently attended law school at Indianapolis and was admitted to the bar in 1866 and took up the practice of law as his life work. He at once took high rank at the bar and was elected prosecuting attorney in 1870. He was a hard worker and a close thinker and seldom went before court or jury without having the merits of his case and the law well in hand and' also his course of procedure and the points in his argument fully determined. His eloquence was not excelled in central Indiana. Its excellence consisted chiefly in its grace of delivery, sweet musical voice and sfuperb selection of his words. He spoke with ease and energy, without being boisterous, and never put himself forward or overtaxed his audience. In 1869 he formed a partnership for the practice of his profession, with his friend and comrade in the army, John V. Hadley, which partnership continued happily and profitably until ]\Ir. Ogden's death, on February 20, 1897, '" the thirty-eighth year of his age.

Many other members of the local bar deserve special mention, but space forbids. The bar from the beginning has always maintained, for strength and character, a high place among the bars of the state. It has been uniformly composed of citizens of high character - enterprising, moral, debt paying, temperate, with a very rare exception and strictly honorable with the court and with each other professionally. It has always been held that a promise or statement of fact to an opposing attorney relative to a pending cause was as binding as an order of the court. Except in cases where opposing counsel desires the facts relied on in the record preparatory to an appeal, an affidavit for a continuance or other matter is unknown to the Danville bar. If delay is desired the counsel desiring appears before the court in the presence of his opponent and states his reasons for the request. The request is often resisted, but the facts as stated upon which it rests are never called in question. The effect is that the bar is always on the most friendly terms.

Quite a number who had their early and first training at the Danville bar afterwards became eminent lawyers and jurists elsewhere. Solomon T-lair, William Irvin, Joshua G. Adams and Newton M. Taylor were afterward elected to the bench in Indianapolis. Richard B. Blake was the first judge elected to the superior bench in the city of Spokane under the organization of the state of Washington and continued thereon for years and until he voluntarily resigned to take up in the city a general practice more lucrative. Enoch G. Hcgate was called years ago to become dean of the law school of the State University where he still presides with great credit to himself and profit to the young men under his instructions.

John V. Hadley was the first member of the local bar elected to the circuit bench, then composed of Marion and Hendricks counties. He was first elected in the fall of 1886, re-elected in 1892, elected to the state supreme bench in 1898 and re-elected to the latter in 1904., and voluntarily retired therefrom January 2, 1911.

James L. Clark was elected in 1906 to succeed Judge Gofer and in January, 191 3, was appointed by the governor to the public utilities commission and is now serving thereon with much credit for fairness and commercial comprehension.