Albion Town (part 2 of 2)

" I remained two years longer in Kentucky, reading and practicing law, and then proceeded to Bedford, Ind., expecting to make it my future home. The second year of my residence at Bedford I became a candidate for the Legislative Assembly and was elected ; during the session of the Legislature, Gen. Jackson's proclamation on the subject of the South Carolina Nullification was issued, which agitated the country from the center to the circumference. I was the author of the Indiana resolutions approving of that proclamation, which were passed in the Assembly with but ten dissenting voices, and by the Senate almost unanimously. The next year I was^appointed Register of the Land Office at Indianapolis, by Gen. Jackson, and the year following transferred to the land office at Green Bay, then in Michigan Territory. In December, 1835, I was elected a member of the Legislative Council of Michigan, which met at Green Bay January 1, 1836. I was, as a member of that body, the author of a memorial to Congress requesting the establishment of the Territory of Wisconsin, to embrace the Government lands west of Lake Michigan. The act of organization of the Territory went into effect on the 4th of July, 1836. In February, 1837, I was appointed by Gen. Jackson Secretary of the Territory of Wisconsin, for four years. At the close of my official term as Secretary, I retired to my farm near Madison, and was no more in public life until appointed by President Lincoln Commissary of Subsistence, in 1863, and in 1864 Quartermaster, and was stationed at Jefferson Barracks, Missouri. In the fall of 1864, I resigned both of these 'offices, and since then have remained in private life. I was occupied in 1875-76 in writing biographical sketches of the eminent and self-made, men of Wisconsin for the American Biographical Publishing Company."

Mr. Slaughter resigned the office of Register of the Land Office in 1841 . In May, 1837, he came to the " City of the Four Lakes," on Section 6, in the present town of Madison, a plat of which" City " was laid out and put on record July 7, 1836, by M. L. Martin, W. B. Slaughter and J. D. Doty, Proprietors. Here he opened up a farm and made his residence until 1845, when he removed to his old home in Virginia ; but at the beginning of the late war (1861), he returned to Wisconsin, and located in the town of Middleton. He afterward moved to the city of Madison, where he resided at the time of his death, which occurred July 15, 1879.

Edwaed G. Etan. Edward G. Ryan was born at New Castle House, in the county of Meath, Ireland, Novem- T V, ir ' ^^^ ^°^ °^ Edward Ryan, of New Castle House, and Abby, his wife, daughter of John Keogh, of Mount Jerome,'near Dublin. He was reared in the full sight of wealth, but oemg the second son, inherited no share of it. He was educated at Clongone's Wood Cottage, Where he completed his course in 1827. He commenced the reading of law in his native country, out, before completing it, he came to the United States in 1830, and resumed his studies in New

York, supporting himself, meanwhile, by giving lessons in private schools. He was admitted to the bar in 1836, and located in Chicago, in the fall of the same year, where he practiced his profession till 1842. During his residence in Chicago, he was editor of a paper called the 2W'6- une, which, we believe, was the commencement of the paper of that name now in Chicago though in reaching its present growth, it has absorbed several smaller publications. In 1842 feeling that his health was failing in Chicago, he was constrained to change his location, and after his marriage with the daughter of Capt. Hugh Graham, he located at Racine, in this State where he remained till 1848, when he removed to the city of Milwaukee.

Mr. Ryan was Prosecuting Attorney in the Chicago Circuit; in 1840 and 1841 ; was a member of the Constitutional Convention in Wisconsin in 1846, representing the county of Racine. In this body he was one of the most conspicuous members, both in committee work and in the debates on the floor of the Convention. He was the Chairman of the Committee on Banks and Banking, second on the Committee on the -Judiciary, and also a member of the Committee on Education. When he took his seat in the Convention, he was a stranger to most of the able and brilliant members of that body, and when he took the floor in discussion, they were very much astonished at his power, energy and eloquence as a debater. He advocated the extreme radical features of the old Constitution. In 1848, Mr. Ryan represented his party as a delegate in the National, Convention, held at Baltimore, that nominated Lewis Cass for the Presidency. During his practice in Milwaukee, Mr. Ryan had several law partners, among whom were the late Chief Justice Stowe, Matt H. Carpenter and William H. Lord.

Mr. Ryan held the position of City Attorney in Milwaukee during the years 1870, 1871 and 1872. In June, 1874, Chief Justice Dixon having resigned his position on the bench, Mr. Ryan was appointed by Gov. Taylor as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the State, to fill the vacancy. On receiving his commission, he is reported to have remarked: " This is the summit of my ambition ; this is the place to which I have looked ; but it has been so delayed that I had ceased to expect it ! " He immediately qualified and assumed the place upon the bench to which he had been appointed. Shortly afterward, the Potter railroad law, enacted by the Legislature of 1874, came before the courts. The leading cases were appealed to the Supreme Court, and the validity of the law was affirmed, the opinion being prepared by Chief Justice Ryan. He was elected to the high position, by the people, without opposition. He was a man of vast legal learning, and a writer of masterly ability. His decisions, in point of literary style and legal research, will rank among the first in this country. He was an orator of great power, and many of his eff'orts equal those of the foremost men in the country. He was engaged in the prosecution of the impeachment trial against Levi Hubbell, before the State Senate, in in 1853, and his great argument in that case was remarkable for its power, its comprehensiveness, its lofty eloquence, and it ranks with the first efibrts of the kind on record. He was engaged as counsel in the great gubernatorial contest between Bashford and Barstow, in 1856, on the part of the relator, and, in this ease, as in all others in which he has been wigaged, he exhibited ability and legal research of the highest order ; and his arguments were able, forcible and effective. The case was one of extreme importance, as fixing a precedent, and Mr. Ryan managed it with consummate skill and energy.

In person, Mr. Ryan was five feet ten inches in height, weighed about one hundred and eighty pounds, neither of robust nor delicate frame, but muscular, sinewy and capable of much long and continued labor. His movements were quick and his step elastic. His complexion, was florid, his hair light, his eyes blue, large and expressive.

The death of Chief Justice Ryan caused deep and sincere regret among the people of the State. His vast intellect and well-cultivated miiid gave him a high place among the distmguished men of this country, as a writer, as a genial companion, as an orator and advocate, and as an eminent jurist. Few men possessed more refined and varied tastes than did Judge Ryan. His was a brilliant mind ; and the fact of his being thoroughly read on a great variety of subjects rendered his conversation extremely interesting and instructive, full of originality, and a times extremely humorous. His addresses were always models in rhetoric, and filled with eie-

Tated thought. He died iu Madison, October 19, 1880, and was buried in Milwaukee with honors becoming the position he had filled as Chief Justice of Wisconsin.

It 18 my sad duty to announce to the people of Wisconsin, that, in the mysterious Providence of God, the life on earth of the Hon. Edward G. Kyan, the distinguished Chief Justice of our Supreme Court, is ended. He departed this life this morning, at about 5 o'clock, unexpectedly by his family and friends, but evidently not by himself. His great mind remained strong and serene to the last, in full comprehension of his physical condition and in apprehension and consciousness of death, and he expressed clearly his last wishes to his family, and his abiding Christian faith and hope.

A great man, an eminent citizen, and a high officer of State, to the sore bereavement of his family and friends, and to the irreparable loss of the public service, has fallen at his post, with the spotless ermine of a great judge still upon his shoulders. Less than one week ago he presided on the bench, and the bar of the State, interested in the present call of the calendar, stood before him in the full confidence and hope that he would yet long remain to dignify his high judicial office by his transcendent abilities, learning and refined sense of justice.

But he has suddenly disappeared from amongst the living, and the high places which once knew him will know him no more forever. For about forty years he has been especially prominent in Wisconsin, and elsewhere widely known as one of the ablest and most eminent in his profession, and in many offices of trust and honor, and he has now closed his distinguished career by making especially eminent the office of Chief Justice of our Supreme Court, to which he was called by the unanimous vote of the people. To its high and responsible duties he has devoted the great learning, the clear judgment and the developed resources of one of the greatest minds of the age, as the mature fruits of his great experience and of his long and distinguished life. There remains no one who can in all respects fill the high place he ha« left vacant, and long years of time in our future history will bat illustrate, by memory and comparison, his unequaled abilities as a lawyer and a judge, and make still more conspicuous and indelible his impress upon the laws, politics and jurisprudence of the State.

As a mark of respect to his memory, the Supreme Court room will be suitably draped in mourning, the ftag opoQ the capital displayed at half-mast, and on the day of the funeral the State Departments will be closed.