Will County IL Archives Biographies.....Dibbell, Hon Dorrance ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/il/ilfiles.htm ************************************************ File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Deb Haines ddhaines@gmail.com September 3, 2007, 4:04 pm Author: Genealogical/Biographical Publishing Co HON. DORRANCE DIBELL is directly descended from the families of Baldwin, Lord, King, Ward, Strong and Waite, who lived in Connecticut and Massachusetts prior to 1800. His Puritan descent is evident from the maiden names of his grandmother and great-grandmother, Patience Baldwin and Submit Lord, and is also shown by the following given names found on his family tree between the years 1650 and 1750, viz.: Desire, Unity, Relief, Prudence, Thankful, Deliverance, Increase, Experience, Silence, Record, Remember, Mercy, Hopestill and Mindwell. On his father's side he is fifth in descent from John Dibell, who was born in Connecticut in 1702, and who died at Mount Washington, Mass., August 1, 1773. The ancestors of John Dibell are believed to have come to Massachusetts from England in the year 1635. They afterwards removed to Connecticut. In 1757 the family settled at Mount Washington, in the southwest corner of Massachusetts, and members of the family still live upon and own part of the farm then bought. The branch from which Dorrance Dibell descended removed to Hudson, N. Y., and then to New Durham, N. Y., about 1789, and from there about 1817 removed to Ashtabula County, Ohio, where members of the family still reside. On his mother's side he is the eighth in descent from William Ward, who in 1639 (nineteen years after the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock) was living with his family at Sudbury, Mass., when the proprietors of that plantation made a first division of their lands in which he shared. Tradition says he was born in England. He afterwards removed to Marlborough. He suffered great losses in King Phillip's war, when his buildings were fired, his cattle destroyed and one of his sons was killed. The dwelling house of one of his sons was used as a garrison in that war. The widow of William Ward settled his estate at Boston before the tyrannical colonial Governor Andros, who also acted as judge of probate. Gen. Artemus Ward of Boston, another distant relative, was commander-in-chief of the forces of the colony of Massachusetts Bay, and was the first person appointed a major-general in the army of the Revolution; was appointed a member of the continental congress, but did not take his seat, and was twice a member of congress under the Federal Constitution. Several of Mr. Dibell's kinsmen of the Ward name were members of the "General Court," and held other places of trust in their primitive communities. One uncle, William Ward, D. D., spent most of his active life in Assam, India, as a missionary. A great uncle, Elihu W. Baldwin, D. D., was first president of Wabash (Ind.) College. Dorrance Dibell was born February 16, 1844, at Wooster, Wayne County, Ohio. He is a son of Rev. Jonathan Baldwin Dibell, of Kingsville, Ashtabula County, Ohio, and Louisa (Ward) Dibell, of Ellington, Tolland County, Conn. His father was a Baptist minister. In 1850 his parents removed from Ohio to Will County, Ill., where they lived almost continuously until his father's death, September 10, 1881. His father had unusual purity, sincerity and strength of character, was greatly respected and had a wide influence in Will County, especially in Homer, New Lenox and Frankfort. After his death, the mother, with her daughter, Julia Louisa, made her home with her son Dorrance in Joliet, where she resided until her death, October 17, 1885. Julia met a sad and untimely death at a railroad crossing in that city, September 20, 1889, which left the subject of this sketch the only remaining member of his father's family. Mr. Dibell married Sarah M., oldest child of Hon. Henry Snapp, at Joliet, August 29, 1872, and they have one child, Charles Dorrance Dibell, a graduate of the University of Chicago, who was admitted to practice law in June, 1899, and has entered upon the practice of that profession at Joliet. Judge Dibell, as he is now familiarly called, was but six years old when his parents settled in the Prairie state, and he grew to manhood on his father's farm in New Lenox Township, attending the public schools in boyhood, and subsequently prosecuting his studies in the University of Chicago for about four years. After beginning his studies at the university he was a teacher in the public schools, then returned to the university, and afterward was employed as a telegraph operator at Racine, Wis., and at Wheatland and De Witt, Iowa. During that time he studied law without an instructor in Racine and on his father's farm in Will County. While still engaged as a telegraph operator he studied law with Hon. John C. Polley, at De Witt, Iowa, and then, having determined to make that profession his business in life, he abandoned telegraph operating, came to Joliet, and resumed the study of law with Goodspeed, Snapp & Knox, of Joliet. In 1869 he entered the law office of Parks & Hill as a law student and clerk at a small salary, barely sufficient, with rigid economy, to supply the necessaries of life. The room on Bluff street, at $3.00 a month, where he did his own housekeeping, as well as the grocery and bakery which supplied his frugal meals, are still remembered by the judge and his friends with a feeling akin to pride and pleasure. August 23, 1870, he was admitted to the bar by the supreme court of this state. During this brief period of his novitiate as a student with the firm of Parks & Hill he made himself so useful to the members of that firm, and gave such promise of future usefulness and ability as a lawyer, that he was at once offered a partnership with the junior member of the firm, which he accepted. Mr. Hill was then state's attorney of the old seventh judicial circuit, comprising the counties of Will and Grundy. The new firm of Hill & Dibell was organized September 3, 1870, and continued without interruption, and with a constantly increasing business and reputation, for a period of more than fifteen years and until dissolved November 13, 1885, because of the election of Mr. Dibell November 3, 1885, to the bench as judge of the ninth judicial circuit. During that time the firm enjoyed a large practice, constantly increasing in character and importance as the years went by, both members holding high positions at the bar. During these years of active practice, the foundations of Judge Dibell's career and usefulness as a judge were laid. He was never content to look at one side, his client's side, of a case or question presented for his consideration, however plausible or fair that side might at first appear; his mind was eminently and normally judicial in tone and character. Instinctively it turned to the other side of the question or case in hand and sought unrestingly to find the real facts of the case and the law applicable to those facts. This tone and bent of his mind was always manifest in consultations with clients and in the discussion of the case or question involved with his partner, as well as in argument in courts. When sure he was right, his conclusions of law and fact were presented with convincing force and ability. He always had a great faculty of generalizing a mass of details and of seeing the real point involved in a case. This was especially true, or seemed especially true, in chancery cases, involving many questions of law and fact. His strong memory, great reasoning powers and strength of mind, seemed to guide him with apparent ease through the most involved controversies. This characteristic soon became known to bench and bar, as well as to his friends and clients, and to some extent to the public at large. During this time Mr. Dibell was also for some years a member of the city council of Joliet, carrying to that work the same fidelity of trust and earnestness of purpose that had characterized him as a lawyer. He was in the council when the change was made from the old special charter to incorporation under the general incorporation law of the state, and was influential in making that and other changes of importance in the city government, and it is safe to say that from first to last during his service in the council the public good was his first consideration. No suggestion of corruption or even of unfairness was ever made against him either as a lawyer, a councilman, or as a judge. This is high praise, but nevertheless strictly true. A lifelong Republican, thoroughly schooled in the platforms and principles of that party, he was nevertheless first and always a patriot, commanding alike the respect of his opponents and the admiration of his friends; and when, in 1885, the death of Judge McRoberts created a vacancy on the bench of the ninth judicial circuit, then comprising the counties of Will, Grundy, La Salle and Bureau, many eyes were turned to Mr. Dibell to fill the place. His partner, Mr. Hill, realizing from long association his peculiar fitness for the position, was among the first to suggest it, and to urge it upon him, but Judge Dibell is as modest as he is strong and judicial, and being at that time comparatively a young man, at first declined to consider it. A convention was called, and he was nominated for the position and was elected. In the Will County convention, upon being nominated for circuit judge, he said, "I believe in progress in the methods of legal procedure. In fact, a reform in this direction has already begun. When I came to Joliet to study law I was told that the common law docket had not been called through in twelve years, and there were then upon the docket many cases which had been pending twelve or fifteen years. Since then much has been done to remedy this evil and to facilitate the transaction of legal business, but much remains to be done before our legal tribunals fulfill all the people have a right to demand of them. Courts are but public agencies for the transaction of business; they are tribunals appointed to settle business disputes; they ought to be conducted in a business manner and so as to secure his rights to the party who ought to win before time has made even success unprofitable. If the selection you have made shall be ratified by the convention at Morris, and at the polls in November, I assure you I shall do all in my power to increase the efficiency of the court in which I may preside and to cause business to be there prosecuted with celerity and dispatch and in a business-like manner." This promise has been faithfully kept. Promptly to the minute court opens and business proceeds "with celerity and dispatch." No unnecessary delays or unseemly wranglings are tolerated. Attorneys and litigants understand what is expected and the wheels move unceasingly and almost without a jar. The trials calendars, law, chancery and criminal, are kept under constant control. Litigated cases are tried and disposed of within a few months after their commencement. Lawyers as well as litigants have learned to appreciate this kind of work and to feel even when beaten that they have had their day in court. The court room where Judge Dibell presides is a great workship. The scenes are constantly shifting and passing. Cases come and go until both mind and body are weary with the work, but when court closes the judge's work does not end. Questions of law, cases submitted without a jury, chancery cases and other pending matters occupy his evening and morning hours. The judge is a rapid writer as well as a great worker. As a telegraph operator he learned to abbreviate words so that his pen follows closely upon his rapidly working mind. Cases submitted receive his careful consideration and often, in disposing of them, he sheds new light upon questions carefully argued by able attorneys. In 1891 Judge Dibell was re-elected by a largely increased majority. In the winter of 1897 the legislature re-arranged the circuits, and placed Will, Kankakee and Iroquois Counties in the twelfth judicial circuit. That spring Judge Dibell was nominated as one of the judges of that circuit by both political parties, and in June, 1897, he was elected by a practically unanimous vote. A few days after that election he was assigned by the supreme court of the state to sit as one of the justices of the appellate court, second district, at Ottawa, Ill., for a term of three years, and is now serving upon that assignment. The duties of that position occupy about eight months of each year. The rest of the time he gives to the duties of circuit judge. Socially the judge is one of the most companionable of men. His extensive reading, great memory, keen interest in current topics, coupled with a rare gift of expression, combine to make an hour spent in his company an occasion to be remembered. His habits and tastes are, however, retiring, and his every-day friends and acquaintances best appreciate his social qualities. Rev. A. H. Laing, of Joliet, who has known the Judge intimately for over seventeen years, and who is himself widely known as a critic and scholar, writes of him: "Judge Dibell is a large brained, broad minded, generous spirited man, who commands the affectionate esteem and confidence of all who know him. Like most students he is not in any sense a society man, but his equable temper and amiable disposition have made him a prime favorite with his neighbors and friends. The exacting demands and large requirements of his profession have not dulled his taste for general literature. He has gathered a large and miscellaneous library not for ornament, but for his own use and enjoyment. The great poets and dramatists are represented there and the specialties of science, philosophy and political economy have not been neglected or overlooked. Even theology is not neglected, as is too frequently the case among lawyers. In short, to legal training he adds a cultivated taste and a large store of general information." But from this it must not be gathered that the judge is in any sense a recluse or indifferent to social duties or obligations. He is often seen in public, where his warm-heartedness and great conversational powers make him ever welcome. But it is at home, among his friends and books, that he is seen at his best. Additional Comments: Genealogical and Biographical Record of Will County Illinois Containing Biographies of Well Known Citizens of the Past and Present Biographical Publishing Company; Chicago 1900 File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/il/will/bios/dibbell1630nbs.txt This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.net/ilfiles/ File size: 14.9 Kb