Will County IL Archives Biographies.....Dibell, Judge Dorrance 
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Author: Past and Present of Will County, IL; 1907

JUDGE DORRANCE DIBELL. The elements and interests which combine to win 
success, honor or distinction in the various walks of life are many and 
complex, rendering the analyzation of a life record therefore a difficult 
undertaking; yet in the history of almost every individual there are strongly 
marked characteristics which give color and tone to the composite whole. Judge 
Dibell, spoken of by one who has known him long and intimately as a large 
brained, broad-minded, generous-spirited man, has ever been a student, and in 
addition to his extensive law library he has a large miscellaneous library, in 
the midst of which he has come into close communion with the philosophers, the 
men of science, the poets, the dramatists, the novelists and the theologians, 
whose thoughts have enriched the literature of the present and past ages. In 
the wide general information there gleaned is found one of the strong elements 
of Judge Dibell's ability and power as lawyer and jurist. The broad knowledge 
enabling him to understand life in its various phases, the motive springs of 
human conduct and the complexities of business interests, combined with a 
comprehensive familiarity with statutory law and with precedent, make him one 
of the ablest judges who have ever graced the appellate bench of Illinois. 
Further analyzation of his life record brings forth the fact that his was an 
honorable and honored ancestry and in person, in talents and character he is a 
worthy scion of his race. His New England forefathers were people of high 
purpose, of ennobling ideals and of unflinching fidelity to whatever they 
deemed to be right. He is a direct descendant of the Baldwin, Lord, King, 
Ward, Strong and Waite families, who lived in Connecticut and Massachusetts 
prior to 1800. His Puritan descent is evidenced 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: Desire, Unity, Relief, Prudence, Thankful, Deliverance, 
Increase, Experience, Silence, Record, Remember, Mercy, Hopestill and 
Mindwell. In the paternal line Judge Dibell is a descendant in the fifth 
generation from John Dibell, who was born in Connecticut in 1702 and who died 
at Mount Washington, Massachusetts, August 1, 1773. Tradition has it that the 
ancestors of John Dibell came from England in the year 1635 and settled in 
Massachusetts. Representatives of the name afterward removed to Connecticut 
and in 1757 the family home was established at Mount Washington in the 
southwest district of Massachusetts, where members of the family still live 
and own a part of the farm then purchased. Judge Dibell is descended from that 
branch of the family that removed to Hudson, New York, and thence to New 
Durham, New York, about 1789, and from there about 1817 to Ashtabula county, 
Ohio, where their descendants are still found. In the maternal line he traces 
his ancestry in direct line back to William Ward, who in 1639 was living with 
his family at Sudbury, Massachusetts, when the proprietors of that plantation 
made a first division of their lands in which he shared. It is believed that 
he was born in England. He removed from Sudbury to Marlborough and 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. General Artemas 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. He was also appointed a member of the general congress but did not 
take his seat, and was twice a member of congress under the Federal 
constitution. Several of Judge Dibell’s kinsmen of the Ward name were members 
of the general court and held other positions of trust in their primitive 
communities. One uncle, William Ward, D. D., spent most of his active life in 
Assam, India, as a missionary, and a great-uncle, Elihu W. Baldwin, D. D., was 
the first president of Wabash (Indiana) College. The two families of Dibell 
and Ward were united through the marriage of the Rev. Jonathan Baldwin Dibell, 
of Kingsville, Ashtabula county, Ohio, and Louisa Ward, of Ellington, Tolland 
county, Connecticut. The former was a minister of the Baptist denomination and 
in 1850 removed with his family from Ohio to Will county, Illinois, where he 
and his wife remained almost continuously until his death September 10, 1881. 
He was a man of unusual purity, sincerity and strength of character, was 
greatly respected and exerted a wide influence over public thought and action, 
especially in Homer, New Lenox and Frankfort. Following his death Mrs. Dibell 
with her daughter, Julia Louisa, made her home with her son Dorrance in 
Joliet, where she passed away October 17, 1885. The daughter met a sad and 
untimely death at a railroad crossing in Joliet September 20, 1889. Dorrance 
Dibell, who was thus left as the last surviving member of the family, was born 
February 16, 1844, in Wooster, Wayne county, Ohio, but was largely reared upon 
his father's farm in New Lenox township, the removal of the family to the west 
occurring when he was but six years of age. Having mastered his elementary 
education in the public schools he subsequently spent four years as a student 
in the University of Chicago but his course there was not consecutive, being 
interrupted by service as a teacher in the public schools. On permanently 
leaving the university he was employed as a telegraph operator at Racine, 
Wisconsin, and at Wheatland and De Witt, Iowa. During that period he learned 
to abbreviate words, a custom which he has since continued so that he is 
enabled to set down his thoughts in writing almost, as quickly as they are 
formed, and this has been of considerable value to him in his legal work. It 
was while serving as telegraph operator, that he took up the study of law at 
Racine without an instructor, also reading at intervals upon his father's 
farm. Later his reading was directed by the Hon. John C. Polley at De Witt, 
Iowa, and, abandoning the field of telegraphy, he came to Joliet, where he 
entered the law office of the firm of Goodspeed, Snapp & Knox. In 1869 he 
became a law student and clerk in the law office of Parks & Hill. His wages, 
however, were very meager and as he had to provide for his own support he 
hired a room on Jefferson street and afterwards on Bluff street at three 
dollars per month and did his own housekeeping and prepared his own meals. He 
allowed no obstacle to deter him in carrying out his resolution to become an 
active practitioner of law and on the 23d of August, 1870, he was admitted to 
the bar by the supreme court of Illinois. During the brief period of his 
novitiate as a student with the firm of Parks & Hill he made himself so useful 
to the members of the 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 states 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, when it was dissolved November 13, 
1885, because of Mr. Dibell’s election to the bench of the ninth judicial 
circuit. He had made an enviable record as a lawyer. He was most thorough in 
his researches, accurate in his knowledge and logical in his deductions. In 
the presentation of his cause there was no straining after effect but on the 
contrary a clearness and precision of statement showing a mind trained in the 
severest school of investigation and to which close reasoning had become 
habitual and easy. His mind, naturally logical and inductive, has ever grasped 
readily the strong points in a case and enabled him to see in correct relative 
value all of the incidents bearing upon his legal position. In the trial 
before court or jury he always presented his cause 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. His strong memory, great 
reasoning powers and strength of mind seemed to guide him with apparent ease 
through the most involved controversies. The salient characteristics of his 
law work naturally suggested him as one able to discharge the multitudinous 
delicate and important duties that devolve upon a jurist, and he received the 
nomination for circuit judge in 1885. In his acceptation of the nomination he 
outlined a policy which he has rigidly followed and which has been entirely 
satisfactory to the public. 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." 
The court over which Judge Dibell has presided has been notable for the 
precision and rapidity with which business has been dispatched. He fully 
sustains the dignity of the law by tolerating no unnecessary delays or 
unseemly wranglings. The trial 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 that justice is being observed in all 
the relations of the court, not only toward the contestants in the case but 
also to the lawyers. He has ever been a most close and discriminating student, 
bringing to bear every point of law and fact applicable to the question before 
him, and few men are so entirely free from judicial bias or personal 
prejudice. In 1891 Judge Dibell was re-elected by a largely increased 
majority. In the winter of 1897 the legislature rearranged 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 later 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. Illinois, for a term of three years, and is still upon the 
appellate bench. The duties of that position occupy about eight months of each 
year and the remainder of his time is given to his duties of circuit judge. 
His decisions are the embodiment of fact presented in the light of the law 
applicable thereto, and the bar and the public honor him as one of the 
strongest conservators of that profession to which life and liberty, law and 
property must look for protection. In 1903 he was elected circuit judge for 
the fourth consecutive term. At this writing he has served continuously as 
circuit judge longer than any other now serving in this state, except one. 
Judge Dibell's service on the bench does not entirely cover his official acts, 
for community interests have been advanced and the welfare of the city 
enhanced through Judge Dibell's labor as a member of the city council. He 
served for a number of years, covering the time 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. He has allied his interests with the 
republican party and yet his American spirit transcends all party bias. He 
enjoys the respect and confidence of all of his associates irrespective of 
party and this is due to the fact that his fealty is not grounded on partisan 
prejudice. Of the great issues which divide the two parties, with their roots 
extending down to the very bedrock of the foundation of the republic, he has 
the true statesman's grasp. Well grounded in the political maxiums of the 
schools, familiar with the philosophy which has found its exponents in the 
great party leaders, he has also studied the lessons of actual life, arriving 
at his conclusions as a result of what may" be called his post-graduate 
studies in the school of affairs. Such men, whether in office or out, are the 
natural leaders of whichever party they may be identified with, especially in 
that movement toward higher politics which is common to both parties and which 
constitutes the most hopeful political sign of the period. Happy in his home 
life, Judge Dibell was married August 29, 1872, to Miss Sarah M. Snapp, 
daughter of Hon. Henry Snapp, of Joliet, and they have one son, Charles 
Dorrance Dibell, who is a graduate of the University of Chicago and who has 
engaged in the practice of law at Joliet since his admission to the bar in 
June, 1899. As indicated at the beginning of this review, Judge Dibell finds 
his recreation largely in close companionship with the master minds of all 
ages and yet he is essentially human in his interest in his fellowmen. He has 
come to be known to the world at large as a distinguished lawyer and judge a 
man of high moral character and of the best social position: but to those who 
are admitted to share the intimacy of his friendship he often exhibits 
qualities which others scarcely suspect. In all non-professional relations he 
is found to be singularly modest, warm-hearted and even gentle, faithful in 
his friendship, fixed in an honest hatred of all shams and pretenders and 
exhibiting in every judgment of his mind a strong common sense that illumines 
every dark corner into which he looks. All who know him acknowledge the 
nobility of his character, while the public pays tribute to his professional 
worth. 

Additional Comments:
PAST AND PRESENT OF WILL COUNTY, ILLINOIS By W. W. Stevens President of the 
Will County Pioneers Association; Chicago: The S. J. Clarke Publishing 
Company, 1907

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