History: Local: Chapter XXXVI : The Bench and Bar - Part I: Bean's 1884 History of Montgomery Co, PA

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                           BEAN'S  HISTORY  OF

                     MONTGOMERY COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA

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528 (cont.)


                        CHAPTER XXXVI. Part I.


                          THE BENCH AND BAR.

    THE institution of judicial proceedings and the recognition of the judicial
office in the province of Pennsylvania appear to antedate that of the
acknowledged usefulness of the attorneys-at-law.  The courts established by
John Printz, the Swedish Governor, in 1642, on the Delaware, at New
Gottenburg, to decide all controversies according to the laws and customs
of Sweden, were presided over by justices of the peace, men unlearned in
the law.  The primitive manners of the first settlers and the unimportant
character of their litigation were suggestive of this policy, while it may
be said in truth that the office of advocate was believed to be
incompatible with the despotic pretensions of those who ruled in the name
of their sovereigns by "divine right."  The seat of justice was removed from
Gottenburg to Upland (now Chester), in 1662, and for several years their
civil and criminal cases were tried and disposed of under the crude forms
instituted by the Swedish justices of the peace.  The Dutch succeeded the
Swedes in the control of the providence but did not change the
administration of justice or remove the justices then in office.  Peter
Stuyvesant the Dutch Governor, was intent upon the acquisition of lands
and the increase of commerce with the Indians, and therefore gave but
little attention to the subject of government or the administration of the
laws.  The Dutch were succeeded by the English in 1672, who recognized the
"Upland Court" as a legal tribunal, having original and appellate
jurisdiction of all legal contentions within the province.  Ten years later,
1682, William Penn became the proprietor, and it was to the justice at
Upland that he officially announced himself upon his arrival.  While Penn's
frame of government made ample provision for the establishment of courts of
justice and the appointment of justices and necessary officer with proper
pay and emoluments, he very early betrayed his fear of and hostility to the
legal profession by causing the adoption of a law (1686) "for the avoiding
of too frequent clamors and manifest inconveniences which usually attend 
mercenary pleadings in civil causes."

    This law enacted that "noe person shall plead in any civil causes of
another in any court, within this province and territories before he
solemnly attested in open court, that he neither directly nor indirectly
hath in anywise taken or will take, or receive to his use or benefit, any
rewards whatsoever, under penalty of ฃ5 if the contrary be made to
appear."  Evidently the great founder of the colony was averse to the
encouragement of a class of professional men whose learning and influence
would make them potential
in public affairs.  Notwithstanding the discouraging character of early
legislation, and the hostile influence towards all professional advocacy
before the lay judges of the period, the necessity for the office of
counselors and advocate, became apparent to the people, not less to resist
official encroachments upon private rights than to quiet titles, preserve
the public peace, defend the innocent and convict the guilty.  Penn's
scheme of colonization attracted European emigration, and Philadelphia
soon became, the most populous city on the Atlantic coast.  The British flag
and the seal of Charles II., under the auspices of which the colony was
established, rendered the people subject to the common law of England, and
although Penn and the first Assembly abrogated the laws of English
primogeniture, and sundered all relation between church and state, and in
many ways simplified the form of administering justice, yet his own plan of
instituting proprietary interest, with periodical payments for use, and
conveyance subject to perpetual ground-rents, soon gave rise to unexpected
complication and made the appointment of a law officer necessary adjunct to
the colonial administration.

    John White was appointed attorney general of the province on the 25th of
August 1683.  This officer

529

was liberally paid for the prosecution of all matters in the interest of
the proprietor, while no defendant, as we have seen, was allowed to employ
or retain counsel against him.  It does not appear whether John White was or
was not learned in the law, nor is it important, for as the courts were
constituted, his power and influence, whether skillfully exercised or not,
would have great and undue weight in favor of the proprietor.  Early
prejudices, however, yielded to wiser councils upon the part of the
proprietor, and the law forbidding the payment of counsel was repealed.  But
it was not till the fires of the Revolution began to burn, and the public
spirit of the legal profession of the country was felt, that lawyers were
raised to the bench in Pennsylvania.  Not one of the five justices who were
designated by the Supreme Executive Council of the State to open the first
court in Montgomery County was learned in the law. [See NOTE 36-1.]

[NOTE 36-1.]

    As late is 1759 "a supplement to an act for the establishing courts of
judicature in the Providence" provided "that five persons of the best
discretion, capacity, judgment and integrity may be, and no more, appointed
and commissioned to hold the county court of record, styled and called the
Court of Common Pleas in each county, and there to hold a court."  The judges
appointed under the supplement were:
Thomas York
Rowland Evans
John Potts
Samuel Wharton and
John Hughes.

[FINIS NOTE 36-1.]

    The history of the judiciary and the legal profession of Montgomery
County would be incomplete without some reference to tile bench and bar of
Philadelphia County, from which Montgomery County was set off in 1784.  The
division of the territory and the unfinished business transferred to the
new court brought many Philadelphia members to the bar of Montgomery
County.  The proximity of the two seats of justice and the early and
ever-increasing intercourse between the people of the two districts have
always been conducive to the most intimate and pleasant relations between
members-of the bar in Montgomery and Philadelphia.  There is an unselfish
and honorable pride experienced by the bar of Montgomery County in being
historically associated with the rise of the legal profession in the
province of Pennsylvania.  Without any disparagement of the living or the
more recent dead, it can in truth and justice is gratefully said that among
the jurists and practitioners prior to the division of Philadelphia County
this district furnished the State and nation some of the most distinguished
lawyers known to the country.

    THE BENCH.  -William Penn was the author of the code of laws adopted by the
first Assembly at Upland in 1682, and his experience taught him that courts
of justice were necessary for their enforcement.  The friendly welcome given
him by the settlers on the Delaware and by those in authority, not less
than a sincere desire on the part of the proprietor to cultivate the most
amicable relations with them, induced him to continue the justices in
office, at the same time providing for additional tribunals for the
adjustment of disputes and the final adjudication of controversies.

    Consistent with his profession of religious faith, he urged the amicable
settlement of all disputes arising among his followers, and to this end
provided for the appointment of "peace-makers" and a mode of "voluntary
arbitration," the general principle of which is in practice in the
commonwealth to this time.  For the incorrigible class, who failed to "agree
with their adversaries while in the way with them," he held the judgments
of courts to be necessary.  To this end the Provincial Council, presided
over by Penn, as proprietary and Governor, exercised judicial powers, and
at times sat as a "High Court of Errors and Appeals."  The novel manner in
which it transacted business of a legal character may be shown by some of
the references to its proceedings still extant.  The following in brief will
illustrate: "The court advised the parties to shake bands and forgive one
another, and ordered that they should enter into bonds for fifty pounds
apiece for their good aberrance, which they accordingly did;" and to
emphasize the extraordinary judicial practice, it was further "ordered that
the records of the court concerning this business be burnt."

    The efforts to blend the executive and judicial powers of the colonial
government, which had also a co-ordinate legislative department in the
General Assembly, elected by the freemen of the colony, met with increasing
opposition, and soon led to the organization of the "County Courts," with
jurisdiction regulated and enlarged from time to time by statute.  This
course was consistent with the best interests of the new community and most
conducive to the peace and tranquillity of society and the permanency of
proprietary and general property rights.  Peter McCall, in his lecture
before the Law Academy of Philadelphia in 1838, refers to the early
institution of these courts:

    "The first organization of the courts was admirable for its simplicity and
convenience.  The County Court in the days of Alfred and Egbert, a tribunal
of great dignity and splendor, was drawn from the obscurity into which it
had sunk after the Norman invasion, and was made the groundwork of the
edifice.  It was composed of the justices of the peace of the several
counties, with an appeal to the Provincial or Supreme Court.  The Provincial
Court originally consisted of five judges.  The members afterward varied
from five to three, who went their circuits every fall and spring in each
county.  To it belonged the cognizance of the higher offenses and all
appeals from the County Courts, both in law and equity.  To complete the
structure there were added the Quarter Sessions and Orphans' Court and the
Admiralty.  Such was the plan of the judicial system established at the
settlement of the colony; so simple, yet so convenient in its arrangements,
that, though frequent alterations were made in its details by subsequent
legislation, the general outline remains to the present day a standing
proof of its enduring excellence."

    The County Courts exercised equity powers and jurisdiction as early as
1685, and the justices while sitting in equity were styled "commissions." 
Governor Penn and the Provincial Council retained Admiralty jurisdiction
and adjudicated all maritime matters until 1693, subsequent to which the
mother-country, assured of the growth of the colony and its important
relation to her shipping and commercial interests, assumed and exercised
the right of appointing judges of the Admiralty Courts.   The

530

commissioners.  of the Admiralty in England nominated and the crown
commissioned the incumbent under the great seal of the High Court of
Admiralty.  These courts continued until the adoption of the Constitution of
the United States, when their jurisdiction was vested in the United States
District Courts.

    For a period of thirty years and upwards, or until 1720, the courts as
instituted worked to the satisfaction of the colony.  Meantime there came
into practice a number of well-trained lawyers, some of them fitted and
prepared for their calling in the schools and courts of England.  Lay judges
and Provincial Councils found in them ingenious advocates and ambitious
men, who often held seats in the General Assemblies and other offices of
trust, and the administration of the law was insisted upon by them with all
exactness that frequently created apparent hardships, which lay judges,
with crude notions of Chancery practice, could not relieve.  Governor Keith
conceived the idea that a separate Court of Equity would meet the wants of
the situation and enable the presiding justices to mitigate all the rigors
of the statute law, and mete out justice to suit the peculiarities of
exceptional cases.  The following proclamation shows the time and manner of
instituting the "Court of Equity," which continued from 1720 to 1735:

                            "A PROCLAMATION."

    Whereas, complaints have been made that Courts of Chancery or Equity are,
absolutely necessary in the administration of justice for mitigating in
many cases ye Rigor of ye Laws, whose judgments are tied down to fixed and
unalterable rules, and for Opening away to the Right and Equity of a cause,
for which the Law cannot in all cases make a sufficient Provision, Have,
notwithstanding, been but too seldom regularly held in this Province in
such a manner as ye Aggrieved Subject might obtain ye Relief which by such
Courts ought to be Granted; and whereas the Representative of ye Freemen of
this province, taking the same into consideration did at their last meeting
in assembly me that I would be ye assistant of ye council open and hold
such a meeting  Court of Equity for this Providence.

    "To ye end therefore, that his majesty's good subject may no longer labor
under those inconveniences which now are complained of I have thought fitt
by, etc., with ye advice of ye Council, hereby published and Declare, That
with their assistance I purpose (God Willing) to open and hold a Court of
Chancery of Equity for this Providence of Pennsylvania at ye Court-House of
Philadelphia on Thursday ye twenty-first day of this instant (August), From
which date the said court will be remain always Open for ye Relief of ye
subject, to hear and Determine all such matters arising within the province
aforesaid as are regularly cognizable before any Court of Chancery
according to ye Laws and Constitution of that part of Great Britain called
England and his Majesty's Judges of his Supreme Court as well as ye
Justices of Superior Courts, and all others whom it may concern, art
required take notice hereof and govern themselves accordingly.  Given at
Philadelphia ye tenth day of August, in ye seventh year of ye Reign of our
Sovereign Lord George, King of Great Britain, France and Ireland, Defender
of Faith , etc., Annoq. Domini, 1720.

                              "God Save the King.

                                           "WILLIAM KEITH."


    This provincial Court of Chancery was in high favor with the proprietary
authorities, but whatever influence, the legal profession had in public
affairs was exerted against it.  It afforded a refuge for the lay Judges to
avoid the close pursuit of the mind of the period, and gave to them a power of
adjudicating questions of great importance in accordance with their
individual opinions, which were found to be as variable as the winds. 
Keith's avowed purpose in establishing this court was "to baffle the
chicanery of lawyers;" but suitors soon found to their sorrow that
unlearned chancellors vested with the exercise of unrestrained opinion
produced a confusion of authority which rather increased than mitigated the
rigors of the common law.  After an experience of fifteen years the court
was abolished, and equity powers were conferred on the justices holding the
County Courts.  Among the eminent lawyers who practiced in this Court of
Equity, and whose hostility finally overthrew it, were Andrew Hamilton, [See NOTE 36-2.]
Clement Plumstead and Robert Assheton.  These great counselors held that
principles of equity could only be safely administered in harmony and
analogy with settled principles of common and statute law, and that the
most learned judges of the courts of law were the ablest chancellors and
quickest to discern wherein the written law is inadequate for all its
behests.  Such judges are most likely to wisely employ those exceptional
powers that have long been intended to supply what tile common law lacks in
the complete ascertainment of rights.

[NOTE 36-2.]

    Andrew Hamilton is one of the most illustrious names in the provincial
history of Pennsylvania.  There was a mystery concerning his origin and
early antecedents that has never been cleared.  Only conjectures could be
indulged about the confusion of the name of Hamilton with that of Trent,
which he sometimes bore, and which, it was often said was the one to which
he was really entitled.  His eminent abilities, the dignity of his carriage,
the courage with which he maintained his connections upon the subjects of
right and liberty, given to public exhibition not very long after his first
appearance in humble guise, have led some to suspect that for some
political or other reason he had fled from his native country, Scotland,
and while yet calling himself occasionally by his paternal name, had
adopted the other, or been heard to say that it was his real name, in
order to avoid identification and pursuit.  Some, indeed, went so far as
to connect him with the duke of the same name, who had fought a duel with
Lord Mohun.




             PICTURE OF ANDREW HAMILTON, APPEARS HERE.




Many inquiries, after his death, were made about his family, but none were
ever satisfactory, except that he was known to have been born about the
year 1676, and when about of age came to the county of Accomac, on the
eastern shore of Virginia.  In one of his addresses before the Assembly

531

of Pennsylvania, after he had become famous, he made that celebrated eulogy
in which, among other things, he spoke of "Liberty, the love of which, as
it first drew to, so it constantly prevailed on me to reside in this
providence, though to the manifest prejudice of my fortune."  When he arrived
at Accomac County he gave his name as Trent.  Shortly after his arrival he
opened a classical school, and was afterward employed as steward upon a
plantation.  On the death of the owner be married his widow, and removing to
Chestertown, in Kent County, Md., began the practice of the law.  How it was
that he went to England not long afterward it has not been told, but it
appeared that he was admitted to the bar of Gray's Inn, London, and in the
winter of 1712-13 he acted as counsel for William Penn in a case of
replevin, brought by one Berkely Codd.  The defense by the proprietary was
that the quit-rent due from Codd's land being a rent service, distress was
incident thereto as of common right.  The account given by James Logan of
this suit shows the astuteness of the counsel, both in assault and timely
retreat.  "He baffled them, though he thought not fit to suffer it to proceed
to a trial for want of better tackle on our side."  What the counselor meant
by "tackle" we cannot precisely say.  It was, perhaps, the sufficiency of
good witnesses or full assurance of the value of the defense.  It is
believed that he removed to Philadelphia about the year 1715.  His bold
temper brought him the following year into collision with Charles Gookin,
who was then Lieutenant Governor of this province, against whom he was
reported to have sworn an oath and uttered other "wicked, opprobrious and
reproachful words."  The bond fixed for his appearance at court to answer the
charge was one thousand pounds, showing either the importance of the injury
that the high official had received or that of the assault made by the
eminent lawyer.  The case did not come to a hearing during the term of
Gookin, and it was discontinued by his successor.  The following year
Hamilton became attorney-general of the province, and in 1720 was invited
to the Council.  He accepted the invitation on condition that his services
should not interfere with his profession.  A letter from James Logan, in
1723, contains expressions that enable us to form an idea of the singular
greatness of spirit that belonged to Hamilton.  "He has for three or four
years past appeared very hearty in the Proprietor's interest,
notwithstanding it is not his natural disposition to be on the side of
those who are accounted great, or one in power; but of late he had somewhat
recoiled, and given more way to nature.  He is very true when he professes
friendship, unless he thinks himself slighted, which he cannot easily
brook.  He is a very able lawyer, very faithful to his client, and has
generally refused to be concerned for any plaintiff who appeared not to
have justice on his side.  He has done many considerable services for our
Governor (Sir William Keith), but of late they have openly been at
variance, for which reason I am of opinion that he will not appear against
the Governor, for he is singularly generous that way.  I have been much
obliged to him, both on my own account and the Proprietor's, and I heartily
wish he may be treated there by the family in such a manner as may engage
him, of which I am somewhat apprehensive." This letter was written to
Gouldney, one of the friends of the Penn family in England, on the occasion
of a prospective voyage of Hamilton thither.  Among other subjects of
dispute with Governor Keith was doubtless Hamilton's opposition to the
Court of Chancery that the later had established in 1720, and which
afterward Hamilton bore the leading part in abolishing.  He sailed for
Europe in 1724, having before then resigned as attorney-general, and
appeared as solicitor in the Court of Chancery in London for proving the
will of William Penn.  For his services to the Penn family he received as
reward one hundred and fifty-three acres of land, lying north of the city,
and west of what is now Ridge Avenue whereon he built his country seat,
"Bush Hill."  In 1727, Hamilton became prothonotary of the Common Pleas and
recorder of the city.  The same year he was elected to the Assembly, of
which, in 1729, he became Speaker.  For ten years consecutively, with one
exception, he was returned to the Assembly.  The exception occurred during
the administration of Governor Gordon, and was owing to a social quarrel
between the Governor's daughters and Miss Margaret Hamilton.  The
particulars we do not know, but this much is certain, that the young ladies
at the Executive Mansion induced their father to employ all his influence,
official and personal, against the father of their rival, and he was
defeated at the polls.

    That, however, for which Hamilton is but known by the greatest number of
persons is his conduct in one celebrated law case, which he conducted for a
defendant in another colony.  The motives that led to his undertaking this
case were not only nor mainly the defense of the individual client who had
been prosecuted, but the establishment of a most important principle that
before his day had been assaulted and dangerously hurt in his own
province.  This was in the case of William Bradford, the first printer in
Philadelphia.

    The case in which Hamilton appeared in New York was that of John Peter
Zenger, indicted in 1735 for a libel against the Governor of New York
before Judge De Lancey, chief justice of the province, Frederick Phillipse,
second judge.  Zenger was defended by James Alexander and William Smith; but
these counsel having made bold to question the jurisdiction of the court
for the trial of the cause, the following, order was passed in quick
indignation: "James Alexander, Esq., and William Smith, attorneys in this
court, having presumed (notwithstanding they were forewarned by the court
of their displeasure if they should do it) to sign, and having actually
signed, and put into court exceptions in the name of John Peter Zenger,
thereby denying the legality of the judges their commissions, though in
the usual form, and the decree of this Supreme Court, it is therefore
ordered that for the said contempt the said James Alexander and William
Smith be excluded from any further practice in this court, and that their
names be struck off the roll of attorneys of this court

               "Per cur                         JAMES LYLE  Cl."

    Being the duty of the court to appoint for the defendant counsel, as he
was now without, they named one whose servility was such as to promise a speedy
conviction.  It was in this emergency that the friends of Zenger applied to
Andrew Hamilton, whose fame, especially as a courageous defender of the
innocent and oppressed, had spread throughout the whole country.  He
accepted the call and repaired to New York.  Whatever were his opinions
concerning the exceptions taken by his predecessors, Alexander and Smith,
he was too astute to wage a warfare at a point shown to be impregnable,
and, with a boldness amounting to audacity, assumed the position taken by
William Bradford nearly half a century before, admitted the truth of the
facts alleged to have been committed and then proposed to adduce testimony
to their existence.  This proposition was of course refused the court.  But
Hamilton entered upon an argument, wherein he gave a history of the trial
by jury, how it had been instituted by our ancestors in order to take from
kings and their minions the absolute power they claimed over the lives,
property and security of the people.  In this connection he spoke with most
splendid eloquence of that other provision, --that in criminal trials the
jury, however unlearned they might be, when they were brought within the
court-room, were invested with powers equal to the judges who sat upon the
bench above them in deciding what were the laws in such cases, with the
added power of saying whether or not they had been violated.  Without
derogating from the powers of the court, he enlarged upon the equality of
the jurors and then he appealed to them to say if it was possible for them
to find that their fellow-citizen, free as they were, and as upright, was
deserving of punishment for what he had done, and what the bravest and
best citizen of New York would feel that he had a right to do, not only
without punishment, but without the fear of it.  Most masterly was his
praise of truth.  His peroration was spoken of as the very highest height
of majestic eloquence.  He called to mind many of the brave of all ages who
had suffered for the truth, and compared their memories with those of the
tyrants, great and small, that had inflicted them.  Even the court could not
withstand the power of his appeals.  The charge of the chief justice was
such as to appear that in his terror of being numbered among the oppressors
of the innocent, be was quite willing to throw the responsibility of
deciding this case upon the jury.  These, after a brief conference, brought
in a verdict of not guilty.  The defense made a profound impression, not
only throughout this country, but in England, where a leading statesman is
reported to have said of it, "If it is not law, it is better than law, it
ought to be law, and will always be law wherever justice prevails;" and it
was further reported that "the greatest men at the bar have openly declared
that the subject of libel was never so well treated in Westminster Hall as
in New York."

532

    The defense of Zenger did not hurt Hamilton in England so as to hinder his
receiving a commission, two years afterward, as judge of the Vice-Admiralty
Court.  We say this because appointments to that court seem to have been
made by commission directly from the crown.  But the reputation of the
appointee was well known to the home government, and that was, that zealous
as he was in the defense of every right of his clients, he was faithful to
the demands of every office he had held or might hold.  He resigned all
other offices except this, and retired from it only a short time before his
death, which occurred in 1741.  The argument given in favor of the
appointment by the crown to the Vice-Admiralty is thus stated by David Paul
Brown in his "Forum:" "We may infer this, both from the nature of the
jurisdiction and from the fact that even in early times they appear to
have belonged to the Church of England: for the only two whom we know to
have been judges were wardens of Christ Church in this city "
(Philadelphia).  One of the earliest of these was William Assheton, who died
in September, 1723, at the early age of thirty-three, being at that time
the rector's warden. -"Hist. Of Phila.," Scharf and Westcott.

[FINIS NOTE 36-2.]

    Reference is due to the distinguished members of the bar who early fought
their way to a just recognition of their services against long-existing
prejudices, -men who made the city and county of Philadelphia a centre of
legal learning, and rendered it possible for a free people to choose a
judiciary thoroughly accomplished and skillful in the administration of
public justice.  Justices of the peace who were merchants and farmers by
occupation sat uneasily upon the judicial bench in the presence of such men
as Andrew Hamilton
Robert Assheton
Benjamin Chew
James Wilson
George Ross
John Moland
John Dickinson
Joseph Reed
Jared Ingersoll
James Dallas
Nicholas Waln
William Lewis
Richard Peters
Hugh H. Brackenbridge
William Rawle and
John Sergeant.

These men were contemporaries in an honorable profession and devotees to an
exact science.  They were giants in the arena of legal conflict.  They left a
lasting impression upon the age in which they lived, and fixed a standard
of attainment and integrity for the profession of law commensurate with the
grave responsibilities imposed by its obligations, trusts and confidences.

    We have already referred to Hamilton.

    ROBERT ASSHETON was a relative of William Penn.  He was educated for the
legal profession and admitted to the bar of England, and subsequently came
to Philadelphia in the year 1699.  He was immediately appointed prothonotary
of the city and county of Philadelphia by the proprietor.  He also held the
office of town clerk in 1701, and aided in drafting the charter for the
city during that year.  He was made recorder in 1708.  It seems to have been
the policy of Penn, while excluding lawyers from the judicial office, to
have them placed in the offices connected with the several courts, where
they could be conveniently consulted, and where they were useful in keeping
proper records of judicial proceedings.  The advent of Assheton resulted in
improved forms of legal proceedings, and David Paul Brown, in his "Forum,"
says, "The indictments drawn by Assheton are entirely scientific; and,
indeed, all the proceedings of the officers, or the court proceedings (I
mean only clerical), appear in general to be good."  He was prothonotary of
the Supreme Court from 1722 to 1726, and was also master in Chancery.  He
died in 1727.

    BENJAMIN CHEW was a student in the office of Andrew Hamilton.  When he
reached the age of nineteen his preceptor died.  A few months later lie was
sent to England, where he entered the Middle Temple.  In 1743, after a full
course of study, he returned to this country, and at once entered upon the
practice of law at Dover, Del.  In 1754 he came to Philadelphia.  The year
following he was appointed attorney-general for the province.  The same year
he was elected a member of the Provincial Council.  He resigned the office
of attorney-general in 1769 and continued an active practitioner until
1774, when he became chief justice of the Supreme Court of the State.  In
1791 he was appointed judge and president of the High Court of Errors and
Appeals, in which office he remained until 1808, when this tribunal was
abolished.  He died in 1810.

    JAMES WILSON studied law under John Dickinson, and was admitted to the 
bar of Philadelphia County in 1767.  He was the first law professor of the
University of Pennsylvania, appointed in 1790.  In connection with Chief
Justice McKean, he wrote "Commentaries on the United States Constitution,"
published in London.  He died in 1798.

    GEORGE Ross was admitted to the bar in 1750.  He was prominent in public
affairs, and was a signer of the Declaration of Independence.  He was the
first judge of the Court of Admiralty, commissioned by the Continental
Congress April 6, 1777.  He presided in this office until the time of his
death, July 14, 1779.

    JOHN DICKINSON entered upon the study of law in Philadelphia about 1852, in
the office of John Moland.  Subsequently he spent three years in London in
the completion of his studies; then, returning, be commenced the practice
of his profession in the lower counties, but soon settled in Philadelphia
County, and was elected to the Assembly in 1762.  He became a member of the
Supreme Executive Council in 1780, and was president of that body in 1782. 
He died February 14, 1808.

    JOSEPH REED was admitted to the bar at Philadelphia in 1763.  Not satisfied
with the attainments acquired as a graduate of Princeton College and his
subsequent study under Hon. Richard Stockton, he spent two years at the
Middle Temple, London, and returning in 1765, he rapidly rose to eminence. 
He was appointed Secretary of State for the colonies in 1772, and became a
conspicuous character during the Revolution.  He declined the office of
chief justice of the Supreme Court in 1777.  He was elected president of the
Supreme Council in 1778, and presided for three years with marked ability. 
His connection with the judiciary was by virtue of this office, which made
him ex-officio president of the High

533

Court of Errors and Appeals. [See NOTE 36-3.]  He died March 5, 1 1785, in the 
forty-fourth year of his age.

[See NOTE 36-3.]

    The High Court of Errors and Appeals was established by act of February
28, 1780, to hear appeals from the Supreme Court, the Registers Court and
the court of Admiralty; it was abolished by act of February 24, 1806.  The
judges were to be the president of the Supreme Executive Council, the
judges of the Supreme Court, and three persons of known integrity and
ability to be commissioned for seven years, and five or more to form a
quorum.  By the act of April 13, 1791, section 17, the judges of the Supreme
Court, the president judges of the several Courts of Common Pleas of the
five judicial districts and three other persons of known legal abilities
were constituted a High Court of Errors and Appeals, to hear appeals from
the Supreme Court and the Registers Court.  ("Reads Digest," 70, article 23,
section 17; in this Digest will be found many sets relating to the courts
from the act of May 22, 17292, to 1800.)  By an act of September 30, 1791, a
president judge was to be appointed by the Governor of the commonwealth.


          LIST OF JUDGES.

Joseph Reed, commissioned November 20, 1780
Thomas McKean, commissioned November 20, 1780
William Augustus Atlee, commissioned November 20, 1780
John Evans, commissioned November 20, 1780
George Bryan, commissioned November 20, 1780
James Smith, commissioned November 20,1780
Henry Wyncoop commissioned November 20, 1790
Francis Hopkinson, commissioned November 20, 1780
William Moore, commissioned November 14, 1781
John Dickinson, commissioned November 7, 1782
James Bayard, commissioned March 18, 1783
Samuel Miles, Commissioned April 7, 1783
Jacob Rush, commissioned February 26, 1784
Edward Shippen, commissioned September 16, 1784
Benjamin Franklin, commissioned October 18, 1785
Thomas Mifflin, commissioned November 5, 1788
William Bradford, Jr.  register.

    -Reorganized under act of April 13, 1791.

Benjamin Chew (president), appointed September 30, 1791
Thomas McKean, appointed April 13, 1791
Edward Shippen, appointed April 13, 1791
Jasper Yeates, appointed April 13 1791
William Bradford, appointed August 20, 1791
James Biddle, appointed September 3, 1791
William Augustus Atlee, appointed September, 1, 1791
Jacob Rush, appointed September 1.  1791
James Biddle, appointed September 1, 1791
Alexander Addison, appointed September 1, 1791
Thomas Smith, appointed January 31, 1794;
John D. Coxe, appointed April 6, 1797
Hugh Henry Brakenridge, appointed December 18, 1799
William Tilghman, appointed July 31, 1805
Edward Burd, register

[FINIS NOTE 36-3.]

    JARED INGERSOLL, a Connecticut youth, was a student in the office of Reed. 
After his admission to the bar be spent several years in Europe in the
further prosecution of his studies and in observations of the practice of
the courts of the continent.  Upon his return to Philadelphia he devoted
himself to practice, and as early as 1797 was retained in the impeachment
trial of United States Senator William Blunt, of Tennessee.  He was
appointed attorney-general of Pennsylvania by Governor Snyder in 1811 and
held the position through the trying period of the war of 1812, and
resigned in 1816.  He was appointed judge of the District Court for the city
and county of Philadelphia in 1820, and died while in office, October 31, 1822.

    ALEXANDER JAMES DALLAS was of Scotch origin.  Thrown upon his own resources
at the age of fifteen, he soon after began the study of law in London. 
Before concluding his studies he embarked in mercantile pursuits, and found
his way to the West Indies.  At the age of twenty-one he married Arabella
Maurice, daughter of Major George Smith, of the British army, and in 1783
arrived in Philadelphia, where he concluded to settle.  He registered as a
student of law, and two years later, 1785, was admitted to practice.
Mr. Dallas had a fondness for literary pursuits and during his early career
devoted some portion of his time with Francis Hopkinson, in the management
of the "Columbian Magazine."  Later he published "Reports of Pennsylvania
Cases."  [See NOTE 36-4.]  These cases were among the first reported, and are
to this day referred to as authority in our courts of law.  He served as secretary
of the commonwealth of Pennsylvania, declined the proffered appointment of
Attorney-General of the United States, was subsequently appointed Secretary
of the Treasury of the national government, and in 1815 acted as Secretary
of War.  Returning to Philadelphia in 1816, he there resumed the practice of
law.  David Paul Brown says: "Mr. Dallas was a man of the most fascinating
and courtly manners.  He dressed with great taste, ordinarily in a suit of
olive-brown, with small clothes and top-boots; he had an abundance of
hair, which he always wore powdered and gathered into a bag-cue."  His
biographer says of him: "If he had not been a lawyer, he would have been a
great statesman; and if he had not been a statesman, he would have been one
of the greatest lawyers of the age."  He died January 16, 1817.

[NOTE 36-4.]

    These cases not only contained the judgments and arguments before the
Supreme Court, but many cases disposed of before the Revolution.  They
carried the reports from 179O -when the first volume was published -to 1807. 
They contained decisions of the Supreme Court, High Court of Errors and
Appeals, and of the Courts of Common Pleas and of the United States in
Pennsylvania.  Mr.  Dallas soon became prominent in politics.  He was
appointed secretary of the commonwealth of Pennsylvania January 19, 1791,
and held that office until April 28, 1801.  At this time he was appointed by
Mr. Jefferson attorney of the United States for the Eastern District of
Pennsylvania, and was appointed in July of the same year, by Governor
McKean, recorder of the city of Philadelphia.  He resigned the latter office
in 1802, but he held the office of district attorney until 1813, when he
was succeeded by Richard Peters, Jr.  In October 1814, he was appointed
Secretary of the Treasury of the United States, and on the 13th of March,
1815, also assumed the duties of the Secretary of War, which, together with 
those of the Secretary of the Treasury, he discharged until he resigned.  
In November, 1816, and returned to the practice of his profession.

[FINIS NOTE 36-4.]

    NICHOLAS WALN came to the bar in Philadelphia County in 1763, under the
most flattering auspices.  He, too, finished his professional studies at the
capital city of the mother country.  Returning to the province, he early
took rank with the most learned and successful men at the bar, but after
many years arduous labor he suddenly resolved to retire.  His reason for
abandoning the promising position which he at the time enjoyed is in doubt,
and a recent writer [NOTE: Scharf, "History of Philadelphia."] on the subject 
says, "Whether Mr. Waln was a man of uncommonly acute sensibilities, or had 
not fully understood the merits of the cause that led to the action, or felt 
that in his too eager pursuit he had been derelict to the duty that binds all 
lawyers never to overstep the limits of justice when pleading the cause of clients, 
can not now be determined.  It was after he had been at the bar for some years 
that, having been struck with contrition it consequence Of his assistance in a 
case in which he thought his client had 'unjustly won

534

the cause,' he withdrew from the practice of the law and subsequently
devoted his life and energies to the service of religion as a preacher of
the Society of Friends."

    WILLIAM LEWIS furnishes one of the earliest and most notable examples of
the self-made lawyers of the colonial period.  He was born in Chester County in
the year 1751.  In his boyhood days he happened to be in Philadelphia, and
while there visited the courts during an important trial, and heard several
of the leading lawyers speak for and in defense of their clients.  He was
charmed with their eloquence and display of learning.  He resolved on the
spot to become a lawyer; to this end he at once entered upon a course of
self-culture, and registered himself as a student of Nicholas Waln, Esq. 
Keenly sensible of his want of preparation, and the unfavorable contrast of
manners and habits of life suggested by his awkward ways among those who
enjoyed all the advantages of wealth, education and cultured society, he
was far from being happy.  The impulse of the boy in the courtroom,
quickened by daily intercourse with the profession, became a determination
of the rugged man.  His very boldness won for him the respect of his
fellow-students, while his industry and application enabled him in due time
to meet the expectations of his conscientious preceptor, and his triumph
was complete when duly admitted to the bar.  If Mr. Lewis was wanting in the
polished manners and refined taste is so common among the professional men
of the period, the loss was fully compensated by his splendid energy and
force of character.  He differed from most of his contemporaries in being
indifferent to the blandishments of public or political life.  He addressed
himself exclusively to his duties as a lawyer, and soon became eminent in
the profession.  He became a partner of Mr. Waln before his retirement, and
retained the clientage of the office after that event.  Wit, humor and
sarcasm were powerful weapons with him, but he employed them only for a
specific purpose and parted with them with an air of absolute indifference
after serving his will.  Lewis made a specialty of commercial law, and he
was among the most successful in this important branch of the profession. 
An illustration of his character occurs in connection with the life of
Robert Morris, who was among the best informed of merchants in his day. 
Morris and Lewis were guests at a dinner-party.  The former was an attentive
listener to Lewis in discussing the commercial relations between this
country and Europe.  Upon rising from the table, Morris observed to the
company, in a manner intended as complimentary, that "Mr. Lewis seemed as
familiar with commercial affairs as if he had been in a counting-house all
his life." "Let me tell you, sir," said Lewis, "that a competent lawyer knows
'everything' that a merchant does and a 'great deal more.'"  His frankness was
characteristic of the man.  He relates of himself in experience with
Alexander Hamilton, which occurred in the trial of an important case in
New York.  He had courteously given a brief statement of his case and his
authorities to Mr. Hamilton, who had been called into the case unexpectedly
by reason of Chancellor Kent's sudden illness.  Mr. Lewis says "He thanked
me, left me, and in an hour afterward we met in court and the argument at
once proceeded.  I spoke for several hours.  The judges seemed convinced and
I was perfectly satisfied with them and myself.  During the argument Mr.
Hamilton took no notes, sometimes fixed his penetrating eyes upon me
and sometimes walked the chamber, apparently deeply interested, but
exhibiting no anxiety.  When I finished he took the floor, and, to my
amazement, he acknowledged all my points and denied none of my authorities,
but assumed it position which had never entered my mind to the support of
which directing all his great powers, in one-fourth of the time employed by
me, no not only satisfied the court, but 'convinced' me that I was utterly
wrong.  In short, after my time and toil and confidence, I was beaten,
shamefully beaten."  While there is much to commend and admire in the life
and experience of the "self-made man" of the past and present, it is
perhaps fortunate that he is the exception and not the rule in the class or
sphere in which he is occasionally found.  It seems almost impossible for
men who have risen to eminence without those facilities enjoyed by most
others who are no higher than themselves not to overrate their own unaided
efforts and imagine that had they enjoyed advantages equal to others more
fortunately situated they would have, risen above the rest of mankind. 

    To the distinguished names mentioned we should add those of Richard
Peters, Hugh Henry Brackenbridge, William Rawle and John Sergeant as among
the lawyers who established the standard of professional responsibility and
fidelity of the bar in Philadelphia County, and who faithfully served our
forefathers prior to the formation of Montgomery County, and some [See NOTE 36-5.] 
of whom practiced in Montgomery County since the time of its organization.  The
character of the early judiciary in the province is sufficiently indicated
by these observations upon the rise of the bar to show the great change
that time has wrought.  It is proper to add that after a careful examination
of the history of the times during which judges were appointed without
reference to their legal attachments, men of high character for honesty and
integrity were selected, and, in some instances, the incumbents exerted
themselves to acquire useful knowledge in preparing to discharge their
duties with more than ordinary credit to themselves and the office they
filled.  This was notably the case with Frederick Augustus Muhlenburg, who
was president

[NOTE 36-5.]

    Among the appearance in the Congress Pleas dockets of Montgomery County
prior to 1710 we find the names
Chew
Ross
Ingersoll
Rawle and
Sergeant.

[FINIS NOTE 36-5.]

535

judge of the first courts established in Montgomery County.

    The following-named persons, all of whom were in commission as justices
of the peace for the county of Philadelphia, and residing in that portion
which fell within the boundaries of the new county, were designated by the
Supreme Executive Council to open and hold the first courts in Montgomery
County:

James Morris, date of commission unknown.
John Richards, commissioned 1784.
Henry Sheetz, commissioned 1784.
William Dean, commissioned 1783.
Justice Muhlenberg, presided.

    The first court was held in Norriton township the 28th day of December,
1784, in the barn on the "Barley Sheaf" Hotel property, now owned by
Benjamin Baker, located on the Germantown turnpike a short distance
northwest of Hartranft Station, on the Stony Creek Railroad.  John Shannon
kept the hotel at that time.  Traditionary accounts [See NOTE 36-6.] describe the event as of
unusual interest and the attendance as very large.  Preparation for the
occasion was in progress for several days.  The barn was cleared of its
unsightly furniture, hay and straw were neatly packed away, cobwebs were
brushed from overhead and the oaken floor was swept clean for the
novel occupancy.

[NOTE 36-6.]

    Elizabeth Shannon, grandchild of the proprietor named, new residing at
Norristown, is the editor's authority.

[FINIS NOTE 36-6.]


    THE JUDICIARY.  -The first presiding judge in Montgomery County was
Frederick A. Muhlenberg who served from December 28, 1784, until the September 
term, 1785, when he was succeeded by James Morris, who was succeeded
in the order of seniority among the five justices who constituted the court
at the date of its organization.  Judge Morris served until 1789.  It is
clear that for the first five years, 1784 to 1789, the courts in this
county were presided over by judges unlearned in the law.  Under the
Constitution of 1790 the executive department of the State was vested in
the office of Governor, and early in 1701 the first Governor elect, Thomas
Mifflin, commissioned James Biddle judge of the courts of Montgomery
County.

    Judge Biddle served until 1797, when Judge John D. Coxe, who filled the
office fill 1805, when William Tilghman succeeded him.

    By the act of April 13, 1791, in order to carry into effect the
provisions of the Constitution of 1790 establishing Courts of Common Pleas,
the State was divided into five judicial districts, the city and county of
Philadelphia, Bucks, Montgomery and Delaware constituting the First
District, and a president judge learned in the law was to be appointed for
each district, and not fewer than three nor more than four other persons
appointed in each county as judges, which said president and judges were
empowered to execute the powers, jurisdictions and authorities of the Court
of Common Pleas, Courts of Oyer and Terminer, and General Gaol Delivery,
Orphans' Courts and Courts of Quarter Sessions or the Peace, agreeably to
the laws and constitution of the common wealth.  It would seem that the act
above referred to is the first of the kind passed in this State requiring
judges to, be learned in the law.  William Tilghman, LL.D., appointed
president judge by Governor Thomas McKean in 1805, occupied the bench for
one year in Montgomery County.  He was born August 12, 1756.  He studied law
with Benjamin Chew.  His families were originally from Maryland, but had
resided in Philadelphia for several years prior to the Revolution, and upon
the opening of hostilities returned to that State.  Their William remained
in comparative retirement during the struggle, pursuing his studies.  He
returned to Philadelphia about 1790 and entered upon the practice of his
profession.  In 1793 he married  Margaret Elizabeth, daughter of James
Allen, son of William Allen, chief justice of Pennsylvania, who was the
son-in-law of Andrew Hamilton, and was said to be the wealthiest man in the
province at that time.  The first judicial office to which he was appointed
was that of the United States Circuit Court.  He was nominated by President
John Adams in 1801, and by the political opponents of Mr. Adams' administration 
was called one of the "Midnight Judges." [See NOTE 36-7.]  The violent
opposition of President Jefferson to the act of Congress reorganizing the
United States Courts, under which Tilghman received his first appointment,
induced its repeal and, of course, the retirement or those in office under
its provisions.  His appointment to the bench in the First Judicial District
in the State followed in 1805, upon the resignation of Judge Coxe,

[NOTE 36-7.]

    Thompson Westcott, author of the "History of Philadelphia," as quoted by
John Hill Martin, in a note to the latter's "Beach and Bar," as having (in
the "Sunday Dispatch," October 8, 1876) this following account of the
"Midnight Judges"; John Adams, while President, toward the end of his term,
seriously urged a reorganization of the Federal Judiciary.  The Circuit
Courts ware held by the judges of the Supreme Court, but the business was
increased so much that the appointment of additional judges was considered
necessary.  On the 13th of February, 1801, an act was passed reducing the
number of the judges of the Supreme Court to five whenever a vacancy
occurred, and released these Judges from all circuit duty.  The number of
United States District Court was increased to twenty-three and the
districts were arranged in six circuits, each circuit with three judges. 
The result was to create sixteen new judges, besides attorneys, clerks,
marshals and other officers.  As it was near the end of Adams' term, and as
Jefferson was elected four days after the act was passed it was supposed
that the President would allow his successor to make the appointments, but
he did nothing of the sort.  He sent to the Senate, on the 18th, the names of

Charles Lee, of the District of Columbia
Jared Ingersoll, of Pennsylvania
Richard Bassett, of Delaware
William Griffith, of New Jersey
Egbert Beason, of New York
Oliver Wolcott, of Connecticut
Samuel Hitcock, of Vermont
Philip Barton Key, of Maryland
John Davis, of Massachusetts
Jacob Read, of South Carolina
Elijah Paine, of Vermont
Ray Greene, of Rhode Island
John Sitgreaves, of North Carolina
Joseph Clay, of Georgia
William McClurg, of Kentucky
William H. Hill, of North Carolina.

    Jared Ingersoll having declined the appointment Mr. Tilghman was afterwards
nominated in his place.  The term "Midnight Judges" arose from a story
that the names of some of them were continued just before midnight, 1801,
when Mr. Adams' term expired.  The act was repealed the following year.

[FINIS NOTE 36-7.]

536

and a vacancy occurring in the office of chief justice, of the Supreme
Court of Pennsylvania the following year, he was commissioned to fill
that office, which he held for a period of twenty-one years, or until his
death, which occurred on the 30th of April, 1827.

    The long administration of Chief Justice Tilghman, and the remarkable
ability, industry and pleasing character of the man, have always been
spoken the most flattering terms by those associated with him.  Horace
Binney, Esq., in his eulogium, says: "It was reserved for Judge Tilghman,
with the aid of able and enlightened colleagues, to carry into effect the
plan which the genius of his great predecessor (Judge Shippen) had
conceived.  His philosophical mind perceived at once how equity could be
combined with law how two systems apparently discordant could be
amalgamated into one homogeneous whole.  He found in the common law itself
principles analogous to those which courts of equity enforce, -principles too
long obscured by the unmeaning distinctions and frivolous niceties of
scholastic men.  He wiped off the dust from the diamond and restored it to
its primitive splendor; and though he did not entirely complete that
immense work, which still wants the aid of wise legislators and liberal
judges, he brought it to that degree of perfection which defies all
attempts to destroy it in future, and Pennsylvania boasts of a code of laws
which her ordinary courts may safely administer without the fear of doing
injustice and without needing to be checked by an extraordinary tribunal
professing a different system of jurisprudence.  With the same enlightened
and philosophical spirit, Judge Tilghman always gave a fair and liberal
construction to the statutes which the Legislature made from time to time
for the amendment of the law and simplifying the forms of procedure, which,
however they might be suited to the meridian of England, were not well
calculated for this country.  If those statutes were not always drawn with
the requisite skill, he would supply it by their spirit, and would, as
much as indeed he could, carry into effect the intentions or the
legislator.  Thus, by his interpretation of the statutes called of Jeofail,
our practice is now free, from those technical entanglements by which
justice was too often caught, its it were, in a net, and the merits of it
cause made to yield to formal niceties, while chicane rejoiced at the
triumph of iniquity.  Chief Justice Tilghman could have done as much with
this by the force of his authority as any judge that ever sat in his seat. 
His investigations were known to he so faithful, his reasonings, so just
and his convictions so impartial that there would have been a ready
acceptance of his conclusions without it knowledge of the steps that led to
them.  He asked, however, for submission to no authority so rarely as to his
own.  You may search his opinions in vain for anything like personal
assertion.  He never threw the weight, of his office into the scale, which
the weight of his argument did not turn.  He spoke and wrote as the 
minister of reason, claiming obedience to her and selecting with scrupulous
modesty such language as, while it sustained the dignity of his office,
kept down from the relief, in which he might well have appeared, the
individual who filled it.  Look over the judgments of more than twenty
years, many of them rendered by this excellent magistrate after his title
to unlimited deference was established by a right more divine than king's. 
There is not to be found one arrogant, one supercilious expression turned
against the opinions of other judges, one vainglorious regard toward
himself.  He does not write as if it occurred to him that his writings would
be examined to fix his measure when compared with his standard of great
men, but as if their exclusive use was to assist in fixing a standard of
the law."  The praise which is given of Chief Justice Tilghman's compassion
for those tried for criminal offenses is one of the noblest panegyrics to
be found.  "He could not but pronounce the sentence of the law upon such as
were condemned to hear it, but the calmness, the dignity, the impartiality
with which lie ordered their trials, the attention which he gave to such as
involved life, and the touching manner of his last office to the convicted
demonstrated his sense of the peculiar responsibility which belonged to
this part of his functions.  In civil controversies (such excepted as, by
some feature of injustice, demanded a notice of the parties) he reduced the
issue freely, much to an abstract form, and solved it as if it had been an
algebraic problem.  But in criminal cases there was a constant reference to
the wretched persons whose fate was suspended before him, and in the very
celerity with which he endeavored to dispose of the accusation he evinced
his sympathy.  It was his invariable effort, without regard to his own
health, to finish a capital case at one sitting if any portion of the night
would suffice for the object, and one of his declared notions was to
terminate as soon as possible that harrowing solicitude (worse even than
the worst certainty) which a protracted trial brings to the unhappy
prisoner.  He never pronounced the sentence of death without severe pain, -in
the first instance it was the occasion of anguish; in this, as in many other
points, he bore a strong resemblance to Sir Matthew Hale.  His awful
reverence of the Great Judge of all mankind, and the humility with which he
habitually walked in that presence, made him uplift the sword of, justice
as if it scarcely belonged to mail, himself a suppliant, to let it fall on
the neck of his fellow-man."

    The closing events of the life of this truly great man render his memory
dear, not only to the profession, but also to all good people.  Before his
death he emancipated all his slaves.  His offices of usefulness extended
beyond the limits of the legal profession.  He was for many years a member
of the American Philosophical Society, and became president of the society,
in 1824.  He was a trustee of the University of Pennsylvania, the first
president of the Athenaeum

537

and a warden of the United Churches.  On his last birthday he wrote the
following summarized reflections upon the conscious sunset of life: "This
day completes my seventieth year, the period which is said to bound the
life of man.  My constitution is impaired, but I cannot sufficiently thank
God that my intellects are sound, that I am afflicted with no painful
disease, and that sufficient health remains to make life comfortable.  I
pray for the grace of the Almighty to enable me to walk, during the short
remainder of life, in His ways.  Without His aid I am Sensible that my
efforts are unavailing May I submit with gratitude to all His
dispensations, never forget that He is the witness of my actions and even
of my thoughts, arid endeavor to honor, love and obey Him with all my
heart, soul and strength."

  MONTGOMERY IN CIRCUIT DISTRICTS.  -By act of April 13, 1791 ("Smiths Laws,"
vol. iii. p. 28), the State was divided into five districts or circuits,
the first of which was to consist of the city and county of Philadelphia
and the counties of Bucks, Montgomery and Delaware.

  Section third of the same act provides that in each of said circuits a
"person of knowledge and integrity skilled in laws, [See NOTE 36-8.] shall 
be appointed and commissioned by the Governor to be president and judge of 
the Courts of Common Pleas within such circuit; and that a number of other 
proper persons, not fewer than three nor more than four, shall be appointed 
and commissioned judges of the Courts of Common Pleas in and for each and 
every of the counties of this commonwealth."

[NOTE 3-8.]

    This believed to be the first statute in Pennsylvania requiring judges to
be learned in the law as a qualification to perform the duties of this
office.

[FINIS NOTE 3-8.]

    Prior to the division of the State into the circuits named, and the
appointment of president judges therefor, the judges of the Supreme Court
presided in the several courts in the trial of all capital cases (see act
of May 22,1722 Smiths Laws," vol. i. p. 141).  

    MONTGOMERY IN JUDICIAL DISTRICTS.  -By the act of September 10, 1784,
creating the county, it is provided that the justices of the Supreme Court of
this State shall have like powers, jurisdictions and authorities within said
county of Montgomery as in the other counties within this State, and are
authorized and empowered from time to time to deliver the goal of said county
of capital or other offenders in like manner as they are authorized to do in
other counties of the State." 

    By act of February 24, 1806 (P. L., p. 388), Delaware, Chester, Bucks and
Montgomery Counties were constituted the Seventh Judicial District in the
State.

    By act of March 12, 1821 (P. L., p. 85), Delaware, and Chester Counties were
constituted the Fifteenth Judicial District, leaving Bucks and Montgomery
Counties to constitute the Seventh Judicial District in the State.

By act of April 9, 1874 (P. L., p. 55), Montgomery County was constituted
the Thirty-eighth Judicial District in the State.

                         PRESIDENT JUDGES.

Frederick A. Muhlenberg, presided from 1784 to 1785

James Morris, from 1785 to 1789

James Biddle, [See NOTE 36-9.] from 1791 to 1797

John D. Coxe, from 1797 to 1805

William Tilghman, from 1805 to 1806.

Bird Wilson, from 1806 to 1818.

John Ross, from 1818 to 1830.

John Fox, from 1830 to 1841.

Thomas Burnside, from 1841 to 1847.

David Krause, from 1845 to 1851.

Daniel M. Smyser, from 1851, elected under the amendment to the
constitution of 1838.

Henry Chapman from 1862 to 1872.

Henry P. Ross, from 1872 to 1882.

Henry P. Ross, re-elected, served from 1882.

Charles H. Stinson, appointed April 17, 1882
  vice Judge Henry P. Ross, deceased.

B. Markley Boyer, elected first Tuesday in November, 1882, to serve ten
years.

                 ADDITIONAL LAW JUDGES.

Henry P. Ross, elected 1869
Arthur G. Olmstead, appointed 1871 vice Henry P. Ross, elected president judge
L. Stokes Roberts, elected 1872
Richard Watson, appointed January 19, 1873, vice L. Stokes Roberts, resigned.

                 ASSOCIATE JUDGES.

John Richards appointed November 1, 1784, by J. Dickinson.

James Morris appointed September 29, 1784, by James Ewing.

Thomas Craig appointed September 10, 1784, by J. Dickinson.

Henry Scheetz appointed December 10, 1784, by James Ewing.

Peter Evans, appointed December 17, 1784, by James Ervine.

James Morris, appointed July 29, 1786, by J. Dickinsion.

Christian Weber, appointed November 7, 1786, by Charles Biddle.

Charles Baird, appointed February 15, 1787, by Charles Biddle.

Jonathan Shoemaker, appointed September 25, 1787, by Charles Biddle.

John Jones, appointed November 15, 1787, by Benjamin Franklin.

Henry Pauling, appointed January 20, 1751, by George Ross

Anthony Crothers, appointed February 7, 1789, by Thomas Mifflin.

Robert Loller, appointed September 25, 1787, by Thomas Mifflin.

The above were appointed by the president of the Executive Council.

In 1790, by alteration of the constitution, the appointing power having
been vested In the Governor, the following were thus appointed:

Samuel Potts appointed August 17, 1791, by Thomas Mifflin.

Benjamin Rittenhouse appointed August 17, 1791, by Thomas Mifflin.

Robert Loller appointed August 17, 1791, by Thomas Mifflin.

Benjamin Markley appointed August 17, 1791, by Thomas Mifflin.

John Jones appointed July 16, 1793, by Thomas Mifflin.

Richard R. Jones appointed Augnst 10, 1822, by Joseph Heister.

Thomas Lowry appointed January 8, 1824 by J. A. Shultz.

Joseph Royer, appointed May 10, 1837 by Joseph Ritner.

Morris Longstreth appointed March 15, 1841, by David R. Porter.

Josiah W. Evans appointed April 14, 1843, by David R. Porter.

Ephraim Fenton appointed February 15, 1848, by Francis R. Shunk.

Josiah W. Evans appointed April 14, 1848, by Francis R. Shunk.

Joseph Hunsicker appointed April 6, 1849, by William F. Johnson.

Henry Longaker and Josiah W. Evans were elected by the people under the
amendment of the constitution in October 1851 receiving their commissions
on the 16th of November of that year.

Nathaniel Jacoby elected October 9, 1855.

Henry Longaker elected October 14, 1855

Nathaniel Jacoby elected October 9, 1860.

John Dismant elected October 8, 1861.

Hiram C. Hoover elected October 10,1865

Jobn Dismant elected October 9, 1866

Hiram C. Hoover elected October 11, 1870.

Isaac F. Yost elected October 10, 1871.

Office abolished by Constitution of 1874.

[NOTE 36-9.]
 
    James Biddle, John D Coxe, and William Tilghman appear as president judges 
of the Court of Common Pleas for Philadelphia for the same date as in Montgomery County.

[FINIS NOTE 36-9.] 

538

    The office of associate judge was abolished by the Constitution of 1874,
those in office holding over until the expiration of the term for which
they were elected.

EXTRACT OF MINUTE OF COURT OF COMMON PLEAS, NOVEMBER ADJOURNED COURT, 1876.

    "And now, Friday, November 10, 1873.  The Court being about to adjourn
without day, and it being the end of the term of the Hon. Isaac F. Yost,
the last Associate Judge of the Courts of Montgomery County under the
Constitution of 1838, Ross, P. J., said that he felt it due that he
should make public acknowledgment of his belief in the perfect integrity,
purity and honesty of his retiring associate; that during the entire course
of his judicial term, Judge Yost had been animated by a desire to do his
duty, and that he carried with him into private life the regard of the
bench, the respect of the bar and the confidence of the entire community. 
More could be said of none or his predecessors and less could not be
said of him.

    "The Hon. B. M. Boyer, in behalf of the bar, responded by saying that the
court had uttered what the bar felt and what the public believed; that in
declaring that Judge Yost had been an upright, honest and pure magistrate
be only echoed the general expression of every lawyer and the public; and
that he gladly seized this opportunity to speak for himself and brethren
and to assure Judge Yost that he had acquired, maintained and would take
with him the esteem kind respect of the bar and people of Montgomery County.

    "Colonel Theo. W. Bean said, 'Your honor has referred with appropriateness
to an event, which renders the closing proceedings of this court of more
than usual public interest.  For almost a century the president judges of
the judicial district have been aided in the performance of their official
duties by associates, the last of whom, in the person of the Hon. Isaac F.
Yost, retires with the expiration of the term for which be was elected five
years ago, and the office ceases to exist.  Changes in the forms of organic
law, as it applies to the administration of public justice, have been
frequent and important in this commonwealth.  In 1784, when this county was
established, four Justices of the Peace were appointed by the Supreme
Executive Council to hold the courts, none of who were learned in the law. 
Subsequently the Governor was authorized to appoint all president judges,
the incumbents holding the position for life, and later the office became
elective, and now the duties of the lay or associate are added to those of
the President Judge, who must be learned in the law.  While we do not
question the wisdom of the change which makes one public office less, we
sincerely regret to part with an official whose integrity and uniform
courtesy and impartiality has won for him the just esteem of his
professional associates and the good people he has served.'

  "Eo-die, the Court directed that the proceedings be spread upon the
minutes."


    JUDGE BIRD WILSON, D.D., LL.D., was born at Carlisle, Pa., on the 8th day
of January, 1777, and graduated at the University of Pennsylvania in
1792, at the age of fifteen years.  He was admitted to the bar of
Philadelphia in 1797, in his twentieth year.  He was eminently fitted for
public life, but never permitted his official duties to interfere with his
continuous studies, which he pursued all through his remarkable life.  He
was an accomplished lawyer, a humane and learned judge, passing to realms
of new, if not higher, thought as years and new honors crowded upon him. 
His biographer [Wm. J. Buck. in Auge's "Men of Montgomery County."] thus speaks of him:

    "For a time he held a position of trust in the office of the
commissioner of the bankrupt law, his next appointment being president
judge, in 1806, of the Court of Common Pleas in the Seventh Circuit,
comprising the counties of Bucks, Montgomery, Chester unit Delaware, in
which he succeeded Wm. Tilghman.  As soon as he had entered on the duties of
his office he made Norristown his residence, and thus became one of the
most active workers In the building of St. John's Episcopal Church, which
was commenced in 1813 and finished the following year, being the first house
of worship erected there, of which he was one of the wardens.

    "At this time he also edited an edition of the 'Abridgement of the Law,'
published in Philadelphia in seven octavo volumes.  In speaking of this
work, Judge Story says that he 'has enriched it with many valuable
additions.'  A murder was committed near the present town of Media, in which
a young man of very respectable family connections was implicated, and was
implicated before him October 20, 1817, which resulted in his conviction in
the first degree.  But the judge was unwilling to sentence him.  After
several postponements he finally concluded to resign the position, Judge
Ross taking his place April 13, 1818, and the condemned received his
sentence from the latter. [See NOTE 36-10.]

    "Judge Wilson now devoted himself to the ministry, and studied under
Bishop White, by who he was admitted a deacon in March, 1819, and soon
after chosen rector of St. John Episcopal Church at Norristown and the
charge of St. Thomas' Church, at Whitemarsh, which he held till the
summer of 1821, having been appointed a professor of systematic divinity in
the General Theological Seminary at New York, he removed there.  In 1850 he
became emeritus professor of the same, which position he filled till near
the close of his life.  In 1829 he was elected secretary of the House of
Bishops, in which capacity he continued until 1841, when he declined
re-election.  His 'Memoir of the Life of Bishop White' was published in 1839,
which contains also the early history of the Episcopal Church in this
county.  The University of Pennsylvania conferred the degree of D.D. upon
him in 1821, and of LL.D. by Columbia College in 1843.  He died April 14,
1859, aged eighty-three years, and was buried in the ground belonging to
Christ Church, at the corner of Fifth and Arch Streets, Philadelphia."

[NOTE 36-10.]

    This was John H. Craige, a dissipated blacksmith, who shot his neighbor
Edward Hunter, Esq., who had been instrumental in writing his father-in-law's
will, thereby disinheriting him, and thus incurred his enmity.  Craige shot
as he was standing in his stable, and was hanged for it at Chester June 6,
1818.   His confession was one of the first pamphlets the author read in his
youth.

[FINIS NOTE 36-10.]

    JUDGE JOHN ROSS.  -John Ross was the son of Thomas Ross, the first noted
ancestor of the family and who was an approved preacher among the Friends
in Bucks County.  John was born in Solebury Township in 1770.  Receiving a
fair education and reaching full manhood, he entered the law-office of his
cousin, Thomas Ross, they located at West Chester, Chester Co., Pa.  Having
finished his studies, he shortly afterwards located in Northampton County,
Pa., where he soon acquired an extensive practice, and took an active part
in local and general politics.

    He was elected to Congress in the district composed of Northampton,
Bucks, Lehigh, Wayne and Pike Counties, and while serving In this office in
the year 1718 was appointed, by Governor Findlay, president judge of the
judicial district then composed of Bucks, Chester, Delaware and Montgomery
Counties, to succeed Judge Bird Wilson, resigned.  The "Village Record," in
commenting upon the appointment at the time, says,-

    "Mr. Ross has been for the last fifteen years at extensive practice in
Northampton and neighboring counties; he is a learned and able lawyer.  As
an advocate, he neither aims at pathos nor goes out of his way to round out
a period, but he always opens his cause in a clear manner, presents the
strong points lucidly to view, and enforces his arguments with
perspicuity, often with eloquence."

    "Mr. Ross is a man of active mind and decided character.  In referring to
his politics, we mean only to gratify the natural curiosity of our readers
who when a new officer is appointed, wish to know all about him and not to
intimate that his politics will influence him on the beach; there, we are
confident, he will be known neither as a Federalist nor Democrat, but as an
independent judge, doing his duty without fear, favor or affection."

    Judge Ross seems to have served with great credit, and was in 1830 after
twelve years' service, appointed

539

by Governor Wolf to a seat in the Supreme Court of the State; in this
office he served until the time of his death, which occurred in 1834.  Judge
John Ross was the grandfather of the late Henry P. Ross, president judge of
Montgomery County.

    JUDGE JOHN FOX, president judge of the Seventh Judicial District of
Pennsylvania, then composed of the counties of Bucks and Montgomery, was
born at Philadelphia in the year 1787.  His father, Edward Fox, born at
Dublin, Ireland, but of English parents, emigrated to this country in the
twentieth year of his age.  During the term of Joseph Reed, President of
Pennsylvania, he was auditor-general of the State.  In the year 1783,
General Carleton, writing to his government (as appears by the secret
archives in the Tower of London, recently allowed to be examined), spoke of
him as one of the Cabinet, stating that he was a native of England or
Ireland (he believed of the former); that he had carried on business in the
mercantile line; that he had been appointed auditor-general since Mr.
Morris came into the administration; and that he was a "young man of good
abilities, especially in his present line."  He resumed the mercantile
business, in which he acquired a large fortune, but was ruined by loans to
the same Mr. Morris, "the financier of the Revolution," as he was afterwards
styled.  Edward Fox married Elizabeth Sergeant, sister of Jonathan Dickinson
Sergeant and an aunt of John and Thomas Sergeant, both distinguished
lawyers, and the latter a judge of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania.  John
Fox, the subject of this sketch, was graduated at the University of
Pennsylvania, of which his father was for many years the treasurer.  He
studied law with Alexander James Dallas, the compiler of "Dallas' Reports"
and afterwards Secretary of the Treasury of the United States.  George M.
Dallas, subsequently United States Senator and Vice-President of the United
States, was a fellow-student and life-long friend.  Soon after his admission
to the bar Mr. Fox was advised by his physician to settle in the country,
and in consequence removed to Bristol, then the county-seat of Bucks
County.  The county-seat having been removed to Newtown, he went there, and
it having again been removed and finally established at Doylestown, he took
up his residence there, and that remained his home until his decease, in
April, 1849.  In 1816 he married Margery, daughter of Gilbert Rodman, a
retired Philadelphia merchant, who then resided at his country-seat,
Edington, near Bristol, in Bucks.

    In 1814, Mr. Fox was deputy attorney-general for Bucks County.  He was
appointed major, and served on General Worrall's staff in the war of 1812. 
When called upon by his chief to go to the seat of war, the court being in
session, the judge then on the bench refused to allow him to leave or to
adjourn the court, whereupon the young prosecuting attorney immediately
declared that all the commonwealth's cases were continued, had the entry
made upon the record, mounted his horse and rode off to join the army, then
daily expecting an attempt by the enemy to capture Philadelphia.  He was
afterwards major general of the Seventh Division of the States, and
continued to serve as such until his appointment to the office of
president-judge, in 1830.  This appointment was for life, but he was
legislated out of office by the adoption of the Constitution of 1838,
which made the judicial office elective.  He was a life-long Democrat, and
during General Jackson's Presidency was the intimate friend and
confidential adviser of Hon. Samuel D. Ingham, then Secretary of the
Treasury, especially during the exciting and dangerous troubles, which
arose about the so-called Kitchen Cabinet.

    He was also an intimate friend and correspondent of Hon. John C.
Calhoun, and a friend and warm admirer of Mr. Webster.  With the latter,
however, he seldom agreed politically, except in his construction and
defense of the constitution.  He was a man of sound judgment, unselfish
almost to a fault and of a most tender heart.  When called upon to pass the
judgment of the law upon Luis Amalia Espos y Mina, whom he had tried at
Doylestown for the fiendish murder by slow poison of Mr. William Chapman,
he was so much affected that he had great difficulty in pronouncing the
sentence of death, and it is said the whole audience were in tears.  He had,
however, great courage and never knew the fear of man.  His devotion to
duty was paramount to every other consideration.   When by a trick intended
to mortify him, he was elected constable, he promptly accepted the office
and performed its duties.  He stood high as a judge, and his opinion upon
the negro-suffrage question, in a case argued before him in Bucks, gave him
a reputation not only in the United States, but on the continent of Europe,
and was cited by De Toqueville in one of his works.  That opinion was
published by direction of the Legislature, and was the cause of the
insertion of the word "white" in the Constitution of 1838.

  He left five children,-three sons (two of them lawyers, the third a
clergyman of the Presbyterian Church) and two daughters.

    JUDGE THOMAS BURNSIDE was admitted to the bar of Montgomery County February
13, 1804.  He soon afterwards settled in Centre County, Pa., where he rose
to eminence in his profession.  Regarding politics, as a twin-sister of the
law, he entered the State Senate in 1811, and served it term of three years
with more than ordinary credit.  In 1814 he was elected a member of the
Fourteenth Congress, representing his district from 1815 to 1817.  In 1818
he was appointed president judge of the Eleventh District, composed of the
counties of Wayne, Pike and Luzerne.  This position he resigned some time
after, and was elected again to the Senate, of which body he was chosen
Speaker in 1825.  While in the Legislature, as chairman of a committee to
whom the subject had been referred, he made a report
and presented a bill to abolish capital punishment, which, however, failed
on its passage.

540

    In 1841, Governor Porter appointed him president judge of the judicial
district composed of Bucks and Montgomery Counties, which position be
retained until January, 1845, when the same executive nominated him as one
of the justices of the Supreme Court of the State, which position he filled
until his death.

    Thomas Burnside enjoyed the confidence of the profession, and was esteemed
a clear-headed judge and an upright man; his opinions were concise, and
rank among the best in the books of his day, He was neither courtly in
manner nor prepossessing in appearance, but he was kind of heart, honest
and confiding with an accuracy of judgment that com-
mended him to public favor.

    JUDGE DAVID KRAUSE, LL.D., succeeded Judge Burnside in the year 1845.  He
was admitted to the bar of Pittsburgh, Pa., having studied law in the
office of the Hon. Jonathan Walker, of that city. 




              PICTURE OF DAVID KRAUSE, LL.D., APPEARS HERE.




    He subsequently removed to Harrisburg and became the private secretary of
Governor John Andrew Shultz, and filled the confidential office to the
entire satisfaction of the officer.  In 1829 he was appointed deputy attorney-general
by Frederick Smith. 
He was elected to the State Legislature in 1835.  He supported the candidacy
of David R. Porter in 1838, and was held in high esteem by the Governor and
his friends.  At the close of his gubernatorial term the Governor appointed
him president judge of the courts in the district of Bucks and Montgomery
Counties.

    He made his residence at Norristown, and continued to reside there until
his death, which occurred June 13, 1871.  As a lawyer and judge, he
possessed the power of applying the well-settled principles of law to the 
ascertained facts of cases presented to him for counsel or adjudication. 
His opinions were seldom lengthy.  Discerning the right, he passed by
technical hindrances to conclusions that were generally correct, leaving to
those who differed with him the task of elaborating the process by which he
reached them.  The following resolution on his demise, adopted by the bar of
Montgomery County, epitomizes his character and discloses the high esteem
in which he was held by the profession:

    "Resolved, That in mourning the decease of this eminent member of our
profession, we desire to record our sense of the virtues which adorned his
character; that we esteemed him us a public-spirited and useful citizen; a
man of kindly and generous impulses, ever ready to give aid in furtherance
of benevolent works; whose genial nature and ability of character endeared
Win to every circle into which lie entered; and that we will ever remember
him as an honest legislator, an upright judge, an able, conscientious
lawyer, without guile and without reproach."

    JUDGE DANIEL M. SMYSER was the first president judge elected to the
position in Montgomery County.  Early advantages were well improved by him,
graduating at the head of his class in 1827.  He shortly afterwards entered
the law-office of Thaddeus Stevens, at Gettysburg, Pa., and was admitted to
the bar of Adams County in 1831.  Forming a partnership with Mr. Stevens,
they continued the practice of law together until 1841, when Mr. Stevens
removed to Lancaster City, leaving Mr. Smyser in the enjoyment of a large
and responsible practice.  In 1849 he was elected by the Whigs to the
Legislature from Adams County, and while serving in the House was tendered
the appointment of attorney-general of the State by Governor William F.
Johnson.  He declined the honor, assigning for reason "that he could not
discharge the trust confided to him by his constitutes and hold the
attorney-generalship at the time."  Upon his return from the Legislature the
Whig party in the district composed of Adams and York Counties nominated
him for Congress.  Although a strong Democratic district, a small majority
(393 votes) defeated him.  In 1851 be was nominated by the Whigs of the
Seventh Judicial District (Bucks and Montgomery Counties) and owing to
divisions in the opposite party, he was elected over the two candidates
running against him.  He brought with him to the field of judicial labor the
learning and experience of a well-trained lawyer and a love of research and
industry that rendered his adjudications among the most remarkable of the
period in which he presided over the several courts of this district.  His
opinions stated premises; carefully elaborated reasons for conclusions
reached and exhausted the line of authorities sustaining them.  His
reputation as a judge extended beyond the district in which he presided,
and in 1854 he was nominated by the Whig party for justice of the Supreme
Court of the State.  He was not elected, and hence served out the full two
years of his term, after which he resumed the practice of law for a
subsequent

541

period of thirteen years in the courts over which he had presided.  He died
January 11, 1873, while oil it visit to his early home at Gettysburg, where
at the time the following deserved tribute of respect was paid to his
memory by the bench and bar of Adams County:

    "Judge Smyser brought to the practice of the law a mind cultured by the
highest academic learning, enriched by it broad range of classical reading
enjoyed by but few of his contemporaries.  A close, laborious student, with
an ardent devotion to the profession he selected, he early rose to
distinction at the bar and commanded a large and lucrative practice.  After
twenty years of active connection with the legal profession here, he was
called to the responsible position of president judge of the Seventh
Judicial District of Pennsylvania, and in this new sphere he exemplified
the virtues which had characterized him as a lawyer by a conscientious and
painstaking care in the trial of cases, a personal integrity which elevated
his official action above all suspicion, and a judicial learning which
adorned the bench."

    Judge Smyser was thoroughly devoted to the best interests of the country,
and promptly gave the weight of his official character to the Union cause
in 1861, and was chosen to deliver the address to the first volunteers that
left the county upon the fall of Sumter.

    JUDGE HENRY CHAPMAN.  -Henry Chapman was born at Newtown, Bucks Co., Pa.,
about the beginning of the present century.  His father was Abraham Chapman,
a lawyer, who entered upon his professional duties in 1790, and for many
years was the "father of the Bucks County bar."  Henry was educated in the
public schools of Bucks County, and finished his studies at an academy in
Burlington, N.J.  He was admitted to the bar of Bucks County in 1825.  He
served in the State Senate in 1843, and was elected to Congress in 1856,
He, with Hickman, Haskins and Montgomery, was an active opponent of the
"Lecompton Swindle," and became prominent in the debates of that turbulent
period.  He was elected judge of the Seventh Judicial District in 1860, and
served as president judge until 1870, when be retired to private life, and
is now residing in the borough of Doylestown, Pa.

    The following epitome of his professional characteristics is from the pen
of Hon. Charles Hunsicker, who was in full practice during his
administration in this county: "It is nothing derogatory to the predecessor
or successors of Judge Chapman to say that he was a model judge.  He was
clear-headed, even tempered, dignified, learned, pure, and his decisions
always challenged the respect and confidence of both sides.  His learning
was extensive, his conversational powers great, and he could have filled
honorably and acceptably any position in civil or political life.  His
modesty was characteristic of the man, and his extreme sensitiveness of
the sanctity of his judicial office was so pronounced that he not only
refused to accept a free pass on the railroad, but would not even ride out
in the private carriage of any member of the bar.  He may have carried this
to an extreme, but if an error, it was an error in the right direction. 
Henry Chapman was and is a man of whom it can well be said he is "sans peur
et sans reproche.'"

    JUDGE HENRY ROSS, A.B.  -The subject of this sketch was admitted to the bar
of Bucks County December 16, 1859.  He enjoyed the advantages of careful
home training, and was prepared for a liberal course of study at Princeton
College, where he graduated in 1857, receiving the degree of Bachelor of
Arts.  He immediately entered the law-office of his father, Hon. Thomas
Ross, all eminent lawyer of Doylestown, Pa., and two years later, having
complied with the requirements under the rules of court governing the
admission of students to the bar, he entered upon the active practice of
his profession.  His rapid advance to eminence in the trial of cases in both
civil and criminal courts and in the Supreme Court of the State, his early
and creditable service as district attorney for the county of Bucks,
created no surprise upon the part of his friends; it was expected.  He was
exhaustive in his preparation, fertile in thought, logical in his
conclusions, always clear and forcible, and sometimes eloquent in the
presentation of his case to court and jury.  His examination of witnesses
was direct and to the point, without austerity of manner.  He was affable
and genial with his fellow-members of the bar, and always deferential in
his address to the court.  His elevation to the judicial office was the
natural result of his prominence as a lawyer.  It was a selection of the
fittest among the many senior and justly distinguished members of the
profession, who frankly conceded to him the qualifications essential to the
judicial character.  We are by no means certain that his ambition was truly
gratified by his promotion to the bench.  The conservative character of the
office was believed to be repressive of his desire to participate in the
wider and more aggressive fields of public life, for which he always
evinced a fondness.  His relinquishment of the office of attorney, with
possibilities for distinction and its freedom from responsibilities as
contrasted with the grave duties of a judge, was frequently spoken of by
him, and at times with apparent regret.  He had a keen sense of the power
and dignity of the judicial office, and on occasions of great public
interest, in trials before him, in the presence of a large attending bar
and a court-room filled with men wrought upon by the history of crime and
the eloquent efforts of counsel, he would preside over the scene with a
self-possession and judicial manner that commanded the respectful attention
of everybody present.  From the first case of homicide to the last tried
before him in his administration of public justice in Montgomery County it
is due to say that the climax of interest was always reached when he
charged the jury.  Few, if any, of living members of the bar will fail to
recall the trials, of the Commonwealth vs. Huston, [See NOTE 36-11.] Curley, 
Pastorius, Whalen and Sutton, in all of which the lives of the accused were at stake. 

542

Public interest naturally centered in the courtroom day after day, until
finally, counsel having made their last appeal in the interest of alleged
innocence on the one hand and for the cause of the commonwealth on the
other, truth having been tortured and obscured by conflicting evidence,
there came the memorable court scenes, the perfect pose of the judge as he
turned from the presence of the bar to face the jury, the characteristic,
calm, impartial and unimpassioned charge to the sworn men, whose duty,
whether painful or pleasant, was fearlessly disclosed to and
conscientiously impressed upon them.

[NOTE 36-11.]

    In the Commonwealth vs. Rose Huston, charged with the murder of her own
child, the case turn upon the testimony of medical experts. 
The public interest in the conflict of testimony was intensified by the
fact that Dr. Margaret Richardson was among the Physicians examined, and
the first physician of her sex subjected to the ordeal in Montgomery of
judicial proceedings in Montgomery County.

[FINIS NOTE 36-11.]

    Judge Ross came to the bench young in years, hopeful and ambitious,
surrounded by many admiring friends, who believed him capable of leadership
in the politics of the State.  They had followed him devotedly through two
discouraging canvasses for Congressional honors and later through a
spirited canvass for a seat in the Supreme Court of the commonwealth, and
finally re-elected him president judge of Montgomery County by a majority
that emphasized his popularity at his home, where he was best known, and
where his judicial services were best appreciated.  He was re-elected in
1881 for the term of ten years.  He died April 13,1882.  His remains are
buried in the cemetery at Doylestown, Pa.

    JUDGE CHARLES HENDERSON STINSON was born in Norriton Township, Montgomery
Co., June 28, 1825.  He is of Scotch-Irish descent.  His father, Robert
Stinson, was a prominent and excellent man; he served as a justice of the
peace for many years in Norriton Township, and was a member of the
Legislature on the Anti-Masonic ticket in 1835.  His mother was Elizabeth
Porter, daughter of Stephen Porter, and niece of General Andrew Porter, of
the same township.  After preparing in the ordinary school, he entered
Dickinson College, at Carlisle, where he graduated in 1845.  Having traveled
for a year over the mountainous parts of Pennsylvania for the benefit of
his health, he commenced the study of the law with his brother, George W.
Stinson, of Norristown, Pa., and remained in his office until the death of
his brother, in 1848, when he pursued his studies under the direction of
Addison May.  He was admitted to the bar on May 22, 1849, and has since been
engaged in practice at Norristown.  He served as a private in the Gettysburg
campaign in 1863, and was an ardent supporter of the Union cause throughout
the war of the Rebellion.  He refused the nomination of the Republican Party
of Montgomery, Chester and Delaware Counties for the State Senate in 1864,
but in 1867 was induced to accept it, and was elected for three years as a
colleague of Dr. Worthington, of West Chester.  He served on the general
judiciary committee and on other important committees in 1868 and 1869, and
at the adjournment of the latter session, was elected Speaker and
re-elected at the opening of the session of 1870.  He exercised the
functions of that office with dignity and general acceptance, leaving a
worthy record of a brief political career.  He declined the position of
additional law judge of the courts of Bucks and Montgomery Counties,
tendered him by Governor John W. Geary in 1871.  He was one of the
originators of the First National Bank of Norristown, for which he has
acted as solicitor.  In 1879 the county commissioners of Montgomery County
appointed him one of the trustees of the Hospital for the Insane for the
Southeastern District of Pennsylvania, which position he still holds.  In
the organization of the hospital he was instrumental in placing the female
physician on the same plane with the male physician, giving to each control
over their respective departments, this being the first departure from the
old hospital management in this country.  In April 1882, Governor Hoyt
appointed him president judge of the Thirty-eighth Judicial District, to
fill the vacancy occasioned by the death of the Hon. Henry P. Ross, in
which position he distinguished himself by his urbanity and the prompt and
impartial manner in which he discharged the business of the courts till the
following January.  He was the unanimous nominee of the Republican party for
the office in the fall of 1882, but the party being in minority in the
county, he was not elected.

    He is active, public-spirited and diligent in the pursuit of having
profession, and has been instrumental in the passage of many beneficial
local measures.

    HON. B. MARKLEY BOYER, now president judge of the Thirty-eighth Judicial
District of Pennsylvania, is a native of Montgomery County, born in New
Hanover township on the 22d of January, 1822.  He was educated at Lafayette
College, Easton and in the University of Pennsylvania, at which last named
institution he was graduated in the class of 1841.  He studied law under the
instruction of Judge John M. Reed, of Carlisle, Pa., where he was admitted
to the bar.  In 1844 he commenced the practice of law in his native county,
locating at Norristown.  From 1848 to 1850 he was deputy attorney general of
Montgomery County, an office corresponding to that of district attorney fit
the present time.  In politics he was a Whig until that party ceased to
exist, when he allied himself with the Democracy.  In the Presidential
contest of 1856 he cast his vote for James Buchanan.  In 1860 he supported
Stephen A. Douglas for the Presidency, and ably advocated his election in a
campaign paper, which he assisted to establish and edit for that purpose. 
In the dangerous times that immediately followed the election of Abraham
Lincoln he stood firmly for conciliatory measures, until the firing on Fort
Sumter rendered conciliation impossible; but after the actual opening of
the great conflict he was unwavering in advocacy of the suppression of the
Rebellion by the military

543

power of the government.  Twice during the war, when the Confederate army,
crossed the Potomac and moved northward to the Pennsylvania border, he
raised a company of volunteers for the emergency, and as their captain
marched with them to the field to assist in repelling the invasion.  In one
of these campaigns the exposure and hardship to which he was subjected
brought on an illness, which nearly proved fatal.

    In 1864, Mr. Boyer was elected to Congress, and was re-elected in 1866,
serving in the Thirty-ninth and Fortieth Congresses, until and including
the year 1869.  During his two Congressional terms he served on the
committee on military affairs of which the chairman was James A. Garfield. 
He also served on several select committees, one of the most important of
which was that sent by Congress to New Orleans to investigate the origin
and causes of the riots in that city.  On that subject he made the minority
report, which, in fact, prevailed, as the bill introduced on the majority
report was lost in the Senate.  In the Democrat National Convention of 1868
he was a delegate from his Congressional districts, and in the National
Convention of the party in 1872 he was a delegate-at-large from
Pennsylvania.

    In 1876, Mr. Boyer was appointed by Governor Hartranft a member of the
State Municipal Commission, provided for by the Legislature to devise and
report on some better system than was then in existence in this State for
the government of cities.  The commission reported at length, submitting the
draft of a bill which, in its application to cities of the first class,
embodied the substance of the bill pending (and undisposed of) in the last
Legislature.

    For nearly forty year Mr. Boyer remained in continuous practice as an
attorney and counselor, being widely and favorably known, and occupying for
many year a leading position among the members of the bar of Montgomery
County.  His briefs were always exhaustive.  There was no case that escaped
his observation and analysis, which being used with consummate skill and
judgment, he seldom failed to make his point.  Through all his professional
career, and especially in his connection with leading civil and criminal
cases, his skill and success were remarkable in the difficult and
responsible task of examining witnesses, a work in which he uniformly
acquitted himself to the entire satisfaction of all concerned.  He
exhibited the peculiar ability if obtaining from the witness, however
unwilling the pertinent facts within their knowledge, without eliciting
that which was irrelevant or immaterial.  He was diligent in the discharge
of his duties to his clients whose causes he made his own on assuming the
core of it, and always used in honorable means to secure the full benefit
of the most favorable construction of the law upon his case.  Being a man of
great forensic ability, rare oratorical powers and indefatigable industry,
he sometimes, by the exercise of these high qualifications, secured
verdicts which, as an expounder of the law, he may be compelled to
reverse, as was the attorney-general of Pennsylvania recently in a
celebrated case.

    In 1882 the Hon. B. M. Boyer was elected to the Office which he still 
holds, -that of president judge of the Thirty-eighth Judicial District of
Pennsylvania, composed of the county of Montgomery.  In that high office he
has proved himself the possessor of superior judicial ability.  His
knowledge of cases and his conscientious work as a lawyer, together with
his great learning have eminently fitted him for the bench.  His decisions
indicate a profound knowledge of his profession, and evince the same wise
judgment that was characteristic of him as a barrister.  Especially on
matters of evidence his rules are regarded as unexceptionable, and are
seldom, seriously questioned by the bar.  He has a clear head, an honest,
kind heart; he is courageous in his convictions, and will perform his
duties under all circumstances.  His sympathies are with the poor and
defenseless, who may always freely approach him, assured of his kindness,
long and varied attention and honest advice.  His experience in almost
every condition of life lilts eminently fitted him to be what he is, -a
wise, humane and just judge.

    DEPUTY ATTOURNEY-GENERALS APPOINTED IN MONTGOMERY COUNTY PRIOR TO 1850.

    There is no record of the appointment of deputy attorney-generals to be
found in the dockets of the courts in the office of the attorney at
Harrisburg, PA.  It has been ascertained that the following gentlemen held
the office by appointment prior to 1850, when it became elective.

John H. Sheetz, Esq. appointed by Philip S.  Markley, attorney-general, 1829.
    Administration of Governor George Wolf.

David H. Mulvany, Esq. appointed by William B. Reed, attorney-general, in 1836.
    Administration of Governor Joseph Ritner.

G. R. Fox, Esq. appointed by Ovid F. Johnson, attorney-general, and 1840
    Administration of Governor David R. Porter.

John H. Hobart, appointed by John M. Kane, attorney general, 1845.
    Administration of Governor Francis H. Shunk.

B. Markley Boyer, appointed by James Cooper, attorney-general, 1848.
    Adminstration of Governor William F. Johnson.


                     DISTRICT ATTORNEYs.

        (Office made elective by the act of May 3, 1850.)

Benjamin E. Chain, elected October 1850.

John H. Hobart, elected October 1853.

George W. Rogers, elected October, 1856.

S. N. Rich, elected October, 1859.

Enoch A. Banks, elected October, 1862.

Charles Hunsicker, elected October, 1865.

George W. Bush, elected October, 1868.

Henry U. Brunner, elected October, 1871.

Jacob V. Gotwalts, elected November, 1874.

J. Wright Apple,  November, 1877.

Irving P. Wanger, elected November, 1880.

John W. Bickel, elected November, 1883.

End Part I.