AIST ADDRESS THE LIFE AND SERVICES HON. MARK SKINNER, Ex-Jl'IHlE OK THE COOK Col.'NTY CoUKT OF COMMON PLEAS, Now the Superior Court of Cook County, DELIVERED BEFORE THE BAR ASSOCIATION, CITY OF* CHICAQO, Dec. 17, 1887. BY HON. ELLIOTT ANTHONY, Jl'IKSK OK THE Sl'PKRIOR Coi'RT OK COOK COUNTY. CHICAGO: BAKNAKD & QUNTHOHP, PRINTKKS. 1887. WHEN death lias removed from the scene of his labors and triumphs a man whose abilities, learning and virtues have given him a high and commanding position among his associ- ates and fellowmen, it is a duty which his survivors owe to themselves to gather up the fragments of his life, that nothing of his example may be lost. This is an obligation binding with peculiar force upon the members of the legal profession since the reputation of an eminent lawyer can only be thor- oughly felt and appreciated by his brethren who have shared in his counsels and witnessed his triumphs and defeats. It may be true, as it is sometimes said, that the lives of lawyers are barren of events, but not more so than that of the lives of men engaged in other pursuits or professions, and if their contemporaries and immediate successors were careful to record and transmit memorials of them to posterity, we should not be under the necessity of depending on tradition for what they said and did. * We pause to-day by the grave of one of the pioneers of this city, an honored member of our profession, who, at the open- ing of manhood, left his Green Mountain home and joined that great westward- moving throng that were hastening forward to take up their abode on the fertile prairies of that magnificent region which our forefathers in the very morning of our exist- ence dedicated to God and Liberty, lying north and west of the Ohio. Fifty years have come and gone since Mark Skinner, who has just passed away, settled here and with other earnest men helped to lay the foundations of this great city, and to whose enlightened judgment and far-seeing sagacity the present generation is indebted for its prosperity and its commercial supremacy. " In the birth of societies," says Montesquieu. " it is the chiefs of the republics who form the institution, and in the sequel it is the institution which forms the chiefs of the republics. 1 ' And he adds : " One of the causes of the pros- perity of Home was the fact that its Kings were all great men. We find nowhere else in history an uninterrupted series of snch statesmen and such commanders." Illinois was fortunate from the first in having as her founders a race of great men. What city ever had a more enterprising, more sagacious, a more enlightened and far-seeing class of men than those that shaped her destiny as she rose from the marsh and the wilder- ness ? What brighter galaxy of names ever adorned the annals of any community than that of Caton, Collins, Morris, Hamilton, Judd, Peck, Butterfield, E. S. Williams, Julius Wadsworth, Hugh T. Dickey, William H. Brown, Henry Brown, Lisle Smith, Giles Spring, John M. Wilson, J. Y. Scammon, Edwin Lamed, Grant Gooduck, Thomas Drum- mond, Henry W. Blodgett, James Grant, George Manniere, George B. Meeker, William B. Ogden, Mahlon D. Ogden, Isaac N. Arnold, Thomas Hoyne, John Wentworth, Mark Skinner, and in later years E. B. Washburne ? Here are names quite as illustrious as those whose voices rang out under the arches of Westminster Hall. Here are men whose achievements will compare with that of any land. They lend lustre to our local history, and would be an ornament to any age or any country. We are proud of their achievements and the part that they played in shaping the destinies of this great city. If monuments are to be erected to commemorate the achievements and virtues of our fellow-men let not our civic heroes be forgotten. Washburne and Hoyne were types of stalwart manhood that were fit to command the Ironsides of Cromwell, and Ogden, Butterfield, Arnold and Skinner to be Counselors of State and direct its most complicated affairs. We beg your indulgence for a moment while we take a retrospect. Within the memory of men still living the State of Illinois has advanced from an unorganized territory to that of a great and powerful commonwealth. A century has not yet elapsed since the vast and unoccupied territory which now comprises five states was nominally under the British dominion, and it is not a century since we con- stituted the frontier county of Virginia, and afterwards formed a part of Indiana, and not until 1818 that we set up for ourselves. In 1778 Chicago was in Virginia, and up to 1809 was in Indiana. February 3, 1809, Indiana Territory was by an act of Congress divided into two separate governments. President Madison appointed John Boyle, an Associate Justice of the Court of Appeals of Kentucky, Governor of the territory, but he declined and Ninian Edwards, Chief Justice of the same court, was appointed in his stead. Nathaniel Pope was appointed Secretary, Alexander Stuart. Obadiah Jones and Jesse B. Thomas, Judges; Benjamin H. Boyle, Attorney General. Under the ordinance of 1787 and the act of Congress February 3, 1809, the Governor and Judges constituted the law-making power of the territory, and as such they met for the first time at Kaskaskia, June 13, 1809, and their first act was to resolve that the laws of Indiana Territory, in force prior to March 1, 1809, which applied to the government of the ter- ritory, should remain in full force and effect. The duration of the session was seven days. The earliest settlements were in the southern portion of the State and the settlers chiefly from Virginia and Kentucky. This arose from the fact that the exploits of Col. George Eogers Clark, who, with a small force of Virginians and men of Ken- tucky, had penetrated far beyond the furthermost settlements and taken Kaskaskia and Cahokia in the name of Virginia, and had so stimulated immigration to the Illinois country that the early settlers were almost exclusively from those States; conse- quently when the State was organized the great preponderance of the population was in the southern part of the State. Indeed, when the first constitutional convention was called to frame a constitution not a man was in that convention who lived north of Madison County. Virginia claimed the whole country by right of conquest through Col. Clark, and erected the whole territory of Illinois into a county called Illinois County, and it so remained until ceded by Virginia to the General Government and Indiana and Illinois had been carved out of the same and organized into territorial governments. The relations of Illinois to Virginia is one of great interest, in view of the fact that Illinois was for many years the fron- tier country of that great State, and in further view of the fact that the Supreme Court of this"* State has in at least four cases decided that the common law exists here to-day as it did in Virginia in 1784, when it ceded its claims to the General Government, and before the passage of the ordinance of 1787. And here let us mention a remarkable fact, that no statue or ornament adorns the capital of either Illinois, Virginia, or Kentucky of George Rogers Clark ; neither was the law estab- lishing the Illinois country into the " County of Illinois " ever printed in any collection of laws or statutes in this State, and so far as we have been able to discover, can, we believe, only be found in Henning's Statutes of Virginia. It was reprinted by us a short time since in a local legal publication, and is of itself a rare relic and curiosity. The only thing done by the people of this State to perpetuate the name of Clark, is to call a county after him, and to name the street, on which the build- ing in which we are now assembled fronts, Clark street. We expect some day, however, to find that some enterprising mem- ber of the City Council will rise in his place and declare, as it has been done in several other instances, that it is without sig- nificance, and move to wipe out the name of this old pioneer, and change it to that of Sixth avenue. In 1821 Chicago was in Pike County, in 1823 in Fulton County, and in 1825 in Peoria County. The act creating Cook County was passed and approved by the General Assembly of Illinois January 15, 1831, and by that same act Chicago was made the county seat, and a ferry established at the seat of justice. It was named after Daniel P. Cook, a son-in-law of Governor Ninian Edwards, who was one of the first United States Senators from this State. He was a member of Congress from 1820 to 1827, and during that year, at the age of 32. In March, 1831, Cook County was organized. It embraced within its boundaries all of the territory which now constitutes the counties of Lake, McHenry, DuPage and Will, and the only voting place in the county at the first election was Chicago. This county included part of Wisconsin and Michigan and all of the States of Ohio, Indiana and Illinois, and the process of a Virginia court at that time was as potent at Mil- waukee as at Williamsburg with this qualification that there was no Milwaukee, but there was a Williamsburg. After the constitution had been adopted, the General As- sembly convened, the State Government organized, and then an adjournment took place until the winter of 1818-1819. At this adjourned session a code of statute law was passed, mostly borrowed from the statutes of Kentucky and Virginia. "But," as Governor Ford says, "this code as a whole did not stand long. For many sessions afterwards, in fact until the new revision in 1827, all the standard laws were regularly changed and altered every two years, to suit the taste and whim of every new Legislature. For a long time the rage for amend- ing and altering was so great, that it was said to be a good thing that the Holy Scriptures did not have to come before the Legislature, for that body would be certain to alter and amend them, so that no one could tell what was or was not the law of the State. A session of the Legislature was like a great fire in the boundless prairies of the State; it consumed everything. And again it was like the genial breath of spring, making all things new." The capital was at that time at Kaskaskia, the ancient seat of empire for more than one hundred and fifty years of the French and English inhabitants who had followed the Indian trail along the route from the northern lakes to the Spanish settlements in the South under the guidance of La Salle and Iberville, and the priests Alvarez, Rasles, Gravier, Pinet, Marest, and others, and who had in time taken up their abode at Prairie du Rocher, Bone du Pont, Cahokia, Fort Chatres, Peoria, and Chicago. Chicago became an incorporated town by vote of the people, August 5, 1833, and the first election of Town Trus- tees was August 10, 1833. It had at that time a population not much exceeding one hundred and fifty inhabitants. On the 4th of March, 1837, the Charter was passed incorporating the City of Chicago. May 2, 1837, Chicago became a city. By the Charter of the City of Chicago, passed March 4th, 1837, a Municipal Court was provided for, and was duly organized, but was abolished by an Act of the Legislature, February 15, 1839, and all actions then pending in it were transferred to the Circuit Court. July, 1832, according to Captain Walker, who came here 6 to engage in the Black Hawk War, there were but five dwel- ling houses here, three of which were made of logs. By the Constitution of 1818 it was provided that the judicial power of the State should be vested in a Supreme Court to be holden at the seat of government, to consist of a chief justice and three associates, but that the number might be increased by the General Assembly after the year 1824. It was further provided that the justices of the Supreme Court and the judges of the inferior courts should be appointed by joint ballot of both branches of the General Assembly, and, commissioned by the Governor, should hold their offices during good behavior " until the end of the first session of the General Assembly, which shall be begun and held after the 1st day of January, in the year of our Lord 1824, at which time their commissions shall expire ; until which time the said justices were to hold circuit courts in the several counties, in such manner and at such times, and have and exercise such jurisdiction as the General Assembly should by law prescribe. And ever after the aforesaid period the justices of the Supreme Court should be commissioned during good behavior, and the justices thereof should not hold cir- cuit courts unless required by law/' According to this arrangement the State was divided into four judicial circuits, in which the Chief Justice and his three associates performed circuit duties until 1824. In December, 1824, an act was passed dividing the State into five judicaj districts, and five circuit judges ordered to be elected by the General Assembly, who were to perform circuit duty, thereby relieving the Supreme Court Justices. But this was consid- ered unnecessary and an extravagant waste of money, as the four Supreme Court Judges were each receiving $800 per year and the Circuit Judges each $600 per year. This act was therefore repealed January 12, 1827, the State divided into four judicial circuits, to each of which one of the justices of the Supreme Court was assigned. January 8, 1829. a fifth cir- cuit was added, which included the whole region north of the Illinois River, and for it a judge was chosen by the General Assembly, the justices of the Supreme Bench having been already assigned for duty in the four circuits south of that river. In 1831 the Fifth Judicial Circuit was composed of the Counties of LaSalle, Putnam, Peoria, Fulton, Schuyler, Adams, Hancock, McDonough, Knox, Warren, Jo Daviess, Mercer, Bock Island, Henry and Cook. It will be noticed that this circuit contained fifteen counties, and embraced such distant points as Galena, Quincy, Peoria and Chicago. Richard M. Young was judge, and the first term of a Circuit Court ever held here was held either in May, 1833, or September of that year. Under and by virtue of this arrangement the terms of the Circuit Court of this County were, prior to 1848, held by Richard M. Young, Thomas Ford, Sidney Breese, Stephen T. Logan, John Dean Caton, John Pierson, of Danville, and Jesse B. Thomas, jr., and perhaps Theophilus W. Smith. The sessions of the Court were held in the First Presbyterian Church, which stood in the same block with the Sherman House, fronting on Clark street. There has, first and last, been con- siderable discussion among our local authorities as to the exact date when the first session of the Circuit Court was ever held in this county, some contending that it was held in September, 1831, others that it was not before May or September, 1833. Judge Manniere stated at the memorinl services of Col. Hamilton in 1860, that the first term of the Circuit Court in Cook County was held in September, 1831. Mr. Bross, in his history of Chicago, holds to this also, and seems further to be of the opinion that a term was also held here in 1832, for he says that the records of the County Commissioners show that " the Sheriff shall secure one or more rooms for the Circuit Court, at the house of James Kinzie, provided it can be done at a cost of not more than ten dollars." In confirmation of the view that such court was held, the same work states that Judge Young, accompanied from Galena by Lawyers Mills and Strode, brought tidings to Chicago of the disturbed state of the Indians, which culminated later in the Black Hawk War. Charles Ballance, in his " History of Peoria," says that Judge Young made his appearance in the Village of Peoria in May, 1833, and announced that he was on his way to Chicago to hold Court. " On this occasion I attended Court at Chicago to seek practice as a lawyer and partly to see the country." 8 " The first term of the Circuit Court held in Cook County," says Thomas Hoyne, " was in September, 1833, by Hon. Richard M. Young. In 1834 he also held the term in May." Judge Caton is of the opinion that the first term was held in May, 1834, or at least at which any law business was done. Except an appeal from some justice, which was No. 1 on the docket, he tried the first case ever tried in a Court of Record in this county, and this he is confident was at the May term, 1834. Judge Young may have come here in 1831-2 and '3, but it is quite possible and very probable, from all we can learn, that no regular court was held here at which any business was done until the spring of 1834. The first lawyer that ever came here to reside was Charles Jouett, who came here as Indian Agent in 1805. He was a native of Virginia, born in 1772, and the youngest of nine children. His father shared in Braddock's defeat, and two of his brothers fought in the war of Independence. He studied law at Charlottesville, Virginia, and was ap- pointed by Jefferson Indian Agent at Detroit in 1802. Jan- uary 22, 1803, Mr. Jouett married Miss Eliza Dodemead, of Detroit, who died in 1805, leaving a daughter born in 1804. April 2, 1805, he was appointed Commissioner to hold a treaty with the Wjandottes, Ottawas, and other Indians in North- western Ohio, and what is now Southeastern Michigan. The treaty was signed at Fort Industry, on " The Miami of the Lake," now Maumee, July 4, 1805. The same year he was appointed as Indian Agent at Chicago, and on October 26, 1805, assumed charge, by direction of the Government, of the Sacs, Foxes, and Pottawatomies. Early in 1809 he married Miss Susan Randolph Allen, of Clark County, Kentucky, but born near Williamsburg, Virginia, in 1786. By her he had one son born in Chicago in 1809, but he died in 1810. Three daughters were afterwards born to him in Kentucky. In 1811 he removed to Mercer County, Kentucky, where he became a Judge in 1812. He was again appointed Indian Agent for Chicago' by President Madison in 1815, and moved here with his family in that year. He is charged with Si, 000 salary as such agent on the books of the Government for 1816. 9 The Indian Agencies in Illinois were turned over to the Territory in 1817, and he soon after severed his connection with the Department and returned to Kentucky, although we find his name appended to the Indian Treaty which was signed at St. Mary's, Ohio, September 17, 1818. On the organization of the Territory of Arkansas in 1819, lie was appointed Judge, but the climate proved unfavorable and unhealthy, and he resigned after a residence of a few months and returned to Kentucky, and died in Trigg County on the 28th of May, 1834. His family were noted for their remarkable size, strength and manly beauty, and he appears to have been a man of great intelligence and integrity. He enjoyed the friendship of three Presidents, and the confidence of all who knew him. The next lawyer that took up his abode here was Russell E. Heacock, who was born in Litchfield, Connecticut,, in the year 1799. He lost his father when quite young, learned the carpenter's trade, which he followed for about thirty years, removed to St. Louis in 1806, studied law in a desultory man- ner under one Russell Easton, of St. Louis, and was admitted to the bar in 1816. He married Rebecca, second daughter of William Osborn, at Brownsville, that same year. He was licensed to practice in Illinois on the 24th of January, 1821. He then went to Buffalo, where he resided three years. He removed from there in 1827, and arrived in Chicago July 4th, of that year. He at first took up his residence inside of the enclosure of old Fort Dearborn. During the next year he removed to a log cabin, which he purchased of one Peter Lampslett, situated about the center of section 32, township 39, range 14, " about three-quarters of a mile southeast of the lock at Bridgeport, and about one mile south of Hardscrabble." In 1830 he appears to have acted at one time as a judge, and at another time as a clerk of election, and in 1831 was selected as one of two Commissioners to lay out a road from Shelby- ville to Chicago. He was licensed to keep a tavern in his own residence at Hardscrabble, which was, we believe, near the present site of the rolling mills at Bridgeport, and was one of the seven justices appointed for Cook County September 10, 1831. He became a purchaser of several school lots at the sale 10 of the school section in 1833, one of which was lot 7, block 117, fronting south on Adams, directly opposite what was until a short time since known as the Kookery, which lot he designed for a residence. In the Spring of 1835 he built a house on what he supposed was this lot, only to find after he had finished it that it was on Monroe street instead of Adams, whither he proceeded to remove it on rollers. This house his son said he occupied off and on until his death. The first suit in chancery that I ever had occurred over this identical lot. Under date of August 5, 1835, we find him advertised as an attorney, and his name ap- pears in the Chicago directories as late as 1848. He was one the four delegates from Cook County to the Constitutional Convention of 1847, the others being Francis E. Sherman, Patrick Ballingall and E. F. Colby. He invested largely in lands inside and outside of the town, and became greatly embarrassed in the years following 1837. In 1843 he received a stroke of paralysis, which disabled him to a great extent. During the cholera epidemic of 1849 he fled with his family to a farm owned by him at the Summit? where he himself, his wife and two sons were attacked, and died in quick succession between the 28th and 30th of June. He was a lawyer of fair abilities, could talk well, was independent, and of most decided convictions, as is evidenced by the fact that at the election for the incorporation of Chicago as a town, on August 10, . 1833, out of thirteen votes cast, or, as some of the records show, twenty-eight votes, his vote was the only one cast against its incorporation. He left several children to survive him. The next lawyer that came here was Richard J. Hamilton, who, it is probable, was the author of the well-known phrase that a public office is a public trust, for he had great experi- ence as a public officer, having filled almost every local office extant in his day. Richard J. Hamilton was originally from Kentucky, but removed at an early day to Southern Illinois and was admitted to practice in Jackson County March 31, 1827. He became Justice of the Peace for that county, then cashier of the Brownsville branch of the old State Bank. On the organization of Cook County he turned his eyes northward and was elected by the General Assembly as the first Probate 11 Jiidge of Cook County, January 29, 1831. His friend, Judge Richard M. Young, appointed him Clerk of the Cook County Circuit Court, and Governor Reynolds commissioned him a Notary Public and Recorder. He was afterwards appointed commissioner of school lands and trustee of the school, and Clerk of the County Commissioners' Court; in short he united in his own person so many offices and performed so many duties that it was sometimes said that he was "Cook County incarnate." According to all accounts he arrived in Chicago in the very early days of March, 1831, and was present at the organization of the county on the eighth of that month. He was a volunteer in the movement against the hostile Indians in the Fox River country and arrived at Indian Creek on the twenty- second of May, 1832, after the massacre of the settlers and found thirteen dead bodies that had been slain the day before. The flying refugees were escorted back to Chi- cago and were there taken care of. In 1835 he, in connection with others, employed John Watkins to teach a school near the old Indian Agency house where he resided; he afterwards erected his own house on Michigan street between Cass and Rush streets where he lived for nineteen years. He was one of the voters for the incorporation of Chicago as a town, August 5, 1833, and for its first board of trustees soon after. He was a subscribing witness to the Indian treaty of September 26, 1833. In October of that year he, as commissioner of school lands, in compliance with a petition which had received ninety-five signatures embracing most of the principal citizens of the town, authorized the sale of the school section. In 1835 Hamilton became a candidate before the people for the office of Recorder, and, in answer to criticisms which had been made upon him for holding- all of the offices in Cook County, published a card by way of explanation, in which, among other things, he said: "In 1831 I received the appointment of Clerk of the Circuit Court, Judge of Probate and Notary Public. I then moved to Chicago and found that no one wanted these offices. Soon after the gentleman holding the position of Clerk of the County Commissioners' Court resigned and I was appointed. The office of School Commissioner was then held by Colonel T. J. V. Owen, who resigned. Up to 12 September, 1834, the office has yielded me in all about $200; notary fees have not exceeded $50 ; probate fees have not amounted to more than $50. I have not realized from all offices, including that of Recorder, during four years more than 1,500. The whole number of instruments recorded, in- cluding a large number of Receivers' Certificates for lands pur- chased at late sales, have been to July 1, 1835, about 1.300, at about seventy cents each." He died of paralysis December 26, i860, in the sixty- second year of his age, leaving a widow and five children. It does not come within the scope of these remarks to go into further details pertaining to the life of this most remark- able man, but suffice it to say that he was one of the most public spirited of the early settlers and took part in all matters relating to the social, political, educational and religious inter- ests of the people. At the time of his death a large meeting of the bar was held, which was participated in by all the old members of the profession. Judge Maimiere reported a series of resolutions in which it was stated that, "His death has re- moved one of your most distinguished citizens and pioneers, and the oldest member of the legal fraternity, and that they took pleasure in bearing testimony to the high character of the deceased as a man and a citizen. 1 ' The first lawyers who came here to make a living by their profession were Giles Spring and John Dean Caton, who arrived here about June 19, 1833. If they did not try the first law- suit they were engaged in the first prosecution for larceny that ever occurred in our midst, which was made memorable by the discovery of the stolen pelf in the toe of the criminal's stock- ing after having denied all knowledge of the disappearance of the same, while in the very act of denying it. Judge Caton was so enraged that he jerked off the culprit's stocking, causing him thereby to disgorge and making profert of the plunder in open court. It is needless to say that Judge Caton not only earned his fee but got it, while Spring, who defended this hapless wight was left without anything. Soon after there came James H. Collins, Justin Butterfield, George Manniere, Alonzo Huntington, Ebenezer Peck, James Grant, E. W. Casey, A. N. Fullerton, Isaac N. Arnold, Henry 13 Moore, Grant Goodrich, Buckner S. Morris, Wm. B. and Mahlon D. Ogden, Mark Skinner, Lisle Smith, N. B. Judd, Thos. Hoyne, William H. Brown, Henry Brown, and George B. Meeker, we have not given the names of these lawyers in the exact order of time of the arrival but we believe that, as we have just stated that Spring and Caton came here in 1833, Grant Goodrich, Buckner S. Morris, James H. Collins in 1834, William B. Ogden, George Manniere, Alonzo Hunt- ington, Ebenezer Peck, John Young Scammon and Justin Butterfield in 1835, Isaac N. Arnold, John Wentworth, Mark Skinner and Henry Brown in 1836, Lisle Smith Thomas Hoyne, N. B. Judd, and George B. Meeker, and Mahlon D. Ogden in 1837, Edward G. Kyan in 1836, Hugh T. Dickey in 1838. Calvin De Wolfe came October 31, 1837, John Wentworth October 25, 1836. William H. Brown came here in 1835. In 1834 the number of lawyers was eleven, and their names were: Russell E. Heacock, R. J. Hamilton, Giles Spring, John Dean Caton, E. W. Casey, A. N. Fullerton, James H. Collins, James Grant, Grant Goodrich, Henry Moore and Buckner S. Morris. Five of these men reached the bench and all achieved fair distinction. Caton, Goodrich, and Judge James Grant, now and for many years a resident of Davenport, Iowa, survive. The first meeting of the Chicago bar was held some time in July, 1835, and was called to pay respect to the memory of Chief Justice Marshall, who died July 6, 1835. The members present were: A. N. Fullerton, E. W. Casey, Grant Goodrich, Buckner S. Morris, Henry Moore, and Royal Stewart. From 1834 to 1840 many young men of education and family distinction came to Chicago to locate and engage in the practice of the law, but all who thus came did not remain. Among these were Henry Moore, Joseph N. Balestier, of Brattleboro, Vermont, George Anson, Oliver Beaumont, Fisher Ames Harding, of Rhode Island, and Fletcher Webster, the son of Daniel Webster. While here in 1837 Webster was at the head of the firm of Webster & Harding. These gentle- men removed to Detroit and both afterwards returned East. Harding became distinguished as a journalist and Webster went as Minister to China. Edward G. Ryan, one of the 14 most distinguished lawyers that ever practiced at the Chicago bar, came here in 1836. He afterwards removed to Racine, then Milwaukee, and Avas, we believe, at the time of his death Chief Justice of the State of Wisconsin. He was first associ- ated in business with Henry Moore, then with Hugh T. Dickey. In 1840 he dissolved with Dickey, went into journal- ism and became editor of a paper called The Tribune, the first number of which appeared April 4, 1840. We have within the last few days received from Hon. Hugh T. Dickey, formerly one of the most enterprising, talented and respected of our fellow citizens, a most interesting letter, giv- ing a history of the organization of the old Cook County Court, together with his reminiscences of that early day, which has been of great service to us in preparing this memorial of the life and services of Judge Skinner. It is of such an in- teresting character that with your indulgence we will read it.* THE EVOLUTION BY WHICH THE " COOK COUNTY COURT " BECAME " THE SlJPEBIOE COURT OF COOK COUNTY/' By an Act of the Fourteenth General Assembly, passed and approved February 21, 1845, a court, called the Cook County Court, was established in Cook County, with a seal and clerk, to be held by a judge chosen in the manner, and to hold office for the term of Judges of Courts of Eecord in the State, with a jurisdiction concurrent with that of Circuit Courts, and ex- clusive jurisdiction in all appeal cases, and in all cases of misdemeanor which are prosecuted by indictment. It was to hold four terms a year in the City of Chicago, commencing on the first Monday in May, August, November and February, to continue each term until all of the business before the Court was disposed of. The Judge had the power of appointing the Clerk. At the same session of the General Assembly, and at the same time, a similar court was established in Jo Daviess County, called the County Court of Jo Daviess County, and by the 10th section thereof it was provided that the Judge of the County Court of Cook County should hold two terms *See Appendix for this letter in full. 15 of that Court at Galena, for winch he should receive the mu- nificent sum of two hundred and fifty dollars. At that time the judges were elected by the Legislature, and Hugh T. Dickey, a young and rising lawyer of great shrewdness, urbanity and ability, was selected. James H. Curtiss, afterwards Mayor of the City, was appointed Clerk, and the first term of the Cook County Court was held May 5, 1845. The amount of business was, at that time, considerable, and that Court and the Circuit Court were kept busy. In 1847 the Constitution of the State of Illinois was revised, and a new judicial system adopted for the State, in and by which the judiciary was made elective. A County Court was established in each county, with probate jurisdic- tion, to be held by one judge, who was to be elected by the qualified voters of the county, and hold for four years. In the general overturning which took place by the inau- guration of a new judicial system and the election of all the judges, provision was made in the supplement to the new con- stitution that " The Cook and Jo Daviess County Courts shall continue to exist, and the judge and other officers of the same remain in office until otherwise provided for." By an Act of the General Assembly, approved November 5, 1849, entitled " An Act to establish the Tenth Judicial Cir- cuit, and to fix the times of holding courts in the Fifth, Sixth, Seventh, Ninth and Eleventh Judicial Circuits, and for other purposes," it was provided in the Eleventh Section as follows : "From and after the first Monday in January next, the Cir- cuit Court in and for the County of Cook, shall be holden on the first Mondays of May and December in each year, and that there shall be added to the name and title of the ' Cook County Court,' created by an Act of the Legislature, approved on the 21st of February, 1845, and referred to the Twenty- first Section of the Schedule of the Constitution, the words ' of Common Pleas,' so that the title and name of said Court shall henceforward be the ' Cook County Court of Common Pleas,' and the regular terms of said last named court shall hereafter be held on the first Mondays of February and Sep- tember in each year, instead of at the time heretofore desig- 16 nated by law ; and the said Cook County Court of Common Pleas, and the said Circuit Court of Cook County shall have equal and concurrent jurisdiction in all cases of misdemeanor arising under the criminal laws of this State, and in all cases of appeals from justices of the peace arising or instituted within said County of Cook, any law in anywise to the con- trary notwitstanding ; and all appeals from justices of the peace within said County of Cook shall be taken and carried to whichever of said courts the term of which shall be held next after any such appeal shall have been applied for and taken." By an act of the General Assembly, approved February 6, 1849, it was provided by the 1st section " That on the first Monday of April, in the year of our Lord one thousand, eight hundred and forty-nine, and every fourth year thereafter, an election shall be held in Cook County, at which election there shall be chosen one Judge of the Court created by an act en- titled "An act to establish the Cook County Court," approved February 21, .1845 ; also a Clerk of said Court, and a Prosecut- ing Attorney, to perform the duties provided for in said act, who shall each hold their respective offices for the term of four years, and until their successors shall be elected and quali- fied." 111. Laws of 1849, p. 69. The Jo Daviess County Court, which, by its organization, was to be held by the Judge of the 'County Court of Cook County, was repealed February 8, 1849, and all of its business transferred to the Circuit Court. By an act passed February 6, 1849, provision was made for the election of a Judge of the County Court on the first Monday of April, 1849, and every fourth year thereafter. When the Constitution of 1848 went into effect, and the election of the Judges had been transferred from the General Assembly to the people, Judge Hugh T. Dickey, of the Cook County Court, was nominated for Judge of the Seventh Judi- cial Circuit by the Democrats, and was elected without opposi- tion. Judge Dickey, soon after his election, resigned the office of Judge of the County Court of Common Pleas, and Giles 17 Spring was elected as his successor, and was commissioned April 14, 1849, and held the office until his premature death, which took place May 15, 1851. Spring was in his way a character, and has left behind him a name that will be long remembered for his talents, his keen and cutting intellect, and his eccentricities. Judge Goodrich, who was at one time his partner, in a discourse before the His- torical Society, a few years ago, among other things, said: " Spring was a phenomenon, a natural born lawyer. His education was quite limited, and he paid little respect to the rules of grammar; yet he could present a point of law to the court, and argue the facts of the case to the jury with. a clear- ness and force seldom equaled. He seemed sometimes to have an intuitive knowledge of the law and mastery of its profound- est and most subtle principles. His brain worked with the rapidity of lightning and with the force of an engine. In argu- ment he possessed a keenness of analysis, a force of compact, crushing logic, which bore down all opposition." Giles Spring was born in Massachusetts in 1805, whence he emigrated when a young man to the "Western Reserve" in Ohio. He studied law in Ashtabuln, in the law office of Giddings & Wade, the historic Benjamin F. Wade and Joshua A. Giddings, and removed to Chicago in 1833, and sixteen years after, or in 1849, was elected Judge of the Cook County Court Court' of Common Pleas, but died May 15, 1851. On the death of Spring, in May, 1851, Mr. Skinner was elected Judge of the Cook County Court of Common Pleas, and held the office for two years, but owing to declining health did not seek a re-election, and was succeeded by Judge John M. Wilson, one of the most remarkable jurists, in some re- spects, that ever held a judicial position in the courts of this county. The first term of the Cook County Court of Common Pleas was held by Judge Skinner in the new Court House, which was erected in the center of the public square, to take the place of the old one-story structure which so long stood on the corner, February 7, 1853. Most of the bar assembled at the court- room on the occasion, and Judge Skinner, on taking his seat on the bench, congratulated the bar on the privilege of occu- 18 pying the new rooms, where there was no fear of the walls or benches breaking down. Judge Skinner, when he first went on the bench, found that a large amount of business had accumulated, and he held court for seven months continuously. During his term he tried several murder trials, and many cases of great im- portance, among them one brought by James H. Collins, involv- ing the right of the Illinois Central Railroad Co. to occupy the lake front. The counsel for Collins were Isaac N. Arnold and John M. Wilson, while James F. Joy, of Detroit, appeared on behalf of the railroad ; the final result was, the case was compromised and the questions involved postponed to future generations, it still being doubtful whether that corporation owns Lake Michigan or the public square fronting on the same with the riparian rights bordering the same for an unknown distance. On the expiration of Judge Skinner's term of office John M. Wilson was elected April 4, 1853, to succeed him. Walter Kimball, clerk, and Daniel McEllroy as prosecuting attorney. By an act of the General Assembly passed February 21, 1859, the name of the Cook County Court of Common Pleas was changed to that of the "Superior Court of Chicago" and was to consist of three judges, who should hold their offices for six years respectively, but it was provided that an election should take place on the first Tuesday of April, A. D., 1859, for two judges, and it was provided that the one who received the highest number of votes should hold his office for six years and the other for four years, and that on the first Tuesday of April, 1861, and every two years thereafter, there should be elected one judge of said Court who should hold his office for six years and until his successor was elected and qualified. Public Laws of 1859, p 84. Under this arrangement Judge Van H. Higgins and Grant Goodrich were elected April, 1859. Judge Goodrich held this office until 1863, when he was succeeded by Joseph E. Gary, who has been regularly elected by the people every once in six years ever since that time. Judge Higgins resigned in 1865. Judge John A. Janiiesou on the resignation of Judge Hig- 19 gins was elected as his successor, and continued in that posi- tion until 1883, when he was succeeded by H. M. Shepard, who is now on the bench. In 1867 Judge Wm. D. Porter was elected to succeed Judge J. M. Wilson, but died suddenly on October 27, 1873. Judge Sidney Smith was elected in 1879 and held the office until 1886 when he was succeeded by Judge Gwynne Garnett. In 1870, on the revision of the Constitution of 1848, it was provided by article VI, section 1, section 23, that the " Superior Court of Chicago " shall be continued and called the "Superior Court of Cook County." It was also provided that the General Assembly might increase the number of said judges by adding one for every 50,000 inhabitants in said County over and above a population of 400,000, and it was also provided that the number of the Circuit judges might be increased in the same way. Accord- ingly an act of the General Assembly was passed in 1875 pro- viding for additional judges in the way and manner specified in the Constitution and increasing the number of judges until the said Court should be composed of nine judges. It also made it the duty of the Governor when he ascertained from the census of the State or of the United States that the County of Cook was entitled to one or more additional judges " to issue a writ for the election of one judge for every 50,000 inhabitants above a population of 400,000." It having been officially ascertained by the United States census of 1870 that the population of Cook County was suf- ficient for four additional judges, at the election in Novem- ber, 1880, four additional judges were elected, so now that Court consists of seven judges and by the same process and in the same way the Circuit Court consists of eleven judges, five having been provided for by the Constitution of 1870 and six more having been added by an act of the General Assem- bly of 1885, in accordance with article VI, section 23, of that instrument. At the election of November, 1880, Judges Hawes, Will- iamson, myself, and Judge Gardner, whose untimely death we this day deplore, were elected judges. Judge Williamson 20 has since been transferred to the Circuit bench, and he was succeeded by Judge Altgelt, and Judge Jamieson has suc- ceeded Judge Gardner. We have now given a brief history of events which relat 6 more particularly to our judicial annals, and have shown by what process of evolution the old Cook County Court of 1845, with one Judge holding terms in Chicago and Galena, became the Superior Court of Cook County, 1870, and how it grew from one judge to seven, and also how the Circuit Court ex- panded from one judge to that of eleven. Let us now briefly give a resume of the life and character of him whose history we have been especially requested to portray. Mark Skinner was born September 13, 1813, at Manches- ter, Bennington County, Vermont. His father was a lawyer and a prominent man in that State, as is evidenced by the fact that he held at various terms the offices of Prosecuting Attor- ney, Probate Judge, member of the Legislature, Governor, Representative m Congress, and Chief Justice of the State. The ediication of the son was carefully attended to, he hav- ing received a thorough academic and collegiate course, grad- uating at Middlebury in 1833. Leaving Vermont soon after his graduation, and soon after the death of his father, he spent a year at the New Haven Law School, then entered the office of Judge Ezek Cowen at Saratoga Springs, a celebrated law- yer, who is known the world over as the author of Cowen's Treatise, and finished his studies under the tutelage of Nicho- las Hill, at Albany, who was a master of his profession and 'who perhaps never had his superior in this or any other country in analyzing a case and making a brief and pre- senting the law points which it involved to a court of last re- sort. About this time great and glowing accounts of the boundless west had reached his ears, and bidding adieu to his preceptors he started for Chicago and arrived here in July, 1836. He was soon after admitted to the bar and formed a partnership with George Anson Oliver Beaumont, a Connecticut man, a graduate, we believe, of the New Haven Law School, with whom he continued in business until 1844, when Beau- mont's health failing him he was taken east and died of soft- ening of the brain December 18, 1845. In 1847 he formed a 21 partnership with the late lamented Thomas Hoyne, and on the death of Giles Spring, was elected Judge of the Cook County Court of Common Pleas, which office he held for two years and was succeeded by Judge John M. Wilson. Mr. Skinner soon became known as a keen and cultivated lawyer, and his services were sought after by many who had great confidence in his sagacity, his sound judgment, and his legal learning. In less than a year he was chosen one of the Board of School Inspectors, and from this time on his progress was great and his success assured. V He took a great interest in the cause of education, and in everything that related to the welfare of the people and their future happiness. I have taken some pains to look up his record, and it is remarkable. There was scarcely a projected enterprise in which the public had an interest but what re- ceived his indorsement or with which he was not identified. No one of his biographers has undertaken to enumerate the various public matters, public and private corporations, projects and enterprises, social, political, and religious organizations, with which he became associated, but from tne public records of this city, county, and State we find that he was one of the corporators of the Chicago Gas Light and Coke Company, and of the old Chicago Marine & Fire Insurance Company, and the State Insurance Company. He was a School Inspector and member of the School Board soon after he arrived here, and the public school-house, which stands on ' the corner of Aber- deen and Jackson streets, bears his name, and is known by everybody as the Skinner School. In 1840 Mr. Skinner was City Attorney of the city, and Thomas Hoyne, City Clerk. In 1842 a School Inspector. He was a delegate to a State School Convention, held at Peoria, October 9, 1844. In 1844 he was United States District Attorney. October 8, 1846, he was a member of a State Common School Convention, held in Chicago. January 30, 1841, he, 'Walter L. Newberry, Hugh T. Dickey, Peter Page, Walter S. Gurnee and other public-spir- 22 ited citizens organized the " Young Men's Association," with Walter L. Newberry, President, Mr. Skinner, Vice-President, and Hugh T. Dickey, Corresponding Secretary. This Associa- tion provided a reading room and a library, and was the fore- runner of the great Chicago Public Library. It was doubtless from Mr. Newberry's connection with this Association, and the interest that he took in building up that library, that he was induced to provide in his will for that munificent endowment which is to be known as the Newberry Library. Mr. Skinner was also connected with the Chicago Lyceum, long one of the foremost institutions in the city, and which conducted, year by year, a series of lectures by the best talent in the country. It was in its day a good institution. In 1846 Mr. Skinner was elected a member of the General Assembly and was appointed chairman of the Committee on Finance and introduced the bill for funding the State debt, which, through his efforts, passed and became a law. The services which Mr. Skinner rendered to the people of this State at that session of the General Assembly were invaluable and perhaps in a public view the most important of his life. The credit of Illinois was at that time at a low ebb, but by the Funding Bill the public debt was definitely ascertained, the creditors settled with and the credit of the State restored. It was the commencement in many respects of a new era. Judge Skinner was chairman of the meeting called by the citizens of Chicago which met at the Court House on the 16th oj: November. 1846, to make the necessary arrangements for the great River and Harbor Convention which took place on the 5th of July, 1847, and was afterwards selected as a dele- gate to that conveniion. He took a great interest in the building and equipment of the old Galena & Chicago Union Railroad, which was the pride of all the old settlers, and he and J. Y. Scammon and William B. Ogden, as one of his friends recently informed me, almost begged from door to door to raise the money to pay for the first locomotive that was ever placed on that road or drew a train of cars over the prairies. He was for years one of its directors, and when the Chicago. Burlington