Source:Fleming-eminent/content
A study of Pittsburgh's street nomenclature discloses the fact that the judiciary of Allegheny county and the United States courts in Pittsburgh have been fittingly commemorated. There are laymen, who served as associate judges, also remembered; William Porter, for instance, in a street on the "Hill" about his old home.
An additional commemoration of noted jurists has been made also in the names of townships in Allegheny county, and this may be said to have become a custom, other counties having followed.
In Pittsburgh streets we find the names not only of judges, but also eminent members of the bar, and while some may have been commemorated for other reasons, the fact of their legal attainments and ability remains. Examles [sic] of this class are Ross, Black, Rippey and Brackenridge.
Familiar names of streets recalling well known judges of their day are Forward, Dallas, Wilkins, Addison, Roberts, Hampton, Shaler, Lowrie, McCandless, McClure, Mellon, Magee, Sterrett, Collier, Bailey and Slagle.
Some of these eminent men have additional commemoration in township names, thus, Wilkins, Forward, Shaler, McCandless, Collier and Hampton townships are at once suggested. Some judges have been remembered in township names and omitted in street names, thus, Patton, Stowe, Kennedy, and recently, Frazier, a township made from a part of East Deer, and named in honor of Judge Robert S. Frazier of Pittsburgh, now on the Supreme bench of Pennsylvania.
Baldwin Street Discarded.
There was once a Baldwin street in Pittsburgh, now Twenty-sixth street, the name retained in the large and neighboring township which has been split up into boroughs and bids fair some near day to be annexed to Pittsburgh and the commemoration lost as was the case with McClure township, the name, however, maintained in McClure avenue in the Woods Run district of the North Side.
Baldwin township is in remembrance of Henry Baldwin, a citizen of Pittsburgh from 1799 until his death in 1844. President Jackson appointed him a Judge of the Supreme Court of the United States in 1830. Walter Forward was his student and partner.
William B. McClure succeeded Judge Benjamin Patton by appointment of the governor January 31, 1850. That year by constitutional amendment the judiciary became elective and Judge McClure was elected in October, 1851, for a ten years' term, the first elected in Allegheny county. He was re-elected in 1861 for another term of ten years, but died in December of that year and was succeeded by James P. Sterrett.
Judge McClure was a brother-in-law of Judge Wilson McCandless and hence an uncle of the late Stephen C. McCandless, both judges having married daughters of Thomas Collins, for whom Collins avenue is named. Mrs. McClure was Valveria [sic] Collins and Mrs. McCandless, Sarah Collins.
Judge McClure was born near Carlisle, Pa., and Judge McCandless at Noblestown, Allegheny county. The firm of McCandless and McClure was widely known and enjoyed an extensive practice. Judge McClure read law with John Kennedy of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court and was admitted to the bar here in 1829.
Only One Judge for Nine Years.
From 1850 until 1859 Judge McClure was the only judge of the Common Pleas Court, Quarter Sessions, Oyer and Terminer and Orphans' Courts of Allegheny County. The amount of work was enormous. He was a most laborious judge and no wonder his health became impaired and he broke down, passing away at the age of 54. His character is painted by his biographers in pleasing terms—"spotlessly pure, intensely anxious for the public welfare," etc. "He was justly a terror to evil doers," one says.
With the great growth of legal business in Allegheny county the necessity for an additional judge became so pronounced that by act of May 26, 1859, an assistant law judge was added.
This was John Wesley Maynard by appointment of the governor, who served from May, 1859, until the following December when he was succeeded by Thomas Mellon, elected for 10 years, who was succeeded by Judge F. H. Collier.
The names McClure and McCandless are commemorated in streets that are far apart, Wilson McCandless' name naturally going to the well-known avenue that passed his original homestead that was burned in 1877.
Judge McCandless went on the bench of the United States Court of the District of Western Pennsylvania by appointment of President Buchanan, February 8, 1859. He resigned and retired to private life July 24, 1876, and died at his residence in the old Eighteenth Ward (later Butler street section) June 30, 1882, aged 72 years. He was educated at the old Western University of Pennsylvania in Pittsburgh and admitted to the bar in 1831. For some years his partner was W. W. Fetterman.
It can be justly said of Judge McCandless that he was a remarkable man and a wonderful orator, and as a speaker on public occasions was much in demand. He was a great pleader also and for many years prominent in the political field as a staunch champion of the then dominant Democracy. He never held a political office but was frequently a delegate to state and national conventions of his party and a campaign worker of energy and success. In private life his virtues shone also. He was all that could be wished for in uprightness, and the dignity of his station he maintained with easy grace. In Pittsburgh and Western Pennsylvania Judge McCandless was a well loved man. He was succeeded by Winthrop W. Ketcham of Wilkes-Barre, who served until December, 1880, when he died suddenly and was succeeded by the late Judge Achison.
The names McClure and McCandless have been thus considered from family connection and business association, and their names applied to streets may be taken as proper and fitting commemoration of distinguished Pittsburghers, the same desire to honor apparent when bestowed upon the townships.
Hampton Well-Known Name.
Moses Hampton is another well-loved name. He succeeded Peter C. Shannon on the bench of the old District Court of Allegheny county, having been elected in 1853, and commissioned for a term of 10 years. He was re-elected in 1863 and served the second term. His colleagues were Henry W. Williams of Pittsburgh, who afterwards served on the supreme bench of Pennsylvania, and John M. Kirkpatrick, who succeeded Judge Williams.
Judge Hampton was succeeded by the late Judge John Wesley Fleecher White. By the constitution of 1873 still in force, the District Court was abolished and became Common Pleas No. 2. Recently all these courts have been made one court with 12 judges.
Judge Shannon, predecessor of Judge Hampton, was an appointive judge by the governor. He succeeded Judge Forward at the death of the latter, and served about a year. During the Civil War period and after Judge Shannon was prominent in politics. His name is not commemorated. He was a Democrat and Judge Hampton, a Whig, defeated him at the election in October, 1853. Judge Shannon became a prominent supporter of the government during the war days and was appointed judge of the United States Court in the territory of Dakota in 1869. He was a popular man, a great stump speaker and one of the "war horses of the Democracy" we used to hear about. He was a man of fine literary taste and good social qualities.
Judge Hampton was born in Beaver county in 1803, moved to Trumbull county, Ohio, and was a farmer boy and a helper in his father's blacksmith shop. He spent a year in the academy at Burton, O., when 17 supporting himself. He entered old Washington College, Washington, Pa., walking there from his Ohio home. He graduated in the class of 1826, the college then under the charge of the Rev. Dr. Wylie.
Upon graduating young Hampton went to Uniontown and taught two years in La Fayette Academy, also acting as principal. While in Uniontown he studied law with John M. Austin and was admitted to the bar of Fayette county in 1829. He removed to Somerset and began the practice of law there. He was prothonotary of the county one year by appointment of Gov. Ritner, but resigned the office and removed to Pittsburgh in 1838. At once he jumped to the front rank of his profession. This is an old metaphor, but we will let it stand because it states the fact and states it well.
Went to Congress in 1846.
Mr. Hampton was elected to Congress in 1846 and re-elected in 1848. In Congress he had the distinction of sitting with Abraham Lincoln. Mr. Hampton's efforts in Congress gave Pittsburgh the old Marine Hospital and the government buildings that stood at Fifth and Smithfield street, better known as the old postoffice, on the site of the Park Building. He was also instrumental in the establishment of the Allegheny county Workhouse.
In politics Judge Hampton was an ardent Whig. He took an active part in the election of Gov. Ritner in 1835, President William Henry Harrison in 1840, and supported Clay and Taylor in the presidential campaigns of 1844 and 1848, respectively. Judge J. W. White tells us that Judge Hampton was a most popular campaign speaker, a most dignified judge closely attending to the business of his court, eminently fair, quick in perception, noted for his calm judgment and the cleverness and logical force of his opinions.
He was a quiet and gentlemanly man, of tender feelings, of great kindness and benevolence, an exemplary Christian throughout his long life, serving many years as a ruling elder in the Presbyterian Church.
At the election in 1846 Judge Hampton was opposed by four candidates. Chief of them, Wilson McCandless. The vote in Allegheny county was: Hampton, Whig, 5,461; McCandless, Democrat, 4,047; John A. Wills, Liberty party, 487, and Thomas Howard, Native American (Know Nothing), 506. Two years later Hampton was re-elected by a good vote, this time over the subsequently renowned Col. Samuel W. Black, and this was about the time Col. Black returned from his arduous services in Mexico as lieutenant colonel of the First Pennsylvania Volunteers.
John H. Hampton, for many years an eminent member of the Allegheny county bar, was a son of Judge Hampton, and the law partner of John Dalzell under the firm name of Hampton & Dalzell, with their offices in the Hampton Law Building on Grant street, one of the buildings recently razed for the new city and county building, and occupied by the Young Men's Republican Tariff Club as the last tenant.
John Hampton was a graduate of Washington College and a classmate and lifelong friend of James G. Blaine; a delegate to the Cincinnati convention of 1876, when Rutherford B. Hayes was nominated, and there Hampton refused to follow the "unit rule" and vote for Gov. Hartranft of Pennsylvania, a dummy candidate, who had 58 votes on the first ballot. The seventh and final ballot was: Blaine, 351; Bristow, 21; Hayes, 384; five more than a majority. Great chunks of history can be fitted in here.
Judge Forward's Short Career.
Walter Forward, predecessor of Moses Hampton on the bench of the District Court (not counting the brief term of Judge Shannon), calls for more than ordinary space by reason of his double commemoration in Allegheny county—a Pittsburgh street and the large township in the great bend of the Allegheny River. Yet Judge Forward's term was quite short. Elected November 7, 1851, he served scarcely a year, having died November 24, 1852. He was the first judge elected by the people to the District Court bench.
Forward was a Connecticut Yankee, born in 1786. In 1800 his father removed to Ohio, and began to clear land for a farm in the wilderness. Hence Forward was the child of the border, a "log-cabin" lawyer like Lincoln with few books and little schooling. He worked for his father for three years, taught school at night and saved his money to purchase a few books, among them an old copy of "Blackstone's Commentaries." He surprised his father with the declaration that he was going to Pittsburgh to study law. This was in 1803, when he was 17.
Hither he walked with $1 in his pocket and his small bundle of clothes slung over his shoulder on a stick. He may have been a believer in luck, or perhaps his Yankee thrift suggested it. He picked up a horseshoe on the road and put it in his bundle. Horseshoes were worth something in those days. Arriving at the old ferry over the Allegheny at which is now Federal street he was without a cent but the ferryman took the horseshoe for the ferrige [sic] and young Forward landed in the even then notable town of Pittsburgh, penniless and a stranger. He had heard of Henry Baldwin, and him he sought.
When Forward came to Market street he accosted a man who knew Baldwin and who conducted the youth to the lawyer's office. Baldwin was just starting for Kittanning to attend court. He gave Forward the keys to his office and told him to occupy it and read Blackstone until Baldwin returned.
This was the introduction of future Secretary of the Treasury to a future justice of the Supreme Court of the United States.
Friendship of a Lifetime.
While the uncouth youth sat in the office and read, intent upon the fascinating story of the law as presented by the great Blackstone, another noted lawyer came upon the scene, Henry M. Brackenridge, son of Hugh Henry Brackenridge, the family name perpetuated in a Pittsburgh street and an Allegheny county borough. Brackenridge was impressed with the character of the youthful "limb of the law" (this, too, is an old metaphor) and then and there began a friendship that lasted a lifetime.
Brackenridge, an author of note of those days, relates of Forward's slender means (lack of money) the following:
"We took a walk one Saturday afternoon and descended into a deep, romantic glen east of Grant's Hill. We took a shower bath under my favorite cascade, after which my companion washed the garment unknown to the Greeks and Romans (his shirt) and laid it in a sunny spot to dry; while seated on a rock we 'reasoned high of fate, foreknowledge.'"
This passage occurs in Brackenridge's "Recollections of the West." This glen must have been in what was later known as Two Mile Run, or in later years Soho Hollow, beyond Ruch's Hill and the boys of the Minersville district and the old Eleventh Ward of 40 years ago will have recollections of shelving rocks and cascades and the sulphur waters of a deep yellow tint that made the lavage in them somewhat like putting on a coat of varnish, but the boys laved nevertheless.
Served as an Editor.
Walter Forward became an editor in 1806 at the age of 19. Baldwin was one of the owners of the paper published here known as the "Tree of Liberty." With the salary he received in this position Forward was able to support himself until 1808, when he was admitted to the bar, where he soon arose to distinction as a man of rare intellectual endowments and an eloquent advocate.
Space today forbids further mention of him. It is interesting to note in the first directory of Pittsburgh, 1815, the following items:
"Baldwin, Henry, attorney at law, E. side of Liberty bet. Front and Second."
"Forward, Walter, attorney at law, N. side of Fourth between Market and Wood."
The court house then was in the Diamond and the streets were not numbered. Samuel Roberts was President Judge of the Courts of Common Pleas of Allegheny County, and Francis McClure and George Robinson Associate Judges. These were laymen, or judges not learned in the law, who were elected for a term of five years—a system still in use in the smaller counties in Pennsylvania. John Brown, elected in 1861, was the last to so serve in Allegheny County, when the law was changed, requiring two associate law judges to be elected. This put upon the Allegheny County bench Edwin H. Stowe, who sat for 40 years, defeated in 1902 by Judge James E. Macfarlane.
In 1815 Ephraim Pentland was prothonotary of Allegheny County. We have Pentland Street, upon which The Gazette Times Building faces.
