CHARLES CLINTON NOURSE
[Illustration: _Charles Clinton Nourse_
Photogravure by Elson, Boston
From Photograph by Edinger]
Autobiography of Charles Clinton Nourse
Prepared for use of Members of the Family
CONTAINING THE INCIDENTS OF MORE THAN FIFTY
YEARS' PRACTICE AT THE BAR IN THE STATE OF IOWA
PRIVATELY PRINTED
MCMXI
Copyright 1911
BY CHARLES CLINTON NOURSE
THE TORCH PRESS
CEDAR RAPIDS, IOWA
CONTENTS
I ANCESTRY AND EARLY LIFE 7
II EARLY EXPERIENCES IN IOWA 18
III REMOVED TO DES MOINES 38
IV RESUMES THE PRACTICE OF LAW 56
V SOME IMPORTANT LAW SUITS 79
VI VISITS VIRGINIA RELATIVES 95
VII PLEASURE TRIP TO COLORADO 99
VIII CENTENNIAL ADDRESS 104
IX TEMPERANCE AND PROHIBITION 109
X REGULATION OF FREIGHT AND PASSENGER TARIFFS 142
XI DES MOINES RIVER LAND TITLES 152
XII A. O. U. W. CONTROVERSY 163
XIII IMPORTANT EVENTS IN CAREER 165
XIV THE BROWN IMPEACHMENT CASE 171
XV MORE LAW CASES 185
XVI BIRTH OF A SON AND PERSONAL INCIDENTS 193
XVII BREEDER OF SHORT HORN CATTLE 203
XVIII B. F. ALLEN BANKRUPTCY 208
XIX ABOUT PROHIBITION 215
XX PERSONAL INCIDENTS 226
CHAPTER I
ANCESTRY AND EARLY LIFE
DES MOINES, IOWA, MAY, 1908
TO MASTER JOSEPH CHAMBERLAIN,
DEAR JOE:
I promised your father that I would write you a long letter containing
in detail something of a biography of myself. He assures me it is not
intended for publication, but only for your perusal and for such
friends of the family as may now or hereafter deem it interesting to
know something of those of the family who have preceded them.
In Washington county, in the state of Maryland, near the little stream
of Antietam creek, where was fought one of the memorable battles of our
Civil War, there is located a quaint, old fashioned village called
Sharpsburg. The inhabitants of the village and neighborhood were in a
large part Germans or of German descent.
On one corner of the public square there still remains, in fairly good
repair, an old fashioned stone dwelling house. In this house on the
first day of April, A.D. 1829, I was born, as were also my two older
brothers, Joseph Gabriel and John Daniel, born respectively June 25,
1826, and November 30, 1827. This stone house at one time belonged to
my grandfather, Gabriel Nourse, who was the son of James Nourse. The
ancestors of the latter are given in a book now in the possession of
your mother, entitled _James Nourse and his Descendants_.
In the basement or first story of this stone building my father taught
school about the time of the birth of his three boys, given above. At
that early day the people of the village and surrounding country were
not supposed to be very highly educated. If children were taught to
read and write indifferently and something of arithmetic, at least as
far as the single rule of three, their education was supposed to be
sufficient for the practical purposes of life. My father has related to
me that when he first commenced teaching in the village, in the
presence of such a company as usually assembles around a country store,
a wise man of the village explained to his admiring hearers that the
cause of the changes of the moon resulted from the fact that the earth
came between the sun and the moon and hence obstructed the light in
such a way as to produce the new moon and the various changes until the
full moon. My father rashly attempted to suggest that the wise man was
mistaken, for the obvious reason that the moon in its first quarter
could be seen in the heavens at the same time as the sun could be
observed, and it was impossible that the moon could be partially
darkened by the shadow of the earth. The wise man was rather mortified
by this exposure of his ignorance, but did not acknowledge his error,
but angrily reproved a young man for presuming to differ with him.
In this stone building also my grandfather, Gabriel, died in April,
1839, and was buried in the village churchyard. This stone house is
still standing at the date of this writing, and the basement room where
my father taught school is occupied as a store-room for vending relics
and curiosities gathered from the battle-fields of the neighborhood.
Three miles from the village of Sharpsburg, on the Virginia side of the
Potomac river, there is another quaint, old fashioned village called
Shepherdstown. Here my mother, Susan Cameron, was born October 25,
1803, and was married to my father, Charles Nourse, June 10, 1825. Here
in this village my mother died October 10, 1835. There is still
standing in this town the old Methodist church, surrounded by a village
churchyard, where will be found modest tombstones marking the graves of
my mother, and of many of her brothers and sisters, and also her
mother, Susan Cameron, who died at Shepherdstown, Virginia, July 20,
1855. My mother's father's name was Daniel Cameron, born in Scotland,
October, 1753. His wife was also of Scotch descent. Her family name was
Clinton, which name was bestowed upon me, and in honor of my
grandmother and to please her I have always been known in the family by
the name of Clinton, my first name being Charles, so named after my
father. My father, Charles Nourse, was born at Frankfort, Kentucky,
April 15, 1801.
Several years before my mother's death my father had removed from
Sharpsburg to Frederick City, Maryland, where he taught school for
several years, and while living there, to-wit, August 9, 1833, your
mother's mother was born.
My recollections of my mother are not very distinct, as I was only six
years old at the time of her death. Only one incident of my early
childhood I call to mind very clearly. I had been induced by my older
brothers and some neighbor boys, whilst playing in the market square at
Frederick City, to attempt to imitate them in the use of chewing
tobacco, which resulted in making me very sick. Whilst lying upon the
trundle bed in the room upstairs of the house where we resided, I
vomited very freely, and as I lay back upon my pillow, pale and weak
from the effort, I remember a kind face of one stooping over me and
sympathizing deeply, not knowing the cause of my illness, and I
remember how guilty I felt at being the object of so much undeserved
sympathy.
The last two years of our residence in Maryland we lived at a little
village at the foot of the Blue Ridge mountains called Burkettsville,
and during part of these two years my grandmother Cameron kept house
for us and had charge of her four grandchildren. I remember her very
distinctly, the most affectionate and patient woman it was ever my
fortune to know.
In February, 1841, my father, with his four children then living, took
the old fashioned stage-coach at Boonesboro, Maryland, crossing the
Allegheny mountains, coming on to Wheeling, crossing the Ohio river,
and thence via Zanesville and Somerset, Ohio, to the little village of
East Rushville in Fairfield county, Ohio. After teaching school in East
Rushville during the summer of that year, my father with myself and
sister Susan removed to Lancaster, the county seat of Fairfield county,
Ohio, leaving my two older brothers as heavy clerks in country
stores--my brother Joseph with a man named Clayton and my brother John
with a man named Paden, in two separate villages in the county of
Fairfield. My father taught school in Lancaster, Ohio, for four years,
I think most of the time for a compensation of $300 a year. As this sum
was hardly sufficient to support him and his two children at a
respectable boarding house, it became necessary for me to relieve the
situation and to start out in the world for myself. My first attempt
was in a country store at East Rushville with a man by the name of
Coulson. After four months heavy clerking with this man, he failed in
business and sold out his stock of remnants, and I returned to
Lancaster to my father. After a few months I again attempted to do
business in support of myself, and I hired out to another village
store-keeper, without any fixed compensation further than that I was to
have my board and clothes for my services. My duties consisted of
weighing out groceries, taking in eggs, butter, and feathers, and
packing and preparing for shipment the butter and eggs, for which there
was not sufficient local market. I also sold goods through business
hours, made fires both in the store and for the family, sawed wood,
milked the cow, and in the fall and winter fed, curried, and cared for
a half dozen horses that were shipped in the spring for the eastern
market. At the end of sixteen months of this kind of service my
employer advised me and also my father that I would never make a
merchant. I had positively refused to conform to his instructions in
doing business in the manner in which he thought was most for his
interest. He was engaged also at that time in buying leaf tobacco that
was raised in the Hocking hills, for which he paid about one-third
cash, one-third on short time, and one-third in goods out of the store.
He had three prices or more for nearly everything he had to sell,
depending, of course, on the character of his customer and the kind of
pay he was to receive. For instance: his cash customers, of whom there
were very few, received four pounds of coffee for a dollar. His long
credit customers, of whom there were many, received three pounds of
coffee for a dollar, whilst his trade customers, especially those who
took goods out of the store for tobacco, received two and a half pounds
of coffee for a dollar. It was not easy for a young boy, or as young a
boy as I was at that time, always to understand the exact standing of
the customers, and it was necessary to watch carefully the old man who
was proprietor of the store, who indicated by signs upon his fingers,
which I too frequently misunderstood, just exactly how much coffee for
a dollar a customer was entitled to. One remarkable incident of the
manner in which my employer did business I remember very distinctly.
During the day our little store was crowded with customers who had sold
tobacco to our employer and had to take their pay in part out of the
store. A young man by the name of Johnnie, who was a year or two older
than myself and a favorite with the proprietor of the store, had during
the day sold to a German woman a large red and yellow cotton
handkerchief for the sum of thirty-seven and a half cents that was
marked twelve and a half cents and had cost us eight and a third cents.
The next day she returned with one of her neighbors who also had to
take her pay out of the store for tobacco, and she wanted another of
those red and yellow cotton handkerchiefs, which Johnnie sold her of
course at the same price. In the evening Johnnie and myself had to go
over to the old gentleman's residence before we retired for the night
and attend family prayers. During the evening the old gentleman recited
Johnnie's exploits in selling those cotton handkerchiefs for three
times the marked price, and then chuckled gleefully, praising Johnnie
for his success and how he would make a merchant, but that I would
never learn; and then turning to his eldest daughter he said: "Hand me
the bible, dear, we will have prayers."
Whilst living with this old gentleman I became thoroughly disgusted
with mercantile life, as I then saw it and witnessed it, and cast about
in my own mind seriously to know what I should do for the future. I
realized that I neglected my opportunities whilst attending school
under my father's instructions, and I resolved, as far as I could under
the circumstances, to supply the omission. I got out my old Kirkham's
grammar and my arithmetic and algebra, and spent many of my nights
after the store closed in study. At the end of sixteen months of this
life I returned again to my father, who was still at Lancaster. During
the last year that I lived at Lancaster I assisted my father in his
school, teaching the younger children, and still to a limited extent
pursuing my own studies.
In the fall of 1844 my father determined to remove to Kentucky, leaving
my sister Susan, your mother's mother, with Mrs. Catherine Sumner, a
most excellent Presbyterian lady with whom my father had boarded for
several years during his stay in Lancaster. My father first stopped at
Millersburg, Bourbon county, and took up school, but only remained
there a few months, having in the meantime heard of a vacancy in the
position of principal of the public school in Lexington. Having secured
this position at a salary then of only $600 a year, we removed to
Lexington in the early part of 1845.
I became one of the assistant teachers in this school at a salary of
twenty dollars a month for the first year, but subsequently was
promoted to the position of first assistant at a salary of thirty
dollars per month, and continued to occupy that position until the fall
of 1849, when I secured, by courtesy of the city council of the city of
Lexington, the favor of entering the law school of Transylvania
University, the city having a number of scholarships in that
institution at its gratuitous disposal. During the four years that I
taught school as an assistant in the city school, I still pursued my
own private studies at night, reciting to my father in the morning
before school hours, until about the year 1848, when I had saved money
enough from my meager salary to procure some text books of the law, and
commenced reading law. In the meantime I had formed the acquaintance of
a young lawyer, Abraham S. Drake, who became a very devoted friend of
mine and superintended my reading, giving me such instructions as were
necessary. My situation as a teacher in the public school in Lexington
was very trying upon my health. I had an average of about fifty small
children in a small room not more than twenty feet square, about six
hours a day except Saturday, and had to occupy myself with my private
studies when I ought to have had the privilege of and needed exercise
in the open air. I had some satisfaction, however, in the success of my
scholars, making it a specialty to teach them the art of reading well
and reading aloud, an art which in the subsequent years I have found
our public schools are sadly neglecting. I hope, dear Joe, you will
succeed while you are going to school in learning to read, that being a
neglected and almost a lost art in this day and generation.
In August, 1846, my father returned to Lancaster, Ohio, and married
Miss Hetty Herron, an adopted child of Mrs. Catherine Sumner's with
whom my sister Susan had been living. Returning to Lexington, he
continued teaching until 1850, when he removed to Millersburg,
Kentucky.
In the fall of 1849 I entered the senior class of the law department of
Transylvania University, and in March, 1850, graduated and received my
diploma from that school. My preceptors were two very able judges of
the supreme court of Kentucky, to-wit, Judge Robinson and Judge
Marshall. I had first taken up the idea of becoming a lawyer during my
residence in Lancaster, Ohio, where I frequently spent my Saturdays in
attendance upon the courts, listening with great interest to the
speeches and discussions of the eminent men who constituted the bar at
that place, among them Henry Stansbury, afterwards Attorney General of
the United States, Thomas Ewing, afterwards Secretary of the Treasury
of the United States during General Harrison's administration, Hocking
H. Hunter, afterwards one of the judges of the supreme court of Ohio.
Whilst residing in Lexington, Kentucky, I pursued the same course,
visiting the courts whenever opportunity offered, hearing such men as
Henry Clay and Thomas F. Marshall, and other distinguished lawyers of
Kentucky, arguing their cases.
In the meantime I had joined the Methodist Episcopal church on
probation, and made the acquaintance of Miss Rebecca A. McMeekin.
In the spring of 1850, after my graduation in the law department of
Transylvania University, I determined to visit Ohio. I had some idea of
settling in that state, as my two brothers who remained in Ohio were
then in business in Fairfield county, my oldest brother Joseph having
commenced the mercantile business on his own account at New Salem,
Ohio, and my brother John had commenced the practice of medicine in the
village of New Baltimore in the same county. Before leaving Lexington,
however, I felt it due to myself and to Miss McMeekin to explain to her
my frequent visits to her house. I wrote her a letter telling her of my
hopeless condition financially and of the uncertain prospects of my
success in my profession, but protesting my affection for her and my
good faith in the attentions that I had paid her, and asking her to
decide our future for herself. She made no reply in writing, but in my
next visit to her she simply expressed her faith in my ultimate success
in my profession, and her entire willingness to risk the future, so
that when I left Lexington for Ohio, which I did in April, 1850, I was
simply engaged to be married.
When I arrived at Lancaster I entered the office of John D. Martin, an
eminent lawyer of that place, in pursuance of a previous correspondence
with him. He had been a particular friend of my father and an assistant
to him in his school during my father's residence in Lancaster in
1842-3. He already had his nephew, Charles Martin, as an assistant in
his office and could not offer me any compensation or any work. After
two months I found it necessary to do something to replenish my
exhausted finances. I first took a select school in Millersport a small
town on the canal a few miles north of New Baltimore. After teaching
here for three months I took the winter school in New Baltimore at a
salary of $30 a month. In the meantime, through the acquaintances of my
brother Joseph, located at New Salem, and my brother John, located at
New Baltimore, I became known throughout that part of the country as an
embryo lawyer. Although not admitted regularly to the practice of law,
in the courts of record, I had the right to practice before the
justices of the peace of the county, and during that summer I tried
some seventeen cases before these inferior courts. I still continued my
studies of the law, using very frequently a book known there as
_Swan's Treatise_, compiled for the benefit of the justices of the
peace of the state by Judge Swan, of Ohio. This book also contained
many references to the supreme court decisions of the state, and I was
accustomed after school hours to walk to Lancaster and borrow these
reports from my friend, Mr. Martin, frequently taking them home and
using them upon the trial of my cases, which always occurred on
Saturdays when I had no school.
During my stay in Ohio, I read carefully and with much profit to
myself, the daily reports of the proceedings of the state convention
that was then forming a new constitution for that state.
Many eminent lawyers were members of the convention, among them Mr.
Stansbury, afterwards Attorney General of the United States, and Mr.
Raney, afterwards Judge of the supreme court of the state of Ohio.
Occasionally the learned men of the convention indulged their sense of
humor, and among other incidents of the debates I recall the following:
Among other members of the convention there was an uneducated man by
the name of Sawyer. Mr. Stansbury, of the committee on the judiciary,
reported a provision relating to the powers of certain courts,
authorizing them to issue writ of habeas corpus, procedendo, quo
warranto, and mandamus.
Mr. Sawyer objected to these Latin terms being in the constitution on
the ground that many of his constituents could not understand the
meaning of such terms and he wanted the committee to put the words into
English language, and also asked for an explanation of the meaning of
these words.
Mr. Stansbury very courteously explained that the difficulty was not in
the use of the terms proposed, but it was because his friend did not
understand the nature of these writs. For the benefit of Mr. Sawyer he
explained their meaning, but suggested that the use of any English
terms or words would not make the character of the writs any better
understood to those who are not familiar with the law. He said that the
literal meaning of the words "habeas corpus" was to have the body, and
the writ was issued in case any one complained of being illegally
imprisoned, or restrained of their personal liberty, and was intended
for the purpose of having the body of the person in whose behalf the
writ was issued brought before the court, in order that the cause of
his restraint or imprisonment might be inquired into and its legality
or illegality be determined; that to call the writ, a writ to have the
body, would not make the term any more intelligent than to use the
words "habeas corpus."
That the word "procedendo" simply meant to proceed or go ahead, and was
a name of a writ that was issued by the appellate court to an inferior
tribunal, authorizing them to proceed in accordance with the opinion of
the appellate court. Out of respect to the character of a man who had
become famous in the west, of an early day, he would suggest to his
friend Sawyer that this writ might be called a writ of "David Crocket,"
as it was a favorite motto of that individual to "Be sure you are right
and then go ahead."
That the literal meaning of the words "quo warranto" was, "Why do you
do it?" It was a writ issued by some superior court to an inferior
court or tribunal, corporation or officer, to ascertain by what
authority they exercised certain powers; that the only term in English
that would express the particular character of the writ would be the
words, "Why do you do it?"
The writ of "mandamus" was a writ issued by the court commanding some
inferior tribunal or officer to do and perform certain duties which
were required by law and which he had refused to perform. That the only
words in the English language that would properly define the character
of this writ would be, "Do it, damn you."
It is not necessary to add that Mr. Sawyer gave the convention no
further trouble in regard to the Latin names of these writs.