- CHAPTER XLIV.
- E. D. Wheeler—Another of Our Pioneers—Early
Life—Studying under Don Morrison in Illinois—Mining
at Placervllle—In Trade at Sacramento—County Clerk
of Yuba—Incident of His Examination for the Bar—In
the State Senate—On the Bench in San Francisco—Observations
of Henry K. Highton—A Patriotic Pleasantry.
- The bar leader and jurist who now attracts us has been the
subject of repeated and delightful
- reference in this volume. Looking backward over the long
line of argonauts, few names stand out more prominently than
his in law and politics. Coming to California in 1849 he has
resided here continually, holding high place in the legal world,
and a warm corner in the hearts of the people.
- E. D. WHEELER was born on the 8th of January, 1828, in Roxbury,
Litchfield County,
- Connecticut, and was one of ten children. His parents were
of English descent on his mother's side, and Welsh on his father's.
In 1832 his family moved to Cayuga County in New York, and there
his boyhood days were passed. He mastered the branches of learning
there taught in what were called the common schools of New York,
and at fifteen entered the Academy at Jordan, Onondaga County,
New York, where he pursued his studies for two years. He intended
to take a collegiate course, but just at a time when the avenues
of learning were broadening and widening, his family moved to
the then far West, and settled in Rock County, Wisconsin. Here
the rough life of the frontier, and absence of advanced schools
closed his career as far as any institution of learning was concerned.
He went to work with a will, helping to clear the home farm.
About this time his father met with an accident and died, leaving
a widow and nine children. Mr. WHEELER being next to the eldest
had the burdens of manhood thrown upon him at Jan early age.
He was equal to the responsibility, putting aside all thoughts
of self and abandoning for a time his ambition. He worked steadily
in the interest of his family, and when the cold winter closed
in and prevented outside labor, he taught school.
- When only nineteen years of age, and having no legal knowledge
he was always employed in all
- the Justices Court cases in the township where he resided;
this because of his ability as a debater, as displayed in the
societies then much in fashion.
- In the spring of 1847, having surrendered his interests in
the home place, he departed and settled
- in Belleville, Illinois, fourteen miles east of St. Louis.
Here he passed two years of his life that gave direction to his
future. At that time Belleville possessed an able and brilliant
bar, and Mr. WHEELER was thrown into daily contact with pushing,
energetic, capable men. Lyman Trumbull, since United States Senator
and now a venerable bar leader of Chicago, was the principal
attorney in Belleville. Don Morrison, a brother of our late Chief
Justice, was also a distinguished man there at that time. Mr.
WHEELER pursued his legal studies in the office of Mr. Morrison.
He worked early and late, it being his intention to become a
member of the bar and settle in Saint Clair County.
- But the California gold fever had reached that section, and
prompted by the spirit of adventure
- that animated thousands of progressive young men of that
time, Mr. WHEELER closed his law books, gave up his school, and
joining a small train in April, 1849, started across the plains
from St. Louis, Missouri. On August 26th, Placerville, then called
Hangtown, was reached. Mr. WHEELER engaged in mining in that
vicinity. Not long afterwards he went to Sacramento and followed
merchandizing and steamboat freighting for a while.
- It was in February, 1850, that Mr. WHEELER settled in Marysville,
then known as Nye Ranch,
- and one of the most nourishing of the northern towns, where
he was destined to establish his great reputation as a lawyer.
As an illustration of the go-ahead way of those days, he, after
a two months residence there, ran for the office of County Clerk
of Yuba County, which county then embraced the present counties
of Yuba, Nevada and Sierra. He was elected by a handsome majority.
He held the office for two years, doing most of his own work,
and diligently pursuing his law studies at night and in spare
hours. On April I5th, 1852, he went before the Supreme Court
then sitting at San Francisco, and stood his examination. His
close reading and courtroom experience while County Clerk, and
his former studies in Illinois, had well qualified him, and he
passed with high honor. The committee consisted of M. H. McAllister,
afterwards United States Circuit Judge, and father of the distinguished
Hall McAllister, Jas. A. McDougall, afterwards United States
Senator, and Edward Norton, subsequently on the Supreme bench
of this State. Mr. McAllister conducted the examination, a little
incident of which is illustrative of Mr. WHEELER's ready wit.
The questions put by Mr. McAllister had been chiefly on the common
law. These were readily answered. Then Mr. McAllister asked,
"If a man die intestate what becomes of his property."
- To answer this correctly involved a familiarity with the
statute of descents and distributions. Not
- being as ready with an answer as possibly he should have
been he was forced to rely upon his wits to help him out; so
he replied, "I don't know how it would be in San Francisco,
but in Yuba County where I live, the property in such cases is
divided between the public administrator and the physician who
attended the deceased in his last illness." Mr. McAllister
laughed heartily and remarked that he was perfectly satisfied
that if the applicant was not a good lawyer then he soon would
be, and the committee reported favorably on the examination and
Mr. WHEELER was sworn in.
- After a visit to the Eastern States occupying some eight
or nine months, during which he traveled
- extensively through the north and south, Mr. WHEELER returned
to California and in January, 1853, opened a law office in Marysville
and entered actively into the practice of his profession. His
business grew rapidly and he took a leading position at a bar
of brainy men. He studied closely, was attentive and industrious.
He amassed a comfortable fortune in a few years. During his residence
in Marysville, from 1853 until 1860, he was employed in some
of the leading cases in the northern part of the State. For a
time he was a member of the Marysville City Council and filled
the office of public administrator, which last place he shortly
resigned in order to give his entire time to legal business of
his own.
- In 1858 Mr. WHEELER was nominated for the State Senate by
the Democratic party of Yuba
- County. At that time occurred the split in the Democratic
ranks over the great question of freedom or slavery in the territories,
following close upon the disruption in Washington between Douglas
and Buchanan. Mr. WHEELER took the side of Douglas. The Lecompton
or Buchanan wing bolted his nomination, and put up a pro-slavery
Democrat to oppose him. The contest was bitter and spirited.
Mr. WHEELER took the stump and made many speeches. These were
forcible and eloquent efforts
and established him as an orator. They made him many friends
outside of his own party. He was elected by a handsome majority.
In the senate he served for two sessions, and became a leader
in debate from the first. He was logical, and eloquent, quick,
accurate, and ready. His wide reading, literary taste and knowledge,
made him a dangerous opponent, and his keen sarcasm and wit enlivened
the tedium of many a long debate. His first great speech in that
body was on the occasion of what was probably the most exciting
and acrimonious debate of those stirring times. This arose on
the resolution offered by Senator William Holden (afterwards
Lieutenant-Governor) requesting the resignation of Hon. David
C. Broderick, then United States Senator, because Broderick in
his capacity as Senator had voted against the admission of Kansas
with a pro-slavery constitution.
- This great debate but presaged the more serious contest that
soon was to follow upon the great
- slavery question. Mr. WHEELER defended Broderick's course
in one of the ablest speeches in the history of our State Senate.
It made him distinguished as a popular leader and an orator.
- After his term in the Senate closed, Mr. WHEELER removed
to San Francisco. This was in
- 1860. His first business partnership in that city was with
Hon. O. C. Pratt. His firm enjoyed a lucrative practice from
the first; however, the association did not long continue. For
the next twelve years Mr. WHEELER followed the practice in San
Francisco with the exception of six months' residence in White
Pine, Nevada, whither he was lured by the mining excitement that
drew so many lawyers from California. On his return from Nevada
he resumed business in San Francisco and has resided there ever
since.
- The 19th Judicial District Court was organized in 1872, and
on March 8th of that year Governor
- Newton Booth appointed Mr. WHEELER as the Judge of the new
tribunal. Immediately on his qualifying, Judge WHEELER's court
was crowded with business. Before him were tried some of the
most important cases in the State.
- Notable among these cases was that of the Rev. T. Madison
Dawson against Rev. Dr. W. A.
- Scott and others, the defendants representing the Presbyterian
church. This case is noticed at some length in the chapter on
Mr. High ton in this volume, at pages 179-180. I beg to call
attention to it again. "The discussion in this case,"
as Mr. Highton once observed in a conversation I had with him,
"was historical as well as legal, and, escaping from dry
technicalities, went down deep into the structure of our Government
itself. The opinion of Judge Wheeler in favor of the plaintiff
was in truth a remarkable specimen of judicial reasoning, and
both in manner and in method fully reached the height of the
litigation in which it was delivered. No appeal was taken, but
whether approved or disapproved, it will stand in the records
of this State as the result of great thought and labor, and as
pursuing a line of argument couched in language at once forcible
and elegant; and it ranks among the prominent contributions of
the law by the judiciary of the country."
- Mr. Highton continued, "I can say that while Judge WHEELER
was on the bench he tried many
- important cases in some of which I myself participated on
one side or the other, and his decisions were usually maintained
by the Supreme Court. He was most prominent and most successful
in the administration of equity. His mind seemed intuitively
to grasp those settled principles through which equity relieves
the unsubstantial technicalities of the law, and succeeds, to
some extent at least, in applying and enforcing natural justice.
I have no hesitation in saying that in my opinion he was the
best Chancellor who ever sat on the bench in this State."
- In the fall of 1873, Judge WHEELER was nominated for the
bench which he then held, by the
- Republican and People's parties. He was elected for a full
term of six years, his Democratic opponent being Hon. Wm. P.
Dangerfield. He remained on the bench of the 19th District Court
until that tribunal, with all the District Courts, passed out
of existence with the adoption of the new constitution of 1879.
In the latter year he was one of the Republican nominees for
Justices of the Supreme Court, but was defeated, with all his
judicial ticket except one, by the combined Democratic and Kearney
vote—which vote had been unable to unite against the single
Republican elected.
- Since his retirement from the bench in January, 1880, Judge
WHEELER has been in active
- practice in San Francisco. While not large, his business
has been lucrative and he has been in many important cases. Among
them being the great trade mark whiskey case of Moorman vs. Henarie,
et al, in the United States Circuit Court. In the celebrated
divorce case of White vs. White, involving over a million of
dollars, tried before Judge T. K. Wilson, of the Superior Court
in San Francisco, Judge WHEELER made one of the most eloquent
and exhaustive arguments in the history of our State. At present
he is engaged in the great case of the Blythe estate, involving
several millions of dollars and destined to be one of the most
celebrated in our judicial annals.
- On November i4th, 1854, Judge WHEELER was married in Marysville,
his wife being Miss Julia
- A. ROWE, eldest daughter of Gen. Geo. ROWE, one of the leading
lawyers in the northern part of the State. His wife and two sons
constitute his family. Both the sons adopted the profession of
the law; one being quite a prominent young attorney of Eureka
in this State. The elder son abandoned the practice and is engaged
in the insurance business in San Francisco.
- Washington's birthday, of the Centennial year, fell upon
Tuesday. The Nineteenth District Court
- was in session on Monday, and shortly after it was opened
there being many lawyers present, among them several bar leaders,
it was agreed among them that Hon. John W. Dwindle should move
the court to adjourn until Wednesday, as a mark of respect to
the memory of Freedom's child and champion—
-
- "Such as Columbia saw arise when she
- Sprang forth a Pallas, armed and undefiled."
-
- The motion which Mr. Dwindle was appointed to make was not
a necessary one to effect a due
- observance of Washington's birthday, for, under the codes
which had gone into effect three years before, the day had been
a legal holiday, and regularly observed as such, the courts all
adjourning. But it was proposed to have a special bar holiday.
- When Mr. Dwindle had proceeded a few minutes, the court—Judge
E. D. WHEELER—took in
- the situation, and entered into the patriotic spirit of the
occasion.
- Mr. Dwinelle said: "May it please the court: It becomes
my duty, assigned to me by the members
- of the bar now present, to announce to yournonor the death
of George Washington, which took place at his residence at Mount
Vernon, in the State of Virginia, in the sixty-seventh year of
his age, and in the year of our Lord, 1799."
- Mr. Dwindle then made a happy in memoriam address, in which
he ventured to facetiously
- observe that it was the misfortune of General Washington
that he was not a lawyer. He said : "That element was wanting
to complete the perfect sphere of his greatness."
- Mr. Dwinelle having concluded with a motion to adjourn, Governor
Haight (may he rest in peace)
- arose and said:
- "I would take pleasure in seconding the motion; but
I think that, inasmuch as I had not the pleasure
- of a personal acquaintance with the deceased, I had better
leave it to General Nourse or Judge Cowles."
Gen. Nourse is now in large practice at Fresno.
- Both of the alleged intimates of General Washington being
unable to arise under the weight of
- years, Judge WHEELER promptly responded:
- "Gentlemen, this motion certainly awakens a great many
historical recollections in the mind of the
- Court, perhaps nothing more pointed than the celebrated speech
of Mr. Hayne, to which Mr. Webster replied, but not just then.
At the conclusion of Mr. Hayne's speech an adjournment was moved
by a very distinguished member of the Senate, on the ground that
the universal good feeling that had been created by the eloquent
South Carolinian might be somewhat marred by the transaction
of any further business on that day, and the adjournment was,
I believe, unanimously carried.
- "I doubt very much if a scene so similar to that has
ever been enacted since until now. And feeling
- imbued with the spirit that pervaded the United States Senate
on that occasion, I think the motion now made should be unanimously
concurred in and granted.
- "It would have been, no doubt, a great pleasure to George
Washington to have looked down the
- distant future seventy-five or a hundred years, and listen
to the eulogy that has been pronounced upon him this morning,
in a court then unborn, in a State then unorganized. The facts
of history seem to justify us in presuming that these things
were all foreordained; and that they have been, on this occasion,
most felicitously executed, is beyonddoubt. I can do nothing
batter than adjourn the court for the reasons stated in support
of the motion."
-
- [Taken from "Bench and Bar in California: History,
Anecdotes, Reminiscences" by Oscar T. Shuck; (c)1889 The
Occident Printing House, San Francisco, CA; pp. 538-543]
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