JOHN A. SHAUCK was born on a farm near Johnsville, Richland County, Ohio, March -26, 1841; descendent from German stock; ancestors on his father's side emigrating from the fatherland and settling in America before the American Revolution. He obtained his early education in a private school and the public schools of Johnsville. In 1866 he graduated in th classical course from Otterbein University, Westerville, Ohio. He attended the law school of the University of Michigan, graduating from the same in 1-67. He entered upon the general practice of the law at Dayton, Ohio, continuing the same until 1881, when he vas elected upon the Republican ticket to the Second Circuit Court. He was re-elected Judge of the Circuit Court in 1889. At the Republican Convention held in Columbus, June, 1894, Judge Shauck was nominated for the office of Supreme Judge. He was elected in the following fall and took his seat February 9, 1895, to serve for a full term of six years. Judge Shauck was Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Ohio in 1900, during which year he was re-elected for the full term of six years ending February 9, 1907.

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HE Supreme Court of the State of Ohio as at present constituted consists of six judges who are elected for six years, the term of one judge expiring each year. This court is divided into two divisions of three judges each, the first division consisting of the Chief Justice and the third and fifth judge in the order of the expiration of their terms, and the second division consists of the remaining three.

When the judges comprising either division divide as to the decision in a cause before it, the cause shall be reserved for decision by the full court; and when different causes involving the same question are before the respective divisions at the same time, such causes shall also be reserved for decision by the full court. If the whole court be divided evenly as to the decision in any cause, the judgment of the lower court shall be entered as affirmed, and such decision shall be held to be the law as to all such questions in other causes until overruled by a majority of all the judges. And when the members of the court, in any matter of original jurisdiction, divide evenly on any question or questions therein, the determination of the members with whom the chief justice votes shall be held to be the judgment of the court.

Owing to inadequate accommodations, the court has been unable to avoid embarrassment in its sittings heretofore, but has just entered into possession of its new quarters in the Law Building of the Capitol, where each division will find the proper accommodation, and the two courts will relieve the present congested calenders.

WEEKLY COURT CALENDAR.

For the mutual convenience of the court and of parties in suit before it, the following rule in practice is observed:

Mondays
Tuesdays

Reserved for consultation.

Reserved for decisions of the Court.

Wednesdays Reserved for the hearing of oral arguments.

Thursdays Reserved for hearing motions.

Fridays Reserved for the hearing of oral arguments.

Saturdays Reserved for consultation,

JUDGES OF THE TERRITORIAL COURTS OF THE

NORTHWEST TERRITORY.

(1787-1802.)

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HE first judicial system to be inaugurated in that part of the United States which is now known as the State of Ohio, was that put in operation by the "Ordinance of 1787" by which the "territory northwest of the River Ohio" was set apart as a separate governmental unit, and a form of local government provided for it by the Congress. By a reference to Section 4 of the ordinance, which is printed in Part One of this volume, it will be seen that it was provided that there should be "appointed a court, to consist of three judges, any two of whom to form a court, who shall have a common law jurisdiction, and reside in the district, and have therein a freehold estate, in five hundred acres of land, while in the exercise of their offices; and their commission shall continue in force during good behavior." These judges, with the governor, were to select from the civil and criminal laws of the original states such laws as they deemed suitable for the territory, and were given the power to promulgate such laws, and to enforce them, until they should. be amended or repealed by a general assembly to be later organized according to the provisions of the ordinance under which they were appointed.

In accordance with this provision of the Ordinance, Congress did, on the 16th day of October, 1787, elect as judges for the Northwest Territory: Samuel Holden Parsons, John Armstrong, and James Mitchell Varnum.

In the place of Mr. Armstrong, who declined the appointment, Congress appointed, on the 19th day of February, 1788, Mr. John Cleves Symmes.

The first Territorial Judges (in 1787-8) were therefore, Samuel Holden Parsons, James Mitchell Varnum, John Cleves Symmes.

The salaries of the judges was fixed by Congress in an act bearing the date of October 8, 1787, at $800 per annum.

President George Washington, in a message to the Senate of the United States, bearing the date of New York, August 18, 1789, nominates to be judges of the Northwest Territory "in accordance with the law reestablishing the government of the Northwest Territory," Samuel Holden Parsons, John Cleves Symmes, and William Barton.

Mr. Barton, who was appointed vice Judge Varnum, who had died the preceding February, himself declined the appointment, and on the 8th of September the Senate completed the reorganization of the court by confirming the nomination of George Turner, an associate justice. The 30 H. Y. B.

(465)

Judges of the Northwest Territory.

court thus constituted in 1789, and acting under the Constitution of the United States, consisted of the Honorable Judges Samuel Holden Parsons, John Cleves Symmes, George Turner.

Judge Parsons, then Chief Justice, was drowned in November, 1789, while returning from a treaty with the Indians of the Western Reserve, and the President nominated as his successor on the bench, Rufus Putnam, of Marietta, whose nomination was promptly confirmed.

The court as thus organized with Judges John Cleves Symmes, George Turner, Rufus Putnam, served from 1790 to 1796, when Judge Putnam was appointed to the office of Surveyor General by President Washington, who, in the same message to the Senate, nominated Joseph Gilman to the Judgeship thus made vacant. The nominations were confirmed.

In 1798 Judge Turner resigned and was succeeded by Return Jonathan Meigs, Jr., whose appointment was confirmed February 12, 1798. The court as thus constituted, consisting of Judges John Cleves Symmes, Joseph Gilman, and Return J. Meigs, Jr., continued to serve until the admission of the state into the Union in 1803, and therefore, until the organization of the Supreme Court of Ohio. This Court (of the Northwest Territory) held its session alternately at Detroit, Vincennes, Cincinnati and Marietta.

NOTE 1.-It is worthy of notice in this connection, that the Territorial Government was set up by Congress in October 1787, but that the first settlement in Ohio occurred on the site of the city of Marietta in the following April (1788). In the absence of the Governor, and Judges, who were to form the law-giving power, and until their arrival, Col. Return J. Meigs, Sr., drafted a code of regulations on common fools cap, which he tacked to the blazed trunk of a large oak, where it was read and endorsed by all the settlers. History does not record a single infraction of those rules. The Governor, with a majority of the court, arrived at Marietta two months later, and set up the official government of the Territory.

NOTE 2. Upon the admission of the state into the Union in 1803, and the dissolution of the Territorial Court, Congress by an act passed in February, 1803, provided that a District Court for the District of Ohio, to consist of one judge, should be established at Chillicothe.

NOTE 3.-By an act of May, 1800, the original Northwest Territory had been divided into eastern and western divisions, and an additional court created for the Indiana or western division, at Saint Vincennes, the court for the castern division remaining at Chillicothe.

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JUDGES OF THE SUPREME COURT OF THE

STATE OF OHIO.

(1802 - 1851.)

NDER the Constitution of 1802 the number of Supreme Court

Judges was the same as under the Territorial form of government, three; with the power vested in the general assembly to authorize the selection of an additional judge at its discretion.

The tenure of office was fixed at seven years, or such part thereof as the judge was well behaved. The salaries of the judges was fixed at not to exceed one thousand dollars per annum.

Under these provisions of the constitution and the laws, the General Assembly elected, on April 2, 1803, as the First Supreme Court of the State of Ohio, Samuel Huntington (then the Senator from Trumbull County), Return Jonathan Meigs, Jr. (then a member of the Territorial Court), and William Spriggs (of Jefferson County).

With this establishment of a Supreme Court in Ohio, a search of official records discloses the following to have been the personnel of that court which has reflected a lasting honor on the judiciary whose representatives they were, and on the state to whom they paid affectionate. fealty.

1803 Samuel Huntington, Return Jonathan Meigs Jr., William Spriggs.

1804 Samuel Huntington, Return Jonathan Meigs, Jr., William Spriggs.

Judge Meigs resigned December, 1804, to accept commission in the U. S. Army as Colonel and Commander of the Department of the Missouri.

1805 Samuel Huntington, Daniel Symmes (vice Meigs), William Spriggs.

1806 Samuel Huntington, Daniel Symmes, William Sprigg (to April).

Judge Sprigg resigned in April and was succeeded by Senator George Tod, of Trumbull County, who was appointed to the vacancy by Governor Tiffin,-and was afterward elected to the seat by the General Assembly, January 1, 1807.

In 1807 the Supreme Court consisted of Judges Samuel Huntington, Daniel Symmes and George Tod.

In 1808 Judge Symmes resigned (January 9) and was succeeded by William Spriggs (February 13). Return Jonathan Meigs, Jr., having been declared ineligible to the office of Governor of Ohio, to which he had been elected the previous October, was elected an adional Judge