Judge Bowie died on the 12th of March, 1882, after a few days' illness. Although in the seventy-fifth year of his age, he enjoyed excellent health.
His funeral, which took place on the 15th, was one of the largest ever witnessed in Montgomery County. Members of the Court of Appeals, distinguished lawyers from Baltimore, Washington, Georgetown, Annapolis, Frederick, Hagerstown, and prominent people from all the adjoining counties, attended the funeral in great numbers. Large meetings of the Bar were held in Montgomery, Frederick, and other counties of Maryland, at which resolutions were passed expressing high praise of Judge Bowie as a man, as a lawyer, as a judge, as a friend, as a citizen, as a "prince among men."
James Lawrence Bartol, Chief Justice of the Court of Appeals of Maryland, from the adoption of the Constitution in 1867 until his resignation in 1883, was born on the 4th of June, 1813, at Havre de Grace, Harford County, Md. His early education was with a view of becoming a merchant, which was his father's occupation. In 1828, he went to Baltimore to take a place in a mercantile house, but, after a short stay, he decided to continue his studies, and returned home. His father placed him as a private pupil with the Rev. Samuel Martin, an ac complished scholar, who resided at Chanceport, York County, Pa. Here he remained two years, until, in his seventeenth year, he entered Jefferson College, Pa., "and, after a most successful course, graduated in the nineteenth year of his age. In 1832, shortly after leaving college, he commenced the study of the law in the office of Otho Scott of Bel Air, Maryland. He was for tunate in having such a preceptor. Mr. Scott was one of the famous lawyers of Maryland in those brilliant days when Rcverdy Johnson, Roger Brooke Taney, William Wirt, John Nelson, and John V. L. McMahon threw so splendid a lustre over
the Bar of Maryland. Mr. Bartol's health became impaired, and he was compelled to relinquish his studies and take a trip to Cuba and Florida, where he passed the fall and winter of 1835-6. Returning to Mary land in the spring of 1836, he resumed his studies, and was admitted to the Bar in the fall of the same year. For seven years he practiced his profession in Caroline and other counties of the Eastern Shore of Maryland. Seeking a wider field for his talents, he removed to Baltimore in 1845. Judge Bartol's personal tastes and inclina tions tended more to study, both legal and literary, than to politics; he had never sought an office either political or profes sional; it was, therefore, more a surprise than a pleasure when he received the an nouncement that the Governor of Maryland had appointed him to the seat on the Bench of the Court of Appeals made vacant by the resignation of the Hon. John Thomson Mason. This was in the spring of 1857, and the following fall, the choice of the Governor was ratified by the people at the polls. His term of service expired in 1867, and he was re-elected to the Court of Ap peals under the revised constitution of that year, and being the only judge on the Bench prior to its adoption who was returned, he was appointed Chief Judge. Judge Bartol possessed an eminently con servative and judicial mind, an exquisite courtesy, an unwearied patience. His opinions, which are spread upon the Mary land Reports for a consecutive period of twenty- five years, are models of legal learn ing and judicial fairness. A year after the close of the Civil War, Judge Bartol was called upon in a most important crisis in the affairs of Maryland. Governor Swann had removed two of the Police Commissioners of Baltimore, whose extreme radicalism rendered a fair election impossible in that city. They declined to vacate the office; and armed men from neighboring States threatened to uphold
