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��HISTORY OF RICHLAND COUNTY
��with many repairs and additions, is yet grinding out justice ; it is lioped and believed, to ricli and poor alike.
This court met in the upper part of the old block-house, on the square, and when it con- vened there was no resident lawyer in Mans- field.
The courts were " on wheels " in those days, the custom being for the court to travel from place to place, the lawyers accompanying it. It was not until 1815, that John M. May, the first lawyer, took up his residence in Mansfield. From that time forward, the place never wanted for lawyers, and many of them have been men of more than ordinary ability, and have been honored with high positions in the State and nation.
The second lawyer was Asa Grimes, father of A. L. Grrimes, of Mansfield, who died of consumption shortly after his arrival.
In 1816, Col. William W. Cotgrave and Wil- son Elliott came, and these were followed in a few years by James Purdy, Jacob Parker and James Stewart. Of these first lawyers, James Purdy is yet living in Mansfield. Although eighty-six, he occasionally appears upon the street, and his step is slow and apparently painful, on account of a sciatic aflfliction of long standing ; yet his eye • is bright, and his manner and conversation give evidence that his heart is yet young.
Most people in Mansfield can yet remember John M. May — " Father May," as he was famil- iarly known among his intimate friends. He walked across the Alleghany Mountains, seek- ing his fortune in the " Far West," stumbled upon this little frontier town in the woods, and remained here fifty-four years. He was a good citizen and an honest man. What more need be said of any man ? How short that sen- tence is ; yet what years of struggle must pre- cede it, if it be truthfully uttered.
Judge Parker and Mr. May had been law students together in the office of Philemon
��Beecher, at Lancaster, Ohio. Parker was a good man, a sound lawyer and a conscientious Judge. Judge Brinkerhoflf says of him : " He was one of the best ' case lawyers ' I ever knew. The reading of adjudged cases was one of the luxuries of his life, and his memory of cases or points ruled by or discussed in them was wonderful. But he was not a reader of law reports only. Like James Stewart, who succeeded to the Common Pleas bench, under the Constitution of 1851, he was an omnivor- ous reader. Both of these gentlemen aspired to and attained a liberal general scholarship, and would have l)een ashamed to be thought lawyers simply, and nothing more."
Parker had graduated at the Ohio Univer- sity, at Athens, he and Thomas Ewing being the first to receive the degree of Bachelor of Arts from an Ohio college. He was not made a Judge until 1840, and then brought to his duties a mind well matured and stored, not only with law but with general literature. As a Judge, he was peculiarly successful, and would have done honor to the highest judicial position.
James Stewart studied law in the office of Judge Parker, and was admitted to the bar about the year 1828. Stewart was a Scotch- Irish boy, from Western Pennsylvania, and carae West to grow up with the country. Like many another famous lawyer and man, he taught school while getting his legal learning, and was among the first and liest teachers in Mansfield.
When Judge Parker's term on the bench expired, in 1850, Stewart, by unanimous rec- ommendation of his associates, was elevated to his place. Physically and mentally, he was a very strong man.
A few words spoken by Judge George W. Geddes, who was presiding at the time Mr. Stewart's death was announced, deserve preser- vation. He says : " In years, he fell far short of man's appointed time ; but reckoning time
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