Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 07.pdf/201

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174
The Green Bag.

having any reference to his life and char acter. He resigned his position on the bench April 12, 1806, and George Tod was appointed in his place. GEORGE Tod was elected judge of the Supreme Court on the first day of January, 1807, to fill the vacancy occasioned by the resignation of William Sprigg. He was a prominent lawyer of Youngstown, Ohio, born in Suffield, Connecticut, December 11, 1773, graduated at Yale College in 1795, and taught school at New Haven, read law at the law school of Judge Reeves of Litch field, Connecticut. He came to Youngstown in 1800, was appointed prosecuting at torney of the first territorial court of Trumbull County. He was made terri torial secretary in the first year of his res idence, and was senator from Trumbull County to the State legislature in 18 10 and 1811. He served with distinction in the war of 181 2. In 1815 he was a pres ident judge of the Court of Common Pleas, and afterwards was prosecuting at torney. After retiring from the bench, he devoted his time to the care of his large farm at Brier Hill, which afterwards became so celebrated for its deposit of fine mineral coal, developed by his son, Governor David Tod. He died April 11, 1841. He ranked as a lawyer and judge one of the first in Ohio. Judge Tod was the first judge placed on trial of impeachment for holding certain acts of the legislature unconstitutional and void, being duly acquitted. He was elected to the office of prosecuting attorney in 1836, which was the last office held by him, and his last appearance before the public was in 1840 as chairman of a large convention, held at Warren, of the friends of his old com mander General Harrison, who was then a candidate for President. DANIEL SYMMES, of Cincinnati, was a nephew of John Cleves Symmes, and brother of Captain John Cleves Symmes, the advocate of the theory of concentric

circles and polar voids. His father, Tim othy Symmes, only full brother of the hero of the Miami purchase, was himself judge of the inferior Court of Common Pleas in Sussex County, New Jersey, but came west soon after his elder brother, and was the pioneer at South Bend, Hamilton County, Ohio, where he died in 1797: Daniel was born at the ancestral home in 1772, graduated at Princeton Col lege, and came out with his father; was made clerk of the territorial court, studied law and practiced some years at Cincinnati, after Ohio was admitted was a State senator from Hamilton County and Speaker of the Senate; upon the resignation of Judge Meigs from the Supreme Bench in 1804, was appointed to his place and held it until the expiration of the term, when he secured the post of Register of the Cin cinnati land office, and performed its duties until a few months before his death, May 10, 18 17. Thomas Scott was born October 31, 1772, in Skypton (Washington), afterwards Alleghany County, Maryland. Judge Scott wrote a very interesting account of his life, from which quotations and notes are taken : — "The parents of my father were Scotch-Irish. They emigrated from Ireland, and settled in Berks County in the State of Pennsylvania shortly after the Battle of the Boyne. They were Pro testants, and had sustained heavy losses by the Catholics previous to that battle. My father, through his paternal ancestor, traced his descent in a direct line from a very ancient aristocratic family, and from his maternal side in a direct line from the old Dukes of Buccleugh. The ancestors of my mother were English and Welsh." Judge Scott became an itinerant minister in the Methodist Episcopal Church in 179 1, and came to Ohio in that capacity. Further, quoting from Judge Scott's autobiography, he said : — "In the winter of 1800, after having read law for two years under Hon. James Brown at Lex