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The Green Bag
13, at the age of seventy-five. He was born in Washington, December 3, 1834, and re ceived his education in Georgetown University, graduating in 1854. He appeared as counsel for John H. Surrat, one of the alleged con spirators against President Lincoln, securing an acquittal. He was appointed Associate Justice of the Court of Appeals in 1893, and later Chief Justice. He retired from the bench in 1905, and had since occupied himself with writing, as well as with the practice of law. Judge Eugene Williams of Waco, Texas, aged fifty-four years, dropped dead on a street car, in that town September 21. He was born in Gainesville, Ala., September 15, 1855. He attended the Virginia Military institute and the University of Virginia, receiving his law degree in 1877. He located in Waco in 1878. In the early eighties he was elected county attorney of McLennan county and was later appointed by the governor district judge of the nineteenth judicial district, to fill out the unexpired term of Judge B W. Rimes, and afterwards, in 1886, was elected to the judgeship before the people. From 1895 to 1905 he was general attorney in Texas for the American Cotton company. Judge Celora E. Martin, former Associate Judge of the Court of Appeals of New York State, died September 10 at his home in Binghamton, N. Y. He was born in New port, N. Y., August 23, 1834. He was ad mitted to the bar in 1856, and in 1877 he was elected to the Supreme Court bench. After eighteen years of service he resigned in order to become a candidate for the Court of Ap peals in 1895. .He served until 1904, when he retired under the age limit of seventy years. He wrote the opinion in the Percy-Gray race track case, in which the validity of the act permitting betting on race tracks in New York was upheld by the Court of Appeals, and which was repealed by the passage of the Hart-Agnew law two years ago. Newton Webster Finley, former Chief Jus tice of the Texas Court of Civil Appeals, for the fifth Supreme judicial district, died in Dallas, September 23. He was born in Lauderdale County, Mississippi, in 1854. In June, 1876, he was admitted to the bar by District Judge William H. Bonner, and prac tised law at Tyler, Tex., until 1893, when Governor Hogg appointed him Associate Jus tice of the Court or Civil Appeals of the fifth district, at Dallas. In 1894 he was elected to the same position. In 1897 he was appointed Chief Justice of the same court by Governor Culberson on the retirement of Chief Justice Lightfoot. In 1898 he was elected, and con tinued in this position until April, 1900, when he resigned to re-enter the practice of law in Dallas, as the head of the firm of Finley, Harris, Etheridge & Knight, of which the present firm of Finley, Knight & Harris is the successor. He was a member of the board of regents of the University of Texas, and served in that capacity until he died.
Necrology— The Bar Henry Clay of Tamaroa, Ill., died Septem ber 3, aged seventy-seven. He was wellknown throughout the state, and was the oldest practising lawyer in Perry County, I11. William Bayard Van Rensselaer, president of the Albany, N. Y., Savings Bank, is dead. He was graduated from Harvard in 1879, spending the following year at the Harvard Law School. James B. K Lee, a well-known patent lawyer of Manhattan, died September 18, aged thirty-eight, at Babylon, L. I. His part ner was an elder brother, Lawrence. Mr. Lee was a graduate of Harvard. Thomas H. Robinson, a Chicago attorney, was found dead in bed September 20. He was thirty-eight years old and had practised law in Chicago since 1896, when he was gradu ated from Harvard University. John R. Von Seggern, a lawyer well known in Cincinnati, O., died September 10 at the age of sixty-five. He was elected a state senator in 1897, and fathered a bill creating the insolvency court of Cincinnati. Charles H. Farnam died September 24 at Denver, Colorado. He was sixty-three years old and graduated from Yale in the class of 1868. He then studied law at Columbia. He formerly practised in New York city. Charles Dorrance Foster of Wilkesbarre, Pa., died September 29, aged seventy-three years. He achieved success as a practitioner in the Orphans' Court. He was also inter ested in many large business affairs. He was elected a representative to the legislature in 1883-84. Pierson C. Conklin, seventy years old, for many years a lawyer of Hamilton, O., died September 15. He was born in Reily, 0., January 24, 1833, and educated in Miami University, where he was an associate of President Benjamin Harrison. He was ad mitted to practice in 1856. J. Warren Tryon of Reading, Pa., died recently at his home in Germantown, Pa., aged sixty-seven. He studied at the Harvard Law School and was admitted to the Berks bar in 1863. He took an active interest in county politics. During 1875 he was solicitor for the County Commissioners. George C. Greene, general counsel of the Lake Shore & Michigan Southern Railway, died September 13, at his home in Buffalo, at the age of seventy-six. Before his service as general counsel he was in the practice of law in Buffalo and Lockport, and was attor ney for the New York Central system for years.
