Page:History of Richland County, Ohio.djvu/394

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��HISTORY OF RICHLAND COUNTY.

��war. Scott's beautiful verse seems appropriate here.

'• Soldier, rest ! thy warfare o'er,

Sleep the sleep that knows not breaking ! Dream of battle-fields no more,

Days of danger, nights of waking."

Among tlie early Associate Judges of the Court of Common Pleas, no one, perhaps, was better loiown or more highly appreciated than Gen. Robert Bentle}-. He came to Richland County in 1815, from Western Pennsylvania, and was appointed Judge in 1821. At the ex- piration of his term of office, in 1828, he was elected to the State Senate. He was a man of military tastes, also ; was in the war of 1812, and subsequently filled every position in the Ohio militia, from Ensign up to Major General. During his whole life, he was a prominent, in- fluential and worthy citizen.

Among all these members of the Mansfield bar, who have gone to the " shadow land," what figure stands out more prominently in the mind's eye than that of the genial, large-hearted, large-brained " Tom " Ford ? He, too, was a veteran soldier, serving in two wars. Gen. Brinkerhoff" thus writes of him : " Gov. Ford was a man cast in nature's largest mold; a man of imposing personal presence, and pos- sessed of great natural gifts as a orator. Some of his efforts upon the stump have rarely, if ever, been excelled. His speech at the Know- Nothing Convention, in Philadelphia, gave him a national reputation. As a specimen of crush- ing repartee, nothing in the English language excels it. Pitt, in his palmiest days, never made more brilliant points in the same space than did Gov. Ford in that speech. It was an occasion that called out, fully, his peculiar pow- ers. None knew him intimately who did not become attached to him. He had faults, but they were faults of the head and not of the heai't."

After the war, he drifted to Washington City, where he practiced law until his death, in 18G8.

��For several years before his death, he was an earnest worker in the temperance cause, and a member of the Methodist Church.

Mordecai Bartley occupies a prominent place in the histor}- of Mansfield, as a citizen, a law- 3'er, and a man. He was a Captain in the war of 1812; was elected to the State Senate in 1817, and was afterward Register of the Virginia military school lands. He was sent to Congress in 1823, serving in that body four terms, and declining a re-election. In 1844, he engaged in mercantile and agricultural pursuits, and was elected Governor of the State on the Whig ticket. Declining a re-nomination for Gover- nor, he spent the evening of his days in the labors of his profession and his farm.

In later years. Judge Jacob Brinkerhofl!' and John Sherman, members of the Mansfield bar, became prominent in the State and nation. The former was, for man}' years, one of Ohio's Su- preme Judges. He was elected to Congress by the Democratic party, in 1843, and rendered himself famous as the author of the Wilmot Proviso. The Judge is yet living, though in very feeble healtli.

Later still, L. B. Matson and Milton W. Worden came upon the stage of action, per- forming well their parts, and passing away, while yet in the prime of life. Matson, at the time of his death, as a trial lawyer, stood at the head of his profession, and had the largest practice of any lawyer in the city. Perhaps nothing could better indicate the public esti- mate of Judge Worden than the following ex- tract from the remarks of Henry C. Hedges, in his announcement of Judge Wordens death to the court, Judge Osborne presiding: " By the voice of my brethern at the bar. a sad, solemn duty is mine. Since the last adjournment of this court, death has been with us, and a mem- ber of this bar, one well known, highly re- spected and much loved by us all, has been summoned from the labors of time to the reali- ties of eternitv. Death, during the vears I

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