Page:Portland, Oregon, its History and Builders volume 1.djvu/750

554 when Oregon included everything American west of the Rocky mountains. Judge Strong made a permanent impression on the laws and juris-prudence of both states. And after an honorable and useful career on the bench he took up private practice of the law and became the first great authority on corporation law in Oregon; and his ability in that field has never been surpassed since. Judge Strong was born at St. Albans, Vermont; came to Oregon in 1850; served as associate justice of Oregon and Washington for eight years; and died in this city in April 1887.

Another man of mark, highly prized and greatly honored, trusted and venerated by all who knew him, was Erasmus D. Shattuck, who for a quarter of a century served the people of Oregon as circuit or supreme judge. Judge Shattuck was not ranked as a great lawyer, or a great judge, or as even an average advocate; he was a man of practical common sense, with an extensive knowledge on so many subjects affecting the rights, interests and welfare of men, as to make him an unusually useful man on the bench and universally acceptable and satisfactory to busy lawyers. His general equipment of knowledge, information and learning so prepared him to hear, try and decide the great mass of causes affecting the great mass of people, that he did not have to be educated on any case. To all this was added the universal confidence of lawyers, juries, and litigants that the man was absolutely fair and just, without respect to rank, wealth, politics or position; and that the poorest and humblest would get justice just as surely and certainly as the highest and richest man in the state. And as a mark of respect and honor, the Multnomah County Bar Association had a lifelike and elegant oil painting portrait executed of the veteran jurist, and hung in the court room where he so long presided.

Judge Shattuck was born in Vermont in 1824, and educated in that state. Taught school for some time and was admitted to the bar in 1852. Came to Oregon in 1853, and became professor of Latin and Greek in the Forest Grove College. Was county judge of -Washington county, member of the constitutional convention, member of the legislature, and elected a circuit and supreme judge in 1862; and reelected for four terms, and died in office.

No history of the attorneys of Portland could overlook Joseph S. Smith. Mr. Smith did not pursue the law steadily throughout his active career, but when he did appear in the courts he was one of its most conspicuous characters. The old adage "that the law is a jealous mistress," did not seem to apply to him. He always had the best of clients whenever and wherever he opened an office. He arrived at Oregon City in 1845, and commenced studying law soon after his arrival, supporting himself by teaching school and manual labor. He was the first law student in Oregon. After being admitted to the bar he went to Puget Sound and for a period served as prosecuting attorney, and was afterward by President Buchanan appointed to that office for Washington territory. In 1858 Mr. Smith returned to Oregon and practiced law at Salem, until his removal to Portland in 1870, and was for a number of years a member of the law firm of Grover, Smith & Page; and at the same time he was promoting the manufacture of wool in Oregon, and held large interests at Salem and Ellendale. In 1868 he was elected to congress, and it was to his efforts, and especially to his able advocacy in the house, that congress passed the act granting lands to build a railroad from Astoria to Forest Grove and McMinnville. And at the same session of congress, while the Northern Pacific land grant v^^as before the house for amendment, Mr. Smith drew up and had attached to the grant an amendment requiring the company to build its main line down the Columbia river to the city of Portland, and thus establishing the fact that Joseph S. Smith was the original "North Bank" railroad man, antedating Mr. James J. Hill just forty years.

W. W. Page, who was a partner of Smith & Grover, was also an able lawyer and a very dangerous opponent in the trial of a cause. Of rather a pugnacious disposition, he went into a trial before a jury with such vim and determination