Page:Portland, Oregon, its History and Builders volume 1.djvu/753



THE CITY OF PORTLAND 555

as to catch and hold the attention of jurymen. He could quote law on all sides of a case, and always quoted enough on his own side to show the jury that the other lawyer had no case at all. If there was ever a man at the Portland bar who could make "the worse appear the better cause," it was W. W. Page. But like Logan, he was his own worst enemy; pursued his profession in a desultory way, and while he was made a circuit judge for a brief term, he never made a per- manent impression on the life of the city. His best client was the Bank of British Columbia, and when Edwin Russell, the manager of the bank, laid out the town of Albina in 1874, he named it in honor of Page's wife, a most estimable lady — ■ "Albina V. Page."

Another attorney of the early days was Cornelius Beal. Beal's great dis- tinction was that of a divorce lawyer. He was a thorough believer in peace in the family circle ; and if it could not be had in any other way, then divorce the parties. He kept a list of the divorces he had obtained for unhappy couples, and at the last count before he died it was over five hundred. He was also the first apostle of temperance legislation in Oregon to regulate the saloons. He was for many years at the head of the order of Good Templars, and canvassed the whole state several times in the interest of more drastic laws to control the liquor traffic. He was a hard-headed, broad-shouldered, powerful man physic- ally, and not afraid of a grizzly bear in a fight. In or about 1872, Beal under- took to put an end to a bunch of street fights one night, the result of a bit- terly contested election ; when a saloonkeeper that he had prosecuted, thought he saw his chance to put an end to Beal slipped up behind him and struck him a powerful blow with a club, enough to knock a bull down, and then ran. It made no impression, and Beal went on slinging the fighters right and left as if toys. But after it was all over, and while describing the fighting to the late Ellis G. Hughes, he suddenly removed his hat and rubbing his head, said with surprise, "Why, I believe somebody must have hit me !"

Mr. Beal was the discoverer, so to speak, of "Council Crest." He bought that tract of forty acres from the original donation claimant, built a road up to it, planted an orchard and erected a house and lived there for many years ; and al- ways said that some day the city would buy it for a park, and that it would be- come known all over the world. There have been poorer prophets than Cor- nelius Beal Good bye, brave man, true friend, kind heart — Good bye.

Ellis G. Hughes, referred to above, was one of the lawyers that made a great success in a financial way. He was methodical, exact, and always safe in the transaction of business. He was the first lawyer in Portland to reduce the real estate abstract to the terms of an exact science. He got his cue on this business from the Scotch lawyers who safeguarded the first investment of foreign capital in Oregon real estate loans. These loans were first passed on by the firm of Gibbs & Hughes, and afterward by Hughes, the attorney for William Reid's Dundee Company. And in the management of this very large business, Mr. Hughes got opportunities for investment which the growth of Portland so ap- preciated as to make him a comfortable fortune. He was also the attorney for William Reid's railroad enterprises in Oregon.

One of the most popular and attractive personalities in the recent history of the legal profession of Portland was that of Lewis B. Cox. His death in the midst of his usefulness, and in middle life and with all his great humanities reaching out to help his fellow man, was most pathetic ; and was suf- fered and regretted by not only the entire profession, but by all who knew him as a great loss to the city. He was not only a leading attorney with a large business, and a leading citizen taking even more than his share in the duties of citizenship, but he was carrying great responsibilities in the moral and civic life of the city. He was active in hospital development, the sanitorium for consump- tives, and in his church. His brother attorneys extended their sympathies in his last sickness as never before to any other case. And when he felt he must fall before the great destroyer, his message to his friends and professional brethren