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man, just in the prime of life and is with admitted to practice law at Worcester, Mass., out doubt on the road to still higher honors. in 1840. Soon after his admission to the He is chiefly noted for his good nature, con bar he went to Washington, D. C, where for scientiousness, good sense and good judg a few months he obtained employment in ment. the Treasury Department, and then for some Richard A. Harrison. This sketch months he became the private secretary of would not be complete without reference to the Hon. Franklin Pierce, then a senator in the name of this profound and learned Congress from New Hampshire, and after lawyer, who was named as one of the judges wards President of the United States. of the first Supreme Court Commission, and While residing in Washington, Mr. Whitman who has been solicited to take a seat upon became intimately acquainted with Governor the Supreme bench; and who has for many William Mcdill, then a representative in years been more intimately and closely as Congress from Ohio. Gov. Medill resided sociated with the Supreme Court than most in Lancaster, Ohio, and agreed to form a law any member of the Bar in Ohio now living. partnership with young Whitman, who ac His devotion to his profession has constrained cordingly, in 1842, came to Lancaster, Ohio, him to steadily decline this honor. No other and continued in partnership with Gov. man in Ohio is more qualified to fill this Mcdill till he was appointed judge of the important judicial position than him. Court of Common Pleas in 1848. Judge Henry C. Whitman was born At the time Mr. Whitman settled in Lan in Billerica, Mass, Jan. 5, 1817. He was caster the Bar of that county was justly con descended from good New England stock. sidered one of the ablest in the State. His father, Nathaniel Whitman, was the Uni Among the lawyers there in full practice tarian minister of that town, and his two were Thos. Ewing, Sr., Henry Stanbury, uncles, Jason Whitman and Bernard Whit Hocking H. Hunter, William Medill, Judge man, were eminent Unitarian ministers in New Van Trump. England in the early part of the centuryYoung Whitman soon made himself felt His mother's name was Sarah Holman, of among them. Always ready and able to Bolton, Mass, meet them at the bar, he had also the rare Though his father was a minister, he car faculty of ingratiating himself with the ried on a small farm in Billerica, and the people. He was also an ardent Democratic first fifteen years of the son's life was spent politician, entering into all political cam like that of most New England country boys, paigns with zeal, and in a very few years was in working on the farm and going to the a leader of his party. He was elected to country schools. At the age of fifteen he the Ohio Senate for Fairfield County in went to the Phillips Academy in Exeter, 1847, where he served two years. At the close of his senatorial term he was appointed N. H., then, as now, one of the leading edu cational institutions in New England. After by the General Assembly a judge of the being at Exeter four years, in 1836 he en Court of Common Pleas. That was under tered Bowdoin College in the State of Maine, the Constitution of 1802. He continued in one year in advance. He left college in office until the New Constitution was adopted in 1851. Under the new Constitution he 1 838, without waiting for a degree, and com menced studying law with Hon. Nathaniel was elected one of the judges of the Court Woods of Fitchburg, Mass. Mr. Woods at of Common Pleas for the Seventh Common that time was one of the leading lawyers of Pleas District for three successive terms of central Massachusetts. Judge Whitman five years each. He served two full terms, studied with Mr. Woods two years, and was but resigned in the year 1862, the second