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Vol. XI.

No. 10.

BOSTON.

OCTOISER, 1899.

EPHRAIM B. EWING. By Charles W. Sloan of the M1ssour1 Bar. SAID the " St. Louis Republican" editori ally, on the tnorning of June 22, 1873 : "The announcement of the death of Judge Ephraim B. Ewing of the supreme court of this State will carry sorrow to every heart. This is the close of a life full of honors and crowned with the best fruits of honest toil, the universal love and respect of his fellowmen. Judge Ewing had long been identi fied with the legal profession of Missouri and the West, and had fairly won the high est distinction his profession could confer. Last fall he was elected to the supreme court by a majority that attested the esteem of his fellow citizens, and resigned the cir cuit judgeship of St. Louis county to take his seat on the supreme bench. There are few men in public life whose withdrawal by death could leave a more deplorable gap in the ranks of eminence than is made by the death of Judge Ewing. There are none who will be more widely and sincerely mourned. In these times, such characters as his are unfortunately rare among public men. It is no time now to draw compari sons, but it is not altogether unmeet to say that the lives and records of jurists, such as he, become doubly precious in times when there is need of shining virtue in that branch of governmental system. Of Judge Ewing's public life and acts there is nothing to be said but eulogy, and in this commu nity where he has so long lived and wrought, and where he was known so widely and so well, eulogy is almost superfluous. Nothing could be said that could heighten the esteem and veneration in which he was held; nothing

could be written that could deepen the sin cerity wherewith his death will be deplored. In social life his eminence was like that he had won in his profession, faultless. No hospitality was less ostentatious or more genial than that of his home. No greeting was more hearty than his, and no friendship truer or more unselfish. The qualities of sincerity of word, purity of motive and in tegrity of act that embellished his public career, made his social life utterly without reproach and a lasting honor to the society in which he moved. His fine honor, his wide experience, his thorough culture and his broad and liberal mind, all fitted him to stand at the head of his profession, and in the leadership of society; and his taking away so suddenly is a calamity that falls upon the whole community as one man." Judge Ewing was born in Todd County, Kentucky, May 16, 18 19. He was the youngest son of a family of twelve children. His father was the Rev. Einis Ewing, a dis tinguished minister of the Cumberland Presbyterian church; who together with two other ministers founded that church about February, 18 10. His mother's maiden name was Margaret Davidson, a daughter of Gen. William Davidson, who was killed in battle, February I, 1781, while opposing the passage of the army under Lord Cornwallis in crossing the Catawba River, North Carolina. She was also a niece (General Davidson's wife being a Brevard) of Dr. Ephraim Brevard, who is referred to in "Johnson's Encyclopaedia" as " a forcibleand energetic writer, a graduate of Princeton"