Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 14.pdf/78

 The

Vol. XIV.

No. 2.

Green

BOSTON.

Bag.

Februarv, 1902.

BENJAMIN HARRISON AS A Thornton. LAWYER of sixteen fromAND MiamiAN University, ORATOR. located at Bv W. VV. ABILITY as a lawyer and ability as an orator are not necessarily linked to gether; but happy is the man who possesses them both, even to a limited extent. Benja min Harrison in this respect was greatly favored by nature. General Harrison was not born of a race of lawyers; his parental ancestors were land proprietors and office-holders. His great grandfather, after whom he was named, was a Virginia planter, a signer of the Declara tion of Independence, and was three times elected Governor of his native State, two of which he served, dying before the third began. His grandfather was a physician, a farmer, a successful Indian fighter, and an office-holder. As the battle of New Orleans, posthumous to the treaty of peace, made Andrew Jackson President of the United States, so likewise did the Battle of Tippe canoe make William Henry Harrison Presi dent. But the grandfather of Benjamin was a legislator, and for years the Governor of the Territory of Indiana; Benjamin's father, John Scott Harrison, served two years in Congress;—so that young Harrison, when he decided to enter upon the career of a law yer, was probably influenced in a measure by the careers of his three immediate ancestors. Benjamin Harrison was born in his dis tinguished grandfather's farm-house at North Bend, on the north bank of the Ohio river, about twenty miles below Cincinnati, August 20, 1833. He attended a country school; then Farmer's College, at College Hill, now a suburb of Cincinnati; and at the age of eighteen graduated fourth in a class

Oxford, Ohio. Of the members of this class, eight became ministers of the Gospel; six, lawyers; and one, a physician; leaving only a single member who did not enter a profes sional career. Young Harrison, as soon as he had fin ished his college career, entered the law office of Stover and Gwvnne, of Cincinnati, famous lawyers in their day. In March, 1854, he left Cincinnati, having married when two months over twenty years of age, and located in Indianapolis. At that time a pro vision of the State Constitution forbade the admission of a minor to the bar; but that alone does not seem to have prevented his entering upon his career as a lawyer. His impediment to enter upon that career was a lack of clients. By some means he had be come the owner of a lot in Cincinnati, which he sold for eight hundred dollars be fore his removal to the State of his choice; and this was his sole possession of worldly goods and effects. He knew, on his arrival, but one person in Indianapolis, and that was the Clerk of the United States District Court, who kindly gave him a desk in his office, with the privilege of hanging out at the door his shingle as a lawyer. Shortly after, he was ap pointed crier of the United States Court, at two dollars and a half a day; and it was in this way that he first earned money in his new home. In after years he often referred to this incident, and stated with what great satisfaction he received it, and thus added to his fast shrinking purse. General Lew Wallace, who met him at this