Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1872-07-16
CHARLES DUNN.

AZ the meeting oil the members of
the bar of this circuit held at Oar
lington on the 18th uls. to pass reso-
lutions upon the lamented death of
Hon. Chas. Dunn, Judge j. T. Mills
spoke as follows:
| do not remember heretofore to
have attended term of the circuit
court in this county but that l ex-
pected to meet, and rarely was dis
appointed in meeting. very vener-
able face and form that has bid a
hnal adieu to US, his professional
brethren that loved and revered him,
TO his fellow citizens that honored
and respected him. Yes, death has
separated him from the partner of
his bosom and life, from those of
kindred blood. But l will not dwell
upon domestic grief that neither
homage to the dead, or coincidence
with the living can assuage.
Yes, the departure of Hon. Chas.
Dunn from the scene of his earthly
labors has opened the fountains of
grief far and wide throughout our
own state, and beyond its limits
He was known in the humble cabin
of the miner-in the cottage where
embrowned and sinewy hands testi-
~ to daily toil-in the workshop,
where labor is the accepted worship.
On the bench, at the bar, in the halls
of legislation, among all classes of his
fellow citizens, the subject of our eu-
logy was known, trusted, admired
and loved And despite the fatal
tendency of American society, to
group itself into fraternities, castles
and clans, no class, party or profess
ion can appropriate to itself exclu-
sively the virtue. the fame, the rep.
utation of Charles Dunn.
We contemplate him, now that the
sun of his life has set, in the mild ra-
dience Of It's evening reflection, not as
belonging to the rich or the poor, the
the learned or the unlearned. We
associate him not with the studious
recluse who recognizes only tho in
tellectual world, or with the stolid
proprietor of muscle, who soorns the
aid of science. We rank him not
with Democrats or Republicans, with
the orthodox or infdel, with the pro>
tessions that sway the empire of
thought or those which operate with
the material forces. He lives and ex-
lists in our memory as high-minded,
unaffected representative American
citizen; hendly to all classes of his
fellowmen, but the slave of none;-a
grand, model, honest man, the noblest
work of God.
Had it been left to him to choose
in what region of the earth, under
what political and social conditions
he would desire to live and die. his
selection would doubtless have iusti-
fed the wisdom Of that providence
that entrusted the experiment Of
self government, and formation Of
new states in the western wilderness,
to such, bold, energetic spirit as his.
He had perfect adoption to his age
and times. He was not less fitted in
his youth for the hardships and ex-
pedients of frontier life. than in his
ripper years, for that condition of So
ciety which the Western states have
attained.
The impetuous and fiery blood of
Il chafes under the despotisll Of
of custom and the restraint of staid
society, and flies to a region where
nature is as wild and exuberant as
its own hopes and imaginings. A
friend has told me that more than 40
years ago he hunted deer with young
"Charley Dunn" as be was then CALI
cd, in the prairies and groves that
surround Shawneetown, Illinois,
And what a country was Illinois
then It's stretches of prairie that
the horizon itself would not limit,
whose amplitude neither the mind
nor eye could grasp; its island groves
fresh with the bloom Of Eden-its
noble rivers all conscious, and await
ing the coming destiny, that tide of
emigration, that human deluge that
has since rendered that state the
pride and glory of the west. The
settlement of the country northwest
of the Ohio was the pioneer age of
our history. The charm Of populari-
ty and power may still thrill the boz
CON Of American yonth, but the ro-
nance of far off, unpeopled west,
yelled in the mists of the unknown,
has vanished forever The iron
horse has wrecked the mirage of
fancy, and the magnificence of its
plains and transcendant grandeur of
its mountain scenery are laid bare to
the eyes of emigrating multitudes.
In Illinois Judge Dunn became ac-
quainted with young men then strug-
Cling with obscurity aud poverty
the pioneers of civilization as John the
Baptist was of Christianity, with
wardrobe as scanty and primitive as
his, who wore the hunters shirt and
belt buckled round their waist, but
who qualified themselves in that rag.
ged school for the highest positions
in church and state. While the
amen of tho camp meeting drowned
the appeals of Cartwright and Hun
ter, courts and juries listened with
delight to the silvery tongue of Cook,
Breese and McRoberts. Judge Dunn
was clerk of the Illinois Legislature
which held its sessions at Vandalia,
and there, though differing in poll.
tics, he became o warm personal
friend Of Abraham Lincoln, the mar
tyr President, whose fame shall grow
with revolving ages,and whose name
shall be wstchword and talisman
in every land and household where
Republican freedom finds an advo-
cate. And here, too, he formed an
intimacy with the daring and impet-
nous Douglas, who was chiefly in
strumental in overturning the Miss
ouri Compromise,-th legislative
wall between freedom and slavery,
intended to hem in the latter, but
which in fact fettered the limbs of
freedom. This partition wall long