Daily globe. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1878-1884, 1883-05-07
A Feeling Tribute to the Memory of Messrs
Lorenzo Allis, Geo. L, Otis, and e. X. HOl-
Observation-Disclosures and Biographical
Memoirs.

Pursuant to adjournment meeting
of the Ramsey County Bar association was
held OF the new district court room at 10 a.
in special term having been delayed for
that purpose-to hear the report of the
committee named at a previous meeting
to draft and present for consideration res
olutions in memoriam of the late Lorenzo
Allis, Geo. H. Otis and Edmund Hollins-
head. members of the bar, deceased in the
past few months. The association was
called to order by its president, H. R. Big
Glow, Esq, and in the absence of the sec
rotary, Mr.. VIM. H. Lightner was elected
secretary pro tenn. In calling the meeting
to order, Mr.. Bigelow simply stated its
purpose, to hear the report of the committee
as above stated when Mr.. J. B. Brisbin of
the duty of preparing a paper upon the
life and services of
LORENZO ALLIS, ESQ,
reported the following with the resolution
attached.
Lorenzo Allis, Esq, was born in Colches-
glish origin. The progenitors of the
American branch of the family emigra-
ting from Kent in England by the third
voyage of the Mayfower, settled at Salem,
Mass. Having received such preparatory
education as the local schools of his native
village afforded, he entered the University
of Vermont in 1871, from which
he was graduated with distinc-
ton in 1916. In the October
following his graduation he removed to
New Orleans. In 1916, returning to Yer
mont, he was married to Mary
Castle, of Jericho, and at once
returned to the city of his edop-
ton. Immediately upon his arrival at
New Orleans he was engaged as principal
of the leading public school of the city, in
addition to which he soon became associate
editor of the Picayune, then as now, one
of the leading and domineering journals
of the South.
Besides the onerous and responsible
duties imposed by his double occupation
as teacher and editor, he commenced and
pursued during the same period a course
of legal studies, attending lectures at the
University of Louisiana, from which he
graduated in 1919, being at that time ad-
mitted to practice in the federal and state
courts.
1t is worthy of remark how soon this
man of work began to overload a body
fragile and prematurely infrm, and to in
fer what those who have been intimate
with his career in Minnesota will avouch.
that his life was only prolonged to three
score years by an almost supernatural
force of will, invigorating and stimulating
clean intellect,a CHEEKY temperament and
humanity speaking pure life,
which found its supreme pleasure
in home and the congenial
application to those pursuits which made
that home place "where home-born joys
did gather round his heart like swallows
round his roof"
From this time forward Mr.. Allis com
mepced the practice of law in connection
with his duties upon the editorial staff
of the Picay.ne until late in tae sum
mer Of 1S56-when nervated by the eli
mate and debiiitated by overwork his
health entirely failing, he was forced
from a chosen and congenial home
at time when his labors had f)vet5d
into adequate and established success. to
renew his battle and repeat his struggles
in Minnesota.
The writer of this brief and wholly in
adequate memoir remembers we'll his ar
rival at the Winslow house in st. Paul.
with his wife, now his grieving widow.
and his two Oldest children, now Frederick
Allis, Esq. and Mrs. Franklin DeCou, and
also windy recalls the predictions
of his new found friends that his enfeebled
constitution would soon break under the
vigors of northern climate. Not so
thought Mr.. Allis. The power of will was
prominently his, and the future led him
like a heavenly star" Having been
educated in the jurisdiction of the civil,
preparation was needed to equip him for
entering into the domain of the common
law. This preparation was at once begun.
He however, had the advantage of the com
parative poverty which compelled him
to other activities. Making the
acquaintance of Earle S. Goodrich, then
editor of the st. Paul Pioneer, he was en-
ployed as an editorial writer upon that
journal, which was then, as now, a distin-
gui9hed newspaper. The articles contrib
uted by Mr., Allis during the autumn and
winter of 1867 will compare most favor
ably with any which have adorned that
journal or its successor, the Pioneer Press.
His style was terse, chaste and
classic, and his matter larger
in its discourse, and more philo-
sophical in its insight than usually charac-
terizes newspaper articles. They were
also trenchant, pungent and attractive to
the general reader.
In the spring of 1857, he went to the &C
tive practice of his profession stores atque
TOtunduS," fully organized and took his rank
among the leaders at the threshold of his
career in Minnesota. Although not what is
called a man of genius, his wonderful
popularity, acuteness usually COM
mand of all his resources,
his various information and scholar
ship, his thorough knowledge of the sci
ence of trials and dialectics, added to his
profound comprehension of principles, re-
leased him from the prolonged drudgery
of preparation for his labor, on what was
at that time to him an untraveled road of
Jurisprudence and made him a dangerous
adversary from his first entrance into the
arena of forensic trial and debate. 1t may,
perhaps, not inaptly be said of him as was
said of a greater than he: "He,
did not invoke the keepers of
knowledge to let him into their secrets
Int cd cEro ;,A