The Helena independent. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1875-1943, 1891-09-09
All tho Courts Here Adjourn Out Of
Respect to tho
Dead.
The Bar Association to Meet To-
day and Take Suita-
BILE Action.
An interesting Life History OF Ono Of tho
Pioneers Of the State Of
California.

~
memory of Judge Lorenzo Sawyer. OF the
United States circuit court, who died in
San Francisco on Monday night. The bar
association, through President Billiard,
has appointed II. b. Smith, w. Il. Cullen.
j.. A. Walsh, F. N. Mcintyre, @. B. Nolan
and A.. G. Botkin a committee to prepare
and submit suitable resolutions on the
death of Judge Sawyer to a meeting OF that
body to be held in Judge Bucks department
of the district court at $3.50 this morning.
Judge Sawyer was we'll and favorably
known among the members of the bar in
Helena, as this state formed part of his
circuit, and his recent visit is well remem-
bered.
With the exceptions Of Judges Hoffman
and Field, Judge Sawyer had been on the
bench in California longer than any other
jurist. He was born in Jefferson county,
New York, May %, 1890. on a farm belong
ing to his parents, and lived there until his
sixteenth year. In winter he attended the
district school, and in summer helped
about the farm. After passing a year at
tho high school at Watertown he emit to
Pennsylvania, whore q new farm was To-
Gated and cleared. The next eight years
WGI0b RO1V IA tOoOAAAk DOhooA - ~ AOA~
and Ohio, end in reading law, which
profession he had decidsd to follow before
he left his native state. The first law office
he entered was that of Hon. Gustavus Swan,
who then led the Ohio bar in land contrc-
v~ersies. When Judge Swan retired from
practice, young Sawyer went into the
Office of Noah H. Swayne, after
wards a Justice Of the United
States supreme court, where he remained
until his admission to the bar in 1916. He
then went to Chicago and passed a year in
the Office of James A.. McDougall. at that
time attorney general of Illinois, and who
afterwards represented California in the
United States senate. From Chicago he went
to Wisconsin and formed q partnership with
John E. Holmes, then lieutenant governor,
at a town called Jefferson. Sawyer was an
old line whig, but he had pitched his tent in
a locality not c%ongenial to whig ideas. He
built up q lucrative practice, but he was
ferment in Jefferson were not fattering.
So he decided to go further west.
In July, 1850, Judge Sawyer arrived in
California, having crossed the plains with
a COMPANY of young men from Wisconsin,
the journey occupying seventy-two days.
Immediately on his arrival Judge Sawyer
went to work in the mines, but finding that
his profession presented a golden oppor-
%tunity. he went to Sacramento and COM
menced the practice Of law. Soon after ne
removed to Nevada City. At that time his
library consisted of eleven volumes,
brought from Wisconsin. Intending to
locate permanently in San Francisco. he
left Nevada City for that place, but being
twice burned out of his Office in the Golden
Gate city, he returned to his mountain
town, where he WAS destined to win great
local fame. His first great criminal case
came in 1852. Pat Berry a prosperous
miner, was missing one night after a visit
Harriet. His nude body was found away
down the creek, which ran back of the
woman's house, with a large confused
wound on the head. Old Harriet and her
"fghting man." a Cornishman, were ar
rested, charged with Berry's murder. The
theory of the persecution WAS that Berry
had been struck by an iron weight, robbed
and Invested of his clothing, n the body
thrown into the creek. Judge Sawyer was
ounse for the defense. He commended that
Berry had left the woman's house drunk
and fallen into the creek from the foot
log bridge and been drowned. When asked
to account for the disappearance of the
clothing, he did so on the theory that the
action Of the torrent and the frequent col
lision with rocks, ties, ETC., which the
body had undergone must have stripped it
off. The wound in the head, he commended,
was made by the body hitting a rock
or tree. This plausible defense caused
Judge John Anderson to take the case I'M
der advisement for a werk. During that
week a strange incident occurred. Two
men started to CROSS the creek On the foot
log. In the center one of them fell off. He
was never seen alive again, but some miles
below, in the same eddy where Berry had
been found, the mans body was discovered
by the searchers. There was a wound Of
the head just like that on Berry's and all
the clothing had been stripped off except
the undershirt. The case against the woman
and her alleged accomplish was immediate
ly reopened, and they were acquitted.
Judge Sawyer had already achieved no.
toriety as a civil practitioner in a case in
volving a mining claim worth $780, 600,
which he won on the second trial, the jury
disagreeing the first time. His success in
the criminal case only served to increase
his reputation as q generally good lawyer,
In one suit in which Artemus Roges was
the main defendant, Rogers consulted
Sawyer, who did not think he could win,
and the lawyer was dismissed with a recon-
mendation to go to the other side. Saw
yer did 30. n though he lost in the lower
court, he carried the case to the supreme
court, and won it against Rogers side.
While in Nevada City Judge Sewyer's
partners were e. i. W. Ellis and Judge
the California legislature, and during the
Stanton Buckner. Ellis was a member of
war was colonel of the Fifteenth Illinois
regiment. He fell mt the battle of Shiloh.
In the autumn of 1853 Judge Sawyer re-
moved to San Francisco, where he remained
to the time of his death. He had not been
there a year before he was elected city at
torney. During his term of office no judg-
ment was ever rendered against the city,
and of those given in her favor only one
WAS reversed on appeal. In 1866 he was a
candidate before the state convention OF
his party for the nomination of supreme
Judge and lost it by six votes. At that
election n nomination by the republican
party was equivalent to an election in Cali
%fornia, He formed a partnership in 1861
with Charles H. =. Williams. The firm es-
tablished an Office at Virginia City, New.
gagged until May, 1862, when Gov. Stanford