Perrysburg journal. (Perrysburg, Wood Co., O. [Ohio]) 186?-1965, 1898-06-18
RESOLUTIONS.
CONTINUED from first page. J

Of victory. In these respects he was
model to his younger brethren, to
whom he was especially kind and con-
siderate. The pleasant memories of
these qualities in him made us, who
were his juniors, more careful to eX-
tend to him in his later years the cour-
tesies which are so grateful to the aged
when their senses are less acute and
their faculties less active. His son in
forms me that he often alluded feel
ingly to these courtesies of his younger
brethren at the bar.
Ihave said that he has been called be-
fore the Judge from whose decree there
isno appeal If there is truth in the ut
terance, "With what judgment ye
Judge, ye shall be Judged" he would
desire no appeal, for his own judg-
ments when he occupied the bench of
this court, were always tempered with
the quality of mercy
(Which droppeth as the gentle dew
from heaven
Upon the place beneath ="
He did not evade the administration
of suitable punishment to the guilty,
but he administered it with compass
sion for those whose erring feet had
brought them to the bar of justice. In
pronouncing sentence, we have seen
him far more affected than the crimi-
nal whose doom he declared. One
such case | shall never forget. An old
man was convicted of murder in the first
degree. He had not led criminal life,
nor had he associated with criminals
1t was his first known offense; yet he
received the verdict Of guilty and the
sentence of death without a tremor.
Juds.. Dodge Wac 60 agitated that he
could hardly speak when he pronounc-
ed the death penalty and Immediately
had to leave the room. This agitation
was not due to any weakness of char
acter, for he had himself faced death,
under the most trying circumstances,
with the calm courage of hero. When
the cholera epidemic of 1854 invaded
Perrysburg, he was there as a law stu
dent, only "a years old. For 94 days
the deadly disease held sway in the viii
lage. 1t numbered its victims by the
hundred. Whole families were swept
away. All business was suspended.
Grass grew in the streets, for they
were untraveled save by the few who
attended the sick and buried the dead.
The deaths were so numerous and in
such rapid succession that funeral rites
and ceremonies were abandoned. The
volunteer nurse and undertaken of to-
day were themselves the victims of to-
morrow. Young Dodge had no family
ties or business interests to detain him.
He might have fed, as did hundreds Of
others, from the desolation and death
which peTvaded this community. Yet,
with delicate nervous organization,
unusually sensitive to human suffering
and distress, he remained at what he
felt to be his post of duty. Through
all those three months of indiscribable
horror, he daily ministered to the sick
and dying, and when life ceased, laid
their fostering bodies in the earth with
his own hands.
When his own funeral occurred, at
tended as it was with the pomp and
ceremonial of the Catholic church, Of
which he was a devoted member, we
expected to see him laid to rest in
ground which that church has conse-
Grated to the burial of her own dead.
Nevertheless. it was an act Of far
more beautiful propriety to lay his re-
mains in the old Fort Meigs cemetery,
whose ground he himself had conse-
Grated by heroic Christian work in the
burial of his plague-stricken neighbors
Al years ago. The record of such work
the recording angel delights to spread
| upon his page. And may we not be-
lieve, in spite of creeds and dogmas,
that on that day of days, when the
book shall be opened and the record
shall be read of the cup of cold water
held to the lips Of the plague-stricken
sufferer, of the comforting words and
the sympathetic touch in the dying
hour, the Judge of all the earth will
say, "In as much as We did it unto the
one of the least of these?"
And now, on behalf of the bar with
whom he labored, l ask that the rec
ords of this court, which already bear
testimony to a clean and upright ad-
ministration by him of the judicial Of
flee, shall also bear witness to the af-
fectionate regard in which we, his CO.
| laborers at the bar, hold him in re-
| membrance. To that end l offer the
following resolution prepared by a
committee of the bar appointed for
| that purpose:
Resolved. That by the death of lion.
Henry H. Dodge the legal profession in
Northwestern Ohio has lost member
whose learning and integrity won for
him the respect and confidence Of the
bench and bar, and whose courtesy
and kindliness of personal intercourse
won the friendship and esteem of his
professional brethren.
We extend to his family our sincere
sympathy in their loss of husband and
father, and we ask the court of COM
mon pleas of Wood county, in whose
bar he chiefly labored and whose bench
he honored. to spread upon its jour-
nal this token of affectionate remem-
brance of our deceased brother.
ID. r. JONES.
JAMES y. TROUP.
JOHN McCAULEY,
Committee