Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1910-09-15
IN PIONEER COURTS
How JUSTICE WAS ADMINISTERS
IN RUDE SURROUNDINGS.
Iurists in Early Days Frequently VGera
lliiterate, But Made Up in Hon.
esty What They Lacked in
Legal Lore.

In the days of which | write the i'll
1icial system, like the country, was m
It's infancy. The circuit court was com
posed OF a president judge, elected by
the legislature, and who presided at
all the courts in the circuit, and two
associate judges, elected In each coun-
y by the people. The president judge
was always a lawyer of some expeff-
ence. The associate judges were net
lawyers and they made no claims 10
legal knowledge. As rule they were
typical representatives of the badk4
woodsmen and very iiIiterate, yet they
mad the power to override the pee+
siding judge and give the opinion De
the court, and they often did so. Ina
such instances their reasoning was
likely to be of most ludicrous char-
acters However, they made up In
honesty what they lacked In other d.
recuons, and the results were not as
bad as might be imagined. They wewa
usually elected because of their poul~
larity and their well known integrity,
and though they occasionally weAt
wrong their constituents did not
strongly censure them because of their
mistakes.
The clerks of the pioneer courts
were seldom qualified for their duties,
and many old time records are the
living proofs of this statement. They
were uneducated, and some of thens
barely had the ability to scrawl their
own names, yet they did not lack nsa-
tive shrewdness. There was a cleRlx
IN ole Of the pioneer settlements of
central Indiana who boosted of his
superior qualifications by declaring
that he had been sued on every sec
ton OF the statute, and therefore knew
the law, while his opponent had never
been sued and therefore could not
know the law. He was elected on tins
platform
The sheriffs were chosen by the pao4s
pie, and the man who could send las
voice farthest in the woods from the
courthouse door was often the success
full candidate. A stentorian voice.
physical strength and tried courage
were the principal qualifications for
this important office. When the court
desired the presence of John Smith as
a petit juror or as witness, it wass
the sheriff's duty to stand outside the
courthouse or poke his head out of a
window and cry three times and with
all the power Of his lungs, John
Smith, come to courtl" and John gen
orally heard the call and obeyed. IL
he happened to be so remote that Ee
did not hear, there were always plenty
of loiterers who esteemed it an hono~
to go after him. A written summons
was seldom resorted to. 1t was re-
garded as waste of material and
time, to say nothing of the stupendous
task which the preparation of such a
document would place upon a CLERIC
who could hold a pillow handle or rife
much more effectively than a pen.
By far the most important men wfHo
attended the sessions of the COURTS
were the lawyers, especially the
younger ones. But nobody called them
lawyers. They were squires. To see
q young squire with queu three feet
long dangling down his back and tied
with an eel skin, strutting backward
and forward over the rough-hewn
slabs that formed the floor of the or
binary log courthouse, brought the
woodsmen from near and far; and to-
hear him plead" was worth a wears-
some foot journey over ice and snow
and across swollen rivers and creeks.
through an interminable forest.-Casa
and Comment.