Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1912-04-04

Wood County, Wisconsin, August p
1911. full Of years and honors.
This is the Alpha and Omega, the
beginning and the end. Between lies
a period OF nearly seventy-eight
years, years Of growth, development,
character building, and service.
It would be interesting and instruc-
stive to trace step by step the stages
Of growth and development that
transformed the helpless babe of
1893 into the strong, keen, kindly
! Judge that We of a later generation
have learned to revere and love. But
we are denied the sight Of the path
he trod and are ignorant of the in
fluences that directed his course.
We have but a meager outline of the
differing phases of his career.
Judge Webb was well born. He
came of clean, strong stock. He
was one of the younger children in
the family of John L. Webb and Annis
Hammond Webb. Judge Webb's
father died when he was twelve years
Of age and ne went to the village of
Troy inB radford county and entered
a printing office with an older bro.
ther, and afterwards worked at the
printing trade in an office at Wells
boro. the county seat of Tioga
County, Pennsylvania
In 1850 he secured an appoint
ment to the Military Academy at
West Point, where he remained about
one and one-half years. He then
went to Washington, D. c., where he
worked at the printers trade for
about three years, and in 1855 re-
turned to Towanda, the place of his
birth, and began the study of law
with Ulysses Mercer, a leading at
torney Of that section of the state.
He was admitted to the bar of
Pennsylvania in September, 1857
and soon thereafter come to Wiscon-
sin where two older brothers. Henry
and William, had already located.
lie finally came to Grand Rapids in
April, 1858, and that place was there
after his home.
3&dge Webb was from the first a
sincere believer in the possibilities of
Genial and Northern Wisconsin, and
took a keen interest in, and contrib
utea his advice and services to any
ana all movements tending to the de-
vel0pment of the resources and the |
he.Ierment of its people; in his |
younger life by his personal partici- |
patton in the arduous labors incident |
to the subjugation of new coun-
Try and in his later years by his ever
ready encouragement and kindly ad- |
vice to those who were in turn bear
Ing the heavy burdens. His interest |
in political, civic and local affairs |
never waned.
Judge Webb was called to fill |
many and diverse positions of honor
ard trust during his life and in none |
of them was he found wanting. He |
was district attorney for Wood |
county from 1859 to 1861, served as |
lieutenant in the army for about one |
year, clerk of the board of supervis- |
ors from 1864 to 1865. He was
United States district attorney for |
the western district of Wisconsin
Fgury,
state senator in 1869 and 20, and |
again in 1883 and was finally ap-
pointed judge of the Seventh Judicial |
circuit to succeed the Honorable G. |
L. Park, who resigned in 1888. To |
this position he was successfully re-
elected and held the same at the time |
of his death, August y, 1911.
The diversity of these positions,
coupled with the fact that he per-
formed the varied duties of each in
an eminently successful manner, tells
more forcibly than words can of the |
firm foundation upon which Judge
Webb erected the temple of life. He
was student ana careful, close |
analyzer of ecah proposition present |
ed to him to the very end of his life. |
Of the attorneys now practicing at |
the bar of this court none are left
who were contemporaries of Judge
Webb while at the bar, they have
one by one been called higher.
We know him only as a Judge,
But that he was a strong and sue
cessful counsel and advocate is evi-
denced by the fact that when at the
bar he represented as attorney some
of the largest interests and conduct
ed many of the most difficult cases
of the time.
We are told by one who was asso-