Appeal to the Supreme Court With Sandy Olds sentenced to be hanged in November of 1889, the gamblers of Portland and around the Sound in Washington raised more funds and hired new Lawyers. H.Y. Thompson had eloquently argued the case twice. He had sowed enough doubt to hang the first jury, but the second jury had found Olds guilty of murder in the first. It may have had something to do with the ability to take the case to the Supreme Court, or Olds’s benefactors thought they could just get better Lawyers to get the result they wanted. Whatever the reason, Olds’s “friends” hired Charles Bellinger and of the firm Dolph, Bellinger, Mallory & Simon. Dolph, Bellinger, Mallory & Simon The Law firm of Dolph, Bronaugh, Dolph & Simon was formed in Portland in 1873. The members would distinguish themselves in the legal, political and Masonic history of .

Portland City Directory 1875 Joseph Norton Dolph was Raised a Master Mason in Harmony Lodge No. 12 in 1868, and was the Charter Senior Warden for Portland Lodge No. 55 in 1872, he was Master of that Lodge in 1876. Joseph was Grand Master of Oregon Freemasons in 1882-83. He was elected to the in 1883 and was Crowned 33º Honorary Inspector General by Albert Pike in 1884. Upon his election to the Senate he stepped down from the firm and Charles B. Bellinger took his place in 1883. Earl Clapp Bronaugh came to Portland practically penniless in 1868. He opened his law firm and after a couple years went in with the Dolph brothers and . As a Lawyer Bronaugh had few if any superiors at the Oregon bar. Earl was a Charter member of Portland Lodge No. 55 in 1872. He left the Law firm in 1882 and went to Santa Clara, California for health reasons. Two years later he returned to Portland and started a new firm. His son Earl Clapp Bronaugh Jr. was also a Lawyer and Judge. A member of Willamette Lodge No. 2, he was Grand Master of Oregon in 1919-20 and was Crowned 33º in 1936. After Bronaugh Sr. left the firm in 1882, Rufus Mallory was brought in to take his place in 1883. Cyrus Abde Dolph with his brother Joseph, came west after enlisting in the “Oregon Escort” in 1862. He was made a Master Mason “At Sight” by Grand Master William E. Grace on April 26, 1902 (the 1st to receive that honor in Oregon), and affiliated with Portland Lodge No. 55 on November 21, 1902. He received the 33º in 1905. Joseph Dolph served as Portland City Attorney from 1864 to 1866, and Cyrus held the job for 1869-70. When Joseph left the Law firm to serve as U.S. Senator for Oregon 1883-1895, Cyrus became the first named partner in the Law firm Dolph, Bellinger, Mallory & Simon. Born in Germany, Joseph Simon came to Oregon in 1857. At age 19 he studied the Law and went in with the Law firm of Mitchell and Dolph as a student, passing the bar in 1872. He was Raised a Master Mason in 1876 in Portland Lodge No. 55 and served as Master in 1881. Later he was an Oregon State Senator from 1880 to 1898 and a U.S. Senator from 1898 to 1903. He was also elected Mayor of Portland 1909-1911. Joseph received the 33º in 1899. Bellinger and Mallory It is distressing to note the role of the next group of Masons in this story. We cannot speak to their reasoning, and must assume they saw some points of Law they felt needed to be rectified. These were men of renown, but the facts of the case make it hard to understand why they would work so long and hard to attempt to get this killer off. The case for first degree murder was strong, and the case for manslaughter week. After all, Olds had shot a fleeing man in the back, who had not pulled his own gun, and then unloaded his weapon into his dying victim’s back. Perhaps Sandy Olds struck them as a sympathetic character and his tales of bullying and harassment played to their emotions, or perhaps it was just about the money. The papers felt clearly it was about the latter, and would not hold back their scorn, which through them was felt by the people of Portland. It should be noted that Dolph and Simon had nothing to do with this case. As well, Mallory was not a Mason, so, on that front we are speaking about C.B. Bellinger. As will be shown, of the three judges on the Oregon Supreme Court, Chief Justice W.W. Thayer and Justice Strahan were both Masons. In fact, Brothers Thayer and Bellinger were members of the same East Portland Lodge, Washington Lodge No. 46; Justice Strahan was a member of St. Johns Lodge No. 62 in Albany. Although not specifically mentioned in the Supreme Court case, there is no reason to believe that anyone but Bellinger and Mallory took the case to the court, and they stuck with it until the end. Newspapers around the state and the country responded to the news. San Francisco Examiner Tue. Dec. 17, 1889 Another chance for Sandy Olds. Portland, December 16. – The supreme Court to-day, in the noted murder case of Sandy Olds, reversed the decision of a lower court and granted the defendant a new trial. Olds is under sentence of death and was to have been hanged in November, but an appeal was taken. Olds has already had two trials. The jury the first time disagreed and at the second trial returned a verdict of murder in the first degree. Morning Oregonian Tuesday, December 17, 1889 Sandy Olds, the Murder of Emil Weber, gets a New Trial. Salem, Oregon, December 16 – special telegram. In the supreme court today the case of the state of Oregon, respondent, versus Charles Olds, appellant, on appeal from Multnomah county, was decided. The judgment of a lower court was reversed and the case is remanded for a new trial. Opinion is written by Judge Strahan, Chief Justice Thayer concurring and Judge Lord dissenting… The Oregonian Portland Tuesday, December 17, 1889 On Frivolous Grounds The supreme court of the state has ordered that Olds be granted a new trial. The order is based on the ground that “while the district attorney has a right to cross examine a witness for the defendant as to his interest in the result of the trial to enable the jury to pass upon the credibility of the witness, he must confine himself to the point at issue and not take in collateral facts incapable of presumption from the principal material facts.” Translated out of the jargon employed by special pleaders to defeat the ends of justice, the above victim in this particular case means that the court before which Olds was tried erred in allowing the district attorney to ask Tom Williams, a witness for the defendant, who the persons were that contributed money for the defense of Olds. Williams, when put on the stand, testified to having had a conversation with Weber on the day of the homicide in the course of which Weber had threatened to kill Olds on sight. (“Defendant had called Thomas Williams, who had known defendant and deceased, Emil Weber, for five years, and he testified that the latter, speaking of his eye, which had been injured in a previous fight with Olds said: “I am pretty near ready for another battle, and it will not be a fist fight this time. He can lick me in a fistfight, but I will have no fist fight next time. I will just kill the son of a bitch; that is what I will do with him.”)1 He (Williams) further testified that Weber’s reputation among his associates was that of a vicious, turbulent and quarrelsome man, and that Olds’s character was that of a peaceable, quiet and orderly man. Williams was one of the gang of gamblers who sided with Olds in the quarrel that resulted in Weber’s murder. The district attorney therefore wishing to show the bias of the witness toward the defendant began by asking Williams if he had not taken a great deal of interest in the case. Witness acknowledge that he had and the further admission was drawn from him that he himself had contributed $600 for defense of Olds and had collected from others $900 more for the same purpose. Witness was asked who contributed this last sum. He said that Sliter and McNamara who kept a gambling house in Portland had contributed $100, that Paul Fuhr the gambler had contributed $100 and that Frenchy Gratton another gambler had contributed $200. Witness was thus asked if the persons who contributed this money were not among those who had denounced Weber as a turbulent vicious and quarrelsome man, and he answered that they were. The supreme court now grants a new trial on the assumption that the court below erred in permitting the district attorney to ask the witness who they were who contributed to the fund for the defense Olds. To set aside a verdict on grounds so frivolous is not only scandalous in itself but is in violation of the statues of the state. It is scandalous because it produces a travesty of justice and tends to bring judicial proceedings into contempt, it is unlawful because the statutes plainly say after hearing the appeal the court must give judgment without regard to the decision of the questions which were in the judgment of the court below or to technical errors defects or exemptions which do not affect the substantial rights of the parties.” Here was a gang of gamblers contributing money for the defense of an associate who had murdered another gambler to whom this witness had given a bad character while giving his slayer a good one, and it was in every way proper in every way necessary to the ends of justice that the jury should know this in order to form an opinion as to the value of the testimony of the witness and to be able to judge as to the sources of his evidence regarding the reputation of the defendant and his victim. Fuhr, Gratton and others where the persons from whom William’s got his information as to the good character of the one in the bad character of the other, and these were the men who had contributed money for the defense. Was it not proper that the jury for the purpose of weighing the testimony, should discover the sources of it and see the motives behind it? For the ends of justice, it was entirely proper and perfectly lawful too, but the majority of the supreme court assume and wish the public to believe that it was contrary to the interest of justice that all the facts should be known. It is very unfortunate, and widely regretted that in the majority of the supreme court, as that body is now constituted there is plentiful lack of confidence throughout the state. Some of the particular grounds of this distrust it will be necessary to state hereafter, if reelection is sought by those who are the objects of it. “The lower court did not err in refusing to charge that the brass weight offered by the defendant was a dangerous weapon. That depended upon the ability of Weber to use it, and was a question exclusively for the jury. The judgment is reversed and the cause remanded to the court below for a new trial.”2

1 Morning Oregonian Tuesday, December 17, 1889 2 Ibid Although successful on behalf of Sandy Olds, the Lawyers in the case did not escape the disdain of the papers, and thereby of the people. Morning Oregonian Wednesday, December 18, 1889. The Olds Case The action of the supreme court in the case of “Sandy” Olds really causes no surprise since the case follows the regular course of justice, so-called, which it once upon the commission of murder undertakes to prove for a consideration that no crime has been committed. In the endeavor the case is usually beaten back-and-forth between the circuit and supreme courts, until public sentiment is worried into the acceptance of a verdict for a minor offense possibly one of acquittal. It is well known, moreover, the extraordinary effort has been brought to bear in this case, by a class of men, especially interested in the vindication of Olds, not so much for the sake of the man, as for that of the “profession” of which both he and his victim were industrious, shrewd and devoted members. Hence the ground upon which the new trial was ordered should create no surprise. The very title of the case upon the court docket is misleading. Instead of “the state of Oregon versus Charles Olds,” it should be the “Gamblers of Oregon versus the gambling law.” The “sporting fraternity” of this city confidently depends upon two forces to aid them in their determined violation of the law. One of these is the loyal friendship of the police and the other, the full handed fealty of their brethren in the “profession.” From present indications they are not likely to prove the victims of missed placed confidence. The class of lawyers who are always in league with criminals against society, so long as the criminals have money, find a harvest in cases of this description. The Oregonian Portland Saturday, December 21, 1889 Opinion in the Olds Case. Justice Lord’s dissenting opinion in the Olds case is very comprehensive and very able. It explodes and scatters the flimsy argument presented as the opinion of the majority, and proves not only that justice has been defeated in this case, but it has been handicapped for future cases of this kind by the entry of such an opinion upon the record of the supreme court of the state. It is clear that the evil consequences of this opinion will be far reaching. To at appeal will be made to sustain every frivolous exception to the admissibility and competency of testimony in capital cases. It is perfectly certain, therefore, that the supreme court will be compelled by the abuses to which this opinion will lead to review and reverse the unfortunate deliverance. This indeed, is not to be expected so long as the court is constituted as now, but unfortunately for correction of errors in support of public justice, there is a constitutional method of changing the composition of that tribunal. Lord’s dissenting opinion is an exposition of the principles that will yet find their place in the reports as the utterance of the supreme court of Oregon. The reasoning of the majority is based on misapprehension of the case, as Justice Lord clearly shows. The object of the testimony which they declare was inadmissible, was not, as they assume, to prejudice a jury against the defendant – for the jury in fact could not be prejudiced by it – but to enable the jury to judge of the interest of the witness in the case, his motives, and the credibility of his testimony. It was admitted that the parties were all gamblers the witness was a gambler himself an associate of gamblers, he professed to state in his testimony the reputation that Olds and Weber boar among their associates, and the fact was then drawn from him that himself and these associates had contributed money for defense of Olds. Here was a fact that showed the bias of the witness, gave to the jury the sources of his information as to the reputation of the defendant and his victim, and tended to show what degree of credibility should be given to the statements that the witness had made. This was wholly within the settled principles of the law of evidence, it was proper for the ends of justice. It was an inquiry that related to the credibility of the testimony of the witness, not an attack upon any legal right of the defendant. The opinion of the majority seems to have been unconsciously influenced by recent presentations before them of the leading idea that prevails in the practice of criminal lawyers, so-called - the idea that the true object of the law is not to afford protection to society against criminals, but to find means to enable criminals to circumvent the law and defeat justice. The Dalles Times Mountaineer attempted to defend the supreme court’s decision, pointing out that the complaints were based on the idea of Olds’s guilt. A fact incidentally proven by his trial. The Times continued: “The Supreme Court has decided on appeal that Sandy Olds convicted of murder should have a new trial and we see some of the papers of the state criticizing the decision. We do not consider this by any means fair journalism.” The Morning Oregonian fired back. Morning Oregonian Monday, December 23, 1889 Not Above Criticism “The opinions of the supreme court are not above examination or beyond criticism. Every public utterance by a public officer is under our system open to examination and criticism by press and people. But the Times Mountaineer says “every unfavorable criticism of the judgement of the higher court upholds that “Sandy” Olds is guilty of murder and should be hanged” with great pertinence it might be asked who that knows anything about the case doubts that he is guilty and should be hanged? Who that is to say except a gang of gamblers in Portland, a portion of the police force of the city and two or three lawyers of the class who for money can always be engaged on the side of crime and against law justice and the interest of society? Is it to be supposed that the two members of the Supreme Court who have ordered a new trial knew better whether Olds is guilty of murder or not than the court and jury that tried him, heard all the testimony and found him guilty? Reverence for law is continually invoked as a shelter for the sharp and immoral practice which constantly attacks and often defends both law and justice and the same sharp and immoral practice is constantly enlisting a solemn public stupidity on its side and fitting its mouth with round phrases in support of the pretense that its methods of obstructing justice and preventing the punishment of crime are the safeguard of society. Men who can be hired and are hired every day with the proceeds of crime to defend crime are voluble in their protestations that they want justice, and the claim against public expressions that would create prejudice against crime and criminals. That is their trade. They pursue it to make money, and great part of their skill is expanded in getting a class of people to mumble with reverence the phrases under which they ply their vocation.”3

The Supreme Court Justices We now introduce you to the justices of the Oregon Supreme Court in 1889 and 1890. Chief Justice Thayer and Justice Strahan voted to give Olds a new trial, and Justice Lord dissented. Justices Thayer and Strahan were Freemasons and Justice Lord was not. A brief description of their lives and Masonic histories follow.

William Wallace Thayer (1827 – 1899) “Thayer was born on a farm near Lima, New York, on July 15, 1827. He received a public education before studying law in college. He was admitted to the New York State Bar in 1851. He then practiced law with his brother in Buffalo and later Tonawanda. A mining boom in Idaho Territory caught Thayer's attention in 1860, prompting him to move west. He arrived in Corvallis, Oregon, in 1861, where he joined his brother and former U.S. Representative Andrew J. Thayer, at his law firm. In 1863, he would finally move to Idaho, setting up his own law firm in Lewiston. In 1866, three years after moving to Lewiston, Thayer was elected district attorney for the Third Judicial District of Idaho Territory. From 1866 until 1867, he moved to Boise to serve for a session of the Idaho Territory House of Representatives. He moved to Portland, Oregon, shortly after leaving the legislature. Upon returning to Oregon, Thayer established a successful law firm in the city of East Portland. At this time, he became an active member of the Democratic Party. (He was elected city attorney for East Portland and served in that position from 1873 to 1878.)4 During the 1876 Hayes-Tilden Presidential Election dispute, Thayer was a member of the legal team which challenged the certification of J. W. Watts, a Republican elector for Rutherford B. Hayes. Although successful, this challenge did not help Samuel Tilden prevail in the Electoral College. Still appreciative of his assistance in the Watts Case, the Oregon State Democratic Party nominated Thayer for governor in 1878. Thayer would win narrowly over Republican Cornelius C. Beekman (PM of Warren Lodge No. 10 in Jacksonville, Oregon), by a margin of 59 votes. Thayer's time in office is remembered as a fiscally conservative, anti-corruption administration, which sought to make the state bureaucracy more efficient. The State Board of Equalization, land law reforms, and the establishment of a state mental hospital were initiated under his leadership. He would completely eliminate the state's debt while in office. Governor Thayer often spoke out about the state's finances. Highly criticized by Thayer was the process by which the state legislature based its budget appropriations. He called for revenue projections to be based on actual revenues, not what was anticipated as the legislature had often done in the past. He also refused to fund the completion of the State Capitol Building, stating that the building was too expensive and lavish for Oregon. His lasting legacy was reforming the Supreme Court of Oregon into its present incarnation by statute. Previously, Circuit Court judges served as justices of the Supreme Court. After the statute change, Supreme Court positions were made a separate, directly elected office. Thayer declined to run for a second term in the 1882 gubernatorial election. Instead, he successfully ran a campaign for justice of the Supreme Court in 1884, winning a six-year term on the bench. Justice Thayer remained on the bench until 1890, the last two years of that term serving as Chief Justice.

4 Portland City Directories 1873-1878 Thayer died in Portland on October 15, 1899, with interment at Lone Fir Cemetery in that city.”5 Masonic History William Wallace Thayer put in his petition to join Washington Lodge No. 46 on July 16, 1869. He was elected and Initiated in that East Portland Lodge on Aug 11, 1869. He gave back his EA proficiency and was elected and Passed to the degree of Fellow Craft on Oct 20, 1869. He gave his FC proficiency and was elected and Raised to the Sublime degree of Master Mason on Nov 24, 1869. He remained a member of Washington Lodge No. 46 for the rest of his life, but never served as an officer. On some of the Lodge rosters he is listed as Walter W. Thayer.

Reuben Scott Strahan (1835 – 1895) Born on January 1, 1835 in Lawrence County, Kentucky, Reuben was the son of John Strahan and his wife Selah Canterbury Strahan. When he was age 6 his parents moved to Missouri. Reuben received his education from the Mexican Academy in Missouri, and in 1856 he studied law in Louisa, Kentucky with his uncle R.F. Canterbury. He was admitted to the Kentucky bar in 1858. Strahan then returned to Missouri in 1859, where he was appointed probate judge for Sullivan County, Missouri, in Milan. He served as judge from 1860 until 1864, and during this time married Sarah H. Wilson in 1861, they would have four children. Reuben Strahan came to Oregon by way of the Panama route in 1865, and took up residence in Corvallis, Oregon. There he set up a law practice before becoming Benton County district attorney from 1868 to 1870. In 1870, he was elected to the . Strahan won re-election in 1872, again representing Benton County as a Republican. In 1876 he moved to Albany forming a partnership with Lark Bilyeu (later a PM of Eugene Lodge No. 11) In 1884, Strahan was a supporter of the movement to raise money for the purchase of buildings for the Oregon Agricultural College in Corvallis. He would later serve as a regent for the school for a decade. Following his time in the legislature, he resumed private law practice in Albany, Oregon, before winning election to the Oregon Supreme Court in 1886. Strahan only served the one six-year term on the bench, but did serve as chief justice from 1890 to 1892 when he left the court due to his term expiring. After his time on the court Strahan moved to Portland and joined the firm Whalley, Strahan & Pipes. He then worked as legal counsel for the Oregon Pacific Railroad, and also helped to organize the Farmers and Merchants Fire Insurance Company. In about 1894 Strahan retired from his former firm to join Dolph, Mallory & Simon, replacing C.B. Bellinger who had gone on to serve in the U.S. District Court in 1893. On July 21, 1895, Reuben Strahan died at the age of 60, after a sudden attack of apoplexy. About his usual business, he was headed to his office in the Abbington block. “As the elevator was not down, he started to walk up. On the second flight of stairs he fell and was dead when found by the janitor shortly afterwards. A blood vessel had burst in his head. In 1898, his daughter Fayne was tried for robbery and assault in New York City along with her husband.6

5 Wikipedia William Wallace Thayer 6 Rueben S. Strahan Wikipedia and Albany Democrat Fri. July 26, 1895 “Death of Judge Strahan” Masonic History Reuben S. Strahan joined Corvallis Lodge No. 14 in 1865, probably by affiliation, which would indicate he got his degrees in Missouri or Kentucky. He held no offices and demitted in 1875, when he moved to Albany. He affiliated with St. Johns Lodge No. 62 in Albany in about 1877 and was listed as a Past Master for the rest of his life. He never served as an officer of the Lodges in Oregon, so either he was a Past Master in Missouri, and Corvallis never noted it, or he had gained the title as an Honorary Past Master when he left Corvallis. The former is probably more likely, but currently remains a mystery. As he lived in Milan, Missouri before coming to Oregon, he may have been a member of Seaman Lodge No. 126 in Milan, Sullivan, Missouri, but nothing was found to solve this question.

William Paine Lord (1838 – 1911) “Born to Edward and Elizabeth (Paine) Lord on July 20, 1838 in Dover, Delaware, Lord was partially deaf, and had limited speaking ability. He received his primary education at a Quaker school and through private tutoring. He subsequently studied law at Fairfield College, graduating in 1860. Before he could continue further into his studies, Lord volunteered for military service in the American Civil War, advancing to the rank of Major in the 1st Delaware Cavalry in the Union Army of the Potomac. Once the war ended, Lord continued in law school at Albany College in New York, graduating there in 1866. He then returned to the military for a second time, re-enlisting at the rank of lieutenant. His duties would include postings at Alcatraz in San Francisco and Fort Steilacoom near Tacoma, Washington. When the United States took formal possession of Alaska in 1867, Lt. Lord was sent to Sitka. In 1868, Lord resigned from the army in order to set up a law practice in Salem, Oregon. William Paine Lord soon became involved in politics, as he became Salem's City Attorney in 1870. This launched him into his first elected office: a state Senate seat in 1878. He resigned his Senate seat for a successful run as the Republican nominee for Justice of the Oregon Supreme Court. Lord served on the court from 1880 until 1894. He was a popular justice and had a reputation of being the most competent Jurist in state history, serving out his last term as Chief Justice. He accepted the Republican nomination for the 1894 Governor's Election, stepping down from the court after his gubernatorial election victory. Governor Lord's popularity swept him into the Governor's Office. He immediately set out to support higher education, eliminate corruption from land speculators, and fueled support for the direct election of United States Senators, when the Senate refused to seat Henry W. Corbett, Lord's appointee. In 1895, the University of Oregon conferred an honorary doctorate of laws degree on the governor. He promoted ending the corrupt land speculation practices of the time by creating the State Land Board, headed by an official State Land Agent. The present land-use system protecting Oregon's wildlife and fisheries would evolve from this early agency. The 1897 House failed to organize, caught up on a dispute over the reelection of U.S. Senator John H. Mitchell. Lord also called for a constitutional amendment to the Oregon Constitution allowing the Governor a line item veto. While nothing came of this during his term of office, later governors would support Lord's proposal. The line item veto was finally approved in 1916. Lord lost his bid for a second term, in the closely fought 1898 primary election campaign against fellow Republican Theodore T. Geer. Shortly after leaving the Governor's Office, Lord was appointed the U.S. Minister (Ambassador) to Argentina by the McKinley Administration. He served in that capacity until 1902, after which he returned to Oregon. In 1902, William Paine Lord was appointed as Code Commissioner by the Supreme Court of Oregon. In this position, which he held until 1910, he examined and annotated all existing Oregon Statute Laws, compiling them into three volumes, Lord's Oregon Laws – officially the Oregon Statute Code of 1909. In 1910 Lord retired to San Francisco, where he would die on February 17, 1911. His body was returned to Oregon where it is interred in Mount Crest Abbey Mausoleum in Salem.”7 Masonic History William Paine Lord was not found to have been a Freemason.

And So, It Continues Sandy Olds had successfully dodged the hangman’s noose, and the next order of business was to set a new trial. And so, continued the saga of Sandy Olds. It was now up to Bellinger and Mallory, to keep Olds alive for good or ill. Olds would continue his stay at the Multnomah County Jail until the spring, at least.

8

7 Wikipedia William Paine Lord 8 This is not the Multnomah County Jail