Judges of the Federal District Court of Indiana* LOUISB
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Judges of the Federal District Court of Indiana* LOUISB. EWBANK Pursuant to an enabling act passed six months previ- ously, Indiana adopted a state constitution on June 29, 1816. In due time, though communication with Washington was then difficult and slow, the ordinance accepting the condi- tions imposed in the enabling act reached Washington, and, on December 11, a measure admitting Indiana into the Union received President Madison’s signature. The printed state constitution was sent to Washington by Governor Jonathan Jennings and laid before Congress on January 9, 1817. It was on March 6, 1817, that Benjamin Parke was ap- pointed as judge of the United States court for the district of Indiana. This new federal district had been created by an act of Congress passed three days before. The new judge was a native of New Jersey, then thirty-nine years old. Born on September 2, 1877, he had come to Vincennes in 1801, after having spent three or four years at Lexington, Ken- tucky, where he studied law. After coming to Indiana, he soon became a warm friend and supporter of the territorial Governor, William Henry Harrison, who appointed him to the office of Attorney General of the territory, which office he held from August 4, 1804, until June 2, 1808, serving in the meantime as a representative in the territorial legislature during the sessions of 1805 and 1806, as territorial delegate to Congress from December 12, 1805, until April 23, 1808, and then as one of the territorial judges. He was also terri- torial chancellor from June 14, 1813, to October 1, 1814. While holding the judgeship, he is said to have ridden once on horseback through the forest from Vincennes to Salisbury, then the county seat of Wayne County, only to find that the single case for trial at that term was a charge against a boy for stealing a pocket knife worth twenty-five cents. He held this office until after the territory was admitted as a *On April 1, 1939, the members of the bar presented to Judge Robert 0. Baltzell of the United States court for the southern district of Indiana photographs or portraits of all of his ten predecessors. These ten judges, all presided over the United States court for the district of Indiana. Two federal districts were created for Indiana after Judge Baltzell’s appointment and he was assigned ta the district for southern Indiana. Before the division the district for Indiana had existed ror one hundred seven years. The terms of the ten judges varied from a few months to twmty-two years. The ten pictures have been hung on the walls of the district court library room at Indianapolis. They are arranged from the right; near the southeast corner of the room, to the extreme left, nean the southwest corner, in the order of thrir succession. The article here published is Judge Ewbank’s pre6- entation address, with several minor changes. 372 Indiana Magazine of History State, when he resigned on February 8, 1817. He was active as a member and officer of the frontier militia, commanding a company of dragoons at the Battle of Tippecanoe in 1811. After this engagement, he was made commander of the cav- alry in General Harrison’s army with the rank of major. He also repeatedly served as an Indian agent and commis- sioner in negotiating treaties with the Indians. He was a delegate to the convention which framed the Constitution of 1816, in which he is said to have exercised great influ- ence. After the admission of Indiana, which terminated his service as a territorial judge, he was commissioned as presi- dent judge for a few weeks in the first district, composed of Gibson, Knox, Orange, Perry, Pike, Posey, Sullivan and Warrick counties, established on January 3, 1817. He prob- ably never held court under this appointment, for he is re- corded as having been commissioned on January 15, 1817, and as having resigned in each of those counties on February 8, 1817. He became the federal district judge four weeks later. Federal litigation would not appear to have been very heavy in the early days of statehood, since the first case was recorded in the district court after the lapse of more than two years, when an indictment against Andrew Hilton was returned on May 4, 1818, for selling whiskey without paying the tax. A jury found the defendant not guilty. In January, 1825, the federal court of Indiana was re- moved to Indianapolis. The last case at Corydon was scire facias for a debt of $1031.23, entitled Cuthbert Bullitt w. Richard M. Beth’s Adminitrators, which was dismissed on November 6, 1824. The first case at Indianapolis was a libel action for the confiscation of liquor and other goods alleged to have been seized because of illegal trading with the Indians. It was tried on January 5, 1825, one half the goods being awarded to the informer. Judge Parke served until his death on July 13, 1835, in his fifty-seventh year. For some time before his death, he suffered a partial paral- ysis. The marked change in his signatures, as they appear on the records, would indicate that he had grown quite feeble at the last, though continuing to hold court. Judge Monks, in his Courts and Lawyers of Imdiana, says that Judge Parke was one of the two best lawyers in the Constitutional Convention of 1816, and one of its most in- fluential members. Oliver H. Smith says, in his Early In- Judges of the Federal District Court of Indiana 373 diana Trials and Sketches, that Parke “was a fair, but not a great lawyer,” adding that he “made a first-rate judge; patient, courageous and kind,” and commending the judge for his honesty and common sense, which should make a judge useful, if it does not otherwise especially distinguish him. Judge Parke acquired one of the largest private libraries in the territory, was active in establishing public libraries at Corydon and Vincennes, was at one time chairman of the board of trustees of Vincennes University, and was the first president of the Indiana Historical Society, founded in 1830. Books from his library are now owned by different persons in Indianapolis, among whom is a member of our committee, Albert L. Rabb.’ The second United States district judge was Jesse Lynch Holman. His commission was dated September 16, 1835, more than two month after Judge Parke’s death. Judge Holman was born at Danville, Kentucky, on October 24, 1784. He taught school, preached and wrote a novel of which he tried in later life to buyl up all the copies so as to de- stroy the entire edition, under the belief that novel reading was harmful. He studied law in the office of Henry Clay, at Lexington, and attempted to practice at what is now Car- rollton, Kentucky, before he came to Dearborn County in or about the year 1810. He built his residence on a hill adjoining the present site of Aurora and overlooking the Ohio River where it makes a right-angle turn. From this point, one can have a magnificent view up the river north- east towards Lawrenceburg, or down the river southwest towards Rising Sun, or east across a broad expanse of level lands in Kentucky on the other side of the river. He and the wife he had married at Carrollton brought with them a family of negro slaves that she had inherited from her father, all of whom they emancipated. Here he, and then his son, William S. Holman, for thirty years a member of the National House who was called the “Watchdog of the Treasury,” and his grandson William S. Holman, Jr., an at- torney, lived in succession for almost a hundred years. The great-grandchildren have recently sold the place to Cornelius O’Brien who has built a summer home there with gardens See “Beniamin Parke,” Dictionary of American Biography (biographical sketch by George 9. Cottrnan). Albert L. Rabb died at Indianapolis on September 13, 1939. 374 Indiana Magazine of History and landscaped surroundings. Except for a few months after his arrival and three or four years, two decades later, Judge Holman held public office all the time that he lived in Indiana. On May 28, 1811, he was appointed prosecuting attor- ney for Dearborn County, and still held that office on Oc- tober 19, 1812, but for how much longer does not appear. In 1814 he was a representative at the special session of the territorial legislature in June, and a legislative councilor at the regular session in August, being elected president of the council. On September 14 of the same year, the settled por- tion of the territory being districted into three judicial cir- cuits, he was appointed by Governor Harrison as presiding judge of the courts of the second circuit, composed of the counties of Clark, Harrison, Jefferson and Washington. He served in this capacity untiI December 21, 1816, when he resigned to accept an appointment by the Governor as one of the three judges of the Supreme Court of the newly\or- ganized State of Indiana, for which place he was that day confirmed by the Senate. His commission as Judge of the Supreme Court was dated December 28, 1816, and he served two seven-year terms, but Governor James Brown Ray re- fused to reappoint him. In 1831, he was an unsuccessful candidate for election to the United States Senate to suc- ceed General James Noble, who had died in Washington. The election was by the general assembly and John Tipton won on the seventh ballot, receiving fifty-five votes.