such opportunites as he had, and to such good advantage that he was teaching a district school at the age of sixteen. This was his winter occupation until he was twenty-two years of age, the rest of the year being given to his own education at the Kingsville Academy, one of the best educational institutions of Ashtabula county. While thus employed, he also pursued the study of law under the supervision of his uncles, Senator Wade and Edward Wade, who was a member of Congress from the Cleveland district for eight years. He was admitted to the bar at Jefferson, the seat of Ashtabula county, in 1857, and then commenced the practice of his profession.

When the first call came for troops, in 1861, and President Lincoln asked for the seventy-five thousand men, young Wade was among the earliest to respond. He was elected first lieutenant of his company, and afterwards upon the call of Governor Tod for volunteers to defend Cincinnati, which was menaced by Kirby Smith, he was one of the famous "squirrel hunters," who caught up any gun that came handy, and went to the defence of their State.

The young lawyer had not been long in the harness, before he was elected to the responsible office of Probate Judge of Ashtabula county, this honor coming in 1860. Here he served seven years, and then declined a renomination. He returned to his practice, only to be again called to a

responsible public position. In 1869 he was elected by the district composed of the counties of Ashtabula, Lake and Geauga, as their representative in the State Senate. Here he served two sessions; and it was while in this service, that President Grant appointed him to the Chief Justiceship of Montana. As Senator, he made a mark upon the State legislation of the day; and two of his speeches, one npon minority representation, and one advocating the passage of the Fifteenth Amendment, were copied and commented upon, all through the State. It is probably needless to say, at this late point, that Judge Wade has always been a Republican, and that he has always been liberal. in his religious views.

Since his retirement from the bench, Judge Wade has been by no means idle. He is one of the Code Commissioners of Montana, in connection. with Governor B. Platt Carpenter and Judge F. W. Cole, and it is the general opinion of the legal fraternity that their revision and codification when submitted to the inspection of those competent to judge, will be pronounced equal to that of any State in the Union.

Since his retirement from the bench, Judge Wade has been fully and successfully occupied in the practice of law, at Helena, where is his home, and where his fellow citizens hope he may spend the remainder of his useful and honorable life. They can appreciate, as no one else can, the value

of his services to their State. They know that during his long term of office, by strict enforcement of the statutes, by careful charges to the jury, and by a determination to suppress crime, he did much to sustain public order, and to educate the people to a proper regard for the dignity of the law. He had served on the bench with Associate Justices Knowles, Murphy, Servis, Blake, Galbraith, Conger, Coburn and Pollard. He had seen the principles of law on many important points, not only established, by his industrious study and ability, but maintained by the Supreme Court of the United States in nearly every instance. criminal ever hung in the Territory, by virtue of law, and a jury's verdict, was sentenced by him. To these claims to the good will of the people, come the added virtues of an honora le personal life, and a character that finds expression in deeds of good, and a marked respect for the rights of others.

The first

As if even the above labors were not enough, Judge Wade has found time to occupy his pen in various literary directions. He is a frequent contributor to law magazines, and has projected a work on the law of evidence, but official labors have so occupied him that only a few chapters have been written. Some years ago

he wrote and published a very interesting novel which was widely read in Montana, and highly enjoyed. It was entitled: "Clara Lincoln," and although although written during leisure moments and as a relaxation from severe official duties, takes high rank among the works of fiction of the day, and has found a place in nearly every library in the new State, and in many outside.

Judge Wade's labors are his best monument. His place in the early history of Montana was no bed of flowery ease. In the discharge of his duties he was compelled to "rough it," as the expressive Western saying goes, and to endure hardships and privations unknown to wearers of the ermine in the East. Although not a pioneer in the Territory, he may well claim the honor of "blazing the trail" in Montana jurisprudence, and of establishing precedents in the construction of territorial laws that have stood the tests of all the higher courts of the United States. The people of Montana owe him a great debt of gratitude and honor, for his long and faithful service.

Judge Wade was married, in 1863, to Miss Bernice Galpin, a most amiable and accomplished English lady. They have one daughter, Miss Clare L. Wade, who has recently graduated from Wellesley.

AMONG those who have added honor to the brief but fruitful history of the bench and bar of Montana, is the able and distinguished jurist whose name is given above. He was born in Nottingham, England, on July 9th, 1818, the second son of Isaac and Frances Chumasero, and came to Rochester, New York, with his parents in July, 1829.

He studied law in Rochester and Buffalo, and was admitted to practice in New York in 1838. In the year following he removed to Illinois, and was admitted to the Illinois bar. In September of the same year, 1839, he settled in Peru, La Salle county, where he pursued a successful practice until April, 1864. In that year, he removed to what was then Idaho Territory before the territorial organization of Montana, and upon its admission, he became member of the Montana bar. He there continued in successful practice until he retired from active life, in April, 1888.

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The above is but the rapid outline of a busy and eventful life; and whoever may ultimately write the history of the bar of ontana, will be forced to accord to Judge William Chumerso, its most important and interesting chapter.

His advent into the territory was almost contemporaneous with the establishment of civil government amidst these mountains, and was considerably in advance of the time when courts of justice had demonstrated their ability to maintain law and order among the adventurous and restless spirits that constituted so large a portion of our community in those early halcyon days, when diggings that did not pay more than an ounce to the man per day, were considered fit only for Chinamen. The vigilantes were at the very zenith of their power, when Judge Chumerso arrived in the territory, and hung out his modest shingle. That organization had little use for lawyers, and no very great confidence in the courts, or the forms of law as administered in older communities. They had banished two or three lawyers who had been assigned by themselves to defend persons accused of being road agents. The counsel thus assigned to the discharge of the duties so imposed on them, had, in one or two instances, made such a zealous and earnest defense as to make it a matter of extreme difficulty for the prosecuting attorney of the organization to secure a conviction in its own court.

Very naturally this powerful organization felt that it knew better how the law should be administered, than all the lawyers; and perhaps it was true that the speedy justice dealt out by that body was better for this community as then constituted, than would have been the more careful and humane methods of the courts. Another thing which tended to weak

the confidence of the general public in the ability of the courts to afford adequate security for life and property, was the fact that there did not seem to be any statute law in force in the territory. At the time of Judge Chumerso's arrival, in the spring of 1864, the Idaho Legislative Assembly had met and enacted a code of laws; but the result of their labors had not been made public. In the winter of 1864 the first Legislative Assembly of Montana convened at Bannack, and immediately after the adjournment of that body, the territorial secretary transmitted to an eastern publishing house, all of the enrolled bills filed in his office, for the purpose of having them published in the form of statutes; but it was about three years afterward before any of the published volumes found. their way back into the territory. In the meantime, the uncertainty as to what had, or had not been enacted, presented the gravest embarrassments to the administration of justice of the courts. The condition of affairs, therefore, which Judge Chum. asero found existing when he first

settled down to the practice of his profession in Virginia City, was anything but encouraging to a lawyer. He had, however, been carefully educated in his profession at Rochester, New York, and his long practice at the Illinois bar as a competitor of some of its most noted and distinguished members,had thoroughly equipped him for engaging in any legal controversy likely to arise here. It is not too much to say of him that his established reputation for learning and ability in his profession, and his high character as a man and public spirited citizen, contributed very greatly toward inspiring the general public, with sufficient confidence in the courts, to enable those tribunals to at least divide the honors with the vigilantes in punishing malefactors. Shortly after his arrival in Virginia City, he was appointed District Attorney for that judicial district, which position he filled in the most creditable manner for something more than a year, when he removed to Helena. Here he settled down to the practice of his profession, and until his retirement from the bar in July, 1889, his name was connected with almost every important case which is to be found in the court dockets of Lewis and Clarke county, or any of the adjoining counties. Suitors who succeeded in retaining him in their behalf, felt that their causes were already half won. Possessed of extensive and profound learning, sharpened by years of close practice, he was

listened to with the utmost attention by courts and juries, and his urbane and courteous treatment of his brethren at the bar robbed them of any envy they might have felt at his success. At the ripe age of seventy, and after fifty years continuous practice, with his mental faculties practically undimmed, he retired from the profession, having acquired a sufficient competency to enable him to spend the evening of his days free from carking cares, and in the enjoyment. of those luxuries which seem the proper reward of a well-spent life.

The Judge was married in 1845 to Miss Mary E. Brown,of Peru, Illinois, and has raised a family of three daughters, two of whom, Mrs. J. K. P. Miller, of Deadwood, Dakota, and Mrs. C. A. Broadwater, of Helena, are married; while the youngest, Miss Antoinette, still brings joy and light to the paternal hearth. Socially, the Judge's family have always stood high. His charming wife and lovely daughters have always been regarded as leaders in every community in which they have resided.

THERE are none more deserving a permanent place in the history of the State or Nation than those men of talent, ability and energy who, casting behind all the luxuries and comforts of civilization, left the beaten path and sought the frontier, there to dedicate their lives, their fortunes and achievements in new realms and amid new scenes, to the making of those commonwealths that have added increased lustre and renown to the flag of the American Union.

Among the vanguard of these pioneers was Samuel Word. He left a lucrative practice in Oregon, Holt county, Missouri, to cast his fortunes with those who first came to the Rocky Mountains, and since that

time he has beheld every changing phase of human existence in the great West. For twenty-seven eventful years he has been a leader of acknowledged pre-eminence and ability among Montanians. He has achieved fame and distinction in the West, but when one reflects upon his natural endowments and talents, and considers that they have been gladly given to the crude formation of a new and undeveloped country, rather than to the finished culture of older communities, it must be said with unstinted praise, that few men of equal attainments have ever made the unconscious sacrifice of personal ambition. that has constantly attended his career in the West. This is especially