as strung between Baltimore
and Washington in 1844. The first telegraph line through the State
of Ohio was from Cleveland via Mansfield to Columbus and Cincinnati,
and was established in 1848. At the close of the session of the
Supreme Court at Mansfield in that year, Judge Hitchcock, who
presided, asked me the road to Mt. Gilead, in Morrow county, a
county then recently created. I pointed to the telegraph wire
stretched on poles, and told him to follow that. The old Judge,
who had been on the supreme bench for over twenty years was quite
amused at the directions given. He laughed and said he had been
mislead by guideboards all his life, and now he was glad to be
guided by a wire.

The development and changes, soon after my admission to the bar,
turned somewhat the tide of my hopes and expectations. Our firm
soon lost the business of collecting debts for eastern merchants
by the establishment of numerous and safe banks under the state
act of 1846. Several of the old banks, especially those at Wooster,
Norwalk, and Massillon had utterly failed, and, I believe, paid no
part of their outstanding notes. The new banks, founded upon a
better system, one of which was at Mansfield, rapidly absorbed the
collections of eastern merchants from the part of Ohio in which we
lived. This loss was, however, more than made good by our employment
as attorneys for the several railroads through Richland county.
My brother gradually withdrew from his business in Mansfield, and
became the general attorney for the Pittsburg, Ft. Wayne & Chicago
Railroad.

In the meantime I had taken a junior part in the trial of several
cases in which I was greatly favored by Mr. Stewart, the most
eminent member of his profession at Mansfield. He gave me several
opportunities for testing my qualities before a jury, so that I
gradually gained confidence in myself as a speaker.

My Uncle Parker was then judge of the Court of Common Pleas. So
far from favoring me on account of my relation to him, he seemed
to wish to demonstrate his impartiality by overruling my pleadings
or instructing the jury against me. I am quite sure now that this
was fanciful on my part, for he was universally regarded as being
an excellent example of a just judge without favor or partiality.

During the early period of practice at the bar I studied my cases
carefully and had fair success. I settled more cases by compromises,
however, than I tried before a jury. I got t