Morris Lyon Buchwalter (September 8, 1846 – March 12, 1924)''Cornell Alumni News'' Obituary: Morris Lyon Buchwalter '69 VOL. XXVI, No. 26, April 3, 1924, p. 338 was a radical
Ohio
Ohio () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Of the fifty U.S. states, it is the 34th-largest by area, and with a population of nearly 11.8 million, is the seventh-most populous and tenth-most densely populated. The sta ...
Civil War
A civil war or intrastate war is a war between organized groups within the same state (or country).
The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies ...
era whose jurisprudence set a progressive standard following the failure of
Reconstruction
Reconstruction may refer to:
Politics, history, and sociology
*Reconstruction (law), the transfer of a company's (or several companies') business to a new company
*''Perestroika'' (Russian for "reconstruction"), a late 20th century Soviet Union ...
and during the rise in management/labor tensions in the
Gilded Age
In United States history, the Gilded Age was an era extending roughly from 1877 to 1900, which was sandwiched between the Reconstruction era and the Progressive Era. It was a time of rapid economic growth, especially in the Northern and Weste ...
.
Early life
Hon. Morris Lyon Buchwalter was born on September 8, 1846, and raised on the Buchwalter farmstead in Hallsville, Ross County, Ohio. He was the son of Levi and Margeret (née Lyon) Buchwalter, and the younger brother of Capt. Luther Morris Buchwalter and Capt.
Edward Lyon Buchwalter Capt. Edward Lyon Buchwalter (June 1, 1841 – October 4, 1933) was a Union Captain in the American Civil War, corporate figure, banker and farmer. He served in the 114th Ohio Infantry as lieutenant, later Captain of the 53rd Mississippi Colored V ...
, both
Union Army
During the American Civil War, the Union Army, also known as the Federal Army and the Northern Army, referring to the United States Army, was the land force that fought to preserve the Union (American Civil War), Union of the collective U.S. st ...
officers of the
American Civil War
The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by states th ...
. Captain Luther Morris Buchwalter, an officer with the Ohio Volunteers, fell at the moonlit Wauhatchie skirmish during the third battle of
Chickamauga Chickamauga may refer to:
Entertainment
* "Chickamauga", an 1889 short story by American author Ambrose Bierce
* "Chickamauga", a 1937 short story by Thomas Wolfe
* "Chickamauga", a song by Uncle Tupelo from their 1993 album ''Anodyne (album), Ano ...
. Capt. Edward L. Buchwalter (1841–1933) was an officer of the
Ohio Volunteer Infantry
Ohio () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Of the fifty U.S. states, it is the 34th-largest by area, and with a population of nearly 11.8 million, is the seventh-most populous and tenth-most densely populated. The sta ...
and the 53rd Mississippi Colored Volunteers. A veteran of the Gettysburg campaign, his brother Capt. Luther Morris Buchwalter was the impetus for the future Judge Buchwalter joining the
Phi Kappa Psi Fraternity
Phi Kappa Psi (), commonly known as Phi Psi, is an American collegiate social fraternity that was founded by William Henry Letterman and Charles Page Thomas Moore in Widow Letterman's home on the campus of Jefferson College in Canonsburg, Penn ...
at
Ohio Wesleyan University
Ohio Wesleyan University (OWU) is a private liberal arts college in Delaware, Ohio. It was founded in 1842 by methodist leaders and Central Ohio residents as a nonsectarian institution, and is a member of the Ohio Five – a consortium ...
Cornell University
Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to teach an ...
at
Ithaca, New York
Ithaca is a city in the Finger Lakes region of New York, United States. Situated on the southern shore of Cayuga Lake, Ithaca is the seat of Tompkins County and the largest community in the Ithaca metropolitan statistical area. It is named a ...
, from which he received the degree of
A.B.
Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four years ...
in 1869, being a member of the first class graduated from that institution.
Education to the Bar
In 1869, Morris L. Buchwalter transferred to the new Cornell University, where he became a founder of the New York Alpha chapter of Phi Kappa Psi. He was also the second President of the Irving Literary Society and roommate on Ithaca's Court Street with future Ohio Senator, Joseph Benson Foraker, who served with Morris's brother in the Tennessee campaign, which took the latter's life. He was elected to
Phi Beta Kappa Society
The Phi Beta Kappa Society () is the oldest academic honor society in the United States, and the most prestigious, due in part to its long history and academic selectivity. Phi Beta Kappa aims to promote and advocate excellence in the liberal ar ...
, through the Cornell chapter. Immediately after receiving his diploma, he moved to
Cincinnati
Cincinnati ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Hamilton County. Settled in 1788, the city is located at the northern side of the confluence of the Licking and Ohio rivers, the latter of which marks the state line wit ...
and entered the Cincinnati Law School, from which he graduated in 1870 with the degree of LL.B. He began general practice in the city and gained recognition as an energetic, reliable and progressive young lawyer who shirked no responsibility and spared no time or effort in sustaining any cause in which he was engaged. His lifelong support for higher education peaked when he served as trustee for the
University of Cincinnati
The University of Cincinnati (UC or Cincinnati) is a public research university in Cincinnati, Ohio. Founded in 1819 as Cincinnati College, it is the oldest institution of higher education in Cincinnati and has an annual enrollment of over 44,00 ...
, an institution for which he served in the same manner as his friends
John Andrew Rea
John Andrew Rea (June 18, 1848 – February 10, 1941) was an American journalist and politician. A native of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, he was one of the eight members of Cornell University's first graduating class. As a correspondent for th ...
(as regent for the University of Washington), and
Joseph B. Foraker
Joseph Benson Foraker (July 5, 1846 – May 10, 1917) was an American politician of the Republican Party who served as the 37th governor of Ohio from 1886 to 1890 and as a United States senator from Ohio from 1897 until 1909.
Foraker was ...
(as trustee of Cornell University). Morris was also the first President, Cornell Alumni Association and Class Secretary, Class of 1869, for many years.
The City of Cincinnati would eventually number Judge Buchwalter among its esteemed citizens, a man who possessed a high degree of confidence from the people of the city. As the years passed, he gained a prominent position at the bar. On November 4, 1881, he was appointed by Governor Charles Foster, judge of the common-pleas court of the first judicial district of Ohio to fill a vacancy caused by the election of Judge Nicholas Longworth to the
Supreme Court of Ohio
The Ohio Supreme Court, Officially known as The Supreme Court of the State of Ohio is the highest court in the U.S. state of Ohio, with final authority over interpretations of Ohio law and the Ohio Constitution. The court has seven members, a ...
. He, having been regularly elected for the full term in that court and subsequently reelected for a second and third term, and having also been endorsed by the vote of the bar of Hamilton county during three judicial elections, his judicial service ended February, 1897. Judge Buchwalter was thought to be a highly impartial jurist, and his decisions ranked among the clearest expositions of law enunciated from the common pleas bench in the 19th century.
:''This section incorporates text from the entry "Morris Lyon Buchwalter" in Cincinnati, the Queen City, 1788-1912, Volume 4, (S. J. Clarke Publishing Company, 1912) a publication now in the public domain.''
Jurisprudence
An example of Buchwalter's labour jurisprudence is N. & C.G. Parker v. Bricklayers' Union No. 1. The action was brought by members of a contractors' union against a bricklayers' union and its various members and officers active in the controversy. The issue at hand was the lawfulness of 'boycotting'. Judge Buchwalter charged the jury that contractors:
may combine for the honest purpose of benefitting their order by encouraging favorable terms to their employers in the purchase of material, and to procure contracts for such contractors as employ members of their union; but they become engaged in illegal enterprise whenever they agree to accomplish their purpose by threats, intimidation, violence or like molestation, either toward the apprentice, the expelled member, the non-union workman, the contractor and the employer, the material man or the owner who proposes to make a contract."
In 1885, the Judge heard a case involving the menace of roller coasters:
Now that a "roller coaster" is ready to be launched upon the local public at Savin Rock, it is interesting to learn from the'' Boston Herald'' that Judge Buchwalter of Cincinnati, has been occupied an entire day with the hearing of testimony in a complaint case against one of them. Henry A. Morill and a number of other property owners and residents in the vicinity of the Bellevue house, in Cincinnati, are the plaintiffs, and David Billigheimer the defendant. The plaintiffs allege that the "roller coaster" or circular gravity railway, recently constructed on the Bellevue house grounds, is a nuisance to the neighborhood, on account of the noise it produces; that it prevents sleep, tortures invalids and nervous people, interrupts conversations, and will depreciate the value of property in that vicinity unless its further operation is enjoined, which the plaintiffs pray the court may be done by a perpetual injunction.
But it was in the area of civil liberties that Buchwalter stepped out in front of his peers. In the extradition proceeding regarding the Reverend A. Hampton, an African-American accused of murder, Buchwalter refused extradition to authorities from the Commonwealth of Kentucky until he had assurances from Governor Brown and the Sheriff of Green County, Kentucky, that Hampton would be protected from mob violence. Vigilantes had recently lynched a black man and a black boy in Green County. Buchwalter had also extradited two men, one to George and the other to Kentucky, only to receive reports that mobs killed both. This was not solely due to Southern intolerance for African-Americans. The Kentucky case involved an Italian-American. Buchwalter's order from the bench included an admonishment against vigilante justice on the other side of the Ohio river: "I determined then I would never send another prisoner South unless I had assurance he would be protected from a mob and given a fair trial."''Lewiston Daily Sun' "To Prevent Lynching, Ohio Judge Demands Assurance for Protection of Colored Persons" January 1, 1895), p. 1. It was thought for a while in 1895 that the position of Buchwalter would lead to an intrastate solution to the growing problem of lynching, forcing violent States such as Kentucky to use the good offices of States known for order and pacificity, such as Illinois and Pennsylvania. The trend did not abate, and the matter was taken up by the Federal government only in the 1960s. The reaction in Cincinnati was more direct. A chapter of the Anti-Lynching League of the United States was formed in the Queen City in response to Buchwalter's opinion.
Personal life
On May 14, 1873, Buchwalter married Miss Louise Zimmerman, a daughter of the Honorable John Zimmerman, of
Wooster, Ohio
Wooster ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Wayne County. Located in northeastern Ohio, the city lies approximately south-southwest of Cleveland, southwest of Akron and west of Canton. The population was 27,232 at t ...
. Mrs. Buchwalter died in 1902, leaving six children, namely: Luther L., who engaged in the manufacturing business at Springfield, Ohio; Robert Z., an attorney of
Cincinnati
Cincinnati ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Hamilton County. Settled in 1788, the city is located at the northern side of the confluence of the Licking and Ohio rivers, the latter of which marks the state line wit ...
; Margaret L., the wife of Dr. H. B. Martin, of
Springfield
Springfield may refer to:
* Springfield (toponym), the place name in general
Places and locations Australia
* Springfield, New South Wales (Central Coast)
* Springfield, New South Wales (Snowy Monaro Regional Council)
* Springfield, Queenslan ...
; Helen E., the wife of John Van Nortwick, of
Batavia, Illinois
Batavia () is a city mainly in Kane County and partly in DuPage County in the U.S. state of Illinois. Located in the Chicago metropolitan area, it was founded in 1833 and is the oldest city in Kane County. Per the 2020 census, the population w ...
; Morris, who resided at
Hallsville, Ohio
Hallsville is an unincorporated community in northeastern Colerain Township, Ross County, Ohio, United States. It has a post office with the ZIP code 45633. It is located along State Route 180.
History
Hallsville was laid out in 1837, and ...
; and Louise, who married H. Cameron Forster, of Middletown, Ohio. On the 22d of July, 1909, the Judge married a second time, to Mary F. Knox, of Lakewood, New Jersey, formerly registrar of
Smith College
Smith College is a Private university, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts Women's colleges in the United States, women's college in Northampton, Massachusetts. It was chartered in 1871 by Sophia Smith (Smith College ...
Newark, New Jersey
Newark ( , ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of New Jersey and the seat of Essex County and the second largest city within the New York metropolitan area.abolition movement and the Progressive era. He wrote an extensive study of
Free Masonry
Freemasonry or Masonry refers to Fraternity, fraternal organisations that trace their origins to the local guilds of Stonemasonry, stonemasons that, from the end of the 13th century, regulated the qualifications of stonemasons and their inte ...
and belonged to the Scottish Rite, being a thirty-third degree member of the order having been elected as such in 1894. He held membership in the Loyal Legion of Ohio, on account of his brother, Luther M., who was a captain in Company A, Seventy-Third Ohio Volunteer Infantry, and gave up his life for the Union at the midnight battle of Lookout Valley (Wauhatchie). When he died, Morris was interred at Cincinnati's Spring Grove Cemetery, 69 paces from the grave of his fraternity brother, Senator Joseph Benson Foraker, both of whom graduated with Cornell University's first Class in 1869.
Buchwalter died on March 12, 1924, at the age of 78.